[my scrapping life]

To blog or not to blog

2010-03-10T21:22:00.002-06:00

I had decided to abandon the blog since Facebook is just too darned easy to update and post photos on. For gosh sakes, I send the photos to FB directly from my phone. I don't even have to make the effort to upload to my computer first. It's too easy.

Lately, however, I've thought about posting some photos of better quality, just for fun. I just don't know if I'd keep it up...uploading photos from the camera card always gets me in the end. And i know it's photos that make good blog posts. I read blogs and expect photos. What would Cake Wrecks be without photos, after all?

My blog jury is still out....I'll keep you posted. Or not.

Yes, I am a bad blogger

2009-10-06T10:43:00.002-05:00

This totally explains my move to Blogger from Typepad not long ago...I'm a bad blogger these days. I blame Facebook. Facebook makes it wayyyy too easy to share what I want to share, and on the go, at that. I can take a photo with my cell phone and send it directly to Facebook. Why would I want to get out my camera, take photos, upload them to the computer, edit with PSE, then upload to Blogger to share something quick that I'm working on or that I just saw and wanted to share when Facebook is so much easier? Yeah, I know......

I do still like blogs. I do still like Blogging. I'm trying to make a go of the Examiner.com article-writing, but that's hard, too, especially since school started and we're on the go so much. I need to get back on that effort as much as possible. And scrapbooking?

No, not so much doing the scrapbooking. I made cards to send the girls' back-to-school snapshot and a dance class snapshot out to family and friends. I've made no pages at all though! Not since a July crop. Maybe soon....And knitting?

No, not so much doing the knitting. Took the entire summer off, actually. Lately, however, I've done a bit of knitting on the sweater for Maddie that I started back in the winter, and also on a simple but fun sock I started a while back. I only did the ribbed edge, and have now quickly brought the first sock down, around the heel and am now working the foot. I hope to get it done quickly and start the second sock. That will serve as inspiration for me to get it done so I have a new pair to wear. I am jealous of those who knit all the time and knit more complicated, beautiful socks (like Amanda posted on Facebook recently!). I also want to knit the girls' some leg-warmers to use in dance class. I bought a pattern over two years ago, and now I have a good reason to knit them.

All else is moving along....Girl Scouts started again last week. Tonight is the year's second PTO meeting at school. Girls started faith-formation class a few weeks ago. Upward soccer continues through October 24. (I'll be glad when that's over, to tell the truth.) So we're on the go...a LOT. Once soccer ends, it'll just be weekly dance and faith formation classes. Girl Scouts are every other week (or less perhaps); PTO is only monthly for me. Husband works a lot, too.

Otherwise, Girl Scouts begin their Fall Product fund-raiser this Friday, so if anyone would like some nice nuts, chocolate-covered nuts and pretzels, and other chocolates in fun little cans and tins, let us know starting Friday afternoon!

School supplies and the like

2009-08-10T23:39:00.002-05:00

My gosh, I can't believe it's time to buy school supplies. Actually, I think we were late when buying supplies today. Many bins and displays were picked over; the three-ring binders were boring at best with only navy and black to choose from. What an exciting yet sad thing to be doing -- the excitement of back-to-school and the sadness that the summer is nearly over. Wow.

We got nearly everything we needed. The girls's separate classes have separate class lists, so that's a pain. If Maddie weren't in the new "combined" class of first and second graders, her list would be the same as Em's....ah well. We shall see what that situation brings as the school year gets started. Tissues still need to be purchased, as we need so many boxes for the two classes that we decided to wait for a good deal on a multi-box offer. I never envisioned my life and looking for a good deal on tissues. I really know how to live, I tell ya.

We have previously purchased some back-to-school clothes, and the girls seem happy with what we got. I got a fantastic deal...stumbled into it, really....at Gap Kids. They had a sale on clearance items, and we got two pairs of jeans (Gap jeans!) and four t-shirts for the girls for -- wait for it -- $48! That's hard to beat anywhere. We spent $20 at Target on two cute denim skirts, for gosh sakes. Lastly, we hit Sears, where we found Levi jeans marked down to $12, then a bunch of Roughskins coordinates for 2/$10 for the girls AND sneakers they love ON SALE. I gotta say, we did great in finding deals the girls love. This year, Em will have Wizards of Waverly Place sneakers, which I think she will love as much as she does her Hannah Montana ones from last year, and Maddie has Camp Rock sneakers she loves. Yippee on those finds.

I had hoped to post photos of the kindergarten scrapbooks that I did for the girls at my crop a few weeks ago, but, alas, I just haven't had a chance to photograph it. Had Monday off last week and worked on Saturday. Went to early church on Sunday and also attended the newcomers' breakfast, which was very nice. Cleaned and organized the linen closet. Scrapbooked not a bit, but I want to. Just trying to find a relaxing mood since it's no fun when there's too much external stress. I've gotten some great clearance and Hot Spot bargains ($1-$1.38) lately, and I can't wait to use some stash!

Hope it's not too hot where you are.....kinda steamy here this past week, that's for sure. :D

I coulda scrapped all night...

2009-07-28T20:11:00.007-05:00

But the crop was only til 9 pm, 2 full days this past Friday and Saturday, both til 9 pm, and still I didn't get done as much as I wanted. I worked on two projects: kindergarten scrapbooks for the girls and a fun valentine's day memento book just for fun since someone gave me a bunch of patterned paper and matching ribbons. I added embellies when they went on clearance, and voila, a quick scrapbook. Here is that one, photos in no particular order, and I didn't include the front page. I haven't taken pics of the kindergarten ones yet.

In other news, we finished up swimming lessons last week. This week brings school registration. There are a few issues there that I'm thinking about. We are also enjoying our new church, and I need to call about getting the girls in (what I used to call) CCD for the fall. Husband has some irons in the fire (prayers welcomed for this). Work for me continues to be ok...tiring some after all this time working there.

The summer has come and is waning with us having not finished much of what we planned to do....the kitchen still isn't painted, nor is the hallway or our bedroom. The basement still isn't tidied from last summer's flooding. The back deck isn't painted. The yard isn't weeded. Siigghh....what happened to our get-up-and-go??

A quick card

2009-07-18T23:54:00.003-05:00

I have some new stamps and I saw Jeanette's sketch challenge over at the 2RedBananas blog, so here ya go. :)

Two....get me two....

2009-07-18T22:16:00.008-05:00

Stupid movie reference, I know. Or have you seen Point Break, by any chance?

Anyhoo....here are the two pages I finished this morning. You can now see what the "two" reference is for. One page for each of the girls' books. Em likes the pink; Maddie loves green. I did have a second, different ice cream paper, but figured I'd save it for something else. It's Basic Grey and is pretty cool, but completely different. This one is Imaginesce, very cool. The brown polka-dot is the reverse of the ice cream side. Gotta love that. This is the only piece of the line I bought, and it did the trick. Cardstock is Bazzill bling. Ice cream cone is QK. I think that yellow scalloped ribbon is Fancy Pants from the Office line? I bought it on clearance, I remember that. Sticker labels are Jenni Bowlin. Alpha is AC Thickers. Not sure I'm in love with these pages, other than the photos, which I do love, but the pages are....what?...say it with me.....DONE! I do love THAT!

Anyway, my goal is to get some pages done, use the new stuff I just had to have, and also to burn the stash as much as possible, downsizing as I go. Hope you like 'em, too. :)

Making the switch and another swim page

2009-07-18T12:32:00.008-05:00

I didn't cut off my other blog in time to miss the next month's charges, but I believe I'm going to work with this one from now on to get the hang of it. Cool, huh? Not quite as fancy-dancy, but it'll do just fine, I do believe.

Here's another swim page I did...figured I had more of this paper that I really liked from last summer, plus the flowers I bought to match it. This page will go in the family book. The previous two are for each of the girls' books. This paper was by WRMK exclusive for Archivers last summer. The bling matched the line. Flowers by Prima also bought last summer (just perfect for the paper though). Chipboard corners are Bo Bunny. And, my rockin-the-stash move here is the rub-on title by MME that's at least 2-3 years old!

I have also completed a page for each of the girls' books using photos from our first trip to Snookies Malt Shop this year. I'll get those up this weekend, too, but haven't snapped pics yet. Used the fun Imaginesce ice cream paper...forget what the line is called, but it's this year's.

Testing again...posting photos

2009-07-15T01:02:00.016-05:00

I remember previously leaving blogger because of endless troubles posting photos. Hopefully, that's all a thing of the distant past. Here goes....

What I did tonight - a couple of pages, one for each of the girls, using the summer 2008 WRMK line for A's that I liked so much last year. Glad to have these photos which are perfect for it! Yellow chipboard from Bo Bunny. Flowers are Prima, bought to match this paper...pretty good match, huh? :)

Ok, I'm not thrilled with how the photos are formatting. I'm going to have to look up some tips on sizing and placement of photos...thus far, it seems easy to upload, but I'm not happy with the result when seeing the post. What gives with this, I wonder. Like how I can custom-size the photos in Typepad. Can Blogger do that?

Testing, 1, 2, 3...

2009-07-13T19:26:00.003-05:00

After a bit of thought about the ol' blog and other sites I now frequent like Facebook and Twitter, I decided to come back to Blogger and see how the site works now. My last post, still listed below, was nearly 3 years ago, when the site here was really sucking, so I moved to Typepad. I've been using (and paying for) that site since then, and even though it's only a token amount, I decided that if Blogger is up to snuff now, I should try it again and eliminate the cost of Typepad since I don't blog as much as I used to. I guess that's what Facebook has done in giving me another site to share some photos and updates with family and friends. So, this is sort of a "test post" to see how I like Blogger again.

Like my design? Free download elements and PSE....I'm so far from knowing what I'm doing with such things, but it's better than the basic template options, I think.

Still bloggin'

2006-10-14T08:59:00.000-05:00

Just not here....Blogger wouldn't let me do anything new for a while, and you can see that my format is screwed, so I've been bloggin here instead. Check it out. Cool photo albums!

Blogger

2006-09-27T22:51:00.000-05:00

Ok, so Blogger is driving me nuts. What's with this thing??

Yea, Preschool!

2006-09-10T23:38:00.000-05:00

So we did it...the girlie girls are in pre-school now. They love it. Though Emily informed me the first day, the day when the parents were only down the hall in the parent meeting volunteering for the phone tree and to make Play-doh, that "I looked everywhere for you, and then I cried." How sweet is that? Bless her little heart. The next day, when the parents truly did leave, her teacher informed me at dismissal that she only cried during transition, and she was fine and had fun. Both she and Maddie reported just one activity for the entire afternoon: playing on the PLAYGROUND!!!! I know they did other things, but that's all they had to say. Good enough. I have a cute photo of the girls out front on our way to school, but, of course, Blogger won't let me post photos now. Stupid blogger. Makes me wanna switch to Typepad. So here's a link to my cutie-pies, smirking as usual.

The husband and I went to the home improvement store to take advantage of a paint sale during the couple of hours the girls were in school. SO excited about that. We're painting the basement main room, aka the playroom, a tangerine-looking orange, white, and a splash of green on one wall. Rearranged a bit, still working on it, trying to make it a fun spot for the girls rather than, well, a basement.

Trying to finish some swaps and stuff with scrapbooking. Kinda tired of all the circle journals and swaps, wanting to get to my own stuff like NOW. Finished the CKU-A cj, finally. Just need to mail them off to Tina. Starting a new cj with a group from last year that was just super, so I don't mind that, and I used a journal we did at CKU Minneapolis as my book, so I just had to do the pages, the book was already done. Working on the recipe swap, which is just 5 8x8 pages. I'm finished with it, all but adding the recipe card in the pocket. My pages came out kinda funky, cause I was using 5 different colors of Bazzill 8x8 cardstock that I'm trying to use up, plus some My Life KI that seemed to match all the colors, punched some Whale Retro Flowers, painted and stamped some chipboard label thingys that Kara sent me (thanks, Kara!). Pages are ok, but not great. Like I said, funky looking. Hope my fellow recipe swappers forgive me! Also working on the 6x6 Friendship page swap....30 of those suckers! I cut my name and a flower out of each with the Wishblade, which looks cool, backing with pp (BG Gypsie) and adding more pp, buttons and some journaling, plus some Primas. Kinda cool. Ready to be done with it. Quite a bit of detail work still to do. Basic pages are done, at least.
I am excited about one swap - the Trading Pages swap on WT. I got Laura to trade with, who, from looking at her CHA photos, loves Heidi Swapp as much as I do. Well, Heidi is my girl! Ok, my product girl, so Laura, I got your back on this swap!!

So that's about it for now. No updates on anything...just working and doing. Should do more housework. Trying to figure out how to make the house "nicer" with two three-year-olds and a dog that sheds. Tired of the disarray; not sure what to do about it. So what's up with you?

Oh, I need to fix my blog set up. Couldn't figure it out when I tried once, will try again. UGH.

September!

2006-09-02T13:40:00.000-05:00

So how did fall get here so fast? It seems like it's fall, even though it's just now become September. This is Labor Day weekend, and after this, we're full-fledged into fall, whatever the official start is. My girlie girls start 3-year preschool next week. I started to question whether to send them, but it's a small, very reasonable investment in them (just $75 ea per month - that's reasonable, right?) that I think we can do, even with our changed circumstances (the husband taking grad teaching classes, needing a new job to work with that, my working more hours, etc.). And I believe it will do so much for the girls. So, off to school they go on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. The first day is more for parents and official info stuff, but the kids should have fun.

Never did get my fair photos up. Here's one of my little farmers with their buckets of veggies and other farm goodies. The glare was in their eyes in most photos, but they still look pretty darn cute in their farm aprons!

Found this on one of my message boards - good for a coupon for a free full-size pkg, if nothing else! It's for baking chocolate, not sure what else. http://nestlechocolatier.fanspeak.net/?C1853_551699 Give it a try if you wanna. They said spread the word, so there ya go.

Work is going ok. The husband loves his weekend job at the WB station. Brings out his inner electronics technician. Go figure. LOL My work at A's goes pretty well. Love the days...work is a nice change of pace from what I did for so long there on the evening shift, and a change is always good. Of course, there's nothing like being able to see lots of new scrapbook goodies around either. I just wish the buyers would realize what all they are missing out on by not having some companies' goods in the store. I miss Junkitz, Scenic Route, 7Gypsies, Rusty Pickle and even the newer Heidi Swapp stuff.....A's buyers: wake up!!!

Ok, I gotta go read some blogs. Haven't done that in ages either. SO much to keep up with, ya know?? Oh, I also added a new layout to the slide above....one of the girls. It needs something at the bottom, but I don't have a new photo of the fix for it, so just imagine a strip of the pink pp across the bottom to anchor it.

The Fair

2006-08-21T10:25:00.000-05:00

So I would say that I don't get the whole "State Fair" thing, but I do get it. I just don't think I'm a fair kind of girl. I would have loved it if the girls were older and would do what we ask or get some enjoyment out of it. I would have loved it if we could have even found the building I wanted to find so I could look at displays and such, the scrapbook layouts and all that. I would have loved it if we could have looked at the displays, the agriculture, the energy exhibits, etc. I could have loved if the food and drink wasn't so darned expensive, or if even the kiddie rides didn't cost an arm AND a leg. So basically, what did I like about the fair yesterday? Well, it was only 1/2 price to get in, but since I would never pay full price for that experience, 1/2 was a good thing. Parking was $5 because we didn't have 5 people in our car (don't twins count as 3??? lol). So we spent $15 just getting in the door.

