Friday, November 30, 2007
It's been awhile
Why? Because on Thanksgiving day my brain exploded. Like literally. Had a nice little stroke (AVM) on the right side of my brain. Came downstairs with the worst headache in the whole world ever, really. Made me puke. The nausia was overwhelming. I collapsed trying to make it to the sink. The kid was there with me asking if I was ok an wanting to know of I wanted her to get daddy (yes please) and so she went up and got him. I could not get up by myself, the left half of my body did not respond. The hubby proceeded to call our neighbor Dr. Jay (ER doc) who came over and called the paramedics and sent me on the Methodist Hospital (great hospital) were they cut my head open and drained off all the extra blood ands stopped the bleeding that was filling my brain and making my life really bad. My mom was there, the kid stayed at the Dr. Jay's house (we have such great friends) and the hubby and my mom had a fall apart OMG moment of what were they going to do with me if I didn't make it. At that point the doctor was still talking about how he was going to try and save my left side. It was a bit touch and go. My dad was called and he flew out as did the hubby's mom. The outpouring of love from all of our friends has been incredible. The neighbors have been cooking and feeding my family for a week now. My friends and coworkers have been visiting the hospital and sending cards and flowers, apparently streams of ministers came through to visit with B while I was under the knife. He let a catholic nun pray over me at one point. This is big for him...he must have been sure I was gone. I am taking he and the kid to services with some people I like this weekend (if I can hack it) so that if anything else happens he has someone he can call. Right now I'm at a rehab clinic in San Antonio (RIOSA, very nice place). I'm apparently doing well and have screwed the age curve here, most people are well into their 70's. On a side note friends and family, this is a freak thing that can happen to anyone. Those with high blood pressure and/or bad eating habits should be very paranoid, it's damn scary and kills right quick. RIGHT QUICK. I should be dead. Take note and learn people. I have big seams in my scalp/skull. I'll post pics when I get home.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Weather in Texas
I looked down at the little weather window while on the CNN website and this is what it showed:
Tomorrow
HI 52°F | LO 37°F
Now take a good look at that. Today 80, Tomorrow 52
That's 30 friggin degrees difference! We've done this a few times this month and let me tell you it's just funky. Today is a gorgeous day. Beautiful blue skies, slight breeze, just beyond lovely. I should be out there digging holes to plant my potted roses. Why? Because tomorrow they could be frozen to death. It just seems wrong. I'm so used to living next to the pacific ocean. When you live next to a large body of water the temperature just doesn't fluctuate like that, the water keeps it stable. Boy nothing says 'landlocked' like a 30 degree temperature sway overnight. This is Texas though and I suspect that it'll be back to 80 again in another week.
Tomorrow
HI 52°F | LO 37°F
Now take a good look at that. Today 80, Tomorrow 52
That's 30 friggin degrees difference! We've done this a few times this month and let me tell you it's just funky. Today is a gorgeous day. Beautiful blue skies, slight breeze, just beyond lovely. I should be out there digging holes to plant my potted roses. Why? Because tomorrow they could be frozen to death. It just seems wrong. I'm so used to living next to the pacific ocean. When you live next to a large body of water the temperature just doesn't fluctuate like that, the water keeps it stable. Boy nothing says 'landlocked' like a 30 degree temperature sway overnight. This is Texas though and I suspect that it'll be back to 80 again in another week.
Another birthday
This one is dual purpose, SCS Bella challenge located here and I needed a card quickly. My old boss has turned 40 and I wanted to send out a card right quick since I heard about it last minute. It took me about 8 minutes from digging out the paper and stamps to finish. The coloring is using Prisma pencils, the paper is MME and HL cardstock, the stamp is CosmoBella and The Cat's Pajama's for the words. Tres facile.
On another note we have a doctor friend (AirForce flight surgeon/er doc) that brought home extra flu vaccines for us. The intranasal kind so the kid didn't have a hissy fit over taking it. Anyway I never get the flu vaccine, why? Because it always gives me a mild case of the flu. I hate it, the kid and hubby are fine but me, 3 days out I feel icky. Does it mean I won't be tagged as hard later in the season? Maybe. Who knows. The pros and cons of the flu vaccine are, like most vaccines, debatable.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Evil little dogs...
..and slakin' husbands. So today we went to go pick up the kid from school and then ran some errands. So we put the dogs in their respective crates while we were gone.
