Progress

We are slowly making progress in the basement.  There is so much to do it can seem overwhelming but I try to take it one step at a time.  Today we are having Home Depot come to measure for carpet so that we can get an estimate.  We will be getting new carpet because Jim tore some of it out already!  I started sanding some of the spackle last night and got the one room done, just have to get a second coat of paint on that tonight and that room will be ready for carpet.  There is a lot of painting left to do though.  When we were finishing it initially the carpet was installed before I had finished painting the woodwork.  That was not my idea, but it got scheduled and we were anxious to get it done so that was that.  Anyway, I was working and the carpet was installed and by the time I got home from work Tim had started moving his stuff downstairs!  I never got to finish painting.  So now I have to finish all the woodwork and re-paint the walls.  Good thing I like to paint.  Not sure about colors yet, going to pick up some color swatches and hopefully decide soon. 
Also have to finish getting everything out of there.  Timmy's apartment cannot accomodate all of his stuff so he left quite a bit of it at home and I'd like to pack it up but  Jim would like to leave it all out for  him.  We'll have to see about that.  Either way, it will have to be moved to paint and carpet.  And after patching up all the holes in the wall from the darts going astray, I don't think the dartboard will be rehung either!  Ha!  We'd also like to put a storm door on the back door to let more light shine in and some air as well.  Saw one down at HD with a doggie door in it.  Sure that Chester and Roxie would love to come and go as they please and pretty sure that Bella might go through it a time or two as well!  Don't know if it's in the budget for this year though as we are trying to do this on a shoestring. 

In other news...not much else to report.  Haven't had time to do much crafting of any kind.  Miss it.  Did make a card for my niece's birthday yesterday.  She is 17!  Happy Birthday Allison!

More stars and Happy Birthday sentiment inside the card.  I like the pink/black combo.

Can't wait to get set up so that I can get down to business again!

Feeling Blue

Have  you ever felt a little blue?  A little down?  Even though you know that you have nothing to feel down about?  I am  feeling a little bit that way now and I can't put my finger on it.  My blessings are abundant and I am surounded by them!  Family, friends, home, food enough to eat, a job, freedom to worship, and the list goes on, so why am I blue.  What is not right in my world?  What do I have to feel badly about?  When I ask myself those questions the answer is abundantly clear-nothing.  Yet, the feeling persists.  Don't get me wrong, I am not wringing my hands, moping about or in a depression, I am just a little down.  So much is happening in my life lately, and I have been so busy that I hardly have time to process it all.  Not life changing stuff really, just stuff.  And yesterday a man that I have worked closely with at work for the last year and a half retired.  Good for him-hooray!  Today, I feel as if my right arm is missing and I am sad without him.  Selfish?  Maybe, but I am sad none the less. 
Mother Nature had been giving us a taste of Spring and it has been glorious!  Only to snatch it away like an all too brief dream.  So the weather is changing again and my body is in revolt mode.  I am sore and tired constantly, the littlest movements can be difficult to make and I feel as though I have been put through Jillian's boot camp or something!  Ugh! 
So enough of my complaining...
Today our friends Andy and Durinda are driving up from Williamsburg to see Bella in her play tomorrow.  She is going to be a blue fish in her schools' production of The Littlest Mermaid.  Today is Durinda's birthday, so we will have a little celebration for her this evening.  We are all so excited to have them come up to see the show with us, especially Isabella!  The show is two nights Friday and Saturday, so we will all go on Friday and then on Saturday night Michelle has to help backstage and I am going to see it with our neighbor and friend Sabina.  She is also another of Isabella's 'special' friends, so we really appreciate everyone making time to see Bella and make her feel so special!  (They always do!)
I will be sure to take pictures and post them for everyone!  For now, I'll leave you with a card:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Going with the green today!  Can't help it, my Grandma used to encourage us to wear our Irish on St. Patrick's Day and I carry on that tradition still.  Bella is all excited, she thinks that a leprechaun is going to bring her gold coins while she's at school-never know!  Stranger things have been known to happen. 

