The New Post

I worried that the furballs wouldn't like their gift and wouldn't really use it. But we bought it anyhow and Chewie really loved sitting on the box itself. But last night Matt finally put it all together. It didn't take long for the furballs to start checking it out. Last night Chewie, Smoke and Tigger were playing all over it, but this morning Matt had a rare Cha-ching sighting...Apparently, I didn't need to worry...

They all love it.

What do you mean...

..."I'm supposed to wait until Christmas and that it's not even put together yet?" I'm happy just sitting on top of it here in the box. I'll probably even like the box better. - Chewie

Finally Done!

Whoo hoo! I'm done. Ten pages all finished and ready to go with days to spare. I even took some time today to clean up the last of the summer plants out of the front yard. I stared out with a sketch from Nuts About Sketches to do the page for Lee. Then I jumped over to Sketch Savvy for a layout for Ken.Next, I pulled up the December Page Maps to find a layout that truly inspired me to finish Mike's page. So I looked at a few of the past months on Page Maps and found this sketch in the September 2010 .pdfs that was perfect for Doug. Viola! I even had some company from Smoke in my craft room for most of the day. But then I was abandoned for the Christmas blanket.




I guess I can't blame them. Cuddling on the couch sounds pretty good to me. In fact, that's what I'm going to go do.

A little inspiration

This is my last weekend to finish up the "what we like about" pages for my team at work, but I have to admit I haven't really felt inspired lately. Tired, yes, but not inspired. But this morning I wandered down to my craft room and logged on. I immediately saw a notice on Facebook that Creating Keepsakes was hosting a one hour challenge that would start at 10:15 that morning. So I decided to find a way to use their sketch to get at least one page done. Wouldn't you know it, but the sketch was perfect and inspiring and I finished a page for Jeff and uploaded it with nearly 15 minutes to spare. That was all I needed to get my creativity jump started today and I decided to try to do another page in just an hour; this time using the sketch on Sketch Inspirations. Well, that one took longer than hour because I had to find a turtle to add to the page and I had to go fold a load of laundry and play fetch with Chewie for a while, but if you subtract out all the non-scrapbooking stuff, I think I might have made the deadline. So then I pulled up this week's sketch on Sketchy Thursdays. Add a little laundry, some more fetch, a quick trip down to the post office and the grocery store, a short appearance at the neighbor's holiday party (wow that punch really packed a punch) and dinner with the in-laws and my one-hour challenge took more like eight hours, but I got it done. Three finished last weekend, another three today, four to go. I guess tomorrow will have to be less laundry and more scrapbooking, but that doesn't sound too bad to me. Now it's off to watch Sex and the City 2 on Netflix so I can mail it back to get the original Tron for Matt.

Spontaneity and a new blade

I had a great night tonight. I had planned to clean up a little to get ready for tomorrow night when Elaine is coming over to play with the Cricut, but my sister e-mailed today to see if I had time to cut some Cricut stuff for her. Well it wasn't really great timing because it's been go, go, go all week and I was kind of looking forward to getting the house cleaned up a little tonight, but I shuffled some stuff around and realized, what does it really matter if the floors are freshly vacuumed? So she came over and we started cutting. Unfortunately things were tearing. I started thinking about the last time that I changed the blade and couldn't remember when that was. So a quick trip off to Walmart with a side trip to the parents and we were back in business. I couldn't believe how quickly everything was cut and done. I guess the moral of the story is that sometimes it's good to be a little spontaneous and sometimes you just have to change the blade. I can't wait until I can start posting some of the stuff I've been working on when Christmas is over. Night all!

Not what I intended

Well, I finally finished a page that has taken me nearly all weekend. It should have been a quick and easy one, but it seemed like everything on it was a struggle. Every time I hit a wall, I changed my idea to deal with the obstacle. I wanted to print directly on the red paper, but the printer wouldn't print on the paper. So then I decided I would print the paragraph on vellum and attach it. But then the printer wouldn't print on vellum. So I gave up and put it on plain old paper. Then I decided to add the wavy cut to the mat. The first one the Cricut tore up and didn't cut 1/2 of the last side. I decided to give it one more shot and it cut okay, but not perfectly the second time. Finally, I had all the pieces and got it put together, but I didn't feel any of the usual peace and calm that scrapping give me.

