Noodle Soup

The long and short of it

If you follow me on Facebook, you may have heard that my baby girl got a major haircut a couple of weeks ago. She somehow came up with the idea that she wanted to get a short little bob, and it had to be done before the last day of school so all her friends could see it.  Yeah, she’s 5. This one definitely has a mind of her own.

Her entire lifetime haircut history consists of two trims, so I made her think about it for a couple of weeks. It came down to the day before the last day of school, and she was still determined, so off we went to the salon.

My heart skipped a beat when that first 8” hunk of hair hit the floor, but she was grinning ear to ear. It turned out exactly the way she wanted, and I have to admit I am loving it, too.

Before:

During:

After:

Her new style is cute & sassy, just like her. And bonus - no nasty tangles after the pool.

Spiffing things up

There are some changes afoot in Noodle Soupland! I have long felt that things looked more blah-g than blog around here. The uber-talented Carly of Playful Pickles Design is in the process of remedying that. Let’s hear it for colorful and fun!

Meanwhile, I realized I have a bit of unfinished business. Back at the beginning of May LOAD, I issued a challenge to spot some specific products on my pages. Even though I only did 7 layouts, I did manage to use some of the goods, and there were several savvy readers who spotted them. I put all the names into my cute turquoise bucket from the Target dollar spot, and the lucky winner turned out to be…

TRACY BZOWY!!!

Congratulations, Tracy! Email me your snail mail info at the above link, and a prize will be heading your way.

In other summer news, Big Picture Scrapbooking is offering 10% off all classes through June 30, with the code summer2009. It’s the perfect time to take that class you’ve been considering.

And if you’re really feeling like treating yourself, now is the time to sign up for the Palm Desert Craft & Crop Retreat. Everyone who registers by July 4 and mentions my blog will be entered to win a $100 credit towards their retreat and a free spot in one of my classes.

Speaking of classes, I am hard at work finishing up a brand new class for Big Picture that will be announced soon, so stay tuned. I’m really excited to share it with you!

In light of today’s sad news about Michael Jackson, I’ll leave you with this Thriller 25th anniversary tribute video that Kendra’s high school TV show did last fall.

Accolades

The last couple of weeks of high school here are filled with event after event sponsored by the various departments and extracurriculars. We parents basically gather for performances, or over catered food and awards, to recognize how awesome our kids are, which is always fun (even if we already know it!).

One of the highlights every year is the Pops Concert, put on by the chamber choir. After a year of choir-ish songs, the director lets his most advanced students bust out their favorite pop numbers and audition for an evening concert complete with a live band made up of uber-talented peers.

Tonight is the drama banquet, which has an uncanny way of falling on my birthday every single year, no matter what day of the week it is. (Happy birthday to me, by the way!) This is by far going to be the most emotional of the bunch. Not only is it our final banquet of Kendra’s high school career, but this is a department Kendra has been part of for all four years, where she has made her closest friends. And in case that isn’t enough to send me dashing for a box of Kleenex, the seniors record their favorite memories and goodbyes to the school on video for all to blubber through.

Waterproof mascara, don’t fail me!

So much to blog, so little time

It's crunch week here. Six more days of school, and the calendar is bursting at the seams. Hopefully I'll be back soon with a proper post. Until then, enjoy this fun tutorial from Cheeky Magpie for turning an old paperback book into cute apple.

Last minute teacher gift, anyone?

I’ve got two tickets to paradise

Well, actually I’ve only got one, and it’s all mine…but you can get one, too.

I’m super excited to be involved with the first annual Craft & Crop Retreat at the Desert Springs Marriott Resort in Palm Desert, August 6 – 10. It’s going to be so much fun! Guests can come for 2, 3 or 4 nights – up to 88 hours of crop & craft time. There will be some fantastic classes and lots of good, old-fashioned girl bonding over paper, adhesive and chocolate, in a fabulous resort setting complete with an awesome spa. My cohorts, Mitzi and Charise, are two of the most fun people I know, so we could very well break the fun-o-meter on this trip. I am so looking forward to it!

Lucky for you, there are still some spaces available - check out the website for all the details. I am teaching 5 different classes over the course of the retreat. You can go here to see all the classes/days/times.

If you decide to sign up, be sure to let me know! I would love to see some of my cyber girlfriends there. :)

The way the cookie crumbles

Yeah, it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged.

Or scrapbooked.

Remember the LOAD challenge? I kind of bit it in the participation department after the first week. Bummer. Not at all what I had planned when I stocked up on a month’s worth cardstock, alphabet stickers, ideas, and good intentions…but sometimes that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

(image courtesy of SendThemCookies.com)

Life threw me a curve, as it is wont to do from time to time, and honestly, I have been preoccupied and have not felt like scrapbooking. As much as I love scrapbooking for capturing memories and reminding me what is important in life, my focus has been elsewhere, and recording the minutiae with patterned paper and photos fell off the radar. I am totally okay with that. The drive to chronicle my story should never trump the drive to fully immerse myself in experiencing it firsthand – ups, downs, and all. I have gained some valuable perspective and insight over the past weeks that will be carried with me and undoubtedly reflected indirectly on future pages. I am on the upswing and hope to squeeze out another LOAD page or two before the month ends…we’ll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, amidst the admittedly cryptic life lessons, I have lots of good stuff going on that more than balances the challenging stuff. 

• I have a couple of fun things in the works for Big Picture Scrapbooking. I will hopefully be able to reveal more next month.
• I am up to my eyeballs in kid/school stuff, including but not limited to end of the year projects (if you need to know anything about the electric eel, including how to sew one from a pattern drawn on posterboard and illuminate it with Christmas lights spliced to a battery pack, I’m your girl), open houses, drama performances, fundraisers, awards banquets, high school graduation preparations (eeeeeks!), kindergarten registration (eeeeks again!!). And you know what? I love it all!
• I am officially the mom of a Fall 2009 Chapman University freshman. Kendra was accepted into the Creative Writing BFA program with a partial merit scholarship. I am so proud of her! Now I just need to decide which bank to rob to come up with the rest of the tuition. (Kidding of course! Everyone knows the banks have no money either).

That’s about it for now. I’m suddenly hungry for chocolate chip cookies, and if I hurry I can get a batch in the oven just in time for dessert.

Technically speaking

Okay, I know this has a bit of an “uphill both ways, barefoot, in the snow” tinge to it…but I really like the comparison I was able to document on this page I did on Sunday. Plus, I kinda dig the reflection-in-the-computer photos.

(click to biggify)

I will admit I don’t always understand technology or know how to use it instinctively, but I still think it’s pretty darn cool. In fact, one of my favorite tabs in my category drawers is the Technology tab. I think it's fun to reflect on how far technology has come since my childhood, or my grandmother’s…and wonder how different things will be from my kids’ perspectives when they are adults.

Al Gore hadn’t invented the Internet yet when I was a teen. There were no cell phones, and if pagers were around, they were still only for doctors at that point. If you weren’t home to answer your phone, it just rang, unless you were some sort of howty-towty business-type with an answering service – which meant someone could call a number where there was a person waiting to take a message for you. I had to carry home an armload of books (uphill, but not in the snow)…there was no such thing as a digital textbook. Cable TV and microwaves were still newfangled gizmos.

It’s hard for me to imagine that things could get much easier than they already have…and yet, newer, cooler things come out all the time.

When I was 15, I got busted for running up a $62 phone bill, and had to work to pay it off.  If you had told me then that there would one day be a way to video conference with far-away friends for free via something called Skype, I would have told you to stop watching so much of The Jetsons. I was convinced that the coolest thing to ever happen to phone technology was the 6 foot cord, and those speaker phone booths sponsored by AT&T at Disneyland. And now? One word: iPhone.

I’m sure my kids will look at this page one day at laugh at the primitive device Kendra used for homework. And I can’t wait to see what the next generation uses instead.

Find of the day

I interrupt my regular blog-genda for today to bring you my latest find.

Sometimes it's the absolute simplest things that can totally make my day. Like today, when I popped into the grocery store Starbucks to grab an iced tea on the way home from preschool pickup, and found this:

Look again. It's an insulated, reusable cup that looks just like the clear cups they use for iced drinks. I think I might have actually squealed aloud when I saw it. I have one of the reusable travel mug thingies for hot drinks, but iced tea just isn't the same to me if I can't see my ice cubes clinking around. I know, I have my quirks.

The other really cool thing (no pun intended...or maybe just a little pun intended, 'cause I like to be punny whenever possible) is that because it's insulated, the outside of the cup doesn't get wet. Which means no more trying to wedge my iced tea into the cardboard drink holders that don't really fit, and that eventually get soggy and fall off.

Total bright spot in my day! I am actually excited to go show it off at my PTA meeting. And believe me, this particular meeting is not one to be excited about. We will be talking about what programs will and won't make the budget for next year, now that the state funding has put so much on the chopping block. Give me strength, clever little insulated cup of caffeine!

Cover Girl

There are lots of fun National Scrapbook Day celebrations happening in Blogland today. My favorite so far is over at the CK blog, where readers can put their layout on a Creating Keepsakes cover for an entry into a prize drawing.

I am supposed to be cleaning my studio today in honor of NSD, and I plan to do a page or two later this afternoon. But I just couldn't resist taking a few minutes to put together my own CK cover with the page I made last night. The blank area was rectangular and my page is square, so I had to get a little bit creative to fill the space.

(click to biggify)

Whaddaya think? I mean, c'mon folks...something has to be done to keep this hobby afloat. Getting the next generation of scrapbookers hooked while they're young sounds like a viable plan to me!

I'd better make sure my phone line is clear for when CK comes calling for me to design their next cover. ;)

Meanwhile, it's back to cleaning the studio. Where did all of this stuff come from??

Happy May Day!

Can you even believe it’s May already??

Today marks the first day of the latest Layout A Day (LOAD) challenge. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, go here to find out more. It’s not too late to sign up!

And for those of you LOADing along with Lain and I this month, I look forward to sharing 31 days of creativity and productivity (and whatever other –ivity words you can think of!).

Yesterday, I pulled out a purse I hadn’t used for quite a while, and found $6 inside. I love when that happens! I decided I was going to use my windfall (more like a breezefall, really…considering what $6 buys in the current economy) to treat myself to a few LOAD kickoff goodies.

Here's what I bought:

$6 doesn't really go very far these days, does it? But fun stuff, nonetheless!

I thought it would be fun to "share the wealth" and have a little contest of sorts. So keep an eye out for these items in the LOAD May ‘09 Flickr gallery. If you spy any of them (or any part thereof) on one of my LOAD pages, drop me an email with the subject “LOADed With Goodies” and let me know what page you spotted it on (my email link is at the top of the blog). Each time you do, I will put your name in a drawing for a fun prize at the end of the month. This is totally separate from the regular LOAD prizes – just a little additional bloggy fun.

And speaking of fun, my friend Denise presented me with this fun friendship blog award today!

 

Thanks, Denise! *smooches*

I'm supposed to pass it along to a few blogland friends, so I hereby present the Blogger Award of Friendship to:

Lain Ehmann

April Peebles

and

Chris Olson

I chose you not only for your steadfast comaraderie, but also because I think you will still love me even if I keep tagging you with stuff like this. Right?? :)