THE most valuable lesson I can share..................

THE most valuable lesson I can share..................

When nothing seems to be going right.................GO LEFT.

Oh my, this is something I've tried to live by all my life, teach my daughters, share with friends. It's kind of that "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality that I was raised with. You CAN change your circumstances. You CAN start over. I'm absolutely crazy about quotes and adages, sayings and words of wisdom. I speak "cliche", so get ready, here it comes.

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about Dancing in the Rain." ~Tiffany Wilson

"It doesn't matter how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up." ~Vince Lombardi

I truly believe that every day we get up is an opportunity to start over. We have a choice to believe we're going to have a good day or a bad day. If we start the day thinking that it's going to be bad, there's very little hope for the day turning out "good". But, if we start each day thinking, 'THIS is going to be a GREAT day!' then, even if things go "bad", we have a better chance of dealing with them in a positive way. ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING!!!

I remember reading one of those perpetual email stories a long time ago. It was called "ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING". I saved it. I read it periodically when I need a lift. Bottom line, guy was shot in an armed robbery. The last several paragraphs of his story are:

-----After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place.

"The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door", Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live.

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?", I asked.

Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man'. I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?", I asked.

"Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me", said Jerry. She asked if I was allergic to anything. "Yes", I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply... I took a deep breath and yelled, "Bullets!" Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead." -----

I think we all have to OPERATE as if we're going to LIVE, not die.

"Live, Live, LIVE! Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving!" ~Auntie Mame

Love and Blessings,
Stay Gold,

Scrapbook Challenge- Feb. 19-26!!!

White...Black...and one other color... Okay, I can do that. Obviously, for anyone who's looked at the last several posts, I've changed formats for Anne's DD book. It finally occurred to this old brain that I could do the 12x12 format and still put it in a video. (the edges will simply be black)......duh!
So, this was one of the Challenges this week. White, black and one other color. It was kind of freeing. I'm not really a minimalist, so I had to step back a bit. I love these pix of Anne and Lacy. Lacy thought she was such a big, big girl when they would sit together and play and Lacy would "teach" Anne all sorts of important things.
That's it for this week.
Love and Blessings.

Scrapbook Challenge- Feb. 12-19!

Okay, how flippin' cute is this kid?!?!?!?

I just had to do it. He's so cute, he's so cute, he's sooooooooooo cute!!! The entire family just loves him so much. We had a great night tonight. Lacy made dinner for the whole family. We ate together, all at the same table, all at the same time. It was a delicious Spicy Orange Chicken. We had wine. We had dessert. Now, we're watching TV together and actually talking. Wow! So, now I'm on to scrapping some awesome danceline pages!!! STNH!

Love and Blessings.

Just had to Share!!! I'm so Proud of Them!

This is my daughter, Anne's, danceline team! These are posters that I made for them to encourage them on their way to Sections tomorrow! STNH (Soaring to New Heights) is their theme this year. They are AWESOME!!! I am so proud to have such a talented daughter and to belong to such a great group of parent boosters. I had to share.
Love and Blessings.

Scrapbook Challenge- February 5-12!

Okay so since the main subject here, Anne, is an 18-year-old, high school senior, getting ready to enlist in the Marines!!! I'm pretty sure these pix are over three years old! Where does the time fly?!?!?
Ain't she cute?! Well, yeah, she still is.
So, this ain't too bad for the year. I've actually completed several weekly challenge layouts.
We'll see if it lasts.
Love and Blessings.

Scrapbook Challenge- Jan. 29-Feb. 5!!!

Well. Here it is! I got Kolten's 1st Christmas page done. I just love the template, but I don't have a credit. I found it years ago and it didn't have a name attached, dang it. Oh well, Love it still and if it's "yours" THANKS!
Love and Blessings.....

Scrapbook Challenge- Jan. 15-22!

The last two weeks has been completely consumed with getting a 8x8 book ready for the my daughter, Anne's, Senior Lake-Liners banquet. I'm basically making the entire thing digitally and I needed pix and info from each girl. Well, as you know, some parents are right-on-the-money and others, you have to prod and prod and prod and you still don't get everything you need. Oh well. So I thought I share the title, fans, Anne's personal page, and her memories page. Each girl is getting the title and then the next three pages, personalized for her. And then each book will hold the girl's pages and copies of her co-seniors pic/future page.
I'm very proud of the end result. Here ya go!




Yup! That's my girl! She's gonna be a Marine! We're sooooo proud!



So, that's it. What'd'ya think? Be kind! ;)
Love and Blessings.

2011...What's Coming Is Coming.....

So my goal is to meet it head on and conquer whatever obstacles attempt to get in my way. How? Well, that will be left to the moment.

2010 in review:

Biggest change...Kolten. Our grandson was born on April 17, 2010. He's awesome! Duh. He's eight months old and he's beginning to crawl. He actually does that cute military scoot across the floor, but he can get anywhere he wants to get. Right now, his main objective seems to be standing and walking. Yup, we got one of those! Now that he's figured out how to pull himself up, he doesn't want to sit down.

