DigiChick Spring 2009 Challenge

Next weekend I'm going to the DigiChick Spring retreat in Clear Lake with my scrapping buddy Judy. This spring Linda and Kim are offering a CHALLENGE to all participants! Once Linda received our registration fee she sent us access to download Linda's kit "The Good Old Days."

The challenge is is to design a scrapbook page using at least 2 of the papers, at least 4 of the elements, at least 2 photos, and use the theme, "These are the Good Old Days."

Here is my layout:


The journaling reads in the upper portion of the circle: "That's right. When I was your age, television was called books."

The journaling on the sign in the upper portion of the LO reads "Dennis & Debbie about 1955."

The journaling on the postcard reads "1950 Here is a picture of Linda (4), Sandy (7), and Denny (2 1/2) taken in the front yard of our new home on S.W. Bell."

Supplies used from your kit "Good Old Daz" all four backgrounds--1, 3, 10, & 11; Embellishments--E_01_A, E_01_C, E_01_E, E_01_H.

In addition, I made brads using your cream-colored papers. The flower I made using PressPetal1_Daisy template by Brandy Hackman by adding a hue/saturation layer and coloring it cream.

My week

I've been busy playing Grandma this week. On Tuesday I received an Email from Jeremy asking if it was at all possible to take off and go help Sarah out with Jaren. He had been to the doctor the day before with RSV and was receiving breathing treatments with a nebulizer at home. He was running a fever and feeling terrible. I took Sarah some lunch and spent the afternoon and evening helping them out. Friday I took off again to watch Jaren and be available to take Sarah over to the hospital for her glucose test. Afterwards I picked her up and we had lunch with Jeremy and then the two of us went to Costco to pick up pictures, diapers, and wipes.

Then Carrie brought Cailey, Mia, and Luke over after school for me to watch while they went to see Legally Blonde. I had them spend the night so we had a good time and had a slumber party in the living room. I realized I'm too old to sleep on the floor. Luke no longer is demanding to go to the zoo--it is he wants to go on bacation (that is not a typo). This morning he put on his boots and was searching for his coat and kept telling me to come on because he really wanted to go on bacation. Luke built towers with Lego blocks; Mia drew pictures of and made a book about my dogs, Cailey and Luke played Wii, and Cailey put together a puzzle. We had a good time. Grandpa brought out some train tracks and some trains they all took turns driving it. I bought a new kit at one of the ADSR host sites called Pappa's Trains. I can't wait to scrap those pictures. Mia cut out her drawing of Molly, which spanned several pages and then stapled them together. It looked amazingly just like Molly.

Movie Review: Taking Chance starring Kevin Bacon

Last night Roger and I sat down and watched "Taking Chance," the most moving film I've probably ever seen. Kevin Bacon plays Marine Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, a career Marine who early in the Iraqi war is assigned a job as a numbers cruncher in Quantico. At night he peruses the casualty lists religiously. One night he sees the name of a young Marine from his Colorado hometown, Pfc. Chance Phelps, on the casualty list. Strobl has never met Phelps, nor does he know of him, but he requests permission to escort the body home. This movie is about the real-life trip from Dover, Delaware, where Phelps' body is prepared, to a small Wyoming town where he will be buried. It turns out that Phelps was not from his hometown after all.

The depth of appreciation, honor and respect that Strobl and Phelps receives on this trip home is very moving, and brings people together in honoring this fallen soldier. Strobl finds that everyone he encounters--the cargo handlers, pilots, ticket agents, airline stewardess, etc., understands and respects this solemn mission in providing the last full measure of honor and dignity to this young soldier who lost his life in that war.

I think the message that I came away with was that Americans do care and are decent people, no matter their view on the war and military.

Week in Review

Been a busy week and I've been slacking posting anything here. So I'll do a week in review.

Friday Roger brought me yellow roses and two teddy bears to work for an early Valentines gift. Then that afternoon we got hit with a snowstorm. Everybody left work but me. I volunteered to stay since I live the closest. Listening to the radio, though, I became a little leery of my treck home because there were accidents everywhere. I sticked around an extra hour. One of our state cars got hit in the parking lot and as I was cleaning my car off, an accident happened right on the corner by work. Saw lots of cars slid into each other on the way home. They were classifying it as black ice.

Saturday was Valentine's Day. Roger and I had Jaren during the afternoon while his parents went to a movie. Then we went to dinner at Johnny's
Steak House.

Sunday we stuck around the house mostly taking it easy.


Monday was Carrie's 33rd birthday--Happy Birthday! Jeremy and Carrie had seminars taking place downtown so I picked them up for lunch at Spaghetti Works. We made plans to get together that night with the rest of the family for dinner at Bravo. I took them back and went home. Sarah dropped off Jaren a little bit later and we took a nap together. We then picked up Jeremy and took him to his school so he could see how much damage had been done by the break-in over the weekend.

