Hello stranger!

Oh dear, oh dear...A bad blogger over here!

Well, there is no POSSIBLE way to update everything...so I am not even going to try!

So what's new with me...

I am working full time this year...8-5, M-F.  So much less time for scrapping...I have been mostly doing cards.  But thanks to the 5th annual Crp For The Cure hosted by Veronica Reis, I did manage to get a fair number of pages done.  I haven't snapped them yet so no pics...sorry!  I will do that another time.

Two kids in High School???  How the heck did that happen? 
Yep...my baby graduated in June...she was gorgeous that evening...so proud of her!

Here they are on their first day(s)...Elysia had to go on the Tuesday...grade 9 orientation day...Gregory got an extra day off!

Here are some cards I have made since the last ones I showed you...

a condolence card

for my best friend's 50th

for my daughter's 14th

for billet hosts from boys on choir exchange

for billet hosts from girls on choir exchange

At work I have really been getting my craft on.  I am working every morning for 45 minutes with grades 2-6 and I decided to do month-long projects. I have been using The Crafty Crow for inspiration and instruction.  Great site...if it's not their own project they link you to the instructions.  In October we made this aluminum foil art that looked like an antique ceiling tile(foil art) and for November we have been doing string art .  I am excited for December...we're making Christmas cards!  I have already been shopping for materials and with the 50% off coupons that Michael's had for the "black Friday" here in Canada, as well as the door crasher/one day sales and my teacher discount, I was able to get $80+ worth of materials for around $40. Cha-ching!!  I have enough stuff to make 100 cards.  There are 22 kids in the group every morning, most of them are there every day, so they will make at least 3 cards each.  I am going to make up a couple of samples for them on the weekend so they can get an idea of how to work with sketches.  (I made up a few sheets of sketches chosen from Page Maps for them to use as inspiration)  I am excited to get started.
The best part about this...even though we only get to work for about 30 minutes every morning, the kids are loving it and so far they are so enthusiastic about what we are doing.  And the parents love it!!

Ok, that's enough rambling for tonight.

Take care, and if you got this far...well, good on ya!  LOL!

See you soon...I hope...

One week to go!

I will be back at work next Monday...can't believe how ast the summer has gone by!  And, as usual, I didn't get half of what I wanted to accomplish done!
Last week was Elysia's birthday and mine was Saturday.  I have entered the next age group on the forms and questionnaires...yikes!

I know in my last post I said I would continue with my updates, but I just wanted to pop in quickly this evening.  I will try to get to the rest of the update later this week.

For now, I will show you how I spent my summer holidays at the trailer...we went up for 6 days.

Reading!!!

And Card making!!  These are for this year's round of cards at work.  I have about 15 more to make, I may work on them this week...

Have a great evening!

Well hello there!

My goodness, it's been a long time...a really, really long time!
I have so much to update, it is a little overwhelming...I guess I will just start in April...

Easter...dyeing eggs, living at church for 3 days (or so it seems!), I accompanied the youth choir on my clarinet for the Good Friday service!  First time playing in public since high school, and first time solo!
On Easter weekend we buried Nan and had the family back here for lunch.

Gregory rediscovered his Thomas set...too funny!  He had gotten out the trains for our great-nephew and the rest as they say is history.

Larry's birthday...had the family for dinner and we all gave him a bike!

 Made a card for my co-worker.  All of us who worked directly with her pitched in for a gift and this is the card that went with it.

And now for May!!

Made some more cards for staff b-days....

A condolence card for a choir member...

My baby girl had her confirmation!
I made her a card but I haven't taken a picture...

 Made a card to give Larry on Father's day using clipart from the web.

The 18th was our 21st wedding anniversary, I re-did my gardens on the long weekend, watched mama robin (my new header pic) lay eggs and raise her babies over 19 days, witnessed them leave the nest and saved one from the neighbours window well.

Ballet recital time!  Elysia had some private time with her teacher and she was able to catch up to the class.  It was her last year of ballet and she was beautiful and fabulous!  We bought her flowers...she got a bunch for her first recital so I figured it was fitting to present her some for her last as well.

And, yes I actually scrapped a page this month!  If I remember correctly it was for a sketch challenge at the scrapping bug...

