Happy Birthday to Me!!!

It is another beautiful sunny day here in Cincinnati and I just enjoyed a lovely breakfast out on the balcony. Ed was up early and he has been so sweet to make me such a lovely meal and now he is baking a cake...........Yahoooo....how sweet is that?
I haven't written here since we came back from Kentucky after moving Ashleigh there for the summer. I hate to sound like a belly-acher but I have had some real problems with my stomach lately and I just felt so poorly that it was hard to concentrate on writing or anything else for that matter. I am three classes behind in my lessons with Debbie Hodge and that is sad. I really like to keep up with them because it is such a good therapy for me. Well tomorrow and Saturday Ed and I are going cropping for the whole day. Julie will meet us in Dayton and we are going to have a fun time together for many hours. I can't wait.
I don't know if any of you watch American Idol, but last night was the final show and I was so terribly bummed out by the outcome. I had my heart set on David Archulata from the very first time he performed. He just looked so much like my youngest brother, Jimmy. I just had a special place in my heart for him. David Cook was fantastic too and as Ed pointed out to me, he did have an appeal to a wider audience than my David did. I was so sad, I just took a sleeping pill and went to bed.
But today is another day and it is looking so good outside, I just know that pool water is warming up more and more. The pool opened on Sunday and of course Ed and I had to go up there and sit. However, the temperature of the water was only 55 degrees, so we did not swim.
Well, Ashleigh is in Kentucky and doing very well with her summer internship. She does have a very lovely place and seems to have made good friends with other interns. If any of you are following the news on GE you know they announced last week that they are selling their appliance part of the business. That was kind of shocking to hear because when you think of GE you mostly think appliances, but I guess that is not their strongest part. Ed commented that we have a GE refrigerator and Ashleigh told him you better hang on to it because it might be worth money some day. I think she was joking.
I need to get busy packing my bags for the super crop this week end. I will attach some photos below of what I have been doing lately with another new class with Debbie Hodge. Page Parts. It is going to be another phenomenal class with so much to learn and be inspired by. If you have not checked out the Debbie Hodge site yet, you really should because there is so much going on with that group. www.debbiehodge@debbiehodge.com
Hope everyone has a lovely day. I will because I am enjoying being 61 for the first time!!!!

Another recent layout for class

Debbie Hodge has this neat ongoing challenge where you can win a copy of her book, Get it Scrapped. I already have the book and it is fantastic, but I love doing the challenges anyway just to see if I win. We had to scrap a place in our world and I chose my balcony because I get so much pleasure from sitting there and enjoying nature.
Well must be off now. Hope everyone has a lovely day and I will let you know if I actually saw any "Blue Grass" in Kentucky.

Hi Ho..it off to Kentucky, we go...........

Good Morning all, the sun is shining and it looks like we are going to have a lovely travel day. In moments we will be leaving to pick up Ashleigh in Oxford and moving her to Kentucky for the summer. Hope to get some nice scenic photos along the way. I know I am making this out to be a really big adventure, but you remember I don't get out much. We are only taking her 2 hours away but it is to someplace new, so it will be an adventure for us.
I have been working hard on my lessons for Debbie's class, Scrap your Events. It has been fun going back and looking at old pictures and remembering fun times. I always feel like my life was lived over and over again because of the age differences in my children. I need to get out the photos from when Julie, Jennifer, and Natalie were young and scrap those fun parties and things too. The more I scrap the more I think of to scrap. Isn't this a wonderful hobby, it just never gets boring.
Here's a page that I did recently on a Halloween party. Next party you are all invited!!!

The Wedding page 2

Sunny Monday Afternoon

What a fun week-end we just had. Since it was National Scrapbooking Day, we took it very seriously and scraped the whole week end. Ed is working on an album completely about his job at the library in Akron. He worked there for over 15 years and he has so many amazing stories and funny tidbits of information that happened over time. It is really a hoot reading it all again and going back and remembering all the various characters that used to come into the library. Good therapy for both of us.
I did many layouts this week end and even though my thoughts are more scattered, I still feel like I accomplished so much. I worked a bit on the wedding album, and did another layout for Debbie's class, and then did some of my Spring pictures.......just bouncing from one thing to another. I have so many pages that I want to do of the Columbus Grandchildren. I miss those darlings so much and really wish we could get together more often. You will see lots of future pictures of my Larken and Jasper hopefully as soon as the pool opens and they are out of school for the summer.
This coming Saturday we will be making a trip to Kentucky with Ashleigh. She has a summer internship at GE and we will be helping her move there. I hope it is a great experience for her and that perhaps even a very secure job comes from it after she graduates from Miami Univ. next Spring 2009.
Well, hope everyone is enjoying this pretty day and that you did lots of scrapping for the big National Holiday, just like we did. Keep Smiling all..............

Under the Weather

I have been remiss in not keeping up with my blog. I was bragging so much about how I was feeling less pain and that both the sunshine and new medicine was working wonders. I spoke too loudly because the medicine starting tearing up my stomach and I was under the weather for a couple of days. This is me sleeping in my recliner because when the pain is beyond bearable I must sit up. My little Puggles is watching over me, or maybe he just likes to sleep somewhere soft. DH caught me napping and wanted me to know how my little Pug stays by my side.
I am up and running again. Fighting off the pain and trying to enjoy a fun week end of scraping. We had a funny little adventure though when we went out to the photo store to have some pictures copied. We managed to do well with the pictures and got some adhesives and necessities for our big week end. Just as Ed was putting the package in the trunk of the car, he got a phone call and not paying attention, he then locked the keys in the truck. What to do? What to do? We called our insurance agent who gave us the number for a Lock-out rescue person. He came and opened the car door so that we could pop the trunk and neatly charged $75 for his service. Yikes! $75 dollars.........but fortunately we were reimbursed by our insurance company. I have to say that State Farm is good, and I mean really good. Then we went to a place called, "My Girlfriend's Kitchen". It was the coolest concept I have ever heard of. You make homecooked meals right there and package them up and bring them home ready to pop in the oven or put in the freezer for later. Ed and I had so much fun with this, and was amazed at the reasonable prices. Each meal was only $12.00, but they are very generous and I am sure they will be two meals for us. We came home and ate the delicious chicken kabobs with rice and it was just heavenly.
None of this is earth shattering news but it is what has been happening the last few days. Life is good and it is the small things that please the small mind.
Back to my layouts, hope everyone is having a great time this week end and I will talk again later. Keep Smiling!!!!