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.

The Zoo

Luke LOVES THE ZOO! He always wants to go to the zoo. I'll take a day of vacation to spend with him at the Playhouse's Friday Fundays and he doesn't want to go...he wants to go to the zoo. So in December, on a 17 degree day, Luke and I headed to the zoo. We went through the inside exhibits and get outdoors. The emu/wallaby area is closed, the goats area is closed, the playground area is closed, Africa exhibits are closed, monkeys are not out, etc. You get the picture? On the day in December we were the only visitors on the 17 degree day. Did I mention it was cold? Luke is having a good time but keeps asking where all the people are. The good news is I could let him run to his hearts content and not lose him.

Okay, so you get the idea he likes the zoo? So last Saturday I am babysitting all four grandchildren while the parents go see Spring Awakening and Grandpa goes to Kansas City to go to a train show. I temporarily wondered what I had gotten myself in for but then reminded myself I used to run a day care with six children full time with a couple extra thrown in after school. Of course I was 30 years younger, but I gave myself a kick in the behind and said I could do it! Everything went great until about 4 p.m. Luke was getting tired but I was unable to get him to lay down because I had a sleeping Jaren in my arms. Luke decided he wanted to go outside. It was cold outside (see a pattern here?) and I told him it was too cold. He informed me he had a coat. I told him I had Jaren and couldnt' go outside with him. He told me he could go outside with his sisters. I informed him it wasn't going to happen. He then decided he wanted to go to the zoo. I tried telling him the zoo was closed (I wasn't lying) and he said it they weren't, it was still light outside. I told him I couldn't get 4 car seats in my car; he said to leave Jaren home. (That wasn't going to happen either). Luckily Jeremy, Sarah, and the her parents arrived to rescue me. The twins, Luke, and I were joining them for dinner at the Spaghetti Works. However, Luke didn't want to go...he wanted to go the zoo. All the way to the restaurant he kept insisting he didn't want to go out to eat, he wanted to go to the zoo. When we got to the restaurant he didn't want to get out of the car.

So today, while Grandpa was napping, I wanted to take advantage of the 48 degree temperature so called to see if Luke and his sisters wanted to go to the zoo, which they did. We had a great time. Today there were a few more people there, but still lots of the exhibits were closed. They didn't mind because they got to go to the gift shop and get a present before we left. Thank goodness for warmer temperatures and the Blank Park Zoo.

American Idol

For the most recent stop on the ADSR 4 Race, we were to scraplift one of our scrapping idols. See post here. I've had some inquiries for more information so I thought I'd share my recollections from Jeremy's 2004 pursuit of being the next American Idol.

It started in early August with his competing in the Iowa Idol at Valley West Mall.


I believe it was eight semi-finalists were selected to perform at the Iowa State Fair on the Bill Riley Stage on opening day. Jeremy was competitor number 6. The crowd went crazy and the whole place was on their feet. It was a fantastic feeling. The winner of this competition (Jeremy) received tickets to Las Vegas and was guaranteed an audition.


Sometime between his first performance at the Valley West Mall and the Iowa State Fair competition, Jeremy and I took a road trip to St. Louis to audition. We arrived around 12:30 a.m.; line ups were not to start until 6 a.m. But people were already lined up so we gathered up our sleeping bags, pillows, and stuff and staked out our place on the cement in front of the arena. It was a lot of fun, but sometime during the night I had dozed off only to about get stampeded when a couple yahoos decided to jump the line and everyone started surging forward thinking the doors were opened. Around 7 a.m. they opened the doors (a whole day earlier than planned but it was quite hot outside). We spent the remainder of that day and night camping out inside the arena.

As for the actual audition--it is not what the TV let's you think the process is. The judges are not even there. Each contestant can only have one other individual with them. The arena was completely packed. The contestants are lined up by section and taken to a separate room (St. Louis) or down to the arena floor (Las Vegas). They are lined up in groups of three across. There will be approximately 12 tables with assistant producers at each table and in groups of three you would go up to one table and sing your 30 second song. So at any given second you have at least 12 people singing with people in the stands talking all at the same time. Crazy. If the judges like what they hear and see, you will be asked to come back later that day. They then narrow it down even more and those individuals will be asked to come back for the judges on another day. In St. Louis the judges wouldn't be back for about 2 weeks as I recall. In St. Louis he didn't make it past round one. It was interesting to talk to the people. There was a girl in St. Louis that had competed for the Missouri Idol and won and she was given a NEW CAR!

Well back to the Iowa Idol...Jeremy won at the Iowa State Fair and received his ticket to Las Vegas. I joined him, along with his friend Richard Zhu, who flew in from New York. This time we didn't have to camp out. We just took a taxi to the venue the morning of the audition. They had a special area set aside for all the Fox affiliate winners. This venue was not prepared for the crowds. They had one concession stand open for thousands of people. I stood in line 40 minutes to get Jeremy a bottle of water. Again Jeremy didn't make it past round one, but it was lots of fun.

