Eeks! It's Friday Already!

Just a quick “hello” for now. Between things that have been going on this week, I’m a bit behind on my schoolwork, so I’m really dedicating the day to it. I usually like to have my assignments, which are due Sunday night, in on Friday so I have the weekend free. This week it won’t happen that way. I’m planning on having everything done tomorrow night.

I was in Cleveland Monday to take a pill and let the medical folks poke and prod me for 6 hours. Remember I said I was going to be taking an MS drug that required that. Well, I was at the office at 7AM on Monday to take my first dose of Gilenya. I had my pulse and blood pressure taken every 15 minutes for the first 2 hours, then every half hour until the last hour. Then it was once more before they let me go. My heart rate did not slow down and my blood pressure was only up slightly while I was drinking my morning coffee and one reading after I finished it. I got to spend my 6 hours with my laptop digital scrapbooking, no public Internet in the medical facility for security reasons, and sat in a VERY comfy recliner with attached side tables where my water, oatmeal and hummus sat when I had breakfast/snack times. It was a very positive experience.

The facility I was at, like the one I didn’t get to stay at in Ann Arbor, really spoiled me. But actually doing the first dose this time, I realized why. The clinic that does the first dose observations does mostly drug testing and pre-employment physicals. They seemed to feel that I was more what they were in healthcare for because I was getting medicine for a disease. Well, the medicine improves my life but the disease isn't deadly. I kinda think making sure people can get and keep a job is at least on par with me if not more important. It affects the lives of more people. Still, I appreciated being essentially waited on and the kind treatment I got.


After a few reschedules with my Dad, I went up to Michigan and spent the greater part of yesterday with him. We had his minestrone for lunch and he made some of the roasted veggies with the breaded topping I like so much to go with our soup. YUM! We talked about minestrone for a while. I have a prosciutto end and I’m planning on making my first pot of minestrone myself tomorrow. It can sit on the stove and cook while I’m finishing my school stuff. I’m looking forward to that!



Okay, I have one last note for now! It’s a freebie note! Farmer Lisa’s Wild Daisies is giving away a gorgeous kit, Christmas in Colors, a few pieces at a time each day all month!! It really is a beautiful kit!

Here’s a layout I did with it:

Credits Christmas In Colors by Farmer Lisa’s Wild Daisies

Lisa offered that anyone who wanted to share a quick page or cluster with what parts they already had could share it for $1.50 coupon at her DigiSisters store. So, I did a quick page of that layout and a separate file of the cluster with the two hanging frames. Go check out her blog and her beautiful designs and snag my freebie, the parts to Christmas in Colors and a few other fabulous freebie quick pages and clusters from other followers. There’s some beautiful creativity shown there!!

Okay, now back to the books!

Link - Farmer Lisa's Wild Daisies

I Need a Break

Yeah, I know, “What? Already?” It’s just that 2011 has started off with so much, so fast!

Of course, there was the sad part, losing Kendal and then hearing about Tom on the same day. Well, you know I was a bit of a wreck. But, my faith is strong. I’ve had my personal periods of mourning, my alone time to meditate and accept. Kendal’s funeral was huge, as can be imagines for someone so young who fought so hard and inspired so many. I have experienced twice what I had long thought was the most gut-wrenching sight at a funeral, a pregnant woman crying. One carried the child of the man being laid to rest and was a good friend of mine, the other was Deanna just a few weeks before Tori and Rina were born at my Grandfather’s funeral. In both cases, my strength faded and the tears came freely. Greater than my own loss or feelings, was the pain of what the future would not have to hold.

I thought that was the most poignant example of human pain I’d ever witness until the night I was at Kendal’s viewing. At the end of the evening, a large group of her friends came two or three at a time and gathered by the casket, holding each other, heads bowed, some tears, some just holding on so tight. THAT was both beautiful and painful to watch. That show of love for Kendal and support for each other by her friends. The way it happened spontaneously. Teens are in their invincible years. When a disease can attack one of them, take her from her family and her own future, take her from her friends’ future, they are all robbed of the joy of those immortal years and forced to accept the sobering reality of mortality. I think that especially stings in me because I love teenagers. I worked with them many years at Omnicom. I think they deserve a few years of careful immortality.

