A Touch of Scrap

…and I do appreciate everyone’s comments!

The camera - argh! I’m still upset over that one. Scrubby (hey, we all pass the buck, right?) didn’t grab it. (Neither did I, though we won’t go there right now - lol.)

Michelle, I know. I should have had it in my purse. I’m so bad.

BUT! We did get 19 pictures on the “temporary” digital we purchased while there, and 19 more on the throw-away, so I don’t feel too bad. I know I’ve got enough to scrap several pages with.

Darlin’ girl (to our daughter, Melony), I’m here. My site is RIGHT HERE. It’s been HERE for months now. I know you’ve seen it, but since I could only log in to comment on YOUR site under my Google name, you got lost. But I’m still here…I promise.

Martin and, of course, Kamila, the bikes were sooo much fun! The park was loaded with bike paths, and we spent a couple of hours there exploring and enjoying the weather.

The ONLY time we took our car out (once we arrived there) was to buy a camera. After that, it was all walking with a little bit of biking. We truly got the exercise while there.

Key West is unique, and it’s wonderful for the younger crowd. Scrubby and his friends have always had this saying, “We’re only a short drive from Key West!” It was like the answer to everything stressful.

Now it is like the answer to stress itself. Too busy, too noisy, too expensive…too, too, too MUCH!

And we’re tired of it.

We’ve decided if we go to the Keys again, it will be to one of the Keys above Key West. Not Key West. Not Duval Street. Not Mallory Square. Not again.

Did we have a good time? Absolutely wonderful. Was it relaxing? Not really. When you’re in Key West, you’re not there to relax…or so I’ve been told. Are we glad to be home? Oh yeaaaaaah!!!

We have done soooo much walking here! Everywhere we go is on foot - until yesterday, that is.

We finally decided to rent a pair of bikes from the resort and took a ride down to Zachary Taylor State Park, which happens to be where we were married seven years ago.

The weather was beautiful, the ride extremely pleasant (the park is only four or five blocks away), and I have to admit I was somewhat overwhelmed with emotion when we finally located the spot where we exchanged our vows. Only seven years have passed, and we have crammed a lot into those years, yet being there made it seem like only yesterday…

We met two lovely couples from Alabama, my home state, and spent much of the afternoon with them. They were kind enough to steer us towards a grocery store where the locals shop, and we were finally able to buy some decent meat and vegetables. It was nice having the things needed to make a home-cooked meal last night. (Pasta, salad and garlic bread - yum!)

Today is supposed to be another beautiful day, but tomorrow is bringing in a cold front with rain, so we have to get everything in today since we’ll be heading home Saturday morning. I’m burned out on Duval Street and Mallory Square, and I think we’ve explored almost every side street in this town. We have walked the full length of the island from Mallory Square (around the corner from us) to Mile Marker One, which is several blocks away at the other end.

Key West is not what it used to be - laid back, easy going, friendly. People are in a hurry to get…where? We saw two baby chicks get run over because someone was in too big of a hurry to let them cross the street. Too sad.

Anyway, we’re ready to go home. We miss our puppies and our bed and the relative peace and quiet that comes with it. It’s been a lot of fun, but I personally think more than four days in Key West is too much. You’ve seen it all, so there’s really no point in returning anytime soon.

Oh, one other thing…I have seen absolutely nothing scrapbook related in this town. Zilch, nada! I have a collection of brochures and business cards along with some decent pictures (I hope) to scrap with once we get home.

We forgot our camera!!!!

How awful is that?!?

We did, however, pick up a throw-away camera on the way down - once we realized, that is. We also picked up a cheapie (and I do mean CHEAPIE!!) digital camera at the local Family Dollar store. It doesn’t work. I snapped off several pics last night with no luck whatsoever.

Oh well. At least, we’re at the start of our vacation and can make up for it while we’re still here.

Anyway, a great big hand for Key West! We love it here! This is a town that never ever sleeps, and we’re right around the corner from Duval Street. We hit Sloppy Joes last night and watched the sun go down at Mallory Square. Scrubby had a coupon for a free tote bag from Del Sol, so we picked one up at a nearby store. We also spent $10 for a bottle of salsa. Outrageous price, but the salsa is not like any we’ve ever eaten before, and I rather like it. There’s no “bite” to it at all. Instead, there is a slight sweetness to it that is very pleasant.

