Caffeine Induced

Button Up!

2012-01-27T14:43:00.000-08:00

Emily and I are the proud owners of a button maker. The price is outrageous, but she plans on making money with it. I plan on making a button out of every single thing I can find.

Here I've used an old dictionary and a 'vintage' Peanuts book.

This is my little me that Emily drew. I see so many possibilities.

Soup and Stuff

2012-01-26T13:22:00.000-08:00

I'm still keeping up to my lessons in Body Restoration. It's week 3 and I'm so happy to be caught up. It's hard but I'm enjoying the process. The lessons get you thinking about how hard we are on ourselves to look like everyone else.

I'm not dieting, but I'm trying to get control of my diet. I'm going to the dr. next week to see about my options, some allergy testing, and maybe medication.

In the mean time, I journal everything I've been eating and how I feel afterwards. Monday was a bad day and all I can think is that maybe I had too much dairy the day before.

Thank goodness for things like gluten free cream of chicken with quinoa pasta soup. I'm thanking Shaun and Cobbs for the mini sour dough loaf, but my tummy didn't thank anyone for it afterwards.

Home made clam chowder. Thank you very much. Kerry said he was never eating it from a can ever again. Cream biscuits. Yes, too much dairy.

Butternut squash soup, this time with a little ginger and thyme. Was a huge hit. Sour dough croutons.

The list. I can't even pronounce what FODMAP stands for but it seems to be helping. I can eat an Arby's sandwich and fries, I can eat almost anything orange, but I can't eat a bowl of lettuce. Life is cruel.

With all my days off, (I traded with someone so I worked a few close together but I don't work again for about 2 weeks), we have been doing the menial stuff. Washed all the cupboards, top and bottom, but didn't do the insides. Took 5 boxes of things to Salvation Army. Feels good to get that stuff out of here.

We also cleaned out 2 large boxes of the kids' school work that we'd been saving. We thought they'd want it later in life. Then I remembered I didn't want the stuff my mom had saved so whey would my kids want this stuff. We asked them and sure enough, they didn't care. We sorted it, kept a few things, and got rid of the rest. But this little gem...Emily's handy work, we had to keep it.

I made these for tonight. M-R's birthday was last week and she's coming over tonight. I felt like making Creamsicle cupcakes from scratch for her. I had a bite yesterday afternoon and almost instantly had stomach cramps and goosebumps. I so want one tonight.

Body Restoration, a BBQ, and lack of coffee humour.

2012-01-16T15:02:00.000-08:00

I am very fortunate to be taking the Brave Girls course called Body Restoration. I need it right now. My body needs it right now. It's not a comfortable place to be.
With all the dietary issues I've been having over the last 6 months, I am at odds with my body and food. I think I should be able to eat fruits and veggies, my body doesn't think so, it rebels, it causes me grief. This goes against everything I've ever known about trying to lose weight and maintain a healthier lifestyle. I want salad so badly. I want grapefruit juice, I've never been much of a juice drinker but all of sudden, it's what I want, but the side effects aren't worth it.
I've given up coffee {gasp}, my one and only cup a day. Which means I've given up my sugar in it too. This may be the reason I am not as sweet as I was 8 days ago. I am drinking tea, black tea, with caffeine in it. Only benefit I can see right now to giving up coffee might be the money we are saving on Tassimo cups, and maybe the fact I might be less acidic. But that could be due to the medication I'm taking too.
I'm not doing the course to lose weight, if that happens, great, I'm doing it to get my body on track, feeling better about eating, and to feel more comfortable with myself. And if I make some beautiful artwork while I'm at it, then it's win-win! The above is the first assignment, and if it's a little 'Silence of the Lambs', that's on purpose. It wouldn't be me if it wasn't a little tongue-in-cheek.

A new addition....as of Christmas, thanks to mom and dad.

Our old bbq was free, and we had 2 of them so we gave one to mom and dad. They were small, but they worked and were free, did I mention that? This sucker is huge! Has no sides, so no burns on the wrists! It has a burner, for frying onions according to Kerry. It has a handy cupboard below it for hiding the tank and oh, I don't know, maybe your bike headlight so that when you really need it, you look high and low and everywhere else only to decide it's lost forever. Then when you are lighting the bbq so your wonderful wife can try to prove you wrong that the bbq really isn't hotter than the old one and everything burns, you discover that you put your light in the cupboard. And then you worry that you have Alzheimer's because your wife just finished reading Still Alice and told you you have Alzheimer's.
Anyways, The BBQ is heaven sent. Matches the house too. Needs a cover, which is nearly impossible to find in the winter. And if you are wondering about dietary issues and the BBQ, I can eat meat. And meat I will eat! I can't wait to smoke a brisket on this baby!
And yes, my flowers are dead. It's still life.

The hardest part about blogging is coming up with titles.

2012-01-11T13:58:00.000-08:00

I've put my 50mm f/1.4 back on my camera. I did it just before Christmas knowing 2 things...

1. the 24-70mm is darn heavy to be packing around during the holidays, I need my arms for presents and food.

2. f/1.4 is totally awesome for low light situations, f/2.8 is not. (Jimmy Fallon said I need to use awesome less, therefore it's stuck in my head and I want to use it all the time.)

I have kept the lens on out of sheer laziness now, and as I document my everyday with it, I remember how much I love it.

We received some interesting items this Christmas...Shaun's page-a-day calendar is counting us down to the end of the world. A small change from the zombie-fact-a-day calendar of 2011. It's a great way to start the day.

I gave one of these thought-a-day journals to myself, Heather and Marg for our Project Life journaling. I find it so hard to write a thought a day. I also found I have to have the perfect pen to write, and I have the worst handwriting in the world, so it's a work in progress. I want to not write "I have a stomach ache" every night so ....

We are not dieting, I'm sure I've mentioned my non-resolutions and the feelings of let down that go with resolutions when they aren't followed. Anyways, it's not a resolution, it's a life style change. I need to eat healthier so we are following a bit of Clean Eating, getting out the processed foods, etc. And eating with common sense. We bought this creamy chicken soup with quinoa pasta and it is so good, I decided to put it in a cute little sour dough loaf from Cobs. This was a bad choice. I soon discovered that if I want to not write "I have a stomach ache" in my journal, I should not eat so much sour dough.

Speaking of interesting gifts...Mrs. Purkis got this wonderfully interesting and very amusing Flavorwave Turbo Oven. It's endorsed by Mr. T! How could it not be useful? I pity the fool that looks into the light.

No models were injured during this photoshoot. Some lost their eyesight for 2 hours, and some had mild 3 degree burns on one side of their faces.

A visitor, some wreaths, a New Year, and a whole lot a links.

2012-01-09T09:19:00.000-08:00

I could go on and on about how I haven't been blogging, and how I really want to change that, but I really have no excuse, and can't make any promises that I will be regularly blogging.

I worked a lot before New Years and am so glad to have lots of days off. There's so much that doesn't get done when you work, even if it is part-time, it was almost every day.

This year, we had a special guest. My brother. He surprised everyone the week before Christmas and stayed till Christmas day.

Mom had been itching to make wreaths, from Shelley's tutorial. She made my brother make one too.

They are so easy and so beautiful, they make great gifts. Jussy made one for our aunt.

I think mom is selling her wreath.

I made this one for Jenn for Christmas.

It's shots like this that have me wanting to paint my kitchen and maybe whole house lighter colours. Poor Kerry. I picked up paint chips yesterday and will hold off on the paint purchase for hopefully a few days.

I'd love to paint the cupboards, but I'm so afraid to. Although I think sometimes it can't be any worse than it is. After going to the Jinky workshop and seeing the bright, airy-ness of white walls got me thinking about our colourful but dark rooms. Painting the house for better indoor photos is something to laugh about, but I'm dead serious about it.

I'm going to really try this week to eat 'cleaner'. I've been having more problems, since having the stomach flu after New Years. Today, I did not have coffee. I had tea. I also had brown rice. I bought a giant bag of prunes from Costco, they are the plumpest ones I've ever had. This eating clean is going to kill me.

In other news...I did not pick one little word, I never do, but it does intrigue me. I can't commit to one word for 366 days. But I am going to do Project Life again. I know I'm not done 2011, and I'm okay with that. I think the social aspect is one of the things I loved about doing it. (if you are reading this Marg and Heather, please let's make concrete dates and never be allowed to change them)

I also am not doing any of the photos a day, project 366, type of things. I wanted to but being sick, I didn't get to start when I would have liked to. I'll just be happy with my Project Life.

And....I thought I would never get an e-reader. I love books too much. But after purchasing some photography books, pdfs, and such I realized how much I do not enjoying sitting at the computer reading and how much ink and paper I waste. So I bought a Kobo Vox and promptly found out that newly released electronic gadgets need time to work the kinks out. I hated every single minute I owned that thing. Sure it's lovely being in colour, but I could't easily do anything on it. I did not get an ipad, as it's expensive, although someone might be eligible to get one in the spring, I just don't need the internet access, and all the bells and whistles, I just want to read, besides, as well as having a giant mac downstairs, we have a macbook so if I want to go on-line, I'd use that. So I went back and traded the Vox in for a Kobo Touch, way easier! Love it. I have only had it a few days and have read at least 4 books. I'm hoping it will cut down on my magazine addiction too, although I can't seem to get the magazine on to the Kobo. I also plan to get an iphone when my blackberry contract is up.

Tomorrow is my Friday, and I have big plans for the rest of the week.

Well, that explains it all.

2011-12-29T13:21:00.000-08:00

The kids come by their un-photogenic-ness naturally.

Add to the mix a husband that is laughing to hard to hold the camera and you get a bunch of scary photos of me at Christmas.

I have given up Cheezies and other corn based products. Every time I go to my parents' house I ask if they have any Cheezies. Mom bought a bag just for me. Sadly, Emily ate most of it.

It wouldn't be the same without them.

2011-12-18T10:36:00.000-08:00

We have a long standing tradition of the taking of the Christmas photo. This is the photo I'd love to have done before 7 days till Christmas, maybe I'd like to be one of those people that sends out Christmas photo cards. But to get all the people in the same room while it's still light out is impossible. So here we are a week before the big day.

Sally's pretty good about the whole picture taking thing, she knows camera+mom=treats. She helped get the settings done. But then factor in the big dog, the fact I just had to use my 50mm f/1.4 lens, and my walls are dark blue, and all hell breaks loose.

This year, the dogs opted for jester type neck wear. They said reindeer antlers hurt their heads. They thought the looking up and to the side pose was a good one, they are contemplating what goodies they will get for Christmas.

These to on the other hand, wouldn't sit close to each other, hence the slightly out of focus boy. Neither would look at the camera at the same time, or smile, or open their eyes. So many things wrong. But...this is the tradition, Christmas photos at our house are goofy, full of laughs, and if I learned anything in the last 2 years, it's "Expectations reduce joy!"
The girl had all her hair cut off this week, about 3 inches. Super cute, when she combs it.

These two...Even Linus has to admit, as much as he would love to be a lap dog, he's just not so sure there's a lap big enough for him. I love how all his paws are up in the frame.
There are a few photos of me but they are pretty nasty.

10 days!

2011-12-15T12:18:00.000-08:00

December 15th. 10 days till Christmas. We are not ready.
I have not died. Although after healing up from my epic stair descending fail, I caught a cough, it's been 5 weeks and one day. I've offered to give it away, and no one will take it.

I helped Heather at the Benvoulin Craft sale, another successful year! I love that sale.

I have become obsessed with making these wreaths and garlands, watch the tutorial, by Shelley. I went to school with her, mom worked with her mom, her sister is my neighbour, although we've never been formally introduced. The cream one is my mom's, the rose one is my mother-in-law's. I made them each one for no good reason. I ran out of supplies before I could make mine and I haven't had time to start it because I have gone and done something mighty stupid. I got an "outside the house" job. Part-time at London Drugs. I am not adjusting well. Maybe payday will help.
I also made the garland and would like to make the other things Shelley shows tutorials for but I have to be realistic, it's probably not going to happen. I did notice her sister has a nice wreath on her front door, might be on mine if I don't get one done.

I went to an awesome scrap booking retreat with a great group of ladies! Had so much fun and even got stuff done. And the food was amazing.

I only have one regret...I told Karen I felt bad that she only got to work on her Christmas cards at the retreat while everyone around worked on layouts, mini albums, She Art, etc. Now, Karen has finished, and probably mailed Christmas cards. I have nothing.

Discovered I can't eat lettuce, my body doesn't like it, at all. Even though I like.

Had a group of 11 teen girls make sock cupcakes. I wished I had a round cupcake holder, and contemplated buying the Cricut cartridge, but then realized I'd probably never use it again.
I've also discovered that life doesn't end if you fall asleep at 8 and don't get to watch Criminal Minds, CSI, or Law and Order:SVU. With no PVR anymore, I can't even record my favourites, and oddly enough, I'm okay with it.

Hopefully, I get back here before Christmas. If I don't, I hope my 2 readers have the best Christmas ever!

2 weeks to catch up on

2011-10-26T14:26:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day I haven't felt the stiffness in my hips and have been able to get a few things done. Tip for anyone with stairs: if you fall down them, make sure you have a good 2 weeks to recuperate.

Details of my fall....first let's go back a few days before to my first trip to Emergency.

I had major pain on my left side under my ribs all day. After dinner, it was so bad I couldn't sit or lay down, I had major heart burn the day before. I spent 3+ hours standing in ER. A bunch of tests were done and some thing pointed to possibly having a kidney stone, but there wasn't a stone. I'm going for more tests. I have not been in pain since but am on 'diet' that includes Metemucil, acidophilous, plant enzymes and an avoidance of raw veggies and greasy foods.

That was Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend.

Thursday, I was home alone and fell off the 3rd step from the bottom of the cement basement. I landed on 4 hardwood stairs. I don't think I have ever instantly cried when I've hurt my self like I did then. I could not stand up to get back up the stairs. I crawled up, called Kerry, then mom to pick Emily up, and waited. I probably should have called 911. I didn't want to go back to the ER and probably complained more about that than anything. I could not walk in so a nice woman got me a wheel chair.

I have learned that pain in the 'chest' area and not being able to walk into ER get you in much faster.

