Christmas Gifts

I was totally spoiled this year. Most of what I got was for the house.....

- Steam mop - LOVE IT!
- Toaster - 4 slices at once AND a bagel option
- Set of knives
- New bathroom towels - chocolate brown
- Cheese grater
- Blender - although not a gift, mom exploded mine and bought me a new one to replace
- Cutting boards, Pyrex dish, new cutlery, sift, and more all purchased with Walmart Gift Cards



I got 5 of the Stephanie Plum books from Ryan and another book from Mom. Very excited about those. I think my best gift from him was my ENTIRE SERIES OF FRIENDS. The steam mop comes very close though. I may bust into the friends tonight. I figure I can play it on the computer while I scrapbook. That sounds quite enjoyable. I got so much stuff, I think I forgot like half of it. What did you guys all get?

For Hailey

Sweet little Hailey bought Steve a ball for Christmas. We took it home and I let him peek his head into the bag. He could see it in there and he wanted it out, but he didn't have quite enough room to grab it out. He just had his face stuffed in there and tail wagging. It's a heavy ball and a little big for his mouth so he drops it sometimes. I think it will be a roll on the floor toy until the snow melts. Steve LOVES it. Here are some photos for you Hailey so you can see how happy he his. He says thank you very much.What's this? A ball? For me? Yay yay yay yay yay!Can I take it outside pleeeeeeassse!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all had a great day yesterday. We certainly did! Mom and Dad made it here safely on Tuesday morning. We've been having a good time catching up. Christmas Eve we went over to Crystal and Jason's place. Santa Claus made an appearance. The kids LOVED him. Very cute. Crystal please send me the photo of me sitting on Santa's lap. I can't wait to see it. We exchanged gifts and Crystal got me an awesome Sassafrass paper pack. It's a pink snowy line I had never seen before. I think it might be last years stuff. Very cool designs.

Christmas Eve we opened our stockings. We usually don't but I felt like I couldn't wait any longer to open up gifts. I was acting like a child. I could not find our stockings this year. I guess they got lost in the move though I don't see how. I kind of feel like when I take down the tree they may appear, but oh well. Ryan and I decided that as part of our gifts we would give each other new stockings. They were a surprise. He bought mine at Needful Things. Very pretty. I made his for him at Crystal's house. I got his name pressed on at work. Very fitting to his personality. I'm very proud of it. They were stocked full of lots of good things.


One of my other gifts was a steam mop. I wanted one really badly. Today I got the perfect chance to use it. Yesterday we cooked bacon for breakfast and poured the grease into a tin can. When I was making the gravy for dinner I topped the can up with turkey fat. Thinking nothing of it, we left it sitting on the counter today and all went out. About 4 hours later we returned home to find an empty tin can laying on the floor and a huge pile of vomit. Steve had stolen the can and licked it clean. Disgusting right? I could not believe the dirt that came off of my floor. I swear I wash it once a week. It was unbelievable. Steve later puked again in the kitchen and one more time on my living room rug. I'm pretty upset with him. We keep kicking him outside and then as soon as we bring him in, he pukes. I don't know what to do with him tonight while we sleep. Anyhow, I think that's enough for one day. I'll list all my gifts tomorrow :)

Fun Christmas light displays

Yet another time waster on youtube..... think I can convince Ryan to do this to our house?





(Carol of the Bells is my ABSOLUTE favorite Christmas song. LOVE IT)



The Santa jumping down the chimney is totally cool. I wonder how long it took to set all these up?

I've been busy lately getting the house ready for Christmas. I spent about an hour trying to take the perfect photo of my tree for you but I just can't get it. Stupid digital camera. It makes everything really yellowy or very dark and just the lights show. I don't know why my indoor shots are so yellowed and grainy but I HATE it. I'm extremely disappointed especially at this time of year when all the pictures I want to take are indoor. My next camera will have to be an Olympus again I suppose to make use of all my lenses, but I refuse to buy without spending some serious time reading up on it first. I think that's the mistake we made on this one, we just listened to whatever the guy had to say. I also want to make some time this year to take a camera course.

I share with you a photo of my sugar cookie recipe I made. Very yummy. They are frozen in the freezer downstairs awaiting Mom and Dad's arrival so that they can be eaten. They are very tempting though. So far I have been good and only eaten 2. We'll save the rest for the boys. (Okay, maybe I'll eat one more.)

