random thoughts

Could you have foretold…?

/ LivE / 3 Comments

Your Holiday Stress Level Is Low


You take it easy over the holidays, and you only take on what you can handle.
You know the holidays are about celebrating and fun – not standing in line at the mall!

What’s Your Holiday Stress Level?

Not sure if I could’ve guessed this. Hmmm… no shopping done? Check. No wrapping done? Check. Designed Christmas freebies instead of going to the malls to get some items on the gift list ticked? Check. Busy making layouts instead of working on Christmas gift projects? Check. Accepting a writing assignment for People Asia magazine, due by the end of December, instead of planning the menu for Christmas Eve? Check.

Perhaps that’s what “you take it easy over the holidays” means? 😆

Maybe I should take this test again a week before Christmas. It just might change to its exact opposite.

😆

What’s your holiday stress level?

Layout Fever (and fevers of the other sort)…

/ LivE / 5 Comments

Okay, I put off designing for a little bit so that I could indulge in my other love: digital scrapping! (It’s been so long since my last three four layouts, with 3 done in the span of 2 hours… a big first-timer for me, as it usually takes me AGES to make one layout. hehe. But I can’t mention any of those 4 layouts because they have to do with a certain surprise that we’ve planned for a certain ultra-special someone and while that surprise hasn’t been sprung, my lips are sealed. :D… My friends from my regular playground know what I’m talking about, and I promise you, as soon as the surprise has been revealed, will let you know all about it as well! 😉 )

Daily December

This is a wonderful project that I have been wanting to sink my teeth into, so to speak, as soon as Jess gave it to us in our last NWR course. The idea is to do a layout each day in December (hence the “daily”) so that at the end of the month, you will have scrapped an entire album’s worth of this most special month in the year!

Funny that I get to do December 1 on December 11th (exactly 10 days after the day I should’ve done it)… but the daily photos somehow got stuck in my camera’s memory card with pure intentions to scrap them when the time was right. I decided I’d better start on them or the intentions might remain intentions by December 1st next year. hehe.

So here’s the first, and I hope there’ll be more to come:

dd07_dec1-web.jpg

CREDITS:
Daily December Everything by Jessica Sprague (with recoloring done) PLUS
Black Friday Kit papers of Amy Cheeseman & Kari Hentzelt
Katie Pertiet’s Ledger Grid Brush
Michelle Coleman’s XmasStar & Swirl Topper
Anna Aspnes’ Red Mat, Swirl
Retrodiva/TracyCollins-TistheSeason Ribbon (recolored)

Cameran was happy too! 

Last night I spent 6 hours at Sara Black’s studio for a photo shoot of my dear Jun de Leon and his wife Abby and their son Ijah. I was there to do the interview for an article that will appear in one of the major magazines next year (by special request of Jun that I write the article, a request that totally touched me and gave me the warmest fuzzies). Of course Cameran came with me, as she always does (Cameran is my best friend, otherwise known as my Nikon D40x ;P ), and since the lighting was right and the studio was there and the subjects were wonderful, of course I could not resist taking a few shots myself. It was quite trying, though, because I didn’t want to interfere or get into the way of the real photo shoot (after all, I was supposed to be there armed with my pen and notebook, not a lens, heehee), so that meant that I couldn’t use my bounce flash, or any flash at all. That was pretty much of a challenge, as this was like 9PM (try shooting at that time with available light… oh, and have I said that in my part of the world, midnight light comes at 6pm at this time of the year? I always hear America’s Ventura Highway playing in the back of my mind: “when the days are longer, the nights are stronger than moonshine…” except in reverse… 😆 )

Buuuut. I think I got a few great ones, which I hope to turn into some sort of Christmas gift layout for them, along with other shots I’ve taken at other times. Hold on tight… when I’ve completed that (if I ever do), I’ll be sure to let you know! Now why would you be interested in that? Because, my sweeties, if I end up making a calendar-gift, I’ll share the template with you if you want it! 😀

Here’s one of my favorite subjects, Ijah (so blessed with good looks and such a natural in front of any lens!)

