On my own this week

DH is at a conference this week, so I'm taking care of the homefront on my own. That's fine, I'm used to it. He used to do a lot more traveling than he does now, so it is OK with me for him to be gone occasionally. I usually try and use the time to get caught up on things I need to get done. I have a whole bunch of scrap-related things I'm behind in after the garage sale last weekend, but it doesn't seem to be getting done nearly as quickly as I would like. Both Brenna and Sarah had well checkups Monday and Tuesday and got shots. We went to the library yesterday afternoon and my monthly digicraft chat at RAKscraps was last night. I've got a newsletter tutorial I need to write, as it was due two days ago, but instead I spent my morning browsing around at the new scrapgypsies site that opened officially on Monday checking out the hybrid projects posted there. I found some magazine submission call listings posted too and ended up spending quite a bit of time sending in some layouts I had done that fit a few topics there were looking for. We will see what happens. I always get discouraged when I submit things and nothing ever comes of it, especially when I open up my magazines and see layouts in the resulting articles from the calls that I don't think are as well put together as mine were. I try to remember that art is subjective, and that is really what scrapbooking is mostly about. It just gets discouraging and it doesn't inspire me to spend my precious time sending them in. So, while I am inclined to further put off the tutorial writing, I thought I would get everyone caught up with our goings-on for the last week.

The garage sale went all right. It wore me out and I had hoped to get rid of a few more clothes than I did, but that's the way it goes. Just about all of the big items were sold, so that was good. The doll house came back home with me, but I've been thinking about what to do with it and maybe that would be a good item to take over to Grandmama's house when she moves here in a few months. We'll see if Mark lets me store it in the garage that long. 3 boxes of baby clothes and a huge box of maternity clothes that didn't sell will be going to the lifenetwork organization here in town as soon as I can find the time to 'de-tag' the items. I'm not sure it will have been worth the time and effort for the minimal amount of money we will get for everything, but it will make my DH happy to get them out of our house and I know that it will all have gone somewhere the items will be used and appreciated.

National Scrapbook Day (May 5) was a huge flurry of garage sale stuff and trying to shop with some of the gift certificates I won in the Funk It Up contest. Wow is all I can say. I have gotten so much stuff it is incredible, and I'm not even done yet.

Lots of LOs to show off from the last couple of weeks' efforts before I head to the kitchen to find myself lunch.
Bryce's birthday party
credits and journaling can be seen here

credits and journaling can be seen here

credits and journaling can be seen here

credits and journaling can be seen here

credits and journaling can be seen here

this was for the one NSD challenge I managed to get done. I was supposed to scrap a recent family picture that had everyone, including me, in it.
credits and journaling can be seen here

credits and journaling can be seen here

credits and journaling can be seen here

credits and journaling can be seen here

credits and journaling can be seen here

credits and journaling can be seen here

and one last hybrid project I created for the Girltalk blog. You can check out this post if you are interested in some instructions on how to do it yourself ;)

Have a great day everyone!