Well can you guess where we have been today?
Chicago! We took a drive there this afternoon and just drove around the city remembering all the places we used to go and things we used to do there when we were dating. My husband used to attend college there so on weekends when he could not make it home, I would go spend Saturday with him in the City. We used to go to The Art Institute, Sears Tower, Hancock, Water Tower Place, State Steet shopping, The museums, Shedd Aquarium....you name it. Such good memories. Doesn't the city look pretty as the lights were just starting to come on for the evening? The city was packed with people. So different from our small town living. It's interesting just to go and "people watch."














We started the day at church. We got to attend where we used to go before we moved. It was a great service and so wonderful to hear Pastor Eric's preaching again. There are so many memories in this room too. This is where I came to church for Vacation Bible School when I was 7 years old. This is where I first asked Jesus into my heart. It was right there at that altar you can see at the front left. This is where I met my husband. This is where I first learned I could sing. It is a very special place to us and I am so glad it is still there and blooming and that we can go there and visit and remember. Sounds like a scrapbook LO in the making don't you think?














Thought I'd share a few more of the goodies I got at Archiver's the other night. So fun to have Christmas money to shop with! I was thrilled to find the BG Blush, Dasher, and the Daisy D Modern Romance collections. Aren't they pretty? Tuesday I get to go pick out my first products to work with for my first new Design Team assignment. I am all excited about that.

Hope you have a wonderful New Years! My husband and I are kind of boring I guess. No big New Years plans. He is watching a movie and I'm on the Internet. Later he will probably be on the Internet and I'll be scrapping. As long as we are happy that way right?

I pray you and your family will be very blessed in 2007! May you know God and His Son Jesus more each and every day.

Found this little tiny AMM tote today at Archivers. How stinkin' cute is that? I would rather have the pink brown like my regular size tote, but they only had black. At least it was pink! I had never seen these before. Have you?

We had a great after Christmas shopping day. Found some new Jammies 1/2 price. Got a new pair of Crocs. Hit the clearance sale at Bath & Body. All my favorite things. We had a great lunch at a make your own stir fry place called Stir Crazy. Have you been to one of these? You seriously need to try it. Soooo good!

Hope you have a fabulous New Year's weekend! We still have a few days off from work. Hoping to relax and enjoy. Hope you can too!

Blessings!

So here is the promised picture of stocking stuff! Do yu see all the pink? Is my husband on the ball or what? He got my favorite shower gel from Bath and Body, there was scrapbook stuff (notice the distress ink), snowman stuff (another collection I seem to have started), Soft cozy socks, and all kinds of pink stuff! It makes me smile just to look at the picture!

We checked out some old hang outs today. I was bummed to find out the place that I used to work at is all closed up with a for sale sign out front. I worked there for 12 years and the ladies in that company were very good friends to me. Our boss, Becky treated us like family. If you had asked me 6 years ago if I thought things would be different now I would have said absolutely no way. It is just so odd that now, in the last 5 years the company sold, a lot of us were laid off, and my boss and friend Becky died from cancer. It just doesn't even seem real sometimes. It's like that was in another lifetime or something. I have kind of lost touch with a lot of friends from that time. I hope those ladies know how much they still mean to me and how often I think of them.

Tomorrow we have some shopping planned while we still have some time off from work. Hope we can find some good Christmas sales and some yummy places to eat!

Blessings!

Just bought this at Hobby Lobby today with a Christmas gift card! Fun! I was so excited to find it there.

I am sitting here in a Panera Bread, with my Laptop, a mug of Hot Choclate and a Chocolate Chip Cookie (ok, there was a chocolate chip cookie....). Could it get any better? Well, OK, it could, my husband could be here with me. He is at his sister's, where I will be shortly. I just took some time this afternoon to hit some scrap stores and spend a little Christmas Cash. I also found a Fannie May candy sale, 1/2 price for Mint Meltaways and Pixies. Yum. I haven't had them in the longest time.

Did you have a good Christmas? We had a nice time with family. Good food, good weather, wonderful Christmas Eve church service. It's been a blessed week. My husband is the best. He had like 2/3 of the stuff in my Christmas stocking in pink! Pink tweezers, pink emery boards 2 bottles of OPI pink nail polish, pink M&M's, pink tic tacs, a snowman with a pink hat.... I am sure there was more I am forgetting. It was the coolest and made me smile. Isn't he the best? I have a picture of it, maybe I'll get is posted tomorrow. He also gave me a beautiful pink sapphire necklace. He is The BEST!

Got my first Design Team assignment for the team I am joining starting in the New Year. I am SO EXCITED to get to do this. One of my best friends is also on the team so it will be so cool to get to do this together. She recommended me for the team so I owe her big time. Our first assignment is to use the My Mind's Eye Magnolia collection. There are like 15 different designs in that line so it was hard to choose. Can't wait to get to work on this next week.

Hope you are having a great week. Blessings!

Cool! Look what I got tonight! I own a Pink Razr phone. I have wanted one since they first came out. We had to wait though for our 2 year contract to be up before we could upgrade/renew. It paid to wait though because in that time the price went down. Gotta love that! Now the fun though of loading all my phonebook contacts into the new phone. I am still so stinking excited to have a pink phone! I seriously have some kind of "pink" sickness I think.

I was just saying to my husband where did this thing for pink come from? I seems to have developed over the past year. I was remembering that last year at this time we had vacation and did some shopping trips to hit the after Christmas sales. I bought a pair of pink house slippers. I remember when I bought those I debated at the store should I get the pink which were a little bigger, or the red which were a little smaller, but my favorite color at the time. Well I ended up with the pink. I also bought a comfy pink night shirt and some soft fuzzy pink socks. Those things have been some of my favorites every since I got them. So is that where my love of pink began? Or, was it such a great vacation and time away with my husband that those memories are tied to it? I know, why am I over analyzing it? Just got to thinking about it is all. These days my eye is just drawn to anything pink and I swear, it just makes me smile. Did I mention the cute little pink stapler I found while Christmas shopping? It will fit just perfect in my pink and brown scrapbook tool tote.... I bought it and handed it to my husband and told him he could put it in my stocking. He just smiled and shook his head.

