Check this out...

I copied this right from the www.artfreckles.com blog...

National Scrapbooking Day Blog Hop
This Saturday, May 2nd, is National Scrapbooking Day. In celebration of this important day, we've decided to host our first ever.....
BLOG HOP!!
The gals and I have decided to share some special inspiration on our blogs that day, and we hope that you'll join in the fun. The hop will start right here on the Art Freckles blog, and from there you can visit any one of the links posted for more inspiration. Visit them all, and leave a comment at each, and your name will automatically go into a draw for a great scrappy prize!
In addition, there will be games, challenges and great conversation going on in our forum, and brand new ribbon cards (shown below) will be released in store along with our May Kit 'Fly Away Home'.

So let's celebrate this hobby we all love together. On May 2nd, come join the hop!

I'm a crybaby, there I said it.

I had to change the grungy bandaid on my glue gun injury. I got it half way off and let out a yow! The gauze was stuck to the wound. Shaun was on the phone. I said "Look at my finger, it's stuck to the bandaid!" He walked over, while still on the phone and yanked it off. I let out a howl of pain and started crying. I'm pretty sure I could see the bone in my finger. I'm pretty sure a second chunk of my flesh just got ripped off. It doesn't so much hurt as it stings.

Scenes from the weekend

Kerry's 5 hour epic mountain bike ride wasn't the best ride ever and he wrecked his 2 favourite shirts. He hit a tree and didn't even notice it was that bad until Ryan said "Oh, man, doesn't that hurt" or something like that, probably with more swear words. It goes about 4 more inches up to the top of his shoulder. I got him to blow bubbles for Linus, Sally is too smart for bubbles and Linus hasn't learned yet that bubbles are not tasty treats. Waiting patiently. It's almost close enough.

I missed the actual taste test but you can see the results. Yuck.

Oh, yuck.

It's still on my tongue.
Oh, man that was yucky.

This one is bigger, it probably tastes better!

I was wrong.

Emily loves hair clips right now. Yesterday, I hot glued a zillion of them for her. I also made her the hairclip holder out of chipboard, felt and twill tape. She loves it. I got a gob of hot glue on my finger and pulled it off right away, now I'm missing a chunk of skin the size of my pinkie finger nail. It didn't hurt so much right away, and it didn't bleed, thank goodness. But when I put a bandaid on it, I almost passed out from the pain of the gauze touching the gapping hole. The things we do for our kids.
And then today, I made a zillion more hair clips. She can give them to her friends.

Mayo Clinic atrium piano, charming older couple...

Cute. Hopefully this will be Emily in about 60 years!

13, where did the time go?

Today, 13 years ago, Emily Eiko was born. She was a beautiful 8 lb. 8 oz. baby. A big baby. Not the best baby, she cried, she was a picky eater, she was shy, stubborn, didn't sleep so well, but we kept her anyway. And now she is a very tall, beautiful, picky eater. Still stubborn, very smart, talented artist, gifted keyboard player and has a great smile, although no one would no because she won't smile for the camera.

It's tradition that the birthday person gets to pick where we eat birthday dinner. Last week, she picked East Side Mario's, last night she announced it was to be Subway and Blizzards from DQ. Just what I need 'a coma in a cup'. I know I don't have to have one, but I do, I have to have a cheesecake blizzard, maybe cherry this time, or maybe a peanut butter cup one. I better decide before dinner time.

By the way, she won't like knowing that I posted her pics here, and her birthday info, because...and maybe she got it from me...bad people are on the internet. But I had to share, and I'm pretty sure you guys aren't 'bad people'.

It's official.

http://www.artfreck.blogspot.com/

It's all official. I'm on the design team, http://www.artfreckles.com/welcome.htm!

Kerry and I decided we would make an effort to plant and weed the vegetable garden this year. The garden is huge, about a 1/4 of our lot. It's fenced off with chain link, and irrigated, it just never realized that it's a vegetable garden and not a weed factory or litter box for the neighbourhood cats. This year we plan to put it straight. I've picked up a few plants and seed packets, but with the cold weather everything is 1-2 weeks behind, so I can't plant yet. For me, most of the fun is in the planting, and then the picking but not the weeding.

Take your cupcake outside.

They photograph better in natural light. They taste better too.

I can't recall if I have ever had a Red Velvet cupcake before. Today, I decided to try and make them from scratch using the recipe from....

The best ever baking book. I also coated them with cream cheese frosting from the above book. They are so red, so tasty, moist and not dense like previous attempts at cupcakes from scratch. Rich, fluffy, and won't be around long.

I also have this...

which is the best ever cookbook. Hands down THE BEST.

Seriously, go to www.amazon.ca and order them both for just under $50, that qualifies for free shipping, don't forget to click on free supersaver shipping. You won't regret it. They tell you the best tools, the best ingredients, the best way to make chewy cookies, orzo, pan-sauces for chicken, and just about everything else. There's pictures, step-by-step photo instructions, tips, and all kinds of good info. It's America's Test Kitchen, they did all the work and perfected the recipes first! You will never need another cookbook, ever!

I'm thinking I need to order a bunch and give them to people for Christmas.

Just in case you are wondering, I ate 2, yes, 2 cupcakes, and I'm not going to sit down for a very long time, I don't want to fall asleep. Besides, somebody has to run the panini press for dinner. Then I'll need a nap.

My printer.

This is the printer I have. It's a Canon i9900. I have had it for a couple of years now. I love it, but it's a beast. The box barely fit in the back seat of the car when I bought it. It takes up too much desk space.

Pros...

-it prints up to 13x19 inches

-it has seperate ink colour cartridges, so when you are out of green, just get a new green.

-it's a Canon, I love Canon

-it's quite

-it comes with a decent photo printing program that can do 4 pics on a 4x6, or the little tiny proofs, so many different options

-it's probably come down in price since I bought it when they were first available

-I love the instant gratification of printing my own photos

Cons...

-it was/is expensive, I think I paid over $600 for it and no one wanted to sell me one. Staples didn't carry it, Office Depot did, but the guy wanted to sell me an HP, said I'd hate the 8 different cartridges

-only Office Depot carries all the ink colours in town, Staples doesn't carry green, says the machine doesn't even use it, they are knobs at Staples

-8 ink cartridges, at $15 each, do the math, buy them on sale, stock up

-it's size

-sometimes leaves black ink marks on the back of things, not so great for double sided printing, maybe should have been only a photo printer and not an everyday printer, there may be some hope for ink overspray trays being cleaned but it looks like it requires an authorized Canon repairman

-printing program colour is off, a little darker than if I print from Photoshop or Microsoft

Overall, I love it. I love that I can print 12 inch stuff for scrapbooking. I don't know if it's expenseive to run, I never want to work it out. But I do know that my prints are better than Costco, and Walmart, they are right up there with London Drugs, if not better, because I didn't have to leave the house to get them.

I only ever use Canon ink. I read that every brand is calibrated to work best with that brand's ink and paper so I've stuck with that for the most part. I buy my paper when it's on sale and I stock up. I have bought Office Depot brand paper and found it to be decent.

Got busy tonight

I had 2 hours of recorded shows to catch up on. Kerry was napping, Emily was drawing, Shaun was actually at home, so I watched and scrapped.
I got a bit more done on my 6x6 Disney trip album. I did the pages, but don't have all the photos in them. Ahhhh...the memories. I used an older Stampin' Up kit and Jamie Waters templates from the May 2006 CK magazine. It's the only one I have kept from 2006.

The pictures are tiny, less than 2x3 inches for most pages, but I love that.

I had bought 2 of these frames from Home Sense before Christmas, thinking I would fill them with pictures of kids and dogs for the grandparents. But they never got used. I picked up a few pieces of Cosmo Cricket's Girl Friday and decided to use them and my most favourite stickers from Making Memories and one of my new Maya Road chipboard flowers from the blog candy I won from Angie at http://schwooo.blogspot.com/. I will hang it in my scraproom.

