I LOVE that little girl!

got to spend a couple of hours with dgd yesterday. Her parents wanted to do a conference call...so, we walked to a Mexican restarant for lunch. Then we hopped over to the McD's for $1 ice cream sundae (I did not have any). She is soooo silly and smart and STUBBORN! Of course, to g'ma...that is adorable!! After McD's we walked to the Savemart and bought everyone treats. I let her sit in the cart, cuz she's a 'big girl' and as I was putting stuff into the cart, we would say whose treat it was. Mommy got hawaiin rolls, Daddy got a bag of cookies, Grammy got a gallon of milk...then we went down the ice cream aisle. As soon as I put my Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches in...she proclaimed "Ad-jianas!"..instead of the 'r' sound she makes more of a j sound. Um, okay grammy will share. I then put 2 boxes of Klondike ice cream sandwiches, (one for Papa and one for her family) and she still proclaimed the Skinny Cows were hers. So much fun!!

We did not walk home, I called the kids to come get us....I was exhausted!!! When I came home, I put the tv on and immediately fell asleep on the couch.

Oh! wanted to post more pics of my home...kinda started it a while ago. This is what we call the guest wing of the house. With 2 grown kids, we have unused bedrooms. And except for the bathroom, this is pretty much the least used area of the house.



We call this room the Texas Room. LOVE that quilt. It's just an inexpensive quilt from JC Penneys. I had that quilt on J's room when we were selling the old house. My dd, C told me, "I hope you aren't using that quilt in the new house". I told her, 'don't worry it won't go on the bed"...teehee. Nowdays, the room is used when we have young men staying over. Or Kids. I LOVED putting dd's now husband in that room when they came to stay, as he is an Okie. ha!!

There are 3 colors in that room, 1 brick red wall, 2 brown walls and a khaki ceiling. The floors are gunstock, just a li'l different than the wood floor in the hall (like I said, if it has a door, I'm going for it) I wanted to do a paperbag treatment on the long wall...kinda make it look like leather OR shingles on the long wall and put tin siding on the ceiling...to try to create an outdoor porch feel. But, a li'l too much work, and I'm happy with this.


Next to it is the guest bath...I picked the sink first (a decolav from Lowes) and the rest, came after. Found the blue glass tile on Ebay. This is the 'spa' room









The paint is Lowe's Morning Fog...both walls and ceiling...but different sheens, so the painter called it 2 colors. humph.



I love these perfume prints...also found online, I think All Posters. The frames are ikea.

Next is the Princess Room. Originally it was going to be an all white room. Then I fell in love with that Caribbean Teal color. At first, whew!, it looked way too strong. BUT once the chrome bed, white linens, dark dresser went in...it came together. And I used cherry for the floors. It was my mom who dubbed it 'the princess room'.



Now it is our main guest room, as it also has the nicest queen sized mattress. It is also the room dh and I use when we sleep separate from each other. (only when one of us is sick, we have a rule, no sleeping separately in anger.

And as you can see, dgd is kinda starting to take over...good thing Tinkerbell's colors go with my color scheme pretty well. teehee.




We'll start with the next room at another date.

a little odd for me...

I've had some time off since Weds, and I haven't scrapped or read! Very unusual, I walk into my scrap room and might putter a bit...but end up not really doing anything. I have plenty to do, I'm even one class behind on my colour/color class...but I don't know, is my mojo gone? Since restarting work, I haven't even been doing my Smash book..siiiiigh

I am going to the Santa Clara Expo in 2 weeks, so I could at least be getting myself organized for that. 3 days of cropping/shopping! Heaven on earth, well, for me. I'll also be taking 2 classes. So, last year, they had it set up so you wouldn't have to pack your stuff every night..you can leave stuff at your table...if you had a reserved table. This year I am part of a reserved table with a group. That sounds convenient,but makes me a li'l nervous. And how about packing for 3 days of cropping.

I need to start printing pics ... I don't normally do page kits...just pack things according to project. As far as embellies, I usually bring basics. Figuring if I get the pics down on a page, I can embellish later.

gotta get organized. gotta get organized.

here is the page I did for the 'green' class...


and pages for the start of my faithbook album...am using Websters Pages 6x6 on 8x8 cardstock and their fruit cards...for each of the fruits of the spirit.



but now what? pics of people doing each fruit? can I find pics like that??
or stick to journaling about each one?

One 'good' thing, after my Jenny Craig appt, I picked up a Graphic 45 Renaissance Stack...should be good for my pics from Italy. Oh! and some new BoBunny Timepeace papers...should also be good for Italy. The store also had Bazzil, 2 for $1. Yeah, someone enjoyed herself to the tune of $40! And I just went in to 'see' if they had Kraft paper! ha!!

cleaning, cleaning, oh how I love to clean...

NOT

since I've got some time off, I've been cleaning..well, in the mornings before it gets too hot. Yesterday, the concentration was bathrooms, today, my tile floors in the kitchen, dining room and hall. My tile there is travertine, so it is very pitted...and well, the stains I don't get out...I call 'patina'. ha!!

The travertine story, I really wanted it and found these online. But it was costly. So, when dh and I went to Home Depot to order tile...we ordered something else for this area. The next morning, I told dh, "I really want that travertine, and I know if we don't get it, I'll look at this floor everyday and hate it". So, we scrimped elsewhere and got the travertine. I LOVE it...and so does dh. Every bit of it got used.


So, I'll post some pics of my house. I took these over the weekend, without staging or cleaning, soo...yeah, please don't be nitpicky..ha!

This is my vignette in the unused entry. Everyone uses the back door...and dh has his back inverter set up there. BUT I love this color, it is called BM Metallic Gold. All my browns in the common areas are from this strip. This is the darkest. The print is from a trip to Washington, dh & I took. The table is my mom's old sewing cabinet.



This view of the great room is what you'd see if you actually used the entry. I love our fireplace (the stone is fake). I was going for a Napa Valley Wine Country look, inspired by the Thomas Kinkaide print over the fireplace and the movie "The Parent Trap" with Lindsy Lohan.



So, oversized stone fireplace, leather (cheerfully distressed by cats) and metals. The walls are a Behr color called Sagey. and since the ceilings are so high, I went with the middle color on that BM strip, Burlap.




Turn to the right, and you see the hallway leading to the bedrooms. More burlap on the walls and from the same strip Latte on the ceiling. I did want my browns/tans to have a hint of pink as opposed to yellow or green. On each side of the entry arch, are shelves my fil installed. With my Gone With The Wind collection of dolls and plates. and Red glass...oh, I love colored glass.




On the other side of the great room is an entry to the dining knook, you can really see the travertine floors. Oh Well, I did not take a pic of it. the nook and the kitchen have SW Great Green walls, the Latte ceilings...I went with a retro kitsch look in here. A print of Elvis, white curtains with red embroidery on top.

But here is a view of the kitchen/nook from the hallway.




and here is the kitchen from that hallway, a continuation of the Great Green color (one of dh's friends called it Kermit the Frog green), and cherry KraftMaid cabinets. I went with black appliances because of an ad on the KraftMaid website.



last but not least on today's tour of the common area is the dining room. I went with a shabby chic theme. The walls are Lowe's Timeless Taupe and the ceiling is KM Petal Pink. oooooh, I love that ceiling! It has a recessed lightrope...



You would not believe the headache of getting that lighting done. Dh and the contractor kept asking "what is it you want done?" so much that I took a pic of it from a magazine and tacked it to a stud in the room. Then, when it came time to actually build it, I was told, "we have to lower the arch"...which meant all arches had to be lowered. (upcharge) I told them LOWER IT! I'm glad, its a great little feature.



here's the room with better light and different angle. Oh, love that pub style table, the square shape works so well with the room shape. And that light above the table came from Ebay as well as the window treatment.



All our windows are like 6' tall...so Home Depot's fake wood blinds cut to fit were perfect and inexpensive.


Okay, that's the common areas. Even though I used several colors, I stayed pretty consistent. The browns from the same strip, the other colors are primarily green with touches of red (pink is a shade of red) the wood floor is the same throughout the great room and halls and the travertine floors.

