He was a sailor then too

Layout tonight of my dh using paper and elements from my new "Nautical" kit. Inked Edge overlay by Nancy Rowe Janitz at Scrapartist. Journaling left off for now till I talk to my MIL. NIGHT!

Nautical Kit Crop Freebie

GET THIS NAUTICAL KIT FREE AT

SUNDAY (TONIGHT) AND WEDNESDAY (3/1) LATE NIGHT CROPS AT SBB

11:59 PM IN THE SBB CHAT ROOM

1/2 of the kit will be given out at each crop, so you need to attend both to get the whole kit!

Enjoy!!! :-)

So here it is..the whole Nautical Kit.

SNEAK PEAK - NAUTICAL KIT (available in SBB Chats this week!)

Well..I've made a little progress since my last crazy post. I did NOT get to go to a hotel because there ended up being nothing available in town less than $100/night. So I stayed up late last night finishing up the kit for the freebies for the SBB Sunday and Wednesday latenight chats (I'll put a sneak peak below - only 1/2 of the kit will be give at each chat, so be sure to go to both chats to get the whole kit!).

I slept in till almost noon today (thanks to my wonderful hubby who took care of everythign this mornign so I could), and then met with my group in the afternoon, had dinner with my family and then spent the evening working on more budgeting homework and several OPA things that have been waiting forever to get done. Tomorrow is ALL Capstone! I'm going to sleep in a bit again and then lock myself away all day in the computer room. Monday Ky should be able to start mother's day out (that should make a huge difference!) 2 days a week. The day will still be quite busy since I have a dentist appt and Alyssa has gymnastics, but hopefully I'll make some real progress tomorrow on capstone and be OK. I have a quiz to take for budgeting Monday too.

So, quick list of things to finish up tomorrow (I know I said capstone all day, but I do have a few little things that have to get finished up too) and then to bed for a little rest:

• finish previews for elements for chat freebies
• call GS mom's
• call Sabrina to finish interview
• finish and send last articles to Ann for editing
• CAPTSONE!

OK and now for the SNEAK PEAK at Sunday (2/26) and Wednesday (3/1) latenight show crops (11:59 PM EASTERN TIME in the SBB Chat room) Freebies! These are just the papers, the elements are nautical themed to go with (I'll post the preview of those too when I finish later).

Panic Attack

I really think I should just drop out of school and quit trying to finish this...it's just not going to happen...it's too much sacrifice this semester for my family to allow me to do it.

I really just feel like crying...I am all of a sudden just feeling totally overwhelmed and panicky...I keep trying to tell myself I can get ahead, and I can get through this last semester, it's almost over. But the reality is that I am gettng maybe 10 hours of sleep a WEEK, I'm barely eating anything decent any more, and I'm still not getting even caught up - I just keep getting more and more behind. There's always SOMETHING, and then when I finally do have some time to concentrate on school work...well..I'm so tired I can't stay awake any more. I fall asleep sitting at my desk for goodness sake. I'm barely awake when I'm driving to and from class and group meetings, and today I fell asleep on the couch for like 30 min while I was sitting in the living room with Kyleigh! It's getting so insane and I can't keep everything straight in my head any more... Maybe I really should just drop out this semester and try to finish antoher tiem in a few years...it seems to be too much to ask of my family right now. They cannot work out a way to get by without me as much for just a couple more months....as I said, there is always SOMETHING that someone needs me to do first.

I've tried to keep sane by working on things I enjoy that don't require so much concentration or aren't stressful if I'm constantly interrupted during the day when there is too much going on for me to do school work, but that time is getting longer and longer every day..I never have much time that I can work on what really needs to be done - school work. This is the source of huge stress levels for me, and I can't find enough time to even try to relax any more to relieve it. I'm just going in circles....

Sorry to be such a downer today...I needed to just sit for a minute and type as my heart was racing and I was feeling so panic stricken sudenly. I'm tired of feeling guilty for trying to do anything I enjoy because I always have so much school work I'm behind on.....off to make dinner (late) since my husband still isn't home though I expected him a few hours ago. Even if I DO get to go to a hotel tonight, it will be so late again..I'll just end up going to bed!

I need a weekend retreat!

OMG! It's one of those days when you have that overwhelming feeling like you can't handle everything any more. I told my husband today (Thursday - I haven't gone to bed yet) that I am getting a hotel this weekend and LEAVING so I can just work and work and work and get caught up on school, sleep and whatever else. I feel like I'm becoming so scattered brained, and I absolutely hate not being organized and behind.

