I think it was just the other day that I posted how much I love it when it rains. I still feel that way but I guess I need to modify that statement to cover that I only love the rain when it stays OUTSIDE of my house. Saturday night we had water come in the house through the walk out door downstairs. So we’ve been sucking up water ever since. While the carpet is mostly dry now we will still have some repairs to do and I’m dealing with wet carpet odor now. Of course I tell Pierina about it today when I was on the phone with her and she says, “Oh no, it didn’t get in your office and damage any scrap supplies did it?” LOL, no, just my carpet. This has happened once before here, and thankfully I don’t keep anything important on the floor.

On my list today… laundry, more laundry, and stink elimination. Wish me luck!

~j

Lucky for me I happen to enjoy rainy days because we sure have had a ton of them lately. Last I checked it is supposed to rain until next Tuesday, lol. I love to hang out in my office and listen to the rain and the pond… it’s a wonderful collection of “water noise.”

Today I’m on the hunt for a better solution to our alarm clock. Denny and I share one, and I really only use it during the school year. The problem isn’t the sharing it’s Denny’s addiction to the freakin’ snooze button. He sets the darn thing for 45 minutes or so before he even has to be up, (about 5am now), and although he falls back asleep in seconds it takes me forever and generally once I’m awake that’s it. This morning he snoozed it once and didn’t even realize it, then argues with me about it having gone off. He says he needs it on the aggravating beep mode, and I want music. If I had to wake up to that beeping everyday I’d have a heart attack. Not only does it scare the crap out of me first thing, it puts me in a foul mood for the rest of the day. I don’t need any help in the crabby department, lol. I told him he needs some type of wireless headphone thing that works with an alarm so I don’t need to hear it. :p I have no idea if they make such a thing, but it’s a thought so I figured I’d look around.

Layout share for today:

It has occurred to me that I love American Crafts Thickers. Has anyone else noticed?

Happy Friday!

~j

Today I logged into my PayPal account so that I could print out some shipping labels. I use it a lot for shipping, and sometimes shopping. Up until today I’ve always looked for a PayPal merchant first just so I could use the funds I have in there vs. using my debit card. That all has changed as of today. PayPal now has a browser plug-in that lets you use PayPal even where it ISN’T accepted. How fantastic is that? (Ok maybe I’m an internet shopping nerd.)

Here is the link. Check it out!

I’m working on an altered clipboard frame for Denny. Well actually it’s for me as I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care to have a picture frame containing a photo of himself. I picked it up a couple weeks ago at the Picture This Scrapbook Garage Sale for $3.00. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. I’m not real sure what all I’m going to do with it yet, but I did do a little work on it. I’ll share it when I’m all done.

I have an extra kid here today, (and yesterday), so I’m trying to schedule my day to keep all four kids happy and busy. Planning is key. If Denny ever calls me back I’m going to take them up to his work to see the cool cars and then out to lunch. I need to stop at FedEx and drop off that dumb Phillips DVD player that I am forever sending back. Don’t even get me started there. It’s been broke since May and I bought it in January. Do the math.

Yesterday was pretty crazy around here. At 9am Dylan “fell” into our small tv stand downstairs. He came running into the kitchen where I was on hold with Blue Cross Blue Shield, (ironic I know), screaming with blood running down his shirt. He clobbered himself good and it resulted in a trip to the doctor which in turn ended up with one of those sani-stitches on his upper lip. Poor kid looks like he met the wrong end of a baseball bat. At least his wound was self inflicted. Had he had some help from either of his siblings I’m pretty sure he would have pointed the finger immediately, and he is adamant that he did it himself. So that’s a plus.

On top of all the drama yesterday, I was under the impression all day yesterday that it was Tuesday. LOL. I was pretty cheesed off when I went to watch Deadliest Catch only to find out that it was Monday. Who knew? Apparently everyone but me.

So today I say with some confidence… Happy Tuesday!

~j

I finally got around to the whole gallery repair thing today. I went with a different plugin that I think might end up working out better. We’ll see I guess. Let me know what you think. You can access it via the page link at the top of the screen. Again, I like that solution a lot better too. It’s just easier to find than it was before. I did have to reupload everything that was in the other gallery. Thanks goodness I keep a local copy. Urgh. That could have been a nightmare huh?

