Major Operation

I'm starting to understatand how planners at Defence feel when the national leaders announce that we are going to invade someone in a large dusty country with a hostile populace.

Mrs Grendel is going on a scrapbooking retreat and the logistics of the operation would put a peacekeeping force to shame and would not be dissimilar to the recent arrangements for 'W's' War.

There is a pile of equipment, emergency rations, odd shaped cases and a highly secret folder of sensitive scrapping materials.

Then there are the transport arrangements - heavy cargo transports for all the gear and people movers for scrappers.

I've been drafted into the Home Guard for the weekend and will do my utmost to defend our home - with frozen swedish meatballs if necessary.

I have a large stock of coffee beans (well to tell the truth I ALWAYS have a large stock of coffee beans) for roasting which would have kept me at home except I have to make a skirmish to a kids party at one of those really loud kids party places on Saturday.

Now, where's my IPod?

The Perfect Scrap

After intense analysis of the science and art of scrapbooking I have determined the parameters of the perfect scrapbooking photograph.

1. It must be something you can write about
2. It must have colour or movement
3. It must have children, animals or both
4. It is best set outdoors, preferably in a rural environment
5. Props are a must
6. Funny helps too

And thus I present today's Masterpeice - 'Grendel's Patent Scrapbooking Image- Model 1.0'

An Easter Tale

I'm going to cross-post this on both my blogs so if you read both, sorry for the repetition.

Junior Grendel Number One is 5 and attends pre-school at the local Catholic School which is round the corner from our place. They have been doing the Easter Story in class preparing for a pre-school Passion Play at Easter.

Yesterday as we drove past the School Junior Grendel Number One and Junior Grendel Number Two were talking in the back when they noticed where we were.


Junior Grendel Number Two: "Wook Awacky - there your school"

Junior Grendel Number One: "Yes, and there is the big X we made today"

"Big X" says Grendel "what big X?"

"The big X the soldiers put Jesus on" says Junior Grendel Number One.

Then in the appropriate sing-song he continued: "Jesus came and said 'I'm the king of the castle and you're all dirty rascals' and all the other kings got really mad about this and told their soldiers to hit Jesus really hard and hammer him on the cross"

At this point I am straining against the seat belt and Mrs Grendel was swerving dangerously across the road as we collapsed in laughter.

It is amazing how kids intermingle what they learn in class with what they hear from their classmates, but that one was a classic.

The Scrapping Room

For some reason I now seem to be referring to what was 'future site of a home theatre' as the 'scrapping room'.

I think I'll have to make a push for the more neutral 'The Office'.

Still needs painting in there! Mrs Grendel keeps filling the weekends up with kids parties (or is that the kids filling our weekends up with their parties?)

I've never known two boys that get invited to so many parties.

The Five Stages of Scrapbooking

Anyone who took psychology as a minor subject will have received the basic psych package that included Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need and the Kübler-Ross model of five discrete emotional stages when dealing with loss.

While not entirely convinced of the applicability of either of these models to humans generally, there are in fact echoes of each of these models within the world of scrapbooking.

They are symbiotic and synergistic – that is, neither of these models could exist or operate independantly of the other. The models reflect the positions of two individuals within a relationship with the addition of a third factor that might be argued by some as catalytic although some hold the view that this third factor is best represented as a reactant.

The two individuals have oppositional roles, but in some cases can appear more collaborative than competative. This greater cooperation does not appear to impact on the models as they will be described further.

We shall term the first individual as the ‘scrapper’. Their role is essentially a creative role – using resources to creat aesthetically pleasing objects.

The second individual is the ‘non-scrapper’ or ‘scrapper’s partner’. This role is one of finding resources and providing these for the scrapper’s use.

The behaviour of the two individuals can be loosely bounded by two distinct continuums that define stages as they progress in shaping their own role. It must be cautiously noted that not all scrappers, or scrapper’s partners may pass through each of the stages or in the order that they are described. In a general sense, observed behaviours do however follow these patterns.