Well I got all my work done today! Yay!! I seriously had a few moments when I didn't know if I was going to make it. So glad to be done and am looking forward to some time off now.

We did a little shopping in town tonight. We went to get a case for the notebook computer. It was kind of fun because everything was open later being just a few days before Christmas. I got this book . I spotted it in a Chrsitian Woman's magazine earlier this week. It's a Christian fiction book, it involves scrapbooking, what could be not to love?

Hope you are ready for Christmas. Remember even if all the "stuff" isn't done, it doesn't matter. It isn't about that. It's about God giving us all the greatest gift ever... His Son. That's all that really matters.

Blessings & Merry Christmas.

Look at what my husband has peeking out of the
top of my Christmas stocking? Is that not the cutest snowman? Or snowwoman? She has a pink hat! Love that. Maybe it's a very secure snowman who isn't afraid to wear pink! ºÜº

So how is your week before Christmas going? Mine is OK. I am a bit stressed....a bit hectic...a bit tired... but OK. Felt like blogging just to have some fun for a few minutes. I think this will just be a collection of random thoughts so hopefully it will make some sense, or at least be entertaining in its confusion. Maybe I am more stressed than I thought and I am in fact losing it?
Anyways - on to Random thoughts. I still need to even begin to think of what I want to do for some vacation time next week! Ok, I confess I do have a small list started. Yes I have a list for everything and take great joy in crossing things off my list. I've even been known to write something on my list that wasn't there (but I thought it was) just so I could cross it off. I know, it's a sickness. This is my new pink train case bag from QVC. It makes me smile! It's pink and it keeps things organized! Both a huge plus for me. My Pastor has referred to me before as "scarily organized." I'll take that as a compliment.














This is a picture I took of 2 antique ornaments hanging on our tree. They make me smile because they were my Grandmother's. I love that they were hers, I love that they are antique, I love that they are now ours, and I of course love the pink teardrop.

This is our new snowglobe to add to our collection this year! Isn't it cute? It's the Grinch and Cindy Lou Whoo. We found it at Hallmark and had to bring it home with us. When you have many snowglobes it is fun to find something different and fun. Even though we are grown ups (honest, we are) we love to watch the Grinch and Charlie Brown Christmas and stuff like that. Last year's snowglobe addition was Charlie Brown Christmas.















This is the pile of work sitting next to me. I am trying to ignore it.....It's not working. I still have several things to accomplish before the end of the day Friday so that I can enjoy both Christmas, and some vacation time afterwards. I am not yet ready to panic. I made some decent progress today and with some quiet work time tomorrow I think I will make my deadlines OK. I did have to forfeit some Holiday baking this week, but that was OK. I decided it was better to make some choices about what did and did not have to be done rather than make myself nuts trying to do everything. Might still get some time to do a little baking on Saturday.















This is our new ceiling fan....Yes, it was not too many posts back that I showed you a picture of another new ceiling fan. Well it has already died. We went to turn it on the other night and the fan wouldn't work. Bummer. So, my poor patient husband had to take it all down, package it back up and haul it back to the store. Of course when he got to the store he finds out they have clearanced out that fan and no longer have it in stock. Fun. So now he and I get to try to pick out a replacement fan together over the cell phone. Thank goodness for the Internet. I managed to look up online what he was looking at in the store and we seemed to make a decent choice. Of course this one then turns out to be way more complicated to install including requiring him to go into the attic to add some support boards for it and then it also had lots of little parts to put together. This one is a little nicer and has a remote though! No more getting all comfy in bed to discover the fan wasn't turned on. The 1st fan was Hampton Bay...the Home depot guys told us "Oh, we've been having some trouble with those." Umm no kidding... So, he recommended and we picked out a Hunter brand. Let's hope it lasts more than 3 weeks.

I think there is some kind of consipracy this week, the Tivo was goofed up and not working right, the vapor light on the garage went out, the ceiling fan died, a light bulb in my dining room light went out rather violently and popped the top off the bulb so hard it hit the ceiling..... Enough already.

Well, I am going to tackle a bit of that work pile. Hope you have a Merry Christmas!

Blessings!

New bedroom stuff! ºÜº Was out Christmas shopping with my Mom and sisters the other day so while at Target, I took the opportunity to check out the throw rugs, bedding etc. because I am still needing those things for our newly remodeled bedroom. Well I fell in LOVE with the Simpy Shabby Chic collection at target. Have you seen it? It is exactly what I envisioned for our room. I love the aged, vintage kind of look and this stuff is perfect. This throw pillow I found exactly matches a quilt I bought over 5 years ago in Eureka Springs Arkansas while we were there on vacation. I love the rug because it reminds me of something I would have found in my grandmother's house. When I was checking out the window treatments I came across these Shabby Chic long, pink, shabby, velvet drapes. I almost bought them. I decided I'd check with my sweet husband first since I don't want to run him out of the room with the pink! Ha. He says they are fine with him if I want to get them. When I told him I had sage and cream in mind for the room, with maybe some pink accents if he was OK with that, he was all for it and even found the paint colors including some pink paint. Smart guy isn't he? He knows pink makes me happy and it makes me feel so special and important that it matters to him. And yes, I know, I have serious problems because a color can actually make me happy. Ha. So anyway, back to the drapes. We are going to get them and the matching drapery hardware that has a crackled pink glass ball on the ends of the rods and tie backs. I cannot wait to see them installed!

So I am done Christmas shopping. Thanks to my husband, everything is wrapped. He does most of the wrapping every year. I try to make up for it by doing my part in baking him lots of yummy stuff to eat! Ha. So, I have all my gifts for him, with the exception of one I am waiting for that is being shipped. I just need to get his stuff wrapped this week and I think we are in pretty good shape. I haven' t done any baking. However, I often leave that till just before Christmas and then maybe bake/make one thing each evening that week before. That ends up giving me a good variety and I don't have to kill myself trying to make tons of things at once.

