Do not panic, I'm still alive

Just over run w/personal stuff and/or spending time playing Zuma 'cause it's less stressful ????? Anyway, I have to help my parents load their moving van 'cause they're moving again. This time, 5 hours away to a whole new state. It's freaky & weird to think I'm not going to be w/in 5 minutes from my parents anymore. If something goes wrong, I can't call my dad to fix it. We were supposed to drive them down to Bolivar this weekend but 2 of my 3 bros (the 3rd is living in Spfld, MO, and is coming home to visit his wife & get their stuff packed to move down to near Bolivar) decided they would help so I'm off the hook.

I INTEND to spend this unexpected "free time" (all day Saturday) working on my Circle Journal. I'm so behind in this endeavor & I need to get on it NOW!! I do have my theme & an idea of what I'm going to do so, I'm hoping it'll go together quickly. I do have a few cards to show and I'll try to get to that AFTER I finish my swaps!! Miss you ALL!!!!

New "tag" game

Ok, this one I think I can do. Thanh tagged me and, from the instructions, I have to list 7 random (no one said INTERESTING, right?) facts about me. Oh, here goes:

1) I am the only girl in my family. I have 3 brothers.
2) My dad proposed to my mom on the first date. They were married 6 weeks later & have been married for 43 years.
3) My dd was born at the same hospital w/the same anesthesiologist. We were both born on a Friday that was our predicted due date.
4) I can not whistle
5) I have never had a broken bone.
6) I have lived my ENTIRE life w/in 10 miles of where I was born (I spent 2 months in So Calif when I was 20 but, that doesn't really count)
7) I'm scared to dive. I'm afraid I'll belly flop so I refuse to even TRY

Now, I have to pick 7 more people who will have to complete this task (which is SOOOOO much harder than I thought). Well, after checking Thanh's blog, Angie's blog & Barb's blog, I don't know who's left to tag. Let me research this some more & I'll tag tomorrow (by which time anyone left to tag will be tagged by someone else). Must have sleep!

Tag, I'm it???

Ok, I just read this post over at Thanh's blog which made me realize I need to address the fact that I've been tagged. Honestly, the tag came at a time when my mind was on other things. I kinda just went on to the next email. I am TRULY honored that she considers me/my blog inspirational. When other people started continuing the game, I realized I needed to do something too but, was hesitant.

If I've posted a link to your blog, I consider you my inspiration. I don't want to single out someone and risk hurting someone else's feelings. I'm in NOW WAY judging anyone who realizes this is just a game and is having fun at it!!! My brain's not quite wired right (and those of you who know me can attest to this!) I just would feel bad picking someone & not picking someone else. So, if I were to play, I would feel compelled to pick someone who had not already been picked and THAT would "violate" the rules of play anyway.

So, I TAG all of you!! If you read this blog, you inspire to me to create so you have something to read about (other than my whining about my life that really is good!) If YOU have a blog linked to the right, I check it EVERY SINGLE DAY!! I love seeing what you're doing and I love hearing about your life! Thank you all for being my friends!!

Just a little something

I guess this card could be taken 2 ways: First a sample of something I did last week. Using SU Designer papr from last year and my ALL TIME favorite SU set, Heartfelt thanks. Really simple card. Or B) a Thank you for all that posted that I'd survive DS & 4th grade. We actually got thru Thur homework w/o any meltdowns by either party. We think we have a NEW plan in place & we'll see how it goes next week. He has 2 1-1.5 page "reports" to do today and/or tomorrow for Tuesday. All he has to do is copy the rough draft that he turned in last week. Should be easy, right???

No news from here

I still haven't gotten to play w/my stuff :( Maybe today??? Yeah, right.

We had a phone meeting w/ds's teacher. Nothing was really accomplished. Dh now understands that the problem is w/Nick not her dumping too much homework on the kids (duh). I picked ds up from school to make sure he had all his stuff for his First Ladies Project. He still forgot to bring home a book. DH worked w/him on homework tonite & another meltdown. I don't know if we're ever going to make it thru 4th grade.

