Day 16 -- Fun, Cheerful Flowers

Here are just some of the items that clutter my home...they are some silly flowers that were won at arcade games at Astro World in Houston and Circus Circus in Las Vegas.

I've actually tried getting rid of them several times, but they never quite make it out of the house because I have so many fun memories of going to those places with my boys and having a blast together! LOL These silly flowers always make me smile when I see them. They don't have a permanent 'home' and they definitely don't go with any of the decor in the house, and I really need to get rid of them because I just can't keep everything ! But just look at them! Look how cheerful they look! LOL

Well, now that I've taken a photo of them I can make a scrapbook page and maybe then I can finally part with them. They'll fnally have a place of their own -- in my scrapbook.

UPDATED: April 21, 2009
Well, I scrapped the pic, so can get rid of the flowers now! Here is the layout:

Day 15 -- Queen For A Month!

I am in a swap hosted in a myspace scrapping group where we each get to be "Queen" for that month. February is my month! Whoo Hoo!

What we do is send $10 of new scrapping goodies to the Queen of the Month. We supply them with a 'wish list' and they do their best to fulfill some of those wishes. There are about 10 women in this swap -- and it is a lot of fun!

It isn't even February yet and already my goodies are starting to arrive! This is a photo of the first of my Queen gifts (from more than one person). Can't wait to play!

Day 14 -- Grocery Game II

Here are the goodies from today's Grocery Game shopping excursion (not including produce, meat, dairy and frozen -- had to get them in the fridge).

Alas, I had too little sleep last night and too much to do today, so I am too pooped to detail the results. I will update this post with all the exciting details tomorrow.

Right now I am heading to dreamland. See ya!

Y'all come back, now! ;)

Day 13 -- Paid in Full

Hooray! We made the final payment on our 2003 Dodge Durango today! YES! One less bill to pay every month! HOORAY! Doin' the happy dance!

Day 12 -- UGH!

This is what I have to look forward to this week -- preparing the W-2's for our employees for 2008. This is a fairly simple task (one that would be even simpler if I could access Quickbooks on my sick computer), but it is one that I dread.

I really resent the IRS and all that it encompasses. The burden the IRS puts on small businesses is ridiculous. One either has to spend their valuable time or their valuable money jumping through the hoops the IRS demands. I don't know, but I truly resent the IRS. I resent how much money they take from us, the collective "us". I resent how poorly the government utilizes that money once the IRS collects it from us. I resent what a bulky, cumbersome and overgrown monster that the entire income tax system has become.

*sigh*

Anyway...I'll be filling out these forms for our employees and grumbling all the while about being forced to do such a mind-numbing task!

Day 11 -- Pokemon

I found this box today -- my son's old Pokemon collector box. He got it for Christmas one year full of cards. That same year he had a Pokemon party for his birthday. With a "Pin Pikachu to the Poster" game and other silly stuff. His birthday is the day after Christmas and because of this he gets a birthday tree (another story for another day LOL). That year Burger King was giving away this little orbs with Pokemon characters in them. I had collected as many as I could for weeks and those were hanging all over his Birthday Tree.

I also remember how terrified our cat was of the Pokemon slippers my son got for his birthday! Poor kitty -- he really thought those were gonna get him!

So many memories attached to this little box and the whole "Pokemon period" of my son's life that I just can't part with it. But it is just clutter right now. My son isn't interested in keeping it, but I can't quite part with it...part of me wants to alter it with pretty scrapbook papers and other goodies and use it for storing some of my scrappy supplies...part of me wants to pack it away somewhere where it will be discovered again a few years down the road and all those memories can be discovered again...maybe, if I could find pictures from that time in my son's life, I could turn it into some kind of mini-album for him...or maybe I should just print this out, put it in the box and pack it away just as it is....then again, it would make a cute altered box for storing journaling cards or some other scrappy goodies....mwahahahaha

So, what would YOU do? :)

Day 10 -- Wallace the Elk

While my hubs would probably love to have a real elk head over the fireplace, I would not be thrilled at the idea. However, about 20 years ago I found this guy in K-Mart or Wal-Mart and just had to buy him. Something about having a fake stuffed elk appealed to my warped sense of humor. LOL

We didn't even have a fireplace back in those days, but he still hung prominently in our living room. Despite his prominent presence in our home all these years, we had never thought to name him until....

...A couple years ago, my son and I went to the Renaissance Fair and bought that tartan scarf. When we got home, it just seemed like the elk was the natural place to hang the scarf. Oh, by the way, that is the Wallace tartan -- and that is how the stuffed elk over the fireplace finally got his name -- Wallace the Elk.

Day 9 -- A Scrapbook Page

This is a scrapbook page I started a few days ago. I incorporated several challenges from myspace groups and scrapbook.com. When I first 'finished' it, it did not feel finished. But I did not know what to add. Then one of the DT members of one of the myspace groups posted a tutorial for dry embossing and issued a challenge to do some dry embossing on a layout. It took me a couple days to snap to it -- but eventually I realized that is what the layout needed -- a dry embossed border! LOL

I did all the dry embossing last night and took this picture this morning.

