Back To Work

Yep, I had to go back to work last night and I am ready for bed. That first night back is always a killer.

Blue24k2000 (Carolyn) and keiki (Donna), a couple of TSG members, met yesterday at our local bowling alley! Donna was in town for a bowling tournament, so Carolyn dropped in to see her. I was supposed to go along, but I slept through my alarm. Carolyn did share some pictures with me - I can't wait to see them scrapped!

How about a little more about me? What do I do besides scrap? Crochet! I love to crochet - I can remember my great grandma teaching me to make a basic chain using my fingers. I crochet mostly afghans. I get impatient following tedious patterns. My only problem is that I tend to give them away as gifts, so I don't actually have that many of my own.

There's a few of the afghans I still have. On the far right in the middle row is a bed I crocheted out of cloth for our poodle. The bottom is my crochet hook case. Well, the one I made anyway. I tend to use the bigger hooks and multiple strands of yarn these days.

I'm also a genealogist. Back to my great grandma again. :) I grew up listening to her stories about the family. Then, when I was a freshman in high school, my English teacher had a guest come in. He had a beautiful book he'd made from his genealogy research. I was hooked! I was the county coordinator for two USGenWeb Indiana counties for over 10 years. I just gave them up last November. I had to make a choice between my scrapping addiction and the genealogy sites. I think it's obvious what my decision was. :)

Today I have another stickit for you, made by my CT Kay! This one is also from my kit A Spring Thing.

You can download it here. (Sorry, this link has expired).

Wed., April 16 - The River

We spent some time over at the river yesterday. We have a "cabin" over there - it's actually just an ancient trailer that's only about 36' long, but it keeps the rain off of our heads. :) The river got up in the trailer when it flooded this year, so we have a mess to clean up. During the summer, you can find us over there a lot! We have a pontoon that we run up and down the river on, dh has his jon boat for fishing and we just got a jet ski last October. We really enjoy tubing down the river, too. It's just so peaceful and relaxing. Until we break out the karaoke, that is!

Here's a layout of me & DH on the jet kit - that's Tina Marie on Chris' lap. She'll follow him anywhere. I was surprised at how well the water in these two photos matched up! Used elements from Lynn Reloza's Beaches 2 kit.

And here's a layout of my two granddaughters singing karaoke. Aren't they sweet? I had this one put on a mug for my son-in-law. Used Lynn Griffin's Touch of Love kit for this layout.

Today is my oldest granddaughter, Lilly's birthday. She's 5 already! Sarah turns 3 on May 5. It'll always be easy to remember hers - she was born on 5/5/05! Since their birthdays are fairly close together, their mom has gotten by with combining their birthday party each year. This year it will be April 26 at the Children's Museum. And this bad, bad grammy hasn't even bought their gifts yet.

Since it's Lilly's birthday, I thought I'd give you all a gift of a birthday sampler. This is a kit in progress and will eventually be in the store. I'm calling it Birthday Party right now, but that's subject to change. :)

You can download it here. (Sorry, this link has expired).

Kim brought it to my attention that my Easy as 1, 2, 3 challenge was supposed to end on the 15th. I've extended both the sale and the challenge until midnight, April 19th. The featured kit for this challenge is A Spring Thing and is on sale for $2.00. You can find details on the challenge here.

New Store Grand Opening Sale!

Did you all know that the new store is open for business? You really need to run over and check it out! It looks wonderful. Many, many thanks to everyone who put so many long hours into getting it up and running! There's a store-wide 25% off sale going on, and if you browse around you're going to find some really great deals!

A Spring Thing... no, that's not the name I decided on for my Name That Kit! :) That's the name of a kit I already have in the store. It was the featured kit in my Easy as 1, 2, 3 crop/challenge this month. If you missed out on it, you missed out on 10 freebie brag book stickits! Kay, one of my wonderful CT members has created a beautiful brag book stickit from this kit and I'll be sharing it with you today!



You can download it here. (Sorry, this link has expired).

Name This Kit - Preview

Wow! Lots of responses to "Name This Kit" even before I have the preview up! Thanks so much for all of the suggestions. I'll keep a running list this week and let you all know what I decide - I may need some help with the final decision, too. :) Also, those of you who are not using your TSG usernames when you post a name suggestion need to let me know how to contact you so I can get your goodie to you!

Well, as I said before, I'm on a 21 turn schedule at work and today was "Friday" for me. Yep, it's the weekend!! This shift really took some getting used to, but I've been doing it for 6 years now and am just grateful that I have enough seniority to stay off of swing shift. Their long weekend each month consists of 48 hours. I had to work that shift for about a year and trust me, it's a killer.

I have a preview of the kit for you to take at look at. This is most of the kit. I'll have to do some better previews before I put it in the store.


I'm hosting the Garden Tour this week! And as a special incentive to encourage participation, I'm offering a $5 coupon to my store to anyone who participates at least 15 days in the month of April! There's still time to qualify for the coupon, so head on over and check it out! It's easy to participate - just post the link to a layout, any layout, in the gallery. Then visit the other stops on the tour and leave some love. Piece of cake!


