hairbrained schemes

I only want to be with you...

I guess I should be thankful these people that I live with (and their little dog, too!) just want to be near me. 

Where: my craftroom

What: trying to "get away from it all"

Who: Gorgeous George & friend

Why: because I'm awesome (I can't think of any other reason because, frankly, we have many other more comfortable napping places in our house)

As you can see, Bella has always been a bit of a floozy.  

My friend, Dawn, says it's all learned in the home.

And with that, I will segue seamlessly into a page I did the other day....

I think Dawn may be right.

Thank God I'm a Country Boy

Dear Mom,

 (I will address this to you as I'm sure you're the only person who has the tenacity to keep checking my poor forgotten woeful little blog),

As you may know, I like to use song titles for my blog titles.

You may wonder why I chose this particular one, as a) you know, having given birth to me, that I am, indeed, a girl and b) what?

I chose it because it is the first thing in 2009 that I was simultaneously able to annoy my entire family with.

I have what I like to refer to as eclectic taste in music.

I have what my husband likes to call, pardon his french, shitty taste in music.

(coming from someone who feels filled with joy when listening to "bands" like Disturbed - swear to God - that is a indirect quote- I believe the direct quote was "Is it weird that music like that makes me feel overwhelmingly happy?" - I don't give his opinion on that subject a whole lot of thought.  Oh and answer? Yes. It's weird. You need help that you clearly will never seek which is why my IPOD will always beat yours to the plug in jack in my car.)

As usual, I digress...

back to me finding a fun way to annoy the rest of the people that live in my house.

Insert IPOD into dock

search for John Denver or something similar (which conversely fills my husband with, not joy, but rage. And that's a direct quote. Seriously. Need therapy much?)

Turn it Loud (just like the Headpins did in the 80's, which, by the way, is another kick ass tune I have in my file, that while it doesn't make GG fill with rage, does in fact, make him roll his eyes)

Break out in my best (which is frankly, not very good) running man.

Do a running commentary about how good I am at the running man, exaggerating words like AWESOME, RAD, SWEET and WICKED (this part of the act is done to annoy the boys, who are more visually stimulated than their father, which means I also have to yell WATCH ME every few seconds).

So, mother dearest, perhaps next time my father's solitaire clickingclickingclicking starts to get on your last nerve, unclench your jaw, turn on some music that he hates and bust out your best dance moves.

Works for me.

xoxo

YLD

.........................................................

PS Here's some stuff I did this week.

 

 

Tomorrow...

If you like scrapbooking and you like funny, then you probably already know who Lain Ehman is...and if you like those things and don't know Lain, you really should!

I would like to cordially invite you to attend the virtual launch party of Lain's new book:

And to make it just that much easier for you, here's the link:  Lain's Superhappy Book Release Party

Check it out!

Photograph

Simple is coming out with a new special issue called Quick & Easy Photo Albums.  In keeping with the "simple" philosophy it's a new twist on scrapbooking that involves

getting.

those.

photos.

into.

albums.

Sound good?

It is :)

Here is an example I did (the night before we left for Disneyland!  That is how freakin' quick and easy this is!)

I used a small 4x6 album that I picked up at Michael's for $2 and documented a day in my life.

 

 So check out Tina at the Simple Studio Blog and check out the book on pre-order Quick & Easy Photo Albums . You can get started on your photo-album scrapbooking project, share your designs with others, and see what others are doing in their books.

Here is another example of the kind of goodness you'll find:

this creative album is from Stacy Julian

Cute, right?!

There are over 50 albums in this issue and it hits the shelves on November 11th. 

Now I really have to go and get packed for California, baby!

 

ballroom blitz

Okay, well, actually it's a Blog Blitz, but I really really wanted to keep things rolling with the song titles (because I'm anal, like that). 

And that seemed to fit a bit better than Fat Bottomed Girls (which was going to be my initial post about how my clothes seemed to have magically shrunk over the summer without even being washed), so there you have it.

This is a scrapbook challenge.

And, as many other fun and innovative scrapbooky things have originated, this comes directly from Stacy Julian.

She came up with the idea to give as many people as she can a present - the gift of present-moment scrapbooking. 

