Today Dean and I watched the US team win the game against Algeria. It was just a thrilling end to an exciting, nervewracking game. Landon's goal at a minute in of stoppage time (90 + 1 min) was just incredible. The entire game was exciting - the disallowed goal because of a questionable offside call... then several shots on goal came oooooh, so close!! Algeria played a very defensive game but provided some nerves as some of their shots on goal came too close for comfort. At the final whistle, I cried some happy tears.
Not saying that I had anything to do with the victory, but this morning I picked out my clothes with Team USA in mind and decked myself out in red, white and blue. I added my fun little soccer ball print socks and completed with some RWB beaded earrings. Back when I reffed soccer, an AYSO friend of mine made me those earrings. It brought back memories of those days and I wished I were in contact with the old 6/A AYSO gang again to watch the game or at least chat about it afterward.
Today I made a really yummy "Poor Man's Gumbo" that used canned tuna - it was delicious and I was pretty pleased with it. Dean had "pizza night" as he always does on Wednesdays, and Matt is still at his cousins' in Appleton. I'm hoping that Dean will like it for lunch tomorrow. He's not the biggest fan of tuna.
I know this is totally random, but I love the "Bing" commercials now called Los Links. They are done in the telenovela style with high drama, in Spanish with English subtitles. As an aside, and to complete the theme of the Copa Mundial (that's the World Cup, don'tcha know), normally when I watch soccer I end up watching it in Spanish. I had found over the years that I didn't enjoy the American commentators' style of complaining about the refereeing. I don't understand Spanish very well, so I tend to enjoy just watching the game without the commentators' "color" and opinions to muddy the game. Since I'd done my (tiny and by comparison completely unworthy) time on the pitch, it made me sensitive to the ref's side of the story. And it's not fun to be questioned on a little tiny scale. I can't imagine how it is on the scale of the World Cup games. That being said, the Mali referee that disallowed our 3rd goal against Slovenia really made some baffling decisions. He should be the most thankful person in the soccer world, because now his blunder will not be considered to be responsible for keeping the US from going to the knockout round, as it most certainly would have if we had ended in a draw today.
Thankful for today - duh! I know this is a such a worldly thing to be thankful for, but today I am thankful that the US won their game today. It was a great and enjoyable game, and it was a blessing to be able to enjoy it live with my dear husband at my side. Thank you, Lord, for the "beautiful game". Whether we win or lose, soccer is a blessing from God.
Cheers!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Hell's Kitchen, football, and other thoughts
I'm a little late to the party but I have begun watching Hell's Kitchen with this season. I worked with someone who loved the show and she had encouraged me to watch it. I'd tuned in a couple of times but never watched consistently. I was looking for something new to watch on Tuesday nights now that Glee is over until fall and decided I'd give it a try again. Of course, I wonder why they have to speak the way they do. Tonight's episode is for service to children, yet all of the comments in the kitchen require the bleep and blur treatment, repeatedly and with alarming frequency. I only hope the children in the dining room are shielded somehow from the expletives. Uh-oh, just as I wrote this there was an incident where Ramsay had to remind someone not to swear in front of the children. Question answered. Ouch.
Evidently Ramsay was also a football player - we call it soccer here LOL. One of the teams won a reward where they went to a British pub and saw a picture of him in his uniform. I love soccer, love watching it, loved refereeing it back in the day... Tomorrow I'll be watching and cheering for Team USA to advance out of group play in the World Cup tournament. Hopefully they will play well against the Algerians and win the game decidedly.
Things I'm thankful for today: clean sheets and a washer and dryer to do them with. We're having some friends visit this weekend and to prepare I decided to wash all of the sheets, comforters, etc. in the guest room and Matt's room. Matt has a double bed so he will be occupying the guest room and Wendy and Chris will be in Matt's room. Since Matt is off visiting his cousins I was able to get the sheets done well in advance. Whew. So that's completed, and plenty of time to plan the menu for the weekend. Our friends are picky (well, more picky than I'm used to) so I will need to plan carefully to ensure that I don't pick items that they dislike. I'm really looking forward to their visit.
In closing, go USA!!!!!! Let's win this and advance out of group play!!
Evidently Ramsay was also a football player - we call it soccer here LOL. One of the teams won a reward where they went to a British pub and saw a picture of him in his uniform. I love soccer, love watching it, loved refereeing it back in the day... Tomorrow I'll be watching and cheering for Team USA to advance out of group play in the World Cup tournament. Hopefully they will play well against the Algerians and win the game decidedly.
