Can I just tell you...

how terrific my daughter is!! Let me say that she totally made me so very proud of her today! those of you close to me know what happened today and I am not going to invade her privacy and post anything else about it here..but, she is amazing...simply amazing and I am so damn blessed that she is mine!

I love you Mandi!


Until next time,
Blessings!

I hate insurance companies!!!

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I HATE, HATE, HATE insurance companies!! That's all......peace out!

Weekend fun!

what a spectcular weekend we are having here in Chicago...sunny, warm, low humidity, blue skies...perfect!! In fact, we have been having wonderful weather here for awhile..I don't mind so much the hot and humid...me thinks I need to move to Arizona (while it's a dry heat I know...it's nice and HOT)...I just can't take another winter in Chicago...(secret be told...I've been actively looking into homes in the Phoenix area!!)...but, until a move happens....here I am, and while I love going into the city and would miss that, I think I'm ready to give it up for a year round NO SNOW situation!!

So, this past week Mandi had her girlfriend, her bestest buddy, come for a visit....bad scrapper that I can be...I didn't get but one pic and it seriously needs some work so I won't be sharing it here...however, the same day I took said picture, I also got a cute pic of my bff Mary! She came out to pick up some pens and ink I had scored for her at the Renaissance Faire (she saw mine from a previous visit and hadda have some of her own!...since I have been living at the faire this summer...I picked her up some and got myself some more ink...glass pens from Italy..so totally cool!)...anyways, she stopped over to pick up her schtuff and I wanted to get another pic of us together (we have this same pose taken in every pic...it's gonna be a riot of a scrap page one day if I get to it!)...Mary is such a cool person....totally free and loving living life! I seriously love her dreads too...while you can't see how totally long they are in this pic (I might have one where ya can)...they are just COOL! Mandi took this shot of us...not bad huh? LOL



Yesterday, spent the day hanging at my pool with my friend Cathy. I was originally supposed to go scrapping for the day at Archiver's but Cathy and Carla reminded me that it was gonna be fabulous out so we decided to can the scrapping idea and enjoy our nice summer weather! Carla wasn't able to join us..maybe next time Carla!...so Cathy and I just hung out. It was a lot of fun..we noshed on veggies, chips and salsa, cheese and crackers and downed a couple cold Corona's! Got a fair amount of sun and lounged in the water...made for a really nice Saturday! Thanks for hanging out with me Cathy, I had a great time!



So, today I'm hanging inside...well, at least until my new lounge chair gets some shade going on it LOL! I'm jamming out to Robbie and about to work on some scrap stuff....hope you all are enjoying your weekend as much as I am...oooooh....sexed up just came on! Gotta run....

Until next time,
Blessings!

Sexed Up!!!

yeah, read that right...I said SEXED UP!!

alright, so Roger turned me onto this guy a couple years or more ago....he is one, totally HOT guy in my humble opinion...and, yeah, well, when I hear him sing...I just turn to a puddle of goo! Yesterday I was rockin' out to his cd while working on a scrappy project and I decided to ask some of the Freaks I know if they had heard of him...seems he is not as popular here in the states as he is overseas..where he is huge!! One of the Freaks knew who I was talking about, but the majority kinda shrugged their shoulders with a big "who??"

so, after watching a few of his videos on YouTube, and searching for one of my favoritest of his songs..."Sexed Up"...I found this version and thought I'd share it wich ya'll!!

this is the BEST song...even though the subject matter isn't the happiest (listen and you'll see what I mean), it just totally rocks...I mean, I can listen over and over to it! So....for those of you that do know him and enjoy him as much as I do...have fun, and for those of you who don't know who the heck he is...I now introduce you to the fabulous and hot, Robbie Williams!!!




Until next time,
Blessings!

Din Din and Beer Buddy...

yep, that's my "Din Din and Beer Buddy" Cathy! We, on the spur of the moment, decided last night to go out and grab some dinner and a beer! Went to a fabulous little Mexican place in town...sat outside, it was gorgeous! Had my veggie tacos and beans and, of course, a Corona with a lime! I'm not a huge beer drinker...like 2 is my limit before I'm feeling all bloaty and full (I know too much info), but when I do drink a cold one, it's gotta be a Corona...little did I know that when I met Cathy a couple years ago that she was a Corona fan too!