Now mind you, all dogs in our house are crated when we are gone for various reasons. Roxy has this pissy little female bitchy thing. Literally. She waits until you leave and then finds a piece of carpet to pee on. We have only hardwood and tile downstairs and then baby gate the top of the stairs so it's easily avoidable but she also used to be a stray so if you're gone she'll also try and dig her way into a cabinet just in case it has food in it. She won't pee on the floors downstairs at all, once we baby gated the upstairs we didn't have any problems. Let her lose in the whole house and you're playing Russian Roulette with the carpets. So when we're gone she's crated.
Jaynie has a bad case of separation anxiety, he can kill many pillows if left to his own devices. He'll also sit in the window and freak out anytime anyone or anything goes by outside. He thinks trash cans are the devil's spawn, don't even get me started on what he thinks the people pushing them are. If a dog goes by his innards flip and become his outards and all hell breaks lose. So when we're gone he's crated.
The little man, Corbie, well he turns 1 yr old this month and since we sprang him from the kennel he had lived in for the first 9 months of his life he's been living the life of the destructive puppy that he never had a chance to do in his younger years. I mean months. He's not as bad as a labrador puppy but he does get into things and destroys them eventually. Not quickly, there's time if you notice him walking by with a sock, a kid toy, a writing utensil, a pair of boxers, a shoe, a shoe insert, paper, or other non-doggie chew toy object, to remove it from his mouth and it only get slobbied on. If he was a labrador the object would be instantly destroyed as soon as it hit the pup's mouth. Then there was that window moulding fetish. All of our windows are 5 ft windows with sills 1 ft above the floor. Perfect Frenchie chewing height. He also took a bit of training with the potty issue when we first got him in August. He had not been a house dog, he was to be a breeding/show dog so he was kept in a kennel which is not really potty training friendly. So when we're gone he's crated.
Add to all that if any thing toxic or bad is ingested by any of the dogs when they aren't being supervised I am not thrilled about having to spend oodles of money in vet bills due to Darwinism (lets face it, I own 3 of the stupidest dogs in the whole world, love them to death but not for their brains) I'd be pissed. At myself not them, they rely on their owners to be responsible, god did not give them more than 5 brain cells to share between the lot.
Anyway back to the point, it has happened on occasion that we have put all of their dogs in their respective crates only to forget to latch the door after putting them in. OK, I'm using the 'we' here when I really mean 'he'. For what ever reason the dh forgets sometimes. So far it's only happened with the big dogs, where we'd only have to deal with inanimate objects being destroyed. The big dogs won't eat things that'll hurt them, they are like 5 or 6 years old and way past the stupid puppy stage in their lives. Really what they do is annoying and not suicidal. Corbie will eat things that'll kill him and not think twice about it, puppies just do that. So today the dh forgot to latch the little guys cage. We come home after being gone for no less than 2 hours, plenty of time for Corbie to kill himself and when we open the door he's there to greet us. I'm like "Oh my god, quick someone check to see if the gate at the top of the stairs is closed." Thankfully it was and we checked around to see what kind of nightmare destruction/surgery-to-remove-foreign-object or at least major potty disaster we had to face and low and behold there was nothing. He got into nothing. And didn't have a single accident. It was nothing shy of a miracle. Now that doesn't mean we're going to ever try that again, the little turd gets into trouble while we're sitting there watching him so we are just chalking this one up to luck. We were lucky this time, I doubt we'll be able to get away with this again, but dang am I proud of my little man! He's such a little disaster waiting to happen and he was so good today I can't believe it. Now I'm sure tomorrow he'll go and take a crap on the carpet or something totally atrocious but that's the price you pay for a good 2 hours alone and angelic!
Now mind you, all dogs in our house are crated when we are gone for various reasons. Roxy has this pissy little female bitchy thing. Literally. She waits until you leave and then finds a piece of carpet to pee on. We have only hardwood and tile downstairs and then baby gate the top of the stairs so it's easily avoidable but she also used to be a stray so if you're gone she'll also try and dig her way into a cabinet just in case it has food in it. She won't pee on the floors downstairs at all, once we baby gated the upstairs we didn't have any problems. Let her lose in the whole house and you're playing Russian Roulette with the carpets. So when we're gone she's crated.
Jaynie has a bad case of separation anxiety, he can kill many pillows if left to his own devices. He'll also sit in the window and freak out anytime anyone or anything goes by outside. He thinks trash cans are the devil's spawn, don't even get me started on what he thinks the people pushing them are. If a dog goes by his innards flip and become his outards and all hell breaks lose. So when we're gone he's crated.
