national preservation week at the library of congress.

If you are interested in the digital issues I previously mentioned.... and you live in the Wash DC area, you might want to check this out! If I was closer I'd definitely be going! ------------ Pass It On: Personal Archiving Day at the Library of Congress May 10 Memories should last a lifetime and be passed on to future generations. Advice on how to safeguard precious digital and traditional photos, documents, recordings and more will be presented at Pass It On: Personal Archiving Day at the Library of Congress.

Library staff will discuss practical strategies for preserving personal collections from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Monday, May 10, in the Mumford Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. The event is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are needed.

The Library's preservation experts will talk directly with individuals about managing their materials in all formats-everything from e-mail to home movies to digital photographs and recorded sound. For security reasons, visitors are asked not to bring their collection materials to the Library; no appraisals will be provided. For information about visiting the Library, go to www.loc.gov/visit/.

Pass It On: Personal Archiving Day at the Library of Congress celebrates the first national Preservation Week (May 9-15),. It is sponsored by Library of Congress, the American Library Association (ALA), the Institute for Museum and Library Services and partner organizations. This joint initiative highlights libraries and other collecting institutions as good sources of preservation information.

The Library of Congress' Personal Archiving Day is co-sponsored by the Library's Office of Strategic Initiatives and Library Services.

=============

Photo: Library of Congress. From a tour I took while interning in DC. Photo by Trisa (Taylor) Robarge. July 1986.

A Digital Archive for 100 Years

I am redoing my resume into Librarian-Speak and thus, have been surfing around looking for alternate ways of conveying what those in Publishing-Land would understand but Librarians do not. While surfing I found a blog post where the writer talks about his idea to create a digital and paper archive of his family history, including documents, photos, and his own knowledge, in both paper and digital formats. In the post, he has numerous questions and he seeks opinions and answers.

This post really intrigued me, since it addresses a very important issue that I feel does not receive enough attention in the new craze for digital scrapbooking and photography -- digital migration.

This is a topic that has bothered me for some time, but every time I tried to write a blog post about it, it came across very negative and critical. The truth is, while I don't want to be the Angel of Gloom and Doom, I am very critical of how people in Internet Scrap-Land have pushed this issue.

For years it has bothered me to see so many of the big "names" in scrapbooking talking about and really pushing digital photography, and now digital scrapbooking. I realize it is because these particular scrapbookers treat scrapbooking as something they do now based on what they feel like doing now.

This is a wonderful attitude and I feel like I am always saying that myself. Scrapbooking is about who you are now, what is important to you now, how you see the world now. Like all art, it is a manifestation of the influences, beliefs and priorities of the artists (that's you) right now. Look back at a page you created in 2001 vs now and see how you have changed, how what is important to you has changed, since then.

However, in the comments to these blog posts and in posts I've seen around the Internet Scrap-Land, I have seen many woman talk about how they want to do something digital now for a baby, so that s/he can have these stories in 20 years. They do not seem to know (or perhaps understand) that what you do now digitally will not necessarily be accessible in 20 years. And it certainly won't if your only advice or support in this area comes from other scrapbookers, from what I have seen.

Digital scrapbookers can get very up in arms about the issue. Many of them do address these issues, as best they know how. I don't mean to suggest that every single scrapbooker who likes using digital templates is thoughtless or ignorant. And for many digital scrapbookers, they don't care much because they do embrace the now. Digital migration is not an issue for those scrapbookers.

Consider this article, which states:

In 1996, however, a special US Taskforce on Digital Archiving3 drew the world's attention to the alarming fact that owing to ongoing technological change and the rapidity with which technologies now grow obsolescent, a vast amount of digitally generated information is effectively vanishing.

And that was in 1996.

If you will continue reading the page, you will see discussion of the British Domesday Project, a digitization project carried out by professionals, over the course of several years, at a cost of $3.75 million, with the intent of creating a permanent digital archive. And was it permanent? Heck, no. Even with an investment of $3.75 million, professionals could not find a way to make this project last more that 10-15 years.

How then does the lowly scrapbooker address this issue?

