When it's too quiet...

... you know there is a problem. In this case, both boys are sleeping, which you would think is a good thing, right?? but they fell asleep before 8... Albert crashed at about 630, Amare at 730... and both without dinner, so the likelihood is that they will both wake up in about an hour, hungry and fulllllllll of energy!!!!

Just popping in to say hi, pooped and still funkdafide (does anyone remember that album?? i LOVED IT!!!)

ttyl =o) kel

HORRAHZ!!!!

yes, i am horrible at keeping up a blog. i think i even listed "regular blog posting" as one of my goals. most of those goals have fallen by the wayside if you cared to know.

long story short, i am in a FUNK. and its not a happy, crazy funky funk... well, it's crazy but it DEFINITELY ain't happy!!

i have struggled with depression since i was 10 years old. and i'm 26... no wait... 25 (until november)... so over 15 years i've struggled with this and am a little better with coping and functioning. but not soooo much better that i'm good. i'm just barely okay. which isn't bad but it's nowhere near where i want or need to be.

i go up and down... i sometimes crave social attention, and i sometimes withdraw almost completely from the world. thank GOD for J... if he wasn't around to pull me out of it or force me to come back to the world then i don't know where i would be, even for my kids. so thank you, jared.

so right now, i am down. withdrawn but still functional (barely), just trying to take it one day at a time... one thing at a time. and its been months that i've been spiraling down down down... slowly and irregularly going down. but i think i've passed the bottom and am on the upswing. godd i hope this is an upswing and not just a temporary reprise from it to send me further down...

so i'm sorry, my blog. i do think of you often but don't feel like i have anything important to say nor the energy to sit and explain to you what's going on.

but good news is (as i just posted to my 2ps peeps) that there is a light which means there is an end... it's just a matter of figuring out how hard i have to fight and how willing i am to fight to get to that end.

ttyl
=o) kel

6am....

*knocks mic* Hello?? Hello?? Is this thing on??

What is there to do at 6 in the morning on a saturday??

waits for response...

...nothing

Nothing is damn right. hahaha. I actually woke up at 330 this morning... and I felt like those old people in Manoa that walk at 330 in the morning because they get up at 330 in the morning. But I didn't walk. Because if I did, then I would be an old person. talk about saving face, huh.

Just wanted to give a happy saturday morning post, all contributing to the plan to blog more often. off to J's computer to organize the millllllllllllllions of pictures i have stored on the external HD. Which reminds me, does anyone have recommendations of software or peoples to pull whatever information/files the can save from a fried external HD?? Because I have allllllllll my digital pictures from when we first got a digital camera to 2007 on there and that includes about 90% of Albert's first 3 years of life.

TIA and TTYL!!!
=o) kel

naughty naughty!!!!

so.......

how long has it been since i last posted here??

hello?? hello?? anyone still here???

probably not.

here's the quick update of the last month (or two) in list-awesomeness...

* j brokeded his hand at the end of march and has been out of work since... almost 3 whole months of having him home. which is a good thing. A GOOD THING. right.
* amare turned 1 on may 18th
* we had a super fun birthday party, tons of good people and the photog was great, everyone loved it. (mental note: still waiting on the CD they're supposed to send with all the pictures on there... need to call them tomorrow)
* we left the next day (05-19) for vegas and disneyland.
* vegas was a lot of fun, except the last night when someone stoleded jared's phone. (not nice, plus the people even tried to use it!!!!)
* disneyland was a TON of fun, except for 2 things: 1) we expected it to be warmer than the 50's, and 2) someone stole my purse the last night in disneyland.
* we didn't have good luck with people NOT stealing our crap. boo.
* Albert finished up his first year of preschool the first week of June. it has been such a wonderful experience, we cannot wait until next school year!!
* Albert has been home EVERY DAY since the first week of June. I CANNOT WAIT UNTIL NEXT SCHOOL YEAR.
* so-called website designer has been hired... and this time we're going with my cousin who just graduated HS and is willing to work with J to understand CSS and PHP and Smarty... (do you understand this?? can you help me?!?)
* craft room is as clean as it's gonna be for the next few months, or at least until we enclose the garage... the craft/computer/sewing room will all be combined in the garage, and the boys will move downstairs.
* i taught myself how to knit =o) granted, its not anything i'd be willing to share with anyone other than my grandmama, but hey, its my first project (after a combined 4 hours over 2 days worth of learning on my own) and i'll get there eventually, i hope.
* i have decided to re-learn how to sew. funny story: i was sitting at a boring make-n-take, staring at the rack of idea books when i saw 2 that peaked my interest... skirts and aprons. after flipping through them, i said, it doesn't look THAT hard to do, and I took sewing class one summer over 10-years ago, i'll try some. HA! we'll see how far that goes.

phew. i hope that's enough of an update. i really, really plan to keep up with this blog.

but i think that's what i said a few times before... lol.

well, third time's the charm, right??