Our time share is perfect. It is located in the historical part of Key West and is registered with the Historical Society. We have our own private porch and have already spent many hours sitting on it while watching all the pedistrians and the Conch Tour Train go by. Everyone talks to you! This is one of the friendlier places in Florida. (Scrubby says he can only imagine this is the way it is in New Orleans.)

We called MIL as soon as we got here, and she’s getting along fine with our little Terror Pomeranian. She says he constantly wants to sit in her lap. I told her he’ll probably have very little to do with us when we get back with all the attention she’s showing him.

I do have internet service, scant though it is. I have to sit on the porch to get it, and my battery isn’t the greatest.

Hope all are doing well, and I’ll post as often as I can - including PICS once I can get them!

I will be gone until January 30th - maybe.

That doesn’t make sense, I know, but we’re not sure if we’ll have internet when we reach our destination. If so, I’ll be posting while we’re there. If not, I’ll be posting when we get home.

I plan on getting tons of pictures so I can scrap tons of pages. It’ll give me a chance to use all those nifty vacation embellishments, and I am really looking forward to it.

By the way, to all who read my post from before (A Bad Week):

1 - the family is fine and out of the hospital. Apparently they were all suffering from Salmonella poisoning!

2 - MIL is watching the boys dogs while we’re gone (a HUGE thanks to her!)

3 - my 95 year old grandmother, God bless her, is hanging in there. She is one tough lady!

4 - my Wii age zoomed right back up to 49. Go figure…

Anyway, everyone have a very blessed week!

Rose-Anne from Welcome To My World has given me another award! It is the Friends Forever Treasured Award, and I do treasure it - thank you so much, Rose-Anne!

This gives me an opportunity to pass it onto five people I treasure, and they are as follows:

Carol
Melony
Jeremey
Preston
Kamila

There are so many others I would dearly love to pass this award onto, but the few mentioned are the ones that first came to mind.

Enjoy and pass it on as ya’ll see fit!

As far as the Wii goes, I’ve worked out nearly every day on it and was able to take my Wii Fit Age down from 62 to 36 - yea!!!! All of the exercises are getting easier, and I’ve almost mastered the Advanced Aerobics steps, which helps tremendously.

Saturday was spent with my friend, Dorothy, knitting. She worked on finishing a sock she began three years ago. I worked on an afghan while helping her with the sock she began three years ago. By the time she was ready to leave, she’d begun the match to it and has it as a work-in-progress.

Our middle daughter, Melony, took her father-in-law (who lives with them) to the hospital Friday night. They admitted him - AND admitted Jeremey, her husband, the next day. This morning we get word that Melony is now also in the hospital. I think food poisoning, but who knows? (Get well SOON!!!)

We’re supposed to leave Saturday for our much looked forward trip to Key West for a week. I got a call this morning letting me know our dog-sitter will be going to Atlanta and won’t be able to keep our Terror Pomeranian. We’ve got another possible dog-sitter, and if she can’t do it, then I won’t be able to make the trip. How disappointing is that?

Last, but definitely far from least, I talked to my mother last night and found out my only surviving grandparent is not doing well at all. I know I am extremely lucky at my age to have any grandparents left, but finding out my grandmother is doing poorly was pretty tough to take.

I’ve always lived by the motto “everything happens for a reason”. I still stand by it.

Oh, I love it!  I did about forty minutes of aerobics, a few minutes of hula-hooping while catching more hula-hoops (ended up with six total!), and finished off with yoga - a total of 1 hour and 2 minutes worth of workout.

And it WAS a workout, believe me! (I won’t mention that one of the yoga poses wrenched my back just enough to put me out of sync for the rest of the day.)

I’ve got about four months left on my gym membership, then I’m going to go ahead and cancel it. Why go to the gym when I’m getting just as more (and more) of a workout at home?

I’ve been going to the gym since May of last year. I’ve lost a whopping total of 20 lbs.  (Actually, 30 lbs. but the other ten crept back up on me during Christmas break.) That stinks!

Today I had to go through the initial process of setting up my profile on the Wii Fit. After a series of this, that and the other, the Wii announced that my Wii Age is 62.

Hello! Here I thought I was seriously getting into shape. Not so apparently.

Anyway, I wanted to throw a few pictures ya’ll’s way to show you our puppy dogs and Scrubby:

Here’s Scrubby with our two dogs, Buddy (tearing into the blue bag of treats on the right) and Bear in the bottom lefthand corner - taken on Christmas Eve at MIL’s house. You can see her dog, Jack, behind Buddy.

Scrubby is so tolerant while I take a picture of him with Bear, our Terroranian Pomeranian. This was taken on Christmas Day.

I do not have the patience to learn how to take night shots with our camera (in other words, excuse the blurriness please), but this picture is of the house at the end of our pond. I love how the red and white lights reflected so beautifully in the water.

And to all a good night!

I contacted Joann Fabrics a couple of weeks ago to ask them about their Free Shipping Club in 2009. Their reply amounted to a plain and simple “no” with no explanation as to why.

It’s a shame. I thoroughly enjoyed their free shipping, and I really can’t understand why they aren’t offering it now when gas prices are so much lower than they were last year.

Oh well, que sera, sera.

On a lighter note, I moved the furniture around in our living room this morning to accommodate the Nintendo Wii, which is supposed to come in today. Our TV in the family room would be a lot more fun, but it’s so high up I couldn’t imagine trying to play any of the Wii Sports on it.

The living room tv is perfect as far as height, but the couch was in the way, so I scooted the couch over at an angle. I love rearranging furniture! It really gives a room a whole new look.

Robin (from Scrap Out Loud) is planning on using the tutorials to make her MIL one of the stationary boxes from my last post. I’ve made three so far and am on my fourth. They truly are a lot of fun to make! Each one is different and the colors are so vibrant! I am looking forward to seeing your’s when you’re finished, Robin!

Due to the fact that I would have to pack everything away for however many weeks, and I really don’t want to do so, we’ve put on hold re-doing the floors in my craft room. Thank goodness!

Probably because of the “threat” of not being able to scrap, I’ve been scrapping like crazy lately. A friend showed me a gift another scrapper made for her for Christmas. I fell in love with it - and found the tutorial for it on the internet:

Stationary Box

There is also a video tutorial, though I’ve not checked it out:

Stationary Box Video Tutorial

It is an awesome project, and I have thoroughly enjoyed making it - and plan on making several more for gifts.

One that I finished is for my mother (who also never reads my blog - lol), so I don’t mind posting pictures:

It is a bit time-consuming (takes me about a day and a half to put one together with time off for sleeping and eating, of course), but it is such a fun gift to make.

I did take a few liberties while making this. One change I made is where the “gift” cards are supposed to go, I made return address labels instead. On another set I made, I changed the “gift” cards to a To-Do list booklet pocket instead.

(The flowers are my version of the retro flower punch. I designed them on Inkscape and cut them out on Sure Cuts A Lot.)

You can alternate it anyway you want.

Another thing I did was before Christmas, and it’s a Christmas card I made for Scrubby. The pattern came from Fun With Photos Memories & More I mentioned in a previous post. A picture of the front of the card is below:

The hearts open up to reveal the sentiment inside. I used a Fiskars texture plate (snowflakes) for the silver back, and cuttlebugged the hearts themselves.

Holly, my scrapping teacher friend, cleaned out her craft room while incorporating a new filing system. She gave me quite a few goodies, which is where the stickers on the front of the cards for my mother came from. They were perfect, so I need to thank Holly yet again for making my day!

So 2009 is getting off to a good start, and I’m looking forward to doing a lot more!

I’m in the process of organizing everything while packing it away. Since I won’t have any real space for scrapping while the floor is being redone, I’ll probably spend my free time crocheting and knitting, something I’ve not done in ages.

Also, my oldest son has grown tired of his Nintendo Wii and is sending the entire kit and caboodle to us. He’s had it since it first came out over two years ago. I’m looking forward to playing it, especially the bowling. When we spent last Christmas with my son, we had a lot of fun bowling on the Wii.

A little history here…

We bought my son a Nintendo when they first came out in 1987. He was four years old at the time. He and I spent hours upon hours playing it. He’d mostly watch me play, then I’d peek in on him later to find him mastering all of the moves on his own. (When he was a baby, I would hear him talking softly to himself when he’d wake up from his naps - only when he’d perfected saying a word would he finally use it around us.)

I’m in awe of this kid, believe me. Over the last several years, we’ve gone into role-reversal. He is the one mastering moves, and I sit back and watch and learn from him. He knows more about computers and game systems than I care to ever learn at my age. He is a beta-tester for upcoming games - games that are way over my head.

I will still have my laptop at the office, so I will be posting periodically. In the meantime, check out Scrubby’s website - he’s blogging a lot more now and enjoying every moment of it - VTLA Mark.