Some pics of my new den....

Some of you asked to see my den when the cabinets / desk were finished....

Here is my desk:



My pottery barn wall organizer (calendar, bulletin board, in boxes, chalkboard, etc.)
If I don't have my calendar right in front of me, I WILL FORGET THINGS!!!!
So this has been a HUGE help for me:



My den is just off the dining room area, so we added this buffet / serving cabinet (not exactly sure what to call this cabinet) It holds all my extra serving ware, small appliances, Holiday dishes in the cabinets. The drawers I have one for my husbands aquarium stuff that used to be just sitting on the side of the aquarium, not it's all put away! Another drawer for my yellow pages, and address books, another drawer for my batteries, candles, and fragrance oils from body shop! and a drawer for placemats, placecards, napkins and napkin holders. This has give me so much storage I am loving it!



I also love that I have a place to dispaly all my family pictures. This spot is perfect for it! And if we entertain, I can use the counter top for additional serving area:



Here is my coat rack I bought from Lowes. I wanted one that was black to match the pottery barn wall system. They only had white ones so I took all the hardware off and painted it black to match. I might get the small wooden letters from Michael's and paint them, and hang them with a ribbon on to different hooks, (one letter for my husband, one for me, one for my son) Not sure I will probably paint it a metallic satin silver)



We still need to change out the carpet. I think we might do pergo since it's a heavy traffic area and has spots on the carpet. Still need to finish crown moulding and base, paint the door to the garage and back door and it should be done! =0)

How I Spent My Friday Night......SCRAPBOOOK SUPPLY ORGANIZATION!!!!

It's been an ongoing project with organizing my scrap / guest room. Basically I have WAY TOO MANY scrappin' supplies and ntohing is very organized. My DH had a custom desk / cabinets installed in the room so i could organize things better and everything would have its own place.

Last night I spent a LONG TIME, organizing my loose ribbon. This is the result:



I also had my son help me organize my ribbon drawer and adhesive drawer:





Here is my tool drawer:



My Flowers, Ric Rac, Brads / Eyelets, and Sewing accessory drawer:



I still have a rub-ons, chipboard, and alphabet drawer I'm going to organize this weekend (will post later on), and 2 drawers for organizing my bulky embellishments, I'm still not sure on how to organize those. They need to be organized in a drawer but how exactly, I haven't figured out yet, any suggestions? PLEASE comment me!!!!

Here are some pics of the inside of my cupboards so far:

1) 12x12 patterned paper organized by manufacturer, 12x12 cardstock organized by color, top shelf is photos I need to scrapbook



2) 8 1/2 x 11 Stampin' Up cardstock organized by color, extra ink pads that aren't on my ink pad carousel, embossing light box and embellishment boxes:



This is my favorite section. I was trying to figure out a way to organized THEMED stuff. Example page kits for halloween, sports, birthdays, stickers for holidays, baby stuff, etc. I used the vertical storage paper holders by Cropper Hopper (they come inside the larger vertical paper holders) I wrote a theme on each and now when I want to scrap a holiday or event, I have my themed paper, stickers, embellishments, and page kits all in one spot. (sorry for the glare in some of these pics, I haven't installed blinds in the guest / scrap room yet and the sun was shining on everything:



Here is part of the closet where I organized my stamps and sizzix stuff:



That's it for now. I"ll update more as I get more done (which will have to be soon, my bed for the guest room is arriving I think this week, and I still need to paint the room!!!)

More cute things!!!!

This is another cute project we made at the class last night:




Here's a little gift my friend Valer-pea gave me at the class last night. IT's a cute little basket she altered for Halloween and filled with some candies! I LOVE IT! IT'S SO CUTE!!!!!

I can sew now!!!!!

Okay, can I just say how TOTALLY EXCITED I AM that I know how to actually use my sewing machine (which I bought like 2 years ago to sew on scrap pages and projects). Michelle Tornay of Bay Area Scrappers taught a class last night, and she showed each of us how to use our sewing machines, and then afterwards we made this cute little album:

Walk For The Cure

I'm a little late on posting these. We did this walk a week ago. Our team raised $3,390.00 towards the Cure for Juvenile Diabetes!!! Here are some pics from our walk:

My son and my friend Valer-pea's sons (the younger one was diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes a year and a half ago)



Here is me and my mom. Isn't she cute? She just retired a few weeks ago.... I'm so looking forward to spending a lot more time with her!



Here's me during the walk:



Here's the kids again, I love this picture!



Here is "TEAM TYLER"



Here is me and Valer-pea....this should've been a headshot...If i'd known her hubby was taking it from the waist up I'd have had better posture!!!

