Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays

Just wanted to wish everyone a very blessed and happy holiday. I hope you are able to enjoy time with the ones who mean the most to you, share memories and make new memories together.
I'm not one to make new resolutions each year since most of the ones I did make are a ongoing kind of thing---like losing weight and keeping it off---being more patient with everyone---and being continuously grateful for the many blessings that I have already. Each new day I subconsciously or consciously keep those items on my mind.
Have most wonderful season--what ever it is that you are celebrating.


(Angel compliments of ScrapGirls)

Well, we finally made it past fall and into winter. I have most of my Christmas shopping done and the tree is up. I still have to wrap gifts and finish decorating the house.
It seems really odd not to have the bubble lights on the tree this year. We bought a new tree and it is prelit and it does look nice--but I miss my bubble lights.
It is just like I told my son the other day--there are two constants in our lives. We all die eventually and the other is that things are always changing.
This tree was much easier to put up---and Bob and I are not getting younger--and realistically we should start thinking about making things easier for us--well me, Bob is not much for Christmas decorating. I guess if it's easier on me--I'm less grumpy--so it is easier on him.
But anyway, my carousel and bubble lights are not on the tree.
...............and I miss them.
OK enough of that--
We went to a party where my dad lives--most of the residents families were there---and there was a lot of excitement. Santa came and passed out presents to the residents--there was also a karioke singer there and he was singing Christmas songs (what else would he sing??LOL). Dad discovered all goodies on the counter and wanted to fill his pockets for later (this is a story for another time)--so he would have snacks. He just wanted the cookies and the candy--nothing healthy and he had already had 2-3 servings of those yummy snacks.
We decided that we should separate my dad and the temptations--we had no control over the temptations so we took my dad out for a ride to get something to eat. He was happy with that.
By the time we came back most of the families had gone and the caregivers had the "temptations" put away and they were being treated to McDonalds--which they all thoroughly enjoyed.
I think when we left dad was planning to sit down with them--cause he knows that dessert follows dinner--he might be just in time for that!
Funny what he remembers!
Incase I don't get back here before Christmas, I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday .
Merry Christmas!

The Second Card

This one is so pretty and soft--I love the colors. The stamped image is one of my favorites.

Happy FALL

Finally, it is slowing down for me at work........getting a little breathing space and catching up at work. However, my boss told me it won't be long that we will be getting new business and we will be working our bums off again.
I have lots of pictures to share with you but, the Meijers where I live has had their 1 hour photo "broken" every time I go to get my pictures developed. I am up to 4 rolls that have to be developed. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Yes, I am still doing picture taking the old fashioned way. AND..........yes I am going somewhere else (probably Walgreens) to get my pictures developed. Hopefully today.
Bob has the house finished next door and we are hoping to get it leased soon. It looks great.
I am working on my Christmas cards and Secret Gobbler gift.
Here are the cards that I received from my Secret Gobbler Sister.
The first one is a Cuttlebug embosser
and if anyone knows where I can go to get this one, please let me know--I have looked around my area at Michaels and JoAnns and have not seen it.

Keeping my hands busy

No doubt, I have been a busy girl this summer--like most of you.
I had a chance to go to Crystal Mountain Resort with dh for a couple of days and I enjoyed it very much. It was nice to relax after the business of summer.
With work taking an increasing amount of time and dh and I spending more time apart--we wanted to spend more time together--
If I sat on the couch and watched TV with him in the evening after work, I would fall asleep.
If we busied ourselves on the computers, he would become very drowsy and end up going to bed early.
So, I thought if I kept my hands busy, while watching T.V. maybe I could stay awake. So I got out my cross stitching and started working on it. I had some small ones to work on and am now into the medium ones.
I will attach the ones I have scanned so you can see them.

One thing I haven't shared is that I have always wanted to be an artist. Now, in reality, my skills in that area are limited--but I did manage to hand draw these little flowers and color them in with a mixture of copic and SU markers. These are Artist Trading Cards.




During the time I was off my computer crashed, well my internet was what was corrupted and I managed to keep almost everything but my digital software program. I am currently not able to do anything digitally. Here is some ATC's that I did while the program was un corrupted.

I'm Back--did u miss me?

Hello,
It has been too long a time since I have updated this blog. I know-----I'm sorry.
Instead of listing all my excuses I will just say that my life has been busy and my time on the internet very limited.
However, I hope to be able to keep a fairly current post going.
I have been working on some cross stitch and my scrapbooking pages, so I don't have a bunch of cards to show you.
I will see what was the last posted project and be back to share something new with you.

Scrap your Blog Site!!!!!!

