The FULL REVEAL of the new October Afternoon Blog and tons of goodies is TOMORROW!!! Check it out…February 17th!

October Afternoon Blog

In early October, I was asked to be a guest designer for Fiskars, and they sent me an extremely generous amount of product, just to create one project. It was by total coincidence, but I created a layout about Bette only two days before she was admitted to the hospital for the final time and exactly two weeks before she passed. You can see it here…

http://www.fiskarscrafts.com/projects/t_always1108.aspx

I’ll miss her…

I posted.

Shocking, I know.

It’s been a crazy time in my life since last January…my stepmother was diagnosed with cancer in May and was lost to it last week (a long story for another post ); I began my master’s program at Vanderbilt in August, and work, work, work. I could write for a while.

But there are a few less depressing, more interesting things to talk about. Like this:

Yes, it is finally out! I was thrilled to work with Amanda, um, a YEAR ago creating projects for this, along w/ Summer Fullerton, Tiffany Tillman (go Hampton Roads girls!) and Laura Kurz. Trust me, this book is gonna knock your socks off.

Here’s the ‘Official Blurb’…

Month by Month Scrapbooking
by Amanda Probst

This is the year.

· The year you remember to take pictures of unique family traditions.

· The year you come up with a system for scrapping all your holiday photos.

· The year you devise inventive twists on the typical seasonal layouts and projects.

Let CK Dream Team member Amanda Probst and her crew of talented scrapbookers show you how to maximize the creative potential each month holds. You’ll find tons of inspiration for all the traditional annual events, rites, and rituals, along with new perspectives on how to document your daily life throughout the months of the year.

Don’t put it off any longer! This is the year you embrace your schedule-driven life and put your calendar to work for you. You need this book!

154 page book. $19.99. Available December 1, 2008.

If you like the idea, join Amanda’s fun little group…(This is something fun and new!) Anyone can join this group and follow along with her and she offers challenges, giveaways, etc. there. Next week is our online promotion week for this book so be sure to check both the webpage and this group out!

http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/component/option,com_groupjive/task,showgroup/groupid,741/Itemid,68/

And, of course, the link of where you can pre-order/purchase the book.

http://community.creatingkeepsakes.com/store/products/month_by_month_scrapbooking

ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Those are projects that Alexis and I made while we were at Getaway at the beach (look familiar to anyone????? lol!) Just some super simple projects that we made for Project X. Want to buy or see the project sheets? Click here.

Of course, CHA project-making is in full swing at this house for another 24 hours. Need to take some pictures!!! If you are coming, come visit me at the Xyron booth…I’ll be the geek teaching the Wishblade classes.

Yes, I am still alive. December was a pretty rough month. The first week I was sick w/ some sort of stomach virus, then managed to irritate my stomach even more with my pain meds - enough to land me in the ER for the night. Both kids had it, too, and thankfully, my mother-in-law was also visiting, so Chris had a little household help while I recovered.

The second week we were in Disney w/ my mom, brother, sis-in-law, and nephew. I haven’t been there since I was 6, so that was loads of fun. Already planning the return trip. Of course, I was still in recovery mode from the yuck above, and Chris managed to get it while we were at Sea World, but it was still a memorable 4 days.

The second and third weeks I had the head/chest cold from Hell. Not fun. Period. And I was still weak from illness #1 of the month, so it wasn’t a good combo.

Then came Christmas, which I was little prepared for. Didn’t matter, Christmas Day still rocks for me. Hence, the picture above. Finally 90% recovered, it was a wonderful day. Dad and Bette surprised the kids again, Gabe got the model train he asked for, Emily got her ‘purple baby’ (aka Bitty Baby), that, as you can see above, has been attached to her hip, and Chris got the latest addition to his Star Wars Lego collection and a heated mattress pad that I’m totally in love with. Feels good to climb into a warm bed every night (although it doesn’t matter tonight as, obviously, I cannot sleep - it’s 3:30 am right now and I need to leave for work in 4 1/2 hours. Ick.) Me? I got a bazillion gift cards, an “It’s a Wonderful Life” plaque that is just awesome, credit card holder, two books that I’d already read, and a few other little things. Oh, and if you look behind us in the picture, you can see some resemblance of some of the new wall color for the living room and foyer that was done just before Thanksgiving. I LOOOOOOOVE it. Must get a better picture up of that… We also gave each other a family gift - a Wii. Man, that thing is addicting. And a WORKOUT! At least we will have something to do while the writers are still on strike and all of our favorite shows are on rerun.

The best gift? That’s easy to answer…in the middle of opening presents from Poppop and Mommom, after Santa’s and Mommy/Daddy’s gifts had been open, Gabe blurted out, “This is the best Christmas ever.” My Christmas could have ended right there without me opening a single gift, and I would have been complete. Sigh. He said it again over breakfast. How delightful.

I hope all of you have had an absolutely wonderful holiday season, and an even better New Year to come!

