this blog is on hiatus for a month or so

It's summer. The kids are outside in the pool, playing with the hose & running around the yard. I have to be with them & my laptop has a high gloss screen, making it impossible to use outside due to glare. Also, it's thunderstorm season, usually in the early evening, which means no computer use during them. So I will be catching up on my reading during this enforced lack of computer time. I am planning on rereading all 10 SPQR books, all 18 Didius Falco books I own and several dozen library books as well. I'm also experimenting with bread recipes that don't involve a bread machine. Mine broke & I'd rather put the $100 for a new one toward a Kitchen Aid 6 quart Professional stand mixer to replace the 4.5 quart Heavy Duty model we currently own.

And maybe I'll get a bit of scrapping in when I can use the computer. See you in July!

Love it or Hate it?

Scary Movies - hate them. They don't give me nightmares but they keep me from sleeping.
Amusement Parks - love them. I love riding rides, though most give me motion sickness now. I even love the rides at fairs
Valentines Day - I'm neutral. I love an excuse to eat chocolate but no one needs to get me anything
working out - I've learned to love it. After 2 years of regular workouts I really miss it when I gon't go
tattoos - love most of them. Not to fond of the death & destruction themed ones, but I love the art in general. I have 4 and I am seriously freaked out about needles. The difference about tattoos is, they are not an injection, and you don't have this big syringe coming at you. The needles are encased in a machine, you don't see them. They scratch you, not stick into you like a shot does. It burns more than hurts.
guacamole - love it. Homemade is best, that way I can control the onions (I don't like onions much)
Hillary Clinton - she worries me. I don't love her or hate her. I won't be voting for her but that is nothing to do with her, I just have this thing about voting 3rd party whenever available.
Napolean Dynamite - the movie - hated it
Meat Loaf - love the food and the singer. Paradise by the Dashboard Lights brings back so many fun memories
Forwarded Emails (videos, stories, etc.) - hate them. All of them, even the cute babies dressed up like fruit. Especially the "totally true stories" that a 15 second visit to www.snopes.com would prove false. Please, ask yourself before you hit send "If I had to pay for sending this, would I still send it?"

Sweet Shoppe survey

Q1: If you could vacation anywhere in the world where would you go and why?
I'd go back to England. There were so many things we wanted to do & see while we were there on our honeymoon and we lacked the time & money to do them all.

Q2: What cartoons do you absolutely detest & refuse to allow anyone to watch {be it child, spouse- haha, nieces/nephews.. etc just plain don’t want it viewed on your television)?
Sponge Bob. i think he is obnoxious & the boys don't need his example

Q3: You just woke up, you’re a mess, haven’t showered, there are dishes in the sink.. There’s a knock at the door, what do you do?
Depends on what room I am in & where the boy are. we have French doors. Anyone outside can see in them to the kitchen. If I am alone & in the living room or bedroom I'll just peek out the curtains & see who it is, answering or not depending on that. If the boys are home or I am in the kitchen, then the person is basically looking right at me. Depending on who they are I'll open the door or speak with them with the door closed.

Q4:When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thought that ran through your mind?
Goodness those 'fine lines' are getting deeper

Q5. Tell me a story about your Dad..
My dad is good person, very giving. He does a lot of work with teen boys through baseball. There was a boy who was a very very good player and Dad thought he had an excellent chance of getting a scholarship to college & maybe even make the majors. If his grades improved. The kid was from the projects, his dad was absent, his mom was busy providing for her kids & didn't have the time to take an interest in this. My brother & I were out of the house by this time & my parents took this boy into their home, helped him through 2 years of HS and into college. Dad has helped a number of low income teens, boys & girls track themselves into college with grades & athletic scholarships.

Q6: You open your drawer, find 1 pink polka dotted sock and 1 black sock with reindeer on it.. Do you wear them together and hope no one sees them or go without socks today & hope your feet don’t get sweaty?
go without socks

Q7: Are there any strange stains on your carpet, floor, walls, ceiling or couch? Do you know how they got there?
Our old carpet was full of them, most of them from juice spills or coffee spills. The new floor is still to new.

Q8: Are you neighbors annoying???
My nearest neighbor is a quarter mile away. he'd have to be trying very very hard to be able to annoy me. Somebody within a mile or so lets their dogs run wild and a black one keeps getting into our trash.

Q9: Are you a phone person.. if I called you right now would you chat with me? lol
I like to chat on the phone so yeah, I'd talk to you. :)

Q10: What colour popsicle would you like.. Orange, Purple, Red, Yellow, Green, Pink or Blue?
Purple

some books & a discovery

My longtime readers (all 2 of you) will know that I am a major Douglas Adams fan, can pretty much recite the books (thanks to listening to them on audio so many times) and never pass up a chance to work a reference to them into everything I write. I know because I am an American, there are bits & pieces of things I still don't catch in them; references to things that I am simply not going to catch because of my nationality & my age. So I am always pleased when i find one. In his book "The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul", Kate visits a mental hospital called The Woodshead, while looking for Thor. There is a line in there, that when I read it, means nothing, but I've always thought it was given some emphasis on the audio version. Given that Douglas Adams himself is the narrator, I've long suspected I was missing something. The line is "I don't want to see anything along the 'Something Nasty in the Woodshead' business, being repeated". The speaker is referring to some unfortunate recent publicity. But I've recently come across a book of that title. The book was written in the late 70's and is 3rd in a crime/comedy-noir series, that apparently was a cult classic in Britain. It may be nothing, but given that I have always thought there was an unnecessary to the plot emphasis given to that line by Adams in the audio version, I really wonder if he named the place that just to be able to refer to the book. Which is something I can totally imagine him doing.

Being the orderly person I am, I cannot just read that book. I have to read the first 2 first. They are Don't Point That Thing at Me and After You with the Pistol. I have them on audio and am listening to the 1st one. I am enjoying it, but I think perhaps I might be better off reading it. I felt that way about Jasper Fforde's books in the beginning as well but ended up listening to 4 out of 6 of them before ever reading one and loved them all. It's mostly a matter of pacing. The book itself moves along well but the narrator does not.

I have that problem with things by Frances Mayes too. Under the Tuscan Sun was a great read and I suspect A Year in the World is as well. But they are both read by her on my audio versions and the pacing just kills me. She is a poet and she reads her prose
as if
it
were
a
poem..
with endless meaningful pauses. I haven't finished Year yet. I get bored with it and it makes me sleepy because she has this soft, melodic voice (great for poetry, not so much for prose) A friend of mine apparently has a version of Year that is read by someone else because she said the pacing was very good on hers. Under the Tuscan Sun was ok with pacing but really should have had the recipes abridged out of it.

April round up

What books and/or magazines did I read this month?

I read Victorian London by Liza Picard, Courtesans (can't recall the author) and the Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain. I reread Cooking for Mister Latte, Marriage with My Kingdom and several Agatha Christie mysteries. I also listened to seveal audiobooks including The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette, Heat and The Well of Lost Plots.

What movies and/or tv shows did I watch this month?

Various things. I don't watch much network stuff. I'm sick of crime drama and prefer my reality TV to focus on home improvement. I like "No Reservations" on the Travel Channel (but it is in reruns until July), and I've been hooked on "Robin Hood" on BBC America. I watch Mythbusters & Dirty Jobs as well.

What special days did I celebrate and how?

The 15th was my mom's birthday. We called her & the boys wished her a happy birthday.

What gifts did I give and/or receive?

None given or received

What illnesses or health concerns did I have?

I had some back problems. Drake had an ear infection

What fun things did I do with my friends and/or family?

What new foods, recipes or restaurants did I try this month?

What special or unusual purchases did I make?

What were this month's disappointments?

What were my accomplishments this month?

Anything else noteworthy to record?

how embarrassing

I just paid a repairman $60 to plug in my stove. I feel like an incredible idiot. But given the situation I can't see how I could have known. This is what happened:

DH makes cookies at 3pm on Sunday. Oven is working just fine. At 5pm I set it to preheat, but it only reaches 135 (so it *was* working) and then cuts out. The burners don't work either. However the digital clock display and the timer work just fine. So obviously something to do with heating has broken on it. It's an 11 year old stove & we've had to replace the heating coil once already. Monday I call a repair place, tell them the problem. They say something about circuit boards. So they aren't thinking about it either. Repair shops, unlike tech support, do not ask "Is the appliance plugged in?" before proceeding to troubleshoot. Even if they had I would have said "well sure it is" without looking because it's STOVE not a printer & the odds of it somehow coming unplugged without a noticeable amount of deliberate effort on my part, are really quite slim. The plug is behind the stove, you have to move it out of the way and pretty much CLIMB OVER IT to unplug it. And I am not the sort of fanatical cleaner who insists on moving appliances to clean behind them on a regular basis. Once a year, maybe. So it has been MONTHS since that stove was moved, maybe even a year or more. And the stove WAS WORKING all this time. Seriously, would 'maybe the plug came loose' have occurred to you given the situation?

