good morning!

okay, i promise i'm not a morning person, but i actually just got 7 complete, uninterrupted hours of sleep. yes, hannah is still alive and she is at home with us, but she slept through the night! HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!! After Monday night, I would have gone nuts if she didn't, though. I am feeling much better about everything after a good night's sleep! :) Isn' that usually the case?

Question for everyone.... Would you object to the following scenario?
Thomas came home from work last night and said that on Friday he was going to meet 2 girls from work for lunch. They are both in their late 20s, about the same as us. There is no business purpose to this lunch. Purely social.

I told Thomas it was completely inappropriate. He said that if I felt that way, he wouldn't go. In the light of day, am I being irrational? I don't think anything would "happen" but I just feel that it is getting too close to the edge of appropriateness. I told him that it would be different if there were a huge group of people, but if it were just him & 2 girls or him & one buddy and 2 girls, it wouldn't be appropriate. What do you think???

We are leaning more and more toward the first apartment complex that we looked at. Everyway we look at it, we are looking at around roughly the same price, or at least within $50 per month. My safety, sanity, and gas mileage really like the first apartment. I am going to call them and see if they have an empty apartment we can see because Thomas thinks the model looks too small. But they put HUGE furniture in those models. We'll see! I decided yesterday that I really need to make this a matter of faith. We have been praying that we will know where we are supposed to be. I don't think Heavenly Father really cares where we are as long as we keep doing the other important things in our lives. So I just need to have faith that everything will work out for the best. AND I have to make the most of whatever situation we end up in. Remind me of that later today, okay?!

ever have one of those days????

where you just want to climb back in bed and pull the covers over your head and not deal with your life? well, it's 10:30am and already it's gonna be one of those days! :)

Hannah woke up screaming at 2am. could NOT get her to stop. i was up with her for about 2 hours. then she woke me up at 8 this morning. already the day is seeming like it may not go my way. then i call the apartment complex that we really want to move into because we found a 3 bedroom for $1100 and the lady tells me that they don't really have 3 bedrooms for $1100 unless the apartment market gets really slow. they probably won't have that problem this summer.... argh! then don't advertise it! so we are back to square 1. we are going to go look at their 2 bedrooms but I already know they are subpar. The floorplans are terrible! i just want my own place so badly that i am ready to move into the cockroach heaven and just sit on my couch with a can of raid. okay, so it's not that bad, but i really do want my own place again...

other than that, I am looking forward to today. if hannah cooperates I am going to be scrapbooking during her nap! I got 2 new kits from Jeanine and 1 from SaraAmarie and I am set! Plus I have my prizes to create for RAKS. I went to post an ad for the Ad Challenge and I can't get my parents scanner to work AGAIN! I have to figure something out for that, too! Should be fun!

i want some m&m candies...

would someone please remind me that I am allergic to the darn things?! :) i still can't find tickets to Utah for less than $350 per ticket. We have to do less than $300 / ticket or we aren't going to be able to make it. I guess we'll just wait and see if we are going to get an apartment or not. We may never find a place with any availabilities!
so we went to garden ridge today to check out the barstools that they had marked on clearance earlier this week. apparently they were mismarked because they are now marked $99 each, rather than $39 each. just a little difference! :)
that's about all we have done today! we ate hotdogs with my parents and ash & dyl and michael & helen & stef. i have no idea where everyone is right now. we are the only ones home. thomas is playing his game and hannah is watching dora. she had a fever of 103.1 last night. she didn't have any symptoms other than a fever. i am watching her fluid intake and output today because the last time she did this she had a uti. the fun never ends.

Blah!!!

