Monday, December 31, 2012

Friday, December 21, 2012

Well, well.....

Have you ever done something completely normal, well intentioned, and got kicked in the teeth for it?

I just did. I sent Christmas cards today, by email, as it has become a custom for me, since my handwriting is so bad these days, I wouldn't wish it on anybody to try and decipher. I got some sweet wishes back,  and than I got an email I had been looking forward to getting, until I actually opened it.

To say that the floor dropped out from under my seat, would not quite be accurate. It was bizar, to say the least. Let me give you the abbreviated version.... It was implied that I was using having cancer as an excuse for not keeping in touch. (THAT was definitely a first!),  I didn't care enough to get a paper card and mail the darn thing, and with all things I supposedly don't have time for..... I DO have time to maintain my blog! Life wasn't all fun at their end either, but they didn't complain to everybody in emails about it, and the only reason I EVER emailed in the first place, was probably because I felt guilty about not keeping in touch!

I couldn't believe what I was reading. I haven't kept up, personally, with A LOT of people......  No reason other than that life has a way of getting in the way. Nothing personal, no ill will intended. Shit just happens. I haven't seen my dad more than 4 times since we got back. Nicky a little more, but it's still a whole lot less than what I think to be normal.
Does it mean I don't care, or that they don't? No, it means everybody has a life.
Does it hurt that we don't stay in touch as much as we should? YES!
Am I worried I may run out of time to catch up with them? YES!
If I had more time/opportunity/energy/brainpower etc would I be more "on the ball" and around people? YES!

I hoped that by writing the blog, everybody could keep up with what was going on, but apparently I need to revise that thought.  So, to everybody I have neglected over the last 3 years during my struggle to get my life back.... while maintaining my sanity (more or less)

I AM SORRY THAT I DIDN'T KEEP IN TOUCH!!!!
I LOVE YOU ANYWAY, WHETHER I TOLD YOU LATELY OR NOT
I WOULD LOVE TO PROMISE I WILL DO BETTER NEXT YEAR, BUT I WON'T, BECAUSE IF LIFE HITS THE FAN AGAIN, I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO KEEP THAT PROMISE.

I AM SIGNING OFF UNTIL AFTER NEW YEAR.

Merry Christmas and a Blessed 2013!

Don't forget to hug that loved one!
Hugs,
Pauli


Friday, December 14, 2012

Well, this day was fun......

It started out sucky, and didn't get better with time.

I'll tell you about that in a little bit. I just got around to checking email, and I have something REALLY REALLY cool to tell you.

                                              BOO HAS A BUY MY STORE SALE!!!!
Over time, I have bought her store twice, and believe me... it's worth it!  I'm very happy that I'm on her Blossom team, and I hope that if you have liked the pages I made with her kits sofar, you will at least check out her store over at The Studio. Just an extra thought here..... for the price of 5 super bundles at regular price, you can have them all............................  If you don't want the whole store, most of her collection is on sale, with some awesome discounts!

Now, if you want to stick around for a couple of minutes.... I'll tell you about my week.
Mike has been home with the flu, which he got from a coworker that refused to go home, and passed it on to me by Wednesday, so in my "infinite wisdom", I decided he needed to see a doctor, which he came right back and told me to make the appointment for both of us. I didn't want to, but I did. She checked him first. It is the flue and because of his diabetis, she didn't want to perscribe any meds. She told him to stay home, and take his time to recouperate, take lots of rest and if things didn't feel better by Monday, to come back in.  Than it was my turn.... I started to get really dizzy, queezie and asked to lay down before I fell down, and that's when stuff started to hit the fan. She checked my bloodpressure, but couldn't find one, my heart rate was on the low side and she couldn't listen to my lungs, because I was laying down. So, she called in another doctor, who also couldn't find a bloodpressure higher than 80 for the high number, so they called the ambulance to take me to the emergency room............. That was a shocker! She didn't even want us to drive there. I'm not sure if it was because we would probably never show up in the ER (I really didn't want to go, and I think she picked up on that) or the fact that Mike was not feeling good either. Either way, I got there, they hooked me up to all kinds of wiring, checked my bloodpressure again, and it was fine. Took a heart film, that was good, and took 5 viles of blood and left me alone to sleep. Mike had followed the ambulance to the hospital in the car, and was sitting on a chair (bolted to the wall) on the other side of the room. We both nodded off, and after 2 hours doctor came back to tell us that everything was just fine, to go home, take it easy, and let things take its course..................................  We're bothh very happy that all turned out ok, (because of the speed that she decided on the ambulance we were both in a panic) but I have this sinking feeling of extra costs that we won't be able to pay, and the fact that they don't give you ANY leaway in paying (If it's not paid in 2 weeks, you're going to collections) and I'm still realing from the dentist bill!

