Thread: Everyday Chatting & Waffling {2021} Let's get to know each other!

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Alexis is up in Edmonton visiting a friend for a week, the house seems so quiet without her.
I am in charge of bunny duty. gotta keep the little guys in tip top shape, she facetimed them this morning.

My van is currently getting fixed, I have needed it done forever, but thats life.

got my son registered for online school this year, finishing his last few high school credits. and courses and requirements. school starts on the first
 
Ane, So nice that you a re able to help out your friends. I couldn't imagine going through hurricane season every year.

Sherri, It is so cute that Alexis face times with her bunnies! Kids don't start school her until September 7th and my grand-daughter is going back to classes this year, she is happy to be in-person (grade 6 so lots of friend time is important). I worry though since she just turned 11 and is not yet eligible for the vaccine.

This weekend I am finishing up my Arizona book to get it ready for printing. I have procrastinated for so long and extended my voucher twice and no more extensions allowed so by August 31 it has to be ready to order. I also have a book of my Mom's birthday with a series of family photos to print and a book of Nashville that I put together for my sister-in-law. My house is a wreck and the yard is overgrown since we have had rain off and on for over 2 weeks and I have CT work to do, I guess I will be busy!
 
So good of you to open your home, Ane!

We don't start school until the 7th here either Karen, but I'm hard at work getting things ready, even though I'm not going back into a building this year either. In fact, I cleaned out my desk last week and it felt really, really weird to be without an office-home at all. Sorta lost.

I have the grands last week and next because mom is without childcare so that will get me through thinking about being without an office at least.
 
I hope everything was ok for your friend hiding from Ida, Ane! I'm in the Florida Panhandle, and we've just had lots of rain. County schools are closed tomorrow though.

Sherri, so cute that your daughter FaceTimes her bunnies lol. That would be so cute to scrapbook.

Karen, I hope your g-daughter has a great year. My brother is also in-person (he was last year as well), but it definitely concerns me. Thankfully he's 16 and is getting his second Pfizer shot this coming weekend.

Carla, hi! I'm not sure we've crossed paths before. Are you an online teacher?

I hope you all have a great week. I've had a pretty relaxing weekend, lunch on Saturday with family, then today I played Animal Crossing and scrapbooked. This week will be quite an exciting week for me... ;) Lots to do.
 
Not an online teacher, Olivia. I work for the local school district and my job is online. Where do you think we've "met"? I LOVE meeting old friends and what is "Animal Crossing"?

We DIDN'T have the grands this weekend. Had them all last week because daycare was discontinued before school began. I love having them here, but it's tough with work. They're so wonderful though and then I miss them terribly when they're gone. They'll only be here a few days this week because Anne found some play dates for them this week and then we WILL have them on Saturday and Sunday so she can be in a wedding.

And then school starts full force and I am ready!!!
 
So sorry to hear this. I hope that by working on the video for your friend's memorial that you are able to remember the good times and that the process is healing for you. Hugs!!!

I've been working on the video for my friend's memorial. I might not be around too often this next week or two. I am still bowled over by Nanci's death. We were working on the invitation to her 60th birthday and a few days later she was gone. Working on the memorial video moves me to tears.
 
Not an online teacher, Olivia. I work for the local school district and my job is online. Where do you think we've "met"? I LOVE meeting old friends and what is "Animal Crossing"?

We DIDN'T have the grands this weekend. Had them all last week because daycare was discontinued before school began. I love having them here, but it's tough with work. They're so wonderful though and then I miss them terribly when they're gone. They'll only be here a few days this week because Anne found some play dates for them this week and then we WILL have them on Saturday and Sunday so she can be in a wedding.

And then school starts full force and I am ready!!!

Sorry, I was saying we haven't met before. :) Always good to meet new people, I'm finding a lot of new scrappers here at GS.

Animal Crossing is a Nintendo game--it's a life sim where you live on an island. It's very cute, I've scrapbooked about it some but I don't think I have any layouts of it here at GS.

I hope you have a great school year! :D
 
AH! Misread. Not surprising. My brain is totally fried right now, getting ready for school to start. As I said, work for the school district and my job is online. I do all the MA billing for the district and it's a lot of jumping through hoops, dotting "i's", crossing "t's", making sure things get done on time and data entry. This time of year it's mind-numbing and eye-crossing!
 
