Scrapbook On The Road {MA - May 2011}

I'm going to be flying home for a few days in May before I head to Alaska for the summer. What a better time to test drive the whole Scrapbook on the Road thing. I threw this album together in about an hour today. For the covers I used two pieces of 6x8 chipboard that I covered with some patterned paper by American Craft {Metropolitan series} I used some of the brown 7Gypsies rings that I purchased for my other album and filled it with scraps I had laying around the studio.

Take a look inside!

{Front cover detail}

{I added some sateen ribbon to the top ring. I may or may not do all rings.}

{Velum flower on a brown craft envelope}

{Small pieces of cardboard and colored envelopes}

{I pulled an opaque vellum envelope from one of my other projects.}

{I also found some clear overlays from a GCD Studios scrap pack (Provence series) that I had wedges between other packs.}

{Decided to use some of my Project Life cards for journaling.}

{Damn you , Blogger for rotating my photos!}

{Overlay detail}

{Another Project Life card and a piece of blue textured cardstock.}

{I heart graph paper. Especially the colored stuff!}

{Back cover detail}

I also have a bunch of fun stuff to include in it. I have some Martha Stewart chipboard letters that I'll be using. I have a B for Boston {Dan and I are heading into the city to go to MFA one day} and I'll also be bringing an N for Newport in hopes that I may talk him into taking me to Newport again to tour the mansions {Hint, hint.}

I can't wait to get started on this!

A Room With A View: The Trip Home

For those of you who haven't heard, I ended up flying home this past Tuesday for a family emergency. It plays out something like this:

Friday 06:00 - My aunt Sandi sends me a text message while I'm at work saying Nana was taken to the hospital around 01:00 with chest pains and difficulty breathing. She was placed in ICU. She was diagnosed with congestive heart failure (CHF) and aortic stenosis. She also had a mild heart attack (MI)

Friday 13:30 - Nana was med-flighted up to Tufts in Boston. The doctors had planned on taking her in to do a heart cath to see how extensive the blockage was and to possibly place some stents. She was too unstable for them to try the cath so they were going to put her on some meds to try to stabilize her over the weekend and try to do the cath on Monday.

Friday 23:30 - Nana started having chest pains again so the doctors decided to go ahead with the heart cath. They were unable to place stents so they inserted a balloon pump instead. She was at about 85% blockage.

Saturday (Sometime that morning) - Nana had a mild stroke (TIA) which affects her left side. The doctors came in and told Nana that she would need an aortic valve replacement and bypass surgery. They gave her 24 hours to think over the decision because of the surgery risks: 30% chance she might not survive surgery and they couldn't guarantee that her quality of life would be better afterwards. If she chose not to have surgery they gave her a 75% chance of living 2 years. Nana decided to go ahead with the surgery.

Sunday (Morning) - The doctors informed Nana that she was not a candidate for surgery because of her age, health issues and whatnot. At that point they were going to give her meds to make her comfortable and eventually send her home.

Sunday (Afternoon) - Dr. Weintraub, one of her doctors, explained there was another procedure they could do which could act as a bridge of sorts to help Nana get to the point of being able to have surgery. He offered the option of a valvuloplasty. They literally go in and crack the valve so it stays open. As with any surgery, this one had risks as well: the possibility of dying during the procedure. Nana agreed to the surgery. Mom and I started looking at flights to fly home.

Monday (Afternoon) - We were told that the surgery would take place on Wednesday morning at 10:00. Mom and I booked our flights for the next day. Nana had a CT scan to check the calcification level on her arteries.

Tuesday (Afternoon) - Mom and I flew into Logan and we headed straight to the hospital. We met with Dr. Weintraub and Dr. Jaffe (another one of her doctors) and they informed us that there was extensive calcification and the scan showed she has cirrhosis as well. Because of these two things as well as her general age and health they made the decision that Nana would never be a candidate for surgery and therefore there would be no need to do the valvuloplasty. Nana was moved from ICU to a regular room.

From here on out - The doctors have placed Nana on various cardiac meds to make her comfortable. She was transfered to a rehabilitation center to help regain some more mobility in her leg. I'm not sure if she'll ever be able to live in her apartment unassisted again. And, as if there wasn't enough excitement going on, the ambulance that was transporting her blew a tire on the highway (coincidently) just hours after we had an almost roll-over accident with my aunt and her three kids.

When it rains, it pours. And I couldn't agree more.

All of the above photos were taken around Tufts. It's a beautiful hospital tucked nicely into Chinatown.

My Many Projects

I've had this sketchbook kicking around since last semester and I figured I'd finally put it to good use. I've been doing random collages in it. So far I have the three below. Eventually I think I'm gonna start following The Dares and just do them in here so they're all nice and neat and in one place. (Click on any of the photos to see a larger version.)

The first is a random jumble of current obsessions. You'll find everything from Starbucks, Sephora, my iPod Touch, a bitchin' pair of boots from Journey's and tons of crazy other stuff. I'd say I'm about 80% done with this. I keep finding small items to add.

This second one is all things beauty and mostly cut from my Sephora and Benefit catalogs. I looooove me some Sephora! I'd scale this one at 80% completed as well. I think I'm gonna add some jewels or glitter to really make it girly. Some text will probably get thrown in as well.

This one is pretty much self explanatory. I wreaked havoc on my game informer mags. 70% done. I need to add more pics and find something to go in the bottom left corner.

Initially I was going to lump my Provincetown and whale watch stuff from last August into one but I've got so many good photos that I decided to break it up into two. Or maybe three. Who knows. We'll see how it goes. I'm on the fence about getting another sketch book for my travels or getting a snazzy three ring binder and doing them on 8.5" x 11" paper stuck inside page protectors.

And yes, we really were that close. It was amazing!

And going back even further (I'm a total slacker, I know) I still have all of my goodies from when Dan and I visited MFA last March. We had so much fun and I stayed in the Egyptian section for probably over an hour.

I'd love to go again next time I'm back home.

Lastly, this was started forever ago. Last April or May, maybe. As I completed each task from my 101 Project, I was planning on scrapping a little page on it. These pages are about 6"x9". As you can see they're all still blank.

Never a dull moment. And you know what they say about idle hands...