a Day in the Life...: Good Grief...

I was off to such a great run and then WHAM! I lost it!

Life; well, life is crazy. Last night I fell asleep BEFORE 8pm on the couch. Life has had it's ups and downs since the last post. Let me share the ups...

Saturday, November 8th, I was given a great surprise by my friends! I walked into a VERY successful surprise party for me. It was great! I got to see how one plays Beer Pong and laugh until I cried at times.

For those of you who are not familiar with the game, let me put it in it's simplest form: you set up 10 cups on each end of a long table, in those 20 cups you split 4 beers. A team of two to three people stand at the ends of the table and each get one shot with a ping pong ball; they are trying to shoot the ball into one of your cups. If they make it, you drink that cup. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, there are tricks, rules, and downright hilarious moments that come from the "simple" game. I am not a beer drinker so I watched for most of the evening; then I played and had others drink my beer for me. :) It was a great night!

Charli was the gracious host of the event and was a great hostess making sure that everyone was well taken care of. Bobbi made this ab fab soup inspired by Olive Garden. (Really, I need more of that soup!) Melissa made it to the party! This is BIG! She is SO STINKIN' BUSY! Thanks sweetie! And do my friends know me or what! For my gifts, Charli got me a gift certificate to iTunes, Melissa got me a gift certificate to the GAP, and Bobbi got me a whole bag of CHOCOLATE! It was PERFECT ladies, thank you.

It meant a lot to me that night but it even means more to me today to have such great friends! Not only the ones that attended the party but those who've always given me an ear to listen to my frustrations, a shoulder to cry on, and a hand to hold. Thanks guys, you know who you are and I thank God each and every day that I have been blessed with the company of each of you. :)

Last weekend, the 14-16th, I attended CKC Seattle. It's a scrapbook convention that is actually held in Bellevue (that's always bugged me that it says its in Seattle but its in Bellevue...oh well.) Melissa, Charli, Terrie, and I headed out Friday after school. I was thankful for good weather as I was the one driving. Poor Charli, broke her finger the Tuesday before and was contemplating not going. I'm glad she chose to go, it wouldn't have been the same without her. We took some great classes, but I will NEVER do a convention in one day again. My brain was fried!

CKC 2007

(Sorry, No picture from this year)

Left to Right: Terrie, Melissa, Me, and Charli

This is the second year that the four of us have gone together. It was nice. Charli and Melissa had an instant bonding moment shopping! Man those two can shop!! Many of you know I am NOT a shopper. I go into a store, get what I need, and then I'm out. NOT SO for Melissa and Charli! They like to look at everything! Saturday night after dinner we went to Bell Square and split up. Terrie and I one direction, Charli and Melissa in another. Terrie and I were done shopping around 8pm, I called Charli, "Where you guys at?", "Oh, we're in ____ (I don't remember where they were), we haven't made to JcPenny yet". Seriously?!? That's where they were headed when we split at like 7:15pm. Finally, at 9pm I text Charli and ask if they plan on sleeping at the mall tonight; I would have been happy sitting in the car reading a book I had just gotten earlier in the day BUT Charli had my key, so on a couch at Nordstrom I sat with Terrie people watching and visiting with each other. :) They got to Nordstrom just after 9pm and we headed back to the hotel. Really, I wasn't mad, just tired so I didn't look so thrilled. It was fun to razz them though, as I am going to continue to do. :)

Sunday, we had a replay. The only thing on our list when we left Moses to do on our way home was to stop at North Bend and get some shoes for Kolby (Melissa's son) and go home. (Again, remember my shopping style). Well, I threw us off track because I wanted to stop by a LSS (local scrapbook store) and see if they had some stuff I was unable to find at the convention. We got to Issaquah an hour before I had planned and an hour before the LSS opened so, we looked for other stores to be open; hello Target! After an hour in Target and a half an hour in Bath and Body Works, we made our way to the Mad Scrapper. They didn't have what I was after so I was ready to go in like 10 minutes; I was the only one. Melissa is so funny to watch shop sometimes; she can get so excited over things! Case in point, the Zutter corner rounder. Okay, it is REALLY cool! It looks like a giant paper clip. But Melissa's reaction was too cute! "Well, isn't that just too adorable!" "Look! It's even pink!" "It's going home with me!". After a stop at a camera shop, that I wanted to go to along with Charli, we were off to North Bend.

Once we got there I was TIRED. I told Melissa, "one hour, then we're headed home." Three hours later, we were finally on our way. My tiredness DEFINITELY was showing. Melissa says to me during the shopping experience, "Charli and I know your not a shopper, but we're having a lot of fun and loving it" (something to that effect). Great, I'm a party pooper. She's right, I don't shop, but I was happy that they were having fun. They both work really hard and are really busy! I don't know how they stay sane sometimes. So, truly, I was viewing the shopping as retail therapy. I was just too tired to be happy with them. :)

They had so much fun shopping together they're making plans for Black Friday (Day after Thanksgiving)! May the force be with you two ladies! I'll be at home sleeping! :)

In other events: I made it swimming two times last week and not at all this week. This week was VERY emotional for me; too much stress. I am looking forward to a somewhat quite weekend in comparison, to just decompress.

As I write this entry, I am doing my very best to not get frustrated that I completely missed out on a free scrapbooking class online and that I am 5 weeks, yes 5, behind on my DYL class.

Tomorrow, I am scheduled to take Tracy's family pictures. I am REALLY excited about this! She and her family have been through SO much in the last 6 months; a lot has changed. It'll be interesting to see those changes in their pictures. They're gonna be FABULOUS! I'll post them after the shoot ( I'll try my best at least).

Top 3 from last years photo shoot: