SAY IT AIN'T SO.....

i'm officially the big three*oh!
eeek!


i keep telling myself that its really not official until 5:10 tonight....lol.

i'll be back tomorrow to show all the wonderful goodies that i have received in the mail this past week and a recap of this past weekend.

off to look in the mirror to see if any new wrinkles have developed {wink}

*THANK YOU*

thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the comments sending your thoughts and love. you have no idea how much that meant to me. i'm feeling better now but still worry about some others.

((((big hugs))))
to each and every one of you!
*mwah*

i uh, i've been away longer than i had intended, but sometimes life throws something at you completely and totally unexpected. something so gut wrenching, you wonder if you will ever be the same again. something that makes you realize that the people you work with are family. and that even though they can piss you off, you will need to lean on them one day. b/c they are the ones that understand the most the pain you are going thru. i'm the lucky one though b/c michael is also a coworker and understands the pain. and i only hope that in these past five days i have been there for all of them as well.

it makes you realize that maybe God and church could do ya some good b/c you are also going to need to lean on Him a little bit more than you ever thought.

NOW THAT'S MUSIC TO MY EARS!!!

in the past few days i've been hooked on this chick: sarah slean. not only is she drop dead gorgeous, her voice.....major swoonage :)

actually the first time i heard her was on dawson's creek (for those of you that don't know, i'm completely hooked on dawson's creek. but only the season's when pacey and joey were together. oh that damn pacey! {deep sigh}. but anyway for any other fans out there, its on season three, the episode where they have the anti prom and pacey asks joey to dance. just thinking about it makes me all weepy.

anywho!

back to sarah, right now i'm listening to her and i have a lil itsy bitsy bar of battery left on my ipod and i've been listening to this song back to back all day!! better get the ipod rejuiced :)

I'D LOVE TO BE ABLE TO EMAIL YA BACK!!!

this isn't much of a post but when i saw this on jenn's blog i knew i had to post it here.

here is a tip for all you blogger users out there that show up as noreply-comment@blogger.com in my mailbox when you leave a comment.

c'mon girls and guys click here. i wanna email ya back when ya leave a comment.

more scrappiness and other schtuff later :)

back to entering overtime into my db!!!

WHICH STATE IS SURROUNDED BY CIRCLES AND IS HIGH IN THE MIDDLE???

OHIO!!!

i have a love for all things state related. don't know where it came from. think it started when i learned the state capitols and pride myself on knowing most them still (however, i'm becoming a lil rusty so i think a study session is in order. you think i'm kidding. i'm not :)

anyway, so when i saw that there was a state atc swap going on over at sis i had to jump on the bandwagon. i chose the state ohio since i was born there and mississippi was already taken (thank goodness i did, i would have never got mississippi stamped on these cards :) now being the procrastinator that i am, i signed up for this swap in december. they are due march first. i didn't start them till this past tuesday. so i'm quite proud of myself (pat on the back) for getting 50 of these bad boys done.



oh i love em!

i actually need to do four more of four other states that didn't get picked and actually they will be about the same way exact the shape of the state will be different.

i think that i am going to do one like this for every stand and frame em in one of those big poster frames and hang it up on the wall.

i'm telling ya i dig things "state"y.

just so ya know, i've spent the past 15 minutes or so trying to scroll thru my archives to find the pillows that i found on the web that i desperately wanted, but to no avail can i find it.

but here's a link to show you what i'm drooling over. i wanted to get a pillow for every state i've lived in (5) and for every state that michael has lived in (2)...well if you hit the link, you do the math! i think not.

but i did find this nifty lil place that sells state map cross stitch patterns. thought about going that route.

and then i told michael that i wanted this lil number for my bday.

see, i love the states!

does anyone have any good state ideas or websites? seriously, i'd love to be able to incorporate this crazy*state*love i have more in my house. especially since i think i've passed it on to mikey.

but there ain't nothing wrong with that right?

HAPPY MARDI GRAS

(note: i'm pissed....explorer locked up on me and ate the original post so lemme see if i can remember what i was saying...here goes nothing..grr!)

for those of you that didn't know it, today is/was mardi gras. this means that all schools are closed (actually closed this mon-wed which is ridiculous) and the city is closed (aside from the hunky men in blue) for the biloxi parade.

so this means while michael was at work, the kiddos and i were at home.

i got up a lil late this morning (730 is pretty late for sleeping in....for me anyway), grabbed a cuppa coffee and hit bloglines. i wasn't really in a scrappy mood today and i could tell when i was checking more of the crafty blogs today!

so a crafty day it was going to be.

the first project i did was one i spotted on one of my most favorite crafy blogs hello my name is heather. not only is she a fabric designer but her photos are *amazing* and she does the best projects. so when i spotted this project i knew i had to try it.



so whatchya think?
isn't it just the cutest???

she has the instructions listed in a pdf file on her sidebar if you're interested in making one yourself :)

now a piece of advice....if it is really humid outside and you have the windows open like i did, don't use a glue stick. its just now going to work. hell i don't even know if its dry yet and i did this project this a.m. also i used my giga scalloped punch since it was the same size as the circles and didn't wanna cut the circles out. oh and i didn't have a dow rod so i just covered a pencil in scrappy paper and as you can see used a cardboard "bag" that i got in a pack of 20 from the dollar tree.

