When I'm Walking

I went for my usual walk this evening and towards the end I turned the corner and this is what I saw. Coming up over the field and lake was the most beautiful moon. It was big and orange and so beautiful! I wish I'd had my camera to take a picture of it when it was just rising. This picture is about 20 minutes later. It was still gorgeous. It suited my mood.
Sometimes when I go for my walks, I get in this mood. I'm not sure exactly what it is. It's something I never feel when I'm at home or when I'm with other people. It's almost melancholic. In a bittersweet way. I heard this line in a song once about how sometimes we just want to ache. That's how I feel. And I find I crave it. It balances out my usually happy, energetic self. Often a song will trigger it. There are some songs that I just love especially because they have that "feel" to them. You know when you long for something so much that it makes you want to cry? When you can feel something, but it's just out of reach? It's the time I feel the most vulnerable. The time when I just want to bask in the evening air that feels thick with the promise of something. Maybe it's when I feel closest to God. Maybe it's when I'm just me. Not a mom. Not a wife. Just Erin. Stripped bare and letting myself feel. Really feel. I don't hide behind a smile or a joke. I don't make excuses or talk incessantly. I don't have to fill a silence. It's the silence I crave. And a melody to fill my head. And I walk...

**According to Wikipedia it was considered a "blue moon" tonight. Maybe that's why it felt special. Hmmm...

Here I am

I guess it is kind of strange when I don't blog for almost a week. I figured since I've started getting comments asking where I am, I should post something. Well, I've been busy. Babysitting, gardening, doing projects that I've wanted to do, working on the showhome, working for 9 hours yesterday at Solomon's Porch to help them get ready for their sale starting today. So that's what's been keeping me from my computer. Probably a good thing. I started out not really feeling like I had that much to say right now...that's odd for me : ), but the longer I sat here and left the post on my screen, the more I thought of. So sit down, grab a cup of coffee, maybe a snack and get comfy. It's a long one...

*Yesterday was Ella's preschool graduation. It was very sweet. She's going back to preschool next year, but all the kids participated in the graduation even if they weren't moving onto Kindergarten in fall. They wore little hats with tassels and got a diploma and a goody bag from their teachers. Ella was very excited to give her teachers, Mrs. Falk and
Mrs. Broesky, the cards that we had made and a little gift.
*I've been busy picking flooring for the showhome so that I can start picking the paint colors (which is what's needed next from me). When I brought home the carpet sample, which is really soft, Aidan laid
down on it and said, "nice...puppy...night-night." It was so cute. She thought it looked and felt like a puppy. Love it.

*On the showhome note, I finally got to go walk around the house. I got to see it for the first time, and it is in fact real! There is a house and I'm not just imagining it. The shingles are on and the electrical is roughed in. So the contractor walked me through where all the lights are going to be to give me an idea of what needs to go where. So weird that all these decisions are up to me. I like it!

*I planted the seeds in my garden on Tuesday in between rain. It's been raining for almost 3 weeks I think, maybe it just feels that long. But anyway, I did get my garden in and hopefully it hasn't all drowned and will come up. Right now the dirt (mud) looks and feels a little packed down. I'm not sure how those tiny little seeds are going to poke through it.

*Some of the projects I've completed...this was an ugly looking terracotta colored plastic pot. I was going to buy new ones, but instead I found spray paint (textured!) to match the new pots I just bought. Very happy with the results. There's one of these pots on either side of my door. They should look spectacular once they've grown to full height. Canna lilies in the back, potato vine in the middle and lobelia in the front to hang over the edge. *Then I found a dirty white pot in the garage and remembered that I had enough spray paint left over to paint it and VIOLA...I had another matching pot. (Then I needed to buy more flowers...so I did!)
*Another project I had was to plant flowers in the small strip of dirt between our house and driveway. I put in what I thought was red cosmos (the little thingy that comes with the plants showed RED. Call me crazy, but I thought for some strange reason they'd be red. Weird, I know), but alas, they're a pinkish purple. Oh, well, they're still beautiful.

*When I went to the greenhouse today I got overcome with color envy (my front flowerbed and pots all have white flowers, green foliage and a small bit of redish orange for a very nice effect) so I bought pink and purple and fuschia and orange flowers and stuck them in my garden in the back. Now I can enjoy them without losing the overall aesthetic of my color coordinated front. Man, it's tough being picky with how everything looks together : )

And for some highlights of my day (with more pictures, of course)...


1. (Above) My one tomato plant has...TOMATOES!!! Isn't that great? I counted 5 on it this evening. I tried to circle them in red, but the lines are not very thick, so they are hard to see.











2. The sun was out long enough for one of my FULL SUN plants to bloom. I'm not sure what all my poor sun loving plants in front are thinking (not that I think they think...umm, yeah, anyway) with all this rain and no sun. It's very sad for them. I swear they all grew 2 inches in the 3 hours of sunlight they got this evening. It's supposed to be sunny all weekend. That's so great.

Music From Another Room

There's this not very well known movie called "Music From Another Room" and it's one of my absolute all time favorite movies. (I guess it doesn't hurt that Jude Law is in it)

Anyway, it's a sweet, somewhat cheesy movie about love and fate and all those great mushy things that are so nice to watch movies about on cold rainy days...we won't mention that I watched it tonight by myself...

There's this line in the movie that I love. It explains the title of the movie. Danny (Jude Law) is sitting at the dinner table with the Swan family. Anna Swan, the girl he's in love with, is sitting across the table from Danny beside her new fiance and her sister Nina (who's blind) is beside Danny at the table and Nina asks Danny what love is like. Danny replies with this wistful voice

"You know how when you're listening to music playing from another room? And you're singing along because it's a tune that you really love? When a door closes or a train passes so you can't hear the music anymore, but you sing along anyway... then, no matter how much time passes, when you hear the music again you're still in exact same time with it. That's what it's like."

Makes my heart melt every time. (Not to mention my most favorite song of all time, which later became "our" song is in it twice...totally came upon that by accident and I was thrilled the first time I saw the movie. Made the movie a sure favorite in my books!)

The ABCs of Me meme:

I got this meme off of Cherrye's blog. I was rather bored and so I thought I'd do it. Nothing more interesting to say right now, so this is it.

A - Age: 26

B - Band listening to right now: no band

C - Career future: Amazing, Interior designer, mommy

D - Dad's name: Kenneth Isaak

E - Easiest person to talk to: My husband

F - Favorite song: Right now..."Lost" by Michael Buble. It changes with my mood.

G - Gummy Bears or Gummy Worms: worms

H - Hometown: Small town, Manitoba, Canada

I - Instruments: tried flute, guitar and piano...fingers too short for all 3!

J - Job: Mommy, interior decorator, babysitter,

K - Kids: 2 lovely daughters (except this evening they were not so lovely, but that's okay, I know they are lovely deep down inside somewhere)

L - Longest car ride ever: To Mexico, although that was in a bus, so car...to Calgary, Alberta. I think that took 15 hours.

M - Mom's name: Annie

N - Number of people you slept with: Dumb question, that's really not anyone's business, but if I have to, 1...my husband.

O - Optimum time of day to work: Evening

P - Phobia[s]: snakes, worms, touching dirty dishes...maybe that's why I hate doing dishes so vehemently!

Q - Quote: "Laughter is the best medicine. Unless you're really, really sick, then you should call 911"

R - Reason to smile: My 2 usually lovely daughters, my wonderful husband, more friends than I can count, the sky is finally clearing up and perhaps we'll have a sunny day tomorrow, I'm not pregnant...hence the relieved emoticon on the side of my blog : )

S - Song you sang last: "Running Over" (a Sunday School song from when I was a kid) to my little girl before bed.

T - Time you wake up: between 7:30 and 8:00

U - Unknown fact about me: Hmmm, well I can no longer use the human barometer or the sausage making me hiccup, so...um...you know, I'm really quite an open book, not too many unknown things...I'll get back to you on that one.

V - Vegetable you hate: onions. Always have, always will. Except green onions, I like those. Maybe it's the texture, because I don't mind the flavor.

W - Worst habit: Where do I start? I can't stand doing dishes, so they tend to linger around longer than they should. Walking around barefoot (my husband used to call my feet "bushman feet" because they looked so bad...sorry to any bushmen out there, hope I didn't insult you). Blogging too much...okay, I'm going to stop doing this letter before I start feeling really bad about my habits.

X - X-rays you've had: The worst one that stands out in my mind is a barium x-ray when they didn't know what was wrong with me back when I was 13. It turned out that I had Crohn's. Thinking back on that horrible barium stuff, that may have been one of the worst part of those years (okay, maybe not the worst, but pretty darn close...yuck!).

Y - Yummy food: Mexican, Italian, cheesecake, pizza, I'm a pretty big fan of food in general : )

Z - Zodiac sign: Libra, but it means nothing to me.

I'm tagging Andrea and Tara because they've never done a meme before.

So Many Emotions

Today when I woke up, the first thing I did was check my Facebook because I had some emails about friends requests. Low and behold, one of the first things I see is that one of my friends is engaged to be married. The feelings that went coursing through me were a wide spectrum. So happy. First and foremost, that is the emotion I experienced. The one that followed on it's heels was a tiny bit of sadness. Not for them, but for what in our silliness, I now missed.

You see this friend was my Maid of Honour. My sister I never had. My bestest friend in the whole wide world. As I'm writing this I have tears streaming down my face. I loved her more than just about anyone in the entire world, except my family. I remember thinking that I couldn't wait until it was her turn to get married and I could be with her enjoying all the fun and excitement that comes with being a bride. Then somewhere along the way, in our immaturity, we stopped talking. Stopped being sisters. I used to sit and think about the fact that I would probably never talk to her again and never see her get married and have kids. That we would never be old and sitting on our front porches being gossipy old bitties like we thought.

The very happy part is, now I am able to be happy for her that she is getting married to the man of her dreams. That I can wish her happiness in person. I'm just sad that I forfeited my right to get the phonecall and be her giggling friend. That I found out after all the other people on the internet and checking out blogs. It's bittersweet.

Lindsay, on this day, I want to wish you all the happiness in the world. That God would bless you and Geoff and all that comes your way. That you would find so much joy and love. That as you walk together on this journey, your love and God will hold you two close. I'm so excited for you guys and wish you were here so I could hug you. I'm sending you hugs until I can! I love you and I already feel Geoff is a friend because he is part of you. Hopefully one day soon I can be his friend for real, as well. Congratulations again.

***Note: Just so you all know, this post is in no way about ME. I would never want anyone to think I was trying to take away from her joy. I truly feel blessed that I'm back in her life, that we're on friendly, talking terms again. It's been a long journey to get back to this. Hopefully one day we can get back to something like what we were before.

My Celebrity Look-alikes

This is quite funny! Louise tried this and since she had a Keith Urban look alike I HAD to see who mine were.

http://www.myheritage.com

More gardening and food

Today was another successful day despite the forecasted weather. Even though it was rather on the windy side, we were able to get done all that was on the agenda (except maybe Jer getting to any siding on the garage). Okay maybe I should say we completed what was on MY agenda. Saturday we got that wonderful flower bed in front done. And today we were able to dig out and get ready my vegetable garden. I'm going to grow VEGETABLES! Maybe...we'll see if they decide to grow or not :) Maybe if I go out there and talk to them. I could set up my lawn chair beside them and drink iced tea and tell them how wonderful I think they are...they call me the crazy lady around here for lots of reasons...

The morning started off with me deciding that as it was cloudy and windy I'd like to cook breakfast for 10 people (I'm nuts, I know). I called an impromptu brunch party with Tara and her family and Andrea, who was without family for the morning. They contributed and we had a roaring good time. By then the weather had cleared considerably and off we (Jer and I) went to pull up sod (I must add that I actually relaid sod in another area, quite meticulously, I might add. I know, I know, I'm a jack of all trades!). Then later in the afternoon Andrea comes sauntering over and asks if hotdogs are okay for supper. Sweet, another potluck - although we didn't end up having hotdogs, we had sausage burgers instead. Just as good, still not cooking! So out of 8 meals this weekend, we all shared 4 of them. That's a pretty good run. I figured we should set up a colony. I mean, we eat together, we garden together, we play together...it's pretty darn close to a colony. We decided a good name for our colony would be the Cortieben Colony (for those of you who don't know us, that's a combination of all three of our last names, brilliant, I know). (BTW, this picture of our supper is taken from Andrea's blog, I kinda stole it, hope that's okay, Andrea! Now nice bloggy people, go read hers and Tara's posts and comment)

Anyway, after supper I got my tomatoes, peppers (1 green, 2 yellow and 2 red), rhubarb, cilantro and 2 popcorn plants in the garden. My mom is supposed to be coming to help me tomorrow to plant all the seeds (carrots, chives, beans, peas, lettuce, spinach, cantaloupe and broccoli...for never having planted a garden I'm feeling rather ambitious and slightly nervous that I'm going to have a massive crop failure), but it's supposed to rain. Maybe there'll be some hours that it won't and we can get it all in before it does rain and it'll save me some watering!

