Update: Woggy #1 is complete!

While it's possible I expended as many hours involved in this project as I did on the actual trip it is commemorating, I am happy to say that much to my surprise, my BC trip scrapbook is finally, actually finished!

While I had been progressing on this project in a couple of fits and starts since my last official update here, the most significant work stoppage happened when I ran out of photo corners a couple months ago, and didn't know exactly where to I'd be able to easily get some more. Several trips around town on foot later, I gave up on the supporting local business angle and just ordered a bunch in the mail. By the time they arrived of course, my enthusiasm for finishing the project had ebbed.

So, all of the scrapbook project materials had been sitting in a neatly organized pile under one of our living room chairs for a few months before I picked it up again the other evening. By this point in time, the scrapbook project had two things going for it: one, the actual vacation itself had passed the year anniversary point, increasing my desire to finish it, and two, my husband has been away on a work trip, leaving me with large blocks of idle time in the evenings with no conversation or activity to fill them. The tedium part of the handiwork was helped by Mr. Erroll Flynn, Robert Osborne, and a bunch of their old friends. I emerged from a haze of sea voyages, royalty, and scrapbooking sometime later that night with a complete stack of pages, beginning to end, and a really, REALLY big mess on my living room floor.

All that was left at this point was to procure a more efficient means of hole-punchery than the little hand-held object currently in my possession. But things worked out in favor of that as well, as I already had some other shopping to do in the general vicinity of the office supply store (where I was surprised to find they had a huge array of hole-punching options for me to choose from). Last evening I finished off the punching and binding, and could hardly believe my eyes looking at the actual finished project. It really did come out much like I had originally envisioned.

So, now all that's left is the cleaning up part, which I suppose technically means this project isn't completely finished yet, but since I do actually plan on taking care of that in an hour or two, I'm going to go ahead and rule that part as virtually completed.

Update: Woggies #1 and #3

Woggy #1 Update: BC Trip Scrapbook

I can now check some items off my Woggy To-do list:

X wait for photos and scrapbook cover,etc. to be delivered
X plan scrapbook layout
X create any needed text or other related content
X paste up first 7 days of trip

Things left to complete this woggy project:

• paste up remaining 5 days of trip
  
• punch holes in the pages
  
• assemble scrapbook
• clean up the disaster zone left behind by this project
• sit back on my couch with my scrapbook and reminisce about my fab trip

Woggy #3 Update: Learning Calculus

As often happens with true progress, the latest burst of activity towards completing this woggy came in a completely inadvertent and unexpected fashion. Having finally moved into the 21st century by getting an iPod nano for my birthday, I was looking to try out all of its various features, and stumbled across the iTunes U section of the store, in particular the completely free Calculus class offered by MIT's open courseware. So I figured what the heck, why not download? Of course as the entire point of me visiting the store that day was to find some sort of content other than music for my nano, as a test run to see if I could figure out how to make everything work properly, I had to upload the first lecture and try it out to see how everything worked. So before I knew it there I was sitting in my living room, watching the tiniest professor in the world give me a first day intro lecture all about derivatives. Once it was over I suddenly realized, hey! Look at that I've started learning Calculus finally!

I can now check some items off my Woggy To-do list:

X order calculus video class
X actually begin watching calculus class
X finish watching Lecture 1 (and understanding it!)

Things left to complete this woggy project:

• download and print out supplemental materials for this class
  
• watch, take notes and do any problems required for Lectures 2 - 16
  
• donate some money to MIT's open coursework program for goodness sakes!
• download the second Calculus class in the series
• repeat steps 1 & 2 for second class
• go and read all those physics chapters I couldn't read before I understood Calc!
  

Update: Woggies #1 and #16 are almost complete!

Woggy #1 Update: BC Trip Scrapbook

I had been informed about a month ago that the site which is hosting alot of my old photographs has changed its policy to require you to buy something at least once a year or they might dump your archive. With my dumping date looming, I had alot of incentive recently to get some sort of a photo project going. The digital photos most obvious for this task was my collection of photos from my BC Adventure Vacation that happened last August. All of my photos were already on my computer, and I already knew I wanted most of them printed out as actual real life photos for my scrapbook project.

So it took a lot of time, but I sorted through all the photos and picked all the best ones and/or the ones necccesary to tell the story of our adventure. I uploaded them and made captions for whenever I get around to emailing the online album to everyone. And of course I started thinking about how was I actually going to get all of these photos put together. Now, it turns out this task itself became a major life distraction, as I discovered a site selling all of the vast array of things that the scrapbooking industry has to offer. It took alot of strength, and I had to resist many cute, shiny sparkly things that would certainly serve absolutely no useful function in my life (such as the Happy Camper wooden die-cuts pictured here...), but I did finally end up with a pared down order of just the essential items needed for me to put together something close to what I originally envisioned. So now, I only have to wait for my items to be delivered, and I can get to work on the fun part, which is the making of the scrapbook itself. This should not take too long to complete, but only time will tell...

