It's October!

and it seems like only yesterday we were trudging along the Vegas strip in 114 degree heat.

The sky is threatening to snow tonight, a couple of days ago it was 35 degrees (Celsius) hotter than it was today. It you don't like the weather here, wait five minutes, it'll change.

I've almost finished grieving the drowning of my camera. I have a new one and insurance is going to cover some of it, but it was an expense I was not ready for. (Stupid deductables)

However, it's 15.1 megapixels. There is a god.

I was able to print some of the pics from the memory card at the photo kiosk. Apparently memory cards are waterproof. Who knew? But I can't get them to my computer. My ex has agreed to upload them to his and then let me put them on a jump drive and bring them home. then I can Photoshop them, which is lots of fun.

Having said that, I've done no crafting this week, except for a digital LO for the Opus BLING challenge. I'm not all that happy with it, cus of course I'm a bling-girl, but it's better than nothing. Now that I have a camera again, I can soon get back to normal. I do need to install the software tho.

This all happened in the midst of the I LOVE FALL class I'm taking online from Old Lady Teaches. So I've done none of the photo prompts, I refuse to use last year's pics. I did start with some artwork tonight for it and feel good doing what I love again. It's been a long week.

Tomorrow and Sunday all day each day, I'm in a felt-making class at the Alberta College of Art and Design. How cool is that? I'm so excited about it, this is something I've wanted to learn for awhile now. So, I should get to bed. I don't want to fall asleep in the middle of it!

Mr Bill

Is anyone out there old enough to remember Mr Bill from the early Saturday Night Live shows? Well, I do. He was always getting in predicaments, being run over by a truck, falling off tall buildings. I'm not sure what the intent of Mr Bill was, but I found his difficulties in my mind-altered dumbed-down excuse for a brain absolutely hilarious!

Mr Bill travels with us and he has had some adventures!

Dreamgirls First Impressions

I'm home, done with travelling for the time being. I had a super weekend, visiting the girl, until the tripod tipped over and my SLR landed in the lake. I am broken-hearted. The only thing I love more than my camera is my daughter. It's toast. $700.00 toast. I don't know what I'm going to do. what I do know is that with no camera, I won't be doing any challenges for awhile. Crap. This LO I uploaded last week, it's for the Dreamgirls challenge.

Sewing

Back home safe and sound, and heading out again tomorrow. I'm going to the Creative Stitching show and doing a Tattered Angels class in the afternoon there, and then I'll drive down south to see my girl in Lethbridge. SHE is going to cook me supper, how cool is that? We'll go to Waterton Sunday morning, it will be gorgeous. We should take a picnic, maybe I'll take the fixings for that down there.

These are the ATC's I did for the Opus' sewing challenge. I had fun doing them, but such a hard time photographing them for some reason. The crackle accents on the middle one just would not cooperate.

It would have worked better in the sunlight, but by the time I finished them it's dark and I'm outta here first thing tomorrow morning. I used a tripod, but it still didn't work real well. It's the only art I got done this week, however, so no more whining!

I did manage to get to a scrapbook store in Saskatoon last night, but the owner sure wasn't very friendly. That's a surprise, they are usually are so nice. Oh well, her loss. I didn't spend a whole lot of money there.

It's good to be home, if only overnight.

Quick post before I turn in for the night...My hotel room overlooks the river and it's beautiful here. AND I have an adjustable bed. I thought that meant it would fold in half, WHAT-EVER! But then I sat on it and almost broke my butt it was so hard. So I decided to play with the remote and lo and behold, the bed kind of melted into softness. Wow. Nice. Very nice.
That's where I'm going to now. To bed. Good night.

Saskatoontown tomorrow

So we fly out in the morning. I'm pretty sure I'm ready, but need to go outside and water the plants before I go. Today is the first day of fall, I think and we've got record-breaking heat. It's supposed to be 33 tomorrow, yikes, I hope it's cooler where I'm going! Creator seems to have gotten his seasons mised up, we didn't have summer in summer, now we have summer in fall. Who am I to complain? (although we all do, don't we?)

