Well, I finished my final MMM entry layout last night! Promptly uploaded the layouts to Costco, and will pick them up this afternoon after work.

Then my evening is full of idea forms (one for each layout), model releases (one for each child used in my layouts - only 2), supply lists (one for each layout), and packing it up for shipping.

It will go postal tomorrow.

In other news, the heat has leveled off and it's almost, but not quite, normal Oregon July weather.

Don't forget, watch Sixteen Candles this weekend and participate in our Chick Flick Chat at the Digi Chick on Tuesday!

Bad blogger!

Life has been pretty full. I've been attempting to finish up an entry for a layout contest, which needs to be postmarked by July 31st...I'm cutting it close, I hope to get it mailed out this Friday.

Life has also been hot, weather wise! Last Friday (the 21st), the city I'm living hit 108 degrees. Do I need to mention that our apartment has *NO* A/C? We spent Saturday and Sunday trucking around to various places, which all had A/C (our vehicles do too). We celebrated my sister's birthday (I won't mention the number, she's pretty sensitive about it) at my parents' house, which was also air conditioned. :) I will post a picture of me and my 6 month old niece later today or tomorrow.

We plan on going to the storage place on Saturday and moving all the stuff from the small 10x10 room into the big 10x20 room, so we only have "rent" for one room. It should just about fit.

I promise, I'll be a better blogger from now on...

I'm also doing the "Chick Walk Challenge" at the Digi Chick - proud member of the Blue Suede Walking Shoes here! :)

Darla Vasquez and I will be hosting the Digi Chick "Chick Flick Chat" next Tuesday, August 1. Watch Sixteen Candles (yeah, the 80s movie) and join us for a lively, entertaining chat!

This video is so inspirational.

Do not watch it without Kleenex close by. You can't say I didn't warn you.

Can

Yeah, yeah, I know, I haven't posted all week long.

My new computer arrived, I went scrapping with friends, I worked....

I even applied for Robin Carlton's CT. Over 80 people applied, and we'll find out Monday morning what the results are.

I've been a busy scrapper this weekend. I was inspired by two things:

- Ali Edwards' new book, "A Designer's Eye: For Scrapbooking with Patterned Paper"
- The new charity mega kit from Guardian Peas, "Kaleidoscope of Hope"

Here are my layouts, all of my friend Lisa, her kids, and her significant other from the 4th of July holiday this year.


Credits can be seen here: Sweet Summer



Credits can be seen here: Haylee


Credits can be seen here: Summer Fun


Credits can be seen here: Kayaking

Straight from Diana's blog:

1. Do you like music videos on blogs? Why or why not?? I don't like them, because usually I'm already listening to music via iTunes when I go to blogs, and the music videos override my music.

2. What is your favorite all time song and why? "Because You Loved Me" by Celine Dion

3. What is your favorite current song and why? "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield - it just speaks to me right now.

4. Do you and your significant other have a "song"? "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" by Elton John (from Lion King). Lion King is our favorite movie to watch together, and this was also our "first dance" song at our wedding in 1999.

5. What song old or new best describes who you are? Currently, "Unwritten" describes me best.

Quick Update: We are now officially "home"less - as in we don't own a home. The transaction funded and recorded this afternoon, and my husband goes to pick up the check in an hour.

Sorry for being gone for the last week! Lots of stuff to get done to make sure the closing of the house went smoothly. We signed paperwork yesterday, and should get a call today (preferably) or tomorrow to come pick up our check for the proceeds from the house. Most of it goes promptly into a money market savings account for the new house, but there are some "immediate" needs that need to be taken care of. At any rate, we'll be locking away our 10% down payment.

Well, allergy season took a turn for the worse. Normally I don't have bad allergies, but on the 4th of July, I had a serious "attack." By serious, I mean that I could not keep my eyes open for longer than 2 seconds because they were watering so much...and my poor nose was running a long distance meet. :) Fortunately, someone had some OTC Chlor Trimeton, so I took it, laid down for a short nap, and when I woke up I could see again! In other medical news, my borderline anemia is not quite so borderline anymore. Guess it's time to see the doctor and check levels. I have been slacking on taking iron because it seemed as if it was gone, but I should have known that something was wrong when I couldn't donate blood.

This weekend, we'll be cleaning up the apartment and reconfiguring the bedroom. It's been driving me nuts, especially the location of the bed. We had them put it up against the wall so the boxes to unpack could go against the other wall, but that has turned out to be a bad decision. Plus I'm sure they put it back together not quite right...my husband's side of the mattress slopes toward the wall, and there's a huge gap between the top of the mattress and the frame. Silly little things like that.

Occasionally, I'm going to vent about apartment living. For the last 7 years, my husband and I have lived in houses, not apartments. This apartment living is an adjustment for us. For instance, most apartments are located at intersections of major roads. Not only is ours on a major road, our "den" window opens up to a major road that leads to the city airport and is a growing area (lots of condos/townhomes going up).

We are also on the first floor. That means that our apartment is "ground zero" for anyone wanting to burglarize or vandalize stuff. Our front passenger window just got dinged on Wednesday afternoon - I parked in our carport spot at 5:15 and there was no ding - came back out to the car at 6:15 and there's a crack in the window. Pretty high velocity impact. It's either schoolkids, teenagers, or someone who hates SUVs. Trust me, if it had happened while I was driving, I would have heard *that* crack. It almost went through the glass and it will likely spider sometime soon, meaning we get to replace the window. Ugh.

Last night's apartment fun? The folks in the apartment above us. We've nicknamed them the "Elephants" because every time they walk across the floor it's like a stomp. Well, they were "stomping" last night until 12:30 a.m. - and I get up at 6:30 in the morning. Yes, I'm just a little tired. :)

Ah! That was much cooler last night! A nice breeze came through, cooled off the entire apartment, made it very easy to go to sleep last night. :)

One of the most recent music purchases I made on CD was Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten." I saw the video on someone's blog, listened to the song, and figured the rest of the CD was worth checking out. Fairly decent album - there are only a couple tracks I tend to skip.

What is your most recent song/CD purchase?

Well, last night was pretty much our last visit to the "old" house. We emptied the refrigerator and freezer, we put some stuff in the trash, we did a walk-through to make sure we hadn't left any items of value behind (other than the refrigerator, washer, and dryer)...and now we're done! Today, Merry Maids is coming in to do a one-time cleanup of the interior, and on Friday ServiceMaster Clean is coming in to "professionally" clean the carpets as requested by the buyers. We'll go back one more time, just to take pictures of the interior and exterior of the house. This is more for our peace of mind, as it provides a record of what it looked like when we handed it over, so they can't come back a year from now and say it was trashed and try to get something out of us.

The back of my vehicle is filled with stuff to go to storage. Guess where we're headed tonight?

It's only supposed to be in the low 90s today. Big whoop! I won't be happy until the average temperature is in the mid-70s....this blazing heat in an apartment with no A/C is not good for a successful night's sleep. Ugh.

Moving is NOT FUN in record breaking heat. Yesterday, Portland smashed a record of 95 degrees with a temperature of 100 degrees - IN JUNE! Who'd have thought we'd need A/C in June?

Speaking of A/C - the apartment DOES NOT have it. Ugh. We're on the first floor, which means it isn't *that* bad, but because of the proximity to a major thoroughfare road, as well as to the covered carport spaces, we cannot leave our windows open to get a breeze in overnight. Well, at least not until we get some kind of dowel that will keep folks from trying to slide our window open to break into the apartment.

Tonight is the last night we'll be going to the "old" house. We're going to empty the refrigerator and freezer, plus take one more load to the dumpster. Tomorrow, Merry Maids comes in and does a thorough wipe down cleaning. Friday, ServiceMaster Clean comes in to clean the carpet. The carpet cleaning was requested in the repair addendum, so it has to be done. The house cleaning is on our dime, for *our* peace of mind. After Friday, we'll go back one more time, to take pictures of the state of the house. We don't want the buyers coming back in six months saying it was in "this state" when a few minutes snapping a bunch of photos on our digital camera will cover our butts. :)

One of my favorite 80s song is one I especially love to hear played on Fridays: Loverboy's "Workin' for the Weekend."

I hunted down the video at youtube.com, just for you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5In4747n9YU

Didn't get quite as much done last night as I wanted to, but at least the office is mostly clean and unpacked, AND you can see the floor. A couple more things moved off the floor and we can even inflate the airbed for our guest tonight. :)

TOOT! I got an email from Ready, Set, Create e-zine about a submission I made. They want my layout about my husband and the time he used a "Little Bobcat" to move 5 cubic yards of river rock over to the side of our house. It was for their "Boys and Their Toys" page call. I'll be submitting more over the weekend, only if I've already created them and they match the existing calls.

