Birthday Wishes

Happy 30th Birthday to my friend Erin! I hope you have a wonderful day planned for you, you deserve a celebration! Hopefully someday in the near future you and I will be able to get together... can you believe I haven't seen you in almost 10 years! This little card is on it's way to you. Here's wishing you an amazing 30th year!

There's this thing going around blog land called Pay It Forward. I linked to it here from SIS. I think it's a great idea and have decided to play along. So here's how it works:

I will send a handmade gift to 3 random people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this 'Pay It Forward' exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week… but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

So if you want to play along post anytime between now and my return from vacation (August 9) and let me know you want to play. I will randomly select a winner (or two or three..) and make something special for you.

Now, it's off to work with me....Happy last day of July!

You need to focus

So, I probably say this phrase several times a day in the course of my therapy sessions. Susatined attention and focus on the task at hand is quite difficult for kiddos with autism. Apparently, it is also quite difficult for me today....as seen in my previous post, I have a lot to do...the list is actually quite longer than the one I posted too. But, I have yet to accomplish much this morning and I keep getting side tracked. I went to do some laundry, which happens to share space with my scrap room, and ended up sorting through piles searching for some supplies for Kerry's mini book....than I decided I wanted to make a shadow box, because I've had 2 sitting there waiting to be embellished for months...oh yeah, laundry, got that going....oops, tripped over the bag of scrap goodies from Dollar Tree I bought yesterday, maybe I should put that away....oh yeah, shadowbox....anyway this is the way my brain is working today!

I did however manage to complete 2 shadowboxes. Made one to commemorate the anniversary of Jessie and Tim, because I meant to post a congratulations on my blog and totally forgot, I will post a belated one now! Hope you like it Miss Jessie, it travels to OR with me in 5 days!



Because I really liked how it turned out, I decided to make one for myself. I actually used some of my Rockstar collection from SIS, which is really an accomplishment in itself.


They do look a bit better in person. Not the greatest photos. So, now I am off to hopefully check things off of my actual list and not get side tracked be new projects....first I should probably shower though....

And now back to your regularly scheduled life....

So I finally finished the book last night! A little slow, I know, but there's this thing called work that kept getting in the way! I loved it! J.K. Rowling tells a good tale. I'm quite impressed at how she managed to tie up all the loose ends and unexplained things in this book.

So now that I will no longer be lugging the almost 800 page book around with me, I guess it's time to resume the to do list. I have quite a few things that need to be done or at least worked on before I head to Oregon next week....

1. the ever popular paperwork....we all know this really ought to be at the bottom of my list
2. billing
3. IEP meeting Wednesday
4. tie up loose ends in new fall schedule, as school will have started for some of my kids before I return
5. birthday preparations...FYI Miss Jessie, you are not the only birthday I have to commemorate in the near future....
6. finish mini album for swap and mail to Kerry
7. cards for swap at SIS
8. Studio Calico DT application? Not sure about this one...
9. clean and reorganize work bags in preparation for fall and because things are falling apart...
10. Make more Watermelon Granita, because it's yummy and a nice summer treat
Puree 4 cups chopped and seeded watermelon, 1/2 cup sugar and juice of 1 lime. Freeze in
shallow dish, raking with a fork every hour, until frozen.

I'm sure there's more to do, like oh work and clean and cook and laundry....you know regular life stuff. One more week and than vacation time!

More Harry Potter fun

Saw this on Anilu's blog and had to play along.



I'm
a Ravenclaw!

Go have your own sorting hat ceremony and let me know what you discover!

Still Reading....

Ok, so I'm only about halfway through with Harry Potter.....we shall blame this on my sister! Maybe, she's not entirely to blame, but she did drag (well, I guess I volunteered) my mother and I to Ikea on Sunday. Ikea is never a short adventure, but this time we were there for 3 hours!! At least an hour of which was spent trying to figure out my sister's curtain needs! To be fair though, Ikea has lots of new stuff, most of which is super cute and I needed to review my kitchen options once again! Oh and we (Kellie and I) had to search for our mother often (she's prone to wandering away) and of course found her one time chatting it up with some Ethan Allen drapery lady...how my mother makes business connections everywhere she goes, I will never know!

