Happy Halloween!

   I know it's not until tomorrow, but Happy Halloween everyone! I'm still a little confused as to whether we're supposed to trick-or-treat tonight or tomorrow night. Different towns are doing it different nights and I have no idea which night to go! I guess I'll call my neighbor, she'll know! When you don't have a school-age child, you just don't hear about these things! Maylee's going to be a fairy. She thinks it's a butterfly costume, because it has wings, but it's really a fairy. As long as she likes it...I don't really like it, but she picked it out, and she's the one wearing it, so it's okay.

   So the last couple weeks have been okay. I haven't posted in 10 days, and they all kind of blend together. I know we've been crazy-busy at work. Everybody's spending their money before the end of the year, so we've got books, books, books. We get them in (books, that is) pretty steady throughout the year, but Sept., Oct., Nov. get really busy. I had part of a filling fall out, so I had to go to the dentist and my mouth still hurts. I can't open my mouth very far, it feels like my jaw it screwed too tight! My grandma is back from Montana (she lives there about 5 months of the year and here the other 7), so we went to see her last weekend. She couldn't believe how big Maylee is, of course!

   Speaking of Maylee, she's in the very ANNOYING 2-year-old stage. Everything is Why Mommy? Look Mommy! Why Mommy? What is it Mommy? Why Mommy? NO Mommy! Why Mommy? No never Why Daddy, always Why Mommy? I might go a little crazy!!!! I try to take a deep breath and give her the attention she needs, but dang!

   Right now, I'm reading Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson. I've never read her before and I'm really enjoying it. At work, I'm listening to the last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, getting ready for the 1st part of the movie that comes out in a couple weeks. I'm so excited. I love, love, love the Harry Potter books. The movies are pretty good, too.

   Time for the picture portion of the post! I've done quite a bit of scrapping the last week or so. I've been trying to get old pictures done and scrapped to make way for the new stuff. So here they are:

  Credits:

Background and most elements: Summer Fun – Delicious Scraps

Alpha : Essential Alpha – Jady Day Studio

Credits:

Holiday magic – Shabby Princess

 Credits:

Sunrise Sorbet blog train

(blog trains are really hard to credit because so many great shops contribute, like Funky Playground and Sunshine Studio)

Credits:

Template: Kristin's Scraps

Plentiful – Shabby Princess

 Credits:

Background: Lavender time – Marta Designs

Elements: Sweet Dreams – Talia from Dani Moy Designs

Cloud – Aprilisa 

Frame: Scarborough Fair – Design House Digital

   For me, there are highs and lows to these pages. I don't really like the Do You Compute one. It's just kinda blah to me. Same with Counting Sheep. But the Autumn Beauty is one of my favorite pages I've ever done. I think it's beautiful!

  Well, Maylee and I are off to do a little shopping. (I just asked Maylee if she wanted to go to the store with me and she said, "Yes! We have to go shop!" Oh boy. I guess she doesn't have my hatred of shopping...yet.) We're having our family pictures taken next week with Brandon's side of the family as a surprise Christmas present for my Mother-in-law. She's going to be so surprised and happy! I can't wait to see her face!

  Love to all,

Which is better?

   Thought I'd pose you guys a question. Which one of these do you like better? I'm not telling which, but one I did when I first started scrapping and one I did just today. Which one do you like better? Vote in the poll on the right. And you can leave me a comment as to which one is old and which is new if you want.

#1

#2

Both were made with the same kit, The Shabby Princess's Lovely. Thanks for playing!

Post #40

   Blogger tells me this is my 40th post. Hm. I'm trying to post more, but sometimes I just don't have anything to say or anything to share, so I feel like it'd be stupid to post to the 8 people who actually read this and waste their time! I at least have a scrap page to share today, so that's something!

   We've all been doing pretty well. My mom and brother moved out officially this weekend, though most of their stuff is still here! We're pretty sure we're going to turn half of the guest bedroom into a play room (yeah, like half is ever really gonna work. That room's gonna be taken over in no time!). I want Maylee to have a place to play AWAY from the TV, and I'm a believer (at least now) of not having too much stuff in her bedroom. It needs to be a place of sleep, not play, especially when we're going to be transitioning into a big-girl bed in the next few months. And as far as the TV, even when it's not turned to something for her, my silly husband's got to have the stupid thing on, and she'll watch it. I'd have the thing off most of the time she's awake if I could, but Brandon's not in agreement! That's not to say I don't love to watch TV, because my post a few posts ago illustrated that we watch way too much TV, but I like to watch it AFTER she goes to bed! Anyway...