Almost done unpacking! Just in time too, since one of our friends from Eugene is visiting this weekend. Her visit was great incentive to make sure we unpacked in a timely manner. Besides, I'm getting tired of catching on open box flaps... :)

This weekend, the two of us (my friend and me) will be going scrapbooking on Saturday with three other friends. Five of us all in one place, just to paper scrap. FUN FUN FUN! :)

I barely squeaked my entry for Week 2 into the gallery for the TDC "28 Days" challenge. Here it is:



I went to get my "must have" supplies out of the storage room last night. ARGH! One of the boxes is on the highest level, on the back wall of the storage room. I can NOT reach up that high. There is also a box with the acrylic paper trays somewhere in there...and I'm sure it's probably in the stack somewhere, but it shouldn't be...I did write "DO NOT STACK" on every side. Sigh. Ah well, my husband gets to help me find it tonight. :)

Phew!

Almost everything is out of the house. The only things left are the widescreen TV (ain't no way we were letting movers touch it), and some assorted items for Goodwill or another charity...and our bikes in the garage.

We'll be picking up the TV and the bikes today.

Well, the plumber didn't show up on either Friday OR Saturday. My husband called all the other plumbers in our area, and no one called him back. Guess I get to try again today.

The customer service rep from Milgard that I called last week did not call back either. So I called again today, asked what specific information I needed to have on hand to talk to her, and mentioned that I'd left a message last week. The receptionist said that if my rep did not call back by the end of today, to call back tomorrow and she'd get a supervisor to talk to me. We are the original owners, the window is less than 2 years old, and it is still under manufacturer's warranty. There should be no issues. We just need to get the ball rolling so the buyers know it is in process.

Speaking of the buyers, they tried to slip a couple of fast ones into the repair addendum. No way, no how. Remember that Milgard window? We were originally told that they would not include that in the repair addendum, because they didn't want to hold up the closing while it got fixed. Well, somewhere in translation, a window *above* the sliding glass door got turned into the sliding glass door seal repair on the addendum. Not only would that have required us to replace the sliding glass door, but it would have been expensive...and they got it wrong to boot! *mutter mutter grumble grumble* And they had the nerve to say that any bills due to the seal repair would be sent to us AFTER closing. Uh uh. Did the words "manufacturer's warranty" mean nothing to them? There is NO COST to them. Geez.

On a better note, we have unpacked the kitchen. Of course, we still have NOTHING in the fridge except for water, so we *have* to correct that issue tonight. We have a good head start on the office, and have made some headway in the bedroom.

Look what I got a photo of this morning! :)

He was in our neighbor's backyard across the street.



Well, today's the day! We pick up the keys to our new apartment right after work, then head to a banquet for the local chapter of STC. Gonna be a busy day!

Tomorrow, I stay home and supervise the movers packing all of the rest of our stuff. Plus I get to deal with a plumber and an appliance repair man (for repairs requested on the house in the repair addendum). Fun fun fun! :)

I made it to the 2nd round of the CT search for DigiChick Designer Heather Roselli! :)

Because of all the moving stuff this week, I downloaded her kit and promptly did my layout, even though it wasn't due until 8 p.m. Friday. Tonight, we sort stuff for the movers (needs packing, we are moving it ourselves, post it notes on more stuff), tomorrow night we go get the keys for our apartment and then go to a banquet, and Friday night I could conceivably be without Internet connection! *gasp*

The appraiser came at 7:30 this morning - we were gone by 6:45. Of course, that's much later than we normally get out of the house (6:15), but we still got out before they got there.

Oh yeah, here's the layout I did for Round 2! :)



Supplies:

Heather Roselli, "Simply Delightful" kit
Virtual Photographer, Sepia filter
Atomic Cupcake, Wild Tear action
Font: CaslonNo540SwaD

I did it!

I exercised last night at the gym. One down, two to go this week! :) Turns out, our athletic club has upgraded the machines so that there are flat panel tvs in front of a lot of the machines, with a remote control that has a headphone jack. Those 25 minutes went by in a flash last night, since I was watching "While You Were Out" on TLC (the episode with Roger Clemens). I plan on walking around the building at work at least once today - twice if I'm inspired. :D

We haven't gotten the official repair addendum, but we've been told they are asking for two repairs, one that we expected (gas stove problem) and one that we didn't (drip from connection to water meter down in the crawl space). Guess we'll see if they ask for anything else - it's not like there could really be much wrong with a less than 2 year old home. :)

Things are moving really fast!

We did some last minute errands yesterday to make moving easier this weekend. Picked up some bright neon post it notes to mark what stays, what *we* are moving, what goes to the apartment, and what goes into storage. That way, the movers know what to pack on Friday, and what to move on Saturday. They will bring two trucks on Saturday, and one will go to storage room(s) and one to the apartment.

So, I've probably mentioned that our buyers haven't set the home inspection. :) Well, we got a call at 9 a.m. this morning from our agent, and the inspection is scheduled for 2 p.m. TODAY! Talk about short notice! The house is certainly not "show home" clean, as we have post it notes stuck all over the house, boxes leaning up against walls, and we might have left a dish or two in the sink instead of in the dishwasher. The crawl space access is not accessible without moving "stuff" in the hall closet, which we did not get a chance to do - we were waiting for notice before doing that. Guess they'll just have to deal with it...

We met with a couple of friends yesterday for dinner, and arranged for one of those friends to stay with us on the 24th. She'll get to sleep on our newly acquired queen size Aerobed from Costco, because we really didn't expect guests. She'll be going scrapbooking with me.

Starting tomorrow, it's 28 days to July 4th! I have committed to a challenge on the Digi Chick to do something related to weight loss for the next 28 days.

They say it takes 21 days to form or break a habit. Well, I’m going to use the next 28 days
to form a new habit: exercise! I admit, I’ve gotten out of the habit. My biggest exercise is
walking around the office during the day, or walking to and from the car at home and
work. This does not give me near enough exercise.

I am so out of shape.

I’ve gained weight.

I’m a size 18 in pants and skirts purely because of my stomach. My legs *swim* in pants
that size, but the fabric holds on to my “football” stomach like a banana peel on a banana.
Wearing clothes this big makes me feel HUGE, like an overstuffed sausage.

I’m a size 18 in shirts as well. And my bra size? It's way too big. This is
unacceptable. I’m wearing XXL in t-shirts purely because of the size of my chest.

Here it is, almost summer, and I am in the worst shape I’ve been in since 2002.

My goal for the next 28 days:

Exercise 30 minutes three times a week, no matter what day it is (weekend or not).

There are no excuses, not even moving.

I will take my bicycle to the shop for a tune-up.

I will ride my bicycle to work at least once in the next 28 days. More if I feel like it, but I
must do it at least once.

There are no excuses.

I will form a life-changing habit, regardless of whether I lose any weight. I will not allow
weight gain to torpedo my exercise habit, I will use it as incentive to accomplish my goal.

One of my friends, Lisa, graduated from the local community college last night with an Associate of Science Transfer Degree (she can transfer into any Oregon 4 year university with the first two years done).

I'd say she was pretty happy to have this first phase done - off she goes to Portland State University in the fall!

Week 1 on Weight Watchers ended yesterday, with a *3* lb loss! :)

Yes, I'm back on the WW wagon. Not only do I feel out of shape, I seem to be out of breath just walking up the stairs. And next year is my 20 year high school reunion! EEK! I intend on getting in shape and healthy for myself, but a little incentive doesn't hurt. :D

No home inspection yet. The movers came yesterday to look over the house for a packing/moving estimate. Looks like it will take 6 hours (or less) to pack up the rest of our stuff, and about 7.5 (or less) hours to move it the next day. They'll actually have two trucks on moving day - one that goes to the storage room and one that goes to the apartment. Since it's such a long drive one way, it's more efficient to pack both up at the same time then just head for their final destination.

We have reserved an apartment, and will get the keys on June 15th (next Thursday).

Good thing, since my husband booked the movers for the 17th (Saturday). I just realized that it is the same day as my nephew's 2nd birthday party, but we'll work around that. I may end up going while he deals with the movers.

I'm looking forward to being closer to work. The apartment is within a mile of work, which means I *could* ride my bike during the summer months. I may just do that, while we still have access to the showers here at work. The apartment is also less than 2 miles from the gym/athletic club, so we may end up biking there too.

