Monday Night Nerd

It’s almost November, time for turkey, stuffing and friends & family.  I cook at my house – but we never really have a huge amount of people.  Now that my mom is in Florida for the winter, it’s just  my in-laws and immediate family.  Total 8 this year. 

Over the next two weeks I will show you how I am managing my Thanksgiving holiday with the help of  Microsoft Excel (after all this is Monday Night Nerd for a reason :))

My menu will be scaled down from past years of having over 15-18 attendees… but I will still be making the same items: Turkey, stuffing, Mashed Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes, Green beans & corn.  Dessert is pumpkin pie & Crème Brulee (oh! so yummy!).  Same menu each year – occasionally I have switched things up added or deleted but the staples are always there. (I haven’t paired everything down yet so when you look at the shopping list don’t panic J)  Also , there are 2 Green Bean recipes until I make a final decision.

I have my standard items w/ ingredients in excel already – (download here). This will be the start of my grocery list. The second tab helps me plan the cooking schedule so I can plan the timing of the food to all come out at the same time. 

This is my starting point.  I save it and use it year over year. (and my turkey cooking calculator comes with me year over year too :))

*I have my headers already filtered and sorted by grocery item so as I start checking shopping lists for prices I can just add them in.  (if you need a brush up on filters – see earlier weeks Monday Night Nerd post - here.)

Over the next 2 weeks I will be checking ads, cutting coupons (there are always baking items, Pillsbury crescent rolls, can & frozen veggies coupons in the papers this time of year).  OH! and Stay tuned.  I will be posting recipes, etc… as we get closer!

Suzy Q Scraps 2 kits to check out...

I am a little behind on some posts - It has been craaaazy!  I am finishing up a class at Scrapaneers.com (more details on that in another post).  I just learned that my company is splitting in two, my son got some crazy infection and we spent a night in the ER, all this in less than 7 days!

Spookilicious is one of my fave kits by Suzy Q Scraps, and I dug out Ashley's old homecoming pics to show it off -

My second LO (and this was done once before and  my computer crashed), It has been inside my head all week to re-make this LO using Suzy Q Scrap's You're my Everything collection.  I did the entire LO in PS not PSE, I think I am getting the hang of it!  I wanted to use masks for the large blended photo of Sydney.  It's lots of blue but I think his orange fur complements this kit so well. And really is a kit called "You're my everything just for people?  If chocolate complimented that blue - I may have scrapped that.

That's it for this week - hopefully by next Wed I can post what I have been learning over at Scrapaneers!

SQS_Spookilicious

This is my favorite Halloween Kit by far!  Not just for Halloween - I created a great page scrapping my daughter's Homecoming dance.  I love kits that are fun, colorful, and versitile.  I am sure you will be seeing more of this one from me.

Halloween Pinspiration

What happens when you mix 3 great things together (Pinterest, Suzy Q Scraps, Scrapbooking) - you get a quick little layout to highlight just what is happening in my everyday life.  And Pinterest certainly is part of my everyday life.  Not sure what I did before Pinterest - oh yeah - I read books and magazines.... what?  what are those?  It's quite the crazy world huh?

Monday Night Nerd - Saving Photos

I wanted to post this earlier since I missed last week’s post while I was traveling.

My mom is a great inspiration for me to start these posts – she always has questions regarding her computer and hopefully maybe this will help someone else too?  Or be a reference place for my mom J.

This weekend,  my mom had a question about opening and saving photos she receives in emails.  Everyone seems to send files differently.  If they are sent as an attachment this is pretty simple – click on the attachment (the file opens) and you can save it wherever you put your photos.

When they are imbedded in the email (in the body of the email vs an attachment) you can easily save the picture by

Single Right click on the photo (it brings up the menu below)

Single right click on “Save as Picture” –

This will automatically open up your documents and allow you to save the picture file somewhere on your computer.  Just name it and choose your folder. And click Save.

So all of this is good information – but what do you do with the picture next?  How do you view it?  what if you only want to keep the orange kitty and not the gray one? 

If you do not have any photo editing or viewing software, I personally think that Microsoft Power Point is the easiest to navigate to make changes to a photo, It is pretty powerful, and comes on most computers where Microsoft office is installed.

It can do some cool stuff:

First Open Power Point and let’s change the page setup to a blank page.  When you open Publisher to a new slide opens with a spot to add a title and a spot for a subtitle.  You can click on them and delete them – or you can change the page layout: (using the ribbon – or under the home tab, single left click on “Layout” and choose “Blank”

To insert your picture:

Go to the INSERT tab, click on picture and locate the folder and place where you saved your photo and open it.

You can select your photo and do make it bigger, smaller, by dragging the corners of the photo (you will see circles and squares around the pictures when it is selected.   I suggest always re-sizing from the corners so you can keep the photo in proportion.  Play with the cropping, color changing, etc… you can not do any damage to your photo because it is saved in your folders and the CTRL+Z button can un-do anything you change.  (yes – that is a great button!)  when you are all done you can save your photo in the technique taught above (right click and save-as-a photo) – only change the name and you will have both copies saved.

Hope this helps a little –

Email me if you have any problems or questions:  dw068@gmail.com

(title created using techogeek digital kit)

Trick or treat with Suzy Q Scraps. I love scrapping Fall & Halloween - It's the colors, I can't lie.  Something is just fun about the deep golds & reds & oranges...  Happy haunting is Suzy Q Scraps latest kit, it has so many fun elements, stick figures, word art, really too cute to be scary, and packed with loads of fun stuff.

I used another simple story grid (#9 I believe).  I turned off the doodle outline and thought it would be fun to sew into the page a bunch of word strips.  And the spider tied to the page with a button journal card is 2 elements and a quick line with the pencil tool.  simple but I thought it was cute!

You can find the kit here and it is 40% off right now too! - BONUS!

Suzy Q Scraps M&M Autumn Bundle

Been busy scrapping, what else does one do when they are no longer cool enough to hang out with their 11-going-on-35-year-old daughter? Suzy Q Scraps  just came out with this adorable kit  memories & Moments Autumn Bundle - and right now you can pick up some free journal cards to go with it.  Find it all here:
Susy Q Scraps Store  or click on the photo below.  Underneath is what I made.  I love how simple to scrap with her pocket pages Simple Grids - I used Grid set #9 also found in here store or here.