What a Day!

Okay, so it is well past midnight, is actually already Wednesday, but we will just know that I am posting as if it were Tuesday.

Today, Tuesday, I was scheduled to start my work out with a trainer. My menu plans were supposed to have arrived last night. They finally arrived a little after noon today. I was actually surprised at all that it suggest. Was a little afraid that they would suggest tofu or turkey burgers. Not that I would mind, but I do have to keep cooking for the rest of the family and they agreed to eat what I do. Alright, I would refuse to eat the tofu. At any rate, there was really good information, 3 choices of menu for each day, and then I log in what I eat and charts the calorie and nutrient info for me. Funny, I was way low on calories for the day, but high on carbs and sugar. Great thing is, now I am getting the help understanding where some foods fit and where I should cut things out. I am really excited about this. Even though the work out fell through. I woke up this morning quite sick. My stomach was in bad shape and was having a problem getting the heart to slow down. Actually thought I would end up having to call hubby or ambulance to take me to hospital, but it settled down and then the pain eased up so was able to go back to sleep for a little while which helped.

All through the week end and all day Monday we has such nice weather, predicted to stay the same. When I woke up this morning, the first time, it was all dark and gloomy, foggy as well. So much so that I would normally have driven Miss J to her friend's house where she catches the bus. However, I was in such a shape I didn't even really notice the fog. Until I woke up the second time that is. You know, it didn't break up until well past noon, but then turned in to a lovely afternoon. I caught up on my emails, then headed out to get a few supplies while the sales were still going on. I had planned to go to Michael's and pick up a sketch book (they are on sale for 40% off) and then use my coupon to get some Adirondack acrylic stampers to see what I could do with those. They on sale them in packs of three, not a lot of choice of color, but figured it would be a good starting point as am sure that Ranger would package three colors that went together nicely. So, I headed to the local scrapbook store first to see if she still had any Tim Holtz stamps in stock. What a shock that was, found out she is closing the store at the end of the month. On the up side, everything in the store was now 40% off. We don't get paid for another week, so I had to really use a severe amount of restraint as I wanted to buy up more colors of alcohol ink and the Distressed inks. Did buy three Distressed ink pads and a bottle of the Glimmer Mist for trying out. I meandered over to the clearance table and what did I find? Just an entire basket full of the ink stampers for .99 each (normally they run almost $4.00) so I just went through the whole basket picking out one of each color she had, 17 to be exact. I figured at a buck a piece and the fact that I was picking the colors, I just had to. I would have bought a red pepper alcohol ink, but she didn't have any. I will go back after pay day and am sure I will be coming home with more colors of that stuff, I just love playing with it. Now if I could only find those two pieces of white felt I bought to cut up for the stamper pads. I am sure in all this mess it will turn up, that is a story for later on. I also went ahead and bought some blue flower soft, would have bought more but couldn't remember what colors I had just bought. Now I will go back and for sure get some white and maybe the metallic if they are still there. I was pretty good friends with the owner so asked her if I could pull some things and let her hold them until next Tuesday, but she wouldn't let me do that, said she couldn't, but there was a lady there that was pulling left and right and on the phone talking to someone and telling her it would be waiting for her when she got back. Oh well, so goes it. I think I am most disappointed about the store closing because I will be loosing out on the chance to play with the Cricut carts that she would rent out. There were quite a few things that I would like to have, so will probably blow my budget but I will just explain to hubby that after the end of the month she won't be there anymore. I don't want any big ticket items, just want to grab up some of those wonderful papers she brought back from CHA. Do I really need any more paper? No. But they are so lovely and now I am wiser about what papers I pick. Oh well, so goes life. We still have Michael's, JoAnn's, and Beverly's (a local chain that is like a mini Hobby Lobby) and there is still the other scrapbook store across town.

