Too much - that's what! Some of what I've been up to lately includes (but is not limited to):










Off to find pictures of hairstyles!

NOTE: I have having a HARD time with the spacing on Blogger. Please excuse it's mess. It isn't me!

This weekend was fabulous. DH, myself and DH's Aunt "Honey" went estate sale shopping. Well, actually, dh went to one estate sale and then Honey and I promptly dropped him back off at home and we went back out. Love him but he isn't much fun to go out with because he doesn't like driving around. He wants all the sales to be next door to each other, like garage sales. lol. So, he stayed home and helped the neighbors with their individual sales - it was our subdivision garage sale weekend. I can barely stand going to garage sales anymore. Estate sales and auctions give me the thrill I'm searching for. (Although having said that I did attend a neighbors sale because I heard she was selling power tools. Another fav of mine. I picked up a Dewalt scroll saw for a very sweet price! Seriously sweet.).


This weekend I changed things up a bit and used our TomTom instead of printing out directions on MapQuest. It worked beautifully!

- First, I circle in the newspaper the sales I want to attend.

- Second, I input the addresses in the TomTom.

- Third, I go into each addresses using TomTom and find out how far away they are from my current location. I mark that information on the actual ad itself. If some are too far away I will re-evaluate the ad to see if it's one I still want to go to.

- Fourth, I mark on the ad's the order that I want to go to, starting with the one furthest away. This way when I'm out I don't have to think. I just follow the #'s indicated. When we are leaving a sale I just navigate quickly to the new address. What's great about this system is the TomTom always knows where I'm at. So when I'm at sale #3 and want to go to sale #4 I just pick the address of sale #4 and it gives me door to door driving instructions from sale #3. It's AWESOME! And with my system, by the time we reach the last sale, we are close to home.

I wish I could tell you I found that special piece but I didn't. Picked up a few wire baskets and a couple date stamps but that was it. Here are a few pictures from the trip of houses we went to and items I looked at but didn't want to pursue:

To finish the day off I went to Three French Hens. I've never been there before and had always wanted to go but was never really sure where it was. When I ran into it I knew I was going to have to make a stop. While I was there I caught my eye on these two pieces. These can be custom made to size and I've been thinking of something like this for our TV. A really long and low piece. I wonder if I can make it? Hmmmm. Maybe I could use my scroll saw.

And, as a follow-up. A few days ago I expressed my feelings for our local DMV office. Such a dreary, ugly place... yet, there is a very large, gold, ornate frame of the Gov. Blunt which I found so out of place. I did have to go back and this time taking a picture of it was a priority (I'm sure the guy standing behind me wondered what the heck I was doing!). Here it is:


Isn't that funny? Normally I crop my photos - I prefer close-ups. But, in this case, I wanted to show the contrast. Actually, this wall is the nicest in the whole place. You should see the door they cut out of the wall (on the wall to the left of this picture). They literally cut the door out and have not trimmed it. Nor did they make a neat, clean cut. Such an inspiring place to work I'm sure.

A few photos I have captured over the past month that have tweaked my interested:

Love the floors, love the open floor plan, love the windows, love the colors and contrast, just plain love it.


This reminds me of my mom so I love it. Been toying with the idea of creating a real terrarium with moss and stuff. Have I ever told you how much I love moss? It's odd I know but I had a moss encounter when I was little and going thru some tough times that meant a lot to me. Will share in another post. (Have I peeked your interest?)

Today was a snow day and this came in the mail. Unfortunately I did work a lot today and wasn't able to sit down and read it until this evening but it was well worth the wait. I highly recommend this book. Happy to say I'm not "toooooo" far off from what she recommends. Need to let what I've read process and see what changes I may want to make.

What I really like is that she has developed a system that once in place it allows photos to flow thru it to be pulled out and used in a flexible manner. Some photos will be scrapped, some will not (archived but available to be pulled back out and put back into pending mode). It made me realize that scrapbooking is a process of documenting our lives (I know that's be said 100 times) and although I may get get "done" with some of my photos, but I will always have photos. I will never be 100% done. So why not set-up a system that allows this process to happen in a creative and flexible way. The best part, is if I decide for awhile to take a break from doing actual pages, I would still have a good place to store my photos for those moments when I'm ready to pick it back up again.

On a sidenote, ran into HomeGoods the other day and snapped a couple pictures of pieces that caught my attention. I just *heart* HomeGoods. Love rounding the corner of each aisle to see what goodies I might find. This first piece would be a wonderful addition in a large scraproom as a worktable. It's basically standing height which I can't believe but I'm warming up to. I do not need this, nor do I have space for it, as I'm using my huge, old drafting table that I found at an estate sale now as my work surface which is working out very well. But, this is the first alternate table that has me drooling. If only I had that HUGE loft workspace I have designed in my head. This would be perfect for another work station!

