Always Faith -- The Blog

Not To Complain

2012-01-31T22:03:00.001-05:00

But have I ever mentioned that sanding is really hard work?

LOL.

I’m thankful for all my cabinet space. But when it comes down to sanding them all….YIKES.

And that’s where I’ve been for the last few days.

Hopefully will be ordering the counter in the next couple of days (we’ve spent ages getting quotes and I think we’ve finally decided who and what)…and we’re still looking for the paint and primer, but I still have to finish all the sanding and we gotta wipe everything down, so we’re not even ready for that part yet anyway.

Whew. I want my kitchen back.

Not complaining…much. LOL.

After These Messages….

2012-01-27T12:39:00.001-05:00

Pardon, while I pause for a few moments from the home remodeling business to talk about some digi-goodness that has recently been released…

(Image is linked to kit)

As for what I did with this kit: Well…I’m short on time this year and decided to try this idea I saw on Pinterest for valentines. I’m going to get 4x6 pictures printed, then in their hand, you cut a slit right above their fist and a slit right below their fist and then you stick something through it (a sucker, pixie stick, etc.) For Munchkin, I have pencils from valentines day last year that I bought at like 75% off after the holiday and I’m going to let her stick those in hers.

I don’t know yet which one she will want, so I haven’t ordered them yet, but Walgreens has 50 prints for $5 through tomorrow so I will be ordering as soon as the kids get home from school.

I did one for K-man, too (a red and black one, and ixed-nay on the flowers) but that kit hasn’t been released yet, so I’ll be ordering it with the Munchkin’s but not posting it on here. =)

I used OldeChicago font.

So both kids valentines for $5 (not including the steal I got on the pencils and I will still need to buy a bag of suckers for the K-man’s)…these days that’s a pretty good deal. I’ve noticed that very few of the kids do those cheap boxed valentines anymore…it’s always something with a goody attached…and I don’t know if you’ve seen the prices on those goody ones lately, but…yikes. I prefer to do it myself. =)

And now…back to your regularly scheduled programming. (LOL)

I need to go get ready to go so that when everyone gets home, we can go pick out (and hopefully order) our countertop! And then it’s a friend’s birthday party (after a stop at the store for a gift), and then to meet the in-laws because they want the kids tonight, and then back home to get busy sanding…

And I’m pretty sure I am going to find a Dr. Pepper SOMEWHERE in that afternoon…I need one DESPERATELY. I haven’t had one since….

uh…

*squeaky tiny voice* ……….yesterday………..

Who said quitting (again) would be a good idea anyway?

A Quick Pic Update…

2012-01-26T21:14:00.001-05:00

Or…maybe quick. We’ll see how wordy I get. I have both dogs and a computer in my lap, and typing is a challenge…so quick is a DEFINITE possibility.

Okay…one dog moved.

So to recap….if you haven’t seen our kitchen, it used to look like this:

And honestly, the tile was likeable…but not in this kitchen and not for a countertop and food prep area. The whole kitchen had the same color going on…cabinets, counters, floor…all honey colored. And the counters were discust-o. No matter how much you scrub and disinfect and wipe, they always felt nasty. I am SO ready for smooth, easy clean, countertops.

By the way, both dogs moved. This post just got longer. Haha.

Anyway, now we’ve got the first stage of ripping off the backsplash (which took the sheetrock, too).

Then the picture I put on the other post….yow city. By the way, the counter here, we took off with the tile still on it. KC and I carried them out to his truck. They were so light, I really didn’t even need KC’s help to get them on the truck…hahaha…I’m totally being sarcastic! In reality, we nearly broke our backs…and various other pretty important body parts (fingers, necks…come to think of it, they are all pretty important when it’s a question of which one you’d want to be broken…lol).

Dogs are back. Anyway…here’s after we started putting new sheetrock back in…

Here’s the room next to the kitchen….aka…the room the kitchen threw up into….

And the dogs who are currently in the recliner with me…

And finally…

No, it’s not an after. It’s just where we are now…sheetrock is back up on this side of the room and first layer of tape and putty is on…yippee.

Next stop, the desk area on the other side of the kitchen which still needs sheetrock…

And then counters.

And then paint (ugh)

And then backsplash….

Dear heavenly father, help us.

Run, Run, Rudolf (or Faith)

2012-01-26T14:34:00.001-05:00

Yes, I know…wrong season. But on the run, I am…

So I get online to blog really quick before running out again, and I decide to check all my favorite places first…next thing I know, whoa…better hurry if I want to blog before our afternoon appointment. LOL.

But first, I have to grab those pics off my camera…and web-size them. Oh no…only two minutes left now.

As the dust on my stove so appropriately states:

YIKES!!!!!!

And as I say that, my time is up…I HAVE to go…the kids bus will be here in about 5 minutes and then straight from the bus stop to the next appointment. MUST GO NOW. SO….I will try to come back later tonight with the rest of those pictures and an update on our disaster zone. =)

Please come back later. =)

ACK!

2012-01-24T13:01:00.001-05:00

I don’t care too much for this phase of construction. I much prefer the final product.

Cooking has been a little challenging lately. The stove DOES work in the middle of the floor, but all the food these days has a bit of a drywall flavoring. Not to mention it’s been difficult to find basic cooking utensils (where did we put that stack of pans again?). Yeah…it’s kind of crazy around here.

We started replacing that sheetrock on the backsplash last night…we got one piece cut and placed and then the drill battery died so it’s not screwed in yet. I have to go up in a few minutes and finish straightening the edges on the other side of the sink so we can continue with the drywall tonight. I will probably be cleaning up sheetrock dust for at least the next six months. =) Oh well. No pain, no gain.

KC is still convinced that the cabinets are going to need to be white. At this point, I don’t care…as long as I get my sink and countertops back in the next week. Painting cabinets can’t be worse than not having water or counters….

A New Day

2012-01-21T10:20:00.001-05:00

Well, my thumb knuckle is only slightly sore now….time to go bust some more tile and hopefully not my knuckles again. =) I am READY for my kitchen back and it’s only been a few days!!

We were going to paint the cabinets white, but after going to look at the countertop options last night, and checking out the different sample kitchens, we decided that if we just yank out the tile and backsplash (and fix the wall behind the backsplash) that MAYBE just a new countertop will make the kitchen really nice. And then if that doesn’t cut it….THEN we’ll paint.

I would just love not to paint them…that’s the downside of a large kitchen…so….*fingers crossed*

BUT…regardless of paint, that tile has got to go…and then we got to put up new sheetrock on the backsplash area because the tile ain’t going without a fight…and the current sheetrock is DEFINITELY the loser of that battle.

And that’s the agenda for today. Time to get started.

LOL

2012-01-18T22:12:00.001-05:00

And this is what happens when I need something to blog about and don’t want to talk about what I’m REALLY thinking about these days. LOL!

But…I gotta say that laughter is the best medicine.

Go Homeschools…lol….

And I’ve also heard that running is another good medicine…I’m considering it. So far I haven’t gotten off the couch. LOL. Wait…I take that back…I did jog a little bit yesterday…all the way to the pantry for another cookie. ROFL.

Food…is NOT a good medicine. Just saying.

I haven’t had a Dr. Pepper in 2 days. This is why I need medicine.

Also, the Anonymous commenter on my last post…I’m so sorry you didn’t care for my humor…I’m assuming--because you care more about my finger than my humor--you must be a parent…probably one of mine. And um…yesterday I hammered my thumb knuckle instead of the chisel about 5 good times when I was demo-ing the tile in the kitchen. Just thought you should know, since you care about my fingers.

And I’m not kidding this time.

Did you know that if you hit your thumb knuckle with a hammer about 5 times (I lost count, honestly) it turns black and purple almost instantly and gets a knot on it and you can’t use your hand very well for a couple of days?

And…um…can you come kiss it better?

Now I’m kidding. But JUST about the “kiss it” part. LOL

Goodnight. =)

Brrrr…

2012-01-16T21:44:00.001-05:00

Evidently Winter decided to get into character. I have been SO cold today. I can’t find anywhere in this house that’s warm and cozy except my lovely, lovely bed with the two furry bed-warmers otherwise known as my puppies.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty difficult to accomplish anything (other than snoozing) from that warm and cozy spot, so I’ve just resigned myself to freezing.

I still didn’t get a whole lot done today, but I did get one of the garments on my “to be fixed” pile fixed and moved into the closet. It wasn’t anything major, just one of those awkward length skirts (you know, the kind that are supposed to be floor length, but due to my height, stopped about 4 inches above my ankles…YUCK). It was an Aeropostale skirt that I ran across at the thrift store and it fit so nicely everywhere else…so I cut it off, sewed up the weird side splits, and then hemmed it up (the right way, not just sewing a line of stitching across the bottom raw edge to keep it from raveling too far….lol). It’s cute now.

The nice thing about being so cold today is that it was natural numbing for when I sewed through my index finger…didn’t even feel it….ROFL.

I’m kidding. I didn’t sew through my finger.

I’m not kidding about it being cold though. LOL.

Maybe if this continues, going snow tubing up in the mountains might actually be a reasonable possibility… I mean…some recent days the weather would seem to be more in favor of tanning in a pool float rather than riding it down a snow-covered mountain. ;-)

Imperfect

2012-01-14T18:47:00.001-05:00

It’s a tough life for a perfectionist…seriously! But I finally got my craft room pretty much finished. Yeah, it’s not perfect…the chairs don’t match, I still have a few things that there isn’t enough shelf space for, there’s an imperfect cardboard painting over a very imperfect hole in the wall, but it’s good enough for me. I love my room. It makes me happy. =)

Enough of the blah blah, right? Just show the pictures….

Before: After:

Ah yes, and I didn’t do so hot on taking the after pictures from the same angle, so just use the open door as a reference point.

Before:

After:

And here’s a much better quality shot of my lovely, handpainted, imperfect, highly motivating, cardboard hole cover-up-er.

In other news, the blog has made the leap to 2012. And only 14 days in, too! LOL.

Well, I have a bad headache which is making me a little queasy so I think I’m going to go see if I can find some crackers or something to nibble on….

Night. =)

Motivating Myself

2012-01-11T15:29:00.001-05:00

I was so annoyed by this hole in the wall in my craft room, that I decided to make it better. Inspiring even. So I cut a piece of cardboard to fit it and painted it with some of my acrylic paints. Then I put about 4 staples into it around the edges and black duct tape to clean up the edges and now it looks like a piece of art on my craft room wall.

Granted, it’s not a PERFECT piece of art, but it sure beats having to pile up my scrapbooking bags in front of it to hold up the other piece of cardboard that was covering the hole. =)

Now I hope KC doesn’t decide to fix it anytime soon…because I like it. HAHA!

Please excuse the terrible pictures from my ipod. =)

And now, I’m off to clean this impossible mess because I know it only seems impossible and once I am done, I will feel better. =) =) =)

Ba Da Bing

2012-01-08T22:04:00.001-05:00

MMM….hubby wins major points. =) And they cost him nothing (right place, right time…woohoo…lol) …BONUS points! *GRIN* I’m typically not a fan of the hubby bringing me flowers…because even though they’re gorgeous, I can always think of more lasting ways to spend that money, but if they don’t COST anything? Hey….WIN WIN. =)

Anyway…they’re beautiful…and I’ve totally enjoyed them.

Speaking of enjoying….I created something I think I might turn into a t-shirt…..a spin-off of those keep calm posters…

Suits me….don’t ya think? =)

This Day

2012-01-07T11:22:00.001-05:00

So I have been trying to get back into being a good creative team member since I was such a slacker in December on the digi-scrap stuff….and this new kit came out today at Funky Playground:

And when I looked at it, it seriously reminded me of my grandma who recently passed away…those were some of her favorite colors and it has a little bit of a retro feel, so I thought I’d do a page about some of my memories of her.

(Images are linked to the kit. Fonts: Chopin Script, Myriad Pro. Page Inspiration: Ali Edwards. Picture of Grandma’s house was painted by Grandma many years ago, and I took a picture of her painting.)

Scrapbooking stuff like that is healing I think. Anyway. I need to scrapbook how annoying ADHD is….maybe that would help me not be so annoyed with people who have it. LOL. Because at the moment I can hear upstairs, a child who is supposed to be playing the computer and all she is doing is rolling around in the computer chair….. I have such a low tolerance for some things. Stupid things bug me. Particularly on days when I am…um…needing Midol. But I am way off topic now. LOL.

All the banging and rolling around on the floor above my head is removing all my (already limited) ability to think coherently (although it isn’t hindering me from using large words…hahaha)….however, with that lack of coherent thought, I’m going to leave now….I need a Dr. Pepper.l

Random….out.

On My List

2012-01-05T12:47:00.001-05:00

Image is linked to kit. Font is HaloHandletter. =)

Anyway, not that I’m really one for New Year’s Resolutions, but I figure there’s always things we could work on…these are some of mine. =)

In case you didn’t notice, “stop drinking Dr. Pepper” didn’t make it on the list. And now I’m going to go put one in the fridge for later. *GRIN*

Welcome 2012

2012-01-01T20:50:00.001-05:00

I’m not so sure how it happened, but it’s another new year…insane. I have totally fallen off of everything since the craziness of December wiped me out. I didn’t even open my computer for the last few days. Not that I was doing anything more productive…like housework either…nope…I was totally just bumming around. The kids out of school and under my feet, the hubby with a few days off….my groove was just O.F.F. S’okay though…tomorrow the kids go back to school and Monday the hubby goes back to work…then I can clean up the house and get back on top of this mess. =)

And then I had things in my head I wanted to get on here and say and now that I’m here, I have no idea what it was.

I hate it with a PASSION when that happens.

So that’s how the first blog post of the year goes….hopefully it’s not a sign of the rest of this year for the ol’ blog. LOL.

New Year’s Blog Resolution: Blog more frequently and remember what you were going to say when you get on to blog….

lol…

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T00:47:00.000-05:00

Not exactly how I expected things to go this year, but Merry Christmas anyhow.

Back in North Carolina

2011-12-24T21:40:00.001-05:00

What a draining week. A huge thank you to everyone who prayed and sent healing thoughts my way…honestly, it was the fastest disappearing sore throat I think I’ve ever had. It started Friday evening and when I woke up on Saturday morning after a long night of not being able to sleep because of not feeling good, my throat was swollen and I was exhausted. I took advil and tylenol with me and got on the road with mom and dad about 7:30, and by the time we got to Virginia, my throat had already started feeling better and by the end of the day, it was only mildly swollen and a little hard to swallow but not nearly as painful as the usual sore throat. Usually it’s at least a 2-3 day thing when my throat hurts like that, but this time it was only about 24 hours. Thank God.

Anyway, I rode up with mom and dad on Saturday and then KC flew up on Monday evening and I flew home with him on Wednesday night after the funeral. It (the funeral) was tough. I don’t really want to go back over that part again. But I did want to get back on here and let everyone know how much I appreciated your prayers.

Also, I don’t want to fly Delta again if I can ever help it. LOL. We were supposed to be home by 10:30 on Wednesday night and didn’t end up getting back until after 1am. Fog, musical airplanes, double booked seats on a full flight…I’m just glad we GOT home. lol.

Except for the sad circumstances of the trip, it was good to see the family up there again…my dad’s siblings, plus the extended family members that you don’t see until someone is getting married or there’s a funeral. Still sad, but you remember all the happy moments and still find something to smile about. We spent a lot of time looking through all Grandma’s photo albums and I put together a few pages of pictures of Grandma to put up at the receiving of friends. Here’s some pics…I didn’t get any of my dad’s sister…she wasn’t at the funeral home yet when I took these of my dad and his brother (and brother’s family) and us…anyway.

