A Mish-Mosh Post

 

Today’s post is a whole mess of things so without further ado, here we go. 

The Mr. and I were invited out on Monday night to our friend Rose and Ken’s place to celebrate his birthday!  Rose went all out – from a full Turkey-Lurkey dinner to laying out full settings and silver to dressing herself in a beautiful dress for the occasion. 

That’s Rose in her gorgeous dress, next to the birthday “boy” Ken.  Peeking over Ken’s shoulder is niece Angela and on the far right brother Al is taking the photo taking opportunity to sneak some of the good food.

Even though nobody imbibed anything stronger than Ken’s non-alcoholic succulent homemade punch (is that classed as punch without the “punch”?)   In spite of us all having our wits about us… the butter did a vertical flip onto the pristine white tablecloth *GASP*   I won’t tell who *wink*

Hummmmm… ya think the number candles on Ken’s cake MIGHT have got put in backwards – perhaps?   Hay, legally you can get your driver’s licence this year – Ken!

Nope!   Anyone acting like this is still no grown up.  Maybe he never will be? 

At any rate, a good evening was had by all and we loved the opportunity to celebrate this milestone for our friend Ken. 

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I’ve been tagged AND awarded.  Whew!  Thank you to Pat from over at her Turtle’s Rainbow blog for ‘taggin’ me… but erm… I just finished being tagged a post ago and my tagger’s worn out so you will have to ‘scuze and forgive me for not doing the six, 6, SIXTH photo thing all over again.  But I DO sincerely thank you for thinking of me! 

hmmm – yes, Shirley – my shoe fits… in fact, both do?  Haha!

 

The MARIE ANTOINETTE AWARD

this award is given to bloggers who are perceived to be

'real in who they are'

And Shirley, bless your little heart, has given me not one but TWO awards.  Holy Smokes!  (anyone know where this phrase comes from, anyhow?  I searched and the closest I could come to an answer was it may refer to to the Catholic Priests burning incense?)    Well, Shirley, I hope you too will forgive me for hogging these and not passing them on.  I know thats so bad of me but I just honestly cannot do it, and my conscience would torture me to madness if I just was not upfront with this. THANK YOU though – I love GETTING awards.  I’m just a lazy-bumm award taker, ya, thats me alright.  You can visit Shirley yourself by clickin’ HERE.

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Even though I’m a baddie, some of my good blog friends are NOT…

Eileen has been designing up a storm and she has some very nice denim and wood look QuickPages for y’all!  I have not been over to Eileen’s place for a while and am blown away by how fast she’s begun to put out wonderful scrapbooking items for you to download – for free!  Just scoot on over to her A Day in the Life Of blog to get yours.

And Alicia – she’s always got something good for your soul on her blog – and now she’s having a giveaway as well!  She’s offering a Journal, notebook and Starbucks certificate!  Visit her on her Confessions of a Snowflake blog to find out how to put your name in for these items.

Whew – I just had to COME BACK and add in ANOTHER beeeYEWteefal kit for grabs – from talented Louise who we all know from her LouCee Creations Blog.  What a STUNNER of a kit, imaginative and clever.  Way to go, Louise – I’m snaggin’ this one RIGHT AWAY!

And if that does not send you over the edge, why this sure will… a new free release (gorgeous!) from none other than the Shabby Princess!  Woot!

And my dear Irish blog friend JanMary is hosting her own event called a St. Patricks Day Blogging Carnival, which will prove to be a huge success and fun too, going by JanMary’s past events!  She has a lovely prize just waiting for you to win as well.  You can find instructions on her Welcome to My World blog.

And seeing as St. Patrick’s day is coming up on us soon, I decided that I would give you an element I made quite some time ago, with JanMary in mind.  Its a scanned element of a lovely souvenir handkerchief corner that may come in handy for your own layouts!  Its aproximately 8 inches wide and something like 5 long.  I did not scan the entire thing, but used cleverly between photos or columns it could be a nice addition to your own take on St. Patricks Day. 

I’m going to host it at onedrop.io  again until I’m sure that things are all-clear at 4shared… anyone got an update on that?  If you have a problem downloading from onedrop just let me know and I’ll help you out.