The guy comes here, moves the stove, says "the plug is loose" pushes it all the way in and the stove works fine. he checked out the circuit board and other electronics to be sure but as it says on the receipt "Plugged stove in" is what he did.

oven problems

Our oven has stopped heating. It worked fine to make cookies about 2pm but then when I turned it on at 5pm it only heated to 135 and then stopped working at all. We had to replace the heating element within a year of buying the house. I can't recall what we spent. The oven was only a year or so old & Ithink the part was covered but we had to pay $50-60 for someone to come out, tell us it was the part and then come back & put the part in. Now, at more than 10 years old, we'll no doubt have to pay for the part as well. So we looked at stoves online. A straight replacement of our bottom of the Maytag stove will cost $250. Upgrading to the ceramic cooktop (which we've said we would do some day) would be $400. Upgrading still further to the ceramic cooktop and double stove model (which is my dream) would be $1000. I'll call Maytag in the morning & see how much the repair will run.

I cooked dinner in the toaster oven. It worked fine. Its just small. I need to search out my smallest baking dishes & see if they fit because odds are, that oven won't be fixed until some time after we get back from FL.

layout for today

We lost one of our cats on Monday. DH found Buddah on the porch in the morning. He had apparently passed on while laying in front of his box. The scraplift challenge at scrapbookgraphics.com inspired me to do this layout of him.

I am surprised at how few photos we have of him, or that I can find anyway. I've been going through all the photos for the digi camera years & copying out the ones with any of the cats in them into a separate folder. I found one packet of pics of the cats in with the rest of my photos and scanned them but I am sure I had more.

I'm starting to get stuff together for our flight on Thursday. A friend offered to take us tot he airport & for a bit it looked like I could ride home with DH. But that's not working out. I called around for airport taxis but it's $150-200 from here to the airport. I'll cost me about $100 in parking fees and gas to drive myself. Is it worth $50 to not have to deal with getting from baggage claim to the back of beyond parking with a double stroller, large rolling suitcase, 4 carry ons and 2 small boys at bedtime. Not from where I am sitting right now. But I can't say how I will feel when I land after 2 2 hour flights and a 90 minute layover with all of the above. Previous experience leads me think I'll be thinking "i'd pay $200 not to have to deal with this right now". But I'd have to travel with the car seats. Sure they can be used on the plane, but I'd have to take them from check in, through security to whatever distant terminal my flight is departing from. Along with all the aforementioned items except the rolling suitcase. Do they allow bungee cords through security? Because the only way I can see to manage it is to bungee the car seats into the stroller and then sit the kids in the seats, which is probably unsafe and will lead to the kids falling out. So I am driving up.

While I'm down in FL I'm hoping to have time to work on the pregnancy album I am creating for 1hourscrap. As usual I overcomplicated it by deciding to do all these different options & had to toss nearly everything & start over. I'm planning on using the flight time (assuming the boys actually *watch* the DVD I am bringing) to rework my ideas, make a full list of what I want to include & how I want to include it, so I can just sit & do it once we are there & the grandparents are playing with the boys.

dinner

It was not on the planned menu but Safeway had a sale on leg of lamb so I decided to get it. I had them cut it in half for me because the smallest was 6lbs and really, there is no way that would get eaten. I've never made lamb before. To the best of my knowledge I have never eaten lamb before, though there is a hazy childhood recollection in my memory of skillet fried lamb chops that were as tough as shoe leather. They might have been pork chops though. My mom cooked pork to death as it were. I remember smoked pork chops and ham steaks that were dry & tough because I suppose prevailing wisdom was to cook pork so it was inedible to avoid trychsy something or other. I hated pork chops until DH cooked some that were tender and juicy for me.

Anyway, back to the lamb, my culinary adventure of the month. Not much of a cooking adventure. Joy told me to roast it to 135 & that it would take 1.5-1.75 hours for a 7lb roast. It suggested rubbing it with oil and perferating the skin and sliding garlic slices into the slits but that seemed like rather a lot of work when I could just put it in a bag and pour some garlic & olive oil dressing in there for a marinade. It marinaded most of the afternoon. It roasted for 40 minutes & came out pink. It was delicious!!! Tender & juicy, like the best steak ever only more flavorful. I'm glad I have the other half left & may go buy another one if they are still on sale. I also steamed some asparagus & made some couscous. It was a really good meal. And for probably the first time ever I had the right amount of meat. No leftovers, but plenty for everyone.

Feast

from this site

Appetizer When you travel, which mode of transportation do you prefer?

I prefer to travel by train but can't afford the cost to time ratio. It takes 12 hours by rail to get to my parents. I can drive there in 18 for a quarter of the cost or fly there in 3 for the same price. I like the room you have in a train, especially an overnight trip. You can get up and walk around and there is scenery & you can look at it without having to watch the road as well. It's nicer than a plane, roomier, you can spread out more. Some day i would like to take the family on one of those scenic 3 day trips out west.

Soup Have you ever met a blogging friend in person?

No I have not, though I might in June.

Salad When was the last time you were really, really tired?

I was really really tired from about mid 2002 until Dec 2005 when I started taking Lunesta. I was barely functioning with a newborn and then pregnant with an infant and then had a newborn & a toddler and chronic bronchitis. If I slept 3 hours in 24 it was a lot of sleep. My memory was shot, my motor skills were faulty, my personality was non-existent. It was a very bad time for me. Since then I have only been really really tired twice. Dh was out of town and my younger son was up most of 2 nights in a row & I had no opportunity to nap.

Main Course If you could have dinner with any one fictional character from a book or movie, who would it be?

Tough one, either Arthur Dent from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or Thursday Next from the Eyre Affair (and other books)

Dessert Fill in the blank: One day, I hope to see _______________.

my great grandchildren

new menu

It's the beginning of the month so it is time for a new 2 week menu. The interesting side dish thing has continued to be a problem & lunch is becoming a serious issue for me. I am instead trying to get more veggies into the main dish & make meals with leftovers that will serve as decent, protein based lunches. I eat way too many carbs during the day. we are also still recovering from $1000 in unexpected auto expenses so keeping the cost down and not going out to eat must be included. I'm also trying to reuse multiple ingredients so I can 'chop once, cook twice' though I have timing issues with it and food sometimes goes bad. So this is what I have in no real order

Pasta primavera (Buttoni tortellini with broccoli & squash & pesto)
Frittata with potato & squash and a salad
Braciole (flank steak is on sale this week) with garlic broccoli side
Beef ragou (also with flank steak) side TBD
Grilled chicken & sweet potato salad (includes other veggies)
Pizza, with grilled chicken & artichokes
Pork schnitzel with honey garlic carrots & salad
Turkey cutlets with creamed spinach
Chicken & bean antipasta (includes artichokes & spinach)
Pasta TBD
Pocket sandwiches of turkey, artichokes & spinach
Grilled tilapia & beets

All of it but the pasta, piza and the fish make decent leftovers for lunch & on those days I'm thinking yogurt, hummus & carrots, and hard boiled eggs. Possibly some salad depending on the leafy greens situation. Pasta tomorrow night & I think after that the chicken & sweet potato salad (assuming a ripe avocado can be found).

Hopefully we'll be back to dinners out again next month & I'll be able to buy some digi supplies as well. I've got a plan to bring in some extra money to subsidize my digi habit & Quizno's addiction but it'll take a couple of months before all the paperwork is done. However it has the potential to become a long term WAH job to carry over once the kids are in school full time.

share your plans for April

re you done with Spring Cleaning yet? Are you going to play some practical jokes (or even pranks, LOL!) come April Fool’s? Do you practice Lent? What are your plans for Easter?

Yes I am done with my Spring Cleaning. I do a 'spring cleaning' 8 times a year and just did my most recent right before Ostara (Mar 21). I'll do my next at the end of April, right before Beltane (May 1)

I would love to play pranks on people but I'm not very good at it and don't really have anyone to do it on, except DH. I don't practice Lent or celebrate Easter because I am pagan. Our holiday of renewal was on Mar 21, the vernal equinox,when we celebrate the rebirth of nature & the increase of light. The boys and I went outside with drums and woke up the trees then we had a ritual meal of symbolic foods - omlette, spinach salad and new bread.

