I haven’t posted in a while, so I guess I should catch everyone up on what’s going on.

The Boy turned 7 on Sunday.

Yeah, um, not the best picture of me!

The coolest part, besides that he had a lot of fun and got a TON of Hot Wheels, was the cool Hummer Bouncy House I got:

Today is designing day. On Friday, Michelle’s Angels is starting Challenges on the forum. I LOVE challenges, and I get to hostess the “All About Me” challenge. I’m not going to tell you want the challenge is, but this is what you’ll get when you finish a layout for the challenge and post a link to my thread on the forum.

This kit is called Morning Coffee, and next month, after this challenge is finished, it’ll be for sale. If you do the challenge you can get it for free, so that’s your incentive for doing the challenge.

In other news, still no news on our book at Baen. Every time the phone rings I wonder if it’s them, but not so far.

I’m working on Sword & Illusion and started outlining the first Fairy Godmother Bridesmaid Dress, which right now I’m calling The Millionaire’s Secret Desire. I’m not sure I like that, but it sounds like Harlequin or Silhouette.

What do you guys think?? Does it sound too cheesy?

Alexe, a member of the Creative Team for Michelle’s Angels, chose my newest kit, Natasha Camilla, to make some quick pages with.

She made some really sweet quick pages and was nice enough to send them to me. Here they are with family pictures put in.

The pictures were taken when we went out to dinner to celebrate 22 years of marriage.

You can get the QPs at Alexe’s blog. If they aren’t there when you visit, stop by again later.

In the meantime, the kit:

is available at any of my stores.

On that note, I want to point out that I’m no longer with Scrapping Divas There is no mysterious reason why I’ve left that store; no hard feelings or anything. Life is just too busy with my writing and all for me to give the right amount of attention to such a large number of stores. I got a little crazy when I started designing and jumped on every designer call I saw.

Now, with The Lady and the Necromaner at Baen and a good chance it’ll get published, I need to focus on my writing. I may be leaving a few other stores in the near future. We’ll see.

Yesterday my brother went into the hospital to be given a peritoneal catheter so he can start dialysis. It’s a family thing. Not that anyone in our family WANTS to be on dialysis, but there is a kidney disease in the family so it’s not totally unexpected.

Anyway, please pray for Rob.

This weekend is the Boy’s 7th birthday, so we’re looking forward to that. I’ll post pictures after his party!

Have a great weekend!

Beloved took today off because he wanted a chance to work on his writing. Today is also the beginning of the Boy’s Spring Break, but he had an appointment with his psychologist for a follow-up evaluation at 8 am, so we had to get up early anyway.

My alarm went off at 5:45 as it did all Lent but today I hit the snooze button. I got up before six and as I sat here working, Beloved got up, too. He’d had a couple of bad dreams about work and started worrying about some insignificant things, so he decided to get up, too.

We sat here, each working on our own stuff for a few minutes when he gasped. I looked over and asked what the matter was.

He’d gotten an email from Baen saying they wanted us to go through our book, The Lady and The Necromancer, one more time for formatting problems and to get rid of some of the extraneous “saids.” She wants to “bump” it up to her publisher before the end of the month!!!

Needless to say, we’re both kind of excited about all this. It’s not a sale, but it’s WAY better than a rejection!!! Maybe soon we’ll be able to post REALLY good news!!!

Welcome to the Good Friday Blog Train. I hope you’re having a blessed Triduum.

Here is my portion of the train:

You can download it by clicking on the links below:

Papers
Elements

I hope you’ll leave a comment when you download it.

Don’t forget to visit all the stops along the route and thank them for participating.

Hutchsbaby
Leigh
Nip
Candie
Sharon
Dawn
Nancy – YOU ARE HERE

The Triduum begins today. The Holiest days of the year and the end of Lent.

How has your Lent been going?

I started out with a whole bunch of things I was going to do, but ended up only doing the one thing – getting up every weekday morning at 5:45 and not hitting the snooze button. While I had all kinds of other things on my list, I’m pretty happy with this one. Although, I will be glad for spring break next week where I can sleep in, I am proud of myself for getting up that early every morning. I think I might try to keep it up when school goes back after spring break. I might even get up during spring break. I really enjoyed my early morning time alone.

