Relax

Not you, me. The new year always stresses me out. So much to do, so much to see, we have to get on with it! I've been thinking about resolutions and I'm having a hard time honestly. Here is a list:

1. Healthy living: I already eat pretty healthy, and I am at a healthy weight. I miss the cookies and cake (and cupcakes, coffee cakes, and anything with a cake-like consistency). I could exercise formally more, but I do get exercise. We run around the playground, block and when the weather is bad the house everyday. Plus we walk the dog several times a day. And I go up and down 3 flights of steps for almost every chore you can imagine (vacuuming sucks). But, I would like an exercise program so that I can get better at something, and have fun.

2. House: Now that the garage is in order, there isn't that much to do. There is always more I could do. I plan to get some bags and store the baby clothes in space bags in a container to get lots in there. Then there will be only one container in J's closet instead of 3. Even the scrap space is in order, I should show pics. I just don't think my space is that great compared to the amazing spaces I see out there. But it's mine, it works for me, and it's organized. I should get something to hold the wrapping paper though, that would be good.

3. Money: I thought I had it under control until I read today in the WSJ that college is expected to cost 1/2 million dollars in 20 years (worst case scenario-private). Anyone else see a tuition bubble? What the heck? You would have to save $800 a month per child to have half of that in 20 years with no return (interest etc.) Community college is looking better and better.

4. Scrapbooking: I'd love to be and continue to be involved with great companies that I feel passionate about working for. And I'd like to do as many pages as I did last year. And I want to buy some more albums.

5. Mental: To continue to learn to stand in the eye of life's storms calmly. I have made enormous strides in the patience department since having children.

6. Parenting: Less talk, more action. Make my words count. Consistency. I'm pretty much in shock that he is two. Here's another layout about that:


Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Jack's World Patterned paper Playtime and Wake up (front and back); Cosmo Cricket Jack's World Blackboard Vintage number 2 and Jack's World Train with diecut sticker; plus Basic Grey Buttons, Bazzil white cardstock, and May arts black Ric Rak ribbon.

Instructions: Create photo collage in photoshop, add text and lines. Print out and mat with green patterned paper. Adhere on top of patterned paper strips. Add text to white cardstock, and then add patterned paper on top. Add Blackboard embellishments, dressing train with diecut sticker. Add buttons. Note: Studio Calico's Jan add-on Footnotes has most of the supplies seen here.

That's pretty much it. Nothing earth shattering, or exciting. Just me doing the best I can. Happy New Year everyone! Any exciting plans?

A drive-by posting

You know the deal, I'm in a hurry. The garage however, is clean. I pulled from my stash what you can get this month at Studio Calico in the Index and Footnotes add-ons:


Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Get Happy Patterned paper; plus Scenic Route Rub-ons, Basic Grey buttons, Maya Road Chipboard heart, black and white Bazzil Cardstock and Studio Calico Nadiya stamps with Black Staz-on Ink.

Instructions: Print text on white background. Layer black cardstock and patterned paper. Add photos. Last, stamp title and apply rub-ons as seen. **Note: the last step will probably give you heart palpitations as the layout is nearly finished and here you go with the messy stuff. Hang in there. I hold my breath until I nearly pass out. Whatever works for you. :)

My first birthday layout! Carry-on my friends, carry-on.

Overwhelmed a little

It's hard not being home for the holidays, you walk back in and it just feels chaotic. I have a mountain of laundry I am working through, tons of toys to find new homes for, and lots of stuff that just needs be cleared out I think. I will probably leave the tree up through Wed, as it will give me time to find some new storage containers for the Christmas stuff.

We had a great holiday, Santa was good to us as always. I am the proud new owner of a Mac laptop, I'm learning Leopard. I'm a little freaked out that we are now exclusively a Mac family with no PCs. Techno barbie (that's me) will probably still attempt a repair at the million yr old PC, but I'm not very hopeful. I doubt it was a software problem, probably hardware on a computer so old.

I was asked before I left to participate in a 4 product challenge for the Studio Calico blog:



I used bits of several different kits. And I fell asleep on reveal night, so that was anticlimactic. I think January is all about evaluating priorities and I think I really need to focus on that. We were lucky to have dh home with us for the holidays and he will be home now for at least 4.5 mons. It has been a long year with him gone so much, and I am so grateful that we can be a family for a little while. Like all good families, we have plans to clean out the garage today. (Ick)

Happy Monday all who stop by!

