Highlights From My Super Productive Vacation From Blogging

While I was "out", I had an overwhelmingly huge amount of projects going on, not the least of which was a biography of my grandmother's life for her 80th Birthday (as seen below).


The book was mainly written by my sister and mother, but was edited many long hours by my sister, a coerced Cousin Liz, and myself. It was a project that took months, the last few weeks of which were late nights and a trip to the printers just in the nick of time. I did all the desktop publishing and artwork, which was MASSIVE. I am not sure that I will undertake a project of this magnitude a second time around. I don't think my sister will either.

I'm including the cover art and the first three pages for you to enjoy (just click on the small image to get the big image). My grandmother and her parents were first generation Finnish immigrants, so the story is as much America's story, as it is my own.



Cover Art: Depicts images from Finland, New England (1929-1960), and Pennsylvania (1960+) including my grandmother, her parents and sister, her husband and children, and the places that she lived.






Page 1 of her story








Page 2 of her story










Page three of her story







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In addition to all the hard work of my grandmother's party and biography, my last sister had another baby boy. My first sister, her daughter, and I traveled west for a week to help out and I took my shifts at night. I took several pictures of the kids, including some for the birth announcement and Mother's Day gift for my mother, both of which I shot and designed.



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And as if that weren't enough, I also made tutus for both of my one-yr-old nieces. They both seem like twirly girls, and I would have killed for a tutu like these as a kid.


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I have been cooking in between. I experimented with a GF peach cobbler made from fresh peaches, which was delicious. The dough did not rise correctly though, so I am considering it a semi-failed project. Back to the drawing board on that one.

I also experimented with a KFC knock-off recipe that I altered to be GF. I have some changes I want to make to the recipe still, but expect to see really great GF fried chicken in your near future. It is first on my list of recipes to go up soon.

I think I am finally ready to get back to blogging again. I still have other projects going on, but I can work them around my bloggy life a little better than the last three months. Thanks for hanging in with me. I hope not to disappoint.

Ciao!
Ali Kat