He Shoots, He Scores!!

Wow, our men's team won the gold medal in a nail-biter overtime! The US Team kicked their butt by tying the score with less than a minute left to play...but our guys got their act together and scored fairly soon into OT. What a rush!
You know, Canadians are notorious for being so polite and quiet and kind of "in the background". In fact, one of the Canadian Olympic officials said we never should have tried to "Own the Podium" as our motto said-he said that was cocky and un-Canadian. Well, we've won more gold medals (14) than any other country in the history of the Games, so maybe he can keep his thoughts to himself. Right now, most of the major Canaidan cities have closed their downtowns as people party in the streets and it feels REALLY great! From Joanie Rochette who won a bronze medal two days after her mother died of a heart attack, to our first gold medalist, Alex Bilodeau, who skated down the hill to give his handicapped brother a huge hug and credit for his winning,this is so cool. Tomorrow we'll go back to being polite and quiet, maybe, or maybe, we'll just keep a little swagger in our step. Vive La Canada! :-))

February Dress Up

Here is my dress for the month of February. I loved making this one, wish I could wear it, but I think it's a little too small. The underskirt is cut from pink paper with lips all over it. You can't see that, cus I covered it up, but trust me, it speaks of Valentine's Day! Over that is a lace doily that I sprayed with glimmer mist. Velvet ribbons, glittery while flowers and a little bling finish the skirt. The bodice has a cut out heart from ribbon, an epoxy heart from eons ago, somewhere, and the straps are felt curlicue hearts. A sequined belt completes the outfit. Now, don't you think I should wear this to a fancy dance somewhere? All I need is a dance. and a date. And a diet. Maybe not.

January Dress Up

My friend Gini told me about this wonderful project from this blog. You create a little dress for each month - the dresses that have been made are amazing! I came onto this a little late (quite late, actually) and so I'm only just now posting my dress for January. Gini has just posted hers for the same month so I don't feel too, too badly. Hers is here and it's pretty special. She had help from Spanky, so I really don't know why she's so late. At least I have a good reason. Procrastination. It's always a good reason.
I've done February's too, but still have to take a reasonably good photo of it, so it'll be up tomorrow. Just in time for March. good grief. Maybe I should start on April's, just for good measure. No, that would make too much sense. I'll just keep plodding along, marching to a different (and somewhat disorganized) drummer (and most likely tripping once or twice). That's what makes me so special. :-))

Friday (almost Saturday) Fill ins #165

1. A cup of tea is the last thing I want to drink first thing in the morning.
2. A cat makes a place feel like home.
3. Everything has its beauty even the Elephant Man.
4. I think I should go downstairs and enjoy the taste of strawberries.
5. Art makes me peaceful.
6. I just noticed I forgot to post this much earlier in the day like I told myself I would last week.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to not getting any calls in the middle of the night from work, tomorrow my plans include getting my First Aid Recertification and Sunday I want to meet my friend from the coast for lunch.
Life is pretty good, when you've had a two-and-a-half-hour nap.
TTFN

She Shoots, She Scores!

Our women's hockey team earns their 3rd Gold medal in a row, and they practiced all year playing 15-18 year old boys in my home town! That makes it 8 Golden medals for the men and women together! Hockey is our game!

Ruffle My Flourishes

Sounds kind of kinky, doesn't it? trust those Opus Gluei girls to come up with another "interesting" (guffaw) challenge. You know, I used to go to church Sunday mornings, but now I just go to the Order of the Opus Gluei blog and worship there. OK, that's not really true, I haven't been to church for years. Decades, in fact. Maybe centuries. I do other stuff, but that's not relevant here.
The point is, there is a spirituality I find in art and doing art with good friends, even if they are "virtual". CREATION...CREATOR...CREATE. pretty much says it all for me.
Anyhoo, this is for the Poobah's challenge #43. They live here
Go visit, you won't regret it.

I think I used to date this guy...

Wordless Wednesday

Tom Brokaw explains Canada to Americans: watch this!

AAANNNDDD.....

