Bathroom Renovations

Way back in March, when I was gone to Minneapolis for the Public Library Association meeting, Tim renovated our bathroom. It was so nice not to be home while our one and only tiny bathroom was torn up. He took lots of pictures of his progress for me. When we moved into the house - is it 5 years ago? - the bathroom had green plastic tile and black wallpaper on the wall. The wall paper came down quickly. And the tile came down when we replace the tiny vanity for a pedestal sink. And then nothing was done for some time. We took our income tax refund and bought all the supplies - we had toilet and sink parts in the study and wainscotting in the dinning room. Now we have bead board wainscotting that Tim installed and painted - with base board and cap moulding. The top part of the walls he painted a soft green color. He installed a new toilet and new sink and base. We love our new bathroom. Thank you sweetie for such a nice bathroom.

For the layout I used a SU Old Olive and Not Quite Navy base. The title and journaling box are More Mustard. The accent papers are some old Basic Grey. I used a Sizzix die and my Big Shot machine to make the hammer and nail accents. And I also used some brads that look like screw heads.

Today is book club and we will be discussing Wicked by Gregory Maguire. A very interesting book. We are having a guest leader, so for once I get to be a participant. Can't wait to hear what everyone thinks about this book.

My Home Town

Last night I went cropping and got two pages done. And today I'm going to another all day crop and have a lot planned to get done. The page I want to share with you today is one I made the last time I went cropping. It's a layout of My Home Town. One of the last times Tim and I were at my parents I took these pictures of the great building in town. There is a pink quartzite quarry at the edge of town so all the old buildings are made of pink rock. I have a pictures of the old bath house in the park, the old water tower, a corner building downtown, the old opera house, the band shell in the park and the theater. One picture I didn't get is the library. The base is River Rock with Groovy Guava. The pattern paper is Ginger Blossom. I used the Embrace Life stamp set to stamp the flower embellishments on Blush Blossom and Ruby Red.

Happy Mail

I just got a great delivery. An Advanced Reader's Copy of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. And the author even signed it! I read a great book blog at http://printedpage.us/ and Marcia, who writes great reviews, also gives away books. I've started reading it, because even though I'm at work, technically my job is to find good books to buy for the library and I have to read some of them to determine if they are good or not. Are y'all buying that? I'm expecting a few more books to be coming my way and I'll let you know what they are as I get them.

Our Boy is Driving

This is the first semester Dylan has been able to fit Driver's Ed. into his school schedule. He now has his Learner's Permit and was happy to show it off to us. I used SU black for the background and some SU ruby red and summer sun with my die cut machine to make the paisleys. The red pattern paper, journaling box and round stickers are from CM. The chipboard letters were a horrible orange so I inked them with creamy caramel and ruby red ink to tone them down. It was a simple page to highlight our new driver.

Celebrating 10 Years...

...at the Stanly County Public Library. Yes, can you believe I've been working at one place for 10 years? It's a great place to work and I plan on staying a few more years. I wanted to take a little something into work to celebrate. I couldn't afford a big bakery cake with lots of frosting, so I looked for an easy recipe to make at home. I found a great recipe called Rickety Uncles - don't you love the name? The recipe came from a blog that I watch, called Whisk. Check it out here: http://www.whiskblog.com/. It was so easy: melt 1/2 cup of butter and add 2 cups of oatmeal, 3/4 cup of brown sugar, pinch of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. Mix and put in an 8x8 pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes. See, it's easy. And tasty - I came home with an empty plate.

Book Review: The Invisible Wall

This week while I was at the Leadership Institute I read a good book called The Invisible Wall by Harry Bernstein. I got the book several months ago from the publisher I think. I was in the middle of reading lots of others things and didn't think I'd want to read this since it's a memoir. So I passed it on to my book club. It turns out that there were several copies of the book floating around book club and I kept hearing how great the book was. So I managed to get my copy back. At Leadership Institute there was no Internet, no TV and no cell phone, so I was able to read the whole book in just a couple of days. We only had a few hours of free time in the evening, but the only thing to do was read - and I knit half a dishcloth.
Harry spent his early years in a small English mill town. On his street, Jews lived on one side and Christians on the other side. The book tells about his growing up years and the interaction of the neighbors with the invisible wall running down the middle of the street. It was very well written, and the story moved along quickly. It ends with the family moving to America. There is a second book that I'm dying to read. Harry was 96 when this book was published.
It's a fascinating book and I do recommend it. If you not a big non-fiction reader, it reads like fiction.
The big outcome of the Leadership Institute is that I created my personal statement of leadership purpose. And I'll share it with you since it took a lot of hard work to create. I even have it memorized.
With patience, communication and teamwork I will create an environment that is fair, fulfilling and offers on-going training so that library staff can have and provide positive customer experiences.