I can now check some items off my Woggy To-do list:

X Select photos for printing
X Get photos printed
X look for a suitable book/binding system
X buy book/binding system

Things left to complete this woggy project:

• wait for photo and scrapbook cover,etc. to be delivered
  
• plan scrapbook layout
• create any needed text or other related content
• paste up/ assemble scrapbook

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Woggy #16 Update: New Bed

Lately on two separate independent occasions unrelated to either the purchase of a bed or each other, both my husband and I were each able to visit another local furniture store that also happened to have beds for sale, and we both actually happened to each look at the beds that they had there. Through some great miracle of the cosmos, my husband and I not only came to the agreement afterwards that we did not need to look in any further stores than the two stores we had thus far looked at, but after some brief discussion, we actually came to amiable agreement about which actual bed we each preferred to buy, AND, miracle of miracles, it happened to be the same exact bed.

Topping off this miracle sundae with some fabulous fruit, we even both went to the store together this weekend, and actually followed through with the actual purchase of the actual bed. Now all we have to do is wait for the shipment and delivery, and then actually do the final assembly of the bed after it arrives. It hardly seems any trouble at all that the bed is apparently somewhere in South America, and will be taking up to 14 weeks to get here!

Items I can check off my Woggy To-do list:

X go to more stores to look at other possible beds
X decide on a bed and buy it

Things Left To Complete This Woggy Project:

• wait for shipment of our bed
  
• put our new bed together
• say, "Hey, doesn't our new bed look great?!"

Woggy #17: Family Tree

At some particular point in the last year, my sister-in-law, who had been doing some extensive family tree research on my husband's side of the family, uploaded her research to a popular family tree website, and invited us all to have a look. This of course inspired me to create a tree of my own, filling out my half of our family tree.

For a week or two, I began working regularly and diligently to expand my tree, taking advantage of the free trial membership the site had. I decided to go ahead and sign up, paying a monthly fee, thinking I would see this thing through in a month or two, culminating sometime after the holiday season, when I would incorporate all the info I got talking to all my extended family and/or receiving their replies to my organized letters that I would include with the yearly card and newsletter.

I have of course forgotten about this woggy project entirely until about last month, when I was reviewing my finances, and again this past week when I was visiting my family and thinking about the various details I might want to know about my family tree. I have yet to even formulate the sorts of questions I'd like to ask extended family, let alone create any sort of letter, organized or no, that could help me gather additional information to add to my tree.

Meanwhile, I continue to pay monthly fees to this website, sure that I'll be finishing this project up any day now, and have no need to switch over to the yearly fee structure. (It's obviously this sort of wishful thinking that keeps these folks in business.)

Things Left To Complete This Woggy Project:

• consider switching to the yearly fee structure..
• finish up doing as much research as possible given the info I currently have
• figure out what sort of info I need to try to get from whom to fill out the tree
• send out letters/emails/etc. to get info and photos from pertinent family members
• update new info as it comes in
• finish up doing as much research as possible given the info I get
• Do any needed external research
• Complete the tree as much as possible
• print a final copy, send to family members, etc.
  

Woggy Project #1: BC Trip Scrapbook

I like to make scrapbooks or memory boxes to commemorate enjoyable trips I've been on, or occasionally meaningful events, etc. My ambition to create these far exceeds my ability to actually make them with any regularity. So far I've been able to see about one of these projects through per year, which seems like a pretty good rate to me. I only have a couple of these waiting in the wings.

The scrapbook currently voted most likely to succeed is the one from my most recent trip to Vancouver Island and northern British Columbia (BC). My husband and I spent a good amount of time preparing for this trip, and it was a really pleasant adventure, complete with a road trip, a nautical voyage, camping, museums, glowsticks, bears, and whale sightings. It is definitely a trip I would like to commemorate for later years to come.

The photo above is a picture of the array of items I have set aside in a little bag for later insertion into a scrapbook. In addition to these items, we have photos, which I have thus far succeeded in uploading and filing with proper name on to my hard drive, but have yet to sort, select and get printed. In addition, I need some sort of a book to put all of these in.

The book is the biggest obstacle here, as I tend to be quite choosy about aesthetics, since I know this is going to be preserved for the future and I want to make sure it will be just right. I've discovered these expandable photo albums I can sometimes find, which are alot like the sort of book-cover system you use for stamp collecting, but I have not yet found a consistent supply for these. But I really don't want an actual photo album, I want something I can bind paper pages into, so I can create some actual pages with all of my various-sized mementos, and possibly include some journal pages. The last time I had this problem, I solved it by making and binding my own book using a souvenir paper bag, some souvenir fabric, a sewing machine, a hole punch, and some twine. Since my collection of things this time around is much larger, I hope to find something pre-made to do the job. I haven't started looking yet.

Things left to complete this woggy project:

• Select photos for printing
• Get photos printed
• look for a suitable book/binding system
• buy book/binding system
• plan scrapbook layout
• create any needed text or other related content
• paste up/ assemble scrapbook