hairbrained schemes

Visions of Sugarplums beating me in the head.

That's where I'm at right about now.

But in a good way, if that makes sense at all.

Etsy = SUPER busy

House = extremely chaotic

Family = mostly wonderful

Dog = sweet but hairing up my house & adding to the chaos

Christmas = can we push it back a week?

My brother's family is coming for Christmas & I am really excited. It's been about 10 years (at least) since we were together during the holidays.  But an extra week to get things ready would be great.  As it is, I'm ready to throw a bowl of candy canes on the table & call it Christmas baking.

But all these things are good.

The kids aren't going to remember that there wasn't piles of gingerbread men in the house when they are grown (I'm sincerely hoping they aren't as food oriented as I am), they will remember going skiing with their mom and friends and sitting in the hot tub after rehashing, in great detail, every single grind, jump and bail that happened up at the hill.

One of my prints was featured in this beautiful & unique treasury today.

I love it.  And the title is so fitting. (click on the image to go to the treasury)

My friend, Marnie, hosted Renee Pearson's blog last week and I volunteered to contribute a couple of layouts.

 

Thanks to Libby Pritchett for her fabulous as always digital kits. 

In all the chaos, I do need to remind myself ever so often, it really is a good good life.

 

 

 

a pirate's life for me

I have been a contact and closet glasses wearer for the last 18 years.

Recently I decided to make the plunge and go for Lasik surgery to have my eyesight corrected.

I was given a pile of literature and a consent form to take home read over, which naturally, I shoved in a drawer and promptly forgot about.

Yesterday, I got a follow-up call from one of the very nice ladies that works at the clinic who wanted to schedule me in and make sure I had all the information that I needed.

Information like:

• you should cease and desist wearing all eye makeup from now until 2 weeks after the surgery
• you will need to bring sunglasses and a driver (how very J-Lo of me - too bad my driver is a cable guy driving a 1998 Astro Van with ladders on top - it kind of diminishes the glam of being "driven" - however he does have tinted windows, so that's pretty posh)
• you must wash your eyes for 3 days prior with a product called "Lid-Care" to take care of all the debris in your eyes (debris? in my eyes? alrighty then.)

And, this is where my mom, if she is reading, should cease and desist, maybe go pour herself a nice stiff drink and fight over the remote with dad.

• there is a section entitled "Vision Threatening Complications" and at the very end of said section, kind of thrown in there, almost nonchalantly it says:

                                ...loss of eye.

While being a pirate always kind of appealed to me (in a bodice ripping novel sort of way) I'm pretty sure I wouldn't rock an eye patch well. 

So I made a quick "hold the phone, sister" call back to the lovely lady at the clinic and asked for a little clarification and perhaps some statistics. 

Apparently, this has an extremely remote chance of happening, possible, but extremely unlikely.

So I decided to take that information and shove it in one of the drawers of my mind, and promptly forget about it.

Wish me luck.

right here, right now

Uttered whilst in the midst of a deathmatch friendly little nightly game of gin rummy, as he slaps down the winning trio of threes and goes out with a definite flourish (oh, he is the King of Flourish) :

I. LOVE. MY. LIFE.

A little reminder to me to not let the stupid crap get me down. 

And that something as small as kicking your mom's arse in cards can bring such joy. 

At least he's a better sport than I used to be and doesn't jump up from the table to point, laugh and engage in the not entirely graceful but entirely "in-your-face" victory dance. 

I love you, mom.

the winner takes it all

With all the hoopla that spirals around the phenomenon also known as "THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL" I didn't make it back here yesterday as I had planned.

But here I am, and here are the numbers chosen by my glamorous assistants (beauty, of course, being totally in the eye of the beholder).

For the Mini Albums in an Evening, the lovely Miss. Lucinda selected the number:

 

(that's 24 for those of you who don't read blow out) - so by my calculations, the winner of this amazingly inspiring book is:

Kelli!