Dylan Getting All Grown Up

Here is another layout of Dylan - can you believe how grown up he's getting. When we were home in September we drove down to the Land Between the Lakes area. We stopped at a pull out right before crossing the Kentucky Dam. There were lots of sailboats out on the Kentucky River that day. Tim took this picture of Dylan just sitting there. I used Night of Navy as the page base and some sage shadow for the photo mat and the pattern papers and coordinating tags come from Creative Memories. We had a nice day together

Another Bike Layout

Several weeks ago Tim and I went bike riding. It had been awhile since I had ridden, so we went to the Greenway in Charlotte where they have nice paved paths. We had a nice ride. And we took a couple of silly pictures of ourselves to prove it.

Pretty Easter Dresses

This is my lovely youngest niece, Sydney at Easter this year. The girls Grandma Carlson bought then beautiful Easter dresses. And the girls wore them even though there was about 6 feet of snow on the ground. The girls wrote a note to the Easter Bunny and he left them a note in return. I'm going to color copy the notes and slip them behind the photo and pattern paper on the right side. I think I used one of Sally's sketches for the left side of the layout. The background is light purple and the pattern papers are black and white. You can't see from the photos (click on the photo to make it bigger and you can see all the details) , but there are some rhinestones on the pages for a little bling.

Even though Miss Sydney looks beautiful and sweet in her Easter dress, she is a little rough and tumble tomboy. She loves to play on the monkey bars. Last week she took a big tumble and broke the two bones in her left wrist. She got a full arm cast. Yesterday when they went back for a checkup, they discovered she also broke her right arm. Sydney is going back to the hospital today to have another cast put on. So everyone, please think good thoughts for Miss Sydney today.

Help Me, I Need a Name

I'd like to introduce you all to Not Fred. He got his poor name because we would see him out in the yard and think it was Fred - but it was "not Fred". Tim has started feeding him and petting him. So we've decided he probably needs a real name. No Mom, he won't be coming in the house if I have anything to say about it. We'd like to hear suggestions for a real name for this guy - yes, he is a boy. So, everyone, let's hear your suggestions - and ask your kids, I want to hear their ideas too.

A Lovely Fall Sunday

Sunday was a beautiful day with lots of sun and cool temps - it's finally fall in NC. I had a nice walk with my friend Patricia while Tim was off riding his bike and then he mowed the yard and I planted a bunch of daffodil bulbs that my boss graciously gave me. For dinner Tim grilled some pork tenderloin with our house seasoning - garlic powder, onion powder and black pepper. I looked through my recipe collection for a side dish and found this recipe for Broccoli Stuffing - I'd call it more of a broccoli casserole. But it's definitely a make again dish for us.

Broccoli Stuffing
2 (16 oz.) packages frozen chopped broccoli
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 eggs, beaten
1 onion, minced
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup mayonnaise
10 oz. dried stuffing mix
1/2 cup butter, melted
Preheat oven to 350. Cook broccoli according to package directions. Lightly grease a large baking dish.
In a bowl, mix the cheese, eggs, onion, soup and mayonnaise.
Arrange the cooked broccoli in the prepared pan. Pour cheese sauce over the broccoli. Spread the stuffing mix over the sauce. Drizzle butter over all.
Bake 30 minutes until bubbly and lightly browned.
12 servings

Dylan's Favorite Things

This spring when I was visiting my nieces in Michigan I asked them what were their five favorite things. Sarah wrote hers down for me and Sydney dictated her list to me. I've shared the scrapbook pages I did for them. I wanted to do the same project with Dylan, but I changed it up a bit and asked him to take his own pictures of his five favorite things and email them to me. He was able to send me pictures of four things, his fifth favorite thing was his cat Kalypso who ran away while he was taking his pictures. It's taken me several months to make this page for him, but here it is. Oh - and his five favorite things are: Kaylpso, his music, his computer, his game consoles and Mr. Leohr who is his computer teacher - who is just the best teacher evre Dylan says.

Simply Racing

This is a simple page I did of Tim's Off Road Assault on Mount Mitchell. I used the course map and elevation chart as backgroud paper. Some one at the race got this nice picture of Tim in action. And with a quick roll of the tire tread stamp my page was done.