My plans for April mostly revolve around the yard. We have to dig out an old parking area and till it, fertilize it and the current play area and reseed. That's going to take most of the month. We also have to get started on prepping the rest of the garden and ordering some more trees. Plus I have issues with my computer desk that are going to need addressed with some carpentry.

reading

These are some questions from the Sweet Shoppee weekly “From Our Blog To Yours” event.

Amazon or brick and mortar? Wherever the price is best. I'll browse books at B&N and then look them up on Amazon and half.com & wherever the deal is best I'll buy. I'll also check my library for a copy as well.
Bookmark or dog ear? dog ear my books, bookmark library books
Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random? Grouped by subject but not alphabetized
Keep, throw away, or sell? Depends on the book. I keep the ones I love, sell the ones that are worth a decent price and donate the rest
Keep dust jacket or toss it? Keep
Read with dust jacket or remove it? With it on
Short story or novel? Novels and essays
Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? I've only read one book of each and didn't really care for either. Lemony Snicket if I had to choose
Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks? When I get tired I read to a chapter ending.
“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”? Depends on my mood.
Buy or Borrow? Borrow if it is a new author or one I just like, buy if it is an author I know I love
New or used? Used
Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? Browse followed by recommendations followed by reviews
Tidy ending or cliffhanger? Unless it is a series I like tidy endings
Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading? Whenever I have time. :) I listen to audiobooks during the day in my car and at the gym and I read in the evenings
Stand-alone or series? I do either.
Favorite series? Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series
Favorite children’s book? The Narnia Chronicls
Favorite book of which nobody else has heard? Dirk Gentley's Holisitic Detective Agency
Favorite books of all time? David Eddings Belgariad & Mallorean serieses
Least favorite book you finished last year? David Edding's "The Younger Gods". His first 2 series (Belgariad & Mallorean) were awesome. His second 2 series (Elenium & Tamuli) were very good. His last one (the Dreamers) was just plain horrible
What are you reading right now? Insatiable by Gael Greene
What are you reading next? I'm not sure but I'll probably reread Julie & Julia or check if the latest Anne Perry mystery is at the library

Sweet SHoppe blog prompts

1. If you could witness one supernatural event–whether you believe in the supernatural or not–what would it be? Why? I do believe in the supernatural. I'm not sure if this qualifies as a supernatural event, but it certainly is mystical. I'd like to witness an actual ritual at Stonehenge performed by the people that built it. There are a lot of theories why it was built & what was done there & I'd like to see the 'grand opening' events because I really would love to know why they built it.

2. What is your earliest memory? Why do you think you have remembered that particular event or thing? My earliest memory is of lying on something cold with a sheet over my face. I know I am in a hospital but that is all I know in my memory. I'm not scared or in pain. I'm mostly focused on the way the light looks coming through the sheet. I realize now that I am remembering when I had to get stitches in my forehead. I was about 3. I suppose I remember it because it was a significant thing to happen to you.

3. Pick a friend or acquaintance with whom you think you would like to start a new business venture. What business? We've actually discussed this with a couple friends. They teach yoga & one of them owns a bunch of land so the idea is to run a yoga retreat place. I'd be doing the admin stuff. I like yoga, but not enough to actually learn to teach it. Someone has to do the paperwork & that is what I am good at.

I wish someone had told me...

that disagreeing and arguing with someone does not mean you have to sever the relationship. You can be friends with people who disagree with you on things. You can even continue to love them. You can agree to disagree and respect one another's points of view. Disagreeing with an opinion is not the same as disliking a person. I don't know how many people in the first 25 years of my life I walked away from because we had one fight, one argument. They walked away as well, so its not just me who didn't know it. But I wish that was something that had been explained better to me when I was a child.

living room is done!

here are some 'after' shots



Please note, ifyou can see it, my beloved flat screen monitor is back :) It's new. They couldn't fix the old one so they replaced it with a new one that is actually bigger than the old one. I've scrapped 2 layouts since I set it up on Tuesday. :)

And now for the bad news. Yesterday I failed to miss a chuck of tree branch in the road. Hit it pretty much dead on the passenger side. Took out the crossbar on the underside of my car, which sheered the bolts out of the radiator. And that is just the damage I could see. Fortunately I was only a quarter mile from my house & made it into the driveway before the radiator really started leaking....ok, it gushed fluid as soon as I stopped the car. I had it towed to our mechanic that afternoon. Today I called and he says I'd better call my insurance as I have "significant damage' to the car and it needs to go to a body shop. DAMN! 2 weeks ago I got a letter from my insurance telling me that starting March 14th my payments were going down $10 a month. Wanna bet that doubles in the opposite direction? I called the insurance, they arranged for a rental car as I was bright enough to include that on my policy when we switched. I arranged for the mechanics to tow the car to the autobody place (Which is owned by a guy who used to work for the mechanic and is a customer of DH's company. gotta love small towns) I'd been told it would be 48 hours before an adjuster could look at it but he called me about an hour later & actually inspected the car before it left the mechanics shop. He also noticed a cracked front fender. The mechanic said my compressor had been damaged & possibly the transmission as something is still leaking fluid. Lovely. I just had that transmission replaced in August. Not being able to see the compressor or the transmission the adjuster did a claim for $1012 & is sending me a check for $512. If other stuff is needed they will just pay the autobody place directly. unless, and here is the kicker, the transmission is shot. Given the age, mileage and damage to the car (this is the second collision it's been in. DH failed to miss a heavy folded tractor trailer tarp in Nov 2002) they will declare the car totalled. We are so screwed if that happens. My car is paid off. We can't afford a car payment right now, not until DH's truck is paid off next Jan. we'll get at best $5000 for my car as a payout. I am so hoping there is nothing so significantly wrong with the car that they will call it totalled. I really need that car to last another year at least.

what I have been up too

I haven't been around much. I haven't done any layouts or any products for 1hourscrap. I haven't had a workspace for 2 weeks, with another week or so to go. We're finally getting wood flooring!!! It was supposed to be installed last week. So the week before I spent packing up the living room & moving what i could elsewhere in the house & then we were going to rent a moving can to hold the furniture we had no space for. Last Saturday we were ready to get loading when the guy calls & says he can't be here until next week. The guy is an old friend of ours. So I'm a bit peeved & decide that since the room is cleaned out & the furniture is already piled in the middle of the room, lets take the week & paint the walls. We picked out a medium golden yellow - pirate's treasure if you look on Lowe's and some chocolate brown for trim. The plan was to paint every night last week & get primer & 2 coats done. Primer got done & one coat got done & then we all had this 48 hour bug that kept us from doing the second coat. Saturday we go the truck, loaded it with the furniture & pulled up the carpet & tack strips. Today we were going to go get the plywood for the underlayment (it's concrete slab), but it's snowed 6 inches so far & now we are getting a sort of freezing drizzle thing. So we're stuck here. The other thing we were going to get was the cabinetry for the built in 2 workstation desk area DH is putting in where my old useless plastic shelving & odd desk were. I am so looking forward to that. Of course the snow means our friend probably won't be down tomorrow as planned, so that's another day of no floor. The living room is giant freezing echo chamber currently. Here are some pics of developments so far.

my computer area before clearing (taken by DS1 age 4)


the rest of the living room before clearing- taken this summer, we have new curtains now.


my computer area last week (I'm at the kitchen island at the moment)


the mostly empty living room


little boys painting primer


my work area in color


DH pulling up tack strips


I really hoping to be able to post next week pictures of a fully furnished living room with new carbonized bamboo flooring and custom built in office area. Or by the weekend after that at the very latest.....except the office area, which I am bracing myself for not being done until April. But here's hoping for the best

some new poducts of mine at 1hourscrap

I did some photo stacking quick pages


Some multiphoto quick pages


And some Love-ly word art


I'm working on templates that match the 2 quick page sets and another set with multiple photos.

Glory day!!!!

At long last, after 8 years of talking about it, planning for it, saving for it (then needing to spend the money on something else) we are finally getting wood flooring in the family room! Yippee!!!! We're going to Lumber Liquidators today to pick up the carbonized bamboo flooring we ordered. Next Saturday we go pick up the moving van we've rented to store our furniture for the week and then Sunday our friend who is going to install the floor is coming down to help us move the furniture & then get started with the floor. He'll be here about a week, living with us. He's DH's oldest friend and redid our kitchen while I was pg with DS1 - a 6 week project that stretched out to 14 weeks. He'll be sleeping in the playroom, which is where we will be during the day while the family room is redone. We have a family room, a kitchen, 3 bedrooms (one is the playroom & the boys share a bedroom) and 2 bathrooms. The family room is 1/3 of the house's square footage. It is going to be a big challenge to keep the boys occupied and out of the way while this is going on. DS1 is already suggesting ways he can help M with the floors. M has 2 kids about the boys age & has been renovating their home so I'm sure he is used to it. Hopefully he'll have a few tasks the demons can help with & then they'll be willing to go play in their room or watch a movie. Mel has already said we can spend an afternoon or 2 over at her house, but I don't want to impose too much. I'm thinking of calling DS1s preschool and see if I can't make some arrangements to have him stay in the aftercare program that week. They want you to sign up by month, for the whole month, but I'm hoping they might make an exception.