It was pouring the rain all day.

Anyway…next subject…I’m so annoyed right now…watching Sound of Music and KC keeps making fun of it. LOL. I am much more comfortable with this emotion. Sorry…I know I have a twisted personality. =) Follow every rainbow, til you find your dream…..

I dream of not being annoyed OR sad. Where’s the rainbow I follow for that?? LOL. Like I said…twisted. HA.

So…”twisted” is getting off here to devote all my attention to the Sound of Music…and smacking KC every time he makes fun of it….goodnight. =)

Thank you

2011-12-17T06:48:00.001-05:00

I appreciate your prayers…more than anyone could know. I do have a special favor to ask though, if you think about it, I could really use your prayers…I’ve come down with a whopping head cold complete with sore throat and we’ve already got our flights booked for the funeral and right now I’m miserable. If you could just pray that I can get over this really quickly so it doesn’t make an already tough week tougher…

Thank you all so much.

No Words

2011-12-16T21:11:00.001-05:00

October 1925 - December 16, 2011

Note To Self

2011-12-11T22:02:00.001-05:00

Next time you decide to write the Christmas letter in a post and then just write the address in the christmas card for anyone who wants to read it….

RESIST!

Or else print off labels. By the 35th time of writing out http semicolon slash slash alwaysfaith dot blogspot dot com slash 2011 slash 12 slash christmas-post dot html, you will be kicking yourself for that dumb idea. Consequently, at least half the Christmas cards will probably never know about the Christmas post because you will start just leaving it out of every fifth one..and then every third one…and then every one…hahaha.

And that’s where I’ve been all week…trying to get all the cards done, trying to get gifts made, trying to get appointments taken care of….you know…that sort of thing. And I have photos right now that need to be edited and two of the three sessions need to be wrapped up by tomorrow…but my eyes are crossing right now…so I guess I’ll just get up early in the morning. =)

(Where are those cross-eyed smiley faces when you need one?)

Night.

The Christmas Post

2011-12-05T10:34:00.001-05:00

Ho, Ho, Howdy, ya’ll. We still don’t have any snow here, but since we used up our region’s decade allotment of “white christmas” last year, I don’t expect to see any until at least January. LOL. Not that I’m complaining…I like our region most of the time.

Anyway, I hope everyone has had a great year…we sure have! I usually send a small Christmas update in the Christmas cards, but this year, I’m just sending the link to this post. I’m not sure how this is going to work, since I’m usually forced to edit and rewrite over and over until I have it down to a small paragraph, and on this blog…I have LOTS of space…it’s like packing for a plane trip versus taking a road trip…lol.

But I’ll try to keep it short and sweet, and if you want to REALLY know how our year went (if you don’t regularly read my blog and know this stuff already)….well, you can just click over there in the archives and read back month by month. I’ll just try to hit the highlights. Haha.

So this year wraps up our 9th year as a couple and we celebrated our 10th anniversary on a cruise to Mexico. This year also marks the end of our 2nd year in this house, and our puppies are now getting close to 20 (in human years…lol). As fast as they grew, it feels like our kids have grown just as rapidly, since Munchkin (our girl’s nickname on the blog) is now a second grader, and K-man (our boy’s nickname on the blog) is now also enrolled at the same school in Kindergarten (since his birthday fell after the cut-off). From September to November, we had a family of deer basically living in our backyard (they were out there at least 5-8 times a week). We took our summer vacation in August and it was terrific…we loved spending time at the ocean and a couple friends were able to go with us, which was really nice. And finally (although I’m probably forgetting something, but I wanted to keep this short and sweet anyway), we had an overabundance of water in our basement in February, and a funny story in July to go along with it.

I think that will do it for the highlights. I didn’t blog very much earlier in the year, so I’m sure there are highlights I’ve forgotten. That’s one of the main reasons why I have a blog, you know…because my memory stinks…now I just need to remember to make use of my memory assistant. And I have gotten better about it, so now just to keep the momentum up.

And speaking of momentum, I have to get this posted and get back to my to-do list. Too much to do, too little time.

Hope you and yours have a very:

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

And for those of you who visit here regularly, this doesn’t mean I’m not blogging again til January, by NO means. =) At least, not if I can help it. =)

Winken, Blinken, & Nod

2011-12-03T22:52:00.001-05:00

There’s a story to that title….I don’t remember the story, but it seemed like an appropriate title simply for the fact that I’m all three at the moment. LOL.

It has been a day.

First I worked on finishing the Christmas cards. MAKING them, that is…they are not addressed. That’s a whole NOTHER item on the to-do list.

Yeah. 78 of them. Hello, future readers of this blog, directed here by my Christmas card, if you are going back through the archives and find this post…just wanted to say that if you got one of those handmade cards from me, I hope you know you’re special. ;-) And if you didn’t get one of those handmade cards from me (and just happened to stumble on this blog by accident), you are probably still special, I just didn’t have your address. Love, tired but miraculously un-paper-cutted, ME. =P

Hahaha.

Also today, I made shredded ranch chicken flautas (I’m not sure what those are, I just saw a recipe for them and very loosely followed it from memory…which might mean that it was nothing like flautas and more like chicken buritos…hahaha).

And I let the kids hang out in my craft room and cut paper and color (holding head and moaning…that was torture for my perfectionist self) Just keep doing your thing, Faith, and don’t go help them make cards so that they will actually LOOK like what they’re trying to replicate….yes, I gave myself a version of that pep talk at least once. Maybe a million. And I never exaggerate. EVER. Much. Moving on.

Let’s see, I also took a shower and fixed my hair for a family snapshot on our front step. And then I took the picture….well, actually the camera took it and I just ran around and jumped in….and LOOKED like I ran around and jumped in. And then the kids were fake smiling and we had to give them a few lessons on smiling…in the freezing cold and then—I totally should copy this into the “christmas letter post” which shall be mentioned in the christmas card so everyone will get the backstory on the photo…lol.

I also edited said photos. I got two that are reasonable. Not great, by ANY stretch of the imagination but since I’m my photographer, I feel like I have the right to criticize. HAHA.

ANYWAY. I’m tired. And…blink. blink. blink.

Nod.

Whaa—huh? Oh, no, I’m not sleeping, just restin’ my eyes.

But I think I will call it a night now. =)

In A (Coco)Nutshell

2011-11-30T13:38:00.001-05:00

This was such a great vacation…I loved every bit of it, but I don’t have any idea where to start writing about it. I should have taken a pen and paper and wrote down things from each day but obviously it’s too late for that now. I guess I’ll just post the pictures and see where I get from there. =)

Anniversary Cruise

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Um…now I guess I have to figure out how to go into the album and edit the captions…lol. And then maybe I’ll just come back and wrap this up with a list of unforgettables. LOL.

Unforgettables: (not in any order…hey…it’s late and my brain is already asleep)

The Mayan Battery. So we’re climbing up the 80 steps to the Mayan ruins and this kid behind us spots a discarded AA battery on the ground. “Mom, look, it’s a battery,” he said. And my husband, who overhears him, says to the kid, “Oh, that’s a MAYAN battery!” So the kid turns back to his mom, “Mom, is that really a Mayan battery???? That was a joke, wasn’t it, Mom?!” We are still laughing about it.
All the formal dinners. Especially the last one, which we spent laughing almost the whole time at goofy stuff. Our dinner friends, Kelly and Collin (her son) were laughing as much as we were…that’s always fun! All of the nightly dinners were great though. The other couple at our table (John & Sherry) were really nice, too, even though they were only there a couple of the nights. And we even enjoyed ourselves the first night when it was just KC and I at our assigned table.
Snorkeling on the coral reef. Even though the disposable underwater camera didn’t really show all the cool things I thought I was catching, we did see a sea turtle, a small shark, a stingray, a few Dory’s, barracuda, Nemo, and a dolphin (on the way back, on the Catamaran). And the water was so clear…way clearer than the underwater camera showed.
Country Strong
The Vortex of Terror (basically on one end of the top deck on the back of the ship, the wind was REALLY bad on the last day…worse there than anywhere else on the ship). Let’s just say that I had to comb my hair a few extra times…and…um…I had a very light, full skirt on. Thankfully, the vortex of terror was unoccupied when we walked through, so there weren’t any witnesses. Except KC, who thought it was funny. LOL.
Looking out and seeing nothing anywhere except…WATER!
Trying to use the bathroom in the catamaran. *gulp* It was literally a bucket with a hole in the bottom. You couldn’t put any paper in it and it had no seat. AND the boat was rocking enough that you had to hold on to something to stand up…probably would have made a great funniest home video. LOL!
Speaking of bathrooms, it was pretty challenging to take showers in the 3x3 shower while the ship was rocking back and forth. Not quite as challenging as the catamaran bathroom, but still…a little different. =)
Walking through the centrum on the first full day at sea and hearing the live band playing the song that the band was playing on the Titanic – as it was sinking.
Being old people and going to bed before midnight every night…but then we slept really good because the rocking was really soothing….except for the pillows, which were too flat to use one, and too thick to use two. We both came home with cricks. LOL. Oh well. Totally worth it.

And that’s pretty much our trip in a (coco)nutshell. LOL. Okay, so there really was a lot more than that, but I am so tired and this post has taken all day. =) So…in a nutshell, loved it and can’t WAIT to do it again.

Still Working

2011-11-29T22:03:00.001-05:00

The one big bummer about vacations is the trying to get everything caught up when you get back. I’ve only had a small amount of time to work on pictures but I think I’m almost done with all the pictures that are worth sharing. I was really bummed that the underwater camera pics didn’t turn out well at all. I probably won’t even bother scanning most of them into the computer. Maybe one or two but that will probably be it…*sigh* Oh well. Next investment…a real waterproof case for a real (digital) camera…lol.

Oh well. I could post the pictures I’ve already edited tonight, but I don’t have time to write a post about them all, so I will have to hold them until I have time to write.

Except that one picture over there just snuck in here somehow…I have no idea how it got there…*innocent face* LOL!

And KC is already ready for bed so I am going to wrap it up for tonight.

Adios. =)

And The Winner IS:

2011-11-27T20:16:00.001-05:00

Okay, so my second grader picked number 3…which is:

Rarole said...
Faith - this looks very interesting! Putting together simple but functional things that will even save money - well that's a win-win! Thanks for this post!
Well - chalk it up to old age - forgot to leave my kit!
Joyeux Noel by Becca

However, Rarole didn’t leave an email with her comment, so Rarole, if you can email me (it’s in my profile) I will get your code to you for you to get this program on your computer and start playing!

I will also leave you a comment on your blog in case you don’t come back here to see this post. If I don’t hear from you in a few days, I will choose another winner.

So…congratulations on winning, Rarole! =)

Honey, I’m HOME!

2011-11-26T22:20:00.000-05:00

Yep….we made it back!!! I popped on here to delete this post that I wrote last Sunday and scheduled for this coming Monday (in the event that we didn’t make it home) and then I decided…lol…I’ll just share it anyway…except I AM home safely (thank the Lord). So for what it’s worth, this is what I was worrying about before I left home last Monday morning.

In the unlikely event -- that something should happen to me and I should not return from this trip…

I am pretty sure that my kids will be taken care of because lots of people love them…but nobody likes my dogs, so Mom…or somebody, can you please see to it that somebody will love my dogs the way I do…even if it’s not you?

And I shall schedule this post for the future…if it posts, it must have been my time, and don’t cry about it. Much. =)

Or it’s possible that I might have forgotten to delete this post…in which case, never mind all that.

But perhaps I should just let it post so whenever my time DOES come, ya’ll know that I really want somebody to love my dogs. Cause they’re God’s creatures, too…even if they don’t have souls.

OBVIOUSLY, I worry about my kids first, and we’ve got guardianship papers and power of attorney stuff, so in case of emergency, that stuff should be all in order, but dogs don’t really qualify in that sort of thing, so…

Please…love my dogs. Let them stay inside and be your babies and let them visit my kids (if you’re not the one who has the kids) every so often and let them love you back and sleep with you and guard your house for you. For me. Okay? Thanks in advance. =)

By the way…I love all ya’ll. Mean it.

AnyWHO. Now, I feel rather silly for even being worried but I’m very grateful for safe travels and that our kiddies were safe here at home with the in-laws.

But we spent all week with no internet or phone (it cost TWO arms and TWO legs for that stuff on the boat) so now I’m trying to catch up on everything. I don’t remember if I mentioned where we were going, but we took a cruise ship to Mexico for our 10 year anniversary. Celebrating a little early since our anniversary isn’t til next month, but we didn’t want to miss Christmas with the kids…so all week, we were on THIS:

And by the way, the above picture was NOT color enhanced in photoshop. That’s straight out of the camera (just a slight sharpen action and that’s it). That was on the dock in Costa Maya. I have tons of pics but I’ll make that another post later this week.

Also, don’t forget, if you’re interested in getting into the digital scrapping thing, the giveaway for that ever so fun and helpful program ends tomorrow…uh….I guess tomorrow night since I’m usually too busy on Sundays to get to that before then. So…CLICK HERE and leave a comment on that post.

Oh, and one more thing before I go….

Ain’t we cute? This was formal night on the cruise…they had photographers set up in like 10 different places taking photos…but we only bought two. Notice, you only see one arm on each of us in this picture…that’s because it took our other two to buy the two photos. HAHA. I’m kidding…sort of. LOL.

So…more to come. Stay tuned (or if you don’t care to see any more, then I guess it’s more like “be warned” hahaha)

Oh and BY THE WAY…it’s not quite our ACTUAL anniversary yet, but I still really like this post I wrote on our fifth anniversary…and if you’re a nerd like me who likes to see then/now photos, there is a THEN photo of our wedding day on that post…I love that sort of thing. LOL. Okay…leaving for real now…

A Review–AND GIVEAWAY!

2011-11-18T10:11:00.001-05:00

Okay, so I got this email from My Memories wondering if I wanted to review their program and give away a copy on my blog to one lucky winner.

Well, first, I said, um…is this for real? LOL…because I have never actually gotten anything for free to review on my blog before, so I was pretty sure it was just a gimmick. But then I emailed back and forth and it WAS for real, so WOOT! =)

The essence of the program (quoted from their website):

My Memories Suite version 2 software is a complete digital scrapbooking solution that provides a powerful set of creative tools and multiple sharing options that no other software can offer. Its intuitive workspace and enhanced time-saving features are perfect for a beginner to build an entire album in minutes, or to empower the design pro to build a scrapbook album masterpiece.

So I tried it out. Now I have to be 100% honest, if you are a Photoshop or other mega-graphic-editing genius software user, this is probably not the route for you. But since there are a lot of non-digi-scrappers out there, this would be a great way to jump into it.

Confession: I had to go on their website and read the (very simple) directions to figure out how the program works. I’m not sure what that says about me, perhaps that since I’m a Photoshop user, I am so used to complicated that simple is hard for me. Haha. But it wasn’t hard to figure out after a quick run-through of the online directions.

Since I’m in Christmas card mode right now, I decided to try my hand at a digi-card:

What I liked:

Ease of use (after quick overview of instructions)
Capability to mimic shadows and such to make it look less “digital”
The option to use kits that aren’t already in the program, like this one was one I had from Sweet Tomato (retired designer) and it was extremely easy to grab and drop in. So if you’re one of the kind (like me) who pick up lots of free kits from places or if you’ve already got some purchased kits, you’d be able to use them with ease with this program.
That My Memories has free digital options in addition to the ones available for purchase (although, I wasn’t a huge fan of the freebies, at least there ARE some)
Capability to easily “Share” your creations from the program (ie: it doesn’t just save as a specific program file that won’t open in anything else, it exports everything to however you want it: jpeg, web, photo album to print, whatever)

And now that you have my two cents, let me get to the good stuff…are you interested in winning a copy? If you are, here’s how you can get up to two entries to win:

Go to MyMemories.com and find a kit that you think is cool, and then come back here and leave me a comment telling me which one you liked.
"Like" My Memories on Facebook and then come back here and leave me a SEPARATE comment telling me you’re following them on FB.