 

Personal Use

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Happy Clouds!

 

Even on a gray day, Stuart Semple has found a way to make people smile by generating ‘Happy Face Clouds’ over London.  Seeing this lifted the corners of my mouth, too!

Broken

 

I’m simply broken this morning.  I feel so humbled that my God loves me.  He knew me before I was born.  He knew the mistakes I would make, the joys I’d have. 

He watched me mess up – and He waited by the door for me to welcome Him in, to help me clean up the mess.  He did not stand there and observe as I cleaned up the debris, but He worked with me, by my side, and then He became part of me.  I’m still a work in progress but He walks with me and the more I pour out my imperfections to Him – the more He helps me to walk in His ways. 

Each and every day.  Thank you, Lord, for loving this sinner and rewarding me with your utter love and compassion. 

Are you at a place where YOU need to invite the Lord into help you ‘spring clean’?  There’s nothing you’ve done that He’s not willing to forgive.  His fingers “this far” from the doorbell – won’t you let Him in?

 

 

Forgiven me

I hold a memory of myself
Reflections of what I used to be
These broken roads that brought me here
They make it hard to face reality

But a new day is here
It's time that I embrace it
Can't wait another day
Right now I gotta face it

I never ever wanna press rewind
Never wanna go back in time
Not much glory
In that story but it's mine so I'm
Loving who I am today
Past has past away
Finally I have forgiven me

I hold a memory of myself
So young and foolish and not knowing
Careless decisions that I made
I wish somebody would have told me

But a new day is here
It's time that I embrace it
Can't wait another day
Right now I gotta face it

I never ever wanna press rewind
Never wanna go back in time
Not much glory
In that story but it's mine so I'm
Loving who I am today
Past has past away
Finally I have forgiven me

The mirror on the wall it
Lets me see today that I'm
I'm not that foolish girl
Time has brought a change a
Transformation the old into the new
When I let go of me and held on to you

I never ever wanna press rewind
Never wanna go back in time
Not much glory
In that story but it's mine so I'm
Loving who I am today
Past has past away
Finally I have forgiven me

New Gmail Feature!

Use to be that we had to attach each single photo, file etc to our email and wait to add the next.  What a handy feature THIS is.  Now, you just click on ALL the files you want to add and voila!  Love it.

Its SUNNY & our daughter sent me this… she said it made her think of me.  Awww!   We used to love these stories.  Being she’s in her 20’s now, this really touched me that she remembers.

 

Weather’s Playing with my Emotions!

 

See, tricked into thinking the snow was all melted away… sure there is still a tad of ice on the lake…. this taken via webcam yesterday about 5ish…

 

Sigh… to THIS!  This morning its snow blowing every which way.  Well, at least its blowing so its not piled up everywhere.  I understand Vancouver got up to 18 centimetres yesterday!  I told Mr. that the weather has menopause, going through the hot and cold flushes.  I can identify :)

How’s YOUR weather looking?

I received some lovely awards from my friend Shirley – I WILL get them published, really I will, Shirl.  Why not wander over to her blog and check out her cool rock collection!

My First Webinar

 

I did something interesting and fun – and new, Tuesday. I took part in a 'webinar' hosted by Corel, to introduce the new Corel Painter 11. I recieved an invitation via email and decided to take the plunge and register. I must admit, I was a bit timid about it, since I have not done this type of thing before {why, I have a hard time chatting with more than one person at a time. NOT good at multi-chat though I do muddle through somehow. Usually by the rule of 'put a sock in it' and being more of an observer}

Anyways – I took a bit of time reading all the instructions for the webinar, of course I waited to the hour before which was sort of useless... If I'd taken the time a few days before, perhaps I could have borrowed a headset from somewhere so I could enjoy the talk/listen feature. But still, it worked out great as not only was there a visual window, there was a small chat window provided where we were invited to ask questions etc.

I made sure that I clicked on the invitation link early because we were informed that the sessions were so popular that instead of the several hundred attendees expected, there were thousands! They wound up adding additional sessions to accommodate the overflow.

