Day with Kylie: The Sequel

Tueday seems to have become my day for having lots to do and little sleep! I had to watch poor Kylie again this week.
The crazy day started off bad when I left work around 1:15 am - I had a heads up from Mike this time that they needed me to babysit, but I got stuck at work late. Then I fell on my ass, slipping on the ice on the way to my car. (BTW, it only started hurting today - what's up with that! Ouch!) When I got home, I saw there had been a power outage at some point because my clock was blinking. After the usual trouble sleeping, the alarm woke me up at 7, except it wasn't 7. It was 5. I had set the clock two hours ahead and I couldn't fall back asleep.

Kylie arrived around 8ish. She was upset when her dad left and there herself on the floor. My mom ran out to get me some coffee from Dunkin Donuts around the block, and when she left, Kylie started playing with me. But then, when she returned, Kylie threw herself back on the floor! She got all dramatic for grandma! (That's so very Taylor, not like her at all. Wonder if she's been taking lessons!)

But I am lucky that even sick, she's a great kid. Kylie took a nap and the spent most of the day climbling up and down on the couch. She ate all her lunch just fine and was in a happy mood. I can't say the same about my mood! I can only take so much of these kiddy cartoons! I have had the Wonder Pets song in my head all day. (The phone, the phone is ringing .....)

Kylie fell asleep again around 2:30. Mike had to tutor after school and wouldn't be able to pick her up, so I needed to start getting things ready for work. I went into the kitchen to get my dinner ready, and Kylie started bawling!!! I felt so bad. She didn't want anything to do with me. She just sat on the floor near the couch and sucked on her thumb. She felt a little warm so I'm guessing she didn't feel well. But it figures that she was good all day and then got cranky right before Mike showed up!

And well, after that I had to get myself to work and my boss was nice enough to let me leave early. I will say again - I don't know how any parents do this on a regular basis!!!! Two days in 1 month is enough for me!

Happy Birthday Rachel!!!!

It's Rachel's birthday today! That means we'll be celebrating over at RAKScraps! I just love Rachel, her fabulous designs, her sense of humor, and her taste television shows (she's also a big Grey's fan). I know if I have something snarky I need to say but don't want to say it out loud, I can always tell her! Here's a card I made for her. You can see the creds here.



Love ya Rachel!!!!! Hope you have a wonderful birthday! :)

And the Oscar goes to....

So I had a great time watching the Oscars! I had a bunch of friends over - although not as many as hoped and now I have a ton of leftovers! :) We had so much food and we made yummy chocolate martinis.
I'm not sure if they air them live on the West Coast - so if not there could be some spoilers here. Just warning ya!
I was glad to see the Departed win Best Picture and Martin Scorsese take the prize for Best Director. I saw sooooo many movies in the last year and they didn't get nods - but this is one I saw and loved. Great story and so many great actors. And hot ones too! Matt, Leo, Mark. Mmmmmm...
I was suprised by a few of the night's upsets! Eddie Murphy lost to Alan Arkin - but I loved him in Little Miss Sunshine, too. And what a joke about Happy Feet beating Cars. I didn't see that one - but I don't know anyone over 5 who liked Happy Feet, whereas Cars was so cute and warm and fuzzy.
Pan's Labrynth won a bunch of awards - and that was a really awesome movie. I was also really happy for Jennifer Hudson! I was glad Little Miss Sunshine also won for Original Screenplay too. Also very thrilled for An Inconvenient Truth for Documentary. (If you haven't seen it - it is really great and scary! And I really don't think it's a Democrat vs. Republican thing. It's about the future of our planet.)
I didn't see any of the other award winning actors - but I've already added most of the films to my super long Netflix queue. Oh and I won the Oscar pool too, which is nice since I made back a little bit of the money I spent on the party!
Well, in honor of Jennifer Hudson, I'm listening to the Dreamgirls soundtrack and hope to get some scrapping done tonight! :)

Love ya Mish!!!!