Whoot Whoot!

I have been asked to be on the design team for http://www.artfreckles.com/. Of course I said yes without really thinking about it. I'm excited that this is a Canadian company, out of Ontario, I'm excited to get a box of scrapbooking goodies delivered to my door every month for 4 months. The gals on the site are really friendly, go check it out. There's also a store and a great gallery.

In other morbid news...I had said at the beginning of the year that this would be our year of funerals, and I either cursed the year or just stated the obvious. I'm off to another funeral today, that's 2 in a week, and I think 6 since the begining of the year.

I am so happy it's Friday. Not that I have many, if any plans, but I'm just ready for the weekend. And some sunshine, which as of right now, we have, wait a few minutes and I'm sure we'll have hail/snow/-1 degrees. If you see Mother Nature, or if you are her friend on Facebook, please put in a good word, please tell her Kelowna needs some warmth, some sunshine that lasts longer than 2 hours, and maybe a bit more rain, not snow, we have plans, the tourist industry relies on her generosity and I'm damn tired of cold and snow!

I loved the look of this little notebook I found on SCS, so I cased it and made it a card.

Got my inspirations for this card from Scrapbooks Etc.

Tried colouring with pencil crayons. Don't you just hate it when you sharpen your pencil and the lead keeps breaking? How frustrating.

Forsyth-E-ah or Fors-Eye-thia? How do you say it?

Snuck a picture of Emily's drawing. I could take a guess and say it's Full Metal Alchemist's Edward Elric, but that doesn't match up with the FMEEH that she has on the side. I love that she used gray Copics to colour the whole thing, except the eyes. Kerry and I joked about getting her to design a tattoo of the kids and the dogs in her Manga style, and she has done one, we are just too chicken to get it done.

I made bread from scratch the other day. It was a long waiting period, and I doubt I'll make a habit of it. We have a bread machine, lent it to my mom years ago. Kerry was making bread every day and I was getting nausious from the smell of bread baking. That machine was a wedding gift, 14 years ago and it's still working.

Which brings me to another topic...It's been 16 years, almost to the day, since Kerry and I started dating. And I still LIKE him. I think it's one thing to love the one your with, but you need to really like them too. In a couple weeks, we'll celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary.

I had mentioned my sugar issues, I've been to the dr. and she said I may have a sugar sensitivity. I'm a salty person, so I don't eat a bunch of sugar regularly, my coffee is flavoured with sugar-free syrup. I'm not overly sad about having to avoid sugar. I had to fast for 12 hours and went for blood testing today, as did half of Kelowna. I think that the very nice tech took 4 vials of my precious ruby red blood, only because my dad had the test done a few weeks ago and that's what he said she took. I can't watch. I will pass out. I did tell her to try my left arm, because last time the tech had to do both arms because she couldn't find the vein. I told this tech that the veins had shriveled up, she said they had because of the fasting, I said ya, maybe that and maybe because they are hiding from you! She then found a vein in my right arm. I was a little worried as she said "I think I've found one". It only hurt a little, I didn't look, not even a sneaky peeky. And I didn't cry, cuz sometimes that happens too. I made it to the bathroom after to pee in that ridiculously small cup, and all over my hand, and no one had to break down the door to revive me, they threatened that last time. I'm a little sensitive to having my blood removed.

I came home and had my coffee 3 hours late and surprisingly enough I didn't get a headache from not having it on time. But I'm freezing cold, could be lack of blood, or the fact it's only 2 degrees and trying to freakin' snow!!!

Tom Cruise Parody ala Scrapbooking

Love Cathy's parody of Tom Cruise! She is so funny.

Can't find it.

