Do You Dream About Me?

Hubby asked me yesterday if I ever dream about him. I'm sure he was hoping for a better answer than this...

"Not very often, but you're usually in trouble when I do."

Sad thing is, it's the truth. One time I was mad at him for days because I dreamt that he cheated on me.

Well I'm thinking it was a can of worms he shouldn't have opened. Sure enough, I dreamt about him last night and woke up angry with him this morning. He didn't cheat on me this time. He was just mean and I'm still mad at him about it.

I'm thinking that he shouldn't ask if I dream about him and I won't ask him if I'm fat.

Ahhhh...the keys to a happy marriage.

Aloha

We're having a party in YW in a couple of weeks. It's time to say goodbye to our seniors/laurels so we're having an "Aloha" party/dinner.

Surprise, surprise, I got to make the invitations. Apparently this idea was in the latest issue of papercrafts, but since my subscription ran out, I saw it somewhere else..

Here are my stinkin adorable invites! I cannot wait for the girls to see them. They are going to love them!!

Weekend Fun

Wow, what a wonderful long weekend! The only thing that could've made it better, is if hubby had been home to enjoy it with me, but then I probably would've had to pay attention to him, instead of do all the little things I had planned... But still, I'm thinking I would've liked to have him around. He's on his way home now and should be here on Friday, so it's all good!

Let's see what did I do this weekend?

I stamped
and
stamped
and
stamped

Ok, ok, I threw in some cleaning and some much needed sleep and some organizing and some errand running too.

Candace and I almost had an impromptu stamping day yesterday, but I did the good and responsible thing and stayed home. It was a REALLY hard decision, but today I know it was the right one. I knew that if I went over to stamp, that would be it and I would get nothing else done. So instead I did laundry, cleaned my room, cleaned up the stamp room, changed the tablecloths and...are you ready... I packed all my stuff up so I could go to the gym on the way to work!!!!

It felt so good to wake up this morning and find everything packed and lined up on the stamp table. All I had to do is grab my stuff and go. No room for excuses!

So here are a few of the things I got done...



Stamp Set - B1204 Life is So Good
Papers - X7084B Floral Tapestry
Inks - Crystal Blue, Twilight and Garden Green

"Cosmetic" Fun

Today, on Stacy Julian's blog she asked a fun question. She asked people to guess what "cosmetic" thing she had done today for the first time.

I'm a pretty "low-maintenance" kind of girl. I wear make-up and I blow-dry and curl my hair everyday. I wear earrings on most days and I almost always have my toenails painted... but beyond that... I'm pretty low-maintenance. I don't color my hair. I rarely get manicures or fake nails. I don't fake bake. I don't spray tan.

So what do you think is the most interesting and fairly unusual "cosmetic" thing I've ever done. There are actually two possbile answers. I'm fairly sure that I either won't get any comments or you won't guess it... but if you do, I have a brand new Close To My Heart solo stamp set for you. (I have a few letters you can choose from.)

So guess away.... guess them both and you'll get two stamp sets....

I have mentioned this to a few people before so it's quite possible to know the answer.

I predict...

I predict that Jordin will win. I know, I'm not really going out on a limb here. Everyone who watched the show last night, knows she will win. I think even Jordin knows. She knew it as she finished the song.

I have not been the most loyal American Idol fan. Over the years I've watched a few shows here and there, never every week; until this year. This year I loved it. I have been a Blake and Jordin fan from the very beginning. There's something so incredibly likeable about them. They have presence on stage. They draw you in and you feel their emotions and their joy for what they do.

Last night as Jordin sang the last song, I could feel it. There is a moment when you're in front of an audience and you just know that you have them. She did, and she knew it and it was beautiful.

Tonight will be exciting and fun, but I am so glad that I didn't miss that moment.

(I can't sing. I speak and there have been a few moments in my life when I have had that feeling. For me, it's almost as if I'm watching and listening to someone else.)

Every Day In June.....

No, I haven't lost track of what day it is. I know it's still May, but my mind is already on June. I was inspired by a project in Stacy Julian's The Big Picture book. The idea is to scrapbook what you do for an entire month (or even a week). What a great way to get a peek at your life, what's important to you and what you spend your time doing. She also suggests that it might be interesting to do it again in a few years to see how things have changed.

My life is so crazy and busy that I need a plan and a lot of prep work if I'm going to pull this off, so I decided to pre-make the entire book so that it's ready to go on June 1.