I realized that I haven't formally welcomed the newest member of my creative team - my dear friend Mish Gasser! :) You may know her from around the digi world as Ohiotubagal. I've known her since she was on the team at RAKs, and now she's selling her own super cool designs at Plain Digital Wrapper and I think at 1 Hour Scrap, too. (Let me know if I'm right there, Mish. LOL)

Here's the first page Mish did as part of my team using my Bright papers from the Colorfully You collection. I just love her adorable girls! Full credits are here. So glad to have you joining the team Mish!!!!!!!

I'm bored

So it's Saturday night and I've got the house to myself. Randi's out at a Gypsy Kings concert. Mom's out at some Irish show with Grandma. I'm not totally alone since Rocky's here.
I just picked up some stuff to make quesedillas for my Oscar party tomorrow. I'm not sure what I'm going to do tonight. I don't really feel like scrapping. I had forgotten to send my movies back until Thursday, so I didn't get anything new from Netflix to watch. I think I may order some dinner and check out what's on demand.

So Randi rented two movies that I just watched. The first was a documentary - The U.S. vs. John Lennon. Now being a big Beatles fan - I've read tons of books on the Beatles, but this focused on a period I didn't know so much about. It was about John's association with radical activists like Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale and how the Nixon administration targeted Lennon and caused problems for him since he wasn't a citizen. It talked a lot about his activisim and all the crazy stunts he and Yoko put together like the bed in and War is Over if You Want It. And it was edited nicely with lots of songs by John. I really liked it, and well anything about John Lennon just makes me teary.

I also watched Flags of Our Fathers, which was ok. I'm not a big Eastwood fan. I had a hard time following some of the story since there were multiple narrators and flashbacks. And some of the war scenes were a little too gruesome. I already had enough realistic gruesome war scenes in Saving Private Ryan, which I liked way better.

So I have been meaning to blog about my favorite show, Grey's Anatomy. I am sooooooooo disappointed in the last three-episode arch. Blah! Big old February sweeps ratings stunt. That's the kind of stuff that turned me off from ER. There were some good things - like Patrick Dempsey's performace. He was so incredible and Derek's pain was so real. And it was nice to see Denny. I did like Izzie's return to herself (except for her problems with George and Callie). But the whole Meredith drowning and then all of them saving Meredith was crap. There's no way they could have brought her back like that or kept at it. There was a major disaster in the city and all of the top surgeons were working on 1 patient. So unrealistic! And I just didn't like the dream or whatever that was. It made no sense!!!!! Why did that girl keep bleeding? Ugh! I hope things get back to normal soon! Thanks for listening to me rant!!!

On the other hand I'm loving Lost lately and the Office. So at least I have other shows to keep me happy. Even Desperate Housewives has been pretty good. I'm such a TV junkie, especially now that I have my Tivo.

So maybe I'll feel inspired later and get working on some scrappy stuff, but for now I think I'll go watch more TV.

My mess!!!

Well this LO is proof that I'm not doing well with my new year's resolution...We had a challenge on Jess's team to scrap our work space using more than 1 of Jess's kits. (I used 5!!!) You can see the credits here. What's sad about this photo taken this week is that so much of that mess is also in this page I did back in August for Chick's Life. I think it's way worse now!

Credits

I am really hopeless. I have no motivation or energy to get any of this stuff cleaned up. I do need to clean up downstairs because I am having a Oscar party on Sunday! But there's no way I'd let anyone up here! Gross!!!!

New Sketch Challenge is up at RAKScraps!

I am really loving the Sketch Challenge! It's so cool to see how many spins people can put on a sketch! :) I posted a new challenge at RAKScraps this week. And you can grab the free templates there now too!

And here's a page I did with the sketch. using some of the cute photos I took on my day with Kylie ...
I got to play with Tracy Ann Robinson's super cool Project 26 at SBB for this page! :) You can see all the credits here. Hope you'll join in the challenge too!

Sick and scrapping

I stayed home from work today since I wasn't feeling well. But at least staying home the last few days, I've been able to get a few things done. Got all my stuff organized for the accountant I'm supposed to go to tomorrow. And I've gotten a bunch of pages done and caught up with all the RAK Week challenges!

