School has begun

I just wanted to share what's blooming in my flower bed right now. The four o'clocks have been blooming profusely all summer and are the brightest pink. They are the best when it's cooler outside and their blooms are open all the way. I'm thinking I'd like to find some new colors of these for next year. I received a start of them several years ago and they just add that "umph!" to the bed. My other little pretty is the Japanese Iris. It has been blooming pretty much all spring and summer too. The delicate blooms only last for one day, but then another one soon takes it's place. My hubby got too close with the weed wacker and I thought the poor little thing was doomed. Well... she came back in all her glory :) Yippee! I think she's a great addition to the bed. I really am enjoying the geranium. A pretty white with a peek of pink in her middle. What a cutie :) My bed is small, but growing :)

School has started for me, so if you think I've gotten lost, that's why. I'm going to be reading alot over the next 3 semesters (fall/spring/summer). Then hopefully with luck and hard work, I'll have my LPN in July 2009. I'll post next week a bit more about school and the shop hop that drew to a close on the 17th. We had a great time hopping and shopping! More on that later though. I hear that school bell tolling from Vincennes and it's a 45 minute drive yet :)

Happy Friday!

Fonts

I really like fonts. I've downloaded quite a few onto my computer to use either on scrapbook pages or other crafty works of art. This morning I was blog hopping and not sure how I go to where I was... but found a link to this really cute video about fonts. So just for you font freaks, you might want to check out the "Font Conference". Enjoy!

Short post today. I'm actually pulling myself away from the computer and getting some housework and Olympic watchng done before going to my paid job :)
Have a great day!

Olympics

How many of you have been watching the Olympics? We've been watching them every chance we get at our house. Hubby and I watched the opening ceremony at Chanel's house. What a show! It was beautiful and so wonderful. I've been watching alot of the beach volleyball, both men's and women's. The US men's #1 team was great this morning! We've also been watching the swimming events. How great all of the athletes have been doing :) We really started watching the Olympics when I was in the hospital after having Chanel. She was born July 30th, 1984. They were just getting started while we were there. When Bret came along, he wasn't born in an Olympic year (January 22, 1987). Tanner came along on August 19, 1988 and the Olympics were just ending while we were there. So during two hospital stays, the Olympics have kept me entertained... along with some beautiful babies :) It's kind of become a tradition for our family to watch them.

The 2 peas challenge for today is: Share on your blog someone you look at for inspiration. And why you find them inspiring....
*Alot of my friends are inspiration for me without even knowing it. I can be a very indecisive person at times and some of my friends have no qualms about decision making. They consider the options and then it's a done deal. I have to think about it a few times, even the simplest of things lol. I might even change my mind even then :)
*The athletes that train for the Olympics are also an inspiration. The time and sweat that they put into training to be the very best that they can be has to be an inspiration to us all. When I really need to get out and walk off the pounds and then don't because of this reason or that one... look at what all they do each and every day. Wow!

New Zealand update:
Bret and Stacy, along with a couple of friends, drove to Mt. Hutt to go sledding this past weekend. The mountain is lovely with all of the snow. And thanks to Stacy, I swiped another picture from her to put on here. Thanks Stacy!

Shop Hop

A few local scrapbook shops got together for a first ever S. Indiana/N. Kentucky Shop Hop. The girls at The Doodlebug in Jasper got it going and it's looking like fun. It started on Friday the 8th and runs through the 17th. The idea is to purchase a passport for $5 and visit the participating stores. Each store stamps your passport when you visit. The stores are offering a make-n-take and a drawing within their own store. If you visit all 8 stores, you are put into the drawing for the grand prize... a scrapbook weekend retreat for you and a friend at Cropical Paradise.

On Friday I visited two stores that I frequent on a regular basis. The first stop was to The Doodlebug in Jasper. Their store has really grown alot in the last few years and the staff is always so friendly. The make-n-take was a card using the zutter and perfect pearls. Melanie also made refreshments which were very yummy. I then made a trip to Evansville to Schmitt Photo. Their make-n-take was a cute little notepad holder featuring a Hawaiian penguin. I get alot of my prints made at Schmitt.

