Well this is my Day 4 entry. It started out as this pretty layout yada yada. But as the journaling came it slowly morphed into this. In the end I kept just scribbling over it and undoing it. Then scribbling over it again. The first two days I felt so confident and happy about it all. But then here I sit feeling no hope. Sometimes I never feel like I will let God make me into He wants me to be. Will I ever be on fire for the Lord again? Wil I ever find victory over depression, laziness, jealousy, and downright horrible actions and heart? Right now I just feel it is all hopeless. But the whole point of this is to just keep on keepin on. It is to just keep reading His Word, to keep praying and to let Him heal me. I just want to pull myself up by my boot straps and change all this. But I fail again and again. Why is it so hard to just take my Jesus at His Word? To just have faith? I need Him. Off to read and pray and hope that tomorrow brings another and better day.

An evening Entry.

So went to the store today. There was a long thread on another board I am on about food budgets and making menus and whatnot. So today was store day. I spent a couple hours putting together my menu for 2 weeks (turns out I did so great at the store I expanded it to 3 weeks when I got home). I bought 95% of everything at the store, so it isn't like I had lots on hand. Actually I have only gone to the store twice in the last 2 months so I was almost out of a lot of bulk stuff. I really need to find a good co-op here in CA so I can buy 6-12 months of bulk stuff at a time. Anyways.. so I spent $270. This included, things like 25+lbs of apples, 15 lbs oranges, LOTS of bananas, veggies, salad stuff, 25 lbs wheat for bread and pancakes, etc. the stuff to make 20 gallons of laundry soap, toilet paper, coffee, all the meat, well EVERYTHING needed to make all those meals on the menu, special things like lots of yogurt for Clay, things to make TONS of cookies and a huge cake, salami, cheese, sour cream, etc. Not just bare bones type food. So all I need is one more week's worth of stuff ( and I will probably try and stretch the food to last through that week lol) So in the end, with diapers, etc. my whole month is probably $320. Yay!! That rocks! We will get our debts paid off in no time! Well.. if Clay will sit and work out the budget with me :)

Menu - March 30th-April 12th

Thursday
Breakfast -
Lunch -
Dinner - Frescetta Sauce Stuffed Crust Pizza (2 for $5!!)
Friday
Breakfast - oatmeal
Lunch - Fried Rice/leftover chicken
Dinner - Chinese Chicken Salad
Saturday
Breakfast - Eggs and Toast
Lunch - Leftover Chicken Salad
Dinner - potato pancakes with eggs
Sunday
Breakfast - Pancakes
Lunch - leftover pancakes and eggs
Dinner - Split pea soup with biscuits
Monday
Breakfast - Oatmeal
Lunch - Leftover pea soup
Dinner - homemade ww pizza
Tuesday
Breakfast - Oatmeal cakes
Lunch - leftover pizza and soup
Dinner -falafels with hummus
Wednesday
Breakfast - Scrambled eggs
Lunch - leftover falafels and hummus
Dinner - black bean burritos
Thursday
Breakfast - Oatmeal
Lunch - whatever leftovers we have from all dinners
Dinner - Corncakes with black beans
Friday
Breakfast - Oatmeal Cakes
Lunch - leftover beans and corncakes
Dinner - quiche with bacon
Saturday
Breakfast - Eggs and Toast
Lunch - quiche or whatnot
Dinner - roasted chicken breasts with veggies
Sunday
Breakfast - Pancakes
Lunch - baked potatoes
Dinner - Wildcard
Monday
Breakfast - Oatmeal
Lunch - rice
Dinner - Pasta with meat sauce
Tuesday
Breakfast - Oatmeal Cakes
Lunch - leftover pasta
Dinner - Lentils and bread
Wednesday - store day
Breakfast - egg burritos
Lunch - fun lunch out!
Dinner - cornbeef and cabbage
Thursday
Breakfast - Oatmeal
Lunch - whatever leftovers we have from all dinners
Dinner - Passover Meal!!!***!!!
Friday
Breakfast - Oatmeal Cakes
Lunch - beans and butter
Dinner - taco pasta
Saturday
Breakfast - Eggs and Toast
Lunch - Taco Pasta
Dinner - Chili and Cornbread
Sunday
Breakfast - Pancakes
Lunch - Chili and Cornbread
Dinner - Meat and Potatoes
Monday
Breakfast - Oatmeal
Lunch - Baked Potatoes
Dinner - WW Calzones
Tuesday
Breakfast - Oatmeal Cakes
Lunch - Calzones or potatoes
Dinner - Pasta and red wine sauce
Wednesday - store day
Breakfast - egg burritos
Lunch - fun lunch out!
Dinner - Pizza

Man! Look at some of these FAB layouts from my new CT members!!!!!!!
















I am the luckiest designer out there right now!! Okay off to put away some groceries for now then will blog more later :):)

Well... this is my Day 2 entry for Rhonna's Challenge. I feel so fruitless. I feel like if you look at me and my life you will see nothing but bad fruit. So I started the challenge. I read for a few before bed last night and prayed and sat in that still silence in which God speaks. So many times I have started over, and so many times I started reading in Psalms or in Matthew. I have read Psalm 1 000s of times. And here I am reading it and having it come to life. Funny how you can look at the same thing everyday and not really see it. I want to have my life be a tree planted by streams of water, yielding my good fruit in due season. I want my life to prosper. Thanks Rhonna for challenging me to change my life. It has begun. It's too late. Too too late.



Good night and Good Luck. I'll blog a little tomorrow.

Okay 2 minute post. So CK is doing this huge Scrapbooker of the year contest. Contributing Editors and past and present HOFers can enter. Am I the only one discouraged that there is NO WAY for a normal person to even think of winning this? Oy. Okay Super negative post over lol! Back to cleaning with some fun music on. Hooray!!!

The official rules are here RULES

Oh real quick. Look at this FAB patch that Melany made me!!! She rocks! isn't it just awesome??!!! I am brainstorming what to do with it. She said the colors came from a kit she is making so... might have to wait til it comes out :) And make a layout with it. Just a big shout out to Melany. GO check out her store http://www.simplycleandigiscraps.com/. Thanks Mel!

Schtuff

A quick little entry to throw out this layout I did of my sweet hubby the other day. He's so handsome and funny! He rearranged the computer room/school room/ toy room/breakfast room for me last night. It is such a small room and I need to fit, the computer desk, the kitchen table against the bar, all the toys except the little kitchen, the treadmill, and all our school stuff. and I wonder why for so long this room has been a disaster. But really it was SO inefficient. I didn't have enough room for everything so we just piled stuff places and when littles needed something they put it on the floor and day after day it was just a crazy room. So Clay brought me a cabinet from work, took out this weird table, moved in the treadmill so it will actually start being used, turned the table, and more. The room just feels HUGE now! There is floor space when the little can both play and sit while I teach them schtuff. lol. So.. back to my layout. That guy was so sweet to help me rearrange the room. Such a simple layout but I love it. Feels very 3D to me. I love that these days.

Black Paper is Jen Wilson's Blue is Mine, OH is Gina Miller's (got for my Birthday!!) and The Man is Dani B's. Used AtomicCupcake's foam action.

Anyways So the morning begins. I still haven't eaten, am boiling the water for my eggs, and will stop to eat. Did eat 3 bites of cake though lol. So the things to do today.
- Finish Cleaning the new room
- Laundry, laundry, laundry
- Vacuum all the rooms since Cain is shedding so bad
- Clean the bathrooms
- Clean the Kitchen
- Do Handwriting with Frankie
- Make Frankie have his reading time
- Write a letter about the Inside the Designer's Studio Chat to send to stores
- DO Math with Frankie Nathan
- Start planning our Passover
- Clean computer desk
- Do my Day 2 Journal Entry
- Start working on some Element Packs
- Do my freebies for my chat tomorrow
- call and make dentist's appointments for all of us
- 100 other things lol!

Oh did you see Kim Hill's blog entry about making tarts? My question for all? So does the wax like slowly burn off then? And how long does one last? I just can't bring myself to think of spending money on them. But if I could make them myself and they were cost effective I just might think of joining the tart world. But knowing me probably not lol! Check out Kim's blog here" Kim's Blog

Well off to live my real life today. Got a neat book in the mail yesterday though that is motivating me. It is the Family's Guide to Biblical Holidays. It has everything from the stories, crafts, printables, detailed descriptions of what to do and why, crosswords, etc. etc. etc. for all the major Biblical holidays. I am excited about doing Passover this year. They have a fun 10 day thing leading up to it where you reenact all the plagues, etc. So I will hopefully actually do it and post here about the fun we are having when it starts next week.

