funny

As I was previewing my post I noticed that my background looks almost exactly like my new shelf paper. I'm apparently seeing spots everywhere. The same spots!

life

It's been an interesting week and a half. Let's just say that shortly after I posted last I got sick. Ugh. Never a good thing. I was laid out for 4 days, and over a holiday weekend, too. I guess it was my turn, as the boys had all had the stomach flu over the past 2 weeks. I thought with my super (somewhat OCD) hand washing that I'd be able to bypass this one, but alas....
As movement was out of the question, I spent the 4 days (three days longer than any of them!!!) in bed READING! Of course.
I took the opportunity to read Stephenie Meyer's new book The Host. It was pretty good. Didn't like it as much as I liked the Twilight series, or maybe it was just me being sick?
It rained the whole weekend, which was a bummer. Not because I don't like rain, quite the opposite really. I was bummed that I didn't get to enjoy it. I'd have loved to have sat out in it. As it was I had to be happy with smelling that fresh, wet scent through my window and hear the patter against the roof. I'm hoping that wasn't the last we'll get for the summer (months and months of hot summer!)
By Tuesday I was raring to go. Being cooped up doesn't suit. I got busy with putting down shelf paper in my semi-new cupboards. Took me until this morning to get them all done. 16 cupboards, 43 shelves, didn't realize it was that much.... got some cute blue and brown polka dot contact paper. Now I just need to finish painting them. That is the 95% rule in effect there. Just about everything in this house is 95% done. It's that last danged 5%!(did I mention that I ran out of paper with one shelf left!!! That's 95%!) Ahhh well.
The weather this week has been blissfully cool. I think the warmest it got was about 82, but mostly in the low 70's. Gotta love it, cuz it won't last, but a girl can hope.
I've finally convinced Brock that it's ok to walk home now. It used to be that he'd complain the whole way about how long it took and why couldn't I drive. But just Thursday he told me that it was healthy to walk and it saved gas (yeah, he listens!)
I just about had a coronary when I had to fill up the suburban on Wednesday for $4.06 a gallon! ($4.06 x 42 gallon tank = no college fund for the boys!)Will it never end??

I got released on Sunday from the Stake Primary. That was a pleasant surprise. I really loved the calling the first year, but this year was going to require more public speaking and I don't like that, thus the pleasant, but we weren't in for even 2 years, that was the surprise. Hmm... won't think that one too much. Bishop is giving me a short break, we'll let you know tomorrow if its up yet.

I took about an hour today and did a page for the Sprague Challenge (went back to may week 2) Never done a challenge before and posted it. Was I supposed to incorporate all the colors from the swatch??? Well I didn't, but here it is, and it got me to post again so....

I took this picture on Tadhg's field trip to Hearst Castle. Can I say again how much I love the beach! maybe I'll try the 3 panel storyboard photoshop friday lesson from May 2nd for the seaweed? watch for it!

Whew!

Whew! O.K. apparently I do not blog unless I scrapbook. Good to know. A connection. Life has been hectic since we got back from our vacation. It was great, glad we went... more on that as I get to my pages. Believe me you'll probably hear about it way more than you want to!:D

I finally found an afternoon to document a "Brock" moment. I wish that I did this a little bit more (alright a lot bit more, and not just for Brock, but for all the boys). Sometimes the things that they do or say are just so darn cute or funny...you know!??
So this was one of his latest.


Completely unrelated to my boys, I finally got some "Bek" time. Well, I took it, whether I should have or not. I got a Sony Reader for Mother's Day. (Great present by the way, do they know me or what!!) I was really excited about the $50 credit and then completely stoked when I learned that I could get 100 free (FREE!!!) classics, my favorite. So can you guess what I've been doing....Yup, reading, ALOT! It is officially a sickness, I get into a book and it is very difficult to get me out. I carried that ebook all over. I read while I did my hair, vacuumed the carpet, ate, you get the picture. What was I reading...OHHHhh, yeah.