I am so excited about the floors! I have a construction kit around here somewhere, I think one of Christina Bartholomew's and plan on doing some flooring layouts.

combining things

I've done a fairly good job this week of getting my scrapping done and reading. I've completed a QP set for 1hourscrap, plus half a second set. I've got my stamps & word art uploaded. I've done 2 layouts for myself.

And I have read 3 books and am working on a 4th. These books are excellent! If you like fiction, you will love Jasper Fforde's books. I love wordplay. Puns are my favorite type of humor and his books are full of them. One of the characters in the books is the villain of a book called The Squire of High Potternuse. They are excellently written, well paced, have wonderful characters & the plots are engrossing. I not only have a hard time putting one of the books down, I have a hard time not starting the next one immediately. The one's featuring Thursday Next are better than the ones with Jack Spratt (and if you can manage it read the first 3 Next books before reading the Spratt ones) but all of them are highly entertaining. I am reading the 4th Next book now & hope to finish it tonight after the boys are in bed. Then I have the 2nd Spratt one.

case to convert former PC 80GB hard drive to EHD - $40
new 120GB for additional back up - $99
multi USB hub - $25
saving 98% of your data when your system crashes - priceless

Outlook's archive function - useless

been working on a new product

I was just going to make some word art but then suddenly "The MUSE IS UPON ME!" (guess who said that. hint: mel brooks movie) and I ended up making a set of 43 candy heart stamps in assorted colors & phrases. They will be up at 1hourscrap.com next week and I'll be running a special for Feb 7-9. A couple stamps will be the daily download each day for you to sample and the complete set will be 20% off for those 3 days. Plus they will also be on sale the first week they are up so you have 9 days to get these stamps at 20% off.



Now I am working on the 'love' word art I had originally planned on doing. That will be going up soon with a couple pieces available on the daily download as well.

one word

This Moment: exasperated (with the boys)
Your Shoes: slippers
Craving: silence
The State of Your Home: cleanish
Annoyed By: sons
Noise In the Background: sons
Really Want To: organize
Thinking about: shopping
Smelling: coffee
Favorite Product In Office Supply Aisle: notebooks
Don't Ever Want To: camp
Your Eye Color: greenish
The Weather: cold
Have Never Tried: bungee-ing
Think Everyone Should Try: sushi
Last Vacation Destination: Flordia
The Last Thing You Had to Drink: coffee
Your Bad Habit: coffee
What You're Going To Do Now: laundry

tagging is tedious

very very tedious, but I can already tell how handy it will be. Lately I have been doing layouts with lots of stuff on them, stuff from many sources rather than sticking with just one kit and tracking down that string of beads I remember seeing somewhere is a PITA. Plus as I was going through it I kept thinking "I have that? Why haven't I used that?" So I'm hoping it will cut my spending way back too. I've done all my 1hour stuff and am about halfway through my 'new' kits folder, which is stuff I have bought but haven't used. I'm dreading hitting the rest of the kit folders, let alone the embellishment ones. I'm doing pretty good though. I started with general categories and a 'various' one and every so often I stop & go through the various category & create more categories off of it. I'm not doing it by color right now. Just by description - brad, rivet, paper, ribbon, with some subcategory stuff - ribbon bows, square brads, word art on tags. The problem I can forsee is having too many categories to be useful for searching. We'll see I suppose.

Geez do I have a lot of flowers & floral things. I use some them on the boys layouts but I really wish designers would do more boyish elements - cards, vehicles, balls,tools, dirty/rusty things.

an up and down sort of day

On the downside...overdrafts worth $450 were posted. DHs employer had some glitch or something with their payroll people & the direct deposits didn't go through so they had to cut everyone checks. The 15th was MKL day so the banks were closed. DH was out somewhere all day on the 16th, so it was the 17th before the check was deposited. After 2pm. GGGRRRR...On the 17th his truck payment, our auto insurance & the electric bill were all auto debited. And they posted before the check. Fortunately the overdraft protection just removed the money from savings with no fees but it's still irritating.

On the upside...my new EHD arrived. It's so *tiny*. Its a Western Digital Passport drive. 120GBs, USB powered. I can so easily take it & my laptop over to my recliner in the evenings. Woohoo!! even better news, my monitor shipped back to me today!!!! It'll probably be the end of next week before it gets here but it is fixed and on its way back!!!!

I'm working on a quick page pregnancy album. I haven't decided yet if it will cover 4 week or 6 week periods. I want it to be 12 pages. 6 weeks would give me 5 pages for specialty stuff like the nursery, the ultrasound, the name search etc. 4 weeks would only give me 2 pages. So the tags are all blank & I also haven't decided whether to fix the word art or leave it on separate .pngs. I like versatility but I also want this to be an instant album - all you have to think about really is what photo & your journaling.

I've been doing well with my scrapping. DSP has had some really fun challenges and DSD is rocking with them. Between the 2 sites I have about 18 challenges I want to try to do by the end of the month. But everything is on hold now that I have my EHD. I've been slowly tagging things, but I'v been waiting for the new drive to really get going. ACDSee is now copying all my digi stuff to the new drive(its been about an hour so far) & I am going to take the next 3 days to focus on tagging. Now that the drive can come with me to the recliner or the bedroom I have more time to work on it.

Do you think you can sing? In front of people or just in the car?

No I cannot sing & I have no illusions about that. I've never been able to sing. I can just sort of carry a tune, but I have no range at all. I only sing in large groups where my vocal inadequacies are not that noticeable. Or when I have been drinking (And so has everyone else). I can't watch American Idol because I get so embarrassed for those people.

I've become my mother again

Tomorrow is Bunco night. The theme is the 80's. I can do the 80's. I am in fact embarrassed by the sheer number of clothing items I own that can be assembled for an 80's look. (and the thing is I purge my closet regularly, where do these wide belts come from and just *where* were those stirrup pants hiding anyway?). I have a few looks to choose from but I am thinking that the Flashdance thing is what I want to go for - leggings, a tank, scrunched up socks & a cut up, off the shoulder sweatshirt. I even have a sorority letter sweatshirt from 1987 to use.

Then it happened. I became my mother.

I got out the scissors, picked up the sweatshirt and said, out loud to myself, "Why are you ruining a perfectly good sweatshirt, cutting it up like that?" Which is exactly what my mom said 20+ years ago when I was getting ready to cut up a high school logo sweatshirt. Suddenly I was 18, in our kitchen, listening to Duran Duran, using my mom's "good scissors" & feeling guilty for cutting up a good shirt.

I did however continue to cut now as I did then.

What do you have faith in?

[i]"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."
Martin Luther King, Jr.[/i]

I have faith in the existence of the Divine. A higher power does exist & its the same being no matter what you call him/her. I have faith that the majority of the people you meet are good & decent people just trying to get through their day as best they can - just like you. I have faith in myself, that in the end I can find some way to cope. These things keep me going every day.

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In other news I saved up $150 toward the Red Dwarf DVD collection that I want. It is anywhere from $180-250 depending on where you buy it. but I'm also saving toward a new EHD. I want a USB powered 2.5" one. Something little I can take with me into the bedroom. My current EHD must be plugged into the wall & is a big heavy sucker. I was thinking of getting a 250gb drive, so I'm looking at $200-250 for that. There have a been a lot of threads in various places about 'how many gigs of scrapping stuff do you have?' which has made me really look at how much I have. I got rid of a bunch of stuff a couple months ago. So I sat & added up the digi stuff, the photos, the PSP stuff, the music & the audiobooks. Really, a 250Gb EHD is overkill. My 80GB EHD is not quite half full with all the stuff I have & I move stuff off regularly. I also have the trial of ACDSee & am tagging things so the EHD is on my mind. So when I found a 120GB 2.5" USB powered EHD for $99 yesterday - I bought it. I was going to get the videos first but I have them in VHS & can watch them in the bedroom if I really need to. It should arrive by the end of the week.

