As promised

I promised you the rest of the photos from my scrap room so here they are!


This is my tall cabinet to the right of my desk area. All labeled nicely. Those funny things on the top shelf are actually "cases" for small round and heart shaped mini albums I'll be making for my dad and sister.



This is the small cabinet to the left of my chair. (Behind my Cricut.) You can see my computer tower along with my high school and college albums (horror - the magnetic type of photo album too!). The mini albums there are empties waiting for "stuff". The bottom shelf is my middle son's old Cub Scout hat, extra spiral notebooks (can you ever have too many new spiral notebooks?) and my sticker keeper.




This is the small cabinet to the right of my seat. Top shelf is completed minis that won't fit above. Bottom shelf is magazines and idea books.



This is the top cabinet above my tall cabinet. Inside it are more mags and idea books, My Creative Companion and about two years worth of the fun idea pages from Photos and Memories, my "Girls Night Out" Wine glass, my sewing supplies and my extras to alter.

That's it - all of it! Now you've seen "behind" the doors and have a keen idea of just how much "junk" I've got to scrap with!

I think, in all honesty, I could scrap for the next 10 years without buying new product. Ya think?

Been workin' on my Scrap Space!

Gotta tell ya, I'm loving "my space". It's clean, organized and beautiful. I've got it all just how I want it and I'm very pleased.



Don't I look happy to be in here? I LOVE my space!




A good picture of my happy place.



My scrappy desk, where all the creating happens for me.



This is my wall shelf, my Primas (minus the three jars that are currently in use on my scrap table today!); my silk flowers and my paints.



All my paper. I keep my papers organized by color, even within their respective collections. I have to keep them bundled up because of the cats. There seems to be an unending blur of cat fur in my house and I don't want it on my pages, finished or unfinished!



How can you not love yummy ribbon! I LOVE my ribbon jars. Aren't they fun??



My sterlite cart is my right hand. I love everything that's in there. I need a second one so I can get what's in my closet out in the open. (I'll post those pics tomorrow.)



This is the first of two chipboard buckets I have. This one in particular holds loose letters, office supply type chipboard, hearts, flowers, arrows, frames and colored chipboard.





This is my second chipboard bucket. In here I have mini albums and some collections that didn't fit in the other one. I love my little buckets!



This is the big drawer that holds my big chipboard... the pieces that are in excess of 6-8 inches or so. I also keep the sheets from which they were punched to use as a template later!

Totally got tagged...

And I've been avoiding responding because I'm so bad at these babies. But here goes...

Rules :
1. You have to post the rules before you give your answers.

2. You must list one fact about yourself beginning with each letter of your middle name. (If you don't have a middle name, use your maiden name).

3. After you are tagged, you need to update your blog with your middle name and your answers.

4. At the end of your blog post, you need to tag one person for each letter of your middle name.(Be sure to leave them a comment telling them they've been tagged and that they need to read your blog for details.)


A: All girl... 100% girly girl through and through.
D: Don't like heights in any way shape or form.
A: adore and live for my boys
M: must begin every day with my prayers
S: scrapbooking is an obsession I use to express my passion for my life

(Yes, it's really my middle name - it's family. Yes I know it's not feminine. It's the last name of some of my relatives. Yes, as in the presidents...)

I now must tag 5 people.
I pick:
Jolene; Paula; Wolfie; Nik; Gabi

Well as if I didn't have enough trouble...

I had to go and create more for myself. What a dolt...

Today has already been an interesting day. I woke up at 5, did NOT want to be up. Came into the den hoping to rest some more.

The couch, as I suspected was too uncomfortable. So I came in to the scraproom, put the coffee on, took my meds and came back into my scraproom to keep working. I checked my email, made some coffee, read some emails, got some more coffee and decided to work on my ribbons. Taking them all down and getting them better taken care of in ribbon boxes I bought. Well, in order for me to reach the back row, I had to stand on a step stool. My step stool is a little tykes chair. A pink one that I have just for me as a foot rest under my desk (my desk is very high - 30 inches off the floor - to accommodate my standing when I scrap both paper scrapping and digital scrapping.

