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Giveaway #1 - Brooke Daniels
Giveaway #2 - Lauren
Congrats you two! Now please email your address so I can get these goodies off to you. (There is a link to email me right under my photo.)
PS - I'm going to do my best to get these mailed off on Saturday. We are in for a whomping snow fall tomorrow, so they might not get out until Monday if the roads are horrid.
Ava is sick. Bah!
Right now she is sitting on the couch with no less that six stuffed animals, henceforth known as "critters", her blankie, a sippy cut and her sun glasses. She is watching Disney and resting. I'm going to try to get her in to the doctor and try to cut things off at the pass. I'm on my second cup of coffee. Yum.
Last night we had a major windstorm. It was that SCARY wind that wakes you up and has you praying to God that the 60+ year old Maple tree in your front yard withstands the storm, or if it doesn't, that it at least falls into the street and away from the house. I do not want to end up as a news story due to being mushed by a ginormous tree whilst sleeping. I'm going to pass on that. Luckily we have power (for now). I probably shouldn't even type that. I've probably jinxed us. Great. I shouldn't have even thought it... I'm knocking on wood now...
Take care. More exciting updates later...
UPDATE:
So glad I took baby girl into the doctor when I did... She has pneumonia. :( I just figured that she had a icky cold that had transformed into an ear infection like they always do. My poor baby. She's in good spirits considering, but will need to be kept home for a few days to recuperate.
Nefarious, happens to be one of my favorite words. It just rolls off the tongue and gives me such pleasure to say, however, I rarely have the occasion to use the word. What is the definition of the word you ask?
Nefarious: extremely wicked or villainous
Now, will someone please do something nefarious (not to me though) so I can have a reason to use one of my favorite words? My vocabulary thanks you in advance.
PS - Don't forget that I'm giving some goodies away... Click here for a chance to win some fabulous goodness!
Sesame Street Live wasn't horrid. Perhaps it was because we had suite tickets. Again, we Gaileys did not purchase suite tickets. No, they were given to me by a vendor clearly trying to smooth over the fact that they had screwed something up, yet again. Apology accepted, however, your errors are not forgotten dear vendor.
Let me just tell you this... YOU WANT SUITE TICKETS AT THE FOX THEATER.
From the moment we pulled into the parking structure the service began. We parked in a special area and as soon as we got out of the car there was an usher who took our tickets and walked us across the street to a special door only for suite ticket holders. We walked up some stairs, they took our tickets and then the festivities began. With our tickets included a dinner buffet, so we ate...
Plus there was a full bar and let me tell you, at Sesame Street Live you NEED a full bar. (Screaming children.... My gosh... There were a lot of them.) After we ate, we headed into our suite, where we had our own hostess who took our drink orders and ensured we received whatever we needed. We had the sofa seats in the suite and it was awesome. At intermission they had dessert of ice cream and cookies. Plus, we had restrooms that the other rif raf couldn't access. As we were leaving they provided each child with a candy goodie bag. Yes, we were spoiled.
The kids LOVED the show. Both of them. Ava sat on my lap the whole time and was hypnotized by the show. It was so cute to see both of them having such a good time. They sang and clapped and just really, really, really enjoyed it. Love that.
In other news...
I have to share what people have been searching for that hit my blog. Some of my personal favorites include:
Still no hits from "gay cowboys", which surprises me. :)
Can I get a hallelujah from the crowd? Woop! Woop!
I love me some weekend. Oh yeah. It's not that I hate my job, because I don't. It's just that I'd rather not work. I'd prefer to do something fun with my time, like scrap or not work. Working does put a cramp in being caught up on my story too. Back in the day I watched Days of our Lives religiously. I started watching it in 4th grade, because it was on from 3:00 to 4:00 pm in Idaho. Hello... That was my after school special every day! In college, I purposely scheduled my classes so I wouldn't miss it. Obviously, when I got out into the real world I couldn't do that anymore. So, if I didn't work, I know my ass would be firmly planted on the couch at 1:00 pm to see what in the hell Bo, Hope, Marlena, John, Roman, Stephano and Victor were up to. Sigh... I was always too lazy to tape it, and don't have a DVR. So alas, I will just have to catch it on sick days and holidays, but really, let's be honest, that is all you need to be "caught up".