I just finsished writing an Advent reading for church. This was a challenge. I work at our church, and this year for the readings that are done for the lighting of the advent candle each week, our Pastor asked each of us on staff to write one of them. Well that scared me to death! At the same time I was intrigued because I do like to write and I was feeling like the topic assigned to me was something God intended for me to do. So my word was "Love." I've known about this for several weeks, but have been putting it off because I had no idea where to start. I have been giving it a lot of thought, and praying and asking God what he wanted me to write. Well, now we are down to the wire and I needed to get this done today so the readers for next week have some time to go over it. I had some quiet and calm for a few mintues this afternoon here at home so I just kind of dove in and it really seemed to flow. I always recognize that as a God thing. Usually when I have to struggle it is because I am trying to do it myself. So, I think it came out OK. So for today I will leave you with my thoughts on God's Love.

Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent. This last candle on the outer wreath represents Love. It is just a small word, but the power in those few letters is life changing, world changing, and heart changing. How amazing that our completely perfect, completely Holy God loves us so much that He sent His only Son to pay the price for our sins. John 3:16-17 tells us “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

He loves us so much that He wanted to reconcile us to Himself so that we could have a relationship with Him. How amazing that because of Christ all barriers between us and God are removed and we have the access of a child to their Father to the supreme, awesome, omnipotent God. As we celebrate Christmas Eve and anticipate His arrival, may we be reminded he is our Emmanuel, our “God with Us” and that we can have an intimate relationship with Him not only at Christmas but every day, and every moment.
We will now light the candle of LOVE!
***Light the last outer candle.

Prayer
(read this prayer or feel welcome to pray your own prayer as God would lead you!)

God of love,
Your love for us is amazing. May we be reminded today and every day how far reaching and deep that love is. May we remember the supreme gift of your son Jesus and receive Him into every part of our hearts and lives. We ask you to help us keep our focus on the Christ child as we celebrate His birthday. May we show our love for Him by the way we live our lives, obey Him and share His love with others in everything we do…. In His Name we pray, Amen

So what do you think? All the credit goes to God. I really feel he supplied the words.

Merry Christmas!

Have you heard about this movie? We saw it this evening with a group from church. It was FABULOUS. It was the kind of movie that has an ending like Karate Kid (yes, I know, I'm showing my age now...) where you want to jump up and cheer! I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. The movie was made by all volunteer actors. They had an unheard of budget of $100K and an E-mail I received today said it has now grossed 9-1/2 million dollars! Amazing. It is doing so well in our little town that the movie has been held over!

I will tell you that there were many parts in this movie that had me struggling with my emotions. There were so many powerful faith lessons that touched me I am not even sure what to share without giving away the whole story. The verse Matt 19:26, With God all things are possible was the main verse/theme of the movie. I think the point in the movie that really grabbed me was when one of the football players does a "death crawl" across the entire length of the field as the coach tries to show him what God can accomplish when we get our eyes off of the obstacles and what we think we can or can't do and work our hardest. He kept telling him not to give up, to try his hardest , to not stop until he had given it all he had. It really made me ask myself do I serve God like that? Or do I give up to easy and only try to do things in my own strength? There was another great scene where a boys father stands up for him when he has to make a really difficult play. It reminded me of a sermon a visitng Pastor preached a few months ago where he talked about how Jesus is waiting for me/us at the finish line, arms open wide, yelling the whole time "come on Deanna you can do it..." Wow. Another cool thing was that he talked about the passage in scripture where Nehemiah is trying to rebuild the wall and he doesn't have enough people, stength, or resources and how he has each person be responsible for the wall in front of their home and with God's power the stone wall is built. Well that was cool because our Pastor preached on that same thing about a year ago and taught us the same thing. I was like hey, Pastor Mark taught us that too!! It was so powerful.

Check out the movie website for more information. I hope it will be at a theatre near you! If not, it will be available on DVD in 2007. Ok, so probably most of that makes no sense to you if you haven't seen the movie. Feel like my thoughts are kind of scattered but I was so impressed with this I just had to share.

How are your Christmas details coming together? I feel like I should be ready to panic but I am not. I've been feeling pretty peaceful and relaxed about it all. Must be a God thing. I still have most of my shopping left to do which also means it will need to be wrapped too. I haven't baked a thing and I have some vacation time coming up which means I'll need to be packing and getting some of my work for the office done in advance. All this needs to be done between this week and next week. I have several other things I'd like to do too, but we will just have to see how it goes. I have only managed to get 1 new page done in my Christmas journal but have been determined to not stress or worry about that. It is supposed to be fun and relaxing and so far I've been able to keep it at that. Another God thing I am sure!

Things are so busy now I am wondering what I am thinking with some things that I am adding to my schedule come January. I have an online college class to learn Quick Books for work, I am taking the Heidi Swapp BPS class starting in January also, I am looking at possibly adding some hours to my work schedule and I have a design team possibility too! I think its all great though and I am pretty excited to get to do all of the things I just mentioned. If God wants all those things for me than I trust He will work out the details.

Got a new package of 7 gypsies stamps today! Maybe I'll get a picture posted tomorrow. Today has been so long/busy that I didn't even get the box opened! Ha.

Blessings!

I wanted to share the Christmas Journal I made. I used a 7 gypsies blank journal with the binder rings and chipboard covers. This was so fun!! Thank you so much to the ladies who post on 2 peas and those taking Shimelle's class for the inspiration. I wasn't able to take the class, but loved the idea for an art journal and to use that at Christmas to stay focused. I decided to use my church devotional for the Advent season and then journal each day about whatever was on my mind from that. I am so pleased with how this is coming out. The papers are the Daisy D's vintage Christmas (love those!) and some Autumn Leaves Christmas papers from a couple years back. Yes, they have been in my stash for that long.... ºÜº

Thanks for looking! Hope you are having a great Christmas season too.

Blessings!

Merry Christmas! So, we are finally done with the decorating. Well, inside anyway. Since we have gotten a later start than normal this year, we aren't sure we are doing any outside lights. Maybe just our back porch. Aren't these the cutest snow people ever? I LOVE these. They were a Christmas gift from my friend Julia last year. I could not wait to get them out again this year. I have really gotten a thing for snowmen these past few years. I think I like them because it's a decoaration I can get out at Christmas, yet leave out all winter long.