Oh, and if you’d rather skip trying to win it and just want to go buy it, I’ve got a special code that provides a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store ($20 value!)

Here’s the code: STMMMS8730

Giveaway ends on Sunday 11/27/11 and I will have my second grader tell me a number between 1 and whatever number the last comment ends up being and that comment will win (can’t get any more random than that…lol). The winner will receive a code to download My Memories Software (a $39.99 value).

A huge thank you to My Memories for giving me the opportunity to review this product and for providing a copy for me to give to one of you. =)

**EDITED TO ADD**
Wanted to note that the facebook "like" doesn't appear to be a freebie, it appears to be a $5.00 coupon off a purchase in the MyMemories store. I "liked" them and I didn't see anywhere that said there was anything for free just for liking them (other than a free extra entry into the giveaway here).

ALSO...all comments are welcome, but if you are commenting as anonymous, please leave me some way to reach you in your comment, otherwise, if your comment number is randomly selected, I will have to draw again because I won't know who you are. =)
**END EDIT**

In the interest of full disclosure: I did receive a free copy of this program to review, but no further compensation was provided and all opinions are completely my own.

Headless Chicken

2011-11-17T19:37:00.001-05:00

I’ve never actually witnessed that type of event, but from what I hear, my life these days just might resemble it.

I would love to have more time to talk, but I’m just going to have to say for today, I’m thankful for teachers.

It’s a gift I don’t possess, but I’m sure grateful. Oh yes, and I KNOW I don’t possess it because after two hours of keeping up with a classroom of 23 second graders….well. Let’s just say it’s not a gift I possess. *gulp*

I can say with much feeling after two days of volunteering in two different classrooms, teachers are severely underpaid. I don’t know what their salary is, but there is no way it could be enough.

On a completely unrelated topic, I made this page today. Now the look is immortalized. Or not.

I used a kit called Puzzle Bug by Sweet Digi Scraps, in case anyone wonders.

And in case you can’t read the fine print, it says (and God willing, for many, many more years to come) Because 2001-2011 is just how much it’s been so far. =)

And anywho, that’s all I have to say for now…it’s time for me to round up the kid-lin’s and pop them in the shower for their daily decontamination.

Awesomesauce

2011-11-16T10:18:00.001-05:00

Okay, so not really, I just saw another blogger use that word, and I thought it was funny, so….

A title was born.

I am wracking my brain to think of something to blog about that would BE awesomesauce, but…

It’s blank. My brain, that is.

These days, that’s pretty normal. It’s called too much to do, and not enough time. I have decided my plate is now full, and for awhile, the answer is “NO.”

For the last three days, I’m thankful that I don’t have a (paying) job, and I have the freedom to volunteer for worthwhile causes. Although, the volunteer thing could easily take over my life, evidently, and I’m not going to let it do that, which is why the answer for any more requests for awhile is going to be “no.” But I’m still thankful that I CAN help.

This week, I should have said a few less “yes-es” since the week is already nuts with other stuff, like making sure all our affairs are in order in case we don’t return from our anniversary trip. And FYI: KC and I made a pact with each other that we wouldn’t push each other off the boat, no matter what, because we’d like to see our 11th anniversary…and 12th…and…well, you get the picture. =) But because our parents worry, they made us promise to put our affairs in order before we leave, so they wouldn’t have to clean up our messes if we don’t come back.

I try not to worry. But sometimes their worry rubs off on me. As if I don’t have enough of my own. LOL. Love them anyway. =) Especially since they’re always good about keeping all our balls juggling while we step away. *grin* This is especially handy when you have kids in school and giant dogs that no one else is willing to brave. ;-) And let’s face it, facing kids in school takes MONDO BRAVERY! Bwahahaha…okay, so facing the dogs takes bravery, too. I’m not mad about that though, because they are intensely protective and I worry LESS knowing that. =)

WELL, awesomesauce. I have to get running or I’m gonna worry about being late to Munchkin’s class. That’s where I’m heading today…it’s Duty Free Lunch week where volunteers take over the classes for two hours and give teachers free time to go out for lunch. My dad is going to help me (see what I mean? Love it!) and I have to get moving or I’m going to be late.

Have an awesomesauce day. =) (Oh, and say the word awesomesauce a few times….lol…it’s kinda fun! hahahaha)

Tragic

2011-11-13T20:44:00.001-05:00

Wow. We happened upon this today in our travels…we must have came upon it (it was on the other side) not long after it happened, but this picture was several hours (3+) later and it still looked like this. We could see traffic was still backed up when we were heading home, so we picked an alternate route back to 85. So sad for the family and those involved. And I’m thankful we didn’t go through any earlier…would have hated for any stray bullets to happen our way.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many lighted vehicles in one place at one time. When we first saw all the lights, we were like, that must be a doozy of a wreck, and then we got closer and it’s ONE car off the road and doesn’t look that damaged, but there was crime scene tape all around the area…yeah, I was like, that wasn’t *JUST* a wreck. Crazy!

Anyways, yesterday…

Yesterday I was thankful for chocolate.

Oh my heavens.

Yes, I ate it all.

Yes, it was oh, so good…

But…

Today I was not thankful for yesterday’s chocolate. lol.

Today, I’m just thankful we didn’t go through that area of SC any earlier today. =)

Thank You

2011-11-11T21:43:00.002-05:00

Well, today’s thank you is probably more obvious than the nose on my face (which…well, no comment…lol).

Today, 11-11-11, my thankful thing is to all those who serve (or served) in the efforts to preserve our safety and freedom. I know many who have fought for our rights, some friends, some family, some aquaintances, some I just see in the news and feel my heart break for their families.

Their sacrifice and service doesn’t go unnoticed, even though a lot of times, it, unfortunately, goes unsaid.

It seemed like I had something else to add to this post, but evidently it will also go unsaid, since I don’t remember at all what it was.

So, Happy Veteran’s Day and Happy 11.11.11 Day. =)

Leftovers

2011-11-10T21:43:00.001-05:00

Seriously, that’s what I’m thankful for today. *grin* This week, I have ROCKED the leftovers…lol.

I hate leftovers normally, but this week, I made them WORK and I LOVE that! Not to mention, it made suppers this week, like, way easier!

I took my Crockpot Italian Chicken to the neighbors on Saturday night and we had 4 pieces leftover. So Tuesday night, I heated up a couple of those and made a pot of rice to go with them. Wednesday, I shredded up the remaining two pieces and put one of them in the freezer for later, and the other (with a little of the leftover sauce), went into something kinda like Pampered Chef’s Chicken Ring. I used two tubes of the crescent rolls and instead of triangles, I pinched two triangles together to make squares and put a pile of shredded saucy chicken, a scoop of leftover rice, and a sprinkling of leftover diced peppers (extra from Tuesday’s soup) and then closed them up and baked them.

My rice ~~hatin’~~ dislikin’ hubby and son ate them right up and I was in love with the fact that it was yummy and didn’t taste ANYTHING like leftovers.

And today, I had leftover soup for lunch (Pioneer Woman’s Corn and Cheese Chowder from Tuesday) and it was SOOO good…again.

And tonight I made broccoli and reheated the rest of the leftover rice from Tuesday night (and made sandwich-y things for my non-green-cooked-veggie eating boys). LOL.

If I could do that EVERY week, boy howdy…I might not hate leftovers anymore!!!

Outstanding

2011-11-09T14:20:00.001-05:00

It’s been a busy few days. But in the middle of being busy, I haven’t ceased to be grateful for many things…I have just ceased to have enough time to blog about any of the specific things.

I’m thankful that Munchkin won Outstanding Citizen for this quarter (she got it once last year, too…go Munchkin!).

I’m also grateful for friends. Friends who came over for lunch so I could cook soup because it’s not very high on my family’s “love to eat” list. =) Friends who hung out with me all day. Friends who brought delicious things to eat with the soup. Friends who brought Dr. Pepper.

I won’t tell you that I shouted with glee when I opened the fridge this morning because there was leftover Dr. Pepper on the shelf. Because I would never do such a thing. (HA)

I’m thankful for the sunshine through the trees this morning…it was beautiful…God made an amazing world.

I could go on forever.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to.

You’re welcome.

But don’t think I’m so nice to spare you like that…it’s really that I just have laundry to do and if I go on forever, it won’t get done.

So…you’re welcome, KC!

lol

Blessed

2011-11-06T12:36:00.000-05:00

I think it’s more than appropriate for this month, although I actually made the layout last month. But as is always pointed out, we really should be thankful MORE often, than just in the month of November. And that’s true…we should be thankful more, and complain less… and please excuse the fact that I used a blog entry for the journaling. Nothing like a little double duty.

I used this newly released kit by Ocean Wide Scraps called Many Blessings from Funky Playground Designs (although it’s available at Zig Zag Scraps as well).

(image is linked)

Font is Century Gothic in case anyone wanted to know. LOL.

Like A Good Neighbor…

2011-11-05T23:18:00.001-04:00

No…not state farm. haha. But I’m truly appreciative of the blessing of good neighbors. So far, in every one of the places we’ve lived, there has been at least one neighbor who became a friend in the time we’ve been next door.

Tonight, our family took a couple of dishes and joined the family next door for supper. She made tomato pie and corn and bread and pasta salad and I took chicken and apple dumplings….and oh my…I’m stuffed to the gills. It was all YUMMY…especially the tomato pie…never had that before, and even my tomato-hatin’ hubby liked it! *wow* And then we ladies crafted for awhile while the kids played and the hubbies chatted/watched a game.

I don’t know about them, but I had a great evening.

Not My Thing

2011-11-04T22:16:00.001-04:00

Tonight I’m thankful that I’m already married and (good Lord willing) will never have to go through the torture of a wedding and all the mess that goes with it ever again. Gahk. Something about attending weddings always makes me feel that way. I very seldom see a wedding that doesn’t make me feel that way. Come to think of it, I don’t remember ANY that have ever made me want to repeat the procedure.

And that’s nothing personal…I’ve seen lots of perfectly nice weddings….but for me, I’m just quite grateful to be past that point. LOL.

They’re just not my thing. Now, the being married part suits me just fine. =)

Chocolate

2011-11-03T21:40:00.001-04:00

That’s what I’m thankful for today. And now I’m going to go get some.

PS: I’m not sure if I should be mad or thankful that the hubby raided the after-halloween candy clearance and filled up our candy bowl again. LOL. Because I think I might be a little TOO thankful for chocolate and staring at it all day is very bad for me. haha =)

All Clear

2011-11-02T20:31:00.001-04:00

Well, yesterday I was thankful for my dogs.

Today I’m thankful for my hubby. And I’m thankful for a God that made us best friends and kept us together for the last (almost) ten years.

Oh yes, and I should insert here that my thankful list of things is NOT posted in order of importance. ROFL!

I only posted that yesterday because it happened yesterday and I had a picture.

I guess I could feed KC an atomic fireball and take a picture, but somehow, I don’t think that would be quite as funny since he actually LIKES atomic fireballs. LOL!

Yes, I think this picture is perfect for the moment…even though he wasn’t eating a fireball and this wasn’t taken today. Haha. I get that look anytime I say something goofy…or any time I pull out my camera and point it at him. But that’s okay…I still love him. I got the best. =)

Oh yes, and I’m also thankful that the dogs still haven’t shown any signs of an adverse reaction to their candy spree.

I’m not just thankful for the big things, I’m thankful for the little things, too. I never want to forget either the big or the small ones…because I don’t deserve any of them, but I sure do appreciate them.

Oh Poo

2011-11-01T22:07:00.001-04:00

Happy 11/1/11…lol. Does it make you a geek to think things like that are cool? Or just plain weird? Well, I’m okay with being both…something I’ve lived with for years now…hahaha.

And 11/11/11 will be even cooler. *geeky grin*

Okay…anyway. The dogs brought down an atomic fireball today and were playing with it in the wrapper, so I thought…hum…I’m going to be mean and unwrap it for them. LOL.

It was SOO funny watching them try to eat it, but they would pick it up, drop it, shake their heads like crazy and lick their lips and then repeat the process. Bwahaha. HILARIOUS!

Please excuse the terrible cell phone picture…it was what I had handy.

And then I walked through the house and realized that all the leftover holiday candy had disappeared out of the basket. All that was left was a couple of wrappers on the floor and a bar of chocolate that they had evidently not been able to get the wrapper off of. DOH. Had I known they’d already been in the candy, I wouldn’t have added a possible fire to their list of potential tummy troubles. I’m not sure how much was left in the basket, but I’d say they probably had around 10-15 pieces of candy, at least.

So far, they don’t appear to be exhibiting any ill effects, but I bet tomorrow, their…ahem….tail will tell the tale. Hahaha. Sorry. LOL.

While we’re on the subject of dogs, you should see them when I let them lick out the last smears of peanut butter before I throw the jar in the recycle bin….two dogs trying to get their tongue up in a jar at the same time…it’s pretty funny.

As inconvenient as these guys sometimes are, I think I’ll keep them. =)

Drive By Shooting

2011-10-28T23:39:00.001-04:00

The perpetrator (uh…me):

The victim (beautiful fall trees around the lake):

LOL. I’m a nut. No need to convince me…I’m well aware. =)

I do miss summer, but I sure appreciate God’s handiwork in the fall scenery around here.

Random thought of the day: Why do we not call all of nature an act of God? Instead, we only call it an act of God whenever some force of nature is destructive to our person or possessions…in other words, we only give God credit when we’re upset about it or want to blame somebody. LOL -ANYWAY, just a random thought. =)

Wow.

2011-10-27T09:10:00.001-04:00

Today’s devotion over at Proverbs 31 was perfect…

⁶Be careful (anxious) for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. ⁷And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. ⁸Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. ⁹Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.
-Philippians 4:6-9

Sweet.

Pray About Everything

Ten Things

2011-10-26T22:06:00.001-04:00

If I had to name this list of ten things, I’d have to say they’re things I’ve noticed or learned or been reminded of in the last few days…

Single parenting is not my thing. LOL. KC was gone for a few days on business and…wow. Just me and the kids is not the same as the family. Of course, the house stayed cleaner. Interesting. LOL.
I have SO many things to be thankful for…if I lived forever, it wouldn’t be enough time to list all the things for which I have to be grateful! Even the things that bug me, I could still find something in them to be thankful for…that’s pretty awesome.
Pinterest is the coolest. Tonight I made yet another thing (actually, two) off my pinboard of ideas…I LOVE it.
I really like my hubby.
I really like my hubby even when he’s annoying me.
The hubby even loves me when I’m grumpy…how can I NOT like that?!
Next week is November…is it just me or wasn’t it just January? ACK.
Apples baked in the oven with Snickers sliced up and melted over them are pretty yummy, but I think they gave me heartburn.
It’s hot in our basement right now….that’s so odd…usually I’m freezing down here.
I’ve got to stop taking things personally…I didn’t realize how often I do that…

Anyway. I scrapbooked a page tonight but can’t share it until the kit is released next week. The dogs need a bath again…any volunteers? I also was supposed to send cookies to Munchkin’s school tomorrow for her class’s Halloween party, and I went to bake them tonight when I was doing the apples, and realized I threw my last couple of eggs away earlier this week when I was throwing everything out of the fridge in an attempt to find what was STINKING the entire kitchen up every time the fridge door was opened. Oops. So I guess I get to run by the supermarket on the way to school in the morning. Oh well. Also, thanks to KC’s business trip and him coming home in the middle of the week, today felt like Saturday and now I’m all mixed up. But that’s okay, I’m just glad he’s home. LOL. And that’s today’s random…

By the way, thank you for the comments on the last couple of posts…=)

Brain Clutter

2011-10-24T22:31:00.001-04:00

Well, I’m back again. Hopefully not going to get the blue screen of death tonight. =(

I’m in a strange mood…I probably shouldn’t blog in this mood, but here I am anyway. I don’t even know how to describe my mood, I’ve just got a lot of stuff on my mind and don’t really know how to talk about it.