The remodeling is starting to drive me crazy! It seems every couple of days worth of work, it gets delayed for some reason or another. Upstairs still needs a couple of finishing touches... handrail, light fixture securely hung, some wiring in bathroom, last bit of carpeting than the inspector and a CO (Certificate of Occupancy)!
Downstairs was delayed 2 days because the electrician ran into a problem on a job at another site. Supposed to demo our bathroom yesterday but they are doing it today. At this point with a delay every few days I don't count on things to get done when they say anymore. I'm frustrated and tired of living out of boxes.
The work they do is amazing! Can't believe how everything came together upstairs. Can't wait to see downstairs all done and we start unpacking. I've been taking tons of pictures of the progress. You'll see layouts when things settle down!
 
I have good news! My 2nd son (middle child) is getting married in November! His fiancée is vastly different from his first one, and I think it's going to work out this time. :D

This is so exciting! And even though my houseguests are still here (it was quite a hurricane!), I'm ready for this to happen. We were going out there anyway for Thanksgiving, but now we will have even more to celebrate.
 
Some of my in-laws were on the edge of that hurricane, Ane - and were out of power for a couple of days. I hope your friends don't find much damage when they go home. Congrats to your son!

Lily, I wish I had your contractor - we had a bathroom put in recently, and it looks like a DIY in places. They never put the backsplash up and couldn't be contacted after we gave them a check. (Yes, my husband's mistake, he knows). We even went by the office and despite the sign saying OPEN, the door was locked. Glad yours is looking great!

Sherri that's cute about her facetiming the bunnies! They do get attached! (and so do the humans, lol) One of my friends is a bunny foster mom - she says she's going to stop that b/c she keeps adopting them, but then she can't resist the next rescue situation. I never realized how much care they need; I've never had a bunny. Her husband builds all kinds of wonderful looking feeding and housing units for them.

I just have one very old dog!
 
Happy September, I am in denial as I do not know where August went, other than poof!!!

I went to pick Alexis up and take her to a surgeon appointment and then bring her home. That was a really long day for both of us. Then yesterday was spent trying to figure out and encourage insurance to cover this surgery and not to have to pay out of pocket. So frustrating.
Bought the bunnies a rug and they are not impressed with it. I think it is funny.
They do need much care and attention. As they are prey animals its in their instrincts to hide anything that is wrong. You need to know them well to pick up on cues. We love them. This is our second pair of them, we have had them for just over a year, and our last pair Whipping Cream lived 11 years. Maple shorter.
 
Congrats Ane! That's so exciting.

I can't believe it's September either, Sherri. But I'm so glad it is because now my shop is open! ;)
 
Liv! That's wonderful! Congrats!

Ane, how great for your son.

Sherri, give Alexis a HUGE HUG for me.

LilyAnn, can't wait to see the layouts! Reno is SO frustrating!
 
Some of my in-laws were on the edge of that hurricane, Ane - and were out of power for a couple of days. I hope your friends don't find much damage when they go home. Congrats to your son!

Lily, I wish I had your contractor - we had a bathroom put in recently, and it looks like a DIY in places. They never put the backsplash up and couldn't be contacted after we gave them a check. (Yes, my husband's mistake, he knows). We even went by the office and despite the sign saying OPEN, the door was locked. Glad yours is looking great!

Sherri that's cute about her facetiming the bunnies! They do get attached! (and so do the humans, lol) One of my friends is a bunny foster mom - she says she's going to stop that b/c she keeps adopting them, but then she can't resist the next rescue situation. I never realized how much care they need; I've never had a bunny. Her husband builds all kinds of wonderful looking feeding and housing units for them.

I just have one very old dog!

Elizabeth! It is so good to see your stuff in the store :) I can't wait to scrap with it. You have such awesome scrapping kits.
 
Sorry I have not been around much, I am going through a lot with the grief from my friend Nanci's death from COVID. It is so insane... I dealt with the death of two adult children better than I am handling this. I don't know what is doing on. All I know is I was talking with her planning her 60th birthday party and a few days later, she was gone.

I am also babysitting my grandson, Bruce, full time until mid September, teaching a class on digital graphics (on GIMP) and taking care of my daughter's 'farm' while she is working the Electric Zoo music festival in New York. The farm consists of five chickens, four fish and a ton of stuff that needs watering, weeding, etc. Fortunately, she lives with my grandson and his parents, so I can take care of the farm AND Bruce at the same time.

Karen worked this last week on the Deco team for the Electric Zoo (they do all the decorations) and everything they did was totally wiped out by the storms. The team was devastated, but Karen said it could have been way worse. They were all safe and okay and people had lost way more than that. I am so proud of her.

