Snap out of it!

I hate feeling down. Of course we all have days when we feel like that, but I've been having those days a lot lately. Depression runs in my family (and I'd taken medication for it after my second son was born) but I don't think I'm at that point. Perhaps I'm bored. I do go through a low point whenever I finish a project, and my 2008 vacation scrapbook is done and I don't have anything else planned. But who knows.

I do enjoy coming across things that make me smile. This is one of the latest things that I've seen that was good enough to share:

It's coming!

I'm just days away from turning 40. I pretty much still feel like I'm in my 20's. Things are the same. Except for having a 16 year old son and a 13 year old son. And being married for the second time. And having 2 step-daughters. Yup, things are basically the same.

I had a disturbing thought. If I live to be 80 years old, then I am middle aged. Wow. Those words conjure up mental images of women with grey hair and frumpy bodies. Scary.

(By the way, I tried to add some pictures to this post but blogger isn't working correctly)

Good for a laugh

I have Tracey's facebook wall post to thank for this little number!

Scrapbook layouts

I'm actually trying to get a whole scrapbook done from our 2008 Montana vacation. Believe it or not, I have 6 layouts completed and I plan on 3 more double page spreads. Here's what I've done so far....

All the layouts use templates from Simply Yin (she offers wonderful freebies!)

Huckleberry time!!

Before I met Jason, I would have thought that a huckleberry was just a character from a cartoon. A couple of years ago on our Montana trip, I went with Jason on a huckleberry finding mission. We were successful in finding a patch of the elusive little berries and now we make sure that each time we go to Montana, we take a drive up the mountain to our spot with the huckleberries and spend as much time as we can picking them.

We were fortunate to be going a few weeks later in July this year. I say fortunate because the huckleberries had more time to get ripe for us. Jason and I drove up alone one of the first days we got to Montana to scout out whether or not they were ripe and hoping that they hadn't been discovered by the locals. We had our first hint that the huckleberries were close by when we found a big pile of bear poop on the road. It was purple-ish...which meant that there were definitely berries nearby!

Do you see that tiny little berry? THAT is a huckleberry. Just click on the photo to see the details full size.
Jason took a picture of me with my baggie of berries since I'm usually the one behind the camera. Now I have visual proof that I was really there! LOL...

After a week of vacation, the kids were ready to pack up and head back to Arizona. They had no more reason to stay since the cousins had already gone back home to California. We told them that we were going to go pick berries one more time and if they wanted to leave a day early, then they had to lose a little sleep and go huckleberry picking with me while Jason was golfing with his buddy, Scott.
Here they all are with their own baggies of berries. Well, there were so many more left and Jason really wanted to go back out, that he and I went back later that day and picked some more. I was amazed to find that we were also surrounded by wild strawberries. They were EVERYWHERE! Here is a handful that I picked. They were really small but were super sweet and delicious.
The strawberries went into my tummy right away. I think I should have picked some more to share, but we were not there to pick strawberries.
So now we have 3 baggies like this in our refrigerator with fragrant, tart little huckleberries. Now I understand why they charge up to $40 for a gallon of these things. It took us at least 2 hours of picking to get this much.
I'd tell you to come by and try some, but by the time you get here, they will be all gone!

Rope swing at Twin Lakes

One of the things the kids looked forward to on this Montana trip was going back to Twin Lakes near the cabin so they could swing on the rope swing they found last year. We were all very happy that it was still there.

Jacob by the rope

Jared has the rope and Olivia and Parker wait for their turn.

The bravest kids use the make shift ladder to get a lot more out of their swing.

Jared out on the rope

When they got bored with the swing, the kids practiced skipping rocks before we took off.

You have to make sure you find a good rock to skip.

Everyone looks to see how far the rock makes it across the lake.
We didn't stay as long this time that we did last year. Sadly, Samantha had to stay behind at the cabin with her dad since she wasn't feeling well because of blood sugar problems from her diabetes.

Counting down

We are only 9 days away from our annual summer trip to Montana. And I have done NOTHING to prepare. I haven't looked at my wardrobe or planned a grocery list. I haven't even colored my hair or bought a new bathing suit. Of course, I might not need a bathing suit this year since there is a very good possibility we won't be getting out on the lake.

I need to get excited about this trip so I can stop worrying about the long drive in the truck with 4 kids. They did pretty good last year, but we only had one child who was remotely happy about going.

This was them as we pulled out of our driveway last year. See what I'm talking about?