   Maylee's going to the babysitter's this morning. She has a great time when she's there, but convincing her of that in the morning is not easy. She doesn't want to get dressed. She doesn't want to go see her friends. She doesn't want to get in the car seat. She doesn't want to...   you get my drift. Once she's there, she's fine, but getting her out the door is a chore (hey, that rhymes). I guess I'm going to be looking for her a daycare for when she turns three. Preschool through the school district might not be an option, so I'm looking at daycares or even very structured babysitters with activities and learning time and stuff. I can't believe my baby is that big already! I just don't want to throw her into kindergarten and she's never really been in a school-like setting before. That sounds scary, even to me!

  I've started to keep a log when I scrap. I have a text document open and keep track of every credit I need for a particular page. For example, this is what I have for the page below: (I linked them for my blog only, of course)

0/18/2010

Too Cute to Spook

Background & Pumpkin: Fangs for the Memories - Summer Driggs

Frame: Funkylicious – Delicious Scraps

Elements: Fall in the Patch – Sir Scrapalot

               Autumn Sunset – Raspberry Road

This is an older one was done with Owl Always Have Spring - Summer Driggs.

Well, that's that.

Twinkle, twinkle little star

Yep, this is my little star. Loooved this! Just had to share it.

Getting back to it

   Hey all. Made it through yesterday and today, though I didn't know if I was gonna. My little princess has been a total terrible two the last couple of days. Yesterday afternoon she had a total breakdown. I was able to calm her down and she was just fine for a couple of hours. Then about a 1/2 hour before bedtime, I tried to put her jammies on her and she lost it! Screamed, cried, kicked, hit...the whole 9 yards. I tried to calm her down at first and then just backed off and tried to let it run its course. After a while, she came to me, head hanging and said she wanted to snuggle. I picked her up, we sat down and she proceeded to throw up all over me. Nice. She worked herself into such a tizzy she made herself sick. But we now know that barfing will calm her down. Not a peep out of her after that. Not sure that it was worth it, though!

   Monday was Columbus Day here in the US (hey, it's possible I could have some international blog followers..Haha!). The library was closed to the public, but we had Staff Development Day, which we do every year. It's a nice break from our everyday work, and we get to see staff from the other branches that we don't see that often, but talk to on the phone all the time, so that was nice. We do training stuff and motivational stuff and this year we got trained on using a fire extinguisher. Though I have them, I've never actually USED one, thank goodness. So it was interesting to actually use one. And we had fun cheering on our fellow staff when they used it, too.

   Speaking of work, it's starting to get crazy busy. The end of our fiscal year is coming up, so the branches are using all of the money they've socked away throughout the year. It's a "use it or lose it" situation, so they of course are going to use it. So we have books coming out the wazoo right now. Makes for very busy, fast days...my favorite kind! Plus I LOVE seeing a the new books. I really try not to look through them, and I usually do really good, but when I see, say, a picture book that I think Maylee would like, or I see a book from a favorite author, I can't help but look through it. Love me some books!

    Not sure if I've talked about the new TV season yet. Let's see, the new shows we've started to watch are Mike & Molly, Nikita, Raising Hope, and The Event (I feel like I'm forgetting one). We have all of The Undercovers recorded, but haven't watched them yet. I don't know if we'll ever get around to watching them, either, unless someone gives me a glowing recommendation of the show. And old shows...Grey's Anatomy has been great, Glee's been great, Modern Family, which is my new favorite show, didn't start out great, but has gotten better each episode. We love House, but have yet to watch one new episode--we're 4 behind! Chuck, which is one of our favorites, has been great. It doesn't get great rating, which surprised the heck out of me because it's a funny, dramatic and heartfelt show. Mythbusters, which has been a favorite for years, just started up with new episodes, also.I love Project Runway, and it's winding down. Only like 3 or 4 episodes left of it. Oh, oh, and Fringe. Man, that's a good show! Geez, reading this paragraph makes me wonder how we have time to watch all that TV. I'll tell you how...DVR. No commercials! And sometimes we watch one show in real time and watch a recorded one on commercial breaks. We're good at this!!

