ami's place blog

How I got my name, Ami E Pilon. I changed it as many women do, when I married my husband, thirty years ago. My name at that time was Ami Free-Spirit. I had gone to court on St. Patrick Day in 1977 and was awarded the right to have the name I chose. I was named very differently at birth and then again when I married and divorced. All of those names were a man's name from father to husband, to father and then to husband again. When I went to court the judge demanded that my children write to him that they were okay with this. They told him that I was and would always be, "mom" to them. When I married Jon I had no intention of changing my name, but he really wanted me to and so I kept my new chosen first name and adopted the family middle name and took his name. Now I am Ami Edith Pilon. Edith was my mothers and my grandmothers first name and so I am the third Edith in the family.

January 2016

Haven't done this in so long that I have almost forgotten how. I want to write more of the stories of my day to day. I do more and then forget more all of the time. When I get ready to put photos and stories into our albums, I end up with more photos because of the lost moments. 

Last night we went to  The Parlor, a club in town, after Jon got home from work. We met some of his co-workers for the evening. Recently we had mentioned to each other that when we are with others we should ask someone to take a photo of the two of us. We take loads of pictures but seldom of the two of us together. This time we did it, and I love the result. 

It was great to meet these folks. I've heard about them for a long time but wasn't well enough to go out later in the day. The club is full of pool tables and then there is a Comedy Club in another section. We had nachos and waffle fries, while we talked and laughed and had a great time. 

Today was so mellow. We were at the Mall from 8:30 this morning until 9:30 and didn't bump into our friends, Berni and Neal. We usually do and so I hope they are okay.  We had coffee and breakfast and then came home. It has been a laundry, email and relaxing day. I finally cleared the work table off and put new clean freezer paper on it. I thought why not as it's a new year. 

I've made the decision to do another large album. I put all of the beginning of my OLW album into a 6x8 one. This is what the first pages look like.

(I can't figure out how to delete this photo and to orient it correctly I would need to upgrade, and that would require  monthly charge. So, please forgive this and I will be more careful in the future.)
It was my intention to challenge myself with a new size album. I quickly found that I didn't feel like I had enough space for pictures and stories. I talked to Brooke at Urban Scrapper, our Scrapbook Store of choice, and ordered a 12x12 album. I relaxed the minute that I did. Thinking about my past albums there are so many pictures in them that the stories come to me by viewing them. Now I feel like they should be more descriptive so that others can experience them. More stories.  

I'll try to do more of this so that I can find the details when I put pages together. 

Tuesday of WITL

Such a busy day. At home and downtown. I had an appointment at Group Health for an MRI. It wasn't too bad but you have to lie flat on the platform and my back didn't like that at all. Jon took us across the street to Whole Foods for dinner and that made the evening a bit easier. We are in the grips of the hottest summer I can remember. Near 90 today and again tomorrow. I think this is a record for the greater Puget Sound area. Our tomatoes love it but I can't say the same for us.

These cherry tomatoes are ready each morning. Our one plant on the deck has produced close to sixty by now and there are many more not quite ripe yet. 

Tiny loves to run out in the mornings and hide behind the plant and watch the neighborhood. 

Many more pictures were taken and so I have managed to stay with the Week in the Life thus far this year. More tomorrow.

This was early this morning. One of many photos today.

I am attempting to complete a Week in the Life album this year. It is something that I have attempted in the past and never quite finished. It's funny as I am documenting my life and then LIFE got in the way. This time I am determined to keep at it. Ali Edwards picked a week to capture that has two different doctor appointments in it. Because I am doing monthly pages for my Project Life album, the need to take pictures and document isn't overwhelming because they have become a regular part of my days. I am actually looking forward to having the album completed and being able to look back on it in a few years.

First Quarter Project Life pages

January and the first part of February were going to be my first year of only doing one spread per month. I wasn't able to stick to that and decided that I would just go with what I wanted to record each month and see what happens. We had such a great time watching the local team make it to the Superbowl and then attending a party to watch the game. We left the party at half time to drive home. The Seahawks had a substantial lead and yet Jon worried all of the way homw that the tide would turn and the Broncos would begin to take the game. He needn't have worried as the Hawks scored another touchdown as we walked in the door and they won the game with an amazing score. 

These pages take me through the middle of March. In February I rejoined the Studio Calico Project Life kit club and have been once again enjoying the selection each month. I've been having such an amazing time now that I have a typewriter to use on some of my cards and can pay more attention to design. I also am taking two Silhouette classes from Creative Passions and will have more cut outs to use on my pages and have already used a few as stencils. I thought after the first year of PL that I might become bored with pocket pages and have found the opposite to be true. This is an easy way to scrap my families adventures and my desire to be involved with paper and art supplies is filled to the brim. 

This is ten pages in two and one half months with one more page to come. That will be almost three spreads per month and yeat I don't feel the pressure that I did when posting every week. I think the change has been more of a mental one than a real physical one for my memory keeping.

30 Days of Lists

I am taking part in a challenge called "30 Days of Lists" and am at day number 4 now. I think that I will post them in groups instead of each day and so here are the first four lists, preceeded by the first of the three pages they will stay in within my Project Life album.

Nan's 80th

This is the page that I made for my friend Nan's 80th birthday album. One of the group that calls itself "Arty Party", Lisa, called all of us and asked us each to put together a page. Nan has many friends that are calligraphers and artists and a few of us missfits who are scrappers. This was such fun to do as going through years of photos brought back so many fun memories. The products are a Tim Holtz paper and a Julie Balzar stencil along with little wood veneer peices and distress inks and washi tape. I do think that Nan was very pleased by the album. 

Project Life - April & May

The second half of April found me bound for Florida to be with my ill mother. After a week of family medical emergencies and the death of Jon's sister Peg. It was a long week. 

Then the arrivel in Florida to find Mom doing better than could be hoped. She had been in the ICU just days earlier. I had planned to stay through Mother's Day but at the end of the first week came down with a bad sore throat and flew home immediately to avoid giving it to Mom. 

Thus Mother's Day was spent here at home with Jon's mother and siblings and my son and daughter-in-law. 

Here are some of the detail shots from these pages:

The story of last month was very heavy. On the 15th my younger brother had cancer surgery. It was successful we found out just prior to my leaving on the trip. Then two days after his surgery our lovely sister, Peg, lost her two year battle with cancer. That next day was when I received the call saying that my mother was in ICU in Florida and then the next day our daughter-in-law had an exploritory procedure preformed which we found out later was fine. I really felt that if anything more happened in tht week I was going to be looking for another planet to call my home. Seriously it was draining and the cold I managed to pick up on the plane ride was most certainly due to the lowered immune response I had because of all of the stress. 

What is wonderful is that I am home, and safe and recovering. My brother is doing great as is our daughter-in-law. My mother is doing wonderfully for her 90 year old self. And we are all healing and dealing as well as we can with the loss of dear Peggy. 

New Dina page

I call this a Dina page as I am still reading and using as inspiration the Dina Wakley book, Art Journal Freedom. I used a Tim Holtz paper and a new stencil by Dyan Reavley both of Ranger. The sprays are Distress ink sprays. 

This page is how I am feeling today. I am eager for the construction to end and for the weather to grow warmer and thus my pain to lessen. I am happy but hurting and so desire to be tough. Working with art supplies is a wonderful way to take the edge off and to lift my spirits.