Still Working on it...

OK, now that I've found and tried another "pretty my blog" site I still have no clue to what I'm doing. I'm sending out a full blown HELP!!!
1. How do I get my title on the header? I think I have to have it fit on the lined tag - ACK!!
2. Am I supposed to put a picture (mine-ACK!!x2) in the box on the right.
3. How do I get the header to stretch to edge of the border?
4. How do I get the label off the top of my printing?
5. Why am I so lame at this?!?!?!

This does nothing to help my feelings of inadequacy. I think I need computer therapy (and the other kind too)...

Changes...

Hi gang! You know the title of my blog just above this posting, especially the sub-title, Life happens when you're making other plans? Well I think I just put my words into action.

I've been cruising many blogs looking for card, stamping, scrapbooking and other paper arts ideas and I came across this 'make my blog beautiful - for FREE' banner on several very artistic blogs so I thought I'd give it whirl.

Sure enough, I've screwed up the whole thing. What you see now is what is left of my original blog template and design. It doesn't help that it's 11:44 at night and I'm working on my laptop instead of on my desktop with my original artwork and the majority of my photos etc.

I hate it when technology and my lousy typing reminds me how incompetent I really am on a computer!

Anyone know how I add a growling smiley face???

New Year 2010...

Happy New Year?! The good thing about a new year, besides the cool number 2010, is that it gives me an excuse/starting point/reason to begin a major organization of my scrap room. There is a challenge on 2Peas that has a method for organizing a space that will have a new chapter every week. This first week is to do a scrap audit of your space, and to do a layout - and as you do it write what works about your space as you work and what doesn't.

These are photos of my space before my last purge and update. This bookcase is gone replace by a white cube storage system that is not working for me because I haven't organized it well enough. I've got three tiers of large white cubes in 3 drawer, one large drawer and two 6 shelf cubes. Above the two shelf drawers are two of the smaller Michael's cubes, part upright shelves and part two shelve cube. On top of this are my paper cutters and finished projects and other decorations that make me happy. Also on the end is a two tier Clip-it-Up storage rack. On the wall behind it is a small spice rack with MM paints.



The bookcase in this photo is still here the ribbons have been replaced by a four self unit that stores projects completed on top, ribbon in jars on the second shelf (which I'm not sure that I like now that they are stored that way, assorted plastic drawer storage (not working) on the third shelf and open storage of assorted stuff on the bottom shelf (again, not working). There is a wire cube behind the bed that stores my cardstock paper by color. Piled in front of the cubes are a few plastic drawers and a tackle box I use for embellies. Needless to say, it's hard to get to any of it let alone remember what I've got. The bed has way more stuff on it now and the floor has lots of stuff too.

Well, nothing like a rousing start to the new year! Do they make a twelve step plan for scrapbookers?

What's on your new year's list of things to do???

I found it, I finally found it!...

And what might "It" be - my camera!! Happy New Year to me! Alexa was going to have a sleepover so we dragged the trundle mattress out from under the day bed in my craft room. All the stuff piled up on the floor of my craft room in front of the bed is now on top of it and I was able to search underneath with a flashlight and I hit the daily double. Not only did I find my camera but I also found my watch that I had misplaced even longer ago than the camera!

I found a picture of Abby in one of her favorite positions - sitting on our laps or legs as Norm or I sit in the recliner. She has a complete view of the family room, the outside through the Florida room and anyone coming in from upstairs. The queen oversees her domain! You can also tell it's an older picture because she has hair! All of this is gone now, ahhh...Hopefully she will be back to her glorious, cute as a button look within a couple of months. I consider this a good sign for the year to come. Got camera, got luck!

God Bless Us Everyone!

I want to wish all my friends, family and blog readers here in the US and around the world a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Three more shopping days til Christmas...

I've just about had it with retailers. They are playing mind games with me. The Christmas decorations and promos started BEFORE Halloween around here. For months I was working on the consumer delusion of having so much time until you really had to get serious about Christmas.