  Now onto scrapping. I've whipped up a few pages in the last couple of pages. Here they are:

This page was done with Fresh Attitude kit from Digital Creative.

This one was made with Summer Driggs' Father's Day kit. If you're looking for whole kits free, this is an awesome site.

   Okay, I'm done now. I'm gonna get off here and catch up on some TV. We just put Maylee down for the night and it's OUR TIME now! Yay!

Playing catch up

   Finally got around to doing a little scrapping this weekend. I threw together my monthly reviews. I was behind two months! Now that I'm done with my sister's wedding pages, I can start to catch up on my stuff! When I started these monthly reviews, I really liked the backgrounds. They all came together and I liked how they coordinated with one another if you wanted to print them out and put them in a book. Now I'm looking forward to the new year so I can do something new. These seem a little drab to me now that I know so much more about Photoshop and scrapping in general than I did 9 months ago when I was just starting. Anyway, here's August and September, and as usual, they were done with Cuddlebeez 365 pages.

   I have a couple of busy weeks coming up. If you didn't know, my Mom and brother have been living with us for about 2 years now. They moved back here from the Seattle area when Maylee was born. It was a combination of Mom wanting to be near her newest grandbaby and my brother having more support here with school because he's learning and behavior disabled. He's gotten a lot of great help here, though the school wasn't all that great. Anyway, they're moving out at the end of this week and I'm both dreading it and looking forward to it. I know my mom wants to have her own place and not have to worry about being in our house, but it's going to be weird after so long, I think. I'm looking forward to having our house back for our little family, but I'm also kind of bummed. Maylee will still have Grandma with her all day, so things aren't totally changing, but it's still mixed emotions.

   Not sure how much spare time I'll actually get to scrap this week, but I really hope to start up again. I have so many cute pictures to scrap!! I had some time today, but I used that time to get dinners ready for the next week so I won't have to do so much when I get home from work. I made a big pot of soup we'll eat on for the next day or so, I made enough meatballs for two meals and froze them. I also made some oatmeal/chocolate/peanut butter no-bake cookies today. I haven't made no-bake cookies since I was young! And they were pretty dang good! I love to cook, but I'm not much of a baker, so this was the perfect recipe for me.

   Hope everyone has a great week. I'm going to try to get back to my memes and regular posting, so look out! You'll get to read more of my ramblings!

My award-winning blog

   Yep, you read that right, I'm now the proud producer of an award-winning blog. Yes, the award was given to me by a friend. Yes, my award-winning blog only has 9 official followers. Yes, I've only blogged one time this month because it's been a weird month involving travel and all the funks that come with that. But do I deserve this award? Do I? Nah, probably not, but it was so cool to receive it!

   I was nominated for (not really) and received this award from my friend Karine. She has a nice little blog that I follow and has the same problems as me as far as posting regularly (We'll get back into it, Karine!), and she's one of my actual blog followers!  She's a very interesting person, so go check out her blog!

   Now onto the award!!! This is my beauty:

To accept this award requires me to share 7 things about myself. I'm not nearly as interesting as Karine, so prepare to be bored:

1. I married very young. I was 19 and Brandon was 21. I am still as in love as I was when I starting dating him at age 15. We are one of the shining examples of "High School Sweethearts." (I know, I know, barf. I can't help it!)

2.  I'm lazy. When it comes to SO many things. I hate to clean (but I grudgingly keep my house at least passable), I'm too lazy to really fix my hair in the morning or put on makeup. I don't wear many of the clothes I own simply because they need ironed. Yeah, that's me. Fat and lazy. But I already snagged my man, right?

3. I was born in Missouri, raised in Ohio until the age of 12, then moved back to Missouri. It was quite a...culture shock. I had never heard so much bad grammar or seen so many four-wheelers in my life. But I've learned to love it and have also learned that not everyone speaks in double negatives and uses the "word" ain't.

4. I am an avid, voracious, ravenous, and insatiable reader (yeah, I just pulled up a thesaurus to find those synonyms, but they all fit me very well!). I read mostly novels. I love a big, thick novel. I don't read many mysteries and don't read romances, but most novels nowadays have a little of both of those things in them anyway. I went through a phase a couple of years ago where I read every historical novel I could get my hands on about Henry VIII. Then it was Jane Austen stuff. Not just her books, but books based on her books. I also listen to books while I work. I like to read (listen) fantasy novels for that. I find that their fantastical nature keeps me paying attention. If you ever need a suggestion for a book to read, ask me! Oh, and if you're a voracious reader too, I highly suggest Library Thing to keep track of all your reads.