I encourage everyone to go check out Rhonna's challenge. She is one inspiring lady! My entry for yesterday is in the post below :)

Rhonna's Challenge and such

Okay so I have decided to do Rhonna's 21 day challenge at her blog.

What *is* The {21} Challenge?
It's a challenge that is based on 2 ideas:

1. The idea of creating or breaking (conquering) a habit in 21 days. Studies have shown that it takes 21 days to change. So, choose a habit you want to create or conquer in these 21 days.

2. The idea that art is therapy. We take the 'art journal' angle on this to create for 21 days & journal our feelings,triumphs, failures, etc. It makes the 21 days go alot faster doing something we love.

(Quoted from Rhonna's Blog)

Check out the challenge here at RHONNA'S BLOG

I fearfully admit I am in a place where I am doing my best to NOT look inside myself for strength, answers, anything. That is sad really. In many ways I am afraid. I am afraid of what I will find in there these days. I am afraid that I will hate the person I find in there. And as a result, I never do art that is about ME anymore. About the children, about Clay, about designs for others, for money, for fun, but never for ME, or about ME. So I am pushing past the fear and doing Rhonna's challenge.

When I first read about creating a habit, I sat and looked at the things that needed changing. The list was astonishing....
Morning Routine
Evening Routing
ANY routine
Eating healthy
drinking water
Reading my Bible
Devotions with the children
Tomato staking the children (hmm you don't know what that is do you?)
doing school everyday
cleaning the house
my attitude
focusing on making my hubby feel loved
spending time with the children
not yelling
staying off this computer
exercise
and on and on and on and on.

Sigh. So where was I to start? WHY is it that every part of my life seems out of control? What can be done? I have tried 100,957 times to start over. 100,957 times I have gotten all gung ho that life was going to change that day. That that was the morning it was all going to be different. Then one thing fails and it all feels like a failure, I feel like a failure. So what is the answer? What is the one thing that can be changed and have it permeate all the areas needing change? "I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me". That is the missing key to it all. I have turned away, I have pushed away God from every area of my life. I am afraid of change. I am afraid I can't do it. And you know what? I can't. But My Jesus can. So it begins.

21 days where I spend time every day gleaning wisdom from His Word. 21 days where I stop and spend time basking in the light of his Glory. 21 days of stopping to listen to His voice. And it will all start to change. So I did my Day 1 Entry.


Click to make larger
Credits: All from my new A Little Something Fab kit. Alpha by Dani Mogstad.

Well it's late as always and I need to go read some, enjoy quiet time with My Jesus and go to bed. Oh well do some dishes, and switch out the laundry loads, then go to bed ha! I am eternally behind. Until tomorrow ya'll.

Good Night and Good Luck.

CT ANNOUNCED!

So the day has finally come. Thank the Good Lord up above. Well I admit I was shocked at the response I got from the call. I expected maybe 50 at the most! You guys blew me away. I tried really hard to look beyond just the layouts. I did my best to try and gauge the lady's personality from their scrapping, their application and their presence in the community. I narrowed it down and at the very end had Gina look over it with me. I think I have found a great great bunch of ladies that I hope will not only help showcase my designs but become friends as well. These ladies all inspire me to push my limits in my scrapping or in my life in one way or another. Let's meet them shall we?

Firstly we have the FAB Gina Miller!! Does this lady need an introduction? She is such a sweet fun loving person with an amazing generous spirit. Her layouts always inspire me to really try and tell the story. How easy is it to make a pretty layout without the story? Too easy. Her layouts speak volumes about her children and family, they leave a great journal to her children of their lives.
Check out her gallery here: Gina's Gallery
Check out her blog here: Gina's Blog

Next we have the recently names HOF HM CD Muckosky aka feeling inspired. CD is one of the nicest people I have ever met IRL or online. She is always such an encouragement to me in all areas of my life. And honestly every single layout she does is so intricate and perfect it leaves me staring at it for what seems like forever looking at every little detail. I have said it before, I think she is the digi community's new "it" girl.
Check out her gallery here: CD's Gallery
Check out her blog here: CD's blog

Third we have the sweet Miss Keela. Keela has been one of my biggest supporters and cheerleaders since the beginning. She has continually emailed me telling me how much she liked something new of mine or mentioning something on my blog, always trying to uplift me best she could. She has over the months I have known her grown into such a great scrapper. Check out her gallery, she will inspire you!
Check out her gallery here: Keela's gallery
Check out Keela's blog here : Keela's blog

The next lucky lady ( does that sound silly since it's MY stuff we're talking about?) is Gerarda van Merkerk. . When you open her gallery it is just so appealing to the eye. She rocks the one photo layout like no one else. Her layouts are like classes in design. And one look and you can see that I would love her eye for color, muted yet rich, fun yet not crazy. Love love love her stuff.
Check out her gallery here: Gerarda's gallery

Next comes Correen Silke. Not only is she a fab designer, but she makes layouts that just make me smile. Every layout I look at hers whether bright or muted is one of those pages that makes you grin ear to ear. What a gift!! I don't have it. She totally does!
Check out her gallery here: Correen's Gallery

This gal's layouts jump out at me every time I see one. Her work is amazing! The next team member is Novita Solihin! Go right now and check out her gallery. Funky, fun, warm, gorgeous layouts. She has really been such an inspiration to me lately.
Check out her gallery here: Novita's gallery

Our next winner is... lol. Nicole Durtschi! I first met her when I sold for a month over at 3S. She was on the creative team there. She always worked with my products and was one of my favorite of their CT members. She was so nice and emailed me how upset she was that she wasn't going to get to work with my stuff. It made me feel so good in that transition. So when I opened her gallery I knew who she was instantly! Her layouts are those ones you look at each time no matter what colors and just think WOw that is so pretty! I love that!
Check out her gallery here: Nicole's Gallery

And last but not least.. this lady hands down is one of my most favorite scrappers. Lucrecer Braxton. I hadn't looked through the applications and I had put her in my BOS at 2peas. I have looked through her layouts so many times! She is a scrapper that makes me wish I was freer, that makes me wish I smiled more or looked inside more. That scrapper that moves you to do better, be better. She is graphic, yet warm and inviting. I can't say enough about her.
Check out her gallery here: Lucrecer's gallery

I am SO EXCITED to start to get to know these lovely ladies! Everyone go comment on some of their fab layouts! They rock! And I guarantee you you will be inspired.

There were SO MANY amazing applications I have put many of them in a folder to save. I may be adding another member soon and...... keep your hopes up if you missed this round since I will be doing a guest CT member spot every month! So if you applied, you may still be getting a call to be a guest member soon! I am very proud to announce our first guest member....

Shannon Bieger

(aka dancingirisheyes)!!! She is the sweetest gal ever and her layouts rock the house!! She was in our final final group! Her layouts are so fun and fresh, check em out.

Check out her gallery here: Shannon's Gallery

And her blog here: Shannon's Blog

I am looking forward to seeing some amazing layouts from these girls soon. Give them a big round of applause huh?

HEY!

Note- by the time I go to bed tonight I will have emailed ALL the people I have chosen for my CT!!! If they all accept, (it has been a long time), I will be announcing as soon as I hear back from them all. So check your boxes later! I will also be sending out a letter to all who applied as well though that will take me a tad longer. Good luck!

Stupid Videos

Okay I should be in bed, but I just had to hear the Numa Numa song. So are you clicking my stupid videos over by my name? I change em at least once a week if not twice. Most are totally totally LAME! But worth my time for the 30 seconds. Okay I had something on there but I have quickly changed it to the Numa Numa Hearthrobs. I had this one on a few weeks ago. But yunno they crack me up!!!

Good night and Good luck.

A late night rambling

Well it's super late. For some reason these uploads to the store are taking was longer than normal for me. But I am insisting I get them up tonight so.. might as well I guess. I have a layout to post as well as the collection preview and who knows if I end up with anything else to say. I am so tired I can hardly type. OH this last upload is at 84% and still has SO long to go with how long it is taking me.