I’m still reading my cousin’s posts on Team Kendal. Part to share in the celebration of her life and part to make sure he is doing okay. Love and courage are two things that grow when they are shared. Kendal derived strength from her parents and brother and gave it too. In reading the memorials on Kendal’s Facebook page, she shared that with her friends too. The family and her friends, in time, will all be okay. Guardian Angel Kendal says so!


Of course, everything good and bad all happens at once! School started the week of the funerals. This semester is all online classes, but I added to my class load, so I’m juggling and sorting files to get myself focused correctly. My XML class is assignments due every week and my Imaging class is two weeks of work due every two weeks. I have things pretty well organized now. I have to be honest, the imaging class is a little boring right now. The beginning of the Photoshop CS5 book reads like it was written for someone who’d never even seen an Adobe interface before. If I had bought the software and the book to help me learn the new tricks since Photoshop CS, the most recent one I have on my Mac, I’d have skipped the first few chapters and gotten right in to the good stuff. ::sigh:: But as a student I have to read the chapters, know the vocabulary and do the exercises. My fellows scrapbookers will chuckle at the idea of reading in a book, “layers are a very powerful tool” The thing is that was peeking a couple chapters ahead. I just finished “how to open and save a file!” I need this class for the web design certificate. But I hope the first test is multiple choice so I don’t have to come up with words that don’t start off, “what worked in 1997 and still does today..." hehe

The XML class is pretty cool, all new stuff, well, newish, different code, but similar in many ways to HTML. I just like writing code and opening it a browser to see a cool page. It’s like unwrapping and unveiling a present.

I’m doing better and better in therapy, but sorer and sorer outside of therapy. I try, I really try, to NOT take the super-charged ibuprofen prescription I have, but it doesn’t do any good. I do the therapy stretching exercises at home, they actually can be hard to get started, but then they feel so good! Still, I can’t function well without the anti-inflammatory effect of the ibuprofen and forget about trying to sleep without it. I hate that, feeling like a junkie, gotta have my drugs! Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be going to the hospital for an MRI on my back. About time, huh? It’s really a toss-up with me whether I dislike drugs or health insurance companies more. We’ll see what happens after the MRI If the insurance company okays fixing me, the drugs are worse. The insurance company might even be deemed good if they okay surgery or whatever it takes to make me okay. I don’t know if one can get addicted to ibuprofen, but I’m fearing addiction because it’s something I’ve had to take every day for the last 6 weeks. Too much!

Okay, let’s finish this blog off on a happier note, shall we? I’ve been working hard on scrapbook pages, Lots of templates used, even one quick page. Yes, I do Darlene’s Clutter It challenge at The Studio every month and I have used a couple clutter-it kits, but this one was a freebie page:

Credits: QP by Pixiepics & Scraps, using Snow Princess by Rainamoon Scraps

(Click name in credits to go to blog for QP)

Isn’t it cool? I seldom use quick pages and I always doctor them up. But this one just struck me as perfect for these photos and the only thing I added to the layout was journaling. I had originally done a layout for these photos at the Monday Night Chat with Ambowife at The Studio. It was the “paper-only” layout. I liked my layout from chat, but Pixiepics’ quick page was just better. It was there for me to find. Needed to find it!

I am getting a couple or three done a day. I’ll finish up Kelly’s visit in early October tonight. Then 7 more to finish the month. Yes, I know. Today is January 20. I hope to have all my Imaging homework done by tomorrow night. I’ll be huffing and puffing, but I still think I can get 2010 done by the end of the month.

Okay, now back to school. I’m learning how to find a file using the browse button!

Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day!

(*** please remember that scrapbook posts that contain links in the post are the exception to the rule that links in the post mean a compensated post. My only compensation in this post was the free CT kits from designers whose kits I’d buy anyway!)

I was thinking last night that it seems like there was a lot more hoopla in the last two years about this day than there is now. I’ve had things that kept me away from home, but I thought there had been forums games and challenges with cool posting bonuses. This year there are just sales, really good sales, but no community stuff.

