LOTS of rummage...yipee!

Crazy weekend, starting with Friday morning...up at 6a to shower & get kids ready early...had MOPS. Up late the night before making a salad for our Caregiver thank-you luncheon on Saturday...bringing it in Friday saved me a trip Saturday morning...

Cropped until midnight, finishing up this LO and completing another...



Up at 6a AGAIN on Saturday, to hit the first of the April-October Ann Arbor Antiques Market. I woke up at 4:40a and turned off my alarm, deciding I needed sleep more than rummaging, but woke up at 6a anyway (!) so I showered & headed out early.

Some awesome finds...a tin toy stove to start a display collection (Debbie Bliss inspired that, I believe), wooden blocks (from 50 cents to $3), a printer's tray to decorate a la AE, two vintage tennis rackets for a display down the stairs to the "man cave," some vintage tennis photos for same, and two mesmerizing paintings that I would love to know the origin of...


I couldn't stop looking at them, or thinking about them, so I had to have them. The second one is damaged. There is a big gouge out of the one girl's red hat, and damp or water-stain marks around a couple of toys in the window. They are rather large, about 18" x 24", quite darkened by time, but I am loathe to try and repair them lest I lower their value. Considering I got the pair for $48, any higher price would be interesting, but I don't think Antiques Roadshow is coming to town anytime soon.

After rummaging, I met the fam for lunch, then took Tess to a birthday party at the movies...I had the dubious task of sitting through the Hannah Montana movie. Now I have a couple of questions for Disney:

1. Nuns in an English boarding school? Didn't think I'd catch that, did you?

2.Are there really 5 year-old fans left to their own devices to discover Miley's secret? That was just disturbing.

3. What was the casting description for Travis? Must look 12 but have a voice like a 40 year-old? Did his voice change after you cast him? Where did you find him, Sundance? Are they cloning Robert Redford now? Obviously I was disturbed by the young man they cast in this role...

4. If that's Miley's Grandma, who were Vicky Lawrence and Dolly Parton playing on the TV series?

5. Thanks for reminding me that Brooke Shields and I are old enough to be Miley's mom. You guys really need to deal with the Dead Mom issue, BTW. That wasn't really a question, more of a commentary. Being a mom and all.

Thanks. You know where to reach me.

Easter and then some

Survived spring break week (barely). So nice to have E back home (even if he got to go to work all week...yes, even all day Good Friday).

Too much candy for Tess, though. I'm glad she's at my MIL's with E & her brother. Three! meltdowns! before! breakfast! (not including the jellybeans at 6:30a).

The Easter bunny came by at 6a to leave jelly bean trails from each child's bedroom door to the spot where their Easter baskets were located:

Luckily, she (I'm convinced the Easter bunny is a she...c'mon, give us ladies one holiday, right? Santa's got his and I've never seen a female leprechaun, we can't be witches only...besides, who REALLY goes and fills those baskets? Can I get a what-what...)

SHE put Tess's basket in our room, so that I would know when she was up (see 6:30a, above) and feel some of her excitement, not like Christmas 2007...ahem.

Grandma wanted a picture of the dress she made for Tess & her AG doll, we got it but not without (another) tantrum and sour face (AFTER the photo was taken, thank goodness):
I would have preferred that she comb her hair (and the doll's), but as we had just experienced Meltdown #2, I let it go. As Tess so wisely noted, "her hair matches mine!" Somehow I don't think Grandma is going to appreciate that...

Lil Guy got a very nice basket, too, and I got a nice photo of the both of them. Rare, believe it or not. Tess cannot be in hug range without squeezing Ben until he smacks her.

I had to move fast.


Hope you are having a bright, sunny Easter weekend too.


Peace out.

Crap.

I called E in Colorado this morning and told him he's never. allowed. to take a trip alone ever. again. Here's a little summary of little things that went wrong and drove me over the edge this weekend:

1. Ben didn't nap Saturday.

2. He woke up at 4 a.m. ready to roll. Uh, no.

3. Alarm went off at 6:30a so that I could get ready for early church before waking Tess; she had to sing in both services for Palm Sunday.

4. Sunday evening she swallows a metal marble from the Mousetrap game. Yes, she's SEVEN. I have no idea why she thought it would be a good idea to even put that in her mouth. Ben, maybe. Tess, uh, no.

5. Call 911 in a panic, they send an ambulance, she's fine. We just have to wait until it passes. Lovely.

5b. the only bright spot: I am not charged for the ambulance visit (apparently you only get charged if you ride).

6. The other bright spot in my weekend was the fact that Tess was supposed to go to a friend's house at 1p today and sleep overnight. In fact, Tess's only question before the ambulance arrived was, sniff, "will I still be able to sleep over?" sniff... The friend's mom called this morning; they are out of power.

So now I have Tess's friend visiting and sleeping over here tonight.

At least Ben is napping.

And I made brownies.

Charmed, I'm Sure

I was on FIRE with this project Thursday and Friday. This is the most fun scrapping I've had in a while. The idea just came to me and I couldn't let it go...ever since I found Cindy (fellow Friday Night Cropper) throwing away slide protectors (gasp!)...I KNEW there was a mini-mini journal in there somewhere...



Lots of other LOs in my SIStv gallery...I've been on fire generally in that department. I know it will wane once again, but I'm enjoying the ride for now.