=o) kel

And how could I forget...

Happy birthday SIL!!!

Love you to pieces... I don't have any sibs of my own, so I don't think you know how GRATEFUL and LUCKY and HAPPY I am to have a "real" sister. And you are such a wonderful Aunt to the boys, they cherish all the time they get to spend with you and especially for that I thank you.

=o) kel

It's already been 30 days...

Wow.. I can't believe its been 30 days since my last post. Poor showing on my part. Apologies for not being around so much but things have been hectic around here trying to get everything ready for Amare's bday party.

If you're mailing in that RSVP card, do so BEFORE the 12th because postage rates go up that day and either you or I will owe the PO an extra penny!! Plus, they're due on the 12th. haha.

Also contributing to the hectic-ness is the bizzzzzness... we finally got the shopping cart installed and are in the process of figuring out how to tweak it to make it look purty. What was "guaranteed in one business day" took over a WEEK to finish... which wasn't entirely the tech's fault... he and I went back and forth making sure certain files and permissions were set to make it work right... and I'm still not entirely sure what all that means but hey, it works and that's all I really care!!

So give me a month... June 1st we'll have a big 'ol launch party and it will be soooooo mucho fun-o. I've already got a ton of ideas and projects and new manufacturers I want to bring in... just biding our time and making sure what we've currently got works before we invest in more.

And plus, the next couple weeks are mostly dedicated to Amare's bday, and then the week after that we go on vacay, so I'm slowly working on it (J's sleeping, if that gives you any indication of his hand in all this) with the last push the last week of May. Tired of saying "the website's a work in progress" or "the website is coming soon"... wanting it to be HERE and NOW.

Well, time to hit the hay... it's 143am (i love you!!!) and I'm trying to break the routine of me sleeping from 5 or 7am til noon. Waking up at 7 is better than falling asleep at 7, I think.

oh, and the 3 big "kids" in the fam (me, J and Albert) got DS' last night. why? well, the going excuse right now is for the trip. But it's really because I think deep, deep down (okay, maybe not all that deep), J and I wanted one. And if we got it, Albert needed his own too because we won't share. Sheesh... I know I don't plan to!! haha.

lovies,
=o) kel

Happy Birthday MIL

Just wanted to pop in quickly and say "Happy Birhday, Mom" to my MIL. We had a nice Birthday/Belated Retirement party this morning at Sam Choy's Breakfast, Lunch, Crab on Nimitz. Good food, good fun, but even more... We managed to hand out almost 25 invitations!!!! Yay for saving money on stamps and getting people their stuff ASAP.

Came home and CRASHED OUT... I think the stress of getting MIL's bday stuff done and getting the invitations done is starting to lift off my shoulders. More time for scrapping?? I sure hope so!! We saw a sign by Moanalua HS looking for vendors for a May 10th craft show. Debating on doing that one, as it's really, really close to Amare's Bday and I don't know if I want that much addt'l stress. But meh... I'll prolly end up doing it.

Time for dinner!! Sorry, no pictures to share today... maybe tomorrow!!

love, The Mommy

TGIF!!

So much for the plan to update the blog every other day or so.

But I have excuses, none of which are really good or anything, but reason enough that I haven't been online much at all. Apologies, but here goes.

J brokeded his hand the Sunday before Easter. Don't ask me the date, it was too long ago. It has since been casted (cast? casted?) and he is on TDI because they won't let him work for fear of him worsening his fracture and then going on Worker's Comp.

The good thing about it is that he's been home, and we've been able to have a weird sort of vacay... a "blessing in disguise" I tell him... Its like paid vacation. But really, not. He misses work, and I miss not having to help him do remedial things like picking up weighted dishes (not heavily weighted, mind you) and other things that require him putting pressure on his hand or pulling or rotating his wrist too much. I also miss being able to do housework. haha. Not really, actually, but I've been noticeably slacking on that front since he's been home.

Almost done with Amare's 1st Bday invites... add the pictures to 1/2 of the pile, then I just gotta address and stuff the envies and they're off!! Happy with how they turned out. Will post what they look like when I'm alllllllll done. I'm sooooo over it.

As of tomorrow I'll be caught up with my swaps... But then I gotta get to work on the ones due in the middle of the month. 2 of my own 12x12-ers, a hugangous disney swap with multiple spots in 6x6 and 12x12, and a pet 8x8 swap.

Well, its now 430 am and I better get to sleep because we need to get Albert to school on time tomorrow morning... trying to lessen our "days tardy" number this semester. And then we meet with the photog at noon in Kaimuki. Looking forward to it :)

Here's some pics to start your Friday morning:
Amare & Daddy


Albert @ Bishop Museum


Amare & Mommy @ Bishop Museum


Albert, Mommy & Brand New Baby Cousin Kamaile


Love, =o) The Mommy

the crying

it doesnt stop... Amare is fussy and needs to be held allllllllll day long.

boo. no scrapping done.

i did play with my cricut though. nothing big, just alphas and stars. maybe more later?? how fast i can put this baby down will determine how much i get to work.

160 invites to make for Amare's 1st bday. 0 done. boo. but i did get all my black circle frames punched.

ttyl. =o) kel

Queen of the Hill

Well, in some respects. What I really mean is that I'm in the midst of conquering the pile of CRAP that clutters the craft/play room.

I'm almost done with Albert's train table, now to just find homes for everything that doesn't fit under the table in nice little bins... I COULD put it in bins on top of the train table, but that would defeat the purpose of having a train table, no??? Hopefully I can conquer this tonight so that I can get a handle on the mess of scrap-crap. I miss scrapbooking!!! And I feel like I could be so much more efficient if I didn't have to dig for stuff.

Well, on another note, its almost Friday!! I'm hoping to start some kind of scrappin routine, where I make time every Friday to do something and share it with you all!! And by all, I mean the 2-3 people that occasionally visit. haha. Oh well!!

Time to get Albert to bed, here's a picture for the night...



=o) the Mommy

I'm late!!

Just wanted to pop in and share a couple pictures from the field trip I chaperoned on Monday to Kualoa Aquaculture & Kualoa Ranch. Fun but smelly day!!

OUCH!!

Just wanted to pop in and say hi, I will update on Albert's 4th birthday as well as the fun stuff going on soon...

Sunday morning I managed to pull my back and am in loads of pain and other not-so-pleasant goings on...

But like I said, I will be back to update when I can sit (or stand or turn or walk...) for more than a couple minutes.

=o) kel

Gung Hee Fat Choy!!

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone!! And in light of this 2nd New Year, I propose a do-over, or a 2nd chance for those who have already failed their resolutions, or those (like me!!) who would like to add on to their goals.

The craft room is now in acceptable, working order. Notice I didn't say "It's clean!". But compared to what it was, its a huge difference, and more importantly, I can WORK in it. Indeed, I did have a desk under all that mess... I had forgotten what it looked like and how it felt to work without being hunched over on the ground. My lovely vases are set up and starting to fill with baggies of buttons. My anal-retentive side gave in and i ended up bagging them by style/color versus dumping them all together by color family

And with my room being clean enough to work in, I figure I better get to work, and thusly have set a scrapbooking goal for myself for 2008. 100 layouts. They must be 12x12, and it doesn't matter if they're 1 or 2-pagers, they all end up as ONE layout. This month, I joined the "Monthly Scrappin Challenges" over on SCS and this month, my goal is 10 layouts. Very do-able.

But enough of the borings... I realized that I enjoy blogs with pictures more than blogs without. So here's my pictorial contribution with the hopes you enjoy reading mine.

loves,
=o) kel

J's fave (recent) pic of the boys @ his mom's


Amare feeding himself carrot


Albert and his snow day at school

Happy Humpday!!

