Funk this!

Thanks to everyone for their kind words yesterday during one of my infrequent but potent bad moods. I appreciate you waiting me out and trying to cheer me up! Every time I have one of those days and I make a bitchy post like that one, I spend the next couple of days regretting both the mood and the post. I am typically an upbeat kind of gal, but every so often... well, you know.

So, thanks for bearing with me. I will now resume my regularly scheduled goofiness.

Obviously, I'm feeling a little more "bevtastic" today. Yesterday I went home and sat on my deck and listened to the birds chirping and the wind in the trees. My back yard is a very pleasant place to sit in the summertime, and I've been thoroughly enjoying it this summer. Then I talked to my sister for a good hour, and that definitely cheered me up. Sometimes nobody gets you like a sibling does; in fact, Debbie told me that she saw this bad mood risin' on my blog for the past couple of posts. Whaaaa? Yeah, she's THAT good at interpreting my tone, apparently. Wow!

We had a great dinner on our deck: steak tips, corn on the cob, green beans, and a honkin' glass of wine for Mama. My mood rose considerably as I watched my boys run around in the backyard, and then it rose even more when we put the little buggers to bed (heh). Jim was watching a TV show that I don't care for, so I plugged into my laptop and downloaded some new tunes.

I've been loving MGMT's songs "Kids," and "Time to Pretend," so I went ahead and downloaded the rest of their album, Oracular Spectacular. I love it! iTunes describes it as "at times, unapologetically psychadelic," and they earn David Bowie, Talking Heads, and Flaming Lips comparisons, so you know I'm hooked. I found a clip of one of my favorite songs on YouTube; most of their clips cannot be embedded, but this one can. Sorry it's not better quality.



I also found some tunes from a band I'd never heard of before called Vampire Weekend. I recognized one song, "A-Punk," from the radio, so I picked up a few of their tunes too. They have a kind of fun, easy-going indie meets reggae thing going on. I digs it. Plus, there's a song called "Oxford Comma" that makes the English geek in me happy:

Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?
I've seen those English dramas too, they're cruel
So if there's any other way to spell the word
It's fine with me, with me

Heeeeeee!

So, I was all geeked-out last night, downloading like a fiend (it's just way too easy when iTunes has your credit card info, am I right?), when I get some texts from Mala. You'll never believe this one. I'm not sure if I mentioned it here, but next Wednesday I'm going with Mala and her husband to see Paul McCartney in concert... for free. WOOT! Yeah, ya' heard me! Basically, Joe works in my office and gets some pretty sweet kick-backs from mutual fund salespeople, just like my boss does. Last summer, for instance, Joe scored us 4 tickets to see Neil Diamond at Fenway, and we had a double date of epic proportions. Sure, we missed the first two songs because we stayed at the restaurant drinking vino and laughing for too long, but it was all good... because it was FREE!

This time Joe could only get 3 tickets, so I have to be the sales rep's "date" for the night, but whatev. We're still hoping he bails at the last minute like he did last year so Jim can come instead. Anywho, Mala texts me last night to tell me that MGMT is opening for Sir Paul!!!

"You've got to be fucking with me!" I responded.
"Not fucking with you!" She said.

"FUCK YEAH!" I said. So I burned Joe and Mala a cd so they know what MGMT sounds like, and this time I am not going to dawdle at the restaurant because I want to see the opening act.

Clearly, I need to STFU, because my life rocks sometimes. Feel free to remind me of this fact next time I get my panties in a bunch, k?

Poinsettia Template

We've been getting a lot of positive feedback from our friends at CHA. One project that everyone's been wanting a template for is our poinsettia box topper. Josh found an amazing website that gives you a crazy array of paper projects. It was found on the Canon website. If you'd like to see the poinsettia template click here. We just added some of our rhinestone brads to beautify the center of the flower.

We also wanted to show off a few of Canon's other amazing paper projects. Have you ever wanted your very own Saint Peter's Basilica?
Just click and print.Or a little mouse...

There's some amazing projects if you have the time and patience. They put a whole new spin on the art of origami. Hope you enjoy this link as much as we do!

I'm in a baaad, bad mood.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.


