It Was All Started by a Mouse

I think, for the first time ever, that this year on MLK day, I was off. Back when I worked the big corporate world before, it was a floater, and we had to pick MLK or Good Friday. I changed jobs last May, and picked up 3 holidays in the transition: Martin Luther King Day, Presidents Day, and Good Friday. There is just almost nothing better than a 3-day weekend. Getting three more a year is like a huge boon for my heart. Of course, having a retail hubby means I often spend them somewhat alone, or quasi-alone, but I am okay with that because I can scrap.

I am part of a closed group, an online community of scrappers, 300+ women that I interact with virtually daily on message boards, about topics ranging from paper for a college drop-off, to the best movie we've seen lately, to venting about work, to whether or not to get the Amope. They are a huge blessing to my life. I have probably met about 75 of them in real life. {I need to do an album!} They are my peeps, and you can find me hanging with them regularly here in Scrap Central.

We have a cheerleader, a ringleader, an enabler extradoinnaire, a gal that is just the sweetest bundle of energy and ideas that I may have ever met. I think I can get a decent amount of things done, but man, she makes me look like a slacker! She's our Cherrypicker. This is a big year for her, but I won't go down that rabbit trail right now. Well, Cherrypicker decided that we needed some fun, and organized an amazing online crop, full of challenges - TWENTY-FIVE - and games - three - and prizes too numerous to count! So many gals stepped up and created challenges and decided to hostess them, and/or offer prizes. It's really, really amazing. And our online crop was to be held on MLK weekend. Perfect!

I think I was able to knock out about eight of the twenty-five challenges, and I was okay with that, since I was actually sick with the flu during MLK weekend. One of the challenges I just loved, though, was called "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue", and we were given a Sketch Savvy sketch by Susan Stringfellow as our "Something Borrowed". {Susan's Blog with the Sketch} Our Old was to be an old photo, our Blue was an element on the page, and our New was supposed to be something new to us. Well, when I saw those heart images on the sketch, my mind saw little Mickey heads. And then I started thinking about just what "old" photo I could use, and I decided I would go waaaayyyy back. 

When I started scrapbooking, my mom started scrapbooking with me. And one of her first projects was take her two banana boxes of family photos, and divide them into four piles. And she then preceded to make each of her children an album of their portion of our family memories. You know, memories and photos from the days when you *might* shoot 3 or 4 rolls of film on an annual basis. Well, somehow mother knew back in 1995 that I would want the Disney photos. I have one album page with 6 photos on it. I love them! {I keep meaning to check with my sisters to see if their albums have any, or if there really were just 6 photos taken that day, which is probable, and highly likely, and so foreign a concept today.} 

So, on that MLK weekend Saturday, I popped those photos out of my childhood album, scanned them in, did color restoration as best I could with my feeble skills, and began to work on the layout. Looking at these old photos makes me so happy. It was the summer of 1972, the first summer that DisneyWorld would have been open, knowing it opened October 1971 like any true Disney fanatic does, and the photo of us in front of the castle just mesmerizes me. The trees and bushes are so small. We are on the bridge to Tomorrowland, and our feet are actually on the bench, and we are sitting up on the ledge of the back. {I know today they would tell us to get down!} The lamps for the Rose Garden are to the right of the photo, and you can see so much of the castle walls. 

I do not actually remember this day, per se. I do not remember going. I would have been almost 8. Dad says we went only for one day, and it was on the way home from a trip to Biloxi. {I know that Orlando is not on the way home to Houston from Biloxi. So, this was a big detour.} I can imagine my dad having heard about this new place, when DisneyWorld really just consisted of Magic Kingdom, and having the wanderlust in his heart for a road trip that he does, and having us all captive in the car, I can just imagine him deciding to drive east to Orlando "on the way home to Houston from Biloxi" - just exactly the kind of fun, surprising adventure he'd bestow on us.

