So, I am officially the WORST blogger ever! It has been since FEBRUARY, for crying out loud, since my last post! I am ashamed!

However, I do have a fairly good reason. The other pharmacist at my store who works the days that I am off fell down some stairs and has been out of work since March 18th. This means that there are tons of open shifts so I have been working the majority of those shifts. This current pay period I have had more help than previous ones so I'm finally getting more than 1 day off a week (and by a week I mean every 7 days since I work in a retail pharmacy and we are open 7 days a week). Still no idea when my partner is coming back - MAYBE the 28th? I highly doubt it though!

I wanted to share some pictures from last week. I went to visit my sister and spent some time outside with my niece and nephew (I apparently forgot to take pictures of my nephew :( ).
I can't wait to make a scrapbook page with these pictures and my friend, Courtney Baker's stamp set You're Dandy. How cute is that going to be???

I did get around to making the following card awhile ago. I can't remember now what all went into making this card, but I do remember that it was for an Everything But The Kitchen Sink challenge (well, 2 challenges combined into one because I missed the first challenge and then ended up missing both - Go me!). I love the fabric at the bottom of the card and how it looks like an old ruffled jean skirt! I also enjoy looking at the flower I made out of that same fabric!

Well, sorry I have been absent for almost 2 months since my last post - hopefully the next one won't be another 2 months away!

It's been a while!

Wow, it has been a really long time since I have been on here to blog! There has been so much going on and I have just not had time to even think about blogging. The first main event was the 5 inches of snow we got here a few weeks ago (see how behind on this blogging I am)! Here are just a few pictures of our house and our road....

Nothing too impressive compared to my husband's family in PA who are dealing with 2 and 1/2 feet of snow over the weekend plus the extra 12 plus inches they are expecting by tomorrow! And think....I'm moving up there into that mess! The things we will do for our children and our families! :o)

Here is a card that I made for a friend of mine who just turned the big 40! I love her and you would never be able to guess that she is 40! She is so youthful and amazing and I can only hope to be like her when I reach that milestone!

This next card is the Valentine's Day card that I made for my hubby this year. He has actually already seen it laying out on my desk, but I don't think he *knows* it's for him...so it won't be a huge surprise, but we aren't big on this holiday anyway, but I couldn't NOT make him a card! I also need to send a shout out to my friend Courtney over at Practicing Creativity! I made the card using her stamp set "Key to my Heart." I am so proud of her for her efforts in venturing out and following her heart! Way to go Courtney! (I loved using your set by the way)

This next card I didn't make with any certain person or use really and this is totally not like me. I may send it as a Valentine's card, but I'm not really sure. I may just keep it and send it out later too. I also used Courtney's set for the sentiment on this card as well.

The other thing happening in the life of the Quiles Family is that we have water under our house :( We have had a really wet season here in TN and as a result, we keep water standing under our house. We had a "waterproofing company" come out and give us an estimate of $7,000 to install 2 sump pumps and a pipe system under the house, which yes, would take the water out from under the house once it gets there, but what about trying to prevent that from happening first?

So we have gotten another guy we know to help us out and he is going to build up our yard around the foundation and slope it away from the house and do some other small things to keep the water from staying right by the house....as well as pumping the water out that is there now and drying out our crawl space.

We have also put our house up for sale about a month ago, but we have not had a single person by to look at it yet. That's ok because we have had some snow and it's been raining a lot so I know it's not a very popular time to be looking in the middle of winter. It has also given us some time to get this water situation taken care of!

Shew! I think that's it for tonight. If you are still reading, thank you and goodnight!

Supplies for cards:

Happy Birthday: Striped paper is from Basic Grey's Sugar Rush Collection, Happy Birthday and cupcake stamps are from Stampabilites unmounted rubber stamp "Birthday" set.

Valentine's Card: Paper is from Basic Grey's Sugar Rush collection, stamps are Practicing Creativity's Key to my Heart set

Hey Friend: Sentiment is from Practicing Creativity's Key to my Heart set, Paper is from Basic Grey's Sugar Rush collection, the small flower is from the American Crafts Sentiments set, and the buttons are also from Basic Grey's Sugar Rush Collection.

Everything But The Kitchen Sink Sketch Challenge

Here's my card for this month's Everything But The Kitchen Sink Sketch Challenge:

It's a little more "girly" than I usually make, but it's what I came up with. Not sure if I like it or not? I like it, but I guess it's not one of my favorites. Anyway, have a good night!

Supplies: All patterned paper is from the Earth Love Mini Deck by Cosmo Cricket, the "happy" is some Thickers from American Crafts that I got real cheap at Big Lots (yay!), the "birthday" is from a remarks letter stickers book, I used a tag stamp from a stampology clear stamp set called Journaling Tags that I got on clearance at Target for super cheap (yay again!) and embossed it with clear embossing powder using some versa mark ink. Oh and the string and buttons were just from my stash o' stuff!

