Yesterday I tackled cleaning out a closet that had my camera equipment. I never throw anything out if I can help it, but in anticipation of an upcoming move.....no, not to Charleston as previously stated - but that's another blog, I have been doing some discarding. My original "serious" camera was a Minolta Rangefinder that I dropped in the surf in Hawaii and ruined. I did keep it for many years, thinking I would cough up the money to have it fixed, but I finally (cries) discarded it. Now, I see I have my second camera, an Olympus OM1 that took all the great pictures of my son growing up and my Canon Rebel EOS, which I truly loved, my original digital camera, an Olympus was stolen and I replaced it with a Sony, which was ok...and, of course today I have the Canon Powershot. I guess that's not a lot of camera for a lifetime, and I did have the instamatics and the polaroid, but I haven't bothered keeping any of those, just the ones that mean something to me. I would love to have the new Canon Rebel Digital, but the price is prohibitive at this point and I would not be able to take it into a concert...so, I'll stick with what I currently have for the time being.

At any rate, and the point of all this, while going through the various camera bags and organizing everything, I found several Sony memory sticks I had put away when I got the new Canon....and surprise, found some pictures I had taken on a vacation to Southern Arizona about 5 years ago. Not very many but I had obviously forgotten about these as most of the pictures I took on that trip were with the Canon EOS.

Since I was thrilled with putting the Concord Hall pictures in a video format I tried it again. This time I used Roxio instead of Photoshop Elements Organizer. With Roxio I don't see a way to add captions to the pictures, which I might want to do with bird pics. I also found Roxio a little more unwieldy for getting the pics into the project and organizing them. It's a tossup.

These pics aren't great, but there are a couple of sunsets on here that I remember well. it was like the mountains were on fire. Most of the bird pics were taken near Tucson, but the sunsets were from a B&B I stayed at in Hereford, Az (not far from Bisbee). Great birding area. If I can find some of the SLR pics perhaps I will blog on the B&B and trip - it was a lot of fun.

So, here is the video, if interested. It's short, and again the music is by William Joseph. Go to the sidebar on the right and turn Clay off by hitting the two bars.



Just trying to distract myself while we are awaiting a PR for Clay's new "Highly Anticipated" album.

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I've mentioned before that I'm trying to digitalize my family pictures and documents for posterity. Yesterday I completed scanning of one small photo album (of many). I was glad to get the pictures scanned but then I thought about putting them into a slide show and sure enough Photoshop Elements 4 Organizer does just that and allows you to make a video of the whole thing. So, I did it and uploaded it into Youtube and feel very proud of myself. I see all the wonderful montages everyone does with Clay pictures and this is not anywhere as nice as those, but it's my first attempt. I will work on it a little more and maybe make DVD's for my siblings for Christmas.

I call this particular album Concord Hall because most of the pictures were taken there. Concord Hall is a house in Lancaster, Ohio and is now on the Heritage Tour in the area. My great grandmother bought the house in 1903 and my father sold it in 1949 (for a pittance, almost exactly what Mary paid for it) when we moved to California. I visited the house in the 1970's and have some pictures I took at that time and it looks just the same, except some of the big elm trees have come down over the years in storms.

Anyway, here is the video if you are interested in genealogy or history you might enjoy some of these pictures. The clothes were beautiful...the young boy in the pictures is my father and man, he had some wild outfits. Before you play the video, go to the jukebox on the side bar to the right and turn Clay off by clicking the two little bars ". Thanks. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhfdeaWjv6g

The house was built in 1831 and on it's 150th anniversary, the following story was written by Ruth Drinkle and published in the 1981 Fall edition of the Fairfield Heritage Quarterly.


Happy 150th Birthday

Concord Hall

It was in the summer of 1831 that Augustus Witte moved his family from the log cabin, which had been their temporary home, into their newly built fine brick home three miles west of the village of Lancaster. If the walls of this venerable home could talk, it could tell a story something like the following:

"Yes, it has been 150 years that I have provided homes for several families, and in the course of those years I've experienced many joys and sorrows, many fond hopes and dashed expectations but I've always been loved and most people think I'm more beautiful than ever, which of course comes from sturdy and well planned construction and tender loving care over the years and I've had three different names. But let me start at the beginning.