Aspen Gold Readers Choice Award

One of the great perks of my job is that I have gotten involved in judging several romance writing awards. For the second year I have been a judge for the Aspen Gold Readers Choice Awards for published novels. This annual award is sponsored by the Heart of Denver Romance Writers Association. I was sent signed copies of the three finalists in the Historical Fiction category to read and score. Under their scoring system a 1-2 is Below Average, 3-4 is Fair, 5-6 is Good, 7-8 is Great and 9-10 is Outstanding. The books I had to read were: Untouched by Anna Campbell (2), Lady Be Bad by Candice Hern (7), and His Favorite Mistress by Tracy Anne Warren (9). I liked the Tracy Anne Warren book so much that I'm going to read the other two in her series.

Happy Birthday Tim

Sunday was Tim's birthday. He got to celebrate by riding and hanging out with his friends. Our friends who recently got married in Canada were home for a wedding reception, so Tim got the chance to ride with his friend Mike. While he was out riding I made him this cute owl card. I had stamped a card for him on Saturday when I was cropping, but it just wasn't right. So Sunday I went looking on SCS for some inspiration and found this cute owl made using the SU punches.

And send some good car karma thoughts this way - the Buick is on it's last legs.

It's Banned Books Week

Please read a banned book this week and use your First Amendment right to read.

Tonight I will go home and read some more from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series. I'm currently reading volume two: The Two Towers. In 2001 Christ Community Church in Alamagordo, New Mexico burned Tolkien's books as satanic. My interpretation of them is that they have a lot of Christian themes.

The Scrapping Librarian ... Reads

I just want to let everyone know that I'll be posting more book related posts in the future. I had thought about starting another blog just about books I'm reading, but I have a hard enough time keeping up this one and the one at work in addition to reading and scrapping. And after all, the word "Librarian" is in the blog title, and librarians do read, so I figured this blog was as good a place as any to talk about books. If you don't want to hear about books, just skip the book posts and keep checking for the scrapping and card posts. A few things that will be coming up: the Aspen Gold Readers Choice Awards, Edgar Sawtelle and Run.

Home is the Best Place to Be

We are home from our weekend in Kentucky. Dylan's 17th birthday was at the end of August and this was the first weekend we could get away to see him. On Saturday we drove down to the Land Between the Lakes so Tim could check out the riding trails. Dylan and I hung out and he wandered in the woods. Sunday we stayed at the house so Tim could see several of his brothers who stopped by. The pictures I took aren't all that great, so hopefully Tim did a better job - I know he got one of Dylan with his driver's permit.

The Perfect Spot

Last Friday night was my friend Judi's monthly crop. I got 2 pages done and a good start on 2 more. The Perfect Spot has pictures of the three cats - Riley, Fitzgerald and Tarzan - all resting on the back of the couch. They all loved that spot on the couch so much that we were able to get a picture of all three of them up there. I've been carrying around this paper and these pictures for a long time - notice we bought our new couch this winter and moved it to a different spot. I love how the page turned out.
For dessert for the crop I made some Chocolate Chai Cupcakes. I got the recipe from the Land O Lakes web site. I wasn't real happy with how they turned out - the cupcakes were dry and I didn't like the frosting. But I did love using the new Kitchen Aid to make them. Judi is having a Fall theme for next month's crop, so I'm looking for a dessert idea - maybe something with pumpkin.
No scrapbooking this weekend. We are off to Kentucky to see Dylan and celebrate his 17th birthday.

Happy Birthday to ...

Matthew-
My darling little nephew had a birthday on Saturday. He is all little boy and loves trucks and tractors and heavy machinery of all sorts. He told his Grandpa that he wanted a quarry for his birthday. Or a real dump truck. Darn stinkin' cute kid. When the SU By Land set retired last year I bought it specifically to use for Matthew. I've used it for several birthday cards and for a scrapbook page. I'm sure I'll get a lot more use out of it. The wheel stamp I bought to use for Tim's biking pages, but I get a lot of use from that stamp too.

And Me -
I have the pleasure of sharing my birthday with Matthew. This year, Tim bought me a Big Shot die cut machine (ok, he really didn't buy it for me - I bought it for myself). This is the newest toy - I mean tool - available from Stampin' Up. Die cut machines are fairly expensive and there are several different types. I had never been willing to make the investment. But this summer, SU started offering this one, and they have a good price. The machine came yesterday, but I'm still waiting on the dies that were included with the purchase. My wonderful friend Judi lent me some of her dies to play with. This is a great little machine and so easy to use. I also bought the cute doctors bag to carry everything when I go to crops. I don't think our Christmas cards will have any stamping on them this year - I think it will all be die cuts.

There are still a few more birthdays coming up this month, so I need to start making some more cards. I'm sure I'll be using that wheel stamp again.

