... funny things are everywhere

Today's the big day!

The twice-yearly Craft and Hobby Association (aka CHA) show is going on in Florida right now, and a couple of former Simple Scrpabooks folks are getting ready to make a big announcement. I'm so excited to be part of this little bit of scrapbooking fun...

Are you ready to meet Ella? I just know you're gonna LOVE her. Stay tuned. More news to come on PaperClipping.com and ScrapbookUpdate.com later today.

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Edited to add:

Here's the link to Noell's paperclipping newsbreak. You can go straight to the Ella news at 22:30, 34:00 and 47:50 if you're so inclined, but the rest of the interview is rather interesting as well. ;)

just like siblings...

We had some visitors come our way for the weekend. :)

I always marvel at how well our kids get along with Nath and Pat's kids. They all play well together; the two youngest share many of the same personality traits (both good and... ummm, not so desirable); and most noticeably, they all fight with one another, just as though they were all brothers and sisters, lol. Seriously though, all of them are learning to compromise and to let things go, so we grown-ups are spending less and less of our time together refereeing. And that, my friends, is a good thing.

Here are a few pictures:

... and of course, a pic of Nathalie and me. :)

(sorry Nath, I got carried away with PSE and then suddenly, my skin was a weird colour... and now I've run out of time to play on the computer and we're stuck with this. ;))

Yes indeed, I am out of time. It's getting late, and I have a few things to cross off my To Do list. Thanks for dropping by to visit, and be sure to come back later in the week when I'll have some exciting scrapbook-related news to share.

(Hint: take a look at the new list on my sidebar...)

rain, rain, go away...

Man, it's been raining all week here. Or at least it feels like it has! Blech!

Tonight, it is pouring rain, just like it's been for the past 24 hours or so. I thought we'd be stuck heading out to soccer in the rain, but the city closed all the fields in an effort to keep them from turning into mud. So the boys watched Star Wars with their dad, and I scrapped. :)

I was going to put the white mat onto a piece of red and white patterned paper, but I'm glad I tried this one instead. The different coloured dots pull the colour portion of the main photo right off the page, so my eye is drawn to the title and then to the three boys on the ferris wheel. I said to Mike that this is my favourite page I've made in months and months. It's simple, tells a story (albeit not a particularly entertaining one, oh well) and uses some of my favourite American Crafts supplies (Typo chipboard Thickers, Slick Writer pen for the doodled frame and patterned paper from the Travel line).

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So yesterday was my last day of work for a while... I thought I'd have a hard time letting go of the stuff going on at work, but apparently I did not. When I woke up this morning, my thoughts turned immediately to my To Do at Home list... not my never-ending, work-related To Do list. :P

I don't know how much I'll be blogging during my holidays. I'm going to make an effort to limit my internet time and spend some good quality time with my friends and family. 

Oh, who am I kidding?! I'll post a bit here and there from time to time. I always do. :P

a grey-ish morning

The skies are not as bright as they normally are at this hour in July, so my kids and hubby are still asleep. Sound asleep. Everyone goes to bed a little later than usual during the summer months. I guess it's natural because the sun goes down so much later, but really, we are all a lot more active in the summer, so we should need more sleep, no? Hmmmm...

Yesterday, I fell asleep on the bus on the way home. I guess that answers the question for me! :P

Today, I have decided to use my evil for good. Or at least that's what my facebook status says. Actually, I have a tonne of work to do, so I'd best get my day started.

I'll leave you with this, something I made a few weeks back:

My athlete is in tennis camp this week. :)

an impromptu challenge

Hey, Nathalie and I were just on facebook tonight, talking about some older styles of scrapbooking products we bought but never used... and we both decided that the muted colour palette of Crate Paper and Wild Asparagus from 2007 or so was just not our thing. But we had lots of it left in our collections. So she issued the Wild Asparagus challenge... and I upped the ante by saying we need to use stamps. Plus, I told her I'd have it done, scanned and posted on my blog before I went to bed tonight.

