Back to School

The important thing is never to stop questioning.
~Albert Einstein

Summer vacation has official come to an end. Ryan is in 9th grade this year! I can't believe it. He still goes to the Jr. High, but is officially in High School! In Moscow the Jr. High is from 7-9th grade and the High School is from 10th-12th.

In usual Ryan style, he was up early and out the door in a flash. He is meeting some of his buddies for breakfast at school and will pick up his schedule before classes start. I just had a few minutes to snap this photo of him in front of our "big" tree. We have been taking 1st day of school photos in front of this tree since we moved here - it will be fun to get them all out and do a layout from the past years till now.

Jared is not going to school this semester. He is applying for Spring semester at Narapo University, in Boulder CO. He also had an interview yesterday at Waldenbooks - he has some other applications out and is working on getting a job. Keep your fingers crossed! We need every penny we can scrape up to pay for the cost of this school!

Our Newspaper Boy!

Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success. ~Swami Sivananda

Ryan just got his first paycheck for his paper routes. He has two routes and delivers papers in the afternoon on weekdays and at 6am on Saturdays. We are really proud of him for getting this job all on his own!

The Evolution of Scrapbooking

Know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon...everything's different. ~ Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes

I really love scrapbooking! I have been doing it now for over 12 years! But, boy have things changed! When we moved to Moscow I started to really get into scrapbooking. I was not working outside of the home and set up my scrapbook room in the dungeon, oh! I mean basement. I would spend hours down there with the spiders and the laundry, creating mini masterpieces! I was addicted to twopeasinabucket and spent a lot of time reading the message boards and posting my layouts. I was really into paper piecing back then, and Tami V and I bought almost every paper piecing pattern from twopeas. My layouts would take me days to complete. I am not kidding!

I would post my layouts on twopeas hoping to get tons of "praise" - check out my gallery for a good laugh! These are my layouts from 8 years ago! So funny to see how far scrapbooking has come! I still love these layouts tho and would never re-do them. I think my style has not changed that much...I still love cardstock and I still have a hard time with pattern paper. I am a "simple" scrapbooker now and try to focus on the photos and the journaling more than the cute embellishments. I no longer journal on the computer, but write all of my journaling in my own handwriting. This has not only saved me tons of time but is a big deal, since I hate my handwriting! I don't scrapbook chronologically anymore. I scrapbook the pictures and memories I feel inspired to work on at that moment. And...I don't want to every get caught up! I love it too much to ever stop!

Here are just a few of my all time "favorites!" from my scrapbooking archives!

What a busy day...

If you want to conquer fear, don't sit home and think about it.
Go out and get busy. ~Dale Carnegie

I had a very busy day today. Today was the 5 year anniversary party for the Pullman Paper Pals store. I picked Shawna up at 8:45 and we headed over to Pullman to get the cake and punch at Safeway. I decided to get a carrot cake this year and it was really good - love that cream cheese frosting. Even with all of the other local activities going on we still had an amazing turn out. We had a line waiting outside at 9:30 for the 50 free goodies bags we gave away, and I must say, they were really good goodie bags! We had 16 croppers with us for the 10am-10pm crop, these ladies were so much fun to have in the store all day. Great group of gals!!

It was a really fun day. I love working with Shawna - she is so great with our customers and is just a really good person! I could not run Paper Pals without her at this point! She is my right hand "sistah!"

I'm home now and starting to wind down. I have a wedding appointment tomorrow at the Moscow store, so I better get to bed.

It takes a "village" to run a scrapbook store...

We don't accomplish anything in this world alone ... and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something. ~ Sandra Day O'Connor

You know that saying "it takes a village to raise a child?" Well, the same can be said in running a scrapbook store! Owning and operating a scrapbook store is not a one woman job! You need a lot of help along the way and I have been very lucky to have had lots of help from lots of very special people. With no training in management or business I have made a lot of mistakes but I have also learned from them. I am very proud of my stores and very proud of what I have accomplished. It is the most rewarding and hardest job I have ever had, but I love it.

Thanks to all of you! Those who have stuck with me, those who have had enough of me and those of you who have who have just joined me! You are appreciated, you were appreciated and you will always be a part of my life.

Thanks to all of the volunteers, employees, design team members & teachers who have done so much to make Paper Pals such a great store. If you are not pictured above please don't feel left out - I am working on getting more photos! :)

A special thanks to my Family - Dave, Ryan, Jared and my Mom & Dad! Could never have done any of this without you all!