Christmas Kitties

Here are some pictures of my kitties enjoying my Chrismtas tree, which the kitten (orange tabby) thinks I put up for his personal amusement. The other night he brought me an ornament while I was sleeping. He got into bed with me stood on me and dropped the ornament on me!! Every morning I have to fix the tree, He is looking all innocent here, don't let it fool you. He is a little devil. He is worse than have a 2 year old human!

Kit Kat also like to sleep in the exact same place under the tree which at times can get interesing and leads to wrestling matches under the tree!

The one above and below are from when I was attempting to decorate the tree. Sonny had to be right there to see everything I was doing.

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!!!!

Harrisburg

I finally got the chance to get the pictures from the concert at the Pennsylvania State Capitol uploaded here. The Norwood Middle School Concert Band played at the capitol for the 5th consecutive year. It is an absolute stunning builing inside. So if you live in PA and you have never been there you should put it on your list of things to see.The band was posing on the steps inside the rotunda. The guy in the green shirt was a photograher who works at the capital. He was taking a group shot for us and will send us the pictures in a few weeks.

The band in action. Katy is in second row third in from right.

This is a picture of the rotunda. It does not do this place justice.

Getting ready to play

Another shot looking up into the rotunda

Here is the buildind from the outside. That big green dome is what the rotunda shots are (on the inside) pictured above.

We were very honored to be asked back year after year. The kids enjoy it, mostly because they get out of school, and it is a nice experience overall for them. This was Katy's last year going, as next year she will be in high school.

Norwood Middle School Band Concert

Here is a picture from the winter MS band concert. Katy is in the second row, right side, third one in. The other pictures that I wanted to post are at home on my computer there! I thought I had burned them on a disk but evidently the burn didn't work because I got to work with a blank disk! That is how my week has been going.

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas!!

I can't believe it has been a month since I last posted. I was doing so good for a while! Oh well, my only excuse that I have been super busy at work and at home.

Let's see what has happened in the past month. Kate has played in three concerts (two at school) and one at the Pennsylvania State Capital building in Harrisburg. I made my Christmas cards and finished my calendar swap. I plan on brining my calendar page and the ones made by others into work tomorrow to scan them.

Here are some pictures that I have taken over the past month.....

My computer is being stupid and won't let me upload any more pictures for some reason. I may have to do this from work tomorrow. Bummer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SNOW!

Ok I have been getting myself all in a huff over how much Christmas stuff is out, one of my neighbor's has their Christmas lights put up and lit, the mall is fully decorated and Santa is there, and radio stations are already playing Christmas music!! It isn't even Thanksgiving yet people!! It seems we now skip immediately from Halloween to Christmas. Now I woke up this morning to what I thought was going to be some flurries. We have been having them daily for the past few days. Early for us, even here is SE Pennsylvania. Well within minutes of leaving for work at 8:00 it turned into a full blown snow storm!! My usually 30 minute commute to work took 90 this morning. Evidently from winter to winter people forget how to drive in snow, and to tell you the truth it was only a few inches, not bad at all. I work at a retirement community and our residents love the snow because they don't have to go out into it, LOL. The picture was taken by one of my residents, he took it from his balcony this morning looking into our courtyard.

Swap Page

I am in a swap to make a calendar, there are 12 of us and we each were assigned a month. I have August. We are to make the top half of the calendar as a 12x12 layout and then make the month's name to go with the actual calendar part on the lower half of the calendar. This is what I came up with. I am not sure like it. I have only made this one so far. The layout was to include a photo mat and a pocket of some kind. Any opinions would be appreciated.

What I got done over the weekend

These layouts are of my Family Reunion we had in October. It was my mother's side of the family, some of whom I haven't seen in 20 years. I created all of my layouts using my great kits from The Scrap Room. Most of them (all but the first two) are using the Bella Boulevard Family Tree papers that were in this months kit.

