Happy Birthday Chris!

So today is Chris' Birthday. When he got home from work I had the gifts all laid out. Two from his parents, a card from my mom, and a gift from me. I think he was a little upset at first because he could tell which one was from me, and it wasn't anything from his wish list.

After dinner (and watching an episode of CSI Miami, our latest Netflix addiction) we had cake. Unfortunately the number 8 candle just didn't want to stay lit.


Finally I let him open his presents. First he opened the ones from his parents. Two models that he had asked for. Then he opened mine- a box of cash! He's been wanting to get a scroll saw, and since I am not qualified enough to pick out a scroll saw, I figured cash was safer. It was a mix of $5s and $1s, and one $2 bill. I actually had a fun time going to the bank and trying to figure out how mean I wanted to be. All ones? All fives? I think the combo of bills worked well, and he admits that he likes the gift.

Made this LO for my church. A lot of the ladies there are CM scrappers, so it will be interesting to see/hear what they think of this.

The associate pastor who works with the youth group is really good about taking pictures of events and then he makes an 8.5x11 collage of them and labels the event. That's a good start, but my problem with it is that often the pictures are too small to tell what's going on, and he never labels the people. However, that is an improvement over what used to be done with event pictures.- They would be stuck on a bulletin board and then taken down after a couple of months. Sometimes they were then put in a magnetic album, but not always. I bet there's a bag somewhere full of old photos!


So to try to improve the photo situation, I made this LO. I made it to fit in a CM album (slightly narrower), so hopefully someone will think to add it to an existing album or start a new one for the youth group.

Fun Game!

And when you've given up, the answers are on this site.

Chris and I were able to get about half of them.

Weekend Update, with Chris Breecher

The weekend started on Friday with Chris picking me up from work. We were headed off to Gardner to meet my dad, Liz and Hanna for dinner. After sitting in traffic for far too long, we finally got clear of the Concord rotary and were on our way! Dinner was interesting. It was a new brew pub that my dad had been to a few times before. However, service was spotty. We even created our own comment card for them because there were a few things we wanted to bring to their attention- bland eggplant parmesan, server had too many tables for his level of expertise, drinks took far too long to arrive, apple crisp was frozen inside… We also commented that we did like the place and hoped that they could fix these problems so that they would do well. Luckily we weren’t in a hurry because dinner took over 2 hours.

When we got back to the house we played some charades. I think Hanna was more into this game than the rest of us combined. She’s almost 12 now, and I’m seeing how she’s so much more grown up! Very much changed from the 3-year-old I first knew who would run around the house screaming “I’m butt naked, I’m butt naked” when I would babysit her.

Saturday we had been planning to get up early do some chainsawing and other brush removal (after all, this had been deemed “Chainsaw Weekend”) as well as go apple picking. Unfortunately it was raining, and it rained pretty much all day. Instead Chris and I slept in until 11! Wow, I needed that. I was surprised that we were allowed to sleep in that late, but seeing how it was raining, it kind of put a damper on the rest of our plans. So instead we did some reading, took an afternoon nap, worked on a jigsaw puzzle, etc.

Liz also has this idea to turn the house at Secret Lake into a bed and breakfast, so I know that Chris and I spent pretty much the whole weekend thinking of all the things that would need to be changed, improved, etc to get it to that point. It’s a nice idea, I’m just not sure how good an idea it would be.

Sunday we got up semi-early and headed back to Belmont. Getting an early start on the day allowed me to get a whole bunch of stuff done yesterday. We did laundry, I did some handwashing I had put off for way too long, did some house cleaning, weeded the garden, made fresh pesto (thanks Julie for the recipe!), edited some photos for a layout I want to do, and started decorating for fall/Halloween.

And my 2005 album is officially complete!

Is this what we're teaching people?

So I received a letter yesterday from my alma mater that really bothered me. It was encouraging me to come to Homecoming, meet the new head of the Theatre Department, etc. The letter in and of itself wasn’t the problem. The problem was, there were two errors in it. One was a period at the end of a phrase, making it difficult for me to read the sentence as it wasn’t actually a complete sentence the way it had been written. The second mistake was that it had “our” instead of “are. Very different words!

I had made the comment to Chris that this letter bothered me, especially coming from an academic institution. I even had him read it, but he didn’t find any errors. I then pointed them out to him, and he didn’t think it was a big deal- just a couple of typos and that they didn’t proof read it. Well, yeah. That’s exactly the problem. A letter being sent out to hundreds of people (it was only sent out to theatre majors) shouldn’t have those kinds of errors. It should have been proof read. I’m not saying I’m perfect. I often have errors in things I write. But to me, coming from a university, this never should have happened.

I have no idea who typed the letter. It could have been the former Department Chair (whose name was on the letter), an assistant, a student, someone in the alumni office, etc. I don’t think it necessarily matters who made the mistakes. But I ask this of you now, am I overreacting to this, or do you agree that this paints the university in a poor light?

