Guess I'm still Lucky...

today I won the bingo on our Creative Escape Yahoo Group. I thought for sure between being away at ARTistry in Vancouver (sorry I'd post about this but didn't really take any photos), coming home to no Internet and the time difference between the post (East to West Coast) I didn't stand a chance. Well, my horseshoe comes through again.

Over the weekend I won three free coffee's at Tim Horton's in their Roll up the Rim to Win contest. Not much, but still lucky. Last week we found out that we won three out of four volleyball champion titles. Not bad...I wonder what's next???

Today I spent most of the day re-arranging my furniture in the bedroom and guestroom. My mom suggested to move the bigger dresser from the guestroom upstairs since it was sitting there empty. Then I took Gracie's changing table (which converts into a shelve) downstairs for some guest storage if needed. Now I still need to finish putting our stuff away in the bedroom, but I had to quit. The original plan was to spend an hour doing this and after three I finally threw in the towel and stopped. I'm pooped.

So I thought I would do a quick update on my BLOG and then start working on my CE swap pages. (For all you non-scrappers who read my blog, a swap is when a group of people make a certain number of the same layout/embellishment/etc. and then each person swaps out with every other person. So in the end you end up with one of every item including your own. Quite genius really!) Hope I didn't confuse you too much...

Can't believe how time flies...

here it is the middle of March and what have I got to show for it?
A lot of 1/2 completed projects and many procrastinated ones too.
Our house is moving along at a snail's pace, it seems, eventhough Martin is putting in many, many long hours and coming home late most nights, including weekends.
Next Tuesday my BFF Megan is flying in from the East Coast and I am sooo not ready. I still need to pack my stuff, print out photos for the classes, get stuff ready for the Saturday night crop, work on my secret project, etc.

Ok, that's the second time I've lost my post today. So I'm just gonna quit. It's not supposed to happen...better luck next time.

Wow, it's been over two weeks again...

I can't believe how time flies when you're busy. It's been a rough couple of weeks, but what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?
Martin's been working long, long days and is so stressed it's not even funny. I've been trying to keep my head down and ride out the storm.
Last night we finally settled down after he had worked all day plumbing the new house with Adam at a reasonable hour to watch a new movie I had picked up. If you haven't watched it yet, go out and rent "The Prestige", can't go wrong with Hugh Jackman. **sigh** Love those abs. A great suspenseful show. Also loved "The Illusionist" with Edward Norton we watched a few weeks ago, another show in the same genre.
Grace has been fighting this yucky cold where she wakes up in the morning with her eyes completely glued shut by mucus and gunk. Gross! She doesn't seem to mind, until you try to clean it off, but it sure looks painful. Needless to say her coughing all night and Martin tossing and turning has not made for restful nights these last few weeks.
I did go to the Spring 27-Hour crop here in Bellingham last weekend. Got a little bit done, but not as much as I would have liked. Isn't that always the case? Most of the problem lies in the fact that I don't know how to pack effectively for a crop. I always want to take all my supplies including the kitchen sink. But then I don't end up using half of them so that is a waste of time loading and unloading my junk. If I just take a couple of things to work on I usually forget a part of the project and halfway through get stuck. Then I get frustrated and put the whole thing away unfinished, which isn't' really the point of the whole thing.
I have another crop coming up in April. It's the Treasury of Memories sponsored "Mighty Max" crop. The fee is $100 and all monies go to the Mighty Maxwell Guild, to support Children's Hospital Uncompensated Care Fund so that EVERY child in the Pacific Northwest has access to quality medical care. So open your checkbooks and help me out here... Anything will be appreciated, we are trying to raise $10, 000 for the fund. It's a great cause and I can't wait to see all the wonderful ladies that participate in this fundraiser.

Coming Up For Air!

Finally feel like I'm digging myself out of this hole I've fallen into. What a life changing even this whole job thing has been for my family. First I'm away from home every day for three weeks, which sets my almost two-year old into fits of separation anxiety, then I have scheduling stress with the airline, then the company (that I thought I was working for, but really wasn't!?!?!?!)shuts down operations overnight without notifying any of us. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT? After all that I was sent a schedule by my scheduling department that had me leaving tomorrow for a week long trip to Fort Lauderdale. Wait a minute!!!! That's a long way from Bellingham, WA and being home every night. Add to that the terrible twos, a house that is half finished, money that is running out and a husband that is stressed to MAX as well. Needless to say I've been stressing more than usual lately.
So with flight suspension since the beginning of the month, (my last flight was on the 5th), I've spent some time getting back into a weekly routine of housekeeping, going to the gym and cleaning up our home. My goal is to have our place de-cluttered by the time we move into our new home come July.
As part of my catch-up strategy I've been working on getting up to date on the BIG Picture Scrapbooking classes that I am taking online. One of them is the "Library of Memories" by Stacy Julian, my scrapbook Idol. It is supposed to help me sort through and organize all my mounds and heaps of photos. Yeah right. Well, I started sorting yesterday, (I'm only 6 weeks behind the class!), and I already feel the relief. Her class is all about keeping it simple so that you can enjoy your time scrapping. The other course is an all year round class with Heidi Swapp the organizer of the Creative Escape Scrapbook retreat I went to last September and will be at again this summer. Her class is "A Year To Remember" a weekly thing where each week you get a certain challenge to complete and each month you finish a page for the calendar provided with the class. Here is my January page, which I finally completed this past week. I really love how it turned out. Part of the challenge was to use a target, a goal and some patterned paper outside of your comfort zone.
So I went all out. What do you think?
On Friday I will be going to a local scrapbook event called the 27-Hour Crop. Some gals host it at their church and we have a bunch of us from the Bellingham Scrapbook Fanatics attending. It should be great to get some uninterrupted time for scrapping and spending it with my friend. Looking forward to that. Now I better get back to packing some stuff to take, or else I won't have anything to work on.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

I never thought that there would be this much to plan, buy, decide on a new house. WOW!!!
We now have our windows and are already installing them.
We purchased over $10,000 worth of rock to go around the outside of the house and it is also being installed, (is that what you do with rock? Install it?)
We ordered garage doors, both a 9 foot and a 16 foot one for the two openings at the back of the house.
Doors for the master bedroom, the kitchen and the front of the house are also on order. The kitchen is getting a french door, our bedroom a glass door with a up/down shade inside the glass, and the front door has sidelights. Of course I had to set my heart on a really expensive wood front door by Simpson called the Bellaire.
Now we are moving on to finalize our fireplace plans, the cabinets in bathrooms and kitchen, as well as my scraproom, tub and showers as well as the vanities. I like the styles they sell at Costco, like the Ove Decors Moon Vanity, the Ove Decors Mist Vanity, the Ove Decors Bali Double Vanity, and the DECOLAV 41" Antiqued Espresso Finish Vanity. Now I just need to get the correct measurements and I can go shopping. Yeah!

First Flight Behind Me...

On Friday I completed what's known in the industry as my "OE" or On-board Experience. There were seven of us on board, including the senior flight attendant, and two already OE'd gal's from our class. So the 5 of us who were "new" got to rotate through most of the stations to get some hands-on experience. It wasn't as smooth as everyone would have liked, but we got it done. On the way out, from Bellingham to Orange County Airport in California, we had 51 passengers on our airplane, which holds a full capacity of 150. For the return trip we only transported 23 people north, but we made them all feel pampered and taken care of. Some of the small issues we had to battle were frozen water trucks, (hence no potable H2O on the first leg of our flight!), a broken wing light (which caused us to have to delay take-off till first light!), so we were running a wee bit late. LOL All the meals, breakfasts on the outbound and lunch on the return flight, were catered by Haggen, a great grocery chain here in the area. All comments from the passengers regarding the meals were positive and everyone seemed to enjoy the flights.
I am on call tomorrow and will fly to Phoenix on Thursday afternoon.

Over the weekend Martin & I flew San Juan Airlines to Orcas Island for a Birthday Getaway weekend with some friends. We stayed at Rosario Resort on the island, a wonderful historic mansion, where we had a wonderful dinner and cocktails followed by a lively game of poker. The weather co-operated with us on Saturday and we had a wonderful view on the flight out, whereas coming home we experienced a bit of turbulence. We plan on doing this kind of thing more often, as we enjoyed our time away from cell phones and responsibilities. Grace stayed home with her Auntie Chelle, but we missed each other during the time we spent apart.

Flight Attendant Training Update!

I've been soooo busy with class that I don't even know where to start. We have read hundreds and hundreds of FAA (Federal Aviation Association) rules, taken numerous tests, had some homework, memorized announcements and airport codes, etc. Tomorrow we will be getting out First Aid Training. Whew, I get exhausted just writing about it. There's 23 gals in my class with three of them from out of town. One is from Boston and the other two will be flying out of Chicago. That leaves 20 for Bellingham, and out of those 20 two or three live in California, one on Orcas Island and another one in Seattle. So chances are pretty good for lot's of hours come January. The pay is great, the benefits are good and the perks have potential. Who can turn down free/next to free flights?

I am way behind in my Christmas preparations, but such is life. I am also noticing a lack of sleep, guess I am just not used to getting up at 6 AM. Also miss my volleyball and scrapbooking. Hope things settle down soon. Graduation, where we get our "wings", is supposed to be on January 5th. Wish me luck.

I Got The Job!

Right after we came home from a wonderful Thanksgiving in Winthrop I attended a job interview for Western Airlines. They are going to start flying out of Bellingham (BLI) in January and are hiring for all kinds of positions. Check out their great fares here.
Western management invited over 80 people to come out and go through the interview process. They had flown in several people from Xtra Airways to help with the selection process. After a very interesting round of first interviews, 23 of us stayed around for a second round. We sat through another round of questions and answers, with the interviewees doing most of the answering, before the panel deliberated again. In the end the 23 of us were there for almost 8 hours and all were asked to show up for company training. Yeah!
This should be interesting, I haven't really gone to school or had a job since I've moved down here to the US! I'll keep the updates coming...

Loads of SNOW Day!

We came back from our family trip to Winthrop for Thanksgiving. It was a rough trip going back west over the mountain pass since it was snowing heavily most of the day both east and west of the mountains. So we came home to a winter wonderland and school canceled for the next week. They updated websites daily, but there was such an accumulation of snow that it was safer to stay home. Volleyball was canceled both on Monday and Wednesday, many businesses ran on a skeleton staff or just plain old shut their doors for a few days. Everyone understood and in the end it was fun to see all the snowmen kids all around had built, and everyone out and about enjoying the far from normal conditions.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, for Thanksgiving this year we decided to drive to visit our parents in Winthrop. It was a lot of fun to see everyone and especially watching Grace play with her cousin Oscar. Last time these two were together it didn't go so well. Oscar had a particular way of expressing his happiness that didn't sit well with Grace. I must agree with her that it is a little disconcerting to have a little curly haired face in your space crowing at the top of his lungs. This time he seemed to have moved on to hugs and pats, which Grace still didn't' care for, but grudgingly endured. It was rather sweet to see the two of them invent games of blowing farts on the furniture and taking turns punishing the piano. LOL
We cooked a ton of food. My sister-in-law's sweet potato casserole was to die for, better than dessert. I think everyone must've had fifth and sixth servings. Yummy! A lot of cards were played and our snowboards stayed tucked away int he back of the truck, because the snow didn't' come till the day we had to go home. But what a wonderful visit anyway...

House Framing Coming Along...

Well, it's not proceeding as planned, but what ever does? Progress is being made and for that we are thankful. Here's my scraproom...and the view facing the kitchen french doors leading out to the covered deck, eventually! LOL

Grace's Modeling Career has officially started...

today I was at my LSS (local scrapbook store - for the non-scrappers in my BLOG audience!), and the girl there greeted me like this... "It's too funny that you're here cause I was just looking for your phone number. We had some questions about Grace's pictures..." In the end they wanted to make sure it was ok with me to display her photos at the store. Out of two days worth of photoshoots with all kinds of kids, her photos were the cutest, or so they thought. I agree. Here's some of them>>>

I Uploaded some Layouts to my Scrapbook Site.