So here's a layout I did of Frankie the other day. Doesn't he look so OLD? He's only 6 years old and here you can SO see the young man he grows more and more into every day. HE cracks me up. This layout is a bit different for me. Bright, a tad more funky. I AM trying to step outside my little box now and again. Maybe if I take baby steps I won't be so afraid to go there. I guess I don't know that I will ever feel content with my scrapping ability. Does anyone else feel that way? LIke they are always wanting to be better? I am always wanting something fresh for myself anyways with each layout. Sometimes I wish I could mellow out a bit. Well I am really enjoying scrapping a lot lately. So I don't mean I am making my scrapping not fun. But sometimes I wish I didn't feel that nagging urge to push towards new and different things. Silly huh? I should be embracing that feeling. It is what has got me where I am today with my scrapping and designing. But still I mean I don't know HOW to chill out on anything lol. I need to just drink some tea, put on nice music and scrap. Instead of listening to this stupid tv I am watching while I scrap. What is that? I need music. Yet I never listen to it. I hate this tv!!! WHY do I watch it??? Oops my upload is done. Well I need to go to bed! I will post the layout and the preview and do a quick entry in the morning before I do devotions with the littles and CLay and Mom will both be gone.

Everything except paint strokes by Jen Wilson, paint by Michelle Coleman at scrapartist.

And.. yay!! The A Little Something Collection is IN THE STORE!!!


Good night and Good Luck.

Just a quick shout out to that FAB chickadee who is the most generous gal out there. LOOK at what I got! Jealous? I am becoming such an alpha gal lately!!! Man I need to scrap!! OH I did do a layout! I will post it later.

Don't forget that tonight is the Inside the Designer's Studio chat with the always interesting and entertaining sisters, Josie and Sally from Iron Orchid Designs. Yunno they sell at Digichick, ACOT, AND scrapartist now?? Amazing huh? They are talented, driven and just so interesting to me. I am excited to meet them! I love this job sometimes yunno!

Recap no matter how boring

Okay so the birthday recap commences though I warn you we didn't do anything exciting ha! So mom made me a favorite dinner of mine from growing up. It is this chicken fried round steak but the breading is made from crushed Ritz crackers. I can't tell you how delicious it is. Buttery Ritz, mixed with the general yumminess of fried foods in general? Hmmm... It's like talking about Oreo cookie crust for my cheesecake (can you go wrong with Oreos mixed with Butter??). Anyways so we had mashed potatoes and some of the best broiled asparagus I may have ever had. It was sooo good and sweet. So that rocked. Though my mom made brownies while I was gone for a baby shower and left me the mess.. so no avoiding cleaning the kitchen like I had hoped. So then Clay takes me to a heavenly place downtown... the Dessert Diner. Nothing like a diner devoted wholeheartedly to cakes, pies, cheesecakes, torts, and coffee (had my first half cup of coffee in 7 years!!!) We ordered a piece of peach pie, cherry pie, and yellow cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. Now it was a tough sell for me to get Clay to get that cake. A lame piece of yellow cake with buttercream frosting? But I knew better. I had had it before. Most people have not had REAL yellow cake. Or REAL buttercream made with simple syrup instead of sugar. And he ate the whole piece of peach pie before he even cared enough to eat cake. And even then we said he was too full to hardly eat any. Keep in mind this piece of cake is THE biggest cake you have ever seen hands down. Ginormous as Cassie would say. So what is the logical outcome here? Of course he takes a bite, is blown away and eates the whole thing. Eating at the Diner was nice. Clay liked it a lot. Their was a couple next to us for a while and she got up and decided it was time to go but he still had half a piece of cake and coffee left. She said... We are going NOW. The poor dejected look on his face as he looked at his cake back at her, back at his cake, then walked out. I feel bad but Clay and I cracked up after they left. But it is a little sad to me to see this man looking like a 5yo because of his bossy wife. I hope to spend the rest of my life trying not to rob my hubby of his manhood. It is sad to see that happen. Then they were replaced by a Grandpa, the Daddy and the Grandson. It was so cute. Even my hardhearted Clay was touched by how sweet they were sitting on the barstools eating cake. Oh yeah we sat at the bar and ate out desserts. It was fun. So pretty much all the car riding was spent talking about serious stuff that we had been needing to talk about... doing the budget, lack of any type of communication lately, the fact that Clay had been lead to believe he was getting vacation pay for the week we went to TX and now they say he doesn't get any unless he's been there a year. Ummm.. his whole check was like $200!! Umm.. that breaks our back. Thank the Lord up above for the money in paypal from everyone's generous kit buying. Need to get these new ones out while it is still March so some of the money from them goes in the next payday. So I eased his fears that everything was screwed up totally. And we talked about other things unmentionable :) At the Diner he gave me a card I so expected to be the sappy one he gives me every year, which I like, but it was a totally goofy one that he said he spent a long time picking out.. so trying to just enjoy it as if it were the sappy one. Went to Walmart after to get this stuff for a baby shower gift my mom wanted me to stay up AFTER I got home and make.. thank the Lord again that Walmart was closed. Though... in CA Walmarts are NOT 24 hours??? I had never heard of such a thing. Anyways. Was glad I didn't have to stay up. My download of Ash's new CD had failed while I was gone. Of course got sucked into some web looking while I restarted it. Was like 70 hits down from passing Gina on the blog list for what would probably have been the only time ever lol! But never did pass her I don't think. hehe. Though I can tell you. I expected a few hundred hits.. but not 600! When I left for the Diner it was over 600.. who knows how high it was when it turned midnight - I returned home after it had changed. That was kind of exciting for me since my life is so dull and all. Set Ash's download up again... went to bed. Awoke to see it had failed again. It's at 80% now so we'll see what happens.

Don't forget the Inside the Designers Studio Chat tonight with Josie and Sal from Iron Orchid Designs. Yunno I do this chat twice a month and meet all sorts of designers. It is a GREAT gig I tell ya! But I am really excited to chat with these gals! They are such interesting and driven people. I think their chat will be very different than the rest.

Ahh Ash's CD download finished. Here are some of my favorite things from it..


CLICK to make the image larger :):) Uhh you know that right??

Okay need to clean up and eat some of that FAB chicken fried steak. Thanks all for making my birthday really fun this year. Many years we do nothing and I decided that this year I was going to make my own fate. I might not have gone on a trip around the world but I got over 150 Happy Birthdays yesterday and I can honestly say that was a first. Til later.

The day has come and gone

My birthday has come and gone. Too tired to recap. Did go out with hubby. Got LOADS of great comments, emails, and cards. So the links are going down for the kit. I can't believe how many hits I got on this crazy blog tonight! Madness. I am not Gina or anything so over 600 hits was some sort of craziness!! I am so glad everyone seemed to enjoy the kit. It goes up at ACOT tomorrow. And I will discuss my day tomorrow as well.

I love ya'll. You helped make today great!
Good Night and Good Luck.

A note

OKay good morning!!

QUOTE FOR THE DAY "You know those religious types, they are all butt drinkers"

It has been brought to my attention that LAME MegaUpload has been having icky popups for some people. I AM SO MAD!! I have replaced the links with yousendit links. If someone wants to give me the good rapidshare link I might try that, but for now I will stick with what I know and they are yousendit links.

Thanks for the kind words ya'll. I am debating whether or not to post about it at 2peas. What do ya'll think? With all the blog freebie spamming should I post it or not? I mean I want lots of people to be able to snag the kit, but is it just another lame freebie post? Hmmm.... Haven't decided yet.

Today's the Day

Okay it is so late and I am SO tired. I told myself 100 times that there was NO way I was going to forget to upload the birthday kit until the last minute. And of course.... here it is, I am sick as a dog and forgot until the last minute. I did try to use another file thing other than yousendit and it errored out on me. Yousendit has errored once, I sure hope this works! There are not going to be a ton of ramblings tonight I am afraid.

There was some threads at 2peas about designers having "staying power" and unique style. I think that a good majority of designers wonder if they will make it as more and more designers come on the scene. The consensus was I think that as designers we need to have a unique style. Is that true? Are there not some designers that have a similar style? Seems that there are stores where all the designers have a similar style. I can't tell one from the other. Doesn't mean that I don't love a lot of the stuff and that those stores are not bringing in money hand over fist. I admit to often being afraid that over time I will not do better and better as a designer but worse. But I am at a point that I can't imagine NOT doing it, so. .. you're stuck with me.

So everyone except Frank and Clay are sick. Even MOI. Lame. I thought I was getting better. I was wrong.

