I'm tired--but not too tired to shout out

okay--I've been a bad blogger this week--you've got me on that. I've just been so busy though.

Here's a bulletpoint to catch you up to speed. (because you care, you really do)

*I’m tired…as in physically exhausted…as in I crawl into bed and sleep for days tired.
*I have 2 projects tonight to do and no energy—wonder how that’s going to pan out
*My desk is a mess
*My studio is even messier
*The needle on my sewing machine broke, and I don’t have a replacement at home—which means a dreaded trip to walmart—pray for me
*My toenails aren’t growing back to my satisfaction

OH, I almost forgot—it’s SHOUT OUT THURSDAY…..I better muster up some energy!
Let’s see, who’s getting some loud love today?

First of all, Cara Bresette Yates—she’s over in China for work for a few weeks. So now that she’s a couple continents away and a dozen time zones to boot, I’m sending her an international shout out. Cara, you’re a rockstar and I love ya babe! You’ve always been a good friend and inspiration, and I’m so glad we’re getting to work closely together. (which reminds me—I gotta get back to Omaha)

Second shout out goes to my husband…(insert the collective, “AW” here). You make me laugh (even though sometimes it’s not on purpose, lol) and I love you. I love sitting on the floor and playing boggle with you. I love watching American Idol with you, even though you hate every minute of it. I love that I’ve secretly turned you into an Ugly Betty fan—even though you won’t admit it. I love that you went and got me Massad’s for dinner because I was jonesin for some good lebonese food.
Shout Out #3, La Tonya Boike—she’s one hard working scrapper—and does a kick arse job, if I do say so myself. (and I do)
Shout Out #4, my stalker. (you know who you are. J ) Thanks for the good conversations.

And now it's time for me to crawl in bed.

shout out thursday

Shout Outs!
My first shout out goes to my step-mom Trish—she’s the best mommy/friend in the world and I’m so thankful for her. Today’s her birthday......so all together now, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRISH!" (aw, good job class--and for that you may have a slice of virtual birthday cake...it's calorie free, but unfortunately fun free as well)


I (re)discovered a great site today. I had signed up for scrapbook.com quite some time ago— but didn’t ever participate, but I returned today, and I’m lovin it! What a great group of friendly people— so they get a big shout out! Some of my favorite gals are over there—Melissa Kelley---yo MEL! Becky Thompson (we go way back),and I’m sure to be some new favorites as I can already tell by their galleries and messages. Thanks for the lovely reception ladies.

A shout out to Little Courtney Chase. She’s doing really well with her chemo treatment and her levels are looking good—she’s going to pull through and kick this leukemia’s @ss. I went to see her the weekend before last and we had a lovely teaparty together. You go girl! She's the bravest little girl I've ever met or would ever hope to be.

A shout out caardvarks, a favorite new challenge blog of mine--way to Rock it Jen! Thanks for inspiring us to make out of the box cards and remember to have fun while doing it. This weeks challenge is to use buttons on your card, so voila, here is mine.

Here's the front, the back, and the inside. :) All the pp is Stemma, the cardstock flower that I covered is magistical (oh, and while I'm at it, lets give magistical a shout out! Crystle's been awesome to my DT, and so fun to work with--oh, and I suppose I owe Cheryl Mezzetti a shout out while I'm at it since she introduced me to Crystle. Cheryl, there won't be a cap on the amount of so's I give you--love you babe! Cheryl's one of those amazing friends that you bond with instantly and feel like you've known forever--and all because I pulled your name out of a hat at CHA--who knew, right?

And that's all I know today. :)

CHEERS!

It occurred to me that I hadn’t posted my tattoo pages on my blog. I had submitted them to MM 601, but apparently there’s no room for tattoos within those 601 good ideas, lol. Oh well, nonetheless, I think they’re cool. J
The “trouble” tattoo is mine, and the leg shot is my best friend Erik’s—we got inked together after CHA. (my 4th, his 3rd) I'm sure we'll both be getting more in the near future--as you know, they're like potato chips, you can't stop at one (or two or three or four).

I sent out a couple random rak's today---I love doing that...it makes me happy. It's so fun to know people are going to be unexpectedly visited by the UPS man in a couple days with a happy scrap surprise. :) I think I'll make some pretty cards tonight to send out tomorrow.

Tomorrow is my step-mom's birthday--she's a rockstar. :) here's an oldschool layout I did for her birthday a couple years ago. (I did a whole album) I look at the layouts now though, and I want to go back and redo the whole thing--isn't it funny how fast we progress and our styles change? Nonetheless she loves it, and that's what's important. (oh that kid stuffing her face behind the beer bottle--yeah, that's yours truly. somethings never change, right?)