I got an email from her a few weeks ago asking if we could help "infuse the scrapbooking blogosphere with this message of epic proportions". 

Her message?

Be Here Now.

"As Scrapbookers we spend so much time creating in the past and anticipating the future that we sometimes forget to live in the present. Your life is unfolding everyday, hour-by-hour and you have the opportunity to live and be happy. Let's bring the scrapbooking world together in a fun and potentially perspective-shifting challenge to be more aware, more grateful and more engaged with this thing we call life."

Fun, right?

I thought so, too.

So here's the skinny:

• snap 10 photos of your life right now
• compile them in a teeny tiny mini-album
• keep this album with out (in your purse or somewhere completely accessible)
• promise to glance through it every time you stumble upon it
• next year, on October 1st, 2009, create a page about your experience

Here's my teeny tiny mini-album documenting my life.

Right here.

Right now.

 

And, because, I hate to leave stuff without journaling, I made little tags that slide in under each of the photos with a few words describing my thoughts about the right here, right now of each of the photos I selected.

Here are some of the tags:

I really hope you will give this a try, please link back and share if you do!

can't get enough of your love

So I guess I've hit the big times.

I got this thinly veiled threat in my email the other day:

 

"where's my blog?? I'm about to take you off of my favorites!! and you don't want that!!! wacka wacka!!!"

It was from a guy called "loverboy" who happens to look just like this hot mess below and happens to have access to my email account (among other things):

Handsome, no?

Wacka wacka is defined in part by the Urban Dictionary as:

expression used to refer to a sexual act, especially when you want to be ambiguous.

The other day the boys were sitting at the kitchen table and Jacob said something and followed it up with an impressive one eyebrow raise (which, by the way, is on my bucket list and I am practicing it as I type) and a "wacka wacka" out of the side of his mouth. 

He kind of paused and then asked, "what does that mean anyway?"

Lucas pipes up, "I'm not sure what it means, but dad always says it right before he pinches mom's bum".

So, there's your blog Gorgeous George.

Kisses,

YLW

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.

Land of Confusion

As many of us have discovered, when you become a parent, there is no handbook. 

There are definitely people with opinions and ideas (some of which may be thrust at you over and over and over again until you want to punch those people square in the throat), but no handbook.

There are things I knew I would have to teach my children.

• good table manners (we're still working on that)
• how picking a pee tree and doing the deed au natural when camping is a much different thing than doing it at the park
• when you are old enough to answer the phone always remember to say hello, just standing there and breathing heavily is not really an acceptable method of greeting

But there are also things that I did not know would come up.

This week it was round two of underwear ettiquette.

Lesson one last was last summer:  (the rise and fall of Captain Underpantsless)

Lucas and I were shopping and I remembered that once again the boys needed new underwear. 

(aside:  how the heck do you wear out underpants? I am honestly baffled and would like to know)

So we picked a couple of packages and Lucas naturally gravitated towards the one with the pair of camo ones nestled between the grey and black pairs.

(I think he just thought he was thinking ahead to the fact that with camo underpants he would be able to flout the "One Aricle of Camo Clothing at a Time" rule I had to impose last year.)

Anyway, as soon as we got home, he ran upstairs to try on his new underwear. (He really can be a strange child at times).

When he came down later, strutting around, I noticed the front of his new gear looked like (excuse my indelicacy, but this phrase really sums up the look he was sporting) someone had dumped a load in the front of them.

He walked over and said, these underwear are kind of uncomfortable, mom, they go up my bum in the back...like those weird ones you wear.

He did a catwalk spin for me to show the offending bum creepers and that is when I noticed he had them on backwards.

I did take pictures.  But I also promised him that I wouldn't show anyone. 

So for now, I will just put them in the "future blackmail" file I have stored on my hard drive.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

I also have an extra issue of the May/June Simple Scrapbooks magazine up for grabs. 

Simple Scrapbooks

It's kind of an exciting one for me, I was assigned all the bucket openers for this issue.  And if you're like me and have no idea what "bucket openers" means (I just learned it a couple of months ago) it means I was assigned to do the layouts for the opening page of each section of the magazine. 

So, if anyone can tell me how boys are able to wear out their underwear in under 6 months, this issue is all yours.

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!

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!