This and That

(two of the pages I worked on at stamp camp from Josh's eagle project. I still need to do the journaling.)

Hello there! I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Could be that I'll actually have time to maintain this blog again soon.

Life is good and I'm having fun. Hey I've even scrapbooked!! That's a miracle really. I tend to create samples, make scrapbook presents and teach scrapbooking, but I rarely find the time to keep up on my own scrapbooks. I've created 10 pages for Josh's scouting album and 6 pages for his Europe album. I'm feeling quite accomplished.

Besides that, what have I been doing? Currently I'm trying to catch up on house cleaning that has been neglected for about 4 years. People think I'm kidding, but I really think it's been that long. Hubby was on disability for a couple of years and we maintained the house, but deep cleaning didn't happen. Why clean when he was sitting on the couch all day? (I had a bit of an attitude back then and he wasn't real happy being in pain all the time.) Then there was the whole career change for him, then for me. I was in survival mode for a while there. I'm pretty used to running the house on my own now and well....we have family coming to town, so it's time to purge and clean.

And then there's my latest obsession....cycling. Yep, I'm addicted! I absolutely love it. I look forward to my morning ride and if I wasn't on deep cleaning house mode, I'd probably go for a ride every night too. I'm constantly thinking of places I could ride to and contemplating how I could commute by bike and wondering when my odometer will pass the 100 mile mark and brainstorming ways to add a few more miles in the morning without dying on the local hills and enjoying the constant improvement and.....

This morning I rode the "Lakeview Loop." (Our made up name for a little circle around our neighborhood.) The first time I rode the loop I stopped on the first hill to catch my breath. My thighs were burning on the next incline (not too high, just steady incline.) By the time we headed up the incline towards the house I was telling Josh "I can't do this." But somehow I did.

Today? Today I never really felt like it was TOO hard. Sure I slowed down a little and my quads burned but it was good and I never thought I was going to die. I even took a little detour before I headed home and I added an extra 1/2 mile in the opposite direction. As the day wears on I am pretty sore, but I'm not sure if it's from the bike ride or the trip back to the gym yesterday. Yep, I returned to the ellliptical!!!! Hallelujah!!! I was pretty darn excited. I also did the rowing machine. (Not a big hit in my mind.) While the rowing machine made my upper thighs burn like crazy, I didn't really "feel" anything else.... at the time..... today I'm sore everywhere!!

Well I better run. I've got a house to clean, you know.

Checking In!

Sorry I've been absent!!! Here's the scoop

1) Almost done with school for the semester. My project is done and I have one more quiz and one more test. This class was a little bit harder for me (Managerial Accounting)

2) Josh is almost done with his Eagle Project. He ran into a couple little glitches, so it took an extra week. They are painting it on Saturday and it's done, done, done. Woo Hoo!!! I'm going to be the proud mom of an Eagle Scout. This has been 7 years in the making, 10 if you count cub scouts.

3) Stamp camp is next week, so I have a few things to share, but they are top secret for now.

4) Bought a bike and have been riding all over! Woo Hoo!! My broken ankle is pretty much healed. The sprain is still a little tender, but that's to be expected. The other foot seems to be healing since I started riding!!! hallelujah!! Maybe there's hope of avoiding surgery. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and I'm quickly becoming obsessed with cycling. Love it!!!!!

5) Josh joined an indoor soccer league. Now that he's almost 18, I finally get to be the soccer mom I dreamed of being. He waited until his junior year to believe me that soccer is THE best, so now we're making up for lost time. Their games are Saturday nights so I can actually go....and I'm totally taking advantage of it... until he decides it's not cool for Mom to go to his games. Thankfully I know a lot of the other kids on the team, so I'm thinking I might be invited for a while longer.

6) Made all of Joshua's graduation announcements, but I haven't taken a picture yet.

7) Still have a bunch of Thank You cards to make and a scouting album to finish and graduation next month and a house to clean and family coming and......

It's all good, fun, exciting things... just doesn't leave much time for stamping/blogging.

A Little Green

Happy Earth Day! For the past six months or so, I have been trying to be better about consumption and trash. Do we really need all that we buy? and Can I recycle this? are the two main questions I've been asking myself.

In all honesty. I don't believe in global warming. I think the Earth changes and evolves. It did before we were here and it will after. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about how we treat it and what resources we use.

So two questions work for me.

Do we need it?
Can I recycle this?

And so here are some of the changes we've made in our family.

Magazines - I'm on a magazine diet. I haven't bought a magazine for at least two months. I don't really need it, even though I can recycle it.

