Blog Entries Come to Life

At my crop last night, I managed to complete two more pages for the VistaScrap book. The minivan and jungle pictures aren't new . . they've already been blogged. But I couldn't rest easy until they'd been properly memorialized.

You ever dance with the devil by the pale moon light?

Sorry . . Batman flashback. I loved that movie!

Anywho, my neighbor and I decided we're gonna be Super Heroes for the Halloween party this year. She's going to be Super Girl. Guess which one I'm gonna be? Tee hee . . I get to wear my new black boots.

Charlie's Angels?

Don't mess with the women of VistaScape!

Not only can we take you down (with our high-powered Nerf guns), but we can also trash talk and spank up on you in the foos room. Ya doubt me? Bring it!

When Kids Dress Themselves . . .

. . .you never quite know what you're going to get. Yesterday's lovely ensemble included a pink terrycloth (beach) coverall, paired with cotton camouflage pants and glittered Dorothy ballet slippers.

As you can see, I've learned to pick my battles.

Nadia is starting to have her little preferences, too, and to be honest, I really don't give a flip if she wears this Dora shirt or that Dora shirt. As long as it's clean, it's not Picture Day and what they choose is season-appropriate, I go with the flow.

Welcome to the Jungle

When I was offered one of the corner window cubes in the office (formerly occupied by Sal, Hans and Tom), I worried that I'd be stuck in No Man's Land and that I'd never have anyone come visit me.

However, I haven't quite found that to be a problem.

Maybe it's the plants . . . of course, it could be the monkey.

Crash!

Yesterday had started out being quite a lovely day. I felt productive at work, had a nice lunch at Chin Chin and was looking forward to going to my exercise class at night.

I left work at the normal time, but unfortunately didn't make it very far. While going through a green light on Hammond Drive (about to cross the bridge for 285), something caught my attention in the rear-view mirror. I diverted my eyes from the road and didn't notice that the cars in front of me had come to a complete stand still. At that point, the crash was inevitable, and four cars in total were involved. Gratefully, no one was hurt. My neck hurts a bit and my headache won't go away, but other than that, no serious harm done. Of course, my car is not so happy. And neither is my husband.

Understandable, I guess. I endured the ride of shame in his car back home, and I'm now going through the annoying process of dealing with insurance adjusters, body shops and car rentals. I'm about ready to pull my hair out. I'm mad that I (of all people) forgot to take more pictures of the crash. Many thanks to Curtis for coming out to the site to check on me, and for using his nifty iPhone to take the picture above.

On the bright side:

• I remembered to take my camera and computer out of the car before they towed it. (I did, however, forget to take my only cell phone charger.)


• I still made my class (although I ended up sitting out most of it). That probably wasn't the smartest move on my part.


• I got to ride in the back of a cop car, which was more comfortable than I would have imagined. (Interestingly enough, I learned that the Sandy Springs cop who brought me back to work not only lives in my neighborhood, but also goes to my church and is close friends with my daughter's teacher.)


• I learned that kids are totally unphased by the so-called "tragedies" that affect their parents. I don't know if Nadia even noticed the not-so-typical silence coming from the front seat, but she, much like my co-workers, found ways to amuse herself on the ride back home. She took off her shoes and socks and made puppets. Oh, to be two years old again!

Sesame Street Live

Last night I took the family to see Sesame Street Live at Phillips Arena, and Nadia got the thrill of her life. It's one thing to see your favorite Sesame Street characters on TV; it's quite another to see them dancing a few hundred feet from you. She LOVED it!!

Of course, I've been down this road with Maya before, and she didn't hesitate to point out that this concert was not her first choice. (Although she'll get her turn in November when we go see Hannah Montana.)

Personally, I had a blast. I grew up with Sesame Street, and it will never get old to me. I found myself singing right along to all the songs, which I didn't realize I still knew. (Don't laugh . . you know you know them all, too.)

In case you're wondering, the letter of the day was J. Guess what the number of the day was.

Many thanks to Barbar and Maribel for the tickets! :)

I Need a New Camera

A few weeks ago, I noticed that a little black spot was appearing on all the pictures I took with my camera. I assumed that I dropped it and cracked something inside the lens, but Jeff seems to think somehow I've managed to get dust on the sensor. I have no idea what's wrong with it . . . all I know is that it's a good thing I know how to use PhotoShop. I can make anything disappear.

But just to put salt on the wound, Hans and Rich used my crappy camera to complete this masterpiece. Hans drew a partial face on the Tiki whiteboard, and Rich finished off the look.

Kids are Weird

A month ago, Nadia had a boo-boo on her arm, which allowed her to sport the ever-cool Dora Band-Aid. Well, the boo-boo healed and the Band-Aid eventually fell off at school, although she'd fought desperately to keep it attached. She walked around for days holding it onto her arm. When it couldn't hang on any more, her teachers did what they thought was best and gave her a new Band-Aid because they'd never seen this normally mild-mannered child lose it the way she did.

She's now worn this thing for over three weeks. And once again, this raggedy Band-Aid is on its last leg. And once again, Nadia is walking around holding her arm.

I've seriously considering ripping it off while she sleeps, but Tony assured me that it's only days away from giving up its fight. Everyone has been warned -- DO NOT replace this. She does not have a boo-boo!!

I just hope it happens while she's at school.

The Things We Do For Our Kids

Some of you may not be able to relate to this. . . but those of you who know who Hannah Montana is probably also know a young girl who's crazy about her! My daughter is one of them.

So when I found out that she was coming to Atlanta in November, I decided to do the cool thing and get Maya and her best friend tickets to the show. (Of course, I'll have to endure it too.)

