Belated 4th and holy crap I've been busy.

Did this patriotic LO just before the holiday and meant to share it here, but plans (dinner at mom & dad's), company (sis & co.), and my new high-powered workout schedule have left me little time to update.

This concert was held mid-May at Tess's school. Local military, police, and firefighters were invited. Her class learned about 15 patriotic songs (as did Ben & I, as Tess practiced them all relentlessly at home!) and speeches (she recited the poem and info about it from the Statue of Liberty) BY MEMORY. So impressive!

This tradition was started almost 20 years ago by a teacher at her school (who recently passed away, making this year's concert especially poignant) during the first Gulf War. She was shocked that her students didn't know the words to our national anthem; well, now several generations do!

(everything on this LO is from Designer Digitals: template by the super-inspiring Cathy Zielske, who is 6 months into her fitness program. Kit is Summer Bright by Lynn G.)

So here's the real reason I've been MIA for the last couple of weeks. Since it's officially Bathing Suit Weather, I've finally found the motivation to get. moving. Since drastic measures were needed, I've tried exercising every day (skipping the weekends, but even those will get in on it, very soon) since about June 28th, when I did a warm-up (weak) 6 laps in the outdoor pool at our gym.

This week I'm up to 24 laps (working toward 36, a full mile, 2 or 3 times a week). I've also started the Couch to 5K podcast program (you can pay for it at coolrunning.com but someone has uploaded a listen-along version for free at iTunes). My only goal with that so far is maybe a 5K run...my village has one in December (brr) called the Holiday Hustle. Ann Arbor is a runnin' town, so I'll have no problem finding 5Ks+ in my neighborhood. But for right now I'm taking it slow, since I've never followed a running program before!

Tess's dance recital was mid-June. The first hairdo I did for her was PERFECTION; too bad the one I did for her actual recital fell out! Eep! She was a trouper, though...she just kept dancing! I used a Summer Night kit from Digitalcrea.fr but also a template from 2peas, not the usual look for a Digitalcrea LO but I had fun with the colors! Still not sure I love it...

This gang of gals has been taking up some of my free time as well. This week I've been a bit of a slacker, though (see workout routine, above, and oh my it's so dang HOT out! Too hot for weeding. Bad virgin!) Everything here -- template and all -- is from Shabby Pickle Designs. LOVE all the kits from As You Wish...here I just went with one, Checkered Apron.

This was a challenge over at ScrapArtist. Everything except the snail is from there. We were to put wings on something unusual...someone had suggest to me, at a fairy tea I attended with my mother, that since I didn't have fairies in my garden, "Just snails, LOTS of snails!" that I should put wings on them and see if they flew away! Then this challenge came up a voila! I made my fantasy come true. Sort of.

Hoping you have lots of strawberries this year, since the snails ate all of ours. Peace out.

Business Time

Sorry about the music in the sidebar...can't resist. I was on a roll with iTunes last night :) looking for favorites. You can always turn it off...and remember...two minutes in heaven is better than one minute in heaven :P



Two Fridays in a row without cropping make me a little crabby. I STILL have my Gleek LO sitting on my desk, waiting for one more photo (of Lowell Everson, our Mr.Shu, circa 1984) and a bit of journaling (you know, we had a Journey song in our repetoire...Open Arms...I still sing the harmony for that when it comes on the radio...)



Lots of digi anniversaries...Jessica Sprague just celebrated 3 years and had quite the blog hop (33 blogs...the majority of them were quickpages, made with the 7 designer kits which were also available on the hop, and now in the shop...heh, that rhymed). I have yet to play with those gifties.



Shabby Pickle Designs has a store-wide sale going on this weekend for their 2nd anniversary. I decided to organize my digi supplies by storefront, since most of the galleries associated with digi stores want at least 50% their product on whatever you post. It didn't keep me from mixing with a template from SPD and a kit from OScraps (Kitty Design's Busy Road...might be retired by now...)

Still love Johnna's actions...this one is Whisper. Sweet.

Until next time...(you'll want to turn off that iPod over there if you haven't already...) ;)

Winter Blahs...

...just can't shake 'em. I have a crazy day today, just dropped Ben off at preschool and now I'm at the coffeeshop typing away...as soon as I pick him up, I pick up Tess next door and we take off for her baton class...which cracks me up, as grandma was a star majorette at Dearborn High back in the day...I have a few twirling tricks up my sleeve but never did make the team...because I couldn't dance (our majorette team *sucked* at twirling in h.s...they were really a pom-pom team with batons instead of poms! LOL)

Then I have to figure dinner out...probably pizza somewhere, then Tess has Brownies, first meeting since missing two due to my own bad schedule-keeping. I kept expecting an email from the troop leaders, and realized too late that they weren't doing that anymore. I have a history with Girl Scouts...from moving halfway through 4th grade and not hooking up with a new troop at my new school, to a major fight with my BFF (since we were 6 years old!) shortly after I joined her Cadette troop in 7th grade...ugh.

I so wanted Tess to earn her Try-It badges but it looks like she's missed two already this year...oh, and she/we sold no cookies this time around. Is it me, or did cookie sales start earlier than usual this year? I think we started December 14th...which might be nice if I remembered to ask relatives as we saw them through the holidays...but I didn't. And I didn't do any scrapbooking late in December, so my cropping buddies missed out, too. Oh well, that's not what GS is all about anyway, just a bummer that Tess missed out on the full experience. We've still got a half-year to make up for it...and all of next year. She'll see her BFF (since 3 year-old preschool!) tonight, plus some other school girlfriends, so she'll be happy. Unless they pass out Try-It badges ;)

On a completely different note, I came across a new (to me) digi scrapping site, which lead me to a really cool make-your-own-handwritten-font action that I now have on my wish list. Visited with Mom yesterday and we hit a LSS (I was good, only spent $8 but I've reduced my craft budget for the first 3 months of this year and I'm a bit over...already...) so I can't really afford even $4.50 right now. Surprising how those little bits of digi goodness start adding up...good thing February is right around the corner! ;)