Saturday, March 5, 2011
And another layout
When I finally dragged myself out of bed this morning (Dobby wanted to snuggle and I was in no hurry to move him), I realized *horrors* that I am two classes behind on my scrapbooking class. So, after doing some work-related email, making myself presentable for the day, plotting out my dream mini-orchard and research dwarf fruit trees on the internet, I settled down and created this lovely shabby-chic layout for the new album I'm doing of my trip to the Czech Republic in 2007. Here it is:
Little Jaunt
We had a fun little over-nighter to Ogden recently and quite enjoyed ourselves.
Thursday afternoon we drove up to Ogden and stayed with Jeremiah's aunt Susan, uncle Doug and grandpa Doug. They were kind enough to take us to their favorite restaurant, Javier's, for some yummy Mexican food and put us up for the night, even though they were getting ready to leave on a cruise the next day.
On Friday morning, I got up early and drove to the last day of the USHA Conference (Utah Speech-Language and Hearing Association. I'm on the executive board--I do the newsletter and take pictures of events). I got to introduce one of my former (and favorite) teachers/clinical supervisors from graduate school, Nancy Alarcon, and listen on her great classes for the entire day before heading back to Susan and Doug's to help them get ready for their cruise (Jeremiah and I showed them how to prep their Flip and iPad for the trip). Then they were sweet enough to take us to Winger's for dinner before we left (it was my first experience there--pretty yummy but I wish I wasn't so stuffed from the conference food--we had bagels and fruit for breakfast, donuts for a mid-morning snack, roast with veggies for lunch and chips with salsa and guacamole for an afternoon snack). We got home at 10 to our cooped-up crazy cat and enjoyed settling into our wonderfully soft bed for the night. It was a nice 24-hours.
Thursday afternoon we drove up to Ogden and stayed with Jeremiah's aunt Susan, uncle Doug and grandpa Doug. They were kind enough to take us to their favorite restaurant, Javier's, for some yummy Mexican food and put us up for the night, even though they were getting ready to leave on a cruise the next day.
On Friday morning, I got up early and drove to the last day of the USHA Conference (Utah Speech-Language and Hearing Association. I'm on the executive board--I do the newsletter and take pictures of events). I got to introduce one of my former (and favorite) teachers/clinical supervisors from graduate school, Nancy Alarcon, and listen on her great classes for the entire day before heading back to Susan and Doug's to help them get ready for their cruise (Jeremiah and I showed them how to prep their Flip and iPad for the trip). Then they were sweet enough to take us to Winger's for dinner before we left (it was my first experience there--pretty yummy but I wish I wasn't so stuffed from the conference food--we had bagels and fruit for breakfast, donuts for a mid-morning snack, roast with veggies for lunch and chips with salsa and guacamole for an afternoon snack). We got home at 10 to our cooped-up crazy cat and enjoyed settling into our wonderfully soft bed for the night. It was a nice 24-hours.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Exciting News!
Well, sort of. I realized I forgot to post that my license FINALLY came through and I began working for TinyEYE Therapy Services yesterday morning. I spent the entire day working with a group of school children on the Louis Bull reservation in central Alberta. It was a tough day due to super slow internet speeds that kept freezing video and audio but we managed to get through everyone and it was really fun. I worked this morning at another school in Alberta (that thankfully had much faster internet so I only had to deal with a little audio lag, which was still a bit annoying because I ended up talking over the kids and aide a lot) but my afternoon school was cancelled due to a weather-related school closure (I guess that's what you get for living in Alberta). I'll be working fairly close to full time for the next few weeks as I make up sessions we lost with the kids while waiting for my license to come through, then it'll pare back to 15-20 hours a week until mid-to-late June. It's good to be working again but I do miss not having to use an alarm. :)
More My Style
This week's class is more my style, shabby chic. I decided to scrap our Valentine's photos (at least some of them, I will turn this layout into a double in the next few days). We had a fun Valentine's. We decided to keep it cheap so we went to the dollar theater to watch "Megamind" (but since it was in 3D there was an extra charge, plus I got our tickets online and the tickets aren't really a dollar any more for a normal movie so in the end it actually cost us $3.50 each but hey, that's still not bad), then we went to one of my most favorite restaurants ever--Zupa's! It is a wonderful soup-salad-panini place that if you are blessed to live in Utah, you may have been to. I got soup (lobster bisque, a good choice but next time I will follow my heart and get what I always get--wild mushroom bisque. Heaven!! When I'm feeling up to par, I like to do the combo with a chipotle chicken salad) and Jeremiah had a panini and berry salad. They always give you chocolate dipped strawberries for dessert so it was pretty much perfect!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Another lesson finished
Here is my latest layout from my scrapbooking class. It is considered the Freestyle Style, which is not my particular favorite but I enjoyed learning the different techniques. I decided to use some photos from my trip to the Czech Republic three and half years ago because I've been meaning to redo that album anyway (I discovered I vastly prefer the 12x12 format because pictures can be larger and you can add more journaling and that the photobooks from Costco can't compare in quality to Shutterfly or Blurb--I found the pictures very grainy--so this needs to get done over again).
