everything which is yes

Fridge Psychology

It's another FOBTY Thursday at the Sweet Shoppe and today we are asked to take another little quizeroo.  This one is entitled, "What Your Fridge Says About You".  And apparently my fridge says this:

What Your Fridge Says About You

You like to be surrounded by things you love. You aren't exactly greedy, but you can be materialistic at times. You tend to be a fairly thrifty person. You splurge occasionally, but you're mostly a saver. You are a very adventurous person. You love to try new things, and you get bored very easily. You are responsible, together, and mature. You act like an adult, even when you don't feel like it. You are likely to be married - and very busy.

What Do the Contents of Your Refrigerator Say About You?

I'm just happy it didn't say, "step away from the fridge lardo".

So guess what?

I feel like I'm always tooting my own horn lately (nice, huh?) but I'm really thrilled about this and I want to update all my friends and family so here goes...

A few weeks ago my sweet friend Jen encouraged me to submit a layout to the Patriotic call for Bellascraps June issue.  It never occurred to me to submit anything for publication...I'm still so fresh in digiscrapping.   I hemmed and hawed a little, but I figured I'd give it a shot anyway, so I submitted.  

The layout was one of my very first, and so I felt a little "meh" about it, but it was also one of my most personal pages so it's a significant one to me. And today I found out that I was published!  Woot!  I'm so plesantly surprised!  My very first publication!  Here's a preview of this month's fabulous issue:

Hey, another little pleasant surprise.  The very sweet Dunia decided to spotlight one of my layouts on Bren Boone's team blog today (linkeroo)!  I love Bren's designs so I was honored to be feautured in their gallery spotlight.  Thanks girls! 

gooped up on the gop

So it's been brought to my attention that I've used the phrase "gooped up on the gop" quite a bit lately and so.. for all interested parties:

"gooped up on the gop" -- (adj.): Sara-ism meaning excited, thrilled, ecstatic.  Used always in a superlative way to convey unusual levels of excitement.  Synonyms: giddy, goofy from excitement, out of your gourd with excitement, pee-your-pants excited, over the moon, tickled pink.

As in: "I can hardly believe it but I'm completely gooped up on the gop about this: the Cubbies are 20 games above .500!  Or I just won the lottery, I'm SO gooped up on the gop!" 

(and please save the references that the Cubbies chances are just about as good as mine winning the lottery.  I.must.believe. this year!!) 

pretties

So our fatties are starting to turn into pretties!  We have released the first couple of swallowtail butterflies!  Bugga was so excited to see them fluttering about in the butterfly house.  I snapped a few photos. 

The first is poor quality, but I wanted you to see the underside of this species of butterfly, the colors are more vivid with blues and oranges:

And this is one of the little pretty getting ready to venture out of the butterfly house.  I figured I'd share this one because you can get an idea of what the butterfly house is like and also what the chrysallises look like (even though they aren't as interesting) for these swallowtails:

And lastly, about to fly away (yay!):

Everytime we get to see the caterpillars and butterflies I'm always amazed.  It's really a beautiful process.

Monday Morning 10

For those who are unfamiliar with how this works, it basically goes like this: I fire up my iTunes and shuffle my library and share here what ten tunes I get to enjoy this morning, at this moment.  Now as for why you really would care what I'm listening to?  Errr....maybe because it gives you a glimpse of my music tastes and personality?  Maybe because it causes you to discover new music or re-discover old tunes you love?  Maybe because you're completely bored and have nothing better to do at the moment?

1. "Everlong" (acoustic) -- The Foo Fighters (I love this version of this song.  Completely fabulous).
2. "Did Ye Get Healed?" -- Van Morrison (love the horns and flowing melody of this song).
3. "Solitary Man" -- Neil Diamond (ahhh...I'm always happy when Neil pops up on iTunes.  And this one is one of my favorites of his.  It's before the cheestastic-ness really emerged and it really showcases what I love most about him--that he's a steallar songwriter.  The arrangement here is awesome!).
4. "Like The Weather: -- 10,000 Maniacs (One of their earlier tunes and one that always makes me tap my foot despite having lyrics like: "I get a shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather.  A quiver in my lips as if I may cry.  What a cold and rainy day.  Where on earth is the sun hid away?"  The catchy, upbeat tune never did seem to mesh with the lyrics for me..and still it works somehow and I've always liked it quite a lot).
5. "Mellow Yellow" -- Donovan (Okay, I'm not entirely sure why this is in my library, especially since songs with any kind of whispering always creep me out a bit.  But still it's a classic and a little catchy.  Okay it's a lot catchy and I hope I won't be singing this all day or become obsessed with the notion of naming my next kid "Saffron", because right now it's sounding like the best idea I've ever had).
6. "Baby Can I Hold You" -- Tracy Chapman (ooh, there's something about her voice that is so rich and beautiful.  Love this simple ditty).
7. "My Way" -- Frank Sinatra (ahhh yes.  THE quintessential Sinatra song.  It is a true to yourself song and one about being fulfilled.  And maybe a little smug.  But it's Frank, so it doesn't feel so smug and I like it a lot).
8. "Tell Her" -- Del Amitri (I have a hard time even thinking of other songs by them.  This is one of those I fell in love with thanks to my sister.  And I looove the guitar and melody of this and the lyrics.  Really beautiful song.  One I can listen to over and over.  In fact, I think I will).
9. "100 Years" -- Five For Fighting (this is one of those I might have downloaded because of the hype.  But it is a great song and I can see why it was so popular for so long.  I'm a sucker for a song with some good piano.  And I love the journey of the song through the lyrics).
10. "My My" -- Seven Mary Three (if any of you are familiar with this song you'll know why this was SUCH a big change from #9 and caused me to jump a little in my seat.  It's loud and guitar heavy, and to people who don't like that style of music the singing sounds a little like shouting/screaming, but it's a remnant from my college music journey and I like it a lot).