*yawn* I'm getting tired. I finished the LO in about an hour, and that's including the ten minutes I spent dithering over which photo to scrap. Oh, and this is my second attempt at posting this on my blog because I somehow messed up the codes as I tried to edit my first post.

Here's the page...

The patterned paper is from the Wild Asparagus line from MME. Other stuff used on the page includes Basic Grey ribbon, Autumn Leaves alpha stamps, October Afternoon label stickers, Making Memories brad and I also used a SU! border punch and a Tim Holtz ink pad and edge distressing tool.

I can't wait to see what Nathalie came up with. :)

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Edited to add: It's up on her blog now. Click here to see Nath's take on the challenge.

I'm thinking back...

... and I see exactly how far they've come along. :)

You see, we were at the water park just around the corner from home yesterday, and we ran into Thomas' soccer coach from his U6 year. He hasn't really seen or talked to Thomas since that summer, the year before grade one. He was so impressed with how mature he's become and how athletic he is now. And James... well, James was too young for soccer that summer, and now he's playing and scoring goals (his first one of the season two days ago!) and just an all-round big boy. While I was talking to this guy, whose kids are the same age as mine, I realized that, yes, our kids are growing up fast.

So there's this picture that's been sitting on my computer for a while now. It's been in my "To Scrap" folder for a few years now, and today, I had the perfect story to go with it.

* all supplies from American Crafts (paper, rub-ons

and fabric Thickers), except for the copper brad and

the lined paper, which was downloaded from

paperprintout.com and printed at 60%.

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So my love affair with American Crafts usually revolves around their bright, bold colours and beautiful graphic designs, but this photo called for something different. I'd forgotten I had paper from this line. It was sent to me as a freebie by the wonderful folks at Scrapbook and Cards Today the last time I was pubbed by them. And the coordinating rub-on flower is from a pack that my dear friend, Melanie, sent me. 

Finishing this layout reminds me that:

• I need to shop for things that aren't my colours from time to time.
• Not all my layouts need to look the same... and if I have other colour palettes on hand, they won't.
• An old photo can work with a new story very easily; the story will come to you if you let your mind wander. 

Okay, so it's Sunday night, and it's past the boys' bedtime, so I need to check to see if their DVD is almost over. Then I have a wee bit of work to do before turning in for the night myself. Thanks for dropping by, and have a great week! :)

weekend with no plans...

Okay, so it's the first weekend in a LONG time where we've had pretty well nothing on the calendar, so we took it easy, had some of the boys' friends over for a playdate, and I even did a wee bit of scrapbooking. :)

- gasp - I KNOW! It's a mini book... made by the gal who hates making those persnickety things that require gluing down little bits of stuff with the most unforgiving of adhesives, LIQUID GLUE. For an indecisive scrapper like me, liquid glue is waaaay too much of a commitment. lol.

Actually, the book was fun to make. It's all American Crafts stuff, stuck to a plain 3x3 board book. I tried to stay true to my simple style, keeping the inside pages as plain as possible. I'm going to drop this book in the mail for my favourite recent retiree. I'm sure it'll bring a smile to her face. :)

So I was thinking I would stay up late scrapping again, but alas, I have to be at the club tomorrow to teach a 9:30 fitness class. Oh well... I need to work off the second helping of dessert I had tonight!

Thanks for dropping by to visit, and enjoy what's left of the weekend!

thank you...

To all of you who replied to my post about cooking (or not cooking, as the case may be), thank you for your suggestions and your words of encouragement. :)

I have to tell you something though. I actually KNOW how to cook. I can cook an entire meal from raw ingredients (no boxes or bottles) without a recipe. And I can certainly follow any recipe out there... after all, undergraduate chemistry labs were all about following recipes (mix 10 grams of this chemical with 100 mL of that liquid, stir for 5 minutes, heat for 30 minutes, decant the clear liquid from the top and so on). The technical part of cooking is not intimidating at all.

So what's my problem? I lack passion for cooking. And these days, I lack the time to plan and shop and prepare. Or more accurately, I choose to spend what little time I have at home doing other things. Like blogging. :P

Anyway, yesterday's rant/confession was the beginning what I hope will be days of better eating at our place.