For a Scrapper: The role of the Scrapper we shall describe as ‘Grendel’s Hierarchy of Scrap’

Tangible – “What am I going to do with my photos?” or perhaps “I need a hobby” or even
“Hey that album is a lot nicer than my old one”

Perpetuation – “I’m not sure I like this hobby much, I’m terrible at it, but I’ve spent so much money on the tools and paper that if I don’t use it all he’ll be grumpy for a month!”

Positioning – “I’m getting good at this – my layouts are better than most of those in the magazines!”

Esteem – “I’ve been published – my layouts ARE better than hers!”

Transcendence – “Oh no, I don’t bother to send layouts in for consideration anymore, I’m just doing it for the art.”


For a Scrapper's Partner: The role of the Scrapper's Partner we shall describe as ‘Grendel’s Five Realisations of Being a Scrapper’s Partner’

Denial – The usual first stage – “This won’t last, it’s just a brief (expensive) fad”

Fear – “My god she’s been at this for six months and shows no sign of slowing up!”

Bargaining – “Perhaps you should think about a Scrapping related business to help sustain the hobby? Then it would also be a tax deduction!”

Retaliation – “Time for an expensive hobby of my own”

Acceptance – “We can’t keep this up, I’d better sell the fishing boat/golf clubs/glider/drag racer/Harley/Satellite communications array. . .”


(as a final note, the peak of Maslow’s Hierarchy is ‘self actualisation’ and the creation of aesthetically pleasing objects is usually considered one way of fulfilling this need so it might be argued that scrappers have full lives that meet all of the lower order needs. Make of that what you will!)

Scrapping lo-res

We don't have access to the usual camera at the moment so all photos are being taken on our 2-megapixel phone cameras.

I enjoy the challenge, but Mrs Grendel does not so much.

I haven't googled it yet - but I wonder if there are any scrapping styles to incorporate 'grainy' stuff like this one from my camera:


I actually reckon its an interesting shot - but as it features no people at all I don't see much hope of it ever being scrapped.

Why the Dinosaurs did not survive the flood

And the Lord said to Noah, "You must build an Ark large enough to accommodate a male and female of all the creatures of the earth. I’ve dressed some timber for you down by the water edge so that you can get a good start – whaddya say to that?"

And Noah looked upon the pile of lumber the Lord had wrought and said “Oh most mighty lord, do you think you could perhaps perform they mighty milling work a little more, perhaps about 40% more dressed cedar and oak?”

The Lord was puzzled and said “My Child surely you do not doubt my calculations for the amount of timber you will need for a vessel that will hold two of each of the creatures of the earth?”

“Oh indeed not Lord” quoth Noah, “but did you consider the shelving I’ll need for the Noah family scrapbook albums, the Ark’s scrapbooking studio and 40 days and 40 nights worth of paper, embellishments and bindings?”

"Hmmmm" considered the Lord, "I seem to be a little short of good lumber, show me that boarding manifest again. . ."

Scraplight Zone

Harry Potter, boy wizard and nemesis of the evil Lord Voldemort is able to slip between the muggle world and the magical world with great ease - including into a magical Dickins-esque shopping precinct known as Diagon Alley.

Today, I too was transported between worlds when Mrs Grendel asked that we stop on the way home at a scrapbooking shop.

Now there seems to be no end of names that people come up with for scrapbooking stores, all of which seem to manage to include 'scrap'.

Up until fairly recently any store with the name 'scrap' in its title could usually be reliably assumed to be inhabited by hairy, unwashed blokes and their pit pull cross breeds one of which is almost certainly named 'Satan'.

It is a somewhat different experience then to cross over into the alternate universe that is a scrapbooking store. They are, as a rule inhabited by non-hirsute and very hygienically inclined ladies without a canine presence to be found.

Today we were in a store name 'Scraptivate', one of the better efforts in the nomenclature of scrapping retail in my opinion. All of these stores seem to come with a website - must be part of the franchise. . .

It was also ordered in a way that even a non-scrapping partner such as myself can understand and it had a nice selection of tools, albeit pastel coloured and undersized but recognisable facsimiles of the real thing.

Mrs Grendel goes into shivers of ecstasy in a place like this, wall to wall racks of paper, thousands of embellishments - miniaturized and flattened objects, so that like the ancient Egyptians we can be launched into history accompanied by everything that might be needed in a 2-dimensional afterlife.

