Another post to pass some time...

that's how I feel all of my posts have been lately. I'm soooo sorry! I figured by now there was practically no one even visiting my blog any more so when I went today to see what the stats were on the top blogs list - I was really surprised to see there had been 47 hits! YIKES! SORRRRY! I KNOW it's no 150 or 300 hits a day like the popular bloggers, but I'm thrilled to have my little group of 50, and I'm sorry to be letting everyone down right now with the posts that are short and boring and just here to let you know I am still alive! :-)

Sarah's Scraps on the other hand really has taken a nose dive since I haven't created anything new in a few weeks - it went from being almost in the top 100 to down to like 194 or something when I looked the other day. I don't check the ranking on the site or the blog very often, and it's not a competitive thing..but it lets me know the stats on the visits.

I've been a bit down about designing recently too - I really don't feel like much of a "legit" designer right now since I don't sell anywhere, and I've been trying to remidy that problem, but I was kinda holding out for a particular store. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I may just not be good enough for that, and now that I've spent so much time and effort and waiting on one place, other possibilities have probably passed by. Plus now that I haven't done much in the last couple of weeks I'll probably have to start all over again. *sigh...* Aunt Flow must be coming to visit soon - I sure can get into some real lows at that time of the month.

On the other hand...the photography is going pretty well. I ordered a light meter sometime last week and it finally arrived yesterday. MAN I love that thing! I can't wait to use it for a "shoot." Speaking of...did I mention that my friend called me on Monday asking if I'd be willing/interested in taking her daughter's senior pics? WOW! OF COURSE (no worry I still have a bajillion other things to do! lol this is AN OPPORTUNITY!). :-) So we're scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I'm so excited - I can't wait! This girl used to babysit for us (Alyssa absolutely adores her) and she is such a pretty girl - she will be absoultely wonderful to photograph.

Lets see...other news? (yes, I am procastinating on the paper - why does this happen to me in the last days???) Eric has another (his 3rd) interview with Caterpillar next week. We've been told that 90% of the people invited to this interview are given an offer, so that's exciting and sadening. Exciting because he really needs a job - we're down to a month till he's out of the Navy, and sad because the job is in Illinois. Some of you may know my brother is going to Iraq (he's about 6 years younger than me), and left for readiness training already. We can't see him at all while he's in training (which is here in the country for 6 months!). When he's done they will let him have leave to come home for about 2 weeks and then he's off to Iraq this summer for a year! My mom's not handling this really well - as I suspect many mother's don't. My mom really loves both of us tons, but Bill is her baby, and it's never easy to send any of your children into harms way. I'm obviously not thrilled about it either, but I have been able to stay focused on more positive aspects of it (I know..what's positive about it? Well, I mean I try not to think of the bad things - I think of how many people go and come back completely unharmed, and the job he's doing is safer than others...etc...). I've had a little more practice with not thinking of the bad things :-) If I thought of all the things that could go wrong every day Eric flys (and he did actually crash back in Jan!!!), or when he's on deployments...I couldn't get a thing done ever! You JUST CAN'T do that. I've never had to say good bye though to him for something like WAR! And this IS my little brother (and my only sibling). :-( I understand and support why we're there, but man it can be hard. So anyway...I've digressed from where I was trying to go - my point was this possible job in Illinois is bad because with my brother gone the next year and a half, for me to leave with my girls right now would be double difficult for my mom. :-(

On a positive note though...Eric did get a call from a company in Houston and they want to set up an interview with him for sometime between the 8th and 10th - so MAYBE there is still a chance for us to stay in TX yet. We'll see we'll see.

OMG..I HAVE to tell you all what I was looking at online the other day (because this is something I REALLY need right now as I discuss how I can't wait to be done with school soon. lol) ... PhD Programs!!!! UGH!!! Am I crazy or what? lol I've long been saying I won't do it until after all of my children are school age (it's been tough this last year with Ky at home), but..... lol I don't know...another only time will tell. :-)

OK..I think I've put off my paper long enough..I so better go do some writing. :-)

Just so you all know...I have a list of what I still owe my faithful blog friends, and will get back into the grind soon (I will be completely done come the 9th):

• April freebie
• 4th/final part of Denim kits
• Mini Tut on Masking...

