It's the Big Day!

That's right, the big day for Scrapbookgraphics! I've been so excited waiting to see who the new studiogirls would be - I love Maya's work and I knew another of my favorites, Carrie Stephens was on board, but there's other great designers over there too! All that to say, I need more time to get over there and shop LOL - I mean really, how am I supposed to get any work done today? Unfortunately, I have to - I've been up to my eyeballs in work this week! So, the long overdue update on the last several weeks will have to wait. But, I'll leave you with my first layout from the Day at the Spa kit from Scrapbookgraphics . . .

TGIF!

Happy Friday everyone! I'm so glad it's the weekend - this was a short week at work, but it sure felt long! We have two cases set for oral argument this month and the drafts have to go out by early next week. Thus, I had the pleasure of writing a case start to finish in about three days. I made it though, got the draft to the judge today and now I'm starting to read cases for the second one. At least they're both pretty interesting legal issues!

Today was also great fun because we posted our layouts for the Digital Art Quirks naming ceremony! Mine is posted to the left - I was really happy with how it turned out. This kind of digital art is pretty new to me, but I'm loving it - it's so fun to really get outside the usual scrapping box! Everyone created such amazing pieces of art for the ceremony - I can't believe how much talent we have hanging around that place :) You can check them all out here, and see more about the ceremony here - if you want to jump in, I think there's still time to sign up :)

Back to Work and the Greatest Giveaway EVER

Well, my nice long weekend is over - it was wonderful while it lasted, but somehow I always still want one more day LOL We didn't do much exciting - went to the gym a couple of times, watched some playoff basketball, and did a little shopping. I got a couple of fun t-shirts at Ross and a new swimsuit and Bob got some new swimming trunks too. We're going to the ocean while we're in Alabama, so we needed some new duds :) I'll tell ya though, swimsuit shopping is an unimaginable torment! I did find one I like though, so I'm happy! I also got some scrapping done which was wonderful! But, most of it was for The Muse at Scrapartist, so you'll have to wait a few more days to see it :) it's going to be a beautiful edition - everybody's work is gorgeous so far!

Okay, now, about the Greatest Giveaway Ever! I love working at Fishscraps, but I wish I could quit for a couple of months just so I could get in on this contest LOL Carrie is giving away a Canon Digital Rebel! That's right a Rebel! And, the second prize is a Wacom! Plus, she's giving away a bunch of gift certificates to the shop. All you have to do to enter is shop! For every $10 you buy until June 30, you get an entry in the drawing! You can check out all the details here : Contest Details

Is it the weekend yet?

After two days of editing the granddaddy of all divorce cases and all day today editing another case, I am about to keel over! I don't know if I've ever been so sick of looking at Westlaw! And, I really don't know what gets into people when they get divorced - these people have been in court for over 14 years and they were only married a little less than 7! It makes my head (and heart) hurt! But, at least tomorrow's Friday and I'm planning on leaving work a little early for the long holiday weekend. So if I can just make it through tomorrow morning, it's all good! I'm hoping to get a little extra scrapping time this weekend. With Bob not working and everything else going on this week, I just haven't had any time to myself and therefore little time to create. I'm getting to the point where my head is just bursting with ideas and I need to get some of them out LOL!

On a totally separate note, we had a great anniversary! We went out for dinner and had some big old steaks - I love a good New York Strip! Then we came home and watched the Suns beat the Mavs (sorry any Mavs fans out there, I know it was a heartbreaker for you guys, but we could not have been more excited!) and of course, saw Taylor Hicks crowned American Idol! I'm so happy he won, that Katherine had a decent voice and all, but her pitch was often all over the place and the whole "dad in the industry" thing rubbed me the wrong way, although I guess one never knows about these things. Anyway, I'm usually one to pull for the odd man in a competition like this, and there's no denying Taylor fits that description LOL. In any event, I'll definitely be adding to my American Idol CD collection this year - Taylor, Chris, Elliott, Paris - if they cut albums, I'll be buying :)

Okay, time to call it a day! Bob and I might take a trip to the gym just to sit in the hot tub tonight LOL - that's my kind of workout! And, I'm hoping to play some more with my new software from the Digital Scraproom - loving it so far - it'll be great to have everything where I can see it easily - it's just too hard to rely on my memory of what I have at this point, so the idea of just being able to do run a quick search for a brad makes me happy all over!

Why I'm lovin' today!

Because it's our third anniversary and my wonderful husband sent me these! You can't believe how surprised I was to get them - not because he got me flowers (he actually does that a lot), but because he had them sent to my office! First of all, I've never been the girl who gets flowers at work or school - this is the very first time. Also, I didn't think I'd ever get flowers at work because I was pretty sure he didn't know exactly where my office was LOL But, apparently he called yesterday to get the address. Now, the whole place smells like roses - what better way to pass the day :) Seriously, I'm a lucky girl!