This is one of the reasons I like Stacy's Library of Memories. First, Stacy consistently advocates the importance of printing out your photos. No matter what happens in technology, no matter what happens to your computer, if you print out those photos and have them in binders or in drawers, people can always access those photos, and you don't need electricity, an internet connection, or a computer to do so. This year many digital scrapbookers have pushed back against that advice, constantly refusing to accept the idea that printing out is necessary. Because they are DIGITAL ONLY, thus printing photos is irrelevant. In the face of this resistance, Stacy has stood firm. Printing out even 10% of your digital photos is a worthwhile and even necessary investment.

While Stacy advocates the printing as an important aspect of scrapbooking inspiration, there is a larger issue there, one I have seen her try to address without really having the language to do so. Stacy understands intuitively that there is a difference between analog and digital information. Analog used to only mean a type of audio file, but more recently it has been used to describe any kind of non-digital information resource. This includes photos and print resources like books. One of the big differences between the two is that digital information requires a filter or translator, and analog does not. As a human with two working eyes, I can physically pick up an analog photograph, view it, and interact with it directly. I know how to read so I may pick up any book off the shelf, open it to any page, and read it for myself with my own eyes.

However, digital information requires a mediator -- that being, the hardware or computer system and the screen, and the software used to translate the data. Humans need these intervening mediators to interact with and comprehend digital data. You need a computer, with a screen, and a piece of software to view every single digital photo you take. And you need same to interact with and view digital scrapbook pages.

The ways that humans interact with, view, and interpret analog vs digital resources is different. It is different. If you prefer one or the other, then enjoy. But the attitude in Internet Scrap-land is that these are the same essentially, with one option just being done on computer and one not. They are not equivalent. One requires a mediator and that mediating force has an effect on what the human perceives and understands.

Stacy also has always advocated creating a digital archive and a digital back up, and she distinguishes between the two. So many people who have fully immersed themselves in digital land do not seem to understand the difference and the need for both. I feel if you are going to embrace the digital thing so closely that you resist the advice to print out physical photos, that is fine, but then you also should know enough about it to know the difference between a backup and an archive, and know which one you have.

I was also very happy this year that we have had a digital-only coach in the LOM class with whom I could discuss my concerns about digital migration, someone to whom these concepts are not foreign or irrelevant. But when I posted my concerns, it was like an alien from Mars came and plopped into the middle of a party like a wet blanket.

If you enjoy digital scrapbooking -- and it is a fantastic option for many many reasons -- I am not saying, don't do it. What I am saying is, recognize it as a solution today for your life today. I resisted digital photography for many years, but now I am wholly digital, and I do enjoy it and it does solve problems I had with film format. However other issues came along with that switch. In order to make sure my work with my digital files is still valid and usable by more people than myself, and for the future, there is work involved. This is work that I do, and regularly.

There is a difference between a lo-res 72 dpi graphic you find on the internet and a high quality, hi-res graphic you create yourself. There is a difference between what can be seen on your screen and what you can print out. Just because a file format can be read today is no guarantee you will be able to read it tomorrow. I have Illustrator files I created in 1998 that, until this month, I have been unable to access. I have files I carefully saved on zip disks and backed up, for years... only the coupling for those older drives is not USB, the standard today. I have lost files due to hardware and software changes. I have gone to events where I forgot my camera and someone took a great photo and promised they would share it with me... then I got it and they had cropped it tight and kept it at 72 dpi. Looks great on Facebook but can I print that out? Can I blow it up? Can I use it how I want to? No. All I can do is view it on Facebook. I have officiated at weddings where I handed my camera to an assistant (I always bring my own... assistant as well as camera) and told her to document the whole thing even though there was an official photographer, and then had the bride asking me for my photos because the official photographer messed up, everything is blurry, or accidentally lost or erased the digital files.

So it bothers me when I see the big push towards digital scrapbooking (and digital photography) without commensurate discussion that this is an option now for what you want NOW, but if you want now to extend 10, 20, or more years, there is more you need to know and think about.

If you go looking at houses to buy with your new husband and you decide to buy a lovely 2 bedroom cottage, understand that if you plan to have 3-4 children, that house is going to be a problem. You will end up having to invest money in expanding the house, and can you even do that? What if you physically cannot? Financially cannot? Or you will have to upgrade to another house entirely in a few years (more money and trouble), making this house a temporary option only. Or you might end up stuck in that cute little house and then either have to decide to give up your plans of more than one child, or you will severely lose privacy and other living options as your family grows.