Edit to say that Blogger isn't cooperating, so I"ll have to add images of my little farmers later.

THANKFULLY, the very first thing encountered was the number one thing on my list to do - take the girls to the "Little Hands on the Farm" exhibit. There, they get to be farmers, wear cute aprons and hats, had they not been out of hats, and carry a pail to collect veggies and such. Then they take their veggies, eggs, milk to market, sell for $1, and spend their $1 in the general store. VERY fun. Only not fun part is that it's very rushed with so many people, and the girls didn't really get to enjoy it as much as they were just shuffled through it with lots of "ok, come on, we have to go to the next one; you have to put your veggies in the buckets; come on, others are waiting....." Not so fun, that part.

The rest of the fair? Eh. We don't do rides. We don't do junk. We got the girls a sucker. I did get a very good caramel apple that I enjoyed and shared with the girls (they count apples among their fave foods, thank goodness). After a lot of walking and squeezing through crowds with the stroller, which only held Minnie Mouse and Larry the Cucumber a lot of the time, we never found the right building with the scrapbook layouts and I basically thought the entire experience after Little Hands sucked. Yeah, there were lots of people to see; yeah, lots of food to be had for a ton of money, except the Pork Chops on a stick, which were our first choice for food, but the booth had closed. I mean, really.

So my whole thing is this - I'm just not a fair kind of girl. I know the girls would love it if they had more stamina for the heat and crowds, maybe they were a bit older to understand what all was going on, and if we had tons of funds for doing all the rides (though it's an insult to pay it, funds or not). I thought they would enjoy seeing the 4-H kinda fair stuff, but we never got far enough into things to even find animals. The husband likes the fair; he likes the food; he likes just walking around. My thing is, I'd like walking around, too, if the girls wanted to stay in the stroller and weren't chanting "ice cream" non-stop after seeing it, and if they wanted to go in the buildings and actually stroll through and see exhibits without whining. I wonder if I'll get kicked out of Iowa if I say I don't like the fair?

Hello

2006-08-02T19:02:00.000-05:00

Surprised to see a new post, huh? Well, me, too! The husband and I have been pretty busy lately, working opposite schedules, running like crazy. Makes it hard to relax and do anything but read and keep up with the essentials. Hopefully, things will get back to normal soon. He's training for a weekend job now, so that's more hours than there will be when things settle out, and I'm also working double, it seems, so we're getting used to that kind of hustle and bustle. I'm loving the days at A's though. Nice change from the evening pace. I miss (generally nighttime supervisor) Dana though! I am going to be teaching 3 different upcoming workshops, which is cool! Doodling (RF stamps workshop), Hero Arts cards, and calendar workshop.

Umm..what else. Finished the She CJ from CKU-A in Chicago. Need to take and upload some photos of my intro pages and my lo for my theme that everyone completed layouts on, which is "Why I Scrapbook." I am in LOVE with my pages, as I finally used my Rhonna Farrer paper that I've been coveting. Also finished up a recipe swap and, when combined with two previous recipe swaps, gives me a nice 8x8 album that I altered the cover on and made a nice title page for (and that is one of the Elsie book challenges, too, so neato on that). And today, yep, I'm on a roll!, I did 2 pages and have one more going for my Heidi Swapp "She" album from CKU. Woohoo! Still, piles of stuff I wanna do, layouts and all, but at least there's progress. I'm so proud of my She CJ that I can't stand myself. Oh, and get this - I got my CKU Minneapolis CJ back! Woohoo!! This is from 2005, friends. I had Nietra bring it to me as soon as she got it, even though she didn't do her pages yet (hear that, Nietra? Make my pages!!). I'm thrilled, as I thought I'd never see it again. Hoping Miss Tina (yeah, you) will do a page set for me, even though she wasn't in the cj but was at CKU in 2005 with us. It's an 8 1/2x11 format, theme is "What I Know for Sure," and no tag, but sign a 3x3 piece of cardstock for the intro mini book, please.

Job front for the husband - weekend job going great-check; two phone interviews for 2 different jobs-check; at least one of those REALLY sounding good-check; classes started for masters in education program-check. So, the "worst" could be worse, I guess, and time will tell how we'll be for the long run.

Oh, house still a mess - yeah, as always. LOL We barely stay on top of the must-do's and can't get to the need-to-do's or want-to-do's, though the husband did clean crayon off half a wall in the basement today. Maybe someday we'll finish painting down there.

Visited with miss Nietra on Friday night and some Saturday. We cropped an hour or so here late Friday night, then she cropped at A's on Saturday while I worked. Fun, seeing a friend. They are in short supply these days, that's for sure. Miss Shannon now has a new baby girl!! How exciting and I know a relief for her. Visited a couple few weeks ago, handed off a ton of baby girl stuff, clothes and all, and I hope she's home and comfy very soon if not already. Can't wait to see new baby!

Okie doke.....gotta check on my girlies, who I believe are watching a Disney movie, so cool. :)

Class with Donna

2006-07-17T18:06:00.000-05:00

**Edited - completed class projects shown in the slide show now. I had some scrapping time this week and am glad to have finished it. Each "page" has a large journaling tag tucked in with ribbon tied.
Had a pre-paid class with Donna Downey on Saturday. Pretty fun! A little disappointed in the level of the project for the cost, but very glad she used BG Urban Couture papers instead of the pictured ones in the brochure. I love those! Also, seemed the chatter was geared towards those staying all day, lots of references to "if you were in the morning class," and even some clips you needed only in the morning class pack. Got great ideas, took photos of what the other classes did, too. Kinda neat stuff, esp the Freeze Frame project. Not difficult, but lots of fun Heidi Swapp chipboard involved. My project, still not finished as I have no theme yet, is pictured in the slideshow. Horizontal chipboard covered envelope book. ;) That's Allison from my CKU dorm, Donna D and me in the photo.

The first step to fixing a problem

2006-07-14T23:35:00.000-05:00

is to admit you have one, right? Well, I'm a bad blogger. I have had so little time and energy lately, and when I do have time or energy for blogging (hey, it takes THOUGHT, ya know!), I don't think to do so. So, bad blogger, me, hi, nice to meet ya. Anyway, so what's up?

Here, nothing and everything. Major life changes going on. Remaining optimistic in the midst of my panic. Hopeful. Scared shitless. Glad for some things. Mad about some others. We'll see what happens. Say a prayer for us and wish us well.

Fun stuff? Hmmm....going to a prepaid class with Donna Downey tomorrow. Someone had to want to buy my slot in order to cancel and get credit, and I'm not just giving them my money, so off I go. It's just under 2 hours east; the husband, girls and I are driving together, just to get a break from being here. He'll take the girls to lunch then maybe Barnes and Noble kids area while I'm in my 2-hour class. Hopefully, it'll be ok. Donna should be fun. I hear she rocks!!

Been teaching a lot at A's. Teaching two classes right now, and did both this past week. Another Wednesday night, if it makes, and another the following Monday. Working lots of hours, too. The husband is sitting for the Praxis I exam on Wednesday, so if my class makes, we gotta find a babysitter or I gotta find someone to teach the class, and I'm the only person who has taught it - all 6 times so far. If it's just a couple of people registered, I think Carla will bump them to the August class, and she'd have done that anyway, not just cause I have a conflict. Monday or so, I should know. We have to give 48 hours notice to people for changes.

Ummmm....the husband is all registered for the Kaplan University online Masters in Education program. It's a pilot program in Iowa only right now; it's for bachelors degree people not already in education to get the grad degree in education in a particular (really shortage area) subject area. Thank goodness, the husband is a math major geek education person from undergrad courses, and 7-12 math is a shortage area. We're having to secure student loans (UGH), but are hoping to figure out the loan forgiveness program in exchange for teaching so many years here. But we're not sure about that. Also, if one job opportunity comes through as we pray, there is tuition help. So, again, say a prayer for us!!

Ok, it's late, but I wanted to update a bit anyway. Let me see if I can dig up posted images of more recent layouts to share.

So, obviously, I have too much time on my hands.

2006-06-30T19:12:00.000-05:00

I have had fun taking tons of blog quizzes this evening. Click on one. Have some fun yourself. And when you submit one, the options change to even more and more quizzes. Cool.

Say hello to my layouts!

2006-06-30T17:52:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, also say goodbye to them. They are for the CKU-A She group circle journals, and they will go off in the mail shortly. I might make color copies for me, but otherwise, they are gone to new owners, each with a theme the owner selected. In return, I'll get 14 layout and tag sets for my circle journal, the theme of which is "Why I scrapbook." Kinda neat, huh?

Hello

2006-06-28T19:49:00.000-05:00

Just thought it was time to update, but not much new to say. First, thank you for all the supportive comments about the girls and life in general for us right now. It means a lot! Secondly, we're rocking along without really any updates. Time is passing so quickly. Looking into the transition to teaching is a bit of work, and I did find out that in Illinois, the alternative route program isn't the same as most other states. I was told they don't have a teacher shortage. Sheesh! So we got a copy of the husband's transcript so we'll have one, and now to talk to Iowa. Pt work is going pretty well though. I was told that I'm probably the best instructor this particular Archivers has had. That's pretty cool! It's based on the class evaluations and comments made by attendees.

Turns out we're staying in town this weekend. With the holiday travel clog, gas prices really shooting up, and everything else, we're not going to make it to the cousin's wedding. Hate it. Hate to miss significant family events, but it cannot be helped. Hopefully, the time will be useful here for us to get some housework and cleaning and strategizing done.

I've done a lot of scrapbooking, but none for me! I'm really trying to finish circle journals for CKU groups. The Heidi Swapp group cj is one where we have all the themes and do all the layouts at once, then send them in to be swapped out. Not as much creativity involved as when you can see the cj and get inspired by it, but a good way to insure no one loses a cj or holds it up. So that's 14 2-page 8x8 lo's and matching tags due this weekend. I have 2 more sets to do.

That's about it...worked all this past weekend. Thursday night, Saturday night, Sunday all day, and last night (Tuesday). Glad to be off tonight. We took the girls over to the park a bit before dinner, and that was fun.

More later!

So it's been a while

2006-06-21T13:55:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, I just don't have the energy to blog. No, not that I cannot muster up the energy to literally type, but there are times I just don't want to think. Or, more likely, that the things I would blog about are themselves tiring or emotional, and the act of writing about them is tiring and emotional, which is where the energy comes in. But, stiff upper lip and all that, right?

It's been a busy time around here, but also a weird, good, bad, who knows kinda time. Busy because we've been researching some career options and other things like working on the house (finally painted the kitchen wall where the fridge used to be - and the previous homeowners didn't paint behind the fridge..sheesh, cheapos!). Busy finding info we need on the internet and sending off a few forms. Busy cause payday always brings bill-paying and such. Busy with some scrapbooking, trying to get through a circle journal group with all 14 layouts done at one time (UGH). Busy with two 3 1/2 year olds who don't mind and don't listen and are little hellions every day.

Here's the thing. My children are bad. I mean, yeah, they are wonderful, cute, fun, surprising gifts from God, but they are also awful. They are the same age, at the same age of development. They do not have an older sibbling to influence them on better behavior. They gang up on us. We do not have a house that offers a lot of options either. We started using a corner in the hallway for time-out. Sit here, alone, with nothing to play with sort of thing. But putting them both in time-out is really really impossible. Basically, that's because I can't literally hold them both down at the same time as they fight being in time-out, of course. So we moved time-out to their room. One day I took them both up there, made them put all the toys in their toybox, then I shoved the toybox into the guest room. I went back in, told them they were in time-out and were staying in their room, then I put a toddler handle on the inside of their door and left. I so needed that break. I was literally in tears with them, praying to God for guidance.

Unfortunately, when in their room against their will, they will sit against the door and rock back and forth against it - HARD - and have done something to the door or doorknob or both. The husband discovered that this morning. So, for now, I don't have their room for time-out.

It's hard to describe it this way and make it sound as bad as it is when they are "being bad." That particular day, they were spitting. Spitting on the floor, on the dog, on the furniture. Then they were hitting me, throwing blocks and things at me, and so on. They don't listen when I say stop. They don't listen to warnings. I just don't know what to do with them when they get wound up like this. Like now. Since I started typing this entry, I've chased them upstairs twice, given 4 spankings, taken their tv show away, and had to put the dog out where he doesn't want to be so they will leave him alone.

I try for quiet time, since they don't nap. I try for time-out. I try ignoring some things so as not to give them a reaction. I try chasing them and spanking (not hurting, just "spanking"). I try all kinds of tactics. Nothing works. Today, it literally occurred to me to take the shirt off Maddie's back and throw it in the garbage because she loves her kitty shirt so much (I can't even get her to take it off for the laundry). I need to get their attention, and I don't know how.

What I do know is that I am worn very very thin. Either I never should have tried to be a mom, I just don't know how to do it, I"m not mean enough, I"m too mean, I'm too easy, I"m too strict, I don't know. What I do know is that this is so hard. Every single day I fight them. I love them more than life itself, but they are wearing thin on my nerves these days. Someone tell me that it gets better! I hear often from friends, well, he/she gets it from his/her older brother/sister, and such. Well, I don't have that to work with. These two fight so much, egg each other on, it's ridiculous. They really FIGHT, too. They pinch, bite, hit, kick, spit. It's awful, and I don't know how to stop it.

So why haven't I blogged in 2 weeks? Well, it takes forever sometimes when referreeing the above-mentioned stuff. Also, it's hard. It's hard to talk about this stuff and not dredge the tears back up.

Fun things - had a great dinner with friends the other night. The downside (well, other than that the dinner made me really really sick) is that the dinner was a going-away dinner for Tina. I hate that Tina is moving. HATE IT!!!! You don't make a really good connection often, and I feel like I have that with Tina. We became pretty good friends pretty fast, and I think that is because we have a lot in common. Sometimes you think you are friends with people, then they turn out to be totally not who they purport to be or even who THEY think they are.....don't you wish sometimes those people could see how full of shit they are? Anyway, back to Tina. Love Tina. My girls love Tina. My dh even loves Tina. And now Tina is leaving. Contact will remain, but it won't be the same. No last-minute calls to get together. No play dates. No MNO. I guess we'll just have to see what's what as time goes. Bye, Tina.

Serious things - been doing lots of talking with the husband about our future. Since the job has turned out to be something that sucks for lots of reasons, definitely not what we planned for when moving here all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in August 2004, we're considering other options. The husband has near-complete academic credentials for teaching, and the notion of falling back on that is looking really good to us. Considering possible relocation to Illinois where the family lives. I'd love for the girls to have more time with their Opa and Oma, as well as their cousins and aunts and uncles and everybody. Wouldn't hurt us either. Sis in law's visit really meant so much to the girls and to us. Would love to be able to do that more. The Champaign area is pretty nice, a good size, and probably good-living and home prices for us, too. We requested transcripts and have other calls being made and forms printed out. I've talked to the State Department of Education in Illinois, but have also printed out the Iowa info. Good thing I worked for the Dept of Ed for 10 years back home! I know my way around this stuff. The husband is only lacking student teaching, and early word is that it might be possible for him to get that WHILE teaching with a regular certificate. We'll see! As we've talked about this and all, I see that he definitely has a spark for teaching; he loves kids of all ages; he's just enough of a goof to be a good teacher, too. You need to not take yourself too seriously in order to relate well to the kids, I've found. Of course, figuring out how to live with that kinda pay cut? YIPES, not sure. Parttime work in our future, for a while anyway!

