So recently I've had some drama going on.

In fact ... a LOT of drama.

So much drama that if I sat down and thought about things for a few minutes I would have an anxiety attack ... no joke.

The thing is, there is almost NOTHING I can do about the situation. It's at a wait and see point right now and we're doing what we can, but stressing out about it isn't going to accomplish anything except give me more wrinkles.

So in an attempt to look beyond the drama I can do NOTHING about, and focus on the things I DO have, I'm adopting a 'living in the moment' kind of attitude.

I've been trying to be more conscious of the things going on around me lately. Not letting life pass by without stopping to look around a bit ... cause I might miss it. I've been trying not to just "get through the day" but actually DO THINGS and be 'in the moment' while I'm doing them.

I'm trying to actually BE where I am and enjoy whatever it is I'm doing.

I've been taking more photos, daily photos, to keep me more grounded in those moments and try to see the beauty and the good in the things I'm doing.

Does that make ANY sense? LOL

It all sounds like a bunch of malarky but it's been keeping me busy, out of the house, and giving me things to do and think about ... other than the drama. So that's good enough for me!

So what I'm going to go do right now is write up a bunch of posts, back date them, and post them as if I were writing the story just after it happened LOL. I don;t know if I'll be able to keep up the posts, but I'd like to think I will. Even if it's not daily, hopefully it will be a few times a week. I like the idea of talking about and focusing on the good times and good things that happen every day. And laughing at the crazy crap that happens multiple times a day it seems ;-)

So now I'm off to write up eleventy hundred posts dating back to whenthehellever and pretending it hasn't been a coon's age since I posted :) Thanks for playin along! lol

Well after all the FUN of yesterday, it only fits that I should pay for it today.

Ah, hangover, how loath you. And yet, at least it usually means I had a HELL of a good time lol.

My usual cure for a hangover is greasy food. I don't know WHAT the science is behind it, but it totally works. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Jack in the Box Chicken Sandwiches should be packed and sold under the label "I drank too much last night and I'm paying for it now, cure".

Well, I broke with tradition and headed to Subway. Not because I had faith in their healing properties, but because I had a gift card. Their new breakfasts are actually REALLY good. I had the sausage and cheese egg white omelet (read: greasiest thing I could think of) and a coffee. In hind sight, the coffee was NOT a great idea but was a necessary evil for the next leg of our journey. OH, and their coffee is HELLA good.

Yeah that's right. I'm over the age of 12 and I say Hella. I even joined a Facebook group about it ... wanna fight about it?! lol

So after taming my tummy ... a bit ... we were off to Walmart :-/

I have mixed emotions about this place. The prices are SOOOO cheap and now that they carry groceries for MUCH cheaper than the standard grocery store, I have almost no reason NOT to shop there.

Except that it's still Walmart ... ya'll know what I mean.

But I braved it, even in my weakened condition, because I needed chicken, gardening tools, and a birthday gift for a 2 year old ... if anyone else knows of where I can find those three things in the same place I'll eat my hat.

So Lil Miss picked out a lovely gifty for the little sweety and spent the rest of the journey through Walmart telling me about each.and.every.one of those Littlest Pet Shop animals. Apparently she knows their names and life stories ... and now so do I. lol

The rest of the day went pretty much according to schedule. Then after the big ones left (Tween & Flower Child) we decided to try out a new place for dinner.

And I forgot my camera! Yes ... I did toy with the idea of going home for it. But calmer heads did prevail (read: DH said "um ... no.")

He had heard of a place that was comparable to Wing Stop, which has been our favorite wing place. So we went to Buffalo Wing & Rings with high hopes and were NOT disappointed!

Their menu FAAAAR exceeds the limited one at Wing Stop. There were salads! and burgers! and gyros! and so many combos for wings that we were in awe. The wings were HUGE compared to Wing Stop and the place was more like a restaurant than a hole in the wall. But they had us at 'Sierra Nevada on TAP' :)

And the ONION RINGS! My God, the onion rings! Well they were just beer battered heaven on a plate.

