Digital Layout #4: Favorite Show

Another digital layout. After I asked Riley the other day what her favorite shows is, I started thinking how I would answer that question. Thinking about that along with being frustrated over how many shows I like are on Mondays led me to this layout. I watch too much tv, yeah I said it. I like TV, I just do, but I have to say this fall tv season is a bit crazy. Like I said before thank god for DVR and internet tv. I can watch the shows on my own time and I really don't feel like I'm spending an insane amount of time in front of the TV. I'm pretty sure this is the most amount of shows I've watched in any tv season. Some of it is related to the writer's strike, like for example, Entourage is usually a summer series. Stargate is also usually on mid season break during fall season, but because this is the final season they decided to play it out straight through and not take a break. I only picked up three new series this season.

This was a fun layout to do digitally. I grabbed all the images off Google. I think this one will be a fun one to look back on years from now. It was a template that came with week 6 of the digital class. I rearranged the template a little. I chose all solid color papers since there's so much going on in the photos. I also added the text path around the outside just cause they came with the class and I wanted to play with them. I can't create text paths with Photoshop Elements, its one of the things that you can only get with the professional version, but I can edit text paths, so as part of this class we were given a pretty decent amount of precreated text paths. One of the many cool things about this class.

Tuesday so far

When I woke up this morning I was wondering why I even started this whole capture a week in my life thing. I was planning to quit, but here I am sticking with it. I didn't take a single photo yesterday, so I don't know how that will work out. I did take a few today though. I was really in no mood to go into work today, so I decided to work from home. Riley stayed home with me today too. Doug had to go in early, so I would have had to take Riley to school. Also, she's been complaining that her lower back itches alot and we found some bumps on her back and were worried she had some kind of rash, so I decided to call the Doctor and see if I should take her in. They found an opening for us at 2pm. During the morning, Riley watched Scooby and Curious George while I worked. She got pretty bored though so I had to stop work and entertain her for a bit. We read books, and played with legos. Then we had lunch (leftover dinner from last night), did some art projects, and then got ready for the doctor visit. Turns out she just has some dry skin. I paid a $25 co-pay to have them tell me its just dry skin. Don't I feel retarded. Oh well, better safe then sorry I guess. Riley is napping now and I'm enjoying the quiet of the house. Guess I better get back to that working thing.

The rest of Monday

I picked Riley up from school. She was drawing a picture of circles when I got there. She was excited to have found a pen to draw with. We headed over to gymnastics as we do ever Monday. Riley changed and went into class. We're not allowed to watch because they say it's distracting to the kids, but I've been curious about what they do in class, so I went out to the car which I parked in front of the big window to the building and was able to watch Riley from there for most of class. After class, I picked Riley up. She had a ton of energy and kept running away from me all over the gym. I got pretty annoyed. She ended up losing her Scooby Doo TV privileges because of it. She cried all the way home and they even more once we got home. She tried to use the sympathy card on her daddy, but luckily for me he stayed strong and we were a united front. Doug started dinner and Nyssa and I went for a run. The run was hard last night. I hadn't run in 4 days, but I made it through. We ate dinner, watched Chuck, put Riley to bed, watched Terminator and Heroes and the second half of Dancing with the Stars and then went to bed.

Told ya it was gonna be boring...LOL...

A week in my life: Monday

So I came across this blog post about documenting a week in your life and making a scrapbook about it. I thought it would be fun and figured I'd put it on my to-do someday list, but this blogger is doing it this week and I figured, I might as well play along. We'll see how long it lasts :) I just decided to do this at about 2:3pm today, so I didn't photograph any of my morning routine, but that is okay. I consider my life to be quite boring. My weekday routine is pretty much the same everyday. I spend most of my day at work, I also spend a lot of time during the fall season watching TV. I think it'll be interesting to see what the finished project looks like.

Thoughts in my head today:

• Thinking about another scrapbook page I'm considering doing about my excessive TV watching, I counted 16 TV shows that I'm currently invested in this Fall TV season, yeah I said that, 16. That doesn't even count the random things I watch, that's just the shows I'm invested in, and watch on a weekly basis. Thank god for DVR and internet TV though, best inventions ever. I can record and watch the shows on my own time which often means I'm watching a show that aired at 8pm at 11pm the next day. What wonderful things DVR and internet TV are.
• So my Monday is pretty typical so far. I woke up showered, made Riley's and my lunch, and then spent a few minutes eating my cereal and browsing the internet. Then it was time for Riley and Daddy to wake up and me to get ready and go to work. Every Monday morning I have a team meeting. It's about the only day during the week that I HAVE to be to work at a certain time. The rest of the week I take full advantage of my flex time.
• I spent some time this morning reading the blogs in my Google Reader as I always do and wound up off on a tangent looking at fitness related stuff. I wandered into a couple blogs about people training for marathons and a couple about people documenting their weight loss journey. That lead me to think about my own fitness and the weight loss journey I should start. I've been trying to add running back into my life, I loved it in high school. It's been a hard road so far. I am doing the couch to 5K program, and am repeating week 4 this week because I had an extremely hard time with it last week. I suffer from shin splits or I suppose weak shin muscles. I'm just hoping as the program goes on my legs get stronger and the pain goes away. I'm realizing to reach my goals, I'll need to do more than just running 3 times a week. I discover a few things on my blog reading journey today:

This fitness DVD which is supposed to be awesome.

Jillian Michael's Wii Fit game comes out in October.

• I'm thinking of getting both and starting up a stricter fitness routine. I was inspired by the blogs I read. I want to be one of the success stories.
• As I have been for quite some time now, I'm concerned about my job and what will happen now that my company has been bought out and specifically what will happen with the account I'm working on. Wondering if I'll be looking for a new job in the next few months or in the next year. Wondering if I'll find a job if it comes to that and will it be one I like. It's always better to change jobs on your own terms when you can be picky. Not so fun when it's urgent and you have to take what you can get. Very uncertain times for me and it stresses me out alot.
• I watched the HBO special, Chris Rock: Kill the Messenger over the weekend and it was hillarious. I highly recommend it.
• I really want to sign up for a scrapbooking class called Scrap your Travel and Vacation that starts today, but I have no more money in my scrapbooking budget for this month. October is almost here so maybe it'll be part of my October budget. Although the class is $25 and that is almost my entire monthly scrapbooking budget, so I'll have to think about it some more.
• A few weeks ago Doug and I for I think the first time ever developed and actual budget. I was motivated to do this when I realized that we EAT way to much of our income. My bank website has a reporting and budgeting feature that lets you categorize your spending and create a budget. We spent something like $500 eating out in August and then another $600 ish on groceries. I'm embarrased to even admit this. It's absolutely insane. Nobody needs to spend that much on food. So we sat down one night and categorized everything, made a very realistic budget, something that I know we can easily stick to with the least amount of lifestyle change. I mean hell if all we did was eat at home all the time think how much money we'd save. The budget is going well and we are staying within our limits for the most part. After a few months go by I'm sure we'll need to make adjustments in some areas, but one I know we won't be adjusting is our food budget. We're sticking to that, believe me!
• Doug doesn't believe I can stick to the budget.
• Someone commented on the My Jam scrapbook page I created and said that Riley has eclectic music tastes. I took that as a compliment on my music tastes. What she listens to is in direct relation to what I like. That felt good.
• I think we'll soon be adding In the Ayer by Flo Rida to Riley's playlist. I've been singing it alot lately and last night at dinner (All three of us sat at the kitchen table and ate, pretty cool huh?), she busts out with, "This is my jam. Don't understand. hands in the air" while waving her hands in the air. It was quite cute.
• I was in a really crappy mood on Friday and I'm thinking Deb might have noticed when we were talking on the phone Friday evening. I hope she knows that I was just in a crappy mood. I don't even know why. It had nothing to do with her.
• Need to get my camera and make sure to capture my boring week.
• This blog post killed a good amount of time, yeah! Just one more hour until the work day is over.

Digital page #3: My Jam

"Oh hot damn, this is my jam. Keep me partying till the AM. Ya'll don't understand, this is my jam." - Flo Rida (In the Ayer)

Here's my 3rd digital layout. I've been wanting to do a page about the Riley's music for awhile now. I took some photos of her listening to my Ipod to go along with the journalling. I'm pretty happy with the way this one turned out.

When I paper scrap, it takes me forever to pick out the paper I want to use with a layout and I'm finding digital scrapping is no different for me. I think I went through about 4 paper/color combinations before I settled on this one. I'm still not 100% that I love it, but I got tired of staring at the layout. :) Cool thing about digital is I can mix and match a lot of different paper without worrying that I'm wasting paper.The bad thing is that if you don't find free paper that you like, it can get kind of expensive. This is the first digital paper that I didn't find free online somewhere or didn't come with the class I'm taking.

Digital Layout #2: GCH Meet & Greet

Well here it is, the GCH meet and greet scrapbook page. This is another all digital page. I really struggled with this one. I used a template provided as part of a digital scrapbooking class I'm taking. I put all the photos in the circle, added the title, and the circle journalling, and then quickly realized I had a huge journalling block that told the story and absolutely no place to put it. I loved the way the photos, title, and circle journalling looked so I didn't want to abandon the layout, but I also knew the layout wouldn't be right with out the story to go along with the photos. The story makes the photos. This is what I eventually ended up with. I'm happy with it for the most part although, I'm still wondering how to best add a large journalling block without it overtaking the entire page like mine does.

I blurred out the phone number in the final layout, didn't think it would be a good idea to plaster it all over the internet.
What do you think? Does the page work?

GCH Meet and Greet

I want to get down some thoughts for a scrapbook page I'm formulating.

Debbie and I had meet and greet tickets to a Gym Class Heroes club show in Buffalo, but at the last minute the location of the show changed, we couldn't find the new club, and missed the meet and greet completely. We were pissed, so we complained to anyone who looked like they were important. We were directed to the merchandise area where we eventually spoke with GCH's tour manager, Seth. He was super nice and apologized profusely. After a little negotiation he offered to give us a tour of the band's bus and introduce us to the them after the show. We quickly agreed. After the show he gave us the tour, introduced us to each band member, and gave us some Blue Moon beer and asked us to hang out. The guys ran out of beer during our visit, so when we found out we had meet and greet passes to the show in Rochester, I immediately thought we should bring them beer as a thank you. Deb and I each bought a 12 pack of Blue Moon beer and began scheming how we would get the beer to them, but had no plan going in. At the meet and greet, the guys were all sitting behind a table to sign autographs. I went first, then Andy, then Deb. Deb spent a lot of time at the table while we watched and discussed. At one point, she called me over to talk to Travis. She told him about the beer and left it up to me to arrange a drop off. Travis wrote the phone number of his assistant on the tube I was carrying my poster in and told me to call after the show and we could bring the beer to the tour bus. I walked away and Andy says to me, "You been here like 5 minutes and you have digits already?" To which I reply, "That's how I roll" LOL. The show rocked! Andy didn't stick around after for the beer drop off. We called Travis's assistant, but he didn't answer, so we stood around outside the bus like dorks figuring out what we should do. Eventually, we got up the nerve to just go knock on the door. Travis's assistant answered and we explained what we were there for. He smiled and invited us in. We got to listen to Travis playing unreleased tracks from his room in the back of the bus, and talk with Eric for a little. He was much nicer and more fun then the previous time we had met him. Everyone was excited that we brought beer and I remember at one point looking around at everyone drinking Blue Moon (including Eric) and thinking, We brought that beer.

November 18, 2007.... Blue Cross Arena....Young Guns Tour... Gym Class Heroes Meet and Greet... Andy, Me, and Deb.



With Seth


The Beer


hmm, not sure how I'll fit all that journaling on the page I'm planning....

Six with Roo

Riley: Mommy, I want to watch another Scooby.
Me: Ok. Answer 6 questions for me and then you can.
Riley: Ok.
Me: What's your favorite color?
Riley: Purple
Me: What's your favorite TV show?
Riley: Scooby
Me: What's your favorite dinner?
Riley: chips
Me: chips are not dinner, what about pasta?
Riley: No,chips
Me: Who's silly?
Riley: you are mommy
Me: Who's your best friend?
Riley: Siobhan
Me: What's your favorite toy?
Riley: Mommy, come here, I want to show you.
Me: Just tell me what it is?
Riley: I can't! come here.
We walk over to her toy area.
Riley: This is my favorite toy (points at a box). Hmm. This is my favorite toy. Watch what I do with this. (puts a knight hat on her head). So much toys. I don't know.
Me: How about books? Are they your favorite?
Riley: yeah books
Me: What about all your art supplies for projects, is that your favorite toy?
Riley: Yeah
Me: What about Monkey Doodle, is he your favorite toy?
Riley: Monkey Doodle's not a toy, He's Monkey Doodle!
Me: My bad.
Riley: Can I watch Scooby now?

Block Cake

I've never been interested in trying digital scrapbooking before. I spend ALOT of time on the computer and the thought of sitting in front of the computer to create an entire layout made me cringe. Scrapbooking is a creative outlet for me and always something I've enjoyed away from the computer being able to physically touch all my supplies in the process. There are elements of digital scrapbooking that I really like and I could even go as far as calling myself a semi-hybrid scrapper. I often use the computer to create text, titles, and manipulate photos in photoshop for the layouts. I came across a beginner digital class being taught at Get it Scrapped and decided I'd see what its all about. I'm pretty good with Photoshop, so I figured there wouldn't be a huge learning curve. I've finished the first assignment from the class (which started two weeks ago, I'm slow), my very first ALL digital scrapbook page. I actually enjoyed it, still not as much as paper scrapping, but I enjoyed it. It's very easy to just sit in front of the computer for a few minutes at a time and work on a layout. I don't have to get out all my supplies, sort through everything, or clean up afterwords. And I can do it at work during my procrastination time which is a big plus. So without further ado, I present to you my very first ever all digital scrapbook page, Block Cake.

Photoshop a Vintage Look

Andy shared this interesting article in Google Reader about how to give your photos a vintage look. I thought it would be fun to give it a try. Mine doesn't look as good as the example, but it was fun learning some new things in Photoshop Elements.

Before:
After:

I think it's still alittle darker than I would have liked, but I like it.

Hey Sharon, Me Too!

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’s known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-based thought reign supreme.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

Ain't Nothing Like the Real JT!

Hot Hot Hot!

Itunes Genius

So I downloaded the new iTunes 8 because I was curious about the new Genius playlist feature. (shuffle with a brain) While I'm VERY less then pleased that in order to use it, I have to allow iTunes to upload information about my library, I still turned it on. Gizmodo from the link above said the information uploaded is anonymous, so I'm just going to pretend like I believe that and move on. The feature is pretty cool although it's choices are alittle odd at times (it chose Colorblind to go with SexyBack). I'm surprised at how much rock it chose to go with SexyBack and no hiphop or rap. Hopefully it will get better. My first try at it was using SexyBack by Justin Timberlake. Eight of the 25 songs I have rated at 5 stars, 1 at 4 stars, 1 at 3 stars, and the rest are unrated. Here is the playlist it came up with:

1. SexyBack- Justin Timberlake f./ Timbaland
2. The Queen and I - Gym Class Heroes
3. A little less Sixteen Candles - Fall Out Boy
4. Hate (I really don't like you) - Plain White T's
5. Love and Memories - OAR
6. Perfect Situation - Weezer
7. Cry Me a River - Justin Timberlake
8. Here's to the Night - Eve 6
9. I Just Wanna Live - Good Charlotte
10. Colorblind - Counting Crows
11. These Walls - Teddy Geiger
12. Pop - Nsync
13. Behind Bleu Eyes - Limp Bizkit
14. Don't Speak - No Doubt
15. My Own Worst Enemy - Lit
16. Losing My Way - Justin Timberlake
17. Luxurious - Gwen Stefani
18. But it's Better if You Do - Panic at the Disco
19. Rumors - Lindsay Lohan (this must be a bug, I swear I don't have this. LOL)
20. That's What You Get - Paramore
21. Pieces of Me - Ashlee Simpson
22. Dark Blue - Jack's Mannequin
23. Senorita - Justin Timberlake
24. She's No You - Jesse McCartney
25. Smile Like You Mean It - The Killers

Looking to waste some time, google image search meme

Another one of those Google image search Meme's. I like doing these because image surfing on google if fun and I like posting photos on my blog. I got this one from a scrapbooking blog I read.

The rules:

a) Answer the question below, do a Google Image search with your answer, take a picture from the 1st page of results, do it with minimal words of explanation; and
b) Tag 5 people to do the same once you’ve finished answering every question. Just like where I got it from I won't be tagging anyone to do it, but feel free to join in the fun.

When I do these I always go with the first thing that pops in my mind, I don't put a ton of thought into them, so here it goes:

1. The age you will be on your next birthday.


2. Place you want to travel to

Always wanted to vacation at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas. It looks fun.

3. Your favorite place
Favorite place was actually very hard for me to pick. Nothing came to mind right away, so I actually had to think about this one which is something I don't like to do with this. I like to just got with the first thing that pops into my head. I ended up searching for ocean. I love the water, so any place on the water big or small is perfect for me.

4. Your favorite food


Or so everyone tells me. :) I've decided to accept it. I do order them ALOT.

5. Your favorite pet.
So cool that this photo showed up on the first page of the image search for Nyssa since she was actually named after a vampire from Blade 2. We were watching the movie and after we both said, "Wouldn't Nyssa be a cool name for a dog?"


6. Favorite color combination

Guess this comes from my days at CSH.

7. Favorite piece of clothing

Can't go wrong with a good pair of jeans.

8. Your all time favorite song


Asking me to pick an all time favorite song, so not fair.


9. Favorite T.V. Show

Asking me to pick a favorite TV show, even more not fair than picking my favorite song. I love so many shows, new and old, picking one is just too hard, so I went with one that I'm most excited about at this very moment.

10. First name of your significant other/crush
I went with crush on this one. Later on it asks about your husband, so why have 2 of the same answers. Besides, I like working Justin into these. :)



11. Which town do you live in?

12. Your screename/nickname

Searched on a couple different ones, but ended up with carinh since I was surprised to see so many of my own photos show up. This was my livejournal avatar.


13. Your first job
Yes, I was a maid. Can you believe it? I hated it. I HATE cleaning. When I was 15 I worked as a maid for an eight room motel in my hometown. Doug thinks it scarred me and is why I hate cleaning now.


14. Your dream job

This changes all the time, and I'm not even sure I'd really love doing this as my job. Sometimes when your hobby is you job it ruins it.

15. One bad habit that you have


16. Worst fear


I couldn't even look through all the images. I had to go with the first one. Cringing just looking at it. I can deal with one or two of these at a time, but a whole mess of them together. YUCK!

17. Things You’d Like to do Before You Die

Cross country road trip.

18. The first thing you will buy if you get $1,000,000

If I had a million dollars, month long Hawaiian vacation here I come.

19. Your husband/wife


20. What present would you like for your next birthday

I saw Miley Cyrus playing Living on a Prayer on Rock Band 2 during the VMA's. Now that's a song I could really get into. Not sure I want those drums in my living room though. Too many toys in there already.

Nyssa, I'm Full!

I have a pretty awesome Dog. I love her. She is a cute, fun, good, smart Black lab. She understands many words and commands; sit, stay, down, come, wait, nicely, walk, and ride to name a few. She's a quick learner, but has a hard time understanding commands from Riley even though Riley tries hard to get her to sit, wait, and okay. Today, I think she picked up her very first Riley command.

Mommy: "Riley honey are you eating your lunch?"
Riley: "I'm full!"
Nyssa wakes from sleeping in the hallway, runs over to Riley and plops herself in front of her patiently waiting for what always comes after those words, Riley's food. :)