THE QUEEN OF QUIRK

pit stop

K, this is gonna be ultra quick...gotta finish the laundry, finish packing the girls' stuff, sweep, mop, scrub the pot, and then SHOWER!!, get a good night's rest, wake up at the buttcrack of dawn and hold Noodle on a 12 hour nonstop flight from Frankfurt to Vegas. Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'......

Ireland was a freakin blast. I'm not joking. If you ever get the chance, get your butt over there and get your pub on. And as for the kids: if ya got 'em, leave 'em. I'm sure Dublin is alright for the kiddos, but if you wanna have a really good time, then leave your kiddos at home with someone who loves you very, very much and is willing to play with them for a few days while you get trashed from dawn til dusk.

I wouldn't know personally....I'm just sayin', ya know?

Here are some pics and then I gotta jet. Quite literally. :0)

In order, they are:

1) flying into Dublin, right off the coast
2) me and the dude. St. Stephen's Green Park
3) the first pints...Guinness and Bulmer's cider
4) my new fave photo of myself and the dude
5) the Book of Kells exhibit at Trinity College
6) garden gate detail at Dublin Castle
7) me and the dude at Porterhouse Brewery, the ultimate in fresh, pure beer
8) Sliotar, the intense and tin flute-flavored Irish band.
9) view from behind Christ Church Cathedral's main alter
10) the ruins directly next to the Cathedral

And that's it for today! My to-do list is growing legs and has threatened to sit on me if I don't get 'er done. Ciao all!
I'm off to gamble and watch my little bro throw his cap in the air. (That is, if my lame-o school hasn't banned that...when I was in school, the administration thought it would be dangerous and forbade us to throw our mortarboards to the sky. If I can, I'm going to take Dave's cap away from him and throw it directly at someone....hard)

and then I'm going to run. :0)

oyster stout

Some cities are fun. "All-out, laugh-your-tush-off, drink stout, porter, lager and be merry" fun. Dublin is one of those cities and I highly recommend it for a rompin' good time. My new all-time fave shot of me and the hubbs.

Unfortunately, I can't stay long...lots of things to do to get ready for our big trip back to los Estados Unidos. 12 hours on a non-stop flight to Vegas. Nummy Lummy good times ahead! :0)

Ciao all! See you on the other side of the pond!

when it rains...

Holy crap there never seems to be a break!
This morning we're getting ready for Ireland, packing the kiddo's bags for the weekend and trying to just get things done.
First thing, Colin broke the washer. This thing has been rigged like crazy because my husband REFUSES to buy a new washing machine. Don't ask me...I have no clue.
So this morning, the stupid door broke completely...so what does he do? He goes to the hardware store and gets one of those straps that you crank tight...and he wraps that around the washer and tells me it's fixed. And he has the stupidest smile on his face...like he just won a contest. Like this is....fun. Meanwhile, I'm stomping around, fuming because the things I want to say I probably shouldn't say.
You know what I mean? It's like trying to plug a leak in the Hoover Dam with just my lips. It's that hard for me to not say something vicious.
I love him, but damn he's cheap.
And he knows it...and he'll laugh his butt off when he reads this. Either that or he'll be shamed into buying me a new washing machine. I'm hoping for the latter. :0)

Noodle's got a cold, and then i got an email this morning from Dell saying that my order has been canceled because they couldn't get payment verification from my credit card. Come on!!

I almost wanted to say to the Dell guy, "There is money in there. We have a very high limit and there is PA-lenty of room. Wanna know how I know that? Because I married the cheapest man alive and he won't even buy me a new washer. That's how I know our credit card works, buddy."

Hi, my name's Jan and I have full conversations out loud with people I haven't really spoken to. If they're very lucky, my children will ask me who I'm talking to and I will say, "Mommy's just singing, baby."

In spite of all the insanity, we're very excited about this weekend!! I feel so bad, though, that Norah has a cold. But I just spoke with Jenny and her little guy has a cold, too, so it's ok. One cold negates another. That's how it works with kids.

