We're moved!

After a very, very long Friday.....we are in. I have been unpacking like crazy and trying to get everything into it's place. It's a bit overwhelming at times. I did take some pics with my iphone, but blogger is being a pain and won't let me post via phone right now, so that will have to wait.




For my friends that have a scraproom or scrap space, where did you get your desk and storage? Mine will be the "dining room" shared with the computer hutch and blends into the living room, therefore I will be going with dark woods. Or as in Ikea furniture, pressed board. I'm going to buy this (or I want to)
this size or the one just bigger. I found a ton of them on Craigslist 2 weeks ago. It must have been college student moving time because now I can't find one! Any ideas where to look and shop would be greatly appreciated!

Also.....Happy Anniversary to Karen & Randy and Annie & Mannie! June is the month to get married. My first marriage/anniversary was in June as well, funny.

Have a great night!

Happy Anniversary!

It seems that all my friends must have gotten married in June!
Shii & Marc-10 years going to New York
Laura & Larry-10 years going to Cabo
Marion & Dave-10 years going to Hawaii
Jamie & Darrin-12 years going to Hawaii

Anybody else? Congrats and hope you all have a great time on your vacations!

Thursday

Changed the background....I'm so missing Hawaii. Just reminiscing about our time a year ago how we were prepping for our trip.

Now we're getting ready to move! I sent out our new info. If I didn't include you on the list, please email me and I'll get it to you.

Zachary had his Pre-K graduation yesterday. Cute little singing program. He's so ready for Kindergarten in the fall.

We spent the Memorial weekend at my Grandma's. I'm really happy I got this photo of her. I was playing with my camera (trying to learn what Tricia taught the other night) and got this one great snapshot out of about 50. Her spirits were up that weekend and she seemed to have more energy than normal. (Hence the make-up!) Make Grandma's cancer has spread all over; liver, lungs, splean. She has ovarian cancer and started a new chemo treatment today. It's only been FDA approved for ovarian cancer in the last month. I guess it has a really high effective rate for lung cancer, but found it to work for ovarian. She is such an amazing fighter.

My Comforts

I am over whelmed. Moving is just more than I can handle. This morning between doing a projected budget and paying bills I started to cry. So much to think about. We have lived so carefree and it just got me to worrying. We have lived comfortably (but cramped) for sometime now. I have to tighten up big time! Today when I went up to the mall I couldn't relax. Telling myself over and over, "don't over spend....stick to your budget, don't go into this store or that one." I'm sure it will consume until we are settled next month......for now I could use a drink!

Another one of my comforts is knowing I have clothes that fit, strange I know. I can grab any bottom and top and I'm good to go. Well with having toned and lost so much weight, Ryan & I are needing a new clothes. Big complaint, I know. But like having clothes that are too tight, shirts that fall off and pants that won't stay up are annoying. I did manage to find deals today and got Ryan 2 pairs of super nice Docker Golf Shorts for $19.99 and I found some for me, 2 for $25. I'm hoping the sizes I bought for us are short lived! I will have to have a big 'ol garage sale when we finally hit our goals.

I'm off to start packing for my Grandma's, cut up my brownies for tonights class and then hit the Bee to see some friends I haven't seen in SO LONG! Have an awesome Friday!!!

Wednesday

Thank you for those of you that either came up to me or commented about our move. This is really huge for us. A stepping stone in the right direction. And sorry to have been so harsh....but it started to sound like a broken record....buy a house....buy a house....buy a house. I felt like I was going to snap if I heard it one more time.
We found an amazing house in Yorba Linda. I'm really sad to be leaving Brea. But, we basically found something that I think anyone would have jumped on in our situation. It's a newer-ish home. I think built in the late 80's/early 90's, 2 stories, 3 bedrooms, huge living room and kitchen, bedrooms all on the second floor, 1700sq ft. If we were to buy, this would be one we'd seriously consider. It's just perfect in every way....not to mention there is an association with a pool! I will send out our new info soon. I'm still trying to figure out how were moving! Hire movers to pack everything? or just to move the stuff? It's overwhelming.
I'm looking forward to Memorial Weekend, is anyone else? I'm taking a photography class with JoAnn's friend Friday night. I really can't wait. Then Saturday we are going to go shopping for a washer/dryer....you really don't know how luxurious it is to be able to have one at your disposal. Sunday morning we're heading out to visit my grandma. She's doing o.k. Hanging in there. I'll share more on that another day. Well, I gotta run. Hope I can keep up on the posting ;)

