47

Yesterday was my 47th birthday! It was a really good one too. Dave and I began by going to church to see Torrell get baptized. Very nice! Then we heard the Word. The message was "Hold it Up" and it was taken from Exodous 17. I'm always looking for tie in to scripture in the way the message is presented and it was right there. I also look for applicability of the message into every day life. Again, it was right there. Hold up my faith with prayer and praise. Hold up almost anything with prayer and praise for that matter! Hold it up!

The rest of the day was pretty laid back but Dave gave me a brand new Annie Lee figurine and a poster signed by Annie Lee herself. That's getting framed an going straight up in the kitchen, just like the signed poster by John Holyfield! Very cool.

Yo, with her slick self, gave me a gift card which took a hefty chunk out of my bill at Kohls on Saturday. TBPB is coming.

The kids gave me a set of new reed diffusers.

I got a new Build a Bear too. Born on my birthday.

Dad and Christine sent money. That's always appreciated.

Then we had dinner at Red Lobster. Yum!

Dessert was the birthday cake Yolanda gave me. Yum too!

I got a ton of well wishes from Facebookers!

This morning I got on the scale fully expecting to be up, but I was down 1.2 pounds from last Monday's weigh in. I am down 19.2 pounds since April 25. Thank You God!

And now, I have the rest of  the week off.

With one little "bump" that momentarily robbed me of my joy yesterday that I will not even acknowledge any more than that, 47 is starting out in an AWESOMELY BLESSED way!

Happy 4th of July!

ttfn

Ha! Here we go again.

Okay, here is a new attempt at blogging. It's been what? Two years since my last post? Yeah, something like that. Anyhoo, I figure what the heck, I'll give it a try. Again. One reason being that about a month and a half ago something went crazy wrong with my computer and I lost EVERYTHING that I had not put on the back up external hard drive that Davie Pooh bought me. In other words, I lost A LOT! That includes a ton of the layout pics I've taken - you know, just in case something happens to the actual layouts. In the last three or four months I've been a scrapping fool and I decided that I would photograph all (or most) of the layouts I've scrapped and put them on the back up hard drive, but also here on my blog. You know, just in case something happens to the actual layouts AND the back up drive.

Yeah I'll use my blog to talk about life too, not that anyone is reading my blog. But maybe one day, some day I will have a reason to direct a family member or friend to my own little spot here on the WWW. Maybe ...

So let's get started with a couple of bubble layouts I took of Jordyn and Justin late last summer/early last fall. Lucky for me both kids were in a decent mood and happy to oblige and indulge my photographer requests. This has become a rare occurrence with all three kids. Typically they either dodge and avoid me and my camera or make the silliest goofy or bored and ticked off expression they can. The bubble blowing was actually fun for them so it was cool to catch them being themselves and having fun.

As you can see, I did some photo editing, making only the bubbles present in color. I love the effect and I'm pretty please with the layouts too.

So here's my first post in a long time. I promise to post again soon

ttfn

Ho hum ...

I hate blogging. Can you tell by how often I do it?

I hate blogging because I apparently don't know how to blog in the way that most people do, or at least in the way that most people I know blog. See, when I am blogging I keep wanting to tell the world how I feel. How I really feel. But I can't. I keep having to censor myself for a variety of reasons so then I get to feeling like, "What the damn point?" Not that anyone is actually reading my blog any more ...

Another reason that I hate blogging also has to do with my comparing my entries to those of the blogs that I read. Is everyone else in the world really as happy, or at least as "unaffected" as they seem by their lack expression of any sort of drama? Even with all the censoring I would do, I know that I would sound incredibly depressed compared to the people whose blogs I read. I'm not. Really I'm not, but I've got some issues and I've got some complaints. Maybe I'm just reading the wrong blogs ...

Exactly ten years ago today, I found out that I was expecting my third child. How do I know or remember this? Not really sure, but I've always been pretty good at remembering dates, especially special ones. And yep, this is a special date and so is Justin, the baby I delivered in early April 2000, exactly nine months after my 35th birthday. My birthday present ;-) - told ya he was special!

Hmmm ...

On Sunday I attended a mini HHS reunion. Not a whole lot of people showed up but I had great time. It was good to catch up with with old friends. It was very good to catch up with old friends. To remember and reminisce (sp?) To laugh and for just a few hours escape the day-to-day and "go back in time," so to speak ...

Since the reunion, I have been on Facebook more than I have. Mainly to post some of the pics I took and because I've received comments on them and invites to be new friends with old friends. But I've been playing around and looking and searching at many of the walls and profiles and pictures of my Facebook friends. In doing so I discovered my that my former boss Nancy, is now residing in China. I had been able to ascertain that she was or had been there, but I thought she was perhaps vacationing or visiting. Anyway I also discovered her blog and I'm going to bookmark it. She's so worldly. She's so intelligent. Must remember to wish her a happy birthday in three days.

Yawn ... another short post. It's getting late.

Can't believe that I'm logging in and making an entry in my blog for the first time in what? 20 months?

Believe it or not, in all the time that has passed not a whole heckuva lot has been going on. Not really. I'm still employed, thankfully! I have a new supervisor. I so miss my former one but God is good and this too shall pass.

