31@31

Just got a page done about all the fun stuff I've done at 31! I started writing the list awhile ago and then it was also the last Digi Dare, so that really motivated me to scrap this. So did the fun stuff from On Designs. :)

It has been a pretty cool year. Even though it's had up and downs, there are a lot of great things I can look back on. Lots of fun places, movies, books, tv shows, all that stuff I love. It was also a year of reconnecting with friends. It started on my birthday last year when I went back to the Rover. Now I have a lot of friends who I haven't seen in years back in my life. Then of course I found lots of people through Facebook. And I met even more friends through digi scrapping!

So while I was scrapping, my pup left me two presents. Sigh! I really wasn't being a good doggie mama and I wasn't paying attention to what she was doing. But it's all cleaned up. First time she's had an accident - so that's not too bad.

We also went for our first walk outside of the yard. Didn't go too far because I was a nervous wreck! I took her to Bergenline where there were lots of people to check out. Penny wanted to go in a few stores! But I really need to get her a harness - I think that will make walking her easier and make me feel a little more secure.

She really is so sweet. Quiet even. She likes to sit up on my lap and cuddle with me. I'm so lucky to have found her. I hope you're not all sick of hearing about my pup! I can't help it. I'm smitten!

While I'm scrapping

I am a worrier

Does it ever stop? The worrying? I have been a nervous wreck - more so than usual - since I met my dog! First I was worried about her in the shelter and worried about whether I'd be able to take her home. Then I was worried about leaving her while I left for work. Then I was worried about leaving her alone downstairs while I was sleeping. Now I'm worried about taking her to the vet tomorrow. My stomach has had those nervous butterflies for more than two weeks now and I haven't been able to sleep much! I can't wait for things to start feeling normal. (Well normal for me at least!)

Meet Penny

It's hard to pick a name. I had a few ideas - but nothing I loved. Then last night I had been thinking of names from Beatles songs - Prudence, Martha, Rita - when Randi texted me with an idea from Grandma - Penny! And it seemed perfect.

So now I'm sitting here with Penny on my lap. She's such a sweetie. She's been so good. I didn't get much sleep this morning, but that's ok.

She had her first visitors yesterday. Randi came by a little bit before Mom got home, and then Grandma, Aunt Lorraine and Corinne came by to meet her. She also got her first toy from Randi.
Penny didn't make a peep when I got home after work last night. It was so hard to leave her - but everyone said she was doing ok.

She's a little afraid of the stairs - she can make it up, but she wants nothing to do with coming back down. I've had to carry her. She's got a bit of a cough - I'm not sure if it's just part of being a pug or if it could be kennel cough. I have to take her back to the shelter on Friday so she can be fixed, so I'll have to find out from the vet.

I can't wait to start scrapping about her, but I'm trying to spend time with her downstairs today. But I have been taking some photos! Check out my little cutie...

Wanna play?

Check out the new Studio Spotlight! Lots of fun goodies to play with this week!

Guess what!

I have a new member of my family!

I haven't named her yet! I have a few choices I'm trying to narrow down. It's such a long story about how we came together - that I promise I'll tell soon. I'm so overwhelmed right now. She's kinda chilling out here by my feet so I think she's doing ok! But I will say I've been waiting about two weeks and I'm so glad she's finally here!

Loooooooooooooooong weekend

Hope you all are enjoying Memorial Day Weekend! This has been an interesting one.
I have been waiting for some news all weekend - and the not hearing has made me anxious and a bit depressed. I'm hoping that will all change tomorrow.

But I have been trying to have a little fun since I've been off from work three days. Work has been so crazy lately. I really needed some time off!

I stopped at the Rover Friday - I hadn't seen much of my friends in over a week because I've been working so late! I was afraid they'd forget what I looked like. Then Saturday, I hung out with mom and Randi. We went to see Indiana Jones - which was pretty cool! It was my first Indy movie in full. I couldn't make it through Temple of Doom as a kid. The monkey brains freaked me out and my aunt had to take me and my brother home. Randi, who's younger than us, loved it and my aunt took her back. She's been a fan since LOL! The craziest thing though was that there was a fire drill about 10 minutes into the movie. But at least we got comp passes out of it!

Yesterday, I was feeling really down. I was sitting around watching SATC episodes on DVD. Randi finally made me go out. We had some salads at Greek to Me and then went to Houlihans with another friend and had so much fun. My friend Stef was bartending and she made some pretty good margaritas! It was great just to get my mind of things.

