April 25, 2007 Crazy Scrappin' Days!!

OK, so, am I crazy? I have been making pages for the Scrapbooker of the Year contest through Creating Keepsakes Magazine. It requires 20 scrapbook pages and a one page essay. Then, mom calls me this morning to tell me that Martha Stewart is having a contest for the Master Scrapbooker. So, I decide to enter that one too, luckily I had a page already made that I wanted to enter. Then, I just finished my first of the series of Japanese scrapbooks. I still have 3 more with the Japanese theme to do and then I get to start on his life after Japan! Scrapbook overload. And, to top all of that off, I am teaching classes at Scrap-A-Doodle. So, there is some prep work required for that too

Martha!!!
I know, I know, a lot of people don't like Martha and I realize that most of her ideas on the show come from her creative staff and others, but, I really enjoy her show and most of the ideas that she shares. Besides, you know those cooking shows on TV, do you think Emeril made up ALL of those recipes himself? Anyhow, my point was that I am so excited about her new line of scrapbooking supplies at Michael's. I have visited the store several times to see if they have the planagrams set yet. I even offered my former manager to come in just to set the planagram myself so I could see everything first. She just laughed because she knows that I would spend more time opening the boxes just to see what was in them!!!

Marc and I are planning on heading to Hood River next weekend for a hunter's ed convention. I am so looking forward to having some time alone, the boys are spending the weekend at mom and dad's. Marc will be in classes most of the day so that leaves me time to relax and/or shop!! I need to do a little research on scrapbook stores nearby! I am looking for a good book to take, if you have any suggestions leave me comment.

April 24, 2007 Beautiful Day!

Well, it is beautiful outside, even at 7:45 am, although I am still not feeling 100%. I have a stuffy nose and am sneezing like crazy. This cold started out as a sore throat and has moved into my sinuses. Oh well, at least it's sunny outside, that always makes me feel better.

So, I have been working on this huge project for Egghead crafts, a Japanese album. It started in September of last year with my first consult. The plan was to do the first year of Richard's life in Japan in an antique wooden Japanese album. Then continue his life in other albums but, there are so many before Richard pics that we have had to change plans and include only pics before him in the Japanese album and start a new one with Richard's first year in another album. Well, I finished the album of his first year last night and I am looking forward to meeting with my client to show her the final product today! I have really enjoyed looking at her pictures of Japan, she is a beautiful woman and took great pictures.

We are excited for the Strength team to come to our church next week. Marc has passed some of the flyers out and Tucker's teacher let him pass them to his classmates. The church offering amounted to over $11,000.00 just for the strength team fund!! Pastor David said that he spent $500.00 just to buy baseball bats for them to break!! Check their website for more info.

Not much else happening on our homefront.

April 20, 2007 New Blog!!!

I have thought about setting up a blog site for some time now. I thought it would be difficult and I would have to pay someone a ridiculous amount of money to spend 5 minutes on the computer, but it was so easy!!!! Now that I have one set up I commit myself to post at least 5 times a week, schedule permitting, and to keep our family and friends up to date on our lives here in Central Oregon!!!

This week has been crazy!! Marc has been doing backflow tests like a mad man, his goal is to cover our first mortgage payment without touching his regular paycheck!! So far, he is way beyond that and, we have the money to paint the house already set aside. I haven't been too great about keeping track of our finances over the years so we sat down and talked about it, I feel so liberated knowing that we have a little nest egg going. Since we decided to be smarter with our money I have "found" over $600.00!! I discovered that I overpaid on our gas bill by almost $450.00 over the last three months. And then we found out that our insurance covered more for Tucker's $500.00 dental appointment than we thought they would, by over $200.00!!! Oprah said something a few years ago that has stuck with me but, i had never applied to my life. She said something to the effect of, organize your money and you will find more, she said this applied to even keeping it in order in your wallet, ones and fives and tens etc. I am sure this is just a way of better keeping track of how we spend but, it never sunk in that I should be doing it too!!! Anyhow, enough for today!! Make the best of this short time we have on earth!!!