So here's the plan
Pre-stamp journal pages with dates for right left side of book
Put together simple layouts for the left side of the book
Print pictures once a week in black/white
Add pictures on Sundays

Product List:
X7084B Floral Tapestry Level 2
Z160 Twilight Ink
Z2317 Crystal Blue Marker (colored in the letters)
D1126 Precious alphabet (has lowercase and numbers!)

I'm planning to use C1261 Finding Beauty to stamp on the journal pages, but I had to re-ink my garden green stamp pad first... I guess maybe I use too much garden green...hmmm...

Sinus Headaches and Migraines

It's that time of year...when my head feels like it is in a vice... I'm functioning, I'm stamping, I'm prepping for stamp camp, but my head feels like it's too heavy for my neck and I find that I have nothing interesting to say...even though I have a ton of photos and topics lined up to share. I just can't find the words.

So I'll keep it brief and post a couple of cards. These are quick and easy cards using the paper pack I'm featuring at my next crop X7081B Majestic Blue. The sailboat is from D1205 New Horizons.

Enjoy

True Confession - Guilty Pleasure

Ok, so I thought long and hard about whether or not to share this. I mean I already "outted" myself and shared my blog. Do I really dare to share the weirdness that is me? I'm sure Josh and hubby just scoffed as they read that. They're probably thinking "as if you could hide it from anyone."

So I have this guilty pleasure... I actually like am/pm cheeseburgers. I know, I know. They're probably horribly bad for you. They remind me of the burgers they used to sell in junior high. The ones that everyone used to say "they aren't even meat...I think they're made of soy." Hey, today that would be gourmet! Schools could say "we serve soy burgers."

Not only do I like them... but the whole dang family does. Rick's mom calls them "armpit burgers" and we still like them. It's actually kind of scary. Here's a typical conversation in our car...

"hmmmm.. I think I want an am/pm cheeseburger"

"sounds good! Me too!"

But here is the problem. Just because you want one, doesn't mean you'll actually get one. You must have incredible timing and you need to know which one to go to...because I'm telling you...more often than not, you will just be left with the dream in your head of a a delicious bite of am/pm cheeseburger. I can't tell you how many times we have gone in happy, until we see the empty display case.

But I have found am/pm heaven!!! I stopped for a soda yesterday and I saw a fully stocked am/pm!! I looked around. It was clean, it was busy, I'm thinking they might always be fully stocked... And so today I tested my theory. Hallelujah. Cheeseburger heaven!!

And what's better than an am/pm cheeseburger? Hmmm a homemade combo! You need a burger and a 32 oz diet pepsi with CRUSHED ICE. Oh yea baby! We're high class.

(now if that doesn't get you people to leave me comments! I give up!!)

What a great Mother's Day!

Today was simply a great day. Hubby is out of town, so we didn't really do anything, besides go to church. (The boys sang! It was great.) In fact I gave Josh a hard time because he ditched me to go help finish up the yearbook for his school, but it still felt like a great day... probably because we started out laughing.

Yesterday we went to walmart really early in the morning and you could see them prepping for the mad rush and I said...

"Wow, I'm glad we came early. This place is going to be a madhouse soon."

Josh: "Why"

"Last minute mother's day shopping."

Josh: "Can I have $20"

I ended up buying myself a cute skirt and I said "Here, this can be from you."

So he took the skirt when we got home. He also stole my package that came that day. The one with a book that I bought for myself with my birthday gift card. Sure enough he put them in a gift bag and gave them to me with a card this morning. I couldn't help but laugh.

I can't wait until his birthday. I'm going to go steal something from his room and wrap it up for him...I'm thinking dirty laundry.

I spent the rest of the afternoon stamping up gifts and goodies for stamp camp. I can't post pictures until next Monday...but they are sooo cute!! And yes, I'm still using the Let's Get Together paper. It's an obsession, I tell ya!

But I did take other pictures that I can share....

Here's a cute layout I made....using... what...oh yes... Let's Get Together. I love this layout because my pictures really weren't very good. They were dark and they just weren't good shots... but I just love them. My niece cracks me up. She's always been a bit quirky and these photos totally catch it. She stuck stickers all over her body including her hair! Then she kept putting gummies between her toes and then she'd use her foot to feed herself. One day, these are going to be blackmail pictures... Of course, I think the apple must not fall far from the tree. I have a picture or two from the family reunion and her mom, Jessica, is playing with cousins and she has, you guessed it, stickers all over her face.

A Good Day

I'm tired and I need to head off to bed, but since I've been so good about updating, I think I need to keep up on it and post real quick.

