still me

good night

Tonight eric and I went out for a late dinner, and got home after the kids were already in bed… as I have been writing last minute emails and gathering my things, quincy woke up and wanted a good night kiss… I carried her into my bed and layed down with her for a few minutes, hoping to get a chance to tell her I was leaving town tomorrow, and that I wouldn’t see her in the morning… she asked me where I was going, and I told her Chicago.. and half-asleep she said… “lucky you”, then drifted off to sleep… it put a little smile on my face! I am lucky! I have my suitcase packed, stuff pretty much taken care of – at least crisis level stuff. I feel like I am forgetting something!

My little sister Katie is in the hospital as the moment giving birth to her first child… a little girl… “aspen”… I love the letter “a” almost as much as I love “Q”… so I can’t wait to start scrapbooking photos of my new niece!! Katie went in this morning at 8:30am to start being induced, and as of 11pm tonight, she was just starting the ‘petocin drip’… UGH… I am feeling so bad for her! Hopefully by morning baby girl aspen will be here. I am so excited that my baby will have a cousin so close! Wish I were there!!! Good luck kates…!

Um, a little FYI…
I just got an email from the folks at bazzil, and there seems to be a little glitch with the “creative escape” registration set up on the website… it looks like we may be having to push the online registration back to APRIL 7th at 9am pacific time… I have not heard FINAL on that… but if you are planning to sign up… keep that in mind, and check the site for more info! Gotta love on-line stuff… gotta take the good with the bad I guess!

I think that my second wind from an hour ago is depleted..
Sweet dreams!

women's expo

Wow!
Thank you all so VERY much for all the sweet comments! I really appreciate your kindness…  muchas gracias!!!

Cleaned my studio today! Looks so nice! Now I am hoping for creative miracles! I have so many little loose strings, that I need all the clarity I can get! I do best if I can focus on one thing at a time…but when there are several ‘things’ that I am supposed to be working on and thinking about… I have a really hard time focusing. 

Case in point: every year one of the local TV channels puts on this big “women’s expo”. It’s at the big convention center downtown, and is all kinds of booths, from businesses that target women, deal with women’s issues etc. they make a pretty big deal out of it!  so I was invited to speak on sat. (april 8th)  at 11:00am … to whoever shows up I guess!! I am not exactly sure how it works!  (Suze Orman will also be in the house… she is amazing… that is pretty cool)… anyway… I feel so TOTALLY overwhelmed and intimidated by the situation! I mean, put me in front of scrapbookers, and I can talk talk talk… it’s hard to shut me UP!  But put me in front of a general audience, and well, I am a little freaked out! Especially since I come from such a niche market! …the good news, is that finally yesterday I felt like my message, my thoughts and my presentation finally all “downloaded”… that is the term I use when something I am trying to work through in my mind, finally all clicks and I am able to pull it all together. (deep breath). The name of my presentation is “Are you living a life to REMEMBER?”… and I am wanting to convey the message that scrapbooking (to me) isn’t all about getting every photo out of a shoe box and into a “scrapbook”,  but rather creating a legacy, living and capturing the best life we can – and celebrating that life! Hopefully, my love and passion for scrapbooking will be contagious and inspiring! …just maybe we’ll touch a couple women who didn’t know where to start or needed a different introduction… in any event… WISH ME LUCK!

And if you live here… COME!!! (please!) wink………..
I am also teaching a couple of little classes that are pretty quick simple hands-on work shops… 75 people in each, and I think it’s a first come first serve deal… I will be hanging around our booth for the whole day Sat.  We are selling a couple of cool kits that are a pretty sweet deal…worth checking it out!   

For now, I get to go to CHICAGO and play within my comfort zone… and teach another session of the “SHE” class… talk about my passion! LOL.  I am so looking forward to taking part in another CKU-A. It’s just the most awesome experience. I am so excited to see everyone, and soak it up! I have been trying to rest up, so that I can do the all-night scrapbooking thing, as only the albums events can do!  We’ll see if pregnancy will allow me to be crazy as usual!                                                                              

20 weeks

I finally broke down and bought 2 pair of maternity pants!
Wow… that feels better!
i thought I could get away without buying maternity tops for a little while longer… thinking that maybe some of my longer shirts would cover… but there is nothing worse than being able  to see a little sliver of that nice spandex pregnancy-panel in the top of the pants!! At the same time, I am not really warranting the big flowing tops! Chuckle… loving the in-between!
Emily hadn’t seen me for a week and was a little surprised by the growth in my belly! I did have a dr’s appointment today… we are ½ way there!! Is that possible? He did an ultra-sound and checked out all the organs and did some measurements. Appears we have a  healthy little one in there!! My dr. asked me again if I was SURE I didn’t want to know what the sex of the baby was!! (it was KILLING ME), but I reassured him that we are NOT FINDING OUT!!!
Whatever it is… we are excited!
We didn’t find out with the first 2 pregnancies…(really, at eric’s insistance!)  He loves being surprised and he thinks it’s ‘cheating’ to find out before hand…however, on my third pregnancy, I wanted a girl! And so I decided to find out! This time…I really have no preference! I’d be happy either way! Quincy of course is SURE it’s a little sister… colton  thinks it’s a girl- he claims he can tell from the ultrasound images… girl for sure!  Cory is holding on to the hope it’s a boy! 
Sooo…here is a look at our little one. this is a page i made for my pregnancy journal today.  (the scanner is not really big enough...so it cut a little off)

