Black Belt Scrapping

F.A.I.L.....

"Pick Up the Phone,
Pick Up the Phone,
Pick Up the Phone,
Call Time-Warner...."

AGAIN!

Alas, the ridiculous jingle goes running through my head again today as I go to watch Thursday night's season premier of Grays Anatomy, only to see "There may be a problem with your DVR hard drive. Please Re-Boot and Call Time Warner Cable." Then I see the digital readout where the clock should be scrolls F.A.I.L.....F.A.I.L.....

AAAACCCCK! This is a sick joke, right? My DVR can not POSSIBLY die on me on Premier Week. No WAY! Say it isn't so. Way. It is so.

I'm so pathetic and I'm so in love with my DVR that I left a party on a Saturday night to drive to a mall that's nowhere near my house to exchange my beloved DVR machine for a new one. Thank goodness there was ONE TWC store in this city of a million plus people that is open on a Saturday evening.

I did lose out on watching Grey's, but thank goodness I managed to catch Survivor yesterday, before the crash. I couldn't possibly miss out on watching my fave.

As for TWC, I'm so DONE with calling them. So done.

Save the Date

Get ready for a really fun event....

Yes, that's right, I'm cleaning house and turning it into a fun crop event! So if you're in the Cincinnati area, or within driving distance, it'll be worth your while. I'm way overloaded and need to cut down, so I'm being ruthless.

Patterned Paper: 4 for a $1
Cardstock: 5 for a $1
All Stampin' Up Stamp sets: $3 each
Embellishments all $1, $2, or $3, including things like packs of Basic Grey chipboard and rubons
Glitter and Embossing Powders: $1 each
Chipboard alphabets: $2 each
Gobs of Imagination Project Coaster board embellishments and alphabets: $1 each
Ribbon: 25 cents/piece
Idea Books: $2 each

and gobs more!

Save the date and stay tuned for more information. If you're interested, email me for more specific details.

Shop or not, it's going to be lots of fun, so please plan on stopping by!

Friday 3-11pm, Saturday 9-????

Saturday Night Lights

For the first time in years and years, Andy and I took advantage of the great weather on Saturday night and went to the Mariemont vs. Madeira high school football game. I had forgotten how much fun high school football is! Between the bands, the smell of the popcorn in the air, the girls with painted faces wearing their boyfriends' jersies, proud parents and grandparents in the stands, and some pretty good football, it was just a blast!

It was a lot of fun for us because while Shannon goes to Mariemont, we have lots of friends who live and have kids at Madeira. One of my taekwondo classmates is a starter on the Madeira team as well. Anyhow, we really didn't care who won, we just thought it would be a lot of fun and it was, with Mariemont coming out on top, 21-8.

I think we're going to make football games a regular Friday night activity. Next week the Warriors play at Indian Hill. They've got a great team this year with some really big boys.

Photos from 2006

A Sobering Fact

So I'm watching The Biggest Loser last night and they post a little factoid....How many jumping jacks does the average person need to do to work off a pint of chocolate ice cream? The answer....8000! EIGHT FREAKING THOUSAND JUMPING JACKS!

We do quite a few jumping jacks in taekwondo class. They're not hard, but after a while, they get a lot tougher. Twenty five, or even fifty is easy. One hundred and it's getting tougher. Try doing five hundred at one time and then see how you feel. Then when you're dying from that five hundred, think about repeating your efforts fifteen more times! Yowza. I could eat a pint of ice cream without hardly thinking about it.

I'm so glad I don't like chocolate ice cream. I much prefer strawberry, peach, butter pecan, or peppermint. I bet I'd only have to do 7999 jumping jacks to work off a pint of peach.

Depressing indeed.

And speaking of Biggest Losers....how bout last night's big winner, Evel Dick? Rock ON! I love it!

More Digie Scrapping

Since I've been unable to get online a lot lately, I've spent more time sharpening my pixel skills. It's been pretty fun!

Here are a few that I've finished lately. The first two are all elements from my friend Katja.

I did the third one for Rocky Mountain Hobbies, all elements by Chris Wazelewski.

The last two are my current faves of all.....

Have a great day! Thanks for still checking in on me despite my internet problems.

Justice is Served

They say that crime doesn't pay, unless you're OJ Simpson. That being said, after "beating the rap" over 13 years ago, OJ finds himself being held without bond in a Las Vegas jail today for robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. I think it's great! The arrogance of that guy is beyond belief to me and I hope this time he finally gets the justice that he deserves.

You can read more here.

Here in Cincinnati, two bank robbers robbed a bank on Friday morning only to find themselves with an extra bonus in the bag in the form of a GPS tracking device. Police shut down the freeway about an hour later and busted the robbers with the loot. As it turns out, the one bank robber was on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Way to go for the bank staff!

Idiots!

+++++++++++++

On an unrelated matter, my internet was supposed to be fixed on Thursday, then on Saturday, and here it is on Monday and we're back to square one. It's up right now, but I've been told that my connection is "very unstable" and will most likely crash again soon. I've got them coming out again on Wednesday. It's frustrating!

FYI....

Having mucho internet connection issues of late. Just sayin.....

If I'm not responding to your email or posting much here, that's why. Hopefully it'll all be resolved in about 24 hours or so.

Never Forget

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905

I will certainly NEVER forget.

So I'm in the Apple Store....

....on Saturday because Baby Mac needs a new battery. Gotta love Apple, when I got to the Mac store in the big huge-O mall, my name was first on the list for service because I had reserved my slot online. Ya gotta love that! So anyhow, they booted up my baby and up comes my blog and I realized that I hadn't updated in a week. Wowza, time flies.

I felt like I was playing catch up all week last week, with the week really starting on Tuesday. Not that I'm complaining or anything, because Monday is my busiest day of the week. I wish I didn't have to be at work again in a mere ten hours....

Anyhow, last week was just filled with the usual...work, taekwondo, and wishing it would rain. As far as the rain goes, it finally did, but not nearly enough. Just basically enough to run right off of the rock hard earth that used to be my back yard.

Shannon started violin classes this week and so far so good. We'll see how long that enthusiasm sticks. I hope it sticks for a while. I also made an appointment for her at the orthodontist next month. Yet another adventure, I'm sure.

The roof and all of the bug reconstruction is done ~ yay! Now we wait for windows and I start getting estimates on painting this place. I've always wanted a yellow house and now it's time to make that happen!

Hey, I got my October issue of Memory Makers Magazine and flip it open while hanging out at the taekwondo school only to see this.....

Yeah, I'm the freaking EDITOR'S PICK and nobody even told me! I got Editor's Pick a few years ago and got a phone call and a check. I guess those days are gone, but I was still really thrilled! Maybe the check is in the mail.

And speaking of scrapbooking, I've been diving deeper into the depths of digital deliciousness.... I leave you with yet a few more digie layouts that I did this week. The butterfly one was basicaly done because I wanted to see if I could extract the butterfly from a photo and make it look like it was 3-D off of the page/screen. It's not an interesting layout subject wise, but it was good practice. Right now my paper scraps are just gathering dust. I had to make a card today and it felt really weird to be cutting paper. Is it just me or does Photobucket really wash out pics when you copy the link? I've noticed that my layouts never look as good when I link them from there to here. Oh well, here they are anyways.

Oh, how could I forget....it's opening day for NFL football! ! ! ! Wahoo! ! ! It's good to see my favorite guy looking good again as usual. We won't talk about his "too many wimmen" problems..... We won't be talking about my Michigan Wolverines either. Ugh. So spare me the email, okay?!

Long Weekends Rock!

How come the time can go by so darned fast when you're having a somewhat lazy weekend?

Friday night we had great seats to the Bengals/Colts game, if you can call it a game. Basically it was a glorified practice, but it was still fun. The weather was great, it was so nice to feel some cool air with a nice breeze. We had great seats, so I hauled my big camera with me to try to get some good shots. I sure wished I had a bigger zoom, but in general I'm pretty happy with my photos.

Saturday I helped my parents with their new computer, then went to a crop at Scraps, Etc. for the rest of the day. It was so fun to spend time hanging out with Ginger and Jana! This was the first crop I've ever attended where I took my laptop, my scanner, my external hard drive, and one ginormous extension cord so that I could digie scrap. I actually got a lot done....a few layouts and edited about 100 photos. Not bad. I did get some strange looks when I walked in with that big ole' power cord on a reel......

Here are some of the layouts that I got done this weekend:

On Sunday, S hosted a "70's Disco Party", complete with cheese fondue and a handmade disco ball. The girls had an absolute blast. I admit I even enjoyed listening to classic disco and Motown tunes.

The girls couldn't believe that not only was Michael Jackson once a really cute kid, but that he and his brothers had their own cartoon. I watched it every Saturday morning, being a true Motown girl at heart. So to kick off your work week, I leave you with a little Motown flashback....