We found ROCKY!!!!

Today I believe that prayers and good karma do work and that there are lots of good people out there! Because all the looking we did - and there had to have been 20 of us or so at different times - didn't work. But those fliers worked. And I just got a call about an hour ago from someone who had seen Rocky. I RAN three blocks over there. He was in the back of a lot - I even though these people were scamming me. So I called out and he came running! Seeing that patch of white in the dark was one of the happiest moments of my life!!!!! Those were very nice people to have made the call. We offered them a reward and they didn't even want it.

So after we had him in the car, we drove around taking down the rest of the fliers.
We brought Rocky back here so he could have a bath. He seems a little jittery, and he has a little cut on his leg. But he seems ok! We're just so happy to have him back. I feel like I can breathe again.

Thank you all so much for you thoughts and prayers!!!

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers

I don't even know how to write this. But Rocky is missing. He has been missing since about 3 p.m. and it's a long story and I don't really want to explain it right now, but I do know I have a lot of friends out there and I really hope you'll pray or send us good vibes. I am making some posters now and I feel terrible. I know some people might not think of animals as important, but to us Rocky is a child and we love him. This is just terrifying to us. It's starting to get dark out and it's past his dinner time and I can only think of terrible things.

I'm so tired!!!

I'm exhausted and I need to get ready for work. I had to pick up Kylie yesterday at school and I had her all morning. Poor baby's been sick again. I am just glad that she is a happy and easy little girl. So that's what I've been up to if you've been wondering where I've been. Plus, work has been a little crazy this week.

I did take a bunch of photos - but they mostly have red eye or need touching up. I also started sorting through the first bunch of prints I got from Scrapbook Pictures.


I'm trying to figure out how to organize my albums. So far here are my categories:

-Taylor & Kylie
- Lucia (my goddaughter)
- Me
- Family / Events
- Easter & Christmas (since those are our big holidays)
- Friends (pages of my digi friends who I've met!)

Gotta get myself ready to go now! I miss my computer so much! LOL!

New Sketch challenge and other stuffs...

I have a new sketch challenge up at RAKs! There are templates for both versions, and some png shapes if you're a DIP user.
Here's the page I did for the challenge! I finally had a chance to use Kim's Cord Crazy elements! You can see credits here.

I've done a few other pages from Easter too.

I used Krista Mettler's Urban Grunge and Lucky back packs and her Artistry Elements. Full credits

And here's Randi and Taylor jumping around on the "trampoline." Glad I don't have pictures of me doing this! LOL! I used Jessica Bolton's Home Life and some more Cord Crazies on this one. Credits.

And here's one from this weekend using Jess's new Outnumbered Girl kit. She's having another $2 sale today only!

Credits

**Funny videos**

So have you seen this little video by Will Ferrell? It's a riot. But, just a warning don't watch it if you're easily offended by little children cursing!

And Krista sent me this clip from the Office! It's so funny too. I had people at work watching this too. :)

Party Guests!

I want to thank all of you who came to Amy's party! And thanks for all your nice comments!

I have some stuff from all of you to share!
Tania's card

Hobbit Names
Tania: Bramblerose Proudneck of Tuckborough
Connie: Daisy Moss of Lake-by-Downs
Patricia: Flora Bumbleroot
Rachel:Tigerlily Hardbottle
Shell: Goldie Foxburr of Loamsdown
Cathy: Azalie Bumbleroot of Haysend
Melinda: Primula Grubb
Kim: May Brandybuck of Buckland
Audra: Rosie-Posie Bunce of Brockenborings
Ness: Ruby Frumblefoot of Bywater
Stacey: Iris Sandybanks.