Dad asked me last night if we can rent a hot tub for the yard when they are up. So today I need to see if that is possible. They have those propane fired ones I just don't know if it will be able to get in the yard. The tub would have to be turned to fit through the gate... Does anyone in town even rent hot tubs? I'll have to find this out today. Dad thinks it will be cool to be in a hot tub when it's nearly -40 outside. I think he's ridiculous and he's going to have to wear a toque while in there, but whatever.

Last night I did some scrapbooking and finished off several pages. I had four layouts nearly complete. I'd work on them at June's, get tired and come home. They were all sitting in individual ziploc bags. I'm quite proud I completed them. One of them was my Canada Day layout for goodness sake! About time I finished that. (Speaking of which, Crystal I am short one photo and wondering if you can print me a vertical 4x6 of that group shot you have). The other layout I didn't post here is my last Christmas page from last year. I figure you need to finish a holiday before the next year's rolls around. So I'm all ready to go now.

This is my layout for this years Thanksgiving. The majority of the layout is made with a Studio Calico kit. I'm been receiving their kits for about 5 months now. I LOVE THEM! A box of scrapbooking supplies arrives on my doorstep once a month. It's all really neat stuff that I either wouldn't buy on my own or wouldn't be able to get unless I ordered online. Very fun stuff. They don't often give you too many embellishments though which is okay because I get to work in the stuff I already have.This layout is from forever ago. Ryan's birthday was in September and I made him a soccer cake. The night I started this page I was struggling and I think I started by scraplifting (just had to pause and wonder why blogger did not recognize scraplifting as a word. oh dear) from one of June's Close To My Heart books. I just couldn't finish it. I think it had been incomplete for nearly 2 months. Its now done. It's simple but I quite like it. My favorite part is the "Soccer Field this way" embellishment I had. Perfect fit

I don't work until 12 today and I'm debating between going and taking the recycling, going to the dump, washing the floors etc and scrapbooking. This is a really hard toss up people. I don't know what to do.

Year in Review

...to make up for my lack of blogging, here is an insanely long post

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
Hmm, I don't know if I was too outgoing or daring. I bought a house, never done that before. Does that count?

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I actually didn't make any last year. I would like to make one this year though. I want to lose weight. And not a little, but a lot. Although, I would take a little over nothing. I want to try and dedicate more of my life to that and stop making excuses.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
She wasn't very close to me at the time, but 8 months later she is now! I love little Adalyn and her mommy.


4. Did anyone close to you die?
I'm very lucky to say no.


5. What countries did you visit?
Oh, I went to the very far and away land of.... haha I didn't even leave Canada. I went to Alberta a few times. GP is pretty exotic you know.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
More nights out with friends, less sitting around and watching tv. Watching tv with friends is okay though. So is watching "Friends" on tv.


7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory?
Um. none.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I went back to school. Yay me. I'd like to add that I got an A in both my classes this semester as well thank you very much.


9. What was your biggest failure?
Hmm, I'd probably say weight loss, although I don't think I dedicated myself enough to that to consider it a failure because I never really tried.


10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No more than my usual colds and flus.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Our house :)


12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
I don't know what this means.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Again, kind of odd. I can't really think of any one to name out as being a horrible person. Although, now that I write that, yes I can. She knows who she is.


14. Where did most of your money go?
House and house related things.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Mom and Dad are coming for Christmas :)That's what is currently exciting me.


16. What song/album will always remind you of 2008?
I used to make fun of my parents/older cousins for not knowing new songs.... I have turned into them and really don't pay attention to that stuff anymore.


17. Compared to this time last year, are you: happier/sadder,thinner/heavier,richer/poorer?
Happier, heavier, poorer (odd that i'm fat and poor but happy. oh well. happy is most important)


18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Traveling and corresponding with more distant family members


19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Waste time


20. How will you be spending Christmas?
With my mom, dad, Adam, Ryan and Steve! First Christmas in our first house :)


21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
Definitely Ryan when he's away at camp. Number 2 would be Mom.

22. Did you fall in love in 2008?
Just more in love.

23. How many one night stands in this last year?
Oh yeah, that's a nice question. What do you think?

24. What was your favourite TV program?
Heroes

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Just one

26. What was the best book(s) you read?
Hmm, what I can remember
Water for Elephants
Stephanie Plum series
Stories from the Vinyl Cafe
The Glass Castle

I don't know, I read a lot.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
What does that mean? Like that Saxophone I found under the bed? Or the copy of Mozart's unheard symphony tucked in the back of my sock drawer. Yeah, I didn't really discover anything musical.