Then, off to Michael's I went. I bought the sketch book, in two sizes. I had decided that to make the weight loss journey a little more fun I would try my hand at an art journal, but write about the weight. Well, I also go this brilliant idea, thus the second sketch book, to make a sort of inventory journal of techniques I learn and use. I am going to write down each and every swap I am in, do a sample of the technique I used, then stick in a photo of what I made and of what I received. It should be interesting as I plan to start picking a tutorial each month and learning it by watching it over and over. It will be my own little game. I already have a sketch book that I started a few years ago when I started buying stamps. When I buy one, I would stamp it, write which company makes it, what ink I used and then any little notes that I should remember about that stamp (mounted upside down) that would be helpful in the future. Now I have acquired so many little stamps, that I need to sort them and will probably have to go get a few more plastic containers. I think I may store the clear stamps in a notebook, have seen that done quite a bit. At any rate, came up with the notion that I would stamp everything in that container and then copy those pages and put them in the box as well. I have a cool little labeler so will make labels for the boxes and when I go through the sketch book, or catalog, will be able to see just how big it actually is, how it prints out and then know just which container to look in. Am also thinking I should make an ink section to show just what colors of what kind of inks I have. Oh, and since I didn't need to use the coupon for the ink stampers, I used it to buy a package of water colour crayons. Oh how I do love the water colour effect. For that softer look, I love them and the chalks. I have water colour pencils, use them quite a bit for coloring in stamped images. However, I can color in the sky or a back ground a bit better with a crayon than I ever could with a pencil.

Last night, after so many people on my Yahoo groups approved the company, I went to a site called "Oh My Crafts" and bought a little thing called "Your Story" or something like that. It is a binder and laminater and can do the larger pages easier than I can ever figure out how to do them on my "Bind It All" that I still have no clue as to why I actually bought it. I am seriously thinking about selling it, but one of my groups has talked about sending some "fat books" around to be decorated and how they bound this or that, so may just keep it a bit longer. I has not even been out of the box except to look at. I don't even remember how to use the silly little thing but am sure I will find some video on You Tube that will show me.

Now, the other part of the story that I told you was coming. I finally started feeling better this afternoon, amazing what a little shopping trip will do for your spirits, so decided that I just had to rearrange my craft room a little bit to get some flow going. Especially when it came to using the computer and scanner. Lord what a mess I got in to there. Still needs a bit more clutter reduction. I have a Kodak printer that wasn't printing son's class papers very well and he was getting graded down because of it. So, I replaced it with an Epson. The Epson is wireless, so anyone in the house can send a print job to it. Makes it handy for hubby in the living room and daughter J where ever she ends up. The ink is fairly reasonable and you can change out the individual colors instead of a whole ink cartridge that is only out of blue, but plenty of red and yellow left. I like that. It is fast and scans well. However, I think that Epson's colors are a bit off and the scanner is slightly tilted so the papers or photos I scan tend to slide all around. The Kodak has this really neat paper feature, a little compartment built right in for 4 x 6 photo papers. And let me tell you, it prints photos wonderfully and the ink is so cheap. May have a little trouble finding it, but did notice that the Walmart had it the other day. Also, the scanner bed is flat and the door is somewhat adjustable for making it easier to copy a book page or magazine article. So...I pulled it off the shelf and set it out. Will plug it all up tomorrow (Wednesday) and see if I can get it going. I cleaned off the top of the wooden sewing machine cabinet, putting the embroidery machine up in the closet for now so that I could make room to set the laptop up closer to the scanner/printers for when I start trying to crank out some scrapbook pages. My oldest daughter C started on really nice scrapbooks for my mom using her old photos (a ton of old photos) then she gave the one finished one to my mom and brought me the rest of it all to finish up. She is so much better at this than I am, but honestly I do have way more time. Besides, I am going to start a book in a few months to have ready for the arrival of grandson number 3. They found out it is a boy. Very obviously a boy, from the ultrasound photos. Of course I only want that baby to arrive and stay healthy and for the mom too. But, I was pulling for a girl. Just love dressing them up in those frilly froufrou dresses and hair bows that are bigger than their head. Have already learned that plans for me to be babysitter while the mom works has fallen through, her boss is putting in a nursery at the office. I am wondering how long that is going to work. I will be here if I am needed.

I have my hands full the next few months with this weight loss program and then summer. I already feel better with what little I got done in here, may find that some more things will have to moved around a bit as I see how I use them, but am hoping that I will be able to get to the point where I can make myself take at least one day a week to sew. If I start my little Etsy business, will need more days than that, but am thinking I may start out with some infant outfits and crocheted or fabric quilts to match to see how that goes. Maybe spend the summer making up Christmas outfits. Maybe even some doll clothes.

OH MY, the old brain is working over time so it is time to head to bed. Especially since I will be spending the morning taking mom to doctor.