Ever since I went to that CM crop, I've been a busy girl! I've literally done more scrapping in the last two weeks than I had done in probably the last year and a half. I hope it keeps up. In time, I may even be able to finish a whole album!

This was literally the fastest page I've ever done. I had won the "fixings" as a door prize at the Shoebox Swap, but I couldn't figure out what to do with it. Since I have all boys, I don't have very many pages that use pretty flowers like these. So, I found this picture of me and my Sis from Matt's graduation, slapped it on there and finished the page in about 15 minutes. Came out pretty good, I think. The only time consuming part was going the letters on my cuttlebug using my new Fruit Smoothie alphabet. It's cute, but smaller than I thought.

Just a quick an easy Christmas page. This one came together pretty quickly too. I love this picture of Blake with his entire Nutcracker collection. I think he's got about 15 of them now and they all have names and a little story behind them. Yes, he's an unusual kid....

This is a layout I found in Simple Scrapbooking magazine. It's a simple all right, but I think it came out pretty nice. The journalling talks about the way Noah is sitting. He has a sort of a "W" position he does with his legs that is exactly the same as his father and all our other boys did. It's hilarious - Do all kids do this?

This is the MOST pictures I've ever put on one layout, but actually I think it worked pretty well. I used Taken With Teal along with Turquoise and black and white accents. I love great color combos like these and it perfectly matches Noah's shirt.

I even got ambitious and finished one of my 6 X 6 layouts that's been sitting in my album for about a year. I love these pictures of Matt in his kilt, but I couldn't quite figure out what I wanted to do with the lettering. 10 minutes with my Cuttlebug and I was able to call this one done!

OK, everyone has received their card club packages, so I can show you what I came up with.


I like this one. It's a nice, basic masculine card that you could use for birthdays, anniversaries, or whatever. Plus I really like buckle cards. This one is quick and easy and I'll probably use this one again for different projects. I come up with original designs so rarely that I like to get a little mileage out of them.











I bought these Primas, but I've had a little trouble trying to figure out what colors to use them with. I don't use those faded, vintage shades very much, I'm a brights girl myself! So I finally found a color combo that would work with them.







This is another variation on Maria Bell's envelope tag card. I don't like it as much as my original take, but the set this month was Little Pieces, so I had to figure out something using that set. It doesn't show up well in the picture, but the Pretty in Pink is cuttlebugged with that dots and daisies folder. It goes perfectly with the Little Pieces set! The little heart clip isn't SU, but I just love it, don't you?





This one is my absolute favorite! It was totally CASED from Splitcoast. Now I need to go back over there and figure out who I cased it from so I can give them credit. I don't usually copy projects this closely, but this was so darling, I couldn't resist - the colors and the circles are just as cute as they can be and it is so perfect with this set! What I did do, was to change it from a card into a candy holder. Inside is a little cello bag to hold candies and things. (I found the original - it was a card by Bethany Paull)

I'm proud of myself. I actually got up this morning and exercised! I know that sounds silly because I know that a lot of people (maybe even MOST people) get up and exercise every day, but I have really fallen off the exercise wagon. 

I've never been at all fond of it and during all the months of packing and unpacking during our move to our new house, I completely got out of the exercise habit. I've been maintaining my weight, so I didn't really think it was that bad until last week when I tried to walk up the hill to the little park by our house. It's a fairly steep hill, so I knew I'd have a bit of trouble, but I was literally dizzy and gasping for breath in the 1st hundred yards - yikes!

So I decided it was time to get back into exercise mode and I got up this morning and dusted off one of my Leslie Sansone Walk Away the Pounds tapes and did a 2 mile walk. I love those walking tapes - they're fabulous. 

This is one of the ones my dear mother had bought for me years ago and I've used it a lot in past years. It's fun, fast paced and good exercise and just the perfect thing for hot days or snowy days whenever you don't feel like "real" walking. Anyone else want to jump on the bandwagon with me? Like Flylady says you can do anything for 15 minutes. Feel free to post your exercise tips and comments here and we'll help support each other.

All the buzz today on the 'net is about the Retiring Accessories List, which came out earlier today. Fortunately, it's not quite as extensive as the Retiring Sets List, but it's still a bit of a shocker. Fortunately, I didn't get bitten TOO badly this time, but I'm crying over losing my two favorite punches - Wrought Iron and Square Steps. I literally just took the Square Steps out of the package for the first time this weekend (sigh). And the Wrought Iron punch has long been a frequent item used on my projects, so I'm bummed about losing them. They are such cool and versatile punches. I hope they are coming out with some really fantastic punches in the new catalog to replace them.