28. What did you want and get?
To get into AHCOTE

29. What did you want and not get?
New floors in my house

30. What were your favourite films of this year?
This is like the book question. I refuse to answer on the basis that I will have to think.


31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 24 and had all my friends over to our place for dinner.

32. What's one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I can't say.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Luckily FSJ isn't so concerned with fashion so my jeans, runners and hoodies fit right in.

34. What kept you sane?
Scrapbooking.


35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Pfft.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
US election

37. Who did you miss?
Ryan when he is away at camp. Jenny and Mary. My stepgrandpa Joe.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Um, I don't know if I have a best. I met many nice new people.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
If you want to do something then do it. It won't just happen for you. And you can't complain about it unless you are willing to take action.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year?
Oh like i even know. Stupid question to end the thing with.

Yet another video

I'm getting quite good at posting videos instead of actually writing something decent about my life. But this is pretty hilarious. I'll get around to writing something one day.

http://bewareofthedoghouse.com/video.aspx

Some thoughts to chew on.....

A video from my youtube time wasting:




Now back to trying to write my stupid paper due stupid tomorrow for my stupid teacher who didn't even put the stupid question up yet.

Horrible Blogger

Wow,

I'm really sucking at this blogging stuff lately. Seriously, I think "oh I should blog about this funny thing" and then I go to do it, and I can't think about anything cool or interesting in my life. Last night Steve and I went for a walk and he tripped me on the ice. We both fell in a huge tumble and I sat there and cried for 5 minutes. My whole body is in pain. Is that worth blogging? I dunno. Some puke face kid stole a toque today and I wanted to beat him up, but I'm not allowed. Adam and I washed the outside of the hot water tank clean because it was sick and disgusting. In 15 minutes heroes is on. That's all I can think of for now. I'll try to be more creative next time. Maybe I'll have to start writing things on napkins or something so I can remember.

New layout, busy life.

I finished a layout last night. This article is from several years back (the blank circle at the bottom is for the date when I dig it out). My Auntie Gracie had a big named Pokey. She was HUGE. We used to ride her. One day Dean threw her a ball and she ran after it, had a heart attack and died. Anyhow, this article was written while she was still alive, because she had gained quite a bit of popularity in Canim Lake. I kept the page fairly simple, and used a little bit of stamping as embellishment. (Really, what do you use to embellish a page about a pig anyway??)


Other than that, just keeping busy with school and work. Getting my Christmas lists together, making cards, collecting and hiding presents. I'm very excited for Christmas. It snowed a bunch and I've been shoveling. I love to shovel it's great excercise. Ryan is coming home tomorrow and I'm worried because we had some ice rain today. My thoughts are very fragmented and random right now, so I think I'll stop writing, put on some Christmas music and complete a few more cards.

Pumpkins!

The other day we carved our pumpkins. Ryan, Adam and I had never used those template things or the fancy tools before. We used to just hack them up with knives. So this was an experience. I wish I had a photo to show you of Steve begging for scraps of pumpkin. He loved it. Ryan's is the aliens (he says they're dolls, but I'm calling them aliens). Mine is the haunted house and Adam's is the crow. Adam's is my favorite. They're kinda getting a little shrivel-y so I hope they will last, but they were fun to do either way.

Ding Dong Jerk Returns

Wow I had a horrible sleep last night. I feel asleep first on the couch where I woke up all stiff and yucky. Then moved to the bedroom where I woke up at 2:30 because Ryan had left Steve outside for several hours. He had just come back in and was all happy and excited. So then, at 3:45 the doorbell rings, again. Ryan and Adam both said they didn't hear it. I wanted to call the police, and would have if one more person heard it, but I didn't want to be the crazy person. So anyhow, Steve went outside and barked a bunch. He didn't want to go out because I think he was afraid he'd be locked out there again. But he was my little defender. Adam checked out the front street (Steve actually ran downstairs and woke him up). He said there was a car hovering in the middle of the street a bit of the way down. On hindsight, I probably should have called the police, it looks like we now have a harasser. But I was tired and not thinking straight. Now I have to go to school, give a presentation and wander through the woods. Lucky me.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey Dinner today at Junie's house. This was only the second turkey I have ever made, and I must confess I didn't make very much of this one. I could definitely have been called "assistant chef". Dinner was extremely excellent. I haven't experienced too many small Thanksgiving dinners, but this was nice. Just June, Brian, me and Adam. I really wish Ryan was here, but I understand. We'll need to do a small something in a few days when he comes home.