I searched the web and can't find the funniest thing I've ever seen.
Last night on AFV, a couple of girls found a squirrel stuck in a hole in a tree. They video taped themselves trying to pull the poor thing out by his back legs. The one girl had mittens and a jacket on and was getting such a workout, she had to take her jacket off, the other girl was making squirrel sounds to coax him out. This goes on for awhile, then they show two girls yanking on that poor squirrel, one has his tail, the other has both back legs and no kidding they are pulling and using a sawing motion to loosen that sucker out. He pops out and runs away, no doubt swearing at them. I almost peed myself. AND for the first time in the history of my watching that show, the video that made me laugh the most one! Those squirrel saving girls won $10,000. When interviewed about their video, 2 of the girls said they were raised on a farm, and used their calf birthing skills to help "birth the squirrel from the tree!" Hence the up and down motions while yanking him out. I'm sure that squirrel had bark slivers on his belly.

I'm using my America's Test Kitchen Baking book to make bread. I started this morning before work, and the loaf is just finishing rising. If all goes well, no one else will no I made bread because I will have eaten it all before they get home. I've done that before and had to make another loaf.

I used up my 'truck load' of rocks in the flower beds. It didn't go far. It wasn't an actually truck load, unless you have a baby Tonka truck. Kerry was too scared to put too much weight in his truck so the load was only about 1/4-1/3 of his truck bed full. I was not impressed. If he had gotten a little more, I would be finished filling my flower bed. My mom said when they went they got almost the whole scoop in dad's truck. Kerry on the other hand probably didn't get half of it in his truck. Scaredy cat.

UFC agression

Emily's friend thought UFC stood for Unicorn Fight Championship. That I'd go to see!

I'm no pro, but the big fight, Silva vs. Leites was the worst fight I have ever seen. Leites spent so much time on his back, it was ridiculous. Silva was angry, the crowd was angry. GSP was in the crowd, dress up in a spiffy suit, during the Silva fight the crowd was chanting for GSP, he was probably angry too. It was that sad. It was a waste of training.

I learned a few moves and put them to use on Kerry. I have mastered the Hammer Fist, will use it on Linus too, saw the Superman used a few times, have yet to tried it, and tried a Head Lock and an Arm Bar on Kerry but he got out of them, I have no upper body strength. I punched Ryan, the pro mntn. biker in the leg when he commented on how fit my dad USED to look (he's wirey, but I could probably take him, I've probably got 25 lbs. on him.) We were watching old CHBC coverage on dad from his Ironman days, back when he had a smaller waist than I do. A sad night all around.

Relaxing Saturday? Not around here.

My friend, Nancy Fancy Pants, had asked me to make an awesome baby card that her son and his girlfriend would keep forever. I thought a baby book would be better. They are expecting their first baby in May. I think she said it's a girl, but I went with yellow, greens, and a bit of blue, just in case those ultrasounds are wrong, I didn't want a girly book for a baby boy. It took awhile, that Mellisa Frances flower book is hard to cover and then me and my bright ideas, I decided to remove all the pages and trace them and cut them out of double sided patterned paper and then rebind the book. I finished it this afternoon, after going to Gino's memorial. I have never laughed so much at a funeral/memorial. I never met Gino, but have known his wife forever, it's obvious he was loved and will be dearly missed by many.

Here is my baby book. I used a bunch of different things, like my KI flower paper that was deemed too special to use. The paper is SU. The chipboard letters are Scenic Route.

I printed out the Ali Edwards brushes that I had bought awhile ago and hadn't used. Patterned paper flowers are Sizzix dies.I used lots of Prima flowers, and glittery Making Memories brads. Stamps are SU.
I even put envelopes in it so they can keep some memorabilia, I even put the hearts on sideways. Oops.

Kerry says this is his favourite page. He also said I had better make another one and sell it, it's just that nice. Fat chance. This is a one and only.

And if they don't like it, they can send it back and I'll put baby Linus pictures in it!

So now I'm getting ready for UFC fight night. I don't even know who is fighting. I have lots of pent up stuff. Fight night gets me riled up. I try to pull rear naked choke holds on Kerry, arm bars on Linus, I have to chew my nails off so that when I make fists, my nails don't cut the palm of my hand. I keep joking that I'm going to get some Tap Out clothing to wear to fight night, sometimes I'm not joking. I want those jogging pants with Tap Out on the ass. Yup, those are so me!

