Take Me Home Cuisine

This is the logo that got me my Cricut Expression. My friend Emy and Vangie liked it so much that they adopted it and used it on their business cards.

They wanted to have a neon light built but unfortunately it would cost a lot of money to do it exactly the way it is above [sans the contact information]. So the simple version is what you see below:

The neon-light-maker said it will be brighter to use blue and white instead of red and white [ I don't think there's a black neon light, haha!]





This is where the store is going to be. It just happened that they got the unit right below this "tower" like structure that looks like the "house" on the logo. They were looking at another a space in another strip mall but didn't get it because someone made a higher bid.

The store is under construction right now [well, inside, that is...]. The partitions, shelves, and electrical outlets for ovens, freezers, stoves, heaters, cutters, etc. have yet to be put in and approved by the landlord, the village, the fire department, the health department...my... I didn't know it is a lot of work. We can hardly wait for the grand opening!

My Kids

My eldest, a son, was born and raised in the Philippines. A good kid. Typical good, respectful Filipino kid who does not talk back to his elders even if it's just explaining or defending himself. He does what he's asked right away and without questions. My husband chose his name - Lennart - a Swedish derivative of Leonard. Lennart Nilsson, a microphotographer was a favorite of his. That's where he got the name. Somehow we dropped the middle name Nilsson. Looking back now, I wished I had chosen "Edward" as his middle name. Lennart Edward. It has a nice ring to it. Because Lennart does not have a middle name, my Dad's family name sort of became his middle name. His initials, therefore, are LIV, as in "live".

Before Christina I miscarried twice. One would have been 20 years old now. I named the baby Ollie. I do not know if Ollie was a girl or a boy. If she was a girl she would have been named Olivia; if a boy, he would have been named Oliver. Ollie would have been born in the month of February, the year when Oliver North made front page news.

The second baby would have been 19 years old now. I named the baby Jules. Again, I do not know it's sex. It Jules was a boy, his name would have been Julian, if a girl, Julie-Ann. Jules would have been born on the same day I was born - July 5. We would have celebrated our birthdays .

My daughter was born 12 years after Lennart. If I had my way, I would have named her Veronica or Genevieve. Probably, Genevieve so she would have the initials GIV, as in "give". My husband chose her name, Christina. He said it is common enough as a Filipino, American, Greek, French, and whatever-other-nationality name. She was given the middle name Maryse [kinda like my name in short - Mariss]. But Maryse has a different pronounciation. It is more "Mary's" than Mariss. So you see why I would have liked my son to have his father's first name.

Christina turned 18 yesterday. I was "old" when she was born. I often wondered if I would live long enough to celebrate her 10th birthday, and her 20th, and her 30th. Right now, I am so thankful for my kids, for my husband, and for my life.

Cricut Expression

When I designed the "Opening Soon" flyers for my BFsF Emy and Vangie, I designed the clipart that went with it. Wow! Did they love it! They loved it so much they wanted to know if they can own it. They will adopt it as their logo. They asked it they can buy it from me. Well, I was ready to sell it for a life time of "take-me-home" dishes. Hahaha!

Vangie said they planned to have a logo designed anyway and they will probably spend hundreds of dollars for it. It was a very simple design...I was ready to give it away for free [well, not completely free...maybe a discount here and there when we need some food catering from them. What are friends for?

What are friends for, anyway? They knew I wouldn't accept cash for it so they insisted on buying me the Cricut. They asked me to choose...Cricut or Wishblade. I really have my eye on a Wishblade. However most of the reviews I read were not so great. I did some research and found out Wishblade's program is like using photoshop for the first time. I can deal with that. But then when a few customers mentioned that it would cut and stop for a few minutes and continue cutting and would stop again...I CANNOT deal with that! I have so much on my computer I'm sure another program added to it will slow it down. I have no patience for that!

For three days I couldn't make up my mind. So I went back to review both again. It's good I waited for out came Cricut Expression with a 12x12 mat and 2 free cartridges! OK now, I can do the dance of joy.... [Can-can music, please.]

I have to wait a few days, however as it is already out of stock. But Emy said the place they ordered it from has shipped it yesterday. I will probably receive it on Monday. Can't wait to start cutting away. Whooo-hoooo!

Wow!

August 4! Wow! that was my last entry??? Time really flies.

I haven't been much into blogging lately. I spent the time flopped on the floor, cutting out embellishments for my layouts while watching CSI [LasVegas] one after the other from 6pm-9pm.

Today is a very exciting day for me. I hope to receive my new Cricut Expression! I hope my BFF Emy will receive it today and deliver it tonight.

It's sad that BFF Emy lost her work of more than 16 years. So now she and her sister, BFF Vangie, who resigned from the corporate world are going into business together. They are going to establish an Oriental Mart. More of a Filipino food take-out place. A mixture of Chinese, Italian, American, Filipino dishes. They will also have a bakery of Filipino bread and delicacies, a mini-mart, and catering service. Wow! That's a handful for the two of them to undertake.

They asked if I could prepare the flyers for them - something like "Coming Soon", "Grand-Opening", "Now-Open" flyers. They volunteered to pay me. What's typing up these flyers and going to Kinko's for photocopying? I said they can pay me with food! Ha-ha. Just letting you know, the kitchen is not my favorite place to be. And they are such great cooks! very delicious, not greasy, not too salty dishes! OK. So maybe they can provide food for me and DH that will be enough. Ano na lang ba yung tira-tira sa mga luto nila?

Can't wait till they open their karinderia!

Where was I?

I haven't been around for a while. Been busy organizing my kalat room so I can do some traditional LOs. This is the latest one I did which I entered in the http://pinoyscrapbookers.blogspot.com/ stamping challenge. Not a lot of stamping on this one though. I don't do a lot of stamping on my traditional LOs. It is more fun on digital since mistakes can easily be deleted. This is a picture of my daughter under the magnolia tree, one fine day in Spring 1990.

Supplies used: DCWV Summer Stack, Autumn Leaves/Rhonna Farrer's clear flourish stamps, Versacolor ink, card embellishments from Joanne's. The big swirl, I drew and hand-cut.

The picture below is a digital LO I submitted in the Bigi-Digi Contest by http://scrapbook.com/. This is a picture of my daughter who is now 17 years old. The effect I used is called "pop" which is getting to be a popular thing now in the world of digi-scrapping.

The original journaling I wanted to use was "You've outgrown your world and now you can't wait to explore the rest of the universe." I don't know why I didn't go with that. Do you think it is too OA [over-acting]?

Supplies used: Heart and Soul paper kit from Scrapbook.com; Instant Sparkle Circle by Jodi Anderson; Font used is Davis; picture frame by CraftFairy1

The picture below is the original LO I made using the Heart and Soul kit. These are the original colors too. I opted to re-color the background paper blue so that Christina's picture will really pop out. I took out the brad border at the top because it looked crowded on the blue-background version. Which one is your favorite?

Sad

I'm sad I lost a friend. I read in Oscraps that Carla Gibson passed away. Such a bright, talented , and generous person taken away from me and all who love her dearly. God bless you, Carla. I don't know you personally, but I love you and the digital supplies you shared with me and with digi-scrapbookers the world over.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/2007/Jun/20070606Obit003.asp

Blah...

It's not really blah... It is another beautiful Spring day. The lillies are out. I took a lot of pictures. DH has finished building the support for the trumpet vines. This is the first year they bloomed and boy! did they grow fast.

The blah thing is that the weekend is over. Time to sweat another 5 days of office work. Blah! I don't wish the new week to go too fast...it makes me grow another week older. Blah!