Monday, July 13, 2009

Behind the Times

Isn’t the title so terribly true? We all know that I am a sporadic blogger who just isn’t consistent and often miss out on prime blogging opportunities. Now that we have reestablished this, I feel much better catching you up on what is going on in my world.

This month has pretty much flown by and before I am aware, or even ready it is going to be time to say goodbye to one of my sons and watch the other one head off to sophomore year. Since he is in marching band, I lose him to his schedule Aug 4th so these quiet days and occasional mother/son moments will go by the way of the dodo and will have to be scheduled around orthodontist appointments, football games, marching contests, and the standard life of a high school student. Not surprisingly, he is getting antsy to go back to school since there are only so many games of Halo on Xbox live you can play before you just want to hang out with “real friends”.

Josh is going to take his ASVAB pre-test this week and if he does well he will take the actual test next week. I am praying for his success since while I will miss him, it is time to kick the bird from the nest. I know that it has to happen eventually, and I like the concept but I am sure I am going to be missing him dreadfully.

This month has seen the creation of my new AWESOME computer – don’t ask the specs, this is my hubby’s domain but now this thing opens CS4, creates videos, does blinkies in no time…well, I don’t have any more computer problems. Yippie!!

This weekend was an interesting one. We were supposed to go to the Astro’s baseball game on Friday, in style. Hubby’s business contacts have a suite at Minute Maid Park and believe me, it is SWANKY. Good food, alcohol until you don’t feel like drinking and ICE CREAM SUNDAES. (can you see where my priorities lie?). Unfortunately, this contact forgot to call Wayne back so instead of a baseball game hubby and I sat in the same office working on separate computers and vegging out. It seems that hubby’s computer got jealous of mine and stopped working for a few days, frustrating my husband to no end. He finally got it fixed this weekend and is back to speaking in complete sentences.

Saturday hubby and I ran errands, did laundry and I put together the church service for Sunday. Of course, I didn’t attend church Sunday because we went to the Homecoming reunion that our family participates in every year. A group of people in the 1800’s were members of a community church/school and their ancestors come yearly, work on the family cemetery and eat. It was interesting but it was 103 degrees!! This fat body was so not happy and was informing me that I need to lose weight or die of a heart attack and/or heat stroke. Of course this means exercise…I am not happy!

IMG_1541Oldest ChildIMG_1546 Youngest ChildIMG_1552 Family/Community Cemetery

IMG_1575 Boys munching on good food from the potluck.

IMG_1584 Brothers and cousins enjoying the day

IMG_1588 ok – I didn’t start my diet yesterday

IMG_1590 IMG_1601 The boys took the camera and went exploring. And surprisingly, no loss of life and limb from stupidly climbing over barbwire.

While in Giddings we stopped at Uncle Clyde’s property to look at where Wayne spent his summers as a boy. The house is over 100 years old and looks like something out of the little house on the prairie. It is small but has had 3 additions made over the decades including a new kitchen, bedrooms and a walk in pantry. Before the second addition, they were raising ELEVEN kids in this house. Really??? With no air conditioning and a wood stove???? I was not built for that I promise.

IMG_1672 HomesteadIMG_1671The first vehicle that Wayne ever drove, at age 12 or 13

IMG_1696 Yes, they still use the outhouse! (ick)

IMG_1739 IMG_1740 IMG_1742 Add on PantryIMG_1751 Smoke houseIMG_1757 yes, they used to cook on this.IMG_1785 Prickly Pear

Before we left Uncle Clyde asked us to go feed the cows. WHAT???? REALLY???? I can’t say I was excited (103 remember) but ok…I’m game (kinda). It was rather interesting and gross…yeah, lots of gross. When we drove up they came running, just like my cats when it is time for dinner. All in all, it was a good weekend.

IMG_1652 IMG_1653 IMG_1662 IMG_1657 IMG_1667

This morning I got some bad news. I got fired…well, I guess I got laid off. During this month I signed on as a designer’s Admin Assistant to help her stay organized, run her business and basically be the “do all, catch all” for her business. Her health started to decline so she said she was going to take a break and asked me to wait until she got better. I agreed. This morning I got a rather succinct email telling me that she was done with this business and didn’t need me anymore. She did agree to pay me for my time…but I am kinda..well dazed, upset, hurt….over I guess.

One last piece of information that I get to share with you…I am the head of the Creative Team of the Queen and Princess Designs and we remade the CT blog and it is going to be Awesome. They have some adorable kits and I can’t wait until you get to see them. She just got hired over at DSO or "Digital Scrapbook Obsession" and is opening up at her new store within a month!! Yah.

Ok, I’m gonna assume that no one has read this far but if you did, thanks for sticking with me and I will have more freebies this week.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Just Beachy Freebie

Have beach pictures? Scrappy Shannon just designed the coolest beach kit if you like realism, sand, shells, driftwood and stickers. I have been playing a lot of catch-up in doing layouts, especially since the kiddo in this layout just turned 19 on the 6th.

Just-Beachy

Here is the preview of the entire kit which I hope you enjoy as much as I did. You can find it HERE.

ss_justbeachy_preview_ps

* Sorry, link expired.

Just-Beachy-QP-Preview

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Template Freebie

I really liked making my template freebie from yesterday and decided I would take another one of my layouts and make another one.   I would love to hear from you letting me know if I am on the right track.  Also, if you have a specific layout you have seen on my blog that you like that I didn’t use a template for and you would like one, leave me a comment and let me know and I will put it up.

Bluemaige Designs Template 002

Here is the inspiration for this template

Crosspoint-Picnic

You can get the template HERE or click on the preview

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Showing Off, News and a Freebie!!

I got awesome news last week – I am a Polka Dot Plum Sugar Plum!! What does this mean? I have been accepted to the Creative Team at Polka Dot Plum and I have seen the list of designers. You are gonna be happy!! The caliber of designer is awesome and between my two stores I have to have access to some of the best designers out there. Yes, I am jazzed!!

On top of all of that, I have been sitting at the computer quite a bit lately working on a whole bunch of layouts. I can say that I am pretty proud of what I have accomplished, and want to show off a little.

AND if you look at my ticker, I have broken 200!!!!

Boeing-800-Double-Page-4

Boeing-A Boeing-B

Credits: Weekend Getaway by Teri’s Thing-O-My-Jigs available at Pretty Scrappy; Template by The Paper Iris

Baby-Boy-WW_Template_Challe

Credits: Life 365 Kit and Template by Weeds and Wildflowers (Created for the July 6th Template Challenge)

Collection-of-Everyday-Memo

Credits: Life 365 Kit and Template by Weeds and Wildflowers

heart

Credits: Sweet Nothings by Valerie Ostrom: Heart action by Arisu

Josh_Birth-dalen_june22temp

Credits: Beautiful Boy by Just Passin Thru available at Pretty Scrappy; Template by dalen

Just-Beachy

Credits: Just Beachy by Scrappy Shannon available at Pretty Scrappy

(Hint for anyone who has read this far, I am giving away this layout QP on Friday)

TM_July-Garden-Template-Cha

Just because I feel like it I am giving away my first freebie template

You can get it HERE

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Drama King - Pretty Scrappy

Pretty Scrappy has released it's latest Collaborative Team kit and I have had so much fun playing with it. You can find this collab HERE