Ahoy, Mateys!

So you may not be aware, but today is Talk Like a Pirate Day. I was very excited about this day (I think it’s very funny that such a day exists) until last night. You see, last night was the season premiere of Wife Swap. Normally I don’t watch it, but nothing else was really on and I was only half watching as I worked on other things. Well, one of the families featured on the show was a pirate family, and the father was one of the co-founders of Talk Like a Pirate Day. However, I was thoroughly disgusted by the attitude of the Pirate Wife. She really pissed me off. Normally I don’t get so bothered by the participants. Watching her really turned me off to the whole Pirate thing…

I will leave you with this though, which I recently saw and decided to share on this fine pirate day. Pirate Crafts.

First, the card I made for Mel when she told me her news. I was anxiously awaiting her telling the rest of blog-dom so that I could post the card. Well, that and it's just exciting news to share!

The second card is one I made for Andrew. It's the last card he'll be getting from me on this hike. I'm kind of glad he's almost done. Assuming no major delays, he should be back in MA around Oct. 1st. It's a little tricky right now though as there's another forest fire, this one being right on the border. They were thinking they would need to find a new way into Canada, but the fire may be under control now. Not sure.

Done for the weekend!

Whew! What a lot of scrapping. I am now done for the weekend! 8 Layouts done, 1 still needing journaling (but waiting for my dad for that), 2 in process (but those are very simple), and 1 card done. I am exhausted. But feeling a great sense of accomplishment. My 2005 album is essentially done. That's the one I'm waiting on journaling from my dad. I let him know I wanted the info sooner rather than later. Let's just hope I can keep the scrapping mojo flowing!

1st Layout of the weekend...

Went to a craop last night. Here's the first that is done. Finished up the journaling last night. Still need to do journaling on all the others. Hopefully will get that all done today.

Wow. The emotion in this layout really struck me! I can understand wanting to keep the watch, but what a horrific keepsake of the exact moment when your loved one died.

I'm tempted to try the challenge that it is part of, but not sure if I have anything appropriate to document. I'll need to look through all of my pictures.

Crocs- Love/Hate

Christy, you're right! The bling is a major pain to put on. However, it looks cute so I can't complain too much. And thanks again for sending me the kit. I wonder if it would be easier to only peel back part of it at a time. Might be harder to center that way though.

I realized the journaling may be a bit too tough to read, so here it is:
I have a love-hate relationship with these shoes. I first learned about Crocs when Andrew was hiking the AT. I had gone to meet hima t Bear Mountain and there were a number of people wearing Crocs. I though they were the most hideous shoes that I had ever seen. A year later I started hearing non-hikers rave about how comfortable they were and I saw them in a few stores. Now, this year, in complete disgust that they were being sold in places like The Paper Store (Hallmark), I broke down and bought a pair for myself.

Are they all they're cracked up to be? I still haven't made my mind up on that one. They are great for hanging out at home. After standing and scrapping for a while my feet don't hurt like they nromally do. However, to wear while running errands, if worn without socks they rub my foot a little, and if worn with socks, the socks get all twisted. I think I'll have to test them out a bit longer so that I can fully make up my mind.

Halloween Fun

I was trying to be good and make page kits for a crop I'm going to this weekend, but then I was inspired to just make this LO now rather than bringing it along. Only 4 more LOs and I'm done with 2005! I'm so excited about that.

And even though I posted on Christy's blog saying that I was going to wait until the 30th to decorate for fall/Halloween, I think that will be happening sooner. I am very much wanting to do some decorating now.

Ham and jam and SPAMALOT!

This is my entry for the Becky April Challenge. The patterned paper is a bit orange-y for the yellow of the Playbill, but it does match the Spamalot title. I think I'm pleased with it.

Photo Swap

Here's the layout that I did for Rachel for Christy's photo swap. It definitely was a challenge for me as she gave me 15 photos to work with! I haven't heard from her yet, but I hope she likes it. The group shot photo is hinged and underneath it labels most of the people in the photo. (Thanks Christy and Shane for the names!)

This is another one where I used a Becky sketch. I was at a loss of what to do with so many photos, so I went back through my mags to find one that I thought would work.

It's my turn to post a challenge to all of you. I liked Christy's Becky challenge recently that now I've decided to try for the April issue as well. So here it is. I took a start on doing this last night, but just need to get some brads to finish it up. Hopefully I'll be able to post mine later this evening.

I've never really used the sketches before, but I'm really liking how easy they are making my scrapping. It's nice to not have to think about a design.

****OK, couldn't get the link to work properly. You'll have to copy and paste.
http//www.creatingkeepsakes.com/mag/your_work/?forward=submit_idea&index_field=21

Need a good laugh?