OK... I'm not sure how I got off on that tangent. Sorry. I tend to go out in left field a lot.
We are taking the kids to Sesame Street Live - Elmo Makes Music this evening. I know... I know... You are terribly jealous and wish you were me. Griffin wasn't overly impressed when we told him, because it has nothing to do with Lego Star Wars and that is all he wants to talk about. Also, he seems to think it is for babies, but he watched Elmo's Christmas Special with complete and total wonderment, so I'm sure he will enjoy it. We told them at dinner one night and I asked them both in my most super excited happy voice "are you excited to go to Sesame Street Live"? Ava replied "Ava no like Elmo". Which is true. You see Chris got her Elmo TMX (click there to see a YouTube video) for her birthday last year and it terrified her. I'm pretty sure we scarred her for life with that purchase. She didn't even want him in her room... She banished him. We put him in Griffin's room and every time she would walk by the door she would say "no Elmo". Chris ended up giving him away. So, Elmo TMX is know as the worst gift ever in these parts. Hopefully, Ava's psyche isn't damaged too badly and she will be able to make it through the show without a complete and total freak out.
I actually scrapped a page about her disdain for Elmo a while ago. I never got around to posting it because I could never get a good scan. I'm a perfectionist about those sorts of things. Finally, someone smart suggested that I tape those types of layouts to the wall and photograph them. Well, duh! Clearly, I am about as sharp as a bowling ball or these blond highlights have effected my brain. So, here it is...
It's snowing this morning... Looks lovely. No, really. It is very pretty. I have other big plans for the rest of my Saturday. Yup. I'm going to sit around and scrap. Go me. I actually have a lot of things I need to get done in a short amount of time... So, that is what I'll be doing.
Oh, and I thought I'd do a couple of giveaways. One is a trash to treasure type of thing... You see, I have all these idea books that I just do not need or wish to store any longer. They are all awesome books and I learned something from all of them, but it is time for them to be whisked away to a new owner. Any takers? Here is giveaway #1.
Giveaway # 2 - The second one is a secret, uber fantastic, amazing prize package which contains beautiful patterned paper, embellishments and mini albums! OK. So, I forgot to take a picture. However, you won't be disappointed. I promise. :)
If you would like one, or heck, even both of these fabulous prize packages leave me a comment telling me which one you want and I'll do a drawing in a few days. I'll leave it open to next Wednesday or Thursday. Then I'll ship these out next Friday or Saturday.
Nothing is more endearing than a person that can make fun of their own self...
At least that is what I have always thought... I would much rather laugh along with someone as they make fun of their self, as opposed to someone who makes fun of others. I tend to think that people who make fun of others are usually big fat meanies. Unfortunately though, I am going to have to drag someone else down with me. He reads my blog too. I'm sorry Randy, but this is too good to pass up. You see I found this picture... (Click it to get the FULL effect.)
This picture was taken in 1987 at one of my fabulous high school's formal dances. I went to good ol' Idaho Falls High School, in surprise, surprise, Idaho Falls, Idaho. This is Randy. He was one of my high school boyfriends. I would like to point out several things about this picture that I would hate for you to miss:
You will be happy to know that both Randy and I grew up to be very productive members of society. He is married, has one child currently plus has another on the way, and well, you already know how awesome I am...
So, laugh along with me and poor Randy too... Gotta love the 80s.
Have you ever done a search of unclaimed property to see if something has been turned in for you? Yeah... Me neither until last week. If a company can't find you and they have money for you they can't just keep it. They have to turn it over to the state and the state has to keep it until you come forward. You can access lists for most states on line and the majority of them use a website called www.missingmoney.com to house their information. If your state isn't on the Missing money website go to Google and search "unclaimed property + the name of your state".
I got a little search happy and lo' and behold I found a little something, something for Chris and I from Seattle City Light. It was listed as being between $25-50, which is certainly worth a bit of time to fill out a claim form and the stamp to send it in. I also found that my brother Jason had something on the list to.
So, good luck. May you find some missing money!
I can't believe Heath Ledger died. He hadn't been exhibiting any crazy behaviors (a la Britney Spears), so it came as a total shock. In fact, when I saw it on my home page (MSN) I let out an audible gasp. My kids came running over to see what was wrong. How very unfortunate. Many women will be in mourning over this. It is sad when one one the hot ones has an untimely demise and regardless of hotness, 28 is far, far, far too young to die. Although, whenever I think of Heath Ledger, all I can think of is gay cowboys.