I was conceived in Hanover, Germany, shortly following Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Young Captain Augustus Witte, who had distinguished himself with gallant conduct during that battle had received a medal from the government for his service, and had married the niece of his commanding officer, General Bliicher. She died quite young and a little later he married Agatha Von Roden. Having heard much of the wonders of the new world, they must have decided to build a new life for themselves, there, and so on May 15, 1829 he embarked from Bremen and six weeks later he landed in Baltimore, Md. He came directly to Ohio and to Lancaster, where there was already a sizeable German settlement. He brought with him plans for a fine house, drawn by his brother who was an architect for the royal family of Hanover.

He soon located a suitable tract of land just west of Lancaster on Zane's Trace. This land had a very fine spring of water, and a former owner had established a small tread mill for grinding grain and a small distillery. That fall (1829) Witte returned to Germany leaving his friend Charles Schur who along with a few other craftsmen had accompanied him from Hanover, to superintend the construction of the house, barn, steam flour mill and distillery. Bricks for the house were made in the brick yard across Boving Road (then Zane's Trace).

In the spring of 1830 Witte returned from Germany bringing his wife and family consisting of 5 year old Cecilia and four younger sons, furniture for the new home, a trunk full of silver, and 4 millers, 2 distillers, 1 carpenter, 2 farm hands, 1 cooper, 1 boy, 4 maids and 1 housekeeper. Since the new house was not ready for occupancy the family moved into the log cabin; the others had to live in the barn. Unfortunately in November of that year the log cabin and most of its contents were destroyed by fire. A lovely little painting on copper of Agatha Von Roden and her daughter Cecilia, which had been painted in Germany, survived this catastrophe. Soon after this, Agatha died. She was never to live in this house for which she had planned, for it was not until the following summer (1831) that the family could move in. The steam mill and distillery were in full operation, so they named me "The Steam Mill Farm."

Captain Witte soon organized the German Guards, a very fine military company - the first such company here to have good uniforms and drill in a precise military fashion for Captain Witte was a German gentleman of fine manners and martial bearing, who had greatly disliked the "rag-tag cornstalk" militia which he at first encountered here. The German Guards, who often drilled on my grounds, were well uniformed, had a band for music, and a cannon, and were invited to participate in the laying of the cornerstone of the new State Capitol building in Columbus where they made a fine display.

In 1838 Capt. Witte married Miss Anna Schloman and to this union were born five children. Capt. Witte had also brought with him from Germany a habit of hospitality which he dispensed with a lavish hand. Having built a ballroom on the second floor of his home, there v.,Pre many fine occasions when his house was full of guests. But, like many liberal men, he was imposed upon. Then he had another disastrous loss, for two canal boat loads of whiskey which he had sold were confiscated by a dishonest boat captain and sold in Detroit. So, in 1845, with many debts and not enough money, Witte was forced to sell the property to his friend John Gromme. For thirteen years Gromme tried to develop a dairy farm, but since he was primarily in the tanning business, in 1858 he sold the farm to John T. Brasee, a prominent lawyer and State Senator at the time. He became very intersted in farming. He had a family of eight children, who undoubtedly enjoyed riding over the hills and through the woods where Johnny Appleseed once planted apple trees along Zane's Trace (A gnarled survivor may still be seen).

Their nearby neighbors and friends, the Darius Tallmadge family were given, for the sum of one dollar, all the water they could use from the marvelous spring on this property and the right to lay wooden pipes to conduct water from said spring through Brasee's farm to the lands of Tallmadge adjacent to the east.

All of his eight children were talented and lively. His eldest daughter Ellen married Darius Tailmadge's son, Theodore, who became a well known attorney in Washington, D.C. His son John became a prominent member of the Lancaster bar, but the most colorful story is told of his youngest daughter Alice who had a romance with the son of my builder Augustus Witte. Young George Witte, who had gone to the Mexican War and afterwards settled in New Orleans, came to Lancaster to visit his oldest sister Cecilia Witte Mithoff (Augustus Mithoff in the meantime had purchased the neighboring Darius Tallmadge place) and met the beautiful and spirited Alice Brasee. They fell in love and he promised to come back and claim her for his bride. With the ring he gave her, she etched her name and the date - on the window of the widow's walk (where it can still be seen). When the day came for him to arrive by train for the wedding, young Alice went up to the widow's walk again and waved a large Confederate flag as the train passed nearby. Since this was just prior to the Civil War, this incident caused much consternation in the countryside. However, the wedding went on and soon the young couple departed for New Orleans to make their home. Unhappily, cluring the War, young Alice became ill and died. After the war, a trunk full of her beautiful clothes and mementos was sent back to her family.

