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Updates.

Baaaad blogger I know! Here's some of what I've been up to:

Before

After

Isn't that better?! Did you check out the size of our old monitor?! LOL! This was our extra older computer - the one that I reformatted and put Windows XP on it. Plus, black is my all time favorite color. Also check out my little bendy dude. I can't draw but I wanted him anyway. My ds used him for a project at school. I absolutely refused to allow him to glue anything to him. Can't mess up little bendy dude!

Yes I did get my little Crackberry - oops, Blackberry. It truely is addicting! I totally don't mind being hung up in traffic, long lines at events, waiting for my boys hockey games to start... Anytime there is downtime I can surf. It takes a little bit of getting used to but it's awesome! I was so enjoying waiting forever to get my oil changed at Firestone the other day. No problem, I think I'll check out Two Peas message boards. I've set Google as my homepage because I love them - everything about them. Have you ever checked out their employment page to see behind the scenes of what they do and how they treat their staff. It's great!

I've been scrapbooking a lot (for me anyway) lately. I would like to finish our New York album sooner then later. This first photo is of course of the Statue of Liberty. She is so beautiful and amazing to look at. I was surprised by how special she would feel to me. What she stands for gives me goose bumps and looking at all the details, the folds in the material... it's just perfect. That's why I titled that page "It's all in the details" I tried to draw your eye into the details causing one to look a little bit closer by stacking a smaller photo on top of the larger one. Eventually I will go back and reprint the one photo that is a little bit darker then the rest - so those details don't get lost. But, by the time I finished this up I wasn't in the mood to do further tweaking.

This is my two-page spread on Ellis Island. I used an Ali Edwards two-page spread as inspiration for this. I wanted to break out of my box like layouts which I have done on a few other pages. I wanted something linear but something I could still use several photos on. I love having a printer that I can quickly print multiple size photos on. I find I'm using less and less 4.6 photos. I'm still working on using my computer for journaling. I'm from the old Creative Memories days (used to be a consultant) where journaling in your own handwriting is important. I agree with the importance of that but I'm really ok with more computer jouranling. It's cleaner looking and quicker for me to do.

This is the last page I finished last night. All the photos were dark but bright colors pop throughout because of all the neon lights. New York is filled with neon lights! The picture in the center opens up where it lists the description of each photo. I stamped the corresponding number on each photo. I'm going to put a clip with a ribbon on it to use as the page turner for the center photo but I didn't want the page/book to get too bulky. I'm using embellishments carefully because I don't want bulky albums - if I can help it. It will be fun to see if this changes.

As you can tell I really like using multiple photos on my pages. Although I am setting aside individual photos that I really like that I will use to create special pages, some which I've already used. I'm finding I can look at one photo and have it generate different feelings. Hmmmm, my wheels are spinning...

I LOVE having my own room to create. I realize now one of the reasons I never got anything done was because by the time I got everything out it was time to leave to do something. The stuff would lay where ever (dining room table or worse the kitchen table) for a couple weeks until I couldn't stand it there anymore. Then I'd pack it all back up and the cycle would continue until I just never took anything out anymore. This way when I have a spare minute or at night when everyone is snuggled in bed I can quickly go in there and get some things done. When I have to stop I can just leave everything there and close the door. Plus, I love knowing where everything is. I just LOVE it.

I have to give kudos to Stacy Julian at Big Picture Scrapbooking for giving me a guideline to use for setting up my albums into specific categories. I have purchased multiple albums that I like (yes - Creative Memories) and have already put in my refills and all pages have page protectors on. I have labeled each album to cover what I want it to reflect. Then I create the pages and just slip them in the pages where they belong. I don't adhere them to the pages because this gives me the ability to rearrange where they go. Eventually I will adhere them so they don't move around but for right now it gives me the flexibility and freedom I needed to allow me to really get going.

That's enough for now. Gotta go to Hockey!

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy |

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My oh my - a cherry eye.

Good as new!

