just showing this wacky weather in Maryland..one week warm, one week snoe & ice...this was last week-temps were like 55 degrees; light jacket weather despite his boots..he's on a kick where he thinks he has to wear them all the time; tradeoff from those damn Crocs...anyway after being afraid of that Big Bird for a year, he's decided that they can now be good friends and so we took Big Bird and Pepper to the playground.

I wish I could sew, then it would be esy to add more stuff to the growing amount of "stuff" down here...but she is so cute and I hope it was ok to post the picture since it belongs to the talented De here at http://itsaboutannie.blogspot.com/

She's having an Annie giveaway and will draw the winner on 2/1/2009-be sure to check out her website too.

I LOVE THIS MAN- Haters, be gone!





Prince: Good luck avoiding Prince in 2009.
The Purple One has been giving copious interviews lately in anticipation of three self-released records coming this year: "MPLSound" is vintage Prince electro-pop, featuring a track with rapper Q-Tip; "Lotus Flower" is guitar driven and eclectic; and "Elixir" is a sultry R&B collaboration between Prince and his newest femme-protégé, Bria Valente. A quick taste of three new songs are available at www.lotusflow3r.com. Word is a tour's in the works, too. (Image below: David Atlas/Retna)



ONE WORD: DIVINE******** AND IF A TOUR ROLLS THIS WAY, I WILL BEG AND BORROW TO BE THERE*******

here at JYAS, translation: Just Your Average Scrapbook http://youraveragescrapbook.blogspot.com

My SNOW layout is one of this week's featured layouts along with the super talented layouts done by Melissa Bove...if you have a minute, come join us and leave some love too while you're at it...Upload some layouts too and YOU could be next!

***added note*** Melissa's blog will inspire you; she is one creating GODDESS!! http://keepsakesbymelissa.blogspot.com/ and no, no one's told me how to create links in here YET.

my beautiful beautiful child- we were doing a photo shoot to try and win a Gap modeling thing but didn't win it....she's gorgeous though-her eyes....

well. let's see...boring week....finally got my behind outta the sick bed for Inauguration...did I mention that I passed the sickness on to hubby???

* got to see my friend Mandy who I hadn't seen in like forever; had a great time and got home entirely too late.
* Scrapped about 6 cute layouts but haven't photographed them cause they are out in the car-too lazy to lug the big tote inside till tomorrow.
* May start early and start doing the CLEAN thing since Kim's coming on Saturday and there's no football on tomorrow. I love the Ravens anyway!
*Had a yummy Greek burger (not gyro) with lots of cucumber and tzatziki sauce-I'll probably dream about it tonight :)
Saying prayers for my scrapbooking friend Kimberly Madrid and her little man Ryan who has had leukemia since 2006..was in remission and it has returned and despite a stem cell transplant and other medical procedures, the treatment he is undergoing now may not work. Kim's words are here and it hurts me to post them for I know how her heart is heavy right now:

"Ryan will be getting 5 days of a combination of ARA-C and clofarabine. These are both ''big gun'' drugs. The doc was very clear that they did not know if this would work or not. She was also very careful to state (and re-state) the possible side effects of this chemo: immuno-suppression, possibly for a very long time, nausea, fever, vomiting, severe organ damage (to the point that he could die from this).

Well. If we don't go forward we *know* for certain (barring Godly intervention) that the cancer will kill him. We won't know if this chemo can help him unless we try"

She asks for nothing but prayers right now. If you have a minute, pleae visit their www.Caringbridge.org page (key word is MADRID) and leave some words of encouragement... thank you {heart & hug inserted}

Since I've been sick and haven't been on my regular boards, I just found out that one of my favorite online buddies Janice Nielson, had an accident where she fell and for some reason, passed away (details not known.) Janice was such a sweetheart and I am so saddened by this news. For one year exactly, Janice sent me private messages of encouragement and kindness during times of stress and she had such a quirky sense of humor. And boy could she beat the pants off of us in word games! I will miss her and will keep her family in my prayers.

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

***This is my playlist from my blog so it's old & new

done @ 11:30 pm It's pretty GOOD!!!

So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...