So I need to finish packing....and I'm hoping I can get the strap on the washer open so I can put Bear in the dryer. Jenny probably won't let me leave the country if the Noodle doesn't have the Bear.

So, until Tuesday! Gotta run! Ciao! :0)

out to lunch

Sorry I've been so scarce lately! Things are a bit insane...finishing up the June goodies for the Ave., getting ready for our weekend in Ireland (we leave in 4 hours!), answering a ton of emails, and in general trying not to drop the 50 million things I'm holding on to! LOL!

So, I'll be a bit out of the loop for a couple of weeks. After we get back from Ireland, we're taking a couple of weeks off and heading back to the States to see the fam. I will have a bit of internet access and will do my best to answer the important emails, but everything else will have to be on hold. Doctor's orders! LOL

I hope everyone has a great couple of weeks!

And don't forget! You have less than 2 weeks to grab your Songbird Avenue kit! Once it's gone, it's gone, sugah!

Ciao! :)

the glue.

We have had some discussions today about the role I play around here...mostly it was how I am the glue and I'm worried that if I let up for even a moment, everything will fall apart and we'll starve and shrivel.

Colin then, so sweetly, likened me to a drain plug. More specifically he said:

"Jan, you're more like the plug in the drain in the bathtub of our lives."

Isn't that sweet?

Then he put a "Harmonika Hits" cd in the player and we rocked out to "Holzhacker-Marsch". (track 2 of disc 1of 3) For those of you less familiar with the German language, that would be the "Lumberjack March". This lovely collection of 3 discs of harmonica heroine was one of my Mother's day gifts. Colin loves to throw a gag gift in there....for every holiday, actually.

That was still NOTHING compared to the candy necklace posing pouch I got him for Christmas last year.  It's the candy necklace that boldly goes where no sane person intended. 

hummuna hummuna hummuna

Ok, it's ordered....the people at Dell are building my little baby and she should arrive sometime next week. I also got an extra external drive (just for little old me)...this thing is going to fly. Right now we have a 32 bit processor and half a gig of RAM. I'm doubling my processor speed and increasing my RAM by 400%. I'm gonna need to get a helmet! YAY!!!
__________________________________________________________________________
*Inspiron E1705           Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7400 (2.16GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB)
*LCD Panel           17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife™
*Memory           2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz          
*Video Card           256MB ATI MOBILITY™ RADEON® X1400 HyperMemory
*Hard Drive  250GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
__________________________________________________________________________

This is such an exciting time...right before your new baby arrives and you just KNOW this one will be special...and easy and you're going to be the best mother ever. Your new baby won't ever cry or break or need to be reconfigured or crash. It won't ever eat your files or lose them or splash them around in the potty.

Ahhh...life is bliss. :)

Well, sorta. Laptop?~good to go. Everything else?~hangin' by a thread.

Our car wouldn't start this morning so Colin rode his bike to work. Yippee. We're actually grateful it hasn't happened sooner, but it still sucks a fat one royally. We are scrambling to get things finished. There simply are not enough hours in the day.

We spent a gazillion dollars on Saturday buying all kinds of goodies for our family and friends...chocolates, toys, gifts, etc. So much fun! I scheduled massages, facials, and pedicures for my sister-in-law and myself...Colin will give birth to triplets when he finds out how much it cost. It's ok, Honey! We deserve it! :)

Been talking to my little bro and I think we may head to Greece for a weekend while he's here. Just us, no kiddos. SO MUCH FUN!! I am dying to go to Greece!

I have about 30 lists of things that need to be done. The various titles are:
Things to do:
Things to bring back:
Things to take to people:
What to buy when we're there:
10 ways to fondle a laptop:
20 ways to lick and pet a laptop:

You know, the usual....
K, so right now I have to jet because I emails to answer, designing to do, I have to call the car people, reschedule our airport pickup time, confirm my laptop order, reserve our seats on the plane, and take a shower.

Oh! I almost forgot. I spoke with our realtor last night and she mentioned that she had been trying to get a hold of us for a week because teenagers are breaking into our house and riding their bikes around while they ditch school. She also locked herself out of our house (come ON!!) so we need to have her get a locksmith out there to let her in so she can assess the damage. She couldn't see any signs of animal sacrifices in the living room, though. So that's a good sign.

Whatever happened to doing innocent things while you skipped school? I wouldn't know...I heard about it from other kids, though. I think I may have done it once....but the fear of knowing what my Dad would do to me if I got caught...that was enough to keep my ass to class. Father knows best. (Hi Dad! I love you!) :0)

well thank goodness

some people commented on the last post! I was beginning to worry and wonder if anyone even reads this thing! HA!
The last post took about an hour and a half to create, so I was starting to think I was putting too much time into this. :0)
So, onward and upward!
Last night, the older girls partook of the loveliest night of our year...the preschool sleepover. Talk about heaven. We dropped them off with their sleeping pads, foam pads, pj's, and giggles and I watched as they squealed and jumped and beamed form ear to ear. I don't think I'd ever been hugged so hard by Mia and I don't think Lara has ever yelled louder than when she screamed "GOODBYE!!" to me last night. When I got back to the car, Colin and I turned around and just smiled at Noodle. It's not too often we get to spend time with just her, so we went downtown to a biergarten and had drinks and pan fries outside. She was soooo good. Laughing and pointing to everything and sharing her soggy pretzel with Daddy. Freakin adorable.
We did some shopping, too, and I got my mother's day gift a bit early. I can't show you it, because it's a Flash image...and they don't even have the dress online..just the skirt. But boy is it purdy!
my mother's day gift
It fits me perfectly! And I think I'm gonna wear it to Dave's graduation! sooo Excited for that, too! :)

We have game night tonight at our friend Anne's house. She's addicted to "The Island" and she's finally going to get us addicted, too! It's going to be lots of fun! :)

And then tomorrow we have to run all over town adn buy all the stuff we're taking back to the States for other people. Lots of gifts and little things and chocolates and toys and you-name-it-we're-bringing-it!

So I have to run and take care of a coupla million things before Noodle gets home from daycare. Caio, all! :)

yippee skippy!

So freakin excited right now! I've been given the green light to buy my dream laptop! I've been saving for almost a year and a half and now I have PA-lenty! I can go all-out bonkers if I want to! :0)

Now for the fun part...searching for the perfect one...it's like buying a new car! EEEEEEK!!! I am soooo excited!! I'm gonna go with a 17 inch (oooooh, that's mighty big....) monitor and at least 2 gigs of ram...after that, the sky's pretty much the limit. AND I think the biggest decision will be if I wanna switch to a MAC or not...but I have to hurry up and decide! Any suggestions? This is going to be my main computer...for work (Photoshop, Songbird Avenue, Oscraps, and "market research") All those other digi designers know that "market research" was coined a couple of days ago to replace "shamefully chatting in forums and buying crap we don't need". :0)

So even though I am excited about that, I'm even more excited about a new (again) kit that will be available today at Oscraps! I've decided to re-release Comic Junkie first...and then some more of my 'vintage' stuff will be released slowly but surely. :0) If you even know about my older kits, you can thank all the loverlies who hounded me persistently to re-release them. They're good, people! ;0)

So hopefully this will be available in a few minutes...we've got a new way of uploading freebies at Oscraps that makes it SUPER easy for you! You download directly from the preview..no checkout or anything, if I'm correct. :0) One more reason to love that place!

Also, I have to flaunt my one of my dearest scrap friends..Liz Lee. If you don't know about her, it's a cryin' shame, y'all! She has the most beautiful and sophisticated papers and elements!

Isn't it gorgeous?!?! I've totally begged her for a CT spot! Seriously, I have to eat through a straw cuz I broke my jaw when it hit the floor. You can buy the kit HERE.

AAAAAND...we've raised over $2000 in donations over on the Ave. People...you freakin rock. Everyday I pinch myself and wonder just how in the heck our community rocks like it does. YOU ROCK! So as a little way of saying thank you, there's a fun little thingamajig happening over on the Songbird blog...ya just might wanna check it out!

