New News and More Layouts

Well, it's been awhile. Seems like this past month has just flown by. I'm laying on my bed next to a sick little girl. Kenzie caught a cold over the weekend and now Natalie is fighting it, too. She doesn't want me to leave her side today, so I've been laying around all day. I don't mind too much since I seem to be fighting a few of the symptoms, as well.

We've been going non-stop lately trying to make improvements to the house and get it ready to sell. We had a pretty good reason to believe we might be moving soon, but have since realized it isn't going to happen as we had hoped. It has been disappointment-city around here the past few days. We are in turmoil over our future and what it holds. We seem to think we want one thing, but no matter what we do it isn't happenin'. Is that an answer that we need to stay here or is it just the ever, infamous answer to be patient and wait? I'll let you know when I know, k?

In our quest to get the house ready for plan A that failed and then plan B that failed, we now at least have a house that is much closer to being ready for plan C or D, if need be. That's good, right? I've finished painting the kitchen, the hallway and half the family room. The yard has been undergoing some serious improvements. After three years of living here, I finally finished my flower garden in the front of the house. We finished staining the fence, which was a much nastier job than thought. We dug up a sandbox for the girls in early spring and then re-filled it and re-planted grass there when we thought we were moving soon. We also dug up the side yard hoping to make a play area with smooth pebble rock and a sand area for under the pool. After much work, more money than we realized, some more hard work, moving and installing new sprinklers, rototilling and four truck loads of sand (which I almost single-handedly shoveled and moved myself), we finally decided that we took on more than we can afford and want to do. We ended up finishing just a square for the pool. We filled it with sand and installed a wood border around it. The pool is up now and the kiddos are happy to have it. After a couple of hot, hot days the water has warmed up to a nice temp. Unfortunately, we now have a big square of dirt next to it that needs to be replanted with grass seed. Really, we need to think out our plans a little better before we start digging things up. So, progress is being made, despite our failed attempts at moving.

We have a few plans for the next month to help keep busy. We're going home to visit Nate's family for the 4th of July. I'm hoping we can kick these colds soon so we can have a sick-free trip. Later in the month, this sister of mine is having her second baby. She has begged and pleaded for me to come be there when new baby boy decides to make an entrance. After much debating about how to make this trip happen without going into thousands of dollars in debt, we've decided to send just me to be with my sister for a couple days. I am BEYOND ecstatic for this trip. I have been away from my children ONE time since they were born. ONCE. And it was for one night. Just one. I know, how scary is that?! Nate is afraid I might not come back if he lets me go...the idea is rather tempting at times, actually. :-) The only catch is, I have to find a couple generous people out there (that's you) to help watch my kids during the day while Nate is at work. We only need two days of help... So, hopefully you won't dodge my calls if I happen to phone you in the next week or so. :-)

The stomach problems I was having a month ago continue to plague me. The pain comes and goes. I don't even know what to make of it. At least it has been manageable pain and I haven't had to make another trip to the ER. Not that I would go even if it were that bad. I am playing the waiting game for the next step in the process. I've got an appointment for mid-July to see a Gastroenterologist. Then we'll see if it's an ulcer that is causing all this. I won't be surprised at all if it is.

In early June, I signed up and started taking Jessica Sprague's second course on digital scrapbooking. I've been taking the Now We're Rockin' course for a couple weeks now and absolutely LOVE it. She has lots more challenges for us this time around, lots more solo projects where we have to be creative on our own, lots more fun freebies and coupons and lots more to learn. Here are a couple of my latest layouts.

This was our first lesson and layout for the class.

All papers/embellishments from Jessica Sprague's Now We're Rockin' course materials, including:
KPertiet PaperRevealNo2, JSprague Rounded Corners brush, JSprague Stapled Hearts,
mfen_septemberafternoon_alpha, trishjones idea paper8, trishjones crushbubbles paper9, Jason Gaylor Valentine brush set

This was our midweek challenge for the first week. She gave us a challenge to finish a layout using a few of the methods we learned from the first lesson. We had no examples to follow, just some challenges to complete. It was tough to come up with a layout all on my own, but I'm pretty proud of my finished layout. The challenges I took were:

:: To do a layout about myself
:: To use two or more patterned paper from the kit we got free
:: To round two or more corners
:: To use columns for journaling
:: To install and use a new brush

All papers from the Sweet Shoppe Design Carnival Kit provided exclusively for Now We're Rockin' course members,
staples from Atomic Cupcake, Corner Rounder brush from Jessica Sprague,
Torn Edges from Simple Torn Edges Elements Set from Anne Aspnes at DesignerDigitals.com

As you can see, I used this blog post as my journaling on this layout. I had to come up with a creative use of space to get all that text on there (ended up making a double page spread) and it just about killed me to use a picture of myself, but I did it! I even got a great comment from the teacher herself (Jessica Sprague) when I uploaded it to the class gallery!

Well, there's June for you in a nutshell. Hopefully I'll be better at blogging in July. Or not...