Did You Know?

• Cashews are not sold in their shells because the oil that surrounds the shell is highly irritating to the skin, and peeling the nuts by hand can cause blisters.
• Unlike vinyl records, a CD begins playing near the center and spirals outward toward the edge.
• A cockroach has two brains. [I say, "who cares?" to this one!]
• Ronald McDonald is considered the second most recognizable character in the world, after Santa Claus, and ahead of Mickey Mouse.

Resource: ~~Little-Known Facts About Well-Known Stuff by David Hoffman

Birthday Cards

Yesterday was my birthday and it was a beautiful day here in NC!!  Sonny took me out to breakfast and then filled my car up with gas!!  I had a good day just playing and doing what made me happy ... like NO laundry, NO house cleaning, etc!  We had a Red Cross meeting at 6:30 and after it was over, we went to Chilli's for dinner.  I just love their chips and salsa and had been wanting some for a long time.  My family is coming over Saturday night to celebrate my birthday, Sonny's birthday (10/30), my nephew's birthday (10/16), and my brother in law's birthday (11/1).  Lots of birthdays this time of year!  And we got a call yesterday from our good friends who live in Texas and they are coming for a visit tomorrow.  Margaret's birthday is October 1 so guess we'll be celebrating her birthday too!

The card Sonny gave me had the most beautiful verse, I just have to share it.  We always tease him that he doesn't really read cards all the way through but I know he read this one before he bought it! 

Once there was this guy; A nice guy, really.
And he met this girl.  An incredible girl - truly amazing.
So naturally the guy falls head over heels in love with her,
and pretty soon they're picking out china patterns and rings
and there's a weding and the starry-eyed couple rides off into what will surely be a rosy future.

(open card)
Okay, so now some time has passed and the guy is living in that future.
He's still married to this girl, but now their life includes a lot of stuff -
appliances and bills and loads of laundry and home repair projects.
But between all the to-dos and have-tos, there are these moments
when the guy stops for a minute and looks around him.

(open card)
He looks at his wife, who is still truly amazing,
he looks at their life together, all the ways and different directions it's grown,
he looks at all the responsibilities he's got, and he thinks to himself, so, this is my life.

And then he thinks,
I am one helluva lucky guy.

And then I got a great one from my daughter although it killed her to have to buy a card.  Her stamping supplies are in storage still so she wasn't able to make me a card.  But she found a great one that says it all about our relationship!

Happy Birthday to my go-everywhere, do-everything, tell-each-other-anything ...
couldn't-be-a-better, always-and-forever friend to the end.

I got some beautiful cards from my friends and family and I want to share the stamped ones with you.

From Margaret

from my upline, Carol

from Judy Nelson

from my NCSU Demo group (made by Pat Wilkinson)

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to me!! 

Here are a few more of my beach pictures made with My Digital Studio. 

..

Beach pictures

Well, I'm back from the Reunion.  It was fun and on Saturday night there were actually a couple of people I had run around with there.  It was good to see Jeanne & Carl.  I used to candy stripe with Jeannie and they both went to the same college that I did.  I actually went out with Carl a couple of times in college.  That was before he and Jeannie got together and got married.  They have been married for 41 years!  Wow!  It was amazing how many couples from our high school class married each other ... and are still together.

The Shag dance (a lot like the Jitterbug) is the state dance of South Carolina.  (see the video HERE)  Couples who have danced together a long time and do the shag are just magical to watch.  There was a couple at our reunion who we all enjoyed watching dance - Sheila and Ham McGarity!  Sheila was a cheerleader in my class and Ham graduated a year before we did.  They are actually in the Shag Hall of Fame!  Yes, there really is such a thing.  There are shag clubs all over North and South Carolina and they dance and teach others to do the shag.  I grew up doing my own version of the Beach Shag.  When we moved back to NC, I enrolled Sonny and I in shag classes while he had gone back to Washington to finish the closing on our house.  Well, he was not thrilled about taking the classes, but he did .... grudgingly!  I have tried to get him to take some more refresher classes but with no luck!  In fact, he told me this weekend that he had been afraid that when he died he would go to hell .... well, now he is afraid when he dies, he will have to listen to beach music for the rest of his life! 

Here are few of the pictures from our trip.  I loaded them into a scrapbook with My Digital Studio today.  You can click on the pictures to see a larger version - you just need to click on the back arrow to get back to my blog.

DEAL OF THE WEEK #3

Don't miss this week's Deals Of The Week!