I know I'm doing way too much these days, but I LOVE everything I'm doing, and EVERY time I cut something out to reduce the things on my plate, I always replace it with something (or several somethings) else. I made the decision a few months ago to stop selling CM at the end of last year, and I will finally be deactivated in a few days, but I still have the taxes to finish for last year and a bunch of left over inventory I have to do something with. Well, I've picked up plenty of new things to do as well in the last several months - photography, digital design and Girl Scouts. See! I didn't replace it with ONE thing! So now I am a SAHM, wife, grad student, national board member for OPA, Girl Scout Leader, and I'm "training" and laying ground work for TWO businesses: photography and degital design. All this on top of us making some big life changes in the next couple of months - dh is getting out of the Navy, still looking for a job, I should be looking for a job (but I want to continue to stay home and have my own businesses), we're expecting to move SOMEWHERE, and we still want to try for a third kid this year! OMG!!! Can you see why my brain is so disorganized? And why I'm looking into a mother's day out for Ky for 2 days a week? I need some time to get caught up and get sleep!

OK..so to make a plan for this weekend before I go to sleep:

• finish budgeting spread sheets
• complete budgeting slides
• Call Dr. J about capstone and budgeting questions
• finish OPA articles
• forward final articles to Ann
• call Church for GS planting project
• email/call GS parents about our trip and registration
• vinish nautical freebie set*
• make dr, dentist and eye appts for Alyssa
• get hotel

Friday night and Saturday morning - allllll capstone time!

Saturday afternoon - meet with budgeting group

Saturday night - alllll capstone time!

Sunday return home to spend the day with my family.

*(I'm making a small kit for the SBB Sunday late night and Wednesday late night crop - you'll get half of it at each so be sure to particpate in both: Sunday with Sonya and Wednesday night with Kim - they're both awesome DTMs and so wonderful to allow me the opportunity and challenge to make the freebies! Thanks Sonya and Kim!)

OK..off to bed to get some rest, so I can get up and take Alyssa to school again and tackle that lovely schedule!

Another day passes

Why does it seem that nobody ever comes by my house right AFTER I clean, but they ALWAYS stop by when it is in a total mess and at the desperate point of needing to be picked up again? I feel like I am always telling people "please excuse the mess. I've been busy and haven't had a chance to pick up lately...we really don't live like this every day." LOL I bet some of them think "YEAH right...it looks like this every tiem I come by." OH well....sigh.... I cleaned it all up today, and of course..no visitors coming any time soon.

Dh FINALLY came home today. He left Friday morning and then got stuck in Austin becaue the weather was too poor for them to be able to fly out again until today, and he still barely made it home in time for me to get to class. Anyway...now that he's finally home, I think I'm going to bed early (Ok earlier than usual) tonight to get a relatively decent night of sleep. In the morning I'm getting up early and LEAVING the house with my laptop to work on my capstone. I'm way too distracted here, and really behind after two lost weekends. He's going to stay home until lunch and then go in for a little bit. So, I'll just leave the baby here at home with him and then go and come back for lunch. Then the baby will take a nap after lunch and I'll have a few more quiet hours to work. HOPEFULLY this will give me enough time to make some serious headway on my paper.

Well....I know this may sound odd, but I just don't have much to chat about tonight..I'm tired and want to get to bed tonight - I'm so happy to have my husband back. :-)

OH, and I did scrap another page of my brother and his wife from the wedding again today, but I can't get this darn thing to post it correctly without messing up my side bar, so until I can figure that out..you'll just have to view it in my gallery here. Feel free to leave comments on any los in my gallery while you' re there too! haha :-) NIGHT!!!

A schedule for Today

Today's List: Today I'm trying something a bit different..not just a to do list, but a "schedule" to help keep me on track. So far not too bad, but I'm getting really tired and wanting to go take a nap. hmmmm. If I take the nap I'm not going to get all this stuff done, but if I don't take a nap..I may not get much done anyway because of my exhaustion.

Here's today's schedule I put together before I went to bed this morning....
6:45 wake up and get Alyssa ready for school (OK this didn't go well - I went to bed at 5 am and didn't wake till 7:20, when a friend came to our door this morning!)

7:30 drop off Alyssa, drop off permission slips for my Girl Scouts for our day camp trip for next weekend, and drop of Alyssa's letter of intent to return to her school next year.

