2010 in Review (pt 1)

So, I promised a bit of a review of the last year - a few top threes or even top tens, some highs and some faves. There might be some duplication of photos or layouts (featured over the last year during regular posts, as well as in my three part, multi-layout post) as last year was really a productive scrapbooking year for me but I hope you will bear with me and enjoy the look back in time.

I thought I might start off by doing one of those questionnaires. You know the one where it asks what you thought of the previous year.


I have done this one a couple of times now (here and here and here) and decided that it is just too long. So I've cut it down to just 18 questions this year:

1.     What are your New Year’s Resolutions?

I guess the usual. I want to be more organised, de-clutter, be creative every day, learn to use my camera more fully, continue taking a photo a day, lose some weight, sleep more, get on top of the ironing pile (as in do the ironing and not just climb on top of it!), try to remember birthdays and be a better friend. My one little word will be covered in another blog post.

2.     Did anyone close to you give birth in 2010?

No, but my brother-in-law did become a Daddy though for the first time, through adoption which is wonderful for the whole family.

3.     Did anyone close to you die?

A very elderly member of our extended family passed away in February, which was very sad. We are very blessed to have all our parents and three grandparents around and in good health.

4.     What countries did you visit?

The UK, Birmingham & London – it was a quiet travel year.

5.     What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I completed three months of LOAD (layout a day) and I have a wonderful pile of layouts to prove it.

One of my photos was chosen as a highlighted entry by The Pioneer Woman in one of her photo challenges.

6.     What was the best thing someone bought you?

I was whisked away to the tower suite of our favourite local hotel here in Recklinghausen to be treated to 24 hours of pure romance and relaxation. Rose petals were scattered all over the rooms and two large bouquets and a bottle of champagne were waiting. Who could ask for more?

Ah, I knew there was something else actually. Completely out of the blue, this arrived in December as a present for our wedding anniversary from Liberty! I absolutely adore it and it is totally perfect - on every level. For those of you who can't see the detail, each of the hearts features somewhere important to us - Recklinghausen, Nova Scotia, Paris and Birmingham. I am not exaggerating when I say that we both love it to pieces.  

7.     Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Madeleine – she is just delightful and is such an adorable little girl. She was scouted to join a competitive gymnastics team back in the autumn and is apparently a natural – good to know all that energy has found an outlet!

8.      What song(s) reminds you of 2010?

Anything from Glee – I discovered the Glee love for myself this year – loved every song and every episode I got my hands on! A fave? Has to be “Don’t Stop Believin’”.

9.      How did you spend Christmas?

On Christmas Eve (the main day here in German), we spent a quiet evening together – just the two of us and enjoyed fondue, good wine and meaningful conversation. This was a first for us! (Celebrating Christmas Eve together, not the meaningful conversation!)

Christmas Day was an English Christmas dinner for my German family, which has become a firm tradition and was very successful. We had a totally white Christmas which is unusual for us (last one being in the 80’s) and as we didn’t have to go anywhere at all, it was incredibly beautiful and we loved it.

New Year’s Eve was fondue, raclette, too many bubbles and a (for us) losing game of Trivial Pursuit with the family. It was a really great holiday time.

10   What was your favourite TV program?

I tracked down Glee online and watched the whole first series in a matter of days – LOVED it! Can’t imagine it will ever come to Germany so internet will have to do.

11   What was the best book you read?

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

This book totally gripped me – I was really surprised at how “in the story” I was. Great read. I’ve just seen online that it’s going to be a film – should be great!

12   What did you do on your birthday?

I had a quiet birthday. Mum was over to visit which was lovely and we wandered around the Recklinghausen Christmas Market, made cookies and shared a few glasses. A different birthday this year, but lovely all the same.

  What was your best musical discovery?

I have really listened to very little new music this year. I suppose I have just been listening to music I like and realising that there are some singers out there that really appeal to me – Adele or Alicia Keys for example. I adore the new Take That stuff and the Robbie/Gary duet was a real winner for me.

I kept listening to my playlist 2010 for the whole year though and only got a bit tired with some of the tracks in the last few weeks – watch this space for a new 2011 playlist!

I guess the musical highlight for me was the discovery of Glee. I had heard so much about it and caught an episode or two while I was in the UK. Then I caught up with it on the internet and was instantly hooked! I love the music and rushed to order all the CD’s from Amazon. It was my go-to music over much of the summer.

14   What was your favourite film of the year?

Twilight – Eclipse. This was one of only three movies I saw at the cinema last year but hands down, Jacob still does it for me every time.

15   What kept you sane?

Ralph

Scrapbooking

Reading other people's blogs

Chocolate and champagne

Enjoying cocktails out on our new balcony

(same as last year in fact)

I also worked on keeping perspective. When times are hard, things could always be worse.

16   Who was the best new person you met? 

I reconnected with a much loved school friend, which was great after nearly 9 years since we had last seen each other.

I also made a whole host of internet/class/blog/LOAD friends through my scrapbooking – it’s such a great community and it’s lovely to see familiar faces when enter the virtual classroom or gallery. We are all great fans of each other’s work and they are so supportive, it’s wonderful.

17   Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned.

Together, we are strong enough.