Today I took the time to scan all the layouts I did while at Scrap Palace last week. I told you that I’d get to it sooner or later. Here is one of my favorites. Sadly when it scanned I got some glare from the Heidi Swapp Chandelier Crystals I used. Not much I could do unless I wanted to take a photo of it. And well, I don’t, lol. The white floral didn’t show up all that great either. Hmm, guess that wasn’t the greatest example after all.

Enjoy your Saturday!

~j

Well another day has gone by and I feel like I got nothing done. I swear I spent just about all my day today fighting a battle with soap scum. Denny insists on using bar soap, which I think just about any tile guy on the face of the planet will tell you not to do if you love your bathroom. Argh, what a pain in my butt. We have dark grout in the one shower downstairs and one shower seems to equal soap scum, so I feel like I am scrubbing that thing every single day. End note, I did win the battle today. Tilex is my friend.

Michelle commented today that she was going to throw some photos at some paper and call it scrapbooking. Maybe I’ll try that tomorrow. I have a list of things to do, but it’s shorter than it usually is, so maybe I can squeeze it in. As long as Ethan doesn’t have any friends over things might work out ok. Cross your fingers for me!

My web server issues seem to have improved a bit. I still need to completely uninstall and reinstall my gallery software, but at least I think my troubles stop there. It could be worse I guess. Still something I have to fix that I wasn’t planning on, but not as bad as it could be.

If you have been hiding under a rock here is a VERY important news bulletin for you…

1. Coldstone Creamery has FREE ice cream tomorrow (jun 20) to celebrate their anniversary. Go to their website for more info.
2. Tim Holtz is giving away a full set of Ranger Paint Dabbers via his blog today. Just leave a comment for your chance to win.
3. Maya Road is having a virtual warehouse sale on their website. $115.00 worth of product for $40.00 with free shipping. Plus, if you order anything else that ships free too. I guess thats not really a freebie, but it is a gosh darn good deal. MRWHS is the code for free shipping by the way. (Case sensitive!)

Happy Thursday!

~j

So apparently my gallery is broken. Awhile back my webhost “upgraded” the server I’m on. Thankfully all the other sites that I resell to were already on the new servers/platform so they don’t have any issues. But my site has been around for ages now and needed server updates I guess. Poop for me cuz some of my stuff broke. Supposedly all this stuff is supposed to be tested in the QA department, but you know how that goes. Just what I wanted… to spend a day fixing things other people broke. Anyway, it’s on my list for tomorrow. Until then I won’t be posting any layouts. Not like it matters, I haven’t had a chance to scan any of the new ones. Hee Hee

I discovered Facebook this week. I’ve had a profile there for a long time after someone requested my friendship, but never spent much time there. This weekend someone requested again and started leaving comments and long story short, I’ve found a new entertaining waste of time. Seriously, the place is like a black hole. You fall in and all time escapes you. Turns out there are all sorts of scrapbookers on there. Go check it out and friend me.

Shelby has a dentist appointment at 8:45am tomorrow. It’s a little after midnight now so I should be sleeping. As a matter of fact Denny is next to me now snoring. Surprise, surprise. Usually I wouldn’t book anything that early that involves kids, but when Denny got laid off they let us know our insurance would end June 30th. So it has been a mad dash to use it while we have it. We have a personal insurance plan set up to kick in, but personal coverage isn’t as good as the worst group coverage. Seems all of them are high on the out of pocket, have nasty prescription coverage and the premiums are still high. Oh well, what can you do?

Off to snoozeville I go. By the sounds of it in here… it might be a night to sleep on the couch. Maybe I should invest in ear plugs.

~j

I pick up tshirts for Denny all the time with funny sayings on them. He wears them to work and everyone, including me, seems to get a good laugh out of it. One of the guys at Wheel to Wheel even got him one once. So the other day when I went to Kohls on the hunt for Father’s Day gifts I saw one that fit me perfectly.

“You can agree with me or you can be wrong.”

LOL, that might be a conversation I have with Denny at least once a week. It’s a running joke around here. It seems that every timeeverytime I tell him he ought to do something one way he never seems to listen, then it backfires on him. Which always leads back to the same quote out of me, “You should have listened to me. Sure I could have been wrong, but not usually.”

