Thoughts on a Thursday

Today's post is all about knitting. As many of them have been lately. I don't really understand why I'm so much into knitting all of a sudden, but it all started right after Christmas when I saw a knitting calendar with a pattern for cookies. Then that led to the penguin hat also in the calendar. And I wanted to make something to give along with the hat, which led to the monster booties (and another secret project). And along the way there were vegetables and fingerless gloves. And my latest internet addiction- Ravelry. This led to elf slippers and the desire to order lots and lots of yarn. Yup. I have a problem.

My scrapping, however, has been sorely neglected. I still have a couple of layouts to do for my 2008 album. Plus their are the 2008 vacation (Acadia) and Christmas albums. For 2009, I think I've only done 2 or 3 layouts. So not only is there the normal album, but there's also the England album. And although I did start it, I never did finish the 2009 Cookie Baking cookbook. Yup. I'm rather behind. With little chance of being caught up. Blech.

We have company coming on Saturday which means that the rest of the week needs to be spent cleaning and getting ready for that. But all I want to do is go home and finish knitting an eggplant.

A little of this, a little of that

I guess I'm just not meant to blog all that frequently. I'd like to get back into it, but I seem to lack topics to blog about. And this post is all over the place as I play catch-up with everything.

I took some vacation days and was off of work from Christmas Eve until yesterday. It's a bit of a shock to the system to get back into things. While I was off I did a whole lot of nothing. And I loved it!

I watched a lot of movies and some TV shows. Serenity, A Knight's Tale, (yes, we started with an Alan Tudyk theme) Troy, There Will be Blood, Four Christmases, Nobel Son, Surviving Christmas, Lost in Austen, Dangerous Beauty, Picture Perfect, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Harry Potter 1-6, the final episode from season one and the pilot of Dollhouse, and Buffy, season one and 15 episodes of season two. Plus we went out and saw Sherlock Holmes. Our Netflix account definitely got a workout!!!

I knit. And I knit some more. (Basically I spent my time knitting and watching movies.) This included 2 chocolate chip cookies, an oreo, a sugar cookie, and a peanut blossom, all on a plate and with a matching mug of milk. To combat that sugar, I made 2 sugar snap peas- one with a closed pod and the other pod open with 3 peas in it. (Not sure why the pattern for the open pod is about half the size of the closed pod.) Then for clothes I made a quick black and white hat and then have started a couple of other projects.

I bought new ice skates and Chris even humored me and went to the rink with me one day. Although he won't readily admit it, I think he had fun. He didn't fall and was actually skating away from the wall for a while. If only they actually sharpened rental skates, he might have done even better.

Had a scrap night with Kelly. I had grand ambitions of working on my Acadia album from when we were there in 2008. Instead I spent the night helping Kelly with her album. And we got 12 pages done, finishing up DJ's first year of life!

In other Christmas relatedness....

I was a little late getting the decorations up, but about halfway through the month things finally got spruced up. Due to various other scheduling I imagine decorations will be up through the end of January.

We had survived Cookie Baking. We cut back the number of recipes and stretched it over the weekend. We also did gifts over the weekend, thus eliminating the need to schedule another event. I still need to finish making the cookbook.

On Christmas Day, Mom came over and we had a nice meal, gifts, etc. Then that evening we went and saw Sherlock Holmes.

Coming up... on Saturday we're having friends over to make gingerbread houses and do a re-gift Yankee Swap.

Coming up.... Jan 30th getting together with my mom's extended family for our "Christmas" gathering. A turducken is in my future...

Other December activities included a Lost and Found concert. Hard to believe that I've been following them around for 16 years now! Michael (frizzy hair on my right) and his wife had a baby recently so I gave him a little sweater that I had knit. When George had his girls they got dresses, so it was only fair. Plus it was a sweater I had originally planned for a baby boy I know, but it ended up looking too girly.

We shoveled snow a couple of times. And then when we came back from Cookie Baking to 8 inches of snow in the driveway, our next door neighbor asked us if we wanted the number of his plow guy. Um, yes, please. He's now saved in my phone as "plow guy". :) While waiting for the plow guy I looked out the window and saw this fabulous sunset. (The snow picture is from our commute in to work earlier in December.)

In other news, I got new glasses. Not very exciting, but in mid-December I realized I had about $400 left in my FSA. Since it's a use it or loose it kind of thing, I figured since I hated my old glasses, this would be a good way to use up the money. Hopefully these will stay on my head better than my old glasses.
What was weird though, is when I went in to pick out my frames, the saleswoman remembered my name. I hadn't been there since the summer! She said she remembered the fun colors of my hair.