I got a nice room, some nice machines hooked up to me, and lots of attention. X-rays said maybe a tiny bit of vertebrae chipped off but it was too hard to tell. I had pain between shoulder blades, middle back, lower back and hips, 4 stairs. And a giant purple goose egg just off my spine.

I had morphine for the first and hopefully last time. ( I may have said I was dying from the poison shot into my shoulder and that I could feel said poison coursing through my veins to my heart.) And percocet, which isn't worth it, makes me itchy and nauseous, and didn't seem to do much for the pain.

The doctor said to take it easy for a week, hot and cold compresses, Tylenol and Advil, and lots of attention. I go that from my friends! All kinds of goodies, the favourite being mini chewy Sweetarts and Pringles, which helped with the nausea. I lost .9 of a pound, go figure.

Sleeping is difficult, I can't roll over without pain, but last night was the best sleep in 2 weeks!

The couch potato-ing was only made bearable with the help of a 2 pieces of fruit! Apple and Blackberry! Love having a laptop, moving the imac was not an option!

The worst part.... I couldn't carry the weight of my camera with the 24-70mm lens on it. So all my shots are with the 50mm f/1.4. I remember why I love that lens.

Here's a little bit of what I managed to do, some from the couch and some with slow painful movement.

We decorated the Halloween tree. Yes, we have a tree for Halloween.

I made an owl hat from the couch. My handstitching is improving.

And a Pikachu for my friend's daughter.

Got 25 of these put together, from the couch.

Today, I made a few cards in my craft room that some how got messy while I was on the couch! I pulled out that old tube of Liquid Applique and used it on the penguin's hat.

I had Christmas on the brain.

But did make a Halloween card.

I may have already shared this one, but I really like it so I'm sharing again. This is from my layout class.

And this is this month's layout. No pictures on it, but I love it anyways.

This is for tomorrow's stamper's group. Lots of newbies! So excited!

I made a strawberry to hold a Hershey's kiss.

I went to Yama's for this lovely lady's birthday! Love the food there.

Hobbled around the pumpkin patch with Emily and Kerry.

Before the fall, I took some impromptu photos of some sisters who won't let the distance keep them apart. Miss you, Wendy! Thinking about you! And Heather, if you are reading this, GET BACK TO WORK!

Today also marks the 1 year anniversary of when we met Amy, David, and Trevor in person! What I wouldn't give to be back in Disneyland celebrating Halloween with them this year!

Right now

2011-10-22T11:08:00.001-07:00

I'm damaged goods. I'm past my warranty. I'm down but not out.
I have had stomach issues, which resulted in a trip to the ER. By the end of the week, I was back in ER again. I fell down the beautiful hardwood stairs. I've been a couch potato for over a week now. It's slow going. I will be back soon.

22

2011-10-06T16:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder why I even try.

The one without the fur coat turns 22 tomorrow. He's the least co-opertive of the 3. I could wax poetic about how 22 years ago he was born, I could go on and on about what a joy he is to be around, how proud we are, blah blah blah. But that wouldn't be me. Just like getting a portrait of him smiling with his eyes open wouldn't be him. He has "Earl syndrome", and just like Earl's parents, we have a large amount of "eyes closed" photos of Shaun. So I take what I can get. (Sally is running to get closer to the camera, keep this in mind for later.)

This one came home just as we were finishing up. Her and Linus have a love/hate relationship, she wants to hug and cuddle him, he wants to get away. So I have to be fast when I want photos of the two of them.

Very fast because this starts to happen...

See the lower left corner....she's coming.....

And BAM there she is! The biggest camera hog in this house! And probably the cutest!

Pinterest Inspired

2011-10-04T12:24:00.000-07:00

I limit my time I spend on Pinterest, it's a huge time waster. But it's also a great place to get inspiration. April had said she saw some neat masking tape/paint canvases. When I searched this morning, I found something like this, and so I decided to try it out and hang this in the new improved basement. I'm bothered by the fact I only have 2, I'd like 3 but I used what I had. It was super easy. Since I no longer do decorative painting, I am limited in paint colour selection, so I have been having to mix my own colours. I won't be able to make a third canvas exactly the same, so I won't even try.

Heather pinned something similar to this and I loved it so much that before I left for work yesterday, I had to get the letters glued down so that they would be ready for painting when I got home. I loved that I used up 29 pieces of chipboard that were taking up prime real estate in my craft room.

Cheryl posted a print she had made with a quote from the Nightmare Before Christmas and I'd been wanting to do something like this for a while so it inspired me! I did this while watching Tucker screw over his own mother on the Young and the Restless.

Now to stock up on canvases because in less than 24 hours, I managed to deplete our stock pile significantly and the wrath of Emily is similar to the wrath of Kahn, only worse because I have to live with her.
Also, I have been published in September and October issues of Cricut magazine. I couldn't even remember what I'd sent in for October until I checked the copy at Chapters. Linus and Sally made their debut and so did the photoshoot of Amanda and Roxy! Very exciting!

a quick week in review

2011-09-29T13:36:00.000-07:00

We've been working on the garden for a few weeks. We have plans on covering it with river rocks, and planting shrubs and ornamental grasses. So far, it looks great! We have since covered it, and probably won't do the rocks until spring. Sadly, we only have 1/3 of the garden done. 1/3 will eventually be small garden boxes for my much smaller garden. We decided after 13 years that we just can't maintain a garden this size. We also calculated the amount of time and effort it takes to grow 3 tomato plants and really, it's cheap to just buy the tomatoes.

We also had our 2nd Crafts for the Homebound this week. We made Halloween wreaths. I can't wait to hang mine up and start hauling out the rest of the Halloween decorations. And yes, one button is pink, I don't know how that happened.

After years of searching for the perfect camera bag, I think I am done. I have a Shootsac, which is great for shooting, and a Crumpler, which is great for travelling, but I wanted a purse that had enough protection to throw my camera, but didn't scream "camera bag". I wavered between this and an epiphanie bag, but the cost of the bag and the shipping was too high for me. I considered the fact that neither bag was leather, and I read mixed reviews, but after seeing one in person, I knew this bag was the one I wanted. And I got the yellow one! The colour mom said 'we' should never wear. I love it. It holds all my camera equipment, or a camera and a bunch of other purse filler stuff. But what I love the most is that it has a shoulder strap. I have the padding to turn any purse into a camera bag but most purses available right now don't have shoulder straps. I think it says something too that when I unpacked the bag, Kerry said "How much was this?" I think it was because he expected it to be more than it was.

We are taking the truck and camper on it's maiden voyage this weekend. (the first one as our truck and camper.) I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn't need to pack our existing camping supplies into the camper. It still holds everything from when Grandpa used it, like vintage Corelle dinner ware. They don't make it like they used to. Not a chip in any of it, unlike our 2 year old Corelle set that has a chip out of every.single.plate. We also plan on taking the big dog with us, which in itself will be an adventure, I'm sure.

It's Here! My Favourite Time of Year!

2011-09-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

We didn't get a most wonderful summer, it was slow to start, only happened a few days in a row, then rewound to spring and started again. It was weird. But now we have AUTUMN! Sure the days are shorter, but the the smells are better, the colours are richer, the clothes are cozier.

I'm getting things ready for Halloween, or for October. I've been stock piling the Nightmare Before Christmas tree decorations.

The Mother-of-All falling cleaning list....I've got a few things checked off. Polish marble counter tops! Check! I don't have any! Clean fireplace! Check! Clean attic! Check!

On the advice of a friend, I managed to pick up over $500 in frames for $12. Plain, inexpensive ones but I've got plans and a can of spray paint.

This is another frame. These will come in so handy for my October decorating.

As will this! I love this stuff.

I made a few of these for the tree, but then thought they'd look great on a black wreath that Heather is peer pressuring me into getting.

For the very first time ever! Introducing STICKY. We have snails, Fievel the mouse and now Sticky the snake. We've never had a snake in our yard. I don't really care, I'd rather have 10 snakes than one large spider any day. This little smarty got his tongue stuck on the cement and Shaun had to use a stick to un-stick it. He's in the lavender bush as we speak. I hope he jumps out when Emily comes home so she can see him. Boy, how I hope he does that!

I'm almost afraid to go out and pick the rest of the Italian Prunes! Good thing I picked tomatoes with my eyes closed, I do not want to see a tomato worm, and one year one was in our plum tree. I love fall!

Beginning of Fall - unedited

2011-09-21T12:38:00.000-07:00

I didn't edit any of these photos. I'm living on the edge today.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with chalkboard rocks or jars, but I painted them up and took pictures of them too.

Even did before, during, and after shots.

Really, who doesn't need a chalkboard rock?

And who's desk wouldn't be complete without a chalkboard jar?

I made myself a little brag book. Is it creepy that I have one of my cousin's baby? Maybe but she's so dang cute and I had this little album just waiting for a baby!

Un-edited pictures of mine are often crooked. I got some personal scrapbooking done and it felt so good!

If you are in the market for a truck that runs, hauls, and is a Ford, let me know, we are letting this one go. No one needs 2 trucks.

And not to be left out, if you need a van, let me know, this baby is going too! Again, runs, hauls, and is a Ford. What more could a person want in a vehicle?

I was eating plums off the tree and left the canine picker on the deck. He hogs all the plums if I let him help. I gave them each a half plum.

He's tentative if he's not quite sure, where as Sally and her plum were long gone.

Patience is a virtue.

And I finally connected this little goodie up and am feeling pretty darn happy about knowing I'm backing up my files all.the.time. It's also a snazzy modem wi-fi thingy that makes my printer wireless or something to that effect. I just know it's backing me up.

Routines?

2011-09-18T11:52:00.000-07:00

I love that with autumn comes the start of school and falling back into somewhat of a routine. Crafting is a major part of my routine. Cleaning is not. Baking is, eating is, dish isn't.

When April, who has recently had surgery, said she wanted to make button bracelets, I thought "why not?" So I packed up my supplies, Michelle made lunch, and I did dessert and we had a great day of crafting, well, some of us did. We should go on the road with out mobile lunch and crafts for the homebound.

In my crafting routine, I usually start my Christmas cards now, but since I had to try out my new Easter set. It's so cute!

I made a few things for layout class, and I scrapbooked some of my own personal pages.

For Stamper's Group, we made little altered CD tins to hold our Christmas lists. It can be for our Wish Lists or Lists of Gifts To Buy.

Or Christmas Things To Do.

Black spray paint and I are still good friends. Heather found this funky frame for me. Not sure what will go in it yet.

I don't want to appear completely negligent of the home and it's every growing to-do list, so I defrosted the freezer, cleaned it and repacked it. This is where longer arms would come in handy.

I'm still working on my re-branding for my photography business. Who knew it would not be so easy? I want unique, something that is me, and it's so hard to figure that out. I don't want the same tired logo that I see everywhere, the branch, the flower, that has nothing to do with the photographer or photography. I know where I want to go, just having trouble getting there.

Falling in Love, Again

2011-09-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

I have been feeling bad lately. Since getting my 24-70mm lens, I have hardly even looked at another lens. It's not that the other lenses are lowly lenses. It's just that the 24-70 is so versatile. Sure it's heavy, and big, but it's so all around great.

So yesterday, I put my nifty 50 on and vowed to leave it on for everyday photos for at least a couple days. And after a few shots, I remembered why I loved it. Being able to shot in lower light situations is one reason. The sharpness is another. But the fact I have to 'zoom' with my feet and not my lens is going to take a bit of getting used to again.

Mom and I got together yesterday a.m. to can a few tomatoes. It's so easy, and fast. I don't know why I don't do it more.

I snapped a quick shot of her garden boxes. I'm bound and determined I will have a garden like this in the near future. This will be my motivator.

My little mini album shelves were put up and promptly filled. I may have a mini album addiction.

I played around with Emily's Japanese doll.

I ate some Sweet Tarts that Heather gave me. So sweet and yet so tart! Love them.

She made some tea, in her pjs and asked to have a picture taken!

And then I went to Mom and Dad's to see my sweetie. And now ask yourself, does the blog title "falling in love, again" apply to my 50mm f/1.4 or to this sweet face?

Without the lens, I would not have been able to get decent shots in the house at night.

Without the baby, I would not have sore knees, arms and oddly enough, butt muscles from holding/rocking/feeding/putting her to sleep.

Without the baby, I would not have gotten to sniff her little fuzzy head and inhaled her fountain of youth baby scent! Aaahhhhh...have I mentioned I love love love babies.

LOVE them!

Not exactly Mickey Mouse.

2011-09-08T12:53:00.000-07:00

Kerry found this guy in the garden, he must have been stunned or something because we could touch him (I didn't) and he didn't run away. I even styled him with a stick, he had grass stuck to his nose that he let me remove. I named him Fievel Mousekewitz. He's probably the only famous mouse we will see this fall. We are having some issues with fall coming, and not being in Disneyland again. I personally don't care if I ever go to the park at any other time of year. Next time, I'm hoping to go in mid-November so I can it all done up for Christmas.

We took the girls and Kerry's mom to the KVR. We hiked forever, 3 1/2 hours. The girls fed this brave chipmunk a pile of cashews.

They were really good about posing for photos.

I even accepted the goofy faces.

And the crazy poses.

We got some group shots.

Even a shot or two with me in it.

We figured we walked for just over 10 km. 12 trestles. 1 snake.

I made this little Christmas keepsake book, I'm hoping to put little daily photos in it and small amounts of journaling, low pressure scrapbooking.

I won't ever make it as a rib cutter, but I can smoke a rib like nobodies business. 4 hours on the smoker, and we were all in love with the baby back ribs.

So much so that the home made pizza took a back seat and not much of it got eaten.

I don't care if I ever see another home made pizza but I sure miss those ribs!

A camera review

2011-08-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

Back before our epic Disneyland trip, we purchased a little camera for Emily. We needed something sturdy, shock resistant, because let's face it, she drops things, and it had to be easy to use. With Michelle's help, I decided on this little Fuji Film camera. I think this is the right picture...she has a green one...

Anyways, I didn't want to miss anything so I figured if she had a camera and took pictures from her point of view, I'd be twice blessed. AND I was. She got a few shots of me on our trip, but the best part is this little sucker takes awesome video. For 14 days she shot video and took pictures, not the over 1500 I took, but still had room for both! I was amazed.

She also dropped it at least 2 times with no ill effects.