I guess we blame the economy? Too bad, because in tough economical times that sense of community and enjoying our “cyber crops” is more important than ever! So, shop the sales today and then stop at the gallery in each store you buy a wonderfully discounted product and comment on three layouts, more if you wish. Let’s remember this as a day to celebrate our hobby and our fellow digiscrappers as well as the great sales!

There haven’t been as many comments in the galleries where I post. I blame that on points. So many forums have quit offering posing bonuses and challenges are all worth points to eventually get an, often nominal, coupon for the store. That’s great if you have the funds to complete the purchase at each store, but if not, it’s not really inspiring to go “out of the box” to create for a challenge when all you’re doing is advertising for the site for free when you upload. I miss the real posting bonuses for challenges. I find I personally do fewer challenges when it’s just a points system. Maybe that’s just me, but I’m a lot less enthusiastic about what the new challenges are.

Ah, but I’m fortunate! I CT for a couple of great designers whose work I’d use those coupons to help afford anyway! And there are great sales at the stores they sell at today! Both Veelana and Darlene sell at Scrap Bird and Stone Accents Studio. (How easy is that for me?)

At Scrap Bird, everything is 45% off for DSD! You’ll also find that Darlene has a number of mini kits, former posting bonuses, in the retiring section. Those ones are an additional 45% off of the already reduced clearance prices! There are mini kits of hers for less than a dollar! In addition to the products from the fabulous designers I’m privileged to create for, there are other great designers that are certainly worth checking out at Scrap Bird and this month, if you purchase $10 or more, you earn the collab mega kit, Cozy November, free with the purchase! That was the last kit I contributed to, but I don’t know if the Digitalegacies papers and elements are in it. If someone spends the $10 to earn it, you’ll have to let me know! With or without my contributions, the previews are so wonderful, it’s definitely worth a visit to Scrap Bird!

I did this layout for my 40th birthday with Darlene’s Shelle Belle kit and All The Way Across template from Listgirl’s Blog.



At Stone Accents Studio, the whole store is 50% off for DSD. They have old mega kits in their clearance bin for 60% off too! There is also an SAS blog train this weekend! Some of the SAS designers did mini kits in a series called Friendship Around The World! I’ll send you to start at Darlene’s blog! She chose Italy and used the swatch from her Ciao Italia kit to make her freebie a possible add-on to her great kit!

I’ll also mention that the super Halloween sale was extended at SAS! They were having some technical issues in the store and to make sure everyone had a fair chance to get in on the sale, they extended it until November 9! Everything Halloween is on sale right now for 60% off including Veelana Designs’ A Tale of Magic and Monsters!

Here are a couple of layouts I did for Halloween this year using that kit

Credits: A Tale of Magic and Monsters by Veelana's Designs

Before I get back to my homework for a few more hours, I want to share a quick page I made with Vee’s Halloween kit. While there are plenty of spiders in the kit, those would be the monsters, not the cute Frankenstein doodle, there’s plenty to make sweet non-arachnid pages like I did, or like today’s freebie!

Click preview to download. Password is: batty

Digitalegacies Designs Sale Paper

I hope everyone has been visiting Scrap Bird on Thursdays for the great half-off kits available with all of the fantastic personal and commercial use goodies in all of the stores. We’re growing again, even more designers! I’ll have all the blog links up soon. I’m still catching up from being gone a week!


This week, the Digitalegacies Designs offerings in the Crazy Thursdays sale are Eight Days A Week and One Step at a Time. Both are only $2.50 today only!!


But wait, there’s MORE!


Okay, that’s corny, but we’re talking a dollar sale! There are just a few days left to get any Digitalegacies Designs template set for just one dollar! That’s right, half off the Project 365 sets with four templates each and a third off the quilt-inspired Premier Templates.

Coming soon!

A new quick page set will be in the store soon! The Look of Love is four quick pages, one made with each of Laura, My Blue Heaven, Because of You and Your Own Special Way, the Digitalegacies love-kits!


Just put your photos behind the png files, flatten and print! Look for the set of four pages in the store soon!


As June starts, a new DST blog train kicks off the month on the first, plus a new I Wanna Talk About Me challenge and bonus too!