Scrap Artist Chat!

It's time for another fabulous ScrapArtist Creative Team chat! We had lots of fun putting together another great kit and I'd love to see you at the chat on Saturday (that's tomorrow!) night at 9pm Eastern time!

It's Monday

And that means back to work for me. It was tough to get going today, Friday was Bob's last day at work, so the idea of just staying home with him another day was really, really appealing, but I guess one of us better work LOL He'll be looking for a new job now - he's got a couple of leads already, so hopefully he can find something that will be a better fit. The old place really gave him a nice send-off - got everybody pizza for lunch, gave him a bonus and even a gift certificate for the store - they were really good to him. And, they've said he can come back if he wants, but that's pretty unlikely. He really like the people and all, but it was just too much physical work for him at this point in life. I'm glad that they treated him so well though.

We had a great weekend too - it was really nice to just have a weekend to relax a bit. We were supposed to go to his brother's open house, but Bob wasn't up for it, so we stayed home. I got to peek in on the Digichick hoopla a bit and we did some stuff in the yard. I even got a start on my papers for the next Scrapartist CT kit (which is coming soon - keep your eyes peeled). All in all a great weekend, but now it's back to the grind :) Guess I better get on it, this case isn't going to write itself!

It's Saturday!

And a great one at that. We hit the gym this morning - I've been working out about three times a week for a couple of months now. It's been nice to get back to some physical activity! And, there's a salon at the gym! I just made an appointment today to get my hair cut on Tuesday night - I love that they have evening hours! I can't wait to get a cut too, it's been way too long and my hair is totally out of control LOL - it'll be nice to have more of style again!

Mainly today I'm just happy it's the weekend - a pretty long week at work for me and especially Bob. This was his last week at his job, so it really wore him down. He'll be looking for a new one soon, hopefully he can find something that doesn't involve so much physical labor - just selling plants, not loading them off of trucks for half the day. We'll see how it goes :)

I also loaded up on a lot of great Digichick stuff at the big sale today - there's really a lot of cute stuff in the boutique - it gets hard to choose LOL! Especially with everything half off! Now to just find a little time to create something this weekend - I'm really itching to sit down and create away! And, in case you think I forgot, I'm joining in the Digichick treasure hunt too - there's a piece of the gorgeous free kit - Lovely in Lilac - hidden in today's post :)

Fun Stuff

I have a couple of fun things to plug today :) First of all - some great new stuff in the shoppe at Scrapartist and at Fishscraps - be sure to check it out!

Second, if you haven't visited Digital Art Quirks yet, run, do not walk, to check it out! It is the coolest, quirkiest site out there - tons of fun and some great collage inspiration if you're looking to branch out! I'm loving it! And, I'm going to lend a bit of help to my new friend Danielle (aka Ursula)who has set up a 4x6 circle journal there that is going to be amazing - you have until June 1st to join in!

Finally, lots of fun stuff coming at the Digichick tomorrow! We're having our NSD celebration a week late to combine with our Mother's Day celebration for one huge event! The designers are doing a treasure hunt for a great free kit and there will be chats and challenges all day. I'm also going to give instructions for the tag book that I did for the DeZine issue that featured Jen Wilson's products - it's a fun altered project, so I hope you'll check it out!

Party!

At work today we had a bridal shower for my good friend and co-worker Marie! We had a fantastic chocolate on chocolate cake and I made my mom's punch (which is, by the way, the greatest punch in the world!). Everybody pooled for gifts, so we got them lots of great stuff! I took a bunch of pictures, but this one's my favorite! And, because I have reason to believe that some of her other friends may be visiting today, I'm posting it, just in case she didn't share it with them LOL Nothing like a good party to break up the work day!




And, because I have now bragged up the world's greatest punch, I guess I should share the recipe!

6 cans of pineapple juice (46 ounce size)
1 bottle of pina colada mix (2 qt. size)
4 12 oz. frozen lemonades
Mix these ingredients and put into 6 large freezer bags (approximately 8 cups per bag). Freeze. To serve, empty contents of one bag into punch bowl and add a 2 liter of 7-up. As you can see, this is a lot of punch, so I often just make half the recipe.

Playing catch up

Okay, I've been really bad about keeping up the blog lately! I've had tons to blog about, but somehow I'm always thinking, I should have a picture to post with that story, or I need to write something more profound about that and so I put off the blogging and then it doesn't happen. So, I am giving myself permission to be an imperfect blogger - just tell the story and get it down. When I look back on this someday I am certain I won't care if I have a photo of every event or if I wrote a prize-winning essay on each topic - I will care that I took the time to write about something that was important to me on that day!