As we get to the rest of the house, remember my rule was 'If it has a door...' well, lets just say, even the floors were targeted to be changed. ha!!!

5 day weekend...teehee

I'm caught up at work, even taking care of some filing and archiving. My boss is out for the rest of the week, so instead of sitting in front of the computer with nothing to do...I got the rest of the week off! Yay! So, yesterday, I had visions of sleeping in and lounging in my pj's...nope. Was up at 5:45 and changed into my shorts...and thought of readin' and scrappin' all day...but, nope, think I'll tackle cleaning bathrooms this morning.

We may have a 3rd dog now. This little girl showed up 2 weeks ago Friday. She showed up scared and scarred. Bite marks about her face and bad scarring around her neck...like she had pulled against a chain, or someone had cut it. Though she is not all that cute, she is the sweetest thing and does not create the 'drama' other dogs had created when they show up. I call her Shelby, after the Julia Roberts character in Steel Magnolia.




almost 2 weeks later, she is much more lively and seems to be healing well. I need to take her to the vet, see if she is microchipped, fixed...do all the steps if we decide to keep her. (we haven't done it yet, as we don't want to put a collar on her till she is healed.) DH bought her a collar yesterday, bright blue, I tried to explain that girls need pink collars with rhinestones, his response, 'MY girls wear blue"...siiiiiigh

She really loves dh and wants to be a part of his 'pack'. I'm not a dog person, but I like her. BUT she has the 'bad' habit of rolling around in cow or horse manure..so, I don't pet her beyond her muzzle.

I really do love my house!

The other night while getting ready to go to bed, I was walking down one of my hallways, and just thought, "I really do love this house". in 2004, after dd left for college, dh finally gave in to his dream of owning property and building a house. He bought an ugly piece of land in the back corner or our town; it was used as a garbage dump (not officially, just where people would dump their stuff) AND there were 2 trailers that had burned down years ago (it was rumoured that meth was involved) AND it was the place where kids would go to party. I did not see the property, till dh had it cleaned up. 18,000 lbs of trash and 21,000 lbs of scrap medal..and the frames of the 2 trailers.

As you know, where there is construction, there is theft. So, dh got a 36' long travel trailer and moved onto the property that Dec/Jan...we put the house up for sale...and I moved in May 2005. Our house sold fast, and the new owners wanted it quicker than the usual one month. So, me and the cats moved into a travel trailer. Needless to say, I hated it! Kitchen/bathroom wholly inadequate. I'll never forget, dd visited from college, I was giving her a tour of the trailer, pointed to the extra front room and told her 'this will be your room for the summer'! Her eyebrows went up. She promptly went back to college, and got herself a summer job at Macy's and made arrangements for summer housing. ha! that front room became the storeroom and mini scraproom. As it was while we were living there that I took my first scrapbooking class and got HOOKED!



I won't go into all the construction stories. Needless to say there are stories, of delays and subcontractor theft. Taking of deposits and not showing up. One guy, the truss company actually accepted our deposit and on the day they were supposed to deliver went bankrupt. BUT there are also stories of heroes, those who went above and beyond. If you ever need a concrete guy, stucco guy, roofer, contractor, electrician...we have some great recommendations for you.

so, here is the finished house, compromises and all...I wanted brick and columns, you know kinda like something you'd find in Houston. BUT dh convinced me that brick was not practical in earthquake country..so we got stucco...but kept my columns.



this is a pic of our back...we have a seperate garage...don't you love that concrete work..stamped and colored. It goes all the way around the house. Not what we planned, but because we loved it, we added it.



anyways, it could be said that the outside is dh's part of the house, the inside is mine. I'll have to do another post about the inside. hint, 30 colors (according to the painter) (he counted sheens)..

aps, aps...everywhere are aps

to be sung with the tune from 'signs, signs, everywhere are signs'...do you remember that old song? is it from the 70's??

Anyways, with a new smart phone comes aps. Now I still can't figure out how to get my own ringtones. And Ds showed me how to do the security code. And take a pic to be my wallpaper (the winner is...Kema)(who can resist a pic of a golden retriever in the morning sun) this is not the pic, but a pic.




