If I won the all time lottery,

a journaling prompt by Sophia via AprilAmy at 2 P's

what are the top 10 material things I would buy?

1. A second home in Hawaii. DH and I have been itching to go back to Hawaii ever since we were there in 2000. Yeah it's expensive to get there and to live there, but I would have won the lottery, right?

2. A new car. An SUV. Hmmm, don't know what kind yet.

3. Jewelry. I'm not really an "emebellished" girl, I don't wear a lot of jewelry, but diamonds are a girl's best friend. I think I would buy a couple of signature pieces that I could wear daily, some diamond studs, etc.

4. A new house. This is hard because I like my house, and I like my neighborhood. We do have some ideas for a "dream house", and I think if I could build it somewhere nearby, I'd be really happy.

5. A contract with a cleaning company to clean my house. :D

6. Top of the line laptops for all of us. Fully wired house, wireless network, tablet PC in the kitchen.

okay, I have to think about this more, I'll finish the list later.

Hooray for Summer!

Nikki from SBO gave us a fun journaling prompt this week:

My Top 10 Favorite Things about Summer (in no particular order)

1. Wearing shorts
2. Wearing flipflops (or not having to wear socks)
3. Sunshine late in the day.
4. Grilling
5. Mowing the lawn (seriously, I like mowing the lawn, with 2 kids its a great hour of solitude)
6. Flowers in my yard
7. Bright colors everywhere
8. My birthday and our anniversary
9. Airconditioning when it gets too hot and humid
10. Baseball

Inspiration

Today was an awesome day. I had the extreme pleasure being selected to work with the Design Team at Scrapbooker Online as a Guest Designer for July through September. I am so completely psyched about this opportunity. The ladies on the design team, and the Sistas in general are so fabulously inspring. In the 6 months that I have been visiting the site, I have learned SO MUCH from all of them. I am so excited to be able to give back to everyone. Here is one of my entries. There is journaling inside the tag explaing my unexpected labor and delivery of my son.

Validation is a wonderful thing.

One of my layouts was requested for publication in the Memory Makers Idea Gallery book, to be published this fall! This is my first publication request ever, and I am on cloud 9 right now.....I had to run downstairs to tell my DH.

You know, I scrap for me. The page that was requested was not one that I had made for a call, or to use a certain paper. I loved the photos and I loved the way it turned out. I just submitted it because it fit one of the categories they were looking for. But even though I scrap for me, it's amazing how good it feels when someone says "I like what you've done." Yep, I love getting praise on the message boards I post at, and I love dishing it out. That reminds me, I've been so busy this week that I haven't left much praise. I need to pay my good luck forward.

If

Random question from The Big Book of If:

"If you could call any person from history for advice tonight, who would you prefer to talk to?"

My all time historical favorite has to be Leonardo da Vinci. He was more than just a genius. He truly was a "Renaissance Man". He was an artist in several mediums, an inventor and philosopher. He definitely exercised both sides of his brain. I'd love to know more about how he organized his life, and managed the many facets of his work. Heck, I'd just love to observe him and absorb his talent.

I have a kit to build a model of da Vinci's ornithopter flying machine. The kit was purchased for me years ago as a gift. I managed to get the cockpit done, but then we moved, and it hasn't seen the light of day since. Maybe I'll get it out when my new craft space is done (yeah, like I have the free time to work on that too.).

Hooray for me!

This layout of mine won the May contest at Scrapbooker Online!



Thanks so much to MFF and the Sista's at SBO. They are truly inspirational.

Words of Wisdom....

Last night I spoke at a dinner honoring the Math Team members at my high school. I was asked to provide some words of wisdom, and I am pretty happy with what I wrote.

Words of Wisdom

My name is Sue, and I am a former Mathlete. That sounds like an opening for a “Mathletes Anonymous” meeting, doesn’t it? Mr. Sullivan asked me to provide some words of wisdom for the Mathletes that are being honored. At first I wasn’t sure what to say, since I wasn’t a “top” mathlete, and I certainly had my struggles. But I turned out well, so I must have done something right. I think the best advice I can give comes down to two words:

Be Distinctive.

