Friday, August 24, 2007

Good news, Great news!

The GOOD NEWS

Another thursday has passed and another WTF!!??? Peace tayo ScrappinMoms hehe

After the ALL Cardstock challenge for Round 2 (you can see my LO here and Donna's beautiful Pick of the Week LO here) my co-challengers and I finally made it to Round 3 of ScrappinMoms Idol. Everyone did such great work, and it always saddens me not to see three great scrappers in the list.

Personally, I just want to see how far i'm going to make it, it's a challenge I find within myself and not necessarily with the rest of the challengers. There's so much great camaraderie and the best part is, we have each other to complain to with the brain-draining challenges the ScrappinMoms come up with :-)

We have until August 30th to come up with an altered item :-( I have never altered anything out of the ordinary, i've been racking my brain, the internet and my books and have come up with a couple of probable ideas. . . Tampons are a household item anyway right? :-)

















Images care of TamponCrafts (yes, there IS such a website), sooo I have a choice of a blowgun, christmas lights and a pan flute. Oh, wait the rules say I have to use 3 more non-scrapbooking item! Oooooh well, guess have to junk the tampon idea. . . back to the old drawing board :-D

The GREAT NEWS

As an avid reader and subscriber of Memory Makers, I was so happy to have received an email with a list of the 2008 Memory Makers Masters with none other than our very own IRIS !!!!

Iris's Shabby chic pages, oozing with talent and passion and still remains humble despite all her recognitions . . . she is one scrapping diva! IRIS, you rock! Hece, i have joined your fan club with the affirmation of Ria's blinkie hehe :-) Can't wait to receive my MM issues more than ever now!


Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Maxing out my MAC :-)

Hi all! I'm just trying to max out my .Mac account, so I tried out the web gallery.

When you have nothing better to do and is just click happy, please do drop on by the StickyTins Gallery and give me your feedbacks if it's easy to view or not.

Otherwise, it's byebye gallery :-) Thanks very much for your time!

I was tagged again :-) with a cutie pink tag too!

Thanks Donna for tagging me, now I have these cutie blog tags too :-) i'm tagging 5 other Rockin' bloggers too . . . Mia, Cabbie, Lee, Mitch and Joanne.

To those I just tagged, Just click on image above and pay it forward :-)

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

What have I gotten myself into?!

A month ago, Joanne announced the ScrappinMoms Idol challenge. It's a 2-month long contest, with challenges every week. At the time the first elmination round was going to start, was the time my mom was still in the hospital so I wasn't sure I was going to make it. Good thing with support from my family and encouragement from Joanne and Mia I made my layout on the nick of time. Fortunately, i've made it (as of today) past Round 1.

We are not allowed to post our layouts as long as we're in the contest, but we were allowed to post links to our layouts so here they are:

Elimination Round
Round 1: Stuck on Cardstock

Round 2 is still ongoing, and it really is a doozy! Round 2 is to make a MONOCHROMATIC layout. Funny though, I thought it was due this Tuesday so I was cramming for time Monday evening only to find out it was due Thursday! LOL Nevertheless, feeling a bit under the weather, scrapping my pages helped me take my mind off how I was feeling :-)

At the start of the challenge I was thinking "What have I gotten myself into??!!!" The pressure of the challenge and to come up with a unique layout is really nerve wracking. But in this short time, I learned alot about myself. It's amusing to see how far I will last, but more so that for someone like me (with a short attention span!) i'm surprisingly sticking it out! And I also discovered how well I manage under pressure, considering all my pages were made a day before the deadine!

Kudos to the ScrappinMoms for coming up with such an ingenious contest :-) And ofcourse to the rest of my co-contestants whether still in the running or not, congratulations for coming up with heartfelt, wonderful layouts :-)

Tag, YOUR it!

Utang ko na TAG for Au, Donna and Mia who tagged me, ayan ha 3-in-1 hehe :-)

7 Random Facts about yours truly:

1. I'm an Allergy monster --- my morning starts with the sniffles and an occassional sneeze out of the shower. A little dust or change in temperature may at times make my eyes water and give me a bout of atchoos :-) Curtains, rugs, furry stuff (as long as i doesn't shed i'm ok :-), dust, weather/temp changes are my curses :-) and Kleenex is my best friend.


2. I know how to butcher :-) --- just chickens that is hehe not that I plan to make a career out of it. I blame it on my alma mater, OB Montessori has Agriculture class for its grade school students. Because of this for 7 years I learned how to create an aquarium, pot plants, plant mustard seeds and yes, even butcher chickens complete with using boiling water to remove the feathers.

3. I'm a Chocoholic --- despite whatever excercise I try to come do, despite what diet I try to follow, chocolates are the end of it all. My kitchen ref has all the healthy happy stuff, but in the den just right by my scrap table I have a small ref with (horrors!) chocolates :-) As of this very moment i'm stuck at home with Pharyngitis, a really bad cold and bouts of fever but i just had to have my chocolate fix last night. Hence, had to have someone go out and get me a Starbucks Brownie :-) Yummy!