Not that there is anything wrong with that...
I'm just saying that Brokeback Mountain is permanently tattooed on my brain. That tent scene specifically...
(I wonder how many hits I'm going to get on my blog now because I wrote "gay cowboys". Oops. I just did it again.)
Larson and I were called "The Frump Sisters" growing up. This is a prime example of why. Here we are in the middle of the day wearing our nightgowns. Our hair hasn't been brushed, although we do have gift ribbon bows tied in our hair. Clearly, we haven't bathed, nor do we have any intention of bathing... Oh yeah... Those were the days. I'm pretty sure we had climbed a few trees and been jumping on the trampoline for hours before this picture was taken.
Gotta love old pictures...
Have you heard this album?
Ummmm yeah... Wow. WOW. Seriously, wow. Who would have thought that Robert Plant and Alison Krauss would sound so good together?!? Their voices are such a great match. Now, usually if I like an album it just goes up over there on the left <----- and I leave it at that, but this is something special. Now, I have always liked Robert Plant, in Led Zeppelin or otherwise (Ship of Fools, anyone?), 'cause apparently I'm a butt rocker. I'm also a lover of twang and folk which Alison Krauss brings. Truly it is an interesting mix and worth listening to.
I know you may find that hard to believe, but it is true. My shyness is selective though. I am fine at work. My role as a Human Resources Manager, requires me to talk to all sorts of people and give presentations to large groups, etc. I am fine with that. I have NO problem speaking to large groups and can do it all day long. I think the reason I can do it is because it has nothing to do with me personally. I'm just doing my job.
What I have a really hard time with is talking to new people on a non-professional basis. I hate for the focus to be on me personally. I had an anxiety attack the day Chris and I got married and it wasn't because I was questioning things or getting cold feet. No. It was because I knew I was going to have to walk down the aisle and I knew people were going to be looking at me during the whole ceremony. I had to have a couple of glasses of wine to settle my nerves, but that only helped a bit.
The whole thought of having to do the small talk thing with people I don't know terrifies me. I inevitably end up looking like a bitch because I just don't know what to say, so I usually just keep quiet. People interpret me all wrong. I can't tell you how many people have told me "oh I thought you were a total bitch when I first met you" after they have gotten to know me. So, it is hard for me to make new friends.
I am telling you all of this because I have to take Griffin to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese this afternoon. I'm not going to just dump him off there because I'm afraid of people abducting my children, so that means that I'm going to have to stand around and have small talk with the other parents. Oh my. This has been causing me anxiety for days. Just thinking about it makes my palms sweaty and my heart race. I will do it, because he is my kid and I love him and he is SO looking forward to this, but I know I will be counting the minutes until I can escape.
When I was younger and was thrown into a situation like this, I would have a few drinks to help loosen me up. However, there were several occasions where this plan backfired and actually drew more attention than I wanted. Like the time Chris and I went to our friend's wedding in San Francisco and I ended up being known as "that drunk girl from Seattle". So, not only was I still shy when I woke up and around a bunch of people I didn't know, I was also embarrassed. Nice.
So, wish me luck today. I'm sure I will need it.
How's everyone doing today? I'm good. Cold, but good. It's only 14 degrees here at the moment. Brrrrr... Tonight it is supposed to go down to 3 to -3 degrees. Crikey. Our furnace will be getting a serious workout, that is for sure. Griffin has a very busy social life this weekend. He has a play date later today and then is going to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese tomorrow. It is sad when your 6 year-old son has a better social life than you. *smirk*
I actually got out last night... I met my dear friend Sharyn at The Scrapbook Zone for an evening of debauchery and wildness. OK... so we actually just scrapbooked, drank some Diet Coke and ate some M&M's. The place was packed! The store's crop room holds 64 people and there wasn't an empty spot left. Clearly, there were a lot of women who needed to get the hell out of the house for a night. I needed it for sure. I've been wound pretty tight lately, so some down time to decompress was just what the doctor ordered.