Here's one I did while ACDSee was working for me. (Don't know why it's not right now!) I had organized all my stuff by Dani B and here's what I came up with! I just love her Sizzle and Schmoope Pie Elements from SBB! You can see the rest of the credits here.

This one was for Oriana's Before and After Challenge. I found some photos of me in the same sweater taken about a year apart. I'm still a little shocked seeing the difference. :) And it gave me a good excuse to use Michelle Coleman's Antique Garden kit that I picked up at the Scrapartist sale! Credits

Melinda challenged us to scrap in a different shape. So I went to 8 x 10. And if you check my gallery at SBB all the way at the back there are lots of rectangles there, but I wouldn't recommend it because those pages are gross! LOL! (Seriously, we were at my brother's house recently and Vez was showing off the first book I gave her and I feel bad for Taylor since her book isn't as nice as Kylie's!). Anyways.... I had let Taylor take a few photos with my camera since I knew I wanted to play with Jessica Bolton's Delight In Photographs 2 Papers and Elements.

Meredith challenged us to do a page about love, so I did one about Rocky! And even though I'm not in the LO, I'm def. one of the girls who loves him - which you can tell by all the photos I take! I used the sketch template for the challenge over at Sweet Shoppe Designs, which is based on a LO by Karen Wong who I just love! Credits

And Sue challenged us to scrap what's outside our window. We got snow this week - and you all probably know how much I hate snow. I still like to scrap about complaining about snow! Credits

I want to try to get to bed early tonight so I can get up for the taxes. Fun!

Scrap Wow Review

I had so much fun building my Scrap Wow pages and checking out the site. Here's my review from the February RAK File ....

Scrap Wow is a site that really lives up to its name! It has so much to offer from digital scrapbook kits to inspiration for your scrapbook layouts to a service that helps you “scrap” your own web site!

The Scrap Wow store is stocked with kits from some of digital scrapbooking’s top designers - Carrie Stephens, Michelle Underwood, Doris Castle, Clara Wallace and Shelly Pukas. And the annual membership is a great deal! You get to download several free kits from the Scrap Wow team - and featured designer - who happens to be RAKScraps own Jeanine Baechtold for the month of February - as well as some great tools, including e-books of sketches and quotes that provide really fabulous inspiration. (The quotes are really unique and hilarious. Not at all your typical scrappy type of quotes.) I had so much stuff to play with!

(Created using Sketch from 77 Scrapbook Sketches and Doris Castle’s
Pure Love from Scrap Wow)

But what I really loved about Scrap Wow was building my own web site! I really don’t know much about html or web design. Scrap Wow has a great variety of templates, which are sort of like quick pages, that you can use as backgrounds for the different pages on your site. The pages are designed using kits by the fabulous Scrap designers, so you know they’re all beautiful! So I was able to build I a page in a matter of seconds designed by one of my favorite designers, Carrie Stephens! You can check out my site here. Then I was able to further customize my site buy building albums. I created an album for each of my nieces, one for Rocky and one that’s all about me. I was able to pick different backgrounds for those as well, finding backgrounds that
matched each person’s personality. (There was even a doggie background for Rocky!) You can also add video and news to your page as well.

I think this is a great way to create a gallery that is all your own to share with your family and friends! I know some of my relatives aren’t all computer savvy and have no idea how to find my gallery at RAKScraps. But I could give them this link instead and keep all of my pages organized here. I’m sure I will be adding more albums and pages soon! You could create albums to just show case your photos as well. And for the low price of the annual membership, it is well worth it!

Hope you'll visit my page and sign my guest book!

You can read Jeanine's review of Scrap Wow in the February RAK File newsletter :)

(Jeanine Baechtold’s Faded Sky - from Scrap Wow)

RAKScraps Mega Kit, Newsletter and a Special Fundraiser!!!!

Woohoo! Another fabulous RAKScraps Newsletter is here! It's filled with lots of great stuff - sponsor reviews, reviews of Scrap Wow by Jeanine and myself, a great article about fonts by Melinda, and some super cool freebies! And I'm so excited that one of them is from Amy Teets, who's a rocking designer with a paper line and a former member of our RAK team!!!!