This is so cool!! I apologize if you already know how to do this, but I just found out!! So it is really cool to me. I just scrapped my blog!!!!!
Found the instructions in Creating Keepsakes July '09 issue. It is really simple.
1-Create a new blank image in Photoshop Elements or Microsoft Word.
2-Launch your web browser and navigate to the web page you would like to capture. (your blog)
3-Press the ALT + PRINT SCREEN buttons on your keyboard, and then paste your screenshot into your new document.
4-Print the screenshot onto cardstock or photo paper, and use it just like you would a photo.
(Or publish it from Photoshop Elements)

Easee--peasee!!

Memorial Weekend
Usually on this weekend dh and I plant our flowers for the summer season however, this year we decided to have a family get
together. We have so many events to celebrate in
May. Let's see there is Mother's Day, our 18 th
Anniversay, my oldest ds and dil's 15 th anniversary, grandson Donovan's 5 th birthday, grandaughter Tanisha's 14 th birthday, brother Franks !!th birthday, and Memorial Day. My biggest dielema was what to put on the cake?
I have tried to fit it all on one cake (and thank goodness for Meijers, they have such talented cake writers) but this year I made the cakes and I knew I couldn't write on a cake legebley. I had some candles that spelled Happy Birthday--but we were celebrating so much more---I ended up with Happy Day! It was indeed a happy day that we could all get together again. The grandchildren are getting older and a couple of more years they will be living there own lives and it will get harder and harder to have everyone together. We did have a good day, the weather was great, couldn't ask for a better cookout.
Our cookout did put our flower planting a week behind schedule, but it is done now, well almost.
DH and I went and bought the spring plants yesterday morning and spent the afternoon planting them--I did run out of potting soil--so will be at Meijers sometime today to pick that up and finish the planting. I love the flowers all the colors. I like the fragrance too, but most of the flowers kick up my allergies--which I can't get away from in the summer--so I want to enjoy their beauty in my yard.
Here are pictures of my purple Irises (given to me by my friend RuthAnn) and our Yucca plant(from son Chris) and a basket of impatiens and others that I plant every year in a pot that was a graduation (associates degree, some years ago) gift from one of my customers when I worked at Penney's.

Every year I take pictures of my flowers---and I scrapbook them every year. This year will be no exception--because I have new flowers to capture.

Happy Spring (before it becomes summer)

I did make it back faster this time, although not as fast as I was anticipating!
Work should slow down just a little bit--at least so we can catch our breath!
I hope everyone gets some time off this weekend for Memorial Day.
We are having a family cook out on Sunday, so I will be getting the house ready and shopping when I have time and energy (lol), dh will help some, but his focus is on the yard--which has been mostly neglected this spring. We will be late with our flower planting ( we usually plant on Memorial Day weekend) because of the weather and the cookout but I think it is more important to have the get together..
We haven't had the family all together since Christmas---we have been visiting at the kids homes for birthdays, Easter, etc.
I will post the pic of my latest trapeze card and will try to get some other pics up here soon.
SOON! I promise!

Mel Stampz

http://melstampz.blogspot.com/
Here is a link to her blogspot--lots of crafty ideas and projects.

Apology, My Week and My Dad

I have been a very bad blogger!! So sorry!

Work has become center stage lately and has taken almost all of my energy.

Also I was getting ready for the March SCS Michigan Mingle, had out of town company, birthdays and holidays---but mostly the 10 to 12 hour days just exhaust me.

Granted those long days are not all work--TUESDAYS it is--driving to Livonia and back.

We are all (at work) trying to keep two locations going--stressful for everyone.

WEDNESDAYS: after work--I beeline it to my dad's and take him out for a ride-we go to Tim Hortons and get him some cookies and diet coke. He likes to sit there and watch people and cars go by and of course we spend time together. Then we go for a ride downtown (Lapeer) because it reminds him of the many downtowns in his past and I think it does bring back memories for him. I don't know how long those memories last or how vivid they are (he has alzheimers) and then we stop and get gas and depending on his energy we might go check out Big Lots. ( I just go to the scrapbooking section--to see if anything new came in.) Then back to Bolton Brook in Metamora. Usually it is about 7:30 pm by then and he is ready for bed, but with the longer summer days approaching he might wonder what he is going to do until he see's me again.

He used to live with us and sometimes his memory stops at that point and he wonders why he isn't coming home with me or why I'm not staying there with him.

It is hard on both of us, sometimes.

The picture above was taken by my cousin Bob who stopped by to visit on his way back to Minnesota after vacationing in the Carolinas. We went out to lunch and as you can see my dad was very animated that day.

THURSDAYS: This is my WW day and I don't get home until 7:30 later if I stop at the stores.

FRIDAYS: Is usually the bank and shopping--again a late night getting home.

MONDAYS: This is the only night I have free and it gets filled up with Misc. but necessary and sometimes fun things to do.