Yummy Recipe & Cute Cook Books!

It seems every Fall when my kid is back to school, I get in this mood to start trying a bunch of new recipes. Well, tonight I tried one that I got from SherelleC's "Let's Eat" cookbook (she makes these cute recipe scrapbook page kits that you can put together), I loved the cookbook, and wanted to make one so I ordered it along with some of the recipes that I thought my family would enjoy.

Tonight we had Swiss Crockpot Chicken! It's really yummy, super easy and you throw everything into the crockpot. =0) My family loved it!

If you want to make these cute cookbooks (here's a picture below), go to Sherelle's website The Scrap Coop:



www.sherellechristensen.typepad.com/the_scrap_coop


She is going to have an online store in the near future but for now you can just place orders by calling or emailing her directly. They ship them very fast and the ladies at the store are super nice!!! They have new recipes every month, and you can get on their email list to find out which ones come out each month. The recipe books
come with the binder, supplies to make the cute cover and for the dividers for (appetizers, main dishes, desserts, etc).

Flash Back Friday!!!!

Can't remember if I posted this one or not...this is a pic of me and 2 of my girlfriends at a Low Rider Car Show back in the early 90's. We thought we were so cool to have our pic in the Low Rider Magazine!!

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!

A few pics from today's field trip to an earthquake faultline exhibit...gotta love california and our earthquakes!!!!!



My son looking serious...taking in all the info:



I on the otherhand, get easily distracted....I saw these beautiful trees, just LOVE the fall colors!!!!!!!! Had to take a pic!



Here is a pic of me and my son:

A Halloween Treat!

I found this recipe idea on another website. It's really easy and fun to make with a little one or as a surprise. I'm giving these to my son and his friend for a snack after school today.

Sliced apples with peanut butter and candy (candy corn, red hots, gummy worms, ect.), nuts (in different shapes and broken) and raisins to look like teeth. You could also try marshmallow creme, or caramel for the filling. Or the red candy apple stuff might make it look creepier! Here are the ones I made (I think red apples would look better but I'm workin with what I've got here at the house...

My little boy is growing up......

You know your child is growing up when affection towards you is embarrassing.
My son wore a sweatshirt to school today because in the morning it was cold, and I told him I thought it "might" rain today. He likes to wear a t-shirt under because sometimes he gets hot. Well today it did NOT rain, it was in the high 70's low 80's. So he took his sweatshirt off and I guess he didn't realize what t-shirt he had underneath until a couple friends asked him about it. Wanna know what it said?
(no it wasn't something crude...what kind of mom do you think I am????)....

It says:

MOM'S #1 FAN

It's a t-shirt from old navy...you know how they come out with cute shirts for every holiday? Well it was their mother's day shirt a year or so ago.

So one or two of his friends asked him why he wore that, I guess he got embarassed cause he told them it was my birthday today (uh...my bday is in August!).

I guess my little man is growing up!!!!

Hard to say goodbye......

One of my best friends is going to be moving away soon. Her husband was offered a great job in another state which will provide their family with a better place to live, bigger house, better schools, so much more than they could ever get here in the bay area. I would probably do exactly the same thing if given the opportunity, it's just hard to say goodbye. They will be leaving in less than a month. I'm going to be so sad when she leaves but am grateful for email, cell phones (cingular mobile-to-mobile!!!), blogs, etc. which will make it easier to keep in contact.

I was at my son's school this afternoon making copies of the PTA newsletter with a friend, and stopped when I walked by the school's map of the U.S. that is painted on the playground. My friend took a picture of me standing in the state my friend is moving to. I wrote her an email and sent her this picture to let her know even though she's moving away, I will be with her in spirit, and will be in touch so often that she won't even have a chance to miss me. =0)

Dinner with friends......

Today I accomplished a lot. I've been wanting to clean off my desk as it has gotten very cluttered with mail I needed to go through, magazines / catalogs I needed to go through, etc. I finally went through everything, created file folders for on top of my desk of pending stuff (bills, school paperwork, taxes for our business, etc). This will make it much easier to find things...now if I can just stick to this system, I think I'll be allright!

I also ordered a bunch of stuff from Pottery Barn that I've been wanting. I ordered the Bedford Home Office Lazy Susan, Caddy and Paper Trays in black to match with my wall organization system (that is the best purchase I ever made from PB - I love having a big calendar up on the wall of 2 months, and a bulletin board, chalk board and in boxes...it keeps me pretty on top of all our busy schedules).

I also ordered my daybed cover in Montgomery Stripe. There's this bed I love in the PB catalog. It's a daybed that has 3 basket cubbies underneath. I'm having the bed made in the same maple wood as my scrapbook room desk / cabinets so everything will match. But I love the bedding PB has on this bed in their catalog so I bought the daybed cover, matching pillows, quilt, quilted shams and some of the cardinal red fabric by the yard to make some extra throw pillows and a valance. I just realized you'll get a better idea of what I'm talking about if I just post a picture here.

This is the bed, it will look just like this except the bed is in maple and the baskets are darker black and brown wicker. The walls will be a taupe color with black and white accents. I have 2 of those mantle bookshelves in black which I'll hang on the wall, and I bought letters that spell out FAMILY at michaels and spray painted them black to sit on the shelves. Not sure if that will be too much black, will have to see.



Here are the desk accessories I got for my den:



My husband got home from work early today. NOw usually I would be very happy about this as he works 6 days a week and it's nice to get that extra family time, but I know when he gets home earlier than usual it means business was slow which is not good. We all got ready and drove to Antioch to our friend's house for a bbq. They have a house that backs up to a little lake. There were 3 other families there that we know from our r/c boat racing community so it was nice to visit with everyone. Our kids had a great time riding around on the lake in a paddle boat and fishing though they didn't catch anything tonight. (this is where my son caught his first fish which I always remember when we go there!) We had a nice dinner, and left around 8pm as I didn't want to get home too late. My son, mom and I are participating in a Walk for the Cure for Juvenile Diabetes tomorrow and need to be up early.

On that note, I think I will call it a night. Will post more tomorrow after our walk!

Good night!

It's a crafty kind of weekend!!!!!

I am so happy to be getting new projects done. I haven't been able to make things for myself in a while so this is really nice. I bought 2 of these kits from SherelleC's store The Scrap Coop and made one tonight to give to my mom tomorrow and will make one for myself probably tomorrow evening.

I'm on a roll today!!!!

I really got in the crafting mood today after putting together my pumpkin topiary....so I ran to michaels and picked up a grapevine swag to put this cute little kit together.... The kit is sold by Sherelle Christensen (peaname: SherelleC). Her example is made with a branch, but I couldn't find one that worked so I used this instead....I have this over my piano in my living room....

I've jumped on the PUMPKIN TOPIARY bandwagon!!!!!!!

Okay, I've been wanting to make one of these since I saw people posting theirs on 2peas a year ago....my friend Valer-pea and I finally went to Michael's last week when they had all their fake carvable pumpkins and fall decor on sale and bought all the materials. Today we decided to have some Olive Garden to go and put together these cute little babies! I am really excited and pleased with how ours turned out and we decided with the leftover materials we'll make some wreaths for our front doors to match!

HSG...not a fun thing

So I've been putting off having this done for almost a year. My fertility benefits are running out as of November 25th, so time is running out and I needed to have this test HSG also known as a Hysterosalpingogram done before I have no coverage or I'd have to pay $1500.00 out of pocket. This test is so that the dr. can see that there is no blockage in my fallopian tubes (I only have one so we were check to make sure the one remaining tube was okay). It also checks the uterus to make sure everything is allright. I read on 2peas that alot of people say it's not that bad, but a few people had bad experiences having this done. For me, it was quite uncomfortable but fortunately it is a very quick test. I was in and out in less than 30 minutes. Have had some uncomfortable cramping but it's now done and over with and I'm glad I finally did it. The radiologist did say that the dye flowed through the tube nicely so that was a good sign. I kinda had a feeling nothing is wrong with the tube because I have gotten pregnant, I just can't seem to keep a pregnancy past the 6 weeks point. The dr. said we'll have the results back in a few days but that it looked like everything was okay according to the radiologist. Hopefully if all goes well I will atleast have one more try at artificial insemination (IUI) before the coverage runs out. Then we're switched to a regular plan for self-employed which does not have fertility benefits. I figure if I've been pregnant 5 out of the 6 times without fertility treatments I should be okay, atleast I'm getting some of the more expensive tests run and not having to pay for that. Hopefully one day soon we'll be blessed with a pregnancy that goes to term....

Dear Tooth Fairy......

This has been a rough week at the mesogoofy household. My son went to a bday party on Sunday, and was eating hot wings. He didn't know there were bones in hot wings so he bit and chewed it as if it were boneless...right on a tooth that needed a filling. The tooth broke and he didn't mention anything to me about it until that night. I told him we'd make a dentist appointment and get it fixed. Well the next day, he calls me from school and says can I come pick him up, his tooth really hurts.

