NASCAR Tailgating

Tyler's a true Southern boy, tailgating in the back of a pick up with a lawn chair, gotta love it!!

Saturday was our annual NASCAR All-Star tailgate/race day. We didn't have as many folks as in the past and didn't play as many games since the field had tons more campers than in the past but it was still a fun day with way more food than any of us could ever eat, I will be throwing out and cleaning up lots of covered dishes today. What a waste, I always make too much food, normally that's not a problem I LOVE leftovers (food or scrapbook supplies) but with the heat and flies there is no way I am gonna use the leftovers from tailgating. This year I didn't attend the race, I decided to stay back with both prego daughters and Tyler, we had a Mom daughter trip to Babies R Us planned, had hoped to finish up Kelli's nursery and last minute baby needs.

We are having a nightmare of a time finding the baby a dresser/changing table, the girls buy (Mom/Me) regular furniture for the babies rooms so when they are ready to come out of the crib they will only need to purchase a bed. Kelli is doing black furniture which is so cool, very versatile no matter what look she wants to go with later, the problem has been everything she sees at the baby store has to be ordered, then they tell us sorry but it is back ordered and we can't order right now, when we continue to check back they say the same thing, then low and behold they tell us oop's sorry that has been discontinued UGHHHH. Baby girl Hines is due in 6 short weeks, we have no time for the baby stores craziness so we hit the furniture stores all afternoon, didn't stop until 10:00 PM last night, so much for a fun evening!! We ran into the same problem at ever store we went to, they were out of stock, not sure when they could order again or if they could order again, had one store who was willing to sell us the floor model but they would only give us 10% off and the piece had lots of scratches, now here is the really crazy part, the store was having a 25% off store wide sale so I checked with the salesgirl to make sure the price would be 35% off right? 25% store wide sale 10% off floor sample, nope only 10% off, WHAT is that all about. Heather is running into the same problem ordering furniture for the new house, she is at it every night after work and every weekend, they had thought by now they would have everything ordered and ready for delivery at the new house the week they move in. Not sure what is up with furniture right but it seems like the manufactures have made so many cuts to the workforce that they can't fill orders and are afraid to do rehires yet, in the meantime baby girl Hines needs her room finished. I have my fingers crossed, we made a call to a store in one of the small towns around us that has a dresser she wants, he has one floor sample and is willing to sell it to us at a good price so I am off this morning as soon as the doors open to hopefully make the deal happen. Some really odd things are happening in the consumer wold, makes me wonder what the heck is going on. Sorry for ranting and raving today, just tired and frustrated to no end, I need to get back in the garden and play in the cow poop!!

On The Run Friday

Here is a quick easy card using what else but leftovers, most is from the "Cherry O" Wotg but the chipboard is from the "Caboddle" Wotg, can't say enough how much I love these kits, they give you a real bang for your buck!! On Monday I will post a super cute altered project that I worked on yesterday, I am not much into the whole altered stuff or Mini albums. I think I have done so many workshops and classes with Mini albums that I am just over them, I have baskets that are overflowing with them that rarely get touched. I would much rather spend my time and money on scrapbook pages for our family.

I have tons of errands to get done today that I put off from Wednesday, I HATE doing errands on Friday. In our area so many people are off on Friday that the traffic is crazy add to that we have the NASCAR All-Star race Saturday and next week is the Coca-Cola 600, thousands and thousands folks come in for the full 10 days of NASCAR fun. Don't get me wrong we love NASCAR as a sport and the local drivers are wonderful folks the vast majority are just that regular folks who do so much for the community but the traffic is a nightmare, note to self next week get errands done on Wednesday no matter how bad the garden looks. I then need to get busy on a couple of covered dishes to take to the tailgating party at the race tomorrow, pack all the race necessities, load up tables, chairs, tent, cooler, football, wuffleball and on and on the list goes. This will be the first year I won't be attending the race, just going to the tailgate party then back home, over the past year and a half I have really watched my lifestyle and food intake, I have finally gotten my medication down to half of what it use to be YA ME!! The noise at the track is always a problem for me it takes days to get my head cleared up and just doesn't seem worth the possible side effects. Kelli is far to prego to be fighting the crowds, Heather is also prego as well as Tyler is to young to go to the races yet. We might just stop off at Babies R Us for a little Mommy and me time I know that will cost me a pretty penny but new babies are worth it!! Have a great weekend and check back on Monday to see a super cute project you will love and would be a great gift giving idea I am thinking Birthdays, Wedding showers, Christmas gifts, it is never to early to get started!!

New Album Finally started

It felt good to get back in my room for a few hours yesterday. I finally got started on Kelli's pregnancy album. I am keeping it very simple by sticking with one paper line, "Top Stitched" and repeating the design for each page. I may change the paper when I get around to her baby shower but for now I am going with this. Sometimes it is OK to not recreate the wheel!! May not get a thing done today, Tyler will be with me and the garden needs to be weeded again, UHG!!