It's been a LONG weekend!

On Friday afternoon, at 4:15 p.m., my agent called to let me know that they wanted the house. Unfortunately, the husband of the couple was still at work and would be there until 1o p.m., so they would sign the paperwork the next morning. No problem.

Saturday morning, we ran a whole bunch of errands over on that side of town: moved a load into storage, got a second storage unit for furniture (um yeah, the first one was filling up fast with just boxes), deposited some checks in the bank. All the while, we figured we'd get a call and we could head straight over to the real estate office and get the paperwork over with. We even called our agent twice - no "news" from the buyer's agent. So, we left for home around 2:30 p.m., and pretty much figured that since we weren't hearing anything, that the buyers jerked us around yet once again and that we needed to rev up the marketing on the house.

Around 9 p.m. last night, my agent called --- good news! The buyers had signed our counter offer earlier in the day. Our agent got the paperwork this morning via email and sent it to us. Lo and behold, it turns out that the buyers signed the counter offer at 2 p.m.! I'm not very happy with the buyer's agent - they let us stew for hours thinking that something had gone wrong.

We have an apartment complex sorta lined up, but my husband wants to check into long term executive suite type rentals. So, we'll delay for a day or two on applying for an apartment, while he checks it out. I think he'll find out we can't have 3 cats in one of those places - but he needs to find it out his way. :) Plus, it will be good to wait just a day or two to make sure that the buyers don't back out, given the last 10 days.

Today, we took another load to the storage room and did some more errands, then cleaned out the fridge, did some laundry, and just sat and relaxed and watched television. Kinda nice! :)

Still waiting to know if our house is sold, or if they are going to counteroffer, or if they are going to back out. Stay tuned, it should all be over by 5 p.m. Pacific. :)

In better news, I'm on day 3 of Weight Watchers online. I've done well at keeping within my points, resisting temptation, and trying to drink more water. Some of the tricks I use to keep myself on track:

- Make Kool Aid with Splenda. I hate plain water all the time, and this makes it easy to get water down.

- Have options at work other than vending machines. Thankfully, work has several refrigerators, so there is room to put some groceries. And unlike other workplaces, I rarely get my food stolen. :)

I'm going scrapbooking tonight with my best friend. I'll be leaving work early so I can pick her up and take her home to get her supplies. Then we'll head over to the store and scrap our little hearts out. Well, I might scrap...I think I'll just be happy to get "out" and socialize. :)

Well, not the update I expected to post, but better than nothing:

The buyers asked for a 24 hour extension on our counter offer. Turns out that they were outside our house for 2.5 hours trying to get their boat (must be a land yacht) to go up the driveway. Something about the motor being too large. While they are deciding what to do (back out, find an older house with more land, find a newer house with more land and no HOA), they need time. Apparently one of the kids got sick, and the husband had to go to work, so our deadline of 5 p.m. PST today is too fast.

We gave them the 24 hour extension. No harm done.

I just hope to be giving better news tomorrow. Right now I'm just disappointed to not have it over with, one way or the other.

So, I got home last night and found out that the buyers have "unofficially" accepted the offer, but they wanted to check *one* more thing out: they wanted to drive their truck (with boat in tow) to our house, and back it up the driveway. The reason? They want to see if the tow hitch bottoms out on the driveway. Ooookay....whatever....just don't back out on buying the house. :)

Right now we are waiting to hear from my agent, who is supposed to hear from their agent when they are done. Presumably, if the driveway is acceptable, the agent and buyers are together and can sign the counteroffer and get it back to my agent ASAP. After all, they want the house to close *5* weeks from today. That's not a lot of time to get an inspector in, much less fix anything (not that there is anything to fix). We need to line up an apartment, turn on/off utilities and all that stuff...we need some closure man! :)

Submitted the counter offer last night. No news yet this morning.

Apparently, our agent got a call yesterday about our house from someone who had seen our listing on craigslist.com. She took the woman's name and number, and promised to call if the current transaction fell through. Kind of cool that our posting on craigslist is actually generating a response. :)

I sure hope the current folks accept our counter offer. I want to be able to make a mess in my house without having to clean it up right away. Or even scrapbook without worrying that someone is going to want to see the house...funny how those little things become so important!

Got the offer this morning!

It came in a little below our acceptable threshold, so we are meeting with our agent tonight after work to do a counter-offer. I'll let you know when we have an accepted offer.

In the meantime, there are a whole bunch of things we need to do once the offer is accepted. Applying for an apartment is the first thing - because that will determine move date for us. They want it to close by July 6th, which is 5 weeks from this Thursday. :)

Just got notice from my agent that we will be receiving an offer tomorrow morning. These folks took a look at our house twice on Thursday, but took the weekend to make up their mind. And since it's a holiday, they will be doing the paperwork tomorrow.

Now, if I could just read their mind and see if they are going to do a full price offer, I'd sleep ever so much better tonight...

Today, before we found out, we went shopping to get some new clothes for my husband. He needed some new jeans, and we threw a couple of polo shirts, a new belt, and a new wallet. I got a new pair of jeans too. :) Then we spent several hours with my husband's family. We were at Olive Garden with them when we got the call.

No news on the offer. Maybe Monday or Tuesday. We have a feeling they are first time buyers, so they may not be able to afford our house.

In the meantime, we drove down to Eugene and spent some time with our friends touring wineries. Memorial Day weekend is a big winery tour weekend, some wineries are only open on this weekend and Thanksgiving weekend.

Here's a shot of the vineyards at Iris Hill winery:

Patience is a virtue. I hate waiting! :)

The folks who looked at our house yesterday morning came back to look yesterday evening with a set of parents. This is a GOOD sign. :) Let's hope it results in an offer! And, there is a showing going on right now, different agent and buyers, so at least the showings are picking up.

Still, it's hard to wait to see if people are going to make an offer. Work work work - that'll keep my mind off the prospect! And I know my mom (my agent) would call me as soon as she got an offer, so I can rest easy...it's just SO hard waiting.

Here's a layout I did last night to showcase Heather Roselli's "Vegas Baby" kit, available today at the TDC Boutique. I have lots more Vegas pictures to scrap, so you'll be seeing more layouts like this!

Woohoo! I just got some good news!

First, I just heard from an organization I'm heavily involved with (STC, at stc.org) that they want to put all of my photos up on their website, alongside the professional photographer's photos. So cool! :)

And even better, we have another showing today at 10 a.m., and they seem really interested in our house. Fingers and toes crossed again please! :)

I've told my husband that I want to start taking recreational dance classes. I need some exercise that doesn't feel like exercise. :)

Today is my husband's 40th birthday! Happy birthday honey!

And happy birthday to my friend Alan, who generously shares his birthday with my husband. :)

We had a showing of the house yesterday. First showing since we dropped the price and rearranged the "not quite a dining room" into a conversation area. Now we are just waiting to see if we get any feedback from the showing agent. While I'm frustrated that no offer resulted from the showing, at least someone was interested in seeing the house! Our flyers keep disappearing out of the flyer box in front of the house, and it can't all be neighbors looking to price their hosues or neighborhood kids out for a lark.

Heading down to Eugene on Saturday for a trip around the local wineries. We'll stay Saturday night, then head to the coast and drive up leisurely on Sunday. Then we'll visit my husband's parents on Monday, so they can see him somewhere near his birthday (it's impossible to meet up on the day all the time).

My latest layout, of my husband and his mom on this year's Mother's Day.



Created using Heather Roselli's "April Showers" kit, available at the DigiChick.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it has been a few days! :)

Saturday was pretty much a relaxing day. Sunday was quite busy, with two meals/families. 9 a.m. on one side of town with my in-laws, and 11:45 a.m. on the other side of town with my family. I got some pictures, I'll post them soon! :)

We got some feedback on our house from a showing last Thursday. As a result, we slightly dropped the price, rearranged the dining room to look like a conversation area, and put some knobs/pulls on the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen. We'll see if it works! While my dad was over last night, installing the new light fixture, someone drove up and got a flyer out of the flyer box. Amazing to actually see someone take one, we've been thinking that it's the neighborhood kids taking out one flyer at a time. Wish us good luck!

Finished my 2nd round layout!

You can see it here:

This is Me

It's Friday! I can't wait to sleep in tomorrow.

We had 2 showings yesterday, one that didn't leave a card, and one at about 8 p.m. --- gotta love those driveby "We're in your driveway, can we take a look at your house right now" calls.

We'll see if anything comes of it - I'm not holding my breath.