Well with that, thanks for the continued wishes of luck and support, I'm outta here and back to the paper. :-)

Well here's the sorority composite I've been working on the past few weeks from taking their pics, editing and then designing the lo. It's all done now and I can move back to the school work again tonight. :-)

I need good vibes!!

Oh man, I'm down to the REAL crunch time here and I'm so unispired. Maybe I'm just too tired. I know how to do this and what I want to write, but I just have no energy or motivation to actually write! I can't have this happen now!!! ugh. I have to have to get this done asap - Eric will be gone again next week for an interview in IL, so I need to be done before he leaves. PLUS, tonight my professor gave out the final for budgeting, and dang that's more involved than I expected! ugh...I'll be doing that all next weekend, so the sooner I get done with the paper the sooner I can get to work on that.

I tried again today to get my picture, and I'm beginning to think I'm just not going to put a picture in my announcements - I want to mail them next week when I am sure I'm going to finish and actually graduate, and maybe I'm just too old for "graduation" pics?? I dunno. The color in this one today was pretty decent, but my chin was too high - I need to take my picture in front of a big mirror by myself as Eric's not too good at directing me! lol

I played with some editing on this and I'm not sure if I actually like it better than the original or not! lol

I finally got the last sorority gir's picture today too, so tomorrow night after my practice prsentation I'll need to finish their composite design and get that thing sent off to the printer so I can get it back in time before they're out of school. Speaking of photography, I have a friend that has contacted me about doing her daughter's senior pictures. I'm excited about the opportunity, but I'm not sure yet if she's definitely going to have me do it. If she does, I may be doing that this weekend too!

Well, uninspired or not, I better get back to the paper. I think I may work on a bit of setting up the powerpoint on the stuff already done, and then get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow Ky goes to mother's day out, so I can work all day on the evaluation and conclusions (at least as far as putting it in the presentation - the written part won't be complete that fast). I just hate going to sleep first because it makes me nervous about running out of time, but on the other hand I'm so tired I will be going very slowly tonight, not finish and then oversleep tomorrow because I'm so overtired. sighhhhhh I need energy - send me good energy vibes guys!! lol

I know I still owe you all the last part of the denim kits and the tut on masking - I haven't forgotten. I promise as soon as the paper and my budgeting final is done, I'll get back to designing again - I do really miss it. Everything is done by the 9th and graduation is the 13th! The end is in sight!!! :-)

Yes, I am still alive....

I've been working my tail off on this paper. I can't believe how much remains to be done! AGGGH. I've got 7 areas of my data collection to report on in my findings section - 3 are now done. I finished creating all the tables for the other sections now, so the written portion for each of those sections should go fairly quickly now, but I'm beat - it's 5AM!

I had hoped to get through the findings section tonight, then do the evaluation of options tomorrow and Wed complete the conclusions section and my draft presentation. I have to do my practice presentation on Wed night. Since I didn't finish the findings section tonight, and I have Ky home all day tomorrow (Eric has TWO flights so will be gone pretty much all day) I know I won't get any work done during the day and then I have class at night, so I may have to just hold on the written section and move to the evaluation of options so I can at least finish my presentation for Wed night. I can go back and finish writing after Wed and improve on my presentation before the REAL deal next Monday. Then I've still got till the 7th of May to make any final edits and additions to the paper - though I'm aiming no later than the 5th.

Well...I THINK I can get this done by the 5th, and most likely have my presentation in pretty good shape for the 1st, but I don't know how good things will be by this Wed. Hopefully it's not so bad that my professor says I'm not ready (then I'd have to wait till next semester to present and graduate!!! There is actually a guy in my group that is taking an incomplete after his practice round last week - though I think if he really had put some effort into it and WANTED badly enough to graduate now, he could sitll have done it. Oh well...not everyone is crazy like me and willing to stay up all hours of the night to do it.

OK..I'm going to bed to get a few hours of sleep before Ky wakes....sorry for the relatively boring post - just wanted to put a quickie in here to let you all know I am still alive. I'm in the final crunch now!!!

My new haircut

My "graduation" picture with my new haircut


Why does the color look so weird when I post the actual picture here? I sure hope it doesn't print like that.

*edited - OMG! It actually printed even worse! In the test print, my jacket is like a seafoam green! ack I guess I'm going to have to just retake these pictures. ugh* Oh well, for now you all can see my new hair! :-) I went back to the blond highlights.

Why do I do this?

