Singer Island

1 minivan

5 kids

641 miles from our house to Singer Island

Countless grains of sand

Memory Lane

I managed to get my hands on one of the new Epson scanners that allows you to scan up to 30 photos a minute. This is a new service from Heritage Makers, and I'm pretty excited about it. I quickly filled my customer orders, and then spent the day scanning my old photos. A lot of them are fading or deteriorating in some way, so I'm excited to get them scanned. I'll also be able to share them with other family members now, so that should make a few people happy. Anyways, just wanted to share!

Weekend Project

I'm a sucker for springtime activities. I started spring cleaning a couple of weeks ago, and was overrun by the clothing alone for 5 kids! So I had a yard sale Thursday and Friday to eliminate some of the clutter - just when I thought I had it out, Ken brought home stuff we forgot we had in storage. Aack! Anyways, I used the profits from the yard sale to create a vegetable garden along our "Scrapppers Sidewalk". My step-dad came over and helped me set it up. The yard sale wasn't good enough for a nice brick retaining wall, lol, I'll have to have a few more. So a day's hard work and a few hundred pounds of peat moss, compost, and top soil later . . . I have approximately 75 square feet of garden. Now, I've only ever successfully grown squash and flowers, so this is a huge venture for me. We planted a little bit of everything - tomatoes, squash, lettuce, carrots, radishes, onions, cilantro, cucumbers, etc. (we don't even eat radishes, but Billy insisted we plant them) I can't wait to see what grows!

Calling all former TLC consultants - digi layout swap

Let's commemorate our time together in a way we can all cherish. Let's do a digi layout swap. The only requirements are that it must contain at least one photo of you and your name. You may include your contact info. I would suggest you include something good, like your favorite memory of TLC, or the best thing that has happened to you because of TLC. Alternatively, it can be an inspirational quote.

Create your layout 12"x12" at 300dpi and save as a JPEG if using photoshop. If you are using lifetimez, create your layout as a square, and export as a high resolution JPEG file.

E-mail your JPEG layout to me, and I will send you the link to download the others.

You can use any graphics you like, you are certainly not limited to TLC. I highly recommend the graphics of one of our own, Krystal Hartley! Her blog is http://www.krystalhartley.blogspot.com

It does not matter what your skill level is, your layout can be as simple as you like. We have some very talented designers among us who will no doubt shine!

Let's put a deadline on this for the procrastinators out there (like me). April 20th should be ample time.

Scraproom Tour

I've gotten tons of questions about my scraproom, so if you wanted to know about it, you'll find it here: My Scrap Studio

new day

"With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts."
~~Eleanor Roosevelt

new look

In keeping with my "new beginning" I re-designed my website and blog graphics. I used the same designs that I used in my scraproom decor. The paper is "Tres Chic Peacock" by Stacy Claire Boyd. Hope you like! Oh, and here was my other option, using Krystal Hartley graphics.

New Beginnings

"Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the road which lies ahead and those over which we have traveled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the road back uninviting-inviting, then we need to gather our resolve and carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that one as well.” ~~Maya Angelou

Shock and dismay

That's what most former TLC consultants are feeling today as the news sinks in that TLC has kicked us to the curb. They e-mailed us yesterday afternoon at 4pm (they always post crap on Friday afternoons) that they dissolved all consultantships and are now a "discount buyer's club". I think the only thing that saved me from a complete meltdown was that last week my husband and I decided TLC would probably go under soon, and we made the big changes I posted about yesterday. Still, we thought I had my income for at least a few more months. Yeah, well, that and a cup of coffee . . .

change on the horizon

Big changes happening around here. The economic situation is going downhill for lots of folks, so I guess we're no exception. Today is Nate's last day at daycare, he will be a full-time stay-at-home-toddler from now on - and I'm more than a little anxious. We laid off our wonderful housekeeper, so add that to my list as well. Time to focus on the home. Instead of earning big bucks, I'm trying to figure out how to save big bucks. Advice welcome! I can do this, I know it!