Thursday=House Day

Well another Thursday is over with. I have set aside Thursdays as my take care of the house day. I get my dishes caught up, laundry at least down to the laundry room and order restored to the house, at least to a point where it's livable again. It's also my day to do my grocery shopping. Today was the first trip I've done with my coupons in my handy sheet protector and the only buy it if it's on my list rule enforced. Yes, I'm trying out the grocery Smarts shopping tips. I still don't know what I'm doing at all, but I figure I'm going to give it a try at least to keep my food storage up. I even signed up for extra Sunday papers for the coupons.

The main problem I find with my couponing is that I tend to buy things that I wouldn't normally buy simply because I have the coupon for it. Case in point: I ran to the store yesterday and picked up a few boxes of Kashi brand cereal and granola bars. Never had them before and they're about the same price with the coupons that I would normally pay for cereal and granola bars, so I'm not really saving anything. Although I did get a free pack of Wrigglies Winterfresh gum to put in my purse so that was cool. I need to do a little tweaking in the system I can tell that already. But I'm actually excited about it and going to give it a try. I did score on the Oreo cookies today. I went way out of my way to Albersons for their 2/$4 sale because I also had a $1 off coupon for them. My kids are thrilled because they are an extravagance for sure. I also requested my first "Rain Check" for bottled water to use in our food storage. So I didn't really start off with anything fabulous to report except that I still think Macey's is my store of choice. I'll let you know how it goes.

The best news of all is that tomorrow is Friday. That's dubbed as my "personal day" so I get to do whatever I want. I may just go pull more weeds, but I love it!! There is also scrapbooking at the church. I love Fridays!!!

Happy Birthday Dennis

This is my chance for a Dennis Post since it's his birthday today and even though he probably won't even read this I want him to know how grateful I am to have him in my life, and even more than that, he is my life!
You have always been my tall dark and handsome, musical, athletic, artistic knight in shining armor. I love your good heart and your strength. I love how you put your best work into all you do. I love how you find ways to serve. I love how devoted you are me and our children. I love that you change diapers and do laundry, and so much more. I love how good you are with people. I love how you play the piano at night when the children are in bed. I love that you love to work out in the yard with me. I love that you want to spend more time with me and that you coach soccer and baseball even though it usually means giving up time for other things. You're just amazing!

I love you so much!! Happy Birthday!!

My New Laptop

For our anniversary Dennis bought me a new laptop. (Love him!!) He knew that I've been looking for one for a few months now. I knew exactly what I wanted. I am having so much fun with it. It is an HP Compaq Presario CQ60Z. It came with Vista which I was a little nervous about since I'm an XP girl, but I think I'm learning my way around enough to get by. I took it to my parents house over General Conference weekend to kind of play around with. It was funny because my brother Jared was there with his laptop also. Here we both were in the same room together laptops infront of us, tuning out everything else. We weren't chatting with each other though, but my mom made comparison of kids texting to each other from across the room. But we're not that bad yet mom. What I'm looking forward to the most is being able to go to a scrapbook night with the girls now. It's going to be so much fun.

I Got Published

My scraping addiction has finally paid off, literally. OK so it was only $5 dollars to use the the Scrapgirls Boutique, but hey, I'm not complaining at all, it most likely would have gone there anyway.

I subscribe to a digital scrapbook newsletter from scrapgirls.com and when I opened it today, to my surprise, there I was staring back at me. (It was the layout I posted in my last post here, so scroll down to see it.) I have only posted 3 or 4 layouts on the scrapgirls website, I'm really selfconscious about my stuff, so this totally took me by surprise! I'm pretty pumped about it though and admit that it did make my day! I wasn't trying to win anything by posting it they are just really good at making comments so I posted it to see what others thought. I only win things when I'm not trying to anyway.

If you want to see the newsletter click here. My layout is almost at the bottom.

Happy Day!!!

Confessions of a Digital Scrapbook Addict

I reached another momentous anniversary at the end of March. I've been digital scrapping for a year now. It all started when Dennis and my kids gave me a fun book on Valentines day last year all about how to make your own calendars and greeting cards. Inside this book was a link for a free trial version of a digital photo program (Photoshop Elements 6.0) It took me about a month to get around to it, but what it has turned into is something one step short of crazy, that is . . . a passion.
Effects, styles, masks, layers, brushes, embellishments, stiches, papers, collections, fonts, custom shapes, textures and oh yea, digital photography. I am the first to admit that I am completely hooked! I have to limit myself by using it as a reward for getting my household chores done. Taking pictures at family activities and outings have changed from a way to document our lives into a potential artistic design know throughout the scrapping world as a Layout. I've actually set up photo opportunities just so I could have pictures to use in a cute LO I've seen somewhere. Oh yea and that's another thing. The digital scrapping world has it's own lingo associated with it. I don't text on my cell phone, I don't even have a cell phone, but I know a large array of acronyms anyway. Here is the short list of commonly used:

DH (Dear/Darling) Husband, DS (Dear/Darling) Son, DD (Dear/Darling) Daughter, PS (#/CS) PhotoShop (version number or CS), PSE PhotoShop Elements, PSP PaintShop Pro, MM Making Memories, CK Creating Keepsakes, LOL Laugh out loud, ROFL Rolling on the floor, TFS Thanks for sharing, TFL Thanks for looking, TIA Thanks in advance, HTH Hope that helps,
BRB be right back, BTDT Been there, done that!, WTG Way to go, girls, WIP Work in Progress, WOMBAT waste of money, brains, and time, LO Layout...

Digital Scrapbookers even have their own AA type groups. They're called forums and they are everywhere on the web. All they really do though is help feed the fire! Then there are enticings of freebees you get if you sign up for the scrapping newsletters that arive in your inbox daily! Just feeding the fire!
In the beginning I justified this "Hobbie" because it doesn't take up as much space, but that I wouldn't have to buy papers and stickers and stamps that I would use once then they're gone. With Scrapbooking supplies you can use them over and over again. Look at the money I'm saving!
OK so confession time. The fiscal tally of my "savings" are roughly as follows.
Digital Scraping program $75
Monthly allowance for those gotta have addons that are so cute, <$15
New laptop so I can take my obsession, oh I mean passion with me where ever I go, $??? (I'm embarrassed to actually post it.)
Photo quality printer, cuz of course you save even more money by printing the pages at home. Even if I technically didn't purchase the printer myself, it was a Christmas present from my parents, and it just goes to prove that I have others who are feeding my habit as well, around $200??

Then there is the ink and special printing paper that I haven't even had a chance to include yet as well as my future plans for a new digital camara. It doesn't really add up to a whole lot of savings does it. And it never ends!! So really it's not about saving money! Its all about saving my sanity and that is priceless!

I finally have an out!! A mother who is home with four children 7 days a week 24 hours a day finally has someplace to get away for a couple hours. And luckily I've found a friend who's probably more addicted than I am to share in the madness. That's what it all comes down to and why my husband can sleep at night. (After all he started it all with that one little book!)

This Digital Scrapbook Addict is a happy girl!!

Van Finally Has a Home Again

Our poor van, who growls at us every time we turn it on in the winter months, finally has a roof over it's head again.
Back in November our garage was transformed into an extra storage room out of necessity when we started the basement project. I'm afraid that the van got the boot, but I'm proud to report that as of today our van is no longer homeless. My hard work has paid off just in time for hopefully one of the last big snow storms of the season!
Oddly enough when I took Dennis to work this morning it made me laugh as I drove by all the other "homeless" cars out there who where left out in the snow as well. The term two car garage is very misleading. In reality what it should be called is an attached shed with room for a small car to squeeze into. And more often than not the typical two car garage is simply an extra storage room for most people. It's true because I saw if for myself! Car after car with a 1/2 inch of snow frosted on the tops of them.
The next item on our wish list is a shed. A real detached building in the back yard with a concrete pad and all to store the lawn mower, rakes, shovels, wheelbarrow and all sorts of lawn and garden care products that currently reside in our "garage". Never again will our van be homeless!

If It's Spring Why Does It Feel Like Winter?

Last week was absolutely gorgeous outside! I was just loving it! I even got a few things planted in my garden. Peas, spinach and lettuce. I also planted cabbage plants and bare root strawberries. I even had Dennis up on the roof taking down our Christmas lights. So then what does it do. . . it snows of course. The only consolation is that it isn't sticking it's melting away, but it is still pretty cold. I guess I should be thinking more of the positive. At least all the snow pack in the mountains isn't melting away all at once. That's a good thing. Also the faster it gets warm the sooner it gets hot and I kind of wilt in the extreme heat. So I guess things aren't that bad.

Last weekend we took the kids to the Draper Temple open house. The most exciting part for the kids was the bus ride to the temple and back. It was very beautiful inside. I was so excited for the chance to show our children what it was like inside.