So that also means that the RAKScraps mega kit is here too! You can find out how to get this kit here or get it on CD at Scrapdish! It's only available for a limited time!!!!

I really LOVE our Mega Kit Add-On this month! It's full of pink and hearts!
What's even better is that through the end of March, this kit is going to be raising money for the National Arthritis Foundation.
A
And be sure to check out the Mega Kit Add-On Kit created by the RAKScraps Admins available at Scrapdish! In honor of Random Acts of Kindness Week, our RAK is done in the spirit of the community and giving. Through the end of March 2007, proceeds for the sale of the add-on kit will be going to benefit the National Arthritis Foundation.

This is a cause near and dear to us. Correen’s sister, Lisa, at only age 34, suffers from chronic Rheumatoid Arthritis. A wife and mother of three, Lisa has gone through 99.9% of all available medications and treatments available to combat RA and soon will be at a point when there is nothing left to try. We hope and pray that our donation will help in even the smallest way find more medical treatments to help those like Lisa. This is not an “old people’s” condition, but can affect so many more. We thank you in advance for helping us in this fight to bring comfort and a cure to those with Arthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis. You can find this kit here.

Is it over yet????

I can't wait for this week to be over! I think Kylie's germs are catching up with me and I have had a nasty sore throat all day.
When I get a chance later, I have to post lots of good RAKScraps news. The February Mega Kit, Add on and Newsletter have all been released. :)

So, after visiting Audra's blog, I've been thinking about Grey's Anatomy last night. I thought that last week's show was a little contrived - very ER, almost for all the reasons I stopped liking ER. The BIG disaster. The important character hurt. UGH!
But then this week they turned it around and made it more about emotion, which is what Grey's does best. I just wanted to cry with all of the characters as they worried about Mer (even Addison!) and poor, poor Derek and Christiina! And Izzie was just rocking - until she said George made a mistake marrying Callie and then I wished I could punch her in the face! (And you know what - Shonda Rhimes pretty much said the same thing on the writers blog!!!) But the best part of it all was that end! If I die, I want to be in heaven with Denny. Nice! :)

So hopefully this will be a quiet weekend. I hope the nieces and my sister aren't around to distract me because I seriously need to catch up on my RAK Week scrapping and all the prizes I need to give out! I am so behind but this week has been kicking my butt! At least I have my germs as a good excuse to keep away from people!

PAWS is here!

I am really honored to have been part of this project! Paws is raising money for the ASPCA and was organized by Holly McCaig. There's an amazing list of contributors: Ali Folendore, Amber Clegg, Andrea Burns, Robin Cabana, Rhonna Farrer, Heather Ann Designs, Toni Berman, KristyAnn Designs, Shabby Miss Jenn, Laura White, Royanna Fritschmann, Shabby Princess, Sarah Jones, Meredith Fenwick, Kylie Clark, Kimberly Geswein, Amy Teets, Janel K Designs, Jennifer Caputo, Jessica Bolton, Shannon Lee Designs, Nancy Comelab, Tiff Brady, Theresa Hernandez. So you know it's fabulous, right!

Here are just two of the previews...
The kit is broken up into 4 paper sets, 4 elements sets, 1 misc. set with a font and alphas, or you can buy the whole thing for $29.99. Even if you don't have pets, there are just so many great elements and papers that would work great with any LO! :) You can purchase this kit or make a contribution here. Grab it while you can - it's only going to be around for a limited time!!!

And here's a page I did with the kit...
Credits: Orange stripes by me, paw prints font by Kimberly Geshwin, orange paper by Meredith Fenwick, cream paper by Royanna Fritschmann, alpha by Princess LaLa, frame by Jess Bolton.


I hope you'll help out this great cause!!!!!

Some Valentine's Treats!!!!

It is a very cold and nasty V-Day here. I think the sky is just spewing ice! As promised, I have some goodies for you that were previously freebies at RAKScraps! :) Please do not redistribute these freebies and leave some love if you download! :) I'm trying out 4shared today for downloads so I hope it works ok! These are going to be available for a limited time only!

