A Few Pictures from my New Camera

Oh my goodness! The lens for my Nikon D40 came in just in time to take it to a crop at Virginia Beach. Here are a few pictures that I took:


















I absolutely love my new camera. All of these shots were simply taken with the AutoFocus feature on the camera. The picture on the right is my favorite of my shots.

I can't wait to play some more with my new camera!

Scrapping Disaster Part 2 & Other Stuff

Well, I have continued to work on organizing my scrapping room. It's really quite sad to see how much stuff I have that I haven't used. What's even sadder is that I haven't bought anything significant since August. But, I did see a glimmer of light yesterday. While trying to figure out the best way to organize my room, I decided to create my own solid cardstock rack out of the wired crate storage units. I accomplished my task and all (that I have found so far) of my 12x12 solid cardstock is organized in rainbow order. As I locate more of my solid cardstock I can simply add it to the rack.

What's great is that even though this is a small goal achieved, I feel great satisfaction. As I am putting all of one thing in a location, I am seeing progress in other parts of the room. I just have not been able to put a lot of time into this project yet. I know patience is a virtue and I will love the end result, but sometimes I wish I were a genie and could blink and have the project completed.

In addition to working on my scrapping room, I started a graduate class this past week. I am working toward getting my administration and supervision endorsement. I think I'm going to like the professor. She is demanding but she wants us to gain something from the class. I personally don't mind hard work if I'm going to see some positive results in the end. I just need to make sure I stay ahead of the curve with respect to my reading and writing assignments.

In the next couple of weeks I'll also start attending some recruitment fairs for our school. I'm the lead person in recruiting faculty for our school. I think I'll be going to three specific education fairs and then try to hit a few of the Career Services offices in other universities. The next six weeks is going to be absolutely, positively crazy.

I also got a good news email today. My new lens for my digital camera is on the road as we speak. I should be getting it Thursday. I absolutely can't wait. I've been using my 35 mm lens on my Nikon D40 and it works, but I don't have access to the automatic features the camera has. Plus, the Nikkor lens I'm getting has received rave reviews. I'll definitely start posting pictures once I get adjusted to my new lens.

Exams started today at school, so half days for students. I'm hoping to keep up with the exam grading, so I'll have little to do on Monday on our teacher workday. I need to get ahead of the curve with respect to a lot of work right now. So, I'll be checking in but I don't know that I'll get more than this one post done for the week.

Fashion Show 07-08

Friday night our school hosted a Fashion Show. Students within the school competed using their original designs. The theme of this year's show was "Renovation and Innovation." The first act was comprised of designs created and modified out of existing garments. Designers were to use these garments as the material for their new look. The second act was comprised of original designs from start to finish.

Our fashion show was totally comprised of student designers (9th to 12th grade), student models, as well as student technical crew for running the show.

It was a great night and as you can see from the pictures, our students are quite talented. I teach many of the students involved. In fact many of them are technology majors within our school. It's amazing to see how diverse our students are. I am soooo proud of the students!!!

I hope you enjoy the show!

Scrap Disaster

Well, I finally did it. I finally started ripping apart my front room to get it organized. OH MY!!! Those are the only words I can use to describe what I have started. Instead of looking like only one bomb had been set off, now it looks like three or four have been set off. I have scrapping stuff everywhere. It is embarassing to say the least. (And to the answer the unasked question, "NO, I will not take a picture of it.")

On the positive side, I did put together my metal cubing section the way I wanted it and added another layer to it. I have organized my Sizzix supplies. I did sort through all of the "Stacks" that I have from JoAnns and have started a sizable stack of giveaways. I have an idea of where I want to move some things around.

On the downside, again the best words to describe this are "OH MY!!!" The work I have ahead is tremendous. My goal is to finish my room by next Monday evening. I'll work on it a bit each night and then finish up the bulk of the work on Sunday and Monday. When I'm done, I'll post a picture.

Now I have to figure out what to do with all of the extra "stuff" that I will be giving away. I hate to throw anything away, so I think I'll be looking for some local organizations to give things to. Right now the bulk of what I have is paper and OLD scrapping idea books.

