Think Pink

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Friday was my 36th birthday and this weekend was positively wonderful! I have to say it's probably the best birthday I have had in  ... forever.  Friday Chad brought me TWO dozen roses, one light pink and one a hot/dark pink with a teddy bear...they are so gorgeous. I know they are expensive, but I DO so love getting roses from my honey!!  It's amazing how well he knows me and knows just what will make me happy. Our friends from Fayetteville came in Friday night and we grilled out a steak dinner and Chad even bought Veronica and I a birthday cake with pink roses on it. Her birthday was the day before mine, so we had a joint party.  We karaoked and had a great time.  They decided to stay over Saturday night too and we listened to music and they tried to teach me to two-step! LOL I so want to learn how to do that stuff again. Dew and Veronica can dance like nobody's business I'll tell ya!  My brother Mike came over yesterday and gave me a very special present...he and his wife had blown up a picture of me and my parents when I was very little and had it framed for me. I cried when he gave it to me ...man I miss my Daddy! But that was so sweet  and special.   My sister sim gave me a really cool track outfit and earlier the week before my mom bought all my frames for my fair entries as my present. Speaking of fair entries ... I got my photos back today and I had four ribbons. Not a bad showing I guess. Not as good as last year, but not too shabby.   I hate for tomorrow to come and life go back to the old grind of work and cleaning and more of the same, but I have to say this weekend ROCKED :)

I have not forgotten

Today is 9/11/08 ...the 7th anniversary of the day that American was attacked on our native soul. The day that changed so very many lives forever.  Mothers lost their sons, fathers lost their daughters, many men never saw thier babies born, mother had to send their young sons off to defend and retaliate.  So much sadness ... It seemed so much for one nation to bear.  I will never forget what I was doing that day. I had a friend coming in from out of town to go out to lunch and I was cleaning house.  The phone rang and it was another friend of mine. She was in tears and told me to turn on my TV.  I turned it on just in time to see the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower.  And then saw footage of the world trade center, and Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.  I could not believe what was unfolding before my eyes. It felt very surreal, because I knew for sure that something of this magnitude could never happen to us here in American. But there it was and it would not be denied.  We live in a military town, with a large Air Force base that is home to 4 squadrons of F-15 strike eagles.  In my mind we could have been a target and I was terrified to leave the house, and the only thing I could think of was getting my children home from school and holding them close. I remember the look of heartbreak and horror on the face of our President, as he was informed of what had transpired.   And then miraculously, even in the face of such carnage, American seemed to turn toward each other.  We all wanted to do what we could to help, no matter how small it might seem.  People reached out to complete strangers and we were united and together as a nation in vowing that the ones that did it would PAY for it.  I wonder where that comraderie has gone now, and it seems that some people truly HAVE forgotten what happened that day ... as if they are far enough removed from it that it does not affect them.  But it affects us all in a most personal way. This is OUR nation, and OUR country to defend and protect, and our people to take care of.  I wish we could get those days back without having to witness another large scale tragedy

My daddy was a Vietnam veteran, and he was very proud of the job he did in service to his country.  He served 20+ years and never wavered in his service to our country, even after he retired.  He was the model of patriotism to me, and he taught me at a very young age to respect our country's flag and all it stands for and to honor our military for the sacrificing service they provide and so I will carry that on, and teach my children these same things.  Our flag is flying and my porch light is on in remembrance of our soldiers, our firefighters, police and every one that served our country to the point of losing their life on that day.  It burns for all the innocent fellow countrymen that gave their lives just because they were out doing their jobs.   I know that many people don't read my blog anymore, but if you do happen to see this, perhaps you will say a prayer for our nation, it's leaders and those families that lost so much on that day. 

Cancer Sucks

So soon after losing Daddy, we got more bad news yesterday.  Joshua's other grandfather, (His bio-dad's father) has been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer that has no treatment and they have given him 2-4 months to live.  Not 10 minutes after receiving that news we got a phone call from Chad's cousin in Missouri and Chad's grandma (Jeannie, Alan's mom) is in the very end stages of her Alzheimer's and is on Hospice care and they are giving her two weeks , give or take.  So much death. It makes it hard to put life into perspective, but if we believe what we say we believe, and this is a test of that for sure, but God is in control and everything happens for a reason. 

