Love post #11 - Candles

Oh how I love candles. Candles give my home a warmth and glow that is missing when I don't burn them. I love the scents and the colors. I love all the pretty holders that I can get to decorate with. Right now my current favorite is Party Lite candles. The scents are subtle and there are lots of them to choose from. I had a great time picking out all the beautiful holiday scents. I hold a catalog show about twice a year and get some awesome free goodies.
This hurricane candle holder is made from beautiful pieces of cut glass. It reflects the candle light and makes it sparkle. See how the colors shine? This one is really cool. It has bubbles all through the glass. Apparently they put baking soda in the glass while it is hot to make the bubbles. This one sits in my front window.

Candles go along with my love of storms too. As soon as a good storm starts up, I light my candles in case the power goes out. When we lost power for several days during the snow storm back in December, I kept my candles burning all day to help warm the house. Yep the warmth, flicker and glow, the pretty colors, scents and holders, just thinking about it all makes me want to go light some candles. I think I will do just that.

Love post #10 - A good storm

I love a good storm. Listening to the rain and wind against my windows while I am tucked warm inside is wonderful. I love to hear the patter of raindrops on my windows because I know that all that water will benefit my plants, my land and even my summer. All our rain and storms help keep our state it's beautiful green color. I know that many feel it is dreary but I know that each beautiful drop of liquid gold is beneficial and wonderful. Besides, it sure beats the frozen stuff that I have to shovel. LOL

Love post #9 - Those eyes

I just love DS's expressive, beautiful eyes.

Credits:
Background paper: Sarah Laming's Sassy_coldchocolate paper f
red paper: Christy Skaggs Christmasadvent_paper02
brown ribbon: Inspired by Dominic Designs_forevermine_brownribbon
blue ribbon: Dawn Wilson_trash to treasure freebie
Atomic cupcake’s Painted Wood action
Coffeeshop’s Perfect portrait action

Love post #8 - Speed Scraps

Hmm, I have never done one of these before. I decided to try it tonight since I was stuck in my chair anyway after hurting my knee this afternoon. I really think I love this scrapping style. It was fun! And the bonus was that I got a layout done in under 2 hours! How cool is that.
Credits:
Papers, ribbon, buttons and alpha R from GingerScraps Wild Cherry Tea kit
Journaling strips from Pineapple Plantation's Grateful Kit
Fonts: Gill Sans Ultra Bold in title and High Tower Text in journaling.

The process was pretty simple. I went to GingerScraps Speed Scrap forum and followed the steps as they were posted in the thread. It was a lot of fun and I look forward to doing more.

Love post #7 - My Son and his trains

My Dson loves everything about trains. He loves Thomas trains, electric trains and big, real trains. He has been obsessed with them since before he could say the word. He could sit for hours near the train yard watching the pusher engines making up trains and sending them out. When we were in San Francisco the highlight of he trip for him was riding BART because it is a TRAIN!!

In May 2007, my parents, I and my girls took a short trip along the portion of the Amtrak rail that goes through one of our favorite portions of the mountains/Willamette Valley. DS was only 2 but I don't think he has yet to forgive us for not taking him too. LOL

Finally on Sunday DS finally got his ride. DH decided that DS was old enough and would enjoy the trip. Also, the new commuter rail line in the Portland area is up and running. So he took DS and DD#2 on Amtrak to Portland Sunday evening and then spent Monday riding all the Trimet train lines in Portland. If this is not a boy in love, I don't think I have ever seen one. Of course the long, busy day completely wore out both kids.

Love post #6 - My hubby

Okay, nothing has been solved from yesterday's post but I have calmed down some. I am still hurt and angry but the only thing that will solve that is time at this point.

Now, I really do love my hubby Matt. We have issues but what couple doesn't?

So what do I love about him?
I love his willingness to be a parent. We both agreed from the beginning of our marriage that we would have kids and God willing, several of them. As you have seen on this blog and other places, we have 3 kids. Those kids run us a merry chase at times. They also raise our blood pressure and make us nuts at times. But Matt always participates in the raising of our children. He jumps right in to the good and the bad. For example, tomorrow he is taking two of the three of them on a train ride and then they are going to spend Monday humoring our youngest by riding every train style transportation system in Portland. My son LOVES trains so they are taking Amtrak to Portland tomorrow and spending the night at my in-laws house before their adventure on Monday.

