Wordless Wednesday, or in my case (almost) Wordless Wednesday has always been one of my favorite posts each week. It's one that I really want to get back to doing. I haven't been using my camera near enough the last few months. In fact, I somehow even forgot to take it to Thanksgiving. I was so upset! I'd have loved to have gotten some pictures of our family, our table and even some of our Black Friday adventures. Sadly, I didn't though. What I did do was to wander outside tonight to put down some ice melt and decided to share with all of you the wonder that met my eyes...




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Oh my gosh, I am tired today! I don't know if it's because I had at least one weird, disturbing dream last night that broke up my sleep or if it's because I was so dang active yesterday! For those who don't know, I'm on a weight loss journey (blogged at Welcoming Weight Loss) and I worked out for the first time yesterday.  All I know is that man, I am tired today! I have a dozen things open that I should be working on but as soon as I get them open, I forget what I'm doing with them! Sheesh!

I did, however, remember to get my last Shapes picture taken for the Sunday Shutterbugs challenge. Believe it or not, I actually opened up the top of my bedroom window yesterday and snapped this picture. If I can remember long enough, I'm going to do the same thing today to get an after the "blizzard" shot. Blizzard is in quotes because we got a lame 14" of snow, not the 2 feet they claimed we were going to get. Granted, it blew everywhere (including in my back door) but they were all dramatic about the amounts and I totally feel let down.


Oh, one last request before I hit post and try to remember the next thing on my list....I love comments. Oh my gosh, how I love comments but please tell me how you found the blog if you're a new reader. I had a lovely lady leave me a comment on a past post and she said she was from abc (random letters inserted here) and I felt horrible because I can't figure out where she found me or what group she's from!

Thanks all!


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Ahh...midweek. Isn't it amazing how fast time seems to fly by these days? Isn't it amazing how cats will find the one thing you want them to stay out of and get into it? Ok, I'm mostly just talking about my cats right now and actually they're not being bad. I have a huge stack of boxes in the kitchen and they keep knocking it over. I can't take it out to the barn until the snow melts because the door slides open and the ground is swollen with the cold and it's nearly impossible to get that door open. So, I stack them, the cats knock them over and I stack them again. It will be an ongoing cycle until the big thaw happens here.

So, did everyone have a good Tuesday? I had a pretty good one after I nearly killed myself with that trash can. It was frozen to the ground! Then, I had to haul it through a foot of snow. No, Jim, I did not shovel it. There was nowhere to shovel it to. Ahh well, it's done now and my trash can is now happily empty waiting for me to refill it.

I also found my Wreck This Journal (warning, the site kinda sucks but the book itself is great!) yesterday and spent some time going through and numbering all the pages. I had started this last Spring with some chipboard numbers. Well, some of them had fallen out so I fixed that problem. Then, I used some buttons to replace some missing 0's and 8's. Then, I dug out all my number stickers and got to work on the remaining pages. Did I mention that you end up numbering something like 185 pages? Do you know how many 1's that is? Well, I ran out. Not a big surprise, huh? So then, I vastly amused Justin by cutting 1's out of the packaging the stickers were in. I discovered that most barcodes have them in them, which was handy. It was fun and mindless...too mindless. Just as I was down to the last 20 or so pages, I discovered I had missed 2 pages back between 92 and 93. Ugh! Those of you who know me know just how much that messes with my ocdness. I ended up going back and numbering them 92b and 92c..lol!

Now, I ought to get on with today, huh? Today's post is a two picture post. The theme over at Sunday Shutterbugs is Earth. That's such a great one for E. Of course, both girls have incredible photos. I'm so envious of their photos every week! I actually took both of these shots today, so here we go:


This is the neighbor's driveway. Instead of shoveling or anything, they just power their way out with their truck and these muddy ruts are the results. Every time I see it, I think about how so many people abuse the Earth instead of nurturing it and the more they abuse it, the more it's going to bite back. For example, the more they abuse this driveway, the harder it's going to be for them to just power their way out of it.

