Today, I'm Excited....and I Just Can't Hide It!

Okay, so dorky song title today, but really, I am excited! My layout was selected as the layout of the week over at LogYourMemory.com! Totally made my day. My layout was submitted for the weekly challenge: How has your daily life changed because of the Internet?

Come see my response here: http://logyourmemory.com/2010/02/26/youre-going-to-lol/

If you haven't been over there yet, I suggest you check it out http://logyourmemory.com/....great ideas, fun challenges, and loads of inspiration and cool people, with a focus on documenting the story and scrapbooking our everyday, real life.

Hope your day is full of good surprises, too!

Same Chaos, Different Day or Finding Susan

Remember my little story of the kitty chaos at Christmastime? Well, that's not a special holiday feature. Oh no. This is an on-going game. Seems there are special "traps" in my house for little things like legos and kitty toys. One such place is beneath my stove. There is a nice little 2 inch gap from the stove to the floor which, for some time, has been the home of the items seen pictured above. Yes, that's right. Much like Sid in Toy Story, my sweet Dmitry cat is an enemy to toys. This is his story. This is his collection.

A few nights ago, Matt and Ana decided to see just what was trapped beneath the stove. Naturally, I supervised and the stove was off. Armed with a flashlight and a stick, the kids uncovered a treasure trove of goodies.

Dmitry was very interested in what the kids were doing. I like to imagine he was protecting his stash, but most likely, it was "out of sight, out of mind" and this was as exciting for his as it was for the kids.

In the end, we found 10 balls, 6 lego clone trooper helmets, a letter die, many legos, and the Fisher Price "Susan" character from the Fisher Price Sesame Street playset that I had when I was a kid....you remember Gordon's wife Susan, right? Given I didn't grow up in this house, finding Susan was the most interesting of our discoveries that night.

The biggest challenge? Keeping Dmitry away from the uncovered treasures long enough to shoot the picture!

Hope you find something you didn't know you lost!

Playing with Photoscape

I've been playing with Photoscape. It's easier to use than Photoshop, free, and fun. Of course, I have boxes of photos that are "naturally" old, but this was more fun. You can download Photoscape here and watch the YouTube tutorial here.

All photos were taken in 2009 by me. Ya like 'em, ya don't like 'em....no big whoop. I like 'em.

Have a good one!

Another Layout....

Creating grids? Learned. Next?

Learned a new technique!

I learned how to make a grid....baby steps......

Testing, testing.....is thing on? or Nope, not today

I’ve extolled my 13 year-old daughter impressive fashion sense before – most recently yesterday. She’s beautiful, inside and out. Most days, she looks like she stepped out of a teen magazine – hair perfect, makeup perfect, clothes chosen to express her sophisticated yet fun style. Things you’d never imagine would go together, on her, look effortlessly styled. Not many girls could wear a purple and black tutu to school and ROCK it. (Me, I’d look like the hippo in Fantasia). Her accessories are nearly, always spot on. What I’m trying to say is, the girl’s got style.

This morning, I just didn’t get it.

Maybe I was being conservative. Maybe I was being a mother. Maybe I just didn’t understand how this was cool.

I hesitated. It might be a trend I’m just not cool enough to “get”. Do I admit that I’m not as cool as her?

As usual, she’s the last one out of the house in the morning, so I was standing by the car when I saw it. The mother in me took over. I told her to reverse herself, go back in the house, and take off the gold lame high-heeled sandals over the purple and green slipper socks. I didn’t quite understand what she was going for, but it didn’t matter. I, the mother, wasn’t letting her go to school with the gold lame high-heeled sandals over the purple and green slipper socks. Nope.

They’d have thought I was nuts.

Not going down without a fight, she asked me, “Why not, Mom?”

“Because a) those look like “stripper” shoes which were never intended to leave the house, b) you are wearing them with slipper socks, and c) you are not wearing gold lame shoes with slipper socks to school.” Seriously, couldn’t be more simple than that!

Well, luckily, she laughed with me. Totally testing my boundaries, that girl. Teenagers. Of course, she let me out of the house with the floods on yesterday.....maybe I should have let her go?

Getting ready for the flood?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielygo/168218925/

Photograph by Daniel Y. Go

So, I got all prettied up for work today. After a year of getting to wear jeans to work, I've had to pull out my dress pants again. Arghhhh!!! Let's just say, I've added some "fluff" to my middle since I've had to wear them. Also, they are getting a little worse for the wear. Half of my work pants have zippers with minds of their own....so things like strategic scarf placement, long sweaters and tops are on order, since I'm really not up to spending the money to get the zippers replaced - so many other things to spend money on....food, utilities, gas....anyway, I found a pair in my closet that fits, zipper works, la de da...all dressed up and shuffling the kids out of the house and off to school.

Drop Ana off at the bus, drive Matt to school, walk him in....Then I see it. I see why I don't wear these pants. Don't ask my why I didn't notice earlier. I catch sight of myself in the door window to the school wearing the floodiest floods I've ever seen! Seriously, my ankles were showing.

I looked around to see if anyone else noticed and my eyes meet another mom - a cute little petite blonde mom, who's pants are a bit too long over her high heeled boots, who looked at me and gave me the eyebrow raise.

Clearly, she was silently judging me in my floods.

This can't happen, I told myself. I cannot go to work like this. I ran home and changed.

Ughhh. I blame my daughter for letting me out of the house like that. She looks like a cool hip New York cool person, all layered and accessorized and cool, and I looked like Farmer Ted.

Yeah, I'm going to have to talk to her about this.