bittersweet symphony

Scrappy friends

These scrappy friends of mine are a pretty fun bunch. I love that we try to get together as much as possible. Or that we will start group text messages filled with randomness. Trying to put it into words what they mean to me, sometimes you just have to let a picture speak. This was from our last crop ever at Archiver's. Sad that they are going out of business. I can't wait for our scrappy weekend away, we will be missing one, but might be gathering 1 or 2 new friends to join us. Here's a list, remembering where I first met them:
1. Amy-silver lake preschool
2. Shelly- Ali Edwards weekend
3. Missy- family
4. Erin- church crop
5.stephanie - basement crop
6. Marie- picnic
7. Bethany - church
It feels like I have known them forever, I can't imagine my life without them.
#tinycats #warmandfuzzy #sinkholes #ermergerd #hahahaha #lollerskates #stripper #buyer #hoarder #inker #pusher #thickers

10 on tuesday

Are your taxes done yet? Ours are not. I should be working on them instead...but I figured I better post before I lose my 5-9 readers!

1. Riley lost his 1st tooth yesterday! His bottom one that has been loose for a while. It came out right after he finished his morning bowl of cocoa puffs @ Grammie and Papa's.  Grammie called me and put Riley on the phone to tell me this news! The tooth fairy came and left a gold coin.

2.  Taking pictures of lost teeth is kinda of challenging! I will spare you the gummy gaping hole pictures. But will share this one...of course Brady has to show me his teeth ( I am sparing you the picture of his tonsils -when riley saw that picture - he said - I can see where his food goes! )

for the record brady has no loose or missing teeth - but he likes to do anything that big brother does.

3. Someone stole my the number to debit/check cash card from first merit. Visa called to verify some $1,000 worth of attempted charges made in Oregon. Thank goodness they declined them, marked them as fraud and shut my card down.  two things about this bother me: a) I just ordered pictures from scrapbook pictures. com (not $1,000 worth) but they are also in Oregon. Hmmm...the charges were only days apart. b) I live by my debit card. Now I have to wait 5 days to get a new card. Since I don't have a credit card to use - I will have to go to the bank and actually get CASH out!

4. (SOB) my baby is growing up. He is registered for kindergarten also.

5. I still can't comment on 3 blogs: Nancy, Becky & Shelly! Nancy: I finally saw the Old Spice commercial you were telling me about "look at me, now look at your husband, now look back at me! then I saw the 2nd commercial - same guy on the beach, i am riding a horse - backwards! ha-larious! I would totally buy old spice (if I had a coupon!) Shelly: Congrats on passing court! I am so happy for you! Thank you for sharing this journey with us! I can't wait to see your travels and hear about your "gotcha day". and of course his nursery is rocking! love the lanterns and colors! Becky: Thank you for the sweet package in the mail! Such a thoughtful surprise. Thank you for kind words also! I love you guys!

6. vienna? really? vienna? oh jake. I think we all know what "heat" means. Are you 18? And in other Bachelor news: Jason & Molly are married. And they got rained on. I bet that made melissa smile.

7. I made it all the way to 10 when typepad decided to erase half of my post. thanks. 

8. dinner tonight was awesome, if I do say so myself. French dip sandwiches in the crock pot, roasted asparagus, fresh cut pineapple and strawberries.

9. 2 things I am trying to make an effort on: Scrap booking & folding laundry. Scrap booking just fast simple pages to get the stories told, using up my stash. I am going to a crop on Friday night. anybody want to do an all day 12 hour crop for national scrapbooking day, May 15th? Laundry -it's easy to wash - but why so hard to fold and put away?! Why?

10. Girl scout cookies are starting to arrive. oh my!

  

scrapbook sunday

just some recent pages to share. Pardon the scans -they are a little wonky - I fear my scanner is on it's last legs...

Cupcake:brady eating riley's b-day cake, messy face, painful cheese face. KI memories new valentine line. misc "hello" badge, blue thickers. Did this at a crop in January. There is a grey shadow that is not there irl.

sprinkles:riley didn't eat his birthday cake. he would rather have a donut with sprinkles! american craft pp, jenn bowlin rub on date, bo bunny stars & arrows, green thickers.

lucky.These are not technically great shots - kinda blurry - i saw brady running out of the corner of my eye and just turned and snapped these 2 just in time. I love the look on eddie's face! American crafts journaling spot, jenn bowlin mini bingo card & name/date stamp, misc ribbon,heart gem and star chipboard.