8:00 breakfast for Kyleigh and I

8:30 - 10:00 Fill out GS troop form, download more files, send emails to Dixie and Sabrina, and start Chevron articles received list (the form took so darn long I didn't get much else done in this period; this is that time though I do my best and don't stress..no schoolwork is scheduled here! Lol)

10:00- 12:00 Trip down to the GS office to turn in troop application

12: 00 lunch

12:30 - 2:30 nap for Kyleigh, Budgeting HW and maybe capstone

2:30 pick up Alyssa

2:30-3:30 snack for the girls

3:30 - 5:30 Gymnastics

6:00 Dinner, and then evening time with the girls

8:00 Girls in bed

9:00 - 12:00 work on capstone and finish writing OPA articles

12:00 BEDTIME!

Well, lunch time is just about up, so I better get to the next thing on the list...baby is down for her nap already! whoo hooo

Scrapping again!

I did some scrapping FINALLY tonight (though I should have been doing work...I really needed the outlet tonight though..will have to make up for this now this week) anyway..must share here because I was really happy with how these turned out. Especially the darker b&w pic of alyssa - it started as a pretty bad picture and I LOVE how it turned out after I edited it. I may even have to get that picture printed. hmmm It was one of those where you are just shooting random shots and adjusting colors and settings on the camera - playing...anyway..was looking for some pictures tonight to scrap and came across that one...loved the look in her face and natural smile. It's so hard to get a nice natural smile some days with her lately..so I had to play with it to see if I could "fix" it. Enough chit chat...here are today's pages.

credits: Papers, alpha, and elements from Jen Wilson's Worn Comfort Collections - the ONE purple paper comes from her Dreamy Purple paper pack. The overlay on the photo is an inked brushed edge from scrapartist by Nancie Rowe Janitz Font: arial narrow for the date

credits: paper, overlay and elements from Jen Wilson's Princess Dress up kit. Font is palace script

NOOOOOOO I'm totally *SCREAMING* I have spent forever (several hours already) downloading all these files I bought yesterday and unzipping and renaming and organizing...and jsut when I had all the layers elements all down, I must have clicked something some how that they all deleted! EVEN THE ZIPS! It won't let me undo, and I can't find them in the "recycle bin." OMG! I am soooo NOT GOING TO DOWNLOAD ALL THAT STUFF AGAIN! AAAAHHHH I tried to call dh to ask him if there's another recycle bin these things could be in, but he didn't answer his cell phone or the hotel room phone - maybe he's out flying or eating lunch. ARRRGGG 

Shopping CRAZE!

So...it's a good thing my husband isn't home this weekend to see or know about all the shopping I'm doing online for digi kits (hope it doesn't read this either! lol)...So, I shopped Friday morning (finally) at the Shabby Shoppe and picked up 11 kits! That should have been enough, but NO...Kim had to tell me about a great sale for Jen Wilson stuff...so today I headed into the SBB store to look around...it took me FOREVER because the site was running so slow with all the shoppers and d/lers today. My oldest was off at a friends today (like from 11-4) and when I got the little one down for a nap about noon, I logged in to do a bit of quick shopping....hours later (like 4!) I HAD to get off because the SBB server was rebooting or something and I had to go get ready to go somewhere and pick up my oldest dd. So, off I went to get her, then came home and started dinner real fast (we had like an hour till we had to leave) and went ahead and checked out with all that I had so far for JW stuff (about $50 and TON of stuff - like I got the worn comfort CD and all the elements) at that point. I had a few more things already in my cart for the next round but thought..surely I'll be home in time before the sale ends at 11 my time.

I ended up RACING home only to get in the door minutes before 11 PM...threw the baby in the crib (well, I didn't really THROW her...kissed and laid her down gently since she was already asleep), told my older dd to hurry and get ready for bed and RAN to my computer! My computer was all frozen up and I couldn't get anything to work...I was freaking out! I really wanted to get some of the elements to the layers cd too (which I already have, but don't have any elements). I ran out to m laptop praying...got it all up and my cart still showed the sale prices..so I quickly checked out while opening the store in another browser to see if the other stuff was still on sale too. So, found out YES! It was still on sale...so I hurried to find all the layers elements I had written down earlier that I wanted...went to check out and BAM the store went down! AAAAAAHHHH Thought for sure I was not going to get this stuff on sale and finally about 15 minutes later the store came back up, but my cart was EMPTY! I realized I needed to log back in and found my cart and quickly checked out again. WHEW! So by this time I've spent about $50, another $11 and another $6...not bad for all the stuff I'd bought. Well....while I sat there thinking, and checking to see if stuff was STILL on sale....I decided I should get all the elements for the layers cd - maybe I'd use it more if I had all the elements....so guess what I did???? YEP! Bought the other 7 I hadn't yet! Another $10!

NOW...I'm SO DONE! I've gone way off the deap end and like I NEED TO SCRAP WITH THIS STUFF NOW! I really was wanting to look into picking up Gina Miller's new CDs too...love that I can get 12 paper and element kits for $35 this week! Man..what will I do??? I will have to think about it... ughhhhh :-)

oh geeee...baby crying....I better come back to this in a bit.

Ok so I'm back. I just loved every second of sitting in there holding her in my arms while she fell back to sleep. She never lets me snuggle with her any more - she's always in constant motion.

I went to bed last night at 9 PM right after putting the girls down. I was going to try and get soem work done, but I was just way too tired. I thought, well I'll go lay in bed and watch one of my xfile episodes and just relax for a bit and get a good night of sleep, and if I wake up real early I'll get up and work before the girls get up, and if I don't wake till morning..oh well. So, I never got to the xfile episode...didn't even ever get the dvd in the dvd player! I was passed out soon after my head hit the pillow...woke up some time in the early hours when Alyssa came to get in bed with me. I considered getting up to work, but decided the heck with it! I NEED a good night of sleep. SO, I didn't get up till 9 AM this morning when Ky woke me! :-) ahhhh so nice..wish I had time to do that every night! Geesh..I'd be happy with time to sleep just 8 or 9 hrs a night! Maybe when school is done - 11 more weeks!

OMG..today I realized we have 4 weeks till Alyssa's bday and 8 till Ky's. I totally have to get on planning for these girls! I have no idea what we are going to do for either! Or what we will be getting them. hmmmm

Well, I should hit the pillow again..it's getting very late (closing in on 3 AM!) and I still have way too much to do tomorrow since I didn't get anything done again today!

Long week and longer weekend coming

I'm so tired I can barely stay awake again tonight. I'm still trying to recover from the first 3 nights at the start of this week with no sleep. I did not finish my literature review in time - I am so frustrated with myself for that. Thankfully my professor didn't seem to upset over it (but we'll see when he actually reads how little I did get done).

Dh is going to be out of town this weekend and I have a million things that must be completed - this is my first time alone for an entire weekend with the girls. yikes!

I HAVE to finish my literature review this weekend, plus the methodology section now too - I will have that due on Wed. Need to also do new budgeting homework, several things for OPA (writing of articles, gathering of material to send off to the copy editor, and some other things not related to the newsletter), and I have a district retreat to attend for OPA on Saturday. oh man...wish me luck!

I played for a little bit here and there when I've had a few mintues to come up with my website and blog color theme and my logo. I think I've got both, and so now I'll have the papers to make so I can actually finish the look of the site. Speaking of the website, dh and I talked about it some more today and some options for the store issues we're having with our server. We may go ahead and move the site sooner than later. I think I'm just going to be creating freebies still for a few more months, but when we get the store to work, we'll place them in there so the site can get a better look to it. I'm going to aim to do one full free kit each month and then create additional stuff to hold for a grand opening of the site and store in June or July (after I'm done with school and we get moved and resettled). I will probably still try to do some small freebies here on the blog, but otherwise the free kits will be on the site each month, and I'll just announce and link to it over here in the blog.

I haven't had any tiem this week to scrap, and I'm so sad...I hope next week is better if this weekend is productive! Ok...so wanna sneak preview at the color swatch and logo???

I don't know why, but I can't get the color swatch to load..I've done it like 10 times now....watch when I publish this..it will be there a dozen times. lol *Edited: There it is finally!*

Well, I'm off...not staying up late tonight. This is my last night to try and get caught up on sleep before dh leaves me for the weekend with my hellish todo list still in tact!

Sorry Anita, I'm already late. I had a few things I needed to do before going to bed (and even though I'm totally exahusted, I still have to relax and unwind for just a bit first). I promise I'm going as soon as I'm done here - and I'll make a short post tonight.