So I need to back up just a little. I went to Utah for a long weekend to hang with my beautiful, amazing, cool sister, who is no longer a kid, but this incredible career woman (and R.S. Pres! Heehee) I went back for Women's Conference with my mom and my auntie Annie, (career woman had to work :( ) That, by the was was so great, glad I could escape.
As I was perusing Camille's book shelf, looking for new fun stuff to read I saw that she had some of the Twilight books. I'd heard about them from a girl I know (yup Kellie it's you!) and have heard they are good, but I'm not into Sci-Fi and definitely not vampires and werewolves. (Didn't really care about wizards and elves and all that before Harry either, so go figure, maybe I need to expand my horizons, hmmm) Well she, (my cool sis) said they were great as did Katie. Then she said that my mom had borrowed the first, but had yet to read it. So I get home and talk to my mom and she said that she had started Twilight and that it was good, so..... with my $50 I bought the series for my reader. Unfortunately, I had sick kids for a few days and I still needed to finish Mansfield Park, which I'd been reading off and on for a few weeks. Friday I started reading ....I could not put it down!!! I got sucked in so deep. What an amazing author. I can literally feel these character's emotions. I finished the first book on Saturday waited a few hours ( I was feeling guilty...) to start the second. I stayed up real late and read, then woke up and read some more. Had more sick kids, felt guilty again, but had to start book three on Monday. Finished them all on Tuesday. Now I'm anxiously waiting for book 4. Good Grief. Like I need another obsession. Ahh well. Love it though.
Found the web site today and OH goodie.... there's a movie. Whoo-hoo!! And a chapter for a book on Edward. Devoured it. Yup, good. Will be waiting for that one too. Is it crazy to be in love with a fictional vampire? (me and every other 14 year old girl out there!) That was me shaking my head in exasperation.
You know it is really bad when I am willing to stay up late (9 is my normal late!!!) to read, or in this case write, 11:06....insane!

puerto rico

We arrived in Puerto Rico! Yeah! Our flight was long, and we'd been up for almost 40 hours straight, but we got here. We had this massively huge-muscled taxi driver with corn rows take us to our hotel. The drive was interesting.. and Curtis thought driving in L.A. was hairy!
Our hotel is a quaint little boutique place in Condado beach. I guess the area is going through revitalization. You can have a Gucci shop right next to a slummy mini mart, same with the hotels, etc. My first impression was....Scary! But after a local Puerto Rican dinner, sweet plantain stuffed with crab, (yummmmmmm!) we walked a bit and saw that in P.R. everyone is out. Either running, walking or just hanging out.
We felt much better about the area's safety so....
We stoped to look in a few other hotesl and found some cool ones. So far our favorite is La Conch, right across the street. The boys would have been in heaven. Way cool. We also stopped in at the Marriott, which as a hotel was not so cool, but they had all of these middle school kids playing the violin. Wow, were they good. Not only did they play they did dancing etc, while they played. Impressive, most impressive. Their shirts said Allegra string perfomance something... Wonder if they put out a cd?

vacation

finally!

I finally finished this challenge layout. I started it several days ago and just couldn't get it right. I set it aside and came back today and started over. The technique was for fading photos.

adventures with Tadhg

Yesterday, Tadhg and I had an adventure. I was able to go with him and the 6th grade classes on a field trip to Hearst Castle. I opted to drive, as opposed to riding the bus with 90 eleven and twelve year olds. Hmmm... hard choice. Tadhg decided to come with me and it was really nice. We stopped half way and got McDonald's breakfast. We had a nice drive. I got several "I love you"s and at one point he even reached over and patted my shoulder and played with my hair. He hasn't done that since he was a baby! Everything is really green right now and the mountains were spectacular. We say Morro Rock in the distance and the minute we came to the ocean both of us opened the windows as if on cue. Tahdg said, "You know what I love about the beach? The smell. I also like to play in the sand." That's my boy!
The tour of the castle was fun. It was a different tour than I had taken, oh 13 years ago, with Curtis and Gran on a CA visit during college. I took tons of pictures. Now I'll have to devise a page, or two. Tadhg was taking notes on what he saw that he wanted to duplicate at our house. Funny boy. I loved the pools and the grounds. I was surprised that he was so into the tour. He said we needed to come back with the whole family to take the other tours. Cool.
After the tour and the other kids were getting on the bus, Tadhg and I took off across the highway to W. R. Hearst state beach. You can't drive all that way and not play in the sand! The water was so clear and blue, not usual for California coast. It made me really excited for my beach vacation next week. Tadhg found all sorts of rocks on the beach that he said we just like the ones they were trying to sell at the gift shop. "They must come over here and get them, then shine them up." he said. He also found a ginormous piece of seaweed that had washed up. It was comical to watch him trying to drag it. With help he was able to budge it and then decided to set it free and tried to get it back out into the surf. The best part..."I'm really glad you chaparoned." Yeah!

long time been....

It's been a while since I last posted. Been busy with stuff. Little bit of scrapbooking, lots of other.

Finally, after about 3 years, we(Curtis and I) finished putting up the rock on the front of the house. It looks really nice now. One of about a dozen unfinished projects, done!

