2 photos

Mommy gets a bite

June 22, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

I was 5-1/2-months old and trying to share my food with Mom.

Aren’t these photos wonderful? There are a few little details in here that I should point out as being meaningful:

For instance, how sweet my mom looks here; she’s a few months shy of 27 and just adorable! There are times when I look in the mirror and see such a strong resemblance between us, even though I really take after my dad’s side of the family more.
Mom wrote on the back of these photos, “Mommy gets a bite (thus, my title), 5-1/2 months.” That would date this photo as mid-April 1967, which means she was already pregnant with my brother!
We were in the house of one of Mom’s teaching friends.

I used this sketch from PageMaps for inspiration:

And most of the supplies I used were from the beautiful April scrapbook kit I won from Artful Delight:

Busy beaver

June 12, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

This post celebrates the handiwork, resourcefulness and personality of our neighbor, Charlie.

When we moved into our house in 2001, the very first neighbor who welcomed us was Charlie. He and his wife, Pat, have lived in the house across from ours since the developers started building on this street some time in the 1980s.

On that first day he marched across the street to us, stuck out his hand, introduced himself and said, “A wise man once told me that the secret to a successful marriage was to be outside when your wife is in and inside when your wife is out. You’ll likely see me out in my yard a lot!” Then, like a stand-up comedian, he waited for the laugh.

That anecdote was just foreshadowing for what our conversations with Charlie would be like. This man is a storyteller and a connector! Whenever I’m out in our yard and see Charlie step off the curb to cross the street, I know there’s at least one story to be heard. He’s always telling jokes, updating us on his grandchildrens’ lives (they live just a few doors down from us) and telling us about his latest camping trip to Big Bend.

Charlie spent his career as a middle school teacher, and for many years he taught shop class. He retired a few years ago when he turned 70, but once you watch him puttering around his yard and garage for a while, you really get the feeling that Charlie couldn’t have been anything else. Being active and using his hands makes him a happy man, even in retirement.

I believe the visits to show us his wood carvings started around the time of his retirement, in fact. He tells us that he has been whittling for years, but now that he has more time to spend on this hobby, he’s really upped his game. It started out with carvings into planks of wood…like a nicer version of the wood-burning projects I remember Phil and Daddy doing together for Cub Scouts. But he has really progressed in his skill at it. Last year he carved a full eagle out of cedar and gave it to us (it’s displayed in our living room)!

A few weeks ago Charlie took on his biggest project to date. When he noticed that his next-door neighbor had lost a tree to the drought we’ve been experiencing in Texas, he requested permission to carve the stump for them once they cut down the tree. They agreed, and it was really something to watch!

Being an extremely social person, Charlie turned it into a bit of a neighborhood event. He set up an umbrella over the stump to protect himself from the sun and brought out his lawn chair and tools. Then he got to work. But Charlie isn’t your heads-down kind of worker. He’s more of a “Come on over and take a look at what I’m doing here, and then stay a while and visit” type of guy. So, every day that he worked on that project I would see him wave people over to take a look. And they would stay a while to talk. And sometimes people who don’t even know Charlie would stop just to inquire about what he was doing.

It was a sweet, wholesome, summery little event, and I’m so happy I witnessed it. The whole thing made me feel that at any minute a lemonade stand would pop up, groups of kids would start running through the sprinkler together and people would stop locking their doors at night. It felt like community.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if every street had a Charlie?

You know I read it in a magazine

May 7, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

These photos were taken at Ohio University in 1989.

Not only did my younger brother, Phil, and I start school in the same year, which led to us travelling through grade school and high school together as though we were twins, but also we elected to go to the same university for the same major! Yessir, we both packed up our things and went to Ohio University for journalism degrees. And once we had been there long enough to figure out which kind of journalism we wanted to specialize in, we both chose the magazine track.