Needless to say, THIS will now and forever be OUR wing place :) If you have one in YOUR neck of the woods, I HIGHLY recommend!

So yesterday started of pretty much the same as most days lately. I ran to get the kids from their dad's house, drop them off at school, hit the gym, then home.

But then, I just didn't FEEL like being at home.

I felt like taking Lil Miss to a nature trail and just letting her run herself ragged. At first I thought it would be EASY since there's so much nature around here ... there had to be a trail showcasing it SOMEWHERE near by.

Well I was mistaken. lol

But I decided I wanted to get out of the house anyway so I grabbed a Rockstar and we jumped in the car. We drove all the way to the far side of the next town over to where I THOUGHT I remembered a trail of some kind, only to find an over grown path surrounded by dead grass. Not exactly what I had in mind.

So we drove to the near by Fruit Barn. They have all manner of dried fruits & nuts, plain or covered in chocolate, fresh fruit, fruit baskets ...

Oh ... and pies ...

very exciting pies! lol Now this place is adorable and they do have ALL MANNER of chocolate covered yummies ... however ...

this was the cheapest thing they had ... Lil Miss asked me to take a picture of it. lol

That could be because she was tired of me taking pictures of HER but I guess she doesn't know me very well :)

LOL

Because I will keep snapping, my dear, until I get an acceptable shot. Really, she should know this ... HOW LONG HAS SHE BEEN HERE?! LOL

And OH.MY.WORD. I couldn't believe they had these! A little bit of 80s right here at the register.

Well, you can find an abundance of 80s in any Target these days ::rollseyes::

After we made our selection of chocolate covered raisins we went outside to their picnic area. Which is really the whole reason I thought to drive there. It's kinda like a nature trail, just minus the trail.

So we sat and enjoyed our chocolate covered raisins for a bit until we had an uninvited guest at our table ...

At first he just sorta gave us the puppy dog look. Like this duck thought he was going to get some of our $4 chocolate covered raisins ... he was sooooorely mistaken.


Well since we weren't sharing, he decided to stalk us. And it was merely annoying until he started to bit the chair I was sitting on ... then it was just plain rude.

So we got up and went for a walk around the area and my Lil Diva started to pose ...

I see a bright future ahead of her in constipation commercials.

After that we headed out in search of lunch. Lil Miss informed me that she did not want to eat lunch at home so I thought it would be fun to find this place that I keep hearing is God's Gift to fast food, Sonic.

I have never experienced Sonic but I have heard nothing but good things. So we tracked one down on the OTHER side of the next city over and went over. When I got there I discovered that it was a Car-Hop type establishment. I have never been to, or ordered from, a Car-Hop type establishment and I would be lying if I said I wasn't intimidated. Yes ... I was intimidated. I would also be lying if I said I stayed and over came my fears.

Yes I know. My husband gave me that same look you have right now. lol

By then it was time to head home to pick up the girls anyway, so I just decided that over coming my fear of the Sonic menu/ordering process would have to wait.

The rest of the day went pretty well. Since we adopted a new way of dealing with our dinner time ISSUES, dinners with the kids have been fun and a pretty enjoyable event. Getting ready for bed ... that's another issue for another day.

But then once they were in their beds talking to themselves fast asleep, my friend Charlie came over for Vodka Night :) This has become a 'thing' with a few of my friends and I. We get together once every two weeks or so, once a week if it's been a tough week ;-) and we just dish. We laugh, we vent, we get it aaaaaall out and move on. It has done WONDERS for my nerves I kid you not. Course, that could be the vodka too lol

So she came over, we made up some drinks and headed for the spa. It was LOVELY :) I enjoy hanging out with the girls SO MUCH, I'm lucky to have a great circle of friends that have helped me IMMENSELY lately. We talked for hours, which is usually the way it goes ;-) It was a great way to end the day.

And here it is again, Sunday Scrappin :)

I didn't actually get a chance to do any pages this week but I DID get to finish a mini album for a good friend of mine.

