It seems my luck has finally run out when it comes to mass illness around here.  So far Ethan is just fine,  but Shelby, Dylan and Denny… and even myself, uhh not so lucky. 

Saturday I started to feel yucky, went out and then by Sunday morning I was way beyond yucky.  Then during the night the sound of wheezing woke me up and poor Shelby was sick and I spent the early morning hours in the ER.  Yesterday morning Dilly woke me up crying that his ear hurt.  Lucky for me his issues were close enough to the local urgent care hours that I could take him there.  Something about the ER two days in a row isn’t all that appealing to me.  Today Denny woke up whispering, “I can’t talk.  My throat hurts really bad.”  I can’t wait to see how that one is going to turn out.  It’s just 6am now and at least Dilly is still sleeping and I got Shelby back to sleep, although she is in the dead center of my bed.  :|  Thankfully I’m feeling better for the most part, just dead tired.

It’s a school day today for Dylan of course, but with an ear infection and fever yesterday he has to stay home.  Sadly I have places to go today, so the two “sick-lets” are going to have to go with me.  Fun stuff.

~j

I got up with Denny today.  You know, when normal people are sleeping.  He woke me up, and then I couldn’t get back to sleep again.  On the up side, getting up that early gives me some quiet time, which I cherish!!  So I spent the morning with a cup of tea and hammered out some website stuff that needed to be done for Scrap Palace.  A nice start to the day.  I thought about getting dressed early and being all ready when I got the kids up.  Thought about it being key there.  I promptly changed my mind.

At any rate, so I did get some stuff done, and then I broke my favorite USB stick.  Ahhh.  I was sitting, working away, and then moved my foot forgetting I had my tea on the floor.  (The hazard of not sitting near the end table.)  Well I jumped up for a towel and my foot caught the laptop cord flinging it onto the floor.  That part turned out alright, but my poor USB stick met an ill fate… bent right in half when the laptop landed.  I’m pleased to say the thing still works!!!  Shocking I know.  Three cheers for Imation and their well made USB stick.

Denny is taking a vacation day tomorrow.  Yippee.  He was tossing the idea around this morning and decided a long weekend would be nice.  Maybe I’ll get motivated enough today to clean my office and then tomorrow while he is home I can scrapbook a bit.  Maybe.  I miss scrapbooking, at least I think I do.  Like I said yesterday, I’m in an unmotivated state.  Not into doing all that much of anything lately.  Maybe I should get myself all dressed and stuff before the kids get up.  I have about 30 minutes.  Considering I can be dressed and do my hair in under 10 minutes you wouldn’t think this would be such a big deal would ya?  See, told you I’m not motivated.

~j

So sorry Sarah.  I’m here, lol.  How do you like that personal shout out?

I’ve been crabby.  Actually I’m not sure if crabby is the word.  Maybe unmotivated would be a better word to use.  Is there a word out there that is a combo of both… I’m an “unmoto-crab.”  How about that?  Anyway, not real sure what my problem is.  I have a good idea, and it’s totally within my power to fix, but the unmotivated part isn’t in a real big hurry to take care of it.

Last week I got myself a new, and super cool Dyson.  It’s fabulous!  It things go south with Denny I’m going to marry Sir James Dyson, lol.  I bet he has a clean house. :)  I love you Mr. Dyson!!!  I’ve had the DC07 for a little over a week now I think and I’m still sucking stuff out of my carpet that I never wanted to know was there.  I highly recommend everyone have a Dyson.  I got a fab deal on it at an online retailer which makes me love the thing even more.  It’s funny cuz the day I got it I said to Denny when he came home, “Hey wanna go downstairs and suck something up with me?” HA HA.  He just gave me the “what the heck is wrong with you look.”  The point here, if you haven’t already caught on… I love the Dyson.

So what else is new here… hmm… I’ve been hunting out dead people again, (a.k.a. genealogy).  A hobby I dropped awhile back just because I had hit a wall.  That, and it isn’t a hobby that seems to work real well when you have small children for various reasons.  At any rate, so I made some progress and was going through the safe putting some certificates away that I had run across.  I stumbled upon our marriage license.  I said to Denny, “Aww look, our marriage license.”  To which he replied, “Boy, who was the dummy that gave us one of those?” :)  My response… “Obviously someone that didn’t know us very well!”  HA HA all in good fun.  Aren’t we cute?

Michelle and I are supposed to go out for dessert tonight, but now I have a killer headache.  Let’s hope that goes away soon.  It has been way too long since I’ve been out with Michelle.  She actually sent me a card in the mail the other day to tell me we had to make plans, lol.  Mind you it was one of my own cards.  I love getting my own stuff back in the mail, it cracks me up.  At least she assembled it all by herself, WTG Michelle.

~j

In this class, held each month at Scrap Palace, you will make 12 unique, and super cute greeting cards to send to your family and friends. Each student will be provided with envelopes for each card, along with all the materials and embellishments needed to assemble each card in class.

Please bring a basic tool kit consisting scissors, and distressing inks along with you to class. Your adhesives will be provided.

This class is appropriate for all experience levels. As always, if you can’t make the class, kits are available.

Join Jennifer Dera from the Scrap Palace of Romeo, and learn to make your own greeting cards! In this class, you will make 4 unique, and super cute greeting cards to send to your family and friends. Each student will be provided with envelopes for each card, along with all the materials and embellishments needed to assemble each card in class. Please bring a basic tool kit consisting of scissors and an adhesive runner. All the other necessary tools and adhesives will be provided. This class is appropriate
for all experience levels.

Ok so every house I’ve ever owned has started uhh, well less than perfect. Possibly close to uninhabitable in the eyes of some. Especially me. I’m a night at the Hilton vs. Camping in a tent kinda girl if you get my drift. So anyway, over the next few days I’m going to share some of what I consider the most gruesome highlights of the house we have now. I think I’ll do some before and after shots just for the fun of it. Thanks to the ladies at the MCC Grand Opening Chat for the inspiration here.

We were chatting about home decor and got onto the topic of wallpaper. Wallpaper and I have had many intimate meetings over the last 7 years or so. It seems I always get a house that the person before decided to wallpaper… over and over and over again. Of course never removing one layer before adding another. It is almost like a treasure hunt as you peel each layer off to find another layer underneath that reflects on an era long past.

For example, and this is probably the BEST example I have… How many of you have ever come across a layer of wallpaper celebrating the United States Bicentennial (1975)? I sadly, can say that I have seen such wallpaper and I hope to never lay eyes on it again. Back in 1975 wallpaper I don’t think was manufactured with the intent of ever actually being REMOVED from the walls. So each piece came off in about 1/2″ strips that were about 5″ to 6″ long if you were lucky.

And what would this story be without a photo to share. As you know if you read this on a regular basis, I’ll take a photo of just about everything. lol. Really. Anyway, without further ado…

You’ll notice that this layer of wallpaper was uniquely situated UNDER a layer of CEDAR SHINGLE that was NAILED to the walls in this particular room. Thats a pile of some of them there on the floor. Interesting decor choice I know. I suppose I should be grateful that the cedar was nailed and not glued. There is a silver lining to everything I guess.

Why couldn’t these people have celebrated the Bicentennial like everyone else with a special US Mint coin… quarters, half-dollars, Eisenhower dollars?? No, instead they too the far more sensible approach and wallpaper our house in celebration. That makes so much more sense.

~j