I also love the fact that he supports my being a SAHM. We both agree on the importance of one of being a parent full time. There have been times that things are really, really tight budget wise but when we have talked about me getting a job, he agrees that it just would be better for our family to keep the status quo.

I love the fact that he works hard, is admired by his coworkers and most importantly, has a job that he enjoys. That was not the case a few months ago. I love that he took the initiative to go find something that makes us feel more comfortable from the prospective of job security but that also makes going to work more pleasant for himself.

I love that he does mornings. He gets the kids their breakfast and takes them to school every day. I don't do mornings well so this is a huge thing for me and the kids.

I love that he will put up with me. I know that there are many times that I am not easy to live with. I am opinionated, loud, set in my ways, ....... did I mention opinionated?....... and often grumpy and tired. Nonetheless, he loves me.

Hmmmmm

I wanted to do my next love post on my DH in anticipation of Valentine's Day. After this morning and its happenings, I can't and that makes me sad. I am still hurt and angry and unsure of what to do about it all. I am caught in a place I do not want to be. I think I know what should work but in the past what should work and what does work are two vastly different worlds.

For now, I am sad and hurt and angry. Hopefully, that will not be the case for too long.

Love post #5 - Pictures

I love to take pictures. I love to analyze pictures (even though I don't know enough to truly do that but I do know what I like). I take pictures just about everywhere I go. I love to take pictures of sunsets flowers the beach and my kids. I just love to click away with my camera. Right now I only have a point and shoot but my dream is to have a DSLR someday. I love to experiment with my camera. Sometimes the results are good and other times are not so good but the experience always teaches me something about photography.

Today is the perfect day to love to take pictures. Last year I started joining others at Scrapshare doing a layout of the 12th day of each month. Today is the 12th and I have been working on getting my 12 shots. I love doing this because it gives me a record of everyday, simple things that I/we do each month. Since I tend toward "event" scrapping versus "moment" scrapping, this is a way to change things up a bit.

I love pictures and photography because it feeds my artistic side.

I've been tagged!!

Aww the fun little blog games. I like to read what everyone does with these but I have never been tagged before.

This time Tracy very sweetly thought of me. You can find her blog here.

The rules of the game find the sixth picture in the sixth album on my computer. This requires a confession. I am now quite meticulous about my organization but at the beginning of my digital photography life I was not so err precise. I currently have albums for 2007, 2008 and 2009 and then there are all the random things. I have all the girls' pictures on my computer as well because the desktop they use is very short on memory and well....old. So lets see what I can find.

The 6th album is titled Beach. It is a collection of photos from a trip to the coast that DH and I took in November of 2007. He had a conference over there and I joined him for the last night. This photo was taken the next day before we headed home.


The rules say that I need to tag 5 more people. So I have tagged Brynn, Patricia, Sue, Menjiness and CloverGirl.

Love post #4 - Sports

I love watching sports. I am a passionate and sometimes loud when I watch sports. I am particular about the sports I watch. I prefer college sports. I prefer things that are fast paced and easy to get into. I prefer watching Pac-10 teams and try never to miss a game of my beloved Oregon State Beavers. I love to watch basketball, football and even baseball. We love to go to the gymnastics meets.

In addition to Oregon State games, I love to watch my kids play sports. Right now that is DD#2. She is playing basketball this season for the first time. She is having a great time and is showing some real improvement from week to week. I love to sit with the other parents and encourage all the girls on the team as they work together and learn the game. They are all working hard and having fun so that makes it fun for us parents.

Here DD is getting a pass from one of her teammates and a chance to shoot.

Sports give me an outlet. I can yell at the TV, while DH rolls his eyes at me, and encourage the players from the stands. I love to get into a game. I love the healthy competition. I can't wait until the next game. I am loving the improvement I see in the Men's OSU team this year. It was fabulous to see Gill Coliseum nearly full for the Civil War game a couple weekends ago. It has been a long road to recovery for this team that went 0-18 in league play last year. Yeah I really get into it and am looking forward to the possibilities in this team and future teams. I am also looking forward to seeing what the future brings for DD and her sports career. We will see if she sticks with it.

Love post #3 - 4-H

I love 4-h. I mean I seriously adore this program. I truly believe that this program molds children into fabulous people. It teaches so many great things. I was in 4-H when I was a kid. I loved it then and I still love it now that my kids are in it.

