Another Freebie- in the same day?!?!

Is Shannon AWESOME or what???? Two freebies from SILLY BEANS SCRAPS in one day! Woo Hoo! Life doesn't get much better than that! She also has a matching Glitter Sheets for her Rockstar Wedding kit!



I just love Shannon's glitter sheets! She puts in such attention to detail and it looks so real. Notice how the top, right glitter has like 4 or 5 colors mixed together! Looks soooo pretty! And you don't have to worry about spilling it on the floor! :) All you have to do, is visit Silly Beans Scraps Blog!

I know what you're thinking now...are you going to show us the kit? You really want to see it, don't you? Of course you do! You've been sitting there just dreaming about what kind of gorgeous papers she may have made, or the elements, ohhh yes! The elements are terrific. Okay, here you go.... ROCKSTAR WEDDING



Get it now at GDS or GDWI

You can get it for $2.00 off at GDWI because you can use it for the Color Challenge Shannon is hosting this month at GDWI!

New Freebie!!!!

Am a little frustrated this morning. Have been trying for over a half hour to post on DST to share a great freebie availabale for 24 hours only! Luckily, it isn't listed yet, so time hasn't started, LOL. Silly Beans Scraps is offering a fabulous ALPHA to coordinate with her So Saree kit! You can only get it at GDS as the Daily Download! It will be available for 24 hours once it is posted....so, if it isn't posted yet - check back a little later!



This is a phenomenal kit. So if you have been looking for something fresh & new....you HAVE to grab this kit!



And look at the goodies she has to go with the kit....




IMAGES ARE CLICKABLE!!!

Me Again

Okay, I am doing lousy on taking pictures everyday. But I still want to do the best I can of keeping track of my year. Of course, my creativity is still hiding, so I have yet to try a digi LO yet this year. Time has also been limited. But I have agreed to be Silly Beans Scraps CT Leader (as long as she doesn't expect any LO in the near future, LOL) She has a fantastic kit coming out soon and I can hardly wait! So without further ado, here is your Sneak Peak at So Saree!

One of the qualities I love about Shannon as a designer is she strives for originality. She doesn't just change the colors up on her accesories & repackage them in the same week just to have a lot of new releases.

I ask all my friends to keep my Mom in your prayers. As many of you know, she was diagnosed with lung cancer back in Novemeber during routine pre-op test for her hip replacement surgery (which she did not have). When they biopsied the cancer, they found it is a type that tends to spread. She has had numerous test, that often led to more test - including a breast biopsy for a lump that just 'popped up' one day right before I came home from visiting her in December. We received word on Friday, that it too is cancer. No idea yet if it is the same type of cancer though. Mom is trying to stay in good spirits and even said "You know God has to be involved in it, because it is too screwed up for him not to be". We know it is in his hands and pray daily for us to keep our minds and hearts open to him to understand why this is happening.

Well, I have to run to the store to get some tomatoe paste to put in my chili. Mmmm, this is one of the best batches I have made in a long time! Talk to y'all again soon!

A New Year

Okay, it's 12 days into the new year and it's time I start a fresh year.  Things have been crazy and I have felt a bit crazy myself.  So much is up in the air right now, but I'm not TOO stressed as I just keep reminding myself to put my life in the hands of God.  That's the only way to do it right.

As you know, Michael is suppose to be retiring from the Navy as of the 31st of this month. (BTW, yes, his retirement ceremony & reception went great!  More about that later).  Last week we found out he has 2, possibly 3, umbilical hernias.  I call it his alien baby and already told him I want to get a picture of it before they fix it.  We have his surgical consult this afternoon and hopefully surgery will be scheduled within the next day or so.  We are both a bit hesitant as we both remember the problems I had last spring when my hysterectomy was botched and I did not have the best of luck in the hospital for the 2 weeks I was in there.  It looks like it's the same hospital he'll be in.

Normally & hopefully they will be able to do the surgery with very small incisions, but there is a chance they will have to cut him open too.  His hernias are rather large.  They are often no larger than about 2 inches, but his is more like 5 inches.  Even the doctors were taking pictures of it as they had never seen one so big.  That's my baby!  LOL

He has had some violent coughing fits and they believe that is what has caused the hernias.  This is the time he was suppose to be doing some job hunting, but as I said, it's in God's hands.  This may actually delay him from being discharged from the Navy.  Might not be a bad thing.