My irritation: Any realtor who pushes that cute little house on you without asking you about your future needs is not a good realtor at all. Realtors are selling something. And most of the people pushing digital scrapbooking are also selling something. Are these people really concerned with your future needs? No.

The very short answer to all this is, in my own opinion: print your photos and store them still, and print your scrapbook pages and put them into albums. Understand that without an investment of further time and money those print outs may be all you have in 10, 20, or more years. Just understand that now, and make your choices with eyes open. Don't be surprised by it. Understand you are digitally scrapbooking because it is a hobby you enjoy now, not because you are really preserving for the future unless you take steps to ensure that.

So back to the blog post. My comment has not appeared and I am not sure it will. But I did address some of these issues. (I also adjusted the text a bit since I was very quickly writing out just a comment, then.)

================

I found this post as I was surfing and looking for info on digital archiving. I thought I might address your queries. I have worked in digital file archiving for over 10 years. Before that I worked in museum archives, and right now I am getting a Masters in library/information sciences focusing on digital archives. Last semester I did a research project on Project Gutenberg, an organization that is utterly focused on digital migration for future access, and the source of the first ever e-book, created in 1971. You might want to look into them; there is a lot of good info on their site as well.

So here is my opinion, take it as you will. First, I would say there is no way for you to ensure that whatever digital work you do now will still be accessible as-is in 100 years. It may not be accessible in 10 years, with the rate of digital migration. Professionals know that digital archives must be migrated to new formats and new structures as technology advances. It is the way of things and no one yet has discovered a way to overcome that reality. It will be up to you and your heirs to continue to move your archives forward in keeping with technology.

As a long time scrapbooker I can also tell you there is no way to be 100% sure that your paper archive will also be usable in whatever format you choose now, in 100 years. Printing on acid free paper and storing in museum quality boxes is one really great step to take. You also have to be aware of ink properties. Last I checked, Epson did guarantee their printer inks to last for 80 years with proper care of documents. You just have to do the best you can and hope that your descendants find your work valuable enough to maintain it.

Q: Should I scan photos to jpg or tiff? The massive size of a tiff file feels ugly to me, but that size difference will be meaningless in 30 years...

Right now the main differences between those formats involve compression and file sharing. JPGs are compressed files. TIFFs contain the most digital information. For me, scanning family photos from the 1930s, I chose JPGs at the highest quality, even though they are compressed. I chose this because JPGs can be shared online. I can email them, I can upload them to an online archive, I can share them now with the most people, and I can have the images reprinted as well. When working in print production, I always scanned art as hi-res (high resolution) TIFFs because printing presses will only take TIFFs, no JPGs. TIFFs are much higher quality. However, using the JPG format, I get around the compression by scanning the most important images/photos at a very hi-res -- 600 to 800 dpi (dots per inch). Therefore, even though these files, are compressed they still contian a large amount of data.

Q: Should documents be scanned to PDF? ...Will PDF be readable in 100 years?

In my opinion -- No. I scan my documents as TIFF files, simply because when it comes to handwriting, printing, text, etc, the TIFF captures more detail. In future, your heirs may have access to OCR scanners that can read your TIFFs and create editable documents from them. With my TIFFs, I then create PDFs for the purpose of sharing with others. I keep both types of files (or share the PDFs and delete them if I need space), but given the choice, I would keep a TIFF and create a PDF as necessary from the TIFF. You cannot go the other way, you cannot turn a PDF into a better quality file. And will PDFs be readable? No way to tell. No way to tell that TIFFS will be readable either. But right now PDFs are more sharable, while TIFFs capture more data.

Q: Metadata: how do I describe every document?

There is a set of metadata standards used by all librarians (well pretty much, I'm fudging for brevity) called Dublin Core. Within Dublin there are 15 standards which are the very basic, most important. You can Google to find out what they are and adapt them for your use. The positive of using Dublin Core is that for the next several decades at least there will always be people in the world who use it. The negative is, it may not work for your personal needs.

