This song....

makes me think of Charlie. It's been one of my favorites for a long long time, way before he was born, but now it makes me think of Charlie. Props to Larry who started my love of Rush and introduced me to this song in particular. :)

In The End - by Rush

I can see what you mean
It just takes me longer
I can feel what you feel
It just makes you stronger

Well you can take me for a little while
You can take me, you can make me smile
In the end

I know, I know, I know
The feeling grows
I see, I see, I see
It's got to be

I can do what you do
You just do it better
I can cry like you cry
It just makes me sadder

I know, I know, I know
The feeling grows
I see, I see, I see
It's got to be

You can take me for a little while
You can take me, you can make me smile
In the end

I can shine like you shine
It don't make me brighter
If I think like you think
It don't make my load much lighter

I can see what you mean
It just takes me longer
I can feel what you feel
It just makes me stronger

And, just in the interest of being fair, here's a song I sing to Kayla quite a bit just cause I have been forever, it used to make her quiet during that hideous colic period. Props for this one go to a movie called Bye Bye Love - which is a good movie because in it Randy Quaid has a dog named Ditka. And destroys his back porch with a baseball bat, or maybe a golf club, I don't remember. :) Anyways, this song is in it.

I Will - by the Beatles

Who knows how long I've loved you
You know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely lifetime
If you want me to I will

For if I ever saw you
I didn't catch your name
But it never really mattered
I will always feel the same

Love you forever, and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we're together
Love you when we're apart

And when at last I find you
Your song will fill the air
Sing it loud so I can hear you
Make it easy to be near you
For the things you do endear you to me
Oh, you know I will

That one was one of my favorites before the kids were born too, isn't it funny how being a mom changes everything, even how you think of songs? Cool. :)

I was going to post some pages, but just realized I haven't scanned them yet, oops. Charlie has an appointment this afternoon to see why the heck he isn't sleeping. I'm really pretty much awake when he is and am hoping for tranquilizers for us both at this point, I can't even function for lack of sleep. In fact, what I will do is save this as a draft, and post pages and tell you what the doctor said later. Yep, good thinking on my part. Later gators.

Ok, weeeeeeee're baaaaaaaack...
How stupid am I... the doctor asks me if Charlie is on any medications. I tell him not right now, he takes Singulair in the summer for allergies, but we don't do it year round cause they're outdoor allergies and the Singulair... you guessed it.... MAKES HIM SLEEPY. So, um, yeah, refilling that Singulair prescription. The doc was also quite willing to help out by calling Children's and the insurance dorks and figuring out what needs to be done to get this kid his medical diagnosis. We sat there and talked Charlie for about an hour - halfway through, doc looks at me, says , "I know about his autism and all, but have you ever heard ADHD with him?" No, says I, in fact we were told that was probably all autistic stuff and NOT ADHD. The doctor, oh my goodness, how I wish I had a camera for the face, but he looks at me all funny and says "Really. I mean, really? Really. How interesting." In the time he took to say those 7 words, Charlie had grabbed a tongue depressor, washed his hands, taken the stethoscope, and gone out in the hall to read the "caution, x-ray in use" sign for the 8th time. End of that story is we'll be getting some Straterra too, bout time, I say. I'll keep you updated, I have high hopes. Also was told (this, I'm sure is some violation of doctor patient privelege) that I am not the only mother of an autistic child that is supposed to be going to Pueblo West Elementary and is being home schooled instead because of "issues with that school". Yay, I'm not freaky mom. Or at least not the only freaky mom. That's about it for the doctor visit. Now, having discovered the joys of the "save as draft" button, I'm going to go put my kids to bed and come back later to scan pages. :)

OK, I'm back again, and I found the pages I was going to show you. Sort of. Most of you have seen most of these before, cause I found them in random folder on the hard drive. :) They are what I submitted for the design team call over on Create My Keepsake - I didn't make the team, but if you have a minute, go check out the gallery over there, especially those of the girls that did make it, super talent!
I really think this one is cute, but then I'm partial to desperados like Bubba there. :) The red part on the right is actually up from the background to make a little shadowbox, iffen y'all cain't tell from the picture. I'm disturbed by the square around the cactus being crooked, but not enough to do it over. yet.


Here's the card I put in - simple, but very nice. For some reason I keep coming back to this one every time a submisson is wanting for a card. If it wasn't for the fact that doing those little stitched x's on the bottom would kill my poor arthritic hands after about ten cards, I would send some variation of this for my Christmas cards every flippin' year.



I know most of you have seen my inspiration journal there, but just in case ya haven't - that's where I write things I want to do, craftwise. I have a whole different book for things I want to try... it's a little 4 x 6 notebook I got at Old Navy - has a GIANT bright blue spiral and is covered in white fake fur. :) Isn't this one pretty though? Has my favorite word on it, too, little gifties to the first person that guesses which of them it is.