I haven't scrapped at all this week, and I'm missing it, but sitting up to do it just isn't an option right now. I'm on the couch, tucked in like a mummy, with the laptop. I had to check mail, and when I saw Boo's announcement from the 12th, I just had to post. It's only fair :-)

Well, enjoy the weekend, I probably won't be back until somewhere next week.
Don't forget to hugg the loved ones!

Hugs,
Pauli


Monday, December 10, 2012

Happy Tuesday :-)

Too early for Christmas wishes, and I couldn't think up anything clever....
It's been a strange couple of days. I'm still nursing my jawbone infection (with the corresponding shooting pains, more than normal sleepless nights, and just general cranky-ness) BUT, I finally got the ok from the insurance, and re-made my cancelled appointment for a root canal. Never in my wildest dreams had I figured to be happy to make that appointment! LOL. It's after Christmas, and I'm not entirely sure whether that's a blessing or not but eating does NOT hurt.... so maybe it's not so bad. I was not aware of one thing though. A root canal consists of 3 appointments here, and than a years wait before they put the crown on. First they clean the roots and get the infection cleaned up and pumped full of medicine, than they wait a while for that to clear before they actually fill the rootcanal, and if that works out, they put the filling in.....
That they are taking care of the infection felt good. It freaked me out when she said it was severely infected. All my fear senses (And I have quite a few, believe me) went on high alert, and I kept thinking of the idiot in Texas, that told me... "We don't know what it is, it's an encapsuled infection of some kind, but it's not cancer". I do this everytime I hear the word, and sometimes I wonder if that will ever go away...... Oh well, you didn't come here to hear me moan, so...... Good news is..... Between December 27 and sometime next year.... I won't have a tooth-ache anymore :-)

Haven't started my page for the scrapping things yet.... still on the fence about that. I'm also still trying to clean off the I-Mac so we can take it somewhere to be checked.....Although I don't believe it's the computer, the fact remains that Mike used to be able to run The Sims, and now it won't even install.... so it needs to be checked why it's not "playing nice" anymore:-)  Clearing email, one mail at a time, if you have about 15-thousand of them is quite a daunting task. Atleast I started to throw stuff out as I get them, but I'm  not making much of a dent in the rest of them. The Tera-drive is getting fuller, and I'm trying to figure out a system that will catalog the contents on the drive, and I won't have to do it everytime I hook it up to a different computer. I thought I had a good start, on my mac, untill I tried to find things on the Imac, and it came up with absolutely nothing. I aliased kits to elements, papers, animals, flowers, and than again by color and I had a pretty good search result when I did that. I hook it up to the Imac..... nothing. When I just started, I made Picaboo photobooks, splitting them into books of papers, full kits, masks/brushes/styles, quickpages, temples etc, and that was ok, but with a tera-byte of stuff, that's not really an option anymore.... so, like my genealogy filing system.... I need to figure out something that works, and find the time to redo the current system! So, if you have ANY ideas in this directions.... bring them :-)
I realised the other day, that unless I work with a kit, and only that kit.... I spend 90% of my scrapping time looking for things. I know what I want, but unless I know the designer... I'll have to do a search of all png files. Besides the time it takes to do the search, I can spend hours looking thru everything. There HAS to be a better way!