And the ever graceful, ethereal Miss Jacqueline drew the number:

(number 11) which goes to Candy M!

I happened to find another copy of the Sept/Oct issue in my craftroom, so I drew one more number

Number 18 which is Beth Warren!

Congratulations, ladies - please email me [email protected] with your mailing addresses. (<- I just removed an exclamation point from the end of that sentence, one of my September resolutions is to try and limit my gratuitous use of certain punctuation...)

Upon reviewing the above photos I have two questions:

1. when did my arms get so hairy/freckly and/or dry?
2. when am I going to stop using the excuse "I'm not a girly girl" and do my freakin' nails?

Those are both rhetorical questions. (!!!)

Addendum:  What are these funnel cakes of which so many of you speak? 

PS:  I made my new banner using a digital kit from the oh-so talented Libby Weifenbach, whose kits can be found here.

Give It Away

First things first, I just received an extra copy of:

 Simple Scrapbooks Mini Albums in an Evening

and the September/October issue of Simple Scrapbooks

And I'm itching to give them away.  If you are interested in them, check out the bottom of my post and I'll tell you how!

We just made our annual visit to the Armstrong IPE (yup, that place that every time for the past 8 years, about 15 minutes after we walk through the gates we swear we are never going back because the whining that goes on is so intense that we just about want to sell, nay, PAY that toothless carnie with the impressive mullet working the Sizzler to take our children). 

This year was different.

First of all, we preplanned. 

We got there around 2ish (just in time to miss the lumberjack show, which wasn't planned, but nobody seemed to care too much).

Then we split up. 

We met friends there and split the kids into two groups. 

Brady & Jacob who went with Gabe & Gorgeous George.

and the rest of them who went with the moms. 

Now, when you run the numbers on that it might seem that the moms got a little shafted on that one,
HOWEVER, the moms are not stupid, they are just good at biding time.

Three hours later when we hooked up, we negotiated a trade.

The trade consisted of the husbands taking all the kids and the moms going to the beer gardens.

See?  We aren't just another pretty face.

Because we were there for almost 12 hours, a play by play could get quite epic so here are some highlights:

the "pretend you are really excited, because we're going to the fair again...yes, we said we would never make you go again, but we are, so suck it up and smile." photos in the car

the food (definitely the high point for me), sadly I got no food pictures because when you have a donair in one fist and two bags of mini donuts in the other, a candy apple wedged between your knees and a lemonade stuck in the crook of your elbow, there is no free hand for taking photos. 

The fact that this is the first year that our kids when on rides and we got our money's worth out of those stupid wrist bands we get suckered into every year.

(Thomas and Luke pretending that the carousel is making them puke, nothing like a good puke joke to an eight year old - unless, of course, it's a good fart joke.)

the fact that Lucas finally reached the marker on the sign that allows him to ride the big kid rides. 

the dog agility (this is where Jason and I pretend that we are TOTALLY going to get Bella into dog agility classes because she would be so awesome at it.  It's good to have traditions.)

the rodeo (again no pictures, not because of food, although I was still working my way through the 2nd bag of mini donuts at this time, I was just to lazy to get my camera out of the bag.)

So, there you have my favourite parts of the fair.

1.  Beer Garden
2.  Making a Clever Trade with the Husbands
3.  the Food
4.  the rest of it

What are yours? 

Let me know in the comments and I'll draw names for the two books I mentioned at the top of this post.

When you were young...

Three things:

One:

We are having Jake's 10th birthday party today.

Sigh.

It's the cut off for big birthday parties and I'm not sure who is more regretful about this, him or me...

I love planning parties. 

Figuring out the menu (pizza and ice cream cake - hey, what can I say, they are 10 year old boys)

Setting up the activities (paintball - hey, see above)

Trying to think of a cool "goody bag" worthy of their 10 year oldness but not loading up a sack of crap from the dollar store for their mother's to chuck in the garbage when they get home. 

