Super Secret Crafting Club

Yesterday was the maiden voyage (inaugural run? charter meeting?) of the Super Secret Crafting Club. This not-really-secret-at-all group is actually created through an open invitation to coworkers and their spouses. A coworker friend of mine likes having the accountability of regularly scheduled scrapbook sessions and also recently took up cardmaking. So that no one would be left out, the gatherings were expanded to include all manner of crafty things.

We met in our conference room at work, so I got started soon after 4:00 and the others came in as they got off work. We watched girly movies (since we have some guys who are promising to join us next time, maybe I'll bring some more gender neutral movies), ate cookies, crafted, and had a great time. It was fun to see the variety of people's creative outlets. Carole came and knitted for a while. Tiffany and Chandra made cards.

Laura, Tiffany and Chandra

Christina crocheted and colored (and brought some awesome cookies!), and Amanda sorted photographs that she's going to scan and turn into a coffee table book.

Amanda and Christina

Laura and Carlynn tried a new process that involves ironing plastic grocery bags to meld them together into a material that can be sewn into something awesome.

Laura

I scrapbooked.

me!

Not only did I scrapbook, but I finished a 2-page layout minus the journaling block (can't believe I forgot my journaling pen!) and got pretty close to finishing another layout. That's quite an accomplishment for me. I'm going to finish those up and post them tomorrow, hopefully.

happy 27

Two months ago today my sister-in-law, Cherie, turned 27. I sent her this card that's just as fun and attention-getting as she is. It uses a printed transparency and a patterned paper with the same design in the same color. The inside of the card is green (Bazzill green tea, one of my favorite cardscock colors), and it shows through the transparency when you close the card. The pink strip serves to hide the glue seams, so the card looks just as finished on the inside as it does on the front. Happy 27.167 years, Cherie!

cardstock: Bazzill Basics; transparency: Hambly; patterned paper: Hambly (turquoise), KI Memories (pink); chipboard letters: Heidi Swapp

For the record, I actually sent this card two months ago. I just didn't post it. If I was two months late with a birthday card, you'd be seeing a lot more groveling here!

hello

A (seemingly) simple card. I've learned that I have a superpower that involves making anything I do more complicated than it probably needs to be. Dang perfectionism.

cardstock: Bazzill Basics; letter stickers (traced) and glitter markers: American Crafts; font: fun font; craft foam

Hey, I scrapbooked!

Sometimes, the best way for me to get back in the groove of scrapping is to make cards. I got to spend Labor Day playing with my scrapbook supplies and now I feel inspired to go create!

one layout and 9 cards. I call that a pretty good day!

My desire and inspiration for scrapbooking goes in cycles, and is usually inversely related to the amount of time I spend at work. This July and August I worked the hardest (and most hours) I think I ever have. Subsequently, no scrapbooking. By the time I got home, I was practically brain dead and certainly didn't have any inclination to pull out my scrapping stuff. (To be honest, I was so tired I didn't even talk much in the evenings. I am so grateful that Keith not only understood, but put up with me making him late for work because I was chattering away in the mornings trying to tell him all the things I didn't have the energy to say the night before. I was a completely different person after my batteries had recharged!)

Labor Day weekend was great, and not just because of my return to scrapbooking. On Saturday we had our third quarterly (get that?) family game day. A full day of family (including some friends we've "adopted"), games, and lots of food. Sunday we met up with some friends at church and were able to worship side by side with them and then spent dinner and dessert connecting with them in a way that filled a little bit of my heart. They are such encouraging, inspiring people. Monday was dedicated to scrapping and football--the perfect bumming day! Basically, a fabulous weekend.

7.8.9 at 10:11:12

What were we doing on 7.8.9 at 10:11:12? Waiting. Sweating. Even so, we are so blessed to be together and to have a home that (usually) is a pleasant place to be.

Milkin' it to get some pity.



Just for fun, this was me at 123456789 (12:34:56 on 7.8.9). I was at work in my office.