Q: My naive idea is to create an ASCII text file (probably still readable in 100 years!) which lists each file included in the archive by name, and explains the context and signficance of each. The same document would probably include a basic biography of each family member.

I think this is a great idea. Michael S. Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, decided in the 1970s to use what is called plain vanilla ASCII for every e-book in Project Gutenberg, because back then he knew this was the format that would continue to be readable and accessible by the most people no matter what hardware or software they use. Currently Project Gutenberg does create more browser friendly formats, but those are in addition to the plain vanilla ASCII files of every single e-book.

The sad thing I have had to learn as a scrapbooker is this: just because I think something is important now doesn't mean my descendants will find it equally as important in 100 years. So you have to tell the stories that are important to you now, using what you have now, and leave it to them to continue to care for and find valuable what you have done. I have gone to so many estate sales where I have seen large scrapbooks some woman made over the course of decades, and they are for sale to strangers for a few dollars, because there were no descendants who found what she preserved to be relevant or worth keeping.

So do the best you can and leave what you have for the future, and consider you will have to migrate and redo things on a regular basis. But what you are doing is important. I wish so so much my grandparents had written on their photos who these people were, even a name or a date would have helped. But they didn't and now they are gone and no one is left to tell me why these photos are important. And *I* would have wanted to know.

==========

So yes, this was supposed to be a short reposting, but I have had a lot to say, and I've been thinking about this topic for a couple years now. I don't know everything about the topic. And I feel like I need to keep saying this: scrapbooking is a fun hobby with a lot of value, and you (anyone) should do what you like, because you enjoy it, in a way that works for you. Just keep in mind that it is not really about what will be preserved 20 years down the road. It's about what you want to do now.

national library week.

It has been a busy National Library Week so far!

Last weekend I went to a kickoff of National Library Week hosted by the Chicago Deskset. This week our campus library has been holding raffles every day and giving away stuff.

Today was my program for National Library Week, entitled What's Behind Your Library Funding? I booked a speaker to come to campus, got the student chapter of the ALA (LISSA) and the library itself to co-sponsor, promoted the event via email, blog posts and flyers, went through training to video the whole thing, and more.

I am exhausted! However it went really well. We got about 15 people, which is a good turnout for this sort of event. We had a 30 minute talk on public finance models, how tax cycles affect public libraries, and why librarians and library students need to know where the money comes from. Then we had 30 minutes of discussion. We had handouts, we had cookies, people were taking notes. It was great!

After the talk itself was over, people still hung around to chat and network for quite a while while I cleaned up.

This event was also my Leadership Vision Project, a final project for my Leadership class. It has been immensely stressful. Helping out with someone else's idea is fun and easy. Coming up with an idea yourself, pitching it to organizations and stakeholders, advocating for your idea, getting people on board, getting approval for every step along the way, juggling all the details -- it's very hard!

Now I get to write a paper on the whole experience and hand it in. whew.

================

Photo: Stephanie Carlile of the Northlake Public Library. "What's Behind Your Library Funding." Dominican University. April 2010. Taken by me.

librarian fun + letterboxing.

Saturday was a Big Day in da Big City. I came home at midnight so sore, tired, and exhausted but I had a great time!

Chicago Deskset
First I went to an event sponsored by a new librarian organization in Chi-town. I drove 90 minutes to Lincoln Square for the first ever Chicago Deskset event!

The Chicago Deskset is a new organization (spinoff of the well established New York Deskset) of librarians, information professionals, bibliophiles and friends (that means, yes you are welcome to join us) who get together for socializing, charity events, professional development and more. The Chicago DS event was held at Grafton's, a pub in Lincoln Square.

It was a g o r g e o u s Chicago spring day and I found parking right on the block (SCORE). The front of the pub was rather quiet and chill, Sat afternoon and all but I went in the back room and it was JAM PACKED with librarians and book lovers.

Luckily I saw some people I knew to chat with, met some people they knew, went to the bar for a beer (it was a Belgian Abbey Ale in a custom glass and I really wish I had taken a picture of it, but this guy I was talking to was making me laugh so I didn't want to fish out my camera), hung out with more people.

