Technical Difficulties!

Well so much for me trying to post every day this week though I have to say it was absolutely not my fault I didn't get to post yesterday and it's not my fault that this post will be short and sweet and have no photos!

Yesterday we came home from the Tupperware Party - which went really, really well. I went through the demonstration with no troubles, we sold a lot of products so far and my fabulous hostess Monika is going to get some freebies which is what every consultant hopes for hostess!! It certainly helped that my first Tupperware demonstration was to a room full of friends so after my business end was done we got to all hang out and catch up which was great. (Tanya - we have to make sure we don't let too much time pass before we hang out again!!!) Monika and Dave are such great hosts and their house is like a little retreat you almost forget you are in Florida! - I totally went off on a tangent there, so when we got home after our fun day naturally the first thing I did was flip open my laptop and turn on the television and to my despair neither worked! ACK! Mike called the cable company and found there are no known outages in the area so it was just us and we would have to wait until Monday to have someone take a look! DOUBLE ACK! Today we have limited internet access thanks to a generous neighbor but still no TV. So tomorrow I get the extreme pleasure of waiting for the cable guy to arrive anywhere from 11 AM - 2PM lucky me!

Today wasn't a total loss though, despite the fact that I only slept for 3.5 hours Mike and I got up early and went to see UP! I loved it!!! Go see it! Just a really sweet movie, funny, uplifting, heartwarming, I laughed and naturally I cried but it was so good I can't wait to see it again. So far the great Summer movies such as UP and Star Trek have made up for the lousy ones - like Terminator haha! After the movie we went to eat, I have no idea what meal to call it since we had popcorn for breakfast and have no plans to eat dinner as far as I know. We went to the T-Rex Cafe in Downtown Disney its a fun place and the food is surprisingly good for a theme restaurant. We walked around a little bit and now we're home sitting in silence - I suppose we'll put on a movie soon but right now the TVs are taking a much earned but ill timed vacation.

I will post soon with this week's challenge layouts and other random photos I've been taking to post here for you. Until then, have a great Sunday evening!!

Happy Friday

A lot of Fridays we go out for dinner and we see a movie but tonight we opted to stay in and save the movie for Sunday. Tomorrow is my first Tupperware party as a consultant and I'm a nervous wreck! I did a run through of the party for Hooper and the cats this afternoon but they weren't all that interested (go figure) so when Mike got home I ran through the party again and he gave me some great ideas and I feel slightly more confident but I'm still pretty nervous. I just hope it goes well. It has been exciting, fun and interesting trying to get this new venture off the ground and not something I've really tried before so I'm really hoping to make a go of it. I'll be sure to post how everything goes tomorrow!

After I was satisfied with my Tupperware party plans, Mike made me a delicious grilled cheese with bacon for dinner and then I did something I very rarely do when Mike and I are home together - I scrapbooked! I kept pulling things from my scrapbook room out to the dining room table and I put together another cruise layout. I took a little inspiration from Ali Edwards and I did something I've never done before - I used white card stock as my base! I'm really pleased with how it turned out I think it makes a nice addition to our cruise album. I still have a lot of pictures left but I am really thrilled to have so many layouts done and so many stories from our fabulous vacation told.



Aside from the layout I started playing with my Glimmer Mists and masks. I have the start of a project - no pictures yet because I'm really not sure where I'm going with it but so far I love how it looks so be on the lookout there should be a finished project soon!!

Now I'm off to bed after a day where I felt I actually accomplished the things I wanted to - it's always nice to go to bed that way! Until tomorrow!

Rain Rain Go Away Even just for One Day!

I am in a sour mood this evening and I don't know why! Could be that it was another long day, could be that it's been raining AGAIN, or it could be just a case of the blahs but whatever the reason my current mood is wedged firmly in cranky town. But I will try to be upbeat at least until I reach the end of this blog post!

