They're home again

My boys are finally back from their dad's house. It's funny how I was so ready to send them off, but half way through last week I was really missing them. Just them, not the messes that seem to appear where ever they go. LOL! Last night Jared (my youngest) came home and his brother Jacob slept over at a friend's house in our old neighborhood since he hasn't really hung out with this friend for at least a year. Jacob got dropped off tonight at the salon and we came back home together. It's really nice when I get one-on-one time with my kids. And of course Jared is sleeping over at a friend's tonight so he isn't here now. I told him this is the night to do it because we leave on Wednesday and he won't be having any sleep-overs Tuesday night.

We had to find a place for Chooch (our dog) to stay for the 2 weeks we'll be gone. So on Saturday one of Jason's friends came to the house and took the dog for a little vacation of his own. It's kind of weird with him gone. I keep looking for him...especially when food falls on the floor. LOL! My 2 cats (Elvis & JB) will stay here and my sister Beverly will come and check on them in the afternoons. I wonder if they are worried that whatever happened to him will happen to them. They do seem to be acting even stranger than normal. And my poor Jared was so sad last night when he was getting ready for bed because the dog sleeps with him! Poor kid comes home and his buddy isn't here to greet him!

And the countdown to Montana gets closer! Just yesterday I began to plan my wardrobe for the 2 weeks. I will no doubt over pack. I just can't help it. But I feel it's better to over pack than fret that I've forgotten something.

I hope to get lots of great pictures of our family. My sister Bev told me I needed new ones because she keeps seeing the same ones pop up in my scrapbook pages. Yes, it's true. I have some faves and I just recycle a few of them. LOL!

I'm also hoping to blog while I'm in Montana (at least while we are staying with Jason's sister Marcie). If I get that chance, I'll try to post some of my photos. :-)

"Family" word scrapbook

I just finished making a "Family" word scrapbook for my sister Suzee. I'm not worried that she'll find out because she doesn't even check her email that often, so I can guarantee she will not find out about it here. I've seen the word albums you can buy, but I figured I'd make it myself by cutting it out of chipboard sheets. Let me tell you, that ain't easy! I bought the heavy chip and it takes some force cutting it. I made the template myself in Photoshop and once I had it all printed out I saw where I could have done better, but still not too shabby!

Isn't her family so cute?!

The papers are from Weeds and Wildflowers "Pieces of my heart" and there are a few of Bethany's Elegant Word Art quotes in there. The last picture shows Wordart by Mary Ann Wise (freebie). So I now have another item checked off my to-do list. WOOHOO!

One week and counting

Just one more week to go until we're on our way to Montana! I have so much to do, and I didn't get much done today. I did manage to get the main level swept and mopped. It really needed the mopping. Someone spilled some juice or other sticky liquid in a trail leading to the stairs. Of course, nobody did it. Those kind of things just appear out of nowhere.

One of the things on my to-do list that got checked off today was the item that said "don't leave without looking for potatoes in the pantry". If you've never had a bag of potatoes go bad in your home, then you are missing out! Let me share with you my personal experience I suffered serveral months ago....For a day or two, I kept thinking that something in the laundry room was really dirty. Well, I washed all the rags and towels in the basket and the smell didn't go away. In fact, it was getting stronger. I wandered through the house sniffing things trying to locate the odor. I stood in the door to the laundry room which is right next to my pantry and realized that the smell was the strongest there. So I got down on my hands and knees and began smelling the shelves and I found it! The bag was actually WET and the smell was bad enough to gag me. It was the stuff of nightmares inside that bag. It was not fun cleaning the mess and even now I have the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it. So today, I found the almost empty bag of potatoes hiding behind a few cans and tossed it out. Not a day too soon, either, since they were getting icky but had not begun the horrible stench, yet. It would have been terrible coming home to a house stinking of rotting potatoes!

