paper: Happy NSD! | pretty paper. true stories. {and scrapbooking classes with cupcakes.}

Today is National (or International) Scrapbooking Day! Because everything in the world needs its own holiday, for sure. For NSD 2015, I’m happy to join in with some lovely scrapbooking friends for a little blog hop. Wilna came up with a quiz for us and I’ve written my answers here, and for NSD I’m going to try to make them into a scrapbook page by the end of the day, so I capture a little snippet of life right now. Would you like to join us? We’d love to have you!

Currently…

1. Favourite youtube clip: Well, I’m not sure it qualifies as ‘favourite’, but it is probably the most played around here these days. Is there a song that almost instantly calms you down? Mine comes from the Coca-cola Hilltop ad, but Wonder Boy’s seems to be Jason Mraz on Sesame Street. I was hoping he would be a huge fan of Shiny Happy Monsters, but he still seems a little spooked by that one. Perhaps he’ll grow into that one day.

2. Listening to: Portuguese! It’s been a while since I’ve gone to an event to teach and my welcome back is an event called Chocolate Quente XL in Porto, Portugal this weekend. Yes, it’s an event called Extra-Large Hot Chocolate. I’m all for more of this naming convention please.

3. Watching: a completely comedy seagull from the classroom window yesterday. It was huge and whenever a pedestrian walked in front of the hotel, it would walk just a few feet behind, a bit like he was mocking them or giving a running commentary. Unfortunately for blog writing, I think this was far funnier from our position almost directly above the pavement, but I haven’t watched much else lately other than the odd episode of Sarah and Duck.

4. Reading: oh goodness, how boring can I get with this list when I haven’t been watching much and my recent reading has been reviewing a lot of early child development texts that I hadn’t read since my teacher training days? I’m making my way through highlighted and post-it noted Montessori and Steiner texts right now and finding it interesting how my thoughts have changed since I was a young twenty-something studying purely to teach in a classroom to now when I am somewhat older than that (ahem!) and looking at how we live on a daily basis rather than in a dedicated classroom. I have quite a few more schools of thought in the stack to review over the next few months. I need to get stuck into a good novel but haven’t yet got to a point where it is enjoyable again because I don’t do well with fiction when I’m reading ten minutes at a time unless it is a book I’ve already read. I think I might be seeing a light where I could read before bed soon. For longer than ten minutes. In theory. Maybe. We’ll see!

5. I can eat this everyday: my beloved cheating square of 90% chocolate. I have ended up with a zillion new allergies lately and have had to go onto a really restrictive diet where I’m basically eating fish and vegetables. No gluten, dairy, sugar, grains, or nuts. It’s not really very fun and I miss cake and coffee. But one square of very dark chocolate doesn’t seem to hurt and it’s my big treat of the day. Here’s to hoping the allergies are short-lived and I can eat brownies again soon! I might need to try ALL THE BROWNIES to make sure they are still good, you know. For the good of humanity, you understand.

6. Favourite drink at 4pm: I would swoon for a flat white from London Grind right about then, for sure.

7. On my Wishlist: extra hours in the day. Always.

8. Enjoying: how much Wonder Boy is learning right now. Cliched, but true. He’s very near to walking on his own now and this week spontaneously said ‘bye-bye’ to another child in a cafe when he waved. Roll your eyes all you want: it’s just lovely.

9. Favourite quote right now: I know the thing I say most lately is ‘gentle hands’. Ha!

10. Smiling about: the amazingly sweet conversation I just had with Manoli, an immensely talented lady also teaching here this weekend, through Maria, a very kind translator.

and….

My favourite project for this year is… my True Stories collection (now available at Scrapbook.com and other stores).

Your NSD challenge is to answer those same questions in any form that inspires you – that might be on a scrapbook page or in a blog post or in your own journal. If you care to share, it would be lovely to see your answers. Leave a link here or tag me on Instagram if you prefer.

Next up, hop over to Nancy Damiano to continue to the NSD fun.

And don’t miss the free download from Wilna.

I hope your NSD is a fabulous and creative day from start to finish!

Read more about:

02 May 2015

Next post: The Story-Centered Album - A Scrapbooking Course for Listening
Previous post: As it Happens scrapbooking video :: Using all the cute stuff