Audrey's Blog

Craft Room Sale Part 1: The Stamps

Keeping only my alphabets and a few other gift wrapping & kiddo appealing sets, I’ve segregated a pile of 125+ stamp sets with which I am soon.  It’s a hard decision, but they just aren’t doing me any good sitting on the shelf gathering dust.  So, here’s your chance to grab some awesome sets (most of which are retired!) for a great price. 

Here’s the complete list & information: Stamp Sale Info - UPDATED! (9/9/09)

Here’s the fine print:

• Payment thru Paypal only.
• Sets will be held for ONE DAY after the Paypal invoice has been SENT.
• Shipping can be combined on multiple purchases. I’ll recalculate & respond with the combined postage as quickly as possible.
• Priority mail items ship within 1 business day of payment being received. 1st class mail shipments will go out on the upcoming Monday or Thursday.
• Shipping prices quoted are for US shipments only!  For shipping to Canada, please contact me!
• Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Please feel free to independently confirm any or all of it before making your purchase.
• All stamps come from a smoke free home.
• Splitcoaststampers has a great gallery for examples of each stamp set:  http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/su. 

Other questions – comment or email me! 

Here's the list to scan:

A Is for Adorable - $9.00
All About U - $14.00
All I have Seen - $7.50
All-Year Cheer II - $15.00
All-Year Cheer III - $15.00
Alphabet Soup - $7.50
Alphabits - $8.00
Amazing to Zany - $21.00
Amazing to Zany - $25.50
Around & About - $6.00
Artifacts - $11.50
Background Basics - $6.50
Beyond the Basics - $6.00
Birthday Greetings - $14.00
By Definition - $8.50
Canvas - $9.00
Check it Out - $11.50
Cheery Chat - $14.50
Crosshatch - $8.50
Cute Converse - $9.00
Day-to-Day Flexible Phrases - $11.00
Delightful Doodles - $6.00
Dotted - $9.00
Everyday Flexible Phrases - $17.00
Expressive Flexible Phrases - $20.00
Fabulous Four - $7.50
Fancy Flexible Phrases - $24.00
Figures of Speech - $11.50
Fontastic - $8.50
Fun Phrases - $10.00
Garden Blocks - $9.00
Gently Falling - $7.50
"Good Sign, A ", $12.50
Good Times - $11.50
"Greeting for All Reasons, A ", $14.50
Greetings Galore - $15.50
Groovy Lines - $8.50
Handmade with Love - $6.00
Happiest of Holidays - $7.50
Happy Birthday Greetings - $8.50
Happy Everything - $9.50
Happy Harmony - $9.00
Happy Occasions - $7.50
Holiday Spirit - $10.00
Holiday Wishes - $11.50
Houndstooth - $8.50
In Full Bloom - $12.50
It's About Time - $11.00
Itty Bitties - $7.50
Itty Bitty Backgrounds - $7.50
Just Jeans - $8.50
Let's Party - $6.00
Letter Patterns - $9.50
Letter Prints - $9.00
Lexicon of Love - $7.50
Linen - $9.00
Listen with the Heart - $7.50
"Little Love, A ", $8.50
Looks Like Spring - $15.50
Made From Scratch - $7.50
Make A Wish - $9.00
Make it Count - $11.00
Mini Mates - $15.00
Mini Messages - $8.50
Mixed Bouquet - $14.50
Mixed Greetings - $6.50
Nature's Secret - $11.00
Noteworthy - $9.00
Off the Chart - $9.00
Office Accoutrement - $19.50
On the Spot - $9.00
Paint Prints - $9.00
Peace & Love - $12.50
Phrase Starters - $10.00
Polka Dots & Paisley - $11.50
Print Pattern - $9.00
Quick & Cute - $8.50
Renewed Faith - $9.00
Sage Advice - $12.00
Sassy Sayings I - $10.00
Sassy Sayings II - $10.00
Send a Celebration - $9.00
Simple Sayings - $10.00
Simple Sayings II - $10.00
Simply the Best - $9.00
Sincere Salutations - $12.00
Sketch An Event - $11.00
Small Script - $7.50
Smitten - $9.00
Smorgasborders - $8.50
So Very - $9.00
Soft Swirls - $8.50
Solemn Stillness - $15.50
Special Day - $8.50
Spooktacular Greetings - $10.00
Stars & Swirls - $6.00
Stipple Celebrations - $14.50
Stippled Stencils - $6.00
Stripes - $8.50
Surprise! - $7.50
Sweet Spot - $5.00
Tag-Alongs - $9.00
Teeny Tinies - $7.50
Terrific Tulips - $12.50
That's Nice - $7.50
Think Big - $12.50
Timeworn Trim - $7.50
Vertical Greetings - $10.00
Warm Words - $11.00
Weathered - $9.00
What Could Be Better - $14.00
Wishes Awash - $10.00
Wonderful Weaves - $7.50
Wonderful Words - $11.00
Word by Word - $8.50
Word Search - $11.00

Craft Room Clean Out & Transformation

My craft room is a happy place … or at least it used to be.  These days it has become a crap catch all as illustrated by these embarrassing photographs.

