Don't Fight It....

It's pointless...to try to fight the urge to shop for scrappy goodies...I'm losing...badly! lol Chon and I had another one of our shopping days today, but I'm proud to say that I only spent $20. We both got this cool set of AL acrylic stamps at HL that were on clearance for $5 and change from $14.99. Then we went by M's, where all I got were three packages of stickers, two sets of notecards from the Dollar bins, and a set of 10 Craft Keepers that I got for $6.50 using a 50% off coupon Chon gave me...thanks :) I used those to put my scraps in. I had them in big Ziploc bags, but this is much neater.

After shopping, we came home and scrapped. Spent most of the time trying to print some pics out for Chon that I didn't even get to do because the computer was being FREAKY! I finally gave up and just worked on my page which was inspired by one of the Pencil Lines design team memebers, Tracie H. I really love the way it turned out! Love to use colors on a black background!

What else?? Miguel is on an ACTS retreat right now...won't be back until Sunday so we'll be spending the weekend at home. Chon took me to do our grocery shopping today so at least I got that out of the way. Hmm...what else? Not much else is going on. Oh yeah, I got some AWESOME stuff from Flowers To Flourishes. All this YUMMY Fancy Pants stuff for $20 including shipping! Felt, acrylic books and shapes, pins, buttons, rubons, and paper...oh my! lol Lots of stuff! Love it!

Okay, that's all for today..it's late and I am SLEEPY! Mikey took a late nap, but I'm putting him to bed in a bit anyway because I just can't hang anymore...night all!

Hot Days of Summer Blog Hop Mini Challenge - Guess What I Am

Okay ladies...here's a fun little game I came up with. The first person to correctly name all ten products will earn 20 extra points. If no one gets all the answers correct, the first person with the most correct answers wins! Please post your answers in the comment section of this post. Let's play! :)
UPDATED: Please try to be as specific as possible...such as brand name :)

Making Memories Chloe's Closet die cut paper

Chip Chatter Gellies
photo anchors
Sharpie markers
Magic Mesh
Prima flowers
Stickles
Heidi Swapp acrylic stamp
Coluzzle self healing mat
Cutterbees

Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy....

Remember those? From old Saturday Night Live? They were hilarious! I don't know why that seemed fitting for my title. I've been up for a few hours now. After Miguel left early this morning, I couldn't go back to sleep. So instead of just laying in bed wasting time, I decided to get up and get as much of my chores done as I could without making too much noise and waking Mikey. I might regret it later, but maybe then I can get Mikey to nap with me :)
I was just sitting here thinking when I realized how quiet it was and how I could hear my own thoughts and just "be". I'm almost always surrounded by noise...compliments of Mikey...lol...I think this is what I need...or need more of..."me time" minus all the noise and "Mommy can I have"s...I know that when he goes off to school, I will miss him like CRAZY, but maybe I will also regain some of my sanity! I've been doing alot of thinking lately...well, I'm ALWAYS thinking...that's one of my faults and I have this "nagging feeling" that some big changes are long overdue. Sitting here in the quiet...where I can actually form a thought or a complete sentence in my head...some things become very clear. I think I have lost myself...in being a mother and sitting on the sidelines...and I think it's time I bring myself back into the foreground. I need to put myself first because God knows if I don't, no one else will. Anywho....just had to ramble on for a bit and put this stuff down....back to your regularly scheduled program....

June Color Challenge

Here's the page I did for Kimmi's color challenge over on sb.com. I really love the way it turned out and I love that pic of us! This puts my LO count at 56 for the year! TFL :)

There IS more to buy....

I forgot to post a few goodies I got last weekend at Super J's and my collection of Big Lots $2 Thickers :) I'd been wanting some of these KI lace papers and my sis told me they had them at the Super J's so after checking out a BL for Thickers, we went by there real quick and I picked up 3 sheets and these alpha stickers that I already have some of, but I just love. Oh, and another circle punch, but I forgot to put it in that pic with my stuff. Hopefully, I can get some scrapping done this week. We have our blog hop going on and I also joined Kimmi's color challenge again on sb.com. This month, the color combo is red/black/white/and teal or turquoise. I love that color combo!

