Almost back to normal......

Well, as normal as our life will be, I guess LOL.

I'm a little worried about my sister in law. We haven't heard from her in a while, and she hasn't visited the blog and doesn't respond to emails.... So Kim, let us know what's going on in your neck of the woods?

StarSongStudio's announced her retirement from designing at the end of this month.... I'm bummed, but I understand. She has to do what is good for her, but I will so miss her talent! I'm hoping she'll miss designing so much, that she'll be back in no-time, but  you really can't tell how life is going, as we have found out over the last couple of years. Sometimes, something just "gotta give" to allow some breathing room. I wish her all the peace she and her family needs, and we promised we'll stay in touch!
If you had any thoughts of "later" on any of her beautiful kits, please visit her stores before they close on February 28th!!!!





I don't think there was one kit of hers I didn't love, but there's always a couple that stand out (Usually the ones with the pages that came out better than I could imagine... LOL) and some that were much better than my talent for showing them off, and for that I apologize!
It was a fun ride Ann. Thank you so much for trusting me with your creations!

Here are some of my favorite pages/kits/memories put to paper, in no particular order.

Sweet Rememberance

Berries and Cream

I know this is made with Anns kits, but I cannot find it in my stash. I want to say it was Tangerine dream.........

Winter Symphony

Raspberry Truffle

DecemberDawn

Bright Blooms

Passionata

Rosy Dawn

Enchanted

Nymphea

Autumn Prelude

Sea Bundle (Sea Passage, Sea Journal, Sea Scapes, Sea Side

Lavendar Dreams

Nostalgia

Mountain Whispers 

Atumn Reflections

Autumn Reflections

Frosted

Painted Ladies

Teacup Garden

Wildflower Symphony

Lady Steampunk

Remember this day

Time for Tea

Sea Passage

A moment in Time

Lavendar Dreams

Toys in the Attic

Winter Wonderland

Sea Side Christmas

DogTales

Winter Ruins

Nouveau Nostalgia

Forest Fantasy

Even Tide

Blue Poppies

Just a quicky,

a couple of things, and "sign of life" LOL.
Yes, I'm still around, no I haven't been visiting with you much, but it's nothing personal.... Just life setting its own schedule, no matter what my dayrunner sais.

The POINT IN TIME challenge is up in The Studio:

I used the newest kit from OVER THE FENCE DESIGNS for the announcement. The only thing not from the kit is the glitter used for the month.

Boos new kit Peaceful Moments hit the stores last week. And before I even saw what was in it, I had the picture picked out. It's Perky (what else is new, right?) sleeping on the MyHealth. He can be on the other side of the house, and the minute I turn in on, he comes running. It's amazing, so after I'm done with mine and Mike's sessions, I put it on the internal peace setting, and put it on the floor next to him. Within a minute his head is on it, and within a couple more, he's out like a light.

A while back, ALL the way in January LOL, I had posted this page in de galleries, but not here yet. 

The template is from the double page template set that Boo just released a couple of weeks ago. The kit used was

The pictures are from the Bask black wolf enclosure in Gaia Zoo. In the newsletter the other day, they were explaining that there will be another pack of European Grey wolves coming, with a viewing gallery at eye level.... That will be something to see. Can't wait! They're in a building frenzy at the zoo right now, so it will be time for me to snoop around, one of these days, when I can walk for longer than an hour..... I over did it a bit a week or so ago, and I'm still paying LOL. Did I have fun? MOST definatly! Would I do it again? YUP!  

This reminds me of a picture of a T-shirt Mike lovingly sent my way from www.roadkillshirts.com......

I went to the Den Bosch archives on Thursday, and on Friday I decided I really needed out of the house again, so Mike and I went back and did part of the city walk. I had found out at the archives, that my grandpa was baptized in the cathedral there, and I also found a couple of the addresses, but...... I forgot to bring them with us. No harm done though. We're going back when the weather is a little less BRRRR :-) The sun was shining, so that was ok, but in the narrow streets, the wind was rather frigid at times. Add to that that Mike ran a splinter thru his foot at work, and was hobbeling worse than I was, so we didn't spend as much time as we wanted, but that just leaves more fun for next time. 