I got some new products uploaded to 1hour scrap. A set of quick pages & some desktop wallpaper calendars. They should be available sometime this week. The wallpaper is available in the standard 1024x768 and I also did a set in the more widescreen 1280x800 size as well. I have a widescreen monitor & am always having to resize desktop wallpaper.

not so perfect

You know those commercials for facial cleanser on tv? The ones where the woman with the perfect complexion is in a perfectly white terry cloth robe, in her perfectly clean bathroom, with her hair perfectly held back from her face in a perfect knot or perfectly smoothed back by a headband, no random hairs sticking up in little tufts making her look like a guest alien on Star Trek. She has one of those beautiful bowl sinks that look gorgeous but takes up all your available counter space. It's perfectly clean, no water spots or toothpaste smears, & is on a smooth equally perfectly clean counter top. She gets the tube for cleanser from some unspecified location (can't tell where but there is no counter space for it so there must be a hanging shelf somewhere), washes her face and leans forward, cups her hands full of water & in one perfect motion, splashes the cleaners off of her face. No water splashes on the counter or gets in her hair or dribbles down her arms, soaking the robe. Then you see her with her hair down, dabbing at her face with a thick white towel.

Why can't I ever wash my face like that? Even considering that I have no bathrobe, & my sink is molded into my 15 year old bathroom counter, with water stains, and none of my towels are white (and many are not thick) and my hair does stick up around my headband so I do resemble an extra in the Star Wars canteena scene (especially once I get the cleanser on my face), you'd think after a couple decades practice I would be able to splash water on my face without it going all over the counter, the floor & myself. Really. Cup water, lean forward, bring hands to face at full horizontal position. But no.

Describe your sleeping style. Are you a side sleeper, snoring on your back sleeper, wake at the slightest sound sleeper, sprall across the bed and sleep through an earthquake sleeper? Spill your secrets!

I am a side sleeper, generally my right side. I also have to have a body pillow to prop my leg/knee up on or I wake up in the middle of the night with a pain in my hip. I roll around a bit during the night. I cannot fall asleep on my own or stay asleep either. This has been going on since I got pregnant in Jan 2002. I started taking Lunesta for it in Nov 2005. Lunesta helps me fall asleep & for the most part, stay asleep. Providing no small boys come into my room, climb in bed and proceed to poke or kick me for an extended period of time (like last night for example). I am generally coherent enough to understand what is going on & can respond to things verbally if I am awakened in the night but physically I am like a drunk, stumbling around from wall to wall, grabbing anything I can find for support. I am not a light sleeper on Lunesta but not a deep sleeper either.

yeah warranty!!

My monitor is still under warranty!!!! I swung by DH's office & got a box for it. Now it is swathed in bubble wrap and packed in those air bag thingys Amazon has been using lately. I have several dozen of them. They are ALL in the box. No one is going to accuse me of shoddy packing! I'll ship it UPS tomorrow. They said if they cannot fix it then they will send me a new one. Given that the screen is all black with occasional green flashed (very Christmas light effect) I'm thinking I'll be getting a new one.

resolutions

My resolutions for 2007...out here for the whole world to see & reply when I screw up on them:)

1. Serve better & more interesting side dishes. I have a whole post around here somewhere about my food resolutions, but the side dish thing is the one I am really focused on.

2. Lose 20lbs. This involves exercising more & eating less & better. I already go to the gym 3x a week, but I am going to up the strength training & weights & increase cardio. I'm also going to try to get a 4th day in whenever possible (even if that means going on a weekend). eat less is pretty self explanitory.

3. Journal more - online, in my layouts, in the boys' books and in my 5 year journal. I was really good about that journal in 2004 & 2005, but 2006 has been very sporadic. I blame getting more sleep. I started it when I was sleepless & forgetful, now I am sleeping & remembering more events so I'm less inclined to write them down.

4. Stick to the budget. There is another post around here about the odd tendacy since about April for there to be a random, unexpected $500 cost every month. Auto repairs, medical expenses, power surge blowing out thing, etc. Plus we were randomly going over budget on stuff anyway, so the last few month have been hard financially. We revised the budget & are moving forward. The $500 expense thing appears to be continuing - our dryer is taking 2-3 tumbles to dry a load it used to do in 1. We cleaned out the vents, pulled it out from the wall & cleaned out the ducts in the wall. Nothing is helping. The dryer still works though & until it is actually defunct we are not getting a new one. But every time I do a load of wash (every day) I am reminded of our need to save money toward a new one.

eating

Give us your best diet tips and ideas for healthy eating during the holidays

My favorite tip is "BE AWARE OF WHAT YOU ARE EATING". Pay attention while you eat. Don't mindlessly scarf down rum balls or those little appetizer quiches. Pick it up, look at it, and chew thoughtfully while noticing how it tastes. This means you can't really eat while carrying on a conversation, unless the conversation is about the food. Eating mindlessly while talking at gathering is the source of endless amounts of calories. It also slows down your eating and you will eat less because you give your body time to become satisfied.

Another one is "IF IT IS NOT WONDERFUL - DON'T EAT IT". Even if it was made by your sweet grandmother, even if you just paid a lot of money for it. If you don't think 'wow! I really like this' after the first couple of bites, don't finish it. You may have to eat a bit for politeness' sake (if your grandmother is involved) but you are not obligated to finish it. I hearby give you permission not to clean your plate if you don't love the food. :)

Eat "SMALLER PORTION SIZES" assuming you have control over your portions. Take half the amount you think you will eat. If you want more you can go get more after you are done with what you have

The last is "DON'T CLEAN YOUR PLATE", especially if you have no control over the portion size. Eat half, give it a few minutes to settle and ask yourself if your really want/need more. Then eat half the remaining portion & repeat.

favorite Christmas memory

The boys were up early as usual. DH got up with them & kept them entertained for an hour or so while the rest of us slept. Unusually Grandma & Pa were up before I was. Around 7:30 DS2 apparently got tired of waiting for Mom to get up & came into the bedroom, walked over to me and said "Mommy you get up now! Presents! You get dressed!". The other thing that stands out in my mind was the sheer disappointment on DS1's face when the first present he opened was *not* the hot rod toy he had asked for. It was the only thing he had wanted & he was so sad that the package he opened was a Leapster. The next package was the hot rod & he was so happy he was totally uninterested in opening the rest of his gifts (though he did eventually).

Just as an aside, within 2 hours DS1 was happily playing with DS2's Cars vehicles and DS2 was busy playing with the hot rod. Ds1 did take the hot rod to bed with him though.

Sunrise, sunset

Describe the most beautiful sunset or sunrise you've ever seen.

I'm so bad at descriptives... The first thing that comes to mind was a sunset I saw a couple weeks ago. We were in the car driving to or from someplace & it had been storming all day. Not just a gray sky, but a black sky all afternoon long. It had stopped raining & was starting to clear off, off in the west. The sun was setting & was this deep, rich, glowing orange color and it sort of faded into the dark grey and the black. Plus the mountains were there. So there was this dark but glowing band of orange both top & bottom and this richer red orange glowing band across the middle. Beautiful!

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I was added to the rolls at BlogHer.com today! I've been lurking off of blogs there for months & finally joined last night. If you are a female blogger you should check them out. They have some great blogs there. I went on a blog jumping frenzy last night and added about 40+ blogs to my Bloglines account. About half were food & the other half parenting. Then I switched my food blogfood blog over to the new blogger templates & fiddled around with it. Feeling successful with that I switched my old random thoughts blog over & found a 3 column template to try out with it and it worked on the 1st try! That almost makes me confident enough to switch this one over. But I am still reluctant.

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I spent a few hours browsing a craft/flea market type thing today & now havea bunch of ideas for calendar templates...for 2008, but that's fine. It gives me 10 months to make them. I have a slew of outlook sticky notes with ideas on them. I need to get some word art together for 1hourscrap. I have some ideas about that too. we went to B&N as well & I bought some books. The great thing about being on vacation is I can read for extended periods. At least I could. my brother & his family arrive tonight so I suppose my reading time (and computer time) will be cut down soon.

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I'm getting back in the groove online. I've gotten caught up at DSP. I'm not really in a position to do any scrapping here but I should be able to get back to the challenges once we get home. I've missed scrapping regularly & it will be good to get back into it. I had to get the reading jones out of my system & that has pretty much been accomplished I think. It looks like Carrie (woogiebop) is taking over DigiScrapDiva and some of the folks from Scrapmommies will be helping her run the site, so I am looking forward to the challenges and energy they are sure to bring there.

kids?!? are you kidding me?

I enjoy ______ now, but if anyone had told me that years ago, I would never have believed them.