18   Quote a song line that defines your year.

“Don’t stop believin’

Hold onto that feelin’"

I am well and truly Gleek’d! ‘Nuff said!

Tomorrow will be part two of my multi-layout post and then on Wednesday, I'll put together some more reminiscing...

Care to share?

Playing around

One of my targets for this year is to improve my photography and to get my camera off manual! This is easier said than done as I start to glaze over when I read the camera instruction booklet and let's face it, the minutes of sunlight per day at the moment don't make for good photos most of the time.

But I have been looking around - on Flickr mainly - and have been inspired by some incredibly beautiful photographs which show me that I have a million miles to go! But two things in particular caught my eye - one was a particular composition and one was playing around with depth of field which gives you the most wonderful bokeh when it's done correctly.

And as luck would have it, the sun was glorious today and I had time at home to play. First of all, I tried copying the composition I'd seen - too many originals to reference here but this is my take on it.

Isn't it just adorable for Valentine's Day. I fell in love with it when I saw a couple of them in Flickr and now I am just smitten!

Then I fished out our macro lens that I adore using but never seem to have it with me when I need it! I love the fact that I can get so close to things and choose if I want the whole thing to be in focus or just a sliver. That things in the foreground or background can be the main focus of the photo. And of course, it produces gorgeous bokeh.

Taking photos takes a lot of set up and usually I am too lazy or in a hurry to do this. But I gave myself a bit of time and moved things around, opening windows and testing the light until I felt things were how they should be. Then I snapped some close ups of my Valentine flowers. I always take pictures of the stunning flowers I receive from R but am always disappointed with the results. But today was different, today I used the macro!

And just to finish off, I tried some really close shots of the leftover snow on our balcony. I like the glittery quality to this one - the way that the crystals were glinting in the sunlight and sparkling like diamonds.

And this single drop of water, left behind as the snow was melting. Now, the camera was still on automatic - not brave enough with that yet - but it's good to see what the depth of field effects can be. Next step, read what to do to do it myself!

Just to finish off, here are my two layouts from the last couple of days. Bit dissatisfied with today's but I was using a LOAD prompt and wanted to try something a bit different. And I still have loads of these zoo photos that need to be used! Better done than not!

February 15th

February 16th

Resolutions, goals and targets

Wow, so long since I last wrote anything! However, this is all about to change because one of my goals for the year is to update this blog on a regular basis as a reminder of my year.

I don't really know where to start - I still have to finish my write up of Canada, I ought to write up about Christmas and New Year, and now we are already at 7th January so I ought to write about the here and now.

Perhaps it would be best if I list down some of the things I want to achieve this year which will bring in so other topics:

1. Write my blog at least once a week for the whole year - including photos and thoughts and actions
2. Organise once and for all, all our photos - both the actual ones I have lying around in boxes and also the digital ones that seem to be rather scattered across disks, hard drives and some printed out
3. Continue to lose weight - target is 55 kilos by my birthday (the big 40!!)
4. Be more positive - more of a glass half-full type of person (more later on this topic)
5. Scrap more - try to achieve at least one layout or scrap project of some sort each week, including a highlight album at the end of the year, a Christmas project (left over from this year), a monthly review, the Canada 2006 trip album and more on the BOM (not much then!!!)
6. Organise the flat and us - clear the clutter, keep tidy and be a better housekeeper
7. Keep on top of "A Year to Remember" which is a Big Picture Scrapbooking class for the whole of the year by Heidi Swapp. Usually, I join these classes and download all the stuff but do not actually do much with it. This time, I want to actually do the tasks etc each week and keep up with the class. After all, this will be a Year to Remember on many different levels
8. Take a photo a day - obviously, more than one per day but try to improve my photographs and have a record of the year through taking photos every day
9. Stop spending so much money - with the Canada trip later on in the year and my Birthday party in November, this will be an expensive year
10. Do more - do it now - make the time ....


OK, I think that 10 is around 9 too many but some of them link into each other and I wanted to write it all down while I think about it and maybe over the next month, the list might be amended or re-done. But in the meantime, the photo a day goal only started on January 5th which R thinks is rubbish. He says that I should now wait until next January 1st to start this and of course, if I think about the fact that I really want to record my 39th year, then I am really late. However, the DO IT NOW goal kicks in and at the end of the day, it is better to do it, than to constantly put it off and then regret the lack of action. So, January 5th it is! Although of course, if I look back over the days since my Birthday last year, I am sure that there are not many days without photos completely! Maybe I should do that. I am also thinking about moving the blog over to Typepad because they have the possibility of setting up albums and stuff which would be good.

Anyway, here goes with my first photos of the day (so far, I have not really started editing them or enhancing or anything - just a bit of basic improving and some cropping - that will all come later) - comments/feedback gratefully received:

Friday 5th January
This was the day I took down all the Christmas decorations and reclaimed our flat again. I took photos of all the boxes of decorations, the clear and clean flat and the orchids. The orchids won because they are so beautiful to have around at this dark time of the year.
Saturday 6th January
We booked our Yukon adventure. What better to represent the day than the celebratory glass of bubbles that we shared!

Sunday 7th January
We put the tree outside for collection and it looked so sad and forlorn - all neglected and thrown onto the street. I felt a bit sad seeing the pile of trees, used up and discarded. Until next year...