It’s like trying to clean out your house in front of an audience. You pick up one thing and…oops…that’s kind of private…can’t touch that in front a crowd, let’s try this pile of clutter…nope don’t want to go there. Okay, how bout just cleaning behind the couch…gag…is that a hairball? Can the audience please forget they saw that? How embarrassing!

Yeah, that’s kinda how I feel about doing a brain dump here. The things that are cluttering up my mind these days are like my underwear drawer…all jumbled up, but necessary, and not something you’d want to sort out in front of a lot of people.

I mean, just look at my analogies tonight…do you really think a total thought dump would be wisdom? Yeah, I thought you’d see it my way.

Here…how bout some gorgeous scenery? This is from Munchkin’s field trip to the zoo on Thursday. I didn’t feel all that great on Thursday, but I managed. I tried to back out on Tuesday when I realized I was going to be exhausted from being sick and not up for walking a gazillion steps from North America all the way to Africa (after driving 2 hours), but the teacher laid the ol’ guilt trip on me and I’m a sucker like that. I made it, but boy was I tired. I went to bed at 10 that night and slept til 1 the NEXT day! Well, I did get up to take the kids to school at 7, but then I came back and went right back to sleep. I NEVER sleep that much. Well anyway, back to that scenery:

I’m not quite sure, but I think that yellow stuff in the foreground of that gorgeous scenery, might possibly be ragweed.

Which might explain why my eyes felt heavy and Munchkin kept saying hers were burning when we were sitting there six inches away from it.

My eyes are heavy now. That’s some powerful ragweed. Or maybe I’m just tired. I cleaned all 3.5 bathrooms today…that will do it…lol. And ew…speaking of things you wouldn’t want to clean in front of an audience…haha.

And now I’m back to thinking about the clutter in my brain that I don’t want to deal with right now. Which makes me want to just throw up my hands and go to bed…except then, I’ll probably have weird dreams again…which could add to the clutter I don’t want to deal with in my brain. Aaack…it’s a vicious cycle.

Speaking of vicious cycles, I was rather annoyed at one of my kids who was expressing their frustrations in a very whiney way, and I was making them aware of how annoying that was and how that never works, and how it makes me sad that they are not thankful even though life’s not always fair…and then God turned it around on me. And He said, if tomorrow things turn sour on you, wouldn’t you have a hard time being thankful, too? Oh God, forgive me when I whine…or when I get aggravated at my kids for whining…I have too many things to be thankful for to be whining over any of it…even if I’m only whining on the inside. I think my tone probably changed in my conversation with the kiddo…I suddenly became a little more understanding. LOL. God help me.

And now, I really AM going to bed. Weird dreams or not. =)

Death

2011-10-23T23:00:00.001-04:00

Well, that was disturbing. My computer just gave me the blue screen of death.

But that’s probably not as disturbing as if the death in the title had been…like…um…mine. Or maybe that wouldn’t disturb anyone at all. LOL.

Anyway, I was in the middle of saving something to come blog about it…and of course, as I was telling it what to save it as, the blue screen appeared and the computer shut off…leaving me with…uh…

this.

which is…

nothing.

and then I remembered that tomorrow is K-man’s snack day and I have nothing ready to take, so I ran in the kitchen to make up a few dozen rice crispy treats. At 9:30pm. Or wait, maybe that was before the blue screen of death. I forget.

Anyway, I’m totally scattered tonight.

Munchkin took this picture. I love how my feet are missing, but there’s lots of white air over my head. And K-man appears to be gazing up into that white air up there, too. So funny.

And that is all I can muster up tonight…blame the blue screen of death. It killed my mojo.

Maybe I’ll get a chance tomorrow to come back and fill in the blanks. LOL. =)

Monday Messages–Tuesday Edition

2011-10-18T14:17:00.001-04:00

Dear Monday,
Why is it that I always walk away from you wondering, “What happened?” Try this on for size: “Monday, the day everything GOOD happens.” Isn’t that a much better image to strive for? Yes, I think so, too.
Sincerely,
Not Lovin’ It

Dear Tuesday,
Quit following Monday’s footsteps. And yes, I know my getting sick has nothing to do with your day, but you make an excellent scape-goat.
Sincerely,
Itsall Myfault

Dear Week,
How bout we just start with Hump Day next week. It’s not like the calendar isn’t already flying by anyways! Why NOT skip a few days altogether?!
Love,
Wasntit Just January

Dear Body,
You traitor. I want to DO something. Or even if I didn’t, I would like to FEEL like I could. Oh yes, and while I’m ranting at you, could you please decide on whether you’re hot or cold? Blanket or perspiring…which is it going to be?
-Just Tired

Dear Mom & Dad…
Seriously? You guys are the best. I say that all the time…I know. But that’s cause it’s always true. Thanks for the soup. And *arrghh…growling under my breath* thanks for the catnip tea, too. LOL. I have drank about half the thermos already and it’s so healthy it’s disgusting! I appreciate it though…anything to make me feel better…although if you see me floating away, please throw me a rope. Teehehe. Also, thanks for the juice and for adding sugar to the tea, because that makes it just a little easier to take. =) =) Oh yes, and thanks for bringing it to me, too, since I was not up to coming over there today. I wouldn’t trade you guys for any other parents, ever…yes, dad, even if you had decided to play the harmonica in the airport…LOL!
Love,
Your Baby Girl

Dear Blog,
So sorry you’ve been neglected…life’s been a little busy. Nothing like a little ‘forced’ slow down to give me a little free time to write something. Under the circumstances, I can’t say I’m happy about it, but I will say that I really appreciate you always being here when I DO have time to write. I’m giving serious, SERIOUS consideration about killing my FB relationship and spending more time with you instead. How would you feel about that? I know, I don’t spend much time there either, but a wise person once said (don’t ask me who it was, cuz I don’t know…I’m just sure someone must have already said it and if they did, they’re wise) that the little minutes matter…and a few extra here and a few extra there can make a big difference. So…like I said, I’m just thinking about it but…I’m not quite 100% certain yet.
Sincerely,
Always.Faith

Dear World,
Okay, this is it. I’m floating away now. ACK. *thump thump thump* (that’s me…running to the water closet) BWAHAHAHA
Sincerely,
Gone

Bummed

2011-10-12T22:03:00.001-04:00

No more Sweet Tomato Designs. I’m so sad. It’s really bummed me out…here’s my last design with her stuff. You can still watch her blog though, she said she may occasionally post free templates. =)

This template was in her 365 Templates Pack and I’m definitely hanging on to all this stuff from my time with the team. LOL. Must back up all my files just in case. haha.

Anyways, this page is K-man’s field trip and I used Beach Cantina by Sweet Tomato and Dominic Designs (I think)

Fonts are Century Gothic, Pea Mee Mee & Pea Sadie from kevinandamanda.com

Anywho…yes, I’m still alive. Had a zillion things going on…this week is a little quieter but then again not really. Last week was K-man’s field trip, fall festival at the kids school, K-man’s birthday party…and you know how it goes…the prep and stuff to get/do for those kinds of things just takes up almost as much or more time than the actual event.

I could go into all kinds of details but it would take up way too much time and (probably) be boring to most of you. LOL.

For now I’ll just stick with the basics: I’m alive, I’m busy, and I miss ya’ll…which is why I popped in to say hello. Some of you folks could stand to do the same…*hint hint*

From experience, the longer you wait between posts, the harder it is to jump back into it. lol. I used to do that in my journals. Write regularly for awhile and then skip a year or so and try to catch up with a crazy long update. Haha. Actually, those crazy updates were kinda funny since the things I always decided were important to update were who I now liked or why it was the same one (IF it was the same one…hahah). The munchkin, she is following in my footsteps…convinced that all the boys in her class are in love with HER and even fifth graders are in love with her. LOL…I told her that I could speak from experience and say that the only fifth graders who would like a second grader are probably very desperate. Bwahaha. Yes, I’m mean.

You just now figured that out? Munchkin REALLY thinks so…especially since I made her work on her report on bald eagles tonight instead of playing. And she griped and complained and whined for two hours instead of working on it, so I told KC that tomorrow, instead of watching a movie, she gets to stay upstairs and work on her report. And then HE said I’m mean.

Here’s what I say…Munchkin’s teacher intimidates me (she’s very nice, really, and Munchkin likes her, but I just get the feeling that she could be tough) and I don’t want to have to explain to her why Munchkin’s report is late…so I’m going to make sure it’s NOT late. HAHA.

Okay, somehow this post grew…so I’m going away now.

Retirement

2011-10-03T09:16:00.001-04:00

No, it’s not me retiring from blogging…although as busy as I’ve been, perhaps I should…lol! I haven’t even had time all weekend to get on the computer at ALL, so I’m a little late posting about this, but it’s Monday now and I’m trying to get caught up, so here’s what I’ve got to share:

Yep, Sweet Tomato Designs is retiring from designing. I am so bummed but this is a great sale!!! And you don’t want to miss it because this is it. And her designs are awesome! Digi land is losing a great one. =( So grab some of them while you still can!! (Image is linked to her store!)

Hurry, her shop will close after 10/9!

(Oh, and the discount is applied after you put items in your cart, so don’t panic if you don’t see the sale when you are browsing through her store…it’s there)

And now I’m off to try to get caught up on the REST of my stuff that I’m behind on….

Backyard Wildlife

2011-09-26T17:27:00.001-04:00

I found this little guy in the backyard the other day. Box turtle I think. I put him in an old parmesan cheese bottle till the kids came home from school to see him, and then we let him go. He was TINY! In case you can’t tell, that blue thing is his water dish and it was a lid to a 20 oz bottle. See how little the turtle is in comparison to the lid? He was also very ready to leave when I opened the lid and let him out outside. LOL

I would have kept him but KC was paranoid of turtle germs. Hahaha….and yes, I washed my hands thoroughly after I picked him up and I didn’t let the kids touch him at all.

Anyway, then today, there were five deer out in the backyard. Of course, I had to take pictures.

Then I snuck downstairs without the dogs to see if I could get a little closer pictures….that’s when they saw me, but they didn’t take off running like I expected. They were really skinny…you could see their ribs but they were still really pretty.

I think it was the same adult deer that were out there in May, (I posted about it here) but apparently a couple of them have reproduced since then…the babies were cute with their little spots…

AWWWW.

Dropping the Ball

2011-09-25T14:24:00.001-04:00

Ever notice how it takes so long to make a habit but if you miss it once, it’s SOOO easy to drop it completely? LOL. I have missed like three days of drawing after doing it for like 15 days…and blogging???? Well…

Anyway, and then once you drop the ball on something and get so busy with other things, it’s hard to go back and pick it up again so you just put it off another day and then….well…you know how it goes.

I had a really long to-do list this week…every day I kept adding things to it, and I tried to add back things that I know need to be done, but you know what? Every day those same things were the ones that got postponed to the next days list again. Oh, I did manage to get some of those done, but then others would get postponed. How is it that there’s never enough time in a day?

Anyway, basically I dropped in to say that I had a busy week and next week doesn’t look any different so it may be a few days before you hear from me again. But eventually…eventually I’ll get everything caught up.

Hopefully it will be before there is a tombstone sitting at the head of my grave. ;-)

And Once Again

2011-09-18T16:23:00.001-04:00

I am rendered speechless. This becoming more and more common. YIKES! LOL.

And as usual when I’m feeling speechless, I’m thinking perhaps I should not say anything at all. But I want to…oh I want to.

I will say this though, if you haven’t read the book, unChristian, you should read it. I know I mentioned it before and I said I might come back and talk about it, but it’s really hard to discuss it in a little blog post because it is such a big topic. And it was the topic of Sunday School this morning, which reminded me that I never did get back to talking about it here.

The perception of “Christianity” is not very positive and from personal experience and knowing the experiences of others, I can understand why. Reading this book made me cringe…for all the things I’m NOT responsible for, but also for the ways (however unintentional) that I may have participated in some of the actions that would give an outsider reasons to have a negative impression of Christianity.

It’s tough. I know after reading this book, there are a lot of ways that I am doing positive things, but there are also still ways that I can do better. I don’t want to be known for what I don’t do. I want to be known for loving Jesus and caring about others. And not just a shallow “caring” only to get another “check mark on my soul-winning list” where, if they’re not interested in becoming a check mark, or if they’re already on the “soul-WON” list, I simply move on to my next victim (I know, I’ve met some of those), but a genuine, non-judgmental, non-hypocritical, loving, care and concern for people. Even the ones I don’t like. *sigh* Like I said, I’ve got some areas that need work. =)

Anyway, that doesn’t even begin to get into the good stuff, but I challenge you, if you call yourself a Christian, go read it. And especially, if you are a Christian that wants to reach others in the most effective way possible. Sometimes, to be more effective, one must be more informed (and open to change if necessary). Wow…that was a deep thought right there…for being speechless anyway. HAHA.

Oh yeah, and mom, our library doesn’t have it because it’s still at my house, but I know you said you wanted to read it, so put it on hold so they can call you with it as soon as I return it….teeehehe. Would probably not be a very good Christian thing to do to not return it, don’t ya think? LOL!

He’s still workin on me, to make me what I ought to be,
It took Him just a week to make the moon and stars,
The sun and earth and Jupiter and Mars,
How loving and patient He must be, cuz He’s still workin on me.

So Uh…

2011-09-17T21:15:00.001-04:00

Yeah.

I have lots of bad news. (okay, it’s not BAD, bad, just not so good)….LOL!

First bad news, when you create an organized (or getting there anyway) craft office for yourself, it’s hard to get anything else done because…well…it’s just cozy here in my little corner with all my creative junk around me. BUT, I did manage to mend like 5 garments from my “to be mended” pile that I came across while organizing today. And one of them was a complete remake. Let’s just say, my mom’s slightly out of date denim dress will live on for at least another year as an adorable jumper for the munchkin. But anyway, sewing pile is greatly reduced and neatly organized.

Second bad news, when you put your computer up in your scraproom, it’s mighty handy for digi-scrapping with all your idea books and crafty vibes floating around nearby…but it makes the evenings a lot lonelier since KC’s computer station is still on his lap two stories down in his recliner. LOL. Our nightly routine has changed from “kids go to bed, veg in the recliners for two hours, we go to bed” to “kids go to bed, KC hikes uphill on the treadmill/Faith is on computer upstairs for an hour, veg downstairs in the recliners for an hour, one of us falls asleep, then the other one wakes them up and we go to bed.” We’re so romantic like that. LOL

Third bad news. It’s a great idea to unwrap all 15 leftover jolly rancher candy canes from last Christmas and break them into bite sized pieces and drop them into a little candy jar in hopes that they will finally get eaten up that way. It’s NOT a great idea to put that jar next to ones laptop up in the cozy corner upstairs. I’m just guesstimating but I’m thinking there may be around 1.5 candy canes left in it since I brought it up here yesterday. *GREAT BIG GOOGLY EYES*

Okay, done with bad news. Good news is that even though I haven’t been blogging, I’ve maintained the 1 drawing a day. Maybe I’ll post some of it sometime. So far I’ve drawn things like: a turning point in your life, favorite animated character, favorite book, best friend….and so on…

ANYWAY, sounds like KC is finished with his hour of walking so computer time is done…laterz!

