Um, hello?

Hey gang! I can’t believe it’s been 9 days since I last blogged. How very rude of me. In my defense, things have been pretty busy here with work, Halloween events, switching our house’s heating system from oil to coal (for purely financial reasons), school stuff, and extracurricular activities. But I’m here now, which is all that matters, right?

In glancing at my last post, I see I never posted my Sunday layouts for my Week in the Life project. So here they are for your viewing pleasure, as well as the 2 inside pages that sort of act like a pictorial “summary” of the week.

I just have to do the cover page and maybe one or two “outtake” pages, and then I’ll get it printed.

What else? Oh! I’m a redhead now! I went last Friday and got my hair done. It less “orange” (actually, it’s not orange at all IRL) and more “auburn” in real life, but you get the idea. I LOVE it and may never go back to another color. :)

And yes, in the photo, I’m holding my shirt shut to avoid boobie flash. I had to use my self-timer and because it was sitting on our low windowsills, I had to sit on the floor and bend over. LOL!

Anyway, I need to go do some work now, but I’ll be back later. Tonight is trick-or-treat night in town (and no, I do NOT know why my town does it on the Wednesday before Halloween, but they do). So I’ll post some pictures of my little Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and my punk rocker/goth girl. Later gang!

Weekend Report

So the weekend’s been busy, but fun, I suppose. Friday night was “Movie Night” here, so we made ice cream sundaes and watched “Finding Rin Tin Tin” (cute movie, by the way). Yesterday, I cleaned during the day and then we headed to the town’s Halloween parade. Grace walked with her Brownie troop again, and I walked with Hannah and her Daisy troop. They made me wear a stupid headband and a tail, but I shoved the tail into my back pocket about 2 blocks into the parade. I have some pride. And since the entire damn town watches the parade and I know over half of them, I had to draw the line somewhere. LOL!

I’m waiting for Steve to get home from walking around on a mountain somewhere so we can order wings and watch the Steelers game I’m taping right now. I’m soooo tempted to turn it on and at least see who’s winning, but I’m fighting the urge. Sigh.

Anyway, I have some more cleaning up to do, so here are my pages from the last few days for my Week in My Life project. I’ll be back later. :)

 

I doubt you want to see ALL of these pages close up, but I will post the last two larger so you can see little Hannah has a cat. Unfortunately, since I was with Hannah for the parade, I didn’t get any photos (except that one) of Grace.

Halloween has officially begun.

Last night, Grace was in a Halloween parade in a neighboring town. She walked with her Brownie troop. The girls were jellyfish and their leader was Spongebob. I must say, their costumes were really creative and they looked really cute! They had umbrella hats and they attached strips of bubble wrap, colored cellophane, and some iridescent charms. They each wore a blinking, color-changing light around their neck and had different colored glow sticks in the umbrella hats. They looked really neat walking in the dark.

Grace had a blast! It was her first parade she was ever in. Hannah sat with me and Steve to watch it and loved getting all the candy that the parade marchers threw to the kids along the street. (Are we the only people that do that? It’s a big thing around here for all parades, and the kids LOVE it.

This Saturday is our town’s Halloween parade. Grace is in it again and Hannah is also in it with her Daisy troop. I’m walking in the parade with Hannah, although I don’t really want to. LOL!

I’m working on another little album project too. At Artscow, you can order a deck of photo cards, with a different photo on each card. I recently discovered that you can set it so that the actual card numbers and suits aren’t printed on the cards. Since there are 52 cards in a deck and 52 weeks in a year, I uploaded one photo from each week for the past year and put one on each card. Then I turned off the card numbers for printing. When I get them, I’ll somehow bind them (probably with a ring) and have a little album of a picture a week for a year. I’m excited to get them! I just need to create the “cover” card and then I can order them. Once I get them and see if the whole concept actually works, I may order another set or two for Christmas gifts for the grandparents.

And now, I must go do something productive. Here are my pages from yesterday for my Week in My Life project. Grace is on the right-hand side of the photo, holding the banner. :)

Life Happens. And I Want to Remember It.