I fought if off, had it under control and then like Abby with the zoomies...it was gone. Did you realize we've PASSED the last shopping week until Christmas? Wasn't Thanksgiving last Thursday? I could have sworn I just watched the Rockettes dance past Macy's front entrance and Santa go HO, HO, HO as he turned the corner and passed a Duane Reed...

I had the "formal" tree up right after Thanksgiving, I even got the lights on the bushes out front before Thanksgiving. So how did come to pass that this Friday is Christmas!?! I'M NOT READY!!!

They really ought to give us more warning...

I'm Pictureless!...

You may know I've "misplaced" my camera. Don't you love those lovely euphemisms? Previously loved cars - Used car! Let's be honest here. Misplaced camera - all right, I lost it, I admit it... I'm convinced it's buried somewhere in my craft room but I haven't been able to find it. I had been planning on telling you all about some of the stuff going on but I keep getting an error message when I try to upload Alexa's SD card to my printer(I've been using her camera). I'm striking out all over so you will all have to use your imaginations...

Fool that I am, I invited five of Alexa's friends (the core group) over to decorate gingerbread houses. Each year Alexa decorates a gingerbread house whether it comes from a kit, or the Dessert Deli's house decorating event or a Wegman's house that we put together and then she decorates. She wanted to do houses with her friend Brenda, so I figured in for a penny in for a nickle and had five friends come over. Lex took pictures, as did I but they will not load!! So you need to imagine our dining room table, covered in a pink plastic table cloth and six chairs around. At each place is a 8D"X5W"X10H gingerbread house on a cardboard base. There are six snowman marshmallow peeps, one at each place setting, and a piping bag filled with royal frosting.

Running down the center of the table are various bowls of Twizzler - strawberry and multi-fruit colored, cinnamon dots, 10 packages of Necco wafers, gum drops and wreaths, square, grid shaped pretzels, hard holiday candies in different colors, mini fruit flavored and colored jelly half circles, marshmallow mini Christmas trees and stockings and fruit shaped Skittle type candies. Also three cans of decorative icing - two white and one green and turtle crunch crumbs (for dirt or walkways). Needless to say the girls made good use of EVERYTHING! The houses came out great and more importantly, Alexa told me they all had a good time and loved their houses.

Now picture this, not hard because you can scrawl back a couple of posts and probably see pictures of Abby. Abby was covered in matted fur on her tummy, and dingy fur on top, head and ears because she's been out in the mud and stuff in the backyard and it's been raining and or snowing lately. She's also a little stinky...but beautiful still.

I took her to the groomer on Thursday to get her monthly bath and cut and told Jackie that she would probably have to have her tummy shaved to get rid of the mats there and her side coat taken down a bit. If she had to have a puppy cut, so be it, but she needed a serious trim. I left puppy at the groomers and ran my errands and called back at 4:00 to see if she was ready. Well, it turns out we no longer have a stinky, dingy, and matted but beautiful cocker spaniel. We now have a clean, sweet smelling BALD cocker spaniel...This one I'm almost glad you can't see! Her head is still as it was but from the neck down fuggetaboutit! The one good thing, kinda, is that we now know how she gets up on stuff - she's got the longest legs! She looks about four inches taller when you see how long her legs are now that they are not hidden by hair! Same with worrying about her weight - she's a slim trim girl!

No pictures need for this...I've got a solid handle on our toned down Christmas. We aren't going to Long Island this year - saving money, letting hubby relax at home and no worries about the dog. As always I have Alexa's computer written, including pictures list. This year she improved it by adding coupons and discount numbers for on-line ordering - where applicable!

I'll try to post as soon as I get the tree(s) up. I'm challenged by Abby as to what I can put up and what I can't. That vertical leap of hers is scary and I'm not willing to have my tree and 30+ year old handmade ornaments damaged or destroyed. So an update will be posted.