During the Brasee's ownership of this house my name was changed to Concordia, the name of a Roman goddess denoting harmony.

In 1903 the property was sold to Mrs. Lucien B. Martin, whose grandson and heir is the great, great, great, grandson of Ebenezer Zane. Mrs. Martin had a portrait of Zane which hung in the parlor of the house as long as the Martins lived there. The Martins had come to Lancaster from their home in Martins Ferry to found a glass factory (later merged with Anchor Hocking). Before coming to Lancaster, Mr. Martin had been president of Fostoria Glass Company. The Martins were well educated, well traveled and affluent citizens. It has been alleged that a friend, who was a southern architect, had suggested to them that in the South such a fine residence was usually called a hall, and so they decided to change my name from Concordia to Concord Hall, and as such it has remained.

In some of her travels Mrs. Martin had been so fascinated with the Swiss custom of attaching bells to the collars of their cows, and the musical tinkling the various sized bells made as the dairy herds were grazing or coming down from the mountains, that she purchased a group of Swiss bells - one for each cow in their herd near Lancaster. For many years they were heard on my grounds, evoking pleasant memories and more practically, making it easier for the herdsman to round up the cows.

Mrs. Martin also was a great gardener. There was a rose garden bordered by huge snowball bushes which extended on both sides of a wide walk-way from the house back to a garden pergola at the edge of the woods. Many a festive dinner party was served at tables along this beautiful pathway.

But Philip Martin's sudden and tragic death changed all that. In 1948 Jack Martin, who had inherited Concord Hall from his grandmother decided to give up farming and move to California, so he sold it to Henry Peters, who two years later sold to Dr. and Mrs. Andrew Jamison. The Jamisons restored the house and lived there until 1954, when they sold it to the present owners, Dr. Robert and Dorothy Fox. Dr. Jamison was a native of South Carolina, and once again the house had some Confederate overtones, as Dr. Jamison hung a large portrait of General Robert E. Lee in the entrance hall.

While I have had kindly treatment from all of my owners, none have lavished more tender, loving care than the present ones. They have preserved all my historic features, repaired my fascinating barn (where many a square dance has been held) developed fine gardens, built riding trails around the acreage and through the woods. Oh, yes, I almost forgot to tell you that they also discovered a tunnel leading from the cellar of the house to a spot near the barn where it is presumed that prior to the Civil War run-away slaves were assisted in their way along the Underground Railroad. But best of all is the way the present owners share the beauty of their home with their many friends, associates, and organizations. Twice I have been on the Fairfield Heritage Pilgrimages. The first time, in 1965, young ladies in beautiful appropriate riding costumes rode side saddle around the grounds; and in 1975, the Rocky Fork Hunt Club staged a very exciting fox hunt. All seemed right at home.

I had one big fright when the Rt. 33 Bypass was first scheduled to go exactly in front of me which would have meant my demise, but thanks to being on the National Register of Historic Places, that tragedy was averted. Now I look forward to my next 150 years, for I am now as sound and certainly more beautiful than I've ever been!"

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Clay Aiken and some more scrapbooking...... I wandered around some scrapbooking sites this morning and found some beautiful kits to download and downloaded one called "The Impossible Dream". The kit made me think of Clay and what has happened to him the past three years and what the future holds in store. It is "An Impossible Dream" and I am so happy to be along on the adventure with him. Here is a link to this great scrapbooking website:

Scrapbook Elements

Yesterday, Clay blogged about the tragedy of the displaced children of Lebanon affected by the current conflict. As an Ambassador for Unicef, Clay requested his fans consider donating to Unicef for the needs of these children. Check it out here.

