Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Yesterday's post was a bit of a downer huh?! Well, nothing perks a girl up like an evening with her best friends.

Tonight I had all the girls over for dinner and chats. Tonight was filled with baby talk, camp talk, boy talk-you name it! It was wonderful. I love catching up with everyone and finding out about boys and life. I wish I were closer to them more of the time. I hate that we all live so far from one another. It doesn't help that I'm the worst at staying in contact with them! Life gets so hectic but that shouldn't be an excuse! This years resolution is to contact them more-skype, phone dates, whatever it is!

I am so very thankful to have so many lovely women in my life whom I love dearly and truly understand me. It's not an easy thing to find-friends who accept you despite all your quirks. I miss them already!

xoxo
K

Home again, home again...

It has been a hectic week. I love going home to Newfoundland but at the same time I miss the peace and quiet of my life in Ottawa. There have more family visits than I can shake a stick at. Every time I turn around someone wants me to go somewhere to visit somebody. Staying with your parents-without your husband-is not all it’s cracked up to be! Especially when you have a brother to deal with and a car to share. I miss my couch, my quiet apartment and I miss Brenda, our car.

I miss my husband. He’s here-10 minutes away at his own house. But, it’s not the same as living in our apartment. This is the first time i’ve gone home and truly felt like a visitor. I don’t live in this room any more. I think I would go nuts if I had to. Maybe in my “old age” I’ve settled into my own ways of doing things, my routines, in my own home making it difficult to go live with somebody else for two weeks.

I also forgot that coming home means seeing everyone on planet earth that you went to high school with, danced with, played with on your old street, etc. I have bumped into so many people this week that I have not seen in years and while that’s all fine and dandy I yearn for the obscurity of Ottawa where I can look like a dirtbag at the grocery store because nobody knows me anyway.

Tomorrow things might calm down a bit. I certainly hope they will. I can’t keep going at this pace anymore. Too many people, too many visits, and wayyyyy too many cooked dinners. Somebody get me a steak-i’m over turkey and ham thank you very much!

On my to do list this week:

-get a webcam for my parents & set up skype
-eat lunch at The Cellar downtown with M
-make plans for New Years
-return/change a few things for Mom when she goes back to work
-cook dinner for the girls tomorrow night

If I can get all that done I’ll be content. Hope you’re enjoying your holidays! A belated Merry Christmas!

xoxo
K

P.S: My December Daily fell off the radar this last two weeks. Let’s just say I changed it, altered it and it’s partially done up to the 17th. I’m planning on working on it when I get back in January. I’ll post pictures here some time in the new year.

Weekend in Photos

We had a fabulous weekend.

Friday I saw a play.

Saturday I got up early and cleaned, prepped some photos for development and did a bunch of Christmas shopping during the day. Saturday night M & I went to his work Christmas party at the Loch March Golf Club. It was super fun! We won movie certificates and tickets to a Sens game in January!

Sunday we had our annual Christmas brunch and Secret Santa exchange with our friends here in Ottawa. My Kris Kringle got me a year subscription to In Style-one of my fav magazines!

It may have been super busy but overall it was an awesome weekend!

xoxo
K

Weekend Scrapbooking

We had a great weekend! There was very little scrapbooking activity around my house though. I wish I had gotten into my new kit but alas I did not. I did manage to get some really neat tags done for our secret gift exchange with our friends yesterday.

Channeling the very popular T!m Holtz I used some resist techniques and did some fun embossing and inking. I've been following his 12 Tags of Christmas and decided to try some new things with some gift tags.





I think they turned out pretty cute! I made a huge mess-so not like me while scrapbooking!

Weekend photos to follow later this week!

xoxo
K

5 for Friday: ON Monday!

Life has been crazy around here! So today's edition of '5 For Friday' is coming to you on a Monday!

1. My Studio Calico kit Metropolitan came on Thursday. It is beautiful. I also bought two add on kits and a bunch of stamps, ink and mists. I'm super busy this week but I'm planning on carving out some time to dig into my new supplies!



2. I saw a childrens production of Willy Wonka tonight. A student of mine was in it and I bought tickets for it ages ago. It was super cute!

3. On Thursday M & I went to PLAY for dinner with our friends. It was AMAZING. The food and company were fantastic! I had hanger steak and frites. Best fries ever.



4. Ali Edwards December Daily is lovely. I love the shape and size and she's just so good at putting it all together. I tried printing my photos at home but I'm too spoiled by the development at Blacks. I have to get some photos developed for my album this weekend.

5. This tutorial is super cool. I might try this technique on a layout this coming weekend.

xoxo
K

Weekend Layouts

This past weekend M went to Toronto for a boys weekend with his bf's so I had the house (and the TV) all to myself to scrapbook while listening/watching movies in the background. I scrapped a lot. On top of completing a few days of my December Daily I also completed about 16 layouts. I don't even have photos of all of them yet but figured I'd post what I have here for now.

This title was inspired by a number of my students! They sing this song all the time. The waffle maker was a hand me down-we love it!

The weekend we went to Syracuse was the big homecoming game. It was my first official, real, live football game.

