Yes, I was thankful on Thursday. While my mom & GiGi got up at 4am to drive about 40+ miles to a sale, I slept unusually late. This was definitely a bad thing. I was supposed to rise and get the turkey in the oven but because I've had this cold coming on and just feeling yck, I turned over instead of getting up. Hmmm. Well, needless to say that when my mom called to say she was on her way home and I had not started the turkey, she was less than pleased. (Well honestly she was less than pleased anyway because the items that she had gotten up before 4:00 and driven in the dark exceedingly far to get were gone before she got out of the car... something to do with vouchers to the first few in line. She came away with virtually nothing.) At any rate, when I asked where the cornbread for the dressing that she had baked the night before was put, she was even more irritated. But of course, dinner was prepared and delicious. With only the five of us, it was unusually small for Thanksgiving (not even sweet potatoes!); but that was fine as it was more than enough and we are still eating leftovers.
As soon as we finished eating, GiGi and I loaded up and went to WalMart. There were two sales on Thursday evening - one at 8pm and one at 10pm. Now I have a little deal that works for me at sale times: I go to the ATM and pull out $X.00 that will be used for the sale items. That way I am not tempted by every.single.item. in the store - as I do have some serious shopping issues. So this was done on the way and the money was split between GiGi and myself for our endeavor which was that Santa is bringing the kids TVs and there was a guaranteed price from 10pm-11pm of a 32" for $148 - now that is a deal. And even though we were guaranteed a TV at that price, GiGi and I got in queue at about 4:30 to wait for our TV to be put in our cart at 10pm (of course we were first & second in line). While still with a voucher system, this time it was a little different. We each got our ticket and then had to stay in queue until the sale time or give up our ticket. We received "piss pass"es for 20-minute restroom breaks... can you imagine?!! Of course, I sent GiGi out on an errand using one of her breaks to scope out other sales. Another of her breaks was used to go get frappes & a bite at McDonalds. My passes were used for smoke breaks, with the exception of one true restroom run and one at 8pm to gather up some $3 blu-rays. But then, once I got back in queue at 8:05, I saw that there were Harry Potter DVDs right smack in front of me on sale for less than $2. I was merely 3-feet from the DVDs but the WalMart Stockboy-police would not let me step up and grab the DVDs. I tried to explain that I needed a new set of Harry Potter DVDs because the children down the street have no television and I had loaned them all my HP DVDs; if I bought a new set I would merely let the unfortunate children down the street keep the ones they had borrowed. (I must have DVDs as well as blu-ray because I am the only one in the family with a blu-ray which is in my room. If anyone wants to watch the movie in another room - say, in the kitchen while they're scrapbooking - it must be on DVD). Since the Stockboy-police wouldn't let me take 2 giant steps to the DVD rack, I found I had to enlist the help of hurried strangers. Therefore with just a few "PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE can someone help me? I need Order of the Phoenix", "PLEASE PLEASE will someone please hand me Prisoner of Azkaban?", I eventually got all 8 movies in my cart (one nice lady actually got three for me - it's a very small town so if I see her with a flat tire or something, I promise I'll stop!). Do you know what the stupid Stockboy-police said? He said it was worth saying no just to see me have people get them for me. Now what kind of attitude is that on Thanksgiving?!! In the end, I had to put back my blu-rays of the HP movies to afford those $2 DVDs (only so much cash, right!).
Of course the longer we were in queue the worse I started to feel and thankfully there was a random hanging thingy of cough drops on our aisle (the paper towel aisle!?!), and the longer we were in queue the more GiGi complained that she didn't want to be there. No problem I explained; if you leave Santa will not be bringing you a new TV - only one per customer and mine would then go to JC (actually, she was buying JCs and I was buying hers as you really can't buy your own Santa gift at 13, it just wouldn't be right). So in the end, we got the two TVs and two streamer boxes so the kids could get Netflix, VuDu, YouTube, internet whatever on their TVs and each set up cost less than $200 as well as a few other little goodies.
GiGi had wanted to go Black Friday shopping with her cousins who are 17 and 20? at midnight on Thursday night. At first I was okay with this as her older cousin is very responsible and the 17-yo only in town for a few days. But then they said they were going to Destin which is about an hour away on a very treacherous highway. So right there in line at WalMart I reneged on my permission; and no matter who she called to try to override me, they all deferred the permission-giving to me (this is not out of respect, it's just that a) they don't want her pissed off at them and would rather I take the heat, and b) because if I were to get overridden life would be a living hell for days to come).
As a little soother for my meanness, I promised to take GiGi Black Friday shopping... a very big deal as I hate.hate.hate Black Friday shopping (unless we're going someplace crafty). So bright and semi-early on Friday I had to climb out of bed, sniffles and all, and drive to town (30 miles or so). We arrived at the mall at about 10:00 and it was great - merchandise left,no crowds, no problems. We only went to a few stores, mainly Aeropostale, Body Central & Rue 21 where GiGi did the shopping while I just shook my head. She had earned her own money dog-washing, car-cleaning, etc. so I didn't even have to open my wallet. And I stayed away from any crafty stores - no small feat!!!... but that would have been the undoing of Christmas as I had serious lust in my heart over the coupons available in the newspaper.
But let's get scrappy. Because in my past life I was a sloth, I am definitely not getting things done as quickly as before. While I was spitting out a couple of layouts per Prompt, now I'm lucky to get one done before the next Prompt comes in. Of course, not only am I abnormally slow - but I'm rather under the weather as well (I think it's all that hot/cold/hot/cold and well if one part of my body goes haywire, so does the MS). Oh, well - I'll go back and play with these more later! Just more WooHoo moments in my future!
Here is my layout for Prompt 16:
Patterened Paper: Fancy Pants Design & American Crafts, Echo Park, Crate Paper, Pink Paislee; Stickers: KI Memories, Sassafras, Paper Studio; Punch: EK Success, Fiskars, Martha Stewart; Ink: Ranger; Pen: Sharpie
I never add embellishment shots, but did this time to show you those lovely letters and the fact that I put my scraps on upside down. When I laid everything out, the strips were supposed to be the aqua, yellow, zigzag, etc.; but I totally stuck them down in the wrong order... and then as it was very late (not saying) I stuck on the butterfly without even noticing. But trust me once the butterfly was down and I went for a smoke-break and back in to finish, OH MY!!!! I saw it. And that is one sticky sticker, that butterfly. I tried to find other letters to replace the pink in that space and all I had was purple - not so good. So it is what it is. GiGi likes it so that's all that matters in the end anyway.
Why in the world did I pick those papers in the first place? Well because they all were in my scrap basket, of course!
Then there's this redo because I really didn't like these pages as were, so I like them a little better now... still not sure.
Before:
After:
And for Prompt 20:
Patterned Paper: Echo Park, Fancy Pants, My Minds Eye; Stickers: American Crafts, Echo Park, Simple Stories; Punches: Fiskars, Marvy Euchida; Ink: Ranger; Pen: Sharpie; Other: Adobe Photoshop Elements
{Yes I fixed the title so that the "WE" is now just over the space between 'british' & 'boys'... much more cohesive - well, who knows what I was thinking in that first place!?!?!}
So sad that the Scrapbook Remix class is almost over; but I'll still be doing it for about a week or two before getting on my Christmas bandwagon. But you know, even then I'll need to find my ScrapHappiness very often - and you should too.
Cheerio!
"Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art." - Konstantin Stanislavsky