Yeah. I'm fucking grumpy today. If I haven't stopped by your blog in a day or two and left my usual pithy and loving comments, please don't be offended. I'm just pissy as hell for no good reason. Hormones, maybe, or the phase of the moon again, or maybe I'm just overdue for a case of the grumps. IDK, but whatever it is is PISSING ME OFF.

See? Told ya. Bad mood.

Anywho, here's some stuff that is contributing to my shitty attitude. Let's do a little listy-poo, shall we?

1. My crap job is boring; I don't have enough to do, and the work I do have sucks. My boss is on vacay this week, which I usually love because I can slack off with reckless abandon and take long lunches, etc., but this week I'm just irked every time one of our asshole clients calls with one of their asshole problems. Don't even get me started on my asshole coworkers, because we'd be here all day. Why don't I go get a new job? Because I fear change, and I'm lazy and unmotivated and have no career ambition anymore, that's why. I honestly think I am meant to be an heiress or socialite or something, because all I want to do is have a good time. Stupid life.

2. We have two car payments at the same bank. I sent one check in with two payment coupons, one for each loan. I wrote in the exact amount on each slip, AND I wrote the account numbers in the memo of the check. I got a note the other day saying we were late on one of the loans, so clearly the idiots applied it all to just one loan and nothing to the other. Stupid jerks.

3. My husband is going to his college buddy's (2nd) wedding on Labor Day weekend. It's in Oregon. Has he booked a flight or done anything other than commit to going? Nope. I just checked for him and the flights are all over $500 and don't work for his schedule. When I told him, he got all annoyed and tried looking himself, then said, "Ugh. I'll just do this later when you're home to help me." Goddamn it! I just helped you! I just looked, just now, and told you what I saw! Which was nothing! So now I get to look forward to figuring this out for him when I get home later, and to paying out the ass for him to go across the country to get drunk with his old friends while I do something super fun and glamorous that weekend.

What will I be doing, you may wonder? Well, I will be driving myself, my two children, and my mother to New York for my grandmother's funeral, that's what. WOOT! Party in the minivan! Jealous? Yeah, I thought so.

4. Everyone keeps dying. I've been coping with the loss of my father two months ago; most days I am able to think good thoughts about him, and I find myself bringing him up in conversation a lot. "Dad always loved 'such-and-such'," or "Dad used to say, 'blah blah blah'." But the other day I found a server full of photos that I had completely forgotten about, and I found a picture of my dad laughing at a birthday party 5 years ago. My sister is at his feet, gazing up at him adoringly, and it's just such a good example of why we loved him that I lost it. I cried and cried and cried, just because I miss him. I know he's okay, I know that it was his life's plan and all that good stuff; I have peace about his passing. But I miss him and will always miss him, and that pisses me off.

5. I'm a slacker daughter who dreads calling her depressed mother because is makes me sad. I'm selfish. I do it because I must, but I drink a glass of wine to steel myself beforehand. All she talks about is cleaning out my dad's belongings, and who said what in their sympathy cards, and the business of death. I offer to drive the 2 hours up north to take her out to dinner to cheer her up, but instead I get roped into spending my Sunday cleaning out her garage. FUCK. MY. LIFE.

6. It's humid. So humid that you can't see the horizon. So humid that I can't get my rings off of my sausage fingers. So humid my straight hair is frizzing.

7. Pictures from yesterday's beach trip reveal troubling truths about the state of my upper thighs. Skirted bathing suits, here I come. What's next? MuuMuus?

8. I snapped at my husband the other night and hurt his feelings. I apologized, and he is fine, but I still feel like shit. I just haven't been appreciating him as much as I should be. He's a great father, and I should be more grateful.

9. Nobody around me ever shuts the fuck up. Well, almost nobody. Last night we were out to dinner with Mala & her family, and it suddenly dawned on me why she and I get along so well. We were in the middle of the table, across from each other. On one side, our children were yammering away and blowing bubbles with their milk and generally being obnoxious, on the other side, our husbands were blabbing away about some boring shit, and she and I were just sitting there eating our salads. I looked across the table at her and grinned, and she grinned back.

Sometimes, you don't have to talk. Sometimes, you can just sit there and fucking eat and not fucking TALK. She gets it.

10. I am an idiot who didn't put on enough sunblock yesterday, so now I'm Lobster Girl. WTF is wrong with me? I managed to keep my children from burning, but I am now sporting a ridiculous halter-shaped sunburn which hurts like holy hell. I've been rubbing the lotion on its skin, but it's not helping so far. Goddamn me.

I could keep going, I'm that grumpy, but I'll stop now. Ten reasons to be peeved are more than enough. This too will pass; my bad moods don't typically last more than a day or two, but right now I'm going to keep wallowing.

Wordless Wednesday

Who loves a deal? We do!

Afternoon everyone! Thanks so much for all the CHA feedback-and keep it coming! We love hearing from you.

We search the internet, a lot. Can't help it! There are too many interesting things out there. The other day we came across something we thought every one of you should know about! Maybe you guys are ahead of us, but it's peachycheap.com. If you've heard of steep and cheap, it's the same idea, only for scrapbooking! Each day they feature a product at HUGE discount! How cool is that? No SEI sightings yet, but our fingers are crossed for you! So go check it out and grab a bargain. And don't forget about our website, with savings across the board.

Truthful Tuesday

Confession: I've been toying with the idea of participating in that 365 photo challenge over at Envisage 365. I like the premise, and you all know I'm a big fan of taking pictures, even though I am by no means a photographer. I have no aspirations or drive to do anything more than futz around and take pics of whatever happens to catch my fancy.

I figure, I can definitely commit to taking a picture every day, and I love looking at the images captured by the other 30-some women on that blog. With one rather notable exception. Last night I was curled up on the couch, idly glancing through the new blog posts on my Blogger dashboard, when one image from the Envisage website caught my attention. I'm not going to go into details about what it was, because frankly, I might need therapy to acquire some new coping mechanisms after viewing it. When I saw it, I made such a loud sound of protest that my husband poked his head in from the kitchen to see what the problem was. I let him read the description of the photo, but didn't want to traumatize him with the image without his consent. Of course he wanted to see it, and he was probably even more grossed out than I was.

Seriously, go to the site and see if you can tell which photo made me want to gauge out my own eyeballs. If you dare.

Confession: I like the Britney Spears song "Circus." A LOT.

Confession: I've got some wanderlust going on. I have always been a planner; I like having things on my calendar to look forward to, so I tend to set dates for fun events way in advance. I just went to NYC, and now I'm already eyeing the calendar to see when we can sneak away again. I've got some fun things on the agenda so far, but nothing carved in stone just yet.

Confession: Speaking of wanderlust, I have been thinking of planning a big family vacation for this winter. My husband is an avid skier, but I am not a huge winter fan. Yes, I live in New England, where winter lasts from December till April; the irony is not lost on me. This year I've made him promise that we can escape somewhere warm for February vacation. The only problem is that when I start to envision us schlepping our whole family onto an airplane and into hotel rooms, etc, I break out in a cold sweat. It's hard to travel with kids! My youngest will be two when we go, and two-year-olds are kind of tough when you're outside of your comfort zone.


When Danny was the same age, we took him to the Florida Keys and it nearly killed us. It's just not relaxing when you have to chase a kid from Miami to Key West, ya know? In fact, the most peaceful afternoon we had was when we had to give him a minuscule dose of Dramamine because he got seasick on the glass bottom boat. He passed out and Jim and I had a great day. Since drugging your children is frowned-upon, I don't think that's necessarily the answer.

So, the thought of doing a big trip with a tyrannical spirited 6-year-old and a very busy 2-year-old is daunting... but I really want a break from winter. It's a tough call.

Confession: I'm thinking of printing up a t-shirt that says, "This is going on the blog!" Lately I find myself saying that a lot, and a t-shirt would be such a time-saver! I could just smile knowingly and point at my chest, then nod. You know what time it is.

That's all I got. Well, that's all I'm spilling today, anyway. I know, it was nothing juicy, but whatev.

What the DAMN?

What in the name of Skeletor has happened to Madonna?



I know, I know, this isn't news. But jeepers, it's gotten worse, am I right? I think Madge has finally done it; she is now freakier looking and more buff than Iggy Pop. And that's sayin' something.