I will go back to do some research too, all I have to do is find discount train tickets LOL. When they have those, it costs about 15 to 18 Euro's (depending on the offer) to travel, by train, all day. For me to go to the archives without that discount, it takes 46.......... So, on discount tickets, that would be at least 2 trips for the price of 1. Were we to take the car, the parking would run into the 20's for all day, plus the gas, so unless you go with more than two, train-with-discount is the way to go :-)     I even have an alert set up on the computer for several chain stores that offer these tickets, to give me a buzz if they're having a sale, and hopefully, when they do, we have the spare-cash to use them LOL.

I found a couple more pages I should have posted a while ago :-(

I'm starting to like the double pages though, they're just a little tricky to show off here, or in the galleries......

AND.........!!!!

I've been hooked on getting into web-design ever since I hit the wrong button on Frontpage a couple of years ago, and saw the coding, so I started a course in "getting to know how it works"..... If nothing else, I will learn something, and either find out if it looks more fun than it is, or if I can make it work as a business, so I can work from home :-)

Currently, I'm starting the 3rd lesson, and I'm still hooked, and tempted to "read ahead" and see what's next, but I'm being a good girl, and going one step/lesson at a time. LOL  Just got done with a little bit of the history of websites, domains and hosting and now starting on design-tools.... YEAH!!!!!

I may have to break down, and join the cloud though, since Adobe doesn't sell the programs anymore, just cloud-subscriptions........ That's a bit of a downer, but it may work out ok. I can do my classes, and if I decide it's not for me, I cancel, and not have a couple of grand in programs sitting idle..... But I'm so excited to do this! 

So, I think you're all caught up on my shenanigans...... I will go pick up the house, clean the carpet (Perky is in between winter and summer coat, with the inevitable hairballs, even with the special food) and than, oh chucks :-), it's back to class! LOL

Don't forget to "Love a Hugged One" :-)

Does this fall under....

"Covering your ass" or "No clue, whatsoever"?

Let me explain :-)
Mike hasn't had any new email since January 1st, but there are people out there that swear left and right, that they have emailed him.
I realize I haven't seen anything coming in either, so I chat with Earthlink.

First I ask my question about why? and get transferred to another person.... I'm assuming that the question is not understood, and move on.
With the second person, I explain again, and ask if she can see where the mail gets stuck, because we are not receiving it..... I get 3 questions back. While I'm still typing the answers, the questions get repeated, so to be courteous, I answer the questions twice.(Who knows maybe the questions are parked in 2 different places, right? LOL) The answers require some checking on the other end, followed by checking on my end. At MY end, everything is just as I left it.... On their end, there is nothing, other than that the email gets picked up by an unknown mailprogram, and deleted from the server. I explain that we don't have it set up that way, and can she see the IP address, retrieve the messages somehow, follow the papertrail etc. No on all accounts.
My next question upon further review, logical to only me, is: So my email is hacked, and I can't do anything about it, because you don't know where it goes?
To my astonishment, this is the answer I received:

You emails is not hacked. However your email address is set up on an email program that you are not aware of

To which I question: Is that not the same thing? And promptly get the reply, "No, not at all! There is just an email program you don't know about accessing your email."  WTF????

I explain, that as soon as I have ANY email-addresses stored in my online contacts, the email starts sending out spam.... so something isn't right, and hasn't been right for a while?  Can Earthlink block my emails from being forwarded?
Answer: Everything looks good, and no they can't, I have to "not fill in a forwarding address in the preferences, delete the one that is there and take off the command to delete from server after forwarding. It is not something on their end, but it has to do with the unknown mail program."

Ok, here is where I get frustrated....
I told them:
1- We don't have it forwarded
2- We only delete from the server manually, as we go along, when we're done with the emails
3- There are no email addresses in the "to forward to" fields, so there is nothing to take out

I asked them:
1- How can my email start forwarding all of a sudden to an email program that is not known to you (or me) and the account not be hacked?
2- How can all the forwarding email fields be empty, and email still forwards?
3- How can I have "delete from server" NOT activated, but emails disappear after being picked up by "an unknown email program"?
4- How come you can't see what is going on? Don't you have some kind of tracking system?

