Born To Scrap

Where Do I Start???

2011-12-31T07:39:00.006-05:00

Whoa! April 30th? It's been that long, really??

I guess there are two main reasons why I've let this blog slip. One, life got busy and really, life should really take precedence over the internet (I know, I know, them's fighting words lol). Two, this blog is all about showcasing creative stuff (scrapbooking really, but any creative stuff will do I think) and I really haven't had any creative stuff to showcase. So I'll unpack these two reasons a little bit for you.

1. Life Got Busy (But not in a bad way)

The campground opened up on May 15th, and from the very first mud-filled weekend (long story - big rains, all the inner roads closed, no septic access, had to carry in all our open-up-the-trailer stuff from the main road) to the very last chilly morning in October, the husband and I spent Every Single Weekend there (and the boy missed only 2 weekends I think). We didn't miss one Friday night. We had a great summer. Lots of adventures. But barely any pictures.

Then fall came, and we closed 'er up, and then life got busy in other ways. The boy's hockey season started. I finally let the universe get its way and took a promotion at work which means I am now head honcho, where the buck stops, yadda yadda yadda, and so some evenings instead of vegetating in front of the tv or spending time being crafty I spend time trying to bring my in-box (both physical and email) under control.

2. No Creative Stuff to Showcase

Basically, see 1. above lol. Actually being busy is only part of the story; I just haven't felt all that creative lately (ie in the last year) especially when it comes to scrapbooking. Although in the last few weeks I did pick up crochet again. I made my sister M an iPad cover and I made some coffee cup sleeves for my management team. No pictures to share. And since I've been off between Christmas and New Year's (with one icky exception on a stat holiday no less, but that's par for the course when you're head honcho according to the husband...suck it up, buttercup), I've been a crocheting fiend, with accomplishments including an iPad cover for sister D (if you,re sister D, pretend you didn't see that ok?), at least 8 pairs of baby booties and two bibs for sister D's new grand-daughter (sister D, don't tell Juliette ok?), and am working on more baby stuff.

So today is New Year's Eve, and as I start thinking about 2012 and all of the things I want to accomplish (I refuse to call them "resolutions", resolutions are doomed before they even begin in my opinion), getting back to my crafty self is definitely one of them. Oh and my crafty self is about 15 pounds lighter so there's another un-resolution for you. And, my crafty self keeps this blog up to date, so there's un-resolution number 3. And finally, crafty self definitely takes more pictures. So there's un-res number 4. Wish my crafty self good luck!

If you haven't given up on my blog and still visit once in a while in the hopes of an update, thank you. And come back soon, as I am fully aware that a blog post is nothing without pictures, and I promise to load up some pictures of my crochet bounty before I pack it all up and mail it off to sister D.

Junk in My Trunk

2011-04-30T12:25:00.003-04:00

I am really looking forward to summer, but there's so much to do between now and then to make sure the summer will be enjoyable. As we'll be spending lots of time up at the trailer, we need to do our gardening and landscaping work at the house early on so that we can have an almost maintenance-free yard. Then there's re-organizing closets etc., putting away the winter coats and boots (yay). Some spring cleaning. A whole wack of work at the trailer, including unwrapping it from its winter cocoon and sprucing up the lot (hopefully, we'll be doing that tomorrow), cleaning it, and stocking it up for the summer. Oh, and I need to lose about 5 pounds so that I can fully enjoy my wine-chips-novel combo - I've been dreaming of doing that on a lazy afternoon at the trailer, ever since we closed it up last October.

And, I'm going to have to clean my car trunk out. I don't know how the stuff accumulates, but it does. A couple of months ago, when I opened up the trunk after a shopping expedition, I thought about how the junk inside defines me ... you can learn a lot about me by what's in there! Dog toys and bowl (dog lover!). Cushion, blanket and noisemakers to ensure I am comfy and loud at the boy's hockey games (hockey lover!). Shopping bags (Winners and Michaels lover!). Shopping bags with stuff I need to return, and beach umbrellas that should have been put away last fall (procrastinator!). My father's umbrella (sentimental!). So I took a picture. Kind of silly, but now the memory is captured for posterity ... gotta love scrapbooking!!! Lol.

This weekend was supposed to be rainy and dreary, but our luck turned around and it looks as though we are going to get reacquainted with sunshine. Busy day today running errands, visiting my mother in law, and going to the boy's hockey party ... trying to cram the weekend into one day so we can free up and go work on the trailer tomorrow. It's been almost seven months ... I am so ready for trailer season to begin!

Happy weekend, y'all. :o)

Yay, I scrapped!

2011-04-22T14:04:00.002-04:00

Well, sort of. I finished a layout that had been on my desk since December or January. But that's progress!! And today, I have the afternoon set aside for some more scrapping. Wish me luck!

In other news ... they boy's hockey team won the league championship last week ... they went undefeated in league play all season, with a 21-0-3 regular season record! Overall, including tournaments, exhibition games and playoffs, they ended the year with a 31-3-6 record. Pretty sweet.

Dishcloths, anyone?

2011-04-03T07:27:00.007-04:00

Nice, square, simple-patterned cotton dishcloths. These are therapy to help me get over the stress of having crochet'd the entire back of the tank top I am making, only to realize that I screwed up on the FIRST ROW and have to unravel the whole thing and start over again :o) I am procrastinating the unraveling and so you can expect many, many dishcloths in my future.

I think this is kind of ironic given that I justify my time spent on crochet as stress relief ... lol.

So other than crochet drama, life is good. Busy but good.

The boy's hockey season is wrapping up (they ended their regular season with a 21-0-3 record - for the uninitiated, this means 21 wins, no losses and 3 ties). Which is pretty darn good. We are in playoffs right now, they've won 2 games so far, it's pretty likely they'll be playing for the championship later this month.

The girl's 2nd year of university is wrapping up. Another impressive year, you can bet she's keeping her scholarship. She'll be done exams in a couple of weeks, the search for a summer job is on. Looks like she may be considered for a position at a government agency, keeping fingers crossed.

The husband's real estate stuff is heating up - spring is often a busy time. And that's just fine, we're hoping to get the "busy" out of the way in the spring so that we can enjoy the summer.

Which leads me to ... 42 sleeps til the campground opens!!! Considering it's been something like 160 sleeps since it closed ... this is encouraging! And, spring is definitely here. Most of the snow is gone, and even though we had a bit of a cold spell this week the forecast for the next few days has a few double digits in it (and no minus sign, lol). The dog is thrilled that the grass is back, every day now she runs outside and does this:

Which is so cute. Of course everything that dog does is cute. I can't figure out what we ever did for cute without her in our lives (except maybe the kids, yeah, maybe they were our source of cute before Lexi....).

Oh and on a scrapbooking note, while I still haven't made anything, I did find an awesome deal at Winners the other day ... four American Craft Thickers sheets for the price of one - like $8.49 or something!!! Couldn't resist buying. Because for sure I'll get back to scrapbooking, someday soon. I hope!!!

Ciao for now!

Crochet'ing Up a Storm ....

2011-03-12T07:03:00.004-05:00

Yup, still at it! Well despite the snow, rain, freezing rain, sleet etc. I still made it to work every day this week even though I would have much preferred taking a snow day and crocheting the day away! I did manage to finish my latest project, ta-da:

I actually modified a pattern for a romper, because I wasn't 100% sure my skills would be up to par for the more complicated pants-attached-to-a-dress thing and I wasn't 100% sure it would fit my niece properly. She's just turned 1, and is wearing size 18 months which is what this is, but making it into a little dress that can be worn with a white t-shirt and leggings makes sure that she'll be able to wear this more than once (hopefully), lol, before she outgrows it.

The pattern called for two flowers on the hat, but I thought it looked better with one; so with the leftover flower, I made a little wrist band.

I'm actually pretty pleased with myself. So much so that I went out and bought some nice cotton wool and have started working on a summer tank top (for me) with a fairly intricate design on the bottom. Needless to say, I'm struggling with the bottom part, but am hopeful I'll figure it out soon!

I went to an actual wool store on the weekend (as opposed to the wool aisle at Michael's) and it reminded me a lot of a scrapbook store. Lots of specialty stuff. Lots of expensive supplies. And a few women sitting at a table in the back creating. It made me miss scrapbooking stores, actually, because I felt like a bit of an outsider!!! There's a whole knitting/crocheting parallel universe out there - blogs, forums, websites, etc. Who knew!

So my exciting news today is that I am having a new washer/dryer delivered. My 21-year-old washer has been leaking lately, and the husband deemed it was pointless to repair. Not getting a front-loader (they just don't appeal to me) but I am getting a high efficiency top loading 5.0 cubic feet washer without an agitator, and a big kick-a$$ dryer too. I'm so excited about doing laundry this weekend. Really, I need a life :o)

Have a great weekend!

Born to ... crochet??

2011-03-05T07:00:00.002-05:00

Where have I gone? What have I been up to? Why haven't I been updating my blog??

(1) I haven't gone anywhere ... I'm still here ... ok not exactly HERE as in this blog, but here as in this world! Still doing the work-home-sleep-repeat thing, still hanging out in local hockey arenas, still a Senators fan (though I now know how Maple Leaf fans feel, ugh), still counting the wintery days until trailer season re-opens.

(2) Well here's what I HAVEN'T been up to - I haven't been scrapping. Not one tiny little bit. Just don't have it in me. Maybe I can only handle one addiction at a time; and right now, crochet seems to be that addiction. Note the evidence:

As I keep having to admit whenever my family asks ... no, that's not for anyone in particular. No, probably not even for me. No, this is not my funny way of telling you I am expecting a baby. I don't KNOW whose baby that hat is for, ok? It's just fun making baby hats. And scarves in every colour. And gigantic-sized mittens (oops, learned the hard way that when a pattern says to check your gauge, you really should check your gauge).

(3) And I haven't been updating my blog because I haven't been spending as much time on the computer, at least not as a participant (I still check out YOUR blogs, just so you know ... but mostly read and run, sorry!). And because I had nothing scrappy to update the blog with and this is, after all, a scrapbooking blog. I don't plan on changing the title and I'm not giving up on the paper-scissors-glue thing, but for the time being, if I do post here, it'll probably be to share my wool-hook-needle things.

I'm pretty excited about my current project-on-the-go, because (a) it's actually FOR somebody and (b) it's an actual piece of clothing. I'm working on a little dress for my one year old niece, and it's coming together really nicely. I'll show you when I'm done. I made another piece of clothing a couple of weeks ago, which didn't work out as well. I made a hooded sweater for myself (or, for a 300 pound woman with freakishly long arms. Another lesson learned re gauge and tension.).

One of the reasons I'm so excited about this newfound hobby is that it's not actually a newfound hobby at all ... I used to crochet, and knit too ... but I was never very good at sewing pieces of things together and always relied on my Mom to do that part. Now I've mastered my fears and done it myself and I know my Mom would be proud.

The only thing left for me to figure out is what I'm going to do with all the stuff I make (especially the scarves....). I got my assistant (at work) addicted to crochet too, and if this keeps up we just might rent a table at a craft fair or something! Meanwhile ... anybody want a scarf, lol?

Happy New Year!

2011-01-03T17:19:00.004-05:00

Ok, I'm not even going to TRY to catch up. It's been too long, I know! It's all good though. It's been a busy few weeks - work, getting ready for Christmas, family stuff, etc. I've been off for a week+; going back to work tomorrow morning. Too bad, as I seem to have finally found my "time off" groove - had a great day today.

A couple of weeks a go I got a semi-permanent loaner laptop from work & set-up for remote connection. Haven't remote-connected to work yet (after all, I'm OFF!) but this afternoon the husband toyed around with the laptop and added all the stuff I need to use it for non-work purposes (lol....). Scanner & good stitching software are now operational, so ta-da, here's a scrapbook page:

I made it ages ago ... sometime in the fall I guess. Haven't scrapped anything the whole time I was off, but I did do some organizing in the scraproom and got 120+ pictures printed too. Once again ... too bad I'm going back to work tomorrow! I think I've finally got the scrapping mojo back!!!

I'm going to try to get back into the habit of updating the blog ... I've challenged myself to doing the photo-a-day thing (with weekly layouts); we'll see how that goes. There's another hobby competing for my time now ... crocheting scarves ... it started as a Christmas gift idea for my sisters and a couple of my friends and now I can't seem to stop. I've made some for myself and about 6 more and I'm still at it ... very relaxing!

See you (here) soon,

Newly-discovered vegetable-carving skills...

2010-11-11T07:43:00.004-05:00

Hi there! I know it's been days since Halloween (and given the Christmas decorations popping up in malls and stores, it'd be more appropriate for me to share Christmas pictures!), but I just have to show you the jack-o-lantern that the boy carved ALL BY HIMSELF this year. The boy has skills (and not just of the "my generation uses the internet for everything" kind, lol)*.

You can really tell that the demographics of our neighbourhood are changing ... some years, we had 200+ trick or treaters at our door; this year, the doorbell rang maybe 15 times, for a total of about 40 kids.

Since I still haven't taken the time to teach myself stitching in Adobe Photoshop Elements, all I can share with you right now is a one-pager I made the other night ... I was having a really hard time getting creative, so I ended up using a sketch from Scrapbooks Etc. magazine and a page kit pack from Colorbok to put this one together. Then I ran out of steam, so I got the creative juices running for nothing, really, since I just went right to bed.

Today is Rememberance Day ... and while it's not a stat holiday in Ontario, I get the day off. I'm hoping to catch up on some housework, do some scrapbooking, sew on the boy's name bar to his hockey jerseys (running late on that chore!), run out and do a bit of Christmas shopping, and make something for dinner that takes more than 30 minutes to cook ... oh, and teach myself how to stitch using Adobe Photoshop Elements. Not sure I'll get it all done, but I'll give it my best shot!

*refers to the boy's comments on my previous post :o)

Outside my window this morning ....

2010-10-31T07:12:00.002-04:00

There are two things wrong with this picture; (a) it's 7:15 a.m. and it's still dark outside, and (b) it's October 31 and there is snow on the ground!!! Yup, my little piece of the world had its first snow of the season last night. We were having a cold, rainy day when Mother Nature thought to herself, hey what the heck - let's inject a bit of fun into Nathalie's driving tonight: let's throw some thick, wet snow in the sky and on the roads .... !Well, I hope that for the sake of the trick or treaters tonight, this stuff will have melted off today. It's supposed to be sunny and 4C, so I have high hopes.

In case you're wondering why I haven't posted in over a week and in case you're thinking I'm back to neglecting my blog - that actually isn't the case; my poor computer caught a virus and was out of commission for almost a week while the husband was valiantly nursing it back to health. This one was a doozy, and it also ended up infecting the husband's computer, and he has lost years of archived data ... I'm really grateful that he managed to save my picture files, since I haven't backed them up in a very long time (note to self: back up picture files regularly).

So I did go shopping last weekend with sister M, although we spent less than 5 minutes inside Michaels - we made a valiant effort, but the lines at the cashes were so very long, we knew we wouldn't have the time to make a purchase. That would be because we had just spent almost 2 hours in Winners, doing a very good job of spending each other's money ("You have GOT to buy that dress/those shoes/that coat/those gloves/that scarf/that sweater/fill in the blank, it looks ADORABLE on you...!"). Actually I am pretty pleased with my purchases, which included a new short winter coat in charcoal gray, with the most adorable ruffles ... a scarf and gloves to match of course ... and a gray knit Calvin Klein dress, which looks great with tights and my new (from the previous weekend) gray suede boots. I am having a thing with gray this season, seems that's the only colour I'm attracted to!

Speaking of gray/grey, does anyone know which spelling is correct? Is it an American/Canadian thing?

I did go back to Michaels this weekend, to, um, check it out more thoroughly. It has a fantastic scrapbooking section, actually I would say that it's probably got more scrapbooking stuff than any of the other types of crafts. I picked up a few sheets of paper (lord knows I don't have enough paper already, lol...!), and a "few" embellishments, and then I wandered over to the knitting aisle and got inspired. I picked up a pattern, some wool and a crochet hook and re-discovered the joys of crochet by making myself a scarf yesterday afternoon.

So while I haven't done any scrapbooking yet this weekend, I did something creative which is almost as good.

Other than that, life is good. The girl is rocking 2nd year, and the boy seems to be adjusting well to high school. My Sens aren't doing so good, but the boy's team is undefeated to date (3 wins, 1 tie). I made a work-related decision regarding my career path that I'd been resisting making, and actually had a better week this week than I've had in a long time.

I'll make efforts to share something scrappy soon, I promise; but first, I have to learn how to stitch scans together using Adobe Photoshop Elements, because I was using ArcSoft before and that software didn't survive the illness that plagued my computer. So if anyone has links to a tutorial or any special hints ... feel free to leave me a comment & throw me a lifeline!

Ciao for now!

Happy News in my In-Box...

2010-10-22T06:51:00.004-04:00

I have two email addresses - one for work (that my blackberry is also attached to) and a personal one, that I've had for many years. Most friends use my work email address, so mostly my personal one is junk mail, scrapbooking newsletters, racy jokes that the husband has the good judgement not to send to my work address (lol), and during minor hockey season, the boy's hockey-related stuff.

I don't usually get overly excited by the scrapbooking-related mass-mailing stuff that usually lands in my personal email in-box, but this morning there was a lovely surprise ... my weekly email from Michaels (the craft supply store) announced that the new store that's been under construction less than 5 minutes from my house is opening tomorrow morning! Yay! Scrapbooking supplies in close proximity!

And, earlier this week the new Winners/Home Sense store (next to the new Michaels) opened up. Winners and Michaels are my two favorite stores. Happy dance!

My sister M and I are going to check out the new Winners tomorrow morning, and with any luck, I'll be able to convince her to spend some time in Michaels too :o) And, all this happy shopping stuff just might distract me a bit from a big work-related decision that I need to finalize this weekend. Sigh.

Well, TGIF - happy Friday everyone!

Well hi there ....

2010-10-16T07:20:00.000-04:00

Um, wow. What can I say? It's been a busy two months! We spent whatever time we could at the trailer, which meant that our weekdays and weeknights were pretty full with work and all of the housework, errands, etc. that usually fill our weekends. Alas, we closed up the trailer last weekend ... our seven-month wait begins again.

And so fall is here, bringing all those fall-ish things with it ... chilly mornings, colourful leaves (first on the trees, then on the lawn!), the start of a new school year (first year of high school for the boy; second year of university for the girl), hockey (for the boy and for the Senators, hopefully the boy's season will get off to a better start than the Sens'!!), and of course, our annual hunt camp Thanksgiving.

We actually managed to pack lots of activity into Thanksgiving weekend. I was off work on Friday and so the husband and I drove up to the trailer and wrapped it up for the winter, after which we brought the little boat to our friends' place on Sand Lake, where we enjoyed what is likely to be the last cruise of the year ... the lake was choppy but it wasn't too cold and the views were amazing:

On Saturday, after getting most of the Thanksgiving cooking out of the way, I finally rekindled my relationship with scrapbooking. I had cleaned up my scrap room earlier in the week (funny how things just kept piling on the desk, couch and floor even though I hadn't scrapped since May!), and the husband surprised me by bringing cable in through the wall and hooking up the small flat screen TV from the trailer. So I had a clean desk and the Sens-Leafs game for inspiration. I shook the dust off a partway-completed layout and finished it up. With the exception of one card made in July, that's the first scrapping I've done in almost 5 months!! So, ya, I'm a bit rusty... I haven't scanned the result of my efforts yet, but I'll try to post soon I promise.

On Sunday I had an early-morning date with a turkey ... had that baby buttered up and nicely herbed and in the oven by 6 a.m. We were on the road by 11, two teenagers and one dog wedged into the back seat of the truck and the aroma of turkey driving us all crazy (for different reasons of course - the vegetarian girl and the rest of us just don't feel the same about turkey!). We had another great hunt camp Thanksgiving with our good friends (I think we've had this tradition for about 8 or 9 years now). Every year has its special memory ... well this year we actually started a forest fire when we left the campfire unattended to eat dinner, which isn't really a good thing, but the good thing is that we caught it in time, and were able to put it out. In all the excitement, I never thought to capture it on film.

I did capture a few moments though, including our turkey dinner inside the hunt camp:

And our beautiful girls (the one in the middle's mine. Did I mention she's 19 now? 19? Wow.):

And the boy shooting his gun ... don't worry people, he knows what he's doing. He got near-perfect marks on the tests when he went for his gun license and his hunting license last winter. Whenever I see this picture, I feel a bit wistful ... as my Dad would have just loved to see this:

And last but not least, here's what I look like when I've had a couple of glasses of wine, lol (ouch):So now that our weekends at the lake are officially over for the season, life gets back to 'normal' (whatever that is...). Weekends are now all about hockey practice, laundry, groceries, house cleaning (um, a bit of that, anyway), and visiting my mother-in-law. On the one hand I'll miss the relaxation at the trailer, but on the other hand, maybe now I'll have some time to scrap! I promise to try and keep the blog up, too, not just with drive-by updates but with some evidence that I am still a scrapper!

Whoooosh

2010-08-09T20:41:00.007-04:00

That's the sound of summer flying by. August??? Really??? Not sure how that happened.

Today was my first day back at work after 3 weeks of vay-cay. Say it with me people - UGH. Double-, triple-, mega-ugh. Work kind of sucks. Vay-cay was good though. And for the most part, it was un-plugged. I gave the blackberry a rest, and the internet too. Heck, most days I didn't even listen to the news!