•  Circle Designer Brads  -  Regular Price: $5.95 Special Price: $3.99 
• 1/2" Library Clips  -  Regular Price: $6.95 Special Price: $3.99 
• Basic Jumbo Grommets  -  Regular Price: $6.95 Special Price: $4.49 
• Mini Library Clips  -  Regular Price: $12.95 Special Price: $8.99 

These products can all be seen on page 179 of Stampin' Up!'s current Idea Book & Catalog. These specials are good only through October 26th at 9:50 am (MT) that's 11:50 am (ET).   Let me know if you are interested in placing an order!

Reunion time at the beach

Well, we're in North Myrtle Beach, aka OD (Ocean Drive).  OD was THE beach for us to go to back in the 60's and 70's.  To prove it, there are about 4 high school reunions going on here this weekend .... 3 from Charlotte and one from Rock Hill, SC.  Our group (South Meck) have been meeting here for the past 5 years.  It's just an informal get-together of several classes, but my class ('66) is the organizer so we are the best represented. I feel like I'm in high school again .... not a period in my life I would like to repeat!  I was pretty shy in high school and transferred to South in the 11th grade - after cliques were already formed, if you know what I mean.  And that's what it feels like here now.  They've been meeting for 5 years and have their cliques formed.  You know, the jocks and the cheerleaders!  I have to say though that the guys are a lot more friendlier than the girls.  But, the girls have held up better than the guys!!  There have been 3-4 guys that have really been friendly and inviting to Sonny and myself.  The funniest thing is that there is one guy here who transferred out of South after 10th grade (before I even arrived).  The only reason I knew him was he and my best friend were going out at the time.  Well, when I told him Thursday night she was my best friend (and the only person I have kept in touch with from HS), that is all he has talked about for 3 days!  To hear him talk, she is and was the love of his life.  I sure feel sorry for his wife.  So far, no one that I ran around with is here.  I am hoping tonight a few of them will show up. 

Sonny and I have already scoped out a Pittsburgh bar to watch the football game tomorrow so we are set for some football! 

We have been eating some wonderful seafood.  We drove to Calabash (NC) last night and had some delicious flounder and shrimp.  I'm hoping I can convince him to go back tonight.  Last night I had fried flounder ... tonight I would like some broiled!  The NC line is only about 10 minutes away so it is not a long drive and Calabash is the Seafood Capital of this area!!  It is wall to wall seafood restaurants.

It has been cold and rainy the whole time we have been here until today!  The sun came out and as long as you are in the sun, it is nice and warm.  There is a bit of a breeze blowing that is a cold wind, but all in all, it is nice.  We took a long walk this morning on the beach and Sonny is sitting out on our balcony now reading.  Our room overlooks the ocean and we have left the sliding glass door open at night and sleep to the sound of the waves!  What a life!!

Deal of the Week #2

Check out this week's deals!  If you want to order one of these great buys, contact me by next Sunday.

FLOWER BURST EMBOSSLIT DIE

RETAIL PRICE $11.95  -  SALE PRICE  - $5.99

THREE TIER CAKE POP UP DIE

REGULAR PRICE - $39.96 - SALE PRICE  - $25.49

PERFECT SETTING BIGZ  DIE (from mini catalog)

REGULAR PRICE - $42.95 - SALE PRICE - $25.99

I'm heading to my high school class reunion this weekend so you might not be hearing from me until Monday!  This will be the first reunion I have ever attended so it should be interesting!  I have only kept in touch with one gal from high school and she is not attending, so I'm not sure I'll recognize anyone!  For the past 5 years, a group from my high school - South Mecklenburg in Charlotte - (mostly from my graduating year) have gathered at Ocean Drive Beach for a reunion/get-together.  I just found out about it this year and thought this would be a good chance to give it a try.  Being at the beach, if we don't have anything in common with any of these people, Sonny and I can do our own thing!  Other than the price of the hotel, we only have to pay $10/person for a deejay.  Hopefully, it will be fun.  I was trying to let my hair color grow out (and see just how much gray I really have!) but decided last week, this was not the time to do that!  So, I asked my hairdresser to put a few blonde streaks in to blend in with the gray and brown!!  Hopefully I will look younger than some of the pictures I've seen of people from reunions.  Surprisingly, the girls seem to have held up better than the guys!! 

Digital Studio scrapbook page

I had to take my Mom to the doctor today.  But, when I got home, I had a little more time to play with My Digital Studio.  I made this scrapbook page from a picture my daughter in law recently posted on her blog.  They just returned from a Disney vacation and cruse.  This is a picture of the two youngest kids on the beach.   I thought it was priceless!

This is rather basic because I'm still learning but I did get the picture resized, added photo corners and a stamp in the bottom corner!

My Digital Studio Project

I got My Digital Studio yesterday, but just opened it today and played around for a bit.  I have a lot of learning to do!!  But, here is a card I made while playing with it!