Most of you have seen this one too, in fact did I post this already? Hmmmm... Well, it's one of my favorite pages, and that ain't even my kid. I think mostly I adore that picture, such a perfect grin, just lighting up his eyes... shall I tell you? I think I will. Here's the story behind that shot. I do pictures of the kids in Santa hats and either red or white shirts every year. So when I had Nick for daycare, I did him and his sisters too, and gave his parents enlargements for Christmas presents. Anyway, here is the actual conversation we were having while I was shooting Nick. (Ignore the sap on the journaling, it's all lies, magazine people love the sap.)
Nick: Are we done yet?
Holly: Just a couple more. Look over here, if you don't mind.
Nick: You said that 10 pictures ago, can I go now?
Holly: No. Smile.
Nick: Can I at least lose the hat?
Holly: Nicky, the hat is the point.
Nick: Don't call me Nicky, can I lose this shirt? I don't know why I have to wear this.
Holly: It'll look better in the picture than the Slayer tshirt you have on. SMILE.
Nick: About what? This is boring.
Holly: Think about hitting me over the head with the chair, sticking the hat on my butt, and wrapping the camera in the shirt as you fling it out the window.

THAT'S when he finally gave me that grin.

Not a damn thing.

I have nothing to say, except that there is a 3 day weekend in February made for skiing, and tickets from Milwaukee to Colorado Springs seem to be priced quite reasonably if travelers are willing to make a stop in Cincinnati. Which is why this guy should come here and ski Monarch. With his wife, who doesn't want to ski. And I bet Kerri agrees with me. :)

Oh, and I finally watched the first half of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last night. I was calling the movie stunning and Tim Burton a genius 10 minutes before I even saw Johnny Depp on the screen. I'm going to watch the rest of it tonight, I fell asleep in the middle somewhere - not because it wasn't wonderful, but because even the best of us give up once it gets to be 3 in the morning, which is why I think I'll go watch it now, instead of waiting to start till 2am again. The only other thing I have to say about it is that Johnny is quite possibly the greatest actor of his generation, I mean, really, who else can do what he can? And look as good doing it, even in creepy Willy Wonka makeup? Johnny Depp IS my daddy, an internet quiz told me so, so it must be true. :) Who is yours? Find out here: Who's Your Daddy?

Blog Tag

No one tagged me, but I'm not one to wait for an invitation, so here goes. :)

Four jobs you've had in your life:
Waitress: That's my favorite, hand down.
Home Daycare: Not bad, since you get to stay home and all.
Teacher's Aide at the elementary school: This comes close to the waitressing on fun factor, and you can't beat the hours, but the pay bites.
Daycare not at home, at the center: um, I met some cool people? :)

Four movies you would watch over and over:
Princess Bride
Pirates of the Carribean
Remember the Titans
Grease

Four places you have lived:
Aurora Colorado
Ft. Collins Colorado
Centennial Colorado
Pueblo West Colorado (otherwise known as Hell)
gee, I really get around, don't I? lol

Four TV shows you love to watch:
just four? crap. LOST
Survivor
Amazing Race
Any CSI

Four places you have been on vacation:
Disneyland
Disneyworld
Maine and all points in between here and there
um, did I mention Disney?

Four websites you visit daily:
Create my Keepsake
Disneysites
Miceage
A gazillion different blogs

Four of your favorite foods:
Enchiritos
Spaghetti
Steak
Hostess cupcakes

Four places you would rather be right now:
in bed
Disneyland
Disneyworld
Vegas, baby!

Four bloggers you are tagging:
Kerri
Traci
Amber
Brother

Ok, I really just did that because it's been a week and I have nothing new to report. Schmolland is basically at civil war every night at bedtime, I'm still working on my HOF entries and haven't scanned any old pages so I can't post any new, and I'm really just in a pretty good routine, so there ya go. :)

Some days Schmolland sucks

First things first, if you don't know where Schmolland is, click here for the map.

Today, Charlie had plans to visit the boy next door, Michael. Michael, you see, has a basketball hoop in his front yard that Charlie is obsessed with. Michael is also almost 13 years old, and Charlie is six... and Charlie-like. Michael has now resorted to drastic avoidance maneuvers whenever Charlie rings his doorbell, cause, well, he's a teenage boy and Charlie is the strange little kid next door that yells a lot. Can't blame poor Michael, I wish I could do the same thing some days. Today was one of those days. Let me share with you the basic gist of the morning.

Charlie got up and immediately got dressed. This causes a red flag to go off in my brain, cause, well, my kid is not known for voluntarily putting on clothes. Then I remember that I had finally given up after a week of pestering and told him that he could go see if Michael could play today. I even warned Michael's mom about it a couple days ago and she said it would be OK. So off we go to Michael's house, and there is no one home. I tell Charlie we will come back later, and he decides it might be the best idea to just sit on the front porch and wait all stalker like. I tell him no and make him come back inside. Insert meltdown here. (second things second... if you don't know the exact meaning of meltdown in this situation, do a happy dance - YOU do not live in Schmolland.) 2 hours later, we try again. This time, Michael answers the door, says he'll be out in a minute, and then dissappears. After 20 minutes of patience from Charlie and a quick phone call to Michael's mom, it is apparent that Michael is not coming out, although he would like to, because he is grounded for some reason involving unsavory friends, empty fields, a book of matches, and the fire department. Oooops. Insert meltdown here. Looooooong, loooooud meltdown. Meltdown that even now, 5 hours later, is still presenting aftermeltdowns.

Now this is just one meltdown day, and to be honest, since we started home school, and especially since our trip to Disneyland last month, meltdowns have been few and far between. Whether this has more to do with Charlie being happier, or me being happier, I don't know. But, even without meltdown days, we still live in Schmolland every single day. And although I love Charlie and wouldn't change (much) him if I could, I am taking this time to just say that living in Schmolland is exhausting. Schmutch children do not sleep. I don't just mean they stay up late, although they do, or that they get up early, although they do, or that they get up in the middle of the night, although they do. They do all 3, every day. For a mom, this is exhausting, cause even on those nights that we give up and say - "Ah, screw it, the smoke alarm will wake me up if he sets the house on fire", there is some mysterious physiological thing that will not allow us to sleep if one of our children is awake. Exhausting. Schmutch children often do not seem to hear a word you say and have little to no knowledge of the meaning of "following directions". Not being able to say "Now sit down and eat your dinner" or "Can you please bring me some toilet paper here" and have the kid do what you ask... exhausting. Schmutch children often have problems understanding the concept of empathy. To have a kid that responds with "ok, but can I have a twinkie now" to a statement like "When you whap your sister over the head with the tire iron it really hurts her and makes her cry" is exhausting. Schmutch children, some of them at least, are what we call runners. This means that when opening the door to the house, the car, the Walmart, you must be ready to either grab hold of them or give chase, because they will simply take off in search of... whatever. It also means that if you take a runner to the movies, you can't really pay much attention to the movie once the child stops talking, or the next time you look at the seat, the kid will be GONE. Exhausting. Schmutch children have no idea of common manners, even when explained over and over. Saying things like please and thank you is not what I am talking about - I mean things like "We really don't just stand on the porch and yell at people in the other backyards at 10 at night, sweetie" and "We really don't talk through the entire movie, even when we have important things to say like reciting the safety warnings for the xbox, so knock it off already". Exhausting. And last but certainly not least (at least at this point) Schmutch children do not understand the equation actions = consequences. This applies not only to if you play in the street you will get hit by a car and die, but to things like if you don't stay in bed you will do extra handwriting worksheets and if you keep snatching your sister's toys you will no longer be able to play xbox. This is the most exhausting thing of all, because with children from America or France or anywhere else, you can punish them for any of the other Schmutch pastimes and eventually they will get the point. Not so here in Scmolland - all you can do is try, and hope. Oh, and by the way... once you find out you are in Schmolland (you don't move there, someone just tells you you live there, you see.) YOU CAN'T LEAVE. EVER.

Yes, there are tulips and lakes and mountains and other wonderful things in Schmolland, and I'm sure you will hear about those too. But some days real life gets in the way of beautiful and wonderful things. It's 10pm right now, and my cute little Schmutch boy is standing here telling me how I can now swipe my credit card right at the drive-thru at Sonic. For the 12th time in the last half hour. So I will now tell him to get back in bed... for the 13th time in the last half hour. I've heard that there are now groups working to get families out of Schmolland. If you want to learn more, and maybe help, click here or here. To help spread the word about Schmolland, click here.

