Just a layout

No time for profound thoughts this morning - I have to get a lot accomplished today. But, while the coffee brews, I thought I'd post my latest layout.

It's another simple one - I seem to be on a simple, linear kick these days. Order out of chaos (oops - a profound thought!).


Supplies:

Cardstock: Bazzill
Patterned Paper: Pebbles Inc. (My Guy Stripe)
Leaf Stickers: Stickopotamus
Square leaf sticker: Creative Memories
Floss: DMC
Buttons: Dress it Up
Sticker letters: Basic Grey
Alpha rub-ons: Making Memories (large) American Crafts
Number rub-ons: American Crafts
Doodle rub-ons: American Crafts
Title sticker: Pebbles Inc.

Coffee's ready - off to create a weekend to-do list! Have a great week-end everyone!

On my mind

Things on my mind tonight ...

Today would have been my mother's 81st birthday. I can't believe that 3 birthdays have actually gone by since she passed away. It seems like yesterday; it also seems like forever ago. I miss her.

I worry about my husband's aunt. The hospice says she's very anxious and difficult, at night. I thought she was doing ok (anxiety-wise). It's so hard to see someone you love slowly die. Honestly, people who lose loved ones suddenly should count their blessings. (I know, I know, that's just as hard; just in a different way).

Seemed like today was "opposites" day. Ds brought an absolutely stellar report card home - his best one yet. Excellent improvement over last term, lots of A's, B+s and Bs. He's very proud of his accomplishment and seems very determined to keep up the good marks. We're very proud of him! Meanwhile, I'm trying to find a math tutor for dd!!! Actually, dd is doing fine in math - mark is around 85 right now - but my favorite over-achiever won't have any of that, anything below 90 feels like failure to her. She needs to conquer the math demons, whether real or perceived, so we'll help her do that. We're very proud of her drive, even though we worry that she'll drive herself crazy!

The Sens won tonight against Buffalo. It was rough going for a while, but they really pulled together and pulled it off in the last half of the last period. Excellent improvement over last night (I had to change the channel when they were losing to Montreal 7-1 ... sure, they came back and scored 4 more, but ouch, I couldn't bear to watch). But I'm no fairweather fan. I believe. I believe. I believe. But I can only take so much stress!

Meanwhile, ds' team has won their first playoff (round robin) game 7-1. Much easier to take a 7-1 score when it's your team with the "7"!!! I'll be sorry to see this hockey season end. It was everything I hoped for for ds, and more. He's got his confidence back, and hockey is fun for him again.

Here's a layout I finished during the long weekend ... our fun day at the hunt camp inspired me to dig out some campfire pictures from a couple of years ago and scrap:


Supplies:

Cardstock - Bazzill (what else, lol?)
Patterned Paper - Daisy D
Chipboard Letters and Flower - Chatterbox
Scrabble Letters - unknown
Leaf embellishment - Finery by Pebbles Inc
Buttons - Daisy D, unknown
Brad - MM?
Journaling Block - 7 Gypsies

It's past my bedtime ... but blogging beats falling asleep on the couch waiting for dh to come home! G'night all!

Cool stuff!!!

I think I'm going to have to stop saying that I never win anything. A few months ago, I won some cool blog candy (a.k.a. really nice scrapbooking supplies being given away by someone on their blog) from Nic Howard. A few months before that, I actually won the door prize at a crop - a huge amount of scrapbooking goodies. And now, I've just found out that I won blog candy from Stephanie. How cool is that?? Here is what I've won:


Stephanie was recently featured as a guest designer on the Making Memories blog. This is pretty exciting stuff in my little scrapbooking world, as Stephanie is part of a group of scrappers, including me, who hang out over at Scrapping Buddies. She is so talented, it's about time the scrapbooking world at large gets a glimpse of her work!

Other cool stuff in my life ... well, we had a really good time with our friends at the hunt camp yesterday. That place is an instant stress-buster. As a matter of fact I was so relaxed, that I didn't even remember the Sens were playing the Leafs last night, until we encountered lots of traffic around 10 pm on our way back into town. Of course when I turned on the radio and learned that the Sens lost 5-4 (to the Leafs), some of that stress came creeping back!

Some more cool stuff ... I've been tagged by my friend Rachel. It's a very complicated tag ... you have to post a fact that starts with each letter of your middle name. Then you tag a person for each letter. If you don't have a middle name, use your maiden name. Now being of French Catholic origin I don't have a middle name ... but I have plenty of names before my name. So I guess you could say my "middle name" (for purposes of this tag) is Marie Josee Isabelle. Except that I am not going to bore you with 17 facts about me, which is how many letters there are in those three names combined. Instead, I'll use the initials ... M, J and I.

M: Music. I'm just not that into it. This isn't an easy thing to admit, as everyone I know has very strong feelings about music - which music they like, which music they don't like... everyone is always talking about what they've loaded onto their iPod or talking about this newest band or solo singer. I enjoy listening to music, if it's there, but I don't usually go out of my way to put a CD on. I've had an mp3 player for months and the only music loaded on there is whatever was in the kids' music folders on the computer. Haven't loaded anything on there since. I can't name any of the latest bands or singers, although I'm pretty good with the older stuff.