But now I have to go to work. I have book club this morning. We are discussing The Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle.

The Birthday Season Begins

The Birthday Season begins for us at the end of August and goes until the end of January. Between Tim and I, almost everyone in our families has birthdays and anniversaries during this time. Maybe this holiday weekend I should sit down and make up a stash of cards to have on hand so I'm not creating at the last minute.

Last week I sat down and made a couple of cards that were needed for this week. Since it had been awhile since I had done any card creating, I needed some inspiration to get me started. I came across a color challenge on Kristina Werner's blog, http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/, to use black, white, grey, and a small amount of any other color. I needed to make a card for Dylan, so thought this would be a great color combination for a boy. Instead of using grey I used some silver paper I had - Dylan loves sparkly things - a strip of black and a strip of white. I used a circle of orange for my accent color and punched a black star and a black tab. A silver star eyelet and two silver brads accent it all. No ribbon because he's a boy. Actually, at 17 he's not a boy, he's a young man.

While I was at the craft table and had this basic color scheme in mind I made a card for my friend Karen. It's a great color scheme that will work as well for a masculine as for a feminine card. For Karen's card I also got inspiration from Beate's sketch #54, http://beate.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/. It's white for the card base with a strip of black that I scallop punched and punched eyelet holes. The large scallop circle is Cool Caribbean and I again punched eyelet holes. There is no stamping on this, it's all SU's rub-ons. I added some sparkly silver ribbon and turquoise rhinestone brads for some bling.

I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend. I'll be laboring on cards for the Birthday Season. And a big Happy Birthday to Dylan and Karen.

I know, it's been awhile. We physically got back from vacation, but I think my brain stayed up in BC. Tim brought back a cold as his souvenir and shared it with me and that didn't help. But I feel like I'm back in the swing of things. I sat down and made a couple of cards this morning which I'll share with you later - after certain people's birthdays have past.

Tim and I had a wonderful weekend together this past weekend. The weather was great so we spent lots of time outside - none of the time working in the garden. Fay is here right now giving us lots of great rain.

On Saturday, he went riding at Sherman Branch park and I went along. I took some books, but didn't read them. Instead I went walking/hiking the trails and took some neat pictures. I've got a great idea to scrap some of them, so hopefully I will have a neat page to show you soon. After lots of fresh air and sunshine, we drove across Charlotte to the home brew store. Tim picked out a couple more beer recipes to make, so brewing will begin again soon. To end our nice day together, we had dinner at our favorite restaurante - El Ranchito.

After a slow start on Sunday we drove back into Charlotte to McAlpine Greenway. And I actually rode my bike! Had a great ride of about 6 miles. I felt great. I'm really looking forward to getting back on my bike. I've run into several old riding partners lately, so I'm taking that as a sign that it's time. And Tim was very happy to get my bike out and get it tuned up for me. After our nice little ride, we went to another favorite place for lunch - the Chicken Roasting Company. We don't get to go often enough because it's in Charlotte.

I was also able to get some reading done this weekend. I'm reading some books to judge for a romance writers contest. I've also received a few complimentary copies of new books from the publishers and from several book bloggers. I'm thinking about starting another blog where I will review books. I don't know that I want to post reviews on the library blog, because that blog is not really just for fiction reviews - it's for library news. And I don't want to post lots of book reviews here - I know lots of you would be interested, but this really is more for my crafting stuff with occasional food and books. I'll be sure to let you know if I do start another blog.

Watch here for upcoming birthday card posts and hopefully some more scrapbook pages.

Last Day

It's a rainy day today. Tim has gone to check if they are riding down the mountain today.

Here is the view from our balcony this morning.

The wedding yesterday was beautiful. It was held on Whistler Spit of Green Lake. The weather was perfect.

The first full day we were here Tim and the group from Charlotte did a cross country ride.

While they were out riding I wandered around the Village. I managed to find the Public Library. It's a new building and it's fabulous.

It took a full day of traveling to get here. A delay leaving Charlotte made us late getting into Dallas. The airline met us at the gate with a van to drive us across the runway to make our connecting flight to Vancouver. Customs took some time but we had no problems. The Vancouver airport is under construction - they are getting prepared to host the 2010 Winter Olympics. We got our rental car and headed through downtown Vancouver traffic to the Sea and Ski Highway. The view on the drive up were incredible.

This has been the best vacation.

Vacation Here I Come

What does a librarian take on vacation? This has taken a lot of thought - I want to have enough to read, but I don't want to add too much weight to my bags.

The Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo. Tim and I started listening to this on audio and both enjoyed it. We weren't able to finish listening to the entire thing (it's about 21 CD's long) so I am taking the book so we can finish.

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien. This is a book that Tim loves to read. I have never read it, but I love the movie, so I'm going to give it a try.

That makes two books we'll both be able to read. I also plan on downloading The Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle onto my MP3 player. My book club will be discussing it this month so I need to get it read.

And, of course, we have a Vancouver/British Columbia guide book.

And that's what a librarian takes on vacation. We aren't forgetting to take our cameras - don't worry - there will be pictures.

Farmer Tim

I do believe I promised to show you Farmer Tim - and here he is. He borrowed the tiller from our friends Steve and Karen and tilled up most of our backyard. I think he just wanted to get out of mowing it. Tim selected all of the plants and seeds one Saturday while I was at work, and then got everything planted. He's been the one to diligently water most evenings and do the harvesting. We learned a lot with this garden - what needs to be planted early, what needs to be planted later, and things like what blossom end rot is. We are already planning for next year's garden. For this page I used a bunch of the vegetable tags from the things we planted. For the title I used several different tags. I even stamped some leaves in green on green and cut them out. The journaling is hidden on the yellow paper at the top of the page and tucked behind the photos.

Favorite Things

This weekend Tim went to the mountains to do the Off Rod Assault on Mt. Mitchell. 68 miles and many feet of elevation changes in 9 hours and 15 minutes. He had a good time.

While he was gone I went to a crop with my friend Judi. We sat next to Nancy and Wendy and just had a blast. Nancy gave me some great ideas for the pages I was working on and she graciously shared some of her supplies. In only got two and a half pages done, but I love what I got done.

When I was visiting my brother and his family in March I had both of my nieces tell me what their 5 favorite things were and I took a picture of each of them. Sydney was wearing a maroon-y colored dress that I've been having a hard time coordinating colors with. I was so excited to find the perfect papers from Creative Memories. The ribbon on this page came from my friend Judi and the great maroon flower came from my new friend Nancy. I used some pearls and crystals out of the Stampin Up Pretties kit. I can not believe how beautiful this page turned out. The tags that are threaded on the ribbon are Sydney's favorite things: Friends and Family, Teachers, Dressing Up, Ice Skating Show, and Dance Show.

Just call me Suzy Homemaker

I don't know what's gotten into me this summer. First I decided I needed to make cookies - and I never make cookies. Now I'm making jam and freezing tomatoes. Just call me Suzy Homemaker.

One of my co-workers was kind enough to bring me a bag of plums. I spent about 15 dollars on cute little jars, Sure-Jell and sugar. And now I have jam. It didn't set up as nicely as I wanted it to. But it's pretty tasty and I did it with no special canning equipment. Yes - I'm proud of myself.

We are starting to get tomatoes out of the garden. We've had an issue with blossom end rot, and Tim is treating that, but we are still getting a good edible crop. Instead of just freezing them plain, I am roasting them with garlic, onion and olive oil. I'm using my friend Melissa's recipe (http://fromlaptoptostovetop.blogspot.com/). I just cut up the tomatoes, add some chopped garlic, and chopped onion (I cheat and use the frozen kind), drizzle all with olive oil and bake at 300 for about 2 hours. It's so good that Fitzie helped herself to the last batch.

Next time I'll post about Farmer Tim.

Not All Business

Guess it's time for another scrapbook page. The butterscotch oatmeal cookies were very good by the way. I made this layout about my trip to Minneapolis in March. I got a grant to go to the Public Library Association meeting, but I was able to extend my trip and visit lots of family and friends. My friend Judi made the little booklet that is in the middle of the right hand page. It's a travel journal made of library cards and library pockets - get it? Library conference, library cards and pockets? There was one pocket and card for each day for me to jot down notes and memories. So I put the entire journal on the layout and included a variety of pictures from the whole trip. I had so much fun seeing my extended family and old college roommate. Plus the library conference was so inspiring.

I have book club this morning and I just finished the book. We are discussing a memoir: Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail by Malika Oufkir and Michele Fitoussi. So what should I read next? People of the Book, which my online group has just finished discussing or The Story of Edgar Sawtelle which we'll be discussing in a few weeks?

What a great weekend.

We had a wonderful 3-day weekend to celebrate the 4th of July. It was so nice to stick close to home and spend some time together.

I got to started my holiday on Thursday evening when I drove to Matthews to buy my new toy - a Kitchen Aid 5-qt. Artisan stand mixer in red. Friday morning I put it to use making Cindy McCain's Butterscotch Oatmeal cookies. I like the oatmeal cookies better than Michele Obama's shortbread cookies. But everyone at the cookout liked the shortbread better. I don't know that I've heard Tim say which he likes best.