Unicef Front Page with News of the Plight of Lebanonese Children

If, after consideration, you wish to contribute, here is a link to do so:

Donate to Unicef Specifically for Lebanon Children

As of this morning, Clay fans alone have contributed over $47,000 to this charity. This is a stupendous accomplishment in less than 24 hours and I am proud of everyone for stepping up to the plate. WTG, Claymates.

OK, enough of that....here are the two pages I did this morning.





The pictures were from a Joyful Noise 2005 concert I attended in Columbia, South Carolina last Christmas. The Christmas tours and Christmas music seem to bring a special joy to Clay's life, so I used them in the scrapbook pages.

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Clay Photoshoots. Someone on my board posted some pic's from a photoshoot that I have always liked so I decided to used them in a scrapbooking challenge that utilized a quickframe. It's unbelievably easy to do these as you get a template and just add your pictures and embellishments. The gal setting up the challenge gives you a little kit that has the pieces and you can arrange them to suit yourself, changing colors and adding bits and pieces if you want. Here's what the pieces looked like before I got "creative". (delusional)
I then made the ribbon and the embellishment blue like Clay's shirt and borrowed a little piece of net from a beach scrapbooking kit. The color on the font was also borrowed from his shirt and curved a little to blend with the curve of the picture frame. So here is the final page.


I can't wait to see the new pictures from the photoshoot for the new album.....we should have the new "Hair".....hee.

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Just wanted to add a new song to the jukebox. Don't know where it came from or how it got out on the internet. But it is. So, enjoy!!!!! Oh, and a picture to enjoy while you listen:

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Musing on Craft Projects - Someone on the message board I belong to made a joke about "going back to her knitting". It made me grin because the last couple of days I have been working on reducing my personal property for this move coming up and as I used to knit, her comment reminded me of my ordeal. I used to knit, but as of yesterday all I have left is an enormous collection of knitting needles and crochet hooks, etc. All of the misc. yarn was thrown out, except for one ball for the kitten who is in heaven.
My button making stuff went into a box, I might make more Clay buttons someday, my stamps I have been collecting because someday I want to learn how to use them in scrapbooking went into a box. (Psst....let's not forget I just discovered digital scrapbooking) 22 bottles of acrylic paint I bought at Michaels on sale cuz I liked the colors and they still are, after all, never opened...went into a box. Glue gun, jar of buttons, etc. all went in a box. This is all important stuff.

Then I pull out the boxes labeled "counted cross stitch". My sister was the cross stitcher in the family, she could produce fully completed works of art, framed and ready to hang on the wall in a weeks time. I guess it was a competition, or something, because I kept buying kits and "trying" to get something finished. I have never hung a piece of work on the wall, nor completed anything useful other than a couple of bookmarks. I have every color of thread imaginable, all sorted and saved in little plastic baggies on a ring. So, I decide to go through all the bags of stuff. See, my MO was to buy a kit or pattern & yarn and keep the project in the original bag from the store. I have bags that are crumbling from age. There are several bags from a wonderful little cross stitching store I found in NJ when I lived there. Bags and bags of unfinished potential "art"....and I mean REALLY unfinished, like I did 25 cross stitches and put it back in the "bag".

What to do with all this?? Why do I keep it? I can't throw it out, I just can't. So, I grab one clean box and start to go through the various layers. Hmmm, my grandson's first bedroom decoration was Winnie the Pooh and I actually did one whole corner of this one. He's now six and into Dinosaurs and skateboards. Out with Winnie. Kept all the needles, hoops (yes, a lot of the bags had a hoop, when I was done I kept 10 different sizes and shapes of hoops and one set of stretcher bars) unopened cross stitch material, pattern books. And, I think about 15 unfinished kits and/or projects ended up in my clean, fresh, box. There were several (very small) finished "works of art" which also ended up in the keeper box.

I came upon my mom's counted cross stitch materials. Why this debris ended up in my car instead of the garage sale is a complete mystery to me. Kept the great magnifying glass, tossed all the old yarns, etc. The only project I kept was this enormous bell pull she had completed but never hung on the bars. I never will finish it either, it is olive and gold...and yes, it was probably stitched in the 70's!! But she worked at it for a long, long, long time. She hardly ever finished any of her cross stitching projects, either. It's a good thing I have a son, I would hate for this neurosis to affect a third generation.

All done, marked the box "Counted Cross Stitch" and put it back in the closet. Hey, I went from three boxes to one. It's progress....of a sort.