Have you heard of LIFE 365?  Well, you take a picture EVERY DAY!  This way you remember even the little things.  We're only on day 12, so get started now.  It's not too late.  Then you can blog them, or scrap them.  But what a great way to remember your whole year.  These are some tips I found on another blog:

TIPS ON HOW TO DO IT

Here are six tips on how to create your own Project 365:

1. Bring Your Camera Everywhere
   Yes, everywhere. Get in the habit. Grocery stores, restaurants, parties, work, and school. Going to a movie theatre? Snap a pic of the flick with your phone–there are photo-ops everywhere. If you have one of those tiny tiny cameras, you have no excuse not to have it in your pocket all the time. And if you don’t? Camera phones are a great substitute.

2. Make Posting Easy
   You can install blog software like Movable Type or Wordpress on your own site and create an entry for each photo, but for true ease of use, try a photo sharing site. Flickr will let you post a week’s worth of photos in 2 minutes flat, and fotolog and Photoblog.com are geared toward a photo-a-day workflow. Making it fast and easy means you’re much more likely to do it.

3. Vary Your Themes
   Try to capture the day’s events in a single photo. Perform photographic experiments. Take a photo of someone new you meet, something you ate for the first time, or something you just learned how to do. Take a photo of something that made you smile. And don’t forget to take a photo of yourself at least once a month so you can remember how you’ve changed, too.

4. Tell a Story
   Use your blog entry, or your photo description, to explain what’s going on in each day’s photograph. How good did that dinner taste? What made you want to take a photo of that stranger? It’ll help you remember down the road, and it gives friends following along a better appreciation of why you took the photo you did. You don’t need to write a lot, just enough to add some color.

5. Don’t Stop, No Matter What
   This is perhaps the most important tip of all. You will get tired of taking a photo every single day. Some days, you will consider giving up. Don’t. The end result is worth the effort. Remind yourself why you wanted to do it in first place.

   There will be times you’ll think there’s nothing interesting left to take a photo of, and times you’ll think you didn’t do anything exciting enough to take a photo of. There’s always a great photo to be made.

   Get out of the house and take a walk. Or stay inside and look around. Take a photo of something important to you. Take a photo of the inside of your house so you can see how your taste has changed over the years. Take a photo of anything, just don’t stop.

   N.b. It helps if you’ve told your friends about the project and asked them to follow along. Their encouragement will keep you going!

6. Post early, post often
   Plan on going through and posting your photos at least once a week so you don’t get backlogged and feel overwhelmed. Ideally, post every day or two. Again, spend the time up front to make sure it’s quick and easy to post. It’ll make all the difference.

I really think I want to give this a shot.  You can do it by day, or even by week or month.  I would suggest daily or weekly so it doesn't get overwhelming.  Make the uneventful days count too.  Will help you remember all the blessing God gives us that we at times take for granted.

I really need to get back on track with my digi scrapping.  Lack of creativity, fear of PS CS3 and lack of time are tending to get in the way.  But my dear cyber-friend Shannon (I got to meet her and her family right before Christmas!) of SillyBeanScraps has asked me to be her CT Leader.  What an honor!  I surely do not want to let her down.  Well, I need to get to work, so more later!

CHALLENGE!

So my friend Shannon (Silly Beans Scraps) asked for a suggestion for the Oh No You Didn't challenge at Digital Candy. So I suggested having everyone scrap a funny or embarrassing moment.  Of course she had already thought of that.  So here is the LO I created for it.

Here's the journaling:
Mom sent us a box and said it was imperitive we had it for our wedding night. that our marriage depended on it. It was a challenge in itself to figure out how we would get it as it was was it was being delivered the day before and we both would already be in Port Aransas. In July the ferries would be crazy busy. Betty swung by our house to bring it back to the island as she had to go back to Ingleside anyways. The future of Our Marriage has been protected.

We called mom when it was time to open the box. Mom put a bit of this and that in it and our guest had a blast wondering what would be coming out of the box next. Sometimes items left them wondering what we were suppose to do with ‘that item’. By the time we got to the costumes mom made us the guest were rolling on the deck and trying to refrain from peeing themselves.

We had originally considered having a sponge bob wedding. Since we couldn’t find a proper cake topper, we decided not to. However, Dave showed up in snorkel gear to perform him best man duties and mom made you a sponge bob costume and turned me into the dirty nymph. Everyone found it hilarious that mom sewed a fish popping out the front of your shorts. I could not resist taking a picture of you in the bathroom. Was trying to get a shot of the ‘fish fountain’. So you had to get even & busted in while I was going to the bathroom. And I think that has been how the 4 years of our marriage has gone... having fun, being silly and always trying to surprise each other. i love you (& your fish) with all my heart. I am blessed to have you!

We had so much fun!  Not so sure my husband was too thrilled that I posted the LO online, but it's okay.  He understands.

Just wanted to remind you about an AWESOME sales going on!  Silly Beans Scraps has her GRAND OPENING SALE with 25% off until this Sunday at goDigitalScrapbooking!

