My car needs a vacation

My poor car has been thru so much!!

From getting the bumper crunched to the license plate stolen, to being stolen itself.

Now, it has been in it’s first official wreck.

On Tuesday, poor B was in an accident on his way to work. He barely even got down the street before the car was hit by a man on a bicycle. B said that the guy was okay but since he was on a bicycle they had to take him to the hospital. We have not heard any updates on his condition.

The entire back driver's side window is shattered and we can barely open the door to get in or out of the car.

The claim's adjuster has been out to take pictures twice. She came out on Tuesday but lost the pictures so she had to come back out today. I don't know when we will get it fixed as our deductible is $500.00 and as you know....I don't even have money for rent. :(

Heidi Swapp paint not American made :(

I know that a lot of American companies make their products overseas.

I notice that a lot of my scrapping products come from China. I understand that.

I really like the Heidi Swapp paint and even though it is more expensive than the Making Memories paint I buy it. Well I don’t think I will do so anymore.

I just found out that Heidi Swapp paint is made in India. I think I will be sticking with the Making Memories paint that is made here in the good ‘ole U. S. of A. You would think that if the product were made overseas then the price would be less than the product made in the USA. That is what we as consumers have been told. Actually, I think it is more that it keeps the COSTS down for the companies ~ that means more money in their owners’ pockets. I find it very interesting that the HS paint made in India is sold at a higher price than the paint made here, in America.

It is all so very sad.


P.S. ~ You know I read what I wrote above and all I can think is “bitter much”? I guess I am. I must be at the anger stage. It has been exactly one month since I have lost my job to outsourcing. I guess what makes it really hurt is that the people that have taken over the jobs are the same people we worked with everyday. When you get to know someone enough to get wedding invites to travel to India, it makes it hard. Yeah, I think I am at the anger stage. So what comes next? What is after anger?

Steady, As She Goes

I finished another page the other day.

Actually, I pretty much finished up two pages but one still needs some journaling and since I plan to handwrite, I need to psych myself up for ruining a page. I really don’t like the look of handwriting on my pages. But this page is quite different (I think) than what I normally do ~ so I am going to attempt to handwrite and if I screw it up then no one will ever know (or see it).

This page has been sitting on my desk for a little while now. I finally put it all together. It is about time too as the pictures are from 2004!!

I am trying to get out of my comfort zone. I actually used different elements for my title and for some reason I find that to be really hard for me to do. I used paint on part of the title, stickers for another and cut-out lettering that I then painted for the last part. I am very proud of myself for using my paint. :) It may take longer to complete a page since I have to wait for the paint to dry, but at least I am using the stuff.

Supplies used:

Bazill ~ cardstock
Making Memories ~ paint “dusk”, glitter glaze, letter stickers & stamps
Heidi Swapp ~ white paint
Scrapagerz ~ letter template
QuicKutz star diecuts made with some fuzzy red paper I have had I think since I first started scrapping over 10+ years ago! (Using my stash DUDE!)
Red ric-rak
Framers tape

…in other news. I went grocery shopping today. Very weird to be at the grocery store at noon on a Monday. I took care of some paper work, did some laundry and made dinner. Pretty full day. Much better than staying in bed all day. :)

Speaking of paint

I have a project that I have never shared.

Back in February, I made my first altered project.

Nothing fancy but I like it.

I made it and filled it with chocolate for my SOSF Valentine fairy.

My LOST theory

All I can say about last night’s LOST is OH. MY. GOSH!!!!

I knew that we would probably find out about how Locke ended up in the wheelchair but I sure was not expecting it to happen the way that it did. The entire episode had me screaming. What I really liked about it was that I actually enjoyed watching it.

I do have some theories about it though. Like when Ben said, he would let the prisoners go as soon as Jack was off the island. Well…..since Jack will not be off the island anytime soon, I have a feeling that the prisoners may be having an extended stay in the company of the OTHERS.

But, the one major theory that I need some help with is this:

A lot was mentioned about Ben being stuck in the wheelchair while Locke was free to walk around. Ben does not heal as quickly as other people. I have read before on some message boards that Ben has not healed that quickly in the past (for example when he was beaten) when the other survivors, such as Sawyer (when he was shot) mended extremely fast. Locke did bring up the question, how DID Ben end up in the wheelchair?

