Merriness

Only 4 more sleeps until Santa comes. That is what I have to keep telling my son. I'm pretty excited too, I must say. I think I'm ready - at least
I have tried hard this year to not be stressed
and have everything done ahead of time. In the
past, I have wore myself out trying to make
Christmas so perfect and wonderful and then I end up not enjoying myself because I'm so exhausted. This year, however, most of the shopping is done, gifts are wrapped, cards are sent, and I'm ordering Chinese food the Sunday before instead of slaving trying to make a perfect traditional feast. Not as festive, but the Merriness should be abundant since I will have precious time to spend with folks rather than being trapped in the kitchen expending all my energy. Here's to the Festive season!

Naughty or Nice

We're closing in the Big Day and I must admit that I am excited. I've always loved Christmas but now that my son is 3 and really "gets it" this year, we are all anticipating the magic. He's been to see Santa and asked for an electric train set. He also points out good things he does in hopes that Santa has noticed too. Little does he know, Santa notices . It's too bad this card doesn't sparkle the way it does in real life. It's hard to do Dazzling Diamonds justice on-line.

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Wow, we are ready for Christmas weather-wise. Yesterday, I think we got close to 30 cm of snow. Although we live in Canada and it's expected, it's always a shocker when we get it all at once. We had to bail on our family Christmas because the drive was so terrible which was very disappointing since we haven't seen the extended family since the summer. We made the best of it though. My husband and I bundled up complete with snowpants and boots, along with our son, and went outside to dive into the drifts. It was magical. Then we came in for an evening of Christmas specials. Ethan made it through Rudolph but fell asleep about an hour into The Polar Express. Off to bed for him while Mommy and Daddy stayed up to catch up on some Christmas wrapping to prepare for the big day.

I'm Back

I know I've been absent for a couple of months but I'm back now. As a recruiter for a Polytechnic Institute, September, October and November are chocka block busy for me. I hit over 50 high schools in the surrounding area and travel across Ontario promoting the school before graduating students complete their college applications for February. It's a crazy time with little space in my schedule for myself let alone anything creative. I did manage to get some Christmas cards completed. Now sending them out ... that's another story. I better get on that ... soon!

Cousins

My sister and I grew up very closely (although far geographically) with all of our cousins on our mother's side. Now that we have all started families it's been tough to get together for visits since my Aunt's family lives 2 provinces and 4 days (by car) away. We were all able to get together for the first time in 3 years this past month and the newest generation of cousins was finally able to meet. We were able to capture them all together in this photo which was too priceless not to put onto a scrapbook page.

Another SWAP

Red is my favourite colour but Orange is in a close finish. I never used to like Orange, I can't explain why. Recently, however, I have come to find it an alluring colour. The warmth of yellow softens the stark passion of red (which I love) to create a bright, fun and exciting colour that catches attention. I love combining it with Tempting Turquoise as I did here with this birthday card that I created as part of my convention swap collection.

Sending Out My First RAK

I am sending out my very first RAK today. It's going out to siannasilver in Winnipeg. I hope she is having a great day!!! I won't post a picture of the RAK because that way she will be the first to see it. I just wanted everyone to know! I'm pretty excited about spreading kindness. To have the power to brighten someone's day who I don't know and never met is so profound. What a world this would be if everyone adopted such a task. Cheers! Enjoy Suzanna!

Big Dreams

I'm just enjoying some quiet time to myself today. I sat down and wrote out my Life List. For those of you who watch Ellen, you are probably familiar with this term. This is the list of things I want to make sure I do during this life of mine. I always have dreams but like I have said to thousands of clients I have counselled as a career counsellor, dreams can become goals once you write them down. So that's what I did. Some of them I could probably do tomorrow, some of them may take years to manifest but now I have something concrete that I can look at, ponder and re-evaluate. Lot's of times I never do things because the thought gets lost. The older I get, the more value I see in writing things down. My biggest dream is walk the red carpet on Oscar night - and not as a cheezy contest winner but as a credible actress. This is one of those dreams that could take some time but for now, look at this swap I created for convention.

Lazy Hazy Days of Summer

I've been on holidays for a couple of weeks and my brain has turned to mush. I've managed to get in convention during these holidays and as I prepare to get back to routine, I thought I better update my blog and get some convention stuff up.

These pics are of some of my swap samples. I find that Baroque Motif set fabulous. I wasn't going to get that set until I saw some samples my downline made. What a great investment because it is super versatile. I've used it for birthday, vintage, sympathy and I've got some plans to use it for Christmas too.

You've got to love the photography of these samples. Before I swapped out the last copies, I realized I hadn't captured them for myself. I had the lovely girl beside me during one of the general sessions, hold them up while I took pictures. Thank you to you nice lady. I didn't get your name but you I haven't forgotten you.

Convention

I don't have any pictures that I can post at the moment since I am updating this from the Internet Cafe at Convention but I wanted to check in to let my readers know what is going on. We're almost done another year. Sad but true. I can't wait, however, to get home and try some of the new ideas. I also realize how much more I have to purchase in order to get a grasp on my wish list - HA HA HA!!! Always great to recheck those dreams since the theme this year is "Dream Big". I have so many but I always love it when I have to visualize and repeat them to myself because each time I do that, my dreams seem to come that much closer to reality. For now, I'm going to sign off and Dream Big!