There’s nothing quite like the Bellagio. She stands back from the hustle and bustle of the Strip, protected by the waving arms of her fountains. When you step into her looby, which by the way, is free of gaming tables, the Chihullys on the ceiling let you know you’ve enter the Queen of the Strip.
We were in a bit of a hurry, not only to make it in time for the Cirque du Soleil show, but we had friends who’d arrived in Las Vegas for a trip of their own and had tickets to O at the same time we did. We made our way to the theater and by luck ran right into them. The show was starting in minutes and Kathi needed to potty, so we hugged and promised to meet up after the show.
Café Gelato
This should have been a signal to slow down, right. We were at the theater and the doors were open. We should go claim our seats, right? Au contrare!! I had earned a bogo award from My Vegas Slots for Cafe Gelato. That’s one award Bill wasn’t going to go unredeemed!
So we hustled off down the cavernous halls of the Bellagio to find Café Gelato. It was a beautiful place in the style of an old fashioned ice cream shop. They weren’t overrun with patrons, but it wasn’t exactly empty, either. I stood on one foot and then the other, wishing the dipper lady would dip a little faster. Our turn came and she dipped us servings of stracciatella. I’m not big on gelato, so Bill laid claim to both servings. I did have a few bites and they were wondrous.
It was past time to hoof it back to the theater. We zoomed into our seats and finished up our gelatos. The Main Event was about to begin.
O by Cirque du Soleil
If you’ve never gone to a Cirque du Soleil show, then you are missing out on a treat. They do not begin with the curtain going up. Instead you notice strange creatures wandering throughout the auditorium. Some interact with the audience. Others act out little vignettes with fellow cast members.
Eventually work their way to the stage where more of the cast file out across the apron. Suddenly, you realize the lights have gone all the way down and you realize the show actually began when the first cast member appeared in the audience.
Once, during a show in Dallas, Bill was drawn out of audience onto the stage and coerced to ride a bike during the warm up, but this time we strategically chose to sit somewhere out of the limelight. We also knew better than to sit down front where we’d get wet.
There is usually a strange sort of plot that loosely weaves the activity together, but don’t expect to understand exactly what it is, because nary a word is spoken and odd things will occur on the stage. You’ll understand who the main character is, but you’ll also understand they are confused as you are.
If all that sounds a bit weird, don’t worry. You’ll spend the entire show so mesmerized by the acrobatic and aquatic antics of the strangely costumed players on the fantastical stage sets, that the plot doesn’t really matter. The earliest Cirque shows did not have water. They kept their audience agog with acrobatics and costuming. With O, they added the water element and it was so well received they’ve figured out ways to include it in shows, even when they don’t have access to the amazing stage at the Bellagio.
There’s no way to fully explain the drama added by the water element. One moment the stage is just that, a traditional stage with oddly costumed characters cavorting on it. Then in the blink of an eye, characters are diving into the water from great heights or the stage itself will tilt up and somehow the characters are fighting a battle all atilt. I’m always exhausted when it’s all over, but that never keeps us from enjoying the show, wherever we happen to go to it.
Our big night at the Bellagio wasn’t over with the curtain call. Come back next week for more fun at the amazing resort.
TRAVEL HERE – THIRD WEEKEND IN NOVEMBER & AUTUMN IS DEFINATELY HERE
I hope you and your family had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration yesterday. While last weekend was fairly busy, there’s not a lot that will be interesting to you. However, we did try out a new restaurant on Thursday and on Friday I did have one thing worth mentioning.
Finally Four Winds
So, shortly after we moved to the Rockwall area, we started hearing about a steak restaurant called Four Winds in Wills Point. We also heard that to get a reservation there, you needed to book a month in advance and you’d still be lucky to get in. We’re fairly spontaneous about our dining out and steak is something we usually cook at home, so even though folks raved about the food, we had not made any serious attempt to go.
Still, we kept hearing about it, so we’d begun to look for a reason to make a reservation and go. That’s when one of those people who want to sell you annuities sent us an invitation for a free meal at Four Winds in exchange for listening to her presentation.
I’m warning all of you people who offer up time shares, vacation clubs and financial plans, Bill and I are very good at ‘no thank you’. We actually consider the presentations a sort of entertainment and feel no compunction at leaving without setting an appointment or buying any thing at all. Remember, you contacted us. We didn’t come looking for you.
A free dinner at one of the most popular restaurants in the area? That’s a no brainer. I won’t waste your time with the annuity bit, but I will tell you Four Winds made listening to the spiel worthwhile. Both of our steaks were noteworthy and the side dishes were good too. I’m sure we’ll find a reason to go back and we won’t even mind paying for it ourselves!
Wine, Women & Wealth
One of my dear friends, Susan Bennett-White is a financial consultant. She handles all kinds of things from a program to save you money on the things you buy every day, to being able to help you get your finances in order to buy that house you want or even what kind of life insurance you need. Once a month she has a program directed at educating women, which as a group are generally underserved in the financial arena. It’s called Wine, Women & Wealth.
