First try at a CJ...

I've been more productive in the past 2 days than in the past 2 months! Here are some pages from a circle journal I'm participating in on sb.com. Because I'm totally freakin sick and tired of crappy people and crappy vibes--my topic is "The Little Things in Life that make you smile". Hoping this little book will cheer me up whenever I look at it! If you're not familiar with a circle journal-a small group of online friends exchange albums with their own specific topic and each person does a layout for each book. In the end, I'll have a completed 8x8 album with my pages and pages from some extremely talented ladies that I've come to call "friends" from my fave scrapbook mb. I can't wait to get the first album in the mail!!

Grrrrr.....It's Monday.....

I forced myself to go to the gym and run this morning even though every muscle in my body is screaming from a long weekend of wakeboarding. I can get up every time now on the board but it's the staying up for longer than a few minutes that's kicking my butt. Our friend Scott assures me he'll have me doing flips over the wake by the end of the summer. Yeah, right.

Yikes! Where has the time flown??

Hard to believe we're nearly halfway through June already! I haven't had much time to update this (not that anyone really reads this?!?) and finding time to scrap just hasn't happened. BUT--this was my entry for the annual Pagemaps contest a few weeks ago. I used the March '08 sketch and had these pics laying around that seemed to fit it perfect. Poor hubby just can't seem to get back to Mass to catch a Sox game so it's kinda a little joke between us that he's his own little Red Sox Nation wherever the Army sends us. It was a big loser but I loved how it turned out and hubby did too.

The hot summer days have set in here and you can pretty much find us on the lake wakeboarding all summer. YES--I learned how my 2nd try!!!! Got some great pics of my son learning to waterski too so I'm feeling a layout coming on here soon!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Here's a little gift book I whipped out yesterday to give my mom this Mother's Day. I used a BasicGrey chipboard album for this and it worked up super fast. I started it with a pic of her and and my grandmother and included pics of her and my brother and I and then all of the grandkids. I finished it up with current pics of my family and my brother's family and put a few poems in there about mothers and one about grandma's too. Just a fun little book for her to share with the rest of the family next week when they make another trek up north. Now I get to kick back and relax and enjoy my day while hubby does the laundry and the yard work :)

Is it Friday yet??

It's just been one of those weeks. After many months of waiting and anxiety, hubby finally had his major dental surgery on Monday and is back to work today. He only had to wait 28 years after an accident all but destroyed the upper left side of his teeth to FINALLY have it all fixed. So now he'll have a whole new grille with 3 brand new implants hopefully in place by the end of the year. Funny thing is, I always thought his teeth just added to his ruggedly handsome good looks but he's always been a little self-conscious of them. He had tears in his eyes on Monday when he saw his new smile and that was just with the prosthetics in place! The docs did a fabulous job and we're really fortunate to be assigned to a post that just happens to be the Army's center for dental training. Yeah, I know, it's a little scary that he has a resident in training working on him but there's always a price even when it's "free". We just have to keep our fingers crossed that he heals well and all the steps to this long process happen on schedule so we can finish this before he retires next year :)

So, I've been working on more pages to my "book of us" and getting closer to completing it. These pics from when we met in Germany in 1995 have always been special to me but I'll cherish them even more now that his appearance has changed so much. Just a little reminder to him that I fell in love with the guy with the "messed up teeth" and I thought he was a total hottie! Now I'm afraid I'll never get him away from mirrors :)

Just discovered...

crops can be kinda fun! I went to my first at a new sb store here in town and it was SO much fun! Well, I think it really helped that 2 of my friends went with me--I don't know if I would've been brave enough to go it alone. We were even served homemade lasagna and to-die-for desserts from a little bakery a few shops down. Total class act and I actually got a page completed and a mother's day card and a good start on a second page. I will definitely do more crops there!

So I decided to scrap a page of the elusive kid. These days I'd have better luck taking a picture of a rare endangered species deep in the amazon. The journaling on this one reads "some days you're the most easygoing kid, laughing & joking, & other days the storm rolls in and we scramble for shelter. Ah, the teen years!

I love funnelcake!!

These are a few more pics from our little weekend getaway last summer. We decided to steer clear of Atlanta and Six Flags and the crazy crowds and went down the less beaten path to Valdosta. (A friend of mine RAVED about Wild Adventures down there) So, as we pulled into the parking lot, we got a little worried when we saw this tiny little roller coaster that looked absolutely ancient. We already bought the tickets at home so we were kinda stuck and thought we'd just have to give it a try. This little park was SO much fun!! No lines, awesome rides, and enough to fill the day but not TOO much if ya know what I mean? The thing I remember the most about this day was dying to get my hands on a funnelcake and then seeing the goofy face my hubby made when he shoveled a huge forkful in his mouth. It was the end of the day and we were all tired and hot and he still found it in him to make us laugh!

So I have some crazy scrappin' plans this weekend with friends and plenty of LOs to keep me busy--we'll see what I come up with. I'm usually a solitary scrapper so it might not be much!

I love rainy Saturdays...

It's weird. I know. I just realized it this past weekend. Rainy Saturdays mean no pressure to do ANYTHING. No feeling bad we didn't drag our mountain bikes out, dust them off, and use them for the first time in a year. No regrets we didn't get out to the lake AGAIN. No yard work. Just a perfect excuse to stay inside, stay in our jammies most of the day, and do whatever we want. So I had no guilt about scrappin'!! I'm still inspired to work with pics from our vacation so I just kinda go with what I'm feeling. I'm really into nature shots right now and that's probably a good thing since I have some awesome pics from the zoo that just make me happy and I want to capture in my books. I realized something else this weekend. I LOVE just scrappin' what I want to and not worrying about whether I have the last 14 years of my son's pics behind page protectors. It's important, don't get me wrong. I just don't feel the pressure to get it done. After all, 3 years ago none of his pics were on a scrapbook page. I'm ahead of the game!

These are a few more shots of seal pupping season at the children's beach at La Jolla Cove. Jeff and I just stood there amazed as this little guy(or girl??) flopped up the beach and planted a big one on a buddy and then made the most hilarious face!! Totally looked like bragging or rejection-we weren't sure which!!

Happy Friday!!

I finally got some time to scrap yesterday! yippee!! I can be downright stubborn sometimes. I know, this is not news to anyone who knows me. I had it in my head to use the pics on this LO in color. I just flat out refused to print them in sepia or b/w. I really don't know why. Guess I just loved the contrast between that bright blue sky and the rocks with that setting sun glow that would all be lost if I converted them. Well, do you have any idea how HARD it is to coordinate papers in these colors??? This one frustrated me for several hours yesterday until it came together and now it's one of my faves. It was too fun using up some paper I bought at Target eons ago and of course, mixing anything with BG--as my friend Terry says--" always classes anything up". I'm challenging myself to step out of that comfort zone and try techniques or products that I normally don't reach for. On this one I used a little sugar coating on the flowers. Rebecca, if you read this, thanks for pushing me over the fence on the glitter :) I've also been dying to use my new fiskars threading water punch that I was lucky enough to find thanks to a whole lotta internet hunting! It's beer brewing weekend for us so I might get a chance to scrap again this weekend while the guys have their own fun!

It's been a long couple weeks!

Glad to be able to find a minute to upload another LO I did a few weeks ago before my patio/french drain nightmare began. Now that all the dust is settling around here I can get back to the real fun! Expect to see a ton of SD layouts in the next few months. I'm still super excited to scrap them and I mean it--I have a TON of pics! This one I'm particularly proud of as I FINALLY used some CTMH paper I bought almost 2 years ago and it was the perfect paper for this! You never know what you'll use so I never feel too guilty about building the paper stash!