OKay so I was thinking I was going to write this rockin super interesting post for my birthday and I have had this window open for hours and nothin. LOL! A testament to the sick birthday ahead of me tomorrow. THough it is my Bday now. Happy Birthday to me. Here it is. The long awaited kit. Ha! It's not anything super special, but it is a little treat. Now like I said last night, this link it ONLY going to be up ONE DAY. Please no one email me after the fact wanting it. I am going to be putting it in the store the next day and just can't give it out after that. Sorry. But I hope lots of you snag it today. I am using megaupload instead of yousendit and will upload another copy of the kit in case this one runs out. There are two link, papers and elements to try and help the dialup users. Adn finally the preview LOL!



And the links.
Sorry....gone.
In Case those run out - only use if those stop working!!!
sorry...gone

Well if you take this, leave me a comment :) Today will be a long hard day and I need to have their be comments in my inbox when I check. Love you guys!

Good Night and Good Luck.

Finally a post

OKay okay so I took a few days off from this blog thing. To be honest it had nothing to do with my "issues" it has more to do with my attempt at getting up early. Usually I stay up super super late and push it til the last minute, blogging the last hour or so. But the last few days by 10 oclock I am so tired and then I stay up til 11:30 and feel like I am going to fall over - SO WEIRD for me! So everytime I think of coming to blog for the night I am just way too tired. I guess this is what I wanted, but man it is so bizarre. So the children are getting an hour off from our cleaning so I can blog this. Today I will be posting both some kit previews and some of my HOF entries as well as talking about the whole CT thing oy. I tell you what though, there are a few of my entries I just can't stand and they will never be in the general public ever. What was I thinking???

Okay so let's get the gratuitous spamming of my kit previews over with first. I have mentioned a bit my "identity crisis" of sorts in my designing. I have had some emails thinking that I meant I was wondering if I was going to continue designing or not. I assure that is not what I meant at all. I have no desire to stop designing. I just can't help myself. I couldn't go a month without doing it any more than I could go a month with no scrapping either. THough I am beginning to think that scrapping is harder, way harder than designing. That said, my issues are not such that will stop me from designing at all. My problem is this. I find sometimes that what I like to do designing and what I find myself scrapping with is a little different sometimes. In my designing I was getting more and more grungy. While sometimes with a few of the boy layouts I used these to scrap with, I find myself not drawn as much to it when I scrap. Well that's not necesarily true as I have been loving some of Meredith Fenwick's stuff. But anyways, so onto this new line. I am pretty sure that the next few lines from me will all be a tad different and will be clear to most that I am feeling some things out. It still feels like "me" and the elements are still very me. Onto the line. So there are 5 kits in this one. Each kit has 6 papers and elements. I got some new clipart at a quilt show (will talk about the quilt show later on) and was so inspired to do these floral papers and the rest is history. I am brainstorming doing some boy kits that are similar in style but we'll see. Might just move on to my next idea. So here they are :) :) Just a little something...











While we're all looking at kits, did you all see Jen's new glittery stuff at SBB? SO neato! Mere and I have talked a few different times about glitter and I know Mere was working on some. We are convinced Jen is a mind reader! But they are so cute. You should check them all out, but these are my fave, with the glittery doodles and all that. Very Elsie Flannagin-ey. You can check them out HERE


Okay okay so the CT thing. Enough is enough already. I will be doing this in the next handful of days no matter what. I have gotten some suggestions that I try to go online to comcast and see if I can get my emails through there, might try that. No matter what I will do it. I admit, I have 3 girls I know that are already on the team, so congrats girls, but 5 more spots to fill. Also, I will be keeping a whole bunch of applications since I will be doing a guest spot each month also from those applications. So if you do not get chosen, you still might end up getting to work with the girls on my team anyways! But like I said enough is enough. My main problem now is that amongst the mass emails, was two emails from people who said they couldn't do it any longer and I hope I can find those and not choose them OY!

Ahh birthday day is tomorrow. Here's the deal about that. I will late late late tonight put the link for the birthday kit (which you would think I would name something about me being my bday and all but NO of course I wouldn't think of that). SOoo that link will be up only ONE day only. Midnight PST tomorrow night it is GONE. No emails asking for it, things like that. Because yunno, I am a pushover! And I will be putting the kit in the store the next day and just cannot be giving it out for free after that. But here are the sneaks I was going to put the last few days :):) Of course you probably see what the kit looks like now with these. ha. Oh well.

Man this whole post is all pictures and little substance!

Okay teh HOF. OY OY oy. Disclaimer: I admit I just hardly like these at all now. It is kinda sad since the experience was so good for me. All my layouts since the HOF have been so different. I wouldn't trade doing it for the world. But it's kinda sad that I am not gushing over how much I love these. I wish I could. But here are a few anyways. I encourage everyone to do it this year and I will be starting a support group of some sort to make us all start earlier in the year and have people to give honest CC and really make them great! And CD (miss feeling inspired the FAB scrapper ) yeah I am talking to you, you SO need to give me YOUR eye on my layouts this time around!!! Because you are getting the HOF this coming year gal! Not giving any commentary on these I don't think, just posting em and being done with it.

















AHHHH I just checked and I missed all the Simple Scrapbooks calls. Wow. I had so planned on submitting tons to those calls. *cry* Good luck all who did submit. I would have thought there would be all sorts of posts on peas and SBB encouraging everyone to submit to the SS virtual pages call. Wonder why there weren't? Neat to see more and more mags wanting digi pages. I just got a new calendar and need to wrote good calls on it too. Maybe I will do that now real quick. Man, I missed all the SS calls. Lame! I guess to be published often you need to be organized. I'm not. Okay. Nothing exciting to talk about today. Pray my flu sick children will get better. Nothing like dealing with a 4 yo and 2 yo with the flu and ME being sick on top of it. ICK.

That said, today will be a great day. I need to start speaking life with my words and oftentimes I feel I leave here and feel down. Hmm something for me to think about.

Good "day" and Good Luck.

Okay well I am not in a big blog mood tonight but didn't want to leave everything hanging. So the flight was fine. Frankie Nathan didn't throw up but he was sick and slept most of the time and had a fever. But he made it through. He was feeling icky the first half of the day today and seems well now. Then OF COURSE baby Adric has started throwing up. Greeeat. But at least we are through the airplane ride so that is FAB! I sure hope we don't have to do that for a while.

Today was good. I really made a vow to myself that I was going to start things anew when we returned. Hey, remember the struggle we have had getting us all on an early schedule? Yay for the Texas trip! Being a two hour time difference and all we have returned home all on an early schedule. Hip hip hooray. I was up by 7 AM this morning and anyone that knows me knows that was some sort of crazy miracle. I can't believe how much I got done today. At around 5 oclock I asked what time it was and was shocked that it was only 5. It felt like almost 9. Got all the laundry from the trip done. Dealt with the truly shocking I tell ya amount of hair Cain has decided to shed all over the house since we have been gone. We HAVE to get that crazy dog shaved this week. I can't tell you the sight I saw with that hair when we got home. Anyways, also got the children's room cleaned and the new shelves Clay brought home from work for the children's clothes. Of course had to clean up baby throw up a few different times as well. Oh and went to the store to pick up stuff for dinner. I mean in theory that's not a lot to get done, but the day after I get home from a trip that is amazing for me. I have GOT to keep on this early schedule. Now of course that means that I won't be putting kits out as fast as I usually do. Oh well, so be it.

There was this thread about sales at two peas and some things mentioned had me thinking. The main one being that this cottage industry we have going has got to get itself figured out before the big companies come in and push out those who can't survive. I don't know that I have the drive to make it. I mean I love what I do, but less and less I feel the competitve drive I feel that I need to truly be able to survive in the long term. I don't mean it as a look down on me kind of thing like these kind of ramblings tend to be from me *lol*. Not a low self esteem thing, just a feeling. Less and less I feel this need to be plugged in and pushing for it. In the end, maybe I just need to learn more about what I should be doing. Maybe that is it really. Not that I don't have the right stuff or the drive but I just need to learn and observe what others are doing that generates buzz. Aside from great quality of course. What an amazing gift some of the designers that have marketing backgrounds have! I hope that as the big companies start entering the digiworld there are a lot of designers that are able to keep their staying power. At least I know that I will never stop digiscrapping, designer or not. How awesome. To think it has been one year since I heard of digital scrapbooking. I feel SO BLESSED to have found this. Whether I continue to design or not in the LONG term, I will always have scrapping. I never ever would have been able to scrap without it. Never. And what a gift it has given me. It has changed my life really. It saved me. I found digital scrapping at a time in my life when I thought ALL would be lost. When I thought I would die if I had to get up and face another day. When just to breathe was too much work.