Things I'm thankful for today: clean sheets and a washer and dryer to do them with. We're having some friends visit this weekend and to prepare I decided to wash all of the sheets, comforters, etc. in the guest room and Matt's room. Matt has a double bed so he will be occupying the guest room and Wendy and Chris will be in Matt's room. Since Matt is off visiting his cousins I was able to get the sheets done well in advance. Whew. So that's completed, and plenty of time to plan the menu for the weekend. Our friends are picky (well, more picky than I'm used to) so I will need to plan carefully to ensure that I don't pick items that they dislike. I'm really looking forward to their visit.
In closing, go USA!!!!!! Let's win this and advance out of group play!!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Intermission interrupted
I established a blog nearly 3 years ago, posted twice, and abandoned the blog. In the interim, I've considered restarting it several times, and then life got in the way. Truthfully, I didn't make time. I've never been much of a journaler. I was the kid that always wanted a diary, put it into a safe hiding place, and wrote in it faithfully for 3-4 days max.
Lately, I've been thinking that I'd enjoy blogging again, so I'm going to try to post something every day. I can't guarantee that it will be very clever. I have no commercial purpose for this. Despite the title, it probably won't have very much of a stamping focus. Oh, I'm not saying that I won't ever talk about stamping. I still enjoy stamping very much, and I do spend time reading stamping blogs for the eye candy. I'm eagerly awaiting my first look at the new SU! catalog.
However, my life is about more than stamping. I'm going to be real and say that stamping has been a tremendous blessing (providing me online and in person friends that I didn't have before). It's also been a burden due to some undisciplined spending on my part. I have to forgive myself for that, and move on. So in my blog I'll be focusing on things I enjoy, things I'm thankful for, and things that challenge me. It won't all be sweet and lovely. I will strive to be real, authentic, and transparent.
I can't think how to transition into this, but here goes: I should never watch Food Network's Best Thing I Ever Ate. I love watching it, love it. But seriously, it's like food p*rn. I end up craving whatever is their theme of the day. For example, today is "Sweet Tooth". I don't eat a lot of sweets. I've acquired my overweight due to just eating too much and not exercising enough. I tend to overeat meat, potatoes and the savory. Sweets don't tempt me as much. Put me in front of a tray of gorgeous chocolate cupcakes, I'll eat one. Put me in front of savory snacks, even if they're not so tasty or special, and I still will eat... and eat. Today's episode has me just wishing I could lick my TV screen. Is that wrong? LOL
Well, I guess I should wrap up this post. I like to end my day by thinking of things that I am thankful for. Sometimes they're big things, sometimes small - of course they are all blessings from the Lord, who lavishes so much on us every single day that it's impossible to enumerate them all. This weekend we attended my niece Amanda's graduation party. It was such fun gathering with family and friends to celebrate. It made for a busy weekend, but lots of fun. Thank you, God, for family, friends and good times.
Until next time, cheers!
Lately, I've been thinking that I'd enjoy blogging again, so I'm going to try to post something every day. I can't guarantee that it will be very clever. I have no commercial purpose for this. Despite the title, it probably won't have very much of a stamping focus. Oh, I'm not saying that I won't ever talk about stamping. I still enjoy stamping very much, and I do spend time reading stamping blogs for the eye candy. I'm eagerly awaiting my first look at the new SU! catalog.
However, my life is about more than stamping. I'm going to be real and say that stamping has been a tremendous blessing (providing me online and in person friends that I didn't have before). It's also been a burden due to some undisciplined spending on my part. I have to forgive myself for that, and move on. So in my blog I'll be focusing on things I enjoy, things I'm thankful for, and things that challenge me. It won't all be sweet and lovely. I will strive to be real, authentic, and transparent.
I can't think how to transition into this, but here goes: I should never watch Food Network's Best Thing I Ever Ate. I love watching it, love it. But seriously, it's like food p*rn. I end up craving whatever is their theme of the day. For example, today is "Sweet Tooth". I don't eat a lot of sweets. I've acquired my overweight due to just eating too much and not exercising enough. I tend to overeat meat, potatoes and the savory. Sweets don't tempt me as much. Put me in front of a tray of gorgeous chocolate cupcakes, I'll eat one. Put me in front of savory snacks, even if they're not so tasty or special, and I still will eat... and eat. Today's episode has me just wishing I could lick my TV screen. Is that wrong? LOL
Well, I guess I should wrap up this post. I like to end my day by thinking of things that I am thankful for. Sometimes they're big things, sometimes small - of course they are all blessings from the Lord, who lavishes so much on us every single day that it's impossible to enumerate them all. This weekend we attended my niece Amanda's graduation party. It was such fun gathering with family and friends to celebrate. It made for a busy weekend, but lots of fun. Thank you, God, for family, friends and good times.
Until next time, cheers!
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Just write, already...
