Her name is Anita.
You ever go along your merry way in life, doing what you always do, working, taking care of the kids, just slogging along in your boring existence, blah, blah, blah… and then something happens and you realize how LUCKY you are? Ever have a time when you see something or you read something or you meet someone with a story that touches you deep inside your heart? Someone that makes you want to DO SOMETHING. That happened to me.
Her name is Anita. She lives in Canada. I don’t know her, I’ve never met her, but I want to. She is young and beautiful. She is brave and she inspires me. She is a mother with 3 beautiful children. She makes me appreciate my life a little more. Her story makes me want to take my daughter into my arms and never let her go. Never. She has cancer. She is fighting for her life.
I read a very brief story about her winning a contest where the prize was scrapbooking supplies. Her friend Becky had entered her in the contest at Scrapbook & Cards Today magazine, a Canadian magazine I read online and love. Becky said in her entry that Anita was fighting breast cancer that had spread and with chemotherapy treatments and 3 kids she had no time to scrapbook, but her 3 year old daughter had no scrapbooks done about her and Becky thought if Anita won the prize it might motivate her to get busy making her little girl a scrapbook. When I read that, it spoke to me. It touched me.
I couldn’t stop thinking about this woman somewhere in Canada who is younger than me with 3 kids and breast cancer. I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to live with this THING inside me every day and wonder if it was going to take me away from my daughter. I literally couldn’t sleep because of it. Part of it I think is because 17 years ago a close friend of mine died unexpectedly and suddenly and she left behind a 3-year-old daughter. For a while she used to carry around this photo of her mommy around the house with her and talk about her. And then………she stopped remembering. Her daddy got a new girlfriend and moved in with her and her kids, and my friend’s little girl just simply didn’t remember her mother anymore. It broke my heart. It became awkward after a while and eventually I lost touch with the little girl. I wasn’t a scrapbooker then, or you better believe I would have made her a scrapbook all about her momma and how much she loved her. But I wasn’t and I didn’t and life goes on and that’s just the way it is.
And then I read about Anita. And I couldn’t stop thinking about how she was fighting for her life and she had this 3-year-old little girl who would have no scrapbooks of her mother if she loses this fight with cancer. And it just bothered me. I felt like I had to do something. So I emailed the editor of the magazine and I asked her to get me in touch with the woman, to supply my email to her to protect her confidentiality or whatever, to tell her that I was touched by her story and I wanted to help her by making a scrapbook for her youngest daughter.
The editor contacted the friend who had entered her in the contest and about a month later I got an email from her. She provided me with Anita’s email address, and I began corresponding with her. She was so excited that someone she doesn’t know would want to help her. And it’s not just me. I can’t take all the credit really. I asked several friends who belong to a yahoo scrapbooking group with me for their help. And they came through for me. Jill and Edie in California, Klo and Erm in Nebraska, Thea in Illinois, Katie in New York, Dona in Texas. Anita sent me several hundred photos and I divided them up and sent them across the country to 5 different states to my friends, who are busily making scrapbook pages with them right now. I can’t even tell you how good this makes me feel. The suspense is driving me crazy. I can’t wait to get them all finished and put them in an album and mail that sucker off to Canada. I wish I could deliver it in person so I could meet Anita and her family and see the look on her face personally when she receives her book.
Life is good, and it’s nice to be reminded of that once in a while, and I hope that my actions will help to make her life just a little bit better. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go hug my daughter.
**edited to add** My scrapping buddies have been working hard on their pages for Anita and Amber. Here are links to other blog posts I have written where I have shown off their handiwork. Go check them out and let me know what you think!
http://my-so-called-scrappy-life.blogspot.com/2008/08/layouts-for-cause.html
http://www.myscrapbooklife.com/pages-for-anita/
http://my-so-called-scrappy-life.blogspot.com/2008/10/more-layouts-for-anita.html
http://scrappingklo.blogspot.com/2008/11/snail-hunt-layout.html
http://my-so-called-scrappy-life.blogspot.com/2009/01/another-anita-layout.html
**edited to add AGAIN** My little story here made it into the February 2009 issue of Creating Keepsakes Magazine! I could not be more excited people! I haven’t actually seen it yet as I write this because I subscribe by mail and apparently the stores get it before the subscribers. What’s up with THAT? But I’ve heard about it. haha Go check me and my friends out!