Every night I say I'm going to bed by midnight, I end up awake all night anyway. So tomorrow (or later today) I have an appt. to finally get my hair cut again! It's been well over a year now, and it's so long and just crap - I can't do much of anything with it anymore. I had made the appt. for like 3:30 since Eric was trying to go back up to Dallas/Ft. Worth to interview with his brother's company (he's still not managed to catch the guy up there any time he's been up there). Anyway, they weren't able to set a time yet again for this Friday, so he's home all weekend. When they called me today to confirm my appointment they asked if I'd be interested in an open time earlier at 9 or 10 am. I thought..well, let me do the 10 and then I can grab lunch and go to the library all day until dinner. I really want to get this capstone paper done by Wednesday so I have a week to prepare for the presentation and defending it, plus time to make corrections to it. So, I moved it to 10 and now I'm up late again (almost 4 am now) and will be so tired tomorrow. I hope I can stay awake to work!

Man I have like a million other things that will need to be done this weekend - I already feel overwhelmed. I can do this! I HAVE to! :-) for now, I need to go get sleep so I have hald a chance. ha

Temporary Store is OPEN!!

Yay!! I've opened my temporary store on Sarah's Scraps with one kit for now. Currently I will have to manually email the download links after people purchase, but it's a start. It will give me an opportunity to see how things go before I spend a lot of time getting the more complicated shop online. Plus it allows me to go ahead and offer some of these kits now that I was saving for the store - I don't expect to do my grand opening with the new design and bigger store until about June...so I hate making my designs unavailable until then. So..anyway...we'll see how this goes! I'm so excited. I'm looking forward to adding a few other things in the coming weeks to the store, but first comes finishing school.

Thanks for everyone's support and interest in my designs.

Redirecting Download Links

Well guys...those of you having trouble with my download links redirecting you...I called the hosting service and they can't find anything wrong in the code that would be causing that, and they've got no idea why it would be happening to just a few of you out there. This is quite odd. MAYBE if one of you want to try and get online with me sometime through hello, we can try a few different things and see if we can solve the problem another way. If someone who is having this problem is interested in helping me figure it out that way, then email me or leave me a comment with a way to contact you so we can meet on hello sometime to try a few things. I'm Sarah96 on hello - just let me know if you're trying to add me to your hello so I don't just ignore the invite because I don't know who you are. :-)

Sorrrrry...for now I've created a few rapid share links and moved a few files to another folder that will allow me to email the links to see if that might work for you.

Kits for sale

I've had several requests for some of my kits that have been previously posted for free for a limited time. I was planning to add those to my Scrap Store when it opens this summer, but I hate making people wait for them to come out again. I attempted to set up a paypal shopping cart feature so I could go ahead and start putting some of those kits up for sale now, before I have the grand opening and store ready later this summer. I got the account set up and started a webpage to do it, but I can't find a way for the links to be sent automatically after the payment. I found a few services you can pay for that do this for you, but I'm wondering still if there's a way to do that myself without having to pay for the service. I'm going to have to ask dh in the morning. If I can't do this, I could still set up the paypal cart but I'd have to email the links later - I'd say it should usually take me less than 24 hours to respond to those in most cases. What do those of you wanting to purchase some of these kits now think of this option?

Another problem - I've had a handful of emails about the download links for the freebies not working - redirecting people to the main page when they click on the d/l link. I'm totally at a loss for why this is happening. All the links on the site are hot link protected, and if someone trys to directly enter the links or click on them from anywhere besides the actual freebie page, it WILL rediret them to the main page of Sarah's Scraps. It SHOULD NOT do this though when you are clicking on the link on the freebie page. I've had several people try the links for me numerous times and they aren't getting redirected, so I'm not sure why on earth some people are having this problem. I need to contact the hosting service to see if they have any idea what the problem could be, but I'm realllllly swamped right now in these last weeks to finish school. I'll try to take care of it as soon as I can. All I can recommend for now is that you try the downloads from another computer. ?? I don't know.... I can put the links into yousendit file or something, but I just haven't had time to set those up yet. I promise I will let you all know what I can do as soon as I figure something out.