I'm going to stop here and hopefully in the next couple of days I will post the rest of my update, along with lots of cards.  That's all I have been making lately it seems!

I have a bunch of pictures I wanted to share with you but there was a problem uploading, both with Firefox and IE.  The one above on Larry's b-day is the only full size pic that uploaded correctly.  Not sure what's going on...hope Gregory can help me figure it out!

See you later and thanks for stopping by!

A couple of cards....

Thought I would pop in quick and show you a couple of cards.

This first one is a birthday card for one of our staff.  I made it as a challenge for the February crop at The Scrapping Bug.  It's being signed and presented tomorrow.  That's a linen flower received from my scappy friend Diana under the vellum sentiment.  I used my new Sizzix Texture Boutique to emboss the cs and I inked it.  The floral pp is a VERY old scrap I found.  I love how it turned out!

 

This is one I made for the wife and daughters of our choir member who had passed away.  I knew I had this scrap in my stash and knew immediately upon hearing of the death that I would use it for this card.  I cut the title and flourish from my Slice and I used Smooch in pearl on the flourish.  I was very pleased with the result.  The whole choir signed it before we sent it off.

Good night!  Back to work tomorrow...

Death and illness...

The last while has been quite the rollercoaster around here and that is why I haven't posted.  If you are my friend on facebook you will probably know all of what I am about to tell, if we are on a message board together you may know some of it.

I guess I will begin with Thursday March 8th....the day my husband's grandma died.  We knew it was coming, she had been in the hospital for a week and a half, had been sick at home for about 3 weeks prior to that.  We took the kids to see her in the hospital on the Tuesday and I am so glad we did.  Got the call at 6:30am.  I woke the kids right away so they could process the info before they had to go to school.  I stayed home.  While I was waiting for the call from Larry to meet him and his mom at her place I decided to start gathering pictures to use at the funeral home.  I figured it was only natural that the "picture queen" of the family take on this task and it turned out that my mother-in-law was happy I decided to do it.  So between what I had in the computer, in my old albums (we've been together for 24 yrs so there's a lot of family pics), and Ma let me go into Nan's albums, I was able to gather up over 60 pictures that I printed and did up 4 bristol boards to display at the funeral home.
This is Nan at 16...

This is Nan and my daughter Elysia in November, we were visiting her on the occasion of her 88th birthday.

She will be missed....especially her smile and her jokes!

So the March Break began with Nan's funeral on the Saturday.  Even though we were all brought together for a sad occasion, it was nice to see all the family.

The rest of the March Break was busy...Monday we went to see Happy Feet 2 and Rocky turned 3, Tuesday was the big cleaning day, Wednesday the kids had to see the orthodontist, Thursday Larry and I sang at a funeral for one of our choir members who had died suddenly a couple of weeks before, Friday I took the kids bowling, Saturday was Gregory's last hockey game of the season and Elysia was back to ballet.  Sunday was church and I took Rocky over for a birthday playdate with his sister Bailey.

And then....the sickness.....

Sunday after I got home with Rocky I wasn't feeling too hot so I went to lay down...figured I was tired because as usual my sleep patterns got all messed up on holidays.  Slept for 2 hours!  Didn't feel too great for the rest of the evening either.  Woke up Monday with a fever!  Oh no!!!  Woke up Tuesday with a fever but feeling marginally better...I did sleep pretty much all day Monday after all....Stayed home, but felt well enough to go to our staff meeting.  I sat apart from everyone though-just in case...good thing too because after attempting to go to work Wednesday morning but failing and then going to see the doctor it turns out I had "an influenza-type illness" (as he called it).  He said I had better stay home the rest of the week, given that I work with children...

HOLY CRAP!

I honestly do not think I have ever had the flu.  Nothing like this anyway....this was brutal!  I had fevers that peaked at 102F and with Tylenol never went below 99F, I was sweating or chilled, I had no desire to eat and sleep?  Did I ever!  On Thursday I woke up at 11 am and went back for a nap at 1! He said 5-7 days and sure enough, day 5 (Friday around 4pm actually) something clicked and I started feeling more like myself...much more present and aware of what was going on and actually caring.  Today (Saturday) I actually had a shower and got dressed and went OUT OF THE HOUSE!  That was big...I was wiped after being out for an hour and a half and I only went to my mother-in-law's while Elysia was at ballet.

So now, I am taking amoxicillin for this bronchitis-type cough (because we don't want it to become bronchitis of pneumonia) and darn it if I don't bloody pee myself with every coughing fit...grr...

You know what the worst part of this past week has been?  Well, other than being horribly sick....

I slept through all that fabulous weather!!!!  WAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lol...I walked out the front door with Elysia to take her to dance and said "Hey!  The grass is turning green!"  She said "It's been like that all week Mommy!"  I said "It wasn't like this last Sunday!"  Now I know why my son is feeling the need for his allergy meds....

And the best part about this week?  Yes...there was a good thing....

I lost 6 pounds!  It's a sucky way to do it but hey, it's gone nonetheless....now I just need to keep it off!

Last time I posted I told you I had more projects to show you, but for now I had better go and get myself to bed.

It's been a crazy time....

And I am not the best blogger!

Well, there was an online crop at The Scrapping Bug last weekend and I managed to get all the challenges done...
This is my fave page!  The challenge was to use kraft and a pop of colour.  I didn't have any kraft and was happy they accepted light tan as a substitute!  Do you know how hard it is to get your hands on 12x12 kraft??

I'll share more another day!

Life just gets so busy and I find I don't think to come and post, or if I think of it I don't really have all that much to say so I just don't bother.

As for my weight loss plan...well that's not going so well!  With the weather about to warm up I think I will find it easier to walk the dog but my stupid sweet tooth is going to be the death of me!

Well, I have a busy week ahead of me...I am working full time this week as one of our staff is on holidays and I am covering her after school group.  I also found out tonight that my fellow toddler room teacher is sick so she will be away.  There's something going around and I hope I don't get it!  I really hate being sick...

Ok, off to bed now...hopefully I can remember to post more often this week, I have 8 more projects to show you!

Good night!

Where does the time go?

Really?  Where does it go???  It has been 13 1/2 years sice I had my daughter, 14 1/2 years since my son was born, 21 yrs 9 mths since I married my wonderful husband, 22 1/2 years that I have been friends with my bestie Gina, 23 1/2 years since Larry and I started going out, 13 1/2 years we've been in this house, 7 years for my second round at the daycare (the first was 6 yrs 7 mths and I was away 6.5 yrs) and 15 years that my other bestie Kim has been in my life.  Her oldest son will be 25 this year...her second will be 20 on Tuesday!  The younger two turn 16 and 15 this year....I don't feel that much older!  Well, in my head anyway...seeing as I work with toddlers I have noticed a change in my physical abilities...the floor is a lot further away than it was before!

So all that leads up to the fact that I cannot believe it has been three weeks since I last blogged!  Really, when you look at the above list, 3 weeks is very short....LOL!

So what have I been up to?  Well, not much really!  I did make the family some Valentines...I haven't even taken a picture yet!  I will...I promise!  Any other scrapping?  Well, the intention is always there but I am so easily distracted by this damn computer and that stupid television....doesn't help that I have no ink right now (unless I want to pirnt B & W) so if a challenge inspires me I have to hunt through what's printed already...and those pics don't always fit....so....ahhh....I'm making excuses, I know....I guess I am just in a slump right now!  I will get back to it...

I find that when I am tired from working a lot of hours (which I have been the last little bit) that my scrapping is the first thing to take a hit.  And unfortunately my walking has dropped by the wayside too....I will get back on track!  I have to!

Ok, enough blathering...

I went to Walmart to pick up a few things yesterday and I decided I was going to get one of their dressier plaid trench style coats which were regularly $50 and marked down to $35.  I got a nice surprise at the cash...it rang in at $19!  Cha-ching!  So I told my daughter about it and today she and I went shopping and finished up at WMart where she bought one of them...she's lucky though, hers is purple...I wanted the purple but they didn't have my size....sigh.... Anyhoo...the coat isn't super warm, but it's perfect for this weird winter we've been having.  I have found my other coats to be too much, which is why I wanted this one.

So, I guess that is all I will say for now....

Thanks for stopping by!!