But, fear not, the no-photo blogging ain't starting with this post (although the bad grammer clearly is LOL). Two weeks ago we finally got out of town and out to the mountains for some fun with Wes and Deb and their kids! It was so nice to just be outside, enjoying some cool, fresh air and some great food! We grilled steaks and Wes made perhaps the greatest chip dip ever - which reminds me, I must get the recipe.

Taking Care of Business :)

A long, long time ago I promised some new pics of my office and, although I took them, I never actually posted them LOL! So, here it is - complete with fab new painting that I bought in Phoenix and some of my own artwork on the bulletin board and in frames (sorry about the glare by the way). I'm really happy with how it turned out, it's so nice to have a pleasant place to work!

Why I'm Lovin' Today

Lots of reasons to love today! First of all Michelle has announced a great new contest using her newest paper set - which totally rocks! The winner gets a GC to Scrapartist - you can't wrong there! And, I'm loving the papers in their own right - they're gonna be great for the art journaling I want to start doing. Lisa Cohen led a great chat at Scrapartist last night on art journaling - lots of great ideas and of course books to buy.

That leads me to reason number two for loving today - I'm planning a trip to Borders after work to pick up "Visual Chronicles." I'm very excited to dig into that one! And, conveniently enough, I will have a chance to get to Borders because we're having a little after work party and it's right on the way! Plus, I get to leave work a little early for said party. All in all, it's a day worth loving!

Also, since I haven't blogged in forever, a little Easter update is in order. It was great - on Saturday we went out to eat and played miniature golf with Bob's family and on Sunday we had our big dinner with them too. Church was nice too - I was on tap to sing in the praise team this week and we got to sing lots of great Easter hymns and one of my favorite newer songs "In Christ Alone." Love it when we get good tunes to sing!

By the way, I think I'm gonna make "Why I'm Lovin' Today" a bit of a regular feature. I used to keep a gratitude journal and I loved doing it, but I've kind of fallen off with it. So, I'm thinking I can do a bit of that here - it really helps with the old attitude :)

Another New Member of the Family!

Well, today my family welcomes another new member - Brianna Reid! She's my brother and his wife's second little girl and I could not be more thrilled for them. It was a bit of a rough pregnancy, so it's great news that she's doing well! No pictures yet, but you can believe you'll see them in layouts as soon as I get 'em!

Online Security

I have to do continuing education classes for work and I went to my first one for this year yesterday. It was actually really interesting - an FBI agent talking to us about cybercrime and online security. Useful stuff! So, I thought I'd share some of what he told us. First of all, it is pretty scary how at-risk we all are - a recent AOL poll showed that 81% of home computer users don't have basic security measures in use. Not only is that bad for them, it's bad for all of us due to the growth of spyware and so-called botnet armies - people take over your computer to use it to attack other computers and you never even know! So, if you don't already have security software get some and if you do, make sure it's updating properly and that you have all your software updated too. The FBI polls people too and found that 90% of companies have had some sort of internet security problem and 64% have suffered financial losses, but only 9% of those are reported to the authorities - I guess they don't want to start a panic. Totally understandable. And, it appears that now the whole spyware thing is a bigger problem than viruses - they can actually steal your information (passwords, usernmaes, etc.) right from your computer and email it back to someone who in turn drains your back account before you even know the information is gone! Definitely going to make sure that my anti-spyware software is running properly! So, what can you do? Well, here's some tips and resources he gave us . . .

Stay Safe Online Top 8 Cyber Security Practices (from www.staysafeonline.org)
1. Protect your personal information. It's valuable.
2. Know who you are dealing with online.
3. Use antivirus software, a firewall, and anti-spyware
4. Be sure to set up your operating system and Web browser software properly, and update them regularly.
5. Use strong passwords or strong authentication technology to help protect your personal information.
6. Back up important files (and keep off-site copies)
7. Learn what to do if something goes wrong.
8. Protect your children online.

Some resources
1. Identity theft (FTC) - www.consumer.gov/idtheft
2. Reporting Internet Crime - www.ic3.gov
3. Identifying hoaxes - www.snopes.com, www.hoaxbusters.org
4. Information Sharing - InfraGard - www. infragard.net

There you have it, lots of resources for staying safe online. I love that there's a place to report these things (www.ic3.gov) - they collect reports and if they get enough of one thing, they can actually investigate! I just always felt like there was nothing I could really do about the stuff I see, so it's nice to know there's something that can be done. By the way, sorry that none of the web pages are links, you'll have to copy and paste, I was just too lazy to create links for everything today LOL!

I won a National Leadership Award, but don't get too excited

I hardly even know where to begin, I guess I'll start from the start - I got this phone call from someone in Congressman Tom Reynolds' office . . .