I've got tons of other things I'd love to "ramble and chat" about, but I'm so tired and not feeling so good. I need to go get a decent night of sleep. I know I've been fairly quiet on the blog lately, but I will be back..I just need to finish school - all things will lighten up tremndously after May 7!!! :-)

Peace Offering

Still so busy here I haven't even had time to think about working on the Denim elements or even the April free kit. Geesh..I've not even been reading my usual blogs in the last several days. I did finally get all the picture proofs from last weekend online so the sorority girls can go through and make their selections.

I spent several hours at the library today working on capstone and this afternoon getting things ready to go to my parents for Ky's birthday and Easter. I just finished Ky's cake a little while ago, but am a little sad as it's not my best work and the colors are a bit odd. I doubt little miss Kyleigh will care, but you know..it's my perfectionist issues. lol

So...this is a short post as I'm so ready to go to bed now - gotta get up in 4 hours to finish packing and leave. Posting a few pictures below as a peace offering until I get some time to do the elements and such and catch up on the blogging again. Have a great weekend and happy Easter.

Couple of pictures of Ky at the birthday party we were at last weekend - she absolutely loved this little chair, so my friend just GAVE it to her! how sweet is that?


Before my mom left the other day she trimmed the long hairs in Ky's face. This was Ky's first haircut, and these pictures were taken on her birthday (Thursday).

Before with the long hairs that get in her face.


After - all cleaned up.


And...here is the cake I just finished a bit ago for Ky's birthday.


and with that.....I'm off to bed. Happy Easter.

Behind

I know I'm supposed to have part 4 of Denim Darling and Dude up by now, but I have been having trouble collecting data for my capstone, Eric was gone for 3 days, I just found out my draft and practice presentation for capstone is next Wed (not the 26th like I thought), and I've been trying to work on these 300 pictures I've taken for the sorority shoot. I'm so behind and have so much to do and we're supposed to leave tomorrow! AGGGH. I hope it works out, but I think it's going to be late and tough to do.

Kyleigh is one today too! I did get a couple pics of her today before and after getting her hair trimmed a bit to stay out of her eyes. I'll have to load later to post them here.

I have to go finish posting proofs of the composite shots so I can get some sleep and then get 100 other things done tomorrow.

I'll get caught up...eventually! ah

Solo parenting

whew...how did I ever do this for 6 months? ha Maybe it helped tremendously that I only had one, she was little, and I was teaching, not in school myself. I stayed every day at work till 4:30 (my student left about 1:30/2 ish) to do all my planning and grading so when I went home I spent my time with Alyssa. But wow...now with two, grad school, and many other committments...whew..this single parenting is hard work. I sure am glad that we won't be doing any more 6-month deployments, though I do need to remember the hardest part of the deployments were always the first 2 weeks. EVERYTHING always went wrong in the first two weeks, and then it seemed that things settled in and I got into the new routine and did OK from there. That's not to say there weren't still rough days.....

If I weren't in school right now, I think I'd be fine. School just stresses me more than anything else because I'm such a perfectionist or overachiever as I've been labeled more than once. Sadly, I set this insane goal for myself when I started grad school - I decided I was going to try to make it through this program with a 4.0. AAAAAAAAAGHHH What was I thinking? Well...whatever it was, I'm in the last semester and have managed to keep the 4.0. So far..my budgeting class is still an A (actually I think I still have a 100 average in the class) , but we'll see how the capstone goes. I'm really stressed over this. I just can't produce crap when I've been a 4.0 student. It's one of those things where you just have to continue to do better and better each time and it puts so much stress on me. ugh.. Well...I won't go into all the details, but I'm really worried about the capstone, and I'm trying to keep telling myself I will finish this, it will work out, and I will graduate!

Well, I got shot the last two girls today that missed the original photo shoot Saturday. I'm really excited to see how their composite comes out, but man to have to edit close to 300 pictures now..whew..that's just another thing on the list this week. :-)

Well..I'm sure I could ramble on and on for quite bit today, but I'm very tired after only 2 hours of sleep last night, I still have that quiz to finish that's due tomorrow, still need to finish cleaning the kitchen, really need to pick up the house some and put laundry away before my mom comes tomorrow, and it's already almost 10 PM.

