CREDITS: Doodles – Taran Conyers, inked edge & staples – Gina Cabrera, flower pebble – Rhonna Farrer, Word tags & messy stitches – Katie Pertiet  FONTS: Beer Dip & AL Uncle Charles

Trying to ease back into scrapping so I played around with a few photos of places I’m going to in Mexico in a couple weeks. I love doodles lately so it was fun to create something that seemed so fitting for them. :)

I’ve also been working on a blog for the DDE team that I’m really excited about. It’ll be nice to have all of our conversations and info in one place and I’m thrilled that the team members seem really excited about it too. I wanted it to be pretty when they first went to it and not look cold and impersonal so I tried my hand at a blog header using Gina’s new kit (which was another good way to ease into scrapping again). Here’s a peak and if you haven’t gotten the new Forever Greatful kit you MUST check it out. So many fun things and the colors are fabulous!

And then I also started a seperate political topic blog of my own. Mostly to collect articles and information that I find. My brother says I should be posting this stuff in my regular blog under a political category but then I wouldn’t be able to create a fun political style banner. ;) He just doesn’t understand. Just did a quick one for now but hopefully I’ll think of something more creative down the road. (After I change the one on this main blog). I also don’t like to force my political views on anyone or be defined by them. Anyone who knows me though knows that I’m somewhat of a political junkie. I watch Fox News more than any other television shows combined and I love a good political discussion. So anyway, it seemed fitting to have a blog about something I’m quite passionate about. Don’t hate me ‘cuz I’m conservative and I’ll continue to try and understand why those of you who are liberal think the way you do. ;) Just kidding. Sorta. LOL

Okay, off to work. Short week this week. Gotta love that! :)

Well, I am really behind on the blogging thing. I hate it when I get this far behind because I feel like I need to go back and catch up. I really should just post as if my last entry was yesterday. That’d be so much easier. My laptop went completely capoot (or is that kaput?) on me last weekend and it is currently at the ‘hp doctor’ hopefully getting restored back to just as it was last Friday morning. Hard drive intact and all. My fear is that I’ll have lost everything on the hard drive though. The tech at Circuit City called the screen that flashes by for a split second the ‘blue screen of death’. That doesn’t sound good. :( Luckily I have MOST everything backed up on my external drive. All my photos, all scrapbook pages and very importantly all of my digi-scrapping kits are backed up safely, thank goodness.

Looking forward to this week though, laptop or not. I LOVE Thanksgiving. It’s quite likely my favorite holiday. This year I’m having dinner at my mom’s where the turkey is cooked to perfection, the gravy didn’t come in the form of powder from a package and the potatoes can be eaten with a fork. First time since I’ve been married that I’ll be having dinner on my side. Then our family tradition is to rent out the local skating rink with friends and family and spend about 5 – 6 hours skating off all those extra calories. Great music, great potluck food (and leftovers), family, friends and fun exercise. Perfect holiday traditions. :) Hoping to see a movie or 2 this week too. Walk the Line looks really good, Just Friends looks hilarious and Dreamer looks like a great one to see with Andrew, Celena & Paige.

Well, enough for now. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up on this more throughout the week even without my laptop. Can’t wait to get that thing back so I can work on a new blogheader ‘cuz this one drives me crazy. It’s way past halloween now. LOL Time to watch my favorite tv show. :)

I couldn’t take it anymore. I’ve been lookin’ up these smart phones online about every other month for the past year now and I finally decided to go in and check ‘em out in person at the sprint store. I had full intentions and had done all my research on the blackberry model but it would’ve cost me $35 – 40 more per month for the service and I just couldn’t justify that.  Plus this baby runs on windows mobile which is what I’m used to on my Ipaq. Problem is I stopped carrying my Ipaq ‘cuz my purses are always too small to carry that AND my cell phone so I stopped USING the Ipaq and then I forget stuff. I’ve got a terrible memory problem. I swear if I were 60 they’d think for sure I’ve got alzheimers. Can’t remember dates, can’t remember names, numbers, you name it. So between this new phone and my laptop I’m hoping to get more organized and stay on top of where I’m supposed to be and when and what I’m supposed to be doing when I get there. :) Plus I’m just a total geek and this phone screams total geek. (well, not literally but I bet it could.) :)

