Yes, I'm still alive.

Just popping in to say that I've been ailing for awhile. Just when I think I'm getting better "IT" morphs into a new and improved ailment, all reflux and respiratory related. Ugh! As soon as it's gone I'll be back.

Happy thoughts!

Here's a new vintage layout. Isn't my mom beautiful?

Click image to view larger.
Credits here.

Bye!

There's a reason I stuck the E=mc2 on my avatar over there. It's to make myself feel smarter. [Never mind. I changed my avatar.]

I take Topamax to prevent migraines and if you're unfamiliar with this drug, here's an excerpt from a list of its side effects:

"Memory loss, aphasia (weird words coming out in place of what you meant to say or write), word find problems (not being able to recall the names of people, things or concepts), and a general cognitive impairment that has earned this drug the nicknames 'Stupamax' and 'Dopamax.'"

I lowered my dosage several months ago in hopes of regaining some IQ points. It's sad to trade any points at all for pain relief but if you get migraines, you understand my dilemma. A happy forgetful head or a pounding, crashing, throbbing remembering head? Just don't be mad if I forget your birthday.

Or your name.

Mom.

Hahahaha!

Here's a layout from Cambryn's May dance recital. She felt really grown up because she had to wear eye shadow, blush and lipstick.

Click image to view larger.
Credits here.

Bye!

Ding, ding! We have a winner!

Collin won the Junior Golf Club Championship today at our country club in the age 9-11 boys division.

There were nine boys in his division. They played six holes and Collin shot a 27. His good friend Andrew got second place with a 28.

I'll post pictures as soon as I get them from my friend Lisa. I forgot to take my camera (bad mom).

You know those people who will ride absolutely anything at the amusement parks?

I'm one of those.

July 24, 2007

"SNACK"
A very short play based on real life.

Setting:
Our home at about 10:00 a.m. this morning.

Cambryn: Mom, I'm hungry for a snack.
Leslie: Well, we have peaches, plums, grapes, or cantaloupe.
Cambryn: I don't want any of that.
Leslie: Raisins.
Cambryn: No, I don't want raisins, either. [Pause.] I want a snack that's not good for my teeth.

--The End--

July 23, 2007

Here's a layout of my kids with my parents. Grandparents... grandchildren... life is grand... GET IT? Can you believe I thought that title up all by myself?*

Click image to view larger.
Credits here.

*That was supposed to be funny.

Bye!

July 22, 2007

I'm on a roll here. I even freshened up the place to look more summery. Who knows, maybe someday I'll throw in a story or two.

Click image to view larger.

Credits here.

Bye!

July 21, 2007

Surprise. I'm trying to climb back onto the face of the earth. No big reason, just a busy life. Here's a layout.

Click image to view larger.
Credits here.

Cheers!

Spring Break

We're waking up in less than six hours to go to the airport. I should be in bed but first I'll leave you with something funny from each of my kids.

A conversation with Collin the day before St. Patrick's Day:
Collin: Ohhh, Mom, I need you to go get me a big green leprechaun hat.
Leslie: A big green leprechaun hat? What for?
Collin: DUH! Because tomorrow's St. Patrick's Day.
Leslie: Just because it's St. Patrick's Day doesn't mean you need a big hat. Wear a green shirt or something. You don't see Dad and me wearing big green leprechaun hats.
Collin: That's because you don't know how to celebrate.

A conversation with Cambryn:
Cambryn: Mom, did you used to ride a horse to school when you were little?
.
.
.
No, he didn't get a big hat and no, I didn't ride a horse to school.

Happy Spring Break everyone!

Fortunes Freebie

You're welcome to a new freebie. We like Chinese food and the kids get a kick out of reading the fortunes so I scanned some. It's not included here but we got a funny one last night at P.F. Chang's -- Follow your heart's desire; start with the spring rolls!

Download here.
[download expired]

Bye now. We're off to dance lessons!

Basketball 'R Us

My parents came to visit this weekend. Thanks, Mom and Dad! We hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving. With illness over Christmas break and then basketball season starting up we hadn't had a free weekend to go see them.

They came to watch the kids play basketball and I'm pretty sure they got their money's worth. Collin's team made it through the tournament to play in the championship game tomorrow night. Collin even hit a 3-pointer for his grandparents. This league is serious business. Not for the faint of heart.

Cambryn also played a game. Her league is strictly fun, thank goodness. They use different colored wristbands to match up opposing players and when she's playing defense she sticks to her "man" like glue. She stares them down, too, because she said her coach told her to look 'em in the eyes.

