Playing with My Blog Design

I've been playing around with redesigning my blog.  You will see more changes as I continue to work on tweaking and playing with it.  I am using My Digital Studio as my designing tool.  It is an awesome way to create MANY projects.  During May, the Digital Starter Kit is actually available at a reduced price.  It is a wonderful way to become a part of my team AND add this program to your array of design tools to use in creating your projects.  Click on the Stampin' Up! logo to connect to my web site and learn more about signing up to be a part of my team.

Flu Bug!

I'm sorry I haven't been able to post for a few days.  I had one nasty flu bug that didn't want to let go of me.  This is the first day I've even sat at my computer for a while.  I am feeling human again!

Sad news...

Sometimes life just doesn't seem fair. We found out today that our 6 year old grandson will probably not outgrow his allergies to milk and eggs. A grandma should be able to take her grandson out for ice cream.

... and we're back:)

Sometimes, things get rolling in your life and you start to feel like you're in the middle of a giant snowball rolling downhill. Just before we left for vacation, my wonderful husband bought me a MacBook, so I could take it with my when we travel. My poor old Dell just wasn't holding up to travel anymore. Needless to say, I've been quite busy since we got back home, transferring old files and photos. I think I'm about done and can get back to figuring out how to do more with my blog. Bear with me...

About our vacation... I can sum it up in one word --- perfect! We went to the Outer Banks (yes, again) and this time we took our dog, Toby Joe. He turned out to be an excellent traveler and loved walking the beach as much as we did. His nose must be very tired now, because he sniffed at everything he saw on the beach. We had perfect weather for the entire week we were there and great weather when we were on the road, too. We collected more beach treasures, saw zillions of birds migrating, saw dolphins, and even a couple of sharks. One shark had just been caught by a fisherman. They took photos and then let him go. He was about 4 feet long. The other shark we saw was a different kind, but still about that size and he had just washed up on the beach. It is neat to see all their teeth. We took Toby Joe with us on our little shopping trips and many of the shops invited him inside. Needless to say, with his big tail, we didn't go into any shop with breakable items:)

Halloween is just around the corner!

I've been having terrible trouble uploading photos to my blog. I do have a lot of super fun new projects on my Stampin' Up Demonstrator Business Web Site. Please visit me there:
www.lanahorton.stampinup.net

Finally back to blogging!

Well, I told you I was finally getting back to stamping, but I didn't intend to neglect my blog. I truly have been having fun with all the new stamps, tools, and accessories from the new catalog. I will post some of my projects soon. In the meantime, the catalog party was a huge success and we had a ball! I can't believe how good people are at doing the limbo! Since the party, I've been swamped with prep for classes and workshops and have met some amazing new people. All is well and all is fun, fun, fun.

Sorry...

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. We've had a string of disasters in our family and we just feel like we've been beaten up by life. I know others have had worse things happen, but when you hit 6 bad experiences in less than a month, it kind of piles up on you. We had a terrible blowout on the interstate coming back from our vacation and ended up buying all new tires. That put a real dent in the vacation budget... not to mention scaring us half to death.

The day after we got home, our ejector pump died and flooded part of my basement studio and the bath area with sewage water. We got that cleaned up and were waiting for new flooring and our beloved 11 year old cocker spaniel got very sick. It turns out that he had massive tumors in his liver and even extensive treatments offered us little hope. We didn't feel we could put him through that, so we had to say goodbye to the best dog we ever had. We still have a border collie mix and he has been grieving something awful. This lively and playful dog has become my Velcro dog and won't leave my sight.

During this time period, we were also busy trying to replace our couch and bathroom vanity. My husband decided to use my extremely sharp vegetable slicer without the guard and cut off a chunk of the end of his thumb. They had to put stitches through his thumbnail. After we get the thumb started on its way to healing, we got our new vanity base for the bathroom but they broke the old top trying to remove it so we had to order a custom made sink top to go with the new vanity base which was custom built to fit a specific space.

The sixth event happened when they were installing our new flooring. They were over half-way finished when a terrible storm hit and knocked out our power. We'd had so much rain that when the sump pump stopped working, the back-up didn't kick in and water ran into the basement and over all the new flooring and the storage room. I have a huge basement studio and everything was sitting in water. The flooring installers came back and helped us get all the furniture up on blocks. The restoration people came and set up a monster dehumidifier and 12 monster fans. It sounds like a wind tunnel coming up the basement steps.

Today, things are starting to dry out and we're down to 1 fan --- still noisy, but bearable. We're hoping for no more disasters for a long time. I'd settle for never! Through it all though, I realize that there were angels helping us through each crisis. There are a lot of good people out there who don't think twice about helping someone --- friend or stranger. We are so grateful. I am counting the days until I can get back into my studio and work on stamping and scrapbooking. I'm suffering from withdrawal. Yesterday, my lunch bunch friends surprised me by each making me a hand made card. See what I mean about angels?

Look out blog world! Here I come!

I am entering the blog world beyond my Stampin' Up website. Stay with me as I learn how to do this.