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Counted Cross Stitch

I've been kind of taking a break from the message boards and blogging the last couple of weeks. In addition, my internet has been up and down for a week and I just know I will lose something once I get started. Plus, I don't have much to say, which is unusual for me. I can usually be counted on to have an opinion on just about anything.

Did do a couple of scrapbooking challenges. The first one was to do one about a nature subject so I put together this one about the Black Chinned Hummingbirds that frequent my feeders.



I learned a new technique the other day that I incorporated in the hummer picture. A site called Photoshopelementsuser.com has some tutorials that are useful. In fact, although it is kind of pricy at $49 a year, I think I might join for the premium version as they have a scrapbooking section. Anyway, I had a picture of my DIL and GD. One had a purple dress and the other a turquoise blouse. I looked for a paper that worked with the clothing and couldn't come up with anything I liked. So I tried to change the colors of the clothes to match a paper and that worked for the blouse, but the dress was a mess. Then I wandered into the aforementioned site and discovered how to motion blur and radial blur a picture so that you got an abstract "paper" that you could use as a background. It worked great.



That is what I did on the hummer picture, as well. The background is just the big picture of the hummer blurred. Kinda cool, Huh?

Since Clay and Ruben attended Kelly's concert in Raleigh the other night, I thought I would do my monthly color challenge to commemorate the event. I love that Clay, Kelly and Ruben have remained friends - I suspect having AI as their common bond will keep them friends.....they alone understand what the experience and aftermath have been like. It is a shame their fan bases can't just give up the battle....it certainly has not affected Clay, Kelly and Ruben's friendship so just give it up already. OK, rant over.

The colors we were to use:













I managed to get all the colors in my layout, but disregarded the pinkish one. The picture of Kelly and Clay in my scrapbook page was taken at Sea World and the one of Clay and Ruben was an AP picture. The large picture of Clay was taken by FanofAiken who was in attendance at the concert. Clay and Ruben are usually referred to as the Cluben by fans on message boards and those of us who like the idea of Clay and Kelly as a couple often refer to them as the Clelly.


Click twice to make scrapbook page larger

Edited to Add:
Here is a link to a great video of Clay and Ruben from the AI2 concert.

And this clip is Clay and Kelly on ET just before the Independent Tour started up. Very funny video.

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Digital Scrapbooking

My scrapbooking challenge for the day was to create a top ten list with one picture and a list, so here's what I came up with:


Click to enlarge picture.
I always do the challenges without looking at what other people post....then I go and look at the others and slap myself silly wondering "Why I didn't think of doing that". I'm really NOT creative at all. But, it's fun to play around and I am wondering what all the scrapbookers are thinking of my Clay Aiken scrapbook pages. I HAVE gotten the most comments on the Clay pages, now that I think about it. Positive comments about Clay. It's not just us, LOL.

Most of the digital scrapbooking sites have these little challenges, but I have been spending the most time at Gotta Pixel See the link in my sidebar for access to a bunch of sites you can visit. Look for the "freebies", it's a good way to get started

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My Clay offering for the day is another album page for my scrapbook. This one was made with a template kit I downloaded. For the life of me, I could not make templates work the way they did the last time I tried this....but I finally figured it out by doing something completely different. The striped paper is called "dad's old shirt", that sure fits, I think dad DID have one like that. The picture in the center is by one very talented "Permaswooned". Thanks!!!

So I made my prediction of news this week by a hair...Friday afternoon, I was sweating it. It's a contest, to guess the acronym for the album title for Clay's new album and if you read between the lines.....it seems we'll have some news in the next couple of weeks. It should go fast now....as the song says -


Could it be? Yes, it could.
Something's coming, something good,
If I can wait!
Something's coming, I don't know what it is,
But it is
Gonna be great!


I'm sure I've said it before, but I'll chance repeating myself - Clay Aiken is a consumate risk taker...whatever is coming our way is indeed going to be "different" and as such, very Clay. So far every thing he has done has been part of the evolution of Clay Aiken. Which is the theme of the scrapbook page, I suppose....perhaps I should put the word "Evolution" on the page. What do you think?

Off to do some more scrapbooking. I'm in the mood today and I have another set of templates to try out.

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