I slept in late today and I'm sitting here trying to think of something to scrap. But my mojo has been gone lately. And it's really hot up here in the office. That doesn't help much either. I have a list of pages I want to do - but I can't seem to get anything started. Oh well!

So I'll share two pages from last week.

I did this one for the Studio Natali Designs playday. I've had my on her designs for awhile so I'm so glad she's moved to SBG! This one uses her Cheerful kit and I actually managed to scrap it while Kylie was here with me last week. She kept saying "That Ky-yee!" (that's how says her name - so cute!)
And despite my fear of clowns - I scrapped this page from the circus. I'm not really scared of these clowns - they weren't the scary kind! They were actually funny! I used Maya's new Big Top kit. Credits

Going to try to get my butt out of the house now. Maybe I'll go shopping or something? There's a parade later too. Have a great Memorial Day!

7 rANdoM things

I was tagged by Donna to share 7 random or weird things about myself!

I won a bake off in 7th grade for my cheesecake.
I like Brussels sprouts.
I buy toys for my nieces so I can play with them.
Most days, I'd rather stay inside.
I don't answer the phone before noon if I can help it.
I have seen just about every episode of The Simpsons.
I can't sleep with socks on.

If you want to play along, feel free to share seven random or weird things about yourselves!!!!

Yay!!!

I'm such a dork because I'm so excited David Cook one last night. After the judges' comments Tuesday, I thought he was doomed. But now it looks like there will be some decent music from an American Idol winner. Two of my favorite moments from last night were Jack Black, Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. (oh man I love him) trying out for the Pips and George Michael singing. Great stuff. I usually forward through or skip the results show, but this one was pretty good.
** And I just remembered, there was lots of Michael Johns too! What a good night!

And, yes I'm up early today. Kylie's here today. I had to pick her up yesterday from day care because she had a messy diaper. And they're not allowed to go back for a day if they go home sick. We don't have any milk, so I don't know what I'm going to do about coffee. Wonder if Kylie wants to walk to Dunkin Donuts? She's dancing along with Jo Jo right now. So cute!

Speaking of Robert Downey Jr. - I am so glad he's having a comeback. I saw Iron Man this weekend and it was pretty cool. Great story, cool effects, funny lines. Did I mention that I love Robert Downey Jr. I loved him in the 80s. Loved him on Ally McBeal - anyone remember how he used to sing on that show. Mmmmmmmm.

I also saw Prince Caspian, which I thought was pretty cool. I think you'd be lost if you didn't see the first movie. The Caspian books are my favorite Narnia stories. It felt a little condensed to me. I also don't remember a love story in the book. But it was all good. Love that summer movie season is here!

ugh

I know I'm not feeling well when I don't even energy to check my email. I called out today. Allergies killing me. Have been sleepy all day. Sigh!

Finished!

I actually finished 2 projects this weekend! I had done these pages ages ago and had them printed recently. I found these great little 3x3 albums from Close to My Heart at the Memories Expo. But they're not accordian books - they're top loading mini-albums! Perfect for little digital prints!

SATC marathon

I've been re-watching Sex and the City on DVD. I'm so excited about the movie - only two more weeks! My friend Monica is having a little party. We're going to dress up, watch the movie and then have dinner and Chinese food after. Should be lots of fun!

Here's how I can tell I've watched this show too much. I just realized that Carrie's boyfriend in "Shortcomings" - Season 2 (which I'm watching now. Love this one!) also plays a guy in "The Monogomist" - Season 1 called Jared - both of whom are writers. He's also a guy Brenda dates in 6 feet under.

I spent most of Sunday cleaning my room while I was watching. My room is so gross. You'd think a 13 year old lived there. Actually, my room was neater when I was 13! There are usually clothes on the floor, shoes all over the place, books, cds and dvds all over the place. And usually an inch of dust.

But I bought some swifers and some masks. Took some Benadryl ahead of time and took a few puffs of the inhaler. I got a lot done and my room looks pretty good! My dressers are clear and you can see the floor. I have a big shelf that's kind of overflowing, but at least it's sort of organized and the stuff is off the floor.

I'm going to back up some stuff now and watch the rest of this episode before I go to bed.