Her boyfriend, Jon, is on tour with a band called P.O.D. I had never heard of them, but apparently they are quite famous. He is their sound tech, but has been asked to stand in for their drummer for the balance of the tour. He is insanely busy now he has the drummer as well as two sound tech jobs. He drummed on their last European tour also. He is a lovely young man.

I love reading what everyone has been up to. My favourite is definitely Alexis Facetiming her bunnies.
 
Hope everyone popping into this thread are keeping well and happy.

I thought I would share that you may see me more often again. Another site I thought I might be more active on is not as friendly as it used to be when I joined it back in my early days of digi.
Also considering how HUGE my Ginger Scraps stash is, it only makes sense that I come and take part in the challenges here.
 
I've been keeping busy and not a lot of time for chatting. I continue to be busy with CT duties, dog exercise/training/walking and keeping up with my desk work. My hubs gave a 3 month notice to retire from work. He decided to go a year early. He is tired of working and although we'll take a bit of a hit financially, I understand his need to do this. We'll manage, just have to tighten up the spending. Good news is that he will then have the time to start purging and getting the house ready, in preparation for selling. We've been compiling stuff for almost 25 yrs in this house so there will be a lot of visits to charity drop off and the garbage dump. The plan will be to get it on the market by next winter or the following early spring. Then we can downsize, pay off all debts, not have a mortgage and do some traveling.

The rain is coming this afternoon so I'll get out soon to the dog park for a few hours and then home to get some scrapping done and watch some shows this afternoon. I want to make some muffins and homemade caesar dressing, for lunch/dinners over the next week. I also want to plan out a few crockpot meals to make for hubs. Tomorrow I'll spend some time with Bailey and hope to get a few new pics of her, we haven't done our little photo shoots together for awhile. So that's my wkend.

Hope all is well and BFN.
 
Lynnie, I'm so sorry for your loss. Grief can be very confusing. I hope you find comfort. <3

Hi Anne-Marie!! Good to see you here. I enjoyed doing the challenges last month--I hope you find them fun! Plus we have the Birthday Fun & Games this week.

Hey Rae, I'm glad you're able to swing an early retirement with your husband. Traveling sounds like so much fun! What places are on your bucket list?

It's been a busy week for me. Opening my shop here has been very exciting! I hope to participate in some of the Birthday activities this weekend and wrap up next week's releases. :)
 
Oh Lynnie, so sorry about your friend. That's awful.
I have never heard of P.O.D. either but I listen to audiobooks in the car. What happened to the drummer; did Karen say? I hope Jon's pay increases with the added responsibility.

Anne-Marie; glad you have decided to spend time here! I hope you get time to look through the Birthday celebration challenges!

I am still learning my way around. Some days I can't find my way back to this thread, lol. But I'll just keep making turns down this and that corridor until I have the map in my head!
 
Lynnie, I am sorry for the loss of your friend. I hope the pain you are experiencing eases for you. Us women are very emotional and you never know how our emotions will take us in these sorts of events.
 
Anne-Marie, this is the best news I've had all day! I've missed "seeing you" and glad that you might be more active here again! :D

Hope everyone popping into this thread are keeping well and happy.

I thought I would share that you may see me more often again. Another site I thought I might be more active on is not as friendly as it used to be when I joined it back in my early days of digi.
Also considering how HUGE my Ginger Scraps stash is, it only makes sense that I come and take part in the challenges here.
 
I took alexis to edmonton yesterday for her pre admissions screening for an upcoming surgery. It was a long day and both of us are tired out today. Also announced today was that all elective surgeries in calgary are cancelled this week. Fingers crossed edmonton doesn’t do same.
 
Sherri - fingers crossed for you. My hubs has a procedure scheduled next week so hope it all goes smoothly.

Life has been busy with the usual stuff...family, CT duties, work duties, dogs and trying to find new recipes to try out. I like being plant based but need to add in a bit more variety now but want simple easy meals. I've been looking thru cookbooks, checking Pinterest and Youtube and have found a few I like. I made homemade ranch dressing that I like. This wkend I want to try a recipe I found for caesar dressing.

Hope you all are well and enjoy the upcoming wkend. It's only been a 4 day work week but feels like a 5 day so am glad for 2 days off. I think as I come into my last yr of working, I am starting to really look forward to not working or at least only a few days a week. I'll really feel it when hubs is finished work in a few months. He'll be hanging around the house as I work, I think that will increase my desire to stop working too. Oh well....soon enough :)
 
Crossing all cross-ables, Sherri!

