Foreverpurple

Can you guess which one is my oh so adorable Matty?? This is the cutest pic and I’m so happy his mom sent it out this year.

No snow Last night Misty and I went for dinner with Aunt Rose. When I got home Matt and I opened our gifts as we weren’t sure he would still be home this a.m. (he was for awhile). I’m still waiting for Misty to come over so we can have dinner and exchange gifts. On the drive to Rose’s we called home and talked to everyone. Matt’s parents called this morning. I think we both got everything we wanted. :D We both got a new computer. Matt got a Sony Handycam and I also got my purple vacuum.

I normally post pics of Cynthia over at Ban Puppy Mills but this is Christmas related so I’ll put it here. She is happily sleeping away next to daddy’s presents.

We both got a lot of great gifts this year and are very fortunate. Matt is gone to work so I’m setting up both new computers :P

Matt’s new HP computer

My new Acer Aspire One mini laptop in PINK

Friday night Misty and I went out to look at Christmas lights. We wanted to go and see this house in O’fallon MO but it was 90 minutes one way. This stuff is so cool and he has three years of videos on his YouTube account. GRODQ

We did find another house who does synchronized lighting on a smaller scale and it was still pretty cool to see. Here is his house:

This was another cool house we saw:

They had a minature version of the lamp from A Christmas Story!

Saturday Matt and I went out to look for a desk for him and to drop off the items at the food pantry. This was what his mom wanted for Christmas. Too bad the food pantry was closed and had NO DROPBOX. GAH!! I am going to be hauling this stuff around for a week! Matt still didn’t find a desk but I picked up a new bookcase for the basement.

My niece, Kim, got a new puppy for Christmas. He’s so adorable and Misty is very jealous!

These are the other shoes I bought. Very cute and comfy

Here it is Sunday and my vacation is nearly over. Matt has been home for most of it but last night he went back to the Paducah run. He has to make these runs as well to finish training so it was inevitable. I finally finished this great green and yellow flower necklace. The vintage pendant is a lucite with a flower imprinted into the back of it. It will be listed in my Etsy store later today.

Okay technically a few hours of that were driving cuz the interstate was closed and we, naturally, got lost. But sis and I didn’t quite finish our shopping yesterday so we are going back out today for an hour or so to finish up the stuff that has to go in the mail. We took a detour through a very luxe neighborhood in the swanky Ladue/Clayton area. This is the area where Nelly had to be living. I pointed out that if it were dark we could once again claim that we were not actually LOST but instead just driving around to enjoy the Christmas lights. This has been a tradition of ours for over 10 years. When she isn’t available to go out to see the lights with me, I make Matt take me out. He makes fun of me the whole time but I don’t care. This year when I asked where he is taking me to look at the lights he said “To the basement” Smart ass! He also claims he is taking to McDonald’s for my birthday dinner.

Still trying to decide what to get Matt. I talked to his mom several times yesterday to coordinate gifts for his siblings to buy for him. Eileen made it clear (via email and on the phone) that my birthday money is to be spent on ME and not on Matt or the house. She knows how I think! I almost always turn around and buy gifts for someone else with my birthday money. I’ve been better the past couple years though. She also said that she and Renny are grateful that I am here to support Matt through his training. She doesn’t even know how much that meant to me. She noticed he sounded much better on the phone when she spoke to him recently.

Matt’s coming home in a bit. He is taking his personal days next week so he can be home with me to celebrate my birthday. We are also finally going to put the tree up today. I put up part of my decorations already but I’m not going to make him put up the lights, it’s too close to Christmas and it’s too much work. No point in making him cranky.

You should really pop over to Barry’s Place www.psptubez.com - they have a huge selection of graphics in PSP Tube format and in PNG format so anyone can use their images, not only Paint Shop Pro users.

They have a wonderful Christmas Selection in stock at the moment and are running a 40% off special offer for December as well as adding an extra 3 months to any membership purchased!! Now how cool is that!!

The nice thing about Barry’s Place is that they often update the website. You may be buying a membership but it will be the gift that keeps giving!! You will keep getting value for your money. There are over 5000 images to choose from, realistic images to painted clipart in real life and PC clipart. He now also has some amazing Christmas Glitters in stock and Christmas Wallpapers too!

They also offer a huge amount of Digital frames and have some wonderful frames in stock. Barry even shows you in one of his tutorials how to frame your image without it becoming squished. They have hundreds to choose from. Not only are there frames but some PSP gradients, stacks of high resolution photographs.

Barry always sends out wacky emails and is very personable and keeps in touch with his clients often, he only does this for a living so he spends most of his time making sure that the site is updated all the time. It has grown since I have been a member and it just keeps getting better and better. It is getting so big now that he has to employ artists to help him draw clipart.

You will not regret buying a membership at Barry’s Place - I would go and grab the special offer that he is running now, it is valid only till the 31 December 2008.

If you would like to see some of the work on Barry’s site, go to www.psptubez.com and then scroll down to see the thumbnails of what the site has looked like in the past, actually what I will do is post all the important links for you to see what Barry has to offer on his site, check these out:

http://www.psptubez.com/galleries/latest_arrivals_index.html

http://www.psptubez.com/galleries/index_gallery.html

http://www.psptubez.com/galleries/showcase_christmas_graphics.htm

http://www.psptubez.com/galleries/showcase_easter_graphics.htm

http://www.psptubez.com/galleries/showcase_new_year_graphics.htm

http://www.psptubez.com/galleries/showcase_st_pats_graphics.htm

http://www.psptubez.com/galleries/showcase_valentines_graphics.htm

http://www.psptubez.com/galleries/showcase_usa_graphics.htm


Barry’s motto is the more support he gets, the more art we all get and that is true, he will be able to employ more artists and update the site more often. I have been a member for a long time!

