Greetings from my office

Somewhere under this pile that I've been letting get too tall again is my desk. I'm typing from up here today because my laptop hasn't worked since Tuesday. It has been a strange week for me.

I had just finished writing the Studio Spotlight on Tuesday, because I was confused and thought it was Wednesday, and all of a sudden the screen goes all funky on me. And after that I couldn't get it restart. So my laptop is now in the hands of the Geek Squad for up to three weeks. I heard the words mother board or graphics card and couldn't listen. What has me really annoyed is that I backed up everything right before the crop Saturday. But not the stuff I've done since then. D'oh!!!

So my pages could be gone. And while I could easily re-do them, I'm kind of sad. I put a lot into those pages. It's not like when my mac crashes at work and I lose my stuff. I can put those pages back together in seconds. Best Buy has all the data backed up so I'm considering paying for the files. I'm not sure if they are lost, but I'm not sure if I want to risk it.

I went back to work this week, and I think that being back in that dirty building and the stress of the laptop crash triggered a sinus infection that I've been fighting all week. I was off Wednesday anyway for the Weezer concert (I'll have to review that later) but I spent most of the day sleeping. Slept almost all day Thursday, too, and called out sick.

One good thing about not having my laptop is that I'm kinda motivated to clean today. I'm trying to sort some stuff for the big yard sale in my brother's town next weekend. I'm such a packrat. It's hard to get rid of stuff. But I'm trying to clean and organize as I go.

Maybe I'll find my creative mojo under all of this mess, too, but I have a feeling I left it at Best Buy with my laptop.

Going Hybrid

I spent all day Saturday at a crop with my pals Melissa and Patti. And I didn't just bring the laptop! I brought along some of the crafty supplies I've been hoarding and got to work on my hybrid album!

One of the most complicated things for me was getting these pages printed. I don't like my printer at all. So I tried having Staples print the pages for me, but they screwed up my order, lost some of the files, printed some pages at the wrong size (as you'll see in some of the back pages) and screwed up the colors. So I finally gave up and just printed on my own.

But once I got all the pages together, I had fun putting this all together.




I didn't know what to do with these backgroungs so I bought some vellum quotes and cut them up to decorate along with some rubons. I think they look a little lame, but it worked.






Patti gave me the little dog element!





So, what do you think? Mom liked it, so that's good, considering it was more than a month late!
Here are my credits:
Forever and Always kits and butterfly templates by Dani Mogstad, Lauren Grier and Shawna Clingerman; Maya Road chipboard album; little flowers by Prima; 3 kinds of glue; Versa chalk ink; vellum quotes by Die Cuts With a View; rub ons and brads by Making Memories. And I also got to play with my awesome new Basic Grey files and Fiskar blade. Sweet.

End of road

Well, this week off is over. I wasn't nearly as productive as I hoped. But I'm OK with that! I did get some craftiness, saw some friends, watched a lot of The Wire, and even cleaned up some stuff in the office. Not too bad.

So here are some of the pages I did this week. I have a few more I can't share yet, but I did a total of 7 this week.
Here I am with my chicas Amy, Holly and Tammy at CHA! This is w/Holly McCaig's Bliss kit. Credits
Some photos of Rocky at Easter sniffing around at Easter. I used one of Tracy Blankenship's templates and Jennifer Trippetti's new Forest kit. Credits
This is one I did for our BBB circle journal about some of my favorite things. Of course, after I finished I thought of all sorts of stuff I left off! Lots o' credits on this one.
And here are the girls a few Halloween's ago. This is Holly's Cute Spook kit! I love her little "spooks." Credits.

Greetings from the Staleys

Melinda is always so sweet to think of me when her family travels! Here are some postcards I've been meaning to scan from the Staley family's road trip this summer.
Lincoln's home in Springfield, Ill.
Will Rogers Country in Oklahoma.
Ogallala, Nebraska. Isn't that a cool sounding name!

Thanks again, Melinda! You are the best!

Race for the Cure

This year, the Fighting Reillys will be walking again in the Race for the Cure on Oct. 5 at Great Adventure. We walk in support of my aunt and grandma, who are both survivors.

I hope you'll help support our team! You can make a contribution on our team page here.

Craftcation Monday

Well, I wasn't very crafty today. But I did do some ACDseeing and I have everything up to yesterday organized!
I slept late. Got up and hung out with Rocky and Penny - I even took them both for a walk. Not easy since they were pulling me in opposite directions! They were up to there usual wrestling, but after awhile, they were getting along nicely.
I was also watching Season 2 of 24 on DVD. It goes pretty quickly when you fast-forward all of the scenes with Kim Bauer.
I was too lazy to go upstairs and reset the modem so I wasn't online all day! I also got laundry done and even washed Penny's beds. Paid some bills and have money left over - that's always a good thing. And I got some yummy Spanish food for dinner with Randi.
So it wasn't a totally unproductive day. And there's still time now to do some scrapping!

