I hope you all had a wonderful Thankgiving! I think Turkey Day has to be one of my favorites. Nothing like getting together with people you love and eating all day long! This year's holiday was just filled with lots of fun and crazy moments that I need to scrap.

- I got up early to watch the parade. I am such a kid - loved the Smurf and got teary during Kermit's song. And I loved that the parade got Rickrolled!
- Aunt Eileen and Uncle Bruce were the first to arrive and Penny and Rocky fought for their attention. Good thing they are animal people (they are the ones with 4 horses) because our pups don't care about personal space!
- The girls arrived with new art for my mom. Taylor made a picture saying "I am thankful for my Grandma," which she told her mom she thought of all by herself. And Kylie made a very cute wreath of leaves.
- We had such good food. Grandma's turkey was awesome and mom's green bean caserole was the best ever after she changed up the recipe.
- After dinner, Mike and Uncle Rob discovered our kitchen sink was leaking out into the backyard. We have a plummer coming tomorrow.
- The dogs got a hold of a turkey carcass. Penny was hanging off of the turkey in Rocky's mouth when Randi caught him.
- My cousin Melissa took some awesome photos (all the ones in this post including this one I like of me and Penny), so I got out the laptop to steal some. Got some new photos from Vesna's camera too. I also showed my cousin some of the old photos I had scanned that they hadn't seen.
- Taylor, Kylie, Vez and Melissa were all wearing black Cons, so I had to put mine on, too!
- Just as I was getting ready to leave, Taylor, my aunts and cousins were all trying each on each others shoes and piling them up in the middle of the room. Just another crazy, weird moment with the fam.
I was sad to leave for work, but we had a really great time there! Everyone brought great food. My boss made awesome sweet potatoes and a broccolli casserole. We also had a salad bar, the best green olives I've ever had, homemade bread, corn, greenbeans, two kinds of homemade stuffing, quiche, and lots more stuff. Lots of dessert too - and everyone LOVED my cheesecake. I was worried because I hadn't made it in so long. But some of my co-workers thought I should go into business!!!

I did a little online shopping on Black Friday. Got some good deals on digi cams for Mom and Randi. I am thinking about getting myself a printer too. (Sale until Monday!). I did a little more shopping today - some shirts for myself and a baby stroller for Lucia. Mom got her a matching baby doll. (She always loves to play with the ones we have here.)
Today has been weird. I slept really late - until 1:30! Then Randi and I saw Australia, which I loved. Great cast, great Baz Lurhmann touches. Mom and I hit some stores and had leftovers for a late dinner. I guess it's just weird because I missed most of the day. I'm still so wired.

And I love Thankgiving because of all the leftovers! Now I'm having some of Randi's cheesecake - also awesome (Grandma had made one too!) - and some leftover white cranberry wine! Yum!
Going to read more about Sookie Stackhouse - I'm up to Definitely Dead. Can't put these books down.

Cheesecake, movies and cropping

I am waiting for my cheesecake to cool, so I thought I'd catch up on what I've been up to lately. The cheesecake is for my co-workers tomorrow. We're having potluck tomorrow at work for Thanksgiving. I've also been trying to clean up a little since we're having about 15 people over tomorrow for dinner. We have dinner here early... so that means I get turkey twice!

Last week, I practically moved into the movie theater. I saw Rachel Getting Married, Twilight and Bolt over four days. Anne Hathaway should get an Oscar for Rachel Getting Married. It's a really great movie about a messed up family.

I went into Twilight with pretty low expectations, so it was better than I thought it would be. They did a good job condensing the story, but I thought there was a cheesiness to it. People were laughing in the theater over Edward's glittery skin. Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson took themselves way too seriously. I hope they loosen up for New Moon, but I can only imagine how depressing Bella will be in that film. There was too much of the high school kids and not enough of the Cullens. And cutting back on some of the staring would have made it a little shorter. My favorite characters in the movie were Charlie, Billy and Jacob. They seemed to be the only ones having fun.

Bolt, on the other hand, was so much cute. We took Taylor and Kylie, and it was the first time Randi and I took Kylie to the movies. Kylie cracked me up giving me hugs and kisses during the movie and she was in shock that the girl in the movie was named Penny. She'd gasp when they said her name and say "That's not Penny!" Randi and I are suckers for dog stories and a few parts had a little teary.