87 degrees

87 degrees, 9:30 at night. At this point, I told Keith I wish we'd just kept the old moldy AC unit. I guess I got really hot last night because I was actually dreaming about being hot and that someone was not willing to turn the air conditioner down. People at work would probably laugh, because I am always cold at work, even when my coworkers are too warm. Even my family knows me as the cold natured one, because they always make me turn the AC down (including at Christmas!) and then I freeze. You know it's got to be bad if it's so hot that I can't sleep!

The AC guys are supposed to come back out tonight (visit #5) because the brand new AC isn't cooling, it's just blowing recirculated air. They have 25 more minutes before we hit the 10 pm end of their self-imposed window.

the best laid plans

I spent my first day back from the conference (Thursday) nursing a pinched nerve at the base of my neck. I can only assume it was from hoisting luggage around Baltimore and then half sleeping in the upright position on the plane. Then, that night I stepped in a soggy patch of carpet in the hallway and instantly knew...the AC was leaking. Upon closer inspection we realized that the paint on the wall beneath the AC was bubbling and the water had seeped into the coat closet and media room closet (also my scrapbook closet-AHHH!). We shut off the AC, cleared out the closets, and went to bed. We called someone out first thing Friday morning and as soon as the guy looked at the AC told us we needed a new unit. We knew that, but what we didn't know was that our current unit was filled with rust and mold. (Maybe that's why I have a sore throat every morning?) Of course, they couldn't actually do the work until Saturday. Since it was 89 degrees at 11:30 in the morning, we packed up and went to stay with my mom. Saturday morning the AC guy ripped out the old unit (literally, and he took some of the sheetrock with him), only to realize that the new unit didn't fit in our little hallway AC cubbyhole. They told us that our old unit was sized for a studio apartment. Now, our 1400 sq ft house isn't huge, but it needs more air conditioning than a tiny apartment, especially in Texas! (but we won't go into that, lest Keith launch into his "this house was a 5th grade school project gone wrong and was designed by an idiot" tirade) Of course, none of the AC suppliers were open on the 4th, so he left us with a gaping hole in the hallway and a promise that someone would come out on Monday. We were practically melting, so we packed up some more stuff and headed back to Mom's.

Keith took off this morning to wait, and wait, for the new properly-sized unit to arrive. They finally got it installed at 1 pm, and the temperature was 88 degrees. (Thank goodness for a "cool" day today!) When I got home at 4:45, the temperature was 89 degrees. You know, our old crappy air conditioner actually made the temperature go down. The air coming from the vents was warm, so Keith called the company and asked them to come back out and then he shut off the AC. It didn't work so well, though, because even though our new fancy thermostat said "off," it continued to blow hot air at us. Finally, Keith just flipped the breaker to make it stop. At this point, I resorted to sitting on the front porch, because being outside in 90+ degree temperatures was much cooler than being in the house.

Yes, I'm as cranky as I look. In addition to being hot, the new AC is really loud, and they damaged the wall below the AC panel in the hallway. You really shouldn't have to pay several thousand dollars for something that's worse than what it's replacing.

A new AC guy came out and determined the problem: the heater is coming on when the AC runs, which kind of defeats the purpose. He couldn't fix it tonight, but he disabled the heater as a temporary fix and will come back later this week. It's actually blowing cool air now, so we think this will mean we'll get into comfortable temps before bedtime. It's at 84 now, so I'm hopeful.

You know, I had planned to spend my long 4th of July weekend in a much different way. I wanted to unpack, do laundry, catch up on my to do list, and get in lots of scrapbooking time. Instead, I still have to unpack from Baltimore, the contents of my scrapbooking/storage closet are spread around the media room, and I haven't even edited my photos from the conference. (They're coming, though!) However, I still had a good weekend. I had wanted to hang out with Mom some, and I got to hang out with her a lot. We watched Australia and Season 1 of Chuck and grilled out in her apartment's courtyard. While I'm ready to sleep in my own bed instead of on an inflatable mattress, Mom was quite a hostess and even let us do all of our laundry at her place. The AC repairs threw off our church schedule, so the three of us joined Ron and Cindy at 121 Community Church instead and then went out to lunch together to celebrate my birthday from last week. It wasn't the weekend I had planned, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.