What makes a good photo?  I’ve been thinking about this for a few weeks now and I think the general scrapbooking population, (and plenty of other people for that matter), think its the perfect shot, the perfect smile, the best background, etc.  Take a minute to think out of the box.  I mostly scrap my kids.  You and I both know that it isn’t always smiles, giggles and grins.  Sometimes I take them somewhere and they are just plain crabby.  It happens, it’s who they are.  Isn’t capturing who they are everyday the perfect photo?

A few weeks ago I was at Scrap Palace and Amy was looking at a layout I did of Shelby last year sitting on a very big pumpkin.  Shelby wasn’t thrilled.  She wasn’t screaming, but I couldn’t get a smile out of her to save my life.  (The things we do to our kids, lol.)  Anyway, all I could get was this seriously disgruntled look.  So I had a bunch of shots of Shelby with no smiles.  Amy said, “Now I would never have thought to use those photos.”  Well, to me those photos are just fine.  They captured a moment, a REAL moment.  Maybe that thinking will save someone else’s candid crabby shots from the trash can.

At any rate, here is the layout…

Card class went well last night, and I think everyone had a good time.  We did 13 cards and finished right on time.  I have no idea how that happens, finishing on time I mean.  I don’t plan it and I don’t time myself when I prep for it.  It must be luck.  :)  I also got a nice little gift last night from Mary, one of my students.  She gave me this little baggie of Halloween treats.  MMM.  I have to take a photo of one of the things she made.  It held a pack of gum and had a Velcro enclosure.  Super cute!  I think I ate all the candy before I left.  *wink*  I love Halloween.  (Thank you again Mary, you are the cats meow!!)

Enrollment has started at My Creative Classroom and it’s been going well.  I’m thrilled with how things are going thus far.  It really was a lot of work and a lot of LEARNING to get the classrooms all set up and ready to go.  I’m excited to see how things progress.  If I haven’t told you already you can visit the website, MyCreativeClassroom.com and sign up for the newsletter.  Doing so will get you a free week of classes in January.  Also as a side note on the classes I have posted there thus far…. The card classes will be DIFFERENT cards from those that I have covered in past classes.  Each month I do something different and this venture at MCC is no different.  Sample posted are samples of my work for reference only.  Hopefully that clears up any mystery in that department.

Ok I have a Halloween parade to go to in a few minutes and then two class parties to attend.  I really love the days where I have to be at two different schools at the same time.  Yeesh, time for my super mommy suit.

Happy Halloween…
~j

I know it’s been a long time since I posted anything, sorry. I’ve been swamped with life. Really, it’s been pretty busy here and I don’t have a dull spot planned until Halloween. If taking the kids counts as downtime, then that’s the soonest I have some in my plans.

I’ve been prepping for card class since late in the day on Saturday. I’m pleased to day that I finished this evening around 6pm. They are all packed and ready to go. If you ordered a kit they will go out either tomorrow or Wednesday morning. I need to take the card photos for the print outs and I’d prefer to do it in natural light for the best results. So, that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Halloween is quickly approaching and I’ve been so busy that I just about forgot about pumpkin carving. It obviously wasn’t going to get done tonight, so that moves it to tomorrow. Being I have a class I’m thinking I’m going to miss it, unless we start the moment Denny gets home. That makes me sad, but it’s my own fault for letting the time get away from me. It should have been scheduled in before now. (How sad is it when you have to schedule time to carve pumpkins??)

Enrollment is starting at My Creative Classroom tomorrow. I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my classroom today. I have a few more things I’d like to add, but it is going to have to wait until tomorrow. I’m beat! Anyway, if you haven’t been by there yet be sure to check it out. There are a ton of instructors there and they are all offering some fantastic classes!

Alright, well I’m off to vegetate now in front of the television. Jon and Kate, Plus 8. Nothing like making a mom of three feel better… watching a couple with 8 children (including a set of 6 kids that are 3 years old) go through life, day to day. Really, it makes everything that happens around here look like a walk in the park.

*wink*

~j

First let me tell you that this is probably going to be a long post, but something I think is very important that everyone know.  So bear with me!