I do plan on participating in Relay for Life again this year.  Even more so than ever, and donating more than ever, because I dream of a world without cancer.  That my children won't have to ever worry about being told they have 6 months to live because a disease is eating away their insides.   Go to www.americancancersociety.org and consider making a donation yourself.    Speaking of cancer...I was watching David Cook's performance from last night.  Of course I love DC and he has been my pick for this year's idol since the auditions, but now for more reasons.  His brother suffers from cancer and a friend showed me this story on Yahoo Answers today:
"there is a reporter in  Florida whose daughter has leukemia. Here is her story and the reason that David wears the orange bracelet.

My name is Charley, and I am the reporter in Tampa whose daughter has leukemia.She loves David Cook so much, I just had to mention it to him when I was interviewing him for the top 12. He was absolutely the most genuine person I think I have ever met in my life. He called Lindsey Rose and spoke such encouraging words to her. When I told him about the orange bracelet that I wear...he immediately asked for one. The fact that he followed through with his promise...and wears it on the air...is simply amazing. Such a simple gesture, but one that means so much. When my daughter sees that orange wristband on the air...she squeals...she dances...she sings...and she cheers. Most importantly, it gives her a great distraction....for a few moments, she doesn't have to think about anything related to cancer. She is seven years old, and was just diagnosed on Christmas Eve of last year. Needless to say, this has been devastating for her. Early on in this process, I had to leave the hospital and felt guilty about it. She looked up and told me "Do watcha gotta do Daddy." That has become the motto for our whole family and friends to help us get through this. She has two years of chemotherapy ahead of her...and hopefully at the end of all of that...we can say she is cured. Her favorite color is orange, and it just so happens, that turned out to be the official color of childhood leukemia awareness. So we made up wristbands that say "Do whatcha gotta do!" on one side, and Lindsey Rose on the other. I encourage all of you to use that motto in your own lives.

And I know David will use that motto to become a huge singing success. I don't care what happens on this TV show...he is already my Idol. And to little Lindsey Rose...he is forever a special friend...a person who took the time to care about someone other than himself."

I'll close with that. Just if you pray, lift up Chad's Grandma and Josh's Grandpa in your prayers and our families. 

Gone From My Sight

David Martin Trail

10/31/30-3/23/08

Gone from My Sight

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side
spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and
starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty
and strength. I stand and watch her until at length
she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where
the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in
mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and
she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her
destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the
moment when someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"

 

And that, is dying.

Rest in Peace my darling DADDY. You will be terribly missed by all that love you so very much, but we know that your body was failing you and you were in pain. We know that you have gone to be with Jesus and no one deserves Heaven more than you do.  So while we are sad we know that HE has made you glad and you have a perfect new body now and are with your mama and sister and so many others and we will see you again. 

blog thing

Sweet Shoppe is at it again, making me blog.  I have a special post I want to do later for my daddy who recently passed away, but I wanted to do this first so my special one will stay on top. Anyway, I missed a lot of Easter fun it would appear. did this today for  sweet shoppe points:

You Are a Swirled Easter Egg

Completely psychedelic ... just like the Easter Bunny!

What Kind of Easter Egg Are You?

which came from here:
http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofeastereggareyouquiz/

Blogging for Sweet Shoppe points once more :)

Someday I will blog a regular post again, lol but here we go for now :)

1. How often do you get sick with a cold? The flu? Something else?  usually once a year or so. Only had the flu once, last winter and it kicked my butt! LOL I am just getting over something , cold/flu whatever that lasted 8 days! UGH!

2. Are you the sort of person who goes to work or school no matter how sick you are or are you willing to stay at home when it gets bad? For the most part I have to work whether I am sick or not. Like last week I would work a little while, rest a little while. Working at home comes in handy sometimes I guess. 

3. How do you like to treat a cold? What remedies do you like and why?  Do you go to the doctor willingly?
4. What do you do to keep from getting sick in the winter? Don't go to the doctor unless I just absolutely feel like I am dying!  I treat my colds with Dayquil to come up and Nyquil to go down and tote around a box of Kleenex all day. For some reason sodas taste funny when I have a cold so I drink a lot  of apple juice or orange juice. 