The scrapping universe is feminine and dominantly so, even the papers colours and patterns preclude predilections or penchants for this pastime by masculine partners.

There was a little habitat into which children can be placed for short term storage. That was great for the junior grendels - plenty to keep them entertained for at least half an hour.

Personally, I think a habitat for husbands is needed.

5 Uses for 12 x 12 paper

So, as a non-scrapbooker, occasionally I find myself in need of a piece of paper and nothing is lying around - except that sheet of Basic Grey (please insert preferred paper supplier) she left on the kitchen table.

These have in the past been used for:

• Rocket bodies for the kids (nice stiff paper is essential!);
• Wedges for the door on a breezy day;
• Emergency funnel for funneling coffee beans into a pack;
• Place mat for a spagetti dinner; and,
• To paper over the escape hole that has taken me years to chip through the walls. . .

Ok, the last one isn't strictly true, but might become necessary if I ever again use the WRONG SHEET OF PAPER!

Ikea

If there is a Creative Memories of households then it is Ikea.

No, wait - that would be Amway.

Lets try again.

Ikea - love the meatballs (with the LingonBerry jam of course!), don't like the scary shoe things but they do have interesting kitchen objects and some quite handy furniture, which once you have blasphemed at for a couple of days actually turns out to be servicable and not-to-bad-looking.

Mrs Grendel has been visiting Ikea. I know because I found a little round apple-corer-peeler thingy and a new 2007 catelogue on the computer desk when I got home. Also she told me she was going - but lets not spoil a good story. . .

Ikea has (up until now) been a place of annual pilgrimage for us. Around the time our tax check comes in each year we take a little of the money and follow the arrows along the convoluted journey that is the Ikea experience.

I must confess that last time I was there in an act of singular rebellion I walked the length of the store AGAINST THE ARROWS!

This was met with frowns from the pram pushing families and chargrin from the arrow-following swedish tourists (why would they come to Ikea - it is like McDonalds for Americans - just that little hint of home?)

But it is March, and we have been to Ikea 3 times already in 2007. The products have all ended up in the scrapping room and I sense this latest foray into the flat-packed paradise is merely a precursor to a big hit on the house remodelling budget for the front room (formerly the site of the home theatre and now, alas almost certainly to be a den of scrap-iquity. . .)

Worst of all though is that Mrs Grendel went while I was at work so I missed the meatballs!

Queer eye for the straight line

The Fab Five are back in a new series in what may well be a repeat of the Bravo Cable network's greatest success story - Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Ted, Kyan, Thom and Carson have all signed on for the new series which provides their colourful blend of advice and joie de vie to the world of scrapbooking.

They will travel the United States seeking out scrapping 'tragics' and help them to makeover their albums.

Former Queer Guy Jai Rodriguez, who has a morbid fear of paper cuts will not be joining the Fab Five for this series. His spot will be taken by Haas van der Swoon, a paper design expert.

The new series to be broadcast on Sunday nights is to be called Queer Eye for the Straight Line, apparently in reference to the difficulty that many scrappers have in ruling and cutting straight edges.

The first season starts on April 9 and a full season of the show has already been recorded

Long ago,

In a scrapping room far far away. . .




The evil forces of the Empire of Scrapbooking Room hold the galaxy in their sway.

A small band of rebels continues to hold out against tyranny but their cause is fragile and their leaders are in hiding.

The Empress has hired 'contractors' to re-shape the galaxy to her design and the rebels, having a much smaller budget have also managed a 'contractor' who was willing to be paid in beer.

Having regained some balance the rebels are now poised to consolidate their position but have discovered that the Empress plans to travel to the planet of Ikea where she will purchase the weapons to destroy the rebel forces once and for all.

The rebel forces had planned to 'max the card' by buying a new coffee weapon so that the Empress would have purchases declined on the planet Ikea.

Unbeknown to the rebels, the Empress has created a secret account from which she will purchase the weapons to seal their doom.

The rebels only hope is to establish their own base of operations from which they may one day reclaim the Front Room.

Intercepted Communication

From: Field Commander PAL, HTLF - Garage Division

To: Home Theatre Government-in-exile


Greetings,


The initial foray of the Home Theatre Liberation Front (HTLF) forces into the territory of Garage has been a success.