So, we took Mikey to see the ped on Friday and he did confirm what we thought...that he has sleep apnea because of his enlarged tonsils. They weren't infected at all, but they are VERY large. So he gave us some meds to give him to try to "control" it until we can get him in to see the doc he referred us to and have him sheduled to get his tonsils out. He gave us a nose spray and some one a day Singulair and told us to continue the one a day Claritin and use a decongestant for a few days. I "have" noticed in the past couple of nights, that he is "gasping" for air or "choking" less and that he is still snoring, but not as loudly and there "are" short periods of time where he is breathing easy and NOT snoring. Last night, we slept on the bed for the first time in about a week and he did okay. I had been laying him on the couch propped up on a TON of pillows so he was pretty upright and I'd sleep on the other couch...which is not as comfortable as the bed. So good thing that we got to sleep on the bed. We must have been pretty tired from all this not sleeping because both Mikey and I didn't wake up until ELEVEN today! I know! But hopefully, we are on the road to some better nights. And thank you to all who have kept Mikey in your prayers :)

Miguel got home relatively early yesterday so we decided to make a last minute trip to Sea World and make good use of our season passes. Lij is still at his dad's so it was just the three of us. It was kind of hot, but we spent a good amount of time in Happy Harbor I think it's called...I kept cool by getting splashed when kids would run by me! I got a few good pics, but wouldn't you know, my darn camera batteries died!! It was a bit cloudly now and then so it wasn't so bad being out. We rode on a couple of rides with Mikey as well and looked at the fish in the aquarium and fed the dolphins. It was nice...we need more time like that.
Afterwards, we did our grocery shopping at our old neighborhood HEB and we drove by our old house. It's STILL empty! It's been almost a year and it hasn't sold! The grass looks so pretty there...nice and green. And the Hibiscus plant and some other bush/shrub Miguel had planted in the front by the door are HUGE! It was kind of bittersweet seeing it :( I miss that house! I LOVED the yard..and well, the house itself. But I sure hated being out there by myself like 95% of the time...didn't like that AT ALL. So I know that everything worked out the way it should have...I'm much happier here.
So, that's about it....I'm going to see if I can get some scrapping done. So, if I do...I'll post later :) Here's some pics to share :)

Hot Days of Summer Blog Hop

Welcome to all the sb.com neighbors who are joining us for our Hot Days of Summer Blog Hop!! I hope you are all excited to get this started because I sure am! This challenge will last the whole month of June and weekly challenges will be posted alternately here or on my sis's blog (shopgirlaudi). Mini challenges will be posted randomly once a week so be sure to check out both blogs daily. Don't forget to post and check in weekly, here on our blogs and on the sb.com thread for this challenge. If you have any questions about the challenge posted or any other questions or comments, please DO NOT post it here. Please ask on the sb.com thread. The comment section here should be used solely to check in and to post the link to your completed LO. With that being said....let the games begin :)


Mix It Up

There's a style of scrapping that I admire in alot of different artists and I like to call it "the everything but the kitchen sink" style of scrapping. This is where they pile on the product, mix up manufacturers...different patterned papers, lots of different, random embellies...things you wouldn't think would "go", but somehow, they make it work. So, this challenge will be fairly easy as there are no strict specifications on theme, colors, ect. The only requirement is that you "mix it up". This might be "out of the box" for some of you. It was for me at first, but now it's something I like to do alot. Here are the rules:

1. Your page must be NEW for this challenge and not entered in any other contest or challenge. You have until Sunday night to upload your finished LO (one or two pager) to the sb.com gallery and then link here in the comment section.

2. You MUST have at LEAST 4 different patterned papers from four different manufacturers represented on your LO. Be sure to list your manufacturers in your product list. Colors are your choice. You are free to add whatever embellishments you choose, but if you want to "mix that up" too... go right ahead! The more manufacturers on your page, the better!
Have fun with it! I can't wait to see what you all come up with! Don't forget to check back during the week for the mini challenge :)


Here's my page for the challenge. My four paper manufacturers are Fancy Pants Summer Soiree (the cut out clouds and sun), We R Memory Keepers Rainbow paper (stripes), Paper Studio (small dots), MAMBI (grid background paper). Can't wait to see the rest of the entries :)

Here's my sis's LO for the challenge. I think the papers she used were BG, We R Memory Keepers, Colorbok, Scenic Route.