Elf Names
Tania: Eámanë Tinúviel
Connie: Idril Vardamir
Patricia: Ninde Celebrindal
Shell: Órelindë Helyanwë
Emily: Itarildë Telrúnya
Cathy: Larien Sirfalas
Melinda: Ireth Anwarünya
Kim: Ánië of Dorthonion
Audra: Lúthien Felagund
Ness: Nessa Minyatur
Stacey: Eldárwen Nénharma

Austen cast
Tania: Jane Bennet
Connie: Elizabeth Bennet
Irene: Elinor Dashwood
Patricia: Elinor Dashwood
Rachel: Elizabeth Bennett
Shell: Elizabeth Bennet
Melinda: Elinor Dashwood
Kim: Elinor Dashwood
Audra: Elinor Dashwood
Ness: Jane Bennet
Stacey: Elizabeth Bennett

In Memory of Miles

Visit Jessica Bolton's blog for this special RAK from Jess and the Eclectic Team called In Memory of Miles. We're remembering Kellie's son Miles today - and hope you will too - by doing some thing nice for someone else or taking the time to enjoy the little things.

It's a party: Happy Birthday AmyK!!!!

Today is my good friend Amy Knepper's birthday and to celebrate, I'm throwing her a little party on my blog! I hope you'll join in the party games and if you keep reading there's even a party favor too! If you play along I'll add your contributions to this post. :)

Game 1: Send some love...

(Credits: Whimsicality Doodles 4 and Altered Embellies Stars by Jackie Eckles, Sausan Designs Sing Spring alphas, Jessica Bolton's Unamused Boys alphas)

Share your cards for Amy! (You can leave me a link in you credits so I can post them here.) And be sure to leave her a message on her blog wishing her a happy birthday!

Game 2: Scraplift!
Check out Amy's awesome gallery at DST or at RAKs and scraplift one of her pages! Here's one I did based on Amy's Shine layout.

(Credits: Lisa Whitney's Artsy Fartsy Sampler papers, Chalk Full of Fun elements, alphas and doodles, Painted Flower Doodle; Corina Nielson's Alphaspalooza Wrapper alpha; Amy Martin's Folded Stitched Ribbon; Kim Jensen's Vivid Intensity ribbons; Jen Wilson's Tuile Straight Aways; Rose Farver A New Day ribbon; Meredith Fenwick's Fuzzball swirls.)

Game 3: Visit Middle Earth
Amy is a big fan of Lord of the Rings! Go here to find out your elvish name.
Mine is Tamuríl Tinúviel and Amy's is Larien Táralóm! Leave a comment and tell us your name!

And then check out your hobbit name.
I would be Tigerlily Proudneck of Tuckborough and Amy is Azaelia Gamwich of the Bree Gamwiches.

Game 4: Hit the Pinata
If you don't have an XBox, play some Viva Pinata games online!

Game 5: Musical Chairs
Go to Gomez's web site and listen to some songs!

Game 6: Jane's Girls
Which Jane Austen character are you?

Here's what how I scored! (Leave a comment with your score too!)
You scored as Elizabeth Bennet. As one of Austen's most beloved characters, Elizabeth Bennet represents what most women would like to become: strong, independent, and loyal. Of course, she has her faults including a stubborn will of iron and a clinging to first impressions. Overall, Lizzie is bright and lovable...something to admire and aspire to.

Party favor
Thanks so much for coming to the party!!!!! As promised, here's a treat for you!

You can download this here. Please do not share or redistribute this gift. Please leave some love if you do download :)

Back from shopping

Just got back from lunch and a little shopping. Randi needed stuff from Sam's Club. And since we were out that way, I wanted to stop at AC Moore. Well, I'm glad I did because they had scrapbooks on sale for 50% off!!!! (Funny story: There was a lady on line trying to rturn yarn that she already used in a knitting project!)

I picked up about 4 of them because I know actually have some prints to put in them! I ordered a ton of pages from Scrapbook Pictures, which is having a sale in April too! 8x8 prints are just $1! They got here super fast and they look AMAZING!!! Way better than what my printer does any day. I want to get some more, but I'm having a hard time narrowing down what to print. At first I just started alphabetically and got up to R through pages that start with Randi and Robin. But now I have mostly Taylor and Rocky pages - which is the the bulk of them. It's so hard to pick out my favorites!

What I did noticed though is how much my style has changed, how products have changed and how much drop shadow I used to slab on!

Just interupted again by Taylor and Kylie - along with some basketball, bubbles, playing princess, Spongebob and coloring. So where was I?

The other cool news I wanted to share is I'm now on Krista Mettler's creative team!!! :) I can't wait to start playing will her great stuff! And be sure to visit her blog for a very cool goodie too!