Funny thing about the album is that I started in JULY LOL. I actually MADE the album in about 2 hours and gave it to her as a birthday gift the same evening. In all the rush, I FORGOT TO TAKE PICTURES OF IT!

At her party I took a bunch of pictures kinda geared to work with the pages so I could fill it for her, but by the time I'd developed the pics, she'd lost track of the album! Well she found it the other day and I finally got it back to fill.

Long story longer, I took pictures of the album this time :)

I'm actually pretty proud of it. I love the papers and the pages turned out SO CUTE.

It cost me very little to make, just a dollar for the chipboard front and back cover and $2 for the rings :)

The rest was just cutting a piece of cardstock to size and covering it with super cute papers :)

Adding some birthday embelishments I always have laying around.

And viola!

Super cute super inexpensive gifty :)

She LOVED it :)

And I kinda felt like the belle of the ball when she passed it around the big ol party and everyone OOOH'ed & AAAAH'ed at it :D


So this was my TA-DA this week :) What's yours?! My TO-DO list this week is to HOPEFULLY get some scrapping in, I've been a little down this week so I'm hoping the blue's are gone and the inspiration is around the corner :)

For some inspiration on your TO-DO list this week, check out Sunday Scrappin!

I'm sensing a theme here LOL

I actually have been doing more than just scrapping but you wouldn't know it by lookin here ;-)

Whatever, it is what it is and I'm ok with it ... for now.

So I was bored and/or trying to ignore things this week so I threw myself into the scrap cave and came out with a few great pages :)

After doing birth pages for awhile I decided to go completely against that trend and go to the very last pictures I printed ... which just happened to be birthDAY photos LOL



For each of the kids' birthdays I do a little mini photo shoot to try and really get a good picture or 10 of them on the day of their birthday. My sweet little Tween turned 12 this year and I got some really great pics of her & I :)

This spread I actually did on purpose unequally. I always do that for the birthday photos (or try anyway). The first page is my favorite photo and is the lone page. The other two are a spread that is of the day itself.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE these papers! They come from the Rockstar Pack from ... somebody LOL. But yeah she LOVED the pages too :)


This spread is of Fall '09 when we set up our Girl Scouts scarecrow at a pumpkin patch nearby. They have a competition and all the scarecrows are on display on a cute little hayride. There's another spread coming but I just didn't really have the time. SO that will be my TO-DO for this week :)

If you're a scrapper and you're looking for inspiration or just wanna check out some really awesome craftsyness check out Sunday Scrappin!

Well my Scrap Cave really does appear to have powers!

I found my way back in there again this week and felt compelled to scrap Lil Miss's birth photos since last week I did Flower Child's.

I ended up with an odd numbered pages layout. And as my BFF can attest, I agonized over it for quite some time lol ... because I'm fun like that.





Now see, this page seems to be missing something ... any ideas? Seriously ... I just can't put my finger on it.

The color on this photo sucks because my camera hates me. I'm kinda thinking this page needs something too but I just don't know what and I was done trying LOL.

For this coming week my TO-DO's are to get more of my friend's pics done so I can feel better about doing more of my own :) Hopefully that will be done soon{ish}.

So for more inspiring scrappiness check out Sunday Scrappin!

So this weekend my BFF and I did some scrappin via satellite :)

We got talkin yesterday about scrapping and I had JUST received the rest of my photos from Flower Child's birth so I was feeling INSPIRED!

I was a little shocked at how few pictures I had though, so her birth/hospital photos only ended up being a 4 page spread. I just didn't take photos back then like I do now {thankfully sometimes}. But they came out pretty cute so I'm happy :)




On the final page here I left a BIG space to journal her birth story, and I still need to add a title but I'm waiting for my Lil Sis to come down with her Cricut this week :D

So my TO-DO's for this week are:

• Finish Flower Child's birth pages
• Do some more of my friend's pages
• Clean up the cave for my Lil Sis to see on Thursday!
• Think up some CUTE titles or anything else I might want to use the Cricut for ;-)

So that's it for me this week! For more scrappers check out Sunday Scrappin!