What else? Well, hell. That's enough for now. OH, Tori! I haven't done much emailing either, but love ya, girlie, and miss you!!!!!!

Busy week

2006-06-09T12:51:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy week for us round the ol' R-ranch here. Last weekend, we were thrilled to have Tori come to stay with us Friday through Sunday evening. I had to work some, but because the store wasn't busy, I got off a bit early both times to spend with the family. We had fun at Fudruckers on Saturday afternoon, then the husband worked for a couple of hours Saturday evening, but Sunday we just hung around and visited, dug through my scrapbook stuff, and had fun. The girls didn't want Aunt Tori to leave, and Maddie at first refused to say goodbye. Precious girls love their Aunt Tori! I took not a single photo. Bad scrapbooker, bad!

I taught a class at A's on Tuesday, worked last night, and been cleaning up some here. Slowly but surely. Hopefully more tomorrow when I'm not working or husband isn't. Gotta come up with a "reward" chart for the girls this weekend. They have developed a bad habit of not taking the time to go potty, and I am tired of wet panties! Being harsh about it hasn't worked. So, in addition to telling them to go more often (instead of asking if they need to), I bought some clearance ladybug stickers at the store, and am going to try getting them to "earn" them with dry panties for a day, etc. We'll see!

Found out that our friends are moving away. Sad for me, and it's gonna be tough getting the girls to understand, but Aunt Tori's visit helped them realize there are other people in their lives than those here, so that's a good thing.

Husband grilled last night while I was at work, and I can't wait to have it for dinner tonight. When we're busy working and running around, it's hard to have a good dinner often. Hoping to scrapbook some this weekend, too, but we'll see how much else gets done first. Guess I better get to it!

What the hell....

2006-06-01T12:22:00.000-05:00

It's time for a new post! Not too much to add except that I've been scrappin'!! Really, it's that the girls want to go to the playroom in the basement every day after lunch, and I can scrapbook while they play. They also like to work with me, so their Little Tikes table and chairs is also in my scrap room so they can color or stamp. I have to watch them like a hawk though, or they slip away with crayons and color walls. Yeah. We've got some WD-40 in our future to clean up those walls we had recently painted!

But scrapbooking ~ ahhh, that's the life. Sweep floors? vacuum? change beds? Nah. That's no fun. Finally completing 6 more pages in a mini About Me book I started last fall? Priceless! Just 5 more topics to cover. It's from an article in a Simple Scrapbooks magazine from last summer. The layout in the entry below is for it as well. I've also done a couple of pages in my Heidi Swapp 'She' album, thanks to an impromptu visit to Tina and Scott's on Monday for helping them out and Memorial day fun. The husbands painted and we scrapbooked and cooked and such. Pretty fun for all. Kids got to play on a big, borrowed water slide. The girls did great, though at first the big plunging slide was a shock to them!
Also did this layout for a post-CKU-A She group circle journal. The topic was "Heisms," words and phrases about your dh or sig other. I had fun with the handwriting, but it took forever!

That's about it really. Oh, got a fun new round, drop-leaf table to scrap on. The handy-dandy husband saw some people down the street putting it on the curb with a "free" sign, and he stopped to talk to them. Cute round traditional table to dress up the scrap space a little. How cool is that?

Ok, I've got to get lunch for the hellions. They have been so BAD today! They have gotten this notion the past week that their stuffed lab puppy needs, of all things, a BATH!!! So they take their little teacups and fill them with water in the bathroom and bring them to their puppy to bathe. UGH. Then, they seem to be fond of saying "no" to us, so that's not good. But, after lunch, they will want to go to the playroom (having already lost tv privileges up here in the family room - HELLOOOOO HGTV!!), and I have a better chance of good behavior. We'll see though. They are cut off from treats today, too, and that will get old with them, then the whining starts. Ahhhh, parenthood. I read in someone's message board siggy that "raising children is like being pecked to death by a duck." So true that one.

Lime Fizz

2006-05-28T10:33:00.000-05:00

Quick post here to show off this little layout. It's in the BOM I started back, oh.....last fall? I found an article in Simple Scrapbooks magazine about doing an "about me" layout or book, and I thought it would be fun. Basically, there are questions to answer such as name, age right now, age I feel I am inside, last cd I bought, what I'm wearing right now, etc. This little layout is the "what I'm wearing right now" page I did last night. What I'm showing off (here ya go, Kathy!) is the LIME FIZZ Ranger Ink I used with my cool new Heidi Swapp acrylic stamp. I'm LOVIN this scented ink! We got an ink pad in our CKU goodie bags, and I'm sooo thankful mine is lime, though I want to buy the entire stinkin' line of em! The photo looks a little fuzzy here, but it's clear IRL. OF course, the ink is stamped on pink, so I"m sure that makes it a tad darker than it really is. Flower cut from GIN X super-cute paper.

Another day

2006-05-25T10:42:00.000-05:00

I really meant to update the ol' blog yesterday, but didn't get around to it. It was kind of a pretty day, warm, threatening rain last night, but all in all bright and pretty. We grilled dinner out on the back deck while the girls played outside. Haven't done that in a while. I made a pasta salad, which isn't earth-shattering, but not something we have made much if at all. So dinner was pretty good. Talked to my friend Dawn, and that was nice. I really miss her and she misses me, too. There's nothing like having history with a friend, and friends are so hard to make in the first place. Going on two years here in Iowa, and I'm still not sure about it. The husband is even less sure than I am, but it's harder for men to make friends, I think. His office certainly isn't a place for that.

I think when we moved here, we looked for this neighborhood because we like neighborhoods like this and knew what we'd get here. I wonder now if we shouldn't have looked for something with more children, with homeowners more our ages. Our next door neighbor to one side and two houses down on the other both have children, but they are a little older than ours. I think sporatically there are children, but there's not anyone for the girls to really play with. The little girl next door is 6, and she'd play with Emi and Maddie, but that's not really equal for any of them. Oh well. Someday, I hope. The girls start preschool in the fall, two afternoons a week. Hopefully, that will produce the kind of interaction I want for them.

I so want to work around the house today, and I soooo don't feel like it. Everything needs to be cleaned, top to bottom. Cleaned, beds changed, things put away, dust bunnies captured, it all needs to be done. I'm so jealous of people who can keep things neat and clean. Maybe if every single thing with the girls wasn't so hard, doing housework would be easier. I dunno. From what I hear and read, it's not easy for anyone. I guess it just has to be more important to me than I seem to make it. Every day, we do our morning things, work towards lunch, have lunch, then the girls want to go to the playroom downstairs. I can do laundry down there, but then I work in my scrapbook room while they play. This week, the girls have been stamping and coloring at their little table in my scrapbook room. Yesterday, they got unruly with their stamps and I took them away. But, I came up with another activity. We made paper bag puppets! They seemed to like the making, but didn't so much get into the puppets. I mean, they liked them, and loved showing them off to daddy, but that was that. lol They do like puppets and have these great farm animal puppets they love to play with. They do love crafts though. I've still got some things up my sleeve for them. Maybe if we go down there today, they can make cardstock purses I cut from a Wishblade file. I got some of those foam shape stickers that are Dora theme. They will make a cute purse, huh?

Alright, alright. I've been tagged by Miss Tina. Well, not only have I been tagged by Miss Tina, I've been emailed by Miss Tina that I have been tagged and to get to it! So here ya go:

5 Things in my fridge:
~Milk, always milk for the girls, always
~Cheese - lots of shredded and string cheese for the girls
~Baby carrots - girls prefer these to chips, for gosh sakes!
~Salsa - yeah, we got that right now
~Coffeemate Caramel Vanilla - yum!

In my closet:
~Lots of shoes
~Toys we haven't given the girls yet (not ready for, bought after-season on clearance for next year, etc)
~Lots of purses I don't use anymore
~Little girl clothes bought after season last year that are for this year, but haven't worn yet
~Husband clothes

In my purse:
~Wallet
~Boxes of raisins (girls' snack)
~Sweetwater flash card mini scrapbook cards pack with girls 2005 Easter pics
~spare blush & powder
~spare sunglasses

In my car:
~Several music cds I rarely listen to
~Little girl toys and books
~A partial case of bottled water bottles
~Two car seats
~Fun canvas bag with clean little girl clothes, just in case.

On my Tivo:
Ok, I don't have a Tivo.....in my DVD player, which holds 7 discs:
~Monsters, Inc.
~Grey's Anatomy Season 1, disk 2
~Pirate Adventure Dora
~Ice Age
~Dancing Dora Adventure

Ok, so since Miss Tina tagged some of my faves, I now tag Tori, Julie, and you!

Just a few photos

2006-05-17T14:27:00.000-05:00

I'm kinda tired today - stayed up last night watching six episodes of Grey's Anatomy from the first season DVD (a Mom's day gift!). I L - O - V - E that show! Of course, watching on DVD is compulsive - no commercials...one show right into the next. How cool is that when watching your fave show?

So, considering the afore-mentioned state, I'll just add some photos. We had a busy weekend, some working, some visiting friends, some hanging out. As usual, I need to clean house. Making progress in basement, but it's a work in progress for sure. I wanna paint the kitchen and get new cabinet handles. That's not news, well, maybe news here, but not in general. I think it's time.

Ok, to the photos. One of my lil' scrapbookers, especially Emily in the foreground looking all teenagery. Tina and Scott gave the girls each a fun Purse scrapbook kit at Chuck E Cheese's last week when we met them for Scottie's birthday. So the girls and I scrapbooked together. I had several photos saved up that didn't work for me when I needed those images, then I printed a couple of extras, and the girls each had a photo for each page of their scrapbooks. Add some purse stickers, some Dora stickers, and some purple patterned paper punches, and voila, scrapbooks.

I love this photo of Maddie. Both girls have gotten into the habit of wanting their photo taken when they see me with the camera. "Take a picture of ME, Mommy!" So, yesterday, I snapped this photo of Miss Madeline.

A layout I did yesterday about my Ali class at Reminisce. I think I like it. At first, I thought it was too busy when it was all said and done, but going back to it today, I think I pretty much like it.

Six Weird Things

2006-05-10T11:02:00.000-05:00

For some reason, my friend Shannon decided this is her blog tag today. Six weird things about you. What the?? Let's see if I can come up with just six weird things about me......

1. I always make sure the car radio volume control is on an even number (22 or 24, never 23, etc.)
2. I hate having food on my hands.
3. I don't really like french fries all that much.
4. I really like vacuuming....once I start, I can go awhile!
5. I have terrible luck at games of chance...not sure if that's weird or not.
6. I don't like lettuce. I eat it (salads), but I don't like it.

Now, you.....Tori? Cricket? Tina and Shannon and Jinx? How weird are you?? :)

Been so busy...worked all weekend. Had a few hours for National Scrapbooking Day online cropping on Friday. That was fun. Did at least one great project and some other fun ones. Worked on Mom's day cards that I mailed too early, and finishing a gift today. Plus did some crafts with the girls that they can send as well for Mom's day to their Oma. Managed yesterday to eek out one layout I'm not sure I love. We did some pretty good clean up in some parts of the house, so that's good. Tonight we're off to Chuck E Cheese with Miss Tina (my girls just love Nina!).

Guess I should get the day started, huh? Photos are the layout I did yesterday, badly cropped and with a bad shadow - sorry, and frame I made during online crop Friday. I like it!

Tagged!

2006-05-01T10:38:00.000-05:00

Tagged again! This time by mom's buddy Shannon. Cool idea, girlie. I'm just not too quick on the uptake, since this tag was last week. But, here I go.....

All That History

20 years ago (1986): I was in the middle of my graduate school years, and I thought I was all that. I was teaching freshman English composition, I was the best student I had ever been (4.0 first semester!), I had great friends, and things were cool.

10 years ago (1996): Life was 'eh.' I was working for the Department of Education in the Office of Special Education. I knew my job well and enjoyed doing it, needed more pay and less spending, per usual, lol. I think this was the year (in February) that my friend and I bought a big ol' charming house together. Loved the house, love the friend, but boy what a lot of work.

5 years ago (2001): Newly married and loving it. This was something that for a lot of years of my life, I never thought would happen. Working, living in an apartment (definitely 'eh' but good as far as apts go!), being happy.

1 year ago (2005): We had just moved to Iowa the previous August, so we were doey eyed about being here in our new house and such. Dh's job still going ok at the time, but signs were there that his boss was not making things easy for us. I had just been to CKU in Minneapolis and loved that, made and still have a couple of close friends though that experience.

1 month ago (2006): These days are full of stress dealing with dh's job and boss. I go in and out of "like" of my parttime job at Archivers. The girls are growing and saying new things everyday that surprise and amuse us. Easter was low-key but fun.

Today: Lots to do. Working on the job defense paperwork, cleaning, hoping to scrapbook a little bit, hoping to clean through some of the toys, too! There's just too much little stuff that gets everywhere!! Enjoying having finally hung a new curtain rod in the family room to replace the one the girls bent (by pulling on the curtains). Oh, need to do laundry, especially towels!

Tomorrow: More on the husband's job front, need to list some things piled for ebay, trying to declutter the house and hoping the ebaying and cleaning will help that. Idol on tv!

Tagging: Shannon already got Tina; I'll tag Tori, Kara, Dalis, Sarah :)

Elsie, Elsie, Elsie

2006-04-17T15:21:00.000-05:00

Gee, I've used that title before.......here are the stamps designed by Elsie Flannigan. Cute, huh? Very Elsie-fied. Why aren't they acrylic?? Why are they red rubber unmounted?? Why oh why??

A great day

2006-04-17T15:08:00.000-05:00

We had a great day yesterday, Easter day. Actually, the entire weekend went pretty well. The husband was home early on Friday, so we took the girls to McPlayland for fries, and we had McFish. They had a lot of fun, then we moved on to Target for basics for the weekend - milk and coffee! Saturday was a neighborhood Easter egg hunt. It was quick, but fun. The girls were cute and loved their basket booty. Sunday brought Easter, making cookies, and a nice dinner. The girls helped frost cookies - first time for that, and we all had fun. I didn't get to scrapbook at all, which I had planned, but the day was full of family fun and togetherness, so how cool is that?

Today, cool mail day! I received the Homegrown Scrapbooks Hybrid kit, which has the new SEI Paisleys and Petals line, some Maya Road chipboard set and book, ribbons and more. Also got the new CK and new Scrapbooks Etc magazines. Then, I received the Fontwerks Elsie stamps I ordered. Big disappointment there. They are red rubber stamps on a sheet to be cut out, not acrylic see-through stamps. UGH. Not sure what to do. Might sell on ebay if I can't return. Might use now that they are here. Still thinking on it. They are cute though. A bit smaller per letter than expected, too.

