October Afternoon

Dan & Leona, 50 years of marriage

August 22, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 4 Comments

My mother’s parents, Daniel and Leona, were married in 1939. This portrait was taken in 1989 to mark their 50th wedding anniversary. Isn’t it wonderful when we have special photos like this of the ones we love? I wish that my grandparents were around to ask them what 50 years of marriage is like, what it was like to be young newlyweds in 1939, and many more questions. Alas, I didn’t think about asking those types of questions when I was younger and they were alive.

My maternal grandparents had this portrait taken in 1989, the year of their golden anniversary.

This layout is based on a sketch I found at the Artful Delight blog. It’s their August layout challenge sketch.

Are you fortunate enough to have your grandparents around? If so, I would like to gently nudge you to ask questions about their lives now.

The eyes have it

August 20, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

I just love when I can complete a layout about a subject that matters to me while simultaneously fulfilling the requirements for three online challenges! This is one hard-working layout!

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

First, I based my design on this great sketch from the Sketchy Thursdays site. The added requirement was that the topic cover reading or literature in some way in honor of the start of the school year. I just love this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, so I decided to use it as my title: “Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.” Then I took a photo of some favorite books on our library shelf and pulled out a photo I took last spring of a beautiful budding tree in our neighborhood.

Second, I created this to enter into Shimelle’s Grid It Up challenge.

Third, this will also work for Shimelle’s Stickery challenge, where the mandate is to use stickers from more than one collection (I have used stickers on this layout from American Crafts, Basic Grey, My Mind’s Eye and October Afternoon, so I think I’ve over-delivered!).

Speaking of reading, do you love Jane Eyre? Well, Matt and I love the story, and we recently watched a TV miniseries version that we hadn’t seen before, starring Timothy Dalton as Mr. Rochester (from 1983). Enjoying it so much reminded me that I had a novel about the writing of Jane Eyre up on our bookshelf. I pulled that down and have have been caught up in it for the past few days. In Becoming Jane Eyre Sheila Kohle combines what is know of Bronte’s life with her imagination of how that life lead her to write the highly successful book Jane Eyre. If you’re a fan of Bronte’s masterpiece in particular or of historical fiction, I can recommend this novel.

Raleigh is such a dolly

August 9, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

In May my mom traveled back to our old hometown in Ohio for the wedding of two of her very good friends. Both of them had lost their spouses to cancer and then, in a development that truly surprised their group of friends, found love together. Both around 70 years old, they are starting a happy new phase of life together!

I think it’s a lovely story that illustrates why we should always be open to new chances at happiness.

* * * * * *
My parents didn’t believe it was fair to leave an animal home alone all day, so because they both worked our family didn’t have pets when we were kids. Then, when Phil and I went away to college and they were feeling the need and the free time to nurture another life, Mom and Dad adopted Spenser. I will tell the tale of Spenser another day, but let me leave you with the phrase “canine angel.” We were completely head over heels for Spenser.

So when after a long and wonderful life with us Spenser passed away a few years ago, we were all devastated. But it was Mom, his caretaker, who had to adjust to daily living without him. She insisted that she didn’t want another dog. “It’s impossible to replace Spenser, so what’s the point?” “It would be a lot of work to get used to a new dog.” “It’s expensive.” “I don’t want to be tied to a schedule of walks and feedings any more.”

But after more than a year of missing Spenser and the companionship of a little life, Mom mentioned to a friend that she thought she may be ready to look for a dog. She had done some research and really liked the idea of a Cairn Terrier. Well, it happened that this friend of Mom’s volunteered at a local animal shelter, so she promised to keep her eyes open for a Cairn (but warned that it was pretty unlikely).

Not long after that conversation Mom was readying herself to go to a friend’s birthday party when she got the call. The shelter had just received a Cairn Terrier that day! Could she come over right away and meet him? Well, it was Saturday evening and she didn’t want to be late to her friend’s celebration, but she decided to go to the shelter first. My, oh my, are we all happy that she did! She fell for the little orphan instantly and went back to take him home that next week.

Now Raleigh and Mom are constant companions, and I rarely have a conversation with her that doesn’t include comments about how amazing he is. “He’s so loving.” “He’s such an adorable little scamp.” “He’s a wonderful snuggler.” “Oh, how did I get so lucky twice?”

New chances for happiness come in so many forms!

This layout is a great way to use your border punches and scraps of paper.

Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal

August 5, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

My husband doesn’t care about clothes…at all. If he ruled the world people would all wear clean but wrinkled shorts and t-shirts to everything. Fortunately, we live in low-key Austin, Texas, where “business casual” doesn’t mean very much, and a majority of people do wear shorts everywhere.

Matt and I own a technology company, which means occasionally we get swag from companies like Microsoft and Cisco, among others. For years Matt has been wearing those hideous t-shirts (no offense intended to the big tech companies, but they really are garish) around the house. However, when he goes out that front door, he makes sure he’s wearing one of his “special” shirts. Even though he doesn’t care a jot about good clothes, he does want to maintain a certain image in the world. And I would describe that image as “geek chick.”

He carefully selects his t-shirts from various online purveyors of fine geek clothing. In his closet are shirts with:

A Shakespearean quote spelled out as a mathematical equation (think “To be or not to be”)
The falling sperm whale from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with the thought bubble, “I wonder if it will be friends with me?”
The symbol Pi written in 4493 digits of Pi
My all-time favorite is the one he’s wearing in the large photo on the layout below. It’s inspired by the TV series Firefly and features two dinosaurs with a speech bubble between them that reads, “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.”

This illustrates yet another reason I love scrapbooking: memorializing the personality traits, quirks, habits and personal preferences of those we love. Whether it’s our 40-something husband’s corny t-shirt tastes or our 13-year-old daughter’s short-lived Bieber fever, it’s worth remembering. And celebrating. These are the little things that add up to make people lovable to us, and that’s a great layout topic in my book.

Be You captures my husband's love of corny t-shirts.

Note: Matt does not wear these t-shirts to work, even though he would dearly love to! 😉

Talk to the animals

July 27, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Twisted Sketches has revealed its latest sketch, #112, and the twist is “fun.” Be sure to head over to the site to grab the sketch, then create something and link it up! 🙂

Here’s my Design Team layout inspired by the sketch. The patterned papers I used on this very colorful layout are from Jillibean Soup. The colors just went so well with my vintage photo.

This photo is from August 1974, when we visited the Erie Zoo in Pennsylvania.

That’s Phil and me at the Erie Zoo in Pennsylvania in August 1974. There’s so much I love about this photo: the great outfits Mom always picked for us (I adored that quilted skirt and remember looking down at those sandals on my feet all summer), that we’re not cheesing for the camera but engrossed in a moment and the signs of 1974 hairstyles and clothes on the people in the background. It’s a great snapshot!

I cut those animal embellishments with my Silhouette using a free dingbat font called Zoologic. They cut out beautifully, and I really think they added a lot to the design.

Here’s a fun fact: I chose to include images of the giraffe, lion and camel for a reason. It’s because most mammals move both legs on one side and then both legs on the other side. The only mammals that walk by alternating their legs in sequence are…you guessed it…the giraffe, the cat and the camel! Cool, huh?

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