I showed cattle - Shorthorns which is a breed of beef cattle and Holstein dairy cattle. I also raised market steers. Oh one time I raised a market lamb too. I hated that lamb.

So what makes 4-H so great? Well there are the friendships, for one thing. I made lifelong friends through 4-H. I met people from all over the state at different times. I learned skills to assimilate with strangers and how to get to know people quickly. I learned so many things from the people I came in contact with. But the biggest "people" benefit was my friends, the other kids I went to events with, that I spent a week each summer at fair with. These are the people I look forward to seeing every summer when we all get together at fair. Many of these people live in the county we grew up in and have kids showing at the same fair we did. I don't but my mom is still a 4-H leader there so I have a good excuse to go down and see all MY friends on the pretense of seeing Mom and helping her with some project or another.

Besides the people skills, there is so much more that 4-H has to offer. Members learn practical skills such as animal care, food prep skills, photography, speaking skills, critical thinking, personal responsibility and personal care skills, debate skills, record keeping and so much more.

Now my kids are learning all these great things and having fun doing it. Imagine that! Fun and learning. What a concept.

This year DD#1 is raising rabbits and pygmy goats. She is also involved in photography, food and nutrition, food preservation, art, and several other areas. She is also a Junior Leader this year. This is a big opportunity for her to mature and gain leadership skills while having a lot of fun. Saturday she did all of that. Saturday the kids put on their small animal show that the club sponsors. The jr. leaders are responsible for doing a lot of the work on this project. They get donations for the raffle and silent auction. They organize and recruit the volunteers (parents) needed to make the day run smoothly. They do the set up and clean up. It is a huge project and they learn a lot from doing it.

Everything went smoothly this year. We had an excellent turn out particularly for the rabbit show. This year we added poultry and cats. While those shows were small, they were successful and the kids had a great time. My DD had an excellent start to her show season with a call back in showmanship, one blue and one red in confirmation. The judge is an older gentleman who makes the kids think, educates them and the parents but still finds ways to have fun with them as well.

Here she is doing her "job" of manning the sales table.

And on the showmanship table waiting her turn and showing the judge Toby the rabbit's legs.

Love post #2 - Photoshop Elements

I swore it wouldn't happen.

I said I just wanted to use the photoshop ONLY to manipulate pictures.

I said I would never give up my paper, stickers and such.

Well guess what!! I love digital scrapbooking. Don't get me wrong, I still love my paper, stickers and goodies but I am an instant gratification girl. I love the immediateness (is that a word??) of digital scrapbooking. I can take a picture, download it and have a layout done all within an hour. I resisted for the longest time but finally have given in and admitted that digital is going to be a major part of my scrapping from now on so I better learn how to use the program better. So I have been fun learning new techniques, downloading and installing actions and then playing with all of the above. My latest layout features my DD and her new braces. It goes outside my "normal" style but I like it. I am beginning to find that I can embrace patterns, color, stripes and fun doodads. Yep, I have to admit it, I love digital scrapbooking.

Love post #1 ..... Kleenex

Okay so now that you are all scratching your heads going huh??? let me explain. The last few days I have been sick. Icky, yucky, coughing, hacking, sneezing, runny nose sick. My poor little nose gets so stuffed up and sad. I just love my soft, gentle Kleenex. I am certainly ready for this cold to go on away but until it does, Kleenex tissues are my friends. The unattractive cardboard box will sit beside me wherever I am until this is over. By then, someone else in the house will probably need it so, as long as the box is not empty, I will pass it on.

The new month has arrived and with it, a new blog challenge. Here are the details as copied from Traci's blog "Occasional rants, raves and praise".

Since Valentine's Day is Feb 14th, I'm asking you to post 14 posts this month all about Love. They can be about someone you love, a place you love, a love that you've lost, your first love, Valentine's crafts, romantic meals, a loving relationship that you've always admired... the list goes on.

**Bonus prize goes to the winner if she has posted 14 pictures too.. not a requirement to win, but as an add on if she has**

This is an easy one ladies, it's only 14 posts. It doesn't matter to me how you space them, but I would think that every other day would be the easiest. Because it's such a low requirement, I'm holding you to the 14. If you need to, then pre-schedule your posts, etc., but make sure you get all 14 in!

I will have to work hard to make sure I have pictures to go with all my challenge posts this month because she promises something really good. Woohoo. Look for my first love post shortly.