SYW177 – Good for Her, Not for Me

Peggy Collins 0:00

As many of our members are really getting a good handle on what's doable in a day. Even two or three years ago, many of our members, possibly myself included, would have come to that morning session with these completely unrealistic plans about what they were gonna get done in a day. Like just absurdly over ambitious, right. And I don't see that happening anymore in our group. I think people are really starting to absorb that whole idea of No, don't set yourself up for that because it's so discouraging. When you get to the end of the day, and you only made this small dent in this crazy long list that you made.

Jennifer Wilson 0:47

Welcome to Scrapbook Your Way, the show that explores the breadth of ways to be a Memory Keeper today. I'm your host, Jennifer Wilson, owner of Simple Scrapper and author of The New Rules of Scrapbooking. This is episode 177. In this episode, I'm joined by Peggy Collins, my new program assistant to reflect on the past month and explore what's new for July and August. This is our peek behind the scenes at Simple Scrapper.

Jennifer Wilson 1:17

Hey, Peggy, how are you doing?

Peggy Collins 1:19

I'm great. How are you?

Jennifer Wilson 1:21

I am doing well. I was up promptly at six this morning. I got up at six yesterday. It's kind of early weekend. Emily has had a volleyball camp this weekend and last. But you know it feels good to start the day early. And you turns out you can get a lot done before noon.

Peggy Collins 1:40

Yes. And it's a little nicer in the summer to get up early. Because it's cooler. At least in my house.

Jennifer Wilson 1:45

Yes.

Peggy Collins 1:46

It was 100 degrees here yesterday.

Jennifer Wilson 1:48

We are having 100 degree weather. Yeah, this coming week, and I'm not ready for it. I've been whining about it being cold, like at softball. I'm all bundled up with like a fleece blanket and a sweatshirt. And so this week, I'm getting my wish. And I'm gonna have to slather on the sunscreen. So...

Peggy Collins 2:05

Yeah, I'm not I'm not really heat resilient. So it's it's not a good thing for me.

Jennifer Wilson 2:12

I'm not temperature resilient at all. I am a temperature wimp.

Peggy Collins 2:18

Fair enough.

Jennifer Wilson 2:21

So what's what's new with you and your neck of the woods?

Peggy Collins 2:24

Oh, things are plugging along. The last time I was on the podcast we talked about my partner was getting ready to move in. I was getting the house ready for him to move in. And he did so in April. And so we're pretty well. He's in, he settled in, we've managed to absorb another household. All be iat a fairly minimalist one into my household. So I feel like that's a nice little victory. And we're moving along. So it's all good. Things are good.

Jennifer Wilson 2:51

That's awesome.

Peggy Collins 2:53

Yeah, on the scrapbooking side of things, I'm on target, I track time working on things I tried to shoot for four hours a week, and I'm ahead of schedule for the year. Which is what I want to be because I always know q4 is a little dicey for getting time in. So I'm really pleased with how that's going and how easy it is to meet that goal. So that that makes me feel like I've got the right goals set. I'm not struggling and scrambling to hit it so and things are getting done. So it's working just the way I like it.

Jennifer Wilson 3:26

Oh, that's so wonderful. I will link the previous episode you were on for our listeners that want to learn more about your philosophy around tracking time versus specific projects. Because I think this is been really game changing for so many other members who are trying it in and allowing themselves to receive permission to just show up. Because that's often the most important thing.

Peggy Collins 3:50

Yeah, yeah, I'm loving it. I'm so glad I made that decision. That's one of the best decisions I ever made in my scrapbooking life is to just do this instead of worrying about what's actually getting done. So it's...

Jennifer Wilson 4:03

Yes, yes.

Peggy Collins 4:04

How about you? What's going on with you?

Jennifer Wilson 4:06

Yeah, I posted a picture of my sign, shiny sink on Instagram of the day. And you commented that you're lucky to have someone who shines your sink for you.

Peggy Collins 4:17

Yes, thank goodness. Yeah, he's, that's kind of his job. I cook, he cleans. So that works out great.

Jennifer Wilson 4:26

That's amazing. I love it. I've been trying to figure out finally, I don't know, my real sense of adulting. You know, we all go in phases of like growth. It's kind of fits and starts, I think. And you know, 20 years ago, I was in grad school and Flylady was a newer thing. And I had my binder and I was really feeling like I had like at least a baby steps of routine and then life happened and I got away from it. And I tried lots of things including Kim on the podcast in the past. talked a lot about Toady and I tried that app and I can see how it works very well for Kim. But it made me feel just horrible about myself. Because it was this constant reminder that I was behind in all of these different zones of my house. And I kept, you know, we had a conversation last night where someone suggested just start fresh, like, well, I've done that a million times. So many times. I'm still behind. And then I have turned, you know, and I ended up with a toilet like Emily's this past week. Where I'm like, Oh, my gosh, this is, this is embarrassingly unhygenic. And she didn't know any better and she didn't mention it. And so I am back on the FlyLady bandwagon, I'm swishing my toilets daily, keeping my sink as shiny as I can. It's still definitely a process. This weekend things have kind of piled up as we've been busy. But I get it, I get the philosophy. And it feels like a little bit of a coming home to us like oh, my gosh, this is what I've been missing all along was permission to just jump in right where you are, and do what you can do.

Peggy Collins 6:08

Do Somthing.

Jennifer Wilson 6:10

Yes, yes, it because a little bit really does add up.