choices

today is like the first day i have been home in over 2 weeks.
HOME.
there are 2 kinds of good days. they are distinct and different.
one is a result of a productive day at work.
the other is a result of a quality day at home.
they do not happen on the same day-despite the fact they both happen in my house.

today i realized that in order to truly recover; to get back on track... i needed to have a HOME day.
i did all the possible laundry in the house. AND it's all put away. (um, that is huge for me! ) the house is clean. all of it. all except my scrapbook room. it's a disaster. i planned some meals, did some grocery shopping.. did homework, practiced spelling words, oversaw chores, baseball... the works.

what i did not do...? didn't create the ads that were due yesterday. didn't finish the web-newsletter. didn't work on the 3 classes that are coming up. didn't respond to a pile of emails... didn't listen to my cell phone voice mail. didn't clean my messy studio. didn't look at my to-do list.

but, it was a good day. i feel better. i feel caught up. i am tired. and a bit overwhelmed... but i would much rather be stressed out and overwhelmed in a clean, full of food, and no dirty-clothes house.

i guess it all comes down to choices.
hopefully tomorrow will be just as good... just in other departments!

here it is!! so excited!

alright, so... keep in mind that this is not a big-budget production! LOL!! the movie is 8 minutes... you know me, i am long-winded! but... i think you will LAUGH! if nothing else!
it may take a couple minutes to download, and you may need to download quicktime if you don't have it!

rub-on movie!!

rub on video

i am so bummed!
we have the movie all edited and ready to go... it runs on the blog on my machine, but isn't working for anyone else... i am going to try to get it up on the website tomorrow...
DANG!!!!
(any experts out there?)

mary engelbreit

so a few of you have mentioned seeing my piece in the 'home companion'... and i have been surprised at the number of emails i have rec'd as well...
i just picked up my copy! i have to admit... i was so excited to be invited to create something for the april/may issue of 'home companion'. i have always enjoyed the magazine.. there is always fresh, fun and inspiring ideas, typography and unique design concepts featured.
when i was contacted by jennifer cushman, a freelancer for the magazine... i started working on kind of an altered book for my mom for mother's day. interestingly enough, i had been thinking a lot about the mother- daughter relationship, and how as mother's we truly effect the future generations through our daughters.  i am sure that we can all relate to experiencing more respect and trust in our mom's as we get older, mature and realize more fully the complexity of motherhood. at least that is the case for me.
so i spent about a month, playing around with old photos of myself with my mom... creating this altered book. my deadline was coming up, and i was just not thrilled with the project. the night before the project was due... i ditched the altered book and created the framed scrapbook that is featured in the article. i had been imagining this little project for quite some time, so it was sitting in the creative bank in my brain... about 8:30 at night i went to target and purchased about 4 different frames... came home and went to work. by about 3am the project was complete... and i loved it. it came out exactly how i saw it in my head.  i love the colors-- so springy and fresh.. it fit into this issue of the mag so perfectly i thought! 

it is kind of hard to see how it all works from the article. here's some additional construction info...
i have more photos of it at home on my big computer, but since i am still at my mom's you'll have to hunt down the magazine to take a peek...at least until i get home.

i took the piece of chipboard that was in the back of the 5x7 frame. (it's a racheal ashwell). i selected all the photos that i wanted to use in the album and started creating "flaps".  my plan was that the book would open from the top, bottom and both sides... that way, there would not be a thick traditional 'spine' that would be too bulky.   i created all the "flaps" (or pages)... they are all different sizes and shapes... they don't all line up as you can kind of see from the pics...  i completed all the flaps, with the journaling as well as the embellishments, and then i started from the back, and sewed each page in position.  once i had all the pages sewn together, i simply placed it in the frame just like you would a photo... (obviously without the glass) i attached the photos with photocorners, staples and stiches... i didn't want the embellishments to be too bulky, cause there were about 6 or 7 flaps... it's amazing how much better i work at the very last minute...
the deadline is my ultimate inspiration!
the article is featured on page 108 of the
april/may issue...
so fun! check it out!

i visited my dentist this morning to get 2 cavities filled... what a misery.  i swear there is no one that brushes teeth more than i do... and STILL have about a million cavities! luckily my dentist is about the nicest man on the planet... and it did go pretty quick. i still hate it!

change of scenery

After a few short hours home from the western carribean… we packed up our crew in the car and headed for slc, utah! It’s spring break in sunny az…and despite it being the absolute most beautiful time of year in az, my boys all wanted to go snowboarding. I had meetings here in utah, so we decided to make a family trip out of it! The drive took us 11 hours. We drove up through flagstaff and on up through the little town of southern utah. I took over the driving as we crossed the border into utah… we have a dvd player in the car, and the kids were completely happy watching movies and listening with the headphones; eric was reading a book and I had time to look out the window and think. Typically, I am sleeping during these drives. I was SO enjoying the scenery…it was a beautiful day. Light dusting of snow… I just really enjoyed the time to appreciate the beauty and think. it was a nice drive! Eric and I were talking a lot about how our kids have gotten to the point that they can be entertained by books, gameboys and dvds etc… in a few months, we’ll be back dealing with diapers, pulling over to find pacifiers and trying to console a crying baby. Life will change dramatically for us! (understatement)

We woke up this morning to about 6 inches of snow on the ground and still falling! Needless to say, my kids were thrilled! They pulled snow clothes on over their pajamas and immediately went outside to stomp around. It didn’t take long for them to figure out how cold snow is! I guess they decided to try to build a snowman. So they were like trying to make some mounds of snow. Eric went out there to see what they thought, and started to show them how you make a little ball, and then start to roll it. They thought that was about the most fantastic thing ever! The snow was so wet that it was the perfect weight to roll it up. They made a pretty good snowman for a bunch of Arizonans! By the afternoon, snow storm cleared and blue skies emerged and I snapped this photo!

Today the ‘creative escape’ website went up. So exciting! We have been having so much fun planning, refining, finalizing and imagining more cool things to do…it’s going to be so awesome. It’s cool to have the site up and even though there are a few glitches. Paul, the IT guy at bazzill did like a hardcore-stay-up-all-night to make it happen. If you haven’t already checked it out… the site is: creativeescapeaz.com
You also might notice that there are a couple of links to the shiny-new bazzill blog! You have to go check it out… funny!

somewhere between belize and costa maya

Again… here we are … somewhere in the Caribbean ocean… floating. (rocking, swaying)! We had so much fun today! We just gone done teaching one of our classes… it went great. Everyone seemed to love the class! Once again… 100 people that were able to use the rub-ons without a single problem! (well, unless you try to rub it on to wet paint)!   So here is the boat we are on: it’s called the ‘Carnival Valor’.  Admittedly, there are far more crazy drunk people than scrapbookers! It’s for sure a party ship!

This is my cute husband… he got this awesome orange and blue tie on his last trip to china for like $2 or something ridiculous… and he was so excited to have a chance to wear it.

This is me with the one and only ‘cruisin with Becky Higgins’… her baby Claire is about the cutest thing on the planet!

Today we went on an excursion on the island (and country) of Belize.  We went on a canopy tour. It was a zip-line tour above the jungle below! It was pretty cool!  Well, there were only 5 zip-lines, and 2 repelling drops, but that was enough for our first try! (well, eric was the pro who had already been to the “2nd largest” canopy tour in the world when he was in Puerto Vallarta and he thought this one was totally lame-o) but em and I were excited and kind of freaking out, along with the old people from NY that were behind us in line! I guess it was worth the hour and a half bus ride there and back…

When we got back from our excursion, we ate some food and the boat was pretty rocky and eric got sick for the first time… and we had to hustle to teach again. I have to hand  it to eric, he has been the best (most patient) teacher helper ever… the scrapbookers love him! Maybe I will start booking him to go and teach classes… quite the charmer! I must say…initially,  I was not sure why people would really be wanting to mix crusin with scrappin… I have been polling everyone.. and as it turns out, it’s just nice to have an excuse to both cruise and scrapbook! I think that the thing I like the best about it is that you get a break in between classes to relax and hang out… whether you are going ashore to dive or snorkel or any of the million choices… or even if you just decide to sit on the deck next to the pool… it’s nice to break it up over the 7 days! I love that part of it… I haven’t had to be going from class to class like I usually do at regular events.  So if you need an excuse to cruise, or an excuse to scrap… you might want to consider this as an option! I must also add… I might rather just enjoy the onboard-spa than fight the crowds getting on and off the boat… the SPA ROCKS!!

somewhere in the middle of the ocean...

pretty amazing really... i am sitting in my "stateroom" and have access to wireless internet here on my lap! yikes...
i am exhausted after a red-eye flight to miami and boarding the boat--finding our way around... getting all situated.. this is awesome! we have had a chance to meet most of the scrapbookers here on board. everyone is so excited and ready to play! we have a day at sea tomorrow and we'll have classes all day. eric and i have an awesome little room... on the top floor and good sized balcony! we are loving this!
i mentioned that i was sure i was forgetting something... and sure enough. i must have left my little make-up bag on the bathroom counter... including-you guessed it, my TOOTHBRUSH. i have been able to get some mascara and a toothbrush, so i should be good to go!
i am going to get a good night's sleep -
tomorrow i will post a few pics!
good night!