I'm on a roll!

I've been feeling like I haven't been doing much creating lately. A while ago I tried to set a goal of one item a night, be it a card, LO, or even just start a LO. I did well for about a week and a half, and then I pretty much stopped. Not really burned out or anything, just unmotivated.



Well I like creating and would like to get back into a groove. And tonight- wow! My one item became 4. I did 2 layouts and 2 cards. My 2007 album is now finished! (Still need to do my 2007 Christmas album plus another mini album from 2007, though.) And one of the cards I made is for a June birthday, not sure about the other one.

I also love the fact that I used a mix of newer and older products. "Rockin' New Year's Eve"- the only new thing on there is the star embellishment on the bottom. Everything else was at least a year old.

For the "Counting Party" LO, pretty much everything is new. In fact, a couple of the embellishments I got this past weekend at the Dollar Scrapbooking booth, where I worked at CKC Manchester. This booth really is a fabulous way to get some great items for a fantastic price. After all, do flowers, brads, and paint really go out of style?

And on the cards, pretty much the only new product was the patterned paper, which was scraps from the Counting Party LO. The "Happy Birthday"and "Cheers!" labels are many years old. Nice to be able to use up the stash. If only I actually had some willpower and could resist buying new things.

Chris Breecher, "published" photographer!

Normally I try to avoid posting work related things here. Call me paranoid that someone will google my company's name and find my blog. But I can link this without saying names....

So a few weeks ago I was roped into taking some pictures of our CEO. Freak thing where I was in the right place at the right time. Our receptionist had sent out an email asking if anyone had a digital camera with them that she could borrow. I went out to see her (we're friends) to find out why she needed a camera. While I was there, she was talking to our PR guy (who would have been taking the pictures) and she mentioned that I had a good eye for photos. Great, Chris, can you take the pictures? Um, ok. What time do you need me? In about half an hour. Ok. I'm going to run home, get my camera, and I'll be back in time. I figured using my camera, which was better than the point-and-shoot, would be better. Plus I was more familiar with how to use it.

And that brings us to today. Just got an email sent to us from our international office... article of our CEO is up on BBC.com. I go to check it out, and there's my photo. So here's a link. My photo is the first one. Unfortunately no photo credit, but I'll take what I can get.

Monday ramblings from Chris

So I've meant to post before now, but it just hasn't happened. Sorry. I'll sum up...

Today I mowed the lawn. Maybe not a big deal, but it's Chris' job but he was slacking and the length of the grass was annoying me. So I called him up (he was still at work, I was at home) and I asked him how to work the mower. Wow, pulling that string to start it is hard work! Almost gave up. Also didn't help that he told me the wrong lever to hold while pulling the string, so there was some useless attempts until I decided to hold down both levers to see if that helped.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I now have worms living in my kitchen. Here's a link to their home. So why do I have them? I'm vermicomposting. I've had my worms for just about two months now, and they're doing very well! Lots of "tea" so far to use to fertilize my garden, and hopefully I'll have some good rich compost later this summer. So why vermicomposting rather than normal composting? We don't have a good location outside for a compost pile, and even if we did, it's not something that would be easily used in the winter. So once I got over the ick factor of having worms (and other bugs) in my kitchen, I've embraced this new crunchy aspect of my life.

I started some seeds inside a month or so ago. Not good success. Not sure what happened, but none of them sprouted. Planted some new seeds, and now my lettuce has started to sprout, but that's it. Guess I'll have to get lots of seedlings like I normally do. Also I've added a few plants to a shady spot in the back. Hopefully they'll take. But after some gardening this weekend, my arms are rather achy right now. And they only got worse from trying to start the lawnmower today.

Last weekend I was in New Orleans for work. Fabulous time. Drank way more than usual. Probably drank more in that week than I do in 3 months combined! Also ate some fabulous meals. Getting back into the cooking routine took some work.

And the final bit of news- this year's Pinewood Derby will be held on Saturday, July 5th. Everyone is welcome to come by, or if you can't make it to MA, as always, mail-in entries are welcome.

The end is in sight

It's only taken me 8 months, but our vacation album is almost done! Only two more layouts to go. When we returned from vacation in August my goal had been to have the album done by Thanksgiving. November came and went and my goal was Christmas. Then in was suddenly January and I no longer had goals. February and March I tried to scrap a LO a day, but that didn't last for very long. But the end is in sight! I also only have 4 layouts left for my 2007 album, and then my Christmas album, but I'm sticking to a specific paper line, so I don't think that one will take too long. Then 5 layouts for 2008, and I'll be "caught up". Yeah right, that will never happen.