If you are interested in seeing what I worked on during last weekend's 27 Hour Crop check out my layouts at Scrapjazz.
I did end up not working the whole 27 Hours, but in my defense, I ended up taking Grace with me for the first few hours since Martin was working late. So I didn't really get scrapping till later that night. I also took advantage of the wonderful food the gals served up. YUMMY!
At 2 AM I finally gave up on trying to scrap and went home for a few hours of shut-eye. When returned I got on a roll after breakfast and completed quite a few page. I hope you enjoy them.

Halloween Trick or Treating with Grace

I almost didn't take Gracie trick-or-treating this year, but imagine my surprise when Martin called home at about 3PM to see if we wanted to go. I just figured a trip into town by myself wouldn't be any fun, but together that was a whole different story. So I got her costume ready to go and checked the internet to see where we could take a 17 month-old that wouldn't be too cold. The mall and various churches were having indoor events so we headed out in that direction. Of course Daddy had ultrior motives and insisted that we stop in at Costco and check out what's new in the tool aisle.
After browsing and actually not buying a single thing, (yes, I was so amazed you could've knocked me down with a feather!), we headed to the mall. It was quite fun to see all the little, and not so little, ghosts, goblins and witches out and about. Most stores had someone posted outside their doors handing out candy, stickers or small toys. After a few attempts Grace got the hang of it and went up to each person and held out her hand. We used the brown paper bag she had decorated last week at the Mom's Club Halloween bash. She got a good stash for a little witch.

Check out last y
ear at Halloween and this year's costume:

Is it really "Girlfriend and Sister's Week" ?

I am only as strong as the coffee I drink, the hairspray I use and the friends I have.
To the cool women that have touched my life; here's to you!

Just Been Crazy Busy with LIFE!

You know how it is...don't you? I keep putting stuff off and then it gets to be too late. I have a to-do list that's a mile long and counting. I'm supposed to be e-mailing people, organizing crops for my scrapbook group, arranging to have T-shirts screen printed for my volleyball teams, cleaning up my house and a bazillion other things.
So here I am updating this blog. I feel kind of guilty but not really...at least I got my circle journal done. Better two days late than a week. LOL (Sorry Jeanne!)

Anyway, I will keep this whiny post short and sweet and promise to update with some photos next week.

Hugs,

Mel

House Building Update!

Well, I've been meaning to post some pictures of our building project for a long time now...but you know how it is.
We started the whole thing way back in November of last year when I made the appointment for a permit application. The first open slot was for March, so that already put us out almost 1/2 year. Then we brought in our houseplans which we bought on the internet. This is a picture of the original plans:
We took these to an architect, who sucks BTW, and had them altered. We added a bay to the garage, a bonus room over the garage and several extra bathrooms, you know those darn plumbers, can't have too many bathrooms. LOL We started with 2500 square feet and now have 35oo square feet after alterations. There were other changes made later on but not by the architect. We had enough problems with what he did/didn't do...
We finally started prepping the site on August 1st of this year by mowing the lot. Since then we've put in most of the drainage ditches, sprinkler system, electrical, septic tank, cable, etc. Concrete work started on the 13th of September with forms being installed for the foundation pour later that month. The plumbing was put in on the 25th and the infloor heat piping was stapled on the insulation foam on the 29th. We had the concrete guys pour the floor on October the 10th, after which I was watering concrete for two days straight so it wouldn't crack. Of course both of those days were gorgeous and sunny so it had to be watered every 15 minutes. On the 23rd of October we finally started the framing after a week long delay. So that's the stage we are at now...today being the 2nd of November and pouring rain this morning. So the framers left after an hour and then it stopped raining. Of Course!!!
Watch for an update in the next month...

