It's that time of the year again

When all the sneak peeks for Summer CHA. CHA is the Craft and Hobby Association; they have a huge trade show twice a year; the last show was in January. Over the past couple of years, it has become more and more of a scrapbook show, much to the chagrin of other hobby exhibitors.

All of the scrapbook message boards and stores are posting sneak peeks. So far, it looks like flowers are still in. I'm also noticing an Asian trend, yah! Unfortunately, the messy ink/distressed look is still in. Doesn't anyone believe in clean lines anymore? The same design at the edge and middle of the page? I used to never like the look. I wouldn't say I like it now. But I don't really have a choice if I like the rest of design; Basic Grey comes to mind.

Anyway, I'm really getting tired of all the new stuff. Too many trends have come and gone. So I look, but I really don't need anything new (so far, lol).

Another LSS bites the dust

I was so excited to find a new LSS a couple years ago. It turns out, the owner has a monthly club that she ran out of her garage, but decided to expand into a real storefront. The store was small, but she always had the latest and greatest. She did so well, she expanded into the space next door. Unfortunately, the store was way too hot in the summer and way too cold in the winter. So she found another space and moved there a couple months ago. I didn't go there much because it was even more out of my way.

It seems that it was all too much work so she's closing her store. She'll still have her online community/store and monthly club, but I'm not involved with either of those. I'll miss it. I did benefit from the 40% off sale, but tried to refrain from buying too much. It's always sad to see a small, successful business close. The ironic thing is she's still got her Grand Opening sign up.

Confession time

So what was the real reason I took last Thursday off? Because A was out of town and I wanted one day of not coming home to an empty house. Actually, sometimes I do come home to an empty house, but then, I know A will be home shortly afterwards, KWIM?

Now that A's home (a day early, hurray!!!), I can confess, lol. I couldn't say anything earlier and ask for support because of my weird privacy thing where I don't want anyone to know when I'm home alone.

I'm usually the one running off to visit friends and family. I tried to count the number of times he's gone without me and I don't think it's even ten times, whereas I'm gone 2 to 5 times a year. If A hadn't planned on doing car stuff with his brother the entire time, I would have invited myself along. (I did that the last time he had a car thing, but I think he wasn't too happy about it, lol.)

Hopefully, I'll get a good night's sleep since when I'm home alone, I usually wake up early and can't get back to sleep.

That bill almost gave me a heart attack!

I usually let A open the bills (since he writes the checks), but for some unknown reason, I decided to open our credit card bill. First page looks fine. Just quickly glanced at the second page. Then I looked at the top of the first page where the balance due box is. Gasp! It was two and a half times higher than our usual bill. Gasp!

Hmmm, this required a line by line check. lots of gasoline charges. Oh yeah, I haven't been carpooling as much. Okay. A plane ticket, but that was less than $200. The usual Target and grocery store charges. I found the culprit on page 2--house insurance. A had told me he charged it, but I forgot. Guess we'll be raiding the savings account to pay this month's bill.

Which leads me to my mini-rant. A knew this huge bill was coming so he was depositing all of our checks into the checking account. My logic is, deposit it into the savings account and just write a check from that. At least we'd be earning interest on it. There isn't enough in the checking account to cover the bill so we have to dip into short-term savings anyway. That's why we have that account. To cover big bills or unexpected bills. Sigh, obviously we have different money styles.

Celebrating the first day of summer

I took today off, just for the heck of it. Didn't know it was the first day of summer when I chose today. Just figured we weren't very busy at work, plus I'm maxing out on vacation days so it was a good time to take a day just for me.

I had high hopes of getting a lot done, but as usual, I've piddled the day away, which is okay for a vacation day, right? I did get my haircut. I thought my hairdresser wouldn't be as busy since it was a weekday, but I had to wait a bit for her and her next appointment had to wait a bit for her to finish with me. That's usual for her, but since she takes only 15 minutes to cut my hair, I'm usually in and out in less than a half hour so I don't mind waiting. Plus she's got a pretty good magazine selection, lol.

Let's see, haircut, check. Water the yard, check. Make deposit, opps. Transfer $, check. Post office, opps. Scrapbook, check...sort of. Update finances, check. Not bad for a lazy day.

Hope you had a wonderful first day of summer and the rest of summer is full of fun for you.

More garbage vents

A and I are pretty much with the paper recycling program, but still not doing anything about the cans and jars. The latter are still going into the regular trash, though I think on the weekends, we will be better about taking them out to the recycle can. That's when I empty the compost jar.

The new cans are so huge and noisy; I can hear the cans being taken out all night the night before garbage pickup. As much as I'd like to be a SAHW, I think I'd have to find something to do on garbage day. I took a vacation day today so was home. Since a different truck picks up the different cans, I heard the garbage trucks come by three times. The first was before 8:00 am, the last around 1:00. And now, I get to hear the various neighbors dragging the cans back in.

Parking is a bear on garbage day too. Though much of that can be blamed on people having too much junk or too many cars so they can't use their garage.

Inhibited

That's how I would describe my scrapbooking. Always afraid my page won't turn out like I envisioned. Worried that my pages aren't "good enough." Not wanting to use up the last bit of that patterned paper/doo dad/ribbon because I might need it for something else. Never mind that I have enough supplies to create about a thousand pages. Maybe I should say overwhelmed instead. Too many supplies. Too many ideas. Too many photos. Too many thoughts. Were it not for the wonderful friends I've made through this hobby, I think I'd stop scrapbooking.

Ouch!