I've been sitting here at this screen avoiding doing the second entry to this new blog. I can't really even articulate why I started it. Unlike a lot of other bloggers that I've been reading, I'm not a member of a design team, I'm not starting my own new line of the most to-die-for embellishments or rubber stamps, etc. I know a lot of demonstrators have blogs in addition to their Stampin' Up! demonstrator business website as a savvy business tool. Right now, I don't have any plans to share this with my few occasional customers, and it certainly right now isn't being planned as a business tool. I am not even sure if I will share my blog in my Splitcoast signature. I can't guarantee that it will even be about stamping, despite the title that I chose for it. Right now, I've been so unproductive, stampingwise, that at least initially I won't be pressuring myself to post my stamping. I hope that eventually I will find it inspiring to me to go stamp something so I can share it, but I'm not ready yet. So, for now, I guess it will be about whatever I want it to be.
Yesterday I started a story about how I started stamping. To be honest, my story is not unique. I would imagine that a lot of stampers and scrappers did not expect to gain a new hobby when attending the first workshop/crop/class/event. As I said before, when I went to Wendy's workshop, I had no intention of buying a thing.
I could stop right now and go find my old catalogs and probably come up with the names of the sets that Nicki (the demonstrator, and now my upline) used, but I don't want to pretend that I have total recall. I remember we used an autumn set to do one of the make and takes. I seem to remember Nicki using the SU! chalks and a blender pen to color in an image. I vividly recall the flyer that she handed out, about the stamp that Stampin' Up! had designed to donate to the 9/11 fund. I still have that stamp.
It was funny, really. I don't know what I expected when I got there, but I don't think I ever expected that I would get to stamp. Once I became a demonstrator myself, I could look back on that first workshop I attended and realized that Nicki had followed an established (and VERY smart) workshop outline. The projects and demonstration were designed to display a variety of stamping products and styles. When doing the coloring that I already mentioned, Nicki handed around the coloring duties so we all got a chance. I have always loved coloring in coloring books (within the lines, thank you very much LOL) and so I know that I enjoyed that. But what sold me, absolutely sold me... I have to be honest here. This is not my analogy. I was at a Stampin' Up! convention a few years ago and someone completely encapsulated what happened when I got to stamp that make and take. "When I put that stamp onto the inkpad, it was like a first kiss, and I was in love."
I was a demonstrator's dream customer - I bought as much of the items that she'd just demonstrated as I could. My first order totalled over $165. I had to buy that 9/11 stamp. I bought a red and blue marker to color in the stamp (she'd shown us how to huff on the stamp after coloring). I'm sure I bought a black stamp pad. I remember buying a single stamp with a birdhouse on it, darn I can't remember the name and it's killing me not to go look up in an old catalog! I'm pretty sure that I bought blender pens, the chalks, and a Nativity stamp set called Greatest Gift. I am trying like crazy to remember what else I bought but I just don't. I only remember the total was over $150, and my husband's comment when I got home. He didn't care that I'd spent that much. Though we couldn't spend recklessly then or now, we could afford the purchase or I wouldn't have made it. Dean's comment to me still makes me laugh. He said, "Great, more crap you won't use!" After all, he knew that I'd bought that stuff from Creative Memories and not done a thing with it. There was no reason to assume that stamping would be any different.
The rest of the journey to Stampingkelly will have to wait for another day. I need to do some laundry and plan what I'm going to make for lunch tomorrow since we're having company. I invited our former pastor and his wife to come for lunch after church. He's serving as a guest preacher for the next few weeks and they have a 30-40 minute drive home after church. I thought it might be a long ride home with no lunch, and who wants to plan on going to a fast food place for lunch every Sunday for the next several weeks?
Until then, cheers!
Yesterday I started a story about how I started stamping. To be honest, my story is not unique. I would imagine that a lot of stampers and scrappers did not expect to gain a new hobby when attending the first workshop/crop/class/event. As I said before, when I went to Wendy's workshop, I had no intention of buying a thing.
I could stop right now and go find my old catalogs and probably come up with the names of the sets that Nicki (the demonstrator, and now my upline) used, but I don't want to pretend that I have total recall. I remember we used an autumn set to do one of the make and takes. I seem to remember Nicki using the SU! chalks and a blender pen to color in an image. I vividly recall the flyer that she handed out, about the stamp that Stampin' Up! had designed to donate to the 9/11 fund. I still have that stamp.
It was funny, really. I don't know what I expected when I got there, but I don't think I ever expected that I would get to stamp. Once I became a demonstrator myself, I could look back on that first workshop I attended and realized that Nicki had followed an established (and VERY smart) workshop outline. The projects and demonstration were designed to display a variety of stamping products and styles. When doing the coloring that I already mentioned, Nicki handed around the coloring duties so we all got a chance. I have always loved coloring in coloring books (within the lines, thank you very much LOL) and so I know that I enjoyed that. But what sold me, absolutely sold me... I have to be honest here. This is not my analogy. I was at a Stampin' Up! convention a few years ago and someone completely encapsulated what happened when I got to stamp that make and take. "When I put that stamp onto the inkpad, it was like a first kiss, and I was in love."
