NSD 2010 Blog Train ~ The Story of Our Lives ~ Day 1

Welcome to Day 1 of the NSD 2010 Blog Train.

I hope you will join us at Digitals for all the wonderful things happening during our event from April 30, 2010 through May 5, 2010. There is a huge store wide sale for 30% off! Yes, that means all of my designs are 30% off through May 5th. I hope you will take advantage of the sale and stock up. I'm going to be retiring some of my products by the end of May.

Also, make sure you check out the grab bag sale! There are tons of great personal use and commercial use grab bags available. Be sure to pick up my personal use grab bag for only $3.00. This is a huge value and I'm sure you'll love the contents. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.

Here is a preview of today's gift:

I'm sorry this link has expired. The entire album will be available for sale in my store at the completion of the blog train.

Please leave a comment if you download, I would love to hear from you!

Your blog train gift was created from my Twilight Dreams kit.

You can find Twilight Dreams and the matching Twilight Dreams Alpha in my store.

Please join Dreams Ink! Digital Designs on Facebook to get information about my products and sales. You will also get special deals and can join in on discussions!

You can find the group here.

Thank you for stopping at my station on the blog train, I hope you will visit me each day. Here is a list with all the participants:

BLOG TRAIN PARTICIPANTS:

Alessandra Designs - http://www.alessandradesigns.blogspot.com/

Amanda Thorderson - http://flamingo-amanda.blogspot.com/

Beth Rimmer - http://www.bethscreativechaos.blogspot.com/

DeDe Smith - http://designzbydede.blogspot.com/

Dreamer Paula - http://designsbydreamerpaula.blogspot.com/

Georgia Oliver - http://dreamsinkdesigns.blogspot.com/

Juliana Gordon - http://www.julianagordon.com/

Kathryn Estry - http://kathrynsdigitaldesigns.blogspot.com/

Kristmess - http://kristmessdesigns.blogspot.com/

Lifesong Kreations - http://lifesongkreations.blogspot.com/

Nini's Notions - http://ninisnews.blogspot.com/

Sarah Meyer - http://blog.sarahbdesigns.net/

Scrap4Brains - http://scrap4brains.blogspot.com/

Silvia Romeo - http://www.silviaromeo.blogspot.com/

Tallula Moon- http://www.tallulamoon.com/blog

Join me on Facebook ....

Please join Dreams Ink! Digital Designs on Facebook to get information about my products and sales. You will also get special deals and can join in on discussions!

You can find the group here.

Happy Birthday to me ....

Happy Birthday to me!

Yup, today is my birthday. 29.95 + change is my story and I'm sticking to it. Can I tell you how wonderful our world is to be able to so easily connect with friends and family? I love Facebook! I've reconnected with so many people and it's a wonderful thing to sign on today and see so many happy birthday messages. Really makes a girl feel special.

Best birthday gift of all is one I'm giving myself by trying to get healthier. I joined the gym a little over a month ago and I've been a very good girl about going regularly. I can't say that I'm in love with it, although I find it less inconvenient than I thought I would. Some days I actually look forward to going, other days I truly dread it. Some days I go and all goes smoothly, other days are a struggle to get through no matter what I do. It's those days that I have to lecture myself that if I shortchange the workout that the next time it becomes easier to do so. Why is it so easy to sabotage ourselves, but so hard to do what is good for us?

Anyhow, long story short, one of the best birthday gifts of all is that I'm wearing a shirt that I bought 2 or 3 years ago and have never worn because it just didn't fit right. While the scale is NOT my friend right now, something must be going right because clothes are just fitting differently. I'm thrilled to be wearing a shirt that I was so uncomfortable in just a month or so ago. Now if I could just get that darn scale to move in the right direction!

Monday already????

.... say it isn't so! WOW, the weekends sure fly by fast. Ollie was on spring break last week so I took Thurdsay and Friday off. You would not think that four days could whiz by like that.

Ollie had a great first spring league game Saturday night. He had numerous shots on goal and two breakaways. The second breakaway he put a beautiful shot right past the goalie... he shoots ... he scores! GO OLLIE! Sad news is they ended up losing 6-5, but he had a great game so no complaints from this hockey mom.

Needless to say my desk is now piled sky high from being out only 2 days. Sheesh!

Did manage to get some design stuff done over the weekend. I'm busy trying to get my grab bag together for all the fun stuff that will be going on at Digitals for National Scrapbook Day. I'm also trying to get ready for our blog train that week too. Eeekkkkk better get back to work.

Have a wonderful Monday!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins ...

Yummm .... these smell delicious!

Since Don was diagnosed with Diabetes and I've been trying very hard to lose some weight and get healthy, I haven't done much baking. I LOVE to bake! Ollie can certainly afford some treats here and there so I got up this morning and made him muffins. WOW do they smell good. I took a little bite of one of his and they are indeed delicious. It was nice to bake something. I need to do it much more often.



Tonight is his first spring hockey game and I'm looking forward to it. I think he's super glad to be back on the ice again. I'm almost sad as this will be his last year doing spring league in youth hockey. Next year if he wants to play spring he'll have to find a league that will accept seniors or go to a men's league.

We've survived our first week of Don's "retirement". Not sure when he decided he was retiring, but I guess that's the word now. He seems to be enjoying it. I'm giving it time to adjust and see how it's working out.

He tore apart the dining room almost a month ago now and is still in the process of working on it. Hopefully now that he's home all the time we'll get it finished up and work on getting the siding on the outside of the house done. It was started 8 years ago.... it's time! I think the dining room is going to be really pretty when we're done. I'm going to paint it a nice spring like yellow with white trim. The floor is going to be bamboo and I can't wait to see it down. It's going to be gorgeous.

Ok, time for some chores around here. Have a great Saturday!

Wonderful Wednesday Sale ~ 35% Off!

It's Wonderful Wednesday and there are sales at Digitals!

Save 35% off everything in my store ~ TODAY ONLY. This includes the newly released Twilight Dreams and the coordinating Twilight Dreams Alpha.

Hurry and shop today while you can save!

Twilight Dreams ~ NEW!!!

Finally!!! A new kit!

Twilight Dreams ~ Twilight … the end of another day, the return of night. With soft and earthy blues and greens you can’t help but fall in love under the stars. Perfect for any season and an abundance of memories this kit is full of gorgeous papers and elements.

Contains: 12 Patterned Papers, 5 Solid Papers, 1 Beaded Border, 1 Clustered Border, 1 Bow, 1 Set Brackets, 1 Brad, 1 Paperclip, 1 Criss Cross Ribbons, 2 Flowers, 3 Bracket Frames, 1 Heart with Tag, 1 Journal, 1 Lace, 1 Mat, 2 Photo Corners, 3 Ribbons, 1 Ribbon Wrap, 2 Star Borders, 1 Stitching, 1 String with Flowers, 1 Swirl, 1 Swirl Clip, 3 Tags , 2 WordArt

Twilight Dreams Alpha

Contains: 26 Blue Capital Letters, 10 Blue Numbers, 15 Blue Symbols, 26 Green Capital Letters, 10 Green Numbers, 15 Green Symbols

April 2010 ~ Scraplift Challenge

Join me at Digitals for this month's scraplift challenge! You can find the thread here.

--------------------------

WELCOME TO APRIL!

I am thrilled that Spring is starting show a little around here. It was a long winter and I'm so happy to see the Daffodils starting to show their colors. We should have some leaves on the trees and more flowers coming in the next few weeks. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this time of year!

Great layouts in response to last months challenge! This is such a fun challenge to run, everyone is so creative and I love all the different takes on the layouts each month.