Father:oh this was such a hard one! resisting in the urge to tear it apart and start over! I had it pictured in my head -but it didn't turn out on paper as I had planned. But it has been sitting on my table for a couple days, I just had to stick it down and move on. (it's not that crooked and the bottom right hand corner is there IRL) making memories black ribbon trim, making memories velvet paper, misc print paper,7 gypsies date spot, misc buttons, thickers, mm snowflake and xmas tree, the journaling is behind the picture on a 7 gypsies tag and misc ribbon. I love these pictures of eddie holding baby brady and pop holding  baby brady on christmas day 2007. I am sure Pop once held eddie like this as a baby and sang to him. And now eddie is the father with a baby, and pop gets to be a great grandfather. And the way brady is looking at pop & holding his finger in the middle picture? gets me every time.

 
 

{for the love} THICKERS!!

http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/userblogpost.asp?id=43109

have you seen this? a chance to win $600 in thickers! you have to purchase some before 10-31-09 to be entered in the contest. Erin, you in?

customer service

This is a public service announcement of sorts and a bit random.  But maybe someone will find this helpful :)

Customer service these days is a hit or miss. You can call or email. You might get a computer or might get a real live person. And they might speak English.

Examples of GOOD customer service:

1.Dominion East Ohio.

Call 800-362-7557.  did you know you can call for a lower gas cost per MCF (unit)? We were paying $11.99 per MCF, I called the 800#, waited on hold for about 3 minutes, got a rep, asked for a lower rate, got $7.75 locked in until Oct 2010.  We pay on budget, but when they balance out the account 3 times a year, we will see a lower bill.

2. Studio Calico   Awesome Kit Club. More pretty kits for me to hoard.  I really wanted their June kit - but it was sold out. So I emailed Scarlet & asked to be on the waiting list. She sent me a quick response back that she would be refilling kits and might have a few add ons and would let me know on Monday. and you know what? She emailed me on monday to let me know more kits were added and she had one add one if I wanted it. I emailed back and placed my order. Later that week - my kit arrived! Cute packaging and a coupon for dollars off my next order. 

3. ddeforest

I saw this etsy shop linked on another blog. I checked it out. Filled with cute little notions, ribbons and button sets.  But she didn't have any button sets listed. So I convod her - would she be listing any soon? So she convo'd me back - she was on vacation - but would be happy to do some custom sets for me  - what colors? Below is one of the pink and green sets she did for me. Look at the bling! (this is her picture not mine)

but wait - it gets better! when my order arrived (I also ordered a ribbon set, an inspo set along with 3 button sets) cute package, tied with lace, a handwritten thank you note, and bonus: 3 cute ribbons for free!

4. ScrapbookPictures

I order all of my prints from this site(unless I need something one hour) $2.00 shipping! Always great sales! Lots of size options! Check them out now for their August sales and they just added books.  Doug and crew will always get my business.

5. Giant Eagle

I purchased a steak for eddies birthday dinner. We went to cook it - it was GREEN on the bottom. It had been only 2 days since I bought it at the store. Even though I don't eat steak, I know it's not supposed to be GREEN on the bottom. I take it back to the store with my receipt. The cashier is grossed out as I am. She gives me DOUBLE my money back.

Bad Customer Service

6. Children's Place

I ordered matching Easter vests & socks for the boys back in March. They arrived, one too small and one kinda wonky. So I returned them by mail in April. Refunds will take 6-8 weeks to appear on your credit card. 8 weeks pass - no credit to my card. Try to find a phone number on the packing list. They only list: 1-877-PLACE USA. Seriously I have to spell it out on my phone. I wait 38 minutes due to high call volume. I get an operator, tell them I am looking for my refund, I am told returns take 6-8 weeks to process, thank you, click. yes. They hung up on me. After 38 minutes. I wait 2 more weeks. No credit. I call again as soon as lines open at 9:am. I am the 64 caller in line! I try to find an email link on their website. Send email - get a canned response - do not reply to this email, please call customer service at 877-PLACE USA.  This goes on for months. 3 more calls to customer service, 16, 29 & 45 minutes on hold. Finally received my refund on 8-24-09. 16 weeks after my return.

