Ch-Ch-Changes!!

Wowsers, Batman!!

Close to My Heart' convention is going on at Disney World as we speak. There is always so much that happens there.

Convention used to be every year but they changed that 2 years ago to be every two years. Not necessarilly a bad thing. LOL! It just means the changes are going to be bigger and better!

So, as of the new catalog that goes live there are some changes!! A lot of things are being retired and a lot of things are going to take their place. These Items will be availab;e while supplies last until December 31st, 2008. They will not appear in the Fall/Winter catalog. I think they will be on the website, though, until they are no longer available. Click here to see the list.

Don't cry! I just did!! A lot of great things are bowing out!! The paper kits, Base Pages, a few colors are going too! No worries... there will be replacements! Tons of stamps...Ribbon Rounds...My Accents... lots of accessories....

Cheer up! Here is (not the list of new things, you'll have to wait for the new Catalog/Idea Book for that!! *wink*) a list of a few items that are either going up/down in price/quantity/colors.

In honor of all the Ch-ch-changes here's a few lines from David Bowie:

(you can hear the actual song with my playlist on the left)

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-changes
Don’t want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the stranger)

Ch-ch-changes!

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Dont forget to the Clearance Sale starts Tuesday August 5th at http://www.amaryllis.myctmh.com/. If you would like to see a copy of the clearance items (they are not completely the same as the retired list) e-mail me at www.amaryllisb2@gmail.com. Sale starts at 8:00am MST. I can't wait!!!

reminder: Summer Clearance Sale is almost here!

August 5th -28th, While Supplies Last!

The list of clearanced products is here. I'm not able to upload it to this site yet but if you would like a copy, I can email it. There are loads of great things you will love at incredible prices!

I am also holding a drawing for anyone who orders $25.00 or more in products from my website during the month of August. Participation not limited to Clearance Items, just web purchases. Prize package includes Embossed Butterfly Album with coordinating B&T papers, 2 different My Reflections Collections packages (not available for purchase), 2 My Acrylix stamp sets and miscellaneous retired accessories packs.

Here are the rules for the Clearance Sale again:

From August 5–28, available at http://www.amaryllis.myctmh.com/ only, giving you a great chance to stock up on a variety of Close To My Heart retired products at tremendous savings. Here are just a few of the bargains you can expect:

• My Acrylix® stamp sets for as little as $2
• My Reflections® scrapbooking kits for as little as $2
• My Child’s Reflections™ kits for $3
• My Stickease™ assortments for $2
• And much more!Beginning August 5, a complete list of sale items will be posted on my site (http://www.amaryllis.myctmh.com/)just click Shop Online.

1. All sale items are limited to stock on hand—when they’re gone, they’re gone! Many are bound to sell out very quickly, so you’ll want to order as soon as August 5 rolls around.
2. FREE shipping on all purchase reaching$75.00. Purchases under $75 will have shipping charges calculated based on the overall weight of the items.
3. Shopping for current product will still be available during the sale, but the two types of shopping (clearance and regular) cannot be combined on one order. Under the MyCTMH Shop Online link, there will be a special shopping area just for clearance sale orders.
4. Clearance items cannot be combined with any other offer or promotion, including Stamp of the Month.
5. Please allow up to 10 business days for us to ship clearance sale orders.

July's Stamp of the Month is so darn CUTE!

I know this is a little late but I've been distracted!! Take a look:

1285 Life's a Jungle
(Set of 14) $22.95 US/ $25.50 CAN

A trip to the zoo or a good sense of humor will have you reaching for this perfectly playful set of animals and phrases over and over. Available July 1-31, 2008 only.

Blocks: 2" × 2" (Y1003), 2½" × 2½" (Y1004), 2" × 3½" (Y1009)

With a minimum qualifying purchase, get your Stamp of the Month at a great discount or FREE! Click here to find out how!

Mamma Mia!

Nikki, Marie and I took our friend Sheri out to dinner and a movie for her birthday. We saw Mamma Mia! The movie was great! We all had a good time. I think I sang through the whole movie. I haven't so thoroughly enjoyed a movie in such a long time. Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy movies a lot. This one ranks up there with Pride and Prejudice (BBC version) and the Princess Bride!

I will buy this movie and watch it over and over like P&P.

Meryl Streep and the entire cast looked like they had so much fun making the movie. Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth (Darcy of P&P) were both very fun and didn't embarrass themselves at all by singing. They were great!! Amanda Seyfried did a great job as a girl who wanted to find out who her dad is and ended up with 3.

Now I need to pull out my ABBA cd and wear it out!

Must go create an ABBA scrapbook page or something... but first, I'm going to go watch Hell Boy!

Date!!

Woot!

Robert finally got in touch with the University of Utah Neurological division of the Health Sciences Center. We go down there on September 8th unless he can get an earlier cancellation. It is still a long way out but at least we are not in limbo!

Missed It!

