Hey!

's up?

Just thought I'd say hi...

*giggle*

Isn't this the cutest picture you've ever seen?

This is my friend "Daisy" last night. Cindy and I had been scrapping and watching television for most of the early evening and welll into the night. Daisy had given up the fight later in the evening and had made herself comfortable on the big couch right on top of one of the pillows there.

The dogs were being good and quiet. It prompted me to go on a short little trek to find out what they were up to - isn't that what you mommies do when the kids are too quiet? Better go find out what the heck they are into before they tear down the house. . imagine my surprise to turn around in my chair and stand up to start my hunt and find this little gem. She was so comfortable she didn't even move when I went back to the table to grab the camera.

This is the life, right? I wish my life was such that I could find an empty pillow and just lay myself out and zonk for hours while the world goes on around me... :)

Dogs Rule!

This might not look like much to you, the reader, but it represents a lot to those of us involved in such a craft. Many people call it a craft and other people call it a waste of money. In a little corner of my slightly OCD world there are things that I do and create that I like to go back to time and time again. Call it a comfort zone; I like to be reminded of the good things in life, I guess.

I like to spend the time with this stuff just losing myself in creativity. It's very relaxing to me (sometimes) to sit and be creative and to sit back and see the fruits of my labor. I have so much that I've completed and so much that's left half finished. Pages and pages of memories sit in boxes right now just waiting to be sorted and put into some kind of book for me and others to peruse.

Cindy and I always spend hours and hours just sitting together and scrapping. I'm convinced though, after so many years of doing this, that it's not the actual activity that we love, it's the time spent together doing what we are doing. We set up our tables, drag out all of our stuff, fight over space to spread out, goof off, listen to loud music, snack here and there and we used to drink an unGodly amount of Diet Dr Pepper to fuel our creativity (and to keep us up until all hours of the night.)

So the craft is two fold - I get to create something to preserve those memories I hold so dear and I get to spend time with friends in a much better environment. It can be a way for us to bond as we talk and joke while we work. It's a way for us to get away from the every day and spend some quality time as girlfriends. That's the way life should be for everyone. Doing something you like with people you love.

Well, here it is my first night of dog/cat/house sitting for friends of mine. It's always good to come home to Joey and Gracie - both falling all over each other to be the first to greet me at the garage door. But tonight it was a special treat - one of my oldest and dearest friends was here to greet me at the door when I arrived home - my friend "Daisy."

"Daisy" (the names have been changed to protect the innocent) girl has been the queen of the (name-withheld) household for going on 11 years now. A lovely little dog with a wonderful temperament and a gorgeous overbite that you can only see when she smiles up at you lovingly from wherever she sits. She wears a pink collar and jingles everywhere she goes. A loveable little dog she is and is great to settle down in bed with or on the couch and snuggle. Her most famous anecdote? She'll do a drive by kissing if you're not watching. She will hand out the love willingly most nights but sometimes she wants to play so instead of running up to you and handing out a few kisses she'll jump up quickly, get really close, stick out her tongue just enough and fall JUST short of kissing you then hop off your lap and run like mad in the other direction. It really is cute and it never gets old.

Her parents have gone on a trip and have left her at home under my care and supervision. I have done this for them on many occasions as they have done for me and I always enjoy every minute of it. Tonight she can't get settled and wanders about the house aimlessly hoping that any second she will hear that door click and mommy and daddy will be home. She sits with me when she's not wandering - on full alert and perched on the arm of the chair where I sit. She's a good girl.

And every superhero story has an arch nemesis right? Well, this story is a little different. Joey isn't a superhero and I don't think "Mittens" the cat can be classified as an arch nemesis. Mittens the cat lives here with Daisy and is just not very fond of Joey Joe. As a result he will walk quickly through rooms of the house and slink along the walls of each room as if she wouldn't notice him here.