I hate apartment shopping! We went today to look at another apartment, yes, we know it's Sunday! They didn't have a model to show us, so we have to go back on Tuesday or Wednesday and then they may have a model... But they don't think that they are going to have anything available anyway. So I got ticked off and came home and have been searching for the last hour or two for something online. The apartment complex across the street from our old complex actually has a 3 bedroom apartment available June 1st. The price range is somewhere between $1100 & $1399 and they couldn't be more specific since I was calling the off-site leasing company. They also have a 2 bedroom available July 1, somwhere between $900 & $1299. They should know in the next few days if they are going to have any more July or August openings. I don't like the 2 bedroom floorplan, but what can you do? The 3 bedroom is awesome! There is a HUGE pantry and a walk-in laundry room. The problem is that the bedroom I would put Hannah in backs up to someone else's apartment. The other bedroom has a door that goes outside and I do not want to put Hannah in there. My problem with both of these complexes today is that for "just" $100 more I can have a much nicer apartment. But then I think that if I were to put "just $100" per month in savings.... that's $1200 a year. Definitely worth it to me... The other problem with the 3 bedroom apt is that it is on the 2nd floor... No stairs, thanks! :) Hannah is not ready to walk up a flight of concrete stairs on her own and can you really see me carrying Hannah and 10 bags of groceries??? It would be Homecoming all over again... I think I am just going to have to suck it up and live in a not-as-nice but still really nice apartment. and I may have to get over the 2nd floor thing, too. the good news is that thomas agrees that we need to just throw away our kitchen table and chairs. we are going to make do with barstools (which I need to go buy tomorrow!) until we can find the table we want. our table is so ugly. thomas and i bought it at k-mart for $65 about 3 months before we were even married. remember back when that ivory scrolled metal was "in"? well, we bought the k-mart version and besides being ugly, it is incredibly uncomfortable! i want a square table. i found one i like at garden ridge. the table and 4 chairs are $250, but i don't like the chairs... so the search continues. I am excited to go look at more apartments on Tuesday morning. I wish there were places open tomorrow. I guess they need their holidays, too. :) I really am trying to be positive about all this, but it is really hard. I don't want to spend more than $800/month on an apartment. There are apartments around here for that price. But I just can't live there. It isn't the apartments themselves that I can't handle. It's the bugs (cheap apartments here always have bugs... BIG bugs!) and the shall we call them, clientele, who live there. Jacksonville has had more murders this year than Orlando, Tampa & Miami combined. And I hate to say it, but the cheaper the apartment, the riskier it becomes. I was really excited about one complex across the street from my parents' neighborhood. The price was really good and the apartment was cute. The kitchen was TINY and so were the bathrooms, but the living room was cute and there were really cute porches. Then I drove around the complex at night... no thanks! I would never leave my house at night. There was another cute complex that had really cute apartments. The kitchen was tiny (seriously 6 small cupboards & NO pantry) and the bathrooms were kind-of iffy. I was ready to move in, though until I took a closer look around. The ready-to-move-in apartment had dead bugs ground into the carpet and there were dead centipedes lining the walls. There was gunk stuck on the cupboard doors. Dont' get me started on the refrigerator. So I asked the manager if they would clean it before move-in and she said that it had already been cleaned and if the future resident didn't feel it was clean enough they could clean it. They don't do regular pest control. Residents have to request it. So I could request that my apartment be sprayed every week, but if my neighbors don't have their apartment treated at least once a month, it won't do any good. Well, given my absolute terror at seeing roaches in my apartment, that wouldn't be a good situation. This whole search has been an absolute nightmare and I wish that we could just decide on a place, any clean apartment at all, and just get it over and done with! I'm just going to have to decide on Tuesday! :)

i love that hannah's name is the same forward and backward... a palindrome... so i decided to create a layout about it... did i post this one already??? Sweet Shoppe Designs - For Cassie Kit
Trish Jones's Little Stitches from SBB
Century Gothic; CK handprint
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Jen Reed's Fresh Blossom kit at Scrapdish; Fonts: Dirty Ego & CK handprint; Photoshop 7.0
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

leftover photos from december... Amanda Lacey's "Hip For the Holidays" kit at Sweet Shoppe Designs
Fonts: Impact; CK handprint
Photoshop 7.0
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

i can't remember if i posted this or not... Nancie Rowe Janit'z Ellie's World Kit @ Scrapartist
staple from AmyK's Shabby Geek kit
Fonts: Pharmacy
Photoshop 7.0
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

SaraAmarie's Nativity Doodle Kit at 3Scrapateers
Photoshop 7.0
Fonts: CK Handprint;
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

SaraAmarie's Nativity Doodle Kit at 3Scrapateers
Photoshop 7.0
Fonts: CK Handprint; Hootie!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Summer Sunsations Kit by Jeanine, Jen & Krista at Scrapdish
Font: chromosome heavy; CK Journaling
Photoshop 7.0
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

HUSBANDS!

My darling husband wants to live at The Enclave, because it is about 10 minutes closer to his work. But Thomas doesn't really want the 1 bathroom apartment. He wants 2 bathrooms. I told him that he needed to go with me to look at the apartments. So, we are going on Sunday. Shhh! I know we shouldn't, but that is literally the ONLY time we have to go in the next two weeks. Thomas's day off next week is Monday, which is nice for us, but all the apartment offices are closed. However, he is supposed to be off work early tonight. So if he gets home by 5:30, we will go see them tonight. He probably won't be home until 9 or 10! just because I want to go do something! :) that's the car business!

We really are trying to get out there to Utah. But, we need to figure out how much we are going to have to spend to get into our apartment. Their deposit rate depends on your credit history. It could be as little as $87.50 or $500 or as much as 2 months rent... And it also depends on when our apartment will be available. The Enclave is almost totally occupied all the time, so when they tell you that they have something available, you go then! :) We may not be moving until August, it just depends on when the apartment we want will be available. We'll see what happens. I am still looking for tickets every single day! I promise! If we can find them for $500 or less, we'll book them right then. I'm off to look...

Rain, rain, go away...

No! Don't!!! We need rain so bad and it finally started raining just to stop like 2 minutes later... no kidding, 2 minutes of rain. it has been thundering and lightening for the last 4 hours. crazy!

so, plane tickets to utah are still way too expensive. i saw some for $209 this morning and then i checked the availability, but you had to stay for like 33 days because the return flights were all sold out. plus when you could return you had a four hour layover in newark, the murder capitol of the country! gee, no thanks! :) so then i found some for $219 and the dates kind-of worked. we'd have to stay 12 days, which would be good with us, but we don't want to over-stay our welcome anywhere, but we decided to go ahead and do it. So, I got ready to check out and with taxes and fees the tickets were over $300 each! once again, no thanks!

so, ashley and i spent all day looking at apartments... YIKES! they are so expensive! i found a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apt with 1100 square feet for $1030-$1080 depending on which one is available. i prefer the bottom floor, parking lot view apartments, so hopefully they will have one of those coming soon. those are the cheap ones! :) the complex is really nice and the apartments are REALLY nice. They make our old apartment look kind of dumpy! but, $1050 (average) is a lot of money to throw away on an apartment each month. so i looked at another complex that is about 5 steps down, but is still not dangerous... For a 2 bed, 2 bath apartment with 1200 sq ft, $1050. The bathrooms are tiny, the fixtures are outdated, they have metal louvered doors instead of wood, the kitchen is so tiny you can't face the sink when you are loading the dishwasher. You have to turn sideways at the sink... I think we are going to go with the 2 bed 1 bath... it'll be kind of inconvenient, especially with Hannah learning to potty-train, though. I just don't know what to do. Would someone please make this decision for me??? We were thinking about buying something, but we don't really qualify for what we want right now. We should be able to next year at this time. we could get a 2 bed 2 bath at the same complex for $1170. this place is so awesome! check it out if you get really bored! http://www.theenclave-apts.com
The other one is Danforth...
http://www.apartments.com/avgrandtour.aspx?page=avgrandtour&property=103035.21.3&subarea7=y&area3=y&state=fl&rgn1=15&rent_minimum=0&rent_maximum=99999&srt1=0.62&srt2=0.87&srt3=0.09&prvpg=43#photos

The photos of Danforth actually look nicer than they really are... anyway, that's what we have been up to!
I haven't scrapbooked in DAYS and I am really far behind on my RAKScraps assignments. I made a digital scrapbooking kit and I couldn't get it to save correctly, so now I have to start over... argh! oh well!