I'm back! :)

The plane landed at about 10:45 p.m. and I finally got home at about 12:15 a.m. Baggage claim didn't take too long, and it was a fairly quick drive home, although I started falling asleep about 10 miles away.

I had a good time, walked a LOT, and took lots of pictures. Most of them are not exciting scenic, cool Las Vegas pics, but pictures of people within the organization receiving awards and doing fun things, so you probably won't see many pictures posted here.

I was presented with quite a few opportunities this weekend. These opportunities will lead to greater visibility within the organization, and I intend on running for the upcoming 2006 - 2007 election, so I will be doing some soul searching and prioritizing this coming weekend.

In other news, no one is looking at the house. We haven't had a showing in 2 weeks. The flyers keep disappearing from the flyer box, but we really aren't sure if it is potential buyers or kids in the neighborhood removing the flyers.

Did I mention I'm tired? I was at work this morning at 8:30 a.m., after going to bed at 1 a.m. *Yawn* Early to bed for me tonight, after I finish my layout for the 2nd round of the Ultimate Digital Scrapper contest. :)

14,000 steps. That's how many steps I walked today. I got a pedometer a couple weeks ago, and remembered to throw it in my bag while packing, so I decided to wear it today during the conference. 14,000 steps! No wonder my legs hurt! And of course, the squatting down in "photographer's wait mode" didn't help the muscles any.

Here's today's photo. This is in the convention center between Bally's and Paris Hotels.

I'm in Vegas, baby! :)

Here's the view from my hotel room. Sorry for the small size/quality, I'm trying to keep file size/bandwidth low. The sun is setting at the right corner of the hotel, which is why it's blown out there.

I've posted my first challenge layout!

I can't post it anywhere but the contest gallery, so you'll have to go here to see it.

3 days to Las Vegas!

Tonight, I go to the eye doctor to get my annual eye exam. I'm pretty sure my prescription has changed. I'm looking forward to choosing new glasses, I'm going to get some cool ones that also have the magnetic clip-on sunglasses like my husband.

Tomorrow is my last day of work until after the conference.

Friday, I'm going to a day spa to cash in my birthday gift from my husband: wrap, massage, facial, manicure, pedicure. Then I head to the salon and get my hair cut and colored. Then some of my friends are having a (late) birthday gathering for me at a friend's house, so I'll be all nice and relaxed...

It has begun - the Ultimate Digital Scrapper contest at digiscrappin.biz!



The first challenge is:

Put Your Best Photo Forward!

This week’s challenge is all about the photos! Photos are one of the most powerful forms of preserving your memories. We’re looking for your best photo in a layout that highlights it! Please select one photo that reflects something meaningful to you. Photo manipulation, filters, editing etc are all ok – this is the time to make your photo shine!

If you feel like you have already scrapped your best photo – feel free to scrap it again – but remember, this must be a brand new original layout!!!!!!!

**Photo should be your own original photograph – please no stock photography or photos taken from photography studios or other copyrighted materials.**

Judges will be looking for:

A captivating quality photo
An overall layout that highlights photo
Creativity and Uniqueness

You can check out the challenge gallery here to look at the layouts.

I was busy this weekend!

My husband's brother came over on Saturday and helped dismantle the universal gym in one of our rooms. Now we have an almost empty room, freshly vacuumed. The house was given the once over, vacuumed both days, and cleaned to "show home" clean. Still, no one came to look at it. :(

I did three digital scraplifted layouts yesterday. You can see them here:


You can see the original layout here at 2peas.


The original is here at 2peas.


The original layout is here.

My Favorite Things

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sadI simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad

I was inspired by an ad challenge last night (from the Pub on 2peas).



I used Heather Roselli's "April Showers" kit for the papers, and Marsha Zepeda's "Quote Pack - Beauty and Wonder" for the word art quote. Font is Garamond Premier Pro.

No showings on the house. It's starting to get really disappointing and frustrating that no one is looking at our house. We were told that the dining room looks too small with the table in it, so we're trying to figure out what to do with that (do we put the table in another room, covered up or do we dismantle/disassemble it and put it in storage?). In the meantime, we bought two bar stools for the kitchen's island counter, and we switched out the painting in the dining room (has a huge frame that sticks out a lot) and put up a print that one of my sisters gave me for my birthday. Looks really nice there. :)

In 9 days, I'll be heading for Las Vegas. Woohoo! Too bad it's for a conference, and I won't have a lot of time for play. :)

Scrapbooker Karen Russell is hosting a fundraiser for Women for Women International. I'm posting the main information here, but for WAY MORE detailed information, check out Karen's blog.

So here’s how it’s going to work:

It’s simple - it’s a drawing. The winners (and there will be a whole lot of you – more than 135 winners) will either win a 1 page layout completed by a “well-known” scrapbooker (using your photos of course) or a $50.00 prize package. Cool, eh?

For the next two weeks (through May 8th), we’ll be taking $1.00 donations on behalf of Women for Women International. Each $1.00 donation will enter your name into the drawing one time (so if for example, you donate 25 bucks, you will be entered into the drawing 25 times). 100% of your donations will go directly to this organization and to helping women around the world.

Every day, I’ll post where we’re at with donations so you’ll all know how it’s going.

On Sunday, May 14th (Happy Mothers Day to all you wonderful women), I’ll post the names of the winners here on my blog along with a photo of a big, fat cashiers check made payable to Women for Women International.

Don't forget, information on how to donate is available on Karen's blog.

This is where I went for my birthday today!

This photo was taken at the Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center.



And I saw this on the way back down towards Silver Lake:

Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday, dear me
Happy Birthday to me!

Today, I share my birthday with the following folks (in addition to Shakespeare):

Actress Janet Blair is 85.
Actor David Birney is 67.
Actor Lee Majors ("Six Million Dollar Man") is 67.
Actress Blair Brown is 58.
Actress Joyce DeWitt ("Three's Company") is 57.
Actor James Russo is 53.
Director Michael Moore is 52.
Actress Judy Davis is 51.
Actress Jan Hooks is 49.
Actress Valerie Bertinelli is 46.
Comedian George Lopez is 45.
Drummer Gen (Jesus Jones) is 42.
Actress Melina Kanakaredes ("Providence") is 39.
Drummer Stan Frazier of Sugar Ray is 38.
Country guitarist Tim Womack of Sons of the Desert is 38.
Actor Scott Bairstow ("Party of Five") is 36.

In addition, my mom's birthday was yesterday (4/22) and my brother-in-law's birthday is tomorrow (4/24).

Just think, this time last year, I was in Las Vegas for my birthday celebration. :)

I caved! I asked for this as my birthday present this year:



And that's what I got today, from CompUSA. It's charging right now!

At the home stretch, I almost didn't get the pink - the sales associate had the pretty cobalt blue version too. But, my eye kept wandering back to the magenta one, so there you go! Due to rebates and such, it will end up being free, so now we're thinking of another present I could get. :)

We had a great time with our friends at breakfast this morning. Apparently, today does NOT count as a birthday get together, so that will be next Saturday at someone's house (other than ours, which is still on the market).

Tomorrow is the open house, from 1 - 4 p.m. Fingers and toes crossed that someone falls in love with it right away and makes an immediate offer. :)

You could tell me tonight
That maybe the world would end
That the sun wouldn’t rise
And it was gonna rain again
...
It’s gonna be a perfect day

Clay Aiken, Perfect Day

No news on the real estate front. No offers yet!

However, we do have a showing at 10:30-11:00 this morning. Looks like someone saw our house on Craigslist and is very interested. Let's hope they really like it and make an offer! That would be a very cool birthday present!

Apparently, I'm Kermit. :)

You Are Kermit

Hi, ho! Lovable and friendly, you get along well with everyone you know.You're a big thinker, and sometimes you over think life's problems.Don't worry - everyone know's it's not easy being green.Just remember, time's fun when you're having flies!

I was tagged! My good friend Becky T tagged my blog! :)

To return the favor, I want to chat it up about Becky. Ever since I met Becky online, it was like we'd been friends for all of our lives, even though we've never met in real life. She has a unique way of seeing the world, and always creates the most inspiring and motivating layouts. I'm very proud of all of her scrapbooking accomplishments and get a thrill seeing my friend's layouts in magazines. She makes it easy to get through every day at work - I don't know how I'd do it without her emails. You can't (and shouldn't) talk about everything at work, so she's a great confidante and listener.

Now, it' s my turn to tag someone. I am going to tag Diana! :) Yes, yes, I know you tagged me last week, and I will get those answers up. Might even get them up today! :)

Well, it was a slow, (mostly) quiet weekend.

