Under the Weather...

The sunny days are getting shorter but still remaining hot and humid. Conditions are pretty dry and we could definitely benefit from some rain.
My oldest granddaughter, Jillian will start school in a week and a half. Kindergarten is no longer the half day it was when my children were little but is now a full day. When our children were young it was the half day and then in Grade One they got out half an hour before the older grades.  I have to wonder what changes, in the education system and in the world, Jillian will see in her lifetime. I am not really sure that I would like my children being gone all day at such a young age. They are only with us for such a short amount of time.
I haven't done any scrapbooking or other creative pursuits but I did spend some time sorting and rearranging some of my supplies. I need to get busy and gather some things for a garage sale. I am going to downsize the fabric stash and I may edit some of my scrapbook paper and take out some I know I won't use on my projects.
This week we have been trying to get things organized to get our bathrooms' flooring replaced, our furnace replaced and air conditioning added and our fascia, eavestrough and gutters repaired/replaced. It is hard to believe how much it all costs.
I haven't been looking forward to the fall/winter season at all. It took so long for summer to arrive this year. It was the end of July before the rain quit and we got some consistently good weather. I definitely have to have some "carrots" to dangle in front of me so I won't dread fall so much.  At this point we are planning to go to a Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre at an historic site and then do their ghost tour the next evening. Since it is almost three hours away it we will stay overnight.  We will also plan a fall trip to Alberta probably in November and I would like to find something fun to a weekend in the winter. Everything always seems to revolve around snow sports and that is out for me. I would love to try a winter scrapbooking retreat or something along that line. For now though I am going to try and enjoy the sunshine and hot days/cool night.s
Have a great day!

A New Week

It's Monday morning again! I can't believe how fast the time goes now, it seems like everytime I turn around another week has passed.
Today I went straight to the sewing/scrap/? room to start some clean up before I did anything else. This poor room was desperate, crying out for help every time I walked down the hall. I could hear its pitiful cries at night "organize me, please". So before I could get waylaid by anything else I decided to put some time in there.
I spent over an hour but I am not sure how much improvement I made. The new things I got in Spokane were all in a project tote so I worked on putting them away. I relocated my stamps and put away a bunch of tools on the counter. While tidying I did find two Cricut Rewards coupons so I entered them though I still don't have enough for anything I really want. My preference would be a new cartridge for free but it looks like I would have to buy three more cartridges at least to get one free. That won't be happening anytime soon because scrapbook expenditures are on hold for now. We are planning for a new furnace and air conditioning, new flooring in the bathroom and new gutters and downspouts. All extra cash will be diverted to those projects from now till Christmas. I will, however, have a nice little Christmas wish list if anyone is interested :).
This afternoon I did some cleaning up in the kitchen. Our church is having a garage sale to raise funds for the local food banks so I am on the lookout for things to donate as I tidy around the house. We really need to pare down our belongings and make a bit of open space in this house. There are a couple of bigger things we could part with and a boat load of smaller items. I just have to dig them out. Before I start though I think I should re-read Clutter's Last Stand by Don Aslett. It was one of the very first books on getting rid of clutter in the home and it was hilarious. Don can write on boring subjects like housework and make it so funny.
Last night we went to Jack's sister for supper. Jack's parents were there and five of their six kids were too. I admit to be a bit envious. Only one of our four children lives close enough to see weekly. Other than my daughter who lives twenty minutes away I only see my parents regularly. My sister lives in Alberta and my brother is pretty busy with his own stuff. I am grateful to have my parents still and to have my husband's family near especially his sister, Anne and her husband, Wally. They live just 5 minutes away and so are now our closest family. Jack's parents live just 2 minutes away until they sold their home last year and moved into a seniors' apartment.

Little guests....

Our two little granddaughters are sleeping over tonight. They were so good today. Both girls ate a good supper and enjoyed some of grandpa's leftover birthday cake. Grandpa headed off to enjoy his stargazing night at Taghum and the girls watched a little TV. When I told them it was bathtime there was no fussing and Kayla asked if I had a timer. I found my Santa timer and she thought it was pretty cool. She got bathed and then Jillian had her and in no time at all they were all clean and ready for bed. I tucked them in and adjusted the bedside lamp for Jillian and never heard another peep from them. Being a grandma to these little girls is so easy and so fun. They are so precious and we both adore them.

Road trip

We took a little road  trip on Wednesday to Spokane and shopped at Joann's, Hobby Lobby and Michael's. I picked up some scrapbook supplies to add to my stash-only fourteen sheets of paper and one punch. However, I did add some brads and metal embellishments, a couple of tiny spools of ribbon, a light box for embossing and a handful of stamps and other things. Pics to come soon....hopefully.
Yesterday Caroline and the girls came to spend the day for Jack's birthday. We really didn't do anything much for his birthday and I feel bad about that. He just never really knows what he wants to do or what gift he would like. I always have a list ready so if anyone asks I can tell them. Hmmm.....maybe I will just have to shop from my list if he doesn't have one.
Today I had to hem a dress for a neighbour. It took way longer than I would have hoped but it has been delivered back to her now. While I was doing that Jack made up the icing for his cake and then when I was finished with the dress I iced his cake.  This afternoon we went in search of flooring for our bathrooms. No one seems to make quite what we want but I have one picked out now. I hope he likes it too so we can get this project done. The next step will be to find out how long it will take to get the flooring in and get it installed.
When we got back from doing errands and picking up flooring samples I put the ganache and malt balls on the cake and got the posters ready to go to Mental Health(for my support group). Jack has gone to drop the posters off now and to pick dad up so we can go to Caroline's for supper and to celebrate Jack's birthday with them. Seems like it was a busy day.
Tomorrow I am hoping to get the craft room organized again and take some photos of my new stash items. There are chores here that are starting to call my name and so I will have to get to some of them....unless someone else volunteers?!?
The flooring store just called back; they can get the flooring in by Tuesday but can't install it till the week of September 12th. Now if Jack and I can agree on the floor I like we can get the ball rolling here. Should he show poor taste and like something else then we are doomed to be forever hunting for a floor for the bathrooms. Please wish me luck in getting the floor I want a floor we like picked out.
Hope you are all enjoying the beautiful summer days. All too soon it will be fall and back to school, etc. I won't say the W or S words yet.

Lately, In My Nest

Last fall I started to get serious about scrapbooking finally. I had dabbled a tiny bit in the early 90's when it was a relatively new in its current form. I just couldn't find the time when the kids were at home and it seemed that now was the right time in my life. Since then I have been stocking up on supplies and tools and trying to keep a steady pace on my new hobby. I love the creativity involved in it. There is so much you can do with paper, it's virtually endless. Plus, I can also add bits from my sewing and crocheting and make use of my ceramic paints too. Here are some of my projects from the last month.

These are the cards the ladies made from kits I assembled for a "girls" camp day.

My daughter's university graduation layout. I used silver foil paper from Dollarama for the outer frame and a pale lilac for the inner frame. I cut the large flower out of pale lilac cardstock and then inked it darker with my stamp pad and dauber. I entered this for the old photos challenge on Fiskateers.

This card was for the inchie challenge on Fiskateers. I really like these stamps that look like spirograph designs. Anyone else have a spirograph as a child?

This layout was for the black and white with a pop of colour challenge. The trees are cut from vellum. Pictures are my son's from his trips to China.

Taiwan layout- I loved how the big arrow and the motorcycle cutouts turned out.


A challenge for this week: Dust off your forgotten hobby supplies, whatever it might be, and have fun creating something. Then be sure to comment and tell me what your hobby is and what you made. Just a few more weeks of summer!