Cards

2006-04-11T14:56:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post of some Easter cards I made. Kinda liked the dry embossing; haven't done it in ages! Like the puffy tails? ;)

More Ali

2006-04-11T13:13:00.000-05:00

Here's the cover and an inside look at the "Favorite Photos" book I made with Ali Edwards on Saturday. Had tons of fun, and loved coming home with a completed book. I finished up the journaling at home, but it's done now. So fun!

Betcha Didn't Know

2006-04-11T09:34:00.000-05:00

This is the topic of my on-again/off-again Monday blog challenge. Yeah, it's Tuesday, but, as Ali would say, it's o-----kkkk.

10 Random Facts I Betcha Didn't Know About Me!

1. I love, love coffee; developed the habit in grad school.
2. I had eye surgery when I was four, weak muscle or something.
3. I hate cleaning the tub.
4. I love Frosted Mini Wheats anytime.
5. I used to hate my middle name, but now I think it's ok.
6. I wish my house were less cluttered.
7. I cry way too easily.
8. I work parttime, but I hate it.
9. I love our house.
10. I have the brownest thumb known to man.

Good times, Good times....

2006-04-10T16:43:00.000-05:00

I will post more later about the fun class with Ali E and Tina this past Saturday. For now, here's us! Sarah, Me, Tina and Ali. :) The class I took was "Favorite Photos," a fun 10"x5" chipboard book with 5x7" photos. Tina took this one and another as well. Lucky girl!

TGIF!

2006-04-07T12:21:00.000-05:00

The husband is on the way home. Earlier than expected, so very cool! Also cool, cause the bathtub is stopped up. Curse of an older house. Love the charm, hate the infrastructure. Tomorrow brings a road trip for me again, quick one this time. I'm going with Miss Tina to take an Ali class at Reminisce. Well, I'm meeting Miss Tina over there. She's taking the morning class and we're both taking the evening class. Should be cool. Would be more cool if I had pictures ready! I need 5-6 5x7" photos, which means I can't just print them downstairs. I may have to print my 4x6" though and just see if I can get the enlargements at A's when I go back to work. Hate to pay full price elsewhere, but might have to for Ali. Sheesh.

House-cleaning today. Trying to do things that don't normally get done. That bag of stuff from the kitchen junk drawer in the Mississippi house that's been sitting on the bookshelf in the living room for-EVER? GONE!!!! All contents put away, thrown away, filed away. I'm giddy over just that if nothing else. Sad, I know.

I'm on a roll

2006-04-06T15:01:00.000-05:00

With posts, that is. Here's a quick lo I did yesterday. Scrapworks papers and stickers I got on clearance, HS chipboard flowers, white Uniball pen - yeah, just starting to doodle on lo's...not sure if I"m doing it well though.
Not sure about the handwriting here either. Might cover it with patterned paper and rewrite. What do you think?

Couple more....

2006-04-06T13:17:00.000-05:00

Me and sis-in-law who I was so glad got to share some of the Saturday eve CKU excitement. Also, me, my cow poster, and prize bag. I won for best use of location theme. Ol' Daisy there had here own CKU badge and scrapbook full of Chicago history. :) Next pic of me, Debbie S, who is Tina's cousin, and Tina. Finally, 1/2 of the Heidi kit. Cool beans.

Just one more sleep

2006-04-06T12:18:00.000-05:00

til the husband gets home. Soooooooo glad for that, but we've made it through ok. Last night was the first that I've had a hard time after the girls fall asleep actually getting them to bed. They sit with me in the big chair, and, for some reason, last night they were sprawled in such a way that I couldn't ease out from under one or the other. I ended up putting them both in my bed and joining them a bit later.

Speaking of sleeping girls, Emily is just about finished with pull-ups! She wears only Dora panties, unless she wakes up soaked (about 1 in 4 nights), then she asks for a diaper. Maddie, on the other hand, won't give up the ghost, but I think Target just ran out of pull-ups, ya know? We've one more full pack, and I'm gonna give it a go, fighting her into the panties. Wish me luck.

Still need to post pics from the weekend adventure. Can't believe it's been a week already since I was there! A few pics from the weekend ~ 4. Me and Heidi Swapp. I love her spirit!! of course, love the products, too. ;) 3. Me and the unsung hero of CKU's, organizer Paula. 2. Me and Willow friends Dalis and Julie. 1. Me and Cricket, who I will love forever. Thanks for being such a sweet, caring, fun, real person and friend. (I had to reload the pics and got them backwards; thus, the numbers.)

Tagged by Dalis!

2006-04-04T23:19:00.000-05:00

Another post within 24 hours? Wow....good record for me. I've been tagged by WT Dalis, so here goes!

5 snacks I enjoy:

Chocolate - duh!
Ice cream - vanilla, cookie dough, vanilla
Pretzels
Popcorn
Trail Mix

5 songs to which I know all the lyrics:
(Nothing new.....lol)
The Star-Spangled Banner
The One that I Want (from Grease)
I think I Love You (yep, Partridge Family)
Annie's Song
Country Roads (yeah, both JD songs, Tina)

5 things I would do if I were a multi-millionaire:
Pay off debt
Take care of family near and far
Invest
Travel
Give a lot

5 bad habits:
Eating - bad portion control, eating late at night
Staying up too late
Too much internet time
Waiting for the husband to clean the bathroom instead of doing it myself
Spending too much at the grocery

5 things I like doing:
Being with my family
Scrapbooking
Talking about scrapbooking
Reading about scrapbooking
Decorating

5 things I would never wear, buy or get new again:
The latest greatest sb thing in its first five minutes (before seeing, researching, etc)
QVC sb kits with tons of stuff
Christmas ornaments just because
Heels, if I can avoid it
Bras without underwire

5 favorite toys:
Stamps and ink pads, esp alphabet
Wishblade die cutter
Our computers
Sewing on layouts
My AMM Tote-Ally Cool tool tote

5 people I will tag:
Tina
Tori
Cricket
You :)

That was fast!

2006-04-04T11:19:00.000-05:00

Here it is, Tuesday, and CKU is past. It's amazing how quickly time flies. I had so much to do to get ready, and it seems like the days there, while jam-packed, just happened so quickly. The drive home seemed long, but that's the only thing I can say was long. Hopefully, I"ll upload my pics today and can share a couple.

First, I had great fun on Saturday evening visiting with Tori, my sis-in-law. We had a Chicago dog! New for me....yes, I ate the pickle; no, I didn't eat the tomatoes. Uh, yeah, I put ketchup on it. Sorry....it had to be done. Just had to. So, for authentic Chicago food, pizza - check, hot dog - check. Oh, and I gotta give props to Cricket for being the most fun ever. Chicky, I"m sooooooooooooooo glad we got to spend some time together and look forward to doing it again. Tell Sue that Iowa City is at least an hour past Davenport. ;)

Because the final event at CKU (graduation and prizes) does not require a ticket, Tori was able to go in with me and see all the craziness. It was fun though. I made a great poster and was fortunate to win my category. Got a great goodie bag for it. Later that night, roomie Sue and I "worked the crop room" by going around talking to people cropping and looking at albums we hadn't seen from the other tracks. I didn't get to see the AMM Life Lessons one though. I hear it turned out great. :)

The classes were pretty awesome, some better than others. The main class, my album track with Heidi Swapp, was truly awesome. It's too bad that she will be changing the class after this, but hopefully, it will have the same impact on participants. What an amazing experience. It's not so much that, ooh, it's Heidi Swapp. It's really that she shared with us some of herself, something she discovered, something she thought would touch other women, too. And it did touch other women. So many women in the group shared how it touched them, and it was great. I have a lot of work to do to finish my album from the class, but we did a lot of the hard technique work, so the pages should come easily.

The regular classes, the 60- and 90-minute ones, were pretty good. I can't say that any I took were great, but several were ok. The best I saw was the Rusty Pickle 26-Reasons one. Great project. I really like the little book we made in "The Guy in my Life," the board tag book we made in "Festivities at your Fingertips," and Bo Bunny's board book class. The other projects were a little less exciting and really too simple for a CKU albums class. Seriously. Too Simple.

As to the evening activities, they were ok. I had a blast on Wednesday shopping with Lori Bates and Kathy Northup and crew. Wild and crazy chicks. The Yahoo group dinner on Wednesday night drew a small group, but the 10-12 of us had a really fun time. I loved the pizza! Thursday night brought the dorm contests and CKU pep rally. I preferred last year's way of doing these on two nights, but it was ok. The dorm stuff is really getting major....not sure I'll do that again. Had fun seeing it all though. Friday night, no party, but cropping with our album track for 2 hours was scheduled. Heidi Swapp and crew ordered great pizza once the "official" time ended, and we kept going for hours. I loved that and I got a lot done, too. ;)

All in all, thrilled to have had the experience. Not sure how so many do all the CKUs that come along, but happy I went. I made new friends, stepped out of my box, did some great stuff, had tons of fun. Didn't spend *too* much either, which was nice. Now to unpack it all and get back to work on all the projects!

So now, it's Tuesday already. The husband is on a business trip this week, so it'll be another long week around here, or maybe it'll fly by like the rest of them do. Saturday brings a class with miss Ali over at Reminisce, so that'll be cool. At first, I thought of cancelling and saving the credit for Donna D classes in July, but I think I'll go and have fun with Tina, maybe some early dinner before hand, and some coffee talk. Sounds fun, no? Tina, ya ready to do Donna D with me in July??!!

One week to go

2006-03-22T12:36:00.000-06:00

One week from today, I'll be on my way to CKU-A. I'm pretty excited about it, but a little worried, well, not worried, but hatin' to leave my family. I really really like being around my family, and I will sooooooooo miss the husband and the girls. To make matters worse, the husband has a business trip Monday-Friday the day after I return! UGH. So, needless to say, I'm having a bit of separation anxiety before it even happens.

So, CKU-A. Very happy about it. I feel as if I am going alone, even though I'll know a couple of people there. I guess that's ok. I never do anything alone because I feel so invisible and conspicuous at the same time. Still, I have some possibilities for fun, so we'll see what shakes out. I know that I will enjoy my album track. I just LOVE LOVE Heidi Swapp's line, and I have heard great things about the track. The other classes seem as if they will be fun, but the main focus is "She," Heidi's classes. I also have some contest entries, well, at least one, another one if I have time. Hopefully, I'll have some luck! My tags are mostly done for the open tag swap; I borrowed and changed up a bit a tag I received in the swap at Mpls last year. I have some dorm things to do still, name badges and some table things. We're going casual on the costume. You just can't go over the top on all of it, ya know? Anyway....hopefully, it'll be as great as last year when Nietra and I went. Now that was fun.

What else....had Mom's Night Out last night with Shannon and Amy. Loved getting together, so-so on the restaurant (the tempura didn't sit well with me overnight), loved the coffee and dessert, really loved all the chatting. I had to miss last month because of the work schedule. Hoping to iron it out for the next MNO.

Trying to do some extra house cleaning every day. I am a horrible house cleaner. Hear that, Tina?? I'm horrible at it!! I just don't wanna do it. It's like exercise. Know how, yes. Need to, yes. Wanna, no. So I am trying to do what I normally get done each day plus an extra thing. I have cleaned the front of the refrigerator and dishwasher. I have mopped the kitchen floor. I have scrubbed the toilet, including the part where the floor bolts are that seems to catch all the dust and hair. So, it's going ok. It's a good thing.

I finally got my Christmas flag down from the front of the house and put the Easter one out. Then it snowed several inches that same day. I found that funny. It's one of the mini flags on an iron hanger, not a big flag pole one.

Fun things I'm loving ~ actually, getting the extra cleaning done, I"m lovin' it. My new Wishblade for scrapbooking, I'm lovin' it. SO glad I decided to go for it and sell my alphabet dies to finance the WB! It rocks. Let me say that again. It rocks. Having my scrapbook room back. LOVIN' IT!!! Works so much better for me and for the girls as it turns out. Who knew. My knew khaki pants that are supposed to be crops, but are really just about regular length because I'm short and pants are made for the extremely tall, I'm lovin' em. Spring arriving, I"m lovin' it cause I want the husband and girls to enjoy warm days and no coats for a while, and me, too!

Okie doke...that's my update. Though I am behind on the Monday blog challenge. For that, which is music this week, I got nothing. Not much of a music girl, I'm afraid. Oh well...next week's might be easier. :)

Monday Blog Challenge

2006-03-13T11:42:00.000-06:00

Well, today's challenge is the "four things" listings that I've done previously, so I'll just let ya scroll and find them in last month's entries. :) I'm a cheat, I know.

I've been reading blogs, and, inspired by the vivacious Tina, here's my doll. Yeah, that's me in an alternate universe. Fun though, that site.

Also got the scrapbook room moved back this weekend. By "back," I mean back to the space I had before I decided to give up my wonderful basement office for the girls to use it as a playroom. Yeah, that failed (see post below). So, it went quickly because I really just had to put things back as I had them before. It's even roomier, cause no piles o' stuff. But I can have piles o' stuff if I want 'em, cause there's more room. Heh.

Worked on this cj yesterday. It's about time.....we've been doing this about 10 months, and I think they're all lost. Somehow, Sarah's cj made it to me, and I send it home to her, so at least one is on track. I think it's Amy Totty's fault. That Bazzill chick has them stacked up. I want my book back! But I want Amy's work in it!! Get to it, chicky!

So, that's where I am. Oh, and I got my Wishblade on Friday. That thing is COOL. Even the husband loves it after we were able to make a Cubs'-looking logo, circles and all. Made the title on the cj layout with it, too. Now just to learn the more advanced functions. I'm going to be happy with it though...definitely the right decision to sell the old Sizzix alphabet sets to pay for it. And I made better money on those than I spent, especially since I bought them from ebay in the first place! Nifty, nifty. :)

Wednesday

2006-03-08T13:46:00.000-06:00

Man! do I need to catch up. The days seem to pass quickly whether I have anything specific to do or not. After several work days in a short time from last Thursday through all day Sunday, I was thrilled to see Sunday night come, except for the fact that the husband returns to work Mondays. So...I've really enjoyed the past two nights, but tonight, it's work again. And tomorrow night, too. Bummer. A few short hours on Saturday early, just filling in for a co-worker and grabbing some extra pay, and the weekend is mine. Yippee!!

I had a revelation yesterday about my scrapbook space. Well, actually, I had that particular revelation a while ago, that my space SUCKS. The revelation yesterday was that I am taking my good space back from the kids. I'm moving back into my fun little office painted Becky Higgins Behr asparagus green with my scrapbook words foam-stamped on the overhang. Yes, the husband will have to clean and paint over the crayon that now adorns the walls, but so what. I'm taking my room back, my room with the shelf-lined closet and hangy space. The move starts Friday eve. Yippee, again!!

The playroom? Ahh...it will be in the big space that I've attempted to occupy since Christmas. The space is large, but so unusable for scrapbooking! I can't hang anything in the cinder block (not easily, anyway), I can't place anything that's a temptation for the girls, I can't use low shelves or open spaces, stack things on the floor, etc. It will be a perfect play space...good area carpet, wide open space for the Little Tikes stuff, Barbie tent, Shrek chairs, etc. And now that the girls have the feel of the basement, I think it will be easier to keep them from the spaces they don't need to be in, such as the laundry room and furnace room. At first, I thought it would be tough, but after standing in the little office yesterday and seeing what I'd see out the door from my scrapbook desk if it were back in there, I realize I can still keep an eye on what the girls are doing, and, truth be known, they'll want to be near me enough that I can keep them from going where they shouldn't anyway.