On Saturday morning, I met up with a few friends for a trip to the Bloomington and Nashville stores. Sandy and her daughter Molly, Mary and I left Washington around 8:30 for the trip. After a few turn-arounds and calling for directions, we made it to our first destination in Bloomington, Bloomin' Scrapbooks & Stamps. They carry alot of items that we can't find in our area and I tried to restrain my spending knowing that I had other stores to visit that day. But I will be back :) They gave us a kit for the make-n-take that we could do on our own time at home. Our next stop was in Nashville, IN. It's a very lovely area with lots of small shops all throughout the town. Of 4 scrapbookers, how many cameras do you think we brought? One! Sheesh. I thought about getting mine out of my car when I met up with them, but no... I was thinking that we wouldn't have time for pictures. Always, always bring your camera lol.

On to Nashville! The first stop in Nashville was to Wishful Thinking. This was a cute little store with a wide variety of stamps and other items for altered projects. The make-n-take we made was a cute little card using a transparency. I also liked this shop and will make a return visit. The next shop in Nashville was to Paper Trix. They also had alot of stamping supplies and many items for altered projects. Their make-n-take was to stamp and then use either Twinkling H2O Watercolors or Spica glitter markers. I used the Spica markers and loved them :)

I'll post pictures of the make-n-takes after I've visited all of the stores. My little digital camera has been hijacked by Chanel lol. My shop hopping continues on Tuesday!

The 2 peas challenge for today is: When you go on vacation and take lots of pics... Do you try to scrap them all or just some?
*I try to scrap some of the best pictures and cover the highlights of the vacation. One way to include alot of pictures on a lo is to use mini pictures, like in a mosiac.

Wordless Wednesday

Words that define us

The two peas challege for today is: Close your eyes, open a dictionary, and point to a word. Does your word mean anything special to you?
*Now this is really weird. I opened the Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary with my eyes closed and selected a word on the right-hand page, first column. The word that my finger was on, was..... lens. How funny! Does that mean it was a good thing that I bought a new lens last week? I'll take it as a positive sign :) The word right below that was lensman: photographer. I think most people that enjoy taking pictures could define themselves as a "lens". It's what we envsion before we even put the camera up to our eye for that shot that makes us a lens.

Have you ever thought about the words that define us? If you had to select 10 words that you feel define you as a person, what would you pick? Now I'm going to have to think about this one...
1. mother
2. giving
3. impatient
4. caring
5. loving
6. understanding
7. photographer
8. learning
9. disorganized
10. flower

Today is my day off and I have a few plans. I had "planned" on getting up by 8:30... that didn't happen. It was almost 10am when I rolled out of bed this morning. It felt really nice too. I've got plans for dishes, laundry and some general cleaning. Not too much, mind you :) It is my day off... I would like to make it to the library for a little dead people searching aka genealogy researching. Once school starts, I won't be able to do much of that.

My work schedule is finally taken care of for when school starts back up on the 18th. I may have upset someone about the new hours... well ok I know that I did. Not that I meant to or anything. This person already has a 40 hour a week job plus covers a few open shifts at the place I work and then waitresses some. The shifts she has been doing are open shifts, which means if someone wants to take them as a permanent shift and it's ok'd by the company, then they are no longer open. Three of the shifts I took were open ones plus the one I already had to make me 32 hours per week. This is plenty with my class schedule. The open ones were all on the weekend which also works better for school and studying. Now it seems I upset this person by "taking her hours", as she stated. I really didn't plan on upsetting her, but she had the opportunity to make them her permanent shifts, but she didn't want that. Why can't life be more simple? lol

Festivals

It's that time of year again... for the Jasper Strassenfest, that is. We spent several hours in Jasper walking around and enjoying the day. They are restoring a passenger train to make runs from Jasper to French Lick. It should be ready to travel in the spring. They did have a short ride available for Strassenfest and we took that opportunity. Joe, Chanel, Jonah and myself climbed aboard the Spirit of Jasper for a ride. They had some stringed instruments for our entertainment whic only added to the rides relaxation. Jonah seemed to really enjoy his adventure on the "choo" and I'm looking forward to when they start making full runs next spring.

Another event that was happening this weekend, which we didn't make it to, was the Zoar Mosquito Fest. This takes place at the small community of Zoar each year. They have a stationary parade where everything is standing still, the skinniest legs contest and wiffle ball tournament. The UMC church serves chicken dinners and there is usually a band for entertainment. It's a great gathering for people in the community.

The two peas challenge for today is: Do you enjoy creating layouts, altered items or cards. I would have to say layouts, but altered items and cards are fun also.