Very Funny.

Now don't they look like they are having fun?

How many homeschoolers out there - leave a comment.

Catnap

I worked Tues at JSI and a load of stuff came in - boxes and boxes, including the new lines of Basic Grey. This cute little metal embellishment came out of the box and right on to my pile of the days purchases. It was perfect for this page I was working on. It is very dangerous working at this store, especially on a day when a big shipment arrives!! But hey! I am using the stuff!

That little 'tail' on the metal catnap is a piece of grunge board rubbed with staz on ink then cut out. Did that with the letters too but added a little more ink.

Our cat Mitzy sure loved her basket stuffed with pillows.

And today's Andy Rooney quote "It's best to give advice in only two circumstances; when it is requested and when it is a life-threatening situation."

yes, well, tell that to a mother.... of teenagers!

Sweet son

I got up for work one morning last week and noticed these on the kitchen table. A late night gift from #1 son - this guy is a real sweetheart.

A (Satur)Day in our Life part two

I took David on a longer bike ride than usual this past Saturday. I wanted him to see some of the fun bicycle paths along the river. I warned him to wear runners and not his sandals.... hehe... "where are you taking me dear?"

"Are we still in Saskatchewan?"

Look carefully - what do you see in the water?
Know what it is? Check the photo just before.
okay - giveaway!

he wants to head back....to the coffee shop!


There it is - civilization on the horizon.
I didn't have the heart to tell him it was just a mirage...
we had a huge farmers field to navigate around first.

oh bummer!

Heading back to the river, away from civilization and coffee.

I get distracted by the photo op.


Through the woods.
I catch up and he takes the camera...

Hey I WAS there too!

We put the camera away and head for civilization, down Central ave, past the Sutherland Hotel

Catch a few volleyball players en route.

and the reward, finally ....

It was a slow bike ride home after this tasty cinnamon bun... the legs that were starting to stiffen up. Just keep em moving.

What a great start to the day!

Ambrosia page

Angie asked me in a comment on my last post if I had the new Basic Grey paper yet and if I was going to make a page soon. I told her, are you kidding? It never made it to the shelf (I worked yesterday). Actually I just said yes I had it :) but that I had pages underway and would get to it by the weekend. Two hours later.... how could I resist?

I used Ambrosia "pome" and "ebony". That's a BG Christmas tag from last year. What I love about BG is that it is so timeless. This paper is never wasted - it gets used somewhere.
The new lines will go fast and so will the Basic Grey letter stickers so, no pressure here, but you might want to head into JSI soon.

Has anyone kept count of all the "music" pages from 2001? My kids can never complain that they were not well cultured in their upbringing. And did I ever put a lot of miles on the van those years. We were at band two nights a week and I got bored of hanging around so I joined - and played the bass drum. And we did the Hallelujah chorus (tons of bass drum in that) - I had such a blast doing this!! One of the joys of home schooling was being able to learn and experience right along with my children. And act goofy and fool around too.

Today's Andy Rooney thought...."No matter how serious your life requires you to be, everybody needs a friend to act goofy with.

Amen to that! Go act goofy today! Play a bass drum!

A Day in our Life

August has been a crazy month...similar to June, hmm and July come to think of it. Both David and I have been crazy busy with work (me with holiday coverage) working two jobs and David being short staffed at work and traveling for work and doing stuff like sitting on a tarmac in a plane for four hours in Washington DC before it was cleared for takeoff. I won't share all the miserable details with you(like toilets overflowing on the plane!) but I do not understand how airlines can charge what they do and then put you through that. And I won't share the stress of my job suffice to say it is in a very stressed health care system.

The bottom line is the two of us just wanted to get in the car and drive somewhere - anywhere! Get out a town!! Tried to book a get away up at Waskesieu and tried a few other places, but they were all taken. So we just took the day on Saturday to mosey around town and get in a little exercise.

A pictorial of our day...because I rarely go anywhere without my camera bag.

The morning started with a long bike ride that ended at our favorite coffee shop Intermission Coffee House on Central Ave in Sutherland. We ordered the usual.

Below is Rob, who owns the place and makes sure the cosy chairs by the window are unoccupied when we arrive. Well he does his best...

We biked home after our sugar/fat overload (actually we always share this delightful treat - it is all part of the experience - sharing that is), showered and headed out the door to walk along the river and check out the new River Landing.

There was some jazzy local entertainment....

little ones...and not so little ones playing in the water park.

and all the while we did an ad campaign for Novozymes - think again! And the shirt was NOT free. The things we do for the company. :) just kidding - it is a great company to work for....if you don't mind sitting on the tarmac.....

Lounged by the rivers edge absorbing some summer. Oh man have I been at a desk all summer??

And then decided it was time to eat again. Prairie Fare at River Landing makes a darn good home made hamburger and they have some wonderful ice cream flavors to choose from too.

We continued our walk only to find that our plan to walk to the farmers market was foiled by construction - so we opted to drive around. I didn't take any pictures there - not sure why. But we did pick up some of our favourite East Indian spices from Premala's - If you have ever had Chili bites at our house? They start with a batter from Premala! And then come her dips -whoa! hot and spicy!

Off to the new mall south of town to buy a few items (not telling where) and check out the King size beds at the new Sleep Country store - that was fun - I almost fell asleep - MAN! mattresses are expensive!!

After our snooze at Sleep Country we headed home and into the kitchen to put together a very tasty curry chicken supper for the two of us and sit on the deck and enjoy what is left of the summer.

Cheaper than getting in the car and getting out of town, but I still feel like I need a break - like I just want to be out of town and enjoy some quiet.
Next I will post some photos of this Saturdays bike ride along the river - the closest we have got to getting out of town this summer - it was quiet and peaceful though sweaty and short lived.

Got any local get away ideas for us?

Great Canadian Melting Pot

I have had this photo of the Cortens side of the family on my desk for a while now. Another family picture I would title FAMILY - boring. So it sat. This morning I visited Got Mojo for their most recent challenge - and bingo there it was. Thanks for the advice April.
Was this family not a perfect example of the great Canadian Melting Pot?
From Ukrainian and Polish immigrants melded with Dutch/British immigrants married to every other nationality - well this is truly the Canadian melting Pot - and it is great!

Part of the challenge was to use glitter. Paper from Best Creations of a glittery world was waiting for a vacation photo - nope! Cause right there in the bottom left hand corner on this glittery map of western Canada was Kenora Ontario where this picture was taken - on Coney Island, in Lake of the Woods. Some fun rub on letters from Scrapworks and Me and My Big Ideas, some heidi swapp and thickers chipboard letters and some Creative Imaginations rub ons. And Prima overlay and flowers...what would we do without Prima!
So here ya go!

Sam layout

...just moving along with the 2001 photos....

Our Black Lab Sam in 2001. Sam always had that look on his face that said "Do you love me? Did I do something wrong? Is there something I am supposed to do. Did someone say walk?"

Serious

Yup! that's our Paul - serious about life since he was born - always in a hurry to grow up, be mature, reading veraciously - and dang it! retaining it all - smarter than his Mom by age 12!
journalling reads.... SERIOUS about life - that's you. And serious about reading...hmmm looks like you are reading Church History. Okay - good book, I agree.

Easy page - pull out those scraps, cut em, sand em, lay em down and add a title. A little bit of the new mesh - cause I just like the stuff!

Any serious kids in your gang?

All Grown up!

I looked at this picture of Mark and saw him all grown up (he is 18 in this photo) but I could still see in his eyes the little boy I loved so much. How did he grow up so fast? Made me sad, and yet I was so pleased with what a fine young man he has grown up to be. Truly he has never given us any grief. A good student and hard worker, always willing to help around the house. A guy who loves to hang out with family eating pizza and watching TV on a Friday night. I feel blessed. So I took a look at some of those old photos of Mark, cropped and converted to b&w and put them on the page. Just to remind me that he once was a little boy of mine. And what a cutie pie he was! (and still is! )

Card stock, BG 'boxer' and sticker letters, heidi swapp chipboard letters and my white gel pen.

Carpe Diem!