As a largely inactive sloth-type human, I used to admire Madonna for her athleticism and drive. However, as she ages and becomes more and more comprised of straining tendons & bulging muscles, I am starting to think that there is an argument to be made for softness.



I am 100% sure that when (God willing!) I am 50 years old, I will look nothing like Madonna. For one thing, I don't plan on having Botox, face lifts, or chemical peels, so I'm pretty sure I'll have the standard lines and wrinkles going on. Also, I don't see myself becoming a triathlete or using steroids any time soon, so most likely I'll have some (more) junk in my trunk and arms that look like they belong to a woman and not a cartoon superhero. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

Ok, enough about Madge and her scrawny man-arms. I really do need to start working out again. It has now been a year since I went to the gym with any sort of regularity. That doesn't count the spurts I'll sometimes have when I'll go for a week or two and feel awesome about it and have visions of being super in-shape and toned.... Until I get bored or my mp3 player repeats the same songs too many times and I get pissed off so I stop going (true story). My weight is stable in a not-horrible but not-great gray area that matches my whole laissez-faire attitude pretty well, but I do have visions of finally shedding those 15 lbs I've had since... well, forever.

But anyway. I'll stop now, because I'm getting depressed. The good news is that I can still race my kid when we're running for a water slide, I can still climb the 4 flights of stairs to gain access to those slides, and the ol' bod still does alright under most circumstances, even if I do feel it more the next day.

So I'll STFU now and count my blessings. At least I don't have man arms.

CHA- cha cha cha!

We're kicking off CHA this week. It's being held in Orlando, Florida this year! Lucky ducks... So while half the building is gone, enjoying beautiful Florida, we will be your informants and keep you posted on what's going on. CHA doesn't actually begin until tomorrow but SEI is having their preview party tonight, which I always hear is a highlight. There will be new projects and layouts on display that we've been slaving away on the past couple of weeks. We didn't get to photograph all the projects or layouts but we'll show you a few. Hope you like them... they're pretty amazing (I can only say that because Josh made the most amazing Christmas Mint project)

Winter Song

Moravia

Christmas Mint
Amazing, huh?

If you're lucky enough to be at CHA, let us know how you're liking it. If you're enjoying CHA from home this year, let us know what you think about these projects!

A day at the "fay-ah" and a fiesta por tres

Yesterday we went to the Stratham Fair. It was a lovely day with some good friends, and I celebrated the nice weather by getting myself a sexy white-trash sunburn. Seriously, I look like I've been working construction all day; you can go ahead and picture me in an orange vest, holding a Yield sign. Go ahead, do it. I don't mind.

It was a typical New England fair, and the people-watching was excellent as always. I kept running into the same gigantic man in a Metallica tank top who reminded me of Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds, only way dirtier and uglier. Oh, and covered in tattoos, too. To be perfectly honest, the third time I saw him I tried to surreptitiously take his picture with my cell phone, but I couldn't get it without getting caught, and this was not a man by whom I wanted to get caught doing anything of which he did not approve. Skeery.

Anywho, we had a big lunch of lobster and steamers (which kind of gross me out, but I ate some anyway just to maintain my NH cred), toured the 4H barns, rode some rides, and Danny even took part in a traditional Pig Scramble even though we had to fudge his age a bit to enter him in the competition. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of a Pig Scramble, it's basically a contest in which groups of 8 children aged 8-12 (ahem) run around in a big pen and try to catch one of the 5 pigs that are set loose. Pigs are kind of fast and hard to catch, and it's funny watching the kids dive into the grass in hot pursuit of the squeeling piggies. Now, once they catch a pig, they are required to take it HOME and raise it for a year, then the rules state that the pig must be *gulp* eaten.

Needless to say, we did not want Danny to actually catch a pig for a number of reasons, the largest reason being that we live in a suburban neighborhood and I do not want a pig sty in my back yard, thankyouverymuch. So, we were relieved when he didn't make much of an effort and simply ran around in the mass of children and laughed. PHEW!



The Silence of the Lambs? ----->





Mala couldn't join us, but her husband and kids came along for the ride. In keeping with our tradition, I have no pictures of her son. It seems that we only photograph 3 out of the 4 children at any given outing.