This summer, our kids will get to enjoy the company of the Burman cousins as well as the Albright cousins. Jason and I are hoping this will make it a more enjoyable experience for the older kids.

This is a photo from 2 years ago of the Burman kids with 3 of our kids at The Circle (actually, our 4th kid is there but seems to be hiding). I think they are all smiling because they were going to have ice cream. I know it always makes me smile.

It's time to buy some hair color and get my lists together so I will be ready to enjoy our family vacation. I might even go get me a new bathing suit and hope for time on a lake shore for a little swimming.

A day for scrapbooking

I made myself sit down and actually do a scrapbook page. Last weekend I joined my sisters Suzee, Margaret and Beverly, my niece Kacie and Bev's friend Terri for lunch at Claim Jumper. Our life long family friend Chris and his son joined us in time to buy us dessert. It was a lot of fun but unfortunately it didn't end so well because of a heated discussion about something from when my mom died. Anyway, here is the scrapbook page I did this afternoon....

Template by Yin, Artimia kit with additional items from Katie Pertiet

I are not smart

I must be truthful with you. I don't always do the smartest things. Let me give you an example of the most recent dumb thing I've done.....
This is a really dumb thing to do when you've just recently lost 20 lbs. Yeah, making Toffee Crack is something you only do if you want to gorge yourself on high sugar, high fat treats.
I even went the extra mile and added pecan pieces and some melted white chocolate bark to the top.
And since misery loves company I wanted to share these images with you and perhaps you will visit this website for the incredibly simple recipe for this highly addictive snack.

Recollections

I am one of 4. My dad, at times, affectionately called us Thing One, Thing Two, Thing Three and Thing Four (go read The Cat In The Hat) and I am Thing 4. It wasn't always easy being the baby of the family (although my sisters seem to think I was spoiled).

We were pretty poor when I was a kid. I remember we sometimes got hand-me-downs from a family with older girls. I was the smallest so I got the hand-me-downs that my sisters had grown out of. My mom was a great seamstress so quite often she made our clothes.

If you'd ever spent time at our house back in those days, this was a common site to see....

Holly, sitting at her sewing machine. And if you are curious about what she is working on, then the next photo is for you.
She made each of us a Holly Hobbie doll and our very own Holly Hobbie dress. As you can see, we were very happy.

I wasn't always happy to have sisters. We had our fair share of fights growing up. Of course if you were the one caught being mean, you had to say the family prayer that night. Have you ever tried to pray when you are being a meany? Not an easy thing to do.

Now that I'm a mom, I look back to the days of my youth and can't help but ask, How in the world did our parents not kill us? I have only 2 and there were days that I thought they might not make it to their teenage years. My mom and dad had 4 girls in 4 years.

I really love these sisters of mine and I treasure every memory of growing up in that crazy house. BTW, I think we are overdue for a get-together.

It's OK to scraplift!

I've been feeling kind of down for a few days so I thought maybe if I did some scrapping I'd take my mind off my troubles. Here are a couple of pages that I scraplifted* today.
My page of Jacob is scraplifted from this page.

My page of Jared is scraplifted from a layout I saved in my ideas folder, but I have no idea who did the original. It was a good way to pass the time.

*scraplift: the act of copying ideas and designs from another person’s scrapbook page to use in your own pages.

Yeah, something is wrong with me

Ever since I came across this website, I have been totally addicted. I spend way too much time drooling over the photos and having fantasies. You'd think that I would be smart and stay away since pretty much everything I see is forbidden to me. My family is shocked that I torture myself in this manner. Why? they ask me.... I tell them that soon, although not soon enough, I'll be fulfilling my fantasies. Ah, I am counting down the days.

You Might Enjoy This

I'm finding myself singing this song and it's making me hungry.

Sometimes I Wonder

On any given day, I have many questions that go through my head. Today I will share just a few with you....

If I am running the air conditioner at 78 degrees (with the thermostat upstairs), why is my loft 82 degrees?

Have you ever seen such a cute little USB memory stick? (compare it to the regular memory stick above it)

Why do I take so many pictures of my cat? Does he even care that nobody can resist his silkiness?

How can my child sleep with his bed like this?

How can my child sleep with his bed like this? Wait, I'm beginning to repeat myself.

Is ther an unwritten rule that says at least 85% of boxers manufactured should be plaid?

Why didn't we take the cute cake off the outside box it came in before we took pictures? Why did we leave it there for the whole party?

If anyone has some answers, I'd love to hear them.