December calender

A few years ago when I was doing digital scrapbook freebies I made a little kit for Christmas that was wild and funky and.... neon bright. It was so cool. I've made so many things using the tree from that kit. I decided to draw that tree and put it as my focal point on my December calender. It's been quite some time since a page has made me giggle while I was working it up.

Funny thing about tequila....

   

Anybody who has ever experienced the overindulgence of tequila knows that there is no such thing as a SECOND tequila hangover. ugh.  I haven't touched the stuff in over 20 years but the memory is quite vivid.

When I ran across this quote I knew which stencil I wanted to cut for it. I had to clean up the quote a bit. I generally don't like to put any profanity in my artwork. I like it when anyone in my family can read it (my art quotes) without feeling uncomfortable.

I'm still loving my old typewriter. It makes my journalling look absolutely perfect.

Saturday Drivers...

Normally I love to drive. I always have. I knew when I was 13 years old that I wanted to drive for a living and when I got the chance I did it. I've delivered everything from pizzas to flowers to appliances and building supplies.  I've driven regular cars, pickup trucks, school buses and tractor trailers. I even did prototype test driving for alternative fuel vehicles. (just an aside...I wouldn't drive one if you paid me....I don't generally like my transportation to go *BOOM*)

So fast forward to today...I hate driving on the weekends. I find that during the work week there are drivers who use this seldom used thing called a brain. They are driving and working, thus they are thinking. On the weekends you see the OTHER drivers. The ones who sit at a desk all week and wouldn't be able to explain the right of way at a four way stop to you if they had the law printed right in front of them.

And in all my years of driving throughout the many states of these United States, never have I seen a law where it states that you MUST make a right turn on red.

Now... I will generally make a right turn on red where it is legal and safe to do so. In my area the traffic signals allow left turning traffic to go first on a green arrow while all other traffic remains stopped. Then, when the traffic has cleared the intersection, you may make your right turn if there is no posted prohibition.

So when I am waiting for the traffic to clear the intersection, and an IDIOT behind me leans on his horn to make me move....well..... I just want to sit there until the light turns green. Because there is no law that says I MUST make that right turn on red.  And today....when the IDIOT in the white Chevy van decided to lean on his horn ...  I sat there until the light turned green because that is what the law says. I must stop and remain stopped until the regulatory signal turns in my favor.

If he was in such a hurry...then he should have been more patient because I had every intention of making the right turn on red as soon as it was safe to do so. At the point that he honked his horn at me, the car making the left turn (oncoming traffic) had not cleared the intersection. Had I turned when he honked I would have caused a serious accident.

Art inspiration can come from the darndest places sometimes. But I think I'd still rather do my driving on Mondays.

Fun with white ink

I had painted this page all black with the very last of the black gesso I had. It made a perfect ground for white ink. This is my furbaby Jake. He's a real snuggler and he thinks he's a lap dog. He's going to be a BIG lap dog.... he's part black lab, part border collie, and part golden retriever. He's going to be a great dog someday when he fully calms down.

Whew!

Talk about skidding into the finish line. I haven't had very much time at all to do any painting in my journal. Barely had time to write in it either.  The whole month of October was a frenzy. Furniture moving in unexpectedly, mice moving in unexpectedly, and whole house cleaning unfortunately VERY expectedly.

Things are starting to settle down a bit. Though what that means is that I started with a bare page for November on November 2 right before midnight. I got it finished but I couldn't scan it because it wasn't quite dry enough. So instead I had to take a picture with the camera. Not bad but not as good as my scanner.

So here is November.

I realized almost too late that I had a font that was made up of crazy looking moustaches. I printed them on one of my transparencies and made a quick stencil. I love how they go with the top hats at the top of the page.  I even have one day already journaled though it's rather predictable. lol  I am so looking forward to my candied sweet potatoes!

Happy Birthday

October! Really?

I'm trying to decide if I'm happy that October is here. The jury is still out on this one. I guess it explains my choice of colors for this month's calender.

I went with dark, creepy and gothic rather than purple, green and orange.

I particularly like the eyes glowing in the dark spaces.

And since I have a dozen really good white ink pens I thought I'd have my squares in black.

:)

Another summer done...

And another garden full of weeds. I'm pretty sure that I want my next house to be in the middle of a corn field so that I don't have to do any gardening. Give me a house in the middle of 40 acres of tall something or other where no-one will see the house but me and I'll be happy. I hate gardening. I hate having to pull the weeds because of what the neighbors think. Frankly....I LIKE the tall, prickly thistles. Have you ever watched a bumblebee try to scramble his way into the fuzzy head of a thistle to get at the pollen? It's hysterical! All you see is this fuzzy purple thistle head with a fuzzy bee butt and two little bee legs kicking to try to get as far into the pollen as possible. Then later, when the thistle goes to seed, the bright yellow and black birds (can't remember what they're called at this moment) will come along to eat those seeds and when they land on the plant it doesn't always hold their weight and they have to balance carefully to get at their treat.

I have goldenrod that is over 6 feet tall that the local honeybees absolutely love. I have a weed that is what butterfly bushes were cultivated from. The hummingbirds love it. 

But all of my neighbors aren't as appreciative of the weeds. Even though the thistles in my yard come from the birds that eat the thistle seeds in the feeders in every other yard. I have trees and the birds that feed in their yards come over to my yard to nest.

I have song sparrows in my yard. According to all of the experts I'm not supposed to have song sparrows but here they are enjoying my weeds.  *sigh*

40 acres of wildflowers and weeds. I'll be happy and so will all of the birds, butterflies and bees.

Where to go now?

I just don't know what to do next with these.  I rather like the Chinese feel of the clouds and sunshine of the first one. I'm thinking of journaling the words to make it look like rain falling from the sky. 

 This second one came to me when a friend gave me the chipboard waste from a game that he was setting up for all of us to play. The shapes of the game pieces reminded me of PacMan so I went with it.

 And this last one is part of my recently renewed obsession with the Moody Blues. I just love listening to their music in the summer. I'm still loving my white ink pen, too. That's what I used to draw each little circle using sequin waste as a guide. eek!  That took awhile!

Sometimes....

I'm just not fit to be around. You know how it is. There are times when I sit and search for snarky quotes and picture everyone that day that deserved their share of karma. And I laugh. Those days I try to stay inside.

It's better for everyone that way.

My favorite color

I just love red. I have tried many times to put other colors in my wardrobe. Each time I've ended up with clothes that I never wear because they just don't feel right to me when I wear them.  That's kind of how this page started out. I tried muted colors that I don't usually like and this page just sat there. Then I broke my wrist and the red started to come out in me because I was mad about how little I was able to do in my journal. I grabbed my hand stencil, some alphabet chipboard waste and my red paint and let it rip.

I think I'm going to call this one done.

OK....where did summer go?

It's gone!  Last  night was a four quilt night! It's not supposed to be this cold yet! *sigh*

I didn't get very much done aside from the main calender page of my journal in August. Between doctor visits and trying to get things done around the house there wasn't as much art time as I was hoping there would be. But when your back goes out...again... you just have to do your best and move slowly so that it doesn't get worse. Yeah...I know....sometimes it already feels like it can't get worse. I figure that if I can still walk then I'm ahead of the game. Even if it is with a back brace and a cane. :)

Here's my calender page for September. I had a vision of falling leaves and as my yard is populated almost entirely with maples I decided to cut a stencil of small maple leaves. Then I got out my acrylic craft paints in all of the fall colors I have and started stenciling. I kind of like how it came out. This stencil is definitely a winner.

I'm envisioning a little guy there at the bottom playing around in a pile of maple leaves. I'll have to work on that one.

I got bored!

I know! With all of the stuff going on around here in the last few weeks I didn't have TIME to get bored. I guess the more accurate description would be that I got distracted. And I needed a new pair of sneakers. But I'm kind of broke so no money spending for awhile. But I had this pair of sneakers in the garage that I had been avoiding because I let them sit out there a bit too long. Like...a year. And they had cobwebs and sawdust and spiders....but I cleaned them up and they were actually still in almost new shape. It must have been laziness that made me leave them out there in the first place. Because....I am basically lazy. LOL

They were tan colored canvas and cost me all of $1 on clearance at Wal-Mart a few years ago. I think I bought a few pairs....must go dig them up soon.

I can't wait to wear these to the movies tomorrow!!!

August already?

LOL! Isn't he cute? I drew him on the page because the original stamp is much smaller and I wanted a BIG monster.

I can't believe it's already August. Or that it IS August. We had two weeks of hot summer and then *poof* it seems that fall has arrived. A friend in Pittsburgh says she has seen trees changing colors already. The Rose of Sharon trees all around here have been in full bloom since before the Fourth of July. They aren't supposed to bloom until late August. Something is telling me that longer summers aren't in our near future.

