Scappin' Weekend

Well, I had a lovely long weekend scrapping with the girls up in the mountains of Georgia. I think we all had visions of getting a little bit more done than we did but we each managed to complete one project so in my mind that was a success. We also enjoyed the no pressure, no rush of it all. We had the freedom to do what ever we felt like even if it meant taking a nap or just watching TV. I think I'm the only one who didn't take any naps. The view from the cabin was a lovely gander at Blue Ridge Lake off in the distance and the weather was close to perfection.


We did have an undocumented amenity at the cabin of a "skinny fridge". I think you can figure it out but it was curved in such a way as to cause you to shed all those excess pounds. Here I caught the girls taking pictures of their reflections in the "skinny fridge". I purposely picked the blurriest picture to hopefully cut down on the flack I'll get for posting it. ;-)



View from the screened in porch.



I'll post what my project was later but here are some pics of all our stuff setup.







And yes there is a laptop, printer and cricut there.

Needs Google search band wagon

Ok, I'm joining the Google search band wagon. Here is what "Laurel needs":

to be praised (who doesn't)
were related to operating... (not sure what I'm operating)
to communicate with a student about their work, attitude, or "peer level qualities" (thankfully I'm not a teacher)
YOUR HELP! (always)
to conduct a new needs assessment (probably)
YOU! (for sure)
to attract (what? could be scary)
a makeover (for sure!)
ECI (have no idea)
a operating system reinstall (probably goes with the make over)

Oddly enough someone else compiled a Laurel Needs list but they were a little more choosey:

Laurel needs acid soil and excellent drainage. (that is so true)
Laurel needs summer days with high heat. (so not true!)
Laurel needs a bigger bust. (might fall over if that happened)
Laurel needs to comply. (dream on)
Laurel needs a date. (highly over rated)
Laurel needs clothing for an adult male. (must be for that date. guess he's showing up naked which might be okay)
Laurel needs a room that matches her artistic side. (almost done)
Laurel needs something to calm her down. (probably, since I'm not dating)
Laurel needs a recovery strategy. (possibly from that date)
Laurel needs us. (true!)

Family fun

I forgot to include the fun evening the family had at my brother's house last Saturday night. Scott and Wendy cooked steaks, grilled corn on the cob, grilled veggies and homemade ice cream. It was all wonderful and we had a really nice time.

I did learn something interesting though. Little Miss Rebecca is quite competitive. The boys had been playing one of those race car games and late in the evening they lost interest. So there was our chance to try it out. I haven't tried any video games in quite a while and am frankly not any good at them and this wasn't any better. I really kept wishing for a stearing wheel and kept trying to turn the control like it was one. Doesn't help too much going around those curves. Well, back to Little Miss Rebecca. She beat me each time and derived an incredible amount of joy from it. Fortunately for me I didn't care. I was too dizzy from playing the game on a big screen tv. Scott played her next though and spanked her behind so to speak. She still won because he was busy running her off the road every chance he got. Her little car limped across the finish line like a wounded bird. (he, he)

We did have a lot of fun though. Might have to try my hand at something a little slower. Couldn't get anyone to play the golf game with me.

A walk in the park...

Well, someone, who was too afraid to sign there name (anonymous), you know who you are, said it's been too long since I posted. Unfortunately my day job gets in the way and when I get home at night I'm just plumb tuckered out. And then there is so much to try to cram into the weekend. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.

So I haven't gotten to spend too much time in my new scrap room and I seem to mess it up as fast as I clean it up. Doesn't help that I keep buying little tidbits. Maybe I will manage to clean it up again and take some new pictures this weekend.

Played with the settings on my camera some more while at the Dogwood Festival at Piedmont Park. It was a beautiful day for it. I found I was wishing for some more interesting things to take pictures of. Maybe if I had done more people watching. But had to shop while snapping pics. The festival was really good this year and I spent too much but only brought home a couple of items that I just really liked. Didn't even look at the jewelry.


We got to the park about 10:30 and this couple was taking a nice morning nap in the shade.

These are close ups of the Tulip trees. Doesn't show as well here but the flower looka like it is lit from the inside.


Playing with composition on the rest of these.

Lovely Weekend

Well, still no pictures of the almost complete scrap room. I did get it mostly cleaned up yesterday.

Saturday was a great day. Went to Rebecca's (and Renee's) house for a fun and laughter filled day of scrapbooking. There is nothing like spending time with friends that you can really laugh with (and at sometimes). Part of our laughter was over trying to be quiet while Renee had a couple clients at the house.

