Do You Hear What I Hear?

Songs that I am still loving despite the radio stations playing them every 12 seconds:

SOS - Rihanna
Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield
Hips Don't Lie - Shakira
Bad Day - Daniel Powter

Songs that make me want to cut myself with dull objects if I have to hear them one more time:

Temperature - Sean Paul
Unfaithful - Rihanna
Breathe (2 AM) - Anna Nalick
Run It - Chris Brown

Disconnected

Today (okay, technically yesterday since it's the wee hours of Monday morning) was such a strange day. I woke up at a usual time for a weekend (seven-ish) but I felt so sluggish that I went right back to sleep. Slept until 9:30 which is so unlike me. Once I got up Robert and I had some breakfast and I got caught up on Scrap101 emails, I decided to do some scrapping. Finished a layout for the current quotation challenge, had my bath, puttered around, watched part of a movie, puttered around some more, decided to read a bit... the day was just getting away from me. By the time I sat down to read it was after 5:00. Within minutes of opening the book I could hardly hold my eyes open. Robert and I both decided to take a nap and I was out in minutes. He eventually got up when the doorbell rang (which I never even heard) but I was out until 7:30 (!). I think I woke up once or twice but felt positively drugged... like it was physically impossible for me to get up. After that I just really felt out of sorts. The day was almost over, I'd done basically nothing, I felt so disconnected from the day - if that makes any sense. We idly discussed dinner but came to no decision, I messed around on the computer and started working on another layout and around 9:15 when I told Robert I was feeling blah he suggested we go out for a drive since I hadn't been out of the house all day. What a breath of fresh air... literally. A heavy thunderstorm had come through earlier and the air just smelled so clean. We put the windows down and just drove aimlessly - talking, listening to the radio. Just what I needed. We were gone about an hour and went to bed a while after that... but here I am up at 3:00. Nothing at all to do with my two hour nap, Im sure. ;-) We have no real plans for Memorial Day... but I need to make some before the day gets away from us again. Even if it's just going over to my parent's house to get in the pool. I don't want another day like today... I hate feeling so out of sync.

Phantom

Last Saturday Robert and I went to see Phantom of the Opera again. What is it about Phantom that fascinates me so much? In the final scene my heart is breaking and I'm in tears every time. The Phantom is such a lonely, tortured soul. When he allows Christine to leave his lair with Raoul and resigns himself to his fate of utter aloneness and loneliness... oh, it's heartwrenching. Seeing it performed live is so involving. The actors who played Christine and Raoul were good, but it was the Phantom who truly impressed me. He received a rousing standing ovation. I hated to see it end.

Robert surprised me with tickets to the show for Christmas. I knew we would go see the production, but when the tickets went on sell back in December I told him it was a bad time to lay out so much money for theater tickets right at Christmastime. I figured we would buy our tickets later... unfortunately, once all the best seats were sold out. And then Christmas morning... surprise! I was thrilled! We were down in the Orchestra section... just seven rows from the stage. Fabulous. It was a perfect gift and made another wonderful memory.

Recent Layouts

We're having a Scrap From Your Stash contest at Scrap101 right now. A fun little competition where you create as many layouts as you can from the supplies you have on hand, while not buying anything new, for a period of two weeks. I'm not exactly playing to win (I'm a slooow scrapper), but I definitely need the no-buy... and it's fun to play along with everyone else and get some layouts completed at the same time. These are the three layouts that I've done so far this weekend... all three for my BOM.

Just for Fun...

Three Movies I Could Watch Over and Over:
Peter's Friends
Love Actually
Steel Magnolias

Three Places I Have Been on Vacation:
Las Vegas
Boston
Orlando

Three TV Shows I Like To Watch:
House
American Idol
Gilmore Girls
(it was hard coming up with 3 because I really only watch the first 2 regularly)

Three Websites I Visit Daily:
Scrap101
CNN
see blog links on side bar (plus others not listed)

Three Books I Could Read Again:
Jemima J (Jane Green)
the Outlander series (Diana Gabaldon)
the Tales of the City series (Armistead Maupin)