We had a conference with the Boy’s teacher this morning. He’s on track for going to first grade if only because they can’t hold him back another year. However, he will be getting some special attention and some “resources” attention, meaning he’ll be taken out of class a couple of times a week and put in a smaller reading class to help him with his attention span and general overall reinforcement of some issues.

He’s a bright kid and doesn’t really need help with his reading, which is what we told them this morning (I don’t think they see how well he’s reading. We see it at home when he reads to us but in a classroom setting, I think he might get a little lost.), but they said it’s not just for that. It’s more for the confidence and all that. The principal said they want him to be a leader and are trying to work on making him want to be a leader, too. I’m actually pretty happy with that.

He’s on Day Five of the “Monsters vs. Aliens” “prize package.” If he gets a green or a yellow at school today, he’ll get to go to the movies with Daddy, probably Saturday. Maybe he’ll even get pizza and he definitely will get a bunch of his toys back.

I’ve edited eleven chapters of Sword & Illusion and am waiting for Beloved to pronounce them finished. I’m trying to outline the next book in the series, but it’s not coming easily. I have a couple of other places this “saga” will eventually go, so I might work on one of those books instead.

We’re still waiting to hear from Baen, and that’s getting a little annoying because it’s been three weeks since they said they were going to read it, but I guess I don’t know what goes on inside a publishing house.

Well, tomorrow is Good Friday, and the Good Friday Blog Train will leave the station.

I know it seems kinda weird to have a scrapbook kit just for Good Friday. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I don’t take a lot of pictures of Good Friday, but actually those of us participating just wanted to have a kit that was more religious in nature for this holy time.

I hope you come back tomorrow and download the stuff. I plan to have a few QPs done of a couple of my kits to give away next week!

The Girl has this week off from college for Spring Break and Beloved has Friday off. He’s decided to take Thursday and Monday, too, because he wants to focus on his book. He split his days off because the Boy has NEXT week off. It would be so nice if they could have had the same week off. Maybe we could have taken a small vacation or something.

We haven’t had a full-fledged family vacation since Christmas 2007 when we went to Ohio to spend New Years’ with my family. Finances are the main reason and it’s amazing to me that I can tell that we haven’t taken time away as a family.

On May 9, Beloved and I are going away for the night to a B&B. This was my birthday present from him and this is the first chance we could find to make reservations. It’s also not our first choice of places, but from the pictures and talking to the manager/owner on the phone, I’m sure it’ll be wonderful.

What do I have planned this week? Well, I need to get back to my Flying routines. Beloved mentioned the housework at least every other day so I guess it’s starting to get to him. I know I’ve slacked off on it, but I’ll get back to it.

The Girl and I need to run to the library some time this week. I have a book to return and she probably needs more to read.

On Friday, Good Friday, I’ll be unveiling a new freebie for a Good Friday blog train. I don’t have the ad for it ready to upload here because my ftp information is on my other computer and I need to get that all transferred to the laptop. But, I think you’ll be happy with what we’re offering.

Of course that brings us to the Triduum, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday. We’ll be busy with those things. The choir sings at the noon mass on Easter Sunday which means, again, we don’t go to the Vigil. I would really like to, but I think it’s still too long for the Boy, although he’s doing better at paying attention and being good in Mass.

Well, I have to get the family up in half an hour and i should try to do some writing, so I’ll sign off.

Oh, if anyone knows any generic healing prayers or any prayers specificaly to St. Drogo, please let me know! Thanks!

My husband’s status on Google Talk says, “Frozen in Carbonite.” I asked him why and he said because he feels like he’s just waiting for a number of things to happen.

1. He’s waiting to hear if he got the new job, basically his boss’s job (boss is leaving or has left). He was told last week he’d hear by Friday. On Friday they said they’re postponing the decision until this week. Now he won’t hear until Monday.

2. We sent a book to Baen last year, and were supposed to get a response by Christmas. Last month he emailed them asking about it and it turns out they never received it. They said if we sent it in again, they’d give us credit for the previous submission and read it in a week. That was two weeks ago and we haven’t heard anything about that.

3. His parents have been trying to sell their house in New Jersey for over a year. They want to move down here closer to us. So, we are waiting for that to happen. We thought something good was in the offing as they thought they were getting an offer, but that fell through a couple of days ago.