Peggy Collins 6:14

Yeah. So FlyLady, you brought a couple things by like you and I were doing FlyLady things around the same time, I think. And really, she was the first one that finally convinced me that perfectionism actually wasn't a good thing. And I resisted for a long time. I was like you, you have haven't seen my house, I can't possibly be a perfectionist. Have you seen my house? But yeah, she was that. And then that idea of do something, set the set the timer for 15 minutes and do something it doesn't have to that all or none? She really helped me get a handle on why that was so bad. And why? How and, and convinced me that I could try to do something for 15 minutes. And then much like the last time we talked on the podcast, once you get some momentum that it's like, oh, yeah, if I just do this for 15 minutes, it will be better. And then you just keep kind of building on that. So I think it'll be great. I think it works wonderfully. And that and there's no anything that's making you feel bad is it's not. It's not effective. Right? Like that's, that's the definition of let's abandon this and try something else. Because it's not making you feel bad isn't gonna make anything any better. So...

Jennifer Wilson 7:29

Well and I've really been paying attention to how things make me feel, and yeah, there are things in life where I've probably chosen them, and they end up making me feel bad. So then, therefore, we have to make different choices if we want to feel good.

Peggy Collins 7:41

Right? Pivot, we talked about pivoting all the times, right? Yeah,

Jennifer Wilson 7:44

Eating too many cookies also makes me feel bad.

Peggy Collins 7:46

Exactly. So even good things, good for her not for me kind of things, I think those are really powerful when we can figure this out and, and understand ourselves a little bit better. There's there's just a lot of power in that process. And in the in the changing because oftentimes, you find something that works so much better. So...

Jennifer Wilson 8:10

I think it's the the idea of some of those maintenance tasks that really work for me. So for example, there's one thing that I have been doing for quite a while and that I keep a washcloth under my sink on a hook. And every time I wash my hands or wash my face, and I get water everywhere, I dry it off. Because then that prevents all the dust from sticking to the water and the mirror being spotty, and it's just a really simple thing. And then I compare it to my husband's side of the sink. And I'm like, look, look how mine is nice and clean versus yours. You can do this.

Peggy Collins 8:42

If we can only empower it. If we can only influence, we can only take care of yourself. But, ya...

Jennifer Wilson 8:51

I've seemed to be much dirtier than he does. Probably because I'm, you know, applying and removing makeup. But yes, just that one simple thing seems to make a big deal. And so that's why I think even just the swishing in the toilets, I'm like, oh, yeah, like if you do this all the time, it never gets really gross, because you're just maintaining it. So I'm all about that type of little stuff that really takes no time at all, but makes a huge difference in the long run.

Peggy Collins 9:20

Yeah, you know, we read Decluttering At The Speed Of Light, which is Dana K White and she talks all the time about kind of project brain. Right, like the idea that it's a project to clean the toilet versus this maintenance or clean the bathroom, probably more after apropos. But she she's right like I think you and I have that kind of project brain right? Like you and I can take a project and we we break down the steps. And we can figure out what should go first and we can do all of these things and we can come up with these elaborate plans.

Jennifer Wilson 9:55

It doesn't mean we wan to do it though.

Peggy Collins 9:57

We don't want to do and it, and it doesn't serve in that circumstance, right. There's there can't be a big machine around cleaning the bathroom, the bathroom just has to be cleaned. Like, it's not, not the same thing. And so I think, finding those places where we're where our strengths are really hindering us, right? Because the big planning machine serves both of us, I think, in many, many aspects of our lives, but it doesn't serve us in getting the bathroom clean. And I think FlyLady's, the master of don't build a big machine just do something.

Jennifer Wilson 10:33

Yes, yes, yes, we have to fight against our own natural tendencies. So shifting gears to more scrapbooky things, what is exciting you right now inside of your hobby?

Peggy Collins 10:47

Yeah, so I'm playing a little bit with scrapbooking outside of the protector. Which is, I know what people have been doing forever. But I, I came up through Creative Memories, and they they really didn't like things to be outside. So I was well and truly indoctrinated and you don't put things outside the protector. But I, I'm not a December Daily person. That's just never been a project that's super appealing to me. And I sort of can tell about myself that I probably wouldn't be very successful. I don't do great with daily kind of projects like that. So, but I watched with rapt attention every year to all of the different things that people do that are so creative, and so fun. And a lot of the interactive pieces, and those are just becoming more and more with each passing year between the traveler's notebook things and then the things people are doing in six by eight. So Ali had a subscriber Day on April, early in April, and one of the projects that she illustrated was using one of the quarterly kits. So I'm a quarterly kit subscriber, those come with six papers that are cut to be outside the protector for six by eight. And so she used a couple of those for a layout project that I just loved. It had this interactive journaling element, and I was like, I have the perfect trip for this, I have the perfect thing to do with this. And so I made that, and I love it. And I think it's really fun. And but now it's the only thing in that six by eight album that's outside the protector. So I need to do some more outside the protector so that that album doesn't have this weird. Oh, why are why are these two pages not in inside of everything else is so I have a couple more trips that need to go into that album. And so it'll be a fun experiment to put some of these outside the protector and more interactive elements. And then I what took one of the, I'm gonna not remember which class it was, I think it was their travel class in 2021. On Ali's site, there were it was either 2020 or 2020, when they did four different she had for different instructors, herself and three others that did a project. Well, Morgan Beale, I think is her last name, did a six by eight album for Chicago, which we went to Chicago last summer, almost a year ago. And so that was kind of what got me going on this as well as so I'm working on that trip right now and really focusing on doing some outside the protector stuff. So I think it's gonna be fun. So far it is.