So today I woke up early and did a 4 mile walk workout with my Leslie Sansone DVD, I was pretty sure I was going to pass out by the end but I did it. After that we stopped at the hospital to visit Mike's mom and then I took Mike for his sleep study consultation. Hopefully the doctor will be able to help Mike out and if they could lessen Mike's snoring then I'll be one happy girl!! After the appointment I took Mike to work, stopped at the store and came home and had a nice healthy lunch and then did some crafting. I finished my weekly challenge layout but I'll wait to post that in my normal challenge post. It has been weird crafting though because the light went out in my scrapbooking closet so I have to search for things in the dark and then bring them out into the dining room to actually work. My bottles of Glimmer Mist are one by one making their way onto the kitchen counter and my scrapbooking room is more of a mess then ever but I'm putting off cleaning it until we can manage to change the light bulb - which is way high up there and we have no ladder so it should be a neat trick! It may not be my normal or ideal way to create but I still feel creative so I guess that's the important thing right?




Tonight we had leftovers for dinner and we're now lounging on the couch watching Kungfu Panda which surprisingly we have never seen before and I think it's pretty cute. I did order a bathing suit online so hopefully by the time it gets here it will A. fit and B. will stop raining! It's storming pretty good out there now and this evening when I picked up Mike I got caught in a pretty bad storm - not fun! Tomorrow I have more running around to do but I really want to get more crafting in, I have a lot of ideas so I better get working! I've also been ignoring my book and I've got to get writing every single day - keep on me everyone!!


Until tomorrow I leave you with a picture of the most adorable dog on the planet :)

Wacky Wednesday

What a day today was! Mike and I had 7:30AM appointments to get blood work done, when we get to the place they let us know that the blood test the doctor prescribed for Mike will take 2 hours!! Of course we figured we would only be there a half hour tops so we were caught a little off guard and I was caught without a book to read. Thank goodness my phone can access the internet since there were only two magazines in the waiting room and they did not take two hours to read. Though I did get a great recipe idea - more on that later!!

The two hours went a little faster then I anticipated and we were on our way. We made a quick pit stop at Panera's, I love their coffee and bagels and since there isn't one super close to the house we decided to stop. I know, I know I'm not supposed to be drinking coffee but Panera's hazelnut coffee is just way to good to pass up. I also ordered a cinnamon crunch bagel and hazelnut cream cheese - hey the cream cheese was reduced fat - at least that's the argument I used to talk myself into my breakfast choice. When asked if I wanted the bagel sliced or toasted I said I wanted it neither sliced or toasted - unfortunately when I got home I found the bagel had been both and didn't taste quite the same, of course I ate every bite of it anyway.

Mike decided he wanted to make sloppy joes for dinner so I ran to the store to get the stuff he needed and to get the stuff for the great idea I saw in the waiting room magazines. I made strawberry limeade! I just grabbed a couple of cans of limeade concentrate and some fresh strawberries and blended them together. This was particularly delicious when mixed with a little Diet Sprite! I think I will try more Summery drinks in the upcoming months. If you have any suggestions let me know I'd love to try them!!



Tonight after dinner Mike and I decided it was time to get in the pool for the first time this year, the complex pool is great and only gets really crowded on the weekends so we had the pool to ourselves. Unfortunately as soon as we got out there it started to rain, no big deal I thought we're wet in the pool anyway, but then the lightning and thunder followed and getting electrocuted was not on my to do list for today so after a grand total of 5 minutes in the pool we were back in the house in our pajamas. Oh well there is always tomorrow.



Tonight I had Mike take some pictures of me and Alyssa. Alyssa is such a sweetie she loves to curl up on my lap but knows to wait until I put a pillow out first (her claws sometimes find their way into my skin and that is not enjoyable) I love that in the evenings she loves to sleep on my and if I stop petting her she looks up at me and nuzzles my face it's really the cutest and something I want to be sure to remember!



Tomorrow I have to take Mike for his sleep study consultation but after that I have some serious crafting to do so stay tuned!!

Scrambling to Blog

So today I had a pretty boring day so I am scrambling before bed to blog something worth reading - let's see how successful I am.

This morning I woke up not feeling all that great, yet again. Hopefully it's not the viral infection because I really couldn't go through that again. I slept much later then usual and then woke up and cleaned our bathroom and did a couple of loads of laundry and then pretty much just sat. Not good. I need to be much more active and creative throughout the day. Hopefully tomorrow.