We're Moving...

No, we didn't buy a house, but we're renting one. However, if I seriously hear one more person say we should........I might just choke them. It's not in the cards for us right now. I'll send out an email with all our info once it gets closer....which is in 2 weeks.

Bruised Meniscus

What does that mean? Well the Dr. said no high impact activity that will aggravate it. It's not a tear which is good, but the bad means it takes a while to heal. My trainer is so awesome that she is modifying my workouts. The upside is I can cycle to do my cardio and still build my core strength and upper body. The down is that I will not be doing squats or lunges until it's better. Who would think I'd miss that??? Well whatever makes my butt smaller I will miss it!

Vickie I'm so sorry to hear about your mother-in-law. My thoughts are with you and your husband. See you on May 2nd!

Oh my!

It's been sometime. Does anybody still look at this? It seems like we're all on Facebook now and I don't need to post any more. I still enjoy reading blogs when I have the chance. What have we been up to? A Legoland trip, went to the Flower Fields in Carlsbad and surprisingly my boys had a wonderful time! I think that's because I let them use my good camera! Oh it was scary. Soon I'll upload those pics. I must have snapshots of 200 flowers!

Recently a classmate from high school committed suicide and that really consumed me last week. I was just in shock. I thought about it 24hrs a day. I would lay in bed just thinking "why?" It wasn't anybody I was good friends with or even talking to, but it just hit me really hard. Unfortunately he took his life by jumping in front of a train. So tragic. He left two little children behind. I wish he had known how many "friends" would have reached out to help. It's just so sad and suicide is never the answer.

So on a lighter note.....I'm gearing up for our National Scrapbook Day at the Red Bee. It's an 80's theme. I didn't love the 80's.....in fact I rather forget that time period. Actually the time period between 1984-1994 I could just die with the look. Not my best years! Neon is not flattering on anybody!

Tomorrow I have an appt. to get my results of my MRI on my knee. I hope to get some answers as to why my knee has been hurting so much. It's been really hard to workout the last month because the pain seems to be getting worse, but I'm still chugging along. I don't know if I've lost more weight. The NUMBER on the scale isn't important. Though I still want to lose more. I'm really going for inches and a size here. I let my weight go up when we got back from Maui. I know.....that again! I just couldn't get into the swing of being back home and not eating so much. So it really, really started to show and I didn't realize how much I let it go up. I have a PILE of pants that are huge now. So if you are SHORT and need some jeans that are a size 12, let me know. This weekend in Carlsbad I bought two new pairs of LUCKY JEANS at the outlet, a 29, which is an 8! It's been a loooooooong time since I've seen that number! I had to get them, it was getting ridiculous with my pants constantly falling down. I'm shooting for a 6 and to stay there forever!

WOW! This was way longer than I expected. Maybe tomorrow I'll surprise ya and post again!

Happy Things

Her blog makes me happy! Thanks for sharing it with me Cheri! And this artist is so upbeat and happy too! And this girl has a free download on itunes! It's so good! And she has a song called Chai Tea Latte! Ha! That's my kinda girl. Oh and I just popped onto this guys site....soooo smooth! I guess I'm on a music kick today! Enjoy!

I splurged

and bought this for my new spring/summer bag. I have been eyeballing this brand for years. Nordstrom Rack gets them in occasionally, but never in my color. Until yesterday. It was like Aerial from the Little Mermaid singing when Ursula steals her voice. It sang to me from across the room. It does help that it was 60% off of retail. That is just unreal. I absolutely love it.

Just another week....

Do you ever feel that way sometimes? The monotomy of the day in and day out? Take someone here, pick this one up, wash the dishes, make the beds, cook dinner......the routine gets so monotomous sometimes. I look more and more forward to weekends, because I slack on the weekends ;) I'm also really looking forward to an early Spring Break. My aunt and cousins are all flying out on April 2nd to spend 9 days at my grandmas. I'm going to spend a few days with them and celebrate my grandma's 77th birthday. This is something that will definitely break up the routine!
My Grandma is doing o.k. The cancer is definitely winning. She's lost 40lbs and is extremely anemic and her blood levels are super low so she's had 5 blood transfusions in the last month. They (the dr's) believe it's the tumor that is literally sucking the blood right out of her. She's such a fighter though and has a great positive outlook. She recently hired a full time nurse to help with making meals and taking her places because she does get so weak at times. I'm glad she does know that she can't do it all and to accept the help.

Have a great Tuesday.....we're off to the park to bask in the beautiful sunshine!

Genetics

It seems as though my genetics won't allow me to have low blood pressure. I have been working to get mine down for over a year, but nothing seems to be working. I've now lost 9lbs and am eating the healthiest ever with working out and building my core. But my blood pressure just stays slightly high. So I'm back on medicine. What a drag.

Back around December I had stood up from sitting and my left knee wouldn't straighten out. I thought, "oh wow, I must have sat wrong." Well for months now my knee tightens up every time I sit and it takes a few minutes for it to loosen up. I also can't kneel on my left knee or put any direct weight on it. In the last month it's been hurting all day with sharp pain, it wakes me at night and after I workout........that's the worse. My trainer said I need to find out what's going on because I could be seriously be damaging it. Yesterday I went for a series of x-rays. Unfortunately I won't find anything out for at least a week. I hope it's nothing serious. When I've spoke to some people about knee surgery stuff I start to get squeamish. I do not do well with medical /surgery stuff.

Isn't this fun stuff!?! Oh the joys of getting older! Taking the boys to Disneyland today. Austin does not have school. Nothing planned for the weekend but relaxing! Have a great weekend!

Royal Slumber Crop

What a great event this was! If you get the chance to go next year.....GO! The sponsors are more than generous, the auctions were amazing and the over feeling is just great. I didn't take too many pictures, but here are some ladies I tagged along with. (please excuse my messy hair, I got up at 5:45 in the morning!) Darlene is on the left and Pam is on the right. They have become some of my regular customers at the Red Bee that I just love! The one thing about working at my store is that I get to make some great friendships with some truly passionate scrapbookers! We picked up these cutie t-shirts at the OC Expo, but you can order yours here. The 2ND picture is my goody bucket! Isn't it the cutest? Jessica, my Flowerbed Fairy God Mother did the most amazing job decorating our table and kept us busy with games, snacks and conversation. Our 2nd day I was truly exhausted. 1. because I didn't get much sleep and 2. I was waiting to get the email from Creative Escape. (which that is a whole other posting some other time!)

Our 2nd day Darlene & I wore our red matching shirts and Pam wore this cute pink vest. Shannon is in the hot pink and she also went with us. I highly recommend signing up for the emails so you can be notified of next years event!

Today I'm just getting back into the swing of things. It's St. Patrick's Day and pretty much all the kids wore green at the park! Green really isn't my color, but I did have this one top!

Gym Shoes

I ordered a pair of new gym shoes. It's been 3 years since I've gotten a new pair. Ryan had gotten a Zappos.com gift card and gave it to me. Here's the new beauties that should arrive tomorrow!

Today is park day and I'm bringing Zach's old clothes to pass along to other mommies. I wish there would have been someone to pass along some hand-me-downs to us, but at least I can do it. Most the boys in our club are just about the same age.