So I go pick him up, he's crying from the pain. We go home and I call the dentist. This particular dentist we don't have dental insurance for, but I know my son, and I know how scared he is of going to the dentist and I'm willing to pay full price for him to see this denstist because he is really gentle and caring and if I could, I would still go to him (not to mention my DH fixed his wife's car a while back and we had a little bit of a credit at his dentist office). =0)

Anyways, we went to the dentist, and he spent 2 1/2 hours there, numbing my son, showing him the tools, letting him know there would be NO surprises. Even gave him this alligator that makes a clicking noise so you can let the dentist know to slow down or stop. (my son was very nervous). We tried to even use a little bit of laughing gas and he didn't like how it made him feel so they turned that off. By the time the dr. was starting to pull the tooth, my son said he wanted to go home (which the dr. had given the option that we could stop at any time if he didn't feel he could go through with it) - Thanks Doc! So my son made that choice, we're going home.

We went home, I told him we're going to have to go through the numbing process all over again the next day. I kept him home from school the next day and we went in to another dentist. This guys was really good, very nice and I liked how he talked with my son trying to reassure him. The assistant on the other hand I did not like. While the dr. is numbing my son, the assistant guy is making small talk with me and my mom (my mom drove down to the appt. for moral support!), he's mentioning my son will need ortho (braces) I'm thinking uh, yeah, can you not mention anything else he needs done right now? This is about all we can handle! Then he starts talking about the amish shootings, the kids that got killed in school. Um excuse me, my son is 11 years old, completely terrified right now, and you're talking about kids getting shot in school!!! Finally when the assistant walked away I mentioned to the dr. if he could ask the guy to not talk about stuff like that in front of my son, he was like I know I was trying to change the subject to something happier and he wasn't getting the hint. So he told the guy to switch with another girl becuase we needed a lighter touch. The lady that switched with him was much better and cracking jokes with my son and keeping him calm and as relaxed as you can be while someone is yanking out your tooth. It was a rough two days, I felt horrible to see my son crying and wanting them to stop but the tooth was damaged beyond repair and had to come out, as it was causing him pain. He was a bit shaken up for a few hours after that but later seemed okay enough to drive to target and buy a video game (okay maybe I shouldn't have done that but I felt so bad for all he had to go through and he had been such a trooper through everything, so we promised him a video game). He also scored quite a bit of $ from the tooth fairy for that tooth...that thing had 3 roots!!! The dr. said usually the 3rd root disinegrates but this one hadn't. So it made it harder to get the tooth out.

Well a day later, my son's other tooth came out. He's been trying to wiggle it out for months and months now, cause the adult tooth was growing in front of it. He got it out and was so happy. I just kept thinking man, I'm tired, and I have to stay up til I know he's asleep so the tooth fairy can come. YES, my son is almost 12 and still believes in the tooth fairy!.... Anyways...I finally went in his room to do the switch, reached under his pillow and placed the $, didn't find the tooth though, and it was tricky because he had BOTH hands under his pillow while he slept. I went to the other side of his bed, and found the ziploc bag with the tooth in it but he had this KUNG FU grip on the ziploc. I kinda nudged him and said Miso (our dog) wants to sleep with you, he rolled over and cuddled with the dog and I grabbed the ziploc. Got to my room thinking "Phew, home free!" I look down and I find this post-it note stuck to the zip-loc:




CRAP! I had to sneak back into his room and put the ziploc back under his pillow.
I did it but I was sweating bullets he would catch me!!!!! Luckily he didn't.

My Cousin Rocks!!!!!!

I've bugged my cousin Chrisi who lives in Pennsylvania to send me some Tasty Kakes and Chicken Pot Pie noodles since I live in California and they don't sell anything like that here. (well actually they DO sell tasty kakes at some philly cheesesteak shops about 30-or so mins away but they are really expensive.

Anyways, today my doorbell rings, it's my mailman with a package....to my surprise it's a box from my cousin filled with a few boxes of each!!!!



Here's me being VERY HAPPY about my tasty kakes!!!!



and Nice mom that I am, I let my son share in the tasty kake experience...okay so a little background on this, my son has NEVER had one before. Our family all loves these and whenever my mom goes back east to visit people she comes back with some boxes for each of us kids. Well one day she asked my son, and my sister's kids if they liked the tasty kakes. The kids were all like "what tasty kakes?"...my sister and I looked back at my mom a little guilty...we figured why let the kids try something that they will end up craving later and can't have because they don't sell them here, that would be cruel right????????? okay so maybe not, maybe we were being a bit greedy and keeping the tasty kakes all to ourselves....I can't help it! They are just so yummy! But today I was nice and shared my new stash of goodies!!! My son really likes them too...I have a feeling these are not going to last very long in my house!




If you are ever in pennsylvania, you HAVE TO TRY THESE!!!!!! bye for now...i'm off to have a glass of milk and some more tasty kakes!