Happy Birthday Daddy/Poppy!!!!

A wonderful birthday wish going out to my fabulous daddy! (I love being Daddy's Little Girl!) Hope you had a great one driving back from Canada!! We love you! (isn't he cute! and what a great Poppy!!!)

Happy Birthday!

Just wanted to send out a Belated wish to Cousins' Kaylee and Alan hoping they had wonderful birthdays! You are in our thoughts and we can't wait to see you guys soon!

Hope you had great ones!

Creative Chaos

So how do you work in creative chaos? That is what I am asking myself everyday that I sit down to try and scrapbook. My hubby has been very kind to me and given me an end of our downstairs room to call my own - my Scrapbook Area. The problem is the area just doesn't seem to be big enough for all my 'collection' and I am still not coming up with the best storage solutions for my space. This area is also the catch all for family info, my mail, purchases, gifts, projects, etc. So at any given time it is a complete disaster! It takes me 20-60 minutes + to clean up before I can even sit down to create. Unfortunately dampers the creativity.

I have my eye set on a large cube bookshelf that I think will solve alot of my problems. I am anxiously awaiting IKEA to open but it will be a good year plus so I wait (Thanks to my friend's Tannile & Aysha who turned me onto this bookcase)... Meanwhile I have found a wonderful one at Meijers that I might even have to have to save me from the waiting. I'll keep you posted on that one.

I have been at least able to do a little bit of fun scrapbooking! I have almost completed a 14 page 1st year baby album pages that will be offered as a class and kit at the scrapbook store I work at. That was fun!!!! (Too bad I am done with most of those pages for my kids! ;) I also am having this bad habit of starting pages and projects and not finishing them! I currently have a canvas painted to do some wall art for my scrap space, large clothes pins painted to decorate also for my area, chipboard books cut and scored to be covered and decorated into mini name albums, Magnetic paint to make boards for my area, and three new sets of My Mind's Eye paper set out with sketches to do pages that just needs pictures chosen and then done! And that is just on one of my tables!!! See how sad my area is!! ;) But I still love it!

My goal is to get this area tip shape! So that I can thoroughly ENJOY looking at the space, being in the space and creating in the space. (Remember - my word for the year is ENJOY - I must embrace this). I have some organization methods that I truly enjoy that I have gotten from friends and books. But... if any of you have some great (and inexpensive) ideas... I would LOVE to hear from you!!! It is always better to hear from people that truly use these ideas and know they work.

So my wish for you all - Have a wonderful week and to those who scrapbook - Be creative and find your inspiration! My friend Erin (www.erinwells.typepad.com) has been so productive with fun and meaningful layouts lately that she has truly gotten me inspired! (and you said you wouldn't be scrapping anytime soon!) Happy belated birthday Erin to you and to Ronda A! Know you guys had a fun one!

INSANITY!!!

That has been the theme of late at the Perry household!!

Poor Logan has been struggling getting healthy from a sinus infection - where he took an antibiotic that led to C-Diff - an infection in the colon (that is NOT pretty and very painful) which had to just go away on it's own... that was a rough week+! So now that he was better and ready to get out and have fun.... even more insanity began!

Remember back when I said our Carbon Monoxide detector went off a couple weeks ago... well - it went off again Monday the 5th around 8:30pm. We knew everyone had to get out of the house for the night until we could get the heating guys in to check. Thank God for my fabulous friends... Katie took all 3 cats and Michelle took my whole family in. I had the fire dept out at about 10:30pm and they got zero reading again!! The next morning the heating guys got zero reading again! This is getting old!!! So back into the house we move! (Back goes the new CO detector to get exchanged and a second one is purchased)

Then... Friday night around 7:30pm I drive in to find the alarm going off again!! I do everything they told me to do then immediately called the fire dept. They came over and this time they got a reading in the house. And they were extremely thorough and even tried to check all of us to see if we had excessive levels. So again - trying to find a place for all of us. Katie and Noah took the cats again - and my friend Elizabeth let us crash at her parents' condo that they have in town but don't live in year round. At least we all had a roof, heat and wonderful friends!!! (yes the firemen probably thought I was crazy since in the madness I was trying to get some pictures while packing... people just don't understand scrapbookers!!!)