Jill and her youngest daughter were with us too, but you'll have to take my word for that since I have no pics of them either.


After we were all tired and stinky and high on lemonade and cotton candy, we parted ways with Mala's fam and went back to our house with Jill & her kiddo for a little Mexican feast. I made chicken fajitas, tacos, and quesadillas for the kids (which they didn't eat, because children kind of suck that way. What? It's true). Jill played bartender and made us Mango Margaritas. They were goooooooood.


I saved one for you:

You're welcome.

After the kids went to bed I got a hankering to play some Scrabble. I love Scrabble. Jim and I used to play all the time, and he's a good sport because I always win. But, in his defense, it's always a close game.

I'm happy to report that I've still got my Scrabble mojo. I'm not so happy to report that margaritas make me a little less than sportsman-like from time to time, so when I placed my winning 57-point word on the board, I may have actually gloated a little. *blush* I maaaaay have even said something along the lines of, "S-s-suuuuuck it!"

Not my finest moment, to be sure.

In a moment of instant karma, I told Jim to take a picture of me and Jill so I could document my awesomeness, and when we looked at the picture we all howled with laughter... because I looked a little bit... slow. As in, Corky from Life Goes On, slow. NTTAWWT! But still. That pic won't ever see the light of day.

But these will:



Heh heh. Sore winner? Moi? Naaaaah.

Anywho. It was a fun day and night! An added bonus? We put on The Big Lebowski because Jill had never seen it before. Any night with The Dude is a good night at Casa de Bev. Funny story, and then I'll shut up: last weekend when we were spending time with Maeghan in NYC, she reminded me that Jim and I had first showed her TBL many moons ago, and when she met her now-fiance, they bonded over their mutual love for the movie! Lebowski helped bring them together, so in a way, I'm responsible for their successful coupling. Hee - what? Ok, so I let my big Scrabble victory go to my head, clearly. I will look into getting my ego deflated ASAP.

Speaking of Maeghan, she just started her own blog. She rules! Check her out.

Ok, gotta run. It's 10 AM on a Sunday and I've done nothing but clean up the dishes from last night's fiesta. I have a full day of sitting on my butt and doing nothing ahead of me. Gotta get to it!

Have a nice Sunday, my friends!

Thank you Pioneers!

Here in Utah, we have a special holiday today, Pioneer Day. It's something I never knew existed but without question pioneers definitely deserve to have their own special day. Just look at the picture above, none of that looks like fun: long dresses, tumbleweeds, dry skin, hot weather and kissing that beard? Well thanks to the many sacrifices of these trailblazers we have scrapbooking. How, you might ask? Well through many difficulties these pioneers settled much of the west, including the great state of Utah.

I'm not sure if you know, but Utah is the unofficial scrapbooking capital of America. Although first signs of scrapbooking have been around since the time of Aristotle, it took the World Conference of Records to make it what it is today. In 1980, Marielen Christensen shared 50 volumes of her family history at this conference that was held in Utah, and modern scrapbooking was born. Afterwards, the Christensens opened the first retail scrapbooking store here in Utah and called it Keeping Memories Alive. So in this long round about way, we have much to thank the pioneers for. If they wouldn't have settled Utah, the World Conference of Records may have never taken place and we would still have shoe boxes filled with photos. Ok, even if it the chances of that happening are slim, scrapbooking can still be one of the reasons we say, Thank You Pioneers!

Do your boobs hang low?

Do they wobble to and fro'?
Can you tie 'em in a knot?
Can you tie 'em in a bow?

Yesterday we went to a water park. Since my youngest son is too little to ride most of the good rides, I spent a lot of time floating with him in an inner tube in the "whirlpool." The whirlpool is a large round pool with currents that move you in a slow, lazy circle not unlike circling the drain in a giant toilet bowl. My kid sat stiffly in my lap wearing a huge orange life vest, and the inner tube was so big that basically my entire mid-section was in the water, leaving two legs, two arms (filled with said life-vested almost-two-year-old), and my little wet head sticking out of the top. Quite a sight, really. If only I'd had a camera... however I don't allow cameras in the vicinity when I plan to spend the day swathed in Lycra and dripping wet. That's just a no-no on many levels.