Afterwards we hit the lss for a few minutes and then came home! It was really great to finally get out with Cathy..hell, we live right across the street basically from each other! And, my bonus of the night... I got my pj's back from her and Joe...yep, seems Cathy has been wearing them and...so has Joe...on his head! LOL (alright....I suppose it's only funny to me...lets just call it a ScrapFreak retreat joke!)

Thanks Cathy for a fun time, for the fun pic, and my pj's...so where we going next week?

Until next time,
Blessings!

Mamma Mia...here I go again!

anyone who knows me well will vouch for the fact that I am a true child of the 70's! I love the 70's. Everything about the 70's. I had satellite radio installed in my car because I wanted to listen to my 70's station on XM while I was driving..yay! I love 70's music and that includes both the disco side and the rock/pop side. That being said, when Roger and I took our first trip to NYC, he told me to pick out a Broadway show that I wanted to see and we'd get tickets! Mamma Mia was what first came to my mind. I love ABBA...and, it seems that way before ABBA was to be, I was falling in love with them...how you say? Well, my grandmother was from Sweden and as a child she would play these records she had...they were not exactly pop music, but not the stuff you'd expect to be hearing from your grandmother either. They were by a well-know Swedish group called "The Hep Stars". I would sit for hours listening to these records, and, I have them today...prized possessions of mine, even though I no longer have a record player on which to play them. Okay...getting back....one of the members of "The Hep Stars" was none other than Benny Anderson...yes, of ABBA fame!! So, it seems that my love for ABBA was just a matter of time and transcendence (is that a word? LOL)...back to story...so, with Roger's offer of any Broadway show, I would have loved to have seen "Mamma Mia" but, I knew, that putting Roger through a couple hours of ABBA or any 70's type music would be torturous, he would rather poke his eyes out with a fork I imagine, so instead we got tickets...great seats, right up front, to see "Movin' On" Billy Joel's show.....and, I have to say, it was fabulous!!

Does this story have a point you are wondering? Yes, yes it does!! So...I didn't see "Mamma Mia" on Broadway, and, I had missed it while it was here in Chicago, sometime prior to us going to NYC (sad, I know)...but, low and behold...In December of 2006, "Mamma Mia" came back to Chicago and so I took Mandi! I got us primo seating, and even scored us a before curtain rise party complete with wine, cheese and yummies! It was awesome! The show was amazing, the music was wonderful and Mandi was an instant ABBA fan!

Flash us forward now...I was totally jumping outta my skin when I saw that "Mamma Mia" would be made into a motion picture! I knew that I would be hitting the theater the minute it was out to once again, lose myself in the cute story and fabulous music that I love so much. That time has come! Friday, "Mamma Mia" is in theaters and Mandi and I will be going to see it! I can't wait!

I have to admit I have a hard time seeing Meryl Streep as the "mom" in the story...or the fact that Pierce Brosnan will sing...can he sing??? seriously??? but, I can't wait to find out how they both do. I can't wait to see the funny costuming, representative of ABBA back in the day and in the very least, I will be wowed by all the great ABBA hits again (not that I don't listen to them regularly...I own cd's and video's LOL), and creating yet another fun memory of time well spent with Mandi.

So...in honor of my impending fun time on Friday, and the soon to be released movie....here is the trailer for it....enjoy!!

oh yeah...and if listening to more ABBA tunes is your thing...just start my music player on the sidebar..fully loaded with more ABBA yumminess!

Until next time,
Blessings!

can't think of a title!