Oscar had his eye surgery this past Friday. He was supposed to have it on Tuesday but mom forgot to tell Alex he wasn't supposed to feed him the morning of the surgery so we had to postphone until Friday. The surgery went really well and he was all cheerful when we picked him up Friday afternoon. Apparently he had been playing all afternoon with the staff at Animal Docs. He said goodbye to his favorite doctor and off we went. Dr. Hammerle told us that only 5% of cherry eye comes back, and if it was going to come back it would do so within a couple of weeks. I told her then we would be back for follow-up surgery because our family (Oscar included) always falls in that low category. We got home and an hour later there it was! An hour later! I immediately called the office and I was told that it could just be the swelling and we were to monitor it over the weekend and call this morning. Friday evening - it was showing. All day Saturday it was showing until Saturday night - it went away. All day yesterday it was showing. Today, totally gone. We are supposed to monitor it until Wednesday. If it comes back he is going to have to go back in for examination and possibly more surgery. But, we are all keeping our fingers crossed that it truely was only swelling. Today his eye looks beautiful! Oddly, his left eye looks more blood shot then the right one. It was the right one that had the surgery.

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy |

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My theory (one of them)...

... if you plan to have a long wait and take a bunch of really good magazines that you've been wanting to read with you, the ones that you really can't wait to dive into, the wait will be very short. This theory has been put to the test many times over the past week and it's worked everytime. My stack still has not been read - I'm bummed!

Oscar update:
Oscar has to have surgery! Now, don't fret, I've been assured it will not be lengthy or a big deal. He has developed "cherry eye" which apparently is common in bulldogs and other select breeds. We are trying eye drops for over the weekend but if it doesn't work (which is likely) he will be scheduled for outpatient surgery next week sometime. He doesn't know so don't tell him.

Tonight is his first next level obedience class. Only thing I'm dreading is putting him in and out of the car. He's very heavy (44.4 lbs) and is hard to pick up. Unfortunately he can't get in himself.

eBay:
Gotta love eBay! I spent the weekend trying for a Blackberry 8700c and was shut out about 15 times - yes at least 15 times! Almost had one twice but was sniped last minute. Mind you, I was also trying to snipe but I never succeeded. Fun trying though! I came to the realization the price I was willing to pay was not the going eBay price - so I had a decision to make, up the price a bit or not get one. I decided on the first and got one. It's been shipped - I can't wait! My daytimer (that I posted about a lot initially in my blog) still has it problems. You need to carry it around and actually open it for it to work properly. I know I posted about my love for the iPhone but it's not coming out until June and the price I'm sure will be more then I want to pay. I'll hold out but will eventually get one. They are awesome!

Past weekend:
Got a lot accomplished, although not what I initially thought I would do if I had free time. I could have prepped for tax season, or worked on some additional insurance stuff but instead I played in "my room" (really need an official name for it) all weekend. Much more fun! I continued working on our NY album and got along pretty well until I needed journaling and decided to try my hand at computer journaling and that led me down another path... We had an extra computer that was running Microsoft ME on it - one I had put in "my room" a few weeks earlier. As much as we wanted it to be it was not built as a gaming computer therefore it rejected just about every computer game we threw at it. As a result it wasn't be used. Unfortunately, one of the programs I really wanted also didn't work on it - because it wanted Windows XP. Then I remembered I had a fully licensed copy downstairs that was purchased a couple years ago for a defunked laptop. Only problem, I had to reformat the harddrive to get it to work. I had done that before several times, but never own my own without the intense guidenance from a technical expert. I decided to give it a try - worse case the computer would be messed up for good. I googled reformatting instructions for guidence and completed the task. We now have a "new" computer and all my programs work on it. I'm going to use it for photo editing tasks which require lots of space. Still won't work as a gaming computer but at least it's useable now!

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy |

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Patti's friend.

If I understand things correctly, those that know Patti will understand how funny this photo really is. Oscar is growing up and being more responsible (translation - he is ringing the bell more and more to go outside to go Potty). As a result, we are giving him more freedom. He is drawn to our office and one of his favorite spots is sitting (just as you see here) right next to Patti! I try to limit the amount of time he is in here with us, especially when he insists on being Patti's best bud but sometimes I just have to let him stay. How could I not - look at this face?

