Tomorrow is the umteenth national Great American Smoke Out.  I thought I’d get a head start.  For those of you who have been around for forever, you may remember how I quit smoking last November.  Cold Turkey vacation style.  I did great,  easy as pie.  Of course, pie, cake, candy everything went into my mouth and I gained 18 lbs as the result.  I was never one of those who smoked more when I drank, just the opposite.  The combination of the 2 really disagreed with me.  That was when I was young and spent more time at the bar.  Fast forward to the summer past and lo and behold, yep Diane’s smoking again.  First it was an innocent bum one here, bum another there.  Then stress took hold one day and nothing was standing between me and that pack I bought to pay back the person I was bumming from.  Tried to quit again, made it about 5 days and then back to the drawing board.  Well, I’m at it again.  Quitting that is.  And I’m a bitch.  Now if you’ve never smoked, consider yourself blessed.  If you’ve quit and stayed quit, truly blessed.  If you’re like me, totally addicted then you understand where I’m coming from.  I had to make a choice and it should be an easy one.  Quit!  With cigarettes at $4.50 plus a pack (includes tax) times 3 maybe 4 a week; well that was my scraping budget when I first quit and it was a great way to justify it in my brain to keep me going.  Add the fact that the insurance company my health insurance is changing to charges an extra $35 a month for smokers.  That seals the deal.  I have no choice but to quit AGAIN.  So why is it so hard to do.  I swear there are times I feel like I’d kill for a smoke.  And don’t watch tv.  It’s all anyone does on tv nowadays.  I swear you see more smoking on tv when you’re trying to quit.  So anyway, tomorrow is the Great American Smoke Out.  Join me and let’s be miserable together.

New stuff coming out this weekend.  Previews coming soon.  Winter Wonderland is now in my shoppe over at the Garden and is on sale for 30% off til Sat.  Snag this awesome collab while you can.

Until next time…..have a great day and for you smokers, keep quitting. 

A pretty boring weekend here. Watched football, Nascar and tried to finish up another Christmas kit. I also read, something I don’t get enough time to do. My mom sent a huge sack load of books back with me. This weekend it was The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks. You know, the guy who wrote The Notebook. (I’ve never seen the movie) Anyway, it was pretty good and a little different from his normal love stories.

Have you ever heard of RedBox video? They’re the DVD dispensing machines that are often at grocery stores and such? We have one at the Giant Eagle we shop at. It’s a pretty good concept, you rent new releases for $1 plus tax a night. It’s a pretty good concept unless you run into problem like say the box being full and not accepting returns. That’s the problem I ran into last night. I couldn’t return my movie. Isn’t that just crazy. I could either return it to another site or keep it another day, pay the charges and they would send me a promo code for another movie. Nope, that wasn’t gonna work for me. So I got 2 movies for my inconvienence. But I did drive all over town to find another place to return it. The first place I went (Kroger) had a red machine that does the same thing, different company. LOL

See it was a boring weekend. This week will most likely be boring too. But next weekend is the game between Ohio State and that team up North. (we don’t say the M word this week) People in Central Ohio are nuts about Michigan week as they call it. (I haven’t figured out how they can call it Michigan week if they can’t say the M word? bwhahaha) And they don’t believe me when I tell them that it’s not the same in Michigan during this week. Of course, this year it may be since this game is all that the Wolverines have to redeem themselves for the dismal season they’re having. Anyway, there’s a big party down at the campground on Sat. So I’ll be freezing my tatas off. Oh the things we do for love.

Hope you all have a great day!

 This first one was done by Lynn’s mom using my Mulberry Wine kit.  This is Sydney, such a cutie.  Thanks Cathy!!!

And this one, Robin, my other CT member did using the new collab created by Wenchd Grafix and myself, Winter Wonderland.

And here’s one I did with Winter Wonderland.

And here’s the preview for Winter Wonderland.  It’s on sale for 30% off until 11/18 at Wenchd Grafix.

Like I mentioned earlier, today is Lynn’s birthday.  I’m not 100% sure of her favorite colors, but I know that she had shades of purple in her wedding and that’s what I took to make this kit in her honor.  Please stop by her blog and wish her a happy birthday.

You can get it here until 11/20.

In interest of fair play, I missed Robin’s birthday by a few days.  It was at the end of October.  Certainly don’t want her to feel left out.  But she said she didn’t want a big deal made of it.  Of course, we women always say that but in most cases don’t really mean that (so if any men are reading this, remember it’s just something we say, but don’t really mean).  I really want to thank both Robin and Lynn for doing such beautiful work and really showcasing my designs.  You both are the best!!!

Hope that everyone has a great day!

I am running so late.  I guess I’ve finally gotten caught up with the time change.  I have a few previews to show you.  I  mentioned yesterday that Kristine and I were working together on a collab.  She showed you her previews yesterday (well, some of them) and now I have mine.  This baby is HUGE!!!!  And she worked all night to get it into the store.  It’s available for the time being at Wenchd Grafix and it’s on sale until the 18th for 30% off.  Regularly $7.50 now $5.25 (what a bargain!!)

And here’s a page that Lynn did with it.  Isn’t it just adorable, love her niece.

Just to give you an idea of just how big this kit is, here’s the contents of it.

38 papers 3 alphas 3 bows 2 brackets (1 glass, 1 glitter) 2 stars 3 chrome wordart 3 clips 2 ribbon curls 2 flairs 4 glitter flourishes 2 glitter frames 2 puffy felt frames 1 glass frames 4 snowflakes (4 frosted, 4 glass) 1 light string 1 menorah 4 ribbons 2 ricrac 2 ricrac wraps 3 stars 4 stitched shapes 2 tags 5 Christmas trees 2 page wraps 16 dymo wordarts 1 Snow swirl overlay 2 Felt North Pole signs 3 Fabric curled ribbons 1 Painted flower cluster 2 Mats in dark blue (1 not shown in preview) 1 Glitter Snowflake 6 Glass blue snowflakes 2 Glitter swirls 1 Glitter star 1 Silver Frame 1 Metal Frame 1 Wooden frame 1 Frame cluster 1 garland strand 3 Folded and stapled ribbon 1 Folded ribbon 1 Wreath 2 Flowers 1 Glitter Christmas Tree 1 Gift bow 1 Gift bow with trailing ribbon 1 Large Bow

 Da Wench had to work really hard to get things all together last night because I was a little late getting my part uploaded to her.  So THANKS Kris!  You rawk!  It’s always a pleasure to work with Kristine on any project.  And this one turned out beautifully.  And she did 2 pages and a QP freebie for you.  Stop by and see it here.

So enjoy your day and take a minute to remember those who’ve served and say Thank you!

The other highlight was dinner last night. We bought a pork roast and tried a fantastic new recipe. We love to cook in the crockpot and this was custom designed for it. Apple & Sage glazed pork roast. It’s an Emeril recipe. I don’t have it here with me, but I’m thinking I need to share it. But if you really gotta see it, it’s on Foodnetwork.com It was to die for. I do have to say that Shannon is a great crockpot cook. He also does a chicken & noodles that’s awesome.

All my scrapping stuff was done on Friday. I’ve been working on knocking off the challenges over at DSG. Have you been by to check them out yet? It’s a great group of ladies.

Well, it’s time to make the donuts so to say. Hopefully work won’t be too busy today, I have lots to do to finsih up my part of a fanstastic collab I’m working on with Da Wench Kristine. It’s HUGE and very pretty. Keep your eyes open for it.

Amanda, bad officiating. That was a big part of it. I’m so sorry, I really wanted them to go all the way.

Have a great day all.

I have some more pages to share with you.  The first one is by my other fab CT member Robin.  She was finally able to get her computer woes fixed and is scrapping again.  Woohoo!  This is her daughter and a few of her chickens.  She used my November Rain papers.

The other 2 I did for challenges at the Garden.  The first one is for the lyric challenge.  The lyrics are by Josh Groban.

And this one is for Jenn’s Cottage Garden challenge.  I used my Autumn Orchard papers and the star mat is by Birgit Kerr.

There’s lots of great things going on over at the Garden with challenges and great designers.  Stop by and say hi.  I’m off to change the link for the Daily Petal giveaway.

Hope you enjoy your weekend and scrap happy!

I have some pages to share with you. The first two were done by my extremely talented CT member Lynn.

