It's been a while.....

I feel like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland..... Always running, and always late!

Mike's birthday passed without much fuss, just the way he likes it. We had planned on a nice dinner, until I saw the bank-balance, and we stayed home. He absolutely hates celebrating his birthday, and even though my family is "not built that way" over time I managed to convince them of this so even the phone stayed quiet. The only concession he makes, is that the 2 of us celebrate, a little. And I truly believe, this is because I won't let him slide by without it! :-)  I had ordered, and actually received IN TIME, 2 books for 1$ each, so I figured we could do that, at least and I baked him his cake. Not the normal 9x13 but a round one. REALLY came out good. The oven is tiny, so a regular cake pan won't fit, and on top of that..... it's on the old side, so temperature and cooking times vary by day outside temperature and wind direction. LOL  I figured since the cakepan was 9 inch diameter, I would stick to the 9x9 inch cooking time, knowing the oven, I added 20 minutes, and was 45 minutes short! It should have took about 30 minutes to cook, it took an hour and a half....... BUT, it was worth the wait. Never made a round cake before.  Sometimes change is good.....

I haven't been feeling right. No specifics, just not right. Sleep in spurts, eat occasionally, which is reflected in my vitamins being off kilter, which probably is the reason for not sleeping and feeling off. I'm worried about needing to go to work, not being able to, and having a heck of a time keeping my sanity. After fixing one thing, I'll be happy for about 5 minutes, thinking it all is finally getting in some kind of order, when the next shoe drops, setting me squarely back on my butt. It's not the size of the hurdles I'm starting to have a problem with, just the sheer volume of them! It's hard to remember a time that everything went as it should and I'm sure I'm not alone, so please forgive the whine? I cannot do the job I have done for the last 23 years and, according to the powers that be around here, I lack the qualifications for anything but housecleaning jobs, and when I tell them that I'm not even able to clean my house, they just kinda look at me like I must be the laziest person they've seen in a long time. I'm at a loss on how many other ways to explain to them that it's not the "not wanting to", but the "not able to". I know it wouldn't be right, and surely wouldn't accomplish anything, but sometimes I have such a hard time not suggesting to them to try and walk in my shoes for a week, and see how they like it...... But, my mum raised me right, so I won't. Meanwhile, I'm stuck between a big rock and a huge rock.

I've done a couple of pages, but even the scrapping doesn't get me out of my funk. My camera is about to give up the ghost! The sensor is REALLY funky these days. I'm getting in the habit to take 3 pictures very close together. One will be too dark, one will be way light, and sometimes the third one will come out ok. I wasn't aware that they only last about 2 years...... Oh well. As long as I can fudge the pictures a bit, I'll be ok. Once it won't let me do that anymore, I will have a problem! :-)
It's really weird though. It will start out looking right, and usually right when I hit the shutter button, it turns either really dark, or really light.....

This concludes the cranky part of this post... On to the fun stuff!

Star Song Studio's  has a new kit out. MOUNTAIN WHISPERS. (and a new one coming called Autumn Reflections. I have a really nice picture in mind for this one, I just have to go take it! :-)...)

Ann's new kit: Mountain Whispers.
The page is going into the Family Tree. 

This is one of my favorite pictures, and I don't believe I will ever make another one like it. Everything was just right. Lets face it, more than half the time, what you see, is not what you get in the picture. I don't know why, but between the eye and the camera, it looses that special something......

To get the picture within the frame, I double layered the paper, and erased everything but the frame. Than I dropped the picture between the 2 layers. So... I guess this is my long winded way to say that the frame is not part of the kit as a separate frame.

The kit is available here: 

I did my pages, and the Bingo page for Ivy. The Themed Monthly Mega is no longer that. Instead it consists of several mini-kits with one color palette. It raises a whole new set of challenges for this CT member, let me tell you. Luckily for me, most designers were in the same mindset this month, unluckily for me.... I don't have many pictures of Halloween events.. I think you've seen all of them, several times. LOL
So, I still made the pages, just forgot the Halloween part...... kinda.

Boo From Booland Designs, has been extremely busy, and so she keeps us out of trouble :-)

I haven't been good at posting her kits, and I truly apologize for that. She is very generous in what she lets us play with, and I feel really bad about not praising her as much as I should.Believe it or not, I actually haven't worked all the kits she has out, because I can't keep up with her. I will share the ones I have made, and make a promise to get better at posting, and to learn "enabling".  Right after I find out what it is! LOL

The latest kits is called MISTY MORNING. I got to play with the collection, so there is a little bit of everything to use. I should have kept track of what was part of the original kit, and I will, in the future kits, but I saw that she has a killer sale over at The Studio

 I will forever treasure the morning I spent, traipsing thru the snow, after an ice-storm hit Hiawatha. Complete silence except for the crunching of boots on snow, cold air and squirrels and a cardinal almost oblivious to me standing there.....  And needing a day to warm up :-)

This picture came about almost by accident. It was in the castle at Hoensbroek, where they had put this little room together, to look like a skullery maid was doing laundry, by candle light. I thought the picture would be too dark to make anything out on, but when I got home and saw it on the screen, instead of the littlebitty window on the back of the camera, I was glad I hadn't erased it. It reminds me of the work of one of my favorite old masters, Jan Steen.....

One thing that cal almost always brighten my day, is seeing poppies in a field of grain. Don't know if it is the bright spot within the solid, or the fact that it's a happy color. I just like it. It was nice to see again.

TOUCHED came out earlier this month: 

I love the mix of colors, They''re all very soft, but not sickeningly sweet.  AND it had a teddybear! 

Somehow, I cannot put my hands on the other page. As soon as I find it, I will post it.

As did DARK NIGHT:

These pictures were taken in the middle of the day, after a very nice bright sun up. The longer we were driving the whiter the skies, and I silently hoped they would drop some snow, but alas..... just cold fog. We sat at the waters edge for a while. The window slightly opened, sipping hot coffee, enjoying the eerie silence around us. Very faintly could we hear the boats on the canal and the traffic on the road behind us, mostly we heard nothing.

AND BEFORE I FORGET AGAIN....... The Point in Time challenge has been up over at The Studio.....

So, I believe you're all caught up.  Talk soon, and please, don't forget to love that hugged one :-)

Pauli