We had more than our share of excitement in July. Our pool collapsed. Yeah...that was fun. Fortunately nobody was hurt. No people and no furries were in the way of the 18,000 gallons of rushing water. That happened the day the heat wave started here. Yeah...that timing was terrible. Then my husband hurt his back and has been working intermittently in between visits to the chiropractor. Poor guy. He hurts so bad at times but he is getting better. That was his final sign that he needed to get serious about the diet and losing a bit of weight to ease the pressure in his back.  We do the low carb thing. It works for me because I have an actual wheat allergy. Not gluten intolerance but an actual allergy that causes joint inflammation when I eat anything with wheat in it.Once I am about four days into the diet without carbs (sugar, rice, wheat, potatoes) my whole body feels about ten years younger. Yeah....it's the right diet for me. I can still have wheat once I've lost my extra pounds but only once in awhile and only when I haven't got a busy day the next day. Trying to dash from place to place and up and down stairs isn't easy when your knees, hips, ankles and lower back are all screaming at you for the slice of pizza you had the night before. LOL

On top of all of that, as if we needed more, we got one of our new puppies neutered. He was not at all happy having to wear the big collar around his neck to keep him from chewing at his stitches. It took a lot of duct tape to keep that collar together towards the end. He kept ramming it into stuff and cracking it. But today he got his stitches removed and no more gigantic collar! He is one happy puppy.

Well....I ought to get this posted. I have about a day to myself so I am going to use it to get paint all over a few things. I'm glad I saw the article in Somerset Studio's Art Journaling magazine about Kate Crane. I have half of a year of my history written now and it was a lot more fun than I had expected it to be. I just need a little bit of slow time to get caught up. No more excitement please. I like things kind of dull. ;)

Twilight Time

Another of my favorite songs. I'm on a real Moody Blues kick lately. I think it's because the two times I saw them in concert it was in early July. Beautiful weather both times. Nothing in the world is quite like listening to your favorite music under a clear sky, beautiful sunset, then every star in the heavens overhead.

Back then I could get a ticket for the lawn for about $15. They're coming to town here in August and the tickets are $50 each. If I was single and had no care as to how groceries were going to be bought I'd go. But I guess I'm at that responsible age where I simply cannot justify spending a month's worth of groceries to take the three of us to a concert no matter how good the band is.

I'll have to be content with my memories. And they're pretty darned good.

More masking tape typing

 I have always loved The Moody Blues. My mom used to play their music on 8 tracks when I was little. I've always loved their music and it takes me back to my childhood whenever I listen to it.

I managed to get tickets to an outdoor concert of theirs back in 1986 and they put on quite a show. And there really is nothing like listening to Nights in White Satin under a clear sky full of stars. Or The Sunset when the sun is just about to set.  I think they must have played nearly every song they ever recorded that night.

I did the paint blots in bright colors and smooshed them one color layer at a time. Then some black stenciling and then the lyrics to "Lunch Break: Peak Hour" from Days of Future Passed typed onto strips of plain masking tape.  I'm really having some fun with this old Underwood.

Some non-journal work for a change

I did some really cool backgrounds on canvas last night. I really like how they came out. Now I just have to figure out what to do with them next. LOL

Whatever I decide, they're going to look great up on my wall!

I was ready on time! Honest!

I've just been super lazy about blogging for a few weeks.  I've also been in the process of moving my craft room down to the basement so now all of my art supplies are way far away from my computer. When I have something ready to post I have to carry it up two flights of stairs to get it to the scanner. So I've been kind of avoiding it lately.

Anyway, here is my July journal page. I'm managing to do the artwork in my journal but the daily entries are hard to do when you have days where it's just the usual mundane daily house stuff going on.

I'm hoping to do better in July but I have already fallen behind and it's only July 4th. 

I finally found a supplier for typewriter ribbon for my old Underwood typewriter. This is awesome because using the typewriter for some of my journaling has been really cool looking.  I just take some masking tape, stick it to the roller, type what I want and then stick it on my page.  I love it!!

Well, I'm off to bed now that our puppies have calmed down. Tonight some neighbors had a fireworks display and the puppies didn't like the noise at all. Poor babies. They were frantic for a time and then they just snuggled under any feet they could find.