I fully finished 1 layout and am about 90 - 95% finished with a couple of two-pagers. I seriously could have stayed a lot longer, but I think the staff wanted to go home. Here's the one I finished... I'm seriously into red and turquoise lately. What you can't see in the scan is that those turquoise brads are all glittery and sparkly. They are some of those Doodlebug Sugarcoated Brads. Me likey.
Have a fabulous day!
...than having a full tank of gas (in the car) and plenty of toilet paper in the house. :) How about you?
What random things in life make you happy?
Finally got around to editing some photos of all of the siblings that were taken the night of my Dad's funeral. I couldn't bear to deal with them for the longest time because looking at them made me too sad. Then the holiday madness hit, which is also the busiest time of year for me at work. Then we were in Idaho. I know... Excuses, excuses, excuses. It's sad that we all hadn't been in the same room together in many years before this. We are spread out across the US and it is hard for all of us to get back to Idaho Falls, let alone all do it at the same time.
So, here we are... We had a hard day, so please ignore our red eyes and lack of makeup, well for the girls anyway. I numbered us so you could see who is oldest to youngest. Please note: I am NOT the oldest. That dubious honor goes to Brother Jason.
#1 = Jason
#2 = Moi (Queen Esther or Frump Sister #1)
#3 = Larson (LaLa or Frump Sister #2)
#4 = Alton (aka Ad, or Addy Poodles)
#5 = Justin
#6 = Tom (aka Tommy Ray)
So, on New Year's Day we got a hefty dose of snow and it was the perfect packing snow for making snowmen/women, snowballs and snow forts. Now, we've certainly had lots of snow before, but the situation was never ideal for snowman making. Either the snow we got was too powdery, too slushy, or we would get packing snow during the week. Chris and I both work outside of the home, so it is dark by the time we get home. It's pretty hard to make snowmen in the dark. Well, on this particular day, all the stars aligned and we got packing snow on a day we had off.
Chris got the kids all bundled up and they made a snowman for our front yard.
(Is she not just the cutest thing ever???) I can barely stand her she is so cute. I just want to eat her up. :)
We had a really warm spell (like 60 degrees warm) several days after we made our snowman and he melted. Ava kept saying "Oh no! Where snowman go?!?" each time we would either back out or pull into our driveway. She was very sad. Poor bug.
Hope you are having a great weekend. I'm getting ready to start cooking a Polish feast. We are having Auntie Noelle over for dinner tonight and I'm making golbki, which is pronounced gwump-key and are Polish cabbage rolls. I'm also make dill pickle soup, which is so, so, so good. I know it sounds wierd, but you shouldn't knock it until you try it. I went to the Polish Market yesterday (that is what it is called) and I bought some smoked kielbasa and two kinds of fresh pirogi. One is stuffed with sauerkraut and the the others are stuffed with potatoes. I'm a sucky pirogi maker. I work the dough too much and they end up too chewy, so I just take the easy way out and buy them.
I am not Polish, however, Chris is half Polish. When we lived in Seattle, he missed Polish food something fierce, so I bought a cookbook that was written by the local Polish women's club. The recipes are fantastic and he tells me that my golbki is the BEST he has ever had. I think it has something to do with the sauce that I make for them, which has bacon grease in it. Yuummmmm. Pork fat. It's quite the ordeal to make this feast so, I'm going to get cracking.
Oh and here are a couple of layouts I finished up last night... I feel like a fish out of water and I'm trying to get my groove back, but it feels so good to scrap again...
(As always, you can click the layouts to see them bigger.)
The corners on the yellow edge/frame are also rounded... but the scan cut that part off. Just saying...
Enjoying listening to some older tunes lately... 1994-1996 seem to be about the time frame I have been revisiting lately. My latest rediscovery has been The Smashing Pumpkins - Pisces Iscariot.
Loved it when it first came out (14 years ago!) and I love rediscovering it again. It truly is an amazing album. Too bad The Smashing Pumpkins are no longer as good as they once were...
Back to your regularly scheduled activities...
I've been so busy lately that I have barely had a moment to myself. I have missed scrapbooking soooooo much. I put in an enormous photo order this morning. I ordered 236 prints. I'm bad about getting photos developed frequently. So, whenever I put in an order it contains 3-4 months worth of photos. There is something about a new pile of photos that just gets the juices flowing for me. I just went quick and easy and did 4x6 photos this time. I have a bad habit of getting enlargements made and then never using them. Bad me. So, after I put the kidlets to bed I got at it.