Children. Seriously. I really did not like kids for most of my life. I was militantly childfree in my 20's. Didn't want them around me, certainly didn't want them in my life. I was absolutely positive children ruin your life & I was happy with my life as it was. Have children of my own? Oh hell no! But slowly, in my early 30s my opinion changed. Many things contributed to it but what stands out most was that as the last of my friends married I realized that, for me, without children there is nothing to mark the changing time, no firsts to look forward to, except divorce & death. How cheery. And while I as happy with my life, it had been going on the same way for a few years now & would likely go on the same way unchanging & that seemed a bit of an empty prospect. The kids did 'ruin' my life. That life is gone & won't be coming back and I do miss parts of it - the spare time, the spare money. And some days parenting is every bit as difficult and the kids every bit as horrible as I imagined they could be. But I love my new life and there are far more good times than bad ones.

What sets you apart from the crowd?

Depends on the crowd. I hang out with different groups of people & what is common to one group is very unusual to others.

The fact that I am a pagan is the big one. My religion is growing but is not at all mainstream. Many people still have a great deal of misconceptions about it, so I don't always mention it. My MOPS group is of course, Christian based, Baptist in fact, though they are very good about making everyone feel welcome even if you are Catholic or (as they think of me) you don't attend church. I've never stood up and told them I was a witch. I don't know all of them well. Some people I think would have no problem. I know one woman's husband is a Wiccan. But there are people in the group that are already offended by Santa & jack o lanterns being on decorations. I can only imagine their reaction to an initiated witch in their midst, so I tend to keep quiet to avoid conflict. There are not many pagan digi scrappers either, though I do know several.

Among the wider pagan world, the fact that I am so 'mainstream' sets me apart. I hang out with the Christian moms, I digi scrap. I am not a radical lesbian vegan liberal who chains herself to trees on the weekends while wearing all black and a hal a dozen giant pentacles. :) Of course among my RL coven I am considered quite normal - but then we are a coven of 40ish, mostly ex-military, rural, conservative, almost Republican witches. If we were Christians we'd fit right in with our Baptist neighbors. :)

oh the pressure!

Where do you go when you want to get away from the pressures of life, family, work, etc.?

I shut myself in my bedroom and read. Or I get together with a girlfriend & we go shopping. We hit a craft store, a book store, a coffee shop and generally have a meal together.

perfect winter day

List five things that make up a perfect winter day.

1. snow, lots! on a weekend day
2. DH to remain calm & not freak out about needing to plow etc
3. sledding
4. snow buildings
5. hot cocoa afterwards

we're here!

After 19 hours, spread over 2 days we have arrived at grandma's house. 1063 miles. Forget over the river and through the woods. We went over the interstate and through the traffic.

DH was able to leave work early Thurs so we left home at 4:30pm. 40 minutes later we were stuck in rush hour traffic. It took us about a hour to go 10 miles. It took us almost 3 hours to travel 100 miles. So we did not get as far as we had hoped that night. We'd hoped to get south of Columbia, SC so we would miss their morning rush hour, but we ended up stopping just north of it at 11:30pm. We'd travelled 350 miles in 7 hours. The boys were asleep in the back seat, woke up briefly to be moved to the room and then dropped back off. I didn't sleep much. I can't take the Lunesta if I can't get 7-8 hours & at best I would maybe get 6.5. I think I slept from about 3am to 6:30am. We were in WaffleHouse by 7:15 and on the road at 8am. we encountered no traffic. The traffic 45 miles from home would be the only standing still traffic we would encounter. However there were A LOT of cars on the road. Packs of them. And there was rain. DH drove through a patch in SC that lasted about 15 minutes & was heavy at times. I hit a long off and on spell between Jacksonville & Tampa that would come and go and be so heavy at times that I was about to pull over. We arrived at my folks place at 8:15p. Boys were in bed around 9:30 and I was stumbling to bed around 10:45 under the effects of a Lunesta. Brad fell asleep about 10 minutes later.

books listened too - Kitchen Confidential, Peril at End House
movies watched - Cars, Robots, El Dorado, Knights of Fix Alot, Ice Age 2, Shrek 2
times "Are we there yet" was asked - about 4000
fast food meals eaten - blessedly, only 2 - Arby's Thurs night & Burger King for lunch on Friday. We skipped dinner Friday and just kept driving, eating the apples, bananas and pretzels I brought with us.
items left behind in our rush to leave - books for bedtime stories, razors, facial scrub

So far today the males have gone swimming, I had Quiznos, DH & DS2 took a 3 hour nap, DS1, Grandpa & I went for ice cream, remaining gifts were wrapped, a load of laundry has been washed and Grandpa went and bought a wireless internet router for his cable modem after DH & I discovered they didn't have one (and that we couldn't get online with our laptops) & told him how great the were. Now the 4 adults can use their 4 laptops to surf the web all at once from anywhere in the house. I'm wondering if my brother or his wife will be arriving with one (or 2)? Maybe I can get them all to download YIM or Hello and we can all Im one another from across the living room. :)

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukka and Blessed Yule to everyone!

Bummer for me

The monitor is shot. My nice 20" flat screen monitor, only a year old, is all wonky. The display is all green & shimmery. An its been getting a bit fuzzy as well unless I have it set to 1600x1200 which is way too small. I don't recall if we paid for the extended warranty. 50/50 shot whether we did or not. Depends on the mood of whoever ordered it at the time & I cannot recall which of us did. I am less likely to remember to get it but DH is cheaper so depending on cost he might not have paid for it. i have View Sonics 800# so I am going to call them & find out. I have a laptop so I don't *need* the monitor, but i love the monitor. I want my monitor!

The booksfree.com thing is working out well for me. I've had 4 books so far and would have gotten a 5th but I stupidly forgot to remove the mailer insert when I sent book 3 back in and mailed the book to myself. So it's going out now. There is a chance bok 5 might arrive before we leave but I doubt it. That means I will probably average 5-6 books a month & I think $25 a month is a good deal for that.

Bought ink so I am finally printing out the calendar & DH can get it bound tomorrow. Also got niece2's gift, a few more Cars, the movie Ice Age 2 (as a surprise video for day 2 in the car) and one of DHs Xmas gifts. I looked at flat screen monitors & a 17" is $200 at WM. I tried to find new sippy cups for the boys & all WM had was Disney Princess ones. I'm not really sexist but I just balk at the idea of the boys carrying around glitter pink sippy cups with princesses & flowers all over them. I just can't go there. So I'll have to check out Safeway & FoodLion this week. We need a few new ones for the trip, most of ours are old & no longer screw on properly from numerous dishwasher trips..

Tonight is MOPS potluck. Tuesday is DS1's birthday party for Jesus & book exchange at school (and let me just say that the injunction against books with TV cartoon characters, Harry Potter, magical stuff or Santa really makes finding a book a challenge. Especially the no cartoon character part. I understand it. I really do. I don't want Sponge Bob in my house so I appreciate a blanket DO NOT instruction but damn that narrows things down for 3 year olds) Wednesday is DS1s Christmas caroling thing. Thursday the cats go to the kennel & I pack everything. Friday we leave. And I intend to get to the gym at least 2x if not 3 this week. Oh yeah, and a I have to wrap some gifts tonight for tomorrow. and make my pot luck item. I guess I should get off of here.

gifts done!

DS1 - Leapster, Cars hot rod, I Spy book
stocking - 3 Cars die cast, Backyardigans Leapster game & travel coloring book
DS2 - Take Along Roundhouse, I Spy Shapes book, Floor puzzle
stocking - 2 Cars die cast, Gordon & Percy & travel coloring book
Family - Backyardigans Memory game and Chutes & Ladders

Niece 1 - My Little Pony Memory game
Niece 2 - Pop up Elmo book

Friends older kids - I Spy books
Friends toddlers - fat plastic trucks & cars

Adults - alcohol, chocolate & tea gift bag

Mom - calendar
Dad - bookmarks

one thing & another

My flat screen monitor is acting up. I'm praying it is a cable problem. Jiggling the cable seems to help. I am so screwed if it is the monitor. I have gotten used to dual monitors and I *love* my flat screen. I almost didn't get a laptop because I didn't want to give it up. I'm getting a replacement cable at wal mart tomorrow. There ought to be a half a dozen monitor cables in this house. There used to be but I can't find a single one now.