Last night on my way home from school at midnight, I stopped by Walmart (I haven't been out any time lately to buy anything) to pick up something little for my girls and dh for Vday. So, I came home and packaged them up in little gift bags and then planned to make them little tag cards after finishing the budgeting work. Well....I never went to bed before dh and Alyssa got up, and I was stilllllll working on the budgeting presentation, so I just gave them the gifts without the tags. Well, here's where I'm going wiht this... I saw dh for like 15 min again tonight for another hurried dinner and then ran out for school. I got home about 10:30 and he said something to me along the lines of "I'm feel so bad I didn't get you anything, I mean to, but haven't been able to." Well...I ACTUALLY didn't really care - I wasn't even thinking much about Valentines, nor expecting anything. I think he's already given me the best gift - understanding and help with the girls, and dinner, and the house, and everything else he does to help me get through school. Not to mention all the ohter little things I ask him to help me with (like putting together a store front and TONS of OPA stuff)....I just can't think of anything I really needed right now besides that. Besides, he and Alyssa did pick up a small thing of flowers yesterday at the grocery store for me when they were shopping. I think that works just fine - no need for a special holiday to get flowers. :-)

So, I'm sure I could ramble about many other things about my day, but the short of it is that I can barely stay awake any longer (went to bed at 8:30 and got up at 10...no naps today! ) I have that big section of my paper to finish writing tomorrow and I'm not even half done. I'm in no shape to do any work now though, so I'm going to bed early and getting up abotu 7 AM and praying that I can get some real work done early before Ky wakes and dh leaves for work, and then going to hope that Ky works with me tomorrow to allow me some time to finish at least a draft version of this thing to turn in!

Glad you all are enjoying the "Adore" kit...I really like how it all turned out and can't wait to make another kit. I have all sorts of ideas and plans in the works and in my brain...I'll have to share some sneak peaks....but later. :-) Off to find my pillow and soft bed.

FREEBIE HERE - Happy Valentine's Day!

Well, here it is! My first complete kit and it's yours FREE! Please leave me a message if you take, and if you post any los using PLEASE let me know - I'd LOVE to see what you do with it. I'm very proud of it. :-) Enjoy, and Happy Valentine's Day!

download at Sarah's Scraps

Reflection

So do you think it's possible to be both left and right brained? I know I'm def a left brained person, but I do have a creative side too. I may not be as creative and artsy as some fully right brained people, but I do think it is possible for a person to be left brained and still be somewhat artsy fartsy. Well...I can believe myself even if you don't! lol

Ever wonder if you're making the right sacrifices? This school thing is reallllllly costing me a lot of things I want and love. I really want more time to play with my kids, more time to just spend with my husband, a clean and organized house again, and time to do more of those crafty things I want to do. I feel like everything so important to me is really on the back burner this semester to finish school. Thank goodness this is the last semester. I can't wait to be the mom, wife, and friend again that I want to be. Don't get me wrong, I love learning, and am still very happy with field I chose to my masters in, but man I wish I'd realized how much sacrifice would be involved with it. I don't know that there really was a better time though other than maybe a semester or two sooner. If I had just finished by the time Ky was born (last spring), everything would have been perfect. sighhhhh oh well, the end is near. I will have a lot of making up to do with my family and friends and my husband when this is done. I feel like I've been a huge burden, and asked a lot from everyone to get through this. It so doesn't help that I'm such a perfectionist too, and can't allow myself to get less than an A. MAN does that stress me out too! I am in my final class and capstone this semester and I still have a 4.0. I'm soooo stressed that this darn budgeting class will be the end of my 4.0. I have to work in this group, and so I don't have my normal control of the product I produce. Not to mention I'm having to pick up a lot of slack because my group memebers either don't know the programs we're having to work with, or they're just soooo young and don't have the same work ethic and attitude I have.

Speaking of my group...AHAHHH I had my meeting tonight and I didn't get home from school until like 12:30 AM! Even worse...I have to do a ton of work now for our group before tomorrow (later today) when we present and I still have a ton to do on my lit review section due Wed. So we have this presentation tonight and we have been assigned two "departments" in our pretent city to do the expenditure history for. So there are 4 of us in the group and we split 2 on each department. Well, I've basically done all the work for my section as my partner is still learning how to use excel and power point (but at least she has interest and works to learn and understand!). The other two had the smaller department and did all their graphs and such and slides, and then today we realized we needed to make some changes to things as we merged the two files together to make the one presentation. Well, they didn't save the data in their excel file that they used to make the graphs, so basically I CAN'T change them - they're essentially just pictures of the graphs in power point. Well they had to leave early tonight, so I have to redo all their graphs and then format all the slides to match everything. I have to finish entering in the analysis part because all that's been done is the number crunching and that's not the meat of what we need. AAAHH THEN I notice tonight that we are supposed to have a written report to turn in and give copies of to everyone in class TOMORROW! NO ONE IN THE GROUP HAS DONE THIS! Well, since I HAVE the powerpoint to finish it up, guess who will have to write that? YEP! MEEE I wish I could say screw it, but it's my grade (and I said I'm a perfectionist and can't accept less than an A). OOOHHHH I bet they're all at home sleeping now nice and warm and comfy. I had 3 hours of sleep last night, a looooong day, still have to do some writing for my paper, and I'll have to stay up again all night tonight to get this crap done for them so it's online when they wake in the morning (as I'm laying down, if I'm lucky to do that before the baby gets up). Then I'll have to deal with the baby all day and try to get more work done, go to class tomorrow to present this crap, and then stay up again all night tomorrow working on my paper. WAAAAAH What a fun Valentine's for me huh? :-(