(As a reminder, if you click on the photos you can see them larger.)
I also scanned a layout I did a month or so ago and never got around to scanning.
(Melissa Frances papers, chipboard and glitter.)
And now I'm going to bore you a bunch of others that I did but never shared here. I tend to post my stuff at 2Peas, so if you visit there you may have already seen them... but since there are actually non-scrappy people that read my blog I will also post them here for them.
Did these next few for a Scrapbooks Etc. "Make it yours" call... So, to the non-scrappy people that means that you were supposed to look at someone else's layout and interpret it in your own way. You could be inspired by the colors, the design, the title, an element, etc. I wish I could remember who the original designers were because I would credit them. Can't.
OK... and this has to be one of my favorite layouts ever. You guys know I love me a two page layout. I'm all about the photos...
I was out of town.
Last Thursday Chris and I flew to Idaho Falls to take care of some of the estate stuff. We got into town about 1:00PM, then checked into the hotel and headed on out to Dad's house to inventory the guns. Yeah. You just read that right. We had to inventory the guns. I have mentioned before that my Dad was a sportsman. He bought me a B.B. gun for my 5th birthday. He had quite the collection of guns. It took Chris and I almost 6 hours to inventory them and tag them for the sibling who wanted them. In the end, there were 198 guns.
In addition to doing the inventory on the guns we had to take them out of the gun safes, because on Friday we had arranged for the safes to be moved to a storage facility and the movers wouldn't move them full. Dad had 4 gun safes. One was so big that it wouldn't even fit through the door to get it in the house. It can hold 5-6 adults. It is enormous. After we emptied a safe, we would inventory them and then move them down to the basement for safe keeping (carpeted floor and a lock on the door). Now, we knew there were a lot of guns. We knew it. What we weren't prepared for was actually seeing them all out in one room. Holy crap. I wish I would have brought my camera just to take pictures of that. There were so many that we could barely walk. I can say with confidence that I will never witness something like that again in my life.
Now, I know what you are thinking. What in the world did we do with them all??? Well, we 6 siblings put dibs on the ones we wanted. Some wanted more than others. The leftovers were moved into the storage facility. They will be sold or auctioned off at a later date. I tell you what... moving those guns down then up stairs, into the car, then into the storage facility sucked. SUCKED I tell you. Long guns are heavy. Now imagine toting 2 and 3 at a time up and down stairs. Yeah. Good times. I was so freaking sore.
So, after we got the guns situated we had to start on the house. Now, we had made a good dent on stuff in November when Dad died, but there was still a lot to do. We had to empty it. Junk had to be taken to the dump and the decent stuff needed to be donated. We made seven dump runs and one trip to the donation place. The rest of the donate stuff was bagged/boxed up and a pick up will need to be arranged.
I'm amazed I even have an ass left, we worked so hard. Seriously. I did meet with people too. I met with the probate attorney on Friday for an almost 5 hour meeting. Eek. I met with my Dad's insurance/finance guy. We even sold Dad's truck. So, what I'm saying is this... We accomplished a lot. It was a productive trip. We did get to see family too and do a couple of dinners, which were nice. :)
Then we got trapped in Denver on our way home because we missed our connecting flight. The stupid plane didn't even arrive in Idaho Falls until an hour after we were supposed to leave, and then we sat there on the tarmac forever waiting to be deiced. See, in Idaho Falls the folks that check you and your luggage in also are the gate check in people, the baggage people, the ground crew and deicing crew. So, United put us up in a hotel for the night. We ate dinner at the Flying J. It was spectacular.
Tuesday, we left Denver a bit after 10:00 AM. Things were going well until the captain came over the speaker to tell us that the navigational equipment went out on the plane and we were going to have to make an emergency landing in Chicago. I was totally freaked out, then I got upset, because I realized that there was no one to pick up my kids from school! We called Bob and Jan as we were leaving Denver to let them know that we were OK and so they headed home, which is about 4 hours away. I was about ready to cry. Chris called his sister (Auntie Noelle) and she was nice enough to cancel her last few patients and picked them up. Note to self: Don't ever fly United again.