If you listen carefully, you can hear the keyboard

It's so quiet tonight. Usually I'm listening to the television because my boys seem to need it on to sustain life, but while they are vacationing with their dad, I have my peace and quiet. (Jason is also a television fan, but now he's asleep so he can go to work before the sun comes up!) I can spend an entire day without ever turning on the t.v. I would chalk it up to being a guy thing, but there was a time when I was addicted to the shows on the boob-tube. It's true....I would actually plan my day around my shows, and sometimes I couldn't go anywhere because there wasn't enough time between them to run my errands. I kind of blame that lifestyle on much of the extra weight I carried around with me then. I now have a few I'll watch with Jason, but they are almost always recorded.

I'm finishing up my first week of jogging. Today I tried to lengthen my stride so that perhaps I can one day call what I'm doing "running". Right now I think I look like I escaped from a circus. LOL!! The good news is that my inner thighs are no longer screaming at me when I'm done and my calf muscles can go almost twice the distance before they let me know they are not liking the abuse. Still not much improvement in the lung department (or the fat department) but I will just keep at it and it will come.

Do you ever wish you were a cat? Just lay around sleeping most of the day and then walk around knocking valuables off their place of honor in the night. Yes, that would be the life! How fun it must be to watch the humans come running out of their comfy beds to see what the hell just hit the floor. Ah, yes! Being a cat could be quite fun....

I guess I've finally got myself unwound enough from work tonight so I can go to bed. After all, I do need to be up before it gets way too hot to perform my street circus act! LOL!!

The better Friday

Here it is, Friday again! It's the better Friday, by the way. This is my no working at the salon Friday because all the kids are home. If you are one of my nail clients, please take no offense that your day isn't the top pick...although I do have a good time when I see you :)

My boys will be leaving this afternoon for just over a week. They will be going with their dad to Disneyland for a few days, and then will chill with him for the rest of his vacation week. So I guess it will be my vacation, too! Imagine, when I clean the kitchen and come back hours later it will still be clean! Yeah, my vacation, too! "Have a good time, boys!"

I'm making my list of everything that needs to be done before we take off for Montana. (I'm already getting that feeling that something is being forgotten.) I'm trying to make sure that I don't over pack. It always happens that I bring stuff back that I never wore. I mean, this is family we are going to see...who cares if I wear something more than once! LOL! No one has to know when they will see the pictures that the outfit they keep seeing is from multiple days. They can just assume we did everything on one day! HAHAHA!

I wish there was more time before our trip. That's only because I have been super lazy and have not kept up with working out. So I have started jogging. I figured that I better do something really aerobic to try to burn a bit of fat off in a short time. There was a time when I loved to run. I could run for an hour or more. But that was many years ago....many, many years ago. I find that the best I can do is a very slow jog. In fact, my hubby doesn't want to go with me because he can't run that slow. LOL! Lets hope my knees hold up. I am beginning to enjoy myself and if I can stick with it, I might be able to up my speed. We shall see.

The time has come to officially start my day. My slow jog is done and my daily blog reading and my weird addiction to digi scrapbook freebie hunting has been satisfied. Yup, time to start my day.

Summer School & Vacation

Jacob has been in summer school for Freshman English and I have to say thank goodness that tomorrow is his last day! For just over 3 weeks, I have had to make sure I get up by 6 a.m. so I can make sure HE gets up by 6 a.m. Well, this Friday I get to sleep in!! I'm certain he is more excited about being finished than I am. Lets hope he's learned how awful it is to have to go to summer school so that next year he will at least turn his homework in! He just would not do homework. It was a fight every night during the regular school year. I hope that he doesn't want to fail any more classes...

