Belated Happy Birthday, Lee

This is really a very late happy birthday greeting. I think I sent my birthday greetings a few days before her birthday, just in case I forgot. Then I remembered to send another one on THE day. The b-boxes will arrive soon..so now I can post these. Here's another greeting for you, Lee. And look what I have for you for your birthday. What did you do to deserve these?

DCWV - Glitter Pack

Pocket Full of Posies
I forgot what this is...but it's K-Ology's
I think this is a baby girl stack from K-Ology
backside of the baby girl stack
K-Ology: Peabody Scrap Pad to Go
K-Ology: Peabody Scrap Pad to Go [the other side]

and more K-Ology

Well, that's it, Sis! The rest, you have to pay me back...

Old World Stack - 1/2 pack

Far East - 1/2 pack

Provo Craft Super Slab

Top Left: Rob & Bob

Top Right - Karen Le Mieux

Bottom - David Walker

Time is Confused

Daylight Savings Time should have ended Saturday at midnight; always the last Saturday of October. This year, it is postponed a week later, for November 3 midnight.


I don't know who made that ruling, but whoever did, forgot to inform the satellite hovering in space because now, all electronic clocks have switched time by falling back an hour. Every time I turn on my computer, I have to reset the time.


Personally, I don't like the time change. It confuses me inner clock. I get up almost always at the same time every morning. I get hungry at around the same time every time. I have other biological things that have to be done in a timely manner, if you know what I mean.

Let's see if I can get this straight. It confuses me every year despite the fact that I've been around this hemisphere for 26 years. The thing to remember is...Spring forward; Fall backward. This means every Spring the clocks are set an hour ahead, and every Fall, they are set one hour backward.


So if I get up at 6:00 am every day, when the time changes 6:00 am becomes 7:00 am. That would mean I gain an hour of sleep. Not!! because my body knows it is time to get up no matter what time it is.

At 12:00 noon, lunch time, it will be 1:00 pm. I would be starving for an hour before I can have lunch. Then...the part I hate most... 5:00 pm, time to go home, becomes 6:00 pm, which makes the day too long; a very long time to wait for the work day to end; also I now have to drive home in the dark. This gives me headaches. Glaring lights from on-coming cars, brake lights, glare on car windows, from traffic lights, from wet streets...arrrrggghhhh!


Why can't they just make up their minds and keep the time as it is right now. It is just perfect. We all go to work with enough morning light and go home with enough evening light. So just leave it as it is. There is really no need to save light anymore. The farm lands are replaced with huge single-family homes. Whatever remaining farm lands are around subdivisions are now well lit.

uhg... driving in the dark...!

Halloween

It's Halloween again in our part of the world. Here in Gurnee, trick and treat day is the Sunday before the actual date of Hallow Evening. It is today, from 2 to 6 pm. It is the law: for the the safety of the kids. This year was my turn to answer the door. Not a lot of cute ghouls came by today...perhaps most of them went to Gurnee Mills instead. So... I have a lot of candies all to my self -hahaha! It's good I bought the good kind.

Christina had all the fun though. Last night she went to a Halloween party hosted by her friends in the Tennis Club. The party took place in one of the girls' barn.

Here she is dressed as an Egyptian goddess...haha! I think she enjoyed putting on that eyeliner more than anything else.

Christina and friends: Kelly on the left, Nicole in the middle.

That's not Egypt burning. It was a cold night so the party-goers made a bonfire.

Christina and friends went to a "haunted" house the other weekend. I asked her to take pictures...but she didn't...so I don't have anything to showcase. Last weekend, she went to a corn maze, again with friends. She took some pictures before they all went into the maze. It took them some time to get out of the cornfield.

Is there any fear in this kid? What about snakes? or field rats? or someone jumping out of the corn stalks to scare them... how about a stalker? Hey! did that word come from the corn stalks? haha!

Time for me to be the boss

I came home from work and right away, joined my husband on the couch. He was watching a show - where each week a unique architectural house is showcased. There was a man and a woman showing the camera man around, describing each nook and cranny and why it was made that way. I noticed that it was the woman who did all the talking. Usually it was the man, especially when it came to the architectural design. In this show, the guy looked too young to be the husband, or to put it another way, the woman looked older than the man but not too old to be the mother of the guy.

I commented that it's the woman who does all the talking, why not his son? or husband?... to which my husband said I think that is the husband because he is just too quiet and just follows the wife around.

I said, really??! So when are you going to be quiet, follow me around, and let me run the show?

Scrapbooking On a Budget - 3D Effect

Kaya! Challenge #6 [http://pinoyscrapbookers.blogspot.com/] is all about scrapbooking using basic supplies. I know that there are a lot of people who would like to try scrapbooking with the use of supplies being marketed out there. However, they just couldn't start probably because they don't have the supplies and equipment they need. This is specially true for some people in my country who cannot afford to buy expensive supplies. It is more important to buy everyday's necessities than to buy scrapbooking materials.



Scrapbooking isn't all about using expensive materials just to make your pages beautiful. You can make beautiful layouts with just the basic materials - acid-free everything: plain papers, patterned papers, cardstocks, glue, pens, pencils, watercolor, colored pencils.



If you happen to have a flower-patterned paper, cut out the flowers and use those as embellishments. You may layer different sized flowers to or the same sized flowers for a 3D effect. If the cut-out flowers are limited and you'd want to use each one, maybe for other layouts, then trace the cut-out flower. Find a space big enough on that same patterned paper your flowers came from. Use that tracing as the shadow.



Now, how would you make a 3D effect when you buying the dots or foam sheets are too expensive and out of your budget? Use the scraps you have.



Here's how: roll the scraps into tight tiny tubes. glue the edge so it won't unroll. Then cut this tiny tube into pieces big enough to fit behind the flower [an alpha, a tag, etc.]. If this tiny tube is pliable enough to be bent into a circle, then do it. It will cover enough space behind your embellishment that even if you press onto the embellishment, it won't cave in.



And while you're at it, if you make enough in different colors, you can bend this tube to form petals, stems, or an alpha.


Go ahead and have fun. I'm sure you'll come up with ideas better than mine!

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.