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(card: all American Crafts supplies)

Onto other things I have to be thankful for...

1. A job that overwhelms me at times, but one which I know is very important and will make a difference in the lives of Canadians. This project will eventually lead to one of those a-ha moments, and I'll say, "THIS is why I do what I do!"
2. A creative outlet which allows me to leave the stress and pressure of the daily grind behind. I haven't scrapped much lately, but even when I'm CRAZY busy, I make time to do a little something fun with paper and glue, and I feel better instantly.
3. A love of running, something I can do just about anywhere... along the streets of whatever town or city I'm visiting, on a treadmill in a hotel in Toronto, Boston or Halifax... ANYwhere. If it weren't for the miles (oops, kilometres up here, north of the 49th parallel) I've put on my running shoes, I'm certain my head would have exploded by now. Or more likely, I'd be back-peddling and apologizing to the colleagues and team members more often than I do.
4. A part-time gig as a fitness instructor. The pay's not great, but it keeps me moving and motivated, and it forces me to do strengthening, stretching and stability exercises that I would NEVER do on my own. And those exercises prevent the injuries that often nag runners like me... you know, the ones who run at lunch hour, shower and then sit at desk all afternoon without really stretching.
5. A good cup of coffee. It's not an addiction... it's a love affair. :)

And that's all from Crazyville for today. Happy Friday, y'all! Have a great weekend.

how do y'all do it?

... that cooking thing, I mean. How do you find time? How do you find motivation? Or do you just honestly love it and/or are naturally good at it? Because I neither enjoy nor am good at that thing you do to food before ingesting it. *sigh*

While I was away on the weekend, I realized exactly how bad my non-cooking habits have become. I watched my friends prepare our meals effortlessly, and I thought to myself, "It doesn't look that hard..." but now that I'm home again, I basically have no idea where to start.

• Meal plans... I've tried them before, but these days, I'm afraid of commitment.
• Cookbooks... I own some. Quite a few, actually. I don't find them inspiring at all these days.
• Magazines... I don't get Canadian Living any longer, but I have some back issues, along with some back issues of some low-fat gourmet cooking magazine that my brother-in-law gave me a subscription to. Again, I get nothing from these today.
• Online sources... I added Epicurious to my "Places I Visit" list, but I have to admit I have yet to try a recipe from that site.

I am tired of this non-cooking thing. I don't like how we're eating. I don't like the pre-dinner rush, which I know could have totally been prevented with just a little bit of planning. And most of all, I don't like the money we waste by eating unhealthy, pre-prepared choices. Ugh!

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So here I am... going public with my frustrations and taking the first step to dealing with this. Step one: admit I have a problem. Step two: develop a plan. *sigh*

(I'll come back later to let you know how it's going.)

my girlfriends, my Broads

When I was pregnant with James, I joined an online parenting community where I met some really cool people. One of them lives a four minute drive from here, and we met at Starbucks a few weeks after we exchanged messages on the forums, and our friendship took off from there. I still see her around the community, and it brings a smile to my face when I tell the story of how we met.

You see, I think it takes a lot of guts to really put yourself out there online. Chances are, if you're reading this blog, you're part of the online scene, so I don't need to preach to the choir... but really, the internet is an awesome way to meet people from faraway places and from walks of life you wouldn't necessarily encounter irl (in real life, for those of you who aren't online forum-junkies).

Back to my story about my Broads... we met in 2002 at TodaysParent.com where we were all active community members. But something drew us together and kept us together, even after our kids got older and we no longer needed to seek advice on raising our children. We took our conversations to email, and we became even closer friends.

Over the years, we've gotten together irl a number of times. And one time, we even invited the husbands along. But I have to say, the girls only weekends are the best... because we get to do stuff like this:

* eat, drink and gossip at a wine and cheese bar

* shop at Yorkdale until there's no room left in the vehicle

To my dearest Broads, thank you for a wonderful weekend. My soul has been rejuvenated. My liver probably felt like it took a time machine back to the early 90s, but I'm sure it will recover nicely. But my Visa card, it will never be the same again... poor wee thing. ;)