If you turn around, this is the view on the edge of my driveway. We have a big old walnut (I think) tree sitting just at the edge of our driveway. The snow surrounding it is partially what was there and partially what I had to shovel out of my driveway. Our entire street is tree lined with different types of trees and I'm going to make it my goal this spring/summer to take care of this one. I really do believe that if we take care of the Earth, it will take care of us. I'm going to start with my little corner here, even if it's just on loan until I can find the money to buy it.

It's Tuesday but so feels like a Monday. I'm always a little bit thrown off when the boys are here for a four day weekend. Of course, I wouldn't trade those extra days with them for anything. I love having them here with me and I love the boys that they're turning out to be. I've worried sometimes if my absence while I finished my degree didn't harm them, but it seems that they're doing just fine. Granted, it's not as if they never, ever saw or heard from me for those two years.

Anyway, I want to keep this post kinda short because I want to go do my tackle before I "forget" and don't do it. What would be so dasterdly, you ask? Well, I need to haul our outside trash can to the curb. Yes, the snow is melting slowly and yes, I did shovel the driveway, but I didn't shovel up to where the trash can is which means I may have to haul it a few feet through a good foot of snow. Ick! But, it needs to be done. Tomorrow morning is trash pickup and our can is verrrry full. So full, in fact, that I can't put anything more in it. The excitement never ends, eh?

Once I have that done, I need/want/can't wait to work on a scrapbook page. I was selected as one of Crop Chocolate's chocolatiers and once we receive our kit, we have two weeks to create with it. The best part is that you can create anything you want using it. You just have to submit photos of it in progress and completed. I don't know if they're accepting anymore people to the "team" but the really nice part about this company is that it wasn't a competition. If you signed up, you got to be on the team. It's a really great company with really nice service.

As for my page, I'm keeping it really simple for now. I haven't done any serious scrapbooking in about 5 years (long story as to why) so I'm easing my way back into it and testing to see if my creativity is still there. Hopefully they are. I had some fun last night playing with chalks and inks and it felt good to just be creative without any pressures.

So now that I've babbled on and on, I need to post this and go tackle that trashcan..and hope I don't end up with a snowy bum for my efforts!

Wow, I'm not getting to write this until Friday is nearly finished. I had planned on writing it this morning but had to go into Hastings a few hours earlier than I had planned. Thank goodness Peter texted me and told me that the kids didn't end up having school today. I'm glad that he did because the roads between here and there weren't great and if I'd waited until regular time, they would have been absolutely miserable.

Donna was great and had the boys all ready for us to go when I got there. She's actually really good about that. She seems nice. I haven't gotten to know her super well. I sometimes get the feeling that she's not comfortable being friendly with me. I dunno. Maybe someday we'll all be friends. It would be best for the boys plus it never hurts to have friends, right?

So, the boys and I ran out to Walmart and got what we needed there and then tried to hurry through the grocery store. That didn't quite go as quickly as I'd have liked but we got through pretty quick. The drive back was pretty tense because the roads were just getting worse and worse and I think I've become a bit paranoid about driving the van. I was sure glad when we got back into the driveway. I'm also glad that I spent all that time shoveling over the past two days. Even with all the snow coming down, we pulled right back into the driveway and because of the path I'd shoveled out, we pretty easily got all of the groceries inside and put away.

What did I finish? Well, I'm counting that stressful drive. My other goal is to finish having the tension headache that it gave me. I've popped a couple of tylenol and I'm just waiting for them to kick in. Since it's so late in the day, I'm not going to give you guys an organizing mission. Enjoy your snowday!

So, what to do when you're sick and curled up on the couch? Scrapbook, of course! So I sat down today and finished my final layouts for Anita. I have never, ever done anything in a landscape layout so this is new for me. On top of that, I made it a 2 page layout!


I love these snowflakes!


I don't know if you can tell from this pic, but the 'o' in snow is a snowflake!


The completed layout!

Now, I just have to get these all envelope'd up and get them sent off to Corinna!