Rae, I feel like this week just disappeared! This probably isn't plant based lol, but you reminded me that we wanted to try recreating Texas Roadhouse's ranch dressing. We even found the copycat recipe online and completely forgot about it! Maybe I'll remember to add the ingredients to our next grocery order.

This week I've spent designing, playing more Animal Crossing (anyone else who plays...you'll understand the amount of time I'm spending on redoing my island lol), and scrapbooking. Finding a balance is something I'm trying to work on, especially because designing can take away from scrapbooking time/creativity, and I want to stay involved as a hobbyist while I design.

I don't think I have anything on the agenda for the weekend! And I'm not sure if I want a weekend in or to get out of the house.
 
---I thought I would share that you may see me more often again. Another site I thought I might be more active on is not as friendly as it used to be when I joined it back in my early days of digi.
Also considering how HUGE my Ginger Scraps stash is, it only makes sense that I come and take part in the challenges here.

That is the best news ever! Not that your other site is not as friendly, but that you will be around more :)

I've been keeping busy and not a lot of time for chatting. I continue to be busy with CT duties, dog exercise/training/walking and keeping up with my desk work. My hubs gave a 3 month notice to retire from work. He decided to go a year early. He is tired of working and although we'll take a bit of a hit financially, I understand his need to do this. We'll manage, just have to tighten up the spending. Good news is that he will then have the time to start purging and getting the house ready, in preparation for selling. We've been compiling stuff for almost 25 yrs in this house so there will be a lot of visits to charity drop off and the garbage dump. The plan will be to get it on the market by next winter or the following early spring. Then we can downsize, pay off all debts, not have a mortgage and do some traveling.

The rain is coming this afternoon so I'll get out soon to the dog park for a few hours and then home to get some scrapping done and watch some shows this afternoon. I want to make some muffins and homemade caesar dressing, for lunch/dinners over the next week. I also want to plan out a few crockpot meals to make for hubs. Tomorrow I'll spend some time with Bailey and hope to get a few new pics of her, we haven't done our little photo shoots together for awhile. So that's my wkend.

Hope all is well and BFN.

I was never sorry that I made the decision to retire a little earlier than I had planned. I could have had quite a bit more money per month if I had stayed a few more years, but I just couldn't do it. I needed to be done and enjoy my life. I am so glad I made that decision - Every! Single! Day!! We purged and moved a few years before I retired and it left us in a far better place financially. We sold our house and bought a small place outright in a retirement community. Life here has been great.

We had a huge thunderstorm last night. It was totally unexpected. We hardly ever have summer rain where we live, much less a thunderstorm. I miss the rain! We are looking forward to seeing the pics of Bailey.

Lynnie, I'm so sorry for your loss. Grief can be very confusing. I hope you find comfort.

Hi Anne-Marie!! Good to see you here. I enjoyed doing the challenges last month--I hope you find them fun! Plus we have the Birthday Fun & Games this week.

Hey Rae, I'm glad you're able to swing an early retirement with your husband. Traveling sounds like so much fun! What places are on your bucket list?

It's been a busy week for me. Opening my shop here has been very exciting! I hope to participate in some of the Birthday activities this weekend and wrap up next week's releases. :)

I did not realize you were a designer, too! How fun to see your products in the store. I hope they do well and you make a home here.

Oh Lynnie, so sorry about your friend. That's awful.
I have never heard of P.O.D. either but I listen to audiobooks in the car. What happened to the drummer; did Karen say? I hope Jon's pay increases with the added responsibility.

Anne-Marie; glad you have decided to spend time here! I hope you get time to look through the Birthday celebration challenges!

I am still learning my way around. Some days I can't find my way back to this thread, lol. But I'll just keep making turns down this and that corridor until I have the map in my head!

I just bookmarked everything and eventually found my way around. I am good now.

I am so happy to see your stuff in the store here :) to have a DSP designer here is my ultimate dream. I have such a stash of your stuff, too.

The drummer had some health issues, I think. I don't know about the pay, but he is living his dream and I don't think he cares. He is an awesome guy and was a huge fan of P.O.D. when he was a youngster. He said that if he could pick the band he wanted to tour with, it would have been P.O.D. To drum with them full-time on stage to filled stadiums of 15,000 people is like us being asked to sing with the Troggs :) Not that I have ever dreamed of that, or that they would ever want me after they heard me sing haha!

Lynnie, I am sorry for the loss of your friend. I hope the pain you are experiencing eases for you. Us women are very emotional and you never know how our emotions will take us in these sorts of events.