So a 12th Doctor is coming, eh?

My main thought is that he should be a ginger. Seriously, he's wanted red hair the last two regenerations.... he needs to be a ginger.

But I think the 10th Doctor was my favorite...as you can see...

Zentangling works really well for explosions, don't you think? ;)

Sometimes....

My husband is the diplomat in the family. The closest I come to being diplomatic is sitting silently while others prattle on. At times I do not succeed even at this. So when I find snarky quotes and a good character to go with it.....

I find myself laughing myself silly.

Work in Progress

This kind of looks like the morning after a plate of insanely spicy nachos. I have wild, colorful and totally bizarre dreams after foods that are too spicy or too sweet.

This one I just keep adding onto. I have no idea where it's going but I'm sure the journey will be a blast.

Sometimes I'm just not fit to be around

This page was definitely mood driven. I was working on some mending when my sewing machine stopped co-operating. It's a machine that has always had known issues. It has one of those bobbin winders where you leave it in place and just move a lever to wind the bobbin. Normally it is a cool thing, but when it stops working it's done for. And boy was I mad!

Hmmm...

It looks really cool... but I have no idea what to do next. Maybe it's finished. I haven't got a clue.

it is June isn't it?

Because with temperatures in the mid 40's (Fahrenheit, northern hemisphere) I'm not quite sure.

I should be making iced passion fruit tea.... not hot hazelnut coffee....

I'm off to find a blanket. Brrr!!

June is here already!!!

It really is a good thing that I got ahead of myself when I did a couple of months ahead of time. A wrist fracture in your dominant writing hand really gets in the way of art. It didn't stop me but it sure slowed me down. and forget about any detail work.  But now the cast is off my arm and I'm stretching those tendons that haven't moved for over a month. It feels weird finally gripping a pen after all this time.

The little monster and the sun are stamps that I would love to buy but I can't. So I stare at the picture of the stamp and draw the critter on my page. Not as good as the original but boy he sure is cute!

Well that's all for now. Time for me to go get caught up on more housework that I fell behind on in this past 5 weeks. *sigh*

May calender and ugh...

Here is my calender for May. I want to do more to it but I'm not sure how or when that'll happen since I fell and fractured my right wrist last week. ugh.  My journaling has slowed down considerably since I also bruised my left hand in my fall. The left hand has healed up enough in the last few days so that I have been able to start using it. Eventually I'll be showing off my left handed artwork but that will be after the cast comes off my right hand. Using the scanner still takes two hands for this book. My typing is improving, though.  ;)

Totally exhausted

We have puppies.  Saturday we went for a long drive to a shelter to adopt two puppies. We intended to get only one...but we stayed open to the idea of two. It's a good thing because both of these pups are a perfect fit for us and for each other.  My goodness this is work! I had forgotten how much work a puppy can be and now we have two.

We had our last dog for 14 years and he passed away almost two years ago so it has been 16 years since I've had to train a puppy.

These two are going to be a handful. We're going to have quite a summer this year.  :)

More white pen playing...

I saw a stamp on a blog not too long ago of a crazy looking girl in crazy looking clothes. It was by Daniel Torrente and the stamp is called Prom Queen. I wish I could remember where I saw it but I sat and sketched it across almost the whole page of my journal because I really liked the crazy hair. I moved her hands and put more weird curlies on her dress but the credit for the original girl goes to Daniel Torrente.

I also discovered Joanne Fink and her wonderful Zenspiration dangles. And now that I've found a nice white ink pen I'm going to do more doodling on black backgrounds.

Eureka!

I have found it!  Actually, more than one 'it'. I've been looking hard for a good white ink pen and after several frustrating purchases I think I've found a couple. One is good for doing fine work like zentangle and other fine doodles and the other is good for thicker lines for writing.

I guess that takes my total spending for this journal up to about $15 since I started it in January.  Not bad.

Naturally I went a little nuts using the white pens on the dark green background. But it was fun.

The main thing I was trying to get was a white pen that would write on a background of acrylic paint.

The Pentel Sunburst white gel pen works very well, lays down a fine line, but you have to give it an easy touch. Just let it glide over the surface without pressing too hard and it will lay down a nice line of ink.

The Sakura gel pen is a thicker line, goes on milky-clear and dries white. It takes a few minutes to dry completely so this isn't a 'journal-on-the-go' pen. It has a tendency to puddle so don't let your pen tip linger for too long in one spot.