E's out of town for a 4-day weekend. I'd call it an "exchange" trip for my trip to SIS Live at the end of June, but he has not arranged childcare for me (as I have for him that weekend), so I've come to think of it as more of a "retaliation" trip.

My only bump with not having him around was getting both kids out the door early (8a) this morning, so that Tess could sing in BOTH Palm Sunday services. After Ben woke at 4a last night. He NEVER does that, except that he did not nap yesterday (kids out front with sidewalk chalk on our driveway, kept him up) so at 4a he was all. done. He wanted to have major conversation with me, but after 20 minutes of trying to rock him (only to have him pull back and start on a new subject with me), I put him down and walked out.

Of course when I went to get him up early this morning, he was passed out like a little drunk, arms in the air, nothing would wake him except for some gentle shaking and calling and conversation. Payback time, baby!

Kindergarten Art

The pile in my kitchen hutch is still there (Tess's 1st grade work), but our kitchen table is (mostly) clear. I went into my scrap room and got to Tess's pile of kindergarten art from last year and remembered this gem:

All about her day, Step One: "I git my mom ep" -- It made me laugh when I first saw it, and it still does (I especially enjoy the accompanying artwork). I see she didn't get the concept of the assignment...she doesn't go back to sleep In The Morning. She does now, though. I have to "git her ep" in the mornings this year. My alarm goes off at 7a but I usually hear the high school bus coming through our neighborhood at 6:50a. Yeah, you read that right. 6:50a.

Seriously, I do NOT remember getting up that early for school as a teenager. Then again, I didn't take the bus. I thought school started around 8:30a, but another Livonia grad claims we all started at 7:30a. Of course, I didn't take the bus, but I walked or my Mom drove my sister and I in, so we had to be ready to leave with some time for travel.

My new printer has a scanner, obviously. I have soo much scanning to catch up on. Not too happy that I have to have Kodak paper for it -- makes sense, but I had just bought a HUGE package of Canon paper; I ended up giving it away at SIStv since my pictures were coming out dull. E claims Kodak ink is cheaper (one of the many reasons he picked this printer); I'm hoping the same holds true for Kodak paper.

Photoshop EleWHA?

I'm cleaning out kindergarten artwork (goodness, my girl has come a long way in a year...but I still love some of her original spelling!) when I come across a Scrapbook Answers (sniff...long since shut down, every issue came with a) DVD...two of them, in fact. One had a 30-day trial of PSE 4.0 so I downloaded it. I've been looking for a replacement for my beloved but frustratingly slow MS Picture It software, which is apparently not compatible with my new Vista system.

I went to a beginner's tutorial site and tried a few simple steps...holy cow, it is not at. all. intuitive, nor does it work as they describe (and they are also using PSE 4.0...I know there is a 7.0 version out right now).

I am so disappointed, I wanted digital scrapping to be easier, not harder, than paper scrapping, but there are so many steps and I've had to start over so many times with one stinking LO that I'm giving up for today.

29 days to go...

Here's the paper LO I worked on this weekend...not anything ground-breaking, but it takes care of most of the pictures from our trip to Ohio last August. I haven't done a 2-pager in a while, this was time-consuming...but not as time consuming as my first (so far) failed digital page!

Oops! The girl's bus is here...gotta run.

Skipping church

Wow, I was on a roll there, wasn't I? Well, today I am Pampering MySelf (yup, check those initials), so I let E take the kids to the gym/daycare and later his mom's (packed up some of my stuffed cabbage for her), and I have the house to myself.

I have been in a really bad mood this week (again, check the acronym up there). I slept in until 9a and made the executive decision that I was just not going to be ready to head out the door by 9:30 a.m. Most Sundays I am -- Tess has Sunday school, then children's choir, then she joins me halfway through church (BRILLANT idea, thanks Liz!) and E picks her up after to go to my MILs for the afternoon. Most Sundays.

Today I'm going to get some scrapping done. While it's nice to haul everything out of the house and go meet friends, I like having EVERYTHING I own, scrapbooking-wise, at my fingertips. Don't you just hate that feeling when you're out at a crop, and you know you have the PERFECT embellishment, sitting in packaging at home? And since I'm on a buying freeze (a mode I got into while saving for Creative Escape last year, that -- given the economy -- seems to be a permanent habit of mine), I can't just go buy another embellishment. While I'm scrapping, I'm going to organize, as well. But first, I must start with my Hot Spot in the kitchen:

This has been festering for weeks. Mail, Tess's school papers (check out the hutch...that has been multiplying for months), books from the library, magazines (Tennis, anyone?), perhaps a check or two down there somewhere (that would be nice). Let me know if you see anything that is yours...

On the lighter side, I have been working with the SIStv Winter Detox kit to make a fun mini (8x8) album that I hope to post soon. I entered their (snort) Style Star publishing contest for the theme "Spring Green," against my better judgement (I hate contests, and I hate WTP -- Working To Publish -- seems such a waste of my limited scrap time...besides, me? a Style Star? That's a stretch):

Well, it was fun, and I scrapped some amazing photos I took of the Huron River overflowing its banks, an annual event, it seems (we've only lived here 2 springs so far).

Hopefully I'll be back later with pictures of a clean kitchen table and hutch and some scrapped-up goodness.

I am so going to hell.