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of my sweet husband entering into rehab. Today is a year from when he got on a plane for CA and left me alone with my children so he could fly off to try and save himself, and save me, and save our whole life. Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of me getting the wonderful, strong, capable, smart man I love so much back. I suppose I will put one of my HOF entries on here. This was the life changing event layout. I must say this is one of the layouts I really hate now. It was when I was working through my inking, collagy style layouts on the journey called the HOF.

Click to make larger.
I SO want to rant here, but I am only going to say this. Doctors should NOT be allowed to prescribe opiate based pain killers to anyone but terminal patients. They are pharmaceutical heroin with NO limit to it's addictive power. It is the fastest growing addictive drug out there and is ruining people's lives, from teenagers to SAHMs, to great hard working husbands, to the neighbor next door. Heroin of ALL forms, including the one they hand out in pharmacies calling plain old painkillers, is evil. Evil.

I will post my other HOF layouts tomorrow. The names are announced tomorrow! The HOF winners I mean. I can't wait.

Well I need to go to bed and try and keep the early bug! Here is a sneak peek of my birthday kit I will give out here before I put it at ACOT.


Good night and Good Luck.

Well ever had the kind of day that the littlest thing just hurts? This trip to be honest has been very hard. Things with Clay have not been good. As it turns out Frankie started throwing up and has been throwing up all day and has a fever. We are getting on a plane tomorrow and I have a 6yo who is throwing up. Well... then. So I know the ratings thing on the blog list are going away sometime, but I go today and see the only review I have gotten is this : "Was disappointed - seemed a bit nasty the time I read her blog. Decided not to return - maybe she was having a bad day???" Yunno.. I admit things have been really hard lately but the last thing I want people to think when they see a snapshot of me is that I am nasty. For some reason this hurts me. I know I shouldn't care but I do. I have many times sat back and tried to decide if I want to consider stopping doing this blog all together. Sometimes I feel gossipy or that I talk about things on this blog I don't know if I would day in real life. Maybe I am nasty on this blog. I dunno. I have sometimes thought that maybe I do it to keep "real" for customers, oh for goodness sake I don't know why I do it. I have another blog for Christian women that I think maybe should be my main blog. Amazing how someone reviewing my blog when I don't even believe they should be reviewable is making me wonder if I want to continue doing this at all. I am really having a hard time balancing the time I spend on the computer. I often wonder if I should just be ditching spending time on these things all together and just designing to desing and scrapping to scrap, focus more on my family and home and leave the scrapping community. I may be too competitve and jealous to be who I want to be in this industry. Maybe I am putting things of the world before my Jesus and my family. I don't know. Maybe I do act nasty here. Maybe I should stop. Maybe I should just go pack for the trip home and not worry about it now. That's the ticket. Oh, PS the only reason I am posting a pic is that Blogger is down and I am testing posting through hello to see if it works.

Texas Part Three

Blogger wouldn't let this post go through last night so hopefully it goes through now.

Well hope to not lose this post. Oops let me open a notepad for backup. So Hmmm.. wonder if I should recap some of the things from last night if I can remember them. Firstly, umm no one comments about those Numa Numa Hearthrobs? You think I am joking that I have watched it many times. I assure you I am not. They just crack me up in a serious way. Might link my fave stupid videos now and then for fun. I have one the children just love love love. Maybe this weekend.

Anyways the wedding was today. Clay's sister got married. My sweet never ever cry cowboy cried. It was very sweet. But... I was amazed at how mother's and daughters can treat each other. I know I have issues with my mom and being women I am sure that most of us do. But long story short, SIL was rude in that she spent the whole day mentioning how she just wanted to get out of here asap after the wedding. Here her parents were bending over backwards making this whole thing happen for her (it was at their house, all done by us, etc.) and all she puts out there is how she just wants to get out of their house. And MIL doesn't take a moment to come in and gush all over her daughter on her wedding day instead is very critical, dress is wrinkling at bottom, sit different, etc. In the end on what should be a day filled with love, they both ended up not feeling cared for by the other. It really makes me sad. I mean to the point of tears as I write this. The wedding was nice though. There were only maybe 20 guests. They had this really neat African love song that everyone walked in to. My sweet Frankie was the ring bearer and Cassie the cutest flower girl ever. They didn't want a lot of pictures *gasp* so I didn't get to take a lot of fab ones of the ceremony to do an album but hopefully between the three of us with nice cameras we got enough for me to do something with. They did this kinda weird speech about marraige being a community of 2 and that by choosing to live in this community that chooses to solve their problems without arguing (um.. no arguing ever? Well let's go a few years) anyways without arguing they are doing their part in changing the world. Well my version is a little nicer, theirs was kinda weird. But it fit their personalities so I liked the speech. Made the wedding really seem like their wedding should be. Won't go into the boring details of the like 30 minute reception before she literally ran past us all throwing birdseed and sped away in the car. Was definitely weird vibes all around though that's for sure. But I did like the wedding itself and I really hope that they are going to be really happy. They seem like a really good fit. Umm. had good Mexican food for dinner.

Oh, and SIL made this cake with a homemade german chocolate frosting that rocked my world. It is so good I can hardly stand it. I will post it when I get back. I could sit and eat a bowl of it it is so rockin.

Do I want to talk about the HOF losing? No not quite yet, maybe later on down the line here. Wow the blog freebies are just goin crazy now aren't they? Well... I am not sure I am loving the influx but whatever. Especially since I had this big freebie for my birthday next week and now feel like I am just on the bandwagon and all that stupid crapolia. My birthday is next week YAY!!! What date you ask? Not telling. Wonder if anyone already knows? There are ways to find out. Anyways, not gonna get anything for my birthday probably. Might have to do some sort of something or another for it storewise, but no talking about that til later.

Trying to remember what I was talking about last night when it all got lost. Oh man Feeling Inspired aka CD the FAB scrapper made HM for HOF!!! Isn't that just great? I love her. I just think she has such a kind spirit I am truly happy for her. And honestly while I strive in my life to be a good person I am truly deep down very competitive and God is dealing with problems I have with jealousy rearing it's ugly head. I have a hard time letting myself be deep down happy for people without a twinge of jealousy. But I can honestly deep down say I really feel happy for her without reservation. She is such a kind and thoughtful and CREATIVE person. She is such a talented scrapper I feel she will become the digi world's new "it" girl and I can say I knew her when.

Well on that note, the HOF. No calls for me. Honestly I really don't care for my entry very much anymore and debate even showing a few of them I dislike them so much. To be truthful I won't be posting a few of them. So it's not a huge loss that I didn't get called but it always feels bad for anyone I think to lose. Just does plain and simple. But I have said repeatedly that in the month following finishing my HOF entry I have grown by leaps and bounds. I am going through some scrapping growing pains but it is a good thing. I will do things differently next year. I mean I was doing the layouts until the last second. A few were very forced as I had a lot of other deadlines at the same time. That is no way to do it. I already have a layout I wish I hadn't posted in my gallery so it would stay hidden until next year HA! Can you imagine? But there are times when inspiration hits you and you are left with a layout you couldn't love an ounce more. I think I am going to start temporarily putting those away over the course of the year ( this is like one every few months here people) and returning to them to see how they sit with me as time goes on. And I am going to start working on it they day it is all announced. I loved how in the Pub some gals had worked on 3 layouts for some of the assignments and tweaked each one and chose the best one. I mean I want to feel that kind of freedom in it all. I don't want any pressure to have to finish by a certain time. I mean my inspiration one I had to do at the last minute and I really don't think it might have even really fit that well. Did I ever mention that I never checked my confirmation number to see if my package even got there? Silly huh? Anyways, I want my HOF layouts to be done when creativity strikes not because I am almost out of time and need to do 3 layouts in one night. I can't wait to see who the digi HOFers are. Isn't that going to be totally exciting? Who is it? who is it? Enough talk of the HOF, it's over I lost and on with life.

Did watch the Duggars family show Wednesday. Didn't care for it nearly as much as the other two shows they have done on this large family. The other ones are more informative, showing more details of how they go about their daily lives, organizational stuff, etc. Basically stuff I find interesting and might find helpful in my daily life. They do do the MOTH system - Managers of Their Homes, which is neat to see with such a huge family. But the one on Wednesday was much more of a "wow look at how different it is to have such a large family blah blah" But I like watching them nonetheless. Might post a picture of their big family here when I am done.

