When I am not working as a Project Manager, I am looking for more hobbies to add to my substantial list: scrapbooking, movies, TV, paper crafts, photography, cooking, sewing, writing, reading, techno-geeky-stuff. I like to call it...living.
extraordinary to me
Thanksgiving is one thing, but the day after is quite another. Spending 7 hours on the 401 can limit your photo opportunities, which explains the many photos of highway, and of books that I was reading or waiting to read.
To offset the bad quality and boredom of the pictures, I made them very small and used a lot of white space.
A lot of white space.
I was inspired by this layout (which is a scraplift of this one) but in scraplifting I ended up changing it quite a bit. (If I could just copy a template and use it over and over again, I wouldn't be this far "behind"...!)
I ended up being pretty happy with the result, and the story it tells.
Journaling reads:
"We woke up at Remo and Kelly’s after a wonderful Thanksgiving.
We drove back to Montreal.
We let Madeleine drink coffee.
Thanks to Kelly, I discovered that the English version of Steig Larsson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo” was much better than the French.
I was fascinated with Marjorie Kelly (still am).
I had too many books on loan from the library (still do)."
Credits: Paper - CShep Just a Thought Scrap Out of the Box (background), Digi Shop Talk (pieces); Pumpkin brush - Kathy Pertiet Harvest Letter Box (Designer Digitals); Font - Plantagenet Cherokee; Drop Shadows - One Little Bird (OScraps).
When I began participating in the 12 of 12 challenge, I was out of work and had time on my hands. Taking 12 pictures on the 12th of every month was not only fun, but helped to capture a magical time in my life as I reconnected with my creative self.
That all ended in May 2010, when I went back to work as a Project Manager aka a cubicle dweller. However, I had to wait a full three months before the 12th finally fell on a workday.
I have come a long way since that first workday 12 of 12, when I snuck my DSLR camera into work and took pictures of my new cubicle during lunch hour when everyone was gone.
Why let a simple thing like work get in the way of partipating in the 12 of 12? For your next workday 12th, consider these simple tips for capturing your life as a cubicle dweller.
Size matters. After that first attempt with smuggling a DSLR into work, I bought a memory card for my daughter's point-and-shoot camera, which she would kindly lend me for that one day a month. Late last year, I finally got myself an iPhone. It is so much easier taking pictures of your cubicle or your office building with a tiny camera that you can whip out of your purse at a moment's notice. Don't forget that fitting 12 pictures on a layout means that most of the pictures are no larger than 2" x 2", which means that you don't need to worry about resolution.
Cubicle dwellers live in cubicles. I have taken pictures of three different cubicles in my various 12 of 12s, each of which tells its own story. I sometimes focus on the nameplate. Other times I capture my computer screen (which at one point had a small part of a window...sigh!). I have more pictures of my office life over the past year than I do of the past twenty years. Which makes me just a little bit sad.
Say cheese (not!). Meetings are a big part of my worklife. But there's no bigger career killer than asking your colleagues to pose for a picture. So what I do instead is take pictures of things that remind me of the meeting, such as my pen or my notebook, while I wait for people to arrive or after they have left. After one particularly crucial meeting, I took picture of my shoes. When I look at that picture, I still remember the project we were discussing and the decision we made. Besides the fact that I really like those shoes...
Screen shots count. For particularly busy days, I sometimes take screen shots of my Outlook calendar, Inbox or Sent items and send them to my personal email. Just looking at those emails and meetings evokes memories of decisions, triumphs and set-backs, all of which are a part of my professional life.
Routines are not boring. One of my first workday 12 of 12s was a snapshot of my coffee mug from my favourite coffee place across the street from my office building. I ended up taking a lunch shot from that same place more than one year later in a completely different season. Workday routines are different from weekend routines: all the more reason to capture them.
Don't shoot and drive. One particular summer was "the summer of traffic hell", when every single road I took on my long commute home was bordered with orange construction cones. Sitting in traffic I had plenty of time to take pictures of those orange cones. Lots and lots of orange cones. With my iPhone sitting in its holder in my car, I have photographed myself driving (very carefully of course). I have even taken pictures of my trip odometer to show how long it took me to get to work, or at what time I got home. Driving to and from work is a part of my work life and is a part of the story that I try to tell in pictures.
As I look back on my workday 12 of 12 pictures, I realize that I have captured critical milestones in my professional life: the day I realized that a project was doomed, the day I helped to bring it back to life and the day I started a new job in a different department.