This is my favorite of the Christmas Glitters:

Yup Christmas is nearly here and I’ve not even thought about shopping. Mostly because I was looking for a second job just to be able to make ends meet while living on my own so I knew that there was little chance of having money for Christmas shopping. Now that we are back to two paychecks I still don’t imagine I will be doing much shopping outside of gifts for Matt, Misty and the parents. I know there are many other families in a worse position than ours who also have children to buy for. I can imagine the frustration of not knowing how you will be able to make Christmas special on a budget. Buying those big ticket items can be the hardest because it means having the full lump sum all at once. One way around this is to use Kmart Layaway to take the bite out of those big ticket items AND help keep your spending on track with your budget.

With Kmart Layaway you can make a payment every two weeks for the next 8 weeks. Spread your purchase out without a credit card or interest accumulating.

Kmart has all the hot electronics, gadgets and toys for this season and they have black friday prices in effect NOW!

Combine a sensible layaway plan with the continued decline in retail sales and you should be able to stretch your dollars this Christmas. Stores will be doing anything they can to get you into their stores to spend your holiday dollars with them.

Just last month I placed my third order with Vista Print for free business cards. I have been using their website for years and have never been disappointed with the quality of their business cards and you sure can’t complain about free right?

Vista Print also had a great assortment of Christmas Cards. They have several types of cards: folded, photo, foil, caricatures and postcards. The photo cards start at 3.99 for 10 cards. Go ahead and shop around, this is a dirt cheap price for high quality Christmas Cards made from your family photo. Plus you don’t have to deal with going to a crowded store staffed with teenagers who couldn’t care less about getting your order right.

Using Vista Print’s online ordering is very easy and they have more card styles than I could count. All of them adorable! So you pick your design (this could be the hardest part of the process). Then you upload your pick. After that you can add some simple text with the default settings or use the advanced settings to tweak the font style, colors and more. You can edit the back side of the card as well. Then you create a free account so you can save your creation and then place the order. I made the card below in about 5 minutes.

Last night was my company holidae party and we did go in spite of the snow. Stubborn as I am I wore open toe high heels too. crazy Only about 1/2 the employees showed up and Matt’s head was spinning with all the names. We sat with Vlad and his very sweet and lovely wife Lucy. I won gift cards to the movie theater and all of us were given Soccer jerseys from our South American offices, which everyone was so excited to get. It did snow quite a bit so we didn’t stay too late, driving home was slow going with lots of cars in the ditch. But once off the interstate I suggested we take the country roads home so Matt could have fun in the snow. He’s such a boy

Matt was going to get called to work today so he gave me my birthday gifts early and he did a great job! He totally surprised me with the purple polaroid digital camera I was drooling over at Target. It comes with a silicon sleeve to protect it. The only downside is that it doesn’t have the lithium rechargeable battery like my HP but I still love it. He also got me a wireless mouse for my laptop. Mom got me two great silver necklaces that I can’t wait to wear. The Stephan’s sent me 100.00 which I spent on clothes at Cato yesterdae. Well clothes and some jewelry for the party. Misty is picking me up soon to take me to the mall and out to eat dinner. Dad always sends me money so that should be here in the next few daes. I know Misty’s gift is a holidae quilt that I picked out when we were shopping on Black Friday. I also got a gift card to Fashion Bug from my boss ;)

The line for Santa was amazingly short and relatively free of screaming kids! Took us about 15 minutes all told I guess and the picture turned out fantastic! I NEVER take good pictures and this chick nailed it in one take! 20.00 for 2 5x7s seems pricey but whaddya gonna do? I think mom and dad will get a kick outta of this picture. Course I scanned it so I would have a copy too.

If you want to see the picture you will have to register on my blog because I’d like to have some control over who sees this picture as my sister is in it with me.

Then we went to Chevy’s for dinner and then back to my house to open my gifts. She got me a copy of the calendar for NIE where we sponsored days for Phoebe and Chase to be on the calendar. She also got me two coffee candles -MMMM- and she of course gave me the aforementioned holiday quilt I picked out. And the icing on the cake?? She bought me the Martha Stewart Tree Skirt that matches my tree but that I wouldn’t spend the money on last year! It is sooo pretty I can’t wait to replace my cheapo one. Pics of that to come later as it’s too late and I am still sick so I gotta get to sleep soon.

My purple tree and some of my decorations. I forgot to take pictures of the decorations out on the porch table. Maybe later cuz I have a ton of shit to do today.

My all purple tree:

The hutch, dining room table, fireplace mantle and the biker Santa I found at Hobby Lobby.

My favorite part of Xmas is watching all the holiday shows from when I was a kid. I have the Rudolph set and pretty much every Charlie Brown. Every year in the midst of my christmas cartoon gluttony I remember there is always one glaring ommission… Emmett Otter’s Jug Band Christmas! So I sent myself a remind to look it up and low and behold

Click the image to be taken to Amazon where you can purchase it!
I will be looking for a local copy tomorrow LUV