Did you know Syracuse has a zoo? with elephants? It was an AWESOME surprise. Elephants are awesome. Especially when they do tricks!

A layout about my scrapbooking stuff...layouts and my addiction to mini albums.



Love this one of friends and my brother in law!



This was a sad day. We gave away the very first piece of furniture we ever bought together-an old brown couch. It went to a good home with some friends of ours though.

In October we went home to Newfoundland for a wedding. Of course, whenever M goes home he always attempts to beat Grandad at snooker. He's usually not successful...

One up close for good measure...

I love the way the title turned out. I used thickers and then misted over them and then peeled them off. This masking effect is one I will try again. I really like how it looks.

I used bits and pieces of Studio Calico kits to complete all of these pages for the most part. I'm trying to get rid of my current supplies to justify the big box that is coming on Thursday. Merry Christmas to me! I ordered a ton of extra goodies so I am super pumped to dig into that box.

When I've photographed the rest of the layouts I did over the weekend I will share. For now, have a great Thursday!

xoxo
K

December Daily: 1-4

I've been busy living life and haven't been very good about blogging it lately. I have managed to get some scrapbooking done though.

So, without further ado, the December Daily 1-4 pages.

December 1st: our tree went up. One simple 6*8 photo. I love that size.



December 2nd: we said goodbye to Matthew's mustache which he grew to raise money for the children's wish foundation. I'm having to have this clean, baby face back!



December 3rd: The nutcracker at the National Arts Centre (spectacular by the way!).



December 4: (page one) Skype dates with by camp BF...we laughed a lot



December 4: (page two) Baking cranberry bliss bars

That's all I have so far. I will do another chunk tomorrow night or on the weekend to catch up I suspect. We have a busy couple of days coming-a dinner out with friends, a play, M's holiday work party, a holiday brunch and Secret Santa with our friends. It'll all make for some great photos though!

xoxo
K

5 For Friday

1. December Daily is well on it's way in my house. I'm developing photos this weekend and starting the creation process. I'm excited to dive into my materials and create with what I've put together. Hopefully I'll have something to show you by Sunday.

2. I'm ALL ALONE this weekend. M is out of town to visit friends in TO. I plan on having my own personal scrapbooking retreat at my house complete with girlie movies and pizza hut.

3. Tonight I am going to see the Alberta Ballet's production of The Nutcracker. I have been a dancer since I was a tiny 3 yr old so I have an inner love for ballet. I'm very excited to go to the ballet tonight.

4. Tomorrow morning I am participating in the Santa Shuffle sponsored by the Running Room here in O-Town. So long as it's not too cold I'll be old there huffing and puffing the 5km to some Taylor Swift tunes.

5. It's December 3rd and that means M can finally get rid of his mustache. He's been growing it for a whole month for the Children's Wish Foundation. I am not a fan of facial hair so I'm very happy to have his smooth, baby face back.

Have a happy weekend!

xoxo
K

Hello December!

It's here! Today is December 1st and that means December Daily time. I've got lots of random things to discuss today so if you're her for my December Daily pics scroll toward the bottom.

It's been a rainy day here in O-Town but that hasn't lessened my holiday spirit. I started my day with a lovely email informing me that a donation had been made in my name to the Stephen Lewis Foundation. The Stephan Lewis Foundation is supported by a group near and dear to our hearts at school as we have a number of friends who are members of Grandmothers to Grandmothers who raise money to support African women. Today is International Aids Day. I was honored to have a donation made in my name. If you are interested in making a donation you can go here.

Today I also made a discovery via Ali's blog. I found Reverb 10. A very cool journaling site just for December. Here's the description on their blog:

Reverb 10 is an annual event and online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next. The end of the year is an opportunity to reflect on what's happened, and to send out reverberations for the year ahead. With Reverb 10, we'll do both.

The idea is you receive a prompt each day, write about it and then share it with others. Here's today's prompt as an example:

December 1 One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
(Author: Gwen Bell)

I would love to keep up with this activity in addition to the December Daily but I don't think i'll be able to write and post every day. I may have to do it in spurts like the December Daily creation.

And finally...

December Daily Day 1.

I love to decorate more than anything. It's a trait I inherited from my mother. Nobody does holiday decor like my mom. Sunday I put up our garlands but tonight, in honor of December 1st, we put up our tree. I fluffed, lit, ribboned and hung ornaments on, what we've dubbed, as our 'toilet brush tree'. We've had it for four years now. Next year we'll have a new pre-lit tree but for this year we're stuck with this one. I figure the more lights, ribbon and ornaments that we add to it disguises the actual tree itself. Here's a few shots of the process.

First the fluffing...

Then the lights. Not my job.



Ribbon.



Ornaments.





All done.

All of our decor is red and silver. I love the way the lights sparkles off all the silver. It looks magical.

In addition to the tree I also put out our nativity set. My mom has been giving me pieces of this set for years. It's finally complete.

And of course, no Christmas is complete without this-

Matthew proposed to me 3 years ago with this book on Christmas Eve. Fitting that our wedding photo stands in front of it don't you think?!

I hope you kicked off your December with a wonderful day today. Happy December!

xoxo
K