July Club 52

This Friday night Club 52 will meet! It is always a highlight of my month - especially AFTER I have completed my layouts! You can check out the previews and sketches to this months kit here at ASF's Club 52 forum. And here are my layouts for this month's kit. I did try to post this yesterday and Blogger wouldn't let me finish uploading my layouts. Grrrr. I did link my pictures to my ASF gallery if you would like to see a larger image.

On to other things. We have been swimming a lot more this summer. I need to take my camera with me next time we go to the outdoor pool so I can get some good shots to scrap! I have taken some at the indoor pool during swim lessons, so at least I have those.

I am also thinking we need to plan a picnic next week. Not sure where though. We may drive up the Trace a bit or maybe just go to the park over by the Rez. Caleb loves to play in the water there a bit. They are not into playground equipment a whole lot but would rather run around and explore and use their imaginations. Works for me.

I have also been getting my act together with working out again. I find that I absolutely cannot allow myself to walk upstairs and check anything out on the computer before I work out. One thing leads to another and before you know it 30 minutes have passed and it is then already getting too late to workout in a timely manner. So...at 6:30 I am pulling on my workout clothes and popping in the DVD. I bought a new one by Leslie Sansone. I need to check it out to see if I am going to keep it. Collage video is really good for that so I am going to see if they have a write up on it. So far I have been sticking with my Firm workouts, but I do like to vary things up a bit so I don't get bored. The one I purchased at WalMart ($11) is 4 Really Big Miles. It looks like an ok addition (checked it out while I added the links) so I think I will keep it. It will most likely be a good one to do between heavy weight workouts with the Firm.

My Closet

My birthday present this year was to redo our walk in closet in our master bedroom. It is not a large closet, but I knew we could definitely do a better job of storage in this area! All we had was a wrap around shelf at the top with two bars running along the sides for hanging. We found the Closet Maid site and were able to put in the actual dimensions for our closet and design it the best way possible for the least amount of $$.

Before we had about 11 feet of hanging space and about 13 feet of shelving. Now we have 17 feet of hanging space and 33+ feet of shelf space!!! I actually have bare areas in my closet!!! AND we really didn't get rid of a whole lot when we cleaned it out!

Here are a few photos! This first one is the left side of the closet.

This one is looking straight in. (see I told you it wasn't a big one!)

The right side of the closet.

My shoe storage!!!

One thing I did notice while we were doing this is that almost all of my dress clothes are BLACK! I really do like the elegance of black I guess, but I am trying to now make a conscious effort not to purchase too many more black dressy items. The red bracket shows you my dressy clothes (I do have a purple skirt in there :) )

Very BAD Blogger!

So the other day Wanda was talking about being a bad blogger - I think I have taken it to a whole new level. I haven't posted since February! No excuses, except I just haven't had the desire I guess. BUT, I am going to try to do better. I seem to think that if I can't post every day then what is the point? But really, is that reasonable??

So, just a little about what is going on in our lives right now. We are on summer vacation from school, although Hannah will be starting back around the 28th of July in order to be done with 12th grade in time for the official graduation in early May. I will most likely start the others just a bit after that because I do want to have them done with their year around the same time.

This summer I have been working on a lot of home projects. Hannah and I painted the living room, hall, foyer and hall bathroom. We cleaned the carpets downstairs and have also done a lot of decluttering and organizing. I still have a long way to go on the organizing part though.

I have gotten my scrap area in better shape and here are a few photos of the ribbon storage that I took. So far I really like it and if a holder gets a little worn I can just cut another one from my scraps - which is what I used. The size I cut the paper was 2.5" x 6", folded in half with a circle punch for the hole. I am thinking of cutting that down to 2" x 6" though for any replacements.

This one is of my ribbons. They are all sorted in the colors of the rainbow.

This one is of my trims and wide ribbon. They are attached with a large safety pin to a binder ring. I also sorted them in rainbow color order. And yes, I did iron all my ribbon as I sorted and placed them in the holders - they just hung neater and I also cannot STAND crinkles in my ribbon when I use it on a layout!

Also this past week I celebrated another birthday. Chuck installed a closet organizer system into our master closet for me. I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! I so wish I had taken before and after pictures. But since I didn't think about that before we started on it I will just have to share some after ones. First I have to take them - so that is on the agenda today - because I want to scrap my new closet! It is something I have waited for for 6 years!

Wedding Photos!

Well I finally have some pictures to share from the wedding that I did for Brandi...I think everything turned out really nice. Anyways....here they are.

Snowy Day!

We woke up to snow this morning...what a nice surprise! It has been years since we have seen snow here in the south....in fact it's been since New Years 2001! Micaela was just a wee little girl then and doesn't remember it. She told me this morning that her prayers were answered because it snowed this winter. Too sweet!

Here are a few photos I took today....we really didn't get much at all and at the time I am writing this it has all melted and gone away...but it was great while it lasted.

I am "not" Challenge

One of my online scrapping buddies Amy has a challenge going on the ASF Cybercrops and Challenges forum. I thought I would at least try to do this one....although it may end being a digital page since I am trying so very hard to get 5 paper pages done for Club 52 this Friday night (the release date!).

So as a start here the list that I posted in her comments section of her blog. We'll see how many of these I actually USE for my layout!!!


1. I am not a blonde anymore, much to my dh's dismay. Although I am getting more blonde highlights put into my hair tomorrow than I normally do.

2. I am not at my goal weight, but I am actually back to working on it!

3. I am not a "coke" drinker unless it is diet and I prefer caffeine free.

4. I am not a high maintenance girl nor am I low maintenance but rather somewhere in the middle.

5. I am not lazy. I always have some project going on above and beyond my normal everyday chores.

6. I'm not an animal person, but when our dog passes I know I will be so very sad and will miss her. I tear up just thinking about it. She is really getting old!

7. I'm not a loner. I like to have other people in my life. But there are times that I do enjoy quiet solitude.

8. I'm not shy. There was a time in my life when I was painfully shy. I still have moments though that I have to push myself.

9. I am not a writer and do not enjoy writing unless its on a message board to my friends. Or I guess my blog works too. Nothing formal for sure!

10. I am not what I would consider smart or above average intelligence. I do however like to learn and do new things. I never want to be too old to learn!

Long DAY!

So, nothing terrible went wrong today...just a long day with a few twists and turns.

The insurance adjuster did come out and get up on our roof to survey the damage done by the hail stones the other day....and we are getting a new roof. Chuck came home for lunch today - for about all of 15 minutes. His phone never stopped ringing and he had to glup his lunch down and run out the door. They had two cut cables and some fiber mess happen.

School today could definitely have been better. No one stayed on task today - talk about distracted. And Christin, oh my goodness was she a mess today. She was a happy little camper singing most of the day - however one singing made up songs while others are doing school work does not go well - at least not here today. I sure did hate to tell her to be quiet because she is just so happy and cute and doesn't mean any harm with it...just overflowing from her little heart.

Then what I thought would be a simple thing to do in Word Press for the site blog is turning out to be a nightmare. There is supposed to be a htaccess file in the Word Press files - ours is not there. I have made it so I can see hidden files on my FTP and it is still not there...I see the main one on our site, but not the one they are talking about. Anyways....I know next to nothing about htaccess files so I guess I am going to have to do some reading about this and see what I can do. I want the blog to be the main page of our site....anyways, not going to take up this post talking about it...will just have to do some more reading on the subject.