Jennifer Wilson 13:25

Yeah. During December Daily, last year, I kept thinking, so much of this can be translated to non Christmassy scrapbooking. And don't always like, make those mental connections because maybe we're like doing something with Christmas trees, or stars or whatever. Obviously, stars are year round type of thing. But that's something that I want to experiment more with is doing some of the more fun creative things not all the time, but doing it throughout the year, and not just December where it can actually end up being kind of exhausting in a good way because of constantly trying to just make something more awesome and interactive than the next, you know.

Peggy Collins 14:08

Right? Right. Yeah, you're trying to cram all of that into one project. And then instead of maybe enjoying it throughout the whole year, so...

Jennifer Wilson 14:16

Well especially at a time where as you mentioned that it's it's kind of a busy time of the year. Yeah, so we had the most complicated project, the busiest time of the year.

Peggy Collins 14:30

I wonder why people don't finish them. Let me think. That's why we do Christmas in July. Right. Scrappy Christmas.

Jennifer Wilson 14:39

All right. Yes. So Tracy Fox is having her scrappy Christmas in July again this year. So I will link up her information for those who maybe have an unfinished project they want to jump into.

Peggy Collins 14:52

Feels good to finish them. So you're really close right?

Jennifer Wilson 14:56

I am very close. I have just like a few Few more pages left and I have like plans for them. I know what photos I'm using. I just have to sit down and get back into it. But I feel good. Even if I was doing it in November, it'll work out fine. Like I will use the momentum of the new season to finish it up. And I'm actually not even 100% Sure I want to do it this year. So we'll see.

Peggy Collins 15:21

Oh, this for 2022. Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Wilson 15:24

Anyway, that's a whole other conversation. Yeah, all my stuff is put away. I did. All of my holiday items are now in one cart with drawers like a plastic Sterilite. cart.

Peggy Collins 15:38

So it's easy to get to it. If you wanted to just knock out those few pages.

Jennifer Wilson 15:42

That it's correct. because there are other December Daily that are not finished. So...

Peggy Collins 15:47

Correct. Right. Right. Yeah. What's going on with you? What are you excited about?

Jennifer Wilson 15:51

You know, so I think I've mentioned this in the podcast already. But I've been still playing with Shimelle's Best of Both Worlds layouts. I love, I'm loving this year shopping my stash. I have lots of things from over the years. And I just want to tell some stories, make some pages and really kind of stay connected to that the creative side of it. And Shimelle definitely does that well with lots of pattern mixing and bright colors, and things that maybe I wouldn't necessarily gravitate towards on my own. I tend to do a little bit more minimal, a little bit more subtle colors. But it's been fun to just follow along, you know, use her pages as a sketch. And you know, she has a little hand drawn sketch. And I'm just enjoying it. So I'm I'm just finished about to finish a fifth layout for March. And then I'm going to skip to June because I really liked the colors of that kit and I'm going to follow along throughout the rest of this month and probably do four or five more layouts. So I'm just I'm loving it. I like following along. And I'm also using my stash which is great, so...

Peggy Collins 17:01

So you didn't buy the you didn't go and purchase the things that she had selected for her Best of Both Worlds. You've essentially counterfeit kitted her Best of Both Worlds.

Jennifer Wilson 17:12

Yes.

Peggy Collins 17:12

Oh, smart. How fun.

Jennifer Wilson 17:15

A little counterfeit kit. And a lot of using a lot of my Studio Calico papers, which tend to be bright, a little bit offbeat. That's what I have the most of is from previous Studio Calico 12 by 12 kits. And I'm hoping to actually dive into some more like some six by six and six by eight paper pads with this next one. But yeah, I It's time to just start busting through some stash and even identifying things of you know, I keep picking that out and then I never use it. So we probably should let that go. And yeah, so I'm getting to the point where some of my stash feels stale, which is, you know, a conversation we have a lot. And that that happens. And so, we got to start moving things out one way or the other, either on a page or in a donate bin.

Peggy Collins 18:09

Yeah. And I think she's she's just so good at that mixing. That's that's been my experience in the Layerclass as well is that I have put together things that, things from the deep, deepest parts of my oldest parts of my stash, right. I had some Little Yellow Bicycle, these burlap embellishments that I managed to get on the page as part of layer. Like these sorts of things that she really stretches my imagination about how I can combine things and, and do things like that. So that's what I really love about her approach is it's just awesome for digging through your stash and putting unexpected things together. And we're seeing that with all of the members that are doing Layer. They're, they're seeing a lot of success in in putting things, getting things out of the depths of their stash. Which always feels really great to get those things on a page and out of the out of the drawer, or wherever you go.

Jennifer Wilson 19:11

Yeah, and making beautiful layouts too so I'd love to see what people make.

Peggy Collins 19:15

Oh my gosh. Yeah, people have done some just, frankly, beautiful, beautiful layouts for sure. Good stories, good layouts, it's going really well.

Jennifer Wilson 19:27

So speaking of stories, is there a story on your memory keeping Bucket List that you've not yet told?