Oh my, it's been a long, busy, and stressful week. Been focused on some new projects at work, so I've been working a lot of hours and I haven't had any time to get into my stamp room hardly at all. 

 I do have a cute project for next week's Ronald McDonald House activity, but I need to download it off my camera. I'm also going to get in there and work on my Card Club projects so I can get them out this week. I've got some great ideas bubbling, I just need to get in there and put stamps to paper.

Tonight, I am headed off to a Creative Memories crop. Yes, I know, I'm letting myself be seduced over to the "dark side", but I seriously need some help with my scrapbooking. Even though they are a competing company, I really like some of the stuff CM has to offer. I love the simplicity of pages full of cute stickers and things you can just slap together to make an attractive page quickly and inexpensively. I really wish SU would acquire or merge with CM so I could sell both lines, but until they do I'll have to leave the reservation once in a while and enjoy a little rebellion.

When we moved, I discovered that I have TWO of those enormous 18 gallon Rubbermaid tubs full of pictures that need to be sorted, scanned, scrapbooked, and put into albums. I've got several of the old style albums with the old non-acid free stuff that is literally eating up all my pictures. So, I'm hoping that tonight will be a way to get myself jump-started and get back into a scrapbooking mood.

It should be a pretty quiet weekend - Matt is in Lake Powell with his girlfriend and her parents, and Blake will be taking it easy. We discovered that his wrist isn't healing properly, so we are going to have to go in next week and have pins inserted to straighten it. 

 I know I'm probably making a mountain out of a molehill, but I'm definitely having some serious stress about them cutting into my sweet boy and sticking pins in him. We've been amazingly lucky with our 3 boys and this is the first serious problem we've had with any of them. That's probably good because their Mama is one big chicken!!!

So, I'm hoping I'll have some cool new pictures to post over the weekend. In the meantime, have a safe and fun weekend!

I was folding some laundry tonight (ok, a LOT of laundry tonight!) and I was poking around on my Tivo for something to watch. I happened to see that special on the Oprah Winfrey school for girls in South Africa and decided to watch it again - for the 3rd time! I don't think I'll ever delete that program because it's so inspirational. It's just amazing to see those girls and the kind of lives that they lead and to realize the amazing opportunity they have been given and what a life changing difference it will make to their entire communities.

I have a penpal in Kenya who is in a very similar situation. She belongs to a church that our church has been supporting for many years. At one point, they set us up with penpals from the church and mine is a particularly touching story. Her name is Edith Muthoni Mbae and she is a poor widow with seven children and a grandmother to support. Remarkably, she is only 33 years old. Her husband died three years ago, I assume from AIDS, although it's not a subject they care to discuss. They life in a small hut with a dirt floor and a tin roof, all nine of them. Despite the challenges of her life, she is very sweet and joyful and has such great faith.

Last year, some of the people from our church traveled there and they met her and brought her some gifts from me. They brought back a beautiful bag that her grandmother had made for me. It's just amazing how people can keep going in circumstances like that. It really says a lot about the human spirit and it also says a lot about the people like Oprah and so many others who do what they can to help. The problems are enormous and growing all the time, but God is bigger than all of them.

There are so many small ways we can help. Last month, we sent over cases of books and eyeglasses to our church in Kenya. We had a big garage sale at our church this weekend that raised thousands for this and other charities. I know Oprah takes monthly donations for her Angel Network and for the school and my special favorite charity is the Heifer Project, which gives animals to needy families all over the world. The beauty of the Heifer Project is that they give each family the dignity of giving a female offspring of their animal to another family to help them get their start too. I think that's amazing. I urge you to find a charity today and do what little you can to help some of these wonderful programs.

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE words. I'm always collecting jokes, one liners, clever sayings, and inspirational sayings, so I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you:

"Many times, when I was having a hard time with one of my children, God would always remind me that he was having a harder time with me than I was with them." Charlie “Tremendous” Jones

“My mother was full of joy and life. I am her child and that is better than being the child of anyone else in the world” Maya Angelou

“You are what you think about” Earl Nightingale

God gives each bird a worm but He doesn't put it in the nest.

