Dear God

Please forgive me for whatever I have done that has PISSED you off so badly. I love animals and I do not know why you continue to give me duds.

I've dealt with garbage strewn all over the house.
I've dealt with dogs throwing up their own poop on my carpet.
I've dealt with powdered sugar stuck to the tile floor and carpeting.
I've found avocados pits in my bed.
I've accepted the fact that I will have to vacuum my bed on muddy days.
I've dealt with poop, pee, vomit, etc in all places in my home.

But this? I have a 16 month old I'm trying to babysit today. Why???

Like a serial killer in the crowd of on-lookers at a murder scene, I'm assuming the guilty party had to come witness my horror as I walked in the door and grabbed my camera.

"You better wipe this shit up, bitch, or I'll scratch you"

Why does the cat hate me?I know it was her because Manny is in his crate and the other two dogs are outside. The other day, she also toppled over Twilight's cage. It was upside down on the floor.

Amen

"Science Project" is just another word for HELL

It's that time of year again. All over my neighborhood, people are pouring and measuring baking soda, vinegar, juices or boiling different liquids. They're making cookies 5 different times eliminating an ingredient each time to discover what that ingredient is used for.

School started this year in early August. By mid-August the other moms and I at the pick up point at school were already starting to dread Science Project Time. We knew it wasn't until February, six months away, but we still grumbled about it anyway.

Grumbles can be heard through out the crowd of moms and a few dads, "I HATE Science Project Time" or "The parents are the ones that end up having to do it anyway" or even "Do you think we could use his brother's project from last year?"

Halloween would come and some of us would bring it up again. "Do you know what you're doing for a Science Project?"

"No. I HATE Science Project Time!"

Christmas comes around and we're getting ready for the break. Of course, it's not really a break when you've got the worry of that damn science project hovering over your head. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? When do we start? Should we start now so it's less work? Do we wait until the boards are distributed?

Someone always says, "I HATE Science Project Time!!"

My idea for the science project was AWESOME!

My idea was to take two of the boy mice and separate them. Put a wheel in one cage and not in the other. Carefully measure their food for a week or two and see who eats more food. Does the mouse with the wheel eat more? Or does the mouse that is bored without a wheel eat more?

I thought it was a terrific idea and I was afraid to share it during kid pick up time at school. It was January and other parents were getting antsy, hovering around other groups of parents listening in for ideas. I even overheard some parents pretending to be interested in another kid's idea.

"So little Johnny, what are you doing for your science project?"

"My mom said not to talk to anyone about my science project"

Of course, Kat didn't want to do it. She wanted to clean pennies with juice. Like she's ever cleaned anything in her life, but anyway. I couldn't get her to change her mind. So, with new Tupperware that I got for Christmas, we lined up 5 little containers and tried 5 different juices.

She already knew the answer to the project because her friend's brother had done it last year. It's LEMON juice. Duh!

Erik worked with Kat on her juice and pennies. The Tupperware containers sat out on the table for about three weeks.

The boards didn't get out on time. First we were told that UPS was late. I did see UPS driving up to the school as the girls and I were leaving that Friday. I saw my neighbor run back into the office and moments later he came out with giant boards that we was trying to hide under his jacket.

Fine. We'll just get ours Monday.

Monday comes and it's raining. You can't get the boards when it's raining because it will ruin the cardboard.

I HATE Science Project Time!

Finally on Tuesday we got the boards. They were due in exactly six days. We could do this. No problem!

I was pretty impressed with Kat that she did the Power Point all by herself. I helped her add some clip art and I printed the pages. Until we ran out of ink. UGH! Panic.

$45.00 and 45 minutes later, we finally have the ink and we're printing again.

She uses the Cricut to cut her title. 

We decide to glue on the pennies and use Martha Stewart labels to add what kind of juice we used. I printed off some pictures and she glued them on.

6:00 PM Sunday night we're done! WE ARE DONE!

Monday, the day it's due, Kat is sick. I look at the giant piece of cardboard sitting next to the door and I decide to take it to school. I'm so sick of looking at it and I just know it's going to be a matter of time before either a dog pees on it, the cat throws up on it or someone just spills something on it.

Now we're all done and we can relax. At least until next August when school starts again and the parents and I start grumbling about it.

I HATE Science Project Time!

It's a page on Manny

Here he is, the little cutie pie stinker dog. It took me forever to commit and glue this page together. But my friend, Sharon, said, "Glue and Go Baby"! So, that's what I did.