I see different doctors for different things, as I suspect just about all of us do, for what I think are fairly obvious reasons.  I think seeing a “specialist” is very important, and I want to know the person I’m trusting my health to is an “expert” in the area I need the best attention paid to.  So assuming you have a network of doctors, and like I said I think both of us do, I’m imploring you, I’m begging you in fact, to always make it a rule to get your very own copy of all your medical test results!!!  After all, they are yours, and the hold an obscene amount of key information about you.  Why is it that we shred all of our personal information before throwing it out, but we go through life, most of us anyway, letting some medical office hold the copies of all our body information?  Generally we never even lay our eyes on those results personally.  They tell us what they say and then we move on.  That has to stop and I’ll tell you why…

In April of 2007 I had a routine visit with my Neurologist regarding my migraines.  Routine blood work was done and that was the end of it.  I left, never got a call back about it and didn’t expect to.  It wasn’t until I’d guess July that I even thought about those tests again.  I had gotten notice that my Neurologist was moving to Ann Arbor to work with U 0f M.  I was given the opportunity to request my records to take to a new doctor.  I requested them and waited.

My records arrived sometime in August, and honestly I’m not even sure when exactly it was.  I had no idea that what was mailed to me in that envelope was really a ticking time bomb.  As I fumbled through all the notes and such, I ran across the results from the blood draw in April.  Right there in front of me were several numbers circled and noted as high and some low.  I wondered about it and set it aside, intending to investigate further.  I figured it was probably nothing as I never got a call from the doctor that initally did the tests.  So really, what was the difference right?

So September comes and I’m feeling all around pretty awful, tired, shaky, etc.  I’ve had this before, for a long time it seems, but I have three children, I’m probably supposed to feel like this.  Well on the 18th of September I had finally had enough and headed to my family doctor.  I took those mysterious tests with me, just so I could kill two birds with one stone and ask about them.  Well it turns out what was on that paper was indeed very important.  According to those tests there was a problem with my thyroid.  A problem in fact that certainly wasn’t likely to just resolve itself and that could have very well been responsible for the way I had been feeling for a long time.  So more blood was run and it again came back showing my thyroid to be totally out of control.

Sadly it had taken until today, this morning in fact, for a specialist to sit me down and tell me that I have Hypothyroidism.  I’m now on a medication for that and another medication to get my heart back under control.  The other sad part, my symptoms sat undiagnosed and worsening to the point that they have before I could get any help.  Had I insisted from day one that I get my results I would have known in April and had this treated before it got so far out of hand.  I’m told now that it will be at least a week before the medication to control that pesky thyroid kicks in and makes a noticeable difference, but I’m on my way.  Thank goodness for that.

Things have really gone downhill over even just the last two weeks.  I have moments, sometimes hours, where it seems mostly impossible to catch my breath, uncontrollable sweats… hot flashes for lack of a better term, complete sense of weakness, heart palpitations, high blood pressure, substantial weight loss, (which I’m not technically complaining about *wink*), and most recently my hair has started to fall out.  That is the short list.  It has gotten that bad before it was even at a point where it could get better.

I know what you are thinking, and I thought it too… “What am I going to do with test results?  I don’t know what any of that means.”  Well I’ll tell you what, after seeing mine, 99% of them are marked by the lab ad High, Low, or in range.  Not only that, but they list what the normal range is and some of them even give a possible full DIAGNOSIS on the bottom.  A cheat sheet or suggestion list I guess you could call it.  So put yourself in the know!!  Get a copy!!  Keep the copy!!  READ the copy!!

For me it had to get to this point before I saw how important it really was for me to take charge of my medical records.  For me I had to get increasingly worse to get any better.  Now I’m on my way to better, but I’d hope that not everyone has to learn the lesson the way I did.  The hard way really isn’t always the best way!

Well I have come to the conclusion that I really do have a cold. I’ve been in personal denial for a few days now but I woke up this morning with a sore throat, a headache and a super stuffy nose. Sadly, I’m going to leave Scrap Palace today and head home to at least two sick kids. Fun stuff.

I packed up last night and I’m ready to go after breakfast. Check out in noon, but you know, I NEVER do anything on Sunday and it’s really bothering me to leave Shelby and Dilly sick with a babysitter. Didn’t you always want your Mommy when you were sick?? Anyway so once we eat and Michelle is ready to go we’ll head out.

