Last Minute Gift

Just a quick post to show the book that I made for my friend Moira for Christmas! The full book can be seen here. I really hope she likes it! I had fun making it! Just a few more hours and the festivities will begin!! Merry Christmas!

Just 3 days left...

until Santa arrives!! I just love Christmas! It is defiantly my favorite holiday! I've gotten a bit lax over the years and don't decorate as much as I used to. But I do love my tree. It holds tons of ornaments that are special to me. My all time favorite is the angel (below) that was MY first ornament ever given to me by my Mom! It is almost an antique!!! Many of the ornaments were made my my dear mother, sister or myself. (I wonder if my sister will recognize any of these?) And then there are all the ones that have come from some special place that we've visited! This year's addition is a great Santa with a Surfboard which we found in Port Douglas, Queensland, Australia! We have plenty of skiers and snowmen on the tree as well! We may have to get a bigger tree or a 2nd tree sometime soon, when there is no longer anymore branches to hold them all! I was hoping we'd have lights outside this year, but we never got around to it when the weather was nice and when we finally had time, it had already snowed! There is always next year I suppose!

In this nice long 4 day weekend, I will be busy but there is still plenty of time finally to relax a bit! The stress of the past week and the thoughts of the upcoming 2-3 weeks (at work) are very stressful, so I'm not going to think about it if I can! Instead, I'm going to work on wrapping the presents, cleaning up the house and preparing some appetizers and deserts for the holidays! I think there will be a "few" extra stiff drinks in there as well! Bring on the Apple Pie!

To all my family and friends who enjoy my "blog" - Merry Christmas! I hope to share more over the holidays, but if I don't, please remember that I love you all!!

A Quickie Holiday Quiz...

just to keep the holiday pressure on! LOL! Here goes...

Have you....

Finished your Christmas shopping? Nope, still have my BIL and some small stuff for the munchkin!

Sent out all your holiday greeting cards? All except for the one going to Akiko in Tokyo!

Decorated your house with holiday decorations? Yep! That was done weeks ago!

Play along and share your holiday progress with your blogging friends :)

Celebrating Christmas!

On Sunday afternoon, Toni and her family (Iain, Nattie and Jaime) came down for a nice visit for the holidays. We had such a wonderful time together! The kids really had fun opening up all the gifts that were laying around - but I think Jaime had the most fun with the wrapping (bows)!! Melanie got some great scrapbooking supplies, including stamps, inks and a punch. There was also a gift card to M's. If there was other things, I'll never know since she's hiding it from me! Dan got a wonderful gift card to REI! I'm sure it will go towards something for skiing! I got the best gifts of all though! Let's see - first off the Journaling Jar! (See Toni's Blog for Monday!) That will last me all year (if not much, much longer)! What a cleaver idea! I can't wait to get started! Then there was my own journaling book - can't wait to record my first verses! Then an acrylic 8x8 book - something I've been wanting to try! And lastly a gift card to Archiver's! Gee Toni - when do you want to go shopping??!! We were spoiled ROTTEN! We are happy to hear that they enjoyed our gifts as well! We are just happy that we met such nice people!

I have been trying to finish up the Arrow Book (This Way... To Adventure) for my dear friend Moira! I'm hoping it's done for Christmas! It should be. Unfortunately I'm so exhausted when I finish working every night, that I don't spend much time on it. I have just 2 sets of pictures left - so that should go quickly! That will be the last gift I will be able to get done. I have to just cut my list down and do what I can! I just got the December CJ and there is still my challenge with the other group to finish up this month!

Finally Friday!

And what a week it's been! I am exhausted from all the work and all the stress. I have no idea where my job is going to take me in the future - neither does the top bosses it seems either! They want to know what I want to do. So now I have to think about it and tell them what I want. This could be really great but right now, I'm just to exhausted to even think! What I do know is that I want more $$$$$!

I think I'm going to stay home from skiing tomorrow and try to get some of my shopping done as well as some other projects I have started that I want to finish for Christmas. I hate to miss a day of skiing, but it may help my stress level next week! And then maybe I can enjoy a day of skiing next weekend even though originally I didn't think that was going to happen! I hate letting Dan get one more day, but sometimes I just have to concede!

Off to bed...

A little bit of this...

and a little bit of that! That's how my projects are going right now! Just can't seem to focus on just one to finish! When I'm stressed, that's how my life gets! Just hope I get them all done in time for whatever deadline I need! So here are a few of the tags that I have made with my scraps and "extra" time this year! They are a lot of fun and QUICK!

Yesterday morning I was greeted by the news that my boss of the past 4 years is resigning! (We started on the same day - 12-22-03) I'm so going to miss her. She is the real reason that I have stuck it out in this job so long! Maybe she'll call on me in the future, but we won't know for a while. Not sure what they're doing to replace her. The COO will talk to me later in the week. I can interview for her job - if there is one that is. Who knows what they've got planned - all I know is that I want a RAISE! And she's leaving me before OE is over - more stress on me to get that done with less and less people! Last year I had 5 - this year it's 3 1/2!!!