The new mini's at Ivy Scraps are in. I haven't played with them yet, but I'm hoping to be able to do so on Thursday.

The Point In Time challenge over at the Studio, will be posted by end of week, and will run thru January.

Booland Designs is still having a huge sale over at the Studio, and we've been told there are lots of good things coming up, so stay tuned...... But untill the other cat is let out of the bag.... She still has an awesome sale going to the end of this month.... in her own Bargain Bin.....



StarSongStudio's has a new kit coming, but I haven't had time to play with it either.
She also has a freebie on her blog, that was made with her latest release: Winter Wonderland. go take a look. The kit is great for pages, or bookmarks, or greetingcards... if you can think of a use... it will handle its execution, flawlessly!
I started to put a snow picture behind the window, but decided against it. I love the snow piled up in the window panes, and wanted to show it off a bit.. The only way to do that, was to put a non-snow picture in it.......


I come away with one thought, after putting this post together..... I have a lot of things I need to take care of this week!

For now, I'm going to see if I can catch a nap in what's left of the night, and get a fresh, if frantic and time crunched, start around 6 AM. That will give me a good 3.5 hours.... That's do-able, right?

Hugs, and talk soon.
Pauli

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Magical......

That's what it looks like outside. Just a dusting of snow, nice pink sun-up bouncing off ice crystals and colder than the inside of the freezer. LOL

First things first. I heard last night, that if there is a even the hint of a thought that you want to start a cookbook, or give out the recipes to those home made goodies...... You should seriously go look over at The Studio.

Booland Designs has THAT MAGIC PUDDING as the DEAL OF THE DAY!

Go to the store
NO, SERIOUSLY!.... GO TO THE STORE AND CHECK THIS OUT!!!!
This is for some incentive to go check it out.....



I had SOOOO MUCH fun playing with this kit. I went waaaaaaay over what the CT requirements are, and I'm still not out of ideas!  But there are more kits to play with and the Point In Time challenge to set up, so I had to stop. LOL

You may know by now, that I love winter, christmas and cooking. One, is never certain we will get, especially in Holland, one is a GIMME, and one is dependent on budget, health, space and opportunity. Now that I know that our little oven will "do" cakes, I'm on my way to trying cookies. Years ago, I found this Pillsbury cookie cookbook in the library in Hiawatha that had all the award winning recipes in it. I would SO love to have that, but it is out of print, and being where we are, I don't see that I'll bump into it in a secondhand bookstore, but I DO look regularly if it is available for download somewhere..... Maybe I should email Pilsbury....... (That Just got added to the TO DO list :-)..)
Anyway, I wrote out a couple of the REALLY REALLY good ones, and some of them ended up on my pages for the kit. If you're interested, I will ask Boo if I can give the page away "as is", if that's not an option, I will post the recipe as a pdf for download.


the plate with cookies is not part of the kit. They're the ones I baked. 

After posting this, I will be getting double dressed, grab the camera, and go wandering about the neighborhood. There is a wooded area about 2 blocks away that I've been wanting to explore, and today is a great day to give that a try...... These may be the only snow pictures I will get this winter, so I don't want to miss out on them. Later, when he's all napped out, if it is still light when that happens, I will take Perky for his first ever walk in snow..... although I was hoping that it would snow on a day that Mike is off, so he can do the leash-thing and I can do the camera-thing, and with a bit more snow so it's not just cold, but actually fun for the fuzzy roommate to go out in ........ so maybe I will wait on that for a bit and instead concentrate on where I want to put the Christmas Tree! I'm running late. The weekend after Thanksgiving, my normal time to set up the tree, things just didn't go as planned, and it was one blur of running around. Last weekend, I had Sinterklaas at my sisters, and this week..... I'm not sure what happened, but I DO know what didn't happen .... right.... decorating for Christmas. So, I will sit down and do some planning! Oh boy.........