Night Games

Fevers of the other sort

I knew it would just be a matter of time till I caught that nasty virus that seems to come with cold weather. My son J first had it; then my baby j got it as well… and so as of today, I have it too. Funny that I was just posting on Jessica’s blog, wishing her comfort and health because she has the illies, and now here it’s come to my home as well. Oh well. What’s cold weather without the sniffles, right? (just totally annoying though to be sneezing every 5 minutes or so, hahaha).

People making lists, buying special gifts…

Now that one is half me, half not me. This season, I think I’m going to be buying less and making more. 😀 Last Christmas, before Jess and her courses pulled me over to the Dark Side (and introduced me to the dearest, most lovable friends and playground-sisters I have ever had), my homemade Christmas gifts were social cards that I designed and printed and created gift packaging for. This year, I’m pretty excited to move beyond just cards (hehehe) and expand my horizons to include a crafted recipe box (per my eldest sister’s request) and framed layouts and maybe even calendars! (Time will reveal if these will ever come to fruition or not. But, in the wise words of Belva Davis: Never fear the space between your dreams and reality. If you can dream it, you can make it so.

Let us so dream that I can make it.

😆

And part of making that so means I need to get off this porch swing and back to the salt mines! 😀

Have a happy day, my sweeties!

And if you drop by tomorrow, maybe I’ll be so happy that I just might have some freebs ready! 😉

ThiSThING for STING…

/ LivE / 2 Comments

I was so amused that my dearest friend Deb asked who that dude was with Pavarotti in the video, so here he is again, Deb: (His name is Sting and in the rebellious, idealistic days of my youth, I loved that there was this rocker who could sing songs of substance and with deep messages… their kind don’t come around often, so when they do, I fall in love 😆 Isn’t talent just soooo attractive?)

For you, Deb, and for everyone else who has a thing for Sting 🙂 :

And here’s the classic Sting song:

Ahh… relief. Finally.

/ LivE / 1 Comment

Thank you so much, darling Deb, szilvia, and Tina for your oh-so-reassuring comments (And thank you so much, Tina, for testing this phenomenon out on your own 4shared site). And thank you veevs.

Finally got a response today from 4shared…

Finally 4shared

So the whole reason for that strange orange sign was because I have passwords protecting my file. Phew! (Amazingly, this is what my three darling friends figured out before I received my email). Thank you, 4shared, for your response. And thank heavens that I can now resume my freebie uploading without a worry about strange messages cropping up. Thought you’d like to know why that sign is there.

I asked support how I could solve this problem (i.e., get rid of that message) while still being able to protect my files with passwords. The solution is to password-protect the whole folder. I’ll figure out how that works and let’s see how it goes from there. If it’s just too difficult, I may forget passwords altogether (what? and lose the creative thrill of thinking up passwords? 😆 )

Working on Set 3 of Winter Shimmer as we speak… and going back now to the salt mines.

All is right with heaven and earth… and my 4shared site! Woohoo! 😉

UPDATE on Flabbergasting Sabotaging Schmuckarookierafadoodle

/ LivE / 1 Comment

Yeah, I know, those words half don’t make sense. Like what’s happening at 4shared totally doesn’t make sense.

I was just chatting with my wonderful friend veevs and she checked other 4shared sites, and ALL of them have this notice.

Will keep you updated as we sort this out, darlings. Thank you so much for your patience.

Oh and the best cyber-sleuth? That would be my friend veevs.

What the…???

/ LivE / Leave a comment

My friend J just alerted me to something on my 4shared site where Set 2 of Winter Shimmer is… a note that says “Protected archive-failed to virus-check-2007-12-05” which TRUST ME was NOT there earlier when i checked my site (and there were already 16 downloads by then). I have an amazingly strong anti-virus software installed in my compy and I always check everything I download and upload … ALWAYS.

Here’s the most baffling thing: if you check on the 4shared site DATE UPLOADED, it says “2007-12-06”.