Anyhow, I stood the stool on some unfolded boxes (you know - still folded up flat) and stepped onto the chair. And that's when it happened. As though it was slow motion and taking place in pictures being snapped in succession.

I lost my balance, the chair tilted off the edge of the boxes, my footing was lost, and down I started. It's a good thing I'd moved so much of my stuff already or I'd have been impaled and killed for sure. Instead, I balled up on the way down like an armadillo like I had some kind of armor that would save me. What a dolt. There again, if I hadn't, the way I hit, I'd have surely broken my neck. Instead, I hit the floor head first, with the back of my head and neck hitting - HARD. So hard in fact it bounced me up into the air and I flipped over. I've never, in three car accidents ever hurt so much ever. I've fallen plenty in my life as you know, but never ever have I felt like that. I kept ice on it for the first hour or so and it it better, but it's really swollen and my head has one monster of a headache. My eyes are a bit fuzzy and I'm keeping myself awake. I've had a concussion before and this is one I'm sure. My pupils are not responding well to light and I'm woozy. I have an appointment tomorrow at my pain management doctor's and hopefully he will be able to help me out then. I can't take anything because I'm on other meds that would interfere. Beside, hopefully the prednisone will help shrink any inflammation that is resulting.

Needless to say, my step stool days are definitely through. What an idiot. I must think I'm indestructible (you mean I'm not?????) and at my age am plenty old enough to know better. At any rate, my ribbons are now finished and I"m rearranging my cabinet shelves to get my albums out for display on the shelves as well as other things that should have been out all along so I have a place to put other things. I would like to display my ribbons, they're so pretty, so it's going to take a bit or reorganizing to get them out in the open so I can see all that glorious color.

Unfortunately I doubt that will happen today. I'm in an insane amount of pain. From my head to my neck to my shoulders to my back, it's ridiculous. I'm ridiculous... what a dolt..... (slowly shaking head... very very slowly.........)

Ballard Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Geneology - Family search

A fun name game...and a celebrity look alike.

Tara passed along a fun "what does your name mean" thing yesterday. I'm passing along to you!

I did it for my real name and my nickname. Interesting that they both came up identical! I can see parts of me, but I also see things that were who I was and have changed into something completely different.

What Elizabeth Means

You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together. You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow. You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily. Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is. You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing. You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long. You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start. You are incredibly wise and perceptive. You have a lot of life experience. You are a natural peacemaker, and you are especially good at helping others get along. But keeping the peace in your own life is not easy. You see things very differently, and it's hard to get you to budge. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are full of energy. You are spirited and boisterous. You are bold and daring. You are willing to do some pretty outrageous things. Your high energy sometimes gets you in trouble. You can have a pretty bad temper at times. You are a seeker. You often find yourself restless - and you have a lot of questions about life. You tend to travel often, to fairly random locations. You're most comfortable when you're far away from home. You are quite passionate and easily tempted. Your impulses sometimes get you into trouble. You are truly an original person. You have amazing ideas, and the power to carry them out. Success comes rather easily for you... especially in business and academia. Some people find you to be selfish and a bit overbearing. You're a strong person.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

Now, in case that wasn't enough fun for you, let's try the Celebrity Morphing! (Now who wouldn't want to have their picture successfully morph into ANN MARGARET! WOOEEE!

%1

I've been scrappin'!

I'm very happy with myself. I've been scrappin'!

Well, you say, you ARE, after all, a self proclaimed, scrapbooking addict completely and totally obsessed with all things pertaining to scrapping, stamping, crafting with paper, paper product and loads of the lastest and greatest fun embellishments. One would assume, by my own definition, that having a wonderful scrapping room, more scrapping toys that one person of meager means should rightfully have and my day times free, I would scrapbook daily each and every week day until my little heart is content. Alas, not so.

In November my get up and go, got up and went.... It's been a long long dry spell, not having any mojo on top of having even less energy. I didn't scrap, I made very few cards, made little effort to play with my "stuff" and got excited only when the arrival of my wonderful little bug (Cricut) came. I took it out of the box, touched it, turned it on, saw how it worked and put it all back again. Why? Because it was my Christmas gift and since it was my ONLY Christmas gift, I really really wanted to open it and be excited for Christmas. Yes, I was excited about Christmas from the standpoint of loving every single exciting second of it from my children's eyes, but, forgive me, I still feel like a kid at Christmas myself so I had to close up my toy to be given to me on the 25th. It was lovingly wrapped and placed under the tree like a good momma should have done.

Besides, despite my excitement at cutting out all sorts of fun letters and things, I had no idea on what I'd use said cut items...No energy, no creativity, no fun dinner planned for Thanksgiving or Christmas, no hoopla. It was all I could do to plan Dalton's birthday party. Yep, I made his invitations. Straight from copying a picture from the internet and using it for the invitation cover. The inside was stamped and I wrote the details in but that was the extent of it. Cute and functional but lacking creativity. I was totally out of energy period.

Now I know why and now that's changing and now I feel so so much better! I attribute much of it to my dear Divas at Meghan's Yahoo group, Divaliscious. Where we are ALL Divas in our own right. They asked me for weekly sketches so that got me started. Once the sketches started, I started realizing that I felt overwhelmed by my "stuff". I played touchy feely with it, purged TONS of it, gave bunches away, sold bunches of it (still more to go in that department) and all that playing and organizing started the old juices up and WHAM! It hit me! I actually invited some friends over to scrap and I made my first true 12 x 12 layout and I actually LIKED it! Me, the die hard 8.5 x 11 chick (because I despise stitching my layouts and the pics of them always turn out so so bad), loved making that 12 x 12 layout. And, I made another. I did! I finished it today. I'm so proud!

I thought I'd do at least one book of 12 x 12's for my boys. A couple of each of them. I don't think I'll give up my 8.5 x 11 coz I do love them, but I also loved this.

Without further ado, here is my first 12 x 12 and, when I can get a decent scan/stitch/picture of the second I'll let you in on that one too (though admitedly I like it less than the first).



I had a blast with it. I really did (I'm not trying to convince myself that I did, I'm surprised that I did... I really really didn't like trying to fill up a 12 x 12 page... it's just too roomy!).

Here's my second. My oldest was complaining that there were very few layouts of him. God love him, he's right. I haVe many albums of my old days (very unlike my current work) and he's feeling left out. (He has always suffered these feelings of being left out - ever since his younger brother was born three years after him.) So, I had to go create a layout of him. These were duplicate photos of some pictures I had put into his first book. It was fun revisiting these precious pictures, particularly since this little doll baby turns 22 in July... (Egads... when exactly did THAT happen...)

Remission

How is it you can find out on a Friday, what you've known for years now, and at the same time they say to you, "Okay, you're OUT of remission." Hmmm, um, if you're just now diagnosing me, how can I be out of remission, can't I just be "Active" at the moment? She says to me, "Well, no, because, as you said, this has been a suspicion for years now, and you've been treated for a year with RA medications because we felt RA was the correct diagnosis, so now that we have blood results that match your patterning results, we can say to you that you're "out of remission"."

Oh, I say. "Out of remission." When I think of remission, I think of cancer. I think of my mom, and I think of her healing (her journey home). I don't like this term. I've given it a lot of thought over the last couple days and I really don't like this term.

I think I'm definitely not going to refer to myself as out of remission. I think I'll refer to these times of activity to being learning exercises. I'm learning now how to control this illness. I'm learning more about it to be better prepared to help others who come into possession of this "thing" called RA. I'm learning how to cope and learning different skills to cope with it. This is a learning exercise in which I'm actively engaged at the moment.

During periods of inactivity, I'll simply be on vacation from school. Yeah, I like that a lot better. I mean, school is for learning and focusing on the subjects at hand. Vacation is for enjoying your time away from school/work. It's for celebrating life. I think this is definitely a much better scenario for me! And it's a lot more emotionally rewarding to consider it this way since I LOVE learning. So I officially declare myself in school. A time during which I am pursuing knowledge and skills by which I can better handle these periods of activity.

Back to School!!!!!

It's Official...

Well, I got the news yesterday evening. It's official. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis. It's also possible and likely I have something else accompanying it.

While it's horrible news, it's not unexpected. I've known for some time that this would be my diagnosis. I'm fairly sure I know the rest as well. Effective immediately, I'm on prescription strength iron, Vitamin D (as my body does not absorb it at all therefore not absorbing calcium or iron or anything else well either - wonder why my body just LOVES to absorb fat... HA HA HA HA HA). I'm also on Prednisone as well as Plaquenil, Mobic, Lexapro, 75 mcg Duragesic Patches, Synthroid, 1200 IU of Calcium, an additional 1200 IU of Vit. D and Requip.

I'm to find out soon if they're adding Lupus, Fibromyalgia, and Chorea to my diagnosis. I have an appointment on Thursday to find out these things.

Monday I find out the results of my MRI on my neck. They're trying to determine if the time is right for me to have my neck surgery (remember how my spinal column has been 80% closed off for years now and they did another MRI to find out if it's worse now). And, now that I've gotten answers to my Rheumatic issues, they may likely go ahead and opt for the neck surgery asap. We'll have to see how things go Thursday I think before they'll make any surgical decisions for certain.

I will learn about my treatment options on Thursday as well but have been advised injections are likely going to become a norm. Since I'm needle-phobic, keep me in your thoughts won't you?

The wrong question to have asked me....

On one of my favorite Yahoo groups today, the question of the day was:

What are you sick & tired of hearing about in the media? (i.e. Britney, Heath, Anna Nicole etc)

Oh my gosh, what a question for me..... I like to think I'm a pretty good mom, thoughtful first about the well being and proper upbringing for my kids and putting my own needs and desires second. They are my children! They are completely dependant on me to lead them down the correct paths, learn to make the right decisions, learn to eventually take care of themselves and be kind, fair and just to themselves and others. It's my responsibility to teach them how to behave. It's not easy and making the right decisions for your children is a learning process and not always simple or easy. But God (Allah, Budda, what ever you call your Lord) did NOT promise raising children was easy when He blessed us with them. No one ever said LIFE was easy. But He did ask us to raise them in His word.

All that being said, here's my diatribe for today in response to the question asked.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Brittney... leave the poor child alone already. She wasn't ready for any of it and she had a HORRIBLE mother who seemingly was motivated by the glitz, glam and money attached to her children't success... What a horrible role model...............

Anna Nicole - OMGosh, the poor woman is dead let her rest in peace... as if she wasn't tortured enough by herself, her stepson and everyone else -

Heath - What a horrible tragedy... leave it at that...

Wesley - get over it already, he was acquitted

Paris - she's too skinny - she's a snob without much talent and well, she's a spoiled little rich girl with REALLY bad manners - let it go already people

Nicole Richie... Good Lord that poor child needs help...

Perez - heavens that man will do anything for attention I think...

Lindsay Lohan - she's beautiful, she's talented and she got hit with way too much body too fast. She never even had time to figure out what to do with herself much less her money and her blooming sexuality... talk about hounded - no wonder she turned to drugs, boys and booze - she had to escape somehow..

I hate Paparazzi (see blog entry here http://theuntamedscrapper.blogspot.com/2007/09/post-101506.html)

I think if these people were just normal folks like you and I they never would have had the invasions into their lives they've had. Actors and actresses are not normal people though because they've chosen to be entertainers. Does that mean that we have a license to delve into every single part of their lives? If we would stop advertising every move they make they might be able to spend some time making better decisions. Then again, if we didn't make the photos so sensational, and we would have some rules about how old child actors have to be before we start photographing their every move, then maybe they could find ways to stay away from the papparazzi better and avoid looking at themselves splashed over every tabloid, magazine and getting big heads over it. Stop plying them with money (which is indeed the root of all evil I think) and tempting them with so so much more without explaining the perils and pitfalls of it all. I think child actors should have legal representation appointed by the courts and overseen by child advocacy agencies so that their parents cannot exploit them (think MacCauley Culkin, the Spears kids and more) and decisions can be made more on the behalf of the child's well being and not the pocketbook. Sure it means money is paid to someone but for heaven's sake, these children are growing up way too fast with little to no appropriate supervision and have no idea how to handle fame, fortune and any of the pressure that comes with it.

Sorry............................

Okay - I'm done......... sorry - you asked and I fell right into it didn't I..... LOL