Was out in the yard for a bit on Saturday and got a little sunburn. Didn't think I was out there long enough to burn, plus it wasn't during prime burning hours (mid day). Let this be a lesson to you: Always wear sunscreen or at least a hat and shirt (I was wearing a tank top).

102

I took one of those online quizes to check your life expectancy and it said I should live to be 102. Guess that's why I'm so obsessive about savings. Its gotta last a long time.

I went to a family reunion a few weeks ago and saw several aunts and uncles, all in their 70s and 80s and 90s, all still going strong. Most of them are moving a little (okay, a lot) slower than I remember. Most of them needed me to repeat whatever I said, but all in all, they're in good health. Guess that means I'm blessed with good genes, even if I don't think I want to live till 102.

Sometimes it just hits you

We were shopping for a Father's Day card last night (yes, I know, bad scrapper not to make the card, plus nothing like waiting till the last minute), when it hit me. I wasn't buying a card for Uncle T like I usually do. :(

Garbage cans

A few weeks ago, we got our new garbage cans from the company our city contracted with. I thought I wouldn't like them and I'm right. First of all, they are HUGE! 95 gallons! And we've got three of them, one for trash, one for green waste, and one for recycling. All good right? Except a few years ago, our garbage fees increased to build a new processing center to recycle at the dump. Now our garbage fees have increased to pay for this new system, and we're the ones doing the sorting.

I consider us better than average reduce/reuse/recyclers. If you use number of garbage cans as an indicator (the 32 gallon size), we're doing way better than our neighbors. We average less than two garbage cans a week, including yard waste. Much of our yard waste and all of our kitchen scraps are composted. Bottles, newspaper, and cardboard are recycled. Still usable items are donated. Even the dreaded Styrofoam peanuts get reused (FYI, many mailbox/shipping places will take your clean Styrofoam peanuts off your hands).

But now, I have to work even harder at sorting. I have to remember to throw my paper into the paper recycling bag (and not toss something like a food wrapper or plastic wrapper from a magazine on top of it). Cans and non-CRV bottles? Forget it! There is no way I'm going to take the time and energy to rinse them out and take them out to the recycle bin. Easy you say? First of all, I don't have a lot of counter space and I'd rather use that space for food prep or storage. But, let's say I get with the program. Now I have wet cans. I can either dry them (a waste) or let them dry on the counter since I don't want to carry wet cans through the house and out to the yard (plus, nothing wet is supposed to go in the recycle bin). Oh, but I can store the cans in a plastic bag you say? Oh no I can't. Plastic shopping bags go in the trash, not the recycle bin. I don't want to store wet items in a paper bag for obvious reason. See why I'm not with the program yet? But let's say I can get beyond this. Since I don't want empty cans taking up space in the kitchen, I've got to take them out to the recycle bin. Which is on the side of the house since the three huge cans won't fit in the garage. So I either have to go out the front door and through the side gate or out the sliding glass door (which involves opening the shades and unlocking the double locks and reversing the process when I come in). Am I lazy? Maybe.

But on to more venting. Heaven help you if you put toss the wrong item into the wrong bin (like I did this afternoon). I had swept the porch and accidently tossed the bucket into the recycle bin, instead of the trash bin. I did reach in and pull out some leaves and such, but the dirt and everything that fell to the bottom is gonna stay there. With the bin being about four feet high, I had a hard time reaching in. Truth be told, I'm kinda scared of the bins since they're so huge. I keep telling A, you could stuff a body in them and no one would know (I've obviously been watching too much crime TV).

Anyway, yes, recycling is a good thing. I just wish it wasn't since a hassle around the house.

Addicted to

salty snacks. Dare I admit I just ate half a can of Pringles? (that's about 500 calories for those of you who count 'em.) Or should I even be admitting that I buy Pringles? I know I could finish off the rest of the can without any (immediate) problem, though I admit, all this salt is making my mouth sting a little.

I should know better than to have salty snacks in the house during this time of the month. Sigh, some people think it is all in my head, but what else explains the incredible salt cravings I get once a month? Good thing I'm too cheap to buy too many snacks, lol. Although I still have a Pringles coupon in my stash.

Another reason I'm so slow at scrapping

Over at Lifetime Moments, they've started Summer ScrapFest, a three month motivational scrapping frenzy. This time around, there is a new format, with one challenge a day. Today is day 3 and I've already got ideas for today and day 1. We didn't have any plans for the afternoon, so while A took a nap, I thought I'd scrap. I spent some time looking through the LM gallery to get some ideas, wrote out my journaling, and then did a draft of the layout on the computer. I even spent some time playing with Photoshop Elements, but decided I really am a traditional scrapper and am not ready to venture into the digital realm.

Okay, I'm ready pick out papers and scrap! Went to get my photo and discovered that was in portrait orientation, not landscape like I thought I remembered. Grrrr, back to the drawing board.

Five days from now...

I'm supposed to do something with the seedlings my neighbor gave me. Only, I don't know what. She came by as A and I were working out in the yard. She had some seedlings in a pot and thought I might like them. Only I have no idea what they are (flowers? veggies?). My neighbor only speaks Mandarin and I only speak English so communication was a bit of a problem. I did figure out that she was coming back from visiting her neighbor who gave her the seedlings (I think).

Then she wanted to know if I wanted some other seedlings. Some sort of melon (I think), from Taiwan (I think). She went out to her backyard and brought it out some more seedlings. I'm supposed to plant them against the fence (or maybe that's where she planted them?). And in five days, I'm supposed to do something (what???) and not worry if (what???). And during the day (what???) and during the evening, when I get home from work, I should (what???). And in five days, if I haven't killed off the plants, I'll try to figure out the next step.