My friend Cindy Lu should arrive sometime in the early evening tomorrow night to play for the weekend. I think we're going to do some sightseeing this trip if the weather holds out. All of the news stations are calling for pretty severe storms over the course of the next few days. I hope not before Cindy Lu comes...the LAST time she came up for a visit she had to drive through tsunami type weather and it can take it's toll on your nerves. I hope it holds out until she arrives and if it rains and storms that just means MORE SCRAPPIN' TIME FOR US! :)

While wandering around Beth's favorite store, Aeropostale, in the Galleria in Houston I called her up on my cell phone (she was spending the night with her Grammy) -

Aunt K: Beth, I was gonna send you cash for Valentines day but I am standing and the Aeropostale store and wondered if you'd rather have something from here?

Beth: Well...that depends.

Aunt K: On what? (I ask, kind of exasperated)

Beth: What kinda cash are we talkin' about?

Have I mentioned that she's 9? She's already got priorities!

Made my night....

This is going to be a much different post than my normal 2 readers are used to but I felt as if I should write some of my more morose thoughts down in cyberspace. Call it a getting to know me a little better session.

Do the two of you (and you know who you are!) know how much music affects my life? Does anybody that knows me realize how much I absolutely adore tunes? I can't live without cds in my car; I love my iPod more than people love their pets. Although I'm not like my friends the Loncarics or Brian Godshall, I do collect music in all varieties. In my iTunes right now I've got everything from BArry Manilow to Blink 182; Barry White to Ben Harper, Dr. Dre to Edie Gorme and Steve Lawrence. Music moves me, motivates me, makes me feel things. I wonder if I'm just a freak or if it does this to others as well?

A good hip hop song makes me feel good - it gives me funny feelings of confidence and it lifts my spirits. A dose of Neil Diamond brings me back to my childhood days and I remember listening to him in the house with daddy on the weekends or the first time he really made me listen to the words of Morningside (his personal favorite) I like Concrete Blond because the music is eerie; they were a softer version of Evanescence before Amy Lee even came into the scene, I think. Counting Crows and U2 inspire me to write for some reason. I created a character in one of my stories closely related to Adam Duritz; how funny is that? (in case you're wondering the character is a lead singer of a band who has serious anger and personality issues, deals with an abusive father and has a thing for the main character who is also a recent victim of domestic abuse and trying to find her way in the world. The dynamic between the two is awesome and it's one of my favorite stories)

I can remember being with Zacc at the Drive In seeing the movie Say Anything and how I felt the moment I first heard that eerie tune by Peter Gabriel - In Your Eyes. It was young love and the song brings back haunting memories of that steamy scene in the back of the car between John Cusack and Ione Skye down by the beach. "Still the Same" by Bob Seger brings me back to the kitchen sink at Jim's house one year on my birthday and my father calling me on the phone, that song playing loud in the background and I can still hear his happy voice on the phone saying, "You might be 28 Kristina but in my eyes you're still the same!" I have vague memories of Lou Rawls "You'll Never Find" bringing me back to the Jersey shore when I was little and riding in the car. Or days spent shopping and running errands with my sister when C+c Music Factory songs play on the radio. Pearl Jam's first works put me in the time when I was obsesses with Eddie Vedder and Bono at the same time; how the sad, sad songs on their first cd got me through tough times during my separation and divorce from Zacc all those years ago. The heavy beat and harsh voice through the rap classic "Back that Ass up" brings me back to the dark, loud and hazy nights when we would party at Briggett's house and dance in the basement with everybody whooping it up and hollering around us.

Songs and music make me remember life. When there are pictures and words and thoughts and discussions, nothing brings me back to the full moment to the emotion and the feelings I had like that memory of a song that was playing at the time. Songs are memories to me - little 3 minute clips of my life here and there sometimes. Lately I haven't had much interest in it. The iPod has been looking up at me longingly from my desk or my purse and wondering why I'm not spending as much time with it. Sometimes it even turns itself on as a way of letting me know that it's still there. I miss it but I can't wrap my head around it right now. Music just seems empty to me and I can't decide on what I'd like to listen to or if it's even interesting to me.

Maybe I just need some new tunes; maybe it's just because I'm bored with my selection. When I sit at the computer long enough at home I will pull up iTunes and browse. Lately I have gravitated to a beautiful song by a very talented artist named Mat Kearney; he sings a song called "What's a Boy to do" and it's just a very well done song. It's sad, it's emotional and for some reason, it's comforting to me. See? I told you I was weird... ;)