Well, I realize I may be a little late on the Humpday-wishes... There's only 2 1/2 more hours left of Wednesday. But this is the first time today that I can actually sit and do... well, nothing :)

I got some vases today from Ross'. I <3 Ross' for home stuff. 5 beautiful vases in 4 different colors, and the best part was that they were all on clearance :) So now I have larger homes for ribbons and buttons. Still debating on whether I want to just dump all the buttons from the same color family on in there or sort them in little baggies. I think my craftily-anal self will sort them. Funny how I only get crazy like that with craft stuff. If I could be like that with the rest of the house, hey, I'd run a pretty nice household!!

So, to update the list that I posted what, 2 weeks ago, here's what we accomplished:

- Set up the curtain-rods and curtains in our bedroom.
- Set up the compooper speakers for J's compooper.
- Fully vacuum our bedroom. (as opposed to in parts like we've been doing)
- Wet vac/shampoo our carpet.
- Get the craft room back in order.

4 1/2 outta 6 ain't too bad in my head.

And well, the craft room is in better shape, not so much in order. But I'll take what I can get. I just realized that the reason that it's so messy down there is because there's just too much CRAP. But I'm doing well with using it up... My mom thinks swaps are a waste of time and don't make sense, but luckily, J gets me. =o) He sees my stash being pared down little by little, and he knows that I'm having a blast doing what I do so that's alright with him. And plus, he says that a lot of the stuff that comes back is so nice, I need to CASE it to give to friends or sell at craft shows. I think it would fall under the category of RESEARCH.

Next Rubberstamp and Scrapbooking Expo is Saturday, 02-09!! Hope to see you there with TONS of THICKERS, a selection of American Crafts Modern (they only come in D-Ring) and Linen (both Post-Bound and D-Ring), FOUR new Pebbles Inc. Scrapbookits, and more!!!

=o) kel

Happy Monday

It is nice to be back on a routine.

Here's an update on what we've accomplished thus far....

- hung the curtains =o) and cleaned the screens, vacuumed up the bugs and wiped all traces of those little gnats away (J thinks they were attracted because of the florescent lights)

haha. Did you think we'd have more done by now? I certainly did. oh well. I have until saturday to finish up everything, so I better get back to it!!! And then I can fill my blog with tons of wonderful scrappy goodness!!

=o) The Mommy (for today)

The Peace & Quiet part 2

Sooooooooooooo... it turns out that the screams were of the "put me back to sleep" kind. And I've managed to more-or-less lose my entire train of thought, so I will jump on a new one.

Jared starts his vacay tomorrow, I am very happy. He hasn't had a decent amt of vacay since June. And I realize that's more than some people get so we are grateful for it!! And with Albert back in school for most of the day we can actually get stuff done around the house. So here's my list of "To-Do's", let's see how much we actually get done. Remember, our word for the year is COMPLETION. Let's try to actually put a resolution to work for once, and see it through to COMPLETION.

- Set up the curtain-rods and curtains in our bedroom.
- Set up the compooper speakers for both J's & Alb's compoopers.
- Fully vacuum our bedroom. (as opposed to in parts like we've been doing)
- Wet vac/shampoo our carpet.
- Get the craft room back in order.
- Find a reliable web designer.

Off to renew my contract with Ben Franklin Enchanted Lakes... in the pouring rain!!!

=o) kel

The Peace & Quiet

Its the first day back to school after this long winter break and I have to say that its nice. Albert is somewhere safe and fun and someplace he wants to be. And Amare is sleeping.

Well, make that was sleeping. He is now up and screaming at my feet, so I'm off for now... I will finish this post later!!

Have a wonderful day!!

Happy New Year!!

Sooooo.... I may be a little (okay, a LOT) late on this greeting, but if you know me and my family, you know that this is typical of us. Of me. Ali Edwards' blog challenged people to choose a word for the year. All of your New Year's resolutions summed up in a single word. My word??

Completion.

Why??

Because there are so many things that I intend to do or start and never complete for whatever reason.

Like the Christmas Cards.
Like the website.
Like the neverending cleaning & organizing of the bedroom and craft room.
Like the many, many projects I have sitting in a bin next to my crafting desk.

I could go on and on but then I think we both would be overwhelmed. So let's just stop there.

And I promise, I am working on the craft room. As soon as I get through cleaning and organizing (give me another week!) we can have loads of fun making another mess!!

=o) kel (sometimes known as "the Mommy")