Janet's Smiles

Marching On

Posted on March 20, 2024 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

It is getting closer and closer to the big A to Z and I feel like I have to get started with blogging on a regular basis in order to get the momentum going.

Hearing a lot lately from the big orange guy about putting people in camps, I happened to walk past the Tanforan Memorial to the Japanese who were held there during World War II.

Tanforan was initially a racetrack from 1899 to 1964. In 1971 a shopping mall was built on the site. But during the war from April to October 1942 it was the detention center for almost 8000 people of Japanese descent. They called it the Assembly Center but I’m pretty sure that’s just the government trying to put a pretty name on it. Internment camp is what it was.

Nestled in the triangle between the shopping mall, the police station and the BART station is the Tanforan Memorial. I’ve passed by it a few times when we take BART to the city but hadn’t ever really stopped to look at it before. Today I had the chance to do that.

On the ground in the middle of the area are plaques from some of the different families who were held there. A few of the plaques are from sponsors of the memorial.

In the corner is a wooden stall, similar to the horse stalls that the families were forced to live in.

Around the perimeter are huge plaques with the names of the 7984 people who were detained during those months.

I remember the racetrack vaguely. We moved to San Bruno in 1957 when I was almost 2. It burned down in 1964. I remember them building the mall and did most of my shopping there until recently. Since COVID it has turned into a ghost town with lots of stores never reopening. It is now on the chopping block and will be converted into a “mega campus for biotech and technological firms” whatever that means. I’ll be sorry to lose my Barnes and Noble and Target, which are the two main stores left. I’m glad I don’t remember the “Assembly Center” but I am happy they built the memorial to honor those Japanese Americans who had to stay there. We must not forget those injustices.

Posted in Tanforan, Uncategorized | Tagged history, Japanese Memorial, Racetrack, Tanforan, World War II | 7 Comments

Blogging From A to Z 2024 – Theme Reveal

Posted on March 10, 2024 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

Very soon we will be starting that annual journey through the alphabet as guided by the team founded by Arlee Bird. The A to Z Challenge is a month-long event with hundreds of participants sharing their various insights on a whole host of interesting topics. This will be my 9th year participating. I have done the challenge with a few different themes, some of them centering around my scrapbooking and crafting passion and some of them regarding the concerts we have seen. If you want to see what the other eight years were about, here are the links to the reflection posts:

2016 – Music – https://asmile4ufromjanet.blogspot.com/2016/05/in-marry-month-of-may-2016.html – A general discussion of music, instruments, etc.

2017 – Concerts Scrapbooked – https://scr4pl80.com/2017/05/08/a-to-z-challenge-reflection/ Combining my scrapbooking passion with the concerts we had been to.

2018 – Michaels – https://scr4pl80.com/2018/05/07/blogging-from-a-to-z-2018-reflections/ I worked at Michaels Arts and Craft stores for about 6 months and this was a trip through the aisles there.

2019 – Paper Crafting – https://scr4pl80.com/2019/05/06/a-to-z-challenge-2019-10th-anniversary-reflection/ General paper crafting and card making supplies and examples.

2020 – Concerts Scrapbooked – https://scr4pl80.com/2020/05/04/a-to-z-challenge-2020-reflections/ Another set of the concerts we had been to, mostly scrapbooked.

2021 – San Francisco – https://scr4pl80.com/2021/05/03/a-to-z-2021-reflection/ Traveling through the streets of San Francisco.

2022 – Dating – https://scr4pl80.com/2022/05/05/a-to-z-reflection-2022/ The art of dating through the alphabet.

2023 – Illuminate SF – https://scr4pl80.com/2023/05/01/a-to-z-2023-reflection/ Another trip through San Francisco, this time looking at the Illuminate SF sculptures and light shows.

So what to do for this year? I decided that I could make one more trip through the concerts we’ve attended. Since we first started going to shows in 2006 on a fairly regular basis we’ve been to over 140 shows. During that time we’ve seen several bands a number of times with the most frequent ones being Foreigner at 11, Pat Benatar 9 times and Journey 7. It is getting harder and harder to see new bands but we have seen a couple in the last year so I figured I could get one more abecedarium out of it. As with the other years, I will use some song titles to help fill in the letters but I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch.

I do have some of the concerts already in my scrapbooks but I decided not to stress myself out this year and if they are not done, I’m going to write about them anyway. I still have the pictures and in some cases videos so that’s going to have to do.

