Candle Power

I'm not a huge fan of the dark, so when weather is approaching, like it is tonight, I always go around the house and light candles. This is in my bathroom and the bottom picture is on top of the TV in the living room. I'd rather enjoy candles for the night than have the power go out and be stuck in the dark trying to find matches to light one. I'm hoping we get rain, but not hail. We've already dealt with that 2 years ago. Have a good night and enjoy your candles!

Fingers Crossed

Good luck tomorrow, LG. I know you'll get it!

Father's Day Weekend

This weekend has been another good one. Saturday, dh and I went to my brother's house to see their new puppy. She's a Springer Spaniel and her name is Pearl. She wouldn't stay still very long, so I didn't get a great picture of her. She's really cute though!

My nephew was playing with the hose with their other dog, Rusty. She would try and eat the water - it was pretty funny. He was having such a good time squirting the dog!

My niece was adorable as usual. I love her hair like this! She then tried to climb into the pool, shoes and all. They finally had to strip her down and just put her in!
Saturday night, dh and I went to my cousin's 40th birthday party. It was a surprise - and she definitely didn't know anything about it! My other cousin had made t-shirts with terrible pictures of the birthday girl on them. This is everyone in thier t-shirts.
My other cousin's daughter was trying to play pool. It was so cute - she's only 5 1/2. She almost ripped the felt a couple times, but she did hit the cue ball into a pocket eventually!
Today we spent at the inlaws. We had a good time grilling a bunch of veggies and chicken. Another good weekend in the bag - now back to work!

Cool Things from Today

I was bored at work today, so I surfed the Internet and found some cool stuff while at 2peas.

First was this:

Trash This Dress - This is where Brides wear their wedding dresses in cool pictures (of course after they're married in them) like in water, or stuff like that. This was probably my favorite picture. It's just cool to do something artistic with your dress after your done with it. I can't fit into mine any more, otherwise it would be something I'd consider.

Next was this - Thong Cookies - Someone wanted a dessert for a lingerie party. I thought these were damn cute and funny!

And finally - the new Basic Grey that is coming out soon! I so love Basic Grey, and it's coming out with a winner again! I can't wait for this!

And, of course, the stuff that comes with it! Love the new font for the mini alphabet - love the diecut shapes! CAN'T WAIT, CAN'T WAIT, CAN'T WAIT! If anyone knows where you can pre-order this, I'd appreciate you telling me!

Then, after all that, I did some work. :) Hehehe!

Mr. Wizard Died!

I loved this show as a kid! I can't believe he died! And I can't believe he's from MN.

LOS ANGELES - Don Herbert, who as television's "Mr. Wizard" introduced generations of young viewers to the joys of science, died Tuesday. He was 89. Herbert, who had bone cancer, died at his suburban Bell Canyon home, said his son-in-law, Tom Nikosey.

"He really taught kids how to use the thinking skills of a scientist," said former colleague Steve Jacobs. He worked with Herbert on a 1980s show that echoed the original 1950s "Watch Mr. Wizard" series, which became a fond baby boomer memory.

In "Watch Mr. Wizard," which was produced from 1951 to 1964 and received a Peabody Award in 1954, Herbert turned TV into an entertaining classroom. On a simple, workshop-like set, he demonstrated experiments using household items.

"He modeled how to predict and measure and analyze. ... The show today might seem slow but it was in-depth and forced you to think along," Jacobs said. "You were learning about the forces of nature."

Herbert encouraged children to duplicate experiments at home, said Jacobs, who recounted serving as a behind-the-scenes "science sidekick" to Herbert on the '80s "Mr. Wizard's World" that aired on the Nickelodeon channel.

When Jacobs would reach for beakers and flasks, Herbert would remind him that science didn't require special tools.

"'You could use a mayonnaise jar for that,'" Jacobs recalled being chided by Herbert. "He tried to bust the image of scientists and that science wasn't just for special people and places."

Herbert's place in TV history was acknowledged by later stars. When "Late Night with David Letterman" debuted in 1982, Herbert was among the first-night guests.

Born in Waconia, Minn., Herbert was a 1940 graduate of LaCrosse State Teachers College and served as a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot during World War II. He worked as an actor, model and radio writer before starting "Watch Mr. Wizard" in Chicago on NBC.

The show moved to New York after several years.

He is survived by six children and stepchildren and by his second wife, Norma, his son-in-law said. A private funeral service was planned.

My Weekend was All Wet

This weekend started off good. Friday night, I went and got my flowers for the outside of the house. I also went to the grocery store and got a bunch of goodies. I made a dessert (Jello Oreo Pudding Pie) which dh liked so much he said I should make it my signature dessert. I also watched The Holiday. So good so far.

Saturday I got up and did some weeding around the house. Dh's sister and bf came over - the guys went fishing and SIL and I weeded my perennial garden. It started to rain, so we went shopping. :) Hehehe! Dh was coming home when we were leaving. SIL, MIL and I went shopping and were back about an hour later.

During this time, someone had used the bathroom and the toilet ending up running. Not with poo and all that in it, clean water. It ran until it over flowed and no one checked on it for the hour we were gone. My FIL came outside when we got home and said that the bathroom had flooded and that the rugs are wet. I have two rugs in the bathroom, one is a couple feet from the toilet. I went in and checked it out. EVERYTHING was soaked! As I went outside to tell everyone, I noticed that the level below the bathroom was flooded too - the area with my scrapbooking stuff! It got so full that the water went down the air vent, the walls below the bathroom, and everywhere else it could go! We had water in 3 of the 4 levels of my house! I ran out and got everyone - we started pulling all of my scrapbooking stuff out into the yard, hoping it would dry off. Luckily, I do store most of my stuff in plastic. The only thing I can see that were ruined was an album I just got last weekend and some cards. It took us most of the evening to clean up. I started drinking. :) Not too much, but I needed some to take the edge off. After all that, we had dinner and played cards. Sunday, SIL and I planted my flowers and then I did nothing. Too much stress from the weekend. Everything is still in shambles in the basement, but at least we didn't loose too much. The toilet is on borrowed time - it's been a piece of crap (pun intended) since we moved in 7 1/2 years ago. We started looking for a new one and are planning how we will distroy it - I voted that we blow it up and dh wants to shoot it. I'll take pictures if we do either.

I hope everyone else had a better weekend!

Featured Employee

I was the featured employee in our newsletter this month. I hate my picture, but that's okay. I guess it could have been worse. I also hate that our receptionist, who typed this up, put scrap booker instead of scrapbooker. I don't like when it has a space! Otherwise, I think it's okay. The guys in parts said I look younger and innocent in the picture - like I look so old and deviant in person!

Stone Update

I just heard back from the nurse about my kidney stone. They think I passed one before my test on Tuesday, which would be great, because I had pain but nothing like what others have described to me. The scan showed a 4mm stone in my left kidney. That is the largest a "small" stone can be. It has a 90% chance of passing with no problems. If it was 5mm, I'd have a 50% chance. So, I was told just to drink a lot of water and if I pass it to see if I can catch it so they can figure out what caused it. "Catch" it? With what? A mitt? Others have told me about screening their pee so they can catch it, but I have no screen. Maybe I'll start peeing into nylons. That could screen it. Maybe I should go and get a net from the pet store. I'm sure dh has one he could borrow me. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to dig through my pee to see if I can get a stupid stone! Okay, I'm better now that I got that out! I'm doing pretty good for now. I'm a little scared to go anywhere, since I'm not sure when this thing will come out. I read something on the internet about people drinking olive oil and lemon juice and chasing that with a glass of water to make their stones come out faster. That doesn't sound good either. Right now I'm doing okay, so I'm not going to resort to that. Hopefully my next update will be that my stomach pain is gone and I must have passed the stone. It magically jumped out of the toilet, cleaned itself off and put itself into a container for me to bring into the Dr's office. A girl can wish, can't she?!?

Oh, I have my review at work tomorrow. The sales manager is doing the review. He asked me to give 3 of my strengths and 3 things I need to work on. One of my strengths was that I will do almost anything I'm asked to do. He laughed at that. What an idiot I am! I hate coming up with that stuff.

Name that Shed!

You remember that shed we remodeled for my Mom on Memorial Day weekend? We're trying to name it now. So far, my SIL has come up with "Garden Get-A-Way" and dh came up with "Queen of Spades". I'd like to know if any of my blog readers have any other ideas. Just post a comment with your suggestions. Maybe I'll even come up with a prize if the family picks your suggestion!