Sorry to be such a downer. I do have scans of some cards I worked on last week. I'll try to "find" them & post them here in a bit.

Non-stamp related post!

Apologies to Erin (if she's even still reading my blog)

I have not had a chance to stamp! DS, Nick, is taking all my time. He got his report card just before spring break. He's in the gifted class at school. The Math & Spelling are a grade level ahead. The kids have to keep a "B" average to stay in this class. Well, Nick got a "D" in English. Needless to say, since the rest of his grades were "B"s, he is now BELOW the "B"! The real bite in all of this is that I had a conference w/his teacher 2 days before the end of the quarter. I was concerned about his concentration & his grades. His teacher told me not to worry about his grades, they were "fine". Well, apparently her version of FINE & mine are NO WHERE NEAR THE SAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To stay in the class, Nick has to bring his grade up to a "B" by the end of the year. So, we decide (since screaming, yelling, threatening & taking away his privileges wasn't working) to implement a reward system. For every day he gets his reading done by 3:15ish, he gets a check mark. For everyday he gets all his homework done (and with a good attitude) he gets a different check mark. When he accumulates 15 check marks in each category, he gets a reward. Day one (yesterday) no check marks. He somehow stopped reading & it took him until 3:45 for get his reading done. Then, he threw a fit about all the other homework & didn't finish it until nearly 6pm!! And guess who got to sit there & work on it with him? ME!!! I did not keep my patience well :(

Tonite; same problem. He had 20 minutes of reading left when I got home at 3:15. Somehow, 45 minutes later, he was done reading. HOW is this possible???? When I asked him he said "I don't know". ARGH!!! When he did his math, he missed 6 out of 25. I told him to go back & fix them & he yelled at me about everyone of them; how they weren't wrong & I was just picking on him. Of course her redid them & got different (right) answers and then complained 'cause 80 was close to 75 so he should have gotten credit for it. HUH??? It's math. It's NOT SUBJECTIVE!!!!!!!!!!!

I am at the end of my tether on this. I don't know what to do. I truly feel (and his teacher agreed w/me last month but, she also thought his grades were fine) that he is quite capable of the work (he knows the math, just doesn't want to take the time to do it right) . DH thinks we should pull him out of the gifted program. I don't think that's the problem!! I think he'll have the same problem in the regular classes & probably more since he will not be challenged.

The only 2 options I see are 1) test him for Attention Deficit. This was a suggestion by the school social worker. I really think he's probably a classic case but dh won't HEAR of it!! I was given a form to complete & the teacher was given one. This would ID the areas he has trouble & then, if the Social worker thought he was in ADD territory, we could chose to pursue it with our Dr or not. Either way, we would at least know the areas he needed help with. Dh said NO WAY and threw out the form.

2) Take him out of public school & put him in the private school DD's in. They would not put up w/his shenanigans & would have the ability to deal with him better one on one since the class would be much smaller. Obviously, this would create a monetary concern. Plus, I know the "breaking in" process would be quite taxing on all of us.

There are only 7 more weeks of school (OMG, that sounds like forever). Of course, summer vacation is just a bandaid. I needed to vent. Thanks for listening. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better. I doubt it as he forgot to bring home the research for a paper that has to have a rough draft done by Thursday.

Glitter, glitter everywhere

Ok, a week or so ago, I bought this glue pad. I had seen in advertised & since I've had NO luck w/heat & stick, I bought it. I haven't used glitter w/stamps in forever and don't really remember WHY I felt it necessary to glitter but, I have like 8 diff colors of glitter & then my friend Sara sent me 6 more baggies full of it.

I just grabbed a stamp that happened to be on my table & stamped it into the glue (YOU add the glue to the pad & it's supposed to be good for 100 images per tablespoon full.) The glue seemed to give good coverage. I sprinkled my glitter over the top. I didn't read the directions and decided to give it time to "dry". I ended up leaving it overnight. Next morning, it was fine. The glitter stayed on really well while I punched it out & glued it to a card front. The details were lost in the glitter. I don't know if this was user error or if I needed to do something different.

After Sheri posted at the Shack the problems she had w/her glue drying, I tried the technique again. I stamped a different image. I added the glitter & timed the wait. After 10 minutes, I went back to check it. The glitter was firmly attached. I even took a stiff paint brush & wiped away the excess glitter & the glitter that was supposed to stay, stayed.

As I said, I used ultrafine glitter. I used cheap (not SU) cardstock that was not glossy. Seems to work pretty well to me. I can now add bling to my cards w/o messing w/the stickles (which, technically are easier to use but, I have problems getting the stuff out of the bottle!!) Click on the pictures & I think you'll get to see the "big picture" so you will get the detail.

Last Christmas for now

Ok, I'm completely burned out on Christmas. Or, at least, cards! Even tho Chelsea FORCED me to buy CUTE C'mas papers yesterday, I'm not going to try anymore Christmas cards, for now. With the 5-6 I made on this general principal, I have at least 25 done. Thats 25 more than I had last year at this time. That's 25 more than I had last year in NOVEMBER. So, I figure, no matter what else happens, I'm ahead of the game, right??

Home from Chicago

but feeling overwhelmed. Don't know why, I was only gone 32 hours. Why do I feel like I have so much to get caught up with?? Why did I buy the game Zuma when I have better things to do??

Here are 2 3x3s I made last week. I do have one more Christmas card that I'm finishing up and then I'm going to take a break from Christmas. Maybe once the new SU catty comes out, I'll get reinspired. Or, maybe I should look thru the CTMH and/or TAC cattys and be inspired THERE for a change??

Ok, for those who have asked

I am trying to do 10 Christmas cards a month. That way, when November comes around, I'm not trying to do 75 cards in a month. But, it's not "working". I can not get in the groove. I spend too much time trying to come up w/a plan & then, I only do one or two. I do so much better to have a plan & do big bunches at a time. Therefore, I'm either going to do 10 or more of one design or I'm going to work on something more fun.

Finally, a new card

I made these last week but I just now got them scanned. I love the one but am not too thrilled with the other. Is there ANY white ink out there that remains WHITE when embossed??? Or, maybe it's the cardstock. It's a shimmery silver stuff. Oh well, at least they are cards & they are done.

OMG, it's been a week since I posted!! Yikes

That's what I get for trying to only post about cards. My muse has been out again. I think I need to stop trying to make Chirstmas cards. I think I need to go back to swapping. I find it easier to come up w/an idea if it's for a swap. Hmmm, maybe I should host a C'mas cards Swap??? C'mas in April. Based on our weather, it seems reasonable. I do have some cards I've done but I haven't scanned them yet. I will scan them later & post them tomorrow morning.

Pretty Ribbon

Went to Target last night & found this ribbon in the Easter section. It was only $2.99 for 6 rolls. Each roll has 4' of ribbon on it. I forgot to look in the S/B section to see if they got anything new & cool in (Primas???) which now upsets me since I ended up using a 10% off coupon. Oh well, there's always today.

I'm still working on my inchies. Can't post them here but they are CUTE!!! At first, I didn't like them. I tried 3000 stamps & they all looked blah. I think I have to have layers to make stuff look "right" to me. So I played around a bit & found that I got the PERFECT stamps for this size card back in my huge Jan SU Purchase. If you are in the swap at the Stamp Shack, I think you will be pleased!!

UPDATE!!! Ribbon is on sale now. I think it's 2.69 now. Such a deal!!

SU Party Cards

I went to another SU party on Monday. I ordered Unfrogettable (finally!!) and Doodle That (I think, the tiny one!) plus the piercing template, the corner rounder (to do the scallop technique) the spiral punch & a set of designer paper. Plus, we made these really cool cards. Love cool SU parties (hate lame SU parties)

In order to NOT drive Erin Crazy

I will show Cards Only!! I'd hate for her to have to yell at my blog :P


I made some more Christmas Cards on Sunday. I think I'm now caught up to February. The kids will be gone tonite, so I'm going to make some more. Whacha all think???