Gardening & a Freebie

It was over 70 degrees for the past two days and I spent both days outside and I loved it. I managed to get two gardens tilled and planted. One garden is a gourd garden and runs nearly the length of my privacy fence in the back yard. It will be very pretty when the plants have climbed the fence and the flowers...although the gourd flowers don't smell very pretty. I managed to get most of the gourd garden done but then ran out of seeds and had to make a seed run. I also mowed the lawn trimmed the Holly Bushes drained and cleaned the pond and got it set back up. Hopefully I will be ready to put fish back in it in a couple weeks when it's not so chilly at night.

When I went to get seeds I went to a local "Plant Land" to get the gourd seeds because they always have a nice variety and was quite surprised to find them out of business. It's very sad to see all the small businesses going belly up. Home Depot didn't have any so I went to Meijer's and found bird house gourds and swan neck gourds. No one seems to carry very many varieties of them. I love apple gourd and basket gourds and only managed to find one pack of each of those this year. I guess I will maybe have to start ordering my seeds online to get the variety that I want. Although I use the gourds to make bird houses the apple gourds and basket gourds are nice for painting and making trinket boxes and other crafts.

I saw on the news that there was an earthquake in Illinois yesterday morning that rattled several states including Ohio. I managed to sleep through it though. I don't know what I would do if I felt an earthquake. Unlike tornados, you cannot hide from them.

So sorry that I didn't get the links up for the freebie yesterday so today I am posting both of them. They both coordinate with DigiSkrapNMomma's Chocolate Paisley Kit that you can find in her store at Divine Digital. The birthday bash blog train from Divine was postponed and scheduled to restart this weekend so be sure to surf over to DigiSkrapNMomma's Blog and check for her freebies. So here are the remaining two freebies.... Click on the images for the links

Layout chosen for contest and a freebie

One of my layouts was chosen for the new "Designers Choice Awards" challenge at Deco Pages!!!! It is one of the three favorites so it is open for voting from the site members. How totally cool! You can see the layout here. You can see the contest here. Whoo Hooo!

So, yesterday I posted a picture of my Grandmother's parents and Grandparents so I used the picture to create a page with... I love old photos and heritage layouts. I also love being different and so I used a spring kit called Spring Fever by Movefearlessly Designs to create my page. I love the way that it turned out!



I also created a page of my grandma serving me chili on our day together. I am so lucky to still have her and treasure our time together. She is a very special lady. Here's what I did for her! I used Deco-Pages April Surprise Club Deco Kit with contributions from: Designs by CAZ, Ilona Hamp, Deb Ammerman, Lori Stanton, Jennifer Rassi and Jen Hanson.

Yesterday it was almost 70 degrees here so I spent most of the day outside with the dogs cleaning the yard and gardens. I have 9 flowers beds, 3 vegetable gardens and a gourd garden. I just love gardening! So I managed to get 2 vegetable gardens cleaned, the gourd garden and one flower bed cleaned. The gardens are ready to be tilled and then I only have one vegetable garden left to clean and till. Whoo Hooo! It's supposed to be in the mid 70's today so it will be a perfect day to finish getting the gardens taken care of....maybe even get the gourd garden planted before the weekend as it is supposed to rain. I had started seeds inside the house to plant but my cats ate them so I will have to sew the seeds in the ground where they'll be safe from the cats and hope that the rabbit that's been visiting doesn't eat them. I haven't been able to catch a picture of the rabbit in the yard yet. It's very lucky that my Airedale is old. At 14 years old she couldn't catch it if she tried right now.

So, here is today's freebie! Tan Glitter Swirls that coordinate with DigiSkrapNMomma's Chocolate Covered Cherries Kit. There are two more days of freebies that coordinate with her kit.

