I am happy that tomorrow is Thursday. Wednesdays are not my favorite lately! Once school is out, I'll be switching to an evening shift so the kids will not be stuck there with me all day. I am only sad that I will be missing more of my turbo kick class, but I should be able to start that again in the fall. There are other classes to choose from, but that was always one of my favorites.

I finally called someone to come look at our roof and see if we have a hail claim from the freak storm last summer. Many people have gotten new roofs out of it, so I figured it was worth a shot. Maybe they can fix the gutters at the same time! Then we can look into re-doing the back porch. I am hoping to make the deck part smaller and have a lower patio area. Something we will eventually have to do is new siding, but I think the roof and porch are going to come first. I have a big list of interior improvements to work on, also. We tend to let things go, but I would like things to look decent in case the housing market improves and we have a chance to possibly move. I love this neighborhood, but it would be nice to be away from the busy street and our crazy neighbor. It probably won't happen, but I always have it in the back of mind as a remote possibility. If not, we should at least have things looking decent!

I got my first email from Owen today:

Dear mom,
You are the best mom ever!I love you.
Sincerely,
Owen

He is using my old laptop now, much to his excitement. Too bad Scot put Linux on there, so if something goes wrong, I can't be much help! He has been playing a lot of Webkinz. I have an account so we can play tournament games.

Back!

Well, even though I was home for a couple days in between trips, it really does feel like I've been gone for the last two week. It was a lot of fun, but I am also happy to be back home, getting back to our normal routine. It was fun spending the week being spoiled by my mom, and of course, the kids love spending time with their Nana. I got a lot of great photos, so of course, I am looking forward to getting back to scrapping. I did manage to complete a few pages this week from Arizona, but I can't post them quite yet!

I ended up renting a movie one night in AZ, which was Paranormal Activity. We got Shorts for the kids to watch, and they thought it was really funny. For some reason, it looked really low budget to me, but maybe it's because the t.v. was old!

I need to force myself off the computer and to bed here soon, due to our 6 a.m. flight in the morning. I am already feeling withdrawals from my little computer community, but I am forcing myself to leave the laptop at home and have a real vacation. Scot is bringing his so I will check my email, but that's about it. There is plenty of other stuff to do in sunny Florida!

The layout I posted last time with my mom and the kids in the background was voted layout of the week at Plain Digital Wrapper, much to my pleasant surprise! It is such a nice forum, and I'm happy to be a part of it. I am also being featured as a scrapper of the week on the blog at Brownie Scraps tomorrow. That is one of my other favorite forums, so I am feeling honored this week!

Owen had his performance at the talent show tonight, and managed to get through it despite being nervous. I think he did a good job, especially since it was his own song that he did. We weren't able to stay for the 2nd half of the program because of not wanting to keep the kids out late, but it was fun to watch and there were some really cute acts.

I have been scrapping our Georgetown day trip from last summer. I have another layout that I can't post yet until Friday.

I went out and got all my Easter shopping done today. I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time between trips to get stuff, and I would rather not wait until the last minute and everything is picked over. They had a lot of cute stuff at Target, like these frames with a little soccer ball in the corner. I also had to get some new sandals since we only have one pair that fits anyone. I got out all the short and t-shirts and the kids were trying stuff on yesterday to see what still fits. Luckily most of it still does so we are all set for the trip!

Between dentist appointments and rehearsal for the talent show, we have had to get up earlier than usual the last two mornings. I am looking forward to a normal schedule tomorrow, even though it does include work.

I ordered a new toy today, a Flip Video Camera. It's digital and small, and you can put your videos on the computer easily, unlike our other one with the tapes. I picked 2-day shipping so it will be here in time for our trips, plus the talent show on Friday.

I just found out an hour ago that tonight was spring forward night. I hate this time change! I would much rather gain an hour. I will have to force myself to go to bed a little early, I guess.

Owen has been complaining about not feeling well off and on since Friday evening, and I've had a mild sore throat. It seems we always get sick at this time of year, but hopefully it's nothing much.

Our trips our coming up here soon. I am going to have to pull out the summer clothes and see what we've got, I hope! I haven't checked Florida or Tucson weather yet. I'll wait until we are closer to departure. I have the rental car and kennel booked for the Florida trip, and then Scot will be home while we are in Tucson, so no kennel needed. I don't think we'll need a rental car for Tucson, either. We will have laundry facilities in Florida, so I will try, as always to pack light, especially considering luggage charges these days! All four of us will have the biggest carry-ons allowed, so maybe we'll only have to check one bag.

I have been completing some pages, but they can't be posted yet. There are releases coming out on Wednesday and Friday this week, and I'm also hoping to get a page or two done for my new CT!