After Ikea, we had to stop at Target so my sister could buy a drill to hang all her new purchases....this is where the adventure went awry! My mother went home and I stayed to help Kellie hang curtains and shelving....I will save you the details, but let's just say we had nothing but mishaps for the rest of the night and I headed home around 10 pm with none of Kellie's projects completed!

As for yesterday, the lovely no work until afternoon Mondays, I spent much of the morning making dinner for later, washing and putting on new sheets (which I love) and cleaning up the scrap area in an effort to make it cute so I can post the often requested pictures of my space for Miss Andrea. I'm afraid I have more work to do before it looks less like I creative tornado and more like a cute little crafty room....

I'm now off to work. I shall be bringing HP with me and hoping for a last minute cancellation so I can keep reading....doubtful, although I had a no show yseterday... here's to wishful thinking!

Blogging must wait

So sorry....no time for blogging....reading Harry Potter....ok and playing here and here where there's been fun scrapping challenges all weekend. Hope you've had a lovely weekend! Off to read....

Creative Energy

So, I've been doing a lot of creating lately. Maybe it's the slightly easier summer work hours, maybe it's some burst of creative energy, maybe it's all the inspiration on SIS, Studio Calico, and the various other scrap places I visit.....really, maybe it's just that I'm obsessed with kits and have so many wonderful supplies, my scrapping desk looks like this:

Since Sunday, I have finished the happiness is mini album. Here are a few pages:


You can see the rest of it here. Once that kit was out of the way, I finally dug in to my fabulous Studio Calico kit. I absolutely love everything in this kit and it is so easy to create amazing things with all these beautiful supplies. First I did the Scrapjack of Wendy Bretz:

and than I got to work on these pictures that have been in my to be scrapped pile since last spring:
My head is full of ideas and my scrap space if full of fun stuff to play with, so I'm sure I will be creating much more in the days to come....if only I didn't have to do things like work and cook and clean!

Another Lovely Monday

It's so nice to be able to sleep in on a Monday! This morning, I should be working on paperwork, grocery shopping or cleaning up the piles on my desk, but I am not! Instead I am hanging out at
Studio Calico and SIS and I am working on this, my Kristina Contes Happiness mini kit.

I'm about halfway done with it and will post more when it is finished. I'm also thinking I will wear this today

my new fun shirt I bought at Target yesterday. Stephanie and I had yummy lemon ricotta pancakes at Wildflower Bakery and went shopping at Target yesterday morning. While my dear Stephanie stocked up on clothes, teacher supplies and scrapbook goodies, I tried to refrain from too many unnecessary purchases. I did however need this t-shirt to go with my new owl and bird obsession!

A big congrats to Stephanie too, who got a phone call yesterday afternoon for a last minute fill in gig singing with Michael Buble at the Dodge Theater! So cool!

Curly Hair

Today I got my hair done and came home looking like this! Ok, so the picture's not the greatest, but Shawn has the good camera, so I'm left with this one that is hard to focus. I love it when Janeen, who cuts my hair, feels like playing and adding curls! I love the curly hair, but can't ever do it like this myself. Too bad Shawn's not home to see it!

I'm off to see Harry Potter and than to Stephanie and Paul's for some wine, Italy pictures and creative inspiration! Happy Saturday!

Welcome to my Party for Ya

This song has been in my head all morning, as last night Kellie, Taylor and I went to see the fabulous Rusted Root! I have seen Rusted Root several times before and they never disappoint...always a fun show! Last night was good, but not the best one I've been too. This was due in large part to the fact that the amazingly talented Jenn Wertz was missing, apparently out on maternity leave. Her voice is a big part of their harmonies and sound, so it was sad not to have her. Added to the sound issue is the fact that they played the Marquee Theater, where sound sucks! It took several songs for the sound guy to get the balance right. We had a great view of the stage, standing just a couple rows back and it's always fun to get a good look at the musicians and how they are playing. For those of you who don't know Rusted Root, I highly recommend checking them out for fun percussion laden music with great lyrics and harmonies.