So, eventually it started, and it basically took care of itself. It was not anything like I thought it would be and the hour simply flew by. Robert McDonald walked us through many of the new and cool features of this new version of Painter. I won't go over all of them, but here are a few things that stood out in my mind:

 

 

 

 

 

So, these were some of the items that were discussed – and here are some of the demos:

Oh – I like!  You can now ‘shade’ with the side of your ‘pencil’ – the pen can be used in a tilt mode and will allow the medium to be expressed just as if you were shading with a real … pencil, pastel, crayon etc!

And now, you can go from  this:

To THIS!

Very cool!  You can now free transform, skew and rotate! 

I also like the feature of being able to save as png with transparent background and being able to email right from within the program.

 

Hmmm…. will my Mr. assist me in my zeal for this newest version… I’ll keep you posted (literally!) 

Sooooo – inspiration is GOOD.  I fooled around for a short while and wound up with this delectable apple!  I finished it off by overlaying it with one of dear, sweet  & TALENTED  KimB’s beautiful Vintage overlays.  Enjoy!

PS – I’m hosting it at drop.io until this virus scare is over.  Let me know if you have any problems downloading – its pretty straightforward!

Personal Use

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6th Picture

 

Louise (LouCee as she is so fondly known to us here in blog-land…. and hay, I always want to drawl the Cee out … LooooCeeeeeeeeeeeeeee)  Well, Louise has challenged me to post my 6th sixth SIXTH photo on my blog.  I dunno, feels spooky this 66sixthhhhh thing, you know.  Being a Christian that number does not sit right. 

At any rate, here is the the sixth (tongue tripping over that word today too, twisting right over with the xth part.  Makes me think of Sylvester Lisp in the Sylvester and Tweety cartoons, you know?)

No, this is NOT the sixth and so on and so forth, this is just the sixth of the folder I’m working with lately.  I haven’t really shared what my BIG project is to date, so I’ll cough up now – now that its public knowledge. 

Many of you know that my Mr. works at (and I attend) a Learning Centre – I actually graduated here at the ripe old age of 43  (GOOD old age I say – I truly DID get ‘older and wiser’)  Well, the Principal at the Centre is retiring at the end of next month.  She’s a wonderful person and good friend.  She’s a huge advocate of education and learning – and has an especial place in her heart to see people come back to finish high school – even if they are up to their senior years.  I think the oldest person I saw graduate from the Learning Centre was in their 80’s – how cool is THAT?

I have SUCH an admiration and respect for Bev – she’s a very special woman.  I know there are many who will agree that her presence in our lives have made us better people.  She instilled a confidence and strength in myself.  Thank you, Bev, for the sacrifice of your time and dedication to help me become the person I am today. 

 

 

15 years passes quickly – truly in the blink of an eye! 

The school started off in one community, actually in the humble room of a local hotel!  After several years, the school expanded to a second location in a neighbouring town and eventually a third community was added.  In all this time, Bev remained as Principal at all three – so as the schools grew, Bev had to shoulder all the more work.  No wonder she’s ready to pass the torch!

We’ve known for a long time that retirement was coming, but I’m sure we’ve all been avoiding the reality of it in our hearts. 

So, when the staff inquired what Bev would like as a parting gift – she had no hesitation to say that a scrapbook of her years of her career and years at the Centre.  I have been busy gathering, scanning, collecting and compiling photos, articles and information for the past several weeks and I think it will be several more weeks before the book is ready to publish. 

Part of me does not want it to be finished, for that means the reality is here …

 

 

We had a potluck lunch last Thursday and the students presented her with a ‘money tree’ and a beautiful embroidered gift.  The tree is a ‘real’ tree which can be planted out – Bev loves to garden.  She will certainly have time to do this now.  What a nice thought that the tree will grow and spread out roots – just as the gift of learning she’s instilled in each student will grow roots out to the generations in their own families.

I thank God for people like Bev who give their very lives to give a helping hand to others.  Its a true honour for me to take this project on – its a labour of love and a small opportunity to give back. 

Great Louise… now you got me all teary, first thing in the day – way to go, girlfriend! *sob*  Don’t all stand around and watch me weep – why not visit Louise and check out the sweet kit she’s giving away? 