I hope you come along with me this year. Please also check out the other participants. It’s going to be a fun month.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A to Z 2024, music, scrapbook, scrapbooking | 44 Comments

Fleeting February – 2024

Posted on February 23, 2024 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

Blink your eye and it will be March! Almost time for our A to Z. I am so not as ready this year as I was last year but if I modify my theme just slightly I think I’ll be okay.

Today, though, we’re going to talk about intention setting. If you know me you know that I pay great attention to the full moon and other “signs” from the Universe. I have listened to coaches like Jamie Ridler, Andrea Schroeder and Liz Lamoreux among others and taken some of their courses. I firmly believe that if you put it out there, Someone listens. Every morning I write my positive affirmations like this:

Obviously there are days that I get money and there are days that I make an Etsy sale. There are also days that I get transcription work to do. It is a rare day that I get the trifecta. Today was that day! We got a rebate check from Costco for using the card to get gas and other things, I got an email for a transcription project that will go through March and into April and I made an Etsy sale!

Days like today confirm my belief that intention setting really does work. Now if I can just get the “I am at my goal weight” and “I have thick luxurious hair” to come true!!!

How about you guys? Do you set intentions? Ever have a trifecta day? Will you be joining in the A to Z this year?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A to Z, affirmations, intentions | 22 Comments

JusJoJan24 – 01/14/2024

Posted on January 14, 2024 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

The prompt for today’s JusJoJan24 is “writing,” something I haven’t been doing very much here! Thanks to Joanne for suggesting it. Side note, JoAnne is my sister’s name.

Back to writing, this is the first post for me this year. Half a month gone already! It is amazing.

To update, we had a fun New Year’s Eve. We went to our friend’s house for a small gathering. It was supposed to be a “geriatric” party and we were going to watch the ball drop at 9 PM so that we could all go home before it got too late. Most of the party did leave (even though our host had the TV on the wrong channel and we didn’t actually get to see the ball drop at 9 New York time – LOL). However, a few of us stayed until midnight and watched the ball drop “for real.” We haven’t been out on New Year’s Eve for many years and it was nice.

I did also make my annual Vision Cards, writing on the back of each my goals for the year. It is my “resolution” system. I figure if I get one thing accomplished in each category during the year I’ve fulfilled my goals. Much less stress this way. Here are this year’s cards:

I have been using the same 6 categories for several years now. It seems to work best for me to cover the areas of my life I most want to work on. We’ll do a check in around June to see if I’ve actually been able to accomplish anything. LOL.

Coming up I have another pop-up craft show next weekend. This time I have Valentine’s Day items…

…and I’ve also been working on a new set of cards. These are hidden reveal cards where you pull the tab up and a message appears:

Here is what it looks like:

They are already up in my Etsy shop in case you are looking for something unique.

And last but not least, we have our first concert coming up, Bryan Adams. We have not seen him in person before so it should be fun. Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics is the opening act. Haven’t seen him yet either.

So that was a little bit of writing plus some pictures. What have you been up to so far this year?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged #JusJoJan, Etsy shop, Valentine's Day, vision cards | 12 Comments

Decidedly December 2023

Posted on December 23, 2023 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

Well, here’s to another year just about gone. I don’t know where my blogging spirit went. I don’t know where anything went actually. I do some end of year reflecting and one of the questions was “What was amazing this year?” I couldn’t think of anything amazing that happened during the year. I mean, there were some cool things. My A to Z lights adventure was interesting, our concerts were good, our trip to Las Vegas was fun, but nothing hit me as an OMG THAT’S AMAZING moment. How about you? Anything amazing for you this year?

I haven’t posted since October I see. I’ll give you a quick recap of the last couple of months.

We had our 50th high school reunion and it turned out very well. We figure that over the course of three days we managed to see about 100 or so different classmates. We are thinking of having a birthday party for us all when we turn 70 in two years!

I caught the full moon as I do, but I need a new camera because mine broke and I had to use my husband’s and I don’t like it as much as my old one.

I fell going UP the escalator in Barnes and Nobel because it was broken and I had just gotten new bifocals so I wasn’t used to the line. I got a big bruise on my thigh but you don’t want to see that.

I made some new things for the Holiday Boutiques I was doing. I had a total of 4 of them over the course of about 3 weeks. Didn’t do as well as I hoped but at least I made the table fees at all of them. You can find these goodies in my Etsy shop now too!

I have a pair of slippers that have sparkles on them and when I stand in the reflection of the light coming in from the window it does a light show on the wall. You should see it when I move!