We had our traditional cookout with our friends the Grochowskys. It was such a nice evening - good food and great company - and fireworks. We were so relaxed that I didn't take any pictures.

On Saturday, Tim started brewing his beer. It is fermenting away in the dinning room. I think it will be a couple of more weeks before he starts bottling. I need to work on stamping some labels for the bottles. Isn't it sweet that we can combine our hobbies?

And now it's back to work. I hope everyone had a great weekend.

Honoring Freedom

This is the week we celebrate our freedom. Friday we'll be grilling with friends and shooting off some fireworks. I'm planning to make grandma's macaroni salad and some cookies. Tim is going to buy the fireworks tonight. We can't wait to get together with our friends.

I made this page this weekend for a VSBN challenge on SCS to scrap someone in the military. I've done a nice page about my Dad being in Berlin, but I hadn't done anything for Tim's Dad. Tim had to call his brother Brent to see if he had any old photos scanned and Brent was able to email Tim several old photos of their Dad in uniform. In place of journaling, I used a newspaper story about James' service and being captured by the Germans at the start of the Battle of the Bulge. The title is simple chipboard that I embossed in white to give the page a red, white, and blue color scheme. There is a circle of stars under the title that I made by punching the shape out of a transparency and edging with white ink. The page is very simple to highlight the meaningful story of James' service to our country.

Happy Fourth to everyone and thanks to all who have served our country in peace and war.

Where did the week go?

Wow - it was a long hectic week. I didn't get any scrapping done. But I do have this adorable page to show you that I made last weekend. I am getting some more scrapping done today.

The title of this page is: Grandpa Makes the Best Playmate. And yes, I know I have a typo on the page - it will get fixed. These are pictures of my Dad playing with my brother Joe's girls when we were up in Michigan in March. Grandpa just played and played and never seemed to get tired. He's a great Grandpa.

I Made Cookies!

The other day I saw an article about Michelle Obama's and Cindy McCain's cookie recipes in Women's Day. They both look delicious, so I have decided to try them. I started with Michelle Obama's Shortbread cookies. Tim has a big 12-hour race today and since he loves shortbread cookies, I made these for him. Hopefully these freeze well since I have most of them in the freezer right now.

I'm not going to the race. It's just too long for me to be outside in the heat. I'm spending the afternoon and evening scrapping at today's Virtual Scrapbook Night on Splitcoaststampers.com. Which means I'll have a bunch more pages to show.

Michelle Obama's Shortbread Cookies

1-1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1-1/2 cups plus 2 Tablespoons sugar

2 egg yolks

2 Tablespoons Amaretto (I used 1 tsp. almond extract and a little water)

1 teaspoon each orange and lemon zest

3 cups cake flour (not self-rising)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 beaten egg white

chopped nuts or dried fruit (optional)

1. Heat oven to 325 degree F. Line a 17x12x1 inch pan with non stick foil. In a large bowl, cream together butter and 1-1/3 cups of the sugar.

2. Slowly add egg yolks, and beat well until smooth. Beat in Amaretto and zest.

3. Stir in flour and salt until combined.

4. Spread dough evenly into prepared pan, flattening as smoothly as possible.

5. Brush top of dough with egg white; sprinkle with nuts or fruit (if using) and with remaining 2 Tablespoons sugar.

6. Bake at 325 degree F for 25 minutes or until brown, turn off oven and allow cookies to sit in oven (with door ajar) for 15 minutes. Cut while slightly warm. Makes 6dozen 2x3-inch cookies.

Trick or Treat

Here's a layout I did for my nieces. I made two pages almost identical - one for each of their albums. The girls are bigger now since these pictures are from 2006 (correct me if I'm wrong Kirsten). I had some Cars paper that I cut the emblem and Lightning McQueen out of to use as embellishments. I also had some stickers so I used those to flank the title. I ran a wheel stamp across the page in a couple of places - that has been a versatile stamp and I use it a lot. It's a simple page with bright colors - so saffron, real red, brocade blue and black. I hope you like it girls.

Celebrating the Seasons

I got a bunch of pages scrapped this weekend. But I'll share this one with you first since I just finished it last night - and I love how it turned out.

The pictures are from Easter when I was in Minnesota. My Uncle Gerry and Aunt Sandy had the Holles family over for Easter dinner. The siblings also exchanged their Christmas gifts. I got to see my cousin Elly and spend some time with her. The group picture is Uncle Gerry, Aunt Jean, Aunt Julie and Dad. The other picture on the left page is my Dad and Uncle Gerry relaxing and visiting. On the right side is a picture of my cousin Elly helping my Mom with her cell phone, a nice picture of Aunt Jean and Uncle David, and then a picture of all the women sitting at the table visiting.