I actually started looking through some of the paper I have and "OH MY!" again. What was I thinking? And, more importantly, how old is this stuff? I think I still have supplies from when I was using mostly CM stuff. The sad part is that I'm not even going through my stickers and stuff yet. I've decided to re-organize the big stuff and then I'll have room to go through the small stuff piece by piece.

Note to Rosa: Rosa, if you're reading this, I have two priority mail boxes of embellishments for Nolan's school. I'm waiting to see if I see you in a couple of weeks before I mail them. Hugs!

I promise I'll have pictures to add in the next few posts. I went to our school's fashion show Friday night and I really want to share some of the talent with you. You will not believe some of these creations.

Hope everyone has a great week.

Family Mini-Album

This year I decided to make a TLC chatter book for my good friends for Christmas. My friends adopted my godson from Guatemala in January 2005. This book represents family pics since that date.

Enjoy!

Online Scrapping Crop at 2 Scrappy Chix Designs

2Scrappychixdesigns is having a FIESTA! crop on Saturday, 19th of January.

This crop is going to be different from others in that YOU will post the layout challenges! Do you have a challenge to share? Come over to 2SCD and share it with us!

Also don't miss online Bingo, hosted by Michele, happening that evening. Last month it was a BLAST!

Inspiration for the New Year

Each year Ali Edwards and many other scrapbookers choose a "word for the year." This word becomes a focus of activities for the new year. As I have been thinking about 2008 and what I want to achieve for the new year, I found it hard to pick just one word. So, I picked three words to reflect how I am feeling right now.

BELIEVE.
FOCUS.
DO.

As I started thinking about my new year's resolutions, I realized that I needed more than one word to reflect what I hope to accomplish this year. As I considered my choices, I selected my words to reflect my goals. So, instead of just picking one word, I decided to create my own "motto" (so to speak). I want to be able to BELIEVE, FOCUS, and DO.

I need to BELIEVE in myself.
I need to FOCUS on the task at hand.
I need to DO whatever is necessary to accomplish my goals.

I am hoping that this year will be filled with positive changes both in my personal as well as professional life. I hope to create works of art through my scrapbooking and even my blog entries that will reflect my current thoughts and feelings. I want to be happy and healthy (mentally and physically) for the new year.

Have a great start to the new week!

An Incredible Gift

There are days (and even weeks) when being a high school teacher is the last thing in the world that I want to be. I long for the days when I worked with corporations and actively practiced my engineering. I want to go back to the time when the hardest thing I had to do was determine if I was under budget or not. I get tired of fighting with high school students about doing their homework, turning in work, focusing on the lesson, and reaching for higher goals then they have set for themselves. There are days that I feel as if I don't make a difference and I wonder why I'm there.

December 19th started out as a normal day, one that represented the last day of school before the winter break. At the end of the day, each of our specialty areas held small holiday celebrations. I always dread this celebration because I am responsible for monitoring 60+ kids with holiday spirit for about 40 minutes. It's stressful and I'm always glad for it to be over. But, this year was different.

This year, toward the end of the celebration, different students from around the building just started showing up. I am the senior class sponsor, but there were kids from every grade level. Before I knew it there were at least 100 kids in the cafeteria with us. Of course, I'm puzzled and trying to analyze what's going on. Then, one of my kids starts walking toward me with a box. At first, I was confused. Then, I took a look at what that box held. It was a Nikon D40 camera. I immediately started tearing up, because I realized that my kids had chipped in and bought me the one gift that I had wanted to get for myself but was unable to because my car had died recently.

The kids had made a card out of poster board and everyone had signed it. There were 100+ names on this card. I couldn't believe that these kids had done this for me. The funny thing was that it wasn't the camera that brought this much emotion. It was the realization that maybe I do make a difference. Maybe I do have an impact on these kids. Those kids took all of the anger and frustration I was feeling and turned it into something so positive. That card and that camera represent so much more than just a Christmas gift. They represent the encouragement and support I needed to continue this school year. I will never forget this day and I will draw on that energy each time I feel as if I want to throw in the towel. I will never forget the incredible gift that was given to me this year.

Welcome to my blog!

Well, I finally took the plunge and decided to create a blog. I'm not quite sure how this adventure will evolve but I am looking forward to whatever happens. I wanted to create a place where I can share my thoughts as well as my scrapping projects. I hope that you will visit often and share your projects and ideas as well.

Welcome to my little corner of the world!