Tuesday I was in a Board (translation "bored") meeting all day. During a break I was browsing my newsreader and saw a man had been shot in both legs the night before, along with his dog less than 500 feet from my house. I felt really bad for the dog.

Wednesday I came home to find some man on my front porch. I debated whether to pull in the drive or keep going. Curiosity got the best of me so I pulled in. He approached my car and I saw his stocking cap sad DSM Swat. It was a detective canvassing the neighborhood to see if anyone saw or heard anything important to help them prosecute the perps involved.

Thursday and Friday were just another day in paradise.

Today I had lunch with some fellow scrappers I met at Digital Scrapbook Place. There was Judy, Kathleen08, Nicole, and Roadmap4life, along with a couple cuteys.

Project 365 Week 6

Here are my week 6 pictures. Thursday I visited Water Works park on my lunch; Friday took a day of vacation to spend with Luke; my beagle Maddie; my front door; Gray's Lake on a winter day with hints of Spring; and Jaren sitting up all by himself.

What's one skill you've wanted but don't have?

[Today's blog prompt is from Digital Scrapbook Place and was posted by tammy1999, whose blog is called Bangles, Beads and Bows.]

I've always loved to sing. I was born in 1954 and grew up the youngest of four children (there was 6 1/2 years difference between my brother and me and 8 and 11 years between my sisters and me)and was always surrounded by music. I was always singing along with the old 45s and albums.

My family was always pointing out to me, ever since I was a youngster, that I "couldn't carry a tune with a bucket" but that never phased me. I continued to sing.

In junior high I had to select an elective--chorus, band (I never played an instrument in my life), art (I felt at that time I had absolutely no artistic talent), and probably Spanish. I chose chorus because that is what my friends selected and as I have said, I love singing. We had to sing solo parts for the choir director so he could place us. After I did my part, he suggested I should choose a different elective. When that didn't work, it was suggested I lip sync, which is what I did the remainder of that semester.

Years later I met and married my husband, who has a wonderful voice. When I would sing along with the radio, he occasionally would ask me if I ever listened to myself. Of course I listened to myself and I didn't see a problem. We had two children who I was always singing to. FINALLY, I found someone who didn't think they were a music critic. I was in 7th heaven. These two children grew up to have beautiful voices and as they got older would occasionally tease me about my singing. My son grew up and performed in plays, sometimes the lead roll such as the Beast in Beauty and the Beast and Father/Noah in Children of Eden; went on to college and got a degree in music education and teaches K-8 vocal music; auditioned for American Idol; and, in 2004 was crowned Iowa Idol. He is married to a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice who has a degree in Music Performance who now gives private lessons in vocal music.

So I would say the one skill I've wanted (or thought I had) but don't have is the ability to sing. However, I have never let my inability or comments from the peanut galleries hurt me or stop me from pursuing my love of singing.

Day Trip to Pella and Ottumwa

Didn't realized it has been a week since I last posted. Came down with my first cold of this winter, about a week after I was commenting on how lucky I had been.

Friday I took a vacation day and had Luke spend the night with me on Thursday night. I didn't bother getting us tickets to Friday Fundays since that isn't his thing. I offered to take him to the zoo (again), even though we had been there six days before. I guess he finally got his fill of the zoo because he chose going to the mall to play instead. We had lunch at Taco Johns and when asked, said he wanted a taco. That was cute to watch him eat it, starting at the folded end. Come to find out it was his first taco. He ate it all.

Then last night we went to the Tropical Wine Fest at the Botanical Center which was sponsored by the Heart of Iowa Wine merchants. Sipped lots of great wine.

Today we did a day trip to a train store in Ottumwa. On our way there we saw this cool house for sale near Pella and I told Rog I wanted to stop on the way back to take a picture (top picture above). This house is on the National Register of Historic Places and has 7 bedrooms and is for sale for $379,000. Guess I won't be buying it. We also stopped at Tassel Ridge Winery and sampled some wine and made a few purchases to add to our wine cellar.

Then because we would be passing Pella I suggested we stop and get some Dutch Letters. There are two bakeries in Pella, a few doors apart, the Jaarsma and Vander Ploeg. However, at 3:00 p.m. both were sold out of Dutch Letters. We did buy some peanut butter and windmill cookies so all was not lost.


Here are my week 5 pictures of my Project 365 in case anybody is interested.

Week 4 of my 365 project

I slipped up this week and didn't take any pictures on Monday or Tuesday. But since I took over 100 pictures on Sunday at the twins' birthday party, and because two girls celebrated a birthday, I chose to post pictures taken on Sunday in the Monday and Tuesday slot. Doesn't Luke look so sweet? A few seconds before this picture was taken was when he quit snoring, opened his eyes, and informed the room he wanted to go to the zoo.