Patti is a real trooper! She is not a dog person, yet she is very nice to Oscar. She is watching the Dog Whisperer on TV and some of the skills she has learned has helped her bond with Oscar more and more. Maybe that's why he's such a big fan of hers. Zoe is extremely jealous of Oscars interest in Patti.

Off-topic - we got ice again! Phase 1 of 3 has come and gone. We are inside waiting for Phase 2, which I think comes later this evening or tonight. We are lucky we have power - although one of our pine trees in back is looking a bit sad:

As a result we are staying inside today and I'm making a big pot of Grandad's Stew. Also playing around on eBay and fiddling with my new Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 that I got with my new slide scanner for Christmas. Thinking of going upstairs and scrapbooking a bit. I'm starting to work on my New York pictures again.

Regarding Photoshop. I've always been a Paint Shop Pro user. I love PSP for graphics, making banners and web stuff but I don't do much of that anymore. I'm more into photos and everyone raves about Photoshop. So, today I installed the version I have and been playing around with it a bit. I'm quite impressed. Need to learn more!

Got to get back to eBay - an item I'm watching is ending soon. I've been shut-out on two other auctions - sniped at the last minute. Need to try again! Everyone have a good day (and weekend) and for those in St. Louis have fun staying in. We sure are!

They found them!

Saturday's Post-Dispatch - Front Page:

Unbelievable. Breaking news in St. Louis. Ben Ownby disappeared this past Monday when getting off the bus. Tonight they found him in an apartment in Kirkwood with another boy, Shawn Hornbeck, who disappeared over 4 years ago! It's so emotional!

Shawns parents created a foundation for finding missing children. At a JDRF event (local walk) a little over a year ago the Hornbecks had a booth there. They were taking pictures of kids and providing free id cards. I had both my boys done, my best friend had her kids done. Shawn's parents were the ones taking the pictures, filling out the forms. We almost didn't do it - it was too difficult for both of us. We barely talked - we both had lumps in our throat. They were helping us protect our children, we couldn't do anything to help find their son. Now, tonight he has been located! I pray he is emotionally alright.

Amazing that this happened today. My 13 year old son decided to get his hair cut - from long and stringy to short and stylish. When I first saw him I almost cried. My old son was back. Although taller, my son, prior to diabetes, was back. His old look, his old mannerisms. His long(er) hair hid his features. He had lost weight from a diabetes episode last year. I hadn't noticed over the past few months that he was gaining some of his weight back - in his face. But, as soon as I saw him with his hair short I realized he was. A wave of emotion came over me. Standing in the grocery store I kept hugging and kissing him, telling him how handsome he was. He asked if I was going to cry. He didn't resist my attention (which is rare these days). My old Alex was back - life was good. Then I come home and Bec calls to tell me that not only did they find Ben Ownby but Shawn Hornbeck as well. I can't imagine the wave of emotion the Hornbecks especially are going through right now. Here I am reacting crazy over a silly hair cut. Imagine how they are feeling. They get to hug and hold their son after 4 years. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

My thoughts and prayers are with those boys and their families. It's going to be a long road ahead but at least it's the beginning of a road back together. I'm so glad they were found!

Read More 2 comments | Posted by Cathy |

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I'm in love - again - but this time with something new.

iPhone. http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Check out Macworld San Francisco 2007 - Keynote Address:
http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/j47d52oo/event/

And, it's going to be with Cingular. Whooo Hoooo! I'm NOT even going to think how much this baby is going to cost. I think I need to update my wish list! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------->

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy |

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crazy day.

Crazy day!