Opening Credits:
Mac Arthur Park-Donna Summer

Waking Up:
Some Kinda WOnderful-ALgebra

First Day of School:
Last Name-Carrie Underwood

Falling in Love:
Pretty Brown Eyes-Mint Condition

Fight Song:
Tears Dry on Their Own-Amy Winehouse

Breaking Up:
Hold On-Dwele

Prom:
Poison-New Edition

Life:
Mr. Blue-Catherine Feeny

Mental Breakdown:
My Love Remix-Justin Timberlake

Driving:
Numbers-Kraftwerk

Flashback:
Computer Love-Zapp & Roger

Getting Back Together:
Hello-Schuyer Fisk

Wedding:
Signal Fire-Snow Patrol

Birth of Child:
Feelin It-Jay Z

Final Battle:
Reflex- Duran Duran

Death Scene:
Viva La Vida-Coldplay

Funeral Song:
Adore -Prince

as per my email....

We decided not to make the trek into DC (and for good reasons)..but still watched and cried and clapped and reflected ALL morning and ALL day long until about 7 pm...took a break and then watched the Neighborhood Ball...as a scrapbooker, I know that I have to work 1000% on my journaling; the words are far more important than the photos, so E, Bri and I all got our favorite journals out and wrote thoughts that we felt as we watched "HIS"tory" unfold. Lisa S, eat your heart out-we are finally getting the message!

I'll take a picture of my journaling pages and scrap them for Brandon to read later when he grows up since he was not part of this day-I even got some cool presidential paper with Mr. Obama's pic on it -E gifted me it from scrapyourtrip.com....can't wait to do a layout this weekend with it....we sent Brandon to school since he needs his therapy!

And no, Brianna was not drinking champagne with us-her drink of choice was water!

If anybody wants to send me some pictures they took just for my personal use, send me a PM.

peeks...everybody is there having a good time without me {sigh} ...I can't pickup the pen or the t-shirt but...I do love Creative Cafe stuff; am gonna be using their cute buttons tomorrow. They are showing the felt butterflies to see if we are interested, accu-dies..check them out here! http://mycreative-cafe.com/blog/

there are so many new products coming with CHA goin on right now and Tracy will probably get sick of me emailing her requests/inquiries for her store but anyhoo...I do think this cute cupcake paper is ADORABLE...




you can see the rest of the line her at http://bellablvd.typepad.com/bella_blvd/

the Inauguration totally rocked and then Beyonce just made me lose it all over again; her singing of Etta James' "At Last" was simply beautiful....Mrs. Obama looked stunning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

***WE HAVE SPOKEN***LET'S HOPE WE CAN ALL WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE THIS COUNTRY RESPECTED AND PROSPEROUS AGAIN !

http://www.jessicaacs.com/index.php/2009/01/18/getting-ready-for-cha/# (Yeah, gain, I know about the link issue-cut n paste people) is the blog and she's doing a Pre-V-day giveaway after she gets back from CHA. I looked that the preview on amazon.com and it rocks baby!! The cute BUG book hooked me right away! If I don't win it, I'm surely gonna buy it anyway!

Hmm, let's see... JYAS *****I will be one of the next featured "artists" (if you can call me that) {hehehehe} at http://youraveragescrapbook.blogspot.com/ sometime around January 25th or 26th...but for now, go check out their site and check out this weeks's featured scrapper MEG. She has some very, very nice projects and layouts. I'll be lurking around her blog the rest of the evening until my cold medicine kicks in :) Maybe you will be inspired to post some of your layouts for others to be inspired. Again, sorry about the link thingees on my blog; I'm not that good at blogging and don't know how to do it correctly-somebody's gotta teach me! Volunteers????

Then, in February, I will be one of the featured artists @ Scrapbooking.com newsletter/online site!! They actually liked 2 canvases I did of Thing 1 and Thing 2 so hopefully you'll see those soon.

YES WE CAN AND YES WE WILL IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS.....I FEEL LIKE JACK BAUER.....HOPE I'LL BE ABLE TO SLEEP TONIGHT....

