Shopping spree!

There must be something in the water - all these fabulous designers are announcing retirements which is always sad news for digiscrappers, but also very hard on my paypal account and scrapping budget. It started off with Michelle Pearson's actions - at 50% off I could justify getting a whole pile of them, and I've been playing with them all week. I also bought Kellie Martin's beautiful "Storm" series of papers - so pretty! Then I have to take another run through Kimberly Geswein's stuff to make sure there isn't anything I don't have - and then she offered a fabulous font freebie which was just what I needed for the page I was working on. I threw a bunch of my new stuff together with freebies from Michelle Coleman, Amanda Rockwell and Catscrap and I really like how it turned out. I normally couldn't afford buy so much great stuff for one page - but with retirement sales and freebies, all things are possible. These ladies' talents will surely be missed in the digi world - and for Amanda, Michelle and Catrine - your generosity is very much appreciated.



But, that's not all. I also found a great sale at ebags this weekend, and finally decided to get a bag for my laptop - it might need to travel when I go to St. Louis, and right now it travels in a fabric grocery bag that came free with a package of paper towels at Wal-mart. That's no good! So I bought this one which is one of the few that will fit my 17 inch laptop, and its PINK.




And while I was browsing there, I realized that I am rather ashamed of the purse I'm carrying right now - I recall that I bought it when I was shopping for wedding stuff - so that was well over 6 years ago!! Its worn right out and when there are perfectly acceptable purses available for less than $20, I really have no excuse. So I bought a little purse and a wallet while I was at it.

Ok, by request, here's the purse. Its nothing fancy but its better than what I've got now, by a mile! Both the purse and the laptop case came from ebags.com for all of you that are wondering. And Geri, the bag comes in green, but its not a lime green - more a sage color. I almost got that or red instead. But I ended up with pink, because - its pink!!



OH HELL. The corn-popper toy has been lying around our house for months and hasn't interested the baby in the least. Until now. Just this second she discovered how it works. By the grin on her face, I think I'd better get myself some tylenol. I'm going to need it.

Homework

Well, she's only in Kindergarten, or Maternelle, as they call it. So she doesn't have a lot of homework but they send her home with a little book every day and she has little things written in her school agenda that we're supposed to do with her each night. Her school is full-time when most Kindergarten is half-time, so you'd think she'd have enough of school by the end of the day. But she loves to have 'homework' even if its just writing her classmates' names or memorizing her phone number. Anyway, homework has become Dad's job so most nights he's the one reading the stories and helping her with printing letters and words. He's great at it so there are no complaints from me, but I always thought it would be me. I *could* do it, and when he's not around, I do. But I think its important for her to learn French and that if he shows its important to him that she does - it will be important to her too.

So, despite it being against everything in my nature (to teach! to mother! to run everything!!!) I stand back and watch them do homework together. :)

Its HEEEEEEEREE!!!!

Look what came in the mail today!!!!!


So, there are 60,000 Canadians waiting for passports, I've heard every possible horror story and all these people saying they didn't get theirs yet when they submitted it in December or whatever - and look at this!!! They said it would be back by March 5 and I hoped they weren't lying. Well, its the 23rd, and look what came in the mail!! So it took just 15 working days! Yay for the Canadian Government!! YAY for bureaucracy!! My passport is here, and its two weeks early!

What goes around...

M is sick. We went to my parents' house this weekend for a bit of a visit before they go on their long vacation - they'll be gone almost two weeks. As we were leaving she said she didn't feel well which I might wonder is just a ploy to stay longer but there was just something in her eyes. We brought a pail in the van. I knew it was serious when we stopped to get Subway on the way home and she wouldn't eat a tuna sub. She LOOOOOVES tuna subs.

So, its Wednesday now, and she's still sick. She has a roaring fever which just goes down a bit when she has tylenol or whatever, but never gets near normal. She has headaches and her tummy hurts and she just lays on the couch all day. Last night she woke up screaming at about 4:30 and she was so hot, it was crazy. I gave her a dose of Advil and brought her and a big pail to bed with me. She slept on top the covers and I could seriously feel the heat from the other side of the bed.

I'd be getting aoctor's appointment except for the fact that all of the first and second graders at her school had this last week - all with high fevers for 2-3 days and headaches and this cough. So whatever it is, its going around. So far C and the baby have no signs of it - just wait!