Anne: is a senior in high school. She's doing part-time days at DCTC which is our local vo-tech. She's taking Graphic Design and Auto Mechanics! What a combo. She loves both classes. She's also getting ready to enlist in the Marines. She's already had her physical and signed the papers, but there's a holdup in the med department. She has bunions (of all things) and they want a specialist to come in and look at her and determine if they'll give her any problems. They won't. They never have, but it's just a fly in the ointment.

Lacy: is finishing up at SCSU in communications. She's got one year left. She's working part-time at a restaurant called, Molly Cool's. It's a seafood place and she makes pretty good money. Not enough to live on her own yet. If only Kolten's "father" would want to help out financially as much as he wants to be with his "son". Oh yeah, we know it's his, but he's doing everything in his power to avoid child support of any kind. OH, he wants Kolten to have his last name, but he keeps coming up with excuses and changes that keep him from sending in that danged check to the county......what a lovely example of a "father".......

Fred: is still driving OTR. He loves it and hates it. So what else is new. The new piece in Fred's life is his folks. Jack was diagnosed with ALS in February and the marathon began. Doctors, VA, more doctors, tests, examinations, more doctors......all the time Add is getting weaker and weaker and eventually he went into a nursing home in Ocotber. That leaves BJ. OMG! We had no idea how much Jack did for her. She's so much further gone that any of us realized. She needs almost daily care for one thing or another. We're trying our best to keep her in the condo. She has so many friends there and that helps. We've just contacted and "contracted" a PCA service to come in on M, Tu, W so that leaves just Th, Sat and Sun for us to handle. Friday, she has her hair appointment so we know someone's checking on her. Thursday, Kolten and I usually end up visiting for dinner. Lacy's at school and I'm watching Kolt, so it works. Fred goes in to see her just about every weekend. He usually takes her over to see Jack, but that depresses her, so sometimes we skip it. I try to go with him some weekends.

Carla: so that leaves ME: I'm still working for the Lakeville Area Public Schools, officially as a SPED para, unofficially as the MA billing specialist. I do all of the hoop-jumping that gets the district money from the state and fed for kiddos who are Medical Assistance eligible and receive billable services from us. I love it. I work with a great group of ladies in the ECSE department "by day" and an awesome, extended-online-by phone, group of amazing people doing the same thing as I am around the cities. I've made some great friends in both fields. I'm still active in the union, but getting more and more discouraged daily. I still LOVE scrapbooking and doing most of it digitally now. Got a new laptop for "Christmas". I did the "to Caddie, from Caddie" thing in mid-November. I'm using some of Jack's Christmas money to help pay for it and the rest is on the BestBuy-no-interest credit card. It all works.

So, the family is doing well. We've made it to the New Year and we're looking forward.

Love and Blessings.

Scrapbook Challenge!!! Oct. 1-8!

I'm working on Anne's D2D book. (Diapers2Diploma) Oh my God, my baby's a senior!!! I just can't stand it. She's all ready to enlist on November 22nd. I'm going to be the fewest and proudest mother of a United States Marine. Wow! So, my game plan now is to get as many pages done every week so I'm not going crazy......well crazier than normal......next June.
The them for the challenge was brown, gold, chipboard, ribbon, yarn, etc..... Mine's not really brown or gold, but the ribbon is there. The year she was born, fall came really late and the colors were stunning. The background and bottom-right pic is our backyard. Actually, that's our house in back of the geese. Doesn't look like that anymore. Trees are ever so much bigger and they've built other homes across the pond now. I even tried my hand at photomasking some leaves. It never occurred to me that I could mask just about any shape so I'm having fun with that.
I'm doing the book in 11x8.5 so I can maybe have a small Shutterfly book made for her later. I like that size for sending with her 'cuz it's not the overwhelming size of a 12x12.
Anyway, hope you like it. I hope she'll like it.
Take care.
Love and Blessings.

Some New Pages

I made this one for our monthly digital challenge. It's simply to scrap your pet, so that was easy. I'm having a lot of fun with different fonts and mattes and ribbons right now.
This is the title page to Kolten's album. Lacy knew she was having a boy, so it was easy to put this together in advance. I'm done now with the shower, birth and homecoming pages. Some, I've already posted here, but I'm going to put them all up in the same post so "you" (really for me) can see the progression.....

First was Devin's shower for all of Lacy's college friends and our family. It was a lot of fun and a great success. We almost didn't have enough room to get all of her goodies home.

Then Chelsea gave Lacy a shower with all of her friends from the studio. Unfortunately, Holly wasn't able to make it. And it's a good thing Chelsea got it in when she did, 'cuz Kolten came along the very next weekend!!!

Okay, now we're back to the birth and thereafter.....this one's pretty obvious, but for those of you who know me, the bottom right pic is THE first pic that was sent out to EVERYONE!!! after Kolten was born. I took it with my cellphone! How cool is that?
Here's the new, complete family.....I made those photomasks!!!
I think that's where I'm gonna leave it for now. I've got lots more, so I'll be back now that Blogspot has the links to the pix working again.
Take care.
Love and Blessings.