The Deskset had some door prizes, including a gift certificate to the Unabridged Bookstore in Lakeview, and a book and pin set from IFA, so they made some announcements and thanked everyone for coming. Everyone who donated a book got a raffle ticket. One of the winners was the number after mine -- rats! The Deskset reports that over 100 people attended and they collected 350 books, which will be donated to Chicago-area juvenile detention centers.

As I was hanging out outside, trying to get a signal on my phone (The Grafton's historic tin roof does not play nice with cell phones) a group of people walking out paused and asked me "So, is this a book club meeting?!!?" To which I replied that this was the kickoff event for the new Chicago Deskset, and it was a book drive for incarcerated youth, and they were welcome to get involved in the next one, just google Chicago Deskset.

ahhhhhh they said. Wow, really??? These are all librarians??? They all seemed impressed. When I returned to my table and shared the conversation, we all kind of laughed and one of us said dryly, that sure sounds more impressive than we just wanted to clean off our bookshelves and drink some beer.

Chicago Letterboxing!
After beer and books, the day's fun was not over. I was off to meet my pal Amelia and search for 5 letterboxes hidden in and around THE ALLEY, a Chicago institution. I love the store and this area, but parking is a real bear so I don't get down here as often as I used to. Still the creativity and vibrancy of the area is a big draw.

We had a great time shopping, hunting letterboxes and collecting stamps, eating ice cream, taking the longest walk of my entire life (I counted and is was 46 blocks by the time we were done!) and checking out the used vinyl at Reckless Records. Also included: junkies I almost ran over with my car, excellent parking, and pizza slices bigger than my head.

All in all a fantastic day in the best city in the world.

===============

Photo 1: Chicago Deskset sign at Grafton Pub. Chicago, IL. Taken by me. April 2010.

Photo 2: The Alley. Chicago, IL. Taken by me. April 2010.

Hooray for Good Hair

Getting a good hair cut is a rare experience for me. Even if I can get the cut close to what I want I always seem to end up in places with atrocious service. One of my huge pet peeves is when I go somewhere for a hair cut, manicure, etc and the staff tries to point out all my flaws and make me feel insecure so I will purchase a more expensive option. One example of this is going for a a cut and having the stylist comment on my gray hair and ask me if I have ever colored my hair. And if I do color my hair, and it comes out I do it myself, well that is terrible, so low rent, I need to get it done professionally. Oh I hate that.

So I stopped in this salon on a whim last night (really just to pet the two adorable mini dogs in there that barked at me as I went by the window) and it was the best hair cut experience of my life!

AND, just as important! They (for 2 ladies worked on me) did a fantastic job!


{when I try and look hungry and pissed off like a super model, I end up looking confused -- ain't that just how it goes?}

I woke up this morning and I had wash and go hair. It still looks fantastic!

The place is Preferred Salon in Hoffman Estates, and I wish I had known of this place about eight years ago. They do not have a website but I made sure to write a glowing review of the place when I looked for them in the online yellow pages.

I would absolutely trust this place with color or any other process. They also do waxing and I might add, they never ever mentioned this service to me. Outstanding!

Feeling Pretty Stupid Right Now

For the past 2 weeks I have had this assignment due in the one class I've been blowing off all term. I don't WANT to blow it off! I really want to learn this stuff! But my other class OMG it is so stressful. Assignments and papers due every single week. A big group project we've had to work on in class. A big final project which, every time I turn around, requires something more and something complicated.

Just in the past 2 days I've had to:
- write up copy for a flyer and email ad
- write up specs for the flyer design and send with attached art to the designer
- follow up to be sure it was received
- be told the designer has no time
- drop everything and DESIGN the FLYER myself
- create an email advertisement with the copy
- contact the person who sends these out and ask her how should I handle it
- send her the copy
- wait while she got approval from one other person
- f i n a l l y get some promotion out there (nice to do all the planning but no one shows up)
- email everyone I work with to please please take my work shift next week since it conflicts with the program I am doing, and no one can do it
- email my boss to apologize and say I just can't work that time period and what should I do
- have the flyer design approved by 3 people
- find a way to actually get the flyer printed
- be told to be sure and drop off extra copies at so-and-so's secretary
- email someone else to ask about posting the event to the association blog
- and also to discuss the process of putting the flyers UP
- I guess I was supposed to get them to the Dean's office for posting approval but at this point I might skip that part
- make appointment with IT Dept to go over the A/V set up to make a podcast of the speaker

and it just goes on and on and on.