Peggy Collins 19:33

Oh, so many Oh, so many. Yeah. So uh, the last time I was on, I talked about the layout about my dad's work in for a landslide in Utah. And I'm happy to report that that got done in the recent weeks. So that is in the books. So I'm getting ready to do my third Bucket List for this year. I had targeted three for the year. So that will Check off one of my boxes for 2022, if I get this one all taken care of. So that one is going to be around Fourth of July memories. Growing up, we had some cousins and aunt and uncle and cousins of my, my mom's brother, their families shared many, many fourth of July's with us. And so that's that in itself could have been a Bucket List story, but they've invited Doug and I did join them this year for Fourth of July for the first time in a really long time. So I had the idea that I could possibly bring along some Journaling Cards and just ask them to jot down some of their memories. I would love to bring, I always enjoy bringing in other people's voices. And so I'm going to prepare some stuff for them, then, you know, take a good archival pen and have people write down a couple of memories from those holidays in the past and then pull something together. I don't have great pictures for the past Fourth of Julys. That, you know, I can use photos from this Fourth of July and be able to talk about the past. And then as I started to think about that, I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do that. And then I was like, Well, what about that Fourth of July. So when I lived in Reno, I was teaching orchestra, I was playing in their Philharmonic Orchestra, they did a concert down on the main street of Reno every year, on Fourth of July that I played in. We did a run out concert with a quintessential small town, United States. Fourth of July old fashion, you know, they did a parade in the morning, and they did a concert in the green on the in the afternoon. We played for that. So that's kind of a fun little story. And then there's a really funny story about my cousin catching, a different cousin, different set of cousins, visiting and catching up neighbors bush on fire with a smoke bomb. That's a quintessential family, burning bush story in the family. So I got to thinking that maybe I could pull together a set of Fourth of July, sort of memories in the style of Stacy Julian's extended story. So she mixes and matches sizes of protectors. So there's some divided protectors and some different sizes. So I could see this growing into a sort of extended story about the Fourth of July. So I got so I was listening to the last week's podcast walking. And I got so distracted by all the ideas I was having about this extended story, I had to stop and put down the notes so that I could pay attention to the podcast. Because I kept thinking I'm not listening, because I'm thinking about this other extended story.

Jennifer Wilson 22:45

Yes.

Peggy Collins 22:45

So you know, it's a good sign when you would get stopped thinking about like, Oh, I better write this down. It was really fun. So I'm excited about that when I think it's going to turn out great. So...

Jennifer Wilson 22:57

Yeah, I absolutely love that, particularly when you can use new or more recent photos to help capture stories of the past. And bringing in other people's voices like this is, you know, we talked before about how we're good at making things into a project. This is a little project, but it's really discreet, it's specific. And you're gonna, it captures so much. So many memories, so many stories in one little thing. And I think it's something you'll treasure. So I'm, I'm super excited for you.

Peggy Collins 23:27

Yeah, I think and I love this extended story format for that exact reason. It's it's this thing that, you know, you have these things that are a little bigger than a layout. Probably not a mini album, right? Like, I guess I could make an mini album, a really small mini album. But I'm actually not that big of a fan of mini albums. So that's not as compelling to me as something that could live inside my albums. But it's, I have a similar one I've done for my crafty life, right, there's stuff about my crafting life that are in an extended story. And that really the the other thing I really love about them is that you can extend them over time. So down the road, if something we have a nice event on the Fourth of July, and I want to include that then it's a straightforward thing to slide that into this set of protectors in some way, shape or form. So it's, I think it really powerful kind of in between the, I need a whole album, I need five, you know, my travel stuff. Yeah, I have eight, two page layouts. I have no problem with that for a big trip. Maybe not for the Fourth of July. That's certainly what a whole bunch of Fourth of July pages but this kind of gives it a little bit of a framework. So...

Jennifer Wilson 24:41

Yes, yes. I feel like I've mentioned this before now that I think about it, but I still haven't told the story. So I'm just gonna mention it again. Because clearly this is something that's important that I need to do. So I had this whole journey of this photo that my of my grandpa from a newsaper is what he had written on it, of him and another soldier. He had been shot up in Italy and sent home in World War Two. And he wrote Anzio twins on it. And I wanted to know, I knew, I mean, I knew he'd been injured in Anzio. But I wanted to know exactly. Why did it say that? Who was the other man? What was the story behind it? And this was a photo that it's not just a photo, he had this as a framed photo that he kept with him throughout his entire life. And his, you know, nursing home and assisted living place. So, obviously, this was important to him. Yeah. You know, I wanted to find, you know, the original photo and more details. And I had done all this archival research, I'd contacted experts. And in the end, there were many copies of the photo, including alternate versions, in my grandma's scrapbook that I did not realize was there. Like, literally, I spent three days in a library in Grand Rapids when I was supposed to be at a conference, a water conference, looking through basically the newspapers for all of 1944, 45 and 46, just in case it was happened to be another year, and never found it. And then the whole story was in my grandma's scrapbook. So...

Peggy Collins 26:29

As these things happen, yeah.

Jennifer Wilson 26:31

Yeah. So there's like two parts of the story. There's my journey with the photo and the discovery of it. And then there's the story itself of, you know, what we now know about why this photo was taken. They basically went on a little press tour, they were still in the hospital in the military recovery hospital, but they went to Detroit to, you know, talk positively about being a soldier. And, you know, at that point, I think the war was maybe almost over. Or we already had Victory in Europe, but not in Japan. So they were doing some, like, you know, government PR, right. And they have pretty girls to take them around. And yeah, so there's like, there's, there's multiple layers to this story. So I really want, I spent all this time on it over these years. And now that I have the answers that I wanted, I need to to capture it, and then kind of, you know, find some closure to that exploration. Because it was almost a little bit of an obsession for me. I, I looked through so many different newspaper archives and, and talk to people about how to how to figure this out. And it was in my parents house in a box. So...

Peggy Collins 27:46

Start closer to home, the moral the story is, start closer to home. In some ways, it's kind of fun to I don't know, I think exercise is part of it, too. Like...

Jennifer Wilson 27:57

Oh, yeah.

Peggy Collins 27:57

I'm sure yeah, there's a story like you said, there's a story there too. And process and maybe that will serve you down the road when you can't find the answer in your parents box.