Monday morning - time to get quotes on a new furnace!!! ARGH!!! And guess what - I had a THOUROUGH check up and NO Carbonne Monoxide detected!!!! (we had left the heat on all weekend to keep our pipes from freezing). The decision was that the detectors are not the most accurate and that my car into the garage was setting off the detector. So after cleaning the furnace and buying a VERY nice new detector - we were able to move back in!!!

So since Katie was so nice to have kept my kids all day while I dealt with furnace stuff - I thought I would run back to the condo to get stuff packed up and I find that my entire bottle of liquid detergent had vibrated off the washer and busted ALL OVER the carpet remnants!!!!!!! Why me??????!!!!!

So - off to get the kids and the cats and still make it to the grocery store for essentials since they are predicting 5 - 10 inches of snow with ice starting that night!!!! On the way - my car had a 'Hot Coolant Temp' light come on and my needle started sitting in the red 'H' zone. Yes - I found some milk and with some minor flaws (my entire large soft drink dropping and exploding all over my kitchen) we made it through the night. Note - my fabulous husband drove back to the condo and worked on cleaning up my nice spill for me... he was feeling sorry for me!

Tuesday we stayed home all day since school was cancelled and ice everywhere. We had a nice day doing absolutely nothing except for laundry, unpacking, watching tv and napping.

Wednesday I wake up to no electricity! And of course we were not prepared so our rechargable flashlights were not charged and no extra batteries for the one flashlight we could find. Are you getting the theme to our life right now!!??!!! Thank God - our power came back on around 8am so I didn't have to worry about keeping the kids warm and entertained. I did decide to venture out and get my car checked so it didn't get worse... and a cracked manifold - 2 days of service - and a rental car later... Lets just say it is going to cost alot to fix!! When I called my girlfriend Michelle to whine - she first said' you have got to be kidding - no never mind.. it's you!"

So anyway... that has been the basics of our insanity of late and why most of you have not heard from us lately. But what we realize in all of this is Thank God for the wonderful friends we do have (especially the generosity of Michelle, Katie and Elizabeth & her parents). And we are all safe, healthy and together! Throughout it all - the kids were absolutely wonderful and willing to share in all of our 'adventures'.

I leave you with some wonderful quotes from Logan through it all this week:

* While on the phone whining to Todd about my spilled drink - Logan came over and interupted me to say "I heard you mommy, would you like to share my drink?"

* While driving away from the car rental company in the little 4 door we got - my son who only remembers me driving a van asks "Mommy do you know how to drive a car?"

Our love and gratitude to all - stay warm and safe!! And remeber to 'ENJOY' (boy did I choose an appropriate word!)

k

aezine challenge

I am finally getting around to do another one of Ali Edwards weekly challenges (http://aliedwards.typepad.com). Last weeks challenge was to name all of those scrapbook products that are essential to your scrapbooking.
Here are my priorities when I scrapbook:
1) My new Making Memories trimmer - I LOVE this thing!! So worth the money! I hated how all my other trimmers did not always cut straight and you could not shave off just a sliver. This one does! It rocks! The week I got it, I even sat on my bed and cut the pieces to make Lexi's birthday invites! In bed! How totally cool is that!
2) Bazzill cardstock - what yummy colors! (my hubby makes fun of me) When Scraps first started carrying bazzill - I swore the texture didn't mean much. I started going to it for the colors but have stayed because I do love the dimension that the texture brings.
3) Pattern Paper - I went for a good year barely even using pattern paper and then all the wonderful coordinating lines came out and I was hooked again! My current favorites are My Minds Eye (Wild Asparagus and Bohemia) and Sweetwater.
4) My Nikon Camera and my HP Photosmart printer - I am a digital girl! Love that I don't have to store all my printed pictures - I store them on discs and only print up the ones I need. I print up all my pictures at home which gives me the benefit of playing with my photo sizes ALOT! I am a huge fan of wallet sized photos so that I can get more pictures on every layout. I am also starting to do alot more single picture layouts in my family album and they are often 8x10s or 5x7s.

Since I was on a roll doing the challenges, I went onto this weeks aezine challenge which is about what are the extra things in scrapbooking that you can not live without. These are the things that make you want to scrapbook and stretch your creativity. So after thinking, I have decided my list of the extras that I am into 'right now' are:

1) Van Dyke Brown Ink!!! - I use this ink pad on EVERYTHING that doesn't move!!! My friend Emily keeps making fun of me!

2) Ribbon - LOVE THIS!!! I pretty much have it on everything! What a wonderful cheap product with fabulous colors and patterns!! And looks so pretty display in jars in my scrap area.

3) Rub Ons - I love the words, letters and doodles. It doesn't matter what it is... I am even breaking out of my comfort zone and putting them on pictures, ribbons, etc!

4) Flowers - what a fun embellishment and great colors out there! I am currently enjoying the larger ones right now.

5) Staples - fun, easy, plentiful and a great way to attach ribbons and transparencies. Also a very 'boy thing' for Logan's pages.

6) Stamps - starting to really enjoy these on my scrapbook pages. My current favorites are some from the dollar bin at Michaels, the It's a Date stamp from Stampin' Up (thanks to Lisa) and Heidi Swapp words (thanks to Erin). I have even started looking at them online and plotting out which ones I want to start using in my journaling (love those new Fontwerks). I thought I was sort of 'done' with stamps since I really haven't been making too many cards these days.

I even went the extra step and made a little page all about the 'stuff' that I am into. This page is for a 9x9 album I started as an All about Me album. This is only the second page in that album since I obviously don't do much scrapbooking about me... I hope to change that this year!!

Hope you all have a wonderful day and stay warm! Thinking of you! k

I love Harry!

Okay.. I admit it.. I love Harry Potter!! I love everything about the books and the movies. I am absolutely amazed at how a book written for children can speak to a 30 something (hee-hee) year old and 'be on my level'. I am one of 'those people' that counts down until the newest book comes out (July 21st in case you haven't heard). The last two books - I was with 300 of my closest friends at the Barnes & Nobles at midnight waiting for the release of the book. Then of course I would go home and read until I got 'tired' which never seemed to happen with a Harry Potter book! I would have 700 pages read in just over 48 hours. Of course my family never got to talk to me. But if Todd and the kids will let me - I plan on being there again this July and reading all weekend - (let me know if you want to join me!)

So in preperation for the final book to be released and the 5th movie... A friend of mine (hey Ronda!) and I decided to reread all 6 books (one a month) and see if we can find some of the hidden answers to what will happen in the 7th book. I made us a cute little Harry Potter journal to jot down our thoughts (since I don't seem to have much of a memory anymore.) Ronda's daughter Lexi, my mom, my friend Sharon and a friend of my moms have all decided to join us in this quest! By the time we are done... we will have it all figured out and have all the answers!!! Unfortunately I can not share any of these with my husband - he is currently reading the 5th book - which is supposed to be read by the July movie release. I haven't even been able to talk to him about who died in the 6th book!!!!! Thank goodness for my mom and friends that will commiserate with me!!!

So - until July - you can find me reading my Harry Potter books (maybe that is why I am doing so few blog entries - that or the playing of Webkins) and if you have any thoughts about what is to happen in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - I would love to hear them. I can theorize with the best of them!

In parting I leave you with this thought from Dumbledore (note to my dad who will never read or watch HP - he is the headmaster of the wizarding school)

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."