MOM's Club Outing

Two days ago I joined other Mom's on their annual trip to Stoney Ridge Farm. I was very surprised to find out that it's right here in Everson. I lived here for over 5 years now and had no idea this was here? I remember seeing the photos of the trip in 2005 and everyone being all bundled up with hats, scarves and mittens on. Well we couldn't have picked a better date for this years fieldtrip, it was a gorgeous fall day with plenty of sunshine. So much, as a matter of fact, that most Mom's who had worn black or long-sleeves were sweating up quite a shine under the beautiful blue sky. I took plenty of photos but it seems that Grace wasn't in the most cooperative mood that day. She is always pulling her nose up, her lips across or sticking her tongue out. ARGH! Anyway, I got this shot of her making her "Great Escape" when mom was trying to get her to pose on a pumpkin. Eventually, after feeding and petting most of the animals, exploring the crate maze, checking out the "How Tall This Fall" yard stick, taking a hay wagon ride, eating some lunch and trying to pose for impossible pictures we ended up with a pumpkin to take home. Here's the proof:

It's been a while...

Oh My Gosh, I can't believe it's been almost a month since I've posted anything on here...
I have so much to tell you and don't even know where to start...

I attended Creative Escape in Arizona at the beginning of September and what a BLAST it was... I saw the Arizona desert, ate cacti, climbed forts, took photos of a rattlesnake up close and personal, all during the wonderful Hummer Tour arranged by Shelley with Steve from Road Runner Desert Adventures. Thank you so much for this!
I took classes for two days straight and learned so much. I was pleasantly surprised that I learned the most in a lecture class not an actual hands on scrapbook class. Allison Tyler-Jones is a gifted photographer and a wonderful, caring person and her class was funny as heck! Thank you Allison for your insights, tips and making us cry. Please check out her amazing work at her website.
All in all I will never forget this getaway. I learned so much, met so many amazing women, got to listen to my scrapbook idol Stacy Julian give a moving and life changing speech, spent a few great hours relaxing at the pool, had a wonderful massage & pedicure and made a new best friend for life.
You would think things couldn't get much better. The crowning ending to a fabulous, amazing, spectacular weekend was the grand prize giveaway. Of course they had drawings for fantastic prizes all throughout the two evenings, thousands of dollars in cute and adorable prizes including some that were so large they had to get two brawny guys to lift it for the lucky winner. So how are you wondering can it get any better? Well, let's just say that this gal pulled the lucky straw, litterally. The organizers of the event had outdone themselves with decorating the hotel ballroom. We had pink, white and green balloon banners, a huge bouquet of paper flowers, banners with all the awesome sponsors and wicked cute table center pieces made out of these new storage tote buckets and balloon on straws. At one point we were all told to pick a balloon out of the centerpiece. Well, wouldn't you know it, I snagged the one with the pink bottom and my gal pal Megan got the green colored one. So she won the cute little organizer that contained the balloon centerpiece, along with one other lucky gal at each table. So then they asked who got the pink bottom. My heart just about stopped beating... I was the only person standing up in a ballroom packed with over 700 people. WOW! I got up on stage and was shaking so bad my girl Megan took all blurry photos. I guess she was shaking a bit too. **Wink**Wink**
So I won the GRAND Prize of the whole weekend, a free ticket to next year's Creative Escape, and the same for a lucky friend. WOW! What a way to end a dream of a week... Needless to say I ran through who I could take with me in my head and Megan was the logical choice. We had only met like three days earlier, but felt an instant connection and in her words were "twin sisters separated at birth". We spent most of the convention together and forged a great bond and have been talking several times every week and are planning all kinds of mischief together in the future. Check out the convention we are attending in March of next year with our fellow Hydrangeas Jeanne from Chicago, Peggy from Texas and two of their gal pals.

Well, this has been a long post so I will update you on more stuff later. Gotta get some much needed sleep.

Not much to report...

my computer is still down, so that is making this whole thing a lot harder to update. I don't have access to any of my files, photos and such. What a pain. I am debating just tossing the stupid thing out the window and buying a new one, since I was going to anyway in about 6 months for my new office. ARGH!!!
The only reason I spent $269.92 to fix this stupid machine is because...