I found a fun layout for the scraplift this month. I don't know about you, but I pick up things everywhere we go to add to my scrapbook pages. Whether a brochure, ticket stubs, drink coasters, matchbooks, napkins, you name it and it comes home with me. I'm famous for coming home from vacation with a bag full of goodies to remember our trips. That being said, when I saw this layout it reminded me of something I would do. This month I chose Bubba Gump Shrimp by Alejas. I love that she used the Restaurant logo as part of her layout. I think I have a matching coaster from them that I could use in a hybrid page or scan in for digital. I might just have to dig out my coaster and photos and do my own layout. So, will you choose to use something from a place you've visited for your layout? There is loads of inspiration here!

You can find this layout here. You can also find her gallery here. She has some gorgeous layouts, be sure to stop by and leave her some love.

I hope you can find some inspiration in this layout to scraplift. Be sure to include at least three items by Digitals designers in your layout to be eligible for the prize.

When you've completed your layout, post it to the Scraplift Gallery, then come back and post a link to your page to this thread. This gives us all a chance to oooh and aaah over your layout. It will also help me to make sure that I don't miss sending out anyone's posting bonus.

Here is a preview of your prize this month.



Have fun and I can't wait to see what you do with this challenge!

Coming Soon ......

Re-Entering Blogging Land ....

Here I am..... really I'm not lost. Ok, well maybe not totally lost.

It's been a long struggle for the last year with any creativity. Between that, being busy with everyday life, crazy things at work, etc.... I just stopped blogging with any regularity. I've also been struggling with how much privacy is needed and how much to blog about my own personal life.

So, I've decided that I'm going to try and start posting with some regularity. Hopefully I haven't lost all my blog followers.

Sooooooo here's a quick recap to try and catch things up to date a little ....

Ollie finished out a fantastic hockey season with the high school. He played Varsity only this year and had a break out season with goals and assists. Coach uses him regularly very defensively and for special assignments. He never complains and works hard to do whatever is needed. It's paying off for him and he really contributed to the team more than ever. They started out with not so great a team and really had to work hard to pull things together. They went from being 1-6-0 to earn a spot at the end of the season for Divisionals and States. Unfortunately we didn't make it past the first round of either one, but still for the team we had it was fantastic to see them pull together and succeed the way they did with the season. Great job Cutters!!

Work has been insane the past couple of years with the one partner having kidney cancer. Everything came to a head when he got significantly sicker this past fall and was out of work since the beginning of September. We also had someone quit in mid-October so we went from an office of four down to an office of two for months. I'm not sure how we managed, but we kept things going and ended up doing ok for the end of the year. The one partner (original owner) has bought out and dissolved the partnership and is now the sole owner again. We hired someone new beginning of March so things are getting on a much better track.

Don is losing his job end of this week. We've known it was coming, but it doesn't make it any easier or less scary. I'm not sure what the next step for him will be at this point. He will be able to collect unemployment for a while. Hopefully we figure something out. I'm nervous, worried, scared... you name it. BUT it is what it is and we'll have to figure a way to work through it. He's been pretty miserable there for a long time so I know in many ways it's a relief for him even though there are financial worries.

Ollie is preparing to take his SATs. We've started talking about colleges, etc. WOW is that intimidating and unchartered territory. Fortunately his grades are good and his PSAT scores were excellent. Hopefully he will have options when the time comes. Of course I'm hoping for some scholarship money. Would go a long way to help out especially with Don being unemployed.

I've been doing a little designing again. I'm feeling unconfident and rusty, but at least I seem to be getting there. The new blog look is a sneak peek at a kit I am hoping to have out this week. I need to get the previews done and a description written so I can get it in the store. The name is Twilight Dreams and I'm trying to get a coordinating bracket album done also.

Ok, enough rambling .... back to work for me.

Keep your eyes open. I need to post the April Scraplift Challenge @ Digitals here. It's a FANTASTIC one this month! Also, watch for Twilight Dreams to make it to the store. I have given it to a couple of people to work on layouts. Hopefully I'll have something to show you there soon too. Maybe I'll even be able to put a little freebie out here.

See you soon!