I hardly ever watch TV any more..but I got caught up in the Apprentice tonight. I used to watch this all the time, but I haven't seen it at all this season (as I haven't seen really much of anything this season). Anyway..OMG the first show (because they showed two tonight) the team that lost (actually they lost both shows) their team manager was soooo abnoxious. MAN. I didn't even see the first part of the first show, I only saw the board room, but dang that guy was just ASKING for a firing. lol The second show I was shocked by the winning team's project manager. At the start of the task she asked the team to brainstorm promotional ideas, and then like after two were thrown out..she cut everyone elses ideas off and just said "we're doing the hats" ??? Good thing they won, cuz even I think the hats were dumb. They only won because of their price. anyway...board room #2 just coming back...will it be the team leader or the the other guy that disagreed with the rest of the team on the price? ..... hmmmmmm

awwwww she got fired on her birthday....

Ok..with that I'm off to get something done before bed tonight. :-)
Night.

Quickie

OK, I'm so behind on blogging, and even reading and commenting on blogs.....things have been so busy and I've had so little sleep. This is going to be a quick post so that my faithful readers have a little SOMETHING to tide you over. :-)

I had my big photo shoot on Saturday - it went well. I was shooting a sorority of girls for their composite picture, and then 2 girls for their senior shots. I'm looking forward to editing their pictures (they're all such beautiful girls) and putting together the composite, but man are there a lot of them. :-) hehe I'll have to show some of my work later. I was so tired after the shoot from a lack of sleep all weekend, I came home and passed out for like 3 hours, and then still went to bed at midnight and slept until 10:30 am! THEN..if that wasn't enough, I took another 2 hr nap about noon while Ky was down. Now..here I am at 3:30 am!! AGGG I was working on school work.

I just remembered tonight too that I have a take home quiz due on Tuesday - I totally forgot he gave it to us - I haven't even LOOKED at it!

Eric is leaving in a couple hours to go to CT. He'll be gone a few days for interviews. He'll get back late Wed and then leave again Thursday afternoon to interview again up in Dallas Ft. Worth for another job. So..my mom is coming Monday night to stay with me Tue and Wed to help me get to my classes and work on my school work and interviews. Then Eric will take both girls with him Thursday (Alyssa has no school Friday) up to DFW (his dad said he'd watch the girls while he goes to the interviews) so I can get up to the university to input data. I have to use a special software that is extremely expensive and I don't have. Then I'll meet them all in San Antonio Friday night so we can have Ky's birthday party Saturday and spend Easter with my parents. I can't believe my little baby is going to be 1 already on Thursday!!! wow...how time really has passed!

This is going to be a busy week trying to finish (PRAY FOR ME ON THIS) collecting my data, inputting data, trying to get the elements for the denim darling and dude kits done, saturday's freebie done early, and making Ky's cake, and all this done so I can leave by Friday evening. OH yeah..I have to go shoot 2 more girls tomorrow too that didn't make it to the shoot Saturday.

Ok..so with that..I'm realllllly tired and need some rest to get up early to get Alyssa to school, Ky to mommy's day out and up to the university to take pics. :-( bleh! lol

freebie for Saturday (4/8/06) Moonlight Chat at SBB 11:59 PM Eastern
(c) Sarah VanDyke

Finally finished these pages, and actually went ahead and submitted to CK..I've never submitted for a publication before so should be interesting to see. By the time they get around to notifying me though, I'll probably have forgetten. No worries though..the pages are really for my mom. :-) 

WOW - MASKS!

OMG..If you have not yet tried or figured out masking, you are sooooo missing out on something absolutley awesome! I have for a long time tried to "understand" the whole masking concept, and today FINALLY a light bulb turned on. I am so excited and at the same time feel so goofy for not getting this before. I'm betting though there are others of you out there like me, who either just don't understand it or have never even tried to figure it out (if you even know what the heck I'm talking about now! lol).....

SO...basically, here's what it can do for you in photo editing:
Say for example you have a picture that is exposed differently - one half over and the other under. If you try to just adjust the lightening in the whole picture, to brighten the underexposed or darker areas, you're going to totally wash out the lighter area. BUT if you use a MASK you can brighten the dark portion while still leaving the bright section untouched! WOW! How wonderful is that? You can do this for any kind of adjustment your making...taking out a certain color, bluring only a portion of the picture (maybe skin, or background), etc...anything!