No showings on Saturday or Sunday. Guess the Easter weekend had something to do with that. I sure hope more people look at it next weekend, when we have our open house.

We went to the DMV, renewed our tags on our 2nd car, checked our mail, and my husband got a haircut. Then we had dinner with my brother-in-law and his girlfriend at a local restaurant. First time they'd been to our house - figured they should see it before we put it on the market. :)

This morning, we got up early and had breakfast with my mother-in-law, (same) brother-in-law, and his girlfriend. It was her birthday on Friday, and she also wanted to give me my birthday present. When we got home, I promptly conked out for a nap, I was so tired.

Spent the day resting, catching up on unwatched TiVo programs. Tomorrow's a new day!

Let's hope tomorrow brings more showings and potential offers. I really don't want the house to be on the market that long. It's stressful keeping it this clean. :D

Clean and Simple 2 is HERE! So is Tracy White's Photography book!

I just called my scrapbook store and they both just arrived in the store. My copies are set aside and I'll have them in my hot little hands by 6 p.m. this evening. :)

Nothing like a double whammy of idea books to get the juices stirred up for scrapbooking. I'm headed to an old favorite scrap store tonight, haven't been there in a while.

UPDATE!

I can now officially let everyone know that I lost the election I was in. I was one of 5 candidates, and only 2 could win, so 2 other folks are disappointed too. I wasn't in last place, but by such a slim margin (2 votes), I consider it a tie.

I appreciate everyone's support. I had a day or two to "mourn" and now I'm moving on. I will still be attending my conference and it will show more than words can say that I'm still committed to be a leader in my profession to show up when I've lost. No hiding my head in the sand.

I haven't decided if I want to run next year or take a breather. It has been brought to my attention that as silly as it may seem, I may just be too young (less than 10 years in the organization, just less than 10 years in the profession) to be elected.

Whew! The house is on the market, officially!

Entered this morning, already showing up on the MLS websites and everything. My agent just has to make one fix - she put the 2004 property taxes (the land didn't have a house, much lower) instead of the 2005 taxes (house on land, much higher). Apparently the database didn't show 2005, but we have records to show what we paid.

In other news, the election results have still not been made official, so I still can't say anything publicly. ARGH! Get the official email out already! Better yet, get it up on the official website. :)

Wish us good luck for a speedy house sale. I really hate having to keep my house looking like a show home. :)

Just had to post this review of the Queen concert before I head to bed.

OMG!

I just saw Queen (with Paul Rodgers) in concert. They ROCKED! I knew our seats were good, but I didn't realize how good they were...I was 20 feet from the stage, and probably 30 feet from Brian May at any given time (unless he was on the walkways).

My ears are still ringing. I *might* be able to hear again in the morning.

They even did Bohemian Rhapsody, by having a big screen behind them with Freddie Mercury in concert footage doing the song - that was spectacular!

Wow! I can honestly say that the ticket price was worth it, staying up past my bedtime was worth it (we're in bed by 10 p.m. Pacific, 5 a.m. comes early)...and the temporary hearing loss was worth it.

Off to bed now.....

WOOHOO!

We are attending the "Queen and Paul Rodgers" concert tonight. I'm so excited! We haven't been a concert since we saw Journey in September 2004. While we aren't on the floor, we are in very decent seats, the front row of our section, so we'll be far enough from speakers, but close enough to see the band.

I received the election results last night. Unfortunately, I cannot publicly reveal the results to any faithful blog readers until the results have been officially announced. While word seems to be trickling out here and there, nothing's final until the email is in my inbox.

Today's the day!

I am a candidate for an elected position in the professional organization that receives all my volunteer hours. I ran for the position of nominating committee. There were 5 candidates, and only 2 can be elected. Today's the day I find out if I was elected or not. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, as I ran in the same election last year (different position) and did not win. If it is anything like last year, if I am not elected, I will receive a call tomorrow. So if I don't get a call by this evening, I can probably assume I am not a winning candidate. That's how it worked last year.

If elected, I will step into my position at the upcoming conference in Las Vegas. I will still attend the conference even if I lose, as I am a presenter, but it would be nice to attend as an elected official. :)

Wish me luck!

In other news, the house is almost ready! We removed the showerhead extension and reinstalled the original showerhead (the original one assumes that both of us are MUCH taller than we are), steam cleaned the carpet in the front area, donated a truckload of stuff to the Salvation Army, and got closer to "stage" clean. What's left to do? Vacuum all carpets, clear the hall closet so it doesn't look so cluttered, wipe down the bathtub and shower surfaces, pick up clothes in the master bedroom closet, and make sure the kitty litter boxes are not overflowing.

On Saturday, I accomplished quite a bit. I did (11) 11x8.5 layouts, and one 2 page 12x12 layout (minus journaling). The 12x12 was for my best friend, pictures of her daughter's face over the years. The other 11 pages were for a "conference" album I'm going to take with me to Las Vegas. I am thinking I could also add pages for 2004 and 2003 in time for the conference.

Here are a couple of layouts I did for the digital design team at Treasures to Scrap. Valerie Fowler (ValGal) is the digital sponsor for April.

This one was done using Valerie's "Trying 2B Girly" kit, and the staples from her "Rustic Craft" kit.



This was one done using Valerie's "Days of Eden" kit.

WOOHOO! Happy Friday!

Tonight, my husband and I are heading over to a friend's house for a barbecue. Informal, casual, just getting together to catch up on each other's lives....kinda nice to have a kickback time in the midst of all the house madness.

We drove by our lot again yesterday. Nope, nothing has changed. :) Construction isn't even scheduled to start until at least June, but it's nice to drive around and point out our lot marker. Some of our friends have driven by to take a look.

Tomorrow, I'm going paper scrapping with my best friend. Don't know what time we're going, but we'll be scrapping for at least six hours. Guess I better upload some pictures to Costco so I have something to scrap! :)

On Sunday, we'll be fixing up all the little stuff in the house. The showerhead in the master bathroom, carpet cleaning all over, and painting any little spots that need a touchup.

The paperwork is signed!

Our house officially goes on the market next Thursday. It was supposed to be tomorrow, but the yard folks won't be done until next Wednesday. It will show better to potential buyers without all the weeds and with some fresh barkdust. :)

In the meantime, I can slow down a bit and recover from this infection I seemed to pick up. I thought it was a sinus infection at first, but I think it has something to do with my mouth (the gums). I did have dental work done last week, so it is the first possibility to explore. I see the dentist tomorrow at 10:30. Let's hope it's a gum infection and not strep throat, which someone brought up at work today. I've never had strep, so I wouldn't know it if I did.

The scrapbook room is no more. Pretty much all I've got left is a computer desk w/hutch, a bookcase, and three stacked cubes. And my XXL tote...that's supposed to last me until we get into an apartment, which is after we have an accepted offer.

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days!

Been busy trying to get the house packed and 'staged' and cleaned.

Tomorrow we sign the paperwork to put the house on the market for Thursday.

Wish us luck that it sells fast (priced right, good location, great view)... :)

A friend is doing a fundraiser, so I said I'd post her eBay auction on my blog. Take a look, it's for a good cause:

Two Front Teeth

Should I be worried that I'm now up to 17 boxes for the scrapbooking room? :) Granted, 5 of those are very small (12x12x12) boxes, but it just makes you wonder. The rest are Uhaul small boxes though - it's much easier to carry those boxes full of paper and stuff if they aren't in a large, overloaded box.

Getting rid of three tall 5-shelf bookcases, and we are taking down the 6' foot tables that line one of the walls. We actually want people to see that the room is big, and not cluttered with all my collected stuff. :)

Still haven't found a storage facility, so I guess the house goes on the market next week with all of our boxes in the garage.

Just keep packing, just keep packing...packing, packing, packing.....

Not only are we packing, we are sorting and purging too. Given the constraints of the garage in our new home, we have to. You actually *gasp* have to be able to park both vehicles in the garage! Heck, we've parked one car in the garage ONE time in the last 7 years. Big change for us, but at least it's helping us "weed" out the stuff we no longer need. My dad took one entire truck load on Sunday for the home he's remodeling, we took a truck load to Salvation Army, and we are still sorting and purging. I even have a pile for Dress for Success, dockers, jackets, etcetera.

