Live from Tormville!

Hello Sunday Morning

When I woke up Sunday morning......

It was probably Sunday morning when these guys left here some hours ago. We might be groggy eyed in church this morning, either that - or we have to make this morning's coffee strong. Really strong. 

This is my youngest brother. He's all - what the heck Sharyn, why are you taking so many pictures of me? And I'm all, shut up baby brother, cuz if I take it at just the right time you look all kinds of dorky with your mouth all mid-note.  

(Do y'all wanna see the gooney one?)

They had to keep playing, or my watch dog would go after their guitar pickin' fingers. 

She's a good dog. 

Happy Sunday! 

What goes on behind the scenes

I've been over here busy getting ready for a hoped for Christmas rush in my husband's Etsy shop: GTCarvings.  What this means is preparing boxes, getting the business cards out, making sure I have packing peanuts on hand and taking and retaking photos. 

Tippy's no help at all, but she thinks she is. 

You have no idea at all what really goes on around here.  *laugh*

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But hey - no cavaties! *pumps fist* 

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Also - my hip is feeling a little bit better and my runs all the time neighbor gave me some stretching tips for that area to be used before my next two 5K's this month.  

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Lovin' that sunshine today!

Time to take the oldest to comic drawing class......

Our Mock 5K

As for what I did on 11/11 - I chocked it full of stuff.  I was so tired that I couldn't even stay up to make another wish on the pm 11:11.  Couldn't do it. 

During the day I was busy running my preschooler back and forth, writing chalk messages on the sidewalks around our 5K route, sewing my Under Armour shirt seam that was well worth getting the $5 off for it, sewing the kitchen curtains once I had my sewing machine out, emptying my boy's little blue dresser and then emailing Darla to ask her if she wanted it, helped Darla load the little blue dresser into her car....

And then went up to school to run the 5K.

Here we have all the girls lined up to take attendance and go over the rules. We also did our warm-ups. You can probably tell by the way we are dressed - it was a little chilly out. I'm very curious what we'll have on the 20th for our real deal. 

I decided to time myself just so I'd push myself a bit. Girls on the Run doesn't time their event as it's about just doing it and not competing.  I compete with myself.  When I ran the spring 5K in the crowds, I did that one in 39:01.  Yesterday I did it in 40:29.  I didn't think that was too bad considering I was in much better shape in the spring than I am right now. 

My hip is not liking me today though - seems like I remember it bothering me in the spring too. 

Anyway. 

Wendy got to the finish before me, so I didn't get a picture of her running through - but I love the girl's expressions when they realize that they made it. It's such a fun program.  I also ran with a camera on my back this time as I wanted to know if I'd be able to do it/bring it to our 20th 5K. Last season I brought my daughter's point and shoot and I kept wishing for my camera.

This year I'll bring mine. 

Happy 11/12!

As for me - dentist at 9am. 
What was I thinking??? 

Today

• We will see mentions of 11/11/11 a whole heckuva lot. 
• The wishing well is going to overflow at 11:11
• Both of them
• My brother Dennis turns a year older - Happy Birthday Dennis!
• We are grateful for our Veterans. My brother, my husband, my husband's brother Tom, several uncles and many friends. We thank you for your service to our country.
• It is cold.
• The roofs are white, and it ain't frost. 
• Wendy and I will be sporting our newly purchased Under Armour and running our Mock 5K in prepartion for the big one on the 20th
• I will work on crossing more things off my 30 item to do list. Eleven more would be appropriate.
• The husband is hoping to get our other shelf from IKEA after work. 
• It's my husband's last day of work for a few days. He's taking next week off, It's an appointment heavy week so his timing is good. 
• I should probably wake up some kids and shush them out the door. 

Happy Friday!

November Studio AE from Technique Tuesday Blog Hop

If you are here for the December Blog Hop - please go here.  Thank you!!  

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Hello everyone!  Happy Thursday!
And here we are at the tenth of the month again. Man, they come up quickly, don't they?  

This month I've got something a little bit different and fun to share. This set, 25 Moments by Ali Edwards, was a bit of a challenge for me only because well, it's not December yet and I've done the daily albums the last few years, and I've scrapbooked a large majority of my holiday pictures, and I've got nothing left. 

But Wait! 

With a bit of digging I found I did have something left. What I had left in the back of one of my photo files was a random assortment of Christmas photos that spanned the years. These were photos that were either doubles (I used to order those) or the one extra that didn't fit on the layout. 

All together, these photos represent the things we try to do each holiday season. We don't get to all of them every year - but most of them.  I love the idea of having all the traditional events in one place. 

So what I did, is I put them in this box, (the pages measure 6" x 9" and fit perfectly) - one that I've had for years and I often used for writing letters, back in the olden days. The box goes in the basket on my dresser that I shared in yesterday's entryway redo.  :) 

The Festival of Lights

I kept the layout of each page similiar, and then journaled a bit about each event tradition. 

 

The Henry Ford

School Programs

The Tuba Concert
I wrote on this one that mom (that's me) writes it in red every year on the calendar and still - nobody ever wants to go with her, and she's totally okay with that. Baffled, but okay.

The Laakso family party

I easily have 25 events that happen each December. 

I love that the moments come from all different years, and they can easily look through the box for what events to expect this holiday season. It's a busy month, for sure, but a fun one. 

Thanks so much for stopping by! Don't forget to soak up the inspiration (and leave comments) at the other blogs along the hop: 

Ali

Melissa Mann
(our Studio AE Guest for November)

Daniela

Laura

Nichol

Sharyn <------ you are here

Teri

Jaime

As a thank you for all the comments received during the hop on all eights blogs as well as those left on the Technique Tuesday blog, we will give away two stamp sets.

One person will win our I Love You - Eye Chart stamp set, and another will win our So Sorry by Ali Edwards stamp set.

You don't need to comment on all the blogs to be eligible to win, but the more blogs you comment on, the more chances you'll have! 

All comments must be made by midnight PST on November 13th. Tune into the Technique Tuesday blog on November 14th to see if you are one of the lucky winners! 

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Front entrance: Before and After

I think I mentioned a few posts ago how I've been moving furniture around here - shaking things up. One of my kids is less than pleased. That would be the child that hates change.  "Too much at once!!!" declared that child.  It was long overdue, says I. 

I've been shopping for a dresser to replace this bench for well over a year. What that means is that I've kept my eye open at garage sales and spring cleaning, but didn't have any luck. 

Reasons I wanted to replace the bench with a dresser:  1) As you can see in this undoctored photo - I used the bench as a holding spot.  Six days out of seven it held folded laundry.  On this day - and the whole week prior, it held a box of shirts for our Girls on the Run girls.  2) We need more storage and I keep trying to go *up* A dresser goes up.  3) The bench stored either blankets or hats/mittens, but it was always so hard to get to with all that laundry on it. 

Turns out it was a good thing I didn't find a dresser, because I had it all along. This dresser came from the boys room, and I love this piece. I bought it at a garage sale over fifteen years ago and put a lot of elbow grease into it. It was originally green.  My kids don't know how to use dressers though, so it will work better here. I'm still not sure what I'm putting in all the drawers, but I can tell you that the bottom one is currently holding coloring books and the next one up is holding all the things I need to ship my husbands balls.  (grin) (If you're new to reading my blog - I'm sorry. Click the link over there on the left to my husband's Etsy shop, and you'll get it) 

And while I moved most of the boy's toys upstairs to their room, I just don't have the nerve to move their dump trucks.  1) Because they haul my laundry with their trucks and 2) Call me crazy, but I visualize those trucks flying down my stairs if I let them go upstairs. It's safer, I think, if they stay on the lower level. 

I dug that heavy metal basket (the one on the floor) out of the garage this morning, and it now holds our hats and mittens. I try something different every year with hats and mittens. 

The silver rack above that (from IKEA) I use for drying hats and mittens, and occasionally small laundry items as seen in the first photo. It's right over the vent, so those things dry fast. 

We don't have many flat surfaces for stuff in this house, so I'm a little giddy about having a surface to play with. The lamp was a Christmas gift from my dad years ago before we started exchanging names, two of my husband's carvings, and a basket full of mini scrapbooks, Brian's Cub Scout book, and the kid's Bibles and Catechisms for Sunday School. 

The two framed pieces were purchased individually here and there over the years and have been in the storage hole for too long. I put the other piece in storage now instead. I'm looking for one more something to put in the empty spot to the right of the red frame. It'll come to me. 

I'm not quite done with the other entryway - still some shelves to go up, and I ordered a rug this morning that better darn well live up to its reviews for what I paid for it. 

When those are all up - I'll share that too. 

Feels good to freshen things up. 

She watches me work

and I swear she rolls her eyes at me. 

She'll be doing a lot of this today as I'm pulling out the card table and going to attempt to get two weeks worth of deadlines done in two days. 

Wish me luck. 

Tuesday

Mark was busy making jello to bring to school tomorrow as it's his turn to bring snack. 

As I was taking his picture, he smiled (yes - that's a smile) and says - hey mom, maybe you can use this for my four year old picture to put on the wall.

We agreed that maybe I'll just share it on my blog instead, since we just put that other one on the wall. 

hooks to the sky

Per my mom's request. I was on the phone with her this morning and she couldn't visualize my hooks up the wall, wall.  I tried describing it to her - Mom, we're just like a real church house now but she still needs the visual. She's retired, you know. 

Four hooks just wasn't cutting it anymore - not with six of us, and us being in Michigan where we need at least three jackets each per season.

So this makes me happy. I just sat with my tea and stared at it last night when it was done. And there are five across the top now - I just jumped the gun on the photo. 

Notes:

• It was cheaper to buy the hooks from IKEA already on their board (5 hooks on a board for $9.99 rather than 2 of the same exact hooks for $4.99) we just took the hooks off their board and put them on ours
• I don't give a hoot that the hooks don't match because they are going to be covered up anyway. 
• Next show and tell will be the shoe rack - nearly completed.

This morning we're running to the dentist - the appointment that I canceled for Wendy last month because she 'supposedly' had MEAPS.  Turns out - it was just the third grade that had them that day - schedule didn't specify that - cuz that would have just made my life much too easy. 

Yeah - I'm cranky that I have to go out on a rainy gross day when I have too much to do around here - especially when it could have been avoided. 

Do I sound cranky? 

*wink* 

for sale

My company is coming a tad bit earlier than expected - so I need to get this out of the boy's room.- barely used, regularly 99.99 and we'd like to sell it for $60 since it's hardly been used. I'll post it on Craigslist on Wednesday, but thought I'd try here first. It has two very small spots on it - basically because my kids are sweat boxes, but the casing comes off with a zipper and is easy to wash. 

Here's the store link to them.

The handy thing is that it's thin enough that it rolls up - which is how it was sold. 

Leave a comment or email me through the link in the upper left corner of my blog if you're interested.