I graduated 7th out of 140 students in my class. I played sports, did extra curricular activities, including Math League, like I’m sure many of you do. For many of us it is easy to excel, and being a Mathlete is another way to challenge yourself. I was surprised to find out when I went to college that I wasn’t as distinctive as I thought. I went to Worcester Polytechnic Institute to study mechanical engineering, along with the best and brightest from many schools around the country and around the world. I was no longer distinctive amongst my peers; in fact I was perfectly average. For someone who was used to being very good at everything I did, this was a big shock. I’ll be the first to admit that I did not do all that well my freshman year academically and really questioned if I was taking the right path.

It took a bit of time, but I got my academics on track, and I learned that I had to change my thinking on many things, starting with how to distinguish myself from my peers in ways other than academics. The first big decision I made was to take a year off between my junior and senior year to take a co-operative education job as an engineering technician. This was life changing in so many ways. I found out what the real world of business and engineering was like and learned many skills that were not included in my academic plan. As someone who now reviews resumes and interviews potential candidates for employment, I can’t stress enough how positive it is to see relevant work experience on a resume. It doesn’t particularly matter what your GPA is, and employers generally judge an undergraduate degree the same from any school. Relevant work experience, whether internships, summer hires or co-op terms show your potential employer that you have done something other than study books and take tests, since you’ll rarely have to do those things once you get a job.

Once you’ve learned to be distinctive in order to land a job, you need to switch gears in order to advance within your company, or to move on to different companies as you grow professionally. My advice here is to get as much experience with as many different things as possible, whether this is business areas, software, projects, you name it. My success has come directly from being a “jack of all trades”. My skills are useful in many different projects, I am not pigeonholed into a niche and I have the basic skills to learn a lot of new things along the way.

My last bit of advice in order to be distinctive is to learn to communicate. If you can verbally express your ideas, speak clearly in public to co-workers or clients and create quality written works (memos, reports, presentations, etc), you will be successful. And this takes practice, but it is by far the most useful of all skills you’ll bring to your employer. You could have a 4.0 from a top university but if you can’t convey your thoughts and ideas in a clear, concise way, you cannot be successful.

And never stop being distinctive. Recently I left my employer to start my own engineering consulting company. I did this not so much to be an entrepreneur, but to have the flexibility to stay at home to raise my two sons. It’s been a wonderful experience, although challenging in its own ways, but the experience will certainly benefit me later in life. Best wishes for the challenges in your life.

Has it really been that long?

Ten years ago today, I graduated from college. TEN years. I really don't feel much different than I did then, but so much has happened in my life that I'm grateful for. I had 9+ years of doing engineering work for a fabulous company and I've now started my own engineering consulting company. I met and married my husband, bought a house, and gave birth to two beautiful boys. I've traveled all over the country and met many wonderful people.

Here's to the next ten years.

Keep the Internet Free.

"This is about Internet freedom. "Network Neutrality" -- the First Amendment of the Internet -- ensures that the public can view the smallest blog just as easily as the largest corporate Web site by preventing Internet companies like AT&T from rigging the playing field for only the highest-paying sites.

But Internet providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are spending millions of dollars lobbying Congress to gut Net Neutrality. If Congress doesn't take action now to implement meaningful network neutrality provisions, the future of the Internet is at risk."

Click on the link above. Sign the petition, be more aware. I don't advocate for much, but this is something that really means something to me.

It's raining outside and I can't go out in play..

...why do we need the rain, anyway? (Okay, just channeling Sesame Street memories for a sec)

I have no plans for today. That is kind of nice. I could have slept in but I forgot to turn off my alarm from yesterday and I didn't think to look at the clock after it went off, so I got up, then realized it was 6:30, but it was too late, I was already up, and if I went back to sleep, I wouldn't get up untul 9-ish, and I'm sure my kids wouldn't appreciate that.

So, I'll be mostly domestic today. Going to put a pot roast in the crock pot to cook, will do some laundry and cleaning, play with the boys, etc. Then during nap time I'll put my engineering geek hat on and do some report writing for work.

Speaking of geek hats, next week I am speaking at a recognition dinner for Mathletes at my high school. Yep, Math League members now get varsity letters and a fancy recognition dinner at the end of the year. (No, I'm not bitter.....wait, yes I am) I had to write some words of wisdom to speak, and of course procrastinated and procrastinated, and I kept getting emails from the coordinator (also my former calculus teacher) saying "your homework is late!". Ah, that takes me back. I am taking scrap classes at CKC-Manchester earlier in the day, so I'll be jumping between scrap-mommy mode and geeky-yet polished public speaking mode.

little pic of me

DH took this pic of me a while back. I have nearly zero pics of myself that aren't self portraits, since I am the family photographer.

