Friday, July 03, 2009

Scrapbook Camp Update 6

Thursday 

Nani Dot, my grandmother, arrives at 9:15 bearing gifts! A Paula Deen cookbook for me and one for Christi! We are excited about our new cookbooks! There’s a recipe in it that I just happen to have the ingredients for, so I whip up a blueberry coffee cake right then and there. Nani Dot is thrilled. Also, I put some more chocolate chip oatmeal cookies in the oven because they are John’s favorite and he’ll be arriving home from his trip anytime. At this point I pat myself on the back. It’s really hard to reach your own back, but I am pretty flexible.

John arrives home, the cookies and coffee cake come out of the oven. And this is all before 11 a.m.! John eats a bit, changes clothes and heads to the office. Nani Dot gets ready to go and I decide to take a quick look at her computer. She shows me what’s going on, and she’s exactly right. IE has just quit working. Get a load of this: my grandmother pays her bills online. How awesome is that? Consequently, she is feeling a little lost with no internet and she is looking at two weeks without her computer. Bummer!!!

After she leaves, I start working on it in earnest. I am no computer whiz, especially when it comes to PCs, but I can sure google with the best of them. I google “internet explorer not working vista” and the first result is a blog that has a recommended fix. I try it. No good. I read in the comments about some of the other fixes that have worked for other people. And guess what? I get it to work. As soon as that computer has a working browser, I head over to mozilla.com and download Firefox for her. Ah, yes, much better.

I call her about 1 p.m. and tell her I think she’s all set – I’ve moved all her “favorites” over from IE to Firefox’s “bookmarks” and she’s thrilled. I offer to bring her computer over in the evening, but she’s so excited that she wants to come get it right now. Okey dokey! She arrives in fifteen minutes flat. And she says she’ll dogsit for us next week while John and I are both out of town because I fixed her computer. Yeah, baby. I’m wondering who got the better end of that deal and I’m thinking it’s not her. J Also, she says she’ll “dance at my wedding”, which I think is hilarious, because, even if I had another wedding, why would her dancing at it be any favor to me?

Christi and I have to run a few more errands in the afernoon. Pick up a few extra prints at Wolf, Target run, Belk’s and once more to Hobby Lobby. Then it’s to the scrapfreak’s house to pick up our orders. Fun!!!

We get home and I am seriously, frantically scrapbooking for just a few more hours before we have to pack up our stuff and head to Amarillo. We have a final Scrapbook Camp meal of Wingstop lemon pepper wings with their famous French fries and veggies. In true Lodmell fashion, we eat our wings in the media room. John and I really can’t imagine eating them anywhere else. We have Get Smart from Netflix and we watch that while we eat, and then while we fold laundry. It’s a really funny movie, even funnier if you watched Get Smart as a child.

We scrapbook a little bit more, then get busy packing up all our stuff. This is a huge task in itself. Christi will be taking her supplies with her to the cabin, where she will spend just one night, then head home with the boys and Cory, who is meeting us there. I am taking my supplies to the cabin to spend another week scrapbooking with my mom. We will have the added distraction of the kids … but no errands to run there!

Final page counts:

Christi: 25 completed pages! Amazing. And lots of supplies purchased for future pages.

Crissy: 20 competed pages and 54 page kits (power layouts) prepared for next week.

It’s been a great week!

BIG THANKS to Grammy and PawPaw who gave us the whole week. What a gift!!!

Scrapbook Camp Update 5

Wednesday

Wednesday morning we really sleep in. I’m talking about after 10 a.m. wake-up time. It’s so nice. And it’s just very rare that we get to sleep in that late without feeling guilty.

We think that maybe not leaving the house ALL DAY would be a great idea.

We get busy scrapping and watching the rest of the bonus materials from The Sound of Music.

Now, at this point, I should probably confess that I have not done a ton of actual scrapbooking. I’ve spent the week sorting photos, uploading photos, ordering photos, and shopping for scrapbooking supplies. And I’ve also been making page kits (also known as “power layouts” for your CM people out there).  So it doesn’t sound like I’ve accomplished a lot, but on Wednesday, I actually sat down and started putting photos on paper. Hooray! Remember, I have four children. And each of these children have their own [series of] albums. When I first started scrapbooking, I bought a Creative Memories Baby album for Jack. And I thought that I would fill up the baby pages and then stop. But then I couldn’t stop. And so then I thought I would take each kid’s album to age 5, or when they started elementary school, then stop. But that didn’t “take”, either. So here I am, with multiple albums for each child. And no end in sight!

We want to watch another movie, but not one with too much of a plot since we are trying not to get distracted from our “creating”. I pull up Netflix and find that we can watch Singin’ in the Rain online. Christi discovers that Good Mornin’, which her mom always used to sing to her in the mornings, was from Singin’ in the Rain. Later, we turn on Bedtime Stories for a little more entertainment.

We also discover scrapfreak.com. This is a website run by a super-nice lady in Highland Village. And guess what?!? You can place an order and then pick it up from her, thus saving on shipping costs! She has some really cute things (we love Cosmo Cricket) and so we place an order.

My grandma calls to see if I can take her computer to the mountains with me and have my brother work on it. It’s a PC running Vista (no wonder she’s having problems) and suddenly Internet Explorer won’t work anymore. Now, bear in mind that my grandmother is in her 80’s. I’m just proud that she knows what Internet Explorer is. She says that she will bring it over in the morning if that’s okay. Dangit. We’re going to have to get out of bed at a decent hour, because she gets her errands run before it gets too hot outside and her first stop is the pharmacy that opens at 9 a.m. I am the second stop on her list.