While drifting in the overly-chlorinated bacteria-trap, I had time to observe some of the other park-goers and reflect upon the cruelty of time and gravity on the human physique. People come in all shapes and sizes, which is the mantra I've drilled into my 6-year-old's head whenever he asks me why someone is fat or old or just plain ugly.


I saw all kinds of people in the Fug Parade: pre-adolescent girls in bikinis with remarkably smooth, un-stretch-marked stomachs, teenage girls who had eaten one too many Big Macs but who were also shamelessly sporting bikinis and belly rings, moms in tankinis who needed a little more support to keep the spare tire under control, old men with moobs, guys with hairy backs, lots of regrettable tattoos, and cellulite and thigh dimples galore.

What struck me most was the ta-tas. I've never seen so many saggy funbags in my life! Why aren't these people buying better bathing suits? Underwire is your friend, girls! Here's a tip for you: if you look down and can't see the shape of your nips through the fabric, you need a more supportive bathing suit top! Just sayin'.

Looky here: If a beautiful woman like Uma freakin' Thurman can be caught in a bad suit, it can happen to anybody. Get thee to the bathing suit store and lift those thangs up! I'm personally not happy until mine are cranked up to 11, which puts them up somewhere just under my chin. Sure, it hurts like hell, but come on! Being fabulous hurts sometimes, and if you don't believe me, just check out most womens' footwear.

Frankly, though, I really long for the days when bathing suits looked like this:

*sigh* Times were so much simpler then. A swim dress sounds awesome. I could totally get on board with that.

Anywho, while I was hunting down pictures for this post (would you believe that it was surprisingly difficult to find pics of saggy boobs? I was shocked, shocked, I tell you!), I found a delightful little product that looks like a good stocking-stuffer for all of the women in your life. Check it out:




GENIUS! Sure, it looks like you're sleeping with a dildo between your boobs, but whatev! Mrs. Cunningham, er, Grandma sure looks happy about it.

So, there's that.

Oh, and after going down a couple of those waterslides, I am in the market for some sort of painful-wedgie-remover product AND a new bathing suit. Some of those things hurt like a mutha and wear out the seat of your suit! There was one slide that actually slammed you in the face with a wall of water at the very last second. Thanks a-fucking-lot! Ouch! Along the same lines, I think it's a good thing my husband and I are done having kids, because the Geronimo (straight down) slide did something quite wrong to his twig and berries and he's still walking funny today. Poor guy. They really ought to put a warning on those things.

New Paper Pads

We are excited to tell you about two brand new paper pads we are releasing at Michael’s. They will be available mid-August 2009. You will only be able to get these designs in a paper pad and they can only purchased at a Michael’s store.

The first paper pad is called Zoo Pals. There are so many adorable animals on these papers. They would be great to scrapbook kids, toddlers, babies, a trip to the zoo or Yellowstone. Besides your usual zoo animals (elephants, alligators, giraffes, monkeys, lions…) some of my favorite animals in this paper pad are the buffalo, penguins, sheep, owls and panda bears.

Not only can you scrapbook with these papers, you can teach with them too. In the past I have colored, cut and glued plenty of time-consuming projects together to teach my 2-year old but this paper pad makes it easy to whip together tons of fun teaching tools.

The project above was done using the Zoo Pals paper pad, Bridgeport ribbon, a 4"x6" black preservation album, and Poppy monograms. I cut out some of my favorite animal papers down to 4 x 6 added a little square of the solid paper and a monogram. For the cover I cut a piece of paper that had all the animals together and added a ribbon. This picture book is good to teach animals and letter recognition. It could be embellished more but the nice part is it took me less than an hour to put it all together.

One of the papers included in the Zoo Pals paper pad looks like a zoo map and includes all the animals and signs. It would be fun to make into a game board. Another paper in this paper pad is perfect for counting. It has different numbers of animals in numerical order with the numbers by them. This could be used to teach animal names, counting, or number recognition.

Do you have any other ideas of how to use these papers? Do you love it? Check back later for a project using our other new paper pad, NutMeg.

Maria