My thought is this…..Is Ben receiving all the pains and ills that the survivors are being healed for. Locke was in a wheelchair and the island healed him. Now Ben is in the wheelchair. The one woman from the first season, she had a tumor and the island healed her from the tumor. Did Ben get that tumor? The only thing that I am not sure about is this; did Ben have the tumor BEFORE the plane crashed? Is that why he was so interested in Jack being on the plane? I think I heard on one of the episodes that he had the tumor for quite awhile. Of course, my theory goes out the window if the tumor was present before the plane crash.

That is where you all come in.

Did Ben have the tumor BEFORE or AFTER the plane crashed?

…oh and on another tangent.

Do you think Locke burned down Hurley’s paper box company?

got paint?

I think I need to use more paint.

I have way too much!

Some of these paints I have not even used. Never even opened. As you can see I have not even looked at them recently.

Shake.

Shake.

Shake.

Shake.

So now as you can see....all my paints have been shaken and I think I need to start using them with all these foam letter stamps I have sitting around.

This one is going to France

I finished another card.

This one is going to my sister, in France. So ummm, Z, if you are reading this. Stop one sentence before and close your eyes, QUICK! LOL!

I find it weird that my cards are so cutesy looking. It makes me wonder about my scrapping style. Are they the same? Are my pages “cute”? Is that weird? Do people like "cute"?

I told myself that I would ONLY use left over products on these cards. Since I have not scrapped in awhile, all I have “leftover” at the moment is cardstock. Plus, if the cards are flat I don’t have to worry about mailing them. I guess I just wonder if they are boring.

Today was just another day of things not really working out as planned. I was supposed to have a training class at Job Services at 8:30am but when I got there, I was told that I had the wrong location, even though my paper had the location I have been going to all along. I guess this class was scheduled and the trainer was never told. The trainer came up to tell me that I had to drive to another location on the other side of town and beg them to let me in since they do not allow latecomers. I decided instead to just skip it. I did not have the gas or time to waste driving all over town, I need a job and I am tired of all these classes. So instead, I paged my Uncle and now I have a clearer view of what I need to do. I still don’t know if I will be going to school or looking at On-the-job training but at least I kind of know where to start.

Then I went to pick up my new glasses. They took forever to arrive and then they were not even correct. I was supposed to get the Transition lenses but I ended up with the regular lenses. Also, they are Burgundy in color and I just don’t know if I like them. I found out AFTER I purchased them that you could change the color. I have worn glasses since I was in high school and NEVER knew you could change the color of the glasses you order.

Oh….and Cairo found a new friend. NOT!

What a day!

Today started out normal enough. I dropped B off at work and I had a few errands to run. Nothing too big as it was one of B’s short workdays. I also did not want to do much driving around as one of our tires sprung a leak. We have low profile (read: expensive) tires on the car. These tires came with the car and we have just replaced them as needed. Well I have never had to replace so many tires and at $100 bucks a pop, they are not cheap! These tires are always getting nails stuck in them. In fact, they probably all have nails in them right now. We know for sure that the back tire has a huge nail but so far, it has not lost any air. We were surprised to see one of the newer tires had multiple nails. It was losing air and we did not know if we could get it patched.

So after dropping off B, I went to Job Services to finish a test and chitchatted a bit with my case manager and my uncle, who also works there (YAY Me for having family ALL over the place!).

Then I was able to get the tire patched (Thanks Dad!) pretty quickly by taking it to a place my Dad told me to – someone he has taken his cars to in the past. I think it also helped that he met me there. It was going to be an almost 3-hour wait but the guy just went ahead and fixed my tire soon after I arrived.

Today was also the day I had to mail in my agreement to sever my working arrangement (read: gag-order). I don’t really know what to call it. I had to sign a legal form stating that I was let go and that I would get some money if I never ever said anything bad about my prior employer. So as of today….I am NO longer employed. :( Want to hear something weird? I worked there exactly 7.5 years to the day.