I love seeing the clothes we were wearing. I know, from examining the whole of the 6 photos, that I am wearing the same sandals as my two sisters. I imagine we got them at Weiner's on Sheldon Road. My two sisters are wearing bell bottom pants and baby doll tops, all of which my mom would have sewn. I am wearing red plaid bell bottoms and a coordinating shirt, one of the two beloved Garanimals outfits that I owned. I can still remember wandering through the fixtures at Sears in Denton, looking at all the choices, picking out what outfit my grandmother was gifting me. Oh, I loved that outfit. And I love that I know I have loved red all of my life. Mother says her outfit was a gift from Metropolitan Life and it had been given her in Biloxi at the convention we had just left. My little brother is wearing Garanimals, too. I guess Granny bought him an outfit, too. She did try to be fair.

I love my big smile on the carousel! Yes, I was born to love a good ride and a fun time! When I saw this photo, I recalled the scene in Saving Mr. Banks, where Tom Hanks, portraying Walt Disney, hops onto the carousel and declares it his favorite ride. I think that is cute to know. I did actually ride the carousel in November with Steve and mom. Everyone should ride a carousel when they are 50 and 77! Nothing like watching the world go by from the back of a pretty white steed, while keeping your bearings by lightly grasping the brass pole. 

And mostly, I love that I am being tickled by Dale. You can see my little brother standing to my left, watching, and you can see my sister watching, too. I think this is going to be in Town Square, but I am not certain. I want to take this picture with me the next time I go to the park and ferret out where I was standing. I love knowing the characters roamed the park freely, and that it was okay to grab a little girl and give her a hug and a tickle. I love knowing that it was fun for me to be hugged by Dale. I have told Dale subsequently of this event, and I will someday have to show him the photo, so he can smile, too.

Ah, little memories. Lots of thoughts and recollections from three small, old photos. So much joy in remembering. Family vacations, idiosyncrasies, rituals, traditions. Six people. One day. 958 miles from home. One Magical Kingdom that was all started by a mouse, and a man from Merceline, MO with a dream in his heart, and some pixie dust in his pocket. So much to remember across the miles, as I look back on the day when the magic began.

Back When the Magic Began ~ One Disney Day ~ Summer 1972

My Game Boy

I read recently, "The days are long, but time flies" or something of that sort. As I contemplate turning 50 one month from today, I can definitely say that is the understatement of the year...or, more appropriately, the half century mark, if you will. I am not morbid about aging, and I don't have any unnatural feelings about it. I just really kind of sit here and shake my head at how fast it has all gone. 

One does not have to look far or hard to see how fast time has gone. Think back to your cell phone 5 years ago. Or consider the price of gas the first time you filled your car tank. Recall the dress code issues when you were in school. Find any little tidbit from your teenage years, and compare it to anything you see a teenager out there doing today. Time flies, and life evolves.

I will always be a bit of a technology buff, I believe, if I can continue to keep up with it. I will forever remember where I was the night Princess Diana died, because I was in my home "office" at my computer, a Compaq Presario All-in-One, with one disc drive in the front - a new ground-breaking 3.5" inch hard disk, which ushered in the farewell for the floppy disk. We paid $2,500 for that computer at Comp USA in Houston, and we were on the cutting edge to have a desktop computer at home. Now, mind you, this was all of 1994. Twenty years ago.

And the internet? As we knew it then, the internet existed as viewed from the portal through the parameters of AOL. We didn't even know the real internet. And accessing it? Dial-up baby. As in modem. As in nothing else could be going on communication wise. As in you had to have your phone line connected to the back of your computer and no phone talking could occur. It's funny to remember, and also kind of crazy to contemplate at the same time.

I bought that computer for my new working woman turned stay-at-home mom business. I was so proud of it. Business cards printed with my @aol.com email address, and the phone number that would ring if I wasn't out surfing AOL's news bites of the real world wide web. I do remember Kraft and Proctor and Gamble as being two of the companies that began ghosting their web address on the bottom left corners of their television commercials. And I also remember scoffing at why in the world anyone would ever need to know their dot com addresses. 

One of my tender memories, and I have the photo tucked away safely on a scrapbook page, is my oldest son, around 18 months old, standing on his tip toes, sippy cup in his left hand, and his right hand is extended up to the computer keyboard, and he is trying so hard to connect with that machine. I guess even back then he was wired a little like mom - interested in all things technology. 