Garden(ing) Party

Today we spent a lovely day outside creating our beautiful flower bed in the front of our deck. The day actually got nicer the longer we were outside. It was absolutely frigid when we started, but then the clouds cleared and the wind died down (or changed direction). It didn't matter how cold it was, we still had fun. Chris and Tara put their flower bed in as well and we had quite the time out there. The guys goofing off, the girls being bossy. Then my mom showed up and took control and everything went a lot better then (Drill Sergeant Granny!).

Jer and I had one little incident at the outset. I decided to go to the greenhouse and before I got in the car I told him not to put ANY stone in without me. I wanted to be there for the actual laying of stone. I had an idea in my head and I wanted to be sure it was done right (not that he wouldn't do a good job!). So I came back 1 1/2 hours later and what has dh done? You got it, started laying stone. I go and inspect and realize that he's put the stone much too close to the deck, not realizing that my shrubs would grow to be almost as big as the width he'd laid. I had a row of flowers I wanted to plant in front of the shrubs and he'd left no room for that. The first thing out of Chris's mouth is, "I told you man, you should have listened to me...I knew it would be too narrow and she'd say something!" Funny! Jer didn't think he should have to move it, out of pride or actual perception, I don't know, but I stuck to my guns and in the end got my way.

So, by supper time, both ours and Chris and Tara's beds were planted and watered and looking lovely. I even saw a couple of people who were driving by, slow down to take a second look. So here for your enjoyment are some pictures of the day! (I'm, of course, not in any of the pictures and I was the one taking them. Jer actually said to me at one point, "Stop thinking about your blog and get to work!" Hee, hee...)






I must add, after all gardening was said and done, Chris and Tara and Sergeant Granny came over to our house for a great meal. I have so much apple crisp left over, so if anyone wants some, here, dig in...

Die Hards!

You know you're a die hard Manitoban when you plan a fire/marshmallow roast and not even 60 km/hr winds and ice cold fingers will stop you. This here is me windblown eating a burnt marshmallow...

Ella roasting her own marshmallow...very important!

The whole crew, both sets of wonderful neighbors...that's Tara with the grey sweater and Andrea is taking the picture. What fun we all have together!

And this is my dh. Need I say anything? Didn't think so! Gotta love him...

Foto Friday

Even though I don't participate in Foto Friday, I'm going to call this post that. On Wednesday night I saw this tree in the back of my parents
yard. It's kind of hidden in a spot that we never go (they have a 10 acre yard, so it's not hard to miss things). The sun was shining on it through the trees and it was so beautiful. I was wishing at that moment that I had my camera and my girls were dressed in something other than dirty play clothes. I told my mom that if I could make it, I'd bring the girls back the next day to take some pictures of them. She then proceeded to inform me that there was going to be 60km an hour winds the next day and as the blossoms on the tree were in full bloom and starting to fall already, there probably wouldn't be any blossoms left on the tree by that time. I was very sad. I did offer up a little request to God that he save the tree for me, but oh, well, maybe next year.


I got to my parents yesterday evening and there, in the midst of the windy day, was this tree, standing perfectly still. It struck me how all the trees around it were dancing in the wind and this one was just standing there not moving. All the blossoms were still on it. It was positioned in just the right spot that the wind was not touching it. I was so excited I wanted to cry. I had
dressed the girls in their new outfits and brought my camera just in case. So here are the pictures that I took.

Funny little quirk

I have this slight oddity about me that I can predict rain. Let me explain...

When the humidity rises in the air, my hands, feet and ankles start dripping, literally! So this morning I was rather confused when I was all uncomfortable and sweating and the forecast on the internet said sunny for the next 5 days. My feet are never wrong! Well, it's been getting worse all day, I know it's hot, but it's a different kind of sweaty when it's humid.

So I went just now to check the forecast again. Sure enough, tonight 30% chance of rain, tomorrow 60% chance and risk of thunderstorms both tonight and tomorrow. HA!!! Now sometimes I feel like this and it doesn't rain where we live, but it does rains nearby. Sometimes, and by far the worst, is when it feels like this and the rain doesn't come; when it sits brewing in the heavens and it just won't rain. I'm the most miserable person (physically). I have to wear capris and not pants or else the hem of my pants are sopping wet and I can't touch anything because my hands are all wet. It's so gross and somewhat embarrassing. You can call me the human barometer. Someone even jokingly told me they were going to call me when they were planning to go golfing : )

So that's my strange little quirk. Well, one of them. Did I mention sausage makes me hiccup?