i'm really lovin' how this turned out and think that one for every holiday is a must!!

if you make one shoot me a comment and lmk. i'd love to see it.

so after this project was finished, i had the bug.

now in an effort to be more organized for oh*eight, i decided that i needed a bloggin' buddies address book. a place for all my favorite people's addresses and birthdays.



inside this beauty there is a colored index card for some of you that has your address, blog address, phone number (if i have it), and your email addy. on the back of the card is your bday. i feel so organized and on top of the game its disgusting.

its hard to tell but there is a plastic cover on it and i cut it from the scenic route chipboard circles packaging. i'm hoping that it helps protect it just a lil. oh and the back and front cover are cut from a 12x12 piece of cardboard that comes with scrapbooking paper.

it def. pays to be a hoarder :)

once this was done, i knew that there were some cards that i wanted to make that i saw earlier this week.

another one of my favorite bloggers is jessica from how about orange. she is a graphic designer who is very generious with her designs and well just about the most clever person on the planet. when i saw her post for these cards i knew i'd be making them.

these are the ones that belted out today.



close up



what a great way to use up all those buttons you have laying around!!! mine are all vintage buttons and they are ready to be stuffed in envies to go out in the mail already :)

while i was working on one of my projects, bella was sitting in the craft room with me when she spotted a bag of buttons that i had sitting on one of my shelves. i received this beautiful bounty of buttons from michelle when we did a swap that me and her never thought would take place. and if you can believe it, i actually never really went thru them (i know, shame the hell on me).

so bella wanted to go thru them. okay, i don't mind. she also wanted to have some. okay now i mind a lil. but as she was going thru them, she showed them to me and asked me which ones she could have (actually she really told me which ones she wanted...lol). there was such an awesome bounty of buttons in that bag that it kinda broke my heart to let her have some. but i overcame that and some she got to keep and now bella has her own lil plastic box (which i put her name on with stickers) of buttons that she has been playing with all evening.

but the point is, there was one button in there that took my breath away. the instant i saw it, i knew it had to become a ring. so a ring it became.



this isn't a really good picture, but the button is black with a weaved wicker in the middle. ummm...is that not amazing???? i'm afraid its going to be my new fave. i'm a sucker for turning big huge ass vintage buttons in to rings. i'll have to post the ones i got in a later post.

so that's it for my crafiness today. quite frankly i can't believe its already after 7. where did the day okay.

but before i leave, i need to give a big ol thank you and hugs to my deal love maryann for the wonderful goodies that she sent me the other day in the mail.



and i also need to give a big ol thank you to one of my oldest bloggin' buddies jennifer for the goodies that she sent me as well. unfortunately i don't have a pic b/c the box is still at work ;)

aren't bloggin' buddies the best?
that's why i needed to make a book strictly devoted to them.

oh speaking of books....'member on the last post how i mentioned that i spent the weekend cleaning the kiddos' rooms and closets? well aside from keeping all the change that i found from cleaning their rooms, i also found me some scrappy products.

all you scrappers out there know that chipboard mini albums are simply the must have product for altering into scrapbooks rights?

well i'm going to alter these....



lil chipboard books that the kiddos don't read anymore.
in the future they will be mini scrapbooks.

so i thought i would pass the idea on to ya'll. start searching your kids' rooms, the thrift stores or garage sales for these lil books. betcha you'll get em a helluva lot cheaper then buying the ones specifically for scrappin'.

hope ya'll had a happy mardi gras :)

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!!!

oh, i've been quite busy lately.

so i'll just break it down for ya.

working
ehhh...not really busy with that...next!

cooking

the other morning i put a roast in the crockpot so it would be ready for dinner.
when i plopped it in the pot, it looked like this.


ahhh....what a love*rly roast

i found this recipe for sour cream banana muffins that were so stinkin' good i've had em about every day since i made em. i got the idea to look for this type o'recipe when i made some muffins from a martha white mix. they were strawberry and on the back of the pkg. she had a recipe for adding sour cream, almond extract, and some almonds on top. i didn't have almonds but i added walnuts and they were so gooood. so b/c i had some bananas waiting to be eaten, i found this. def. a keeper.


i've had this recipe for caramel french toast since jody posted it last year on sis. i've made it twice and each time delish! if you love a good french toast recipe, girls this is it. and what is great about it is you can make it the n....

...okay i'm back, had to see tom petty during the half time show. damn i love him and his band.

okay, where was i?
oh yeah, you can make it the night before and just pop it in the oven the next a.m.

i also stumbled across a phenom blog called nook and pantry. she has the most phenom recipes and the most beautiful pics. i made her nutella brownies (minus the hazelnuts...didn't have any) and her french onion soup.

the brownies were ahhhhh*mazing! i will never make another brownie recipe again. they are exactly how i like them, chewy and fudgy. not cake like at all. sooo good. i'm gonna have to eat my gazillionith one for the day when i'm done posting this.

the french onion soup was as equally delish (okay who am i kidding...nothing compares to chocolate and nutella) but it was very good. i didn't realize till after i ate it that i forgot to add the balsalmic vinegar. oh well! it was still good.

scrappin'

this is where i have been the busiest and i couldn't be more thrilled!
on to the lo's!

oh shoot!
i forgot to mention that greta, simone and myself have decided to give each other challenges each week to help us use up some of our crap. we all don't want or need to buy anything and this i a lil boost to help us use what we have.
(secret to be announced shortly :)

the first week was greta's challenge. she choose ribbons! so i dug in my jar of scrap ribbons and came up with this.



the next week was my challenge and it was to use up stickers. we had to use 10 stickers and they couldn't be letters or numbers. i'm quite thrilled with the way this turned it out b/c it was a lot harder than it sounds. the stickers are centers of the flowers.



simone's challenge was to use a holiday line without using a holiday pic. this was a great challenge b/c without it i would have never picked this paper and embellies to go with these pics and now i just think they are perfect for each other.



then this past week it was greta's turn to pick again and she chose rubons. you had to use rubons in the title and one embellie rubon. well this title was a pain in my ass b/c it took forever and i was so afraid of spelling something wrong. but i love the way it turned out and i have been wanting to use paul mccartney's line forever on a lo.




then i just had to participate in the first overlooked challenge.



then there was noel mignon challenge



and the challenges over at scrap diner which made me produce these.









whew!!

and if you didn't think that was enough, the past couple of days i've done these.



and this for the newest scrap jack



and did my vday cards



man i've been a busy lil scrappy bee eh?

home/organization

lets see, i have cleaned and organized my closet (we're talking a 10x10 foot room folks. for just me. lil ol me and all my clothes and shoes....ahhh..heaven)

straightened up my craft room

cleaned the bella's room and her closet.

also made her try every article of clothing on that she owns to get rid of everything that doesn't fit.

did the same thing for mikey.

i'm hoping that this makes our a.m's a lot easier.

kitchen is cleaned.

master bedroom clean.

tired yet?
b/c i know i am.

oh and i also found the book that the library just informed michael last week was over a year old and that we owed $54 dollars for this friggin' book!!! yes, b/c they marked it lost, they felt it was worth that much moola. well thank goodness i found that book b/c now i don't have to pay it. except i'm not exactly sure how much the late fines are. and what really pisses me off is mom found this online for $3.xx.

hmph!!

mommy*hood

i volunteered this past friday to assist in mikey's winterfest. i worked the bingo booth with a coupla other parents (sorry no pics!). i called out every bingo game. i'm surprised that i didn't wake up the next morning with no voice. i'm also surprised that i did it without stuttering b/c i am a completely shy person and do not like speaking in front of groups of people (even if i know them all). but i did just fine. actually i've noticed lately that this doesn't bother me as much as it used to. hmmm....maybe i'm growing outta it :)


on another mommy front, all you other mommies out there, what do you do to keep your sanity to make your kids realize that you are not their maid. you are not their personal chef, and you do not jump when they need something. here lately i've been feeling very taken advantage of by my kids. now not in a bad sense really, well i guess sorta. but like as soon as i sit down for dinner they are wanting something else and expecting me to get up at that very second to get it. they have no respect for their things and its starting to drive me crazy.

any advice??

family accountant

doing my best to not spend money. haven't smoked a cigarette in over a week. feel good about that. not only for myself but for my wallet. money is a big stress here lately and if there is one stress that i do not need in my life it is that one. money can leave a knot the size of a basketball in my stomach and i can't deal with that.

actually we've been both doing really good about this. we transferred two credit cards (the only ones we have) to another card with a lower interest rate which feels really good. we are thinking of trading in my car for something for a lower payment and would cost less in gas. i am all for this, but the idea of being hassled by a car salesman turns my stomach.

grocery shopping has been better. calculator in hand i made the last trip and did pretty well. i need to hit winn dixie tomorrow b/c they have a lot of b1g1f items that would really be beneficial to my budget.

if anyone out there has any other advice, lemme know. i'm all ears.

oh and i've sold two pendants on good morning sunshine which makes me happy as punch!

internet time

if you feel like i have neglected your blog, don't feel bad. i've neglected everyones :( i just can't get on the net as much at work anymore and well if you have read up until now, you can see i've been busy at home lately.

but i was tagged by the fab*boo kimberly who is my newest bloggin' buddy and just the sweetest thing ever!!!

its to list your favoritest links.

here's mine.

martha
martha is my homepage at work. nothing is better then sitting in that dreary ass office and hopin' on the net to be inspired to bake, craft, garden, and find all the good things. i love you martha. ex con or not!

flickr
there is so much inspiration here i can't even stand it. whether i'm looking at scrappy stuff. awesome photos. sa*weet craft spaces. vintage goodies that i'd give my right arm for or whatever, this is the place to be.

bloglines
i could not live without you.
i heart you.

sis
seriously, so much inspo.

grocery game
where i find the best freebies/samples on the net. love this place.

well i guess that's it.
if you've made it this far....*mwah*