See you in three days. Unless I get my laptop working in the hotel room. TTFN.

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911 day

I went out to the dining room for lunch and our outreach worker said that one of our men was "on the nod" from his methadone. I stated that methadone doesn't have the ability to put one "on the nod". but he was convinced. So I went to find the guy and see for myself. he was on the nod, all right, darn near incoherent. He came upstairs to get his insulin and we deduced that he hadn't taken insulin since the day before, nor had he eaten. So alarm bells went off for me. I tried to talk to him, but he was incoherent, slurring his words, stumbling. I couldn't smell any ketones, but decided to call his Parole Officer. We made the decision to call an ambulance. I asked the staff to watch for the rig and went to talk with the man and try to get him ready for their arrival so he wouldn't flip out on them. He's a volatile, angry offender. He agreed they could take a look at him. Long story short, pretty major problem taking place, but he refused to go to the hospital. so I had the staff call his PO and bring the phone to him. After a few moments on the phone he agreed to go if he had to. (the PO had given him the choice of hospital or jail). We shipped him off. I'm not convinced he hadn't taken something he shouldn't have taken-he signed out to a well-know drug-dealing place downtown. What are the chances? Who knows. the important thing is he's in a place where they can keep an eye on him. It he HAS taken something illicit, we won't see him again, he'll go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.00

Having shared that little tidbit of information, I've posted a LO that makes me smile, maybe because I fell in love with this little girl, when I worked at the school She IS a sweetie.

I love my job.

Sunday night, the day before Monday

I went to Edmonton yesterday, left at 7:30 (AM), home at 10:30 (PM), went to 5, count 'em, 5!!! scrapbook stores. Lovely, simply lovely.
I've done a few things today, some pages, some backgrounds, some photography AND I made a real supper, Mom's world-famous Lazy Cabbage Rolls. Yummmm, that should feed me for the week!
I'm feeling kind of tired, it was too long a day yesterday. So, I'm going to bed early. I fly to Saskatoontown on Wednesday, can hardly wait for that (not). One of my employees is coming with me and she's never flown, so she's fairly nervous/excited. I'll piggy-back on her delight.
I was supposed to go to Drum tomorrow, but should spend SOME time in the office, so I cancelled. The people I was going to interview can wait, it's not like they're going anywhere. tee hee. Maybe I should mention Drumheller is the medium security prison is this neck of the woods.
Yup, they'll wait.

What do I want to learn?

I started my Bollywood Hip Hop class this week, it was a blast! the Opus Poobah's have asked us to consider what we would like to learn, well, that's mine-to dance Bollywood. I was grateful that there were some older women in the class, and that I wasn't the only one. there's also an older man and a couple of younger men. I have to say it was challenging and I wished we weren't doing it in a dance studio with an entire wall of mirrors, but....as pitiful as I looked and felt, there were others in the same boat as I. So why not just go for it and have fun? And that's how it went. I've been busy this week and have only done 3 ATC's for this challenge, my previous post and this one. I loved doing them though, so what could be better?

ATC about my Bollywood classes

This is all I have for you tonight, and if that's not acceptable, you may leave. tee hee.

Notice the groovin chicken on the double base-GET DOWN! "do they even say that anymore?", she asks sheepishly.

Hey, it could be worse, I could be Kanye West.

What a loser.

Good night friends.

The Murals-Part 2

Sorry they aren't in order. I'm learning..............I wonder if there is a blog university somewhere. (please note the name of my blog.)

The Murals-Part 1

It's been a VERY long work day, 12 hours, to be exact. so all I shall do tonight is upload the pics of my album I finished this weekend. It's about our Arizona adventure, when we drove into the desert, not sure where we were going, or if it was safe, or even if there WERE the murals I had read about online. Well, they DID exist and they were awesome, worth the worrisome drive. You never know unless you try.

Well, I just learned that I can only uplaod 5 pics at once, so this will be in two parts. I hope you enjoy my album!