The Call

Now, Tom Reynolds is a fairly well-known Republican and I've been a registered Independent for a number of years. Plus, they don't even say my name right. But, I did go to a Christian college and I've done a lot of volunteering and what not, so I think maybe they're overlooking my liberal leanings. But, I am, putting it mildly, very suspicious at this point. So, I get on the internet to check this thing out. Turns out this is just a giant fundraising scam! They'll give you the "award," but if you want in on the "press release" they mention in the call, it's gonna cost you $300. And, it sounds like there's even more opportunities to give money to get a congressional award - this guy called back and got the whole leadership award "experience," check it out on his BLOG

I just couldn't be more appalled by this. I mean seriously, what have things come to that 1) I'm suspicious when I get a call from a congressman (and yes the calls are actually from the congressman's office!) and 2) congressmen are basically selling congressional awards! Just when you thought these people couldn't get any worse, they come up with some new travesty. Unbelievable.

Rockin'

We're scrapping about celebrities in Life is Better Shared at the Digichick this week and I chose Bono as my subject, so I got all rockstar inspired and created this fun paper pack called Rockin'! It's a gift for everyone who creates a new layout for Life is Better Shared this week - you can use any of the prompts so far, it just has to be posted to the Life is Better Shared gallery by March 29! So, swing on over to the Digichick and join us!

Is it 5 yet?

Today is really dragging on! I have a rather tedious case at work right now and I'm having a hard time making myself work on it. There's something about a five part statutory test that really puts a girl to sleep! But, I'm forging ahead - hopefully I can finish in the next day or two. On a brighter note, I made a Costco run at lunch to get some new trash bags and a city map. While I was there I found some really yummy-looking mushroom burgers! Vegi-burgers can be really good or really bad, so we'll see, but I'm excited to try them! Costco is an odd scene during the day though - I saw a lot of retirees who just seemed to be hanging out there - getting some samples and burning some time. Kind of a weird way to pass the day if you ask me, but to each their own I suppose LOL. As much as retirement appeals to me at times (like today LOL) I don't know if I'll actually be able to hack it when the time comes. I'm just too easily bored without something I have to do! Okay, back to work, this thing isn't going to write itself!

Clean Floors and March Madness

Okay, I know that a sweeper is not quite as exciting a purchase as a Vera bag, but I am super-excited about my new Shark sweeper! Our floors are just always a mess and it's making me nuts! Between all the plant parts that inevitably find their way into the house and our white tile kitchen floor - seriously people, who puts a white tile floor in a kitchen? - I just can't keep up with it! And, I really hate dragging the vacuum out all the time. So, I finally broke down and bought one of these - it's cordless so I can just whip it out and sweep up a little day to day. Or at least that's the theory LOL. Loving it so far!

In March Madness news - our beloved Arizona Wildcats lost yesterday to Villanova. I'm bummed that we're out, but glad that they played well - one of our better games of the season, in fact. And, Marcus Williams played out of his head! I'm definitely looking forward to next year - we've got some fantastic players returning and moving into leadership roles and, from the sounds of it, some good prospects coming in too! So, for the rest of the tournament, I'm cheering for Gonzaga :) And, it would be awesome if Bradley could keep going - gotta love the underdog!

I also made a trip to Borders this weekend to pick up a Moleskine notebook for my purse so that I have a place to jot down layout ideas, color schemes, etc. While I was there I also got a great book on Artist's journals and collage, etc. It's called Artists' Journals and Sketchbooks Lots of great ideas for topics to journal on and techniques to use. It even has several pages of altered slides! How great is that? Highly recommended if you're into the collage look that's all the rage these days!

And, finally, if you haven't already, I'd really encourage you to swing by the Digichick and pick up Val's A Tiny Seed kit. Not only is it a great kit, all the proceeds are going to an orphanage in Bangladesh. One of my cousins was actually adopted from Bangladesh, so it is near and dear to my heart (along with Korea and India - I've got cousins and sibs from all over I tell ya!). Only $4 and it's for a great cause!

Brand New Bag

Okay, so that you can all appreciate the enormity of this purchase, let me preface this post by saying that I am not a designer-goods-buying kind of girl. I have never understood the urge to pay way too much for something just because it was the "right" brand name. I'm just to cheap I guess LOL. But, I finally broke down and bought myself a Vera Bradley bag! I simply could not resist her new java blue pattern! I mean come one, blue and brown, how am I supposed to resist spending too much money on that? And, not only did I buy the fabulous tote pictured at left, I got a matching hat (because it was only $10 LOL) and a curling iron cover. I have been saying for years that someone should invent one of those and it turns out Vera Bradley's been making them for quite some time :) So, now when I travel I don't have to wait for my curling iron to cool down. One of life's little inconveniences solved and a fabulous new bag to go with it!