I enjoyed my lunch with my friend, Arlene, today...it had been a while since I'd seen her so it was great to sit and catch up with each other.

I can't wait to see her next month because we have tickets to see Bon Jovi together!!

Snow day for me...

...well the library didn't open until 1:00pm and since I was supposed to work 9-1 today I got to stay home and get paid!! Man I love my job!!

We did get quite of bit of snow on top of what was left from the storm we got on January 12th...this winter has just been insane so far!!

The countdown says 51 days until spring...I wonder how much more snow mother nature will dump on us before then.

Happy crafting...I've had a little time to play with my Gypsy today but not nearly as much as I'd like.

P.A.D. January 26th, 2011

Oh my beautiful Gypsy how I have missed you!! I am so happy that you came back to me all fixed and ready to help me create! Aren't you so pretty all dressed up in your pink outfit, too!! :)

Time to get some cards, layouts and bag toppers made!!!

That time of year...

...so it is fitting that my picture for today is my tax software that has been sitting on my desk for a few days now...still not installed...I am so not ready to start...I truly hate doing this every year but it is something that you just can't avoid...and I certainly am not paying someone to do it for me when I can just do it myself and have been for 32 years now!

I just have to suck it up and get started...maybe tomorrow. ;-P

A few days to catch up on...

While I haven't posted in a few days I have been keeping up with my photo taking so I'm going to get caught up a bit here.

Thursday the 20th I had the pleasure of taking a very cool scrapbook class at my library...how lucky am I that I get to take these classes down the street from my house and now I get to pay 1/2 of what I did when I took them at my friend's house because the library is paying her to teach the classes. Of course I do pay a pretty steep tax bill so that helps to fund the library so it is nice to be able to take advantage of that from time to time. This is me with my friend, Joann, who works with me.

Friday night I took the train into the city to meet my sister for dinner because she was in town for a knitting convention put on by Vogue Knitting. I can't believe the prices they charge for the classes but I guess I'm used to the scrapbooking world and not the knitting world so I don't really know what the norm is. My friend, Sandi, also met up with us and we had a great time chatting and having dinner. We were supposed to eat at one of my favorite theater district eateries but the wait was over an hour so we opted for the always fast service place, Junior's in Shubert Alley. :) This is me with Sandi, and I didn't get a picture with my sister...crazy me!! My son, Jesse, joined us and he was a load of fun for all of us ladies.

I made a really delicious vegetable soup for dinner on saturday because Jim was working overtime and being outside in the frigid cold all day I had a feeling he would appreciate a nice pot of soup at the end of the day. All of the ingredients were fresh and the soup turned out great.

Sunday morning I tried something I saw on the Hungry girl website and I couldn't believe how easy it was and yet totally scrumptious!! It is called an egg mug!! I took a large mug and sprayed it with Pam and then added 1/2 cup of liquid egg whites and one Laughing Cow Light swiss cheese wedge (chopped up) and microwaved that for 90 seconds and then stirred it and nuked for another minute and voila...an amazing breakfast topped with one slice of WW bread and a banana!!

Today it was 1 degree when I sat down with my morning coffee and I contemplated just staying home until I had to go to work at 5pm but then I decided to just brave it and went out for the few items I need at Walmart and then stopped in at my favorite Michael's and boy was I glad I did!!! They were clearing out all of the holiday stuff from the $1 bins and filling up grab bags for $2 and the manager that was working on it gave me a bag and told me to stuff it with whatever I wanted! When all was said and done I walked away with over 230 items for $2!!! Yes, $230.00 worth of some of my favorite bling for just $2!! It was my lucky day, for sure!! I am really glad I decided to venture out and brave the cold weather!!

American Idol 2011...Season 10!!

Wow, 51 people made it through to Hollywood from the New Jersey auditions!! I saw some great talent tonight, that's for sure. There was a young man from Merrick (representing Long Island! Whoo!!) and a girl from Yonkers that was amazing!!

My PAD for today is my friend Jessyka from work, isn't she just adorable with all the pretty bookmarks the girls cut today?

I love my job!

P.A.D. January 18th, 2011

Goodbye old friend, you have served me well. As you sit on my table collecting dust and watching me play with my new Cricut Expression I know that you would want me to let you go and perhaps you will find a new home. I took your picture so that I will always remember you...farewell oh my beautiful Sizzix.

January 17th-Picture A Day

So for today I chose this...because I wanted to show how much I detest dirty snow, it is so gross...why can't it stay all white and pretty until it melts away?

Picture a day 1/16/2011

I can't believe my luck when I saw this paper in ""Tuesday morning", I had to get it!! I will be using this paper to complete my layout when I go see the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie when it comes out in May!!

PAD 1/15/2011

Time to get moving and start training for the 5K that I'll be doing in May...so my picture for today is the treadmill at the hotel where I am currently spending the weekend scrapbooking. :)

PAD 1/14/2011

Just getting started on my scrapping weekend and I actually did a couple of one page layouts which is rare for me.

Most of my layouts tend to be 2 pagers. I used my cricut for both the font and the arrows on this page and kept it pretty simple and more about the photos and the journaling.

Snow MOUNTAINS!!

It was crazy maneuvering around the mountains of snow in the shopping areas today...insane!!

This is my picture a day for today. :)

Snow AGAIN!!

Wow, we barely had finished digging out from the blizzard we had back at the end of December and we got hammered with another pretty big storm last night, it was quite a lot of snow when we got up this morning so off Jim and Alex went to shovel and of course Alex had to play in it! We all got the day off from work and school and I guess it was a nice way to break up the week a bit. Tomorrow it is back to reality for everyone and I hope the school buses don't have too much trouble maneuvering around the mountains of snow left behind by the plows!

