I miss my abuelo
Posted on August 30, 2006
My sister, Jessica sent me an IM with a website for photography www.royllera.com and said that the photographer had a whole section on Cuba. I thought I’d check it out. It had me in tears! Not so much the pictures themselves, or the conditions they live in, but the fact that this is a culture that makes up 50% of my blood and I know nothing about it! I knew they were living in bad conditions, but I had no idea that Havana was so poor. It looks like a step up from a third world country. I didn’t know! My father came to America with his family when he was 8 years old. Eventually, he moved up to the midwest while his family stayed in Florida. He met and married my mom and they had 4 kids. They were divorced a long time ago, but we all are very close to my dad. But because we didn’t live with him, we don’t speak Spanish and we don’t know much about our heritage or our culture. I’ve met my grandparents twice, Florida is so far and we don’t have the money to see them more often. I married Todd and we had Ava a year ago. I wanted to visit them so they could meet their great-granddaughter, but I kept putting it off. Not enough time, money, etc. Excuses. My grandmother died a few months ago of complications from diabetes. I really regret not going to see them sooner. I went through the pictures of Cuba and wept. I want to know more. I should know more about my heritage and the pictures have me aching to know more. Particularly the photo of the old woman sitting at the table playing dominos. She reminds me so much of my abuela. The last time I went down to visit them, the whole family spent hours sitting at a little table playing dominos. So I talked to Todd and I am calling my father today and I would like to plan a visit to my abuelo and the rest of my family within the next month. I can’t keep making excuses. I need to know about my heritage & I want Ava to know too.
Why digital scrapbooking?
Posted on August 28, 2006
I’ll tell you why! I love digital scrapbooking! Its so much easier than physically making a scrapbook. No mess to clean up and no worrying about little hands messing up the pages or eating the little pieces. I don’t have to buy tools just to “cut” paper or eyelets or anything. Plus, my stash of paper and embelishments never run out! I can use them forever! They are files that you download from the designer’s websites. You can use any image creation software to make your pages. Basically, I use Photoshop to put all the different papers and embelishments and pictures on each page. I can put a little drop shadow to make it look like it’s an actual page 3D page. Plus, I’m not a big fan of my handwriting, so I can use any font I want. The possibilities are endless! You do have to pay for the “papers” and “embelishments” because they are other people’s design, but they are reletively cheap, and again, you can use them forever. I plan on making a slideshow of Ava’s 1st Year Album when I’m done, but I will be printing it up and mounting it onto pages to make a physical album for her. That’s the other thing…I dont have to worry about if something happens to the album, like a fire or flood! It’s all online & on disk! So, I can re-print it if needs be! Good stuff! Anyway, in case anyone is interested, here are a bunch of sites I found that have some great stuff. If anyone needs any help, let me know!
Gina Miller Designs
Heather Ann Designs
Scrapbook Graphics
Two Peas In A Bucket
Scrapbook Bytes
Scrap Artist
Shabby Princess
SHE DID IT!!!
Posted on August 28, 2006
YAY!!! 14.5 months and she FINALLY took her first steps!! I’m so freaking happy!!!! Of course I’m a bit bummed for Todd because he was at work, but still! My friend Melaina was over and she was sitting on the couch talking to me while I was standing in the middle of the room. Ava was cruising around the room, as usual, and being girls, Lain and I were just talking away. Well Ava stood up next to the couch without holding on (she’s done that a couple times already) and I was about to point it out to Lain when Ava reached for the other secion of the couch. It was too far and she knew she wanted to get there, so she took two steps forward, smiling the whole way! I just looked at my friend and said “OMG did you see that?!?” I think we were so into the conversation that we almost didn’t even realize it had happend! She and I got so excited and Ava of course started feeding off the attention, so she did it 3 more times! I called Todd to tell him and he was so excited, but of course by then she was done. I tried getting out the camera to see if she would do it again, but she was done. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll get it soon enough! Anyway, YAY!!