Only in Boston.....

The Red Sox traded for a backup catcher batting .182 with no RBIs this season. They put him on a private jet to Boston, had a state police escort bring him to Fenway. He put on his uniform in the back of the police car on the way there. When he took the field he got a standing ovation.

Because he's the only guy on the face of the earth that can catch Tim Wakefield.

Doug Mirabelli, welcome back to Boston, we love ya!

Creating Without Fear

Very interesting site: Creative Collage

I started the exercises on Creating Without Fear. Here is the result of the Week 2 exercise:


- Did the exercise seem worthwhile?
It was fun, kind of freeing, although I'm not sure what the point was.

- Did you gather your supplies together before beginning the exercise?
Yes.

- Were you able to move through the steps effortlessly?
Yes, I just did it, and didn't really think about what I was doing.

- Did you put the completed exercise away right after you were finished?
Yes.

- What was your first reaction to your completed exercise?
I didn't really like it. I didn't really compose anything, I just "made marks" and while it was fun to doodle and stamp, I don't feel the result does anything for me.

- Overall, how did you feel about the process?
I think there still needs to be thought in the creative process, but not judging thought.

Now, I haven't gone back and read the discussions yet, I may have more insight once I do that.

Procrastinators.....

"Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."

If I get a call tomorrow morning, someone's in big trouble. They're running a big test of a new system. I got pulled off of that project a while back, thank goodness. And I don't have time for it anyways, but they just have no concept of reality. I am going to sit back and be quiet, because if I speak up, I may get sucked back into the project.

I am really getting fed up with the state of clutter that exists around me. I am just too overwhelmed with it to know where to begin. I know I should be patient and wait until the attic is done so I can move things into my space deliberately, but I just can't stand not having a place for everything right now. I have about 28 boxes of baby clothes in various sizes, maternity clothes and prebaby clothes that don't quite fit yet in my bedroom, because they can't go back into the storage area in the attic until the attic is done. My desk is being used for work, scrapbooking, filing and kid crafts. I feel like I keep shifting piles of stuff around. *sigh*

Ka-ching, baby!

Today I received my first check. Sure, we all get checks all of the time, but this was my first payment for my services for my own company. Some people frame their first dollar bill, I'm going to scrap a picture of my first check. (Duh, can't scrap the check, I had to deposit it! Do you know how long it's been since I last got paid???)

Of course, as soon as this baby clears, I can remove my scrap purchases moratorium (you know, the one I haven't exactly been sticking to).

The calm before the storm

It's 8AM on Thursday, and my house is quiet. DH has gone to work, and my two boys are both still sleeping. I love this time, I get to take time to wake up and surf the web a bit, have some caffeine and think about my day.

Soon enough there will be laughing, screaming, giggling and crying, but for now, the only sound is my typing.

Effer Dare #1

If you scrap, you need to do the Effer Dares. They are a really cool way to get your mind working. I have a 6x8" spiralbound album that I'll be putting the results into. This is my interpretation of Dare #1.

Hooray Hooray It's Opening Day!

Hooray Hooray It's Opening Day! 

So why is it that I am on the computer and not watching or listening to the game? Hrmmm......

Handel Challenge: Day 3

The west end of our attic room.

I didn't start this on time, but I've started nonetheless. Here is my raw canvas, our attic. It's not quite finished, there are a few more rows of flooring to put down, then the baseboard trim, and then we can start moving things up there. I am currently working on a floor plan (the room is approximately 18' wide and 22' long) so I can work out where to put my existing furniture, and to determine what the best placement for storage is. The window is facing west, there are also two skylights on the north side (right side of pic).

Happy Friday!

It's the last day of March, and it's been a busy month! It's been my first full month of being self employed, and I managed to work just as much as I had hoped I would. I've started submitting my scrapbooking work for contests/publications. I'm on track with my weight loss, and it's 70 degrees outside today!

Today I submitted my application for the 3 Bugs in a Rug Design Team. I just love their paper, Cabana is just perfect for scrapping my son Perrin. I need to break out all his Hawaiian shirts for the summer, he is so darn cute when he wears them.