Am heading out soon for the NJROTC leadership retreat, so I have to run for now.  TTYL!!!

WHIRLWIND

Wow, there is so much amazing stuff going on in the digi world!  I told you about my dear friend Shannon who just stepped into the designing world as Silly Beans Scraps.  Go to her blog and you can find the story behind the name. :)  First she opened her store at Digi Design Resort.  Now she has just opened a store at goDigitalScrapbooking!!!!  And to celebrate she is having a fantastic 25% OFF SALE!

Also, she is going to be hosting her very 1st SPEED SCRAP on Friday Oct. 17th at GDS at 10 pm EST.  So bummed I won't be here for it.  This is the big weekend for the NJROTC Leadership Retreat my 4 year old & I are chaperoning.  LOL  It should be awesome, can't wait to share some pics & LO with y'all!

Duchess Designs has some great sales going on over at Get Digi With It!  Head on over to the DD CT Blog - I made the last 2 post there :).  Go take a good look at her new blog(pax).  I've been complaining about the look of my blog for long enough.  So soon, it will be so pretty!  Yippee. (And it's on sale, I LOVE a good sale!)  Do you have her mini-kit Peyton yet?  NO????  You're kidding!  No time better than NOW to go get it - get the coupon code on the blog and get it NOW for only 99 CENTS!!!!!!!

Guess who came back from her hiatus!?!?  I'm sooooo excited!  Tanyia's Pretty Pixels!!!  She is fired up and ready to roll!  She has a FREEBIE paper pack on the BLOG!  Hurry up though, it will only be on there for a week and will not be in the store! 

Plus, check out Mondays post for a challenge.  :)  There's big news coming, so keep posted!  Oh, and how can I forget she is having a HUGE retirement sale!  (The products, not her LOL).
For TWO WEEKS you can get these ten items for .99 each :) Yep less than a buck for full kits, alphas, and more!!!

The items can be found on pages 6 and 7 of my Exclusive Digital Candy STORE!

Trish H. Designs is having some computer issues and may be a day late posting up the Candy jar challenge #25.  Along with Chaos Lounge, Trish hosts this challenge twice a month.  They ALWAYS have the best mini kits to use for this challenge.  Has to be one of my favorite callenges!  Don't forget to sign up for her blog newsletter! Trish & the CT are very generous with RAKs!  

Okay, I am exhausted now.  Plus I just talked Tanyia into using one of my FAVE kits of hers as her ONEderful Wednsday $1 special.  And since we are getting it up so late, you can get feelin' fresh for $1 until midnight tomorrow night!

ADMIRATION

I have a true admiration to those bloggers that blog on a daily or near daily basis. I know we all have lots to blog about, but sometimes can't find the time to. So I will try to catch things up by working in a backwards fashion. As much as I can before I take Joy to the vets at least.

So I am on vacation this week from work. I really needed a break. Not as productive as I'ld like to be, but not wasting the time either! Took Jonathan to the dentist this morning. Suppose to get his bottom 2 cavities taken care of (got the top 2 done last week). Didn't happen though. He was just too upset and the dentist will not push it as she does not want the kids to be traumatized. Good thinking! Nitrous (happy gas) seems to have the reverse effect on him. He just cries harder. So we rescheduled for next week and I will give him some benedryl before we go and skip the happy gas.

I had to get some fall/ winter clothes for the boys yesterday and grocery shopping. Crazy thing is we go once a month to Gulfport (hour away) to the commisary and it's worth the trip. I'm still excited I bought 40 pounds of chicken for $12!!!! I hit the clearance & sale sections at the outlet stores. Was able to get a pair of jeans at the Nautica store for Tony for $15!!! I refuse to pay for a name. Don't mind paying for quality, but not a name.

Okay, I'm back. Didn't even know I was gone, did you? My mom called and then it was time to take Joy to the vet. We got bad about taking her for a while. We had 2 dogs and just couldn't afford for both. Found a good home for the other one (he was constantly marking his territory in the house!) So back on track with my baby girl. We've had her for almost 5 years.

Monday I spent 4 1/2 hours cleaning our LR carpet. Let me tell you, we invested in an Oreck Oribiter 2 years ago and I am soooooo glad. I use to spend 6 hours on my hands & knees scrubbing the same carpet. It is sooooo much easier with the Orbiter. Normally wouldn't have taken so long, but with the boys & dog, there were a lot of stains. Plus I use it to clean my wood & tiled floors!

Sunday, we took the boys & Joy to the beach. Was so much fun!

We had a fabulous time. DH & I actually were able to relax. The kids and Joy played hard. Definitely need to do this more often.

Okay, have to go get little guy from school! Bye!