I was "tagged" for a fun internet quiz by Tammy last week (ok, maybe a tad bit longer then a week ago). It would be rude of me not to play, so here are my answers:

I've been attempting to re-organize my photos and what I've noticed is I'm beginning to have a pretty good selection of inspirational design photos. Thought I'd share a few (sorry, haven't kept track of where I got them or who did them but I applaud anyone who had any involvement in creating these spaces):



Love the walkway, the skylights, the space in general.

These are raised flower beds - love it. They are Thinking Outside the Box. Just picture these fully planted and blooming! I also love the fence. I was thinking of doing something like this on my deck but ended up changing the design and look because of code issues - darn code issues!

I love how the grass edges next to the pool (although I can hear my dh's reaction about grass in the pool!). I love how clean everything is and how balanced. Unique and what a special retreat.

Love the thought of benches instead of chairs. Thinking of this for my outside living space I'm creating.

I've just been asked to do my first photo shoot for a sweet young lady for her Senior pictures. She remembered the photos I took of my family for my 2006 Mothers Day gift to myself (a couple are shown below, along with the blog banner). She wanted to know if I'd be interested and of course I said YES! We decided to wait for for the leaves to begin to change and for it to get a little bit cooler outside. Now the challenge is going to be to try to find some really unique backdrops. I have some ideas but am open to suggestions - Tammy? Patti? Anyone else?

Some things you just don't do for any reason, period! These things include but are not limited to:

• Laying things on the top of the stove when you are not cooking such as papers or fabrics of any kind.
• Park the car half in and half out of the garage.

And why do I say this? Let's say nothing has been burnt yet. My "new" car, not so lucky. I think my family understands this now.

[ Sorry ahead of time for spelling - or lack thereof. I'm tired, been working non-stop for many days. Wanted to post here for fun but not taking the time to make sure spelling is correct. Please forgive. ]


These are things that are making me happy lately, things that as I go through my crazy life when I come upon I stop, smile, breathe and think how crazy that this particular item makes me happy. I guess I'm materialistic to some point - is that all that bad?


Scoopfree Automatic Cat Litter Box:

Got one of these a month ago and just changed it for the first time today. Yes, today! All I can say about this little beauty is AWESOME! If you have a cat, stop everything you are doing and get one of these. I got it at my local Petsmart after my previous LitterMaid Automatic Cat Litter Box died. Now, don't get me wrong. I went to Petsmart to buy a 2nd LitterMaid Automatic Cat Litter Box but was intrigied by the Scoopfree version because it suggested that I might not need to change it for one month - one month! How could I not give it a try. Guess what, it worked! Happily for me, Zoe doesn't do her biz too much and I was absoluately able to wait one entire month before changing the litter box. I keep it in the basement and my husband has a nose like no one I know. I highly recommend it. (NOTE: Previous litter box died only because I was lazy in cleaning it. I took it in the yard, dropped liquid soap in it and spraid it a lot with our lawn hose. An electrical unit of any type wouldn't be able to handle what I did with it - and I proved that.



Linksys Wireless G Router:
I am a self-proclaimed tech geek. I have no formal training but am at the level where I possibly know enough to be dangerous. I am known as the tech help rep of my friends (although the only qualifications I have is that I am the only one that knows the most). Even though I am a techno-geek I am slow to get on the wireless bandwagon. We just recently joined this group and I LOVE it! I haven't been able to fully enjoy the benefits of it but I can already tell a whole new world is opening up to me. I highly recommend this! (Note: Only reason I didn't join up earlier was because it was prohibited from our work - I work from home. They have since given their approval and this was the baby we got. AWESOME!).


Dell D630 Laptop:
Just got this little beauty, it's what I'm using to create this blog entry. It is the only reason I'm doing it now - convenience. I have only had one laptop in my life and I have missed it. Desktops have some good advantages but laptops offer so much more freedom. I am so ready to get some work done - but in different locations other than my home office. I am currently in bed adding this entry (was that TMI?). How awesome is that?!




Bedford Smart Recharge Station:
Ok, I've had my eye on this beauty for a bit from Pottery Barn and decided to go ahead and get it a few weeks ago. This is another thing I'm really into. It's a central place to store all our chargeables and miscellaneous items. I picked it up in black (black is my favorite color. It allows all the same stuff to occupy the same spot but in a much more organized and less clutter looking fashion. It's a keeper!




