Elsie, Elsie, Elsie

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

Guilty Pleasure

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

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

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?

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

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....

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

A layout

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

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

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

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.