J: Jewelry. Anothing thing that I'm just not that into. I have 3 key pieces of jewelry that I have on pretty much all the time; that's my engagement/wedding ring combo, a ring dh gave me for our 7th anniversary, and my silver/gold/diamond/mother-of-pearl Seiko watch. I really don't feel the need for any other expensive jewelry, although I do have a few more pieces. I do like to wear costume jewelry, mostly on work days, to accessorize my outfits.

I: Ice Cream. Since I seem to have a theme going ("things I don't actually like that much", lol!), might as well stick with it! Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't turn down a bowl of ice cream. But I never crave it. I never buy it unless we're entertaining. If I do eat ice cream, it's usually vanilla marbled with caramel. Or, the rum raisin from Laura Secord. I used to like rollo ice cream, but had to give that up when I had to give up chocolate.

Well there you go. 3 random facts about me. These 3 facts likely didn't rock your world, but maybe you know me a bit better now! At least, you know not to show up on my doorstep singing, bearing diamonds and ice cream! Lol. Now to pass this tag along ... how about Marlene, Jennifer and, since I can't think of anyone whose name starts with the letter "i", how about Robyn, who is going to be saying "i" do in 34 short days!

Ahhh, a long weekend!

Thank God for long weekends. The kids and I are off today and Monday (the real estate hubby is NEVER off. Not even in his sleep. But that's another story!). I am looking forward to the break! As this is not our Easter (orthodox Easter is next month), we don't have any Easter family obligations this weekend. (However, the Easter bunny will visit our house. We determined years ago that he must be Catholic, since he always brings the chocolate during the mainstream Easter weekend!).

We have a bit of hockey in the schedule, including going to see my godson play tomorrow morning. And we're planning a visit to the hunt camp with friends. I'm really looking forward to the next few days! I'm hoping to get some time to scrap as I haven't even gone into my scrap room for about a week.

Here's what I made last time I went in there:


This layout is all about how I didn't inherit my mother's baking abilities, but apparently my daughter did. She's always had an interest in baking and has made lots of goodies over the last few years. However she was quick to point out to me that she didn't actually bake the cookies in these pictures ... her friend did, all she did was decorate them. So I explained about artistic license and how the pictures symbolize a bigger concept. Lol. Fancy way of saying "ok then, I lied"!

Supplies:

Cardstock: Bazzill
Patterned Paper: Rouge de Garance
Foam letters: $ store
Rub-on letters: American Crafts
Snowflake stickers: Sandylion
Tag: Received in a swap, embellished with misc. brads, buttons and stickers

Hope you all have a lovely long weekend. If you're celebrating Easter, hope you have a happy one. Enjoy time with family. As you may recall, I can no longer eat chocolate. So if the Easter bunny comes to your house, do me a favor ... have an extra bite / egg / rabbit ear for me!

As promised ...

Here's a recent creation:


This is a simple one that came together quite quickly.

Supplies:

Cardstock: Bazzill
Patterned Paper: Basic Grey
Sticker Letters: Basic Grey
Flowers: Making Memories, Prima
Brads: Making Memories
Journaling stamps: Autumn Leaves
Distress ink: Tim Holtz
Journaling pen: Creative Memories

These pictures were taken during our last family trip, when we went to New Hampshire for American Thanksgiving. I think we spent more time in the car than on American soil ... lol ... so when we saw a rest stop in the rolling hills of Vermont, we decided to get out and do a bit of hiking.

I tried to scrap yesterday but my creative muse was very absent. Perhaps my crankiness scared it off! Instead I spent some time taking some old pictures out of photo albums - in particular, pictures of me and my parents in Florida (when I was 9) and California (when I was 13). Also pictures of my 11th birthday party. When my muse comes back, those will definitely get scrapped!

Where'd the week go???

Wha?? It's been one week since I blogged? Where'd the week go???

It's been a busy week. On Sunday we dug ourselves out of the 56 cm of snow that fell over the weekend. On Monday I had an extremely busy non-stop no-time-for-lunch workday. Ditto Tuesday, but add a few hours to it, as dh picked me up from work around 6:30 p.m. and we went to visit his aunt. I took Wednesday and Thursday off to do March-breakish stuff with the kids, but those two days, which consisted of lunch out, Spiderwick Chronicles movie, shopping, Museum of Civilization, aunt visit and dinner out just whizzed by. Friday was another non-stop no-time-for-lunch workday.

And here we are on Saturday. The weekend has not started off on the right foot. I've got towels laid out at the base of the patio doors, sopping up the drips coming from the door frame (which are really coming from inside the wall and somewhere on the roof, where the snow is piled high). Our front door got egged overnight, so I spent the last half hour cleaning egg off the door, brick and stoop. Fun stuff. Not. Parents should really pay attention to where their bored teenagers are at night. I'm sorry to sound like my parents, but what is it with this new generation of kids, bored enough to egg houses late at night? Guess their iPods, Wiis, PlayStation 3s, cell phones and laptops aren't keeping them busy enough?