Quick yet large thanks to all my buddies who A, commented telling me I was a 5 ( or should I make that a slammin 10) in their books and B, all who went and posted a 5 ratings for me so I didn't have to look at the 4 anymore lol. I am glad Carrie is taking the rating thing off. Yunno Carrie Stephens, there is another one of those gals who is SO sweet I just love her to death. Carrie dear, if you read this buzz me and say hello one of these nights. I wonder who is posting the 4s though because if you look there are a number of 4 ratings now. Makes ya wonder since none of YOU are posting 4s.If I find out who you are I am stringing you up by your toes and tickling you till you pee yourself then taking pictures so we all can scrapbook pages about how lame you are. Is kind of fun to be able to go to one place and quickly see how many hits people get.

I think I will be moving over to typepad soon. I am kind of afraid since I (again with the As and Bs) A, suck BAD at making blog banners and B, dread having to relearn how to tweak another blog template. But I want all the great things typepad has to offer. I just get the cheap one right?

Oh Meredith put the individual kits from the His and Hers CDs in the store so now if you just want to get a few you can :)

Wow well a lot of ramblings and once again feel like I talked about nothing. Maybe that is the point. Leeandra made a great comment the other day that was something along the lines of "if you think your life it boring, your blog will be boring, but if you look at that same life as exciting, your blog will seem exciting" Man LA you are a WISE woman. I have a friend named Serene. There are many things I love about her, but one of them is that no matter what is going on in her life at that moment, if you call her and ask how she is doing she says something along the lines of a booming "Amazing!!" Keep in mind this woman is my age, 29 ( well I am almost 29) has 4 children of her own 10 and under and just adopted 3 more from Liberia ages 12 and under I think. She lives in a smallish country home they built themselves with 2 bedrooms and they love a very modest life. Yet no matter how stressful it gets, she is doing Amazing! She is so happy to just be alive and loving the Lord and striving to serve Him in all she does. She is truly and always will be one of my major inspirations. Everything you mention to her she takes in with such pleasure like it is the most important and interesting thing ever. She truly makes you feel so loved. That is how I want to live my life. Maybe the ramblings here will get more interesting and fun and exciting and Amazing! over the next few months as I strive to get better with my Jesus. A number of you posted that you wanted me to post some of the scriptures that touch my life in this difficult time I am going through. Well off to the next paragraph to talk about that some. I mean I have made like 123,399 paragraphs already, what is another one?

So here they are "A virtuous woman [is] a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed [is] as rottenness in his bones. (KJV) An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, But she who shames {him} is like rottenness in his bones. (NASB)"

Now I use a KJV but these are copied and pasted from someone who posted them on a message board last night and they really hit home. So we had to sleep on these air mattresses here in TX. You may or may not know that my sweet hubby has a degenerative back disease. Anyways. So within a day his back is so bad that he has slept almost all day everyday this whole trip. I have been so annoyed with having to take care of the children the whole time I have nagged him and just generally treated him badly. So when I read these verses I was just punched in the gut by a wonderful God who showed me that I was making it all worse, both physically and otherwise. So I woke him up and gave him some Ibuprofen, and went to bed. All day he was still bad and sleeping but the Lord gave me the grace to treat him better today. I worked with his parents and we got him a bed to sleep in, and I feel things are looking up. I love my husband, I do not want to be a rottenness in his bones, I want to lift him up and treat him like the person I love, adore and admire. So many times physical problems can be tied to things other that physical causes. I am beginning to think that when his back hurts my treating him badly is making it worse. Like if you have a headache and your husband treats you meanly, the headache gets worse, if he treats you like a queen, it is soothing to the pain. Am I a rottenness in his bones that is causing him even more pain in times like these? I don't want to be. I want to be the one person in this life that he can come to when he is hurting and I will understand and will be there to help him any way I can. What was I thinking? Tomorrow is a new day. God is good.

And with that, Good Night and Good Luck.

Darn blog ratings

I read Gina's blog post yesterday about someone giving not a 5 out of 5 ratings on the topdigiblogs.com thing. So I go there today and I have someone who posted a 4 out of 5 for mine too. Yunno, I think the whole rating thing should go out the window. These are not stores where people post ratings because they got poor customer service and never got their links, etc. These are blogs and I think that the ratings will be showed by daily views and average views. And a lot of these blogs are designer blogs and there is too much of a window for someone to just post a crappy rating on yours for the wrong reason and make you look lamo. Just is crappy to be honest. Now all who look at my blog on the list see a lower rating. Fine. I mean this isn't the most exciting blog out there but I have some friends who read everyday and keep up with the boring goings on of my life. So if you are one of those friends lol go rate me a 5 out of 5 and just pretend I am super cool just so I don't have to feel the agony of looking at that 4 out of 5 everytime lol. Carrie darling, I love you you know that, but you should just ditch the ratings thing all together!

TX part deuce.

So much for that. Had a huge 8 paragraoh blog post and then Firefox crashed and took it all with it. I am SO not redoing it. Last night I copied it into a notepad as I went in case that happened. So lame! Man I am so tempted to redo it but need to go to bed. Sorry all. Nothing interesting tonight in my life. Can't be that interesting if all I have to do is spend 45 minutes writing a blog entry anyways. Still.. I am very frustrated about it.

I will leave you with this instead. Whenever times are tough, all I need to do is watch this and all is good again.

Numa Numa Heartthrobs Watch it now on StupidVideos!

From Texas

Hey guys. Well normally I wouldn't be posting from a trip but being stressed and all I need something to do. It's super early my time - 8:30 - and everyone in the whole house is asleep. Now mind you I should be asleep as we need to get up at 4 AM my time (6 am here) to go to a family portrait but... Anyways, so the airplane ride was pretty good, soooo much better than I thought. Our system worked great - Clay had Adric(2) and one of the big children on one side of the isle ( okay I have NO idea how to spell that since isle is like Gilligan's Isle) anyways I would have one of the other children on my side with me. I did get to read a lot of cool stuff since I have the March and April CK, the new Scrapbooks, etc. and the rockin scrapbooks, etc. design secrets to read. I must say quickly how much I have been loving these design idea books lately. I really am loving learning about design principles lately. So far though hands down my favorite is Designer's Eye for Scrapbooking by Ali Edwards. Now it might just be because she is my all time favorite scrapper. But aside from that the book is great. And she always amazes me with her ability to use such simple photo placement and with a few patterned papers make it look so different and just plain rockin! So I had the hardest time finding a good just cover of the book that hello would let me grab so here is a shot from a site that has two of the layout examples as well from it.





Go run and buy this book, I LOVE IT!! Buy it HERE On the topic of books. I have put off mentioning this for the longest time. I really have and I won't be going into detail. But I was really disappointed in the Designing with Digital book. I was so excited that a LSS had it and quickly spent the money on it. For me that is a lot of money (in cash - paypal on a great CD or whatnot is different *lol*) but in cash that is a lot of money for me to spend on myself. Then I got it home. I think I have looked through it once. I have left it in the stack of current mags for what 2 months now. I just don't think, well a couple of things. Firstly, there were some things that truly bother me alot in digi, exaggerated shadows, etc. Also, I don't feel that well maybe aside from Gina's layouts there were any that were paper style and feel. I think the majority of paper scrappers that would buy that book to see what digi is about are not going to be as drawn to montagey type layouts, etc. Let me tell you, I have been thinking for so long that I wish that I could put together a list of who I would put in a digi book. Anyone know how we can get that started? Who would be on my list of who I would want in the book?
kim.bee - who has the most amazing both photography and graphic style that just makes me drool
shabbymissjenn - who has this way of making her pages look both shabby, and SO real paper, and makes those photos just jump off the page, or make me wish I could jump in and live somewhere so shabbeeeautiful
carver - who does things with photos that make me long to learn my program more and be willing to step outside and go graphic
feelinginspired (aka CD) - who is one of my new all time favorite scrappers. She is just so creative and can pull elements from 1000 kits and make them look like they were made to be together. And she can take papers that are boy papers and magically place them on a layout that just screams girl. Quite a talent.
AuntiePea - whose layouts not only look so paper to me, they for some reason just touch me and make me smile big every single time I look at one.
Krash who honestly in every single way possible rocks my world. I can't say enough how much I wish I was Krash. Hands down one of THE BEST digiscrappers ever.
Miss Kim - whose amazing way of placing a photo just right with a few papers so simply and creates these pages that just literally try and jump in my lap out of the gallery.
AmyMartin aka alb52 - I am sure we have all commented on a layout of hers. This little lady just oozes creativity. She can have a pretty empty layout with a small grouping of photo and paper pieces and elements that in that little space make me spend 10 minutes staring at all the awesome details.
Rhonna Farrer - what can you say? Just fab. And she really makes layouts that are stunning but also so the subtle things that can only be done digital.
TiaBennett - Well look at her digi stuff and it says it all. Just divalicious.