Guess what my hubby did? He bought a brand new Solstice about five weeks ago or so. I'm calling it his mid-life crisis car. Gotta admit though - its fun to ride in. I don't particularly like driving it because its so small but I got a serious kick out of riding in it with Dave behind the wheel. So fun! He's talking about taking it to the Woodward Dream Cruise. That should be very cool.

The countdown to shutdown aka my first summer vacation is on. It begins at 3 PM next Friday. So I guess that means that the countdown to my 45th birthday is on too. Hmph. How and when did this happen?

Second summer vacation is coming in August. Two weeks off! Ahhh!

'K, that's it for now. Maybe I'll check in again soon. In the meantime, I'm posting regularly at Shuttercal. For now.

On Vacation - a real one!

I'm on vacation again. This time it's a real one becaues my kids are back in school, hubby is at work and I've got the house all to myself! COOL! Or at least it would be if I didn't have to go to class tonight - yeah the photography class I referenced last time. Hmph! Ain't no shame in my game. I am inept. I still ain't getting it. This whole aperture/shutter speed/ISO/distance/ depth of field etc. I just ain't getting it. Having said that, I did take a couple of cool pictures and managed to nail last week's assignment, but how I managed to do that, I have no mailto:*#@$ idea. None whatsoever.

I don't know. It has dawned on me that the last time I was in school Jared was in kindergarten, Jordyn was one and Justin was in the oven baking. Yep he walked across the stage with me, or should I say in me, when I got my master's degree (no wonder he's so smart - but I digress). My point is that even though all three of them required my attention, none of them were in school that had homework or in any other activity that required my time and attention like now. I've got their homework and mine to do and it's only the first week of school for them, second for me. What was I thinking when I decided to take this class?

Oh well. I am in my scraproom totally reorganizing. It's a mess but it's a good mess because it's in the process of getting organized. I finally got around to getting it carpeted and I also added another cabinet and I bought this awsome 8-section storage bin from Ikea. Even though it is so chaotic in here, I can see tons of progress! I'm already lovin' it! Can't wait to get done.

What else. I am sure I will regret putting this in writing, but I have been doing really really well in terms of watching what I've been eating over the last week or so. I think I'm down roughly three pounds. Not much, but its at start right? So now that I have put this on the www for the www (whole wide world) to see, I'm sure I'll be up six pounds by the time I blog again.

Dave and my dad will probably install the hard wood flooring throughout the remainder of the first floor that doesn't have it already or isn't carpeted, some time this weekend. Woo hoo, I am sooooooooo loving my "new" house!!!! Dave continues to make huge progress on that lengthy honey-do list!

Okay, I'm off to find that dang stash of Tinkering Ink papers I seem to have misplaced.

ttfn
td

This is for you ... you know who you are ...

First of, let me tell you how many times I had to try to log on to make this entry. It's been so long that I'd forgotten my password. That's what happens when you are a severely delinquent blogger.


Two weeks ago today I was at the Mall of America. Drove there from Wisconsin Dells (our family vacation this year instead of DW). The Dells was cool. Until we went, I kept thinking to myself, "I don't get it." I mean what do you do there. Now that I'm back, I tell everyone that it reminds me a lot of Niagara Falls, only without Niagara Falls. It's a neat little tourist trap that boasts itself as the waterpark capital of the world, or is it the US? Well, one of those ... I with my lard a--- am sooooooooo not a waterpark person, but I grinned and beared it, or should I say bared it. I left my new Canon at the hotel that particarly day.


Speaking of my new camera, I start a photography class next Monday. It's a two hour class with a four-hour lab on Wednesdays. It amazes me how most people I know who have this camera just get to snapping gorgeous looking pictures without any previous serious picture-taking experience. Not me. Don't get me wrong, I've taken some decent shots but in all honesty, I'm not seeing what the big whoop is all about - I'm referring to my pictures now. So I'm plopping down an additional $365 to make me feel that the nearly $900 investment on the camera and bonus lens wasn't a waste of my hard earned cash. Make sense? I'm not so sure it does but ...


Back to vacation - as usual I was off for 2 weeks. The first week was spent traveling, the second was spent making sure Dave completed the extensive honey-do list I made for him. #1 on the list was painting our foyer with it's super high ceiling. Guess what?! He did it and it looks sooo wonderful.


I have to take a moment to brag on my man, cause he has mad skillz!!! Under the hood or the body of a car and throughout the house with his many many many handy-man tools, he has got it going all the way on!!!! Gotta give him his props 'cause I know way way too many women whose hubbies who don't know jack when comes to such. I can only imagine how much money Dave has saved us over the years because he's able to do so much himself.


What else? Hmmm. Not much. Thus the main reason I haven't blogged. Honestly, most of the stuff going on in my life just isn't that interesting, well it is to me but I suspect that it's much of the same stuff going on in most people's lives. KWIM?


'K so I have been scrapping. Lately I've been trying to use some older papers and stuff to make room for all the Summer CHA stuff I've bought/plan to buy. Here are a few LOs:

So this is basically the kinds of stuff I've been up to. I'll try to blog more often. I can't promise it'll be interesting, but it'll be me ...