Ms. Maasdam

Yes, we really did go on a wonderful ten day cruise all the way down to Aruba!
On November 29, 2007 we boarded the MS. Maasdam for a vacation that would far exceed our expectations!

Our Ship:




Our Route:



Leaving Port Everglades:



Our Itinerary:

Cruise Itinerary
Day
Port
Arrive
Depart
0
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

5:00 pm
1
Half Moon Cay, Bahamas ^
8:00 am
3:00 pm
2
At Sea


3
St. Thomas, U.S.V.I.
8:00 am
4:00 pm
4
Roseau, Dominica
8:00 am
6:00 pm
5
At Sea


6
Willemstad, Curacao
8:00 am
midnight
7
Oranjestad, Aruba
6:00 am
5:00 pm
8
At Sea


9
At Sea


10
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
7:00 am







I've got oodles to share and can't wait to add a little about our fantastac vacation! It's the first "alone" vacation we have had in at least five years!

Here she is!

Granny got to have Savannah sleep over the night of Thanksgiving as day care was closed and Mommy and Daddy had to work.

I made Savannah a little bed on the chaise lounge in our bedroom and Savannah slept there with her stuffed dog, "he doesn't have a name"!

The next morning Poppy was gone when Granny woke up and Savannah was right in her bed waiting for Granny to open her eyes. Doors were locked to keep the dogs and the pool away from Savannah!

Savannah was a very good girl and didn't pitch a fit until time to go home. She loves her little desk and markers. She'd rather read than watch TV! I think this little girl is on the right track!

I do KNOW one or two things!

So, I keep saying men, I don't understand them. I still stick to that idea but there are things that you can learn about men. Like didn't I tell you he would find those boots? Well, he did.

Right after, I mean hours after he told me to book the cruise we were sitting and talking about how we would need a few new clothes. Happily, I reminded him that I had not used my birthday gift card from my mother and could buy some clothes with that! To which he replied, "You have a pair of new shoes in your trunk of your car." I told him I'd tried to take them back but the company wouldn't take returns.

I'm not sure that he has seen how much I paid for them but I am sure that it doesn't say STUPID on my forehead and I'm not volunteering any information!

Some of you have been asking what about the cruise. Click on cruise in the previous paragraph and you can see where we are scheduled to go. I have lots of work to do to get ready but it's coming right along.

Along with the spirit of Black Friday and the love of good bargains at the cost of facing crowds of people. DH went to JC Penney 8:00 AM yesterday and bought himself new clothes for the cruise. I am so glad as it's one less thing for me to do.

We've turned the living and dining room into a very cozy sitting/Christmas tree area as it is all open. The only reminders of my Scrap Studio are the French bulletin board, which shall be used to hold the Christmas cards and a magnetic strip that I'll use to hang, "whatever"~

Both tables are now in the old family room which is being transformed into a giant dining room for Christmas dinner and the company party!

We are having Todd's coworkers over for a BBQ on Saturday the 15th, so we need to have things ready as much as possible before our trip! It's a great room as both tables are the same height and I put felt from the "by the yard" under lace "by the yard" and make them into a great banquet table. No pictures today!

Now I Am SURE!!!!

Men, I don't think I will ever be able to understand them! These past few days, especially Sunday and Monday have sucked the living life out of me and I never left town! I had to get it out of my system and I wrote a heartfelt letter to DH. He turned off Monday night football, even though the Broncos were playing and sat and talked with me. We addressed my concerns. He voiced his concerns. This morning he reminds me he has one more week of vacation that he has to "use or loose" before the end of the year and tells me to book a cruise!

I searched and he searched. This is what we came up with and we're out of here!

Take it Outside!~

Woman to Woman~How to buy a car! How it all began!

I am an intelligent, resourceful, responsible woman. I may have slip ups from time to time but I certainly think that I can help DD choose a new car.

Thinking back in time I remember that I went out and chose the car she has now. I was sent by DH to do the leg work. He sent me on a mission to buy a car for 5K! This was in 2001. I'm telling you, there's not a car out there that I would have let DD drive that you could buy for 5K.

I chose this little Ford Escort ZX2. I would be happy to drive it myself. It has pep and it's just plain cute. The sticker price on the car was around 10K and we got it for 8K. I paid for it with my paycheck with payroll deduction to the credit union at the hospital I worked at. The car is titled in my name.

Today I was feeling a bit apprehensive about Saturday's trip to the city to help DD choose a much needed new car. DD got a little carried away with new car fever and believe me those car sales people can work a deal anyway you want! So, I asked DH if he would go with me on said adventure and he told me, "only if I have to!" Now, he has been calling with words of advice and wisdom all day long. Telling me if the car is in such bad shape that she should have it fixed. Asking me if I know what's wrong with it.

Come to think of it, I've been the one to see about this car and DD's safety. I'm the one who decided to send my car back to college with her and keep the little car until we could get the rear lights fixed! For pity sakes, you can't send a kid 100 miles down the road with no tail lights after dark! This is not a decision that requires a lot of thought, to me it's a no brainer!

Come to think of it my car's back up lights are out! There's a couple of cosmetic things that need to be done and still need to be done!~ I suppose that will be the next issue I step up and address!

Alrighty then, I think I'll be better off doing this myself!

I don't understand men. I think I know more about cars than men......

Bev! This one's for you!

I can't even begin to tell you how tired I am of making these boxes! It's tough to get the lid just big enough to fit over the bottom. Inside are candies with custom labels, hand stamped. The learning curve is a slow one. I have all the embossed embellishments made, so now it's basically assembly line work!

Here they are!

Such a stir over such a pair of boots! I know many of you are going to be thinking that I am out of my mind but of course I already know THAT!~

I called the company requesting to return the unworn boots. So hidden away were the boots that I hadn't even dared sneak them out of hiding to see what else was in the bag. Of course, a paper saying all sales were final, right there in the clear plastic shopping bag with the colorful boots screaming "look what she bought"!

Actually I do really like the boots and plan to wear them with jeans and cotton sweats and t-shirts. Plain ones. It has to be a flash back to my "wanna be" hippy days. I was too young to be a hippy but that didn't mean that I wasn't watching those nutty folks!

My biggest regret is making such a purchase without consulting DH! Guess he will be going with me to future art shows! I just know he will never see the joy that the non-practical boots could bring me. Then again, maybe he will. He has two pair of cowboy boots and I have one pair!

Actually my intention is that he not EVER see these boots but he is famous for checking CC charges and I just know from experience that he will find them!

I'm kicking myself as much as I like the boots! It was a foolish purchase, I could have bought half of my much needed camera with that money.

For now I'll go back to making cards and gifts with my Stampin' Up business and who knows, maybe I can make a couple of bucks to ease my conscience!

Buyers Remorse!

Those Shoes Yesterday I went to The Circle with my friend Sharon to enjoy the wonderful sunshine, cool temperatures, and see what there was to see! With upcoming trips planned to places that require more than crocs or flip flops I've been keeping my eyes open for some boots that I could wear in cold weather and snow.

Boy did I hit on the perfect pair of snow boots, right here in Sunny Florida. They're awsomly ecclectic and oh so me! I was fearful that if I didn't snatch them up I would be soooooo sorry! I can't believe how much I paid for those shoes and it has been giving me a grabber every time I think of them hidden in the trunk of my car and the receipt hidden in the refills for my ATG gun!

I want to keep them so badly but fear that I shall be taken out and shot should DH find out how much I spent on those boots! Perhaps I should be! I rationalized that a tank of gas to go to Orlando and spend an entire day shopping for snow boots would be about $50.00 and I would end up spending at least $100.00 bucks for the boots.