So how can you state “Failed to virus-check” if you’re doing this to a file that has not YET been uploaded as of the time you failed your virus-check? Think about it: Failed to virus-check – date? Dec. 05″ Compare it to date uploaded “Dec.06” ????? Can you explain that to me, Kaspersky people? I mean, if you have a way of virus-checking files that have not YET been uploaded, well then, that’s totally amazing! What’s that called–cyber-ESP?

I’m sorry for the rant, my dears. I’m not normally like this… but I’m totally aghast at this development!

I’m presently trying to download my own file and will check it out. If it seems like it’s been sabotaged (my friend J tells me that nothing comes out of the file), then I’m taking that down, changing the password, and uploading a new file.

Oh, and for the sake of your own peace of mind, I never, ever, ever, ever upload a file without running it through a virus-check, EVEN IF I know my compy is virus-free. I am deathly afraid of those buggers, ask my dearest and closest friends. I love playing around with my compy too much to not make sure it’s got itself protected in a plastic-bubble from those atrocious things. And then there’s that OC-AR tendency in me to double-and-triple check, even if the virus-scan software runs every so often within the same hour, 24/7. Just want you to know, you have nothing to worry about. 

And that is why I rant at things like this. I mean, really, what is supposed to be accomplished by something like this? I just want to share my designs (insert crying emoticon here).

Okay… now on to checking this bummer. Will be back to let you know what happens.

Have you ever…

/ LivE / 5 Comments

woken up–say, in the dead of night, or even maybe a couple of hours before the sun himself rises–to this scene?

Come on, this MUST have been your bedside scene at ONE point in your life? :P

Well. In case you have woken up to this scene, rejoice, my friend. (And if you haven’t yet and are on your way to this a few months from now, brace yourself).

Because this is how it is at my bedside pretty often, say about…hmmm… every night?

😆     😆

But I wouldn’t trade this for anything in the world.

That’s right. But you know what? I would never trade this scene for any other in the entire world, not even if you promised me soft rays of sunshine gently creeping into the room to rest on a bed covered by a warm comforter and your most loved one beside you breathing softly.

Because, you know what? Nothing is softer than 5 hugs from 5 wonderful sons. Plus a happy husband.

😉

For the Love of…

/ LivE / 2 Comments

crafts?

So my son J loves scissors. He loves paste. He loves pens and papers.

I love that he loves these things, because when his older brothers were his age, they weren’t as deft and adept with scissors. (Just an aside: isn’t it funny how those two words–deft and adept– mean nearly the same thing, and how the F can easily sound like a P with a slip of the tongue? 😆 I know, I know, I think of the weirdest things).

So my 5 year old son J can busy himself with drawing anything that his imagination can conjure. And then he cuts up these drawings. And then he pastes them on a new piece of paper. Or he takes the box packaging of whatever toy he has, cuts up the little pieces and little photos (you know, the ones that the smart toy manufacturers show at the back of the boxes so that the kids can go to their parents and say “Next time, Mom, can we get this? And this? And this too?”) . And then he sticks those cut-outs onto a piece of paper and then calls out “Anyone who wants a surprise, raise your hand and say Yea! Anyone who doesn’t want, say Nay!”

Naturally, without missing a beat (and often with just a brief glance up from our monitors) his pop and I will raise our hands and say Yea! What can we say? We’re trainable.

😆

So yes, I know my son is good with scissors.

But nothing prepared me for this:

 The Gang

Here, have a closer look:

Won’t you have a seat? :P

Okay, so they’re roughly cut and they’ve got these little charming crayola scribbles instead of a solid paint of color. But! But! But! He’s making his own toys! He’s making his own furniture for them! He’s making stuff!!! (And that means it’s possible, just possible, that if I give him some clay, he may make things, with the side benefit of us taking less trips to the toy store! Woohoo!)

Of course, the reason I am so amused and amazed that he’s into creating is because… ahem… his mom loves creating too. And there’s nothing store-bought that can ever come close to the value of a little hand-created homemade gift… scraggly cuts, scribbles and all. 😉

Mmmmmm! 🙂 🙂 🙂

Tonight’s the night!

/ LivE / 11 Comments

It’s gonna be alright… Ain’t nobody gonna stop us now… Come on, everybody, sing along that Rod Stewart song along with me!!!

😆 How’s that for a flashback to the 70s huh? 😆

We’re finally launching the Big Project tonight. Here’s what the invite looks like:

Our Father ~ The Book Launch

Will post more stuff about it tomorrow. Just have to get through the launch tonight (and get through my closet as well: I have no idea what I’m going to wear, as I don’t own any dresses. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll go in my usual jeans. hehe) Can you tell I’m just a teeny weeny bit stressed about this? (I hate publicity; I like hiding in the background; I’m shy. Seriously! 😆  ).

Here’s part of the layout I made about this project (made the bigger layout as part of our Now We’re Rockin’ course lesson):

Journey of a Dream, Partial Layout Item

{ Credits: Circle Template by Jessica Sprague }

Okay, enough about that and on to our much-delayed freebie!

Lullaby and Goodnight…

The reason I call this much-delayed is because it took me approximately 6 hours to upload this to my 4shared site, a lot of fiddling around, a lot of waiting, a lot of harumphing, deleting, re-zipping, re-testing, some more harumphing, until I was able to get this uploaded. 😆 Turns out it was some kink in my zipped file, I think. It did okay with the extraction and password when I tested it, but for some reason it would take forever to upload!

So, phew!, at least it’s working now and I have the link for it! Yippee! You have no idea of how much I’ve been itching to get this to you (so I hope you like it, or … that would’ve been five hours gone to waste. hahahaha!!!)

Here’s what Christmas Lullaby looks like (This is Set 1):

{ Click on image for larger view }

LivEdesigns Christmas Lullaby Set1 Preview

I call it Christmas Lullaby because the colors are softer and more muted, sort of reminds me of a peaceful, quiet Christmas. There are 3 highly textured papers in this set, along with 5 different textured brads. (Loads of Thank You’s for the materials I used are listed in my TOU credits!) There’s more coming… I’m very excited to post the next set for tomorrow (alpha tags! woohoo! with enough space for a bit of journaling on them! ), so don’t forget to pass by for that one as well! 😉

Download Set 1 of Christmas Lullaby. Zip password is quietpeace

ETA: Sorry, download link is no longer available.

Oh… and one more thing… since I’m really getting into the Christmas spirit, I think I’m going to come up with two more separate Christmas kits. Keep passing by for those too!

Well. I spent the whole day trying to upload this and now I have to ~groan~ start getting ready for the Big Project’s Big Event. Anyone want to go in my place and pretend they’re me? You’re most welcome!!! 😆

Have a great day, my sweeties, and thank you for the love you leave in my blog as you download! Hope you like this!

This one looks like it’s going to last…

/ LivE / 3 Comments

for some time, if not forever.

My boys (3 and 5 years old) have been singing this every single day, about 10 times a day at least.

It’s such a sad song, but they totally love it, and I don’t see anything wrong with it, actually. Except that it kind of nudges my heart in a way unknown to my kids, because I could’ve been singing this myself when I lost my mom at the age of eight.

My 5-year-old once said to me, after another round of this song: Mom, I am sooooo happy that you’re alive.

Yeah. Me too.

Because my kids don’t know this, but the one thing I have always asked from God, as far back as I can remember, is that when I have kids of my own,  He blesses me with enough time on earth to be there for them till they don’t need me anymore.

I have always told my husband that, at the end of the day, I don’t dream of castles in the sky. I could be sitting on the ladder of our nipa hut and planting vegetables in the garden all day, as long as we sit together holding hands and watching the sunset, still in love with each other, still loving and being loved by our sons, and loving God above all, then that would’ve been a full life for me.

Ah. Being a wife to my hubby. Being a mother to my five sons. I think in the whole wide world, these are the greatest blessings I have ever received.

What are the greatest blessings you have received? What is your definition of a full life?

I will join you in thanking Him for all that He has given you, me, us, everyone.

Have a great day! 😉