Merry Christmas

Just popping on to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I am off to Sask for a few days to celebrate with the family. I hope you were good all year and Santa is good to you :)

hello winter

Well we were supposed to have our Calgary Girls Crop this weekend. They are stull up there! The highways were closed due to the winter store. Blowing, snow, freezing. Ya not cool. The roads are crapilicious!

Hopefully they will be able to make it down tomorrow. If not, I have a ton of dips, bruschetta, cheeseball and crackers to eat. lol

I am hoping to work on my NYC mini album and a gift for Linda this weekend. oh and write my Christmas cards if I have time. Gotta get those out.

Tomorrow mornign is the Christmas craft farmers market. I am hoping to be there for abotu 10ish....but it may be later. i am setting my alarm for late. I am hoping to sleep in a bit. I am actually heading to bed shortly. Needing lots of sleep lately....always tired. blah.

Hope you are staying warm this wintery cold weekend!

Does it ever get easier?

I have been having a really crappy couple of days. Today is espeically hard.

It has been 4 years since Uncle Avery passed away. I am finding it really hard to get over. It hits me every once in awhile that he is gone. I have wonderful memories, lots of laughs and a few photos of him. I try to keep the happy times in mind, but I just miss him SO much! It is SO unfair that he had to leave us so early. Too early. I am SO mad that he was taken away from us so early.

I dont know why but his loss has hit me so hard. So so hard. I will be driving and hear a song ans start bawling. i will be in a store and hear a song and tears will come to my eyes. I will think a thought - how he would love something, how I cant wait to tell him something and it will hit me that he is gone.

4 years......does the pain ever get easier??????

I ain't "Lion"

I had the cutest halloween yesterday with my sister, bil and K-bear. Oh my! They stopped by after nap time yesterday to trick or treak. And treat she got!!! She isnt into candy much, so I bought her a BIG bag of popcorn twists and the cutest lime green and brown sleeper with monkeys all over them!

So when we asked what a lion says, she would do her cute little "Raaarrrhhhh".....oh my......so sweet!

We headed outside into the yard to get a few photos.....here are some of my favs I want to share. I cant wait to scrapbook them!

My mom picked up this costume last year after Halloween on sale. I have to say it is the freakin' cutest thing ever!!! We never had anything like this when we were growing up!

She started to play with the leaves in the yard and kept throwing them up and letting them fall. So happy to do that for a long time. We had a hard time coaxing her out of the yard, until we showed her the piles of leaves outside the yard!

And then it was off to the next house to see what was going on. I love this photo - that cute little tail on the costume. The bag is almost as big as she is lol

Cant sleep

Dont you just love days you plan to sleep in but wake up ohhhhhhh 5 hours too early? That is me today. I am trying to get over this cough that I have had for 2 weeks now. I was so tired yesterday.......I didnt even set my alarm for this morning (which I normally do on Sundays before I work on Monday).

Up and at 'er at 530am this morning.

Not all is lost. I have been online searching for my Christmas Cars inspiration for this year. I will be making a *few* lol so I was looking for something easy to recreate. I found a couple of options that will hopefully work. Ya me!

Our cruise was fun. We did an exotic Western Caribbean on the Carnival Valor Oct 4-11. We flew to Miami on the 3rd on that darn red eye flight (just after midnight) with a 4 hour layover in Toronto. Gag. Needlesstosay we wanted to do a Duck Tour in Miami when we arrived to kill the afternoon. When we finally got to our hotel, we walked a few blocks to grab something to eat, checked out the Walgreens and CVS and then came back to the hotel to swim and were in bed by about 6pm! LOL

Our itinerary was great. We had a day at sea, Grand Cayman, Roatan Honduras, Belize, Cozumel and another day at sea. Relax, busy busy, relax lol I had never been to Grand Cayman before nor to Belize. We did some fun things (I think lol)

Grand Cayman - we grabbed a cab outside the terminal and went to Hell for about 20 minutes and then to Boatswain Park (Turtle farm). They gave me an amazing agent rate - which was passed along to my friends as the girl at the cash read the email that it was for all of us. We spent about 3 or so hours here. They have tons of turtle tanks.....and you can pick some up at the touch tanks. They also have 2 lagoons - one fresh water pool type and the other is a salt water for snorkelling. Food was pricey but after our inexpensive entry we couldnt pass it up!