I spent the day and evening at a recorder workshop. We played in the morning and part of the afternoon, and then we learned some English country dances so some people played and others danced. I did both, and it was pretty fun, but made for a long day!

Scot is going skiing tomorrow so I will have to think of something fun to do with the kids. They went to a Home Depot workshop this morning and Owen practiced his archery later at home. I can picture him getting into a solitary sport like that rather than a team sport, eventually. He really liked it when we tried it at the YMCA last year. We actually all had a lot fun with it.

Report cards came out on Friday. Both did well although Owen had a couple comments about him getting easily frustrated. Hopefully that is getting better over time. We talk about it a lot, but who knows if it's helping. They also got a packet of the school photos that I didn't order. I don't really want to get two packets of photos a year, and seeing this did not tempt me to order them! Declan was having a bad hair day because I didn't even know it was photo day and didn't fix it much before he left for school. What cracks me up is he has one photo where his eyes are closed, and that's the one they featured, but another version is shown on a couple of them with a nice smile, but it's not the main photo they focused on. Does anyone even look at these before they do them up?? I might scan them before I return the packet since they are kind of funny.

I have to share a poem Owen brought home today. He said he copied from his poem book at school because it was about Shadow.

black fur, foster dog
swinging and fuzzy tail,
sometimes startled by Declan,
why are you not eating?
you made us happy and joyful.
startled
startled
startled

I guess it was a certain style of poem that had to have 3 repeating words from the poem at the end. Anyway, I thought it was sweet and funny.

I made this page as a template challenge at Scrappity. It gave me a chance to use a kit I had gotten as a RAK but hadn't used yet by Julie It Is.

Shadow is going for her last car ride in the morning. I will take her to the shelter vet for her final farewell. She won't even eat ground beef anymore, which used to be something she would always eat, so I think it's time. She seems comfortable, at least, but not really too alert.

I was done with the Valentine theme background, so I switched again.

I had my recorder meeting today, which was fun. It was snowing off and on, but nothing was really sticking to the roads. We are supposed to get a few more inches by the end of tomorrow.

I moved all my digital scrapping files to my external hard drive to free up some space on my laptop. I can only hope it doesn't suddenly fail, as I've heard they sometimes do, but I have the zip files for all the kits still on the laptop and backed up online, so I can get them back that way.

Speed Scrap

I participated in a speed scrap tonight and this is the page I did. I used Finish Line by Pixiemama Designs and IBD Designs.

I usually do a Friday night speed scrap, but we were at the school dance. It was a lot of fun and even Scot was getting down with his bad self. It was a disco theme, but they played a variety of music. The kids both had some friends from their grade to run around with and we all danced.

Today I took Shadow to the shelter clinic since she's had a bad week. She is very weak and not eating well. When she does manage to eat, she throws up. We found her downstairs stuck by the washer the other morning, and I'm afraid she might have fallen down the stairs since she never comes down here on her own. She has been wandering and getting stuck a lot. She is probably in complete kidney failure so she is spending the weekend with an IV at the clinic. If she is still in discomfort, they will put her to sleep on Tuesday. I am kind of hoping for that outcome because she seems so miserable and can barely get around. I don't see the point in making her suffer when she has a terminal disease as it is. Luckily the vet agrees that even though they are a no-kill shelter, they will euthanize in cases like this. She is pretty out of it, so I think it's for the best.

I always find the cool sidebar things from Melyssa's blog. I put up a Shelfari widget that shows what I am currently reading. I have actually finished a few books lately, which is a good thing. Sometimes Owen will sit and read with me, and I don't think he realizes how happy it makes me. I was worried that with boys they wouldn't be into reading, but luckily it's not the case so far. Declan is reading the Bob Books level C with not much problem. Too bad he still gets all squirmy and weird when he reads. Owen just kind of took off after the first set of Bob books, but Declan is much more reluctant, although I think he can read quite a bit. Sometimes he lets things slip out, but for some reason he doesn't want me to think he can read much of anything.

The kids are off from school tomorrow, so we are decorating their new notebooks. I covered them with plain cardstock and then realized they would probably like to decorate it themselves instead of me picking out stuff. They are at the age where they are particular. I told them they could pick out some things from the Cricut and I would cut them. Then we can modge podge the covers. I found notebooks that had lines for writing on the bottom and space for pictures on the top 1/2 of the page, so they really liked that. Owen is really into the Diary of a Wimpy kid series, so he likes the idea of a diary. I will take pictures when we are done with that little project.