Oh, and more cool news - Kylie can say Nonnie! :) She can also say Rocky and bubbles too!
Going to go back to playing now!

Happy Saturday!

Hi everyone! I hope you're having a great weekend! The sun is shining again in New Jersey and I need to go let Rocky out to enjoy some of it! I have so much I'd like to get done but I feel the distrcations coming on already. I just spend a half hour updating my links and the girls are coming over in a little while.

I have a few things to share though! But it's going to have to wait because Randi just showed up and wants me to go shopping!

My camera's home!

I feel so much better now that I have my camera back! :) So I can finally share some photos from this weekend.
Here are my favorite Altered Art Chicks Melissa and Krista working hard at the Memories Expo! And check out this cute little purse card that I made at their booth. Melissa has a lot more photos on her blog. Check out all the cute things - their booth really made me want to try some of these crafty things.

We were laughing about how I had no undo key while I was doing the stamping on it!

Here I am with Kylie at Taylor's party. This kid's hair has gotten so crazy! It falls out (or she pulls it out) as soon as you get a ponytail in.
Speaking of the birthday girl, here's Taylor. My mom didn't get as fancy as she did last year .
I don't have too many pictures of T because she spent most of the party upstairs in her room playing because "there are babies down there." And she tore through her gifts over in a corner where I couldn't get too many shots.
She did like all the Dora stuff we got for her though. Our friends Brian and Iris brought their adorable and sweet (and polite) children to the party. I haven't seen them in ages and hadn't met their youngest yet.

So Randi and I had fun playing with them while the other adults sat around and looked at each other. Check out Randi's tan...

Lots of RAK stuff!

We just released the latest RAKScraps newsletter, which has so much great stuff in it, including layouts, a great tutorial on bending corners in PSE, and freebies!
That also means our new mega kit will be here soon! And check out the Mega Kit add on kit now availble at Scrapdish.

I'm also running our annual Spring Cleaning challenges, with tips on cleaning up your scrap space and computer. But don't worry - the advice isn't from me! They're based on Amy K's challenges from past years!

And there's still time to apply for our Elements and Sponsor teams! Check out the details here.

Who'll stop the rain

It has been coming down all day! The basement is pretty wet and I hope it doesn't get worse. My brother's got 4 inches of water in his basement. The rainy weather has me feeling kind of blah - I hope it stops soon.

Today started out pretty well. I had a great time at the Memories Expo. Mom mentioned that she wanted some stuff so she could scrap her Hawaii photos so I had a good reason to shop! Buying paper stuff is so much fun! I also stocked up on some SEI albums and other chipboard-type books. I also got a cute little Ariel accordian book that I could use to make something about Taylor. And the best part is I got to hang out with MelissaG, Krista and Jeanine. Melissa and Krista were rocking at the Moostie booth! Their stuff is so awesome! And I even did a little make and take - you would be so proud of me Melinda!

Well, then came Taylor's birthday party, which I don't even want to get into. I didn't get that many good photos. And I left my camera at my brother's house. I'm sorry to say, but I wish I would have just stayed at the expo. I was having a much better time there.

So now I'm going to check out Sausan's goodie bag thing at SBG and then go hide in my room.

Yes that's really my room!

I'm just laughing at the picture of my room that I posted below. You can't see the rest of the mess but if you look close up you can see ...
1. Giant Homer Simpson doll that my sister won for me
2. My Playstation 2
3. Shelf of Beatles CDs
4. Lots of photos (four of them are of me LOL!)
5. Various minatures and stuffed animals, including the last remaning pieces of my glow in the dark Gargamel's Castle Legos.
6. Part of my DVD collection - ranging from Sex in the City to my Audry Hepburn movies to Kill BIll to Toy Story.
7. The red prism I got from the Franklin Institute when I was in Girl Scout

I really do know how old I am. I'm just in denial!

Wind and rain

The wind woke me up this morning! The shade in my bedroom was making a lot of noise banging against the window. Well, I went in the shower and when I came out this is what I saw...

Now I can't help but wonder if the curtain tore from the wind - turns out the top part of the window was open. And it was hitting against the locks which were turned out. Or.....