What? Four days off?

I have had the past four days off from work and I have kept myself very busy! Here is a little glimpse of what I have accomplished:

1. I made a wreath out of some boas, a grass wreath, a staple gun, and some ribbon.
All I did was staple a boa into place on one end, then wrap it around, making sure that the brown wreath did not show through, then stapled the other end. I used about 5 or 6 boas (I'm not sure exactly because I started this project several weeks ago only to discover that I did not have enough boas to cover the entire wreath, and I don't remember how many I used in that first stage).

Here is the final result! I actually found the idea here on a blog that I follow! I wish I had made the bow bigger at the top and I always can because it's just tied. I love this wreath because it will be so easy to change out the ribbon based on the season/holiday!

2. I cleaned my entire house from top to bottom (well almost). I did do some major cleaning and knocked 1 room off of my "I've got to declutter this place before putting it on the market" list!

3. On Saturday, I had some not so great news with shared with me when I had someone here to look at my heating system because we always have a musty smell when the heat kicks on. That was being caused by two things. One was that the air return duct work under my house had come loose and had a huge gap in it - that problem got fixed (not to mention that it was supposed to have been fixed last year when we had someone else tell us the exact same thing)! The second reason is that we have water standing under our house! Yes, we did just have a TON of rain this past week, but it should not be getting under the house! The builder did put a "trench" around the foundation and that is where all the water stays, but this is probably the source of the musty smell. I have no clue who to call to have this fixed, so any ideas would be appreciated!

4. We went to see the movie, Avatar this weekend! I was NOT looking forward to seeing it at all and only went because I wanted to get out of the house and this was the only movie that my husband wanted to see. Well, I loved it...Go figure!

5. I taught myself to knit! I did a little learning swatch to learn the basics, and now I am in the process of making a very simple scarf - just one color and no pattern, but it's just my first one!

Whew! What a weekend! Back to work tomorrow to work 7 out of the next 10 days!

Everything but the Kitchen Sink Challenge

I am pushing the deadline on this one! I just have not been in a very "crafty" mood lately and I had to make myself sit down to participate in this challenge! I love these challenges because they are so different! So here we go...click on the image below for all the other great entries: Can you guess what the challenge was this time:

How about now:

It was to use toothpicks! How creative Kelley! I loved the idea and when I saw it, I got really excited, but I had a hard time coming up with something to do with them! Here's what I came up with for this challenge:

It's very simplistic this time! I look at it at times and I like it, but then other times not so much!

Anyway, I hope you all have a great night! I'm heading to bed as soon as I get my desk halfway cleared off at least!

EBTKS - November Sketch challenge

The girls over at EBTKS added a new challenge - a sketch challenge based off of something in the home. This one is based off of one of the girl's fireplace mantle.
Here's the sketch (and link): And here's my card (with the kitchen sink in the background - ha ha....I just don't have the greatest lighting in my house and the kitchen counter seems to be the best place so far when I need to take pictures on rainy days like today):

The paper that I used was some glitter paper that I had from a 4.5 x 6.5 "Mat Stack."
The "Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!" stamp is from American Crafts' "Thanks" stamp set, stamped with some versa mark ink and then embossed with some silver embossing powder (I can't remember who makes it though). It is stamped on some black card stock and applied with some foam adhesive.

I had so much fun with this challenge that I actually made another card! This one is my favorite of the two (yes, again with the kitchen sink :o) )

This one I made with a stamp set that I just HAD to have! It's called "Coffee Cafe" by TPC Studio. The little stamp on the inside of the card in the circle is stamped in Chestnut Roan by Color Box and the "I like you a latte" (lol - I had to have the set for that one stamp really) is stamped with Versa Mark ink and embossed with clear embossing powder on some brown card stock. The paper is called "simple stripe" by Three Bugs in a Rug from their Simple Pleasures collection. It is a two sided piece and the blue/brown/white patter was the other side of that same piece. Oh and some white thread and foam adhesive!

Could you hold please?

The other night at work I got a phone call from one of our regular customers. You know the type - the ones who are needy and require a 20 minute conversation about absolutely nothing and when you hang up after those 20 minutes, you have only spoken for maybe 3 of those minutes other than the occasional "yes", "uh huh", "I understand", "really?", "whys that?"....

The customer asked me to find out how much a particular medication would cost on their insurance. So I politely ask the customer, "Do you mind holding for a minute so that I can run that through your insurance and get a price for you?"

The response that I got about knocked me on the floor! I can honestly say that it is a first for me in the 10+ years that I have been working in a pharmacy....

"Sure, I'm just sitting here resting on the commode."

I cannot look at this customer in the same way anymore! I'm just thankful that I did not hear any strange noises while I was on the phone!