Senior Portrait Proofs, Good and Bad

Today we received Jordan's Senior Portrait Proofs in the mail. They all turned out really good and there are about 4 or 5 that are awesome.
I was reading the order form earlier and it said that we need to choose 1 head/shoulder shot with a blue grey background for the yearbook picture by October.
There are no pictures with a blue grey background. So I call the studio and they ask me to bring the proofs in to prove to them that there are no pictures with this background. Luckily the studio is only 5 mins away from our house.
I get to the studio and prove to them that in fact there are no portraits with a blue grey background. So now poor Jordan has to get dressed up again in his shirt and tie and have 9 pictures taken with a blue grey background. Well at least we will have 9 more pictures to choose from. Not sure if this is a good thing since the ones we already have are really good. This would mean if the next set of pictures taken are real good, the decision on which pictures to purchase will be even harder.

Classic Car Show

Todd took me for a ride on the bike this afternoon to the classic car show at the DG Heritage Fest. He took a picture of this Mustang Cobra GT 350

I found this car really fun, it reminded me of the Mayberry police car from the Andy Griffith show.

Decorative Expressions

I went to my sisters Uppercase party a few weeks ago and purchased a wall decal for my diningroom, I made sure that it was going to be something that Todd would like also.
Stampin' Up! currently sells similar decals; but I have never purchased one before because nothing they offered was something I wanted until now. Since I am a demonstrator for Stampin' Up! we are able to purchase some preview items from the new idea book/catalog a month prior to when it is available to the public.
The image below is from Stampin' Up! and will be available to purchase after July 1st. Todd and I hung it above the oven/stove.

This image below is the one I purchased at Raelynn's Uppercase party. Todd and I hung it above the family photos in our dining area.

There are still a couple of decals that I eventally want to purchase for other areas in the house.

Grilling Something Different 2009 #5

I have grilled this once before when our oven was broken and we were grilling everything imaginable, but when I grilled this the last time it was frozen.

PIZZA.
I purchased 2 premade pizzas at the store and didn't really want to put the oven on. So Todd turned on the grill and we grilled ourselves 2 pizzas. The only real problem we had was getting the fresh dough onto the grill. The Pizza grilled up really nice except when we finally got it placed on the grill it didn't hold its circle shape. But that's ok, we only lost a little bit of cheese in the transporting.

It was really tasty. Yummy!

Patriotic Background

I thought about changing my background to some summer theme but haven't taken the time to do it. Now that the 4th of July is just around the corner I figured I should post something to show the pride and independence for our country.
I will pick something different sometime after the 4th.

Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson

Yesterday we lost the long time sidekick of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson; Ed McMahon. He was a true straightman to Johnny and I am sure Johnny and Ed our having a grand reunion


After battling cancer for such a long time; today Farrah Fawcett lost her battle.
I think anyone who grew up in the 70's in some way or another admired her.
I posted her famous photo from the 70's below.


Also today as a shock Michael Jackson passed away. I was never a fan of his lifestyle and the image he portrayed, but he did have some pretty decent songs. I hope where ever he is, that he finds the peace and acceptance he was always striving for on Earth.
(note: I picked an earlier picture of Michael to put on my blog where he didn't look so freakish)

Grilling Something Different 2009 #4

Knowing how much Todd likes pork chops I purchased some boneless chops to grill for Fathers Day.
I was watching the Food Network show Down Home with the Neely's this past week and they shared the ingredients for a rub that they use on pork, chicken and even beef. I purchased all the items needed and about an hour before the pork chops were to go on the grill I put the rub on the chops and refrigerated them. Jordan grilled the pork chops and let me tell you they were soooo good. The Neely's suggested that you top them with BBQ sauce, but lately we are kind of tired of BBQ sauce so we just had them the way the came off the grill. They were so moist and the flavor from the rub was so good!
The ingredients for the rub makes enough for more recipes; so we will definitely try it on chicken next.

Happy Fathers Day!

Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads out there. I didn't have a chance to post this earlier because our cable/internet was down for 2 days.

I hope Todd had a nice day, we took him out for breakfast this morning. Ethan had to work an 8 hour day today so breakfast was our only time where we could all be together. The boys and myself got him some gifts and I do believed he liked his gifts. He did have to do some work today but what he had to do was successful so he wasn't bogged down with that and he even got a chance to go out riding a little. Jordan grill pork chops which turned out really good.

