it's official.

i've been published!
so exciting! just a card but still pretty darn cool to see your name in print!
scrapbook trends babies. made the card ages ago for margaret's card swap. so thanks margaret! ;o)
only had a few moments to skim thru it. lots of great ideas! can't wait to really look at it. my girlfriend is due in about one month and i can't wait to drag her into this hobby with this magazine! i know, i know... bad friend!
anywho back to it. here's a pic {wonky scan, my apologies.} hope everyone has a safe and happy fourth!

fireworks.

super stoked for this holiday. kinda been our holiday. not really sure why but it just is...
i have a thing for fireworks. i don't necessarily want anything to do with them. okay fine, maybe a sparkler or two... but i love watching them. seriously, how the heck did people come up with these things? the colors, the designs. love it. the spermy looking ones and the super bright ones are some of my favs. oh, and the ones that have crazy shapes. i remember a smiley faced one a few years ago!
not sure the plan yet for the holiday weekend. want to see as many firework shows as possible! were gonna try to head to michigan with nick's dad and his girlfriend. but he had to work on monday... so we were thinking of other options. now he's off and we were already trying to figure out how to get to the taste of chicago. hopefully, we can arrange that for monday. would love to be downtown for the firework show. even if traffic will be a nightmare!! oy. but could totally be worth it! and this rain. well, forecasted rain. needs to make up it's mind so i can make plans! ;oP

quotes make me happy!

i just love em. i subscribe to cyber nation, inspire, and real simple. daily inspirational emails... gotta love that! yes, i think i have another addiction problem!
total bummer because i had a zillion of them saved to my computer. i thought they were on the external hard-drive but unfortunately, they weren't. lost them with that stupid computer crash. oh well, maybe i'll start again! and maybe i'll find an even better way to organize them.
today i got this quote from real simple.

Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones. ~Anonymous.

this one rings so true with me. i mean, everyone is human. mistakes are inevitable. but i think it's extremely important to try to take something from them. to not just shrug it off. to learn. to grow. i also think it's incredibly important to admit to mistakes. yes, no one wants to say, 'i screwed up.' but we've all done it and i'm sure we will all do it again.
i've always had the hardest time admitting i was wrong. i'm not sure if it's just my maturing or my work or a combination of the two, but i have become so much better at it. i used to be ashamed. afraid that people would think i'm stupid. now i've figured out that they usually know it was you who messed up and if you admit it, you tend to be respected a lot more than by trying to take the easy way out.
so yeah, i'm loving this quote. makes me want to embrace my mistakes. kinda reminds me of ali's embraces imperfection thoughts...

stamps!

how freaking cool is this? super cool, i know. what is even cooler is that one of nick's patient's made it for me. now, that is sweet. never even met the guy! totally need to get him a thank you! the stamps are authentic and he even hand wrote the dates on the back of the frame. 1961, 1976, 1981. now i just have to figure out how to put a piece of glass over it to protect it!

and rystn, here's some kohlrabi info for ya. thanks for the spelling stacey!

re-somethinged...

so this little break was awesome! nice having the time off. to just be or do. nice to not be exhausted at the end of the week... to be able to have dinner ready for my hubby... to call around and plan some stuff for the house... to meet my hubby for lunch {even if it was mcdonalds on a picnic bench}, to get up and watch sportscenter while eating my cheerios without feeling rushed. i feel rejuvenated, refreshed, relaxed.
and as much as i enjoyed my time away... it was time to go back. i missed my girls. my patients. my silly doctors. made me think that if we have kiddos, the stay at home mom thing just might not be for me. sure then, i'll have kids to entertain me. but i truly love what i do! not sure i could stay away... maybe partime...
my productivity spurt puttered out after the first day! however, i was able to be home for the concrete people. who knew concrete was so freakin expensive?! totally worth it tho... no deck maintence! yeah, i'm lazy. still have the details to figure out. i'm way excited although overwhelmed with the process...
still have to sanitize the basement. nick decided to almost cut his thumb in half and i'm gonna need his help. the silly boy had difficulty with a kahlorabi. {seriously, it's not in the dictionary and i haven't the foggiest idea of how to spell it... sorry brandy. i know you love us grammatically incorrect people! :oP}.
ditched the gym while i was off. kicked bootay on the diet. well, eating healthier... those darn rep lunches kill me! now i'm a little excited when i step on the scale! i know, shoot me for that statement!
organized my scrap area again. feels good. hope to do some more organizing here and there... loving the $1 tins from target. and have a really cool glass jar with a metal lid that i'm diggin. kinda like a qtip holder or what the docs keep their tongue depressors in. super cute and totally shows off my new doodlebug flower collection! oh and my patient brought in an old yankee candle jar. cleaned the wax out. it now holds my knk ribbon. anyone know how the heck to do that?? i would love to know! :o)

yay for...

an impromptu five day weekend!!! weeeeeee! so excited. both of our docs are out of the office today, tomorrow, and friday. so we have like 10 patients at most. i volunteered to take the days off. totally could use a mini vacay!
so far it's been all work, but it's still nice!
got lots done: completely cleaned the fridge and freezer, called about our patio, went to the bank and ran other misc. errands and it's only now noon. still hafta clean the scrap room, pay bills, head to the parents to pick up stuff from when i moved out three years ago... and figure out gym time. oh yeah, and deal with that darn flooded basement. good news is that it's pretty much dried out. just have to sanitize. even had a chance to buy some shelving units for down there. but i'm too lazy to carry them down the stairs. nick can do that before he goes to soccer later.
want to get as much done today so i can enjoy vegging out! and need to be here tomorrow afternoon for the estimate on the patio. can't wait for that. will be sooo nice to not have rotting wooden steps! the joys of cheap builders...
anywho. off to continue the busy bee-ness. ;o)

sump pump love...

okay, so seriously. i hate mine. a few months back, right before the boodlepalooza fest, ours died. the basement flooded {nothing too terrible. just mostly a nuisance} and the only reason i knew was because the oven shorted out while i was trying to bake cupcakes.
why am i bringing this up months later. because the effing thing died again!
i totally thought i heard the stupid thing running this weekend but i thought i was being crazy. that maybe that was normal, that we just weren't home during the day to hear it. or that since we were watering the trees, the lawn, running the dishwasher, and doing laundry that it should be running.
well, this morning my gut got the best of me. i thought i heard some funky noise and ventured downstairs. to a few inches of water. ugh. who needs that at 7am on a monday morning. definitely, not this morning lark.
yell up to nick and about scare the bejesus out of him. asked me if i was serious. really? me joke about water in our basement at 7am on a monday morning. i think not.
thankfully, i was able to leave work and meet the plumber. double thankfully, {i know not a word, but shannon likes to make up her own language..} the stupid thing was under warranty. so i didn't have to pay a dime. good thing since i paid an arm and a leg a few months back.
spent this afternoon sweeping water towards the pump. so grateful that we don't have too much down there. i mean miscellaneous stuff but nothing terribly important. oh and so great that garbage day is tomorrow.... at least we don't have to keep the stinky stuff in our garage or out in the yard!
tomorrow will be bleach sweeping. i know... ghetto. but what's a girl to do? gotta get it clean and unstinkafied {add that to the shannon dictionary too}.
now we need to figure out a back up plan. heard of 'ace in the hole' and 'aquanot' gotta investigate and see if they are worth our time. nick's dad mentioned a water sensor. oy. being a grown up is so fun! ;)

run don't walk...

to your nearest hobby lobby.
seriously. albums are 50% off, so are all rubber stamps, inks, stickers, and photo storage boxes.
i'm in heaven. bought me some new ac d ring binders. i might be in love...
so cool. bought 5. extreme i know. but that's a good deal! got two black, one red, one pink, one neon green! i only left two on the shelf. a black and a red! had to buy all the refills they had in stock too. oh yea, those were also 50% off!
kinda bummed they didn't have 8.5x11. will have to keep an eye out for that.
also got a fun rubber stamp, a funky alarm clock for the scraproom, a cool photo storage box {which i scanned and turned into my new banner! thanks rystn!!}, really cool 7 gypsies vacation stickers that totally rock with this month's knk kit, and a plan ole baby blue 8.5x11 album with lotsa refills.
double bummed that i didn't pick up the jack ac rubons in brown. i made a big purchase at scrapbook.com yesterday and put those into my cart... when i got home from shopping today i found out they misjudged their supply and they won't be shipping with the rest of my new goodies. so alas, no brown jack rubons for me.
but i have put most of my stray layouts into albums. makes me super happy and it's way easier than postbound. love that they are so bright and fun too! oh and that i got all of my goodies for under $100 which is what the 5 albums alone would have cost me! yay!
so seriously... run! ;o)

06.06.06

silly us didn't think about our anniversary falling on 6.6.6. but then again, why would we if we don't believe in that silly stuff...
kinda hard to believe that it has been three years. crazy actually. it seems like just yesterday we were buying the house, changing jobs, have an insanely hectic week. closing on the house, rehearsal dinner, lil bro's high school graduation, and a wedding. nice. yup. all that crammed in monday thru friday!
kinda weird to think about how our wedding date evolved. we just went with what worked. planned the wedding in about 6 months. thought we would be moving cross country. and there was no way i was going to be the crazy fiance that followed. i would be the loving wifey! couldn't have asked for a better wedding... the location, the weather, the company. so strange to think that if we would have pushed our date back, that some of our family wouldn't have been there to enjoy it with us... so thankful that things tend to have a way of working out...
yesterday was nice. we both worked. both had crappy days at work nonetheless. came home grilled some shishkabobs. been ages since either one of us had eaten them... {ribs will be this weekend, too time consuming with busy work schedules.} vegged. watched flight plan. we thought it was pretty good... i fell asleep at the end. such a shock if you know me... not! i can fall asleep anywhere and this extra half an hour is totally catching up to me. need to take a nap.
anywho back to our regularly scheduled topic...
wanted to check out our birthday. ;) pretty nifty. i've been plugging all sorts of dates in there. kinda funny to see our estimated date of conception!
babe, if you still read this... after that computer crash, i'm not sure you have...
but i love ya. so happy to have spent these years with you. totally looking forward to all the years to come. along with all the memories they will bring... and yes, maybe even children if you have your way!

how do you??!!

get a 27 and 28 year old to sleep like a bunch of babies?
first you have them stay out until 3 am... drinking, laughing, playing rummikub. yeah, we're cool! and we only know about that game because of my grandma and her boyfriend. does that make us even cooler?! ;P
then you make them play sand volleyball. 2 on 2. in 80+ degree weather. no wind. for about three hours. man, did that make us feel old...
after playing to sheer exhaustion we come home, cook dinner, pop some ibuprofin for those raging headaches, down a couple of gallons of gatorade, and watch a movie. a movie that we thought was a comedy. a movie that turned out to be not so funny... good but not so funny. the movie? the family stone. so why was it bad to watch this movie? because nick and i were crying like a bunch of babies at the end. so not what we were expecting.
which left us two hipsters passed out by 10 pm. sad. also left me husband crying a day later at work whenever he thought about the movie. also made him get the baby itch that much more... sigh.