And, since I’ve been so defunct lately, here’s a few photos from the past month…

Memom’s visit. I have a picture of me at her age doing the same thing to my aunt…

The 3 grandkids at Disney:

One of my cookie-baking helpers:

The Education Department of SNGH - getting lively for the camera at our Christmas party:

The kids on Christmas morning…the one day this year they didn’t fight!!! WOOHOO!

And how cute is this one??

Em opening one of the bazillion Princess things she received…

And loving it up w/ ‘Purple Baby’ (yes, that is what she named her.)

Christmas morning kisses - he deserves them.

And finally, one of my little Christmas projects:

According to Creating Keepsakes, I have another daughter. I promise that I don’t! Meet Alex, my neighbor’s daughter and my little model for the project I made for the December issue. Isn’t she a cutie? hehe.

Also, I want to add something big that happened in our life today and yesterday. Yesterday, Chris put on his Army boots for the very last time. Today he officially began his terminal leave, meaning that he has off from now until January 15th. I think I took all of this harder than he did; I felt guilty that he did it all for me. After a ton of reassuring, he promises that he did it for all of us. This was something we prepared for for many years; we knew that we didn’t want to be moving the kids around once they hit school-age, but it still didn’t make this week any easier.

So, in other words, it seems that today is the first day of a new way of living for the Odie’s. (oh, and those organizational supplies came in, too! Looks like I have something to work on this weekend. eek.)

I cannot see my desks. Or my floor.

It’s really awful. There are boxes of stuff everywhere. And, yeah, we won’t talk about the desks.

Step 1 in the reorganization project was buying an Expedit sideboard from Ikea last month to put in the Foyer. I’ve since moved all of my albums out there to free up some much-needed shelf space in here. I’ve also moved some magazines and books out there into pretty magazine file holders. So now, back to the office.

I’ve just clicked the ‘order’ button at Stampin Up. $150 later (eek!!!), I will have 12 paper holders, dividers, and some other things on the way to my house within the week. (Stampin Up stuff takes WAY too long to ship from Utah to Virginia, but I digress.) When they get here, I have a plan - ORGANIZE!!!!! Up until now, I’ve had my paper in two file drawers under my desk - cardstock in one, patterned paper in another. Well, the patterned paper collection has grown to large and doesn’t all fit into the drawer any more. Hence, a stack of it sits unorganized in one of the cubbies on my shelves, and even more is in boxes on the floor. My cardstock drawer, while organized, is so chock full that I cannot reach the paper in the back of the drawer without removing one of the large folders from the front first. Yikes! So, the plan is to organize all of my patterned paper in the paper holders, and divide the cardstock among the two drawers. More paper holders will be reserved for organizing layouts that are awaiting being put into albums. Hopefully, this will encourage me to keep this place organized and clean so that I feel more inclined to scrap. PLEASE! I’m dying to scrap, but between the mess and me being tired from working now, it has been SOOOOOOOOOOO hard!!!!

So, who’s with me? Hop on the organization train!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MISS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WISH I COULD BE THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, orientation classes are over, and tomorrow is my first full day in my office. Did I just say that? Holy cow, I have an OFFICE! So darn cool! I’m taking some pictures and such in tomorrow to do a little decorating, and we’ll see where it goes from there. Hmmm, I guess I should actually take pictures of it or something huh? I even get my pager and order my business cards tomorrow! Is this seriously for real? I feel like I grew up all of a sudden!!!

On the Scrappy Front, I’m a wee bit on cloud 9 at the moment. Why??? Ohhh, maybe b/c I finally got my hands on the Hall of Fame Book!!!!!! I don’t know what was cooler for me - seeing my face in it, or showing it to my mom. No one else can gush over you like your own Mother can. I just happened to be lucky enough that she was staying in Williamsburg this week with her friend, so I got to go hand-deliver a copy of the book that I bought for her.

The only thing that bugged me about my layouts in there is that no one in the world will be able to figure out how to read the title of my ‘The View from Different Angles’ layout on pg 140. So here it is…hold the book at an angle and read from the bottom of the book up. It should look like this:

Do you get it? You have to hold it at an angle to read ‘the view from different angles.’ I put so much thought into that, and you can’t even tell looking at the book! Oops! Sorry - it’s just one of those few layouts in my lifetime that I’m really very proud of. I don’t get pride in things very often, so thanks for letting me get that one out!!!

For more scrappiness, I’ve been decorating a few things w/ some Hambly-ness. Here they are:

1. a coffee mug insert (the pics in my old one were 2 years old - it was time for an update so I can always see my family at work!)

2. Magnetic board. (picked this one up at Ikea for all of 10 bucks, and spiced it up w/ a few Hambly rubs. It’s going to hang in the laundry room for the kids so that all of the papers and such can get off of the fridge and onto their own personal space. )

hehe - look closely and you might see my reflection taking a picture. Oops!

I guess that’s about it for now. Check on the CK Message Board in the morning for the latest HOF Manufacturer Challenge!