Roatan we went to Gumbalimba Park. We got a walking tour of the pirate caves, botanical gardens, crossed a wooden rope bridge and then we got to HOLD MONKEYS! Yes, me, I held a monkey!!!! I am waiting for my friend to get their stuff in order and go through their photos cuz they were taking them of me lol They were so stinking cute! After that we had a Monkey lala to drink by the pool. When we asked what was in it he said "rum and khalua" ok.....so he makes it and pours in the khalua, some banana liqure (sp?), rum rum rum....about 4 or 5 different kinds white, dark, coconut, banana....and then blended it all together with ice. When he filled the cup there was some left over so we got 2 cups! Yum!!!!

Belize we did the most amazing excursion! And I was so so so happy we went with the ship. We went to Xunantunich. They are Mayan Ruins about 2 hours from Belize City and 2 miles from the Guatamal border. We heard all the history of the area as we drove and then all about the ruins (which he may have overkilled but whatevs) as we walked around them. Then we started to climb the main temple El Castillo. It has amazing carvings in the side of the temple. That was the entire reason we picked these ruins. lol Before I knew it I was at the very top of the ruin and holy heck it is high! I have pictures of Guatamal from ther and views down across the grounds. It was an amazing experience, but being afraid of heights....well it was harder coming down than going up!

Cozumel I had received day passes for the Palace Cozumel resort from our rep. What an amazing place! We got there in the morning and I was shown a room and then we had the rest of the day to experience the service. We stayed in the pool for from 930-230 when we left. We had the most amazing cabana boys too - julio, jesus and jorjes. I taught the girls how to do tequila shots and the boys joined us. What fun! They brough us lunch to the chairs lol and we had amazing strawberry and pineapple (different) margaritas. Yum! After we were done at the resort we walked downtown and did some shopping. Barter you ask? hahahahah No. I cant barter. I suck at it. I know they expect it. I know they price things high, but I always feel so bad about it. Guilty.

Other than that I have just been working everyday. It is hard to get back intot he swing of things after a great vacation!

I was supposed to go to Calgary to see another eye specialist last Monday but the appt got cancelled and moved to November....argh! I just want this taken care of or some options to maybe hopefully help. So now I wait another month. Some days are worse than the rest but hopefully he can help.

Thats it from the cheap seats today.

I can't promise anything

but I will try to keep a bit of updating here. We will see.

I havent had internet consistantly for 12 days now. I have had 3 Shaw techs in to look in 4 days. I have another apparently coming in tomorrow morning. We will see. I played around with it last night and got it back up for a few minutes at a time. We will see what happens. I called Telus to sign up for theirs. It is supposed to start tomorrow, but I am going to callt hem back to have them move it to a later date and send me the new modem. I borrowed one from one of the girls at work, but there isnt a CD in it. Hopefully they can change it.

Here are a few recent layouts.

Belfast

Dublin

Keely's 1

Almost Got Milk?

At Heritage Park we....

A year of joy

Dear Blog,

I am sorry I have left you by the wayside these past few weeks. I havent really been igorning you. I just havent had much to say. I have floated past you numerous times on my favourites list, through the days while reading other blogs and websites. I have even stopped by and stared at you a couple of times.

I am not sure if this relationship is going anywhere. I feel like I dont have much to share with you lately and that I am kind of wasting your time. It isnt you, it is me. I am not sure if we need to break up, or if we just need a small break from eachother.

I will check back and let you know.

~~Melanie

Well, hello...

So not much happening around here lately.

Work, work, work and a couple of bootcamps thrown in.

Sorry I cant be more inventive lol Havent seen any good movies, havent done anything overly exciting, havent been anywhere lately. Nope, not much to write about at all.