The answer?  Change your password every couple of days, and deactivate the unknown email program!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME !?!?!?

At this time, after checking, she acknowledges that between January 1st, and 10 minutes ago (!) there have been 30 messages forwarded and deleted. The last 7 were taken WHILE SHE IS CHECKING THE ACCOUNT AND SHE DIDN'T NOTICE!?!?!?

At 3 in the morning, I just threw in the towel..... I couldn't hear one more time that everything was just hunkiedorie, except for the unknown program, and having to change my friggin' password every couple of days until who-ever is doing this, moves on....... So I bade her good night, changed my password, had a shot of Kahlua and went to bed.

There is one thing I learned from this conversation though..... I wanted to go into IT, but I may be too ??? (inquisitive, smart, interested in doing the job right)  to do the job. No offense intended to the people that work IT and do a good job, just some food for thought intended for people who don't give a hoot, and really shouldn't be let loose on any kind of customer service platform.

Needless to say,  I'm thinking we're changing companies! we're paid up till February 1st, so I have 2 weeks to get this done.

Any thoughts on how to fix this are welcome, by the way :-)

Don't forget to hug a loved one, and change your passwords, OFTEN :-)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

Glad you're spending time with me :-)

Well, I really have no news to give you, but I DO have a couple of pages to share......

Boo has a special over at The Studio, so go take a look there... The designers have come together in a super, build your own super mega kit. You can pick and choose what you want, all parts are just 1$ until the 15th (as far as I know) so if you only want elements, you can, if you're interested in getting a variety of quickpages, can do, if you just want different clusters and borders..... have at it! LOL.

I threw all 4 of her kits in one pile, and picked and chose, but the kits are seperated by color (white, gold, pink and cream)

She has new One Page Wonders..... there are 4, but I only played with 2.

Party On:

Over the Fence Designs:

Black Tie Affair:

Sadly, I haven't played with the December Mini Pixels from Ivy, and I just saw that the January ones are in the store...... I see some scrapping in my future LOL

HowEVER!! Tomorrow is January 6, the day my new plan goes in effect of scheduled chores, eating, shopping and playing.......with free time on Mikes day to work in the weekend. Alternating Saturday/Sunday. Sofar the weekend work schedule is holding, so I can plan around them. Before I set up this weeks schedule, I did a "test run" to see if I'm not going to have to abandon the plan, because of need/can restrictions, and it's doable, if I stay focused :-) So today is my last freewheeling day. Have a couple more things I need to do, so I will talk to you later, just wanted to tell you to have a great year, don't sweat the small stuff, and don't forget to hug that loved one every chance you'll get!

Could it possibly be.......

That I'm organized and on schedule?

NAH! Did get caught up with the CT requirements, still working on the IvyLeaves. I have to admit, to my shame, that I have not been able to get to the spreadsheet I share with Jan. It opens, and promptly closes. No matter which computer I use!  I still need to work out the details of the schedule I want to start following January 5th. (No New Years resolution for me, just an adjustment in time management) Also need to finish decorating the house, put the finishing touches on dinner tomorrow, wrap one more gift and I'm good to go on Christmas. Tree has been up for a couple of days, but that is more to get Perky used to it BEFORE the breakable decorations go in it, but I DO want to get that done tomorrow. Bake the pie, get "slaatje" going, eggs boiled for devilled eggs... you get the idea. No cookies this year. Oven is good for big stuff, but not so great on finicky stuff, plus there is no way in Hades that I can find a cookie sheet tiny enough to fit! LOL.

I found possible family of my moms, while shopping :-) I updated the family tree page, but I am so excited about this I had to tell you :-)
We went to find some shoes for Mike "up north" and were really close to the place that prints the new genealogy magazine I found at the station on one of my trips to my sister. Part of the company is a scrapbooking store (JAY!) and another part is a museum with the editors family-tree information, displayed the way I would LOVE to do ours, so of course I had to check it out. While doing that, I saw that one of the ladies in the pictures had the same last name as my great grandmother on my grandma's side, AND that she could double for pictures I have seen of my grandma when she was young..... So I asked, and the gentleman was going to check if he came across her somewhere and let me know. How cool is that?!