Jennifer Wilson 28:09

I don't want to look at microfilm again though. But I even like got, I roped my husband into it. He skipped conference one day too, and he was looking and it was a little bit of a bonding thing. So I definitely brought him along the journey. And you know, he was almost as excited as I was when I finally found the things. So...

Peggy Collins 28:27

That's awesome. That's great. That'll be lovely.

Jennifer Wilson 28:31

All right. Yeah, I'm I'm I really need to do this one. So his birthday is coming up in August maybe I will, you know, kind of do that in commemoration. So...

Peggy Collins 28:41

Oh, that's a perfect Yeah. I think sometimes just putting something like that a date around it like oh, this is the perfect time to be doing this to be thinking about him and honoring him. Yeah, that's awesome.

Jennifer Wilson 28:54

Yeah. So okay, shifting gears more towards what's going on at Simple Scrapper as we record this. Yesterday, we just had our third Finishing Day of the year and I know you had some social obligations but you did, you were able to attend for a little bit in the morning. How do you think it went overall?

Peggy Collins 29:13

Yeah, I I am having trouble protecting that day this is the third one that year, the third one I wasn't available really to enjoy getting a whole bunch of time. I need to work on that. It's a little bit, weekends are getting busy again as things get back to whatever this new normal is and so I'm having a little, I don't think there's gonna be a lot of things I'll say I miss about the pandemic but I think I have the opportunity to really block a Saturday to be able to scrapbook is going to be one of them, I think. It's gonna be a little bit a little bit harder to to maintain that but so yeah, I got I I'm working on the Chicago project. One of the things that I wanted, I made these little pockets to live outside the protector for the journaling. And so I need that to be printed journaling, I can't get enough on this little card to be able to have it be handwritten journaling. So that for me means setting up a template in Photoshop and choosing a font, which is always for whatever reason, I go down the rabbit hole of looking at 50 fonts before I pick one. So I did all of that yesterday morning, I was able to spend some time early morning so that that felt good, I got a good foundation of being able to, now I'll be able to go in and do one of those a day or something. And be able to knock those out because I have the foundation set up. So that worked out good. People seem to be really excited early in the day and and things were were going good. And then I did listen to the recording, I wasn't able to join the recording or the wrap up in the evening. But I think people have a lot of really good success. How'd you do?

Jennifer Wilson 30:53

Yeah, I am so proud of myself, because I really stayed focused. I was fortunate that nobody else was home. So that definitely helped. There was you know, I was, it was up to myself. But so there were few distractions. No Mom, can you help me with this? Or Jennifer, can you help me with this? Other than my husband had come home at some point with some groceries and said here, could you please put these away?

Peggy Collins 31:16

All right, since you did the grocery shopping,

Jennifer Wilson 31:22

And he got me sushi for dinner. So you know, it was fine. You know, I met like, let's say 95% finished putting things back in the closet. I just have like, one box of sewing things I need to kind of rehome but I have a home designated. I just need to is basically trying to make things even more accessible. If I keep having to take a bunch of stuff out of the basket to get to the things I want, this is not working. So I need to put the sewing things in, you know, smaller drawers so that I can access them. I'm gonna be doing a little bit of decluttering in that basket too, because the reality is I'm probably not going to be using fat quarters anytime soon. So it's time to let go of some fabric. If I decide I'm going to quilt again are something I buy new fabric. So I'm yeah, I'm holding on to some, trying to not hold on to things that aren't serving me in the present moment as much as I used to. And then I have two big categories. One is, it's not really that big, but it's annoying. It's plain paper, you know, unlined, lined, some notebooks, some loose leaf of all varying sizes, sometimes even varying colors. It's not scrapbook paper, it's just you know, like office paper. Some of it is art paper. I'm I'm kind of like I don't want to be wasteful. But you know, how many really old, like, you know, yellow legal pads do you need? So I'm kind of like I'm feeling a little stuck on that one. Because I need to probably either say I'm just keeping Oh, that because you know, we'll use it all some day or let a lot of it go because it's not been used for probably a decade or more. So...

Peggy Collins 33:10

Yeah, I don't use a lot of that. So I have a big pile of it in my closet as well. And I just don't use it as much as like, I always think I will write like I did I, I find it very hard to resist a pretty notebook. So yeah, I can feel your maybe it's a container concept, then pick your container, you're gonna keep that much and then let the rest of it go.

Jennifer Wilson 33:33

So I have two of those, like, cardboard paper holders. They're actually ones that Emily had in school that has so they have their little picture on them from like kindergarten in first grade. And so they're pretty wide. I think I'm going to use that as the the paper holders and whatever doesn't fit in that is gonna go so. Yeah, and none of it is actually you mentioned, like, not resisting cute notebooks. None of it is the cute notebook stuff. Like I actually think I use those. I fill them up with like, random notes. And then when I'm done with them, I have recycle them. Like these are all the really boring ones too. So...

Peggy Collins 34:11

Right. Let them go.

Jennifer Wilson 34:13

You know, it's like a Five Star, you know, notebook. And some of it I will save for Emily in school, but a lot of it is used enough that it's not something that I would give her to start a school year. So...

Peggy Collins 34:26

Right.

Jennifer Wilson 34:27

So there's that one and then there is the dreaded electronics basket of...

Peggy Collins 34:32

Yeah.

Jennifer Wilson 34:33

Old phones and lots of cables and it's we also have another zone downstairs and so I we're going to just have to compile it all, spread it all over the living room and figure out what we actually need to keep. And I'm not sure actually how much of that stuff will end up back in the closet. It was all in the closet. I'm thinking it probably has a better home downstairs so that it's more family accessible to hey, I need the cable for whatever thing. So yeah, so we'll see like, I'm, I'm feeling so good at what I did, I realized how little of what was in the closet was going to go back into it.