On the work front I did a paper covered nutcracker, a Maya Road Christmas tree chipboard book for the store and I have to do 25 ATC's (altered trading cards) for a swap at work. I also have several things to mail, more shopping to do (but no more money at the moment!) and the ever dreaded Christmas cards to do...and can you see the top of my desk? No...you could for about 24 hours a day or two ago, but now, not so much ;-)

So take care, I'll post when I can find a camera, a workable SD card and whatever else! Enjoy, only 19 more days till the jolly red suited guy arrives!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

The first snowfall of the season. Just enough to make roads slussy and messy but not enough to call out the snow plows. Norm carved a path in the grass for Abby this morning. When I went out with her she wanted to eat the snow and then bury her nose in it and swish it around! Now I have not only a dingy, scraggly puppy, I've got a wet one too!

A Few Thoughts...

It's been awhile, I know. All kinds of things going on but nothing really noteworthy so I think I may just ramble a bit to catch y'all up.

Abby is a mountain goat - I bet you didn't know that cocker spaniels led double lives, did 'ya? You can't leave a chair out, anything within six inches of the edge of a counter or a glass on an end table - what, are you crazy! She climbs chairs, the couch, the back of the couch, the kitchen table - loves to grab all the napkins in her mouth and trot away dropping them as she goes saving a large enough amount to chew and spread all over the family room, in pieces, lots of pieces - many, many, MANY pieces - 'enuff said...This is Abby caught in the act of eating a magazine...

Alexa has a cold or something. She is a very resistant, resilient kid. She doesn't catch every germ going around the school or gym. She is rarely sick and when she is, her personality and actions are like a light switch turning off - makes it real easy to tell when she's just whining or is truly not feeling well. She's got the current rage going round - sore throat, cough, and low grade or no fever. I kept her home yesterday as it was a half day anyway but she went to school today. I'd really love her to be able to kick the sore throat...and yes, I'm keeping a very watchful eye on the temp for a relapse.

Yes, I still scrapbook! That was Alexa's question to me. Do you ever just make a regular layout? Something NOT for the store? Yes, Alexa, there is a scrapbooking mother in me. Here is a page to prove it - about you! I did this at the retreat last weekend along with three 2 page, 12x12 layouts, ten 8.5x11 layouts for last years vacation book, the chipboard Christmas tree I talk about later and a baby book for my friend Sarah. I'd write about the retreat but to be honest, much of he conversation is unprintable - we were naughty, big girls, but we had fun! (Sorry about the glare in the shot)

Christmas is coming, yada, yada, yada...I know, I'm a grouch :-( (welcome to my REAL world). We are staying home for the holidays this year. Money very tight, puppy concerns for traveling and staying in a hotel or even whether we should take her with us. Wondering how I'm going to put up a tree with danger dog in the house. She eats one of my handmade ornaments or faves and she is a dead dog!

Excited too because the store is going to be all decorated and we're doing our day after Thanksgiving Holiday Make 'n Take for the family the store will adopt for the holidays. I've already done two pieces for the store. I covered a wooden nutcracker (unfinished) with paper. I took the idea off the cover of a magazine and used the Basic Grey Eskimo 6X6 paper pack. Keeping with the BG theme only this time in 12X12, I covered the Maya Road Christmas tree chipboard ring album.

Keeping with my ever increasing cluttered-couldn't-find-my-head-if-it-wasn't-attached state of mind, I STILL haven't found my camera. I took Norm's to my retreat last weekend (if I can find it now, I'll see if I have any pictures to post to illustrate sentiments above). My craft room is still uninhabitable...and I don't even want to talk about the rest of the house (our bedroom is starting to look as bad as Alexa's!)

So, I think I'll go look for the camera (his) as I wait for the heating guy (third visit in week) don't get me started...and then try to make a dent in straightening up the house-I need a maid, butler, Merry Maid, cleaning droid, or whatever to do that. On that note (er, plea) I'll sign off and wish everyone who stops by a Happy Thanksgiving - a safe and successful Black Friday and best wishes for a good and healthy start to the holiday season!

27...

The New York Yankees win their, count'em 27th World Series!!!!

Go Godzilla!! Hideki Matsui - the first designated hitter named World Series MVP!!




The 'Core Four' - Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter and Andy Petitte - #5 guys!

We are the CHAMPIONS!!!!