I used a stencil to make the stars in the corners and free hand doodled the confetti border. Then I sanded the raised areas and colored them with some light orange chalk. I had a blast doing this technique and in spite of all that orange, I am pleased with the way this layout turned out.

TFL

Day -- 8 "Can You Hear Me Now?"

It all started when I read a scrapbook challenge posted over in the Myspace group "Scrapbook Challenges". The challenge is to make a small mini-album -- and the hostess of the challenge posted several examples. One of those examples was a cell phone mini-album! I loved the idea and so today I put my son to work ripping the guts out of his old Razor phone in anticipation of turning it into a mini-album! I just can't decide what theme to use for the album. Once I figure that out, I think it will go together pretty quickly. Suggestions?

Day 7 -- Sad

This is a 'life map' my son was asked to complete for an English class he is taking (prep work for writing a biographical essay). He was to use a few pictures on it...now here is the sad part, you'd never know this was the kid of an avid scrapbooker!

Look at the dearth of childhood pictures! LOL

Well, I might be an avid scrapbooker, but I am not an organized one! That is just sad! I do have pix of his childhood -- somewhere. Some of them are glued to scrapbook pages, but most are still in the packages the developer placed them in for me to bring home.

I am going to do something about it, not today, but soon. Gonna find all those random packets of pix I've been collecting for the past couple of decades and get them organized! Then if my kid wants a baby picture of himself I'll know right were to find it!

My digi pix are better organized, but could use some fine-tuning as well. Many of them have been saved to CD's in years gone by and those are not so organized -- I'llhave to find a way to know what pix are on what CD or burn all of one kid's pix to a CD or series of CDs or something...

Anyway, this was my pic for yesterday, Tuesday, January 20. It was my Grocery Game shopping day and then my lack of sleep over the past week caught up with me, so I did not get it taken or posted yesterday. Will be posting another for today later today.

Thanks for stopping by...

Day 6 -- The Grocery Game

If it's Monday then I'm probably poring over my Grocery Game shopping lists and coupon inserts from the Sunday paper in preparation for my stockpile shopping on Tuesday.

Does it take a lot of time? Not as much as it did in the beginning, now it takes maybe an hour or an hour and half, but considering the tremendous savings it is definitely time well spent. As time goes by it will likely take me even less time to prepare for shopping day. This is because I've adopted a system that works for me and also because the longer I do this the more groceries and non-food products I have stockpiled and the less coupons I need to find and clip and the less actual shopping I have to do AND -- best part -- the LESS MONEY I SPEND and the MORE MONEY I SAVE!

I LOVE the Grocery Game! Maybe tomorrow after I do my shopping I will post pix of my grocery receipts. Typically, right now, I am saving between 40 to 50 % every week! One week of shopping at just one store yields more than enough savings to pay for one cycle of membership to three lists (a cycle is 8 weeks, I think).

Why do the Grocery Game? Well, I can best answer that by asking another question: Why pay full price for something I KNOW I am going to be buying down the road anyway, when I can buy it at a significant savings today? When I need it, I will have it in cupboards. What kind of savings are we talking about here, one may ask...well, for instance, we eat canned soups...this week instead of paying $2.59 for a can of name brand premium soup, I can combine a sale with coupons and get FOUR cans for $3.00!!! So, why pay $2.59 a can when I can get it for 75 cents? Want another example? Name brand shave gel, normally sells for $3.69, but I will buy it tomorrow for 95 cents!!! That is a savings of 74%!!!! I can buy a name brand lip balm for 4 -- that's FOUR -- cents at a 97% savings. There are so many more items on my lists, these are just three random items I wanted to share to give some idea why I go to the 'trouble' -- it isn't trouble at all, it is actually very thrilling and a lot of FUN!

If you are interested, go to the Grocery Game website and check it out for yourself. You can sign up for a four week trial of all the stores that have lists in your area and it will only cost you a buck plus the cost of at least one Sunday paper each week.

If you do sign up, please tell them I recommended you -- send me an email and I'll let you know what email to give them so I can get credit (free weeks! Whoo hoo!)

Seriously though, I am not even posting this in hopes of getting 'recruiting credits' I just think it is the most valuable, and instantly rewarding money-saving tool I've come across in a long, long time and I want to share my excitement and enthusiasm.

In addition, the Grocery Game is such a significant part of my life right now that it seemed like a natural P365 topic to me. :)

Thanks for stopping by.

Day 5 -- Twilight

Soon, I will be joining the throngs of women who have become enamored with this book and its characters. I just have to see for myself what all the fuss is about...