Cooked dinner last night. Amazing, I know. Found some recipes in BHG that looked good, Chicken thighs with artichokes and asparagus-leek risotto. Let's just say I made a big mess and burned the prosciutto and turned the risotto to mush. Caden informed me that the risotto was horrible and then Brock decided to agree and did the fake gag thing. Nice.

We went to the driving range to golf for family night. I had all of these grand ideas of taking some cool photos. I got down there with my nice camera, ready for business, except...Dun,dun,dun..no CF card. Bummer. No pictures.


Okay, to the scrapbooking...I spent almost all day yesterday on the phone with mom while I was working on this layout. We had fun working "together" 800 miles apart.



Brock was so funny this day. If you can read the journaling it kind of tells the story behind the pictures. I think it is so funny that Brock writes "letters" to tell you how he's feeling. Normally, it is a cute picture of him and me with a heart between us and then both of us circled. But as you can see here, when he is mad at you, you get crossed out! and there is definitely NO heart! Funny boy.

This other layout was my last lesson with Up & Running with Photoshop class. I have really enjoyed the last month of classes and I can't wait to take the next class in June.


I have found that I am seriously lacking in the picture department recently. I have mostly had to scrap from 2006. UGH! I need to get back behind that camera lens. I had to dig way back for this picture of Curt & I. 16 freakin' years! :P
who are those people anyway? I hardly recognize them!

This last layout was our Wednesday challenge, making a comic book-esque photo block. It was one of those pages that you just do. Not really excited about how it turned out, but at a loss on how to make it any better and at the time really couldn't have cared less. Loved the pictures of Brock He was so cute playing with Woody & Buzz. It's neat to see him as into them as Tadhg was. (note his name written on their feet, just like in the movie. He must have dug through the whole toy box and pulled out all the Woodys and Buzzes we owned. Gotta love it.

hiding

Today you will find me hiding out in my office. Our house is temporarily overflowing with 11 year old boys. It all started Wednesday night, when after scouts we had Nic and Nathan here while they were waiting for their parents to get back from mutual. They boys decided to play "hide & scare" (their version of hide & seek) where you turn off all the lights in the house and then try to "get" each other with dart guns. Needless to say, I was hiding out here that night too! Well, they all had sooo much fun that Tadhg concocted the idea of a mass sleep-over as soon as possible. Last night was the History night/wax museum project for all the boys at school and then today is the first day of spring break. So... I gave in.
When I venture out to feed ravenous animals or go potty, I must step over at least 100 darts, several sleeping bags and....is that sand in my rug!? Guess it goes with the flaming hot cheeto crumbs on the sofa. Now I remember why I don't do this very often. At least they keep each other entertained. Did I mention that a houseful of boys smells? Well, it does.
Now let's see if I can find another activity that will keep me sequestered to "my room".

what fun

I learned how to use templates today. Yipee! They are so fast and easy. It was almost a let down, in that it wasn't a challenging challenge, but boy was it fast and easy!

our home

As extra-credit, for a cookie, Jessica asked us to do the exact same page but with different paper and pictures. So......I did. Don't like this second one as much, maybe I'll try another "home" page. But here it is none the less. These were the pics I took earlier this week. Love that plum tree!

almost like Christmas

I pulled out my "big" camera the other day the other day to take some pictures of our home. I rummaged around in my camera bag and came up with a digital photo card, (as the camera was empty) took some pictures and then put it down for a couple of days. Sunday I finally got back to it and decided to download the dozen or so pics I'd taken. But when I stuck the card in the reader I got a nice surprise. About 75 pictures I'd forgotten I'd taken last summer. Some really cute ones too! Yeah for me! Well those sure came in handy for my Monday assignment.

The boys really did have fun up on Grampa Flynn's farm. When I showed the boys the pictures they said they wanted to go back. Gotta love the ATV.
Took St. Patrick's day cookies into class yesterday, felt it was only right, being Irish and all. I also found fun green socks for the boys to wear (wasn't sure we had anything else that was green to wear!), but they all surprised me. They all found a shirt that had a little green on it. I wasn't so lucky, ah well. No corned beef and cabbage here, I made chili. Not very Irish, but everyone ate it so...it works.

saturday night

Here I am and it is Saturday night. Sorry, I'm just sitting here at home, boring... I know. Actually, I have spent the last 2 days trying to organize my digital stuff. I didn't realize I had amassed so much. Thank goodness that 95% of it was FREE! Still *WHEW*. Now I can have some real fun.
No new pages, to busy organizing.
Tried a wheat free recipe today. I have had the "fixins" for about a week now, but couldn't muster the energy to make it. I think secretly I was afraid that after all the work my gluten free biscuits would be disgusting! Well they weren't great, but nothing like the biscuits I'm used to. But they were the first bread that I have had in 2 weeks. Maybe that made them taste better. Who knows. I'm not much for cooking normally, but I think this new way of eating will change that. Have to. Maybe I'll break out and dust off my bread machine. You think it will still work after 12 yrs? Sad.

oops!