And at the beginning of December Chris once again had a table at Good Shepherd's Craft Faire. Pictured here is only about half of his inventory. He's done really well this year, especially with his Etsy store.

Getting creative again

Wow, I scrapped! It's been way too long since I had a creative outlet. And then I got two layouts done in the past four days! I just need to keep this up. I was hoping to finish getting my craft room unpacked, but instead I just started to mess it up even more. Plus I think that most of what's left, especially what's on the table, is pretty much going to live there anyway.

It also helped that I joined the Tally Survivor challenges. And I did the challenge on the first day. That NEVER happens! Usually I make my LO on the last day of the challenge, or have to do a makeup challenge, so this is quite the accomplishment for me.

Now I need to edit some photos and place an order. I have about a year's worth of photos to scrap. Yikes, I've gotten behind!

Edited to say, that after posting this, about an hour later I finished another LO. I'm on a roll!

January LOAD

Lately I seem to have gotten out of a scrappy groove. I know I'm in bad shape when I'm behind in my albums going back to about May. To help remedy this, I'm hosting a LOAD (layout a day) challenge over at Tally.

Unfortunately, I really need to find the time to sit and edit photos for my 2008 album, so until I get a chance to do that, I'm working with some photos that I had on hand.

So here we have the start of my challenge. Yesterday I did Halloween 1984- The Indian and the Witch. My scanner really doesn't like lumpy and bumpy stuff, so it had a hard time with the numbers. That's why it's so dark and blurry.

Day two I did Christmas 1948. I need to find out who Santa was, and once I have all of the names I'll slip them into the gold label holder on the upper right.

On day three I was on a roll. Still working on the older photos, so I looked through my stash and found this one of some rocks behind my childhood home. When we were younger, Andrew and I each had our own rock that we would climb on. Mine was the jagged one because it was easier to climb- more foot and hand holds. He got the nice smooth one.

Then, since I was still in a crafting mood, I decided to make some cards. I have some really fun supplies that I was itching to use, so decided to make some birthday cards. And I used some older supplies as well, which is always nice.

I have so much stuff in my craft room I often think that I could scrap for a year and, except for adhesive, not need to buy a single thing. Too bad I'd never do that.

Days 5, 7, 8 and 9

Day 9

Are you looking for that perfect gift this year for a teacher’s gift? Well this is a great gift cheap & easy....Cookie Mix in a Jar

I made these about 4years ago when Kyle was in preschool for his 3 teachers and they loved them! I got this idea when I saw them at the store selling them for whatever ridiculous amount they were asking for them! After reading the ingredients I thought I could do them myself for half the price! And there are so many different ways to make these such as different cookie recipes or decorating them your jars and the best thing they don't have to be just for a Christmas gift a great gift for many occasions! I couldn't find any mason jars so i found this jar and found some snowman decorations that are made of some kind of plastic and i cut the head off and glued it to my jar makes my jar look a little extra special for a Christmas gift!

Now you will get your ingredients for your cookie mix and will layer them into the jar one by one. Layering flour on the bottom packed down (don’t push hard it will go all over believe me!..lol), mixing the rest and pack them down tightly (if you don’t have enough room for the chocolate chips (you should not have too, but i thought it would be cute to put them in a baggie and you could tie them to the jar).

After you have packed all your ingredients tightly in your jar you are ready to decorate your jar your own way! Put your tag on it with your baking directions and there you go Cookie Mix in a Jar! It will probably cost about $8 (not including the ingredients you may already have them) to make, can’t beat that for a gift and its the PERFECT HOMEMADE GIFT!

As you can see, I decided not to go with a cookie mix. I just didn't know who I would give a cookie jar to. However, I have the perfect person in mind for this "jewelry making" jar.

Day 8:
Let it Snow!!! Let it Snow!!! Let it Snow!!!

This challenge is to scrap about what snow and the holidays mean to you! You may interpret this broadly. You can do a page about a great snow storm you had on Christmas Eve. A sled as a present. Or maybe that Christmas Cruise to Mexico where you actually MISSED the snow. Or maybe your holidays are always snow-free; how do you feel about that?

Other than the snow/holiday theme the other requirements are:

Use blue or purple as a prominent color on the page.

Use something shiny! (Bling, glitter, glitter letters, whatever)

Use circles and/or snowflakes (which are kind of circular)

DAY 7
Okay ladies! I want to see a two-page layout. I hardly see these and I am guilty of never doing them. Here are my rules. Two page layout (no smaller than 8 1/2x11) 7 pictures 7 patterned paper 7 buttons and last but not least...... 7 different techniques (such as distressing, inking, sewing, paint, doodling)

Day Five
My challenge will go with the 12 days of Christmas song. So the 5th is the Fiiiiiiiive Goooolllldeeeen Riiiiiiiiings part. :) like my singing? My challenge is to scrap a page using gold and tones of gold (tans, yellows, etc.) and iincoorperate ONLY round and circular embellishments into your page. (five would be SWEET)

The coven takes flight...