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Arg!
So, during Christmas vacation I received a job offer from a company called TinyEye Therapy Services. They provide online speech therapy to rural school districts all around the country and world. I was offered a full-time contract with schools in Iowa, to begin at the end of January. Well that time of the month rolled around and I received a call from the president of the company letting me know that the schools in Iowa had lost their funding but that they would like me to take a contract in Alberta, Canada. Thus began the lovely process of attempting to get licensed so I could start work (this process began the first of February). Here's what they required:
1. Resume (normal, understandable)
2. Application (normal. $150 licensing fee a bit high. $650 mandatory dues for the Canadian association of SLPs absolutely outrageous. Thankfully I'm not paying them, the company is).
3. Letter from my district stating I've worked at least 1250 hours in the last 5 years (ok, kind of nit picky since I have sent them a resume with 8 years of experience).
4. Letter of recommendation from a former colleague (easy, it was just a form and I still have some good friends in the district).
5. Proof of $1 million in professional liability insurance from a Canadian company (that took several days to take care of).
6. Police background check (had to drive to Salt Lake to do it and got stuck in horrendous traffic so it took 4 hours total. The state office said they mailed it 2 weeks ago but it still hasn't made it to Canada. Maybe it's going by sled dog team).
7. Official transcript, certified letter of clinical hours and handout outlining my graduate program sent directly from my university (Even though I sent my request and check for $9 for the official transcript--which I think is a ripoff since it's just a piece of paper with an embossed stamp that took all of 1 minute to put together--they only sent an unofficial transcript, pocketing my $9 and requiring me to send them a tersely worded email requesting that they re-send the correct transcript as soon as possible).
8. My limited reserve of patience. Ok, it wasn't required, I just threw that in there for free.
Three weeks later, I'm still waiting to get licensed and start working. With my luck, it'll be granted just before spring break and then I'll get a whole 2 months of work in before they're out for the summer. Sheesh.
1. Resume (normal, understandable)
2. Application (normal. $150 licensing fee a bit high. $650 mandatory dues for the Canadian association of SLPs absolutely outrageous. Thankfully I'm not paying them, the company is).
3. Letter from my district stating I've worked at least 1250 hours in the last 5 years (ok, kind of nit picky since I have sent them a resume with 8 years of experience).
4. Letter of recommendation from a former colleague (easy, it was just a form and I still have some good friends in the district).
5. Proof of $1 million in professional liability insurance from a Canadian company (that took several days to take care of).
6. Police background check (had to drive to Salt Lake to do it and got stuck in horrendous traffic so it took 4 hours total. The state office said they mailed it 2 weeks ago but it still hasn't made it to Canada. Maybe it's going by sled dog team).
7. Official transcript, certified letter of clinical hours and handout outlining my graduate program sent directly from my university (Even though I sent my request and check for $9 for the official transcript--which I think is a ripoff since it's just a piece of paper with an embossed stamp that took all of 1 minute to put together--they only sent an unofficial transcript, pocketing my $9 and requiring me to send them a tersely worded email requesting that they re-send the correct transcript as soon as possible).
8. My limited reserve of patience. Ok, it wasn't required, I just threw that in there for free.
Three weeks later, I'm still waiting to get licensed and start working. With my luck, it'll be granted just before spring break and then I'll get a whole 2 months of work in before they're out for the summer. Sheesh.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
My Obsession
So, if you know me, you know I like digital scrapbooking a little. Ok, maybe I like it a lot. Alright, alright, I love it and I spend lots of time recording our lives in Photoshop.
Well, it doesn't help that Jessicasprague.com has fantastic classes that teach amazing techniques to make me want to do it even more. Or that my mom and mother-in-law actually listened to what I wanted for Christmas and gave me gift cards to her site so I could take her two advanced scrapbooking classes. My problem now is finding enough pictures to do something with (I hate scrapping a page that I'm not actually going to print into a book. It's a waste of time and who wants to do that?).
So, since I'm a lame blogger trying to be better, here are a few my latest layouts, courtesy of Jessica Sprague's Digi: In Deep and In Deeper classes. Check out her basic classes if you want to get started in this magnificent obsession. Some of the styles are not ones I would normally do but I wanted to practice the techniques that I will later carry over into my more graphic style.
Well, it doesn't help that Jessicasprague.com has fantastic classes that teach amazing techniques to make me want to do it even more. Or that my mom and mother-in-law actually listened to what I wanted for Christmas and gave me gift cards to her site so I could take her two advanced scrapbooking classes. My problem now is finding enough pictures to do something with (I hate scrapping a page that I'm not actually going to print into a book. It's a waste of time and who wants to do that?).
So, since I'm a lame blogger trying to be better, here are a few my latest layouts, courtesy of Jessica Sprague's Digi: In Deep and In Deeper classes. Check out her basic classes if you want to get started in this magnificent obsession. Some of the styles are not ones I would normally do but I wanted to practice the techniques that I will later carry over into my more graphic style.
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