Hope your weekend is more exciting. I did want to put a post up. I am beinginng to wonder if it is bc my link is at the bottom of my favourites list that I leave posting. I never think about it.......hmmmmmm Maybe I will try changing the location of it to see.

Well maybe it is time for an update?

Not much to say.

Things are good. Busy at work (whew!) for the past few weeks so that is good.

Counting down to NYC!!!!! We have an awesome private tour booked for Sunday. After that, we are going to have supper and decide what to do for the Monday and Tuesday. I know! Totally not planned. What am I going to do? LOL We just have so much that we are going to see on Sunday that we dont want to plan something that we might have already seen. KWIM? So we are going to wing it. Oh we are planning the Staten Island Ferry Monday morning to see the Statue of Liberty and we have tickets to the Top fo the Rock observation deck for Tuesday monring. We are totally going to FAO Schwartz to see the toys....they have stuffed animals there for over $15000USD! Can you believe that?!?!?!?!

Off to Saskatoon on the 17th for an eye appt with my specialist. Thank goodness he is still working!!!!!! I didnt expect to get in until later this year, but they called me earlier this week and advised the 17th. Cant wait! Mom is taking the day off to go wtih me. Dad might join use - depends on how much work he has.

Wendy and K-bear have ben in Sask for the bast week. Miss seeing them throughout the week. Get to babysit tomorrow though. That is good.

Oh we are supposed to get SNOW this weekend. Can you believe that? LOL Yup. Up to 25cm out at the Pass....ugh!

That is about all from the cheap seats.

Me at 34

Another year older.
Still single.
Still travelling.
Still working.
Still scrapbooking.
Still paying off my credit card.
Still renting.
Still loving the place I rent.
Still loving lime green.
Still on LA.
Still not losing the weight I want or should be.
Still having issues with my eyes - getting slowly worse
Still scared about that.
Still driving Yoda.

Had supper tonight at Wendys. Got to spend lots of baby squishing time (although it is a lot harder now as she is 15 mths and always on the go!) Waiting for dancing with the stars result show to come on. Going to put a movie in after that and scrapbook a bit.

Have a big day tomorrow - we are going to the library so Wendy and K-bear can go to parent and tot and I am going to try to find the book Wicked! so that I can read it before we go see it in NYC in August. OMG did I tell you that Lisa got us seats in the 9th freakin' row? Holy crap! Even I will be able to see lol Getting my hair cut in the afternoon. Cant wait.

Bought the new Nora Roberts book today. First in a new series she has out.

thats about it from the cheap seats. Have an awesome day!

Happy Easter

Wishing everyone a very safe and happy Easter weekend.

The family is coming in tonight for the weekend. Mom and dad are going to stay at my place. i think Tony is going to stay at Wendys. Get to hang out with K-bear tomorrow while the men do some house fixing. Cool!

Wendy is having Easter dinner on Sunday at her place. It will be nice. They got a new table this week. It will be nice to see and hang out with everyone.

Off to finish cleaning. Happy Easter!

Slowly settling

What a slow week at work. ugh ugh ugh It makes for very boring very long very slow moving days. I have been busy enough to keep my mind moving but it is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay slower than last year! I look back and compare and I am amazed how stressed and over worked I was. This year I plan on getting a lot of training in and a lot of courses.

Wendy is slowly getting settled and unpacked. Kevin was out of town, so I went over last night to hang out and have supper. Got to put K-bear to bed. It is nice to have her close by. We talk a lot through the week - usually on my lunch break. We get to hang out a lot too. We have gone out for supper a few times. Last Saturday we went to the Home and Garden Show which was packed full of people, but she got to talk to a lot of window companies, roofing companies and some kitchen cabinet companies.

I am sick...........blah...........head cold. Sleeping lots and taking drugs. What can one do? Wait it out. ugh ugh ugh

today I am cleaning the house from top to bottom and then I am scrapbooking. i want to get a good start on the May kit. Colours and papers I wouldnt normally use. I love how Kari challenges us way out of our comfort zone!

i have to get some updated photos of K-bear too. She has the most awesome plaid pants that I need to get a photo of her in. They are hilarious. A total kickback tot he 70's that we grew up in. I have the perfect layout in mind for them.

