Looks like I'll be spending some money...

Wow, tomorrow is going to be a HUGE day for digiscrappers. Lots of grand opening tomorrow! A Cherry on Top is going to be opening its digi store. Lots of my favorite designers and scrapping friends on that list! (Yay Helen!!! Woohoo!)
Then there's the opening of Sweet Shoppe Designs with Robin Carlton and a lot of other fab designers who were at Digi Chick. And I just read on Carrie Stephen's blog that The Shabby Shoppe is having a grand re-opening with lots of exclusive kits from awesome designers. (That kit by Carrie is going right in the cart!) And Hunibuni has also been hinting at a big secret to be announced in February.

So exciting. And we're going to be having lots of things going on at RAKScraps too! We'll be announcing our new team members soon and we're getting ready for RAK week!

Check out these LOs

I love these gals. Look what Taniaand Amy did with my kits! These are amazing!!!

At the movies

It was a double feature weekend. Saw Memoirs of Geisha on Sunday and Match Point tonight. Both really great movies. Geisha was really just beautiful to watch and a great love story. Need to read the book now. I love Woody Allen's movies and have seen so many - Match Point has joined my list of favorites. A really great dark story, great cast too. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is hot.

Happy New Year

It's the year of the dog!
(Credits: Shelly Chua's Happy Lunar New Year)



And we're going to be celebrating my friend Betty's birthday later! If you're lurking Betty, happy birthday chica!
(Credit's Tania Cordova's Molly papers & alphas, flower from my Flowers for Randi kit all at Scrapdish)

Big News

Check out Correen in the news! Yes that's her and not her evil twin Corinne Silkes. The reporter got them confused. Susan - aka javamama - is also in there! When I met Susan at the digi convention, she said she didn't think there were any other digiscrappers in N.H. - and I just pointed to Correen. :) Way to promote RAKScraps and Silkescraps Correen!

10 things

So I started a new blog just for fun. It's called Ten Things. I'm obsessed with lists - making them and reading them - and easily bored, so I decided to start a list for my own - and you can add your own too. Hope you'll come play!




Also, does anyone know how I can get rid of that dash up there???? I hate it. Can't figure out how to make it go away and I can barely figure out all this coding stuff. :)

Getting creeped out ...

I'm starting to feel creeped out by the big picture of me below so I need to write something to bump this down. Ummmm, oh, well, ok, here's something cute. Amy commented on one of my LOs today and said... "James says, 'Hi Wa-bin.' " That's just too sweet. They were looking at the gallery together and Amy says he liked my glasses. Taylor would probably say "That's my Nonnie" and then she'd try to give me a bert right on the computer screen.

This is my latest Chick's Life page. Took this photo in the bathroom because I like the weird glow from the lighting. Don't need to use the heavy filters! (Credits: Everything by Jen Wilson, Inner Elegance and Aunt Ida's Room)

Here are some new LOs from the Scrapdish CT.... Maria's Snuggle,using Cozy papers and elements, and Melinda's Sarah and the Gym, using the Monica papers.

Remembering a colleague

So one of the best things about working in the news business is the crazy and interesting people you meet. Some of them are people you interview, but a lot of them are people you work with in the newroom.
I got an email from a former co-worker yesterday letting me know someone we worked with in Norwich died. Tony Whyte was one of those great newspaper characters. He'd worked everywhere, knew everything. He spoke much better Spanish than I did (not saying much) and he and this other guy Chuck would gossip with me in Spanish, because we were the only ones who knew the language. I didn't work with him very long - he left Norwich for the Danbury News Times soon after I started working there, but he was one of the first people I met. He had organized a team from the newsroom to help new people move - I think they were the RATs (relocation assistance team or something like that - and he and a bunch of my new co-workers showed up at my apartment on moving day. We had gotten there a few hours earlier than we expected so I was pretty much unpacked, but it was nice to meet some people before having to start my first job right out of college in a new state away from my family. Strangely, I was just thinking about him the other day before I heard the news.

I just found his obit and found a few more interesting things: He was a U.S. Army veteran, serving in the Caribbean, Korea and Japan; he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for a series on China; he served at newspapers in Puerto Rico, Oregon, Washington and Connecticut, including the Norwich Bulletin and, most recently, The News-Times for the past seven years; he also served in the editorial departments of two television stations, one in Puerto Rico and the other in Portland, Ore.; he was bilingual in English and Spanish and was conversational in Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and Russian.

They just don't make them like this anymore.

I'm fibers

Just saw this quiz on Audra's blog...

You are Fibers!

Fun and crazy at times. You are a warm fuzzy kind of person. You run around getting things done but still find time for fun! You have so many diverse interests that it is often hard to pin you down to any one thing. People love your friendly attitude and carefree ways. You often brighten other people's days. But Fibers Beware - Sometimes people don't take you seriously because of your happy-go-lucky ways. Sometimes you find yourself feeling left out from decision making that could

directly affect you. Even though you like to be happy and cheerful, make sure others know that you can also be serious and in tune with reality.