Download Kind Heart here.

Here's one for those of us who don't like V-day!!!!

And here are some grungy page borders. They're in 8x10 x 12x12 sizes.

Enjoy!!!!

Maybe I'm melting?

I feel like I will never get to sleep and return to my normal life!
I think I've gotten about 7 hours of sleep over the last two days.
What is it about February that screws me up? I'm usually depressed at this time of year, but now it's more like my chakra is misalligned or something. Maybe it's global warming and all the screwy weather we've had. Or the weight loss is throwing me off balance. It's very hard to explain.

Today was beyond screwy, but I got to spend it with Kylie and Rocky. Babysitting is not something I do very often. And I'm really not that good either. But I just adore them both. When I'm less tired I will upload some photos from earlier.

And when I have some energy, I have some goodies to share too. Probably tomorrow. Now I'm going to watch American Idol and attempt to get some rest.

Happy RAK Week!!!!

It's RAK Week!!!! One of my favorite times of year! We have so much fun planned at RAKScraps this week. Lots of challenges and prizes! You can find out what's going on here. I hope you'll come play!

I'm hosting the first challenge which is all about heroes - from the people in your lives, to the superhero kind to the new TV show!
For this challenge, I did a page about Grandma, who is the coolest grandma ever. No one every believes that she's 75. You can see all the credits here.

And another thing...

Ok this is gross. This happened while I was sleeping late on Friday. Um, shouldn't the water company let people know. I didn't even watch TV. Don't think I drank any nasty water, but still. YUCK!

So I lied ... 10 things

Ok, I just remembered something else I wanted to share! :) Jessica Bolton has an awesome challenge on her blog! You know how I love top 10 lists. As a team challenge, we all did pages about "10 Reasons" and anyone who joins can have a chance at a $10 GC to Scrapbook Graphics! Here's the page I did for the challenge ...
I used Jess's Sweet Cakes kit, torn hearts and star brushes all from SBG! Brads are from Jess's Unamused boy kit. Finger painted alphas by Meredith Fenwick, Essential Alphas by Jackie Eckles.

Too much coffee!!!!

I don't know why, but I felt like drinking coffee all day! Not the best idea for someone whose sleep schedule is totally crazy! After my insomnia last week, I've been up late and sleeping even later. Didn't get up until 2:30 on Friday! Totally missed slept thru the alarm. So that means I haven't been getting much done all week and now I'm playing big time catch up this weekend.

I have been really good with the diet for the past few days. So I think I have been binging on the shopping instead. Man, there are too many good sales. I hit Designer Digitals, Sweet Shoppe, SBB this weekend. I picked up some new templates by my pal Jen Caputo. How cool is this page. I'm actually on this preview...
I know it's super hard to see but I'm in the photo in the lower right hand corner from our dinner in Chicago! LOL! You can see Jen's LO here. Totally reminds me that I still haven't done a 2006 in review.

I also just picked up the full version of ACDSee since I've been having fun organizing all my kits. Not that I've gotten much done these past few days. So far I've only tagged my own kits and Dani B's. I'm still trying to decide if I should organize the kits on the hard drive or the external. Right now I have most of them in both places so it's all a big mess!

I also picked up Digital Artist Magazine. I haven't read it yet but I keep hearing awesome things about it. My problem is that I like to read mags away from the computer. So maybe I'll have to print and read. Has anyone tried that?

So my store at SBB is now officially closed, and I'm a little sad, although I know this will make life easier and I do LOVE Scrapdish. :) I'm going to miss the designers forum and some of the chit chat that goes on. I did get super nice emails from Amy Edwards (who was blogging again this week!) and Tracy Ann Robinson. That also means that I started moving stuff over to Scrapdish! My Colorfully You collection is now at home there!

Scrapdish is also having a big old sale on Day Old Donuts this week for RAK Week!!!! You'll find they're all 25% off as well as the Mega Kit Add Ons by the RAK admins. There is some great new stuff over at Scrapdish, too. The store now carries Unibind Photobooks. And Kim's new carboard pieces are just so super cool! And Krista has lots of funky new papers. Getting other people to spend their money makes me feel less bad about spending my own! LOL!