When I went to the JinkyArt retreat, I made her promise to take pictures of her and Kerry's big Vancouver adventure. I played the guilt card, I wouldn't be there and didn't want to miss out! (I'm not saying I would have given up the retreat to go to the Olympic village.)

Here are a few of her SOOC shots.

I like this one! She's in the photo! Good one, Dad! She's sort of smiling.

And this one...I'm sure she snapped it for me and my love of Disneyland. Although I have no love for large boats, or most boats.

And a very decent one of her dad, with some interesting things in the back ground. I think this was before their attempt at leaving Stanley Park. But I could be wrong.

Her indoor shots left a bit to be desired but she's taking after me and leans towards natural light photography. She figured out how to turn it off the little point and shoot, but doesn't quite have a steady hand yet.

I'm so happy to have these photos so that I have pictures to go with their stories of their trip.

You are here!

2011-08-24T15:39:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling very mappy lately.

I found this very purple and pink glittery 18x18 inch canvas in the clearance section and brought home 2 of them. I knew exactly what one was going to be...the base for my map.

I saw this sort of thing on-line and had to replicate it only instead of printing a map and antiquing it digitally, I did it all manually. I used the only map we had of Kelowna, and it's a darn BCAA map so it does have the location of the nearest BCAA marked on it. It now also has a little heart for where our house it. I think I will hang it upstairs somewhere just incase I need to know where I am.

Gotta have ART!

2011-08-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

After seeing all the very creative ways Heather has been journaling in her Art Journal, I decided to make one using mixed media papers, actually I made two.
I gave one to Emily when she said she wanted to do more watercolour painting. Maybe she was inspired by all my talk of Amelia's art work, and the fact I hung one of her post cards up. (Amelia was another Jinky Art Retreat attendee, she does beautiful sketch work.)
I'm using my Art Journal as a bit of a 'trial and error' book, to see how I like the different mediums, different hand writing, etc. I'm enjoying the journey.
I had a pile of Japanese papers, maybe from Grandpa's house. I mod podged them to a few pages and then painted on them. For this one, I drew a heart and then water coloured it.

This one has yet another Grandpa find, the K page from the A-K Dictionary. We don't know where L-Z is.

I did this watercolour when the power went out. I did it in the dark.

More Grandpa papers, and some Tim Holtz goodies.

The front of a card from Grandpa. I see a theme now.

This is my favourite so far. Kerry was filling dry wall holes and I borrowed the paste. I used my Cornish Heritage Farms stamp in the paste. After it dried, I mod podged it. Then I water coloured it in the colours of our new improved basement. I mod podged some fabric from the basement too.

I used Indian ink in a dropper to write COLOUR.

This one is a favourite too. Just water colours and pen.

Emily came down and decided to add some paint to her journal. We've gone from a woodcrafting house with every colour of acrylic paint under the sun to a papercrafting house with only a handful of paint. There's lots of colour mixing. We'll have to start picking up a few more colours because there are just some things I can't do. Mixing colours is one of them. I always end up with purple-brown.

I finally remembered to stop at Home Depot yesterday and get the things I needed to finish off the parcel to send to Amy and David. She sometimes stops by the blog so I will keep everyone guessing, although I think it's pretty obvious what they are. It's almost their one year anniversary. Kerry was saying that it's hard with fall coming and no trip to California to look forward to. I totally know what he means.

I had seen something like this, only with Texas and I knew I wanted to make one. After cutting out British Columbia, I wanted to move to Saskatchewan! (This looks much better in person, the colours are weird here)

Love it!

2011-08-20T13:08:00.003-07:00

Lately

2011-08-18T08:25:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy August around here. I still haven't processed my photos from the Retreat and am hoping to do that this week. Today is Project Life day and I'm sad to report we have all fallen behind. It's weird, we get together but it seems we just eat and talk. Today, we're gettin' it done! (and I don't mean just eating)

Who am I kidding?

I really wanted to make these rainbow cakes in a jar for my birthday. But it was so much work and although it looked good, it wasn't worth it. I made it from scratch, maybe that was the problem. Next time I might try a mix. And I won't fill the jar so full. Learned that one the hard way.

Putting 'clean the oven' on my to-do list.

We realized we hadn't had a bbq in a while or company over for dinner so we decided to have a bbq/birthday. With a theme! Tacky Tourist. I did up invitations, decorations and we found costumes.

We were so impressed with our friends and family! Everyone dressed up. This one was my favourite! So much thought and effort! Love the sunburn, the raccoon eyes and the mosquito bites.

Dad even got a super tan. He had just gotten home from Sturgis and after 14 days on his Harley he was toasty. Shaun has never been outside before so he was ghostly.

Linus was nice enough to pose for me and my cherry tomato I held above my head. Sally, on the other hand was wishing for a metal detector so she could scour the 'beach' for treats. I have more pictures, and am getting more from Terry today, which is good because I didn't actually take that many.

Emily decided Linus's teeth needed a good cleaning. Poor Linus. He didn't know what hit him.

The basement is finished. Since this picture was taken, the couch got moved in, the wall got wrecked by said couch and Kerry, the wall got fixed by Kerry and me, a picture rail was hung on the right side wall, and we decide to paint the tables, but haven't done it yet because we can't decide on a colour. Our 'catch-all' area' has now become a very usable space. Thanks to watching too much "Love It or List It"!

Dad brought back a bag of candy from his travels. So many we don't get here! Like Chick-a-sticks and Mary Janes(saw these on Unwrapped), makes me want to travel more!

For my birthday, my sweet friend Michelle, got me a popcorn popper. I've been wanting one for quite a while, years, ever since I saw a Schneiders one at a garage sale and didn't buy it. Kerry said I didn't need one and we didn't have the space to store it. I have to admit he's right, my new, large no-stick frying pan has yet to find a cupboard it fits into.

So Michelle bought it for me anyways! And April gave me the fancy popcorn presenting 'bowls', a bag of popcorn, seasoning and coconut oil. It's been 4 days since I got it and I've had popcorn 3 times. We love it. But I think we need to slow down a bit.

And I finally got my issue of Cricut! So excited! Now 'those damn dogs' are published too!

I've felt very creative the last couple days. Which is good, I signed up for a free class and it's 12 days long. I am vowing to keep caught up and so far, so good. Day 4 and I'm off to do it as soon as I'm finished here. There was a kit to purchase but I wouldn't have gotten it in time, so I made my own and was surprised at how well I did shopping in my craft room. I plan to do that more often. I even mixed brands of scrapbook paper. I am also doing something I don't do very often, journaling, and I do it first and then I find a picture for the layout!

Heather has taken quite a few art classes lately and made some beautiful pieces of art. I haven't committed to any of the classes yet, but want to. She made her She Art and I loved the idea. So last night I thought I'd try my hand at making one of me for the new and improved basement.

It was messy. And I loved it. It gets you thinking. It is my reminder to let it go.

I have to take this time to get all mushy.

I'm so grateful for the friends I have.

They are truthful. They are beautiful. They are a pleasure to be around.

They bring out the best in me.

They help me grow.

Thank you, my friends, real and internet ones!

Epic Fail?

2011-08-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

I don't know what I was thinking when I saw the sliced "bacon" in the meat department. You know the kind, the not yet smoked, no nitrate kind, the sliced pork belly stuff. MMMmmm...sounds soooo yummy, give me some of that pork belly!
I bought it. I thought "I'll smoke that stuff up and there will be no going back to Schnieder's "Maple" bacon or whatever that pack of stuff is we buy at Costco."
Emily wanted it before she left for Vancouver today so I got up and fired up the smoker, prepped the 'bacon' and tossed it on the grill. Set the timer. Came back to beautiful plumes of smoke coming from the smoker, mouth watering goodness and.... charred strips of 'bacon'. OH crap! My brain said "Hurry do something before Emily sees that I've killed the bacon." I managed to save 6 pieces. We each got 3 strips. I put mine to good culinary use and made a bacon and tomato sandwich on cheddar bread. The acidity of the tomatoes and creaminess of the mayo takes away from the acrid taste of the burnt bacon. (I learned that bunch of nonsense from the Food Network, in truth I was so hungry I didn't care!)
But even slightly charred, bacon is still God in this house.

Smells better

2011-08-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

The dollar was doing good, Victoria's Secrets had a sale, and I'm well stocked up with my favourite line of body wash, lotion, and sprays.

And I need it for all the slaving away I've been doing getting the computer/storage/other tv room redone. I just realized as I looked at this picture, not much of the stuff used to re-decorate the room is new. The frames from Ikea are. Everything else is handed down, Grandpa's chair, coffee and end table (retro). The yellow chair if from my Sunday school at the Japanese United Church I attended as a child. The school desk was mine from when I lived at home. Half the things on the wall are from thrift stores. The real cost was the paint. It's grey. I can't tell. It's such a weird colour. But it goes with everything. I'm starting to love it.

Winery Tour

2011-08-04T11:46:00.000-07:00

I dropped Mom and Clare off for lunch while I ran some errands. I picked them up with the idea they'd do some wine tours. We missed the one at Summerhill by minutes, so they wondered around and humored me and my camera. They decided the liquor store was a better tour. On the way, I did my best tour guide impersonation and pointed out some sites. I took them to Costco and then home so they could relax and digest, and maybe drink their wine.

Oh, I love it!

2011-08-03T09:38:00.000-07:00

This is now what is at the bottom of my staircase. I could sit on the stairs all day and look at it. It looks much better in the picture! But it still looks 100x better than it did before. A million times! Now if I can just get out of this corner and move to the next, the whole room could look this good.

Those circles are going up on the big wall above the stairs.

That's 2 posts in one day!

All my pretties.

2011-08-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

I'm still pluggin' away at getting the basement finished. I've moved an end table in from the garage and a Barbie doll house out! I've got the fax machine in it's new spot, which means it's no longer on my bedside table. You never know when you might want to check those late night faxes.

I realized when I got up today that in order for the basement to get finished, I needed to hang my cork board for all my jewelry. ALL!!! Ha Ha...Up until a week ago, I didn't need to do this. But after mom's jewelry party, I'm on my way to a small collection of baubles. I had bought a few of these boards a long time ago. I didn't love the Paris theme, but knew they had potential. I'm going to cover the Paris Icons with something else, I just haven't decided what yet.

I got the idea for the cork board from 2 of my friends, Calista and Misty-Rae.

Here you can see my Medic-Alert bracelet, it should be on my wrist.

The pictures are such amazing quality, just kidding! Considering I had to take them in my closet, in my bedroom with no natural light, at a super high ISO, they aren't that bad.
Back to the grindstone!
I will get something more done today!

August Already!

2011-08-02T12:56:00.000-07:00

This summer is going by so fast. A little summer weather would be nice. The garden is totally not enjoying the weather and I've just about given up on it.

We've been busy since we got back from Vancouver. Kerry took the week off and we have hardly had time to sit and relax. He's back and work now and it's probably a vacation for him.

We've painted the basement. Just need the trim and he's supposed to bringing that home today.

He's been working on the 'new' truck and the camper.

And I've been eating out! Hanging out with friends, and spray painting just about everything.

Me, Marg, Heather, and Karen had a non-productive, but very chatty Saturday. We stopped briefly for dinner and then came back here and did more of nothing. About 9 hours of it!

I was so inspired by the Vietnamese meal that I recreated it the next night for dinner. So fresh and yummy! We all sat out side and ate dinner that night.

I'm working on re-branding, and figuring out a few business related things. I want to do it right.

So drinking coffee out of my lens mug should help inspire and motivate me. In my quest to go dairy-free, I've switched from disgusting almond milk to the much better tasting lower calorie Coffeemate. Edible oil product vs. gastronomical distress and meds. It's a tough one.

Let's see if I can get back into blogging on a regular basis!

Pasley Island-Jinky Art Retreat

2011-07-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

Words can not describe the experience I had on Pasley Island during the Jinky Art Retreat, and my photos don't either. But I'll try my best to get the point across!

It was so inspiring to be surrounded be people that have the same passion and interests as I do. We are at all different levels in our business and our skills. I found this to be so helpful. I appreciate all the tips, critique and encouragement.

There were photo shoots lined up in which we got to shoot with Barb, I'm hoping to be able to share some photos soon.

The island itself was amazing. We were so blessed to have Beccy let us invade her sanctuary. The food was to die for. And you know I like to eat and talk about food. Shirley, Beccy and Dawn did a delicious job! I do not think anyone went hungry.

I was fairly emotional by the end, I won't lie, I cried my eyes out. I was exhausted, I figured I got less than 10 hours sleep the whole retreat. Compared to my usual amount, I was about 8 hours short. It wasn't because I was sad. It was probably more like an Oprah "AH-HA" moment.

I went to the retreat scared of a whole lot of things, and left having a better idea of what I want from photography (and life). I am EXCITED!!!

I get by with a little help from my friends.

2011-07-08T14:01:00.000-07:00

I'm slowly working on my Jinky Workshop/Retreat assignments. I've asked my friends "who am I?" and it helped to clarify a few things. This isn't easy and I knew it wouldn't be. I'll keep you updated.

Without Heather's help and Mod Podge knowledge, I would not have done this canvas properly. I've tried before to use Podge and photos and it's been a big sticky mess. This time, I used a photo I had laying around, so it was good and dry. And it was sepia, so if I messed up, I wasn't going to fret about it. (I'd rather have a true black and white print.)

I had these canvases laying around from something else I thought I'd do. I saw the tutorial somewhere on how to adhere photos to canvas with Mod Podge. So during our marathon crop, I did it! And I'm pretty happy with it. I could do larger ones, I'll have to work my way up to them.

The view from here

2011-07-05T14:29:00.000-07:00

We went for an evening hike to the area that was hit by the forest fire. We hadn't been out that way in years, since well before the fire. It was a shocker to see the difference in the landscape.

We set the timer, hiked in for 30 min. and then back out. Good thing too, we saw at least 12 chipmunks, and who knows what they do when the sun goes down.

Kerry said this one was flossing to get the last of the last humans out of his teeth. I didn't have my 70-200mm lens, so I had to move in close, I was less than 4 feet away from him.

We used the timer and took this picture, love it!

Saturday was CROP day! Our little Project Life group got together for over 12 hours of fun, food, and laughter. And a bit of creating. We made ATC cards to swap with each other so we'd have a little bit of each other for our PL albums.