Also in my mailbox was this little guy that I won in the One World One Heart Magic Carpet ride. He is SO precious, only 4 inches tall and full of detail and dimension, obviously a lot of love went into his creation. He was made by Lonnie of LJStudios-you can see more of her wonderful artwork right here!
Today was such a special day, coming home from work and opening my milbox to find these treasures, I'd have to say I'm hooked. Now I'll have to blurf more often and participate in a few more swaps and giveaways! I really like this! Thanks Lonnie,I love Sir Rabbit and feel very blessed!

In my mailbox!

Today i recieved my ATC from the Kind Over Matter Exchange and what a delightful surprise to come home to! This tiny work of art was made by Jenn Erwin of Kansas. You can see her blog here
I can't imagine recieving anything that would have made my day any better!

Prima Prettiness

One of the prettiest blogs I've ever found is Prima's. I could have LIVED in their booth at CHA, there wasn't ANYTHING in there that I didn't love. It seems like if I use only one of their products on a page, the entire page is transformed. If I ever win a lottery, I know I`ll go right to their website and buy one (or more) of everything. I would love to meet one, any of their designers, but I suspect they keep them locked up in a dark room and only let them out when they whisper through the bars on the window that they have another idea. Until then, I just pine and drool periodically whenever I check out the eye candy. (and I run my fingers longingly over the packages of flower-y bling when I visit the scrapbook store)

Home Repairs

My bathroom sink drain smells funny. Not Haha funny. Yukkers funny. From time-to-time I pour some drain cleaner into it and for a while, the smell goes away. But then it comes back. I suspected there must be a dead animal in there (although I hoped not), but I tried not to think about it too much. That hasn't been working lately.
Now the thing is, I live alone. What am I supposed to do about this? You can't call over an acquaintance to pull a (possibly) small (possibly) dead rodent out of your drain. Or at least you would have to give that person supper, or a piece of pie or something. It hardly seemed worth the effort. Plus, I waa afraid that whatever this acquaintance would pull out of there could quite likely end whatever friendship we have. It could be that bad. Kind of like a Stephen King novel bad. So I had to come up with another plan.
My daughter mentioned that she's taken the drain apart more than once to retrieve a lost ring or earring or something. Hmmmm, she can't not speak to me anymore, nor do I have to give her supper....I decided to ask her to open the darn thing up.
So I pulled everything out from under the sink and asked her to give it a go. She got one of the joints apart, but couldn't do the second one. This is where the boyfriend comes in. We called him in, off the couch to use his muscles, while I kept my fingers crossed behind my back that something really gross didn't slide out when he got the pipe off, leading him to run screaming from my house, never to be heard from again and then, oh dear, I suppose my daughter could not speak to me again if that DID happen! It didn't though. I do have a question however. Why is it when a woman attacks a job like this, she simply reaches in and gives it her best college try, but when a man does a job like this, he climbs into the cupboard with his entire body and yards at it like he's competing in an Olympic sport? Never mind. It doesn't matter. Long story short, the BF got it off, handed it to me. We took a moment to sing the Canadian anthem. I took a deep breath and ran downstairs to the kitchen sink and ran hot hot hot water through it until this NASTY concoction pooped out and I almost had a heart attack. It did not have eyes, it did not have legs and No Virginia, it was NOT a small dead animal. I don't know what it was, and I don't want to know. EVER. But it's out now. And since it was out, I was able to get under the sink and put the whole kaboodle back together without the fear of having my eyes pecked out by god knows what. I am so grateful that's done. And that we all lived to tell about it. It could have been worse, you know. Much, much worse.

Giveaway!

I've found the cutest blog called Little Dirt Lane and she's having a 100-follower giveaway!
She's asked that we post our favorite colour and that we be very specific. We all know I don't do anything in a particularly succinct, straightforward way, so I had to spend a lot of time thinking about this. I've decided that my favourite colour, for the walls in my house is taupe, my favorite colour to wear is crimson, my favorite hair colour (this week) is hazlenut, my favorite eye colour is Smurf Blue, and if I were a doll, the colour you would find most often in my closet would be lemon yellow, as it makes we feel all warm and sunny,no matter what the weather is outside. (and believe me, today is a day I need some lemon yellow in my world, when I look out the window.) I strongly suggest you check out Jess's pretty pretty blog here . It's amazing what treasures one can find when one wanders around the Internet with no view to time. Isn't this doll absolutely PRECIOUS!? Have a funny day!

Friday's Fill Ins #164

1. Johnny Weir is prettier than I am.
2. I should be competing at the 2010 Olympics.
3. And the day came when the risk to remain tight is a bud made wearing my Spanx unnecessary.
4. We should hop on a plane and go to Egypt if you get an urge.
5. Having sweet dreams makes it impossible to diet.
6. What does it take for me to get a date?
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to getting out of town with a friend, tomorrow my plans include cooking a ham dinner for my daughter and her beau (akkk, I need to take the ham out of the freezer!!!), and Sunday, I want to go to the zoo.

See ya.

Opus Challenge #42

is called "Asian Motivation". We were challenged to create something with either an Asian theme, or in honour of the Chinese New Year of the Tiger, something tigerish. I was stumped and couldn't decide what to do. So, I decided to do both. In one project. Yes, you heard me, one project. Now you may be asking yourself how an Asian theme (with all of the attendant beauty and grace) could possibly be combined with a, dare I say it, slightly Tiggerific type of theme. Never you mind, how, just believe me when I say, if you put sunglasses on ANYthing, you can make it work. So my submission is an encaustic art journal page (yes, I am still trying to learn how to do this)of both Tony the tiger and Yuko, the pizza delivery girl. And that's all I shall say for tonight, as I cannot keep my eyes open one moment longer.
Catch you tomorrow. TGIF (almost)
And for those of you who don't know who Tony the Tiger is, enjoy your Fruit Loops, you have know idea what you missed. (I hate those little elves who paint cheerios with honey or whatever it is they do.)

Wordless Wednesday

People Behaving Badly

P stands for People Behaving Badly. (And NO, I did NOT make this just for this post. I`m not crazy, after all.) Have you ever seen that Walmart Nation website where they show pics of people who are caught on camera,wearing the most DISTURBING outfits of all time, while they do their shopping at our favorite store? Well, I have and let me tell you, it makes my eyes hurt. Never mind that my daughter says I should be on that website. In honour of that website and the sentiment behind it, I snapped this shot of this young gentleman strolling through my neighbourhood on Valentine's Day-I'm sure he had dressed for dinner and was on his way to take his ladylove out for a candlelight dinner at the local Burger King. You would have to live in my neighbourhood to understand this. Anyways, that is not what this post is about. As much as I hate to admit this, I have been watching Reality TV. Yes, I know it's hard for you to believe and it's even harder for me to reconcile with my view of myself as someone with at least a modicum of class, but it's true. For the first two years that this crap came out, I refused to watch it, railing on about the fact (in my mind) that the networks were simply too cheap and too lazy to pay their writers to come up with new material. But it's sneaky, this drivel. First they stopped making shows that a reasonably intelligent person could get into, then they stopped making anything other than a few classics and this reality-babble here and there. But then, there was not much else. So what choice did I have? I had to give in. And now, I am appalled at the antics of the various housewives, jersey boys, couples with 63 children and one more on the way, and top chefs and their behaviour in front of god and everyone. Now don't get me wrong, I AM NOT A PRUDE. Far from it. In my younger years, if it could have been done, I probably did it. Now I make my livelihood helping people who are still doing it. HOWEVER, supposedly upscale young (and I use THAT word loosely) women trying to pull each others` wigs off in the middle of the street and glorified CEO`s, CFO`s and Yoo Hoo`s yelling obscenities at impressionable, frightened to the point-of-stuttering young entrepreneurs makes me wonder what the gadzooks is going on. Have we all lost any sense of decorumÉ Or self-respect, not to mention respect for othersÉ
I yearn for the day of yore when your parent would slap you upside the head and wash your mouth out with soap if you misbehaved. Oh man, have you ever tasted soap-not pretty, not pretty at all. Not that I ever tasted it of course. I just heard my brother talk about it.
I`m almost done here. You see in the middle of my post how where there should be question marks, there are now accented capital È``s insteadÉ And the quotation marks aren`t quotation marks anymoreÉ See, there, it just happened. That`s what my puter does when it thinks I should wrap it up, it switches into French here and there. Good grief. I AM in Canada, but this is just silly.
I guess that`s a wrap then. No big deal though, because 16 and Pregnant is coming on. Gotta run. TTFN.

Learning Encaustic

I'm taking an online Encaustic Art class. BUT the supplies for it were so expensive that I just bought some beeswax and told myself I would "audit" the class, as if I were a visiting professor. :-) I've downloaded the class notes and to tell you the truth, without this long list of expensive supplies, there isn't a whole lot I can do, so I threw the instructions in the garbage (the one in my studio, so it isn't as bad as it sounds) and put some beeswax in my melting pot. I should say that I watched Suze Weinberg demonstrating at CHS-she's my artist hero-and so I had a bit of an idea what I was doing. (The cat by the way is from Lisa's Altered Art and the other images are simply downloaded from the internet.) But I digress.
So I painted some cardstock with this wax and it melted my brush. Mind you, I'd probably had this particular brush since my girl was learning to use poster paints many moons ago, so it didn't matter much. Got another brush and tried again. Woah, this is way fun! As I do with any little projects I get a mind to try, I immediately went all OCD and made a journal page and six ATC's. THEN, I cleaned out the melting pot and started melting my UTEE and covering various and sundry chipboard in psychadelic colours. THEN, I made 10 more ATCS. Then I made some butterflies and birds and blinged them up. (Or is that "blung"?) THEN I made some molds for the UTEE from some charms I had. I tried to talk the cat into stepping into some UTEE so I could have an adorable little pawprint embellie, but she would have none of it. some folks just don't understand that you have to sacrifice for great art. So, it's been a busy day. A good day.
I won't bore you with all photos of all of this paraphenalia, just a few shots of the first ATC's. I had such fun, collaging and carving and rearranging and, and. I think this may be my new hobby. After I get the photo-editing on the last 1200 photos done. Oh gosh, I'm tired now. Good night.

My little girl is growin' up.

I did a lot of creating today. Loved every minute of it. I'll post a bit in a minute.
My daughter came home from University for "reading week" and she had to take the Greyhound Bus (poor kid) because my old truck that I gave her passed on to the great big junk yard in the sky. So first on her agenda was to get some kind of a vehicle.
I've kind of been losing sleep as I didn't have any idea how I could help her out financially and when she asked me what she should do, I couldn't really come up with anything reasonably intelligent to suggest.
Long story short, she and her beau went out yesterday and today and looked at new and used cars. She came home and told me she could put $5000.00 down and manage the payments on an almost new-little car. I about dropped my teeth. We talked for awhile and looked at some options and I wasn't too sure what she was going to do when she left this morning. I had told her that I would co-sign a loan for her. She called me later and asked if she could come and get me in the car she hoped to buy, and I got myself cleaned up and off we went. It's a neat little number, stick shift, 4 cylinder, brand new snow tires (which in case you don't live in Canada is a MUST), plus the summer tires. She would get a $1000.00 cash incentive, cus I have a Toyota truck, and good interest rate, and on and on and on and you know what? She got them down to a reasonable price. She then told me she could put $7000.00 cash down and the payments would be only a couple of hundred a month. Excuse me, say what?
I knew she is good with her money, but I didn't know she was THAT good. Long story short, by this time Wednesday, the girl should be tooling around in a 2010 Toyota Corolla, fully loaded, I might add.
Holy poo! I am SO PROUD of this kid. She's earned this. She's worked hard and saved and managed her money (all the while continuing to eat, something which I can't say I was always sure I could do when I was in University). I say "Go Girl!"
You've done well, my love, very very well. Enjoy your new car!

Oops!

Yesterday, my daughter's BF was in the back of my truck as we drove somewhere. I forgot that sitting in the middle of the back seat, safely buckled in were Hoops and Yoyo.

Now you need to understand that these little guys have travelled far and wide with me, to Thailand, the Caribbean, Cuba, Southwest and Eatern United States, 5 Canadian Provinces, Mexico... I had them in the back seat to take a photo for the sidebar of my blog, exactly this blog that you are reading right now. And I forgot about them.

So there he is , in the back seat, not saying a word sitting next to this lime green bunny and hot pink cat, and thinking god knows what. Didn't say a word when we stopped either. Nor when we parted company and he and my girl went out for a lovely Valentine's dinner. Then, as I was falling alseep last night, my eyes shot open and I said to myself, OMG, he must think I'm a lunatic. ARRRGGGHHH.

When I spoke to him later that evening, I tried to 'splain to him who the little critters were and why they were buckled in to my back seat. He was cool. No, no, it's perfectly allright, I understand. No problem.

This is my first experience as a "mother in law" as it were and it seems to me it's one heck of a good deal. You can get away with anything and no one bats an eye. Even if you ARE a lunatic.

We have a winner!!

Congratulations to Holly from It's The Little Things #811 on our Magic Carpet ride

who has one our dear Elspeth. Upon hearing that she was going to mover to Minnesota, Elspeth has been packing her parka and snowshoes. They're little snowshoes, granted but they are snowshoes nevertheless. She's quite excited, actually (I can hear her calling in the backgournd, asking me if I have a second suitcase she can borrow) LIKE I'D EVER SEE IT AGAIN!! Anyways, I've grown to love Elspeth and I shall miss her terribly, but from the sounds of Holly and her family she'll be in good hands. (Pssst, I did NOT tell her you go camping, best to ease her into that little fact). Congrats Holly!

Young Love

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

A CHA Project

I realize EVERYONE else in the universe who was at the CHA show posted their pics long ago. It seems like it was long ago. I haven't said how AMAZING it all was and how thrilled I was to have been able to go. I only had one day there, and I could have easily spent a week, but the one day I did have was absolutely fantabulous!

I came away with a TON of SWAG too!!

These pictures are of a make-n-take I did there, that I finally finished off last night. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

:-))

On another topic, I have been blurfing in a major way this past week, trying to visit as many of the Magic Carpet participants as I can. And as we all know, at most blogs, when I've wanted to comment, I have had to copy the "security" word, which is designed to ward off evil spammers.

I have the same thing here.

As I looked at these words, I came to the conclusion that whomever makes them up must be from a different dimension.

A different dimension with an entirely different language. Kind of like Avatar. I logged off and searched through my library and luckily, I found the translation to this language.

ERGO, I have decided to write the rest of this post in that special and unique language of the "security passwords". (I may have to add a few English words here and there to help you, dear reader, follow the story line. Here we go.

The other day, my defloons carlarked the scessizza and made our contali dopatra on the parfu. As I auguifd the trivali, the next door neighbour facrw his ruffinism.

"Holy Cahessis!!!" I shouted as the glitch rounded the corner. I ran and ran and the bofu cantlifred my scoot.

Thank goodness it all turned out OK.

Take that, spell check.

Have a funny day.

Wow

Normally I would be posting this week's Friday Fill-ins, but I just spent three hours watching the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics and I am still in awe. I cried lots, for different reasons: 1. Canadian pride 2. how beautiful it all was 3. fond memories of 1988 when we had the Games here in Calgary 4. sadness for the young man from Georgia who died in a luge accident today

I've posted this digital LO that I did a while back-I had cut out this newspaper picture (w-a-a-a-y back in '88) and dug it out. Of course it was faded and crumpled, as it was about 20 years old, but I scanned it anyways and then put the rest of it together. My best friend had died just before the games and her daughters gave me her ticket for the figure skating finals. So I was there when our Elizabeth won the silver medal. It was so AMAZING! I still remember it like it was yesterday-we all went crazy. A once in a lifetime event. I ran some restaurants downtown and the atheletes would come in and end up dancing in the aisles with us and singing-what a blast. and each night there were fireworks over the city-we stood right underneath them every night. The Calgary Tower (for years the tallest building in the city) was lit up as the Olympic Cauldrun. They lit it again a few weeks back when the torch came through town. Super stuff.

Now I'm not really into sports. Not at all. But there is something about the youth and the calibre of the athletes, and the passion and the drama that gives me tingles. And we Canadians aren't much for big displays of patriotism, but I always (quietly) tear up when our national anthem is played and well, the pomp and majesty of it all just about killed me. Weeping. But I'll never admit it. We Canadians say "Please" and "Thank you" and that's about the extent of it.

So I cried. I'll deny it if you tell anyone.

Inquiring minds want to know

Who on earth invented pancake batter is a spray can? I saw that when I was in California and I have to admit, I was really excited. But I didn't get any, way too heavy for my suitcase, with all the goodies I brought back from CHA. When my girl was younger, she was fascinated by whipped cream in a can, not so much the taste of it (although you COULD spray it directly into your mouth) as the purely bizarre nature of the concept. So I brought her some cheeze in a spray can. I think I should spell it that way, cus I suspect it isn't really anything resembling real cheese, but that's OK. We're not food snobs. She comes home for school tomorrow, so I suspect I may find the cat covered in sprayed cheese. I'd better keep an eye on that.

Petroleum by products. Is that a food group?

I have to go to bed, it is too late even for me who has been staying up late a lot lately. Please excuse any typos, I am just too sleepy to check. I will revisit my spelling and grammar tomorrow. Sleep well!

Let Your Love Show

This is for the Order of The Opus Gluei Challenge#41. We had to use red, pink and white (and I used some yellow and blue too, but that's creative license, after all.)

The images of the childen are from Lisa's Altered Art, a site I highly recommend for both the quality of her graphics AND the reasonable price. I hope you like them. I certainly do.

HAPPY WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY!

I was blurfing the other day and came across a blog which asked the question"What's on your worktable?" All sorts of people had responded and I got the distinct imprsssion that this is an ongoing exercise. But do you think I could find it again?
So, having failed at my expedition, I simply decided to just go ahead and do it myself. Which led to some navel-gazing about my workspace and, dare I say it, my work-flow (or lack thereof).

I may be ADHD. Last night I was riding the Magic OWOH Carpet (SO much fun!), melting UTEE, doing some stamping for an Encuastic art class I am taking online, making my Opus Valentine's ATC's, embellishing a project I started at CHA, I stamped a vintage image on a gauzy shirt that I was going to throw out but (of course) tossed in the corner of my studio. Oh yeah, I did my daily post on Shuttercal too and was responding to those folks, as well as trying to get a few pics of my adventure at the river yesterday, posted.. Is it any wonder I'm tired all the time? Maybe I need medication. Naaaah, I've come to the conclusion that I'm actually OK with the way I work. It all gets finished eventually and I go to bed each night pretty happy.
And so you have the picture. Of my workspace. And no, you can't see EVERYTHING I had going on, that would have been WAY too embarrassing. Plus, I would have had to back up so far to get it all in, that I probably would have backed right off the landing and tunbled down the stairs. And I know you would NOT want to be responsible for that, would you? I thought not.