Over the next few months this room will going through a metamorphosis into the Reed Family Creative Center.  Chris will be claiming one side of the table for his drawing and artistic projects while I’ll keep the other side of the table for my scrapbooking and photography productions.  Many of the cabinets will be cleaned out and stocked with munchkin friendly arts & crafts supplies in anticipation of the day soon to come that Logan will be working on projects in there with us. 

The 1st phase of this project involves a fundamental change in the way I create scrapbook pages.  For a lot of reasons (most notably time & convenience) I made the decision a few months ago to go all digital with my scrapbooking and card making.  The biggest impact is that I’m in the process of cleaning house of my traditional scrapbook supplies.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll be having a virtual craft room sale to clean out the supplies that I’ll no longer need.  Check back later for those posts.

Along with cleaning out my scrapbook supplies I have a number of other organizational & cleaning phases to complete:

• Memento organization
• Cabinet clean out & organization
• Closet clean out & organization
• … and several more I’m sure!

I’m excited to get started on this and share the results as they evolve and the Reed Family Creative Center is our new happy place!

Me: The Abridged Version

Angie and I signed up to take an online class with creative goddess Cathy Zielske called Me: The Abridged Version.  It’s based on the book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.  This was the first week of the workshop so Angie and I decided to block out some time between her recovery naps this afternoon to work on it.  What a great way to start off a long holiday weekend!

The most significant task this week was to come up with 2 words for each letter that were representative of who we are right now.  We had both been brainstorming a little here and there.  Today our goal was to actually narrow down our lists to the 2 words that would become our encyclopedia entries.  I’m stunned that I think we both have actually accomplished our goal!  If you're curious, here’s my list.  It’s not etched in stone yet, but I think it’s 99% there.

Bonus: I even snapped a couple of the accompanying photographs!  Check those out here.

I'm excited to share the finished product as we make our way through the workshop over the next few weeks.  Stay tuned!

Today

I completely ripped this off from Ali Edwards.  It’s so crazy around here right now that this just seemed like a good exercise to spend 5 minutes completing.  Now I can get on with the day!

Outside my window...I’ve been watching day break since 5:10am.

I am thinking...about everything there is to do with Logan & Chris’ birthdays coming up.  I can finally really focus on those now that Father’s Day has passed.

I am thankful for...having spent Father’s Day with Chris (his first!) & Logan yesterday. We tried to take it easy (and we did for the most part).

From the kitchen...made Lazy Lasagna & Too Chocolate Cake with Satin Chocolate glaze for Chris’ Father’s Day dinner last night.  It was a huge it!  Logan even ate 2 baby bowls of the lasagna!

I am wearing...navy capris with a blue striped shirt.

I am creating...the invitiation for Logan’s 1st Birtday party.

I am going...to do my morning chores when I finish this (empty dishwasher, get Logan’s breakfast ready, pack his bag).

I am reading...nothing right now and that really bums me out.  I love to read, but I just don’t have time right now.

I am hoping...that Logan will take good naps today so that he can enjoy meeting Dan & Cat tonight for dinner.

I am hearing...the white noise from Logan’s room through the monitor.

Around the house...things are pretty much in order.  That’s what Sunday’s are all about in our house – getting things in order for the week.  My OCD side has to have it that way.

One of my favorite things...is the quite hour or so I get to myself after Chris leaves and before Logan wakes up.  Its usually the most productive time of my day.

A few plans for the rest of the week...lunch with Dan & Cat tonight, Agent Leadership Council (ALC) meeting tomorrow, dinner with Chris’ brother’s family Friday night, prep work for Logan’s party, & lots of work appointments, too!

A picture to share...Logan & Chris playing yesterday.

Logan's 9 Month Update

Okay, so as usual I’m almost 3 weeks late posting this, but it’s been an adventurous month.