Two thumbs up for 2 Peas

So, I heard back from customer service at 2 Peas today after messaging back and forth a few times yesterday and trying to get my situation explained and they said they were going to send me a new pack of the Prima journaling cards. That is WAY cool and I did NOT expect that. I mean, it was only a few cards and really it wasn't a big deal, but at the same time, shipping is just so high and if I'm paying that much, I should get my package intact and undamaged. Either way, I'm very happy with the way they handled the situation and that it was resolved quickly, so 2 Peas has not lost a customer in me. I'm sure they'll be happy to hear that! Miguel....not so much! LOL :)

I managed to do a LO today. I had printed out pics and hoped to work on it last night, but that didn't happen. Did it today though after I worked out. Which btw, I have been forgetting to post about. I'm STILL doing the bike...at least 5 times a week. I think it's been like 3 months now. I see a difference, I feel a difference, just not the fast, big changes I was really hoping for. I am trying to figure out how I can find some time to go walking/try running again somewhere nearby. Maybe like after my mom comes home from work, I can leave Mikey for about an hour or so. I'm just not seeing the same results with biking that I was with running. My legs look AWESOME, but I need to work on the rest of me too! I wish we could afford a gym membership. Well, Miguel has one, but I just can't see paying like $60 or so for the both of us...that's just too much money that can be used elsewhere.

Anyway, so can't remember if I posted a couple of weeks back about Mikey having allergy problems...sneezing, stuffy, what not...the usual...and we had taken him to see a ped...an ACTS friend of Miguel's in fact and I had explained to him how Mikey was snoring and seemed to sometimes "catch his breath" at night while he was sleeping and he had brought up the subject of sleep apnea and how that could come about with having large tonsils like Mikey has. Anyway, he advised us to change Mikey's allergy meds to something stronger than the OTC stuff we had been giving him. So we switched to Claratin and at first it seemed to help and there were a few nights there where I noticed more and more that he was breathing "easier", but then a few more nights passed and it seemed to progressively be getting worse. He is really snoring loudly, kind of choking or "gasping" for air while he's sleeping and I can feel his chest really "pulling in" when he's trying to take a breath. It totally has me freaking out and checking him every few minutes through out the night which has left me with VERY little sleep. I checked out his tonsils today and they look SO big...I mean literally touching each other and he looks to have some small dark red and white-ish spots on them. We are taking him to the same ped tomorrow and asking more questions about the sleep apnea and the possibility of getting his tonsils removed because I really think that is what we are going to have to do because it's just not getting better. I can't even imagine what it must feel like to not be able to breathe properly. I know it's a fairly simple, quick procedure...I had mine out when I was about 8, but the thought of him having to be put under is totally freaking me out. So please keep Mikey in your prayers. I'd really appreciate it!
Okay, I think that's all for now! More later.

It looks just like I invisioned....

The LO I did today turned out just like I had wanted with the small exception of the dumb paper "buckling". I used some Glimmer Mist on it...had never done that before and had been dying to use some. I love the effect, the way it looks, but I don't think the thin paper did so well. I'm guessing it's probably meant more for heavier weight paper or cardstock. If anyone has any tips for using it on thin paper or knows that it's not really meant for thin paper, please let me know! Thanks! :) So, the page was a lift from Cobb something or other...need to find out her exact name...on 2 Peas. Of course, I didn't lift it exactly, but still...wanted to mention her. Chon and I took those pics on Saturday with our new "summer scarves" we got at Target...lol...they are really cute! Now I want a whole collection of them! :)

Got some stuff I had ordered from 2 Peas today. I was kind of bummed that the Prima notecards were missing one and two of them had some kind of "smudges" on them. One looked alot like a lipstick fingerprint and the other was just a black smudge of something. I emailed customer service earlier, but have yet to hear anything back. I hope they will offer to fix it somehow. Hmm...that's all for today...not much else going on. This is Lij's last week of school. On Thursday, they have a field trip to see The Night At The Museum and Friday is early release and his dad is taking him and the other kids to go see Up. I know Lij has been wanting to see that. Since Lij will be staying with his dad for the weekend, maybe we will take Mikey to see it on Saturday. Miguel has his ACTS retreat next weekend so let's see what we can go do this weekend. Maybe next weekend Chon and the kids can come over?? Okay, that's all for today...oh, this puts my LO count at...53 for the year!

You are not forgotten.....