Use an ugly thing to make a few pretty things.

I needed to get a few cards ready for class last night and I thought after my terrible morning, I'd have a hard time. I was wrong. I used that negative energy and turned it into fuel for the most beautiful sympathy card I've ever made, it's also one of the only ones I think I've made. I've been lucky and haven't had to make them, but this year has started of with the need for me to actually purchase a sympathy stamp set and use it. I love this set, Thoughts and Prayers.
Then I tried to make a 'Spring Card' with the instructions for SCS. But I piled on the embellishments and the front of the card was too heavy so I had to improvise. I put the 'Spring Card' on the front of a 6x6 card. It's a huge waste of paper, but I think it's a pretty card.

I made another card, using the Wild About You set, but it accidently went home with someone else. I'll get it back and post a picture of it.
I picked up the Burger First flat buns from the Superstore. It's a great idea, but what's with the holes? If you look closely, you can see the ketchup and mustard oozing out the holes. I guess if I put lettuce on the burger, between the ketchup/mustard and the bun, it would be a barrier. But doesn't that mess with the order of things? And the bun was big, way bigger than any hamburger patty I've ever seen.

We served toast to more kids today, more than yesterday, more than the day before. The program is sponsored by the Rotary Club, a few Rotarians volunteer, and I believe a local pastor and his wife organize it, some teachers help serve toast too. It's great to see these kids come in, at first tentatively, they don't have money, they are unsure of how much to take, but then you tell them, take the toast, the juice, the fruit snacks, and a NAPKIN and they light up, "It's FREE!" None of them takes advantage and takes too much, they are all very polite. Some come back for seconds, some have special orders, which of course we can't always handle, but when it's a shy looking kid who wants just honey or a thin couple of girls who just want butter, what's the harm!

But what always gets me, and maybe it's part 2 of yesterday's post...where are the parents? There are probably more than 800 students, maybe as many as 1200, I really don't know, and I am the only parent that has been there for the last 3 days. There is one grandmother, her granddaughter is a student. Of course, my child has had breakfast, she and her friends come in every morning, a couple of her friends have not had breakfast so they get their toast, juice, etc. and hang out. ( She opts to take the bus than ride to school with me, but sits and chats for 45 minutes with us.)

What we hear a lot of is "I didn't have time" and "I had some breakfast but I'm still hungry", I know these are teen-aged kids, I know they can feed themselves, but do their parents try to feed them, do they know their kids haven't had breakfast, do these kids have a lunch, is there food in their house for them? Hopefully, these are the kids we are feeding.

I'd be interested to know if their attention spans have increased since we started this program.

So I'm hoping my faith in humanity gets renewed! The posts my loyal followers have left have really helped boost my spirits! Thanks!

Is there no compassion anymore?

I'll try to keep it short....
I went to Chapters this morning in search of the very last Simple Scrapbooks issue. It wasn't in yet. As I was leaving I noticed a woman stumble on the sidewalk. A security guard is right behind her. I watch them walk by only to notice that she'd wet her pants. She stumbled again and the guard reached out to grab her arm, but I think he spooked her and she became a victim of momemtum and her body went faster than her feet. The sound of a head hitting concrete is one I always shudder at. I went over to see if she was okay while the guard called mall security for 1st aid and an ambulance. I helped put her glasses back on her head. It was obvious she was drunk, but she wasn't homeless, she was dressed nicer than I was, I had on dogwalking jeans, she had nice hair, she was clean. I'm pretty sure the guard said when he called for help "an intoxicated Native woman". I'm Native, I find that doesn't matter, the fact is she whacked her head, couldn't get up, and needed help. She had a purse, a bag and might have been named Diane from Coquitlam. She was probably my age.
The guard told her to stay still, I kept talking to her so she wouldn't go to sleep. I made sure she wasn't bleeding (thank God she wasn't), and the guard said a blanket was coming for her. She didn't like that, told him to get up and move away, to stand by the wall and not touch her. I was okay to be near her. I told her not to close her eyes and fall asleep, and this breaks my heart, she looked me in the eyes and said "Sweetie, I never sleep".
The ambulance came, 4-5 attendants crowded around her and 1, Asshole John, started asking her questions and she got all spooked and was looking around, when her eyes landed on me, I stepped forward and told her they would look after her. To which Ass said "Who are YOU, Who are you to her?" I said no one, I was there when it happened and he looks at me and says "Move along then" and they other guys crowd back around her.
She looked so scared and I left. I cried all the way. I'm still crying.

