steph's stuff

On hiatus

Taking a break from things for a bit so if you don't see posts or you don't get an email reply, no worries. Just too much stuff going on in other areas that I need to get a handle on. :)

Some wuv for you

Andrew and I were at the BMV getting my license renewed (it expired back in January on my birthday - shhhhhhhhh.........) and he was making me crazy by jumping on chairs and talking about nonsensical stuff way too loudly and running around - basically, being a 4-year-old little boy. And I was trying soooo hard not to be mad at him and so I just started ignoring him while I waited for my license to get processed. Apparently, being ignored didn't suit him very well because all of a sudden he jumped on my lap and buried his face in my neck and announced, "Momma, I'm gonna die wiffout wuv." And I said, "What?" You're gonna die without what?" And he just hugged me harder and harder and said "wiffout wuv, Momma, hug me." And you can bet your boots I did.

The Deadiest Catch brings back memories

I am a freak for this show! Anyone else?

It's not exactly like lobster fishing in Maine, but has soooooo many similarities. Brings back so many memories of my grandfather and his boat and my summers there as a child.

We used to love to go out on his boat with him, but we couldn't during the busy season because he was so busy pulling traps that it was just too dangerous to have other people in the way. But, when he had a half day or a day that was sure to be slow, we were able to go out with him. Get up at 4:30 am, get on jeans and sweatshirt layered over the top of shorts and t-shirts and high boots, and lots of doughnuts and big lunchboxes and off we would go in the darkness down to the water. Grampie would untie the row boat from its spot on the rocks and we would load everything into the bottom of the row boat and scramble to get in without getting water in our boots. The Atlantic Ocean at 4:30 am in Maine is very, very cold and getting water in your boots is not a good way to start the day! Once we were all safely settled in the boat, Grampie would row us out to his lobster boat which was moored to a buoy in the harbor.

The harbor would be at its most beautiful at this time of day. Usually shrouded in heavy, heavy fog, there were some mornings when you couldn't even see the bigger boats until you got right up to them. And my grandfather was totally impervious to the fog. He would row backwards to his boat without even a backwards glance. He knew that harbor and that water better than he knew his way around his house. By the time he finally sold his boat, he had fished there for 50 years.

To be continued....

Bored?

Go see what color you are. Color Quiz

I like the results of mine. :D But, I think my dh would totally disagree with the sense of humor result. :p

YELLOW

Find out your color at QuizMeme.com!

You are very perceptive and smart. You are clear and to the point and have a great sense of humor. You are always learning and searching for understanding.

Memories of Me

One of the biggest regrets I have in my life is that I didn't discover a love of photography until I was 30. I have so few pictures of my childhood (only a handful) and about the same of my college years and only about 20 pictures of Tom and I before we had kids. So, there are about 90 pictures of my life before I had children. That is just so sad to me. So sad that I don't have one picture of me as a toddler or pictures of me learning to ride a bike or even a picture of my entire family before my parents' divorce when I was 14. What I wouldn't give to have those pictures to look back on now, to spur memories and stories and to show my children and my husband. So, I've decided to spend this summer writing down what I do remember of my childhood. So that I have something left before I forget it all (the big 4-0 is coming in January, don't ya know).

Forgive me if this gets boring, but I want to take the time to make a list of some of the things that I want to write about this summer. I'll keep this as a running list and will use it to come back to as the summer progresses.

Summers in Maine
Hen Clamming with MeMe
Shopping with MeMe ( and station wagons)
Gathering rain water to drink
Sleeping in the top bunk and listening to the adult parties
Grampie lobster fishing
Islands in the summer

Living in Maine
The wreath shop
Christmas Eve
Basketball games
Sean
Stacia and Janice and Nat
Sarah and H2O
BGS

Childhood in Indiana
Grandma's & Grandpa's house (coke, Kathleen, Keith, etc...)
Atari
Artie
Harold I, Harold II
Ice skating and swimming at the lake with Bob & Sharon
Margie and Colleen
Dad's work bench
Cinnamon rolls
Pet rocks
Snack foods

The other project that I'm going to undertake this summer is gasp - are you ready I'm going to get all of my pictures that are on various hard drives and CDs actually printed. Major intake of breath here. Some of you might remember that I lost almost 5000 pictures a couple of years ago when Andrew (then almost 2) walked on my laptop that I had stupidly put on the floor. So, there is a huge gap in our photo albums of almost an entire year. I've been mourning that gap for almost 2 years now. And, in the meantime, I've still been taking pictures - to the tune of almost 6000/year. Anddddddddd........I was 18 months behind in printing pictures when the hard drive crashed. So, that means that I haven't printed pictures or put any pictures in photo albums since Andrew was 6 months old. And he's now 4. Ugh. Now, obviously, I've printed off some pictures - but most of them were for scrapping. And the kids love to look at their scrapbook albums. But, we have all of these wonderful photo albums that we started back in 1998 when Emily was born and they end abruptly at mid-2003. Yikes! To say the least. So, that is my other summer project. Stop mourning and start printing. And printing. And printing. And printing. And printing.............

[no subject]

do you ever get so overwhelmed with schedules and life and things to do and worries that you go into avoidance mode? that's me. too much to think about and too much to do that i've been scrapping to avoid thinking and doing things. and i think it's working. lol! somehow, i'm figuring things out by not making decisions right away and just letting things stew on the back burner for a bit.

so, i've really got nothing else for you except a bunch of layouts. and 3 out of 5 are paper and there's lot of blue - must be my blue period. :p

it's the little things

Just a bunch of totally random stuff.

