Too Hot to Trot

Bib No. 814 is a no show at today’s OC Fair 5K.

That No. 814 would be me.

It's just too hot to trot around the Orange County Fairgrounds.

I did participate in this event back in 2019, when Batman started the race off.

I was wearing Wonder Woman Leggings

I'd planned for 2020 in cow leggings, but the pandemic came along and put a halt to the festivities until now.

Notified three months ago that the race was once again on, I’d quickly registered, book an overnight stay at a nearby hotel, and ordered fabric to stitch up a pair of cow print leggings.

I never got around to pulling out the sewing machine, which was a clue I was losing interest in participating because, lately, I’m feeling less and less like leaving my unit, going anywhere for any reason.

Since I wasn’t for sure I’d go or not, I did the smart thing and cancelled the OC hotel before getting locked into a cancellation fee, thinking that if I changed my mind at the last minute, I could rebook, head out sans cow leggings.

Rebooking didn’t happen, but I've a whole year to think about putting those leggings together, compete next year.

For now, I am now happily seated in my air-conditioned unit, watching/listening to the TV while working on getting photos taken at Long Beach Pride into the Creative Memory (CM) album.

Too many photos to fit into the album I was currently filling with photos of my latest adventures — bingo, Summer Social, I had to devote an entire new album to the Pride event.

Jennifer and commenter Drum Major have both asked about CM, so I thought I’d do a little show and tell.

The CM system consists of an album cover set, filler pages and protective covers for those pages.

It’s an acid free system (background paper, mounting tape, mounting squares), to prevent damage and decay of your photos and other memorabilia over time.

Once I get the prints back, I organize how I want the photos to flow — generally a title page, then in order of what came first, second, etc., do a chart of that flow and, while doing so, descriptions and funny anecdotes that describes the photo for future generations come to mind, so I jot those notations down and add as text on the pages.

Now that I think of it, CM is much like blogging, except more photos, less text.

Do you want to see how those pages turned out?

Did I hear a "Not really".

Too late, I’m going to show you anyway.

If you google Creative Memory images, you’ll see that those of us using the system work differently. Some like a lot of embellishments on their pages. I myself like to keep it simple and often capture clipart from the internet, turn it into simple embellishments that add to the story.

So, there you have it — the scrapbooking often mentioned in the blog.

Now it's onward and upward today in getting the remaining photos into the album, while the OC Fair participants that did show up are in danger of heat stroke.