Layout share

So I thought it was about time I got on my daughters myspace page & started stealing some photos to scrapbook for her.

Crazy fearless girl that she is, she did something I will NEVER do....skydiving. This layout is pretty basic...again using white cardstock which I am really loving lately. And a bit of crate paper and a Theresa Collins chipboard accent. The title is Heidi Swapp ghost acrylic letters....perfect for a nutty girl flying though the blue skies I thought.

But this layout is really about the photos and capturing this experience for Amanda.
Can you tell by her huge smile that she thoroughly enjoyed herself?

Soon I hope....

Soon the weather will warm up....

Soon the tomatoes will get enough sun & heat to actually produce tomatoes...

Soon I'll find time to finish & share the new scrapbook pages I have in progress. (have I mentioned how much I love the new Basic Grey lines?

Soon I will be able to see Basic Grey's next 3 lines released (yes I am a Basic Grey junkie)

Soon I will do my 2nd triathlon with my sisters (3 weeks from today to be exact)

Soon I will be in court....jury duty : (

Soon I will gain control of my diet coke addiction.

Soon my daughter will return home from Iraq...not soon enough...I wish it was in 3 days instead of 3 months

Soon I will stop annoying you all by saying "soon" and will get my tired bones into bed.

Actually...sooner than soon

Is it summer yet?

Because if it is...I'm not seeing it. Its raining here (again !) and it is 56 degrees. Brrrr...

I haven't used air conditioners yet, have not turned on a fan, have not been swimming or to any beaches. And I'm tired of rain & cold weather. I'm ready for some hot sunny beach weather.

A first for me....

This past Sunday my sisters & I did a triathlon together...a first for me as I have never done a race of any kind before. My sister Deb (in the center) has done more then 20 marathons & many triathlons as well...she is in incredible shape...a huge inspiration to Kim & I) We were 1 of 15 all women relay teams to enter the race that day. The whole race had about 500 participants so I was very very nervous. Here we are bright & early at 7am all registered & numbered with permanent marker (that I'm still trying to get off) And there is my bike behind me all cleaned up & ready to go.

My Mom came down for the weekend to watch & cheer us on. Debs husband Ken came along as well & helped us get all these great photos.
So how did we do? Well, as biking is pretty new to me I seriously thought we would come in dead last. But we didn't really care because we were doing it more for the fun of racing as a team than anything. But lucky for me I have fast sisters....we came in 5th place out of the 15 teams in our division. And of all the relay teams (40-something total I think) consisting of all women, all men & mixed...we came in 14th place. How exciting is that !!!!

Deb did the 1/2 mile swim portion first...here she is in the center of the crowd with her hand on her forehead waiting to start.

And here she is after finishing 2nd fastest of the 15 swimmers in our all women team division. I love this picture of the big smile as she runs to where I am waiting so she can give me her ankle band & send me on my way.

and here I am trying to fight down the nerves as I wait to start.

And here... at the end of my 10 mile ride... getting off my bike after crossing the bike finish line & running it down to where Kim is waiting for me to tag off with her so she can do the final leg of the race ...a 3 mile run that is partially through a trail in the woods. I finished 10th fastest out of the 15 bikers in our division which was much better then I had expected to do.

And here is Kim (#82) coming across the finish line...check out that leg muscle in action. She, like Deb, also finished 2nd fastest of the 15 runners in our division.

And she ws so hot after finishing she went right to the water & went for a swim to cool off. This picture cracks me up.

And here we all are again after the race. This was such a fun day we are thinking of doing another one in August.

Worldwide Photowalk 2009

Welcome to Portsmouth New Hampshire...and be warned...lots of photos ahead...

My sweet friend Brenda posted about how she & her husband we doing the world wide photo walk at the location near her in Florida and when I heard about it I signed up for it as well. I chose to participate in the one in Portsmouth NH about an hour & a half away from my house. I knew this was a lovely ocean side town full of history and scenery and would be a great place to take photos. This was so much fun & really made you so aware of taking in your surroundings. I will definitely do it again next year...maybe try a new location. But I'd love to do some on my own here & there too just for fun.

For some reason blogger isn't letting me move the below photos around into categories (boats, plants, etc) so below is a mixed up collection of my favorite photos. I have to choose two of them to submit to the photowalk website...so if anyone has any you think I should use (that means you Brenda & Wayne) I'm open to any suggestions.

There are so many old brick buildings & gorgeous gardens and this porch with the weathered steps and wrought iron chair caught my eye...

Very old houses everywhere you turn

This scene just caught my eye for some reason...not sure exactly why...but I kind of like it

Random close up shot...

The ivy on some of the old brick buildings was really fun to photograph....great textures.
This tree in one of the gardens was so cool....

Random harbor photo with a sea duck putting on a show for me....love the old green boat. I may submit this one...

This one I chose to keep the top edge of the fence in as a border to frame the lower edge of the photo.

Love the color contrast in this picture...
a couple of pigeon buddies... I learned on this photo shoot just how fun brick is to have in your photos...

Another harbor view...

I like the lines in this photo...I also am considering this one for submission...

More brick....love the old fire box too.

Peeking through a temporary wall into a construction site and to the view of the bridge beyond. This one may be submitted also (but I can only choose 2)

A colorful storefront...

Love this one of the tugboats....a definite possibility for submission...

More plants (one of my favorite things to photograph)

The tugboats before the fog lifted...

more fog....

and more fog over the harbor.

