December Daily: Day 9

Moving along, getting some pages done. Love the holiday season but breathing a sigh of relief that the wonderful craziness is behind us. So looking forward to wonderful things in 2011. Happy New Year to All!

Had a great time in NY with my family, more to come on that soon :-)

J is for…

 Jamocha Almond Fudge
My new favorite flavor of ice cream from Dunkin Donuts. It's of course chocolate with strips of fudge and almonds. This flavor is second only to Chocolate Decadence. Unfortunately, I can only get it at a little Mom n Pop shop called Chitterchats down at Fleeton.
See also: addictive personality, chocolate, cream

Jamaica
Beautiful beaches, gorgeous water, friendly people, palm trees, warm breezes - sigh. We went two years in a row since we loved it so much the first time. The first year we went to an all-inclusive Sandals resort in Negril, the second year we tried the all inclusive Couples Resort. Both were equally awesome. How can you go wrong with beautiful beaches, warm water and a swim up bar?
See also: beach

Jensen & Jared
Not that I know them on a first name basis, but they certainly are nice to look at. To make it even better, they both now star on the same TV show: Supernatural. I used to watch Smallville when Jensen Ackles was on there, and I used to watch Gilmore Girls when Jared Padalecki played one of the main characters. Definitely a bit of eye candy going on there! Total bonus that the show is actually good! Ironically, it's one of the few shows that both Keith and I like, but obviously for different reasons!
See also: X-files, Witches & the paranormal


This is one of many installments on the ABCs of Me's. Each week I will feature a different letter of the alphabet and a few corresponding entries on yours truly. This project was inspired by a class I took at Big Picture Classes (Me: The Abridged Version) which was based on a book called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.

December Daily: Day 5

I realize that December is nearly over and I’m only posting Day 5, but better late than never. I’ll keep them coming until I feel I have had enough. Hope your holidays were very Merry!

This page documents a Progressive Dinner with friends, if you haven’t tried it you should, it’s fun! Basically each family makes one course of the meal and everyone travels from house to house to enjoy the courses. It was a great way to lighten the load on each hostess and there was certainly plenty of food!

Journaling reads:

We had our first “Progressive Dinner” and it was quite an entertaining evening. We started at our house with appetizers and Bellinis. Katherine had the great idea to get family photos in front of the tree. Since I wasn’t the one behind the camera nor the one requesting the photo, everyone seems to be smiling just perfectly. It’s too bad I had already ordered my Christmas cards or this quite possibly might have gone to the top of the pile. We continued on to Julie’s for a delicious roast and rice dinner, and then to Katherine’s for dessert complete with poinsettia punch. It was a fun evening and we were all pleasantly exhausted by the end.
Fortunately, Summer started feeling better by the afternoon as she was a little pekid earlier in the day so Lady kept her company and tried to make her feel better.

December Daily challenge 

Template & overlays: Ali Edwards, Date Card & Day 5 brush: Katie Pertiet, Photo treatment: Anna Aspnes

December Daily: Days 6, 7 & 8

 

Finally got my Christmas cards out in the mail. Summer was a great help, she labeled, stuffed and stamped most of the cards, including the ones I sent out for my sister Karen. We also received some great chocolate covered strawberries from my other sister Danielle.

Technorati Tags: December Daily,Summer

December Daily: Day 4

Journaling reads:
On our way out of town to go to Keith’s Christmas party in Roanoke we passed the newly finished overpass at Mary Wash – I still find it more than slightly amusing that I ended up living in my college town!  Taking pictures on the way to Roanoke, we saw a speed limit sign that said 70 miles per hour,  Keith said he had never seen one and neither had I so of course I had to take a picture. Since he was driving and I had just gotten my new laptop, I wanted to document me happily scrapbooking the whole way, hence the picture of my reflection in the laptop. Once we went over the mountains it started snowing like crazy… almost total white out conditions, so weird! The mountains were so pretty to see, very nice views from the road in every direction. It was a very relaxing and quiet trip with no kids on board.  Since we were alone, I had to set up the timer to take a picture of us – we had such a good time hanging out alone together, it was the first time in a very  long time and it was wonderful.  The lobby of the Hotel Roanoke was amazingly decorated in all reds and golds with multiple Christmas trees all around, the snow falling outside was just icing on the cake. We saw a cool train roundtable which my Dad would love so Keith stopped so I could get close ups of the engines. We even stopped at a scenic overlook on the way home. Although we were only gone for a little over 24 hours, it was a wonderful re-charge for both of us.