I found the baby jumping on the top bunk of the bunkbed today. We took the ladder off completely back in the fall because the little devil who couldn't even WALK yet at the time was able to climb ladders in the blink of an eye. And with two other kids in the house its impossible to keep the door closed all the time - we had two more close calls before we just took it down completely and told M she's going to have to climb up to bed some other way.

Then a few weeks ago DH had a brilliant idea to take the bunkbeds down and have two twin beds instead. That didn't last long as there was no way to put the dressers in the room that they weren't up against one of the beds. And so I kept finding her climbing up onto the dressers from the beds. That wasn't good for the heart, either so the bunkbeds went back up last week.

And NOW, she got up there again, somehow. I have to think the four year old was somehow involved - but she's not talking. And I can't see how she really could help much, she can barely lift the baby. But I DO know there was a baby bouncing on the top bunk even though the ladder is long gone, so I have to figure out what to do about that. And I am not sure how far I am willing to go with keeping her off of stuff - she climbs onto the kitchen table whenever my back is turned for a second, and also likes to climb the backs of the couches and stand against the half-wall in the livingroom. So, STANDING on the back of the couch. Nice. Do we remove all the furniture? Or do I just try to keep up with her? With the stairs we finally gave up because she got really good at them within the first week or so - in fact, I worry more that *I* will fall down the stairs while carrying her, than I worry that she will fall while going up and down them 123456789 times a day.

So, with that in mind, I saw this layout last week, and I just love it. I usually don't post other people's layouts on my blog but this one makes me smile every time I see it so this way I can look at it whenever I want . I hope everyone else gets a kick out of it, too.

We'll call it my LO of the Month or something: "Almost Free" by Dixi (2GB)




Her credits are posted in her gallery at DST. I am also pleased to know I'm not the only one who might be standing with a camera while my child is climbing all over everything.

Ok, I saw this 13 thing on Christy's blog (see link on the side) and thought I'd give it a try.




Thirteen Things about CHERI Today's topic: 13 things I learned this week. 1. It is pointless to send preschoolers to school with Valentines with all their friends' names on them. They can't read! 2. Its slightly less pointless to send a child to Kindergarten with Valentines with all their friends' names on them. They *should* be able to match names with faces, but its still pretty hit-and-miss. 3. I can't really complain about Valentine's day being overdone if I sent my kids to school with Valentine cookies and jellybeans and homemade cards for all their classmates. 4. Just for the record, it *is* overdone. 5. Pouring the coffee back into the coffeepot and turning the element back on works better than microwaving it. 6. The baby has two new teeth and THAT is why she's so miserable and won't eat anything. 7. My nephew has the chicken pox even though he just got the vaccine, and he has it BAD. 8. It doesn't matter what the incubation period of chicken pox is, or when we saw him last, or whether or not my kids have had it - SOMEONE is going to get it, I just know it. 9. Sweeping the kitchen floor is pointless. Also, it is pointless to convince Blogger that I would like to keep the same font for this entire thing. It will do whatever it wants. 10. Crockpot cooking makes the kitchen just as messy as stovetop cooking. You just have to clean it up sooner. 11. I cannot do anything else when I am walking on a treadmill without posing serious risk to my life and limbs. 12. If you only watch The Bold and The Beautiful once a month, you cannot accurately predict who will be married to whom the next time you watch it. 13. Use the noun "confidant" for men, "confidante" for women.


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The first step

My father in law got a new treadmill with a tv and whatever else - so his old one is upstairs in our room right now. DH runs on it every day. I am thinking, I always said I would if I had one in the house, so maybe I should find my running shoes and give it a go. When nobody is watching, of course.

Yesterday, I did find my running shoes, but they're all muddy - so I just gave up. Today, I was feeling much more motivated, so I took them out and washed all the mud out of every little crack and crevice. I know these shoes need grip but do these companies pause to think about how much trouble its going to be to get mud out of each of those crevices?? And thank goodness it was just mud, I cringe at the thought of it being anything worse. I'd probably just throw them away.

Anyway, there's the first step of my plan for fitness. My shoes are scrubbed clean. I'd really like to try out the treadmill today, but I have to wait for them to dry. Can't have wet squeaky shoes on the treadmill, can we?

