Every Day's an Adventure

Makes me laugh everytime I look at it. The hair is just amazing. :-)

I live in an older house, probably circa 1975ish, and the two bathrooms still had most of the original fixtures when we moved in 12 years ago. I am a patient person, and have lived with the turquoise shower and the mint green bathtub for over a decade now, but there has never been any love lost between us. This year it became evident that the finish was coming off of the tub and it was starting to rust, and I just finally had enough. And the federal home improvement tax credit didn't hurt. ;-) So I talked my husband into a few changes (although he didn't see any problem with turquoise or green!), and we bought a new bathtub and surround, a new shower stall and two new toilets. And then found the amazing Troy to install them with his team. He did a remarkable job for a very reasonable price.

I love the clean new look and am so glad to wave good-bye to the icky ceramic tile. And I would have never have believed I would wax poetic over a new toilet, but they are making me very happy!!! Two buttons, non-slam toilet seat, low flush, we are saving a ton of water every month! :-)

Before
After
Before
After

I was rummaging around in my pizza boxes (um, I'm afraid the vast majority of my layouts are NOT in albums) and I came across this layout (with Making Memories chipboard, Prism cardstock, Scraptivity alphabet stamps). It really makes me miss my baby. The nine year old Ben still loves to read as much as the four year old Ben, but the new taller version won't hold my hand any more when we go shopping. :-(

I don't have any new layouts to post right now because there are three (yes, THREE) magazines coming out September 1 and I have submitted pretty much everything I've done for the last few months to the Canadian Scrapbooker. Can't wait to see which ones they have used. It is just so exciting to open the pages of a new magazine and see everything!!!!!!

Anyway, around the end of August keep your eyes out for Canadian Scrapbooker Fall 2009, Canadian Scrapbooker Basics Volume #4 (Embellishments) and Canadian Scrapbooker Basics Volume #1 (Reprint edition with all new layouts). They will all be amazing!!!

We had Ben's birthday party today - two days ahead of his 'real' birthday. A pool party - that's what Ben always requests, and that's what Ben always gets. It's easy. Somehow Mother Nature has always smiled on this and it has always worked out. I will post more and put up some pictures, but in a moment of weakness tonight as I was making the kids their supper, I ate some of the leftover cantelope. [Canteloupe?] Bad mistake. I didn't think two pieces were going to hurt me, but I am suffering now. I developed some sort of weird allergy to honeydew and cantelope in my mid-thirties (honeydew is way worse) and eating them makes my stomach quite sick. But being, the eternal optimist, every now and then I try a piece anyway, just in case the allergy has departed as quickly as it arrived. Um, nope. Still here, but seemingly worse than ever. :-(

Anyway, in honour of Ben's birthday, here's a layout I did several years ago (November 2005!) using a lot of fabric and notions for a frugal scrapbooker article. I still kind of like it, but Ben and I have both come a long way since then. :-) Funny how I can still remember almost every detail of his birth! Wonder how long it takes those memories to fade................

It was a beautiful day here, and we started off the morning with the boys marching in the Sherwood Park parade with their karate club! It was very exciting for them, and very odd for Ron and I to be standing watching a parade with no kids! I can't tell you how weird that feels! There was a lot of walking, and I heard a rumour that Marty had to be piggy backed through part of the parade. He might have been tired, or maybe he just used his charm to get out of a little exercise. ;-)

In the afternoon, we went to my friend Lesley's house for a barbeque. Since the sun was shining, and her house was in the middle of renovations, the bbq moved out to the street. It brought such a big smile to my face, watching doors open from all the houses around the crescent and people wandering out with their lawn chairs, their cold drinks, their barbeque fixins'............ It must be so lovely to live in a neighborhood where everyone has similar interest and enjoys each others company.

Lesley makes a fruit dip that is to die for. I don't normally have much of a sweet tooth, but this Skor Dip makes me want to pull up a chair and grab a spoon! Try it for your next gathering. The fruit that you use to dip with makes it 'seem' healthy.

Skor Dip
1 pkg (250g) cream cheese
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 pkg skor bits

Mix cream cheese and sugars together until smooth. Stir in vanilla and skor bits. Let stand in fridge overnight to soften skor bits. Serve with apples and strawberries. Enjoy!

Not that I've had much time for reading! But I happened to take this one out of the library as an audiobook, and loved it so much I had to read it too! It's fabulous! Unforgettable characters, courage, humour, love. Go read it!!! Or listen to it!! There's no better way to make your daily commute exciting than an audioboook. Love those things. Even if my mind drifts off, which is typical, it is easy to skip backwards and listen to passages again.