I've been watching The View from time to time and Whoopi Goldberg is always showing the coolest shoes that she buys. I told the shoemaker that he should send Whoopi a pair so that she would promote his business on The View to which he replied, "Whoopi has three pair and Jack Nicholson has seven pair!" Woah, now I am really sweating it as I am no where near them in income and what the heck am I doing with this pricey pair of shoes!

Today is Sunday and Tomorrow is Vetern's Day. This will give me a little more time to digest my dilema. I know exactly what certain friends would tell me to do, each would be different so I could just pick the person to ask for advice who would tell me to keep the shoes.

Maybe tomorrow when it is safe to pull them from the darkness of my trunk and photograph them I will post a picture, but then again, maybe not!

For now I shall sneak out to the car and hide them somewhere else while DH is mowing the lawn because I know he's gonna look in the trunk today, no doubt. I'll hide them in my scrap tote! He never looks in there!

What would you do?

Transition

Most women like to move their furniture around. I especially have to be Ms. Goldilocks and try out every possible scenerio before I find the best fit for me! As soon as DD went of to college I snapped up her bedroom for my Scrap Studio.




But, no, it's too dark in there. I feel isolated from the rest of the family. My dining room has beautiful lighting. So into the dining room I moved.




One day the big bad wolf came and blew the whole pine cabinet down, crash to the floor it went never to be used again.



Time marched on and the family began to grow, holiday meals were to be planned, company was coming!



Off I went to the now junk room of a third bedroom to restore it to a magical third bedroom for my guests. One with pink walls and a funky green painted floor, down pillows, soft bed linens, you get the idea!

The room was gutted and fresh paint applied to the concrete floor after the stinky old carpet was removed. The closet was emptied of all of DD's personal items and painted with fresh paint. The shelves were repositioned to suit my organizational needs.



OH NO, I thought! This is a perfect scrap studio! It's just too great to go to waste as a bedroom used only twice or three times a year. It must become my DREAM SCRAP STUDIO! Time is passing and things are evolving, soon, very soon my room will be complete, the Christmas tree will go up and I will have my room to enjoy! Here's how it looks so far:

Indian Summer

Less than two months ago a new LSS opened in a little town south of me named Lake Placid. It's a wonderful little town with murals painted on the sides of the buildings and really that small town, delightful feeling. The store is named Scrap, Paper, Scissors, isn't that cute!

Tuesday October 2, 2007 at 6:00 PM I'll teach my original design. The title can be changed to suit your needs should you want to scraplift this for yourself. Leave questions in my comments and I'll try to answer them ASAP!

Thanks so much for your encouragement and for taking a look at my Cracker Scraps!

Sesame Street

For Scrap Jammies publication

Specialty Pages for Pets!

Wag Sold Out!

Purr

Ratine'

Part of the May Class in a Box, IMHO my greatest accomplishment!

SWEET AS CANDY

Specialty Page

The Big Atta Girl!

In October of 2006 I was contacted by one of the Scrap Jammie Girls asking if I would like to do some work for them. Well of course I would! Laurie packed up five sets of supplies for me to create with. I thought it loads of fun and the reward this time came in the form of American dollars! Woo Hoo! Boy did I like that!

Treasure Sold out!

Grandpa Sold out!

Grandma Sold out!

Retirement

Diner

My Home Base has a DT Call! Spring 2006

Now this is exciting! This company makes kits. They're quick and easy to put together. Your basic no brainer, gotta get it done quickly! They're having a Design Team Call!

Pure Joy

Cousins

The Piano Lesson

Flower Power

This was an exciting time for me. These kits are my own design and they were all sold by Scrap Jammies. I was rewarded with a lovely prize an a huge amount of satisfaction!

What is a Design Team?

Coming home from Chicago had me all reved up! I even spent half the way home deciding how I would sign my work. Famous or not I was going to have a signature. I mean, you wouldn't send a postcard without signing the thing so why would you create a layout and not sign it? Go figure! My signature became janTgrits circled around a stamped "B" for my last name and the month and year I produced the layout.



What is janTgrits? Jan is my nickname, T stands for Todd my husband's name and GRITS is an acronym for girl raised in the south!



Total Florida girl sometimes I still get Sandspurs In My Feet!



Bound and determined I planned to go to CKU Houston, not realizing it was in Orlando that same summer, ok we all get the "duh" award from time to time.



From the CKU Houston Yahoo group I got a notice about a design team call. The company is no longer in business but the spin off of this company is Scrappy Arts. 


Here is my submission for this DT as of February 2006. The little file folder has school pictures and baby pictures of my daughter. Of course the formal picture is her Senior picture from high school.

This layout was following my friend Alicias sketch TxScrapper!

So, here you have it! My first attempt at a Design Team!

There Is More To This Story!

Thinking backward to earlier days and progressing to current I'll have to say that discovering the online community of scrap booking was awesome. I needed new friends and boy did I meet some! We will be life long friends, I just know it. Our first trip to Chicago we had three gals from Houston, one from Denver and myself. While I live 100 miles away now I still call Orlando my home. We met, five crazy women and shared a room and saw thes sites before heading to what was my very first crop. We even made it into many magazines with the Scrap Jammie's advertisements and the back cover of the March 2006 Issue of Scrapbook Trends Magazine.

So What Was So Great About Your Improvement?

This layout was designed by me and created in the late Summer of 2004. My sister in law, niece, and mother in law had just been to visit us and I was recording the event.

The thing that made this so much different was the fact that I not only made my own layout (no sketch) but I chose papers from different manufacturers. I used a Sizzlet font and some brads! All of these were new concepts but I was off of my intoductory to scrapbooking and onto new ideas! I liked the way I combined the patterns and the colors. Kris and I won, it wasn't a lot of money or a big prize, just a bag of goodies like brads and clips, ribbons and flowers. It was the recognition that was most meaningful to me!

My First Layout Ever

This is the first layout that I ever made. I bought a Susan Branch Photo album kit at Mikes with a 40% off coupon. My husband and I were coming up on our fifth wedding anniversary and I wanted to make a book for him remembering the years of our courtship and marriage.

I can't believe how totally plain and strange it is to me now! The sentiment is there and even though the journal entry is brief it's to the point.

The first contest that I entered I won along with a good friend of mine, Kris. The contest was to show how your work has improved since you first began scrapping. For me, the only way to go was up!

You're Still You

Click on the third from the left picture of Josh and hear my favorite song. A bitter/sweet song that reminds me in a peaceful finished until the second coming of my relationship with my hero, my father. My scrapping started in 1996 as I dabbled with various, kits bought with 40% off coupons from Mike's and continued along the hobby store vein until my father died December 8, 2004. This sent me on a reel of emotions, I quit my job and with the exception of a three month stent as a secretary for my husband, I have become a SAHW.

This allowed me to not only seek out new friendships in our small town but to take classes and see the pretty paper, the hot stuff available and I was hooked.

Not hooked because of the desire to buy more and more but rather because I had found a way to express myself through writing, lyrics, pictures, and patterns.

I'd grown up sewing dresses and anything else I could try but when I became an adult it just wasn't as fun to try to make a dress in size 16 as in size 6!

The patterned papers reminded me of fabrics. I love to put different patterns together, we weren't allowed to do that in the 60's, according to Mom!

My under the bed storage box for my scrapbook materials has grown into a room that I call my studio. I feel connected in so many ways when I am in my studio and with my pictures, computer, supplies and printer.

I'm not really here to debate home printed pictures vs. photoshop prints or totally AC/LF books. I do try to keep the known offenders away from the pictures but this is my craft, my way of expressing myself, it helps me and if that's all it does, it's worth it!

Time For a Cool Change!

Welcome to Cracker Scraps. The home of creativity and fun. Here you will find my completely new BLOG just for we scrapper's! ENJOY and return often as I progress along this journey!