Troublesome Tuesday.

gonna make it short and sweet today. This is how my week is going. One of my employees quit,-no notice - the one to cover her shift is on vacation...the one to cover her shift is on vacation...the one to cover her shift is on vacation...the one to cover her shift is on vacation....o...and guess what??...the one to cover her shift is on vacation. So who here thinks im going to have a good week trying to be in 2 different centres at once??? uggghhh. I need a vacation!!! off to drink more coffee!

My Life Layout

This post is strictly to upload a layout I finished today. I thought it was a pretty kewl concept!...The look I was going for didnt quite carry through however ...I think the idea was better than my implementaition..but im

still pretty happy with it, even though it doesnt quite look the way that i would have wanted. It definitely took me longer than any other layout in my life to do, lol!! I was thinking of printing it out on some sort of canvas to put on the wall...tho i may change the color tone a bit before i do that so it will match better.

Okay, that is it...2 posts in one day is good i spose!....now i have to go read everybody elses blog, lol!!

tata!!

To Blog or not to Blog??

This is my question as i sit here at twenty to one in the morning, lol. The answer????? Well of course im gonna blog, hehehe. First im givin an update on my wall that the dh has been building...or has not been building as the case may be, hehe. We have progress. We actually have a wall frame up. ....it is quite exciting to see that here is proof that sometime in the next , oh, say......2 months??? we wil really and truly have a full upstanding working wall. go team.
So I finally scrapped some of the photos from Victorias dance recital. Well, not from the recital itself as we were not allowed to bring cameras...but i went camera happy as soon as i got home..took like ahundred!! The only problem is i am not a professional photographer, and for background, all I had was our wall in the living room. So, the lighting was bad, the bg was bad....so there was alot of photo work to be done, hehehe. But she was so beautiful, I was happy with the way i got them to turn out!! Here is my layout i called Ballerina, and I used elements from Sara Amarie's kit Refreshing Paisley found at 3 Scrapateers if anybody is intrested. :)

Isnt she a hotty?? Can you believe she only just turned 10 years old????? Im gonna be in big trouble, lol. We watched her recital again today with my dad and stepmom, and they were pretty impressed with how well she did. I wish i could figure out how to make my fonts stand out better through an upload. Anybody??????? suggestions welcome!!!

Well we didnt end up going away this wkend obviously....so what did we do??? we did nothing, lol. We did go see The Davinci Code, tho. And let me tell you i was a bit disappointed with how they altered the movies plot line, and left out alot of the human interaction goings on. Disappointing. However i am no Siskel and Ebert but i do give it a big thumbs so-so. Wait for the dvd. And those are my words of wisdom for the day, lol.

Fantastic Friday!

Soooo happy that today is Friday. This has been just a wasted week. Missed alot of work, and ignored alot of phone calls. This insomnia thing is just driving me crazy and sucking my will, lol!! Since everybody is going away this wkend, im thinking we might too...go down to niagara falls or something with the girls and take a peek at our new puppy we get in 6 more weeks!!! We will have too see how much catch up we have to do tho. House still needs unpacking and am totally feeling guilty for just letting it sit there. Need to paint still....sigh. Im the queen of procrastination!
On a good note, im getting back into the scrapping groove!! I did a layout that a started last night, and then opened it up this morning and completely revamped it and it doesnt even look the same anymore....that always happens to me. I shouldnt even bother going into a layout with a certain idea in my head cuz never once have i stuck with the original thought. Brooke looks so happy in these photos!! she always makes me smile. I used Jeannie Papai worn out kit for the layout. Speaking of designers, thanks to Carrie Stephens who gave out the coolest alpha freebie to go with her new kit!! Very nice surprise comes with it too!! If you dont have it yet....run and get it!!
Now...has everybody been making their votes on the Big Brother websiste????? If you dont vote, how are we supposed to have the best season ever??????? VOTE PEOPLE!!
k, im off now. be back later for more chit chat!

Just have to say yeahhhhhhh!!!!!! The books I ordered from IdeaBooks4u.com arrived today!!! And wow! was that ever fast!! only took about 3 days to get here in Canada!! Talk about scrapbooking eye candy!! I got both Clean and Simple books from Cathy zielske, Freestyle, and the one that i know im going to go crazy for, Designing with Digital from Autumn Leaves!!!, ....k, gotta go read, absorb, and maybe get some inspiration back since ive been such a creative dead head lately!! 