Family, History and a freebie

Tuesday's are my Grandma day so yesterday I traveled to see her and share our special day. My grandmother turned 90 a couple months ago. She is in relatively good health considering her age and has already outlived two of her children, including my mom as well as six of her siblings. She came from a family of eight children born to an Irish family that immigrated to this country. She is a wealth of information as she has been the matriarch of the family for a good long time. She has truly kept the family together organizing all the family reunions and keeping everyone up to date on what is happening in the family. She is still living independently in a small apartment and still drives (although we discourage that as much as possible). So yesterday we went through old pictures and I learned a lot about my family that I didn't know and learned even more about my grandmother. It's amazing to me how clear her memory is. For instance when the atomic bomb was dropped she was at work on a farm and my great uncle, her brother who was in the navy, was shipped to Portugal from France where he'd been since war was declared. His wife was from a wealthy French family. I had never met her because she died before I was born. I learned a lot about my great uncle. I also learned that I had a great uncle who died when he was 21 of complications of pneumonia because he was being treated for consumption. Medical technology has come a long way since then. Here is a picture that I brought home of my grandmother's parents, grandparents and her brother who died of pneumonia. I just love this old photo!
It was interesting to learn about things from when she grew up. I am very fortunate that she is still here and can still remember as much as she does. I am also glad that I am taking the time to ask her questions and learn about the family as well and am documenting this for my children.

I did manage to get home in time to see American Idol. It is getting down to the wire and very difficult to choose who might go home. All the contestants are so talented this year. I have three favorites left since they voted Michael Johns off last week. David Cook, David Archuletta and Carly are my favorites. It will be interesting to see who they send home and I am hoping that tonight isn't a jaw dropper like last week and they send either of the Davids out. I thought they both did a wonderful job last night! Carly did okay. I wasn't impressed with her song choice but she has such a wonderful and strong voice I am hoping she doesn't go.

Now for scrapping news!!! There are brand new designers at Deco Pages and they are so talented. Totally cool products are being added to the store daily as they get themselves settled into the site! New designers added: Lori Staton, Movefearlessly Designs, ShhhScrapz, Sharon Signature Designs and Dragon's Lair Designs. These ladies have fabulous kits in the store and you can find them here. And there are new challenges and more coming to Deco Pages in the forum. There is a fantastic new challenge called Designer's Choice Awards. A different designer each month will choose a theme and at the end of the challenge choose three pages that are her favorites and then the members vote for the winner. Winner gets to choose between a "free" month of Club Deco or the monthly brag book created by the Deco Pages Design Team. The two runners up will get a free kit from the hosting designer. It's a really cool challenge. There is also a new challenge added called All About Me and is hosted by Movefearlessly and then in May there are three new challenges coming.... The new challenges will be hosted by three of the Creative Team Members and the prizes will be totally cool!

Here is the freebie for today! Pink Glitter Swirls to coordinate with DigiSkrapNMomma's Chocolate Covered Cherry Kit. Check out her blog as she is giving away daily freebies this week to celebrate Divine Digital's second birthday. There are other designers linked to her site that are also offering daily freebies. She is hosting a chat tonight at 10 p.m. EST and everyone who attends will receive a freebie from her. She is highlighting her "Spring Fling" Kit which is on sale in her store right now for $2.00. I hope you'll join us!

Street Cars the New Fad in Transportation?

Columbus may be bringing back the old street car system as a relief to the gas prices we're now experiencing. That's an interesting concept... It's like fashion, what was once old is new again. If you're from this area you can read the article published by The Columbus Dispatch : When Street Cars Ruled. For those history buffs who just want to be in the know, you can find the history of Street Cars in Columbus at the Columbus Railroads website. Personally, I have never been one for public transportation. First and foremost I hate the thought of not being able to get someplace in an emergency, in a timely fashion. Having had a short handful of those daunting phone calls from police or hospital emergency personnel the thought of not being able to run out to my car and get where I need to be frightens me. However, with gas prices heading to the $4.00 per gallon mark, my logic and conservative side says this may be an option worth pursuing. With the potential fare of $1.00 as compared to what gas and "parking" costs, the monetary savings is an option worth looking at. ....providing I never have any more of those heart stopping phone calls.

