Me - Today

OK - so Cara has talked me into doing a scrapbook project for 2008 with her. It's really kind of cool. The last day of the month - you take a photo of yourself - and then you do a mini-book of you - throughout the year - capturing the things you did each month. I agree with what Cara posted on her blog... I think having this blog-diary to look back on will help with this book!


I did another 2007 album about me that was different than this - but this will be good - I don't scrapbook me enough - but this seems like it will be just enough - and not too much.

So anyway... here's me... today... complete with the telephone headset because I was still on the phone with Cara when I snapped this. Gee whiz my eyes are blue, eh?

OK - so it's a Sinus Infection

After being a slug for 2 days - I finally decided to haul my bootie to the Dr. It's official, I have a Sinus Infection - so I'm on antibiotics and decongestants - and I'm continually amazed at how much crud can reside in one's sinuses. YUCK.

Beginning to feel a little more human. The decongestants started working their magic almost immediately.

E says to me last night "I can tell you're feeling better, Mom"

"How can you tell?" I asked?

"Because you're smiling again!"

Yay!

I Hab a Code

I hab a code id by dose. (I have a cold in my nose)

Been laying around wishing I felt better all day. I pretty much drugged my way through it this weekend, but today, trying to sleep it off. (I've done a lot of snoozing, and it's still not gone yet!!)

Anyway - I promised skating news of the weekend. As always, we had a great time at the competition. I think it's my favorite - because it's close to home, but because it's not our home club, I just get to enjoy it - I don't have to work!

On Saturday E skated her Short Program and came in 4th out of 9 - she was really happy with that result - as we did not expect it to be so high.

A skated her Freestyle - and ended up 7th out of 7. She was a great sport about the whole thing - she knew going in that we had moved her up a level, and that she might not do that well. They used to have a level in between where she's been skating, and earning medals, and the level she skated this weekend - but they are making some changes - and that "in between" level has kind of disappeared! She was still disappointed - but she really skated her program well - she worked really hard with her coach - and really took all her advice to heart, and put out one of her best skates!

Sunday is "Showcase" day - which if you know us, you know that we love the Showcase event - it blends two things we love - skating and theater!! A skated her "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun" routine, and was fabulous! She won the Gold Medal for her skate!

E debuted her new program. It's the one we hope to take to Nationals this summer - and this was to get it out, see how it ran under pressure, and to go back and tweak. Well, it went over quite well! E also won the Gold Medal for her skate!

Additionally, E skated in the interpretive event again - it's a fun event with very little prep, and low pressure - you choreograph your own program to the music that you hear only 3 times before you skate to it! E won the silver medal!

Junior Moves!!!

Fourth time's the charm!! E was so excited, she passed her Junior Moves by all three judges! Only one moves test left to go!!! Competition this weekend - so I'll be posting more skating related stuff! I am so proud of her - she worked so hard to achieve this!!

National Showcase Coverage Update

US Figure Skating Nationals are in full swing - so they took down the coverage on National Showcase on the home page of icenetwork.com - but I still have a direct link to the event page if anyone missed it the first time I posted!

I bought a subscription to Ice Network - and have been enjoying watching some of the events on my computer that won't be broadcast on NBC this weekend (set your TiVo's!!!)

They never did post E's video - just her photo - but if you want to see her Teen Light Championship skate - it's up on my youtube! I'm trying to embed the video below - not sure if I'll be successful!

3-Turns

Are finally becoming my friends. 2 weeks in a row, I've had some good ones. Still need about a million hours of practice... but maybe (just maybe) I'll finally take a figure skating test!!

For the non-skaters - a 3-turn is turning from forward to backward on one foot on a specified edge (in this case, my outside edges). It's called a 3-turn, because the tracing it makes on the ice looks like the number 3.

Good day on the ice today. My coach says my spirals are higher too. (Spirals are skating on one foot - with your other leg straight out behind you. It's supposed to be parallel to the ice or higher. I'm finally hitting parallel, or close to it, with some consistency)

I even had another coach tell me that I looked like a real skater with one move today! (That means that it looked effortless!!)

Jamming at the Detroit Science Center

Here's the video I promised of the kids jamming out at the Detroit Science Center! (turn down the volume - the drums are pretty loud!!)

Weekend Update

E has made a full recovery - and although we cancelled skating for the weekend, by Sunday she was back at her Dance Team practices. Today she took her last two finals after the half day... now she's just getting ready for her skating test and the skate competition this weekend.