The girl and I did a girls' trip to Montreal - stayed at the Queen E, explored Old Montreal, went shopping on St-Denis, ate at a couple of French bistros, as well as at a Greek restaurant on Avenue du Parc (which, it turns out, is no longer as much of a Greektown as it once was).

They boy, the husband and I visited relatives in New Hampshire and made a quick detour on our way home so the boy could do this:

Yup, that's the boy walking into the Atlantic Ocean. He got to check an item off his bucket list (he's way too young to have a bucket list - but I guess if you start it early, you have a better chance of getting it all done!). Hampton Beach was kind of cool, in a kitschy, tacky American Atlantic seacoast kind of way (boardwalk, arcade, etc.). But for his first visit to a real ocean beach, I think the boy was pretty satisifed (here he is taking in the sight - boy in red t-shirt whose Mom kind of unsuccessfully cropped out the garbage cans in the foreground, lol).

And for good measure, here's a picture of me, too:

Well, a picture of my nose and chin, anyway :o)

When I wasn't hanging out in Montreal or scarfing down a clam roll at the seashore, I was hanging out at our trailer. Reading a bunch of books, kayaking, swimming, boating, drinking, campfire-ing ... hanging out with the husband, and with friends. Do I wish I was right there, right now? Well yes I do. But hey, until I win big at Lotto Max, I'm going to have to fit a bit of work in, in between all the fun parts of life. Bless my hubby's heart, he took one look at me when I got home tonight and whisked me out for dinner and a glass of wine. Maybe if I look that pitiful every night when I get home from work, I may never have to cook again, lol!!!

Unfortunately what I didn't do during vacation is scrap. I guess I'm taking a summer break from scrapping. While I can't share any of my scrappies with you, I am going to point you in the direction of my sister D ... who surprised me with a link to her gallery at scrapbook.com ... click here. Yes, that's little old me in the picture, doing one of my favorite things - scrapbook shopping!!! While you're there, take a few minutes to browse her gallery ... I just love her style ... her stuff just blows me away. It is so rich, and textured, and vintage-ey, and totally classy. I am an impatient scrapbooker; I go for the clean, simple look only because I'm too lazy to try my hand at any cool techniques. But Sister D - she rocks the techniques.

Hope you all enjoy what's left of the summer ... don't let me bum you out ... just because my vay-cay is over doesn't mean summer is too ... I'm sure the beautiful weather will last well into September, and I for one intend to make every weekend between now and then a vacation!

Ciao!

Ohmigosh....

2010-06-29T20:39:00.011-04:00

Wow, I really have been a neglectful blogger, haven't I. So sorry not to be around much anymore. Please don't give up on me - I'm sure I'll get back in the beat of things eventually. But for now, since there's really no scrapping going on, there's not much to post. And, it's summer, which means my spare time is spent at the lake, or wishing I was at the lake:

Seriously - we've been spending lots of time up there. I've gotten my turnaround time between coming home from work and pulling out of the driveway for the lake to about 20 minutes ... all I need to do is throw some clothes in a bag and grab a few things from the fridge.

I've got a long weekend coming up, and then two weeks before summer vacation. I'm really looking forward to the break from work. I'm not enjoying my job much these days, and it's not just because I wish I was at the trailer. Oh well, this too shall pass.

In other news ...

The boy is done school. He was Master of Ceremonies at his Grade 8 grad last week. Pictures to come ... haven't uploaded them yet. High school in September! Wow!

The girl is taking a summer class at university ... she was thinking she might pick English as a minor, but now she's thinking maybe French. She did amazing in her first year, by the way ... A+'s and A's.

In the ongoing saga of whether to buy a 2nd boat or not, happy to report that the husband bought a 14 foot aluminum with a 9.9 motor yesterday. Because having just one boat is like having just one pair of shoes. It's do-able, but it isn't much fun.

I survived my week at Ivey School of Business - surprisingly, despite my questionable attitude about whether I really needed this training, I learned a lot and actually feel like I understand the raison d'etre of my department a bit better. And I didn't gain any weight despite the amazing food served buffet-style.

Speaking of weight, I've started going back to Weight Watchers just to keep an eye on things, and sister M has been tagging along ... she's done great, lost 10 pounds already, which pretty much dries up my source of amazing hand-me-downs ... guess she won't be giving away any more of her clothes :o(

Speaking of sister M, she is working in China this week, interpreting for the Governor General's husband ... that's kind of cool!

Wishing you all a happy Canada Day ... I hope you were able to make the holiday into a 4-day weekend (I did!) ... and that you have lots of fun. Thanks for dropping by (and for not entirely giving up on me).

Ciao!

Long Weekend, Short Week!

2010-05-26T07:12:00.005-04:00

Just a quick note to say HI! We had a great weekend at the trailer, it was like a mini-vacation. The husband came home Friday night with two brand new kayaks strapped to the roof of his truck ... because we can never really have enough stuff, ya know? Seriously though, we've been thinking of getting kayaks ever since we rented a cottage that came with some last summer, and now that we have a trailer to keep all our stuff at (lol), there wasn't much to stop us from getting some (other than common sense and love of money).

So I haven't actually tried out my new kayak yet, but the boy and his friend took them out for a couple of spins on the weekend. My weekend was a wee bit busy doing a bit more cleaning up and some entertaining, but all in all it was lots of fun ... and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the summer.

I have to run off to work now, and I'll pretty much be running for the rest of the week as I get ready for "school" next week.

Have a great day!

Time flies ....

2010-05-20T06:23:00.005-04:00

Time sure flies by when you're busy! I can't believe it's been over two months since my last post. Well, okay, I can sort of believe it; it's not like I've completely forgotten my blog, I do think of it once in a while, and the husband often asks when I'm going to update it. I've been so busy with work, I just don't have any energy left over for the fun stuff when I get home.

It's not that I've had nothing to say, because there have been a few news-worthy items to share in the last few weeks. But there have been few pictures and absolutely no scrapbooking-related items to share. I haven't scrapped since late Feb or early March ... :o(

So here are some of our news-worthy items, in no particular order ...

The boy's hockey team won the league championships

The girl finished her first year of university with nothing but A+'s and A's

The boy sang in a choir competition (including a solo) and they tied for 3rd place

It's finally trailer season again!

I've bought at least 3 new pairs of shoes (What. Shoes are newsworthy!!)

The boy swam in Big Rideau Lake last Sunday. Yes, he is nuts.

The girl won a small scholarship from AHEPA (Greek community association)

The dog turned 2 on May 18th

I have a new niece - Katelyn Ashley, born on March 2nd

The husband decided to buy a small fishing boat. Then he decided not to. Then he decided to buy one. Then he decided not to. Not sure where this is going to lead, but apparently one boat isn't enough :o)

It looks like the weather will be beautiful this weekend - finally! We are looking forward to spending some time at the lake. In between boat rides, campfires, walks and glasses of wine, I'll be reading financial analysis texts and case studies in preparation for a one week, 13-hour days course at University of Western Ontario that I'll be attending in a week or so. I'm not convinced this is something I actually need or will use but all the executives in my department have to take it. Last time I took anything remotely relevant in school was grade 11 math and economics. Somehow I don't think my languages, literature and history background is going to be very helpful. Eeek, to say the least.

So I'll try to get back into my good habits and post more often here. Hopefully, I'll have some scrappy stuff to share. But between work and summer season at the lake, I seriously doubt there will be any heavy-duty scrapbooking sessions for some time. That's ok ... so long as we're making memories, I can capture them when the weather turns cold!

Ciao!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2010-03-17T06:41:00.002-04:00

Top o' the morning to you. May the luck o' the Irish smile upon you today! So I'm wearing green today - are you? I commented to someone at the office that I was going to wear green today because I didn't want to get pinched, and she had no idea what I was talking about ... does anybody else do the "pinch people who aren't wearing green on St. Patrick's Day" thing, or is that some weird northeastern Quebec cultural thing I grew up with and assumed was universal?

Anyhow, sorry for the long absence from the blog ... the leprechaun says it all ... no time to blog or scrap! Hope to get back to regular programming soon!

Week 6 - Ella's Six Weeks of Sketches

2010-02-25T06:20:00.004-05:00

It's the 6th and final week for the Ella Sketch challenge ... I've done all 6 sketches, although only 5 of them were on time. I'm sad to see this challenge end, because it did motivate me to scrap at least once a week, and because the sketches were good and stretched my creativity a bit. You can see the Week 6 sketch here, and here is my take on it:

While I was scanning it, I realized the pictures are from 2009, not 2008 ... lol ... gotta hate it when that happens! I'll fix it before I put it in an album.

Thanks for stopping by!

PS - Wasn't yesterday a great Olympic day for Canadian women? Wow, gotta love that "women's 2-man bobsleigh" sport - have you seen the calves on those women??? - and the results, gold and silver for Canada! Oh, and it was a good Olympic day for "men's ice hockey" too - what a great win over the Russians. I sure hope the men's team makes it to the gold medal game, and I've got my fingers crossed for the women's hockey team tonight!!!

Catch-Up Post

2010-02-21T07:29:00.008-05:00

I wish every Saturday could be like yesterday. I had a lovely day, unhindered by anything domestic (other than a couple of loads of laundry). First the husband and I took the dog through a long walk in the snowy woods, including a pit stop for a small campfire, hot coffee and a snack; then, I spent a couple of hours scrapbooking; then, I lay down on the couch in my scraproom, read a bit and had a half hour nap; then I took a long steamy shower; then I took the boy to hockey; then we had a nice family dinner; and then the husband and I went on a "date" to Walmart (puppy needed a new pillow) topped off with coffee at Starbucks. Then I came home and went to bed. Aaaaaahhhh ...

So, Olympic fever hasn't hit our household as hard as it has hit some, although I did find myself watching curling the other night (until I realized I know nothing about this sport and was actually kind of bored). I am, however, looking forward to catching some of the "men's ice hockey" tonight (I love how they call it "ice hockey" - I mean really - is there any other kind of hockey worth mentioning? And as the girl would say, we don't call it "grass soccer" do we?). Canada plays U.S., should be a good game. Seems I lucked out when I was in Zellers the other day, they were pouring hundreds of those red Olympic mitts into a big bin and I thought what the heck, I'll buy myself a pair ... turns out you can't find these babies anywhere now:

Yes, I am a dork, wearing my new red Olympic mittens at the office. Turns out, by the way, that it's pretty darn near impossible to type or even click the mouse wearing these things. But they are nice and warm.

So that picture is over a week old for sure ... because last week, my assistant and I went on an organizational blitz and my desk is now clean(er) and populated with colour-coded files (red - program action items; blue - management action items; green - manager bilats; black - meeting files; burgundy - working files). That plus an evergreen To-Do Log and a new way of using Outlook seem to be keeping my head above water. I still miss deadlines, but I can now predict missing them in advance, lol!!!

In other news, I found some really cute additions for my scraproom at Winners a couple of weeks ago. One is a small tiered stand - I think it was originally meant for jewelry - which I now keep on my desk with pretty embellishments in it, for inspiration:

The other one is a also meant for jewelry I think - it's a dress form. I got this idea from a scrap mag I recently bought. I'm going to tie all of my ribbon bits to it and keep it handy; it'll be both a room decoration, hopefully sometimes an inspiration, and a storage option for those shorter, leftover bits of ribbon that rarely get used:

I don't think I've ever posted that framed 12x12 layout here ... I was waiting til I was done the 2nd, matching one (which I haven't started yet). I intend to put the two up on the wall in my scraproom.

So thanks for stopping by ... I have to run, it's time to wake up the husband, write out the grocery list and start my day. Busy one today, including a visit to my mother-in-law's and a visit from out-of-town friends this afternoon.

Ciao!

Ella's Six Weeks of Sketches - Week 5

2010-02-18T21:43:00.003-05:00

Got it done just under the wire - thanks to the husband who reminded me I had to scrapbook tonight, and hustled me upstairs after dinner so I could get it done. Yup, he's a keeper. You can see the sketch here.

I deviated from the sketch a bit ... I had intended on sticking to it but in the end the journaling block looked better bottom right, while the title block looked better top left. Sometimes you just have to listen to what you're layout's telling you, know what I mean?

Yes, that's me in the pictures ... blushing bride, almost 22 years ago ... Sorry about the wonky scan, the title block is a bit thick (I built it up from a cute felt coaster I bought at Michaels ... I bought a pack of them, actually. Funny story, I had a glass of wine sitting on the coaster while I was putting together this layout and all of a sudden it struck me, the coaster was the perfect base for my title block ... !)

Thanks for looking!

Week 4 (and 3) - Ella's Six Weeks of Sketches

2010-02-08T21:21:00.004-05:00

Yay, I got the sketch-inspired layout done on time this week! It's all about managing priorities, isn't it ... I felt pretty rotten about not getting Week 3 done on time so promised myself I would find some time to scrap this week. You can see the sketch here ... and here's the result:

The scan really doesn't do it justice, it's much nicer in real life, lol ... So you may find it hard to see a link between the sketch and my layout but here's what happened ... first I flipped the sketch upside down ... then I stretched it out over two 8.5x11 pages ... then I added a 3rd 3.5x3.5 square picture ... and then it took on a life of its own, the title and journaling just went where my eye told me they belonged. I love how this sketch inspired me to crop my pictures (I realized I hadn't been doing much of that at all lately) and how as a result, I was able to fit four pictures on a layout and still have lots of white space. Cause white space is all cool and trendy right now in the scrapbook world, you know.

I was really disappointed about not getting the Week 3 layout done on time, especially since I had the pictures picked out and the layout all done inside my head (isn't that always the way ... there are so many more layouts in my head than in my actual albums, lol!). Not one to waste inspiration, I went ahead and did that Week 3 layout anyway, and here's the result:

Again, I just stretched the sketch across two 8.5x11 pages. Simple, fast ... zoom it was done (lol). Hmn, colourful too. For both these layouts, I did some major stash usage ... the patterned paper in the first one is at least 5 years old (All My Memories - Herbanella line ... remember those?) and there's a combination of Junkitz, Basic Grey and Daisy D's patterned paper on the 2nd one (weird combo, eh). And I would like to point out that there are NO FLOWERS anywhere on these layouts, which is like a breakthrough or something for me.

So thanks for looking ... before signing off, just a bit of this and that:

(1) Humble apologies to Toronto Maple Leaf fans everywhere. You know why.

(2) The boy's hockey team made it all the way to the Championship finals ... they lost, but it was a close game til the last few minutes and it was an extremely exciting hockey weekend overall (my voice survived, surprisingly; but my cow bell is tired).

(3) When I left work today, it was light out. I had to double check my watch to make sure I wasn't leaving early. Yay!

(4) Only 14 weeks left til the trailer park opens. Woo-hoo!

Have a great week, everyone!

Too Busy to Play!!!

2010-02-05T07:13:00.008-05:00

How sad is that. I wasn't able to set aside any time for scrapping this week. Which means I did not get to play with Ella's Week 3 Sketch before the Thursday midnight deadline. Which means I will get one less chance to win the Cricut. Cr*p.

On the bright side, I may have time to scrap a bit this morning ... I'm off work today! The boy is in a hockey tournament and he has a game at 3:00, so I decided to take the full day off. Well technically, anyway, since I've already put in about an hour of work this morning via my home computer catching up on emails etc. They played the first game last night, and they won 2-0, and the boy scored a goal. Got to use my cow bell. Fun times!

And my Senators are having fun times too. You almost don't have to be a hockey fan these days to know about their awesome 11-game winning streak. Which, the boy and I agree, will go to 12 since their next game is against the Make Beliefs (sorry to all you Maple Leaf fans. I respect you and all but, seriously, we're hot and you're not!).

Anyhow, thought I'd just do a quick "drive by post" to let y'all know that I am still alive, even though I seem to have only two speeds these days - full speed working, or at a complete stop nodding off on the couch.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Week 2 - Ella's Six Weeks of Sketches

2010-01-25T20:50:00.007-05:00

You can view the sketch inspiration here. Here's my take on it ... note the right hand page of this two-pager is inspired from the sketch! Except I didn't trim down the pictures for 8.5x11, and I flipped the arrangement top to bottom. And I didn't really put the title and journaling in the same place. But that's what sketches are all about, right? They're a starting point - you should never feel like you have to stay 100% true to the sketch (but you can if you want to). Lol.

Thanks for looking!

Edit to add: I really need to give partial credit to the husband for this one; he had supper ready to go on the table when I got home last night, and shooed me upstairs right after (no dishes for me!) so I could "get that contest thing done early". Awwwwwwwww...thanks hun!

Get Way Into the Game ...

2010-01-24T07:49:00.007-05:00

Have you ever seen that lottery ticket/gambling thing commercial for Pro-Line Sports, with the catchy phrase "Get Way Into the Game"? Well I was just having my usual early-morning-gotta-feed-the-dog-might-as-well-surf-the-net session today, and I stumbled upon a website called "Scrapbook Update". After clicking around the site a bit, I thought to myself, "Wow - this is mecca for those scrapbookers who get Way Into the Game!". I mean, they have scrapbook industry job listings ... links to media stories about scrapbook manufacturers and their ugly legal battles with each other ... breaking news (breaking news!) relating to scrapbooking ... and stuff that regular scrapbookers like me might care about, like sneak peeks of some Craft and Hobby Association 2010 (CHA) releases.

A person with nothing but time on their hands could spend all day on this site learning all there is to know about current trends in scrapbooking, who's suing who, what designers are working where, how social media impacts on the scrapbooking industry, what K&Company's latest releases are, what the weather's like in Anaheim today (for those of you not in the know ... the CHA convention is going on in Anaheim, California right now) ... whew. Yet another reason why I need to quit my day job.

Then again, based on what I learned this morning about hot scrapbook trends at CHA, I better not quit my day job, because my scrapbook style really doesn't line up that well:

1. It's all about die cutting. (Uh, a $500 die cut machine with dies that cost over $50 each is not in my future, immediate or otherwise! Unless they mean those die-cuts I have somewhere in my stash from when I started scrapbooking 10 years ago? Uh, no, they probably don't mean those.)

2. We're going green. (Folks - give me a break; I'm still trying to go acid- and lignin-free here! Now I gotta worry about the impact of my little hobby on the environment, too? My cutting and pasting has to have a social conscience?)

3. We're going patriotic. (As in, American. As in, Buy Local. So yeah, that one doesn't really apply to a Canadian scrapbooker! I could limit myself to Canadian products but then my pages would all start looking alike and I would need to find pictures to match patterened paper with mounties and beavers on it ... I kid you not, such a thing exists ... oh wait, given the stereotypes, I think it's probably made in America!)

4. It's all about stamping. (I know what these evil scrapbook industry leaders are trying to do. They're trying to get me to spend even more money than I already do, on a related obsession - stamps. You're not gonna get me, evil leaders. I may have bought a few acrylic stamps over the last few months, but I'm really lame at actually using them - so there!)

5. Paper is reborn as digital. (Two part response here. (A) I suck at anything computer-related, nuff said. (B) A big part of the attraction to scrapbooking, for me, is the cutting, the pasting, the owning inches and inches of scrapbook paper. Please, evil leaders, don't take this away from me!!)

So as you can see, I had waaaay to much time on my hands this morning. But that's a good thing. It's nice to slow down and smell the coffee, so to speak. After all it's Sunday already, the weekend's half over, there's still laundry to be done, sons to be picked up from sleepovers, mothers-in-law to be visited, hockey practices to be attended, beef stews to be made, and according to the weather man (hey, I surf the web in a multi-tasking kind of way - lots of windows open at once, you know), there might be some freezing rain this afternoon. In the meantime, it's time to wake up the husband, and see if he feels up to taking the dog for a walk in the woods. We'll have lots of stuff to talk about today. I can tell him all about the breaking news on Scrapbook Update! (Uh-you know I'm kidding, right honey?).

Have a great Sunday, everyone.

PS: The winners of the week 1 sketch are posted on the Ella Blog. I'm not one of 'em, but I had lots of fun playing and fully intend to participate in week 2! Which reminds me, I need to fit some scrapping time in today!

PSS: I don't know what the heck is going on with Blogger, but I'm having a hard time inserting spaces between some of my paragraphs. So if you're wondering what those dots are between paragraphs, they're my half-assed way of solving the problem (note comment above about sucking at anything computer-related). :o)

I Did It!!

2010-01-20T20:07:00.004-05:00

I used the Week 1 sketch from Ella's Six Weeks of Sketches challenge to create a layout! You can read more about this challenge on the Ella blog, and you can see the layouts on Flickr. The real news here is that I actually carved out some time to scrap - yay!

The sketch:

My layout:

Can't wait to see the Week 2 sketch. Fun!

Ah, what a busy week so far. Back to back meetings, missed deadlines, hastily gulped lunches - yikes. Hope your week is better than mine!

Thanks for stopping by. If you have a minute, leave me a comment - say hi! I'd love to know you're visiting. :o)

Rough Week?

2010-01-16T08:25:00.006-05:00

First full week of work in a while ... and boy, it was a busy one. Which is good, because it went by fast. In the back of my mind I've got a weekly countdown thing going on ... how many weeks til we can start using the trailer ... (17 - ouch). So every week that comes to a close is a good thing! And if work can make it go faster, even better! (How do you like my lame attempt at thinking of work in positive way?).

I won't go as far to say that my week drove me to drink, but I will tell you that the cranberry martini was a very welcome sight when I got home last night. I'm not a hard liquor drinker, and I had just one, but I will admit to enjoying it immensely!