Someday

2011-09-08T22:22:00.001-04:00

Maybe…I’ll buy a deserted island…that would be my favorite place. LOL.

There’s a few down below the Bahamas that are so small they don’t even have cities on them. I could deal with that. Teeehehee…nobody to make mad, nobody to stress me out…

course, that would also mean nobody to love either, and that might stress me out…

Perhaps this could just be my island a few yards away from our main island which would have the rest of my family on it. And maybe a few friends, too. LOL!

ANYWAY. I was busy today. I took before pictures and one room is fully painted but not yet at the “AFTER” stage, so I have a little more staging and decorating to do before I take the “after” photo. Here’s a piece of faith trivia from today: I moved a bed down two flights of stairs without spraining anything else…brilliant, eh? =) =)

And random pondering for the day…what is this “planking” thing? I don’t get it. What is the point of laying on random objects, taking pictures of people doing it, and labeling them “planking?” I’m so confused. Not that me being confused is any new occurrence…hahaa…

Okay…I’m going away now…

Klutz.

2011-09-07T22:43:00.001-04:00

My ankle has been bugging me a bit today. What a bummer. I can still walk on it though, so I guess it’s not broke. LOL. In case you’re not friends with me on facebook, here was my status last night:

“In some twist of unfortunate events, I didn't JUST inherit MY family's messed up genes (nothing personal, mom, EVERY family has messed up genes to pass on to unsuspecting victims...lol), but I ALSO inherited my hubby's mother's klutz gene (talk about not fair!). Tonight I fell going UP the stairs. Bummer.”

So yes, I fell up the stairs last night. I was just running up to put the kids in bed and my foot slipped off the stair and I came down on it twisted underneath me. I almost cried, but I lived to tell the tale. Better than the alternative. LOL.

I met mom for lunch today…that was fun…kinda like old times when we used to work together! *grin* We hit up a thrift store and then had lunch. She was disappointed in the thrift store, but I found a great, like new, twin mattress/box springs (which they couldn’t “SELL” so they gave it to me…and then after that, I made a “donation” to the cause). LOL. I wasn’t mad about it, I’ve been waiting for a deal like that.

Totally unrelated topic, I decided to do this “Drawing Challenge” and draw one thing a day for 30 days. So far I have done a self-portrait (okay, so it looks like I’ve aged and gained weight, but it sorta still looks like me…hahah), a picture of my favorite animal (yep, I drew one of my dogs…but it doesn’t really look like the dog I drew, it just looks like a dog, which works, and that way neither dog will think I’m playing favorites…like they’d care anyway but I’m sidetracked now…where was I?), and my favorite food. I took a really bad picture with my ipod and emailed it to myself so I would have something to post in here. Ready for it? Ready?

*deep breath*

Okay…here it is:

Okay, so favorite drink isn’t on the list, so I snuck it in with my brownie (in case you can’t tell what that was supposed to be).

And I bought paint today. So I will probably disappear for a few more days to paint some rooms in this here house…and hopefully be back sometime with some before/after photos. =)

Later!

Goodness

2011-09-05T20:04:00.003-04:00

First week of school knocked me for a loop. LOL…you’d think with it not being ME in school, that the beginning of school would be a breeze…but sheesh. Two kids stuff going on…two different teachers…two schedules…and go figure that the first week of school had like five appointments that I had to work around…lol. Ah…it’s not that bad, I’m not complaining, and after I got over leaving my second baby at school by himself, I quite enjoyed the small bits of free time I had…but obviously, I didn’t get to blog any in those small bits of free time.

Sometimes I just don’t feel like trying to recap everything into something that would be readable and interesting. I know I’m not the only one who gets into that mood, but I still don’t like it. I would love to just type out the contents of my brain and have it be totally appropriate for all audiences and enjoyable for people to read and not require any effort to make it sound great.

Too bad the likelihood of that occurring is like uh….well…it would be more likely that my dog would get up in the next five minutes and sing If You’re Happy And You Know It while standing on his hind legs and clapping his paws….and smiling.

Yeah. About that likely.

I’ve already mentally deleted at least 5 topics that have crossed my mind in the space of this small blog post. Just not happening.

Oh well. So that’s my story. That’s where I’ve been. And now it’s time for me to go put them little kid-lets in bed so they can get up early for school tomorrow.

Now THAT whole getting up early thing, I could probably locate a few complaints about that….but I won’t.

Later!

8:30am

2011-08-29T08:39:00.001-04:00

Well, so far this morning I have been up for two hours (reluctantly), packed two lunches, scurried around like a chicken with it’s head cut off, finished filling out medical forms for school, taken four pictures, sent my last baby off to school (now they’re both at school), walked the dogs, looked up printing costs for flyers and envelopes, ate a very nutritional breakfast (okay, so maybe a brownie and dr pepper wouldn’t be classified as nutritional), and now I’m blogging because the blog has been so sadly neglected for a week. LOL.

BUT, I have to take the Munchkin to an appointment at 10, which means I have to go back to the school and get her around 9:20. And I have to sit and wait through the appointment but I have no books loaded on my ipod so I need to hurry up and see if I can find some freebies to load up real quick. That sure makes waiting so much more fun. =)

But waiting won’t be fun if I stay here blogging instead of downloading something to read.

However, before I go, and speaking of books, I highly recommend that book I mentioned in my last post. It’s called unChristian and it’s very interesting. I finished it and…wow. Definitely worth reading.

Whew

2011-08-20T21:37:00.001-04:00

I think I need a vacation now. LOL. We got home a few hours ago and I’m SOOO tired. Vacation is exhausting!

If you’re friends with me on facebook, you’ve probably already seen these pics, but here are a few of my favorites from this trip:

Whew…it was fun but didn’t get much rest, that’s for sure! =)

I’m so tired, the remainder of this post will be in fragmented bullet points.

I started an excellent book while on vacation. I haven’t finished it because it’s not an easy read…it’s like trying to read a textbook, but so far, it seems to be incredibly accurate and definitely thought provoking. I might possibly talk more about it another time. =)
Speaking of books, I found one on the clearance rack at B&N in Myrtle…I paid $2 and it’s so cool…it’s about scrapbooking everyday things, instead of events…got lots of cool ideas for pages.
Also on the topic of books, I could probably write one on the disgusting-ness of the male species where two or three of them are gathered and “bonding.” Let’s just say, this trip was educational. *googly eyes* lol…no further comment.
The night we decided to go out on the beach to take pictures was the windiest evening of all. Go figure.
The Fudgery is my favorite place in the whole Barefoot Landing. And the guy doing the fudge show was hysterical! Most importantly though, the fudge was….oh my….
We stayed up really late every night playing Rook and talking…no, I mean really late. Like after 1:30 a couple of nights….
^ That’s pretty much why I’m ready for bed right now at 9:30.
I think that is quite enough random for the day.
Goodnight.

Sun & Sand…

2011-08-15T23:24:00.001-04:00

What a combination!

I love the beach.

So do these guys:

It’s been an interesting day. Someone set off the smoke alarms while cooking. Someone stopped up a toilet. A couple of someone’s fell in love with “surfing” (which was actually just riding the boogie boards on the edge of the waves). Someone got a little sunburned. Someone got grouchy. Someone liked to roll in the sand after they were rinsed off.

(oh and I am not any of the someone’s up there….ahahaha)

But speaking of sand….

Andddd…someone’s ready for bed. THAT someone’s ME!

(scrapbook page is linked if you want to see the credits)

Blink. Blink. Nod.

2011-08-12T22:32:00.001-04:00

I think it is time for bed. I woke up at 5:30 this morning and didn’t go back to sleep until like 7 and then I only slept another hour so that was still kinda like getting up early…hahaha.

I also spent all day on the move…I keep thinking laundry is caught up and I promise, there is some kind of genie in the dirty clothes hamper that is making the dirty ones multiply. Seriously! It’s like the ol meal barrel back in the days of Elisha…or was that Elijah. I get those two mixed up…but it was like that. The barrel was never empty. Only I WANTED it to be. LOL. If something around here is going to never run dry, I would rather it be the ice cream…if you know what I mean. ;-)

The kids and I walked on the treadmill today…that was probably a bad idea since I had so much to do and probably burned more than enough calories just doing laundry without adding torturing myself on the treadmill for 45 minutes. My back is killing me….and therefore adding to the “blink. blink. nod” feeling…lolol. I’m seriously tempted to just go grab a pain pill and just go on to bed…of course, it is 10:30 so it’s not really early anyway.

On that note…please excuse me while I crash.

Returned

2011-08-07T22:46:00.001-04:00

That’s me. I brought the kids back some yard sale treasures (you know they are my kids because they LOVE yard sale treasures…bwahahaha) and when I was almost home, I thought…you know, I never found anything for KC (and yes, I did look…lol). And then my dad said, don’t worry…you brought him back YOU. ROFL.

Dad was a trip all by himself. LOL…I love him. He was hilarious! We did have a good trip though, but Grandma definitely has declined since we were last up. She’s lost a lot of weight, and doesn’t have much energy to think or talk or stay awake very long. It makes me sad to think about it very long.

But she did have a couple of very lucid moments and she did know who I was and recalled my name several times this trip.

And she ate pretty good, too, which was unusual for her. Of course, dad made gnocchis so perhaps that had something to do with it. LOL.

Dad and I went to some yard sales but I didn’t find as much as I usually do…of course, I had to be extremely choosy about my purchases because they had to fit into my carry-on. LOL.

Saturday, my aunt had some stumps from a tree they cut down in their yard. She had a whole bunch of them and wanted to try making art out of them to plant in her backyard. And her sister had brought over a bunch of leftover paints…so we played. LOL. They looked more detailed in real life but here’s an idea of how big they are. LOL. In case it’s not obvious, I did the yellow one and Aunt M did the blue one. =)

And the last two pictures are in flight today. I love how it’s raining on the ground but when you get above the clouds the sun is still there. It’s awesome. And even awesome-er was making the descent into good ol’ big city and getting to our car and getting home.

Oh and the steward dude on the last flight was HILARIOUS! He actually sang the barney song at the very end of our flight….only….

We love you, you love us,
We’re much faster than the bus,
We hope you enjoyed our hospitality,
Marry one of us and you’ll fly free

And he was crackin jokes the entire time he ran through the safety instructions…and never once did the guy smile. I’m sure he was just bored -- but it was funny!

“Should this flight turn into a cruise, your seat cushion will become a floatation device, and you should put your…”

“The cabin lights will be turned off at this time for take-off, if you need additional lighting, just press the button that looks like a sun above you and the sun will shine.”

And it just didn’t stop….everything was like that.

And for a little bit of random…here’s another one of the stumps…this was my practice stump. lol. I liked it a lot though….I could totally see sitting this one up and sealing the top off to make a garden seat. A set of four of these around a rustic table would be SO cute. It would probably be too cute for KC but oh well…I like it. haha.

And that’s it. I’m home. I’m tired. And I’m going to bed. =)

It Takes Awhile

2011-08-03T21:34:00.001-04:00

But I do eventually get back to it. LOL. Evidently Wednesday is going to be the day of post. Since I have been doing terrible about getting back before then. hahah.

I laughed at the last comments…you guys are funny. =)

I don’t really have anything super enlightening to talk about. The weekend was vacation bible school…and as I said on my facebook, it takes very very special people to work with kids at VBS--and I have come to discover that I’m not as special as I always thought I was….hahah. I’m only half kidding…I survived…but I spent a good part of the weekend annoyed. LOL. I’m just glad that is over.

I managed to squeeze in a little swimming this week but spent most of my time doing laundry and cleaning and packing. My dad and I are flyin out in the morning for NY. KC’s mom has the kids, KC will be here to watch the puppies…and I’m ready to be back before I even leave. LOL.

Nah…I love flying but I don’t like to be gone. I’m really gonna miss the puppies. HAHAHAHA. Of course, I’ll miss KC and the kids first. HAHHAA.

Well, I feel like I’m babbling and I’m tired so I’m gonna go walk the pups and hit the sack. I probably won’t have internet at all over the weekend, so I’ll see ya’ll…uh….next Wednesday probably. =)

I’ll Come Back To This

2011-07-27T16:41:00.001-04:00

I can’t think of a title for this post, so I’ll come back to it…but perhaps leaving it would be a much more appropriate title than anything I could come up with…since that seems to be my motto lately. LOL. I don’t think I have posted since the pain from those stings finally subsided. LOL.

And yes, it DID finally subside. My poor finger was swollen for around 7 days before it went away completely. I’m so glad it is gone now. KC weed-eated yesterday. I didn’t offer…lol.

It’s 4:16 on a Wednesday and it will be time for church pretty soon, but since I’ll be gone for most of the evening I figured if a post was going to happen, it better be now.

We have been a travelling troop the last few weeks. This last time was a trip to Ohio. I am so thankful that my parents live nearby now…and not just because they are awesome house and puppy sitters, although I can’t say I’m not loving that part…cause I totally am! *GRIN* Anyway, I took a few pictures in Ohio but here’s one that I love:

Credits:
Kit: All My Love by Sweet Digi Scraps
Fonts: Pea Stacy Doodle Script and Pea Sadie from kevinandamanda.com, Stamp Act Jumbled

KC totally cracked me up with the white hair! And it was a fun trip…mostly. I won’t even go into the NoT fun part though. That part only God gets to hear about…lol.

That makes me think of a quote I saw the other day…

Patience: What parents have when there are witnesses.

ROFL!

Any-ka-who.

My grandma in NY isn’t doing very well again (although I’m thankful she’s still with us, since they told her over a year ago that she only had a month or two left…she’s 85 and has cancer for the—I think—3rd time). So I’m going to fly up with dad next week. KC won’t be going this time, and KC’s mom had already wanted to take the kids that weekend, so he will just have to take care of the doggy-poos. Hopefully, it will work out well. Except that he’ll miss the fire out of me, particularly when he has to feed and walk the puppies himself. He will be all bonded with them when I get back. hahahaahaha

K-man just shot me. With the wordsuckerupinator that he broke and turned into a gun. That’s what he said.

In other news, I took two shirts back to the store today and they had a huge clearance sale, so I exchanged the two shirts for six and STILL got three dollars and change back. I LOVE that! It’s the little things that make me happy. =)

Something else that makes me happy?? Pinterest. It’s like a virtual pinboard where you have an account and you pin stuff on your boards and then when you need to remember that thing you saw online that was really cool and you want to try it…you just go back to your bulletin board. Isn’t that nifty? You have to have an invite to join, so if you want to join, holla and I’ll send you an invite…but it’s really neat! And you can follow friend’s pins and everything…so fun!

These are just a few of my pins…hahah….some things are just funny, some are things I want to try, some are inspiring…you name it. Lots of fun!

And I have an app for my iPod, so muy addicting! hahaha.

Well, now I have blathered on for awhile now and it’s time to get ready for church. Mom, you happy that I’ve posted again now? =) This post is dedicated to my mother, who faithfully reads my blog and lovingly nudges me when it gets neglected. LOVE YOU MOMMA! LOL!

Adios for now! =)

Bless the Lord

2011-07-17T23:28:00.001-04:00

Oh my soul….and all that is within me….

Now I just WISH I had nothing to say.

Dear heavenly Father!