Besides being a good educational vehicle for women concerning their personal finances, it’s also a great networking event – that’s why I’m there. The meal is free, the event is fun and while it’s obvious Susan would love to have your business, there is never any pressure to buy, from Susan or from the various businesses – one of which is spotlighted each month. Just so happens this month, my memory keeping business was the spotlight.
So, in the photo above you see me, begging people to turn their mess over to me and let me turn it into memories they can share with pride. We’re at Alfredo’s Steakhouse in Forney, TX. Since I go there once a week for FANG, Forney Area Networking Group (Networking you can sink your teeth into) once a week and then once a month for Wine, Women and Wealth, it just might be the restaurant I go to most frequently, but even though it’s a steak house, all I ever get is breakfast, a salad or a sandwich.
I’d love to connect you with Susan and her monthly free lunch and networking event, so just let me know if you’d like to be invited next month.
Wedding Bells and Sunday School
The only other place I went this past weekend was church and I went twice. One of the sweetest girls in my church married the love of her life there on Saturday. It was a very tender event. Then, of course, on Sunday morning I got up and went to church. I happened to be the greeter, which meant I froze my patookus off, there in the breezeway of Rockwall Bible Church.
Otherwise, I took care of a few real estate photography clients, designed and ordered my company Christmas cards, finished a digital photobook and ordered it, started another one and tried to deliver a pair of scrapbooks I had finished, but my client got caught up at the mall. Not very exciting, huh?
I actually was away from the house for less than half an hour, because my client caught me before I got too far, but when I got home all hell had broken loose. My husband had decided to build a few shelves in the attic, for which I am sincerely grateful, but many of my “treasures” (translated that means “free tote bags” were in danger, because he wanted to “organize” (translated that means “dispose of”) them.
And really, that’s it! Next up, learn about Las Vegas’ High Roller Ferris Wheel and then on Thursday, we’ll be talking about the digital side of my memory keeping business.
Without air and accommodations to pay for, our big spend for Vegas was O by Cirque du Soleil at Bellagio, but we had other things to do before the show!
First up, the High Roller! I’d felt so wise when I bought a Big Bus package with two days of Hop Off/Hop On, the Night Tour and the High Roller. Well, you know how the Hop On/Hop Off went and I was too exhausted to do the Night Tour, so I wasn’t expecting much from the High Roller. I figured it was money down the drain.
We were all gussied up for our evening at the Bellagio when we arrived at the High Roller ticket office. We were dismayed to find their lobby chock full of people, standing in a line that snaked back and forth for several layers. What was worse was that there was no short line for people like us who had already paid and just needed to pick their tickets. We had to stand in line FOREVER with people who just happened by – people and their 47 kids. This was the biggest crowd we’d seen so far in Sin City.
I was not happy and my expectations were not being met. We’d allowed what should have been plenty of time with a will-call receipt, but the cookie was not crumbling our way. I was anxious as we creeped along towards the cashiers, hoping our package deal wasn’t going to ruin our big night out. We got our admission passes at the last possible moment, just before we had to walk away, and the wheel was about to turn, so we hotfooted it up the stairs and into our High Roller gondola.
Now truth be told, I would never have signed up for the High Roller on my own, but it was part of the package and I thought Bill might like it. Being somewhat acrophobic I don’t go around looking for high wire experiences, so with the exception of the Texas Star at the State Fair of Texas, I haven’t been on any of these new fangled Ferris wheels which are popping up all over the place.
I edged to the middle of the gondola, found a place to perch and held on for dear life. Bill, of course, stood with his nose inches from the glass. Despite my fears it was quite a lovely experience. Thank goodness we’d scored a gondola without any rowdy kids, so it was actually serene as we were pulled up into the sky.
We’d come at twilight, when the lights of the big city had just begun to twinkle, but there was still a little light in the sky. When the ride was over, it was full dark. We’d timed it just right.
As soon as we hit the ground, the serenity disappeared. It was almost time for O! I trotted across the Linq and down the Strip as fast as my kitten-heled black peau de soie slides would allow.
Come back next week for our Big Night at the Bellagio!
One nice tradition for the women of my church is the Sweet Sixteen Tea held for our young ladies on that special birthday. In the past, the events have been held at the church, but this time, the location was moved to a member’s home who lives out in the rural area between Heath and Forney. She’s been doing a lot of remodeling and she was thrilled for an occasion to share it with her sisters.
Since my house is theoretically on the way to the hostess’ house, my bestie planned on picking me up. I say theoretically, because we didn’t count on the traffic and wrecks she’d encounter getting from her dance lesson to my house. Good old Wayz kept rerouting her and when she told me she was being sent to Hwy 80, I knew she would have been better off going directly to the tea. At that point, she would have had to stop and input the address of Victoria’s house into Wayz. So she came on to my house and we went together, as planned and we ended up being only about 10 minutes late.
The tea was lovely. We played some game which combines, among other things, Charades and Password, using words which were particular to the honoree. It was a lot of fun, mostly because there were so many delightful young ladies, who knew the honoree well and played the game often among themselves. I was reluctant to join in the timed game, because the timing thing flusters me, but by the final round, where we could only use 1 one-word clue, we’d already gone through the words twice, so I figured I didn’t need to be too clever. Then the honoree opened up her gifts and she was very thrilled with each and every item.