Wow well that took me some time. And there are so many more to add as I am just having a total brain fart. But there are enough galleries there to give you some inspiration. Oh, do I get to add ME since I would be part of heading up this imaginary book? Well if anyone knows how I can get this book rolling, let me know and let's do it. There are not enough idea books in the world yunno! OHHH!! AND... look what is coming in the Summer sometime. Another what is soon to be my all time favorite scrapping book - in Ali's blog she says this...
"Today I am working on some of my CK projects. Doing some handwriting for my next book (coming out in the summer: A Designer's Eye for Scrapbooking with Patterned Paper). "
Ummmm.... okay I LOVE her and I LOVE patterned paper. Aah a match made in scrapbooking heaven. Can we all tell I don't want to go to sleep and face the madness that is getting a family portrait done at 4 am my time with children that will be waking at 4:30 our time? I am putting it off as long as I can. Who cares if I am tired? I never do.

One thing. If any of you out there are rich, wanna buy me a rockin laptop? *lol* I SO WISH I had a laptop right now where I could scrap pages while on vacation or put together a quick wedding album for Faith and Ralf. I HATE not getting to scrap at all. I really do. It has become so much of what destresses me and helps me relax.

Anyways back to the madness of the trip so far. How I got sidetracked about idea books and whatnot I will never know (well unless I read it up there). So the trip was fine. It is a lot longer from CA to Dallas than I thought it would be, and we had to change planes twice so that sucked. But the children were okay and we made it fine and my tooth was fine and all that jazz. Thanks for all the prayers for my teeth, it turned out great. So.. we get here and the children are stir crazy and I think that it is driving people a little mad, but all in all they are acting alright. Don't know what's up with my hubby, he is usually really perfect around his parents and he's being kind of a jerk so don't know what that's about. Normally he is the best husband ever ever around his parents to I don't know I guess make them think he is the perfect hubby. Though he is a pretty darn good one. Jump to today. Go to my purse to take my antibiotics and...... they are gone. We have looked everywhere and they are gone. I swear I am about ready to just have a meltdown about it. I sit here now and my tooth is sore. The infection is NOT gone all the way and I have no antibiotics. Aaah. Lame as ever. Life is just so.....

But... on a good note, Blue Bell ice cream from here in TX is just the best ice cream. I had the Dutch chocolate and it was the best chocolate ice cream I think I have ever had. Only had like 2 bites though and then when I went to get a bowl someone had eaten it all. I guess Clay isn't being a total jerk as he had saved the chocolate for me and eaten coconut which he doesn't like so I could have it. Though I never did have it lol. And the nutty coconut is one of the best things this mouth has ever tasted. It is kinda melty and light the way Breyer's is except Blue Bell has a richness that Breyer's doesn't have. It is just so good I can hardly stand not sneaking in and getting a bowl.

And let me tell you even if the wedding is small and informal, it is not low stress preparing for it. Period.

Quick before I go to sleep and prepare for the even more long and stressful day ahead... did anyone see the new Duggar's show on TLC 16 and Moving In? There is a new one, Raising 16 children that is on tomorrow night. Here is the listing for it if you want to see something a little different TV listing here Not gonna share my thoughts on it until after I see it though I already know that I will love it. Before you watch and say they are nuts, know that I am a fun loving conservative that also believes in letting God choose my family size and may end up with 16 children one day, so no horrible hurtful comments K? Hmmm now do you think of me any different? Or did you always think I was a conservative that wanted lots of children? HA! Bet not.

Good night and Good luck.

PS

Oh and P.S. it's times like these when I realize in it's full glory the extent of how much my sweet hubby can drive me crazy. I mean bonkers, nutso, and all that jazz.

Aahh I HATE packing.

Okay I have officially learned my lesson. I truly swear that the next time I have to go anywhere on a trip I will start planning and PACKING a week in advance so all the small details are done. Well and all the big details. I mean we can all live on a couple outfits in the week preceding leaving. The children can wear the same thing everyday for the week for all I care. I want everything packed and ready days in advance so I can actually sleep before these trips. Ahh it's what? 2:17 now and have hours of work left and we have to walk out the door at like 7:30. Considering baths and breakfast I sure hope I get at least an hour or two. LAME! What a fool I am once again. You'd think I would have learned this lesson years ago. But here I am publically promising to myself and my friends that I solemnly swear to not go through this again. Sucky. Okay until like 4 Am when I am frazzled and have more nothings to say yet want to sit for a sec.

Is there some reason that with 90% of all the laundry done in the whole house all I can find is 2 shirts for Adric and no pants?? A cruel joke? A conspiracy to make me lose my mind? Any other theories?? I'd love to hear em.

Hall of Fame

Just taking a quick 2 minutes amongst the chaos that is the getting ready for our trip to talk about the Hall of Fame. So I entered. I never did check the tracking number so maybe it never got there LOL!!! But chances are it did. I was reading over at Kim Crother's blog and she mentioned that her layouts were so "her". I am kinda sad since I don't think a lot of my layouts are so "me". I mean some are some aren't. I did the HOF more for the act of doing it, the challenge that it presented me, etc. And I can tell you HANDS DOWN that turned out to be an amazing thing for my scrapping. If you look at my layouts before I after I did the HOF you will see a huge huge change. I have done layouts lately that for the first time ever I truly love in a way that they will never be revamped or regretted later on. That has been dare I say a life changing thing for me. Well that sounds kinda dumb but scrapping is such a huge part of my life, one of the things that truly makes me happy and this sense of feeling like what I am doing is actually real and not forced is a big thing for me. But I admit, some of my HOF layouts are not my favorites. Some of the ones I did lately I wish I could have put in my entry but they never would be without having done my entry. and I suppose it's a blessing that I won't be home tomorrow to obsess about not getting that call. and I will be gone all week to miss the HM call, though they might be emails so... Might have to check that at the end of the week or so.

I encourage everyone to try and do the HOF. I really do. It will push you and challenge your scrapping and will change you just to do it. I know there will be some amazing digi scrappers that make it this year and I can't wait to see who it is. Good luck to all and congrats to all who make it. It is well deserved. Won't be a couple weeks and I will be able to post the layouts here and you guys can see the hidden layouts. Until my next break.

Ha! Well so here's a sneak peek of the kit I will give out in a couple weeks to celebrate my birthday.

Doesn't give ya much does it?

So update on the tooth. Well the dentist is going to give me a prescription for antibiotics and hopefully it kicks the pain of the infection before we go Monday. I will have to have someone cover my Inside the Designer's Studio chat. it's really weird for me though to have someone else doing it. They'll be great. Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes from everyone about my teeth. It was really starting to worry me. It really made me feel great though to see so many people reaching out to me in this. Sometimes you write on these things and begin to wonder if people really are out there listening or caring. All goes back to my low blogging self esteem.

On that note, I am continually amazed by the lives of other bloggers. I mean Gina is constantly going and doing and buying and her life is so fun and exciting. Then there are other blogs I read that have all these thought proviking quotes and introspective tidbits that just leave you thinking how amazing this person must be. Do most of you live that kind of life? I mean I think that's why I always feel like this is such a boring blog. I think I live a pretty boring life. And deep down I assume that most people do, but the more blogs I read the more I see people actually DO things LOL! I mean I just get up, clean, do school, be on the computer (should go to the gym) make bread, etc. and stay up late here with you guys and go to bed to start it all over again. I don't buy clothes since they never fit. I am not into buying things really unless they are digikits, books on homekeeping, or long dresses for Cassie. Aside from that I never buy anything. Though when I think about it, it is the people whose lives are like mine that tend to be the blogs I find I glean so much practical wisdom. Maybe that is what my blog needs to become. The everyday details of the life of a normal boring recluse and the things I learn in my quest as a Mommy, homeschooler and proud homekeeper.

Okay so here are the boring details HA! So today I have to deal with the dentist and prescription stuff. Ick. Enough talk about all that. But I can't believe how much stuff I need to do that I haven't.

Well here's the list. I will do the second part of the list here soon.

