So excited!

I told Nicole just a little bit, I am so excited, I am a happy/silly girl right now. I played with my new Nestabilities, (they just came in the mail today) and my Prismacolor markers. I figured out how to use my markers without them going all over the place. I also got a really good start on my weekly planner that I am doing for my Auntie Karen. I am so happy that I got to play with my new scrapping stuff. I haven't got to play very often. Well, thats all for now. Oh, well I will show you a picture of what I played with. I will post again when it's actually a full blown card too.

-Leslie

Today's the day!

Today the new Spring Idea Book from Close to My Heart is available to everyone! Yay! As a consultant I have had it in hand for a month, and I love it all. The new papers are gorgeous, and the new stamps amazing. Take a look at the catalog online at my Close to My Heart website www.lesliek.myctmh.com Enjoy!

-Leslie

Happy Happy New Year!

I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year! I got news yesterday that has made me a very happy lady. One of my best friends Dawn has been going thru an ugly divorce for the last 2 1/2 years. Her husband had taken her daughters and was claiming that she was unfit for custody. Her attorney called yesterday afternoon and gave her the good news. The judge decided in her favor! The girls are finally coming home to stay! I am so happy for her I can't hardly stand it. I am planning a scrapbook page to celebrate. I can't decide between two titles, so let me know what you think, and maybe, you can use one for your own inspiration. If you do let me know. The two titles are Rejoice! In the Lord always. Or I will celebrate...sing unto the Lord.

-Leslie

Merry Christmas Everybody!

I wish you all a Merry Christmas! I am up way to late but that's okay. I don't have any munchkins to wake me up. I got to pick out several of my Christmas pressents yesterday, so Zorro didn't bother to wrap them, but that doesn't mean that I am not going to stick them under the tree. My mom is supposed to fly back from Portland today. We will see how that works out. It's my understanding that there is a nasty storm still raging in Portland, and well here it's winter in Wyoming/Utah and her flight is supposed to arrive durring the time our coming storm is raging it's hardest. We shall see what happens. My hubby got me the Cricut Expressions I have the manual out of the box so I can figure out how to use it. I will probably read it in a little bit while I bake the apple pie. I just pulled 2 loaves of bread out of the oven (more than slightly deformed) they were the frozen variety, and had a little mishap while defrosting. They should still taste good anyway. I also baked some Banana bread muffins, using my Mom's Aunt Carol's recipe. It's the best I have ever tasted. I decided to switch it up this time and put in mini-chocolate chips instead of nuts. I often use half wheat flour/half white flour it works really well and gives the bread a deeper flavor. I always add vanilla and an extra banana (if I have it.)

Well I hope everyone has a Very Merry Christmas. As one of my favorite t.v. pastors says..."May you be blessed in your goings out and your comings in." I know it's paraphrased from the Bible somewhere but it is such a beautiful and simple blessing, I love it.

-Leslie

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Planes, snow, tears, frustration and sadness!

I posted a while back that my brother would be flying in from Portland for Christmas. He was supposed to arive on Friday, but if you've watched the news at all you know that Portland has been covered in snow for the last week. Well on Friday they got a new storm and we got their old one. Everything was fine when I left for Salt Lake to pick him up from the airport. Well okay it was snowing and the wind was blowing but, as far as the information on the flight everything was "On Time" well that means that his flight should have left 30 minutes before I did. It didn't. My poor brother has huge issues with PTS having served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Due to the Army's hurry up and wait way of doing things he also has huge issues with planes. After being on the plane for as long as he could handle with no information, and sitting next to a lady who (apparently) smelled as if someone forgot to change her diaper before she got on the plane, he go up and got off. I don't blame him. I was talking to him on the phone several times until he couldn't handle it anymore and I couldn't calm him down because at that point I was slinding (in several directions) on Parleys Summit and trying desperately not to be pushed into the median. At the end of the trip to Salt Lake I was sobbing on the phone to my mom, my friend Kori, and co-worker Zach begging Zach to take my 7am shift the next day because there was NO Way I was getting on Parleys again that day. Thank you Zach! Thank you Kori for letting me stay the night at your house, as well.

Well, after all of that I got on the phone and called Southwest and called to see if anything could be done about the ticket. Many thanks to Cindy operator number 66. She listened to what I had to say didn't even ask for any details she offered another plane and when I said that there wasn't anyway we would able to get him anywhere near a plane she gave us a credit that is good for anyone. On Sunday my Mom used it to fly out to see him for a couple days. Poor kid he was worried that we were mad at him and all sorts of other junk. I told Mom when she was making the arrangements that she'd better make sure that she spent Christmas with him. She decided that she would spend Christmas morning with Andrew and the afternoon with us.

Sadly, our fish Calli that I posted a couple pictures of a month or so ago has died. She died yesterday morning. Poor fishy, has had trouble before when we cleaned the fish tank, with not getting enough oxygen. The fish tank with a fish tank that big needs to be cleaned at least once a week and unfortunately the bubbler was off for just too long. Calli was still alive but just never recovered. We will miss Calli.

-Leslie

Merry Christmas from Louie!

Mom brought home a big box to mail some Christmas gifts for my Aunt and Uncle in Texas, tonight. My cats being the cute little buggers they are immeadiately tried to investigate. Unfortunately, Minerva didn't stay in the box long enough for me to get a picture of her as well. But any way Louie wishes you a Merry, Merry Christmas from his box to yours!

I Love the snow

I love snow, and it has finally started snowing and sticking here. I am so happy, as long as I am in the house. I really hate being cold! Oh well, the thing that I really hate is the migration of the de-icer. I guess that we use to much de-icer (I say we, but really I don't put it down very often) and so we track it in the house, which would be fine if it stayed by the door where we leave our shoes. But it does not, somehow it's all over the living room, down the stairs, in the hallway, everywhere, including (probably) the bathroom. I guess it's time to get out the vacumn, and leave it by the front door. Of course, that will make for some really attractive Christmas morning pictures. Speaking of which for the first at this job I have both Christmas and Christmas Eve off! I am really happy about that, too. Andrew (my brother) is flying in from Portland on Friday and he's staying for a whole month! I love my brother, so I am looking forward to this. Since he will be here durring the time of my Dad's birthday, we are planning to go to see him that weekend too. Well, I need to get in the shower and get ready for work. I don't want to but, I must be responsible and well I like having a paycheck, so off to work I go. Have a good day, or week or whatever until I talk/type to you again.

-Leslie

How many have you read?

"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed."

I bolded the books that I have read...

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4. The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling

5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6. The Bible

7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell

9. His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman

10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare

15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien

17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye -JDSalinger

19. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch - George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - my favorite book of all time!

25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - I seriously love Tolstoy

32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34. Emma - Jane Austen

35. Persuasion - Jane Austen

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41. Animal Farm - George Orwell

42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47. Far From The Maddening Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50. Atonement - Ian McEwan

51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52. Dune - Frank Herbert

53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72. Dracula - Bram Stoker

73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74. Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson

75. Ulysses - James Joyce

76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal - Emile Zola

79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80. Possession - AS Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87. Charlotte's Web - EB White

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92. The Little Prince – Antoine de St. Exupery

93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94. Watership Down - Richard Adams

95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

By my count I have read at least 13 of these how many have you read? I am a little iffy on Lord of the Flies, I know this was read to me in class, but I don't know if we finished it.

-Leslie

Last night!

I have been doing the night audit for 9 days straight and all I can say is thank goodness that I have tomorrow and Wednesday off! I am the back-up auditor, and he decided to go to visit his parents for the week of Thanksgiving. Which I don't really mind so much usually, but usually I do get days off too. Not this time, it's the second year that he's gone on vacation for Thanksgiving, which isn't so bad, (double time for holiday pay is very nice) but that means that for the last 2 years, I haven't been able to cook the turkey. My mom and I have an agreement that we switch years on who gets to cook the turkey. Well I guess there is always next year, maybe. ;)

I am no where near prepared for the craft fair on Saturday, but I hope to fix that on my days off this week. But only time will tell. I will post what I get done and let everyone know how it works out.

Talk you soon!

-Leslie