Scrapjacked Candi Mandi

This will be my last post for the weekend, I've been so busy, got lots of LO's done and some ATC's. Couldn't be a much more perfect weekend, brunch with the girls, my kind of girls, as we had our Bennie Breakfasts and then shared a plate of berry and whipped cream-covered crepes for dessert. Anyone who agrees to dessert for breakfast is my kind of people. This is a jack of Candi Mandi's terrific LO on the Scrapjacked site. Their DT's work is always so awesome and this month is no exception.

#37-What's in a Name?

This is my LO for Got Mojo's challenge #37. We needed to do something about our name and I remember my trauma as a young girl/teenager, hating my name (and hating myself, for that matter). We also had to use a new technique which gave me the opportunity to try out Lisa's embossing technique from the Treasured Memories Projects and Techniques blog. She has the coolest ideas. The apples were done using one of those die cut papers that are so popular now and a very juicy versamark pad. Then white powder. I really like it. Other than feeling re-traumatized over my name and turbulent adolescence, I loved doing this challenge.

And I don't hate myself anymore.

HMITM #114

Bling! Makes me want to sing! It makes everything! (better). OK, I'm no poet. I think we've established that.

I like the How Much is Too Much challenges-they are perfect for me, with a studio FULL of supplies to use up. I TRY to avoid the scrapbook stores, but they get lonely without me. It would be wrong, just pure wrong to not go.

We found this lady on the top of a roof, in Kingsman, Arizona, this summer. It's on Route 66. I'm not real sure what this chick has to do with Route 66, but I wasn't there, of course.

Perhaps she dated James Dean.

Fabulocity. I just heard a woman on TV use that word in a prayer. Huh? I'm not sure how that fits into praying for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Once, many years ago, my car wouldn't start and a girlfriend and I had been hoping to go to a dance. So, just because we'd heard somewhere that "prayer works", we decided to try it. We held hands and said "Dear God, please get our car going. Thank you."

Well, not a moment later a couple of young man came up to us as we stood on the sidewalk, waiting for our miracle and asked us if we needed help. Oh yes! we cried, and explained to them our dilemma. And wonder of wonders, they got the car going! Praise the Lord!

Then they drove off with it.

Since that moment, I have never prayed for anything specific, least of all Fabulocity.

It's just TOO risky.

Remember when

Do you remember girdles? I sure do.

How unpleasant was that? I remember thinking how grown-up I had become as I shoved my not-so-svelte torso into that medieval instrument of torture. You know what?

They're back ladies. Oprah calls them "Spanx" but I'm no fool, I know what they are. I think we should rise up and revolt.

First it was visible panti-lines, then the "muffin-top" became the "sin du jour". What the heck?

I don't know about you, but the fact is, ladies, I ooze. I would love to be able to say that my rear view is one without any bulges or bumps, but it's not so. My receding form is more like the rolling hills of Ireland. Oh Danny boy. I give up.

Here are three digital LO's I did of the girl and her best friend. they've grown up together, through thick and thin and all of that. BFF, big-time.

Well, I made it through another week, without too much bloodshed. Glad that's done.

Tonight I've been working on an album for Bliss, it's done and I'm pretty proud of it. I didn't think it would come together, but it has. I'll post pics at some point.

I would like to scrapbook this weekend, but have plans tomorrow and Sunday as well. What's up with that? I'm way too busy, since the child left. I guess I'll have to schedule doing nothing. Who could have predicted this?

Challenge #23-Say it in Flowers

What a day it's been, going way to fast to be healthy and too slow to keep up. I was glad when the workday was over. I slipped and fell down the back steps last night. Once I was able to get up and back into the house, I concluded I was OK. but as today has progressed, so has the pain and tonight I am one hurtin' unit. I feel old. Maybe that's because I am old. duh. Even sitting at the computer hurts, so I shan't do much of that tonight.
I originally made this LO for a How Much Is Too Much "flowers" challenge. Their challenges ask you to use up your (ever-expanding, of course) stash, and are perfect for me and my scrapbook supply addiction. So I put as many flowers as I reasonably could and still call it something resembling art.
I post it here tonight in response to the Order of the Opus Gluei challenge: ADHEVIUM FUNNUM!

Hardcore

I fell asleep when I got home. Not just asleep, but REALLY asleep. and so now I feel like I've not accomplished much. Well, anything, actually.

I was busy last night, did a few LO's and so posted three this evening. I had planned to go out this evening, but there's always tomorrow. Fortunately, I didn't have to make any supper, as I never ate my

sandwich at work and so had that to gobble when I finally did get up.

I hate Microsoft. I hate Windows. I don't hate a lot but I hate that. tonight it would let me sign into my own blog, for crying out loud. so I ended up spending about an hour trying to change the oh-so-annoying settings and in the end, wasn't able to change much of anything. I thought it was annoying BEFORE, but now it's updated itself and blocks me from doing the most basic stuff and asks me about programs that I've used almost daily for YEARS. I hate Microsoft. I hate Windows.

Just came home from our September canvas class at the Yard. It's great, school-themed, nonetheless, very vintage.
Had a busy day at work, it seemed like there was something scheduled every minute of the day. I do my own schedule, though, have no one to blame but myself. too bad, that.
I found a new library in the deep south and found some new art books in that library in the deep south. (can you hear me reciting "The house that Jack built"?
So, a short post tonight, as I want to read my new books.
And put my feet up.
And my jammies on.
And do nothing of any consequence.
So I shall.

Honey Goes Swimming

Just got home from a day at the Scrapyard, scrapbooked all day. Could life be any better? I love long weekends, we should have one every week.

They had a Cricut cartridge called Puppy Tales, or something like that...anyways, there was a picture (is that what you call them, "pictures"?)

of a "water dog" wearing one of those floaty things around it's waist. Geesh, I'm English-challenged tonight. Do dogs have waists?

Life preserver, that's what it's called. At any rate, it was a hoot and I cut a couple out. Although this LO of Honey is digital, I'll be doing a paper one soon. Gotta have that "water dog" embelly for it!

Let's see, would I want to live in Vegas? Nope, don't think so. But I surely do like to visit.

We visited the corn maze today, not exactly Vegas, but pretty fun all the same. My gosh, I thought we'd never get out of there!

Of course, the kids started out running but later, much, much later, they were dragging their sorry butts, just like us old people.

It was A-MAZE-ING

she says-, grinning ear-to-ear. :-)

Challenge #22-Order of the Opus Gluei

It's a lovely night, had a friend over for supper and we talked and talked.
It was great. Other than that (no, actually INCLUDING that) it's been a very laid back day. I went to a Red Hatter garage sale and got three new hats and some other treasures. It was well worth setting the alarm and getting up early for.
Gimme Five-My five favorite ATC's, for now anyways. I need to make some more, I love making ATC's!

Tonight, drove to Cochrane with a good friend and we talked lot.

I was lot overdue. I haen't done much of my art this week, but I've been kindof veggin

I need to get moving, tomorrow, starting with a garage sale in the south. Supposedly they have Red Hat clothes for sale. EEhaw,I'll be there early!

I love hats

One of the Red Hatters and I decided to celebrate our birthdays this month by going go karting. do ya think anyone will join us???? What a bunch of jam tarts. :-(

I signed up for a class at the College of Art & Design, FELTMAKING. I am SO excited. It's something I've wanted to do for ages, but never got around to. Now I shall.

The renos are going well at work, everyone is pitching in and helping. I need to plan a trip to Drum and Bowden and it looks like I'll need to go to the Max as well. At least if I go to Edmonton, I can visit Treasured Memories. That's my FAVORITE scrapbooking store in the whole wide world. And I've been to a lot, trust me. Never did find one in Thailand or Manhattan though.

So, I'm on my own. the child has gone to Lethbridge to learn to be a teacher. Got an email already, she's eating cupcakes with her new roomies and sounds happy happy.

I worked late tonight, had a warrant issued on a guy with an Att-ti-tude Prob-lem big-time. Now that I'm home, I'm actually ready for bed. LOL Stayed up long enough to do a LO of the girl: used a QP by SueliColbert. She has some very kule stuff on her site.