Photoshop 7.0
Atomic Cupcake's Inked Edges Action
Clara Wallace's "Zoey" kit at Matter Of Scrap
Fonts: CK Journaling
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Materials: Shabby Princess's Flea Market Chic
Font: Mary Jane Small Caps
Software: Photoshop 7.0
Dream Suite Bonus Effects
Atomic Cupcake's Inked Edges Photoshop Action
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

I was Wednesday's DigiPick of the Day (5/17)

I am so excited! Melissa chose me as her DigiPick of the Day on 5/17! I think this is the 3rd time I have been honored with this! But, whose counting?! :) My layout "Love" was chosen. This is the layout with my granny's hand on Iris's pregnant belly... Iris is having a girl by the way! So exciting! I am working on her white afghan already for the baby's blessing. At the rate I crochet, I'll probably be working on it until the baby is 15 years old! :)

Here's the link... Melissa has a great blog! I love to see her picks when I can!
http://melissag.typepad.com/digi_pick_of_the_day/

Too darn expensive!

2 round-trip tickets to Salt Lake $700 plus taxes & fees... sorry folks, it looks like we aren't coming this summer! we'll keep looking, but there is just no way we can afford that! and the soonest that fare is even available is August! By the end of the month we'll need 3 tickets because Hannah will be 2!

Looks like Gandolfo's & the BYU Creamery are on hold for a while! Maybe we'll make it for a BYU football game! :) really trying to be positive about this!

Gandolfo's. . .

I am seriously craving a South Hampton minus the cheese from Gandolfo's. . . and not just any Gandolfo's, THE Gandolfo's in the basement of the building on Center Street in Provo, Utah. Gandolfo's is a New York style deli hidden in the basement of a totally unsuspecting bank on a boring street in Happy Valley, USA. Some of my best college memories are in that restaurant. Pretty pathetic, eh, Mary! Mary knows, she was there with me through those years! :) And a South Hampton. . . yum! Boar's Head Oven Roasted turkey with provolone (back in my cheese-eating days!) and mayo and lettuce, tomato, onion & avocado! And their bread! Wow! It is so soft and always still warm from the ovens. There are Gandolfo's chains all over Utah Valley and Salt Lake now, but the original deli is the best. I am sure that there are chains all over the country, but to me, the original is in Provo. That is on my list of places to go when I get out there. We are going to have rent a car with unlimited mileage between my trips to Provo for Gandolfo's subs & BYU Creamery's chocolate milk for Thomas & their tiny loaves of honey wheat bread! And a trip to the cabin. I realized the other day that the only time Hannah has seen mountains is when she watches Dora the Explorer! That is so sad to me! I know she'll go running for the river, though! I am really homesick for Utah and I really don't even like Utah... with the exception of friends and family of course! who am i kidding? i don't have any friends in utah anymore, they are all family! okay, enough reminiscing! i am going to go see how much flights to Utah are!

Clara Wallace's Zoey Kit at Matter Of Scrap
Photoshop 7.0
Fonts: ugly qua; bluecake

I cut out the middle of the overlay so that it didn't grunge my photos, just the edging of the layout.
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Nancy Rowe Janitz's "Good Life" kit at ScrapArtist, recolored alpha
Photoshop 7.0
Font: Ugly Qua
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Warmest Wishes by Atomic Cupcake
Inked Edges Photoshop Action by Atomic Cupcake
Photoshop 7.0
Fonts: SuzanneQuillSH; CK Handprint
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Warmest Wishes by Atomic Cupcake
Inked Edges Photoshop Action by Atomic Cupcake
Photoshop 7.0
Fonts: SuzanneQuillSH; CK Handprint
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Susan Long's Pocket Full of Posies Paper Pack from Liddy's Loft
Chalked Edges Action by Atomic Cupcake; did first chalked edge in lavendar, then covered it with a white chalked edge. decreased opacity on white layer to let a little lavendar show through the white. it gave the chalking a softer effect.
Text Foam Stamp Action by Atomic cupcake (cut out dragonfly from background, desaturated & then changed color to lavendar and applied the action)
Quote from 2Peas Pea Soup
photoshop 7.0
font: tweed
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Mother's Day!!!!

