Save the Bits!

Today, 1010, has been designated by the Council of State Archivists as Electronic Records Day to raise awareness about the challenges in preserving our digital resources. This gives me the opportunity to share with you some information from my professional life that can be useful if you are trying to preserve your own digital memories.

Image from the Library of Congress' National Digital Preservation Program.

How to Preserve Your Own Digital Materials: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/
Handouts from the North Carolina State Archives: http://ncrecords.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/happy-electronic-records-day/
Born Digital for Those Born Analog: http://hangingtogether.org/?p=2158
Personal Digital Archives: http://personaldigitalarchives.blogspot.com/
The Practical Archivist: http://practicalarchivist.com/ 
Caring for your Family Archives: http://www.archives.gov/preservation/family-archives/

Check in with the Day of Digital Archives (10/12, this year): http://dayofdigitalarchives.blogspot.com/

If you are an archivist, librarian, or dedicated family historian and want to explore digital archives further, you can check out the Archivists and Records Managers Blog links provided by L'Archivista (scroll down).

And just for fun: a video of the earliest surviving copyrighted motion picture, the Edison Kinetoscopic Record of Fred Ott's Sneeze

Color Trend

Here's a color trend that I love: Gray, Mustard, Terracotta, and Olive.

Margaret posted pictures of her Margaret's Stitch.



And Arielle posted this week's ColourQ choices.


Pictures distorted to encourage you to click through to see the originals.

Happy Leap Day!

I hope you're all enjoying your leap day. I was hoping to show you a picture of my daffodils in bloom as evidence of what a crazy non-winter we've had in DC, but they've not quite bloomed yet. The buds are on the brink of opening though. The ones by the school across the street are in full bloom. My north-facing yard is always among the last to bloom, but it does mean that I have color in the yard lasting a little later than everyone else. Plus, it's been raining cats and dogs all day, too. I'm very, very grateful that it's rain and not snow, although one work-closing blizzard this winter would have been nice. DDA is sorely disappointed that she wasn't able to create snow angels at all this winter.

There are days when I think I should rename this blog "Stitching 18 inches at a time". That's about all the stitching I did this month - one pull of 18 inches of DMC floss. It's sad.

For your amusement, here are some of the blog posts I starred this month.

Inspirational:

From my friend Michael: No Adventures without Grief

The Happiness Project talked a lot about bed times this month. That's something I need to work on. I have a sticky note at my desk that reads "Eat Well. Sleep Enough. Exercise. Be Creative." These are things that I'm working on, as I know that they will help me feel better and more relaxed and less stressed out about life in general.

Syd talks about some of the things she's doing too.

Coni's 15 minute rule could be applied in many situations, but I love that she's applied it to stitching. Check out her amazing craft room, too.

Recipes:

Homemade Egg Rolls
Easy Meatballs
Power Smoothie (no bananas!)
Curried Butternut Squash Pasta (for DH; I'm no fan of either curry or butternut squash)
This Noodles and Cabbage dish is more my style.
I think these Veggie Nachos or Cauliflower Cheese Fritters would be a hit with the girls.

Crafting:

I love the soft aqua colors in this card.

I seem to like somewhat retro color schemes: here, here, here, and here.

Lisa's use of tone on tone is great. I also like her use of die cuts: flowers and letters.

Especially for Lee, Carrickmacross lace goes runway.

For Valentine's Day:

Stitching Sweethearts
Homemade heart-shaped crayons
Archival valentines

And finally, any suggestions for my friend Christine on a homemade, natural facial scrub?

March Link Love

My favorite links from March:

The William James' quote from Lee continues to resonate for me, especially since my to-do lists have to-do lists. I too am a victim of Distractadon.

Both Lee and my friend Christine got me following the Happiness Project. Here's a thought from Christine.

As a mathematician and a librarian, I've gotten this question a lot.

I'm still interested in Jeremy's budget and financial advice.

I'm salivating over Marie's bread. How can you go wrong with Bacon!?

Getting ready for summer, GovGab did a nice post on Drive America's Byways, and then moved to a new blog site and forgot to migrate the content. Here's a direct link to the Byways program. Routes on the list include Historic Route 66, California's Big Sur Coast Highway, Colorado's Gold Belt Tour Scenic and Historic Byway, Alabama's Coastal Connection, Minnesota's Paul Bunyan Scenic Byway, and the Las Vegas Strip.

February Round Up

More links of posts I wanted to remember, from February 2011.

Natasha's designs continue to inspire me.

October Farm shared recipes for Homemade Fig Newtons and Poptarts (two of my favorite junk foods).

Stitch Bitch pointed me in the direction of the Pioneer Woman's Olive Cheese Bread, which would be tasty with October Farm's Sun-dried Tomato Pasta Salad.

And I'm totally amused by Kathy's tribute to lip balm.

Hmmm... lots of food links. I guess you can tell I'm not stitching much these days.

Ringing in the New

Several month's ago, Lee started documenting the blog posts she had read and starred from the previous month. I'm stealing her idea. And the title of this post from the first entry in my list. Here are my choices from January 2011.

Susan quotes Tennyson.

Karen V tutors us in Pillow Ornament Finishing.

Natasha shares some card layouts: 10-minute sketch and Silhouette.

John shares how to make Rootbeer Pinwheel Cookies.

Marie makes Quesadillas with a British twist.

Kathy shares Homemade Granola. (Updated with link to her new blog.)

Jeremy tells us how to get financially organized in the new year and kick our productivity into gear.