I started a new “project” yesterday. For what it’s worth, this project wasn’t my idea. I first read about it on Ali Edward’s blog. She’s an amazing person (from what I gather) and an amazing scrapbooker (from what I’ve seen). A few week’s ago, she posted about a Week in the Life project, where you document a week in your life. No pressure of Project 365 where you’re committed for a year. No reason to try to be overly creative or impressive. Just recording what a week in your life is like. Take photos for a week, write a bit about them and be done. Seven short days to do it, but something you (and others) can look back on for the rest of your lives and smile, cry, reflect, etc.

So I decided yesterday to give it a whirl, and I have to say, I’m having a blast with it. I took photos yesterday and today and spent the majority of today deciding what I wanted my finished book to look like, what I wanted to do (and not do) with the whole thing, etc. I decided from the get go that this wasn’t going to be crazy ADHD about the photos (like I normally am). Sure, they’re an important part of the whole thing. But I wasn’t going to spend hours (like I usually do) touching up photos, trying to make them perfect, etc. For me, this is just about getting the details down. I’ve made myself shoot in Auto mode on my camera, just because I don’t want to get all “artistic” with these photos. I’m adjusting exposure, contrast, and white balance in the photos, but that’s where it ends. No fancy post-processing… no touch ups… no  cool effects… no mind-blowing conversions. Just the photos and the story behind them.

I think it will be so cool to look back later on and browse through the book I intend to get printed out. In fact, I’m loving it so much, that I think I’m going to do it once a month. One week out of each month, I’ll do this, so that at the end of a year, I’ll have 12 photo books with each one documenting one week during each month of the year. I just think it will be cool to read back through them later.

So I decided to make these fairly simple. No fancy scrapbook elements and drop-shadows, no spending hours making sure all of my colors match, etc. Just a basic template, my photos, and my thoughts.

Here’s what the first page will look like.

Obviously, there’s a second page with the remaining days of the week. I’m just pulling in 4 photos from each day, as a brief “summary” at the beginning of the book.

Then, I’ll have 2 pages for each day of the week. The left side will have one (or two) photos with half a page of journaling just talking about what we did that day, what happened, what kind of day it was, my thoughts, etc. The right side will concentrate on just the photos.

Here are some close ups of the pages.

 

If you think this might be something you’d like to do, you can go to Ali’s blog and see a whole list of the posts relating to the project. There are so many approaches you can take with this. You can do it digitally like I am. Or you could just print out the photos, crop them, and handwrite the story behind them. In my opinion, the appearance of the end result isn’t nearly as important as the process and the idea behind the end result. I just think it’s a cool concept, and one that I think the kids (and Steve and I) will really enjoy as they get older and can look back on our lives.

So who’s joining me? Anyone? If you decide to give it whirl, drop me a line and let me see your project. I LOVE look at everyone else’s. :)

And the hook brings you back…

The title has nothing what-so-ever to do with this post, but “Hook” by Blues Traveler happens to be streaming on my computer, so we’re rolling with it. See how creative I am? I deserve some sort of award or something. For real. If any of you have a creativity award out there to give me, I think I deserve it. I mean, seriously, when was the last time you saw such a creative blog post title? <--- Total sarcasm here people.

So what’s everyone up to? <--- This is another hint I don’t have much to talk about. When I start asking my readers “what’s up” as if they’re sitting in the same room as me, ready to answer, it means I’m just wasting time and filling up some space with meaningless words. Not that I don’t care what’s up in your lives. I just don’t think anyone will actually bother to comment here just to tell me what’s up.

I’m actually almost ready to fall asleep, surprisingly enough (12:12 AM is early for me in terms of a bedtime), so this won’t be long (or so I say now…).

Thanks to everyone who took my poll. I have to say, I’m a bit surprised by the results. I didn’t expect it to be so close, because frankly, I thought Obama would “win” here. What the hell are conservatives doing here reading this blog? I mean, I’m actually a registered Republican, was in the Young Republicans Club in college, was on Governor Ridge’s campaign committee and attended his inaugural ball, etc. But the truth is, that I’m always pretty much smack dab in the middle. There are certain issues where I lean to the right (I know… I know… shocking.), and certain issues where I lean to the left. I posted the poll because I, honest to god, have no clue who I’m voting for yet. I tend to sway back and forth, and will probably walk into the voting booth, close the curtain, and then decide who I’m voting for (just like the last 2 presidential elections). So the poll was partly because I can still be swayed either way, but mostly because I’m curious. I posted the same poll on some internet boards I post on, and honestly, on all of them, the results are pretty close between Obama and McCain. I’m not really sure why this surprises me. It just does.

