Kind of like a chicken with it's head cut off

  Yes, I know that title can bring some images that aren't the best to mind, trust me, I really do know what that image is. I remember as a child after my Grandma married my Grandpa when I was 8 years old we used to go to the "farm" every year to help butcher chickens. One year Grandpa thought us kids would get a kick out of seeing what really happens when you cut off a chickens head...needless to say, rather than making us kids laugh like he thought it would, it horrified us! He was so upset since his greatest joy was to do whatever he could to make us kids laugh. He can rest assured that as an adult the memory makes me smile, and usually laugh, now. With the way things have gone in the last couple of years since I started this blog, and then subsequently dropped the ball on keeping up with it, I really do spend more time than not feeling like that chicken.

 That being said, my escape from the craziness has taken on a whole new direction, so now I have decided that I am going to be return to the blog, but take it in a new direction also. I am no longer on any creative teams, don't really scrap at all anymore. I am still trying to be creative just now in other ways. I have upgraded my silhouette machine to a Cameo, this year I have invested in a sublimation printer, have tried my hand at some minor woodworking, Princess has joined 4-H, and to fit the title of this post, we have gotten back into raising chickens!

 During the whole Covid deal this last year, the DH and I have been dealing with a multitude of medical issues, none of which were Covid! DH had his left hip replace in January of 2020, then in March just as the Covid quarantine was ramping up, I ended up in the hospital for 6 days with a ruptured appendix that my surgeon says was quite serious and dangerous at the time. Then the last few months I have been back and forth to more doctors than I care to think about to be diagnosed with fatty liver and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH. Thankfully everything is reversible at this point, with a diet and exercise, however neither one of those is my strong suit at all. To add to the list of stressors, DH is having his right hip replaced on June 7! So that means that he will be home recuperating for at least 2 months. 

 So as you can see I think I am going to really need the escape from the craziness now. So my plan is to use this blog to chronicle our attempts at not going completely insane in the coming months. I am going to be sharing new recipes that we try, my progress with exercise and weight loss, a glimpse into our busy family life, a look at our darling fuzzy and feather babies, and to share my creative endeavors and projects. I do have some rearranging and organizing to do around the house to set up my craft room and make the house easier for DH to get around during his recovery. At the moment the house looks like the meme I have seen on Facebook: "Wife: See I can fit all my craft stuff in one box. Husband: Quit calling our house a box!" I drive my husband crazy on a daily basis with my craft misc and with my chickens, but what can I say, I love them both.

 On that note I will be really starting the new journey with the blog on June 1, until then I will be taking care of the chores, rearranging, and organizing around the house. So please tune back in and join me on this journey that we will be undertaking soon.

You people ROCK!! -- Loving LissyKay in August Day 3

 I had a new post all planned out to post yesterday but I think someone was telling me that I didn't need to do it after all. First out internet went out, twice, for a total of about two hours & then the power went out for over 3 hours. It was an exciting night in our house. Bubba didn't know what to do with himself when the internet went out, NO VIDEO GAMES! Get over it!! The power outage was the worst part of the the night for me. PDC lost her TV & with us being out in the country without lights it gets DARK. She was not happy so we needed to dig out the camping lanterns & the mini laptop so she could watch something on that, thankfully we have movies for her. Then even though it was windy & rainy out it was still to warm to comfortably go to sleep for Mama, I was roasting. So not a good night in this house.

 But enough about that, on to LissyKay. We had this whole month planned out as a surprise for Melissa, the designer, & it came as a BIG surprise to her. She had Physical Therapy yesterday so it was a sore day for her, but she was blown away when she got up & checked her tablet to find over 100 notifications on it. You people ROCK!! She was so overcome she was crying over the love she was feeling, she claims it was from her CT but in truth all we could do was show you all how wonderful we think she is, it was you guys who agreed with us & showed her the truth of that love. Thank you is not adequate for the way we as the CT feel for all of you right now.

 For those of you who haven't gone & checked out her store-- What are you waiting for? If you can not find something in her store that you love, you are not looking hard enough! LissyKay has some of the most unique & different templates of anyone I have seen. It doesn't matter what event I am scrapping or which kit I am using, I can find a fitting template in her collection. That is one of the reasons I love LissyKay so much, her kits are so versatile, they are great for everyone.

 We also have a challenge going on in the GoDigital Scrapbooking forum. There will be a new weekly challenge for the whole month of August using that weeks featured templates from LissyKay's store. There are chances to win QPs, & coupons to her store every week in random drawing with all those who participate in the challenge. So go check it out here.

 So now for today's featured kits.

      1 for the Money - http://bit.ly/LKD_GDS_1fortheMoney
      2 for the Show - http://bit.ly/LKD_GDS_2fortheShow
      3 to Get Ready - http://bit.ly/LKD_GDS_3toGetReady
      Squared - http://bit.ly/LKD_GDS_Squared
      Catch a Wave - http://bit.ly/LKD_GDS_CatchaWave
      From the Top - http://bit.ly/LKD_GDS_FromtheTop

 Here are my pages that I have made with these wonderful kits for today.

 

                              (I know this one looks likes worms, but trust me it is pretzels. Didn't think this one out before I did it. lol)

 I know that I had so many more with her kits, but with crashing my EHD & having galleries where I posted pages I have lost more of them then I care to think about now. I may have to seriously check into how much it is going to cost to send it in (I know that I looked on Google & they say you can swap them out by yourself, but not sure if that is a good idea. The guys I took it into said it had to be done in a dust free room & since I live in the country there is nothing dust free around here!)

Well I am off to make the heathens I live with dinner. :( Until next time....Stay Scrappy!

Lovin' LissyKay in August

One of our own here in DigiLand could use an extra boost.

Melissa, the designer behind the fantastic (and somewhat unique) templates at LissyKay Designs, has been through a car accident with back/neck injuries, physical therapy, a surgery which didn't work, and a *second* car accident. The doctors want her to have a 2nd surgery...Melissa wants to have a 2nd surgery...but insurance is insisting that she do physical therapy first - which is hurting more than helping.

She's barely able to be out of bed, much less spend time at her computer creating her special templates at her usual output. At the same time, medical bills are mounting.

We, her Creative Team, are having a "Lovin' LissyKay" event all month. You will see layouts and ads featuring several of her templates each day. And stay tuned because we're working on some challenges for later in the month with coupons as prizes.

We are not asking for handouts - Melissa wouldn't want handouts. This is not a sale, because that would defeat the purpose of trying to help raise funds. We simply want to remind you what a brilliantly talented lady she is and try to help you find something in her store that you might want to purchase.

For any of you who have (tried to) follow my blog you know that I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE LissyKay templates & used them as often as I could even before I was on her CT. I practically begged her to add me to her CT so I could afford Kits to use with her wonderful templates. lol :) I have always loved using her older templates to complete the challenges at GingerScraps & use them whenever possible.

As this month goes on all of the CT will be reminding you everyday why we all fell in love with her kits & why you should too. Trust me she has something special & unique in her store for anyone. Here some of the pages I have done with her wonderful kits. Come back for more as the month goes on.

Family Ties 2 - http://bit.ly/LKD_GDS_FamilyTies2

                                            Family Ties 1 - http://bit.ly/LKD_GDS_FamilyTies1

                                         Favorite Things - http://bit.ly/LKD_GDS_FavoriteThings    

See you later & Stay Scrappy.

Is there a such thing as Recipers Anonymous? :)

 I am going to run out of black ink in my printer at this rate! I never could figure out for years where I inherited my LOVE of collecting recipes, then a few months ago my Mom informed us that my aunt also loves to collect recipes....Now I know where I got it! I have been looking thru Pinterest for recipes to help with this diet & that is not a good idea for me. I printed out about a 1/2 inch high stack of recipes yesterday, now I just need to make sure I don't let them all go to waste. Wish me luck.

 We did try out a couple of new recipes yesterday, one was a flop one was pretty good but I need to fiddle with some of it a little more. The first we tried was for Roasted Chick Peas. It was pretty much a flop. I tried to use Ranch dip mix hoping they would taste like Cornuts, I was informed by Bubba that I wasn't even close!!!! I was not really impressed either. I think if I am going to try anything snacky with ranch on it I will go for Ranch "Crack" pretzels, at least I know we all like those.

 Next recipe we tried was for faux Wendy's Frostys. Seeing as Bubba doesn't care for the chocolate ones I decided to use vanilla protein mix in his instead of the cocoa & he loved it. I did one for PDC & I and added the vanilla protein mix along with the cocoa but I think I went a little overboard with the cocoa. PDC & I both like the chocolate Frosty but the one I made was a little too bitter, so back to the drawing board on that one. I wonder if they make a sugar free Nesquik? Here is the picture from Facebook that inspired our Frosty experiment. If you try your hand at it let me know what your results are. I am going to go look thru some recipes & see what our next experiment is going to be, I am thinking maybe Cloud Bread.