We are just 2 weeks away from our vacation. We will be driving to Montana to stay for 2 weeks visiting Jason's family (sister and mom). Yeah, it is going to cost a small fortune in gas to drive from Arizona to Montana, but it is way cheaper than buying 6 round-trip airfare tickets. I'm a bit stressed about being trapped in a truck with 4 kids for a 20 hour drive. When I was a kid, I don't know how my mom and dad managed to not kill me and my 3 sisters on our long drives to Utah to visit my dad's family. LOL! But when I think back on our trips, I don't remember hating being stuck in that car. I know we must have fought with each other, but what sticks most is the funny things and the happy feeling of being with my family. I guess I need to focus on that and just relax. Of course, I could try the suggestion to just give all the kids some Benadryl. LOL! If you buy the generic, it lists that it can be used to treat motion sickness as well as insomnia. "Hey kids, take one of these...it's like candy!" LOL!!! Or, better yet, I will take it myself and just sleep the 20 hours of driving :)

Finally Done

So, 2 days late, I finally (almost) finished Jason's Father's Day scrap album. I just need to put some jute ties on to tie it together. Once I do that I'll see if some extra elements need to be added to it so it feels complete. (Sorry the photos aren't super clear) I really enjoy the whole Hybrid Scrapbook thing. I have a couple more albums in the "almost done" stage. I'll share those when finished, too.

The template is from Scrap Orchard's "so you think you can design" freebies by Mimi's Digi Scraps. The papers are from Weeds and Wildflowers "Breath of Fresh Air".

And now I need to run so I can police my boys. They have friends sleeping over and are making a bit too much noise and my DH needs to get some sleep. He has to be up at 3 a.m. to go to work! You just have to love summer break!

Time just flies!

Where is the time going? I am so bad...I never finished my hubby's scrap album. And I had such good intentions, too. I did get the first 2 pages done. It looks like it will be a few more days until it's ready. Then I'll share some images with you.

Today was a pretty fun day with Jason and his girls. I have to brag and tell you all how good I've got it - he WANTED to make breakfast today for all of us! Sausage, egg and cheese biscuit breakfast sandwiches....Yum Yum! He makes the best breakfasts. Then we ran out and got him his Father's Day gift (that I wasn't able to take the girls to get since they went ice-skating last night instead). He now has "Perfect Push ups". Have you seen these things? They are designed to get you results very quickly. Let me tell you, I already can't do a "real" push up. I have to do the girly ones from my knees. These things make it even tougher because you have to keep stabilizing yourself.

Now don't go thinking about how he spent WAY more on me for Mother's Day! He would tell me if he wanted something else. And like I said, he is much better at gifting than I. :)

Father's Day Eve

Well, tomorrow is Father's Day and we get to go get my DH girls this evening so they will be with him tomorrow. It's always neat to have the girls alone when the boys are gone as we always have boys in the house. I need to take them out to buy something for them to give their dad in the morning. Thank goodness he gave me a great idea of something he would like to get...I am such a lousy gift-giver! LOL!! He, on the other hand, is wonderful at giving gifts. I was the lucky recipient of a camera for Mother's Day! I'm telling you that the man is too good at it and it makes me realize how much I have to learn!! Hehehe!

I have been making a hybrid digital scrapbook album for him that he will get from his girls. It's not really from them, but it does have great photos of them from before we met. I asked him to share some that he especially liked. I can't wait to finish it up tonight. I'll post some photos tomorrrow once he's had a chance to see it first.

Another thing I plan to do tonight is to make my dad a Father's Day card to send to him via email. He lives across town (about 45 minutes away) with his second wife (he married after my mom died). I'll tell you, with the price of gas at more than $4 per gallon, I won't drive anywhere I don't have to!! I'm sure he's got a lot planned with his new family, anyway.

To all you DADs out there.... HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!

TGIF

I am so glad the weekend is here. It's especially good because my sweet sons are at their dad's for the weekend. Don't misunderstand, I LOVE my boys. Still, it is very nice to have these much needed breaks.

I made a couple new scrap pages this week of them...

In case you are the one person that hasn't heard, I am totally addicted to digital scrapbooking. (Thank you Marcie!) I use Photoshop CS3 to get my fix.

Aren't they handsome!

I need to credit justmisskim for the templates and fei-fei's stuff for the papers.

Is this thing on?

I have been called a "know-it-all" by my DH at least once. But I have to tell you that I have no idea what I'm doing right now! LOL! Welcome to my leap into the world of blogging!!