On a lighter side, do you read the Opus Cartoon in the Sunday Paper...This cartoon was puplished in The Columbus Dispatch on the 13th. It is sooooo funny and soooo true. Click on the image to see the larger file. My kids used to hate me when they were growing up because they had to be in tears from pain before they were given an aspirin. I have always been of the mind set that we as parents promote our kids to take drugs because if they get a sniffle we give them a pill. If they have pain, we give them a pill. If they are too active, we give them a pill. It's no wonder that some of today's society can't deal with anything and have to take so many pills. We did it to them by insinuating to them that if something is wrong a pill will make it all better. Whatever happened to picking them up and giving them hugs or kissing it better? Whatever happened to talking to your mom or dad about your first break up or whatever is troubling you... When I was growing up we were very poor and we only went to the doctor when something was "really" wrong with us that a few sweet oil drops or a band-aid couldn't fix. Now kids think that if they are hurt they need a pill to make it better. It's no wonder that drug abuse is where it is now. What ever happened to being a good role model? There are several resources available to parents. One really good one is Preventing Drug Abuse Among Children and Adolescents hosted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. There is another one The Family Guide To Keeping Youth Mentally Healthy and Drug Free. Both are excellent resources. Wow, enough of my political agenda ramblings.

I went to the grocery yesterday with a list of "needs" to get...dog food, kitty litter, milk, bread, eggs, allergy medication....and spent over $150 after the coupons were deducted. Out of curiosity I went through bank statements to see what I was spending this time last month.... For basically the same things my bill has increased $60.00. I say basically the same things because I am a creature of habit...I fix the same things over and over, use the same toiletries, cleaning products, etc. It's incredible how much things have gone up in price....good whole grain bread is up to $3.00 a loaf, half of which gets thrown out because it gets stale before it gets eaten. It's too bad that they don't make half loaves.

Well that's enough for now. Here is today's freebie: Tan Painted Metal Swirls. They coordinate with DigiSkrapNMomma's Chocolate Covered Cherries Kit that is available in her store. Hope you enjoy them.

Monday ramblings & a freebie

Another weekend has come and gone....they just fly by! Did you watch 60 Minutes? Wow, a businessman that may have created a way to kill cancer with no side effects using radio waves. Tests in rats are showing progress in rats when treating tumors...the real test will be when they can create a way to target the cancer cells in the blood stream. You can check out the article on the 60 Minutes website here.

Then Big Brother.... Poor Sharon, I've lost track of how many times she's been on the block now. If Sheila's plan goes well then Natalie will be gone this week. Personally, she drives me crazy...she is such a Christian and has done nothing but lie the whole time she's been in the house. I don't know why I torment myself by watching it....

So, here's day three of my daily freebies. Just like the first two, they coordinate with DigiSkrapNMomma's Chocolate Covered Cherries Kit. This Kit Includes: 32 - various patterned & textured papers, 5 - brads, 10 - buttons, 7 - cardboard hearts, 7 - envelopes (some stuffed and some not), 5 - satiny folded ribbons, 5 - satin ribbons, 5 - guitar picks, 4 - note cards, 4 - roses, 5 - staples, 5 - paperclips, 14 - stickers, 8 - threaded ribbons, and 5 - scallop edged vellum mattes. It's a huge kit and on sale for $5.00 right now at Divine Digital.







Right now Divine is celbrating their 2nd birthday and there are all kinds of sales going on. DigiSkrapNMomma is holding a crop/chat on Wednesday evening at 10 p.m EST. Everyone that shows up to the crop will get a freebie. Then she will give a challenge where the participant will use her new Spring Fling Kit and participants will have 5 days to complete the challenge and then receive a posting freebie. DigiSkrapNMomma's Spring Fling Kit is currently on sale for $2.00. This kit is huge!!!!! It has 30 papers and 128 elements! Here is a page that I made with her Spring Fling Kit. Click Here to see another one made with her kit.

Be sure to stop over at DigiSkrapNMomma's blog for more freebies!

Sunday and a Freebie

Well, I am recovered from my headache. Thank you to all of you who wished me well. It took several Aleve's, Aspirin and even my allergy medication to make it go away...which the primary cause probably was my allergies.

I wasn't out and about yesterday much at all. There was an NCIS marathon on TV so most of my wakeful time spent was watching that. I love Mark Harmon, he is sooooo cute! There were only a couple on that I hadn't seen before but I don't mind watching re-runs.


Enough of that! Here is the link for today's freebie. It coordinates with DigiSkrapNMomma's Chocolate Covered Cherries Kit. She has a new kit out called Spring Fling that is sooo cute! It has little lady bugs and bright fun colors and right now is on sale at Divine Digital for $2.00. You should stop over at her store and check it out.

This is a page that I made with her Chocolate Covered Cherries kit. I love the browns in it. Then the other page is one that I made with her Spring Fling Kit.