SPRING in Salt Lake...

Aren't they beautiful!!?  In Pennsylvania, we call this bush Forsythia.  Apparently, in North Carolina, however, they're called yellow bell bushes.  At least according to Sharon and Karen...

Patti, Sharon, Karen and I attended the Regional in Salt Lake last weekend.  We got to see the new catalog AND purchase items from the Sneak Peek!

The Regional was great, as always - and was held in the picking area of Stampin' Up!s Distribution center - what fun!

We had Shelli all to ourselves!  All 375 of us...

And what are we celebrating thoughout 2013?

Yep, making a difference for 25 years!

I can vouch for Stampin' Up!'s having made a difference in MY life!  It's been a creative journey I would never have imagined for myself 23 years ago - but what FUN!

But I'm getting away from the title of today's blog entry - SPRING!

Most of the plants I took photos of do not do well in Southern California - but they are plants I grew up with in PA, so I had a blast taking pictures and trying to remember what their names are...

First of all - snow in the mountains!  It was beautiful all around us, since Salt Lake is in a valley between two mountain ranges...

Can't forget trees with blossoms - I THINK this is a flowering plum...

And tulips!

And LILACS! 

This is one of my favorite bushes and they just don't do well where I live in San Diego...  We had three or four lilacs in our yard when I grew up and I STILL love the smell of them...

The gals at the hotel told us this was a flowering plum.  Quite beautiful in person!

And I can't forget the fun we had while we ate and gabbed! 

The REQUIRED visit to Olive Garden!  Sharon and Patti here...

And our step out of our normal box - T G I Fridays...

We had a BLAST!  Thanks Stampin' Up! for giving us a "getaway weekend" to do something we love!

What?  OH - new product?  Yep, we got some...  New catalog?  Yep, we got one...

BUT - I can't show it to you just yet!  I know - what a tease, huh?

You're just going to have to be satisfied with SPRING in Salt Lake for this blog post...   I'm working on my This And That journal and making it "My Stampin' Up! Journey" - so next time, I'll show you some of what I've been doing with that...

Thanks for stopping by - come back soon!

My WORD!

Around the first of the year, I saw several people posting on Facebook that, instead of choosing to make a resolution this year, they were, instead, going to select a word for the year that meant something to them and which they could use all year.

The idea appealed to me!

I spent an hour or so talking to my friend Susan about what word to select...  I am, and always have been, a procrastinator.  There, I said it out loud!

Many of my friends will attest to this (yes, I know you're laughing!)... 

So, my thought was that I needed to tackle this habit and see what, if anything I could do to change it.

As Susan and I putzed around on the Internet, we found there really ISN'T an antonym for the word "procrastination".

So, what to do, what to do?

We ran across an article that, among other things, suggested the word ALACRITY.

OK, but what does it mean?  Well, here's the definition I found that was the most succinct:

ALACRITY:
liveliness; promptness
 
Synonyms: alertness, avidity, briskness, cheerfulness, dispatch, eagerness, enthusiasm, expedition, fervor, gaiety, hilarity, joyousness, promptitude, quickness, readiness, speed, sprightliness, willingness, zeal

So, I decided that will be my word for the year...

Now, remember, this is something I'm WORKING on, OK - not something I've yet accomplished!

So, I decided I needed to make a banner with this word on it and hang it in my Stampin' Garage as a reminder that I'm still a Work In Progress (WIP)...

I finally finished it about 2 weeks ago and hung it above the door going from the Stampin' Garage into the house.

Wanna see it?

Yeh, I know you can see all my laundry products as well, but, hey, they've been there for 25 years, so they must work there!

Here are individual pictures of each of the letters in the banner.  I spent a lot of time creating this, investing myself into it, in hopes some of its meaning would rub off on me!  And I'm very pleased with the outcome!

Something else we learned as we surfed the Web - (Susan and I are both very alike in our procrastination habit!) - some people, rather than being procrastinators are INCUBATORS...

Meaning, they THINK about what they want to do and how to do it, but never put "pen to paper" (if you will) until the last minute because they're creating it in their mind, first...  And, at the last minute, because they've created it in their mind, it's no big deal to finish and be very happy with the results!

We both decided we liked that word instead of procrastinator!  LOL 

So - are you a procrastinator?  Or are you one of those people who pack in January for a trip in July?  I have at least one friend who is like that (Hi Roxy!) and she just doesn't "get it" that Susan and I wait til the last minute to do things like pack bags and make swaps and make plane reservations...

But, even though we wait til the last minute, somehow we get 'er done!  And sometimes, because we've waited, we get better prices on things than if we'd done it several months before!

Taking a vote here - do you procrastinate?  Leave me a comment!

Thanks for stopping by - come back soon!