I haven't done any scrapbooking in days - I haven't even gone into the scraproom to say hi to my stuff!!! When catching up with the Ella site this morning, I ran across a six-week sketch challenge on their blog. There will be one sketch posted each week and if you comment on the post and link to your layout, you are entered for a grand prize giveaway! No idea what the grand prize is, no matter though, for me the prize will simply be to scrap!! So ... wish me luck. I'm not usually too good at keeping up with these kinds of scrap challenges.

I think we will start our weekend with a nice long walk through the woods (it's so mild out, for a change!) and then it'll be the usual routine ... laundry, hockey practice, groceries, visit my mother in law, hockey game ... I'm sure the weekend will go by VERY QUICKLY. But not before I find an hour to scrap!

Have a great weekend, everyone. Thanks for coming by!

Time flies...

2010-01-06T07:42:00.007-05:00

...when you're having fun!

I can't believe how quickly the last few days have gone by. I can't believe I have to go back to work tomorrow :o( Well at least I have one little glimmer of excitement relating to going back to work; I "shopped" in my sister M's closet yesterday so I have some new stuff to wear! Still, not enough incentive to make me actually look forward to going back! Sorry for stating the obvious, but a life of leisure beats work hands down.

On Monday the husband, the dog and I went snowshoeing. Wow, I can't believe how great modern snowshoes are! I grew up snowshoeing on this type of snowshoe:

And I seem to recall that walking on these, let alone actually strapping them on, was frustrating and painful. And since they're made out of rawhide, I suppose the dog would end up eating them anyway! But our new showshoes rock:

And dressing for the weather rocks too:

The husband and I have a little off-trail spot in the back woods where we like to stop for a campfire and a snack. It's always fun to try and find it again, and to dig out our log-seats and fire pit.

Even though the new snowshoes rock, it turns out they still require the use of muscles. As does taking down Christmas decorations, which is what I did on Monday afternoon. As a result, I spent Monday evening nodding off on the couch ... all in all, a typical evening for me!

Yesterday, along with shopping in sister M's closet, we went out for lunch and a movie. We saw It's Complicated, with Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin ... it was a cute movie, I had a few belly laughs. It's not an academy award winner but it's a great pick-me-up kind of movie. Last night the boy and I watched the World Juniors gold medal game on tv ... a heartbreaking loss for Canada, but what an exciting game!

Not sure what today will bring. I want to spend some time scrapping, but first I might take a run out to Michaels to buy more refill pages, posts and albums. I'm already feeling the last-day-of-vacay blues and it would be a real bummer to ruin my last day off by feeling blue so I have to find a way to shake that off and fast!

I'll leave you with the last layout in my scan stash ... if I want to share anything with you in the near future, I'll have to get scrapping!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T15:22:00.004-05:00

Happy 2010 everybody! Hope you had fun ringing in the new year. We had a few friends over for dinner on New Year's Eve. The husband and I took a few minutes out of our busy dinner prep time for a photo shoot - though most of the pics are on his blackberry and this kissy one is the only one on my camera. Yes, that's a very festive shirt he's wearing :o) On New Year's Day, we went to visit our friends who live out in the country and spent the afternoon/evening playing euchre (and drinking...and eating....). A very nice start to the year.

So I've been having some thoughts about New Year's resolutions, and decided to revisit the ones I made last year. Here's the entry from my January 2, 2009 blog post: "This year I will put a greater focus on my health. I will eat well, I will be active, I will take care of my body and soul (and hopefully in the process lose a dress size or maybe even two). I would just love to lose 20 pounds between now and bathingsuit season (and firm up the jigglies that will surely be there even if 20 pounds are lost)."

I must say, I had great success with last year's resolution to get my weight gain under control. I lost almost 40 pounds in the first 6 months of the year, and have managed to maintain my weight loss since then (ok, ok, I put on a couple of pounds over Christmas, but that is to be expected, and it WILL come off over the next couple of weeks)! Not to toot my own horn or anything, but going from a size 14 to a size 6 has been a helluva (helluvan?) accomplishment. Not sure I can top that resolution this year.

But I do have a few priorities that I want to focus on this year. One is, of course, continuing to maintain the weight loss. Another is resolving my work/career issues (long story, but in a nutshell, I am seeking greater worklife balance and am considering my options including the possibility of moving down a level or two - a challenge when the powers that be expect me to move onwards and upwards). And even if I don't exercise any options and decide to stay in the same job, I need to look forward to going to work again, and to find a better balance, a way to spend more time doing the things I love with the ones I love...I want to take full advantage of our new trailer and boat; I want to scrapbook more often - there is so much creativity inside me crying to get out; I want to go on more dates with my husband; I want to stay connected with my kids; I want to connect more often with my sisters; I want to have more spa dates and dinners out with my girlfriends. I don't want to come home every night feeling drained and wanting only to lie on the couch and watch tv.

So ... between loads of laundry today I snuck a little bit of "me time" in. I spent some time in the scraproom, but didn't actually get a lot of scrapbooking done. I spent most of my time putting loose layouts into albums ... man, that is one dreadful job when you put it off for months on end! I ran out of extra posts AND albums, lol. There is a trip to Michaels in my very near future. Here's a layout I did the other day:

Because I worked between Christmas and New Year's, I decided to take a few days off next week - so while many of you are dreading going back to work tomorrow after a week or two break, I don't have to face work until Thursday! :o) I plan on taking down the Christmas decorations, scrapbooking, an outing with sister M, and maybe a haircut and/or spa appointment. A great start on this year's resolutions, eh?

Zoom!

2009-12-28T08:10:00.005-05:00

Did you hear that? Zooooom ... that's the sound of the last few days just whipping by! I go back to work tomorrow ... ugh. Only for 2.5 days, though, and then I'm off til Jan 7.

I spent some time in the scraproom on Boxing Day, and I hope to spend some more in there today. In only a couple of hours, I managed to create 3 single layouts and 1 double; I think that's a record. Good thing I'm becoming adept at speed scrapping, given how little time I have to spend on it!

I'm only going to share a couple of those layouts today ... that way if I go into another dry spell, I'll still have some layouts to share here (because after all, it's a scrapbooking blog - that's my story and I'm stickin' to it).

Puppy's First Christmas:
There's a mix of old and new on this layout - new = K&Co Christmas-themed patterned paper (a vintage-y pad). Old = Pebbles Inc. Real Life stickers that have been in my stash, like, for-ev-er. It just dawned on me that I forgot to put the date on this layout. Ooops. Will have to add a 2008 somewhere!

Daddy's Best Girls:

Those are daddy's sweet girls ... It's pretty rare that I use only one product line on a layout - I usually like to mix it up. This one, however, is done entirely with scraps of the Making Memories Sabrina collection. I have lots of leftovers of this one, I did a baby gift album for one of my staff using this a while back. I'm not sure whether this one is done, or whether it needs something at the top. Opinions?

And speaking of sweet girls, a big shout-out goes to one of my faithful blog readers, Samantha, who posted a comment yesterday saying I don't look old enough to have an 18 year old daughter ... Samantha is now my new best friend, lol ... seriously though - thank you. It does a 43-year old chick good to hear such a lovely compliment!

Have a lovely day!

Merry Boxing Day!

2009-12-26T10:09:00.006-05:00

Aaaahhhhhh ... we're finally on the "right" side of Christmas, lol. Don't get me wrong - I love Christmas despite the stress, the commercialism, the hours and hours of work. But I always do a little happy dance (ok, maybe just inside my head) when I finish cleaning up after Christmas dinner, the guests are gone and I can finally slip into some jammies and relax. And speaking of jammies ... look at the cute ones sister D gave me for Christmas:

The writing on the front says "Actually, scrapbooking is the best medicine". :o) Excuse the really dorky pose, though. Not used to being on the front side of the camera I guess?!

Other than that jammie picture, we only took one other picture yesterday. Guess I was too busy to spend any time behind the camera. But at the end of the day, once everyone was gone, I remembered the camera and managed to get one shot of the kids (and Rufus the bear) in front of the tree:

I wish I had done this every year. It would be so neat to have a yearly picture of the kids in front of the tree (and to do a layout with them to show how they've grown). Not too late to start though!

So all in all, we had a pretty nice Christmas ... from Christmas Eve at my sister M's house, to Christmas Day with the husband's family here. I was spoiled by the husband even though we weren't supposed to "do" presents for each other. Got some Sens stuff, and spa gift card, and movie & dinner certificate, and lots of other stuff too... And the kids gave me great gifts too - a nutcraker from the boy (now I only need one more to complete my collection!) and a Sens teddy bear and bubble bath from the girl (and I'll be using that bubble bath later today, that's for sure!).

I got a few things for the husband too, even though we weren't "doing". One of the things I got him are these rubber things you put on your boots with metal thingies in them to help you walk when it's freezing rain (can't remember what they're called in English but in French they're 'crampons'). Those are coming in pretty handy this morning ... our part of the world is covered in sheer ice, and the husband is out there right now walking the dog with his new rubber thingies on his boots :o)

The husband has suggested I spend the rest of the day scrapbooking ... uh, yeah, ok, I think I can handle that! :o)

Happy Boxing Day everyone. Hope yours is spent relaxing ... but if your thing is hitting the boxing day sales, then I hope you get what you set out to buy, and that your car AND your body stay upright despite all the ice out there!

I think I'm gonna make it .....

2009-12-23T07:19:00.008-05:00

I'm sure I'll remember something I've forgotten to do and might start panicking anytime soon, but so far, I actually think I'm going to make it to Christmas. House is decorated. Presents are bought and 75% wrapped. Menu is planned and I'm going to the groceries today. Baking is ongoing (it goes out the door as quickly as I bake it .... so more baking required!). Contrary to last year, I made it to Canada Post in time to have parcels sent regular postage and delivered before Christmas Eve (although according to the tracking system, one was picked up from the post office and one wasn't ... which is weird since they were both sent to Sister D as my brother was likely to be out of town by the time his parcel got there).

I put ribbon on 26 boxes of chocolates, made 9 packages of biscotti complete with Christmas ornament decorated with scrapbook supplies, and packaged up some biscotti for my boss in a really cute Martha Stewart cookie box. I wrote out 36 Christmas cards for each staff member.

I'm off work til Tuesday so I celebrated the start of my mini-vacation last night with a two-hour bath (involving two glasses of wine and a book) and then the husband and I headed out for a late-night coffee with our friends Carrie and Aki. We made efforts to stay out of the girl's way last night as she was having her friends over for drinks and munchies. This is what I found on the counter this morning ... which is fine since none of them were driving.

To me this was just a reminder of how things change over the years ... I remember when the girl having friends over meant pink lemonade and me doing crafts with them ... lol. Well, another couple of years and things will change again; we'll probably have drinks with them instead of giving them space!

There's a fine, gentle snow falling outside this morning. It really does look like Christmas out there. Plans for today include groceries, baking, wrapping and visiting my godson to deliver his Christmas present. Plans for tomorrow include cleaning the house, doing some advance food preparation for Christmas dinner, and spending Christmas Eve at sister M's. We are hosting my brother in law's family as well as my mother in law on Christmas Day. I am going to buy the biggest fresh turkey in Kanata today, so that we have plenty of turkey leftovers.

I'm working between Christmas and New Year's, but I'm taking the first 3 days in January off and other than taking down the Christmas decorations, I hope to do nothing but walk with the dog and the husband in the woods and scrap. You know, the dog really does have a good life ... I don't see her running around shopping, baking and wrapping ... nope, this is what she gets to do all day long:

Boy, she sure has a tough life ... :o)

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope Santa is good to you.

It's Going to be a White Christmas (not a blue one)

2009-12-09T06:30:00.012-05:00

First storm of the season is upon us ... the wind is howling ... the snow is falling. I sure wish I could stay home and do Christmassy things today, like baking and wrapping. Ok, so maybe I've only bought 3 or 4 things so far, but I could totally wrap them. :o)

I managed to get the house all decorated last week, including switching to Christmas dishes. As I rummaged around in the basement I came across 3 boxes covered in Christmas paper ... 3 boxes that I haven't opened in 3 years. They contain my mother's old Christmas tree ornaments ... some of which she had since the 1940's. I remember how magical these ornaments looked on the tree. When I was young, I never saw the tree being trimmed - I always woke up one morning to a beautiful, magical tree in the living room. Those ornaments are so old now, even my mother wasn't putting them on her tree anymore ... she nestled them all so carefully in these 3 boxes though. When I took the boxes my intent was that each of my sisters and I would take one box, and we still have to do that. Although these would never withstand shipping or even going on an airplane so sister D's box will have to wait until someone tackles the 15 hour drive to my home town.

So I had myself a good cry, and I decided to capture the memory while the ornaments were still intact. I took pictures of them so carefully nestled in their boxes, and then I chose 3 to hang on my tree. See the big pink ball (I used to fantasize these were gumballs, lol) and the bird perched on the tree limb?

See the pretty blown glass "copper" teapot?

Please don't think of this as a sad post though. I don't have the Christmas blues. I may have shed some tears when I came across the ornaments - sometimes missing Mom hits me like a big wave - but there is a lot more to smile about than to cry about. Mom loved Christmas and made it such a magical time for us. When I decorate my house, and bake cookies, and wrap presents, I carry on a tradition that was passed on to me, if not explicitly, then by osmosis ... I just took it all in every year growing up and knew that I wanted to recreate Christmas magic for my own family some day. I used to really go overboard in the early years ... I've joked that I thought I was Martha Stewart, but in truth I think I thought I was my mother.

For a couple of years after my sister C passed away (on Christmas Day) I just couldn't put my heart into Christmas. In the end that kind of pressed the reset button for me where Christmas is concerned, and brought a bit of sanity back to the holiday. I'm reconciled now to the fact that I won't ever be able to do all my mother did - hey, I'll be happy if I make one kind of cookie this year, I'll never pressure myself again to make dozens each of at least a dozen different kinds. I'll do Christmas my own way, incorporating some new traditions with the old. And hopefully when my kids grow up (yes, I am denying that one of them already is grown up) they will have fond memories of their childhood Christmases and while they won't feel pressure to do things exactly the way I did them, they'll pick and choose the things that make them feel warm and fuzzy, and add new things to make Christmas all their own.

Whew, sucky post. But these thoughts were in my head and I needed to get them down somewhere. You know they'll end up on a scrapbook page someday ... oooh, in my new Christmas Decoration album!

To all of you who may have to go out in a winter storm today ... be safe and good luck! To those of you lucky enough to stay home ... have a cup of hot cocoa by the tree for me!

Makes me smile ...

2009-12-06T17:13:00.003-05:00

It's just a tiny 2-foot tree set on a table in the corner of my dining room, but whenever I see it / think about it, I smile. Which is a good thing. It's a Sens tree. I gathered up all the Senators ornaments the husband got for me and the kids last year and concentrated them all on one tree. Lol. Anyhow, I can use all the smiles I can get right now ... dreading going back to work after a week+ away. I can just imagine what's waiting for me there. Ugh. :oO

It's beginning to look a lot like ... my old self!

2009-12-04T07:20:00.007-05:00

Whatever it is/was - and I don't think it is/was shingles, I never got a rash - it's starting to get better. Guess what I really needed was rest. Haven't done much of anything this week, and it has paid off. I'm starting to feel like my old self again.

I did spend some time in the scrap room, though not as much as I would have liked. The couch was just too attractive, lol. But here's what my desk looks like:

Which, for me, is pretty messy. And here's some of the stuff I made:

The Christmas album is filled with layouts featuring some of my favorite Christmas decorations over the years. It's a work in progress - there are still some blank pages and plenty of stuff I haven't documented yet. I added a couple of pages this week but I actually got the album done a couple of weeks ago. I got on a roll making Christmas cards too.

My absolutely favorite creation of the whole entire year I think are those Christmas trees above - made them yesterday using foam cones from Michaels, 1/2"x4" strips of paper (mostly from the Making Memories Fa La La line), straight pins, and some gold tree decorations I bought at Home Outfitters. I really like how these turned out and they're now on my fireplace mantel.

The boy and I started putting up Christmas decorations last night - we got the Christmas village done. Today we'll do the tree and the rest of the decorations. I bought some of those new-fangled LED lights for the tree this year, to replace all those old strings of lights I've been using for years. Supposedly the LED lights save you money; not sure about that, considering how expensive they are, you probably have to use them for 30 years to come into any kind of savings!

Well, that's about it for now. Thanks for stopping by!

S'up?

2009-11-28T07:44:00.004-05:00

Seems the only blogging I do these days involves apologizing for not blogging more often, and trying to catch up on what's been going on in my life! It seems blogging seems to come and go in cycles ... sometimes there's nothing to blog about, in which case there's enough time to blog; sometimes I have lots to say, but no time to say it! Argh!

Anyhow, my lack of blogging lately is due to tiredness more than anything else. I just haven't been feeling myself lately and while I originally thought I was coming down with the flu, no symptoms other than headache and tiredness have come out ... other than pain in my side, which cropped up this week. I've seen the doctor and there's a chance I have shingles ... we're on a 'wait and see' plan ... she also sent me for a blood test to see if my iron is low or if I have mono. And, she put me on sick leave til Dec 7. The same doctor who once told me "you're pregnant, not sick" when I asked for a week's sick leave at the end of my pregnancy ... the same doctor who prescribed me some sleeping pills when I went to see her stressed out and at the end of my rope right before Dad passed away (and I was sleeping just fine, I was just super-stressed and needed time to deal with Dad stuff) ... has now suggested I take a week of work. Weird. I feel guilty because I'm not exactly bed-ridden, I could drag my sorry self to work and get through the day. But I guess it's wise to try and rest ... if it is shingles, the rash should come out in the next few days, and if it's not, then who knows what it is, but rest won't hurt. I'm having a hard time concentrating, so even though my body can make it to work, my mind, not so much... So I was supposed to be off starting Thursday but went in to work Thursday morning to wrap up some stuff at work. Yesterday I spent lounging around, and I went to bed at 6:45 pm ... watched some tv, fell asleep before 9:00, woke up at 7:00 ... tired and headachy. Argh!

I don't have much new to share with you. The boy had a hockey game at ScotiaBank Place at the beginning of the month. I found it to be a bit of a let-down ... they led us to believe that it would be just like an NHL game, with the goals being called and the horn when they score etc. ... but really it wasn't much different than playing in a tournament and less so even, because when you have about 30 people cheering in a stadium built for 19,000, there's not much atmosphere! And the horn blowing ... say it blows for about 6 seconds for an NHL goal ... it barely blew one second for the boys' goals. Cool for the kids though, who got to see some of the off-limits parts of the building, sit on the same bench as the Sens, and play on the same ice surface. Here's a pic of the kids having a face-off on the Sens logo ... the boy is in white, last player on the right, yes, the one right in front of the Viagra ad ... !

Last weekend the boy and I went to a tournament in Brockville. Originally the husband was supposed to come too, and had scheduled his work commitments accordingly; but the tournament schedule was completely changed the night before because of a team dropping out, which completely screwed up our plans. The boys won one, lost one, still ended up in semi finals, won the semi finals, and lost in the finals. We got four games out of it, our money's worth I guess!

The husband and the boy have been spending some time doing some hunting training with the dog. First though, they had to get her something orange to wear so she wouldn't be mistaken for a deer ... they couldn't find a vest, but did find this harness, which she wears quite proudly:

They're going back out to the woods today, with a case of live pidgeons ... don't ask, I'd rather not tell ... ! Hey, you can see the dust on my hardwood floor in the picture above ... yikes.

I did manage to get some scrapbooking done over the last couple of weeks. I put together a Christmas theme album with all those random Christmas decoration pictures I've taken over the years, and I've gotten a healthy start on making Christmas cards. My scrapbook room looks like a tornado went through it. :o) I hope to get lots more done over the next week. I can't spend the whole week lying in bed, can I?

I'll scan the Christmas album and some of the cards and come back soon to show them to you ... might get us all into the Christmas spirit ... I can't believe Christmas is less than a month away!

Have a good weekend, everyone!

And, more layouts ...

2009-11-05T05:50:00.005-05:00

I completed these ages ago, before the last batch of layouts I've recently posted. Not sure how come they never made it to the blog!

These layouts make me pine for a weekend away ... some quiet relaxation ... good food, good conversation ... rest ... rejuvenation. Well, the good news is, we have a weekend away coming up at the end of November. The bad news is, it's for a hockey tournament, and the husband, boy and I will be sharing a double bed and cot in a chain hotel and spending every waking moment doing the hockey thing. Not that I don't like hockey (as you well know, I live and breathe it) - but somehow, I just don't think there'll be much relaxation, good food, good conversation, rest or rejuvenation. Lol.

Yay, it's Thursday. The week is more than half over, and even though the work week is intense and will continue to be so til 5 pm Friday, the weekend is within my sights. Big stuff coming up this weekend - the boy is playing an exhibition game at ScotiaBank Place (the NHL arena, for those of you who don't know these things) complete with O Canada, player introductions, goal announcements, etc etc. And if that's not fun enough, well we've got tickets for the Sens game too. (See, I really do live and breathe hockey :o)

Ciao!

Happy Halloweenie!

2009-10-31T13:57:00.003-04:00

Yes, I dressed up for Hallowe'en last year .... but it was for a good cause. Staff dressed up management at the office and we had to panhandle around the office (and in the commercial areas of the building) for United Way donations. My staff dressed me up as a nun, lol ... the whole thing was a bit embarrasing, but we collected over $1,100 for charity!