After the Tea, it was nearing dinner time, so we decided to pick up something to take to my house and share with Bill. Deb wanted BBQ, so even though Bill and I had been to a Dickey’s just a few days before, that’s where we went. Can any Texan get tired of BBQ or Tex Mex? It hasn’t happened to me yet. We enjoyed a feast of ribs, okra and slaw. Then we settled down in the den to look at scrapbook albums two and three I’d just finished for a client.
Sunday Starts Quietly, Too
I finished up my latest scrapbooking client’s albums early on Saturday, so before the tea and Sunday before and after church, I begun to prepare for a presentation I’m doing Friday – this Friday and if you’re reading this the day it is published, that’s today. It’s only a brief spotlight, so the primary impact will be the door prize and samples I give away. I spent the time packaging the mini-album samples and getting contact stickers on the catalogs I’d just received.
This will be the second spotlight I am doing for this group, but the first one was a couple of years ago when I still had not figured out most people just don’t have or won’t make time for memory keeping. Now the focus of my scrapbooking business is creating custom albums for them. I’m happier, because I never loved selling scrapbooking supplies, but I love scrapbooking! When I get a new client, that means I get to scrapbook more and someone is going to pay me for what I love doing.
A Paradigm Shift
Let’s face it. Dallas is expensive. When we lived in the small community of Pismo Beach, on the Central Coast of California for a few years, back in the early 2000’s, we’d get tickets to great events in the $35 -50 per person range. That’s not chicken feed, but it felt comfortable. When we came back to Dallas we were faced with sticker shock. Not only were things more expensive than they’d been on the Central Coast, but there had also been a huge jump in pricing from our previous days in Dallas. We’ve been back for over a decade, but we’ve been to very few live shows.
When we have attended something live, we’d usually see free or inexpensive performances at local colleges or we’d get reduced rates to events at the museums and gardens we belonged to. Season tickets to the opera, which I’d had in the past, were just not an affordable option, especially when Bill is not as taken with opera as I am. We’ve been to a few Cirque du Soleil events or won tickets to the odd sporting event, but outside that we’ve made our own entertainment.
Then came Covid and like everyone else, what used to be no longer existed. Our museum and garden memberships were not providing the types of entertainments we’d enjoyed in the past, so we’d let them go. We needed to get more aggressive in pursuing our entertainment. Recently, we bit the bullet and bought tickets to a Flamenco performance in a South Dallas venue. What WERE we getting ourselves into?
Seat Selection & Parking
On Facebook, I’d seen tickets to a Fever Flamenco event. We love Flamenco music and dance, so we definitely wanted to go. The price seemed right, about $60 a person, until I read the fine print, ” 🎫 Basic Admission – fair visibility without seat selection.” That made me nervous. We’d have no control over where we sat and we’d have “fair” visibility. What did that even mean?
For $65 we still had to sit where they said and our visibility would be good, but that didn’t seem much more comforting. So we bit another bullet and opted for Preferential Admission, where we could pick our seats and have great visibility. It was $90 per person, but the other option was to stay home and watch more TV. We bought the tickets.
The venue was Edison’s on Cockrell Avenue. I’d never been to Edison’s, but when I was growing up in Dallas, Cockrell Hills was a no-go zone. I am very aware of the renewal efforts happening south of Dallas in areas like Bishop Arts, but living on an opposite side of town, I don’t have much personal experience with them. So we were venturing into strange territory.
Arriving at the venue we were directed to a pay parking lot. Getting out of the car I saw a sign which instructed us to text the lot id to a number. I tried, but didn’t get anywhere. The attendant tried and got far enough along to realize we didn’t have any credit card loaded onto our phone. No _ _ _ _ Sherlock! And I don’t plan to EVER have a credit card loaded on my phone.
So, Bill moved his car to a spot on the street. Thanks to the irritating digital world we saved a few bucks. That’s not always an available solution and some day we may have to navigate that little technical maneuver, but that didn’t happen on Sunday evening.
Now, Edison’s is a cool place in a sort of industrialized area. We felt quite safe It has a roomy entry area graced by an antique car, which opens onto a larger space, which opens onto other areas. The stage was set up in the main area and the seating is café chairs.
Our preferential seating put us on the front row of chairs, but in front of that row is the VIP table seating which was $120-135 per person. For that price you either got “amazing” or “best” visibility with “a charcuterie box with Spanish products, and meet and greet with the artists to take photos after the show.” If you should decide to go this weekend (it runs through Sunday) go ahead and opt for the VIP seats. You may not be interested in the charcuterie box or meeting the artists, but since this is Flamenco, you’re going to want to see their feet and you have to work at that when you sit anywhere behind the VIP seats.
Fever’s Flaming Flamenco Feet
All that being said, we loved it. The stage is very small, so the performance is very intimate. The musicians come out one at a time for a short solo and then take their chairs on the back of the stage. Then out come the dancers and you are whipsawed into the fantastic!