Fast forward three years, and that little blonde boy that was so full of energy and light would be scampering around under my desk in a new house in a new city, hooking up the computer components, following the color codes on the peripherals to plug them in correctly. I can still see his little feet sticking out from the desk, his whole little body almost hidden underneath the desk and behind the tower. I had graduated at this point to a black Dell. Woot, woot.

It wasn't soon after this moment that I began battling this little tow-headed bundle of ideas for computer time. Yes, one computer in the house. He would want to play either Roller Coaster Tycoon, or his Tonka Construction game. I folded many loads of laundry to the sounds of either a dump truck backing up, or kids screaming as their coaster descended. If I were to hear either of those game sounds today, I would instantly be transported back to a house in San Antonio, where I fought the blacktopped barefoot imprints on beige berber like nobody's business.

Computer games gave way to Game Boy and Nintendo DS and then PlayStation 3...but somewhere along the way, the boy returned to a computer game. When we lived in McAllen, he and his classmates stumbled upon a game called RuneScape and he would play this game on the family computer that we had set up - that same Dell that had been with us in San Antonio was hanging in there, on its last leg.

For Christmas in 2001, my amazing husband gifted me with the first iPod, it having been released in October 2001. {So, think about that for a minute - the iPod isn't even 15 yet.} Well, I was taken completely by surprise! I had no idea he was getting this for me, and I set out immediately on Christmas Day afternoon to begin importing my CD's into this new software called iTunes. Well, like an 85-year-old on Jeopardy, that poor computer didn't stand a chance memory wise. And my poor husband didn't realize that the Christmas iPod would require a New Year's laptop. I love that man for so many reasons, but one near the top of the list is that he will indulge my technological cravings. Time after time.

I left Best Buy on New Year's Eve with a newfangled laptop, of all things, and began once again the transporting of all of my LIFE, including music and photos, onto the latest version of personal computing. The old Dell, with some life in it still, was relegated to my sons - and the oldest launched full fledge into his RuneScape games, often with his younger brother sitting at his side, content to watch the medieval questing and simulated life.

Over ten years, in three homes, on four computers, my oldest son has played RuneScape. I can understand it a little. I fought my own demon of addiction with Zoo Tycoon when the boys were in grade school. I finally had to quit the game altogether so there would be clean clothes in the drawers and food on the table. {And that reminds me of an aunt that was an avid video gamer in her seventies...maybe it's just in our gene pool...}

During Philip's last year of high school, he became more intentional about hanging out downstairs. I appreciated that so very much. It gave me so much joy to see him hunkered over his computer screen on the couch, or at the desk in the family room, or in one of my slipper chairs here in Scrap Central. He lived for the release of new quests and has now accumulated quite the collection of holiday regalia from ten years of completing activities on his RuneScape account. I like seeing what he's done with his character. I like seeing him figuring out how to do something. I like seeing him passionate about ideas. I like seeing him game. 

The quest goes on. He's in college now. I miss seeing him here, hanging out.  But in the young man now, with his sophisticated MacBook on his lap, I can in the blink of an eye go back in my mind to that little tow-headed boy, camped out on the bleached pine desk in my San Antonio study, backing up dump trucks and building houses on the old black Dell. It is a joy to watch your children grow and change. And it is a joy to see some character traits deepen and morph, much as the very pixels on our screen have. Yes, the days are long, but time flies. 

Ten Years on the Quest ~ Philip & RuneScape ~ March 2013

Sketch Credit: Scrapbook Generation

Paper: Carta Bella

Letter Stickers: Pink Paislee and Cosmo Cricket

Simply Being Together

This past January was the thirty year mark of my having met this most amazing man. I wanted there to be fireworks in the sky, a romantic getaway for two, a weekend of moments to pause and reflect on three decades of being friends. It wasn't in the budget, though, and instead we sent off a college tuition payment. ;-) No harm, no foul. 

When I look at our life together, I am always amazed that God picked me to give such a wonderful gift of a man. There isn't a day that we get to spend together where we do not laugh, or smile at each other across the room, or finish each other's sentence, while wishing we had more time together. I don't mind getting older at all, but I am really learning to value the measure of a moment.