• His 9 month check up put him at 25 lbs 8 oz (95th percentile), 29” long (72nd percentile), & 19” head circumference (98th percentil).  The 12 month clothes I mentioned in his 8 month update turned out to be 18 month shortalls!  The 12 month ones were too small.
• One month into crawling, and he’s kept us on our toes.  When he’s on the floor, our hinney’s don’t hit the couch.  He’s into everything!  And, I’d like to know how it is that he knows exactly what he’s not supposed mess with.  He’s even trying to pick the outlet covers off.  Ugh!
• Of course, right after crawling came the ability to pull himself up.  This was followed closely by the ability to fall down.  Grace he’s not, but what baby is?
• The “Baby Containment System” is complete.  He’s now officially confined to the family room by 2 gates & 2 doors.  Another gate keeps his paws off the components in the entertainment center.  Like both his mother & father, Logan is drawn to shiny objects that blink pretty lights.  
• We’ve hit the state of severe separation anxiety.  He *might* be okay by himself for a few minutes but not much more than that.  In the beginning, he would melt down whenever I dropped him off at day care, too, even though he wasn’t alone. That passed in about a week.  Now he’s fine just as long as he’s not alone.  As suggested by Dr. Greene (but really we had already figured this out), peek-a-boo and “where’s the baby?” do help.  We’ve been playing these games with him for several months now, and he just giggles hysterically – even when he’s crying which is funny in and of itself. 
• One interesting observation – all of his toys still fit in a laundry basket.  Of course, this makes my OCD side happy because I can quickly gather up his mess when needed.  I know this will change over time, but I’m pleased that our entire family room hasn’t simply become a collection of toys already.  The even better part is that he’s often amused by the simplest things – a tennis ball (with which he already knows how to play a simple game of batting it back and forth with us!), a water bottle with pennies in it (loud but cheap and easy!), and a plastic bowl to put his rubber squeaky blocks in.  Our hope is that he’ll grow into a boy that can use his imagination to play with simple things and be just as amused as he is with something that beeps and flashes constantly.  Having said that, I look back at the 3rd bullet and wonder.
• His “vocabulary” is ever increasing.  “Da da” is still his staple sound.  We’re not completely convinced that he’s saying it to Chris, but I have to admit that I keep saying “ma ma” to him and he just says “da da” back.  It’s a little discouraging.  He’s also playing with intonations.  Sometimes I’d swear that he’s trying to sing along to the radio in his own little way.  Most recently, he’s added something that sounds an awful lot like “uh oh”. 
• Ear infections are still a problem.  At his 9 month appointment, he had yet another one.  This time we're on to the 3rd antibiotic, Suprax.
• This one has more to do with us that with Logan.  Over this last month, we gradually gave up keeping his log that we’ve kept since the day he was born.  I know it seems more that a little OCD to do that for 9 months, but for a couple of engineers it just made sense.  It the beginning, it was a tool primarily for breast feeding, but as time went on we were able to track trends in his wake/sleep & eating patterns, keep up with how many wet & dirty diapers he had on a typical day so that we would know what wasn’t typical for him, or make notes about when medicines were given so we didn’t both give him something thinking the other one hadn’t.  Over the last couple of months, his patterns have been more and more consistent so we both just naturally weaned ourselves off of the need to write down every little thing.  Eventually, we just decided not stop killing the trees it took to print it. 

 

The last major thing that happened last month is that we had our follow up MRI and appointment with the pediatric neurosurgeon.  (Read more about the initial visits in his 5 month update).  The good news is that he’s still just fine.  We did the MRI at Children’s Legacy (they are awesome!) and the doctor was much more pleased with the quality of the images.  We were able to tell more clearly exactly what was going on.  It appears that he has a small growth of “normal” cells (translated – NOT cancer cells) right at the opening of one of the ducts that allows fluid to drain.  Think of it as kind of like a skin tag in his brain.  It’s possible that the growth won’t ever change and will never need any kind of intervention.  But, it’s also possible that it will grow.  When we pressed him for odds, he wouldn’t give us any, but he didn’t seem too worried.  Logan is developing at a completely normal pace (if not a little advanced in some areas) and isn’t showing any symptoms of a problem (crossed eyes, vomiting, headaches – of course, how to you tell if a baby has a headache?).   Based on that, we’re opting for the optimistic outlook until we have some reason to think otherwise.   For now, we are in an observing mode with the doctor.  We’ll go back for a repeat MRI and follow up appointment in 6 months.

Wow – I’m still stunned what all can happen in just a month.  Even crazier is that I’m already working on plans for his 1st birthday party.  Yikes!

Sunday Afternoon on Rushden Road

After a long day of cooking & cleaning (as is our regular Sunday routine), we decided to head outside to enjoy the wonderfully overcast and incredibly comfortable weather.  A quick buzz to our neighbors, the Nylecs, and we had ourselves a little get together in the front yard.  Jayden played and Logan watched – completely enthralled as usual.  I had made a quick run with the Little Man over to Angie’s abode earlier in the day to borrow her yummy 50mm f/1.4 lens for my shoot tomorrow of the newest member of the Pace family.  Well, naturally, I had to play with my borrowed toy, and here are a few of the resulting images.  Enjoy!

http://www.audreyreed.info/PhotoGalleries/SundayAfternoon

PS – To be completely fair, Chris did commandeer my camera briefly so a couple of the images may be his.  :-)

School Pictures

School pictures:

Angie pictures:

 

No offense to the school photographer, I’ll take Angie’s any day.  It just reminds me how lucky we are to have such a talented family photographer. Thanks, Girl!

2009 Spring Photo Shoot

Bright and early Saturday morning Nikon-packin’ Aunt Angie and ever-entertaining Uncle Jim showed up on our doorstep to do our annual Spring Photo Shoot.  We had grand plans of a trip to a couple of local parks, but the unseasonably cool weather made us opt for an indoor & close to the house shoot.  There are a number of incredible frames but this is by far my favorite:

Who knew that a photo with 3 people looking in 3 different directions could turn out so freakin’ awesome?  And by the way – this is SOOC (straight out of camera – no retouching what-so-ever).  The final print might have a slight level correction, but personally I think it’s pretty close to perfect.  That's how good Angie is, folks!

Typically, this would be a reciprocal shoot and I would, in turn, shoot Jim & Angie, but they decided that they weren’t feeling overly photogenic this weekend so I’m looking forward to doing their shoot a little later in the spring. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get a great family shot of them with Jake& Eddie!

Logan's (sorta but not really) Eventful Easter

Lots of folks asked what we were doing for Logan’s 1st Easter.  The answer is not a whole heck of a lot.  I had planned to take a few photos of him with some plastic eggs and with a set of bunny ears his Mamo sent him, but time got away from us this weekend since we also did our family Spring photo shoot yesterday.  Unfortunately, I felt compelled to take a few shots for a totally different reason.  The Little Man is pulling up on everything – including the foot rest of the glider rocker which also glides.  Can you see where this is headed?  In the few moments that Chris and I were both turned away, he managed to slip and catch his eye/check on one of the few sharpish corners of the wooden frame.  Ugh!  He’s now got the beginnings of a beautiful shiner.  Poor baby!  This is by far the most significant mishap we’ve had since he’s been crawling and pulling up, and I’m sure they’ll only get better (?) as time goes by.

A Random Act of Kindness

Something oddly cool happened to me on the way home today.  I was out in Keller with a buyer.  My routine after I finish showing houses is to stop at a convenience store to wash my hands.  I’m not a germaphobe, but I have just been in strangers' houses for hours.  I think most sane people would feel the need to wash up.  Being the roving Realtor that I am, I have my favorite highway haunts.  Among them is QuikTrip.  They have clean restrooms and life sustaining, caffeine containing Diet Coke – what more can a girl ask for?  So, I stopped by the QT just off 114 in Southlake to wash up and grab a tall cold one (Diet Coke that is).  As I was pulling out my $1.07, a random guy walked up and put his coke & hotdog down beside my Diet Coke and stated very firmly “these are together” as he waved some bills at the cashier.  For one of the few times in my life, I struck speechless.  A couple of thoughts were competing for gray matter – (1) This chump thinks I’m paying for his junk food … WTF? (Of course, that was before I noticed that he was waving money around.)  (2) Is this guy so pathetic/creepy/hard-up that he’s trying to pick me up in a QT??? (I’m not sure which one was more disturbing: trying picking me up or doing it in a QT.)  Anyway, he finally said “it’s a random act of kindness” and handed me a card that said:

You’re just received a
RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS
We wanted to bless you out of the abundant blessings we have received from God.

Now it’s your turn …
Do something kind and unexpected for someone else.
(Leave this card behind when you do.)
It’ll make you feel good.

First United Methodist Church, Springtown

Once I figured out what was going on, I think I had the biggest smile on my face.  It was all I could do to utter “thanks – have a great night”.  How freakin’ cool was that?   It cost the guy a buck and some change, and it totally made my day.  The rest of the way home all I could think about was what opportunity I would be presented with to pass on the card.