So much better than LinkedIn, don't you think?
"D" is also for drop shadows which I used for the first time on this digital layout.
Journaling reads:
"I hate dogs. I have ever since I was a kid. It probably had something to do with being bit by Danny’s dog when I was in Grade One. We were sliding down the hill behind the COF hall and when my sled bumped his, the dog ran towards me and bit me in the left thigh, right through my grey snow suit. I can still see his fangs biting into my leg. I can also still see the two red holes in my leg that took forever to heal.
Then there was the joy of being chased by dogs in the trailer park while delivering the hydro bills for Papa. (For some reason, that was always my job, not Remo's or Roberto's.) I might have actually enjoyed it, were it not for the dogs, who always barked at me and even chased me. It got so bad that, when Papa gave me a new pile of hydro bills to deliver, I would hand him back the bills for the trailers that had dogs. "Sorry, I don't do dogs." And yes, I knew them all by heart. Every single last one of them. Terror does that to you.
I am surrounded by family dogs: I photograph them, look for them when we think we have lost them and cook filet mignon for them.
But, to this day, I have no love for dogs, no desire to own one and barely tolerate them in my presence.
Except.
During the Lost Series finale, that damned dog goes and lies down beside Jack as he's dying, so that Jack won't have to die alone. What kind of faithful, loyal, damned animal does that? I must have watched that scene a dozen times. I sobbed pathetically each and every single time.
Damned dogs. I hate dogs. No, really, I do.
(Sniff. Don't look at me. I have something caught in my eye.)"
Me and dogs: it's just not ever happening. Unless they're on television.
I've got two of them, and mine are real pretty. Mainly because I happen to have a "little" obsession with scrapbooking supplies.
I think I'm going to like this book.
It was fun to look back on how we used to do tomatoes, "back in the day". (Ha!)
And I still refuse to acknowledge that I am "behind". I still take my pictures on the 12th of each month. I'll get to the layouts...eventually.
Journaling reads: "With Paula, we did tomatoes in Mississauga at Remo & Kelly’s. We used Remo’s industrial tomato machine, propane stove and a pot big enough to bathe Madeleine and Samantha (separately!) Our process still included cutting and cooking, from which I got fired. Even Juliette helped with the stirring. Mickey joined Paula’s family after his journey from the dumpsters of Montreal. We didn’t finish all 14 bushels but after 80+ jars, we ended the day with a delicioous candlelight dinner of something smoked outside on the patio."
Credits: Paper - Anna Aspnes Web Challenge 04/08 Solid Red (Designer Digitals); Fonts (big) Fette Egyptienne, Arial (journaling), Engravers (Date).
What a way to start a work day, eh?
And if you don't know who sings Hell's Bells...hang your head in shame.
A conversation between me and my DH:
DH: How was your day at work?
Me: Good. Really good. Great actually.
DH: Huh? What, did they fire you?
I'm thinking maybe I need to cut down on the whining. Or stop asking if I can "retire".
Yeah, that's it.
The Amazon Kindle did not ship to Canada in time for Christmas, even if you placed the order at the end of November, as my husband did. If you're an American you were in luck: shipping was 1-2 days and you didn't open an empty box under the tree like I did. (As of today this is still true per the screen shots below.)
Once again, Canadians are treated like second class citizens.
God forbid that Amazon do something like ship on a first-come first-served basis. Why be fair when you can discriminate against those nice Canadians who never complain?
Thank you Amazon! No, really! I love you! (NOT).
I contested my speeding ticket. I won: because of engineering physics and project management. Sure, it took me two hearings and a whole day off of work. I don't care. I won. Here's how:
And I was acquitted. Partly for being an annoying girl geek who reads LIDAR manuals. But mostly because, as a Project Manager I know that people never do their action items. Never.
As for the lawyer who rolled his eyes at me in July when I asked for the LIDAR manual, never roll your eyes at a girl geek. NEVER.
When I am not working as a Project Manager, I am looking for more hobbies to add to my substantial list: scrapbooking, movies, TV, paper crafts, photography, cooking, sewing, writing, reading, techno-geeky-stuff. I like to call it...living.
When I am not working as a Project Manager, I am looking for more hobbies to add to my substantial list: scrapbooking, movies, TV, paper crafts, photography, cooking, sewing, writing, reading, techno-geeky-stuff. I like to call it...living.
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