Testing 123

Hiya folks!

Just testing my ability to post on Blogger from my new phone. :)

See you soon!!!

Miscellany

Hey there, everybody!

Let me start by sayin'... ain't no stitchy pics here! :) I've had another week that has kept me away from my stitchy seat (in some respects "self imposed"... but I'll tell you about that in a little bit) except for a couple of nights, so no progress worth a pic! Next time (I hope!)!!

I have been very lax in blog reading and commenting the past couple weeks, and for that I apologize!! But, I was able to get a few read today at lunch, and look what I found on Cari's blog!!??!! My first EVER award!!! :) It made me so happy!! Thank you SO SO SO much, Cari!!!

The rules are that I'm supposed to list 10 things that make me happy, then pass it along to 10 folks. Here goes the fulfillment of the 1st portion (note that these are not necessarily in order of importance - except the first one. The first one is definitely first.):

1) My sweet baby Leah (I'm sure none of you are suprised by that!!)
2) LOST (Here's hoping my level of sadness when the show ends {only 4 hours left!!!} does NOT correlate to the level of happiness it brings me)
3) Reading a good book - curled up under a blanket on a rainy day, or sitting outside on a lovely evening
4) Taking pictures, and playing with them in PhotoShop
5) Playing games - card games, board games, any kind of game (except games involving balls)
6) Stitching (duh)
7) Quilt fabric (can't really say "quilting" since I pretty much only dream of doing that) - esp. jelly rolls, layer cakes, honey buns, turnovers, etc., etc., etc.
8) Gardening
9) Decorating/ looking at design blogs and books (and mags)
10) Sleep. I looove me some sleep!!

Now the second part of this award is to give it to 10 other people... but I can't choose between all the blogs I follow. So, I'm not going to pass it along. (Breakin' the law! Breakin' the law!!) Just know this: If you are on my blog-roll, reading your blog makes me happy. Really! Your blogs give me so much inspiration, motivation, entertainment, enjoyment... and the relationships that have developed with some of you electronically enrich my life so much, I can't even tell you!! So!

Okay, on to the reason for my stitching inattentiveness (I'll try to keep this brief, but you know me!!)... I've been sucked into a vortex. Or maybe it's a black hole... whatever it is, I am very excited about this, and can't wait to truly get started with it!! What is it? Digital scrapbooking!!

I visited my BFF (Ili) last Saturday and asked how her scrapbooks were coming along. She said "Girrl!! I went digital!!" I was like "Whaaat?? Oh no you di'n'!!" And she was like... okay, sorry, I'll spare you. :) Long story short, she introduced me to a website called artscow.com. She had completed and had printed several photo books from them, and they looked really really good! So, I got myself all set up and started Sunday evening. It was VERY cool! Pretty easy to use, and much faster than traditional (paper) scrapbooking. I used to spend 2-3hrs per page when I was kickin' it old skool. With this site, I spent @ 10 hrs and had 15 pages complete. I was so excited when I saved my project Monday night! Then the problems started... I won't go into it all here, but suffice to say I won't be using artscow.com. 10 hrs of work completely down the drain (due to issues on their end) and the response of their customer service department was pretty much "sorry 'bout your luck!"

So! Despite that frustration it was a wonderful thing! I loved doing it so much that I am now looking into and will probably purchase the Creative Memories Storybook Creator software. It isn't nearly as expensive as I thought it was, and it looks like it is a very powerful tool! It'll be good to get through the thousands of pictures I have sitting on my PC, on CDs and on my memory card! Who knows? Maybe I'll even share some of my pages in future posts!

To make up for not having a stitchy pic this week, I thought I'd share a couple of flower pics from my garden...

Well, folks! I'm going to sign off, get caught up on blog reading and commenting, then continue on with my Digital scrapbooking research... if any of you have success stories or horror stories to share, I'd love to hear them!!! Thanks so much for reading!!!

Stitch a$$ to all and to all a good night!!

Robin

Cherry Blossoms and Some Progress

Hey there mes amies!

Before I get "started" on this post, let me first say thank you all SO much for your kind wishes for my anniversary! We had a quiet and relaxing evening at home, which was nice... I have no real idea what I've been doing the last couple weeks, but I do know that I've felt as though every single day has been jam packed with busyness. Good busyness, though, and that's about all we can ask for, right?