Halloween ( a week late)

I have finally downloaded my Halloween pictures onto my computer. So here they are. Katy was a Panda Bear. I made her costume and I thought I did a pretty good job. She really liked it too. Although some people thought she was a skunk, a kitten, a puppy and a koala bear!!! Hmmmm.... some people really don't know their animals. Also posted are some pictures of my kitties and my pumpkin.Katy, Matt, Tyler and Rachael

My Haunted House carved pumpkin.

My little Sonny trying to eat the pumpkin, notice Kit Kat watching him. I am sure she is thinking evil thoughts about her little brother, who at times is cute as heck but not real bright!

Katy checking out her candy haul. Not so good this year, she usually has 3-4x's that amount of candy. Don't know if it was because it was a Friday night and there were football games, or the Phillies World Series parade or what. Just not as many people were giving candy this year. Notice Sonny checking out the stash.

He made his move on the candy and snagged himself a dum dum. Very appropriate!

Kit Kat checked out the Milk Duds but this Diva doesn't do candy!

This splat of fake blood on my patio, left by Tyler after he covered his face with it, proved to be an endless source of fascination, fear, and gross out to every little kid that came to my door for candy the rest of the evening!! If I was an evil person I could have had a lot of fun explaining the blood. "Yes that is real blood, it from the last little kid that came here and didn't like the fact that I was giving out fun size candy instead of full size, Mwaaaa Haaaaa!"

R.I.P. Charlie

This weekend DD's little hamster passed away. She was a very sweet black bear hamster, we had her about 18 months or so, maybe a little less than that. From what I understand Hamster's lifespans a very short.

Slide Show

I finally figured out how to add a slide show!! Yeahhh. It is at the bottom of my blog. The layouts in the slide show are all from an album I am currently working on. It is of my dd's marching band experience from last year. I am almost done, I have maybe another 10 or 12 layouts to go and it will be complete. Then I can start working on this years band pictures!

Some of my layouts

I was able to bring my layouts to work today and scan them. So I am going to post some of my favorites that I did over this past weekend at the Hamburg Hide Away. If you are looking for a great place to get away and scrapbook then I have to highly recommend this place -- AWESOME!! http://thehamburghideaway.blogspot.com/

I will post more later. When I scanned them all they saved as pdf files so I have to convert them to jpeg which I am trying to do without getting caught messing on the computer while at work, LOL. These two layouts are my favorites. These pictures are from our Band trip to Florida in February. They were take at Silver Springs in Ocala.

Monday, Monday....

I hate Mondays!! Especially after having an awesome weekend of scrapbooking!! I went to the Hamburg Hideaway scarp house retreat with Karen. From Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon --- nothing but scrapbooking!!! I was in heaven!! I got 20 12x12 layouts done and made some new friends along the way. Can't wait to go back again.

Here are just two of my layouts. Once I either take pictures of or scan some of my favorite layouts I will post them.

Virginia Beach Trip

This past weekend I travelled to Virginia Beach with the marching band to participate in the Neptune Festival Parade. It is a huge festival that goes on every year down there to celebrate the end of summer. There are like 50,000 people along the parade route. This is our biggest parade other than the Magic Kingdom parade. We had a football game Friday night (we won by the way) and then had to be back at the school for a 3:30 AM departure!! It rained on and off all of the way there. This first picture is our bus going over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. The second is of Katie and the other kids getting into their uniforms on the bus before we arrived in Virginia Beach. When we got to the staging area for the parade it wasn't raining. The kids got off the bus to get their instruments from underneath, put their plumes in their hats and it started to pour! We got the plumes off their hats but the parade went on as planned. It stopped raining by the time the parade started but not soon enough, everyone got soaked. Needless to say Katie's little cold that she has been fighting is now a bad cold and she feels really crappy and stayed home from school yesterday.


Above is Neptune. This is a big statue on the beach right near the parade route. Below are some pictures from the parade.



Here is Katie and another girl from the band who we always room with on our overnight trips. After the parade we drove to Williamsburg and stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge. It is a really awesome hotel.