So, if you don't know or undertand how to do this...well, I'm by FAR not great at this yet, but I'll have to put a little "how to" together that I can share here. I'm so excited to finally understand this and I know how frustrating it was for me up till now when someone told me "just use a mask" lol! I'm sure these wonderful friends of mine had to be frustrated too with me when I just didn't get this. I know I'm capable and brighter than that, but I don't know..for some reason, it just did not click! It could be that I've long been using Photo Impact (which can really do just about every thing I've learned to do in PS except it does not do brushes in the same way) and maybe the way it handles layers and "presents" masking just didn't make it as clear to me. Who knows....I thank those wonderful friends who have long been trying to explain this to me, and I'm just thrilled to have finally figured this out.

So, when I've got an extra minute (do those really exist? lol) I'll upload a picture or two, with before and after and actually describe step by step how I did what I did and hopefully help someone else out there. Maybe I'll go back into PI too and see if I can do it there now too.

In other news...I'm quite pleased with my productivity lately. :-) I have 18 things on my to do list currently - I usually put this together Sunday night or Monday morning, and expect it will take me usually most of the week to get through it. Well, by last night 11 things were already crossed off, and this morning (ONLY WED NOW) already another 3. I only have 4 things left on the list, which I expect to make very good progess on again today. Though I do know of a new thing that needs to be added to the list, but it can easily be completed today. WOW! I just feel so releaved when I see my list getting crossed off...it gives me such a feeling of accomplishment and can greatly reduce stress for me! I must mention, my to do list almost NEVER includes anything related to house work, laundry, cooking, etc...I just don't put those things on my list often...they are more like the givens in a day for me. :-)

So..I think this has gotten long enough for now..I better go be productive on my list and see if I can't knock the rest of that out today! whooo hoooo.

Denim Darling Part 3 Available

Denim Darling part 3 available for download for FREE until midnight 4/11/06 at Sarah's Scraps
*Edit: Thanks Whitmom for letting me know about the Darling link - it's corrected now*

Denim Dude Part 3 Available

Denim Dude part 3 available for download for FREE until midnight 4/11/06 at Sarah's Scraps

Denims part 3 coming out today

Well, I have finished the denim darling and denim dude patterned papers. My computer is moving so slow though it is taking forever to make and save the previews so I can put them online. I've been up all night working on my capstone paper (which I have made GREAT progress on), and rewarded myself along the way with a paper at a time. Then I finished working on the paper about 2 hours ago to try and finish the papers up quickly, post the links, and then go get some sleep before Eric goes to work this afternoon. Well...two hours later, I'm still trying to "quickly" finish them. So, I'm really tired, and I'm tired of waiting on my computer, so they'll be up later today or tonight. I'll try to get them up before I go to class this evening, but if I don't I'll put them up when I get home late tonight.

New clothing for the girls

Ok..I've blogged about some of the clothes I've recently purchased for the girls, and I even took pictures, but I never did get around to posting them. So.. finally that's what this entry is all about tonight. ha Plus, I just HAD to show you the dress my mom made for Kyleigh (she's working on Alyssa's now) that she sent to me. I love these dresses and can't wait till we go see her for Easter for them to wear them. This will also be Ky's birthday dress (we're having her party at my parent's) and I'll probably try to do her birthday pics in this dress.

Ok..on with the show....

Ky's Easter dress made by my mom. I bought the material and patterns and passed on to her to do her magic! :-) She does such a good job. I can sew, but I have only sewn clothing a couple of times ever! I'm not very good with terminology in the patterns, so I stick to sewing things for my house, like pillows, curtains, bedspreads, quilts, and dust ruffles. ha Alyssa will have a matching dress similar to this - same material but slightly different style.


Denim jacket I bought a few weeks ago and mentioned on here but never put up the pics. I love this jacket, and it will be so cute on Alyssa.


here's the skirt that goes with the jacket above.


Matching shorts and shirts for the girls that I got a few weeks ago too. They actually wore these on Saturday. I should have gotten a picture - they were so cute. I'm so glad that Alyssa still loves to match Ky and will endulge me! ha


matching jammies too


And finally, here are the dresses I got the girls about a week ago when Eric and I went to that supper store - HEB plus. I wanted to get both girls the green one, but they didn't have it in Alyssa's size and Eric said "they don't have to have all their clothes match!" lol So, I found the pretty little pink one for Alyssa (as if either of them needs any more pink!) I'm such a sucker for pretty little girl dresses. Thankfully, Alyssa loves to wear them and gets good use out of them. Ky is finally getting into the 12 month clothes so she should be able to wear hers longer now too.
so, green one - Ky


pink one - Alyssa


Alrighty...I have lots of other new pics and things I'd love to share, but it's 2:30 am...I took a nap from 9:30 - 11:30 pm while Dh was still flying and then got up when he came home to stay up and work on my paper. I've been up 3 hours now and haven't worked on it yet. I'm going to be up a few hours and then I'll be able to sleep in since he'll be home till Ky goes down for a nap tomorrow (or today really since it is already Tues - lol).. So...I'll have to share more later!