Disclaimer: no sisters were actually swapped upside the head with tire irons in this post, it was all CGI. Please do not call social services. :)

What I suddenly do most nights

On my preferred scrapbooking message boards, it's apparent that if you scrap, you blog. Hence why what you are reading even exists, cause I don't ever want to be left out of anything. One night, bored as usual and not in the mood for online poker and beer (imagine! oh, and the beer would NOT be so online as the poker...) I decided to just start clicking on some of those bloggy blog links in people's message board signatures. Lo and behold, each of these bloggy blogs had even more links to even more scrapper blogs, (like I do, over to your right, see?) which I have dubbed "scra-blogs". Of course, I started clicking on those too, cause if they're interesting enough for other people to read, why not me, right? Now I have created what I have dubbed "the scra-blog chain". I click on one, then click on one of the links there, and then one of the links there, and on and on and on.... then I discovered that with my new super improved computer I can both scan layouts AND follow the scra-blog chain AT THE SAME TIME. This, my friends, is what I suddenly do every night. Well, most nights, those nights that Todd is working. When I am not in the mood for online poker and beer. I've found new blogs that I now go to daily. I'm going to run out of time for anything else, so I'd better stop now. One blog that I won't stop visiting is Karen Burniston's - check it out. I think I may have cropped with Karen a time or two, many years ago, I seem to remember standing in someone's kitchen chatting with her, but that is completely beside the point and it could have been someone else entirely. Karen is funny. She's a pretty well known name in the scrapper world. She likes the Princess Bride and Emperor's New Groove. (the name of her blog is "I am not left-handed" - which makes me think she knows something that I do not know) And although she didn't say it herself, she is completely and utterly responsible for my new favorite phrase, "the internet won't surf itself". Karen will be at my new favorite scrapbook store ever, Simple Pleasures, sometime next month, and I may just have to make the hour long drive to go say hi and thank her for the many entertaining minutes I have spent reading her posts.
I know I said I could now scan layouts at the speed of light and all, but that's really only if I sit down and do it. It being football weekend and all around here, I didn't do much, but I'll show you what I do have. Without further ado, let me introduce you to....
The Pages of the Day!




















This is the one I have done as a graduation present for Kaitlyn. It would be the first page I have actually finished in, I don't know, 2 years. Hopefully Kait isn't reading this right now... if so, uh, happy graduation, sweets! :)






















I personally love this picture of Kayla with her little hospital blanket and hospital hat and hospital binky. And even with tubes and things all over her, I think she's pretty cute. But then I'm her mom.






















It's obvious she does NOT get her cuteness from me. I will say the orange hair was after stage one of a two stage wildhairupmyass idea to go blonde - she was 7 weeks early, I was on partial bedrest, how was I to know I would not only have to leave the house but for something that required I be in pictures? A few days later I dyed it all superblack and they almost didn't let me in the NICU cause no one recognized me.

This would be one of those pages that I look at and cringe. SO could redo it right now. But I have decided never ever to redo any pages cause that's all I would ever do and I am 5 years behind as it is. Outfit is really, really, really cute though.

Ok, that's it for now, kids. I plan to do my best to update this thing every other day or so, I'll also do my best to say it's updated in my RMH and DS sigs. :) Thanks for stoppin' by, please leave comments, that's what that button is for.

Starting Over

So I cleared the posts from this blog, and decided to start over. See, I decided I needed a sort of everyday-my life-everything blog, you know, a bloggy blog. I sure don't need yet another blog, so I converted this one. I figure scrapbooking is a pretty good sized chunk of my everyday life, so it fit well. Plus, by some odd twist of fate, I figured out how to scan my layouts, finally, which makes for much better images than the pictures of pages that were here. Unfortunately, this whole scanning and stitching thing takes an interminably long time. I mean, really, like bring-a-book-to-read-or-sudoku-to-work-on-dentist's-waiting-room long time.

So y'all will only get a couple scrapbook pages per post. Let me just explain this to you. I have to scan one side of the layout, then scan the other. This has never been fast for me. Then, I have to flip one of the scans, since one is always upside down. Then I hit the magical "put 'em together" button, and wait. (yes, I really just have to hit one button, and it took a book with the words "For Dummies" in the title for me to figure this out... *sigh*) AND wait. The little bar at the bottom of my screen says interesting things at this point, like "transform" and "Photomerge", but it gets boring to watch after approximately 1.2 seconds. Next, I have to approve the newly put together image in the Photomerge window. Then, I go back to the editing window... the bar says some new things at this point, like "advanced blending" and the really scary one - "erasing hole". Then I have to clean up the edges, and save the whole thing. The upside is, I've decided to scan in ALL my completed pages, so you get to see even the ridiculous pages from my humble beginnings as a scrapper. Plus, you get the joy of reading non-scrapping related posts from time to time.

So, I've decided to start this whole scanning process with Kayla's book (it's not got many pages, see) so here are the pages for the day.




So, I was going to treat you to more of my life today, but my husband has just returned home with a Pirates of the Carribean DVD to replace the one I rolled over with my chair, and since I have now been without this movie for almost a week, I feel the need to go watch it. So, tomorrow perhaps. :)

note: every single paragraph in this post starts with the word "so". Guess I need to work on that.