Legacy Toot!

I am very excited about this one! Legacy wants my "Promise" layout - I love that magazine and I've always thought that layout was perfect for it! I submitted it quite a while ago and had kind of given up hope, but they emailed me this week requesting it! I guess it goes to show - keep submitting. I've been laying off of the submitting lately due to my computer problems and time constraints, as well as the general malaise that too much submitting tends to cause for me - it just gets depressing when you get rejected! But, it certainly is a thrill when they accept something - especially when it's something you love! Can't wait to see it on the shelf!

Go White Sox!

The Sox have long been a sentimental favorite of mine - Big Congrats to them and to all their fans - particular the city of Chicago - on a well earned victory. I saw this in Chicago this weekend - crackin' me up with the white socks :)

I'm finally back!

Okay, after several weeks, I am finally back in action. I have been a bad, bad blogger lately, but it was just too much hassle to deal with on my old laptop. My new computer went down again (this would be the third new hard drive since I bought it in August) and this time I sent it back to HP for repairs. It finally arrived yesterday, so I spent last night getting everything loaded and installed and now I think I'm finally good to go. Hopefully it will continue to work properly - I'm really tired of dealing with computer issues.

Also, since I last posted, we had a break in at our house. They came in through our bedroom window and stole all of my jewelry, our camers, a dvd player (that doesn't even work LOL), my mp3 player and some DVDs. I replaced the camera already - it was actually kind of nice to upgrade a bit - I bought another Olympus - this time the D595Zoom - great camera for around $200! I love Olympus :) I am, however, heartbroken over my jewelry. Quite a bit of it I made myself from stones I bought at the gem show here. And, I had lots of family heirloom kind of things too - pieces from my grandma, a ring from my grandpa, jewelry from my parents, my college ring, gifts from my husband - it's so sad to think that it's likely gone forever. It makes me want to cry every time I think of it - filling out the police report has been really difficult. And, to top it off, we rent and I hadn't gotten renters insurance, so it's all out of pocket. The only bright spot in all of this is that this morning I discovered a black hills gold cross that my parents gave me that they didn't find. I always took it along to my law school exams for luck and so it was tucked in with a stack of my other stuff in a different room. I actually did cry when I found it this morning I was so happy to at least have something that survived. The police came and did find a fingerprint, so we'll see what happens. I also want to say a big thank you to all the chicks over at the digichick - they were the first I told about it and everyone was so supportive and encouraging - it really helped me through those first rough days!

Now, on a happier note - Bob and I went to Michigan for a long weekend this week and it was absolutely wonderful! Hung out with my parents, saw my brother and his wife and my adorable niece and my youngest brother too. We drove around Northern Michigan, checking out the beautiful fall colors and did a little hiking in Ludington. My aunt and uncle had the whole family over for Sunday dinner and cooked a full on Thanksgiving dinner for us! We never get there for Thanksgiving, so it was great to enjoy a holiday meal with everyone! We also got to spend some time in downtown Chicago - one of my favorite places - and spent several hours in the Field Museum (possibly the greatest museum ever!). We also got to see my dad's little sailboat in the water - we didn't take it out, but we sat out on it at the docks for a while - it's so cool. He completely rebuilt a SeaSprite sailboat over the past few years - I really hope we get to go out on it someday - it was just too cold on this trip! All in all it was a great trip and I took lots and lots of pictures - can't wait to scrap with them :)

Good Luck!

Well, today is the big day for recent law school graduates all over Arizona - the day the bar exam results come out! I wanted to wish everyone waiting for their letters today good luck! It's been odd to watch the new clerks at work stressing out and waiting - I can't believe it's been a whole years since I was stressing out and waiting! The bar exam is a horrible ordeal - far and away the worst test I've ever had to take or that I can imagine taking - exhaustive and complex. And then the waiting - months of waiting for your results. By the last day you're just dying to know! Last year I almost drove home from work at lunch to see if my letter had come, but our mail didn't usually come that early. Then I knew that Bob was probably home, so I debated about calling him to see if it was there, but I decided that I couldn't make him read me the results - what if I failed?! How could I make him be the one to tell me? But, then, he called me and said "There's a letter here from the Supreme Court, should I open it?" Heck ya!!!! And, mercifully, he didn't have to break my heart - I had passed! I wish the same joyous moment for everybody today!

Excitement all around!

First today I want to congratulate our new team members at the Digichick! Welcome to Robin (SweetandSassyMommy) and Michelle (Rynonut Mom)! You won a tough competition!

And my big excitment - plane tickets to Michigan! We're going to visit my family for a long weekend at the end of the month - I'm so excited. We've been talking about going in the fall for several years now and we started thinking about it again this summer, but I didn't think we'd actually pull it off. It's always tough to get time away - both of us getting off of work - and then coming up with the funds for travel too. But, this year things pretty much fell into place. I got called for jury duty the week we wanted to go, but they were great about changing my date and we both got the time off. So, off to Grand Rapids we go!

We're flying into Chicago too so I'm hoping Bob can finally see more of the city too. We went once for my brother's wedding, but he really only saw O'Hare and the suburb my sister-in-law's family lives in. He keeps saying he likes Detroit better - that is just insane!!!! (although I think he mainly does it to tease me LOL) Chicago is such a beautiful city, I'm really excited for him to really see it! I hope we get some fall color too - he's very excited for that. I can't wait to see my family and especially my little niece!

Argh . . . computers!

Once again my computer crashed this weekend - I bought an HP and the first one I had home had a hard drive failure and this is the second one, which I've had about a month. It wasn't total hard drive failure this time, but I did have to reformat my hard drive so I spent a good deal of my weekend re-installing all my software and trying to recover some of the stuff that I hadn't backed up yet. The good news is I didn't lose a lot - just the time to find it back. I really wanted to just return the thing and get a different brand, but CompUSA (where I bought it) won't take it back because I've had it for a little over a month and their return policy is 21 days. You'd think when you sell a person not one, but two computers that have major issues in the first month of ownership you'd try to do something about it. But, no. So I just won't shop there or buy any more HP. Anyway, I'm pretty peeved about the whole thing, but at least it's working now. The moral of the story - always, always backup!