You'd think that after staring at his beautiful face all day I wouldn't forget about him, but sure enough. I did. I was so wrapped up in this layout that I forgot to pick him up at scouts. I happen to look at the clock and HOLY COW! it's 4:43. Scout's has been over for half an hour! Good thing he's 1. close 2. at my good friend Allison's house 3. she's understanding! (I might have to think about a 12 step program if I get any more addicted to this!) But the layout is cute, right?? At least he liked it. He also told me that Scout's is way more fun when I forget him!:-)

craziness

The last few days have been crazy busy, there are so many things I want to do and an even greater number of things I NEED to do, I feel like I am running in circles to get even a fraction of them done. I find I am being sucked into this digital scrapping and it is so time consuming. I am staying up way too late and neglecting so many things, but it is a compulsion to do the challenges and watch the classes and finish the pages.
So nearly 5 days later, I am done with my photoshop friday circle page! My super Brock. What a funny boy! He cracks me up with his super powers , which change to meet each situation. You never know when a "power" will kick in and you have to be very observant to know when you may call him Brock and when you MUST call him...Salamander! Tricky. I've tried to get him to use his super powers to get him moving faster in the mornings and he tells me that he's running out, that he only has 3 left and he needs to save them. Oh well, I tried.
I've been trying to get these boys to get ready for school faster, in anticipation of the "Grammie" week. It really is ridiculous that it takes them 45 minutes to get up, dressed and brush their teeth. I've resorted to being mean! I time them and then ..remove..privileges when they don't meet their mark. So far, not working so great, only had one day (out of 5) that they were done early. We'll keep working. I think daylight savings is to blame!!(can I blame it for everything?)
Well, I must sleep or I won't be able to get up!!!

me again

Okay, just a quick funny. I had written then I went back and set up my profile. As I was filling in my "about me" thingy I was typing away and wrote monkier instead of moniker, I guess both would have been right, as I have several monkeys in my home!

in the beginning....

Okay, it may soon be obvious that I have no idea what I am doing here, but I'll figure it out someday. I am starting this blog spot so I can post the digital pages I am learning with Jessica Sprague in her Up & Running with Photoshop class. My experience with blogs are/is minimal (like I said.. OBVIOUSLY!) so any tips or pointers are welcome. Who reads this anyway?

I guess I can use it like a journal, not that I'm very good at that. I think the last time I wrote in one was hmmm....15 years ago before my life became so ...well....not my own. I'd say I have very little time for journal writing, but I guess it's all just a matter of priorities. I think I'd rather sleep, or read or a bunch of other things, but... then I'd have a really boring blog page so maybe this will be the way for me to be better about documenting my life. Didn't someone say that if you didn't write it down then it didn't really happen? Who knows.

My blog life then starts today.

We were very nearly late for church. I did remember to set my clock ahead, but that didn't mean that the other 4 people in my house were ready to get up at what would have been 6 in the morning to get ready. I think the bishop took pity on us and gave us a 10 minute grace period. Believe it or not we even got to sit on the benches and not the folding chairs in the cultural hall (something I detest.) Hmm. guess we weren't the only ones who were late.

Caden my sweetheart demonstrated his skills with the "ladies" today. As I was leaving I stopped to talk to Cheyenne (a little girl who was in Caden's school class last year) and noticed that she was holding a daffodil. When I got to the car someone (doesn't really matter who, not that I would have paid attention anyway) tattled that Caden had given her a flower and told her she was hot. (nice!) Oh and by the way, mom here's a flower for you too, says Caden. He does know how to charm, doesn't he?? He then informed me that my daffodil was better. It had an orange center and not just plain yellow like Cheyenne's. (glad to see he knows who rates higher, at least for now!)

I was able to take another walk around the neighborhood today. The weather has been so perfect. This really is my favorite time of year. Everything is so GREEN! I wish it could be like this all year round. It was so warm ( and has been for the last week or so) that I even had to water my plants (so soon, surely not yet...we need more rain!) Let's see if I can keep them through the summer.

I'll see if I can post my first 2 digital assignments. More later...