This is the first page I've done on him. As we (well, actually I) were digging through Petfinder, his cute little smile caught our attention. He's such a happy little guy.

See the wood veneer dog on the red heart? That's some of the new Studio Calico wood veneers I was squealing about last week.

Papers, camera, arrow and misting mask are new Studio Calico, chip alphas are American Crafts, tiny alphas are Lily Bee and mists are Heidi Swapp.

We were crazy in the 70's

Good Morning and Happy Valentine's Day!

Yesterday I was helping Kat sign her Valentine's Day cards when I noticed how teeny tiny they were. They're only about 2x3 inches. There are no envelopes and you don't even get to fold them over and secure them shut with a sticker.

I asked, "Wanna see what Valentine's Day cards were like when I was your age"?

All of them (the girls I babysit after school were here, too) said, "YEAH!"

I must have been born a scrapbooker because I saved my Valentine's Day cards from when I was in third or fourth grade. They are tucked away in one of my childhood diaries. Yeah, I kept a diary and you'll never see it. It mostly says stuff like, "I hate Mom", or "I love Jeff". I was very emotional, I guess, as a 10 year old.

I pulled the cards out for the girls and showed them how large and colorful they used to be. You know, things are always better in the good ol' days.

The girls (and Trent) were bored after about 30 seconds but I kept digging through them.

My good friend, Deanna Larsen, gave me this one. Her name is on the back so if she doesn't believe me I can scan it and show her. I wonder if she knew at the time how politically incorrect she was?

Yeah, I know, huh!! We could never get away with something like this now.

Remember Ziggy? I had forgotten all about that bald little loser until I found this:

Here are a couple others I found. They're not inappropriate or anything, like Deanna's, but they do scream 1970-something.

These were decent sized, too.  Not a teeny 2x3 inch picture that you need a magnifying glass to read.  I don't think we had candy on them, either. You got a Valentine's in an envelope and maybe the rich kids gave you candy OR a t-shirt iron-on.

There were no temporary tattoos. In my stack of cards, I found an iron-on Valentine.

I was so lucky and didn't even realize it.

Crafty time

I was at the new Joann's today. Thank goodness northwest Tucson has nice, new and CLEAN location to visit. The old one was gross and I always felt like I needed a shower after visiting.

Anyway, I came across some Spellbinder gear dies. I've never seen them before and even though I've had issues with Spellbinder dies not working well in my Cuttlebug, I still wanted needed them.

So, I bought them and took them home and actually used them. As I was looking at them, I realized that I could Steam Punk about anything now.

So, that's what I did.

I can't tell if Sookie likes being Steam Punked or not.

and then I moved on to Trent's new Lego set.

If you're not going to pick your toys, you'll just have to deal with me Steam Punking them.

and last but not least, I gave Spots a chance to hit the town in her new Steam Punk outfit:

sorry, it's not a great picture. She didn't really like it very much anyway.

All this fun, from this one little package.

On sale at Joann's for $14.99. Go buy them and Steam Punk something. Then link me up so I can see it.

The family game I won't be playing

What kind of evil & cruel game is this?

In my half alive state yesterday (I had a stomach bug) I kind of remember Katrina showing me this. I was impressed with her corner notches and thought maybe it was a punch I had but forgotten about.

Looks like I'm going to be the party pooper on this one. I'm not playing. It's funny that Erik is, but he probably didn't realize that I would be taking a picture of it and putting it on the world wide web.

Gem and Mineral show

Every year, Tucson has a giant Gem and Mineral show.  Giant white tents take over the city and hotel rooms are filled with temporary shops.

We haven't been in several years and since we were due some Family Fun Time, I suggested we go.

Katrina looks really guilty in this picture, doesn't she? It looks like she's stealing something but I found out later that she had a stash of animal crackers in her pocket.

Inside the tents are PILES and PILES of sparkling gems, cheap jewelry and expensive jewelry. There are knives, supplies to make jewelry and lots of lots of people.

You just start digging and pull strands of what you want. The price ranges start at $.25 a strand and go up. I didn't go over $2.00 a strand except for the strand of giant skull beads I bought that were $6.00.

 

One thing I love to do is run my hands over the stones. They're so cold and smooth. It reminds me of the scene in Amelie where she states one of her favorite things is to stick her hand in a sack of grains:

 

and btw, if you haven't seen this movie, you should. I also agree with the cracking of the creme brulee top.

But back on track...

I asked Trent to stick his hand in this giant pile of bracelets and see if he could get to the bottom. Once he saw I was taking pictures, he got shy and wouldn't do it.

 

 

Outside is where they have the "real stuff". The giant pieces of fossils, the giant agates, meteorites or tons of petrified wood. I wish I could have found dinosaur poop. I'm still disappointed by that. I'm sure there is some elsewhere in the city but we walked around for a couple hours and I was tired.

Here is my stash. I think I spent about $40.00 on everything. I was obviously into the skulls this year as there are at least 4 strands. Erik must have had Valentine's on the brain because he kept pointing out heart shaped items. I don't want hearts...skulls, please.

Do you see the orange strand? That one is my favorite find of the day. It's a strand of amber chips I found for $2.00. I LOVE amber, especially when there's a dead bug or something in it. I started out buying things for scrapbooking but was soon distracted by all the other stones and such.

I even found this cool treasure box to hold my skulls in. Well, actually Kat put my skull beads in there. I wanted to put the skulls in a little bowl and offer them to people when they came over.

"Would you like to have a piece of candy?" and then I'd shove the bowl of skulls their way.

OMGosh! Is that a Wood Veneer Pig?!?

I squealed when I asked this question.

I went to Blue Moon Scrapbooking today. I was down on the floor digging through boxes of Studio Calico when I saw a small but chubby wooden pig looking at me.

I reached over for the package, almost falling over to the floor, when someone said, "There are also little puppies and kitties, too!

That's when I really squealed.

I've never heard that sound come from my mouth before and I may have scared some of the employees. I know the other shopper there looked at me funny.

I just looked at her, pointed to the package and said, "wood pigs. wood pigs. oh, and chickens!"

She smiled and walked away.

That was ok because that meant THEY WERE MINE!

I didn't even know that Studio Calico was coming out with these tiny creatures.

In the farm animal package, there are cows, horses, chickens, roosters, pigs, goats and probably more.

The cats look to be all of the same breed but they're just different sizes and in different positions.

The dogs are my favorites! There are fancy poodles, dachshunds, bazenji, maybe a chihuahua and other shapes I'm not quite familiar with.

Blue Moon isn't really a store. It's mostly a warehouse and they do on-line orders. They let us locals come in and dig through the boxes. I LOVE THAT!! I feel so at home just sitting on the floor with the girls going through boxes. It's like a treasure hunt. There are no prices on anything but I kinda know what they are as I've been shopping supplies for 10 years now.

It's my new favorite place to hang out. There's a house for sale right across the street from them. I'm thinking I should buy it and that way I can go over there every day.

Remember This Day

A scrapbook page two days in a row? Amazing! I better slow down before I hurt myself.

This is mostly My Minds Eye, Remarkable 


I really liked this new collection and bought most of it. I also used my new Tim Holtz Sizzix die for the banner and his new stamps.

I spent the longest time looking for an "I love my Uncle" shirt or "My Uncle is Cool" for Blake to wear. I found plenty of "I love my Aunt" shirts.

I decided one day to hit Penny's and found this shirt that said, "Trenton racing". I thought Trent would like that as much as an "I love my Uncle" so I bought it.

Eventually, I did find an "My Uncle is Rad" onesie but not of course until after I had purchased the "Trenton" shirt.

Rodeo Days

Ahhh, I finished a layout. It doesn't happen often anymore.

I used Fancy Pants The Good Life and October Afternoon Sasparilla. There's also a little BasicGrey in there.

Thanks for looking. :) and P.S. It's not as crooked in real life.

Not for the squeamish

I've never taken a picture of Spots eating a mouse until today. However, I've always watched. Well, most if it I watch. I don't like the strike and the small struggle of the mouse as the snake wraps herself tighter and tighter around her prey.

I don't watch that part.

I find the actual consumption of the mouse fascinating. It's like the National Geographic channel is live right in my own home.

I think it's amazing how Spots can open her jaw to consume something so much larger than her whole face. The process takes several minutes and this whole time somewhere she's breathing. I think. She always takes the head first and then slurps up the tail like spaghetti.

Like I said before, it's fascinating.

The mice are retired breeders so I like to assume they've had a nice full life. I hope they've known love and warmth from their babies and I hope when they get to Heaven they say "Hi" to Liberty and then frolic around the sweet smelling grass with Snowflake, Sunshine, Dessert, Google and all the other mousies that have passed on that I knew.

I don't like this part of the snake but it has to be done. Luckily, it's only once every two weeks.

When Spots retires to baby rats is when I'm going to have a hard time. I'm hoping she can just eat jumbo mice for a very, very long time.