Sick & Tired

I slept all day today. Have the crud. Greg brought me cake, flowers, and balloons for my belated b-day.

My BEST Valentine's Gift

My only child, Kelsey was due at the end of March. However, she decided to make an early appearance...I went in on February 13th to have her, but she waited until the next day...and I was presented with my BEST Valentine's Day Gift ever. I scrapped this page dedicated to her.

CRUD-E

Feeling cruddy. Greg brought home the flu. Head cold? He took off today to recover. He refused to stop working on Saturday at the shop; and at 1:15 Sunday morning, he had a call out. Isabelle and I went with him and we returned at 3:30. Slept in late on Sunday morning. He had another call out on Sunday so we went into CDA with him. Stopped at Chad's house to drop off parts, and pick up others. Greg had won tires on Ebay and we picked them up from a nice young gentleman, Blair, that is at the Air Force Base. He sent us pics of him and his 4-wheel buddies on Sunday. Very nice kid. Kelsey called us early on Sunday morning and we were still deeply asleep; we called her back later after returning from the call out. Our internet was down this morning and even though I tried to re-boot everything, it did not work. There were severely dark winter clouds out, and it later snowed (again) about 6 inches. So I thought that was what the problem was. However, when Monday rolled around and it was still down, I called and talked with the service tech for the satellite system. He talked me through everything until I was up and running. I am exhausted, do not feel like scrappin', headachy, and blah.

Scrappin' & Snow

Still busy scrappin' between shoveling the decks off. We got ANOTHER 6-10 inches today. It is blowing, windy, and bitterly cold outside. We drove to pick up lattes this morning in A-town then stopped at the Lil Town Market to pick up a special gift for my daughter's Valentine's birthday. As I had my camera with me, we then continued our excursion to the Park to take pictures of the lake & snow. Dreary, cloudy day outside. The dog needs a bath. Greg is working down at the shop today. He has work coming out of his ears. He is finally getting the recognition that he deserves. Makes him feel very proud. Greg also has a cold, but refuses to rest...oh, well. The scrap page is one I did from a charity kit I purchased at www.designbydani.com; 4 designers contributed to this. It is a very beautiful kit. Full of color and scrap accessories. This is for K&M; my beautiful daughter & son. "Love Is The Eternal Hope Of The Future"

Errands

Day to take care of errands. I did my scrapping early this morning after Isabelle and I got the decks cleared of more snow. Greg returned home early and took me into my appointment with Andreyea. She conditioned my hair and trimmed the ends-an excellent stylist. We picked up lattes but our favorite barista, Tina, was not there. We haven't seen her for a couple weeks now. Greg and I both remarked that we miss her upbeat, happy attitude. Hope nothing is wrong. Isabelle even seems to miss her when we stop at that stand. Greg and Isabelle made a quick stop at the sand-blasters and purchased Wendy's, then returned to pick me up after my appointment was completed. Driving downtown to CDA, we took Isabelle for a quick stroll around the floating boat docks. However, as a bitterly cold wind was blowing in off the lake, we cut our walk extra short. Isabelle was going crazy with all the different smells. The Resort is adding on to their building and there were many construction workers there. We drove to Wal-Mart in Spokane to shop and get my nails done, returning home afterwards. Greg worked in the shop until late, and I unpacked groceries, researched snowboarding at Schweitzer this weekend, and did some washing. Not an exciting day, but not a boring one...either.

Oh. What a Surprise-Not

So, Fortune came out with the list of the 100 Best companies to work for. Guess what? Verizon was NOT even in the top 100. Probably not in the top 100,000. They are a crap company to work for and King Ivan is the worst of all. What a big f-ing butt. Ivan, you need to get your head out of the government's butt and quit messing around. There is no reason on this God's green earth that an executive of a telecommunications company has to make more than $1 million per year. For the service that is received, people are paying an excessive amount to make 1 man an obscene amount of money. Verizon Management = SCUM. IVAN = SCUMMIEST Nuff said. My rant is over.