I was going to post some links to LOs, but there are 29 new ones since I last posted. That's way too many to link.

In other news, we have worms in our kitchen, but that's a story for another day....

And finally, wondering who John Flint is? He was my Jr year prom date. Here's a picture of us from back in '94. He did email and gave me a link to a bunch of other pictures. If I didn't know it was him, I don't think I would have recognized him. Wow, how people change.

HEY JOHN FLINT!!!

You can't just comment and run! Yes, it's been over 10 years. Don't you think I might have wanted to respond to you? But I can't. Because you didn't leave an email address for me to use. Grrrrrr. So give me some more info, or drop me a line: costumechick at hotmail dot com.

Busy weekend!

We had a bit of a busy weekend. Here's a rundown:

Friday

• 10 people over (so a total of 12) to dye Easter Eggs. 4 of these were children under the age of 5. It was fun, but crazy!
  

Saturday

• 9:00 Skating- Have I mentioned that I've finally learned how to stop? It only took me 14 weeks. Working more on mohawks and half flips.
  
• 11:00ish- Met up with Michelle and Tami in Cambridge. Michelle is from Ohio but was in Boston for the weekend. Tami came down from NH and we went to Paper Source and then had lunch together.
  
• 2:30ish- Alexander's first birthday party. Mel and Dan had 57 people in their house! Wow. They rented a bounce house, and it's a good thing that they did, because it kept the kids outside and occupied.
  

Sunday

• 9:00- Church in Westborough. We got there a little late so had to sit up in the balcony area. Very packed congregation!
• 11:30ish- brunch at our house. Mom, Andrew, York and Krisitin came over. It was a nice relaxing time, and after eating we sat around and played some games. Around 7 Chris pointed out the time to me and I then took my mom home. Made for a LONG day! And lots of driving.

In other news, my Etsy shop is now open. I have a few knit cupcakes there now and hope to add a few more items in the near future. I'd like to share more pictures, but since there are many with children and I don't have permission to post their pictures, here's one of our table on Easter.

Parade recap, as promised

So here are some more pictures from the St. Patrick's Day parade. This is the second year that Chris and I have gone, and both times we laugh at some of the groups/people that are included. But more about that later.

First off, it started with seemingly every vehicle in the Boston Police force- Haz Mat, Bomb Squad, Harbor Master, etc.
Then, after the police had gone though, there was a garbage truck. A few cops were walking alongside it and we were a little confused. Turns out they were going along confiscating open containers. And in the back of the truck were two kegs! Guess they were doing their job fairly well- at least at the beginning. It's interesting how much they just ignore the alcohol. All those plastic cups weren't filled with soft drinks. I remember last time there were a few people who had to empty their cups on the street, but we didn't see any of that happening this year.

Bagpipes. These make sense to me for a St. Patrick's Day parade. Lots of different groups. And I love bagpipes!

This is only some of the military that was present. So many different groups were present. I don't really get the inflatable army guy though.
I don't know about other parades (I really haven't been to that many) but is it common to have politicians participate? So many people were going out and hugging them or shaking hands. This is just one of the many that were walking.

Sam Adams was there. He was accompanied by a team of people passing out coupons for discounts at the brewery gift shop. If it had been a discount for a tour I might have kept my coupon, but I don't think I need anything at the gift shop.

These Clydesdales were with Budweisser, (and there was great cheering as they came by) but there was also another set of Clydesdales with another brewery.








St. Patrick was on hand. Rather fitting since it was a parade in his honour.
What would a parade be without Shriners?


These are policemen, I think from Yonkers. All of a sudden they veered off the parade route towards a building behind us. At first I thought they were going after the people drinking on the steps, but nope. Apparently they knew someone who lived in that building, because they went in and joined a party. Later there was another group of people who also went into that building.


This group is a parade tradition. The 501st. If I even cared remotely about Star Wars I would probably be all for dressing up, since I appreciate the costumes so much. I loved this one storm trooper. He was absolutely awesome. He saw me with my camera and just marched along with his gun pointed right at me. I think I got 6 or 7 pictures of him.












These girls were good. A large accordion band all the way from Ireland. They also had some girls with flags and pompoms.






Minutemen. There were a few different groups. Some had a couple of women with them. Women- you have to do something about your hoop skirts! You can't have hoops stopping a foot above the hem of your dress. It lokos really dumb!

What would a parade be without Miss Ice-O-Rama?


There was this group of Chinese musicians and dancers. Loved the dragon! Wished they had brought it down closer to my camera. Would have loved to have a great head shot of it.
Here's another example of something that to us, just doesn't belong in a St. Patrick's Day parade- Elvis. Yeah, we just don't get it. And he's not even a very good looking Elvis.








This was entertaining. The truck in front is pulling the truck behind it. Only the rope broke. So they had to back up, get out, re-tie them, and try again. Luckily thy did make it up the hill. Hopefully they made it the entire parade route.

In addition to the marching bands, there are a few bands that ride on floats and play. We were hoping for the Dropkick Murphys, but instead, among others, we got the Gobshites.
Just because they go to a highly acclaimed school does not mean that they have a great band. Here is the MIT band. Their "uniform" consists of T-shirts, baseball caps, and capes. That's right. Capes. Really cheesy looking ones.


In addition to the fancy floats, there are some that are very obviously home made. Like this one. I think it was from some arts group. It's a decorated shopping cart. And the dragging fabric was getting caught in the wheels. And the wheels were getting caught in the pot holes on the street. We were towards the beginning of the parade route, so I can only imagine how it was doing towards the end.

Everyone seems to really get into the spirit of St. Patrick's Day. There's a lot of green, knit sweaters, etc. And some really fun outfits as well. Here's a hat that I liked.



So not only do people watch the parade from the sidewalk, but they also go out on the roofs along the parade route. And I guess if you don't have roof access, you make do with what you've got; which, in this case, includes sitting half in and half out a window. no thanks!


I also thought it was interesting how quickly the street sweepers started cleaning up at the end. It was almost like they were the last cars in the parade. Unfortunately they came so quickly that people didn't have a chance to get out of the road so the sidewalks were packed with people! Not such a good thing when you have people trying to walkin both directions as well.

Awesome mail day!!!

So my first awesome package of the day was this new computer. Isn't she purty? Unfortunately the color isn't quite photographing right. Our old computer died a few weeks ago and has refused to start again. Chris tried a system restore, which usually helps to fix things, but to no avail. It still won't start. Luckily we got an external hard drive the last time we had these problems, so hopefully everything is safe on there, since I was pretty good about not saving things on the computer anymore. There may have been a couple of things on the desktop, but I don't think it was anything that I would miss.

I had the computer delivered to work since I didn't want it sitting outside our door all day, and as it turns out a signature was required, so having it shipped to work is really the only way I would have gotten in.

And then when I got home, more happy mail! First off is this fantastic camera bag that I won this weekend during TallyScrapper.com's one year anniversary celebration! Woo hoo!!!! It looks very roomy inside.

And as if one package from Tally wasn't enough, I also got some new scrapping goodies. In addition to the fabulous March kit, I also got these items that I had ordered. And why yes, I did order that flamingo paper specifically so I could scrap pictures of my new PINK computer. The computer's official color name is "Flamingo Pink" so I thought it only fitting to use that paper. I may need to cut out one of the little flamingos and stick it on the computer somehow.

And speaking of customizing my computer, I want to give it a name. As long as I can remember my family has named our computers. When I was in middle/high school and then an old one I had in college, they were named after three mountains in England: Pen-y-ghent, Whernside, and Ingleborough. My post-college computer was "Tangerine Dream". It was a green iMac. I had originally ordered the orange one, but it was backordered and green was the only one I was able to get delivered in the time I wanted. Then when Chris and I got a computer we named it "Fresnel" which is a type of lens used in theatre. All of this to say, I need a name for my computer. Any ideas?

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Chris and I went to Boston's St. Patrick's Day parade today. I took 333 pictures. Think that was too many? If only it had been a little warmer. We were both rather frozen at the end.

Still dealing with uploading all of the pics, so here's one for now, and I'll try to get more up over the next few days.

Chris Breecher, Domestic Diva

Yeah, not sure what exactly prompted this, but I decided I wanted to make a retro style apron. So I went to the fabric store, looked through the patterns and then went on a search for fabric. I couldn't make up my mind of which I liked better, so I bought both. I don't think I even looked at the cost of the fabrics. (Bad me!)

So I get back to work (I had been shopping on a lunch break) and was asked to show off my fabrics. One of my friends immediately claimed one as hers. I'm thinking, ok, because it's not like I needed 2 aprons. But then on Friday, when I mentioned her paying for it, then suddenly she wasn't too interested. And the price I gave her wasn't much over cost. Materials alone were $20-25, and I was only asking for $30.