So, I do have the constellation ap, KLOVE, and yes, Amazon Kindle. Oh, that one is gonna be dangerous. Most of my coworkers have a Kindle, and we decided to start a work Reading Challenge/Circle...so, for the common book, it was decided to use free Kindle books...so, you see, I NEEDED that ap!!


But having had it at work for 4 days, I do understand the temptation of going on Facebook or your email at work. So far, I've been good. BUT I understand the temptation.

So, today is my day off...I have my Jenny Craig appt. AND I am babysitting, though the kids are older so its not really babysitting, they are coming over to hang out while their dad is at work. Also, I don't get paid. BUT that's okay. Its a sad family situation, I'll just say, newly single dad with restraining order against mom. So, I don't mind helping them out. PLUS the girl likes to scrapbook!! So, hopefully, I'll get some projects done today.

smart phones, not for dummies

My old phone was, oh, like 4 years old...so today we went to get an upgrade. An HTS Inspire. yeah, a smart phone...yeah, probably not a good idea for a techno-idiot like me. So, spent a frustrating afternoon trying to figure the thing out.


BUT yesterday, did get to scrapbook a li'l. Week 2 of the Color class at BPS. The lesson was on Orange and Yellow. Gotta say they are my least used colors. My cardstock stash...I have one shelf for orange and yellow combined. Neutrals and Greens each have 2 shelves. Even Purple has its own shelf and is filled!



Here is the class lo done in orange, using the technique highlighted pleating the curled pp on the end. I love this pic of J and Rocks, the light seems to 'burst' around them...used SEI for the pp's.

/>

Feeling properly inspired by the lesson and because I did not have any lo's with Bailey...I found some Stampin Up pp's and made this.



and because I had pp left over from the orange lo's 'pleating', I made this ATC. I'm going thru something of a bee phase these days...for some reason, they are just sooooo cute!

my baby boy is 27 today...

Yup, My Jason is 27. Where did the time go?



I had a great day, got out of work, and got to babysit Missy-boo so her parents could go out for a birthday surprise. (ddil arranged a flying opportunity for ds)(where he flew a plane with an instructor) ANYWAYS, Adriana and I had a great time making birthday cupcakes for her daddy.




After I came home, I did a 20 min yoga routine on my Wii Fit Plus. AND don't hurt! yay!! And then read my book, Reading Lolita in Tehran...I'm kinda stalled on it...at first it was difficult reading as it is written by a lit professor, who uses professorial terms and images...but, I think I'll stick with it. I am more interested in the stories of the women and their lives, than a dissertation on the allegories and imageries used by Nabokov in Lolita and An Invitation to a Beheading.

But, got a big box from Amazon...with another Karen White book, a couple more by Carolly Erickson (including the Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette) and a total 'guilty pleasure' book called Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter....looks interesting!

Freedom!

Happy 4th of July, ya'll!! What a unique wonderful(certainly not perfect) country we have...and I am especially feeling very blessed to be an American.

on Sunday, our youth pastor/music pastor had us singing some of the old spirituals...gotta admit the words have escaped me right now...but the rhythm hasn't.
Even as I type this, I'm listening to this You Tube video of Ain't No Grave

Adriana joined us for 'singing' and she was adorable, clapping along and dancing...wish I had my camera to make a video.

So, today is my last day of my 6 weeks off from work. Tomorrow I go back. siiiiigh, I have loved the time off. Of course, this morning I thought of a goal I should have been working on...photography! I did not pick up my new camera once. BUT I did finish some of the unfinished scrapbooks and did spend the time learning how to use my Gypsy better and got all my swaps out.

So, my days of sitting around in my pj's...computer in the morning, followed by scrapbooking, followed by a nap, followed by reading are over. siiiiiigh.

oh well, it was nice to get this break.

Oh, I did do my lo for the color class. This is soooooo out of the box for me...I am usually such a 'simple' scrapper and doing this many embellies, is so not me.




This is more me...pics matted on pp..with minimal embellishment.



BUT I am glad to be taking this class, hopefully, I will be s t r e t c h e d. Cuz, sometimes I get tired of my same old, same old.