Isn't it special?! Oh, and this for our backyard would be lovely. Unfortunately it's a bit costly and it wouldn't fit the space anyway but I snapped a shot of it for inspiration:

• When I go to get my nails done and the person that comes in after me gets called before me. (And, they didn't have an appointment or request a specific person!)




• When the nail salon keeps telling me it will be only five more minutes. Please, I've had my nails done for over ten years. I know what stage your at and the length of time it takes to get it done!




• That Brittany Spears hair somehow has grown a lifetime lengths in no time. I understand that she probably has hair extensions but how did her hair even grow fast enough to the proper length to get hair extensions? Do you think it's a wig?

Hope it doesn't sound like I'm in a bad mood, actually I'm in a really good mood - just some random thoughts and events that happened to me this morning. I'm off to scrapbook before going to get my hair done today. I have a new goal of creating 5 pages a week. I'm onto page 4. Yeah! Will post pictures once the five are done.

Desire to Inspire is a website I frequent often and today I clicked thru to May December Home Accessories and stumbled upon this... their announcement of NaNaDaMo. This translates into National Nap a Day for a Month. Here's a blurb from her blog:

These are all things on my mind lately, not in any particular order. I have decided this holiday season is not going to get the best of me. I refuse to let things get out of control. Although I have made a tentative Christmas gift list and begun shopping I haven't really done it justice yet. The end of this week (and *gasp* weekend) will be the time most of it will be done (I think). Next week will be mostly a wash because I'm going to be out of town for four of the days - going to the San Antonio Breast Cancer Conference to represent FORCE. Such a great time, feels good to help make a difference. Most everyone I'm shopping for doesn't "need" anything - my boys included. I asked for a Christmas list and believe it or not they had a hard time putting one together. Seems like I'm the only one not having a hard time this year. LOL!

Our family just bought our first - how do I say? - religious cd. Was that politically correct? Makes my soul smile that Alex has already downloaded it to his iPod and while Chad did ALL his homework tonight (3 days worth - he missed last week) we had to listen to Track 2 (Song of Hope) of the Robbie Seay Band too many times to count and way to loud for him to adequately get his homework done. This song was sang at our Sunday service and obviously made an impression on our entire family. So fun to be going down this path together. The boys are enjoying it as much as dh and I are. Yeah for us!

Finally made a dent in my kitchen project this weekend - getting 98% of the trim work done. Not going to worry about lighting or crown molding trim, that can be done later. I have to run out in the next couple days and get a few more pieces of trim to finish up. Then onto staining and painting. That will be the easy part compared to what I just did. Seriously. All I have to say is I'm loving our table saw - yes, I think I have a good grasp on how it works now. Been ripping some boards baby! And, my absolute favorite tools are my numatic nailer (with air compressor) and my bitty baby pry bar. Now, Oscar doesn't have the same fondness for the numatic nailer. He still doesn't "get it" and barks every time I bring it out - which is a lot! (Oh, can't forget my other favorite tool - the bitty hammer my dh made when he was in tech ed in either junior high or high school. This has been "my" hammer for too many years to count. Such a favorite of mine I used to tell him that if we ever got divorced this was the only thing of his I wanted. LOL! Really that is meant as a compliment!).

Only complaint I have right now is our home office tech (work) did some "configuring" of my computer and my keyboard is "off". I'll be typing a way and my cursor will end up a paragraph or so above where I'm typing. Really messes things up. I have no idea how to fix it either. Any suggestions?

Happy holidays to all - and best of luck shopping to each and every one of you. Enjoy the season!

Ok, feeling better - not 100% but much better. Having some residual issues from being sick (which I will spare you the details) but that didn't stop me from working on a Sunday project while the boys were gone for 3 hours today at skating school. I completed my version of an inspiration board - well in my case an inspiration wall. I turned one entire wall in "my room" into a cork board. Unfortunately, I haven't taken pictures yet because I'm still cleaning it up. I also added a couple bookcases in there and hung up some stuff on the other wall. I do not have drapes in there yet but have picked out the fabric I will be using, which matches my inspiration wall perfectly. It will all make sense once I can attach some photos.

Also, was able to attend church this morning. Since we are new, we don't know anyone yet, so that made it really easy to attend and leave without worrying about talking with anyone when not looking my best. It was a great service but very sad. When we left dh asked Alex if mom was crying the entire time. He said, "Of course!" (We didn't sit by each other). It was about troubles in life and how we deal with them. They told the story of a young boy in our community who was a top ice hockey player and was in a simple car accident on the way to school (in carpool) and he was the only one injured. So much so he is still in a coma five months later. They go to this church and the boys father got up on stage and talked to everyone. It was amazing, so sad but so much hope.

Resting now, getting ready for a day of work tomorrow. Have some phones to get installed at the office and some work that needs to get done that I wasn't able to get to last week due to fil in hospital and then my being sick. Here's to a productive week to all!

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!!!!