I will also be buying ink at the wal mart. I ran out on page 11 of the 12 page calendar I am making for my mom. And I haven't printed the bookmarks for my dad or the triptick for our trip. I have to get it all printed tomorrow so DH can get it bound before we leave. I'd've had all this done by now but when I was making the bookmarks for my dad I decided since I was going to all the trouble I might as well make them for sale, so I had make a couple variations & then made templates as well & between that & putting together mom's calendar it was Friday night before I started printing. i will *not* set foot in walmart on weekends in December so it'll be tomorrow before I can finish.

The bookmarks are available at 1hourscrap.com if you still need a fast, easy and very useful gift for people.


I have no shorts that fit DS1 & we are going to FL in 5 days. DS2 needs a bathing suit. I suppose we'll have to get them down there. I cleaned the car out, vacuumed, washed the car seat covers, everything. I like to start a trip with a clean car. I'm going to have one suitcase that just has presents in it. One suitcase for our overnight stop. 2 large suitcases with our clothes, 2 laptop cases, each boy gets a small backpack, the DVD case and my pillow. Will all this fit in the back of the car & still leave room to see out the window?

I have potluck on Monday, DS1s Christmas pageant Wednesday, drop the cats off for boarding (an hour away) on thursday & still need to buy one of DHs presents and something for my youngest niece.

travel mugs

I was having a conversation with some friends a week or so ago about travel mugs. Several of us are looking for the 'perfect' one, though our criteria are a bit different. I believe we all agree it should be a stainless steel one with the vacuum walls. It should have a screw top lid, not a press & seal. The 'spillproof' mechanism should be able to opened using just one hand and have a decent sized opening. Everyone else wants it to fit in a cup holder, I'm a bit flexible on that. If he bottom is wide enough it will wedge between my seat and the parking brake (like my favorite mug does). There is some disagreement on just how many ounces it should be. I like a big mug, a VAT of coffee as it were.

I have a favorite mug. I've had it for 8 years. Its a big wide bottomed Thermos stainless steel mug. It has a screw top, it is 20ozs (I have a matching Thermos...um, thermos, as well, so 36ozs all together). It had a one handed opener but I lost that bit a month after I bought it & found it I just stuffed a paper towel into the lid it sufficed for a car trip. (I now use Press & Seal over that when I take the mug to MOPS meetings). I lost the lid to this mug a few weeks ago. I searched the whole house for it. It was in the sink. DH said he put it in the dishwasher, but then it was just *gone*. So i had to get a new mug. My new mug arrived Tuesday. It is a Thermos E5 16oz travel mug. Nice mug. Not perfect though. It's just a tad too big to fit in the cup holder, but too small to wedge in the space between the seat & the parking brake. It also needs both hands to open the spillproof part. It is a good 'passenger' mug, but not a good 'driver' mug. I ordered it online so I had to go by description & photos. It will get used though. The fact that is truly is spillproof means I can take it to MOPS meeting & other places i go where there is little to no coffee available. But as a just to drive DS1 to school, its not so good.

It often happens that shortly after you buy a replacement for something that is lost, the thing that is lost then turns up. About an hour ago DS1 brought me his toy grill. The lid had gotten wedged shut. So I opened it. Inside the grill was the lid to my favorite mug! 30 hours after my replacement mug arrived & 2 hours after the packaging had leftover soup poured on it in the garbage can ensuring the new one cannot be returned.

Menu for the next 2 weeks

I only need 8 meals this time. We had pasta for dinner tonight, we go out to eat Saturdays and Sunday we will be celebrating Yule (early) with my coven & having dinner there. Somehow the 4 meals I chose from the card catalog all ended up being Rachel Ray 's, (one for each book I own). The other 4 are standards of mine.

Crock pot chicken & stuffing
Chicken crescent pockets or calzone (leftovers)
Loaded baked potato soup & spinach salad
Rosemary & ham scones & more spinach salad
Turkey cutlets with ravioli - NEW!
Braciole
Fake tandori chicken
Mini meat patties

and if one of them doesn't appeal one night I have tilapia filets in the freezer ready to marinated in lemon & garlic and the broiled.

Next time I do a 2 week menu I have to come up with side dishes that are more than 'nuke some frozen peas' at least some of the time. Most of Rachel Ray's meals include side dishes. I just never make them because...well...I don't think I will like them. But the time has come to try them. So I am suspecting lots of Rachel Ray dinners in my future.

timing

what time do you normally write your blog entries? Does it make a difference in what you write?

Normally I write around now...noonish. Because that is when I have time. Sometimes I write in the evening, after the boys are in bed. my posts are generally longer when I write in the evening because I have more time to type & to think abort what I am writing. More time to ramble. :)

random thoughts

I posted recently that my food goal for 2007 is to get a better handle on side dishes. While perusing my recipe card collection (which oddly has a very large section for 'veggies') I realized that most of my recipes I don't make that often. I've made nearly all of them once but rarely twice. And there are a bunch from this past year's cookbook purchases that have never been made at all. I've intended to make them, put them on menu, but then never got around to making them. For the past 2 months especially, the majority or my meals have been basic and for the most part recipe-less. Meatloaf, pasta, chicken with couscous, chicken in a crock pot, pot roast, london broil, broiled fish, pizza and things stuffed in crescent roll dough. Various pastas, various fish, various types of pizza and various things stuffed into crescent roll dough, to keep it from being too monotonous. But basically the same 9 dishes show up every 2 weeks. Occasionally I'll make something or other that found like Cooks Illustrated Coq au Vin but the last time I did that was in September. I've intended for a month now to make Turkey Tettrazini but haven't.

Part of the problem is at least 3 out of the 5 nights I cook, I am basically cooking for toddlers. Turkey Tettrazini has zero toddler appeal. Tyson's breaded chicken patties have toddler appeal. DH is supposed to come home by 6:30 but something tends to happen fairly often to screw that up & I cannot put off feeding the kids beyond that. They go to bed at 8. I find it frustrating to hear at 5:30pm that he won't be home until 7pm & if I have been having a stressful day with bickering boys, the news that I will be alone with demons for dinner often means toaster waffles with peanut butter rather than braciole. Cooking for myself just isn't that much fun. Cooking for the boys can be fun, if I am in the mood for pizza or pasta, but I'd like adult food, with adult people every now and again.

So another part of my cooking resolution for 2007 is to make a new meal for dinner twice a month, every other Sunday. On alternate Sundays I will make again a recipe I have made before, like Coq au Vin. Or at least I will try. Realistically at least one Sunday a month this won't happen. Random food will be eaten. That's fine. What I need is a plan. It's ok to deviate from the plan, but you have to have the plan first.

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In other news...Xmas is coming (and on a side note I often wonder if 'xmas' offends people. I seem to be the only person on the internet that uses it. i was taught in Catholic school religion class that xmas was a perfectly acceptable abbreviation, along with xtian - and this was decades before IMing became popular, but maybe times have changed.) I need to make presents for my folks. Once again I am making a calendar for my mom. I've picked out the layouts I want to use & just need to add the month names to them. I already have the calendar templates (and you can have them too, they are for sale at 1hourscrap.com). I need to make some bookmarks for Dad & am not sure where to start. I used some premade templates last year that had calendars on them. I'm not sure if he really needs the calendars. I need to pick out photos for them. One of each grandchild. I can't remember if I laminated them or not last year. All xmas present have been bought for the boys, including the last minute "Hot Rod" that Drake asked Santa for. Fortunately he mentioned it was at Safeway which helped me figure out what he was talking about. I still need something for my 14 month old niece that is not a doll or stuffed animal, does not make unnecessary noise and is under $12. Finding something that meets all three criteria is proving impossible. I may have to surrender on some point - not the noise though. I'm pretty adamant about the no unneeded noise thing. I don't want it for my kids & I won't buy it for others' unless specifically directed to do so. I've never understood the whole singing dancing Elmo thing. I just look at it and wonder "Who would want that in their house?" Maybe if your kid specifically asked for it & really really wanted it, but just to buy it, with out being asked to,... why? But I admit I am not an Elmo fan and am thankful to the Divine that the boys have never shown any interest in it. I did buy a Wiggles Murray's Guitar last year, but only because DS1 specifically asked for it. I would never have volunteered it to him.