***UPDATE: Sweating let up a couple of hours ago, so chances are something by-passed us close, but the sweating will start up again once a system is close to us again. That's the joy of this sucky quirk!

An Answer To Prayer!

Can anyone guess what that is? THAT is my answer to my prayer! The fact that there was someone out there with extra stone, who didn't need it and offered it to us is a blessing. Even if it's not exactly enough to do everything I want to do, it's enough to do something. That, my friends, is more than nothing, which is where I was when I started this journey to stone. I don't believe this is coincidence! I believe that even as God cares for the big things in our lives, He also cares for the small things.

Even in the small things...

Ever since Jer and I had a major discussion about our finances, credit cards, and I cut myself off of pretty much all spending, I've had to give everything to God. Trust that he'll provide for EVERYTHING! I realized that I had been trusting for needs, but not wants (not even all the needs). That's a big one. We assume that just because we want something we shouldn't ask God to provide for it. I think that's a bunch of baloney!

Case in point...I wanted flowers, shrubs and a small vegetable garden. I have a yard now and I wanted to landscape. So I told that to my Heavenly Father. "We don't have extra money for this, but I trust that you know all our desires and can make a way for this!"

This weekend was our anniversary and Mother's Day. Low and behold, everyone got me flowers, shrubs and gift certificates for greenhouses. Need I say more? So now I have most of the things I WANTED for our yard. I still want some nice stones to build up a raised vegetable garden and a couple trees for the back, but I'm not too worried. I've offered it up to God and now I'm just waiting. He will provide.

The most blessed mom ever!

Yes, that most blessed of mom's is me. And these 2 little princesses are the reason. They fill my life with joy, laughter, tears, and prayers. It's true, there are often bad days, or days I wish I could do over, but usually it's because of ME that I want to do it over (don't get me wrong, sometimes it IS them). They stretch me and grow me, love me unconditionally no matter how horrible of a mom I was that day, they giggle with me and hug me, give me wet, shnotty kisses and make me very proud of these 2 beautiful creations that God has given me. I love when Ella gets this soft little look on her face and cups my face between her small hands and says "I love you, mommy". I love when Aidan trips over her feet trying to get to me as fast as she can when I've been gone. I love watching them sleep and watching play. I wish the years would slow down a bit, so that I can catch my breath and enjoy the moment.

This morning they gathered in the bathroom with daddy, giggling. Then Ella came out to tell me they had a secret. Ella and Aidan were both holding one handle of a gift bag and they gave me the sweetest gift. It's a hanging ornament of a mother (an angel, but aren't we all?) holding her daughter on a swing. The emotions that came bubbling to the surface when I first saw it are hard to describe. It's so beautiful. I'm going to hang it in a place of honor on my front porch. Love lives here!

Introducing My Neighbors!

I have the great pleasure of introducing my two sweet neighbors to all of you (one on either side of us) who have become fellow bloggers. I take all the credit for this (just kidding). So without further ado, please join me in welcoming Andrea and Tara, two of the sweetest women I know and lucky me, I get them as my neighbors! Now go say hi, go!

This Is Why I'm Hot!

***I took the song off now, if you want to hear it go to my player up at the top and find it on the list to listen to it ("This is Why I'm Hot by MIMS")...I still maintain...this is why I'm hot...

Sorry for the obnoxious song playing, it's 1 a.m. and I just couldn't wait to put it on my blog! I heard it tonight when we were out for supper with Chris and Tara and it kind of grew on me. In fact, the joke is that this is now my new pre-walk song (I go for a walk/jog every night). I'm going to crank it up with wicked, pimpin' bass and then I'm going to come bustin' out of my house all cool in my gangsta outfit and do my stretches on the front porch while Cobblestone watches, envious of how hot I am hee, hee. I'm busting a gut just thinking of how ridiculous it all sounds. They dared me to do it. If I do, I promise I'll get some one to video tape so that I can post it on here!

Six years ago today...

I married my best friend. I absolutely love the pictures that our photographer Joel Ross took (and he took a lot!) so I thought I'd share some of them with you...(click on them to see them in a bigger size)

I'm Getting Dizzy!

I spent about an hour in the flooring department yesterday (with a very chatty, somewhat annoying flooring dude) trying to make heads or tails of the choices before me. I must say the selection is endless. Where do you start? Where do you stop? How should the house feel? What image am I trying to portray? Goodness! It's overwhelming. I must say, just like in fashion, there are so many designs that should never be let onto the market so that people can actually choose them. It's disturbing how awful some of the flooring choices are out there. Take the choice away and save people from horrid design!!

