mmm.... cupcakes!

Oh for the love of cupcakes.  They comfort me on scream-filled days. Simply saying the word "cupcake" brings forth a smile.  {Try it. Say "cupcake" 3x without smiling.  I bet you can't do it.} Cupcakes are portion-controlled bits of heaven - unless you eat more than one. This delicious morsel came from a bakery in south Austin called 'Hey Cupcake!'.  You can choose from the "Michael Jackson" - cream cheese icing on a chocolate cupcake or indulge in "The Standard" - vanilla bottom and chocolate top. You won't find cheap, crappy icing here. This is the good stuff with the taste of butter and sugar in every bite.

I ate one. Then wanted another.  Knowing this would lead to a stomach ache, I then proceeded to take one bite out of the other 4 cupcakes I had brought home. Yummy! Mark came home to find all of the newly christened treats and thought that I had perhaps 'marked my territory.'  No - he was more than welcome to them all.  I just wanted a bite.  Or 2. Or 3. Or 4.

Today's the DAY!!

Today I register for CKU - Creating Keepsakes University. For 3 days in June in the concrete-filled city of Houston, TX, I'll be hob-knobbing with the queen bee goddesses of the scrapbook world. CKU consists of one day of flittering fun, one day to complete a full album under the instruction of one of the aforementioned goddesses, and one day of technique classes. It's my understanding that attendants can only choose one album track (which is too bad because the technique classes hold little interest for me.) My only dilemma is whether to indulge in a day of digital scrapping with pixel goddess Jessica Sprague or whether to meet my scrapbook idol Ali Edwards. 

I'm a bit torn. I love using Photoshop to bring in digital elements into my paper world. I'm a web designer by my old trade, and mixing pixels with paper just tickles my pickle.  Jessica Sprague constantly reintroduces me to amazing Photoshop techniques through her blog (Scrapbook Alchemy). {btw - Luke and Lucy's 1st year albums are going to rock.  I almost feel sorry for Jack. His 1st year album was my first real attempt at scrapbooking.  And it shows.  Badly.} Ali Edward's class is the traditional mix of paint, paper, scissors, rub-ons, chipboard and acrylic.  What's drawing me to her class isn't her class topic. It's her. See - I have a love/jealous relationship with Ali.  She's my age.  She was a high school swimmer too. She's met Barack Obama. And she's famous in the scrapbook world. And I want that to be me. I want her job when I come up for air after digging my way out of my diaper pile. To meet her would inspire me to keep plugging away at my dream.  Or it would make me even more insanely jealous. Or both.

So - should I play with pixels or cover myself in paint? Come 7:15pm tonight I'll make my decision.

Calgon moment

My scrapping mojo has been running full steam for the last few months.  Every nap opportunity I get I sneak into my craft room for an hour of solid bliss.  Oh - how having a creative outlet keeps me sane... Below is my latest creation depicting a Saturday afternoon get-away to Boggy Creek Farm in east Austin. Supplies include Basic Grey paper, Heritage ink, Stampin' Up punch, Imaginesence brads, Fancy Pants rub-ons and basic brown ribbon from Michaels.

I'm a chronological scrapper by nature.  It's how I started, and I find it rather challenging to break the time-table habit. Every 3rd or 4th chronological outlet I'll break away and scrap some family photos I missed or even do a layout about me (shocker - these are few and far inbetween!).  I'm currently up to September 2006, two months before the twins birthday.  I'd just be tickled to 'catch up', but that isn't really going to happen.  Ever.  At some point I need to think about how to scrap the twins' first year.   

I actually just emerged from the laundry room where the sound of the dryer drowned out Lucy's screams.  She's tired, rubbing her eyes, burrowing her head in her stuffed animals, yet the second I lay her down, she emits a series of ear-piercing screams that get me so frustrated and so angry (WHY won't she nap?!) that I have to run away and hide.  Luke loves to sleep.  Little dude grabs his burp cloth (those are the twins' love-ies left-over from the spit-up, puke-filled infant days when we used to keep a burp-cloth under their chins constantly) and his blankie and just curls right up for 2 hours. Solid. How he sleeps through his sister's screams I'll never know, but thank the maker of the universe that he does. I actually still hear her rattling the side of her crib in a pathetic attempt to get me to come get her.  No, I tell you.  I will not.  When they nap on opposite schedules Mommy gets very grumpy. Very cranky. Very bad-mommy-itis.  I think I need to go back to the laundry room now.

Refreshingly Different

I'm in love with Izze.  Her adorable little fruit icon woos me at Starbucks nearly every time.  Izze sways me away from the tall 1.5 pump 2% mocha latte.  She beckons me with her essence of pomegranates, her tart lemon-limes, her tangy, sweet grapefruits, her deliciously orange-y tangerines.  Izze whispers in my ear in her fizzy, bubbly language that only I seem to understand, "Drink me Stephanie.  I'm only 100 calories.  Who needs milk on this 80 degree day?  I will leave you feeling so refreshingly different."

And so I comply.  Because I like to be refreshed.  I like to be different.  Izze and I just get along so well.  We're swell together.  Yeah.  Swell.

bum Sunday

I've been battling an extremely cranky mood today.  Maybe it's because I ate too much junk food yesterday.  Maybe it's because I slammed my foot into the wall on accident and totally busted my 2nd toe on my right foot causing me to hobble around like I have a wooden leg. (My toe is screwed - black, blue and swollen.  How am I going to do boot camp on a bum foot?)  Maybe it's because Jack refuses to eat real food of substance and subsists on tortillas?  Sigh... 

So - I leave you with a happy photo of my beautiful daughter, Lucy and I taken last week.

Questions Jack has been asking me lately

My oldest child will be 5 in just 2 weeks, and he often stuns me speechless with some of his profound questions, like:

1)  Why do airplanes need two pilots?

2)  How did the sun get made?

3)  What is gravity and why do we need it?

4)  What are my "tennis balls" for?  (pointing to his lower man parts)

5)  Why aren't the other planets like earth?

6)  Who made people?

7)  I know why there's grass on the roof of Starbucks.  It's to keep the heat in the building.  (Yes - there's a grass roof on top of our local Starbucks.  And I know this isn't a question, but it's profound nonetheless.)

I usually start off my answers with something like, "Jack, that was a very good question, and it has more than one answer." Meanwhile my brain spins frantically for a short, appropriate and hopefully, correct answer.

And I get to do this two more times with the twins.  At least I'll be better prepared next time around!