We somehow didn't get any shots of people, just the food. Those sneaky sneakers didn't remind me to take photos of other things. These are my top 3 food photos though. Again, a little unhappy with the indoor quality of my camera (I really need to learn to use that damn thing), but they're still pretty nice.

Scrapbook and Cards Sketch....

Scrapbook and Cards Today is a free magazine, and June pointed out this sketch in it for us to try. So we each did our own version of the layout. Mine is below. I had these photos of me and I liked them, but didn't know what to do with it. It's kind of sort of a me page I guess. I think they are important to do every one and a while. I take a lot of the photos, I'm trying to be in front of the camera a bit more. I finally used up that Making Memories artisan shaped paper. I think I have one more sheet still, but I had tried to use it so many times. Just happy it eventually worked. I like how this turned out, I wish my journaling was a bit more inspirational to go with the quote, but oh well.This photo is hilarious to me. We tried to take a self portrait with the zoom in just a bit too much. This photo is the background on my computer. I just think it's cute. I used Kelli Pannaci's new line and took inspiration from a sheet of the paper. The describing words she had didn't quite work for us, so I'll use the backside of that paper on another layout. I created my own words with some awesome new letters from Basic Grey. The black words are describing Ryan and the brown for me.

Layouts, layouts, layouts!

I've been trying to post for like 3 days now. Something, anything. Blogger refused to let me. So I'm hoping this will go through successfully in the end here. Over the weekend June and I scrapbooked together. All weekend. It was great. I got a lot of stuff done, new and old, and really impressed with pretty much all of it. Sorry for the bad photos, but check out the layouts I finished!Ryan was so proud of this shot he took with his legs and the cabin in the back there. So I hope he likes what I did on the page. This one was actually one of the hardest to do. I had trouble putting stuff in the waves that didn't belong there. I don't know why I needed to be so realistic, and really, flowers and flourishes don't exactly exist in waves either, but oh well.

This one was made with my Studio Calico kit as well. There's a bunch of extras mixed in too. The paper was all from the kit, except the brown sheet. The bright yellow Thickers came from the kit too. I thought they were pretty outrageous, and something I'd never have purchased on my own, but they look great here. I'm still really happy with this kit club thing.

This is th eonly layout I don't really like. I think it's because of how bright it is and that's just not my style. I did use up some super old paper (2005! yay!) so it was a success that way.

Hehe Jenny. I LOVE the big photo on this page. I took it just fooling around, but think it's so neat. I'm not normally so good at blurring out backgrounds. I love the paper line I used here too. Mr. Campy. How wonderful.

I seemed to do a ton of one-pagers this weekend. They are actually my favorite pages too. I don't know if Crystal even knew that Ryan took this photo of me and Hailey. I think it's very cute. I am pretty sure I was grabbing her and telling her if she didn't pay attention and listen to me she was going to fall over the slope and land in the water below. She thought that was funny for some reason. Thanks Jane for the Sass paper, I finally used it!

Crystal took these photos for Ryan and me. I turned them Sepia for no apparent reason, but I like how it turned out. Very soft.

Wow, look at me! So little. What's funnier, is look at my cousins. Styles have changed, that's for sure. Jen gave me the Prima flourish felt piece, and I challenged myself to use it on my very first page of the weekend. I think it fit pretty nicely.

This page is kind of dark, but it was challenging to do with the dark, aging photo. This is one of my last pages to finish for Adam's baby book I started a year ago.

This is a favorite page as well. Basic Grey is so amazing. Thanks June for the chipboard pieces.

Studio Calico is AMAZING

My Studio Calico kit came the other day. I LOVE IT! There's a few pieces I wouldn't necessarily have picked out myself, and may need to push myself to use, but overall I'm really happy with it. Lots of unique pieces. I created this layout within like 10 minutes of opening the box. I'm quite happy with it. The photo is going to go on that big newsprint spot - it's the photo below. I've loved this picture of Grandma Rosie and wanted to do something with it for a long time. I hope that this layout does it justice. I think she looks so beautiful in her fancy coat and gloves. There's still so many more pieces of this kit I need to use up! Gotta find some time!!

Where's the balance?