5. I've never had a dishwasher in a house I've lived in until we bought our house 5 years ago. No, we had a dishwasher, and her name was Kate. (Oh, haha. Aren't I hilarious? I crack myself up.) Having a dishwasher is amazing and helps so much, because, well, refer to #2.

6. I love to digital scrapbook. We, who are in the know, call it digiscrap. I started a little over a year ago and have just dived into it. I always loved to look at paper scrapbooking but knew I didn't want to do it because it's expensive and very time-consuming. You also have to have multiple copies of your photos, lots of punchie-things and glue. Lots of glue. Anyway, I had a friend who did a digiscrap page for me and I said to myself, "I can do this!" And I did! And I get better every day. It's definitely a learning process, especially if you're teaching yourself! It's so much fun and the finished product is so satisfying...

7. Coming up with 7 things is very hard. This should illustrate just how boring I really am. No...I can do this. Let's seeeeee. Photography. I love it. I have two good friends who are photographers (Valerie and Shawntae...check their stuff out.) I would love to learn to photograph better and actually be able to USE all the functions that are on my camera. And one day I will get a DSLR and one of these lovely ladies are going to give me lessons on how to use it! To give you guys an idea of how important pictures are to me, my daughter is 2 years and 5 months old. I have over 10,000 pictures of her. I value pictures over my dishwasher. 'Nuff said.

Well, my steadfast followers, that is that. Go proclaim it to the world that you knew me when, because with this award, my little blog is going places. I may even get one new follower out of it.

Here goes nothin'

   So I'm going to try to do a post. I have nothing to show, really, but I wanna get back in the groove of things. I have been working non-stop on my sisters wedding scrap pages, and I don't really wanna share them, because she hasn't even seen them yet! I'm almost done. This has made me so far behind on my regular scrapping, so I hope to get caught up sometime.

   My trip went great. I had a great time being with my sisters, nieces and brothers-in-law. The newest addition to my family (the guy my sister married) is a really good guy. I'm so happy she found someone that makes her happy. They seem so perfect for eachother...almost kinda like an opposites attract type thing. Brandon and I are like that and I know from experience it makes for a great connection! I think when two people are too alike, they often clash rather than get along! That's why families are so hard, sometimes!

   As far as being away from my little family, it was hard. Really hard. I broke down at the airport, broke down later that day, broke down the next day, then after that I held it together pretty well. I think Brandon missed me more than he thought he would. We've never texted so much! And Maylee got really good at talking on the phone. We sent lots of pictures to eachother and managed alright. But I've NEVER been so glad to be home!

   Since being back, it's been pretty much back to normal. Work's been going well. I've been listening to books on CD while I work (I actually put them on my MP3 player), like usual, and that makes the days go so much faster. I'm looking so forward to the 1st half of the last Harry Potter movie coming out in November, so I'm going to listen to the last two books pretty soon. I've read them multiple times, and listened to all of them before, too. They're GREAT to listen to. I haven't really been reading much since I got home; too much scrapping to do. Any free time I have is spent in front of the computer

   So instead of sharing scrap pages, I'll just post some regular pics. LOTS of them! Click on any pic to make it full size.

My sister, Melea, the bride-to-be.

My sisters Carla and Melea with Mom.

Jon & Melea Roup

The wedding cake, made by the executive pastry chef of the Hilton in Seattle. Their wedding had a pear theme. It was very impressive to see in person. Pic doesn't do it justice.

Melea & Jon's chihuahua, Tito. He wore a bow tie for the wedding. He cleans up nicely! (He's sitting on my mom's lap. This is one of the few dogs my mom will get close to.)

My nieces playing bride the day after the wedding.

My beautiful big girl.

Maylee playing with her cousin Addison.

Maylee eating an ice cream cone. Mmmmm.

Maylee at Grant's Farm

My two sweeties at Grant's Farm

I love this pic I took the other morning of Maylee in her jammies.

Oh to be two years old again! Love this!

Okay, so that's that. I'm going to get back on blogging schedule now.