Layout Catch Up - Part 2

My goddaughter -doesn't she look like a sweetie! Did this one for a Dana Frantz play day and used one of Tracy Blankenship's awesome templates! Credits
This is another Tracy template and some goodies from Holly McCaig. I got Penny this little coat because she won't go out in the rain. Now I've got to wait for some more rain to see if it helps. Credits
This is one of my aunts in her college portrait. I think this month's SBG collab - Impressions of Serendipity - is one of the best they've done. Credits
SBG has a new designer - MGL Scraps - and I'm adding her to my list of favorites! I loved the funky stripes in this kit - made me think of this photo from the 80s! Credits
This was a back to school Studio Start ... the photo is from my 8th grad class trip. Best trip ever! Credits
More MGL and Flergs on this one for the Studio Start this week. Credits.
And finally, here's my Grandma. I love these old photos. The kit is actually a Twilight-inspired collab from Traci Reed, Dani Mogstad and Shawna Clingerman. I'm going to have to use it again to scrap about my Twilight obsession! Credits

Craftcation!

I am off from work this week, well except for Friday, and I'm hoping to spend some time getting caught up on some projects and all things crafty!

Here are some things I want to work on...
- Catch up on team assignments
- Work on my Christmas album
- Edit my family heritage photos
- Start my Bruce concert album
- Start my calendars
- Decide what I'm making for Christmas this year
- Work on BBB circle journal pages.
- Organize my printed photos/LOs in albums
- Organize my digi stuff in ACDSee (finally got it working on the laptop)

I took off for some creative time so hopefully I won't get too distracted! I don't need to get it all done. I also need to get some housework done around here. The house is a disaster. Penny has been shedding like a maniac. I could make a new dog from all the hair in my dust buster. (I purchased 4 lint brushes and the little vacuum last weekend.) So I've been cleaning dog hair for days anyway.

Penny is keeping my leg warm right now. She's sitting over here while Rocky is sprawled out on the other couch. Randi's got some school overnight trip so I'm dog sitting. So it hasn't been a peaceful morning. Especially considering I was out late with my friends last night. We hung out at the Rover - I haven't been out on a Saturday in ages - and then hit last call up at RJs, a little bar that's open later than the Rover where they put up with our late night crowd. And I had fun there singing Bruce Springsteen with my friends Jerry & Dean. So I think today's going to be a stay-in-pjs kinda day!

Going to get back to my creative stuff now! While I'm working I've been listening to Blip, a cool site that lets you play songs and listen to other people's picks that my Plurky friends got me into!

And I want to wave hi to my friend Nancy who just found me on Facebook! It's been a while since I've heard from her, but she says she still read my blog!

Catching up on LOs - part 1

Finally getting around to sharing some pages!

This one might be hard to see. I finally scrapped some photos from Randi's faculty follies last December. I was inspired by Holly's new collab with Miss Hunibuni called Popular. The last song was actually from High School Music - so this kit inspired by the movie was a perfect fit! You can see the closeups if you'd like with the credits.
And here's another one I did with Popular. Credits.
Here are the doggies fighting - which they've also been doing today. My friend Andie Smith has been designing again at Inspiration Lane! Credits
This is one I did for a Studio Start about reincarnation. I had been listening to my iPod and this song Galileo came on. So it got me thinking about mistakes and trying to learn from them. Credits
Did this one for a Dianne Rigdon Play day and I used one of Tracy Blankenship's templates. Take note of the shoes I'm wearing! I placed the embellies around them. LOL! Credits.

And this is another page for our BBB circle journal. This one was about songs that make you want to sing out loud. And there's no one who makes me want to sing like Bruce, especially in the car. I took the photos from the Tappan Zee Bridge while I was stuck in traffic on July 4. Credits

Quick update...

Seriously, I haven't blogged at all this month! I can't believe that. I keep adding things to the list in my head of things to blog about, but I keep forgetting to actually do it!

Let's see. Here's a few things I've been up to since August.
- Finally finished reading One for the Money. First non-vampire book I've read in awhile. Janet Evanovich went to Douglass at Rutgers like I did, so I've always wanted to read one of her books. Fun book. Next up is The Outlander.
- I've been watching The Wire on DVD. Got through all of season 1 and saw a bit of season 2 today. Those red Netflix envelopes can't get here soon enough. I am hooked!
- Checked out True Blood on HBO on Sunday. Looks good so far. More vampires - yay! And Entourage is off to a good start too. I made sure my Tivo is ready for the fall season.
- Hanging out at home. I guess that's one big reason I haven't blogged. It's been boring. I spent most of the last two weekends at home. I spent Labor Day weekend at home. And last weekend was pretty rainy from Hanna. Mom and I went to lunch with Joanie and Corinne. Then our ceiling started leaking from all the rain.
- Other family updates. Taylor started kindergarten. Kylie's doing well with potty training. Randi's happy to be back to teaching. The dogs are still crazy.
- Work: My whole sleep schedule got messed up because I was working early, mid and night shifts. But I did enjoy doing lots of feature pages.

I have a ton of layouts to share too.