Isabelle, The Amazing Fila Brasileiro Mastiff

Isabelle is a great dog. In the past 2 weeks, I believe she has grown 2 inches taller! Her antics amaze us sometimes. Upon her return from her outside forays, she will traipse straight over to the cabinet where I keep her dog snacks and plop down on her butt to stare at me until I give her a cookie. She much prefers NOT going out ,though she has never had a "problem" in the house. She just likes to HOLD her potty for as long as possible. I try to coax her out, but she does not want to go outside in adverse weather unless it is necessary. Doesn't like rain or snow-Icky; you can just imagine the look on her face. Bounds out to the truck when the driveway gate alarm sounds. She knows that it is Daddy coming home to see her. In fact, sometimes she will start whining just about 15-30 minutes before he comes home. ESP? Keen sense of Daddy smell? I don't know. When he opens the truck door and yells to her; she almost forcefully jumps with her whole body into the vehicle. Most of the time she gets her front feet on his lap in the seat! Wagging her tale, allowing him to pet and give her "huggies". What a wonderful way to be welcomed home every night. Isabelle makes grunting "pig" noises when she is on the hunt. She has come home in the past and deposited many tiny shrews on our front deck. And lately she has been going over to the rock pile under the snow to listen for noises under there that drive her nuts! We believe it might be shrews or mice that are foraging for winter food. When we take our walks at night, she plays with a deflated basketball shaking it and allowing us to kick it for her. She will bring it over to our feet, so that we either fall over it or have to kick it. While in the truck this morning, traveling to get our early morning lattes, I pointed out a school bus as it was stopping in front of us. She looked up and stared at the bus, carefully watching the children that boarded. Greg and I could both swear that she understands us sometimes. She is very picky about food. As in the case of my fixing Sunday breakfast and making extra pancakes so she could have some. She ate the sausage, but refused the pancakes. The plate sat there for a long time until I removed it. The same way she turned her nose up at the chicken & dumplings I made for her several weeks ago. The dog is not a pig, and does not beg for food. But she has certain tastes that she enjoys. She has a sweet tooth. She loved when I made Snickerdoodles last year for Christmas. I would allow her to have a small plate of raw cookie dough, but her favorite was getting baked cookies direct from the oven. She wagged her tail and would sit staring at the oven when I baked them. Isabelle has never wandered into the road like other dogs. She roams around on our 20 acres, usually in the same small area. She doesn't "run" like other dogs. Even when her boyfriend, Wolffy, comes to visit. (Wolffy is Mark's full bred wolf) They will play, tussle, have heaps of fun, but Wolffy runs off after playtime and Isabelle will stay in the area. She sleeps a lot of the time. She will sleep 20 hours out of 24. I have read and heard from others that Mastiffs are a dog breed that is known for sleeping. Her overall demeanor is a very calm, easy-going relaxed state. However, and we don't know why, she has always been extremely frightened of little kids and children. She will pull away, attempt to hide, and run away from kids that approach her or try to pet her. Since she has never been abused; we have owned her since she was 6 weeks old-we don't understand this response. I always laugh when I see this picture. It was a hat of Kelsey's and she left it here when she moved out. So Isabelle found it and likes to play with it. I just adore the expression on her face in the picture. There will come a time when she is too old and we will lose her, and I know that in my heart, I will never want another dog.

Computer On The Fritz

My delightful husband brought home more memory for me last night and a huge 19 inch color monitor. When installing the new memory card, the the cord to the keyboard was bent and will not work. So we will be picking up a new keyboard at our local computer dealer. WHY are those hard-wired? Wouldn't it make more sense to have a connection cord that could be replaced? Oh, well. I am "cut off" from scrapping today, so I feel somewhat useless. It seems odd to be doing anything from the laptop as typing on a laptop is still somewhat awkward for me. After a chat at Shabby Princess with other digi-scrappers; Hubby and I played a hot game of Yahtzee; we each won a game. Then took the dog out for a midnight walk. Isabelle just LOVES to play with her deflated basketball. What a dog!

Bloggin' In Style

Just trying to make changes to my blog and wanted to see if they "stuck" before I went to bed. This is a test. Only a Test!

Sunday Mornings

Sunday morning. We have already taken the dog for a walk, stopped to pick up our usual lattes at the small town espresso stand, and then returned home for a wonderful Sunday breakfast. Sundays have always meant a wonderful, big breakfast in our family. Prepared with love, leisurely eaten, savoring the time with family. This morning we had sausage, pancakes, toast, and eggs. There had been a light dusting of snow during the early hours of the morning and we sat in our dining room enjoying the view. I always made dollar-sized pancakes for my daughter when she was small as it was easier for her to eat them that way. The tradition continued as she grew older. Just recently she and her husband stayed with us just prior to being deployed to England. I had made Sunday breakfast for everyone. Noticing that Kelsey's pancakes were smaller than everyone else's, Matt asked her about it. "Honey, why are your pancakes so small?", Kelsey replied "because my mom LOVES me more". It had been my answer when she was little that I loved her SO much that I made special little panckes for her. When she was a little older, she asked one day, "Mommy, don't you love Daddy as much as me?" I asked her why she made that enquiry. She told me that Daddy didn't get the special panckes like she did.

Insomnia?

Sometimes I just feel like doing something else besides sleeping. Am I sleeping my life away? I want to do more. Do it now. Here it is, 3:00 in the morning. I believe I will go up to bed. Today we will run errands, walk the dog in the park which is under 1 foot of snow. Maybe even take in another movie?

Snow, Snow & More Snow

I actually blog on Yahoo 360, but decided to start one here as I was seeing a lot of people in the scrap community have blogs at this site. It has been cold and snowy in our area for the past few days. Yesterday it snowed about a foot at our home; we are in a 1 mile snow-belt. If every place else gets 6 inches, we get double that amount. I snapped these shots off our back deck the other day, Sunday, January 15. These photos are un-retouched. The sky WAS actually that blue. The snow turned to rain as I shoveled off the decks. It later became very icy that night. The satellite was out; no satellite connection all day as it was cloudy and snowing. In the afternoon the sun finally peeked out from the clouds, the sky was blue in patches and it looked good. I was uncertain if I would be able to be on the chat at DSD last night at 7pm, but internet service held up pretty good. Love talking to those girls. They are hilarious. We were there for the Eternal Hope Kit. Prizes were given away, some add-ons to the kit, and gift certificates. It is fun to scrap and have friends to chat with about scrappin'.