I tried another more expensive major maker of gel pen that was a total disaster. It's named on the layout and if you really want to read about it you'll find it if you look for it. I have nothing nice to say about it so I won't say anything with the brand name attached. I have no doubt that the ink inside the pen might be  nice ink because some of the ink layed down on the page where I experimented. But it seemed almost as if the ink was too thick to pass the roller ball in the tip. It just wouldn't lay the ink down. And since it was a two pack of pens I tried the second one just in case it was just a defective pen but the second one did the same thing. It would lay down about 1/4 inch of a line and then quit. I had to beat on the tip on another sheet of paper to get the ink going again and then it would quit again.  Too much frustration to keep working with it so I gave up and pitched them into the garbage can.

So there is my assessment of white ink pens. And some Zentangly doodles.

Evil thoughts....

It seems that I have amassed quite a collection of snarky quotes. I thought it was probably time that I put them into my journal.  I'm trying to work with the idea of leaving white space on my pages. It's absolutely killing me to not paint those little bits there. So I'm off to bed so that I don't mess it up.

I also have a hard time leaving bright and cheerful colors alone. I always itch to grunge things up. I indulged this time in a  little black.

Journal page

I don't watch a lot of new television. I hardly watch any at all if it isn't on netflix. What I do watch is older stuff like Cary Grant, Gene Kelly, Clark Gable...you know....OLD stuff. When I'm in the mood for silly stuff I go for some of the stuff from the mid 1990's like Hercules. I always loved that show because Kevin Sorbo had this comedic timing that was so wonderful for the cornball humor that was written into the show. I'm rewatching it now after not seeing it since it originally aired and there are some parts that are even funnier 15 years later. I've been catching a lot of really sharp one liners that are worth using on some of my attitude pages in my journal.

And they are captured best on a bold colored background with a thick sharpie marker. rofl.

It's April!

I have seedlings started in our little portable greenhouse. Tomatoes, spinach, a few herbs, sweet red peppers and....hold onto your hats....OKRA! I actually am trying okra this year. It's too cold here to grow okra but I have a spot that I think might be hot enough for these three plants to grow. I hope.

Hopefully the blogging will become a little more regular....I'm thinking about doing just once a week. I just haven't got the desire I once had to do the writing.  But for this year at least, I will keep up with my art journal.  The journaling itself is going along very well. I like taking the journal with me along with my pencil box when I know I'll be sitting around bored somewhere. That usually means karate class. You see....my darling daughter doesn't want me watching her in class because she gets self conscious when she knows I am watching. She's a perfectionist and doesn't want me to see stuff until she has it perfect. She used to do that when she was starting to talk. We had an audio/video baby monitor in her room when she was a baby. I would hear her practice words half the night while she laid there waiting to fall asleep. Then the next day she would be silent. She would watch and listen and then practice when she was alone. Baby monitors really need a record option. lol  Those videos would be priceless.

This month's calender page is the first one that I have painted the white squares for the days. I decided I didn't really like using squares of paper for the days so I made a template to more easily paint the squares in a straight row.

I had originally done April with  the idea for an Easter theme....I started it in February. Then when it was almost finished I discovered that Easter would be in March. darn.  Oh well, it's still pretty and looks very spring-like.

I think I still have lots of room for more doodles on this page.

A quote...

Sometimes I spend time chatting online with my hubby when he and I should both be working. One day he was describing someone he heard talking nearby. He has quite a descriptive way with words. And the images conjured are usually very funny ... and sometimes just a bit painful.

ouch

OK...now what?

Have you ever made up a page and then wondered what the heck to do with it?  That's where I'm at now with this one.  We watched the first Harry Potter a few nights ago and I found myself doodling what happened to be on the screen at the moment.  So now I have this really cool looking page.....

...and absolutely no clue what comes next. 

March calender

This one is waaaaaaay too green. I scanned this in before I tweaked the squares. I just got them too darned dark. And it took me forever to get enough gesso and white paint on them to make it good enough for writing.

You see, I was hoping that I would find a good white ink pen to use on the dark squares by the time I was ready to start journaling for March. Nope!  I keep trying new pens and they keep failing. They either have ink that isn't opaque (even though it SAYS it is on the package) or it doesn't flow evenly (either the ball point clogs up or the ink comes rushing out in a puddle on the page). So I just painted the squares white and I'll use a regular pen.

