Snow Kitty

I found this picture of Snow Kitty on the computer today. He was our outside kitty that was more like a dog cat. He would run to our car when he would hear us driving home. And then if we had take out food, he'd try to trip us, cause he was hungry.

He adopted us a few years ago, and would hang out at our house with Bubbie his bud, the grey kitty. It was cute, Phil would make sure that he had a place to sleep, and he'd feed him too. He ate better than the inside cats!

And it was always fun seeing his eyes peeking through the screen door to the garage. He always wanted to see what we're doing.

He passed away a few months ago, and I really miss him. :(

Dancing with the Stars...

I can't believe it is already time for Dancing with the Stars! I just LOVE this show. Cindyann got me hooked on it last year because she wanted me to vote for anyone but master p. LOL Well, and that Jerry Rice was on it too, and of course we HAD to watch it cause the big 49er fans that we are (well Everyone in my family) we had to see Jerry dance. LOL

Anyway, so we had to tune in to see how the new people were going to do this year. We were hesitant on Jerry Springer being in there, cause I know I'm not a big Jerry Springer fan. But he didn't do half bad. He really reminded me of George Hamilton last year.

I LOVED Mario. He was awesome! I think we need to get Phil some batteries for his hips too. LOL I hope Mario can pull of the other slower ballroom dances too.

I thought Joey was very good. Didn't like the bald head, but he danced pretty well.

And Emmitt Smith was a really big surprise! OMG, I couldn't stop giggling cause it's so fun to see a big guy like that move like that! WAY better than Jerry Rice could think of being! LOL

I love Sara Evans, but she was just ok for me dawg. I hope she stays around to see how she improves.

Loved Vivica! I hope she will be on for more dancing. Yay for the over 40 women!!

Harry needed to loosen up a bit, way too stiff, but better than I could have done. :)

The others were good too, I can't wait to see who stays tomorrow!

Sadie Won!

WOOO HOOO! Sadie won the Idaho/Wyoming state finals! So, she's going to be in the finals in Elko, NV! I'm so excited for her. I hope she does well!! Or at least, makes the right contacts cause she is so good!

This is a card I made a little bit ago. Love the Sizzix letters, and wanted to use them for a card. I love the paper shapers flower. Love it so much that I broke the darn punch. How do you do that? LOL The bottom part that's made of metal, actually broke off!! OMG, I couldn't believe it. Gotta get a new one.

Anyway, just love using Pink in cards now. And I love the Bazzill cardstock colors too!!

Layers: Inspired Collage...

I finally picked up my friend Shari's book: Layers: Inspired Collage for paper projects with meaning. And OMG, it is SO AWESOME!! Her projects are simply amazing!! I want to do them all, and I don't know where to start!

Shari does such beautiful artwork. She works for Hero Arts as well, and has so much talent. I don't know how anyone could not LOVE this book!!

http://www.amazon.com/Layers-Inspired-Collage/dp/1581807848

Happy September!

Hope everyone had a happy Labor Day! I had a great time with my friend Kristen. She was visiting from the Fresno area. She was my movie buddy when she lived here, and we have become really great friends.

We spent the weekend shopping at my favorite store, Stamper's Warehouse, and then going to Borders bookstore. We both love bookstores!

Then we watched Rome, the series from HBO. She thought we'd watch one episode and then the special features...NOT. LOL We ended up watching 8 episodes before she left. I love that series. Ray Stevenson is great as Pullo, and James Purefoy plays a great Marc Antony.

And then I had some time on my own cause the boys had gone camping. Love it when they go camping cause I'll watch DVD's all day long!

Us at the Idols concert...

Here we are at the Idols concert. We were walking to our seats, and Debi pulls us over to get our picture taken. How she saw them doing this with all those people around, I'll never know. She is amazing!!

Pictured from left to right is me, Joanne, Debi, and Debi's future daughter-in-law Denne'.

Debi and I have been going since season 2, and Joanne joined us last year. This year Denne' joined us!! It was so fun going out with them all!!

Idols Concert...

OMG, that show was the best! I've been to 4 seasons of idols concerts, (missed the first one) and this one was by far the best! I think it was because it was more of a rock concert than in previous years, plus I loved most of the contestants this year!!

Mandeesa started the show. I love her! She sang, "I'm every woman". And she rocked the house! It was a great start.

Ace came on to sing with her after her two songs. He is so dang cute! Of course he sang Father Figure!! I love his version of that song.

I can't remember all the songs they sang, I'll try to look it up later.

Lisa was next, and OMG, she was voted off too soon! She was awesome!! You can tell she has had much more experience with the tour, her voice was so much better, and her stage presence has improved so much!! She sang the song that is on the Idols CD, plus 2 Elton John songs.

Paris came on and sang Waterfall with her. And then started her set. Lisa SO blew her away!!

Bucky did well, I did like him on the show, just didn't want him to be my idol. LOL He sang You're the ONe that I want with Kellie too. I thought that was just ok. I think knowing that Kellie really isn't as naive as she projects kind of ruined her performance for me. :)

Then there was an intermission

THe second half really rocked!! Chris came on and blew everyone away!! He sang that whole lotta love by Led Zeppelin, Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi, and then Renegade by Styx. He was AWESOME!!!!

HE then sang a song with Elliott, and then Elliott sang. He is one of my favorites!! He sang Never too much by Luther. OMG, he should sing other Luther Vandross songs, cause he does them so well!! And then sang his song from the CD. He brought out Ace, Chris, and Bucky to sing with him, which was really cool. they sang a Guns and Roses song. It was cool!

Then Katherine came on to sing that song she sings on the floor. But she actually stood and walked around, which was cool.

And then Taylor came on. I just LOVE Taylor. He came out through the audience and sang and Elvis tune. Then sang 3 other songs. Hollywood Knights by Bob Seger, his song from his CD, and then Takin' it to the streets for an encore.

They all came out to sing we are the champions too.

I know I forgot some of the tunes, it was an AWESOME Show!!

Idols!

Tomorrow night is the American Idols Concert!! Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a big big idols fan. Debi B and I go to the concert every year...Thanks Debi!!

This year was the best year so far, and the person I voted for actually won! How amazing is that! I loved Taylor from the auditions, and I'm so glad he won!

So, will update you on the concert after tomorrow night!

Cleaning cleaning cleaning...

This week I've been cleaning up the crap room...I mean Craft room. LOL Of course I won't admit it to Phil, but there is stuff in there I forgot I had, don't know where it came from, why I needed it, and/or why do I have so much of it.

Not even going through some magazines at this point, I figure, if I haven't looked through it in awhile, means I won't get to it. And Kristen, here they come! LOL

I'm still looking for those faux asian coin charms that I have somewhere in there. Now they could be in two places. Got the bookshelf moved, my LP's. Yep, LP's. For you young'uns, they're those BIG vinyl round things with the tiny hole in it that sound WAY better than CD's. But CD's are better to store. I forgot I had every Van Halen album made before CD's. And the REAL Van Halen with David, not Sammy.

I mean I LOVE Sammy, but Love him better as a solo artist, not as Van Halen.

Tomorrow I'm tackling the Electronics bench....

Heaven help me!!

Jewelry

Another one of my hobbies is jewelry making. Well, pretty simple jewelry making. My friend Cindyann is a 100 times better than I!! I have always loved beads, and made simple earrings and bracelets in the 80's. Just got back into it not too long ago.

Lucky for me there is a great bead store near me, the Bead Asylum. And of course I love the Gem and Jewelry show too. One of my wishes is to take some jewelry making classes to make some really big pieces. It would be cool to cast my own jewelry. Make my own charms. Maybe some day...

Phil's birthday party

Phil turned 50 this year. And we had a big party for him. I finally got some pictures of the party from my sister, cause I'm a dork and didn't get my pictures developed yet. ;)

Phil of course had to BBQ. He loves to BBQ. His friend from work, Cesar made carnitas for us, and they were delish! My dad had never had carnitas before, and was really interested in how they were cooked.

We tried getting different people here from Phil's life. A lot of people from his work came to the party, his family, and even one of his softball buddies came to the party too. It was nice to have them all over, and we hope to have another party again.

San Mateo County Fair

We all went to the SM county fair yesterday to see Sadie perform. She sang on the outdoors stage. And it was really neat, cause people were enjoying her singing, more people were there listening to her sing than the previous band. It was really neat to see people go up to her and talk to her after she sang.

She didn't win the California Finals of the Colgate country showdown. Bummer. We all thought she was the best female singer there, but a boy band won. I thought it was weird to have the singers go up against bands, cause they are different categories. But what do I know. She was really great though.

She got to meet Charlie Daniels at the show. He performed after they all did. :)

And it was neat seeing all the changes to the fair. I don't think I've been to the SM county fair in eons! The last time I went I think Chris and I went in college. And that was too many years ago!!

We ate a lot of fair food, corn dogs, killer brownies, ice cream, nachos, caramel apples. I could have SO ate more, but we didn't have a ton of time. Or I really would have ate that brick of curly fries!! LOL

Raccoon snot...

Today I fed the raccoon by hand. Phil has been doing that for a little bit now. So, he tells me to go out there and feed her to see how soft her hands are. So I did, and since Cheeser doesn't know me very well, she had to smell my hands with her wet nose....ICK.

Raccoons really do have soft hands. They are really cool. The one that has been coming around, Cheeser, is funny. Philip (phil's son) was feeding her Cheese Its (hence the name), and she's become pretty used to us. She now checks to see if we left any food out on the game board. And finds Philip's stash of various snacks. It's pretty funny.

Tonight she decided to knock on the screen door since I wasn't paying attention to her.

Raccoons are cute!

Go A's!

We went to the A's game today and they won! YAY! And we didn't have ticket issues either! Even better! LOL My sister gave us some tickets from her company, so we went today. And the A's won!!

I love going to the games. And yes, I like both the A's and the Giants. Although, I used to like the A's cause my sisters are both Giant's fans, and I just had to be different.

Debi and I have a great time just chatting away. We get to comment on the players ages, how they were born when we were in high school or just graduating. How Milton Bradley is the coolest name, but can you imagine how he must have been ribbed in school?

We have a couple more games to go to this season. Next week we'll be there again. It's funny cause Debi's brother bought tickets for the guys, and didn't get them for the girls. And Cheryl sent us tickets for that same night, so we get to go too!!! YAY! It's going to be a girl's night out for us!!

Kochira Hon Ikegami Sho

Ok, so at my parent's house, they have been watching this show on the JapaneseTV station called Kochira Hon Ikegami Sho (Central Ikegami Police). And of course I got sucked into it while I was there. Luckily it's in subtitles or I would be truly lost. Really sad if you think about it. LOL

It is a really fun show. I loved it in one episode, they're showing these street punks, and in the background they start doing the boyband dancing. LOL Real tough guys! ;)

I really didn't think I'd watch any of the "Japanese Programs" as we used to always call them. But I think I'll have to start watching this one.

Sadie

We're very proud of Phil's niece Sadie. She made it to the California State finals of the Colgate Country Showdown. The finals are going to be at the San Mateo County Fair! I am cracking up cause it's such a small fair, you'd think that they'd have it at like the state fair or something. But it's cool that San Mateo will have something like that! :)

She's really awesome, and really a sweet girl. Glad that things are going so well for her! Go Sadie!

Asian Inspired ATC

This is my Asian themed ATC. I did mine on Anime, Japanese animation. I grew up watching Anime when I was a child. Remember Speed Racer and Kimba the white lion? Then there was Raydeen on the Japanese TV station with subtitles, Voltron, Battle of the planets, and Robotech. I was reintroduced to anime through movies like Akira and Ghost in the Shell. And then a friend's daughter started me into Escaflowne, and I was hooked again! Now I watch Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. And I'm hooked into regular cartoons as well. Love that Danny Phantom and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. LOL InuYasha is my all time favorite at this point. InuYasha and Sango being my favorite characters.

I love cherry blossoms too, so seeing InuYasha and Kagome in a cherry blossom tree was just the inspiration I needed to make the card.

Stamped the cherry blossoms with pink brilliance ink. Happiness is stamped with black dye ink. And the flowers are from making memories.

Alphabet ATC

"N" is for Neko....

I wanted to use a letter that wasn't "M" , so I picked "N". And wouldn't you know it, Neko is the word for Cat in Japanese. I just love cats, and had these wonderful Cat stamps from Hanko Rubber Stamps that I absolutely LOVE. They remind me of my cat, Oreo. And this was a perfect chance to use them all.

I cut the "n" out of chipboard, then covered it with Bazzill red paper. Then doodled the white pawprints and cat face on there with a white pen. I was amazed that out of all the bajillion rubber stamps that I own, not one pawprint stamp in the lot of them. LOL

I also used that Tim Holtz tea dye ink pad to antique the edges of the card and the letter "n". I kind of like it. :)

More Stamping...

Did some more stamping today, got the Asian themed ATC and the Alphabet ATC done. But since I can't scan them till tomorrow, you all can look at my inspiration for the Alphabet ATC... my cat Oreo! :)

Hopefully I will work on part of the quote ATC tonight. I had an idea, but had to change it.