Oh – and a last minute tack-on here of interest.  Yesterday I was watching the news and heard of a hotel burning down… and realized it was from the area where my friend Cicero hails from.  Why, not only that, she was unaware – so off set her husband with camera and in hand and voila! – we have our own news coverage… how neat!   You can read about it and see the pics by visiting Cicero’s blog!

Bacon Faces

photo credit:ba1969@sxc

Last night I cooked a ton of bacon for a breakfast at our church which we had this morning.  As each piece was done, I laid it on a piece of newspaper to drain.  It felt so WRONG to lay the pieces of cooked meat on the faces of the local realtors.

It sure was a good idea to precook the meat though – last time I did it all in the morning and it took forever, created a huge mess and left me sweating and smelling like a slab of bacon all morning.  This way, I just had to pop it into the oven to warm. 

Usually I don’t eat ANY breakfast {yes, this drives Mr. and almost everyone else in the world batty} – but somehow having a HUGE delicious breakfast {including chocolate chip pancakes, applesauce, muffins and quiche} feels so RIGHT.

Do you eat breakfast? 

My sister sent me a link for a cute Seasame Street video, and after I watched that one, I found this one - I can't help but share. Ok, so I was really really REALLY looking for scripture which goes with the theme of this, for I KNOW there is something that lines up, but can't find it exactly - any ideas?

Yes, I got a haircut. Well actually - I GAVE me a haircut. Right, I keep seeing the commercial thats running on our local station. The one with the guy who's buffing his car, the disheveled looking neighbor comes up, coffee cup in hand and makes some crack to the guy about his car being "cheap". The guy looks up, annoyed and says: "my car is actually new but inexpensive... and then he barks at the coffee cup guy- "YOU cut your OWN hair, now THATS cheap!" (and we get a view of the back of the coffee cup guy's head - there's like this big bald chunk cut out of the center) Ouch!


Well, I don't consider myself 'cheap', though I do love to save my pennies for things that I would rather sink my money into. I used to always go to a hairdresser - never DARED touch my own hair. Except for my bangs. Boy, I sure used to mess them up and good! I'd wind up having to have a hairdresser 'repair' my damage which meant usually having really short, dumb looking bangs. You know the kind.

Anyways, as my true hair color began to fade, and as we camped almost every single summer, with little money and no hopes of a hairdresser, I learned to not only color, but cut my own hair. Little by little I gained confidence - now it takes no time at all. And now, while I CAN afford to go to a salon, I actually like how I cut and color my own hair. Because I like a style thats sort of layered and thinned, its very simple for me to do a bit of trimming right after I color it. I have it down to a science.

So, do YOU cut or color your own hair? Any tips you would like to share with me?

Note: I cannot cut my man's hair. We've tried that a few times in desperation on vacation, but its FAR wiser to have a professional go at his handsome scalp.

And I guess I must have spring-cleaning fever, for once I finished with my head, I went at the house for 10 hours of intensive cleaning, which involved moving EVERY stick of furniture and vacuuming and rearranging furniture. Have any of you had this urge of late? Or is it just me...

I want to mention that if you are looking for something new and yummy to make for lunches, Ariel has a fantastic Three Cheese and Broccoli Calzones recipe on her baking and books blog - with her first own video instructions. I think I may try these, they look easy! Just click HERE to visit.



Am I having fun OR WHAT? I've been having a ball playing with KimB's ROCHE kit, its the second in a 'friends' series of her kits - and its positively BEAUTIFUL! Kim hosted a card I created and I'm hoping to publish some more projects in the future as well - all sorts of ideas brewing! Hop on over to KIMB'S place to find out how to buy this SWEET kit for your collection!

Last, but not least, here's an 8 x 8" QP for your enjoyment. My DEAR friend Valinda made it using my Soft Birthday Wishes kit and I added a few of KimB's Commercial use items on it as well. Please, rather than thank me here, skip on over to Valinda's to see the lovely layout she made with this QP - featuring her adorable grand-daughter! Thank you, Valinda!

Personal Use

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