After much thought and collaboration, Jacob and I came up with this:

We burned a bunch of the must have tunes for the pre-teen set (mostly comprised of Weird Al Yankovic with a couple of rock songs thrown in for balance) onto cd's and made these covers in photoshop. We threw in a pack of gum and a small pack of Pokemon cards (he's mature, but he's still only 10) and called it a day.

TWO:

My pretty fly friend (PSA: with the event of downloading probably too much of the Offspring onto my IPOD, I've been feeling quite compelled to work the phrase "pretty fly" into my conversation and even though this may seem like a gratuitous use of the phrase, she is indeed, pretty fly), Michele, tagged me with this:

 

This is how it works:

(1) The winner can put the logo on their blog.

(2) Link the person you received your award from.

(3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

(4) Put links of those on yours.

(5) Leave a message on the blogs of the girls or boys you’ve nominated

And the nominations are....

1.  Dianne - whose enthusiasm, kindness and most excellent digital skills make me smile on a daily basis

2.  Jen Sizemore - this lady oozes pure talent, everytime I see one of her projects I wish she lived closer so I could soak up some of her awesomeness. Oh! And she also introduced me to the term "Ink Thumping" (which I still think sounds kind of naughty)

3. Libby - more mad digital skills and now she is an amazing digital designer as well, and she is always there to answer any photoshop or teeth question I might have (she has mad teeth information skills too)

4. Karen - is super sweet, super talented and the teacher I wish my boys had the good fortune to learn from

5.  Ramona - has a simple style I totally dig and I love her passion

6. Jennifer - whose sarcastic wit keeps me laughing daily (as does the exploits of her boys - three of them, which I totally am in awe of)

7. Candice - who I am so happy to have had the good fortune to meet on the interwebs through scrapbooking and Simple Scrapbooks and whose photography prowess makes my jaw drop regularly (and check out that banner she has up - fun stuff people!)

THREE:

This is my 10 year old and his new hat.

We went school clothes shopping and all he wanted was a hoodie, a t-shirt and this hat.

I had to bite my tongue before I spit out the fact that my Grandpa's both used to sport fedoras not unlike his new lid. 

He thinks he's utterly cool.

I kind of think so, too.

Baby, it's cold outside

To be entirely accurate, it actually just started snowing.

And we are supposed to leave in about 1.5 hours to go camping for the weekend.

I think I need to get some new friends (and family) who realize that camping and snowboots should not go together.

And my weird husband prefers to camp in the rain (and probably snow).

At least I know he will get up early and bring me coffee (and maybe a little Carolans) in bed.

Which is often helpful in smoothing out the rough edges of things like camping in the snow.

Have a good weekend!

(PS if we're not back by Monday, send out the Search & Rescue sled team out to Mabel Lake).

Still Crazy

I have been tagged by the lovely Elizabeth (sorry I missed this, E.)

The rules: Link to your tagger and post these 3 rules on your blog.

• Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
• Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
• Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I'm not sure how to pick just 7 weird things, but I'll give it a shot.

1. Sometimes when I'm driving and singing in the car, when I pull up to a stoplight I try to sing with my mouth closed so people can't tell I'm singing, this makes me laugh, so I'm sure I look crazier sitting in a car by myself laughing.  With my mouth closed.

2. We don't have a lock on our bathroom door so when I have a shower I lock our bedroom door.  Mostly because a few weeks ago the youngest boy hid in the closet and jumped out and yelled "raaaaaaaaah" at me when I came out of the bathroom.  The youngest boy is lucky he is a fast runner.

3. I have to read before I go to sleep at night.  No matter how tired I am. This vexes Gorgeous George to great ends as he's a "lights out, go to sleep" kind of guy.  He keeps threatening to sleep downstairs, but I don't really believe him.

4. I count the stairs in our house every time I go down them.  Even though I know exactly how many there are. I can't help it.

