Friday, March 27, 2009

Spring Break on it's way

We are coming up on Spring Break next week and I've found myself reflecting on the different place I was at last year. I was grieving the loss of my brother, getting a house ready to put on the market, power cleaning, sorting through stuff to get rid of and packing. It feels like it was a different life.

Fast forward a year......I feel like I have been here for more than just 8 months, that everything else was a dream. It is actually a pretty weird feeling. My house is unpacked and getting organized. The kids are settled in school and looking forward to Spring Break. Instead of heading out of town for Spring Break, we will start to discover this place that we live. Take the time to find the special shops that the kids have been wanting to check out but especially just enjoy ourselves.


One more thing done in my scrapbook corner. I have these drawer units that I have had for years and they hold everything!! I haven't really known where everything is in these drawers for months so I started a few months back just labeling drawers. Then cut background texture paper as deep as each of the drawers and just placed the pieces to the front. There is a little lip so there was no need to mount the paper on cardstock. The only draw back is I have to actually read my labels!! Now, where are my glasses again??


This week I made a trip to my favorite store, Tuesday Mornings. I have found so many wonderful things in this store since we have lived here so I have to be VERY careful when I do go. This week I found American Crafts Modern 8 1/2x11 D-ring binders, which I have been wanting for sometime, to house our slide collection from years ago. They had 3 in Lime Green and for $6.99 a piece, it was such a deal!! I just LOVE good deals!!!

Monday, March 23, 2009

Sick and Tired

Yep, that is what life has been about this past week! It started with my youngest daughter getting a cold, then fever for two days, loosing her voice and pain in the ears the next. When her eye turned pick Thursday night I knew it was time to make a doctor appointment. Turns out she just had a very bad ear infection, that was so bad it was causing her eye infection. Thank goodness no pink eye!! I personally have been fighting with this cold off and on also, it is kinda weird that a simple cold just sapps all your energy. Going into the doctor was a good thing, even if it was for my daughter. It allowed me to meet our doctor and make my yearly exam, which I don't like doing but know it is time.

I've been enjoying the creating I did a couple of weeks ago. It was a lot of work cutting out all the flowers but turned out so pretty. It is something that just takes my breathe away.
Materials: Stamp set Rustic Flowers from CTMH, Sweetleaf, Creme Brulee and White ink, CTMH Paper from Emporium and Key to my Heart packages, Sweetleaf and White Cardstock, Buttons from my stash, Clear transparency sheet, Prisma glitter, crystal bling, liquid glass, Glue pad and White sharpie
Close up of details on the flowers
Spring has arrived in Spokane or at least I hope it has. They are forcasting snow for sometime this week, oh I hope not! I am ready to see what my garden is going to look like as things start to wake up and hopefully I will find my passion for gardening again. It has been a long time since I have been excited about gardening, to long.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Many happenings of the week

The week started off with snow falling from the sky........hello, it is March! Isn't it suppose to be spring? I hope I didn't loose any of my lilies that were popping out of the ground!! I went out to do errands the day it snowed to find that the cold weather left my car not happy. It wouldn't start.......dead battery, so we thought. Husband gets home, goes to take a look and it starts right up..........hhmmmm, I think maybe I was suppose to stay home. I like it when God protects me this way.
The weather lifted Tuesday and brought a bright sunny sky. Almost blinding but beautiful just the same. I was able to steal away time to go pick up my new phone, which I have been needing to replace for months. I've enter the world of the Blackberry and it is taking time to get it all figured out. Bruce promises that once I get use to it, I will love it and not want to use anything else. Hope he is right, he usually is. Tuesday also lent itself to our oldest daugter Angela, deciding that she wants to stay in Nebraska instead of moving back to the Northwest. We are sad but happy that she has made the decision that is best for her. She is planning a visit for a couple of weeks, the month of September so that will give us something to look forward too.

This weekend is turning out to be full or at least Saturday is.
It will start by doing taxes, which I absolutely hate doing! "Anonymous" asked in a couple of posts down, why I would ever save my receipts for a year? My answer: My DH likes to be able to deduct sales tax so I do it for him. I don't total up what I spend on scrapbooking supplies very often but it does help to keep me honest about where I spend my money. This time it has made me take stock of what I have and made me REALLY want to use it.

We will also we opening up a new account at a credit union in town. It is time to be able to do our banking here where it is going to be a little easier to do things. I've been hesitate to change because we have been with our current financial place for 20 years, we know how things are run. Above all we trust them. I pray that this change will be good. The other reason to open a new account is the children need to have a place to put their money they want to earn this summer so this will lead to us getting their set up soon.


Speaking of children........the other BIG happening on Saturday is my son Ethen is going on his first group date. It is hard to believe and my mother's heart is doing a little stretching as I taken him to shop nice dress pants, fedora hat and then to get his hair cut. We must not forget sometype of flower. He wasn't going to get her anything after all they are only friends, I've been told. I encouraged him to at least give her a nice long stem rose, even if they are only friends. Friends deserve to feel special too. I think he is still as cute as ever and he can make my mother's heart melt! The very top photo was taken when he was just over a year old and next one, was this year's school photo.
I was also able to get some creating done so I will take photos and post those things next week. You can keep up with a few of my happenings over on Facebook, just be sure to tell me you are a blog friend so I will accept you as a friend.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

This is what it's all about

I learned something again this week. I say again because I have been a mom for 23 years and in that time I have learned many things from my own children.
This past weekend I learned how my knowledge of creative things turned into a finished school project for my youngest daughter. I've helped with school projects before but not like this. I took a special Valentine class from Wilna last month and it was so much fun. One of the days she taught us how to make our own book and I was able to pass on the information to my daughter.

Her assignment was to write, illustrate and make her own children's story book. She did such a great job! All I had to do is get her started and let her go. The assignment wasn't due until Tuesday but she took it to school on Monday to show her friends. Let's just say that it was the talk of her class. One of the other things I found special in this project was her dedication.......
It just makes my heart swell with this wonderful love in knowing I've done something right in this world. In case you can't read it and because I don't know how upload my pictures so you can make the photo bigger: "I dedicate this children's book to my mother. She is an amazing woman and I honor her for all she had done. I thank her for all the help and support she's given me. She helped me find my passion."

It has taken me days to put my thoughts about this down into writing. As a mother you hope for the best for your children, you hope they make the right choices for their lives but most of all you hope they learn from you. Sometimes you never really know for sure if you are even noticed or if what you do or have done really makes that much of a difference? You question everything you have ever done in hopes of understanding what you might need to change. You wait for the times like this, like a teenage girl waits by the phone for a boy to call. Most of the time when it happens it catches you off guard, you find yourself humbled and speechless. That is where I have been the last few days.


When I was growing up I never really had a good relationship with my own mother, there were things that stood in the way of that. I have been able to take where I have come from and create a special bond with my children, while still being the mother that I needed to be. Not always loved, not always seeing eye to eye on things, not always seeming to be fair but when it comes down to it.......they come back with a little more willingness to understand.


Michaela, Your words mean the world to me. They make me so happy that I can't do anything but cry when I think of them. YOU are an amazing young lady! I am so happy God chose me as your Momma and to help you find your passion. I love you forever and always. XO