No Hallowe'en costume for me this year, though I intend to slip on my witch earrings later today. The boy has a hockey game at 5:30 pm (who schedules a hockey game on Hallowe'en night?) so the husband will be on his own with the ghosts and goblins (and dog who barks whenever the doorbell rings) for a while. Wish him good luck!

Happy Hallowe'en, y'all!

More Layouts...

2009-10-30T06:28:00.005-04:00

Busy bee as usual. TGIF is all I can say. Hoping I can grab some scrap time this weekend ... otherwise I will soon run out of new layouts to share with you!

Happy weekend, everyone....

PS: Barb - do you recognize any elements on that first layout? Think back, waaaay back, to our Creative Scrapbooks days and a Winter Swap we both participated in ... yup, the frame and title tag are courtesy of you!

Some layouts ...

2009-10-25T17:56:00.005-04:00

Here are some of the layouts I managed to get done a couple of weekends ago ...

See, I really do scrapbooking ... I wasn't just putting you on all this time :o)

Good Doggie!

2009-10-19T06:30:00.003-04:00

Well I did find time to scrap last weekend, both during my alone time on Friday and a bit on Thanksgiving Monday too. We had a great time on Saturday at the hunt camp with our friends, and I got my fill of special treats like stuffing and pecan pie ... yum.

While I found time to scrap, though, I found absolutely no time to scan a few layouts and share them here. So the one above will need to do for now - I managed to scan it this morning between making lunches, waking up the boy and waking up the dog...! Hopefully, I will find some time to scan the rest and share soon. The scan doesn't do it justice, btw, the patterned paper is much brighter in real life and the yellow matches the flower much better.

Have a great week, everyone!

Remember Me?

2009-10-09T19:45:00.003-04:00

I know, I know. Bad, bad blogger. I sit here at the computer, my head hung low, feeling really badly that I haven't updated the blog in almost 20 days. Yikes, where does the time go?

Let's see, what's been going on the last three weeks ... hmnnnn ... well, we had a 3 year memorial mass for my father in law. Also, my poor husband has been so sick (it got bad enough at one point that I thought he had the H1N1 flu). Sinus infection, non-stop cough ... it's been rough going around here. The girl and I both caught it, have both been fighting it for a while. I am fighting it rather unsuccessfully these days; it seems to have settled in my inner ear, turning me into a dizzy blonde. I went to the clinic today, but my ears aren't infected. According to the doctor, sometimes vertigo settles in during a cold and sticks around for a while. Oh joy.

The boy went to Toronto for We Day and had a blast. That same weekend, the husband and I (and the dog of course) went for an overnight stay at the trailer. That was lots of fun; I truly can't wait til next summer! The boy has started hockey, and it looks like it will be a good season this year ... coach-wise, team-wise, and hockey parents-wise. Oooh, and the boy and I went to the Senators' home opener last night. Have I ever mentioned how much I love hockey? Man, it was great to be there again. And the cherry on top - they won.

The husband and the boy are at the trailer tonight; I stayed in town because I'm cooking up a storm for our traditional hunt camp Thanksgiving tomorrow. The girl has gone to a friend's house for the evening ... do you realize what this means? I am HOME ALONE. No dog. No husband. No boy. No girl. Just me and my SCRAPPING SUPPLIES! Yes my friends, finally, a scrap night for me! Now don't get me wrong, I love my family to pieces, but woo-hoo, sccrrraaaaapppp nighttttttt!!!. Hopefully I'll get a few pages done while I cook, and with any luck, I may post again tomorrow morning to show you some layouts!

Ciao!

His & Hers

2009-09-20T07:25:00.002-04:00

HIS:

HERS:

And the beauty of it is, he'll share his with me, and I'll share mine with him ... :o)

Seriously, we needed somewhere to keep the boat, right? So ... yesterday afternoon we bought a 33' trailer located on a really sweet site at the same campground we kept our tent trailer at in 2003. The trailer is about 20 years old, but very well maintained. The site is large, nicely treed, there is a huge deck, and it came with everything including patio furniture, a covered swing-for-two, bbq, mower, tv, and all the kitchen stuff. It's also got a wooden platform for a a tent, so the boy will be able to have friends up for weekends. The picture really doesn't do it justice; I snapped it quickly to show the boy when we got back home. I should have taken some pictures of the site itself. We reserved a slip for the boat and got a very good spot there as well. The campground is really nice, on the Big Rideau, and we're very comfortable there, have been going on and off for years. We take possession this week but the campground closes October 15 ... we really hope we manage to do an overnighter there before we have to close it up for the season. Life may be a bit too busy for that. Sigh. Well, at least we are going to have stuff to look forward to, maybe it'll help us get through the long winter ahead!

So I guess we are going to have to dust off our trailer sign, our gnomes and our patio lanterns ... lol ... here's an old layout from 2003, showing how we embraced the tacky trailer park life. Hey, when in Rome, right?? :o)

Sorry about the blurry sign - have to practice safe internet, you know? Happy Sunday everyone!

Yes, it's that time of year again ...

2009-09-19T08:13:00.004-04:00

...where a girl's thoughts turn to hockey!!

On the minor hockey side of things - the boy has gone through conditioning camp and is now halfway through the sortouts (aka tryouts), which to his delight consist solely of scrimmages rather than drills. He got two goals and an assist in the first game, and one goal (on a penalty shot - nice deke!) in the second game, so he's feeling pretty good about how he's doing. On the downside, the next two sortouts are tonight at 8 pm and tomorrow night at 6 pm, which does pretty much screw up the weekend.

On the NHL hockey side of things - I was relieved that my Sens managed to trade Heatley before the season started. Even though he's the only Senator whose autograph I have! Don't get me wrong, I would much rather have him play for the Sens, but since he asked to be traded and all the media hype etc. - the last thing I wanted was to go to a game and hear the fans boo him. Sad, but true. Sens fans are a fickle lot. I am really looking forward to the start of the season. The first regular season game is the first weekend in October, but it's an away game. I bought tickets to the home opener on October 8, so the boy and I will be there! Yay!

Well thank goodness it's the weekend again, though I can't believe how fast time is going by these days. I got nothing done around the house last weekend, and I'm not so sure I'll get anything done this weekend, either. Today the husband and I are going off to the lake to look at a trailer ... yes, we may become trailer people again ... unless we buy a cottage ... or a waterfront lot on which to build a cottage ... or do nothing. We've been back and forth on this for a few weeks now, just can't decide what to do. Well, what can you expect; once we made a decision to buy a boat, we had to find something to talk about while we sip our wine, no?

Ciao everyone, have a great weekend!

Proud Mama

2009-09-12T07:20:00.006-04:00

So you probably think this post is about something awesome one of my kids did. As awesome as my (human) kids are, this post is actually about my awesome canine kid, Lexi.

I never really understood this whole dog thing until Lexi came into our lives. Couldn't really comprehend how people could think of pets as their kids. But you know, those darned puppies can grow on you in a major way, and one morning you wake up and boom, you feel more like a parent than a dog owner.

And while my kids have given me plenty - and I mean PLENTY - of 'proud parent' moments over the last 18 years, this post is about a proud puppy parent moment that happened just this past weekend. You see, our little labrador (you know, the one with webbed paws?), who had been resisting the water in a major way so far - well, she learned how to SWIM. She's been playing in shallow water for some time now, but absolutely refusing to venture out past her tummy. I think it's probably because she walked onto the water off the dock earlier this summer (thinking it was solid ground?) and got the shock of her life.

Last weekend, we rented a small cottage (if it doesn't have a bathroom, can I call it a cottage? or should I call it a cabin?) at a campground on Sand Lake. The cabin was right in front of the beach, and a 7 year old chocolate lab named Reese was staying at a neighboring cabin. Reese loved to play in the water, swimming out to fetch a frisbee or a stick. Lexi spent a good bit of time watching and a good bit of time walking in the very shallow water trying to play too. Eventually she got brave and went pretty deep, and I think a couple of times she had all four paws off the bottom. But that's as far as things got at this particular location.

On the Monday, we were hanging out with friends at a dock and boat launch near their house (also on Sand Lake), and someone threw in a stick for Lexi, which went a little bit further than intended. Into the water she went, and when the water got deep, she just ... kept going. Doin' the doggie paddle. Oh em gee, she was swimming. She was so excited at her newfound freedom, she ignored the stick and kept going. Towards the middle of the lake. Lol. While dh was tearing his shirt off and getting ready to jump in after her, our friend threw in a shoe and got her to fetch it and bring it back. From that moment on, my puppy girl swam like a pro.

Now it might have been lake water from all the splashing around, but I'm pretty sure I felt a tear of joy or two on my cheeks. Awwww, my little baby is growing up into such a big dog! It's not that long ago that she was just a little puppy, graduating from puppy school:

Not to be outdone, of course, my human kids also make me proud. The boy has had a great start to the school year, approaching grade 8 with enthusiasm. He's had a test already (for which he studied at the cabin during the long weekend - now that's dedication!) - he scored 106%. It would appear we have another overachiever in the family, lol!

And the girl is now officially a university student. She's putting her $282 bus pass to good use, using transit like a pro, and she's got such a sparkle in her eyes, thrilled with her program and her classes. Tomorrow, my baby girl will turn 18. Not such a baby anymore, eh.

So I'll leave you with another proud puppy parent moment, our little Lexi finally getting her sea legs and getting comfortable on the boat. We've gone from having to pick her up (70 pounds, aye) and carrying her in, to her just jumping in on her own. And she seems to like riding up at the front, with the wind in her hair ...

Ciao, have a great weekend!!

Have you met Ella?

2009-09-07T20:45:00.003-04:00

If you haven't already, you MUST visit this totally cool new scrapbooking site ... it's the brainchild of some Simple Scrapbooks alumni ... and (the very totally cool part), scrappinbarb is a part of it all! Seriously, check it out.

And come back here in the next few days; when I have time, I'll tell you all about the great weekend we had on Sand Lake and I'll share some pictures of our lab puppy FINALLY LEARNING HOW TO SWIM! Ciao!

Room With A View

2009-09-04T06:36:00.002-04:00

What do you do when the pictures you want to scrap are less than stellar? Well, you just scrap them anyway. It's all about the memories (unless it's all about getting published - but thankfully, I've never been caught up in that). So, these are pictures of the girl and I on our Montreal trip last summer. (Speaking of caught up - looks like I will never be caught up to date on pictures!) So we stayed at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, and had a gorgeous view of a cathedral out of our hotel room window.

Didn't have to worry too much about a view last weekend though! The husband and I had a short but sweet weekend away in Kingston, and I must confess to only peeking beyond the curtains once during our whole stay there ... hey, we had other things to focus on, like celebrating 21 years of marriage, lol!!!

We have plans again this weekend, this time involving the boat, the boy, the dog, a cottage, a lake, and friends. I am so far behind on housework, it isn't even funny; but who wants to spend a long weekend cleaning house?

Hope you all have a wonderful long weekend. Make memories now, scrap 'em later!!! Ciao!!!

Oh yeah ... this is a scrapping blog!?!

2009-08-29T07:49:00.005-04:00

Hmn. I have very faint recollections of starting a blog a couple of years ago, with the intention of sharing my scrapbook layouts with you all. Scrapbook layouts, you ask? What are those?

Ha. I just counted - I created a grand total of 8 layouts this summer. How sad is that? On the other hand, there are so few months in this country where one can enjoy the great outdoors without multiple layers of clothing on, it does make sense that most of my down time this summer was not spent hunched over a scrap desk. And hopefully, I've managed to create enough new memories (and capture them with my camera) to keep me busy scrapping through the winter!

So I've shared 2 of those 8 layouts with you already. I just finished scanning the other 6 in. Which is an accomplishment in itself; our printer/scanner has taken on a personality of its own in the last few months. A cranky, uncooperative, disconnected type of personality.

I won't show you all six at once - no, I'll stretch it out, otherwise it could be months before this blog sees a layout again! So, without further ado, here is one of my latest:

See how I converted the letter C to the letter E? Yup, I must be the MacGyver of the scrapping world. Lol. What can I say - I absolutely wanted to use the lime green ones and I had no E's left.

Happy Weekend everyone!

This One's For You, Honey!

2009-08-27T18:38:00.002-04:00

Twenty-one years of marriage, and you still make those butterflies flutter.

Glad you still think of me as your hot chicka. :o)

Looking forward to our time away together!!!

xoxo

For the rest of my readers: Hi there! Yup, today's my 21st wedding anniversary. And my 43rd birthday. Ya, I'm not one of those people who downplay birthdays and worry about getting older ... as far as I'm concerned, I get better with every year! There, I said it, lol!!! And for my "younger" readers ... it really is true - 40s are the new 30s.

So - tonight we are celebrating my birthday by going out for dinner (Thai) - all four of us. Did presents already ... the boy gave me a Sens mug, a cow bell (for cheering him on during his hockey games), and a Sens key chain. The girl gave me the latest Sophie Kinsella book. The husband gave me a gift card to one of my favorite clothing stores, AND one to my favorite spa. So spoiled.

Then, this weekend, the husband and I are celebrating our anniversary with a very special getaway. Can't wait! :o)

Ciao, y'all!

A twisted sense of humour

2009-08-22T22:02:00.003-04:00

So here's what the husband is drinking his coffee out of these days:

A brief background recap for those of you who haven't been reading my blog from the start:

a) the husband is not a hockey fan

b) the husband hates the Senators

c) if the husband HAD to like a hockey team, it would be the Bruins

d) the husband knows I intensely disklike the Maple Leafs

A couple of weeks ago, I accidentally broke my most favorite coffee cup ever, my Eastern Conference Champions Senators coffee cup ... a few days later, instead of finding a brand new Sens cup waiting for me (which would have been a lovely and thoughtful surprise, eh?), I see the husband drinking out of that ugly thang.

Nevertheless, the husband is good for SOMETHING ... I might not approve of his taste in coffee cups, or his coffee cup shopping habits, but I do mightily approve of his taste in boats, and his tendency to buy one every once in a while. Here's what the husband and the boy went to pick up today:

A really sweet deal since it's technically the end of the season. Though I suspect we may get more summer in September than we ever did in July. I'm looking forward to tooting around on this thing! We took it out on a maiden voyage this afternoon, on the Rideau River near Manotick. I think this is the best boat we've had to date. It's wide, deep, and has tons of storage. It felt good to be out on the water again. I did enjoy kayaking earlier this summer ... but I'm a pretty big fan of the speedboat experience, too!

Now, our current debate is whether to get a life jacket for the dog. Surprisingly, our little lab - despite her big webbed paws - has resisted swimming all summer. She seems to be - gulp - afraid. We can't get her past where she can touch, and even then, it's an effort to get her to come into the water at all. And today, the husband had to scoop her up and carry her into the boat - although once she was in, she seemed to like it. Hopefully her instincts will kick in soon (and then the challenge will be getting her out of the water!).

We're hoping to take a day trip out to the Big Rideau with the boat tomorrow, but the latest weather forecast doesn't sound good at all. On the bright side, if we don't make it out, maybe I'll get to stay home and scrap (and vacuum and clean the floors, and iron, and dust.... ugh).

Hope y'all are having a terrific weekend! Thanks for coming by!

Back to the grind!

2009-08-11T06:27:00.001-04:00

Apparently, the old adage is true - time really does fly when you're having fun. I can't believe it's over. Time away from work really puts things in perspective; it's amazing that I spend about 2/3 of my waking hours commuting/working when the really important stuff in life has nothing to do with work. Hmph. I seriously gave some thought to my options, but early retirement (ie, 12 years early, lol) just isn't one of them. So, back to the grind. First day back was like a crouching tiger. Not so bad, and actually kind of ok, for the first little bit ... considering that I'm replacing my boss for the next three weeks. Then the tiger growled and leapt, and I got called to a late afternoon meeting with the DM which has generated lots of panicky deadliney work, AND my admin assistant (who's been with me almost 3 years) gave 2 weeks' notice. I didn't get home til 6:45. Welcome back, eh?

So I'm going to indulge myself briefly here and relive my vacation, at least the Coles Notes version.

Week 1 - Cottage Fun!

The cottage we rented was awesome, we would definitely stay there again. Even the girl conceded that it wasn't THAT bad (though she'd rather not ever do the cottage thing, ever). And truth be told, there were some really big, weird bugs out there. I kayaked, did a little bit of fishing, swam (only one time though - it just wasn't warm enough for me to want to enter the water more than once). Happy hour started earlier each day. The husband was able to handle business by blackberry and didn't stray from our side all week. We had friends visit. We had moments of pure relaxation. And, not only did I not GAIN weight despite happy hour and frequent dips into the chip bowl, I LOST half a pound. All in all, a pretty good start to vay-cay.

Week 2 - Kingston, and the week that flew by

Not sure exactly where time went to this week. We went to our friends' house for a BBQ. The girl and I had yet another awesome girls' trip, this time to Kingston. We stayed at a different B&B than last year. This time, it was the Rosemount Inn, which we'd wanted to stay at ever since we did the Haunted Walk of Kingston a couple of years ago and found out it was apparently haunted. While it was very nice, turns out the Secret Garden Inn, just a stone's throw away and where we stayed last fall, is nicer. And also haunted (who knew). Then, the husband and I day-tripped out of town to visit friends. And then, the week was over. I only took 3 pictures that week!

Week 3 - Shopping, shopping and more shopping

Also known as, the week where I took NO pictures. I spent a fortune at Ikea on decor items for the kids' rooms. I found some great deals on clothes for me at Winners (and I can usually NEVER find clothes at Winners, but this time, jackpot!). I found new bedding and linens, curtains, etc. for the master bedroom at Home Outfitters. I had lunch by myself on an outdoor patio. I went shopping in Westboro with my sister M and we went to see the movie Julie & Julia together (really cute movie, I highly recommend it - Meryl Streep is AWESOME as Julia Child). I bought new blinds for the scraproom. I bought some new (smaller!!) jeans at Reitmans, and I bought white jeans, which I'd been looking for all summer. The girl and I took do a practice run on the bus to Carleton U, and had a lovely lunch in the Glebe. I went into a laundry and ironing frenzy on the weekend. I managed to get a tiny bit of scrapbooking in, and got 3 2-page layouts done. To be posted at a later date ... my scraproom is currently all packed up as it's being painted.

And then, all of a sudden, it was Sunday night, and just like that, vay-cay was OVER.

And, also just like that, this post is OVER. It's 6:30 a.m., time to have breakfast, make my lunch and reluctantly commute back to the grind! Have a great week, everyone!

I Can't Believe it's Almost Over ...

2009-08-06T07:45:00.002-04:00

It's incredible how fast time goes by when you're enjoying yourself. It's been a busy, but fun, vacation. I'll come back and post some pictures soon ... for now I just want to get all I can out of the four days I have left. Including maybe some scrapbooking - I've been so busy, I've only spent about 1.5 hours at it!

I just wanted to pop by and wave hi, and assure you all that yes, I am in fact still alive! Believe it or not, I had to set my alarm just to make sure I would have a few minutes this morning for this update!

Ciao!

Vay-Cay!!!

2009-07-18T07:36:00.003-04:00

My alarm rang at 6:30 a.m. so I could let the dog out. It's pouring rain - I mean POURING - with a dash of thunder and lightning thrown in for effect. I've got a hair appointment this morning but then it's a solid 24 hours of chores and packing (minus sleep) to get ready for the cottage. But all that doesn't really matter, because as of 6:00 pm last night (ya, leaving the office at 5:00 didn't really work out after all), I'M ON VACATION!!!!!!! Have a great weekend, everyone ... I'll be checking in once in a while, see ya around!

I can almost taste it ...

2009-07-15T21:42:00.003-04:00

Only two more sleeps! I'm not sure if I've ever looked forward to a summer vacation more. Don't know if it's because work has been so busy, and I'm tired; or if it's because I sense this might be the last official all-four-of-us summer vacation (next summer the girl will probably be working, might not want to follow Mom and Dad anymore...); or if it's because I need some relax-with-the-husband time; or if it's because I need some scrapping time; or a combination of all of the above. All I know is, I NEED MY VACATION! And in less than 48 hours, I will officially be on vay-cay.

There is so much to do between now and then! Lots of loose ends to wrap up at work. Laundry and packing and assorted cottage preparations to be done at home. And preparatory work for the painter who'll be coming to paint our master bedroom while we're gone. Instead of blogging tonight, I should be making my cottage lists (what to pack, and a menu plan for the week). But I did accomplish two things this evening - library and ironing - so I'm indulging. After all, I need to update y'all on happenings around here!

So firstly, we held our garage sale on Sunday since Saturday weather sucked. And now instead of having half a garage full of crap, I only have a quarter garage full, lol! Actually we did ok, made around $240 or so I think? But still so much left. We may attempt another sale before giving up - and then we'll cart everything left
to Goodwill.

Then on Sunday night we tried out our new barbecue spit (we had to purchase a new barbecue a couple of weeks ago, because ours, which was only 2 years old and had been regularly cleaned, caught fire and basically self-combusted in a fairly major way. Got a full refund from Costco for it though.). Anyhow - check out the meat on this baby. Two lamb roasts and two pork roasts! We ate leftovers til today! It was fun watching the meat spin and slicing off yummy bits. What can I say, we are easily amused! Wine helps. Lol.