Wow. My life is all weird lately. There has just been so many changes: house, job, school, new roommate, new pet....... it's crazy. It's hard adjusting to all the new things. My schedule is all different, I get up earlier, I go to bed later, I have new responsibilities, new friends... so i'm going to try to sort it all out. hopefully I'll find balance soon. I'm going to try to post some layouts in the next few days. until then I just need to readjust.

Kit Club

I've been thinking about doing this for a long time. I figured that since I'm doing what I'm doing today I won't be spending much time around a scrapbook store anymore so I thought I'd reward myself with a monthly surprise through the mail. Studio Calico looked like the best bet. ( http://www.studiocalico.com/ ) The kit is $30 USD, and with conversion, shipping and handling all that it was just under $50 a month, but I added up everything in there and that's pretty much what it would cost. It's not all necessarily my style, but I'm kind of excited about that. The stuff is pretty, and beautiful things were made with it, so I'm happy to push myself out of my box, not to mention receive products I wouldn't see here or wouldn't pick up.

Anyhow, that's all I wanted to share :)

Ikea according to Adam

"If you do a shitty job you'll be sad. If you do a good job, you'll be stoked"

Okay, granted it was probably a lot funnier when he said it. But I just had to share. Good ol' Ikea.

Ding dong, you're a jerk.

This post is directed to the ass who rang my doorbell at 2am last night.

Grow up. Seriously. Who do you think you are? You think it's funny running around waking people up? What, were you just testing to see if we were home? Well now you've pissed off my brother who's prepared to come at you with a baseball bat. And I'll have you know that I practiced my swing techniques in the kitchen this morning. I'm ready for you. So go ahead and come back. I'm sleep deprived and cranky now jerkwad.

Dogs are simple

Here's Steve chasing a flashlight.... well the light itself anyhow. What a dork. Doesn't he know he can't get it? We did this to him for like 15 minutes.....


Sorry, I don't know how to switch it vertical, hope you don't get a neck cramp

I live with monkeys.

Seriously, two of them. It's amazing to me how obnoxious boys can be. Tonight they were down in the basement watching me fold laundry (how generous of them to watch and not bother to help, but anyhow) and they come across a can of compressed air. You know, the kind you use to clean out computers and stuff. Well they decide to rig it up with a big straw and blow chunks of paper all over my kitchen. They're giggling like children. They don't even listen when you talk to them. I'm in over my head. They've formed an alliance and I'll never be the same.

Sign me up Discover

If it doesn't fit, cut it.

I'm on the laptop, so I only have this one photo, but thought I'd share it anyhow. Remember when I said Adam's bed didn't fit downstairs? Well, here's the solution. Ryan chopped it in half. I was really skeptical at first, and was like, "yeah right, that idea is dumb." But it worked. They took all the fabric off of it, chopped it, brought it downstairs, braced it with some scraps of wood and covered it again. Sure one day we'll have to undo that to get it up the stairs, but we'll worry about that later. I'm tired, but the boys (Ryan, Adam, Keith) are all playing guitar hero... it's been like 2 hours now, I was done an hour and a half ago so I'm hiding out in the bedroom. Anyhow, I'm going to attempt to sleep.

Adam's Here

Time goes by quickly! It seems like yesterday that I was in Powell River, saying Adam would be here in a month and a half. But today he arrived. He got here around noon. I was at work, but Ryan was here to help him unpack. I left work around 2:30 to come help.
FINALLY I got around to washing the walls in his room, taping and painting. Better late than never right? Ryan cut in and I rolled the first coat of primer. It definitely needs two to cover those horrible blue walls. It's going to end up a light chocolate brown. Hopefully we'll have it done tomorrow night, then I can post a photo.
I also need to post a shot of Adam's gargantuan tv. It's so huge and awkward they couldn't carry it into the house all in one shot. So boys being boys, took my sled, and drug it across the lawn! I wish I took a photo it was hilarious.
Steve's doing good. He's scared to go down the stairs; they're kind of steep. He'll have to get used to it though. Right now Adam is carrying him down. What a baby.
It feels like I'm never ending moving in. This has been going on for 2 months now. More if you count my packing up the apartment. It's exciting for it to finally be rounding up here (or so I hope).
Going to go to bed, more later.

What a View

Another layout done. Sorry the photo is so horrible. Wrong time of day to take a photo. It's all shadowy and the paper is foiled so it's got a weird glare to it. I think this paper went totally awesome with the photos. I love the photo of Ryan. Nothing too fancy here - I used some of those Prima fancies - great flowers, but only 12 in a pack? What a rip for 8 bucks. Used some more Prima flourishes here - I think I need to buy like 6 packs of those things, they are such an easy page filler, and so pretty.