Finally some card time

Finally!!!! I was able to get back into the scraproom after so many days away. All I have had time for lately has been to run in and stack more stuff that will need to go in scrapbooks at some point, wow that pile has really grown. Tyler was cooperative yesterday and took a nice 3 hour nap so that I had time to take a shower and work on some cards, LOVE that little guy asleep or awake!!

I used the "Card Chatter Thanks" stamp set along with leftovers from the Caboodle WOTG and a bit of scrap cardstock, so 2 cards done for .00 $$ spent and I didn't have waste gas running to the store. For the next 2 weeks traffic in our area is unreal, we have the All-Star race coming up Saturday and the Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day weekend being able to stay home and out of the gridlock is a wonderful thing!!

Pull out some of your own scraps and see what you can come up with today, as soon as I get the weeding done in the garden my plan is to spend the rest of the day working on Kelli's pregnancy album, fingers are crossed that I can do both.

Creating In Green

Square Foot garden
Finally eating salads from our garden, broccoli will be ready to harvest over the weekend! YAAA

Still haven't had time to get back in the scraproom, the garden is sucking the time out of every day. We installed 2 new Square Foot beds over the weekend, doesn't look like much but let me tell you it took all day Saturday. We worked from 7:00 AM until 6:00 PM to pull it off, building the boxes, collecting the different soils needed, finding heirloom seeds that I wanted, then finally the fun part PLANTING!! If all goes well we will have sweet potatoes, onions, bush beans, pole beans, radishes, and corn in just 2 of these little babies, hope it works!!

We are also working on a Raspberry bed or whatever you call it, still need to figure out what I want to use to support the bushes, it needs to be functional but also cute, since I spend so much of my time in the garden right now cute is important. We have had 3 inches of rain in the last 24 hours so the garden is out for today so maybe with a little luck and a long nap on Tyler's part I can put together a card or two today, I need to get a few thank you notes in the mail this week

A Little Blog Housekeeping

Enjoy smelling the Roses or my Peony in this case!!
Sooo, I have been doing a little blog housekeeping this morning and office work, YUK!! I have been putting off so much lately with all the yard, garden and food preserving work that has been going on but today I have got to get it all together.

Here is the scoop on the blog, I have cancelled my website so you will no longer be able to order directly On-Line, however you can contact me anytime to order over the phone or by e-mail. You can still view the catalog from the CTMH home page along with episodes of Art and Soul and I will continue to mail out catalogs to all my out of town ladies. If you need a catalog send me an e-mail with your address or just leave a message on the phone if I am not in. It might seem crazy to many of you that in this day and time I decided to give up the whole on-line store deal, here is the reasoning behind it; The web site is pretty costly, add to that the yearly fee for a pro pay account and the additional fees associated with each transaction the dollars begin to add up, and keeping up 2 different e-mail accounts is cumbersome to say the least. The vast majority of my customers pay in cash or check so the added expense just doesn't make sense. Ya'll know I am a firm believer in cash only, "leave the plastic alone or at least at home" so for me this is in keeping with my "keep it simple stupid" approach to about everyday dealings in life. I know some consultants have begun adding the cost of the fees back to customers but I don't want to go that route, with shipping, handling and tax charges enough is enough!!

I will continue to post Scrapbooking/Card Making creations on this blog along with everyday stuff. During the summer there will be more stuff than scrapbooking. Summers are my busiest time of the year, the garden, canning, freezing, yard work along with vacations, boating, Harley rides and scrapbooking workshops have me going a mile a minute so I can't hit my studio as often as other times of the year but I promise to get a little something done ASAP, I would go crazy if I didn't carve out some time to play.
My creative spirit today will have to be satisfied with the cuttings of some Peony blooms from the yard and placing them around the house so I can enjoy them when I am stuck inside, don't just take time this year to smell the roses, bring some in your own home, put a single boom in each room you use the most often, it is guaranteed to make you smile all day!!!

Bringing In The Bounty

RADISH RELISH
We had a full weekend of gardening, family and canning!! The garden looks great this year , so far we have had a few onions, not many, I didn't get them thinned enough so had to do away with them, but we have more radishes that we can give away and eat. I searched my canning and preserving books and couldn't come up with anything, however after a quick search on the PC I found a really cool recipe for Radish spread/relish. We tasted a bit yesterday before I went to all the trouble of canning them and it is really good, you would use it in place of a horseradish spread on different beefs and such, yummy.

I will finally get into the scraproom today, hope to get started on Kelli's pregnancy album, baby girl Hines will be here soon so I need to get this album finished so I can start hers. We have 2 more friends babies that will be arriving this week so that cleaned out a few more scrapbooks and cards that were waiting in the wings, LOVE that the books were already ready to go, just throw them in a gift bag along with the matching cards and I was ready to roll. I will be back tomorrow with a little something scrapbook related so stay tuned.