What scrapbooking item are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Some news stuff...

I've got some more new stuff at Scrapdish. My new Monica papers were created for the shower invites (see below) and I've been catching up on some elements to go with my paper packs. I just love papers, and I'm not a big element user, so the inspiration for elements can take forever.

Oh and check out the latest, hot off the grill issue of The Dish, our Scrapdish newsletter! We've got some previews, a Q&A with Jeanine and info about our first Scrapdish contest!!!

World's Easiest Challenge

Check out Kim's World's Easiest Impromptu Challenge! So easy and fun and there's an awesome freebie just for playing!

hee hee

Happy Birthday SBB

Scrapbook-Bytes is turning 3 this week. Check out who's sponsoring the party! You can win some Scrapdish prizes there. Lots of crops and sales going on. (Yes, I'm encouraging people to visit a site that is not RAKScraps - but just this week LOL.) I got started digiscrapping at SBB and have made lots of good friends there. Last year's birthday party was a blast.

Did some scrapping

Top: Taylor loves to hold Kylie. I used the RAKScraps Anniversary Kit by me, Correen, Jeanine & Rachel at Scrapdish for this one.

Middle: I used Pri's comment on my blog when I posted this photo as the title! Loved it! :) Used the Home for the Holidays kit from Scrapartist for this one.

Last but not least: Some photos from 2004, I used Amy Knepper's fantabulous Home for the Holidays kit from Scrapdish. I've been working on this page for weeks and it finally all came together for me when I thought of using the torn paper - like the ripped wrapping. This kit is so full of amazing little pieces - embellished tags, cards, ornaments - just amazing!

Love these!!!

I had such a weird day! Horrible case of insomnia. The nieces slept over so I was up early to play. Then I took a nap for most of the afternoon. Wasn't around RAKScraps at all until it was time for my chat, so it was nice suprise to see these in the gallery! :)
I just love Tracy's I hope you dance LO (using Flowers for Randi) and Audra's Family page (using Comfy)!

Non-scrapping projects

Even when I'm not scrapping, I'm still at the computer. I've had two projects on my plate this week - invites for my friend Monica's shower, and ticket and fliers for Randi's school casino night.

Japan

This was fun! I got to design a page for our travel section this week.

WOWs

This makes me so happy... Look what Amy Jo did with my Cozy Papers... Boys are Weird

And Christy did this one with my Comfy Papers... Make A Wish

Scrapdish is sponsoring the RAKScraps team and I can't WAIT to see what they come up with! :)

Intentions 2006

This is my next page for the Chick's Life challenge. I had the idea in my head for a few days, but after coming home feeling bummed after work, I had to scrap it and cheer myself up! My other big goal for the year is getting organized, but that's easier in comparison. I really need to learn how to relax, see things more positively and not let things bug me so much.

Credits (all my favorite colors!)
Papers from Meredith Fenwick's True Colors CD
Molly Alphas by Tania Cordova
Sunflower from Jen Wilson's Indian Summer Day kit

I'm in love...

... with this photo! Even though it's sepia. (It came that way)

New papers

These are my new Comfy papers at Scrapdish. I feel like I'm on a roll lately! :) I was inspired by my favorite scarf that I wear all the time, and which Taylor tries to steal.

And I am so happy that my friend Tania is going to be joining us a Scrapdish! :)

Twilight zone kinda day

I overslept through my alarm and woke up when mom called. I had the TV on, but wasn't really paying attention. I could have sworn I left the computer on, but it was off and I just rebooted and worked on a page. Went outside and saw that all the recycling bins put outside the night before were strewn all over the block and there were cans and bottles everywhere. I noticed a few stray branches while driving to work. And then when I get here - I found out I slept through the big story! Apparently big storms hit the area. The Hudson River bridges were closed. Hundreds of people are without power. Trees fell down all over the place. Power lines caused fires. It was a disaster. But I slept really well. (Isn't that horrible!)

Depressing children's literature

As if my Harry Potter depression wasn't bad enough. (If you read book 6, you know what I'm talking about.)
I just finished The Last Battle, the last book of The Chronicles of Narnia. And as I was reading the last chapter, I started bawliing! That NEVER happens to me. But something about it all was just so amazing and touching that it really affected me.

Randi & I have also been reading A Series of Unfortunate events. These books are a riot and are super easy to read. I especially love the play on words and the hints of consipracy. I just finished book 6. There are so great, but so grim. I really want things to be ok for these kids, so I just keep reading. Randi is way ahead of me - she's on book 11.

4s

I'm procrastinating today as I'm trying to flatten all my LOs. And then I saw that Ginger tagged me!