After staying in regular contact on Friday, our friends from Ohio decided that E was recovering enough for them to continue with their visit as planned. We had a great time! The mom's scrapbooked, the dad's watched football and "shopped" for a new camper for our friends. The kids played lots of DDR, sang Karaoke, watched Hannah Montana, and linked up DS's. We did take a family field trip to the Detroit Science Center (first time I've ever been!) E couldn't join us because of Dance Team - but the kids had a great time. Hands down - the favorite exhibit was the "Jam Room" where they got to rock out and be rock stars. Isn't my daughter A just lovely in her rock star pose? Or in the crazy mirror?

I'm posting my layouts over in the GLMM Gallery - only NINE to go until the Europe album is DONE!!! I can't wait!!

I'll upload a cute video of the jam room. My friend has a future rock star on her hands. Check out her youngest daughter on the drums.... she has all the moves!!

Sometimes you just need your Mommy...

Even when you are almost 15 years old. When you get "throwing up" sick for the first time since before you were diagnosed with Diabetes when you were 8, and have to leave school in the middle of your final exams, you just want your mom nearby. You don't want her to touch you because everything aches - but you don't want her to go further than about 10 feet away. And if she goes upstairs to eat lunch so she isn't eating in front of you - but she takes too long - you'll call the home phone with your cell phone to say - "When are you coming back downstairs?" (The basement futon is right next to the basement bathroom - with a TV to take your mind off your aches - so best place to set up when you feel like crap-ola)

I'm happy to report - that after a very rough morning - the afternoon and evening have improved, and E is on the mend. But "mommy" got nothing done that she intended today. Oh well, some days you just have to be mommy.

Basement Update

Well, I've been meaning to take this photo and write this post for a couple of days now! The basement guys came out on Tuesday and stunk up our house (polyurethane - Woo Hoo - gets you a little high, and gives you a nasty headache!) - and now the basement looks like this. So, now, supposedly we're waterproof again! If the temperatures rise and we get more rain, I guess we'll find out - but with temps below freezing - I guess we just have to take their word for it for now!

We used SAS Basement Waterproofing- who came to us with many good referrals from people we know, and they were listed on "America's Master Handyman" Glenn Haege's website. (My husband swears by Glenn Haege!)

PS - I updated my Avatar photo.... do you like it? It's a mirror shot - those are WAY harder to take than you might think! No matter how hard I tried - I cut my hair off.

Fun with Photoshop

Cara did fun stuff with photo shop and her kids wearing a Santa Hat.... loved those photos - so I convinced Annie to wear this great hat I got for her this year outside today (not just for this project - but also because I found a layout I want to scraplift!) and I played with Photoshop until I figured out how to get the same effect!

UPDATE: How I did it.
Step 1 - Opened the photo and created a duplicate layer.
Step 2 - Removed the color from the top layer
Step 3 - Erased all the areas of the top layer that I wanted to be blue!

(isn't that the same way you did it Cara?)

SO COOL!!!

Finally - six months after the event - National Showcase coverage is appearing on http://www.icenetwork.com/. It's in the "free" part of the site.

If you click on "Featured Event" and then click on the Photo Gallery "Best of National Showcase 2007" - and scroll through the photos... I think you'll recognize someone!!!!

So exciting!!! They are apparantly still adding - so there is still a possibility that they'll post her video.

Random Musings

This photo illustrates how something so little can be such a pain in the you know what! With this crazy weather (blizzard/thunderstorm/blizzard) our basement has been flooding. Now, when I say flooding - I don't mean a wading pool - but I do mean water bubbling up through the squishy carpet when you walk on it. We've been sucking it up in our rainbow and dumping it as fast as it comes in.

We've had 2 basement companies out - and we'll be having some work done next week to hopefully stop the flow. In the meantime - all the work we did to clean the basement? Let's just say it's pretty much a mess right now. Pray for dry weather between now and when they do the work - right now we aren't having to suck up water! (However the dehumidifier is still doing double time!)

On a happier note - these shoes make me happy! I bought them with some of my Christmas money! They are the Crocs "Mammoth". The furry lining makes them warm like slippers - but the solid sides means that I can run out to get the kids from school without having to change my shoes. I love, love, love these shoes. I also like that they are pink ;-)

Changing the subject yet again... last weekend was the annual GLMM Holiday party. We had a great time scrapbooking together! Thought I'd share my favorite layout that I made that day. Not very complex, but I love the subject matter!

Also, I put up some of A's other vocal videos for those who haven't gotten to see her sing. They also show her progression through the years - you can see all the videos (plus a couple of E skating) on my Youtube Channel.