Not to mention the endless hours I've spent pouring over websites, magazines, more websites. I was up till 11:45 last night, laying in bed thinking, pondering, mulling...designing...I'm not getting paid enough for my lack of sleep. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying this thoroughly! I'm in my element...Interior Elements...by Erin...hee, hee. I tend to do my best work in the middle of the night, in my dreams or in the hour(s) before I actually fall asleep, when I'm processing all I've thought about during the day.

I've also realized I have very expensive taste...well, I knew that, but it hit home again. If I can only have $3.49/sq ft in the budget, likely I'll pick something that is $7.00 just to make myself miserable. WHY??? At least my sleepless nights have helped me figure out where the money should be spent and where I can save it (kind of...more money would always be helpful!).

Well, it's that time again, time to sleep (or should I say design).

Showhome Project Update

Just thought I'd keep everyone posted with how the Showhome project is going. I've picked all the exterior selections and we just have to confirm the stone. It's going to look pretty hot!!!

The cabinetmaker just dropped off all these goodies...
so that I can pick the cabinets, hardware, and countertop. YIPEEE!!!! This exciting stuff. I'm going this week (with my cabinet samples) to pick out the hardwoods, carpet, linoleum and tile. Then later this week the contractor is taking me on a walk-through of the house so that I can see the lighting plan and then perhaps next week I can go to Robinson Lighting and get started on picking lighting.

I was very excited when the contractor called me this weekend to confirm something. This is really happening. I'm the one he's referring to when he has a question regarding what's going into the house, I'm being taken totally seriously. It's so fabulous that I can make decisions and someone's going to do it. Now I just need some awesome inspiration so that I can make this the best house ever!

4 Things Meme

Yes, I've been tagged for yet another meme, this time by sognatrice. And since I'm such a sucker for memes and talking about myself (hey, it's obviously the truth, I have a blog, don't I?) here it goes...

Four jobs I've had

1. shipper in a book warehouse
2. receptionist/office assistant
3. mommy
4. interior decorator

Four movies I can watch over and over

1. Two Weeks Notice
2. The Holiday
3. Serendipity
4. Just Like Heaven

Four places I have lived

1. 2nd Street North, small town in Canada
2. Prefontaine Rd, northeast of same small town
3. Ashgrove Crescent, back in the small town
4. 3rd Avenue South, same town once again

Four television shows I love to watch

1. C.S.I.
2. Grey's Anatomy
3. America's Next Top Model
4. C.S.I.: New York

Four places I have been on vacation

1. Mazatlan, Mexico
2. London, England
3. Italy
4. Jamaica

Four of my favorite dishes

1. French Fries
2. Bruschetta
3. Almost anything Italian (give me a good Italian restaurant and I'm happy!!)
4. Mexican food (chimichanga's, burritos, nachos, refried beans...mmm)

Four websites I visit daily

1. Winnipeg weather
2. my email (not linking to that, not really a website technically)
3. do blogs count? then any of the ones on the side of my blog...
4. don't really check any other websites daily

Four places I would rather be right now

1. travelling
2. scrapbooking
3. outside (waiting for it warm up a couple degrees and then the girls and I are going for a walk)
4. at the beach (soon...)

Four bloggers I am tagging

1. Heather
2. Dedee
3. Jenene
4. Ruth

Scrapbooking Fever!

Oh what a great day I had! A scrapbooking day with good friends at "John Henry's" (what a dorky name...). Design Alli put it on and it was fabulous. Door prizes, games, contests, great food, dessert, more snacks, shopping, and of course...scrapbooking. Louise, Lisa (one of my neighbors) and I sat together and had tons of fun. In fact, we had so much fun that Lisa called about 45 minutes ago to see if I was "scrapbooked out" and if I'd want to spend the evening scrapbooking with her! Umm, yeah, I do! Louise wanted me to post pictures of my scrapbook page and cards (both which, might I add, were the runner's up in the 2 contests...Always the bridesmaid, never the bride....sigh...she's all bragging about me because she won the contest, she can, LOL! J/K...her page was great and totally deserved to win and if I
have to lose to anyone, she's the one I want to lose to, she's really good (go check out her beautiful work here)! Besides, my runner-up page was actually a knock-off of one of hers, shh, don't tell anyone...). So here they are...

*Runner-up in cardmaking contest

*Runner-up in Scrapbooking contest...(double layout shown in 2 pictures 'cause it's too big to show as one)