Here's what 54 witches look like.






And here's what they look like as they start to take flight.









And for those who are clueless about what this is about, I'm doing a Halloween swap over on Tally. There are 17 of us in my group, plus I'm making an extra set for a friend who loves Halloween as much as I do. Basically we each make 17 of the same item, mail them to the hostess (me) and then I'll repackage everything and send each person 17 different things. It's a neat way to expand your collection of Halloween goodness.

Last night I got 8 sets strung up. I was running out of places to put them, so I now have them clothespinned to the blades of the ceiling fan in the dining room. It looks pretty cool. I'll have to snap a picture when they're all up there.

It's official... I'm a dork

Yup. Big dork. I ordered trophies for the Pinewood Derby. And we have goodie bags for the kids this year. Kind of crazy.

Not doing so well with the making of the cars. Chris and I went to the shop on Sunday and I started. My simple car is more or less done. My fancy cars? Yeah, not so much. And of course I got bored pretty quickly working on them. We'll have to see how they turn out over the next few weeks. I'm guessing not so well.

LOAD? Going fantastically! Finished up the Christmas album last night. Have pictures ordered for a few more LOs, but then need to do some photo editing so that I can order the rest. Just not enough hours in the day.

Fabric shopping bags? I'll get pictures up here soon. I promise. I'm making two different styles (paper and plastic) and was going to wait until they were all done to post. The plastic ones are done, but haven't done the paper yet. Again, not enough hours in the day.

Bike riding? Went for a 10 mile ride on Saturday. Took about an hour or so. Quite the workout, especially since I'd already gotten a work out while skating that morning. And in skating we are starting to learn a routine. So much more fun than just practicing individual elements. Maybe one of these days there will be a new video to entertain you.

Derby and LOAD

So for the month of June, I committed to a challenge over on Tally called LOAD, or LayOut A Day. As of day 5, so far so good. In fact, on a few days I've made more than one thing. However, my variation of the rules is that it doesn't have to be a layout (it can be a card or something else creative) and as long as I work on something every day, that's ok- I don't need to actually complete it. So if you're interested in checking out what I've been up to, head over to Tally.

And in other news, the Derby invitations are out. If I missed you and you think you're interested, let me know and I'll send you the details. I still haven't started my car yet, and I'm feeling a little anxious about that. There's exactly a month to go, and usually I would have started by now. Granted I'm usually busy finishing things up in the day or two before (or day of) but I've usually at least started by this point. I think I know what I'm making, so at least that's a start. And I've bought the goody bags and contents for the kids at the Derby, but that probably doesn't really matter.

And with that, I'm off to bed.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Catching up

I wanted to get all of my vacation posts posted before I moved on to other subjects, and now I feel like so much has happened since August but I've forgotten half of it!

On the scrap front, I've gotten my mojo back. I think my mojo was on summer vacation. Good thing I have a reserve of premade cards or some people wouldn't have gotten them for birthdays and anniversaries.

So, here are links to my "recent" creations:
Stokes, Appalachian Trail, Halloween Countdown, Christmas 1977, Birthday card for Chris, Eleanore, Andrew- Halloween 1980, You Light up the Place, Looks Like Fall, Hammonasset 2007, Halloween Trick or Treat, Oh Baby card, Halloween 1978, and Typecasting.

I'm really liking all of the challenges as a way to push me to get some things done, and also as a way to work on some of my older photos. Also most of these LOs and cards are fall/Halloween related, which just happens to be a favorite subject of mine.

In other news...

For the second year in a row Chris and I served as chaperones/ advisors for our church's youth group trip to Hammonasset. As always, it was a fun time. However, we both got stuck leading a station for the Saturday activities. Mine wasn't too bad (name game where a famous person's name is taped to your back, and by asking yes or no questions you have to figure out who you are) but Chris got to lead the station where they were coloring placemats for prisoners. That didn't really go over so well.

We had brought our badminton set, so in free time we got most of our group playing. And Sunday morning Pastor Eric tried to get us all to rotate through- hit the birdie a few times and then pass your racket on to the next person. Yeah, that didn't go over so well.

I had an absoultely wonderful time meeting Minda and Lisa, two gals from TallyScrapper who came out to Boston for the weekend. We spent some time in the Boston area sightseeing and then we went up to New Hampshire to hang with Tami and Jen.