I even tried a white out pen. It hemorrhaged all over the page that I tried it on.

It does kind of bum me out because I had those squares pretty nicely painted before I cut the paper up to glue onto the page.

I used the cheap, but nice watercolor paper again. I had been playing with some Rit dyes that I had all mixed. I put some into a spray bottle and added some superfine PearlEx gold powder to the bottle. Shook it up to mix the powder into the liquid dye and sprayed it all over the watercolor paper. Voila!  It looks just like that shimmery stuff that you buy already mixed. I have about 15 different boxes of Rit dye and an impressive stockpile of PearlEx in jars. There was a closeout sale.....I got them for 50 cents a jar.  Yeah....I'm good. lol

Well....I've stayed up too late again so I'm off to dreamland. 

More watercolor fun

This one took a long time to color in but I think it was worth it. I really love how it turned out. I'm not too concerned with anyone being able to read the journaling. There isn't really anything personal on this page and my handwriting is difficult to read at times anyway.

I wonder sometimes about why I get so frustrated with the world and why people can't acknowledge reality. And why people keep repeating the same mistakes in their lives without ever giving thought to the possibility that the problem might be THEM. *sigh*

 I really like the fashion silhouettes font that gives me these great outlines for stencils and masks. I'm having great, cheap fun with cutting my own free stencils.

I also kind of like this opposites effect that I did for this spread.

I'm really liking the watercolor crayons. Somewhere in a box (familiar phrase to anyone who has made a move from one state to another and still has unpacked boxes in the garage)  I have a set of watercolor paints in tubes. I should go look for them.

Egads..... it is getting late. Almost midnight and nobody needs mommy for anything. I think it might be safe to go lay down.

Another snarky day

There are some times when I would really LOVE to say things out loud to people. Frankly speaking, my husband is the diplomat of the family.  The closest I get to diplomacy is asking someone if they really want the opinion they have just asked me for... because I WILL give it to them. 

I'm the type who really does prefer to sit alone in a corner with a book.  I think I get it from my mom. We both generally get along with people, but when asked for an opinion we usually tick somebody off.  Her dream of retirement was to get a cabin up in the mountains and sit on the porch with a shotgun and an old hound dog and shoot at anyone who came up the road. lol  I love that mental image. I'd probably be the one buying her ammo every week. rofl.

I made several stencils and masks from a font that I picked up some time ago. The font is just retro fashion silhouettes. One set is from the 1950's and 1960's and another is fashions from the 1940's.  I can't wait to use that one! 

I have a ton of copier transparencies. I just print the outline of the shape I want onto the transparency (the ink only needs to stay long enough to be cut out), then I cut along the outline very carefully and I get a stencil and a mask at the same time.

I also keep old gift cards and cut the edge with a pair of decorative edged scissors for spreading paint. 

So far so good with my goal of not buying any supplies for this journal. So far this project has been absolutely free.

Many of my acrylic paints are about 10 years old. Some of them are even getting a little lumpy. I don't mind. I just call that "extra texture".  They're leftovers from the days when I did set painting for some of the local community theater groups when I lived in Michigan years ago. I have a very wide range of some really odd colors. I can't wait to use them!

Zombie prevention fluid.......

Yeah, that's what coffee is. Though due to certain medical circumstances recently I have had to give up caffeinated beverages. Now....giving up soda pop was pretty easy. Easier than I had expected. Giving up my iced tea....way harder.  At least I was eventually able to switch from regular coffee to decaf and still have my iced coffee every day.  I don't like being sleepy all day long though. I rather enjoy being hyper-active. I get more stuff done.

I played with this one when I decided to open the watercolor crayons that had been sitting on the shelf for almost a year.   I have to say that they are quite convenient. I have this neat little brush/pen sort of thing that you fill with water. So I can take my crayons with me and have the water pen to do the painting thing when I get super bored somewhere.

Favorite month

February is very special in this house. It is the month where we celebrate the anniversary of when we adopted our daughter. Gotcha day is in February and it is better than Christmas, Thanksgiving and DisneyWorld put together.

I got a Cricut cartridge awhile back that has neat paper dolls and clothes and this one looks like my daughter so I used it for this page.

You also get to see just how exciting my daily adventures are (looking forward to laundry) and how well I keep track of days. lol

We had to get the dishwasher and the clothes washer fixed in the same month. I love machines...except when they break.