BUSY AS USUAL

Lots to do
before our next trip. The slugs have eaten up my entire front bed or Zinnas (we don't normally have a slug problem on this side of the mountains but it was a wet spring) so I have a dozen Dahlias to put in their place, lots and lots of weeds to pull, laundry like you wouldn't believe, ducks to release this week, a BBQ potluck to go to tonight, presents to buy, presents to wrap (my Mom's having a Birthday and I have a BRAND NEW NIECE, YIPPEEE!), and last but not least I am getting my things together to apply for a position on my favorite Scrapbook site, Scrapbookbytes' design team. I'm applying for a spot on their Elements Team where I would get to design little freebies like the ones I've been offering here to use on the site! How exciting is that??? There's so much awesome talent out there, I'm not feeling too confident at this point, but I'm going to go for it anyway! One part of Assignment #1 is to design a banner style advertisement for a minikit I've created. I'm going to use the American Textile mini, and here is the banner I just finished. What do you think? I've never used Macromedia before, it was fun to play with, I'm sure I'll learn more about it the more I use it!

Sunday Drive
Zoe had a sleepover so me and my boys went for a drive up in the hills to look for a pond or lake for the ducks. We found this one, which is absolutely PERFECT! It is shallow on both ends (easy to get out), has lots of bugs to eat, tall grass to hide in, not many trees (which means no predators hiding in them) and we even saw two other small ducks swimming around. Look at this pretty area we live in, isn't it gorgeous???? Looks like summer! Look at my handsome boys? Aren't they cuties? Wednesday or Thursday we'll return to the lake and take the ducks up with us. I'm going to be sad to see them go!

Early Birthday!
I couldn't figure out why Jeff and the kids were so eager to celebrate my 35th Birthday, it's still a week away, yet they insisted on baking me a cake, taking me out to dinner and giving me early presents because we'll be away when the real day comes. Zoe made me a chocolate cake with peanutbutter frosting and Max made me the cutest little card with magic invisible ink. I had to color over the areas marked on his card to reveal the heart, a picture of him and I holding hands, and "To Mom" "From Max". Pretty cute. I scanned it but can't get blogger to add another image at this time so I'll add it in later. The kids also gave me a beautiful copper windchime which is hanging in front of the house now. It all became clear about the "earliness" of the celebration though when I opened a gift from my dear husband Jeff. He got me a WACOM TABLET!!! I was pretty shocked, as this kind of toy is not exactly fitting into our budget at the moment, but he assured me he bought it back when we "had" money so how can I complain! Basically, it's a desktop tablet that you draw on with an inkless pen that acts just like your mouse. It also came with a cordless mouse which is nice. What does this mean for me? Well, now I can write journaling directly onto my layouts in my own handwriting, I can make precise and accurate selections, fine detailing and so much more on my photos, and I can create tons more elements and such. I played last night and made two cloth squares with realistic looking fiber edges on them to add to the American Textile kit. I guess that's why I got it early! Have a nice night everyone!