The musicians were talented. The costumes were beautiful. The dancers? Oh my goodness!!!! They were truly amazing. Some sets they danced together and others they danced solo. The woman and her trailing flamenco flounce were astounding. How she maneuvered on the tiny stage with all that dress was a wonder in itself. She put so much vigor in her performance that one time when she nodded her head, bobby pins flew out into the audience. She also had beautiful, fascinating hands. Sweat poured down her face and I decided her dress must be lined in plastic, because in spite of the sweat on her face, none leaked through her costume.
Now the guy was a whole different experience. His costume was very body conscious and he didn’t have a flounce to swing around. Instead, he just had it all going on, from the tips of his fingers above his head to the flaming red shoes that moved so fast you could barely see them. He had sweat pouring out of every pore and by the end of his solo performance, his hair was sopping wet and sweat drops were being peppered on the audience closest to the stage. Remember that during your seat selection. If you get the VIP seats, you might want to be on the far side of the table!
Both dancers totally captivated the audience and the musicians provided comic relief from time to time, as well as wonderful, authentic music. Yes, I think you should go. I loved it and am so glad we took a chance on it. We’ll be checking out other offerings from Fever, because this was wonderful.
Keep coming back for Travel Here, Travel There and Memory Keeping 101.
Last week I told you that if you were going to start doing something about your mess and you wanted to do it yourself, sorting was going to be your first job. I also told you not buy up any fancy sorting equipment, to just use Ziplocks and shopping bags. Most people spend a lot of time in this phase, from a matter of hours to a matter of months. At some point, you’ll need to start your scrapbook and these are the basics.
The CM Album
As I have said before and will say often, I’m more interested in turning your mess into memories than I am in selling you products. However, I do have some strong opinions about which products are best for your scrapbooking projects.
To me, few things are more important than the album you choose for your scrapbooking. I’m not referring to what color you choose or if you’d like it to be embellished or want to add custom printing to the spine or cover. I’m talking about choosing a Creative Memories Album Cover over anything and everything else.
I’ve been scrapbooking a long time. There just isn’t anything out there any better for your project than a CM album. You might go to the craft store and find something you think is cuter. You might go online and find something less expensive. I’m telling you, if my advise means anything, you will use CM albums, and only CM albums, for your scrapbooking.
Why? Quality and durability are the main reasons. You’re going to put a lot of hard work into your album and you don’t want it falling apart in a couple of years. No one else makes albums that will do a better job for you for a longer period of time. CM also has the patented Flex-Hinge binding. This means your pages are going to lay flat and not have some kind of obstruction between the pages.
You may have started some other kind of album years ago or you might discover you can’t resist that album you saw at Hobby Lobby. I will still be your friend and I will continue to help you with your projects, but I’m not going to be very sympathetic when the other album fails and eventually, it will.
A proper CM album uses CM pages and only CM pages, which automatically include your page protectors. The pages come in a variety of formats and I will be happy to help you decide which is best for your projects, but they are designed specifically for CM albums and if you don’t use them, you are compromising the integrity of your album.
There are a world of tools and decorative items out there that have nothing to do with Creative Memories. You will never hear a peep from me about using them. Get those embellishments from Stampin’ Up. Buy your tools from the Michael’s clearance rack. Go to Hobby Lobby for your stickers and papers. I don’t care. I find myself lingering in the scrapbook aisles, too. However, I do think CM albums and pages are your best bet.
One more thing – adhesives. Creative Memories Tape Runners are the gold standard. I’ve used everything. I’ve been known to run out of Tape Runner in the middle of a project and have not waited until I could order from CM. I’ve been given stuff. I’ve picked stuff up on the clearance rack and at the dollar store. Whenever I deviated from CM adhesives, I was always sorry. Like the pages themselves, there are a number of types of adhesives, the wonderful Tape Runners and several other items for a variety of uses. All of them are great and I use them all, depending on what I am sticking down and what I am sticking it to.
When I recommend you exclusively use CM products, this is what I mean. Get your albums, pages and adhesives from CM and no one else. To begin your project, you will need a cover set, a package of pages and a Tape Runner. This will cost you less than $75 and your memories will last a lifetime.
This is where you begin. The basic building blocks of a scrapbook which will turn your mess into memories. You are the most important ingredient in your scrapbook, but you’ll be glad if you take my advice concerning these items. Happy scrapbooking. Let me know how I can help. Next week, we’ll talk tools.
It’s hard to believe this guy is smiling at me. So far it’s been as if someone should have done more than give us a free trip to Vegas. They should have paid us for our time, trouble and trauma. Seriously! We’re starting our third day in Vegas and the most fun we’ve had so far was getting our id cards and tickets for public transportation.
We headed out to McDonald’s. I was dying for one of those famous breakfast buffets, but Bill just couldn’t face that much food so early in the morning. He was being very patient with this disaster of a vacation, so I wasn’t going to make him go anywhere he didn’t want to. We waited a bit for the Deuce, but decided to walk when it didn’t come immediately. It was too chilly just standing there.
Along the way we came to the Flamingo and decided to step inside and see the Wild Life Habitat. It was a pleasant little garden, but honestly, not worth a mention in the guidebooks. Then onto Mickey D’s. We were becoming regulars.