Peggy Collins 35:16

There was a picture that looks luxuriously vacant, like you have so much open space. I'm like, wow, that looks great!

Jennifer Wilson 35:26

Yes, I have room to grow, which feels really good. I even had some like, there's some, like photo boxes. One of them is completely empty. I have some bins that are empty, just kind of waiting for something that I decided needs to be in a bin. So I'm thinking that some things that are currently in my open office space here, I'm going to kind of rehome some of those into the closet like things that that can be a little bit more cold storage. So yeah, it's like it's going well, I feel so good to have spent the time on it. There's still some more things to do in the guest room because the more clutter at basically when I emptied the closet, it became a very large clutter attractor of oh, this is already junky. Let's just put other junk in there. And yeah, it's time. There's a lot in there that's going to go. Like Emily's dolls, and you know, things that are no longer being used. So it's tough, but it feels so good too.

Peggy Collins 36:23

I was going to ask what the guest room looks like yep.

Jennifer Wilson 36:26

it is. I would say it's 10 minutes away from being sleepable for a person. Or less, like pretty easily the the stuff that remains on the bed is pretty minimal. And there's some, like, there's some boxes in there, like we bought all new doorknobs for our doors. But they're in the box and guestroom so Oh, those need to be put on the doors and you know, things like that. So there is some clutter. But if somebody was going to sleep over soon...

Peggy Collins 36:57

Which turns out to be harder than it sounds.

Jennifer Wilson 37:01

Yeah, I know. That's probably why hasn't been done yet.

Peggy Collins 37:06

I got that done. It was like, Why is this so hard? This should not be so hard. It was hard. I shouldn't probably tell you that. discourage you.

Jennifer Wilson 37:16

Yeah, I'm just glad we decided we were going to get new hinges too. And I'm like, let's just do the doorknobs first. And if we decide they really, the hinges do look bad, then we will get new hinges. But that would be the even harder part. So yes, yeah. Anyway, so I was so happy to be able to participate in Finishing Day. And, you know, so I led a session in the morning, kind of we call it the Pep Talk session, and in our Celebration session, in the evening. And then the evening, that was just, I mean, both conversations were awesome. But just so many amazing like tips and observations and lessons learned were shared about kind of what didn't quite go as well, and how what, what you do next time and what you learned about your own behaviors, much like many of the things that I mentioned about my my closet and my guestroom situation.

Peggy Collins 38:05

Yeah, exactly. I was struck in the morning that I really think people, many of our members are really getting a good handle on what's doable in a day, like I think is even two or three years ago, many of our members possibly myself included, would have come to that morning session with these completely unrealistic plans about what they were going to get done in a day. Like just absurdly over ambitious, right. And I don't see that happening anymore. In our group, I think people are really starting to absorb that whole idea of No, don't set yourself up for that, because it's so discouraging. When you get to the end of the day, and you chipped, uh, you only made this small dent in this crazy long list that you made, not because the crazy long list was doable in any way, shape, or form. But now you've kind of set yourself up for this cognitive, you know, kind of, to your point of, I had all these things in to do lisdt or Toady. And I didn't do them and so now I feel bad. Instead, people really do seem to be getting a good, good skill set around. Okay, I do I am going to focus today, but I'm going to narrow this down to something that's much more doable. And I I'm just so happy to see that because I know how powerful that's been for myself. And I think

Jennifer Wilson 39:41

I mean, same here. I definitely had some lofty goals in the past.

Peggy Collins 39:45

Right, right. You're like oh, yeah, I can do this entire thing and you're and then you're like, Oh, I got done with the photos and and that shouldn't be an all I got done right like I got the photos done. Right.

Jennifer Wilson 39:57

Yes.

Peggy Collins 39:57

So I think it's a combination of we're getting better, I think the community at large is getting better at breaking these things down into smaller pieces so that we really have a better sense of the scope of all of the things that have to be done. We don't, I don't hear us talking as much about I'm going to do this layout, a lot of times people are talking about I'm going to do, I'm going to figure out the photos for this layout, or I'm going to pull the product for. Like people, myself, I know I'm doing this and I see it in my fellow members that we're breaking them down into smaller bites. And therefore, I just think that helps you build momentum, it helps you be realistic about how long it's going to take all of those things, I just think help you be happier in your hobby. It's supposed to be fun, right? So if you set yourself up to fail, that's, there's no, there's no fun and failing when you set yourself up for that. So I thought that was awesome. In the morning. I was like, as people were kind of saying what they were trying to do. I was like, yes, that that really is starting to stick for people.

Jennifer Wilson 41:06

Yes, yes, I think we've just created a culture of looking at our hobbies with you know, critical eyes. Okay, let's look at our lives. Let's look at what we want to do. And how do we make this fit together better. And the more that we do it, the more others observe it and try it for themselves. And there's definitely a ripple effect there. And we just think we're also offering have so much permission to to think smaller and to think about if we were thinking about that one specific part of the process, like picking the photos, okay, what does that really entail? How long does that really take? What do you do? Do you edit? Do you not edit? Do you need to send them out for printing? Do you print at home? You know, each part has its own, you know, fun parts? Maybe not? So fun parts? And then how can we tweak that, to make it work better for you. So the more that you are a little bit more discreet in the parts of the process, the more you can, you know, make the whole, the whole process the whole hobby run smoother for you.