Yesterday, I had coffee with Barb and Marlene. We meant to have coffee with Chris, too, but due to an unfortunate Starbucks location mix-up ... we ended up Chris-less. Which was really too bad, but there'll be a next time. It was great to get together and catch up; while I stalk these ladies' blogs, I can't even remember the last time we had gotten together in real life. I think maybe 2006, at a crop. Yikes. So having coffee with these smiling faces was a great way to start my day:

Today, my staff and I had an off-site team-building event. That's what we public servants have to call it. Normal people would call it a picnic. It was an absolutely perfect day for it. Not posting any pictures of people (gotta protect the not-so-innocent!). But check out the food spread. It went on for two, maybe three picnic tables. Yummy. We held the - ahem - off-site team-building event at Rockcliffe Park, which is an absolutely gorgeous jewel of a park just a few minutes past the Prime Minister's residence.

And that's about all the news I have for now. So I'll finish up with a surprise ... yes, I finally got some layouts scanned! It's been weeks since I completed these (basically, it's been weeks since I've scrapped!). The first layout is of the trip the girl and I made to Montreal last summer; and the second one is about how the dog loved to lie down on the boy's hockey equipment.

Almost time for me to go to sleep ... oh yeah, only two more sleeps til vay-cay!!! Ciao!!!

Ten Things I'm Looking Forward To

2009-07-11T06:36:00.007-04:00

1. 5:00 pm Friday (which is when my three weeks of summer vacation officially start!)

2. Going to the cottage.

3. Meeting Barb, Marlene and Chris for coffee early one morning next week.

4. Having morning coffee in the backyard with my husband during holidays. And joining him on the morning walks with the dog.

5. Finally getting our garage sale over with ... was going to be today but the forecast sucks ... so hopefully, tomorrow! Our double car garage is half full of stuff that needs to go.

6. Scrabpooking. Not sure when that's going to happen ... next week is bound to be busy, AND we're having some rooms painted so the scrapbooking room will be used to store stuff from other rooms. And then the room will be painted while I'm on vacation, so will be off-limits for a few days. I have so many projects and ideas inside my head!!! They need to come out, lol!!!

7. Sleeping for more than 5 hours a night. I've got high hopes that this might actually happen during vacation.

8. Going to the spa for some pampering during vacation.

9. Learning how to kayak (at the cottage).

10. Breakfast (lol - I'm hungry!!!)

Have a great weekend, everyone! I will once again make an attempt at posting some layouts this weekend. :o)

Happy Canada Day!

2009-07-01T07:42:00.006-04:00

Happy Canada Day everyone! Hope your plans don't get rained out. I think maybe ours will!

Well, at least the dog is getting into the spirit of the day, what with the bandanna and all ... yes folks, the dog is wearing an item of clothing! Maybe there's hope for Halloween now ... maybe by then we'll manage to wear down the husband and go for full gear!

So our plans for today are up in the air, but I've get enough food in the fridge and freezer to manage a last-minute get-together with friends. Or a really big pig-out for just the four of us, lol. I am just thrilled with having one day off and can taste my upcoming vacation now ... 17 more sleeps and only 12 more working days!

I still haven't managed to scan those layouts I promised to share, but I did spend some time this morning uploading pictures to the computer (a long overdue chore), including some pictures of my gorgeous girl all dolled up for prom. I just can't wait to get those printed out and scrapped! Here's a sneak peak ...

She's the Greek goddess standing in the middle. Sigh. Little girl all grown up.

Have a great day, everyone!

PS - I hope y'all like the new blog design. I think the pictures and layouts look better against a white background. But it seems a little bit narrower than the old blog ... stuff looks a bit smushed. Unfortunately, since I suck at anything computer related, I have to live with whatever templates are offered by blogger without a hope of doing any customization.

My Life in Numbers

2009-06-27T07:16:00.009-04:00

7 - The number of awards the girl received at her high school graduation ceremony Thursday night. We are VERY proud parents!

Ontario Scholar Certificate (for averaging 80% or higher in her top 6 Grade 12 courses)
Ottawa-Carleton District School Board Silver Medal (for final Grade 12 average of 90% or better)
Subject Award - Core French (highest mark in Grade 12 - she already knows her mark in this subject, it's 98%)
Subject Award - Writer's Craft (highest mark in Grade 12)
Subject Award - World Issues (highest mark in Grade 12)
A Modern Languages Scholarship (highest combined average mark for English and French in Grade 12 - low dollar value, but the recognition is awesome!)
A Writing Scholarship (recognizing the Grade 12 student with the best writing skills - again, low dollar value - but great recognition!)

10 and 5 - The number of A's (10) and B+'s (5) on the boy's final Grade 7 report card. Like I said ... VERY proud parents!

13 - The number of birthdays the boy has had! Yes, our boy turned into a teenager last weekend. This teenager model comes complete with a cellphone and a monthly plan. Lol.

4 - The number of nights, out of the last 5, where I went to bed past midnight (including Thursday night, where I went to bed at 1:30 a.m). After the girl's graduation celebrations wrapping up around 11 or so, I helped her sort out all of her university course registration stuff so she could be ready for her on-line registration "time ticket" Friday morning.

30 - The approximate number of minutes it took the girl to register in all her preferred courses . Totally worth investing the time with her til the wee hours Thursday night. I've heard horror stories about students struggling with online registration, but it was a breeze for her, due to preparation.

0 - The number of minutes I've spent scrapbooking in the last two weeks. Wah!

33.5 - The number of pounds I've lost since January 2009. I'm at better than goal weight, and still adjusting my daily intake in order to stabilize. I've got a whole new wardrobe (went from size 14 to size 7/8) and the husband says I look hot, lol. Yay, me!

21 - The number of sleeps left until I am on summer vacation.

14 - The number of working days left until I am on summer vacation.

20 - The number of items currently on my work to-do list. And that's just the urgent stuff - haven't listed everything. No wonder I'm counting sleeps and working days til summer vacation.

1 - The number of new bosses I expect to get in the extremely near future. Current boss is moving on to an ADM position. I've decided not to take the additional responsibility of his job at this time so the hunt is on for a new DG.

2 - The number of proms the girl is attending. One was last Sunday, the other is coming up Monday night.

3- the number of pictures I have to share with you:

Sorry I've been such a bad blogger, but life has been really busy. It's all good though. I hope to post again later this weekend with scans of the two layouts I did weeks ago and haven't shared yet. Happy weekend, everyone!

Whoosh!

2009-05-30T07:11:00.003-04:00

Hear that? That's the sound of one week going by. Quickly. Practically without warning. Here I am again, early on Saturday morning, enjoying my morning coffee and surfing my favorite blogs, thinking about everything I need to get done this weekend. To-do list includes:

Groceries (gotta eat!)
Laundry (gotta have clean clothes!)
Ironing (gotta have wrinkle-free clean clothes!)
Shopping for new carpet for the upstairs (gotta get that wrapped up, as the paint guy comes June 22)
Calling my sister(s) (or they may disown me soon)
Visiting my mother-in-law (as I do every weekend)
Buying new running shoes (mine died after 20 years - yes, 20 years - of use)
Vacuuming (I could probably cover a little dog with the hair my big dog shed over the last 3 days)
Uploading some pictures onto a flash drive and getting them printed (running out of inspiring pictures to scrap)
Scrap (haven't done so in over a week!)

Hey, that's not such a bad weekend list. I may actually be able to carve out some scrapping time if I'm efficient with the rest of my time. Like I said, I haven't scrapped in over a week but last time I did, I did complete a layout which I can share with you now:

Hmn. Looks better in real life than in the scan.

Time to get my day started with a bowl of oatmeal and a wet walk with the dog. Have a good weekend everyone!

It's the weekend!!!

2009-05-23T07:40:00.004-04:00

Finally. I know, I know, this was a short week; but for some reason, it felt like the weekend would never come. Things at work are busy, but mostly busy-good, which is better than the alternative (busy hell).

We don't have an overly busy weekend in store, just the usual stuff plus some landscaping/gardening.

Here's a layout I completed last week ... these pictures were taken on the day Lexi came home and joined the family. I can't believe how little she used to be. She's become such a major part of our lives; I never realized a dog could make such a difference. I think one of her biggest contributions is getting us out and walking - especially the husband and I, together. Lately we've been walking to Starbucks in the evenings (about 20-25 minutes each way) and hanging out on the patio. Time together + exercise. It's a good thing.

I actually "slept in" today; got up at 6:30, but lay down on the couch and fell asleep again til 7:20. I feel like I'm running behind now, so I better go and start my day. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Husbands - They're Good for Something After All!

2009-05-19T21:22:00.003-04:00

Lol. Since the husband's been doing some blog stalking lately, I thought I'd put up a title that would catch his attention... :o)

Seriously folks, I don't think I could have fixed my scanner problem without the husband. I thought that turning the printer/scanner off and rebooting the computer would do the trick, but it didn't. The husband said to turn the printer/scanner off, UNPLUG it, reboot the computer, and plug the printer/scanner back in and turn it on ... and lo and behold, all fixed. Go figure.

Anyhow, this happy piece of news means I can share layouts with the world again ... so here goes. This is a picture of the girl and her friends ... one of many shots taken during a recent professional graduation photo shoot. These four girls have known each othr since the early years of grade school. They're all pretty different from each other, but have remained friends throughout. They'll all be split up next year (well, actually, two of them might end up at Ottawa U) and I hope that they manage to keep up their friendships despite distance and new interests. Meanwhile ... aren't they gorgeous? (Especially the curly haired one at the front, lol).

Let's see if I can remember my supply list:

Cardstock - Bazzill
Patterned Paper - Rouge de Garance, Scenic Route, Unknown
Journaling Block - 7 Gypsies?
Ribbon - Unknown
Flowers - Prima
Brad - Basic Grey
Other - Stickles

I know, I know, blog posts two days in a row ... hope y'all didn't fall off your chairs!

Have a great (short for some of us) week!!

Scraps of My Life

2009-05-17T06:52:00.007-04:00

It's been so long since my last post (sorry, blog world), and there's lots to report on. I could probably do an entire post on each story/event but then I'd never catch you up. So here's a (somewhat) condensed version ...

1. May 3 - The husband builds my new scrap desk and I reorganize and set up my new scrap room. This event definitely deserves its own post (I have lots of pictures!!) but here's a preview - it's the 2nd (new) half of my scrap closet.

2. May 6 - I hit goal at Weight Watchers. Twenty-nine pounds lost! I can't believe I did it! Now I'm in the maintenance phase, which is 6 weeks of adjusting points etc. to figure out how I should eat to maintain my weight. I am really committed to keeping the weight off, but I think this will be more challenging than the actual weight loss.

3. May 7, 8, 9 - The boy starred in Aladdin Junior, a musical put on by his school. He was one of the narrators - a pretty big part actually. He did beautifully; we are so proud!!!

4. May 7 - We have a surprise party for one of my staff going on mat leave. I had spent a few nights that week making a baby album for her - she knows she's having a girl so I got to play with pink!! No pictures - Had no time to scan. She loved it (and someone actually enquired about paying me to make one for their grandchild - flattering, but when you count supplies and time it really isn't much of an affordable gift!).

5. May 9 - After a week of internet surfing, the husband and I drove out (sans kids) to the Rideau Lakes area to look at a possible cottage rental. Met the agent at a crossroads and followed him to the cottage. Joked that the guy would turn down the small dirt road leading to the cottage we rented for 10 years ... imagine our surprise when he did. The cottage we looked at is just a few away from where we used to rent, it's over on the next bay. It's a 4-bedroom with modern kitchen and bathroom, lots of conveniences, nice waterfront, comes with small fishing boat and kayaks. And best of all - pets are allowed. So we rented for the first week of vacation (3rd week in July). After visiting the cottage, we visited friends who live on Sand Lake.

6. May 10 - Mothers' Day! The boy got me two beautiful necklaces from Reitman's and a gift card to Black's. The girl gave me a gift card to Reitmans's (knowing that I need clothes desperately right now!). The husband took me to dinner, but technically it was not for Mothers' Day, as I repeatedly tell him every year - I am not his mother, and his kids are old enough to take care of MD by themselves, so he's now officially off the hook (I know, I know, most mothers don't share that sentiment).

7. May 11 to 13 - Feeling absolutely overwhelmed at work. Back to back meetings means I don't have time to actually do anything and deadlines are slipping. Everybody wants a piece of me. I feel overtired, cranky and beat up. I don't enjoy that feeling at all.

8. May 13 - Lexi goes to the vet. Nothing to worry about, I just need to get her heartworm/ticks/fleas meds and decide to get her tested for heartworm at the same time. She needs a blood test. As soon as she walks in the door, she clearly has a flashback to her spaying. Ever try to move a 65 pound dog that will not budge? It took 3 techs and lots of high-pitched excited talking, not to mention handfuls of treats, to entice her to the back for the test. Once there she was calm (aka terrified) and the boy cuddled with her while they did the blood test. Look how cute she looks with her doggie bandaid ... !

9. May 14 - fever, headache and general ickiness. Ah, so that's what May 11-13 was all about ... I was brewing something. Stayed home sick (and mostly stayed off the blackberry). Slept all morning, scrapped a bit in the afternoon, started feeling human again in the evening.

10. May 15 - went to work though I could have used one more day at home. Left early though, as we were invited to accompany the girl to an awards ceremony at Ottawa U, for a French as a second language contest she competed in two weeks ago. Being invited to the ceremony meant she won something but we didn't know what. Top prize was full tuition for one year at Ottawa U or Carleton. She won 3rd prize - $225 and some French books. Her school team also won the team trophy in their category (core French). We are so proud of her.

11. May 16 - yard work, rain or shine! And it was mostly RAIN. Stood in the absolute pouring rain at the nursery yesterday morning picking out flagstone for a little path off our patio. I mean it was POURING. The husband and I were drenched but kept on working out there til mid afternoon. The backyard is really coming together, and the front yard has really been siimplified!

12. May 17 - today we are going to the hunt camp with our good friends. Really looking forward to a day of relaxation. It's going to be cold, but at least it won't be rainy!

So I was going to leave you with a layout - but now my scanner won't scan. It'll print; it'll copy; but it won't scan. Argh! Next time then.

Ciao!!

Chaos

2009-05-02T06:46:00.006-04:00

This is what my scraproom looks like right now. Last week I emptied out the desk and we put it in the boy's room ... hopefully we'll go buy my new desk (two drawer units and a table top) at Ikea this weekend. On the scrapping front, I have til Thursday to make a baby gift album for one of my staff who's going on mat leave ... I have all the supplies, and have done this twice now so have a good page formula which goes quickly ... but there's no way I'll be able to create in this room this weekend, so I'm going to have a couple of late nights next week! No complaints ... I love creating!

I found a really cool scrapbooking storage unit at Costco this week ... it's a 15-drawer paper cart (the drawers are big enough to fit 12x12 paper) but I'm using it to store my scraps. I have soooooo many paper scraps it's not funny. A few months ago I went through them all and threw out the ones that were (probably) too small to use. And I still have tons. I'm really pumped about this paper cart though, and I'm tempted to buy a second one to store the full sheets of paper .... The price wasn't too bad (well, a bit pricey at $57), but if I buy a 2nd one, what will I do with my cropper hopper storage thingies?

On the weight front, things are still on track. Twenty-six pounds lost so far - 3 to go. I cleaned out my closet last week ... there are barely any pants left that fit! I've gone from a size 14 to size 8 since January. I feel really good about what I've accomplished, but the real challenge is going to be keeping it off. I'm committed to continuing with the Weight Watchers meetings, maybe even beyond the six weeks of maintenance. I really need to stay on top of things, and never go back to man-sized portions and indulgent attitude towards food.

Well that's it for now. The dog is pawing at the back door, the husband needs to be woken up, the dishes in the sink need doing... ah, the weekend! :o) Have a good one, everybody!

There's a strange man in my bedroom...

2009-04-18T10:10:00.000-04:00

... and he's making me very happy!

Ok, before y'all panic and think I'm having a mid-life crisis or something, not to worry. The strange man is a friend of my husband's (ok, still sounds weird) and he's building us a 2nd closet. I am going to have the walk-in closet all to myself, and my husband will have a standard sized, two-door closet to himself. He'll move his suits out of the spare room closet, and then I will expand my scrap stuff storage to the entire spare room closet, replace the small desk in the room with a large banquet table, bring up the two Ikea shelf units from the family room to the spare room, redecorate, and ta-da, I will have a much more functional scrap room!

I didn't think to take a "before" picture, but here's a "during" picture ... and eventually I'll post an "after" picture!

My husband thinks I should be excited about this because of the fact that I will have a whole walk-in for my clothes, shoes and purses, but really, for me it's all about the scrapbooking!! Lol.

As a happy by-product, building this 2nd closet also means that we can finally finalize a decision re new flooring on the 2nd floor (we're thinking hardwood in hallway and master bedroom, new carpet in the 3 other bedrooms), get it done, paint the master bedroom (which, I'm ashamed to say, still has the contractor's crappy paint from 18 years ago), and finally DECORATE. The master is the only room in the house that has not been officially decorated. We may even get new furniture. Oh joy!

Blog Catch-Up

2009-04-15T19:53:00.012-04:00

Good news! Found my camera cord. Turns out it had dropped behind the computer desk. So, the dog didn't eat it after all, lol.

Now that I have my camera cord again I can share a few pictures with you ... nothing exciting, but still ...

(1) I went to Michaels' to buy this the other day ...

and ended up buying this ... Gotta love it when that happens!

(2) The boy and I went to the last Sens home game on Thursday. A great way to start our long weekend! I bought the tickets at the very last minute, and we ended up sitting as high up as you can sit ... the last row of the upper 300 level, right before the standing room only!!! I was actually dizzy for the first little while. Still had a great view of the game, though. The Sens ended up losing in overtime; a little bit heartbreaking, as they had won the last 9 home games; it would have been great to finish the home season with a win. I am really looking forward to next season ... if I win the lottery between now and then, the boy and I are buying season tickets! ;o)

(3) The boy's hockey team won't be going to the finals this year, they lost their last game 6-1 ... it's been a rough season. However, the season isn't over yet - we have a "fun game" coming up this weekend. God forbid these kids should learn valuable life lessons such as, when you lose a semi-final game your season is over ... I think because of whiny parents who want to be sure they get the same value for their hockey dollar as anyone else, we end up teaching our kids that everyone is equal, everyone always wins, etc. etc. which in truth is just setting them up for disappointment when they grow up. I see it in the workplace all the time ... the new young employees come in expecting to get everything on a silver platter, because they were raised in a society where everyone who runs the race gets a ribbon. (Um, sorry about the rant. This is one of my pet peeves. As a society we've gone too far coddling our kids. If it was up to me, I would have said to the team: Hey, you lost. Good effort, but not good enough. In life there are winners and there are losers. Better luck next year. Let's go to the championship game next weekend and cheer the other teams on ... )

(4) The Easter Bunny came to our house this weekend (even though we celebrate Orthodox Easter, which isn't til next weekend. Long story short: basically, the Easter Bunny remembers me from when I was Catholic so he still comes to our house at "regular" Easter). The contents of the basket have changed over the years ... heck, he doesn't even use a basket anymore, he's opting for the easy paper bag solution these days!

(5) I have to share this image I came across a while back somewhere on the internet ... I just think it's hilarious ... funny with just a hint of the desperation I'm sure many bloggers have felt at one point or another! I know I have. But I'm often guilty of reading and running on my friends' blogs ... enough time to check in on them all, not enough time to leave messages. So I'm trusting blind faith here, and assuming that y'all are out there reading this!

(6) In this spirit of ying and yang, now that I've found my camera cord, my printer/scanner won't work. I tried to scan my latest layout (which I'm really unhappy with, but hey, at least I got one done) - and nothing. It's pretending it's not related to my computer. Argh.

(7) I did lots of cleaning/purging in my scrap room over the weekend. I have actually got a big green garbage bag full of packaging and other odds and ends that I was saving thinking I would do something crafty with them (like boxes to cover with paper, coffee cans to make cute containers out of, that kind of thing). I also set aside a few things for our upcoming garage sale. I can't wait til I can take over the entire closet and finish the organizing job properly.

(8) On the weight loss front, I am now 23 pounds down ... 6 to go. Feeling pretty good about myself, but almost nothing in my closet fits. It's more fun when things are too big as opposed to too tight, but hey, the end result is the same - I have a hard time figuring out what to wear in the morning! I don't want to buy anything else until I'm done losing. I've bought four pairs of pants since I started losing weight, there's $200-$300 I won't be getting my money's worth out of!

And that sort of catches you up on my life, with a few pictures to go along with the words. Hopefully I'll get the scanner working soon - when I do, I'll come back here to post that *&^%$ layout, which is falling apart as we speak, because nothing sticks to the textured paper I used!!!

Small Burst of Scrapping

2009-04-05T16:13:00.004-04:00

Found (or rather, made) some time yesterday and scrapped. Aaaaah ... felt good. Also, kept my hands busy; I've been having a hard time with the diet thing lately, I keep getting the munchies ... scrapping is a great way to stay away from food! More on the diet thing later ... here are the layouts I created:

Twelve

A rare single-page layout. This one really didn't turn out the way I imagined; I think I should have used a variety of font types or sizes. On the plus side, I finished this one very quicky, barely 20 minutes!! Also on the plus side - I managed to scrap the boy's 12th birthday before he turns 13. Lol. Supplies include SEI and Frances Meyer pp, and $ store foam letters.