4. I have a sweet tooth --- in no particular order my often choice of dessert are chocolate chip cookies, pannacota, cheesecake, key lime pie and brownies :-) and if you brought me to a buffet, I often eye the dessert table first.

5. I'm Organized, NOT! --- I love to fix and organize my files, my bills, my books, scrap supplies and paper. But for the life of me, no matter how I fix my things between a week to a month it always ends up just as messy as I started with if not worse!

6. I get bored easily --- that or I have a short attention span :-/ I like learning new things and I love to experiment.


7. I'm musically inclined . . . NOT! again :-) --- I have had my hand at the classical guitar, electric guitar, drums, piano, took pop singing lessons and opera. Again, that short attention span prevailed hence, i haven't mastered much. As they say, Jack of All trades and Master of None :-) .... hmmmm should make a page out this one.

Catch Up 3: Quiet Hallways

August 1, 2007
A little over a week after my birthday, my Mom had to be rushed to the Emergency Room of Makati Medical Center. Luckily our family had a stay-in nurse and assesed the situation and decided to call me at around 1am that we should bring Mom to the ER. My mom and I live no more than 5 minutes (10 if you count the traffic) apart, so it was easy for us to pick her up. Mom was sweating profusely and was awfully pale when I saw her, as soon as we brought her to the hospital that's when all the tests and medication was administered. Mommy had Pneumonia and a fever, so she had to be admitted immediately. She was fine though, a bit weak but still talkative as ever.

We had stayed for the rest of the day and went home at night to rest, when the early the next morning as I was getting ready to go visit mom I had an urgent call from our family doctor. Moms blood pressure dropped to 50/0!!! Who would have known that from a simple case of Pneumonia it would have been this bad?! Thank God for doctors, to that I commend the doctors and nurses of Makati Med for taking care of my mom so well.

Apparently mom just
didn't just have Pneumonia but Kidney stones and an infection which messed up the whole thing along with her high blood sugar. Because of this she had to be fed via NGT (feeding tube via nostrils) and given an EndoTracheal tube so the right amount of oxygen could be administered. Due to her condition, she was sent to the ICU where we spent around a week.

August 22, 2007
I'm happy to say after more than 2 weeks in the hospital mom is doing fine, still hard headed with her food intake LOL and happily (although still weak) shopping again at Landmark and SM.

It was in the hallways of the ICU where the family convened to visit mom, where we prayed, where we told stories of how silly and funny mom can be, how she loved to eat hence the high blood sugar ;-), and it was in these hallways where I often sat alone before the rest of the family arrived. It gave me time to think and go through my life as well as my moms, how life can be taken away so fast and given back as fast too. We are not always given a second lease in life, we could have lost mom weeks ago. . . so to this day, I try to live up to those firsts as my ONLY chance.




THANK YOU to everyone who prayed for my mom, who offered their "get-well" and to the support of my friends and fellow scrappers. Without you guys I don't think I could have held up so well either :-)

Catch Up, Part 2: PhotoBUGS

July 18, 2007
A few units in Photography back in college helped me take better pictures later on, but still I can not claim to be at the least, an amateur. So I decided to bring, albeit drag :-) my daughter along to take photography classes under Jo Avila, who was also my former college professor.

We decided to take the once a week classes, Saturday being the most convenient. I really enjoyed the class, it was very informative and Jo Avila really knew his stiff. Often times there are photographers who master only one brand of camera, Jo knew the Nikon and Canon cameras like the back of his hand. Although he had a preference over the other, no one felt left out ina sense, since he addressed everyones technical needs.

One of our first assignments was to take photo of a Coke bottle as IF it wasn't a coke bottle. Wheels started to turn and gave me migraine just thinking of it! I was amused that he enjoyed the photo I took of my son, Josh and my Coke "bugs" :-) I had taped pipe cleaners on my coke bottles and arranged it on the floor, had Josh hold a Pepsi bottle at the background. After steadying myself on the floor shooting at floor level, I took a couple of shots and this I think was the best of the lot. Enjoy!

Pardon me, have to play Catch up!


What happend between my last post, our PS EB, photo classes a couple of little moments here and there and my birthday . . . just feels so fleeting :-( But life goes on, so i have to "catch up " on my blog so to speak.

After I had turned 3o, i think i unconciously didn't keep count LOL so there were days when I was asked how old I was I would be off by a year! But the birthdays can't escape you, especially when family dinners and coffee shop surprises remind you :-) Some say I may as well be 50 years old with what i've been through, but I owe it to the strength of the women in my family to keep me going and definitely NOT look 50!!!

And so July 23rd rolls along and I still thank the Lord for blessing me with a wonderful and supportive family, great friends and all in all despite the crazy ride I wouldn't change it for the world :-)

Digital Elements:
Tia Bennet Seals, Sassy by Rhonna Farrer