And then my cat puked on Prague...

My sister's friend cancelled on their day-long scrapbooking event, so I decided to go get crafty, get in some quality sister time, and try to finally catch up on my photos from studying in Berlin (yes, eight years ago). Suggestion for you scrapbookers out there: document your adventures within, say, months afterwards. Not years. I couldn't even remember people's names, much less the significance and fun of all the little things that happened. Luckily, I apparently did a few pages sometime right after the trip, so not all of the original flavor is lost. And it started coming back to me as I worked with it, which is half the fun.

So after eight hours of scrapbooking (yes, eight hours), we finally quit. And when I went home, what did I do? More! Yes, I may have an obsessive personality (it was binge knitting last month, remember). But I love a good project!! Once I get into the creative zone, I don't want to be anywhere else. But eventually it was 2am. So I laid everything out for the last page of the trip and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, I discovered a strange pile in the middle of Prague... Cat Puke!

First of all, lovely. And second, really?! Of all the places in my house to up-chuck, why on the one set of photos that I don't have the negatives for? Serious anger ensued. I nearly threw my cat right out the front door (he's not an outdoor cat). Then frustration; I spent a good chunk of time wishing that reality was different. Then sadness. Lost evidence of the fabulous, free, time in my life. Loss of the creation supposed to be made on that page.

After a while I came back around. Resigned myself to the fact that this was an unexpected and unforeseeable occurrence. I got a mini-lesson in anger out of it. (I'm not good with anger, whether mine or someone else's; it scares me.) And maybe even an amusing story.

I eventually started to look at what I had left, and get some ideas for how to salvage the page. I borrowed a few images from a book and the Web. It probably turned out better than it would have with my own grey photos.

But don't tell Oliver (the likely suspect). He's still in the dog house.