Which is why every time I sat down to do this homework, I would end up not doing it as I spent the time instead addressing the 1000 details of this ONE event, and on top of which I also have a group project for this class too so I have been working with my group, doing my part, trying to coordinate all the tasks, etc.

So the reason I am stupid is bc this whole assignment due now in um... 8 hrs seemed so hard to me. It is for an html class and we are learning CSS, the part of markup I have never learned. And I looked at the assignment sheet many times and all I saw was to do styles. Well he has been going over classes for styles so I had in my head I had to figure out how to do classes. This seemed very complicated to me. I mean I understand them in theory. But actually writing them and setting them up seemed very challenging.

I should explain, I come from an InDesign background. With InDesign, I have my text and I style it. Or an object. I style it. I select the text or object and I play around with fonts, colors, leading, spacing, orientation using various buttons and menus. Every change I make, I see as I do it, or I undo it. When the item looks how I like, I then can click on it a special way to "Create Style" and voila, the style is created. Then I can give it a name and I am done. I don't have to know in advance I am making this text Adobe Garamond 16 pts over 18 pts leading in dark red with 3p6 space before. I just select the various options and make it look right and the program keeps track, then saves it as a style, which I then name.

With html and css, I have to know in advance in my head that I want Adobe Garamond 16 pts in dark red with space before, and type all that in, and then look at it to see if it's right. I can't just select a line of type, and then choose various fonts from a menu and see how they look until I like one. I have to type in the names of the fonts to change them and see how it's affected. It is a completely different brain function and I find it hard to do.

Anyway tonight I also had to work and my boss had me working on this really complicated Google Maps thing, complicated because he did not know how to do it, i just had to figure it out. And every time I would follow directions online, it would not work or be messed up and I Have no idea why. Tonight I finally figured out a big chunk of it so I spent my work night finishing that up (now I know how to create a map and customize it) and I worked on it after I left the reference desk (oh ya I am also answering reference questions as I do this). So I finally sat down after midnight to look with dread at this pile of sample markup I have and try to connect the class style sheets to the html markup and getting all confused.

See it would have been much easier if I had just read and comprehended the directions, but I did not. I read them but I just kept associating the directions with "make a class style sheet, which is too hard."

After I sat in desperation with my textbook and read maybe 3 pages of it that I was supposed to have read many moons ago and didn't... I realized he was asking for a much much simpler task.

When I realized that I did it in maybe an hour. Too bad I realized it at 3:30 am.

Now it is 4:30 am and I have a meeting here with the IT guys at 11:00 am and then class at 1:00 pm to turn this in.

If I leave in 10 minutes I should get home and get like 4 hrs sleep if i am lucky.

All could have been avoided if I could have just UNDERSTOOD THE DIRECTIONS and seen how easy it was. Two weeks of stress, avoided!

I write this out as a big reminder bc I have not done hardly any work on the giant final project (my website) which is due in um... 3 weeks? Because it seems too complicated. It is not, I just don't know how to do it.

Have I ever mentioned that I really really really hate "figuring things out" especially technical things? I hate mysteries and puzzles and riddles. Hate them hate them. I hate "playing around" to learn things. Hate it so much.

this is the life of the baby Librarian.

Wearing Nice Underwear

So I had this whole story I wrote and then I deleted it because I do not need to tell the Internetz about my underthings.

I will just say that today is laundry day and I was desperate so I broke out some items I had not worn since a break up some time ago.

I am feeling very fancy for a night of doing homework and laundry. Odd.

Happy Easter

So we had a pretty rockin' Easter here even with the thunder and lightening storms. My sister and BIL hosted, my other sister came up with her family (BABY TUMMY KISSES!!!), Mom and Pops were here, my brother and his family, and more.

Shades of my childhood, filling plastic Easter eggs with money and hiding them around the house. My older nephew is so lucky since he did not have to compete with other children to try and score all the eggs. Unlike his auntie who had to trudge 6 miles one way uphill in the snow barefoot to find an egg, only to have her mean brother kick her in the shins and steal the good ones out from under her nose.