After mailing my packet, I decided to stop of to get a drink before heading over to pick B up from work. I was in the drive thru, waiting. I put the car in park to grab something off the floor and could not get the car OUT of park!!! I was stuck there right in the middle of the drive thru. I was so embarrassed!!! They had to close down the entire drive thru for about ½ hour until I got someone to check it out (Again….Thanks Dad!). Luckily, it was easily fixed and I was only one hour late picking B up from work. Yeah, he was not too happy but what could I do?

I am a card making machine

One of my goals for this year is to cultivate my friendships (old and new).

I wanted to make sure not to miss anyone’s birthday and thought an actual card would be much better than an email or E-card. I am not really a card maker. Well not lately anyway. I was a stamper long before I scrapbooked and only used my stamps for cards. I have not stamped since I started scrapbooking (well maybe once or twice) and I have never used any of my scrapping supplies for cards.

So, you can see how surprised I am that I seem to be a card-making machine of late. LOL! I think it all started with the SOSF valentine exchange where we had to send a handmade card. I then went on to make a card for my mom and now this card for one of my good friend’s birthday. I sure do hope she likes it.

MCR ROCKS!!!

Last night B and I (along with my nephew) went to see the My Chemical Romance concert up in Phoenix. I have been waiting to see this show since I bought the tickets back in January. We had such awesome seats in the first section by the stage. We were supposed to be in the 8th row but ended up sitting in the 7th row. I have NEVER been so close to a stage before! I just wish I could have snuck in my camera as others were able to do.

As for the show, the band played all their songs in order off of "The Black Parade", as The Black Parade. Talk about theatrics! There were flying balloons, confetti and lots of fire. Being so close to the stage, we could feel just how hot those flames were.

The show was AWESOME!!! MCR really do know how to put on a show and the encore lasted forever!

And so did the ride home. I drove us up to the show but on the way back home, I got sick and B had to drive. We even stopped a couple of times on the way. I have not been sick like this in YEARS! We got home somewhere around 2:30am and I think I finally felt well enough to sleep around 4:30am. I still have a bit of a headache even now but I am feeling much better than last night.

Is it Saturday?

Wow! You would think with me being out of work and all that I would have tons of time on my hands to write for my blog. It seems to be just the opposite. My calendar is filling up and my to-do list is growing. I don't even know what day it is today.

On Thursday, us "dislocated workers" (how is that for a term?) had a meeting with the Unemployment office and Job Services. All I can tell you is that I am more confused than ever. First off, we did not even get the letter stating that we were signed up for this meeting in our exit packet. You see….from what I hear we were not supposed to be let go until the end of next month but to make the paper work easier on the company they decided to lay off the seven of us in my group. But since it was all done so quickly, our packets did not include all the info it should have.

So back to Thursday's meeting. It was supposed to be from 1:00 to 4:00. Lots of paperwork was filled out and I did not even have time to read it all. We were just told to follow along and fill it out and sign it and hand it over. Come to find out the one gal with Unemployment gave us totally WRONG info and when we questioned her, she got VERY defensive. So we did it like she told us to and now all of our Unemployment claims are being denied.

Then there was the TEST. They told us we were to take a test. A test that was supposed to take about 2 hours to complete. We started the test around 4:00 (when the meeting was supposed to end) and then we were interrupted to fill out yet more forms. So of course, when 5:00 came around I was not finished. Who knew that an SAT type test was required? I have not taken Geometry since 10th grade!! On Monday, I have to go back and finish the test. I am NOT looking forward to it at all!

Hello Mojo!

It's back. Well it was 12 hours ago.

How sad is this? See this scrapbook page?

I started this page over one year ago at the Scrappay Diva's sleepover (or was it 2-years ago?) and finally finished it last night/early this morning. It was pretty much finished except I added the velvet flowers, doodling and journaling. Yikes! I even used my own handwriting!!! Even with just adding that little bit it still took me hours to complete. Now isn't that silly?

I have to tell you, I have many many pages in different stages of completion just stacked and hidden everywhere. I was actually going thru a stack of pages and pulling the completed ones to put in an album. I found that all my layouts had the pictures falling off the page. Some even fell off completely. I use the Hermafix tabs and even the Tombow permanent glue but they do not seem to stick on the Bazzil cardstock. I don't know what to do.