Ciao! :0)

a self-posting blog

That's what I need! :)
Man, I just hate getting behind with this thing! I feel like someone has pulled the stopper on me and I'm just drained. I'm so tired, y'all. But I'll spare you my incessant whining.
Ok, I have ton of photos to post, so let's just get started!

Actually, I am very proud of myself. I didn't purchase a single thing when we visited Swarovski Crystal Worlds. Isn't that first picture amazing? Austria is so beautiful. And the neatest thing about Austria is they are very thorough. They even have potty instructions. :0)

Who knew they used those fancy new-fangled forward facing potties....We need one of those! I'm so tired of looking at the wall when I pee. And since Norah broke the lid off, it's been terribly uncomfortable.

I keed! I keed! :)
Speaking of Noodle, she's got quite the hair. And quite a list of nick names. We're always amazed when we come up with a new one. The other will stop and turn and congratulate the former when a new combination has been formed. It's quite a talent we have, this naming thing.

Ok, so back to our trip...the weather was SO FREAKIN CRAPPY. We went there specifically to enjoy the mountains, sunshine, and fresh air. What we got was rain, rain, and rain. With a side of rain.
Can I have a poop sandwich with my rain?
No, sorry, ma'am. All we have is rain.
Mmmm. That sounds yummy. I'll have that.
BUT we made the best of it and we had a good time despite the weather! :)

And this is one of my favorite shots from Michelstadt...

You simply cannot garner the sheer joy just from this photo...Lara was pretending she was driving 'the boat' and she was the Driver Captain. Mia then exclaimed that she was the Poop Captain. Go figure :0)

We got to hang out with our friend John...and of course we took no photos of him. I have no idea why...we're idiots. :( He's so cool, though, and it was so nice being able to catch up on him and his family. :0)
On the way home, we stopped at 2 places.
First, Ehrlenberg Castle. We'd never heard of it, but saw a sign on the road and pulled a U-ey and dropped in. SO glad we did. It's the most interactive castle we've ever been to. You can try on armor, listen to audio clips, watch re-enactment videos, AND...the coolest part was that every single bit was also in English. We got to take in everything. The displays, exhibits, history, just amazing! SO, anyway, here are some pics:

Norah's diapers are so bad, we had to buy a suit of armor just to get near her. We don't use the sword to change her, though. Don't be ridiculous, now! And no, this is not Genghis Khan. This is me. Don't let the nut cup fool you.

Just don't ask, people. I wasn't even drinking...

After the castle, we stopped near the Alpsee and Lara and I rode the Alpsee Coaster.
SO.MUCH.FUN.

You have to take a ski lift to get up there (a good 10 minute ride) and it's one hairpin turn after another coming down. You control the brake and the acceleration and it was freakin awesome.

We weren't actually smiling...our teeth were chattering and our lips were starting to recede from the cold. It happens. And it's not pretty.
And this was the weather driving home.

Funny thing is, it was sunny when we got back to Darmstadt.

So that was out weekend in a 20 pound nutshell. We had a good time and, like I said, we made the best of it. I still like to bitch, though. Go figure. :0)

insane-o

Things just never seem to settle down anymore! :)

Even though I took a long weekend (completely internet free) with my family, the amount of things waiting for me when I got back is enormous!  But since it's all fabulous, happy stuff I probably shouldn't complain, right?

Over on the Ave.,  the sales keep climbing and I cannot believe we still have 3 more weeks. How did we get to be so blessed?

I am planning on re-releasing at least 1 of my older kits this Friday...I've been inundated with requests for it so I think it's only fair. Although, I need to revamp it. Nobody wants to download a freebie and giddily unzip it only to find a poop sandwich.  So I need to get to work on that, answer a bajillion lovely emails (no, really, they're all lovely!), and get ready for all the family stuff. Yikes! :)

Oh! And Mer made this awesome blinkie! Since we're past the debut date, she made a new one for everyone to snag and help support the site..

So if you'd like to sport it, we'd be tickled pink! :)

I guess that's it for today...I need to get going, gotta take the kids to Kindermusik, ballet, and then cook dinner. Ciao! :)