**another update 2/6/09! I’m actually fundraising right now to try and deliver this book in person. I just feel so strongly about it, I want to put this book into Anita’s hands myself. My God, what if UPS LOST it? Oh, the horror, people! This project has been and Anita has been a part of my life for the last many months and I want to be there to see her face and hug her and lay this book in her hands. It’s been such a labor of love for me, and I am so proud of it and so proud to have friends who have helped me so much with it. I am a lucky girl. I wrote a blog post about my plan to fund raise and I’ve been receiving donations from scrapbook companies and scrapbookers and have been blogging about those also. You can read the first post here and then all the others are after that. Long story short, there will be auctions in February and March of supplies that have been donated to me, books, classes, COOL stuff! So go check out the January archives and read all about it and bid on some stuff to help me get to Anita, ok? 
**Edited to add: Update 2/5/2010
As I write this, it is Friday, February 5, 2010.
Anita left this world today at 10 a.m. I received an e-mail from her friend Becky, who is the reason I met Anita in the first place. I am beyond shocked.
I am in a state of disbelief.
I can’t stop crying. Mostly because I just finished the little mini scrapbook for her children that I showed here about a week or so ago and it’s still sitting in the box on my desk waiting to be mailed. The title “Remember” that I chose for the cover really strikes a chord with me now. I thought of her for days while I made that little book. Along with the journal that I made last October for Anita to write in. Sitting here in the box. There’s a card in the box that I wrote to Anita and a worry stone that I had bought her a long time ago. And the 2-page layout made by Mandy Douglass from the Creating Keepsakes magazine article about us in February of last year. I always felt that she should have it instead of me, so it was in the box also. I regret that I never sent it.
Meeting her was a huge experience in my life, and so many people who read this blog (and who don’t) helped me to make the trip to Canada and make my dream to meet Anita and deliver her scrapbooks that we made for her a reality. I have always been so grateful for each one of you, but now even more so. You will never ever know what it meant to me, to see all of you strangers to me (and some not) come together and donate your money and bid on my auctions so that I could make the trip happen. Making those scrapbooks for Anita and making that trip and meeting her in person and corresponding with her via e-mail and phone before and after that trip…..the whole experience……is something that changed me as a person inside. It’s impossible to explain. I will never ever forget all of you doing that.
I will never forget HER. I am so saddened by the loss of her, I can’t even tell you. There are no words.
Anita, you will always be a part of my story.
Filed under Life, Scrapbooking | Comments (9)Pazzles Inspiration Creative Cutter
I have a resale license to sell scrapbooking supplies, and this is my newest inventory item. This machine is my new happy thing in my scrapbook world. Last weekend I traveled to St. Charles, Illinois near Chicago to the Scrapbook Expo at the Pheasant Run Resort and spent 2 days with my buddies Thea and Klo (Pazzles guru) learning how to use the Pazzles Inspiration machine and demoing and selling it to scrapbookers.
Frankly, it’s freaking awesome. People kept coming up and saying, “Okay, what does this thing do?” And we’d have to say, “Everything!” You can cut out your own titles, design and cut out your own die cuts, window clings, vinyl quotes for the wall or other items, make your own rubber stamps, make iron ons for shirts. This machine will cut through chipboard and acrylic and fabric. I don’t even know how to use it well enough to know how to do everything, and I can already say it rocks. We made me a window cling for the back of my car to advertise my website. I think I showed the cool T-shirt that Klo made me a while back here on my blog. Here are some things I made while learning how to use it at the expo.
Here’s a cool title guru Klo made for my daughter (Klo hurt her feelings once and made her cry so she was trying to make it up to her). Their newest CD just out has a lot of Disney-ish princess images and fairies and dragons and castles and cool stuff. I love it. Tinkerbell is from that. (By the way Klo, Summer says thank you and she loves it, but she’s still mad at you!) hehe
If you’re a good drawing artist (not me!), then you can freehand draw pictures on the software and cut them out. You can download clip art from the internet or scan pictures from books or coloring books or your kids drawings or whatever and it will cut them out. You can even scan photographs and cut them out. I’m a font person and I have a lot of them, and this software will use any true type font you have on your computer (or download free off the internet) so you don’t have to go out and buy cartridges or disks or whatever like some of the other cutters on the market. You CAN buy CDs if you want. Pazzles has some pretty cool ones, like the one with Tinkerbell, but with a little more time you could just make your own. Personally I like the convenience of not having to make my own!
