Weekend Update

Hi! A week has gone by and no post! Here is the update...

On Thursday I went to sketch club with Anita. I also watched the Grey's Anatomy season finale! I really think that was the best episode this year! Really liked it! So glad how things ended with Meredith and Derek!

On Friday Anita had a purse party. Aman came home on Friday and his leg/knee was really sore.

Me & Anita - She is a little pregnant!

On Friday my sister, Emily, spent the night. She has her driving permit. Here she is getting ready to drive...

On Sunday we went to The Melting Pot for dinner with Anita & J...

(Ugh! The eyebrows are slowly coming back!)
The Melting Pot is a fondue restaurant that I have been wanting to go to forever. It was an interesting experience. I would definitely go back for dessert! For dessert we chose the snickers chocolate and the regular dipping plate. The dipping plate had brownies, rice crispy treats, strawberries, bananas, marshmallows covered with oreos and gram crackers, I can't remember what else, but it was awesome. The meal its self was good, but it is expensive when you have to cook your own meal. Lots of choices at that restaurant.

On Monday we went to the in-laws for a BBQ. On Tuesday morning AC had his knee surgery. This is prior to the surgery... The surgery went good and he is slowly getting around. I try to get most things for him, but sometimes you just want to do it your self. Hopefully he is moving better by Friday, because I am going scrapbooking with Anita & Ashley. Have a good week! Thanks for reading!

Eyebrows Are So Overated...

Happy Tuesday!

We didn't do too much this past weekend. I made a pork roast in the crock pot on Friday. I hate cooking, but that crock pot is a wonderful thing! AC got home before me on Friday and we just stayed in on Friday night. On Saturday he was depressed because he can't golf due to the knee injury. I was weeding outside, at least the knee high weeds, and noticed a bunch of water on the side of the house. AC was telling me that the sump-pump had been running non-stop, so I told him about the water. It turns out that the main valve for the sprinkler system has a leak. AC dug a trench across the yard to get rid of the water. He also put pea stone down to help the water drain in the future. We shut the water off and the sprinkler people are coming on Thursday to repair it. Needless to say, the knee injury was not doing very good after the trench. We went out for dinner on Saturday night with Amit (my bil) and 2 of his friends, as well as our friend Gregg. We went to Filippa's and I had this wonderful coconut chicken. I am definitely going back for that.

On Sunday I did some scrapbooking errands, you know I hit all the stores! I also went to Petco to get a shower attachment for the utility tub. My plan is to give both cats baths this week. I am hoping they will let me brush them outside to get rid of some loose hair, since they are shedding bad. Last night I went to Macy's and got my haircut. I also picked out some stuff for my mother-in-law to buy for me. My mother-in-law works at Macy's, so I just put the stuff on hold and she buys it the next time she works. I also went to New York & Company to get some stuff.

Could someone please tell me why all of the clothes (shirts) look like maternity clothes!! Everywhere, shirts with pleats in the front only to expand as they go down! Ugh! Like I need shirts that make me look pregnant!! Ugh!

Now for the eyebrow part... Last night, after my haircut, I decided to trim my eyebrows. I have a pen like trimmer that has a specific attachment to trim eyebrows. Apparently I had it on wrong because my eyebrows are almost gone!! They are very short stubble!! YIKES! Nobody said anything yet, but I have only seen my cats:(

MSN

A blog that I frequently read is On Eagle's Wings. The blog owner Benita lives in Michigan and was on the design team for a lss that I like. Benita went to the Mega Meet last week and bought a bunch of stuff. She purchased this paper pack:

It is one of Basic Grey's most recent lines, Sultry. When Benita returned home she noticed that she already had this paper pack and so she decided to do a RAK (random act of kindness) with it. All I had to do was guess how much she spent based on her post of her day at the Mega Meet. My guess was $153 and she spent $153.16! I won the paper pack!! I am so excited!

In other news... I have MSN as my home page and there is often some sort of attention grabbing headlines that I click on. It never fails, if it is something horrible, it seems that it is something that happened in Michigan. Not today!

Today the headline that caught my eye was, "Teen sells 17,328 boxes of Girl Scout cookies." I clicked to read more and this took place in Detroit, Michigan! What a girl scout!! She made enough money for her troop to go on a 10 day trip to Europe! At 15 she sold so many cookies! Congratulations to the Girl Scout!

Knee Surgery!

My husband went back to the doctor and the results from the MRI on his knee show a lateral tear in his meniscus.

Courtesy of About.com:

There are generally two surgical options for treating a meniscus tear:

A meniscus repair is a surgical procedure done to repair the damaged meniscus. This procedure can restore the normal anatomy of the knee, and has a better long-term prognosis when successful. However, the meniscus repair is a more significant surgery, the recovery is longer, and, because of limited blood supply to the meniscus, it is not always possible.

A meniscectomy is a procedure to remove the torn portion of the meniscus. This procedure is far more commonly performed than a meniscus repair. Most meniscus tears cannot be treated by a repair for a number of reasons. Often the tear is in an avascular region of the meniscus, and will not heal even if repaired. Some tears are frayed and cannot be sutured together. In these cases, the meniscectomy is done to remove the damaged portion of meniscus. The meniscectomy has a faster recovery, but it can lead to trouble years down the road because of the absence of the normal meniscus.

It would be better if he can have it repaired, but that is not always possible. The doctor said there is only a 20% chance that it could be repaired. The recovery time for a repair is much longer than if they cut the torn portion off. The doctor told AC that if he has surgery on Thursday, he can be back at a desk job on Monday (removal surgery not repair). The only problem is that he doesn't have a desk job. He will be talking to his boss today about when he should schedule the surgery. I would like him to have it done as soon as possible, since it will not get better with the surgery. He has it scheduled for May 30th, but hopefully he can move it up.

Always something. I have Sketch Club tonight! Have a good one.

Happy Mother's Day

To all the Mom's out there!

Today we had AC's family over for brunch. AC & his brother did all of the cooking. I did the clean up, which took me much longer than the cooking, since they dirty every pot we have! I don't like to cook, so I am not complaining about it.

A week or so ago I bought a 12x12 one page kit at Archiver's. It was in there $1.99 section! Here it is...

The ribbon and the black cardstock is all that I added to the page. The picture is my sister, Emily, when she was 5. She is 16 now.

AC had an MRI on his knee Saturday and is going back to the doctor tomorrow afternoon. The doctor thinks he may have a slight tear in his meniscus. Hopefully he can give him something for the pain and no surgery. He stands on his feet for 10 -12 hours a day, so it is hard to rest it. Thankfully he can rest on the weekends.

Not much planned for this week. Sketch Club on Tuesday. I need to start working on my homework more during the week. Just doing it on Sunday and Monday is not enough, plus it is a pain for those 2 days. I took a nap this afternoon and woke up late, the problem is that I had a test to submit by 8 pm and not enough time to take my time on it. Goal for the week, Get homework done by Friday!

Have a great week!

Happy Friday!

We had a great time at the Mega Meet yesterday. I bought some stuff, but not too much. I will post pics later.

My co-worker sent me these photos today, I think they are funny!

Just wondering why this dog isn't in the cage, since it is right there...

Have a great weekend!

Paint Rant & Movie Pick

Ok, so I have neglected to update on the painting... I wanted to calm a bit before I wrote. He quoted $1,000 for one coat and the final bill was $2,000 because it needed 2 coats. I only wish he stated that clearly in the beginning. Who doesn't do 2 coats of paint?? When is one coat enough? Keep in mind that this is not painting the trim or doors, walls only. I had to remove all of the switch and plug covers or he would just paint around/on them. Not a huge deal. He painted our master bathroom and removed the blinds, but then put them back up after and splattered paint on them. He wore his shoes everyday in my house. We have hard wood floors in the entire house, maybe that is why he thought it was ok. I asked him if he could wear another pair, but he didn't have any. AC was upset, as I, when we figured out how much this really cost us. Since we were paying, he went through when I was not home and marked the "Bad" areas with blue painters tape. Let me just say that I was shocked at the amount of tape!

AC left the check and the painter finished. Since he has been gone and I am cleaning, I realize what a lack of disrespect he had for our home. There is paint splats all over the floor and the trim, which is white. It is dissapointing to see that he didn't prevent the paint from getting on things.

The important part of all of this is that we learned a few lessons:

1. GET EVERTHING IN WRITING!!! Even the changes you make to the original agreement.

2. Find a respectable painter who will take the time to be sure they do not mess up your stuff. Do this by getting reccomendations from someone you trust and has seen the way the painter works.

3. If you do not want paint on something, get it out of the room!

Let's just say that I do not have a painter to recomended.

On a lighter side, I went to see Made of Honor on Friday! I thought is was a really good, cute, feel good movie! Now that is something that I will recomend!

I am excited because I am taking tomorrow off to attend the Mega Meet. I would describe the Mega Meet as being one giant Scrapbooking store. They have a ton of vendors, demo's, and classes that you can sign up for. I took 3 classes last year and was completely disapointed with them, so now I just go to shop, which is always fun. I always try to go on Thursday, because that is the day it opens. Have a good week!

Acrylic Album & Layouts

I decided to post the instructions to the acrylic album rather than show mine with some pages incorrectly done!

Here are some of the layouts I did the past 2 weekends...

Archiver's

I forgot to mention that last night I took the Archiver's Acrylic Album Class. I liked it and would recommend it to all of the 2 people still reading this blog.

Vacation Day?

The painting is going great! The painter came back on Monday and has been painting all week. The great room is finished, the master bed and bath is completed and the entry way by the front door is done. It is costing a bit more than expected because it needs 2 coats of paint on everything, which is not what the painter anticipated. I have learned one very important lesson with this painting deal, Get Everything In Writing!!! I apparently misunderstood some pricing. AC will be home on Friday and check over the bill. I will post more about this later.

I decided to change the paint color on Monday. Only the color of the main floor hallways and the upstairs hallway. Not a big deal, just more paint. I went 2 shades darker than the great room. Hopefully it will be enough of a difference to notice. Originally we just picked out one color, then AC made a good point about wanting the different areas to be different colors.

We had a wallpaper border, the only wallpaper in the house thankfully, in the 1/2 bath on the main floor and I took it all off on Tuesday after work. This is the bathroom that has the trim painted dark moss green. I bought primer to cover dark colors, so I would like to start painting this as soon as possible.

I am taking a vacation day tomorrow. I am hoping to paint the window sill in the great room. We are not paying the painter to paint trim, because that should be something that we can do. He did paint the trim that is 6 inches wide around the staircase. The previous owners painted it the same color as the walls. It looks nice and bright now. The caulking on the top of the trim where it meets the wall makes a huge difference. It makes it look brand new. Hopefully I can make the rest of the trim look as good. I am just going to take my time and use a small brush.

Friday night is girls night and we are doing dinner and then watching "Made of Honor." Then on Saturday I have a breast cancer 12 hour crop. The perfect way to celebrate National Scrapbooking Day! It will be a busy weekend. Have a good one!