That's right, folks. It's been a year. I can no longer say I am new to this business of living abroad. I thought about The Anniversary of Our Moving (well, my moving, since G came here two months before I did) and considered doing a long, insightful post that day. I decided against it. Not because I didn't think it would be cathartic and maybe even funny. Because I had to do _______ instead. Or was it _______?
That is often what happens when I think to myself, "hey, I should blog today." Something else comes up that I end up doing. Sometimes it's important like getting my residence permit renewed. Sometimes it's something equally important but maybe doesn't sound as important. Like sitting on the couch watching an episode (or three) of Friday Night Lights, even though it's been canceled from television. That? That's important, trust me. I can't explain why, but move abroad and then we'll talk.
So, two important points here:
- I have not given up on blogging.
- I just checked a year as an expat off my list.
What else have I been doing? Lots, but I'll keep it to just a few things. We celebrated G's birthday last week. Instead of going out, he requested a homemade meal of this and this and this. And something kind of like this but not. Oh, and caviar with crème fraîche, blinis, and some sparkling wine to start. It was good, man. It was really, really good.
I created a scrapbook for his birthday documenting our first year in Oslo - that's the cover you see above. I tried to simplify it and along the way finally did some digital scrapbooking (well, really hybrid scrapbooking, but I digress). Thanks to digital layout templates I had from online classes I took with the amazing Cathy Z through Big Picture Classes, it was pretty easy. The layouts were in Photoshop which I loved playing with. I also discovered the world of digital scrapbook elements, especially those by Ali Edwards. I used a bunch of her overlays in the album, and I love how they turned out. I plan on doing more of that in the future.
I did a monthly synopsis layout for each month and also individual layouts for each trip we took in the past year. Here's what one of the monthly layouts looks like:
Here's one of the travel layouts:
Sorry about the glare. This is about as much sun as you can get on a cloudy day in Oslo in November!
I really loved making this book. All my photos are organized chronologically in iPhoto, which I also use to rate and assign keywords to photos. I'd like to take credit for my mad photo organizational skills, but it's all due to Stacy Julian and her wonderful Library of Memories (LOM) concept. I also used the four major divisions of LOM to organize my text for the monthly pages. I could go on for pages about LOM, but I won't. In short, it is life-changing. If you want to know more, ask me or check out this link to the 2010 LOM class at Big Picture Classes. I'd call it a teaser description. (And no, neither Stacy nor BPC is paying me for endorsements. It is a safe bet to say they probably have no idea who I am!)
I am excited about feeling creative again. About feeling like I want to start so many new creative projects. Christmas cards. The December Daily project. Project Life in 2012. I like having my mojo back. It's just taken a year to get there, I guess.
Happy fall to all. We'll talk soon. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go do __________.