Procrastination…I’ll worry about that later
Posted on August 26, 2006
Do you think it’s a good thing or a bad thing if a procrastinator starts a business? I am a horrible procrastinator! I’m pretty good at deadlines, but I usually get things done at the very last possible minute. Like now. I have about 1000 pictures left to go through for a wedding. The pictures are due today, at least by my own standards. And what am I doing? I’m writing about it. LOL! I need to start focusing and keep on task. If I just work on 200 pictures a day, I’ll have the pictures up before the deadline! I can just always find other things to do. Oh well, maybe I’ll get better at this later…
Ebay fraud is pretty scary at 2am!
Posted on August 25, 2006
So last night I was up taping a show for Todd while he was at work. I could’ve gone to bed, but for some reason I didn’t & I decided to watch the show (it was from 12am-1am). I was SO tired too! After the show, I got up to turn off my computer and decided to check my email real quick. I had 99 emails in my inbox! I thought maybe it was spam that leaked thorough, but it came up as 99 auctions placed on my ebay account! They were all for “play money” for an online role playing game that I don’t even own! They were 1 day auctions with “buy it now”s too! I have a 100% feedback rating and I’ve been an ebayer for years, so that would have totally screwed up my ebay account! So, I went on their live help chat and it was quickly fixed- THANK GOD. Now, I know not to click on any links in emails that I get from ebay because they might not actually be from ebay, especially if they ask you to sign in directly from the link they provide. But, I also get copies of messages from customers in my email. At some point, I must have replied to one of those messages through my email, signed in to ebay and that’s how they got me. Evidently, the woman told me they could have my email account information too, so I changed all my passwords and everything. Scary stuff, let me tell you!! I even think I know who it may have been because I had a really fishy transaction with another ebayer and I know I responded to a few of his emails. He bought a cookie cutter from me & supposedly he was from the Philippines. I only take Paypal, so when he told me he sent a wire transfer to me, I was ticked! I should have refused it right then! Plus, he called my phone twice! First of all, I thought he got my number through eBay, but I looked and I don’t think that was possible! Also, when he called me, it was at like 5am! He said it was because it was late in the day for him! I didn’t answer the first time he called, because I didn’t know the number. He left me a message telling me he sent the wire transfer. Then he called me two days later at 5am & again I didn’t answer. I just emailed him and told him never to call me, but to speak to me through emails. I googled his phone number and it turns out it has a New Jersey area code! Right there I should have stopped everything, but I was still giving him the benefit of the doubt thinking he was some foreigner who didn’t understand what was going on. Man, now that I’m thinking about this, I feel pretty stupid having the wool pulled over my eyes like that. It took him a few days to actually give me the number for the wire transfer. And when I finally got the number, I went in to pick up the money and they wouldn’t give it to me because the name he gave me for himself was not the name on the transfer. So I had to email him back to get the name. He finally emails me back with some woman’s name! But, yet I still sent the package… And now I’m realizing as I type this that he now also has my address. Ok, well I’m about to get cracking on having an investigation done on this NOW. Say some prayers for me!
Because I don’t have enough to do…
Posted on August 24, 2006
I think I should add blogging to the list! I have a few friends that blog and I love to read their posts, so I thought I’d give this a shot. I’ve tried before, but I quickly found other things to do. But, I love to write! I may not be great at it, but I can be quite long winded when I want to be! So, on top of being a house wife, a mother, running a successful photography business, Creative Memories consultant, and paranormal investigator (mmhmm, you read that right…more on that later…), I vow to at least TRY to blog once in a while for ME. I feel like about 90% of my life revolves around other people. I wouldn’t change it for the world, but sometimes you have to have ME time! So, I’m going to actually start scrapbooking and blogging, for myself. If no one reads my blogs, and no one looks at my scrapbooks, I don’t care (too much). It’s mostly to give myself some creative alone time.
I’m going digital for Ava’s scrapbook. I’ve found that it is SO much easier, less messy and less expensive! I’ve done the cover page for her book so far, so I’ll post that. I’ll have more to come soon!
I might blog more later today, but Ava’s up from a nap & I should probably go get her!