Layout for Me and Jess

Well my insomnia is back so here I am at 2:oo in the morning trying to scrap. I have had a major hard time lately putting a layout together. Im not happy with the photos that Ive been taking and just cant find the right idea for them. I cant find a single kit, and i have a zillion and tonnes i have never used before that will go with anything. I am totally in a scrapbooking funk!!!
dont ya hate that???
So tonite I went searching back 3 years of photos on my computer...brand new baby photos, photos of me and jess, and i was just looking for something to inspire me. Normally i just skip over the photos of jess and i cuz they are all just terrible, lol. Mostly me jumping up behind him when he is busy and snapping a photo of the two of us together before he can tell me to get away, lol. But that is what i decided to go with! We had a "moment" not too long ago that caused us a rough little bit....one that i am not completley over yet.....but we made it through it and are still kickin! So i thought i would do a layout for me, to get back in touch with "us" and of how he has helped me change the way i live and look at life. A bit different from my usual style, but I've been thinking that Im going to try to go a little deeper with my layouts a bit....instead of just playing with computer graphics and trying to make a pretty layout that can hang in a frame. I think my layouts need some more meat on their bones, lol!! Well at least that is how i feel at 2 oclock in the morning anhow, haha
k...off to try to sleep now....got my handy book just in case...am finally reading The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. I heard that the book was so much better than the movie so i wanted to read it first since i would rather ruin my movie experience andnot my reading experience!!

Wednesdays news!

Good late afternoon all!! Actually got some work done today!! whooo hooo!!!...well not really whoo hooo, but it had to be done and i've been slacking like you wouldnt believe, so good for me! Had to upload this photo of brooke and jess that i nabbed last night. It's our nightly game that we have...cept this time daddy didnt play by the rules. Every bedtime, as soon as jess grabs Brookes blanket, he goes lookin for her and then she runs to me and yells "hide! hide! hide!" and jumps under a blanket....makes me get under with her...and listens to daddy search for her. This time jess jumped under the covers with us and scared the heck out of her....I had just been taking photos not 5 minutes before that so grabbed a photo right quick. Didnt even check to see if it was aimed properly or not, just hit the button on the camera, lol!!!

I finished my contribution for Rakscraps July Mega Kit this afternoon. (patting myself on the back for staying ahead of schedule in at least one part of my life, hehe). It is the first one that I have done that i have actually liked! Hopefully others do to!!
Went shopping at ScrapArtist today! I'm going to have to stop opening my mail in the morning before i have had my coffee, cuz when i open it up and see in big letters, the word SALE!, with my mind all cloudy all i can think is ...MUST SHOP...MUST BUY THE KEWL SCRAPARTIST KITS THAT ARE ON SALE!!!, hehehehe.
I am still waiting for the Books I ordered from IdeaBooks4u.com. The book on FreeStylin, a style that i have never even attempted before so that should be interesting, And 2 of Cathy Zielske's Clean and Simple Books. This is the first time i have ordered from there and am curious to see how quick they deliver to canada!! Gonna have to move to the States just to have quicker deliver on all my shopping orders, hehehe. Woondering if anybody has seen the ad for the new Autumn Leaves mag called All ABout Me?...Curious if it was worth a second looksy or not. I dont really do about me layouts unless i have to, so i spose i dont need it, but maybe it would inspire me to start an about me album for my girls...ya never know!!
Jess is at this very minute yelling at me about last night and how when this HUGE monstrous noisy fly was in our bedroom I woke him up and distubed his slumber in my efforts to kill that nasty bug by chasing it around with a newspaper and banging the walls and tables and lamps etc. Took me half hour but i got him!!! now jess will never let me hear the end of it.....Can he not understand how annoying a very very VERY loud fly can be when it is buzzing around your head while you try to sleep?? It is certain to be the most annoying thing in the whole history of the world!he is droning on and on and on about how tired he is. He is a cutey but he sure can whine, lol!!! Now before i go i have to remind the few people who read this what special nite this is!!

it is BIG BROTHER NITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

everybody say yeahhhhhhh!!!!!! So my nite is all planned....i have a raspberry swirl cheescake in the fridge, and my fave reality show is on the tube! Don't get no better than that!!! Can't wait to see who the All Stars are going to be!!