Merry Christmas Eve, I hope Santa brings you lots of goodies!
December Daily challenge
Templates & overlays: Ali Edwards, Cardstock: Atomic Cupcake, Patterned Paper & word strips: Katie Pertiet

I is for…

Irrational fears
I have certain things that just spook me out regardless of the situation. Perhaps I've watched too many scary movies, who knows? I still cannot sit with my feet dangling over the bed, I will not go in water I can't see through, When I walk up the stairs I always walk closest to the wall farthest from the railing, I would never purposely go into something where I could get stuck in a small space and I often have nightmares about being buried alive, drowning or someone stealing my kids. Fortunately, these thoughts are fleeting and not paralyzing.

iPod
I carry my iPod Touch everywhere I go. I use it for most everything from my calendar to my music, Summer's spelling lists, scrapbook page wish lists, grocery shopping lists, podcasts, and email. I've become addicted to podcasts, particulary the Paperclipping Roundtable & The Digi Show. I'm looking forward to getting a device to combine the functionality of my iPod & cell.
See also: Xternal brain, gadget girl, scrapbooking

Inside jokes & movie quotesWhy do bridges get icy before the roadway? Thanks for 'cooking Stace!' "Is it cool?" Adam Sandler movie quotes: "It's a CD player Jules." "all right y'all shut up now" "no Colonel Sanders you're wrong!" "Mama M-Mama M-Mama says crocodiles are ornery because they have all them teeth and no toothbrush", History of the World (Mel Brooks) quotes: " you are nuts - N-V-T-S - nuts", "I flunked flank", "I love quick time harch!" Keith doesn't like History of the World, so it's a good thing we have Adam Sandler.
See also: movies


This is one of many installments on the ABCs of Me's. Each week I will feature a different letter of the alphabet and a few corresponding entries on yours truly. This project was inspired by a class I took at Big Picture Classes (Me: The Abridged Version) which was based on a book called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.


Thanks for reading along - I'm celebrating my 100th post today!

December Daily: Day 3

Only one page for today, apparently my daughter has inherited my taste for chocolate – uh, oh.

Journaling reads:

Summer was so excited when the decorations finally came out. She has been wearing that Santa hat for days and it is only the 3rd of December! She is definitely my “sweet tooth” kid and begged for an advent calendar of her own so that she could eat chocolate everyday. Of course, I got Bryce one too and he immediately put it somewhere Summer couldn’t reach. Right now these two butt heads quite a bit, but someday I know they will be the best of friends. Ironically, when I mentioned making an advent calendar, my crafty girl said “no thanks” but Bryce wants to. They continue to surprise me.

December Daily challenge

Template & overlay: Ali Edwards, Santa brush & word strips: Katie Pertiet

December Daily: Day 2

Off to a slow start but certainly enjoying the holidays! I am loving this project – it’s great to catch the everyday details and have this to look back on next Christmas as well. The kids have noticed I’m a bit more camera happy and I can only imagine what they’ll come up with next!

Journaling reads: In addition to making the gingerbread sleighs we have also done some other baking. We made a bunch of pies and some really cool cupcakes for a holiday party. Bryce wasn’t interested in the making of the pies this year, just the consumption. While at a friend’s house for dinner, Bryce entertained us by riding a tricycle around the house! He is quite a character! I’ve also gotten a jump on my Christmas shopping and took away a great haul from Target:-)

December Daily challenge 

Template & overlay: Ali Edwards, Cardstock: Atomic Cupcake, Day 2 brush & word strip: Katie Pertiet

December Daily: Day 1 of ?

Here is my first official two page spread of my December not-so-daily album. I love the way it turned out and I’m looking forward to sharing more in days to come.

Journaling reads as follows: Making gingerbread stuff has become an annual tradition. We don’t always make houses though, sometimes it’s gingerbread men or trains or sleighs!  This year Summer’s friend Brooke was here for the fun. I barely had time to snap these adorable photos before they gobbled them up. I’m so glad there are kits out there to make it easy. No muss, no fuss, that’s the way I like it!