We looked at an apartment complex yesterday. It was the only one in this area that I could find that actually allows you to have 3 pets, and we made sure that the words mean that 3 cats are okay. The apartment sure is small (1000 sq ft) compared to our current home (2300 sq ft), so it's going to take some getting used to once we move. They even offered (for an extra monthly fee) to furnish the apartment...which we might just do, since we have a king size bed...and the bedrooms are not king-size rooms. :) We're trying to think of it like an extended hotel stay.

Well, today we signed the papers for our house. The current house goes on the market next Thursday. We viewed an apartment complex today that will allow us to have our three cats. The two bedroom apartment is pretty small compared to this house, so we'll really have to condense and store A LOT of stuff.

Here's the two of us, standing behind our lot marker at the new house. I'll keep the pictures updated, especially as construction starts. :)

One of my favorites memories of my grandparents has to do with Sunday. When we lived back on the East Coast (or visited during the summers), we'd go to church every Sunday. When we got back home, there would be some time to change clothes and maybe play, before it was time for Sunday dinner. We'd have what *we* called Sunday potatoes (aka scalloped potatoes or funeral potatotes), cinnamon rolls, roast beef, and some vegetable. Just thinking about it brings back the smells of the food, the sounds of children running around, and visions of my grandparents' house. Boy, life has changed since then. My grandparents no longer live in the house my grandfather built after his retirement, my grandfather has passed away, and my grandmother no longer cooks for a horde of folks come Sunday afternoon.

One of the decisions we made when I got this new job was that we need to sell our current house and move closer (the commute is currently 45 minutes in good traffic, 1/3 of the trip on a curvy switchback one lane each direction road).

So, we've been looking for houses on the weekends and packing up to move so we can stage our house.

One of the places we saw was a development about 15 minutes away. But it had a LONG priority waiting list - we were #80 on the list! About every 2-3 weeks, they "release" homes. Today, they had a release at 9 a.m. - and it's not based on when you show up, but where you are on the waiting list among the people who show up.

There were 8 homes to be released today. Out of those 8, we liked the site/lot/floorplan of 4, so we had a good chance, IF the crowd was small. Well, the crowd was small (6 couples) but we were couple #5. Our 3rd and 4th choice houses went right away with the first two couples. 3rd couple took our 2nd choice house. And luck of all luck, the 4th couple decided to do one of the other 4 houses, leaving us our first choice house! Woohoo!

Never in a million years did we think that we'd get our house being that far down the priority list. And the 6th couple (they were #86) got what they wanted too....fortunately, these are all of future neighbors, so it's nice we got to meet today. We wouldn't have had a chance if it hadn't been the start of spring break here...I think most folks were out of town.

Now, we just need to finish getting our house packed up and on the market!

Time sure flies fast when you are having fun! :)

Friday night, we had a lovely steak and baked potato dinner with our friends.

Early Saturday morning, I woke my scrapping buddies up at the crack of dawn to get our butts to the Oregon Convention Center by 8 a.m., since our classes started at 8:30 and we needed to pick up tickets and all that jazz. When we were almost there, I realized I forgot my entry for the SS layout contest - what a bummer! :( I entered the Epson digital contest, and still don't know who won. Epson announced the results a day late at the Saturday night crop, which I did not attend because I was at the 2peas Pubster dinner at BJ's....and then I dragged my friends home so we could crash from all the excitement and shopping.

Speaking of shopping...yes I did buy stuff... :) Technique Tuesday stamps, Basic Grey papers, and some Rusty Pickle items.

On Sunday, we slept in, then headed to breakfast. Once we safely got our friends over the Pass, we headed house hunting. We had also decided to put ourselves on the priority waiting list for a home site near my new job. We filled out their paperwork and left to look at other places. Frankly, other than one other development, nothing we saw was worth the prices the builders were asking. Yes, I know the housing bubble has yet to burst here, but I wish it would...the prices are getting ridiculous.

The good news is that the home site is doing a "release" of 8 sites on Saturday. It being Spring Break, there may not be a lot of folks showing up to see if they can get one...at least, that's what we are hoping, since we are #80 on the list! :) Say 10 people show up....not only would 2 people have to "waive" picking the lots, the lots left would have to be something we'd want. We'd be satisfied with any one of 4 of the 8 lots - 2 houses each of 2 plans...the other 2 plans are just not the right flow/plan. Wish us luck! We're giving up attending breakfast with friends to go, so hopefully it's worth it!

Woohoo! My friends arrive this evening! While I've been helping AmyJo get the March de-zine out, my husband has been packing and cleaning. I've helped where I can, but it's been hit and miss. My big responsibility was the scrap room. The table is mostly clean, I need to pick up a few things on the floor and vacuum, but otherwise we are good to go. Of course, we are waiting for our guests to help us move the futon upstairs, it was quite a chore just getting that in the house with the two of us....

I'm entering the Simple Scrapbooks layout contest and the Epson digital contest at the convention this weekend. If I can get some time tonight with my friends, I will create one more layout for the Scrapworks contest. You can't win if you don't enter, and at least I'll have three more layouts to put in my albums!

2 more days until my friends arrive for the convention! Woohoo! :)

De-zine will finish up tonight, and be in the boutique for sale tomorrow. Had some DSL issues last night that required a reboot of the DSL router, but all is fine now.

Going to go see the subdivision tomorrow with my mom. She needs to get registered so we can proceed with seeing if we can get one of the homes. My husband has pretty much decided that if we can't get acreage (3 acres or more), he wants new so he can fix it up the way we want. And given our lifestyles and jobs, we'd end up paying someone to decorate anyway, so why not build it into the house from the get go?

Well, we started packing this weekend. I packed up *7* boxes alone for the scrapbook room, medium sized UHaul boxes. :) I'm keeping a running list of the major contents of each box, and numbering each box, so it's easy to determine which ones to unpack first on the other end.

Speaking of moving, we looked at a new subdivision this weekend and liked it alot. I know, I know....DH really wants acreage, but we're just not going to get it right now, not at the price he wants to pay. So, we'll buy a new home now, live in it for at least 5 years, buy a piece of land sometime in the next 5 years, and start building our dream home at some point in the future. I'll let you know what happens. My mom, who is my real estate agent, needs to be registered with the home builder so she can get a commission if we decide to buy there.

Best part is, it's only 15 minutes from work. Much better than 45 minutes, that extra half hour will be devoted to sleep, I can tell you.

I'm frantically getting ready to do final prep work on the March issue of De-zine at the Digi Chick. As soon as I get home, it's prep time! :) I'm sure AmyJo is anxiously awaiting my arrival.

This weekend, I'm going to the Creating Keepsakes Oregon Scrapbook Convention. I have 2 friends driving in from out of town to stay both Friday and Saturday nights. One friend has booked herself classes all day long, except for lunch...the other is taking it easy and just seeing what's available when she gets on site. I have two scheduled classes (The Joy of Cardmaking 2 and Creating Your Own Digital Elements) and I just picked up helping out Courtney DeLaura at one of the Rusty Pickle classes in my slack time.

My dad borrowed my camera this past weekend. I got an email yesterday that went something like this, "I see why you had issues using my little toy camera...." :) He has it until Friday, and then my husband will pick it up on the way home, so I can take pictures of all my friends at the convention.

And I'm attending the 2peas Pubster dinner on Saturday night, with my two friends (and another friend who can only join us for dinner) in tow. They've got goodie bags, and it's always cool to meet new scrapping buddies you've only talked via online message boards.

It has been an interesting week and a half. :)

Got through my first week of work. No isuses there, just getting used to being a permanent employee again. And I even get to work on a team! :D

On Saturday, I spent most of the day glued in front of my computer, hosting a trivia challenge at the Digi Chick. Slowness aside, the game was good, and the slowness meant that folks were visiting the site! :)

Sunday, my mom came over to help us figure out what to pack and how to stage our house, in preparation for putting it on the market. Yep, that's right...we're going to move back to the other side of the pass, so it's easier to get to work. As long as we work in high tech, we'll be working in that area or just beyond, it just plain makes sense. After she left, I started a load of laundry in preparation for the week ahead. Lo and behold, my dear husband left a pair of cat claw clippers in his jeans pocket, and they managed to get stuck in the holes in the dryer, and things went downhill, ending with the motor burning out on the dryer. This poor dryer was only 15 months old. *sniff* We have a new dryer arriving on Friday afternoon.

Tuesday, I had a root canal. Yes, it did hurt after the anesthetic wore off. Yes, I do have pain pills for that. :) I get the crown next Friday, right before the scrapbooking convention. I actually think I'm in more pain from the root canal than I was from the broken filling. Sigh.