Enough drooling for one day :-) and on to the ct things.
Ann is still on sabbatical, so there's nothing new to play with. I miss playing with her beautiful kits, but I know she needs the peace and quiet, so it's all right.
Booland has a couple of kits out, and some coming, but I'm all caught up, so I will show you what I can....
IvyScraps has new Mini Pixels out, just for a couple more days, and than it's time for the January ones to hit the store, and I need to get going on the Point In Time challenge for January over at The Studio.

Season's Greetings by BooLand Designs

I know if I wait a couple more days, I can show you more, but ...... I had time, and figured I bug you for a bit. Mike is happy for the reprieve! LOL.

I'll probably not sign in again until after Christmas, so I will wish you the best of Holiday Cheer.

Don't forget to hug a loved one?

Pauli

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!

Let me begin this post with wishing everybody all the happiness and good health they can handle! LOL

I'm just coming off a 10 day Migraine.... I had gotten all cocky, because I have not HAD a Migraine since my second Chemo treatment a little over 4 years ago, and figured, I must be over it..... I was very happy to forget that someone told me that if you DID have Migraines, or any other chronic pain, it would subside during Chemo, but come back like gangbusters after......... They were right!
The bad ones always used to stew for a couple of days, and by drinking milk, and taking a Tylenol PM at dinner, a lot of times, they got bad, but not so bad that I would have preferred a rootcanal without sedation ...... This one hit out of left field to the point that had I had a closet I fit into, I would have happily hid there. The least little bit of light felt like being poked with a sharp stick and even the usually enticing smell of fresh tea made my stomach turn, let alone trying to eat or drink anything.... with the result, that now that the stomach part is taken care of, I'm constantly searching for food! But besides that, I just feel like a truck took a d-tour and backed up over me a couple of times, before resuming the planned trip. LOL

I have to sit down, and check where I fell down on which job, whether it is fixable, and how to get caught up while keeping up with ongoing things in the meantime. I think we will go without a Christmas tree, or decorated house this year. The tree is still well hidden on top of a cabinet I cannot get to, and I have no idea where the decorations went, because they are not where I thought they were....
Mike will be working up to Christmas eve, as far as I'm aware of anyway, so unless I can find what I want for dinner at our corner shop..... we're having Mac and Cheese, with a chaser of left over Sinterklaas candy for desert......  YAAAAY!!

I AM still working on getting organized, but I think I will have to ask for a grace period from scrapping duties so I can get it right. I know me, and I WILL try and cram everything I should have been doing over the last week or so and that, which I should currently be doing, into the days leading up to, and after Christmas to be done before the 1st.... It may not be possible, and probably isn't healthy, but I have to try and get caught up.

While going thru things in order to get caught up, I DID find a page I made with a kit from BooLandDesigns' called Christmas is not just for Diva's......

I just love the colors of the kit! I'm not done with it yet, either, but I wanted to get you started!

There's a couple of other kits still in the works... You'll love them. Some are due out in a couple of days, one I started on got out while I was snoozing, and 1 is due out around the end of the year.

I'm completely behind on the advent daily download over at the Studio, as well as Boo's blog goodies, but I'm hoping to catch a couple still, before it's done for another year..... I love the bloghops, daily downloads and blog give aways, but I never seem to remember to go by and pick things up! And that is WITH daily reminders on every possible device we have in the house..... Must not be "meant to be"

I don't think I posted these yet, but if I have, sorry :-)  These are an incentive to play the Bingo Game over at Ivy's......

I used Waite For The Moment Designs things only to make these.

Well, as you can tell, the brainpower is running on bare minimum, so if we don't talk before Christmas, have an awesome time?

LOVE AND HUGS FROM OUR FAMILY TO YOURS

Pauli

Did you have a good Thanksgiving?