We went to see my idol, Stevie Nicks, as our final concert of the year. She never disappoints. Did you hear they made a new Barbie doll in her likeness?

Caught the sunset from my front porch. It is amazing what the sky looks like some times.

Last but not least, our little Christmas tree. It is the smallest one we’ve had since the year of the Charlie Brown tree when I was the only one home. I just wasn’t into doing all the work it takes to put up a big one and decorate the whole house. Maybe next year.

This will probably be the final post from me this year. I’m still going to make my vision cards for next year but probably won’t post about them until then. I hope that you all have a wonderful holiday season with your family and friends and here’s to a prosperous New Year for us all. Appreciate you for stopping by!

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

October Offerings

Posted on October 18, 2023 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

What’s happening to this year?? I swear I just turned the page on September and now over half of October is gone too! Let’s see what I’ve been up to…

We started the month with our last concert of the year at the Mountain Winery, John Waite and Pat Benatar. Fun night for these old folks.

Then the whole family got dressed up fancy and went to a wedding. Our son was one of the groomsmen. I danced.

I made a baby album for a customer and then I added some holiday items to my Etsy shop, including some glow in the dark Halloween cards.

And we had one last planning meeting before our 50th! high school reunion coming up this weekend. Sheesh!

Sometimes I think we’ve had more fun planning the reunion than we will have at the actual event – LOL. We are doing a three day weekend with a Friday night mixer at a local bar, Saturday dinner and then picnic on Sunday. It worked really well for our 40th so we just repeated it. Definitely going to need to rest next week! What have you been up to?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged dancig, dancing, Etsy shop, Mountain Winery, Wedding | 24 Comments

September Scenes

Posted on September 26, 2023 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

Okay can this year go any faster? Last year at this time we were moving my mother-in-law from her home in Oregon to an assisted living facility also in Oregon. It was the start of the big relocation project but we didn’t know that then.

This year the September Scenes have been quite different.

I did a pop-up show at our local mall. Did not do well at all but there were some mitigating factors – it was Labor Day weekend so folks sometimes go away and the next town over has their big art and wine festival that weekend so I’m sure many people went there instead. I did use my new sign though and I am happy with it.

My daughter and I went to our last Giants game of the year. We won, but sadly they have not been playing well and probably will not make the playoffs. I’m a fan no matter what! And, we got new beanies as the 415 giveaway!

The next night was Rick Springfield, the Hooters and Tommy Tutone at the Mountain Winery. We had not seen the Hooters before so that was nice. Rick Springfield continues to make the girls swoon at 74, especially when he came out without his shirt! He did go through the crowd again and I got another handshake! Isn’t the venue behind us cool?

And in between all that I helped our daughter move out! She got the keys to her apartment on September 1 and last night we moved the last of her stuff out of the storage area she was renting and her room is empty (well not quite, we have a friend moving in – LOL). It is crazy the rent they charge around here. She is in a studio and it is $1995 a month. My house payment is only $1500 and we have three bedrooms. No wonder there are homeless people. She is happy though and actually has more room now than she did when she was here as her room is 100 square feet and her apartment is 450 square feet. I will definitely miss her as the balance of power has now shifted. I am the only female in the house with three men. Still, I think I’ll get my way most of the time.

And some other scenes from September – I’ve been adding things to the Etsy shop getting ready for another pop-up this coming Saturday. Hopefully I’ll do better at sales. It is in a different location so that may help.

I’ve also seen some interesting bits and pieces of nature’s beauty. Dew drops on leaves, the lights on the trees at the Winery, sunsets and sunrises and a really cool almost full moon.

So those are my scenes of September. What have you been looking at?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Giants, Mountain Winery, Rick Springfield, September | 11 Comments

And Now August is Almost All Gone

Posted on August 26, 2023 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

Wow, I’m on a roll here. More than one post in August. It was actually because Linda’s SoCS happens to be a word I can write about…tune. (Side note, can I tell you how bothersome it is to use links here lately because I want them to open in a new window and you have to go through hoops to get them to do that. Why WP, why?)

Anyway, back to TUNE – yep it is concert time again. We went to see “Tina” the play about Tina Turner. It was very nicely done. Lots of tunes left out of course because she has so many hits but I thought they did a great job of using many intertwined with the story line.