Fun at the Forum
I’ve got to be honest with you. Things had been so bad on this vacation I was regretting we’d won it. The day before, the Grand Canal Shops at the Venetian had not been very entertaining, so I felt a bit of trepidation about heading to the Forum, but what the heck else were we going to do with ourselves – gamble? We’d rather stand and throw our money in the Bellagio Fountain!
Though I can’t exactly tell you exactly why, we enjoyed the Forum a lot more than we did the Grand Canal. Perhaps it was because it was fairly quiet that morning and the Grand Canal was bustling. Maybe we like classic Roman architecture better than Renaissance Italian. Maybe I was finally feeling better. Maybe it was the softer lighting and higher ceilings of the Forum. I don’t know. We just had fun.
One of the things that really helped us enjoy the Forum was a marvelous curator at one of the art galleries. Bill asked her a few questions and suddenly he had a new best friend. We were there for a long, long time.
Then there was the big grandiose fountains in the Forum. The Venetian had fountains, too, but they more like waterfalls and the fountains in the Forum made you feel as if you actually were in one of those faraway places I love so much.
Of course, like all things since Covid, we were supposed to wear masks and the stores would only let in a certain amount of people at a time. So places like Versace and Louis Vuitton had a roped off area in front of the store with patrons waiting to get in. Without the ropes we might have strolled in, but we weren’t going to wait. No loss to them I guess, because I’ve been carrying the same old Coach bag for years now and will probably be buried with it!
The worst part of being there during Covid was that they’d changed the schedule for The Fall of Atlantis attraction – instead of hourly every day, it was only on certain days at certain times. Wednesday wasn’t one of them!
Buffet Lunch at Luxor
It was awful! That’s all you really need to know. Here’s a serving of beef brisket from the carving station. Yuck!!
So, I knew breakfast was your best bet and I also knew there were better choices than the Luxor. I shared my information with my traveling companion, but we had My Vegas Slots rewards at the Luxor and Bill was interested in seeing it.
Now I stayed at Luxor a number of years ago and it was a wonderful experience. I also enjoyed a couple of different buffets, one in the lobby and a bigger one downstairs – but that was pre-Covid.
The last buffet standing was the one downstairs and I had remembered it as a bright bustling place full of eager tourists, busy employees and delicious food. That was no longer the case. We were almost alone in the establishment. The employees were begrudgingly shoving food onto the buffet tables and the food was nothing to write home about, unless it was to complain.
I tried to make the best of it. We were going bogo – right? Only it really was awful and for Bill, the brisket was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He actually went and found a manager to complain to – who gave us a coupon for a free meal on our next visit. Are you kidding us? I think Bill had hoped for a refund, but we wouldn’t be coming back to this place EVER!!
It was time to take another Deuce bus to Paris and get ready for our really big evening! Jane and Bill are going to stay out late in Vegas. come back next week and stay up late with us.
Last weekend I was finishing up a custom scrapbook for a client, so I was in hog heaven. I happily worked through the day in my studio, content with the knowledge I had a great evening planned. We were continuing the birthday celebration for my bestie with dinner at Lavendou.
Lavendou Bistro Provincial is one of my very favorite local restaurants, along with Javier’s, Brio and Bazille. Add in Joe T. Garcia’s over in Fort Worth and I really would never need another restaurant. That’s why Deb and I are so happy, waiting for our table on Saturday night. We were in for a treat.
I used to live just blocks away from Lavendou, so it was my go-to restaurant for lunch-time meet-ups. Once we moved to Heath, getting to Lavendou for lunch was a bit of a stretch and I miss it more than I can say.
So, you can imagine how thrilled I was when Deb said she wanted her birthday meal at my old favorite. Now, I have to tell you. I do not usually go to Lavendou for dinner, because it can get a little pricey, not a pricey as Dallas can get for a nice meal out, but pricier than we usually spend. However, it was a special occasion and the meal was outstanding.
Well, the only one who ate a meal was Bill. He actually ordered up a seafood entrée and ate every bite, which is unusual for him. He usually eats about half of his food and takes the rest home for another meal. This evening there was nary a crumb or a drop of sauce left on the plate.
Meals at Lavendou start out with warm, fresh baguette slices. Bill’s not much of one for bread either. He likes it and may use it to sop up the sauce, but he doesn’t just sit around and spread butter or oil on it. At Lavendou he gives Deb and I a run for our slices, because the sour dough bread is just that good.
Deb and I moved from bread to soup. She had French Onion, which she loved, but I had Lobster Bisque, which is an occasion all by itself. I could wax eloquent on it’s attributes, but I’ll just say you should have it when you go – and you are going to go aren’t you?
From there we moved on to escargot. Oh my goodness! How delicious!! Tender tasty meat bits smothered in garlic butter and yet another excuse to eat more bread slices. We were in heaven.
We also had just barely enough room left for dessert. Yes, we skipped right over the entrée. Now, Lavendou has a variety of delicious desserts, but when I’m there for dinner, there’s only one I care about and that’s the chocolate soufflé. You have to go in knowing you want it, because it has to be ordered with your meal, but just do it!