The little man, Corbie, well he turns 1 yr old this month and since we sprang him from the kennel he had lived in for the first 9 months of his life he's been living the life of the destructive puppy that he never had a chance to do in his younger years. I mean months. He's not as bad as a labrador puppy but he does get into things and destroys them eventually. Not quickly, there's time if you notice him walking by with a sock, a kid toy, a writing utensil, a pair of boxers, a shoe, a shoe insert, paper, or other non-doggie chew toy object, to remove it from his mouth and it only get slobbied on. If he was a labrador the object would be instantly destroyed as soon as it hit the pup's mouth. Then there was that window moulding fetish. All of our windows are 5 ft windows with sills 1 ft above the floor. Perfect Frenchie chewing height. He also took a bit of training with the potty issue when we first got him in August. He had not been a house dog, he was to be a breeding/show dog so he was kept in a kennel which is not really potty training friendly. So when we're gone he's crated.
Add to all that if any thing toxic or bad is ingested by any of the dogs when they aren't being supervised I am not thrilled about having to spend oodles of money in vet bills due to Darwinism (lets face it, I own 3 of the stupidest dogs in the whole world, love them to death but not for their brains) I'd be pissed. At myself not them, they rely on their owners to be responsible, god did not give them more than 5 brain cells to share between the lot.
Anyway back to the point, it has happened on occasion that we have put all of their dogs in their respective crates only to forget to latch the door after putting them in. OK, I'm using the 'we' here when I really mean 'he'. For what ever reason the dh forgets sometimes. So far it's only happened with the big dogs, where we'd only have to deal with inanimate objects being destroyed. The big dogs won't eat things that'll hurt them, they are like 5 or 6 years old and way past the stupid puppy stage in their lives. Really what they do is annoying and not suicidal. Corbie will eat things that'll kill him and not think twice about it, puppies just do that. So today the dh forgot to latch the little guys cage. We come home after being gone for no less than 2 hours, plenty of time for Corbie to kill himself and when we open the door he's there to greet us. I'm like "Oh my god, quick someone check to see if the gate at the top of the stairs is closed." Thankfully it was and we checked around to see what kind of nightmare destruction/surgery-to-remove-foreign-object or at least major potty disaster we had to face and low and behold there was nothing. He got into nothing. And didn't have a single accident. It was nothing shy of a miracle. Now that doesn't mean we're going to ever try that again, the little turd gets into trouble while we're sitting there watching him so we are just chalking this one up to luck. We were lucky this time, I doubt we'll be able to get away with this again, but dang am I proud of my little man! He's such a little disaster waiting to happen and he was so good today I can't believe it. Now I'm sure tomorrow he'll go and take a crap on the carpet or something totally atrocious but that's the price you pay for a good 2 hours alone and angelic!
Monday, November 12, 2007
And a Bella too!
Yeah, told ya I had a Bella ...
Stamp: PresentaBella
Ink: StazOn black
Prisma pencils
Paper: My Minds Eye
Pratice, Pratice, Practice
So I need to practice coloring and that's just all there is to it. So last night I took some of the images I stamped and while lounging in from of the tv (yeah, horrible lighting I'm sure) and did just that. This time I used my Prismas and while everyone is all about the gamsol and/or baby oil I've decided I'm waaay too lazy to be using this technique. The blender pencil works just fine for me. Since I now had a few images stamped and colored I figured I could at least gather enough motivation to stick one onto a card for SCS challenge purposes. It's the challenge in the Bella section and it's not a Bella but I colored one of those in too so if my ever so limited mojo continues to flow I may just pop one of those out too, one never knows...
