one more for today

Just have to share this.... being a special education teacher, this really MOVED me...

Every OTHER day?

So I have a good excuse this time... we had no electricity! We had wicked storms come through on Monday night. VERY little rain with lots of thunder and lightening. We lost power about 10:30 Monday night. We heard the transformer "pop" so we weren't really suprised. That meant NO A/C however. We opened up the windows and that did help. Still no power when we got up Tuesday morning. Had to shower at grandma's house after I called about the outage. They had no record of our outage, and could not tell me when it would be back on. NOT a great way to start my day! So I ran away from home for the day! :) The power came on a little before 2 pm we think.

Becky is back in town... and I haven't sat still since! :) I love this girl, we are kindred souls and just love being together. We went to IKEA yesterday and hung out in her neck of the woods. Today she decided to come up to the "country." She is focused on getting ready for school already... I just am NOT ready to think about it yet. But she has made me! So, our day was spent running some goofy errands.

• We stopped at the local teacher store. They are in the process of moving into a newer much larger space, so they didn't have much. We did get a few new borders for our boards though.
• Michael's was the next stop. Becky saw this magnetic board at the scrapbook store we went to on Sunday and had to have one for her class. She fell in love with the magnetic papers too. I told her all about the XYRON magnetic cartridge. So, ,we had to get one at Michael's. She also got some papers so we could make her a few photo frames and other magnets for use on her board.
• We had lunch at Olive Garden.... salad, soup, & breadsticks! Yum! We laughed and she told me all about her cruise to Greece. Her new goal is to get me to agree to go on a cruise with her and Brian some time. We'll see! :)
• We headed to Hobby Lobby so she could get some fabric to cover her back board. We started using fabric a few years ago since it holds up so much better than paper. She wanted GREEN fabric. We found some great choices. They also had rub-ons 50% off... so I had to get some of course! :)
• Yesterday I saw some GIANT paper mache letters at Jo-Anns. We stopped at the one closest to me to see if they had them... NOPE. We'll have to check tomorrow when we go to lunch close to school.
• Our final stop was to Home Depot so she could get a new carpet for her classroom. It is still in my car. Can't go wrong with a 5 x 7 carpet for $21!
• We headed home and worked on her photo book she is creating of her trip from Greece and Italy. They are available through Archivers. Brian called and wanted to have her home when he got home so she had to head home.

I really should be doing something productive. I did clean the sinks in the kitchen before Becky got here this morning. Why is it that once I turn on the computer, I am sucked in and can't get anything done? :) I head that there is a new word for that... a "mouse potato" Guess that is me! :)

Whirlwind of a Week...

So much for blogging every day in July! :) I hardly had any time last week to even catch my breath, let alone update the blog. Here is the quick overview:

• Taught scrapbook camp at the YMCA where Chris works. Had a great time with 9 girls ages 8-13. Those are the finished books in the photo. I agreed to teach this in the Spring, but didn't put the dates together until the Friday before! So, I was creating pages a day ahead of the camp last week. All in all, I am thrilled with how the books finished. The style of the book was inpsired by my CKU album. Used up lots of my stash of fabric, stickers, and paper.
• The Y doesn't own a digital camera, so I stayed most of the day on Wednesday taking photos to be included in the brochure. The other branch is always in the photos, so this way Chris and Amy have a collection of photos to pull from. I still need to burn them to a CD for them.
• I am the guest design team member at Susans Scrapbook Shack this month. Part of my responsibilites included posting topic of the day for last week. Be sure to check out the site. Susan has an amazing site and is getting ready to launch an all new store soon!
• Our family has talked about having a garage sale for YEARS! Of course, we set a date and I didnt put two and two together. You guessed it... it was this week! We had gathered all of the crap from upstairs, but I hadn't priced any of it. So Wednesday night Chris pulled it all downstairs for me and I was up till after 11 pricing stuff. We got up at the crack of dawn on Thursday to take everything over to grandmas house and help set up. I ended up spending most of the day on Saturday in the HEAT working the sale. It rained on Friday, so mom and company decided to close it down. In the end I made $66, which was really fine. Whatever I made was a bonus to getting rid of the crap. My sister and uncle took two van loads full of the leftovers to goodwill this morning. We still have lots more that I need to get rid of. It will either go directly to goodwill or to the Y for the garage sale they have each fall.
• Thursday Chris and I worked a swim meet. A few parents from another Y team approaced us about running the computer for a community meet they were having. This was the first time that the club had ever used the software (Welcome to the year 2006!) It was hot and muggy, but it went pretty smooth and we made some extra $. That is always a good thing!
• My best friend Becky is finally back in town, so we spent all day Friday shopping with my niece Katrina. I needed some new shorts for our upcoming trip to the National YMCA swim meet. We discovered a great store called Torrid They have really cute YOUNG looking clothes for those of us that are NOT a size 2! ACtually, we are a size 1 in the store.... gotta love that! :)
• I have been looking for two of the newest scrapbooking idea books out there: The Me Book and Elsie's new book. None of the stores close to me have them. Sure, I could have ordered them online, but I have a need for instant gratification! :) So, I called Windy City Scrapbooking and sure enough they had them! So Becky and I took a road trip into the City yesterday. I love that store... we also stopped at a great wine store as well as the crate and barrell OUTLET! :)
• My cousin Gretchen graduated from HS in June, but they waited to have her party until yesterday. So I went right there after my trip into the city. Hard to beleive she is headed to college in a month!

Today was a day dedicated to cleaning house and doing laundry... it was nice to just relax and try to make the house more liveable again. I should get back to that laundry... :) I guess that wasn't such a quick overview afterall! Becky and I are heading to IKEA tomorrow and then have lunch plans on Thursday. I just can't seem to sit still! :)

Scrap Studio in Progress!

SO we are making progress... Hard to believe this is what progress looks like... but you can't imagine what it looked like before! There are still several boxes of garage sale things in here. I have been boxing the "keep" items most of today. Chris will be moving all of the boxes when he gets home so I can see what I have left to box up. We might even get the room painted before the 15th! Wow! :)

SO here is where we are at...

There is still lots to do! Once we get the boxes out, I can see where we are at. I am getting pretty excited! :)

Fireworks!

We went out to one of the local towns last night with some of our swimmers and parents. I played a little with taking some photos. I think I like this one... don't ask me how I did it! :)

We also went and looked at flooring options for the studio as well as paint colors. Now we just need to get all of the crud cleaned out of there! That is the plan for today. Chris put an air conditioner up there so we will be able to work up there today. He is still sleeping now... will have to wake him soon!

On a scrapbooking note, I am very excited to be the Guest Design Team Member at Susan's Scrapbook Shack. Be sure to check out this site... great store, great boards, great PEOPLE! Susan's Scrapbook Shack I am very excited to be part of this talented team for a month! My user name there (and most places) is Virtue75.

I have set a goal of 15 pages this month... right now I have 5 in process in my current space. One is almost done, and the others will be shortly. I have ideas for about 5 more, so it seems I have my MOJO back! With summer school over now, I should be able to have lots of creative time!