Merrickville '07

Wonky scan. Layout really looks better in real life. I was in the mood for using up more of the Making Memories Chloe's Closet stuff I bought at Michaels the other day. These pictures seemed to fit the bill. I'm not sure but I think the jean flowers are Making Memories too. The chipboard circle, journaling block and ampersand are Colorbok (bought a baggie of these at Michaels for $1 ... yup, $1!). The E is American Crafts I think, and the T is dollar store. Another fairly simple layout that didn't take too long to put together.

So, more on the diet thing. I'm up to 19 pounds lost now. But, I didn't go to Weight Watchers last week ... I usually go on Tuesday nights, and I was out of town. Too tired to go when I came back on Wednesday. Then Friday night, we had friends over for cocktails and I found myself eating without keeping track of what I was eating exactly ... several cheese puffs, mini spring rolls and bites of the husband's famous smoked salmon later, I even found myself having a cookie with coffee ... and I haven't been tracking for the last 2 days, although I have been careful. Amazing how quickly I go off-track without that weekly weigh-in and meeting to keep me honest. Looking forward to Tuesday, I need to assess the damage and move on. Still have 10 pounds to go and I'm determined not to quit before I get there! I'm just getting really bored with all the "safe" meal options I've been sticking to for the last couple of months, and need to shake it up a bit. Got all excited today because I bought no-sugar-added marmelade (instead of strawberry jam). Pretty sad when marmelade is what gets me excited, huh?

Thank goodness, the next two weeks are 4-day work weeks. The long weekend at Easter is always welcome; and as an added bonus, we don't have any religious/family stuff to do because Greek Orthodox Easter isn't til the weekend after. Hopefully, I'll find more time for another burst of scrapping!

Thanks for stopping by ... have a good week, everyone!

Well, the last 11 days sure flew by ...

2009-04-03T07:10:00.003-04:00

My, how time flies. April already. The snow I mentioned in my previous post is all gone, and there are almost no dirty snow bumps left on the ground (and none at all in my yard).

Random info coming your way ...

1. The boy brought an excellent report card home. Nothing lower than a B, and several A's and A+, and lovely comments from his teacher.

2. Sens are now officially out of the playoffs. There are 5 games left to the season, including a couple at home. Wondering about attending one last game ... or waiting until the new season starts.

3. The boy's hockey team is currently in round robin for playoffs ... tied the first game 3-3 (they were losing 3-0 when the boy finally scored after making multiple shots on net, and that changed the momentum of the game). Lost the second game 7-1 (the boy scored his team's only goal). So while the team is kind of doing so-so, I'm really proud of how the boy has been playing - will all his heart into it. Sens could learn from this kid.

4. I was out of town for a couple of days this week on an executive planning retreat. It was the best planning meeting we've ever had (and I've been with that Branch 6 years). We used a facilitator with team building/coaching experience and tht made a huge difference (also, a huge dent in the budget, but worth it).

5. I had the biggest migraine ever yesterday and went to the clinic after work. Turns out I have excess fluid in both ears, and inflammation, but not an infection. Doctor prescribed nose spray and Advil cold & sinus plus. Funny thing is, I don't hav a cold and my allergies really haven't been bugging me. ?? The meds have helped though, the migraine has dulled to a bad headache. Why am I on the computer then? Good question. Should go back to bed seeing as though I decided to stay home sick from work today.

6. I still haven't found the camera cord to hook up the camera to the computer. I keep forgetting to ask the kids about it. Although I did ask the dog.

7. Haven't done much scrapping, but someone is coming by tonight to scope out the work involved in building an extra closet in our bedroom so that I can take over the entire closet in the spare room. We've decided not to include a desk in the closet. Instead, I'm going to make it all scrap storage, and set up a banquet table in the room which I can just take down when we have overnight guests. The desk I have in there right now just doesn't have enough surface room for scrapping comfortably ... my tools end up on my lap, on the floor, etc. It would be just as bad if I tried to have a desk IN the closet.

Here's the last layout I completed ... I've already posted it on the gallery at Scrapbook Centrale, as it was for a challenge (to scrap childhood pics of yourself).

These are pictures of me at 9 years old, on a trip to Florida with my parents. Gotta love the groovy 1970's hotel room!!! I started out using My Mind's Eye patterened paper as my inspiration, and happened to go to Michaels before the layout was completely finished ... ended up buying about $40 worth of Making Memories Chloe's Closet pp and embellies because it was in the same colour palette and so I used a few MM embellies on this LO too.

That's it for now. Just wanted to assure you all that I was still alive. Have a great weekend!

Isn't it supposed to be spring??

2009-03-22T07:34:00.004-04:00

Ah, woke up this morning to a dusting of snow over all of the dirty spring stuff. Looks like someone sprinkled a whole wad of icing sugar over us. As pretty as this looks (hey, I absolutely hate how dirty/gritty/garbage-y the city looks in springtime, it's actually my least favorite season), um, hello, it's spring, not winter!

Oh well, I know it will melt quickly and we'll be back to the grime and mud. Meanwhile though, the dog is happily sniffing her way throughout the icing-sprinkled backyard trying to rediscover all the treasures (a.k.a. small pieces of cedar hedge) that were so lovingly placed here and there on the grass only yesterday.

Lexi loves the snow. That's what I tried to capture in the following layout:

Supplies include Coredinations cardstock (now rivals Bazzill for my affections), patterned paper is Jenni Bowlin (lined) and Frances Meyer (striped), paper snowflakes are K&Co, foam snowflakes are old stash from $ store, felt snowflakes are Hero Arts, the foam letters are Thickers by American Crafts, the die-cut snowflakey-looking strip is Prima (Christmas gift from sister D), buttons and brads are unknown.

I haven't had much time to spend at the scrap desk so far this weekend, but I did steal 20 minutes here and there and managed to finish this one up, and finish another one too, which I will share with you later on!

Today is groceries and visit my mother-in-law (have to fetch my son who slept there last night!). I got ALL the laundry done yesterday, and as a result today will also have to be ironing day, I have at least 20 pieces of clothes that need ironing ... yikes. Thank goodness there's a Sens game on tonight, at least I can watch while I iron!

Happy Sunday everyone, thanks for coming by!

Random

2009-03-20T08:34:00.004-04:00

I have neither pictures nor layouts to share with you today. But I won't let that stop me from updating my blog, since I'm sure y'all are tired of seeing the guy with loose pants appear every time you check in!!!! Some random thoughts on this beautiful Friday morning ...

1. I'm off today! Going to the spa for a pedi and a facial this morning, and will do something - not sure what - with the boy this afternoon, this being the last day of March break and all.

2. I was off Monday! The girl and I took a last minute, spontaneous trip to Kingston; we left Ottawa after church on Sunday (packed and on the road in less than an hour ... we're good). The bed & breakfast we like was booked, but we stayed in one of the harbourfront hotels, had thai for dinner, and shopped for a prom dress the next day. Not much shopping was required ... first store, 4th dress was a winner. An absolute, drop dead gorgeous, OMG my daughter is all grown up, totally unique look winner. Can't wait to show you pictures. She looks like a Greek goddess in this dress.

3. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I squeezed 5 days' worth of work into 3 days. I hate it when that happens ... taking days off is great, but not when you have to make up for it with back-to-back meetings and stressful days where everyone wants a piece of you.

4. I stopped at Marchant Rubber Stamps on my way out of Kingston and made a few small purchases ... some 8.5x11 Bazzill ... a few sheets of patterened paper including some Yellow Bicycle, some Junkitz (I think ... a really cute boy line) and one other which I already can't recall. And some Making Memories big letter stickers. I was really, really good. I spent about $20. Really.

5. Even if I had pictures to share with you, not sure if I could, as I think I've misplaced the cord that connects the camera to the computer. Hope the dog didn't eat it. Seriously.

6. I know none of you care, really, and I don't blame you, because not everyone can be a die hard hockey fan, but has anyone noticed my Sens are hot these days? They've won 7 of their last 8 ... they beat Montreal last night ... if only they could have played this way earlier in the season, I could be spending my hard earned cash on playoff tickets by now! Speaking of which, the husband was handed some free tickets to Tuesday's game against the Sabres so the boy and I had ourselves a lovely evening at the hockey game this week. I really do love hockey. Sigh.

7. I finally got registered at Scrapbook Centrale! It's great to have an online home again. I've been too busy this week to really be active over there, but I'm looking forward to chatting and getting to know everyone there.

8. I want to SCRAP! There's a half-finished layout on my desk but I haven't touched it in days. Maybe I'll be able to sneak some time in this weekend ... although, since I did no laundry and no housecleaning last weekend, I have some catching up to do in that area.

9. I have to go get ready to leave for the spa now! This may be a challenge (see comment re no clean laundry, above). Wish me luck ... :o)

Edit to add: 10. How could I forget to share this ... I am now at 17.5 pounds lost! That's 10% of my body weight! Woo-hoo! (as the witch in Wizard of Oz said ... I'm melting, I'm melting!!!!).

Hopefully I'll come back on the weekend and share a finished layout for you! Happy Friday!

Fifteen point five, and feeling unwanted...

2009-03-12T06:50:00.004-04:00

First the good news - I am past the halfway mark in my weightloss endeavour! Woo-hoo, I have lost 15.5 pounds in about 8 weeks. Amazing what can come out of eating sensibly and exerting a bit of control over those eating impulses. Weight Watchers rocks, because it works, it's easy, it makes sense, and it is sustainable, even though I've never been all that good at the sustainable part (not WW's fault, food and I have an emotional bond that's hard to break).

Now for the not-that-good news ... I registered to participate on the Scrapbook Centrale discussion forum on the weekend, and still haven't received my confirmation email and password from the site administrator. I'm starting to think they don't want me over there, lol ... maybe Barb and Nat warned them about me or something (just kidding). Not sure what to do ... should I re-register?

PS - Just to make sure there's no confusion whatsoever ... NO, that is NOT me in the picture ... lol :o)

These are a few of my favorite things ...

2009-03-09T06:58:00.003-04:00

(Insert Julie Andrews singing here).

Hockey. Scrapbooking. Definitely right up there on my list of most favorite things. I love it when the two collide and I manage to scrap about hockey!

I'm all over the place these days, scrapping pictures anywhere from 2006 to 2009. These particular pictures are from 2006, and I've been by-passing them constantly when sitting down to scrap as I had no inspiration for them whatsoever. And then boom, I knew just what to do. Hey, another of my favorite things - when the scrapbook muse is good to me!

Journaling is mostly about the motel-from-hell that the boy and I stayed in when we went to this tournament. As yucky as that experience was, I know we will both remember it fondly; it's one of those things you just don't forget.

Happy Monday everyone!

Finally, the Weekend!!!

2009-03-07T07:32:00.004-05:00

Whew! What a busy week. On Monday night I went to see the movie Shopaholic with my sister M, my nephew's girlfriend, M's friend, and the girl. One of those movies that is (a) not true to the book and (b) a real chick flick, but it was fun! On Tuesday night I had Weight Watchers. I did take a break from going out on Wednesday night, but on Thursday night the boy and I went to the Senators-Oilers game. Last night the husband and I spent the evening at Costco and Walmart buying stuff for his aunt's memorial service luncheon planned for next week. I know, I know, the stuff romantic dates are made of ... :oP

So here's a picture of the boy and I in our cheap-o 3rd level seats (there's a great promotion on right now - minor hockey players and their parents can get really good 3rd level seats for $20 and $29 respectively, and that includes a hot dog and drink!! We should be going EVERY night!!):

And this is a picture of the boy showing his Sens pride. He wasn't too happy with the result (too much gold and not enough red and black, he said), and it was itchy all night and he ended up with hands covered in paint!).

So in other news ... I've been searching for a new internet home where I can share my scrapbook creations and chat with like-minded scrap addicts. Ever since my beloved Scrapping Buddies site closed down (it was a standalone site, not associated with any store, and was being maintained by the husband of one of our Ottawa scrapbookers; and for some reason became the target of hackers on a constant basis, and way too much work to keep up), this blog has been my only internet outlet for scrapbook talk. And it doesn't really talk back, lol. Anyhow, I saw on someone's blog ... Barb's? Nathalie's? that those two have been hanging out at Scrapbook Centrale. Thought I'd register and join in the fun ... just waiting for my confirmation! Watch out girls, here I come :o) And hopefully, my sister D is going to come and play too ... she's been looking for somewhere to post her beautiful scrapbook creations since SB closed down ... this time, I hope she posts AND chats!

Well, I'd better go get dressed and walk the dog ... I'm going to give the husband a break this morning ... not much of a sacrifice on my part when (a) it's really mild out and (b) I could use the activity points!

Happy weekend, everyone! Oh and by the way - Lexi says Hi. Little devil.

My Deforestation Project

2009-03-04T07:06:00.005-05:00

Hi folks! Lexi here. I've snuck onto Mommy's blog to tell you all about my newest project - backyard deforestation. I'm just so proud, I had to tell the world about it.

You see, Mommy and Daddy spent lots of time with me in the backyard last summer and fall and they taught me what I could chew on and not chew on. Ok, mostly what I could NOT chew on. But when the white stuff came and the temperature became just right for a gal who wears a fur coat 24/7, for some reason, they stopped hanging outside with me much. A puppy like me can get pretty bored hanging out by herself without people teaching her right from wrong. So I came up with a plan. See, Labs are working dogs, right? So I needed a job. And that's how my backyard deforestation project was born.

For some reason, Mommy and Daddy planted their cedars real close to each other. Something about liking their privacy. But that really gets in the way of curious dogs like me who like to watch the outside world go by. So, I decided to build a few doorways through the hedge, so I could get to the other side. At the same time (bonus!) I decorated the yard which was all boring and white. And as a side benefit, I created lots of interesting things for me to carry around and chew on.

These days, even though the weather is still pretty cold for humans, Mommy and Daddy have started coming outside and commenting on my project. For some reason, they don't seem very happy with the job I'm doing. I even overheard them saying something about building a fence (a fence!) in front of the cedars to teach me to stop. They keep yelling "No!" - mostly from the doorway - whenever I get to work. Humans. I just can't figure them out.

Mommy says that on top of my deforestation project, I've also got a de-fur-istation project going on inside the house. That's just silly of course. I don't lose my hair on purpose, for crying out loud. But crying out loud is what Mommy does every time she sweeps the floor. She says she doesn't know what she hates more, the dog hair or the dirt ... but that at least, there's no food crumbs on the floor anymore. And then she says that despite the backyard devastation (that's what she calls it - seems she can't pronounce de-forest-ation properly) and the dog hair, she still wouldn't trade me in for any other dog in the world.

And that makes my tail wag.

Have a good Wednesday, internets! Oh, and please don't tell my Mommy I commandeered her blog. I think she's got enough to deal with as it is.

Luv,

Lexi

Twelve

2009-02-26T06:07:00.004-05:00

Twelve pounds down ... seventeen to go. I am getting there - I am doing this. Had a great Weight Watchers meeting this week. Worlds collided - there was a hockey mom there, and a girl from work (and turned out they knew each other), and we had a great pre-meeting chat (ok, more like a Catholic confession of eating sins) with another girl with whom I sit because, well, she wears a Sens jersey sometimes. Lol. Came out of the meeting feeling energized and motivated. Guess that's the point of the meetings!

In other news - work, sleep, work, sleep. Here's the other layout I completed a couple of nights ago ... simple, simple, simple:

Sorry about the wonky scan. That dog just loooooves the boy. He's the only one that she's really affectionate with. Every morning when he comes down she's all over him (and she's much bigger now than in these pictures). In the evenings, he lies down on the floor with her and she puts her head on his back or tummy and falls asleep. So sweet.

Gotta go make lunches ... Happy Thursday, everyone!

A Layout!

2009-02-23T06:32:00.003-05:00

I spent an hour in my scraproom last night doing some clean-up and finishing up a couple of layouts that I had on the go. Here's one of them:

I really wish I had more time to spend in there. There are so many pictures begging to be scrapped, so many supplies begging to be organized (and, oh yeah, used). It's amazing how many supplies I've forgotten I own.

I went through all my scrap mags and made a garage sale pile ... I'm only keeping the special edition ones, the ones with timeless tips on design and photography ... I've realized that the scrapbooking industry is so focussed on creating trends that become outdated within months. While I can get page design inspiration no matter the trendy technique being used, I really don't need four feet of shelf space being taken up by mags from 2004.

So I'm thinking I'm going to sell the scrap mags for 50 cents each, or 3 for $1. Unbelievable, when you think each mag is worth an average of $10 or so (by "worth", I mean that's what I paid for it). But I personally wouldn't buy an old used scrap mag for anything over a dollar each and I'm not even sure if they will move if I price them at a dollar. What would you pay for old (say, 2004 to 2008) scrap mags?

We haven't started on Project Scrap Room in a Closet yet. Last night we came close to deciding to make the whole room into a scrap room, so long as we could still make the pull-out couch work. The logic was that it's actually a guest room only about 2 to 5 days a year. However, there is no way I can fit proper scrap furniture in there and still keep the couch. So back to the Project Scrap Room in a Closet plan. On the bright side, I found a really cool mag on scraproom organization in my stash (who knew?) with lots of good ideas!

In the meantime, I'm going to continue going through my supplies and tools and paring down where I can. I know there are tons of things I'll never use ... I just need to find the courage to part with them!

Happy Monday everyone!

Eleven

2009-02-20T06:35:00.000-05:00

A few thoughts about the number eleven today. The first is a gratuitous boast - it's the number of pounds I have lost so far on Weight Watchers. I am really proud of my resolve and I feel **so** much better now that I am eating healthily, making choices about what I consume and staying well hydrated. On the downside (the wee, tiny, inconsequential downside), my pants are getting too loose and I don't seem to have the next size down in my closet anymore. Darned de-cluttering obsession. I don't want to buy anything new, because I still have 18 pounds to go and am saving all my $$ for a big, big shopping spree when I hit goal ...

The second "number eleven" thought has to do with the size I scrap in. As many of you know, I'm an 8.5x11 scrapper, but 99% of the time, I'm actually a 17x11 scrapper, since I do double page layouts. I spend oodles of time surfing the net trying to find some layout ideas for those 2-pagers, but my scrapping size is definitely the poor cousin of the scrapping world. Most page sketch sites have a token 8.5x11 section with 3 or 4 one-page sketches and that's it. One of my best finds so far has been the Scrapbooks Etc. magazine site, because they have a fairly large number of 8.5x11 page sketches, but of course they're only single page. So here's my challenge to the scrapping world: someone out there could be my new best friend if they started posting 2-page 8.5x11 layout sketches! And while we're at it, here's my challenge to scrap stores everywhere: carry 8.5x11 cardstock - the good stuff, Bazzill and such - and you could be my new best friend too!!!

What were you doing at eleven o'clock yesterday? Like most of Canada, you were probably watching Barack Obama's visit on tv ... I wasn't feeling very well yesterday (I think I caught Barb's low-grade virus via internet ... what ... you've heard of computer viruses, no?) so I had one of those rare stay-home-sick days. I spent the morning on the couch watching coverage of the Obama visit (and the afternoon in bed sleeping, with the coverage on for company). Obama is such a charismatic man. I think everyone he met here, with the exception of our Gov Gen, really faded in the background in comparison. Ok, I specifically mean our Prime Minister. What a contrast... My favorite picture of the visit has got to be this one, where he's buying himself a Beavertail. Or an Obamatail. Can you imagine how this has impacted the life of the teenage girl serving at the counter. Just - wow.

I can think of at least eleven things I'd rather be doing than going to work today, but I won't bore you with them, as they are fairly predictable and include mundane things like staying in bed and scrapping. Alas, it's off to work I go - all set to do 2 days of work in one, and clean up the messes caused by not going in yesterday (and not answering every single email I got on my blackberry).

Happy weekend everyone!

Whirlwind Weekend

2009-02-15T07:45:00.000-05:00

What a busy weekend so far ... but busy-good. Lots of hockey with the boy, whose team is in a tournament this weekend. It started on Friday so I took the day off. We got one win (1-0), one tie (1-1) and one loss (2-3) and came close to moving on to quarter finals as 3 teams in our group were tied in points ... but someone beat our goal differential. Whatever that means. However, the boys played extremely well, each game was a very close game, and best of all, in the last game, which we won, the boy scored the first and only goal of the game and got the game MVP medal. Proud Hockey Mom moment:

Also this weekend, the girl got her braces off!!!! After over 2 years, she can finally bite into an apple ... which is the first thing she did when she got home!

In between all the weekend excitement I managed to get the groceries done, but the laundry is not yet started, the floors aren't swept, and the furniture's not dusted. Last night we went out for dinner at George's aunt's niece's (yet not his cousin's) house, which was certainly a challenge from a Weight Watchers point of view. Greek food is good. Galactoburrico (a Greek dessert) is sinful and probably a day's worth of points. George and I had our Valentine's dinner out earlier in the week, with a lovely meal at Cyrano's which was delicious and quite successful points-wise (not to mention it was great to just sit together and talk for a couple of hours). (By the way, I am down 7.5 pounds so far!).

So as a result of the whirwhind weekend I did not have a lot of time to dwell on the fact that this Valentine's Day marks 3 years since my Mom passed away, but I carried it in my heart all day. I know the last thing Mom would want is for me to be sad on Valentine's but busy is about the only way I can manage it.

