Happy Thanksgiving!

May you have a happy, healthy and safe holiday!

Tagged!

I was tagged by Toni...

To complete the tag, you go to the photos folder on your computer, open the 4th folder and post the 4th picture to your blog....
My 4th picture is of my good friends Anita and Jason. This photo was taken at Stacy's Birthday party last month. I only keep the current year of photos on my computer, so it is a recent one.

I also received this blog award from Benita...
Here are the rules:
1. Write seven strange things about yourself. They interest us all!
2. Tag six other people at the end of your post.

My 7 strange things:

• I could eat Taco Bell everyday
• In the winter I sleep in socks
• I hate leftovers
• I put ice in my milk
• I don't like my food to touch on my plate
• I sing while driving
• I usually take the Christmas tree down on December 26th

I think everyone has been tagged already, if not consider yourself tagged:)

Cakes & Trees

I am a little behind here...

We went to my Dad & Denise's house this past Sunday to celebrate birthday's. It was Jacob's 9th Birthday...

and Josh's 12th Birthday...
As you can see, Denise makes the coolest cakes ever! I got to see my grandma, who is living with my Dad now.
On Monday after work I decided to put the Christmas tree up. I bought a new tree last year on December 26th.

We have the room for a tall tree, but I really didn't think about decorating a tall tree. I didn't decorate it on Monday, I waited until last night (Wednesday). AC was playing poker, so what better time to get some decorations out. You can even see Cupcake sitting under the tree. This is her first Christmas tree experience. Last year I think she would have ruined it, so we decided to wait another year.

Sump Pump & Book Sale

Last night AC found this...

That would be our sump-pump hole filled with water too the top! AC went to Lowe's and bought two different sump-pumps to use as replacements. We are keeping the one with the motor up and not in the water. This gave AC something to worry about and fix last night. I went down to the basement and took a few pictures...

I took some photos of our basement and could not believe what a mess it is!! I always put stuff down there and don't really pay attention. It is not a finished basement and we do not entertain there, so I forget about it and it is not a priority. I can not post the photos here, they are to embarrassing!

My Mom called me on Sunday because she is cleaning out her basement and wanted to know if I wanted a few items. We took this for the cats:

They are enjoying it now, but soon it will also be in the basement.

She was also getting rid of a couple scrapbook items...

Two of these 12x12 paper racks:

And this rack with the little hooks to hang items on.

This is the bottom and it spins.

I will be using these soon. It was nice of her to call me and give them to me. I have a few scrapbooking books that I am going to try to sell. Anyone have any luck with Amazon selling books?

I am up in the air about the Becky Sketches book...

Your Own Font!

I have been participating in the "Stories at Hand" class by Jessica Sprague this past week. Jessica is a brilliant Photoshop/Computer Chick. She makes very cool stuff. See her blog: http://spraguelab.squarespace.com/

While visiting the forum for the class, someone posted a cool website! At this website you can make your own font in minutes. Just print the form, scan it, upload it and presto chango your handwriting is a font!! Check it out here: http://www.yourfonts.com/ I made my font and it looked like a second grader wrote it, so you won't find me using it!

I really like the idea of your own handwriting font, so that you can preserve your handwriting and years from now people can see how you wrote, but if your like me, you don't want them to see!

We had a good weekend. AC & Amit went to see the new James Bond movie - they were both disappointed, no cool gadgets, more questions raised without any answers.

AC's mom makes food for AC's brother that is in college and takes it to him, so he doesn't have to cook too much. Yesterday she called us and wanted us to come and get some food, because there is no way they could eat it all. We picked up lasagna, fettuccini alfredo w/ chicken, Orzo pasta, and butter chicken. She spent all afternoon on Saturday and early Sunday morning cooking. Since I love cooking, this works out great for us:)

Have a great week!

Cut the Holiday Stress

I went to sketch club last night. Always fun with the ladies:)

The 2P's challenge for today: Have you started to make plans for any retreats or crops for next year?

I have not started planning crops for next year yet, kinda hard to spend the money to sign up with a husband laid off. Hopefully he is back to work in no time and I can sign up. I have only gotten a form of a January crop so far. I am excited to go to the Scrap Palace on the 28th. That is my big outing this year.

Have you started your Christmas cards? I broke out a kit I purchases last year and have been putting those together. It is so hard to believe that it is that time already. Our sub-division put the Christmas lights up and they are turned on! I like the lights, but wait until after Thanksgiving!!

Speaking of the holidays... Ali Edwards has posted on her blog cool ideas for cutting down on spending, stress and making the holidays easier overall. Couldn't we all use that!

Top Chef returns tonight! Happy Wednesday!

Snow!

It's Here! Snow... It is 34 degrees today and feeling chilly. Hopefully it won't stick but either way it is just a matter of time before we have to get the snow blower out.

I got a call on Friday with some bad news... My husband got laid off. It is such scary times in Michigan now. The automobile industry is falling apart as we speak and the economy is in the tank. The company that AC was working for lost a couple big programs in the last month, so naturally they need to cut back on employees. He has been making calls and updating his resume. Hopefully he will find something soon. It helps that he is willing to travel.

The news put a damper on the weekend, but we still went to a birthday party for my friend Anita on Friday night. AC had poker on Saturday at our house. I went to the mall with Amit (brother-in-law) to help him buy clothes. He only shops every 5 years for clothes, so he got a bunch of stuff. Since Mom works for Macy's we just shopped there. That was pretty exhausting. He is funny because he wanted dress pants with pleats and cuffs at the bottom. You know the stuff you bought 5+ years ago. Since everyone now wears flat front pants I encouraged the change. Hopefully he wears them!

On Sunday we cleaned and did laundry. Not much else is going on. Tiger's paw is healing nicely and Cupcake is now jumping onto our dresser at night. She then proceeds to tear any paper that may be up there. Then walks from the dresser onto the tv, the tv squeaks and creaks from her walking on it. It is an older heavy tv and she can't knock it down, so we just yell at her to get down, but of course we have to actually act like we are going to get up in order for her to actually jump down.

Since I have already paid for November & December's sketch club, I am going tomorrow night. Looking forward to that. I also have already paid for my scrapbooking weekend getaway, which is coming up Thanksgiving weekend. One income will certainly make me use my scrapbooking supplies on-hand, which is a good thing.

Have a great week!

Sister Dinner

My sisters came over for dinner last night. AC made a fabulous dinner of fettucini alfredo & garlic bread. It was better than any restaurant food! I am lucky he likes to cook and is so good at it. Growing up AC's mom (a vegetarian) only cooked Indian food, so if the men in the house wanted something else, they had to cook it. I always hate looking in the kitchen after he cooks, because everything is a huge mess, but worth it. It was so nice visiting with the girls. Ashley is a senior this year and Emily a junior. I can't believe how fast they grow up! College applications already!

Tiger's doctor called me this morning to see how he is doing. My doctor never calls me to see how I am feeling a few days later! I think that she is a great vet.

On Saturday evening AC is having poker at our house, I have to find something to do so I am not stuck at home. However, I could just shut the door in the scrapbook room and scrap all night.

So happy tomorrow is Friday:) Have a good night.

44th President

I set my alarm early for Tuesday morning, so that I could stop to vote on my way into the office. I got to the school and jumped in line at 7:30 am. The voting was taking place in the school gym and I was number 9 in line to get into the gym to vote. To my surprise I stood in line for an hour!! People were leaving the gym, but they would not let anyone else in to vote. Apparently the lines got very long inside the gym and were interfering with the voting areas. Eventually, I got in and placed my vote, I was number 184 for my precinct. AC & I had dentist appointments in the evening. He voted during my appt and it took him only 20 minutes! I am happy to see that America has voted the first African American as our 44th President, history has been made.

Tiger did good at the vet. He cries on the way there and in the office, but is pretty quiet on the way home. His allergies are bothering him more and the Doctor said that is why he was chewing the hair out of his paw. He got a steroid shot and is already healing nicely. Last night he was sitting in the chair licking the paw area and I was calling his name so he would stop. He ignored me, so I went and picked him up. Eventually he went back to the chair and would sneak licking his paw when I was pretending not to look. I would call his name and he would look at me as to say, "What?? I wasn't doing anything."

Vet Appt

On Friday I passed out candy. I realize that you can't let the children pick the candy out of the bowl. For one, picking for some children is quite an event because they really have to think about what they want and of course there are children who pick up as much as they can get in one hand. Cute kids, but this little monster was by far the cutest... This is TJ, my friend Anita's son.Anita & Jason came over for dinner on Friday. It was a fun evening. On Saturday AC went golfing and I did laundry & errands. In the evening we went out for dinner with Amit. AC & Amit really like wine, so they bought a bottle with dinner. As we were leaving AC asked about purchasing the wine because he enjoyed it so much. So they charged us $31 for the bottle with dinner. It was $8 after dinner, so we got 4 bottles for the price of the one at dinner!! Sunday was another lazy day. We met my in-laws for dinner at Olive Garden in the evening. I finished some layouts that needed a few final touches, then scanned them all.

Tiger has to go to the vet tonight. He got his paw wet and litter stuck to it, then in order to get it clean he ripped out all of the hair between his 2 back claws. I did not see a thing until he had pulled all of the hair out. He is still acting normal, but we decided to take him in rather then it turn into a bigger problem later. The most traumatic event will be the trip to the vet. He shakes and gets in the farthest possible spot in his carrier, so we have to take it completely apart in order to get him out. He does not enjoy these trips at all. I have to go into the house and to the basement to get the carrier and then go upstairs grab him and put him in the carrier before he sees it.

Have a good night and don't forget to vote tomorrow!