This is our snow globe collection. Early in our marriage I happened to buy one small snow globe. We enjoyed it so much we decided it would be a tradition to get a new one for each Christmas. We had almost twice this many (since we are going on our 20th year of marriage! yay!) but like 2 years ago when we got them out of storage, we found about 1/2 of them had broken. They had been stored in our garage attic and we never thought about it being too cold. The water in them froze and then the globes cracked and shattered on several of them. It was really sad to open the box that year and find so many of them destroyed. It turned out that the ones that survived were the more expensive ones we've aquired because they have real glass and not just the thin plastic globe. Most of our favorites survived with the exception of like the first 2 we ever bought. Right now my absolute favorites are the Charlie Brown Christmas one (that was last year's addition) and the large precious moments nativity one in the center. That one has 2 angels that revolve over the nativity scene when you wind it up. So cute!

This is our tree. Like I said earlier, we are going on 20 years of marriage. Well in all that time we have always had a real Christmas tree. Where we used to live, there was a nearby tree farm where we would go cut a tree down the day after Thanksgiving. Since we moved 5 years ago, we have not found a place like that that we like. It has become more of a hassle to find a real tree because we either have to just hit the local grocery stores (and trust me, not much selection there, and the tree my brother bought there last year was full of bugs!) or drive 45 minutes to town to get one and then they cost like $50! So, for the first time for us, we bought an artificial tree this year. I am really happy with this one. It looks very much like a real one, and it was prelit. Now, I don't have a lot of faith in the prelit trees (my Mom had one that only lasted like 1 season before she had light troubles) but just about all the artificials are prelit and this one had a ton of lights on it. I love a bright tree! So, we hope the lights dont give us a problem, but we are happy with it for this year at least. We also got a lovely new tree skirt. The one we were using was like a $5 felt one from Walmart like 15 years ago. It was plain red and I had stencil painted some green bows around the edge. It served its purpose well, but it was time for a new one. This one is a lovely red brocade with cording around the edge.

I am hoping to do a Christmas Art journal this month. I have heard a lot of talk about them on 2 Peas, particularly with a class a lot of the ladies are taking. I decided to do one on my own. I am hoping to use our "Christ's Birthday Observance" devotional from church each day and then from whatever I am feeling impressed on me from that day, to then do my art journal. Well here it is Dec 5th and I haven't started yet. I have 2 new 7 gypsies journals just waiting for me and have had no time. That was the whole reason I wanted to do the journals. To keep focused on Jesus this season. To keep focused on what it is really all about. I refuse to get stressed and hectic and being caught up in the fast pace of the next thing I need to get done. So, I am going to start my journal today and make a point of making time each day to keep Christ in my Christmas. This year I am really feeling like I need to grasp God's love for me in sending His Son. I didn't do anything to deserve it. I could never do enough if I tried. Because of His love, His grace, Jesus came to offer grace, to offer mercy, to reconicle us with God and to save us from our sins, ourselves and our weak attempts to be "a good person." I just really want to get that this year.

Hope you enjoy the new song. I love this version of "O Holy Night" by John Berry. Wow...

Blessings!

Have you ever slept on a feather bed? If you haven't I have to insist that you try it immediately. They are wonderful! This is a picture of the one I recently ordered from QVC. We bought our 1st feather bed about 10 years ago and trust me when I say it has seen better days. So, with remodeling the bedroom we planned on getting all new bedding. Well, the 10 years ago that I mentioned was the first time I ever spluged and bought the high thread count, real down feathers kind of stuff. Once you do that, there is no going back. For me, sleeping on a feather bed and being covered by a goose down comforter and using goose down pillows is pure luxury. So, I had been pricing feather beds and trying to decide what to get. Then recently QVC had a down comforter as their TSV. I liked it and they had the right color so when I ordered that, I went ahead and got the new feather bed too. They had a nice set which included the bed, the feather bed cover and 2 goose down gusseted pillows. Our old feather bed had the 4 long channels. That was OK, but it gives the down a lot of room to shift around. The new one has the baffle box channels and is gusseted. It seems to hold it's "fluff" a lot better.

So, why all this talk about feather beds? Well, let's just say I have had a couple of long days for a reason I can't get into here, I am very tired of remodeling dust and clutter all over the house, I am no where near feeling like it's Christmas time (I haven't been able to even start decorating with the bedroom exploded all over the house.) and to add to the fun I've been a little emotional and crabby. Don't you want to come visit? Ha. Ha. Anyway Monday night after a long day, I plopped our aero bed down on the floor (our current bed while remodeling) spread out the feather bed, grabbed the laptop, my diet pepsi, my Tivo remote and a twix bar or two and cuddled up for the evening. It was certainly an improvement to my day. Ha. The feather bed is so comfy, cuddly and warm. Pure comfort. So now at the end of this long day, guess where I am typing to you from now?

Have you ever had your digital photos printed at Walgreens? This is where I have gone since we first got our digital camera. I have always had good results and been happy. Until now. I loaded like 90 photos the other day and submitted the order to a new Walgreens store. I should have stuck with my normal store. 1st when my husband goes to pick them up, they don't give him the whole order and he has to make a 2nd trip. Then, when we look at the photos they look bad. They are much darker than they should be and not as sharp as they should be. When he asked them to reprint them today, their solution was to take one of the too dark photos and scan it and "enhance" the scan.... umm hello...if you scan a dark picture you are going to get a dark picture...duh! So now we are fighting with Walgreens. They either need to refund our money and I will get them printed elsewhere or they need to reprint the whole batch properly. The photos look like mine would at home if it were time to clean the heads/nozzles on the printer. To prove it was not my photos that were the problem, but their machine I printed one at home tonight to show them the difference. It was amazing how much sharper and brighter it was. I would print them all myself, but that is a lot of time, ink and photo paper for 90 4x6 prints. I just am praying they will do the right thing. I hate companies with bad customer service who would rather argue with you over a $20 order than just make it right and have a happy customer.

Bedroom project is kind of in limbo for the moment as we are waiting for the poly to "cure" on the wood floor. We can start moving some things back in on Friday. Then the rest can go in by Tuesday. I can't wait to have things back where they go! I also can't wait to see the room come togther now. So far we are so pleased with the transformation.

Blessings to you!

We got our floor stained today! Yay. Looks good don't you think? We are really happy with it. It has to sit for 8 hours minimum before we can do the poly so we are currently waiting for the 8 hrs. be up. It took most of the afternoon today just to get ready to stain. We had to clear out the room from all the painting stuff and then clean the floor several times to get all the dust and stuff up. Let me share a few home improvement tips with you.... we seem to be learning many lessons with this project.

1. the job will take longer than you think....every day you will think, "well, ok, we won't get done by Wednesday, but Thursday is OK"...and so on.
2. you will need at least a gallon more paint than you think
3. remember to rent the edger sander along with the drum sander when sanding floors. Don't spend 2 or 3 days listening to the drone of the sander because you forgot there is such a thing as an industrial edger sander. Learned that one the hard way this time.
4. the job will cost more than you think
5. do not sand your floor, and then paint the ceiling and walls without putting drop cloths down...if you think that a few little paint spatters will just easily sand off.....wrong!
6. when you have to get the power sander out to get the paint off your newly sanded floor, don't think that the little palm sander will not kick up enough dust to worry about....It WILL find its way thru every crack and nook and cranny and cover every inch of your house, including a newly created scrapbook layout laying on your work table.
7. Now that you have to wipe down every inch of the room for the umpteenth time, remember to clean the window screens so that you can open them when the fumes from the stain are starting to make you swoon. (see rules 5&6 for the reason said screens will be full of sawdust and unable to be opened because you don't want sanding dust on the wet stain.)

Believe it or not, my husband and I actually are intelligent people......we manage to hold down jobs and find our way home at night, yet somehow we seem to have done all of these goofy things on this project. If we'd stop making double work for ourselves, we just might have been done about a week ago.

This is the new ceiling fan. I am really pleased with it. It goes really well with some other lights in the room that have an aged metal/frosted glass thing going on. I am thrilled to finally have a fan over our bed again. The next photo is a view to show the paint color. The walls are a bit darker than they appear here. The color is a sage green. The ceiling is a ivory/taupe kind of a color.

Lots to do this week! We plan to get moved back into the bedroom. Clean the rest of the house now that the major work is done and then get going on Christmas decorations. I'd like to have all that done by the end of next weekend.

Hope you have a blessed week!

So did you have a nice Thanksgiving? We had a great one. Look at this lovely family photo my husband took? I just love it! After dinner we all got together out in the yard and my sweet husband somehow managed to get us all posed and here is the result. My Mom & Dad live in the middle of a forest area which made for some very nice outdoor pictures. It certainly helped that the weather was gorgeous and it just happened to be a good time of day light wise. The last time we had a photo of everyone together, Ethan, the littlest guy in the picture, wasn't even born yet. I am very glad my sister thought of it and very glad my husband is such a good photographer.
















He snapped this one of my parents just while they were talking and being casual waiting for everyone else to get posed around them. I LOVE this one.

There was several nice one of each individual family and some cute ones of my niece playing in the leaves....the scrapbook page ideas were already forming in my head when the photos had barely been snapped!

We got further on our bedroom remodel today. The ceiling is painted and we got the first coat on the walls about 1/2 way around the room. We should finish painting tomorrow and probably get the floor stained!!! I am so excited to see the color go on and to start to see the "finished product." We are thinking by Wednesday most of the main work will be done and we can start to move back in the room!! Yay. I am very ready. I want to get our Christmas decorating done and I am sooooooo weary of dust and clutter.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Blessings!

Ok - Look at what showed up on my porch today! I got a package from Stacy Julian!! How cool is that? When I first saw this box (which was very cute by the way, all decorated with stickers) I am thinking am I waiting for an order? Then I see its from Big Picture Scrapbooking and I'm like, oh cool! 1st Heidi shipment. Then I'm thinking, no, they said that wouldn't start till after the 1st of the year. So I open it and there is a note from Stacy Julian that says "Deanna - You were the 2nd person signed up for the Heidi Swapp class! You Rock! thanks for the support. Stacy Julian." Is that not so neat? And can you believe it? I was the 2nd person! See, it pays to be a night owl! Ha. Ha. I dont' think I've stopped smiling since I opened the box. She even wrapped it up in the cute black and white polka dot tissue paper. I LOVE little touches like that. So - I just couldn't wait to share my fun!!

I am off to run and go paint my bedroom! If I don't get to Blog again before tomorrow - Happy Thanksgiving!!

Blessings!

While my husband has been completely engrossed in sanding the bedroom floor, I was able to complete a layout. Now before you think I am awful to not be helping him, trust me when I tell you I have tried. There really isn't much for 2 people to do when sanding a floor. You rent one big industrial size sander and it takes one person to operate. Add to that that we had to completely tape off the room to try to contain the dust and you end up pretty much separated during the process. Ok, on to the floor in a minute. First a few comments on the layout. ºÜº This is our beautiful niece Amber. I am thinking she was about 9 mos. old when these photos were taken back in 1994. I always just LOVED the photos of Darrel holding her and so it was very fun to finally get them scrapped. You might think it kind of an odd color combo here, with pink, orange and blue, but I liked it and it seemed to work well with the photos. Isn't she adorable? These were taken during a family picnic at a nearby park. Darrel's Mom & Dad and sisters and their kids were all there. My brother and his wife also were able to join us for the day. We had a picnic lunch, did some hiking and visiting and toured a corn mill on the grounds. Good Memories. Loving the Heidi Swapp "bling" frames. I have a couple on hand but this is the first time I used one. Very cool.

So, on to the floor project. Our next thing to get done in the bedroom remodel is to sand the wood floor. It is about 80 years old and had stain and paint on it, and had then been under carpeting for many years. We wanted to sand and refinish as we did in our kitchen. However for some reason, we did not remember it being near the job it has turned out to be. We started on Thursday night. We had heard about a sander called a Varathane Sander and thought it might work for us. It is supposed to be dustless and easier to control. It is a large square pad sander so it also makes it easier to get right up to the wall. Well, the floor being so old and the finish being so cemented on caused this not to work well at all. Darrel worked at it all evening but it was taking forever and we just didn't seem to be getting anywhere. So, Friday we return that sander and rent what we used last time which is the large industrial drum sander (I think that is what it is called). This did the job, but it still took about 7 hours to completely sand the floor. Of course this sander is round, so you still have the edges to contend with. Well I guess its been so long since we did the kitchen floor that we had absolutely no memory of the fact that you can also rent an industrial strength edge sander. (and does anyone else think maybe the rental place might have said, do you want the edger sander with that? Kind of like do you want fries with that? Right? Wouldn't that be good for business?) So Darrel spent all day yesterday with his belt sander working on the edges and is in there now finishing up. By the time we asked ourselves "what is wrong with this picture" he was too close to done for it to be worth renting the edger. He even broke his sander last night so we were blessed to have a friend who loaned us his for today. Below is what the floor looked like when he first started.