It's just not the same without football LOL

We baked the Pumpkin pie and put the turkey in the crockpot this year. It was very much repeatable. I found the recipe on the SouthernPlate blog........ delicious! I don't think we ever had a turkey this soft. I guess there IS a silver lining to having a micro-mini oven that has a mind of its own! Had we had a normal size, normal acting oven, I might not have tried cooking the turkey in the slowcooker...... :-)

I felt good enough this week to do a little "pre-work" for setting up the tree. I know, I was going to put it up this weekend, but I just couldn't get my head around it, so I will postpone it a couple of days. Mike has to go to work on wednesday, so I may do it than. No harm done if it waits a week either though. Tomorrow we HAVE to do the rest of the Sinterklaas shopping, since we are expected at my sisters house this Sunday. Mike finally found out that he has that sunday off, and he had been putting off shopping, thinking he wouldn't go. (Since he pulled my name in the drawing, I was NOT about to offer to shop for him, so it's all up to Mike for that one! LOL)

I did get a little shopping in over the weekend, and a little scrapping, a little planning, a little cleaning, and more thinking than I wanted to. This flue is giving me the creeps. The last week, I've had nightmare after nightmare about being back on chemo, not able to function, and everybody I come in contact with wanting to do tests and in between I run thru endless white hallways....... I eat every imaginable vitamin we have in the house trying to get rid of this thing, in hopes that the nightmares stop. I hoped keeping busy would help with the cobwebs, but it doesn't..... Anybody have any ideas?

In my urge to get organized, I started moving some of the things from one drive to another, and noticed that in shifting things, the size of files changes. No idea why, or how, just that it does. I also "loose" things from folders, but when I put them side by side, everything is there. This does not make sense to me, and I wonder if it is something in the formatting of the disk. The good thing is, that for most things, I still have the zipfiles, if push comes to shove..... I haven't been able to focus very much, so I haven't gotten very far, but it's a start, no?

I'm not sure if I posted some of these, but I know for a fact some of them are brand new, since I only made them today :-) So, here it goes:

By Over The Fence Designs: THE GREATEST GENERATION

This one I know I already posted, but I love it for so many reasons.......The brothers all served in the US Navy.  The only Kelley "boy" missing is Uncle Keith. He served in the navy during the Korean war. As far as I'm concerned.... He is also part of the Greatest Generation, but the year tags didn't go that far...... I will make another page for him, soon.....

Patty B : TUSCAN DREAMS

Patty B : CLOSE TO YOU

The three ribbed pages are the same paper, once normal, one lightened and one darkened. The top page is the original paper from the kit.

Booland Designs: WISE OLD BIRD

BooLand Designs: LOVELY DAY

That's all for now. Please forgive the whining.... The weather has been very grey, without the fun of winter snow and combining that with not feeling right, has me a little out of sorts. Hopefully, putting up the tree and decorating the house for the holidays will get me out of whichever funk I landed in these last coupe of days.......

Meanwhile, enjoy and hug a loved one :-)

Fun, fun, fun

not really! LOL

Flue Season has come to our house. Anybody that says it's fun to be sick at the same time, is lying, or crazy....... :-) We were constantly trying to figure out who would get up and take care of things. On the up side..... I slept!

Mike only missed part of one day of work, and I feel like such a wimp to have been off my feet for almost a week.... We hope, since we had it at the same time, we won't be passing it back and forth all winter, like last year, and we're done with it. I'm hoping for a good freeze, so I can open up the house, and kill the germs, but so far.... it's been cold and wet, no ice. This flue is a fast acting one though. I went to Eindhoven on Friday, for sisterday and some Sinterklaas shopping, had a little bit of thick feeling in my head on Saturday, and was floored by Saturday evening! Usually, it takes a couple of days to actually come down with it, but not this one.  Mike didn't feel good Friday, stayed pretty much on the couch the rest of the weekend, went to work on Tuesday and Wednesday, got sent home on Thursday because he looked so bad, (should have stayed home on Tuesday and Wednesday as well, if you ask me) went back on Friday, and has been working ever since. Me? I've spend some quality time in bed, only getting up on Friday, for a whopping 6 hours, before my body told me to get back to bed, but today, I'm doing good. Breathing is a little bit iffy at times, but all in all..... I think I got this puppy under control!

I forgot to post a couple of pages, so I'm going to today.

Booland Designs' One Page Wonder #92

Patty B Scraps' Greatest Generation

There's a couple of updates to report on, but I'll do that when I have them all figured out. LOL!  Not sure if I'm not as smart as I used to be, or just over think things, but I can read and understand instructions and such, and for the life of me not remember the important parts a day later..... I think if I could get organized, and on some kind of a schedule, it might help, so I think I will start work on that. 

