MOM

my mom can make any room look cozy.
she can make a simple cup of coffee seem like a once-in-a-lifetime treat.
my mom taught me everything i know about being thrifty. i.e. always hit the clearance rack 1st.
my mom is a woman of faith.
she is committed to doing her best.
she likes to travel.
some might say she is a tad obsessive-compulsive about cleanliness. (those people haven't met the rest of the family)
my mom is a dedicated daughter to her parents.
she is willing to give people a chance who might otherwise be shunned.
my mom used to let me "call in sick to school" sometimes when i was having a rough day.
my mother oozes generosity.
she is creative and talented.
she takes a stand for what she believes is right.
there are very few people as detail-oriented as my mom.
my mother is resilient and independent.
she is a wonderful woman whom i love,

and today i celebrate her. my mom.

happy birthday mom!

Buttons are in the store...

Happy Monday Everyone!

Just a quick little update to let you all know that I have added the holiday buttons to my etsy shop.

Click on over and take a peek, I hope to be filling some of your orders soon! Thanks for all of the wonderful comments and e-mails about them.

Christmas Cookie ATC Swap

There are usually several swaps going on over at TallyScrapper, and this one is being hosted by Tally's owner, Christine. I couldn't resist - on most days I abhor the kitchen, and if you know me, you know that cooking and I don't play well together.

Still, during the holidays, I have the tendency to get my martha stewart groove on and bake a few things.

The swap group is 25 ladies, thus we each make 25 cards, send them to Christine, and she sends us back a set of each different recipe. The cards we are using are designed to go on the 7 Gypsies ATC Holder, but I don't have one of those...yet! :)

My contribution is for Holly Jolly Christmas Magic Bars, which have been a tradition in my family forever. (aka 7-layer magic bars, I added the little holly jolly part because i tweaked the recipe to include mint chips.) My mom ROCKS the magic bars, and Kirk usually gets his own box full from her each year, one of his favorite gifts.

The ATC's are coming along, I am not quite finished, but here's the progress so far.




















I have to admit they are taking me forever to finish, lol. Anyone else tend to overcommit themselves?

I am looking forward to seeing what the other participants came up with, those I have seen so far are outstanding! What a fun way to keep holiday recipes, too. Thanks for stopping by!

Ladies who Lunch

today was a leisurely lunch with the girls. good times. i just love these 2 ladies!

in other news...i have decided to learn how to knit. someone smack me on the fanny and call me granny. yes folks, it's scarves for christmas all around. prepare yourselves. i might even get a rocking chair and start wearing a shawl, too.

when am i going to fit in this new pastime? i have absolutely no idea. it's 1:45 am and i'm blogging, do i look like i have good time management skills?

hope you're all enjoying your weekend!

All I Want for Christmas Is...

...to make more buttons! Yes, ladies and gents, the therapy continues...and just in time for the holidays. This is my most recent batch:


If you're not into making them yourself, never fear, ScrapGreen is here! Be on the lookout for a few different sets to hit my etsy shop within the next week.


ps. Back to work today, and it was everything I was dreading it would be, lol. I already miss the mountains, the fall foliage, the family, the late morning coffee, the sleeping in, the Dino's Pizza!

Goin' Back to Cali...

...isn't that a song?

We are back, actually. Riverside hasn't gotten any chillier while we were away, but maybe we can coax some of that crisp autumn weather to come and visit us here in SoCal soon. We had a great time in Colorado, I miss those rocky mountains so much, and it is always a joy to visit with my family and friends. One week is just not enough time, though...so to all whom we were unable to visit, our apologies! Thanks to mom, and to dad & Teresa for being very gracious, generous hosts while we were in town. We love you and miss you already.

I visited Archiver's for the 1st time while I was in CO, along with Hobby Lobby, neither of which are in CA. Needless to say I came back with some serious goodness. Even talked mom into getting crafty and we made some cute candle holders while I was there, photos to come. In the meantime, here's a holiday card I made recently. (enjoy Danielle! can't wait to get together and craft it up soon, my friend!)
So...any recommendations for getting back in the working spirit? Tomorrow it's back to the e-mails, the crises, boss ladies buggin', piles of paperwork, quality improvement, mission statements, and office politics. Boo! It's a good thing I get to visit some wonderful kids in the process! :)

Here's a little clippy in honor of getting back to the grind:


Have a great week everybody.

They Say You Can Never Go Home...

....but it sure is fun to visit from time to time! Greetings from CO, where I sit, not wanting to head back to hot, boring, firey SoCal tomorrow morning. It's been wonderful to see family and friends. Last Saturday, we had planned to take my grandparents on a drive to Estes Park to see the bugeling elk, unfortunately, he was admitted to the hospital later that day for extreme pain, and had a surgery on Tuesday evening to fuse 2 of his spinal discs (degenerative arthritis of the spine) and put in a chest plate. He is now in a rehab center. It's been a long week for him, my grandmother, my mother and her siblings.

My grandfather is a proud man, and can be very stubborn. He has spent his entire life providing for his family, and is struggling with getting older and feeling "useless." He is certainly not useless and has raised a beautiful family, and we love him and wish him the speediest recovery!

We have enjoyed our week here, as always. The weather has been crisp and the air clear, we've seen gorgeous mountain scenery and wildlife. The lovely thing about being in the Denver area is the ease of "getting away" in a short amount of time. 40 minutes or so and you feel far from civilization. Here are some photos of our time so far...it looks like all we've done so far is eat, lol.

Vacation, All I Really Want Is...

....had to get away! You have no idea how badly this vacation is needed. Being in social services with the economy the way it is really shows me how our society does not care for it's own, and as a result, me, my job, my boss, the foster parents, my coworkers...have been on the dark side lately. BUT, I'm on vacation....which I have not had a full week of since December, so no rants, no lefty political soapboxes, nothing serious for this post! :)

Kirk and I drove to Mesquite, NV, last night, and stayed at a Casino there, niiiice! Then we slept in, got up and drove the rest of the route to Lakewood, CO, where my mom lives. The air is COOL, dare I say COLD? The trees are COLORFUL, and we are ready for a fun week with family and friends. Going to spend time with mom, some time with Dad & Theresa, grams n gramps, auntie glenda, and load up on family love. Hope to fit in some time with good friends Kim and Geoff, and maybe some other friends, too!

Might post during the week, might not. Have a GREAT weekend and a GOOD week, too. Hang in there everybody...something has got to give soon! I'll be back in SoCal on 10.20.08.

Button Mania Strikes Again

The buttons are back.
Playing with clay is therapy.Kirk encouraged me to break out the clay again this weekend so I could add some goodies to sell in my etsy shop. It's been quiet in there of late, and we're starting a savings fund for necessities like...food, toilet paper, saline solution, things like that. :) Sad, huh?

We're poor and I still buy art supplies before food. I just feel they feed me in a more substantial way than a big piece of beef. Still, bodies need nourishment (and cleansing every now and then, adding shower gel to my list...) so make stuff for etsy I will do.

By the way, Kirk helped - he made the cool frankenstein guy and some of the skulls too. :) I'm a lucky girl.

I haven't gotten out of my pajamas at all except to go try to find a recycling center for the huge bags of pepsi cans I've been saving. Pajama weekends are bliss. Hope your weekend was just as good.

Survivor Challenges Etc

Ok enough politics for awhile, for pete's sake it's Friday and my brain hurts. :) I do love hearing from those of you who've e-mailed and/or posted comments about your thoughts on the presidential race.

As for Survivor...I don't watch the show...I lost interest after the very first season. BUT, over at TallyScrapper there's a game we play called Survivor and it's all about getting scrapbooking challenges done on time and by the rules. I barely made it into the first week's challenge (procrastination is my middle name) by uploading it at literally around 11:55 before the midnight deadline. Whew! No exile island for me. We are in week 2 and it is ON.