First it was women at church -- these are normally sensible women, they're well educated, talented women not normally prone to gushing. Yet when I'd ask them what was so great about these books, these very smart, talented women would get wide-eyed with excitement and gush, "Oh, you HAVE to read them!"

I tried finding out why I had to read them, but not one of those women could give me a good reason, only more of the same gushing, claiming the writing was compelling, but no real reasons as to WHY it was so compelling. When the movie was coming out there were many, many emails and their excitement over the movie was almost tangible.

I remained puzzled.

Then that same, mysterious phenomenon I call "Twilight Mania" hit the homeschoolers in my social circle -- both in real life and online...again, these very intelligent, capable women could not give me any idea what was so great about these books other than to say, "Well, they're like a romance novel, but without any sex and they're just really, really well-written." Okay, well that was something, but still not enough to make me want to bother reading the books. I'm not a big fan of romance novels in the first place, so it wasn't a compelling argument to me.

THEN, the scrapbookers in the online communities I frequent started buzzing about these books and the movie...and they also seemed unable to give me some REAL reasons why they loved these books so much! FINALLY, one woman was able to give me a great review of the books and her review has convinced me it will be worth my time and money to read the books.

I have the first book -- found it at Target it was the only copy in paperback in the store, and yes, the cover was damaged like that already, but it was 3 dollars cheaper than the trade copies and about 10 bucks cheaper than the hard copy and what do I care if the cover is marred? LOL It's gonna look worse than that by the time I get done with it -- I'm pretty hard on paperbacks.

They didn't have any of the other books in paperback or trade copies, only hard cover and I really don't want to spend $14 bucks per book, so will have to wait until I can find paperback or trade copies.

I've been warned that I'm going to want to have the other books at hand so I can read them one after the other....so I'm waiting until I can find the other three books in paperback before I start. I'm trolling the local Walmarts tomorrow...

I really hope these books live up to all this hype -- all these smart and talented women can't be wrong, right? They gotta be that good, right? Well, time will tell...

Day 4 -- It Sucks!

And that's a good thing! LOL

This is my new vacuum cleaner that I got for Christmas. It was the only thing I really wanted (besides a new freezer, maybe I'll get that for Valentine's Day -- yes, I'm weird like that. Don't give me diamonds -- give me appliances! LOL).

I wanted a vacuum cleaner that would go from carpet to bare floors and back to carpet again without a lot of hassle or having to practically rebuild the machine every time I change rooms. LOL

It also had to have on-board attachments and it had to be powerful.

After much researching online I decided this was 'the one'...and it is! I love it! The only complaint I have so far is that the hose for the attachments is way too short, but it came with a couple extension pipes, so I guess it will do.

Well, without further ado, here it is!

Day 3 -- Sock-It-to-Me Cake

I have a surplus of cake mixes and some of them are nearly out of date. Combine that with the fact that it is cold outside and I wanted an excuse to use the oven and you will find me deciding it is a great time to bake a cake!

I take the yellow cake mix out of the cupboard and as I'm doing so, I am thinking that the reason I don't bake cakes more often is because we rarely will ever eat a whole pan of cake with frosting. I decide to check the box for recipes and see one for Sock-It-to-Me cake.

Now, hubby will buy one of those almost every time he is in a grocery store --so I knew it would get eaten!

Sure enough, it's already half gone! LOL (I should take another picture. LOL)

TFL

EDIT: Okay, I just had to take some pix of the cake once it was cut and half gone in order to tell the whole story...at this rate this cake will be gone by lunch tomorrow. :)

Day 2 -- Wagon Wheel

Today is a two-fer...well two versions of the same pic. One in Color:

And the other in Black and White -- I can't decide which version I like better:

No real story behind this one -- well, yeah, I guess there is... When we sold a house in Wyoming my husband brought these wagon wheels back to our home in Texas. They've been moved around the place in search of a 'home', and at the moment are edging a small patio area behind the house. Despite the weeds, they look pretty nice there. ;p

tfl

Day 1 -- A Favorite Snack

Popcorn has always been one of my favorite snacks. When we were kids we would cook it in a pot on top of the stove. Once in a great while we'd get a thing of Jiffy Pop -- we thought we were livin' high on the hog then! LOL One thing of Jiffy Pop never lasted long with 5 or so kids though...and we usually burned it anyway -- so cooking it in a pot was really better.

In my early 30's I tried to be more health conscious and bought an air popper. Well, I don't care how much butter I'd put on it, it never tasted right, it just got soggy. UGH! So, nowadays, it is microwave popcorn. If I could, I'd eat it every day, but I limit this treat to no more than once a week, and here lately it's more like just once or twice a month.

One of these days I'm going to have to show my boys how we used to pop corn back in the 'olden days'! LOL I'll be sure and take pix! ;p

Project 365

Is a challenge to take a photo everyday for 365 days. I will post them here along with a little explanation as to why I took that photoe. I also hope to scrapbook some of the pix during the year. Some of the pix might even be of stuff I scrapbook! LOL