I just can't...nothing that sounds fun or cool or anything...I suck at titles for these dang blog posts, maybe I'll just stop doing titles and just type in the date instead???

anyways, been doing better with the Jessica Sprague class and my digi learning. Played around Saturday night and did a layout...this was after doing paper scrapping too! Then Sunday, while waiting for my girlfriend to get here, I started another layout based on a midweek assignment and came up with just a quick little something but I like it! I love learning how to do this, have I mentioned that before?? LOL

so, the first layout I did for our Week 3 assignment. I really like how it turned out, even though I can't take any credit for the actual design, that was Jessica's but I like the finished product and I learned how to do some cool things...create a vellum type journaling space, now that was really fun to do! making a photo mat was fun too! Of course, the wiling subject to my awful camera skills is Ozzi! I know, some of these are repeat pics but so what! I'm just doing this as a learning experience...



this second layout is made using prompts and a kit for our week 2 midweek assignment...not too much designing going on here, just using techniques again to help solidify them in our heads! For this one I am practicing how to install a brush and stamp an image...how to place mulitple photos and align them blah, blah, blah...I also practiced the outlining technique and adding text (which I knew how to do before but it's nice to always refresh a skill)...again, just using some convenient pics for learning the techniques....and, well, I just love these pics and Mandi isn't always a willing photo participant so I gotta pick from what I have! LOL!!



I really, when I think about it, got a lot of scrapping done this weekend! More than I normally do in a month even LOL! I did get a couple new pics of my girlfriend Mary so I have some fresh stuff to work with..that is if they came out ok, I haven't looked at them LOL! otherwise, be on the lookout for some more digi stuff with the same ol same ol pics...ah well...

until next time,
Blessings!

Oswald......

I do scrap, amazing as that may be and while it's not as often as I would like...and I'm not sure why that is, being that really, I have my days to do it, but I don't. I find other things that need to be done, like clean the house, finish laundry, run errands..watch Judge Judy LOL, but I digress...

So last night I went to a crop...got NOTHING done! however, I did find some cute papers for another layout to add to my Ozzi album, and, while I was at that retreat a couple weekends ago and got only 3 layouts accomplished (cough cough...oh well), I managed to get another Ozzi layout done. So today, after purging some much "not used" crap outta my room (feels GREAT), I did a quick layout with said new papers from last night.

Why is it that as scrapbookers we are constantly comparing what we do to others? Why is it that sometimes I see others creations and I feel like I just plain suck at this? Or, I see others in the process of creating layouts and I am amazed at their ability to just "scrap" and do it so damn great! I dunno...I know I enjoy doing this and I should just be happy with that! I'm trying to be all zen about it, but, it's hard! I'm giving up. I'm giving in. I scrap the way I do...it's not fancy, it's not "magazine" quality, I don't have a cool style that sets me apart from other scrappers and you know what...that's ok with me! I think I over think this way too much...I know I over think my layouts way too much and it takes the joy outta this for me. Literally the first layout I'm sharing took me 20 mins. to do...why does it scare me that it took such a little amount of time and I equate that to being bad??? Sheesh.....get over it Cricket...get over it! Okay, enough...

so, here are the two new Oswald layouts for his album. The first one, is using the new Prima papers I got last night...also bought the matching epoxy stickers and some cute red polka dot MM puffy alpha stickers to add the "Slurp" to it!! The second one, well, Roger thought it cute to put his Harley Davidson skull cap on Ozzi and snap some shots! While the picture isn't the "crispest" pic, it was too cute to not scrap. I found some Harley stuff and created this one!





see, nothing special by means of quality or design but the memories are now put down and will be in his album for me to remember each time I look through it! In the end, isn't that what it is all about anyhow?

Until next time,
Blessings!

I can learn PSE, I swear I can!!

LOL!

Yep, I've been a Microsoft Digital Image Suite user for most of my digital scrapbooking days, however when Roger got me the Mac for Christmas, while I could use Microsoft programs on it through it's Leopard OS, I didn't want to put any on it...not my bright and shiny, white and pretty Mac, and this then created a probem...I didn't have any digital scrapbooking software!! ARGH!!