Three Favorite Foods:
potatoes (baked, mashed, French fried, au gratin... you get the idea)
pasta (spaghetti, lasagna, fettucine, tetrazzini, etc.)
broccoli-cheese rice
(note: all three items are ones that I have had to kiss goodbye since South Beach *sniff sniff*)

Three Places I Would Rather Be:
at home taking a nap
hanging out/creating in my scrapbook room
anywhere with Robert

NE FL Scrapbooking Shop Hop

I've spent the last two days shopping at 10 different scrapbook stores and let me tell ya... it's exhausting! LOL The local indepenent scrap stores in northeast Florida got together and organized a Shop Hop. You purchased a "passport" for $5 and had from Wednesday thru Saturday to visit all 10 stores, getting your passport stamped at each stop. Shop Hoppers also got a 15% discount on their total purchase at every store. Cool, huh? Your passport got turned in at your last stop and they'll be drawing for the grand prize - a $50 gift certificate from every store. Whoo hoo! Second and third prizes are gift baskets. In addition to those, each individual store is having drawings for prizes and gift baskets so that's pretty cool. Several stores gave away goodies bags or had refreshments laid out for the Shop Hoppers. Some really went all out.

My sister and I took off work Friday so we could have two days for the Shop Hop... I just wouldn't have wanted to cram it all into one day. We were both exhausted as it was. Some stores were definitely better than others, but it was still fun to get out and see them all and check out what everyone had. The store in Gainesville was pretty great. I could see myself going back don there now and then. One of the stores in Palatka was pretty good the other had next to nothing. The store in Starke was pretty lame. I totally admit that I tend to be a "name brand scrapper" but her selection was so generic. I spent a whopping $5 in that store - a page kit for the Shop Hop that they had put together. Terri and I agreed that while we really liked a couple of the stores that we'd never been to before, none of them matched what we have right here closest to us. The three stores that I shop regularly - Pictures In Time, Scrap N Stuff, and Scrapbooks. Awesome stores - all of them.

So, now for the fun stuff... here's what I bought:

3 Bugs in a Rug papers from the Jovial line
Chip Chatter - Hip/fuschia
Junkitz papers from the Shabby Chic line
Junkitz papers from the Flower-ful line
Wild Asparagus paper
StazOn ink in cotton white
StazOn cleaner
Heidi Swapp credit card slides
Autumn Leaves/Rhonna Farrer papers
Autumn Leaves/Rhonna Farrer rub-on's - Enchanted
KI Memories papers - My Girl collection
a few sheets of Bazzill
a Shop Hop board book kit (my single most expensive purchase - $30)
8x8 Chester (MAMBI) page kit (I am *addicted* to the Chester line)
Scrappy Glue by Magic Scraps (have heard great things about this stuff)
Scrapbook Trends magazine
MAMBI Chester papers
Crate papers from the Kate Collection
Crate papers from the Taylor collection
small acrylic block (for my clear stamps)
Bazzill Really Big Chips
Bazzill Chip Toppers
Lil Davis Vintage Wood Alphabet
WUBE papers (very cool - had never seen these before)

I think that's it... as I type this I am surrounded by bags and papers and other goodies in my scrap room. It's great. LOL Now I'm off to get everything organized and put away. Can't wait to play with everything!

Wish List

With the NE Florida Scrapbooking Shop Hop coming up I'm thinking ahead about certain things I want and will be looking for as me and my sister hop from one scrapbook store to another (10 stores in all) on Friday and Saturday. In no particular order:

- Rhonna Farrer Flourishes clear stamps
- Rhonna Farrer Swirl clear stamps
- Rhonna Farrer Word Art clear stamps
- Rhonna Farrer Splendor Word Art clear stickers
- 3 Bugs in a Rug Spicy Collection
- 3 Bugs in a Rug Sugar Collection
- 3 Bugs in a Rug Groovy Collection
- KI Memories Hopeful Collection
- KI Memories Alphablox cardstock stickers
- Autumn Leaves Bohemian Rhapsody Collection
- Daisy D's Sidewalk Chalk Collection

"___lations"

Journaling: 04.30.06 - For some reason this weekend we decided that every sentence needed a word ending in "___lations." You started it while in the car on Saturday and we've been having fun with it ever since. Yesterday we had a napalation, went out for lunchalations and today we're working on scrapalations. I (heart) being silly with you!