This one struck me very hard. I was planning her 60th birthday celebration one day and her memorial two days later. I can't believe it. It still feels like a bad dream. Then my ex sister-in law died two days ago. Her sister, Nano, had died less than a year ago of COVID. Kanani died of cancer. They were both in my first wedding, to their brother. We kept in touch, but not very closely. They took part of my life with them.
 
I took alexis to edmonton yesterday for her pre admissions screening for an upcoming surgery. It was a long day and both of us are tired out today. Also announced today was that all elective surgeries in calgary are cancelled this week. Fingers crossed edmonton doesn’t do same.

Keep us posted. She needs this if she is going to get her life back without the amount of pain she has been suffering. Give her my love. We can all Zoom again one day soon.

Crossing all cross-ables, Sherri!

Rae, I feel like this week just disappeared! This probably isn't plant based lol, but you reminded me that we wanted to try recreating Texas Roadhouse's ranch dressing. We even found the copycat recipe online and completely forgot about it! Maybe I'll remember to add the ingredients to our next grocery order.

This week I've spent designing, playing more Animal Crossing (anyone else who plays...you'll understand the amount of time I'm spending on redoing my island lol), and scrapbooking. Finding a balance is something I'm trying to work on, especially because designing can take away from scrapbooking time/creativity, and I want to stay involved as a hobbyist while I design.

I don't think I have anything on the agenda for the weekend! And I'm not sure if I want a weekend in or to get out of the house.

I understand about designing (or other things, in my case) taking away from the creative part of your life. I know I feel the same when stuff gets in the way of my life.
 
Good morning everyone.
Lynnie - good to see you back here. Hugs to you, for all you've lost. I know you love your retirement and sure hope I say the same thing next year. We will start getting the house ready to sell next year and hopefully get it on the market sometime between next fall, early spring. Next year will be a busy time of purging and working on the house, plus getting out to look at different areas and house pricing to decide what areas interest us. What a big move that is going to be.

Liv - I had to google that ranch dressing. It is sort of similar to the one I make except I put in almond milk and omited the mayo but I may put a half tbsp of light mayo into mine today and see how that tastes. I omit the cayenne but put in taco spice, garlic, onion, parsley, parmesan spice, smidge of stevia and salt/pepper. I also put in a bit of nutritional yeast and a smidge of gluccomanan (thickener).

Anne-Marie - yes, it makes sense to hang out here (b/c of the awesome people) but also b/c you have a lot of stash to use.

I'll cut hubs' hair today, go to the dog park, do some CT work, get groceries and later we'll binge a few more episodes of Big Sky. The new season starts at the end of the month so we want to catch up. Got two episodes of AHS to watch too.

I'm sure the wkend will fly by, it always does :) Have a good day everyone.
 
Boy, when it rains it pours...

I am not sure how many of you know that my dad was married before and I have three half-sisters, Linda, Sue and Jenny, I have been trying to find for the last 50 years. I found them earlier this year and we have been catching up and planning to get together. The oldest, Linda, suffered from severe dementia, so we were not hopeful of meeting her.

Well, Sue contacted me today to let me know that Linda passed away this morning. There is a grief for a sister I never knew, for a loss of a dream, and for the heartache of the remaining sisters. I was also touched that she contacted me within an hour of her death. It means she regards me as a close family member and I love that.

Don't get the idea that I am depressed about all the loss that is going on around me. There is a sadness about the loss of a sister, a dear friend and two sisters-in-law, but I have much to be grateful for and don't sink to the depths of sadness over these things. I let myself grieve, but still find everyday happiness.

My friend, Nanci's, celebration of life was yesterday. I made the decision not to go. There were quite a few people there and I decided it was too risky. They asked for proof of vaccination or a COVID test, and required masking, but I was still a little uneasy, given I babysit my grandson and take care of my elderly mother. My brother said it was phenomenal and the pictures were amazing. Musicians and bands came from all over to play at the memorial. There were videos sent in from musicians all over the world. I did the video slide show and scrapped all the slides. I finally cut it down to 662 slides. I started with over 800, but eliminated a lot of them, it was just too overwhelming. I was pleased with the end-result and my brother said it looked beautiful.

I have struggled trying to work out what to do with myself now it is all done. I have worked so hard the last month taking care of the farm, babysitting my grandson and getting the video done, along with everything else. It has been loads of fun, but I am glad the farm and the video are done. I have another week babysitting Bruce full-time, then I go back to Saturdays only. That will be nice. I start teaching my new graphics class tomorrow. That is four 2-hour classes on GIMP. I enjoy that, too.
 
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