Poor neglected blog

I havent blogged in forever….many days I say I gotta do it today and time just gets away from me. My eldest dd is graduating this year. She turned 18 in  February and each month gets closer to her leaving the nest. May 2 she went to her senior prom.

This is her and her date (and best friend) Lamar. They looked so gorgeous. Its a bittersweet feeling to see her growing older…what happened to my baby….

She always did look gorgeous in pink!

With all of that going on and my grandma passing away, I haven’t really been in mood to design. No creative spark at all. So I think I am just going to concentrate on forum participation at the sites I sell at and scrapping some of these  gazillion pictures I have. Now if I could just stay off of FB

Mercury Retrograde...

I admit i check my horoscope from time to time. I am not fanatical about but when I do I ALWAYS go to Susan Miller's Astrology Zone. She is usually has things that are so exact it is eerie. well this months forecast for me starts out like this,

"After a fairly stressful September, you are looking forward to October, and rightly so. Mercury, your ruler, will still be retrograde for the first three weeks of October. This time you may welcome the slower pace that Mercury retrograde brings. With two eclipses in August and a very difficult full moon in mid-September, you've been dealing with a lot of news and shifting situations." Ok cue the spooky music! Lady get outta my life and head...stressful September was an understatement..

here is another gem..."At work, if you are in the creative department, this month you'll find it easy to come up with ideas but a little harder to execute them properly."
Guess thats why my idea book is full but my upload queue is almost empty...execution seems to beyond my grasp right now....

but now that the retrograde has passed (Oct 20) i should be able to get back in the swing of things....right????

Work in Progress & freebie

thats how I feel. My life has been so hectic...my eldest is graduating this year. She has decided on a college (go Grambling Tigers) but still has ACT to take, she made captain of the cheerleading squad and nominated to Homecoming Court...all of this means her extracurricular load is crazy...practice for this, practice for that, community appearances...whooo...busy busy busy. Here is Pixie in her uniform pic

my youngest son is seeing a new pediatric neurologist because the two previous ones moved out of the area. She is GREAT! i was really unhappy with the last one he had. He was good with my son but I just found him somewhat standoffish. My son will also be seeing a physiatrist...I had never heard of it either...its a rehabilitation doctor. Rehabilitation physicians are nerve, muscle, and bone experts who treat injuries or illnesses that affect how you move. Jorrell's official diagnosis is hemplegic cerebral palsy (resulting from stroke he suffered in utero) which means this doctor will use his expertise to oversee the physical & occupational therapy. Even with him getting it at school & outpatient once a week, we are noticing increased tone or difficulty with him doing the range of motion exercises. It makes me sad to see how he has to use his left arm turn his right arm in supine position.

But he is a real trooper and so sweet! The brace on his arm is to help with finger extension!
Those are just a few of the things that are keeping me busy. i also seem to have lost my mojo...i am working on a set of paper preview templates. A friend asked me to make her some so I obliged. This one supports 8 papers so here is a sample download here.
i am also working on my first tagger kit..I am part of the yahoo group Truly Inspired and next couple weeks, there will be a blog train based on this story SHIMILY (be sure to have your tissues ready). Stay tuned to for more info on that.

Almost two weeks

Since I blogged and I been busy, busy, busy. I started back in school on Monday. I also started the The Artist Way book club and I am SO enjoying it. Its a 12 week course in restoring creativity. This is really pre week and getting in to the swing of things.

http://paperartstudio.tripod.com/artistsway/index.html

this is a link to a website that has the whole book broken down by chapters.

I can't seem to finish any of my designs lately so I hope that this will help me find my inner artist/child and nurture her

I have a free template offered at Scrapbookers Playground for my template challenge...its a rectangle for all you non squares.

Still feeling blah

I feel so stagnated. I know a lot of it has to do with missing family members who have passed away as well as those who have moved away. I can remember Christmas Holidays from long ago with the grandkids (me included) and my cousins from out of town came. We would play Monopoly with my aunts & uncles (My Uncle Rick always cheated) while Grandma cooked the best sweet potato pie (and I got my OWN pie)....My dad would be singing off key while we all laughed at him.

Twenty or more years later, those days are gone. My Aunts Tammy & Cristy as well as my cousin Tahnee have gone on to heaven. And they live in on my heart. My grandma has cataracts so bad she hasnt baked in years. And she lives all way in Cincinnati. I haven't seen her in two years almost.