5. What is your favorite thing to do when you stay home from work or school? Watch movies and TLC shows all day  :)

Blogging for Sweet Shoppe points again :)

Evidently my life is too mundane to do REGULAR blog posts, but at least the girls at SSD MAKE me blog every now and then :) Today they want to know some Netflix choices. Man I love my Netflix and wouldn't know how to live without it.  I fondly refer to it as "belly top theatre" but I love to lay in bed with my laptop on my belly with a pair of headphones on and watch netflix video after video.   I find that since I adopted this method of watching movies I watch way more. I always had technical difficulty with my  DVD players and can never get the volume to suit me where I can hear it all. There's something about the laptop/earphones experience that I love.

But anyway I digress.  I watch a lot of TV series from Netflix. I started with Grey's, watched all those.  Then moved on to House and Scrubs and have now seen all of those and am sufficiently ticked at the whole writers strike thing but I digress yet again. So now I am currently watching Gilmore Girls, and also decided it would be fun to go back and watch ER from the beginning because I have missed like the last 6-7 years.  Matter of fact I watched the pilot last night and fell in love with it all over again.  Man I do love me some Anthony Edwards and WHOA did George Clooney look young or WHAT! LOL

So some other recommendations:
Speaking of Mr. Clooney..ONE FINE DAY is still a favorite that I go back and watch every now and then.
another oldie but goody is  FOOLS RUSH IN (LOVE Matthew Perry. he is sexy in a quirky nerd boy kinda way!)
Then I would say you must watch HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS (yes I know..stuck on old ones here but I LOVE My Mattie man in this one!)

and then umm...
one I would NOT recommend.. I watched REIGN OVER ME last night. It has Adam Sandler in it. He plays a widower that lost his wife and three girls in 9/11. It was sad and did bring tears at one point but most of the movie was just ...well...weird. Sandler should stick to comedy. 

VIEW FROM THE TOP was kinda cute. Watched that one last weekend. Mike Myers was cute in it.
FLYWHEEL was also excellent. I blogged about it a few posts down if you care to look.
KNOCKED UP was cute but I would definitely recommend getting the "clean " version. I didn't think to check this and I was sorry, lol

So there for inquiring minds, are a few of my most recent rentals and now I can happily go to bed,  knowing I earned my point :)

Valentine Quiz on Sweet Shoppe Blog

hmmmmm......I am thinking I should have cheated, lol. I did NOT do well.  I scored 3/10.  A 30 on a Valentine test?Goes to show how much I know about Valentine's day! HMMMMMF.  All I know is I am supposed to get roses!  I am really enjoying the from our blog to yours, and other challenges at the Sweet Shoppe..I'm shootin for that magic 40% this month! 

Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow because I finally have other things to blog about!

Ciao!

What? the weatherman can be wrong?

Say it isn't SO.  We woke up this morning to NO SNOW at all. NADA. Went to bed last night and it was coming down so I prayed it would stick and we would wake up to a winter wonderland, but it was not to be :"(   I can't describe how totally sad I was. More disappointed than the kids even, I think.    I did however get to sleep in this morning because they decided to cancel church today because it is SO cold and there was some black ice on secondary roads.   So in a way it was kind of like having two Saturdays.  I got so much scrapping done this weekend, and I even got some typing done and my bedroom clean. I hope tomorrow I can talk Chad into getting out the Kirby and shampooing my bedroom carpet.   If he hadn't bought the dang thing while I was knocked out from dental work, maybe I would know how to use it too and he wouldn't have to be the only one to run it  (well really, if I had been around when he bought it we wouldn't have bought it but that's another story!)

Anyway, I was also able to watch some Netflix videos. I am on my very last disc of Scrubs and I hate to see it end and I'll have to wait for season 7 to come to netflix before I see what JD and the gang are up to. I have to say, I don't know why I never knew about this show before but I LOVE it.  I call that period where we had Satellite tv with no network channels the "DARK YEARS".  I am about to start on the Gilmore Girls next and also going to go waay back in time and do ER.    I also watched Angels' Fall last night, a made for TV adaptation of the book by Nora Roberts THE QUEEN.  The movie was.......eh.....okay.  The book was So much better and I saw things better in my mind.  I also hate the way they change unnecessary things in the movies.....things that wouldn't change anything if they were left just the way they were. Why mess with perfection? I don't get it.  But I digress. 