On the scrapping front, I do have a LO done but haven't scanned it yet, and have another one on the go. The husband and I have not completely settled yet on plans for the new scrap closet, but we'll have to get working on that soon because we are anxious to make decisions on new flooring for upstairs, and in the sequence of things the scrap closet decisions need to be made first.

And on a final note, looks like a coaching change is exactly what my Senators needed to get out of their slump and find their work ethic again. Watching them play is no longer painful ... and they are actually on a 4-game winning streak, the first in over a year. Go Sens Go!!!

February Already?

2009-02-07T07:48:00.003-05:00

No idea where the last 2 weeks went. I've been missing in action, I guess! Here's a quick update ...

1. Bus strike is over - yay! Yet, no buses to my part of the city til April 6 - boo! Oh well, I'm so used to carpooling now, I'm actually going to miss it when things get back to normal. Though I will enjoy NOT leaving the house at 6:15.

2. The girl has made her university choice - it's going to be the Bachelor of Humanities at Carleton U. She's excited; her eyes get kind of sparkly when she talks about it. She got to spend a few hours there last week, sitting in on a class and meeting with students and profs, and I think that definitely helped her in making her decision. She's got the full entrance scholarship of $4k a year and will be applying for various other scholarships too. So proud of her.

3. The husband and I have decided my current scrap space just isn't working out. Is it a scraproom? Is it a guestroom? Is it a junky eyesore? So we've started exploring alternatives and he's been busy designing me a scrap closet which rivals the Scrapbox for storage and scrapping space. I'm pretty excited about our plans; not to mention the fact that the husband now talks scrapbooking with me on a daily basis and actually surfs sites like twopeas looking at other people's scraprooms. Weird, but fun.

4. Still doing the Weight Watchers thing. Lost 4 pounds so far, but that was all the first week ... last week, nothing lost, even though I was truly good. I blame it on the dinner I ate immediately before weigh-in. Lol. Seriously though, I'm taking it one day at a time and I'm making much better food choices than I have been for the last couple of years. Even if I don't lose weight (but I will!), I'll probably add a couple of years to my life!

5. Still seeing my executive coach ... though she started cutting the apron springs yesterday. Apparently she doesn't work with people intensely for much more than a year ... says I need to integrate all I've learned and continue progress on my own but can still check in a couple of times a year. I've got about 4 sessions left with her and that's it. I can't believe it's been almost a year already. It really has been a transformative experience and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to be a leader and not just a manager. There's a lot of self-reflection required though so it's not for the squeamish.

6. Slept in today for the first time in weeks. Yup, got up at 7:20. Yup, that's sleeping in!!! My alarm rings at 5:00 a.m. these days. In order to get this sleeping-in luxury, I had to blow off hockey practice which was scheduled at 6:30 this morning. We also have an early game tomorrow, at 8:00 a.m. I feel bad about the boy missing practice (he really feels bad too ... lol ... NOT), but we both needed to sleep in today.

7. Am going to try to tackly my giant to-do list this weekend. I have people to call, packages to mail, dry cleaning to pick up, items to return to the store, hockey treasurer things to do, and that's on top of the regular groceries-laundry-cleaning-hockey-visiting my mother-in-law routine that every weekend brings (well, we don't have to worry about hockey today of course). Wish me luck! Oh, and I need to start going through all my scrap supplies and tools today ... need to pare down ... I bet I can eliminate 20-30% of my space-hogging stuff that I will never use.

Happy weekend all!

A New Start?

2009-01-21T21:50:00.001-05:00

Here's what I said in my first blog post of 2009:

"This year I will put a greater focus on my health. I will eat well, I will be active, I will take care of my body and soul (and hopefully in the process lose a dress size or maybe even two). I would just love to lose 20 pounds between now and bathingsuit season (and firm up the jigglies that will surely be there even if 20 pounds are lost). And in order to keep the goal in focus, I will blog about my progress once a month. Consider yourselves forewarned, lol."

So here it is - the dreaded progress post.

It took me 20 days to do something about the above, but last night I finally made my move and went back to Weight Watchers. If I'm going to take care of my soul, I think I need to start with how I feel about my body. I've put on some pounds over the last year or two and I've gotten to the point where I'm no longer comfortable in my own skin. Well, turns out I need to lose more than 20 pounds before bathingsuit season ... turns out I need to lose 29. TWENTY FREAKING NINE, in order to get back to a comfortable weight. Talk about shock at the scale. So. Back to basics. Drink water, track what I eat, think before putting food in my mouth, stop eating til I'm stuffed. When I get the hang of that again, I'll add in some extra activity. Got myself some long johns and a parka at Canadian Tire this weekend, I no longer have an excuse for not walking the dog!

I'm not the only one attempting a new start ... it looks as though my Senators are turning things around (fingers crossed, knock on wood, and so on). They've actually won 3 of their last 4 games, and the 4th was lost in overtime. They're not 100% back, by no means, but I see glimpses of the team that used to be. That makes me happy. It's good for my SOUL. And therefore meets my new year's GOAL. Lol.

If you've made any new year's resolutions, hope you're managing to stay true to them! Is weight loss one of yours? If so, what's your favorite tip?

Ciao!

One Last Layout

2009-01-10T13:41:00.003-05:00

I've got one last layout to share with you further to my creative spurt over the Christmas holidays. I'm sad to say I haven't seen the inside of my scrap room since before last weekend. I have tons of scrap ideas floating in my head, but no time to scrap. Ironically, by the time I do have time to scrap, I'll probably be in a scrap funk like my friend Barb. Oh well ... it always passes!

Strange

Very easy page to put together! Gotta love that owl patterned paper. I bought it in Kingston when the girl and I visited Queens in the fall. Can't remember for sure but I think it's Sassafrass. In case you're wondering, that's the boy and the husband in the picture. They've got swim goggles on and are playing swords with pool noodles and using boogie boards as shields. What can I say; we had a pretty boring summer vacation and had to make up some fun for ourselves!

I could sure use another vacation now though, even a boring one. There's no end in sight to the transit strike and I'm getting really tired - both mentally and physically - of getting up at 5 a.m. to carpool in, in time to find parking downtown.

Another busy weekend ahead ... I've got groceries and about half of the laundry done, but now it's time for hockey practice. I'll run some errands during practice (no choice but to multitask today) and then we'll rush back home so the boy can shower and dress for our big evening out. We're going to go see the Sens beat the Rangers (ah, the power of positive thinking!) and are going a bit early so we can make a night of it. You can play Playstation 3 for free there ... cool.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Mid-Week Check-In

2009-01-07T19:34:00.003-05:00

Not much new to report. The weekend was fairly uneventful, with two happy exceptions - I got my car back (oh, YAY) and the boy's team won a hockey game (only the 3rd of the season). I slipped right back into my Mom-chauffeur role and gave the girl a ride back from dinner out, took both kids out shopping so they could make a dent on their gift cards, and visited my mother in law. Had a little bit of time to scrap and came up with this:

Fetch the Dog

The expression on the boy's face doesn't even begin to reflect the sheer excitement he felt on the day we went to pick up Lexi. He was in shock the week before when we told him we had decided to get a dog; and I don't think the shock wore off until we had her home and he realized it was for real. The patterned paper and dog-themed stickers were Christmas gifts from the boy. I haven't silhouetted a picture since my early scrapping days ... but I really wanted to include this picture of Lexi having her first drink of water at home, and it didn't fit into the design well. I didn't want to crop it (since I wanted to see her entire tiny puppy body, from the tip of her nose to the tip of her tail!). I actually kind of like how the silhouetting turned out - looks like a design element rather than a butchered picture, lol. Not entirely sure I like how the layout as a whole turned out though; kind of busy!

So I just couldn't face the commute today ... the early morning carpooling because of the bus strike is bad enough, but add a snowstorm on top of that - forget it. Luckily I was able to work from home. And work I did. I put in a non-stop day and I'm as beat as if I went in to work. Early bedtime tonight as we hit the road at 6:00 a.m. again tomorrow. Sigh. I'm hoping that by this time tomorrow we find out the strike is over (since the contract is being put to a forced vote) but I wouldn't bet any money on it. We may be in for a long haul.

It's hard to muster up energy on these cold, dark, snowy days of winter. Not that much to look forward to - spring seems so far away. Normally I'd be looking forward to the Sens game I'll be attending this weekend - the boy and I have tickets for the game against the Rangers - but I'm almost dreading the game as the team has played horribly this season and it's almost painful to watch. Double sigh.

Ciao!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-02T18:20:00.006-05:00

Wow - 2008 just went by in a blur and now the new year is upon us. To an obsessed list- and resolution-maker like me, there are two times during the year that give me that tingly, "renewal is possible" kind of feeling. One is the back-to-school season in September (nothing like newly sharpened pencils and pristine white erasers to give me that anything-is-possible feeling!). The other is, of course, New Year's.

So out of curiosity, I went back in time on this blog and read my first couple of 2008 posts. Wow, I really lost sight of those resolutions in no time flat! The good news is, I really don't have to invent any new goals for 2009. I can just recycle all those unmet 2008 goals, lol! Actually, I am going to be realistic and pick just one to work on. This year I will put a greater focus on my health. I will eat well, I will be active, I will take care of my body and soul (and hopefully in the process lose a dress size or maybe even two). I would just love to lose 20 pounds between now and bathingsuit season (and firm up the jigglies that will surely be there even if 20 pounds are lost). And in order to keep the goal in focus, I will blog about my progress once a month. Consider yourselves forewarned, lol.

So we rang in the new year at home with a few friends and a huge prime rib. I love dinner parties although they are lots of work before, during and after. My favorite part of hosting has got to be setting the table. I decided to go with a gold theme this year, and here is how it turned out:

Our guests left around 1:30 a.m. and I was up until 3:00 cleaning up, because I'm one of those people who just can't go to bed until all is clean. Just like my mother. So on New Year's day, I mostly napped, read, and watched tv, and while I changed out of my nightie, I changed into some pajama pants, so I think that counts as spending the day in my jammies! I didn't even do any scrapbooking; although I did finish 3 layouts a couple of days before. Here are two of them (still have to scan the third):

Relax

For some reason I just LOVE this picture of my husband and our friend Akis. Even though all we see is the back of their heads and they could be any two guys at random! I shot this with the zoom on my camera ... Akis had his wife's hat on to protect his head from the sun and from this angle, our guys look like two old Greek men gossiping on a park bench. Come to think of it, they ARE two old Greek men gossiping on a park bench! Lol. Supplies include Bohemian patterned paper from My Mind's Eye.

Good Friends

Another picture that I love. These are our best friends Carrie and Akis. Really simple layout! One of the patterned papers is Daisy D, but I have no idea about the other one (yay, I used some scraps in my stash!). The rub-on letters and bird are Bohemian from My Mind's Eye. The flowers are I think Basic Grey and Prima and hide a lovely garbage bag that was captured in this picture!

I just get SO MUCH HAPPINESS out of scrapbooking. Just sitting there in my little room creating a layout clears my mind and soothes my soul. As part of my "taking care of my body and soul" resolution (see above), I'm going to be sure to scrapbook more often than I did in 2008. Last year, weeks and sometimes months went by between scrap sessions. Can't let that happen again.

In other news ... I think I had written here about damaging my car in a parking garage on the first day of the bus strike? Well, it's been at the body shop for repair since Dec 22 and praise the lord, I just found out it will be ready for pick-up tomorrow morning. I am so looking forward to having a car again!!! Not to mention, that the strike is still on and I had no idea how I was going to make it to work without a car next week!

And in other, other news ... I think I forgot to mention that the daughter has already received offers of admission from Carleton (Bachelor of Humanities) and from Ottawa U (Bachelor with Major in English and Minor in History). And both universities are offering the maximum entrance scholarship of $4,000/year (renewable with A- average). We are a long way from a decision though - more research needs to be done - stay tuned!

Gotta go - we're off to dinner at C&A's house. Ciao!

Yup, I needed this break!

2008-12-29T10:55:00.011-05:00

Aaaahhhh. Hear that? That's a sigh of relief. Relief that Christmas is over ... isn't that just sad? Lol. I still love Christmas, don't get me wrong ... but it's just so much work. Yet, I still made it to Christmas on time after all. Sister D picked up her package at the post office on Christmas Eve, and all was well!

So we actually had a pretty low-key Christmas, all things considering. A nice dinner at my sister M's on Christmas Eve, and then turkey-and-all-the-trimmings here on Christmas Day. Despite agreeing on a one gift, $50 limit policy between the husband and I, he spoiled me terribly ... among other things I got a Senators blanket, Senators travel mug, Senators slippers, Senators scarf (if you sense a theme going, you're on the right track!), Senators tree decorations, and a gift card to the spa. I was also spoiled with scrap stuff, by the boy and Sister D (and have been in a creating frenzy as a result).

The dog got spoiled too ... not only did she have a stocking stuffed with chew toys and treats, she also got some chew toys from the boy AND the girl AND Sister D sent her this cute Wubba toy, which Lexi loves very much:

I've managed to spend a few hours in the scrap room ... the first hour or so was spent cleaning up of course. Here are some of the layouts I made:

Frozen Fun

Supplies include K&Co patterned paper (Amy Butler) and gem, Queen & Co felt border (gift from Sister D), flowers and ribbon slide, Making Memories snowflakes, gem brad and rub-ons, K&Co gem, and American Crafts Thickers alpha (gift from Sister D). The woman in the picture is my friend Carrie and the layout is all about the fun we have at their hunt camp in the cold of winter.

Summer at the Narrows

This one did not turn out the way I had seen it in my head - oh well. Supplies include K&Co patterned paper (Amy Butler), Making Memories patterned paper and journaling pad, American Crafts alpha rub-ons, dollar store foam alphas, and Prima flowers (gift from Sister D). I really felt like making a summery layout but I think the pink is just too much!

Can You Believe It?

I just love how this one turned out. Supplies include DCWV Pet Stack patterned paper (gift from the boy), Making Memories metal word (old stash!) and journaling pad (great use of scraps - the other half is on the previous layout!), American Crafts rub-on alphas and rick-rack, Prima flowers, Basic Grey brad, button unknown, and the big sunflower is from a silk flower bouquet that was my mother's, which I took apart. This layout is all about how the girl didn't want a dog, and despite having fallen in love with the dog, still thinks we shouldn't have gotten a dog. I can't believe what a cute little puppy Lexi was, and how much she has grown!

Thanks for visiting - ciao!

Update on Errant Package

2008-12-24T16:09:00.002-05:00

Ha! The Canada Post site says it's reached its destination - well the post office anyway. Hopefully Sister D got home in time to pick it up. Gotta give it to Canada Post - apparently they make it to Christmas on time!

This could be the year!

2008-12-24T12:17:00.007-05:00

Every year, I worry I won't make it to Christmas on time. And every year, somehow, I do. But I'm actually wondering if this will be the year where I in fact am late for Christmas. Decorating is done, cookies are made, presents are bought and wrapped; and I'm on schedule for everything that needs to be done for tomorrow's Christmas dinner. However, I just checked the Canada Post website where I've been tracking the delivery of a Christmas package to sister D, and according to the site, the package has been in Quebec City since 5:09 a.m. yesterday and doesn't appear to have moved since! Aaaaargh! Sister D, if you're reading this ... and you don't get the package today ... just think of it as strettttttccccchhhhing Christmas out a few days, ok? :o(

I managed to get some gifts made for my staff (biscotti and personalized ornaments). I'm happy with how they turned out. Ah, the joys of using up scrapbooking supplies for non-scrapbook things ... MM rub-on alphas were just perfect for this project (and I became very creative at creating missing letters out of miscellaneous body parts of other letters!).

I think my favorite Christmas decoration this year is my new Senators nutcracker. I bought it for myself, from Avon. It sits in the hutch in our front foyer which 11 months out of the year holds various crystal pieces and other decorative objects. Around Christmastime, it becomes a display case for my nutcracker collection. I just love my nutcrackers, and I absolutely love my gift-to-myself Sens guy!

Well, I had better get back to Christmas preparations. While they're (mostly!) on schedule, it's a tight schedule. By 6:30 p.m. tonight everything has to be done, as we're going to my sister M's for Christmas Eve celebrations.

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones. Catch you on the flip side!!

Snowed In

2008-12-21T12:05:00.011-05:00

and couldn't be happier about it!

Environment Canada is calling for 15, maybe 20 cm to fall today and the way it's falling right now, and blowing around, looks to me like their predictions will come through. Knowing that I wouldn't want to be on the roads today, I made a final push yesterday to finish the Christmas shopping. I was at it until suppertime - came home for a bite, then went back out around 9:00 pm to do my Christmas groceries. Three things about doing groceries late at night. 1) It's great, because you can actually navigate the aisles without having to dodge people especially the large families who seem to enjoy doing groceries together on a busy Saturday; 2) it's not so great, because many items need restocking and people have picked out all the good produce earlier in the day; and 3), it's not so great because there's only one cash open.

So today, because of the weather, we decided not to go to hockey practice and we're also not going to go for our weekly visit to my mother-in-law's. You know what that means? I have a whole, entire day at home to Get Stuff Done. So far I've finished decorating the tree, have put away all the Christmas storage boxes, folded a few loads of laundry, made a batch of biscotti, organized all the presents, and done some wrapping. And it's barely lunchtime.

The boy had a GREAT time playing outside in the snow with Lexi ... until she stole his hat right off his head and played catch me if you can!

I still need to bake some more cookies, keep wrapping, and put together the 8x8 adoption gift album (pages are made, just the cover needs to be decorated). Lots of work to be done, but I'm just so grateful to have a full day at home to do it!

Speaking of the gift album, here are a few sample pages ... you'll just have to imagine it filled with pictures of a sweet two year old toddler from China! In case you're wondering why there's both French and English titling ... little Noah will be raised in a bilingual home.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

I Don't Like Mondays

2008-12-15T06:44:00.004-05:00

Mondays come way too fast. I spent the weekend avoiding thinking about the bus strike and this week's commute. The plan for today is to ride in with my sister, along with one of her colleagues who has a parking pass. I'll have to figure something different out for the rest of the week as my sister won't be going downtown after today.

Got some house cleaning done on the weekend, and the beginnings of Christmas decorating. Hoping to get the tree and lights up tonight, and ornaments on the tree tomorrow night. Whether it gets done remains to be seen!

Some days, I wish I could just stay tucked in bed ... in my safe place ... where the world can't get at me. Guess the dog shared that emotion this summer - she found herself the cutest little safe place in our back yard:

Supplies include Making Memories patterned paper, Chatterbox stickers, Dollar store chipboard letters, and Making Memories suede flowers.

I'm getting lots of mileage out of those layouts I created at the end of November! Don't let these frequent layout posts fool you - I'm not getting much scrapping done at the moment. Although, I am 99.9% finished a gift album for a friend who's adopting ... I'll be posting that here soon. I've had lots of fun creating with the Basic Grey Archaic line of patterned paper and embellishments.

Here's hoping you have no problem getting to where you need to go today!

:o)

Public Transit, I Miss You ....

2008-12-12T08:45:00.002-05:00

Blog readers from outside my hometown are probably unaware of this, but Canada's Capital is currently in turmoil. Nah, I'm not talking about coalition governments and political subterfuge. I'm talking about the crippling transit strike that has made the last two days a living hell for anyone needing to get to and from the downtown core. Day 1 of the strike was coupled with the tail end of a winter storm that dumped close to 40 cm of snow on us and made street parking an impossibility. By the time I made it downtown, parking of any kind was impossible to find (though I tried - and ended up damaging my car to the tune of $2,000 or so when I scraped a post in a tight-squeeze parking garage that, to add insult to injury, had no parking spots available anyway). I ended up parking about 15 minutes away from work. Yesterday was not much better. I took a ride in with a colleague; it took 1.5 hours to get downtown, and after driving around for an additional half hour looking for parking anywhere in the downtown grid, my colleague ended up at a shopping mall about 15 (walking) minutes away. Last night when we left, it took 45 minutes to make it from the parking garage to the Queensway (main expressway through Ottawa) - which normally takes under 3 minutes.

I can't believe the amount of wasted time and productivity this strike has caused so far. Personally, I have worked just over half my scheduled hours in the last 2 days. So, today, I've decided to forego the commute from hell and work from home. In my Senators jammies, no less. I don't officially start til 9 so I have 5 minutes left to whine at you about how horrible this transit strike is.

While my car is still driveable, the panels on both passenger doors will both have to be replaced, and possibly the back quarter panel too. When I drive over 40 km an hour, the wrecked door handle rattles in the wind. The word "scraped" doesn't completely describe what happened. It's more like "crushed as though the outside of the car was nothing more than tin foil". Ugh. Hopefully my father, who gave me this car, is way too busy doing whatever people in heaven do to notice what I've done to it. Thankfully my husband, who tends to get upset about these sorts of things, has been really sweet to me about it and even gave me a pep talk to the effect that I am not in fact a bad driver and that I shouldn't be nervous behind the wheel just because this happened.

I've been a bit cranky over the last couple of days, but am feeling better today, what with staying in my Sens jammies, and also the possibility of going to the Senators-Tampa Bay game tomorrow night (the husband thinks he can score me some last minute tickets).

So even when life is bad, life is still good. There are far worse things in life than bus strikes and damaged cars. I know, I've lived through a few, and survived those, so this should be a breeze.

Here's hoping the city and the union manage to come to their senses over the weekend (although they're not currently talking), and that if you need to get anywhere this weekend, you have the means to do it!!

Ciao!