I can’t talk about most of it, but what I can say….

I didn’t get on here Friday because I really didn’t want to complain. I still don’t want to complain, so I’ll just gloss over the facts of Friday:

I wanted to do a good deed and weed-eat the yard for my hubby to make his life a little easier this week.

I weed-ate. YES. ME. Aren’t you so proud? I cranked up that booger all by myself (okay, so I read the instructions on the handle) and took care of business.

Right as I was finishing, I found a fun bunch of buddies in the back yard who wore yellow jackets and lived in a hole in the ground and were not happy about me eating weeds there.

I don’t know how many stings/bites I got, but it was more than 5, and I’m pretty sure the dude that wouldn’t get off my finger no matter how much I flung my hand around got in at least 6 stings/bites because that one was the worst.

Lucky for me, it was the backyard and no one was around to see me drop the weed-whacker and run into the house discarding clothing as I ran…lol.

I’m thankful it wasn’t worse, but three days later, my left ring finger is still swollen, throbbing, and stiff. I’m not complaining, really. I’m just ready for all these stings/bites to disappear already. I think I’ve paid enough penance for my good deed.

Anyway.

Yesterday, I spent the morning with a friend who is taking over the VBS Crafts spot that I vacated this year…lol. Vacation Bible School you know….not that I quit entirely, just doing a different task because my patience ran out with kids who don’t/won’t listen. But I’m not a completely horrible friend, because I did tell her I would totally help her shop and get all the stuff ready for it and all…she just gets to be the patient one and deal with the kids. Teehehe.

And last night I spent the night with some old gal pals (old as in long time, not old as in age…because they are the same age as me and I refuse to truly get old). Anyway, I came home this morning (at 12:45…lol). It was a fun night. And I have no further comment. ROFL!

Today the choir went to sing for Nanny (a seasoned sister at our church who has been unable to get out to church in quite a few weeks now). I didn’t take pictures while we were there, but as we were leaving, I snapped a couple from my van. Not great ones because it was totally spur of the moment and candid, but pictures. Bless her heart. She is one of the sweetest people I know! She was so glad to see us. I almost cried and that’s saying a lot. (And no, it wasn’t cuz my finger was hurting either. lol) Her knees are pretty much give out and she said her doctor said he can’t do anything else for her except surgery and even that is not likely to help at her age. She stays in a lot of pain with them, so if you can, remember her when you pray. I’m sure she’d appreciate it!

And my mom was awesome and came to my house and walked my dogs since we couldn’t get back home today because of the booked afternoon. My parents are great. (Love you guys! =)

And then some other stuff, no further comment there.

And then little guy lost his first tooth tonight! *boohoo* He’s growing up on me, too. First Munchkin and now K-man….*sigh*

He prayed at bedtime, the usual prayer with a ps. “oh and please help my tooth to grow back. Amen.”

LOL.

And then I got on facebook…and that’s all I’ll say about THAT.

My weekend in a nutshell. =)

And my finger is on fire, so I’m off to find something to cool it down again. Not complaining…stating facts.

So Much For…

2011-07-12T22:37:00.001-04:00

doing better in July. LOL. Oops.

I doubt it’s gonna get any better unfortunately. I have had the kids out at the pool for hours and when we’re not in the pool, I’m trying to keep up with housework and running around and laundry and gardening…yada yada. Not a lot of computer time.

And I’m running out of things to say. Never thought THAT would be possible, right? Need to find my writing mojo. *sigh*

I Love My Daddy

2011-07-02T23:40:00.001-04:00

He’s so awesome. He helped me play a great trick on KC this weekend! ROFL!

So remember my flooded basement fiasco? Well, it never got fixed because there was always something more pressing on the to-do list (even though my honey DID buy a new faucet, we just hadn’t got to it yet). ANYWAY. My dad came over to go swimming on Friday and I asked him if he would bring his plumbing stuff and help me fix that without mentioning it to KC. So I did exactly what he told me to do, and marched outside with that granddaddy of a wrench while he held the inside and we pulled it out and he put the new one in and glued it together and I screwed it back in on the outside wall…anyway, long story short, my sweet daddy fixed it….took us about 15 minutes. YIPPEEE. SOOO then, I put his toolbox in an inconspicuous location so that the honey wouldn’t notice when he came home.

Then we went swimming and when KC got home at lunch, I was pretty sure he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary because I had put everything back away. But just in case, I said, Dad looked at the busted pipe while he was here (lol, HE DID!) and said it would be an easy fix (which was totally true) but I just left out the part where it WAS an easy fix.

Bwahahahahaha.

Today, I got up and went to a yardsale in the neighborhood (totally unrelated tidbit of information except I got some really cute stuff for CHEAP and couldn’t resist mentioning it. hahah) and when I came back, the kids were still in bed, so I told KC I’d stay and he could go ahead and run to the hardware store for the part he needed for the pressure washer. So he leaves and I get the kids breakfast and all and then I back the van out into the driveway, hook up the hose to the front (ex-busted) faucet, and start washing the car and wait for KC to return.

Ya’ll know where this is going.

So KC gets home and gets out of the truck and is like, “hon, did you run that hose from all the way in back?” And of course, I’m trying to keep a straight face only I’m not sure I’m going to be believably successful at it, so I make this shocked “OH NO” face and drop the hose and take off running in the house like I’m going to check the basement. And the look on his face as I was running away….PRICELESS!

BWAHAHAHAHAAA…..

When he got down to the room that flooded last time, I’m standing in the middle of the room looking up at the ceiling…and I go…”Huh. It’s not leaking. OHHHHH THAT’S RIGHT….Me and dad fixed it!”

OHHHH he got mad (but he got over it…lol). I was dying laughing though! And then I called dad to tell him how our trick worked. It was so great. I wish I’d been able to video his reaction when I took off running like I’d forgotten that the faucet was broken. LOL!

I’m so bad.

It was great.

So now we have a working faucet and yes, I washed the car today. And a huge thank you to my sweet daddy for making the car washing possible. =) =)

Firecrackers

2011-06-30T22:23:00.001-04:00

I don’t remember when I last posted. That is bad. I am not getting any better at this. But I’m still posting…even if it’s sporadic, which is more than I can say for…ahem…well…anyway.

I’ll do better in July. =) I think I’m going to try this 30 day photo challenge and try to post more frequently that way…

anyway…it’s not like the usual photo hunt style, but just to keep me on my toes…=)

Like I need anything else to keep me on my toes. I feel like I’m hopping all the time…I really need to go back and see what I said last because I don’t remember. And I sure don’t want to repeat myself. That would be dreadful.

Oh yes, so Munchkin’s back from her week away. It ended up being a little over a week but who’s counting? LOL. It was so nice to see her scowling face again. LOL. Just kidding…she only scowls when I have a camera out.

(Kit: Love Is by Pixel Perfect Designs
Font: Pea Sadie by kevinandamanda.com)

My sisters (the ones I picked, because God didn’t give me any…lol) and I have been getting together once a week on Thursday afternoons and all our kids play (okay, we moms play, too, but we won’t go there…lol). ANYWAY. K-man has been paranoid of the deep end for weeks (even though he’s technically swimming now and can, within reason, stay afloat out there and get from one end to the other) and today the peer pressure got to him. The older kids just jump in and go, no floaties, nothing…so now that’s what he does. I had to actually get onto him for jumping in the deep end after I’d told him to stay out of the deep end unless he had a floatie on since all the adults were on the other side of the pool. I mean, he swam across and was fine, but I just worry about him panicking and running out of energy without someone nearby “just in case” since he’s a fairly new swimmer. But three weeks ago, I could barely convince him to get in the deep end WITH a float. LOL. Oh yeah…and that’s without swim lessons…that’s just me working with him every time we get in the pool. Teehehe.

Well anyway.

Today was lovely…sister therapy is great. Tomorrow my dad’s coming over and hanging out for a bit and then I’m not sure what we’re going to do tomorrow evening. I probably need to go grocery shopping…I have lots of food that the Munchkin and I like (you know…yummy stuff like rice and beans…lol) and not so much that the hubby and the K-man will eat. My life is so exciting. I should write notes to myself when I think of something I should blog about because the only things I remember when I come back and write later…well, they make my life sound so boring. Or maybe it is boring and I’m just now realizing it. ;-)

On that happy note…goodnight. =)

In Lieu…

2011-06-22T21:23:00.001-04:00

Of a post in which I tell about my busy (albeit probably boring to anyone else) life, how bout I just share this really cool sale:

And here’s a layout I made using Cara’s newest kit called Sweet Summertime…go go go…50% off is a GREAT DEAL!

(PS: Oops, I just realized this newest kit is not officially released until tomorrow…but since most of you won’t read this till tomorrow anyway, I’m going to go ahead and leave it up…lol. =)

Credits:
Template: All About Hope #1 by Lilly Lane Market
Kit: Sweet Summertime by Sweet Tomato Designs
Fonts: Mufferaw, Pea Stacy Doodle Script by kevinandamanda.com
Photo Action: Heartland by Pioneer Woman

And here’s a little tidbit from my busy (albeit boring) life: Swimming lessons for K-man were a dismal failure. He sat on the side of the pool or stood in the water the whole time and the “teachers” didn’t teach and the kid didn’t swim. I’m not sure who was more at fault but we’re not going back tomorrow. GRRRR. I had to control my temper today. I will teach the kid to swim myself in our own pool. FOR FREE. If I’d had swimming clothes on today, I would have jumped in the pool and started actually working with the group of kids myself so they could leave and actually be a little closer to learning how to swim. GAHHHH. Dear heavenly father…perhaps I shouldn’t talk about it…I’m getting het up again.

On a completely random note, the Munchkin is out of state for a week with Mawmaw and it’s very quiet here. Another completely random note: the K-man has gotten hooked on ol’ Tom and Jerry. I LOVE Tom and Jerry. WHY don’t they make cartoons like THAT anymore?

Another completely random tidbit: it’s past K-man’s bedtime so I need to go away now and put him to bed. =)

See ya’ll. =)

Ahh….

2011-06-19T22:39:00.001-04:00

CHOOO!

And that has been the story of my life for the last couple of days. Feels like my eyelids and sinuses are about three times larger than normal. It’s the strangest thing though…I walk by the mirror and they don’t LOOK like they’re three times larger than normal. LOL

I took one of those fizzy alkaseltzer cold and sinus packs last night around 10:30 and it knocked me OUT. KC woke me up this morning for church and I tried to get up. I did crawl out of bed long enough to look at the shower and moan and then go back to bed. LOL It was like I was in this horrible fog and my eyes wouldn’t stay open. I did keep them open long enough to get the dogs walked and the kids dressed and fed but as soon as KC left I went back to bed and slept til noon. And then I got up and showered in time to meet my dad for lunch for fathers day and came back home and went BACK to bed and slept til time to get up for church again. Most of the fuzziness in my brain was gone by then…I just don’t know how I could sleep that much and still be tired.

I really have no other news….it’s been busy but I haven’t felt like saying much lately…lol. Still don’t really, but I figured I’d better get on here and say something or else be guilty of falling into that slacker blogger category that seems to be taking over the blogosphere. haha. =)

Anyway…later. =)

Handyman Honey

2011-06-11T11:42:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday…we went looking for yards on sale (lol) and then when we got back, we had to work around the house for a little while before going to our afternoon of parties.

It was hot. It was especially hot for poor KC up on the roof up there. And I (standing on the deck underneath him waiting for him to need something and wringing my hands and worrying that he was going to fall off) was cooking but couldn’t complain because it was about 4 times hotter up on the roof and I wasn’t even doing anything strenuous like putting in an attic vent.

So then I climbed up on the roof to take a picture of him. I am so not a sissy…but I didn’t like it up there. We kinda have a tall house. But he did good…got it in and working like a charm. That’s my honey.

And oh…PW’s MM has nothin on my baby. ;-) WHEW! Be still, my heart!!!!! ;-)

Mmmmm hmmmmm! Okay…that’s it. That’s all I wanted to say. ;-)

A Night Late

2011-06-10T23:11:00.001-04:00

But better late than never, right? =) Here’s those pics of the K-man on the killer backdrop. Now I wish I had taken time and put clothes on us that were more appropriate for a photo shoot…haha. Please excuse his favorite Spiderman shirt and not really matching sweatpants…he was comfortable…even if the outfit didn’t really go with the backdrop. haha.

And mostly a good sport, too! =)

And here’s a random picture of him in the pool. Just for kicks. LOL. Don’t you love his pink pool floatie? Oh yeah…I photoshopped it…never mind. hahaha.

Anyway…we are brown indians now…yesterday was the only day we weren’t in the pool this week.

Yesterday I ran around in circles…felt like I was chasing my tail. Ever have those days? I cleaned up one thing and in the middle of it, saw something else and picked it up and took it to another room and saw something else to clean. So then I went to get the cleaner and remembered the laundry was still waiting to be put in the washer so I stopped to do that and then picked up the cleaner and couldn’t remember what I was heading to clean, so I put it away and then…………well, you get the picture. Basically everything you’re NOT supposed to do when you’re cleaning.

Today was better. I didn’t do anything except sleep in and then go to the pool. Except then the bus ran ten minutes early so I wasn’t up at the road waiting on it (not that I would have remembered anyways since I didn’t realize it was that close to school dismissal time…). But the good news is I was outside by the pool so I heard the brakes on the bus and quickly ran dripping up the hill to watch Munchkin walk home. LOL. So that wasn’t better. And ah, yes, and she didn’t stop talking all afternoon….oh boy, is it going to be a LONNNNG summer. Lord love her…*sigh* But ANYWAY!

Okeydokey…I’m going to bed now. Night. =)

Hey, hey!

2011-06-09T12:58:00.001-04:00

Look…I did it…I came back within a day. LOL! Laughed at some of the comments on the last post…yes, they do have that “senior pic” feel…we were playing with the posing on the backdrop to see if it would work well for those types of pictures. Unfortunately, I am more close to the wrinkled senior type now, than the fresh out of school senior…thank you, dear forehead squint lines…hahaha.

Anyway, here’s the ones I took and edited of my friend. Meet the Jules of Jules Photography: ;-)

This one is my favorite I think.

But this one looks really moody and I kinda like it even though she isn’t smiling. LOL!

I like this one, too though. What do you think, Jules…did I pick the ones you picked or did you like different ones?

Anyway. It was fun and I’m pretty sure the verdict on the new backdrop is: AWESOME! At least that’s MY verdict.

;-)

Maybe I’ll stay on this little roll, and come back later tonight with a few that I took of K-man while he was being our little sample model. haha.

Wow…

2011-06-08T22:38:00.001-04:00

Been a wild week for this chick. I’ve had a friend over every day so far for all kinds of things. Swimming, scrapbooking, playing with our cameras….and so on…which is LOTS of fun, but doesn’t equal much computer time (or cleaning house, but we won’t mention that part…lol). Tomorrow will be my catchup….

But tonight I was going through the pictures we were playing around and taking yesterday…here’s one of me and my monsters. Photography by Jules Photography and edited by yours truly. ;-)

And I seriously don’t know what Jules did here but this picture is crazy funky. LOL. I’m pretty sure she probably couldn’t get this exact picture ever again, because I’m sure if I had taken it, I would never be able to do it a second time either. LOL. I look kinda ghostly. This is me haunting my kids in the future. HAHA! JUST KIDDING.

We took lots of pictures of each other on her new backdrop and then K-man showed up and we stuck him on it and just snapped for awhile…haha…none of us were dressed for photos (oops-haha). Oh WELL. I’ll come back and post the ones I took when I get another chance. It was fun though, and her new backdrop is KILLER. I’m gonna have to get one of those, too! =)

Here’s a couple that she took of me that strangely enough, despite not being at all prepared for taking pictures of each other, I kinda liked. LOL. And not saying it was strange because it was her photography, just strange because I generally hate my picture. lol.