2 days UGH!

Because of the storms Friday evening, we have gone 2 days without any cable TV or internet. Kind of frustrating. It finally come back on at around 3:30pm today.
I can go without both but not having access to at least the local stations is a little frustrating, unless you have one of those "boxes"; but why purchase one of them when you are SUPPOSED to have cable. Maybe the next time a BIG storm come through Comcast will be more prepared.

Card 26 of 52 for 2009

I needed to come up with one more card for Saturday's stamp camp and I wanted to do something patriotic. I actually got the Happy 4th of July stamp at the Wilton tent sale this week. I know not a Stampin' Up! stamp, everything else in this card IS SU though. I figured this card can be used as a thank you card to the hostess of the 4th of July BBQ you go to. So fun and festive, enjoy!

1 Doctors Appt. 2 Problems

Let us start with what happened yesterday.
I was outside blowing off all the stupid helicopters that fell from our tree onto our deck. So I am blowing everything away and felt something go into my eye. At the time I didn't think much of it. All the rest of the day I felt like there was something in my eye but only felt it when my eye would look in certain directions; I took my contacts out thinking that maybe something was on the contact. The rest of the evening I still had the same feeling, I tried using an eye drop to see if that would help but didn't.
This morning when I got up and looked in the mirror my eye looked like it had pink eye. I still had the feeling something was stuck in my eye so I decided to go to work and see if I could get into see the Dr. today sometime.
I requested Dr. H. because we as a family really like and trust him, to my luck he had an opening at 10:20am. When I was called in I told the nurse that I wanted to not only talk to the doctor about my eye but also my gallbladder results from a few months ago. (That will be #2 later in this post) Dr. H came in and he brought up #2 1st and then proceed to look at my eye. Apparently nothing is in my eye but whatever hit my eye scratched my cornea. So basically I must wait for it to heal on it's own and no contact until Wednesday.
#2 Since I think Thanksgiving of 2008 I on occasions have been getting these deep chest pains, I think I have had 6-7 of them since Thanksgiving. I did speak to DR. H. about them and he had me go in for an Ultrasound of my Gallbladder. I fit all the "criteria" of a person who would have Gallbladder problems. Well the Ultrasound came back clear with no stones.
So today when going in for my eye the Dr. asked me 1st, "Hows the stomach?" I explained to him that I have had 2 more deep chest pains since the Ultrasound but now whenever I eat I get a feeling that the food is getting stuck and I have to take a few minutes to stop and breathe deeply. He asked if I am throwing up, I said no, just that there is a feeling of pressure while I am eating.
He requested that I go see a Doctor that specializes in Gastroenterology. What will probably be done is they will send a camera down my esophagus and see whats going on there, aka Upper Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. He said it could be 1 of 4 things and of course at this time I don't remember what all of the 4 were. In know one was gastroesophageal reflux disease, one had the word ulcer after it and one sound like it was the last name of the person whom discovered it. I am never any good at remembering medical information. Dr H. also said that I should request since I will be having this done for them to really check if there is anything going on with the gallbladder. I am sure I will find out more when I go for a consultation on July 6th.
Dr. H. said that when they do the Upper Gastrointestinal Endoscopy that I will need someone to drive me home. I asked if I will be knocked out and he said semi.
Normally I semi would be OK with me, but my fear is suffocation, so when I go see this Doctor who specializes in Gastroenterology I am going to have to STRESS this and maybe if I plead enough he can knock me out totally; not semi.
More on my esophagus/gallbladder drama after the 6th of July.

Grilling Something Different 2009 #3

No pictures because the picture of what was grilled would not have been that exciting.
Here is my invention:
I took 4 chicken breasts and put each chicken breast on top of their own piece of aluminum foil. I then took 2 of the bags of Green Giant Create a Meal Sesame Stir Fry Mix (you can find this in the freezer section of your store) and divided the 2 bags over each chicken breast. I did have extra stir fry vegetables from the mix so I put that in it's own separate aluminum foil. I folded the aluminum to make a packet and seal in all the goodies.
Jordan did the grilling part and placed the packets with the chicken in them on the grill for 18 minutes; do not turn. The packet with only vegetables we put on the grill for the last 5 minutes.
It turned out EXCELLENT.
Note to Green Giant: you can send me my advertisement check whenever you get a chance. lol

Card 25 of 52 for 2009

Here is a card that we will be making at this month's Stamp Camp

Using a photo as a hyperlink

I figured out today how to use a photo as a hyperlink. Whippee!
I have always wanted to put a link on my blog that would direct visitors to my Stampin' Up! Website page. So down the left column of this page is the link.
I don't update that page often but it can be used for ordering directly from SU and other misc. information about SU.