Did bills in the morning (took ALL morning - YUCK!)
Picked up Chad from school for a 12:30 am dental appointment. Got there at 12:00 am and they were waiting for us. Got him right in and was done by 12:20 am. Go figure! How many times does this happen?
Ran to lunch and made a call to see if I could move up 3:30 pm ortho appointment for him. Success - moved it up to 1:45 pm.
1:45 pm appointment. Walked in, signed Chad in, went to do some paperwork (a/k/a write them a big check). Sat down in the waiting room less then 2 minutes and he was done! What is going on - should I get a lotto ticket or what?! (He just had to get spacers in. He gets BRACES next week!).
Ran back home and worked on a report I had to finish.
Finished it and ran out the door to take both boys to hockey practice. Alex was at 5:00 pm, Chad at 5:30 pm. Of course they are at two different rinks across town. Lucky for me John was able to meet us at rink #1 to take Chad to his practice. BUT, he had to leave for an appointment so it was my job to pick him up. Alex ended up having a 2 hour practice so I left him skating, ran to pick up Chad, came back to pick up Alex and rushed home.
On the way home, had to run by McDonalds because it's now 7:45 pm and no one has eaten!
Alex has now inhaled his food, is showering oh so fast and in 10 minutes we have to leave to take him to guitar lessons with his new instructor.
In the meantime, while waiting for Alex, I inhaled my food, checked my email and updated this blog.
I do believe while I'm waiting for Alex to finish his lesson I'm going to sneak over to Starbucks and enjoy my drink while I read the magazines I've been hauling around with me all day but haven't really had a chance to read them. Only thing is Starbucks may keep me up all night?!

Insane I tell you. Lucky for me, days this insane don't happen that often.

I've been told that I need to provide more pictures of Oscar. Kind of thinking he might need his own blog - LOL! Although that might have to wait for now I am kicking around an Oscar photo shoot. Maybe this weekend I can get him to smile for the camera.

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy |

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silly dog.

This is a picture of Oscar trying to come out through the cat door. He knocked out the actual piece that goes in the hole and attempted to follow Zoe's lead. Obviously it didn't work! This is the door that leads to our basement. I put the litter box in the basement and the cat door works great for allowing unlimited access to her "area". You should have seen John's face when he came home and caught me cutting a hole in our new door. He had fair warning though. I just don't think he thought I'd actually ever do it.

Yesterday was a good day. Some things that have been bothering me were resolved or addressed - turned out to be alright. Today will be a good day also - because I said so.

Last night I traveled to Costco and HomeGoods - what a fun time I had. At Costco I got two bottles of wine, gigantic bottle of Advil (not needed for the wine but for my neck), box of yummy encrusted tilapia and design software - Professional Home Design Suite Platinum Version 10 from Punch!. So excited about the software! I then traveled over to HomeGoods where I met up with Patti to check out some wonderful bulletin boards they had. I didn't end up getting one (they only had one in the size we liked) but I did end up picking up a fabulous leather (or is it pleather?) red file tote with some fun hanging files. I'm planning on using it for my design file - I keep pictures of things I like for that custom home we are going to have some day. I now just need to find the time to use the software and organize my design ideas. Maybe this weekend? How much of a dork would I look like if I took it and all my clippings to hockey tonight? One son has a game at 5:00pm and the other son has a game at 7:00pm. I have an hour to kill. ??? No need to answer - I already know what you are going to say. LOL!

Ouch!!! Note to self... being head butted in the shin by a rambunctious bulldog does not feel good - at all! I heard a *noise* in the other room and ran in there to see what Oscar was up to. He heard me coming and started running down the hall. He made a quick stop when he saw me but his body weight kept him coming directly at me and he ended up running into me as he slid down the hallway. It resulted in being head butted directly in the shin. OUCH! It's already starting to bruise! He's now in timeout - time to settle down.

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy |

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note to self.

note to self: photos printed at home do not hold up to dog licking.

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy |

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Blog makeover.

Couldn't sleep last night so decided to do a blog makeover. Pretty pleased with it so far. I'm thinking about changing the color combinations - to make it more my own - and possibly creating a fun header. Need to think about that one for awhile to get just the right one to start out with.

Something fun I saw on TV yesterday that I thought I'd share. For a long time I've had this fascination with being able to create molds and working with polymer clay - separate thoughts. Yesterday on DIY they had an episode where a prototype toy maker used polymer clay to create a bobble head of her own and then created a mold from it to use over and over again. She then showed how to use the mold to make a resin figure of her polymer clay creation. It was AWESOME! I have no idea how I will use this information but someday I will. My wheels are a spinning! Here's a link to the show. I think I need to put Silpak silicone molding material and Bresin casting compound on my wish list - seriously.

Photo courtesy of DIY Network.