Could he be the culprit? Maybe he freaked and pulled on them? Rocky has been here all week while his mom is in Florida. He pretty much is lazy sitting on my mom's bed all day. He curled up the blankets like this himself! Well, maybe I can get blinds in my room now since I hate that shade anyway! I can never get it to open properly!


And well since I'm here anyway, I wanted to share some more photos from Easter! (Out of all 228 of them!)
We got to meet the horses! Rocky ran into the horse pen once, but the horses weren't too happy about that!
These are King or Cheynne (can't tell those two apart), then Lakota and Blaze.

Kylie did really well on her first Easter egg hunt. And of course we had some Easter ham. Taylor and Danielle were inseparable as usual.

My fabulous and famous friends

I am so happy that some of my friends have had such good news to share lately!

My pals Krista Mettler and MelissaG have just announced their new line with Altered Art Chicks Line at the Mootsie! I am so super excited for them! And I'm hoping to check out their stuff in person at the Memories Expo this weekend (if I can get up early).

My good friend from college and fellow journalist, Marques Harper, just made his debut as a fashion columnist for the Austin American-Statesmen. I'm not really into fashion or anything, but he's a fantastic writer and one of my favorite people.

And my good friend Melinda Staley has just been crowned the digital Queen of Funk! She won the funk it up contest at Scrapforum and I am so thrilled for her!!! You can see all of her funkalicious pages here.

I feel cool just because I know these people LOL! :)

RAKScraps team call!

We've had a few members leave our team (sniff, sniff) so RAKScraps is looking for some new people to join our Elements and Sponsor Teams.

These are showing up a little small for me, but you can see them here too.

DigiCraft Chat At RAKScraps

Join Melinda for RAKScraps DigiCraft Chat at 9 pm E/ 6 pm P on Tuesday, April 10!
Learn how tu created a cup insert using any digital kits.And if you can't make the chat, you can download the template in our forums for a limited time. You can find all the details here.

Don't miss this deal!!!!

This deal from Jessica Bolton is too good to pass up! Check it out at Scrapbook Graphics! :)
Here's my page using Home Life!!!! :) Just one of the crazy scenes from Easter this weekend!

New pages and a new Eclectic Challenge

I have been working on some CT layouts that I finally had a chance to post this morning. For the lastest Eclectic Challenge, Amy H gave us a list of do's and don't for our pages and here's what I came up with!
One of my cousins was playing with my camera the morning after our infamous girls night out and took this picture of Grandma, who had stopped by to visit. :) I still love when Grandma stops in. I used Bohemian Peddler - which I just love - by Krista Mettler and Jessica Bolton for this one. Full credits.

I don't know about you, but I am always thinking of what I can scrap with while I'm taking photos! That happened last week when I was in NYC last week with Irene and Connie when we went to the M&M store....
I have been dying to play with Kim Jensen's Vivid Intensity papers and elements for ages!
I used a lot of other stuffs on this one, which you can see here. And I used my print font too!

I'm beat

We just got back from the farm and I'm so exhausted. And we didn't get home in time to watch the Sopranos or Entourage! Wah!!!! I need to get up early tomorrow to take Randi to the airport. We're Rocky sitting all week. But I was just uploading my photos from today and I noticed something cool....

Last year ...

This year....
:) That makes me feel really great. I will share more soon!!!!

Waiting for the Easter Bunny

I have a billion things I should be doing, but instead I just went on a shopping spree and now I'm unzipping and organizing all the goodies. I grabbed some stuffs from Tracy Ann Robinson, Sweet Shoppe, OScraps (Vicki has an addon to Comfortbly Grunge!) and SBG!

This is after a day of shopping. We had to buy food for tonight and for Easter, some wine at our favorite wine shop, and I also needed to restock on CD cases and envies. And we went to Toys R Us to buy Taylor's birthday presents!!!! I really want to get her the Fisher Price camera, but I think I'll wait until Christmas. (If anyone has one, please let me know about it!) Taylor cracks me up because anytime she sees a commercial she likes, she'll ask me to buy it for her. And once I a while she'll see something and ask me to buy something for Taylor. She'll also offer to ask her daddy to buy something for me once in awhile. But she did ask me for this ....And well we had to get her these to go with...
And speaking of Dora, SNL did this spoof on Dora. I thought it was a riot after all the Dora I've had to watch lately!