Then, this week, I’ve gotten phone calls with bad news. My uncle cut the tip of his finger off using a table saw. My mother says he’s always so eager to play with his toys he doesn’t use any safety equipment.

Then today, my brother called to tell me that his creatinine has gone from 3.6 last year to over 6 this year. This is a measure of kidney function and polycystic kidneys are in the family. Normal creatinine is about 1.4 or thereabouts. Mine was just over 5 when they put me on dialysis. Granted my case was a little different as I had just gotten over a bout of metabolic acidosis and the doctor didn’t want to wait for my kidneys to get worse on their own so she decided to keep me on dialysis. Dialysis is how they treat acidosis.

Anyway, it’s been a week or more of bad news or no news. I really could use something good happening.

Well, one good thing, sort of, happened tonight.

We were supposed to teach an NFP class tomorrow night. Tomorrow is Beloved’s birthday but it was the only night available for this couple to take the first class so they could take the second class next week. Yes, we’re teaching on Good Friday. Who set that up???? Oh, right, me.

Anyway, I emailed the couple tonight to remind them we were looking forward to seeing them, and the emailed back that they’ve changed their minds.

While I’m not thrilled about a couple decided against NFP, at least we won’t have to teach tomorrow night and can possibly relax a little at the end of this week.

On an up note, the blog train has made traffic to this site skyrocket which thrills me no end. Welcome everyone! I hope you come back.

Rules for the Easter Egg Hunt

1. Visit each participant to receive their portion of the the Easter Blog Train.

2. Make sure you leave some luv when download *LOL*

3. Unzip all your new goodies and look for the Magic Egg.

The Magic Egg has been randomly placed in 2 of the zips. One egg will contain a coupon for $2 off a $10 or more purcase at Michelles-Angels store.

The other Magic Egg will contain a coupon for 20% off your entire purchase at the store. *Only one coupon redeemable at a time* Coupons has no limit on how many times you may use it until June 1st.

4. Make a purchase using one of the found coupons!

*BONUS*

Make a LO or Tag using items from the Blog Train and post your creation in our Gallery, in the folder Called Easter Egg Hunt Contest, between May 1st and May 20th. BE SURE to credit the designer(s) who created the items you use!

Beginning May 21st we will be voting for the top 3 layouts. Register in the forum to vote for your favorites.

*PRIZES*

1st Place – $10 Store Gift Certificate

2nd Place – $5 Store Gift Certificate

3rd Place – $2 Store Gift Certificate

Blog Train and Contest will run April 1st thru May 31th. Winners will be announced on the Store Blog on June 1st.

Here’s my contribution. I call it Easter Dress because the colors just said that to me. I hope you like it. Download links are at the end of this post.

Don’t forget to visit all these places and say hi!

1. Store blog
2. Michelles-Angels
3. MoveFearlessly Designs
4. JIC Creations
5. Digiscrapations
6. Baby Cakes Scraps
7. Lady Snowflake’s Designs
8. Scraps and More by Ginavere
9. Mystical Designz
10. Lady Saphira
11. Throwing Some Scraps Around
12. RomanceChick Designs – YOU ARE HERE!
13. Kathy Count
14. Zee’s Designs
15. Eclipse’s Creations
16. Digi Cyber Scraps
17. Eye Opening Designs
18. Nip’s Creations
19. AngLaRue Creations
20. Desert Bloom Designs
21. Elegant WordArt by Bethany
22. Foxylady Creations
23. CandysTreasures
24. Tootlebugz
25. Lei
26. Tiffany’s Treasures
27. DebsDesign
28. Katzscrapz
29. Oase
30. Designs by Teri
31. PSP Scrapper
32. JTsDesigns
33. Liv Luvs Scraps
34. MJH Designs
35. jbs2designs
36. Lindas Dream Designs
37. A-Design by Lena
38. Lorri’s Scraps
39. All Things Digi
40. Becky’s Scrap Freebies
41. Scrappin with Lil Ole Me
42. Muriel’s Scrapbits
43. Digital Scrap Fun
44. Our This – N – That
45. DazzlingScraps
46. Candie’s Creations
47. Munchkyn Scraps
48. Maggies Scrap
49.TaggingAngelsNScraps
50. Crafty Scraps
51. Marian

My downloads:
Elements
Papers