“I learned a long time ago, that life just isn’t fair, so you have to stop expecting it to be” Dana Reeves

"I smile because you're my sister. I laugh because there is nothing you can do about it"

“She who undervalues herself is justly undervalued by others” William Hazlett

Build a bridge and get over it!

"I am careful not to pursue excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business." Michael J. Fox

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." ~Dr. Seuss

“Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you - not because they are nice, but because you are." Unknown

"Why join the navy when you can be a pirate!" - Steve Jobs

YAHOO = You Always Have Other Options

"Every minute that you are angry, you lose 60 seconds of happiness." Unknown

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain"

"These are magic years... and therefore magic days... and therefore magic moments"

"PACE" which means Positive Attitude Changes Everything.

"When people show you who they are, believe them the first time,"… Maya Angelou

"What are they gonna do, take away your birthday?"

"Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here, we might as well dance" Unknown

"Where the heart is willing it will find a thousand ways, but where the heart is weak, it will find a thousand excuses."

"Do more – wish less"

"Be the change you wish to see in the world"- Ghandi

"Don't worry about what the future holds. Simply trust the one who holds the future."

"The smallest deed is better than the best intention"

"One advantage of being disorganized is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries" - Winnie the Pooh

"It's better to be a first-rate version of yourself than a second-rate version of somebody else. -- Judy Garland

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." Mark Twain

Money has no meaning until you spend it

I’m glad you’re my brother. You’d have made an ugly sister

"Well behaved women rarely make history". Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

"You can always make more money, but you can NEVER make more TIME".

"Rich people stay rich by acting poor and poor people stay poor by acting rich"

As many of you know, we have recently moved into a new, larger house. We've been here for almost three months now and we've made a lot of changes - painting, decorating, new carpets, new floors, etc. I took polls of a lot of our friends on paint colors and other ideas, so I thought that people would like to see how the finished product looks. We still have a few things to do , like the kitchen, the hallway, and some things we want to do downstairs, but I think we've made a lot of progress.

Here is what our living room used to look like before we moved in (minus the grand piano, that belonged to the former owners).

Here is what our living room looks like now. We've painted the walls and the crown molding, changed out the baseboards and added nice hardwood flooring and wide wooden mini blinds. All the paint we chose is based on Stampin' Up! colors (of course!). This is our version of one of my old favorites - Baroque Burgundy.  Just a touch of it, not enough to overwhelm.  I love having a colorful accent wall like this, but doing the whole room would have made it overwhelming.  Like the new couches?  so do the cats.  They are doing nasty things to the new couches.  I wish I could declaw them, but I just don't have the heart.  

This is what used to be the formal dining room. The kitchen/dining room area is large enough for any entertaining we would want to do, so we've turned it into a little reading/music room for me to chill out, read books, listen to music, etc.

As you can see, we've painted in here (more Baroque Burgundy), added the hardwood flooring, and my sister helped me do the wallpaper. You can't see it very well here, but it's sort of a marble pattern with a white brocade pattern on it - very pretty. Tony actually found these beautiful white lace curtains at JC Penny. Add in a few family pictures and a nice chair and it makes a pretty nice room.

It took us 3 tries to get the color right.  The first two looked like a particularly garish nail polish, but I'm glad we persisted.

Here's another view of the music room. You can see where we've added my china hutch and comfy chair with an ottoman. Just on the other side of this huge plant is my hope chest that was a wedding gift from my mother and a beautiful picture that she had framed for me.

Here is the original master bedroom. Pretty basic room with kind of a nasty oatmeal carpet that was stained. The ceiling fan only had one light fixture in it, so the room was nice and spacious, but kind of dark.

Here's how it looks with paint, new carpet, and white grooved paneling (also called bead board). I get so many compliments on this color. It's called Leaf Green and I just love it. I'm not sure if it's more Mellow Moss or Certainly Celery, but it's definitely my favorite color.

There was snow all over when we bought the house, so I didn't really get any "before" pictures of the back yard. It's really a nice yard with apple trees, peach trees, and raspberry bushes. It's like a little salad bar back there.

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I felt bad because Blake's monkey bars completely fell apart when we went to move them, so the poor kid didn't have a thing to play with in the backyard. So, I looked around and found this great play set on the Internet. It took a lot of work to get it moved over to our yard and get it set up. Tony had to rebuild it a bit, but now he's loving it. These are a couple of my great-nephews at the graduation party.

More pictures to come when we get the kitchen and some of the other projects finished.  But we are sure loving our new house!