I am soooooo excited! My hubby loves me! He sent me on a digiscrapping shopping spree! I just spent an insane amount of money on digiscrapping supplies! About $65 worth of supplies! That is what I spent the entire last year! Needless to say this counts as my birthday present, too! :) I have no problems with that!

Ummmm. . . I have had a few people ask me what my weight loss "secret" is. . . i have gained 10 pounds in the last couple of months, but before that I just ate what I wasn't allergic to! :) I am allergic to rice and chocolate and everything else in the world that tastes good! I have been eating a lot of chocolate lately so I am pretty swollen! And I don't always look as thin as I do in those photos! I am 135 lbs and pretty happy about it. I can drink a Coke everyday and eat out occasionally and I'm fine! :) as long as i stay away from all the allergy foods! what i really need to do is start exercising. a size 6 won't do me much good if my heart stops because i never exercise. my goal is just to be as healthy as i can be and not worry about size or weight too much! that's my philosophy anyway! :)

Jen Reed's Fresh Blossom Kit at Scrapdish, increased brightness/contrast & added textures
Curvy Template by Atomic Cupcake
Photoshop 7.0
fonts: SuzanneQuillSH
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

This is a photo of Thomas in his new glasses! Isn't he a hottie?! I used Eve Recinella's "Rough & Tumble" kit available at 3Scrapateers; Font is Century Gothic; Photoshop 7.0; I used Atomic Cupcake's Inked Edges Photoshop Action. Journaling based on a layout by Ronalyn Barut in Simple Scrapbooks Digital Scrapbooking Magazine 4 (p. 27).
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

This is Hannah with her Easter package from Grandpa & Grandma Cardall! I used Kim Crothers's "Easter Egg" kit available at Creative Snaps; Fonts are Desyrel & CK Handprint; Photoshop 7.0; Stitching is from Atomic Cupcake's "So Perky" kit.
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Clara Wallace's "Felicity" kit from MatterOfScrap, available at [url]http://www.scrapdish.com[/url] ; Photoshop 7.0; Fonts: CK Handprint & CK Cursive
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Reasons Why I DigiScrap!

I have had a lot of questions and comments posted on my blog and in emails lately about digiscrapping, so I am going to answer all of them in one post! Here we go. . . .

Do you print everything out and put it together on a piece of cardstock or do you do everything on your computer?
Well, I do everything on my computer and then I have the completely finished product printed out on a piece of Kodak Royal Gold photo paper by a professional printing studio out of New York City. However, there are a lot of people who combine digital scrapbooking with paper scrapbooking. Many traditional scrapbookers use their computers a lot in their scrapbooking anyway. They do their titles and journaling and photo editing. I do all of this and then put it all together in a photo editing program. Check out Simple Scrapbooks Digital Scrapbooking 5 Magazine. I just got my copy the other day and I LOVE it! There are also links to free digital scrapbooking kits on their website if you want to check them out and play. All you need is a photo editing program and the digital kits!

You must have a lot of money to spend on scrapbooking supplies. . .
I wish! I am on a very tight budget!!! That is the main reason I got into digital scrapbooking! For the first 6 months I did digital scrapbooking, I exclusively used "freebies" from different websites and papers and elements that I created myself in Photoshop. Including printing costs (for 230 prints), sheet protectors, albums and digital kits I have spent about $300 in scrapbooking supplies in the last year. That probably seems like a lot, but $250 of it was in printing costs in the last month after I got my tax return. I only buy digital kits that I LOVE and know that I will get a lot of use out of them. The great thing about digital scrapbooking supplies is that you can never use them up! You can buy a pack of cardstock for $5 and in 25 layouts or less your cardstock is gone. But, when you buy a digital kit for $5 you can use it on 500 layouts if you want. The beauty of my situation is that I am on 4 different Creative Teams for different digital scrapbooking designers/stores/websites! Each month I get free kits to work with in exchange for creating layouts with their kits and posting them in a bunch of different digital scrapbooking galleries. This generates interest in their kits and they get more business and I get free scrapbooking supplies! I am on the Creative Team for Scrapdish.com and they have several different designers all with different scrapbooking styles. I am also on Ginger Thibodeau's Creative Team. She sells at 3Scrapateers.com and ScrapOutsideTheBox.com and a couple of other places, too, I think. I am also on SaraAmarie's Creative Team. She sells at 3Scrapateers.com. And I am also on the Creative Team at RAKScraps. Each month they have two or three sponsors and we get kits to work with from each sponsor. For May I get to work with kits from Eve Recinella, she sells at 3Scrapateers, who is an amazing designer and Amy Knepper who sells at Scrapdish. I love Amy's work! The great thing about being on the RAKScraps team is that each month I get to try kits from different designers. I have a very eclectic scrapbooking style. I like to try a little bit of everything. So, working with different designers suits me just fine! The difference in designers is the same in paper as it is in digital. Two of my favorite designers are Kim Crothers and ShabbyPrincess. Their work could not be more different! It would be like comparing Basic Gray with Bo Bunny.

Is digital scrapbooking hard? I'd have to sit and watch you for hours to figure it out. . .
Digital scrapbooking is not hard at all! I like to tell people that the basic idea is all drag and drop! The secret is to get to know your photo editing program very well. You could watch me use photoshop all day long and if you have Paint Shop Pro or Digital Image Pro you wouldn't have a clue what to do. There are tons of free tutorials on different digital scrapbooking websites for each program. There are some people who even digiscrap using Microsoft Word. I wouldn't have a clue how to do that!

anyway. . . I think that about covers everything. . . If anyone still has questions, let me know and I'll try to answer them! :)

Rough & Tumble kit by Eve Recinella at 3Scrapateers; Photoshop 7.0; Century Gothic Font
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Rebecca Gold's "Fun In The Sun" kit at Elemental Scraps
Photoshop 7.0
Fonts: Geometric Serif; Hog Bld Hmk; FG Adam
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

This is one of my favorite layouts! These photos are taken last week when we went to the beach with our family members who were here for the funeral. We all just needed a break. Hannah had a good time at the beach. I used SaraAmarie's "One Fish, Two Fish, Orange Fish, Blue Fish" kit available at 3Scrapateers. It is such a FUN kit! I love love LOVE it!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

This photo is from April! Hannah's hair is just not growing. . . at least not longer, it is getting poofier (is that a word???). I love her curls, though! They are so sweet! I used Eve Recinella's "Over The Rainbow" kit available at 3Scrapateers. I love Eve's kits! They are gorgeous!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

This photo is from Easter Sunday. It is my Granny holding my dad's hand. This photo makes me sad because I can just remember how thin that hand was. I had to use the photo in black and white because it was too painful in color. I used Amy Knepper's "Forget Me Not" kit available at Scrapdish. I love this kit! It is perfect for springy photos!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

This photo is from February. It is of Hannah's last bottle! I used Amy Knepper's "Glimpse of Spring" kit. It worked perfectly with Hannah's pink shirt. I love the little paper flowers, too!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

This photo is actually from this year. .. January of this year! I really need to get caught up! I used Amy Knepper's "Glimpse of Spring" kit available at Scrapdish! What a fun kit! I love the soft greens and pinks! It is a very elegant kit!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

This is another photo from last summer! I am still nowhere near done with last year's scrapbooking! This is Hannah with her Grandpa Cardall. I used Eve Recinella's "Over The Rainbow" kit available at 3Scrapateers. Gorgeous kit!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Shhhh. . . pretend you didn't see this yet! It is going to be in this month's RAKFile at RAKScraps! This is a photo from last summer! I used Amy Knepper's "Forget Me Not" kit available at Scrapdish! What a gorgeous kit! I love it!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

This is Hannah & I at the beach last week! We went with Uncle Jacob & Aunt Amber, Aunt Angie, Cousins Scotty & Michael Rothe, & our friend Stephanie. It was nice to relax! I used Clara Wallace's "Felicity Kit" available at Scrapdish. I LOVE the bright colors in this kit! I highly reccomend it!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

Look what Grandma taught Hannah how to do today! And yes, that's her foot!
Image Copyrighted by Meredith Cardall, 2006

American Idol spoiler. . . .