I just know "I'll" be wearing my Ravens gear and "He'll" be wearing his Steelers gear. We'll see who the kids side with.....I smell a layout coming up!

challenge...I could not really find hazel...is it brown, brownish-yellow?,
brown-green?? I just stuck with the browns.



http://letterstoscrapby.blogspot.com/ Great challenge!

I think I found this yesterday on Tanisha's blog and thought it would help me find my lost "mojo"...get me to scrappin' some pages! The Design X Experiment's challenge was to ask yourself, "what if you had one more HOUR in our day?" Do you think you could accomplish more? Do that one little thing that you just didn't have enough time for? If you had an additional hour every day, how would you spend it?

HMMMMM......I don't allow myself to get stretched too thin so although the answer wasn't hard, putting a page together was. That's been the problem...anyhoo, here's the LO....not a great layout; scale and embellishments are is off but I will continue to trudge along.

Done for Debby's Week 1 Challenge-Who has Influenced your Life the Most? Hands down, my sisters....

Helmar Australia is coming to America! In celebration of their new expansion into the United States, CHA Winter in Anaheim, their new USA Design Team and their new BLOG, they want to get their adhesives in your hot little hands. So spread the news and let them know how excited you are. And in turn look what will land on your doorstep!! Drawing is Jan 31st! Adhesives aren't just limited to scrapbookers; they can be used by all crafters so......just tell them KateB sent ya!!

http://helmarusa.typepad.com/blog/

that I do not mind people having an opinion about me sticking up for Sasha BUT I do mind you being abusive in your comments to me. This is a democracy and everyone has their opinion to situations {including me} and I chose to NOT post it anonymously like some of you and I will respectfully leave it at that. I didn't agree with the postings that Sasha placed on her blog after the postings at CMK, but like she said it is HER blog and HER words and I respect that aspect of it. I merely stated my opinion that included other conversations that bloggers were not aware of. Let's just let sleeping dogs lie and go forward. If you got upset by MY post(s), use that energy in a more creative outlet rather than sending me anonymous and other nastygrams; there's more important things like the war in Iraq and hungry kids in our community than to worry about scrapbook DTs and published pages-it's all good in the neighborhood ya know?????

Just by the hairs on our chinny chin chins...........thank you, Matt Stover! Now if Pittsburg wins tomorrow, we will have a great playoff situation!

about these guys...am not sure if they really came to win today {sigh}..score is tied but they are playing like SH*T.

http://papercraftsbyrach.blogspot.com/ has a fantastic picture of a great giveaway on her blog-let's me know I shoulda posted some pictures of my stash!

Bev has some stuff that I would sOOOOOOO LOVE to have-but als, I must share the link so ya'll get a chance too :) http://bevscrafts.blogspot.com/ and yeah, one day, I shall learn how to add a link in here correctly!

to Chela Bella for kindly bringing her Slice to the crop and for allowing us to learn how ot use it! Unfortunately, I still need practice since I was the only one who was tearing the poor paper!

had fun this weekend seeing some scrappy friends and despite the lack of heat in the building, I managed to get some layouts done..here's some pics and hope to see everybody in February!

The 4 winners of goodies from the goody box from the "Clean Your Scrapbook Area" are:

Jenny B in Indy, Debbie F #4668, Brianna F#5378 and Elizabeth. Congrats! I will be contacting you for mailing info today.

I started off on the right note with a picture of my messy scrap desk..this is how it looked after I worked on a few layouts...submitted to a few of the mags for the first time so hopefully the mess will be my good luck!

no, not wardrobe....have gotten some emails that the "Comment" thing is inop and people can't leave comments for the RAK...am off to check it out and will return shortly!

**RAK GIVEAWAY CLOSED*****


{the band}*** did I say they were playing Kidz Bop all night long??



MY VIP !!! See any celebs you know ????? :)






HAPPY 2009!! I know I'm here late; I was partying all night with all my friends and the band last night! For all of you who stayed home, you missed a good time with all my VIP! hehehehheeee

but on to my RAK's...all you gotta do is spread the word, leave your name and link to where you posted word of my blog AND your 2 favorite scrapbook supplies. That's it. On January 4th, 2009, I'll draw 4 names to win 4 prizes out of my "clean your scrap area" stash. Easy peasy.