Edited to add - Mom's name is Vickie. Hope that gives you more ideas!

* FYI - No results from my test yet. I'll post something when I know.

Stones

This past weekend was great. Dh and I went to my work party Friday night. We played Family Feud and we won $100 each! So, of course, the next day I went to Crafts Direct and Scrapbooks Plus with Michelle, Shari and Suzy, and spent it! Dh and I also watched John Tucker Must Die and Accepted. Sunday we went to my brother's house. Dh helped build a dog kennel, my SIL and I went shopping. I also got to play with my nephew and niece. Great weekend.

Then, last night, I don't feel so good. I just figured that it was the bag of popcorn I had before bed. This morning, while I'm getting ready, I'm getting shooting pains in my stomach. This continues most of the day at work. I go to the doctor and she says I might have kidney stones! I've already had gall stones, which were a blast and resulted in my gall bladder being removed. So now I'm hopped up on codeine trying to forget about the pain. I go in tomorrow morning for an xray or the like to see what they can find. Until then, I'm just in pain. The nurse did say that passing a kidney stone is worse than child birth. Something to look forward to!

I hate begging for this sort of thing, but I would appreciate you all keeping me in your prayers. I've had 4 surgeries in the past 3 years and this is the last thing I need!

Long live pain killers.

Blogs of Note

Have you ever stopped and checked out the Blogs of Note on Blogger? You don't have to have a blogger account to see them. Just go to Blogger to see the latest.

Anyway, I found two cool blogs the other day on Blogs of Note. One is Rate your Students. It's professors take of their students. Sort of based from Rate your Professors. Being out of college for some time, it's easy to see how much crap we give professors. Whining, asking for extensions, basically wanting them to do everything for us. It's funny to see what some people are trying to get away with.

The other is Let's be Friends. They show unlikely animals who are being friendly with each other. Not like that, sicko! Just cuddling. I thought my friend Alli would enjoy this one:

Now you have some other options to waste your time. Have fun! I'm glad I could enable you!

Memorial Weekend

I had a great time at the cabin this past weekend. It was great to hang out with my family and just spend some time with them!

My nephew is getting so big! He's 3 1/2 and talking up a storm. My favorite quotes from him this weekend:

Asking for more "mulch" instead of malts.
Yelling "Goldfish" during Go Fish at every card I asked for.
Asking me (or anyone else) if they were a door, fish, or anything else he could see around the room.
This is him riding his ATV. It's a little kids version. He loves that thing!!
My Dad, brother and dh worked on my Mom's shed this weekend. They had some great bonding over power tools and beer.
My niece threw a couple back too - of course it's empty!
My favorite picture from the weekend:

My niece and her fauxhawk during her bath. She's such a cutie! I love her two little teeth sticking out too!

Hope you all had a great weekend too!

This is why dh and I don't have kids yet... Make you're own baby at Knocked Up Babymaker.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Weim Laws

I thought this was funny. Totally true!

Here's what Orion and Baron are doing while I'm blogging. It's a tough life.

Scattergories

Beth tagged me for Scattergories. Here are the rules: Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following. They MUST be real places, names, things...NOTHING made up! If you can't think of anything, skip it. Try to use different answers if the person before you had the same 1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

Your Name: Nicole
1. Famous Singer/Band: Natalie Merchant
2. 4 letter word: Noon
3. Street: North
4. Color: Navy
5. Gifts/Presents: Necklace
6. Vehicle: Nissan
7. Things in a Souvenir Shop: Naughty Playing Cards
8. Boy Name: Nathan
9. Girl Name: Nora
10. Movie Title: Never Ending Story
11.Drink: Nog (Egg)
12. Occupation: Nurse
13. Flower: Narcissus
14. Celebrity: Nicole Kidman
15. Magazine: Nylon
16. U.S. City: New York City
17. Pro Sports Teams: North Stars
18. Fruit: Nectarine
19. Reason for Being Late for Work: Not waking up on time!
20. Something You Throw Away: Nylons
21. Things You Shout: NO!!
22. Cartoon Character: Nemo

Now I have to tag people - I'm going with Linda, Alli, Michelle, and Tracy. Good luck, ladies!!

Here's Your Sign

Back in Minnesota!

