I'm A Scrapbook Nerd!

I'm going to ignore the elephant in the room (and by that I mean the fact that I have not posted on this blog in over a year) and return to that topic in a future post.  Right now, I'm just going to tell y'all about being a Scrapbook Nerd.  And if your reaction is "well duh" this means you haven't heard yet about the new online scrapbook store, gallery and forum launched this week by fellow scrapbooker and blogger Barbara (http://boysareus.blogspot.ca/).  You can visit this new site here:  http://scrapbooknerd.com/.  If that doesn't get my scrapbook mojo back, then nothing will!!

In the meantime (as in, while we wait for me to get back here and make a substantial post), all is well, we're all good.  My scrapbook mojo is on an extended sabbatical but my crochet mojo occasionally drops in.  I refuse to entertain the possibility that I won't ever scrap again but I feel too guilty to buy new scrap stuff until I start using what I already have.  I can see that Blogger has made some huge changes so am going to have to get familiar with the new site before I post again.

See you soon!

Where Do I Start???

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

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!

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?

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 ....

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??

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).

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(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.

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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.).

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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.

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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!

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,

N.

Newly-discovered vegetable-carving skills...

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 ....

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...

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!

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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!

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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.

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Well, TGIF - happy Friday everyone!

Well hi there ....

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

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....

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.

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In other news ...

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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(

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

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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).

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Ciao!

Long Weekend, Short Week!

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.

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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.

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Have a great day!

Time flies ....

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!

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

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

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

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!