Not much new to report with my life. Keith was supposed to call me today about coming to stay at my house, but he didn't. I suppose he'll call tomorrow. He's working about 20 minutes out of FSJ for a couple weeks. I went and saw him on Sunday - he's camping at Kiskatnaw (I probably spelled that all wrong.) Lucky I had been out there that one time with Jane to see Crystal or I would have never found him. He looks good, although randomly, I think he's taller. He's definately skinny though, so maybe he just looks taller. Or I shrunk. At any rate - it was hard to hug him.

I filled holes in the wall in Adam's room tonight, took down a cheap ugly shelf..... tomorrow I'm going to sand it all down and wash the walls. One step closer, bit by bit. I feel like I'm slacking on that project. I've just been zooming through my scrapbook pages I'd rather work on that. He'll be here pretty quick though, so I need to hurry up.

Dropped off a few resumes today, I dunno. I need a job, but I don't know where I want to work. How random. I feel a little lost about it. Torn maybe. Same old story - I dont' want to quit my job, but I'm feeling like I have no choice. I love it, but I can't stand the environment. And if I'm not happy, I shouldn't be doing it. June gave me a good suggestion to go apply at some banks, so I think I will do that in the next few days.

I think I've rambled enough for one day. I'll write again soon.

Seize the Day

I finally hung the sign we bought in Jasper. I LOVE it. I'm so happy. I hope you can read what it says, but if not it says "Seize the Day, greet the sun, welcome the moon, wish upon a star!" I think it's perfect for the bedroom. Anyhow, just posting this so Ryan can see. And for those of you who haven't seen, this is the colour Ryan painted the bedroom for me. Nice hey?

More pages

It's been so hot here. Work has been disgusting, I don't even want to be there because of how hot it is. I think it's illegal for me to work in such heat, seriously. But apparently the people who are supposed to care about these things don't, so who am I to start an uproar? Kind of hard to rebel when your boss is no where to be seen and probably wouldn't notice anyway. Not that Leanne reads this, but I'd like to say a big thank you to her anyhow for keeping me as cool as she could possibly do. She's my lifesaver of the week.

I went to June's last night and finished a layout I had started last weekend, and did another. The first one is Blair and Cam showing off some starfish. I had a sweet photo of Jenny, but uh, Jen, I forgot to tell you, you're kind of showing us some nipple almost, so I had to omit it. Haha, remind me to send you that photo, it's xrated. haha. Anyway, on this first one I am pretty happy with it. The colour choices are kind of random, and I used Christmas paper, but whatever works. And! I used my Quickutz again, I need to use those more. Although, I did buy two more, and only one from my current selection, so perhaps that doesn't count.

This layout is from our speedy trip to Jasper. I LOVE this layout. Thanks June for helping me get it perfect. I might try to submit this one somewhere, we'll have to see who's asking for what.

Queen of Destruction and some layouts

I tackled the wallpaper in Adam's room today. It's not quite done. I figured an hour and a half of scraping at walls was enough for me for one day. I'll finish it tomorrow night after work. These people who lived here before are so very strange. A few walls had the border taken off (I think they actually never even got as far as putting it on) and one had only half a wall of border..... anyway, it's coming down. Scraping wallpaper is kind of gross and a little bit enjoyable. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Here's my layouts I did this week in no particular order. I'm still unbelieving of how many I finished. The first one here is Lily wearing these big snorkel goggles up at the cabin. She could barely see out of them, but she kept picking them up and wanting them on.
These are shots from Texada Island. We were searching for beach creatures.
Lily again. She's just cute.
Ryan wanted some photos of him in his diving gear. These are my favorites.
Lil again. I think this is my most favorite picture I took while home. I didn't do too much on this layout, but really, there wasn't much to do.
Our last night we had dinner at Auntie Ingrid's. The boys got Popsicles for desert. I had to capture the cute little moment of Daelin sharing his popsicle with Brayden.
Lily again. Ryan took these photos. I was quite proud of him.

I heart Scrapbooking

Today June and I scrapbooked for 11 hours, with breaks only to eat lunch and dinner. It was a delightful day. I think I completed like 5 layouts, which is pretty darn great. I'll post some tomorrow.

Finally.

'Bout time I put something on here. here's some shots from random parts of our trip. I'll elaborate in the next few days.