Initial scouting reports indicated that a significant quantity of debris may have been an impediment to free movement but while clearing this material we found much that was salvageable and will serve our cause.

We have established a bridgehead within the Garage and have pacified the South West of the territory. Our base camp, while only recently established was today consolidated by the arrival of the workbench.

Attempts by the forces of Scrapbooker to seize this workbench for their own use in the newly established Front Scrapbooking Room were repelled.

Heavy tools have been placed on the workbench to ensure it cannot easily be seized if by chance the garage is overrun.

I recommend that a battalion of engineers be sent to assist in developing the infrastructure of Garage and further pacifying its interior.

May you always have Peace, long life, 5.1 Dolby Surround sound and High Definition picture quality.

Yours in Stereo,

PAL

Mea Culpa

Forgive me blog readers, for I have slacked. It has been three days since my last, er, confession.

Truth be told work has been so busy that at night I have had little will to fire up the laptop and normally while a blog post takes me less than 5 minutes to write I have found myself staring over the top of the screen into the distance while the keyboard sobs quietly to itself in loneliness.

I work in government and at the moment we are negotiating a new agreement between the state and federal governments. Everything is not going to plan and unexpected hiccups have thrown some time lines and some plans into disarray.

I have however warmly embraced the leader of the Scrapbooking Room Faction (and I for one welcome our new scrapbboking overlord. . .) and only delivered a slight Spockian eyebrow raise when I arrived home on Monday to find that the carpenter had returned to install shelves in what was once going to be the alcove for my flat screen.

I won't have to travel this month and this weekend is the local Labour Day long weekend so I think I'll be drafted into the paint corp to complete the finish of the scrapbooking room.

The Airconditioner awaits us in Lay-By at Kmart and the installation of that is something I have yet to arrange - but by the Will of the Scrapper it shall be done.

That's the news in Brief, although there may be a report tomorrow from the Leader of the Home Theatre Liberation Front, or if we are really lucky the Popular Front for the Liberation of Home Theatre. . .

Waterloo

It looked for a brief shining moment that I was having an Austerlitz but after a long wearying retreat from Moscow I have met my Waterloo.

Le Grande Armee of the Republic of Home Theatre has been defeated and its General has capitulated.

The construction work on the front room is complete, the French Doors are fitted and all is in preparation for its transformation to a scrapbooking room.

Today was spent attempting to sell off some possessions at a garage sale - not much luck today though.

This will only delay the inevitable however, and the plans for a long workbench are in place. I'm planning a workbench of my own - in the garage. $90 for a sheet of ply and a carton of beer for a mate of mine who is a handyman and I'll have a long work and coffee roasting bench.

But either way Mrs Grendel's scrapping palace will proceed over the ashes of my home theatre empire - I have even provided war reparations and bought a split system air conditioner so that she can scrap in comfort. . .

Dangers of buying scrapping presents

Ok - to be perfectly frank, buying ANY present is fraught with dangers, but it seems that there are particular risks to buying scrapbooking presents.

First of all there's the additional cost because all of the 'Really Cool' scrapbooking stuff come from somewhere other than here - I imagine that this rule applies where ever you live, its just a truism that the cardstock is cleaner of the other side - or something.

So the deal have to be done furtively over the internet, trusting that the package will arrive on time. And worse, you have to sneak around using secret email accounts, funds squirreled away for presents and carefully guarded phone calls so that the surprise is kept.

By the end of the whole process I am such a wreck that i cannot comprehend how I can do this again.

And finally there is the fact that every scrapbooking item looks the same as every other scrapbooking item - and even worse they are all called he same thing.

I propose that scrapbooking items be provided with an International Charting of Keepsakes Indices (ICKI) - that is, a tracking number we men can use for simple ordering.

"Yes thanks, I'd Like 20 of the ICKI 200790223, 3 extra large ICKI 29847563's oh and throw in that ICKI 99857633 that is on special this week."

Ahhh yes - organisation!

Political Scrapbooking

The presidential campaign in the United States is demonstrating the power of bloggers in spreading the message, and here too in Australia, political blogging in taking on a new impetus and the battle between blogger across the political spectrum is very entertaining.

But what about political scrapbooking? Surely these aspirants to high office should be preserving grand moments of their campaign - or perhaps send scrappers off to preserve low moments of their opponent's campaigns. Think of the untold riches in political history being lost because no one is preserving these seminal moments of history on 12 by 12 sheets of acid-free card stock.

Future generations I am sure would love to have an archival quality record of the Machiavellian activities of the politicians and their respective staff members.

Thinks of all the entertaining biographies that could be written with such well preserved primary source material.

And so I call upon politicians of every political colour - employ a scrapper today to preserve your place in history!

Scrappers low rate of productivity

If you are the partner of a scrapper and they are not producing any works for scrap it makes it that much harder to write anything. . .

However, Mrs Grendel did recently do a big scrap page of me and my coffee using one of those photos where I am looking over my shoulder at her while I make coffee.

She hung it in the bedroom which let me tell you can be a little off-putting.

Still - I reckon that is better than if she'd hung a scrapbook page of her mother on the wall.

The battle of the front room continues but it is not going well for the forces of home theatre.

Pre-Emptive Strike

I had decided to deliver a pre-emptive strike and had obtained a copy of "Australian Home Theatre Design" to select the layout and equipment required to fulfill my dream. I thought if I drew up a plan and placed some surround sound speakers on Lay-By then I could head Mrs Grendel off at the pass and ensure the total dominance of the Home Theatre faction.

Imagine then my shock and dismay when I engaged in my usual afternoon reconnaissance of Mrs Grendel's blog and saw this:


And this!


I feel like a middle eastern despot who's just been invaded and actually doesn't have WMD in his arsenal. . .

Archaeology Today - again

Archaeology Today is proving to be a valuable resource for the partner of a scrapbooker to learn more about the origins of their partner's obsession.

At some point in the distant past - around 600 AD a Mega-El Nino event destroyed a Peruvian civilisation that had a unique form of scrapbooking.

The life and culture of this ancient mountain civilization was devastated by floods then droughts of almost unimaginable proportions.

The culture, which included blood sacrifices to propitiate the gods vanished almost overnight and only recently have some examples of their daily life and art been unearthed.

This has included some remarkable examples of early scrapbooking. No paper was used in the Andean art. Their medium of choice was clay pots - so I guess they were early examples of 'Off/Beyond-the-page' scrapping.

The scenes depicted reveal a rich culture which until recently had been a riddle to archaeologists. The scrappers of that culture have successfully preserved their cultural practices and I guess today's scrapbookers are trying to do the same.

I feel particularly pleased that this civilisation became extinct and did not survive to pass on its scrapping techniques to modern scrapbookers.

From what I can tell it involved challenges - much as we have today except these challenges had loosers as well as winners and after the challenge was complete the looser would be bound and their throat would be cut with the blood caught in a bowl and offered to the gods as a sacrifice.

Still I bet 'scrappers block' was never a problem.

Is scrapping a fad?

As the partner of a scrapper, it is very important to me to understand the dynamic world of scrapping.

One concern for me is that all of a sudden, like Buck's Fizz, scrapbooking will collapse and vanish from the face of the earth leaving only some non-fading acid free memories and a black market trade in Basic Grey paper.

This of course has significant implications for the partners of scrapbookers. For some of us there future holds not only the double crises of global warming and peak oil, but also the potential demise of all we have worked and paid for over the last few years.

There is the faint hope, that scrapbooking like knitting, will be a sustainable hobby, and that a thousand years from now, historians will marvel at and thoroughly misinterpret the 2007 scrapbooking efforts of Mrs Grendel like some modern version of the Bayeux tapestry.

I must confess that my fears arise from the lack of any scrapbooking related political apparatus - given that most interest groups these days seem to have at least a lobby representing them in Capitol City.

Without this level of political clout scrapbooking remains at best an 'interest' or 'hobby' group - at the whim of market and social forces beyond their control. Why don't I see a scrapper running for President in the US, Prime Minister in the UK or Australia and for Dictator in Uzbekistan?

Now is the time scrappers, Carpe Papyrus!

Vive le Scrapolution!