We had lots of snacking to do, good thing we had lots of snacks to eat.

Heather made an awesome dinner! We sat out back and dined in the shade. Much cooler than our lunch at the pub in the heat!

Marg brought dessert, strawberries, dipped in sour cream and Demerara sugar. It didn't sound good, but it was delicious. I've been craving it ever since. (Turns out I'm not allergic to strawberries, it might have been something on the strawberries I had this spring.)

Dipping! And enjoying (sorry Marg, had to post!)

You would think no one wanted their picture taken!

Seriously, we were having a great time. And everyone was taking pictures.

Yum!

We decided to ask Emily if she wanted to see the fireworks this year, and of course she did. So we packed up, oh, nothing, except a blanket and went down to the park, with everyone else in Kelowna. No snacks, no cash, but we had a good time anyways. But I don't think we'll go again. It's maybe 15 minutes of fireworks, hours of waiting, hours of traffic.

And less than 2 weeks to the Jinky workshop!

Addicted to stuff

2011-06-30T11:08:00.000-07:00

My mom and aunt asked if I wanted to go to Tyjo's, they were having a sale. Of course I went. I do not need any fabric, I have nothing in mind that I want to make. But I still bought a bunch of fat quarters, at $1 each, how could I not? Her regular priced fq's were on for 6 for the price of 4, and I'm a sucker for anything Amy Butler so I bought most of what she had left. The stuff on the left matches the quilt kit I got for Christmas from my mom.

I'm still getting grief over using part of the kit to make this banner. ( I don't recall saying I was making the quilt, just that I loved the fabric!) Just a note: I only spent $25, not like some people with rooms of fabric, who spent way more.

I am thinking I need a sewing room. Good thing Kerry doesn't read the blog.

I made a few cards with the new Stampin' Up stuff.

I am loving that pennant punch and matching stamp set. It's very versatile.

The triple layer punches are pretty neat too.

I'm loving the Beyond the Garden patterned paper.

I copied the next two cards right out of the catalogue because I loved them so much.

The kid counted and inventoried all her Copic markers, 103. She coloured the cover of her inventory book, she's so amazing with those markers. And she was quick to point out that 103 markers isn't even half of what is out there. Nice.

I finally got around to hanging up one of 4 vinyl wall art things, I have a hard time putting something fairly permanent on things. I snapped a quick photo of the chalkboard one on my antique filing cabinet, with a very meaningful message I wrote on it. I hope you find it as inspiring as I do.

Half Way There

2011-06-29T09:38:00.000-07:00

I finally decided to do something about my flabby, fat and lazy body. I don't like sweating. I'll never go to the pool, I won't go to a gym. I cut back on my portions, and am trying to make better choices at meal times. And even though I don't watch the Biggest Loser, I thought I'd invite Jillian to the party. The pity party.

Well, after 15 days, 14 of which I hated, I have lost 5 or more inches and get this I've not lost a single pound! Not ONE! Not TWO! Zero, Zilch, Nada...but that's okay, I can do my belt up one or two notches tighter, depending on the pants. I feel better. I guess Jillian can stay another 15 days.

Cheers, Cars, Crying, and Creating

2011-06-27T20:17:00.000-07:00

A very shy, but possibly proud kid was the only grade 9 kid receiving an award for Academics in Art. Very sweet moment for us. She let me take a picture, her choice of spots, in front of the trash bins, in full sun at her school. I think I did pretty decent at making do with what I had.

After the ceremony, she got to go back to hanging out with these two. And again, making do with what I had. Or maybe it's a bit of "Can't have my cake and eat it too." I learned that in a little class by Karen Russell. I got the group shot, with the friends, sort of everyone looking at the camera. I also got the sun flare, which I love, I really do. But I got half the Future Shop sign, van mirror (I'm in the passenger seat leaning over Kerry) and the sun flare washed everything out. But I'm okay with it. I love it.

Dad rode his Harley down and met us in Penticton for the Beach Cruise car show. Over 800 cars, and I think we may have seen about half of them. It's so sad the amount I am learning about cars.

We were totally surprised to see not one, but two Subarus at the show. Kerry says people here don't show them because they are too busy driving them. I snapped quickly when I realized he was wearing his Subaru shirt.

It was a sad day for him, he decided his very old, flannel brown plaid shirt was too worn to wear anymore. (Again, he's wearing a Subaru shirt!)

While he has a week off, the week of the Jinky Art Retreat, we will be painting the stair case, and possibly the main room in the basement. I'm leaning towards muted. Grey. I wanted Green, like Mojito but decided it was actually quite dark for that area. I think we are going with the bottom Grey. It looks the best with the red wood hard wood, and the tile on the landing.

I made a few cards in the last couple weeks. This one was copied and altered quite a bit from the Cricut magazine. Don't forget to get August's and October's!

This idea came from another card magazine.

I had to use some new goodies from the almost released 2011 Idea Book.

And I used some hoarded Imaginesce paper I bought last summer while in Langley/Surrey. Can't pass up a paper sale!

Burial, Baby, Burger

2011-06-21T18:22:00.000-07:00

We put Grandpa's ashes in the ground this weekend. We were all dressed half decent so I made everyone pose for a family photo. Too bad I jumped in at the last minute in front of Kerry!

I took pictures of just about every thing on the weekend. The urn.

The grandparents!

The cousin that stepped up to put the urn in the ground.

The family, most of it.

The deer that was watching and snacking during the burial. It was very spiritual.

After the burial, we had a bbq and then a baby shower for Adyson.

I could hold her all day.

But when I wasn't, other people were.

Everyone wanted to hold her.

Even these two! One of which said "She's not that bad for a baby."

And on Father's Day after the car show, I made the daddy of all burgers! 2 types of cheese, dill garlic mustard, garlic chile aioli, bacon and onion rings! Delish!

Creative Retreat Results

2011-06-15T15:35:00.000-07:00

I didn't actually think I'd get much done at the Retreat. Usually, I spend my time watching others or chatting, or even eating. But this time, I grabbed the bag of stuff I had bought at the scrapbook store, Echo Park stuff, just before heading out. I knew I had to make decorations for the baby shower this weekend. I used a cheapie chipboard album I got at M's and covered the stars wit the cute baby paper.

And I even took my Cricut to the Retreat. And I used it!

I made a banner for the diaper cake too.

And a baby album for Adyson.

It even has a few pictures in it.

Her mom can add more to it as she grows.

Kerry's co-worker is retiring. He always calls once winter hits to see when the Tiger Butter will be arriving at the office. I made a special batch for him, complete with a Tiger.

My strawberries are doing great. The birds haven't really bothered with them. Maybe because it's too cold for them too.

In the last couple weeks, Heather's been going on and on about Tim Holtz stuff. I didn't own much of his stuff, other than a die, and some stickles. After the Retreat, I had to use my coupon to get a craft mat, and ink pads were on sale, so I had to get a few of those too. Then I had to go back and get a few more. Darn you, Tim Holtz and Heather W!

My hands are stained! My wallet is lighter. My table is a mess. But I have 2 cards I made!

911... what's your emergency?

2011-06-14T18:36:00.000-07:00

Long story...
I'll make it short...
Kerry's co-worker is retiring. He doesn't want any hoopla. He loves tiger butter and always calls at Christmas to ask when it's being delivered. I rounded up the tigers and milked them. I made the tiger butter, a cute tiger to go on the bag and stopped at McD's for 9 iced coffees. I had to wait for them in the parking lot, apparently 9 is a lot. When the guy brought them out and asked if they were all for me, we witnessed a car accident. I grabbed my phone and called 911. No biggie right? But I have re-occuring nightmares about not being able to actually dial 9 1 1.
I did it, and I answered all the questions semi-coherently. When asked "Fire, Police or Ambulance" I paused, choices! Definitely Police, possibly Ambulance.
An elderly woman had put her car in drive, not reverse and then stepped on the gas. Instead of braking, she panicked, which I would do too, and she took out a sign, cranked the wheel hard, so as not to land in traffic on the hwy. and then while still stomping on the gas, went up a little hill and 'flew' over the curb and into the only empty parking spot. Pretty fancy driving. If only she was about 6 inches to the left! She landed rather snug against a truck (someone will have had a surprise after work). Her husband couldn't get out of the vehicle and he'd had a stroke 2 months ago. He said he was fine but the ambulance came anyways and had to help pull him out of the vehicle.
While the police man, hunk-a-hunk-a, was taking my statement, he got a call that the same thing happened in the next parking lot over at Value Village, and that a pedestrian was hit. So the other cop and firemen ran over there to see. It may have been some confused person calling about the same accident.
So that was after I had worked out, showered, gone to chiro, Buckerfields for new food for Diarrhea Dog, the bulk food store, the veggie store, and made the tiger butter. Needless to say, I'm bagged. AND I have pictures of stuff, I am just too lazy to upload.

Creative Retreat Goodness!

2011-06-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since we've had a local crop, so Heather decided to put one on. It wasn't a huge one. But it was a fun one!

Heather taught a bunch of mixed media classes and everyone got messy and made unique pieces of art.

This is one of my friends, she doesn't like having her picture taken, but I wanted to show you how the art starts off all crazy and colourful. And in the end, which I didn't get a picture of, it looks completely different. Thanks, KH!

I made decorations for the baby shower next weekend. And diaper cake decorations, and a baby album. So glad I got this all done, it's a busy week coming up. I know I work fast, and I'm fairly efficient but I got so much done this weekend, I was impressed! The dogs now have a summer mini book, and I'm about half way through my Hiking album. I worked a tiny bit on my Project Life. Everyone was so interested in what we had done, I might just have a second PL group on the go.

I love how all 3 of these are the same but so different.

I finally got to meet and chat with the infamous KN! She's a hoot! I had such a great time chatting with old friends, and meeting new ones!

I think everyone had a great Creative time!

Can't wait for the next one!

A Can Opener and Purse

2011-06-09T08:45:00.000-07:00

Two totally different things, but they both make me happy.

The Ikea can opener that I think I paid about $2 for a couple years ago wasn't cutting it anymore. (Pun intended.) I could only get half the lid off the can. And it was a whole top remover type, which meant no sharp lid edges, but lots of sharp can edges. I'm a firm believer in "You get what you pay for!" This is applied to camera lenses, shoes, scrapbooking supplies, mountain bikes, computers, and face moisturizer.

So the cheap can opener got replaced with a $20 Starfrit one. After not listening to Kerry's overview of the instructions the day of purchasing, I attempted to open a can of black olives. I don't use a lot of canned food, never have, but 3 things I love from a can...tuna, black olives and mushrooms. And when I want my olives, I want them now. It took a few minutes to replay the little bits of info I recalled Kerry saying...turn, click, slide, lift. But I couldn't remember what order or what to slide, click, lift. I managed to get it figured out, but I did go around the can at least 2 times.

The best part, I got it the first time, I just couldn't tell. The cut is clean, it's on the rim of the can, neither the lid or the can edges are sharp. The lid doesn't fall in the can and you can still use the lid for draining the liquid out of the can. Amazing. Why didn't the first can opener inventors do it this way?

My mom and aunt went to Creative Chaos in Vernon on the weekend. I usually bring home fudge and spices/dip mix. This time I came home with a quilt for Michelle, pakora mix, 2 bottles of mustard, something else I remember paying for but can't remember what it is, and this gorgeous tote/purse. When I saw it, I was drawn straight to it. I had to have it. Mom said she'd get it for my birthday. And then it was mine. I could have made it but probably not for that price. And it wouldn't be as flat, smooth or finished looking.
Busy weekend of cropping coming up. Hope to see some of you there!

Follow Me!

2011-06-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

I had to re-do my blog networking through Facebook a few months back and lost a few followers because of it.
So here's an all out request to beg for followers. Follow me! I'll do a little draw at the end of next week for a crafty related prize.
Leave a comment telling me you are following.

And finally!!!!
Emily is the last local baby in our family, 15 years of no babies! My cousins at the coast have younger kids but we never get to see them. One of my cousins here had a baby girl 2 weeks ago and I finally got to see her. We had a very impromptu photoshoot, not professional at all, but just so we could get a few pics to email out to family members.
OMG she is the most adorable thing ever! 2 weeks old and she knows I'm the funniest thing ever! That's right! Who's your favouritest, funniest cousin? ME! Ohhhh you are so my favourite too!

Which is nice when all I get around here is this....

Classes are up!

2011-05-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

Stamp-A-Stack

$30

12 cards in 4 different styles. Great for gifts, always have a card on hand! Envelopes are not supplied for this class.

*Birthday Stamp-A-Stack

Wednesday, June 22, 7 pm

Sunday, July 10, 1 pm

*All Occasion Stamp-A-Stack

Sunday, June 26, 1 pm

Wednesday, July 6, 7 pm

Picture This! Mini Album

$10

This little album is made out of toilet paper rolls. The verdicts still out on if this is gross recycling or not.

Each page holds a pull out tag for journalling or more photos.

Tuesday, June 7, 7 pm

Paper Bag Album

Make it for Spring, or end of the year teacher's gift. Put your summer photos in it!

$25

Friday, June 17, 7 pm

Techniques University

$45

This little book will become your inspiration bible. With almost 50 different technique in it, and all of them done by you in class, you won't ever have a boring card again!

The class will run over 4 nights, I'm thinking one class every 2 weeks. There will be 4 class. 3 filled with techniques, and one to make the book. All supplies included. Bring your trimmer.

Wednesday, June 15, 29, July 13, and 27, 7 pm

Please let me know ASAP if you would like to sign up for any classes. Payment is due at that time to save your spot.

The last 2 weeks

2011-05-26T10:17:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy doing the oddest things really. Michelle and I took a road trip to Penticton. It started of a bit shaky, and by that I mean the lady holding a "slow" sign at the road construction by Michelle's house shook the sign at her. Not at me, she was driving. I was peeing my pants laughing. She wasn't even going fast, we were 2nd to last in a long line of cars so it wasn't like a person could even go faster than the 30 kms. you have to go in a construction zone. We took the scenic route. I've lived her all my life and never took some of the roads we took, on purpose and by mistake. We never did find Summerland Sweets, but we did see some interesting sights.