While having the blessing of scrapbooking for two decades, I have had the blessing of carving out a life for three decades with a funny, tender, sweet man who happened first to be my friend. The treasure in that lies in the fact that he enjoys me, he lets me be me, he strives to bring out the best in me, and he sees me for who I am, and not who he wishes I were. There isn't any higher calling in our life than that. I know I am who I am today because God gave me this man to help mold me and shape me into the best pieces of me.

Steve has always been very supportive of my scrapbooking, and also of my writing. There are many nights he will sit in here on a chair, with either his Airbook or my little TV on, and just camp out in here with me and let me create, and he is content. And every night that I am in Scrap Central, I am wishing he was in here with me. I think of our "last house", the one more I want to build, and I ponder how I can create a space that allows me to create right next to him. 

Last fall, October 2013, I was taking an online class. It's a spectacular class - it kind of made my eyes open up more to the possibilities with the sketches I love so much. The class is called Photo Arrangement Replay and it dissects the bones of the sketches and tells you how to put them back together. Well, one sketch called for a big element, and I immediately thought of a star, and I immediately thought of wanting to do a layout about going to the Cowboys - Giants football game.

I began pulling papers together, and I just didn't have the right ones. I didn't have all of the ones that I wanted. Drat that college tuition, and me cutting back some and being sensible. ;-) There were two stores "near" me at the time, one 66 miles south of me, and one 75 miles west of me. Yes, the metroplex is huge. I called the one south of me and they did not have the paper I needed. I called the one west of me, and they did have the paper I needed. Then, I debated inwardly the utter insanity of driving 75 miles to buy 3 one dollar pieces of paper. Well, the whole of scrapbooking can be considered insanity if you look at it on the dollars and cents/sense scale. I've never let that deter me yet. ;-)

What I love about this man of mine is that he gets it. When I told him my dilemma of not having the right paper, not being able to get it delivered from an online order until the deadline for the layout was past, and the possibility of driving 1 1/2 hours to a little store to which I had never before been and 1 1/2 hours back from same said store, he said, "Well, it's a beautiful day. Let's go." Yes, long ago, you had me at hello.

We left home around 11 am, trying to time the to and from trip legs outside the boundaries of any rush hour traffic situations, and we headed west, to Fort Worth, very nearly after a load of goats. Now, my mother would always say if someone was taking a long time and not arriving as expected "They must have gone to Fort Worth after a load of goats!",  meaning they were inherently lost, off base, running behind. If ever there was a moment in my life when I might be considered to be headed to Fort Worth after a load of goats, I knew with all of my being as I buckled into my seat that this might very well be that moment.

It was an absolutely beautiful day for a drive. We went on roads we had never been on before, unknowing at the time that in a month we would repeat this drive as part of the journey to visit a college with our youngest son. I like serendipitous moments like that. And while we were out and about on this beautiful fall day, we saw for the first time a restaurant called Pappa's Burgers. Now, anyone that grew up in Houston knows the fame of the Pappa's brand. And Steve and I have a long love of eating at all of their various restaurants, including the beloved but short-lived Italian Pappa Mia's off 1-10, and the genesis of their brand, The Strawberry Patch off Westheimer.

So, we knew when we saw that burger joint, as well as we knew we were on an incredibly silly field trip, that we should stop and redeem the sanity level by having a good 'ole Texas burger. And, oh, my goodness - what a burger it was! We sat on the open air covered patio and just had a delightful lunch. I have a secret fetish for Fritos and any burger that has guacamole and Fritos on it always gets my vote. I loved that burger. I do hope some day to make it back there for another one. The onion rings were equally good and Steve liked his burger, too. Truly a fun little find.

We finished up our meal, headed on to the store, I bought my paper, and we headed home, to Scrap Central, where I could finish this layout, For the Love of the Game. It was just an ordinary kind of day in our life, really. A day where we ran an errand. A day where we stumbled onto some good food and shared a meal al fresco. A day where we took in some of the beautiful soft hills of Texas. A day where we found some adventure and explored new places. A day where we loved simply being together.  And I have been blessed to have three decades of them. Yes, long ago, you had me at hello.