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I set up that audiobook spreadsheet and promptly failed to update it with the 3 new ones I got from the library. Also, despite all my cross referencing,somehow my Douglas Adams books got deleted from the computer. Not a serious issue because I have the original CDs but I could have sworn they were on my computer and converted to .mp3. I discovered this while setting up my book list for our trip. We'll be spending a total of about 36 hours in the car, coming & going. Thats about 5-7 audio books. Dh & I have made this trip every year since 1994 (except the last 2 when we flew) and we always listen to at least one Douglas Adams book. One year we listened to the first 3 books of Hitchhikers and both Dirk Gently novels and a BBC audio show of HHTTG. We later agreed that yes, you can have too much Douglas Adams. So we now limit it to just one. This year it's Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul. We're also doing Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, Agatha Christie's Man in the Brown Suit, Lindsey Davis' Scandal Takes a Holiday, Peter Mayle's Provence A-Z and another book to be determined. Plus a half dozen or so other books that are already on my iPod. Those are just the ones we know we want to listen too. This will be our first trip with talking active boys. DS1 was 13 months old the last time we went & didn't have much to say, so we had no problems with listening to books. We're hoping since we have the DVD player now we'll get to listen to at least 2 books. We tried it out a couple weeks ago on a 2.5 hour drive. They watched a movie with their headsets on and we listened to a book & it was great for everyone. Naturally I don't expect 36 hours of that but if I can get 4 or 5 intervals like that I'll be happy. Next year or the year after we'll start including some children's books in the mix. I've tried a couple with the boys but they aren;t that into it yet. Stories have pictures & pages. Music is listened to and never the 2 shall meet.

Do you have a favorite ornament or decoration that you display at this time of year? Tell us its story!

I have a collection of wooden ornaments my mother made. She got a kit one year from a craft store that had about 50 ornaments in it. You pushed them out of their sheets, sanded them, painted them (they came with black outlines) back & front then gave them a shiny overcoat. I was about 8 when she made them. I remember watching her do them at a cardboard table in our rec room. I think she spent the better part of a month working on them in the evenings. My brother & I were not allowed to touch them. That was the year we got the fake all white tree. Mom put up red lights, red balls and the wooden ornaments (nearly all of which have some red on them) It was a really nice looking tree. When they finally moved out of my childhood home in the late 90's they gave me those ornaments, (plus some made by both my grandmothers). We've never had a big tree in the years since then. They have all be under 3' and most of the wooden ornaments are a too large for that. There are some small ones though & we put those on our trees every year. Next year maybe, or the year after we will get a big tree and I will get to use all the ornaments, only 10 years after they were given to me.

What are your cooking skills? How have they improved/changed??

I'm a pretty good cook & for the most part I enjoy it. It can be frustrating from time to time due to my diners. Little boys are not in general the most appreciative of audiences unless I am heating up Tyson chicken patties.

I've always enjoyed cooking and been fairly good at it when I wanted to be. What I have been working on the since the boys were born was planning. Before them I would call DH at 10am and say "What do you want for dinner?" and search up recipes on the web & buy the stuff I needed on the way home from work. And if I didn't feel like cooking it was no big deal because the other person in my house was a grown adult who could find himself something to eat on his own (and was a short order cook in college). Now I have other people to feed & dinner by Tyson every night is just not my style. I end up feeling bad for eating all the processed foods. Don't get me wrong, I *like* processed foods, especially breakfast cereal, but apart from that I think it should be kept to a minimum. But lack of sleep & 2 babies pushed me into lots of boxes of meals for a couple years & I lost interest in food really. I have been slowly getting back to where I was, which makes me feel more like me again. But I have had to get a handle on planning. I make long range goals. My goal in 2004 was just to make 4 meals a week. From scratch mostly, no Hamburger Helper (HH was for the other 3 nights). I also got my recipe collection organized & went through my several dozen cookbooks and did up cards on any recipe I found interesting. For 2005 it was 5 meals a week with one new or rarely made recipe a week. Plus start keeping a log of how they turned out and changes I made. This year it was planning for 2 weeks of dinners, using the leftovers from a couple of meals creatively in other meals in the period. And baking at least a couple loaves of bread a month. My 2007 goals are to get a handle on side dishes (right now I just nuke whatever frozen veggie I have on hand or make a spinach salad. I don't like veggies but I can't let the boys know that so I need to make interesting veggie dishes to interest all of us) and to prep ahead, like when I make crock pot beef stew - prep 2 or 3 times as many veggies and freeze them so next time all I have to do is open a bag. And since my bread machine finally died on me yesterday while kneading a loaf of Pepperoni Pecarino Bread, I am going to trying making bread without it for at least 4 months. I *can* make bread without it but it is just so much easier with it - no keep tracking of how long things have been rising, punching to down, movig it around. It requires so much attention. A bread machine though - toss everything in and walk away. Leave the house! 3 hours later you have bread.

Apart from bread I don't bake. Baking requires an attention to detail I don't have. DH bakes. He has spent the past year perfecting his chocolate chip cookies. Now he is branching out into mousse! :)

games

Earlier in the week, we talked about favorite cartoons. Now I want to know your favorite board game, video game, or card game. And who do you usually play with?

I loved to play games when I was kid. All the board games. My favorite was (nad still is) Clue. Ieven had a couple PC versions of it. As an adult, in my childfree years, I played a great deal of card games and dice games (and drinking games). I love Hearts & Spades but I always have to be reminded of the rules because I get them confused. My favorite dice game is called 10,000, which is how many points you have to get to win. We'd play it for *hours* in college & right after, drinking & talking. I have a lot of great memories of that game. Now I play bunco monthly with other moms from my MOPS group & I really enjoy it. I love Trivial Pursuit as well. I have th Star Wars version but no one will play with me because I kick their butts every time :) My favorite PC game is Civilization. I actually bought the game a week before I got my first PC. It ate up HOURS of my life & I enjoyed every minute. I haven't played it since DS1 was about 6 months old. You have to be able to devote 3-4 hours to it at least (if not an entire weekend) and I have not had that kind of time in over 3 years. They have version 4 out now. I just barely played a couple times with 3 before I had to call it quits. Maybe someday... The other game I loved was D&D. Role playing is such fun. Its something else I have not been able to do in years because it also requires too much time.

I am looking forward to the boys getting old enough to play more challenging games than Candy land. I really want to play games with them.

organization

My laptop has an 80GB HD. I also have a 110GB EHD, that is actually the converted HD from my old PC. It's bulky and requires AC power. Both HDs are about 2/3 full. I want a 120GB or more EHD that runs off the USB. One of those 2.5" slimline things. Found one for $89! But the fact is - we don't have $89 to replace a perfectly good HD just for convenience sake. So to solace myself I decided the time had come to clean up the HDs & clear off stuff.

First I tackled the music & audiobooks. I don't know what happened when I moved stuff on the laptop from the PC but I have multiple copies of music & books all over the HD, sometimes in .wav and .mp3. The music was easy to clear up but the audiobooks required a spreadsheet to track them. I have the same book in .aau and .mp3 and .wav and on CD, or combinations of them. I have 67 audiobooks (I've had an Audible subscrition for over 3 years - 2 books a month for $20, plus stuff from the library and booksfree.com) with more to come. So I cleared them all down to just one copy in a single format. I burned the Audible books I have already listened too to DVD and a bunch of the others as well. When I was done I had cleared almost 10GB of space.

Then I went through my photos and made sure they were all on DVD and backed up on another one & then I deleted all but the last 3 months and my 'to be scrapped' folder - another couple GBs gained.

Then I tackled my digi stuff. I'm still plowing my way through that. I went through it back in April when I copied stuff to the laptop & just didn't copy a large chunk of stuff. Burned that to DVD and honestly, have never looked at it since. Most of it was freebies from my early scrapping days. So this time I went through my stuff and any folder that has not been accessed since May is automatically in the burn folder. I'm now sorting through the stuff that hasn't been accessed since June-August & deciding what to keep & what to burn. I've gotten a lot more choosy about what I buy & the freebies I download so hopefully I won't have this problem any more. Once this is done I may get ASeeDSee (or however it is spelled) and actually tag things for sorting. But I am not about to tackle it with all this crap. I think it can tag DVDs too so I can remember what is on them, on the off chance I suddenly need a star tipped paper clip in fuschia. :) I also had enough .pspimage files of layouts to fill a DVD. I'm probably going to clear another 6-8Gbs

I also need to put together the 2007 calendar for my mom's xmas present. I made a set of 8.5x11 templates & the calendar pages for 1hourscrap & had thought I was going to use it myself but after talking with my mom, she really liked the one I did last year. Last year, pressed for time I resized layouts I done through the year to 8x8 and then put the month name on the side in matching paper. She really liked that, so I am going to do it again. Now watch...I will have deleted the papers to some of the layouts I am using.

I did find time to get one layout done tis week. I applied for Sherri Tierney's CT a few weeks ago and was chosen to join it! This is my first layout with one of her products. The kit is Thinking of You and is available at One of a Kind Scrapz.


I also have put some new products up at 1hourscrap.com. A couple quick page sets & some date stamps.