I guess I should stop whining and go work some before I can't. I'm not sure I can stay up again all night tonight...I am too old to pull all nighters more than one at a time here and there. This sucks.

Oh and I have to ask dh in the morning if he got the store to work or not - he was asleep (as most normal people would be) when I got home from school. I've barely seen him today other than the 10 mins I ate dinner with him and the girls. So, I will have the kit out somewhere later today....gotta finsh the school work and maybe get a few hours of sleep first.

Happy Valentine's to you all! Enjoy your loved ones.

So, I got a bit of work done since the last post, and I'm about to go to bed (yes..it's almost 6 AM and I'm GETTING READY TO GO TO BED!) To take a little break from the work before going to sleep I had to try and make my to do list a bit more creative today...so, now that I've wasted an extra 10 minutes and I have my thoughts organized for later, I can finally go rest for a couple hours before the baby wakes. Wish me luck with this list today (Monday's are always tough anyway due to the time lost with gymnastics, and to start with only a few hours of sleep, I'll be lucky to get far at all on this!)

Today's list. Credits: paper made by me, Font: CK Higgins Handprint, CK Handprint, and Chelt Press.

Shopping & Photo Shoot

Another not so productive day for school work...but I did have some fun with other stuff! lol Mom and I ran to Joann's today JUST TO PICK UP A FEW COLORS OF TULLE. I LOOOOVE this background that Rie did for some pictures of her daughter, and she had told me how to do it several weeks ago, so today I decided to go get some tulle and try it with my girls for some Vday pics and Ky's 10 month pics. Well..several HOURS later, I had a bill for $150! OMG...I got the tulle, a red solid felt, (I use felt and fleece for my photography b/g right now), some of that shaggy red fleece (BEWARE the sign says it's on sale for $4, so I thought cool...I'll get two yards...yeah..NO...when we got to the counter she told me that 2 yds was $25! She said OH that sign has in small print some types of fleece that are excluded and this is one of those! UGH! Needless to say, my 40% off coupon I was planning to use on this other material that was $7/yd got used on this). Anyway...also got some really pretty material for Easter dresses for both girls - mom is going to make them as I do not have time to sew dresses this semester, and I have only ever sewn by pattern a couple of times in my life! I don't typically sew clothing - just decorating type stuff and quilts. Also picked up a few things for Alyssa's Vday gifts for the kids in her class and her secret pal in Girl Scouts.

So we run home (after stopping at Starbucks for drinks and little treats! ha) and I st up everythign really fast for a photo shoot since the sun is quickly going down, and we need to eat dinner quick quick so my parents can get going home and I can go meet my budgeting group. Well, I took about 125 pictures of Kyleigh alone, a few of Alyssa alone and several of both together. One or two of Alyssa were cute, none of them together came out (will have to try again this week maybe), and I managed to get a few that I liked of Ky. I haven't finished editing them yet, but I'm very happy with the coloring and lighting for the most part. Here's the four I have cropped and will finish editing as her 10 month pics. I may try to take a few more later this week if time, weather and SHE permits.



Well...I ended up rescheduling my meeting for tomorrow as I just couldn't make it tonight since my parents were still here and we were just finishing dinner as I would have needed to leave. Not to mention, what we needed to do tonight did not require us to get together (except to keep me from fooling around as I ended up doing tonight!). My parents left fairly late (maybe 7:30 or so) and I played with the pics from the photo shoot for a while and then just fooled around on the computer in general with scrapbook design ideas and stuff.