I was late for work this morning

But I had a very good reason. Lately, there has been a lot of humidity in the air, very unusual for us here. Usually, our skin peels off in sheets in the winter if we don't moisturize. In fact, we had to buy alcohol-free hand sanitizer where I work, when the H1N1 scare came out, cus the alcohol would dry our hands so much, we wouldn't be able to work. But I digress. Anyways, there I was, driving in to work and there was this marvelous hoar frost on all the trees and it was just like waking up in a Christmas Card! It's been like this for a few days now, but the humidity hasn't abated and the frost has just been getting thicker and thicker. Well, I drive by this lovely park each morning and somehow, my truck turned into the park of its own accord, without my help, I want you to know and then, well, I was there anyways, so I got out and took a few pictures. Then I drove a bit further and had to get out and take a few more. And then I went by the river and...are ya with me?
anyways, I'm glad I'm the boss, as I didn't quite get in at my normal time. Nuff said, you can take a look at the pics.
Also, since this is supposed to be blog about stuff I make, and it seems like I've mostly been posting photos lately, I am also sharing with you a picture of a journal page I've done. I don't want you to think that I'm not making stuff, just taking pictures. I only do that when I'm supposed to be at work. :-))

BLOGGERHELL

I'm not sure if Blogger hates me. I spent HOURS AND HOURS yesterday trying to figure out why my background template would not show up. I waded into the "help (yeah right) forum", I whined and complained in some other venues, I deleted, uninstalled, reinstalled and all the while, it dropped my "favourite blog" lists twice. TWICE!!! That meant that I had to remember all the blogs I love by heart and try to find them all and then re-add then and...........POO! And this was right after I cleaned and organized my "favourites" folder which meant, dare I say it, that I deleted all the shortcuts to my favourite blogs. I love technology. when it works. When it does not work, it can drive me to drink. almost. The other day at work my keyboard died and I flipped out right there in my own little office in front of god and everybody! I was on my hands and knees under my desk, and I had worn grown-up clothes that day, (for whatever reason), swearing and cursing and throwing my "chosen word" for 2010 to the winds. It's mindfulness. Zenlike, dontcha think? Well, the heck with that. Not that day anyways. I hope you can see my background now, if you are reading this. It looks nice, doesn't it? Or is it JUST BLACK???????AGAIN??????????? Excuse me, I have to go cry now. Oh yeah, I have a cordless mouse at work now. :-))

One World One Heart 2010 Giveaway

This is an addition to my original post: I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to visit my blog and to leave such kind comments! The chance to have your name entered into the draw for Elspeth will ends at 11:59PM MST Sunday, February 14th. That's about 6 hours from right now. I will announce the winner on Monday, February 15th and contact that lucky person. Good luck to everyone and again, I am so honoured you haved visited me!


This is the first time I have participated in this fascinating event and I'm pretty excited by it. Think of it as a neighbourhood "house party" where you get to peek inside everyone's homes and have a chance to win a door prize at each home you visit. This event was created by Lisa and in 2009 it included 911 participants from 28 countries! That's 911 homes/blogs to visit, folks, so you'd better get your jammies on and climb onto the Magic Carpet! I've decided to create a (somewhat mod) princess/chick wearing her very best feathery ballgown. This lady is 16 inches tall and she told me she would like to go to a home in a country where there are lots of tall, dark and handsome strangers. (ahem) You can learn all about the 2010 OWOH Magic Carpet Ride here. To be eligible to win this princess/chick (aka Elspeth), please leave a comment and a link back to your blog at the end of this post. The event ends on February 15, 2010 and the winner will be chosen by random number generator and contacted via the link to their blog. Elspeth and I are looking forward to visiting your home, we hope you enjoy ours! And hang on, this is going to be one fantastical ride!

Opus Challenge #40

OK, I know, I know. I already did the Soup to Nuts challenge. and hey, while I'm on the subject, I am so very glad I caught up on my Shuttercal project. Once I began posting, I started getting compliments and good comments and my self confidence about my photography skills has increased substantially. So thanks Poobahs for the nudge! Since that went so well, I've made a decision to work on and hopefuly (but probably not) finish my Summer Vacation album. The trip was in July. Need I say more? I've done 142 pages (I counted them, just to be sure) and have about 40 more to go. Will I get them done this weekend? Who knows? But I'm back at it, at any rate. And that, as Martha would say, is a good thing.
Tomorrow's post will be my giveaway for the One World, One Heart blog event, or maybe I will even post it later tonight. I don't seem to have the wherewithall to accomplish anything else after the long work week. And I am SO excited about it. See you later.