5. I can still (pretty much) do the splits.  It's getting harder and harder every year though.  Maybe I should look into yoga or something.

6. I'm going river rafting this summer.  For those of you who don't know me, I am voting myself "The One Most Likely to End up in the Drink and Because I have the Freakish Lack of Upper Body Won't Be Able to Haul Herself Out of the Drink".

7.  Today is the day I start my new work out regime of pushups.

I think most of my bloggy friends have already done this, I'm a little late to the party, so I will leave it in your hands.  If you are interested, consider yourself tagged and link back to me!

Paranoid (the green day version)

Yesterday was a big day in our house.

No, I'm not talking about the large pile of poop we shoveled.

(Okay, it's "mulch" but it's high end mulch made out of human waste, so it's poop, people.  Only the very best for our flower beds).

I'm talking about Paranoia Mom letting the youngest boy walk to his friend's house. 

All. By. Himself.

Over hill.

Over dale.

(through the neighbour's yard and up two paths to Ella's house)

And THEN, PM let older boy and friend go down to the ravine to "hang out". 

Like I said, big day. 

I don't know why I'm so paranoid.

It might be the fact that I read way too many psychological thrillers about abduction and other icky happenings.

And watch the same sort of shows.

(Gorgeous George had to stage an intervention a few years ago when I was hooked on anything serial killer on A&E and then I would be up all night hearing people a) hiding in our attic (we didn't actually have an attic) or b) climbing in the kids' bedroom windows (which I had already checked on my pre-bedtime obsessive compulsive house check)

Maybe it's the times that Jeff Martin and I stole matches out of his mom's bedside table, when we were 6, and started the Terrace chapter of "The Fire Club" in the forest across the street.  (President: Jeff;  Official Extinguisher & Secretary: Me)

Or perhaps the time in grade 4 that Dominique Krause and I stole a pack of cigarettes from her parents and went over to Parkside School and smoked the whole thing and then I went home and barfed for about an hour.(sorry mom)

Or it could be any combination of those things.

Everyone made it back unabducted and relatively unscathed.

Lucas was sporting purple nailpolish when he arrived home, but I think that's fodder for another day.

Celebration.

Put on your best Kool & the Gang garb and get ready for a little celebration (you know that they are cool because they spell cool with a "k").

This is a little something I'd like to call:

The Top 10 Reasons why I think Stacy Julian Rocks

10. She introduced me to the concept of happy colours.

9. She is the reason I make minibooks.  And, boy, do I love me some minibooks.  And so do my boys (and they thank you too, Stacy).

8, She is also the reason I let go of the mind-numbing feeling of "having" to scrapbook chronologically.

7. Without her, Simple Scrapbooks would not be what it is, and I would not be a part of a team made up of totally unique, creative, wonderful and inspiring women.

6. This book.  They say don't judge a book by it's cover.  To that I say, "Phsaw!" (you heard me, I said Pshaw!).  You can totally judge this book by it's cover. And I love the cover.  A lot.

5.  I haven't have the pleasure of meeting Stacy in person (yet), but you can just FEEL her joie de vive (that's Joy of Life for any of you uneducated types who weren't forced to take french through grade 10).  She inspires me to get up off my procrastinating butt and get stuff DONE!

4. I first heard of the book "Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life" on her blog. (get it. read it. and read it again. this book has a place of honour in my bedside table beside all of Brian Andreas' books, Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe books and the Chronicles of Narnia).

3. Her blog name is Altogether Too Happy.  I want to surround myself with people that are altogether too happy. And that have brownies in their banners.

2. Though it saddens me that she won't be with Simple in an editorial role, I admire the fact that she is not complacent and is listening to her inner voice that tells her that she has other callings that need to be seen to. 

1. Thank you Stacy, for being a visionary in this industry, for helping make Simple Scrapbooks what it is today, for inspiring me and so many others in so many ways.

YOU ROCK!