Just a couple of layouts to share!

I haven't posted layouts here in a while, so I thought I'd share a few today :) The one of my Gramps is one of my new favorites - I just love that picture of him!

A New Bag

Well, this has certainly been an exciting week so far! I'm down to a grand total of 12 pounds lost so far which makes me really happy! I bought myself a fun handbag as a little reward for my first ten pounds lost - I find that rewards really help my motivation LOL! You can check it out at left :)

Also, we added three new Chicks at The Digichick! It's always exciting to get new CT members and these three are fantastic! We chose Angelina Schwarz (AngelinaS), Nikki Beaudreau (nbeaudreau), and Karen Wong (Hom74). It was so hard to decide who to vote for! It's always pretty tough, but this time was particularly hard - so many great candidates! But, I think we made a great choice in the end - I'm really excited to work with these ladies!

In other great contest news - Scrapartist is holding an Apprentice contest! They're giving everyone a chance to sell in the Scrapartist Shoppe! I mean how fantastic is that?! I'm actually thinking of entering, although I'm not sure if I'm ready for it (read that to mean mainly not sure I'm good enough LOL) - but as with all contests, the only way to know is to try, right? The contest doesn't start until September 18, so I guess I have some time to stew on it. Either way it's going to be great, because if I don't enter, I'll get to see some fab new designers coming out, so it's win-win for everyone!

Lastly, be sure to keep an eye on the forums at Scrapartist for Lauren, Candy and I's great new challenge - it's really going to be a lot of fun and a lot of great inspiration! Those two are so amazing and full of great ideas - I've had a great time working with them already! That's all for now, back to work for me :) Oh yeah, in other work-related news, in addition to the three monitors they provided, I got myself a wireless keyboard and mouse, so now I am free to move :)

Christine Adolph

I don't know how I have managed to go this long without seeing this woman's artwork, but she is a genius! You can check out her work for yourself here. I just love her use of natural elements and color and texture - brilliant! She's the inspiration for the altered/collage challenge at Scrapartist this week, so I created my own piece inspired by her fabulous style!

I used Carrie Stephens fantastic Xpressions backgrounds for most of this - they're so rich and the colors are wonderful, just perfect for artsy, "quirky" stuff like this! A lot of her papers are actually great for this style, but it's really cool to get a whole pack of this kind of papers from her. If you're interested you can pick them up at Fishscraps in the clearance section for only $4!

Three Monitors!

That's right, count them, three monitors now sit on my desk at work! Our computer guy came and installed them today. It's crazy! I can have so much going on now and keep it all open in front of me. Really, for me, I think two probably would have done the trick, but I'm sure I'll find myself a good use for the third LOL! It really is cool to be able to keep the document I'm working on open and have the court record and Westlaw open at the same time. And, I'm thinking it will be pretty nice for the occasional lunch-time scrapping adventure too :) So, that's the big news for today - thought I'd share! Oh, and Bob's first day at work went pretty well too - the only bad part was that it was almost 100 degrees here yesterday. When I asked how it went, he said "it was hot" - poor guy. But, it's supposed to cool down through the week, so hopefully that aspect will get better for him.

New Schedule

Today is Bob's first day at the new job! It felt a little like the first day of school at our house last night - we bought him some new jeans to wear to work, so he was trying those on and getting everything together - all the things you have to do when you start something new. And, he has to be to work pretty early, so we got up a little after 5am today! That's a little early for me LOL! So, I went back to bed for about an hour and still had time to go to the gym before work. I really like to workout in the morning, so I think I'm going to start doing that more now that he'll be working so early in the day so we have more time at night. The only bad part is that I have to decide on what to wear before I go and that can be quite a production - I'm so indecisive sometimes LOL! Anyway, it's nice to have that already done for the day :)

Hopefully Bob's day will go well too and he'll really like the job - I'm hoping he'll call me with an update, but you know men just aren't as concerned about these things sometimes. And, he's going to try to meet up with his family this afternoon at his mom's doctor's appointment. She's been feeling sick for a few weeks now, so she's going to a gastrointestinal (no idea how to spell that) specialist of some sort. Hopefully they can figure out what's causing the problem and get her some treatment.

Other than that, I'm working on a zoning case at work, so I'm having a little trouble with motivation - they are just not very interesting cases. But, it is always important to the parties, so I always want to get it right and do the best I can to explain to them why we're deciding what we do. I also have a bunch of CT layouts to get done by the end of the month - I've finished a couple and have a few more in the works. I'm really excited to get back to a more normal schedule and to have some more time to create again. There's a lot of great stuff in the works at the Digichick with the CT call, Carrie Stephens has put out a couple of great new kits, and at Scrapartist some of us are working on a really cool new challenge, so there's a lot of fun, creative things going on for me right now too! All in all, life is good. Oh, and I've now lost about 8 pounds and I'm feeling a lot better with the healthier diet, so that's making me happy too :) Now if I can just get used to getting up bright and early again!

Two in a Row!

I know, it's shocking, two posts in a row LOL! But, I had to share this great opportunity with everybody - The Digichick is having another Creative Team call! These don't come around too often, so if you're interested in joining the Chick team, be sure to apply! We're really excited about adding some new members, with all the great talent out there right now I'm sure we'll find some wonderful additions! It's a great group of very talented scrappers, so I'd really encourage everyone to give it a shot :)

Good News

Some good news for today :) First, Bob got a new job! He'll be starting next week working for the University of Arizona as a groundskeeper. The U of A has an amazing collection of plants - it's actually an arboretum in fact - so it's a great opportunity to take care of some beautiful plant life. Plus, he'll be a state employee, so he'll get wonderful benefits, including not only health, but huge tuition discounts and even the ability to buy books and computer stuff from the campus bookstore. I'm really excited about that! I might take a few art or design classes or who knows what, plus a discount on software and computer equipment will be great! And, I think he'll really like working there - it's a great school and we always enjoy being on campus, so I think it will be a good environment to work in too.