Austin has running club today. Here's a snap shot of him at the track meet last month.

Well I'm off to shower!

Pictures!

Finally. I took my moms laptop to my Grandma's and worked on photos. Boy oh boy. I have more taken my fair share of photos since getting my new camera in July. I guess it's just practice, practice, practice to understanding lighting. Here are a few of my favorites since I last shared.

Classroom party. I just love the cupcake crown!

All the party guests at Build-a-Bear

Zachary & Chocolate!

Pictures from Big Bear.

March

Can it be March already? Time has flown by so quickly. I'm starting to think that my "life" is just a busy crazy schedule of busy-ness. I was so looking forward to a quiet week. Yeah, not so much.

I saw Confessions of a Shopoholic with my girlfriend Friday night and it was so cute, yet it reminded me of some crazy things I've done in the past! Sunday Ryan and I saw The Wrestler. What a good movie. Austin placed 2nd on Saturday in the Running Long Jump! I think his knack for sports is in track & field. I signed Zachary up for Kindergarten today. I can't hardly believe it!



Working out with my trainer is amazing! It's still a love/hate thing for me. I've lost 8lbs and dropped down one clothing size. Though I was up that! I didn't know I actually could have muscles and a leaner look. I plan on keeping with it for as long as I can. I think it's my new addiction!





I'm going to this next weekend. If you would like to make a donation, please click here and note that you're helping me to raise the money. Thanks in advance to whom ever does help!





My Grandma isn't doing so well......so I'm headed out on Saturday to spend some time with her.



Tomorrow night were going to the Lakers game with the kids! Should be a good time.

I need to desperately upload photos.....I think it's been some 6 weeks. Not only am I behind with that, I haven't printed pictures since we went to Hawaii in JULY!!!!!

I swear one of these days I will share pictures!

Don't give up!

I haven't posted in about 20 days......don't give up on me yet! :) Life has just been sooooo overwhelmingly busy that I haven't had the time to upload photos or sit and really write. Zach turned 5 on Valentine's Day -insert pics here- and everyone and their family thought it would be a good idea to go to Downtown Disney that day! See we celebrated with a Build a Bear party.
I worked the Scrapbook Expo on Friday and attended on Saturday & Sunday with my girlfriend. (before the bday party!) My Grandma was back in the hospital that weekend and it was really scary. She needed a blood transfusion of 3 units and is having problems with her colon. She's having a colonoscopy this week.
We went to Big Bear Friday-Monday. What a wonderful time we had! Austin learned to snowboard, Zach took ski lessons and I was the shuttle! We had the best cabin and so much fun! -insert snow pics here!-
This week is crazy busy because I have a big crop at work on Saturday and now it's crunch time. Gotta kit, get food, order food and many more things to do for it. If you're coming I'm really excited for our meals! Yummy stuff!
Ryan is going to a Lakers game tomorrow night and Friday night I'm doing a little shopping and then going to go see Confessions of a Shopoholic! I'm not a reader......but when that series originally came out, I read three of the books! Now with some encouragement I'm going to take a stab at reading Twilight again. I tried while in Maui, but I just couldn't get into it. Sorry....lost my train of thought! Any ways......gotta run. So much to do and I have my workout class in 2hrs! I promise I'll post some pics soon!