Ok, so back in February my son, Gabe, was assigned to do a Moon Journal with his class. Every night he was supposed to go outside and look at the sky, find the moon and notate it in his journal. He was supposed to draw pictures of the position and describe the scene. He mostly did a good job. Sometimes, he would just look out his bedroom window to see if he could find it. Generally the moon ended up behind the house so he could see it from his room.


So, the night of the 20th rolled around. (Robert said that the eclipse was going to be the next night) Gabe goes outside to check the position of the moon, comes back in, fills out his journal and goes to bed. Doesn't say one word to us...


The next day at the lab I hear from everyone, "did you see the eclipse?", "that was so cool!"


I'm thinking to myself, "no, it is tonight, Robert said so". They're all "awww, it was so cool!"


I get home from work. I see Gabe and ask him if he saw the eclipse last night. His reply was a firm "Yup!" So I ask him, "why didn't you tell us it was happening?"


In true Gabe form, he gets a goofy grin on his face and says "because" and laughs himself silly.


So, today I was going through an old email account and found not only a "memoir of " my Grandma McElwee done up from her journals by my Aunt Eve (dad's side) but this fabulous photograph of the eclipse taken by a photographer from Bozeman, MT.


For all of you whose kids saw it and laugh because they didn't tell you it was happening here is the eclipse in all its glory in the Bozeman, MT sky:

And that is why it is called Big Sky Country!

Thanx Aunt Eve!

Good Night

Clippy Note Thing

Here's a little something I whipped up on Saturday. I got a little inspiration from a few other consultant artists... Hope you like!

Made with Close To My Heart:

• Sarsparilla paper


• Wishes stamp set and 1"x1" block (available to anyone who books a party or spends $100 on any single order through August 31, 2008 1"x1" block)

• Organdy and Grosgrain Chocolate ribbon
• Blue grosgrain is Offray
  

Oh yeah! I haven't forgotten about the drawing for next month. I'm still putting together the basket. I think it will be fabulous! I will post a photo and the details of the drawing as soon as I've gathered everything together.

THX for visiting!

Summer Sale from Close To MY Heart!!...Coming Soon

I was trying to come up with something fun for my customers for the summer. Close To My Heart Corporate beat me to it! I love it when they do that!

Sooo... Here's the scoop:

August's Constant Campaign Is an Online Clearance Sale!

From August 5–28, available at http://www.amaryllis.myctmh.com/ only, giving you a great chance to stock up on a variety of Close To My Heart retired products at tremendous savings. Here are just a few of the bargains you can expect:

• My Acrylix® stamp sets for as little as $2
• My Reflections® scrapbooking kits for as little as $2
• My Child’s Reflections™ kits for $3
• My Stickease™ assortments for $2
• And much more!

Beginning August 5, a complete list of sale items will be posted on my site (http://www.amaryllis.myctmh.com/)
just click Shop Online.

1. All sale items are limited to stock on hand—when they’re gone, they’re gone! Many are bound to sell out very quickly, so you’ll want to order as soon as August 5 rolls around.

2. FREE shipping on all purchase reaching$75.00. Purchases under $75 will have shipping charges calculated based on the overall weight of the items.

3. Shopping for current product will still be available during the sale, but the two types of shopping (clearance and regular) cannot be combined on one order. Under the MyCTMH Shop Online link, there will be a special shopping area just for clearance sale orders.

5. Clearance items cannot be combined with any other offer or promotion, including Stamp of the Month.

6. Please allow up to 10 business days for us to ship clearance sale orders.

I will also be holding a drawing at the end of the month for a FABULOUS prize basket for everyone who participates in this campaign and purchases from my website... Details coming soon!!

Rodeo Sheridan

Hey Rodeo fans, its Rodeo Parade Day!

The Fourth of July has fireworks. The Rodeo gets the parade!

Priorities!

Sheridan celebrates Rodeo like no other place I've ever seen. Most everyone gets half a day off for the parade. Then they have to go back to work and try their hardest to get some work done befor all their weekend rodeo plans. This year my work, InterMountain Laboratories (heretofore known as IML), participated in the parade. Those of us that helped put the flaot together and walked or sat on the float got four hours paid off (as long as we wenet back to work and finished out shift).



Anywho, the wind blew and the heat wasn't too high. We nearly lost our fake trees (they kept getting blown over) and if it weren't for a kid or 2 in the tent we would have lost that, too! Our float was #109 of 116. Cars, boats, trucks, atv's, you see every kind of vehicle in our parade. Really exciting..

So, while Gabe, Jonathan and I were having fun on the float Robert and Kate took pictures of all the interesting and different floats before us. I'll spare you the details.. There were, however, some real live piggy banks from one of the banks here in town walking the parade route.

The end of the parade is always the best part. Since I had to get back to work, Gabe took some pix of the happenings.. The nearest Indian tribe comes down every year fir the rodeo. They participate in the parade and exebition sports like bareback horse racing and other assorted things. Always the highlight. After the parade they all gather in Grinnell Plaza right below Robert's office window and do some tribal dances. These are some of Gabe's photos, cleaned up a bit in PSE 6.0:



Pretty good job for a nine year old that I never let touch my camera! Guess I'll have to let him play everyonce in a while. Or maybe I'll just let him have my old canon...