I was a demonstrator's dream customer - I bought as much of the items that she'd just demonstrated as I could. My first order totalled over $165. I had to buy that 9/11 stamp. I bought a red and blue marker to color in the stamp (she'd shown us how to huff on the stamp after coloring). I'm sure I bought a black stamp pad. I remember buying a single stamp with a birdhouse on it, darn I can't remember the name and it's killing me not to go look up in an old catalog! I'm pretty sure that I bought blender pens, the chalks, and a Nativity stamp set called Greatest Gift. I am trying like crazy to remember what else I bought but I just don't. I only remember the total was over $150, and my husband's comment when I got home. He didn't care that I'd spent that much. Though we couldn't spend recklessly then or now, we could afford the purchase or I wouldn't have made it. Dean's comment to me still makes me laugh. He said, "Great, more crap you won't use!" After all, he knew that I'd bought that stuff from Creative Memories and not done a thing with it. There was no reason to assume that stamping would be any different.
The rest of the journey to Stampingkelly will have to wait for another day. I need to do some laundry and plan what I'm going to make for lunch tomorrow since we're having company. I invited our former pastor and his wife to come for lunch after church. He's serving as a guest preacher for the next few weeks and they have a 30-40 minute drive home after church. I thought it might be a long ride home with no lunch, and who wants to plan on going to a fast food place for lunch every Sunday for the next several weeks?
Until then, cheers!
Friday, September 21, 2007
I guess I'm a blogger, now...
So, welcome to my blog. Do I really have a blog? If a blogger rambles on and no one is there to "hear" it, did it really happen? For now, I'll just pretend that I'm alone in this forest and no one will hear me. LOL
My journey from Just Plain Kelly to Just Plain Stampingkelly began in September of 2001. I received a last minute invite from my younger son's former teacher to a Stampin' Up! workshop. Having been to a few of her home parties in the past, I knew I could count on a fun time, laughter, and good food. But one thing I knew for sure... I wasn't going to spend a bit. You see, I'd been to a Creative Memories party a few years before, spent quite a bit of money, and proceeded to not use even a sticker in all that time. The concept of scrapping appealed to me - besides reading any book that I could get my hands on, one of my other favorite activities was looking at the photo albums that my mom had made and listening to her "behind the photo" stories. However, though I'd bought some stuff, I'd convinced myself that I had no time and no talent - two fears I still battle for what it's worth.
So, "knowing" that I didn't have a creative bone in my body, I went to Wendy's party intending just to be a warm body there.
It seems like just yesterday, really, but it was just about 6 years ago exactly because I remember that it was late September. The nation was still reeling from the horrific events of 9/11/01. A little community, a little diversion, seemed like a good thing to pursue.
Off to Wendy's apartment I went, not knowing that the events there would change me for the better, provide me with a much-needed outlet, and enrich me with dear friends and a renewed connection with family, my church, and my God.
I think I'll leave the "rest of the story" for tomorrow. I have to finish up preparing for the women's Bible study tomorrow morning. Also, since DH and older DS are out (working, and "at Nick's", respectively), younger DS has chosen a movie and put it into the DVD for our enjoyment. Now playing? Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Until then, cheers!
My journey from Just Plain Kelly to Just Plain Stampingkelly began in September of 2001. I received a last minute invite from my younger son's former teacher to a Stampin' Up! workshop. Having been to a few of her home parties in the past, I knew I could count on a fun time, laughter, and good food. But one thing I knew for sure... I wasn't going to spend a bit. You see, I'd been to a Creative Memories party a few years before, spent quite a bit of money, and proceeded to not use even a sticker in all that time. The concept of scrapping appealed to me - besides reading any book that I could get my hands on, one of my other favorite activities was looking at the photo albums that my mom had made and listening to her "behind the photo" stories. However, though I'd bought some stuff, I'd convinced myself that I had no time and no talent - two fears I still battle for what it's worth.
So, "knowing" that I didn't have a creative bone in my body, I went to Wendy's party intending just to be a warm body there.
It seems like just yesterday, really, but it was just about 6 years ago exactly because I remember that it was late September. The nation was still reeling from the horrific events of 9/11/01. A little community, a little diversion, seemed like a good thing to pursue.
Off to Wendy's apartment I went, not knowing that the events there would change me for the better, provide me with a much-needed outlet, and enrich me with dear friends and a renewed connection with family, my church, and my God.
I think I'll leave the "rest of the story" for tomorrow. I have to finish up preparing for the women's Bible study tomorrow morning. Also, since DH and older DS are out (working, and "at Nick's", respectively), younger DS has chosen a movie and put it into the DVD for our enjoyment. Now playing? Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Until then, cheers!
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