So, now we can move on to putting the primer on the walls and ceiling. Then we will go back to the floor and do the staining/sealing. We figured that would be less because than we can sand off any paint drips. We didn't paint before sanding because you have to think of all the sanding dust.

Hope you are having a great Sunday! My Mashed potatoes are heating as I type and we are back to church for Thanksgiving dinner in just a few hours.

Blessings!

Ok, we did it. ºÜº We ordered a notebook computer. We have talked about this for a very long time and finally decided we were in a place where we could afford it. Yay! I am excited!! I think it will get a ton of use. I can use it for work, at home in my scrap room, Darrel can use if for games, we will use it for Internet access away from home, on vacation and things.....so OK, we have tons of plans for this thing! We got a Dell. My husband researched it and this seemed to get some of the best ratings. We have always had Dell's before, we have Dell's at work too and we have had no serious problems. When we got our first computer, it was a Dell. We had a problem with the hard drive just after receiving it. They worked with us on the phone and when it couldn't be fixed, they had a tech. out the next day with a replacement hard drive. Very cool.

OK with the computer I must have my VENT about UPS. Grrrrr. They(or their computer rather) call my husband today to say when the computer will be delivered and that there has to be someone home to receive it. Well it happens to be a work day, hello, and we won't be here. So, he calls them back to ask if he can just pick it up that day on his way home from work. They said no. They can do absolutely nothing about changing the delivery until after the 1st delivery attempt has been made. Ok, first of all, they can do whatever they choose to do. I hate it when companies tell me they can't do something simply because of some policy they have created. It's their company, they could do whatever they choose to do, need to do, to help the customer. Ok, back to the point though. My husband says you would rather waste time, money, gas, etc. to come to my house and try to deliver this when I am telling you we won't be there? They again say yes and there is nothing they can do till after the first delivery attempt, blah, blah, blah.... So, can someone please explain to me what was the purpose of their phone call in the first place if they have absolutely no intention of changing their plans when we tell them we can't be there? Does this make sense to someone besides me? Add to our frustration that it is a Holiday week coming up too, so if we don't get it then it sits in their warehouse for a Holiday weekend. This also does NOT make me happy. So, I am going to try to arrange my work hours to be here. I am blessed that I have the same computer programs, etc. at home that I need to do my job, so I can work on some of my things from home. Hopefully this will all work out and I won't have to hurt the UPS people. Ha. Ha.

Our bedroom is progressing. Drywall and mud are done. Tonight the wood floor is being sanded! Hopefully this weekend we will get some primer/paint on the walls and ceiling and then begin staining the floor. Hopefully by some point next week, we can begin to move back into the room while we do some finishing things like base boards, crown molding, stripping and staining these 80 yr. old wood doors to find out what they really look like under 110 coats of paint... etc. That will make life less stressful. I am a no clutter/orderly kind of girl, so having my bedroom spread out over 3 rooms, having dust and drywall mud everywhere....these things stress me out just a bit. My husband came walking out here the other night with yet another thing that had to be removed from the bedroom and was headed to our front room(which is my scrap room thank you very much) to leave it up there since all other spaces are full of stuff - I had to stop him and said PLEASE do not put that in there - its the only clean room left in the house and I need a place to retreat! Ha. Ok, I know I am just a bit OCD but I think its hereditary.... plus I think all of you who aren't OCD need us OCD people to keep your world neat, orderly and organized. ºÜº

This Sunday is all church Thanksgiving dinner! Yummy. Can't wait. My contribution will be crockpot mashed potatoes. Have you ever made these? It is so easy and you don't have to worry about making/mashing potatoes on the day you need them. Everything can be done before. So, I will leave you with a recipe for a change. I found this on a message board I used to frequent so the credit goes to whoever the nice lady was that posted it there.

Day before Mashed Potatoes
INGREDIENTS:9 potatoes, peeled and cubed (adapt for however many you need, I usually do 10lbs for the crowd I'm feeding!)
6 ounces cream cheese
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons butter
**Make sure to increase the other ingredients as needed for the amount of potatoes you are making (except maybe the sour cream)

DIRECTIONS:Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Drop in potatoes, and cook until tender but still firm, about 15 minutes. Transfer potatoes to a large bowl, and mash until smooth. Mix in the cream cheese, sour cream, onion powder, salt, pepper and butter transfer a large slow cooker. Cover, and refrigerate 8 hours, or overnight. When you start your turkey in the morning start your slow cooker on low, put some extra pats of butter on top, and by the time you are ready to eat your awesome mashed potatoes will be ready to serve!!!

When I made this last time I left out the sour cream (because I detest the taste of sour cream) and instead used a whole stick of real butter (since that is what I would normally do with mashed potatoes). I also added a bit of milk until my pototes were the consistency I normally like and then put them in the slow cooker from there.

Blessings!

Well here is my next layout (if you click on it you can see it larger) for the Ali Ezine challenges. This time we were supposed to use 3 rubber stamps. 1 text, 1 geometric and 1 "artsy/organic" (such as swirls, flowers, butterfly, etc. ) I used my new 7 gypsies observations stamp for my geometric. I used my alphabet stamps to stamp "good memories" at the top of the journaling. Then I used a small swirl stamp also along the top of the journaling. I am happy with the results.

They layout is about my Mamaw teaching me to make pie crust. I blogged about this a month or so ago and basically used that Blog entry with a few minor changes for my journaling. Cool huh?