Katie and Jaime getting "yelled" at by Mr. Peltz the band director! (They weren't really getting yelled out he was just messing around)
Katie enjoying the fabulous room we got. Incredible TWO floor room. She is sliding down the railing. Her and Jaime had a blast. This room had two bathrooms, three tv's, a fireplace and an upstairs bedroom! Looking down from the upstairs bedroom.

Also this weekend my little kitty Sonny went in to be neutered and declawed. He made out fine. I picked him up Sunday night after we got home from Virginia. Although he is not feeling too well today. I have to go to the vet after work and pick up some pain meds for the little guy. Poor baby!!

Allergy Testing

On Monday I went to the dermatologist to get "patch tested". I have had dishydrotic eczema on my hand for about two years and the past few months it has really flared up badly. Went to the dermatologist at the end of August and he thought it might be brought on by something I am touching so he scheduled me for this patch testing. What they did was adhere 65 little metal grommet like things to my back with tape. Each grommet was filled with an allergen. These were the 65 most common allergens for my area, northeast United States. Ok, so Monday I go in and they adhere this things all over my back. I can't get my back wet. I go back today and they remove everything and look at which allergens I may be allergic to. Guess what? I was allergic to the freakin' tape they used to adhere everything and NOT ONE SINGLE other thing tested positive!! So now I have to go back again on Friday and see if I have a delayed reaction to anything. Still can't get my back wet. It has been real fun every morning trying to bathe in the bathroom sink. This morning I washed my hair in my kitchen sink because it has a spray hose. Well, I think I got half of the kitchen wet! Can't wait until Friday when I can actually take a real shower!

Sunday Update

It is Sunday evening and once again I don't know where the weekend went. This past work week was the week from hell. I don't think I have ever been so busy in all of the 12 years I have worked at Riddle Village. It was just insanely stressful, and top it all off I worked by myself 3 of the 5 days. AND on Friday while I worked by myself I had TWO move ins on top of all of the other insaneness of the week. I was glad when that day was over and I even got to leave at 4 instead of 5 which was a welcome treat.

After work I went to the football game. It was an away game against Glen Mills. GM is an all boy school for "troubled boys". It is state run and it is spectacular! I only wish our local schools were as nice. The band wore their uniforms for the first time this season and they looked awesome as usual. Stupid me was so flustered after a crazy day at work forgot to take my camera. I could kick myself because this had to be the most well lit field we have ever played on. It was perfect picture night, but I was without my camera !!! Out football team won to make the night even better. Final score 27-14.

Yesterday was out monthly all day crop. It was nice to get out and relax, although in 8 hours I only got ONE 2 page 12x12 layout done. But I got to kick back and hang out with my friends. Today I took my kitty Sonny, back to the SPCA to get his microchip inserted. He was due to be declawed and neutered this coming Friday, but the girls at the SPCA convinced me to try something called Soft Claws first. They are little rubber caps that glue onto his nails to keep him from scratching stuff, but they don't harm him in away. Here he is with his blue manicure!

Monday, time to update...

Well this weekend flew by as usual. Overflowing with things to do. Friday night we had a football game. It rained all afternoon. I thought for sure it would be cancelled, but it wasn't. Luckily by kickoff at 7:30 it was only drizzling. I didn't bring my camera because of the rain. Saturday the band did a parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Prospect Park Termites football league. It was hot hot hot! But the parade was nice. I did take a few pictures there. Saturday night my MIL and SIL came over to celebrate (belatedly) my birthday. SIL gave me a gift card to JoAnn's and I went on Sunday to purchase a cropadile Big Bite using my GC and a 50% off coupon! Sunday I went to my brother's house to help plan my mother's 70th birthday party. She adamently does not want a big party so we are going to do a little family party with just her children and grandchildren. We are having a big family reunion in Baltimore the weekend of her actual birthday (10/5) so we will do a cake for her then too. The family party is planned for 10/18.