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
Page designer
Reporter
Cashier at Pathmark
Baby-sitter

Four movies you would watch over and over:
The Princess Bride
Muriel's Wedding
Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf
When Harry Met Sally


Four places you have lived:
West New York, NJ
New Brunswick, NJ
Norwich, Conn.
Houston, Texas

Four TV shows you love to watch:
The Simpsons
All My Children
Lost
Grey's Anatomy

Four places you have been on vacation:
Florida
Upstate New York
Maine
Italy

Four websites you visit daily:'
RAKScraps
SBB
CNN
AOL


Four of your favorite foods:
Cheese
Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwiches
Chicken Enchiladas
Arroz con Pollo

Four places you would rather be right now:
Accepting a check for winning the lottery
On a shopping spree spending my lottery winnings
Taking a cruise
In the mansion I bought with my lottery winnings

Four bloggers you are tagging:
AmyK
Correen
Mrs.S
Tania

Newsletters!!!!

RAKScraps January Newsletter is here! Check out all the great LOs and sponsor reviews. This month I even got some LOs done so look for Kylie's newsletter debut! :) And don't forget the great freebies too!

I love the new RAKScraps Mega Kit too! It's all about babies and new beginnings, and the team picked this theme in honor of Kylie and Emma (Ruby Ann) Knepper. I loved creating the alphas for this one! You can find out how to get it FREE here. (If you have questions, ask Correen. Just kidding - ask any of us!)

It's a big day for newsletters. I also got Fishscraps Newsletter in my inbox, with a pretty cool deal from Carrie Stephens, who I just love, and the new Digi Chick De-zine, which I enjoyed reading. I already used the tut on stitching (see LO below). Reminds me I haven't gotten any noticed on the SBB newsletter lately. Dianne Rigdon also sent out a nice note from Shabby Elements today. My other fav, which came out a bit earlier, is The Muse, from Scrapartist, which is just gorgeous. You won't get a lot of these unless you sign up for the mailing lists! It's worth it!!!

742 Evergreen Terrace

The Simpsons debuted on Fox Jan. 14, 1990! I can't believe it's been that long.

I have been watching since the show started. I had to watch it upstairs in my room because my mom didn't approve. They used to yell up the stairs at me because I'd be laughing so loud. The first special aired in Dec. 17, 1989 - Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire. It's the episode where they get Santa's Little Helper. The first regular episode was Bart The Genius, when Bart switches tests with Martin and goes to a gifted school. Now in season 17, I think the show is just as funny as ever. The recent Christmas and Sideshow Bob shows are going on my list of favorites.

Here are some of my other favorite things from the Simpsons:
Favorite Web site: The Simpsons Archive
Favorite characters: Ralph Wiggum, Sideshow Bob, Mr. Burns
Favorite guest star: John Waters, as John in Homer's phobia
Favorite Song: Plant of the Apes the Musical in A Fish Called Selma, followed closely by the Stone Cutters song
Favorite Couple: Skinner and Mrs. Krabappel
Favorite Quote: Me fail English, that's unpossible (and anything else Ralph says)
David's Favorite episode: Bart on The Road

Looking back at 2005

Because I want to do everything Amy and Tania do, I did my 2005 LO too. :) I used my list that I posted here on the blog and chopped it up a bit.

The photos are, from the top:
* Me & Vesna before the wedding
* Kylie
* Rocky wearing his "My humans went to Disney World" bandana (the only photo I took on this page too BTW)
* Correen & me at the convention (Thanks Jeanine for the photo)
* Mikey, Khoder and Taylor at the Bronx Zoo
* And a photo of Randi at Central Park that I just liked.

(Credits: Comfy & Cozy papers by me at Scrapdish)

RAKathon

Going on now... RAKScraps RAKathon! Here's the scoop...

Hope you're ready to scrap and have some fun! We're so sorry that a lot of people missed out on the fun because of all the site problems we had, but to make it up, we're packing this weekend (Jan 13-15) with challenges and prizes for our RAKathon!

Here's some of the fun we have in store:
* Second Chance December Special Event
* Layout a Day Challenge
* Exchange Club Trivia
* Rectangle Scrapping Challenge
* RAK up Your Posts Challenge
* Gallery Posting Challenge
* Comment and win contest
* Plus some RAKs and Prizes!!!

Jen Wilson Sale

I have been waiting since yesterday to check out Jen's sale. It's pretty amazing that one person could cause a whole site to overload. A sign of Jen's greatness. :) Sad thing is, I think I own everything already!!!

Of course I'm having a sale too, if anyone could possibly care!

On Lost last night...

Charlie to Eko: "Are you gonna beat me with your Jesus stick?"
That line killed me. So glad Lost is back.