Thanks to Boston.com, I was recently introduced to stitchymcyarnpants.com. Great stuff there. I then remembered that it had a similar sense of humor to Threadbared.com. Unfortunately, I had completely forgotten the name of the latter sight and had to do a bit of google searching to find it. Anyway, peruse these two sites, and enjoy!

I survived the weekend!

Imagine this area filled to overflowing. All the benches were filled, the grassy areas next to the fence, and people outside the fences as well. There were about 850 people there. In our group we had 9 kids and 4 advisors. All the kids were pretty good except for the guys who were having some attention issues, but I guess that's pretty typical for freshman guys.
Here's all of our group this morning.







And this one was taken at the beach on Saturday. No idea who these people are, but they were participating in the sand sculpture contest and they were singing. Kind of fun to see as I walked past them.

Got Chris' birthday page done and now I'm done with September! Have a few from October and my birthday trip to NYC to scrap, and then I'll finally be done with 2005. And then I need to do some serious work on 2006. Ugh. I've never been this far behind before. Oh well. Slowly but surely I'll catch up. I'm going to an all day crop in a week and I hope to get a bunch done there. And then the next day I'm scrapping with Linda, so I'll get even more done then.

Christy- what's the word on the cookie swap? Did you get enough interest? I really don't *need* another project, but I like baking and I like cookies, so...

Have a good weekend y'all. I'll be hanging out with 600 teenagers!

So last night was not as productive as I had hoped. I had wanted to get at least one layout done, and was really hoping for more than one. Instead I took a nap (which meant I wasn’t able to fall asleep until late) and watched some TV.

My scrapping achievements of the evening consisted of taking out 4 pictures that I already had printed and I cropped one of them. I also pulled out my QuicKutz binder and I think I decided what font I want to use for the title. But that’s about it. Not so much progress. Oh well. Maybe I’ll have better luck tonight.

And the pictures don’t go with anything I’ve mentioned. It’s my niece, Rosaline, who Chris got to see when he went to Georgia last week and the other is of Chris’ Grammy. She’ll be 94 next month. Unfortunately she’s not doing so well. She’s had a bunch of medical problems over the past few months, and when Chris went to visit she didn’t really know who he was and she also has trouble remembering who his mom is, and she visits Grammy every day.

I thought the post needed some pictures, so I decided to put these on here.

Scrappin' Night

So the garden one- I made it one year to the day from when I took the pictures. Well, at least I wasn't OVER a year behind! Next on my agenda is to do Chris' birthday last year. Hopefully I'll get all these fall layouts finished up soon and then I'll be done with 2005.

The second one was of the inflated gas prices following Katrina. It's interesting how at the time we all thought that price ($3.41) was outrageous, but now it doesn't seem all that bad. We're currently around $2.75 or so, but a few weeks ago we were at $3.25.

I hope to get some more done Wednesday night. Thursday I probably won't get a lot done because I need to pack for my "exciting" weekend. Chris and I are acting as chaperones/advisors for an annual church youth group trip. It's actually a really fun event which is why I convinced Chris to come along. It's for all Lutheran youth in New England. When I was in high school there were probably about 500 people who attended. I think now they're up to 800-900 people. It's an interesting time. We take over a campground, they bring in a band, large and small group activities, and also time to hit the beach on Saturday. (Let's hope there's good weather!) They used to hold Sunday morning worship at the beach and then apparently they would all throw each other in the water afterwards. Unfortunately I never got to experience that because by the time I started going they had put a halt to that.

How was your weekend?

I was hoping my weekend would have been a bit more productive than it ws, but I guess I got a fair amount of stuff done. Ran a bunch of errands on Saturday including going to two LSS and picking up my prize/donation/entry (what's the right word?) for the Survivor contest. Also picked up yet another QK die (but not the one I was really looking for). Sunday I made my pages for the August recipe swap. And over the whole weekend (why it ended up taking so long for what's a simple LO, I don't know) I finished up Rachel's page for the photo swap.

I also managed to convince Chris to buy me a Quickutz font from eBay as a birthday present. I'll have to wait until November to actually play with it, but I'm ok with that. At least now I won't stress about watching auctions for it. Only one more discontinued die that I REALLY want. And three other "rare" British dies, but those all seem fairly available, so no need to rush and buy them.

Was hoping to get some cleaning done, but not so much. Was doing that on Sunday while doing other things. (Cleaning always takes me forever because I get distracted with other things as I go from room to room.) Anyway, on Sunday after all I had done was clean the toilet and sweep the bathroom floor, Chris came home. After not seeing him for a week I decided to pass on cleaning.

And in garden news, all the rain this past weekend combined with my tomatoes having outgrown their cages by quite a bit, they became really weighed down and we ended up having to cut down one of my plants. It ended up bending the cage over so that the plant was almost completely horizontal. There was no way we could get it supported upright, so we cut off all the little green tomatoes and hopefully they will ripen inside.