Like this, it's right across the road from some beautiful high end condos on the beach. If you look close you can see it has everything and that it's all piled on top of everything else. A trumpet, brass candle stick holders, an antique washboard. It's an episode of Hoarders and Canadian Pickers all in one building.
We had a snack at Bliss, coffee, lunch, went to the mall, drove in circles, and went to the dollar store, we were gone all day!

As we were heading into Penticton, which I hadn't been to in years. Michelle asks me if I know where the cake store is. Another 'pee my pants' moment. Neither one of us knew. But we still found it right away. We both bought sticks for cake pops and a few other things, like orange essence.

I came home and made a yellow cake from scratch flavouring it with the orange. Then I made Creamsicle cake balls. And then I almost lost them due to that big fuzzy nose!

You can see some of these turds enjoying the cake pops. And almost none of them looking at me when I said I needed a picture for my project life book.

A few days later, Kerry and I went to Peachland. This was the second time in the week that I got to go to Bliss bakery. Like I needed it. But this time I only had a chai latte. Then we walked for miles to the car show. Along the way, people parked their car show worthy cars so we hardly noticed the distance.

This was so stunning. White car with purple-ish flames and totally white interior. No ketchup chip or cheezie eating in that car!

It's neat to see all the time and effort put in to the cars. The details are the main reason I go. Oh, and I kind of like spending time with that guy.

The Blues Brothers were there. Again, attention to detail! The one guy had "JAKE" tattooed on his knuckles.

I'm learning things I didn't plan on ever knowing...Like types of cars, "oh, look a
RED car!!!"

And that car enthusiasts are also hockey fans. Up and down Beach Ave. people had their radios on to hear the game.

The most interesting thing I learned was not the best thing, and it was confirmed by the Baracuda owner "Randy". Kerry had told me the back seat of one of my fav's folds down, and that the back of the trunk does too so that it's wide open and flat. I asked why, he said for 'dates'. I was like "Sure, that's what car manufactures think of." So when we ran into Randy, I said tell me the truth as to why the back of the car is like that. He didn't say anything but moved his eye brows up and down. Men.

May Long involved Emily's first time going to the festivities, at least that she can remember. Growing up, the festivities never involved the fair. We had to sit through the ball games. Anyways, she went and was gone for about 7 hours. We got phone calls keeping us up to date on her happenings, things like "Iwentonthezipper.Itwasnotnearlyasscaryasspacemountain!I'mgoingonitagain!" Love that she kept us informed. Funny that she talked so fast. And even funnier that everything relates to how scary Space Mountain was. For me, it's the Tower of Terror. I took the elevator up to the orthodontist, it was only 28% less scary than the the Tower of Terror.

And to finish off the long weekend, we went down to watch Kerry's nephew J's grand march for grad. Funny story, his date is the daughter of one of the girls Kerry gradded with. Officially old.

The other side

2011-05-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

I've been to the other side and back, at least I am almost back. What I thought was nasty allergies turned out to be a most unpleasant 5 day head cold. The kind that plugs your ears and nose, makes your eyes water up and your nose drip, makes children and grown ups cry at the sight of your puffy, snot covered face. Yup, that's what I had. (still have, but I'm using the power of The Secret and positive thinking.) As sick as I have been, I did manage to take a few photos. They are all SOOC because frankly, I can't concentrate long enough to open Photoshop, let alone use it.

Advil Cold and Sinus Plus turned out to not be my saviour. Dried my nasal passage out to the point where breathing by nose hurt. And it didn't stop the eye waterfall. It sure didn't help me sleep, neither did the 'make me gag' Neocitron that Kerry swears by. I drink it before bedtime and exactly 4 hours later, my eyes pop open. The night I went drug free, I slept like the dead. Kerry even commented on it when he put the dogs to bed when he left for work. He didn't check my pulse, or even poke me. I could have been suffocated by my own snot and he wouldn't have known.

I managed to get off the couch to supervise the 'Great Planting of the Mother's Day Pots'. I buy the plants, I tell the kids what to do, they do it, I take pictures, Kerry cleans up the mess, I water, hope, and pray that I don't kill the plants at a later date.

I decided the more the merrier, and after noticing how many plants were stuffed in some of Costcos pots I figured I could waver from my one-plant-a-pot rule. I went to Ogi's and Costco. I grabbed whatever they had. I was going fast and loose. Normally, I am matchy-matchy. This year we have purple, red, and white and it does pain me a tad to write that. And the pots, we have eclectic and for some reason, I'm okay with that. Clay, plastic, and the best...Antique enamel from my great-grandma's place.

Shaun was in charge of filling the pots with the soil.

Emily was in charge of pot stuffing.

We had a few plants left and Kerry was using this planter as his dandelion collection pot. So we nabbed it from him and put the plants in there. I mean come on, we live in Rutland, we have a chain link fence with 2x4's wired to it so some dumb dog can't get under it, use an ice cream pail like everyone else.

Emily felt bad for the dog that sticks his head in the line of fire whenever someone pulls the hose out. She let him use her Olympic towel, only on the condition he pose for pictures.

Every head cold gets better when you get happy-mail. I got my business cards. I went with mini ones for now. They turned out so sweet that I don't think I can part with them. Yes, they do have different pictures on each one.

And while you are sick, Mother Nature doesn't wait for you. NO, she makes all your cherry and plum trees come into bloom, and all your tulips, and grape hyacinths bloom and wither and die before you get well, so you will not be able to enjoy them unless you crawl off the couch and drag yourself outside and lay in the wet grass with the ants to snap a few prized photos of them just to prove they even existed. (The day time Neocitron I gagged down is working!)

But wait, she will save the dandelion for you, but only if Kerry and his fancy bucket don't get them first.

Productive in all the wrong ways

2011-05-04T16:38:00.000-07:00

While tidying up, I saw these wooden tags I had bought years ago, after Valentine's day. They were in the clearance at Michaels. I bought them, hung them on the peg board and forgot about them. Until I was supposed to be tidying up. I pulled out the chalkboard paint and went to town on them. I think they will be a banner, I have 9. The picture doesn't show how large they are, they are about 6x10 inches.

Then today, I was supposed to be doing other things and found a pattern for purse. It's a smaller version of my Amy Butler one. I ate my lunch and looked at the pattern, my fabric stash and thought "I can do this." So I did. The funny part...check out that fabric! Who buys 3 yards of that stuff? And the matching checker board stuff on the inside, yup, 3 yards of that too. If I remember right, it was $18 a yard and I sure hope I got it on sale. What was I thinking? Maybe it was "Oh, Amy likes red and black!" But it was probably more like "Oh, cute animals."

Maybe it was "Oh, hey,! Check out the photograph beaver! Who wouldn't want a purse with a beaver taking pictures of his beaver family on it?" I have no excuse that sounds good.
So now my craft room is a bigger mess, fabric all over, but I did use some stuff up so there must be more room somewhere to stuff things. Like 2.5 yards of red and black animal fabric.

The tea party of 2011 went over well, after a rocky start with cancellations and late comers. The kids seemed to enjoy trying the different teas we'd picked out. The little sandwiches went fast and the cookies, biscuits and cupcakes all got eaten up. We did a little 'photo boothing'!

I now have china, lace, and 'crystal' for other occasions. And no, I won't plan your party, but you can borrow my pretties.

Sneak Peeks

2011-04-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

I played with my new SU summer mini stuff!

One of my favourite items is the Doily Triple Layer Punch! Very cool.

As you can see, I am using it a whole bunch.

When I saw the Travel Log set, I knew I had to have it for our travel albums.

Summer Splash is too cute to pass up!

And check this out...3 new colours of embossing powders!

I love the new colours on black!

And The Open Sea was calling me too. I thought it would be great for masculine cards and layouts. I also got the matching Nautical Expedition paper. Not loving it yet. But SU's paper always grows on me.

And a little two step stamping with a hostess set.

Kerry and I were discussing my shoe selection. I've been wanting slip-on shoes for awhile. I had to get rid of my charcoal suede Keens, they were sort of Mary Jane style. I got them before we went to Disneyland in 2007, I remember this because I wore them every day we were there! I loved those shoes. I paid about $60 for them, half price. I have since seen them for $120, and I won't pay full price for Keens. So, when I got new ones a year ago, Kerry said I had to get rid of the ratty shoes. And I did. Well, not right away, I kind of hid them. But they are gone now.
I have been looking for replacements, but haven't found the right ones. Until today. The shoe store had a big sale, and I went in. I found some charcoal suede Mary Jane Keens! Yay. But they were sold out of my size. Boo. But they had reddish orange ones too. Yay. But again, not in my size. Boo. So the woman said to try these other ones on, but they aren't suede and I have orange ones similar. I tried them on and they fit. Like Cinderella. But they had a little over glueage on the grey suede part and it's noticeable to me. She said it wasn't a big deal but I must have made a face because she gave me $20 off! It was meant to be. I can only see the glue if I bend over and look at my feet. I won't bend over. They were half price and $20, I can afford to not bend over! Anyone want a pair of black hardly worn Sketchers?

We took Emily out to Ozeki's for her birthday dinner. We always have a great meal, and it's so inexpensive. Under $80 for the 5 of us to eat, meals and appies! Crazy. And we always feel full but never gross afterwards. The staff is great!

The lighting is terrible in there but it's nice to have your own little room to dine in. These 3 are goofs, and I was laughing so hard at them that I was crying.

15 at 15

2011-04-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

1. She has a camera and knows how to use it, just never remembers to take it with her. So happy we got her the Fuji FinePix XP10. It's shock proof, water proof, dust proof. She's dropped it, a few times and it's survived. Thanks to Michelle, at London Drugs for that recommendation. She doesn't know the first rule of photography, check your subjects surroundings. (not the junk on the table, counter, fridge), but I can tell that she took this in Dec. by the surroundings.

2. She has a Batman Thermos that she takes Chef Boyardee or leftovers in almost every day to school. This keeps things much warmer than the lame 'snack Thermos' Santa gave her.
3. She's eating a wider variety of foods. Thank goodness! She'd be a meatatarian if we let her.

4. She has a core group of friends that don't get together that often but when they do, they seem to have a blast, if you can judge fun by the amount of noise they make.

5. She's interested in sewing, too bad I'm not that good at it. She must get it from her grandma. But she can sew by hand and that's a good thing to be able to do. Especially when you are too afraid to use the sewing machine.
6. She can read and understand way more Japanese then I can, she's self taught. I know food and swears. She can watch the Japanese news and pick up most of what is going on. I just know they are speaking Japanese.

7. She draws 89% of the time she's awake. She comes from artistic stock, I'm not taking all the credit., mostly because I don't think I can. Her dad took fine arts, her grandpa likes to draw and create, her great uncle is an artist.
8. She has art in the local gallery. But she's shy about showing her work. If you ask her to see what she's drawn, she may not show you.
9. She plays her DS, eats or goes on the computer the other 11% of her time.

10. She has a brother. They get along like 2 peas in a pod. Two loud, guffawing, youtube watching peas.
11. She loves Double Dream Hands, double rainbow, and this, she quotes Antoine Dobson more than she should. She will love Double Dream Feet. (the link won't work) And Big Bang Theory, Sheldon Cooper the mostest.
12. She doesn't like Justin Bieber, but knows who Rick Astley, Billy Joel, and Johnny Cash are. But you won't find them on her mp3 player, she's got Japanese Anime music on there.

13. The Easter Bunny and Santa still visit her house.

14. She sometimes thinks her parents are hilarious. But most of the time thinks they are just plain cool!
15. She is 15 years old today!

Last Minutes with ODEN

2011-04-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

I know that our time is coming. Sally is showing her age in so many ways. If I could do anything to avoid the inevitable, I would do it, but I know it would be for me and not for her. I know I can't have her in pain, so when the time comes, we'll do what we have to do. Watch the video, have a little (big) sob, and hug your pets.

Easter Long Weekend and Post

2011-04-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

Kerry and I went hiking on Friday. We took Linus and his baby soft paws out with us. He runs so much he wears spots off his pads. We need to toughen him up. We stopped for a few photos here, you can see all of Kelowna from here. And Big and Little White. Maybe even Vernon.

This poor dog! He is such a loose runner, the ears, the tongue, if I saw this running towards me and I didn't know him, I'd be scared out of my tree.

We stopped here for a photo shot so that I'd have something to put in my Project Life album. Linus was so bagged that he couldn't stay in a seated position.

There were millions of red ants out. We saw this ant hill on our way back to civilization. By the way, thank goodness for cell phones and Black Berry Messaging. We sort of got lost. We knew where we wanted to be, back at the van, but when we went down that path behind me in the picture above, well, we were too far to the right of where we should have been and so Michelle got a play by play. Although she said if there were bugs, one of which got in my eye, and squirrels, she would not come out and find us, she'd send help. I didn't tell her about the red ant hill.

Michelle also told us that we should have bannock for our treat after our hike. And after getting lost, we figured we earned a few bannocks. One was for my dad.

One day last week I had tried to make grilled cheese sandwiches in my Analon pan. It was the most expensive pan I have ever bought and I have to say it wasn't the best one. It's been on it's way out but having the buttered bread of the grilled cheese stick to the pan was the last straw. On the weekend, mom and I went out and I came home with a new pan. So far, it's been awesome, angels sing when I use it. Or maybe that's just the sound of me sobbing because nothing sticks to this pan. I made Philly Cheesesteaks for the first time and they were given the Emily seal of approval.

The next day, I made pannekoeks. I had brunch out with Michelle earlier in the week and we decided we should try to find a recipe. All of the recipes found were pretty vague. Flour, eggs, salt and enough water/milk to make it runny. They got the two thumbs up from everyone except me. I found them a tad bland. But the pan! I told Kerry if I wasn't already married, I'd marry that pan.

The kids, being as old as they are, were given the choice to do the Easter hunt or not. They chose not to but they still wanted the goods. So the bunny left their buckets on the dining room table. A tad uneventful. So I made them all go out for family photos. Linus was too cool yet again.

Sally is always the best poser in the family. She loves the camera.

Which is why I get these types of photos. I can just hear her! "Is it my turn, MOM, is it?"

And it wouldn't be Easter with out an egg hunt, Kerry found a quail's next in the hedge. 15 eggs. Poor mom. Although I have a feeling the little babies won't last long with the 5 plus cats that have been in our yard lately. I don't want quail eating all my baby carrots and spinach but I'd rather have that than all the neighbours' cats using the garden as a litter box. Kerry says it's the circle of life, I thought he might start singing the Lion King song.