Paper: MME wild asparagus for the green, BG Blitzen collection Poinsettia for the patterned paper
Ink: StazOn black and Prisma pencils
Stamp: Hanna Stamps 'tis the season
Friday, November 9, 2007
Copics and Stampin Up pens
A friend of mine and I have this thing, we're now into Copic markers but don't have the burning need to purchase them for $5.89 each. So we use the Hobby Lobby 40% off coupons and buy them one by one. No lie, we actually buy them individually. Do you know how much self control that takes? I think she took all 4 of her kids to HL today since it was half day and had them each by one. I haven't called her yet but that was the plan. I got 4 today and that's just because I figured out that if I put both pens down, wait for the cashier to ring it up as 2 x $5.89 and then hand her my coupon she's not going through the effort of getting a manger to delete it back out, she'll just ring the whole total up at 40% off. Yeah, the fine art of coupons. Anyway, for the sake of figuring out whether or not I prefer the Copics (left Hanna) to the Stampin Up pens (right Hanna) I colored in 2 of the Hanna's I stamped previously. Now mind you SU pens are water based and Copics are alcohol based so it's almost like an apple and orange comparison but this is just for the sake of filling in images completely. I really like the effect I get when using SU pens as water color pens and moving the color around as you've seen in my previous posts. So it's not like I regret buying those suckers at all. That being said, after using them side by side for the exact same fill in project Copics win, hands down. You can't tell by my awful (as I've said before) coloring technique (must use kid's coloring books more) but it took me twice as long to do the SU coloring in as the Copics. The Copics have 2 nibs, both are fat. One is a square nib for big fill in stuff that I'll probably never do (I don't draw and all of my stamped images are card sized) and the other is just like the brush end of the SU markers only muuuch higher quality. You can use it to fill in little tiny spaces and it's soooo smooth. The SU pens I had to fill in the large spaces with the brush end but the tip of the brush is not stiff enough to get to the edges without going outside the lines. So I had to go back and use the fine tip end to do that part but the fine tip doesn't write as smooth so it kind of leaves lines. Not a big deal but kinda annoying. No one is going to be scrutinizing it close enough to make a difference so it's really neither here nor there but I'm still getting more Copics. They are sooo nice to color with!
SU colors used (Hanna on the right):
Chocolate Chip, Blush Blossom, Real Red, Green Galore, Gable Green
Copic Colors used (Hanna on the left):
YG06 Yellowish Green, YG09 Lettuce Green, E00 Skin White, E37 Sepia, R29 Lipstick Red
The paper used is Georgia Pacific cardstock, 110lb and the black ink is StazOn. I'll need to get a different black to stamp with because Copics make the StazOn bleed.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Because a friend asked...
If you look at the stamp pictures on the Hanna stamp website the images are blurry. Her official store front is not up yet so I'm hoping that she'll have better images but I had a friend mention that the stamps were fuzzy and that would drive her nuts. Yeah, I totally agree. Krissy needs to take higher resolution photos because these stamps are very crisp. So I have taken photos of some images that I stamped as proof, keep in mind 1) these stamps need the film removed from the manufacturing process by either taking an eraser to the stamping surface, cleaning them, or stamping them a bunch, and 2) My black StazOn is running low. You can especially tell on the top of the Christmas tree. Yeah, I'll get around to it. Like I need an excuse to go shopping. If you click on the image it'll expand to insanely large size so you can get a good look at the edges of the stamping. Scrutinize to you hearts content.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Just a quick note...
The kid reminded me after her bath tonight that I had promised her we'd play with the Hanna Stamps. I didn't get her in bed until just after 9pm. I'm such a bad mom. On an up note these are really very nice quality acrylic stamps. Right up there with Technique Tuesday stuff. And I LOVE the images!
Monday, November 5, 2007
Hanna Stamps and Bella Band
Two totally unrelated things but since I'm lazy it'll be one post. This evening my Hanna Stamps came in, yeah!! I also found out that she's going to be releasing new sets every 3 weeks until she gets a good amount in her line, then she'll release new ones every 4 weeks. Sooo wrong. I need to start my own stamp company damnit. I just need to learn how to draw... Until then I'll continue to hone my coloring skills up to that of a 6 year old and cross that start up business hurdle when I get to it. Tonight I'll stamp some Hanna images and tomorrow maybe I'll get time to color!! Give me a week and I may even assemble a whole card. I'm obviously on the short bus of the card making world.
