"One"

One! Yep, it's a song by U2, but it's also the number of half-way decent pictures that I got at the concert last night :( ONE! And here it is. Ah well, with or without pictures, it was still the most awesome, fabulous, wonderful concert that I've ever been to! If I would have known that they weren't searching people, I would have snuck a regular camera in. Just my luck, though. Jim & I are already making plans to go see them again in Cleveland in December. Now, the hard part....finding tickets! But I'm determined to see them again. The whole concert was just absolutely amazing.....the lighting, the stage, the songs they played & let's not forget about the pink sunglasses ;)

Just a short blog entry for now as I wanted to get this picture up.

Have a fabulous day!
Benita, whose ears are still ringing this morning :)

{Window} Of Opportunity?

A very good friend of mine gave me this old, antique window as they changed their decor & it doesn't fit into their home anymore. So, of course, I instantly started thinking about ways I can alter it. I will be removing all the eucalyptus, moss & stuff from it & I was thinking about putting layouts of my family in each window pane....I'm thinking a 2-page layout will probably fit on each pane of glass (I haven't measured them yet). The window is actually mounted on a base so it stands up perfectly & I'll probably keep it like that. Anyone have any ideas on what I could do with this window? Should I paint it? Distress it? What? HELP! LOL The other problem I'm running into is where to put it once I'm done. I don't have much floor space left in our house, but I'm afraid if I take it off the base, it will probably damage the window more. I can see that this is going to be a very lengthy project at best! (you can click on the picture for a larger view)

I do know one thing.....I am sooooo excited about tonight! DH & I are skipping bowling & going to see U2 in concert!!! YAY!!! I can't wait! I have been wanting to see them for YEARS, but never got the chance until now. We've had our tickets for the concert for over 6 months & the day has finally arrived. I'll be taking my binoculars with a built-in digi camera & hoping that I can get some half-way decent pics because they aren't allowing cameras & knowing my luck, I'd get caught if I took one. I used the binoculars for when we went to see Linkin Park in concert once & unfortunately, most of the pics from that concert were blurry :( So keep your fingers crossed that they come out better for me tonight. We have floor tickets, so I'm hoping we can get kinda close to the stage, but if we don't, no biggie.....I'm just happy that I'm going to see them :) U2 has been one of my all-time favorite bands for years! And from looking at the playlist that I found on another website, they'll be playing some of my favorite songs: Beautiful Day, Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, Where The Streets Have No Name, Pride In The Name Of Love, With or Without You & All Because Of You, not to mention a bunch of other songs.

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll have some U2 pics to add to my next blog update :)
Benita

"I Miss My Mom"

Those 4 little words brought tears to my eyes tonight....."I Miss My Mom!" My nephew Donny (the short one in this picture) IM'ed me tonight & when he said that to me, I just lost it!! This is a picture of Donny & Mikey (Karen's sons) that I took the day of the funeral. I was actually kinda shocked when Donny typed that in the IM because he was the one that seemed to be handling it the best. He's an EMT, so he said he sees death all the time & he's used to it. But maybe now reality is finally setting in, I don't know. I know for me, there are still days when I think that it's all just a really bad dream & I'm going to wake up & it never happened. But then there are days when I do nothing but cry because I know it's not a dream & I miss them so much! When does the pain go away? When does the crying stop? When does it all stop hurting? When??

I miss you Karen & Jimmy!

Primas, Mom, Shopping & Bowling

A few months ago, I decided to host a Prima Flower swap on the AOL message boards. After an overwhelming response for the first group, I decided to open a second group, thinking that would give everyone a chance to get in that wanted in. Well, 3 groups later, here is a picture of the results. Bag after bag after bag of these adorable little flowers spread all over my living room floor :) I spent most of yesterday & this morning sorting, separating, counting & packaging up all these flowers & this afternoon (after a much-needed nap), they will be postal & headed back home to the participants. I'll admit, this swap brought a few headaches with it, but I'm glad that I hosted it. It gives everyone that participated a chance to get all the different colors & sizes of Primas without buying all the jars of them (like I do, lol).

On a sadder note, my Mom was admitted back into the hospital again on Wednesday, the day after she was discharged. I knew that she wasn't ready to go home yet, but she wanted to give it a try. Linda called me on Wednesday & said that Mom called her at 1:00 a.m. Wednesday morning because she couldn't get up from her computer chair. So Linda had her son-in-law drive up there to help her. Then on Wednesday, she got sick again & they had to have an ambulance come & take her back to the hospital. Today, she is being moved into a nursing home for a few weeks & she's pretty depressed about that :( She really wanted to go home, but she's just not ready.

Yesterday, I went shopping & bought this really cool wood tray at Linens & Things for my living room. The bottom actually comes out of it so that you can add pictures, etc. to it. I'm definitely going to alter it, but I'm not sure how just yet. Maybe I'll just do a layout to fit inside of it. I'm still on the hunt for the perfect candlesticks to put on it, but no luck yet. I also bought this cool suitcase/lunchbox (at least it looks more like a lunchbox than a suitcase to me). I'm definitely going to alter that, too.....right now, it has a Paris theme on it, but I think I can do something better to it. No, I know I can :)

Tonight is bowling night.....I just hope I can bowl better than I did on Tuesday . Why I ever decided to get new bowling shoes & a new bowling ball at the same time is beyond me! Not fun trying to break in 2 things at once! Plus I'm trying to hold my ball differently after having lessons last weekend.

Off to take that nap so hopefully it'll help with my bowling tonight. Until I blog again,
Benita

American Crafts Ribbon :)

Besides being addicted to Prima Flowers, I also have this MAJOR ribbon problem ;) One of my favorite brands of ribbons are by American Crafts & a few weeks ago, I finally found some of the new 2-sided AC Ribbons. I decided the best way to store them was by taking them off their spools & putting them in the Cropper Hopper Embellishment Boxes & then inside the Cropper Hopper embellishment case, so that's what I spent 2 hours doing today. I still have 2 more of the new packages to put in here plus some of the ones that I bought from QVC, but I ran out of the little embellishment boxes. This is just a very small portion of my ever-growing ribbon collection/obsession. I also have one of these cases filled with just the Bobbin Ribbons plus I have my loose ribbons in jars & then all my other ribbons that are on spools are stored in some wooden ribbon boxes that I purchased on ebay. And yep, just like my Prima Flowers, I do use them quite often, so I'm not just a ribbon/Prima hoarder :)

Off to get ready for bowling tonight. Seems weird blogging twice in one day, but I just wanted to post this picture of my hard work :)

Benita

Me & My Mom Challenge

Today's blog challenge on 2 Peas is to write how we are like/not like our mothers & to post a picture of our mothers....the above picture was taken last Thanksgiving at my Mom's house....that's me with my Mom.

According to Jim, I'm too much like my mother. And unfortunately, that's not a good thing :( Don't get me wrong, I love my Mom very much! But I don't want to be like her. Why? Well, because she's a pessimist, which is one thing that I know I got from her, but I'm working very hard on changing. She's never happy, which is another bad habit that I got from her that I've been working on. But on the positive side, I consider my Mom one of my best friends. I can call her whenever I need to talk about anything & everything. And although I may not always like the advice she gives me, I still enjoy talking to her.

Right now, my Mom is still in the hospital & I've been calling her everyday to see how she's doing. My Mom & I are close & who knows, maybe that's why I am too much like her! But now I'm working on me to be ME :)

Have a great day,
Benita

ETA: My Mom was just discharged from the hospital this afternoon......YAY!!! Although now I'm going to be worrying about her even more because she's still having a hard time getting up & around by herself :( Please keep her in your thoughts & prayers for me. Thanks.

Sundays = Nascar!

(click on picture for larger image)

The blog challenge on 2 Peas for today was what do you love about Sunday mornings. This is my first time doing a blog challenge & although it's no longer Sunday morning, I thought it would still be fun.

What do I love about Sundays? Well, for one......NASCAR, BABY!!! :) Yep, I'm as nuts about Nascar as I am about scrapbooking! And so is my dh. The above picture is of his hobby, collecting Nascar diecast cars. I have my scrapbooking, he has his diecast (okay, so they're my diecast, too :). Haven't figured out yet which one is more expensive though, lol. Today while the Nascar race was on, I was also working on some swaps.....perfect way to veg! Unfortunately, there were a lot of un-called for accidents in the race today, but luckily, no one was injured.

Sunday's are pretty much my day to relax, scrapbook, finish up any laundry that I may have left over from Saturday & then relax with Jim at night. Jim works almost every Sunday (gotta love that double time!), but once he gets home, we just spend the rest of the day enjoying each other's company & talk about the week ahead of us. I love Sundays, although it means that Monday morning is just around the corner. Some Sundays, like today, I don't even get out of my jammies. I figure why get dressed if I'm not going anywhere, right? I also give my hair a break from styling it & hairspray. Plus it's the day I change the sheets.....I just love the smell of fresh sheets on the bed on Sunday nights :)

Short blog entry tonight as I'm off to relax with my hubby :) Have a great night,
Benita