Fun in Forth Worth ~ Paper Diva Field Trip ~ October 2013

Sketch Credit: Scrapbook Generation

Paper: Carta Bella

Font: EggCream

Finally, I want to remind you to check out my three friends, Laurie, Stephanie, and Tina, on The Scrapbooker's Blog Tour! Today they will have their blog post up for their turn on tour and I would love for you to check them out! 

From last week's post:

Laurie Danielle is something I'll never be - the mother to a little darling girl! I've never scrapped "girl pages" and I just love her bright use of colors and the fun layouts she does of her little one! I am always inspired by her artistic bend. Check out her work on her blog, http://lauriedanielle.com. I think you'll love it!

Stephanie Feltus is a sweetie that I have had the pleasure of scrapping with more than once. I am always envious of her having started scrapbooking so young, before being married. She will have her whole life scrapped! Her blog address is  http://craftyholidaygirl.blogspot.com and I would love for you to check our her work!

TinaGale Husong is another friend that I have had the pleasure of scrapping with. Not in my home state, and not in hers, but up in St. Louis! Tina is a Mickey fanatic, too, and so not only can we dish die cuts, but we can dish Disney. Her blog is  http://tiggersscrapplace.blogspot.com and it is another great blog to check out! 

You Can Never Have Too Much Happiness

My oldest sister bought a house built in 1913 in LaPorte, to turn it into a quilt retreat. Steve and I ran to Houston on Saturday for the day and spent the second half of it with my sister and her husband. Even though I have been following the progress on her blog, it was fun to see the house in person. As we finished up the exterior tour and headed into the house, I paused for a moment and looked toward the end of the porch and said to sister, "This porch reminds me so much of Granny's porch."

Our grandmother had a craftsman style home and on the big family gathering days, we children were relegated to the outdoors, as that was the best space left over to accommodate me, my siblings, and my 20-odd cousins. That porch was not only a long dining table, but also a grand castle, a steamship, a pirate island, a grocery store, a lookout tower...it had possibilities as endless as the summer days were long. The expanse of the covered porch and the placement of the house in relation to the sun's exposure guaranteed shade at all times and I don't recall it ever being a hot spot.

It grew in me, I guess, a deep respect and unshakeable adoration for a good 'ole porch. Having lived in Texas my whole life, I am savvy enough to know that if I want to be outside half of the year, I need to build or cultivate some kind of shade. We have been blessed - or cursed - to build from the ground up four houses. Each time, I have been meticulous in selecting the house, selecting the lot, working with the builder...and each time I have factored in the setting and rising sun and its impact on the house. 

When we built our current home, we absolutely lucked out. The silhouette of our home casts a complete shadow on the backyard every afternoon beginning around 4 p.m. It is really a sweet little treasure. In 2012 when we expanded our back porch by 1,000 square feet, we nixed plans to build an arbor, realizing it would cover up the view of the nighttime stars, and the house would give us the needed evening shade for gatherings and dinners.

We have really loved that back porch. It's a quiet escape in the morning to watch the sun come up, while you sip your snicker doodle coffee. It's a relaxing perch from which one can watch Truman chase rabbits during the day. It's an outdoor living room in the evening when we all come home from work and, previously, the boys from school, where we can sit and gather and soak in the freshness of the outdoors, which we all seem to love and need regular daily Vitamin D doses. A good day to me is one in which I have spent a good amount of time on my back porch.

When the boys were home and in their driving years, Sunday afternoons shifted from time spent with us to time spent with friends. It was a change we didn't relish, but it was one we could not fight. We could see the value in their development of community with friends from their youth group. The tectonic shift in how we spent the one day my husband almost always has off was one to which we did not easily adapt, but adapt we did. We considered it preparation for the looming college launch years. You loosen the strings long before you let them go.

The change in our together time made us appreciate the moments that we were together all the more. Sunday lunch shared every week can become common and more a process of remember whose turn it is to pick the entree. Sunday lunch shared 6-8 times a year becomes a treasured jewel, more about who you're with than where you are, the undisputed peak of the week. And usually, when the boys would eat lunch with us, they would not go back out. 

June 2013 began the countdown to Philip leaving. He nestled in with us more toward the end with deliberate cutting of local ties and, in my heart I believe, his own process of saying goodbye to the life he had known, as he hunkered down in his room more often than he had in a few years. It is interesting to contrast and compare their leaving processes now, but that is another story for another day. 