And this one was when we decided to get goofy….hahaha….yes…US…GOOFY! IMAGINE!! Haaaahahaha!

All the pics in this post were taken by Jules Photography and edited by me. =)

Next time: pictures OF Jules by ME. hahaha.

Gotta run…it’s getting late already. =(

BOO.

2011-06-04T21:40:00.001-04:00

I am NAUGHTY. In so many different ways…lol. Like how I haven’t blogged in….um…I’ve lost track.

And we will stop there with my naughty list. LOL.

I really want a Dr. Pepper. I might as well give in…you know…while I’m being so naughty. Except…I’m not in the mood to climb the stairs to get one.

Anyway, yes, I’ve been gone. I’ve been kinda, just a little bit….uh…busy. The pool guys finally came and installed our pool liner. We spent a week filling it up. I cleaned out a bunch of landscaping where the patio is going to eventually be. We’ve been swimming. Munchkin has only a week of school left. I decided to rearrange rooms and of course, it would be too easy to swap rooms on the same level, it is way more fun to climb two flights of stairs with the contents of each room. I’m a third finished. The one third being the contents of one room is moved up two flights. The second third is painting the two rooms, and the third third (lol) is moving the other room down the two flights. Who needs a gym and stairstepper? LOL. My garden grew wayyyyy out of its box and I can’t figure out how to make it stop growing already and just start producing some FRUIT! We cleaned all the bushes growing through the fence around the pool…that was a job. Went to Winston for a friend’s high school graduation. Birthday party and graduation reception today, and installed a roof vent/fan to try to lower the electric cost of this house (well, actually, KC installed it…I just stood on the deck and wrung my hands and prayed he wouldn’t slide off…being that we have a three story house and he was on top of it, it would have been ugly). I could SO keep going. Summer is in with a BANG.

Oh yes, and I joined another creative team…probably shouldn’t have, but it was irresistible…Sweet Digi Scraps has some really funky kits that are just my flavor. Here’s one I did with her new kit that released today:

Kit: Taste of Summer
Font: frazzled

Sooooo. Anyway. Just a little bit of why I haven’t blogged in awhile. I’ll try to do better, but I make no promises. That way I won’t be naughty (again) and break them. ;-) lol

Goodnight.

It’s…..

2011-05-25T21:59:00.001-04:00

Bambi and…Thumper?

They were in my backyard the other day. I went downstairs to walk the puppies the other morning and looked out the big window, there was this girl and then a couple seconds later, hippity hop hopping across the yard, comes little bunny and stopped right behind bambi there to eat grass.

They stayed there forever so I went to get my camera and when I stepped out the door they heard K-man hollering and got that deer in the headlights look and then turned and moseyed back into the woods….and then I realized….bambi and thumper had another friend…see that other one over there on the left?

K-man was all ecstatic about the deer in the backyard. Let’s call daddy and tell him about the deer! And the rabbit, let’s call him, please, let me call him! HAH.

So when Daddy called at lunchtime, K-man was falling all over himself to answer the phone and tell daddy all about it. LOL!

Totally made his morning!

Newsy News

2011-05-20T19:49:00.001-04:00

WELL. For starters, I am back before another weekend passes. HA!

Secondly, I have more pictures from last weekend. I didn’t forget! LOL.

I did a speed scrap last night and put a few of the pics from last weekend’s trip on it…

Turned out pretty neat, I think…I used Raspberry Limeade by Sweet Tomato Designs and speaking of Sweet Tomato Designs, she’s got some news for you….

Check her blog for more details. Awesome deal if you catch it tomorrow and Sunday!

And that’s it. Yep. That’ll do it. Savvy? LOL

Guess What Day It Is…

2011-05-17T13:11:00.001-04:00

Not Wednesday, but in case you didn’t notice, Wednesday is almost here—aGAIN!! As K-man so stated the other day, “Dear Heavenly FATH-er!” LOL. And that’s what I did, too…to which he replied, “I told you to stop laughing at me! Don’t do it a-GAIN!” (He likes to accent random parts of the words.)

ANYWAY! May is over half gone and I’ve blogged twice. Is that awful or what?!

I actually have a good reason this week…we went to Ohio last Thursday through Sunday and I didn’t take my computer so no internet access to speak of…and then yesterday was unpacking and laundry a-GAIN! LOL.

This morning was errands and running around…needed an oil change, well-check for the K-man, yada yada, so I need to get busy on the house now but wanted to check in before it got to be another hump day and then another downhill slide from there….*grin*

Here’s a little bit of our trip (with some of my old memories thrown in) and I’ll try to get more of the trip posted before the weekend. =)

Layout credits:
Template: Cut It Out by Tree City Studios
Kit: In This Moment by Tree City Studios
Fonts: Times New Yorker, Pea Hart by kevinandamanda.com
Journaling:
Our family of four went to Ohio last weekend and the first night there, we stayed with my childhood best friend and her family of five. We had a great visit (as always) and then it was time to put our three girls and two boys to bed. When we tucked the three girls into her girls' bed, I had almost instant flashbacks.

That was totally us! Her mom had two girls and a boy, my mom had a girl and a boy. I was pretty close in age to my best friend and her sister was younger but we all did everything together. I remember sleeping in the middle of the two of them MANY times. We stayed up for hours past our bedtime, giggling and talking, long after everyone else was in bed. And eventually, we'd fall asleep. And then we'd wake up the next morning to go find more trouble to get into.

As I walked past their door to get something from the room that KC and I were staying in, I looked in and saw them trying to stay quiet while they were trying not to break the staying in bed rule by doing all kinds of gymnastics and hanging onto each others legs to pick up something off the floor without getting out of bed, I couldn't get mad. Even though it was midnight and all of them should have been asleep hours before, I just couldn't get mad. I shushed them just like our moms did to us, and then I smiled, waited for them to finally fall asleep, and then ran to get my camera -- and my ol' pal, who came in and told me to climb up on the bookshelf to get the best shot... just like old times!

5 / 12 / 2011

And Again…

2011-05-10T16:14:00.001-04:00

I blinked and it’s almost Wednesday again. *googly eyes*

So we went camping with some folks from church over the weekend…it was supposed to be the “big church camping trip” that we do every year, but because we’ve had to postpone it so many times, we just figured it would be what it would be and whoever could make it would make it. So it was just three families. I wasn’t mad about it. LOL…especially since it was three families that I don’t have to have distance from in order to love them….ROFL. Sorry…I know, I’m bad.

Anyway, the site we ended up with was absolutely picturesque and I got a ton of good shots…other than freezing our stinkin tails off on Friday night, it was pretty fun! LOL…Saturday night we wised up and stayed all day but then packed up at 8:30 and came home to our beds to sleep. 34 degrees on Friday night. And all I had were some comforters and blankets. The DOGS were shivering. It was SO cold.

KC got up at 2am and went to Wally World to get one of those little heater fan things and plugged it into the extension cord and stuck it in the door to the the tent. It didn’t make it comfortable by any means, but it did take a little of the shivering away. LOL. When you’re dead tired and you can’t sleep because you’re so cold…it’s cold. LOL.

But the rest of the trip was pretty fun…we tried to show the kids how to fish…let’s just say I could have guessed they wouldn’t have the patience for it. I don’t have the patience for it and chicken liver is nasty. LOL. K-man had much more fun walking around with his “fishing stick” and catching leaves. Oh well. He pretty much had a stick in his hand the entire weekend…it was a gun, a sword, a light saber, a fishing pole, and who knows what else. He can definitely occupy himself, that’s for sure!

We took our bikes but K-man’s had a dead tire so his was out of commission all weekend. Munchkin rode around with the other little girl that was there, and KC and I only rode our bikes when it was time to go to the shower house. LOL. There was this bike trail but I didn’t feel like trying to get the kids on it…even though it looked like fun. Some things you’re just limited on when you have kids…

It looked cool going across the meadow though, so I DID take a picture…lol.

Here are a couple of other ones:

Then there’s another one of K-man with his never ending supply of sticks:

This one was just too sweet to pass up….K-man and KC sitting next to each other…awwww….

And then this next one, I thought was BK and TV when I snapped it and then last night when I was editing it, I realized it wasn’t. LOL. Still sweet though. I won’t say who it is.

This is funny though: see the three kids?

They’re walking up this hill: See those three dots in the middle of the hill in that area of grass that is a little darker green? LOL. This was a LONNNNNNGGG hill.

And then this was the campfire before we left on Saturday night. We did s’mores…and some campfire pies in the grilled cheese makers. =) Yum.

I am just now getting all the laundry and cleaning up done from this trip. How is it that camping is supposed to be relaxing and is really just a TON of work? Haha. Oh well. =)

Anyway…I’ve got to get moving. I might be back before next Wednesday….haha.

Good Night

2011-05-04T22:32:00.001-04:00

I just posted…how is it that it’s been like five days already? And it’s not like I’ve been that busy for the last few days either…for a change. Haha.

I have actually had some kinda lazy days for the last couple days…haven’t done much besides hang around the house and do laundry (hello, time to save some gas) and would you believe I’m still tired? I take vitamins (half the time). KC says maybe I should start exercising…I probably could go down and walk on the treadmill for awhile…but I’m never ever ever ever ever…did I say EVER? in the mood….lol. Perhaps that’s my problem. Anyway.

I have lots of problems. Most of them human. And when it’s not the human in ME, it’s the human in the people around me. Sometimes both.

Something that has been on my mind lately is that people get offended way too easily. Offense can mean several different things but the definition I’m thinking of means the state of being insulted or morally outraged. And to offend, by definition, to cause to feel vexation or resentment usually by violation of what is proper or fitting.

I think the issue falls in that people are insulted or morally outraged by their definition of a violation of what is proper or fitting. In some senses, I get offended easily. If I know someone is flat out lying to me, with the intent to mislead, that’s rather offensive. But I think the difference is, in most cases, the things people are getting insulted over are just THEIR OPINION of what is a violation of morals.

Oooh, person X was in place Y the other day and I’m SO OFFENDED by that…that couldn’t possibly be something a TRUE Christian would do…I’m going to tell them how much their actions offended me. Or…person Z wore a shirt that was SO low I could see her collarbone….I am SOO offended. Or…person A said such and such and I think he REALLY meant this and this and we need to have a meeting so we can work this out. Or even, person B does this activity that I totally disagree with so I’m not going to say anything but I’m not going to be friends with them anymore….

I wish I were exaggerating but people really do get their knickers in a knot over their own convictions of moral truth.

So you don’t do X, Y, or Z…that’s perfectly fine.

I just don’t see the point in taking everyone to task over every little thing that you don’t agree with that you decide offends you. All that does is make people feel like they have to walk on eggshells around you or face (yet another) meeting or discussion. Garruhmph. THAT bothers me. I hate feeling like I have to walk on eggshells…consequently I have some people that I avoid like the plague. KC calls them EGRs (extra grace required)…I try not to call them anything at all because I like to stay out of calling range. That probably offends them, too. LOL. It’s kind of funny, but I guess you could say that I get offended by people who get over-offended. Teeehehe. LOL. I love everybody, it’s just that some of those bodies, I have to love from a distance. For the safety and well-being of everyone involved…lol =) Is that bad? If it is, just pray for me, okay?

Here, let’s change the subject before I offend someone…lol…look at these cute kids….can’t get offended over that, right?

This is that kit I mentioned in my last post…the one that goes along with my new theme. Raspberry Limeade…mmmm…makes me thirsty! Such a yummy kit!

And cute kids…did I mention they were cute? Even when they’re being difficult on camera. LOL! Munchkin has this thing anymore where she puts on this weird pouty/grouchy face like she’s trying to be a grownup or something…ugh…see what I mean?!

And K-man…well, he likes to smile with his eyes shut. And then as soon as you snap the picture, his eyes fly open, “lemme see the picture, momma!” “SURE, buddy, but how bout you keep your eyes open so you can SEE the picture from that side of the lens?!” LOL!

ANYWAY….that was how the page got its title: the elusive…Perfect Picture. LOL!

And I think I’m going to call it a night now. PS for anyone who wonders, NO, nothing happened, I’ve not been called into any meetings lately, I haven’t offended anyone lately (that I know of)….just been thinking about it. LOL.

Am I Coming…

2011-04-30T23:25:00.002-04:00

Or going? I’ve SOOOO lost track.

Shooo. This is going to be so random.

I updated my blog tonight. I uploaded a new header and then remember that the kit I’m using hasn’t been released yet. POOOH. So the colors down here? Are a sneak peek of my summer look…it’s from a new kit that is named after a popular summer refreshment and I lurve it! I will upload the new header on May 4th. Basically, it’s the same header with new colors. Don’t you love how I didn’t leave you in suspense at all? Yeah. Okay. **EDITED TO ADD: woohoo...Cara gave me permission to post my header a little early!! Love this kit, it's called Raspberry Limeade and if you are like me and have no patience, shhhhh, don't tell anyone, but...here's a link and you can grab it before it's officially released.**

I saw a random line in one of those forward things that someone had posted on their blog awhile back and it is now my favorite all time facebook status. And oh, is it SO true!? “Don't get your knickers in a knot; it solves nothing and makes you walk funny.” Seems like there’s a lot of people walking funny these days. Sometimes I think I offend people just by my mere existence. Doesn’t anyone have anything better to do than look for things to be offended over? Boy, howdy, I sure do!

I saw another line of that same forward that said something along the lines of a woman’s greatest fear is that there is no such thing as PMS and this IS my personality….lol…I laugh, but oh my. Today I just got up on the WRONG side of the bed, Munchkin got up way too early and in the process woke ME up and then she was just downright annoying. (Although, I don’t blame her, EVERYONE is downright annoying when I have to get up early…bwahaha). And then of course, NOTHING went right…I had planned to Munchkin’s little family birthday at five-thirty today (it’s her off year, so just small party), but then they scheduled revival at church so I had to move it back to 4. Then last night they announced that service had moved back to six, so I had to move it again, and in order to get done in time, we had to move the venue, which meant a whole change of menu as well, which meant another shopping trip….and then the stupid cupcake dogs which were supposed to look like this:

WELL. Let’s just say they looked NOTHING like that. They resembled something more like the head of THIS dog: (only without the nose and mouth…yep…just a white mound)

And my husband --- God bless his heart – laughed. Did I mention something about early mornings, changing plans, and PMS? I think I may have. I think I may have gotten grouchy. I also may have eaten the rest of the icing meant for the cupcake ~~puppies~~ flops (such a healthy breakfast) and then told my hubby that he could add a store bought cake to the new menu. I mean, why not…the rest of it changed…old things are passed away, behold ALLLLLLLL things………………………

I am way too tired…I’m getting goofy.

Okay. Goof-IER!

Anyway. It made my day when we got to the new venue for the little party and I’m in the middle of hanging a few streamers and balloons when my hubby comes back from his cake buying run and announces to me that he’s apparently decided to start a new fashion trend.

And we’re half an hour away from home, so he can’t just run back to the house to get matching shoes, so he has to wear them for the rest of the evening….and church (BWAHAHA). I was just glad I wasn’t the ONLY one having a day like that…AND I was glad that I could return the favor of laughing at his “icing on the cake” moment. ROFL!

Well…all I can say is we made it through the day. Alive.

What a relief!

You Know

2011-04-27T21:57:00.001-04:00

When you get behind in updating, it’s difficult to figure out where to pick up again. LOL

I don’t even know where to start. The beginning doesn’t work in this case because I don’t know where the beginning is. Haha. I guess I’ll just pretend I never got behind and keep on going from here. Teehee….

