DIDs and DIDN'Ts

I'm back home after another great scrapbooking weekend -- my 8th -- at Camp Crop-A-Lot!

No, I did not finish my 2010 album -- but I did make good progress! Here are some other things I did and didn't do...

I didn't get much sleep but did relax. With my usual 9:30 bedtime during the week, my body was in shock to get to bed at 1 a.m., 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. (Yes, I am going to bed early tonight!) For the relaxing part, there was a massage therapist on hand so I got a 10-minute chair massage each day!

I didn't get to see all of Carter's last basketball tournament, but did get up the road to Wittenberg to see his first game Saturday. They won that one so that was exciting. On the day, they ended up with a 3-1 record and a 3rd-place finish among 8 teams. That was their best tourney yet! Now it's onto baseball season...

I didn't get any exercising in -- walking, running, nothing -- but did exercise my creative mind. A lot.

I didn't have time to overeat but did get a few tasty treats, including my once-a-year chocolate-covered peanut butter balls. They are the best! Thankfully, I did not discover them until Sunday night.

I didn't have a friend or sister join me this year but did get a chance to catch up with friends -- including a long, late-night chat (make that early morning chat -- 3 a.m.) with my friend Becky. That's what makes it a "retreat" instead of just a weekend workshop.

I didn't wear my new pink hoodie-footie pajamas much because they are just too warm -- but did win the PJ Contest for warmest jammies! Who wouldn't vote for someone looking like the Easter Bunny?

I didn't get as many pages done as I wanted, but did manage to get 51 completed. And I am quite happy with them! Quality over quantity, right?

I didn't know much about the Cricut world before this event, but did get introduced to Cricut "Utopia" quite quickly. My friend Jenny let me borrow her 15-plus cartridges for the weekend so that was awesome. Then, I discovered quite a few more that will be going on my wish list! There's even one that will cut out the shape of a lighthouse (if you're into that sort of thing).

I didn't get a chance to get to my nephew Colin's birthday party but did see in the fridge that my considerate boys (and my sister-in-law, I'm sure) brought some cake (with frosting!) home for me. I think this is where I sign off...

Happy Camper

Contrary to some disbelievers out there, well one, I am packed and ready to go on time, just like I planned it.

While I didn't dream any award-winning layouts, I did awake at 5 a.m. and really couldn't fall asleep after that. So I got up and took Carter to school. Then stopped at the service station to order tires. Then stopped at the bank and was home by 8 a.m. Oh yeah, I'm that good.

All I had to do was frost some bars, hop on the treadmill, shower and pack clothes. I think the only reason I am on time is that I cut my treadmill time short. Way short. Priorities, you know.

Now I am set and debating whether I should take my Netbook along, knowing that the past 2 years I couldn't even get a cell-phone signal at camp, let alone wireless. So I may be cutting myself off from reality until I get back Monday afternoon. Wow, can I do that?

I might play it by ear and see if they have a connection up there at the Rosholt Lions Camp (yes, this really is a camp). If they do, I could have the guys take the Netbook with them to Carter's basketball tourney, which is up the road from Rosholt in Wittenberg-Birnamwood. If the weather cooperates, I would drive up to see one of his games since this is the last tournament of the season. We'll see. A scrapper can lose track of time really easily at one of these things!

Alright, I better sign off, grab my Cricut and leave town! Have a scrap-tacular weekend!

Waiting Game

Tom Petty had it right many years ago when he sang: "The waiting is the hardest part..."

I'm all packed for Camp Crop-A-Lot but I still have another 15 hours before the weekend starts! That's probably good. I need to recover from all the heavy lifting. Seriously.

By themselves, photos and paper and stickers don't weigh much. But pack them all in a rolling cart and it is heavy. Thank goodness someone invented scrapbooking carts with wheels. Now if only they could make that work going up a flight of stairs.

At least hubby will be carrying them out to the vehicle. I don't need to strain my back before the weekend even starts. It'll be bad enough hunched over my work and forgetting to stand and stretch. Good thing they'll have a massage therapist on hand. You know how I love my chair massages!

With all my scrap supplies ready I still had other prep work today. Us girls gotta eat, you know! So while my Hornet's Nest Cake was baking tonight, I whipped up my Best Ever Cranberry Bars. And while the bars were baking, I browned my hamburger to mix up taco meat. Just call me Martha Stewart on speed. It was multi-tasking at its finest. I even ran the dishwasher so my "TV crew" wouldn't have to clean up after me.

Now I just have to throw some clothes together. That part is pretty easy. Basically jammies, sweats and any clothing item with the word "scrap" or "crop" on it! What? You say "psycho scrapper" like it's a bad thing!

Only 14 hours and 50 minutes now...

Modern Family

Hubby and I don't watch a ton of TV together, but when it comes to sitcoms, there's a few we both find laugh-out-loud funny. Big Bang Theory is one and new this season -- Modern Family. It is a hoot and half!