SATURDAY---Every other Sat I have a 9 am appointment--so I am up and going early that day, the alternating Sat I like to veg until noon and then take the day seriously ( whether it is scrapbooking, card making, spending time with dh, more shopping, cleaning, washing clothes---you know all those necessary things.

SUNDAY--- Is usually when we schedule family events and always include my dad. If there is no event going on--we take my dad out for dinner--we go to the Nugget in Oxford--because they serve broiled haddock---something he likes and doesn't get very often at Bolton Brook because they serve the group--and fish is not a group favorite!!

Well--I did ramble, didn't I?

I will have to get on sooner and share some pic's of Easter dinner, March Mingle, and my new Trapeze card I am working on now.

If you get a chance check out Mels Stampz--she has a great newsletter and blog. I will see if I can get a link posted for you all.

Valentine ATC below

The Valentine picture is a digital ATC that was created using Paint Shop Pro. The girl in the picture is a vintage photograph, probably from Dover publishing and the scroll work is either from Scrap Girls, Maria LaFrance (Digital Freebies) or RAKscraps. These are the places where I get my digital freebies from. These sites are wonderfull about sharing. They have challenges too.
This Valentine ATC was done for a Valentine Challenge.

Happy Valentines Day

Yes, I know I am late for Valentine's wishes, but just imagine that I made it on time and it brightened your day! LOL

Honestly, I do hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day, doing whatever made you happiest.

My wish for Valentines Day was to have the day to myself and then be able to share together time with DH.

I had a few things that were left over from my week that needed to get done, so the daytime was still my time but not exactly what I had planned on doing. DH and I did manage to go out for dinner and movie. We ate Mexican (locally) and then saw the Pink Panther 2. If you are a Steve Martin fan or a Henry Mancini fan or just curious, it is a funny movie! If we are going to spend Saturday night prices for a movie--I want to be entertained and we were. Actually laughed out loud with the rest of the audience. The theater was packed with all ages! Families as well as young couples, mature couples as well as dads taking the kids out so mom could have some time to herself.

I'm doing a flashback here---DH had pneumonia 2 weeks ago and was just getting back to work this last week--so his energy level was completely taxed by the time he got home from work. To compound this, I came down with the runniest nose and sneezing that I have ever had. It was like the spring thaw started with my sinuses. Scratchy throat, piercing headaches,etc. You get the picture, I'm sure. So neither one of us knew for sure if we would be up to celebrating Valentines Day.

Flash back over now---come back to after the movie. We stopped for some ice cream at McD's and came home to enjoy it---DH had started a runny nose during dinner and now was getting cold chills. After the ice cream we snuggled on the couch, where I fell asleep and didn't wake up until 11:30---romantically, he still had his arm around me.

I asked is it time for bed? He laughed and said " it is for me, but I don't know about you".

(Usually, when I fall asleep like that--before bedtime--I am awake for hours after.)

We both went to bed and were asleep in minutes, even me!

It is sad, but we keep a container of clorox wipes by the computer and wipe off everything after we use the computer--so we aren't picking up germs there and we are using a little bleach in the dish water when we wash dishes to make sure the germs are killed there----Also use wipes at work--both of us. Everywhere, we go people are sick, coming down with something or getting over something. Whatever is going around is collecting alot of the population, over and over again.

I am ready for SPRING---Birds singing, gentle breezes, a little rain--soft rain, grass starting to green, crocus starting to bud, fresh air and SUNSHINE!!!!!

What about YOU?

Happy New Year Musing

My dad always liked this picture of me, depicting a studious Mary as he called it. I think I was in 5th or 6th grade. The beads were probably from Hawaii or something I made my self. I remember the jacket to the dress I was wearing being a minty green. Now we look back on the clothes we wore and the hairstyles and we are amazed that it ever existed.
The time that I grew up in was so different than those of my grandchildren. No one ever heard of Goth, New Wave, IPOD, Utube, Belly button jewelry, nose piercings, Rap, digital, Virtual, cell phones, etc. However, there are alot of similarities children still think they are smarter than their parents, parents still love their children even though they misbehave, girls still shriek and go crazy over their idols, boys still love sports and cars.
There are many more challenges facing my grandchildren and many more opportunities are open for them to pursue.
I hope the dear Lord sees fit to let me see them become adults and perhaps let me become a great grandma. I would love to be a part of that.
I am grateful that my dad is still alive at 90, I miss my mother. I am grateful that I have a wonderful husband and and four sons/stepsons that I admire and love immensely and two daughter in laws that are an inspiration to their children and are a source of strength for their families and whom also I love immensely. I have 10 grandchildren, some I get to see fairly frequently and some not so frequently, but they all add to the richness of my life.
A new year is here and I am not making any resolutions but keeping some goals that I have had for some time. I want to enjoy my friends and my family and make each day count. In order to do this, I have to take care of myself. Happy 2009!!!!!