But moving on…

I know I said it the other day, but I swear that this weekend, I’m going to post about all of the cool applications, Firefox extensions, etc. that I’ve installed that I’m pretty sure have me bordering being called a total computer geek. But they DO make my life on the computer easier and faster, so I guess I’ll wear my “Geek” badge with pride. :D

And with that, I’m out of here. I just wanted to swing by and say hello. I’ll post a few photos for you from last week’s pumpkin patch trips. You know… because I’m sure that’s why you came here, isn’t it? [rolling eyes]

Hannah and Grandma (my mom) Sharing a Funnel Cake (PLEASE tell me the rest of the country has funnel cakes. Because if you don’t, you have NO idea what you’re missing out on.)

Queens of the Mountain The girls on top of some hay bales at the pumpkin patch. (I am well aware this photo is WAY over-processed and over-worked, but I was bored and avoiding working, so deal with it.)… (And yes, their size difference still amazes and amuses me on a daily basis. They’re only 2 years apart (almost to the day), but you’d swear Grace was a good 3 or 4 years older. Totally cracks me up.)

 

Not-So-Scary Cheetah (Or leopard? How the hell DO you tell those two cats apart, anyway?) Grace with her face painted at the pumpkin patch.

“See” you tomorrow gang. I’m heading to bed. G’night!

Please take this for me…

Thank you, my dear friends. :)

(For those of you that use a feed reader, there’s a poll embedded in this post I’d really appreciate y’all taking.)

Cookie Tray Template

For those of you that have been asking, I apologize for taking so long to put these together. But here they (finally) are. The templates (.psd and .tiff) for the cookie tray chart I made a few weeks ago. Enjoy! And if you create one yourself, I’d love to see them! :)

You can download the templates here.

Chelle made me do it…

1. Where is your cell phone? Charging
2. Your significant other? Steve
3. Your hair? straight
4. Your mother? saint
5. Your father? protective
6. Your favorite thing? kids
7. Your dream last night? none
8. Your favorite drink? beer
9. Your dream/goal? wealthy
10. The room you’re in? living
11. Your fear? midgets
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here
13. Where were you last night? soccer
14. What you’re not? disciplined
15. Muffins? chocolate
16. One of your wish list items? lens
17. Where you grew up? Pennsylvania
18. The last thing you did? smoked
19. What are you wearing? jeans
20. Your TV? Nickelodeon
21. Your pet? none
22. Your computer? Dell
24. Your mood? good
25. Missing someone? John
26. Your car? Accord
27. Something you’re not wearing? coat
28. Favorite Store? Aeropostale
29. Your summer? fast
30. Your favorite color? blue
31. When is the last time you laughed? today
33. Who will/would re-post this? Geena
34. FOUR PLACES I GO OVER AND OVER: living room, basement, Girl Scouts, soccer games
35. Four Foods I Like: steak, chicken, cheese, pasta
36. FOUR PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW: Home (for good tonight), couch, Florida, restaurant

It’s that time of year…

That time of year when the kids are in 8 billion extra-curricular activities and we have someplace to be or somewhere to go every night of the week AND on weekends. And then there’s the usual family fall stuff, like pumpkin patches, preparing for Halloween, etc. As much as I love this time of year, it also completely exhausts me. LOL!

That being said, it was a really busy weekend for us. Grace had a 3-hour Brownie hike on Saturday, so my mom and I took Hannah to a local pumpkin patch. The “problem” was that the next day, Grace wanted to go to the pumpkin patch too, so we took both girls on Sunday. We were there for hours both days, and to say that I’ve had my fill of pumpkin patch activities for the year 2008 would be an understatement of huge proportions. LOL!

But at least I got some great photos, right? I didn’t upload the pictures from our day there on Sunday when Grace was along, but I have some from the day just Hannah was there with us.

I’ll post the ones of Grace later. Wait until you see her face painting from that day. LOL! ;)

And yet, in the middle of our craziness this weekend, I managed to get some more layouts done, which is cool.

So I guess that’s it for now. Later tonight, we’ll discuss how I’ve become a TOTAL computer geek in terms of Firefox add-ons. Seriously. It’s become a sickness. Good times, I tell ya…

Later gang!