Tangy Saturday too!

It's a tangy Saturday too!  Today is the day of the BIG reveal of the new designers at Shabby Pickle Designs and you're going to be thrilled! 

I'm so happy to finally be able to let the cat out of the bag!  We are welcoming: FABULOUS new designer Jazzmin designs, Silversword71 (woot!), crea@ - bisontine (yay!!!), Bren Boone (wow!), Kasia Designs (double wow!), and Annie Manning (Paint the Moon)!!!   And the boutique is full of gorgeous products to gobble up and get creative with.  A couple of these girls have been favorites of mine for some time and the girls I was less familiar with are fast favorites too!  I'm seriously blown away by their work!

In celebration of the new designers SPD is having a 30% storewide sale all weekend and running a few games in the forums!  It's so exciting!  I've been having fun already and I canNOT wait to share my pages with the fabulously beautiful designs from these girls!

Sweet Saturday

As always there are some fabulous new releases at the Sweet Shoppe today!  And I had a blast working with the new goodies from Heather and Traci.

Traci put out this FABULOUS boy kit (though I think it's really versatile and will work beautifully for the girls too).  It's called Bare Feet and Blue Jeans and I just adore the color scheme and the elements.  I saw it and immediately thought of some sweet photos of my dear webfriend Beth's son.  So I decided to whip up a page to surprise her:

"sweet boy" (everything here by Traci Reed, with exception of the bubble wrap brushes, by Emily Merritt):

And Heather's new kit is To The Rescue, a firefighter themed one and so bright and vibrant.  She also released an adorable add-on pack for this.  It's too cute!  This kit was just perfect for some photos of my nephew and his love of all things firefighter over the years:

"firefighter dreams" (everything here by Heather Roselli, except scruffy paper template by Jan Hicks, Road Rage alpha by Dani Mogstad, and ink edges action by Atomic Cupcake):

Scrapping awesome boy kits makes my uterus ache a bit for a little boy.  Haha.

Tooty Tooterson!

I'm so excited to finally share my latest toot!  I'm sooo gooped-up-on-the-gop about this!  I've been invited on to be a part of Traci Reed's CT team!!  She's so fabulous and I've already had a blast working with her fabulous products and I'm sooo excited to be working alongside her talented team! 

Here's one of my favorite pages I've created with her fabulous goodies:

live in color (full credits):

I can't wait to work with more of her beautiful designs!  In fact, be on the lookout for something else in just a bit. 

I just have to say, I'm really just overwhelmed (in a good way) with how quickly I've been welcomed into the digiscrapping community and given opportunities to be creative and work with some of my favorite designers.  This has taken my love of designing and scrapping to a whole new level.  And it's all so inspiring. 

our swallowtails

So since our last butterly garden update, we've housed 8 fatties in our little butterfly house and they've all since made chrysallises. The caterpillars and butterflies are really the "cool" things to look at and the chrysallises are less interesting so I'll spare you a photo of them.  They basically look like dried leaves. 

Bug Bear has been wanting to check on the caterpillars daily and she's so excited to see the butterflies.  Won't be long now!

summertime fun

It's another FOBTY day at Sweet Shoppe and today Meghan has us thinking about summer and our favorite activities.

I'll be honest and say that I'm a bit of a Debbie Downer when it comes to outdoor summer activities here.  Many of the days are so SO hot and humid that I can't stand to be outside for very long.  So my true favorite summer activity is probably playing games inside as a family.

But I hate to coop up bug bear so there are a few outdoor summertime funs that we like to do.  And we generally choose the kind of fun that is breezy and wet and as cool as possible, lol.  We love the splash pad:

We love the pool:

We like to hikes (and please take note per the husband's request that this is NOT a picture of him wearing a skirt.  It's his windbreaker tied around his waist):

And, of course, I love to dig in the dirt and do my butterfly gardening.

What are your favorite summertime activities?

Bugga is also showing interest in the beach this year and since we live, you know, practically ON the beach we'll have to take advantage of that this summer.