I am a Sunflower!

This was fun. I love sunflowers!

I am a Sunflower What Flower Are You?

Family Portraits

Yesterday was a pretty good day!

I had it all planned out. Kate and I would go shopping for a bit. Robert and the boys would get the back yard mowed and cleaned up while we were out. And they did it! The plan was to finally get current family pictures done. We haven't done family pictures since Jonathan was 9 months old!! Since Wally World doesn't have a professional I decided to take them myself!

I bought some matching Fourth of July shirts from wally world for the family, something I've never done but always wanted to do. My plan was to do family portraits in the back yard.

The only kink in my plan was Kate's hair. I had to do something with it. I brushed it.. I combed it.. but it needed more! I didn't want just a pony tail or two cause we do that all the time and it lasts maybe an hour before she pulls it out. So, I did the only thing a mom could do in my position--that position being a mom of 2 boys that don't need their hair fixed--I called my best friend, Marie, who has 3 girls with lots of thick curly hair. She would know what to do!

My fingers have never been able to figure out the french braid! Thanx, Marie!!!!

So, we all got dressed up and took the camera (Canon Rebel XTi) and tripod out to the terribly uneven backyard, set the timer and took bunches of pix! Here are the results of the photo shoot. Hope you like!



That was really fun. And I have to say I think I took some pretty good pix!
Here is the real one we will probably frame as our family portrait.



Thanx for looking!!
















More of the 4th to come later!

Once Upon a Time..

Once upon a time I had a normal life... then life threw a couple of bricks my way. I still haven't figured out how to get back into my groove.

Life got crazy about March-ish when my mother-in-law's cancer took a drastic turn for the worse. Maybe it wasn't her cancer. Maybe she just decided she'd had enough. I could hardly blame her. She'd been doing chemo for a year, lost all her dreams of teaching and getting her Master's degree. I spent 2 weeks with her trying to figure out what to do and who to ask for help. I came back home only to have Robert take my place a week later. We went back and forth for several months, never accomplishing much because of persons and circumstances beyond our control.

Then, my favoritest cousin, Margaret, got engaged to my nother little brother and plans were set for wedding fever. I began a project for their gift (a scrapbook wedding album which I'm still working on, just gotta find the right pics then I'll mail it back!!!) As it turned out, their wedding, which was planned for May 3rd was moved up to April 19th.

My Aunt, Margaret's mom was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Many tears were shed and still are. Aunt Yvonne was an amazing person. She loved unconditionally and made sure everyone knew how special they are.

The wedding was moved up so Aunt Yvonne would be able to attend. It turned out that she did make it through the ceremony and a bunch of pictures afterwards. She made it almost 2 more weeks, much to everyone's supprise. Aunt Yvonne passed away the morning of May 7th, the day after my birthday.

Once again, Robert headed down to his mom's and the kids and I went to my Aunt's funeral. One of the most peaceful and love filled funerals I have ever attended.

The kids and I left for home and stopped in Logan to see grandma. Robert and I told the kids that this would be the last time they would see her in this life. Grandma was in the hospital and decided to go off all artificial nutrition and respiratory whatever that was keeping her here. Though she kept the morphine! smart lady! The kids played a few games with her, talked and joked. They told her how much they love her and even sang her "I love to see the temple". They kissed and hugged her and we went home.

The following Saturday morning (May 17th) , Robert called to let me know that she had passed away and I needed to come down. (Please, any family out there, don't ever put it on an inlaw to be your power of attorney, or whatever, it makes it so much more difficult on the child that has to deal with everthing) I left the kids in the care of my best friends and headed, once again, to Logan. We didn't tell the kids that grandma died until we came back home so they could deal with her death with us and not by themselves. I know my friends would have done everything they could have to make their hurt go away, but that was not their responsability. (Thank you Nikki, Marie and Dan!)

We got home, school ended, baby sitters lined up, Tae Kwon Do started (3nights a week!), Relay for Life was Friday night to Saturday morning - yes, I spent the night, yes I actually slept. I love Relay. Then Saturday morning from 9 to 4pm was Cub Scout Day Camp. Being Den leader and Gabe's mom I couldn't get out of it...

I am tired and I want my normal life back. Tomorrow the EPA comes to audit my lab. Being in Sample Receiving, I am also being audited. Not looking forward to that! We are still waiting to find out when we will go to the U of U to figure out what is going on with Robert.

Oh, I forgot, While we were dealing with Robert's mom, Dan, his brother, drove out his 4Runner so Robert could have a vehicle since some girl felt the need to not pay attention to the road and ran into the purple beast flipping it and Robert and totalling the truck. So Dan and Robert went to logan together when the kids and I went to Moccasin for my Aunt's funeral. They had to clear out and clean out the apartment and settle stuff for funeral stuff. They worked so hard that Dan ended up back in the hospital with another infection and ended up going hom the day their mom died.

Can I have some sanity please?!