Who knew that we could get along so well with complete strangers. It was more than I ever could have hoped for. I wish I had the funds to take a trip out to Minnesota to see them again. I'm trying to figure out if I can go to Wisconsin for a crop with them and other Tally gals, but I just don't think I can swing it. There's always next year, right?


At the end of September was Chris' birthday. No, the letters around the edge of the cake don't spell anything out. I just figured that since I had bought all of the letters I should use them. The day after his birthday we had a number of friends over for "Game Night" so it was a nice excuse for a mini party. We played Cranium. Guys against girls, and the girls won. Woo hoo! However, there was a disagreement in the interpretation of the rules and some shouting occurred.

And that pretty much brings us into October. Last weekend was The Great Glass Pumpkin Patch at MIT. You may remember me discussing it last year? The pumpkin pics at the top of this post are from this event. The crowds just keep getting bigger and bigger! Last year we got there a little after 9, this year we arrived at 8:15, but we were still about the same place in line- number 180! Yikes.

After getting our tickets to reserve our place in line we checked out the perimeter of the patch, trying to find some that we liked. We saw some in the back, so when we were finally allowed in Chris went straight for those. I took my time looking at the other patches trying to find some in the lower price ranges. Unfortunately by the time Chris got over to them the 3 we liked were gone. We wandered some more, and then I saw someone carrying one of the ones that we liked. I went up to her and offered to trade any of the pumpkins in our box for the one she was holding. Score! She traded. (It's the yellow one with the tall stem in the back of this picture.) We also got three others- 1 more for home, 1 for work, and 1 for a gift. The picture is of all of our pumpkins from the past 4 trips to the patch. Time to start saving for next year!

And the last item to discuss, is my Halloween mantle. This picture is from a couple of weeks ago and it has evolved a little since that time. Stay tuned for more pictures once it's completed.

Long time no post...

Wow, 2 weeks since my last blog post. So much for trying to blog at least once a week. I kept meaning to get these pictures up, but it just didn't happen.

All of the pictures here are from a trip to Vermont that we took last weekend. I took Friday off from work and we headed up in the morning, and then back later in the day on Sunday. I realized that it takes us longer than I would think to break camp- a good thing to know before our upcoming vacation as I consider our long days of driving and now I know we'll have to get up a little bit earlier so that we have enough time.

Our first stop (not counting a quick stop at King Arthur Flour) was Ben & Jerry's. We took a tour, checked out the "Flavor Graveyard" and had a sample of icecream. And of course took cheesy touristy pictures. Next was a stop at Cabot (mmm.... cheese) and then we headed to the campground.

One thing that my family "collects" are highpoints, or the highest elevation of each state. My Dad started collecting these and as a result I've done a number of them with him. Now I've started doing some others with Chris. In fact, on our upcoming vacation we hope to get 7 more states. So on Saturday we hiked Mt. Mansfield, the highest point in Vermont. It is a mountain that is owned by Stowe Mountain Resort (a ski resort) who has a road up to almost the top of the mountain. In order to get some extra summer income, they charge you to drive up the road. So, we drove as far as we could and then had about a 45 minute hike to the peak. It was pretty cloudy on the way up, and when we were at the top it started to sprinkle, but on the way down the clouds moved away and we got some nice views. When we got back to the parking lot the clouds moved back in. Perfect timing!

After the hike we went stopped by a craft fair and although we didn't make any purchases, I did see a few things that I really liked and am considering getting a custom-made piece as a gift for my brother. Hopefully he'll like it.

As we were heading back towards the campground we saw a sign for the floating bridge. Not knowing what a floating bridge was, we figured we should go check it out, so we followed the signs and here's what we found. Ok, now here's my thing- I can understand creating one floating bridge for the novelty of it. In a small town maybe it could become a tourist draw (hey, it drew us in). And maybe when that bridge disintegrates I can understand replacing it with another floating bridge. But this one was replaced SIX times! At what point do you think that maybe this isn't such a good idea and just create a normal bridge?

Sunday, we took yet another walk to the firetower in the campground (I think we climbed it every single day) and then headed towards home. We made a quick stop in Hanover, NH. The Appalachian Trail goes through town and we were kind of hoping to do some trail magic. However, way too many people and really no hikers. We saw one, but he looked like he was just out for a short hike, not someone we would want to give Magic to.

And in other news, I got just a tiny smidge of scrapping done- one card (didn't scan) and two layouts that you can see here and here. DH slightly complained about my choice of materials on the second layout as I used paper and embellishments of things that he hardly ever uses. Oh well. I still thought they were cute. And now only 6 layouts until I'm "caught up" before my trip. If I'm lucky I'll have a chance to do one of those before we leave on Friday.