An absolutely perfect meal with my two favorite people in the world. You can’t ask for more than that. We did make one stop on the way home. Another thing we loved about living in Far North Dallas was Central Market. Whenever we’re over that way, Bill has to stop. He might also get a slice of Carrot Cake, a Crème Brulee or some sushi, but he’s there for the freshly made gelato. We always get a large box with at least three flavors. I say we, but I don’t eat much in the way of ice cream or gelato, so it’s all about Bill. Me, I hang out in the floral department. It’s spectacular. I don’t buy. I just look. I did buy some chicken salad from their chef’s selection, but that’s because I was feeling all kinds of luxurious.
A Sunday in Fort Worth Garden
As if I hadn’t already had an absolutely perfect weekend, Sunday was also special. I woke up early and put the finishing touches on the album I was working on. I had coffee with Bill (he has the coffee, while I drink my beloved Diet Dr Pepper) and then went to church. After church we ate our Central Market chicken salad and headed to Fort Worth.
Any day I spend with my husband can be quite special, but my very favorites are the ones he actually plans himself. While I was away at church, he researched ways to spend the afternoon and decided on a trip to the Fort Worth Botanic Garden where they were having a Fall Festival. He confessed he had checked the Dallas Arboretum first, where we have maintained a membership for years, but during the pandemic they started requiring us to schedule our visits. That’s a hassle! So we let our membership lag and since they are still requiring us to schedule our visits, we rarely go. Covid has yet another permanent impact on my life. Maybe some day they will wise up and we can go back to our casual drop-bys.
I’ve been making treks to Fort Worth for a long time and I remember when their botanic garden was both small and free, unless you visited the Japanese Garden. That was a long time ago. Now, there’s a Garden Center, a Conservatory, all the old gardens and some new gardens. Seniors pay $10 to enter, but then the Japanese Garden is included so, it was a very inexpensive way to spend a great afternoon. Since there was also a festival, then we were really doing good.
Rather than wear you out with more words I’ll just show you some pictures. The Japanese Festival was only one weekend, but they have another in the spring when the cherry blossoms are opening. They are also just about to start their holiday show, Lightscape and I think it’s going to be wonderful – so go!!
So – go to Lavendou and visit the Fort Worth Botanic Garden. We topped off our day with some Dickie’s ribs and okra. We had a bit of an adventure getting there which I’ll just skip over. The dangers of depending on Google and your GPS, but life was made for adventures, so stay tuned for more of them – here and there!
MEMORY KEEPING 101 – IT’S NOT A CRAFT, UNLESS YOU WANT IT TO BE
I’m Not Crafty
“Talk to the hand!” Remember Fran Dresher? While people rarely throw their hand up in my face when the subject of memory keeping comes up, they do have several stock phrases they throw at me. I’m too busy! It’s too expensive! I don’t have time.
They generally wish they had sharable memories instead of their mess, but for a variety of reasons, they’ve already made up their mind to keep it on the back burner for someday. I do understand. It’s overwhelming and the longer you put it off, the more overwhelming it gets. I bless the day my mom gave me a Kodak Instamatic camera and a large leather scrapbook. She didn’t realize it at the time, but she launched me into a passion which would enrich not only my life, but the life of many others.
One thing is for sure. I was not then and I am not now crafty, so when someone uses a lack of craftiness as an excuse for not keeping their memories, I know it’s just that – an excuse. Oh, there are crafty scrapbookers. They cut out perfect little silhouettes with just a piece of paper and a pair of scissors. They draw really cute things on their pages, freehand. Their handwriting is gorgeous. Their pages are all about design and have more layers than baklava.
That’s not me. I have a passion for memory keeping and I know how to use basic scrapbooking tools anyone in the world above the age of five could probably figure out. I do have skills which make me a better scrapbooker than some people, but none of them have anything to do with craftiness.
It Can Be a Hobby
Whether you are crafty or totally not crafty, memory keeping can be your hobby. You can enjoy being a scrapbooker or a digital memory keeper without one ounce of craftiness. The purpose of memory keeping is creating a sharable format for your photos, memorabilia and words. You’ll need to sort what you have into some kind of organizational scheme, get it into the format you want and then journal about what’s there – whether that’s as simple as a short caption or pages of journaling. Where’s the craft in that?
If your memories mean a lot to you and most of us do cherish our memories, then making memory keeping a regular activity in your life is something you might enjoy. You’ll enjoy it more if you have a place to do it, so that you’re not packing and unpacking all the time. You’ll also enjoy it more if you have the right tools and accessories.
Here’s something else, as one un-crafty person to another; you’ll be more likely to keep up to date with your photos and memorabilia if you aren’t crafty. Crafty people can spend days working on a single page. They are so full of ideas that many of them create page after page without setting down a single photo. The craftiest people I know are some of the worst memory keepers.
Let Jane Do Something Else Completely
If you’d love to have sharable memories, but you don’t want a hobby or a craft, then here I am. Turn the whole darned mess over to me and let me fix it. There’s a good chance I might even care more about your memories than you do. I don’t just want you to have something you’ll enjoy and be proud of, I’m all about doing it right. While I am not crafty, I do have other skills that help me as a memory keeper and I am happy to use them for your benefit.