Today was one of those days where you think "ahhh, it was a good day."

I had a great group at the crop today. Hopefully I won't get in trouble for posting this picture.... I won't name names...how's that... I absolutely love the great smiles on the two that are closest in the shot. I keep looking at the picture and it just makes me smile!



Thank you for the comments Justaman and Patti. I didn't know I had to approve them so it took a while for them to show up. Sorry about that.

And... I was all set to post a picture and brag about my silverware caddy success. I pulled it out of my crop container, set it on the table and saw...escaping silverware. Sheesh.... so much for attempt number two.



Have a great night!

Silverware Caddy - 1st Attempt

I totally forgot to post the picture of why my first attempt didn't work out so well. It was a blonde moment. For some reason I thought that I could tape a piece of cardstock and it would work.

We've got a partial collapse going on here and this angle shows how the silverware can escape through the bottom AND the sides. In my defense, my little error in judgement was minor... imagine how many people saw and approved the original design before it went to manufacturing.

I have an idea of the next step I'm going to try, but I would love to hear your ideas. I'll mail a hand stamped goodie to the best idea I receive.

To leave a comment and your ideas, click below. (See I'm still begging for comments. I love all the emails I got yesterday, but did you know you can comment right here, right now?)

Sneak Peek for Tomorrow

Here's a sneak peek of what we're doing at tomorrow's workshop/crop.

Coluzzle Purse
It's a purse, it's a card, it's a scrapbook. I love the purse coluzzle and never get tired of using it. Since tomorrow is all about coluzzle, we must do a purse!


Swing Card
Another coluzzle favorite. I'll be demonstrating how to make this card.


Coluzzle Storage
I found these cute document boxes in the Target dollar section and they are perfect for storing acryllic blocks and my coluzzle templates.


Coluzzle Tip
Here's a fun tip to help you cut on the right line. Use colored sharpies to trace each ring. Then you can easily see where to start and stop... and it's fun to play with sharpies!!

Thank You Patti

Ok, so I've been blogging for years. I started with a blog on another site and I absolutely loved getting comments, even when they disagreed with me. Since my other blog was anonymous, I didn't bring my readers with me to the new blog and I truly miss my comments. Comments allowed me to connect with other bloggers. I could click on their profile and check out their blog. I found some of the greatest blogs that way.

I kind of figured the reason why I didn't get many comments here was because I have had a hard time being consistent about posting. Then I thought maybe nobody was reading. Well lo and behold... I had the comments turned off. Ooops.

Thank you Patti for letting me know! But now I'm afraid. What if I get no comments. Haha...Should I beg? (Of course I am the worst blog commenter, especially on blogs that get a ton of comments. I figure they don't really want one more...right?)

National Scrapbook Day

I never plan any workshops on National Scrapbook Day. No need to compete with all the other events planned for the day. I had contemplated participating in some online fun, but it looked like hubby would be home on the big day, so I didn't really plan anything.

Well hubby came home exhausted on Friday, but neglected to turn off his alarm on his pda, which means it went off at 5:30am. Lucky him, he can go right back to sleep. Me? I started thinking about scrapbooking. I tried to go back to sleep for a while, but then I thought....National Scrapbook Day...QVC.... I can play in my stamp room and get all the things I want to do, done before he even wakes up....

And so I present a few of the things I did on National Scrapbook Day. I thought about blogging as I went, but that would take precious moments away from my task and could possibly divert me from my purpose.

Task #1 - Round up all the homeless scrapbook layouts. I make layouts every month. Sometimes I display them on my wall in my stamp room. Sometimes I put them on display boards for my crop. Rarely do I actuallly put them in my albums. Here's my stack of layouts. I found quite a few more after this picture, but I was on a roll and couldn't take time out to take progress pictures.


Task #2 - Sort layouts and put in albums. One album has our family stuff and one is for scouting layouts. After I was done I discovered that some of the family layouts should have gone in a different scrapbook, but at least they are no longer sitting in stacks in the stamp room. Voila - here are the albums with layouts in them.



And here are the organized layouts that are ready for pictures. (Hey, I'm a mom of a boy and we sell a whole lot of wonderful stamps and papers that have nothing to do with boys. I've made some great layouts....now I just need to adopt some girls..haha... actually there are quite a few I can use for church and my own personal layouts...I think that might be an upcoming task)



When hubby woke up, I wasn't quite ready to stop. I mean I was on a roll people! So I came up with a great plan. Hubby and son could go shopping to get the things hubby needed for the truck and I could stay home and continue my task. And since they were going shopping anyway, they could pick up a couple of shelves for me.