And now for my PSA....I'm all for having fun at concerts, but please even at a Rock concert some etiquette must apply. I totally expect dancing and drinking...at Rusted Root I'm so okay with the scent of patchoulli and pot, with the hippie (or neuvo hippie) crowd, I expect some crazy, flowy arm dancing....but, honestly some people really know how to ruin an experience! Let's just say, if your going to dance and flail about, mind your long blonde ponytail and that your friendly concert going neighbor, who is having her own great music experience, does not want to feel you up every thirty seconds. If someone moves over a bit to give you more room to um, do the robot at Rusted Root (so not appropriate), don't take that as an invitation to move yourself right back into her personal space...and by personal space were talking less than an inch away from her body. If you came to the concert to spend the show talking about your life and all the drama in it, please don't head to the front and proceed to ignore the show and those around you who really are interested in hearing the music! And last, but not least, if you spill half of your beer all over someone and are not aware of it, it's time to cut you off....but if you than proceed to stomp on her foot, not once, but twice, while you are attempting to use her as the gateway out of the crowd to get more beer, don't expect her to be nice when you say "oh, did I just step on you?" as an apology....
ok, sorry for the rant...by and large the crowd was great, the true Rusted Root fan is actually quite tame and mellow (remember the patchoulli...), these girls were not the norm but did manage to ruin a few songs for me and provide us with lots of joke material. I did in fact have a good time!

Monday Love and Recipe

Ok, so I'm really liking my new Monday summer schedule....no kiddos until 3:45! I will see 3 kids this afternoon. This is a big change from my usual 10 hour days. I'm hoping to keep the Monday and possible Friday half day thing when school starts too. This of course means I will be working some on Saturday though. Darn school...most of the kids I see are school aged, which means they can't have therapy until after school, usually after 3:00...means I generally work until 7:00 pm. However, since I am home this morning, I can enjoy a relaxing wake up routine that includes coffee drunk at home and not in the car, pajamas, and blog surfing.

I had a good weekend that included drinks at Rula Bula and Sushi at RA with Leo and Megan on Friday night, scrapping, Live Earth concert on TV and LGO pizza with my sister on Saturday and a relaxing Sunday (well if you don't count the 6 loads of laundry) playing with pictures, cooking and reading. I did in fact ignore the usual grocery trip yesterday, which meant I needed to get creative with dinner. This is when it comes in handy that I don't often cook from a written recipe and rather just throw things in as I see fit. I am also pretty good at recreating recipes I have had at restaurants...so that and a decent amount of veggies and cheese in our fridge inspired our yummy dinner last night. I made my version of a veggie flatbread sandwich I had in San Diego. Turned out quite good I think!

Roasted Veggie Sandwich

pizza dough (I made my own pizza dough using a Wolfgang Puck recipe)
1 zucchini
1 yellow squash
1/2 sweet onion
red bell pepper
green bell pepper
4 cloves of garlic
3-4 mushrooms, sliced
goat cheese
provolone cheese

Heat oven to 450. Slice veggies (except mushrooms) and garlic thinly and place on baking sheet. Season with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in oven for about 20-30 minutes, until soft. You can also preheat your pizza stone, if desired. Divide pizza dough into 4 pieces and roll into flat circles. Spread goat cheese onto one half of each circle. Spoon veggies on top of goat cheese. Add a few mushrooms to each and top with a couple slices of provolone cheese. Fold other half of each circle over the cheese layer to make a sandwich (looks like a calzone, but don't seal edges). Place on pizza stone or baking sheet and bake at 500 for 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven and brush tops with olive oil. Slice in half to serve.

This will make 4 large sandwiches. I do think some fresh basil would be nice too, but sadly I have no basil in the garden this year...

Enjoy!

7 Random Things

In honor of 7-7-07 and because I've seen this all over scrappy blog land, here are 7 random things about me:

1. I graduated from high school with straight A's and was salutatorian of my class. The valedictorian had one more honor's level class than me, earning her the right to be first...I do believe I gave a better speech though!

2. I hate bananas...I think it's mostly a texture thing, as I will eat banana bread, but that's about it.

3. In college I was a cook at the Bistro, a student run coffee shop on campus, as well as a member of the band staff.

4. I participated in Academic Decathlon my senior year of high school, earning myself a grade for computers...figure that one out...our team did quite well and I rocked the speech and interview sections! Please refrain from the nerd jokes....

5. I went to 3 universities before finishing my degree. I started at Loyola University in New Orleans, ended up deciding to transfer second semester of my sophomore year, attended Arizona State University for one super easy semester, and finished my degree at Willamette University in Salem, OR. I also changed my degree from Music Business to undecided (leaning towards education), to Music Therapy.

