Nyquil rules!

I have absolutely nothing to say this weekend except that I'm half asleep from they Nyquil already and I could really, really use a full-night's sleep. Wish me luck. It's been that kind of weekend.

Cathy

11 Random facts about me...


It's been a few days...sorry....I'm back. And I'm trying to be a faithful blogger.

It's been a crazy week or two and it's so cold here that I've been staying inside and not doing too much blog-worthy. Here's my picture. I heard from someone the other day that picture-less blog entries are boring so....here's my picture. This is what I'd rather be doing. I'd rather be sitting on a lawn chair, with my feet up, sipping iced tea (Canadian Iced Tea - not that unsweetened crap), watching my dog and my kids play in the sun.


But, I'm not. It's only -10 today which is pretty nice, considering it's almost Feb. so I'll be thankful that the -30 snap is over and I'll dream of summer days tonight.


A challenge was put out to list 11 random facts about me so....here goes:

1. I feel like my age stopped at 25 or so and that all my friends are all 25, just like me. It always surprises me when I remember I'm 35.

2. I cry like a baby at sappy movies - any sweet love stories, any untimely death stories, any missing children stories, and especially sad animal moments (like Charlotte's death in Charlotte's Web, etc). I also cry when watching a baby being born, human or animal - the miracle of birth never, ever ceases to amaze me.

3. One of my biggest pet peeves is typos and grammatical errors in officially published documents. I used to work for a man who would write his advertisements the way his brain translated them - directly from Dutch to English - without asking someone who actually spoke the language to edit/double check.....aaaarrg!

4. I had my first baby in the front seat of our Dodge Neon. Not exactly what those cars were designed for by the way.

5. I played (past tense) piano. I was studying my Grade 9 Royal Conservatory when I finished high school....but I haven't played much or used it since and so even though I got a piano for Mother's Day a few years ago, I'm really rusty and don't play much.

6. When I was in Grade 12, I went on a band tour to Europe for a couple of weeks - we saw The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and France. And at the end of the tour, our last concert was in Grand Forks, North Dakota and my friend and I were so tired of wearing pantyhose (eeeewww) that we ducked into a supply closet right after our last concert and ditched ours there.

7. With my first pregnancy I had a craving for oranges. I once ate a 5 lb bag of oranges in 2 days - as well as drinking OJ for breakfast. And, stranger yet... I love to read - read every single day - but with my 2nd pregnancy I had an aversion to reading. For several months I couldn't concentrate on a book and didn't even like to read, despite the fact that I was in the middle of a series by my favourite author at the time. A couple days after my DS was born, I came home and devoured the whole series.

8. Trev & I were friends for a couple of years but we only dated long distance for 2 months and in the same city for 1 month before getting engaged. When I called some friends to tell them I was engaged, their reaction was, "...to who??" Our first date was to a dinky-small-town theatre to see "Wayne's World" (still love that movie!)

9. I had serious doubts and even mocked people who felt they had met 'good friends' online through the internet/chat rooms/websites....and now I'm one of those who feels like I belong to some great, great, great groups of women!

10. My greatest desire is to know God and recognize his voice when He speaks to me. My second greatest desire is to love and be loved by Trev.

11. I kill houseplants. Really - I can't keep them alive to save my own life. I don't even know really why I try. I can barely keep plants alive outside where I have the sun and the rain to help me.


Don't know if those are random enough - or if any of them are actually news to you, but that's me! Take it or leave it.

Cathy

Scrappy Giraffe January Kit!!!


Could this kit be more beautiful....doesn't it make you wanna run to your scraproom?? Kat continues to amaze me and out-do herself with the coordinating lines of paper/embellishments and the ribbon kits from LilyCricket....yummy! Check them out here - Scrappy Giraffe!!

Blog #2 and Why

This is going to be a blog dedicated just to scrapbooking (mine, in particular) and this is where I'm going to post my newest Layouts, cards and altered items. I'm hoping that someday this site will be full of "Removed for Publication" signs but....well...we'll see. In the mean time, enjoy. Hope some of these inspire you to create!

Cathy

Baby, it's COOOOLD outside...

School was cancelled today for our kids. With the windchill, the temp is supposed to be -43 today. Is that even a number?? Even the dog doesn't wanna play outside today and that's saying A Lot. So, this morning I broke the news to the kids and got 3 very distinct and different reactions - in my opinion, they correspond directly to the number of years the children have been in school. When I told Mica this morning (Grade 3) she said, "Yesssss!" with the fist-pump and everything. When I told Cale, he said, "What?" with a look of shock and disbelief on his face. And When Egan heard the news, there was a moment of stunned silence, and then he burst into tears. Real, live, sobbing, wailing, tears. I think the biggest issue for him was that it was supposed to be HAT day at school today and he was pretty excited to wear a hat to school.

I was supposed to be in school today too - I'm testing the Kindergarten kids on their alphabets (what fun!!). Funniest thing - Yesterday when I was testing I asked one of the boys in the class "What's this letter?" and he said correctly, "P." And then, "What does this letter say?" and he answered correctly again with the ppp sound. So my third question is, "Can you tell me a word that starts with this letter?" and he says, "P"...so I re-state the question, and he says, "P" again. I ask him, "Do you mean Pea, like the green vegetable?" and he says, really shyly, "No, the other kind...." What a hoot 5-year-olds are.

So instead, I'll clean house, do laundry and maybe get to my scraproom. Mica's down there right now making Friendship pins - remember those from the 80's? Yeah, she's going to single-handedly bring them back!!

Happy Day to you, cold weather or not!

CYBER CROP!! and a personal update



OK.....any scrappers out there ready for some fun???

Scrappy Giraffe is having a CyberCrop on Feb. 17. It's going to be a day of challenges, games and all kinds of fun!!! Bookmark the site and come down and play on the 17th - or for that matter - come today and join this awesome group. Besides having the greatest kits - they also have a kick-butt message board full (I mean, really FULL) of information about the scrapping world - contests, challenges, reviews, sounding boards....it's all really good.


And, on a personal note...
YAY - school starts again tomorrow. I love my kids. Love them dearly. But...I also love the routine of school and I love getting back into that routine. They're so excited about going back too so that's an easy transition. I remember now why I don't home-school. It's been the most beautiful weather over the Christmas holidays and they're all looking forward to playing with their friends again. The hardest part for them will be not having their Lego fix early in the day....I can almost guess how tomorrow 3:45 will go...the boys will run in, throw snow stuff on the floor where it lands, yell "HI MOM" as they run to their room, slam their door and play Lego till supper. Mica on the other hand, will try her hand at "babysitting" 'cause I'll have a new little girl here that I'm babysitting and she LOVES babies. I can see this working out just right!!

Oh, and our new fridge is being delivered tomorrow - Merry Christmas to me!! And...as an added bonus....the other night we had friends down and we were bemoaning the fact that our ugly, old, cream-coloured dishwasher is still working and that someday we'd like to get a new one to match the new black fridge that's coming and our friends said, "We used to have the same dishwasher as you and when we took the front panel off, there were white and black panels inside there - you can just switch them to match your decor..." so today we looked and Ta-da...just as it was fortold. So we now have a "new" black dishwasher too for the price of about 5 mins. of Trev's manual labour. Now, if only I could slide back a panel and find an extra bedroom around here somewhere...