I can't wait for tomorrow (Friday). Jeans day at work. One of the hardest adjustments to my new job is wearing business casual (dockers and polo shirts) instead of jeans and t-shirts. While I'm not going to wear a t-shirt tomorrow, at least I get to wear jeans! Woohoo! It's the small things in life, ya know. :)

First day of work went fairly smoothly! Well, they didn't have my computer ready first thing when I got there (8:30), but by the time I got out of benefits orientation (11:00) I not only had a computer, but two monitors. :) Then my manager took me out for lunch. Day went by pretty fast, got signed up for benefits, and started learning about the industry.

They had no issue with us parking our second car overnight Monday-Thursday nights, so we don't have to drive both cars over the pass every day...and it saves on gas & wear and tear on both vehicles. The only problem is how early I'll get there, but I'll just head to the gym to workout, instead of going into work at 6:45....*shudder*.....wish me luck! I'll need it, starting exercise back up again!

I love weekends.

I get to sleep in until 7:30 (a luxury when you wake up at 5:30 a.m. Monday - Friday), I can leisurely play on the computer while my husband sleeps on, and just in general relax.

Today I did two loads of laundry, partially reorganized my walk-in closet, and created one layout. Did I mention I got a nap? Another good thing about weekends! :)

I had a wonderful day off yesterday!

I met with my friend Dean for coffee, and we went to the mall so I could buy my "business casual" clothes for my new job. We also picked up his stretched canvas painting at a local frame shop.

Then I met with my friends Amy and Lisa for a late lunch, stopped by the scrapbook store to pick up my pictures (and a few new hot papers), and headed on over to pick up my husband from work.

We went to "the geek's mecca" - otherwise known as Fry's. I needed a new external hard drive, and he wanted to look at fax machines. So we braved the big store and found what we were looking for: a 300GB external hard drive from Seagate, a new cel phone, a couple of geeky computer books, and a memory card for my husband's PDA.

I've now got my new cel phone charged and ready to use Yahoo IM. So, while I was at the mall yesterday, I stopped by the T-Mobile store and asked how much it would cost to buy a new phone, without adding a year or two onto my current month to month contract. The salesperson pointed at the invoice price. I looked, and the very basic (no camera, no music player) cel phone I wanted was $179. No thanks. Fast forward to Fry's. Fry's is an authorized dealer of T-Mobile services (and Cingular and a couple of others). They have the EXACT same phone I wanted at the store, in a *prepaid to go* phone package. Price? $59.99. They verified that all I'd need to do is insert my existing SIM card (instead of the prepaid SIM card) in the slot, and I'd be good to go. So I got it - at a 1/3rd of the price the retail store wanted me to pay for the same package. Hmmmm.

Here's the book I picked up:

Photoshop CS2 Workflow

I've been busy wrapping up things here at work. I'll really miss the people I work with, but I'm excited to take on a new challenge at a new job. Working with someone I like, even better! :)

Today is my last day, so I could have a day off between jobs! I'm going to meet friends for lunch, another friend for coffee, shop for some more business casual slacks, and possibly get a replacement phone. That is, if I can convince T-Mobile to let me buy a phone without "extending" my contract. You'd think that after 6 years as a customer, they wouldn't try that anymore. :D

Ah....I feel so relaxed and recharged now!

We drove down to Astoria and Seaside today, and just got away from it all for a few hours.

Saw the blue skies, the ocean, smelled the fresh air, walked on the sand...


Used a sepia filter on this one. Here's the information about this building:

The big red building out in the river was a net drying and mending shed or net loft. Natural fiber nets, which often were made in the fishermen’s homes during the winters, needed to be dried between uses. Fishermen could navigate their boats right up under the building where a hoist would lift the nets to dry. The building was used in the movie “Free Willy II.” A local artist and art professor has purchased the building and is renovating it to be artist studios and small shops.

Well, I didn't get the "call" from PaperDillies. Ah well. Moving on...

After today, only 4 more days at my current job. I'm excited to move on, but not excited about leaving the people behind. I'm sure I'll make a new group of friends at my new job, but it's always bittersweet to leave a contract behind.

I took this sunrise picture yesterday from work - I had my camera with me because I went to a banquet last night.



I'm going use a filter in Photoshop to make it more dramatic in B/W, so look for that in the near future.

I've been tagged by Diana!

WHAT SCRAPBOOK LINES/PRODUCT ETC. DO YOU DISLIKE?

Stickers.

WHAT IS THE HARDEST THING YOU EVER HAD TO SCRAP?

I haven't been able to scrap the death of my cat, Alokut, since she passed away in July 2002.

WHAT TECHNIQUE DO YOU USE MORE THAN ANYTHING?

Matting every photo.

WHAT'S THE SMALLEST SCRAP OF PAPER YOU SAVE?

It has to be big enough to be able to at least use a punch on.

EVER HAD ANY SCRAPBOOKING RELATED INJURIES?

- paper cuts
- cuts on my fingers from picking up the trimmer by the blade
- tendonitis from tracing out letters and cutting them out

FINISH THIS SENTENCE: "IF I WASN'T A SCRAPBOOKER/STAMPER, I WOULD SPEND MY MONEY ON..."

- books
- electronic gadgets
- movies

GIVE US YOUR BEST STORAGE OR ORGANIZATIONAL IDEA:

- Label everything
- IRIS carts are a scrapper's friend

YOU JUST WON A WEEK LONG SCRAPBOOKING CRUISE FOR 5, WHO IS GOING WITH YOU?

My friends Brookes, Lisa, Trudi, & Dana. I have a lot of online scrapbooking buddies I'd love to take too, if I could bring more than 4 friends.

Still waiting on the PaperDillies DT call.

In the meantime, I visited the Grand Re-opening of Shabby Princess' Shabby Shoppe.

Here's a peek at what I got:


Taran Conyers' "Girly Girl" kit, the *shabby* version


Shabby Princess' "Bluebell Road" kit


Shabby Princess' "Faux Jewels" embellishments

Well, in less than 2 days I should know about the PaperDillies DT.

And 2 weeks from today, I start my new job. Got the "official" offer in the mail on Friday, signed it, and it is winging back to the company via the USPS. I am so excited to start a new chapter in my life. This job is opening up some interesting decisions in my life, and you'll know about them soon enough.

Well, all but one piece of furniture got moved over the weekend. Couch went to my sister, queen sized bed went to my friend, and we picked up the couch and loveseat (futon style). We still don't have the coffee table, but the person who sold them to us is bringing that into work today, and I will pick it up on the way home, along with a stop at the employee store....looking for business casual clothes that will work for my new job.

Another disappointment. I didn't get a "call" for my Blueprints layouts I submitted. Sigh. Moving on again. I'm very happy for my friend Becky though, who got calls for 3 of the 5 she submitted. And the 2 that didn't get picked up for Blueprints? She submitted those with 2 others to another magazine, and they were picked up within a couple of hours. Go Becky Go! :)

The chat at the DigiChick was so successful tonight, people couldn't get in! I left the chat after about 30 minutes, because as a de-zine team member, I already had the password (see layout below) and wanted to give others a chance to get in. I never made it back in! :)

Well, the "Great Furniture Move" rolls along. Dad is showing up Saturday morning (11 hours from now), helping us load the couch into his truck, we follow him to my sister's house with our car, we drive back with his truck. And on Sunday, we drive our queen sized mattress, boxsprings, and frame to my friend, drop it off, and then go pick up our new couch, loveseat, and coffee table. Way too much maneuvering for me.....*blink*.....

Well, I didn't make it on to Jan Crowley's Creative Team (CT). Ah well! Life goes on!

Now to focus on the next thing: PaperDillies DT Contest. I sent in my entry several days ago, and the deadline is tomorrow. The 10 finalists will be notified by next Wednesday. Fingers crossed. :)

Slowly proceeding on the job front. I passed the criminal and reference checks - I'm squeaky clean! Today was the "pre-employment" drug test that it seems like every company wants you to do. I showed up bright and early at 8 a.m., and the testing lab had no idea I was showing up. I sure hope that got straightened out after I left.

I turned in my official notice yesterday. My last day at my current job will be Thursday, 2/23. I'll start my new job on Monday, 2/27, giving me a nice long weekend to enjoy.