Tomorrow's project: Find appropriate clothing for treadmill use.

I swear, I'm not an idiot, but...

My latest layout - I took this picture for C's valentines for school, and liked it enough to make a whole page. Everything is from Nina's Symbiosis kit.

Sometimes, I get too impressed with myself because I can do some things in Photoshop. Yeah, lots of my friends can, too. But its hard. Photoshop 7.0 is what I am running, and it can be a beast. When someone I know is interested in learning to digital scrapbook, I say DO NOT USE Photoshop 7.0, its rotten and mean and I don't want you to give up! Find something more user-friendly so you can enjoy this from the start! Sometimes I can't believe I kept at it through all the frustration and eventually figured it out with a little help from my friends along the way.

But, if I start to get too self-congratulatory, I would like to thank blogger, itunes, etc. for knocking me down a few pegs, or off the whole ladder. Last night I tried to put up this nifty slideshow like everyone else has on their blog - how hard could it be? It was pretty easy to upload the photos, almost *too* easy in fact. The trouble came when I tried to move the thing to the SIDE of my blog, because I don't want it to be a post. I want it to be OVER THERE ------->

Well, as you can see, its not over there. Its below. And it will eventually disappear off of this page. No amount of clicking around could find a way to get it where I want it - but somehow EVERYONE ELSE's blog has their photo slideshow over on the side. This is when I start to think the whole world knows something I don't.

Don't even get me started on the difficulty of getting songs from my computer to DH's Ipod. I was ready to throw that thing across the room. How come everyone else in the free world can figure that out, and its a mystery to me. The instructions for it are written (I kid you not) much like the posters on the wall in kindergarten. They politely imply "we're slowing this down for you, using small words, colors and pictures as not to confuse you!" Green dot means this, orange dot means this. Orange flashing dot means, Don't touch! etc.

And I'm thinking - I learned to use Photoshop without using the Help files (much) surely to GOODNESS I can operate this thing that plugs into my computer and has one button with a play symbol on it. The songs are supposed to move so easily from one to the other, that's why these things are all the rage, no? How hard can it be?

Hard like programming a VCR, that's how hard. We managed to get some songs on it, but I hope he doesn't mind listening to Barbie Girl and the Wiggles, because I couldn't figure out how to get *particular* songs on it, and so its got just about everything we had on the computer, even the really really annoying stuff the girls listen to. And considering the trouble I had getting songs onto it, there is NO WAY I am going to attempt removing songs from it. Not a chance.

its minus a million, with the wind chill

Oh, here's Cheri complaining about the cold again. Its *always* forty below where she lives. She's just too lazy to do the conversion, so she says its forty below so the Americans will all understand, that is DAMNED cold, because its the same in the US.

No, really FORTY BELOW. That is how cold it is. I don't know the whole conversion thing, I admit. But it does seem funny to me when I hear someone whining that it is almost *zero* - or heaven forbid, MINUS TEN.

Ok, I don't know what your minus ten is, but ours is livable. Minus forty, however, is not.

Tonight on the news, they were obviously as sick as I am of trying to impress anyone with the coldness of 'forty below' - so they said - with the windchill, its minus a million. There. You heard it on our news first - minus ONE MILLION. That works for me, because honestly, if its less than 25 below zero, and there's a windchill, it might as well be minus a million. Its too freaking cold. And its been at least minus 25 for so long, we just think its normal for some reason.

M. was threatening to break free and run outside. She is so sick of having to stay in. She'd be like one of those cartoon characters that freezes in mid-air, then gets tapped with a hammer and shatters. See, kids don't see stuff like that on TV anymore, so they don't understand when their moms say 'You will FREEZE in less than a minute! GET INSIDE!"

~Cheri

DONE!

The passport application is submitted - it will be done in a month!!

And, I only waited 15 minutes!!!

Things the baby knows...

The baby is 16 months old now. Here are some things she knows for sure:

1) Screaming like you're on fire is better than whining. If you don't get what you want, at least you're not the only one suffering.

2) Diapers (even fresh, clean ones) belong in the diaper pail.

3) Milk is good, but CHOCOLATE MILK is FANTASTIC

4) If it can be climbed, you absolutely should climb it.