Here are my first two weeks:

Challenge 1 was to have the Title "life is beautiful" and to make a paper-pieced tree, use an owl, deer, bird or hedgehog, 3 photos and stitching. Here's my take on that:
Challenge 2 is to use the word "journey" in the layout, use bare chipboard elements, have pink somewhere on the layout, and use a chipboard alphabet that is painted and different sizes. Here's my entry:

Outside of some of these challenges, I don't really do much scrapbooking, but for some reason being challenged gets my mojo workin'.

Anyway, have a good weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Don't Vote

You know that if you want to complain about things, like I did below, and make your opinion about what your government does count, you have to vote, right? Do it! Democrat, Republican, Independent, Socialist, whatever your political ilk - you can't vote if you don't register. And if you don't vote, I don't want to hear you complain when it's all said and done.



Now, if we can just make sure all of the votes are legitimately counted and all people are allowed to vote who should, we'll be making some progress!

You've GOT to be Kidding Me

Warning: Political Non-Art/Craft Related Post Ahead!
I will not be offended if you choose not to read further based on this warning. I am pro-choice, after all. :)

As I listened to the VP debate earlier this evening, I thought I might be mistaken...but wait, was that? did she? I am now quite certain that I heard Sarah Palin say "nucular weapons" at least twice. Yep, even more than that. "You've got to be kidding me!" I said, aloud, even though nobody was with me. I am a little crazy like that.

I was in my car, driving home from a foster home visit where a 5 year old boy explained to me in detail how to take apart a wristwatch and put it back together again. Earlier in the day, I had also stopped by the library on a break and picked up a book-on-tape (A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking) to listen to on my commutes between home visits, and had been listening to it just before switching over to the debate.

A word of advice: do not, under any circumstances, listen to bright kindergarteners or anything by a brilliant scientist immediately before listening to a political debate. If you do, everything in the debate will sound ridiculous, canned, almost laughable. Your head just might explode. Anyway, back to my point.

"Nucular?" I asked. "Nucular?" I chuckled. "Well, that's odd," I thought. Does anyone recall that the current resident of the White House ALSO has difficulty pronouncing this particular word? Now don't get me wrong. I understand that it might seem petty to allow oneself to get bogged down with semantics. The humanist in me even gave her the benefit of the doubt for a moment. "She's probably nervous," I think. "She's not used to vice-presidential debates with people who have so much more experience and verbal ability than she does." "Cut her some slack, Heidi, it's just a mispronunciation."

Okay....but....I couldn't help but think, why THAT word? Why can't the people who we are asked to trust with our lives, the current and potential leaders of what used to be the most respected country in the world, pronounce a word that has so much to do with the possible obliteration of said world?

I'll admit it - I'm a bit of a pronunciation snob. I am. So hate me. There are people who say "fustrated" instead of "frustrated." I have colleagues who say "yesterday I seen this one guy at the store who..." It makes me cringe a little bit, but these folks aren't applying for one of the most important jobs in the country. Maybe I'm a little depressed because we've been numbed by the antics of our current president for 8 unbelievable years....

The bottom line is this. I want my president, and my vice president, to be smarter than me. A LOT smarter than me. I want the person with their finger hovering over the so-called nuclear button to be able to freaking PRONOUNCE nuclear button. Okay, "but Heidi, she's only running for VP, and she ADMITS that she doesn't even know what that job entails! They won't let her anywhere near the red button!" Now don't you go thinking she won't have her shiny beauty-pageant-runner-up manicure near that button. Have you SEEN McCain? One Big Mac too many and....well let's just....not.

Anyway, I heard her say "nucular" too many times tonight, and that was before I knew she has already been taught and coached about this particular word, check it out:


Is the selection really so weak in this country that we can't hope for 2 leaders in a row that can say nuclear?

You've got to be kidding me.

And please don't think I actually believe there is a red button in a room somewhere that says "new-clear button, press in the event of axis-of-evil emergency only."

I know that's not how it works. But still.

Oh, and p.s.: I highly recommend A Brief History of Time. :)