Ryan and I stopped at Hell's Gate on the way down to PR. It was lame, you only go across the water and down. It's like, 1 minute. Lots of others liked it, but they were from Germany and stuff. I guess I've seen raging waters and mountains before... so 1 minute wasn't enough to dazzle me. It was really hot there though, and we were wearing too much clothing. Ryan was smart and wore sunglasses for the photo, I took mine off and look a little dorky.

Up at the cabin every night we'd take Lilly on the boat to get her tired and ready for bed. I think it kind of scared the bejezzus out of her and woke her up, but whatever. Life experience.

This is Ryan giving Rusty a bath at the cabin. It's noteworthy because Rusty HATES the water, so this doesn't happen often, and also because the shorts Ryan is wearing are hilarious.

Me and Jenny on Texada island when we all went camping. That weird contorted figure in the background is Blair looking for fish and stuff.

Me and Ryan in Jasper. We took another tram there, much cooler that Hell's Gate. We went way up.... above the treeline. Lots of pretty things to look at like blue lakes and really really pointy mountains. And, did you know that they built Jasper in the shape of a J on purpose?

slacker

I'm still alive, I've just been busy. I now have my photos on my camera, and my room is 80% in order. I have no more excuses. I will blog soon, I swear.

Leaving!

Okay, okay, there are no photos of my room yet, i know. I can't find the damn usb cord for the stupid camera in all this crap. I PROMISE when we come back to find it and put photos on here. But for now, I am going home. Yay yay. Hopefully Ryan and I don't kill eachother in the car first.

Will post soon.

Hi everyone! I'm painting my scrapbook room, and that's the room with my computer. It's not plugged in right now, therefore no internet. I promise to post some photos soon of the house, and of Canada Day (I took John Deere tractor parade photos just for you Jenny!) Give me like 3 days to put that room back together :)

M.I.A

I'm unhooking my computer tonight. My internet actually gets set up at the house on Monday (between 8 and 12, now nice of them), but I dunno if I'll be on much for the next few days. Maybe I will, maybe I'll need a break or two. Who knows. I'm excited to just get all my stuff over there, clean this apartment, and never look back. I've exhausted myself in the process though. I know I have helpers coming tomorrow, but I've done a lot already. I just like to be self sufficient when I can. Sometimes that's silly though. I need to go pack a "can't lose this stuff" bag now, and get ready for work. I might paint a couple rooms on Tuesday and I'll try to post photos either way.

Ow.

We're falling apart. Ryan has to drive to town today (Fort Nelson) to sign his end of the papers at a lawyer's office. He is sick. Really really sick. He never is sick, just me. But today he is, and he has to drive 2 hours each way on a muddy slippery road. I am not enjoying this.
I carried a bunch of boxes to the trailer last night. I think I made 20 trips. Now my arms hurt. A lot. Perhaps this is a sign I really need to go to the gym. Who are we kidding, there are signs everywhere. Anyhow, only 1/3rd of the boxes are down there. But it's a start right?

SOLD!

The sold sign is on the house now. That was pretty fun to see. Michelle came to the store to tell me it was up and I had to drive by and check it out. The guy who currently lives there was having a party or something, there was trucks all over the place. When I told Ryan he was like "they better not be putting holes in my walls!". "Yes dear, that's exactly what they're doing. Punching holes in the walls just because they can". Geesh.
Today I bought a hose. Hahaha, my first hose. How hilarious. I'm so tired though, tonight it going to be an early night I think....

Sunday is the big day

I gave our notice today for the apartment. That was extremely exciting. I've been excited through this whole deal, but that was quite enjoyable I tell you. No more smelly apartment. Yay! Sunday is the big move day if anyone is interested in helping. Gotta go pack!

Boxes, boxes, boxes.

I wish I could just snap my fingers and then BAM! everything has magically packed up, sorted between what I want and what's old and falls into the "why do I even have this category." It could unpack perfectly into my new house with another snap of the fingers. I'm kind of down to the basics now, but still have a few more boxes I can conquer today. Ah, my scrap stuff is all packed, it pains my heart. I want to use it now! I might need to pull out a minibook kit or something to keep myself sane. This is torture. That's right, if there was doubt before, there's none now, I am addicted to scrapbooking. My scrap boxes are the most labeled, they have everything that's in them written on it, just because I know if I can't find something when I want it I'll start freaking out. Oh lordy, better move soon.

Last night Jane and I went out to visit Crystal and her family camping. It was fun roasting hotdogs and marshallows. We made s'mores. Ryan and I need to start camping again. I used to always take all of dad's gear, we've got the tent but that's it. Dad doesn't camp anymore, maybe I'll steal all his stuff when we go home this summer. hmmm....

Lots to do today, lots to do tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm going to start making calls about transfering utlities and all that. Wish me luck that I don't forget one, haha!

HELLO.... HEllo.... hello....

My apartment is starting to echo. It's weird. Who knew a small place like this could look so big? Take all your crap out and it's easy I guess. Only 6 days until I can go into my new house. I plan to do a dance on the kitchen floor and then run around just because I can. haha. I feel like there's so much to do, and yet nothing I can do all at once. I need to get a hold of an electrician and roofer, the electrician has not called me back, Mike hasn't given me the roofers number yet. I need to set up insurance - they haven't called me back yet either. I need to pack more, but I'm basically down to stuff I'll be using for the next week.... I need to scrub down every surface of my new house, but of course I have to wait until the 27th, the current owners would really think I'm odd if I came by now to clean.... We're going on vacation soon and I don't want to leave my new house, it's like a brand new baby, haha. I'm just trying to take it one day at a time, this countdown is worse than waiting for Christmas!!!

Home Inspection

Today all went really well. The home inspector gave us a good report - nothing that we really hadn't expected: reshingle the roof, get a new furnace, fix the garage door. I knew all those things. He mentioned little things like resealing around the toilet, etc. Nothing major. Tomorrow I have to get insurance all lined up and that's it. Things are getting exciting :)

Thank God I'm Moving.

So, I was going to post a photo of my packing boxes, and show everyone how I've got about 12 boxes or so ready to go. Well, instead, guess what? I just saw a body bag get rolled out of my building. No shit. Someone died. DIRECTLY BELOW ME. And I don't know how, no one told me. Is it allowed for someone to die right below you and not be informed? I think not. I think, being above someone when they die allows for knowledge of death thank you very much. Did they just collapse? Did they slip and fall and smash their head, was a knife plunged through their heart? I think I am entitled to this information. The gross part was, the body was placed into a minivan and drove off. I don't think that should be allowed either. If you're going to be a coroner get a real dead body vehicle. Don't use the same thing you drive your kids to soccer in. Yuck. I'm going to bed. I'll let you know if I find out any more info.

Ew.

I'm sure this is fake, but can you imagine if it wasn't?

Update

Just wanted to tell you we're going to discuss mortgages tomorrow. All that's left is for Dad and Uncle Charlie to look at the place. Eeek!

It's happening.

Wow, do I ever feel like an adult all of a sudden. House offers, multiple counter offers back and forth. Jesus, I had no idea . I mean I did, but having not done all this before is a little overwhelming.
So far, I think we're getting a pretty sweet deal, which is always nice. As of right now, we've agreed on an offer of 248,000 plus $3000 cash back to fix an electrical problem that is quoted to cost $1500 that he just can't get fixed in time. Uncle Charlie and Dad are booking flights today to be here next Wednesday to inspect the home. If all's good, we literally own the place June 30. June 30!!! How insane is that. Mom's a little cranky because she thinks it's fast, but whatever. Time is of the essence, I have stuff to do people. Can't waste my life haggling over a house I want now.
I'm trying to not get too excited just in case it does fall through, but really, I can't help it. I'm excited and in my head it's already mine. So it better be, or I'll be really sad. If this all goes well then I only have like 2 1/2 weeks to pack up and move all my stuff before we go on holiday back home! Ack! Any moving volunteers? hehe. And! Bonus! we'll be going through Vancouver soon so I can stop at Ikea and buy my coveted scrapbook wall bookcase. I have dreamed of that baby for years, ahh.... :)
Finally here's some of my cards I made lately. These were for June and Brian for their birthdays.
This one is Brian's. Boy cards are hard. It's still pretty flowery, but anything that comes with coffee gift certificates inside has to be good right?
June's first card. I made her two because I couldn't decide which one I liked more. I gave her a bunch of bath stuff with this one.
Hahahaha, I love this stamp. On the inside it says "Have a Freaky Tiki Birthday". Oh god, that cracks me up.
I'm up extremely earl y this morning. Before 7. Uncle Charlie phoned me, but also I just couldn't sleep. My brain is racing a mile a minute. I'm going to go make an actual breakfast since I'm up so early.