For instance, I’m a compulsive organizer. I can’t help it. I will stand in a store and straighten up their displays of merchandise or their rack of clothes. I can pick up something I know nothing about and figure out an order to put it in. It might not match the way some one else would do it or be considered the “correct” way, but it will be in order and it will make sense.
I’m also a story teller. A storyteller doesn’t merely catalog what they’ve seen or heard. They carve out the very best of what’s available to tell an engaging story. You don’t want to put every single item you can find in an album. It will be boring and redundant. You want the best pictures of the best and most important events to urge the audience on to the next page and the next page.
Through years and years of scrapbooking, I have developed an eye for graphic design and have a sense of color. You don’t necessarily need these for a good album, but they make it easier for me to do what I do. I don’t spend hours and days trying to figure out a page. I trim the photos, find some complementary decoration and slap it all down. That’s why I’m faster than the average memory keeper. I’m on a mission and I want to get it done.
You Want a Craft? It’s a Craft!
If you are crafty, I want you to know there’s an entire tribe of crafty people in both the traditional scrapbooking world and the digital world of memory keeping. They have worldwide online events where they share their crafty tricks with each other. They teach classes, they attend classes, they know all the apps and the websites. They invest in equipment I only dream of. They travel all over the place to attend events and conferences. They even go on retreats.
The purpose of this post is not to discourage craftiness in memory keeping, but to make the point that craftiness is not a pre-requisite for it. We can all do it, even if we’re not crafty. Time and expense are true barriers to memory keeping, but a lack of craftiness is not. If you’re interested, then I can help you get started. Just give me a call.
Then come back next week and we’ll talk about what it takes to get started in traditional scrapbooking. Don’t worry ,if digital is more your thing, we’ll discuss that soon!
You know how it is when you’re visiting a restaurant you’ve enjoyed before and it ain’t what it used to be? That was my experience on Saturday morning at Breadloserswinners in NorthPark.
NorthPark itself is one of my very favorite places in the world. I go there to feel like a Dallasite. I parked in the Nordstrom’s parking lot and used their sleek Ladies Lounge. As I looked at the merchandise facing the aisles along my route, I felt like it was deja vu all over again! Didn’t I wear these very same fashions a few decades ago – eggplant colored mix and match ready-to-wear, cream colored crepe blouses with a high ruffled neck and prairie dresses. I guess shoulder pads and pleated trousers are next.
On my way to the restaurant I strolled along browsing the windows of a few stores. I always love the unusual clothing for sale at Free People and think I’ll stop in. Then I see the outfits they put together for display and am amazed they find ways to take these beautiful pieces and put them together in awful outfits I would never wear. Obviously, I am not their target audience. The next stop was Nā Hōkū, the Hawaiian jewelry store, and I always want everything in their windows.
Next I began to enjoy the aromas of NorthPark, like Lush with it’s hand made fragrances and pretzel’s in the oven at Auntie Anne’s. Being in my favorite mall excites all of my senses.
Entering the Main Court always feels like a special moment and I am flooded with memories of events, occasions and everyday visits to NorthPark. Riding down the elevator, I see Zara and am reminded of the very first time I saw one of their stores, in Vienna’s Stephenplatz. While I love NorthPark for being so Dallas, I also love that it also a touchstone for the rest of the world. Peeking in Zara, I saw emerald low-heeled pumps with a rhinestone buckle. Yes, the past is getting closer all the time.
I arrived at Breadwinners and the hostess is going through the is-your-entire-party-here routine with someone in front of me. I guess they have to do that, but I hate it. I’m not sure my friend, Lisa, has arrived, but I ask for a table for two without being quizzed about the rest of my party. Soon I’m being seated and almost immediately Lisa arrives with two kiddos in tow, but they are way too cool to be seated with us and wait for another table.
By the time I have been given a menu, I have been warned numerous times their fryer is broken and I can’t have any fried food. It wasn’t what I was there for, but other disappointments were awaiting me – like my drink order. Since being at NorthPark is always an occasion, I ordered a poinsettia, my own answer to mimosa, because I don’t like orange juice. I can’t decide if the poinsettia they delivered was made with flat champagne or white wine, but it was not what I had been anticipating.
For brunch I ordered their Basic Breakfast with grits and sausage. I LOVE grits and have had theirs before. Whatever they were offering up that day was not what I had in the past. There was either too much of something or something which wasn’t supposed to be there, but they were inedible. On to the biscuit! Well, they hadn’t kept that in the oven long enough to brown it and while it wasn’t necessarily undercooked, it also fell apart, so getting butter on it was a challenge. The consolation prizes were a couple of overcooked sausages and thank goodness a pair of properly prepared well-done fried eggs. If the rest of it had been any good, I probably wouldn’t have even eaten the eggs, because they are one of my least favorite foods, but with little else to feed me, I needed the protein.