I’m getting awfully good at this “drive by” thing…

Sigh. Sorry guys. I swear I’m not trying to avoid you all. I just don’t seem to find the time to get here most days. I swear, it’s like every day seems to fly by. And yet, most evenings, I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing that day. Whassup with that?

Anyway, this is going to be a very quick update post. Let’s see. Since Thursday night when I posted…

** Hannah played soccer in the pouring down rain.

** Grace refused to go to soccer (and I didn’t push it, because I didn’t feel like going either).

** I woke up to find (yet another) piece of one of my teeth in my mouth. (I have really, really bad, brittle teeth that crack at will. Sigh.)

** Made a dentist appointment for tomorrow at noon, where I expect to be told what I was told a year ago by another dentist (which, I can assure you, is not even remotely close to good.)

** Both Hannah and Grace decided to join Girl Scouts. This is now going to involve two separate meetings every Wednesday in two separate places at two separate times. Lovely.

** Hannah’s dance classes also start next week, so y’all know where I’ll be every Tuesday. Lovely.

** Steve and I watched one of the best damn Steelers games we’ve seen in awhile. WOOHOO!

** I won the football pool at work, beating out 17 other people (including my husband). I friggin’ rule.

** Was inspired creatively by a bunch of totally random things, which is always cool.

** Scored a Wii for me & Steve the girls for Christmas. It shipped today. And now  I have NO idea how the hell I’m going to be able to wait until Christmas to give it to them.

** Started spreading the word to family and friends that anyone who buys me Rock Band for it will become my new favorite friend or family member.

** Decided I need to start getting more sleep, which is why I’m ending this post now and heading to bed. Later gang.

And you all thought I wasn’t sappy…

Yesterday marked 9 years that Steve and I have been married. We moved in together about 4 months after meeting each other, got engaged 5 months later, and we were married 9 months after we got engaged. So from the day we met until the day we were married was literally only about a year a half. By today’s standards, that may seem quick to some people. But for us, we just “knew”.

We met in a bar one night. I grew up here where we live now, but was living near Philadelphia at the time in my own apartment. I had been coming home on weekends though to stay at my parents’ house and go out to bars with my sister, who had just turned 21. I walked into the bar and my girlfriends and I kept getting whiffs of cologne. Upon further investigation, we pinpointed that Steve was the wearer of the cologne. My friend, Rosie, went over to talk to him. As soon as I saw him, I knew he was the type of guy I was attracted to. Two hoop earrings in each ear… longish hair… and a smile that lit up the room. Rosie talked to him for about 5 minutes, determined he wasn’t her type, and pulled me over to introduce us. The rest, as they say, is history.

We started talking and didn’t leave each other’s side the rest of the night. It was St. Patrick’s Day weekend, so we did green Jello shots together, chewed tobacco together (shut up… I’ve TOLD you I’m a redneck. And for what it’s worth, neither of us do that anymore. LOL!), and just talked and talked. Before we parted ways that night, Steve asked for my phone number, and having no paper on me, I wrote my name and phone number on a dollar bill. (I still have that dollar bill in my jewelry box in my bedroom).

He called me a few days later and we laughed because he couldn’t read my whole name on the dollar bill. All he could see was “Alli”, so he wasn’t sure what to call me when he called. I swear to god, after that first night, I walked outside at closing time, looked at my friend, and said, “I’m marrying him.” The weird thing is that when Steve left that night, he looked at his friend and said that he was marrying me. Funny how you just “know.”

I’d be totally lying if I said the past 9 years have been perfect. NO marriage is “perfect.” None. But the truth is that Steve and I both agree we have no real complaints when it comes down to it. We’ve had stressful times… hard times… times when we were learning about each other and dealing with it. But none that were so bad that we ever questioned being together. Ever.

The beauty of our marriage is that the longer we’ve been together, the happier we are. This isn’t the case with many of our married friends who throw out comments like, “If it wasn’t for the kids, I’d leave her tomorrow,” and “She’s such a bitch! I never should’ve married her.” Nope. Not for us. Sure, we both have little things we do that annoy the other one to no end. I HATE how Steve leaves damp, used paper towels all over the downstairs. And he hates that I throw my cigarette butts on the side of the house until I pick them up every few days. But we’ve learned to live with each other’s quirks and focus on the good things.

