Heck Yes!!!!!

Isn't it beautiful????? Isn't it perfect????? Isn't it???

I haven't been this excited since I got my first boom box in the 7th grade!

I had been planning on getting an ipod for a few months, but I never really considered getting the one that played videos. But since our business is, after all, producing motion photo videos, I figured I could also use it as an advertising thing and get a tax deduction out of it. And it does play our videos...and they look so cute on the little bitty screen!!!!!

I cleaned house this morning, and with my music to keep me company, it didn't even seem like work. I danced, and I sang (badly, to the chorus of, "Gosh, Mom, keep it down!" from Elliot, who is home sick today!).

But the best thing about my new ipod is that I have rediscovered my music, and in a lot of ways, myself, too. I live in a small house, with a big family. The TV is always on, or someone is practicing clarinet or drums, or doing homework, or sleeping. I don't have a lot of opportunity to listen to music, except for those rare occasions when I'm in the car by myself. But a funny thing happened when I was loading my music onto my ipod. I started with this CD...remember this one?

In 1996, I got divorced, went back to school and was embarking on a new life as a single mom. Looking back, I remember this as one of the best times of my life...I was savoring my newfound independence, reveling in my accomplishments and getting my life together. And Alanis provided the soundtrack to it all. I played this cd so many times I wore it out and had to buy a new one. Yet, as I was loading it onto the computer, and as I heard the first strains of "All I really Want," I realized that I hadn't listened to this cd in almost ten years. Why?? Did the music serve its purpose and I no longer needed it? Or is it because life just got in the way of me enjoying a cd where every song had personal meaning for me?

Something to think about.

And here's another one:

If you don't remember this, you're not alone. This is the BEST album Bad Company ever put out, in my humble opinion. It's 15 years old...but you never hear any of the songs from Holy Water on the radio, ever. Classic rock stations will play "Feel like Makin' Love" or "Bad Company" all day long, but you never hear, "Holy Water" or "Walk through Fire." It's like the album that never was...I couldn't fine this album on itunes or at my local music store. Fortunately, I tracked one down on ebay; I have good memories associated with this one too, but mostly it's just pure fun and it ROCKS. If you ever have the opportunity to listen to "Holy Water," and the first few bars of screaming guitar don't make you want to dance, there is something seriously wrong with you!!!!

My new favorite thing!

Heidi Swapp ghost letters rock! OK, I know they've been out for awhile, but I only just recently bought some, and they are worth every penny. They added just the right touch to this layout; I painted the backsides pink to match the KI Memories acrylic flower frame.

This is my new favorite LO; I love these pictures of McKenna!

I'm a cardmaking fool....!

It's amazing...in all the years I've been scrapbooking I've never made a single card. I never really felt the need. After all, in my family we don't normally send each other cards and when we do, we make a contest out of finding the funniest, tackiest, rudest, most disgusting card we can! But this week's assignment for Donna's class was making cards from our scraps, so I set out to make one card, and found I couldn't stop! The next thing I knew, it was 2:30 in the morning and I had seven cards completed. This is going to be addicting, I can already tell. Cards are strangely liberating...they are so much smaller than a scrapbook page, so my design decisions aren't as complicated. Best of all, I can use up my huge stash of scraps! Now if I only had someone to send them to....

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ah, love and romance after 8 years of marriage...it certainly has a different face than in the beginning! I remember our first Valentine's Day...Matt had bought me roses the week before, and on the actual day he took me out to Big Al's Pasta Bar in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Afterward we went to the Comedy Club and finished off the evening at Borrowed Bucks Roadhouse.

This year we are going to get our taxes done! So much for passion and romance!

What it takes to make a teenager smile!

My kids are pretty much used to my various projects. Whenever I show them what I'm working on, they give it a cursory glance and mumble, "yeah, ok, Mom."

Of course that was before I completed my week 5 project for Donna Downey's on line class! Bronwyn came home and saw this sitting on the table, and she actually smiled!!!

This is a 9 x 12 canvas collaged with her actual band music. I wanted to make something special to show her how proud I am of her drive and determination to stick to her goals. She made district honor honorable mention band (the first freshman in 10 years from her school to make it), and her goal next year is to make it to all-state. I know she can do it. She is a pretty amazing kid!

Premonition?

Bronwyn and Elliot had pep band tonight, and when I picked them up, they were fighting over what to listen to on the radio. Elliot put it on the oldies station, which happened to be playing "Happy Together." The three of us simultaneously burst into song...loudy, terribly...along with the music. And then we started to laugh. So there we were, laughing, singing badly, and it occurred to me that when I am 80 years old and they are putting me in "The Home," this is something they will remember. They will say to each other, "Remember when mom picked us up from pep band and we all started singing at the top of our lungs in the car?" And they will relive the memory and hopefully feel bad about locking me away!! Hee hee!

But seriously, don't you sometimes just know when you're making a memory? And isn't it always during some relatively insignificant event?

I burned my tuna melt...

But it was still darn good!!! I make the world's greatest tuna salad...not too often, because it is a little labor intensive, but today I just had to have it. And what did I do? I burned it. I left it on the stove while I was reading blogs...big mistake!

Anyway, there is a reason to all this rambling. See, when I got the cheese out of the refrigerator, I noticed that there was a perfect half-circle bite mark through the plastic. Hmm, wonder who did that? Hee hee! It had to have been McKenna. She loves American cheese.

These are the little bits and pieces of my children's childhood that I want to remember. When I'm 60, will I remember what it's like to go the fridge and pull out a slice of "sampled" cheese? Probably not. This is why I scrapbook. These memories are too precious not to keep!!!