I only see Lisa a few times a year, so it really doesn’t matter what we’re eating, I’m just glad to be soaking up her world. She’s a mommy in Highland Park and that’s so different than how I live, that I find it fascinating. Her daughter, who I’ve known since infancy, is now a pre-teen and talk about a different world!! She and her friend were dressed alike in neon colored shorts and gray tee’s. I know these are all the rage, but when I was her age you couldn’t have paid me enough money to go out dressed like that, much less to be twinsies with my friend.
As Lisa shared the recent dramas in her daughter’s lives I was struck with the similarities between the stories she was telling and a TV show I’d seen recently – Big Little Lies with Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern and Meryl Streep. I want you to know, the stories are real. Yes, it’s a fictional series, but the situations they portray are happening right now in Highland Park!! I’m not recommending Big Little Lies. It’s my husband who is watching it and I have only viewed a few episodes – enough to find it disturbing. However, as wacky as it is, it is apparently an accurate picture of life in affluent schools and neighborhoods in America.
The Rest of It
Friday, we visited the new Heritage Plaza Building in downtown Mesquite. We used the facility as a backdrop for a photo shoot photos, but I was impressed with the architecture and what Downtown Mesquite is up to.
Saturday night we went to a birthday party for my bestie at another friend’s house. It was great to celebrate Deb’s birthday and renew my acquaintances with some of her other friends. They put on a good spread and it was an enjoyable time.
There was church on Sunday morning and that afternoon I did one of my favorite things. I delivered a completed custom scrapbook to a client. It’s hard to believe you can actually get paid for doing what you love to do best and there’s always the pay off of pure joy when they see the album for the first time.
MEMORY KEEPING 101 – THE VALUE OF MEMORY KEEPING VS THE COST OF YOUR MESS
What Are Your Memories Worth?
Let’s talk worst case scenarios. Your house has burned down. Your family and your pets are safe, but everything you had is smoke and ash. You are grateful beyond measure to be able to hug your kids, but in the days to come, it’s not the new sofa or your smart TV you’ll regret losing most. It will be that box of photos under the bed.
While there are many families who face this scenario and other tragedies every day, I’ll agree with you, you’re odds are good. You probably won’t be a victim of a worst case scenario. You’ll probably go on living with your mess for decades to come. Along the way you may toss out those slides and home movies, because you don’t even have the equipment to access them anymore. You promise yourself someday you’re going to go through the photos in the box under the bed or in your phone, someday.
The real deal is most people don’t. They kick the can down the road until they retire, until they have more time, until they have more money, until the kids move out, until they hand the mess over to their kids or until they are dead and the mess is someone else’s problem. I have a challenge for you. If these photos and memorabilia aren’t important to you and you’re never going to do anything with them anyway, why not just throw them away or delete them now. Oh, you’re still with me, huh?
I know you have the best of intentions, but the tyranny of the urgent has a way of keeping us from addressing what is important to us. And then, too often, it’s too late. Your kids are looking for a decent picture of you on their phones, because the funeral is in a couple of days and they need a photo to put in the program.
Now, let’s talk best case scenarios. There was no fire, you have no mess and your memories are totally curated, tagged, captioned and safe for generations to come. Can you actually put a dollar amount on what that would be worth to you and to your family? The price of a vacation, of a boat, of your Starbuck’s habit, of a bigger TV, newer phone? You’re probably thinking nothing is more valuable than your memories, but you might still be reluctant to do anything about your mess.
Turning your mess into safe, shareable memories isn’t something that can happen overnight, but it can happen and it can happen more quickly than you might realize. However, it’s probably going to cost more than you want it to, in both time and money. Heck, these days everything costs more than you want it to and it usually takes longer than you want. When it comes to your mess the longer you wait, the longer it will take and the more it will cost.
What’s It Going to Be – Time or Money?
If you’d like to defeat the tyranny of the urgent and start doing something about what’s important, let’s do something about your mess. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. There’s a sliding scale between time and money. The faster you want it, the more money it will cost. The more of your time you’re willing to invest, the less money it will take.
If spending money is the least painful solution, I’ll curate your mess it for $15 an hour and put it in the format of your choice for as little as $500 an album (an album is 24 two-sided pages). If you’re going digital, then you’ll need to also purchase storage, but I have a permanent solution you’ll love.
If you’d rather do it yourself, just because you want to, or to save some money, then get ready to start sorting. That’s where it all starts, whether I do it or you do. Starting is free. I’ll be happy to give you lots of free advice, too. Like don’t buy fancy sorting equipment. Nothing works better than Ziplocks and shopping bags – and if you don’t have any, you can borrow some of mine.
You can spend a fortune on memory keeping tools and supplies, whether you’re going digital or you prefer more traditional solutions, but it is worth every penny. Believe me, I know. Ask my husband how much money I’ve spent creating these scrapbooks to hold all our memories. If you really want to get him going, ask him how much profit I’m making in this campaign to preserve your memories. But be warned, you might make him cry. He’s figured out I do this for love, not money. It’s my passion. In the end, all we have left are our memories or a mess. I don’t want you or your family to be stuck with a mess.
Next week, I’m going to explain help you decide whether you want your memory keeping to be a hobby, a craft or a service you buy from someone else.
jane sadek 