HOWEVER . . getting the tickets was a total nail-biting experience. I'd heard that tickets for this concert sell out in 30 minutes .. . and they're currently going for $600 online. But for those who are members of the fan club, you can order them four days early (starting at 10:00 AM today). So I joined the fan club a week ago. And at 9:50, I go to log in.

I knew something was up when it took almost two minutes to authenticate. I'd gotten in every other time in the past almost instantaneously. But I finally get in and I tried to purchase tickets early with my "secret" code to use for the presale. But once I navigated to the place where you enter the code, it stalled. The field just said "retrieving code" . . Try back later." It wouldn't let me enter anything!!!! So I'm cursing at the computer and clicking it over and over. . .and meanwhile the clock is ticking down . . . it's now 9:57 and I'm freaking out. This is the only way you can get to the Ticketmaster site for presale. Finally, after the 8th or 9th time of clicking the button, the field populates with my code. I click Buy Now. Success!!!!

Oh. . but not so fast. . . . Now, I'm in Ticketmaster, and it's still showing "tickets are not available for purchase yet." It's 9:58. So I stare at the time on my computer and when it's finally 10:00, I hit refresh, and the screen populates to order tickets. So I choose some seats that I think are good (not the cheapest but not the most expensive) and click "Find Tickets". And it returns "can't find any tickets for that location."

So now I'm pissed. It's 10:01. I go back to the main screen and select "Find any location" . . and FINALLY!!! It gives me 4 tickets on the lower level . . and of course, it takes forever to process and authenticate, and it keeps hanging because I get that popup screen that says "Do you wish to show both secure and unsecure information" about 5 times. I'm scared to click too much for fear that it will screw up and lose my space in line. . but it eventually works, and we are now the proud ticket owners of four seats in the Gwinette Center for November 28th show.

Also, I need to say that Ticketmaster is such a rip. They charged me $10.90 convenience charge (per ticket), a $3.60 processing fee and a $2.50 fee to print it now! But hey -- it's done, and my kid will be thrilled. I'm sure the tickets are completely sold out by now.

* * * * * * * * * *

10/2/07

Ten minutes after I bought these, they sold out! So far, I haven't found anyone else who's bee able to get them. So I totally lucked out.

Another Scrappin' Weekend

Once again, I spent the weekend at my friend, Karen's house (Scrappin' Retreats) and did nothing but eat, sleep, drink and scrap (not necessarily in that order). I did a whole lot more drinking than sleeping -- or scrapping for that matter. And by most croppers' standards, I didn't accomplish a whole heck of a lot -- eight pages. Not that I've ever managed to crank out more than 11 or 12 in a weekend. But this past week just seemed to fly by, and I didn't have time to do the pre-planning and organizing I typically do for weekends like these. I did no computer journaling, had no layouts sketched, and sadly had no brilliant ideas I couldn't wait to put on paper. So I spent the majority of time staring at the pictures and supplies I managed to pack and tried to create something that I wouldn't hate. (I'm notorious for re-doing pages I don't like.)

I did have my first Bloody Mary on Saturday night, and I have to say . . not half bad! After a few of those, it's not surprising that I had difficulty getting my act together. But I had fun, got caught up on some sleep, and added the following pages to my family archive.

• I Remember
• A Mother Understands
• I'm the King of the World
• Mommy's Little Helper
• Maya's Movie Party - pg. 1
• Maya's Movie Party - pg. 2
• Three Musketeers

Water Gun Fight

Rich and Melissa opened up their home for the Labor Day holiday, and a few of us kicked it at their pool and had some awesome water gun fights. We had a few beers, snacked on GrantBob's Texas caviar, and enjoyed the fact that we weren't at work that Monday.

Thanks, Rich. Good times!!

If the Shoe Fits

Buy it and don’t look back! Last night I took the plunge and traded in my high-heeled strappy sandles for what can only be described as “stripper shoes.” After completing my new eight-week workout program at Polelateaz, two of my friends decided that they now want to Find Their Flow, and so I agreed to repeat Level 1 and flow with them. I’m totally ready to take it to the next level and do some sideways moves, but having my friends in the class will make it fun.

It’s actually not required that you wear heels for the program, but it doesn’t hurt, and it definitely helps bring out your inner [fill in the blank with the noun of your choice]. And believe it or not, the ones I picked out were probably the most conservative of the choices. They had black, red, thigh-high strappy patent-leather boots, shoes that light up when you walk . . but I liked the clear rhinestones – they coordinate with anything. Hey – when in Rome . . . :)

I'm a lego. . .we're a lego, wouldn't you like to be a lego too?

http://www.reasonablyclever.com/mm2/index.htm

Other Lego Friends:

• The First Lego
• Squeaky Lego
• Liverpool Lego
• Curt's Lego
• Bear's Lego

Now Everyone on the Road Will Know ...

. . . I'm a Scrapaholic. You no longer need to be closely trailing me to learn that. Of course, if you are, you'll see my customized frame, too -- but with the new tag, you pretty much can't miss it. Of course, it's possible that only scrapbookers will understand what my new tag means, but oh well.

I'm just glad the DMV didn't screw up and include an A where there's currently an O.

Are We There Yet?

I have to say, my co-workers are definitley not dull! They are going to make the most the situation, no matter where they happen to be -- even in the back of the mom-mobile.

While taking a 10 minute trek to Miller's Ale House for lunch (fabulous, by the way), they managed to entertain themselves quite nicely with a small package of Play-Doh and my scrapbooking camera they found in the backseat.