Wall Decorating

Last night I went to my sister Raelynn's Uppercase Living party. For anyone who doesn't know what this is, it is a company that sells vinyl decals that "Personalize your home with decorative expressions" I ordered a 2 part decal; 2 parts meaning you can choose 2 different colors in the saying.
Last year Stampin' Up started offering these, SU will be coming out with their new idea book/catalog in July. As a demonstrator I am able to order a few of the new items in advance. This past week I ordered one of the new decals that I liked from SU also. Once I get them both on the wall with Todd's help of course, I will post pictures here to show you what I picked.

If you still don't know what I am talking about click here to view Raelynn's.

Real Short Term Wish List

I have 2 items that I have on my short term wish list.
1-A used car for Ethan
2-A new camera
I think the car will come true sooner then the camera. We have to find Ethan a new used car by September.
The camera, my goal is before we go on vacation June 2010.
Todd and I had already discussed getting a new camera so this will happen, just don't know when.

That's my short term wish list as of today.

Card 24 of 52 for 2009

This is one of the cards that we will be making at the June stamp camp
I got the idea from Mary Jo Albright; thanks Mary Jo!

Printer hassle part 2

This printer has been more of a PITA then it's worth. I wanted to scan something today and when we attempted, the printer was no longer installed.
Well Todd finally decided to call Dell support. Over 2 hours later they finally have the printer working fully, on all computers. I heard him say to the support center, "Now you know why I was getting frustrated? 3 days trying to get this installed".
As most of you know Todd works IT so for him to call support means something major must be going on.

Happy Birthday to the 3 of you!

Gunther Agee who turned 14 yesterday
Kelsey Polte who turns 21 today
and
Kyra Udziela who is celebrating her birthday on Tuesday



Happy Birthday To the 3 of you!

New Printer/Scanner/Copy Machine/Fax Machine

The logic of corporate America literally forced us to purchase a new printer.
We were using our personal printer for all the things Todd needs to print for work. The company he works for would cover the cost of our ink; no problem. Then recently Todd was told that the coporation would only cover certain inks from autorized printer. Todd was told he could purchase an autorize printer and list it on his expense account.
Here is what I find baffling, the company will no longer cover the cost of ink on a printer that isn't theirs, but will spend a few hundred dollars to purchase a printer and then cover the cost of ink for this printer. I would think the 1st of the 2 would save the company money. Try and explain logic to corporate America.
Anyway we received the printer on Thursday and Todd has spent 2 days trying to install the dang thing on each computer. The printer for some reason wouldn't recongnize or communicate with each computer. He was almost ready to box it up and send it back to Dell when he finally got all the computers to recognize this printer.
Now we are learning all the features.
Don't get me wrong, we don't mind getting a new piece of equipment but the reasoning behind it is just rediculos.

Card 23 of 53 for 2009

We made this card a couple of weeks ago at stamp camp.

School is officially out

Well it has been a couple of days that the High School Student has been out of school and my college son has been out for a few weeks now.
I am pleased that both boys did well in school this past year.
Jordan will make this quarters honor roll and if Columbia had a deans list Ethan would have made it.
Now they can enjoy their summer one working and the other relaxing.

Cars, Cars, Cars,

I hate the responsibility of owning cars.
It looks like we have another car that we purchase used that is biting the dust.
UGH. Ethan's car broke down earlier in the week, on our way to taking it to the repair shop to get what we thought was the alternator fixed it according to Todd sputtered, black smoked and died.
So I am leaving the decision up to Todd to either spend over $1000.00+ to repair this car or take that $ and look for another used car. Either way we don't know what is around the corner. If we spend the $ on repairs we still have to fork out money for tires and in the near future a muffler will be needed. If we decide to purchase another used car who knows what or how long before we will be shelling out money on repairs.
We just need a car to last 3 more years to get him through his college years. Then once he gets out of college and finds a job he can purchase a more reliable car for himself.
I hate the responsibilities of owning cars.