Say it with me.....

APP-A-LA-CHIN. It is NOT app-a-la-SHIN. Hard "C"....think chin, like the thing below your mouth. Since my parents alma mater spanked Michigan, my BFs favorite team, all I've heard is a mispronunciation of the the word Appalachian. When I correct people, I'm looked at like I'm crazy. Never mind that I was born in Boone, NC. Never mind that BOTH my parents graduated from ASU. Never mind that my Dad worked there for many, many years. I'm obviously wrong.

Okay, I'm off my soap box for a moment. It's usless to be up there anyway since nobody listens or cares.

So to do the 2Peas challenge, my scrapping plans are numerous tomorrow. I need to finish both my swaps, work on a wedding gift, and I have 100 or so pages taking up room in my brain that I need to get down on paper. I'm also planning on listing eBay, both scrap and non-scrap items. Yeah, I'm buying a case of Monster Chaos' and staying up all night, lol. Thats why I'm going to sleep early tonight. I'm going to get up, do some laundry, go to Costco, and then come home and nap. Since I'm such a night owl, I'm going to stay up late, just me and my MP3. I might stop at blockbuster and pick up something for some background noise, but we'll have to see.

Alright, so here's a challenge: I'm making a mini-album of songs that mean something to me. It's kind of like my soundtrack. I want to see some more of these. So by next Saturday, I'd like to see comments directing me to pictures of your soundtrack. Pick a song or songs, a verse or verses from a song and scrap them. This is just something to get your juices flowing, and maybe we'll all discover a new song we like or an old song we've forgotten about. Make sure I can get in touch with you somehow, because I'm going to send a little something to the one my unbiased panel likes the best. (BF & 4 kids, lol)

Alright, I'm going to go look at eBay until my eyelids get heavy. Have a great evening!

Wisdom of a 5 year old

So this morning, I'm taking N into kindy and I told him to grab his book bag. He looks at me with the look of "mom - you're an idiot" on his face and says, "It's NOT a book bag! Its a backpack! There's no books in it, DUH!!!!"

Guess you really can't argue with that, lol.

So last night, I actually cleaned. Yes, me. She who does not clean actually cleaned the kitchen and the bedroom. Okay, picked up, but still. S was impressed and after asking me what I did with his girlfriend, said he really liked me like this. Its part of my lifestyle makeover and putting some effort into my life. There's no reason for me not to do things around the house other than I'm L-A-Z-Y. And this morning, I walked on my 15 min break. Oh, and I cooked breakfast for the kids, eggs and cheese toast. (Take that Cap'n Crunch!) And cleaned up after myself. So instead of waking up in time to throw on jeans and sweats I'm getting up 2 whole hours before I'm supposed to leave. It's amazing what I'm able to get done.

I've got a doctors appointment this afternoon. Yeah, THAT one. I hate September. *sigh*. But I get my shot, so I'm gonna be there early! We talked about babies last night, and I told S that I didn't think I could do a newborn again, especially after watching my brothers kid overnight. S said he thinks I could do it, but that we're not going to test that theory. Sounds good to me.

Alright, back to work. I'm bored as hell with nothing to do, so I need to go seek work from someone.

Okay, so apparently I don't "do" embellishments

I'm working on my swap tonight and I've dug through all my scrap stash looking for embellishments. I have nothing new and exciting, just brads, eyelets, some chipboard and ghost shapes, ribbon and prima flowers. Oh, and some die cuts. **side note, I managed to find a lost bazzill stash**
I'm very disappointed. I don't have bling, or anything "new". And everything is really me. (read-unusual/weird). Add to this that my swap person is 10 years younger than me, with a VERY CUTE dog. But no kids, not married.... I tried to look at her gallery, but alas, that didn't spark any ideas for me. And I know I vowed to NOT purchase anything scrap related, but I think I'm going to break that vow, at least for the moment. So I need some help. What's hot? What's not? I'm going to go to the scrap store by my work tomorrow at lunch and take a look around. Oh and I MUST stay away from the patterned paper, especially the Heidi Grace stuff.

Alright, I'm going to stop digging around. I'm beginning to notice things that I know I had at one point that aren't here now, like my prima bity bag. :( It was either stolen by an ex-friend or I left it when I moved out of my house last year. Its just one of many things I've thought about tonight, knowing I had at one point and now, after unpacking, its just not here. *sigh*

Oh, and to anwser the challeng on 2Peas for wednesday, I look where ever. Magazines, online gallery's and eBay. Mostly I look at eBay. There's some very creative sellers on there.

G'nite. :)

Life Makeover

Yep, I said it. Life makeover. I'm totally in need of one. Not that my life is bad, just parts of it could be better. My biggest issue it time. I just don't have enough of it. Between my kids, my boyfriend, my friends, my work and my divorce, I'm stretched beyond my limit. I keep making sacrifices to help free up time, and its not helping.
The first thing I stopped doing was scrapping. I have not scrapped a single page in almost a year. NOT ONE PAGE. I've bought supplies and am now faced with the delimna of having "too much". I tried this weekend to sit down and scrap and all I ended up doing was shuffling supplies around and shaking my head at the excess.
The second thing I stopped doing was excercising and eating right. I've convinced myself that I don't have time for it. And I am paying for it. I feel really crappy, tired and sluggish. Not to mention that I've started putting the weight back on that I lost.
I've also stopped taking care of my inner princess, like new clothing, haircuts, getting my nails done, etc.... All of these things cost money, so that's my reason for not doing it. Plus it takes time in the morning to put on makeup and really fix my hair.
And I'm completely unorganized and un-time managed. I have a to do list that just keeps getting longer and longer because I'm too lazy to get up and just get things done.

So, I've decided that today's the last day of all of this. I'm making a goal to attempt to correct the things I've seen as wrong in my life. And hopefully, things will get better.
#1 - I'm going to start watching my eating and go for walks. I won't be able to work on anything until I've worked on myself and the way I feel. I need my energy to complete my goals.
#2 - I'm going to give myself and the kids a schedule so we can build a routine we so desperately need. I think we spend a lot of wasted time and energy butting heads on things that should just be routine.
#3- I'm going to take "me" time. I need time to get my nails done, get my hair cut or just spend time by myself, for myself.
#4- Organization! I need to purge all the crap I've gathered and find homes for what I'm keeping.
#5- And my scrap goal: 2 projects a week. And no more buying! I think both are reasonable.

Anyway, now that I've made the goals, I need to find a way to implement them. Thats tonights challenge. Just me, my notebook and my calendar. We're gonna figure this out. :)

Reno Balloon Races

We had a great weekend! Friday I took the kids to the Reno Balloon Races. (I decided that it was okay to be late to work. That's the family/life balance I've been working on.) Anyway, they had a ball seeing all the balloons take off during Mass Ascension. (100 hot air balloons go up in the air at the same time) Here are a couple of pics:

I took those with my camera phone, so of course I needed to go back with my real camera this morning. So after babysitting my 10 week old nephew all night, I got up at 3am and headed to the shuttle bus stop. By 5am I was at the field for Dawn Patrol. Here's a video:

And some pictures of the balloons in the air after Mass Ascension this morning.

Well, I'm pooped. I just thought I'd share a little of our excitement from this weekend. G'nite!