No new layouts to share....several nearly-complete ones needing titles or journaling. Hope to get back to scrapping soon. It's therapeutic, cheaper than therapy, creative, and fun. Oh, I'm also trying to keep my pledge to not buy patterned paper anymore for a while. Got a few sheets of the newest stuff, and now I just need to use it!

Elsie, Elsie, Elsie

2006-03-02T12:00:00.000-06:00

I just gotta say, could Elsie Flannigan's layouts be any more cute??? Check out her blog; link to the right.

Guilty Pleasure

2006-02-28T08:51:00.000-06:00

Our WT weekly blog challenge is "Guilty Pleasure." Gee, not sure I have any of those, as I'm so bad about having what I want. Maybe if I did feel guilty, indulging wouldn't be so easy. I have to say that I love Hershey Nuggets with Almonds. Just love them. Sadly, I find that they taste different, actually better than Kisses. Not my fault they are bigger. There's just something about chewing a nice chunk of chocolate that's soooo good. I guess the guilty pleasure part of it is having several in a row. Like 6 or 8. Lots. Love em. Love em so much that last year, each instructor at CKU got a single Hershey Nugget with Almonds in a tiny plastic bag with a thank you tag attached. Chocolate is always welcome by scrapbookers, ya know. I think it's a universal rule or something that you must have chocolate while scrapbooking. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Pre-pre-school blues

2006-02-22T12:17:00.000-06:00

So today we went to pre-pre-school for the 3rd and last time. The "director" told me last week that she and the teachers are concerned with the girls' apparent fear of the bathroom. They don't care if the girls go potty or not (they are only there for 2 hours a week, anyway), but they MUST wash their hands before snacks. This is a health department regulation (yeah, I confirmed it). I figure, sheesh, won't an antibacterial wipe do the trick? Health department and day-care licensing guy says their doctor can write them a note about their phobia and an exception would be made, but I'm still not taking the girls back. They just turned 3, they will go to 3-year-old pre-school in the fall, and that will be fine. This was an attempt to get them involved outside the house and with other children to help them learn and play with others, share, etc. The director was pretty rude, which is why I used quotes around her title in the sentence above. I mean, here I am, obviously-distraught parent with 2 3-year-olds who want to go to school, and she's just walking by like I'm not even there. "We have to keep the group together," she says. So I ask, is it a "keep the group together" issue or a wash-hands issue? There are 7 kids in the class and 2 teachers. Sheesh...can't they wash their hands in shifts with those numbers? The potty is just a few paces from their class, too. Even the pastor who walked by showed concern for my distraught state at least. Well, good riddence, I guess. If she can be that rude and unfeeling (not even showing sympathy, despite the "rules" is what gets me), I don't want my children in her school anyway. And this a church facility. Harumph!! I have already enrolled the girls in a closer church program that starts after labor day. It's a 3-year-old class, twice a week, and my friends have their kids there and LOVE how they nurture the kids and HELP them. Gee, what a concept.

So yesterday, I did two simple layouts while the girls played, but I'm waiting for my new QK Studio Classic alphabet to arrive by mail so I can put titles on them before posting. :)

Fragile and amazing

2006-02-21T18:10:00.000-06:00

If you feel like it and haven't already, take a look at Tara Whitney's blog today. She and her family are amazing and deserve some great joy in life, especially right now. I don't know Tara at all; I just read her blog and think she's amazingly talented. Link is to the right in my Blogs listing. :)

Flat hair?

2006-02-21T08:47:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I'm looking at the pics below and thinking, sheesh, I've got flat hair. You know how when the lady fixes your hair and it's not the way you would fix it, so you fool with it on the way home? Well, it's still an improvement over how badly outgrown my hairstyle was, but I gotta get my poof today. Trust me, it'll poof, and it'll be better. lol

New Stuff

2006-02-20T23:35:00.000-06:00

I joined my WT buddies in a blog challenge. It's to get us all blogging again after a sluggish winter with not many entries among us. So the first challenge is "I am a child of the ___." Well, in my case, it's the 1970s! I was born in the early 1960s, so I came of age in the 70s.

I remember wearing clogs.
I saw Aerosmith in concert 30 years ago.
I wore bell bottoms.
I thought the Mystery Machine was cool long before Sarah Michelle Geller was even born.
I rang in the country's bicentennial.
I remember Watergate.
I wore a dress in my 6th grade picture that was so short, my teacher threatened to send me home if I ever wore it again.
I had shag haircuts.
I loved Donny Osmond.

Concerts I saw:
Aerosmith
Blue Oyster Cult
KISS
ELO
Alice Cooper with Eddie Money and Sweet
Captain and Tenille (I have no idea why though....lol)

The other blog challenge was to post about what's new. Well, nothing much new with sb'ing and the usual things I go on about, but I did get new glasses and a haircut today. What do you think?I'm hoping I shook off the winter dowdy! First photo is a "hold the camera at arm's length" self-portrait; dh took second photo for me.

One more....

2006-02-16T21:51:00.000-06:00

This is Maddie's birthday lo....Em's was posted a-ways back. Again, love the Bazzill biggies!

A layout

2006-02-16T21:46:00.000-06:00

Might as well add a layout I did at Tina's last week that I finally journaled on....not entirely happy with the journaling as I ran out of room to write....oh well. Love the big Bazzill flower!

Valentines and Crocs

2006-02-16T21:35:00.000-06:00

Two things I did yesterday...brought hand-made valentines for the girls to trade in preschool and got some crocs for comfy feet while working parttime. I blame Donna Downey for enabling me on the Crocs, btw. Oh, yeah, those ARE my fat, pale ankles, thank you very much!

Tagged

2006-02-15T13:44:00.000-06:00

Well, I've been tagged by Cricket! A second post within 13 hours or so? Gee, I can't believe myself! :)

WHAT SCRAPBOOK LINES/PRODUCT ETC. DO YOU DISLIKE?
Hmm..I don't dislike a whole lot; I prefer some things to others. I guess if I have to say something, it would be that I dislike Zots because they do NOT stick like Glue Dots, most roll stickers, though there are some nicer quality ones with quotes or good alphas (like American Crafts), and I guess cheap cardstock. Hate cheap cardstock.

WHAT IS THE HARDEST THING YOU EVER HAD TO SCRAP?
I don't think I've sb'd anything hard, but I've tried things that turned out hard, like an entry for the Basic Grey contest last year.

WHAT TECHNIQUE DO YOU USE MORE THAN ANYTHING?
Probably inking and distressing. Even though a cleaner look seems to have taken hold of the industry lately, I still love the shabby chick look.

WHAT'S THE SMALLEST SCRAP OF PAPER YOU SAVE?
Geesh, I need to get over this, but probably about something 1"x2" depending on what paper it is. I figure if I can get a die cut out of it, it might come in handy, and some cardstock I use over and over so I know I'll use that color again.

EVER HAD ANY SCRAPBOOKING RELATED INJURIES?
None that I can think of...I'm sure I've been stuck with the piercer or a staple or something.

FINISH THIS SENTENCE: "IF I WASN'T A SCRAPBOOKER/STAMPER, I WOULD SPEND MY MONEY ON..." books, first edition and collectible books, Gymboree clothes for my girls, house stuff.

GIVE US YOUR BEST STORAGE OR ORGANIZATIONAL IDEA:
Wall storage. I have learned that you can't find a place for every little basket you can find, but storing on shelving or on the wall (like the MM panels) is helpful. Also vertical paper storage...can you say easier than a million wire Target cube shelves??

YOU JUST WON A WEEK LONG SCRAPBOOKING CRUISE FOR 5, WHO IS GOING WITH YOU?
Wow...Nietra, Tina, Donna Downey, Ali Edwards, Heidi Swapp, Karen Burniston, Dana from Archivers and Teri from Scrap This Crop That. Wait, that's 8. Well, we'll just have to eat less so we can all go.

AFTER YOU HAVE ANSWERED, TAG FOUR OF YOUR BUDDIES:
Four? Not sure I know four who blog.....Tina, Kara, Amy Renee', and ..... Karen B? are you reading still? lol

Happy Valentine's Day

2006-02-15T00:07:00.000-06:00

Well, technically, it's 7 minutes past Valentine's day, but I had a bit of trouble logging into Blogger. I am now using Internet Explorer to surf, and I had to reset some things in the Internet options before Blogger would let me blog.

So I have been busy...just nothing too exciting to blog about. I've done some layouts that I have pics of but need to upload. In the meantime, I"ll share a glimpse of dh's mini-album/Valentine's card that I made. Tomorrow, the girls have a little party at pre-school. I made a bunch of heart-shaped valentines for them to take for their classmates. I'm so excited! Their first official valentine swap!!

Speaking of swap.....ok, bad pun....I switched to the Heidi Swapp album track for CKU-albums. I just couldn't help myself. I knew I'd love the one I was in, but I just can't resist the Heidi Swapp stuff...in the words of one of my three-year-olds, I reabby reabby reabby wub it!!

I'm all verklempt.

2006-01-29T22:27:00.000-06:00

Karen Burniston read my blog today and said nice things about the Emily's 3 layout. Cool, huh? That's what a nice kit will do for ya and a little bit of fun ingenuity. Not much blogging time right now, as little Emily is right here wanting to play alphabet. I guess that's ok.

Today, this made me go "hmmmm" -- why does my hair and/or pores smell of onion when the shower water first hits me on the day after I eat something that's made with fresh onion? Why is that? There is absolutely no mistaking that smell of fresh onion either. We had homemade chicken noodle soup last night with plenty of fresh carrots, celery, and onion in it!

Did two layouts today. One is of the girls in 2004 before our move playing with Little People for one of the first times. The pic isn't great, but the fun sure does show. Used stuff from my stash, including Little People stickers that Santa brought me my first Christmas as a scrapbooker. I need one more MM Tag Maker rim to finish it up but thought I"d go ahead and post anyway.

Second layout is from the Lisa B QVC book. I just love all things Heidi Swapp. Well, almost all things. I'm not into the chipboard strips and a few of the other things. Still, lovin' this book!

Oh, it finally happened. One of the girls got into my sb'ing stuff while I wasn't home and dh wasn't watching them in the basement. She got Zig markers and blank shipping tags. Could have been so much worse....still, we can't trust them at all in the basement by themselves. Will the day ever come that they can play without being watched like a hawk?

Ok, so I posted the layouts backwards. No biggie....

New Layout

2006-01-20T23:24:00.000-06:00

Just a quick post to add this Emily birthday layout since it's been a while since I uploaded one. Created this (mostly) while cropping with Tina the other day....still have to finish the journaling off in pen, but first I have to buy a Zig Millenium .05 in brown. This paper, tags, and embellies came in a GREAT kit by Over the Moon Press; I'll be doing a Maddie lo next, then a bigger birthday lo, too. Fun kit!

More Scrapping!

2006-01-19T10:03:00.000-06:00

Ever since we moved my beloved scrapbook room to the "outer" basement area, formerly my stamping room, I have gotten lots more layouts done. It's not because the space is that much more inspiring; it's actually less so. It's because my toddlers took over my little room for their play room, and now that I can be downstairs more during the day, I get more done. That's kind of a "duh!" moment, huh? Ahh well. I'm glad to have gotten much more scrapbooking done. I am usually doing projects for gifts, cards, etc, and not doing so much of my own layouts, so I'm happy. I feel like Matthew J. Bruccoli when asked what his (at the time) new biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald had in it that the other (classic) ones didn't, and he replied, "more facts!" Well, now I've got 'more layouts!' I need to post pictures soon. In the meantime, check out the latest in my gallery at Willow Traders. http://www.willowtraders.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=1266

Tagged by Kara

2006-01-13T14:59:00.000-06:00

I've been tagged for the latest quiz, so here goes!

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
1. Theatre box office (live theatre, not movies)
2. Paste-up artist for commercial printer
3. Educational Television traffic and administrative positions (fave jobs EVER)
4. State Department of Education, Director of Statistical Reporting (my career job)

Four movies you would watch over and over:
1. The American President
2. Princess Diaries
3. You've Got Mail
4. Bull Durham

Four places you have lived:
1. Biloxi, Mississippi (birthplace)
2. Jackson, Mississippi (college and adult years)
3. Starkville, Mississippi (grad school years)
4. Des Moines, Iowa (husband transferred)

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. Desperate Housewives
2. Grey's Anatomy
3. Gilmore Girls
4. The West Wing (esp the old, really good ones)

Four places you have been on vacation:
1. DisneyWorld
2. NYC
3. Charlottesville, VA
4. Smoky Mountains

Four websites you visit daily:
1. Yahoo mail
2. Willow Traders
3. 2Peas
4. Various Blogs

Four of your favorite foods:
1. Sandwiches (I dunno, just love sandwiches)
2. Beef roast cooked with potatoes, carrots and onions
3. Barbeque
4. Chicken cooked all kinds of ways

Four places you would rather be right now:
1. I think I would like to live in the Chicago area or Champagne, IL, area (so girls could be around family)
2. A Disney vacation would be great
3. A Cooperstown vacation would be great with Dh
4.

Four bloggers you are tagging:
1. Tina
2. Dalis (ya out there, girl?)
3. Husband
4. ??

Happy New Year

2006-01-01T13:47:00.000-06:00

I just read one of my top three favorite blogs and enjoyed the new year's resolutions so much that I thought I'd drop one or two of my own. As a rule, I don't make resolutions because they always seem doomed. I make a cheer and a prayer for things to go terrifically for us in the new year, however.

We love our new home in the midwest, but this has not been the best year in terms of success and advancing our income/financial lives, and I pray for more resolution and success in that this year. We did some GREAT things, like let my scrapbooking be a little income for us (something we didn't think of when I started!) and also improving some small but important areas of the house.

I am committed to making the most of my current sb supplies and tools before adding any unjustifiably, whether it be cleaning out, selling, giving away, or using....I don't want anything stagnant in my stash.

I need to keep up with the housework better and more quickly so it's not always such a task to do it.

I need to figure out how to get the girls to WANT to wear clothes....these two pumpkins seem to like being au natural for whatever reason. Also MUST make it through the home stretch of potty training - they can, they do, but they don't always, and that's gotta change.

I pray for success, peace, friends, and fun for my dearest, wonderful, warm, nicest guy I know, best friend I will ever have, father of my beautiful angels, fruitcake of a guy husband.

There. I think that's enough for anyone, right? Happy New Year. Peace.