I also have to finish up a little project I am working on. It is top secret incase a certain someone is reading this lol I will post photos once it is done though :)

Congrats to my friend Jana who welcomed another little bundle of joy - Broden John - into their family. He was over 9lb!!! Both are doing well and healthy and were home the next day I believe! Crazy!

Mom, dad and Tony are coming in next weekend for Easter. The guys are going to be working on fixing the closet in their master bedroom (either ripping it out and redoing it or leaving it and putting in a closet system for more storage. Wendy emailed Tony some photos of it to see what he thinks they should do (since he is the drywaller). Cant wait to see them! i have to work on Saturday which sucks but whatever. At least I have the afternoon to hang out with them.

Having movies playing right now.........hopefully that will help me get housework done quick.

Oh and I ordered Turbo Jam off of ebay. It has shipped and should be here next week! Yah! i am hoping that I can keep up with it and mixed with my new plan that Katie did up for me.......we will see possitive results. Keep your fingers crossed and send possitive vibes! LOL

That is all from the cheapseats right now. Hope you enjoy the lovely weather out there and have a great weekend!

Moving day!

I AM SO FREAKIN' EXCITED!!! Wendy and Keely will finally be moving here today! It has been a very looooooooooong 7.5 months, but so worth the wait.

This is also the Calgary girls crop at Embellished. We get together about once a month and I have to miss most of it ;( I am hoping I can swing by tomorrow sometime to scrapbook with them for a bit. We will see. It all depends on how things are going with the move and unpacking.

This morning is going to be oh-so-eventful:
**clean
**change sheets
**laundry
**patiently wait for them to arrive (and we all know how patient I am!)

This afternoon:
**babysit K-bear
**take photos of K-bear (I ran to the $store last night and bought some bunny ears, a basket and some plastic eggs for her to play with. I cant wait! Hopefully they turn out like I have in my head lol)

Thats about all from the cheapseats today. I will update you later. Have a great weekend!

30 weeks

That is what I signed up for today. Well, really that is what I extended my LA Weightloss to. I got a deal bc someone gave me incorrect info. They honoured it (gotta love a company that honours a mistake). Anyway, today I proclaim the following to you:
*I am starting over.
*I am going to work at it.
*I am going to check in every week.
*I am staring my workouts again now that my BIL is moving out this weekend (yah to their own house!)
*I WILL DO IT!

PLEASE! If you see me, ask me how I am doing. Ask me if I am doing my food journal. Ask me how my workouts are going. I need all the help and kicks in the ass I can get.

I am back on track. Wiping out the past 7.5 months that I halfassed did it. I WILL DO THIS.

A good weekend

Ok yesterday kinda sucked cuz I had to work and I ended up having to stay late for SOMEONE ELSE's client, but it has been a good weekend none the less.

Stopped by Costco yesterday to get K-bear some diapers and wipes which are on sale right now. She is still only 19lb so she will be in this size of diaper for awhile (they are good until 28lb lol). I am thinking I might scam a refill container of wipes too as I am almost out for cleaning my stamps lol

Bought Wendy and Kevin a 6.0 Panasonic phone at Zellers today. They had the set of 2 on sale for $69.97 which is what my one handset wentfor. Figured it would make a good housewarming gift as they both said last week on the phone that is one of the 1st things they will have to buy when they get here as theirs are all crapping out on them. When I saw them on sale in the flyer I had an "ah-ha" moment.

Its going to be a full house this weekend. Just found out that Tony is coming and brining one of his buddies to help with the move. If thats the case, I might actually get a chance to meet up with the girls at the store on Saturday and scrapbook. If they get most of the stuff done on Friday and Saturday maybe they wont need me to babysit the entire time.....we will have to wait and see. Dont know where everyone is going to sleep but we will figure it out. I might end up at the store sleeping on the air mattresses with the girls hahahaha

Had a productive weekend too. Got my taxes done - well almost done, I am still waiting for one RRSP reciept, went through all my old bills to get ready to be shredded next Sat at AMA, went through all of the bags of product and projects from the convention in February, did a bit of cleaning (will do it all Thursday night before everyone gets here), watched a few movies, did shopping....ya its been pretty good.

hmmmm I think that is about all from the cheapseats. Until next week (when I will hopefully have some more exciting news).!

Wow I suck at blogging in 2009 so far!

Hmmm betcha you thought I forgot about you eh? No. Just busy.

Quick update, and then I promise to be a better writer in the future!

**Wendy and Kevin FINALLY sold their house at the beginning of February. They bought here on the Feb long weekend. They move in 2 weeks. YAH! It has been a long 7.5 mths from start to finish. I will be happy to have my place back. It will be so awesome to have K-bear close by.

**Work has been busy no matter what the news says. Canadians are still travelling on big trips.

**Was up in Edmonton Feb 20-22 for a scrapbooking convention with Kari and the store. We did a ton of classes and make and takes with the new products from CHA. Her wholesaler does this convention every year. It was fun. Lots of laughs.

**While up in Edmonton, we went to the Award of Excellence (Millionaire) Dinner at the Hotel McDonald. We got dressed up and had a great 6 course meal. It was kinda long and drawn out but a good time nonetheless.

**Just got back from the Millionaire trip to Punta Cana, DR. We stayed at the Paradisus Palma Real The Reserve section. OMG It was awesome. Took my friend Linda with me. Her first all inclusive - what a way to start eh??? I joked with her that no other will be the same after that! We did a lot of sitting in the sun, relaxing, reading and drinking rum. We did a couple of tours - a trip to Manati Park and an Outback Jeep Safari. Both were great times.

**Still designing for the store and helping with orders and kits. Having fun. It will be nice to have my "studio" space back though and be able to scrapbook whenever I want to. It has been hard lately as that is my stress relief.....which I havent had for tha last 7 months.

Told ya it would be quick. I think that is all from the cheap seats for now. I promise to keep updating more!!!!

Wishing you a safe, happy and healthy 2009

Alright. First off, where did 2008 go? Did anyone see it? Can you please let me know.....I feel like I missed a lot of the past year - it went by so fast!

Spent last night with my friend Kari scrapbooking and watching movies. Oh we had a lot of laughs too! We have been celebrating the new year together for the past 5-6 years scrapbooking. Well, there was last year where we missed, but we always try to get together for it if we can. It was a productive night - I finished off my DT projects and got a start on my Ireland layouts. Yah!

Today has not been so productive lol I cant believe it is already after 5pm and I havent accomplished a thing! We scrapbooked until after 3am and then I slept in really late - it was almost noon when I got up (so that explains the morning or lack there of... lol) This afternoon I have watched a couple of movies, looked up info on the Giants Causeway in Ireland for my journalling on my layout....and that is about it. Tonight I need to get my old Dell computer packed up to take home to mom and dads for them to use now (the old HP is slowly dying a slow and painful death there). After that not much planned at all - might as well continue with my lazy day.

Christmas was good. It was nice to be home with family. Keely wasnt into it at all. i have a ton of photos of her crawling away from the gift openings lol Next year. I got a new phone - so cool it rings MUSIC! haha Sure the excitement of that will end soon. Also got a Wii Fit.......but not the Wii....need to find that, so I am on a mission to find that lol They werent able to find it before Christmas - they were searching 4 provinces! Mom gave me money to go towards it. Got money for my computer too which was nice. And of course the token Christmas Eve PJs.

We should be finding out where and when I go away for the Millionaire Trip through work soon. We know it will be Feb some time, but nothing has been confirmed yet. I was really hoping for a cruise, but that is a for sure no, it will be an all inclusive somewhere warm and away from all this snow.

That is about all from the cheap seats for now. Wishing everyone a very Happy 2009!