7. Bank of America (and all other credit card companies)

Please stop the harassing phone calls. 8 times a day their number appears on my caller ID.  Hang ups on my answering machine. I try to call the number back - the number can not be connected.  I have a card, but it's current.

8. City of CF Sheriff's Office

Calling for donations. They got me because they were like Hi Rachel! How are you? It's Dave from the sheriff's office. Calling for support for the families of fallen officers. How could I not give? Anything to help local heroes. Connect me to the donations office - please just give us your credit card number. What ? Yes you will be helping us with our operating budget and funding. Are you kidding me? You just pulled sad cop, bad cop on me. No money for you.

9. A school that shall remain nameless, downgrades the version of FInale (used to write,compose, print music) without telling the band director who has an upgraded version on his laptop.  Now he has to take our printer to school to print out music because the old & new program will not "talk" to each other or the school's printer. 

10. My hairdresser left me without notice. I am super happy for her, a teaching job in North Carolina, but man some notice from her or the salon would be great since I did have an appt on the books, would have been nice.  I kinda get attached to my stylist, trust them.  So do you know any good stylists out there?

I did have more pictures to go to this post -but Typepad is upgrading again and pictures won't load. So I started this post 5 days ago so I figured it's time to post it....moving on.

1st page ever and recent pages

I went to Archiver's friday night with Jamie (the assistant band director @ Highland) Within the 1st couple minutes of meeting her at a football game last year - she asked me the question -do you scrapbook? Since then we have shared time at Archiver's, drinking cafe mocha's from Borders (must have the chocolate stir sticks)discussing the Twilight series (I told her she needs to read the books -and she read them in record time)talking about babies,photography, pets,layout details (she needs directions - she has a small goto becky higgins sketch book that she DOES not deviate from- and I give her a hard time about that) It's been fun getting to know her and see Eddie thru her eyes. 

So known as the hoarder among some scrapbooking circles (shelly,marie, missy & erin also make up this group). I have been trying to use up the many Jenni Bowlin kits I am hoarding because they were too pretty to use.

I think this one used Oct kit from 2008 or it could have been 2007...

 

supplies:bazill scapolled cardstock, basicgrey's naked chipboard letters& brown thickers, daisyd's cardstock stickers and journaling spots.

 

i took xmas 2007 to the crop with me. I am trying to work on Brady's baby album also. This was a random piece of xmas paper won from kellicrowe, thickers, 1 7gypsis sticker, some daisy d buttons, ac red journaling pen(i won a set of 5 american craft journaling pen at the crop). The middle picture just makes me laugh out loud. Brady was literally chewing on everything that he could get his hands on - but still was a happy guy.

 

brady's 1st christmas. basic grey's patterned paper, archiver's cardstock, thickers, daisyd button.

 

8x11 layout of baby laney oct 2008. stampin up cardstock,and stampin up card kit circa 2006 used at a stamp camp.

 

before & after (bottom left hand corner of the scan is a little wonky - but okay IRL). I found these 2 pictures in my xmas pictures at the crop. I had this layout in mind and promptly misplaced the pictures. This was my 1st page at the crop- Jamie has this huge box of 12 x 12 paper I forget what mfg. But she has a boy and kept telling to use the girl papers.  I used thickers, misc green ribbon, JB journaling spot, pink puffy hearts from JB kit, and white cardstock and my stampin up scalloped punch.

They aren't magazine worthy - but I love them.  simple and basic. I am glad to be back in the groove again. And Studio Calico could be my motivation. Good thing their June kit is sold out.  I would hoard that too. Serious question out there for any Kit buyers...how do you store your monthly kits? Do you keep it all together or break it up and store with the rest of your supplies?

And over at write.click.scrapbook - they are sharing their 1st pages. Well I remember my 1st page - it was 9 years ago. My future to be sister in law Nancy - had a creative memories party at her mom's house. I remember there being like 20 ladies there! I sat with Susie Souders from church and was excited to play with paper, glue and stickers.  I remember we got to pick out 2 colors - it was strips and triangles class. And I threw the coordinator Brenda for a loop - are you sure you want 3 different colors? Remember the stencils? I used the stencils, deco scissors,corner rounder and the circle cutter all on the same page. With some mrs. grossman birthday stickers. Love the bold pen title.