I have a major case of the cranks - I need a vacation. Seems like everyone I know has just spent the past week someplace warm. The last out-of-town vacation we took was in November 2006 ... a 48-hour jaunt to New Hampshire for American Thanksgiving. Vacation? Not.

Or perhaps I need a day/weekend/week/month at the spa. Music with water sounds and deep relaxing breaths. Oh wait, there are water sounds going on at my patio door ... why aren't those relaxing me, lol??

I'll be back later this weekend to post a couple of layouts I got done last weekend. Til then ... have a great one! Here's wishing you do not have to wash raw egg off brick anytime soon.

Comfort Zones

After stretching my boundaries with the freestyle valentines layout, I must admit it was somewhat comforting to put together a layout with clean and simple lines. Guess I've got this perfectionism thing worse than I thought!


Supplies:

Cardstock: Bazzill
Patterned Paper: Frances Meyer
Journaling Block: Autumn Leaves clear stamp
Paperclip: Unknown
Flowers: Prima, Bazzill
Leaves: From a taken-apart silk bouquet bought at a garage sale!
Fabric-covered brads: $ store
Felt hearts: $ store
White foam letters: $ store
Red alpha rub-on letters: American Crafts

I am getting A LOT of use out of those journaling stamps (thank you so much, sister D! - ooh and while I'm addressing you directly, might as well mention that the patterned paper is from that pack of paper I bought at the home decor store when you and I were desperate to scrap shop in Sept-Iles last summer). I am also just loving my $ store finds lately. The Dollarama has some really great stuff if you just have the patience to sort through the more garish stuff.

So things got better on the work front as the week wore on and by Friday I was feeling like maybe I can do this after all. Although I'm sure that my feelings about it will rollercoaster for some time yet, I am excited about what I can accomplish if I can just get my act together. I just need to alter my comfort zone.

On the home front, dh's aunt has been moved to a palliative care home. I visited her last night and she is surprisingly calm, content, philosophical about death and extremely wise in her reflections. She is happy with the care she is getting. I was afraid she might panic when she got there, since this is the same home we moved my father-in-law to right before he passed away and at the time, she and my mother in law were very upset that he had been brought to this place to die. This is a normal reaction for many people, who would prefer to see their loved ones in hospital where you can at least pretend that there's some hope for recovery. But no, she knows exactly where she is and why, but she is happy, even comforted, to be there.

I can't believe how time flies; one year ago yesterday my father passed away. It feels like yesterday, but it also feels like an eternity. I miss him (apparently it is possible to miss cranky old men!) and I miss my mom too. I hope they've found each other in the afterlife and are happily bickering with each other about trivial things. That seemed to give them much comfort here on earth!

I think we're going to be snowbound all weekend (supposed to get the mother of all snowstorms ... although right now it's fairly calm, a brief reprieve for sure). I need to catch up on housework. I hope to spend some time scrapping. Not much food in the fridge or cupboard, but I hope to round up something from the depths of the freezer so I can make some comfort food to help ride out the storm.

Happy weekend everyone!

Perfection - or the lack thereof

I was told by someone at work today - a fellow perfectionist, though apparently a reformed one - that because of my tendency to accept nothing less than perfection, I am in danger of becoming paralyzed, of getting mired in inaction, of getting stalled ... of producing less than is expected of me. I can't argue with that; I think it's a true assessment of one of my major weaknesses. This person went on to say that I need to shake off the perfectionism, stop overthinking, and just DO.

I think there is hope for me, however. Because no matter how much I want to strive for a perfect scrapbook layout every single time, lately I've become much better at shaking off the perfectionism, stopping the overthinking, and just DOING. Case in point - the following layout. In about 20 minutes this weekend, I threw this one together. I totally did not overthink it. I glued things down without measuring first. I glued things down before I knew where each and every element would end up going. I added a flower here and a rub-on there. The frame with the word "really" in it was an afterthought. By the time I was done I felt like an Effer, those wild girls of the scrapbooking world. Betcha those Effers don't get hung up on perfection.



Supplies:

Carstock: Bazzill
Chipboard accents: Making Memories
Foam letters: $ store
Rub-on letters: American Crafts (white), Heidi Swapp (pink)
Rub-on words and symbols: American Crafts
Flowers: Bazzill, Prima
3-D flower sticker: $ store
Fabric-covered brad: $ store
Heart-shaped brads: $ store
Ribbon: Unknown
Floss: DMC

If only I could have whipped out this layout at work today, as concrete proof that I can change and grow! Somehow though, I think that would have been what an old boss of mine used to call a "CLM" (career-limiting move). Lol.

Now all I have to do is apply what I have learned sitting at my scrap desk, to what I do sitting at my work desk. Yikes. That's a perfectly overwhelming thought!