More Relay cards

These are a few of the cards I've done today. I'm up to 23 towards my goal of 100 for Relay The first one is last season's new papers for Close To My Heart. I kind of like the combination of colors. The next three are from a paper pack that I bought ages ago. I like the playfulness of them.

This is the same paper but made it a little more formal than playful.

Inspiration

Having made over 120 Christmas cards this year and many others throughout the year, people ask me how I come up with all the ideas. Well, I'm not the "artist" that some might think. I am an avid card magazine collector. When I run out of ideas in this pea brain I start devouring some of my collection. That's what I did last night. I rarely copy a design totally, but use the basic idea and go from there. I love this one, but actually I am more of a monochromatic person myself. I wouldn't naturally have thought of using the red polka dot with tourquoise, burgandy and green. It's pretty here, but it's really not "me." But I loved the idea and used it for inspiration. The card is from the Cards Magazine April 2008. I have a difficult time with masculine designs. I love ribbon and flowers and flourishes, but sometimes I have to get more grounded and do something for a guy. It's like going outside of my comfort zone. I do like the other one with the frame covering the edge of the blue paper, though I did this purposely.

Both of thsese cards are made with some chipboard doodads that I bought at the dollar store some time ago. They were very bold colors and didn't really match any papers I have. The one on the guys card was a travel theme in browns. I sanded it down to obscure the pattern and added a little ink. The frame on the girly card was very bright pink so I sanded it a little more than the other, stamped it with a small flourish and inked it. The one on the bottom was the same and was actually stamped with the same brown ink but it scanned green for some reason. I like the second one better, what do you think?

Garden Progress

The date on this picture is obviously wrong. Every time you open it up to get the disc out it looses it's date, and I didn't feel like changing it again. However, this picture was taken Sunday morning. It's doing well. You can see that the cilantro is kind of leggy and kind of laying over and I don't exactly know why. The dill did the same thing last week but has perked up now. I think it may be that I have not reset the timers for the light and have been manually turning it on and off and maybe it's getting too much light. I just need to get my manual out and read it again.

Relay cards

I got on a roll tonight... well, a mini roll anyway. I'm getting geared up for the Relay for Life. Don't know if I will try and sell them before or just do it at the event. Last year the dear lady that got me into this in the first place, took them to bake sales and events through out the year, but this year I don't think I can get them to her, she is in Snohomish.

Of course they have to have flourishes!

The Demise of the Tomato

Sadly, this is all that is left of my aerogarden tomato plants. It must be a record though. It was growing for 7 months and still producing. I cut off all these little babies and discarded the plants. There were many more tiny babies but I figured they weren't going to get any bigger. The root system was so prolific that it had smothered the filter in the aerogarden and blocked the pump from running. Usually aerogarden roots are like little white hairs, but this actually had a stem-like root in the center of each plant. I had removed one tomato plant several months ago because I didn't like the taste of the particular tomato. But onward and upward, my seed started kit is on order... back order, but I placed the order anyway.

I'm a few hours early for this post. The last picture was taken Monday morning the 12th, and this one is Sunday evening, but thought I might not have time tomorrow morning to do it. Can you see the growth? They've all grown quite a bit. The slow-poke parsley even has it's second leaf growth (the curly leaf). I tried to make an order yesterday and am very excited to get it, but it was backordered. "It" is a transplant kit to start your own seeds and then transplant them in the spring. I can't wait. There are 70 little pockets for seeds. You take the top part (where the little pods are sitting now) of the aerogarden off and it sits down over it. But guess it has to wait a bit.

The Promise of Spring

In the midst of all the bad weather we've been having it is so cool to see these daffodils sprouting up. I went out today and pulled up a few little weeds and can't wait until spring to start seeing the new life again.

Money

I usually keep my political and social views off of the blog, but I just can't keep my mouth shut today I guess. Dave and I are actually more comfortable financially then we have been for our 34 years of married life, and still I don't think we'd even make it into the middle class according to our annual income.

We are being bombarded with the financial crisis the world is in right now. The stock markets are a disaster and big business is uncovering more corruption every day.

I don't know of a single person that shares my feelings, but I've thought for years... how can we go on like this? Wages and prices, even in the general sector have gotten so high, that something had to give someplace. A house that I had built in 1967 (yes, I know I'm ancient) for $11,500 sells today for $250,000! (wish I had that as an investment now) At that time, $100,000 bought you a near mansion custom built home. You can't even buy a car for $11,000 today. Oh yes, and I paid $3000 for a brand new American made car. How can we keep going on a scale like that? At that rate, when Kaitlyn and Keeley get married, what kind of a pay check would they have to bring home to be able to buy a home?

When our gasoline was nearing $5 a gallon, what happened? People started actually cutting back. People started parking those Hummers and gas guzzling SUV's in the garage and drove the VW's. Then the prices started coming down. While the gloom and doom remains the main subject of our newscasters, I can't help but think something good has got to come out of it. Prices and wages cannot just keep going up and up and up without something going bust.

But with the upcoming inauguration I don't think that the powers that be have figured anything out yet. George W's inaugurations was a whopping $40 million dollars and they are predicting that BHO's will be upwards of $150, and that is not counting the $75 million cost to Maryland, Virginia and District of Columbia (Baltimore Sun). So while the economy is in the dump, gas prices are starting to rise again because people became complacent very quickly, our President and all of the political cronies will be bathing in the lap of luxury. But let us not forget... BHO is doing his part by making tickets for the inauguration available at discounted prices to his "new neighbors" in DC and is holding a "neighborhood ball" for the average joe.

But I digress... I think that it is going to have to get worse so that people will remember a little longer than they remembered the gas prices, but things have got to change. I don't think it is the fault of the president, republicans or democrats. It all comes back to us and greed. We have to learn to live simpler. If we stop paying the prices, they have to come down.

Who's spoiled here?

Dave and Walter in their usual position in the evening. Do you see the tongue hanging out? On Walter... not Dave :c) He got Walter the black blankie for Christmas and it is soooo soft.

Aerogarden

Have you ever seen an info-mercial about the aerogarden and wondered if it could possibly be as good as they say? Well, here's my blog-omercial. Last year we found two aerogardens at a garage sale, brand new still sealed in the box. They sell on the aerogarden website for I think $169, and now I've seen them at Costco and Sams Club for $129. Great price! We bargained with the seller at the garage sale and paid $100 for the two. What a deal. My first plantings were salad greens and herbs. The salad greens did great and we got a few salads out of it, but I don't think I'll do them again. The herbs did fantastic and I started learning how fun and tasty it is to cook with fresh herbs. I ended up transplanted some of the herbs and giving them to Alexis, I don't know how they are doing now. But we were getting ready to move and I didn't really want to move it with all the water and everything. I was going to send for some herb packets when I found two of them at Liquidation World in Renton (no they don't have any more). I planted these the day after Christmas. I thought it would be fun to blog the progress of them, so this is the beginning at day 18. In the back left to right is Parsley (the slowest to sprout), Mint, Purple Basil (yummy in roast chicken), Dill. Front left to right prolific Italian Basil, chives and Cilantro. I wasn't going to plant the cilantro because neither Dave or I care much for it, but didn't want to leave it empty.

This is the cherry tomatoes that I planted when we moved here in July. I really thought they would be done by now, but they just keep on going.

This one got so tall that it doesn't get any light from the aerogarden anymore, so we propped it up in the window. We do open the shade, it was dark when I took this picture.

I keep cutting off the dead stuff and it just keeps blooming and producing. Guess I won't be doing petunia's this year, unless I sacrifice the tomatoes..

Thank you cards

So I finally got off my backside and got a few cards done. I needed to do one for my boss, and figured I was on a roll so why not make some more.

Do you think I like flourishes?

Not that crazy about this one. Was trying to do a more masculine one, but I think I ruined it with the red brad. Maybe I'll take it off and put a small black one on it.

Wii

So, we have the Wii fever. Skip and Alexis got the boys a Wii and brought it over today. I'm not exactly sure what game there are playing here. I think it had something to do with racing bulls. I think Skip is playing golf here. I just know that i have a lot of work to do. My fitness age was 80! You can't get any older on Wii. Okay, so it was the first time I'd touched one of those things. Later we all bowled and I have to say... I did well. Wish I could do that well when I actually play the game. But since Dave really doesn't like to go bowling, this is the closest I'll get to a bowling alley.