I don’t remember what all I blogged about last week…I’m pretty sure it wasn’t much, since my hands were full with our visitor. She was a good kid but my kids just seem to forget all the rules when we have company, therefore they all needed constant supervision all week, which didn’t leave very much time for blogging. Haha. My kids are usually pretty good when it’s just them, and while they do occasionally do stupid things (hello, markers are for paper, not your expensive white bunkbed!) while my back is turned, for the most part, I don’t have to watch them every second. LOL. And I know…we all do stupid every now and then…it’s called being human. Anyway, that was last week…

Then my parents found a house and moved, so I’ve been running up there in my spare time to help them unload and unpack….and clean….lol. Turn-about’s fair play, I think the saying goes…they helped us clean and unload and unpack last year. Haha.

Sunday was Easter (image is clickable for credits). We went up to the in-laws for lunch and left the kids there for a few days. The Munchkin has spring break this week. Seems awfully late for spring break but anyway!

Before we left the kids, I hid their Easter Eggs and let them go on a hunt around Mawmaw’s yard to find them. Unfortunately, it was a little too warm outside and most of the chocolate in the eggs did not survive. Oops. Oh well…that’s one way to ensure that they don’t get too much candy. HAH! Oh, and this just goes to show how forgetful I am, I hid them, and five minutes later went around with them to watch them find the eggs and we didn’t find all of them. LOL! I hide things from myself all the time. ROFL!

Anyways, they were excited about staying for a few days but Monday morning when I got up and started doing my daily chores, I was so lonely. LOL…the house was wayyyy too quiet. I’m used to Munchkin being at school, but K-man is always helping me with chores and hanging out around the house so I didn’t know what to do with myself. Usually when KC’s parents keep the kids, it’s because something is going on, and I’m either not home or too busy to think about it, but this time I was actually ready for them to come home. Haha!

Let’s see…my shoulder is crippling me again. The last two nights, I’ve woke up and not even been able to move my arm until after a super hot shower and Excedrin Back&Body. LOL. I’m not complaining, honestly, it makes changing clothes a little challenging, but I’d rather have a bum shoulder than a lot of other ailments.

Well…I think that’s good enough for now…if I think of anything later, I will probably forget about it before I blog again. haha.

Okay…off for now. =)

Still Alive

2011-04-25T22:08:00.001-04:00

I am…and I know….I just dropped off the planet last week but it was kind of a crazy week. We all survived but I’m still trying to get back on top of things.

What am I saying? I’ve been trying to get back on top of things for at least 5 years now. lol.

Well, I’m still working on it. I’ll update more if I get a chance.

One Step At A Time

2011-04-15T22:25:00.001-04:00

I’m climbing my mountain….one step at a time.

Whew. What a day…week…whatever. In response to the offline response I got to my last blog post…I’m fine. I don’t know who reads this anymore plus I’ve already dealt with situation and had to be cryptic to protect the….innocent(?!)…and anyway, I just needed to let off a little steam because I was aggravated (about more than one thing…it just piled up fast…lol)

Is what it is…love me, hate me, whatever…just get a life and don’t be messing with mine. With all due respect, I have enough drama of my own…don’t need anymore.

And that’s quite enough of that topic. LOL.

Speaking of drama in my own life…we got a kid#3 tonight (just for a week though…it’s a respite for another foster parent who’s out of town) and she’s fine but munchkin is going ballistic with her behavior. The new kid is a year older than munchkin and munchkin (as I expected) wants to show off how “cool” she can be and is being her snarky, bouncing off the walls, refusing to listen, self. Despite the fact that she got a talking to before the new kid ever showed up about that very attitude. *sigh* Munchkin is just a case…the other foster mom said that this kid can be a little bossy with other kids so hopefully she will adjust fast and give Munchkin a little of her own medicine. lol. It’s just for a week though….we can make it for a week. =) And neither of them have sisters so it’s nice for them to have someone to play with for a change.

Today was busy…K-man had the last homeschool co-op day, so we went to that, then we came back and met up with mom and dad for a little bit, and then got a phone call that the new kid was going to be dropped off earlier than expected, so had to work out suitable arrangements for that. Got home and everybody got situated, then I put my plants into the raised bed that KC and I built outside the basement over the last few days (yayyyyy…love it! I’ll take pictures at some point…promise….my baby did a good job!) Then I made the dogs go down to the potty spot and while they were trying to find the perfect spot, I clipped a few briars back with the clippers. (Please dear God don’t let me have clipped any poison ivy….I can’t take another round of that stuff). By that time, KC had returned with pizza and then we chilled in the basement for the rest of the evening.

WHEW.

One step at a time….

Tomorrow shows no top of the mountain in sight…just another day of climbing….

So I’m off to get some rest…but before I go….here’s some of the pages I’ve done lately:

Remember that kit that I used in March that I said got reworked because the other designers quit designing? Well, here it is in the new kit. It’s called Front Page and it’s a killer kit!

Credits:
Kit: Front Page by Sweet Tomato Designs
Font: Pea Sarahloo and Markus the Cow by http://kevinandamanda.com
Scraplift of "Daughter" by Kimberly (gypsyk)

And here’s a layout of our resident Drama Queen…this one was back in the day…but still full of drama…haha.

Credits:
Kit: City Glam by BeanBunny Designs
Font: Pupcat

And finally, here’s random pictures…the last month or so…iTouch pictures…very random and not so hot on the quality end of things but anyways…..

Credits:
Kit: Beautiful Life by Pixel Perfect Designs
Fonts: Pea Sadie by http://kevinandamanda.com & Conrad Veidt

Good Gravy…

2011-04-13T22:31:00.001-04:00

Can’t say anything.

I hate that.

People do too much majoring in the minors and minoring in the majors.

Get a grip, get a life, and get over it.

And now I’m going to take a deep breath and get over it myself. I have better things to think about.

Philippians 4:8, you know.

Tired Eyes

2011-04-10T22:44:00.001-04:00

Another Sunday with no nap. *sigh* I got up way early this morning, too. *wincing*

Not complaining, mind you….just stating facts.

Fact: I need a couple dozen aspirin and a pillow and I will be one happy camper.

Of course, I won’t take the couple dozen aspirin all at one time or I would be one DEAD camper.

That’s a fact, too.

Oh my….or as TB says at church…My Lord! rofl…

Today was a little rough. BK preached on longsuffering. I could use a little work on my longsuffering…then again, I didn’t choke anyone today, so evidently I must possess at least a portion. I did momentarily envision my hands around someone’s neck at one point, so it may be a SMALL portion, but I’m working on it. LOL. And don’t even tell me you have never had any of those little moments where you can just imagine someone as a bug that you could flick away because they’re making you batty. Next time you’re behind a car going 20 in a 45, you just tell me you don’t wish you could flick your fingers and zap them out of your way. Now of course, you can’t do that…it’s a bad idea for many reasons, logistically, for one, AND because it obviously wouldn’t be very Christ-like, for another…but don’t TELL me you’ve never thought it (or something similar…lol)!

I don’t feel very coherent right now. Probably because I’m tired. Lucky for me, I hear that blogging is a thing of the past, and no one reads these things anymore, so for all five of you that are left, just ignore everything I said tonight and perhaps tomorrow I will make more sense.

….or not.

Okay….my suffering self is going to bed. That’s fact, not complaint.

Goodnight.

Today

2011-04-09T22:12:00.001-04:00

Well, there was a blue moon today. I didn’t see it, but I know that some things only happen once in a blue moon, and one of those things happened today, so it MUST have been a blue moon.

Yeah…you’re totally wondering what happened, right? (well, unless you read it on facebook already…lol).

Anyway, we shampooed carpets today. Whew. ALL day.

First off, I started the morning with a shower BRIGHT AND EARLY. Do you know how much I dislike bright and early Saturdays? The things one does for the people they love. Shoo…lol.

Then after getting the kids and dogs taken care of, I took the kids and left the dogs and hit a couple yard sales on the way to the store to rent the shampooer.

Wouldn’t you know that I left half my brain in bed this morning and was halfway to mom’s house before I realized I forgot to stop at the store to pick up the shampooer. Durrr…

So I turned around and went back to the store and THEN headed to mom’s to help her shampoo her carpets. Her house is smaller than mine, so it didn’t take too awful long, then I headed for home to do mine. Wouldn’t ya know, I forgot that half my brain was still in bed at home and totally left the vacuum attachments at mom’s. Halfway home and had to turn around again and go back to mom’s to get the attachments. I’m a genius like that.

Finally got home and start to help KC shampoo the vehicle carpets and realize that the stinkin’ attachments don’t even work. GRRR. So it was just the floor mats and then the house that got the scrub treatment.

Bless my hubby, he did most of the shampooing here, I just kept him refilled and vacuumed and spot cleaned ahead of him. And we were both exhausted (our house is so tiny, you know, I can’t imagine why we would be so tired), so we called it a night after getting our room and the kids rooms and upstairs hallway and two small high traffic/stained areas in the basement.

Now to just get the house put back together again.

And tomorrow morning we have to return the shampooer before church…which means getting up even earlier than USUAL for a Sunday morning….I’m so ecstatic! ;-)

(and Mom, I’m really not complaining…I totally owe ya for all the times you’ve helped me, so I’m happy to return a few favors, even if I have to get up early to do it. lol…LOVE YA!)

It’s 10 o’clock, and I’m going to bed now. =)

Nighty night…=)

Day 28-31–March 2011

2011-04-07T22:49:00.001-04:00

Well, I know the last few days of March are late….I was holding off because Focus got a change up. Apparently two of the designers aren’t designing anymore so it got pulled. But the good news is that Sweet Tomato Designs IS still designing, so she pulled her part and created a new kit with it. It’s not released yet, so I can’t give anymore info but it’s got a lot of the same things in it that it had before but with some new fun elements. =) Yay. I still have to do a title page for this little mini album, but I’ll wait a few days for that.

In other news, I really haven’t fallen off the blog-wagon, I’ve just been busy and pre-occupied. The last of March got crazy busy and this month seems to have continued the trend.

Thursday Thirteen:

Thirteen Good Things: (Philippians 4:8 – the mantra around our house lately thanks to some parenting frustrations that seem to be getting ever worse…but I won’t go there because there’s NO virtue in that and we’re really trying to think on the good things…lol)

Our electric bill this month is the lowest bill we’ve ever had in this house. It’s the first time I’ve ever gotten a bill and ran cheering into the house waving it around like I’d won the lottery!
I got to go to Sister’s Night Out this week…it was SO nice to get away from certain parenting frustrations for a night.
The hubby watched the kids for me to get out. He even got them in bed on time. I have a great hubby.
The dogs haven’t ran out of the fence anymore. Hope I didn’t just jinx it. haha. But I don’t have to walk them anymore, so my shoulder is feeling a little better. I still have to walk them down to the p**p spot but I don’t have to have them on leashes…yay.
My hubby finally talked me into getting recliners for the basement. I dragged my feet because of the price and we had perfectly fine seats already, but now that these recliners are here, I totally concur…they are way more comfortable for sitting/sleeping in…*shhh* don’t tell him I said that.
I helped him carry the old couches upstairs and move the new HEAVY recliners into the basement and my shoulder seems only minimally worse for wear…(I know mother{s}, I shouldn’t be lifting heavy things…don’t call and yell at me…I know, I know…lol)
The girl who lived with us last summer finally posted on her facebook again, I was wondering if she was still okay, so it’s nice to know she’s still there and okay.
This year will make ten years that I’ve been a married chick. That’s a good thing. It makes me feel old, though, and that’s definitely NOT. (although it’s better than the alternative….lol).
K-man had his kindergarten assessment last week. I’m disappointed because they don’t consider it an option to put him in first grade even though he’s way ahead, he’s going to have to repeat K, but my good thought is that my homeschooled (and therefore supposedly antisocial) child was one of the only children in the assessment group who was not the least bit shy in talking to the adults or other kids. HA. Take that, my anti-homeschool hubby…lol….LOVE YOU! lol!
I got my iTunes moved from the kids computer over to my computer…it’s complicated to transfer a synced iPod to a different computer, but I figured it out without KC…go self! lol.
Munchkin made me laugh this week when she was doing her homework. I posted it on facebook, but for ya’ll who don’t see that, here’s what I posted:
    ”I’m listening to homework assignments. Munchkin
     is reading nonfiction about the worker bees. They are
     all female and they collect all the food, make the
     honey, feed the drones (which are males), etc. And
     according to the book the drones only have to mate
     with the queen bee(?!?). So what does Munchkin
     say? That's not fair!! Why do girls have to do ALL the
     work? I said not a word. NOT. A. WORD. Rofl!!”
I survived youth camp a few weeks ago. Thank God for maturity…I wouldn’t want to relive the youth camps as a youth ever again. With age DOES come some wisdom…even though some things NEVER EVER change, I’m so glad I can deal with it better than I used to…lol.
It’s bedtime. I have been on the move so much lately that I haven’t had any chances to catch any extra Z’s so I am zonked. lol. that’s probably a good thing. LOL. Night!

Day 25-27–March 2011

2011-03-28T22:35:00.001-04:00

Kit: Focus Collab by Sweet Tomato Designs, Heather Hess, & Pagefrocks

Font: My own handwriting

Day 23-24–March 2011

2011-03-24T22:19:00.001-04:00

Kit: Focus Collab by Sweet Tomato Designs, Heather Hess, & Pagefrocks

Font: My own handwriting

Day 20-22–March 2011

2011-03-22T22:09:00.001-04:00

Kit: Focus Collab by Sweet Tomato Designs, Heather Hess, & Pagefrocks

Font: My own handwriting

Day 19–March 2011

2011-03-19T22:33:00.001-04:00

Kit: Focus Collab by Sweet Tomato Designs, Heather Hess, & Pagefrocks

Font: My own handwriting

Oh and I am loving these two pictures I took today….I’ve been playing with overlays and textures on photos and it’s really fun.

Credits:
overlays and word art: house of 3
frame in first photo: hmanning

Anyway….I had more journaling than I had room on the layout for today…lol….wow. =) And I’m whooped…we’ve been working our tails off in the backyard. So I’m going to bed now.

Day 17-18–March 2011

2011-03-18T22:41:00.001-04:00

Kit: Focus Collab by Sweet Tomato Designs, Heather Hess, & Pagefrocks

Font: My own handwriting

Day 15-16–March 2011

2011-03-16T23:13:00.001-04:00

Kit: Focus Collab by Sweet Tomato Designs, Heather Hess, & Pagefrocks

Font: My own handwriting

Day 14–March 2011

2011-03-14T22:17:00.001-04:00

Kit: Focus Collab by Sweet Tomato Designs, Heather Hess, & Pagefrocks

Font: My own handwriting

Day 13–March 2011

2011-03-13T23:34:00.001-04:00

Kit: Focus Collab by Sweet Tomato Designs, Heather Hess, & Pagefrocks

Font: My own handwriting

Day 12–March 2011

2011-03-12T21:40:00.001-05:00

Kit: Focus Collab by Sweet Tomato Designs, Heather Hess, & Pagefrocks

Font: My own handwriting

Day 11–March 2011

2011-03-11T22:30:00.001-05:00

Kit: Focus Collab by Sweet Tomato Designs, Heather Hess, & Pagefrocks

Font: My own handwriting

Day 10–March 2011

2011-03-11T21:50:00.001-05:00

Kit: Focus Collab by Sweet Tomato Designs, Heather Hess, & Pagefrocks

Font: My own handwriting