I had to show off this little cutie some more. :) I created this LO with Meredith Fenwick's Peppermint Bark kit, chipboard alphas and fonts.
Kylie and Taylor came over to play this weekend. Taylor finally got to play with her princess' castle. Gotta ask you moms reading this if it's weird that a 2 year old makes her dolls make out! We also had fun spinning her around on her new sit and spin that she just opened. We hadn't seen the girls since Christmas so there were still unopened gifts sitting around.

I also got to see 2 movies I've been dying to see this weekend: Charlie and The Chocolate Factory - which I like better than Willy Wonka (and I love that movie) - and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which was just amazing! It's so good to see a movie where kids can actually act. (Actually, the kids were really good in both of these movies) Loved all the effects, especially Aslan! I was actually startled a few times because I am always scared of wolves. And because I'm such a nerd, I have to IMDB every movie I see, and I figured out the Witch's dwarf was the guy who played the body double for Frodo in LOTR. :) I was thinking the dwarf and the Oompa Loompa were the same person.

RAKScraps Element Team Call

We're looking for some new designers to join our Rakscraps elements team!

RAKScraps is back!!!!!!!

Woohoo! I'm so happy RAKscraps is back! It just makes my days so much better! :)

I was browsing through the gallery and I saw two awesome pages that just made my day!
Check out Amy K's Smile LO, which uses my Cozy papers. And Priscilla's I Love Christmas page, which uses my All Wrapped Up papers.

You gals are the BEST!!!! Thanks for making me look good too! :)

I am feeling yuck tonight. I can't wait to get home and get to bed. I have tons to do tomorrow - make some shower invitatons, work on a new kit, get ready for the Night Owl Chat. YIKES!

Oh, and our gallery opening mixer has been rescheduled! It's going to be at 9 p.m. EST on Monday, Dec. 9.
Check out the awesome freebie from Correen & Rachel that you'll get just for coming!

Mail call

I've gotten a few new postcards!

Raji(rsk), a friend from RAKscraps, was so nice to send me this postcard from Switzerland!





Aunt Eileen and Uncle Bruce recently went back to Oatman Arizona, an Old West kinda town, and the Grand Canyon.

Art Inspiration Challenge

If you're missing RAKscraps or need a challenge, this is the art piece (Gregory Williams Reflections) for the current art inspiration challenge. You can still work on it and post when we're back up again. Or you can send me a link! :)


This is my LO....



(Credits: Nancie Rowe Janitz's Let it Snow papers)

Together we shall rule as father and spud

One of my favorite Christmas gifts.

I need this one!

When I'm bored I shop! And I'm realy trying not to buy so many kits, but it's just too hard when some of my favorite designers work together. I just noticed that Jen Wilson is the new featured artist at Scrapartist and she collaborated with Michelle, Nancie and Lisa on this fabulous kit callled Forget Me Not.

RAKScraps server move

For anyone else who misses RAKScraps, we're moving servers this week and hopefully we'll be bigger and better than ever and all of our slowness problems will be fixed. We had to close the site for awhile and we hope everyone understands.

What have you RAKers been doing while the site has been having issues? I burned 60+ CDs of kits, photos and my other projects this week. I designed some tickets for Randi's casino night fundraiser. I also uploaded a lot of my digital photos to Sams Club to have them printed. Next I'm going to flattening my LOs and saving them as tiffs.

You can read more too about the server move on Jeanine's blog (Maybe you'll find something else there too!)

King Kong

We saw King Kong last night. Pretty cool, but a little long. The effects were awesome - Peter Jackson goes all out again - but I thought there were a few wholes in the story. Maybe they're in the original too? I've never seen it (just rip offs like in the Simpsons Tree House of Horror episode). Like what happens to the natives and I really don't think anyone could climb up to the Empire State Building in winter without getting blown off, especially with a big ape and planes bouncing around. And in heels! But anyway, I thought it was entertaining enough - worth seeing on the big screen. The Skull Island scenes had me me biting my nails. The natives and bugs were so creepy. I was often surprised by the action. When I thought something was done, the story would take it a little further - like who'd expect those T-Rex's to be hanging around. Another fantastic digital performance by Andy Serkis too.

Bloggers

I love to read blogs, especially when I'm at work. I don't have them bookmarked at home, so I just updated my list over on the right there. I've also been reading my friend Mitra's blog from the Washington Post. She kept a blog while she was in India on assignment.

Resolutions

The only thing that's different about this is that this mess is now in a different home! I did take that bridesmaid dress to the cleaners before I moved, but I never remember to pick it up! I don't even know if they still have it or if they could get out a horrible wine stain. I think I got rid of those socks. And I did just start to organize and back up my computer files. So I think I'll just photoshop that 5 into a 6!

(Credits: Gina Cabrera's Adore Kit)

Happy 2006

We're just watched the ball drop here at work. Happy New Year everyone!!!!
(I never get how people stand out there freezing in Times Square!)