Later on, the momma came back and it's hard to see her, but right in the middle is rectangular spot of light, right on her head. I couldn't believe that little bird could spread her body over all 15 of those eggs.

The kids didn't complain too much when I made them sit for a few photos. I was totally disgusted when I looked at them and found not one single picture was good enough. Kerry had model face. Shaun had sideways eyes, Emily was looking down. I was snapping my fingers. The dogs, well, they had places to be.

So I made them go back out and do re-takes. And this time, we left the dogs in side, they are actually standing at the screen door behind us. And the kids got serious because now they had places they wanted to be. I'm so happy to get a decent family picture that I will overlook Kerry's Tower of Terror t-shirt. Seriously though, he's only got Subaru or Disney clothes.

I hope everyone had a great Easter!

Binder Mechanisms, where have you been all my life?{photo heavy}

2011-04-21T16:13:00.000-07:00

Forgive the photos, they were taken in the basement because I was too lazy to take them anywhere else. Hey, I've been creating all day, I haven't even showered, and I am still in my pjs. But when the creative juices are flowing, you have to squeeze the fruit.

I picked up Tim Holtz's binder mechanisms on Monday, I've been wanting to my hand at altering a hardcover book. I found a few hardcovers at thrift stores. I had to cut the pages out of them, which wasn't easy because I don't like to hurt books. But after the initial discomfort, I got over it. I found this book, The Men in Your Life, I didn't even see what it was about, but I thought it would make a great book about the men in my life. I used my For The Record kit from Echo Park. Love it!

And I made this flower with some ribbon.

I also picked up this book, because I loved the cover. The couple dancing! So cute!

I used a House of 3 digital kit, I printed the papers myself. For the pages, I used one of those chipboard scalloped square albums from the dollar section of M's. I embossed on them and then sprayed Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist and homemade mists on the pages. You can see a close up farther down.

And when I am all cleaned up, I will have myself a little snack of Easter Bark. Made with milk chocolate, peanut butter, white chocolate with green colouring, mini eggs, and star sprinkles. Super easy to make, super easy to eat!

A very creative give-away!

2011-04-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

What a great way to get someone started! Jeanne is hosting this give away. Check it out!

Vintage Camera Coolness

2011-04-14T11:42:00.000-07:00

Or "How the internet made me feel better about an impulse buy!" Yay internet! Yay me!

I have to admit, I subscribe to I Heart Faces and hardly ever read the post. But this time, I was intrigued by today's post. So much so that I grabbed my vintage Duaflex and an empty box of Chef Boyardee and ran outside.

It's not nearly as dirty as the one in their samples, but it adds a different feel to the photos. This is the bottom of my forsythia bush. Why? Because the camera was on the ground.

I thought a black and white conversion might be neat too.

And then the dummy had to come and get in the action. After he tried to eat the cardboard box. There's a bit of sun flare in the top right, but that plastic from the pool is unsightly.

Black and white makes almost everything better.

Definitely better, but he's over exaggerating the "Look up, look way up, and I'll call Rusty" pose. I think only Canadians will get the reference. And only ones that grew up watching tv in the 70's.

Then the sweet, short one wanted to get in on the fun. I love it!

Incase you are wondering, these are taken with my DSLR, and I am shooting through the viewfinder of the vintage camera that I thought would just be a dust collector, the good old Kodak Duaflex II. Who knew it would be useful.

I made this yesterday. Emily is having a themed birthday party at the end of the month and I'm starting on the decorations.

The Yard

2011-04-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

I signed up for Amy Tangerine's Get Those Creative Juices Flowing class. The little book she had instructions for was just what I needed. I used some chipboard stickers I had and a bunch of different patterned papers. For someone that has this need to use all one line of papers, this was tricky for me.

I love these Making Memories glitter stickers.

I added pictures taken in the yard and of the yard.

Things we do in the yard.

Things we find in the yard.

The whole thing is stitched together with the sewing machine. That little $89 machine sure has come in handy.

Slow Down

2011-04-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's already April! 8 months till Christmas. Less than 4 months till the retreat! I just made the final payment. Such guilt with the clicking of "Pay Now". I know it will be worth it. But...

Anyways, the taxes aren't finished, I thought they were close to being submitted, I was wrong.

And now some good stuff, the whole post won't be a pity party.

Kerry sold his bike! Yay! I'm so glad. Paying insurance on something you don't use was bugging me. Kerry has his moment of sadness and then got over it. The bike went to a decent home, the guy had a nice Volkswagen, so he must be decent.

We went out for April's 30th birthday, she's just a baby. And we had a blast. Such great, funny people.

I made green velvet cupcakes, with cocomint buttercream icing, and Andes mint chips on them. Michelle brought the chips back from the US and we were just eating them but I thought I'd put them to good use. These are the prettiest cupcakes I've ever iced! EVER.

So the prettiest one deserved the honour of being David's birthday cupcake. David's in California. I ate the cupcake. And then I ate spinach. And then later, I was shocked at the vivid colour of my ... oh, never mind, too much info. Let's just say green food colour holds it's colour well.

April is the month of birthdays for us. There are at least 10 people we know that were born in April. It's crazy. Emily is already planning her party for the end of the month. She wants a Professor Layton party. She's got all kinds of ideas, we'll see how much gets done in a month. They include tea party, costumes, murder mystery, top hats, puzzles and a big cake. All I know is it means work for me.

I Won!

2011-03-31T08:18:00.000-07:00

I was asked to sub at Bunco probably this time last year, and that turned into a permanent gig. What an awesome group of ladies, and I'm using that term loosely! Really, they are great! So much fun. I've had a blast!

Normally, we play for prizes. But one of the Bunco'ers lost her mother to breast cancer recently so we played and donated. I thought I'd try a different approach to 'winning' and use reverse psychology, acting like I really didn't care if I won.

Well, I guess you could say it worked, I did win! Well, actually I lost so bad, I won. I had the most losses, 17, some said that was the most they'd ever seen (there's a b-word for those people). So I guess I have one thing going, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it well! And I'm going to take pictures of my winnings that will make me feel like a winner!

Let's talk about these! Pink tulips from Michelle. Background in the first picture, my living room wall. Picking that blue for the living room was a grave mistake. It's not a what I would call a dark colour, but the camera sees it as dark, and I have to crank up the ISO every time. Makes Christmas morning photos pretty hard to get. I like how the top right hand corner is lit up, that's the light from my door windows.
The second shot is in the exact same spot, in front of my front door, it's retro, has 3 square windows running vertically down the door. Lets in some indirect light through those stylish frosted windows. The back ground, hold on, is the inner box from the Rock Band guitar. Anything can be a background when you shoot at f/2.8. The box was right there, it's white, but it's not very wide, it was a perfect background/reflector. I'm crafty, I can made do.

Crafting and an Outing

2011-03-27T13:15:00.000-07:00

I made another canvas on Friday. I started with an idea, and then it didn't end up the way I wanted it to. I ended up having to paint the camera image over the original iron on because I painted over it and it lost it's clarity. Now I can live with it.

For what ever reason, the juices were flowing on Friday and I started and finished a 6x6 American Crafts album. It's our Christmas one. It's too fat, but I'm over it.

Saturday, don't get too excited, but we went to the Art Gallery. The school district had an exhibit of a select number of students' work displayed. Emily had a drawing picked so we went to check it out. There's lots of amazing talent in middle school! This photo was taken before ice cream, and she didn't want to have her picture taken.

As an added bonus, or maybe it was the endorphins from her favourite ice cream from Moolix, she let me take a few shots of her. I love that she's sitting on the sidewalk beside the garage, where the reflection from the white of our garage, and the cream of the neighbour's house makes for awesome light.

See previous post!

2011-03-25T11:56:00.003-07:00

Ironing? Me?

2011-03-25T09:11:00.000-07:00

I was doing my morning blog reading when I came across this blog and some free transfer patterns. I have a couple packs of iron on transfers and I never use them. So I thought I'd try them out.

But then I didn't have anything to iron them on to. So after lots of thinking, hey, it wasn't even 8:30 am, I decided to use my shopping bag that I had made a while ago. I found a clean, dog hair free spot and ironed the image on to it. I have a few more printed out and can't find anything to iron them on to. I did iron one on to some fabric paper that Marg gave me, and I'll put that in my Project Life album at our meeting tonight.

I wonder if Kerry will notice if I iron a bunch of things on the backs of his Subaru t-shirts?

Making Things

2011-03-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

I've been busy making new samples for around my scrapping room, and for classes.

This super cute one is not my own, I totally copied it from here, because I liked it so much.

The following cards were made while using blue, vanilla and tan.

Then I played with grey, olive and pink.

After finding this pattern on Heather Bailey's blog this morning, I made this cute little bat. Then I spent 2 hours at the dentist. Emily and I needed a cleaning and it took a lot longer than normal because the office is switching from paper charts to computerized ones.

Spring is on it's way!

2011-03-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

We spent the weekend doing yard work. Kerry borrowed the chainsaw from work and we cut down a nut tree, and pruned the curly willow out front. That sounds kind of kinky, it's not.

Saturday, fight night. Pizza at mom and dad's before the fight.

Sunday, dinner at the Gasthaus in Peachland. Kerry's been putting in longer hours because of a new system at work so his boss paid for us to go out for dinner. It was a hard choice! We knew it would be a good meal at the Gasthaus, always is. Kerry had the Bavarian Beer Roast with bread dumplings.

Both meals came with a side of purple cabbage. I love it!

I had Rouladen with spaetzle. I could only eat half of it, so I ate the rest for breakfast the next day.

We tried to get a few pictures of the two of us together. I hate docks. It helped that the water was clear and not deep at all. The picture is crooked, I had to put the camera on a rock and use the timer, which meant I had to run down the dock, which is scary too.

My Project Life album is caught up, right up to this week. I'm pretty amazed that I have managed to stay this caught up. And as the weather improves, I've noticed I take more pictures. There's the odd week last month that has maybe 2 photos in it. But that's okay, I decided right at the beginning that I wouldn't stress about it.

I found a picture on the internet to use for my bit about the earthquake/tsunami in Japan. I used CNN for facts for that day. Since then things have changed.

I have been saving wrappers from different food items, candy, hot chocolate, and have been adding them too. It was Lorana's birthday, so we went out for dinner at Olympia, it was awesome. We had such a great time and we took pictures. I'm loving that part of Project Life. It's forcing me to take my camera out more, and use it.

St. Patrick's day, Spring, trip to the scrapbook store, blood test, tatertots to get over blood test trauma, self portrait, sick kid, muffin, Walmart. I have developed a new skill, I can hide my veins when the thread of a needle is presented. Which makes life even harder, and painful. No veins in the arms means the veins that can be seen on the body will be used, hence the swollen, bruised back of my right hand. Which stayed true to me and didn't give up any blood! So the left hand was used too, held between my legs, it gave up a bit more than the right hand, and didn't hurt at all. I'm a freak of nature.

Chainsaw, dinner out, green grass, pizza.

And I made a layout too. Paint, ink, polaroids, corrugated cardboard from an Amazon box, washi tape, stitching, I went all out. And I mixed up paper lines, different manufacturers on one page!
Thank you, Amy Tangerine for getting those creative juices flowing.

Other things I've been doing...taxes, business stuff for photography, studying, eating better!

Ch...ch...changes

2011-03-14T20:04:00.000-07:00

I will be moving my blog over to a new address and will keep you posted to where you can find me in the very near future!

2 weeks of food

2011-03-14T08:54:00.000-07:00

We watch a lot of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. We've been to a few of them on our trip to California. I'd only go back to one of them, the other ones were nothing to write home about.

One thing we did discover is that biscuits and gravy are not that great. The 'cream' gravy is gross. So when we decided we must try Chicken Fried Steak with cream gravy, we knew we wouldn't make it with the cream gravy. When I say "WE", I mean me. When I emailed the recipe for Chicken Fried Steak to Kerry, the reply was pretty much "Yum! But I've looked over the recipe and can't figure out where the chicken comes in." I responded with "It's either 'fried like chicken' or it's 'fried by a chicken'. You decide."

I had a hard time finding the steaks we needed. Good think I like hanging out at the butchers. They always find meat for my odd requests, they cut the steaks and tenderized them for me. Cheap Cheap. I was impressed. It was a messy ordeal, touching raw meat is not one of my favourite things to do, dipping it in raw egg makes it worse. But the outcome was worth it. I made mushroom and shallot gravy topped with onion rings, garlic mashed potatoes and green beans. 2 thumbs up. It's one of those meals you should only have maybe once a month or every other month. Unless you want to die young.

My mom made these, I don't know if they have a name. She said she found them from my blog somehow. One of my readers, commenters, had a link to a recipe. It's all vague. They are pretzels with Kisses melted on top. They were so good, sweet and salty. And cute! Thank you!

One of my favourite meals on our trip was at the Cocina Cucamonga in California Adventure. I had my first tamale. I found all the ingredients to make them at home so I tried last week. It was a little time consuming, mainly the wrapping. The soaking of the corn husks and slow cooking of the beef wasn't too bad. Set it and leave it really. The big surprise was how much Emily liked them. She doesn't eat polenta/ corn meal, but has enjoyed ripping into these little corny packets.

I've been trying different foods from the Oriental Market. We haven't gone there for dim sum, it's on our to-do list. But they do sell the items frozen so I thought I'd try 'pork buns'. Not to be confused with bbq pork buns of a few weeks ago, these are more like gyoza/dumplings/wonton. They had to be steamed. They got eaten as fast as I could steam them. Can't wait to pick a new item next time I'm at the market.

Did you notice a theme or lack of one? Very few or no veggies! We are working on changing that. I had a physical this week and won't go into details but the scale was where I thought it would be, and it still wasn't something I wanted to see. The dr. said that some of my 'issues' could be weight related, and I'm getting some tests done to rule out a few things. I have to do a bit of fasting before the blood test, which isn't a problem, it's the actual blood test I can't handle. I should go in tomorrow but am thinking I might rope someone into going with me....just incase. I tend to scare other patients with my lack of control.

Templates?

2011-03-08T15:46:00.000-08:00

Storyboard templates, something I haven't played with yet.

The verdict is still out.

Hey!