So I have been ESPECIALLY busy {scrappily speaking, of course} this week!

It all started with a little project I decided to work on last weekend :) You should check it out ... it's MARVELOUS :D

And basically it really got me excited and inspired to get scrappy with it this week!

My TA-DA's:

• NINE pages of my friend's stuff - which I would LOVE to share but can't :-/
• 2 pages of my OWN below ...
  

And these two pages will FINALLY finish the most spreads EVER for ONE 36 hour event our mini trip to Napa :) It was fun ... but I'm kinda glad it's over lol ... the scrapping, not the trip ;-)

As for my TO-DO's ... well I would just like to keep putting my scrap cave to good use! I got so much done this week, I would LOVE to continue the streak! I would REALLY love to get all of this girl's stuff done lol ... but THAT could take MONTHS, even at this pace ... SIGH.

Anywho ... for more chicks getting their scrap on, check out Sunday Scrappin!

What I learned this week is that persistence pays off my friends.

Well, one Thursday afternoon I was all hopped up on Hydroxycut restless and I happened upon this post and drooled all over my keyboard at her beautifully organized scrappy stuff and her SPACE.

It was the space that got to me. I loved that she just had a place of her OWN to go to when she felt the desire to scrap. It made me giddy at the thought of having something of my own, a place of my own.

Enter the hubs. I showed him the picture of awesomeness and he was like "Yeah ... we're not doing that in my office though." And the more I whined and cried tried to reason with him, the more he put his foot down. I guess having a bunch of pink stuff with ribbons and pretty doesn't GO with his construction office motif ... PSSSH

So being all hopped up on my legal crack being restless, I decided I WOULD have that scrappy space DANGIT! And I would have it NOW.


This ... was my downstairs closet shame.

It was full of goodwill stuff, scrap stuff, summer stuff, Christmas stuff ... basically ... a LOT of stuff.

It was then that I looked at that closet brimming with crap and decided it should be brimming with SCRAP!

With my BFF on the line, it only took us a few hours to get it all cleared out, purged, organized, reorganized, and everything other than scrappy stuff REMOVED and put somewhere else it belonged.

Then the hubs came home. He had no knowledge of all the mayhem cleaning that had ensued that day. SO when he left it looked like the above picture and when he came home ... it was EMPTY! He looked in and said "How did THAT happen?"

I took it as a compliment. And then I went on to beg for insist upon ask nicely for him to help me build my dream ... in scrap form.

He had to work the next day but ideas were swirling in my head so much I was dizzy! Soooo ... my partner in crime BFF talked me into using a piece of scrap wood in the garage to show her how far along I had come in my scrap oasis efforts...

Honestly, my DH is lucky he forbade me from using his power tools, because as persistent as she is - I might have tried it myself ... and then he could have come home to me with my head stapled to the carpet.

How's THAT for progress! I did all of that myself :) First I found and emptied 2 sets of white storage drawers. They were PERFECT for storage! I filled them up and moved on to the shelves on the right holding my scrappy stuff, organized and reorganized all of that stuff.

Then I went out to the garage and found a piece of wood, drug it into the house and laid it across the white shelves ... it was SO cute! It totally gave my DH the idea to not only make me a desk out of some wood he had in the garage ... but to make me an L SHAPED DESK!

And the next day my dreams were made real and my heart made whole ... well I was real real happy anyway I mean seriously ... if you go back and look at that first photo and then this one ... I mean WOW. And my Scrap Cave was born ...

The best part of this whole thing is that I didn't have to buy a THING for this whole space! I had 4 empty clear paint cans and decided that instead of sitting empty they could hold my ribbon! I had 5 little tins sitting around and now they hold buttons, paint, pens, chipboard & phrases! The flowers are displayed in 2 glass candle holders that I had nowhere to put! The chair was sitting upstairs in our bedroom at the desk he never uses so I didn't even have to buy that :)

So basically ... it was the BEST.DAY.EVER :)

For more people learning stuff and sharing it with you ... check out Musings of a Housewife :)

P.S. No inept women were harmed in the making of this scrap cave :)