Pics from Easter

The morning starts of pretty well, the Easter Bunny left some treats on the van, as he does every year. This year, Sally and her keen ears heard the bunny leaving the treats on the van and then we all saw Kelly-Next-Door doing the deed! She has left treats every year since we moved here! We have great neighbours! And she leave my favourites. Which I only ate about 1 little package's worth spread out over Sunday and Monday, and Sunday I had to have 3 20 minute naps after eating them.

The hot cross buns that didn't get all given away, 2 went to Kelly-Next-Door, 2 went to Kerry's mom, some were going to get traded for cabbage rolls but someone ate all the cabbage rolls before the trade off and the rest got eaten up. They were so much better than the store bought ones that Kerry and Shaun ate them too. I cut them, buttered them and then broiled them and they were a huge hit. Sadly, they are all gone. I ate one last night and then fell asleep at 9 and couldn't stay awake to see the last Corner Gas, or Medium. I was a little angry when I was woken up hours later. I need a shirt that says "Don't poke the BEAR!"

Kerry and his new shovel. You'd think the guy had never had a shovel before but this is a straight edge shovel. He's been working wonders with it this weekend.

This bunny said no to the sequins on the ears and wore them backwards. He even got up early to find his eggs. He'll be 20 this year, I wonder if the Easter Bunny will ever stop leaving him treats?

This bunny is jumping on her little trampoline. She was agressively looking for eggs this year and actually found more than her brother. The Easter Bunny hid them too well this year.


The nice thing about the burst mode on my camera is that I can get consecutive action shots like these. Sally found an Easter egg in her ball and that prompted her to play with it all morning so I tried to get a few good shots of her. Linus, ever the jealous dog felt he needed to be in the pictures too.

We had a great dinner at my Grandpa's. My cousin and his family from Maple Ridge came up, we haven't seen them in ages. The kids are getting so big. Candy brought up her Silpada jewellery and it's beautiful but I resisted, it was very hard. I have spent too much on yard plants,(that I said I wouldn't buy) and my photography class and I am trying so hard to be a good girl.

Thought for the day...

Why do most holidays revolve around sugar?
Easter, Christmas, Halloween, Valentine's Day, birthdays...

I got a large bag of Cadbury mini eggs from the bunny yesterday, I split it with Kerry. I then split my half again with him leaving myself with less than 1 cup of mini eggs. I didn't eat them all, I put more than half into hiding. I then ate 6 Purdy's chocolates. I had a nap before noon. I had a nap after 1 pm. I had a nap before dinner. 3 naps, all for about 20 minutes each. I was a zombie for most of the day but did still manage to ...
1. help find eggs that the bunny couldn't remember hiding.
2. help dig up sprinklers in the back yard.
3. put down landscape fabric and rocks around a few plants, ran out of rocks, have to get more this week.
4. clean house.
5. wash dog paws because no matter how much grass a person has in their yard, the dogs will always choose to walk in the mud.
6. wait all day for the cable guy who never did show up, even though we called on 2 separate occasions and were told it was an all day appointment and he would call first. Even though I said "on Easter Sunday?" He never came and when I called back after 5 pm. I was told he never was coming, the appointment was for the 19, next Sunday. I said some words, 1 being Pissed Off and the other starting with an F but quickly changed to Freakin'! We haven't had all our channels since Tuesday. I'm getting a refund, because by the time the guy does show up, it will be almost 2 weeks.
7. take pictures but haven't looked at them.