I love going to the old theaters in San Francisco. We had decent seats in the front row of the balcony. It is a little harder for my hubby since his legs are long but if I can get the front row and an aisle seat, it gives him a little more room. Naturally you are not supposed to take pictures during the show, which I didn’t until it was the very end. I figure they’re not going to kick me out at that point. I don’t think I learned anything about Tina Turner that I didn’t know and I read that Tina had been pleased with the way the play was done. Sad that she is no longer here.

And then there was Foreigner and Loverboy. Foreigner is on their “Last” tour. The only original founding member, Mick Jones, has health issues and doesn’t make every performance and even when he does, he only comes out for a few tunes. He did not make our show. The bass guitarist, Jeff Pilson, has a back injury and had to sit the whole time, which I’m sure is not fun for him because he was a pretty active musician. Anyway, the band has said that they are done after this tour. While that has been said before by other bands, this one really might be the end. In any case, they are one of our favorite groups so we had to see them. Add Loverboy as the opening act and it was a no-brainer since they were the groups we saw at our first concert together at Day on The Green in 1982!

I was a little disappointed that one of my favorite Foreigner tunes, Urgent, was played without the sax. The long-time member who used to play that instrument, Thom Gimbel, left the band around the time of the pandemic and the synthesizer they used just didn’t quite do it for me. Glad I got a video of that song at one of their other shows. This tune, “Feels Like The First Time,” is another great one.

Thanks again, Linda, for the “tune” prompt. We have another show next week, Chicago, at the Mountain Winery. Maybe I’ll actually get one more post in this month! Have you seen “Tina?” What’s your favorite Foreigner or Loverboy tune?

Posted in concerts, Foreigner, Loverboy, Tina Turner | Tagged #SoCS, concerts, Foreigner, Loverboy, Shoreline | 14 Comments

And Now It’s August!

Posted on August 17, 2023 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

We went to see Peter Frampton the other night. He has IBM (Inclusion Body Myositis) and needed a cane to get around the stage, where he sat through the whole performance. Do not let that fool you. He definitely could get those fingers moving on the guitar strings.

As he tells it he had started a “Final” Tour shortly before Covid hit and he wasn’t able to do the European leg of the tour because of lockdowns. He wanted to finish so he decided to try going out again and when he discovered that his fingers would still cooperate with him, he talked to his promoters and set up this “Never Say Never” tour. I know how much my husband likes him and I was able to get us pretty good tickets for one of the last few shows on the schedule.

It was at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, which is a smaller venue. He did a slide presentation of his early years as he was coming out on stage, maybe so that we wouldn’t notice too much the fact that he couldn’t walk unassisted. He still has his wit and while he performed 17 songs over a 2-1/2 hour show, there was quite a bit of chatter in between songs, which was fine.

My camera broke so these are all from my cell, which is going to have to do until I can get another camera. I got a couple of pictures of some things I considered interesting along the way, like the reflection of the lights on the ceiling, the purple tip of Grace Cathedral across the street as we were leaving and the City Hall. Oh yeah, hubby and me. Kinda cute huh?

He did a really good rendition of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” for the finale. I did get a video of that but it’s 7 minutes long so here’s a bit of “Show Me The Way” and you can get a little idea.

We have 3 more shows coming up this month. We’re seeing the play, “Tina” and Foreigner next week. We got the tickets to Tina before she passed away and I’m glad we did. Foreigner is billing this as their farewell tour since they are pretty much over it all. I know Mick Jones has had health issues for years and he is the only original member so…Then we have Chicago at the Mountain Winery.

What are your plans for the rest of August? Share!

Posted in Peter Frampton | Tagged concerts, Masonic Auditorium, Peter Frampton | 14 Comments

Jubilant July – 2023

Posted on July 29, 2023 by scr4pl80 (Scrap Lady)

One more post is probably all I’m going to be able to get out this month unless something spectacular happens that I just have to share (like if I won the lottery or something).

But I happened to be reading a post from “the other Janet” about her Lens-Artists Challenge so I decided to play along because I think I’ve taken a few unusual shots. The theme is “Overlooked” and it is to show some photos that may look different than what you would expect to see. Here’s my take:

This is a reflection of the tail light of my husband’s truck in a puddle by the curb.

There is a window on the side of our house overlooking the driveway. It is close to the roof of the garage. It has a screen on it but we have numerous stray cats and a few raccoons that like to rummage around and I think they use the screen to get a hold up.

Was walking our dog, Benny, the other day and saw this on the sidewalk. I’m not sure what it really is, maybe some paper that got wet, but to me it was a friendly ghost.