I hid them all over and we worried maybe he might miss one but nope, he was on the hunt.



In fact, one egg I forgot to fill, and when he opened it and it was empty, oh the indignant look on his face! I was trying to apologize when my brother yelled APRIL FOOLS and everyone cracked up. I guess my nephew has really been getting into playing pranks lately but this one was on him.

I don't care at all this picture is blurry and off color. This child does.not.like. his picture taken, not at all. The fact that I got him to agree to this picture while he was dancing around with the dollar he found makes this shot a winner in my eyes!


{a dollar! oh boy!}

I don't have an SLR and very active children + no flash = lots of blurry pictures. My best shots were stills of the food.


{blessed rye and rainbow bread}

My mom came out with the bowl of cucumbers and sour cream and I said "I hope you saved me some plain cucumbers without that nasty sour cream on them, Mom" and she did! I got a whole bowl to myself. Shades of childhood, thanks mom.


{cheese pierogies, lamb butter, nasty Polish cucumber salad}

This next picture is so funny to me. Most Polish people eat pierogi with sour cream and that is what my sister had, a giant tub. But when it's cheese pierogi, my brother and I, especially, want apple sauce. So my sister was digging around looking for apple sauce and she found this one sad little single serving of apple sauce and put it out. So my brother and I were just eyeballing that little cup and each other, like don't even think about it, that sauce is MINE.


{giant tub of sour cream, sad little cup of precious apple sauce, bigos which is hunters stew, Peche Lambic which is peach beer from Belgium}

We solved that problem -- my sister who was visiting (with the baby) left an Easter gift at her in laws, about 15 min away, so she went back to get it. And we called her on the way and said, hey can you get some apple sauce, and she was like FINE (heavy sigh). Then she had to find some place that was open that carried apple sauce, on Easter, it was all a trauma. She found one store and all she could talk about later was the skeevy guys giving her the eye (she was dressed up, hot mama) when she went in there and how we better eat the damn apple sauce. And in the end the little cup was enough for us, but you bet we were eating the big jar of "government apple sauce", as she called it.

That Lambic was a challenge too, I have been looking everywhere for that stuff ever since I had it at a party in January. But I thought it was sparkling wine and did not have the name of it. I kept going to liquor stores and trying to see if someone would figure out what it was but no luck. I went to four places! Finally I just asked the party hostess the name, then on Thurs I was taking no chances! I sat in the car at Binny's and Googled to find a photo of the bottle, then marched in and said "Do you have THIS" and showed the picture. Yep! 2 seconds later I had the Peche and also the raspberry one.

And after all that it looked like I might not get any, anyway. My BIL, no slouch with a wine bottle, ended up with a broken cork AND a broken corkscrew trying to get it open. This illustration cracks me up:



because my camera makes it look like he was really working it to get it open and the look on my mom's face is so soooo distressed, like OH NOES NOT THE PEACH BEER! And she is not a drinker at all so I've no idea why she looked like that but it makes me laugh.

However the STAR of the show was this adorable baby in his seersucker suit and matching bow tie!





It was hard to get a good pic of him, he was squirmy and did not like his suit. My mom had a talking egg and when you pressed the button giggled and said things like "I'm hiding!!!" and "Come find meeee!" Billy loved that egg, he is holding it and smiling when it talked to him. All the pictures with me sans talking egg, he looks distressed. But I think the Grandma pictures are more important anyway.

Once we got him into his casual clothes and he was playing on the floor with his big cousin he was a happier baby! I love these shots of them playing and interacting.






{cute boys wishing you a happy bunny day!}

It was a lovely party.

So Lucky

I am so lucky for:

coffee cake, the smells of spring, daffodils in bloom, rainy skies, a place to park, two cute nephews, a new-to-me computer, fresh shaved legs, Chanel No. 5, Outfield song on the radio, group project finished, sleeping late, kissing a baby tummy and hearing giggles, hearing "i love you", my family all around me, hugs and kisses, being able to breathe, American citizenship, dr. pepper, car that runs, a wrist that is strong, friends to birthday shop for, being able to read, being able to dance, being able to sing, being able to learn, modern technology, blogs, books, movies, TV shows on DVD, libraries, having a paycheck.

How about you?