Today, I have stuff to do, like work, so I won't be eating any chocolate.

Good Friday

Do not buy these nuts. You will eat them all and they have a bit of kick to them but you won't be able to stop. Thank goodness they are at Walmart and are cheap.

I have a Kitchenaid mixer and have used it to make bread but it wasn't the best machine for the job. Now that I have my handy dandy food processor with dough blade, I think I have found a new way to put on weight. After following all 10 steps to getting the machine out of the box, I set to work with my America's Test Kitchen cook books. But first Emily and I made the cheese pretzels from her home ec. recipe. They didn't make very many, a double batch made 6 pretzels and they weren't big, but they were yummy fresh out of the oven. She called Grandpa to come over and have one, she had an ulterior motive, Grandpa has one of those tiny little trampoline's that were popular in the 80's and he was bringing it here.
The pretzels were so easy that I decided to try something only Pizza Hut seems to do, deep dish pizzas out of the cook book. And HOLY CRAP, I love them! Made in a cake pan, they are small but filling. I did not eat the whole thing, just a slice. Made a beef, mushroom and onion one and a cheese one for Emily.

Then I found a recipe for Hot Cross Buns, it's Easter weekend, I figured it was fitting. They are proofing right now. We aren't even big HCBuns fans, so they will go to someone else's house.

I love my Kitchenaid food processor!

This is the other thing I bought myself at Costco. I went with the vibrant pink hydrangea, I might go back and get the blue one, but maybe I will wait and see if I kill this one.

We talked to a very nice, very talented guy about getting our carport fixed and turned into a garage and it's got the wheels in our heads going! This needs to be done because the carport roof leaks and is rotting, and we could just fix it, but after much deliberation we have decided to build a garage, with a breezeway between the house and the garage. It will cost more, but it's what we want and we don't want to have to do it again in 5 years. And I want to have the cutest house on the street, isn't that what it's all about?

And it frees up a whole other room in the basement for scrapbooking, I mean a family room! Maybe we'll get a bigger tv too. I can hear the cash registers going!

Got me a new toy.

The American Test Kitchen Family cookbook highly recommends having a food processor. I follow everything they say. So when I took Shaun and Jenn to Costco and saw the Kitchenaid one that they also recommend on sale for $35 off, I had to get it. Had to. Kerry told me a couple weeks ago to get one, we figured $200-300 for one, so really with the money I just saved us, like over $150 I should be able to get some other goodies, or I mean I should be able to get a nice sturdy back wheel for Kerry's mountain bike. Yup, that's what I really want!

I need a bigger kitchen too. Although I figured if we move/eat all the food in the pantry, and adjust the shelves, I might be able to fit my mixer, food processor and Margaritaville drink concoction machine it there. Then I'd have some counter space. But then I'd have to pull them out daily, so it's just as well they are all on the counter. Who needs room for dishes, fruit baskets and un-opened mail?

the rest of the day

I worked on my taxes for most of the morning, hung out with Jaynee and baby Noah for a bit, then took Shaun to Walmart after dropping his car off for repairs. Bought a bag of chocolate covered malted eggs, ate half the bag, and now I feel like crap. I made him go to Home Sense with me. We found this book...

and some Memory Dock stuff, which I have been wanting but can't find anywhere. I heard a while ago that Home Sense sometimes has some stuff but hadn't seen any. Today we found pencil boxes, photo boxes and this...which I bought. I thought about what the above book might have to say if I bought pencil boxes and photo boxes that 1)don't match, 2)won't hold all my pencils or photos, 3) I don't need. But this I need, it's black(matches everything) and will hold those larger photos, like Bay Portrait Studio ones that will never get scrapbooked but I can't throw away!

Made an appointment with the dr. for about 2 weeks away. I could be in a sugar induced coma by then, I mean come on, it's Easter! I can't be expected to avoid sweets.

And now after eating those eggs, I must have a nap before Emily gets off the bus.