Break through

I've been so stuck on this capstone paper for a while now, and finally on Sunday I had a break through and was able to finalize my indicators and write up my questions for my interviews I need to do. I was then able to update and improve my intro section. Next is to finish the methodology section and then finalize the last parts of the literature review. I should be able to have all this done by Monday night. Hopefully I'll be able to do well collecting all my data this week and start writing all that up next weekend. So, I have had a few people ask me what the heck this "capstone" is. Sorry...I'm working on my master's degree in public administration, and this is my final semester (graduation is may 13). The capstone is a research paper, like a thesis. A thesis is more theoretical or researches something more theoretical, whereas the capstone is a little more of an applied problem. For example, my paper is about how to improve alumnae involvement in fraternal type organizations. There are several parts to this paper, and each "section" is due along the way to help keep us on track, but we continually revise and modify earlier sections as we go. I've been behind on my literature review (where we research what other writings and studies are out there on our topic) for a while, and it is a major part of setting up the research. It's what gives the purpose and hypothesis some backing. Anway...this week I'm supposed to have my findings (my data collection) completed. I'm supposed to have a full paper draft done by April 12, but I doubt anyone in my capstone class will have that done. (We actually do have a class that we meet occassionally to discuss our progress and the professor provides guidance for each section, and then other weeks we meet individually with him). When we're done we present our papers in front of any professors from the college of arts and humanities and any students in our program that come. It's sort of like defending our research and findings. Anyway, that is May 1, 2 and 3. So that's my REAL deadline. I then have a week if needed to tweek and make any final edits.

On to other stuff.....
Alyssa cut her hair again - this is the third time now, the second time was a couple weeks ago at school again. When I asked her why, both this time and last she told me she wants it shorter. I'm so sad by this, and hope it's just an excuse, but she continues to insist that she wants it cut to shoulder length. She said she's tired of the knots and wants it like her best friend's. Her best friend though has curly hair, so I tried to explain it won't look the same for her since her hair is very straight, and I tried to explain if she cuts it, it will take a long time to grow that long again if she changes her mind. I told her she needs to be sure this is what she wants. I love her hair, but I don't want to force her to have to keep it a way she doesn't want it. I just don't think at 6 she really understands or comprehends this yet. I can understand though why she is tired of it...it is a lot to maintain (I actually used to have very long hair too - I'll have to post pictures below), and her hair is much like mine in that it tangles easily. It's always so windy here that she has to always keep it in a poneytail or braid to keep the tangles at a minimum..plus it does get really hot in the summer time to have all that hair and she's complained about that too. Man I'm so torn on this! I wish she could just give it another year or so to really understand, though if she has legit complaints, she may really understand. Another bonus for her to cut it would be that she may actually be able to wash and comb it herself. She can't manage it now by herself and she really wants to. Her arms just aren't long enough and she's not coordinated enough yet to reach all of it to wash or brush it out. ha ahhhhh


BEFORE AFTER
This was me in April 2002 before and after my hair cut. I had grown it out long in part to donate to Locks of Love, and after 2 years I was ready to reduce the weight on my head. :-)

Still no further updates on jobs, though Eric applied for several more jobs Sunday online, and we did talk about some options that would allow us to stay in TX - but all of them pretty much mean I would HAVE to go back to work full time for us to do it. We are reconsidering one of the companies he had immediately crossed off the list after the interviews. He had crossed them off because they don't tell you where you're going until after you accept and are half way through the training (so it would be mid to the end of June before we'd know). They do have the best compensation and benefits though and will let him choose 3 regions he'd like to go to, and then they select a major city or metro area to send him to in one of those regions. This would at least give us a bigger city, not a small town with little job opportunities for me. Plus it would only be most likely for a few years, and then we could probably move anywhere...he's going to call them back to find out a few more things before he considers them, but they've already invited them to the second round of interviews (he'd have to go to CT for 3 days next week, and then they will make their offers by the 19th). There are a few other downers to this, but well, we'll see after he talks to them again.