I ended up seeing "An Education" today, since it moved to the $5 movie club category. I dragged Dawn along with me even though she had no idea what the movie was, but we both liked it. I wanted to see it since the actress is nominated for an Oscar. I can't remember if the movie is nominated, or just her. Scot took the kids ice skating. We had take out mediterranean for dinner. Yummy!

I participated in a speed scrap tonight, and was able to use this new kit that I won for correctly guessing the name of it. It is perfect for boy layouts! It is called Rough and Tumble by Jennifer Fox Designs. I also played BINGO at another forum, and ended up winning a free kit for getting the first bingo.

Owen had his playdate today and it went well. They jumped a lot on the trampoline, even though it was kind of cold and windy today. They played some games, got to watch t.v. while eating lunch, and then I cute out a heart box for them to decorate using the Cricut. While I was in there, I took the oppportunity to clean up the craft room and little and finally move the bedding back to storage that had been sitting in there since Christmas! I am thinking of making some journals for the kids for Valentine's Day, just cutting out something to decorate the cover. The Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge has some cute characters.

I can post this layout since the kit was released today! I used Forest of Love by Geek Chic Scraps.

I am going back to the eye doctor tomorrow, but not feeling too optimistic. It seems like I have had problems with this one eye for months now with no relief in sight. I can't wear my contacts anymore, so that is making me sad, especially when I have to exercise with my glasses flapping and slipping around! I am seeing my regular eye doctor, at least, so maybe the guy I saw last time just didn't know what he was doing. I can always hope!

I just have to say again that I am so happy we started this whole chore thing with the kids. Tonight they both chose to vacuum their rooms for their chore. The house seems to stay neater, and it's nice to have them take more reponsibility without complaining about it!

Owen is having his friend Abbie come over on Friday since there is no school and I'm not on-call for work. He is excited about it, and hopefully the weather will be o.k. since she wants to try out the trampoline.

I had to get my CPR re-certification this weekend. A lot of it you can do online, and then my boss taught the hands-on part of the class with the dummies. We woke up to snow this morning, so it was not the best day to have to drive all the way to Highlands Ranch. Luckily I was able to catch a ride with another co-worker and my boss since she lives nearby, and she even took us out to lunch afterwards.

Scot and I went downtown Saturday night to watch a recorder group. They play jazz music and also use a sackbut (like a trombone), percussion, and have a singer. It was fun, although it's not my favorite type of music. I always like to go downtown every once and awhile to see how the "hip" half lives.

I was excited to finally hook up my new external hard drive, which connects simply with a USB port. What could go wrong? Well, Scot and I had to come to the conclusion that it was defective, because we tried it on 4 different computers, all with different operating systems, and it wouldn't show up on any of them. I will have to take it back and try to exchange it, but I'm wondering if I should get a different brand, since it doesn't exactly inspire confidence to get a defective one right off the bat! Scot had a different brand of EHD that I plugged into my laptop and it showed up right away with no problems, so I don't think my computer is the issue. So irritating!

It seems that Scrapable is back up with new and better owners. However, since none of my CT designers are in the store there anymore, I will probably be an infrequent visitor. It was the first forum I became active in, but after they started to have issues, I found some other cool forums to get involved in. One of them was BrownieScraps, where I was recently lucky enough to be accepted on a CT for one of my favorite designers there, Marni Designs! I can't wait to get started with her new kits, and I have already used one of her older ones on a few layouts when I first got it a couple months ago.

Next week is a busy one at school for the kids. They have the 100th Day party and then the Valentine party the next day, and lastly the Friday and Monday off from school. I am trying to see if Owen's piano teacher has an opening on a different day because Owen wants to take another after-school drama class, which is on the same day as his piano lesson. Hopefully it will work out, or he'll have to make a choice about which one he wants to do. Soccer will be starting after spring break, so I am already dreading those weeks!

I spent some time organizing my digiscrap goodies this afternoon in preparation of moving some stuff off to my new portable 1 TB external hard drive. I deleted some stuff, and there are kits I haven't used for some time that I am not ready to get rid of yet that can be moved over. I don't want to bog down my laptop too much, and graphic files end up taking up a lot of space. I would rather move over some older digital photos to the laptop so they will be backed up with my online service. Too bad it is so much easier to organize a computer than a house. That is what I should be working! I really do need to go through and take out some toys that are not being used anymore, and get some papers filed. Once the weather warms up, I need to look at finishing my painting in the living room. I am so close, but never got it finished. I think with the implementing of the chores and having Sunday be the big cleaning day, we are doing better keeping the house in order on a daily basis, but there is still too much junk floating around, as usual. It seems to be a constant battle, and I need to remember how good it feels to get rid of stuff, and how much it stresses me out to have a bunch of clutter in the rooms that we use a lot. It doesn't bother me as much behind closed door. lol