What I've been up to...

Wow, a month and a half since I last posted? Yikes!  Let's just say October was a whirlwind, and I'm still catching up halfway through November!

October began with a lovely visit from my brother in law. He's never been to New England, so we gave him a quick tour of where we live along the Connecticut shoreline, and did a day trip to Western Massachusetts and Vermont.

My dad, brother in law, and husband exploring an old railroad bridge in Western Mass.

The Connecticut River, as seen from Gillette Castle.

Shortly after his visit, we had some problems with our furnace and it ended up blowing soot all over the basement, and even a little into the house. Thankfully, insurance covered the cleanup, and there was a crew here for two weeks. They washed every wall, cleaned every carpet, and wiped down anything that wasn't in a drawer! They also washed every item of clothing in our closet! Crazy!

During all of this, our desktop computer decided to die.  I knew it was coming, as it was over six years old and was having trouble starting up. Thankfully, I had already moved my photos and music to an external hard drive for storage, and had backed up everything else onto a second external hard drive. We were able to get by with our work laptops for a few weeks while I researched a new computer. I finally ended up going with a 17 inch Toshiba laptop. I don't plan on taking the computer out of the house, but I love being able to edit photos while sitting in the living room instead of the office! While I was at it, I upgraded to a wireless photo printer too...awesome for printing photos directly from my iPhone!

We experienced a freak October snowstorm right before Halloween. We only got a few inches of snow, but it was wet and heavy and knocked out our power for two days. Apparently snow in October has a strange effect on my husband, as he insisted we do a photo shoot outside in the midst of the storm, props and everything.

Yes, he put our porch rocker and garden gnome in the middle of the yard, and even made the sign.  His bare feet still make me shiver!

I at least has the sense to put on my shoes! Our lab Melody wasn't fazed by the snow at all.

Despite it all, I managed to scrap a little bit.  I took Alison Davis' Sketch Support class and loved it. I didn't have a chance to participate on the forums as much as I would have liked, but I enjoyed the sketches and videos she provided. I signed up for Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party, but have yet to use the prompts to make a layout.  Perhaps over January break? This past weekend I went to a day long crop and was pretty productive, making a lot of layouts from our trip to Ireland. I'll be back soon with some of the recent layouts!