My imaginary friends and other caues

So I started these pages back on NSD after so many of my friends showed up to my chat and after my sister had been giving me the eye roll for spending the day on my computer with what she calls my "imaginary" friends!
I have been sooooooooo lucky to meet so many of my friends and some of my favorite designers! This page took me so long! I had the photos arranged on the template - but then I had to look up who some of the people in group shops were. And getting all the names around was a challenge! Credits: Page 1 Page 2


Here's another set of 2 pages. The Studio Start this week is about your 5 favorite causes, but I focused on just one that means a lot to me! Credits Page 1 Page 2

And that's me and Randi with our Abuelo. I've never done a page about him before. He died when I was 12. So I was going through Amy Pearson's stock photos for an Amy Play Day and I thought I'd do a page about how he taught us dominos, but it turned into more than that. Credits

Hope you all have a great Sunday!

Some more enablling: Studo Natali!

Check out my spotlight this week on Studio Natali, the latest studio girl to join SBG. I've been admiring her work for some time now so I can't wait to play with her stuff!

Some pages and stuff

Well, I'm trying to get back on track this week. I feel like a crazy person lately. So I started my day with a little yoga. That really helps me feel calm.

So I'm trying to catch up on things I still need to get done. Including posting some pages from last week!
We had a Studio Lorie Play Day last week and this was my first time using one of her kits, Prarie Gal. I love all the fun pages I see with faries and bunnies - but I'm not that whimsical a gal. But I did love this vintage kit - it had soooooo much stuff in it. So I'm now a big fan! BTW, this is my grandma as a little, little girl on a horse. I've got to find out a little more from her about the photo. But I think it may have been a horse that her father used for work. One of his various jobs over the years was as a milk/ice delivery man. So you can see our family's love of horses started a long time ago!
And here's my "little" brother! Most people forget that Mike is younger than me because he's such a big guy! He's five in this photo - same age Taylor is now. We were talking the other day and she told me: "My daddy's your brother. He's your little brother. And Randi's his little sister. Kylie's my little sister. And Sendi is mommy's little sister." She finally understands some family dynamics. All of that also took her about 5 seconds to say. Girl talks fast!!!
Everything on this page is by Jessica Bolton. Credits.

I miss my computer!

I have hardly spent any time lately upstairs in the office. I'm on the laptop here in the living room. So that means I'm probably behind on a lot of things since my to-do list is on that machine.

I've been pretty busy lately - between work, family things, defending my trivia title at the Rover. They've gotten me hooked on Buzz Time trivia again - I hadn't played since February! And now everyone's out to beat me, so I have to keep playing.

On Sunday, we spent Mother's Day at my brother's house. It was a nice day, but we were a little chilly in the yard. The girls ran around like crazy as usual. They also have a swing set now - I'm so jealous! There was another little incident that happened that I'm going to save for another post.

Poor Taylor was sick this weekend. She had a bad stomach virus and fever so she was in the hospital most of the weekend. Vesna told me that when they took out the IV, Taylor told them "Be careful, I'm delicate." That kid is so funny. Since she was sick, she stayed home with me yesterday. She goes through so many different toys, but at least she's gotten good about putting one thing away before taking out something new. She also says she doesn't like Dora anymore! That was pretty shocking! I had been also hoping to watch the Wonder Pets, because it was the Beetles episode! But she wanted to watch movies. So we watched Mulan, Mickey's Prince and the Pauper and 101 Dalmations. After that, I talked her into a nap, so we both got some sleep, which I really needed since I had to work later.

I was up early again today. I went with Randi on a field trip to the Met with some of her freshman students. I had a pretty good groups - some of them were straggling to take photos, but I can't be mad at kids for that! We had a guided tour, which I've never done there before, so I learned some interesting things about some of the art pieces. I think the group got bored after awhile though.

Here are some of the things we saw that were new to me...

Statue of Eros sleeping, Hellenistic or Augustan, 3rd century

Goya's Don Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga

Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Harvesters

Well, it's going to be another looooooong night at work. I'm hoping I can sleep in tomorrow and then get back to some of my regularly scheduled scrapping!

One more!

Credits: Nancy Comelab Surprise Clusters; Meredith Fenwick's Mr. Ives Chritmas; Jessica Bolton's Graph Cuts arrow

Greetings from Melissa's house!

I'm sitting here scrapping and eating and laughing with Krista, Melissa and Patti. We came here after going to the Memories Expo this morning where I saw lots and lots of digiscrappers - or at least their designs. Jen Wilson, Michelle Coleman and Nancie Rowe Janitz were all over the place.

