Ad Challenge for Willow Traders...

You can click on the picture to make it bigger... The challenge was to take the Dell magazine ad and use the ad as a sketch for a scrapbook page. The picture is a black and white of the picture that is my first blog post in March where I explained the Orton technique.

Go check them out...

My mom and sister both have blogs so here is a shout out to them. Click on the links in my side bar.

It's finished!

You can click on the pictures to make them bigger. Once again, start at the bottom of the post and work your way up. Maybe eventually I will remember to post pictures in reverse order.


These are the curtains my mom made for me. She sewed all of the buttons on. All 84 of them. She is so great! The other shelf holds the Xyron, Sizzix, and Sidekick. This pegboard has stickers, the other has stamps and rub ons. The basket on the table hold the stuff I use all of the time like a white pen, ruler, ATG gun, and magic wand!
Rub ons and some acrylic stamps. And my sign that says, "We both can't look good, its either me or the house."
THANK YOU HONEY! I LOVE IT!

One of my all-time best purchases is the thing you see on the corner of the table. I found it at a thrift store for $5.00. It is perfect to hold stamp pads. It will hold 48 stamp pads and it turns. It think it was originally used to hold cassette tapes.
The wall opposite the window... Hey, every good BANKER has an old school adding machine on their desk!

The framed money is from my friends at the Bank of Rural Retreat. There was a story behind this $20.00 and when I left the bank to move to the Main Office, they bought it out of my cash box and had it framed for me. Ribbon in jars on top of bookshelf. Scrapbooks and picture albums, magazines and 8.5 x 11 paper and 8x8 paper. Mat stacks, rubber stamps, pens and markers.
Other shelf on other side of computer, Adhesive, Cricut cartridges, etc.
All 12 x 12 paper in these 3 boxes, sorted by Bazzill, PP, Vellum, etc.

Chris and I are both tired and we have sore muscles that we don't even want to talk about but my scrapbook room is finally done. We re-painted the walls, put up new baseboard, new heater, new door and new receptacles. Also, Chris made my pegboard/ shelf units. I love how they turned out. Here are the pictures I promised. And if I haven't called you back this weekend, well, here is why.

To my dear friend Sarah...

You are such a smart ass!

Someone sent this to me at work today. I must comment.

My comments are bold and italicized!

30 Age
Tuesday Day you were born (Ahh, yes. Isn't the story that Tuesday's child is full
of grace? Those who know me know what a crock
that one is. When I got the nickname Grace, I don't
think it was because I exuded a great amount of it.)
11,222 Days lived
368 Months lived
30 years, 8 months, 20 days Exact age as at 25/03/08
269323:44:06 Time alive
269,324 Hours lived
16159424 Minutes lived
969565446 Seconds lived (no wonder I'm tired!)

89,775 Approx hours slept (I'm sure this is a gross under-
statement. Obviously they don't
know me very well.)
3,741 Days sleeping (See above statement)
33% % of life asleep (Ditto)
10.2 Years asleep (Does this take into account sleeping
during class and on the job? I think not)

1,163,478,535 Approx number of heart beats (This would be more if
it were not for the times
my heart skips a beat
when I see LLCoolJ)

Cancer Zodiac Sign
Snake Chinese Star Sign

Share Birthday with PT Barnum (Hey! Wait a minute! Isn't he the dude that
said there is a sucker born every minute?)
34 Years to Retirement (Great!)
12518 Days to Retirement (Gee! That will brighten one's day)
8,942 Approx number of workdays (Obviously this isn't
counting all the times I'm going to
call in sick so make that 6823.)

I'm so excited!!!

Chris and I will be spending the rest of the week re-doing my scrapbook room/ office. Keep checking back and I will post some pictures of before, during, and after pictures. We spent the evening at Lowe's buying some supplies. One of the things I am most excited about is the shelf/ pegboard center that Chris has designed. I will use the pegboard to display stickers and rub ons. We hope to have it finished by Saturday.

Can someone please tell me

what I was thinking when I took Duke to the final 2 on my bracket?

The Easter Egg Hunt at Hungry Mother

Oops. I just realized that I posted all of these pictures backwards. Start at the bottom of the post and work your way up. Sorry!

The storm!

The calm before the storm...

Brady was a little upset that we didn't bring an Easter basket for him so that he could collect eggs. He found a lot!

The Bunny Express

Brady was taking it all in...


And wait in line some more...

We had to wait in line...

Roughing it?

WiFi has got to be one of the best inventions in the world. We are camping this weekend and while I was eating breakfast, Chris was posting on Woodall's.

We are off to an Easter Egg Hunt in the park. 10,000 eggs and 500 kids. That should be fun. I am taking my camera so I will post later.

The first

day of camping 2008 and Chris spent most of it in the bed sick. :(
I finally took him to the Urgent Care center this evening in Abingdon. If you haven't checked it out, it is a very nice facility and has the most convenient hours. They are open 5 to 10 Monday through Friday, 10-6 on Saturday, and 1-5 on Sunday.

Off...

to the campground for the weekend. I hope we don't freeze to death! I am taking the laptop so I will blog from the campground if the WiFi is working there. Happy Easter to you all!

Love,
Heidi

Don't get me wrong,

I absolutely LOVE the freecreditreport.com commercials. I sing along with them every time I see them. The tune is so catchy that you forget to listen to the part at the end that states "requires enrollment in Triple Advantage." And yes, the credit report is free but Triple Advantage isn't.

Here is how you really get a free credit report. Because of the consumer advocacy programs signed into effect by George W. Bush, individuals are eligible for a free credit report every year from each of the three major credit reporting agencies (Experian, Trans Union, and Equifax.) A smart consumer would get one credit report every 4 months. That way, you would have 3 free credit reports every year. For instance, in January one could get a free credit report from Experian, then in May get one from Trans Union, and then in September get one from Equifax. There is no catch and there is no charge. This is a law and you are entitled to get it free. Now, the credit reporting agencies may try to sell you additional products while you are getting your free report but you don't have to buy! To get your free (and I really mean free) credit reports, go to www.annualcreditreport.com and register. You can choose to get all reports from all three agencies at one time or you can choose to do as I stated above and get one from each agency disbursed throughout the year.

Knowledge is power and the more you know about what is in your credit report, the more power you will have when applying for credit.

So easy!

My mom has a great friend that works at a printing company. Fortunately for mom, (unfortunately for her purging efforts) her friend understands the paper "obsession" that my mom and I share. She is so kind as to give mom scraps that they are going to THROW AWAY (GASP!!!) The above orange file tabs (?) were in the latest round of treasures! Perfect for a little tag book. Thanks, mom for sharing with me.

It's the little things in life that make me happy. :)

Go green this St. Patrick's Day!

Hey, it's hip to be green! Rescue something from your trashcan and see what you can create!

The feet...

All of those cute feet at the top of my blog...

Well, they are my neices and nephews.

Ellie and Tanner are my older sister, Sharon's, kiddos.

Anothony and Jeremy belong to my older brother, Jonathon.

And those cute little feet on the end? Well, that is the newest addition to the family. Kailey belongs to my younger brother, Levi.

Chris and I remain childless and our sweet Brady didn't want his paws in the picture. :)

I guess I need to introduce you to Brady. He is a Pembroke Welsh Corgi (that is Scottish for spoiled rotten). We got Brady when he was 11 months old. He will be celebrating his 4th birthday on August 30th.

Spring on the AT!

A couple of Sundays ago, me, Chris, my father-in-law Bob, and our Welsh Corgi Brady decided to take a little jaunt on the Appalachain Trail (http://www.nps.gov/appa/). We started at the Settler's Museum of Southwest Virginia (http://www.settlersmuseum.com/) and spent a couple of wonderful hours in the woods. As we were wondering along in the gray and dullness of a long cold winter, I happened upon SPRING! Wow! That is exciting!

I edited the picture in Photoshop and did a little selective coloring. Let me tell you how. With the original image on your screen, duplicate the layer. On the new layer, click on Images, Adjustments, Hue/Saturation and move the top two sliders to the left to take out all of the color. Next, use the eraser tool to erase the black and white top layer so that the colored original layer will show through. Easy as pie! Speaking of pie.......gotta go.

Jumping on

the bandwagon! Why should everyone else in the free world have a blog and not me? So here I am, leaving my mark on the World Wide Web. Why the heck not?

So, next weekend will start camping season 2008 for the Robertson family! A trip to Hungry Mother State Park (http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/hun.shtml) in Marion, VA will be the 2008 kick off. Have you ever heard the commerical featuring Ward Burton discussing Virginia State Parks? Well, you need to listen to the man when he says that Virginia has some of the most beautiful state parks. The above is a picture I took at the park last fall. I used Photoshop to create the Orton technique. (http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0106/dw0106-1.html) Try it. So cool!