A big Happy Birthday goes out to my nephew Ben!  He is 17 today.  Happy Birthday Ben!!

 Got some more cards to show you today.  This one is a not a stamped image, it is a stenciled and pasted image a new technique for me.  I had fun with it though and will work at it some more.  Papertrey paper and ribbon though..

More butterfly fun!  Love those new dies from Papertrey, so easy to use!  

Lots going on this week.  Crazy with work stuff and have my appointment at Kennedy Keriger on Friday at 7:45 AM.  Ugh!  That means I'll have to leave the house by 6:15 at the latest, good thing they have valet parking.  I just hope I get the car back and that is not a fancy term for grand theft auto.  Ha!   The appointment is set to last for an hour with another hour scheduled with the physical therapists afterwards.  I'll let you know how that goes. 

Fabulous Friday!

Not much going on today and no big plans for the weekend, but it's Friday!  Yee-hah!   That makes it a better day than yesterday!  It's raining and gloomy and we are expecting 2 inches of rain and wicked winds but its Friday. 
I must confess, there are other men in my life who hold a special place in my life other than my husband and I plan on giving them some well deserved attention this weekend.  I'm not talking about my Dads either.  No, and get your mind out of the gutter, these men are very clean indeed.  The men I had in mind are Mr. Clean, Scrubbing Bubbles, Big and Bold Pledge, my own superhero Magic Eraser and who could forget that perennial favorite Bleach!  Yes, my big plans for the weekend include cleaning my house.  And I'm excited about it.  What does that tell you?  I can't start working on the basement yet, as Tim's move date has been moved back to April 1st.  It's a long story, but he is moving-we're pretty sure.  So I'm cleaning the other parts of the house.
Then Jim and I have tickets to see the musical ABBA on Saturday night, and I am sure that I can't get out of it.  I do want to go.  Yes, that's it, I want to go.  Right.  It will be fun.  When I get there.  All dressed up.  After working all week.  And cleaning all day.  Yeah.  I can do it. 

Anyway, a couple more cards from my weekend.

Perspective?

It's all a matter of perspective, right?  I think that I have mentioned before that I work hard to keep things in perspective.  And for the most part, I do a good job of it.  We all  have challenges to face in this journey we call life, and I do my best to make the most of what I have been given.  Which isn't to say that sometimes I don't rant and rave, scream and cry, or even howl at the moon once in a while.  Somethings are  harder to take than others though.  For instance, when my Grandmother died I went through a plethora of emotions.  Of course I was saddened by her death, I loved her and cherished my time with her here on earth but she was ready.  She had been ill and had become a mere shell of the proud, fun, loving, woman that I had loved for my whole life and I think that given the choice she would have choosen to go and be with her Heavenly Father.  Perspective.  When I was diagnosed with MD I was okay with it.  I wasn't  thrilled by the prospect, I was somewhat frightened by the unknown, but in the grand scheme of things I knew that it could be worse.  Perspective.  Right?  I try to wrap my mind around things as best I can and find the best way for me to deal with lifes challenges.  Which brings me to my most recent challenge.
Picture it if you will.  It was a normal day, much like any other day at work.  I was going about my normal routine and I stepped into the restroom to wash my hands.  Standing there at the sink I looked up to check my appearance in the mirror (Oh, vanity!) when I noticed something on my face.  On my jawline to be exact.  I tried to brush it away to no avail.  So I leaned in to get a closer look, and it was then that I discovered it.  Right there, growing, on the side of my face, for all to see- FUR!  I swear to you that's what it was, fur!  To you it may have been just a few hairs, but there were several of them.  And they were long.  I mean, I could have braided them for crying out loud!  OMG!  Just call me Rosie O!  I too, could go on national TV with braided facial hair and put a bead in it!  Or you know- NOT!  Why must I endure such trauma I ask you?  So there I was, without tweezers, nothing but my fingernails trying to pluck these dratted squatters from their unlawful encampment on my face.  Oh, the horror!  It makes me want to run right out and make an appointment for laser hair removal or something like that.  Luckily, with my fair skin and red hair my facial  hair (I can't believe that I just wrote those words) is light, but still.  I mean, reallly!  Don't we as women have enough to worry about? The only thing a man has to worry about is shaving and if he doesn't he is labeled as "rugged" or some other such nonsense, but a woman with facial hair is labeled as a 'circus act' or a 'side show'! There is simply no justice.  So please excuse me, I have to run to CVS and scour the aisles for  depilatory creams with guaranteed results and no stubble! 
Oh, I will leave you with a couple of cards from my weekend... These were for same layout, different colors.

Weekend Recap-the beginning

Too much to put into one post, so I'm going to break it down.  I went to Williamsburg for a weekend of cardmaking with my friend Durinda.  She and I had been trying to get together for a while and it was finally happening.  Jim was going to join me so that he could help occupy Andy and together they could stay out of our hair.  (So to speak!)  We wound up leaving o n Thursday night so that Durinda and I would have all day Friday and Saturday to work.  When we went up to go to bed on Thursday, I was surprised to find a pair of lounging pajamas on our bed wrapped in tissue and tied with a bow!  They were so soft and cuddly!  So Friday we spent the day cardmaking!  Durinda had sent me a beautiful invitation to the event and had indicated that there would be prizes for different types of techniques that I did and there were!  She  had decorated a prize jar and filled it with slips of paper that contained different 'prizes', I'll tell you about those later.  The weekend was filled with fun, laughter, friendship, inky fingers, chatter, paper, scissors, chaos, cards, and all kinds of fun, fun, fun!  Here is one card that I did.

It really is a blessing to have a friend like Durinda!  She is someone with whom I can be totally honest, rely upon, trust in and just have fun with.  She is always there for me, my biggest supporter and a great cheerleader!  Thanks D!  But I gotta tell ya', she worked my fingers to the bone.  Ha! Oh and did I mention, she cooks too! 

Weekend Recap!

Saturday I went with my church to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.  It was the first time that I had been there and it was quite an experience.  The museum itself is really an architectural masterpiece.  The architect  used a lot of symbolism throughout the museum to represent different features that he saw when he visited the concentration camps in Germany, and from photos of the ghettos and the effect is really amazing.  Our group had almost 80 people in it and we were broken up into 7 or eight different groups each with a tour guide.  My group was lucky enough to have a survivor as a tour guide and her insight into the museum was priceless.  She gave us a first hand account of her experience during "The Night of the Broken Glass" or "Kristallnacht" which was facinating.  Built on four floors, you go through the museum like walking around in a circle with very few steps.  (There are a lot of steps from the auditorium to the main floor, but not in the museum itself.)  As we were getting deeper into the museum, I began to realize that the rooms themselves seemed to get smaller.  It is a very moving experience.  After our tour, we were treated to a first hand account by a survivor volunteer.  He spoke to us for over an hour and his account was truly heartbreaking.  He was a teenager in Poland during the war and he had to evacuate the town he lived in, walk with his family and their belongings to a relatives house, then they were moved to a ghetto and from there he was seperated from his family and moved to a concentration camp via the cattle car.  He was eventually liberated from the concentration camp only to find out that the ghetto where his family had been had been "liquidated'.  He made his way to the US and has been here for 60 years.  His story has been video taped by Stephen Spielburg when he was working on "Schindler's List". 

After such an emotionally and physically draining day, I was exhausted on Sunday and didn't even make it out of my pajamas!  I took a nap in the morning and another one in the evening!  Ha!  I'm like a child again, napping all day.  I did manage to get some work in my Scrapatorium done.  A couple of quick layouts and a little card set.  But that was about it!

I just love Papertrey Ink's button bit stamps!  So easy and fun to play with! 

Oh, and I had several messages on my Facebook account because I rarely go in there and while I was on it, I noticed that I had never put in my marital status.  So while I  was there, I changed my status to 'married'.  Now I am getting lots of Congratulations from old friends and classmates!  As well as a few 'finallys' from family.  Ha!  After nearly 29 years of married life.  Too funny.