Tuesday, January 09, 2007

If you're wondering where I am....

I just barely got my lifeline (my laptop) back. I was without it for almost 2 weeks. Following the rush of the holidays, I was already behind. Take my laptop away and I felt like the work was just crushing me. I've got 165 emails and 40 PMs to respond to. I need to invoice advertisers, email the Featured Designer for February and come up with a new advertising package for March. And what's worse, I need to solve our gallery issue and FAST. So if you've emailed me, if you're wondering why you haven't heard from me, if you're wondering why I'm not posting on the forum, if you're wondering why I haven't scrapped, if you're thinking I'm generally just too self-absorbed to invest in relationships....well....now you know why! I'm buried.

But aside from THAT insanity....here are some fun things....

I am 99.9% sure I will be getting a brand new laptop next month because this one is not reliable or fast enough for someone running a business that is as busy as ours. Yay!! Erick is going to be taking this one so that he can do work while watching tv or if he has to travel for a conference again. And I'll be getting a new one. Still researching which one though. Feel free to recommend.

We had a great New Years. The plan was to stay home and do a fake countdown at 9pm by watching the ball drop on East Coast time. McKenna thought that we had done something fabulous. We counted backward from 10 and then we all started hugging and cheering and she said "Woohoo! We did it!" As though the big deal was counting down from 10. LOL!

We did lots of fun things to pass the time...

McKenna and I finished this art project we had been working on:

Isn't this cute? We did the whole thing together and the scarf and buttons on the snowman were her idea. I think they're just the perfect finishing touch, don't you? ; )

We also made these party hats for everyone:




And after we had our Bratwurst & Sauerkraut dinner, we made New Years Cupcakes. Here is the one McKenna decorated:

(That stuff that looks like gray fur....that is apparently what Michael's calls "edible silver confetti". Looks weird to me but McKenna loved it.)

We also hosted an online party at DST for all the homebodies. The site was PACKED. It was a huge success which shocked me because we literally threw it together at 3pm PST and had no problem getting a huge turnout.

Hmm....what else. Erick and I are both having fun with the new lens. He's had time to read our new Understanding Exposure book but I haven't. So he's really learning a lot of new tricks. I'm just getting comfortable in the Aperature Priority mode but I think I'm getting pretty good at it. Here is a good one I caught of McKenna just using the 3pm light from our living room window. No touch-ups or actions were used on the photo at all:



Let's see....other news....

McKenna's teacher is retiring and I for one am glad. I've always felt uneasy because she seemed REALLY strict and critical. But I really tried to find the good in the situation because McKenna was learning quite a bit. But yesterday, my sister picked McKenna up from school and as each parent signed their kid out, the teacher gave a criticism on what the kid needed to improve on. She told my sister that McKenna needs to work on her cutting. Excuse me but scissors are made for 4 years old and up which tells me that cutting is generally learned at age 4. So why are we feeling the need to push this? On the take-home letter she sent, she wrote (to everyone) that the kids REALLY need to work on their cutting. Why are we so concerned about them cutting? And THEN....McKenna brings home this really cute art project yesterday. It was a cut-out star with these pretty gems glued to it. McKenna was so excited about it. But what did the teacher write on the back? "McKenna needs to work on her cutting." What the heck?!?!?! Is she obsessed with cutting?!?! They're 3! This isn't college-prep. Lay off the criticisms. So when I got the letter that she had to retire so she could take care of her grandbaby, I was really happy. The new teacher is Miss Donna. She will be introduced as a teacher's aid over the next 2 weeks and then will take over when Miss Carol leaves.

Erick is doing awesome and I'm really proud of him:
* He was given a high-profile counseling case. The supervisors that transferred the kid to his institution said that the only way they would allow this kid to go to YLA was if he was placed on Erick's case load. I thought that spoke volumes about the faith they had in Erick's counseling abilities and while I know he's phenomenal at his job, it made me really happy to know that his superiors see it as well.

* He's been jogging 2 miles several times a week to prepare for the 5K he's gonna run with his kids (not his daughters, the kids at his work. ; ) ) and I thought he'd arrive home in a pile of exhaustion but he's really had no problem adjusting to it.

* He had lost a lot of weight last year and then his friends came for a visit and the diet was gone. But he was careful not to put all the weight back on. In fact, he only put about 1/3 of the weight back on. But he's already doing really well with eating right and exercising again and has dropped 8 pounds already.

* Tonight is his first softball game with this league and he's the coach! How cute is that?? His team is called the Chupacabras (LOL!!!) and they are playing a double-header tonight. He was pretty excited about it because he misses sports. He used to do volleyball, softball, baseball, body boarding, skiing - he was really active and he's missed it. So it's been nice to see him enjoying physical activities again.

He was saying that for some men, physical activity and competition are just really important to their well-being. I told him that I hate competition AND physical activity so I can't really relate but I imagine it's much like how for some women, getting together and shopping is important to our well-being. LOL!

Speaking of shopping, wanna see some of the stuff I bought with my gift cards?

Fuschia cashmere sweater, black cami and dark denim boot-cut jeans from Express (the silver belt I already had):


Paisley blouse, black slacks and a strand of crystal beads from New York & Company:



Peasant blouse from Express, Wool hoodie from Hollister, hat from NY & CO:


Pink tshirt from Abercrombie:


I bought these black ballet flats from Payless:


But they are really uncomfortable and now I'm eyeing these silver flats from Steve Madden:



I normally don't wear flats but I like having a casual slip-on and I'm getting bored with my silver flip-flops. I like these silver flats. They'd function the same as my flip-flops but with an updated look I think.

And finally, I have to recommend the greatest mascara ever. If you've been reading my blog for awhile then you know I am a die-hard Max Factor 2000 Calorie user. I have not found anything that comes even close to the thickening power of 2000 Calorie. Then Max Factor sent me a free tube of this:


It's called Lash Perfection and it DOES thicken as well as 2000 Calorie AND it also does a better job of lengthening with NO clumps. Just one coat is amazing. Double or triple it for a more dramatic difference. I LOVE this stuff. The formula is PERFECT. So I highly recommend it. And I also highly recommend the Oil of Olay Total Effects that I blogged about last time. I'm getting really good results with that product.

Ok, I was gonna include a couple of recipes with this post but it's already getting long so I'll save those for the next post. I gotta give my kids a bath and then get some DST work done! Night!!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG, look at how BLONDE Kyle looks!!

What a gorgeous picture you took of McKenna! Now you've totally got me wanting a new lens!

Ugh, that teacher sounds so rude! What IS her obsession with cutting. I had one of Seth's therapists ask me how he was at cutting when he was 2 as part of an evaluation and I was just so shocked that a 2 year old would even be handed a pair of scissors!

Anonymous said...

Hey Shannon,

My fist time stopping by. Thanks for all you do to give digi scrapbooking such a great community home.I enjoyed your latest entry. I am "mascara frustrated" right now, so maybe I will try your recommendations. Have a great day!

Melissa Ives said...

ok...heading out to get that mascara. Sounds perfect. How exciting about the possibility of a new laptop. I never realized how much work went into a web site until DST. We really appreciate it though...

~~~Hummie~~~ said...

Wow...long post! You go girl! I did not realize you had a blog...glad to have found you.