Got some of the most beautiful cards today from Toni as a Christmas gift! I'm so excited about them that I don't even want to give them away as she had intended me to do! I so wish I had her talent to stamp! In my next life, I want perfect vision!!! That would make life so much easier!!

Off to cook some French onion soup - it's cold and snowy so it's a great time to have it!!

Yikes...

I didn't even realize that my "Thanksgiving Hangman" link changed to "Christmas Hangman"! Wonder how long ago that happened? Shows you how out of it I truly am!

Glad this week is finally over! It was a tough one! at work No need to complain on my blog, just happy it's over! A new one will soon be upon us and hopefully this one will be forgotten!

It's snowing like crazy in the mountains and to celebrate, we're going skiing tomorrow! Yippee! Hope we can get up there! With fresh powder you never know how the drive it going to be up Interstate 70 - could be great and then could be a parking lot with idiots who don't know how to drive! We're aiming for Vail, but it requires 2 mountain passes to go over and an extra 30-45 minutes of drive time, so we'll see if we make it there! If so, they're taking me to the back bowls of Blue Sky Basin! Shall be fun (and really, really cold!) I'm not sure pictures will be anything but white, but we'll take the camera along and see!

Happy weekend everyone!

Positive Attitude!

I am trying my best to keep a very positive attitude right now! And I suppose for the most part is is working, but I am exhausted! See, work is just really stressful and busy right now. I've been putting in long hours for the past few weeks and it's going to stay this way until the holidays. I usually wear that stress on my sleeve and everyone just knows to "stay away" from me! But this year, I'm trying to keep a smiling face and work it out in a different way. No one wants to be around an unhappy person, especially at the holidays! So now that I've got it off my sleeve...

I am thrilled to see that Debbie has now joined the blog world! Gives me yet another person's blog to check out and see what is happening in her life! I really like all the new ladies I've met this past year in my CJ groups! I sure hope that I can make the trip to CA in summer to meet some of them!

Our trip plans to London are semi-stalled right now. I do have a travel agent researching it all for me! Her initial quote, with a few days in Edinburgh was a bit too much (ha, that's putting it mlidly), so we're looking at alternatives... such as going a week earlier so we aren't there over Easter or even waiting until the fall. I'm sure hoping that she has better results. Or I just need to get back to doing it myself. Not sure why this trip is so hard for me to plan?

I still have TONS of Xmas shopping left to do... not sure when or how I will finish it but I'm sure it will happen! Maybe I just need to buckle down and Internet shop QUICKLY!!!

Have a good evening!

Tne best way to exercise...

is swishing down the slopes! We had a great day at Breckenridge today! They had fresh powder this morning and I got a great workout on one of my favorite runs there - Volunteer! It was a wee-bit cold, but we survived! We even met up with a few of Dan's co-workers after lunch and got a few runs with them! That was fun too! Always great to ski with others! They go up often as well, so it seems we will be hooking up with them often! After we finished, we went and had dinner with them. They are very nice folks and we all enjoyed their company!

These are the LO's that I completed for Nancy's Inspiration I Spy book. I choose my favorite color and my favorite subject matters - the great outdoors and my little girl! I ended up using glitter AGAIN and still have it all over my room. I'm retiring the glitter until after the holidays!

Off to make some more x-mas tags with my scraps! It's a no-brainer after a hard work out!

Time to relax...

Yes, that is what I need right now!! It was one hectic week that I had. This is our busy time of year at work, time when everyone is re-enrolling in benefits with their company. Well as a Benefits Manager, that is my job to get everyone enrolled. And with my company acting as the "employer" for almost 100 other companies (about 700 employees), the job does not come easy. And when rates come late, our system is difficult to configure and people are hard to track down, that job isn't fun either. I pulled a few 12 hour days this week and it's just the beginning! It will be like this for at least the next 3 weeks! And then as the holidays wind down, it will very slowly get better! Time for a career change that gives me time to enjoy my holidays!! (Yeah, sure I say that ever year!) OK enough whining!

Here is a card I made with the scraps from my B&W challenge! I do like how it turned out! I'm trying to come up with a few more to use up all the extra little pieces of paper I got this card design off of 2peas but do not remember who I scrap lifted it from. The next challenge that I'm faced with is a 2 page recap of my year in review. That should be fun... I've got about 5-6 pictures already in mind, just need to upload and send them to the printers tonight! And one last big push will be to finish a present for my friend Moira... sorry no more details than that. Never know when she is looking!!!

I attempted to go Christmas shopping today... boy do I hate the mall. Walked all over, and left empty handed. The crowds were insane! I managed to pick up a few things at Target, but I have a long way to go on this huge list of people. It seems to get harder and harder every year. Is that because we accumulate more and more stuff?! Maybe some Christmas music and a big tumbler of "liquid" apple pie will help my mood tonight!

Off skiing tomorrow... fresh snow up there should be AWESOME!!!