As luck would have it, Photoshop Elements 6.0 for Mac was to be released in the early spring and so I pre-ordered my copy and kinda put my digi stuff on the back burner for awhile. March came along and sure enough, I got my software, installed it onto my baby and.......that's it! Yep, dead end!! I kinda hesitated with learning the program. I signed up for Jessica Sprague's online class, Up and Running with Photoshop and it rocked! Okay, I did the first lesson and then.....dead end again! LOL

Fortunately, Jessica keeps your classes archived for you, and so last night, I decided that enough was enough. I am in need of something to keep my mind busy and this is it...I can learn PSE and I can start doing my digi scrapping again! I spent about two hours going through Lesson 2 and creating a layout. What is fabulous is that she not only has a pdf file of the lesson for you to download, but also a video you can watch..I seriously need both. It was so nice to watch her do a task...stop the video, click onto my PSE and do it, then go back and watch some more...blah, blah, blah!

I am feeling energized again, I have some new confidence that I can succeed at this LOL! and, while it might raise the hairs on the necks of all you traditional scrapbookers out there...I seem to be able to "do digi" easier then "do paper"!! I love to create with paper, but it is a harder task for me than on the computer....I dunno....but I like it....I like it a lot (said in my best Jim Carrey...Dumb and Dumber voice)....

so, here is the layout I did. Now, it starts off with a quick page type layout already. We learned to crop, and add multiple photos, make a bulleted journaling list, load and use a brush (YAHOOOOOO!!....totally stinkin fun!!) and also to create these little circled date things...I will say that having some knowledge prior, even though it was on a different program, has helped me with some things...

I used pictures from the infamous Mandi photo shoot last November...so bummed that pneumonia knocked out my chances for another shoot this past June with Chris!



now, here's an even cooler thing..well, for me it is, tonight I am going to a crop at the lss. I am soooo bad at packing up my paper supplies for crops. Being blessed with my own room has created a bit of a hassle when it comes to mobile scrapping! I never get stuff packed I want...I always wait until the last minute and then just sort of half-assed throw shit into my bag (sorry...I do have a potty mouth, but I'm okay with it!) and ultimately the crops always suck for me cause I never get anything done! Well, tonight, all I have to do is pack up my laptop and my external and away I go! While I can't connect to the internet and view the lesson videos for class, viola, I have the pdfs all downloaded and saved to my baby!! I'm seriously psyched for tonight!! I also have one little layout I'm taking, just incase the itch to glue something down hits..but that's already accounted for and I'm good to go...and, with 3 hours to spare!!! What shall I do with my extra time?? Oh yeah, Judge Judy is on in a minute...that's right!

So, next post maybe I'll actually have some layouts to share that I create at a crop! Don't hold your breath too hard though, I am quite the chatty type and may not get a dang thing accomplished..we shall see!

Until next time,
Blessings!

my girl...

well, better late than never right? LOL! I had to wait for what seemed like ages to get these pictures from Roger. Unfortunately, the pictures I took that night sucked! Yep, I said it, sucked! I don't know if I had my camera on a funky setting or what the hell was up but not a one picture turned out...can you say major disappointment??

Luckily both Roger and my mother took pictures (still need to get them from my mom) and so I have a few shots with which I will be able to scrap a page or two for the memory book! :)

Mandi graduated! Yep, I no longer have a middle school child, I have a freshman in freakin' HIGH SCHOOL!! Time has sure gone by quick. I look at pictures of her when she was just a baby or a toddler and it really does feel like just yesterday. I had been told by many a "mom" that the years would fly by and before I knew it, my child would be all grown up! It's true...only, they aren't flying by, they are whizzing by with light speed!!

I hope that these next four years of high school are a great experience for both Mandi and myself. I'm just a tad bit unnerved by the fact that she, my little girl, is going into a world where...well...let's face it...remember what you did in high school? LOL

So, here she is, my little...no wait...my big girl!



Congratulations Amanda, I'm so very proud of you!

Until next time,
Blessings!

Still here...bad blogger...

Still around! Thanks everyone who has emailed me to check and see if I'm alright! I'm fine, just been wacky, crazy busy with summer and stuff! Was outta town last weekend and now here we are at the Fourth of July already! Time is flying I tell ya!!

Anyways, got some layouts done at a crop last weekend and I'll take pics and post soon!

Hope everyone has a safe and fabulous Fourth of July!! I'll be back, I promise!!

Until next time,
Blessings!