So after studying the principles and ethics of journalism for four years, we were thrilled to have a course in our senior year that ~~allowed~~ forced us to craft our own magazines. Each student had to come up with a concept for a magazine that didn’t already exist, write the business plan for it and then create a prototype of the premiere issue. What a dream project for a couple of magazinophiles.

Phil’s magazine for billiards enthusiasts was called “Blue Chalk.” My magazine for comedians was called “Stand-Up.” We had to mock up articles, ads…the whole magazine experience. It was hard work and exhilarating. But we both felt quite proud of our final projects. In fact, Phil’s book won a contest with a cash award from Writer’s Digest and Folio Magazine!

These photos were taken just after the ceremony where Phil received his award. And the bottom photo is of Phil and our friend, Rich, who was listed in “Blue Chalk” as publisher.

Here is the PageMaps sketch I followed for this layout, and I’m entering it into their sketch contest:

Product/technique notes: All the papers and stickers I used on this layout are from Echo Park’s Note To Self collection. I should also give credit where it’s due: Phil suggested the title I used on this page. 🙂

Together in PJs

May 4, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Journaling: These darling shots of Phil and me are from 1972 (L-May; R-March). I remember that I loved wearing my square-dancing nightgown.

Here's a close-up shot on the pinwheel embellishment and title tag.

If you read the title of my post (and my layout) and heard strains of Neil Diamond’s “Forever in blue jeans,” you’re my kind of person! When I was working on this page about my baby bro and me in these sweet, random 1972 photos of us in our pajamas, that’s what popped into my head…so I went with it.

Sometimes when I get to the titling part of the scrapping process, I falter. It’s not always easy to come up with clever, pithy titles that are understandable without being too obvious/boring. It’s a tall order! So, while I’m talking to myself in my scrap room (oh, please don’t try to tell me you never do that), I start hearing song lyrics, movie quotes and lines from books that I might bend to my purpose.

And that’s how “Forever in blue jeans” became “Together in PJs.”

The hope is, of course, that even without benefit of this type of explanation, people who see this layout will either “hear” my intention on their own when they read the title, or the title will be strong enough to stand on its own even if nobody “hears” the melody with me.

How do you come up with titles for your pages? I would love to have more strategies at hand for this task. Won’t you leave me a comment with your tips?

I created this page with the help of this lovely sketch from PageMaps and am entering it in their sketch challenge.

Product/technique notes: Did you notice the man-in-the-moon image in these patterned papers from We R Memory Keepers Anthologie line? It made this the perfect choice for vintage photos about children and bedtime.

For the love of the game

April 4, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 5 Comments

These photos of me in my softball uniform are from 1977 and 1978.

As a kid I was always very athletic…in my head. In my mind’s eye I made dazzling shoe-top catches and hit long shots over the fence, but in reality I was pretty awkward. I tried really hard, don’t mistake me, but my efforts usually produced boringly average results.

Even so, most of the time (except for the occasional bouts of ennui I experienced at softball practices) I loved being involved in the Willoughby Baseball League. For one thing, my brother was on a boys’ team during that same time, and I liked that we both had WBL uniforms, practices and games down at Todd Fields. I also loved having my family come to my games. If I close my eyes and really put myself back…in my uniform and mitt, hands on my knees in the outfield, sun on my back and feeling silly chanting “Hey, batter batter!”…I can still feel a little of that nervous aliveness that comes from performing in front of loved ones. That feeling that, even though you know they will tell you how well you did no matter what happens, you yearn to do something spectacular for them to see.

I don’t remember how many years I played in the league (these photos are from 1977 and 1978), but I do know that I gained a lot by being part of it. I learned to get along with a different group of girls than those I went to school with, to practice even when I didn’t feel like it, to care about contributing to the team’s success and to overcome my nervousness enough to play my part in that success. Yup, team sports can do all that!

I based this layout on the following PageMaps sketch from February and used papers from the BasicGrey “Oliver” 6×6 pad:

The PageMaps sketch I referenced while making this layout.

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