I've been playing catchup and working on some new samples to show my guy at the gift shop. He has given me a long list of stock he needs and that is a little daunting. He also wants some new designs - I find the designing takes such a long time sometimes! I finally came up with a couple of more new Mother's Day designs which are interchangeable into a wedding card and birthday card so I guess that's a good thing.

I'm toying with submitting some work to one of the stamping magazines. I've never done that before but I think it would be a nice challenge and kind of fun. My DH is on my back about not overcommitting myself but he doesn't really understand what that is all about. He sees it as me taking on too much and then getting stressed out and sick. But that really isn't what that is all about. I get so caught up in doing things that "must" get done but I haven't seemed to be doing any fun things so I'm trying to stretch my creative muscles by doing stuff just because I want to do them.

I am picked at myself because I had set a goal for myself to do one 3o Minute Collage a week and I haven't been able to meet that goal. I just seem to have so much on the go right now and so many ideas zipping around in my head. I'm having a hard time staying focused. My boredome threshold seems to be very low - they say people who are very intelligent are easily bored and distracted - at least that's what I keep telling myself!!

I did manage to get one page in my art journal painted. I also went through and glued a bunch of pages together for stability so maybe I'm actually getting something accomplished. I have this idea for a page in my journal and this phrase to go with it that I just can't get out of my head so I think I may actually have to commit it to paper. Will post some new work in the next little while so stay tuned.

Vancouverites are in a state of euphoria this morning after the Canucks won over the Dallas Stars last night in game 7. While the officiating sucked, it was a very exciting game and most everyone was sitting on the edge of thier seats, all crossable parts of their respective bodies crossed, holding their breaths. Marty Turco was awesome and, in my humble opinion, is the reason the Stars lasted as long as they did.

Vancouver looked tentative throughout the whole first period and I was very concerned that they weren't going to be able to pull it together. I'd love to know what happended in the dressing room after the first period. Whatever was said and done certainly seemed to change the tide and the momentum. Vancouver was a different team in the second and third periods.

Robert Luongo? What can you say about this guy? He is phenomenal and such a classy guy. At the end of the game he tossed his stick over the glass to a little kid in the stands. When an adult grabbed it, Roberto told him the stick was to go to the kid. I'm sure it did! Super guy, classy, talented. We hit the jackpot when we got him. Vancouver is such a hockey city - if you don't live here, I'm not sure you get it. Vigneault benched a player for one or two shifts in one of the earlier games and it hit the sports pages like it was something out of a Greek tragedy. Vigneault laughed and made the comment, only in Vancouver would that be big news. Everyone knows their hockey here and we' ve waited a very long time to be where we are now. Some close brushes with the playoffs but for some reason it just never seemed to come together. I don't know what Vigneault has done that is different from other coaches we've had but he clearly knows what he's doing. He's the man!!

I can hardly wait for the Anaheim series to start on Wednesday!

I've been remiss in posting to my blog - I will make a more concerted effort to keep it current in future. I've have been quite busy, although sometimes I wonder what it is that keeps me so busy as I seem to have little to show for my time spent in the workroom. I think part of the problem is that I'm spending way tooooooo much time on-line surfing all the cool sites and reading and viewing all the wonderful content and art. I think I need to wean myself from this addiction or at the very least limit my time on-line .

What's been happening? Hmmmm.....

Myself and four of my co-workers made a trip down to Marysville to Seattle Premium outlets and the Tulalip Casino on Saturday. We only stayed one night - big mistake that was! We spent over our limit and then stewed all the way to the border wondering how much duty we would have to pay to bring our treasures across. Luckily the Canada Customs guy was extremely laid back - not sure if that meant he was having a good day or a bad one! He just pretty much waved us through so no duty or taxes had to be paid. Wooooohoooo!!

I always say I'm not much of a shopper but I think of the 5 of us, I spent the most so how funny is that? Visited Victoria's Secret - now that was a treat!! Love the selection, love the colours and would have bought some more fun stuff had I been by myself but thought that might be pushing it a bit so just stuck with bras. It was quite humourous really - four of the five of us are quite - ahem - shall we say "well endowed" so we all had to be measured; then there was the choosing the colours and playing with the body lotions and trying the makeup. Lots of fun there!

The Casino was not so kind to any of us. None of the machines or tables seemed to be paying much so the time spent there was only a couple of hours. Funny thing too was that they serve alcohol on the floor, which they don't here in BC. I thought I would be all over that but I guess I was just too tired from the shopping and the long wait at the border - we were lined up for two and a half hours on the way down!!! Anyway, talking about the liquor at the Casino, we saw several drunks - drunks as in so inebriated they couldn't stand up! That was a little disconcerting - most of the Casinos I've visited do not encourage or tolerate that type of behaviour. If a patron gets feeling good and is having a good time, not causing problems, then they are more tolerant but when they start to lose control of their faculties, then they are usually cut off and encouraged to go home and sleep it off; none of that seemed to be happening there. Different strokes for different folks I guess!