It’s another late night, but this time I set my alarm for 8:30 a.m.

Scrapbook Camp Update 4

Tuesday

We have a big day planned. Headed to the library to get the Sound of Music, to Dallas to the AAC to get our circus tickets (this is a great thing) and to do some shopping in Dallas.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Circus tickets, the good ones, are $30 each. That’s for lower level. The higher ones are $15 and $10 each. The kids each earned a FREE ticket to the circus. Now, you might be thinking, yeah, that’s probably the $10 nosebleed section tickets they earned, but no, they were the $30 tickets. There are more expensive tickets (“front row” and “VIP”), but free $30 tickets make us quite happy. The only caveat is, though, that you have to exchange your vouchers in person at the AAC box office. Which is not exactly convenient.

So, how exactly did the kids earn their tickets, you ask? SUMMER READING PROGRAM, I tell you. At the LIBRARY!!! And this is how easy it is: Read five books (or have your parents read them to you) and then have the library stamp your voucher. How easy is that? If you’re going to do it, though, you have to exchange those vouchers early. The good seats for the weekend shows were going quickly. However, we were able to get tickets for the Tuesday night show at (what would be) center court, about 1/3 of the way up on the lower level. $180 worth of tickets for the bargain price of $60 (one ticket for me and one for John!).

After the AAC, we go to the American Girl Store to get Charlotte’s Birthday present (a Bitty Baby). And this is where it gets a little cooky. We park in the parking garage and get out to walk in to the store. We get out and as we are walking away from the car, we realize that there is something underneath, right in front of the rear tire. It is a giant human turd. I don’t even know if I spelled that correctly, but that’s what it was. I can’t even believe it, it’s so disgusting. Really, I didn’t think that’s what it was because it was so large. It looked like that spray foam insulation stuff, but we're pretty sure that flies aren't that attracted to foam.

Another stop at the “Scrapbook Barn” and then we are on our way home. Oops, we are headed northbound on I-35 at 4:45 in the afternoon. Not the smartest move on my part. We divert onto 3040 and continue on what would be John’s commute if he were home. From the intersection of 3040 & 2499 we call and place an order for takeout from PeiWei. Oh, yes, this week just keeps getting better.  We make one last stop at Wolf Camera before picking up our food. And now, I’m going to let you in another little secret: $.06 photo prints. Here’s the deal: go to ritzpix.com and upload your photos. Be prepared. It takes FOREVER. You might want to start them uploading, then run a marathon, or you runners might want to go to bed and sleep, because when you finish the marathon, your photos will still be uploading. Anyway, don’t order your prints yet!!! Wait until the next Tuesday or Wednesday. Order 3.5” x 5” prints and they will only be $.06!!! What a screaming deal. Even when you can find them that cheap at York Photo, you still have to pay exorbitant shipping charges. The prints are small, but if you are scrapbooking with them, you’ll probably find that that’s okay, especially for the price. I almost ordered my prints through Shutterfly and picked them up at Target where I would have paid $40. Instead, I paid $15 at Wolf Camera. Yahoo!!!

We watched The Sound of Music and then watched a majority of the second disc's bonus materials. Wow, that Liesl (Charmian Carr) is still beautiful today. 

   

And don't even get me started on Captain von Trapp. 

So that’s Tuesday. I'm all about the great deals and handsome singing men. That's just how I roll.

Scrapbook Camp Update 3

Monday

We wake up late. I don’t even remember what time. It is sometime after 9 a.m. I have to work for a little while as soon as they receive the shipment of clothes for a floor set this evening. I’m just going to go in for a few hours and unpack, sort and hang the tiny childrens’ clothes I love so much. Christi’s twin sister is coming over for the day with her girls (who are 13 and 15) and one of their friends. I decide to mix up a batch of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.

I get the call that the boxes “have arrived” so I get ready to head over to Janie & Jack. Right as I’m leaving, Carrie and the girls arrive. I hate to leave because I know they are going to have so much fun, but the boxes await.

I’m gone for about three hours. When I arrive home, the swimming is in full swing. The girls are having a great time. I have some lunch and visit with Carrie. She is an amazing cook and has brought some yummy treats for us.  We have a birthday cake for Carrie’s oldest daughter. She is fifteen today.

A tour of the garden is given and oh, so sweetly complimented. We pick tomatoes, okra and cucumbers and we melt. Wow, it’s hot. We head inside. The girls want to watch a movie or play Wii, so I set them up upstairs with Guitar Hero. I don’t know who likes Guitar Hero more, the girls or Christi and Carrie.

When the foodfest ends and Carrie and her girls have to leave, we get busy scrapping again. Then, because we are SPONTANEOUS, we decide to go to Hobby Lobby. It’s 7:25, and they close at 8:00, so we have to hurry. We’re there by 7:35 and have only ten minutes before the Hobby Lobby employees begin their nightly countdown to “Quittin’ Time”. It makes those last precious minutes of child-free shopping so stressful to have them pressuring us: “ATTENTION Hobby Lobby shoppers!!! The time is now 7:45 (or 7:50 or 7:55) and Hobby Lobby will be closing in 15 (or 10 or 5) minutes. Please make your final selections and take them to the front where a Hobby Lobby associate will assist you.”

Later, while we are scrapping, we listen to the entire Sound of Music soundtrack about three times. It makes us happy. We sing loudly. We decide we need to watch the movie, so I check and (because I am a genius) find that it is in at the Lewisville Public Library.

Again, we stay up far too late. We have big plans for tomorrow (including a stop at the library), but we might have to get a late start …