Chaos all over!

After months of procrastination, I woke up Saturday morning to find out that my Husband packed up my scrap room, had thrown everything out, and had started tearing everything apart in order to finally build my custom desk and shelves. We had scrap supplies busting at the seams in every upstairs room of our house. They crowded our bed, our daughter's room, and even her bathroom and tub. In the middle of it all, we had to go out and get more supplies just to get it done, and we barely made it to bed prior to 1am! Just so we could go to sleep, everything was just kinda shoved back in there for me to unpack and organize over the next week or so. It is a major mess, and looking at it makes me think, my god, where did all of this stuff come from? I serious have to purge my supplies that I'm not going to use, because just like my grandpa, I have turned into one huge pack rat! Since you're probably sitting there thinking that I can't possibly have THAT much stuff, take a look at some of these pictures:

To check out all the before pictures, just click on my Flickr Badge.

Hacked

Friday night I found out that my account at ScrapSubmit.com no longer exists, and neither do my layouts and such that were posted there. There was a message on the site that they have been recently hacked into and have lost a lot of memberships. As frustrating as this may be, I have decided that rather than re-register with them I am just going to re-direct everyone to 2Peas in a Bucket. I already have most LO's posted on their website, all I have to do is add whatever is missing, update my template on here to remove Scrap Submit's link, and add a link to 2Peas.

If you already know where to find the Gallery, just click on Peanut Search and enter the Username ScrapAddictNV - or you can follow the link below that will take you directly there!

ScrapAddictNV's Gallery on 2Peas.

The urge to scrap

Never have I had the urge to scrap like that of money burning a hole in my pocket. I want to create something so bad, so freaken bad I swear I think it hurts! No wait, that pain and hurting feeling I'm having would be my toe, and right now it's pretty much the only thing keeping me from scrapping, and the reason it's hurting is because close to 4 years ago, I had an accident and injured myself and broke my toe. I know, I know, you're thinking what does 4 years ago have to do with today - well 4 years ago I stumbled and stubbed my right pinkie toe on a stair master and broke it. It never seemed to heal right and hurt for 6 months after and to this date I had a lump on the underside of my toe from where the bone did not heal correctly. Well this morning as I rushed to get Natalie ready for school, I tripped and stubbed my toe on Danny's (Ruben's little brother) dufflebag. I knew immediately that I broke it. It hurt bad, and I was cursing up a storm. My shoe wouldn't fit on my foot, it hurt like hell to walk or stand on, and just now when I looked at it, it was all blue and bruised. Aside from the toe, I can't scrap anyway. My scrap room is in a complete mess. I would have to clean off my desk just to make a mess again,and scrapping would certainly piss my hubby off as I'm supposed to be packing that room up so he can start custom building my new work area. I know, I know - I'm such a procrastinator! I've been talking about packing it up for weeks and haven't gotten anywhere. I definately need way more energy and time in the day - andmaybe a good kick in the ass to get me started!

Happy Belated Easter

Well the Easter Bunny has come and gone, and while he left no eggs behind to hunt for, he did leave Natalie a bounty of toys along with her basket. She got lots of Barbie stuff in her basket as well as some candy. Then aside from that she also got Elina from Barbie Mermadia, and 3 of the Merfaries to go with her. And as if that alone weren't enough, she also got The Ice Age 2 Meltdown playset and some extra action figures to go with it. It's the one where the sloth rides a block of ice through a loop. She was quite excited about all her toys, so the egg hunt didn't matter much to her - she's never really been into that whole thing anyways.

This morning we woke up to about 3" or more of snow. I'm just wondering when will this ever end!?! I am so sick and tired of snow! I want spring to come and see everything blossom and bloom and all the little critter come out before I have to head off to the desert heat of Las Vegas for the summer. Although it snowed today, and again a few days ago - we have had some nice days in between.

Ruben actually came home somewhat early one day, and took Natalie outside to fly her kite. This was a first for her. She loved it so much she can't wait to do it again! Except hopefully next time we'll all go down to the park, so both her and Ruben can fly their kites at the same time. This time, instead of flying a kite while watching Natalie, Ruben played fetch with Lexie. Below are some pictures from the experience.

Hope you all had a nice visit from the Easter Bunny!

What a relief!

Man today has just been a great day. After Ruben got off work, we went to H&R Block to get our taxes done. Yeah I know, $200 or more to have your taxes done is ridiculous - especially when I USED to be an accountant, but it's nice not to have any other headaches than getting everything together that I need. Luckily I put together a worksheet of all my medical expenses, and that amoung other things really helped to pay off. Ruben and I were both shocked to learn we will be getting back more than $5300.
It's great now that everything is coming together. I'm feeling a lot better these days, but still worry excessively about my mom. Every since her specialist mentioned that she may be in liver failure, she has become quite depressed. I really wish there was something, anything, that I could do.
I would like to go beat some common sense into my brother, so he'd at least offer to get tested to see if he's a match. I just don't understand how you can live knowing that the woman who gave birth to you and housed you for 18 years may just die if she doesn't get a kidney. Even my own husband who's not flesh and blood offered to be tested. Some people I just don't get or understand, and I feel so aweful for both her and my dad. They just set themselves up for the retired life down in Mexico, and then this comes along and screws everything up.
But I still belief that which doesn't kill you, will only make you stronger - and everything happens for a reason. I'm not ready to lose my mom from this just yet, so I gotta believe that there will be a positive outcome to this somehow. I just wish she didn't have to go through it.
My family has been through enough problems in the last 5 years or so. And it seems that more and more it's all happening back to back. But Ruben and I promised each other that this year was going to be a better year, as we've determined bad things happen to us on odd years - someone gets cancer, or dies, etc. But now my mom has just blown that theory out of the water, even though WE are back on track to having a better year for ourselves.
I just hope the good vibes keep flowing our way for a while longer!
Here's a picture of 3 generations of strong women, when my mom was at UMC Hospital on 3/11/06. Thankfully she's out now, and will hopefully be on the road to a full recovery soon!

A beautiful Friday morning to kick off what will hopefully be a great weekend!

Today is the dreaded day, the day we are having our taxes done. I'm still working somewhat on the medical expenses I can claim - which so far has been WAY more than the 7.5% of our adjusted gross income. But once this whole tax thing is behind me I can start concentrating on other projects, like packing up my scrap room so it can be remodeled, as well as getting back on track getting estimates for new carpet and tile and a few other things. Now that it's spring I might finally be able to get our 3 acres of field brush chopped down, and a new concrete circular drive done.

I learned last week during Parent/Teacher conferences that June 2nd is Kindergarten graduation. I'm so excited because they actually have this whole little cap and gown ceremony.

Also, I nearly forgot that we had our 2nd visit from the Tooth Fairy! Natalie lost her 2nd tooth on the 11th! It had become so loose, I barely had to do anything to remove it. But you can hardly tell that she is even missing teeth since the second set have grown in so fast!

This morning around 8:30 or so, Natalie pointed out to me that we had deer in our yard. It was somewhat unusual for deer to be out this late in the morning, but it was a beautiful site to see a herd of around 8 gathered out back. It was a nice way to start the day.

Aside from the deer, I have a picture to post that I'm not really sure what it is or what to call it. This statue can be found on I-80 heading towards Salt Lake City, and is just past the Utah border a little past Wendover. Maybe someone out there can tell me what exactly this is supposed to be????

Hope ya'll have a wonderful weekend!

Good News, Bad News - The Story of my Life!

Last weekend I got an email from my dad saying that my mom has FINALLY gotten in to see the GI Specialist, but instead of talking Liver Cirrhosis, this doctor seems to think my mom is in liver failure. After reading some of the signs/symptoms, I could see how my mom's been leading towards this with her diabetes and other problems - not to mention the amount of meds she takes daily. So that's the bad new. After reading the email, I called her up on my way to SLC to go to my favoritie scrap store All My Memories. I told her to let her doctor know my medical history.....with the breast cancer, and having my gallbladder removed. As far as we know, my cancer has never spread beyond that lump of breast tissue, but I wanted to let her know that even though she is O- and I am O+, both Ruben and I am willing to go through the donor match program to see if either of is would be a candidate. They have some more tests to do on her first - biopsies, etc. So we'll find out eventually.
So on now to the good news, the GREAT news! I got a call Wednesday just as Natalie and I were finishing up getting ready to leave for school. A woman from the Social Security Appeals Office had called and asked if I had receved anything from their office, to which I hadn't. She went on to say that my pending appeal had been approved, and they just needed to get some additional information. She went on to tell me how much a month I would be getting, as well as how much a month Natalie would be getting up untill her 18th birthday. It's great to finally have won one battle with these people. She saidI should be getting a deposit within the next 2-3 weeks, but when I called that day to check my account HALF of my backpay was already there, and the other half was deposited the next day! WOOHOO. I feel rich like, LOL! All I know is now I can buy scrap stuff and not worry so much about it. Natalie has a college/wedding fund set up. Now we also have extra money for savings for all those home improvements we want done. It almost feels like Christmas! Matter of fact, I'm already making all my "wish" lists of things I'd like to have, just wish those darn QuicKutz weren't so damn expensive!
Anyway, I hope everyone else is feeling a little better. It's almost time for me to go pick up my honey, seems like forever since I've last seen him, as all he's been doing this month is traveling! Oh, and last week it wasn't to Montana, it was to Wyoming. This whole week he's been in Seattle. I think he'll be spending the next few weeks at home, I hope!