I haven't had much time for stitching in the last couple weeks (I usually collapse into bed shortly after {and sometimes, lately, before... what is UP with my child that she seems able to exist on miniscule amounts of sleep?? She definitely didn't get that particular genetic "gift" from her momma!!} my little Leah.), but here is what I've done... as you can see, we have a lady! I'm hoping to finish this some time this century...


Now, let's move on to what Leah described as our "a little bit boring" (kid tells it like it is... now that she definitely gets from her momma!!) trip to DC to see the Cherry Blossoms (along with every other tourist within a 100 mile radius), shall we?

It was a beautiful day, although it started out a bit chilly and cloudy. But the clouds drifted away and the temperature rose comfortably pretty quickly. The hordes of people made it difficult to get very many really great, scenic shots, but here's what I've got...

This is a close up (the only one I took... there were people literally hanging from the trees... like monkeys!! And ripping small branches off the trees, too. Did they not realize that these trees are a National Monument in and of themselves?? Would they chisel off a piece of the Jefferson Memorial?? I think not.... sheesh. Learn some restraint before you come out into public, people, really.) of the blooms:


Some of you may wonder how I made it out of there without my own dear, sweet little monkey taking home a blossomy souvenir of her own... well... see, it's like this. I lied to her. Yes, call CPS right now. She is constantly (and don't get me wrong - I adore this) appropriating blooms to give her mommy a little gift, but as we all know, there is a time and a place for everything, and I just couldn't have my sweet child becoming "That kid", you know what I'm saying?? So, on the way to the Metro I told her "Now Leah, there are only two rules today. The most important one is stick to mommy like glue. The second and almost as important one is: Do. Not. Pick. The. Flowers." With her love of all things floral I should have known she would latch onto the floral ban. Of course, she asked "Why, mommy??" Thinking on my feet as any good (cough cough) mommy would to come up with a suitably serious reason to a 4 year old I said: "It's illegal (yep, she knows what that word means)." Her eyes got really really round, the thumb went in the mouth and the blankie went to her face. She didn't say another word about it. And I didn't think anything of it until we were making our way back to the Smithsonian Metro stop several hours later to head home. Suddenly we heard police sirens, and two police cars went streaking past. Leah asked me where the police men were going. I responded absentmindedly "I don't know, baby..." Her melting, beautiful, sad (at that moment) brown eyes looked deeply into mine and she said "Oh mommy, I think maybe someone picked the flowers." I was stunned into absolute silence. I felt like the worst worm on earth in that moment. But I'm consoling myself that she has most likely already forgotten...

Anywho! Here's a shot of the Jefferson Memorial:

And here is the one and only decent shot of Leah from the day (notice the hot pink Peep clutched in her wee little hand)... the hordes (and I do mean hordes) of people out that day made it pretty difficult to get halfway decent shots. I had visions of gorgeous, card worthy pics of Leah amongst the cherry trees... so totally didn't happen! But, I like this one:

And here's the Washington Monument (you can see a bit how crowded it was... look along the railing at the edge of the Tidal Basin... wall to wall people.) from a vantage point about midway around the Basin:

Now this next shot shows one of the cooler moments of the day... we were walking toward the Jefferson Memorial and suddenly we heard this very loud, unmistakable helicopter sound. We had seen a couple tourist (or maybe news?) 'copters already so I looked up expecting to see another. Much to my amazement, this is what I saw:

Yep, it's Marine One! And I'm pretty sure Mr. Prez (or someone important, anyway) was in there, b/c the two "diversionary" replicas (is that the word??) were flying with it. It really was pretty awesome... they were very very low, and they were screamin' fast past the Basin and Jefferson Memorial. They buzzed the blossoms about 3 times, then were gone.

One last shot, then my little head needs to hit the pillow... this was a Rugby game going on along our route to the Jefferson Memorial. I took the pic b/c I wanted to try out my zoom lens for action shots... It did pretty well, I think. I was standing 100yds (or more? I'm horrible at judging distances!) away, and this is what I snagged:

All right y'all! That's it for me tonight! As always, thanks so much for taking the time to read!

Enjoy the rest of the week, and may you all enjoy the sensation known as "stitch a$$". :)

~Robin

Nine Years Ago Tomorrow....

From our wedding invitation: "As my walk brings me closer to Christ, it is your hand I reach for along the way..."

Busy couple of weeks... "See" you all next week!

~Robin