Second, on the health front, I've lost about 6-7 pounds so far on the eating healthy/working out plan! I'm really happy with that - not only with the weight loss, but with the fact that I feel like this is something I can live with. One thing that's made that a lot easier was my purchase of Cuisinart's Griddler! If you haven't seen this thing yet, it's like a George Foreman grill, only the plates come out and it opens up all the way flat so you can cook more on it and you can use it as a griddle too (it comes with griddle and grill plates). I can cook chicken or fish on it in under ten minutes so it makes it really easy to come home from the gym and get dinner done. That's helped a lot with cutting down on eating out. I totally recommend one of these - it's worth every dime!

Finally, be sure to swing over to Scrapartist this week! The fabulous Kim Christensen joined us in the shoppe and there's some great challenges this week! We're featuring Michelle aka Mishou in the Scraplift Challenge, doing 4x6 layouts in the Outside the Box challenge and Robyn and Christine are getting inspiration from the amazing artwork of Teesha Moore in the Altered Art Challenge.

Feeling Healthy

Yeah, that's right, I'm feeling healthy! Not something I've felt for quite a while LOL, but over the last few weeks Bob and I have really been working at eating better and working out more. So, I've been going to the gym six days a week and I've almost completely given up junk food and candy! At first it was really tough, but it's gotten easier as the days have gone by. Don't get me wrong, I miss my Swedish Fish, but I feel so much better! Now if I can just stick with it :)

All of this started when I saw an Oprah talking about her bootcamp challenge - I was so inspired! But, working out eight times a week just isn't an option for me and I know that if I'm too hard on myself with food I can get crazy. The timing, however, was perfect. I had been thinking for a while about how I had become a person who ate mostly junk. We ate out alot at fast food places, we ate a lot of candy and snacks and just generally didn't eat well. I never used to be that kind of person - I have always thought of myself as a healthy person - I like healthy food and I shop at stores like Trader Joes and Wild Oats and I love Dr. Weil! But, my lifestyle was not living up to my own image of myself - over the last few years I've just gotten worse and worse. So, when I saw that Oprah, it all sort of came together. I decided that I would go back to being a healthy eater. It's definitely going to be a long process, but I'm feeling good so far. Hopefully I won't bore you all with my dietary changes, but I feel like I really want to reinforce my positive feelings about the changes and talking about them helps that along!

On an entirely different note, my little vacation was wonderful! We did some hiking and hung out with friends and just generally took it easy. Just what I needed! I got some scrapping done, but I also did a little designing. I created some botanical brushes from some of my hiking photos and made a new paper pack and I also updated an old freebie kit. You can get them both in the Scrapartist freebie section here and here. I hope you enjoy them!

Can't wait for the Party!

Vacation begins today! I'm so happy to be taking some time off from work - especially because I'm not traveling or visiting family or doing anything other than a bit of hiking and a bunch of creating. This morning I got my harddrive cleaned up a little and redecorated here a bit - both things I've been meaning to do and never felt like - it's so great to have a chunk of time to do some of those kind of things. And, for the first time, the blog is entirely my own creations - papers and alphas from the creative team kit for the big Scrapartist anniversary party. It's just a great kit - in fact, I did a layout with it today too - so many fun things :) So, be sure to check out all the challenges and fun next weekend!

Public Records Law and other excitement

Okay, first, I am a really bad blogger. Sorry about that, but it's unlikely to change LOL Second, although it's often newsworthy because it's often the news people trying to get something released, public records law is really not very exciting and I've been spending the day knee deep in it! Some interesting research tasks at least though and I always love a good hunt - it's kind of like looking for treasure :) Okay, now that the boring stuff is out of the way, the excitement!

The Scrapartist team kit is coming together for the big anniversary event on the weekend of the 29th - it's gonna be a must-attend! The kit is fantastic and there's gonna be some other great prizes too. We just have such a talented bunch over there - I am ceaselessly amazed and very grateful to be a part of it.

Next, I am loving the new Scrapbookgraphics! A bunch of Carrie's great stuff is there - I really think she's doing the best work yet right now. And, Anna Aspnes has got to stop making fantastic brushes because I'm going to run out of money buying them!

If you haven't been by the Digichick lately, definitely stop in - the boutique is full of great stuff right now - I am especially loving Jan's designs these days - and we've started a fun new Tuesday night chat centered around chick-flicks - how fun is that for the summer?

In non-scrapping news, I'm finally gonna take some time off next week. And, the best part is that we're not really going to do much of anything! Don't get me wrong, I love to travel and spend time in San Diego or Michigan or the White Mountains or whatever, but right now the idea of spending a lot more time on the couch sound incredible! No packing, no planning, just time to relax and, of course, create! I haven't had more than a weekend of just free time since after the bar exam three years ago and I am definitely ready for it!

So, there you have it, the excitement for the moment! And, just for fun, here's my latest creation - I'm going to try to force myself to do some layouts on a time constraint - I'm such a slow scrapper and although I don't generally mind that, I feel like I overanalyze things sometimes and that it would help me to just let things flow. A time limit helps with that. So, my first half-hour project is posted below :)

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.