What adhesive do you find works best when sticking onto cardstock?

So instead of stressing over it, I decided to do something else and deal with the adhesive issue later. Well until you all tell me what glue I need to buy. LOL!

I decided to deal with this stack of unfinished layouts and other scrappy supplies that just seemed to have gotten lost in this ever-growing pile, once and for all. Instead of just moving the pile to a different spot, I decided to start from the top and actually complete these pages and put away the new scrappy items that are hiding in it.

So, the huge pile is gone - but now I have multiple piles. LOL! Not what I wanted to end up with. I have a huge pile of cardstock that needs to find a home. I also have a stack of unfinished layouts. I was getting tired and was afraid that the huge pile would get knocked over by my cat so I think breaking the pile down was the most logical. Now I just need to make myself complete these layouts before I do anything else. Wish me luck!

The Scrappay Results

Here is the layout that I made for last night's first ever Scrappay Hour.

I just wish the scan showed the colors a little better. The jewels should be pink and not clear. I really had a great time with this page. Especially since it is the first page I have completed so far this year! Now if I can just keep my scrapping mojo flowing.

Supplies used:

Bazzil ~ Cardstock
Basic Grey ~ Patterned paper
Making Memories ~ “Bordeaux” paint
Heidi Swap ~ Chipboard letters
S.E.I ~ Ribbon
My Mind’s Eye ~ pink jewels
Flower punches
Embroidery floss
Zig Writer
Deco scissors
White Uni-ball Signo pen

To see other finished layouts please click here:

Scrappay Hour #1 ~ Finished layouts

They all turned out great!!!

Scrappay Hour is a GO!!!

Head on over to the Scrappay Divas blog and join us for our first ever Scrappay Hour!!!

Don't forget to check-in and let us know you are there!

Scrappay Hour #1 ~ Check-in

Scrappay Hour #1 ~ Info

Scrappay Hour #1 ~ Supplies List

Cha-cha-changes

I have wanted to change the template on my blog for months now but I never seemed to find one that I liked. So I finally edited my old template and I still was not happy. When I switched to my last template I really really missed the white background. But I lived with it because I just LOVED the photo I used at the top of the blog. I could never find a new template that would work with such an odd sized photo.

Well things are different now. No more gorgeous photo. And surprisingly for someone that really only likes the 2-column templates, I really like how this 3-column template looks. So right now it is basic but I hope to spice it up a bit in the near future.

So what do you think? Is it too busy? I am going to change the colors around (you know the links and stuff). I kind of have an idea but what colors do you think would look good? I just know that the grey has got to go.

Here's mine

Starting this Monday the Scrappay Divas will hold the first ever Scrappay Hour! I am pretty excited about it as I have not scrapped in a long time. I just hope that I finish in time to watch Heroes. I may end up scrapping during the commercials. Good thing there is a second television in the room next door.

If you would like to join us for Scrappay hour please click the links below for additional info. We would LOVE to have you join us.

Scrappay Hour #1 ~ Info

Scrappay Hour #1 ~ Supplies List

Here are my supplies for Monday's scrap. Well most of them are here. I still have to decide on the embellishments and which one of the 3 different ribbon colors I will use. I must say...it sure is hard trying to find patterned paper with just 2 colors that will match the photos. I still have not decided if I will use the scalloped scissors or the buttons. I am going to have to wait to see what the instructions are first.

Another day down

I spent most of the morning at the dentist. I went in for an exam and ended up getting a cavity filled. Now my mouth hurts! I get to go back tomorrow and get a cleaning. The dental office is so cool with trying to fit me in this next week to get my teeth taken care of. B has been going to this dentist for years but this was my first visit. It is in a fancy office complex (we are talking glass walls/doors and marble floors) and I felt a bit under dressed in my jeans and sweater.

I am trying to get as many appointments as I can before my benefits run out. I have a feeling that I won’t make it to the regular doctor. It will be so expensive to get my teeth fixed that I may just concentrate on getting as much done as possible. I still have not decided.

Yesterday ended well. I helped my friend pack up her stuff and then we all met for breakfast/lunch. I also watched “Little Miss Sunshine.”

Have you seen it?

I really liked it. I am SO glad my family is NOT like that!