 Until next time stat scrappy! (P.S. The diet is working pretty well, I have lost 3 lbs!)

Why I Really Need An Escape :)

 Here is a quick snapshot of my life this week... Bubba has been diagnosed with Influenza B, DH is running around the house spraying everything down with Lysol, PDC has discovered YouTube & cute cat videos on my old cell phone that I gave her, & our dog, Max, must have come from a jungle tribe somewhere that thinks if you take their picture you are stealing their soul, he jumps up to leave & barks at every camera that you point at him, even PDC's play cameras. Dumb dog. :) <3 :) On top of all of that PDC & I just got over some crud that I am pretty sure was also Influenza B & I am on a diet & trying to quit smoking, again!! I swear I say I need a vacation from my life at least a couple times a week. <3 my crazy life.

 I did recently buy a couple of new toys that I am going to be showcasing stuff from on here in the days to come, a Silhouette Portrait & a new camera. Yay! I have been wanting a new cutting machine for awhile now since my Cricut doesn't seem to work anymore with today's technology. I also wanted it to be able to make stickers for my Happy Planners, so I jumped on a deal that I got when we got our taxes back. As for the camera, a friend has been taking pictures of the kids up to now, but I had to scale back on the drama & she was a big part of that. So I decided to get a good camera & got a few different editing apps for the computer to play with.

 I am also trying to stick to a better schedule on a daily basis, this is also needed for my weight loss needs too. I need to lose the weight as it is a little scary when you see a note in your medical file that your doctor is recommending you to the dietician for morbid obesity. That is not something I want to see in reference to me any more. I am ready to change that & there is no better time that now. So we are working out a new schedule to give me time to do my chores & work in time for exercise & blogging time. I need something that is going to make me be accountable so I am trying to use this blog to help with that, although I have lost half a pound already!

 I am also going to see about doing some more templates or mini kits to give away on here in the near future. I have been going thru picking up a lot of my stuff that I had downloaded from Pixel Scrapper that was lost when my EHD crashed. I have gotten a lot of it back in the last few weeks so I am going to have to see what I can come up with.

Ready to get back to work

 So I am ready to get back to work, finally! I have caught up on all of my downloading & unzipping files onto the new EHD. I work for some of the best designers in the world, I swear.

 LissyKay gives us a CT code for any older kits we want to get out of the store. I explained to her hat happened to my EHD & she allowed me to go thru her store & get all of the kits that I couldn't get from out CT page. BoomersGirl gave me a code for her store to get back all of the kits that I had made LOs for from her. Charly Renay (Cresent Moon Designs) gave me a code for her whole store for free, & I mean the WHOLE store, even her wonderful CU stuff.

 I am still trying to rebuild my CU files, but as soon as I am done you can expect for me to post more freebies. I need to revamp the sidebar on here as I need to add some CT that I have joined, Brenian, Leigh Penrod, Luv Ewe, & Charly Renay. I also have left Sweet Pea Designs CT. I was having some personality differences with her so we decided that it wasn't a good fit after all. Life goes on. :)

 I will have a new post tomorrow with some new LOs that I have gotten finished for the GS challenges this month. so until then I will leave you with this LO that I just couldn't resist making after going thru the ablums on our LissyKay CT page. I knew this would be a perfect one for Princess & her little feather babies. I used Barnyard Buddies by BoomersGirl & Feeling Wavy by LissyKay Designs.




 Until next time.... Stay Scrappy!

How did this happen?

 I am so heartsick right now. My dog had a snafu with my EHD & the EHD came out the loser! That means that everything I had on the EHD is GONE! All of my scrapping kits, all of my layouts, all of my movies, all of my ebooks, all my important papers, but even more devastating, ALL OF MY PICTURES! All of the princess's baby pictures, all the pictures from Bubba that I have been able to scan in (an ex lost his baby book years ago already, so the pictures I have are so precious already), all the pictures of my dad, who passed away 2 1/2 years ago (thankfully my sister has the pictures & can give them back to me).

 I took the EHD in to a computer place on Friday but they can't retrieve anything from it, so I am going to end up having to send it in to someplace that can use a clean room to try to salvage the data on the EHD. Only problem there is that I can cost up to $1000. I almost died when told that! Then I had to think about what was on the drive, MY KID'S PICTURES! Sorry but those are priceless to me! It is however going to have to wait until DH & I get our taxes in next year to be sent in, I won;t have the money until then.

 So I am gradually trying to recoup all of the pictures I can from Facebook & family, so that means that things will be a little slow on here for the next week or so, but I will make sure to keep you updated on what I have going on until then.