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I’m finally carving out some “me” time at home to blog. It’s been a wild and crazy couple of weeks, so something had to give. Now, time to catch up.

Our vacation was…well…interesting. I’ll spare you the gory details and leave it with the vow that family trips are out of the question for at least the next 15 years. What is it with grown adult siblings that just can’t get along? My kids had a blast! We are already looking forward to another weekend trip with just us and our Suburban…San Antonio is calling our name.

We did have a ton of fun, the 5 of us. We went to Port Aransas Beach, took a sunset tour on the Scat Cat, did the Dolphin Connection, did some fishing, got burnt, etc. Here are some of my favorite pics from the week.

I did manage to get a scrapbook page done. One afternoon I decided that it would be cool to get a blow up boat for the girls, put them in it and drag them around in the bay from the pier. This proved to be great fun! The float was just $3.75 from Dollar General and was the best money spent the whole trip!

We hit the ground running when we got home. There was work stuff to do and back to school stuff to attend to. I was asked to take pictures at the RISD school fair where the poorest 200 families in the area are invited to learn about resources available. The kids got brand new backpacks full of school supplies. There were also stations set up for hair cutting. It was so precious to see the excitement in their faces as they admired their backpacks.

The next day was our annual teacher Meet ‘n Greet where we meet our teachers, buy spirit wear, join the PTA, fill our kids lunch accounts with money and housekeeping things like that. I spent the entire day of making inserts for the various spirit items that we purchased and making signs for the event. It was worth the effort. We raised nearly $900 in just 2 hours! I was shocked and ecstatic at the end of the night.

Next, back to school for Nolen…5th grade! Where did the time go? I have a fifth grader!?!?! He had a great week. Got up with no problems at all and {gasp} showered every day! He even brushed his teeth and put deodorant on before I asked! It’s a new year!

This weekend we’re looking forward to giving the girls’ room a much needed overhaul. Tuesday they start Mother’s Day Out from 9:30 – 2:30 2 days a week…hallelujah, praise the Lord!! I start Bible Study on Wed. morning. We register Nolen for Soccer today so practice will start soon… Here comes life, ready or not!

In Polka Dot Potato news, I’m so excited that we have a date for the new shopping cart! Look for the new cart, a new gallery, and a new look to the message board on Sept. 10th! We have a lot of work still to do but it’s nice to have the end in sight. From there, things can begin! I’m just so ecstatic to get through that whole process because with the new cart we’ll be able to expand our business to places the digi world has yet to see! I’m so happy about how things are progressing. I know this is the hard part…working long hours and not getting to see the fruits of our labor yet. But it will happen. Long live PDP!

And Topical Storm Erin is heading straight for us….wouldn’t you know it!

I woke up with the news that we can pretty much forget about sunshine until Sunday. That put a little damper on our plans but we’ll get over it. Today was basically all about getting groceries, hanging out and getting some much needed sleep. I had the MOST fabulous nap on our huge porch overlooking the bay…listening the to sound of the lapping waves. We did a little fishing with not even a bite this afternoon and Ben cooked us burgers on the grill.

Tomorrow we’re looking forward to playing games and watching the storm roll in at about 9 am.

I didn’t get the camera out much at all. But Ben did spot a zoom lens at Walmart for $198 so I think we’re going to treat ourselves to that sucker tonight or tomorrow.

Here are just a few pics… Note the super cute flower clips that my sweet friend Melody made for the girls! She brought over a bunch of cute bows she made the day before we left. Thanks again, Melody!!

Well, not really. But maybe soon….

We’re leaving for Rockport, TX in about…oh…5 hours or so.

Am I packed? No.

Are my kids packed? No.

Am I done working? Heck no!

Instead I’m blogging at 2 am and watching QVC on the computer. I’ve never personally bought anything off QVC…but my sweet friend Virginia has bought a purse (or 2) for me 🙂 And she called tonight to tell me that a product that I developed with Magic Scraps was on the show! It sold out the first time and they brought it back. And while Magic Scraps is no longer and I have no “claim” to the product… I know it’s mine and that’s good enough for me!

Today was our 17th wedding anniversary! And August 18th is my 35th birthday! And before you finish doing the math and start jumping to conclusions, our oldest child is just 10 years old. We were just young, impatient and in love! And we’re lucky enough to still be together to talk about it.

We decided to spend our special days at the coast, relaxing and enjoying our family. But my sisters will there so hopefully we can still have a good time. I’m kidding…kind of 🙂 My poor sister Elizabeth is spending the night at the Atlanta airport. She’s stuck…couldn’t make the last flight to Dallas on her Delta Buddy Pass. Hopefully we’ll see her shining face sooner or later.

Okay, I have about 6 print orders calling my name.

One last thing…in honor of our anniversary save 17% off everything you download from the site!

 
When I was 10 years old, I went to church camp. My parents dropped me off in a white 1977 Chevy Malibu Station Wagon with a strip of brown faux wood down the side and picked me up in a brand spanking new 1982 white Chevy Suburban. This was way before Suburbans were cool. Of course, my 2 year old sister, Elizabeth, had already managed to puke in it. I’ll never forget my excitement that day. I kept asking “Daddy, is it ours? Are we going to keep it?”…just sure this was a practical joke. We kept it all right. I learned how to drive in it, backed into my first pole in it, took countless family trips to the coast in it with my Granny sitting in the second row, drove it on my first trip with my husband (since our Toyota didn’t even make it to Waxahachie before the transmission fell out)…it was always there…toting our family of six all over God’s creation when gas was just 99 cents a gallon.