So again, here I am at 1 AM with still no school work done. I totally have to make myself go to the library every night this week so I won't be distracted. I do have to finish renaming and preparing all the files for the "Adore" kit though, and dh is trying one last thing to see if he can get the store up tomorrow (Monday), so I will have to release my Vday kit on Valentine's Day. No later I promise...for sale or free...all depends on the store by Tuesday! :-)

Ok, so I'm goign to STAY AWAKE for a few more hours and actually do school work. Later gators!

Just another day

Today (OK..it's really already Sunday now, so I mean SATURDAY) I planned on getting up early and working on my capstone paper for a while before my parents came. I didn't expect them to get here before 1 or 2 PM, so I figured I had several good hours to get some work done, and then I could "play" while they were here today and Sunday. I have a budgeting group meeting Sunday night and Monday night, and then my presentation in class and another meeting Tuesday night, then my capstone class on Wednesday night when the 2nd section of this paper is due, and I haven't written even two words of! ok...so I digressed....

Anway...I ended up getting out of bed about 9:30...actually fairly normal time for me. Dh had gotten up when the baby got up and let me sleep in for a bit, until I heard him yelling at my older daughter to turn down the TV before she woke mommy up (mind you I was not awakened by the TV prior to his yelling at her! lol) So, I fooled around for a few chatting on the computer, reading emails and blogs...then I had some breakfast, did a little cleaning up, then it was time to play with the baby while dh was in the garage with the older one...then came lunch...and finally baby took a nap...now it's finally about 1:00 and I've done NOTHING still on the paper. I called my parents about 11:00 and they still hadn't left.....so I figured give them a few more minutes as they were about ready to go, and they should be here between 2 and 3 (it's a 2 1/2 hr drive).

So once the baby was down at 1:00 and dh went back outside to work, I thought..good I've got a good hour or so left, so DD#1 and I cleaned up her bathroom and then she went out to play and I came to sit at my computer to check email again before going to FINALLY start work on the paper....well....I could barely keep my eyes open and found myself nodding off more than staying awake. I finally gave in about 1:30 ish and just went to lay down on my bed. Next thing I knew...baby was waking me up and it was already 3, and my parents are still not here! So, I put the baby outside with daddy and sister to play and came in to call to see where they were...just getting into town (about 30 min still). So, with 30 min, I didn't think I could do much and instead went to visit SBB and read a few forums and leave some comments in the gallery (always behind on that).

Anyway...won't get into the details of all of the remainder of my day, but short story...parents got here finally about 4 is and then we all went out to dinner about 7. Got back late, got the kids to bed and mom and I finally got to play and make digi pages! I'm still teaching mom how to do this, and the inspiration tonight was pretty simple in the late night show, so we used that and pictures I took from my brother's wedding last month. I think both pages turned out nicely. (I'll post below).

Left (mom)

Right (me)

Credits for both:

Solid paper (recolored) from "Adore" by Sarah VanDyke and pattern paper (recolored) from Shabby Princess "Sweet Sprinkles", Doodles by Melissa Renfro from Scrap Girls, and ribbon from Ronna Penner at Scrapbook-elements ribbon shop vol. 2.

So, now..it's 3 AM and I've still done absolutely nothing for my paper due Wednesday...guess I will not be home now at night again until probably FRIDAY! (group meetings, classes, and library time). I'm thinking I'm just going to have to go to the library to get any work done. I cannot seem to seperate myself from all the distractions here at home this semester...my heart just wants to be doing something else all the time.

OMG - and dh is going to be gone next weekend, so I will barely see him again after tomorrow until probably Monday or Tuesday the 20th/21st. :-( Next week is going to be a Loooooong week.

I think I'm going to try to do some Vday pics and 10month pics for the baby tomorrow (today) if I have a few extra minutes. We'll see...mom and I will be doing some more scrapping after she's rested. ha :-)

Speaking of rest, I'm going to need some to tackle this weekend, so I better go get some.

"Adore" Coming Valentine's Day

Preview for papers to my new kit to be released Valentine's Day (Tuesday) "Adore." Elements include 2 alphas, 3 ribbons, tags, candy heart messages, flowers, and a heart charm.

Paper OOPS!

So, I'm a big ding dong...I made my papers today from my color swatch and posted. Then later I came back and made the elements based on the bug which I hadn't changed the color on yet, so all the elements are a brighter red than the red I went with in the papers. SO...I've made 3 more papers with the brighter red, so you don't have to recolor them to use them. Those of you that already downloaded, you'll just need the replacement papers now, but if you haven't downloaded the papers yet, then the link below has the correct red papers included, plus three bonus dark red versions too! ha So everyone ends up with 11 papers rather than 8...3 are the darker red then that you can use when you aren't trying to use the elements (or you can always recolor the elements to go with the darker reds if you prefer those!).