So what do I do, I open an Etsy shop! I figure I have plenty of other crafts to try to sell. It's not up there yet, but will be soon.

And to continue the sewing spree, on Friday when I went back to the fabric store to get some more bias tape to finish up the second apron, I saw this dress on display so picked up the pattern and some fabrics to make an Easter dress. It's a little low in front and my bra seems to always be visible, so not sure what I'm going to do about that. I'm going to have to see if I can find a different bra, and if that doesn't work, I think I may need to add in a little modesty panel or some lace or something.

And speaking of Easter, we'll be hosting a brunch. Not sure of the guest list yet, but it could be 10-15 people. As those of you who have seen my apartment know, we don't really have room for that many people. 10 was going to be a squeeze, and then Chris went and invited friends of ours who are a family of 5. I think I now know where the miscommunication arose. When I proposed to him the idea of hosting Easter, it was also part of a game night discussion. And these people are part of game night, but I wasn't intending them to be part of Easter. He offered to un-invite them, but I told him that he couldn't do that.

Skating has started back up again. There's a new student in class who can't skate, which as horrible as it sounds, makes myself and one of my fellow students feel good because now we're at least better than someone. Still can't stop, but I'm getting better at that. Yesterday, in addition to working on outside edges and 3-turns, we also practiced stopping and going backwards. Eventually I'll be good at those two things. And since I'm so much better than I was in early December when I started, I can't complain too much.

Long time no blog.

Hope you didn’t miss me too much. I keep wanting to update this, but then I feel that I don’t have anything to update about. There’s really nothing all that interesting going on in my life.

I’m slowly making progress on completing my vacation scrapbook. My original plan, when we returned, was to have it finished by Thanksgiving. November came and I realized I wasn’t going to make that deadline, so I revised it to a Christmas deadline. Christmas came and went and I no longer have a deadline, but I just want to get it done. I’m also horribly behind with my regular 2007 album. So my new plan is to try to do a LO a day (or if I don’t finish a LO, to at least work on one) and alternate between vacation and the regular album. Hopefully I’ll get mostly caught up, since the winter/spring months are times when I don’t generally take lots of pictures that I then would want to scrap. If you’re interested in seeing some of my recent work, you can check it out over on TallyScrapper.

This past Saturday was my last skating lesson of the session. When I started my two goals were to learn how to stop and learn how to go backwards. I still can’t stop, and I can only kind of go backwards. However, I have also learned how to do waltz jumps, 3 turns (on both inside and outside edges), lunges, pivots, spirals, mohawks, crossovers, and half flips, to name a few. Don’t ask me to demonstrate any of these, because for the most part I have forgotten what they are. I might need a refresher before I can demonstrate. I think I’m going to sign up for the next session, because even though I’m not that good, it’s still fun. And maybe this session I’ll learn how to stop.

The photo is from a brief getaway to Portsmouth a couple of weeks ago with some Tally gals. Not sure why there’s an old British phone booth in New Hampshire, but Nancy took this picture and I really like it. Maybe it’s the Anglophile in me.

And speaking of being an Anglophile… assuming all goes according to plan, we should be out almost completely out of debt by next summer. We’ll still have one student loan to pay off, but won’t worry too much about it. At that point, we’re hoping to save for a couple of months and go on a vacation. And knowing us and our love of England, I think we’ll be going back. Woo hoo! Maybe it’s time to start planning where we want to go? What, over a year in advance is too early? Never! You obviously don’t know us very well and when we started planning stops for our US road trip. That was a vacation many years in the making.

And on that note, I bid you adieu. Hopefully it won’t take another month and a half between updates.

Chris on Ice

So as you can see, I'm hardly ready to compete in the Olympics, but it's still fun. More photos and videos at a later time.



This past weekend we celebrated our last Christmas of the season. We went to Okemo Mt in Vermont where my cousin has a house. I thought about trying out snowboarding, but instead I took lots of pictures of everyone else out on the slopes.

Snow

So it's been a while since I've blogged. Here are some pictures from Dec. 20th. As you can see, we've had a lot of snow. This was the Sunday storm that came right after the bad Thursday storm. Since we don't have much of a yard, we quickly ran out of places to put the snow. Luckily we have since had some warm days and the snow has melted a bit. In fact, there's a little bit of grass visible int he front yard. And the neighbors built a fort out of the piles in front.