Missy, I know we have never met but I feel like I know you a bit. I heard from a little blue bird that you wished you would have gotten one of these at the local Komen Race. Well, I scored one for you! See below:






Patti will deliver it to you next time she sees you. Enjoy!


P.S. We can thank my father-in-law for this little beauty. He walked/ran in the race and got one. He isn't too fond of pink so it founds it's way to me. I thought of you immediately! It comes with it's own set of pink bunny ears.

What is the proper blog etiquette for posting different random thoughts? Up until now I have posted what ever was on my mind at each setting. But, I have recently been really into design blogs (see links on the sidebar for some of my new favorites). With most of these blogs they are doing a seperate entry for each topic. I used Bloglines to keep all new blog entries at my fingertips and it's common for many of the design blogs to have 5-6 new entries per day. My question, what is the proper etiquette? I rarely have only one thought or theme I want to share each day. Would you rather read one entry with a variety of thoughts or one entry per thought? Today I will try to one entry per thought. Here goes...

My dh has been out of town since Monday. He was supposed to be back this evening but his plane was cancelled due to mechanical issues. Unfortunately this means he won't be home until tomorrow afternoon now. Even though I'm very happy he wasn't on a defective plane I am ready for him to come home. Getting ready to call it an early night and ran across this YouTube video reminding me of him . Thanks Hostess with the Mostess for sharing this video so I too can share. Warning, warm fuzzies all over this!

In the spirit of Donna Downey's recent posts over the past week I'm feeling a bit of the ick. Can't put my finger on it but I think I've run myself down. Been working really hard this past week and not getting a lot of sleep. The past couple of days haven't felt quite right. Not super ick but ick-ish. I'm trying to ignore it because my life and activities must continue. Next thing on my list is getting ready for a party for a neighbor who is moving. Just got back from the g-store and HomeGoods where I picked up a wonderful frame that I will modify as a gift for our moving neighbors. We are going to take a culd-e-sac photo of everyone (including them) in front of their house and our gift to them will be the framed photo. Will post the final outcome for the fun of it.

No photos to share at this time. Haven't had my camera out all week! Sorry.

Ok, I've been down on Walmart since moving back home. The one by us was horrible and we just quit going. I had heard a new one opened up somewhat close to us (a bit out of the way) but I hadn't had a chance to go there just yet. Actually, never remembered it was there. Today was different. I worked all weekend and finally just hit the wall. Had a not good moment and decided to leave the house to pick up some zippers I need for some pillows I want to make. (When I'll have time to actually figure out how to sew them is totally another question). None-the-less, I needed zippers as the last piece for the pillows. Unfortunately there isn't a sewing notions store anywhere close - or was there? I suddenly remember the new Super Walmart. I had heard rumors that it was decent, not like the other one. Off I went. Got into my super cool speedy little car, ready to escape my dungon home office and off I went - to find zippers.

As I got closer I kept remembering what it was like to go to Walmart in IN when I did my grocery shopping there. I remembered back then thinking how odd it was (and not quite right) to be doing grocery shopping at Walmart. But, it was so convenient and the food was just fine. I didn't always shop there but if I needed more items (other then groceries) it became a very convenient place to go. As I continued to drive and think about the past good feelings started filtering in. Feelings of being independent and grown-up. Feeling like I could be who I wanted to be or find who I was because we had no pre-conceived notions of who we were anymore having left home and not knowing anyone. (I know all of this just going to pick up zippers - go figure!)

Then I was there. It's jam packed - after all it's the weekend. My normal senses would have prevented me from attempting this on a weekend but I had to get out of the house so this wasn't a bad thing. I walked in and immediately felt a tad bit better - because of the greeter. He made a point of looking me in the eye - actually following my eye as I walked past - to say this very long but nice greeting to me. Something normally I wouldn't have paid much attention to but quite honestly needed it at that very moment (sad I know - LOL!). I felt a little better but then decided that was quite silly afterall this was just Walmart. People hate them afterall. So I continued. I grabbed a kart all the while noticing how this was a pretty nice Walmart. Didn't look dirty and questionable people there. The items were looking pretty up to date. What's up with this Walmart? I realized at that moment that it's been A LONG TIME since I've been to one.

To make a could be very long story short, I had a very pleasant experience there. I will be back. I will buy groceries there. I won't go all the time but I definately will go a lot. The key I believe is the Super part of Walmart, and that it's NEW. AWESOME.

I've been working for 12 hours straight. I did take a small breaks to break up the boys from breaking the house. LOL! We've had a house full of boys today. Lots of fun. I really want to keep working but my brain is about to turn to mush. Going to stop soon; have a glass of wine, watch a movie with the boys and eat some ravioli's (and I wonder why I keep gaining weight). Anyway... still a good day.

I have a good photo of the day idea but can't take the actual photo now - you will understand later. I'm thinking (Patti and Tammy) that for the weekends we could have a photo of the weekend, instead of each day. What do you think?

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Ours has been so far. Will share soon.

... 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!

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.