1 more book!

yesterday, I finished Rebel With a Cause by Franklin Graham..excellent, by the way. Then read I Dared to Call Him Father by Bilquis Sheikh. Wow. I could not put it down.

I tried the Goodread option of putting my review on the blog, see below.

I have made it a bit of a goal to understand Muslim culture better.
My first book was The Bookseller of Kabul. very good, very eye-opening, but I did not know if I could trust the author's perspective when she told the story from the pov of the women of the family. Was she pouring her western sensibilities into the narrative? I even thought about the personal experiment of wearing a burkha for awhile.

Then, The Face Behind the Mask by Donna Gehrke-White, a series of interviews with women who converted to Islam...from Islam... I found the book 'wanting', I think it would have been better if she had concentrated on one or two women per category. BUT it did start to answer my question as to why an American woman would want to convert to Islam? I love the freedom of being an American, and just cannot understand a woman who would w a n t the personal restrictions associated with Islam.

Then, Prisoners of Hope by Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer...wonderful...to see the people of Afghanistan with the love these girls felt for them. Even during their captivity.

And, I Dared to Call Him Father

Next, Reading Lolita in Iran. That will be in July. As well as The Christian Atheist, as reading I Dared to Call Him Father caused a personal conviction.

BUT, for my #20 book, to hit that goal of reading 20 books during my 6 weeks off from work, I chose Jane Austen's Persuasion. In the past, reading at least one classic during the summer was a goal...so, finishing this one with a classic seems the way to go. I've never read Jane Austen. And lets say that first sentence was a bit intimidating...I had to read it twice! I may not make it within the 6 week time period, but that's okay too.

Also scrapbooked yesterday morning. Worked on my lo for the color class.

I Dared to Call Him Father: The Miraculous Story of a Muslim Woman's Encounter with God by Bilquis Sheikh

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


To be honest, as I finished the book, I felt jealous. To be able to say that you feel the 'glory of God' on a regular basis...to be that sensitive to His spirit. I want that.



Look at all she gave up and was willing to give up. We Americans sure do have it easy. And perhaps with our easy faith, we miss something. Or we must really actively seek that something.





So instead of this book being 'eye opening' about Muslim culture, which the understanding of has become my personal goal, it became convicting of my own complacency.













View all my reviews

fun! and crazy

I joined the "Colour or is it Color" online class at BPS. My first online class with them. These are the preclass color/technique tags...well, I did ATC's.

Very fun to look in the gallery and see the individual takes on the same instructions.

I haven't been home very much this week. Tuesday was a day of appts. Got the all clear from the dr to go back to work...boohoo. Weds went shopping with ddil and dgd, a li'l antiquing, dgd was adorable. As we walked into the antique store, ddil explained to her "this is a no touch store, you have to ask if you want to see something" So, she was constantly saying " have that, pwease?" soooooo cute!

oh! went to Henry's for moussaka (yummy), if you are ever in Turlock, CA go to Henry's in downtown...the freshest veggies and absolutely yummy food. Ddil and dgd shared a gyro plate.

Then Thurs, I 'babysat', except can't call it babysitting, cuz the kids are 9 and 13...so more of a hanging out. The 9 year old likes to craft, so in the morning we made ATC's and worked on her and her brothers scrapbook (he won't scrap, because, 'he's a boy'.) siiiiiiigh. I tried to explain that men do art and are often really good, but he would not budge. Would rather watch tv. Then we spent the afternoon with dgd, so my kids could go see Transformers. The kids were so good with dgd, she had so much fun playing with THEM..I actually felt left out. Dgd called them 'Jekula' an "Cala" for Jessica and Caleb. And they loved Gunny, the kids' Great Dane. So it was a good day.

Today was spent running errands and a 3 hour nap. Guess I'm not fully up for such an active week.

So, did not get any books read this week and only a handful of pages in the album I had hoped to finish. BUT its the weekend, and I don't have to go back to work till Tues. Siiiiiiiiiigh...back to work...pooey. Get to go back to all the quarterly stuff and close...extra fun. Hopefully, I've got the energy...I may be caught napping at my desk!! I'll bring a pillow and blanket for in cases..ha!