I also love it because you can “weld” your letters together for a title and cut it all out in 1 single piece all hooked together instead of each letter individually and then trying to line them up straight (can’t do it). You CAN cut them out individually if you want, but you’d have to be crazy! haha
My friend Klo (Pazzles design team and demo person) has a blog here where she shows free video tutorials teaching people how to use it, and she has a great way of explaining things. The videos are great for people who tend to be visual learners and want to SEE how to do it.
So the machine sells for $599.00 plus $35.00 shipping. What saves you money in the long run is that you don’t have to buy the cartridges or disks or anything else to go with it. You also don’t have to buy diecuts anymore! Make your own! It comes with a cutting mat and a cutting blade, so you will need to replace those eventually and they inexpensive. The blade goes through 1,000 cuts and the mat lasts for 70-100 cuts. Included is also 60 fonts already on there and 300 images already on it to get you started. They also offer a 90-day phone support and a 1-year limited warranty. It is shipped directly to you from the Pazzles company. If you’re interested, contact me. You can purchase one from me through my Paypal widget just to the right up there at the top of my blog securely. I also have it available on my website at www.summerrosescrapbooks.com but to purchase it you would have to fill out the contact form and let me send you a Paypal invoice (don’t have a shopping cart yet). I do accept credit cards and you don’t have to have an account with Paypal to use it. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. I can also provide you with a brochure by mail if you’d like.
Filed under For Sale, Scrapbooking | Comments (2)Mom sick.
So my kid’s sleep schedule does not want to adjust to school nights. I made the mistake of letting her stay up until 11 p.m. during the summer, and now I’m paying for it. Her bedtime is supposed to be 8:30. I figure if I get her there by 9:00 it’s good. Well, I can lead the kid to bed but I can’t make her go to SLEEP!
“But mom, I’m not tired.” Well, what am I supposed to say to that? If she’s not tired, she’s not tired! You can’t force her to fall asleep! Believe me, I would if I could. So we do this back and forth thing for a couple hours, her getting out of bed and me telling her to go back to bed, she’s got to get up early and I don’t want her to be grouchy in the morning, her saying she’s not tired, she can’t fall asleep, she can’t help it. But then she’s not even TRYING to sleep. She’s reading a book or playing a game or petting the cat. Until finally I’ve lost all patience, and frankly I don’t have much to begin with.
But I’m trying to handle things well because I don’t want the last thing my kid remembers as she falls asleep is that her momma yelled at her. That’s not a good way to fall asleep for either one of us. So last night I got silly. Usually that’s her daddy’s job but I figured I’d give it a try before I resorted to pulling my hair out and duct taping her to the bed. I sat on her bed and took her in my arms (she’s 8; not an easy feat people) and then was rocking her like a baby with very big exaggerated movements and singing Rock a Bye Baby all silly and acting all stupid and the more she laughed the harder and more exaggerated I rocked her until we were both about to fall off the bed when suddenly she says,
“Oh, please stop that now. I’m getting Mom Sick.”
The kid seriously makes me happy.
Summer Says…
Today Summer went into a gas station for me and got me a bottle of pop to drink and herself a donut and a bag of chips. What a combo, huh? Anyway, her hands were pretty full with her purchases and my change and she came back out to the car and said…
“Man, it’s a good thing I didn’t have to carry a massager or I would have DIED….from HEAVINESS.”
WHAT?!? Well, what do you mean a “massager” I asked her. She replied, “You know, like the massager chairs.”
Well, of course that makes perfect sense that she would have picked up one of those at the gas station.
Have I mentioned before how much this kid cracks me up?
Filed under Life, Scrapbooking | Comment (1)Heartbroken.
Do you ever take photos on your digital camera and then forget about them? And then days or weeks later you take your memory card and upload the pictures to your computer and you’re like “Wow, I forgot I took those photos.”? Well, that happened to me today. See, a week ago I had to take one of our 2-year-old cats to be put down. I agonized over the decision for months.