1/11/11

Pretty much says it all right there!! Looks like tomorrow is going to be a jammies kinda day around here. Good thing I just picked up some milk. :)

January 10th

Nothing fancy today...just a random photo of my son waiting for his bus to pick him up from school. I sometimes just sip my coffee and watch out the window to make sure he's ok...and that he gets on the bus safely. I can't believe that he's actually 13 already and will be entering high school in the fall, when did that happen? I feel as if I just held his hand as we walked across the street and now he's a young man who doesn't need me to get him safely across anymore. I do like to think that he does still need me for certain things that only a mother can fix, though. :)

Continuing with my picture a day!!

I had a great shift at work today, I really have the best job!! My friend, Joann, and I put together 8 really nice baskets that will be the raffle prizes for our winter reading club. It took us about an hour working together to complete them, not bad at all. Each basket had a theme which was so much fun! I think my favorite was "Saving for a rainy day", there was a piggy bank, some coin rollers and an umbrella! Too cute! This week we will be making up the little goodie bags we give to the patrons that sign up to read! Fun!!

Saturday :-)

Wow, this was pretty fun for me today!! I went to Stop and Shop and they had scanners to do your own shopping as you went along. When you get to the register you just give them the device and pay for your order, I thought it was the coolest!!

So this is my picture for today.

P.A.D. January 7th, 2011

Wow, crazy snow we got today that's for sure! It was coming down so hard and the flakes were huge...I got covered just from the store to my car and I thought I'd make this my picture of the day!

Did a little shopping today, I was very excited to get a pre-lit christmas tree for next year and it was only $5!!! I love clearance! And the best part, the tree is purple!! I love it! I also got some silver ornaments for it at 25 cents and 75 cents a package! I love Walmart!

Headed on over to Michael's after that and imagine my surprise to find some cricut cartridges on clearance for $9.99!! Holy cow! I picked up 3 of them and then my sister was able to snag me one at her store that they didn't have at mine. May have to head out tomorrow to another Michael's and see if they have anything else I might want.

P.A.D. January 6th, 2011

As I put my new Doodlecharms cartridge away (in alphabetical order, of course!!) I thought it would be fitting to use my collection for my PAD today.

So at last count...22 regular cartridges, 7 in the double box that holds the solutions cartridges that don't come in a box of their own and the 7 that are preloaded into my Gypsy plus my George cartridge that is being replaced by PC that makes a grand total of 37. Yippeee!!!

P.A.D. January 5th, 2011

I have probably the best job in the world because I love to read and to create and being a page at my local library allows me to earn a living doing something fun and exciting for me.

Today I rearranged our graphic novel collection and that was fun! We are also taking inventory of our entire collection at the moment, weeding outdated books and getting ready to launch our winter reading club. :)

PAD 1/4/2011

The Mega Millions jackpot is $355 million! You know what they say? You gotta be in it to win it...so I picked up 2 tickets today, I figure all I have to lose is $2! So my picture of the day is my tickets, pinned to my fridge. Good luck!

My Pink Stamper Challenge

So I have decided to try out for a spot on the design team for My Pink Stamper!!

The challenge calls for a project using pink, brown, green...pretty colors, they work so well together. Actually I have to say that pink and brown are my 2 favorite colors when I work with paper...but then I guess all my pages would look the same if I did that! Ha!

For this challenge I used a paper line from Quick Quotes called Picadilly Pink and I was so happy to be able to open the package and put it to good use for this layout. One of my favorite cricut cartridges would have to be Picturesque and the reason for this being when I saw it the images just screamed of my beloved mom! She loved all things beautiful, flowers and butterflies and pretty designs.

I cut the rose at 5" with green cardstock and only used the stem and then I also cut it in lime green on the shadow feature. The reason I cut off the rose and didn't use it is because I had some flowers that my mom had given me to use for scrapbooking and I had been saving them so this was a perfect opportunity to use these beautiful pink flowers and add them to my page. The photos are matted with brown as well as pink cardstock. The butterflies are cut at 1 1/2" on the cricut and then I added crystal stickles to all of them to give them some shimmer and glue dots are holding them just in the middle so that their wings can be 'flying'. I added some chalk and some lines with my black marker on the stem to add some depth.

The photo on the lower right is of a memory wall at the 5K race I did last year in honor of my mom and I used a bling circle from Heidi Swapp to make mom's photo on the wall as the focal point.

The vellum quote, "Remembering Mother" is from Quick Quotes as well and I matted it with pink cardstock and added a green organza ribbon to finish it out.

PAD 1/3/2011 and Gypsy

Fly my beloved Gypsy, fly like the wind to Utah and come back to me all fixed and ready to play again!! I will miss you so very much while you are away. Yes, I was blessed with a Gypsy that decided to die after just 2 uses. :( Lucky me, huh? So I have sent it back to Provocraft and with any luck I will have it back within a couple of weeks. I am really hoping to bring it with me when I meet my sister for dinner on the 21st so that I can link up all of the cartridges she has been snatching up lately!




Today's PAD, Picture of the day, features my favorite librarian (who also happens to be my supervisor) showing off our brand new very beautiful PINK book cart!! Isn't it awesome??? Our department is the envy of the whole library because of our very pretty new addition.

PAD 1/2/2011

Nothing special...just my breakfast this morning, it was a somewhat non-eventful day for me other than working.

Trying to stay on track with my Weight Watchers points and start my day off with some protein.

1/1/11 Picture of the Day

Enjoying the first day of 2011 by taking our son to see a Beatles Tribute show, Twist and Shout. The show was fantastic and Alex had a great time.

I've spent the evening working on a layout that I hope to enter in a challenge over on My Pink Stamper so we'll see how it turns out, I'm waiting on some things to dry before I can finish it and post it.

Happy 2011, everyone!