Wow, that was fast

2005-12-30T12:17:00.000-06:00

My last post said that Christmas is nearly here. Well, here we are on Friday following Christmas, and I'm wondering how it came and went so quickly. We had a nice Christmas day. The girls didn't wake too too early, so our day began about 8 am. They noticed immediately their Santa presents. We don't wrap Santa big gifts, and this year, they got the Little People Castle and each a baby doll and baby stroller from Santa. They loved them, but boy, those Little People sure are popular here! The Castle set is especially loved because it has hee-haws in it! The girls have nice wooden rocking horses they ride that were gifts from Oma and Opa. I used to tell them, "EEeeeeee-haaawwwwww!" when they rode. So now, they call horses hee-haws. Go figure. Other gifts were loved and admired and being played with, used, appreciated, eaten, cooked, munched, you get the picture. Especially popular are the Dora DVDs that seem to play non-stop now. And you know they now loop? I don't even have to hit play; the darn things just start themselves! Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I guess it's good when I"m trying to do something like clean the kitchen counters off or take a shower.

Let's see, what else....Oh, I gave up my charming little scrapbook room so the girls can have a playroom in the basement. Our house needs for them to have a playroom! Way too many little things everywhere.....so now my sb room is in the more open basement room. Not happy with the current configuration, so this weekend we'll try again. Also some painting in our immediate future, because I just can't stand the yellow that's been there forever. I want fresh and bright. I want my Behr Asparagus paint back!!

In the meantime, I did get to do one layout using some of my BG Blitzen paper finally. Also used some BG Holy Cow rubons, my new QK Olivia alphabet, and a Creative Imaginations Santa metal plaque from a package I won. Not sure I love that, but will go with it for now. Big Heidi Swapp alpha at the bottom - just love those! The thing at the top is just a clip holding the page; also some glare on photos from camera flash.

It's nearly here

2005-12-22T14:56:00.000-06:00

Christmas, that is. Three more days! Not sure if my girls can hold on that long, having no real concept of days, it seems, but it'll be ok. They are talking about Santa, saying "I love Christmas," and such. Real 3-year-old fun stuff! They turned 3 this past Saturday. I can't believe how they are growing.

So it's holiday week....still got presents to wrap and a couple of little scrapbook projects to do. Hope the next couple of nights are productive! I'm not working again at Archivers until Saturday, so I need to be working here, not to mention trying to clean house for Christmas day. Oh, gosh, and we need to take the ham and the chicken (for the cornbread stuffing) out of the freezer! I better get to work.

Super busy weekend

2005-12-12T13:40:00.000-06:00

I hate when the weekends pass too quickly. It's nice to get things done though. Seems like we are just plummeting towards Christmas! I cropped with Tina on Friday night, and that was really fun. Not only is it my favorite store at which to crop, but it was a potluck dinner, and there were some really tasty foods and treats! Also, I worked on a Christmas gift and got it completely done with time to spare at the end of the night. That's really cool. On Saturday, we had family Christmas pictures made at Penneys. That went over as it usually does with the girls (like the proverbial lead balloon), but I think we got some passable portraits. Hopefully, by the time Easter or the next photo opportunity comes around, the girls will be past their dislike of the process!

I put in a few hours at Archivers after that, and after getting our Christmas card photo taken here at home. Again, the girls didn't get the concept, but I got a cute photo, don't you think? I just wish their faces showed more.

The rest of the weekend brought some scrapping time, when I worked on more Christmas gifts and our homemade Christmas cards. Just about finished with those and hoping to make the mail tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest. We'll see.

December already!

2005-12-05T10:04:00.000-06:00

I am a bad blogger. I can't believe how long it's been since I blogged and also read blogs. So I've been catching up this morning, at least on the reading. The girls are playing house, so we'll see how much I can type before they decide they need to be on my lap.

Let's see....we travelled for Thanksgiving. Had a very nice time with family on Thanksgiving day and the day after. Hi, Oma, Opa, Tori and Tim! We miss you and all the family! We brought home a truck load of gifts for the girls from the family, both birthday and Christmas. They are all still sitting in our living room in the bags and box from the car. We did get the tree up, but that's as far as it goes so far. Just the tree, no lights or anything yet. My 29 cent poinsettia sits on the dining room table, and my $5 Santa on the entry table. Story of those: I shopped the 90% off sale at Hobby Lobby after Christmas last year. The santa was $50, and the poinsettia was $29.99, but it was marked down to $2.99, and the sales person (even though I told him it was marked already) said, 90% off marked price - 29 cents! Cool, huh? I also got some stocking holders on that sale that aren't out yet.

The husband and I received very nice gifts from family ~ gift certificates to Lowes and Home Depot. We desperately need some things done around the house, and we are very grateful for these gifts!! We decided that we would enjoy the fruits of those gifts in time for Christmas, so over the past week and a half, we have put down a new kitchen floor, rearranged the stove and refrigerator for a much better, roomier look, and installed a new light above the sink, a pendant light. Cool, huh? We also worked in a clearance-priced rechargable Swiffer/Red Devil power handy vac and a pack of batteries for just $13 total over our Home Depot gift card.

And this past weekend, with the help (mucho help!) of a friend's husband, we installed a brand spankin' new potty! Our old potty had a leak into the basement. It was not a huge leak, we could catch it with a bucket, but what a pain, right? It leaked only when flushing, so it was a toilet problem. That, combined with a crack in the tank and just general ugliness of an old potty all added up to one thing: we needed a new one! We didn't go super designer or anything, but we got a nice basic American Standard "toilet in a box" that had all pieces and parts in one package. That and a new halogen bulb for the new pendant light in the kitchen took care of our Lowes gift card and about $4 extra.

We really made those gift cards work for us. For an additional investment of $10, we put a new bathroom floor with the leftover kitchen tiles (a cottage wood look, so it also works in our gardeny bathroom). The final spending was about $20 at Ace to cover plumbing pieces that friend needed to fix the stupid pipe thing that was wrong with old potty. Now we have nicely installed new potty that won't give trouble to any future moving or changing either. Of course, if we had much more money and tools and ability, the floor would have been these wood plank (think Pergo type) floor, and tile in the bathroom. But this is good; we like it; it was affordable; it's a good thing.

Also news: I'm working at Archivers! We decided that the family could use a little steady extra income, and if I could get a job at this fun store, it would hardly be like working! Well, that's not exactly true (after 6 hours yesterday, lol), but if I gotta work, it's a total blast to also be surrounded by scrapbooking while doing it! I get to see new stuff, talk sb'ing, and get paid. Even more cool beans, especially right at the holidays.

So this is how far I made it. The girls are now in my lap. Well, Maddie is. Emily is serving me coffee in her Little Tikes cup and saucer. So cute.... Ok, off to more of my day. I will try to add a pic or two later on, but the coffee pot (the real one) is calling my name for now.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

2005-11-18T16:42:00.000-06:00

The husband and I married 5 years ago today. Wow....what a long, strange trip it's been (thanks, Jerry!). When I think back...it's hard to believe all we've packed into our five years. As far as us together, the girls, our family, things couldn't be better. Sure, we bicker over stupid stuff, we all have our stupid stuff, right?, but in general things are golden! (errr...or whatever the 5 year anniversary is). Wish the external world were as easy to control. Hopefully, in time, the external things, very important things, will clarify and improve as well.

What else....I've been ebaying a lot this week. When I work at it, it works for us, so a listing, listing, listing, I go! Here's my latest craft that's listed. Love these lunchboxes!

Tagged

2005-11-18T15:31:00.000-06:00

My dear sb'ing buddy Kara tagged me, so here goes!

2 names you go by
1. Tracey
2. Mommy

2 parts of your heritage
1. Austrian
2. Cajun

2 things that scare you
1. having money issues
2. my girls growing too fast!

2 of your everyday essentials
1. routine
2. coffee

2 things you are wearing right now
1. My CKU dorm t-shirt
2. comfy hoodie jacket

2 of your favorite bands or musical artists (at the moment)
1. Oh, gosh, I don't listen to a lot of music unless you count The Ultimate Silly Song Countdown
2. John Mayer if I have to name someone!

2 things you want in a relationship (other than real love)
1. responsibility
2. trust
2a. fun
(see how I got that 3rd one in? lol)

2 truths
1. i should do more housework than I do!
2. i love love love being married and having children!

2 physical things that appeal to you (in the opposite sex)
1. PHysical things? a nice butt!
2. Things? being nice, good sense of humor, patience (because I don't have it)

2 of your favorite hobbies
1. scrapbooking
2. blogging, reading, going to the bathroom by myself

2 things you want really badly
1. Paid-off bills
2. Total security for my family

2 places you want to go on vacation
1. Disney World
2. Cooperstown

2 things you want to do before you die
1. Attend my children's well-thought out and desired wedding ceremonies when that time comes (oh, please, at least 20 years from now!)
2. Retire with security

2 ways that you are stereotypically a dude/chick
1. I love chocolate
2. I love jewelry, purses, shoes, clothes, bath stuff

2 things you are thinking about now
1. ...how am I going to turn off the Bob video (Veggie Tales) because it's stuck and won't play anyway without the girls having total breakdowns? It's stuck because a year or so ago they chomped into the dvd and near the end it sticks.
2. ...will husband be home on time tonight?

2 stores you shop at
1. Target
2. Michaels

2 people i would like to see take this quiz
1. Tina and actually publish the blog!!!!
2. Cynthia again and be even more funny, if possible!

They say it's my birthday....

2005-11-13T12:21:00.000-06:00

well, it was last Monday. Been a busy week or two here in our household, some good, some not so good. Since the husband's birthday, I've also had a Stampin' Up! workshop, my birthday, a household full of sick babies and sick Mommy, and now plans are firming up for our anniversary next week, then Thanksgiving soon after. The girls' birthday is in December, then Christmas....yep, we got everything absolutely as close together as possible. Lots of celebrating and gifts and loving around our house! We didn't do a lot for our birthdays...had a joint dinner out, some free babysitting (thank you, Nietra!!), some lounging around Borders like grown-ups (something we haven't done since the girls were too tiny to make a fuss), and, on my birthday, a trip to the McDonalds playland for dinner. Hey, don't knock it...the girls played while we sat and knew they were right there and safe. Well, Emily did get scared at the top of the tower thing and the husband had to climb up and get her, but she was never unsafe. Maddie was all over the place like Laura Croft, dangling by one arm and stuff. I had meant to spend some of my birthday weekend scrapbooking just for me, but I didn't do so until last night. I got two pages in my "me" book done, a 12x12 page of the husband's birthday picture, a Scrabble Scores altered comp book, and cleaned up a bit in the sb room. Oh! I received this cool new mug and some coffees for my big day, as well as a Fiskars Craft Drill. Just call me Donna Downey!

Halloween Bugs

2005-11-01T11:12:00.000-06:00

Here in Des Moines, Halloween night is just another night. Oh sure, there are parties and such and big people celebrating, but in kid terms, it's nothing. What we have here is "beggar's night" on October 30. Yeah, that's what I think, too. For some reason a good while back, it was determined that Halloween was out of control or something and having little kids on the streets while big people partied wasn't a good thing. So, Sunday was our day to let the girls have fun. We dressed up our cute little ladybugs and set off. The plan was to bring them to the local mall trick or treat at 4, spend an hour there, then come home and take them around to our closest neighbor's houses during the official 6-8 Beggar's Night time frame.

The mall was a ton of fun. The girls had a blast going from store to store. We saw a couple of friends, too, so that was nice. Emily reached her point of saturation early and seemed only interested in what was already in her bucket. I could see her little mind thinking, now how long do I collect this stuff without actually eating any? Of course, she hadn't napped like her sister had, and her mood wasn't as good after a while. She had to be carried a little in the end. The only thing that saved us was SpongeBob. I wish I remembered what store this was, but this wonderful guy dressed in a Sponge Bob spongy outfit just delighted Emily and she had to run to him and cackle. Yes, she cackled. This is my best Halloween picture. I can't wait to scrapbook these things!

As for the neighborhood, we saw when we got home that none of our close neighbors had lights on, so we decided to just give out candy and let the girls play. We didn't even give out a lot either -- for some reason, there weren't the trick or treaters this time like we had last year. Aww well. More dum dums for the girls.

TGIF

2005-10-28T08:41:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it's been 2 weeks since I blogged! I was so good and writing every day for a good while. Time really does just escape these days. My girls are doing great. Halloween is this weekend, and they will transform into the cutest little ladybugs, complete with wings. I hope they like them, because the wings make their outfits -- otherwise, it's just red shirts, black pants, and freckles added. We'll see and hope. They will have fun regardless.

The husband and I have discovered something fun and so simple to spend a little time together and relax some. Twice this week, we played Scrabble before bedtime. It was such fun! Santa gave us this Scrabble game last Christmas, and we didn't even open it until this week. Did you know the new games don't come with wooden tiles? They are plastic, made to look like the old wooden ones. We'll be on the lookout for a garage sale set in the future, just for the nostalgia of it. We haven't taken score, but we will next time maybe. Need to start a little earlier to get in a good, competitive game. I've got Yahtzee on my mind as well. I love Yahtzee.

Once again,

2005-10-14T14:01:00.000-05:00

time flies. The weeks sure do seem to pass quickly this time of year, Maybe all times of year. I love the season though. As previously mentioned, fall is a fabulous time, quickly followed, heck, overtaken by THE holiday season -- Christmas. My projects for ebay have already turned to Christmas ones, and I'm having a Christmas Card workshop for Stampin' Up! in a few weeks. I haven't even begun to think about my personal projects for Christmas, and I need to. I really do like hand-crafting things for others. I remember years ago when I would see such things at craft sales and such, I'd wonder why they were more expensive than I thought they would be, cards and such. Now, I know. Not only do supplies cost, but the time, effort and creativity has a "cost" also. And, really, when you look at the current cost of a nice (or even not as nice) card from Hallmark, a nice hand-crafted card doesn't seem so expensive. Neither does the price of a set of stamps that can be used over and over!

Our weekend will fly by, as usual. Tomorrow we are taking the girls, once again, to Penneys to take Fall pictures. We went last Saturday, and got a good picture of Emily, but both girls were mostly uncooperative. Maddie gave us nothing, so we go back tomorrow to try again. Let's hope!! I may have to actually put on make up and wear something matching, have the husband do the same, just in case we have to resort to a family picture holding the girls. Sheesh.

My fledgling stamp club meets tomorrow, too. We sure do have fun, even just the few of us. Hopefully, the encroaching holiday season will inspire our craftiness.

Otherwise, I'm working on some contest entries, items to sell on ebay, and a few other things. Maybe one of the contests will go my way. Ya never know.....

Long Weekend

2005-10-10T12:49:00.000-05:00

I love long weekends, when the husband has an extra day off. In this case, the extra day is today, Monday, Columbus day. We've had a busy weekend trying to clean house -- both literally and doing a lot of ebaying of stuff that needs to go. Doing ok on both fronts. I plan on finishing yet another layout this afternoon then starting a lunchbox for ebay. It's my last one, and I want to get it done and see if it'll go.

Picture day on Saturday was, well, a struggle. We took the girls to Penneys, where we have the Portrait Club membership, to get fall portraits done. They had other plans. No interest at all in getting up on the table for the photos. After about 45 minutes, we got a very nice pic of Emily, a cute, but not great pic of Maddie where she had something partially blocking her face, and nothing of them together. We ordered Em's and go back on Saturday to try again with Maddie. "It's just the age," the photographer, who, I think, is new, said and had the patience of a saint.

In the meantime, here's another lo I did this weekend. Happy Columbus Day!