Need to cruise the library or BooksFree.com and find me a new read.  I finished  HIGH NOON a week ago and haven't gotten into anything since except for books for Bible college. Probaby should forget finding a fiction book for right now and just concentrate on that huh :)

Anyway, here are a few layouts I did :)  I am still basking in the Mary Fran and Kay Miller glory. I asked a friend today if she had ever heard of a designer getting upset for a CT member making TOO MANY layouts cause I feel it coming on! I love it when these periods of inspiration come. You have to grab them by the horns when they do!

This one uses HAPPY HEARTS BY KAY MILLER

This one uses Quilty Pleasures by Mary Fran

At first the expression on Chad's face in this photo kind of upset me, cause it was hard enough getting him to pose for the shot and then to have it come out like this was a little disappointing. Until I realized hey, that's just him! LOL

 

and last...I went back in time a little to one of the best weeks of my life when Christie and I took the kids to  The Crack (read that, Ocracoke Island for you normal people) and I finally got around to scrapping this shot of Katie that I loved so much. I used Mary Fran's CHERRY BLOSSOMS for this.

and those were just today! See what I mean? totall productive day! I love it!  The next three days are winter break for the kids, except for Josh, who will go to school  on Tues/Wed. Don't know what I'll do with them all day, especially since Kayla and Lexie won't be here.  But it's for a very special reason they won't. Their daddy came home from Afghanistan yesterday! Welcome Back JEFF!!! :)

Gonna go soak in the tub with my book and crawl in bed with the laptop! :) 

Let it snow let it snow let it snow

It's gonna SNOW!!!! yaaaay it's gonna snow.  For some of you, that may be no big deal. For us Eastern North Carolinians it is a HUGE deal.  HUGE.  I bet there are people still in walmart right now loading up on Milk and bread.  See, when it's snow you buy milk and bread so you can make French Toast and snow cream.  When it is a hurricane, you buy bottled water and batteries. See how that works? Us Suth'ners sure know how to be prepared! Anyway starting tomorrow afternoon we should start getting snow and we are supposed to get 2-4 inches.  The kids and I are totally excited! I even bought gloves today! LOL  They are dreaming of all the fun they will have playing in it, and I am dreaming of all the photos I will take. I should take a LOT because the last snow we had was 4 years ago, and who knows when the next will be after this. Need photos to tide me over!

Speaking of photos. And Scrapping. I am officially the happiest digi scrapper in the world.  I mentioned the other day how much I loved being on Kay Miller's team. Well she went and topped herself ...she teamed up with my OTHER most favorite designer, Mary Fran (Nit Wit Collections) and I am now Creative Team member for BOTH. OMG it's BETTER than Disney Land. It really is! I've spent a large part of the day scrapping. Playing hooky is fun but I can't let myself keep doing it! It's 1: 30 a.m. now and my tired eyes are ready for bed, but not before I show you Kay and Mary Fran's new kits and what I did with them :) I'm SOooooooooooo Excited!

First up, Kay's new kit, Love You Bunches  You know me and Pink.  I kinda like pink. Just a little yaknow. And this kit sure gave me a pink sugar RUSH.

Isn't it sooooo totally cute? and if you happen to love the graphics, but like a more clean and linear style, she was kind enough to make a separate graphic pack,

She also has a new set of quick pages made in fab Kay-style from this kit, and a new set of templates, so you gotta go check those out :)

And on to Mary Fran. All I can say is when this woman makes a kit she goes allllllll out.  So many parts and pieces to each one so you can choose how much you want (er...NEED).  She released "Affection" today and I am feeling quite affectionate toward it if  I say so myself :)

Gorgeous huh?  Here's my layouts I did today:

See what I mean? Totally pink yumminess. I had a ball today.  The house is a mess, the typing isn't done and the groceries never got put completely away, but I am a very very happy girl. Now if I could only find my Netflix movie  I would be a good girl and go to bed but I've misplaced it. If I ever find it, it's  Angels Fall, the Lifetime movie made from the book by Nora Roberts. I read the book a few weeks ago and Loved it, so I hope the movie doesn't disappoint. 

Oh and before I close, for those of you following my dad, he came home from the hospital last Saturday and has done better than any of us anticipated!  Thank you so much for all your thoughts and prayers. I know that we will have to face the day that we don't have him anymore sooner than later, but it's nice to know that it's not immediately soon. 

Off to bed. Tomorrow I have a baby shower to go to and lots of cleaning to do. Then we are going to light a fire in the fireplace, have some nice hot chili for dinner and watch the snow fall. YIPEEE!!!