He’s an amazing, understanding husband and father. And as queer and cliche as I know it sounds, he’s my best friend. Some people’s marriages grow stagnant over time, but that’s never happened with us. In fact, I think the longer we’re together, the happier we get. We can finish each other’s sentences. We can read each other’s moods. We know when to push the other person and when to just back off and let the other one sort it out. We know what annoys the other one and try our damndest to not do it (but often fail miserably). Steve knows that after an argument, I need 5 to 10 minutes tops to cool down and then I'm cool with going back to normal with no apologies necessary. I know that Steve just sometimes needs to blow off steam and that the things he’s bitching about have absolutely nothing to do with me or us and that he’ll feel better after just getting it off his chest.

So yes, there are certainly some things you take for granted after being together for an extended period of time. But in our case, time has been nothing but positive. We’re not even remotely stagnant or bored in our relationship. We’re comfortable, which sounds bad, but it isn’t. It’s amazing. Positively, absolutely amazing. Steve, to me, is like that silk blankie or ragged stuffed animal you had when you were a kid. That comfort object that you knew no matter what your day was like, that lovey was going to get you through it. And that when the world was crumbling down around you, you could reach for that object and know that everything would be OK.

So for those of you out there that aren’t married yet or will be soon, please don’t listen to your friends who have grown bored and bitter in their marriages. Because although it certainly happens in some cases, if you’ve found the right person, you’ve found true happiness, regardless of how long you’ve been together. I can say, without an ounce of uncertainty, that Steve and I will be that old, gray couple, sitting on our front porch in 30 years, holding hands and still truly in love. Because I’m lucky enough to have found the person I was truly meant to be with. And that, my friends, is really all I could ever ask for. I’m not a big believer in that whole “soul mate” theory, but I will say that if there was such a thing, then I’ve struck gold and found mine.

Steve is my true love. And as gay as that sounds (and yes, I realize how gay it is to talk like that), I can’t help it. Because he really, truly is the person I was meant to be with….

PS: And so as not to make you think I’ve gone off the deep end, getting all weird and sappy, let me tell you about the anniversary card Steve gave me. Marge and Homer Simpson are dancing together on the front and it says, “With beer and regular bathroom breaks, I could dance with you forever.” The inside says, “Life is good.” LOL! See? He can read me like a book. You’ve gotta love the guy. ;)

PPS: I had every intention of including some of our scanned wedding photos in this post, but never got around to actually scanning them. However, tomorrow is Saturday, which means no work shit to deal with. So I will do just that and post them. Because, well, it’ll be fun. LOL!

Emma Tagged Me…

The "rules" of the game are as follows:
1. Post the rules on your blog
2. Write 6 random things about yourself
3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post
4. If you're tagged, DO IT and pass on the tag

Okay - six random things about myself...
1) Although part of me would love to be a professional photographer, I really prefer the post-processing in Photoshop more than the actual taking of the photos.

2) I have every intention of upgrading to Photoshop CS4 when it’s released next month, regardless of the fact that I don’t have an “extra” $200 lying around.

3) I’m getting really tired of straightening my hair, so I think I’m going to let it grow out a bit and go back to my natural curls again for awhile.

4) I’ve recently become addicted to Pandora, and am finding tons of amazing new singers (like Brooke Fraser) because of it. (Many of which can be found in my new Playlist in my sidebar over there. –>) Note: If any of you out there are also users on Pandora, let me know so I can peek at your stations, OK?

5) Many days, I would be perfectly happy to not leave my house for weeks, which is the total opposite of how I used to be.

6) If Steve and I weren’t so damn afraid to get on a plane, I’d be going to visit a ton of my friends, including going to an upcoming wedding in Florida that I had the honor of being invited to. Sigh. :(

I'm tagging...
1) Kim (kimmif)
2) Chelle
3) Tink
4) Geena
5) Lisa
6) Melly

Hola gang!

How was everyone’s weekend? Ours was really busy, actually. “Family Fun Day” for the local soccer club was on Saturday. Steve had to work, so I had the two girls on my own. I was totally dreading it, because it’s a LONG day and I end up dropping about $40 every year. I have to say, the girls behaved WAY better than I thought they would. We had a few moments here and there, but nothing that bad. (Photos from that day later… I didn’t download them off my camera yet.)