I did actually get a fair amount done on the current baby gift album I'm working on. I even almost finished it but hit the wall at 11:30 pm and just didn't have a creative bone left. Rebecca, Sandy and I were the last ones standing, well, actually Rebecca and I, Sandy was drifting in and out. Rebecca finished her book club mini album and it is really cute. Misti and Sandy looked like they got a lot done and Stephanie had fun cutting things out with her Cricut. Fun was had by all.

Yesterday was my sleep in/pj day. I spent a few hours organizing ribbon and putting it on floss cards. It's amazing how much you can have in a big pile. It didn't look like so much but I must have used at least 75 floss cards. Its a good task for a day when you don't feel like thinking too hard about anything.

Well, time to get back to work. ttfn.

Composition and Lines

Here are some pictures I took for my photography class. The subject was composition and lines.

Mom's card

Oh, and here is the card I made Mom.

Almost Done

Ok, my scrap room is almost done. Here are a couple in progress pictures. I finally got it all cleaned up last Thursday but last weekend was all about Mom.

Mom turned the big 65 and we made it an "All About Mom" weekend. It started with Sherri and I taking her to Outback for lobster tails. They even brought out a slice of cheesecake instead of the usual ice cream. Friday we headed up to Chattanooga to the Tennessee Aquarium (pictures to come later) and even stopped at Crackle Barrel in Dalton for breakfast on the way. Mom saw her first 3d Imax movie and we had a blast. We went back to Dalton for dinner because lo and behold there was an Outback there. Guess who had lobster tails again for dinner. I think she may be good for a while. I'm afraid I stressed out a little Saturday because the house was still in disarray and everyone was coming over for dinner but made it through and we had a really nice time. By Sunday Mom and I were ready for some down time. It was a lovely pj day. So, you see, it was quite a busy weekend. Hopefully will get some finished pictures this weekend.

Lot's and lots of paper. Mom is such a trooper and helped me sort it all.



No, I don't think I have too much stuff. I am going to use it all some day.



Round two of organizing stuff.

ScrapRoom

Well, last Friday was a very exciting day. Decided to drop off my Jeep at the car wash in the parking deck here at work since it was looking very disreputable. Long about lunch time they called to say they were done but they just saw some smoke and sparks. I'm like, well, okay, I'll be right down. Sure enough there were some sparks coming from the cable for the winch were the casing had rubbed off and the bare wire was hitting the front grill. Now what is a girl to do?

4:00 rolls around and I drag one of the guys down hoping that we can wrap the worn spot with electrical tape so I can drive it. Well, move the cable a bit and flames shoot up. That was really exciting. Now I'm worrying that the whole thing is going to go up in flames or my coworker will get the shock of his life. Finally wedged some plastic lunch plates and a plastic handled tool in there so it stopped sparking.

To try to make a long story shorter one of the security guards got involved and finally disconnected the wire from the battery by man handling it (since the screw was stripped) and then he was able to jump start the Jeep (battery was completely drained from all the sparking). After a couple hours of all this I was finally able to drive home without incident. Friday I'll have the shop look it over to be sure but between God's help and the toughness of Jeeps it seems to be fine.

So back to scrapbooking. The girls have all been asking to see pictures of my room. It is still very much in progress but here is what we have so far.

Before - Mom had her English country in the front living room and I was trying out my purple phase in the dining room. I had to try it out but it was too dark for that room.

Inspiration - I found this pillow at Pier One and fell in love with the color combination (bought it of course) and I found some dishes on clearance (picture another time) that pull together these colors. The foyer is a duskier version of the teal and I needed something that would go with that and go with the red kitchen.

In progress with Scooter helping out.

Very Blessed

Well, I made some great headway with the scrap room this weekend. I am so blessed with friends and family. When I decided to paint my sisters, Sherri and Kim, showed up to help. I didn't even ask them. So there were four of us on the first day (mom is always a trooper) and then Kim stayed the next day and my friend Renee came over. It was a bit traumatic because the original color I picked out looked way too yellow in the daylight and we were almost done. So what could have been a day and a half job turned into a three day job. Such is life sometimes. Guess you could look at it as more fellowship time. ;-)

This weekend was the put together the cupboards from IKEA weekend and my friend Rebecca volunteered to come over to help. We made a really good team and got a lot done on Saturday. Sunday just about did me in though. Drilling the holes in the doors for the handles was pretty easy but when it came time to try to attach the doors it was not pleasant. I had two different sets of hardware to figure out. They must be in transition with their hardware vendor. They made it look so easy in the picture but it took forever and I thought it would never end. It did involve a little cussing here and there. Mom was a real trooper and tried to help but resorted to cleaning up the huge pile of cardboard left in the aftermath.

I'm used to being very self sufficient but it is so cool when people actually want to help you and volunteer. Thanks girls for all your wonderful help!!