Invasion of the blog snatchers

So out of nowhere, with NO warning I have switched over to typepad. I still have basically no idea how to customize it but It's fine for now. There are many reasons I decided to switch but the main reason is that with blogger I can't email back people who comment. I hate that! I have been getting so many great and encouraging emails that I wish I could respond to. Especially lately. I have some people out there that I really feel care about me and I hate that I cannot get to know any of you!! And I can have a gallery and cool images of fun stuff and categories and all the great great stuff that typepad offers. SO... Cruise on over to my new home at http://kimchristensen.typepad.com/

AND.....DON'T FORGET TO CHANGE MY ADDY IN YOUR BLOG FEED!!!!!!!!!

A bunch of previews and other stuff.

Well I admit firstly that it is very late and this is going to be pretty dull. HA! Secondly, there are a lot of previews. So in the end you will be left thinking "goodness that was one long advertisement". This may be the case, but so be it. This is the beginning of the not caring about what everyone think about me blog. Or at least that's what all you good friends out there in blogland are trying to convince me should be my attitude. I am trying. I really am. I finally feel like I don't care about the rankings anymore, so that is a huge step. I wish I wasn't but I find myself very competitive and jealous about dumb stuff like that. I wish I wasn't. But reality is reality for now. I pray that God is working that out.

So the lightening the other day fried our stove. So it's been three says with no stove so far. It's weird for sure. And it of course throws my whole menu off!! Did make the chinese chicken salad. Man that is good. Even Clay had bowl after bowl of it. And that says a lot. Made an enormous batch of haystacks to try and avoid all Clay's ice cream eating, or more importantly buying. I swear though there are insane amounts of haystacks. You know haystacks right? Chocolate chips and butterscotch chips melted and mixed with crunchy chow mein noodles and spanish peanuts. My aunt makes them every year in her Christmas cookie medley. And I can tell you they are dangerous! Very very dangerous to have 3 full big ziplocs full of. I am going to write myself out a daily eating plan tomorrow and see if I can have self discipline for just ONE day. I'll post that tomorrow morning (or this morning for most reading) and track my progress. Maybe starting to post weight stuff here will create this false sense of accountability that will help me succeed. I need something. This cannot go on ANY LONGER! I never thought I would weigh this much. I never thought I would feel so old so young. I never thought I would feel like such a failure in the area of my body. It needs to change. It can change. I need to have hope. I hate that I am the Queen of Pity Parties. I hate it. How does one just change that? How do I flip the switch to stop feeling like garbage when I look at things in my life? Answers are more than welcome. And on that track..

How do I just be happy? Or content? Or just choose to be in a better mood. Things with Clay are pretty bad. He doesn't like my attitude any more. I need to change it? Do I just tell myself to change it? If I can't keep myself from eating a cookie how do I keep myself from acting ugly when I am upset? I guess the answer lies back to my 21 day challenge here. There is only one thing, only one person that can fix it. And I don't look to Him when I need Him. Pray I will start.

Now speaking of the 21 day challenge, I did one today. I can't do them everyday so I am doing the quotes as they inspire me. This is today's. Clay gave me, well sorta since he took it back ha!, this red painted metal rose.. and here's the LO. The quote is : The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all. Nice. I long to bloom in the midst of this adversity instead of wilt.

One great thing happened today though. My mom is refinancing her house, so I had to have it cleaned top to bottom. It stressed me out beyond belief, Clay and I had a huge fight, and I stayed up super late last night. But I awoke to a gorgeous clean house. This is the beginning! I need to keep it clean. And every single room in the whole house is spotless. That Rocks!

Okay I need to wake Clay and go to bed. But I made a whole slew of fun things. Beware this is a spam fest, but read carefully might be a little something sparkly mixed in.

Will start with the mess of furries. These are all FUN fun fun furry elements!! They should be going in the store tomorrow I think. As always, click the picture and you will get a full page image so you can see them closeup. Look close at the furry stuff cause it's cute :)














Man I LOVE this aqua alpha!! My fave, along with the stars.

Ah ha, did you look through ALL those furries. If so, here's a little something. I made these for a chat a little bit ago. More glitter to add to your collection. I put some closeups so you could see the detail. I find a lot of the glitter hard to tell what it is and am skeptical about downloading it because of it.