Here is my stamp shelf in process. We had already moved a couple of the shelves to see how many more we could fit, measure and all that jazz. The shelves were awkwardly spaced. There was too much dead space and I was out of room for my stamp containers. Please note, the issue is never TOO MANY STAMPS.


Here it is after we added two shelves and I started adding my cute labels. I'm not quite finished, but I think I have room for more stamps now....



And this one could possibly belong in two categories. It's either going to be filed in "buyer beware" or "look how cute it turned out."

Buyer Beware
I have been looking for a cute little tableware holder for my crops. Then hubby said, I need something to hold my plastic silverware in the truck. So we were on a mission. We looked and looked and looked last time he was home, but we were unsuccessful. Then I went to Target and hit the tableware holder lottery! There were so many to choose from. All of them were a bit more classy than what hubby needed. So I bought one for me.

Then I found the cool wire one below at Big Lots for $5!! Such a deal. I told hubby he could choose which one he wanted for his truck. The other one was much smaller, but this one has a little tray for plates.

He looked at it for about 2 seconds and said, "the silverware will fall through the grid." Duh!! No wonder it was $5. He took the other one...of course... and now I'm working on altering this one to work. Here is my first attempt. Tomorrow I'll post a photo that shows why this didn't work out so well.

I am not giving up. I have plans. This will look so cute when I'm done. And it might even hold the silverware.

Beware of the Mom Patrol

So three years ago when Joshua started attending seminary, I decided that I would put that time to good use. Since I had to be there anyway, I was going to walk while he was in class. At first I walked alone, and many times I still do, but I do have one faithful walking partner who joins me when she can.

We have spent many mornings discussing church and kids and weddings and husbands and proms, as we walk around the parking lot. It's been kind of fun to see the changes in the seasons and the plants, to watch and be watched by the llama across the street, and to see which kids arrive on time and which ones show up a half-hour late. We keep an eye on the things that go on in the parking lot and have come to feel a bit protective of our building and our church.

So you can imagine we were a bit surprised when there were about 35 unmarked police cars there when we arrived. Hmmm... cars, but no people. Where could they have gone? Why are their cars here? We pondered and discussed it as we walked and then we saw people. Since we had figured the cars were police cars, we were fairly sure the people we saw, were in fact police, although they definately didn't look like police. My guess is that they were the undercover portion of the detail. They looked pretty darn scary to me!

So what do two moms walking around a parking lot full of unmarked police cars do when they see people milling about. We ask them what they are doing in our parking lot. Hahaha... I really did ask it that bluntly. At first he wasn't real willing to respond. He said "these are all police vehicles." I think I said something like "we figured out that part, but we're wondering why they are here." He kind of looked at me for a moment and then told us they were serving a warrant in the area and they would be moving the cars soon.

So then one has to wonder... What kind of warrant are they serving where they need 35 cars full of people. Not only did they have those cars, but they used cars/vans/trucks/swat vehicles to take the officers to the scene. We still haven't heard exactly what was going on. There hasn't been any info on the news. I'm sure I should have been worried or scared about the type of action that was going on. But instead we were the "mom patrol." We were all possesive of our parking lot. Don't mess with the mommies. hahaha...

(The scary dudes left right after we talked to them, then two official looking people came back and drove up to us and volunteered information (very nice and not scary) and then the vans full of officers started coming back to claim their cars as we were leaving. It sure made for an interesting morning!)

Cowboy Boogie and Salsa...

Ok, so I took a 3.5 week hiatus. I skipped 4 classes. I didn't walk in the mornings. And even though I know I was sick during a major portion of that time, I still felt guilty. But guess what? My foot and my side are healed. Hallelujah!!! I have been struggling with them since at least December. I tried ice. I tried ibuprofen. I tried massaging them. I wore lace up shoes as much as possible. I tried icy hot. Hey, I almost tried going to the doctor.

I'm so glad I didn't have to go to the doctor...

"So, what did you do?"

"I have no idea, they just started hurting."

I'm sure it would've been a very productive conversation.

I made it through the entire Cowboy Boogie/Salsa class and neither one of them flared up. Woo Hoo! Of course my entire body was sore and I had to take ibuprofen in order to fall asleep last night, but today I just have that wonderful "I worked out hard" feeling.

It feels so good to be back. Now I just have to exercise some self-restraint and work back up to my old schedule...slowly....