6. I have unconventional pets (thanks to my husband), a rat, Ruby, a turtle, who remains unnamed but usually gets called Tortuga, and several koi in our backyard pond.

7. I once payed $40 (well, Jessie and I split this bill) for a bagel and a stick of butter...long story that involves a third college roommate whom we had many issues with, one being her belief we were constantly eating her food, when in reality we had borrowed a stick of butter and thought the bagels were ours....this did however become a fun mnemonic device for learning polyrhythms for our entire music theory class!

I'm off to play with my sister and have some wine and scrappy fun! Enjoy your day of luck, 7-7-07, which is really just a marketing ploy for casinos and wedding vendors!

My Girls

So I have had the idea for this little mini book featuring all "my girls" since the "my" challenge on One Little Word a few weeks ago. Yesterday after completing a few hours of paperwork, like a good kid, I made this:





Hopefully, it's presence on my desk will keep me happy while I spend several more hours doing paperwork today. Wish me luck!

Happy 4th!

Hope you all have a happy and relaxing holiday! For you AZ people, stay cool!

Happy Mail Cards

For the past several months I have participated in two rounds of a group called Happy Mail. This is a group of scrapbookers who have signed up to send little pieces of mail to each other. We were paired with a partner to send mail to every other week or so and than had the list of all participants to send RAK's to as we wished. Round 1 took place during March and April and Round 2 during May and June. For Round 2 I decided to send a Heidi Swapp playing card to each person I sent mail to and have them alter it somehow and return it back to me. My intent was to send one of these cards to each member of the group, but as the group include 50+ people, I didn't quite get them all out. However, I have sent these cards along with a few RAK goodies to almost 30 people. So far 8 have been returned to me. Here's what they look like:

Fronts of cards from Becca (left) and Stephanie (right)

Backs of cards from Becca and Stephanie

From Keri

From Kathy Romack (left) and Jeniece (right)

Fronts of cards from Cynthia (left) and Julie Neal (right)

Backs of cards from Cynthia and Julie

From Cammeron

Thanks ladies for these fabulous cards! They have a nice little home in my scrap space.

Busy Weekend

It's been a busy, but fun and productive, weekend for me.

Saturday I took 2 classes. First a class at Recollections with Michelle. I didn't have the highest hopes for this class, because Michelle wasn't a big fan of her first classes there earlier this month and I am never too impressed with their employees. The girls are usually pretty nice, but whenever I ask for help finding a product or if they have a certain product, they look at me like I'm speaking Chinese or something. I think, if you work in a scrap store, you should try to keep up to date with products that are out there....but I digress, the class was one designed by Heidi Swapp for Recollections to teach. We made this cute little "Embellisher's Block" using Heidi Swapp products and her signature layered embellishment look. The little book turned out cute and it's always fun to play with Heidi goodies. The teacher was sweet, but super slow and I found myself a bit bored. Had we been given color copies of each page in the mini at the start of the class, I think I would have finished mine in 30 minutes. Though I did not learn anything new, I enjoyed my time with Michelle and I now have the much coveted polka dot mask in my collection!

Class number two was a pie crust making class with my mom and two of her friends. The class was at Pie in the Sky in North Scottsdale--the cutest little pie shop where the crust is always amazing and the case is full of tons of fabulous pies, quiches and pastry goodies. The class was a lot of fun. The owner/teacher Patty is super nice and very patient. We learned several pie crust recipes and how to expertly mix your dough and roll your crust. We each made a pie to take home. I made a mixed berry pie with fresh blueberries, raspberries and strawberries. It's incredible! YUM! I had so much fun with my mom and her friends too. After the class, we went back to my parents for wine, cheese and crackers. I spent Saturday night playing with scrap stuff, surfing the internet and eating pie!

Today has been less fun, but more productive. So far today I have done 5 loads of laundry, surfed on the internet, skimmed the Sunday ads in the paper, super cleaned the bathroom, mopped floors, got side tracked in my scrap space, grocery shopped, talked to my mom (twice) and my sister, done my monthly timesheet and completed Shake Rattle and Grow billing. Soon I am off to make dinner, pay a few bills, and relax. This probably means more scrapbooking. I have an unfinished page and beginnings of a mini album sitting on my scrap table.

Unfortunately for me, tomorrow morning brings a trip to the dentist to deal with a cavity. Don't you wish weekends were longer? Hope you all have had fun and/or productive weekends.