Sunday, July 29, 2007

Hooray!




Matt, Brian and I were hanging out at Barnes and Noble Saturday night, grabbing a cup of coffee and browsing. I had wanted to pick up the new issue of the Stampers' Sampler, so I grabbed a copy and thumbed through it. In the center contents page I noticed that the paper doll template cards were in this issue and thought, Damn! my cards didn't get in (and I really liked those cards). Imagine my surprise when I saw my card in the middle of page 68! I did a little happy dance and went to show Brian and Matt.

My second surprise came later that evening, at home. i sat down to read the issue, opened the cover and saw my evelope printed on the letters page! Two in one issue! That was the second set of cards I'd ever submitted, so I am thrilled to see my work accepted so soon! Happy, happy day!

Friday, July 27, 2007

Why would you want to do that?






The question I heard most often when I mentioned I was going to Jackson for three days for a scrapbook retreat. People just don't get it. Except my scrapper friends. They all said, "Ohhh, how fabulous!" And it was. Not only the three days of uninterrupted scrapping, but being able to spend the weekend with Anna. It's been so long since we've had time together like that. It was fabulous.

It was Jackson, so nothing earth shattering happened. I won $40 on the nickel slots. Mike didn't call Anna on her birthday. I spilled my water on a few pictures and papers, all mine thankfully. Nonetheless, it was an immensely enjoyable weekend, and that's why I wanted to do it.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

It feels good to be finished




I am finally done with Gary's Father's Day painting (yes, Father's Day), and I must say that is a relief! Boy, I had to dig for this one, and it is far from the original concept. I am happy with the results, though. It's different then anything I've done before. It has Gary's fabulous tree photo, but I didn't include any of my own drawings on this piece.


The card was for Darcy's birthday, and the dragonfly stamp is new, so I had to play with it. I'm really enjoying the cards right now. Mostly because of the size, I think. It's much easier to finish a piece in an evening; perfect for mommy artists that work after bedtime. The techniques are new to me, so it's been fun playing with supplies.


I'm off to the annual canoe trip tomorrow. Well, I guess I can't call it the canoe trip anymore, since we rented a house in Tahoe this year. I'll be the first to admit it - we're getting old, and that whole expending lots of energy paddling down the river all day just doesn't appeal to me anymore, no matter how much alcohol I consume along the way. I'm a tired mommy; I don't want to work on my vacation. I voted for a spa and pool boys serving drinks, but we settled on the vacation home and cocktail waitresses serving drinks at the slot machines. Hey, it works for me!

Friday, July 6, 2007

Million Dollar Plus Baby

So we took Molly to get her stiches out on July 5th. I decided to take her to the local vet, instead of back to the surgeon, to save myself a little cash. The incision has healed beautifully, but she had developed a nice bump on the side of her knee. The doctor thought it was just fluid retention, but suggested that I take her back to the surgeon to be evaluated, in case a pin had moved and was causing the swelling. Fortunately, we were able to get an appointment that morning. Unfortunately. one whole day at the vet, one x-ray, one culture, and $200 later, they decide that it IS just fluid retention, and I could put warm compresses on it or leave it alone and it will go away on its own. Oy...

Monday, July 2, 2007

finally finished



I finally finished this wall hanging for Max's bedroom. This particular project seemed to drag on forever, even though I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted it to look like. It's been taking up half of the diningroom table for much too long now, so I'm relieved that it's finally up on the wall. I hope the next two in the series don't take as long as this one, or I'll be staring at them until Christmas!

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Good Dog



Molly is an amazingly smart dog. Since she's still in recovery and we can't walk or go outside, I've been doing more training. In just two sessions she's learned to hit the bells on the slider when she needs to go outside, speak on command and bite her Tuffy toy when I say, "Where's your fuzzy?" I plan on working up to retrieval of all of her toys by name. I guess the saying that Border Collies are the smartest dogs is true. However, you have to keep her busy! Since she can't get too physical, I try to wear her out mentally as much as possible. Now both of her meals are given either through rewards during training or in the Buddy cube. At least with the injury she sleeps more, but now our summer has and will be spent at home. Oh well, you do what you have to do for the fur babies as well as the humans.

Speaking of fur babies, I came across a doggie blog doing a great thing this week. She's having a fundraiser to help rescue organizations and shelters, and since ALL of our animals (fish excepted) have been strays or rescues, I wanted to help the effort. All you have to do is click once or twice, and she'll donate to animal charities. Here's some info from her site:

THE FIRST ANNUAL DOGS' AYE VIEW 10K:
We wanna make pawprints all over the world and celebrate our success by giving back to the people who helped to rescue us and those who work hard every day to rescue other animals from the streets or from bad situations. So, will you enter the Dogs' Aye View 10K and help us out? It's simple... just run around your keyboard ...


For every visitor* to the blog over the next 10 days (from Tuesday, June 26 till Friday, July 6), dogmom is going to donate 10 cents to Friends For Life Animal Sanctuary, where she adopted us!
But wait, there's more! She's going to donate another 10 cents for everybody that posts a comment to our blog ... about anything ... to Southwest Metro Animal Rescue, located in Chaska where we live, since they have the same no-kill philosophy about domesticated animals.
But wait, there's more! If you tell us in your comment that you also clicked the purple button (upper left side of our blog, under our picture... or this link) The Animal Rescue Site on our blog to help feed shelter animals ... then she's going to donate another 10 cents to EACH of these fine organizations -- Friends For Life, SWMAR and The Animal Rescue Site.
And, if you post a blurb and a link on YOUR blog that tells everybody and links back to us -- then she's going to donate a whole dollar (!) to the animal rescue group of your choice if you email her their information at dogsayeview@aol.com.
Got it? Four different ways to spend our dogmom's money for a good cause. We know it's a lot to remember... but we also know all the smart dogs that read our blog. Tell your dog-friends and cat-friends and even your humans - ahem, and yourselves - how much we appreciate your reading and participating in our blog over the past year and in the future. Come on, dogs! Let's organize our pack and let the pawprints be seen worldwide!

http://dogsayeview.blogspot.com/2007/06/dogs-aye-view-10k.html
Just give her a click!