And by some miracle, I've gotten quite a bit of scrapping done! I'll add the credits later...
Here's my grandpa's baseball team. Credits

And then I did a lot of pages for my Christmas album...
Credits: Jacque Larsen and Kate Hadfield's Bakers Dozen, Dani Mogstad Scraps of the Season - Cheer; Traci Reed's Black Lace alphas; Tracy Blankenship Templates with Attitude 3
Credits: Jessica Bolton's Wintry
Credits: Dani B snow white alpha from St. Nick Collection, Candy Cane Doodles, Fa La La papers; Kimberly Giarrusso Alphabet Beads
Credits: Jen Caputo Collection 21 template; Songbird Avenue Sugarplums kit
Credits: Songbird Avenue Sugarplums kit; Jennifer Trippetti's Botanicals staple

It's cool when you can have fun and get so much done!!!

Some enabling!

My friends know I'm good at enabling! So I think I'm going to like taking over the Studio Spotlight on the Studio Matters blog! Check out my first post here!

NSD: The Hangover

I woke up this morning feeling a little confused! I thought it was Monday and I didn't feel very rested. I think it's an NSD hangover!

In nonNSD news, I am happy to report that I am almost, almost done organizng my scrapping supplies in ACDSee! It has taken me since last February! I had to look that up on my blog. But it's taken me that long to go through everything on my 200 gig EHD. (That's not counting all the stuff I got yesterday, of course!)
It's taken me so long because:
-At first I didn't know about bulk organizing and I was doing things one at a time.
- I had a few problems where my databases went bad and had to start a few things over (back up!!!!).
- There was a lot of old stuff out there that had to be weeded out.
- I kept buying more stuff that I would organize as I went along.
- I had to leave the house sometimes!

So sorting stuff does come in handy. Even the old stuff you'd never thought you used. For instance, I found a checker piece in a kit from Tanya-Todd Krasen that I used on my games page (it's somewhere below) that I thought was a nice touch!

So anyway, yesterday was so much fun!!! I had a blast hanging out at SBG and shopping. I thought my chat was lots of fun. We still had more than 50 people there after midnight!

Here's the damage report. Much worse than I had expected, but there's so much enabling going on LOL! I shopped from: Song Bird Avenue, Gina Miller Designs, The Sweet Shoppe, The Digi Chick, Funky Playground, Lily Pad, Blythe Evans Designs, Cinnamon Designs, Annie Manning and Holliewood Studios at Oscraps, Live Out Loud Studio, Lucky Lucy at Elemental Scraps, Tracy Ann Digital Art and Scarletheels. I also grabbed some freebies from SBG and MSA. I need to make a list so that I remember to download everything!

And I did start a two-page LO last night. I found a template to use and found all the photos. But I was too beat to finish it up last night. But all that's gonna have to wait. I need to get dressed and get going. Randi and I are heading to NYC to go to the Met. It will be good to get out of the house today!

Happy NSD!

Hope you having a happy (inter)National Scrapbook Day! I've been in and out of the chats at SBG most of the day and I've done way more shopping that I had planned! But it's been fun. I'm glad I have the laptop, because I've been sitting downstairs instead of by myself in the office.

I took a break to have some dinner and we just watched Bee Movie, which was just awful! I couldn't wait for it to end! And I usually love cartoons.

Anyway, haven't done any scrapping yet today. Maybe I will if I go upstairs at some point. But I don't usually like to scrap on the laptop.

I'll be up late of course. Night Owls is at midnight tonight! Hope you'll stop by if you're up!

One more sleep until NSD!

If you're up late on NSD, I hope you'll come to my first chat at Scrapbookgraphics!!!!!!

And if you're feeling overwhelmed with all the sales and chats, check out my article on Surviving NSD in the DST Insider! (Just skip all those ads and go to page 27!) There were some problems with the downloads, but Shannon also posted them here.

Scrapping

Here are some of my latest pages...
Randi and my cousin Melissa on Easter. Did this for the Studio Start challenge to scraplift Birgit Kerr. Also gave me a good excuse to use her Front Porch kit! Credits.
It wasn't hard to scrap T's birthday party since I had only a few photos. This one was for a Jen Caputo play day. Credits
This was for a Taran Conyers play day. Mish, Audra and I spent a lot of time chatting with her at CHA last summer and she was a really cool chica. This is my mom and her siblings. Think mom's about five in this one. Credit.
And I LOVE Jessica Bolton's new Pastiche for Boys collection. See, it's even good for girl pages! Credits

And SBG's new Impressions of Motherhood kit inspired me to do a page about my mom. Here she is as a baby. Isn't she so cute! I swear she still has the same smile! :) Credits