Christmas in July?

Well, I guess not really. But I did accidentally get my Christmas card designed today. This is very exciting to me. My husband was wondering why I was even concerned since it's only July. But, I have a lot of birthdays in August, then school starts and I'm one of those involved moms, then I have another bunch of birthdays in November, then it's Christmas! This is the perfect time.

I was just cruising through some blogs this morning and happened across an interesting sketch. On this blog, it was for an invitation, but I thought I could make a regular old card out of that. So I did. Well, I made a couple of them. This is one of them. Then I thought, hey, I could do my Christmas card like that, too. I was having all kinds of problems with getting my Christmas card layout. What would the focus be, what colors will I use, will there be ribbon? It's funny how much I love ribbon now. I used to think it was kinda stupid to have ribbon all over your cards. And I can't even really recall what it was that turned me around, but I'm all over this ribbon thing, and my friends laugh at me now when they remember my initial reluctance to it and then see the gobs of it that I have. Whatever. I have it done, and I don't think it's too difficult to make a million of. I know what you're thinking. Well, let's see it. Sorry. I mean sure, this is a brand new blog, and right now, nobody's reading it. But hopefully, sometime before Christmas, I'll feel like sharing this blog with friends and family and I can't very well have them come on here seeing their Christmas card before they actually get it. It would take away all the suspense. Alright, maybe 'suspense' is too strong a word. I mean, it's a card. And really, only a fraction of the people I send them to are interested in the card. My mom, of course, my stamping friends and a handful of non-stamping friends and family. But it's important to me, and isn't that all that matters? I say yes. Of course, now you have an inside look at how sad my life is, but it works for me!

My card- Paper: Chocolate Chip & Bashful Blue (SU!), Ink: Versamark, Chocolate Chip (SU!), Stamps: Delight in Life, Priceless Swirl & So Swirly Wheel (all SU!), Accessories: Chocolate Chip 5/8" grosgrain ribbon (SU!), and Marvy punches (the pink ones)

Happy Birthday Tiara

K, so today we had a birthday party for our youngest daughter, Tiara. Her birthday was actually July 10, but this was the soonest both the friends she wanted to invite (she's a very picky girl) were free. She decided to keep it low-key and have us go to the Build-A-Bear Workshop. Even though I had never been there, I thought this was the perfect place for an 8 year old to have her birthday. It's so cute in there. I wish they had one of these when I was a little girl. So we had 3 little girls walking around giggling and picking out pink these and purple those. Our other daughters were there, but they're older so they wanted nothing to do with this stuffed animal business. Our 13 year old was supposed to be the photographer, (dad usually is, but he had to work) but found taking pictures of herself so much more interesting. And our 9 year old is just not a Build-A-Bear kind of girl. My mom met us there and did the carrying around of the extra stuff that good grandmas do. Little, red cheerleading bows that won't stay on the fuzzy, pink kitty ears and a foam pennant and bullhorn that just don't fit when you've already got pom-poms on each of kitty's arms. Always one for thinking smack dab in the middle of the box, she named her new pink friend 'Kitty'.

My girlfriend Dana came along, too. She was my directions because I am map-impaired. Sure, you can get directions online, but those darn things never account for construction, road closures and just plain bad luck that I tend to run into when I'm going somewhere new for the first time. My family likes to make fun of me for things like this. Dana is also the mom of Tiara's best friend, Kayla, who decided to go with a cute brown bunny. Dana is also the one who got me into stamping, which is the reason I started my blog in the first place. I'll have to get around to discussing that one of these days.

All in all, today was pretty fun. After we got our fill of stuffed animals, we came back to our house for lunch, a little swim and, of course, cake. Cake is always my favorite part of birthdays. Everyone knows that mom gets a corner piece with lots of frosting. In fact, we did the whole cake thing even tho none of the girls wanted cake because they were still full from lunch. I knew this. But, if we did the singing & candles part, then I could eat the cake while they went & played for a while. I know this is sad, but I'm ok with that. This is also something that my family teases me about. But I'm ok with that, too.

On a final note, this is, sadly, the only usable picture of the day. And I took it. Our 13 year old has been fired as our photographer. We just can't ever have any kind of birthday stuff without daddy again. And now I've got to go to bed, because I'm coming down from my sugar high, and it's not pretty.

I Love Music

Ok, so this week Prince's latest CD, Planet Earth, came out. It's been a weird week for me, so I wasn't able to get it until today. I have to admit that I am the only person in my house that is even remotely interested in this, but I'm ok with that. I am a huge Prince fan. I have been for most of my life. My mom(!) is responsible for that. When I was little, she was a disc jockey, way back when they were still called that. So, she had hundreds of albums and I just listened to whatever I wanted. She had everything from Rose Royce and Donna Summer to Marvin Gaye to Earth, Wind & Fire to Prince. We even had a couple of Platters albums (who?!), but that's because my dad sang with them off & on for much of my childhood. Of course, I also had all the Charlie Brown stories on record with the books that went with them. Listened to those for hours at a time. But every Saturday after the cartoons were over, we would turn on the stereo and just have music on. It would fill our apartment or house, wherever we were living at the time. We moved around quite a bit. But that's for another post.

Anyway, I grew up with music being huge in my life, all kinds of music. My taste as an adult is pretty varied. I listen to a lot of current music, from hip hop to pop to whatever category you want to put Prince in. I like classical music, I like Coldplay, I like Stevie Wonder. Sting is pretty cool. I have a 'thing' for 80's music, but Amy Winehouse right now is just killing me. Then I'll like songs that have my 13 year old daughter wondering if I'm too old to be listening to them. "The Kill" by 30 Seconds to Mars and "Hey There Delilah" by the Plain White Ts are two good examples of that. Hey, good music is good music. I don't think you're ever too old to appreciate that.

Oh, and for the record: I need a couple of listens to fully appreciate Prince's new CD. But so far, the title song is just beautiful.