Back to School Bus

I know I’ve been celebrating summer, but yesterday evening reality set in.  The school year has returned and brought with it that nightly demon…homework.

Ya’ll…I hate homework as much as my kid does.  Because his homework agony is my homework agony.  I envy parents whose children sail through their school work with scarely a groan.  The parents who can always read their children’s homework because it’s legible! The parents who don’t have to sequester their children in convent-like silence because their children actually possess powers of concentration!

And I commiserate with those parents who would rather rip out their own molars with rusty pliers than face an afternoon of textbooks and homework assignments.

To add insult to injury, once again this year I was not allowed to take a picture of my DS on his first day of school in his classroom.   Not because of any silly school rule, but because my eight-going-on-eighteen year old is simply too cool to have his mom taking pictures in front of his friends.  After four years of it’s-the-first-day-of-school-but-I-can’t-take-a-picture-for-the-scrapbook-that-rotten-kid-of-mine-will-one-day-treasure, you’d think I’d be so over it.

But I’m not.

It irritates me that every year I am forced to complete a back-to-school layout that hasn’t a single photograph on it.

The first year, the year he entered kindergarten, I made light of it and designed a layout reminiscent of a yearbook page with the blank spaces which read “Photograph Not Available”.

The second year — first grade — I used stickers and journaled my heart out about his classroom and his teacher and my impressions of his first day and my hopes for the year.

The third year I used TONS of stickers, but the most I could muster up was eight lines of journaling.  It’s a good thing I’m good with color and space and that I understand the beauty of “white space” in an artful composition.

This year I’m seriously considering taping a single piece of notebook paper in the scrapbook and writing what I really think.

Of course, I would never, ever do that.  Not really.  But I can, and often do, entertain all sorts of awful thoughts in my head.  And sometimes, on occasion, I share them here.  Lucky you!!!

For those of you who have those oh-so-sweet first-day-of-school photos and are looking for something to include in your layout, I’ve got something here for you.  (And no, I don’t mean my middle finger!)

And for those of you, who like me, have rotten children who are ungrateful for the many daily sacrifices you make as a sainted parent, you can use it to fill up the immense blank space on your layout created by a lack of photographs.

Back to School Bus

I’m providing *.svg files for the following:

Black Bus Background

Yellow Bus Foreground

Hubcaps

White Background for Stop Sign

Red Stop Sign & Blinker

I’m also including a *.scut file with all the pieces on a single 12×12 cutting mat, and all the pieces sized correctly to be pieced together to create a 5″ bus.  You can grab it here.

Please note that I did not include any wording on the side of the bus.  That’s to allow you room to customize your bus with whatever you’d like it to say.  Once you’ve imported the *.svg file (or opened the *.scut file) in SCAL, you can simply position your cursor right on the bus (make sure you do this on what will be the yellow part) and type in whatever you’d like it to read.

I’ll personally refrain from making any disparaging remarks on the bus that I’ll cut for my scrapbook.  But you know I can’t go to jail for what I’m thinking

Best of luck with the homework, and happy Cricut-ing.

In Memory and Prayer

This morning I sat down to create a few goodies for posting, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t capture the carefree sensation the thoughts of summer bring.

You see…we got a phone call late last night. 

The kind of call that comes in after a decent time for anyone to call. 

The kind of call that makes your heart stop for a moment before you answer it because you know that calls that come in that time of night rarely bring good news.

I wish I could say this call was one of the rare exceptions to the late-night-call-equals-bad-news-call rule, but it wasn’t.

Today I have friends who are in mourning, and my heart breaks for them.  I can’t imagine the breadth and depth of their pain.

But I believe with every cell of my being that our God is a loving God.  A compassionate God.  A God of forgiveness and reconciliation. 

I believe that their loved one now knows no pain, no fear, no loneliness, no anguish.  Now he knows that our earthly lives are but a moment in time, a short introduction to an infinite and blissful existance. 

Today I pray that my friends find the strength necessary to mourn their loss and to celebrate the life of the person that they love.  May their memories bring more joy than pain. 

May God bless them all and hold them in the secure comfort of his hands.