I've been very very bad about updating my blog. I've been sick with bronchitis, and life has also been busy! I made it to week 3 of the Amazing Race, and have done two layouts this, for challenges #5 and #6.

Challenge #5 was to do a layout about books, in some form or fashion - no other requirements.



And challenge #6 was to scrap your partner's pictures. My partner is dawnmcd, and these are pictures of her daughter.

We are out of the apartment, at long last. No more Mr Stomper, no more constant road noise, no more Mr Cougher next door. Ah! That's a huge sigh of relief you hear... :)

Tomorrow, we'll be going to see Barry Manilow in concert. I've been a fan of Barry for a long time (probably since I heard "I Write the Songs" when I was a child), and I know I'd never want to pay the prices to see him at his show in Las Vegas, so this is the perfect compromise. He is doing a special concert to benefit cystic fibrosis, and I pretty much bought tickets the moment I got the email from K103 with the link to buy. My husband and I are sitting in the 20th row on the floor, those are pretty good seats at the Rose Garden Arena! :D

In return for my husband suffering through Manilow with me, we are going to see "A Night of Improv" in February, with the cast of Whose Line Is It Anyway (minus Drew Carey). The tickets sold out so fast, a 2nd show was added for later the same evening!

Ah the joys of being sick! NOT! I have stayed home all week long, trying to "rest" out this dang cold, and thought I was well on my way to recovery, until this morning. I was almost out the door, showered, dressed, keys in hand, when my energy level dipped below 0 and a coughing spasm started. I trudged back upstairs, sent an email to my boss, and crawled under the covers again. Sigh. I will go in on Monday, no matter how I feel. Dang cold!

In the meantime, during my periods of energy, I have been doing some digital scrapping for the Amazing Digiscrapping Race. Here's my 2nd challenge layout, which could only be done by one team member. It had to use a series of photos, and tell "the rest of the story" behind the series...you know, the story you wouldn't necessarily know just by looking at the photos. The twist? You could only use one item PER designer. Yeah, that stretched my horizons a bit, I'm one of those "stay within the kit" type folks, but I managed to do it. Good thing I have lots of designers on my external hard drive storage.

Here's the layout:

Here's the first layout for the Amazing Digiscrapping Race, challenge #1:




I completed the layout using Rachael Giallongo's Sketch Challenge #20 and the "Changes" collaboration kit from Oscraps.

Okay, okay, it's been a while since I posted. I admit it! :)

First, we moved into the new house on Dec 22. We were .....um.....loitering in the sales office as the agent called to see if she could give us our keys. And we weren't the only ones...um....loitering... :)

We spent the night on our queen size Aerobed (bought from Costco months ago, for guests), which feels a lot like sleeping on not quite so firm Jello. :D

On the 23rd, I headed to the apartment while my husband stayed at the new house. He got "Verizon" and "appliance" duty, while I got "movers" duty. I packed several more boxes waiting for the movers, then got out of their way while they moved our boxes and furniture onto the moving truck. We got to the house, and Verizon and the appliance folks still had not shown up...turns out the Verizon guy had a problem install before us, and shows up around 2 p.m. The appliance guys show up around 1 p.m., just as the moving guys start moving our stuff inside.

Did I mention it was raining? Did I tell you we bought a stainless steel refrigerator? Um yeah, that was fun to wipe off the prints. :D Especially since the appliance guys had to remove the doors of the refrigerator just to get it inside the house. They tried removing just the door handles (they were sticking out and the reason it was too wide), but it wasn't working, so they removed the doors.

Finally, we had our new fridge, washer, and dryer. Wow! That new washer and dryer have some interesting noises....so much so that Cleo (who was in my arms) spooked when the washer changed cycle and left a couple of nice long (and deep) gouges on my chest when trying to run off. No v-neck shirts for me for a couple of weeks! :)

Christmas Eve we just unpacked a little, rested a little, and had a nice pasta dinner. We usually go for something that isn't turkey or ham related, since we have to eat both on Christmas Day at two different meals.

Oh, before I forget, I started getting a cold on the day we moved our stuff (12/23). You'll see why this is important later. :)

Christmas Day we do our normal two step drive. Drive to my parents, open presents, have an early dinner. Drive to my husband's parents' house, open presents, eat dinner. Drive home.

On 12/26, I'm not feeling too good, but it's time for a niece's birthday party that has already been rescheduled twice. Yes, I still have a cold. *sniff* It probably didn't help that I went shopping for a few hours first thing in the morning.

The rest of the week, I'm miserable with a cold, and waiting for contractors to show up to finish some exterior stuff and some carpet cleaning. Oh yeah, my husband's office furniture, which should have showed up on 12/26 AT THE HOUSE, got sent to our mailing address at the UPS store. How stupid is that? Six boxes of "put it together yourself" furniture goes to the wrong address, so I have to go pick it up, but I can't unload it on the other end because I'm not strong enough (nor are my arms wide enough to wrap around some of these boxes). I go straight to Office Depot afterwards and get my "delivery" fee back - it turns out it was their screwup. They had put in both addresses (our mailing address is also our billing address), but had forgotten to "check the box" to indicate it should go to the house address, so it defaulted to the billing address. Good thing the UPS store employees know me and accepted the delivery, despite the fact it was against their policy.

Another niece has a birthday party on 12/29. Yep, still feeling miserable, but now I look like I'm miserable. Friday night at the cheap pizza joint favored for kids' parties, and oh crap, it's also karaoke night. There's nothing worse than being sick and having to hear peopl sing karaoke who shouldn't be anywhere NEAR a mike. Enough said. *shudder*

Quiet weekend for us, although we went to dinner on 12/30 with several friends. Nice place to find, we may go back there again someday.

A good friend of ours comes over on 12/31 to ring in the New Year. We had a nice dinner, and then sat in front of our widescreen TV to watch several episodes of Firefly. During the 2nd episode, we toasted the new year, but went straight back to Mal and his crew. :)

By 1/1/07, I'm still not feeling hot. Yep, I still have that pesky cold. I so didn't want to go back to work yet. I promise friends and family, yes, I will call the doctor Tuesday morning.

Back to work! 1/2/07 arrives and I'm back at my desk. Coughing, sneezing, and blowing my nose like there's no tomorrow. Get in to the doctor around 10:30. Turns out it is nothing more than a viral infection (aka the common cold), but she gives me a prescription cold drug to kick this cold out. I head back to work, where I take my medication. Taking the pill causes a coughing jag, which ends up with me being sent home to "rest" and keep my germs away from everyone else.

So here I am, 1/3/07, still at home. Sick with a cold. But at least I'm "resting"....and actually, I have been sleeping most of the time.