Every week on Splicoaststampers.com there are challenges to get people stamping and scrapping. So for this layout I used the sketch challenge and the variety challenge which was to use pattern paper from three different manufacturers. That was really hard for me, but I did it - and it worked. I used a red pattern paper from Stampin' Up and a tone on tone paper from Basic Grey and the black pattern paper is unknown. I put everything on a vanilla background. The title and journaling were done with a SU font. And the simple embellishments are black painted chipboard.

The Prize

Here is the page I made to show off the Blue Plunger Award that Dylan won for his psychology project. Dylan wrote out the journaling part for me that explains what his project was. Stamping Up has a cool punch that makes it look like the paper was torn from a notebook. I bought the papers on my last shopping trip because I knew the blues would work well with the very blue plunger and then I could use browns to tone it all down.

Summer Hair Cut

An interesting Southern tradition is that every year after school's out young boys get their hair buzzed for the summer. Tim decided he would try it this year since he has so much hair and it grows so fast. Turns out, we both really like it.

For this layout I used a sketch my friend Sally made for me, SBSC143. I used Not Quite Navy for the background and some new pattern papers by Paper Studio that I bought on my last shopping trip with Judi. And I used a little ribbon for accent. The other pages I made this weekend are a secret until the next Virtual Scrapbooking Night on Splitcoast - but they turned out darling.

Mojo!

My mojo's back! I'm creating today, so I'll have some scrapbook pages to share with you this week. Stay tuned.

Creative Cooking

At least I'm being creative in the kitchen if I can't be creative at the scrap table. Tonight I made Mexican Egg Rolls. I got the idea from an appetizer at Chilis. I didn't have any corn in the house, so these aren't very colorful. But they were yummy.

Mexican Egg Rolls

1 lb ground beef, browned with onions and garlic

1 can black beans, drained

1 can green chilies

1 cup frozen corn

taco seasoning and/or lots of cumin and chili powder

2 cups grated cheese

I used 2 won ton wrappers for each egg roll and about 2 good spoonsful of filling. Makes 12. Spray with Pam and bake at 400 for 15 min. Serve with sour cream and salsa.

Who cares about scrapping when I can eat?

I made a new recipe for dinner last night. You can find the instructions here: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/08/spicy_shrimp_yu/ . Oh man, it was so tasty. We just had shrimp and bread. But the shrimp would be good with some rice to soak up all the sauce. I think any leftovers would be great in some sort of cold salad. This was so simple and easy to make that I think it will become a staple at our house anytime shrimp goes on sale. I have also made the Pioneer Woman's bacon wrapped cracker appetizers and they were very good also. Be sure to check out all of her recipes and the rest of her blog.

Will I ever stamp or scrap again?

Seems like the forces of the world are against me ever getting anything creative done. This long holiday weekend when Tim was supposed to be riding in the mountains and I was supposed to be getting lots of scrapping done - we ended up making an unscheduled trip to KY. Tim's Mom is in the hospital with some heart problems. She got a pacemaker late last week and spent several days in CCU. She's in a regular room now and doing so much better.

We did take some time Sunday afternoon to drive up to Owensboro to see the kid. And, of course, I took more pictures that seem like they'll never get scrapped. Dylan did a project for psychology class using his dogs to test biocommunication. The teacher handed out awards for the projects. Dylan got a Blue Plunger for the best topic award. He's very proud of his blue plunger. He has one more week of school and is planning on working at Burger King this summer.

I guess this week I'll work on catching up on housework and laundry. Then this weekend I am going to scrap! Because my nieces have dance recital this weekend which means more pictures to scrap.

Mother's Day Cards

As usual, I was late getting my Mother's Day cards made and mailed. But they did finally get done. Everyone should have received theirs by now, so I'll share them with everyone else. A couple of weeks ago, my friend Judi and I went to a new stamp store in Matthews. I bought my first official unmounted stamp set. Unmounted stamps don't come on wood blocks, when you want to use one you mount it on a reusable acrylic block. The stamps are stored in a CD sized case. Which means they don't take up as much room so you can have more stamps. The set I bought is called Jolies Fleurs by Lizzie Anne Designs. They have been very easy to work with, so I think I see more unmounted stamp sets in the future.