Okay Battlestar Gallactica's season finale was on last night.
HOLY COW!! Let me say. If you have not seen this show, and you have an ipod, go get the BG on itunes. This show is just downright AWESOME! I watch so many shows and hands down it is my all time favorite. I honestly think it is my favorite show that has EVER been on. I was just blown away by last night's season finale. I have to wait all the way to OCTOBER to watch it again? AHHHH. How will I get by? I so want to discuss all that happened but am afraid of spoiling it for those who haven't seen it yet. What is everyone's take on spoilers on blogs? Should I or shouldn't I? Well I just needed to get a little BG plug in each week like always. Because did I say that this is the best show on tv?? Maybe I did :)

I am going to be doing some SERIOUS decluttering and remodeling (okay rearranging) of these rooms and try to make them more organized. Maybe I will post some pictures of the before and after. We'll see. that's pretty scary.

Did you guys see CD's stunning blog? This is my favorite looking blog out there right now. Check it out HERE And leave her a comment since it is so gorgeous. And her layouts knock my socks off. Okay. Off to clean the house TTYL.

Prayers

Well a quick thing. Can you guys pray for my stupid teeth? I was supposed to have a root canal in the last few weeks. I put it off until after the TX trip. Now I leave in 3 days and am starting to have tooth pain from what is seeming like an infection. If I get on the plane with this pain it will get 1000 times worse from the pressure. I can't get a root canal between now and then. I have an appt tomorrow to see if maybe I need more antibiotics or something but I am just freaking out as I have more to do between now and Monday than I have time for and just DO NOT need to be dealing with this. I could just sit on the floor and cry. I just might.

CT update.

I am so upset about all this. In the end I need Clay to figure out how to fix all this. I can't find my Outlook Express emails in the backup. I can't get the Thunderbird emails to import and I have to search through folders and open them in TB one by one. I am supposed to be going to Texas Monday and am so far from ready and am getting some curt emails from people asking when the call is gonna go out, not that curt emails help your chances. Just know this. I am a tad more than stressed out, I can't figure out how to get to all my emails and I am dependant on my hubby to get it done. I MAY have convinced him to work on it tonight but still I have to run around like mad to get ready to go to Texas. So please be understanding with me as I just can't seem to get it together. I understand all that may choose to withdraw their application. I understand. In the end I will do my best when I get back to get it done within that week. Boy I'm tired. It's late and I have spent forever trying to get all this to work. Read the next blog entry as it's not so despairing :) :)

Another Fweebie, CK woes, etc.

Okay my nightly blog post. I will try and do this most nights. Bad news first or good news? Bad. lol. So a ways back I posted about my publication in CK March that ended up online. But still you get your complimentary copy, as well as check. I had forgotten about it pretty much and it arrived today. But.... that long awaited but you knew was coming since it was the bad news portion. What do these crazy UPS guys DO to these packages anyways? My poor envelope with my mag and check, well... this picture says a lot.


So instead of getting to jump around and wave my Primedia check in the air squealing with delight, running to the bank and going to buy some sort of rockin idea book at the LSS, I got to call and leave a message at both UPS and Primedia about starting a UPS claim. You know the UPS investigator comes to your HOUSE to look at the package and everything? Crazy. So that sucked. You know I was 2 feet from the door. The UPS guy knocked and RAN to his truck and drove away. Sleazy. Now I guess I need to go buy a copy of CK to check out that digi article. I can't wait until I get my paypal ATM card so I can order things online that don't take paypal. That IS how it works right?

OKay BOY was today freebie day for blogs. Was it coincidence or did one start then another did it, then another and another? Or was it just the collective consciousness and all? Well I said I had another little something for ya'll and I do. Just a little twill textured stitched flowers set. Cute and fun and springy.



Download these cute flowers HERE - Link #1

If the link expires, here is LInk #2, click only if #1 doesn't work

Thanks everyone for all your kind words about the freebie yesterday. I am not going to require comments or anything for freebies, but it was fun to see who all stops by this humble abode. I do have a few more layouts to add today. There was a thread on the Pub about whether our scrapping styles are consistent. The OP stated that most mags like consistency in style so they know what to expect when they hire people to create for them. It has me thinking about my style. I am really wavering back and forth. I have made a few more simple story type layouts kinda like Gina's cutie patootie layouts. But I don't think that's my style. I am not and will never be super artsy fartsy, and will never do loads of doodles and things like that. But I like looking at things a little differently. I am struggling to find a balance between telling the story, which I want to do, and trying to still be creative. I happened to catch the last half of the chat at scrapgirls with my FAVE scrapper ever Ali Edwards!! Inspiration just dripped from her lips ha! She really is such an inspiration to me. Her layouts use patterned paper and simple graphic designs in a way that just suck me in. And she is not afraid to use pictures that are imperfect, that are blurry and silly and I love that. In a world of digiscrappers that use lots of solo pictures in layouts that always seem to be perfect that is hard for me. I guess I am just going through scrappers midlife crisis or something. Or maybe it's more like a teenager. That is more like it. I am trying to figure out who I am and where I am going in my scrapping "life". So here are a few layouts one of which isn't in a gallery yet. Speaking of galleries, I SO need to clean out my SBB gallery. I haven't been posting my layouts there because 75% of my gallery is nothing but chat announcements. I hate it. I need to do a complete overhaul of my gallery and post all my layouts that are missing from it. My SBB gallery is my first ever and I have always linked to it in all my siggys, etc and now it is just lame. When I get back from TX that's one of my first frivilous projects. OKay here's the layouts of the day.



Papers on this one from Mere and I's CD at SBB. The His one. Stitching from my Dirty Shirt elements and font is Misproject. These two boys of mine. They really do look alike sometimes. And they both can look at you with such a piercing stare.



Another one with papers from the His CD from Meredith and I at SBB. Fonts are Bodoni and Dominican. This one seems so different for me. But the more I look at it the more I realize it is still a simple layout with just a little twist. I think that is where my style is heading and maybe a good way to describe it. Simple layouts with a twist here and there.



When I has done the Why are you so sad layout it didn't start looking like that at all. It started with the horizontal papers and flowers of this layout with the one lower left pic. I had it in my In Progress folder and just couldn't keep from scrapping it. I really loved it in the end. She is still my little sunshine even when she is looking all sad and solemn. Okay might come back and edit this and add some more ramblings in a bit, we'll see. Otherwise, goodnight.

Cool stuff, Typepad, designs, freebie schedule, umm.. and other stuff.

Okay starting off with a cool thing. Over in the Pub there was a HOF Predictions thread. And I WAS SHOCKED to see that someone had put MY NAME on their predictions list. I don't know that people would be saying that if they had seen my entries LOL! But doing HOF really made me change what I like in my scrapping, even if the layouts themselves were not that fab. And that's great. Makes me know I want to do it next year. So that gave me a HUGE smile. Thanks Carrie Zohn !! Here is her great gallery If you think of it go leave her some peapraise just cause she was so nice LOL!



Speaking of reevaluating my scrapping, I am reevaluating my designing as well. I have been scrapping a lot lately. The more you scrap the more you realize what kind of stuff you want to design. The funny thing is the way I like to design and the stuff I like to use when I scrap is a little different. So I might be changing just a tad. Not much, but just a little tweaking here and there. I am going to start a fun new line soon. And hopefully finish up the Colors Elements. And yunno I am open to requests. If you want certain colors, or elements, you can always email me with your ideas, or even color swatches. If you send me an inspiration and I use it, you get the kit for free!

Attn ALL TYPEPAD USERS - please tell me why I should switch. Does typepad allow you to email replies to your comments? Can I dig in the html of it? How easy is it to customize? Things like that? What package do you have? Hopefully everyone says the cheap one ha! I am starting to think it's the time to change. But like everything in my life am having a hard time making the decision.

FREEBIES! Okay so I am gonna tell you the freebie schedule for these next two freebies. There is a fun one that's coming out TOMORROW! I go out of town next week so I need something to keep people checking back now and then :):) And then the BIG birthday one the following Friday on the 24th. That one is a full kit to celebrate my birthday.So the next 2 Fridays will have a little gift for you guys.

Today I need to clean this whole house, so I will be probably be off the computer the whole day. *wahh!* Well if any of you know me this is nothing but wishful thinking :) Pray I at least get the house done. Have a good one. OH and I forgot! I just haven't gotten around to changing my sale prices so all my stuff is on sale until Tomorrow!