I made another freebie for an SBB chat- this time for the Monday morning subscribers chat with Lisa. I love Lisa - she is such a sweetie! I was having withdrawals since I hadn't spoken to her on hello all day yesterday and most of this morning! haha Love you Lisa! I hope I can go to that digi scrapbook thing in Chicago and meet her and all of my other online friends. :-) Anyone else planning to go to that? I suppose I would need to find some roommates or something if I do go.

Ok anway..here's the preview for the freebie at Lisa's Mon morn subscriber chat (a coordinating set will be for the Saturday moonlight).


It's getting awefully late now, so I better get a bit more work done on the capstone paper and get to bed. I have to be alert to start making calls in the morning. Happy Monday!

One of those days

Ever have one of those days where it just seems like you're cursed, and if it weren't for bad luck you'd have no luck at all? hahaha wellll that has been my Satuday. I'm so frustrated with this day, and this long week, I have to just go to bed! It feels like it's been 2 weeks since my husband went out of town. He finally got home tonight about dinner time, and tomorrow after Church he's taking both girls out to the airshow so I can just have quiet to get caught up on all the work I DIDN'T get done this week. I've managed ONE hour of time to devote to my capstone since Tuesday (he left Wed). :-( I'm really getting nervous my professor will just drop me if I don't have it together by my meeting with him this coming Wed. If he feels you just can't get it together in time for the presentations (one MONTH away now!) he'll pull you from capstone and not let you graduate. This would be terrrrrible since I've already purchased my announcements and cap and gown (though cap and gown could be used later). Not to mention I've made a 4.0 through this entire program so it would be realllllly sad if I can't get it together to graduate!

Oh..other news before I hit the pillow. Dh had 8 interviews this week while he was gone (that's what he was off doing - it was a hiring conference set up by one of his headhunters). Three he pretty much threw out right away, of the other 5, 4 are out of state! We said we'd be willing to go anywhere, but in my heart I really really wanted to stay here in TX near our families. There are no offers on the table yet, but there really aren't many other promising options right now either. His number one choice his in Peoria, IL - that's quite away from our family. If I could JUST get that FBI job in TX I applied for, he wouldn't have to take anything he didn't want right now. He'd have more time to really find something good here in TX. However, that job announcement closed back on March 10, and there's still no word on the outcome. I called the other day and they said I will hear one way or the other, but they can't even estimate how long it will take. So...I'll probably not find out anything before Eric has to take something and by then if they do offer it to me, it will be too late for me to be able to accept it. :-( I know I've moved all my life, and seeing new places really doesn't scare me, and if we stayed in the Navy we'd be moving most likely out of TX too, BUT when we move with the military its only for 3 years. I'm not moving away from my family for the rest of my life! My girls are so close to my family and I'm so sad about all this, but we have to do something. We can't just limit ourselves to TX or he may never get a job in time - we've only got 2 months left! :-(

Well....one of tonights things I was trying to finish and just had about a bajillion things go wrong....was the freebie for the saturday night moonlight crop (last night really since it's already Sunday now). It's finally finished so I can send to Sonya in the morning and she will send out to those of you that participated. Sorry for the lateness on this one guys!


Preview for the Saturday night chat (last night now). 2 patterned papers, 2 solids, 2 ribbons, 1 brad and 1 buckle. Thanks to Atomic Cupcake for the chalked edges.

Well, with that I'm off to get a good night of sleep so I can be extra productive on my capstone tomorrow while Eric takes the girls out.

Tentative Release Schedule

TENTATIVE scheduled of planned releases for my designs:
(all designs available at Sarah's Scraps)

April 2006

4th: "Denim Darling" & "Denim Dude" part 3 - patterned papers (Each part is released free for ONLY ONE week - entire kits will be available in the Shop at Sarah's Scraps later).

12th:"Denim Darling" & "Denim Dude" part 4 (final part) - elements (Each part is released free for ONLY ONE week - entire kits will be available in the Shop at Sarah's Scraps later).

April Free Kit - "Spring has Sprung"

Ok...they're not done yet, but here's a preivew of the basic pattern for the Denim Darling papers. I have to add the brush work, depth, texture, etc. still 

Ok...they're not done yet, but here's a preivew of the basic pattern for the Denim Dude papers.