For the past several years, our dogwood in front of our house has been slowly dying. Finally, we purchased a new redbud to replace it. Thanks to Matt’s employer, a landscaper, and a couple of friends, we managed to get the tree home, remove the dogwood, and plant the new 15’+ redbud. Here’s the story in pictures:

My friend and I spent two hours yesterday with Stacy Julian in her Finish Line Scrapbook class at CKC-Buffalo. It was fast-paced, inspirational, and meant to challenge our perfectionist tendencies when scrapbooking. Both of us are type -A, perfectionist scrappers so it was perfect. We were challenged to finish a scrapbook with 20-30 photos during the class. I almost made it. A little time this afternoon and I should have a 6 X 6 scrapbook of Matt’s high school graduation finished. Here are the rules:

• sort photos
• crop to the core
• limit product
• skip the journaling
• assemble without over thinking
• embellish last–lay out embellishments and limit yourself to the pile in front of you

Stacy doesn’t advocate this approach for all your photos, but it is a great way to finish one set of photos in a short amount of time. "Crop to the core" was hardest for me. I always think about the final size I want a photo, and cropping photos without thinking about the final size made me a tad uneasy. What I found at the end was I ended up cropping some of them even more in order to get more than one photo on a page. For some photos I think an 8 X 8 album would be easier.

We had a great time. Spent two hours at the vendor fair which was much larger this year. I bought a lot of  beautiful paper, but not much in the way of embellishments. In the afternoon we took a Making Memories class and used their tag maker. I was very impressed with it, and I’m sure I’ll own one soon. I need to finish all four of those 12 X 12 layouts. This class, too, pushed me to try some things I might not otherwise try. All in all, a fun day.

5-31-07 Her Space:  My Space

5-30-07  Her Space: My Space

The three day weekend was a taste of summer. We had time to relax, get some much needed sleep, visit with family, and get lots of yard work done. One of my big projects was to clear off the overgrown steps that lead from our patio to our lower yard.

Here’s an in-progress shot:

And the finished project:

I took some shots of the beautiful flowers on our patio as well. Here’s the first bloom on the hibiscus.

And the bloom on our desert rose.

Four more weeks of school and we’ll have days like this every day. Can’t wait.

Our tree peony is in full bloom. It doesn’t last long, but it is beautiful.

It’s hard to believe, but both our children graduated today–one in Georgia and one in New York. Sarah received her Masters of Divinity from Columbia Theological Seminary after three wonderful years. All her hard work paid off as she received a $4000 Honors Prize. She’ll be applying that toward her program next year at Princeton Theological Seminary where she’ll be working toward a Masters of Theology. Here’s a photo of her and her dad taken this morning.

This afternoon Matthew graduated from Finger Lakes Community College with high honors. All his hard work has paid off as he found out yesterday he has been admitted to the plant science department at Cornell University where he will be a junior this fall. Here’s a photo of Matt and his mom.

We couldn’t be any prouder. They have worked very hard to get where they are ,and they deserve every honor!

It couldn’t have been nicer.
•Opened some lovely gifts from Tracyand his always thoughtful card.
• Picked Matt up at 8:00 for breakfast at Papa Jack’s and then spent well over an hour at Wayside Nursery. Bought a red bud to replace our dying dogwood tree in front of our house, five huge geraniums for the patio garden, and a new red hydrangea as well as a few other perennials. Matt bought me another forsythia for Mother’s Day and a beautiful hanging pot of purple and white million bells for my birthday. Tracy bought me a lovely shade container garden for our front porch. Always love shopping for plants with these two guys.
• Came home and dug in the dirt. All the new plants are in and several hundred maple seedlings have been removed from various beds around the house.
• Visited with Tracy’s mom and they planted our gift of the biggest New Guinea impatiens I’ve ever seen. Looks great near the front steps of the B&B.
• Had a nice call from Sarah–also a delightful card and a new book of poems by Mary Oliver.
• Went to see Miss Potter which was just a lovely movie–tender, sad, and uplifting–beautiful photography.
• Decided not to open the school bag. Hope I don’t regret it tomorrow.

As Charlie Gibson says each night, "Hope you’ve had a good day."

I hadn’t realized how long it had been since I posted an entry. I’ve been so busy with school and the Photography 101 class which ends this week. I will be very sorry to see it end. I’ve learned a lot, can use many more features on my Rebel XT, and have so appreciated the constructive criticism I’ve gotten from Barbara Carroll. It’s been worth every penny and then some! I’m in the process of updating the Photo-A-Day blog on the sidebar. They aren’t all from this month–many are from our vacation in April, but I decided to upload them a day at a time, rather than trying to backtrack.

Even scrapbooking has gone by the wayside. I’ve managed to get cards made for all the April/May birthdays so far, and I started a scrapbook for our Kiawah trip. This weekend I finished layouts for the two circle journals I need to send on in about a week, but I completed nothing for the DW 2007 Challenge at 2Peas in April. That’s the first month I’ve missed since I started over a year ago. I don’t think it’s going to change much as I’ve signed up for Cheryl Johnson’s Painting with Light photography course. I’m looking forward to it as well. When I looked through the introductory posts, I was the only one so far from the states. I’m so ready for summer vacation but it’s still a good seven weeks away. Then I’ll have time for all my hobbies!