What's not happening? I'm not working on my 30 minute collages which is picking me big time! Also not getting as much done in the production department - I have so much to make up for the stores, it is not even funny. I took two days off from work, so I will be logging off shortly so I can work on swaps, at least one 30 Minute Collage and product for the store.

I think I just need to step away from the computer!!

Today was a rather uneventful day. Since today is a stat holiday, all the Monday to Friday people were off so things were nice and quiet at work. I had a very productive, stress-free evening which is a nice change from dayshift which can be very hectic.

I met a friend for coffee this evening. She had been cleaning out her work area and came across a couple of stamp catalogs and scrapbooking magazines. She was kind enough to offer them to me, and of course since I don't have many magazines - Not!! - I of course said I'd re-home them. So we met at the Starbucks near my office to make the exchange. I'm not much of a Starbucks person - the coffee is way too expensive and I find it quite strong - but it was nice to be able to get together for a visit as we haven't seen each other for awhile. We were both surprised at how busy Starbucks was on a Monday night at 9 pm - amazing!

I'm busy working on some stock for the store and between that and coming up with samples for a "welcome to your new home " card and Mother's Day cards, I'm going to be busy for the next little while. The designing is what takes so darn much time - it seems to take forever. Sometimes I wish I could just wave a magic wand and the ideas would design themselves.

The weather is starting to get nice here. We've had a lot of rain and there are concerns about flooding because of the spring run-off. Thank goodness I don't live too near the river! It's been very wet so it's always nice when the sunshine comes out again and the flowers start to grow. Husband and I plan to go to the nursery this week as we have a couple of rose bushes that are not doing well so the plan is to replace them. I guess after more than ten years, it's not surprising that they are starting to lose their ability to flower. Quite frankly, I'm tired of babying them so out they go! If husband doesn't get too impatient, while we're at the nursery I'll check out what they have for my flower beds. I always try to put in something new - often with results that are less than wonderful but I like to try new stuff, otherwise the plantings can get pretty boring.

Well I'm off to play my Luxor before I go to bed - part of my 4:30 in the morning pre-bed ritual. I need that to help me wind down so I can go to sleep otherwise my mind just chases itself around all night - too much going on in there sometimes!

Finally managed to complete our income tax and get it filed. Husband always does our taxes and he gets very antsy if the books are not ready for him in early March. I had my company books pretty much done before we went on vacation so just a few loose ends to tie up when we got back. We're all getting refunds so we are very happy campers!

This has been a busy 4 days off for me. We hosted a dinner party last night which went very well. Unfortunately, we don't entertain like we did when we were younger but then who has the time or energy to do that anymore? We had 2 couples, good friends of ours, over for dinner and we always have lots of laughs so it was a lovely night. Tonight I have two friends coming over for gossip and appies. I work with one of them but the three of us don't get together nearly often enough so we should have an enjoyable evening.

I'm back to work tomorrow - not really looking forward to that but what can you do? I have way more things I'd like to be doing at home tomorrow instead of being at work! Loads of samples need to be created and stock made up, yard work, anniversary cards .....busy, busy, busy.

This last couple of weeks has been quite hectic. I've gone through the frenzy of organizing my studio - which, I might add, took way toooooo long. I must say though that it is really nice to have it organized. I still have more to do but I can actually find things fairly easy now and can put them back where they belong as well, so that's a good thing. I guess that means that I've finally found some kind of system that actually makes sense to me!?! One can only hope!

I have all kinds of work to do for the store as well. The gentleman I work with has branched out into corporate gift packs so he's asked me to design some occasion specific cards for him. This is a wonderful opportunity for me so I really hope I can come up with something suitable for him and his clients.

I also managed to finish my chunky book pages for the 5th Anniversary Chunky book project on CC Swaps. I sent it off last Thursday via Purolater. It cost me an absolute fortune so I sure hope it gets there before the deadline otherwise I will be choked. The gal at the post office said 2 business day delivery - I'll believe that when I see it ! I've been holding my breath ever since it left.

I put a lot of work into my page and learned a very valuable lesson. I should have put more thought into the initial design. I'm sure I ended up doing my page the hard way - way more time and effort spent than was necessary. Unfortunately, I tend to have to do things the hard way first and then I learn how to do it better and more efficiently. Having said that, I'm very pleased with the finished product - I only hope it compares favourably with the other pages.