Anway...here is the "replacement papers" link if you d/l the papers earlier...You don't need this link if you haven't downloaded yet...all 11 papers are in the link below now. The preview has also been updated now.

FREE Elements Complete

So, here's the elements to go with the papers. Please leave me a comment if you take..I'm feeling so unloved...only one comment ever! :-(

Hope you enjoy the papers and elements. I had a great time making these. I hope to have my other valentine kit "Adore" either in my store or as a freebie on my web soon. If we can't get the store to work this weekend, it will have to be a freebie on Monday!


Download at Sarah's Scraps

Happy Scrapping! I HAVE to go do school work now before my parents come down tomrrow. :-)

Happy EARLY Valentine's Day! FREE Love Bug Papers.

Download at Sarah's Scraps

Please leave me a comment if you take! :-)
Elements to come later today too!

I WON!!!!!!

OMG! WOOOO WHOOOO I CANNOT believe I actually won that! I scrapped my little heart out as fast as I could...Had to do TWO los because my first was #8, and I really wanted to win. I finished the second lo and hit submit...heart pounding as #18 was already there..I just KNEW I would end up #19 or #21..it kept loading and loading and loading...apparently everyone else could see before my computer ever finished loading, but I was #20!!!!!!! I WON the AWESOME NEW CD BY DAWN & ASHLEY! *happy happy happy dance*. :-) So like I totally need to go do homework now...but I don't feel so bad about fooling around another 1 1/2 hours since I won!!! :-) lol

So here is a preview of the kit, and my two layouts done during the chat...Alyssa's was post #8 and Ky was the winning post #20!

More spaghetti trouble 

A little fight with that spaghetti! 

DEATH To Spam Mail!

So I absolutely hate spam email! I have received over 100 spam mails already just since Tuesday morning! It's driving me mad.

I'm in quite the sarcastic mood today too. Probably not the best mood for when I was just writing up my monthly report for OPA. Hm...I'm thinking that the report is actually what put me in this mood. I dunno.. I think I'm going to take a nap while I have 30 min and maybe I'll awake out of my sarcatic funk.

Wow, How we have aged in such a short time....

So, I was scrolling through pictures earlier and had come across this picture of us from almost 2 1/2 years ago when we took Alyssa to Sea World. My first thought...gosh we sure look young there, and then OMG! We have aged quite a bit in such a short time (ok..well, I HAVE AGED - shouldn't say that about dh..he still looks much like this). Anyway, this picture always made me laugh. Dh took Alyssa to sit in the very front row (knowing they may get splashed, but it was HOT). I just didn't feel up to getting splashed, especially with the camera and other things with us, so I sat several rows back where I could still see them but not be in the splash zone. Well....boy oh boy did they ever get splashed! The particular section we were in was a very wet section. After being splashed little bits here and there, at the end of the show TWO whales came to the section we were in and turned tale towards our section and just completely drenched the area - Eric and Alyssa were completely soaked. They might as well have just jumped into the water themselves fully clothed because that's how wet they were. I thought it was a hoot, but little Alyssa was MAD! She stood up and just cried and cried...it was so sad. Poor kiddo. She didn't forgive daddy for a few hours. You can see the "irritation" in her face still when we took this picture with Shamu. She was just completely disguisted..I think she even commented "My panties are even wet!" lol...

Us at Seaworld a little more than 2 years ago (Oct. 2003)

So, that was my practice at loading a picture. It is WAY too late now, I must go to bed. I'm almost done with my "Adore" kit. Gotta finish up the last alpha (I made a change to it) and decide if I want to do word art or not. The elements are done now, I just have to make all the previews! I'm losing hope that the store is going to be ready this week, as dh is still working out the kinks. We'll see...

Setting Up Shop!

Well...I'm moving over to Blogger and setting up my new blog to go along with my Sarah's Scraps website. The website is about to undergo some changes finally, and I MAY even be adding the STORE (yippee!) to it this month! I can't wait. I'm working on a design them for the site, new kits, and previews of things to come soon. I can't wait to really get it up and going. In a few months, if the site is doing well, and maybe selling a few kits, I will register an actual domain for it too rather than continue to run it off our own family site and server.

So...I'm off to play with this for now and get this part set up. See ya around blog-land!