• I've been a bit down in the dumps lately and stressing out about schedules and other stuff. Not feeling very good about myself at all.
• But, it's finally warmer around here and has even hit 80 a couple of times.
• I'm trying to cheer myself up.
• And I've been a scrapping fool trying to meet some deadlines and stay ahead of others.
• I've been contemplating cleaning out closets and getting lots of yard work done.
• I need to keep busy and tackle the list because right now the list is winning and I can't have that. If I wait too long, I get so overwhelmed that I freeze and the list gets longer and longer.
• And I had to break out the sandals and the nail polish. The only time I paint my toe nails is when I wear sandals - I'm just not much of a foot person. Judging by the kids' reactions, though, you would have thought that I lost 30 pounds and put on a ball gown. Elizabeth kept saying that I looked so beautiful with my toes painted and Andrew keeps wanting to touch them. And tonight he told me that I had "bootiful toes, Momma!"
• It's the little things that get you through the day sometimes.

what IS on my walls

It's no secret that I would love to move. But, it's not in the cards right now.

So, I've been walking around the house and thinking and planning and trying to find a way to make this house more me. Wondering if there's hardwood under the living room carpet. Thinking about replacing all the posed, cheesy, portrait studio pics we had taken of the kids as babies with photographs that I've taken. Stuff like that.

And I've been carrying my camera around with me because things are always more clear to me when I see them through a lens. It's amazing how objective you can get when you look through the lens. So, my goal today was to walk around the house and photograph the things that really have meaning to me. And I was more than a little surprised to find that I didn't have many. The pictures for sure have meaning, but little else does. And those things that do mean a lot to me are not on display. So, hmmmm. That's clearly something that needs to change.

But, one thing that I do love and that IS on my walls are some pictures that my girls drew. When we moved the red couch out of the den and into the living room, I didn't have any pictures or art that matched the room. So, on a whim, I had the girls draw some pictures on cardstock and I framed them and put them above our couch. It's one of the first things you see when you walk into the living room. And THAT has meaning. Need to find more of that!

Bears

Andrew turned 4 very recently and considers himself quite the old little man. Apparently, 4 is the age when little boys turn into "big" boys. Anyway, with this new old age also comes wisdom. An example:

A couple of mornings ago, the kids and I were in bed snuggling. Andrew brought in his latest book that he's been "reading" before he goes to sleep and said, "Let's play teacher, Mommy." And he proceeded to be the teacher: "Okay, class, now can you please tell me what kind of animals the Berenstain bears are." Always the dutiful student and parent-educator, I gave an answer something along the lines of "Well, in the Berenstain bear family, there is a Momma Bear, a Papa Bear, a Brother Bear, and a Sister Bear." Only to have him look at me like I'm the most idiotic parent and student that he'd ever seen, followed by him saying with just a bit of exasperation, "Well, I guess I'll answer this one. The correct answer is bears."

Oh. He's good. And he's only 4. I am in so much trouble.

Disappointment, Spontaneity, and Inspiration

Yesterday was a mix of all three.

Disappointment

Emily had been asked to go to a classmate's birthday party/sleepover last night. This is the first year that we've really let her do sleepovers and this is a closeknit group of girls and I know most of the parents fairly well, so we've been having fun letting the girls do these sleepovers. Well, about 2 hours before we were to drop her off, Emily mentioned that she didn't need to take her sleeping bag because they were sleeping in the camper. The hairs on the back of my neck started to rise a bit and I said that I assumed the mom was sleeping with them? She said, oh no, but the camper is right by the house. I couldn't imagine that the parents would let 8 and 9 year old litte girls sleep outside by themselves, so I called the parents to double check and sure enough, they were going to let the girls sleep in an RV by themselves, but "don't worry, they'll have a cell phone."  Um..........no, I don't think so. You can imagine Emily's reaction. Tears, tears, tears, begging, begging, begging, more tears, more tears and more begging. We gave Emily the option of going to the party but having to be picked up at bedtime or not going at all. After an hour of the tears and begging and Tom and I explaining that parents set up rules because they want their kids to be safe and feel loved, she chose not to go at all. It would have just been too hard to be the only one picked up. I think she made a wise decision.

Spontaneity

In a perfect world, my honey would have married me, but I would have been a spontaneous me. I don't do spontaneous well, but I'm trying more and more. So, in an effort to help Em still have a fun evening, I suggested that we do something spontaneous. My honey's head about spun backwards in surprise, I think, and we let Emily choose the evening's activity. We went through a couple of options until she settled on driving up to Michigan and hanging out with her cousins. And what a great evening it turned out to be!!! We hung out at my bil's house for a bit and then drove to a former train station that has been converted into a pizza joint, but trains still go by!!!! And we were treated to a train going by right after dinner!!! Which was then followed up by a visit to the ice cream parlor! A great spontaneous night for all us! I hope the good memory of last evening will replace the bad memories of the disappointment that preceded it.

Inspiration

And, if you're still reading this, yesterday was full of inspiration for me!!!!! I hung out at Two Peas and Designer Digitals when I got the chance. Both were full of so much fun and inspiration and are two of my favorite places!!! I was also honored to be asked to play a small role in the fun at Two Peas. I was featured as part of their user gallery. I used one of my HOF layouts and it's also one of the first digi layouts that I ever did. You can see it HERE if you're interested.

And this photo has nothing to do with any of the above categories, but I love it. It's a shot of the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier from last weekend's train trip to Chicago. I am going to frame this. I really am.