I want to take this opportunity to personally thank all the men and women who have ever fought for our country.....past and present. A few years back, I had a cousin fighting in Iraq for about a year, I have a friend who had also been deployed there on more than one occassion I think, and I remember right out of HS when the war with Saddam had started in the middle east, we had an uncle and a whole bunch of people we knew from HS who were serving over there. So I have personally been affected by this, and I know what it feels like to worry and wonder. But I also know the amazing sense of pride I feel and the enormous amount of gratitude that I have for these people who put their lives on the line daily so that we, back here safe in our homes, can enjoy the freedoms that we sometimes take for granted. And for the families of these men and women. The mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, children... who give the ultimate sacrifice of living without their loved ones or who have lost a loved one already. I admire them, and I pray for them, and I keep them in my thoughts and prayers. I extend my sincerest thanks and gratitude for all of you involved....the soldiers as well as their families. May God bless you and keep you all.
I heard this song a couple of days ago on KLOVE and it choked me up. Just thought I'd share the lyrics. If you get the opportunity, look it up...I saw a video for it on You Tube...such a beautiful song!

"In God We Still Trust" by Diamond Rio
You place your hand on His Bible, when you swear to tell the TruthHis name is on our greatest Monuments, and all our money too,And when we Pledge allegiance, there's no doubt where we stand,There is no separation, we're one Nation under Him.Chorus:In God We Still TrustHere in AmericaHe's the one we turn to every timeThe goin' gets roughHe is the source of all our StrengthThe One who watches over usHere in AmericaIn God We Still TrustNow there are those among us, who want to push Him out,And erase His name from everything, this country's all about,From the Schoolhouse to the Courthouse, they're Silencing His Word,Now it's time for all Believers, to make our Voices heard.In God We Still Trust,Here in AmericaHe's the one we turn to every timeThe goin' gets roughHe is the source of all our StrengthThe One who watches over usHere in AmericaIn God We Still TrustHere in AmericaHere in AmericaHere in America,In God We Still TrustHere in America,In God We Still TrustHere in America

There is nothing left to buy....

LOL I spent the day with my sis today...doing our regular shopping day thing. We hit up M's first and that's how I felt there...like there was nothing left for me to buy. Have it, have it, don't want it...like it, love it...looked bigger on TV! LOL Get it, Chon ;) Really, there was NOTHING I really wanted. And I had so many coupons to use too! I left with a small circle punch I was wanting for making lollipop flowers...used a 50% off coupon for that. And the Sassafrass Lass Whale Of A Tale pad which was on clearance for $14.99 so with a 40% off coupon, I think it was around $9 which is not bad at all for all the stuff you get in there! I know, the last time I said I wasn't too crazy about the Whale Of A Tale, but it was on clearance and with a coupon...just couldn't pass it up! I just love Sass!! :) We also went by Scrapbook Heaven. OMGoodness! No offense to anyone who shops there, but each and every time we go...it's such a disappointment. I literally leave there with one..maybe two things or nothing at all. Okay, I'm lying..I never leave with NOTHING :D Ha, ha! Seriously, for this store being as big as it is, they do NOT carry all the new product that 911 does. They do have alot of stuff....just not my style. I was telling my sis today, that their stuff is too "themey"...and they don't have nowhere near as many aisles of new stuff like 911 does. I was hoping for some Jenni Bowlin, some Fancy Pants, maybe some October Afternoon...you know, all the stuff that's coming out...but nope! I left there with four sheets of paper and a Glimmer Mist because I've been wanting to try one. Oh, and a couple of yards of some really pretty Prima lace trim that my sis also got. There is just no comparison for me...911 is the store I prefer to shop at :)

So we got back to my sis's after shopping, ate lunch and got our scrap on! I only had one page planned and it literally took me no time at all, but I am LOVING the way it turned out. It was a lift off a 2 Peas artist I have bookmarked...Cobb something or other. I used cardstock as my base...well, I had a sheet of MM stamp edge paper underneath, but what was showing the most was the cs. I NEVER....did I say NEVER? Yep, never use cardstock. I know I did when I first started seriously scrapping again about five years ago which is why I have alot of it now, but I hadn't used it in AGES. I'm definately more of a patterned paper kind of girl. IF I do use it, it's mostly either white or black and I always make sure to keep stocked with those. The other rainbow of colors...don't buy them anymore...just have what I bought way back when. Anyway, I really loved the way it turned out. And although like I said, I prefer patterned paper, I won't completely rule out using cardstock the next time I scrap. Okay, that's all for now. It's late and I'm tired. Mikey is playing Lego Indiana Jones...a game Miguel got today. And I think he needs to pull himself away for a while...lol..headed to bed. More later :)