This sunny afternoon found us all together, and I happened to have my DSLR with me, knowing that this day together was one of those jewels. There is no grand story here. Just three of the photos I shot that day, capturing the vitality of my sons' beautiful faces, their penchant for sitting near each other, their endearing and effortless smiles. They are such a complimentary pairing. You could put them up against any classic - peanut butter and jelly, salt and pepper, Batman and Robin - and they could hold their own. They laugh so much together. They crack each other up. They crack us up, too. 

It has always been such a joy to see them interact. I have hundreds of photos of them laughing together. They are each precious to me. My only regret is not having the ability to capture their wit on paper, or video. I could not ever begin that undertaking - it would require me to record them constantly and they would never go for that. Mercy - getting a smiling photo of Andrew is a task that is daunting enough already. 

As I looked at photos on Sunday to scrap, these prints called out to me. And as I paired them with paper, this little Summer Fresh line seemed to be, like my boys, the perfect pairing. One of the little tags for the paper set proclaimed, "You can never have too much happiness." As I look at these boys laughing on my back porch, and smile and weep at the memory, I know that little tag nailed it. 

There will be more stories, more laughter, more moments together on the back porch. They will become jewels that are even more precious. As I FaceTime with my sons now in Nashville and in Denver, and try to glimpse their essence through all 27" of my iMac screen, I know it is true. You can never have too much happiness.

You Can Never Have Too Much Happiness ~ Back Porch Stories ~ June 2013

Sketch Credit: Scrapbook Generation http://scrapbookgeneration.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=213

Paper: Simple Stories, Cosmo Cricket

It's a Pea-utiful Day in the Neighborhood

It's hard to know where some stories begin and end, but this is not one of those. I have a clear memory in my mind of the events that led up to me talking about scrapbooking with my dear friend Lea, and her mentioning to me that Creative Memories had announced that they wanted to be the resource that Two Peas in a Bucket was. That was such a curious goal of CM, to me, that I felt compelled to check out this website. A few steps down the rabbit hole later, I had registered and thought of my username and created an account. The date was marked on my Two Peas account - June 27, 2006. But, I get ahead of myself. Let me start closer to the beginning.

As with most stories, they do not go where you foresee them going, and they do not end where you see them ending. I guess that is what makes for a good tale. I don't know, though...I have always enjoyed a small measure of predictability. I guess there is a bit of comfort in that. But my tale of Two Peas does not follow my measure of comfort, and so please indulge me the time to share a few words about a website that knew me.

In July, 2005, we moved from deep south Texas to the suburbs of Dallas, via my husband's job. I was a stay at home mom at the time, and the boys were entering fourth and fifth grade the following month. At this juncture in time, I had been a scrapbooker for 10 years and 10 months, and I was using, solely, Creative Memories' products. I had just converted to a digital camera, and I was getting my photos developed at Walmart. We were holed up in an apartment while we waited for the house to finish, with the large portion of our belongings sitting in storage crates somewhere between McAllen and Dallas.

With our house targeted to finish in November, we set about living the temporary life in a furnished apartment, overseeing the construction, running down ideas, and preparing for the move-in day. One of the errands we ran between July and November was to the Hest Fitness Equipment store in Frisco. At that time, it was next to Circuit City. As we drove into the parking lot, I noticed the name of a store between Circuit City and Hest - Recollections. I could not believe my eyes. A store that sold scrapbooking supplies! We wrapped up at Hest, and Steve went into Circuit City while I checked out Recollections.

That little errand probably turned into one of the most expensive elliptical machines ever purchased, because I found at that store a new way to scrap! Ever a lover of color and stationary and office supplies, I felt like I had just found Pandora's box of scrappy goodness. I signed up to take some classes and, one year later, I would end up working part-time there, until just shortly before their owner, Michael's, announced their closure. Recollections opened up for me a creative and expressive way to take a hobby I intrinsically adored and enjoy it exponentially more, if possible. I remember the first class I took used Basic Grey's Color Me Silly collection. I still have that project hanging on my wall. I made friends, I found retreats to attend, I bought copious amounts of supplies, and I scrapped on.