Alrighty Here's the Glitter Link:
Glitter Link

Can you believe that these papers have been on my drive for months and I totally forgot about them? I found them the other day and rushed to make elements for them because I loved em so much!!Got 3 more paper packs that need elements I think still to do. Another Warm kit lol. Bet you thought these were over and done with. Got one more.






So... I meant to put my staple in the furry elements zips. I forgot so I am giving it away. Honestly I am picky about some things. One being stitching the other being staples. I finally have 2 staples I like. My chucky one from my dirty kits, and this new one. I love this one. I use it for everything and have a couple friends that are loving it too. So here it is the famed staple lol!


I don't know how to set it up where you just right click the png, so here's a link for it.
Staple Link

I guess I should go to bed. I am tired. Oh forgot! So I have been going to bed pretty late and have been pretty tired so I have started listening to this new Dramatized KJV audio Bible set I bought on ebay. I put the CD player on when I lay down for bed and listen awhile when I am too tired to read. I have been loving it!!

Good night and Good Luck. Oh and PS: I owe a lot of people emails. I know I suck. I will try and answer them today (well tomorrow). Night.

I need to have these.

Did you see THIS?? Oh Goodness. I hardly ever just long for things. But there's this......

Which is HERE

And this.........

Which is HERE

Do we think I love me some Ali E?? That's all. My PSA for the morning.

Too Late Again

I think I start this waaay to late. I need to start getting up early in the morning and blogging while I'm fresh and awake lol. I have some kit previews to show and a few ramblings. Once again I am in a why do I keep blogging mentality. Since I started posting my 21 day challenge layouts and commentary, the number of readers everyday has gone down about 100. It is a very interesting thing to me. In many ways for a long time I kept the bulk of any religious thought I had off this blog. And even now still I keep my thoughts on being a wife, and child training off this blog. I don't have an exciting life. I never will. I think I like reading a lot of blogs because their lives are so glamorous. I don't have fun cute things to show, I don't shop and find neat things at the store. My hair stays the same all the time, long and straight. My house is messy and I struggle heavily with depression. I want to stop watching tv. My life is not glamorous in any way, shape, or form. And if when I stop rambling about the surface stuff in my life, and get to the hard part of life, a lot of people stop finding it interesting, why do I do this? I have decided that I am not going to stop blogging, but I am am going to stop trying to be fun when I want to cry, be interesting when I am trying to just simply get through my mundane day with clean dishes. If listening to my feeble attempts at learning to get organized, or why isn't my bread rising properly, or how to lose 75 lbs, or working through a deep depression bores you.. now is the time to step off. I don't mean that in a mean way. I just am not the fun, exciting person I wish I was to have a popular blog in this community. I make my own homemade laundry soap and bread. I go to the store once or twice a month. I sit at home and scrap and design and teach my children and try to love my husband the way he deserves. Maybe this is the part of me that feels deep in a hole that rambles on like this. But I can't care anymore. I have to be me and that's the end of it.

LIGHTER NOTE! Here are a couple kit previews. I went through my In Progress folder and there are 6 paper packs that need elements. Some are a couple months old Wow! These two that are finished and ready ( well my ribbon the the Cherry Blossoms preview is messed up and I need to rescan a ribbon ) are like polar opposites style wise! The True Dat kit is a new one. The Cherry Blossoms paper and elements have both been done for months. I was in such a muted grungier elementy place back then. I am in a stampy stitchy mood these days. These will be out in the next couple days. I am working on trying to get some more unisex type kits out like this True Dat and I have another Warm Kit that will be done in a day or two as well. I am glad to be having a few first of the month kits come out.








Rained really hard today and lightening fried my mom's stove/oven. SO we get to go buy a new rockin one tomorrow yay!! My Mom's poor dog was abused and she freaks out when there's thunder. Poor girl runs around and whines and freaks out. When the stove broke it started making this loud squealing sound and I thought poor Holly would have an embelism. She lost it. Running around like a crazy dog whining barking the whole bit. Will it EVER stop raining and being icky here?! I need Clay to dig out my garden so I can get ready to plant. It's April!!! In CA!!! It's been raining for months now. I need dry weather for a few weeks.

Okay well I have a long morning tomorrow and need sleep and quiet time. I will talk about laundry soap here in he next day or so. It is SO cheap and the same stuff as a good natural laundry soap that costs you a whole whole lot. I started making it when my baby doll had horrible eczema and it saved me so much money and was super gentle on his skin! Okay enough for that.

Good Night and Good Luck.

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 :)