the beach is calling my name...

I hear it... and I'm heading to Maine tomorrow to answer that call. I can't wait to put my feet in the water, breath the salt air, and soak in the sound of the waves crashing. There's no better feeling in the world. I'll be back next week, hopefully with some great photos, and a rested mind, body and soul. And if you could send some hot sun vibes my way, I'd really appreciate it, because they're calling for rain most of next week... not good!
Later!!

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a good ear.

Last night I went out to walk the dog alone, since my walking buddy is away at her cottage, and truth be told, it's a bore to walk alone when you're used to company. So instead, I listen to music while I walk, and I could walk forever. ( ok, not forever, but longer than 20 minutes). I'm frantically looking for my Ipod all over the house, and the dog is becoming increasingly agitated because I've been putting off going out for the past 2 hours, all the while telling her that 'yes! we're going for a walk Lily!!!' over and over. I finally grab Bobby's Ipod since mine is nowhere to be found, and I'm a bit annoyed, because I'm not in the mood to listen to Led Zeppelin at 9pm. I head out, turn on the Shuffle, and got a cool surprise.

The boy has an ear for good music.

I know you're all probably thinking I should be monitoring what's on an 11 year old's Ipod, but he changes it every day obsessively, and I can't keep track. So every once and a while, I listen to a few tracks and check him out, just to make sure he's not listening to Eminem ( which I have on my own playlist, and is therefore accessible to him) or some godawful rapper like 50 Cent.(dh's doing, not mine.)

So here's what I heard on my walk:

Blue Hawaii-Elvis Presley

Hallelujia-Rufus Wainwright

Here Comes the Sun-George Harrison

All Apologies-Nirvana

Ring of Fire-Johnny Cash ( I kid you not)

lots of Green Day.

and a bunch of other equally cool tunes, no swearing involved.

No Ben Harper though.. he draws the line there. ;)

I LOVE that he's so into music now. It makes me happy that he's like his Mom in that respect.

He's 11, and we're coming into full tweendom, God help me.

I'd love to hear some music suggestions from everyone... I still have a ton of room left on my Ipod, and I need some ideas of what to buy. My taste is totally varied and I'm open to anything, so feel free to let me know what you like. I haven't bought any new music in a dog's age, and I feel woefully out of the loop.

Leaving you with a card I did last night, using some AC goodness. I looove this paper!!! It's kind of shiny in parts, and you can't see that here well, but I'm happy with the colours in the photo.

Enjoy your weekend!

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Thirteen...

is the number of years I've been married today. I can remember so many things of that day in minute detail, and then again, so much that has completely gone out of my head forever, thanks to nerves and lack of sleep. I distinctly remember how terribly hot & humid it was that day, and that minutes before stepping outside into the limousine to go to the church, the heavens opened up and poured rain like I'd never seen before. I was so afraid the dress would be drenched and my hair ruined, but I managed to get into the car without a drop on me. I remember my Mother, coming into my bedroom that morning and hugging me, saying, 'wake up! you're getting married today'! I remember how I trembled as I walked down the aisle with my Dad, only to see my handsome groom waiting smiling for me at the end, and knowing I'd made the right choice. I remember my grandparent's faces, beaming with pride. I remember dancing with my Grandfather, my Gigi, and knowing that he was happy because he had always told me since I was a little girl that he wanted to dance with me at my wedding before he died. And our reception, that we worked so hard on making every little arrangement, right down to the napkins, went off without a hitch and was perfectly beautiful, except for a pesky fire alarm that went off for about 20 minutes during our meal. It was memorable, every little bit. Up until the birth of my children, it was the best day of my life.

The layout above is us on this day 13 years ago, kind of a staged photo, but cute, no? It was SO hot, and we were dying of thirst. Some kind soul took pity on us in the heat, and brought us each a coke, so the photographer snapped this pic of us toasting each other with our coke cans.
This was the first layout I ever had published, in BHG, back in 2005, and I still love it today. :)

13 years is a long time. I won't lie and say it's been all sunshine and roses, but for the most part, it's been great. A house, two beautiful children, and many mortgage payments later, I can honestly say to my husband- I did not choose poorly! ( sorry, it's an inside joke. ;p)
Love you. xoxoxo

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Happy Canada Day!

hope yours is a fun one. :)

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encouragement needed...

I'm in the midst of a huge purging of scrap stuff, it's 11:30 pm, and I have approximately 14 hours left before the guys come home from the camping trip. ( which, by the way, has been kind of a bust b/c of all the rain we've had this weekend). There's piles of stuff in my dining room and living room, semi -organized into 'give away,' throw away', and 'keep & sort' piles. I kind of feel like I'm losing my mind, b/c I honestly don't know if I can do it. I'm totally overwhelmed. It makes me dizzy, like I have adult ADD or something akin to it. Have I mentioned that I'm just not the organize-y type? AT ALL. But I need to get this done for my own sanity. Not just throwing out the odd thing here and there, but really cleaning out at least half ( if not more) of what I own. It's hard when you're not organized. Scrapping becomes tedious, b/c you can't find anything, and nothing is in it's place. It's very frustrating, spending the greater portion of your precious scrap time looking for stuff. The final straw was last week when I had to do something for AC, and I ended up scrapping on the floor, b/c my table was piled too high with papers and accumulation of stuff from months past. I've never had to do that.

The scary part in all this is that I was totally blind about how much crap I really do have. It's embarrassing, and depressing, realizing I've blown all this money, and haven't used even a 1/3 of it all. I mean, you guys have seen my pages, and it's not like I use alot of stuff, kwim?
So, my goal is to get back to basics, and keeping only what I love, which would be my beloved AC & KI stuff, and not much else. Ok, maybe a bit more than that, but I'll try to be reasonable, ha!
Wish me luck, and send me some type A brain cell waves to keep me on track, will you?
I'll let you know how it turns out, if I ever finish....

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so much to do, so little time...

My guys are going to their annual Cub camp out for the weekend starting tomorrow, so I'll have 4 glorious *( 3 really, since I'll be at work Saturday) days alone this weekend. It's a long weekend here again with Canada day weekend coming up. I love this time of year. :) So much to do outside, lots of festivities, and a general feeling of vacation is setting in now. Ahhh. I'm hoping to take in a few free concerts at the International Jazz Festival which kicked off today. It's such an amazing atmosphere downtown while this is going on. If you've never experienced it, I HIGHLY recommend booking a trip here to see it at least once in your life- it's amazing!

So far this week:

we attended some St.Jean Baptiste festivities the other night. The kids loved it- there were fireworks, music and ice cream ( but too many drunk and stupid teenagers for me, lol!) and they stayed up way past 11 pm. What's more fun for a kid than that? And that old fashioned Quebecois fiddle music just gets me every time. It's very quaint and kind of touristy, but it works on this particular day.

Swimming lessons for the kiddos started this week at our neighbourhood pool. I LOVE this pool. I'm feeling the need to do a mini album about said pool, b/c it's just so dear to my heart. When I took the kids for their first swim of the season last week on opening weekend, I actually did a little jig. I remember walking through the park in the dead of this winter, with all the tons of snow we had, and gazing longingly at the pool... summer seemed so far away then! It's an amazing community pool , very small, very intimate, and it felt so good to see all these cool people, most of whom I haven't seen much of since the closing last August. It's pretty much my social life for the summer, and I'm looking forward to fun times there this season. The gang we've got there is great, and I wonder why the heck we don't hang out in the winter too.

Signed the boys up for a summer reading program at our local library. They're psyched, b/c there are games, prizes and cool stuff involved. I'm just grateful that they'll have something fun to work toward ( there's a neato photo contest too for the Moms) and we always really enjoy a trip there. I could spend an entire day just looking through all the good stuff they've got ( apart from every book you'd ever want to read) .I will be renting somefreebie movies and hoping to expand my musical knowledge with the enormous CD library they've got there. Love that part. :)

Tomorrow I'm meeting up with my friend Danielle, who some of you may know better as the very talented Daniellemarieclaire from 2Peas. I usually don't have time to spend with her b/c I'm always working when she comes into town and shops at the store, so this will be a treat for me to be able to sit and talk with her for more than a few minutes here and there.

Here's my latest layout. Pretty darned basic, but I like how it turned out for the most part. I often admire other people's more elaborate and technique-y stuff, but I honestly really love a simple page best of all. :)

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

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officially summer..

tomorrow is St. Jean Baptiste day here in Quebec, and for me, it always marks the official start of summer. It's a provincial holiday, and there's lots of activities, fireworks, and a good excuse for drinking too. ;) We'll be taking in the fireworks tonight if the weather cooperates, and tomorrow we'll be lounging around the pool (once again, depending on if the darned rain ever decides to go away) and the temperature warms up. What's with the cold all of a sudden?? Argh!

I'm still cleaning my scrap mess, and hoping that by the weekend I will be able to sit in a very clean, organized space and actually be able to sit and make something.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with some quick cards I did for friends. And I've been fooling around with trying to make a banner after Candice put the bug in me, so please don't laugh too hard at my novice attempt. I'll keep trying!

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