Pottery Barn Circular Pen/Stuff Holder:
Ok, I couldn't find the real name of it so I made up my own. My birthday was in July and ever since then I've been hanging onto some birthday stash that I finally decided to part with. I ended up getting two of these items; one for "my room" (a/k/a scrapbook room) and one for our home office @ my personal desk. Although I haven't fully used the one in "my room" because of lack of time and other obligations, I have used the one on my desk - a lot. It frees up space on my desk, allows me to organize and have at my fingertips my most used pens, pencils, highlighters, paperclips, binderclips and one free space for our TV remote. (Have to have a TV in our office so I can catch up on stuff happening throughout the day!).

All-Weather Wicker Chairs:
No picture - sorry! But picked up six of these at Target the other day with dh, on Clearance for next to nothing. AWESOME! Got to love that. Now, I'm just trying to find the designer table I have in my head. Of course this is impossible and I'm trying hard to fiqure out how to build it myself. Like I have time to do that - but of course will try. Will share photos eventually.

Love it all. It all makes my life easier in one way or another and at this point, that means a lot. : )

Love, love, love these! Enough said.

I've been away so long I was afraid I forgot my password to post! Obviously that wasn't the case - whooooo (picture back of hand sweeping across forehead).

So much has gone on and so much I could share but instead of all of that I'm going to share the most recent thing on my mind - TIVO. So here's the story...

I bought into this TIVO thing two years ago and we (I) used it initially. I taped ALL my design shows and all those shows I wanted to watch but could never watch when they were on. I LOVED it. But, eventually we (I) quite using it because we didn't have a phone outlet on the wall the TV was on. To upload the data and to stay current I had to run the phone cord from one room to the other and hope that no one tripped over it (which of course did happen but luckily no one was hurt in the taping of my programs!). It ended up being too much of an ordeal to get updated programming. So, it just didn't happen - however, I was still paying the monthly fee! Then this weekend came.

I have been working and working and working. No time for much play - and when I did have time to play I was too exhausted to enjoy it. This Labor Day weekend was different. I decided to honor the spirit of the long weekend and do NO work. It was fabulous! I enjoyed myself so much I actually began to get energy again. As a result, I decided I was awake enough to plug back in TIVO to begin using it's services again. Alex (my oldest son) was ALL over this. Apparently sometime recently he has become aware of TIVO and all it offers. We pulled out the trusty cord, sat with anticipation as it would surely tell us it was uploading all the data it needed to allow us to begin playing with it but nothing happened. We couldn't get passed the TIVO IS POWERING UP screen. I have come to understand this screen is not a happy screen. Rather, it's a very bad screen indicating the hard drive has failed!

I ended up calling TIVO and the rep I spoke with informed me that the last time we had connected to TIVO was 6 months earlier. He then told me the fate of our unit and was amazed because normally they have a life of at least 4 years. To help us out he could exchange the unit for the newest unit they have for just $149. Of course it was OUT OF WARRENTY! I was NOT happy! Obviously from their records they could see we barely used the unit, only had it two years, yet he couldn't offer me anything. I told him I was very disappointed and wanted to cancel my subscription. I was NOT going to do any sort of upgrade to a unit that has limited warrenty and would break so soon - with no use. He said he understood, created a case and I thought was transferring me to a cancellation rep. Apparently she had more authority then just to cancel service. She said that the previous rep was not authorized to give me anything but she did have the POWER to help me out. She offered to exchange our unit (40 hours of recording power - a baby) to a refurbished unit with 80 hours of recording capabilities for no cost. I told her I definately would agree to that. I don't care it's refurbished, it should work - right? I then told her of my sad cord story and she said they do have a wireless-G USB network adapter that would connect into our wireless network. Just so happened we just went wireless less then a month ago and it's a wireless-G unit. Now, I believe in signs - this was a sign! I decided to hold off on that piece of equipment but kept it in the back of mind for future research.

I now have the broken unit ready to be shipped out for replacement. But, tonight, I did some research on this wireless thing and ended up ordering the missing piece off Amazon. For not much money I no longer have to run the cord from one room to the other. Instead it's wireless - obviously. LOL! But, it comes with bells and whistles! We will be able to put our photo album on our TV. I have all our photos on our network and we will be able to hook up to that. Further, we will be able to download movies to our laptops and/or our video iPods (if we had one!). Lastly, and most exciting, we can then burn the movies onto DVDs for future keeping! I am so excited about this and even more excited that my boys are really into computers and would love to do this for me! Ok, maybe not love doing it but could be talked into doing it since we just got them their own computer. I'm using that leverage for a lot of things lately!

To make this deal even sweeter, I got a great price on the adapter and didn't have to pay shipping. I save $20+! Yeah!!!!