New layout and Potty News

2005-10-06T14:45:00.000-05:00

I finished this layout last night. I started it last week, but the vision wouldn't come to me, so I set it aside. Yesterday, I read a sentence by Sarah Ackerman Hale that just gave me the exact notion of what I wanted to do with this layout. Last night, I went downstairs and pretty much put it together in no time. Love the Alphabet Soup -- my first time using it!

Potty news!

I made the headline here pink in honor of my two little pumpkins. They are doing so well with the potty all of a sudden. Emily uses the potty to peepee almost exclusively. If she has on a diaper, she either goes in it or takes it off and uses the potty. She is still not doing no. 2 in the potty though. Maddie has done no. 2 in the baby potty twice now, once yesterday eve and once this morning. Awesome!!! She peepees in it here and there, but until day before yesterday, was just as happy to remove her diaper as her sister does, and then use the floor for peepee. And as late as yesterday morning, she did no. 2 on the floor, too, but told me immediately about the (yeah, I know, get this...) "babies!!" YIPES!! No idea on that one. Still, potty progress has come when I wasn't looking, and that is, indeed, a good thing. I don't want my lil pumpkins to grow up any faster than they have to, but some battles I can do without, ya know?

Circle Journal Hell

2005-10-04T12:25:00.000-05:00

I love circle journals. I love the concept, I love the surprise of opening and thumbing through that next one that comes in the mail, I love getting one back complete. What I don't love, however, is circle journals! I do not love that they are rarely sent on time, that I more often than not get packages with two or three cj's in them because the person before me is late or behind on them, that they take a ton of postage, that they seem to take forever to finish.

This past weekend, I was determined to knock out three that I have sitting because they've been here a while. In my defense, I got them all in the same mailing. I'm expecting two more this week, and, yep, you guessed it -- in the same mailing from the same circle. I got two of them done pretty quickly (didn't even stop to think!), and have the third almost done. Look out, Sarah -- they are heading your way by week's end!

I am in one cj group that's pretty darn good -- a big shout out to my friends on the CKU KC circle journal board! I ended up not even going to CKU KC, but these wonderful ladies kept me around anyway, and the cj and our message board has been a blast. We had so much fun with the cj, which is still going, mostly on time, too!, that we're doing a rolodex card swap next. With these ladies, I don't mind at all......

On a separate note, a big shout out to Wendi Speciale, a very kind person and artist. Check out her blog in my links to the left, and definitely check out her stamps!!

Fall

2005-09-27T10:48:00.000-05:00

I absolutely love fall. The colors, the air, the leaves....well, not raking or anything, but how pretty they can be and such. Our birthdays, anniversary, the holidays we love, all in the fall. I guess I'd have to say Christmas is my favorite holiday, but fall is definitely my favorite season. So I'm really enjoying the atmosphere here in Iowa in the fall.

Other things -- eh. Working on being and getting better at things we need to do, work, home, budgets, getting the girls to bed, all of it. It's time to shape up, ya know? It's so hard to turn around old habits, but the time is now, so we're working, ebaying, cleaning......

One project to show, another lunchbox -- this one is, hopefully, sold to my sb'ing friend in New Zealand. Waiting to hear from her today!

I cropped!

2005-09-21T10:49:00.000-05:00

Not much new since yesterday, but I did scrapbook a layout. Woohoo! Hopefully will do something else tonight. Good therapy, this. :)

Catching Up, Clearing the Fog

2005-09-20T09:08:00.000-05:00

What a week. Busy weekend, ups and downs, tired mostly, trying week so far, terrible day yesterday. Wish I had some scrapbooking to share. I feel like I need to cleanse my soul of burden and stress right now. I want to stare some scrapbook paper and photos in the face and it be for me, for my books, for my girls, for our family, for fun. No projects for sale, no samples, no make and takes, no circle journal entries. Maybe later tonight.

Until then, I'm on my guard. I'm watching the girls, not letting them get too far from me without worrying with what they may be into. Yesterday, what they were into was poopy diapers. I couldn't believe the mess -- the husband came home early to try and clean it up. My back was still hurting from Saturday's activities, and I didn't want to push it, so he was able to help. Maddie had two baths yesterday because, yes, she got into a diaper twice. Amazing, I know. We're now stapling the diapers on them, and that mostly works. Today it does, anyway.

Also yesterday, after all that happened and I had the girls sitting with their lunch, and I was sitting with mine, I feel something with my tongue, and it turns out a filling has fallen out of my tooth. The upper one all the way in the back on the left. UGH. I mean, how much worse can this day get? So I make a dental appt for today; dh has to come home early again. I hate dental work. Hate it. I am way beyond just cringing. I have a terrible sensitivity to it. If the drill is being used, I"m ready to throw up. If it touches my lip by accident (you know how they might move the handle part around and it touches), I can throw up. That vibration just makes me ill and hurt and puts chills up and down my spine. My knuckles are white the entire time and my whole body clinched. I hate it. My former dentist understood this, and if I needed so much as a filling (not often, thank goodness), he'd use the heavy drugs. For a cleaning, I'd use nitrous. It helps. We'll see what today brings. I asked if they had nitrous and told them I"d be needing it.

Today

2005-09-14T10:19:00.000-05:00

Today things have not changed significantly, but seem better. Just little things can adjust how you feel about things, you know? We finally got our over-due travel refund, which helps get the bills paid! Good thing, that. I am trying to accept that someone else's stress is not my stress and not to let mean remarks get to me. And I'm wondering if they offer boarding schools that potty train. You think?? maybe?

UGH

2005-09-13T10:32:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm having one of those 'damned if I do, damned if I don't' days. I thought I had things going pretty well. I thought I was contributing in some way in one thing I'm involved in, I thought I was doing ok with the girls, I thought I was helping our budget....but today doesn't seem like it's working. Apparently, I don't have the right priorities. Apparently, I am not a good mommy. Apparently, I take one step forward and at least a step and a half back on the budget most times.

About being a good mommy -- I do not know what to do. The girls aren't responding to using the potty. They won't keep their diapers on, and I"m running out of packing tape. I now have to go between their legs with it, too, or they can pull the diaper out from under it. Putting overalls on them doesn't work. Anything with snaps, like a onesie, etc., they can get off and get to the diaper. I bought them big-girl panties to see if that would work, figuring it would be SOMEthing between their bare bottoms and the house, but Emily peeled those off instantly. I don't know what to do.

Budget -- cleaning out the sb supplies! Need to make up to our very very tight budget for some dumb spending. That's going ok, just wish I had more time to go through stuff.

The other -- well, I"m the terrible person in a group, I suppose. I have stronger feelings about something than others do, and I feel like I'm being "put in my place" about it.....not sure what to do here, but I know that it seems I can't do or say anything right these days. I guess I"ll go through with my committment and just keep any thoughts or feelings to myself. What else?

Just having a baddddd day, I guess. Hope yours is going ok though!

Time flies

2005-09-07T08:59:00.000-05:00

I think this is the first time I've been a week without posting....just happened. I've been pretty engrossed in the news coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Still, I cry. Some days I can't watch at all. Keep those prayers coming!

Scrapbooking -- this has been a week of working on ebay projects and Stampin' Up! projects for the Crop for the Cure (www.debbie.com/cropforthecure). I have a vendor booth, plus am on the "committee" sponsoring the event, so since it's in 2 weeks, there's lots to do. I am creating some projects with stamping like small scrapbooks, little bags, a lunchbox, all to "raffle" off. The raffle tickets are given with sales -- a ticket for each $5 earned. The husband gave me that idea, as it's what his baseball card shop guy does. Sounds reasonable and fun. I have actual SU product, too, but wanted to show what you can DO with the product, you know? Fun stuff....

Circle journal HELL. Ok, love the idea. Ok, hate the mailing. I seem to be the link in the chain where everyone decides to "catch up;" on three separate cj's, I have received 2 at a time, and am expecting 3 on one today. I know sometimes it's that the person before me is ahead, but sheesh -- how did I get to be the lucky link? I am going to be VERY selective regarding cj's in the future! I'm currently in the post-CKU Minneapolis cj (love it), a pre-CKU KC cj (love it, but am not actually going to CKU KC); a 2Peas 1980s cj that I angeled for when I was frequenting 2Peas; a local sb friends one (easy and small circle). That may be all. It's so hard to remember at the rate they hit my house.

What else -- had a quiet labor day here. The husband was off work on Friday, too, so we finally got to the bathroom painting. Yes, the same bathroom painting mentioned long ago. Sans some final touch up and installing the curtain rod once we find the hardware (another story, that), I think we're finished! Of course, this is my cosmetic make-over. It now looks like a room we decorated instead of the previous owners. What were they thinking with all that lavender and yellow??? Someday we'll replace the toilet, sink and cabinet....someday.

The Gulf Coast

2005-08-31T13:45:00.000-05:00

There's been no reason in the world to mention this on my blog so far, but I will today. Biloxi, Mississippi, is my hometown. If you've had your tv or radio on at all, you know about Hurricane Katrina and the devastation of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. Say a prayer, hug your loved ones, if you give, give to the Red Cross or other reputable relief agency. I imagine the Coast will never recover from this, not fully. Wow.

Lunch Boxes

2005-08-29T09:00:00.000-05:00

So when did the Lunch Box craze begin in scrapbooking? Apparently, this great little box appeared and someone knew what to do with it. They sure are cute. The latest must-have-can't-find scrapbooking item. I think the last one was the Target Document Boxes. Yeah, I got some of those, but only because a new Target opened by us and they had them. And I got the lunch boxes. I'm expecting four in today's mail, and I bought the last five at my lss on Friday. Of course, I immediately sold three to friends. That's sort of why I nabbed the last they had, to cover my friends, too. Here's the one I made to sell. Wish me luck that my lunch box does well on ebay!

More Nekked Girls

2005-08-25T13:42:00.000-05:00

The saga continues. Today, we were nekked again. Well, not me, THEM. The terrible twosome. The toddlers. The twins. I ran out of pull-ups last night, and they did ok in diapers with sleep-induced brains, but today, today, it was toddler bum free-for-all. Maddie even peepeed in the corner. So Mommy did what she had to: got the package tape and taped those suckers on. Yep, I did. Then, after a while, Emily comes down with her "Once Upon A Potty" book. Good book, that one. After reading it oh-so-carefully to them, Maddie decides she wants to -- wait for it -- go potty! She even let me take her diaper off, but no peepee was made. Eventually, we left the bathroom, took the potty to the family room, and Emily figured it was her turn. For an hour and a half, she sat there. She ate her lunch there. She drank her milk there. She read her books, she drew on her magna doodle. Finally, she decided her butt had gone to sleep and a diaper was better than that, so I taped her in, too, and now they are playing. At least their baby butts have actually touched the potty now; it's progress. And, needless to say, no scrapbook layouts to show today.

Tag! Now YOU'RE it!

2005-08-24T10:30:00.000-05:00

Thanks again to Donna Downey, whose blog I read and got involved in the Tag game! The idea is that if you're reading this, you're obligated to post five random facts about yourself. I read her blog, so here ya go:

Hmmm, 5 things...
1. I sometimes let my twins fight because they have to figure out how to share and get along without me interferring.
2. I have lots of signed first edition Eudora Welty, Richard Ford, and John Grisham books.
3. I used to put every single thing away in my scrapbook room as soon as I used it, like glue dots. Use one, put the roll back in the drawer. I"ve gotten better about this.
4. I love coffee. Let me say that again. I love coffee. It's an obsession that started in grad school, and it doesn't make me feel old at all. lol
5. Since becoming a SAHM, many people are surprised when I mention that I went to grad school. BA and MA in English -- want fries with that??

Ok, now go on; you do it. Oh, and no new layouts yet because I've worked on ebay projects this week.

Nekked toddlers

2005-08-22T10:55:00.000-05:00

Yep, that's what I've got. Nekked toddlers. My girls have decided that it's fun to remove their diapers and run around the house screaming and laughing. Oh, yeah, it's great. Let's run up to mommy and laugh. Let mommy put her hand on a baby bottom to ask where the diaper is, only to find poopy on that nekked bottom. UGH. This has GOT to stop. I used pull-ups to rescue myself. They seem to like those.

The girls love to sit on their potty, but not take their diapers off for it. They scream if I even suggest it. Lately, they even like a square of toilet tissue to "wipe" with. They may not want to try to potty like big girls, but I think we're gonna have to push the issue if this nekkedness continues.

Update

2005-08-21T11:21:00.000-05:00

My ebay package arrived on Saturday. The postman teased me with it though! Usually, he delivers the packages in his truck, then walks the mail route house to house. So I called dh, he said no packages, and I said, uh oh. HOURS later, when I get home, dh comes out with a package -- THE ebay package. I say, huh? He says, postman came back later with it, like he forgot or something. I think, uh uh; he's just torturing me! Sheesh -- let's hope Monday brings my new GIN X rubons that were missing from the other package, and all this Friday business will then be totally cool.

Today's not been my day

2005-08-19T13:42:00.000-05:00

You know how you get really excited about things coming in the mail? Well, I do. Today, I received one of my kit clubs in the mail. I ripped that box open poste haste! Bummer to find that one of the "you pick it" items was the wrong one. I sent an email and got an immediate reponse AND a phone call, so that was good. What wasn't good was that we continued talking. The kit owner made me a nice offer to be guest designer for their other club, but since I just this week did NOT make her design team, I decided to pass. Then she tells me that I missed it by one person. Then which person, and I got to look up her work. UGH. Mine is definitely better. I mean, really. Not just that I"m partial, either. I can't imagine why they thought the basic entries submitted were better than my very crafty ones. No accounting, I guess.....anyway, the phone call kinda bummed us both, cause it reminded me that I'd lost, and let her know how displeased I was. Oh well....what'd ya do, huh?

THEN, I've also been waiting for a package won on ebay -- a packed full set of Lil Davis chipboard and more. It didn't come today. It should have come today. The seller has mostly great feedback, but just enough not good, and not good at all, that I asked for her info and gave a quick call. That call started out ok, but also ended up a bummer because she was on the defense, and I am really worried about getting this package! Well, she gave me the tracking number, which is of no use because the system doesn't update, and basically didn't seem to have any sympathy for my plight. I sent her another email that I"m sorry she thinks I have attitude about it, and she called me back saying she's been looking at ebay trying to see why I didn't receive her emails. So maybe it's all good. Hopefully, the package will come tomorrow.

Still -- two deals kinda bummed my day. I'm sure both will work out fine. Tomorrow is another day, right?

I gave in

2005-08-16T22:38:00.000-05:00

I shopped at the Hobby Lobby 50% off sale today. I didn't get a lot, and I'm sure less than a lot of scrapbookers, but still....I was trying to pass on it. I got MM Mixed Brite rubons, Spare Parts by The Paper Studio Marquee (acrylic) letters (3 sets, pink green frost), 7 Gypsies 97% Complete Family Stickers, and a couple of other things non-sb'ing. UGH. Is there no stopping me?

I finished a layout today that I got started last night. Love the new BG paper. I can't decide if this needs something else -- should I embellish the painted Heidi Swapp ghost frame? Anyway, I think I like it, but will sleep on it before calling it final. It's the same picture of Emily as the 'Girls Rock' layout, but this is actually what that picture was for anyway.

