Feeling the urge and the creativity building

You would think after finally getting my scrapbooking room exactly the way I have always wanted it, I would be a scrapbooking maniac, creating pages upon pages of memories.  Has that happened?  Nope.  I have created all of ONE page since I got the room completed.  Just one little page.  I've spent an hour here and there organizing it a little better, adding my scrapbooking Christmas gifts to the mix of my collection of stuff, and sometimes just sitting there telling myself how much I love my room.  Not productive though.

Has my lack of scrapbooking stopped me from buying scrapbooking supplies?  Here'a another NOPE.  While I haven't spent a lot of money on supplies, I have a hard time resisting the new paper stacks from Die Cuts with a View.  DCWV are my favorite paper.   I will admit that I have refrained from my indulgence in new Disney embellishments even though it is hard.  I have also resisted the urge in buying a Bind-It-All.  So overall, buying a new paper stack here and there isn't that bad.  Right?

And....I won the MouseMemories January Post contest on Facebook.  I have spent many many pennies at http://www.mousememories.com/ in preparation for all of my WDW trips.  So, once they release new stuff from CHA, I will be spending my $20 gift certificate and hopefully not going over too much.  :)

So, why the post since I have been in a non-scrapbooking mode? Now that I have no excuses of my Colts playing on the weekend or any other football team as we seem to watch all the games, I see more uninterrupted time available.  Not really an excuse but I need to take advantage of my spare time.  With Chuck still in school, I have Friday nights and Saturday morning/ afternoons completely open.

The urge is slowly building.  I ordered some pictures that are non-Disney related (shocking, huh?).  I've been looking through my other scrapbooks.  I've been looking at some scrapbooking sites looking at other layouts to scraplift.  I've even gotten my sketchbook out and started doing some prelim sketches for some pages.  The urge is back and I have plenty to keep me busy.  I have two scrapbooks to complete from the PassPorter Decade of Dreams trip in May 2009, a scrapbook for Chuck's trip to Spain (still gotta get those pictures though), and lots of miscellaneous events that need to be scrapped.  My goal is to get enough page kits created so I can plan a crop at Archivers.  I get so much done at the crops.  Hopefully soon I can really find some people here in Louisville that will let me in there "Group" (that's a whole other blog), and get some fellow scrappers in the area. 

So, here I go.  the urge is there, the creativity is back, and the tools (plenty of tools) are available.  To kick off my goal in the right way, I'll be posting some of my favorite pages that I have created.  Enjoy!

It Has Begun: Excitement

Back in August 2009, I was given the opprotunity to work with some fellow PassPorters and interviewd for a travel consultant with Ears to You Travel.  I finished the College of Disney Knowledge courses, got my certificate and graduations "Ears" and finally got myself set up to start finding clients.  With the move into the new house, things got delayed a bit but things have begun!

Last week, I booked my first trip to WDW for a client.  I have another one making a decision on where to stay.  My mom, my former travel agent, gave me some names and addresses of her former clients to contact.  Today I sent off letters to some of these clients to let them know that I am here to work for them in planning and booking a WDW vacation. 

Chuck is excited to see this slowly taking off and has told me that once he is finished with his Master's degree, he is getting all up in my business to get this "job" to soar.   It feels wonderful to have his uspport in this little adventure. 

So...if you need a travel consultant to help you plan your vacation to a Disney Destination, click on the link to the left for Ears to You Travel and find me under Contact Us!!

Furniture Shopping

Since we moved into the new house, we started creating a list of stuff and furniture we wanted. One of the first things we wanted was a sectional couch and some sort of coordinating chair for the "great" room, where we spend the majority of the time.  The furniture we have now will be split between two rooms.  The recliners will go up in the loft where we have the game systems and library, and the sofa will go into what we call the sitting room. 

We went out to hit all the furniture stores in the area.  First, we hit Value City Furntiure.  While we didn't find a couch that fit our wants and desires, we finally picked up a second matching nightstand to the master bedroom set that we have had for 6 years.  Better late than never.  We get to pick that up on Thursday.

Next stop was Ashley's Furniture.  After getting mauled by 3 sales people wanting our sale, we finally escaped to actually begin looking around.  After spending a good 45 minutes just walking the store, we found three sectionals that we liked.  We flagged down Joey, the one salesperson that seemed to be following us around to ask some questions.  The first one was knocked out of the running as it didn't come as just as sofa instead of a reclining sofa.  the second one had an awesome coordinating chair that I fell in love with and really worked for what we wanted the room to look like.  The third one was red...I love red!  Chuck kept it in the running but I knew that it would lose.  Chuck couldn't see us having a red couch.  Sigh!

After about 15 minutes of deliberation, we asked Joey what he could do for us as far as some extra markdowns or whatever.  We ended up getting 20% off the 2 piece sectional and 10% off the oversized ottoman and coordinating chair.  One warranty plan, in-store credit app, and 20 minutes later, we got the furniture.  Of course, the expected delivery date is January 24th, could be sooner but also could be later.  Glad I work from home to accept delivery whenever it gets here. 

The chair is the lighter bottom cushion that matches the couch.

My Scrapbooking Room

With the purchase of the house, Chuck and I both got a room dedicated to our hobbies and collections.  I was thrilled as I could finally create a space that was truly all my own for scrapbooking and my ever growing Disney collection.  I have a few more things I want (like a big comfy chair and end table), but it is everything that I wanted in my scrapbooking haven.  I am hoping that after the holidays I will get to spend more of my weekends in here.  I have a lot of projects to catch up on and am looking forward to sharing them. 

the First Blog: Our Big Purchase!

As my first blog, I decided to chat about the biggest change that has occurred in the past couple of months.  Chuck had a couple of weeks off from school in August and got bored one day.  He contacted some people about a mortgage loan.  A week later we had a pre-approval and met with a couple of realtors.  The next week we picked a realtor, and the house hunt began.  After looking at 30 or so houses, we walked into a newly built home of a floor-plan we had viewed online.  As soon as we walked in, we knew it was "the one".  After finding the house, it all happened very quickly.  We closed on September 4th and moved in on October 2nd.  We couldn't be happier with our new home ,and Ana (our furkid) has finally warmed up to this place, even though she still won't go upstairs without one of us.