The only thing that went together well was the Betty Boop svg that I found on Nancy's Creative Papercrafts.

I just don't understand

How is it that I have two printers hooked up to this computer and I've printed on vellum on each of them and, yet, tonight I can't get EITHER of them to print a simple Word document on vellum? I'm well-educated and have worked with computers nearly all my life. I print documents on a daily basis using Word. But tonight, two reasonably intelligent adults have spent the better part of two and half hours trying to print a simple paragraph and still have nothing to show for it. I am beyond frustrated.

*&(%*&+^(* HP

Why do things have to be so complicated? Tonight, I decided I was going to really take the evening off. We've been so busy lately that it's been run, run, run. So I thought I would do a little cleaning and set up my new printer. What should have been an hour or so turned into an all evening process. First, I can't count how many pieces of tape and plastic and cardboard and foam there were in the new printer. Then there was the easy installation of the printer head and cartridges, which truly wasn't bad. But my big mistake was trying to set up the wireless connection. After an hour of frustration, I finally found this article on the HP help website about how DSL lines and the wireless printer don't talk to each other well. We followed the steps and FINALLY had the printer working, only to discover I no longer had internet on any computer in the house. I was so tired but I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep if something wasn't working properly. Well, a bunch of wasted time later, I finally figured out that Matt hadn't plugged the phone line back into the DSL. It's finally all working but my relaxing evening was gone.

OMG I won OMG I won OMG I won

I am soooooo excited. What a turn around to what started as a crappy week! Today my boss called and asked me to come down to a conference room. I felt like I was being called to the principal's office. Well, I felt like I would have felt if I had ever been called to the principal's office. I mentally started reviewing everything that had been going on lately trying to figure out what this could be about. I must have a guilty conscience for something but I just don't know what. When I got down there, she had Christmas swags for a group of us and I got to pick out my favorite one. It was great and my office smelled like Christmas all day. It was just what I needed to really get in the Christmas spirit.

Then I was going to work from home tonight because I'm stressed about how much there still is to do before the end of the month. But of course, I started blog hopping rather than logging in to work. Am I ever so happy that I did! I found out on on SEI's lifestyle blog that I won the $65 gift code from CSN Stores! Go check it out here. I have never been so shocked as to see my own profile on someone else's blog! New kitchen rugs here I come!

So excited!

So I took the night off last night. No working after I left the office. No e-mail, no facebook, no blog hopping. Not even playing in my craft room. An entire night of nothing electronic or crafty. It was nice. Hmm... maybe more like it was strange. Especially when you consider I have a to-do list about a mile long and only 24 days to get most of it done (family to-do's) and 30 for the rest (work to-do's). But, it was my birthday so I guess it was okay to take one little night for myself.

Tonight we had dinner with my in-laws, my parents and sister. That was nice too. My husband made all the arrangements and I didn't have to do a thing. We missed out on the big Thanksgiving because my mother-in-law was sick so it had been too long since we had seen them. But then I got super excited when I saw the gift my parents had bought me.... drumroll.... a new wide format printer!!!!!!!! I've wanted one for a couple of years now but never bought one.

I'm not really a digital scrapbooker. I love the feel of paper in my hands and couldn't imagine not getting to cut and touch and glue. But I do my journaling on the computer. I know they say to use your own handwriting, but people have to be able to read what I write for it to mean anything! The problem is that I journal on the computer and I prefer 12 by 12 layouts so I always have to print on a smaller paper and find some way to incorporate that in the bigger layout. I've always wanted to be able to put my journaling on the base of the page, but never could. Also I've seen some great ways to make my own base page with a picture and could never do that either. So clearly I needed a wide format printer, but they are so expensive and I never could seem to find one that I wanted when I had the extra money to get one.

So I told my husband I wanted one for Christmas and told my Mom that I thought that was what my husband and I would get "each other" for Christmas. Turns out, she called dear hubby and confirmed he hadn't gotten me one so that they could. I'm so excited. Now I just have to find a place for it in my craftroom. Oh, and get to work on my thank you cards, mail the Christmas cards, finish a couple of gifts, get the house decorated, attend a bunch of Christmas parties, oh, and finish up an enormous pile of work all before the end of the year! Good thing I know I'm not the only one with a really long list of things to do.