2011-03-04T18:20:00.000-08:00

I could not wait the 3 days to let the paint cure. I used my heat gun to help the drying time along. And I only used one chalk board, incase I wrecked it by using it too soon.

Emily thought they were pretty neat!

She made sure everyone got in on the fun.

It's Project Life night, we are moving right along. I can't believe it's the first week of March.

Things I'm adding to the book tonight:

pretzel bites, Rock Band, chalk board making, Criminal Minds watching, and dogs napping in sun spots.

Just the usual daily grind!

I make things, many things.

2011-03-03T09:03:00.000-08:00

Most of you know me as this person, the one that makes things out of paper. But did you know I used to work with wood?

A long time ago, I made wood crafts, sold them at local craft sales and taught classes. I had all the toys, an industrial bandsaw, a drill press, a little router and a scroll saw. They were MINE, not ours, and not Kerry's. I ordered wood from the mill, I had paint by tin, saw dust all over the place. Then I discovered paper, stamps, and ink, and the wood working tools either got pushed to the side or sold. The band saw was sold and a camera was purchased, and then another and another, until my 50D came along and I was content with it. (I have to say this because a new camera is not in my immediate future.)
I have been coveting chalk board speech bubbles for a long time, I thought they'd make great photography props, I knew I could make them, but didn't really want to, Heather offered to make them and said I could make them if I wanted to. And there was no way I was paying for something I could make. Call me stubborn. But after going to the high school tour things changed. Walking into the wood working room and inhaling all the good scents, the wood, the varnish, the sawdust, glue, and the tools (yes, tools smell too), I knew I would be making my own speech bubbles.

It was the first time the saw had been run in years. I made sure everything was in working order, after the big band saw incident the last time I used it I've been a bit saw scared. Don't even get me started on the circular saw, any saw you can walk around with while it's running, can't be a good saw. Anyways, after the safety check, I managed to cut a bunch of the bubbles out, and cleaned everything up so that Kerry would never know I was even in the shop. I sanded, painted and glued. And now I am the very proud owner of my own set of speech bubbles!
Now if only I could knit!

Tuesday's Thoughts

2011-03-01T16:58:00.000-08:00

I want more days like this, where the sun is low, the grass is green, the dog is not digging a hole in the yard. I am contemplating getting the walnut tree cut down, it seems he doesn't spend his time outside eating walnuts for anyone else but me.

A certain girl child, whom shall remain nameless, came to me to day after reading that the local art supply store has Copics on sale and said "I need a few more, I don't really have a good selection of colours." I think I said "Uhhhhh....."

These are scenes from a Rock Band in the making. They have a name. It was something like "We Might Be Moustaches" but it could have been something else, I was laughing too hard when I heard they had named themselves. They are 'jamming' as I type this. I'm not bitter that I didn't make the band. I still have my tambourine.

My living room looks much better in black and white.

We tried to re-incarnate the happy, sunny days of Disneyland by making pretzel bites. Totally rocked the tastes, now we need the sounds and the weather. Apparently, I deleted the sound track to the teacup ride. I wonder why? It's not like hearing it played over and over 36 times a day would bother a person.

Overheard

2011-02-28T14:32:00.000-08:00

I overheard this conversation:
-Do you think Latoya Jackson is Michael Jackson?
-She must be, they look so much alike.
Me yelling from the kitchen: Some people would argue they are the same person, google it. I don't believe it.

What was really said:
-Do you think Latoya Jackson is Michael Jackson's sister?

I guess sticking the q-tip that far into my ear isn't really helping matters.

FroKnowsPhoto Song - A photography Theme Song for all Photographers

2011-02-28T08:34:00.000-08:00

I love that they shot this in the kitchen! Jared from Froknowsphotos is very informative!

Fiddling Around

2011-02-24T14:38:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting to make fabric flowers for awhile.

I used my Stampin' Up fabric that I have been hoarding. Is it really hoarding if I only bought it in December?

Baby Bear is modelling the fabric flowers, which are on clips.

I thought I'd try my hand at making rolled fabric flowers. It's harder than it looks and there are many things I am good at and using the glue gun is not one of them. I used more hoarded fabric, this stuff has been around longer than December. Since taking the picture, I have added tulle and am going to find some headbands to attach them too.

I found an older magazine while I was purging my magazines, and it had a cute framed heart thing. I had this cupboard door already painted so I stamped a bunch of loves, hand cut the heart, and stuck this together.

I've had a very productive day making things that really have no purpose. Pretty good if I do say so myself.

From Linus

2011-02-23T08:45:00.000-08:00

Mom's been working on her Project Life album. I'm too short to see what is happening on the table but I can tell you that anything that hangs over the edge of the table is fair game. I've had some tasty treats from that table. I really like the taste and chewiness of the Stampin' Up cardstock. The assorted colours do taste different. The paper that mom uses to cover the table tastes good too. I trim the overhang down for her so that it looks nice and neat. I ate an origami flower the other day, mom wasn't happy but she said it would pass. I'm not checking to see if it did, but when it does, I bet it won't be as pretty.

Mom's friend, Heather, left a pile of paper doilies behind. And this month's challenge was Glitter(Y), mom has terrible handwriting so no one knows why there was a Y at the end of glitter. Mom decided to M Boss the doilies. I don't know what that means but I think it has something to do with dust, and heat. She was very happy when she was done so I think she got to eat some dust too.

Mom held the Project Life album up for me to see. It's not very bright. She's using "New Tralls" and adding some bits of colour here and there. Not sure I like that.

The most exciting part was when she lifted the Monthly Divider. She said she stamped the hearts using some Stazon ink. I looked pretty neat to me but what do I know? It didn't have dog hair on it, so it was only okay.

Mom said her favourite part of the album would be the assorted page protectors. Meh...pockets for pictures, whatever.

None of it makes up for the fact the humans made me walk to Grandpa's house. And then he wasn't even home. So I peed in his back yard. Here's some pictures of when we got home. Geez, I wish mom would wait till I open my eyes. Look, you can see my breath, it's that cold.

I like this one, I'm such a handsome fellow. Mom says the sun flare is a nice touch. All I know is the sun is warming my back side, my bum is frozen to the ground.

Then I told mom to get closer so everyone could see the snot!

After the long, forever walk, I had a nap but my sister, Sally, kept bugging me. She decided she needed the sun spot more than I did.

I'm scared here. Very scared. She's touching me. Can you see the fear in my eyes? I'm thinking if I just lay still, she might get bored and leave.
Overall, mom says I had a good weekend. I know I got fed, not enough, and had a bunch of naps. I even watched some motocross and Daytona car racing with dad so I guess it was a good weekend.

Yesterday

2011-02-22T08:05:00.000-08:00

I had to work. Same as every Monday. The order hadn't come in yet. So when Heather called and asked if I wanted help, I jumped on it. I had a head ache too, I think my back is out from having to move the zipper cabinet last Monday. We finished up, went to the scrapbook store, where I spent $0. Then for lunch at Taco Del Mar. We had the flour taco combo, each. It was so good. Reminded me of the meal we ate at Cocina Cucamonga, only this was about 8x messier.

We forgot to take a camera, and so I used my phone to take a picture. We forgot to take it before we ate, so this is my super messy tray.

Afterwards, we went to Michaels, where I spent less than $4. I'm really sticking to my 'no more spending on things I don't need' rule. (Read Investment blog post from a few weeks ago.)

I was so full, there was no way I was making dinner for Kerry and Emily so I called them and told them to get ready. I took them to Costco where they ate pizza while I shopped. We watched Harry's Law when we got home, I like it, it's a bit far fetched, but Cathy Bates is likeable.

My head was killing me and so I had to take 3 extra strength Tylenols. I didn't take the all at once, I took 2 at about 6 pm. and at 8 when my head still felt like someone was sticking an icepick in my eye, I took another one. Then I ate a Cara Cara orange from Costo and felt much better. They are the best oranges I've ever had.

It's 8 am. and I have chicken teriyaki marinading for dinner tonight. I'm using the Eat, Shrink, and Be Merry cookbook. We are going to eat a bit lighter if it kills us.

I'm planning on scrapbooking up a storm today. Providing the niggling headache stays away. Another trip to the chiropractor is in order, but it's so cold out, I don't want to leave the house.

Hanging

2011-02-19T11:08:00.000-08:00

We had bunco at Patti's last night. It was my night to host, but she offered to have it in her home. It worked out better for her and baby K and I was okay with that. I got to snuggle him and he smiled at me. The only downside is that my house didn't get cleaned. It was humbling/weird to get there to find Patti hanging up her newly framed photos from baby K's new born photo shoot. I love the frames she chose and she got them done at Michaels. My poor personal photos are in cheap Ikea frames. Makes me want to redo them!

We had a great night. We needed a spare, so I asked Kelly-Next-Door if she could come. Just my luck, she won a prize. Darn beginner's luck.

I felt like baby K in this photo.

Speaking of Kelly's and K names, Kerry's co-worker just called. I had to take a message and couldn't remember his name, I could tell from the call display that it stated with a K. It took me a minute, and then I remembered! It's Kelly.

Our next Project Life meeting is tomorrow. I'm doing a decent job of catching up. Maybe now that daylight hangs around a bit longer, I might get more shots of the family in the album.

Kerry has a cold. It's in his head. It makes his voice sound terrible. I've asked him to stop talking to me because his voice freaks me out. I can't even explain the way it sounds. He says other than the coughing, he feels fine. Maybe it's because he doesn't have to talk to me.

Coasting

2011-02-17T16:02:00.000-08:00

Years ago, Nancy gave me a kit for making photo coasters. It came with all the stuff you needed to transfer photos to ceramic tiles. I used it up right away making tiles for Christmas gifts, and for this guy's owners.

They were a huge hit. I got requests for more. But sadly, the art supply store stopped carrying the product. I went in and asked and was looked at like I was crazy. I asked one last employee and she said they did have the stuff and it was in the discontinued bin. I found one tub of transfer gel and one pack of transfer paper, at 50%! Which made the 10 pack of paper a reasonable $25. Ouch. So now I'm pretty stingy about giving out photo coasters. And you should have seen me today when the girl running the laser printer was saying that every other sheet of paper in the order before mine was getting jammed in the machine. I was about to tell her to find someone else to run the darn machine because she obviously didn't know how. She did have problems, she was so unprofessional (I thought she said the f-word at one point), and she finally did the copying on the self-serve machine for me. Everything worked out but I was on pins and needles waiting. At $2.50 a sheet, I can't afford to have her mess up!
So after all that, I came home, made my tiles, took the picture of them and will be giving them as a thank you gift for tomorrow night's bunco! 2 out of 3 of the tiles, the big dog is going across the street. I love that photo.

Speaking of photos, that brings me to my new acquisition. A vintage Kodak Duaflex. I bid on it for a silent auction and amazingly(oddly) won. I thought for sure it would go for more than I bid, but then I realized that the auction wasn't well publicized. Maybe I bid too much. It was for a good cause.

The dogs love it. It gives them treats, they love how they can see me in it while I'm taking their picture.

And the love love love the flash and bulbs it came with, all of which fit in the faux leather case that it also came with.

Check it out, no snow in that part of the yard! Tomorrow, I'm sure there will be, that's they way it's been going lately.

More Disney Stuff

2011-02-16T10:22:00.000-08:00

With the computer being down, I never did blog all my photos from Disneyland! All 1500 of them!

Lately, I have been putting them in albums and doing a tiny bit of journaling. It's almost like going all over again. I haven't processed/photoshopped or done any sharpening for web for the Disney photos. They are as is, sooc.

Except we don't get to eat Wetzel's Pretzels every day. I am pretty sure Emily would have eaten them for every meal. We joke now that at some point on the trip, aliens abducted her and left us with a kid that eats more varieties of foods. It's really weird. She's eating oatmeal, enchiladas, sometimes stir-fries, and she'll try more things, even if she doesn't end up eating them all.

I love this series of photos. There's the bubble gun guy. Doing his best to get kids hooked!

She hasn't seen him yet but I know she will.

And she will turn and say "I have to have a bubble gun!" "I need to have one!" and the bubble guy will sell her one and give her an additional bottle of bubbles. Which is good because for the rest of the day, she made bubbles every where she went.

Kerry liked them too. For the first 15 minutes.

Bubbles. Everywhere.

The other neat thing she did was to video tape as she went on rides. She took some great photos with her little Fuji camera, dropping it twice didn't hurt the camera one bit. And the videos she took are a great thing to have. Except for when I hear my own voice. I may be sitting behind her. I may scream. She went on this ride a few times by herself. We were quite surprised at how many rides she went on this time compared to last time.

Loves!

2011-02-14T08:43:00.000-08:00

We decided to have a family dinner for Valentine's. Well, me, Kerry and Emily decided. I asked what everyone's favourite meal was. Kerry said burgers, Emily said ribs, I want tator tots. When Kerry heard Emily wanted ribs, he decided he wanted ribs too! So ribs, tots and salad for Valentine's dinner. I'm 3 steps ahead of the game, I had rub leftover from the last time I made ribs (the ones pictured above) and I am not making bbq sauce from scratch this time. I have wood chips soaking for later. Now I just need ribs.
I can't wait! I love the way I smell after smoking meat! What a perfect Valentine's day! Too bad I have to go to work.

winner!

2011-02-12T08:17:00.000-08:00

33, that's how many packs of Making Memories tiny alphabet stickers I have. And when you think that there are 2 sheets in each pack, that's a lot of tiny alphabets!
Shannon was the closest guess.

Love is in the air!

2011-02-10T14:34:00.000-08:00

I totally cased this design from Angie. I loved how she wrapped the ribbon around the spools and added buttons to the card. I got the colour inspiration from my Shootsac cover. I didn't realize this was the same fabric that Fabricland carries, I keep looking at it and thinking how much I like it, but have no use for more fabric, and then it dawned on me as to why I am attracted to it and it's matching fabrics.

I was still feeling grey so I made a red and grey birthday card, while snacking on the cinnamon heart popcorn I made this morning.

We have gotten my dad addicted to Pakora Palace, the local East Indian Restaurant. I love it! Last weekend he picked up Tandoori chicken and it was so good. So tonight, that's what I am making, it's marinading, and has been all day! I used this Tandoori mix. We have the Butter Chicken mix too and it's good too!