Saturday night we headed to my MIL’s just to visit for a bit. It gave the kids something to do right up until bedtime, which was my goal, really.

Yesterday, I spent the entire day cleaning up and organizing the kitchen. Man, did it need it. BAD. LOL! I’m happy to report that every inch of the room has been decluttered, right down to taking EVERYTHING off the front of the fridge (photos, papers, school lunch menus, etc.). It looks fantastic. It won’t stay that way, I’m sure. But I can at least enjoy it for a few days, right?

Other than that, I just spent some time playing around with some photos and scrapping a bit. See? I’ll be back later. Maybe. [shrug]

Credits: Dot Paper: Jen Wilson Designs - Academy – Music; Solid Papers: Jen Wilson Designs - Academy - Elementary Solids; Photo and Paper Overlays: Something Blue Studios; Ribbons: Jen Wilson Designs - Holiday - Laced Ribbons; Pink Ribbon: Jen Wilson Designs - Laundry Line - Unwashed Ribbons; Alpha: Jofia Devoe Designs - Alpha Bead; Green and Pink Flowers - Trish Jones; Glittery Flourish - Trish Jones - Hot Spots – Sparkly; Leaves, Pink and Yellow Flower - Funky Junky Spring Fling - Kate Hadfield

What I Get Paid For…

OK. Not really. It’s not what I’m supposed to get paid for. But some days, well, other projects “call” and work gets put on hold. Today, I spent the day making a magnetic weekly schedule chart for the girls.

The girls are on different soccer teams, which means games different nights of the week and varying from week to week. And Hannah is constantly asking me "How many more days until my soccer game, Mom?" It's actually sometimes annoying. LOL!

And now that both are in school, I get all kinds of confused about which kid has which “special” class every day (art, music, computers, library & gym). I have to know because on gym days, they need to wear sneakers, and on library days, they need to return their books. And of course, they don’t have these classes on the same day.

AND, just to f*ck with my mind a little more, they also have these classes on a rotating 5-day schedule. That means that as long as they have 5 days of school in a week, we’re golden, and nothing changes from one week to the next. But throw in an in-service or snow day and all hell breaks loose. Why, you ask? Because then when they do go to school that next day, they have the special class that should’ve been the day before and all of the classes shift again. See why I get confused? LOL!

So the bottom line is that I needed some sort of weekly planner type thing that could be changed when necessary without crossing things off on a calendar and creating a big old mess. Enter a cookie tray, some paint, some digital scrapbooking supplies and some peel-and-stick magnets. Put them all together and you’ve got yourself a magnetic weekly schedule planner. Sweet!

This was actually really easy to make. All I did was paint a cookie tray on the bottom. Then I opened up my digital scrapbooking supplies and created the actual weekly “calendar” and the “This Week” header. Those are just printed out on regular matte photo paper and stuck onto the bottom of the cookie sheet.

Next, I created the actual magnets.

I opted to put a photo of each girl on them, mostly because Hannah can’t read yet and I think they’ll get a kick out of it. I also choose to make the picture under each word relate to the event, again, because Hannah can't read. So there are paint brushes for art days, a stack of books for library days, a soccer ball for soccer game days, etc.

For those, I just printed them out on regular satin photo paper, cut them apart, and used a peel-and-stick magnet on the back of each one.

I also created a magnet that says "Today" so Hannah would know each day what's going on for her.

I also created little magnets for other "special events". If you look in one of the top two photos, you'll see a present between the two girls on Sunday. That's because Hannah has a birthday party that day. I also made a tree for Christmas, a bat for Halloween, an "It's Your Birthday!" magnet for, duh, their birthdays, etc.

The best part is that any magnets I don't happen to be using one week can just be stuck on the other side of the cookie tray, out of sight and ready whenever you need them (because otherwise, I assure you, I'd lose them).

So that was it. I figure each Sunday night, the girls can move their magnets around as necessary and they'll know exactly what's going on for the week. :)

Edit: I'm going to make this whole project into templates so those of you with a photo editing program can make your own. We'll offer it up (for free) on Jen Wilson's blog or on her site. I'll post here when we have it up and you can download it and make your own. :)