Here are some pics from the parade (Kate is easy to pick out look for the red hair or red sneakers LOL):

15,330 Days.....

15,330 days is how long I have been alive, LOL. I don't know if that sounds better than 42 years or not! I am unfortunately at work on my birthday. I really think that companies should make your birthday a holiday for you. I think my boss is going to take me out to lunch for my birthday. I hope we are going to go to Peking and really good Chinese restaurant near my work. It is tradition that the birthday person brings in some treats to share. So I stopped at the bakery this morning and picked up a dozen donuts and some sticky buns. Hopefully everyone will enjoy them.
I found out last night at the boosters meeting that plans may be changing with our Florida trip. It was originally planned that we would be going to Coco Beach, Kennedy Space Center, Universal and Sea World. But Mr. Peltz lets the seniors have a big say in where we go and they are pushing for Disney. So it looks like we are probably going back to Disney in February. That is fine with me, there was so much I didn't see while I was there. Another issue that came up last was price. The cost of the trips are getting higher and higher. We are going to Virginia Beach at the end of the month and the price for that is $135 for students and $150 for chaperones. Up 30-40% from last year. The Florida trip went from $425 for students to $475 and there hasn't been a price set for chaperones yet. So what Mr. P. is trying to do is keep the costs down. He may cut the length of the trip from 5 days in Florida to 4. And possibly cut the Virginia Beach from the schedule next year. That way there is only one expensive trip per band season. We do a lot of fund raising but we can't keep up with the rising prices. Especially the buses. Their cost went up by almost 20%. I am just glad I only have one kid. Some parents have two kids in the band, I don't know how they do it financially.

Some days I really love my job!

I am sitting at my desk at 2:30 on a Tuesday afternoon, eating sushi, Stilton blue cheese, smoked salmon and sipping champagne punch! And listening to a string quartet. I work at a very prestigious retirement community in Media, PA. We are celebrating the opening of the addition to out medical center as well as a complete renovation of our "commons" building. I took pictures during the ceremony which was very nice and mingles through the party crowd taking some candid shots and group shots. It rained this morning but the rain stopped in time for the ceremony at 1:00. Before and after the speeches there was a lone bag piper playing, very nice. Then everyone converged on the party. Our dining staff out did themselves. As much as we all complain about the food they feed the employees at lunch time, when it comes to a special function they are spectacular. Ahhh.... I think I will go get myself some chocolate cover strawberries for dessert! I hope hubby isn't hungry tonight, because I know I won't feel like dinner after noshing on all of the goodies here all afternoon!

Another weekend gone in an instant....

Another weekend has flown by. It is already 3:00 on Sunday afternoon. Yesterday was spent hanging around the house as Tropical Storm Hanna blew threw. Not as bad as the weather people were making it out to be. Lots of rain, just a little wind.


Today was spent lazing around. I did finish my cards for my card swap due on 9/20. I managed to get the last of the done while the cats were taking their afternoon nap!
Here is a picture of my card. It is a fall themed card. I wanted to give the stamped image a little pizazz without coloring in the whole image so I used a little stickles on the pumpkins and I thought I would just highlight a little bit on the boy (scarf and patch on knee). I should have stopped with just the pumpkins but too late now. I guess it came out ok. Plus the flash made the stickles really shiney, doesn't look that shiney in person.
The first week of school is behind us. Not too eventful. I am sure things will get into full swing this week. Went to the first football game with the band on Friday night. We played Bonner an all boy catholic HS in Upper Darby PA. We gave them their first win in two years. The band did really well, can't say the same for the football team. It is a shame because last year our team made it to the first round of the championships but since a lot of the best players graduated last year our team needs to rebuild itself. It was hot at the game and buggy. There were actually bats swooping down on the field and stands eating the bugs!


I am getting ready to go to my mother's for dinner. She is cooking us dinner for my birthday, which is actually on Wednesday. I will be 29 again!