Tuesday, April 28, 2009

let's see... what have i been up to again?

Oh yeah.... a LOT! Brace yourself... this is a LONG one.

April has flown by in a shocking blur of events. Makes my head spin how fast time can run by a person. Gonna try to hit some of the highlights...

There was class kickoff on 4/3 which as USUAL was a blast. We had a great group at the store and the SGT teachers had a whole boatload of awesome classes to add to the roster. Here are a couple of pics of my table:

"By the Sea" mini album - class is on 5/9

These are "mini" displays of the layouts for my 6/27 back-to-back layout classes

The kids started spring break that day too, so that weekend their Dad took them to see Monsters vs. Aliens while I continued to plug away on those darn taxes. It wasn't a usual sort of spring break here at our place --not as relaxing as usual with the tax appointment bearing down on me. We managed a few fun moments --had the cousins over on Monday, did a "girls day" with dd, but I have to admit that I was pretty distracted. The tax appointment seemed to sap all my attention as it always does. Fortunately I pulled it off and made it to my appointment on time and well prepared.

Once the taxes were out of the way, we dove straight into preparations for a costume party that dd was going to over the weekend. I spent an entire day sewing her regal gown (she went as Queen Esther) and we were both happy with the results.

Queen Esther

After the party ended, David & I headed out for an early anniversary getaway. We had heard about a fabulous dance party "Radioactive" put together by our favorite radio station, KCRW and decided to make a special evening of it. We started out with dinner at Engine Co. No. 28 in Los Angeles. From there we headed to the legendary Park Plaza hotel where the event was being staged. I have to admit to being a little nervous about going dancing. For one thing we haven't gone dancing in public in ages. For another neither of us has been very active lately --didn't know how much oomph we had in us for a night of endless dancing. And not the least of my worries was fear of being the "old-fogey" couple.

All my worries for nothing. The crowd was diverse in age and style. The music was fabulous and everyone there was there for one thing: to DANCE! As for my worries about our stamina, like a couple of energizer bunnies we kept on going. Didn't want the night to end. The party was scheduled to go until 2am but we must have left sometime after 1am and then an overnight stay at a hotel nearby. My only regret is that we were so full from dinner that we weren't able to try something from the Kogi truck (didn't know it was going to be there, I guess).

The only pics I have from our little getaway are off my phone so not the greatest quality. There are much better pics from the event here if you're curious.

Dinner at Engine Co. No. 28

Radioactive - Neo-Soul Streetbeat Sound System with Jeremy Sole & Todd Simon

The Grand Voodoo Salon

Breakfast buffet at our hotel next morning

I was sad to see spring break end because it went by in such a flash and I really didn't feel like we did "anything" but then again I guess we did a whole lot. From there I was on to my next busy project --purging the ole scrapbook stash. It's amazing how hard it is to get around to doing that. For whatever reason it just seems to keep getting shoved to the bottom of the list. However, deadlines are always a help in getting to these jobs and that was what got me off my keister again this time. I was signed up for a seller's table at the yard sale at the Lounge and wasn't going to "waste" my table, so for two crazy weeks, I was a purging-pricing maniac. (The yard sale was this past weekend --and totally worth the effort. Most of my boxes came back empty YAAaaaay!)

Another little papercrafting project I'm part of is a huge bookmark making undertaking. A group of friends are making over 5,000 bookmarks for an international convention that we're going to in June. The bookmarks are gifts for the delegates who will be coming from several other countries. Let me tell you there is a LOT of forethought and planning that goes into an undertaking of this magnitude. We are going strong though - have done all the prep work of cutting, printing and embossing the elements for the bookmarks. Now we are down to two final meetings (hopefully) to assemble the pieces into finished bookmarks. I'll be sure to post some pics later.

This past week I was also busy with another little project. I did an "instant scrapbook" for a baby shower (more info here). It was a lot of work both in prep before the shower, and then the scramble to assemble the book on site but as always totally worth it. The finished book turned out great. Here are some pics of the album before adding the photos:





And some snapshots from the shower --the host did a beautiful job!



The mommy-to-be seeing her finished "instant scrapbook" for the first time

Some of the guest take a look at the album

On a sad note, one of my sweet aunts died this month. She was the sister of my paternal grandma and the dearest, most generous woman you could ever know. I keep seeing all her animated facial expressions in my minds eye. I will miss her so much. Here is one of my favorite photos of Auntie Susie and her mom, my great-grandma Luisa:


The Scrappin' Good Times family is having some sad times --our owner Trish had to say goodbye to her beloved cousin Crystal who lost a very courageous battle with cancer. Another of our designers, Belinda, has had her father in the hospital and he is not doing well. Please keep them both in your thoughts.

Well, that is a whole lot of catching up. Guess I'll have to post more often if I don't want to write an entire tome for my posts.

Later!

1 comment:

MrsJJB1999 said...

You are so awesome... I loved the beautiful picture of your aunt... your mom has shared some really beautiful photos with me of her mother. Thank you and my prayers go out to Trish and her family