disappearing act

Okay, so I'm not *really* invisible. It just seems like I've been doing my specialty disappearing act when it comes to anything online lately. Been super busy which just sounds lame, but it's the quickest way to describe days that disappear almost as soon as they've started. Today, was another one of those kind. I started out with what seemed a pretty "open" day and a modest list of things to do. But seemed like every corner I turned there was some obstacle or another that caused a day long drag on my hopes of finishing my to do list.

And some of these things were just dumb delays. I'll give you an example - I was running errands around lunch time trying to get them all out of the way before picking my daughter up from school so as to not interfere with her homework time. I stopped by the gas station, the pumps that were facing the "right way" were mostly full, but after a little fancy steering I found a free one. Before I got out of the car I saw a "dispenser closed" message on the little LCD display. Since I had maneuvered to the far end of the station, I had to navigate around the building and up a skinny little alley to round the building again. When I came up to the other side of the station all the pumps there had the same message. Then I noticed all the cars save one had disappeared. I drove along and sure enough all pumps closed. So 5 or 10 minutes gone there.

This kind of 5 to 10 minute delay happened repeatedly over the course of the day (some of the delays were way longer, tho) thru the rest of the day. We did dinner at 7pm. That might not sound late to some of you, but we normally eat between 5:30-6:00. Maybe 6:30, but 7 is Very Late for us.

I guess today was an exceptional example in terms of delays, but things have been pretty jam packed since mid-December and life has been kinda of topsy turvy since. We've had a bit of sickness here at home, so that through us off a tad too. Plus health issues in my extended family. A major surgery for one of my siblings, a minor surgery for my dad, lots of to-and-fro and dr. appointments and what not.

Life is always full of these things, I realize, but sometimes they do seem to crowd up on each other and that can be a challenge. Seems like things are smoothing out a bit now tho.

I'm super excited because I just realized a few days ago that the Craft & Hobby Association Trade Show (CHA Winter '08) is just around the corner. Not a consumer show, rather it's a huge trade show to retailers in the crafting industry. The Scrapbooking section is one of the largest parts of the show. The exhibitors bring out all their spanking brand new products and lines. The samples on display in the booths are wonderful. This is my second year going and I'm really looking forward to it. Here's a pic I took at the 3 Bugs in a Rug booth. You can bet I'll be taking a ton of pictures again this year!

(You can see more of my photos from the 2007 show here.)

It's also a fun time to catch up with other designers that I know via the online world of scrapbooking. I met lots of great women last year --mostly people I already knew, but some were new acquaintances so that was fun too.

Before we depart for CHA tho, we have our fabulous class kickoff at Scrappin' Good Times this coming Friday. I've been a busy little bee creating my class samples. I'll be teaching a Vintage Pooh mini album class in March ("Silly Old Bear") and Introduction to Scrapbooking in April. Here is a peek at the Pooh album (this is just a close-up --it is actually wider than it appears):


I just love teaching the Intro class. It's wonderful to meet students who are just starting out in the hobby and help them find their confidence about getting started scrapping. I taught a class yesterday and despite the gloomy, rainy day outside we had a nice full class of sunshiney faces-- a really wonderful group!

Well, I'm all over the place with this post, but I guess that just goes along with the kind of day I've had (did I mention that DH give DS permission to "play around" with the modem and router and wireless network to experiment with some new settings? I had a bunch of stuff I needed my internet connection for and had to wait the couple of hours it took for them to get us back online).

Oh, and are you wondering how I finally did fare today? I did manage to finally get the top 2 or 3 things on my list done! Of course, it took me ALL day long and I wasn't done until 10 pm.

Here's hoping tomorrow runs more smoothly!