I love the color of these cards - celery, coral and pink. I used a half circle punch to make the scallops and did some paper piercing along the bottom by the ribbon for interest. The large scallop circle is a punch my friend Donna has. I used the small hole punch in the scallops to make it lacy. A little ribbon finishes it off. And inside is stamped with Happy Mother's Day.

The New Bathroom

The bathroom is almost done. Tim is working on replacing the old weights in the windows. When he finished with that then he'll paint the window and door frames. The wainscoting and woodwork is a soft white and the top part of the wall is Koi Pond green. It turned out exactly like I pictured. Now that we have a new couch, we can move on to the living room and dinning room - maybe in the fall. This weekend we are going to take a break from working on the house and yard and head to the mountains and do some camping, hiking (me) and bike riding (Tim).

Home Improvement Day

Today we are busy working on the house. Tim is busy putting in base moulding in the bathroom. The house was built in 1930, so the walls are a little wavy. But he is doing a beautiful job. We ran out to Sherwin Williams this morning and bought paint for the top part of the wall. It is a soft green color called Koi Pond. It's a different shade of green than the towels we have so I might need new towels.

While we were out, we stopped by the local furniture store to look at sofas. We found one that we liked - and it was on sale! I'm sitting on it now. It's not as big as our old one - a little shorter and not as wide. It is a sleeper sofa to give us a little more room for guests. And it was made right here in North Carolina. Fitzie and Riley have checked it out already. The old futon we carried to the curb and the neighbors hauled it off pretty quickly.

The garden we put in last weekend is doing pretty well. No corn or beans have sprouted yet, and the watermelon and cantaloupes don't look too good. But everything else looks great. We also planted a lilac and hydrangea. We've had some good rain this week which has been nice. I still need to get some impatients to plant in the pot on the front porch.

After all this hard work, I'm sure we'll sleep well tonight. I did go to a crop last night so have a few more scrapbook pages to show you next week.

My Mojo is Back

On Tuesday morning I finished up the page that had been on my table for three or four weeks. These pictures are from when I was up in Michigan and had a chance to sit down and scrap with my nieces. I'm going to end up making three different pages with these photos - one page for me, One for Sarah's book and one for Sydney's book. When I started working on this page I picked some papers that matched the purplish color of Sydney's dress so the papers ended up being too dark and drab to enhance the story. I switch over to some lighter colors that would coordinate with the other colors in the photos. But I was using punch star shapes as an accent. When I went to look for some pattern papers to use, I only found paper with flowers. Then I realized I really needed to use punched flowers instead of stars. So after three weeks of changing colors and embellishments, I was finally loving it.

I just spent two days down in Myrtle Beach with some of my online scrapping friends. So Hopefully I can get a couple of pages scrapped to show everyone.

No Mojo

I've lost my scrapping mojo. I got lots of great pictures on my trip to Minneapolis but I haven't had time to scrap anything. I did sit down and stamp for a bit this morning to see if I could get the creative juices flowing. I have two cards in progress, so hopefully I'll have something to show you soon.
This weekend we go to Kentucky to see Dylan and Tim's family. Which means I'll come back with more photos to scrap. I got two of James Patterson's books from his Maximum Ride series at the library conference. I think Dylan will enjoy them. Maybe I can find enough mojo to make a few bookmarks for him.
It's a busy time at work. It's National Library Week, so I've been coordinating activities for that. Thursday night if Open Mic Poetry Night in celebration of National Poetry Month. Need to see if I can write something decent enough to read. Today is Library Worker Day, so please stop by your local library and say hi to the library workers there. I've got book club this morning. We will be discussing Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It is a beautifully written novel about the Nigerian - Biafra conflict of the 1960's. We should have a great discussion. I've spent some time this morning reading a few chapters and the beginning and end of the book to refresh my memory.
Other than that - the cats are well, the redone bathroom is great, and life is good.

I finally got some thank you cards made and ready to mail to my family who made my trip to Minnesota a great one. I had the best time seeing everyone. I got all my pictures printed so should get some scrapbook pages done soon.

For this card I used a color challenge on SCS to give me some inspiration - cameo coral, apricot appeal, mellow moss and creamy caramel. I used the Embrace Life stamp set and mellow moss ink for the leafy background and cameo coral ink on apricot and coral papers for the flowers. The while gel pen added a few accents. Since there are a few layers I didn't add any ribbon or hardware to make it more bulky for mailing. I'm pleased how they turned out and I think the colors are nice and soft for spring.

When I got back from Minnesota my tulips were up. Even with all the dreary rainy weather we've had, they've opened up beautifully. So this picture is for everyone who still has snow - spring is coming your way. Look quick because my tulips never last long - kids walking to and from school always manage to pick them.