I’ve spent the last year taking this cat back and forth to 2 different vets to try to figure out why she’d been urinating in places that are NOT the litter boxes. Weird places, like she jump up on our bed and pee on the quilt WITH ME UNDER IT. Or if I went to Walmart and came home and left the plastic bag on the floor with groceries in it that needed put away, she would come in and pee on the bag. Or bubble wrap that got dropped on the floor. Or a piece of paper that had been knocked off my desk. Or the poor dog’s bed.
I talked to friends about it and researched the internet about it and I prayed to God about it, looking for some sort of sign that I was making the right decision. It was hard for me. And it was one of the hardest things that I’ve had to do so far in my 8 years of being a mother. I wanted to be honest with my daughter so she could say goodbye to her kitty. But it was hard because she wasn’t outwardly suffering in an obvious way, except that she never gained any weight and people were constantly asking “Don’t you guys feed that cat?” and even though she was born in our house and has lived here since she was born she never wanted us to pet her or pick her up or anything like that. It was strange.
Anyway, the day before I told my daughter and she asked me to take a picture (she’s the kid of a scrapbooker, you know), so I did. It was heartwrenching. And then when I saw it again after I downloaded it to my computer, it broke my heart all over again.
Sometimes being a mother sucks, and this has been one of those times. When your kid is sobbing and says to you, “Please don’t do this to me Momma,” it’s like the worst thing ever. I’m having a really hard time with it, with letting go and knowing that I made the right decision. There HAD to be something wrong with the cat even though the vets couldn’t find anything. I’m having a hard time dealing with the guilt and getting the actual event out of my head (the actual experience at the vet was HORRIBLE). I literally haven’t had a good night’s sleep since. So right now I struggle and I hope that with time the guilt goes away and our hearts mend a little. I don’t think I’ll print this photo, though. It’s not a good reminder and there are plenty of other happy photos taken with the cat.
What a week………….
Filed under Life, Scrapbooking | Comment (1)Good Morning.
Happy Friday!
Hope you have a ball today!
Kings Island Adventure.
I literally last went to Kings Island in Ohio 25 years ago for a class trip in the 8th grade. I don’t remember what it looked like back then, but I sure don’t think there were water rides back then. My aunt was taking her daughter to Kings Island for the weekend and invited Summer to go, and I went along. The most memorable part of the day at the park for me was when my camera broke. It was during this log water ride thing.
Here we are going up……..(this was when the guy said maam, you need to put away your camera)
The kids sat in the front row, but my aunt and I had the strategy of sitting in the back seat so that we wouldn’t get as wet as the others. Yeah, that didn’t work out really the way we had planned.
Now here are some other people coming down the hill. It’s not a REAL tall ride, but when you hit the water at the bottom it’s a splash like you can’t believe! See the bridge in the above picture. You come down the hill and then go under the bridge in the log. That’s also the bridge that riders walk back across AFTER they’ve ridden on the boat ride, and it’s timed just perfectly so that as you leave the ride and walk across the bridge the next boat is hitting the bottom and you get wet as you try to go across. Somebody really put some thought into that!
Here are a couple shots I got of the boat hitting the water and going under the bridge. It’s crazy how long the huge wave lasts after they’ve hit the water.
So here’s the part where the camera broke. The kids quickly figure out that if they stand still on the bridge the next boat will splash them, so you can’t get them to leave! It literally is so powerful that it knocks some of the kids off their feet, but they love it. So I decided to get a little closer to the kids so I could capture the looks on their faces when the huge tidal wave came over the top of the bridge and got them.
However, I didn’t realize that I was TOO CLOSE. There I was poised, focusing, ready to snap the photo and then quickly turn away, but instead as I was taking the picture the wave hit ME and just literally drenched my entire left side from head to toe, including the camera. I’m sure the look on my face was priceless. I turn to look at my aunt like “What the hell just happened?” and she is cracking up because the lady standing next to her KNEW what was going to happen and said, “Watch that lady taking the photo. She’s gonna get wet and she has no idea.” Nice, huh? Thanks alot for the heads up lady!
Summerism.
Last night I walked into the living room and found Summer lounging in the recliner with her feet up…….wearing my high heels that I had left sitting out. I said, “Uh, Summer, what are you doing?”
She said, “Mom, I’m following in your footsteps.”
This kid cracks me up!
Filed under Life, Scrapbooking | Comment (1)