Isn't this the coolest paper? Ok, if you are a scrapbooker and understand how paper can be cool! Ha. This is the "kitchen" line from We Are Memory Keepers. I love the vintage kitchen look that it has. It seemed perfect here.

So now I need to go read the Ali Ezine that came today to see what the next challenge is! These have been so fun. I find I work well with an "assignment."

Did you watch the Dancing With The Stars final tonight. I need to go back and see it again better on my Tivo. What I saw was great. I was so pleased that Mario and Emmitt were in the finals. I thought they were the best. It's a hard choice now because I really like them both, but I cast my votes for Mario. Can't wait to see the results tomorrow. How did you vote?

Blessings!

I thank the Lord for the wonderful caring friends we have. A good friend from church spent most of his day yesterday helping my husband finish putting up drywall in our bedroom. He then stuck around to teach Darrel his technique for applying the "mud" which comes out very smooth and doesn't need sanding. I am amazed at all they accomplished. I helped a tiny bit where I could (plus tried to keep them stocked in a few treats and cold drinks! ) but these two men worked so hard and they are back at it today. Wow. It is so exciting to see the room progressing so quickly. At the rate we are going we should be sanding the floor late this week and hopefully staining the floor/painting the walls on the weekend!!! Yay!! Here are a few pics of the room following the first coat of mud.





























Did you ever read "The Christmas Box" by Richard Paul Evans? I LOVED that book and the TV movie. Well this year Evans has a new book out called "Finding Noel."



















I spotted it at the grocery store the other night. I think I need to get this to read during the Christmas season. I really enjoy Evans' stories and from the reviews I have read it sounds like this one will not dissappoint.

Been trying to get back into reading. I seem to go in spurts where I'll go thru several books quickly and then kind of a lull where I am not reading. So, I am back into "The Dead Don't Dance" by Charles Martin. Martin is a new author to me. If you've read much of my Blog I have previously talked about his book "When Crickets Cry" which was amazing. (there are links to both of these books at the right.) I really like his writing and am enjoying this 2nd book as much as the first I read. He has such wonderful nuggets of truth such as this that I read today:

"You think I need to get cleaned up?"
She walked over to the head of the bed. "Professor, it's not just you. Everbody needs to get cleaned up sometime."
"What if there's not enough water?"
She tucked Maggie's hair behind her left ear. "It's not the water, Professor. And you don't have to get cleaned up to take a bath."

I loved that! To kind of set the scene, the girl talking to the professor is a nurse's aid, helping to take care of the Professor's wife who is in a coma. She has just invited the professor to a baptism service that her church is having. I love that sentence "what if there's not enough water?" Haven't we all felt like that? What if I am so messed up that there isn't enough of God, of Christ to clean me up? What if I am such a mess that He wouldn't take me? I think this is what is meant here. What a great answer though that you don't have to get cleaned up first to take a bath. LOVE that. It is so easy for me and I think others to think that we have to get ourself straightened up and "cleaned" up first before we come to Christ. It is so the other way around though. He just wants us to come. We could never get cleaned up enough in the first place. That's why he came. If we come to Him, he'll take care of the cleaning up.

Well, this is a first for me. A layout with my own photo on it. I've been really wanting to get this down on paper all year. My feelings about turning 40 really surprised me. I was expecting to be upset, sad, depressed. I thought I would be thinking of all the things I haven't accomplished yet. You know, like by 40 I should have done... or I should be better at.... or I should look like.... and then you fill in the blanks. Well it wasn't like that at all. I feel more myself now than I ever have. I feel proud of being 40. I feel happier and stronger and more sure of who I am and what I want and why. There are many things I need to work on and change, but I've become so much better at accepting that about myself and have realized that not having those things done doesn't mean I am a failure or a bad person. It just means I admit I have things I struggle with, things I need to work on and I probably always will. I don't have to be like someone else to be OK. Maybe I am finally learning to stop comparing and just be happy with me and accept who and what I am. So I struggle with weight, I am not a morning person, and I am impatient. I will keep working on those things. But at least I have figured out that just because I haven't mastered them and am not perfect at them, that doesn't mean I'm a mess or I have failed or there is something wrong with me. It just means I have things to work on and I shouldn't expect myself to be like and do things like someone else or like what I think someone else expects. So I hope you like my layout. I am pleased with it. It really has turned out to signify a good turning point in my life and I am excited to share it.

Here is a new layout I made last night! This was another Ali E. Ezine challenge. Actually it was 2 challenges combined. The first was to do a "photo gathering" in photo shop. This was the first time I had done this and it was so cool. Ali gave a little tutorial in her Ezine about how to do it so I wanted to give it a try. It was fun to add several photos to 1 canvas and then print it all as one photo. What a cool way to use a lot of photos on a 1 page layout. I combined that challenge with the next one which was to celebrate being a creative person...that we are all creative in some way...and to do a layout about being creative. I love creativity and really liked the idea of that layout as well. Creativity is such a neat thing. To me it touches into everything whether I am cooking, arranging furniture or cleaning in my home, or doing my work on the computer. Creativity can play a part in all those things and actually make them more interesting and fun. Had some fun with the journaling on the side using a bunch of different rubons. Love rubons but don't think I have used so many on 1 layout before.

Day 4 of vacation is going well. I have been really enjoying my time off and am feeling peaceful and relaxed. I am so excited that I still have today and the next 2 days. Wow. What a blessing.

Things are going well in our bedroom remodel. On Friday night we picked out and purchased our paint for the walls and ceiling. We also got a new ceiling fan/light. I can't wait to see those things in the room!! We are painting the walls a sage green called Paramount Sage. The ceilings are going to be a color called Bone White which is more of an ivory than white. We are trying to decide if we want to paint the baseboards and molding or stain them. I am kind of leaning towards the ivory paint color at this point, but can't decide for sure. Darrel got the light switch moved over next to the new doorway yesterday. He also got a couple of sheets of drywall in place! We think/hope we will have all the drywall up this week so we can start doing the mud next week. After that will come sanding/staining the floor and then painting. I am so excited to be getting this done.

I am doing a little better on my 90 day Bible, but still not getting the daily reading done and caught up. I am going to keep striving to do better but I am at least happy that I am moving forward. I am thru Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers now! Yay for that accomplishment.