My evolution continued. In June 2006, I attended for the first time the Great American Scrapbook Convention in Arlington, Texas, over near the ballpark. Steve had heard about it on the radio and my youngest son pointed out a billboard one day while we were driving. I checked it out - and hit another major milestone - another reaching the point of no return. I found bargains on the stuff I was seeing at Recollections, and I found things I had never seen before, and I seriously began my scrappy stash building. And the desire kindled to further develop my storytelling art form.

And in the summer afternoon conversation where I told Lea about Recollections and the scrapbook convention by the ballpark, she told me about Two Peas. The timing was ideal. We were settled in the new house, a scrap corner upstairs had been carved out, the boys were at a great age for the indulgence of a hobby, and I had found a little local scrapbook store to fuel my fire. Having an online resource was icing on the cake. Two Peas in a Bucket, for those unaware, was established in 1999 by Kristina Nicolai-White and her husband, Jeff. Two Peas was like a three-legged stool to me: online inspiration via the garden girls, classes and gallery, a 24/7 message board community, and the Two Peas online storefront. And over time, each of those components was very significant to me in their own right.

Their tag line that appeared at the top of their website for so long, "Live Life. Scrapbook It.", was a clarion call for my heart. I loved Two Peas from the beginning. If I had to catalog the beginning of my love affair, I would have to say that the inspiration from the gallery was probably the biggest initial draw. It was truly inspiring, and undeniably amazing, to see the work of other scrappers from all over the world. Here I was - such a newb at shucking my CM solid card stock and embracing patterned paper - and trying to take in all the design elements of the newly found tools and supplies I was seeing online and at Recollections. I could spend any given amount of time strolling the gallery and getting ideas.

As I grew braver, I ventured over to the message boards. I lurked, as a reader only, for a long, long time before gaining the courage to post anything. As the boys got older, though, my time available to be online increased, and any given day you would find me "Pea-ing". See, each user was assigned a Pea number and we had to give ourselves a username, a Pea name. Avatar photos were optional. Some of us used real photos of ourselves, and some used pictures of their dogs or kids or favorite iconic images -  coffee cups, flowers, Disney characters. You grew to learn people by the familiarity of their recognizable Avatar photo. And I grew to love posting on the threads and sharing ideas and challenges with other scrapbooking Peas. We shared not only ideas, but we shared events and classes, and earned badges for our efforts. Our virtual flair was just all that - and it came with a Bucket to put them in.

We joked that Peaing was addictive. It was. I became a regular poster to the message boards, and at some point in 2008, I uploaded my first card project to their Gallery of projects. The more familiar I became to others, and they became to me, the more I was out there. Not only did I post replies on the Message Boards, I even began starting conversation threads. I became "A Fixture". The website was always up, and I was always logged in. I learned to turn to the Peas for any question I had on scrapbooking, and even, on the fitting occasion, I would venture to the NSBR (Non-Scrapbook Related) board, asking about vacations or questions about the kids, seeking guidance or input...from all of these Peas. My family would know it was sound knowledge if I heard it from the Peas. If I couldn't find an answer, I only needed "to ask the Peas." Someone somewhere knew it and/or had done it. 

It may sound and seem silly, but it really was a tightly knit community of mostly like-minded souls. The common thread of scrapbooking offered an environment with people who could "get me". They could understand searching for one more piece of that certain patterned paper, struggling to mange amassing amounts of jpegs, offering help to title a layout, ad infinitum. The issues were as endless as the ideas. And I'm not even kidding when I say that my husband and sons would not be surprised at all if I told them something I had learned from the Peas. Oh, the power of the Peas. 

From the Peas, and with the Peas, and through the Peas, I learned about digital scrapbooking, non-chronological scrapbooking, layout kitting. I found out about events where I could take classes - Creating Keepsakes University, Creative Escape, Big Picture Classes. I met real life "scrapbooking celebrities" Stacy Julian, Heidi Swapp, Tim Holtz. I discovered blogs and followed bloggers - May Flaum, Ali Edwards, Cathy Zielske. I fell in love with scrapbookers whose style I admired - Nichol Magouirk, Susan Stringfellow, Allison Davis. I moved my scrap studio downstairs and set it up a la Wookiemouse (a Pea named Stacey), spending 26 weeks tediously organizing every rub-on and spool of ribbon I owned. I learned to stamp and ink and wet and dry emboss. I fell in love with punches and sketches and die cutting. I found my niche. Truly, truly I found my niche. I found the perfect compendium of ideas and people who could help me execute on any idea they shared, or any idea I could dream up. The support of the Peas even led me to try out for a design team, and it was truly a thrill to be selected as a member of the Sketch Support Design Team. Oh, the power of the Peas.

