Donkeys are Tasty

Me: "Look Cali, Donkeys!" (in a field by the exit to our town)
C: "MMM, I eat donkey!"
ME: "You eat donkeys?"
C: "Yeah!"
Me: "How was it?"
C: "Donkeys are tasty!"

BREAKTHROUGH CHICKEN POX

My friend's little boy has chicken pox (poor guy) and he's been vaccinated. Turns out you can still get it and its called BREAKTHROUGH CHICKEN POX, supposedly its not as bad if you've been vaccinated but you can also still get it more than once. Crazy.

Do you remember having the chicken pox as a kid? Did they have a vaccine for that back in the 80s? I remember I got the chicken pox when I was about 3, so in 1985. I was supposed to be the flower girl for my aunts wedding. My brother had had it too (that's how I got it) but he was all clear by the wedding so he went and was the ring bearer while I had to stay home with my Granny Blanche. I faintly remember being on some sort of bed, having little dabs of calamine lotion all over and being told over and over not to scratch. I felt like I missed out on something for many many years and was always sure to blame my brother for it. I never got the opportunity to be a flower girl ever again. Poor me. We were in the middle of moving too, I'm sure that wasn't much fun for my parents.

Crayons Melt

Don't leave crayons in the car when its 90+ outside - they melt. Luckily it was just one (although I didn't search around for others and there very well could be others) and it was just inside C's carseat pocket. The melted part that was stuck in the pocket cooled off from the A/C and I was able to pick it out in one chunk when we got home. It got a little crayon goo on some of her little trinkets that were in the pocket, but it all washed off fine. I'm from Alaska, I don't think of things like this. We worried about what things would freeze if left in the car too long. One of those is bananas: they turn black.

Another Way to Scrapbook

scSo I've done a few "regular" scrapbooks of the kids but now that I have two I got to the point where I had to figure out what to do with all our family photos. Stuff like our little weekend adventures or our vacations, or just in general around the house. Plus I'm not going to be making everyone an individual scrapbook for the next 18 years anyway. So I saw on this PBS Scrapbooking show (I forget the name) an idea to use regular 4x6 albums, so I think and I ponder and I contemplate and I finally figure out my plan.

I will use the 4x6 sheets (there's 6 slots per page) and a 3-ring binder to do all the family pictures. I'm still a year behind so I'm thinking I can finally start to "catch up" using this method too. Now if I want I can still slip in a 12x12 or really any other size I want to so the Gemini part of my is very happy I can have that variety.

I even learned a great trick from my fabulous, scrapping friend Emily. She will take a photo and simply back it with cardstock, punch some holes and throw it in the binder. She's so clever! So whenever I have a random photo or two that just won't fit in with the others that is my go-to trick. I can even leave enough of a border or overlap for embellishments and journaling.

I'd be happy to show you photos of all this fun stuff, but my dearest husband hijacked my camera and flew across the country in his helicopter. By "his", I mean the Army's but you get the picture. Anyway when he comes back I will get some pictures up of my exciting new 4x6-type layouts.

The goods: On another note I did a bit of research regarding this whole set-up and found several nice options available now. But being the cheapskate I am I had to find the cheapest option and went with the stuff they have at Hobby Lobby so I could get it 50% off when it came up on sale. The brand is called Ultra-Pro and the 4x6 pages are $5 for 10 pages (each page has 12 slots if you count front and back) and you can get them for $2.50 when HL puts all their page protectors on sale. The binder was $15-20 and I got that 50% off too.

Other options: My friend Emily pointed my to Ali Edward's blog to start my research, she has lots of great info on this idea. I really like the Pebbles, Inc. Share & Tell system but again I just wanted to do this on the "cheap" and I didn't spend too much time trying to find a good deal on this one.

More inspiration: I just came across another like-minded scrapper via the Simple Scrapbooks Mag. Gallery, here is her blog with some great photos of her pages.

If you're into this style of scrapping too or interested in trying, let me know! I'd love to see your ideas and what page protectors you're using. Check back for photos of my work.

My Bad

Here's what I know... I am terrible at keeping up with anything that is meant to be continuous. I'm a gemini, I'll say this often. I lose interest, or better yet find new interests and get distracted and sort of let other interest fall to the back burner. I still learn something new every day and I still think, hey I should be keeping up with my blog... but I don't. So I'm going to try again and it might work out for a while and it might fade out for a while but all I can do is try right?

Been Busy

I've still been learning all sorts of new things, just been a little busy to get in here and jot them down. Here's a couple new things for you...

• Ripe cranberries bounce, that is a big part of how they get sorted for sale. The first guy who figured this out tossed a bucketful down his staircase and the ones that made it to the bottom were the ripe ones. Source: Food Network and Wondertime Magazine (two mentions in two days, figured it was a sign I should blog it).
  
• Your taste buds actually change at high altitudes, thats why airplane food always tastes so crappy. Source: Food Network, Next Iron Chef
• I saw how firefighter jackets are made and learned all kinds of interesting details that go into it, none of which I can really remember a week later... Source: Discovery Channel, How Its Made
• I learned how to make my own granola bars from scratch, and I learned I should read all the directions because I used an 8x8 glass dish instead of the jelly roll pan it suggested, they were too thick and didn't cook all the way through so it didn't stick together into bar form. So I just made some really yummy granola, next time I'll try to get them into bar form. Inspiration: Sarah Snow's visit to Jon & Kate plus 8
  

Do This

• Do you get a million credit card offers a day? I do and it drives me crazy! I kept hearing there are places you can go to get yourself off those lists and I just ran across this one today... Its optoutprescreen.com, just enter your name and address and they should stop completely within a couple months. I chose the 5 year option but there is also an opt-out forever option. If you're nervous about your security and whether this is legit, check out this FTC site for more details.