Peggy Collins 42:11

Right, exactly. And I did, you know, try to to your point about the the parts that you like, and parts that maybe you're not as crazy about, I was fascinated. Some members had chosen things yesterday, that they knew they they weren't exactly charged up to do right. It was something that they, they didn't necessarily weren't enthusiastic about having I talked about this a lot. There's there's things that I want to have that I like my everyday scrapbooking sort of projects. I love having those, and I don't love making them. So some members recognize that they could leverage this opportunity for the community momentum, the community accountability of this Finishing Day to help them move through something that they maybe weren't all that excited about doing. So I thought that was awesome when when people start to figure out ways to leverage these events in a way that really serves them that that's really in service of their goals, and working in a way that that helps them in a significant way. So I thought that was that was fun to see, I was happy to see it. I've used things like this in a similar way in the past as well. And I think it works really well.

Jennifer Wilson 43:30

I didn't want to do this process. I don't have I don't have very good stamina for decluttering. Decision fatigue is very, very real for me. And I needed to leverage the accountability in order to to stay focused and make significant progress, because otherwise it was just going to continue to drag on.

Peggy Collins 43:50

The other thing I was gonna say was it was interesting to me that some of the folks in the wrap up I think. Some of the aha moments were interesting in that some people realize that they didn't like to do some of the steps and they wanted to do those before they got to Dinishing Day. Which I thought was really smart. Like, oh, I don't if I'd had these pictures selected and printed them today would have been more fun. Right? So this idea of how do you some people need to do that part that's not fun during the event because that accountability is is helpful. Some people wanted to do it ahead of time, so that they didn't have to do that part on a day that should be in their mind, a fun time, right. That being with in the community and in the scrapbook room and all of those kinds of things are are part of the enjoyment of it. And so they wanted to be doing the enjoyable part of the project while they're doing that. So it's just so I love when members are making it their own. Like this is what I guess is what I'm going to do today. And maybe in two months you asked it the wrap up what what things were looking like for two months from now. That was when some of those conversations about, oh, I wish I had done this ahead of time. Or this is the thing that I know I'm putting off. And I'm going to focus on that in two months. Just really a fun. So fun to see members really taking what they need and and leveraging it. So it's really cool.

Jennifer Wilson 45:20

Yes, I love that we really support kind of ownership of your own hobby. You know, that's I mean, this podcast is called Scrapbook Your Way. But that's, that's a we live out every day. Is we provide this container and some do a little bit of direction. But it's really up to you to decide what you need and what you're going to focus on. And we're here to help you along the way with encouragement, additional resources, so a lot of worksheets and frameworks for you. And yeah, I think I'm just I'm so excited that we finally brought Finishing Day to life this year and excited to plan to continue into the future.

Peggy Collins 46:01

Yeah, I think it's really serving people in a really powerful way.

Jennifer Wilson 46:07

So one of the things that I wanted to mention was one of our members shared this post, and this is pre Finishing Day, but she was so excited to share that she had just completed her 40th layout. So this is June, until she just completed 40 layout. And she says that being a Simple Scrapper member has been instrumental to my success. The Bucket List Project and Trello classes have helped with my planning and process. And then Peggy creating an accountability structure around Layer On Layer On Layer has kept her on track and motivated to create 10 of those 40 layouts. And all the inspiration support and cheers from members have built her confidence and excitement to keep growing. She says she's truly grateful for this group. So this is member Melissa. And yeah, I we love hearing this. We love hearing that what we do is not just helpful but meaningful and that our community really makes a difference in scrapbookers lives. So I just want to thank Melissa so much for this comment. Because it it I know it makes my day I'm sure it makes Peggy's as well, and you know.

Peggy Collins 47:14

Yes. Indeed.

Jennifer Wilson 47:15

Yeah. And yes, comments like this are very abundant inside of the community. Yeah, and it just, it makes me proud, and little bit teary sometimes. And I'm so happy to be doing what we do.

Peggy Collins 47:31

Yeah, so happy to see her succeeding.

Jennifer Wilson 47:34

So one of the things I wanted to mention before we start looking forward, by the time this episode goes live, we will have had our next Your Way Workshop. And so these are free workshops, where we get on Zoom, and everyone gets into breakout groups. And I pose some questions to the groups and you have a kind of more private personal conversation with a small group of three to five other scrapbookers of all types, and really from around the world as well. And we, each time we have a specific theme. And so the next theme will be automating your photo workflow. So how can you get photos from place to place easier? How can you backup your photos without any manual steps having to remember to do it, there's even automation related to editing. So we're gonna be talking about all things automation at our next Your Way Workshop. And you know, given that technology is so amazing these days, this is something that comes up a lot. We do this every other month. And these conversations are so rich in ideas, examples, specific tools and techniques. And because it's this kind of collective conversation, it's far more beneficial than anything that I could teach on my own because I don't know everything about scrapbooking, I don't know everything about anything. And so when we can bring everyone together and share their ideas and lessons learned. It just it turns into such a powerful resource.

Peggy Collins 49:08

They're really fun. I think that those little small three or four person conversations are really just so helpful. I know that people have given me tips, I know I've given tips that people were like I'd never even thought about that. I wouldn't have ever thought of that it's just that you can get some very personalized assistance in those small groups and and those are you can only get those by being on the on the workshop live. There's no way to record all of that. So I will miss this year's because I or this month's because I'll be on the road traveling. But it's really, I encourage everybody to give one a try. It's really fun. People are so nice.

Jennifer Wilson 49:50

And we do have a recording available of the June 20. And we what we do record is the wrap up conversation. So as Peggy said, we can't record every small group conversation. But we have the wrap up fully recorded, where we're individuals are sharing what they heard from others what what they want to try and even some of their own ideas. So the the wrap up as a shorter portion. So you the full benefit comes from attending live. And but the recording still is where all the juicy nuggets are shared. So I hope you check that out.