Worlds Collide

I'm so very excited about the Studio Calico reveal tonight for the January kit and add-ons, because some of my most favorite Cosmo Cricket papers and embellishments will be available! If you have a little boy, a brother, you can not miss this kit. Believe me, I search high and low for boy stuff with style, and this mixture of Cosmo with the Studio Calico signature touches can not be matched.

Still on vacation, hope to be back posting a new layout Monday morning. But if you don't want to wait, you can check it out on the Studio Calico blog 12/26 post. Hope you all are having a great time this holiday!

Happy Holidays!

Happy holidays to everyone who stops by. I'll be back to blogging soon. :)

Friday, Obama-nomics, surgery update (oh yeah, it's random)

I'm in a hurry today, rushing around trying to get a project ready to send to Scrapbook Trends. I need stamps from the post office too for the Christmas cards and birthday thank you notes.

I think Woody is airing out rather well. I knew there was some advantage to keeping this place as dry as the Sahara desert.  

My sister has a date to meet with the surgeon at Duke 1/16. I think I can safely say that my going to CHA is out. First, flights out of where I live are ridiculous thanks to Obama's inauguration, which is that week (like $1000s for a round trip ticket). My friend Nicole S. wanted me to drive to where she lives and take a more reasonably priced plane out of there to CHA. However, I've had my reservations about that plan because of the winter weather. But I was willing to look into it. But last, the final coup de grace was my sister will be having surgery sometime after 1/16, which means that I lose my child care. My mom will be taking care of my sister recovering from surgery. So, no one thing killed it. But lots of things piled up and suffocated my CHA plans I think. I was really looking forward to meeting so many online friends.  I'm sad, but I know that making layouts for CHA for the manufacturers I work for will take my mind off it. And I'll be more free to focus on that without having to stress about my travel plans. There is always summer.  

Here is a card:

Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Oh Joy Patterned paper: Reindeer Games, Wrapping paper (front and back); plus Black and white cardstock; Kate Pertiet stitches stamps; Making Memories transparent alphas.

Instructions: You can either: 1. Get the making memories transparent alphas, adhere to patterned paper and cut out with a craft knife or 2. you can run your patterned paper through your printer, printing an outline font with a thick black edge in your typing program and cut around the black edge with a craft knife. Stamp stitches with black ink. Mount on white and black cardstock as shown.

Happy Friday everyone, it's the weekend! Not long now, let's wrap some presents! And buy a new computer. :(

A Christmas Miracle!

Well, after 3 weeks I had pretty much given up on Woody ever showing up. With only 7 more days to go I had planned on filing a claim with Amazon for my lost Woody doll. Yesterday, he shows up! In a Totino's pizza box (that should have been a clue). And let me tell you, he smells like he has been smoking Marbarlos in a musty old basement. All I keep thinking is this, my parents didn't have to deal with any of this when I was a kid. It really makes me wish for a simpler time. Maybe I can Febreez Woody? 

Enough of that, show the page woman! 

Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Oh Joy Patterned paper Strip Tease; plus Kraft Bazzil Cardstock, Basic Grey Chocolate alphas, Jenni Bowlin Calendar, American Crafts thicker, and die cut leaf-unknown.

Instructions: Print out journaling. Adhere patterned paper and photo. Add embellishments. 

I love the strip tease paper with all the Cosmo packs, something about it just makes me think of endless possibilities. I loved the colors on this, and the multi colored snowflakes (that isn't available on any other paper in the pack other than strip tease). Unless, someday Cosmo makes an Oh joy 8 x 8 paper pad. All kinds of never before seen papers hide in those wonders, I love them! 

A very random Thursday post, almost to the weekend everyone!

Hi there!

This is a drive by posting, I'm having quite the morning with J. He is having a tough time today, I don't think he slept enough. And he won't eat breakfast. He doesn't appear ill, just full of stubborn I think.

Here is a layout using the Studio Calico Dec kit, such a beautiful kit!