Re-usable bags - I still struggle with remembering to take them into the store, but I love them and love not having 10,000 plastic bags in my house! Besides, I think that those darn plastic bags are a hazard!!! My mom ran over one over 20+ years ago. It got stuck on her brakes and caused a ton of damage. Me, I ran over one a few months ago. It got stuck to my muffler and melted off for weeks!!! I hate seeing them floating all over the streets and freeways!!!

Two Trash Cans - One for recycling and one for everything else. We actually fill up the recycling can much faster than the regular can. Now if only my trash service would give us a big giant recycling can, life would be good. We just have a little bucket.....which we overflow each and every week.

Re-Usable water bottles - I take them everywhere I go...and yes, they're both a #7. One of the stories I've heard is that they break down from dishwasher use...well, good thing I don't have a dishwasher. LOL.

I'm contemplating cancelling my water delivery and switching to something like a Brita water filter. Haven't quite decided on this.

And my newest task??? Meals to go! So far I've started with breakfast. I make my breakfasts for the week on Sunday and put them in re-usable containers. Each morning I heat them up and make a piece of toast. No fast food trash!!

Next up - lunch. I feel guilty every day when I heat up my lean cuisine....

What are some of the things you're trying to do?

The big tease!

Ok, so I left work this afternoon (Thursday) and what did I see? A big giant semi. Not just any semi. A SRT tractor and trailer that looks exactly like hubby's!! My heart skipped a beat. He's on his way to California. Could it be? Before my rational mind could figure out that it was impossible, my heart jumped and went pitter, patter. (I guess I still love the guy!)

Sadly, it wasn't hubby. I think there should be some kind of note in the computers at SRT. All deliveries to my work, should be delivered by MY hubby!! Or at the very least, they should not park in the parking lot by my car. That's just not nice.

April Stamp of the Month Express Postage

Hey, I was tired and grumpy from staying up too late on Sunday night, but I still found time to take some pictures. woo hoo!

Here's the card I made for our team swap, using the April Stamp of the Month. Since I have a teenager graduating soon, I have graduation on the brain and chose the graduation stamp from the set. You can pull the tag out to attach a gift card or money.

Weekend Update

My weekend didn't quite go as planned and I ended up forgettting to take pictures of my projects, so that's on my list of things to do tonight...

Instead I filled my weekend up with other things...

1) Josh is on the final stretch for his Eagle project, with no time to spare. Then we got the bad news from his MRI. He has a torn medial miniscus. Poor kid!! It kind of took the wind out of his sails and he wasn't feeling too motivated when he found out. He needed a little extra mom time to help him stay focused on the Eagle...when his heart was breaking because this probably means he won't be able to go to CIF for track...

But, we got a lot done and hopefully he'll finally get his project approved so he can get going.

2) I made a bunch of cute invitations for a party for our girls at church.

3) I got to visit with a friend who lives out of state.

4) I got rid of two boxes of stuff from the house!!!! The purging continues!!!!

5) I started reading the book "You on a Diet" by Roizen and Oz. Great, great book!! It's funny and informative and I am loving it. It makes learning about the body and how it works, interesting.

6) I haven't posted much on the weight loss front because my injuries have sidelined me. Good news is that, as of this morning, I am down 4 pounds from when I got back on track. Let's hope it wasn't one of those crazy scale fluctuations! Sadly, I have a few to go to get back to where I was..... that darn Easter candy and self-pity mode!

Stamp Room Organization

I have a new plan of attack. When you don't have time to stamp or create or take pictures of what you have stamped or created...whip out your camera and take pictures of things you've already done..

And so.... I give you pictures of my organizing projects from this weekend. I literally pulled the camera out of my purse and took these shots in less than a minute... Maybe this weekend I'll find time to put up my photo tent and take pictures of other fun stuff...

This is a portion of my Ikea shelving unit with a few of my buckets. The two that say CTMH paper have all of my Close To My Heart cardstock and retired texture paper, by color. I have a separate bag for each of the colors and I keep all the scraps in the bag. I have had them sorted alphabetically and by season in the past. Each way had it's benefits. Now that we no longer sell texture paper by color, my stash has decreased and I'm down to 3 buckets, from 5...the neutrals bucket is not pictured.

Current projects - I mentioned this in a previous post. I have bags with each of my current album projects and I have the paper, stickers, etc. for the projects all together.

And here are my stamps!!!! I am soooo excited about this section, mostly because it is totally done... There's a reason you only saw a portion of my other shelves...hahaha... it's still a work in progress.

I sorted the stamps like they are in the catalog. I had to group a couple of categories together...and some....had to be in two baskets...