Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Welcome!

I know the title of today's blog post might seem a little strange, but I feel like I need to say welcome - or maybe welcome back. Due to a lot of personal and work-related "stuff", things have been really hectic these past few months, but finally I think there's light at the end of the tunnel. Finally. So, without going into too much detail, here's the short 'n' dirty version of what's been happening --

  • DS has been working at McDonalds for a few months now. The summer months have been a little slower, with the hiring of extra people to spread the load and help accommodate vacations and such, but he's enjoying it.

  • DS is also working towards his driving permit. We have the car, so that's added motivation for him. It's a 2007 Pontiac G5 Coupe, blue'ish purple'ish color ... manual transmission. Yup, a stick-shift! It's at the dealership right now getting a few things fixed (which we knew going in to the purchase). Lord help us when he's ready to drive - he wants me to teach him!

  • We had the siding replaced on the house. A two-man crew did everything in less than four days, despite some awful weather. An expensive update to the house, but it so needed it. The old siding was original to the house (we're talking 30+ years), aluminum, no insulation. New stuff has insulation and we got Tyvek wrap on the house. All the old wood trim was wrapped, too. Color combo was something called Country Beige, then white trim work, and I painted the front door Hunter Green (to match the shutters on the front of the house).

  • Vacation! We're getting ready for our first real vacation in two years - can you believe it, two years?! Our last trip away was Labor Day 2013, but that was a quick long-weekend visit with family - fly in, spend a day and a half, fly out.  This upcoming vacation will be almost three weeks. We so need it.

For DH and me, it's pretty much business as usual. No big changes at work or on the home front. (well, gee, that sounds pretty boring, doesn't it? LOL)  DH loves travel things, so he's doing all the prep work for the trip - and I'm happy to let him do it. He's looking at hotels, rental cars, day trips, things we can do, etc.  I found two things to add to our must-do list: hot air ballooning and a speed boat tour (yeah, like zooming around at 100+ mph!  Eeek - cool!).

Scrappy-wise, I've been busy - and that's an understatement! Since my last blog post, I got invited to join another creative team, one for Mye De Leon. I've known Mye in digi circles for a few years now, so was thrilled when she approached me to be on her team. This is one of my first pages using the Piazza Collection (which is from Mye's monthly I Collect Memories kits) --



I have so many other pages to share, but before I go, I wanted to give a big shout out to Tiffany Tillman and the team at Scrapaneers - Happy 1st Birthday!!




There are fun things happening all week and today there's a scraplift challenge hosted by ... me! That's the "fun challenges" part that you see in the graphic above *wink* What was even more fun, I got to sit in and chat with Traci Reed, the very instructor and designer I scraplifted, during one of the new The Digital Coffee Break sessions (pssst, check this out Digital Coffee Break | Free Episode)  There's also discounts on many self-paced classes with the Scrapaneers Birthday Sale, too - and because they are self-paced, you can do them in your own time (well, duh). I've done quite a few of these classes and loved them all. My most recent one wasn't self-paced, but I learned so much. The Art of Photographs, taught by Amanda Taylor (yup, the very same gal from Taylor Made Designs) --
 
 

I know, it happened in July - my bad - but keep an eye out for the class to run again ... it was awesome! I've always struggled to make my photos fit for whatever project I was working on, but what I learned in this class was that some photos tend to work better with one technique over another. It was quite an eye-opener. Here's one of my pages from the class --


Okay, I've got work to do (it never seems to stop, which is sad) ... laters!

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