Tomorrow I have no choice but to get going early Mike and I are going for blood work at 7:30AM so we'll be leaving the house and 7 WOOHOO. I hate getting blood work done because I really hate needles so I'm trying to make sure I stay nice and hydrated so my veins are easy to find in the morning. But it will jump start my day and hopefully when I get back I'll get in a good workout and some crafting. I am dying to go swimming so hopefully that will start happening since it has been pretty darn hot here!

Ok so as not to totally bore you I will leave you with some things I love about today:

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives with Guy Fieri - I love this show it makes me want to go on a road trip and visit all these places!! Plus Guy always makes me laugh!



My little Alyssa - she is so sweet when she's curled up on a pillow it makes me forget what a little demon she can be sometimes.



Banky - my little camera shy guy can't even tell you how long it took to get this picture and he's clearly letting me know he's not happy!



And this Talenti Gelato! We just spotted it in Publix over the weekend and it is delicious! I'm actually kinda sorry I found it because like coffee I have to go back to giving up ice cream and junk so I can keep the weight off and continue to lose.



Until Tomorrow!

Memorial Day Blogging

After a very lazy day yesterday I woke up this morning inspired to get stuff done around the house and to do something fun. So I bustled around in the morning folding laundry and emptying the dishwasher, walking the dog and then getting ready to go out. I let Mike know that we were going to Epcot and encouraged him to get ready (after he fixed the vacuum of course!) So by 11AM we had a semi-clean house, with clean clothes to wear and we were sitting in the Mexico pavilion in Epcot eating a yummy, early lunch. The rest of the afternoon we wandered around the park going in and out of shops, taking pictures and chatting. We also decided it was a day to try new things so we picked up never tried beverages in the Japan Pavilion, Mike got an uncarbonated strawberry drink, it was pretty yummy and though it looked milky it was really light. I opted for coffee and milk in a can! I was pleasantly surprised but again that could just be because I know tomorrow I have to go back to no coffee so I was sucking down whatever I could today!!





Once the afternoon got too hot and the park started getting too crowded we came home to hang out and while chillin' on the couch we got this great photo of us and Hooper. My plan is to try and scrap this photo this week. I also want to do a layout of all Banky photos - because he is camera shy he has the fewest pages in the fur kids' album and I want to be fair to all my babies. I feel really inspired to create this week so I hope to get some crafting and writing done - wish me luck and stay tuned as I plan to post as much as I can here!




I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday weekend and I hope everyone took a little time out from the festivities to remember what today is all about. More soon...

me and mike at epcot

Mexico in Epcot

waiting for am early lumch

Bursting with Creativity!

So sometimes when I get my act together and I keep busy and I really set out to do stuff I find that I'm bursting with creativity. Lately I have been feeling just that. You would think the fact that it's been raining pretty much non-stop this week I would be cooped up in the house and that has been true at times but I actually cooked a new recipe this week, I went to a scrapbook expo, went to the movies and went to Hollywood Studios for Star Wars weekend so I guess I better get started filling you in on all the creativity.

Wednesday due to the rain I had a desperate need for comfort food and a strong desire to try a new recipe. So I spent the morning digging through my binder of untried recipes, narrowed it down to three and had Mike choose. The winning recipe of the day was Chicken, Biscuits 'n' Gravy Casserole from Rachael Ray's magazine. What a winner it was too!! It was so delicious it was the first time since being sick I really enjoyed eating. Try it for yourself, you can find the recipe here. I did make a few adjustments to the recipe, I left out the celery because I don't like it, I had garlic to the gravy and wine. It was a huge hit here and I will definitely make it again!!



On Thursday we went to see the new Terminator movie with our friends Mike and Wil. I was really excited about this movie and I really wanted to like it but that was not the case. I was bored pretty soon into it and though the effects were pretty that's all the movie was effects. But it was, as always, fun to hang out with Mike and Wil. Seeing the posters and trailers for some of the other Summer movies I'm eager to see was fun as well.


On Friday I met my friend Zanne at the Scrapbook Expo here in Orlando. I've gone to this expo in years past but I've dragged Mike with me and was normally in and out within an hour, with Zanne it was so great and much different because we were there all day!! We had a great time, bought lots of fun things and chatted a lot. Zanne knows so much about the scrapbooking industry and she is super talented. You might recall that Zanne held the Stampin Up workshops, you can find her blog here. While at the expo we spent a lot of time at the Tattered Angels booth and sat in for a Make and Take. I loved using these products so much that I went over my budget and bought a bunch of stuff that I've already been playing with! Hopefully next week Zanne and I will get together and craft together.



Friday night Gabby arrived in preparation for our third annual trip to Star Wars Weekend at Disney's Hollywood Studios. We woke up early on Saturday, it was nice having Gabby walk Hooper with me at 6:15AM! Then we headed to the Studios. We were disappointed in the Star Wars Weekend activities this year but we still had a really good time. We went to a character breakfast and we rode some rides, did some shopping and had fun. We got back to the house around 2:30 and hung out, then Gabby and I went to do some shopping at Downtown Disney and when we got home Mike ordered Chinese food and we ate and giggled and watched movies it was a good time.




Today has been a nice lazy day with a splash f creativity. I woke up early to find Gabby already up and ready to head home. Mike made banana chocolate chip pancakes that were heavenly and then I took a nice long nap. When I woke up I put together this week's challenge. Mom and I decided to skip the Mini Album for now we will be going back to it shortly, so this week's challenge was to scrap lift a color combination. I used blue and brown a color combo I definitely love and had fun using and in the spirit of Star Wars Weekend I finally scrapbooked the photos from last year. I also had to use Glimmer Mist somewhere on my pages so I used it on the chipboard accents.




Mom also used blues, browns and oranges in her layout, she did a great job using a photo of my sister Nicole, my cousin Kevin and Nicole's boyfriend Andrew and a photo of herself. I love that she has been using so many photos of herself. In the past my mom's photo albums and scrapbooks have been largely filled with everyone else and only very little mom so I'm glad she's turning that around.



Now for the rest of this Sunday we will continue to be lazy. We are currently watching Twilight for the 10th time probably but I never get tired of it and Mike likes it too which is nice. It is storming so I don't imagine we'll be going anywhere tonight which is fine by me. Maybe I'll see what else I can Glimmer Mist or get started on next week's challenge. I never completed the Ali Edwards Weekend in the Life project but I will very soon. I am setting up another little challenge for myself though - I am going to blog every day this week starting today and ending next Sunday - wish me luck and stay tuned!!

It's Raining, I'm Blogging!

Today has been a very rainy day here in Orlando, which is good because we certainly need the rain but it does make for a gloomy day! So while staring out at the dark sky and rainfall I thought I would post a much needed update on life in Taylor Town!

Let's see, after my week of fun with Lisa and her family I ended up getting sick. I had an upper GI viral infection and it was no picnic, my appetite still hasn't fully returned which in a way is a good thing because it is making losing weight a little easier! We'll see how long it keeps up. I'm just glad I got my energy back and that I'm not throwing up any poor that was a nightmare.

Some good news, Mike's mom is finally out of the hospital after very close to 4 weeks in the hospital she is finally home and showing signs of improvement so thank you everyone for all of your thoughts and prayers - you guys are the best.

Last week was my dad's birthday and I created a little something for him:



I do love playing with scrapblog I'm going to have to do a lot more of it in the future.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to be seeing the nutritionist we'll see how that goes though I'm skeptic because I don't want to be told to eliminate food groups and I'm pretty sure they'll just tell me all the things I already know but we'll see. Anyone have any luck with nutritionists?

In other big news I decided to become a Tupperware consultant! This is something I've thought about doing for a while now and finally I just bit the bullet. I'm excited to see what happens and if I can make a go of this business. So be sure you let me know of any Tupperware needs, you can call or email of course or visit my Tupperware Website and order right there. You can find my Tupperware site here. Wish me luck on this new venture!

Well I know I've been slacking off on my blogging lately but I will be much better about it now that things seem to be settling down around here. I am planning on making a new recipe for dinner this week and thanks to Ali Edwards I plan on documenting a weekend real soon as a little weekend in the life project. Stay Tuned...

Challenge 9

Oh goodness this challenge was hard for me - we had to write on photos! All of my photos are digital and saved and backed up but still the idea of scribbling in my gross handwriting on a treasured photo was hard for me to fathom but I buckled down and I'm really excited with the way it turned out. I can't say enough how great it's been following these challenges because I'm really taking chances that I haven't thought to take before.



I think it's funny that me and my mom once again created a similar layout with a set of four images grouped together and my mom is one of the few people I know who like me photographs and scrapbooks about food!!





There might be a bit o a lag between this challenge and the next since the next challenge is to create a mini album so mom and I thought we might need more then a week for that one. We'll keep you posted!

Holden taking care of me

he's so cuddly

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Challenges 7 & 8 Update!

I have been such a slacker keeping up with the challenges and this week due to being sick I was even late completing mine but mom has continued to get hers done on time and she continues to knock these challenges out of the park!

Ok so challenge 7 we had to use a more artistic photo of an every day object. Both me and mom used photos of coffee which I thought was so funny!!

I had so much fun with this, I tried to keep the journaling light and current, I used chipboard letters which I inked myself and I had fun with the papers I chose!


Mom used a photo she took with her cell phone how cool right?! I love how she bordered the twice printed photo and I love her honest journaling!


For challenge 8 we had to group 4 photos together. This is something I do a lot of anyway so I tried to do it a little different this time. I have not been feeling well this week so I don't think it's my best layout but I do love that I got some more fun pictures from the cruise scrapbooked!

I used canvas letters to add a little texture like the towel animals and some fun embellishments. For a change of pace I didn't use patterned paper which I thought would be a nice and simple change.


I gained 10 pounds looking at this one of mom's layouts and another beautiful layout it is. Love the embellishments she used on page too and her journal strips down the center of the photo group - so cool!!


Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment to see why I can't eat hopefully the doc will have some answers and I'll be able to get back into the creative mode. Wish me luck!!

Good Friends and Good Times

I have been a very bad blogger lately so I'm going to try to catch up a little bit. First off, Mike's mom is still in the hospital. It has been 3 weeks and she's been in 3 different rooms. The poor thing is going stir crazy but hopefully she will get to go home this week.

Next up, we started our much anticipated Summer movie viewing! We saw Wolverine which was ok and Star Trek which was AWESOME! If you haven't seen it, stop what you are doing and go right now! It was incredible!

Now on to the big reason I've been a bad blogger - After a lot of nagging, anticipation and planning our awesome friends Lisa, Mark and their little guy Alex made it to Florida!! We had an awesome time at the Disney parks, I love watching the faces of the little ones who are just experiencing the parks for the first time. What a thrill! I also loved getting to hang out with Lisa and Mark and be silly and go on rides and laugh and make jokes and people watch! And I loved getting to meet Lisa's parents Rick and Phyllis!!


I love these two to bits and pieces!

Alex with his grandpa in front of Cinderella Castle for the very first time!!

This big guy decided to cross right in front of our jeep while on the Safari at the Animal Kingdom!

Phyllis is loving Mickey's Jammin' Jungle Parade!

Alex also loved the parade - could be the awesome seats we had - of course we waited an hour and a half for the parade so we earned our good seats!

Me and little cutie Alex waiting in line for Toy Story Mania!

Alex meeting Mike and Sully from Monsters, Inc. This was a big thrill!!

Meeting Lightning McQueen and Mater! Another thrill for the little guy - you'll notice he's decked out from head to toe in Cars gear!!

The first night the gang rolled into town we had everyone here for dinner which led to my first new recipe in a while. I made Giada's Garlic and Sun-Dried Tomato Corn Muffins, they came out amazing! I will definitely be making these again and again and again! You can find the recipe here.



Of course these are only a few of the pictures I took while the gang was here overall I took about 400!!

Next up a challenge update! Stay Tuned!!