Templates: Ali Edwards, Cardstock: Atomic Cupcake, Tag: Katie Pertiet

December not-so-Daily

I’ve been participating in a holiday scrap challenge held each year by the infamous Ali Edwards called December Daily. The premise behind it is to capture all the holiday-ish moments throughout the month of December by creating a few pages a day. Amidst the craziness that has been my life of late, I have managed to get a few pages done. While I am not ‘caught up’ so to speak, I am very happy with the pages I’ve completed and I’ll tell you why. For some bizarre reason, over the last 16 years of scrapbooking I have only managed to put together a handful of Christmas related pages. The reason I find this bizarre is because I typically take photos during Christmas-time like I’m on vacation, we are talking hundreds of photos a week! Oddly enough inspiration rarely strikes when it comes to putting together Christmas type pages. I have recently come to love project type scrapbooks. Every Thursday you have been enjoying (at least I hope you have), my ABCs of Me feature and I think by making this December Daily album I have some parameters to work within to capture the special times of the holiday. My album may turn out to be a not-so-daily album but that’s ok, I’ve already put down to paper some cute stories and it’s reminding me to take pictures each day to capture the holiday season. Check out Ali’s blog for some inspiration, I know I want to take pictures and tell stories every time I read one of her posts. Here’s the intro page, I’ll post more as I complete them. Thanks for reading!Cardstock: Atomic Cupcake, Flergs; Word Art: Sabrina’s Creations & Santa brush: Katie Pertiet

Technorati Tags: December Daily,Ali Edwards

H is for…

Home
I have only lived in two states: NY & VA, but I've had many different addresses in each. I grew up on Fir Grove Road, the house my parents still live in. I've lived at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, VA while attending school there for four years. After college, I lived at home again for two years before Keith & I got our first apartment together in Centereach, NY where we lived for a year before moving to Virginia Beach. There we rented a townhome on English Court for a year before buying our first home on Peridot Drive in the Rock Creek Subdivision of Virginia Beach . After living there for several years we decided to open our own business so we moved back to Long Island. We didn't realize how hard it would be to find a temporary rental because we had two big dogs and ended up living with my parents for about a year before we found a rental. We first rented a cute house in South Sayville. Unfortunately, the owner decided to sell it so we had to move a year later. The only thing we could find was this ridiculously small 2 bedroom house that was about 100 years old. It's saving grace was close proximity to the office and a nice porch. When we first moved in we only had Bryce, but shortly afterwards we got pregnant with Summer. Since Bryce was due to start kindergarten a few months after Summer's arrival, we decided it was time to buy a house. We ended up buying a house in my hometown, also convenient to the office and only 3 miles from my parents' house. {Most definitely the most-missed feature of our newest residence}. We lived in our Joan Street house for five years and decided it was too expensive to live on Long Island anymore and moved to Spotsylvania, VA where we've been since 2007. I'm hoping that Silver Creek Court will be our address for a while.
See also: apartment, our first

This is one of many installments on the ABCs of Me's. Each week I will feature a different letter of the alphabet and a few corresponding entries on yours truly. This project was inspired by a class I took at Big Picture Classes (Me: The Abridged Version) which was based on a book called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.

I’ve been cheating on you

Dearest blog readers, I regret to inform you that I’ve been cheating on you. I know you saw it coming. After all the talk of my anticipated new addition, Harry, you knew it was inevitable. So, yes, I’ve been cheating, everyday mind you – and even now as we speak! But now that I’ve gotten the ‘newness’ out of the way I’m ready to come back to you…that is if you’ll have me :-) I hope your holiday plans, festivities and gift buying & making plans are coming along smoothly. I’ve finished the bulk of my homemade gifts as well as my shopping and I’m ready to enjoy the hustle and bustle of the season. Cheers!

Technorati Tags: technology,Harry Potter

G is for…

Gadget girl
I love all the new fangled devices that are coming out. Technology is awesome! I think it's great when gadgets are multi-purpose and portable. I'm in love with the new iPad - it is just too cool for words! Right in line with gadgets are apps (applications) I love discovering new apps and software that do cool things. It's especially awesome when I can sync all of my gadgets to be able to access info anywhere I am. I've recently discovered that my Dad is also a gadget freak so I guess it runs in the family. So if you come to visit me, know I will always have a gadget close at hand and the zeros will NOT be blinking on my VCR.
See also: Xternal brain, ipod

Giant Foods
Kind of a funny name for a grocery store. The first time I went in there I half expected to see radioactive sized fruits and vegetables like on that episode of Gilligan's Island. I feel like I go there practically everyday. It's so close to the house that I really don't mind. I suppose if it were further away I'd be forced to plan better. The picture to the left shows what a good sport Summer is. The sticker on the banana says "place sticker on forehead and smile" so she did as instructed and told me to take a picture...can you tell her Mom is a scrapbooker?