 

   I used to keep an album count  - 20 creative memory 12 x 12 albums, 1 - 7 x 7 album, I have made 6 albums as gifts and a couple mini albums. I recently made the switch over to 12 x 12 american craft albums - so I can have different sizes all in one place. I am going use the stacy julian way of storing them - people we love, things we do, family, etc.

I will be forever grateful for Nancy and her invitation. It started everything. 

It's almost time to put the boys to bed and hopefully I will have enough energy to get the ideas in my head on paper tonight.  A nice cup of hot tea and some lifetime movies should do the trick.

happy mail & favorite shirt

here are the contents of the 2 boxes of goodies I won on kellicrowe's tuesday giveaways.

 

 

the second picture is just the cardstock and patterned paper along with some lose ribbon.

so much fun stuff: 7 gypsies board album, a naked chipboard album, 2009 planner, lots of ribbon, lots of decorative brads, rubons galore, mod stickers, sequins, beads, SHE book & project guide, letter stickers, chipboard. so much packed into 2 boxes. I will be bringing lots to share on monday - during hooky scrapping.

On a totally unrelated note - I put this shirt on Brady today (it's a 2t) and it was one of my favorites that riley wore. I wanted to post a side by side comparsion. So here is the Brady side. I will post riley's picture later as it is on the computer downstairs and dinner is about ready to come out of the oven.

 

 

(brady is making his motor sounds in this picture because he is driving Snotrod on the window sill (snotrod was in the movie Cars for all the mamas with little girls)

10 on tuesday - wednesday edition

1. So behind in editing pics! Have a senior session and the 10 marquette cousins (finally) shoot. Senior session was awesome - Nate from our church was really good at the "brooding" pics and climbing on stuff, and not being afraid of standing by the porta potties- awesome blue background. The 10 screaming marquette cousins shoot? Oh my. They were so bad (i can say that because they are my nieces, nephews and my own 2 sons) If I didn't love them all so much -I would have left the shoot - seriously.

2. Oxygen channel. Sign me up when this free preview is over - I can't get enough of Tori & Dean: Home Sweet HOLLYWOOD. I can't look away. Tori is pretty down to earth considering her childhood.  Yes I watched 90210, but I wasn't really a Donna fan.

3. TLC - yes I am watching too much summer TV - Say Yes to the dress, What not to Wear (shut up), Must love Kids. But E! Where is my new Girls Next Door? Thank goodness for Joel McHale and the soup

4. We figured out Brady calls his milk "nah". He is the hungriest & loudest baby ever. Seriously I don't think anyone feeds this child enough.

5. Riley will say anything to get Daddy to go outside with him. After dinner last night - Riley gets up and goes to over to look at Daddy's watch - OH NO! it's 20 days and 7! Time to go outside Daddy!  He will also add - Does that sound like a plan?

6. I actually scrapped! well if you call paying for a class to make an acrylic album scrapping - I did that Monday night at Archivers. It was kinda stressful at first - then it was fun. I walked out with a completed album, some cool new 7 Gypsies journal spots @ 30% off and some Heidi Swapp ghost letters for 50% off.  And I already ordered the pictures to go in the album - so there is a good chance it will get finished this year, maybe even this month! .

7. Love cinnamon graham crackers with homemade chocolate icing in the middle. Yum. Brings back memories of elementary school lunches. Also loving all the fresh fruits of the summer with the Pioneer Woman's yogurt cream dip.

 8. Brady is pretty much walking everywhere he can. He thinks it is so funny. He still crawls. But can walk about 10-15 steps around corners even and is really good at getting himself back up when in the middle of the room and nothing to hold on too. Sigh. My baby is really growing up.

9. Really getting anxious about starting the kitchen project. But need to have a husband that is home long enough to go to Lowe's. He leaves on Friday to go to PA for a week.  I have been asking him questions about how to measure the counter top, what finish paint should go in the bathroom, black or stainless steel for the dishwasher? Maybe that will scare him enough until staying home a couple nights before he is back in full swing that starts with band camp.  Is that bad?

10. What is up with typepad? It will barely let me type this let alone post pictures. I will try to post some pictures later - as we all know that every blog post needs a picture or 2 !