Digitalegacies Designs Sale Paper

Happy Thursday everybody!

Just a quick stop in to remind everyone about Crazy Thursday at Scrap Bird. This week there are 22 products at half off, including Eight Days a Week by Digitalegacies Designs!


If you need happy colors and a lot of room for inspired journaling, consider Eight Days A Week! This kit was made with Project 365 layouts in mind, but it’s super versatile!


The kit comes with 3 full alphas and the Project 365 Templates set 1, a $1.99 value, as a free bonus! Today the kit with bonus is $2.50!



Or if you want some quick and easy Project 365 or any multi-photo pages, try the Project 365 Quick Page set!


Four ready to go pages, just slip your photo behind, resize as necessary and there you have it. Now you are ready to spend some quality time with the journaling, or to add your own extras. Those are $1.38 today!


Also, as April is wrapping up, this is the last day for the Add It On For Free special from Digitalegacies Designs! Buy the kit, get the add-on free!


Coupon codes for the free add-ons:

One Step at a Time - kjad4365
Homemade Love - lknd856hn
Because Of You - dkrj25jdh
Your Own Special Way - lknrj37hdn

Just put both items in your cart and enter the code, the price for add-on will disappear!



Tomorrow will start the NSD weekend sale at Scrap Bird! 40% off the entire store all weekend plus see the Scrap Bird blog for more specials and the freebies announcements! There is a special NSD freebie from each Scrap Bird designer this weekend AND the second part of our fabulous Flowers Blooming collab is free for three days too!! Most of the freebies will go into the stores after the weekend, so make sure you check out Scrap Bird while everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is on sale or free!

Have fun shopping the sales!

This, That and a Freebie

A rainbow over the stadium said there was
always hope for the Mud Hens last night!

The baseball game last night, what can I say about the game last night?

We have two new shopping bags! They’re nice ones too, a little smaller than the Meijer ones, just a little, but what’s nice about that is baggers can’t make them as heavy! It seems that everything baggers know, or in too many cases don’t, about bagging groceries goes out the window when you bring an eco-friendly reusable bag. Clue to baggers: when a woman using a cane drives the buggy up and hands you a couple of reusable bags, DON’T put all 12 canned items in one bag just because they’ll fit across the bottom! I can’t lift that much less carry it into the house when I get home. Yeesh!

The new bags are navy with the Mud Hens logo on them, quite cool and as David pointed out, we don’t have to worry about taking the wrong stores bag to go shopping. He seemed concerned about cross advertising for the competition, but I make an effort to take the other stores bag so they don’t think I’m, just buying the bag and try to charge me again. Now we have Mud Hens bags!


I wonder how many other teams, major and minor league, did the reusable bags as a giveaway for Earth Day? If you know of a team that did, leave a note in the comments!

Oh yeah, the game. Well, the season is half official. To make a season official, Nani rules, there must be one hot chocolate game and one three-bottle-of-water game. That is, there must be one where you shiver and one where you melt! Last night was the hot chocolate game. We layered and bundled, cuddled under the Red Sox throw and the Tigers stadium blanket. I’ve been to colder games. Our first date was colder! Still, it’s nice to see a game cuddled up with my hubby!

We got to see Joel Zumaya pitch in the top of the seventh inning. He’s in Toledo on rehab waiting to go off the DL and back to Detroit. He looks ready. But his performance for a half inning, didn’t make up for the other TEN runs the Indianapolis Indians got to the Hens’ only 2. We ended up leaving in the 8th inning, just after the Indians scored number ten. Normally, that’s against my baseball practices, but David had an early meeting this morning.

The Mud Hens are in first place, with the second place Louisville Bats starting a 4-game series tonight, so they have the opportunity to extend that lead! As for Indianapolis, they’re the team in town for our planned reception. The home team’s just gotta win for the (6 months later) bride and groom, right?