STORM WATCHING PHOTOS

okay, here they are...dont know why i had to repost to upload however! just weird! :) Anyhoo! First one is her looking up at the clouds in the sky and telling me how "cool" they are (don't know where she gets her words form,lol...) and the second one is her looking out at the really dark sky further out.....The sky was actually a really dark blue, but since i can't use my camera very well, i had it on a bad setting, and used a flash and it just brightened up everything there was too see. I was actually sitting under our dining room table on the floor taking these photos, hehehe. Jess came upstairs and called me a weirdo, lol, but i have done way more uncomfortable things to get a photo in my life, and will again!!!!, k, off to scrap now!!

LOOK AT YOUR NIECE DAWNE!!

well, Canadian Idol pulled a double header tonite, but i just couldnt sit thru it twice....love the show but i prefer it when it gets down to the top 20 or less. So, since my dear sister said she was going to pop a look at my blog today, i thought i would show her what her niece looks like this very day since she hasnt seen her in awhile. Brooke is getting so huge, and i have totally been dwelling on that fact lately...and repeatedly, lol. I need a pause button. She is also standing beside the gate that jess finally got up...sort of....you can't tell but just where the photo cuts off is where the gate stops, hehe. He still needs to put the top on. Maybe he will get it done this weekend.
could happen, lol.
Gettin more excited bout Big Brother....You better watch it this year Dawne!!!!!!!
Didnt get much work done today, my dad didnt get back from his doctors appt. til late. He has to go back in for more tests cuz the ones he got back hinted at diabetes.
eeeekkk!!! let's hope that is not the case! So being at home i of course ignored the tonnes upon tonnes of work I had to do and worked on my portion of the Mega kit for Rakscraps....wayyy much more fun than work, and i have to admit im totally loving creating my own kits!! Who knew it was going to be so much fun??
And is anybody else getting crazy curious as to who the new Studio Girls are gonna be?? We know who 2 are, but i'm still waitting and waiting!!! only a few more weeks til we find out!! Im glad to see that Anna Aspens is going to be one of them! She is definitely one of my top 3 scrapping heros!! Sooooo talented and i can't wait to see some of her new stuff over there!!
We went outside to see how much damage that spur of the moment storm caused, and besides breaking poor Brookes Disney patio set we were all good!! I snapped some pics of Brooke looking out the window, just as the storm was starting to roll in, before it got tooo bad.
She was sooo enthralled! .......and i would show you but for some reason blogspot is once again not lettingme upload!!! arrrgggghhh!!
sigh, im sure it is not the blog but the user, lol!! still havent quite figured out the system yet!!
well jess just went to bed so i am going to scrap!!! (and i will try to upload those photos in another draft!

TUESDAY MORNING TWITTER

Holy cow!! i can't believe the storm we had here yesterday!!! it lasted for about 3 hours, but there was hail bangin on the windows, everything in the backyard was tossed and thrown, kids stuff broken, it was just crazy. the rain hitting the ground sounded like a warzone! Crazy!!!! So, first off...noooooo i am not playing hooky again today, lol....due to a doc's appt. for my dad im just getting a very late start!!
Last night i started reading the Davinci Code. I know i'm probably the last person left on the planet who hasnt read it, but i want to go see the movie and the book i've been told is sooo much better, so i didnt want to spoil my reading by seeing the movie first...seems to be a good one so far and i keep trying to imagine Tom Hanks playing the star character as i go, hehehehe.

IS EVERYBODY EXCITED???????

Big Brother All Stars start this Wednesday!!! I know that the fact that i love that show somehow diminishes my IQ im sure but i am soooo addicted and can't wait to see who is chosen ......cuz we get to choose!!!!....to be on the show this year! I await with baited breath!!!
I'm still playing with my blog, and I'm not quite happy with the look of my header since i just kinda threw it together to see if i would even be able to make one at all....so tonite if i'm not too beat after Canadian Idol (Jess's favorite show and he likes me to watch it with him ) then that is exactly what I am going to do!!
I will probably change it like a zillion times just for the heck of it til i get bored with playing, lol!!
Well i should get my butt off to work now!! Will be back later for some more gab!!

Monday's Babble

okay, so it is Monday morning. Can i tell ya how much i hate the beginning of a new week?? Especially cuz the weekend just seemed to fly by and i didnt really get anything accomplished. Sigh. So it is just past 9:00 and already I have had 2 phone calls from 2 different girls at work with problems they are having with clients or showing up on time. What a way to start the week!! But I'm sitting here with my Tim Hortons (canadians know this is the best coffee alive) and am hoping to feel better after a few huge gulpfuls!
K, plans for the day...pay bills for work that haven't been paid (definite necessity), finish up some of the advertising that i let slack last week, and come up with a new radio slogan. Check in on the new girls training, and pull together some mia paperwork that will be needed for gst.
BLECH! Sounds totally unfun!! Then i will get some scrapping in (hopefully) and hopefully get some tidying up done around the house in between popping into rakscraps!
Here is the photo that wouldn't upload for me yesterday

Didn't she look beautiful? this was from the nite of her actual recital....we did get some photos of her at the rehearsal by an actual photographer, but I didnt realize we were supposed to fancy them all up for a dress rehearsal so tho they looked good, this was what would have looked better. So after her dance was done, i took about 100 photos in our living room, and then i cropped out the awful living room background and shined her up and it turned out pretty good i think! I was pretty proud of myself too cuz i did her hair, and had never done an updo before! (patting myself on my back)

(okay..just received yet another problem phone call from work...sigh, gonna be one of those weeks!!)

I got a dvd in the mail today...i dont remember ordering it and i know i definitely didnt pay for it from something called digital innovator.com. Anybody ever heard of it? Am wondering why they are sending me free stuff, lol. I spose i will check it out later tonite unless i go to the chat at sbb....which i kind of am hoping to do. I bought some new mags yesterday, from Legacy (love that one!!), Scrapbook Answers, and Simple Scrapbooks. The dh never made one comment about the price of them either, lol....am breaking him in slowly!! It has only taken 2 years, hehehe.

K, my coffee is almost done, gonna go get a home brewed batch now (yuck) . Will be back to babble later!

Sunday Morning Chit Chat

okay, so of course i'm going to be over blogging for the first little bit..you're just gonna have to bear with me. So my day so far has been pretty uneventful. I sent Jess out golfing with my dad....mainly cuz i hadn't gotten him a father's day present yet, and that makes him think i'm doing something nice for him today...and also cuz it would give me time to scrap, and maybe even go shopping if the babe wakes up in time. Unfortunately there was no scrapping for me......well there was, but no productive scrapping. I am really getting sick and tired of my darn dip closing down on me everytime i go to save my layout!!! I worked for about 2 hours on a layout of brooke, and when i went to save it, my puter froze, and it was gonedy! Can you imagine how loudly i was cursing??? It was a layout that turned out exactly the way that i meant it to too and that doesnt happen very often so boy was i hoppin. Do ps users have that problem as well?..or maybe it is not even a dip problem but a computer problem since those seem to follow me around so much. Anyways, after that layout went to pot, i tried scrapping a layout of Victoria on the day of her dance rehersal --which i just tried to upload to my blog and it wont let me.....darn computer!!!- but did you ever have photos that you think are so great, but yet you have a difficult time scrapping them?...it seems that the more i love a photo the more difficult it is to scrap. Maybe im scared i will just ruin it, and not quite do it justice, but let me tell ya it is a pain in the arse to have a bunch of your favorite photos just sitting there cuz you dont know what to do with them!!
Has anybody seen that new Freestylin book out there?...I just bought that as well as the book from autumn leaves....I didnt want to get them...well, i mean of course i did want to get them but i really didnt want to order them and have them shipped over the border. Being in Canada makes getting all those kewl things just sooo much harder and more expensive. Sigh. Ah well, i'm really excited to get them and can't wait! I bought a few of Kathy's clean and simple 1 and 2 as well. The dh is going to bug when he sees the visa billl, hehehe...but when i lost my paypal, I was so disappointed to realize that I couldnt shop that when i found a store that took Visa i just had to assert my online shopping skills, hehehehehe. I wonder how long it takes for those books to ship? I am very impatient!
well im off to be a mom for a few hours...brooke is starting to grumble in her crib, and Victoria wants to go shopping to buy her dad something special!

Big Thanks to Carrie Stephens!!

I just wanted to say thanks out loud for all to hear to Miss Carrie Stephens from Fishscraps! She helped me get my hands all over her beautiful BabyCakes kits when my paypal was down! She is such a wonderful person! I don't normally like quick page albums mainly because i like to do them myself, but her kit is so fab, and the premade layouts so cute they were a definite must!!! (they are both on sale right now too in a combofor those that are intrested!! Run while you can!!) I was going to make some really cutesy albums for the grandparents of the girls, and tho i still think im going to, this is a layout I did tonite of my cute little unnamed puppy using one of her quick pages and now i think i'm going to do the puppies first album with it too! I really have to figure out how Carrie comes up with all those colors that she uses...I have played around both in photoshop and dip (my program of choice), and I can never get shades or depth of color like hers! Talented lady!!!!!! I will have to practice practice practice i guess and then one day I may stumble upon the trick of her color scheme!.
So the night is over and I swear this is my last post, but get this>not one bit of wall went up today in our basement.....but we do have the very very early beginnings of a new fence gate in our backyard. What goes through mens minds do you think??? I think i'm glad I dont know, hehee
I'm off to Raks now before i head off to bed

Thanks to Frank!

Thanks to Frank for the pic!! Just had to show you the new puppy photo that Frank (the dog breeder), sent me today. I wish it would have been a right close up of the face!!. Frank says we will be able to go see her next week, but it is 4 hours away and the dh doesnt want to.....but then i said, but HONEY!!, how else are we going to get baby puppy photos of our newest family member??? I mean, we can't NOT have photos of our puppy when she is first born can we?? Think of all those empty pages in our scrapbook!!!
so of course we are going to go!!!, hehehehehehe. The dh knows how much i love my scrappin and he tries to humor me, lol. (plus he kind of likes it now too)

BIG THANKS!! to AmyK and KimJ

I spent the day watching the dh not set up our wall ---it is 7:39 and still not done.....not even started --so do i know the male time watch or what??--- and working on the set up of my blog! And thanks to Kim for pointing me in the direction of Amy's perfectly put post at Raks that explained everything just right for me! I managed to get a header and links added no problem!! There are still some more things i want to add, but i figured i did enough for today. I'm just so glad that thanks to amy and kim that i dont have to learn html to do it, hehehe.

Today's Chit Chat

So today is going to be quite the interesting day. The dh (jess) has brought his dad over with the idea that they are going to have a wall constructed in our basement that will separate the kids play room from our home office. What makes this interesting is the fact that they are planning to have it constructed by 5:00 this evening. welllll.......it is 11:00 now, and they are off at the home depot to get their supplies. They left about 2 hours ago and are like most men im sure...lost in the aisles and looking at every tool that has absolutley nothing to do with the job they are to be doing and having a great time. I'm sooooo dreading the mess they are going to make, hehehe. (which i soooo won't be cleaning up!!) So my day will consist of much laughing at the 2 of them i'm sure in between playing on my computer!!
I'm so sad! I hopped over to Carrie Stephens site Fishscraps today (think she is awesome) to buy her duo combo of quick pages she made, and kit that goes with it that is on sale...then i find out she only takes paypal :( I had to cut up my card i was using for paypal in order to meet the mortgage requirements when we moved a few months ago, so im totally out of luck. sigh. She makes such awesome stuff im going to have to get a new card for that pay pal soon!!!!! I never paid that much attention to how many sites just accept paypal before, having always had it. I do hope there is not many or my shopping online days will be limited for the next little while. Jesse will be happy about that, lol!

our puppy

okay...so, im back bloggin, and am going to make the time to do it more often!!! So i will start with my goings on today. Im not doing a whole heck of alot, lol. Am playing hooky from work, and i had the intention of getting the house in order, but who are we kidding?? that was just something i told myself to make me feel better about staying home and doing nothing, hehe.
Anyhoo, now that we have moved, and we have a house with more room and a pretty good backyard with a fence, jess (the dh) and i all of a sudden feel quite domestic and have decided to get a puppy for the girls. We called up a couple that were expecting puppies, and they had a huge waiting list, so we never thought that we would stand a chance, but they called today, and low and behold, there is a female, that is wanted only by us. And this is her below!

I think she is very cute, and tho we cant see her face im going to believe that she is good hearted and wont eat any of her shoes, or clothing or baby toys. She is a pretty golden retriever! Im pretty excited for victoria and brooke(my girls, if you dont know). Victoria has wanted a puppy for as long as i can remember and i think it will be awesome for brooke to grow up with one. So now we have until the first week in august, to unpack all of our things (yes, i know, we suck and should have had all that done a month or more ago) get our work stuff organized so it is not all over the office floor, make sure every knick knack has a set place so our little puppy wont be able to get into it. And we need a name!!!! yes we do... if there is anybody reading this i would love some ideas!!!!

well i should go pretend im organizing or cleaning or something, as brooke will be up from her nap soon!!