Saturday, September 15, 2007

What I have learned in the last 36 years...

This topic is part of a challenge at Rocky Mountain Hobbies and it got me thinking...thought I'd journal some thoughts here.

I've learned that:

having kids is the best and toughest experience I'll probably ever have
I can live without tv (but not movies)
chocolate is its own food group
college really is better than high school in every way
it's a good idea to choose a vocation and not just be the liberal arts major
my mom is a cooler person than I thought she was
my dad really did know more than I did as a teenager
travel broadens your outlook on life
a camera is a great sidekick
homemade ice cream is better than store bought
root beer is my favorite carbonated beverage
love is complicated and not always lovey and romantic
knowledge is power
not everyone thinks the same way I do (thank goodness)
laughter is good medicine
hormones control the universe

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Mean Squirrel

I don't think I've posted about the mean squirrel that lives in one of our palm trees. We had a baby squirrel fall out of the tree about 3 weeks ago, and then the body vanished about 3 days later, leaving only a small amount of fur. We thought this was weird. The baby was awfully cute too. Too bad really.

This leads me to the mean squirrel. We hadn't encountered this squirrel before the baby dropping out of the palm tree incident, but she/he has been there every day since...hissing, chattering, and giving us the evil eye almost every day since. She even ran at Mr. Geek one time and he kicked at M.S., he was afraid it would bite him. It's like he/she is mad at at us for taking the baby away, we can't figure it out. M.S. is acting through the grief perhaps...going through the Kubler-Ross stages of death and dying and grief. I hope M.S. is through soon...I am getting pretty tired of the hissing, etc. every time I take the garbage out or take the kids to the car.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Ah, high school...

It wasn't a high point in my life. I'm that rare person who PREFERRED middle school. Yes. Betcha don't meet too many of those types. There were things I liked about high school though. I liked German class (most of the time), journalism, drawing and painting, theater production, but most of all, I liked Creative Writing. I had this very inspired new teacher named Mr. Nolet. He found so many ways to draw so many of us into writing, and writing about our experiences. He actually valued our opinions and thought our feelings were real. It was nice to feel truly respected by a teacher. His class was my favorite high school class.

I know you may find this hard to believe, but I wasn't one of the popular kids. Shock! Horror! Alert the presses! I was friends with a few of the popular kids from middle school, who sort of remained aquaintances throughout. I was pretty good at having a lot of aquaintances. My best friend from high school was probably Mikhael. She was her own person and was sooooo cool about it. She had a mohawk and wore black eyeliner, and she was as sweet and smart as could be. She and I went out a number of times, including an overnight or two at her house where we, characteristically, sneaked out. Doesn't every high school kid do this at some point or another?? And yes, we concocted strange fruity alcoholic beverages on the sly once or twice. She had a fake i.d. and got into dance clubs. She is the only person from high school I have met since high school, though not since college ended. We liked listening to Depeche Mode and the Cure and a few other bands I can't really recall right now.

My other high school aquaintances were a mixed bunch...proper Melissa who went to Wellesley and planned out her life meticulously, Michelle who was always there to talk to or go out for a coffee with, Jane who was my walking buddy, and crazy Paisley who was very smart and never really rubbed it in your face. It wouldn't be until college that I would get to be good friends with any guys. In fact, it wouldn't be until I went to Vermont.

High school was a long time ago...18 years ago. It's hard to believe that now none of that crap really matters and I'm a mom of a kid in first grade and another in preschool. I was pretty adamant about never having children when I was in high school because of the pain associated with childbirth. Turns out I was right about the pain, but I was too naive then to know it was all worth it. I'm wanting to start scrapping a bit of my high school days soon, so I'm trying to get into that mindset. I have so many projects going on right now it's hard to keep up or even feel like I can. A scrapbooker is never actually "caught up" though. At least none that I have ever met.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

This layout cracks me up!



I worked on this layout this week, it was a very fun memory. Too bad the dude doesn't do that anymore. :(

HELP ME!!


My poor paypal account has really taken a beating lately! There's so much great new scrappy stuff to buy. My favorite has to be those new 7 gypsies change out stamps. I bought 3 sets. THREE!! That makes 9 different stamps. I have two more on my radar that I want as well. My other problem is that so much great stuff is on clearance to buy right now. I seem to be incapable of stopping myself from picking up a good deal. No, I don't need 20 more sheets of that Crate Paper I fell in love with in the spring. But they are 40% off...how can I say no to that?? Then there's the irrational fear that you might "run out." Yeah. Right. As if I don't have 10,000 other patterned papers to choose from. I think I may need counseling. The worst for me is collecting American Crafts alpha stickers and thickers. It's a serious illness, I tell you.

I've done a lot of scrapping the last few weeks. It's nice having the kids back at school with a bit more free time for me. I've also loved just getting back to it after about 2 months off for our move. It's just not a good day if there's not at least a little bit of scrapping or fondling of papers and ribbons.

I'll be getting ready to try some alcohol inks for the first time this week...I can't wait!

I love this train man page I made, I posted it above. The Cosmo Cricket Halfway Cafe papers were just perfect for these old trains. I did Andy's birthday party with these papers as well, they were perfect.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Back to school (and normalcy)


After a 3 day and party weekend, the kids are back in school. Whew. The pizza, corn, and ice cream sundae party went really well. I think Rob had a fantastic day. It was really hot out...over 100. Ugh. The unlikely food combos went over pretty well with everyone.

We decided to go to Big Basin Redwoods and then to Santa Cruz for the day on Sunday. We never made it to the redwoods because it was so hot, the roads were very windy, and I started feeling really ill. So we continued on down to Santa Cruz, just south of there to Capitola and Aptos. It was CRAZY busy on that beach! Never seen anything like it! It also stunk to high heaven from all the seaweed. There were millions of sand fleas as well. I was ready to continue on to another place, but Mr. Geek wanted to stay. So we did. For a while. The definite high point was seeing dolphins a ways offshore...too cool! They didn't hang around long, though, and the beach held no interest for me without them.

I have to gripe a bit about our counter job on Friday. It's not done. Not by a long shot. And the part that was finished was done so poorly that Mr. Geek wants them to take it out and redo it. They started out by not measuring or cutting (or maybe both) the laminate properly. The instead of going back and fixing the problem, they cut corners and fudged and didn't support the back and side splash at all. It's off by more than an inch on the right side. It doesn't even reach it's intended support so it's just floating there. Sheesh! How can you be off by that much??!! Oh, and the sink is leaking under the faucet.

Let's hope they make things right this week. I've lost enough sleep (and money) over this. This is what comes of choosing the low bidder. Shhhhh, don't tell my husband.

I added a pic of my huckleberry layout here. Love how it turned out. This pic is my first with my manual zoom lens on my Lumix.