Have I mentioned that I, myself, am nursing a basketball injury? I was playing with Collin in the driveway and as he tried to "stuff" my shot (his word), he fell against me, our feet got tangled up and I twisted my ankle. It's all bruised and swollen. Lovely.

Lest you think I'm a basketball wizard, whenever I play with Collin he gets so freaked that I'm actually playing that he laughs for the first five minutes. But I can still win because I'm taller. Sometimes.

Enough basketball. I've decided on my next freebie. Now I just need to get started on it, lol. Maybe I can get it out before the week is over.

I hope you have a winning week!

Elvis

Yea me! I finally got a page scrapped during this dry spell of creativity. One that involves an Elvis impersonator, no less.

We have friends, two couples, who throw a big valentine party every two years and alternately host it in their homes. They have big homes so the parties are always big but last year one couple moved to an even bigger home (read "mansion") so this year's party was huge!! There were 200 people in their house, not including caterers and servers and photographers and coat checkers and valet parkers and Elvis.

[I wonder how many spills there were on their new floors and furniture. My husband and I did see a meatball in marinara smashed into some sisal carpet.]

We had a great time, it was fun seeing everyone, and as usual we were the first to leave, lol. We were home in bed by 11:00. We got a picture with Elvis to prove we were there, though!

Click image to view larger.
Credits here.

We're in the thick of kids' activities. This week holds the usual practices and lessons plus a basketball party for which I had to decorate because the original volunteer had to go to a funeral, Cambryn's 1st grade musical program at school on two consecutive days, and Collin's post-season basketball tournament this weekend. It was also my week (every third) to do the school newsletter.

Could someone please come and finish my laundry while I do all this running around?

Oh well. It was worth a try. Bye for now!

Poet and Don't Know It

I usually blog in the middle of the night

when everyone else is sleeping tight
but lately instead of being wired
at bedtime, I've actually been tired!

And while I've gotten a bit more sleep,
I've totally ignored the hobbies I keep
but as soon as I have some awake time that's free
I'll get back to doing the things that are me.

---------------------------

I don't have a new layout but I'm pulling one from my gallery just to make sure you realize my dad is healthy and able to wash his own hair. And if that doesn't make sense, please read my previous post.

Click image to view larger.
Credits here.

Goodnight!

Cambryn is Funny

Here's another Cambryn story for you. When I told it to my husband at dinner I laughed so hard I cried. She doesn't lack imagination.

For homework Cambryn brought a list of ten sentences she needed to rewrite because she had written her words so closely together, each sentence looked like one gigantic word. It was a list of her responsibilities. Some examples were "I clean my room." Yeah, right. "I wash the dishes." Uh...as in the imaginary ones in her mind, I guess. "I get the mail." Yes, she does that.

So I was helping with spacing and spelling and the scene picks up at sentence number eight.........

Leslie: I can't read this one. What does this say?
Cambryn: I wash my grandpa's hair.
Leslie: What?!! I wash my grandpa's hair?
Cambryn: Yeah.
Leslie: You don't wash grandpa's hair!
Cambryn: I do when you're not looking.
Leslie: Cambryn, You've never washed grandpa's hair.
Cambryn: Oh, OK.

The end.

I mean, really.

I immediately called my dad to let him know Cambryn was thinking about him. For the record, he's perfectly capable of washing his own hair. If he ever needs help, though, I've got just the person for the job.

Back to Life

Yikes! I've lost a big chunk of time. The good news is that I'm finally dismantling my sickbed on the couch.

I made a semi-coherent decision not to blog while I was sick. Let's just say I had what Cambryn had and tomorrow I think I'll try on some skinny jeans and pretend I've been on a great diet.

Late Valentine's Eve I rallied to get started on the kids' class valentines. A normal person would've just gone to Target for some flashy foil Spiderman cards. I, however, was up half the night scrapping, printing and cutting! The kids got them addressed before school so it was all good.

You'll have to use your imagination because I don't have a photo of the finished products. These are treat bag toppers. They were folded in half longways and stapled onto the top of plastic ziploc bags filled with candy. The kids all thought they were super cool.

His Valentine
Credits Here

Her Valentine
Credits Here

I'm anxious to get back to real life, including blogging and scrapping. Happy Belated Valentine's Day to everyone. I hope it was special.

Sick in Bullets

I would really rather post something fun or cute but good grief, this is our real life.

Tuesday

• Collin still sick

Wednesday

• Collin went back to school
• Got called to pick Cambryn up at school and she threw up the rest of the day
• My husband got home from his trip
• I started feeling sick, but maybe just exhausted?

Thursday (so far)

• Cambryn stayed home again
• I somehow got the school newsletter finished and sent in
• Got called to pick Collin up at school as he had fever, headache and fatigue
• My husband got groceries during his lunch hour

And that brings us up to date. When I signed Collin out today we were on the bottom of a whole page full of signed-out sick kids. It's everywhere!

On the bright side Cambryn has been much easier this time around. Perfectly neat, with her double-lined trash can, lol, and no crying, either. Wow.

We all hope to get well one of these days. I hope you're either healthy or you get that way soon!

Safety Pins Freebie

I think the freebie is finished but I'm so tired I could be delirious and linking to an empty file. Hope not. Here's what it's supposed to have in it. You'll never have to look for another safety pin again...

Download here.
[Note: some pins in preview may look a bit wonky but they don't look like that in .png file.]
[download expired]

As for Collin, he still has a high fever with headache and dizziness. Usually when he's sick he just sleeps on the couch. Today, however, he needed me about every five minutes. No, I exaggerate. Every ten minutes.

We saw his doctor for strep and flu tests. They were both negative.

I need to remember to cancel my hair appointment in the morning. Does anyone want to call me and remind me? Unless Collin could go sleep on a massage table somewhere while I get my hair done! I doubt that they would go for that.

My husband keeps calling to see how we're doing. He also keeps mentioning how great the weather is in San Diego. I think he said it was 75F today. It was about 60F here, though, so not too bad.

Obviously my secret painting mission got canceled when Collin got sick. Now I'll just have to do it right in front of my husband's face somehow but you know I'll at least start while he's at work. That way I'll have a lot done by the time he knows what's happening, lol. I've learned a few things in thirteen years of marriage.

Okay, I'm exhausted. Tomorrow will be more of the same. If you stayed away from fevers, good for you. If you didn't, drink lots of water!

A Sick Boy

Quick post. Collin has had a high fever since Saturday along with a bad headache. He's been in bed or on the couch ever since, needing lots of mothering.

My husband left for San Diego. I'm sure he'll be thinking of us while he wears short sleeves and walks in the sand. Okay, so he went to a banking convention and it can't be that exciting but at least it's not cold. He'll be back on Wednesday.

Cambryn finally got to play her first basketball game and her team won! She was so excited. She was the smallest player out there but made up for it in aggression. She knows how to play some defense. She also brought the ball upcourt some and she made good passes. A wonderful debut if I say so myself.

Monday I should have lots of time to finish my freebie since I'll be confined to the house. It's not a small project.

No pictures, no layouts, no links this time. I'll be back soon, though. Stay well and keep away from fevers!

I'm a Cartoon

Guess who this is supposed to be! I discovered this fun site on Michelle Underwood's blog. You can create yourself, lol. Go ahead, it's free.

I started working on a new freebie. Here's a hint, but not a big one: it involves scanning and tedious, meticulous extraction. Umm, which I enjoy for some reason. My husband is sooo the opposite of that. He's the total big picture guy and I'm all about the details.

Forest, what forest? Heck, what tree? All I can see are the bark patterns and veins in the leaves.

Oh, for those wondering...no, he hasn't noticed the new wall color in the dining room yet. I really don't think he's going to until I point it out. He's not colorblind. Maybe it's just too small of a detail to notice.

It's snowing again.

That's not normal around here!

We're going to Crested Butte, CO over spring break but by then I may be sick of snow. It's something I don't mind traveling to. I just don't particularly want to live in it.

Okay, I'm off to do some housework. I hope you're safe and warm.

Oklahoma is 100 Years Old

Thanks to everyone leaving comments! They're fun to read and it's nice to hear that the word art is appreciated.

As for the question about how Cambryn got her name, I found it in a baby name book. It means crooked hill in Welsh. I have some Welsh ancestory, my husband's seen a crooked hill before, it just all fit together.

Now then. I do have a son and I've been working on a particular layout of him forever. Every once in awhile on the digital scrap boards someone new will post the question "How long does it take you to finish a layout?" Well, the following layout should make everybody feel better about himself because I started it in November.

I've changed kits several times, I've created new alphas only to delete them, I've rearranged over and over and over, all because I wanted to fit so much onto the page even though I don't do well with clutter.

So here is my labor of love (or insanity).

Collin's great-great-great-grandfather on Bill's side, Choctaw Chief Allen Wright, proposed the name "Territory of Oklahoma," which means "Territory of Red People," in an 1866 treaty with the U.S. Although the name wasn't used in 1866, it's how Oklahoma got its name at statehood in 1907.
Click image to view larger.
Credits found here.

Oh, guess who'll be out of town for three nights very soon. I may be painting again, lol. This is a long trip for him! He likes to sleep in his own bed so unless he goes to either coast, he's usually back the same day.

So what I'm saying is that almost four days without him only happens about once a year. And that's about how long it would take me to paint the formal living room.

I'm just saying.

Anyway, it's very very late (early) so I'm going to bed now. Happy Hump Day!

Cambryn is Funny

Another quick post today because I don't want to forget something Cambryn said.

At about 12:30 last night Cambryn stumbled into the office saying she needed her blankie and she didn't know where it was. She said it might be in the car and she insisted that she woke up because it wasn't in her bed and she just couldn't sleep without it.

So I looked just about everywhere, but no blankie. I went back to her room and said,"Cambryn, I think maybe you left it in Mommy and Daddy's bathroom when you took a bath but I don't want to go in there because it might wake Daddy up."

(My husband is a very light sleeper and I didn't want to turn on any lights.)

Cambryn sat up in bed, let out a big sigh, and then using hand motions to help explain the situation said, "Mom, you're Daddy's wife, and he loves you very much, so you can go anywhere you want to. It's the truth."

Of course I went straight to the bathroom and found the blankie. I asked my husband if he heard us last night and he said no.

Who knows, maybe she's a future psychologist.

Word Art Freebie

I finished playing with the companion quotes to my first set. These are a little more random in topic and I just threw in the scrapbook quote because it always makes me laugh.

Download here.
Please leave a comment here on my blog.
If you use one of these in a layout, I would love to see it. Please send me a link.

Maybe I should make one for my mom that says "Blessed are the children of genealogists because they shall inherit the genealogy notebooks." Every last million of them, lol.

Well, did you happen to notice how well my dining room photo matched my blog header? I'm certainly consistent in my color schemes although I don't get credit for choosing the paint color. A decorator is helping me.

And speaking of paint...you should see the color he chose for the formal living room. Not only would my husband notice this one, it would be like hitting him over the head with a 2x4!

I'm not brave enough to post the color here because it might freak somebody out but if you want to look it up on Sherwin Williams' website, it's coconut husk. Don't tell me if you don't like it, though!

Everything the decorator has done has been really cool so I have no reason not to trust him. It's just a little scary to make such a drastic change.

Enough about paint.

We had a fairly typical Sunday except for a couple of things, both involving my husband. First, he played nine holes of golf in 33-degree weather. It was freezing! He said it was perfectly fine because there wasn't any wind. Maybe it helps that he always walks, but still! Wind or no wind, that's cold.

The second thing was the highlight of my day. My husband actually loaded the dishwasher and started it all by himself. Don't laugh! I told him it was the sexiest thing he's ever done. I thought he had a dishwasher phobia because he rinses his dishes out and sets them on the counter over the dishwasher every time. For thirteen years, people. I made a big, big deal out of it. Talk is cheap but washing dishes is major in my book.

Okay, hello to Julie, Tina (from Oklahoma!) and Phoxy4. I hope everyone has a thrilling Monday and from the wisdom of Yogi Berra, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it!"

Quick Post

I'm short on time but here are a couple of new things to look at. The first is a picture of a wall. My mom wanted to know what color I painted my dining room so here it is:

The walls were previously a deep red with blue tones and now they're a deep red with yellow tones, aka "flowerpot."

Are you curious about what my husband had to say?

Husband: (home for an hour) "I smell paint. What have you been up to?"
Leslie: "Oh, nothing."

The end.

He hasn't noticed that the walls are a different color. Hmmm.

The other thing to look at is this new layout of my sister and me.

Click image to view larger.
See credits here.

I hope to post another freebie sometime this weekend. OK, back to my domestic kingdom for laundering of royal garments and washing of silver goblets. Bye!

Secret Mission

My husband had to fly to Portland, OR this morning so it seemed the perfect time for a secret mission, one involving this:

But before anyone (Mom) gets all worried, yes I'm wearing a mask.

See, I enjoy painting, mostly because I'm a perfectionist and of all the four professional painters I've hired in the past I, the amateur, am the best. So not only do I enjoy painting, I can't stand the thought of paying someone else to do a worse job than I would.

The trouble is that my husband and perhaps my mom think that painting makes me sick. That might be because during one paint job I went to the doctor with bad chest pains and was diagnosed as having a severe asthma attack when I'd never had asthma before.

However, after months of medicine and more tests I was finally diagnosed with GERD (acid reflux) - induced asthma and I distinctly remember that I never ever drank any of the paint while I was putting it on my walls.

Okay, then there was one other time I got sick but that was probably just a cold coupled with a bad reflux episode again. There have also been times when I didn't get sick at all.

Anyway, to avoid hearing my husband tell me I shouldn't paint, I figured I would just get it all done while he's out of town. By the time he gets back tomorrow evening the dining room will be completely finished (yay!) and I'll be completely healthy (fingers crossed).

The reason I've done so much painting is because we completely redid our last house, I've helped a friend paint, and now this house just needs some freshening up and I want new colors. With all my experience maybe I should write an advice column:

• It's not a good idea to wear 2 1/2 inch platform flipflops on a ladder while painting the top of a 10-foot wall.
• Reconsider starting large projects between Thanksgiving and Christmas hoping to be finished in time for your Christmas party when there's a major stomach virus going around at school and your kids have never been afraid of a few little germs.
• If you scoot backwards on the floor painting around the baseboards while wearing nylon sweats, don't be surprised when your pants slide down to your knees.

Okay, keep those in mind next time you start a painting project and if you need any more pearls of wisdom just let me know!

Back in School

Woo hoo! After a week of iced-in togetherness the kids are back in school. Now I can reclaim the house and try to get it in working order again. If that's possible.

Here are a some photos taken when I ventured out for a couple of cold minutes, LOL.
We don't get pretty "snow" this often so I wanted a picture of our house in it. Remember, though, it looks like snow but it was ICE, or at least a heavy layer of ice covering the snow.
Cambryn wanted to go outside and slide around so I went out and took some pictures, mostly blurry. I asked her to stand still for this one so she decided to strike a pose, which is why she looks so, er, posed. What makes this totally Cambryn is (1) she has one blue mitten and one black mitten and (2) she had marked all over her face with a marker (forehead and nose, maybe not so noticeable here). Thankfully it wasn't a permanent marker this time.

Collin spent a lot of time with his friend Alex who lives two doors down as they alternated houses every few hours. Cambryn's playmates had to be imported, LOL. We don't know any girls her age in our neighborhood.

Thanks to all who have left comments about the quotes freebie. Judging by the number of comments it seems mildly popular but when I looked at the number of downloads I was shocked. Now I know why everyone always begs downloaders to leave comments: because hardly anyone does. It would just be nice to see who's actually grabbing it. I'm happy that people seem to like it, though.

Well, off to tackle the house and laundry. An exciting day, for sure!

My First

Someone may actually see my blog now because I'm going to link it up after I post. Maybe I had better introduce myself a bit more. If you're from DST and don't recognize my name it's probably because I'm just not that outgoing. I do post in the forum and gallery. Before DST my main gallery was at SBB.

I'm on the awesome Michelle Underwood's creative team. I was also on Jomi's (SBG) creative team but she left design work at the end of the year. I'm quite content to stick with just one now. I scrap my kids, my family, vintage photos and heritage pages.

So, since we were iced in all week long I had some time to work on a freebie. My first! The blogging, saving in .png files, zipping (instead of unzipping!), uploading to rapidshare, etc. are all very new to me. Hopefully there aren't any mistakes along the way.

After two years I'm pretty much a digital veteran. Or so it seems when people start posting that the first kits they ever bought were all from last fall, LOL. I have used sooo many freebies along the way that I just want to try to pay back some of my gratitude.

Download here (4shared).

Download here (rapidshare).

[download expired]

I hope you like it. I have another set ready to upload in a few days. Enjoy!

Never Say Never

I've been wanting to give back to the digital scrap community that has been so very generous to me with their freebies and a blog seems to be the way to do it so here I am, the person who didn't expect to have a blog.

Maybe my family can hop on and catch an update on the kids when they want. Maybe I'll actually document some of those funny things my kids say that I never write down. First, though, I'll do a practice run to make sure I can do this. It took a lot of determination to get that custom header in place!

It's Wednesday and we haven't had school all week because of ice. Tomorrow's a bust, too. My friend Christi wants to call the principal and report that her kids would be a lot safer going to school in hazardous driving conditions than they would be spending one more day at home with her.

The major streets are cleared but everywhere else is solid ice. It looks like several inches of picture postcard white snow but it's not! You don't walk in it, you slide on top of it. No footprints. It could be worse, though. My parents haven't had electricity since Saturday. Just a generator for the fridge and a couple of space heaters, plus lots of candles and bulky clothes. Luckily they still have hot water.

Okay, for my grand finale I'm going to post a layout done for designer Michelle Underwood. She has really been cranking out some great kits. I have no idea how she designs so quickly. My brain just doesn't go that fast.

Click image to view larger.
Credits found here.

Until next time, keep warm!