I hate you, Chrissy! :) You got me to actually start watching American Idol, I got hooked on Chris and now he's gone!!!!! Now what am I going to do on Tuesday and Wednesday nights??? I don't even care who wins now! Katherine is a crybaby, Elliot looks like a leprechaun and Taylor is way too cheesy. If Simon has a brain in his head he'll sign Chris. anyway. . .

I have been on a quest to find denim capris that don't cost a fortune and actually fit over my wide hiney without ballooning out over my legs. . . not an easy task apparently! I went to Target, Walmart, Bealls Outlet, Old Navy, Marshalls, TJ Maxx & Ross. The only ones I could find were $26 at Old Navy and they weren't that great on me. So today I dragged my sister down to St. Augustine to the Outlet mall and we went to Gap. I FOUND SOME!!! $15 and they are sooo cute! Well, maybe not so cute on me, but a heck of a lot better than the $26 ones. I got some cute t-shirts, too, for $5 each. Great sales at Gap Outlet this week!

Well, that's about all that's going on these days. . . I have no free computer time these days because Hannah is so demanding with my time. She throws major tantrums when I get on the computer. So, anyway. . . I'll be around again as soon as I get free time. . .

is $7 really worth the hassle???

i woke up this morning with a crick in my neck, so I decided to go buy a new pillow. no luck at Home Goods. no luck at Target (what's up with that?????). no luck at Super Wal-Mart (no surprise there!). so I went to Bed Bath & Beyond and paid $17 a pillow. YIKES!!! but I didn't know what else to do. So I went home and put Hannah down for her nap and took a look at the brand new soft pillow and decided that there was no way I could keep 2 pillows at $17 each. So, I went to TJ Maxx and got 2 Calvin Klein pillows at $10 each. So, I ended up saving $14, but not really! because there was a really cute Polly Flinders dress on clearance for $11. and Hannah had to have a Dora book at $3. so I didn't actually save any money by returning my pillows, but I still came out ahead because I now have 2 pillows, a dress for Hannah & a book to keep her quiet! the book is actually the best part! :)
i hate taking hannah shopping these days. she has to touch everything and she screams to get out of the cart or for me to put her down. it drives me nuts. i really want to be scrapbooking right now, but thomas is playing his game and i can't scrapbook on my parents' computer.
speaking of scrapbooking. . . i have been putting all of my digital scrapbooking kits on CDs to keep them organized. i went to use one of my CDs today and noticed that the top of the CD is flaking off. so i now have to try to figure out which kits were on that CD and re-make it. thankfully i have each kit also burned to a CD still in its zipped format.
:::sigh::: i should probably go spend some time with my daughter while she isn't screaming. . . i haven't spent nearly enough time with her lately. she is so funny these days. she grabbed my cell phone out of my hand earlier so that she could talk to Aunt Angie. she loves going to aunt ashley's house, too. okay, i'm really going to get off here now . . ..

life. ..

life is a funny thing. . . one minute you are here and everything is great and in the very next instant you can be gone. my granny died on monday, may 1, at 1:27am, about an hour and a half after my last post. it was very peaceful. on tuesday morning, my mom, my aunt helen, my aunt nelia, my cousin iris, my sister angie, my sister ashley, and my sister amber and i went to the funeral home and dressed my granny. usually you don't have 8 people doing that, but it was a good thing we did. it was a very special experience, one i will be grateful for forever. it was the last service i was able to do for her. the viewing was tuesday night. it was an emotional night, but was still not an unpleasant event. the funeral was wednesday morning. thomas gave the eulogy and did a marvelous job, as always. he is such a good speaker. the funeral was hard, much harder than i thought it would be. hannah was misbehaving, so the relief society president took her out for me. at 1:00 my parents went to the funeral home and witnessed the cremation. we have slowly been cleaning out my granny's room and dividing her "treasures" among family members. my granny never had any money or any material possesions that were worth anything. in fact, when she moved down to florida, she came only with what she could fit in her car, mostly clothes. i chose a crochet hook, because my grandmother was always crocheting. i have now become the family afghan maker because no one else really crochets. i am going to stay busy! :) i miss my granny and probably will every day of my life. i am making a mother's day album for my mom of her mother. i'll post it when i get it finished. i hope it turns out!