Wife 1500 and the Ball Park

Okay, 2 live game into the season, I can say I'm enjoying the fact that ball park food has come a long way. At Oldsmobile Park in Lansing, Michigan, Sparrow Hospital sponsors one of the food carts, where you can get low-carb wraps and salads with turkey breast and the nutritional info is displayed on the cart. At Great American Ball Park, in Cincinnati, they have apple slices and baby carrots available. What I love is that so many parks have grilled chicken breast sandwiches! Depending on the condiments you put on them, they range from 250-350 calories.

The chicken sandwich at Parkview Field in Fort Wayne was just stellar! It was easily better than most of the fast food places who often use parts-is-parts chicken or over processed breasts. The sandwich there was tasty chicken on a good, fresh bun with lettuce, tomato and red onion. Yes, if you don’t care for the onion, order it without it or take it off. I like the red onion. The one last night at Fifth Third Field in Toledo was better than I’d had last year, the chicken was better, more flavorful, but the bun was still dry and crumbly. It did have lettuce and tomato, which was something I hadn’t had there before. I’d still rate the Fort Wayne chicken better.

Oh, I still love my hot dog at the ball park, and I’m sure I’ll give up the 300 calories for one hot-dog that just isn’t that filling, but just not when dinner is at the game. That’s a high-calorie and high lots of bad stuff snack for flavor and ambiance. I still get the grilled chicken when I can for a meal!


Retiring Freebies

Time to toss a few more yearlings from the nest! Follow the links to the original posts where you can get these freebies if you haven’t yet, because when April is gone, they will be too!

Spring Sparklies


This was my first color-challenge kit for the SAS challenge in April 2008
original post - Spring Sparklies


Printemps Classique


Printemps Classique was done for the April 2008 DSO color challenge

original post - Printemps Classique


In Only Seven Days


This was a color challenge at SFS last year and a seven-day download. You can get the links to all seven downloads at the kit’s main page,

Original post - In Only Seven Days


She Said YES!


This kit was an early May kit for the DSO May color challenge.

Original post - SEMMantics Weekend and a New Kit!

If you haven’t downloaded these yet, check them out now! After April 30, they’ll no longer be available!


And now the new stuff!

I’m working on a couple of new kits right now, but the newest addition to my Scrap Bird store is a set of brag book pages in the dollar bin!


These are great pages to showcase wedding, prom or any other formal or fancy photos to slip in your 4X6 album to carry with you or to collage them as frames for a pretty full page layout. Get all four for only a dollar at Scrap Bird!

And of course, to make a new dollar bin item even more celebrated than just the stellar price, I have a blog freebie Laura quick page for you!


The wedding that inspired the kit had three bridesmaids. The triple frame from Laura Favors, accommodates that perfectly in this quick page, but it’s also stellar for photos of the bride, prom photos, even graduation pictures. Since it is helping to announce the Brag Book set in the store, the password for the quick page is bragging. Click the preview to go to the download page!

Tid Bits From Tuesday

Well, I got a little bit of scrapping time last night and this evening. Imagine that. Time to scrap. Between getting things in order to go back to school, daily job hunting grief and starting the planning for our reception, it’s been a busy couple of weeks. Now I have a huge inbox of designing stuff to get done. Hey, at least I‘ve got it planned! I’m also trying to get a layout in here and there. Still in 2006, but the layouts I did early this morning and the one I did this evening were 2009.

My alarm is set to go off at 7 and 8 AM. The workday starts at 9 and David leaves for work at 10, so everything sort of weaves in and out first thing in the morning. I turn on the work browser at 9 and go through email. If I cook breakfast and we eat together, I’ll finish the email after he leaves. If I feel like getting up at 7, I get 2 hours of Nani time, usually to scrap or blog. This morning I did the week 14 of Patch 365. I used an Eight Days A Week quick page, so it was easy to do in very little time. I like how it turned out!

Credits: Eight Days A Week quick page set, page 3 by Digitalegacies Designs,
green alpha from Eight Days A Week by Digitalegacies Designs

The next layout is a challenge layout. It fits a few challenges, but the important one is Darlene’s Quote challenge at Scrap Bird! I ask my CT members to do my challenge as part of their monthly commitment and I’ve always considered that part of my responsibilities as a CT member. Plus, I had a great opportunity to use a Shakespeare quote on a baseball layout, 2 of my favorite things!

Credits: Boylicious by Darlene Haughin,
baseball from A Perfect Summer Day by Digitalegacies Designs

The layout is scenes from our first ball game of the season last weekend in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We saw The Dayton Dragons at the new stadium for the former Ft. Wayne Wizards, now the Ft. Wayne Tin Caps. The Tin Caps won in extra innings. First game and free baseball, are we living large or what? Hehehe

Not a happy night for the Reds tonight. They dropped one 7-2 in Chicago. Darned Cubbies! And yes, I can hear Mom giving me raspberries from beyond, but the Reds or Braves against the Cubs or Pirates was always Mom and me jeering each other. I blame Fox Sports for it. I turned on the TV and the Cavaliers were on. Feh, basketball. I ended up watching the game on WGN and the Cubbies bias was very distracting for channeling my fan energy to my team.


Interesting and Odd...

Sign of the times, I was browsing a site for a possible sponsorship. There is a page for maternity wedding gowns. Imagine seeing THAT in a catalog 30 years ago! They come in ivory or white. Now, David commented that people have gotten married because a baby was on they way for years and years. I agreed. But those were usually shotgun or at least small private weddings, no opulent dress required and definitely not a white one!

Oh but another find! A wonderful and addictive find! Online Skee Ball!!!

(See link at bottom!!)

I played a few games last night. It’s bookmarked as my unwind before bed site. I love Skee Ball!


Wednesday night, in honor of Earth Day, The Toledo Mud Hens are giving away reusable grocery bags! Very cool! We have 2 Meijer ones, a Trader Joe's a Rite Aid that I keep in my tote bag and the freezer bag from Hershey last summer, so we don’t NEED Mud Hens grocery bags. It’s also going to be 36 degrees for a low temperature. So you know what that means!

We’re in section 114. :)

Toledo Mud Hens official site
Skee Ball online!

Scrap Stuff and a Freebie!

Are you getting geared up for National Scrapbook Day? I’m doing as much as I can ahead of time since, as usual, I won’t be in town on NSD weekend. I always end up someplace else. NSD this year is May 2, the four year anniversary of our first date and the weekend of the convention where we first met in person. I love my occasional scrapping days, but for that weekend, there is really no place else I’d rather be than with David Scrapbook holiday or not!

The April Collab kit, Flowers Blooming, is in the store at Scrap Bird!


It’s amazing how so many talented designers with such a variety of designing styles can work with a common theme and palette and come up with a huge kit that works so well together, yet still reflects all of our individual styles. I credit Marzena with just knowing what to do to bring the best out of us as a team!

Part 1 of this terrific mega kit is in the store now for %25 off with a great sampler available for free on the Scrap Bird Blog!


Make a point of bookmarking our blog! There will be more great freebies to come! :)


New from Darlene!

I’ve been on Darlene's CT for a year now and I’m a designer too, but she still blows me away with her designs. I’d say for every three pages in my personal books, there is one done with a Darlene Haughin kit.

I just did a couple of layouts with her newest kit, One Spring Morning.




Here’s one of my layouts:

Credits: One Spring Morning by Darlene Haughin

This is from spring of 2006, when Kaline was less than a year old and about half the size she is now!

Darlene’s mini kit, Mysteria is on sale at her stores this month.


That’s next on my scrapping list. I told Darlene she was enabling my green and purple addiction. But come on, green-purple and blue in various combinations are just so Nani! With the exception of cars, I could live if those were the only colors in the world.

After I finish up the pages in my priority folder, I’m going to work with the newest kit in Darlene’s store, Chocolate Bunny!


I bet you can guess one photo that is perfect for this kit! (Think Photoblog this week!)


Add It On For FREE

If you visit the Scrap Bird blog, you’ll see my ad for the April Digitalegacies Designs sale. Buy One Step at a Time, Homemade Love , Your Own Special Way or Because of You and enter in the coupon code for the add-on for free!

Remember Because Of You?

Put the kit and the add-on in your cart and enter coupon code dkrj25jdh. The price for the add-on will be removed!

Stop back a couple times if you have your eye on more than one of these kit and bonus pairs!

Add It On For FREE coupon codes:
One Step at a Time - kjad4365
Homemade Love - lknd856hn
Because Of You - dkrj25jdh
Your Own Special Way - lknrj37hdn


Treasure Map

If you came here looking for a freebie, you’re sorta at the right place! I’m here to tell you about the freebie rather than give it today!

First, check out this page done by my CT member, Fenny:

Credits: quick page by Fenny with Laura by Digitalegacies Designs

I just love the way she used the flower and ribbons in the kit with the gemmed frame! We traded a few emails and I coaxed her into trying to do it as a quick page and voila!


You can have a great quick page for making a quick and gorgeous page and also some inspiration for the many things you can do with Laura!

Click the preview to stop by Fenny’s blog and get this beautiful quick page. When you’re there be sure to leave her some love and check out all of the sweet layouts she’s done of her family with my kits and other great designers’ kits too!

Patch 365 and a Freebie!

I’ve decided that I have a cold. It’s one of those ones that knocks you down, but you get back up and think it was a little one and is gone, but a day later it comes back. You know what I mean, the nasty buggers that just don’t stay gone. That’s what I’ve got. Tuesday afternoon and evening I felt pretty awful, like I was gonna get really sick. Then yesterday I was feeling a lot better. Now I’m doing poorly again.

My biggest problem is drugs. I’m not good at taking them. I took Benadryl Tuesday when I started really feeling bad and one before bed. When I felt good in the morning I didn’t take any more. This morning I had a nasty ache in my knee, which occasionally happens, but by the time I finished doing groceries this afternoon, I was limping bad and my back was sore on the other side. Then part way through dinner I began to stuff up again. Now I have a soreish throat too. I took another Benadryl and if I feel good in the morning, I’ll try to remember to take another one anyway. It’s a cold. We don’t have anything pollenating yet for allergies!

It’s been an okay week though. I met my new dentist and I got an “okay” on the health of my gums and I‘m scheduled for the cleaning and a consultation for the repair and cosmetic work I need/want done. That happened before I got the cold. So, I didn’t give it to the dentist or her assistant, but maybe I got it that way! Hmmm... I still like her. She was awesome about explaining everything I was going to hear her talking about while I could still ask questions instead of while she was prodding around in my mouth! I also had a few decent jobs I sent resumes to and an offer to redistribute my resume for free from I Hire Marketing which I took advantage of. Next week is my eye doc appointment and I meet with an advisor to get ready to enroll for the next semester at the community college. I want to talk to someone about which IT certificate will be the most advantageous for me to earn.

So, there’s the exciting day-world of Nani. The evenings are more interesting! I’ve been doing some scrapping. I got weeks 11 & 12 of my Patch 365 project done!

Credits: Template from Project 365 Template Set by Digitalegacies Designs,
paper and ribbon made by me. Fonts - Comic Sans, Girls are Weird

Week 11 featured that Cherry Chocolate Blossom donut, Our futile attempts at training Kaline to use her new scratching post, thank you cards for wedding gifts and the shot of the kids crowded in Baggle’s carrier at the Vet!

Credits: Template from Project 365 Template Set 2 by Digitalegacies Designs,
kit - Kitten Kaboodle by Enaideel Scraps

The big shots from week 12 are me before and after my donation to Locks of Love and several cat pictures! Enaideel Scraps’ Kitten Kaboodle was a great kit for this one!

I wanted to share one more layout that I just liked the way it turned out. This was actually for a challenge from last month at Scrap Orchard, but I clicked on the most recent challenge this month in that category and didn’t realize until I’d already done the layout that it was already over. The challenge was to use triangles in your layout. I still think it turned out pretty nice!

credits: BOGO blog train kit from the Scrap Orchard Designers,
papers from: Pixel Geek Designs, Amanda Heimann Designs
and Irene V. Alexeeva Fonts JD and Capitals

Fortunately, it also goes with the My SAS-y Self challenge at SAS!


Now a couple of pages with my One Step at a Time that made great quick pages!

Credits: One Step at a Time quick page blog freebie by Digitalegacies Designs

Ten years ago, little 5-year old twins! :)

Credits: One Step at a Time quick page blog freebie by Digitalegacies Designs.