Winter Recital 2008

We had a wonderful evening on Sunday listening to about a dozen of Mr. K's students performing their solo/ensemble pieces. "A" performed in this recital for the first time - even though she is not doing solo/ensemble yet (not old enough!) She was the youngest singer, and the first up to perform - and she was unflappable. Take a listen, and see if you don't think she sings like an Angel too!

Starting the New Year with a Clean House!

I have no photos to go with this post - despite taking my camera, and thinking about snapping photos several times over the past few days - I never actually removed it from the case and turned it on (which makes it difficult to actually take a photo.)

After my last post, at 8:19am on Saturday morning - J and I delved into a 3 day cleaning frenzy. (This is where I thought about taking before and after photos - but then decided I was too embarrassed by the before - and without them, the after just aren't that impressive!)

Saturday we excavated our bedroom (yes, I said excavated.) I'm sure we aren't the only people on the planet that have a couple of rooms in the house that are where you take stuff that you don't know where else to put.... you know, the stuff that doesn't have a home yet - or you aren't really sure what to do with? Well, our bedroom is one of those places. The storage room/basement is the other place... more on that later. Add all that miscellaneous stuff to all of the books that I've been reading and stacking - and the plethora of clothing. Let's not even talk about the dust! I even organized all of my jewelry! So, even though my bedroom is still firmly stuck in the late 80's/early 90's (same decorations since we moved in - which basically are the same decorations we moved from the apartment when we got married) I was not embarrassed for people to put their coats on my bed!!

Sunday - we tackled our storage room in the basement that was overflowing with stuff. Including lots of stuff from my former life as a Girl Scout Leader. I'm going to make some troop leader really happy with the stuff I've pulled together to donate! In addition to clearing out and purging lots of stuff - we were able to clean the rest of the basement. Still need to do some video purging, and clean out the game shelves - but it looks SO MUCH BETTER.

Monday - party day - we just spent on all the little odd things that still needed to be done to get the house ready for guests... but as I said to J - I think that this is the cleanest our house has been for a NYE party in years - possibly ever.

Even the girls got into the spirit and cleaned their bedrooms (which SORELY needed it!) E and J had a contest - E is notorious for not recycling water bottles, and collecting them in her room. J hordes pens. Brings them into the room at night - empties his pockets - and never returns them to where they belong. So - finally tally 57 water bottles - 51 pens. Pretty crazy. A took 2 1/2 bags of trash from her room (she's notorious for just dumping whatever she brings home in the middle of her floor - and then scooting it to the edges... and her trash can? I think she forgets what it's for!)

So, we're starting the New Year with a clean house!!!

We had a great party on NYE - we host a Family Game Night party - where we divide up into teams and play different games, and rotate around to play the different games! We played Outburst, Catch Phrase, and Win, Lose or Draw this year. We had lots of fun with friends and family. We missed the whole southern contingent - the predictions for the snow dump kept those with longer distances to drive at home. Again - no photos. (dang, gotta take the camera out and turn it ON for it to work!!)

Funny NYE story. Involves a rewind to last year. Last Christmas, I got J TiVo (I love TiVo - have I ever mentioned that? No? I love TiVo.) We got all happy and loaded in season passes for all our favorite shows - and TiVo got busy and started recording everything! NYE, we're all gathered around the TV watching the ball drop - when all of a sudden - TiVo changes the channel to start recording something! AAACK - pretty anticlimactic end to 2006!

FF to NYE 2007 - Gathering around the TV - TiVo once again asks about changing the channel (but now we are TiVo veterans, and deftly cancel the recording of the other program - the Monk Marathon on USA) However, we had showed a video earlier in the evening - and the VCR "COUNT" message was up and blocking the countdown on the TV screen. So I told E to eject the tape. "There is no tape Mom!" - "So, just turn off the VCR then!" ummmm. mistake. TiVo runs through the VCR. no VCR - no TV - no Times Square - no Ball Drop. AAACK!!! J to the rescue though.... unlike last year - we didn't change channels - so even though we lost the picture - we still had the countdown TiVoed!!!! YAY - rewind, and ring in the New Year a couple minutes late through the wonders of modern technology!!

NYDay we all slept in and had a pretty lazy morning. I washed up all the champagne flutes - and miscellaneous dishes - J snowblowed us out (yep - we got pretty well dumped with the predicted snow). We then headed over to my parents for football, mahjong, and spaghetti dinner.

Kids are home this one last day - school starts back tomorrow. They are all mopey today - not too thrilled about returning to the grind.