Plans are moving along to get the new furniture. The couch is too long (and most likely too high) to go in the back of our SUV, so we're borrowing my dad's truck. This, of course, always has to involve logistics. Dad is going out of town for the day on Sunday, so we are switching vehicles with him on Saturday night, so he can have something to drive. We'll pick our stuff up on Sunday, then Dad will drive out to our house and switch vehicles again. There is a *slight* chance he'll be going from our house to my sister's house with our old couch...but that's not set in stone yet because we have no idea when my sister can move out her old couch (which also requires using Dad's truck). Ah, the trials and tribulations of furniture moving. :)

This is a layout I did last night for the upcoming DigiChick "New Designers" crop (Friday, 2/10, 9 p.m. Eastern/6 p.m. Pacific). It uses the "Heart's Desire" kit created by the new designers. The password for the kit will be given out at the chat.



The Heart's Desire kit preview:



On Friday night, I will be participating in another event: Scrapbook Jungle's ScrapOlympics. Starts at 9:30 p.m. Eastern/6:30 p.m. The chat room is here:

http://www.scrapbookjungle.com/chat/cbpic.htm

Yesterday, my husband agreed to purchase a "new to us" mission style futon couch, loveseat, and coffee table. Well within our price range, and the kind of furniture we've been wanting to get. Now, we need to get guest bedroom mattress set out the door - and it's already got a taker, we just need to get it there. :)

We got a car!

2003 Ford Taurus SES sedan, white....

My husband is the primary driver on the car right now, but I'll drive it on an occasional basis. It is definitely more fuel efficient and meant for commuting...and since he's got the 46 mile drive one way to work, he gets to drive it. Not that I'm crying...I get the vehicle with the heated seats! :)

Saturday's task:

Time to buy a car.

We knew when we moved out here, everything was at least 30 minutes away (friends, family, jobs)....but that was before the layoff at my husband's work. Since then, jobs have moved around.

Starting Monday, he'll be working 46 miles from home. It's about an hour commute, one way. I work about 35-40 minutes from home, at my current job. It will be about the same at the new job, but in a different direction. Unfortunately, we only have one car...we've been living with that situation for about 6 months now...but now it's a dire situation that must be corrected.

We have researched cars, dealerships, prices, loans...and we've narrowed it down to 2 cars: one local (2003 Ford Taurus sedan) and one not so local (2005 Saturn Ion 1). Both are almost the same price and have about the same mileage. Just a matter of what we want and what we can live with.

I'll take a picture once we get the car....

I got the job! Woohoo! :)

Now my wardrobe has to change - going from jeans and t-shirts to dockers and polo shirts. Ah well......guess I have to start looking like a professional! :D

I survived! Now if I could just fall asleep! My mind is whirring, and the book I read to "shutdown" my mind didn't help. I finished up The Archer's Tale and did not realize I'd be reading so many pages of a long-drawn out battle that late at night.....visions of archers and foot soldiers and horsemen and knights, dancing in my head.

Okay, okay, I know...you want a recap of the interview, right? Actually, it was 6 interviews, between 30 - 45 minutes each. I thought I did really well in each interview, until I got to the last, which was with HR. I'm not sure if she was pushing because it's in her nature or if it's just part of the HR schtick to do the behavioral type of questions (although she seemed just a bit more aggressive than I've seen before).

I found out I am one of two candidates in serious running for the job. I know the other candidate, and she would also be a great fit for the job, but I really want this job! :) Let's hope I impressed all 6 interviewers so overwhelmingly that they choose me....:D

I will find out, at the latest, by Monday. You, faithful blog readers, will probably know the outcome shortly after I tell my husband. :)

Starting to get really nervous. I am SO not ready for tomorrow.

I need to:

- iron my clothes
- print out copies of my resume
- print out writing samples
- print out the follow up questionnaire answers I sent (so I can remember what I said)

Oh yeah, and get a good night's sleep! :D

Things, they are a changin'....

My dear husband turned in his two weeks notice last Monday. He's leaving the security of a permanent, full-time job for a contract position. Yes, there is a perk: much higher rate of compensation per hour. However, that is in opposition to the longer commute and more gas usage....ah well...we'll see how it goes.

Still getting ready to interview. Need to brush up on the company via their website (always good to show you've done some research and know their product), figure out which clothes to wear, iron them if necessary, and lay it all out somewhere safe from cat hair (is there such a place).

Tomorrow, I'll be doing a lot of paper scrapping. The February sponsor for the Scrapbook Jungle is Crafty Secrets, and I need to do several layouts to have stuff ready for Wednesday, since I still need to scan after I complete the layouts.

Oh yeah, and I still need to complete my altered item and card for the Paperdillies DT contest. Guess I'll be busy tomorrow! :D

NSBR: I've got a job interview!

Yep, I have a job interview for a senior position in my career field. :)

Permanent position, accrues PTO, has medical/dental/vision, and it would be working with someone I consider a mentor.

It has been a long haul to this point. I applied for the job opening on 12/9/2005. The job opening accepted resumes through 12/31/2005. On 1/5/2006, I received a "follow-up" questionnaire, asking to expand on certain areas of my resume, due by 1/9/2006. On 1/20/2006, I got a call from HR, but wasn't able to connect with HR until yesterday, 1/23/2006.

By the time I interview (2/1/2006) it will have been almost 2 months since I submitted my resume. Let's hope it doesn't take 2 weeks for the final decision after the interviews.

Rachel

I've been selected to help out with the new magazine at DigiChick, De-Zine....so I'm now officially a "De-Zine Chick".... on their first issue, I helped with the Acrobat (PDF) end of things, I'm sure I'll be doing a bit more for future issues.

All elements, papers, and embellishments from the "Home Comforts" kit by Mari K at the DigiChick.

I took a few pictures of my new niece yesterday. She's adorable - and I had about a 5-10 minute window to get any pictures with her eyes open at all! :)

I've been tagged by Leah Fung, so I guess I better answer these questions! :)

Four jobs you have had in your life:

Alarm Operator - You've got to have the right mentality and personality to survive this job - it is very stressful. I lasted 8 months.

Retail Salesperson - Thankfully, only one job as a salesperson, at Hickory Farms. 5 months at this job.

Receptionist/Administrative Assistant/Data Entry - Way too many jobs doing this!

Technical Writer - What I am now, for the last 9 years!

Four movies you would watch over and over:
Some Kind of Wonderful
Princess Bride
Lion King
Beauty and the Beast (Disney)

Four TV shows you love to watch:
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: New York
Without a Trace
Cold Case (okay, that's 5, but this is all I really watch on TV)

Four places you have been on vacation:

Las Vegas, NV
Oregon Coast
Virginia
San Jose, CA

Four websites I visit daily:

The Pub at Two Peas in a Bucket
The Digi Chick
Scrapbook Jungle
My web-based email (while I'm at work)

Four of my favorite foods:

Fettucine Alfredo
Cheeseburger
Cheese Pizza
Dark Chocolate

Four places I would rather be right now:

Getting a full spa day...massage, facial, wraps, etc.
Oregon Coast
Home
On vacation somewhere warm (many days of rain will do that to a person)

Here's a photo from yesterday. I was playing with filters in Photoshop and here's the result:

Sarah has arrived!

Date: 1/6/06
Time: 6:18 p.m.
Weight: 8 lbs 10 ozs
Length: 20.75 inches

And here she is, shortly after birth, in a picture taken by her daddy.

What a fantastic day to wake up to!

First, I lost 1.0 lb at my (home) WI this morning. And that's on top of maintaining my weight (no loss, no gain) throughout the holiday season. I'm proud of myself!

Last, but not least, I got an email from Digital Memories Magazine, wanting to publish a layout I submitted about my love for my husband. And I won't have to wait too long for the issue to come out, it arrives on January 15th! That's the beauty of digital - you can just zip up your files, send 'em via email or some download service, and no postage delay. I am so excited, this will be my second "official" toot for publication in a scrapbooking magazine. Now if I could just get into Simple Scrapbooks... :)

Another day, another layout!

Below is a layout I did of my husband's great-niece, Jamison.

Adore

Still on babywatch, waiting for my new niece Sarah to show up. My sister has a c-section scheduled for Friday the 6th, but we don't think she'll make it that long. In other news, my BIL has apparently (no confirmation) arrived home on his 2 week leave from Iraq, just in time for the birth of his daughter. There is also supposed to be a restaurant gathering this evening to celebrate my niece Jesse's birthday - but no one has told me what time! :)

The first day of the new year! Woohoo! Clean slate, fresh start!

I have created/finished two projects today:

Accordion Mini Album
2005 Year in Review

The first project was sponsored by St Croix Cropping Company, the DT sponsor for the Scrapbook Jungle for the month of January.

The second project is based on the January 1 layout in the Designing With 2006 Calendar from Autumn Leaves.

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope to keep my blog updated better in the coming year.