I had a great time this weekend and I was really productive. I think I finished 16 cards for the events I have coming up and maybe 8 layouts. I’m happy with that and it was nice to really get to scrap again and spend some time just focused on that. Denny is still working 7 days a week and that doesn’t really leave much time for anything else. Anyway I have some scanning to do and then I’ll post some of them.

A reminder… there are still some seats open for the October Cards class and Technique Tuesday!! Drop me a line to register.

~j

Today I leave for Scrap Palace.  It’s finally retreat time.  This has been in the works since July so I’m happy I has finally come down to the day I get some downtime.  It’s been a crazy couple of weeks.  Seriously, it seems like Denny and I are like two ships passing in the night.  On top of it I haven’t been feeling all that great, which I hope gets resolved soon.  Crossing my fingers on that one.

I did this layout the other day.  It was a challenge for me because I really needed to use red.  In general I really shy away from red because it’s just one of those “funny” colors that never seems to match up just right.  It’s funny because I even try not to buy red clothes for the kids so I don’t have to scrap it, lol.  And if they do wear red I try not to do it on a day I know I’m taking photos.  That being said Dilly really LOVED this shirt, which doesn’t fit this year, and it was his birthday, soooo, I guess letting him pick his clothes was really required.  So red it was and these photos have been sitting here looking at me.  Urgh, red!

My solution was this layout.  Yes it’s red, and it matched pretty well, but not great.  In order to distract from that fact I did a little technique with VersaMark and a mask on the cardstock base and kept the rest of the layout pretty simple.  Take my technique class and you’ll see how to do it.  After class I’ll post a technique sheet in the tips/tricks section so everyone can get in on the action.  Anyway, I think it worked and this red… well I can live with, and dare I say I might actually like it!!  The American Crafts Foam Thickers help a lot.  I loooove Thickers!!

I’m excited to say that the October Prism Newsletter whet out yesterday and they used one of my cards as a feature. How great is that? They used the holiday one with the scratch-n-sniff die cut. So now everyone wants to know where I got the die cut or how I made it. Well it’s made by My Minds Eye. I bought all the store had when I saw them and I haven’t seen them since. Thats about all I can say about that. So best of luck in finding them if you decide you want them.

My retreat at Scrap Palace is quickly approaching. A weekend spent scrapping with my friend Michelle, well not much can beat that? The breakfast that is being served a Scrap Palace on Saturday might come in a very close second. Anyway, I haven’t packed anything. I haven’t even pulled out any photos. I’ve been so busy with the kids and the training for My Creative Classroom that I haven’t even really thought about what I’ll work on at the retreat. Frankly I’m not motivated to do a whole lot and if you ask me my house is a mess. Denny hasn’t been home to help out at all and despite the efforts I have made I don’t seem to be making a dent. Maybe I should make a list for today and force myself to stick to it…. CLEAN the house… DO the laundry… Blah Blah Blah. Or, maybe not.

For a good laugh…  Someone shared this with me earlier and I thought I’d pass it on.  For all of you Mom’s out there… this one’s for you!

Happy Wednesday

~j

I worked on a canvas yesterday for my Mom. I guess it was really for my parents, but somehow I doubt my Dad was too interested. I have to start working on projects for other people because I’m really running out of places to put things in my house. :p Anyway, here is the finished product using some Canvas Concepts product.

I cut the lettering out of cardstock using my Pazzles Creative Cutter Pro. How I lived without that thing I don’t know. It is such a great tool once you learn how to use it. I cut all sorts of things with it. I have a bunch of QuicKutz dies that very rarely get used because i have the font files that match the alphabets so I just cut them on my cutter. Best part about that is that I can cut them any size I want and join all the letters together, etc. Actually I think the font I used for the titles on this project were QuicKutz ones.

Denny has been on overtime since last week. This week though has gotten to the near crazy overtime. Overnight stays at work are what I consider “crazy overtime” so we reached near crazy if that tells you anything. He will be working through the weekend. Not only does it exhaust him, but I’m beat too. Non-stop kids really wears ya down after awhile. It doesn’t help that I feel poopy today. I went with my Mom and Michelle to the Scrapbook Zone today and I swear I could have tossed my cookies in the store. (Bad headache) It was Freaky Friday there and Michelle wanted to go, so I took one for the team, lol. They had a free Autumn Leaves stamp set promotion going on. So you got to pick a set free if you spent 40.00. Michelle and I combined out stuff on just barely hit it. So that was cool, and sadly, kinda worth the sick feeling I battled while I was there.

Tomorrow I hope to go do make-n-takes at Scrap Palace if I can get away from the kids. She has nine gals there this weekend and I like to go do a card make-n-take. But like I said it will all depend on the way it goes with the kid. I’m sure the group of ladies don’t want 3 kids visiting them on their weekend away if you know what I mean.

We are having the same problem we had last year with Ethan complaining about being bored at school. He is asking for things to do and hopefully I can help him out with that. It’s funny to hear a kid say “I wish it was just a little bit harder.” Hello, what kind of kid says that, lol? So Denny and I are exploring what we can do to help him. I’m not sure that challenging him at home is going to do any good being the root of his complaining is from his time spent in school. I’ve found out that there are a few key things I can be helping him with, so I’m going to investigate that this weekend. Wish me luck!

~j

I want to take a minute to thank all the students that have been taking my card classes. The response has really been overwhelming and the move to Scrap Palace has been possibly the best choice I’ve ever made. Teaching there lets me be in control of the supplies I choose to use and how much I put into the kits. I have free run now and the fact that I like to give away my samples after class is a choice I can make without anyone “above me” getting upset, or putting a stop to it. Anyway, a big thank you. There are only three seats left for the October class on the 30th, so I hope to see some of you there if you can swing it.

Have you ever felt like so many goofy things have gone on over the course of a week or so that it just has to be some outside force working against you? I mean really, can all these things just happen on their own? Who knows. That being said, I have come to find out that not only am I “small appliance challenged” I just have bad luck.

Over the course of the last two weeks my iron broke, my toaster broke, then my hair dryer broke. At least my hair dryer hung on until the very end. I ordered all my replacements online at Amazon. I got my new toaster, the hair dryer comes today, and don’t ask about the iron. The iron in itself is a whole different post. Moving on…

Before my cluster of small appliance disasters I had VOIP phone service. For those of you that have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s phone via the internet. I LOVED all the features. The service was not real great with the company, but did I mention that I loved all the features. I’m a “techie” and I love making use of technology to make my life easier/better. (i.e. the robot vacuums), so VOIP was a natural choice. Well one day my phone company closed. Yes, they closed. No notice, no nothing, and because they were a VOIP provider, legally they don’t have to notify me. So I went without for a couple weeks until I could get my new WOW service set up. The WOW (Wide Open West) phone is ok, but it’s not fantastic, and they don’t offer any features besides the everyday run of the mill voicemail. I wish I would have stuck it out and stayed with VOIP, just found another provider.

So you’re wondering what my point is… well yet another kick in the pants yesterday. We bank online. On the 28th of September the FDIC closed my bank and turned it over to ING Direct. I’m fine with that as we already bank with them. Problem is that I wasn’t technically notified until late last night. Worse yet I found out on my own when my ATM Card wouldn’t let me make a deposit. I came home, sat on hold for an hour and was then told ING wasn’t allowing ATM deposits until the transition was complete. I’m told that could take 60-90 days. I’m not sticking around for that! Not to mention the email I got last night when I was “technically informed” said everything was business as usual, well that isn’t true now, is it? Turkeys.

I’m sure you’re reading this thinking, “Has she learned her lesson yet?” And well that all depends on how you look at it. What I have learned….

• It only takes a few morons to really send a business down the tubes (phone people, bank, and a few other I can think of whom I won’t mention).
• I still love technology and miss the VOIP phone.

So I’m going to stick it out. It’s a bump in the road, ok a pot hole, but I’ve changed banks, stayed online, and I’m moving on.

Now to anyone that has a Bind-it-All, do you find the lack of good instructions really aggravating? I’m making a little book here, (which I had a paint disaster with yesterday), and I wanted the cover a bit bigger than the pages. Well I see the “tab” for it, but I have no idea how to implement it across the cover and pages and make it all line up correctly. I’m open to help/suggestions. For this project I bit the bullet and trimmed the cover to fit the pages because I just couldn’t fight the thing anymore. But I’d like to know for future reference.

I’m still training for my position at My Creative Classroom, and I will be for several weeks. Classes are to start up in November. If you haven’t done so yet, go sign up for the newsletter there. They are offering a week of free classes for newsletter subscribers.

FYI, there are 3 seats left for cards this time around and I’m also offering a techniques class this month on the 23rd. Check it out.

Happy Wednesday! Oh and thanks Becky for the comments! I LOVE comments. I get all excited when I see them pop in my inbox!

~j

I love Denny and if you knew what I took for us to finally be at a point where we were getting married you’d know just how much.  That being said I still love to tease him.  The man cracks me up.  You know that kind of laughing where you can’t stop, tears are rolling down your face and you are having a hard time breathing, that’s what happens.  In an effort to share the love, let me pass a good giggle on.  Even better… I have pictures.

We’ve been renovating our house for a couple years.  When we bought it we pretty much had to gut it.  It had been vacant for awhile and well the cleaning habits of the person before us, uhh, not so great.  Anyway, Denny has this problem with starting things and then moving on to something else before it’s done.  That nasty habit was his downfall here.  We have a vent in the kitchen in an oddball spot and he left the whole open for a pretty long time until he got around to getting a part he needed to redirect the air.  Anyway, we have two boys, who at the time were 5 and 2.  They liked to play with these Geo Trax trains on the kitchen floor and roll them all over the place.  I was in the kitchen one day and Dylan rolled the train right into the vent.  I told Dilly that it was gone and there wasn’t much I could do about it.  We both moved on and let it go.

Ethan, well he is very particular about his toys, keeps inventory of the trains, and knew one was missing.  I told him what had happened and that it was gone, and again not much I could do about it.  The vent is pretty small and there was no way I was going to get my arm down there and fish around for it.  Ethan was upset and agitated that his train was lost.  So several hours later, Denny walks in from work, and the first thing Ethan does is rattle off the story of the lost train.  Being the good guy that he is he plops down on the floor and tried to get his arm down there to reach it.

Did you see earlier where I said it was a small vent.  Well he got stuck.  Seriously stuck.  Why is it funny?  Well Denny has gotten himself stuck in so many places it’s almost a given.  Example:  the attic, the crawl space, the basement (long story), etc.  We’ve had to cut holes in walls to get him out of places.  Apparently he things he is a lot smaller than he is.  Anyway, so his arm is totally stuck in the hole.  So I ask the same thing I always ask when this happens, “Do you want me to call someone?”  LOL, actually I usually ask, “Do you want me to call the fire department?” but I sure as heck wasn’t calling them to tell them my husband was stuck in one of our vents.  His response, “NO!”  Ethan and Denny sat there for a minute or two acessing the situation as I ran off to get my camera.  And good thing I did becasue if I hadn’t I wouldn’t be able to show you this:

You may be asking yourself why Ethan has a wooden spoon.  Well, after the accessing was done, Ethan had an idea, and jumped up, ran to the drawer and pulled out the spoon.  “Don’t worry Daddy, I’ll get you out!” he said and proceeded to stick the spoon in the hole.  His thought was to pry him out, lol.  Which didn’t work obviously.  But it did make for an even better laugh.

Eventually Denny wiggled himself out.  That was in 2005.  Since then he has been stuck in a couple other places… between our furnace and the wall, and in a car.

So was it funny?

Ok scrapping news! I sent a photo of a holiday card I did for the last card class over to Jamie at Prism Papers.  Much to my delight she liked it so much she asked if she could use it for the Prism October Newsletter.  Yippee!  I’m excited to see it and thanks to Jamie!

My usual uneventful life was interrupted yesterday by a toddler event.  Shelby has learned how to open doors and getting her to take a nap isn’t very successful most of the time.  I put her down for a nap yesterday and waited in the hall for a LONG time moving closer to the stair every few minutes until I finally made it down.  Denny called and I talked to him for awhile, put in some laundry, etc.  All the while very pleased that I had won the battle.

About an hour later I figured I’d go check in on her.  I turned the corner and saw this:

Princess had tip toed out of her room and into the boy’s bedroom, found Ethan’s stash of markers and left her mark all over the wall and the back of the door.  Because of course she closed the door behind her and to avoid detection.  That girl is no dummy.

~j

Scrap Palace Retreat