And I'm loving my 24-70mm f/2.8. It's dang heavy, almost 3 lbs., but it's awesome. I keep it on my camera all the time now.

What are you loving right now?

A little blog candy

2011-02-08T15:49:00.000-08:00

I did a little scrapbooking for myself today. I found I have a healthy supply of those little Making Memories Tiny Alphabet stickers. I have so many letters that never get used, B,C, H, J, Q, etc. so I used them to make the wavy background lines. That hardly made a dent in the number of stickers I have. I printed the photo on some non-Canon photo paper. It's awful, so I'll be reprinting it.

I even used the stickers to make the little flower.

So I thought as a special treat for you, I'd do a little give-away. You just have to do the following 3 things...
1. Follow my blog
2. Comment that you follow
3. Take a guess at how many packages of these tiny alphabet stickers I have
I'll pick a winner at the end of the week, friday.

Pickle what?

2011-02-08T13:42:00.000-08:00

Amy's mom, Debbie, works at a Pennypickles . She has sent us some delicious dill pickle chips and mentioned Pickle Pops. It wasn't until we finally met in person that we got some Pickle Pops. We brought them home and froze them to try later.

They are totally weird. They are indeed pickle flavoured and they are exactly like a Freezie. Only with pickle chunks. We split one, just incase we didn't like it. Surprisingly enough, Kerry liked it the most.

They are an acquired taste. But if you ever get the chance, try it. You might like it.

7 months ago

2011-02-06T13:39:00.000-08:00

Now that everything is back and up and running on the new Mac, we are finding some little surprises. Like Emily's California trip photos and videos, which were on the PC side, but are now loaded to the Mac side, as are hundreds of other photos I had forgotten about. Like the following...it's nice to see what we were doing 7 months ago.

Things like rolling on the grass.

Relaxing in the pool.

Chewing logs.

Running around with buckets on our head.

Sneaking through the jungle to find our bucket.

And giving our bucket a dip in the pool to cool off.

The stuff we are doing today...practicing with that macro reversing ring. A steady hand, I don't have.

This was yesterday, notice the sunshine, the dry ground, and the little bit of snow. Well, that's all covered in a lot of wet snow today. This is dad on his new toy. Good thing he got a ride in yesterday.

An investment in the form of a retreat

2011-02-05T16:12:00.000-08:00

How often do you invest in yourself?

I can't say I really do, unless you include camera equipment and scrapbooking supplies, does that even count? I haven't invested in my own post secondary education since Shaun was 3-4 yrs. old. I could have had a career in computerize accounting, glorified book-keeping, but at the time after I finished the coures, we chose not to do the daycare route. And we haven't looked back. I also hate doing taxes and don't balance my cheque book. I've turned that part of my brain off.

Last year, there was some talk about me going back to school. Some research was done and I decided I didn't want to do it. Not for business, not for photography, not for anything.

But we did decide that if I wanted to take courses here and there, we'd make it work. So that's what I've been doing. Karen Russell still does add on classes for her Photographers' Workshop, called Making the Shot. I plan on purchasing them all as she puts them out. Erin Cobb put out a work flow DVD, and it's been a huge eye opener. I also have Zack Arias's One Light DVD that is really nicely done but it's more for studio lighting and I'm not into that, yet. But the biggest investment was just made. And from all reviews, it could be a life changer. It should be the push I need.

What is it? Well, if you looked closely at the Project Life post, you would have seen a layout and some journalling about it. It's such a big thing for me that I wasn't sure I wanted to share it yet. But today, I feel like sharing... I am enrolled to attend a 3 day photography retreat put on by Barb Uil of Jinky Art Photography of Australia. It's not until the summer. I'm very excited and a bit scared. She only takes 12 in each retreat. Her retreats are always held some place beautiful, and this time, it's on an island off of Bowen Island. This in itself is scary. 3 days with people I don't know is scary. A 'water taxi' is scary. But the chance to learn a fraction of what Barb knows will be worth it.

Coming Clean!

2011-02-04T11:04:00.000-08:00

Back in the days before our trip to Disneyland, Erin Cobb was putting out a dvd/tutorial on her Clean Color Workflow. I wanted it so bad. And the release date was the day we would be crossing the California border, so I was without internet and out of luck or so I thought. I contacted Erin and was told that I could not pre-purchase, but as luck would have it, the dvd was not ready until the New Year. Which was much better timing for me. And that's what it's all about!

I've been playing around with her settings and work flow. I don't have it down pat, I'm not sure about where I want the skin tones and how to smoothly do the steps.

Here is a before photo that I thought was okay, although her face it darker than I'd like.

And here is the after, and as I type this I realize I should have done the 'save for web' steps. I can see her hair is kind of weird. I still think her face had a tad bit of green to it. And I wold have loved to crop the lattice straight, but then that ugly blue swing chain would have been wonky, I could remove it, but that seems like work.

Workin' It Wednesday {photo heavy}

2011-02-02T16:08:00.000-08:00

Last night we had our Project Lifers meeting.

This is my album with my own papers and embellishments. I am proud to say I'm all caught up.

I may not have a photo for everyday, but I have at least 3 a week which is what I vowed to do.

I also decided to use the photos SOOC, straight out of camera.

I'm journaling, like never before! I've got lots to say, but I never like to journal.

I'm handwriting too. Well, printing. And I'm trying to keep it neat and legible for future generations.

I've journaled about my big decision. My large investment. The source of my eternal stomach upset. The reason I won't be able to go for coffee, lunch, or to the scrapbook store for awhile. Ohhhhh....

But it's a good thing. It's a great thing. It's an investment in ME!

I woke this morning and got this rosemary, feta, and olive focaccia bread going. Jumped the gun, because it's for dinner tonight and it was ready at noon. Emily and I have snacked a bit too much on it. It's so good.

I bought this book last month, which was January, can't believe it's February already. AND holy tear jerker, Batman! I cried for most of the book. If you can't read the note beside the book, it says "Finished stupid book with tears in my eyes!" and it's from Kerry. (sorry, Ker, if I just outed you as sensitive.) Even telling him about how good the ending was made me cry about it. If you love dogs, read it.

After I got the bread rising, I put my nose to the grind stone and made a bunch of cards.

Using new stamp sets and paper I forgot I had.

This one has glitter swirls drawn by me with the tiny thin glue pen Heather gave me. Super fine!

Using colours I don't normally use.

This one is my favourite.

Awww....

2011-01-31T10:37:00.000-08:00

We have the new Mac up and running. I've installed CS5, hooked up the printer, the scanner, etc. and uploaded my hundreds of photos from just before Christmas till now.

This one below might be my favourite one.

After Grandpa's funeral, we all went back to my aunt's house. Kelsey is going to school to be a doctor and brought her stethoscope with her to practice. I asked if she would be able to hear Tamiko's baby and she said maybe. She tried it and could hear the baby moving. Then the baby's aunt wanted to hear too.

I was standing behind Naomi as she listened to her niece/nephew for the first time and got teary eyed. Like I am right now.

Sometimes coming up with a title is harder than the blogging.

2011-01-29T14:13:00.000-08:00

Point form blogging for Saturday...
- today or tomorrow, the new Mac will be up and running.
- then I can work on photoshoots.
- and my Project Life stuff.
- and print receipts for taxes.
- maybe that will take my mind off the big investment in myself I made 2 days ago, I doubt it, but it might help. It's a huge step, outside my comfort zone. I'm not ready to share the details. I'm waiting for things to be finalized. Maybe then, my stomach won't clench up when I think about it.
- now you are wondering what I've done. It's not bad, really.

soar

2011-01-25T20:47:00.000-08:00

Heather is taking a class and she's been talking about mixed media stuff for weeks. I have lots of different supplies and hardly ever, never, use them. Today, she inspired me to pull them out and make my first canvas. I'd been wanting to do it for a long time, I've had little canvases for years.

I used Making Memories paints, water colours, glue, gel medium, UTEE powder, stamps, flowers, buttons, rhinestones, pearls, and mod podge. Most of which is stuck under my beautifully manicured-by-Michelle nails.

Up close, it's gross, lumpy, bumpy, dirty and just plain not my style...but I love it!

Washi Tape?

2011-01-25T17:23:00.000-08:00

Ever After, the local scrapbooking store had gotten these rolls of tape in straight from Japan on Saturday while Heather and I were shopping. But they weren't priced yet. So I picked a package and a dispenser to be put aside until today, and I put a reminder in my phone to run down and pay for them.

When we went in, the rolls were all laid out on the counter for us to sort through. That's customer service! It took some time, lots of time, lots of decision making, but I picked up these 5 rolls for me. I may have to go back for more.

And afterwards, I stamped on the tape. It's wonderful! I'll be using lots of it in my Project Life album.

I wrote on it.

I tore it and put it o my previously posted Halloween layouts. I love the black stripes and polka dots!

And then I decorated our Project Life Challenge jar. I even taped the ugly 'wood' edges of my Cricut stand. They are now black and white striped.
I really like the tape. It's sticky but not so sticky you can't reposition it carefully. It's easy to tear. It is slightly see thru, so it gives a light airy look to glass, and on patterned paper, you can see the pattern through the tape.
And with so many patterns, there's something for everyone's taste.

Almost Famous

2011-01-24T08:14:00.000-08:00

Back days before our Big Trip, Yolanda asked if I could help her with an ad. The winery needed a new photo for the ad she was making for a wine magazine. Of course, I said yes.

I know photography is about capturing the memories with the camera, that split second of life. But what I didn't capture that day, maybe I promised not to, was the 'behind the scenes'. The mental pictures I have of Yolanda rolling/dragging/pushing a wine barrel that we found in the weeds are in my brain forever. We used it as a prop, and we put it back as we found it.

I think the final product was worth it. The whole thing took very little time on my end, Yolanda did the fancy stuff. But it sure is something else to see a picture I took in a glossy magazine.

On Friday, I made this super cute little baby album for a class. Contact me if you are interested. I don't have many available.
And we had our first Project Lifers' meeting. We did a lot of deciding what we were going to, a bit of snacking, some more deciding, and lots of talking. I'm very excited about this album, it's for me, not for a class. It's not very often that I do stuff for me anymore, well, unless you count my Road Trip album which has grown so much that I had to go out and get another album on the weekend. And I still don't have all my photos printed.
Which brings me to the computer. I shipped it back to Apple and the replacement should be here any day. I am so hoping we just had a Lemon and that our problems will cease when the new computer is up and running. I'm hoping it's not some kind of electric current I have that is frying hard-drives. I have been assured by numerous techs that killing 3 hard-drives is un-heard of, but so is killing 2 and I did that just fine. And if you want to get technical, the PC hard-drive went this year too, so that is 3 in one year. If my mom is reading this, she is now worrying about her Macbook that I am using right now.

And the biggest news of the weekend...
I ran out of space in the Picasa/Blogger photo album and had to purchase more today. I've been blogging for more than 3 yrs., I take a zillion photos and it was bound to happen.

A pile of scraps

2011-01-19T10:38:00.000-08:00

I used the Boys Will Be Boys cartridge and a pile of scraps to make these cards.

I love that puppy!

It's taking a bit to get used to the piddly fiddly parts and watching where I put them after they are cut out. Thank goodness for tweezers.

As soon as Kerry saw these arm bands, he said he had to order them for me. Total geekiness! The dinosaur was a freebie in the package. RAAAAWWWRRRR.

Project Life: Our Way

2011-01-18T10:13:00.000-08:00

Heather, Marg and I have committed to doing a Project Life album similar to Becky Higgins. We did not buy the kit but instead vowed to use what we had. Hoping to kill two birds...Use our stash and make an album.
I don't know that anyone of us will take a photo a day, it's not so much a 365 album, but we decided we could keep it manageable and do at least 52, one a week or more than that.
I've been cutting and prepping some stuff and then got ahead of myself and found 1 picture I had printed so I put it in. It's grandpa.

I don't know if I told you that our computer died again. What? An imac? Yes. It's a Christmas Miracle that we have somehow managed to kill not one hard drive in a mac, but 2! In a period of less than 2 months, and when you consider the computer was in the shop for about a month, it's even more of a miracle. The tech at Applecare assured me it would never happen again. And then when it did, he tried to assure me again and just wanted to fix the software problem. After some consulting with the very helpful London Drugs techs, I called back and left a message at Apple "I want a new computer." And within a few hours, the tech called back and arranged for just that to happen.
So for the next week or so, I'm without my computer, my photos, my files, and my 21.5 inch screen. I'm using a borrowed Macbook and the screen is so small, but it's better than nothing.
The above photo was taken with my Blackberry. Not to shabby. I am using all my will power to not upload the photos from the weekend to this laptop. I can't process them if I want to. But I did get some great shots of my cousin listening to her sister's baby bump (her niece or nephew) with the stethoscope! Gave me teary eyes.

Valentine's Classes

2011-01-14T10:49:00.000-08:00

This little album is so cute, if I do say so myself. Who knew I'd love my Cricut as much as I do?

This is a class, contact me for more info.

I also have this little set of 2 cards, and one matchbox for treats as a class.

I want to take this time to thank my friends, cyber and real life ones. It's sad thinking about the traditions and memories, but at least I have those, and all the photographs I've taken over the years. As always, death makes you appreciate what you have in life. And so often we forget to appreciate these things until something happens. Take the time, take the photos, make the memories and appreciate what you have!
Thank you! I love you all! Well, maybe.

Macro Fun

2011-01-11T12:25:00.000-08:00

I picked up this almost useless macro reversing ring. It is no substitute for a macro lens. None at all. But it's a fun little toy to play with. I'm using it with my 50mm f/1.4 lens. As the name says, it reverses your lens. It needs lots of light and a steady hand. A tripod won't help as you have to constantly move back and forth to find the perfect focus. There's only a sliver of image in focus, it's shooting at f/1.4. Apparently, Nikon will stay at the f-stop you set the lens at before you shut the camera off, but Canon won't. Boo. So here are some things around the house.

An ornament.

An Angry Beaver eye.

Vinylmation Mickey's head

Baby penguin that Heather gave me for Christmas

Blackberry keyboard, I think I see germs.

Orville Redenbacher's Lime and Salt popcorn, yum.

Emily's eye. Not the worst but could be better, practice, practice, practice.

Microphone

Valentine's candy

For you!