I'm back from Tulsa, Oklahoma! Training was good, but it was a lot of information in a small amount of time. I'm sure I won't begin to digest half of what we learned for a couple of weeks!

I didn't take too many photos of the plant, but here's what I did take:

The plant is 1,000,000 square feet - which made for a lot of walking during our tour.

There is about 3,000 plus buses sitting and waiting for someone to pick them up. I couldn't even try and take a picture of everything. Imagine 10 rows of this in two different areas.
I just thought this was cool. You can sort of see me in the mirror.
Here's the sign for the plant.
This is a bus from North Carolina. We require having black rubrails (or those stripes you see on the bus). This is one with yellow. Thought it looked strange.
The workers use bikes like this to get around the plant. I thought it was so cool! Too bad we can't have something like that at work too!!

It was a great time and a great learning experience, but I'm glad to be home now.

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain...

Checkin' in from Tulsa, Oklahoma! I'm here for the week for sales training. One of our largest school bus plants is here in Tulsa. I can't believe how many buses they have here! I swear there's over 3,000 buses in the lot just waiting for someone to pick them up! I'm going to try and get pictures tomorrow and I'll post them when I get home. Our class consists of 21 men and me - yes, I'm the only girl. It's funny how all of our speakers (all men except for one) will say "Good morning gentlemen and lady". I'm learning TONS here! The coolest part so far was taking the factory tour the first day. The do everything here - from making the wiring harnesses to putting the bus body onto the chassis. It was really cool. They also have big ass fans helping to keep the place cool. Guess what they're called? Big Ass Fans!! I thought that was hilarious! Tomorrow our day starts at 7am. I'm not looking forward to that. At least they're taking us out to dinner tomorrow night on the company. That should be nice. I fly home Friday night. I'm missing my dh and the doggies!!

Have a great week everyone!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. We celebrated with the MIL last night and will celebrate with my Mom in a couple of weeks. This weekend has been busy. On Friday night and Saturday, I went to a Household accessory sale and tried selling some stuff. Here's what I had:

I sold the Max and Elli, a custom "Behave" that will look like the Believe, and a dog picture frame. Not great, but not bad for my first outing. I passed out about 10 cards with my info on it, so I might hear from others later. I'm not really looking to scrap for profit, but I guess if it happens, I'm okay with it.

I'm leaving tomorrow morning at 4am to go to the airport for training at our bus plant in Tulsa, OK. It should be fun, I'm going with a good group of people. I'm hoping I can take pictures of the plant, but I'm not sure if they'll let me. Company secrets and all that. I guess we have to take tests and the like, so that should be interesting. No vacation here!

So, if you don't hear from me this week, it's because I'm out of town. Have a great week!

P.S. - I left my feet in the pictures just for Linda! :)

P.S.S. - Flat Stanley has been spotted again - check out his latest adventure here!

Album How-To

I've had a couple of questions about how I made my album. It is a Maya Road Scalloped Album.

All paper is Basic Grey. It's probably my favorite paper, and it all really goes together. The @ and 30 are Thickers along with a Basic Grey Rub on for the front cover.

Here's what else is in it: Rain Dot, American Crafts Sticker letters, 7Gypsies stamps, Making Memories stickers, KI line stamp, Heidi Swapp Ghost letters, Making Memories definition, Prima flower, 7Gypsies stickers, Imagination Project Chipboard, Mrs. Grossman's Sticker and Making Memories white paint.

The tier-ing idea was my friend Beth's idea. I loved it and used it!

I cut all of the paper (except for the first pages) to match the scalloped edges. This took a LONG time - most of it done in front of the TV. To hide any imperfections, I painted the edges with white paint. It covered the sides and made a cool effect.

So, that's basically it. I'm super happy with it! It's not often that I complete a project and want to stop people on the street and show them. Not bragging, just happy with my accomplishment.

By the way, this is my last scalloped album - NO MORE!! :)

It's May Already?

Wow. I haven't posted in a while. I've been so busy at work lately that when I get home, the last thing I want to do again is hop on the computer and type. I'm hoping that it will calm down soon, but I'm thinking that it won't. Anyways, I did get away for a 24 hour crop last Friday and Saturday for National Scrapbook Day. It was a blast - all except for sleeping on a concrete floor! I'm getting too old for that! I did get my @ 30 album done. Here it is: