All by myself (sort of)

We had a lovely weekend at the lake - back to reality now. My husband is gone to school for 8 weeks, but he comes home on weekends so its not all bad. The baby hasn't noticed that he's gone yet but I expect there will be hell to pay when she figures it out. She started mentioning something about dad around about the time he'd usually be home for supper - but then I gave her some macaroni, and a bath, and then my mother in law came over to watch them while I went to a meeting, so she was well distracted. Tomorrow could be another story.

Income tax return deadline was midnight tonight and so I got that done - I had it finished a few weeks ago but the file saved wrong or something so when I went to submit it, I couldn't get it to open. So I had to do it all over again and instead of getting $33 back, now we're paying $88. Whatever. Its done. If I did it wrong, I get money back. I can live with that.

I am working on a Shutterfly album - I hope to have it ordered by tomorrow night because the sale ends soon. I found this layout that I started a couple of months ago and didn't get very far with - but I found all of the elements (the stars etc. ) in another kit and I'm finally happy with it. So here it is:


So, that will go in the album along with about 19 other layouts - I am having a hard time deciding which ones to use and what order to put them in. I really just make pages without any particular plan in mind so there's no theme or anything to go by. I think to simplify things, I'll just say its my favorite layouts from my first year of digiscrapping. Then they don't need to really 'go' together. I think I made my first page in May last year, so its almost a year now and I might as well make an album to celebrate. I can't wait to see all of these pages printed out, but I am scared that I'll see all the mistakes I made and want to redo all of the pages.

I cheated.

I've never used a quickpage before but when I saw this one, I knew I could make it my own. I added a little photo and curved frame in the corner, some journalling and a picture of my baby's toes. And it *was* quick - I guess that's why they call it a quickpage. Its available at www.oscraps.com - and full credits are in my DST gallery.

Skunked!

In the wee hours of the morning yesterday, we were awoken by a smell. That is right, a smell so strong and so bad that it WOKE US UP. It was unmistakably skunky, but so strong that we had to be worried that maybe there was some kind of gas or chemical leak causing it - or (heaven forbid!) a skunk actually in our garage or something. We confirmed that the smell outside was at least as bad as the smell inside, and decided that there must be a skunk in the yard. So I went back to sleep with eyes watering and a headache brewing from the horrible smell. It wasn't any better when I woke up the girls for breakfast, and that is when I noticed Percy scratching at the patio door. His normally white front was streaked with yellow lines - by the looks of things he must have been sitting on that skunk when it sprayed him. And he wanted IN! I don't know, if he smelled that bad from the other side of the door, his chances of getting inside were pretty slim.

He eventually gave up and ran off somewhere for most of the day, I scoured the internet for getting skunk smell off of a cat. And apparantly, there aren't a lot of cats getting sprayed by skunks, because all the instructions and magic potions assume you're washing a dog. I have to think that a dog would probably be a more willing participant than a cat. What's all this about "leave on for five minutes" and "if smell persists, repeat several times..."

This is a cat. There are no 'repeats' when washing a cat. It needs to be a one-shot deal. Because after the first time you wrestle him into the tub, he KNOWS what's up and there is no way on earth he's going to allow it to happen a second time. And there is no 'leave on for five minutes'. Who exactly is going to hold a skunky wet angry writhing cat for five minutes? Certainly not ME!

Tonight, Percy finally returned home, bringing the smell with him. I had a rubbermaid tub full of warm water and baking soda/peroxide mixture and a bottle of "Skunk off" waiting in the garage for him. And DH went running for his mom's house, so he was no help whatsoever. I would have thought he'd stay just to make fun of me wrestling a stinky wet cat, but whatever. I can do this better without an audience.

Oblivious Percy wondering "Hey, what's with this pink tubful of water?"

It was wet, and disgusting and the smell was unbelievable. But we got the job done. I rubbed Percy down with the baking soda mixture BEFORE I put him in the tub, and he actually allowed it for the full five minutes. Being put into the tub was a whole other story, though. He completely lost his mind. I felt sorry for him but since the alternative was to shoot him and bury him in a deep hole far, far away - I was determined to hold him down long enough to get most of the smell off of him. Then I wrapped him up in a towel like a baby and we both worked at getting him dry enough to hang out in the garage overnight. There is nothing as pathetic as a wet cat.

Pathetic Percy vowing not to be friends with me anymore

Today, he's looking a lot fluffier and his white parts are whiter than they've been in years. He still smells a little bit skunky but it will have to do. Unfortunately our other cat Casey decided to hang out on the porch swing with skunky Percy all day yesterday - which is odd because usually they can't stand the sight of eachother. So Casey stinks too and he's going to need a bath when he gets home. He's not as fluffy or as stubborn as Percy is, so hopefully the worst is over.

Easter got in the way

I haven't posted anything in awhile, I could blame it on Easter but that was over a week ago. I've been busy. Doing what, I really can't say. Its finally nice outside, we can go out in short sleeves and as long as there's not a gale force wind, its pretty comfortable. The snow is all gone, and the mud is pretty well gone now too. I am just waiting a little longer to put the winter clothes away because we all know it will snow for sure if I do that.

I got hung up for three days trying to make a layout with my Easter pictures and its still awful so I am more likely to delete it than post it here. Its a few wasted hours of my life that I'll never get back so I am reluctant to delete it but I am certainly not going to mess with it anymore, either. I moved on to other things:

This is my tribute to Mini Eggs. We've had plenty of time to devour the three family-sized bags of regular Mini-Eggs, and three large bags of Poppin' Mini-Eggs, and its getting hard to find them in stores again - so we bid farewell to the Mini-Egg for another year. Its sad but the truth is, I'd be 900 pounds if those things were available year-round. My youngest daughter has discovered Mini-Eggs, and like her mother - she doesn't share well. She spent much of Easter morning hovering over the dish of Mini-Eggs we had out on the kitchen table and snarled at anyone who got too close. Not that anyone would actually eat them after she drooled all over them (which is what happens when you shove three in your mouth at once) - even *I* have standards when it comes to drooled-on candy!


This one is a layout for my baby and my grandma. She always says that to my babies - whatever it is... a poem? Verse? Just her own saying? I don't know, I googled it and came up with nothing. But it needed to be scrapped.

Spring break, and long awaited St.Louis layouts!

Well, they are long-awaited for me, anyway! I made these right after I got home from STL but I had to wait for Kathy to get her new Spring Ribbon essentials up in the store before I could post them. I love getting to see and use this stuff before its up in the store, but the waiting is torture!

This is a two-page layout so you're supposed to imagine them side by side - I used one of Emily Farnworth's new Plug n' Play templates to make it. I am not sure if I can get them to show up side by side on the blog but I'll give it a try:




We went to the Winter fair this weekend - really a nutty idea with three kids, but whatever. Everyone else does it!!! And that's precisely the problem - EVERYONE else does it. It is absolute lunacy to go there on Saturday, with a baby in a stroller and two kids it took us an hour to get to the petting zoo, and when we finally got there we just turned around because the lineups were too long. We could have gone any other day of the week, but we went on the craziest day because I like to see the heavy horse events and Fred Penner was playing for the kids. It is even more insane to try to stay there until 10:00 pm for the final event, the 6 horse hitch. But we did it anyway, because I like to see it.

This year was the 100th anniversary so they had the Budweiser hitch there. So I went to see the horses in St. Louis a few weeks ago, and this weekend I got to see the whole hitch in action, dalmatian and all. Very impressive for someone who likes that kind of thing, which I do. Do you think I remembered my camera? Not a chance. I do have a few pictures we took in the barns though, but none of it all hitched up in the ring.

So, here's me with the one they have on display in St.Louis





And then, deja-vu, here I am at the Winter Fair with the girls:



Is it just my imagination, or do I look so much more relaxed in the first photo??

The girls really enjoyed Fred Penner - and as luck would have it when he went over to a table to sign autographs after the show, we ended up first in line. He was really great with the kids - brought the girls around to the back of the table for pictures, and figured out from her name that he could speak to her in French, so he did. Its so good to see her understanding and responding back to people like that, and I think she's starting to think its really neat when she finds someone outside her school or family who speaks French, too. She also had a little chat with Sister Cecile this week when we went for tea at the hospital where my mom works.

the girls and Fred Penner

Backtracking now, we had spring break last week so the girls and I did a little bit of travelling - went to visit my mom and dad, and then took a day to go 'down home' and visit both of the grandmothers and some cousins. The girls discovered Nanny's old Nintendo and were soon hooked on Super Mario Brothers. When I was younger, Nanny and Grandma Silver both had their own Nintendo systems - Nanny was Dr.Mario champion and Grandma Silver was always quite good at Tetris. I always thought it was great to go visit my grandmas and they didn't just have the Nintendo 'for the kids to play with' - they were addicted to it, too!!

Discovering Nintendo at Nanny's house

More traditional 'grandma activities' at my mom's house - baking cookies
A. wasn't really invited for cookie-making but was in there like a dirty shirt, anyway:
Grandpa tried to intervene, but she was having NONE of that:

A critical point in the negotiations:
Finally, an agreement is reached, acceptable to all parties: