Freebie, Challenge and Playing Catchup

I promised myself that I was actually going to blog my life – eventually I want to make this into a book for my kids – but to do that I actually have to keep up with what is going on in my world.

Last weekend our Women’s Ministry group went on their yearly retreat up to Gruene, Texas (pronounced Green) for shopping, study and socialization. It was an awesome trip up but I have to tell you, the woman I was following was going 95 MPH and I swear I just knew that I was the one who was going to get busted. Sure enough, just as I slowed down to 60 to exit for a pit stop, a sheriff pulled up behind me. I was sure he was going to doom me but he just followed until I pulled into the gas station.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and we arrived around 3:30. The bed and breakfast was absolutely beautiful. It was an old mansion built in the 1800’s and was added to as the town grew. The out buildings were each designed differently with German townhouses, Victorian homes and rustic cabins. Each was decorated with period furniture and each had a slightly different decor. Here is what mine looked like.

Master Bedroom (up winding staircase - STEEP winding staircase)

Balcony in the Master Bedroom

Sitting room with day bed and trundle underneath. (I know, it would look so much nicer without my backpack on the bed, but I wasn't thinking about that part while taking the picture)

Paint work done on the wall and ceiling. You can't see it but the vine wraps around the ceiling fan several times. It really was pretty.

A real old fashioned claw foot tub with real lace curtains.

Those really Skinny spiral stairs.

We spent Saturday shopping at the Gruene Trade Days and I found some of the prettiest new jewelry. My husband was impressed with my find, if not the price tag associated with it. It was all silver, gold and tiger eye. I also found a pretty blue stained glass set. Of course I was planning on taking a picture and showing off my new "bling" but I am too busy wearing it to take a picture. I will get around to that I am sure since my future daughter in law will insist on seeing them and she doesn't come home from college until Easter.

Because I had to serve on the video team at church on Sunday, I left early and made it home around 1:30 Sunday morning. Wayne and Ben both stayed up waiting for me, which I thought was sweet. We made it to church on time, a bit tired but church went off without a hitch, thankfully. I did discover something during church though. I was playing with my wedding ring (I normal habit) and realized that my stone was so loose that it was fixin to fall out. I took it off and wrapped it in a bulletin then took it in on Monday. They said that too much more wear and I would have lost the stone. I guess I hit it on something up in Gruene but I never did notice it.

This week I have been spending a lot of time scrapping, studying for my midterm and trying to stem the tide that is my cluttered house. I need to find a system that I can use that will keep the house clean and my sanity intact. I'm not sure I am doing a really good job with that. I have tried Flylady but the constant stream of emails drove me nuts, I tried the 10 minute chores (where you take 10 minutes and do something) I just never seemed to get enough done. Any ideas? I am not willing to hire a maid though. I had one and I wasn't very happy with the results. Neither was my hubby.

So, during my layout frenzy I have done the following layouts in order to TRY to catch up with the zillions of layouts that I still have to accomplish. I know that it isn’t like I have some sort of obligation to scrap, I just figure that I am 15 years behind and I would like to make sure that it doesn’t take 15 years to do the rest of the layouts.

Layout: Gruene, Texas
Credits: Girlpower by Calalilly; template by Kimi's Kreations

Layout: Be Yourself
Credits: Juicy Pop Quickpage by Creations By Rachel




Layout: In Stitches
Credits: Juicy Pop by Creations by Rachel; Template by Kimi's Kreations



Layout: Making Lasagne
Credits: What's Cookin? by Man in the Moon; Template modified from NoReimerReason

AND just so you don't think I am sluffing off my CT duties I did some layouts for two of my designers (who have AWESOME Kits). The first is from the Charity Collaboration from Bouquet of Pixels which can be found here. These layouts are also being used as Quick Pages which are available in the store as well. Also don't forget about the FREEBIE brag book page in the previous post.

And I played (again) with one of my favorite kits by Late Night Scraps called A Black Tie Affair which looks like this:

And is available at her store at Pretty Scrappy HERE.



I finished Josh and Liz' prom layouts: (Template by M'Originals)




And Wayne and my Christmas party layout:

If you have gotten this far in my posting, I am giving away the last layout of my formal Christmas party as a quickpage which you can get at 4shared HERE.

Check back this week for another freebie from Late Night Scraps kit Unconditional Love.

Please leave a comment if you download, either here or at 4shared to let me know that someone is reading this blog :)