Need Nice Tenants?

Wow, it's been hectic. The big thing that's been taking up a lot of my time and energy has been The Great Search to Find a New Place to Live. We're hoping to be done with apartment communities and find a nice duplex or guest house with some yard, but it's been difficult thus far. I don't know if it's our budget or the market or having a dog or what, but I've only found a few decent leads. But I'm keeping positive! And if anybody knows someone who has a rental in the OC, get in touch!!

New Pages

Man, I thought I did a lot of scrapping last week, but jeez! I've done four layouts since Saturday! I must have too much time on my hands...yeah right.

After hanging out with the girls the Friday before last and watching "300" at my place, I was pretty tired, but still managed to drag my butt out of bed the next morning (admittedly, Jacopo helped get me up, as he apparently really wanted to play). Saturday I spent almost all day cleaning like a psycho to get ready for Nikki to come and stay with me last week. There's no better motivator than company! :) It was good to check things off my list, though. Cleaning can be theraputic if you let it! Thus, by Saturday night I was too tired to go anywhere or do anything, so the puppy and I just hung out and I was suddenly inspired and stayed up late doing two layouts in a row.

First, there's "Tough Guy:
You can view credits and details by going here.

I also finally did a layout with my new all-time fave photo of Jacopo, and I'm pretty pleased with how it came out. I know it's kind of girly, but I'm always doing boyish pages, so too bad!

"So This Is Love":

As always, credits and details are available here.

Good times! Guess I was in a brown mood. :)

New (Temporary) Roomie

So Nikki and I finally got to play at being roomies, and it's was so awesome! She's such a trooper, parting from the fam to come and keep me company (only 11 more days until Chris gets home!). Sunday night we actually went out and had dinner at Red Robin (mmm Whiskey River chicken burger...), and Monday I made us chicken salad melts and Nikki chopped up a salad. Then we stayed up nice and late watching The Devil Wears Prada (can you believe I actually hadn't seen it yet?) and gabbing before bed.

I think the highlight of the week had to be going to dinner at Honda Ya (see previous entries for details on the awesomeness) Thursday night with Katie along too! After stuffing ourselves to the brim, Nikki had the brilliant idea of going for some Thrifty's ice cream. Rather than get a cone, I got a pint of their Rainbow Sherbert to take home and I made us Sherbert Coolers - takes me right back to my childhood! (Except we didn't used to put vodka in along with the ice, sherbert and 7-Up!) :D

And More Scrap Pages...

In her absence I was seriously inspired again (and there was nothing on TV), so I did two more scrap pages! They're some seriously cute photos I've been dying to do something with.

Here's "So Sleepy", which was inspired by a layout by Lynn Singers/Grieveson, who is a designer too (with seriously cute products). You can view her awesome gallery of work by clicking here.


Isn't Ted E. Bear so cute?!? I absolutely love this photo of him - totally classic Teddy. He's lying in Keiko's lap, by the way, who was visiting just two weeks ago and always showers him with love when she and Roger visit. :) As usual, credits and details can be found here.

I also churned out this page, with one of my favorite photos of the kitten and Jacopo. They really are turning into partners in crime, and I had to document it!


Credits and info for "Double Trouble" can be found here.

"Daily Something"

So I initially read about this idea of doing a "Daily Something" over at Cathy Zielske's blog today, and it really struck a chord with me. It was started by Ali Edwards, (whose blog is super inspiring, definitely one to check out!) and basically it's trying to daily record some kind of everyday story. It's about doing something quick and easy, rather than trying to churn out a scrapbook page a day (exhausting, much?). So here's mine for today (and I'm going to probably use the blog to tell the story, rather than her cute little notes that she does):

Basically, my highlight today was Jacopo doing "down" on command without a training collar/leash on (clearly not this photo, but you get the idea!). I was just so excited! It's the one command he's really resisted and been troublesome about...why, I couldn't tell you, since he loves to do it on his own. I can get him to do it easily enough now with a leash, but I still have to pull his legs out half the time. But today he just obeyed! Woohoo! (Now, granted, I had a treat in hand, but that's besides the point!) :)

The "daily something" brush is by Ali and you can download it for free from her blog, and the heart is from the Highlight Brushes set by Jackie Eckles. (Wish I had a link for it, but it's from when she used to sell her stuff at Designer Digitals, and I don't see anything like it at her new store. Poo!)

So I'm sure I won't do this daily, knowing me, but I'll definitely be going with the idea of finding the funny/interesting/inspiring in the everyday. It's something I've always admired when others do scrap pages about it, but I'm always so focused on using my time for family stories and photos that I never get to that kind of scrapping. So I think this will work better for me. :)

100 In 10

Speaking of cool inspiration, definitely check out the "100 in 10" list that Jessica Sprague has compiled over at her blog. Basically, she posted 100 ideas/techniques/prompts for scrapping in (nearly) 10 days, and also asked for readers to post their ideas along the way. And now she has compiled both her ideas and her readers' ideas all together in one document that you can save and keep when you're in a slump! The final total came out to almost 300! SO cool!


I think that about does it for me...more to talk about, but my eyes are burning and it's time to try and get some sleep, despite the heat!

~Trude

Quote of the moment: "Force without wisdom falls of it's own weight." ~ Horace (65 BCE - 8 BCE)