Tomorrow night we begin to rip the kitchen apart at work. Should be fun. Not.

Computer challenged

Oh my. I have been dickin' around with the template for this blog for the past 3 hours. First, I tried to design my own and when I was happy with it, do you think I could upload it?

As I type with my right hand, I am tossing the instructions in the paper shredder with the other.

I gave up. but then, just before packing it in, I managed to get this one installed and I LIKE IT! Or, I'm just too tired to try any more. Good night, another week begins.

Two more days before my dear girl is gone and I'm so bummed.

Everglades visit

Went to the fireworks tonight-China performed, it was AWESOME!

We didn't know the words to the Chinese anthem though, so we couldn't sing along.

I found this wonderful blog http://opus-gluei.blogspot.com/ and it looks like so much fun-my kind of women! I immediately had to do a project for their current challenge, it's a water theme.

Hence the photo: I was riding an airboat in the Everglades one day, minding my own business, I might add, when I noticed this crocodile lurking in the grasses. I swear he was watching me. I give thanks to the gods that be for not allowing him to eat me.

I've been watching Big Brother. God knows why. Went to see Lion King today, it was AMAZING!!!!! Brought tears to my eyes a couple of times. I haven't done any art this weekend, but have spent time with the girl, knowing she's gone soon. I'm really going to find this house big and empty without her. I'm not looking forward to it....

It's been a good day, spent it with Kaitlin, we finished stripping the dresser and then took the dogs for a walk along the river. Got some awesome photos of Honey doing what dogs do in the water. Had a great supper with food we got at the Farmer's Market. This is the way a summer day is meant to be.

I'm most ready for bed, looking forward to Lion King tomorrow with the Cookies. Good night.

Friday

Let's see, it's the end of the week and I have only 8 more hours to go at work. I like working the late shift, for the sleeping late part, but I start to drag at around 8 PM. My brain and body both get tired! I finished the Journal Revolution book and loved every page-I'm inspired to create a Diorama, maybe this weekend. I also want to do a couple of pages to display in my newly-painted office. Green. Looks very clean and happy. Just like I feel this morning.

Another weekend done, I'm not ready for it to end. HOWEVER, it's late and tomorrow's Monday. Who invented Monday's anyways? Someone with a grudge against the world I suspect. Now if I invented the world, every day would be Friday. I'm always excited on Fridays. No matter what. Fridays always seem so easy. I should have invented the world. It would have been better.

Rod Stewart

Hah! Just got home from the Rod Stewart concert, didn't even know I was going, until I got an email at work inviting me-Wanda had a free ticket! Holy cow, he's hot for an old guy. and cheeky! The place was just rockin, there was even a "love train" snaking it's way through the crowd. do ya think I'm sexy?
sure do, Rod!

TGIF. Worked the night shift last night, I am way too old for this! Good thing I did tho, as one of the men came back drunk and we had to have him arrested. If I hadn't been there, our student would have been alone-not good. It's Vancouver weather again today, if you stand still in one place too long, you'll rust.

Off for a massage and then one more night shift. I can do this. I can do this...

Mojo Challenge #36

Last night I saw a shooting star. How cool is that? I work the afternoon shift today and so could sleep in, can't complain about that! Unfortunately, I stayed up until 2AM working on pages. will I never learn? Oh well, nobody died.

I am tired though........

What a sunrise!

Simply want to say that this morning's sunrise was spectacular! After photographing and chasing sunrises and sunsets throughout our roadtrip, here, out my studio window is the prettiest picture of reds and pinks and purples-nice way to start the day.

Finally Back Home!

Well, after 8 states and 7300 km, we're back safe and sound. Actually, I'm back to the real world, work and all, and the girl has flown off to the east. I guess she's her mother's daughter, after all, home four days and gone again.

There is always so much catch up at work when one leaves, especially with my boss sick for the past week and a half. Oh well, I feel so rested, I almost don't even care. Almost.