Happy Wednesday. Only 8 more days till Christmas, anyone want a bag to hyperventilate into?

Holiday Cards

Honestly, with the birth of my son I decided not to send handmade cards anymore for Christmas. I only send them to a few crafty friends of mine (so that I look cool). But otherwise for holiday cards, I'm digital. I focus on taking the very best picture I can, and I take that picture to Target and have the cards printed (44 cents per card).

But since I do need a few, here are some that are so simple you can forget the computer for a change. All you need is a Cosmo Oh Joy paper crafting kit and some alphas and snowflake embellishments. Use what you have, I did. I even made the background the white card to make life a little easier. Some of the cards are clearly Christmas-y and some are non-traditional. I like to have a mix just in case.

Noel Card

Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Oh Joy Patterned paper: Yuletide and Merry & Bright; plus Basic grey alphas.

Instructions: Cut Yuletide patterned paper into a square; cut Merry & Bright paper into a strip. Adhere alphas.

Snow Card

Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Oh Joy Patterned paper: Frosty (front and back) and Reindeer Games; plus Basic Grey alphas and K&Co snowflake embellishment.

Instructions: Cut strips of patterned paper, arrange as shown. Adhere alphas and snowflake.

Deck the Halls Card

Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Oh Joy Patterned paper: Wrapping paper and Oh Joy Strip Tease; plus K&Co snowflake embellishment.

Instructions: Cut a rectangle of wrapping paper patterned paper. Leave a white boarder. Cut phrase out of strip tease patterned paper, all the way to the edge. Adhere paper and snowflake.

Happy Holidays Card

Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Oh Joy Patterned paper Strip Tease; plus Basic Grey alphas and Me&My big ideas snowflake embellishment.

Instructions: Cut strip tease patterned paper into small rectangle. Adhere alphas and snowflake.

I don't think I told you the story of my mailing lumpy cards. You'll like this one. Before I had kids, I signed up to make my sister's bridal shower invitations. They were so pretty, I think even Martha Stewart would have been proud. But man were the flowers lumpy. Anyway, I finished them (30 plus), addressed them and mailed them. A week later my mom calls me to tell me that my sister is miffed with me, why haven't I finished the invitations. I scratched my head and told my mom I had. Another week goes by and at the end of that week my mother gets a phone call from the Rocky Mount Postal Service, stating that they have all these damaged cards with her return address on them and that they clogged up and broke the sorting machine.

In the end, they did mail the cards to my mom. She had to call everyone with the details of the bridal shower and gave them the invitation there. I think the moral of the story is that if you break the postal service machine, you should definitely put someone else's return address on the envelope. I did actually do handmade cards (very, very flat ones) for a year or two after that. But I'm always afraid now. Which is a big part of the reason I go digi for mass mailings.

Happy Tuesday!

Self Medicating

December is shaping up to be a very stressful time. I'm going through the motions, but my heart just isn't in it. My parents were here this weekend and even though we all had a good time, everyone is on edge waiting for Duke to call for my sister's surgery. She has a number and is waiting for it to be called to go.

Want to know what I'm getting for Christmas? Besides the lumps of coal I deserve for the choice curse words I let fly when I realized my laptop was dead. Yep, the graphic/video card is dead. It is a $1000 repair, so most people opt for a new computer/laptop. For the handful of people who follow this blog, that makes the ratio of computers that are actually working my household 1/3. I'd like to thank the Apple support lady who was there for moral support as I fell apart.

Here's the thing, the 2 computers that died are what I call utility and they were over 4 years old. They don't have important files or pictures. But I was freaking out just thinking that could happen to the one that does. I have an external hard drive and online back up, but last night I started spinning everything to a separate disk, everything. I ran out of disks, so we are going to get some more today so that I can back up the rest of 2007 and all of 2008. Because you know what this experience has taught me? It's not a matter of if your computer will die/crash, it is simply a matter of when.

Still, my nerves are shot. Nurse, bring me a guacamole IV drip stat. Paging Santa, I need time capsule and a new laptop asap.



Happy Monday.

Friday; birthday

This week has just gotten away from me. I've had a little cold for the past two days, nothing horrible, just a runny nose and feeling run down. I've taken lots of pictures, but I had hoped to scrap more of them. I did print a bunch for the Dec album, I'm just arranging them and getting the journaling ready. 