Gotta finish up some laundry and pack an overnight bag for a shopping trip to Birch Run with my sisters and mom. Got a little less money to spend since I bought a new toy but I was really going more to just hang out with some of my favorite people in the world anyway. :)

OH, and I found a new music video source. Hopefully this one will stick around longer than the others. Plus it seems to be a much nicer site without all the popups that the others seem to have. I found so many great songs I almost wanna do a video of the hour today. :)

Back to work today. I can’t really complain ‘cuz after today I’m off for two days on a shopping trip with my mom and sisters but where did the weekend go?! They seem to go so fast lately. Got to have dinner with the digital housewives Friday night at one of my favorite restaurants. Took Paige, Corbin, Andrew and Celena roller skating Saturday morning and met Kimberly and Kylie there. Spent a good part of the afternoon hangin’ with the VandenBrink’s and then went home and did some house cleaning. Saturday night we got together with the MacKechnie’s for Chef Boyardee pizzas at my parents. Great food, great conversation, lots of laughs. :) Then Saturday night around 1 am we had big thunderstorms roll in and I LOVE thunderstorms. Always have. When I lived at my parents my bedroom was downstairs and if I knew there were going to be thunderstorms at night I’d sleep in one of the upstairs room just so I wouldn’t miss out. Saturday night though was one of the best thunderstorms I’ve seen in a long time. Lightning that lit up the whole sky (and the bedroom even through the curtains). Rumbling thunder that seemed to go on forever. The big booming type thunder now and then and then cracks of thunder that shook the whole house. And I love it when the thunder and lightning come first and you can’t even hear the rain but then all the sudden you hear the big rain drops hitting the window. At first they sound like they’re coming down from the clouds one at a time and then it just starts pouring and you can barely tell one drop from the next. They seem to come down in buckets. The whole thing just fascinates me. Sorta like how airplanes can stay in the air. One of those things that I’d almost rather not fully understand ‘cuz it adds to the wonder of it all. :)

I’ve been neglecting it this week setting up our new family blog (which everyone seems to be using regularly and I LOVE it) and then a blog for the digital housewives girls. The banner on that one still needs a little work and I’d like to add links in the sidebar to each of their galleries but otherwise it’s pretty much ready for use. :) I also finally redid my desktop background which was long overdue. I was missing photos of Eva and Ainsley so now they’re included. I made this one with just the neats from my side of the family so that I could send a copy for my mom and sisters to use if they want but I’d like to figure out a way to include Andrew and Celena in my own copy so I’ve gotta move things around a bit but for now its at least different. I LOVE starting my computer and seeing all their adorable faces and the doodles just make me happy. :)

In other news this week, Mary & I have booked our Christmas vacation in Mexico. I have NEVER been anywhere more tropical than Florida which in comparison really doesn’t even count. Completely all inclusive, a long airplane flight (which I LOVE) and hopefully we’ll come back with some great tans just in time for all those Christmas photos. :) PLUS, I don’t have to pay a dime. The whole trip is paid for as a Christmas bonus for helping her out with her real estate business. She’s been manually entering their tenants payments and all their expenses which I can see would be a nightmare at tax time so I’m setting up software to keep track of it all. Truth be told though, to me setting up all those calculations and data entry screens is almost as much fun as digi-designing and scrapping so getting paid to do something I enjoy lately has been a treat in itself and then to have an all-expense paid trip to Mexico on top of it…am I spoiled or what?!

I love packages! Today waiting for me on my doorstep is a package with 2 more books from the publisher Lisa and I recently discovered in Philadelphia. They have the most amazing and beautiful coffee table style quote books and if you know me, you know I LOVE quote books. I found the website for the publisher and ordered them directly. I could’ve bought a dozen more and if I had a christmas list these would be at the very top. Now I’ll have oodles more great quotes to put in the little ‘inspiration’ area of my blog and more excuses NOT to journal on my scrapbook pages. (Sorry Leeandra.)