This town was full of textures and plants to photograph. I love this photo...
Love this one too..

this door number caught my eye...

Love the colors in this photo...

And one last photo of the ivy that was all over town. I like the contrast & lines of this one...

And that's my favorites out of 150 photos taken. Any suggestions for submission?

Counting my blessings

Phew...what a week. Work has been crazy and I'm so glad its Friday. On Weds I went to the calling hours of my dear friends daughter and then to the funeral on Thurs. It was so very sad to see such a beautiful young girl's life cut short & to see my friend do what no parent should have to do...bury their child. I feel so sad for him and find myself counting my blessings that my own daughter survived her youth. And that we all have our health.

The weekend doesn't look any less busy than my week was....but should be more fun. Tomorrow I will be doing the worldwide photo walk in Portsmouth NH. Looks like I may be doing it in the some rain but I'm still looking forward to it. Brenda....looks like you might be doing it in some rain as well from what the weather channel says.

On Sunday I am doing my first race ever & am very nervous about that. My sisters & I are doing a small triathlon as a relay team and I am doing the bike portion. I hope I don't embarrass them by making us come in last place. Ah well its all just for fun and as long as I don't wipe out I'm sure it will be a blast. Wish me luck.

I'll have photos to share soon I'm sure. Have a great weekend everyone.

Layout share

I finally found some time to work on a scrapbook page and this one is my new favorite page. I love how it came out. Love the colors, love how they "pop" on the white background ( I need to scrap with white cardstock more often..these always end up being my favorite pages) Love everything about this page except for one thing....I wish I hadn't put the fine black line around the edge because I messed it up a bit. I may end up trying to cover that some day.....or maybe not.

Below is a closer look. When I pulled out this Basic Grey paper from the Marakesh line I knew that the quilt look of the paper was a perfect match with this picture of Jake & Tanner in front of my favorite barn. The layered die cuts that the "boy" portion of the title are on were cut with the Slice (love that machine so much !!!) I'm so happy with how this page turned out...its been a while since I did a page I really loved.

I copied some pictures of Amanda to my computer from her mysapce page so I can do some pages of her for a change. I'm sure she's getting tired of seeing just pages of Jake & Tanner on here....sorry Mand. I promine the next pages will be for you.

The best mechanic ever....

So I know this guy....he is the most honest, decent mechanic I know. He is also a dear friend. Add to that the the fact that he is totally adorable, has a heart of gold, is kooky crazy funny, and never fails to make me laugh hysterically when I see him and you can see why I (and everyone else who knows him) feels lucky to call him friend.

Tonight my heart is breaking for this sweet man. His 19 year old daughter was in a very bad car accident recently and had no brain activity. They have signed off and are discontinuing life support today. So this wonderful man who deserves only good things in life is losing the one thing that he loves the most and I am so very, very sad for him.

Life really is just too short isn't it? Sometimes tragedies like this remind us of just how short our time here on earth can be. Just a reminder to me to never take the people I love for granted & tell them I love them every chance I get. Because you never know when you will wake up one day & not have that chance again.

A day of inspiration, determination & AMAZING athletes

July 4th was a beautiful sunny day here in Princeton....a welcome sight after 4-5 weeks of so much rain. It was also the 49th year of the Longsjo Classic Bike Race...a 4 day race held in nearby Fitchburg for 2 of the 4 days, Westminister for the time trials one day & in Princeton for the most grueling portion of the race...an 11 mile loop that starts at the mountain loops around through town with very large hills a good portion of it & finishes by climbing to the top of the mountain. The pro men do this loop 10 times at 110 miles total!!!


This year because the mountain road is still closed due to ice storm damage the finish line was moved to the center of town...right at the end of my road. So this year instead of just seeing the hundreds of riders pass by but not seeing the finish we enjoyed the best part of the race. There were 800 riders in all this year. The pro men's group had 175 total I believe. Riders come from all over the world to do this race. In the picture below you see some of the pro men coming to the top of Gregory Hill into the center of town. This is the hardest hill of the whole course (referred to the "the wall" by the riders for obvious reasons). Just after they passed me here they turn right into Princeton common & the finish line is just a couple hundred meters around the corner...they have about 8 mores loops to do at this point though.

This was a portion of the pro women's group...they do 64 miles.

The lead woman after the first loop.

And the lead man after the 2nd loop

It was a sea of legs as you sat on the sidewalk and watched the large packs of bikes go by..

The riders were so focused they barely saw you as you cheered them on...the pain & determination was all you could see on their faces. And an occasional smile here & there.

The biggest display of determination was the youth rider that broke his chain on Gregory hill just before the finish line & picked up his chain in one hand and put his bike on his other shoulder and RAN the rest of the way up the hill, around the corner & over the finish line. Amazing !! It was a good day and I was so inspired I got on my bike today & did 20 miles...not up Gregory Hill though !!!

Hope you all had a great holiday.

Happy 4th to my favorite girl

I feel a little guilty celebrating with fireworks & cookouts etc when my beautiful daughter is in Iraq suffering horrible temperatures. No worries though Amanda...you are here in our hearts always & there is not a day that goes by that we aren't thinking of you.

And just because I love you I had to post this silly photo so everyone can see what a ham for the camera you are.

And this blurry one of you on the job.....I love this picture...even if it is a little out of focus

I miss you, love you, and am so incredibly proud of you. Hurry home safe ...we're counting the days !!!

P.S. You're stuck with me !!!