We celebrated J's birthday last week early due to dh's work schedule. He let me put the firefighter hat on him for like two seconds, then it was off. That's all I needed though. I think birthday photos are some of the most difficult to scrap:

Since I couldn't find a firetruck cake, I made firetruck cupcakes:

And his birthday present, a home for all those little cars, trucks and Thomas the trains:

Hope you have a wonderful weekend. Still no snow, just cold rain. Brrr. Stay warm!

Cosmo Binge

Thank you so much for your support. It really means a lot to me. We are still waiting on a surgery date, hopefully we will have one before the week is over.  I've been keeping myself busy, trying not to think about it. I got into quite a Cosmo binge last night although I must have looked like the craziest crafter ever, wearing my winter snow hat and two sweatshirts in my scrap/guest room. You gotta do what you've got to do, right?  I am loving this Cosmo Hello Sunshine Paper pad:

Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Hello Sunshine 8 x 8 paper pad; plus black and white bazzil cardstock, Making Memories glitter alphas, and k&co snowflake embellishment.

Instructions: Cut black cardstock to same dimensions as patterned paper, mount on white cardstock. Adhere photos, computer text journaling. Adhere title stickers and snowflake.

Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Hello Sunshine 8 x 8 patterned paper pad; Cosmo Cricket Oh Joy Wrapping paper patterned paper; plus white bazzil cardstock, Me & My big ideas snowflakes, and Basic grey chipboard alphas.

Instructions: Cut Oh joy patterned paper the same dimensions as Hello Sunshine patterned paper. Adhere computer journaling and snowflakes. Adhere title stickers. 

Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Oh Joy Patterned paper: Wrapping paper, Mitten mitten, and Frosty; plus black and white cardstock and Pink paislee letter stickers.

Instructions: Create a box in photoshop. Create text and print. Cut out box leaving a small white border and mount to black cardstock. Adhere patterned paper in random fashion, add photo to the top of the pile. Adhere title stickers.

Sometimes you need a muted red/green and sometimes you need a cherry/mint green.  Which ever your fancy, I can honestly say Cosmo has you covered. I got some of the additional supplies from A Million Little Things. I've ordered several times from Jill, and she is awesome. Her customer service is unmatched. I had my order in my hands within 48 hours while paying the flat rate shipping. I wish Amazon filled orders as promptly (hello, it's been 2 weeks Amazon and I'm still waiting for Woody from Toy Story). Hope you are having better weather, have a great Wednesday.

In truth

My sister has Crohn's disease.

It's one of the defining statements of my life. It is one of the reasons I am who I am, and why I do what I do. My sister has been sick since we were teenagers. I mean really, truly and deathly ill. My earliest memories of her illness include her standing next to my locker looking as pale as a ghost. They thought she had lymphoma, cancer. Turns out she had Crohn's.

It became clear to me during high school that my family needed an ambassador, a translator of medical jargon, someone who knew all the options and had the patient's best interest at heart. School came very easy to me, I have a photographic memory. I was the natural choice. Right before my wedding my sister's intestines perforated and she almost died of sepsis in the local hospital. There was no time to waste.

I've had a lot of schooling, but medicine still is by far the most interesting subject to me. I excelled in internal medicine (top of my class) from the start of physician assistant school, and I only got better when placed up against medical students at the local level one trauma center in Savannah. I remember once I had graduated from PA school, taken my boards and was looking for my first job. I attended a CME event at the local hospital. I enthusiastically told the local Gastroenterologist and his PA how much I wanted to work in GI. Ironically it turns out even though they didn't say much during their meeting with me, their office manager called me for a job interview the next day. Within a week I had my first job, in Gastroenterology (GI), with the sickest patients in the hospital. I jumped right into the fire. I had wasted nearly 7 years in school and I had a lot to learn about Crohn's.