Since the family is "modern," it reflects every possible familial situation from parenting to adoption and inter-cultural marriage to domestic partnership. Pretty much any role you have in your family is portrayed in the show.

Tonight, one of the female characters was getting a chair massage at the mall and was very vocal in her appreciation of it! Hubby looks at me and I am immediately on the defensive. "What? That is not why I get a chair massage every week!"

Well partially it is. I want them to work out the knots so good that it hurts and feels good at the same time. Since I am getting this done at work, though, I try to keep my moans of pleasure (or pain) to a minimum.

Chair massages work wonders, by the way. Now when my month is up and it's time to see the chiropractor again, it doesn't feel like I have to see him or I'll die. The massages really have helped get my back in order (as good as a person can anyway).

It's also a good time to either clear my mind or do creative thinking. Today, naturally, I had scrapbook layouts on my mind. I sense I will be dreaming about them for the next 5 nights at least. But I'm not complaining!

I did not get a chance to do any packing tonight. Had to chauffeur Carter into town for confirmation, run several errands and then shuttle him over to basketball practice.

We got home with 2 minutes to spare before Modern Family started at 8. Then Jim and I had our 31 minutes of quality time. It was nice.

Now if only I could get him to watch Glee with me! OK, we may be a modern family here, but not THAT modern!

Off-Line

We are getting the scope of our addictions revealed -- and tested -- in our household this week. On not the ice cream thing again. Honest, I have it under control. I'm talking about computer time.

We have our main (big) computer in to get fixed. It's not really broken. It just operates slower than molasses (even though computers were not even invented when that phrase was coined). So we are having a computer geek (read: anyone smarter that us) look at it to clean it up, de-frag it, whatever. We trust him.

In the meantime, we have a few nights with just my handy dandy little Netbook to satisfy our techno needs. I don't mind since I'm used to it. But now I have to share! It's probably good to learn to take turns and not spend so much time on the computer anyway. It's a time-waster and I have other things to do.

Carter had a ton of homework and only needed the computer to check e-mail. I had a ton of scrapping work to do, which I did, so I am just on it to supposedly check e-mail and blog and try not to get trapped in the Facebook Time Waster Vortex. OK, I admit that did happen momentarily. I can't help myself. I may have a tough time with no Internet for 3+ days this weekend during Camp.

But of course, I think we'll discover what we've known all along. There are better things to do than park it in front of a computer all night. Lots of better things.

Gotta go. (Just because I said this wasn't about ice cream doesn't mean I can't have some!)

Snow Day

When I got up this morning, I sort of thought the school district made the wrong decision to call a Snow Day. The snow had stopped in middle of the night, after all.

But then it started again. Lightly. And did that all day. And the wind was drifting it. So it was good we were all home so hubby could snowblow and Carter and I could each shovel a deck and keep up with the accumulation. It still wasn't that bad.

But then I took a drive into town to pick up my 500-some photos at Walgreens. What a mess out there! The roads were snowy and icy and just generally crappy. I can see why they didn't want buses running.

I figure I'd better get all my errands done. Stopped by the car wash to clean the hot tub filters, then dropped off some dry cleaning, then picked up my photos then, just had to stop at the scrapbooking store to get a few things. Just a few. Lord knows I have most of my bases covered.

I was happy to get almost everything for camp ready today. Mainly because I did not have to keep Carter occupied. He had a book that he had to read today. All day until it was done. It's about done now.

I think we're both due for a break. This time, though, I better delve into that 2-pound bag of cheese popcorn!

A Little Flaky

Well that darn weatherman was 100% right. So it seems anyway.

No snow when we got up, but by 10 a.m. or so it started. Hubby and I went to the store quick to get a few food items in case we couldn't drive anywhere later. By the time we got back outside, it seemed like it had snowed an inch!

It was sticking at a pretty good pace. The picture above was taken around 1 p.m., right before our first round of shoveling. The one below was probably around 4 -- about the time we should have been eating cake at my nephew Colin's birthday party. Unfortunately, that will have to happen another day.

It wasn't just the snow coming straight down, it was the wind, too, that was whipping it everywhere.

You can see from this lovely photo hubby took of me shoveling that it is not great visibility out there.

Don't Jim and our neighbor Mick look cold??

How about now? Brrr. I get cold just looking at this!

Right after this was taken, the snow stopped for awhile. We thought maybe the weatherman was wrong, but I checked the radar and we were just in a brief pocket of nothingness. You could see if the line of snow continued on course, we would get all of the 9 inches promised and perhaps up to the 14 guess-timated.

We'll see.

They already called off school for tomorrow -- due to weather not staff shortages -- so somebody must figure this is going to keep coming and keep piling on. I guess it doesn't matter to me. We have tomorrow off for Presidents' Day so Carter will have some supervision anyway.

Except for when I'm down in my Scrap Cave. I've got several hours of work left to do but since today was sort of a pre-Snow Day snow day, I made some good progress! So while I'm doing that tomorrow, the boys can handle snow removal. Ha.

Trust me. This is one of the few times I don't mind Mother Nature being a little flaky.