footnotes

Beautiful Dream

It's more than just a pretty phrase.

When Hannah was abandoned at the orphanage in China, the staff there named her Meng Li, which means "beautiful dream" (in the hopes that all her beautiful dreams come true, according to her paperwork).  We kept that wonderful name as her middle name (combined as MengLi), as an honor to her Chinese heritage and as a way to convey that thought as our wish for her as well.

She has already shown to be the living embodiment of our dreams.

I'm really not too much of a girly, sparkly, bling-y scrapper but photos of Hannah sometimes bring it out in me.  I found this great kit by (Art Play no. 4 by Anna Aspnes at designer digitals) and thought of this photo I have of Hannah.  All soft and dreamy, with those big eyes.   

Today is Digital Scrapbooking Day so go to your favorite store, or check out some of my favorites on the right and take advantage of some fabulous sales! 
 

My lil pumpkin

Just a quick LO I did from pictures of Hannah as she was getting ready to go to school on Halloween.  She is without her kitty cat make-up and wearing a sweater over her outfit but you get the picture.  She was so excited to dress up!

Remember, Digital Scrapbooking Day is coming up!  Check out Catscrap.com for some great products and a great sale, and remember I am doing my drawing soon so go ahead and make a comment!   
 

AAM Blog Hop

Hello everyone and welcome to the first ever All About Me Blog Hop!  This is the first time I have participated in a blog hop and I look forward to learning more about my new design team colleagues at All About Me (AAM).

The theme for this blog hop is Free to be Me.  One of the things that attracted me to AAM in the first place is how everyone interprets the challenges on such an individual level---no constraints!  You are able to take the challenge and totally run with it and be free to be yourself.  What a great concept!

(If you'd like to start at the beginning of the hop, you can start here).

 

The current AAM challenge is “I just can’t live without…”

Now, there are plenty of daily things I “need” to get through my day—coffee, hugs from my daughter, sleep (being a horrible insomniac I never take this one for granted) but wanted to take this challenge in a different direction.  At the core of my personality is a super restless being that has a hard time staying at one place very long and gets bored very easily.  It’s hard for me not to wonder what’s around the next corner.  It’s hard for me to put down roots.

So what I need, truly need, is travel.  Working as a flight nurse helps scratch that itch as well---going to work in the morning and never knowing where I’ll be at 5 p.m. (could be Ontario, Canada or Ontario, California).  It keeps me sane and grounded. 

So here is my take on “I just can’t live without…”  Photos from my travels.  So many more places I want to go.

 

("pure" paper pack by creashens @ catscrap.com, paint from kalaidoscope kit @ catscrap.com, stitches by emily merritt designs, tag from Robin-Marie designs)

On to the fun Q & A part of the blog hop:  
 

1. My childhood ambition: to leave my hometown
2. My retreat: nature
3. The perfect day: coffee, a hike outdoors, reading, an afternoon nap followed by a   fabulous dinner
4. My first job was: babysitting
5. My wildest dream: to take a trip around the world
6. If my life was a musical it would be called: “fly away”
7. My proudest moment: hiking in and out of the Grand Canyon on a sprained ankle.  The year I turned 40.  At the time I thought it was my worst nightmare, but I'm pretty proud that I made it out of there on my own two feet.
8. My favorite item of clothing: jeans
9. I feel ready for the day when I: have had my coffee
10. I COULD live without: TV

PRIZE OFFERING!!!!

I would love to share with you a $10 gift certificate for one of my favorite digi-scrapping stores, Catscrap.com!  Please leave a comment on my blog and a random drawing will be done on November 8^th.  If you haven’t tried digi-scrapping, now would be a great time to do so with a fabulous kit from Catscrap!  If you digi-scrap or hybrid scrap now, you will love this site!!

…NEXT… if you’ve made it this far congratulations!  Onward to the next blog!  Check out Melisa's Blog!   Happy Hopping!! 

Our house

The song this week at Scrapping the Music is Our House by Madness.  I realized that we have been renovating this house since we moved in in March 2006 and, although I have taken photos of various stages, I don't have a complete "before and after" picture of the house.  And guess what?  I still don't.

This layout is just snippets of before, during, after... there is just too, too much that we have done and are still doing!  But this is where we are at this point at Doce Robles AKA Casa Frijole:

I'd love to say we are almost done, but there is still so much to do.  We love this place, though, and I often refer to it as my "dream home/money pit in the mountains" and I honestly couldn't imagine living anywhere else. 
  

All about me

I have an exciting announcement to make:  I have been chosen for the design team of the All About Me challenge blog! I was very surprised to get the invitation this weekend and can't wait to start participating in this great concept blog. 

Go poke around there and check it out, it's fabulous!!

Happy Sunday, everyone!! 

Random thoughts

A little something I cooked up this week. 

45

I turned 45 while at flight school in Phoenix.  I was alone in a hotel room, studying flight physiology and nursing.  I took this picture of myself, without make-up, naked as it were.  Instead of feeling bad that I was alone on my birthday I was feeling good about why I was alone on my birthday: a dream job of being able to be a nurse and be on a helicopter.  How cool is that?

This layout was born of that moment in Phoenix.  Digi items from the wonderful Zen Garden kit from Kathryn Wilson Designs.

Beautiful Dawn

Wow, it's been awhile since my last post!  I have not been scrapping much, since my flight training has taken up so much time.  I'm now freed from the bulk of the hard-core training, and able to get back into my groove.

This week's song from Scrapping the Music is just wonderful: Beautiful Dawn by the Wailing Jenny's.  I have a link to the song/video here.  There were so many beautiful lyrics in this song it was difficult to decide on one, so I ended up using a photo I took at dawn and a phrase I often use when I am meeting a particularly challenging day.   

Enjoy the beautiful fall weather, everyone!
 

Up

An appropriate song for today, my birthday, which I am spending at the flight academy for my new job where I will be doing helicopter transports as a flight nurse.  It doesn't get any better than this.  Check us out at Scrapping the Music.

September

There's a great challenge this week at Scrapping the Music.  Wake me up when September ends by Green Day.  The photo I used is from one of our trips to the Jemez mountains, and I have a small photo of my stepfather in there, who I lost 2 1/2 years ago but still miss every day.  His influence on my life has shaped in a large part who I am.

 

Little charm by Kathryn Wilson from {we are} storytellers.