I learned from the best, 6 different GI doctors. All had a different approach, but I integrated the best of all of them. I completed my master's degree in Gastroenterology, my thesis was current approaches to Crohn's disease. I am the first person in my family to have a master's degree. I sucked up everything those guys taught me like a sponge. And not a moment too soon. My sister landed back in the hospital again, this time with a bowel to bladder fistula (a tunnel from the intestines to either organs or the outside skin that stool empties through). That was clearly not good. The local small town GI doctor had already placed the consult to the surgeon by the time I arrived at the hospital from out of town. And for the first time I was able to fulfill that role for my family. I stood there and argued with him that she needed a consult to Duke University Medical Center, not more surgery. In the end he agreed. And at DUMC she received aggressive re-induction with Remicade, and titrating with 6 MP while monitoring the metabolites. The fistulas closed with medical management, the best the country has to offer.

But my sister, and my family live in a small town. It isn't feasible to run to DUMC for everything. She was managed for years on IV infusions of Remicade every 8 weeks. Amazingly, my sister holds a job. She always saves her sick time, just in case. She is sicker than most of the patients with Crohn's who are on disability. But we weren't raised to give up. It's not what we do. While people don't die from Crohn's, it is not uncommon for them to die from the complications of Crohn's (bleeding, anemia, sepsis, bowel perforation.)

In the past few weeks my sister has gotten worse. More pain, more nausea. It seemed like a partial small bowel obstruction, probably from adhesions from her first surgery. She had an EGD and Colonoscopy from the local scope monkey (in case you are wondering that is a derogatory term for a GI doctor only interested in making money from procedures). She was then scheduled for a capsule endoscopy, where you swallow a camera and it takes pictures of the intestines that aren't accessible by scope. Seemed like a good idea, only my sister never received an imaging test first. I didn't realize that she hadn't had that, I was hearing all of this second hand from both my sister and my parents. Where we are now is that the camera is stuck in a stricture/fistula in her intestine. This wouldn't be a problem except that the stomach acid erodes the plastic coating around the camera, exposing the the battery. The battery then erodes and causes caustic damage to the bowel until it ruptures. I've read that the capsule can be stable anywhere from a few weeks to a month. My sister's local GI doctor has referred her back to DUMC, because this has gotten "complicated." I think you can see how I feel about how this has been handled from my backhanded comments in this paragraph. i know that hind-sight is 20/20, but I really wish an imaging study had been done first.

I told my parents my sister would need surgery to remove the retained camera and they freaked. Totally shot the messenger. It's so hard that the most important patient I will ever have can not every legally or ethically be my actual patient. I only serve as a second opinion, an advisor, an advocate. And I'm still her sister and I'm scared for her. But I never let my family see that or hear that in my voice. Bowel resection is big surgery, with numerous complications, all of which I get to torture myself with until her outcome is known. So I ask for your prayers that her surgery goes well. Due to all her problems and medications, she is unable to have children of her own. But she loves J to pieces:

Friday giveaway, etc.

Doing a drive-by posting today. I wanted to let you know there is a giveaway on the Scribble Scrabble blog for the Suzy Snowflake line. Go here or on the sidebar there is a link under SS DT.

Here is a layout I did using the Studio Calico November kit:

Have a great Friday!

December Weekly

If you are stopping by after yesterday, God bless you. I figured I scared you off. I'm better now, but my sister is being scheduled for surgery as we speak at Duke. More about that tomorrow. Today I promised you a project, and a project you shall have.

Since I am a slacker, I can only commit to a December weekly. It's true, as the mother of a young child, doing something Christmas related everyday stresses me out. But I can do something every week (5 days). So that's what I am doing. I used the most beautiful Christmas line I know, Cosmo Cricket's Oh Joy and a Cosmo Ethan Blackboard album (my absolute favorite one).

The Cover:

December 1-5:

December 5-10:

December 10-15:

December 15-20:

December: 20-25:

The back cover:

Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Oh Joy entire Paper Crafting kit and die cuts; Cosmo Cricket Ethan Blackboard mini Album; plus Maya Road chipboard heart, KI felt flower, American Crafts thickers, Making Memories glitter alpha and tiny alphas, Michael's Rhinestones and Martha Stewart Leaf and bell embellishment. 

I purposely did not put the dates or the numbers on here. I will add them with my journaling. In case I don't get to it week by week, and instead decide just to record my top 5 Christmas memories, I don't have to stress out about that either. I have a tentative plan. I plan to print the photos-as few as one, or more with journaling on white cardstock. I also love that I'm not committed to taking any certain number of photos either. For Dec 1-5 I'd like to take pictures of the tree/decorating. Dec. 6-10 Baking, you thought those were mittens? I see oven mitts. Dec. 10-15 Outdoors, snow would be nice, but I'm not counting on it. Dec. 15-20 Gift wrapping/holiday events. Dec.20-25 Christmas Eve/day. 

We are 4 days into Dec. If you missed the Ali E. Dec. daily, you still have time for this one! If you do it, link me up. Have a great day everyone!

Seriously?

Can''t seem to get my act together this week. I have a project, but I didn't finish it last night. Just need to finish the cover at naptime today. I promise I'll post asap. 

Yesterday was not so good. I actually thought the day was going quite well. I filled up with gas for $1.75/gallon. Wow, right? J and I got through the grocery without any major upsets. When I got home though the groceries had shifted and when I opened the hatch the eggs flew out and splattered all over the driveway. All of them.

I cleaned that up, and managed to save a spice packet by wiping the egg goo off of it. I threw it in a bag and J and I went in the house. I took off J's jacket and let the dog out of his crate. I went to the bathroom. When I came out, the spice packet was all over the entry/hallway. And my dog was vomiting. I kind of felt like it serves him right, but then I was really the one being punished so. You know that spice packet when wet makes a paste/rub that is impossible to get off without laundering.

And I was cut from the Cocoa Daisy competition. My only regret is that I had hoped I could play for another week or so, just for something to do. It was excitement for the moment, you know?

Dh found a nail in my tire yesterday, so I had the tire patched. Why are my tires magnetic?

Then last night I received a call from my parents that my sister has had a significant complication from a medical test that she had done. We are waiting to hear after she has some more tests if she will need surgery. I can't go into that right now, that's a whole separate post.

So, last night I worked on my project to try to relax. But after about an hour I had a major headache (who wouldn't?). And that is why I don't have anything for today. I don't even have my pics from thanksgiving out of my computer yet. You want to look at my chow hound dog? He's fine now.

I'm choosing to forget about yesterday. Hope you have a great day, or don't. That's your choice.

Hello December

Wow, first day in December. It already feels like it is flying by. 

We had a good thanksgiving, lots of grateful, lots of family, lots of traffic. About 18 hours worth of traffic to be exact. That's a long time to be in a car with a toddler, the world's most active baby on top of that. But, we did it. We drove 3 to 6.5 hours every day of the 4 day weekend. It's good to be home, except I'm digging out underneath tons of laundry. If dh pulls one more bag out from hiding I swear. I'm on my 6th load already today.

I panicked last night, couldn't wait for cyber Monday. I had been stalking Buzz and Woody Dolls from Toy Store on Amazon for a month now. In the past week alone they went up in price $10 each, same thing with Red from Cars. It upsets me, I can't lie. I know that people are buying these things as collectors items, and I almost didn't get one for my (soon to be) 2 year old because they keep driving up the price. I think it is sad when the adults won't let the children have the dolls. I got the Woody doll at $55, three vendors already are selling it for over $150 and I suspect it won't take long for the others to realize they could raise the price too. I looked everywhere, searched every random online toy store I could find and my local Toys R Us. No one else had it, or had it cheaper. Anyway, it's done. One Buzz for his birthday and One Woody doll for Christmas. What are you stalking on this cyber Monday? Have you been waiting for the price to drop? 

Here is my entry for this weeks Cocoa Daisy Diner Scrap-off. Everybody came to play, brought some great stuff this week. The playing field will be cut from 8 to 4.

Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Chemistry Stripe Tease Patterned paper; Cosmo Cricket Chemistry Togetherness Patterned paper; plus Bazzil Black and white cardstock; Maya road Chipboard circle board and heart; Basic grey offbeat alphas; Golden red and white acrylic paint; Making Memories mini alphas; pen unknown. 

The challenge was to do circles, paint and handwriting.  I'll find out tomorrow if I made the cut. I'm waiting on pins and needles for my Studio Calico kit, I got both the stamps and I can't wait for it to arrive! Have a great day!