After the movie Sunday, I was supposed to take Penny to obedience school, but our class got canceled. So instead, Randi and I took Rocky for a walk around the lake in the park across from her apartment and we baked cupcakes. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for the True Blood finale! I'm going to miss that show, but luckily I've got four more Sookie Stackhouse books to read.

On Saturday, I went to an all-day crop with Melissa G and got so much done! I finished 2 CD calendars. (Now I just need to get printing!) And I got some pages done too. I was going through my gallery and even though I've done about 200 pages this year, I need to get a few more things done for this year's Shutterfly books. That total includes the calendars, last year's Christmas album, heritage pages and lots of pages about myself and pages about Penny that I don't exactly want to give to my family members.

Here are some from the crop...
Here's T when we were putting together our scrapbook! Flergs' Fairy Tale kit was perfect for this! Credits
Some scenes from New York City at Christmastime using Little Dragon's Ice kit. Credits

Since I did a 4x6 Christmas album for myself, I didn't scrap much of last Christmas for the family. I'm even on there! Credits
And this one was for a Studio Start on what we're thankful for. I am thankful for the Funky Junky collabs. This kit reminded me of my house, which is green like this one. Credits.

Jennifer Trippetti enabling!

Jenn Trippetti is the Designer of the Month over at Scrapbook-Elements. Read more about her here and check out the deals here!

1,000 and counting

Hey, cool! This is my 1,000th post on my blog. Thanks to all my friends who've been reading my ramblings!

Back to work

It's back to work in a few hours. I wish I had another week! I am feeling a lot better and relaxed, and even sort of motivated. I was a zombie on Saturday after a horrible case of insomnia Friday night. So I made myself stay off the laptop and get out of the house Sunday.

I have to say I was happy to be fighting for parking spaces while I went out shopping. Looks like the economy had a good weekend here in New Jersey. The stores were crazy. I got myself some new clothes and a few books (I am hooked on the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries by Charlaine Harris. They are so much fun. I love the show True Blood, but it seems to be taking a big turn away from the books.)

I finished 5 books, got my magazine pile down, saw 1 movie, cooked dinner several times, posted 14 layouts and spent lots of time with Penny on my week off. Not bad.

Here are the last two pages of my creative spree, both using some new stuff by Traci Reed.

Grandma had this old article featuring my mom and aunt in the photo! Credits.

I think I was in a retro mood. Love this photo of my aunt as a little girl! Credits

Greetings from Las Vegas

Grandma and Aunt Eilleen sent me this post card from Vegas. Sounds like they had fun. They saw Elton John and the Beatles Love show, and I think they went out to the desert.

Never get tired of this

My sister can't understand how I can have a week off and do nothing. I've run a few errands here and there. Went to the movies to see Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Seth Rogen + Kevin Smith = bust my guts laughing). Watched some more of the Wire on DVD and some of my favorite TV shows in real time. (Anyone watching Life on Mars? I just love it!) Hung out with some friends at the bar Wednesday night.

I started out with a to-do list for this week, and I've crossed some of it off. So I'm ok with that. I like having to time to scrap and hang out with my dog. Yes, I might be a little anti-social and lazy. But after the last few weeks of work with all the news about the election and the economy, I need to decompress and just chill.

So here are some more pages I've done this week. I just got a message at DST saying I reached my upload limit for the day. That never happens!

Some photos of my mom and her siblings. Mom is the first on the left in the top photo. I used Melinda's new Krafty Christmas collection at Scrapdish. That is just one of those kits with so many goodies that you want to use it all at once! Credits
My little goddaughter is getting so big. Here's a photo her mom sent me in her raincoat. Did this one for a Kitty Chen play day. She's the guest designer this month at SBG. Credits.
I wanted to do an under the sea type page for the two Ariels. Credits
This was a Studio Start page using a color combo. Penny loves leaves. Credits.

I did got a lot of use of 1 kit and Jen Caputo's templates to finish my Halloween scrapping.
Page 1 credits. Page 2 Credits
And this was the 2nd Halloween party. Credits

Nothing to do!

I'm off from work again. Don't know how I managed to get all this time off this year, but I'm loving it! No drive to work. No bridges. No traffic!

I haven't been up to much. The weekend was quiet. I did some cleaning and reading. Finished reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Dead Until Dark, the book True Blood is based on. I finished my Christian Bale Netflix marathon with two pretty disturbing movies - American Psycho and The Machinist.

Yesterday, I ran errands. Got my allergy shots and spent a lot of money on groceries. I even made dinner. And I took Penny for a walk down by Boulevard East and took some photos while we were out.