Willpower

I wanted to share that this new year is going to be a test of my willpower. I started back on the exercise routine the 1st of January and every time I either go to my class or the gym it takes all my willpower to go and not cop out. I'm always glad when it's done and it's been so worth it with the results! I weighed myself the beginning of January and then just the other day and I lost 5 pounds! Plus I've been losing inches. With the working out I decided I really need to change certain aspects of my eating, another willpower challenge. I love carbs! Pasta, bread, potatoes.....anything starchy I'll eat it. But as I've gotten older (especially this last year) I've noticed that the weight doesn't drop off like it used to. So I've been cutting back on the carbs and when I have been shopping or going to eat some, I'm choosing whole wheat/grain or brown rice or skipping the bread and going straight for a salad. Really hard for me.
Another test of my willpower came from an idea from a friend of mine in my MOMS club. She mentioned that a friend of hers went a WHOLE YEAR without buying any clothes for herself and her family! She's challenging herself do it and I hopped right on board. I LOVE to shop, shop, shop. But truth of the matter.....I own a ton of clothes and so did my kids. So I'm vowing not to buy anything unless it's absolutely a necessity. I'm going to do this for 6 months and see how I do. I did buy Austin new tennis shoes and a pack of new socks, but those are a necessity! When the warmer months come I know the boys will need shorts because they have grown since I last bought them shorts. Yesterday I went to Target and that tested my willpower big time. I had to walk through the clothing area......it felt really good not to just grab something just because it was on sale.
Now the next area of my will power needs some tweaking. My scrapbook shopping. Last year I put myself on a budget and did awesome. That is until about October. I bought the Cricut and went to the Scrapbook Expo all in the same day. Bad, bad, bad. Ever since then I've been waaaaaay off my budget and can't seem to get back on my game. I already spent my WHOLE MONTHS BUDGET on Feb. 1st at an all day crop. Which I wasn't planning on doing. So how am I going to bounce back the rest of this month? The Scrapbook Expo is in a week and I'm helping work it on Friday. Ugh. I need a serious intervention. :)

So those are my tests of my will power. If you see me and I look wound up, you'll know why!

Tuesday

I can't believe it's already February! This year is going by so quick and it's only been one month! Last week Ryan was in Arizona, and I was juggling going to CHA and the kids schedules. So glad Austin had Friday off so I could relax a bit. But that didn't happen because I crammed our day with things to do! First I got my nails done and then we went to Disneyland, but I think so did everyone else in Orange County. Our school district was out, who else? I heard about 4 others were too. Needless to say, the lines were long and with it being so HOT it wasn't as enjoyable as I had hoped.

Saturday I taught the Mommy & Me class at work. 50 people came!!! And I brought Zachary. Boy did I have my hands full, but it was a lot of fun. Austin had his football banquet at the same exact time so I totally missed that. Sunday I met up with a couple of girlfriends at a different scrapbook store for a Superbowl themed crop. It was a lot fun not having to be the hostess and I picked up some great ideas! I didn't get much accomplished, but here are some layouts from Sunday and from another time. (I'm almost 2yrs behind, so these shots are from July 2007!)

Zach is still snoozing!!! Kind of weird and quiet, so I think I'll go get dressed now :)

Busy, Crazy Weekend

That is how this weekend was. It just seemed like every minute I was doing something or planning to do something in a few minutes. Friday started off early.....I went to the gym at 8:30 a.m. to get my cardio done and out of the way. Then I was multi-tasking cleaning and getting dressed. CHA started this weekend and I knew I wouldn't be around, so I needed things to be cleaned up. So after that task, off to pick up cupcakes, party favors and movie tickets. The party was fun and the movie was cute. I was exhausted by the end of the night.

Saturday I was up even earlier and at the gym by 7:30. My mind was buzzing with the days plans. Hair appt @ 11:30......Creative Imagination show 3pm......Teresa's class 6pm.....finished with dinner at 10pm.

Sunday.....Austin's Birthday.....Happy 11th!!! Up and out of the house before anyone was awake. The show had some really nice releases. I walked the floor with Candice, Heather, and Jenn. Such great ladies and a fun time. I left at 4:30 to meet up with the family at Disneyland, but found I had no more energy for the day and we were home by 7pm and I was in bed by 9pm.

Monday....another show day. Not too much browsing, but a lot of brain storming on new great product to bring in. Tomorrow I go again and will be placing a lot of orders! I'm looking forward to the new Cosmo Cricket, Doodlebug and many more! Check out the Red Bee's blog...we got a new release in already!