The husband is going out of town for a night this Thursday. I dred that. He is rarely gone; actually, this will be his first night ever away from the girls. I've not even done that. Still, he takes care of the girls and their needs as much or, at times, more than I do, so his being gone for a whole night isn't gonna be fun!

New Layout

2005-08-16T13:01:00.000-05:00

Here's the layout I referred to on Sunday...working on another now with some new Basic Grey. You gotta get this stuff -- so cool!

Lots of cropping

2005-08-14T11:21:00.000-05:00

That's what I've been doing. Lots of cropping. Not that it's a complaint, I just usually don't get this much cropping-away-from-home time. Wednesday at a friends' house, Friday night at the lss, Saturday 10-4 with the Stampin' Up! crew, last night here in my sb room. Wish I had more done. Wish I had more time. I made strides on my Disney honeymoon Bazzill gatefold album. Finished all but the story-telling of my pregnancy journal (it looks fab -- pics to come). Started on my Dirty Laundry lo of the girls in their daisy shirts. I will admit that I took those pictures just because I knew how great they would look with the Dirty Laundry paper. Is that just sick or what?! Can't wait to have that lo done and posted here for the fans. I know you're out there -- speak up, please! ha!

I think I screwed up my layout

2005-08-12T10:51:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to use my handwriting as often as possible on my layouts. I guess it's the trend these days; also, for me, it's easier than going up from the basement to the PC desk where the printer is and doing my journaling. On this layout, though, I screwed up. The handwriting looked lost, so I tried to fix it with a mini-headline. The GIN-X rubons look fab, but the "Girls" handwriting sucks. I used too fine a point to start with, so I had to trace over it with a broad tip. I dunno. What's it look like to you? Don't you love my rock and roll chicks?? I couldn't believe the photo when I saw it. All I really wanted was a photo of Emily with her Magna-Doodle artwork, but they wouldn't stand still and Emily wouldn't stand by her screen. This is what I got, and it's the coolest photo. It provided me with a much-sought chance to use this MOD paper, too, not to mention the hard-to-match Gameboard chipboard alphabets.

Donna Downey Rocks!

2005-08-11T10:34:00.000-05:00

It's funny the whole world of scrapbooking and the scrapbooking celebrities, as we love to call them. Regular people who really ROCK at what they do with and for this wonderful hobby and passion -- they are our celebrities and we love them. Today, I love Donna Downey. She's talented, real, friendly, and downright nice. She gracefully entertained an email request from me that I'm sure she gets tons of and probably would rather do without. And I emailed her because she was nice to me about a comment I made on her blog, taking full advantage of her friendliness and she didn't seem to mind. Doesn't that ROCK?? If you don't read Donna's blog, check it out under my "Blogs Worth Reading" links to the left; you'll be glad you did.

Donna Downey's A Trouble Maker

2005-08-09T13:45:00.000-05:00

So I love Donna Downey's blog, but yesterday, she was a trouble-maker. She just had to mention and show Wendi Speciale's stamps, so, of course, I just had to go to the site. It was all over for me once I saw the large cuppa coffee stamp. Just when I was trying not to spend. MAN!!

Busy Busy

2005-08-07T14:42:00.000-05:00

Suddenly, I find myself so busy.....I haven't felt like this since I worked full-time outside my home. Yes, I'm a stay at home mom now, but I worked most of my life. I didn't marry until age 37, didn't have children until age 39, so yep, I was in the work world a long time. Anyway, back to busy.

I went to a crop Friday night with my new scrapbooking mom's group. I just love this. I have been friends with two members since our CKU start-up last fall, but just recently joined their group. It's nice to be building a network of friends in the area after a year here. Oh, I got two more spreads in my pregnancy journal completed. Saturday, I went to Archivers to do the make and takes and pick up a few things. Not a bad trip; I spent $14 and that included the $5 make and take. Bought more of the cute new Junkitz paper and some Heidi Swapp pink spiral clips. I just can't resist her stuff or pink stuff, so I was in trouble the second I saw it. At under $2, it was a must buy. All last evening, I worked on my donation goodie bags for the Crop for the Cure and then my Stampin' Up! make and take for my vendor booth. I'm doing a cute "About Me" paper bag book that I hope goes over well with the 100 scrapbookers who have already registered and paid for this fab event. I'm also helping the group organize the event, since my friend is the founder and coordinator. I did that on Wednesday. It was nice to be able to bring the girls, let them run around with the other 9 kids there, and still get work done.

Today, the lovely husband has taken the girls to do some mall errands and to let them run around the play area there. More time to work on my SU projects. Also this week, I have a girls' crop on Wednesday evening, a crop at a different lss on Friday night, and a Stampin' Up! demo's crop most of Saturday. Even I am finding myself taken aback by all this scrapbooking and stamping activity. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Great day yesterday

2005-08-04T12:42:00.000-05:00

I had such a great day yesterday. Lots of things happened. We got a much-needed refund from our move expenses last year. I had a FAB mail day. I went to a friend's house to help with the benefit crop that I mentioned in a previous post. My girls didn't tear her house up. I secured (I think) another donor to the crop (thanks, Jill!!).

Mail -- got packages! I acquired a large set of Cropper Hopper vertical holders and pouches for cash and trade (don't you love my baseball lingo); I received the lengthy order that's itemized below. I got envelopes with ribbon and alphabet goodies I secured from Willow Traders gals. I got my Q order of Lil Davis chipboard embellies. I got the new CK and Simple Scrapbooks. 'Woohoo' is all I can say.

Don't you love a good day? Today will, hopefully, see some scrapbooking done. I'm meeting a friend at the lss close to my house to do the customer appreciation make and take and browse the sales. I'm also expecting a Stampin' Up! order to arrive, and tomorrow, my demo preview order from the Holiday mini. Just in time for tomorrow night's stamp club show and tell. Not everyone can be there, but it should be fun regardless. Scrapbooking and stamping by myself is fun, so add even one more person and I'm in heaven, much less a few more around the table.

Climbers

2005-08-02T13:10:00.000-05:00

My toddlers are climbers. I can't stop them. How long can they live in time out? How long can I live with the climbing? Any little thing they can wrap their toes around is a climbing tool. Cabinet knobs, edges and ledges, toys, moulding, her sister's head, leg, trunk, arms, legs. If they aren't in time out, their toys, chairs, etc. are. Two girls, two years and 7 months old, strong and strong-willed. What's a mommy to do??

Painting the Bathroom

2005-08-01T11:27:00.000-05:00

It seems like it's taking forever to get our bathroom repainted. Not for lack of trying. Maybe for lack of time and energy though. And this: the lavender paint is stubborn! When we first previewed the house, I thought the bathroom looked nice, fresh and springy. Once we bought it and moved in, and the more time I spent in and out of the bathroom, I started to hate it....not so much slowly, but mostly all at one time. The previously-springy yellow walls started to annoy me in that yucky glowing-yellow sort of way. The trim around the little cabinets, laundry shoot, and built in curio (the house was built in 1940ish) turned out to be not a nice white contrast but a faint LAVENDER for goodness' sake. That meant that what I first thought was a nice blue painted sink cabinet was actually a weird purple-blue. UGH. Finally, we bought paint. After a few months more, we decided to get it out and apply some to the bathroom walls and trim. Well, to the walls anyway. I chose a nice beigey tone to bring some natural cleanness to the room. It's a bit dark, but nice. This past weekend, after several more weeks had passed since the wall painting, the husband got in there and started on the lavender trim, or should I say the stubborn lavender trim. It does NOT want to be covered. Yep, he sanded. Yep, he used more than one coat. I think it's just possessed or something. Hopefully, the third time will be the charm and I'll get my white trim. After that, we move to the cabinet to apply sage green. Ooohhh.....won't that be nice?

Here are two layouts I did last night. One is of the girls about a year ago; the other is my first pet layout; I promise the dog has a face...the angle of the pic and a bit of glare don't help though.

Stuff I Just Ordered

2005-07-30T12:07:00.000-05:00

Products
------------------------------------------------------
1 x Rusty Pickle Patterned Paper -- Black Crackle Dots (317) = $0.35
1 x Rusty Pickle Patterned Paper -- Taylors Alphabet (320) = $0.35
1 x Center City Designs Tribeca Patterned Paper Set (23009-23017) = $4.95
1 x Gin X Say What Say Anything Paper -- You Must Chill (22146) = $0.55
1 x Gin X Say What Say Anything Paper -- 7 Unreturned Calls (22150) = $0.55
1 x Gin X Say What Say Anything Paper -- Bought Sold or Processed (22152) = $0.55
1 x Gin X Some Kind Of Green Paper -- What's Up (22161) = $0.55
1 x Gin X Some Kind Of Green Paper -- A Historical Fact (22162) = $0.55
1 x Gin X She Wears Pink Patterned Paper -- Candy Machine (22167) = $0.55
1 x Gin X She Wears Pink Patterned Paper -- Touche (22164) = $0.55
1 x Gin X Flyby Patterned Paper -- Shes Lost That Loving Feeling (22186) = $0.55
1 x Gin X Desperatley Seeking Summer Patterned Paper -- The Fifth Ad (22177) = $0.55
1 x My Minds Eye Kaleidoscope Patterned Paper -- Princess Flower (1103) = $0.70
1 x My Minds Eye Kaleidoscope Patterned Paper -- Princess Dots (1104) = $0.70
1 x Wild Asparagus Paper -- Adventure Stripe/Teal (2006) = $0.89
1 x Wild Asparagus Paper -- Adventure Floral/Green (2007) = $0.89
1 x Urban Lily Patterned Paper -- Be Yourself Set (130-135) = $3.30
1 x May Arts 3/8 Satin Reversible Stitch Ribbon -- Garden Party () = $0.45
1 x May Arts 1/2" Jumbo Ric Rac -- Grass () = $1.00
1 x May Arts 1 1/2" Flower Ribbon -- Kiwi () = $0.80
1 x May Arts 3/8 Striped Ribbon -- Gumdrop () = $0.50
1 x Prima Got Flowers -- Small Pink () = $5.30
1 x May Arts 1/4 Nylon Rick Rack -- Sage (ar16) = $0.45
2 x Rusty Pickle Patterned Paper -- Mocha Dots (328) = $0.70
2 x May Arts 1/2 Checked/Stitched Ribbon -- Girly Girl (abb17) = $1.00
1 x May Arts 1/2 Ribbon -- Coffee Bean Stripe (tg32) = $0.50
2 x May Arts 1/2 Checked/Stitched Ribbon -- Sunset (abb22) = $1.00
1 x May Arts 1/2 Checked/Stitched Ribbon -- Shamrock (abb16) = $0.50
1 x May Arts 1/2 Checked/Stitched Ribbon -- Raspberry Patch (abb15) = $0.50
1 x May Arts 1/2 Checked/Stitched Ribbon -- Rainbow Sherbet (abb28) = $0.50
1 x Rusty Pickle Patterned Paper -- Girly Girl (307) = $0.35
1 x Chatterbox Patterned Paper -- Rec Dots (20533) = $0.55
1 x Chatterbox Patterned Paper -- Rec Sandbox Flowers (20536) = $0.55
1 x Chatterbox Patterned Paper -- Rec Denim Sandbox Flowers (20529) = $0.55
1 x May Arts 1/2 Squares/ Stitched Ribbon -- Desert Cactus (ab16) = $0.50
2 x May Arts 1/2 Squares/Stitched Ribbon -- Nature Walk (ab32) = $1.00
1 x May Arts 1/2 Checked/Stitched Ribbon -- Fruit Punch (abb46) = $0.50
1 x Basic Grey Fusion Patterned Paper -- Flirt (fus248) = $0.65
1 x Basic Grey Fusion Patterned Paper -- Infatuation (fus250) = $0.65
1 x Basic Grey Fusion Patterned Paper -- Posh (fus251) = $0.65
1 x May Arts 1/2 Checked Stitched Ribbon -- Lime Rickey (abb67) = $0.50
1 x Foofala Peek-a-Boo Patterned Paper -- Party Dress (47005) = $0.49
1 x Narratives Medium Transparent Mini Albums -- Play () = $2.99

Good thing I've been cleaning out and selling older stuff, huh?

Toddlers and More Pages

2005-07-28T23:36:00.000-05:00

My toddlers are out of hand on a few things, and I've no idea how to control them. I think that, as twins, they egg each other on, and when the two of them start getting into something, it's nearly impossible to stop them. We have a silverware drawer with no silverware. Oh yeah. The silverware divided tray thingy is sitting high up on top of the microwave right now so they can't grab things out of it and run around the house with them. Same thing happens if we attempt to load the dishwasher around them. They grab and run. And the climbing! They climb in the kitchen. They wrap their cute little toes around the handles of the lower cabinets and up they go, grabbing what they can. And you know that opening just under the door of the dishwasher? the one above the bottom panel so that the door will open without bumping? Yeah -- in my house, it's a toe grab. Their Daddy came home from work yesterday to just about everything the girls own being in time out. Their Little Tikes chairs, toy crates, THEM, you name it. Toddlers -- they are 31 months old, 2 1/2 and counting. Does this get better? I hope? Maybe it's the twin thing....gang up on Mommy and Daddy, yeah, that's the toddler ticket!
Just a quick post with a photo of some pages I've done in my Pregnancy Journal mini book. This is turning out to be a lot of fun. I'm using a lot of embellishments, especially alphabet pieces, that I've had for a while, and they match the Foofala paper pretty well. Not to mention that it's fun to recall all the details of that exciting time for our lives.

Today's Post

2005-07-28T10:25:00.000-05:00

I'll start this new blog home with the post I made today at my previous blog. Have fun!

It's only 8:49 am, and I am tired today. I stayed up too late last night. I was ready for bed before midnight, but saw on 2Peas that QVC was having a scrapbook show in the next hour, so I stayed up and watched a bit of that. Nothing earth-shattering, but it's still fun to watch. I found a good while ago that most of what they have to offer is either too much that I'd never use from one kit or too "ready-made" for my style. Every once in a while they have a must-have though. Anyway, I crawled to the bed around 2 or a little after. UGH. So of course the girls were up early today -- 7 am.

My project (above) is slow-going. It's fun, but I didn't totally have in mind how to do each little page, so it was a slow start. I've done the cover, inside cover, and most of the first two envelope pages, so hopefully it'll be easier from here now that my groove is on with it. It's such a fun book, and the site from which I ordered is, of course, out of them now.

My favorite sites right now:
www.amillionlittlethings.com
www.willowtraders.com
www.rustic-artisans.com
www.blackberrybuckets.com

Have I mentioned?
I am attending a wonderful event as a Stampin' Up! vendor come this September 17. A friend is the founder and coordinator of this wonderful event, the Des Moines Area Crop for A Cure, a Susan G. Komen Fundraiser. Check this out: www.debbie.com/cropforthecure . The goal for this 2nd annual event is $10,000, and I think they'll make it! Who wouldn't enjoy a day of scrapbooking with friends, chances to win door prizes, getting a goodie bag, doing make and takes, and generally having fun?

Ok, off to see what the day brings. Enjoy.

I've moved!

2005-07-28T09:21:00.000-05:00

In order to have more options for the look of my blog, I moved to blogger.com! Have a look around the place while I settle in, and I'll catch up here after a while.