You know when you see during the audition shows lots of contestants singing the same song? They hand out the lyrics (no music) and if selected, you will be asked to go in front of the Idol banner and sing it. They then make it look like they are in front of the judges singing it.

Pics from the birthday party

Just looked at the pictures I took at the birthday party on Sunday and thought I'd post t his group shot of the birthday girls with their cousins.

Happy Birthday Girls

My two favorite little girls in the whole wide word will turn seven tomorrow and we celebrated their birthday today.  Love you,

Grandma

Week 3 in review, part 2

Continuing on in my quest to document 2009 with a picture a day, here is the 2nd half of week 3.

Sunday we went shopping and one of the items we bought was a new comforter for our bed.

Monday was a holiday and I didn't have to work. I spent the morning in my office scrapping this layout for the ADSR 4 race. This is what I saw on my love seat when I left the office to get something to eat.

Tuesday was the inauguration and I spent the day glued to the TV and forgot to take a picture until later that evening, which I was still glued to the TV. So I snapped this picture of the new Prez and his beautiful wife at one of the balls.

Wednesday it had warmed up to 30 degrees (its in the picture) and on my lunch washed my car and then took it in for an estimate to fix the damage from this.

I am using Life 365 Tool Box Collection, available from
Weeds and Wildflowers for this project.

National Blonde Brownie Day

Did you know today is National Blonde Brownie Day? Supposedly it is a special day set aside to bake and eat blonde brownies, whatever they are. From what I could learn, that you use light brown sugar in the recipe instead of dark brown chocolate. Well, I am a certifiable chocoholic and if the brownie isn't chocolate, I don't eat it, nor do I make it.

The best brownie mix ever as far as I am concerned is this one:


I buy a three-pack at Costco and man are they delicious. Maybe I'll bake and eat some tonight.

Love You

I did this layout for CAF-E with Nicole challenge at DSP. CAF-E stands for Create A Freebie for the E! Challenge!!!! This week's challenge was to use Nicole Young's Angel Whispers Page Kit and Blog Freebie.

Today I also learned of the plans for a Midwest Crop here in Des Moines sometime this year--possibly in June. I didn't realize the number of scrappers at DSP from Iowa, including Nicole.

National Popcorn Day

Did you know that tomorrow is National Popcorn Day? I guess there is some controversy on the actual date--some sources claim the 19th of January and others say it is whatever day the Super Bowl falls on. All I know is that I love popcorn. Some of my favorite memories are visiting my neighbor's house in the evening to watch T.V. Almost every night they would pop up a big metal dish pan of popcorn and then pour on lots of melted butter. Some nights my friend's mother would make a caramel sauce and pour on it. Eileen really could make some good caramel popcorn.

I still love popcorn. These days everyone has bags of microwave popcorn. Although I like it, I much prefer popcorn cooked in a pan in hot oil (peanut oil makes the best), shaking the pan the entire time and then putting butter in this pan to melt before pouring over the popcorn. And don't forget movie theatre popcorn...I've tried to go to the movie and not get it, but I always end up going back out to the concession stand to get some.

In recent years another form of popcorn has become popular--kettle corn--in which sugar is placed in the pan with the popcorn kernels. This is to die for also.

Week 3, part 1

Images from the first half of week three of 2009.

Been shopping this weekend for birthday presents for the granddaughters. Hard to believe they will be seven. Bought each one a toy and then bought some clothes I think are really cute--let's hope they like them. I also did some shopping at Christopher Banks for myself--found three tops off their $9.99 rack. Besides clothes, we bought a new quilt and shams for our bed. The dogs aren't happy that I wouldn't let them up on it tonight.

Note about the pictures: I have been shooting everything in RAW. For these pictures I changed my camera settings back to JPEG. I am not happy with them after working with RAW photos.

2nd week of 2009 in Review

In my attempt to take a photo a day during 2009 and scrap it, here is week 2.

I used Life 365 Tool Box Collection from Weeds and Wildflowers.

I finished my third and fourth layouts for the Amazing Digi Scrapping Race 4. You can check out my LO's here. Challenge 4 was a very emotional one for me to do. We had to do layout with art and soul, the soul being I had to journal something from my soul, which I've never done and I'm not really comfortable doing. When faced with the challenge, I immediately knew what my subject matter would be, the loss of Jason and the ever present regrets of not holding him long enough and never getting a picture of him.

So how was your morning?

Mine wasn't so great. Faust Body Shop here I come. Who'd ever thought I would have a "body shop" I called on a regular basis?

Project 365 -- First Week

So I might have mentioned I am participating in Project 365--take a picture a day and scrap it. I just completed week one.