Hope you are having a blessed Sunday!

Ok, colored my hair the other night. What do we think? I haven't done that in years..... I think I like it OK. I purposefully did it the first night of my vacation so I would have a few days before anyone else saw it. If you have ever colored your hair you know how that first day or so it is pretty vivid.... I wanted some time for it to calm down a bit. So, this is only a day and a half and one shampoo later. The color was a bronze brown. I wanted something close to my normal color so I didn't look like "wow, what did you do to your hair" kind of thing. Yet I wanted to give it some oomph and some shine and something different. Liking my recent hair cut too. Added some layers to the top on the haircut before last, and then this last time took them even a bit shorter. I am a big hair kind of girl so haircuts are sometimes a little "scary" to me. I once had someone tell me she was "evening up" the back and take off 6 inches just a few days before I was to be in a wedding. I remember flipping my head over to wash my hair in the sink and crying because there was nothing left to flip over.... Ever been there? Funny how it makes you paranoid about haircuts for the rest of your life.

Sitting here waiting for my sweet husband. We are headed to town for the evening. Hope to hit Hobby Lobby and check out some of the cool stuff I have been reading about on the message boards. We are also going to get some dinner and probably hit Home Depot. We need to pick out a ceiling fan and a paint color for the bedroom!! Yippee on that one!

Blessings!

It's a good day! Can you say VACATION ! Ha. I am home today, and I have today and the next 5 days OFF! Yay! I got to sleep in this morning and have just been having a leisurely, peaceful day. I had some vacation time to use before the end of the year so I added a few vacation days to a few normal days off and viola, 6 days to myself. I wish my husband could be off too. However, he had sinus surgery earlier this year and had to use about a week of his time then. He is so sweet though, he encouraged me to take these days and enjoy them. I plan to sleep, eat, read, scrapbook, watch some favorite TV and movies and of course play on the Internet.
Add to all of that some fun goodies coming in the mail! I found the Cosmo Cricket papers (love notes) at Hobby Lobby last time I was there. They didn't have the "extras" to go with it so what's a girl to do but order those online when she gets home? ºÜº I got the cigar box chipboard, rubons and the matching Bazzill cardstock. I had also heard about these new paint dabbers from Ranger so I got one of those to try.





























Here are some updated pictures of our work on the house! We now have both of the old doorways closed in, and the new doorway is open and has the door hung. Please try to ignore the very old, ugly paneling in the living room and dinning room. We can't wait to move on to those rooms to drywall and paint! The house has old lath and plaster up so my husband put strips of the lath back up on the old doorways to build out the wall to the same thickness as the existing lath and plaster. It's kind of funny because our little dog is used to walking thru the old doorways of course and he keeps walking up to them and looking at it like ok, what is wrong here and why can't I get thru here anymore?

Have you been watching the Clique TV episodes by Creating Keepsaks/Simple Scrapbooks? I've been enjoying them. This first week has been about/by Stacy Julian. She has a cool philosophy about scrapbooking that I like and it's been cool to hear about it and see how she does things. I like too that she starts out her day with prayer and Bible Study and that she is an organizer kind of person. That is right up my alley. I hadn't gotten her "Big Picture" book up until now, but am now thinking I'd like to read it. Might have to add that to the Christmas List! I've also heard the Elsie book with the 52 challenges is good. Anyone out there have that one and recommend it?

Well I am off to read a few message boards and then who knows what? I'm on vacation and get to do whatever I'd like. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Blessings!

Well, several weeks late, but here is my Ali E "this month" challenge. I had such fun doing this. I am such a calendar/planner kind of a girl that this was right up my alley. Had some fun with the "office supply" look and my new 7 gypsies stickers and rubons. Those are SO COOL!

Gonna run for now and watch "The Amazing Race" (tivo'd from earlier) with my husband.

Blessings!

Did some baking today. While I was mixing up my Pumpkin Bars I realized how much of my kitchen stuff is antique and how much I love that...so of course what does a scrapbooker do, but take a picture. I just love finding vintage kitchenware. Love old pyrex bowls too. The one in the photo belonged to my Mamaw. The canisters were hers too. The other things I have picked up at flea markets, antique shops, etc. Love the old spice jars but man they are expensive! It's like $20 for one. Most of what I have has small chips or cracks, but are still useable. That helped with the price. It makes baking even more fun for me to get to use my vintage stuff. I know, I'm weird right?

The Pumpkin Bars are for a "Fall Harvest Luncheon" at church tomorrow. Since we are 2/3 into our new building and have our lovely large Family Life Center (multi-purpose room/gymnasium) our Special Events Committee has planned some kind of get together/fellowship for each month. I am excited about this. I don't think we had done enough fellowship in this kind of setting in the past. Now that we have the facilities it is so cool to see them used to the fullest extent.

This is what my husband has been doing today! We have finally started on the remodel/rennovation for our bedroom!















The house we live in belonged to my grandparents. My Dad was actually born in this room that you can see thru the doorways in the photo. My huband and I always loved to come here so when my grandparents had both passed away, we decided to buy the house. It was built sometime in the 1920's. It is small, only about 1000 sq feet. That is fine for us though since its just the two of us. It had 2 bedrooms, but they were both so small and neither one had a closet. So, we knocked out the wall between them and convereted it to one bedroom. My husband then built a nice size walk in closet. Since it was 2 bedrooms, it had 2 doorways of course. So, we are closing up the 2 original doorways and opening a new one that is more central to the room. This will give us more room for our bed so the door won't run into it. It will also help with wall space in the living room. Rather than having all but one wall interrupted with doorways, etc., this will give us another long wall that will fit the sofa. So, once the doorways are finished, we have some old front porch windows to take out and from there we will drywall! We are hoping to get thru as much of this as possible in November. For one thing we don't want to drag this out like we did the kitchen remodel, and for another, with Christmas coming, it would be nice to have room to put up a tree without all the bedroom furniture in the kitchen and living room! Ha.

Don't forget to set your clock back tonight. I always enjoy this day because all day long I'm like it's 2:00, oh wait, it's really like it's only 1:00 because we get an extra hour today. Ha. Ha. ha.

Blessings!