This is one of many installments on the ABCs of Me's. Each week I will feature a different letter of the alphabet and a few corresponding entries on yours truly. This project was inspired by a class I took at Big Picture Classes (Me: The Abridged Version) which was based on a book called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.

They gave me the wrong baby!

So I've been waiting for Harry's arrival, very impatiently I might add. I ordered him Thursday (Thanksgiving) and paid for one day shipping. He was supposed to arrive on Monday. Monday came and went, no notice and no Harry. Tuesday came and went too with a very vague email from store that said shipping was delayed one to two days due to external problems, whatever that means. So most of Wednesday went by with me wondering when he would arrive. Well at 5 o'clock, about 30 minutes before I was due to walk out the door to services for my son's friend, he arrived. I excitedly opened all the boxes and oohed and aahed each time a layer of the packaging came undone. The box was enormous and the laptop was much bigger than I expected (I know, you are probably saying, you told us it was a 17" laptop so what's the problem). Well, it just seems so much larger in real life. Anyway, I plug it in and turn it on, it powers up so quickly and the first thing I'm asked to do is type my name, so I press the keys s-t-a-c-e-y, and 'sacey' appears on the screen. I quickly retype, I just thought in my excitement I put in a typo - so I do it again,  s-t-a-c-e-y, again 'sacey' appears on the screen. Previous glow on my face disappears as I angrily type  s-T-a-c-e-y, but I am once again disappointed with 'sacey' staring back at me. So here goes the waiting game, luckily customer service understood that this was not the baby I expected, they were very pleasant and are overnighting me another laptop that is supposed to arrive on Monday - so stay tuned, or should I say 'say uned'.

F is for...

Food

I would like to say I spend way too much time thinking about food, but I think the opposite is the problem. I really don’t think about it until I’m hungry and then I go for things that are convenient or just have some sort of magical hold over me. Happy? Great, let’s eat! Sad? Hmmm, what can I eat? Frustrated? Watch out pantry! I would have to say that a salty, sweet, & crunchy combo constitutes the perfect synergy of taste, think chocolate covered pretzels. Crunchy & spicy rank right up there too as I also love jalapeno potato chips. I haven’t met a chip or piece of chocolate that I didn’t like. Now, I am not all about the junk food. Give me a nice filet mignon or some shrimp and I am a happy camper. Just don’t let me get too hungry because as Keith always tells me, my eyes are bigger than my stomach.
See also: chocolate, overweight


French pedicure
There is just something really cool about a French manicure. I don’t know if the fact that it’s French has anything to do with it. A French pedicure is just one of those little things that make me happy. I mean, who doesn’t like cute toes?
See also: Eiffel tower


Funny, people tell me I am
I am usually able to remember the punch lines of jokes and can find humor in almost any situation. I’m certainly not a comedian by any stretch of the imagination, but life is way too short not to have a good laugh. Besides, laughter really is the best medicine

This is one of many installments on the ABCs of Me's. Each week I will feature a different letter of the alphabet and a few corresponding entries on yours truly. This project was inspired by a class I took at Big Picture Classes (Me: The Abridged Version) which was based on a book called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.

It always comes in threes…

Good news and bad, it always seems to come in groups of threes. My heart is heavy today because of sad things going on around me. Recently I lost my Great Uncle John "Soupy" Suprum.  He was 85 and had a full life complete with good times. We attended his funeral which was much more of a celebration of his life rather than the grief of his death. Of course, he will be greatly missed, but to rationalize with myself, I feel content knowing that he had a good long life and I will cherish the memories I have of him.

On the other hand, this past weekend brought tragedy to our local area, and although I did not know any of these victims personally, because they were so young, I'm having trouble dealing with it. My 13 year old lost a friend, who also happens to be the daughter of my 8 year old's gym teacher, her name is Jamie Lynn Dickens. The other boy is a friend of a neighbor's child, yet one more young person taken before they have had a chance to truly live. Now while I am saddened by the death of my uncle, I am terribly upset by the death of these two kids. It just seems senseless and cruel and I cannot even begin to imagine what these families are going through. The sentiment in the schools is somber, my kids are mopey and I'm just trying to hold it all together. My heart goes out to everyone touched by these losses; I just don't even know what else to say on the matter. Children dying is just wrong in my book. And I'm mad at the Big Guy – so if I get struck by lightning, you'll know why.