What a difference a decade makes, huh?? They just looked so stunning at Dave's wedding The bride and all, now three, nieces looked gorgeous! Well, okay, so did the guys, even my brother!


Of course, if you read the credits you know what the freebie is! It's two quick pages made with One Step at a Time!


Download them by clicking the preview. The password is still optimism. Personally, I don't care if it's not a hot seller. I love this kit and I'm very proud to say I created it!

Okay, Benadryl is kicking in and I'm still stuffy and sleepy now. I'm going to hope that it does the trick THIS time! Enjoy the quick pages!

Patch 365 Layouts and Coming Attractions (with freebie!)

I’ve been keeping myself busy this weekend so I could stay away from looking out the windows. I don’t know about many of the other dwellers of the snowy north, but I’m pretty well sick and tired of the snow by the beginning of February. I’m not a big fan of the white stuff, except in train pictures, anyway, but by this time of the year, I have really had it. So, this weekend we get another “snow event.”

David has heard the whine. He laughs at me and calls me a wimp. But ya know, I do get to get even when he is complaining about how hot 85 degrees is in the summer. I guess we’d be most happy as a pair in an eternal spring and summer world. Actually, I could even live without the trains in the snow if I could ALWAYS photograph in a world that is either New England in the fall or Tennessee and Georgia in the Spring.

But this weekend, in Ohio, we have snow again. So I’ve had time to catch up on my Patch 365 layouts and a couple pages in my catch-up goal for the year too.

Here’s week 7!

Credits:Kit - “Oooh Shiny!” by Veelana,
Template from “Project 365 Template Set 2” by Digitalegacies Designs

I love that kit by Veelana! The colors are my favorites and the kit made me smile inside when I worked with it no matter what the picture out the window looked like!

Week 7 highlights included our day trip to Columbus, John at his 50th birthday party and of course, the furbabies!


Week 8

Credits Kit “Because Of You” by Digitalegacies Designs,
Template from “Project 365 Template Set 2” by Digitalegacies Designs

Week 8 included the Valentine festivities, so it was only natural to use one of the kits I created for the lover’s holiday to scrap the seven photos for out 8th week of married bliss!

Week seven includes the Red Sox Yahtzee I got David for Valentine’s Day, the flowers he got me, the chocolate fondue we shared, our registry print out that includes the Mike and Ikes and that lovely shot of me on the flooded basement day!

I’m excited to share the templates for these two and two more in the store soon!


New in the store!


Following on the heels of the modestly popular Project 365 template set at Scrap Bird, I’ve added a second set of multi-photo templates in the store. This set includes the templates used in my Patch 365 weeks 7 & 8 and 2 more new layouts waiting for your choice of kit to go with your photos and journaling. “Project 365 Template Set 2” will be available in the store this week!


More Love Cooking!

Have you visited the one dollar shop at Scrap Bird? You’ll find some great things there, like frames, quick pages, paper pack add-ons and this week, you’ll find another offering from Digitalegacies Designs too!


The add-on for Home Made Love gives you 3 more papers, 3 more ribbons, another scraper and a dark wooden spoon to go with your “Homemade Love” kit and alpha, plus a bonus Quick page!



This is the layout I did with the quick page. When Rina was visiting last summer, we made Crostada. I mean she made it and I supervised! She was so proud. Tori usually takes the lead in the kitchen, so she was very happy to do it ALL!

Quick pages are easy! Just drop in your own photo, a few words on the tag and you’re good to go with a page in minutes! The whole add-on is one dollar at Scrap Bird!


Exclusive Blog Freebie!

Want to take “Homemade Love” for a test-crop before you buy? Try out this Chronicles of Nani exclusive sampler!


Click preview to download “Homemade Love Sampler”
password is jelly-roll

Homemade Love Sampler includes 1 paper, 1 ribbon and a wrapped frame.

As always at The Chronicles of Nani, if you do a layout with any Digitalegacies Designs products, I want to see it! In fact, I want to see it bad enough that there is another freebie in it for you! Send your layout to chroniclesofnani@gmail.com and I'll send you the link for Crimson and Clover!