This type of thing just gets me going. I think about all the absolute cool jobs that are out there that I know nothing about. It's all so intriguing and fun to think about. I had (still do as a matter of fact) an idea for an invention which lead me to looking into creating a prototype several years ago. One of the ways to create a prototype is by creating your own mold - as explained above. It's awesome that we live in this age where technology is everywhere. Having seen this done opens up all sorts of possibilities that I was stuck in by just reading the information. It's awesome.

OMGosh...

What happened to my blog? Why is my sidebar down at the bottom? I know HTML but this I can't figure out. Until such time I can get this fixed, please excuse the mess.

CathyZ's blog is back up and it's ironic that I should visit it this evening. Cathy's blog today was about a friend and neighbor of hers that passed away from cancer (melanoma). It's a beautiful tribute to her. I decided to visit her friends blog that is still up and was touched by reading her words and thoughts as she went through the last months of her life. It saddened me because I look at her two boys and I understand exactly what they are going through at this very moment, having lost their mom. Words absolutely cannot describe what they are feeling right now.

Same evening, few moments apart, I visit FORCE's website for our annual fundraising, awareness raising chat-a-thon. Our chat room is open and active 24 hours a day for two days straight. It's a unique and fitting event for FORCE. FORCE is a website about hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. It's for individuals that are interested in learning about how family history can play a part in breast and ovarian cancer and how there is a link between the two cancers. I'm a veteran of FORCE and have been on the board of directors of FORCE for many years now. Unfortunately I've had to take a break from active participation outside of my bod responsibilities for a couple years as my focus has had to be on our families business but I will be back in full FORCE soon enough. This evening at the chat-a-thon, conversations were being had about some dear FORCE friends who have passed and one who are currently ill. Just brings up a lot of feelings.

Ironic that two sites I go tonight are expressing those same feelings and thoughts. Of course it all makes me think of my mother, what I went through (which I will blog later about), family and friends. I've known way too many people who have been afflicted and affected by cancer; lymphoma, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, lung cancer, melanoma, throat cancer - to name only a few. Cancer is such as horrible disease. It robs people of so much. It sucks.

Ok - enough of that. To bring me back out of my zone I hear Oscar boy SNORING away LOUDLY in the other room. LOL! I have to say he makes me smile and giggle absolutely every day. He reminds me to slow down and enjoy the little moments. The way he sits on us, the way he holds his head. The way my boys (and dh) interacts with him. My dh asked Oscar to jump in his lap the other day while he was sitting in his new chair. That just doesn't happen! I just look at him and laugh. Someday I hope to capture in a picture what I see - so far I have been unable to do it. Then I move to Zoe and think just how pretty she is. Chad made a comment about how different they are and I told him we have beauty and the beast (a cute beast but one none the less). LOL! We laughed. I've always looked at my kids this way but it's fun to see animals in a new light. I'm think I'm turning into one of those crazy dog people. LOL!

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy |

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Bubble Gum and Bone.

I have been advised that it's time for an Oscar update so here goes:

Oscar likes to sit by our feet, to be more specific - on our feet. I'm in my craft room frantically wrapping gifts and making cards prior to Christmas and he is patiently sitting at my feet. I heard him chomping on something but didn't think to look down because I was content that he was not running around the house getting into mischief. Finally after about five minutes I couldn't take the sloppy chomping noise and decided I better check out what he is chewing on because I didn't see a bone anywhere. When I opened up his mouth he had a huge wad of gum he had gotten out of the trash can. He had been chewing on this for awhile! I couldn't help but laugh. I had to tell him firmly that if he was going to chew gum he had to use his manners and chew with his mouth closed! LOL! Too funny...

The picture above was his Christmas gift from Alex. He loves it. He can pick it up and carry it around. He gets it in the middle which is funny because he gets stuck a lot of the time.

Oscar is awesome and (knock on wood) is doing really good with potty training. It's been 3 weeks since an accident - maybe 4 weeks. We are starting to give him more freedom in the house and so far so good.

I'll upload more pictures soon.

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featured-content

Updates.

My oh my - a cherry eye.

My theory (one of them)...

Patti's friend.

They found them!

I'm in love - again - but this time with something new.

crazy day.

silly dog.

note to self.

Blog makeover.

OMGosh...

Bubble Gum and Bone.

Color Paper

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