5) If it can't be climbed, find something that can be climbed, and climb that.

6) Broccoli tastes awful, and isn't improved with cheese.

7) Otherwise, cheese is good.

8) Spinning in circles makes you fall down. Falling down is fun if done correctly.

9) About 15 feet is a good start on mom, she'll never catch up in time.

10) Whatever is new on the tray will probably taste better than what you are eating now. You should probably spit that out.


Here's a LO of with a picture I took of her last year in February. She's grown SO much. Full credits in my DST gallery, but I tried to use a little from each of the CT kits I was working on before I stepped down, Faith True's "Valentine Odds and Ends" at PDP, and Valorie Brown's glitter hearts and sequin shapes. The papers are from Nina at oscraps and NDISB and I'm staying on with her so will be using a lot more of her stuff from now on.

Home again, home again...

Well, I got everything packed and everyone in the van, and we set out on the road only to find that what was a beautiful sunny day turned into a white-out blizzard late in the afternoon. We got about an hour from home and had to turn back.

So, we're home, and safe, and warm - but not any closer to having a passport. Next attempt: we'll drive up Sunday evening and I'll go to the passport office on Monday morning, I guess.

Going nowhere - no kidding!!!

~Cheri

Dads and little girls

The other night I put A to bed as usual, and a half hour later when I went up to my room, I could hear that she was still awake and chattering happily to herself in her crib. I did what moms do - I said to myself "awww, that's adorable" and went on with my business.

THEN, DH comes upstairs and as he's walking by her room, she hears him and says "HI!"

Do I even need to tell you what happens next? I seriously doubt it.

He comes into our room, and he says, "Awww. She's in there by herself! She's not ready to sleep! She's wide awake!"

I say, "She's happy, that's how she winds down, just leave her..."

To no avail, he's already back in her room and I can hear him saying "Hello! You're being too cute to be in the dark alone! Do you want out? Do you want to come and watch TV with dad???"

And, of COURSE she does!! Sure! Well, sure to the first question - HECK YEAH, she wants out, but watch TV with dad, I seriously, seriously doubt it. There is no way on earth she is going to sit quietly and cuddle with dad while he watches the news. After 20 minutes of her jumping on the bed, running in circles around the room, and literally climbing the walls, he realizes *maybe* its not such a bad idea to let her wind down in her crib. He put her back to bed. She sang and chatted to herself for 20 minutes, and went to bed.

~Cheri

letting stuff go...

I have had a crazy couple of weeks as I am realizing how many meetings and committees and sub-committees I am on with council. With the library moving forward, and I'm heading up the committee for that - its only going to get busier. I think the plan is to have this library open and full of books this spring and we have lots to do in between now and then. So, I have way too much going on and I am at risk of not doing any of it well if I don't cut back a few things. So I stepped down from all of my CT's but one - I'll still be scrapbooking when I have the time, but being that I can't find regular time to do it, I need to let some of my obligations go.

Last night I was at the end of my rope - January is my month to host our $20 club party, and I originally had it organized for all of us to go to a bellydancing class last week but that fell through at the last minute - so I planned it again for Thursday (today) and everyone could make it, and that was good, except bellydancing was no longer an option so it would have to be doing broken tile-mosaic in my house - requiring me to have a clean house and supplies for tile-mosaics. As you know I didn't get to the city on Monday, and so I had to move my party AGAIN, to last night, when only about half the ladies could make it. But I was running out of January, so I had to just do it anyway. And I don't know WHY I cleaned my house because you should see what doing tile mosaics did to my kitchen. What a huge mess!! But I did get a mosaic done:



Then DH got home from work last night and said he can't get tomorrow off - so AGAIN, going for the passport would have to be put off for another week, and I re-scheduled my party and ran around like a madwoman getting things ready - for nothing. And time is ticking on this passport thing - its getting seriously close to impossible to get it back on time.

This morning, he phoned from work to say he did find someone to work for him tomorrow!!! We're going!! I will have everything packed up to go after school, pick DH up from work, and we will be on our way. Weather permitting of course - and its been horrible for the past week or so but looking sunny and bright (but SO COLD) today. It must be close to 30 below but we'll pack warm clothes and drive carefully.

~Cheri