Far beyond meeting my initial desire to find a relevant, 24/7 scrapbooking resource, and far beyond the practical information and inspiring ideas, Two Peas offered me friends. There are Peas whom I have met in real life, Peas I have traveled with, Peas I have retreated with, Peas I have had in my home. I would never have dreamed all those years ago when setting up an account on a website, whose name relates none whatsoever to scrapbooking, that it would be a life-changing event. I share this little glimmer of my story, in the full knowledge that there are over 400,000 other stories that mirror mine, to pay homage to a place that I was proud to be a part of. And I was truly proud to be a Pea.

Two Peas announced on the 25th of June that they would be closing down their website at midnight on July 10. The inevitability, or even the predictability of a loss does not make the pain any less. I wasn't surprised at the announcement, but I was not prepared to grieve as much internally. I can't speak to all the factors that culminated in their decision to close, but I can speak to how incredibly sad it makes me to know that such a rich compendium of caring and sharing, a resource organically grown over 15 years in the garden of their tending, will shut down and be accessible no more. 

I have spent the last five days mining data - checking my bookmarks, copying down ideas, saving images. I grieve when I think about the gallery of Katie Watson, Kelly Goree or Candice Greenway being deleted, never really to fully resurrect, since they no longer scrap in the public eye. I get nostalgic when I think about Rusty Pickle, Daisy D or Scenic Route having layouts in the gallery, and tagging their collections. These lovelies were fallouts of the recession and economic downturn, now out of business, whose collections are residing solely on the shelves of hoarding scrappers. I recall Scrapbooks, Etc. and Simple Stories and Making Memories placing publishing calls and sigh, as these magazines are published no more.

Two Peas goes down, and takes with it a chronicling of the very effort it set out to bolster, the cataloging and remembering of life. {Live Life. Scrapbook It.} No matter what continues to happen to my beloved industry, one that continues to compress and digitize and minimize, I will always know in my heart the special place that Two Peas held in the industry. I will always remember the rich development it offered me. I will forever cherish the friendships I have with my Peas. There will always be a little corner of my world where it was good to be Peanut 266613, where life was chronicled and cared about, where it's a Pea-utiful day in the scrappy neighborhood. 

I keep with me the knowledge gleaned in the garden. I continue to grow and develop. I am truly thankful to have been a Pea. And I am thankful that I will maintain the friendships I have with the Peas. Taking down a website won't take away the power of the Peas - the beautiful souls of the ladies I know and continue to scrap and yap with. Oh, the power of the Peas. Rest in Peas, dear Pod of mine. I will always remember the hay days of Two Peas in a Bucket and how it was the home for my scrapbooking heart, the place where my happy scrapbooking story began. It's always a Pea-utiful day in my neighborhood.

Peanut 266613 ~ Becoming Pennyscraps ~ February 2010

Sketch Credit: Cathy Zielske, Design Your Life via Big Picture Classes

Paper: Imaginisce

Font: 2 Ps Old Type

This layout in and of itself speaks to the impact of Two Peas. This is a "digi template" that I created in Cathy Zielske's Design Your Life class, taken in 2010 on Big Picture Classes, using some digi paper for the large dots. I trimmed the template down, and matted it on real Imaginisce green patterned paper.

Two Peas changed over the years. We all did. I am thankful I had some screen captures of the earlier, more playful look. That was the look of the Pod I loved.

A snapshot of my public profile. After hitting 5,000 posts, you could edit the title that appeared under your screen name, creating your little personal message. There were always puns using PEA as a substitute syllable for anything remotely similar. For the longest time, my self-given title line read "It's a Pea-utiful day in the neighborhood." My Peas were the neighbors of my heart.