Here's some more scrapping I've gotten done.

Some photos from our walk. Credits.
Penny and Taylor from last week. Did this one for a Doris Castle play day. Credits.
Penny made herself a little tent out of pillows. She's so cute! Credits.
And I love these photos from my family archives of Grandma and my cousin Erin. They had found some baby raccoons on the farm. Credits

I don't have anything really planned for this week. Penny's going to the groomer tomorrow. That's the only think scheduled. I'm just happy to be home with nothing to do!

More layouts!

I sometimes feel like I never get any scrapping done... until I try to catch up with my pages here on the blog. It does seem like I never get caught up even with all these pages!

I had a lot of fun making this page for a Studio Start about guilty pleasures. I'm such a pop culture junkie, and I just love Entertainment Weekly and EW.com. And I thought it was cool that Zachary Quinto was on the cover two weeks in a row - as Sylar and Spock. I found out that he's one day and one year younger than I am! Credits

The lastest Studio Collab - Impressions of Honor - was perfect for these photos of my Grandpa for his Army days. Can you tell he was kind of a goofball. I've been thinking about him a lot lately, not just because of this page, but also because of the election. Grandpa was a pretty hardline Hudson County Democrat, but he was also an Archie Bunker. It would have been fun to debate with him if he were still around. Credits

Here's Rocky last winter in his coat playing in the snow. I'm not the only one around here dressing up her dog! This is the January kit from Traci Reed & Kristen Cronin-Barrow's A Month At A Time collab. Credits
I was asked to be a guest CT for Little Dragon Designs this month and here's my first page using Nature's Beauty Earth. This is an old photo of me and Randi at my college. Credits
Here are the pups playing in a quiet little dog park we found. This was for this week's Studio Start: We Can Build It challenge. Credits
Here's my little helper at my computer while I was still working in the office. This was for a Hillary Heidelberg Play Day. She's a new template designer at SBG. Credits
And last night, I finally played with Tracy Blankenship's Pet Pal Cuties, a great template set that she created for me! Credits

Election hangover

I am so exhausted after work last night. It's like having a hangover without having had any drinks. But it was really exciting to be in the newsroom. Presidential elections are sort of like Christmas. The room is filled with people you don't usually see at night and there's catering!

I had a pretty long day to begin with. Taylor's school was closed so she was here with me. We worked on a scrapbook-type storybook she won at the Moose party. It was fun to play with glue and stickers. Then she came with me to the polls so I could vote. When I asked her questions about Election Day. I asked if she knew what the president does and she said, "He's in charge of the whole world."

At work, I had spent the last few shifts putting together the layouts for our local races. But then I was assigned to the B section front, which had a lot of stories on the national race and voting that needed updating throughout the night. Kept me pretty busy. We were pretty anxious as the polls started closing and the tallies started coming in. And around 11 p.m., AP and CNN called the race for Obama and there was a real feeling of excitement in the air! I was there until around 2 a.m. making changes and updating my electoral map. So you can probably imagine why I'm so tired that it hurts today!

Happy Election Day!

I'll be going to the polls in a little while. I've got Taylor here today. Her school is closed today. She says we should vote for Obama because she likes how he looks. :) But no matter who you chose, the important this is to get out there and make your choice!

Halloween Hauntings!

I haven't had so much fun for Halloween since I was in grade school! I started out taking Penny out on Bergenline for a walk in her coustume. We saw lots of preschoolers (who were also on leashes) who were very excited to see her!

After a rough night at work, I went to the part at the Wild Rover. My friend Steph and I had on our Merlotte's shirts from True Blood, some buttons and fang marks on our necks. (Oh man I'm watching right now and it is GROSS!) We were supposed to be wearing makeup and fangs but things got crazy and the fangs didn't stick. But people who knew the show liked our costumes!
Here I am with my friend Marie the Hockey Mom Palin. And here are some more of my favorite costumes from Friday night.
My friend Josh was Hunter S. Thompson. He was just happy I knew who he was!
And Francie was a human woopie cushion.
And the Joker showed up in his Jokermobile to fight Batman.

On Saturday, Randi and I went to another party thrown by some people she works with. Saw a lot of old friends there. We went as viking sisters!
Here are some more fun costumes from that party ...



My sister was a big fan of Rocky IV as a kid so she loved this Drago costume!
And we went to an after party at "Santa's" house. Santa was in good "spirits."