Oh, and I know I keep saying this, but you gotta check out Disc Talk Radio. (Don't forget it's free now!) I listened to Trish Jones' interview this weekend and it was soooooo great! I just love Trish!

Can you tell I've had too much coffee :) I'm still going! LOL! Sooooooo.... I had a really fun weekend. Taylor was hear yesterday and I let her take some photos with my camera.

I had left the zoom on for this one. The camera wasn't really that close.
And here's one she took of Rocky. Not bad for a three year old. LOL! :)

I got to see Pan's Labyrinth this weekend. That was a cool but freaky movie. I don't like anything scary - so this creeped me out a bit. It was sort of like a fairy tale set during the Spanish Civil War. Really beautiful and the little girl who stars in it was amazing. Ok, that's all for now. I'll post some more later about RAK Week!

I'm a black & white cookie

I just saw this on Deb's blog and then realized it's also part of Sweet Shoppe challenge. Take the quiz and then add your response to the Sweet Shoppe blog to get points toward a coupon!!!
I really do love black & white cookies! Wish they were on the diet!

You Are a Black and White Cookie

You're often conflicted in life, and you feel pulled in two opposite directions. When you're good, you're sweet as sugar. And when you're bad, you're wicked!

What Kind of Cookie Are You?

Insomnia

I haven't been able to sleep for two nights, and I'm not really feeling tired yet either. Maybe it's because I had a stressful week at work or all the coffee I've been drinking so I can get by on just a few hours of rest. I really wish the laptop was working better so I could scrap and watch tv.

I also haven't blogged all week! What's up with that. I have been busy working on a few pages I can't even show off yet. I started a new kit or two this weekend, and reorganized all of my designs. I started out just getting the kits I had at SBB ready for Scrapdish, but found so much junk in my designs folder that I decided to start clearing that out. I found a few things that I think might become freebies. And I found lots ancient stuff - like my designs for the Chain Gang! I still had all the PSD files for just about everything I've ever made, and now there's a lot less of that.

This week, a bunch of my pals have been chatting about trying to cut back on spending! We share all of our layouts and do some serious enabling. AmyK told us about Kaboodle, which is just way better than a store wish list. You can make your own list and pretend to shop! You can see my list here. (Remember, my birthday is June 1 LOL!) That didn't stop me from shopping this weekend. I hit the sales at Sweet Shoppe, The Digi Shoppe and probably some other places I can't even remember. But it probably would have done more damage if I didn't start my list!

I went to the mall yesterday and didn't spend anything, except at Starbucks. I was so annoyed that I couldn't find any shoes in my size. I want a pair of black shoes that closes because my feet are getting too cold in my mary janes or clogs. I always have a terrible time shoe shopping since I have wide feet with a high instep. I also don't like heels because I'm too clumsy. The only place I ever find anything that fits is Payless and those fall apart.

I've spent the rest of the weekend bumming around. Caught up on my CK and a few Entertainment Weeklies. Chatted on Hello. Organized more files. Backed up all my January stuff on DVD. Didn't even think about turning on the superbowl. Not the most exciting weekend, but I just liked being alone most of today. There are usually people in and out of this house like there's a revolving door, but it was nice and quiet.

I also caught up on Disc Talk Radio. Did you hear that you can listen to all the shows FREE now! It's really so much fun and you should check it out. But they really need to stop picking on New Yorkers!!!! LOL! Wendy Armstrong did an interview with Gina Miller last month and was talking about her "accent." Gina is the one who sounds normal to me! And in this month's interview Wendy and Kim Hendricks talked about my friend Jayne's accent. For me, it's more of a novelty to listen to the Midwesterns talk to each other. :)

Well, I'm going to go watch Rome on demand now. But before I go, I gotta show off these pages I did this week using the Studio Girls' Happy Birthday kit! This kit was sooooooo much fun to play with!
(Everything from Happy Birthday, except for the 1st tag by Jen Reed, from thefabulous Birthdayz kit at DigiScrapz.)