I have some words of encouragement I want to share with all you wonderful people out there but since 98.643 % of you who visit this site do not comment ( I know, I know, it's nice to be in the majority) ....well, I do hope this does not offend you. The 2% who do comment ( I love you guys) I am pretty sure can handle this. So I am doing as I was told and passing this on to all the good women in my life - that's YOU!

Warning...this post has a swear word in it.
Move on right now if you are sensitive to these nasty words.

To Powerful Women everywhere...

Live your life

in such a way

that when your feet

hit the floor in the morning,

Satan shudders

and says,

'OH SHIT...

SHE'S AWAKE'

I do hope this post leaves you empowered as a women to get out there and carpe diem!! Right Corinne? Carpe Diem! ladies.

Maranatha!

Julie

Olympic Gymnast

I haven't been watching the Olympics too much, USA and China are kind of walking away with it all, but this video really is incredible. I mean, you have to watch this guy on the uneven bars - absolutely amazing! THIS makes the Olympics worth watching for me!



Let me hear your votes - is this guy good? or what! ouch! And I am going to bet that a lot of you watched it twice - now come on, fess up - did you watch it twice?

Allison's sweet smile

Pretty simple. Two pictures on Dream Street Paper with a block of deja views timeless pp, some Creative Imaginations rub-ons and she's done. Letting the pictures be the focus. This is Allison with our Black Lab Sam during the fall of 2001.

Family Fun

You would think all we do at our house is sit around the table and eat while Mom takes pictures of everyone. You know there are not a lot of pictures of me in 2001! Or any year for that matter. But I suppose enough pictures that they know I was here....taking a lot of pictures.

Who takes the pictures in your house?

Photoshop templates

Came across something really fun and different for those of you who use Photoshop. Scrapbooks Etc has come out with Series 100 and Series 200 in photo collage templates. The 100 Series are a number of easy-to-use photo collages in a square format. The 200 Series are photo collages in a rectangle format (8.5x11”).

They download very quickly and are a great way to use a variety of photos together in one place. The instructions are on the same page as the download. They can be downloaded and printed off - but pretty easy.

Here is my very first attempt using several photos from David's conference in Jasper last June.

And below. the page I made with it.

Kind of fun! I think I will have to try this again. Journalling down the left side reads...

Jasper Park Lodge June 7-11/08

Financial Executives International conference

Long drive – stop at IKEA

It is cccold up here! Hail? Snow?

Out for Sushi at Oka’s -very good!

Incredible scenery – everywhere!

Meetings, meetings, meetings – poor David.

Golf game - $90 sweater – looks good though!

Spouses tours – Maligne Lake, Maligne canyon.

Great photos

Hiking…alone.

"please turn on the heat in our room!”

Lots of people – romantic dinner for 200!

Gondola to Whistler peak to see the clouds.

Very HOT pool!

Happy Birthday Harold

Dream Street papers, BG Chipboard letters "Wilma", Heidi S. chipboard and Creative cafe rub ons, white gel pen.
I think it looks much better in real life - this one didn't scan too well. Page #60 for the year 2001. I was kind of hoping the year would fit into one album- it ain't gonna work!

Feeling Unloved? Read this!

Here is a link to an article written by Jill Carattini on my make mine decaf site. Please read.

Ambrosia

Ambrosia - in ancient Greek mythology, ambrosia is sometimes the food, sometimes the drink, of the gods, often depicted as conferring ageless immortality upon whomever consumes it.

Yes we are all waiting for the new Basic Grey lines to arrive and my heart is skipping beats in anticipation of the Ambrosia line. It is too beautiful and I just can't wait. All the lines are beautiful - Sultry, Eva, Offbeat...but I think Ambrosia is my favorite. And I think these Wilma letter stickers are a must. I love the Basic Grey sticker letters and use them all the time for titles. I have used the Wilma font chipboard letters in two pages in the past two weeks....can you find them? The words "Happy" and "YOU" both came from the Basic Grey Wilma font chipboard. Aren't they classy? Love em!







Well...my mirror reminds me every morning that I am not immortal (so does my back). I do however feel really good about this line and have no doubt purchasing and using it will confer upon me some momentary joy! I might just FEEL immortal.

Hurry up UPS!!