Running around chores will be done tomorrow. We can, because the Commissary is open tomorrow, because they'll be closed Thursday and Friday, Mike will be working Black Friday, I'll be putting up the Christmas tree and from than on, I'll quietly will start working on getting organized, and once I'm done with that, I'll get started on a schedule, and have everything in place by January 1st. That way, I'll have a headstart on my New Years Resolution. LOL

I'm saying goodnight for now. Don't forget to hug a loved one?

It happened overnight......

Somehow I went to bed 51 and woke up 52 this week............ Bummer! Because I don't feel older than about 35ish inside, although my body does not agree with that assessment!  Stop laughing :-)

Besides that little set back, a lot happened since we last talked.

We discovered that going to base for groceries on Saturday is NOT a good idea. Most of the shelves were empty, and if you went by the crowd in the store, you'd say it's Christmas eve, and everybody just discovered that the store is closed tomorrow! LOL It was nuts! Luckily we only needed a couple of odds and ends, so we were out of there in notime. Tomorrow, we will go right at 10, since Mike doesn't want to do the shopping after work, pick up what we missed on the Economy, what we don't get, we'll get at Market when we get home, and hopefully we're done around 1..... We plan on being at the dump by 8 when they open, get rid of the paper, plastic, glass and tins that have been congregating in our "bijkeuken", the little ante room next to the kitchen where the toolbox sits, the pantry resides, and the litter-box finds a place, and the recyclables. I think it's a good thing, don't get me wrong, but having to wash the garbage, because it sits in the house......... nah, I can do without that. Luckily, unlike regular garbage, we don't pay to get rid of recyclables, so that's a good incentive, but still.  I always loved the recycling that was done here. We separated batteries, glass,  paper and even medicine was turned in to the pharmacy so it wouldn't end up in the landfill in the 80's. But I  never thought that I would have to keep it in the house, because they did away with local drop off points. Oh well, one more thing to chalk up to.. "That's the Holland I came back to".

I didn't get to scrap long, but I did get some things done..... I had the Point In Time challenge add done on October 20, and posted it yesterday...... DUH!

Come join us in The Studio

I'm still working thru the One Page Wonders, but couldn't help playing with BooLandDesigs latest kit, called: WISH. It is simply magical in the diversity in elements and papers.

I took part of the included word-art poem as part of the title.

The trees included in the kit, just seemed to beg to be put in the picture!

She also has a couple of really awesome gift-idea kits out... 2014 calendars in 5 different forms!

4x6 CALENDAR

FOCUS ON ONE CALENDAR

BUILD YOUR OWN CALENDAR

BOOK MARK CALENDAR

QUICK PAGE CALENDAR

I can see ALL KINDS of fun uses/gifts for these.... I know I will have one printed out, in individual pages, and put in my dayrunner, to separate the months. The family also has a "secret santa" going on for December 8th...... a neighbor who loves to read..... so who knows?

 IVYSCRAPS is having a birthday, with freebies, extra challenges and an all out party mood on the site. Go take a look! I have it on very good authority that there is a whole bragbook to be found........ I saw Download A Day and a Blog-hop also.......... I don't think there was a better time this year to go check out the site.

I joined the avatar and signature challenge: :-)  Haven't started yet, but soon........

Oh, did I tell you that we had another fire in the street last Monday night? Well, we did. Totally opposite the place that saw 2 fires in 24 hours, the place that had the fire on Monday night,  had a big honking spotlight on the house before dark on Tuesday! It is on all night, every night. I sat up till well past witching hour this week, and haven't even seen the people that used to walk their dogs at night.... So maybe the spotlight DOES keep people away.

Mike is off tomorrow, and I think he is planning on staying up tonight, so maybe I can get some sleep before chores tomorrow. BUT, on the upside, if we're done when we hope we're done with the running of errands, we'll have the rest of the weekend to ourselves. (Read, Mike plays the SIMS, Pauli putters around in the computer room. LOL) Sounds like a plan, right?!!

Well, off to make that shoppinglist and start dinner......

Don't forget to hug a loved one!?
Pauli