Isn’t just a fab page.  She used my kit With Gratitude, which is the Daily Petals giveaway over at DSG.  It’s a download a day to get the complete kit.  Don’t worry if you missed the first few days, I’m working on a way to get everyone caught up.

 And with this one, Lynn used my newest kit Desert Mirage.

This is one I did for the template challenge over at the Garden.  Carena supplies an awesome template each month and this is what I came up with for it.

I still have a bunch of other pages I need to do for challenges.  If you haven’t been over to check out the challenges at The Garden lately, make sure you stop by.  We’ve put a point system into place so you can choose your own participation bonus over time.  Lots of great challenges hosted by great ladies.  Stop by and say hi.

Also, it’s Fantacy’s birthday today.  Stop by her blog and leave her a little lovin today.

Hope you all have a great day!

And I hope you have a great day!

I wish I could say that the move went smoothly.  But very few ever do.  We weren’t very well organized and it was a rush job even though it didn’t need to be.  There’s no deadline for her to be out of the house.  So there is actually more in the house than got moved.  It’ll be an ongoing process for the next few weeks.  Unfortunately, I won’t be there to be a part of it.  I do want to tell you about an angel that was sent to us.  My dad, who passed away in March 2007 had a great friend of his from his church.  He was not well know to the family per se.  Being extremely short handed, mom thought she’d give him a call.  This man dropped everything he was doing to come and help us move the heavy stuff for a few hours.  The unselfishness of this man is totally mind blowing to me and I am deeply grateful for him. (not to mention it meant that I wouldn’t have to do the heavy lifting).  God does work in mysterious way. 

I’m blogging tonight to a) make sure I do an update (sorry no photos of the weekend yet) and b) because my plan is to get up at 5:30 tomorrow to get to the school when the polls open so I don’t have to wait in line for hours to vote.  The people who are voting early here in Columbus are waiting 3-5 hours.  Now that’s what I call determination.  I hope that those readers I have in the states take their opportunity to exercise their rights tomorrow and vote.  At least the ads will stop tomorrow night.

Oh yeah, I got gas yesterday for $1.99 and today the stations here have gas at $1.98.  Could we actually see it go lower???  Or will it go right back up after the election is over?  If it does then I definitely see a conspiracy. hehehe

Ok now to some scrapping business.  The designers over at DSG have outdone themselves on the Nov. collab that is now in the store.  You can get it for $8.50 or  free with a $10 purchase.  You can see it here.

Isn’t it gorgeous.  We’ll be doing a collab kit every month from now on.  And the challenges over at DSG have been changed too.  We’re now working off a point system so that you can get a gift certificate to get whatever you want in the store.  Each challenge is worth 20 points and 100 points equals $1 in GC.  Each month you can earn 400 points (plus bonuses)  Isn’t that cool.  I’m working on my scraplift page for the scraplift challenge.  And I host the quote challenge too.

 Also this month, I did the Daily Petals giveaway.  It’s a link a day for the entire month to get this kit.

You can read more about it here.

And one last but very important bit of news.  Robin has gotten her computer woes straightened out and she is no longer an unofficial CT member but is totally official now.  Robin has been a big fan since my early freebie days of templates and it’s been a running joke with us.  But no longer.  It’s official girl and I’m holding you to it.  So look for more pages from my girls, Lynn and Robin in the future.

Edited to add: Well, I pulled off my great election day plan. I woke up at 5 and got out of bed about 5:30, pulled into the school and was in line at 5:50, to be the 22nd person in line. The first person got there at 5. I was out of the voting booth at 6:50, so an hour total wasn’t too bad. There were a lot of people in line by the time the polls opened. It was definately worth getting up early to get it all done. Shannon asked if I was coming back home afterwards, but all I would have done was go back to bed and could have been late for work. So instead I came in to play. Yeah! Hope that you also had a short wait and voted.

Hope you all have a great day and scrap happy!

Don’t forget about the DSD sale.  All my stuff in both stores is 50% off.  Also over at Wenchd Grafix, the other designers also are have a great sale.  Take a look.  And over at the Garden I have a little giveaway thread going on for my Inky Dinks.

 Just read this thread, leave me a comment and tomorrow morning I will do random draw to give away a set of these.  And don’t forget the first links to the Daily Petals are up.  Check those out here.

Have lots of fun trick or treating tonight.  If I last that long, lol.