Oh, and look what else I got.....


Darcy Baldwin is just too awesome! She gets these done so fast and the look great! :)

Well Randi made dinner tonight. She made chicken fricase, which is a Cuban dish, and it was sooooooo yummy. It was as good as my grandmother's!

And Taylor colored her first Easter eggs too!
I should probably get to sleep soon since we have to get up early and head to the farm! Happy Easter everyone!!!!!

Dwight is my hero!

I just loved the Office so much last night! Dwight saving the day was just too cool, and I especially like the last scene where he sprays Andy and Tobey has to collect his stash of weapons! What I love about the Office is how it's just packed with laughs, from the main story lines to all the things going on in the background - like Ryan and Kelly fighting. I just laugh so much it hurts!!!!

I am happy to report that I got out of work on TIME tonight! That hasn't happened yet since I started working an earlier shift on Friday. So of course, what am I doing - sitting here on the computer! Way to spend my free evening! LOL! Well I just listened to this week's show on Disc Talk Radio, and I was so thrilled that Correen's Alpha Clips were in the spotlight!!!! Correen has been putting out some fantabulous stuff lately, and you should check out her Unite Our Hearts kit at SBB - it is so gorgeous!

Well, I am excited that the weekend is here because it's going to be a lot of fun! We're having dinner at Randi's tomorrow for Vesna's birthday, maybe we'll pay a visit to Betty and Lucia, and probably shop for Taylor's birthday present! (Reminds me I should switch my ink which I've been meaning to do since Christmas to print some pages for Vez!) And then Sunday is Easter and I'll get to meet the newest additions to our family ...

I've been working on a LO for the last two days, but I'm just stumped! I need to go browse some galleries for inspiration. Or maybe I'll do some shopping! :)

Happy Monday!

What, me happy on a Monday? That doesn't happen! But it's true! I've been having a fantabulous day and have lots of good news to share!

First, I updated my blinkies over there ----> and added a new one! Kim Jensen has asked me to be on her CT! And I'm so excited because I just love Kim and all of her cool and unique designs!
Can't wait to start playing. And I'm also going to be on another team that I'm not going to tell anyone about yet, but I'm super excited about that too!

And I just had the best time hanging out in NYC with Connie (clc) and Irene (enableem)!!!


We hung around Time Square, Rockefellar Center, went to see the Flower Show at MaRcy's and checked out the new M&M store. And we had a great lunch at Havana Central, where Connie got to try some Cuban food since her daughter told her she better not have anything she would have in Kansas!

Sadly, I needed to leave to come home to get ready for work, but I had an email from Darcy Baldwin that had ....
I sent this to her yesterday and she already had it back to me!!! Darcy just ROCKS! I'm going to order my script too. I ordered this ages ago, but it took me forever to do the writing and scanning. And Darcy was super cool and patient with me LOL!!! And they are pretty affordable too! I got the premerier package because I think it would be weird to see my writing on someone else's pages. I can't wait to use it on my pages! You can find Darcy's fonts at blueflombingo.com.

Now I need to head to work. Hope that doesn't bring me down! LOL!

Happy April Fool's Day!

Yay! It's April! I love spring and I'm hoping it's here for good now! I've been cooped up in the house all weekend - I'm so sick! But I am feeling a little better today. I spent yesterday mostly in bed watching TV and reading magazines. I watched two movies - the Groomsmen and Wordplay - and didn't spend a lot of time on the computer. That means my to do list is ginormous today, but I'm still trying to take it easy because I'm supposed to meet two digiscrapping friends in NYC tomorrow and I hope I feel better for it!

Here's a random weird thing about me. I like brussel sprouts. I was cooking some in the microwave for lunch and I saw one explode! It was the kookiest thing! Green stuff everywhere!

And I am officially retired! Thanks to everyone who shopped my big closing sale!!!!!
I'll tell you, I'm still pretty busy for someone who's retired. Got a lot of CDs to burn, layouts to scrap, kits to organize, and maybe get some spring cleaning done too.