Since you've stuck with me this far, I have another little gift for you. This is a 4x6 bragbook stickit made from my "Name This Kit" kit. :) You can download it from 4shared (Sorry, this link has expired).

Help Me Name This Kit

Hello, everyone! I'm Pammy Yates and I'll be hosting the blog this week. I'll start by telling you a little about me. I've been married for 17 years, and have 2 daughters. My oldest is 24 and married, with 2 daughters of her own. They are the cutest little things you ever saw ... I know, I know, all grandparents say that. Mine call me Grammy Pammy - it sounds so cute coming out of their mouths. :) My youngest daughter is 12 and in the the 6th grade.

I work full time at an aluminum factory and just got switched back to C crew - my hours are 10:30pm to 6:30am. I thought it would be hard to get used to again because I was on days for about a year and a half, but I didn't have any problem with it! I work 21 turn, so I have different days off each week. The great thing about it is that I get a 4-day weekend once a month - it's like a mini vacation!

I have a new kit that I need a better name for. I've been calling it "Vibrant", but thought I might get some help from you on a better name. :) I don't have a preview yet, but I do have a small sampler. I'll get the preview of the entire kit up asap. I'll be giving away bits & pieces of this kit here on the blog this week. Anyone who helps me out by giving name suggestions will get something special at the end of the week! Here's the preview of the sampler.




And you can download it here. Sorry, this link has expired. With the new store, we have a new ftp and I haven't figured out how to link to it yet.

See you tomorrow!

MIA

There I went being MIA again. Sorry about that :)

Quick update on Zach (my youngest): His temperature never really dropped from the 99 range on Wednesday and after another restless night it was up to 101.7 Thursday morning. My gut was telling me this had turned into more than just a cold. I went ahead and tried April's suggestion which didn't seem to make a difference with his cough. Thanks for the suggestion though April, I will keep it in mind for next time...although you should have seen Zach's reaction to it - lol - He was fine at first then all of a sudden he scrunched up his face and shivered - lol. So I tried the onion-sugar syrup and I had to admit that it is fine at first but it does have an after bite ;). (Also, thanks Grammadianne for your suggestion of warm milk/honey/lemon/butter...I had tried the warm tea/honey but didn't have lemon in the house. I will keep your idea in my file for next time also!) So I called and got him an appointment to see the doctor yesterday morning and my gut was correct. It has turned into more than just a cold. He was diagnosed with bronchiolitis and the doctor put him on 5-days of a steroid along with continuing the Albuterol...as well as instruction that if the temperature raised any more or the coughing/wheezing got any worse to come back in so they could see if it has turned into pneumonia or an ear infection. Thankfully he seemed to be a tad better last night and actually slept in his own bed for a couple hours without coughing the entire time. Today the coughing wasn't nearly as intense as it has been, and he didn't have a fever most of the day, but the wheezing is still there and has changed sounds a bit...so we will have to keep an eye on that. Now if Zach comes through this without it changing to pneumonia, and Drew and I get through this (yep, we have both caught it) without it settling too much in either of our chests, I will be VERY happy :)

I have very much to be thankful for in my life right now too! We did not end up getting all the rain and dangerous weather in our area like they were calling for on Wednesday night/Thursday. It did rain pretty well over night and there was some flooding in our area (thanks to ground that was already over saturated), but our basement didn't flood again and it has pretty well gone down in our town. South of us has not been so lucky. Down in Branson they have had to open up the flood gates at Table Rock Dam to release the record level high water... (photo taken from Branson Daily News) and of course this has caused major flooding down stream. When you talk to people that have lived here in the Ozarks their whole life, all they say is that they have never seen it like this...and they are right since it is setting all sorts of records. Please keep all of these people affected by the flooding in your thoughts and prayers!

I really hope that you will all be back for next week!! You shouldn't have to put up with my lack of blog then since the wonderfully talented Pamela Yates will be your hostess here. I had the chance to work with Pammy in the TSG Design 101 mentoring class earlier this year and I really looks forward to getting to know more about this sweet lady during the next week.

Before I go for the evening, I would like to give a small peace offering to apologize once again for pretty much abandoning you all this week...and a thank you for being so understanding about it. It is nothing big, but I hope you will be able to use these two SticKits I created using the beautiful TSG April Mega Kit "Spring Sorbet" Grab these 2 SticKits HERE (Sorry, this link has expired)

Hope you all have a wonderful and relaxing Saturday!!

Attention TSG Shoppers!!

We have some big things planned for our store! Unfortunately, in order to implement them we will have to close the store for a few days. Our store will be closed starting Thursday morning for maintenance and upgrades and will re-open on Monday morning.

Not to fear though, we will be re-opening Monday with a whole new store front with cool new features for you the customer! Not to mention a RAWKIN' sale to kick off our Grand Re-Opening!

Thanks so much to each of you for being loyal TSG customers and helping our garden grow!

~Michelle Rodriguez
The Scrapping Garden