Well, this was a crazy week. I went on an errand Monday morning, saw a Suburban with a ‘for sale’ sign on it, and now we own one! We don’t own the first one I saw…that one needed some work…but we stumbled upon one in Ana, TX that is as close to perfection as a 2001 model with 106,000 miles can be.

Nolen is in love with our new ride. It came equipped with a VCR, a screen and three wireless earphones. We made the deal one night and met the owner at the bank the next day at noon. Nolen was so excited that he woke up at 4 am, got dressed and was just waiting for the hours to pass, for the Suburban to be ours. He later decided that that wasn’t such a smart idea after all and he got back in bed and slept 4 more hours… but nonetheless, that kind of pure enthusiasm is priceless.

We’re a one car family which is a little unheard of in this day and age, but it works for us. And having this new car is such a huge blessing. In one week we lessened our debt by $15,000 and are saving $350 a month! And we love this big honkin’ gas guzzlin’ road hog!

And the really cool thing about it is if we ever lose the house, we can alway live in the car! 🙂

I promised myself that I would blog before the weekend was up…so in typical last minute fashion, here I am. We had a really relaxing but productive weekend at home. My hope was that my house would be spotless by now, but instead it’s messier than ever. We cleaned out the middle bedroom that we’ve been ignoring since we moved out of the space in May…and you know when you’re cleaning out something big it gets worse before it gets better? Well, I’m just praying that’s what’s going on here. It’s a disaster!

Last week was so much fun! On Tuesday, we went to the Star Wars exhibit in Ft. Worth. It was great! We all got along the entire time except when Ben and I got in a little tiff about how to use the camera correctly…so stupid, I know. I scrapbooked the Star Wars portion of the trip today.

I used Christine’s Blended Colorblock Templates along with a couple of pieces of paper from her Impressions kit to create it. I have been dying to use her templates and was so glad I found a reason! I was thrilled with the way it made my layout look. I love grunge, blended, blah, blah, blah…when other people do it. But when I do it, it always looks wrong. Taking a piece of sandpaper to something just does not work with me…of course, my friend Emily can do it and I think it looks amazing. So, for the blending to be already done for me is PERFECT!

On Thursday, I had the greatest visit with the Gotta Scrap girls in Rockwall. I’m going to start teaching digital classes there in October. Those girls have got it going on! They are going to be one of the 200 Creative Cafe stores. And they are completely redoing their whole store – new product, new fixtures, new everything! They’re going to bring digital in too and are totally open to new thoughts, projects, etc. I’m so excited to be a part of what they are doing!

In other work related news, Ben and I are knee deep in templates and html code setting our new shopping cart up. It’s going to be absolutely fabulous when it’s all said and done.

And now back to CHA and Chicago. I was at CHA this year for two reasons, no…three reasons. One, to be a panel member on a discussion about making your retail store a digital destination. Two, to connect with store owners about a new program we’re launching and to hear feedback. (All systems are go!) And three, to have a blast with my home girls:) And we did have a total blast! Amanda, Tanya & Christine are all designers from the site and dear friends. They were so fun and easy to get along with. I subjected them to the Untouchables Gangster tour on Saturday. I think this was like my 4th or 5th time to go on it. I love fresh blood! There’s pretty much a standing joke from my old crew about 2 of my Chicago favs…the Gangster tour and Edelweiss, an awesome German food restaurant not far from the convention center. I pretty much drag people to these places kicking and screaming (and on public transportation) and force them to have fun. If I had been paying, you better believe we would have would have been eating wienerschnitzel while listening to the oompah band and lifting our dark beers to toast. But instead we went to Elliot’s, a great little neighborhood restaurant, heavy on the beef. It was delicious! This was by far the most relaxing time I’ve had at a trade show in a long, long time. The first time I ever went to CHA Summer was in 1999. I co-owned Scrappy’s at the time and Jean and I took my mother because Provo Craft was launching 20 different CDs designed to be used for computer crafting, and my mother’s poems were one of the original HugWare titles! It’s funny to look back on now, because those CDs were about 8 years too early. I remember thinking, crafters aren’t going to use these… And now I was there this year with the self-appointed task of bridging the gap between traditional and digital. Crazy how life works.

Amanda did a really cool thing on her blog, so I decided to steal the idea…and present my Chicago pics through this cute online service. Amanda also detailed her recollection of the Genevieve from Trading Spaces chance encounter here…enjoy laughing at my expense:)

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

One very last story, and then I’m going to bed. This is funny, I promise. Nolen spent the night with a friend and went to our church with them this morning. He doesn’t usually go to the service – he has a class instead – but Eli didn’t know that so he made the boys sit through third service. I went to pick up Nolen at their house this evening and Sharee asks me if he’s ever been to the service before…and yes, once with me… She just chuckled…and proceeded to relay a story. Apparently the pastor asked one of those rhetorical questions to the congregation and Nolen’s hand went up…and stayed up…for like 45 seconds. My poor sweet boy! He had the answer, I’m sure of it! When we got in the car, I asked him when he figured out that he wasn’t supposed to be raising his hand to answer a question in church…and he answered “when everyone started laughing at me”. I was 1/2 heart-sick for him and 1/2 laughing hysterically inside. I spent the rest of the trip home telling him how much I love it that he’s always so quick to answer questions and how glad I am that he’s not timid or afraid to be wrong like I was when I was his age… And how people at church have told me how cool it is that they can count on him to lead in prayer, participate in singing and pay attention to the lessons. I love that boy! And if this is as embarrassing as it get for him, bring it on.