Well it's time to get going for me...... don't forget to hug that special one at least once today!
Hugs,
Pauli




Wednesday, December 5, 2012

I hit a little snag

in the Christmas shopping department....
Mike only wants 2 things, so I thought..... Done in 5 minutes!
I really should know better by now, but what can I say, I'm an optimist LOL

He wants Black Knight Rising.... not a problem, it came out yesterday, and I'm going to base tomorrow or so and I'm sure they'll have it. If not, there's Amazon :-)
So I have  4.5 minutes left, right? NNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!

He wants a work shirt, like the one he used to have in Iowa, that he can wear to work, without worrying it will tear, and that is warm that if he has to go outside for/with a customer, he's not freezing. You know, the flannel outside, with the nice warm fleece lining and a hood?  I went to Cabelas, thinking that they had wearable clothing. They HAVE to, right?! All I could find was somthing Kenny from SouthPark would wear, if he wanted to get trashed again. I think Plastic wear is in this year. What's with fashion these days? Not everybody is 16, and us old geezers need to wear clothes too? Trust me, you WANT us to wear clothes! LOL
EddieBauer is even worse. Unless it's checkered, or has some funky design, and god forbid you want a color other than grey............... forget it. Walmart, Sears/Target was next......... nope.

I think it's time to figure out if my sewingmachine works here, right after I find out if they have a shop here that sells material and patterns. There's one tiny little shop in Kerkrade (10 minutes by bus) but they mainly sells stuff to make dresses, and no patterns, thread, buttons, zippers or anything. I swear. I have no idea how people make a living having a shop here. The other place I HAVE seen materials, but again, no patterns of any kind, is the really huge Maastricht Market (hour and a half trainride). Since we accidentally caught it one day, I'll have to find out when that is held, and see if I can go there and check out what they have. For now, I'll have to ask him if he wants maybe something else for Christmas......

I'll get going on the the secondary promise.... I'm still working on the family cookbook, and planned on having it done this year, hopefully in time for Christmas. I hope, once it is dispensed to my sisters, I will get some recipe's in return, to add to it. Otherwise, it will be a very THIN cookbook! :-) I had it started with a certain look, but I think I will let everybody put their own touches on the rest of it, and make it truly a family collaboration. That way, I can also do a little bit creative scrapping on the other recipe's I want to put in it. LOL.

Don't forget to hug that loved one! My fuzzy roommate is on his blanket, right next to the keyboard, with his head on my hand, so please forgive the occasional weird words?

hugs,
Pauli

Saturday, December 1, 2012

S N O W !!!!!

YUP!
It is snowing outside. Big, thick, fluffy snowflakes, gently drifting down, catching the light from the lamppost on the way ..... and melting as soon as they hit the ground....... I guess the weatherman was right. He's been predicting snow for a week now, and he finally got it to work out! LOL.

The only reason I'm still up, and enjoying the view out the window, is that I'm still trying to get organized. I'm going to my sisters tomorrow to celebrate Sinterklaas. Mike is not going, but I have the car. Now I'm wondering if I should be a good "Boy Scout", and be prepared to stay the night on the couch or if I should just plan on coming home..... I'll have to re-evaluate in the morning. I can't cancel (Don't want to either for that matter) because someone would be without gifts if I do. We drew names and I did NOT draw Mike. :-)  So, I'm still trying to get a poem figured out that is worthy of printing. Gifts are wrapped, awaiting the tags. One is going to be interesting...... I'll have to borrow a shoe, and finish wrapping after I get to her house.... I'll let you know how it all works out, but for now, it's back to the drawing bord for me. Perky has dibs on the blanket and my chair, Mike is already out for the count, and I'm getting tired, so I better hop to it.

Don't forget to hug a loved one and enjoy the weekend :-)

Hugs,
Pauli