I got an email from my mom last night saying how disappointed she was that I mention all my other travels but I didn’t mention the “quality” time she and I spent a week or two ago at a cemetery in Detroit. Yes I said quality time in a cemetery. My mom is big into genealogy and her scrapping rule in life is that she “only scraps dead people.” She is super talented, although she doesn’t seem to think so. Everyone else does, but there is no persuading her otherwise. Anyway, this particular cemetery visit was like the highlight of her entire year so far. I was happy to go along to protect her, lol, and scrape off years of mossy stuff and bird poop off headstones so she could take pictures. Aren’t I a devoted daughter? When was the last time you scraped bird poop off something for your mommy? It was a very beautiful cemetery though! Here are some photos to share…

Elmwood Cemetery

Happy Monday!
~j

Well I did pretty good as far as scrapping goes during my trip. I finished 13. It is all about quality and not quantity after all right? I can scan and stitch them here, but I’ll do it when I get home so I can share some.

I will have to do a quick fix to one of them when I get back. I scratched one of my photos. I uploaded ONE photo to Rite Aid yesterday at 12:30PM and according to the store it didn’t reach them until a little after 9PM. At that point I told them not to bother printing it. That is a crazy amount of time to wait for just one photo if you ask me. If I wanted to wait that long I wouldn’t have used the advertised 1 hour service when I could have just done it at home. Which is what I’m probably going to do today. There is a Rite Aid across the street from me so even though I’m paying more for the print, it’s silly to go out of my way for a cheaper price.

Class kits are going out next week, so if you haven’t ordered yours yet now is the time to do it. I’ll take orders up to probably next Tuesday.

Enjoy your Father’s day. I miss my husband something fierce so Happy Father’s Day to you Denny.

~j

Well I’m writing this from Scrap Palace. The girls and I are on our annual retreat, (Thursday-Sunday). We all take turns preparing meals and snacks, etc. It’s a lot of fun and I haven’t been able to spend that much time with Jeannie and Michelle in awhile so we are playing catchup. I’ve got four layouts done so far I think, which is pretty good progress!

Sadly I haven’t done much scrapping lately and with that comes missing supplies. It seems that a little someone has been helping themselves to my tools. My once stuffed travel tote is practically barren. I’m down to one pair of scissors, one of my liquid adhesives in MIA, as is my paper piercer. After lunch I think we are heading out to a lss nearby so I might have to pick up a few things. *wink*

Just a short post today… valuable scrapping time ya know!

~j

I got an email last week from one of my suppliers that Zutter, (makers of the bind it all), were increasing their prices by 10% to cover the rising costs of freight, etc. Thats a significant jump all at one time. Sadly, I’m sure it won’t be the last company to up their prices due to all the increase in costs. (I’ve heard, but not been able to confirm, that Marvy also will be increasing their prices for the same reason.) Scrapbooking can already add up to an expensive hobby! I remember paying flat 50 cents for cardstock and 25 cents for printed paper… period! I did a layout awhile back that I figure cost around $15.00 to create. It was one page, adding up just the jewels I used on it alone was $12.00, add it the other miscellaneous items, consumables, and photo developing and I’m probably over $15.00 honestly. I don’t think I uploaded it here to the gallery as it was published, so I’ll try to do that later. (The publishing alone was probably worth the cost involved, lol.) Anyway, my design style is very simple, so such a high cost on a layout is saying a lot. I’m stopping at three scrap stores today so I’m going to keep an eye on prices and I’ll let you know.

The end of school is super close now, and I’ve decided for teacher gifts that I’m going to bundle cards and give them. It’s a good generic gift that I figure will be of use. I mean who can’t use a card stash in the house? The gift is also a stress reliever for me as I have a load of cards that I can package up nicely. I don’t have the time for last minute projects and Ethan has two teachers. Last year I did a custom clock for his teacher, but I had planned for it and she was a scrapbooker. I’m sure you all know how that is.

In honor of school wrap up, here is a bit of inspiration for you.

Ethan’s last day of Kindergarten. I took in my cap for the photo. The other moms borrowed it for similar photos of their kiddos. Too funny!

My annual retreat is next week and there are still spots. If you are interested drop me an email or leave a comment and I’ll get with you on the cost and details.

Also, if you are wondering about card kits, which usually ship at the end of the month, they are not going out this month. I had decided to take the month off due to school, my vacation, and retreat. They will resume in June.

Happy Tuesday!
~j