Another Week

Sitting here watching the snow fall gently outside of my window. Small little flakes falling from the sky like pixie dust. It makes me want to nest, curl on the couch with a hot tea and a book but alas I am writing this blog post during my lunch at work. We are not due for a lot of snow, just a dusting I think.

Soooo, I haven't been great at the healthy eating but I have been better. Score a point for me as I have been bringing my lunch to work every day and it is healthy stuff, salad, Greek yogurt and fruit, drinking water and having a protein shake for breakfast. Doing ok for dinners but the snacking is my weakness *sigh*. Rather than give up I am trying to look at the positive changes and maintain my goal of keeping up and continuing to make more. Workouts have not been consistent at all, once last week and so far once this week, hoping to workout today though.

Completed my crochet 1 class last week and think it went pretty well. I discovered that although I am left handed I am more comfortable crocheting right handed. Go figure!! Never thought I would find a use for that right hand of mine but I did. My finished project from workshop 1. I have crochet 2 this Thursday and will be learning the double and triple crochet to work on a scarf, am looking forward to that class.

Tonight I begin my Digital Camera 1 class at the college. I am looking forward to being able to use my DSLR off the auto mode. I'm not looking to get into business I just want to learn to use my camera and take nice pictures of things that interest me.  Camera bag is packed, battery fully charged and manual ready to go.

I also opened PS for the first time in a month and scrapped a page.  I just don't have the desire or mojo for it right now. Not sure if it will come back or if it's because I am just interested in other things and it's taking a backseat. I am very behind in my 2015 book and need to get caught up so it doesn't look like my 2014 one--you can tell I just slapped it together and wanted to get it done. This page is for me and goes with my 'believe in me' theme for the year.

I used Rachel's (Captivated Visions) latest kit The World is Our Playground and the Artified: 50 cents template for this page. Am quite happy with the outcome, love the bright happy colours and think it is a fun page.

still believing in me :)

New York New York!

Got the boy off Wednesday morning (as in 5:30 am) to the school for their trip to New York.  He was awake at 3:30 am he was so excited.  I am so glad that he got the opportunity to go, it's great to have a high school trip in your memory bank.  I went to Quebec in grade 11 and still remember bits and pieces of it, matter of fact there were a few of us laughing about it tonight on Facebook. Back to the boy, I had one message saying they got there, another one this morning saying he still had money left.......good thing as they don't come home until tomorrow night.  He went shopping at Hollister, 40% off sale (momma has taught him right, only shop sales) and today they were off to the 9/11 Memorial, Art Museum and then a Yankees game.  Wondering if I will get any details of his trip or just the usual few sentences 'had fun', 'did stuff'......my boy of few details *sigh*

I have had a couple nights of dinners with sauteed mushrooms, peppers and onions served over brown rice.  Things the boy will not eat, have been living it up in that sense, lol.  Really not a lot has happened over the last few days, such a nice quiet boring life I lead :)

On the digi front:

Captivated Visions has a couple of new templates out this week.  I love her Artified series of templates, you can make them look so different and all the blending is so much fun to play with.  They are Artified: I See You and Artified: This is It.  Here are a couple of layouts I created with these templates and the one called Pretty Things actually combines Artified: This is It and Artified: My World which is a sample for a tutorial that will be up on Rachel's blog April 28th.

   Pretty Things           My Shining Star        Change Your World

Ahhhhhhh. . . . .In a Good Way

We've had some nice temperatures the last couple of days and boy what a difference it makes to my mood.  I have loved waking up and hearing the birds chirping and anticipating a sunny day.

Officially another hockey season is in the books.  We had the banquet on Tuesday night and as always it's nice to look over and see all the boys sitting together.  Some talking between whipping out their phones, but I will say many times it was three of them around one phone as they shared a funny video or something.  It was a successful year for our hockey association with three teams winning OMHA Championships and the B~man's team making it to the semis, nice to see all acknowledged. Now we wait for baseball.

Recently I have attended a couple of workshops through work that were interesting and intense.  The first was a two day for ASIST, which was about suicide and how to ask the questions we are all scared to ask.  There was a lot of wonderful information and we did some role play that got pretty intense, but so worth it.  I feel better prepared to ask the questions as well as recognizing some clues that I hadn't necessarily thought of.  The other one was about Mental Health and how many of our students are being diagnosed with or experiencing higher incidents of anxiety. Heavy duty topics but very worth my while.

I have another 5K this weekend!  I will be walking it again and no goodies for this one though.  I will be participating in the Run for Rocky on Sunday and it is to benefit GSAs in our local high schools.  A wonderful cause and our school has been the recipient of a Run for Rocky grant for a guest speaker.  Think I will bring my camera and hope to get some pics of the kids in their Bulldog gear.

On the digi front:

Rachel/Captivated Visions has a beautiful new kit in her store over at Scrapbookgraphics I am dying to play with.  It's sitting on my hard drive but have not been in the mood to sit and scrap. Here is a preview of her latest collection, I just love the colours!

Create, Captivate & Inspire: Signature Collection by Captivated Visions

 I think I have only completed one page since my DigiDares entry.  I had some fun with blending and masks and I think I came up with a cool effect.

My credits for this page are; Artful Intentions: Sunshine in my Soul [Value Bundle] | Artified: Cotton Candy [Layered Template]

April is Here!

April is here and hopefully that means winter is over, I like many people are ready for spring.  This winter was one of the worse we've had in 30 years.  While the snow was fun to see I was ready for it to go it away.  I do think if I had a little one it would have been a bit more fun as it would mean building snowmen but 16 year old boys don't want to be outside building snowmen with their moms (at least not mine).  We had a really yucky day yesterday, cold and rainy but today the sun is out and things are slowly starting to green up.  That's what I like to see, when Mother Nature starts to paint the landscape with her pretty colours.  Hopefully in a few weeks I will be able to tend to outside and get my deck in order preparing for the warm weather.

Speaking of outside I will be participating in my very first 5K.  The awesome part would be if I was actually running it, but I will be doing mostly walking with maybe a little bit of jogging.  As per usual I *thought* about training but that is as far as I went, lol.  I am a great thinker but not so great as a *doer* when it comes to some things.  If you want me to plan something give me a call, just get someone else to do it :D.  My reason for doing this?  Well my friend and co-worker Amy does run and said 'hey let's do the Cocoa Classic 5K' and I said 'sure, sounds fun' .....truth is I really wanted the touque, hoody, reusable mug and the idea of a free chocolate fondue at the end of the race really sounded good. It was so not about the actual running. Looking forward to a fun day tomorrow in all seriousness, maybe I will meet a cute medic when I fall down because I am so out of shape.

On the digi front:
I am really exploring using more brushes and blending.  Some days I can just throw it all on a page and be so proud of what I created, other days I struggle.  I am definitely a person who needs to be 'in the mood' to create.  I participated in the DigiDares for the first time in a long time and loved the way my page turned out.  Had a proud moment as my page was selected for the GSO blog AND it was selected as the winning page for that Dare.  A very proud moment for me to have my page selected and recognized.  So while I was excited about that I discovered another page I just posted was also selected for the GSO blog :-O.  These things don't typically happen to me so to say I am shocked, happy and proud are understatements.  While I do this for myself I would be lying if I didn't say I was thrilled to have my pages featured.

Speaking of pages, here are the two;

The one on the left titled 'London's Calling' uses products from Captivated Visions and the one on the right is titled 'Go Ahead Be. . . ' and uses product from ViVa Artistry.

First Post for March. . . .I Suck!

Here I am writing my first post for the month of March.  One would think I have a lot to share, but alas I do not. 

Life has returned to normal since surrendering my little Dash (still sad about that, add guilt too) in that the Meow-monster has returned to normal living on the main floors of the house, sleeping in his spots and eating (has gained back the weight he lost), although the dog was good for him losing some of the extra he was packing. On a good note Dash has found a new forever home and I really hope they are able to give him a wonderful life. . . . still miss the little guy.

Hockey season has wrapped up, another year in the books.  The team did really well making it to the semi-finals for all Ontario--Go Stars!! Equipment will be used one more time then off to be cleaned and stored until fall.  Now we wait and get ready for baseball season.

We just finished our March Break and it was pretty quiet for us.  I wish we could have gone away, especially since we got another flipping snowstorm (I am so over snow now).  We had a nice gorgeous sunny day and then boom! temps dropped and we woke up to a boatload of snow. I promised the B~man we would update his bedroom during break and we did just that.  Fresh coats of paint, lime green and mid grey, new bed frame, comforter and he has a completely new look that is funky and he loves it (mom points). 

On the digi front I love the look of the sketchy/colour painted on pages and really wanted to do one.  Well I followed the tutorial, How to Create an Artistic Sketch that Ona had done over at the Captivated Visions blog and must say I am very proud of my results. So proud in fact that I did another page today.  There are so many layers and lots of brush work but I really love the results and can see me doing more pages like this.  This look works well for me as I don't take a lot of pictures any more (teen boy) so traditional scrapbook pages aren't something I do. I have grown fond of mixed media and art journaling and would love to learn graphic style as well.  I find these mediums so therapeutic and a great way to learn PS, I push myself to learn new things.

Here are my Artistic Sketch pages:

Both of these pages use digital products from Studio Captivated Visions. For complete credits, they are here in my gallery over at SBG.

Let's see if I can manage to write another post before the end of the month. . . . . . .

Awesome Scrappy News--For Me

What an exciting month in terms of scrappy news for me.  I have always been a huge fan of Captivated Visions and was so excited to become a part of her team helping to  do promo and some other tasks.  Needless to say I didn't have to think long to answer 'yes' and am so happy to be working with her again. Then just this past week I was blessed to get back on ViVa Artistry's CT. I was with them a few years ago when they first started and have missed them and their wonderful designs.  I am still with Cheryl of Fiddle Dee Dee Designs and loving her templates. Do I feel lucky?  Incredibly!  My scrappy life is varied again and I love it.  I still have my duties at Scrap Orchard and Scrap Matters and am very content, at least my scrappy life is exciting and full, lol.

Speaking of new ventures I am slowly dabbling in art journaling.  I am trying to get used to the 'no rules' and go with what you feel and feel quite inadequate when I see other pages.  Yes it is a 'me' thing and I am working on it.  So here are my fist pages in this venture, using products from ViVa Artistry and on the laughter page some items from Tangie Baxter.

I haven't quite decided what this blog is going to be...........in other words it will be a mish mash of a bunch of things.  There will be personal stuff, rants, musings, digiscrapping and whatever else my little heart desires.

With that, even though no one reads my blog, I am wishing the one or two people who may accidentally find it a wonderful evening!