Lexi Update

2008-12-09T06:43:00.003-05:00

Surgery went well. Not sure who was more traumatized re the no food for 12 hours before surgery - Lexi or us. It sure was hard. She gives new meaning to "puppy dog eyes".

The boy and the husband went to pick her up around suppertime. She came home kind of groggy but showing definite signs of her usual self (as in, no one could open a cupboard or fridge door without having her trot into the room looking for handouts). She passed out early on her pillow in the family room, didn't complain when we sent her to her crate for an early bedtime and had a good night's sleep. She seems to be following her usual routine this morning.

All we have to do now is keep her fairly inactive for 7 days (lord help us - as a well-exercised, tired lab is a very good lab and an inactive lab is hell on four legs).

While the boy was worried about his dog, I think the husband was the most worried of all of us. It really warms my heart to see the connection between George and Lexi (I think they not-so-secretly worship each other). I never realized when we got a dog how profoundly it would change the husband. I can count on one hand (ok, maybe two) the number of times he's agreed to accompany me on a walk around the neighborhood in 20 years we've been married. But since we got Lexi in July, he's been for long walks with her every single day (and some days twice). He's lost weight and even feels comfortable running now. And it's not just good for his physical health - he's calmer and more patient, too - well with her, anyway :oP.

Supplies include Basic Grey patterned paper, Prima flower, Daisy D linen stickers, Making Memories letters, dollar store metal brad and Making Memories small brads, and I think both the little letter stickers and the journaling block are 7 Gypsies (but don't quote me on that).

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Weekend Catch-Up

2008-12-07T10:49:00.004-05:00

For the first time in a long time, I actually feel like there's enough time this weekend. I've been wandering the house for the last couple of hours without being in any kind of "gotta get this done" frenzy. There's plenty to do, mind you; but not much point doing it right now. See, dh is getting the foyer area ready for painting tomorrow. There are plenty of nail pops which means plenty of plastering which means PLENTY of plaster dust. So no point in dusting and cleaning, right? And, no point in putting up the Christmas decorations, as they will get dusty, and in any event, my foyer furniture is crammed into the living room so no place for the tree.

And, no hockey today. The boys won the first game they played in the tournament, but then lost the next two so we're off the hook for today. It was fun, though. They were really, really good in that first game (it was a shut out, even) so things started off in a really great way. And while we were shut out ourselves in game 2, we managed to score 2 goals in game 3 against a team who hadn't allowed any goals in their 2 previous games (but 2 wasn't enough, they got 6 in - and our goalie had plenty of awesome saves).

We've had a good bit of snow this morning. It was fun to watch Lexi play in the snow, her puppy-ness sure came out as she pranced around attacking piles of snow and rolling her tennis balls through them. I wonder if she'll miss the snow when summer comes? Or if she'll have just as much fun playing in the water as she did last year ...

Supplies include Luxe Designs patterened paper, Making Memories journaling pad and my very favorite kind of foam letter - the kind from Dollarama! Flowers include Prima, Daisy D and I think Basic Grey.

Lexi is getting spayed tomorrow. Poor baby. We aren't allowed to feed her after 9 pm tonight; you have no idea what torture that is going to be for a lab and her lab owners! This dog LIVES for the HOPE of a MORSEL of food. She's going to think she did something bad and we're punishing her, or something. Poor baby. Wish us luck (and wish her luck as she goes under the knife tomorrow!). I'm planning on taking Tuesday off to keep an eye on her.

Maybe that's why this weekend hasn't felt rushed. I've had quite a few days off lately and I know I have one more coming. With any luck, I'll be able to do some Christmas decorating while Miss Lexi lies around quietly and recuperates (yah, right ...).

In other news, the girl submitted her university applications yesterday. So much easier now that everything's online. In my day (you know, before electricity), we had to fill out individual applications by hand for each school we applied at. Anyhow, within minutes everything was filled out and sent off. Now the waiting game starts. I'm convinced we're going to be wading in early admission offers by January. The girl, not so much.

That's it for now ... I'm starting to feel guilty about doing not much of anything this morning, so I'll go see if I can rustle up some laundry or something.

Ciao!

Hump Day

2008-12-03T06:35:00.003-05:00

Wednesday. Commonly known as Hump Day because it sits right in the middle of the week. Well for me this week, Hump Day celebrates the 2nd half of the week rather than the middle, as I am off on Friday. The Boy has a hockey tournament. Yay! (Yay for being off ... Boo for having only 4 days this week to catch up to 3 days off last week!).

In honour of said hockey tournament, here's a hockey layout I completed last week:

Super simple really and using lots of old scrap supplies including some Making Memories definitions and rub-ons and Alphabitties sticker letters.

To warm up my hockey cheering (also known as screaming) voice, I'm going to watch my Sens play tonight ... just on tv though ... we raffled off tickets for this game at work to raise money for the charitable campaign, and through some very unfair twist of fate, I didn't win them. Oh well!

Happy Wednesday!

PS - Sister D - I haven't forgotten that I need to send you an email. It'll get done today!

Monday Morning

2008-12-01T06:50:00.000-05:00

If Monday mornings weren't bad enough, apparently this one is going to start with the tail end of a winter storm. As I sit here typing this at 6:45 a.m., I don't see much going on outside at all, except maybe for some rain, which doesn't appear to be the freezing kind. The weather and news websites are still predicting chaos so who knows. All I know is that my mini vay-cay is over and I have to face Monday - ugh.

Had the usual busy weekend, including hockey, groceries, laundry, housecleaning, and not enough scrapping at all. Now that I've started scrapping again I have the BUG! I want to scrap NOW! I want to scrap LOTS! (And the state of my scrap room proves it. I don't think it's ever been quite that messy before!).

I ended my weekend on a lovely note, speaking to sister D on the phone and catching up. I'm going to make an early New Years resolution to call her more often, no matter how busy life gets. It was so nice to hear her voice.

Anyhoo, in honour of today's yet-to-be-seen winter storm, here's what winter looked like around here last year ... the pictures actually really don't do it justice, I should have had someone standing by the snowbanks to give a real idea of how high that snow really was.

Supplies include SEI Holiday Hoopla and BG Blitzen patterned paper, Making Memories sticker letters and really cute journaling rub-ons by Scenic Route.

Well, I better go and face Monday like a big girl now. This week is going to be a busy one - catching up at work after 3 days of vay-cay PLUS being out of the house 3 nights this week - Tuesday is info night at Carleton U, Wednesday is parent-teacher interview with the boy's teacher, Thursday is info night at Ottawa U. And to top it all off my kitchen is getting painted starting today, so not sure whether I'll be able to cook dinner in it tonight ... awwwww ... might have to go out for dinner! Poor me! (Lol).

Happy Monday everyone!

My Mini Vay-Cay

2008-11-28T17:46:00.003-05:00

Well, having to cancel our travel plans at the last minute really wasn't so bad. I had a very relaxing three days. On Wednesday I scrapped; on Thursday I spa'd and shopped (and scrapped a bit) and watched the Sens game on tv; and today I scrapped (and shopped a bit). I made good use of a Michaels 50% off coupon (and it wasn't even on scrap stuff!). While I was there, I took advantage of a 40% off sale on paper packs and picked up some Bazzill, some Basic Grey and a really cool K&Co paper pad with 3-D punch-out snowflakes and gems. No idea what I am going to do with that, but it was too cool to resist. I may have picked up a few other things too ... amazing how large the bill is even when the bag is small!

So I have TONNES of new layouts to share ... but I think I'm going to do it one at a time. That way I'll have something new to show you for the foreseeable future! I've actually had time to scan them all in, stitch those that need stitching, AND post twice to the blog in one day. Ain't vay-cay grand?

Here's a one-pager with one of my very favorite pictures of the boy and his dog. This was taken this summer on one of our frequent drives into town from the cottage. He's reading a comic book ... with Lexi asleep on his thigh. HOW CUTE IS THAT???

Supplies include Love, Elsie patterned paper and stickers. You can't really tell on the scan but I used pop dots for the sticker words as well as the center of the flower.

Well at least I get a weekend before reality hits again on Monday. The weekend will be busy as usual, seeing as though I didn't do any housecleaning or laundry catch-up during my time off. Hopefully I'll find time to sit down at the computer and post another completed layout!

Ciao!

Awwwww ... I heart YOUR blog!

2008-11-28T06:56:00.005-05:00

How sweet of Barb to give me a blog award thingie. My very first! I heart her blog and visit it every day - and I love that most days, there's a new post! With pictures! And layouts! Barb's a great blogger ...

Here are three blogs I love ... pass it on!

1. Robyn
2. Rachel
3. Katie

I may not leave comments often (though I should), but I visit daily!!

:o)

Putting on the brakes

2008-11-25T06:54:00.004-05:00

I can't believe it's already November 25th, one month until Christmas! I have no idea how November happened. Last I remember, I was dressing up for Halloween (lol). Life is way too busy and time goes by way too fast. No time for the good stuff. Do you know that I've only made 5 2008 layouts? And I'm not even done 2007?

So I had taken Wed-Fri off this week because we were supposed to make a family trip to New Hampshire to visit the boy's godparents for American Thanksgiving. And just like last year, the trip has now been cancelled because all of a sudden it seems every last one of the husband's clients want to put an offer in on a house NOW. I swear, the gods conspire against us. But I've decided not to turn my vacation days back in. I worked hard to clear my schedule for 3 days and set myself up for this time away, so I'm going to take a mini vacation at home. I will spa, shop and scrap, not necessarily in that order (we'll see what I feel like when I wake up tomorrow). And I'm not talking about one hour of scrapping, either. Noooooo. I'm talking about spending so much time in that scrap room, the kids think I've left the house. Oh yeah.

So here are the only two layouts I've managed to get done since, I think, September. They've been done for a couple of weeks at least but I haven't had time to scan them til now. Sorry no supply lists (no time - see first paragraph, lol).

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie (2008):

Boo (2007)

Hopefully I'll be back here soon sharing all of the layouts I manage to get done this week (fingers crossed, hopes high!).

Ciao!

It's the little things ...

2008-11-11T06:40:00.004-05:00

They say it's the little things that make you happy. Well in this case it's a big thing. A boot big enough for my big calves, that is.

My whole entire life, no matter my weight situation, I've always had large calves. It's gotten worse with age I think (ok, maybe with weight, too). I find it so depressing trying to find boots that fit. I bought a pair last year, but they were riding boot style, with a lower heel, and not all that girly, to tell the truth.

But yesterday, while taking a brief walk on the commercial level of my office building, I walked into a shoe store, saw a pair of boots I liked, asked for help, was told they were the one style that came in a wide calf, tried them on, they fit, they were on 20% off sale, I just happened to have a coupon for 20% off as well in my purse, so I got them for $94 tax in ... 40% off original price! And they fit! And they're girly!

So like I said - it's the little things that make you happy.

Another reason I'm happy today is that I have the day off work. It's Rememberance Day, and government is closed for the day. In truth, I think we should trade off this holiday for Family Day (which, starting last year, is a provincial holiday in February which the kids get but parents who work in federal government don't). I don't know anyone who actually goes to Rememberance Day ceremonies on this holiday - most people start their Christmas shopping (great opportunity to hit Toys R Us without the kids). I was actually going to go in to work today, because I have so much catching up to do, but I brought work home instead. We'll see how that goes. And while I won't be going to any ceremonies, I will make sure to observe a moment of silence at 11:00 while watching the downtown ceremony on tv.

And then maybe, just maybe, I'll spend a bit of time at my scrap desk doing some little thing. Because (say it with me), it's the little things that make you happy!

Okay, Half will be Revealed, and Two Days Late

2008-11-04T05:58:00.005-05:00

Lesson learned; one should not promise to "reveal all" by a particular date if one is not 100% sure one will be able to "reveal all" by then. Lol.

So the charitable campaign is going really well. It's taking up way too much of my time, and I truly can't wait for it to be over, but I'm loving how staff are engaged and I'm so impressed at people's generosity and I don't just mean with money - with time and creativity too.

One of the big events of the campaign is the Loonie Race. Six teams compete by laying down over 1,000 loonies each on a pre-determined sticky-tape course. Many government departments do their own race in advance of the big interdepartmental race. But few departments do it the way we do. Over the years, we've incorporated an annual theme and costume contest. Senior management participates alongside all levels of staff and it's a hilarious thing to watch. Turns out, not such a hilarious thing when you're on stage instead of in the crowd watching, though!! The theme this year was Performing Superstars and the sub-theme chosen by the team my Branch was in was alumni of the Mickey Mouse Club. Through circumstances somewhat beyond my control, I was Britney Spears. I was hoping to be able to show you what that looked like, rather than tell you, but so far no decent pictures have surfaced. All sources have not been exhausted (as we had a fair number of paparazzi) so I haven't given up yet.

That was early last week. On Friday, our Branch had a fundraising event where all the senior managers were dressed up for Halloween by their staff and had one hour to roam the floor/building/street/whatever begging for donations. Whoever had the most money at the end of the hour won a really nice prize donated by one of our staff. After the Britney experience I was kind of worried about what my staff would choose to dress me in, but I think they decided to balance out the Britney experience in a big way (see Jennifer, we were dressed alike for Halloween!!!):

Also, they figured no one could refuse a nun asking for money, lol. I ended up raising over $94, but one of the Directors raised over $200 and won the prize. All told, we brought in over $1,000 for charity in 60 minutes! That brings our total raised so far through events, etc. to over $5,700. Best.HRB.Campaign.Ever. I just hope I manage to surmount the backlog in my day job when this is all over!

All righty then. I've technically revealed all, but only managed to show you half. I'll keep looking for a decent picture of me as Britney, but here's a preview ... just imagine her 25 years older, and 25 pounds (uh, conservative estimate) heavier!

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T06:41:00.002-04:00

Hope you have a creepy, funny, laugh- and chocolate-filled day!!! Speaking of laughs, keep an eye on this blog for some pics of me in costume ... I haven't dressed up for Halloween in years but this week brings not one but two occasions to dress up. Neither costume was chosen by me. Both events are charitable-campaign related. One costume couldn't be any more different than the other. All will be revealed this weekend .... :o)

Winter Storm Watch?!?

2008-10-28T06:49:00.003-04:00

We interrupt any pleasant thoughts you might be having at this moment with the following breaking news ... we are on a Winter Storm Watch. What the? It's October 28, for crying out loud. Last night on the news I saw that the area could get anywhere from 15 to 30 cm of snow over the next 24 hours or so. What the?

I thought it was bad last year when we got a spattering of snow on November 16 and it stayed on the ground. I think I'm ready to trade in October 28, 30 cm for that just about now.

Here's a reminder of what we had to put up with last year:

And I leave you with this scary thought ... do your kids have winter boots yet? Ack!

Kingston

2008-10-19T22:05:00.000-04:00

So the girl and I went to Kingston this weekend to take in a Queens University tour. We made a girls' weekend out of it ... played hookey from work and school on Friday and left early enough to get in a good afternoon of shopping on Princess Street. We had a lovely time. I had booked us in for the night at The Secret Garden Inn bed and breakfast - it was just gorgeous. We had dinner at a vegetarian restaurant called Lotus Heart Blossoms, and a very yummy breakfast on Saturday at the B&B. Just look at how gorgeous and antique-y and just so Kingston-y this place is:

We stayed on the third floor in the Turret Room. It had a huge four poster bed, an antique single bed, a two-sided gas fireplace, a cute reading nook in the turret, and its own private 3 piece bathroom. It also had some extra stuff which B&Bs aren't always known for, such as a tv in the room (small and discreet), wireless internet access (I was going to blog, but was too tired!), and a phone in the room.

Of course I managed to sniff out some scrapbook shopping ... on our way into town from the 401, we stopped at Marchant Rubber Stamps and Paper Memories where I picked up just a few things:

Yes, that's an owl on that patterned paper ... I finally succumbed to the owl trend! Oh, and the yellow and blue leaves weren't a scrapbook store find but rather, something I sniffed out at a cool store called Ten Thousand Villages.

The Queens tour was fairly informative ... we already knew all the technical stuff from poring over the university's website but the tour gives you a real sense of the place. It's clear that they feel they are a very elite school, and a very special close-knit student community. We got to visit an actual residence ... and the girl didn't think it was so bad after all. The bathrooms were "disgusting, but not as disgusting as the ones at the cottage". Lol.

I'm torn about whether she really should consider going away for her undergrad ... on the one hand, I selfishly want her right here where I can take care of her; on the other hand, I also want her to have this experience. And on the third hand, there's the financial incentive to staying home. While I have no doubt she would get accepted at Queens, I suspect that the scholarship dollars will not be as high as she would get from UofO or Carleton; and of course, the costs overall will be much higher.

For what it's worth, she's torn too; because there's a unique program at Carleton that really interests her (Bachelor of Humanities), but the thought of Carleton itself doesn't do much for her. If she were to stay in Ottawa, she'd prefer the University of Ottawa, but if she goes there it'll be for a B.A. with Major in History and Minor in English, to prepare her for Teacher's College - not as exciting an undergrad option as the B. Hum. The thought of Queens - a prestigious university, living away from home, living in Kingston which she loves - really interests her, but the program she would take there (Concurrent Education - a B.Arts + B.Ed) doesn't excite her as much as the B.Hum. does.

Here she is in front of Summerhill, one of the oldest buildings on the campus ... the look on her face says "Mom, your picture-taking obsession is really embarrassing me", doesn't it!!!!

While we have been talking university for over a year now, this is the beginning of an intense, months-long marathon university conversation. She will be making her applications as soon as mid-term marks are out (mid-November or so). I expect she'll get some early admission offers. Final decision needs to be made by the end of May - I think the deadline for accepting an offer is May 26 or so. There will be lots of agonizing between now and then. I wish I knew what the right answer is. Parenting is so hard. You think it'll get easier as they get older ... but you just trade in little dilemmas for big ones, I think! And the biggest dilemma of all ... when should you just take a deep breath and LET GO?

Bring on the turkey!

2008-10-11T17:58:00.003-04:00

Crazy busy, so here's a three-minute update:

Charitable Campaign: Going well, lots of great fundraising, lots of people pitching in to help

Dog: Good dog. Knock on wood.

Kids: Good kids. Lol. The girl had an award night at school last week, won medal for 90% average last year (again) and won awards for the highest grade in 5 subjects (5!!!!) last year: English, Core French, World Religions, Media Studies, and History pre-16th Century. Just, wow.

Work: Insanely busy.

Thanksgiving: Our traditional hunt camp thanksgiving tomorrow (stuffing is cooking right now, just finished making cranberry sauce, and the turkey goes in the oven at 5 a.m. tomorrow!). Bought a second turkey to cook on Monday. Call me nuts.

That's all for now! I have one layout and a few pictures to share, but no time to scan/download etc.

Hope you all have a very happy Thanksgiving weekend!!!!

That darned hand of mine!

2008-09-27T07:04:00.005-04:00

Ooops, I did it again. Just when I thought I had my mind-of-its-own, do-gooder, no-problem-I'll-do it volunteering hand of mine under control, it snuck out from under me (literally - as I do tend to sit on my hands when I feel one of those "hey, who can we suck into doing this thing" situations coming on). And now, I am my sector's Team Captain for the Government of Canada Charitable Campaign.

I accepted the challenge on the day my department launched the campaign. Usually, team captains are picked months in advance of the launch. Accordingly, we had picked a team captain months ago, but (lucky for her, unlucky for us) she got promoted and left for another government department right before the start of the campaign. Still, I kept silent. We sent out emails looking for a replacement. We held staff meetings. We begged, we schmoozed, we pleaded. We came up empty. So I said to my boss, who just happens to be the campaign champion for my department, "gee boss, if no one else steps up, I'll do it". Gah. Because of course, I am really not busy enough and really needed something more to do. Because they have miraculously found an extra 3 hours in every day for me, and my day now has 27 hours to work with, aren't I lucky. Because my assistant, who takes work home already as things stand, really isn't busy enough and has plenty of time to support me in this endeavour. Gah.

Ok, pity party over. I stepped up to the plate, and I am going to give it my all, as always. I actually really love this kind of thing, and the danger here is that I'm going to neglect my "real" job in favour of this really fun campaign stuff. Good thing I don't run a government program where lives are at stake, 'cause Canadians would just have to suck it up while I organize penny drives and karaoke contests. Oh well, the Public Service will just have to renew itself at a slightly slower pace until the campaign is over :o)

So if you have any really groovy fundraising ideas, could you please share? We have a few activities planned already, but I can always use more ideas! And more importantly, if you have any tips on how to control out-of-control hands that pop up in the air whenever anybody is looking for a dedicated individual (aka sucker), share those with me too, please!!!!

Hockey on my Mind

2008-09-18T06:53:00.004-04:00

Ah, the stinky/stale coffee smell of a minor league hockey arena. I LOVE IT. Yup, we're back in the rink! Try-outs started last weekend; we should know by Monday whether the boy will be playing PeeWee B or C this year. He's really hoping for B and has been giving it his all on the ice. I am **such** a hockey Mom - I can't wait for the season to begin so that I can cheer my lungs out from the stands. Trust me, people look atcha funny when you cheer like that during tryouts (blush).

Last year's team picture:

My thoughts last year about a new hockey season:

Yup, I'm a year behind in my hockey scrapbook ... and in just about every other scrapbook I'm working on! Yikes! So much scrapbooking, so little time. I really wish someone would come up with a way for me to scrap all day and still bring home the (same amount of) bacon.

Happy Thursday everyone! :o)