St. Paddy's day, maple syrup and a pineapple

Oh what a weekend it was! For those of you that don’t know, St. Paddy’s day is my ABSOLUTE, WITHOUT A DOUBT, FAVORITE HOLIDAY IS THE WHOLE WORLD! And there’s no place I’d rather be on St. Patrick’s day then home in Chicago!
I left on Friday morning and drove down, picked Andrea up at work—and the celebrations began!
Funny story #1: Andrea and I headed over to our Mark’s house—once we got there Mark asked if one of us would run across the street and pick up a bottle of sprite so we could have a couple cocktails before we left. I hand Andrea $6 and tell her to go. She says “sprite doesn’t cost $6!” I say “so, buy yourself something special with the change then love”--------knowing full well that Andrea would buy something ridiculous, just because she could. Well, never one to disappoint—Andrea returns with the sprite and a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s maple syrup! She decides that Mrs. Butterworth will go with us wherever we go all evening and we will take pictures of her all over—so there was Mrs. Butterworth having Margaritas, and doing tequila shots, and dancing like a rockstar, and in foliage, and attacking people (until Mark sends me some pics this is all I have of the infamous Mrs. B)

Funny story #2: We got kicked out of a bar. Well, that’s not exactly true---2 people we were with got kicked out….Jen was pulling the “oh, I’m heavier than I look” thing that annoying skinny people do, and Jason (friend Jason—not husband Jason) insisted on challenging this—well a) Jason is tipsy, and b) Jen has a bottle of beer in her hand---so he picks her up and spins her around (and said beer) and soaks everyone around her in a perfect budlight circle………..suddenly there was a very large man (hello Mr. bouncer) insisting that they leave (hmmm wonder why!). That was fine with me, because I HATE John BarleyCorn (the bar), and not wanting to be mean—we all left and went across the street to Red Ivy……….where they were playing really bad music.
Funny story #3 ……………well, actually a sidenote first—when I say “funny” maybe I should just say “funny to me” or “you had to be there”………..anyway, I digress. Andrea bought a pineapple—a real one, still attached to the stalk—we found it at this really cool flower shop in Wicker Park. Since she had forgotten Mrs. Butterworth at home (this was the following day), she thought the pineapple would be her new random object of the moment.

here's some more pics from the weekend:
my brother Patrick and his boyfriend Vinnie...they're so freaking cute, I just want to throw up.
Al, hitting the jackpot for the third time on the fruit came (no, you can't make that sh*t up) at Dave and Busters....we learned that he's not good at games that require dexterity (um, like skeeball) but he's really good at lining up fruit---go figure.

Al and I got matching teddy bear's for our winnings. We also went in the photo booth and "made a baby"...apparently if we were to mix gene's we'd have a crooked eyed brazillian girl.

Andrea and I trying on hats (there's LOTS of other pictures of this--but I'll spare you)

I drove home yesterday....and I was exhausted today...but life goes on. (great, now I have that stupid song in my head)

Thursday is the day before Friday, and Friday means the weekend is finally upon us! Okay, so I’m jumping the gun a little bit, but it’s been a LONG WEEK!

Some good news today—they tested Courtney’s bone marrow again and the Leukemia cells are less than 5% which means it’s going into remission, so with continued treatment, hope and faith she should make it! She even gets to go home today! I’m going to see her on Saturday and can’t wait.

Also on Saturday, I have to bring a greyhound up to foster care in the twin cities. An owner needs to surrender the dog because of “change in family status”---I’m sure we’ll find a great forever home for the dog. In the meantime GPA will have a great foster home for the hound….that is if I don’t get too attached to her on the way up…maybe Monty needs a playmate?

Made a card today for a friend
…. here’s a peak at it before I send it off on its way.

Getting prepared for CKU next month--I'm really looking forward to the entire experience and teaching there. Although I must admit I'm a little jealous of the people attending because they get to actually take classes and crop and do make and takes--all the things I love to do! I think I will do a little scrappin' at a nighttime crop while I'm there though......if I'm not totally exhausted!

Of course I'm still working on Erik's album...here's my latest layout for that.

I'm hoping to be done with the album this weekend so I can ship it off to him. I found him a great little surprise at an antique shop the other day too---but I can't say what it is--you never know when he's sneaking blog peeks!

falling behind

Wendy was “kind” enough to remind me that I was behind on my blogging….and feared that I may be trapped under a pile of snow. I’m not………….just busy as always. We did get about 19 inches of snow in a 7 days period, but thankfully it didn’t turn me into a spam eating shut-in. I did get some scrapping done though—still working on Erik’s gift album from the time I spent with him after CHA, and also working on Irene’s album. The altered canvas piece I made for Irene is still being held captive by Legacy Magazine---they’re thinking the June/July issue now. (Irene, I promise, you’ll get it EVENTUALLY!)

Erik’s face made his debut in Scrapbook Trends Magazine this month, lol. I call Erik my “scrappin’ charm” as the last three layouts I’ve had picked up for publication feature him! I really hope his 15 minutes of fame doesn’t include time in scrapbooking magazines—because that’s really lame for him, lol.

We got some bad news this past week—2 of our best friend’s little girl, Courtney, was diagnosed with Leukemia. She’s 4 ½, and just about the most beautiful little girl you’ve ever seen. Matt and Becca were the first of our group of friends to get married and have babies. There’s about 7 of us that remained really tight since college—and in many ways we’ve always thought of Courtney as “our baby”---she was the first….a significant change and step, catapulting the group into adulthood, and adding a new dimension to our group—one filled with stuffed animals and the wiggles and spelling out of naughty words—we ooohed and ahhed over her every first…first time she held the bottle by herself, first crawl, first step, first word……………………………and now we’re crushed thinking about her first round of chemo, because “our” baby is sick. She’s just so small and helpless—and I’d give anything to make it all better. The good news is that the stage she’s at and type she has is giving her an 80-85% survival rate after 2 years of Chemo….and we’re all trying not to think of that other 15-20%..........and for the first time in a long time, I’m praying, really praying, to anyone or anything that will listen. Please make her better, Please make her better, Please make our baby better.