Peggy Collins 50:22

You get a lot of the scoop in the wrap up as well.

Jennifer Wilson 50:25

Yes. All right. So definitely looking forward to what's coming next starting July 1, we'll be entering in our Photos journey. So each journey is a two month period, where we're loosely focusing on a specific topic. Obviously, we're we're talking about projects and pages and everything all year long. But we're going to be diving into various aspects of photos. And this morning, I had a chance to interview Natalie Pozniak for the podcast, and we just have such a great lineup of guests. For this journey. We have our two new featured artists, Jennifer McMurtrey, and Becky Powell Reames, I'm chatting with Laura Vegas about some of her kind of big picture shifts in how she wants to think about her albums. I'm talking with Cat Saunders, who is more of a minimalist Memory Keeper. And then also creative team member Helen DeRam, about photos and in particular kind of finding confidence in getting yourself in the photo and taking selfies and really representing who you are with those self portraits. So I'm really excited about these conversations. I'm recording them all in the next week or so. And yeah, there'll be available to you through July and August.

Peggy Collins 51:39

Wow, that's gonna be great. A really nice variety of folks.

Jennifer Wilson 51:44

Yeah, I really try to balance like paper and digital and hybrid and different like interests. And while still kind of loosely connecting to our theme of photos. One of the big things coming up in July will be our Refresh Retreat. And the theme of this one is finding, choosing, using, and sharing favorite photos. So the theme is favorites, but Peggy and I, we've been we've been talking about how can we really make these themes more specific and kind of outcome oriented? So through the the challenges we have, and the conversations we have, we want to help you find choose us and share more of your favorite photos. So Peggy, what do you think members like about the Refresh retreats?

Peggy Collins 52:35

Yeah, I think you know, for many of us, it's easy to get diverted from our craft desk, or even the membership, right. You haven't checked in on some sort of come in to see what's going on in the membership or things like that. And so it's really nice to have this consistent cadence where every other month, you're gonna get this invitation to say, Hey, want to come back what want to come take a look at what's going on, come in and have something we try to make it actionable but not humongous, right? We want to give you some challenges that are that invite you back to your desk, invite you back to your space. Without derailing you, we we know that everybody has plans and things that there were projects that they've got in flight or things that they're working on. And so we don't necessarily want to say, Oh, could you set all of that aside and come play with this particular challenge. But we want to give people something that gives them a chance to play if they're in the mood to sort of play around with something they they weren't aren't working on in that moment, or invite them back because they've sort of gotten away from from their work and want to be able to come back and do things. So I really think it's fun for people to have a challenge. For me personally, I a lot of times have stuff that I have very, you might have noticed I haven't elaborate plans. And so but it's fun for me to say, Oh, I that I could do that. Right? That's just a little challenge. I could just take this little diversion and do something fun. And then I can come back to the thing that I was working on the big project I was working on or whatever it happens to be going on. So I think it's some of my very favorite. I have some favorite layouts that I created as part of Refresh that were not things at all on my radar. When Refresh started on Thursday. I was like, Oh, I yeah, I can do that. And I've made some really lovely layouts, even things that upon first reading the challenge. I'm like, I don't know. I'll trust Jennifer, I'll try this, that I create this thing and I'm like, Oh wow, I really really love this. So it's an opportunity for some play. It's an opportunity for some surprise for people and so I think it's a awesome benefit of the membership and something that can really serve folks to get them re engaged or, or engaged in a different way if they are engaged. And then there's this really fun thing where you, we've been picking a virtual location, I think this was sort of a spontaneous idea you had in January. And people love this idea of daydreaming about where we might go for a retreat if we were all able to go and being together somewhere. And so that has been one of the funnest things this year about these Refresh Retreat says, everybody being so excited about this, the idea of this virtual place this other place, often somewhere on another side of the world that we daydream about being together in this exotic locale. So that's been really fun, too.

Jennifer Wilson 55:50

And one thing has been so interesting is that for each of the locations, so far, we've had people who have visited there or actually live there, and can kind of give us you know, some additional tips about what to do, what to see. And we can choose specific like lodging, we've had a variety of different different scenarios, from very luxury to a little bit more spartan. But it's yeah, it's just been fun to kind of daydream travel. And pick a fun place to have a retreat, you know, it's it just adds a little bit of extra magic to the experience, whether you're, you know, doing the challenges, or you're doing your own thing, and that's, you know, even in the instructions is to make that decision for yourself. Because we want you to have the experience that you want to have. This is an invitation, as you said, back to your desk to take time to play and create with friends.

Peggy Collins 56:45

Yeah, awesome. Come play with us.

Jennifer Wilson 56:48

So the next Refresh session starts July 14, and goes through Sunday the 17th. And that is yeah, that is just around the corner.

Peggy Collins 56:59

Here before we know it this year is flying by.

Jennifer Wilson 57:02

Oh my gosh, yes. So yeah, Peggy and I are already planning for 2023. This tends to happen this time of year, we start to get lots of ideas, and you know how we love to plan. So definitely thinking about what our members want and need the things that we're interested in the things that we're observing. Definitely, we're listening closely to, you know, the winds of change and what people are talking about and what they're asking for, and ways to even better support people with, you know, whatever we do next. But yeah, this has been such a fun conversation. I'm looking forward to doing this again.

Peggy Collins 57:38

Me too. So much fun.

Jennifer Wilson 57:42

Thank you, Peggy. And to all of our listeners, please do remember that you have permission to Scrapbook Your Way. Don't forget to head over to simple scrapper.com/workshops to check out the recording of our workflow automation workshop, and register for our next free event on album organization.