This Girl Could Use Some R&R

I'm so scattered these days I feel like I'm running toward all points on the compass at once. I thought I'd run down a list of them real quickly, but if you know me, you know I'm not a girl of few words. I am still planning to do further installments of the How I Learned To Scrapbook story - but want to show you photos of my first scrapbook & when I went to photo it, was a different album in that box.

The Biggest thing I've been concentrating on is Organizing Digital Photos. Get it Together Keep it Together This is a photo organization class taught by Molly Newman that I took at ReneePearson.com It was a 4 week class on organizing photos and digital elements using a program called ACDSee. I found out about the class from Julie Johnson 4 days after it started - so I had to hit the ground running. I am well on my way to categorizing, keywording, & rating my digital photos so that I can easily search them and find what I want.
It's been time consuming and exciting, and a lot of work. Due to the technical nature of the class I was trying to keep right up with the lessons in order to be able to ask questions of the instructor at weekly online video chat sessions.

During the class I also got an external hard drive. Half my photos are on my laptop and half on a desktop computer that I never use. I am in the process of migrating all the photos onto the External Hard Drive so that I'll have access to them at the scrapbook retreat I am going on for my birthday at the end of this month.

I feel like this is the most PRACTICAL of all the online classes I have taken as I am putting a system in place that I will use for everything I do. I am very pleased with the experience & am planning to take a Photoshop class from Renee Pearson in June. http://www.reneepearson.com/classes/basics.html

In the middle of all of this I also Created 8 CTMH Studio J double page scrapbook layouts in a 5 day crash session. I blogged about that Studio J Posts are here.

Design Your Life - a 12 week design concept course taught at Big Picture Scrapbook just wrapped up, I a behind so I have a LOT of materials yet to go through. This class included layered templates for Photoshop Elements and prompted me to make my first ever digital scrapbook page. Holy Cow! that seems like forever ago.

I am in the final week with Adventures in Scrapbooking: Go Hybrid taught by May Flaum also at Big Picture Scrapbook. This was a 6 week course about incorporating digital elements into traditional paper scrapbook pages. Wonderful class. I feel behind due to the photo organization focus, and am looking forward to finishing out the rest of that content. I feel like It's a little surprise package that is waiting for me to go back and play with it.

I also convinced my husband that it was better to share "the good camera" (seen in photos) with me, than to have to buy me a brand new camera. Hurray!


Gracious me if that wasn't enough now I've signed up for several future classes:
Everyday Adventures: Becoming an Explorer of your World. A 4 week class beginning April 15 taught by Tami Morrison.
Textuality A class about incorporating text and print into scrpabook pages. 4 weeks starting April 22 taught by Amy Sorensen.
Get Great Photos with Any Camera a 4 week course beginning May 13, taught by Elisha Snow.

I was also contacted by Mardel Christian & Education Stores. They asked me to review a copy of a soon-to-be-released book that they are very enthusiastic about.
Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream by David Platt. I have been hearing great buzz about this book. I can't wait to dive into it!

It is a beautiful afternoon! Dinner is in the crock pot, I have a glass of iced tea ready & I'm taking it outside to read on my lounge chair as soon as I finish this post.