As for the Bella Band lets start off with I'm not preggers, I'm not even planning on being so in the near or not so near future. So why did I have to hunt one of these things down? Well when I moved out to San Antonio last fall I started noticing this rash on my tummy. It started to get out of control irritated and icky. I went to the doctor, he took one look at it and said I was allergic to my metal belt buckle. Damn. Now metal allergies are not a new one in my life. I can't wear earrings, like, at all. Some people can only wear gold or platinum or stainless steel even. I can't wear any metal at all. Even clip ons. Within 5 minutes the skin starts to itch, 10 minutes bleed, by 30 minutes there's puss oozing from the skin. It. is. Gross. So the fact that I was allergic to the metal belt buckle was bothersome, now I had to buy a plastic belt buckled belt, but no biggie. Now phase II of the allergy has hit. All summer long I didn't worry about it, it's too hot in Texas to wear jeans. Come this fall a few days (not a lot, just a few) have been cool enough to get back in them. Well you know how the back of the button comes through to the inside of the pants? Yeah, now I'm sensitive enough to get a vile reaction from that wee bit of metal. So what do you do? I tried a camisole but that's just too much clothing to be adding to cover up a 1/4" piece of metal and sometimes they ride up, defeating the whole purpose. A girlfriend of mine suggested I sew a bit of fabric on the back of all the buttons but I love jeans, I own like 10 pairs, and I hate sewing through denim. It's a bitch to sew through and I break a needle every time. So I was at a friends house like 8 months ago and she had just had a baby. She shows me her bella band and says "I love this thing". Now I was looking for something like this to solve my problem. Let's get one thing straight right now, I'm not wearing a girdle. Nope, not gonna happen, I'm just not there yet. Tube tops don't stay in the right place and they're even harder to find than these suckers. Anyway I drove out to the foo foo maternity store, explained my use of this thing and was promptly asked if I had kids and if I was going to have more. Boy, not at those clothes prices let me tell you! Cute clothes but dang....
As for the Bella Band lets start off with I'm not preggers, I'm not even planning on being so in the near or not so near future. So why did I have to hunt one of these things down? Well when I moved out to San Antonio last fall I started noticing this rash on my tummy. It started to get out of control irritated and icky. I went to the doctor, he took one look at it and said I was allergic to my metal belt buckle. Damn. Now metal allergies are not a new one in my life. I can't wear earrings, like, at all. Some people can only wear gold or platinum or stainless steel even. I can't wear any metal at all. Even clip ons. Within 5 minutes the skin starts to itch, 10 minutes bleed, by 30 minutes there's puss oozing from the skin. It. is. Gross. So the fact that I was allergic to the metal belt buckle was bothersome, now I had to buy a plastic belt buckled belt, but no biggie. Now phase II of the allergy has hit. All summer long I didn't worry about it, it's too hot in Texas to wear jeans. Come this fall a few days (not a lot, just a few) have been cool enough to get back in them. Well you know how the back of the button comes through to the inside of the pants? Yeah, now I'm sensitive enough to get a vile reaction from that wee bit of metal. So what do you do? I tried a camisole but that's just too much clothing to be adding to cover up a 1/4" piece of metal and sometimes they ride up, defeating the whole purpose. A girlfriend of mine suggested I sew a bit of fabric on the back of all the buttons but I love jeans, I own like 10 pairs, and I hate sewing through denim. It's a bitch to sew through and I break a needle every time. So I was at a friends house like 8 months ago and she had just had a baby. She shows me her bella band and says "I love this thing". Now I was looking for something like this to solve my problem. Let's get one thing straight right now, I'm not wearing a girdle. Nope, not gonna happen, I'm just not there yet. Tube tops don't stay in the right place and they're even harder to find than these suckers. Anyway I drove out to the foo foo maternity store, explained my use of this thing and was promptly asked if I had kids and if I was going to have more. Boy, not at those clothes prices let me tell you! Cute clothes but dang....
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Sweet & Sassy
This is a project I did awhile back at a class done by Rusty Pickle. We used RP paper and stamps (back when they used EZ mounted rubber rather than the new acrylic) with gold and green Lumiere paints. I loved the stamps and the paint, unfortunately now that I look back at the pics they don't do justice to either. It was a cute project but I don't have any use for brag books so I die cut a bunch of doggie words with the scrap pieces of paper and donated it to French Bulldog Rescue Network for a fund raiser.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Double Header
So this afternoon was a busy one but we still managed to squeeze in a Hobby Lobby trip and survive. Today was the 2 birthday parties in one afternoon day, Kaia's 5th b-day at Pump it Up from 2:30-4:30 and Armani's (yeah, thats right Armani) 6th b-day at his house from 5- whenever. Of course both of them were far off from the house and in the same direction so we had to go to Kaia's, come home to feed the dogs, then turn around and go back to where we were before only father to get to Armani's. Fun was had by all though and the kid has had her fill of sugar ten times over. Both the dh and I have heads that hurt. Nothing like having to be pleasant for more than 2 hours in a row to stress my brain out and the dh has this lovely cough for over a week that I think is bursting all his brain vessels. Last week I asked him if he wanted to go to the doctor to have them check him over, today he decided that it may be a good idea. Men.
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