Tom is retired!

It is officially official!  Tom is retired as of today...38.5 yrs at UTA.  He has taken the last few weeks off as vacation time so it seems like he was retired anyway. The first day he was off, I told him he missed the train.  Then I told him he was late for work.  He just laughed at me!   

With being retired, I told Tom that he put me into the OLD category now and I'm not even 60 yet!  I know my body is getting older, but my spirit is still young.   Too young to be retired!  We have been trying to work out all the finances these past weeks - We basically lose all insurances that he carried.  He can go on Cobra, but I can't.  He loses his life insurance too.  Hopefully we can get all this figured out.  

I'm going to try (notice I said try- not will!) to post a couple of times a week. Hopefully this will help us to remember what is going on now in our lives at this new & exciting time.

Testing, Testing!

Testing, Testing!  I think this blog has a lot of dust in it.  What do you think?

Family Christmas Party

 HI! 
Just wanted to let everyone know that we are having the Barker Christmas Party on December 20th at 5:00pm.  What a great honor for Mom to have it on her birthday!  It will be at my church just up the street.  Please let your family know to mark it down on their calendars.  If there's something you want to bring, let me know and I'll put you down.

Heritage Scrap Creative Team

Wow!  I wrote this in September and didn't post it.  Talk about half-heimers!  I think it's getting close to
3/4 heimers by now.  =0)
 
I was chosen to be on Heritage Scrap's CT (Creative Team). There are so many talented people out there, so I feel really honored to be chosen. I have a link on the side bar to it. Please check it out and see my gallery. Search on the name diney and you will see my creations. They require that I do at least 6 layouts a month, so I hope I can do it! I still feel like a beginner (maybe "advanced" beginner") since I still have so much to learn. If I get the hang of Photobucket and Blogger, I'll try to put them here for friends and family to see.

I didn't keep up with the 365 project like I'd hoped to. When your a homebody like I am anymore, there's only so many pictures you can take! I keep my camera in my purse, but still forget to take pics that I want. One of these days...

I don't usually watch TV unless Tom is home, but am excited that our old standby TV programs are on the air this week. Will TVO them and watch on Tom's day off. Don't we just live the life!!

New giveaway at DS101! A Bamboo Craft!

Kayla Lamoreaux of DS101 is such a sweetheart! She is giving away a Bamboo Craft.

Scrapbookers, can you believe it? It would be amazing to be able to win! I've seen such amazing things created with a Bamboo tablet! Since I'm not a designer, it would be fun just to be able to use my own handwriting in my lay-outs. I put together a cookbook for my mother after she passed away. I didn't type it in, I copied every single recipe that she had handwritten. When I use the cookbook, it is almost like her helping me with the recipe herself! So...It would be great to have that same feeling when others look at my layouts.

So what is a Bamboo Craft?
- a tablet developed by Wacom exclusively for digital scrapbookers and the most exciting part is that the Bamboo Craft comes with over $500 in extra goodies inside the box:
* A 26-session training DVD from Jane Conner-ziser and Software Cinema showing you how to use the pen with the software included in the box
* A 28-page instructional book called Scrappin' With A Tablet by Amanda Dykan to help you jump right into digital scrapbooking and art projects
* A fun Digi-Scappin' CD of complimentary embellishments
* Adobe® Photoshop® Elements (6.0 WIN/5.0 MAC), the perfect application for editing photos
* Corel® Painter™ Essentials 4.0 for designing you own artwork and embellishments
* Nik® Color Efex Pro™ for adding unique photo effects to your digital photos
* Free 1-year Subscription to Scrapbooking & Beyond Magazine
* Free 8" x 8" hard-cover, professionally-bound Photo Book from Shutterfly
* Free online store so that you can sell your artwork or creations with Café Press and $15 off you first purchase of $50 or more

Here is the Bamboo Craft website - http://www.wacom.com/bamboocraft/index.php. Go check it out for yourself!

Keep your fingers and toes crossed for me in hopes that I might be the big winner!

Jenni, Happy Birthday!!

Where did the time go?

It's been almost 3 months since this blog was started. There has been so much to say... as can be seen here! I told TJ that he had to share this blog with me and he needed to take a turn also. He looked at me like I had 4 heads or something! LOL! Do I have 4 heads? Instead he created his own! Now what do I do?

I have started a project for scrapbooking which is called Project 365 and purchased Becky Higgins kit from Creating Keepsakes to help me out. The goal of this project is to remember the daily things you do and see, not just your special occasions. The kit helps to put a little journaling with every picture that is taken. It leaves time to scrapbook other important things instead of feeling bogged down with being behind...and I am sooo behind! With learning digital scrapbooking, I'm still slow, but maybe I can become faster and make better layouts than before.

Hopefully taking a picture everyday will help me become a better photographer also. Not very good at that either! A lot of people have been putting their daily pictures on their blog. If I can figure things out, I may still try to do this to help document everything. Sometimes I feel like the saying "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is really true...there is so much to learn lately with technology and the internet...Facebook (don't forget Classmates and Reunion.com that charge each month), de.li.cious, vi.sualize, blogging, forums, chat rooms, and who knows what else is out there! So overwhelming at times! Need more time in a day!

Blogs who needs 'em anyway?

Why does anyone want to start a blog? Your guess is as good as ours!
What do you say in a blog? Haven't got a clue either!

I thought I might list a few of the pros and cons of blogging to see if blogging is all that it is cracked up to be!!

I basically started a blog because everyone else was doing it! No, no, not really! LOL! I have been learning to scrap on the computer. Hey - check out my blinkie (I know, it doesn't blink) just to the right down there about learning to digiscrap. Come join me and learn for free! Did I say it's free?!!

As I have looked at different sites for layout inspiration, I've gone to many blogs and found a wealth of info on them. I have learned new ways to spell things and some I really didn't want to know about either! hehe!!. The trouble with reading blogs is that you really get addicted ..... you keep reading, and reading, and reading then go to a link on their site to another blog and keep reading, and reading, and reading, then follow a link from their site to another....... you get the picture, a few hours later, I'm not for sure where I started and why I was even there in the first place!! And to top it off, I haven't even found what I was looking for! (have found a lot of other good schtuff tho').

Blogs don't help out with housework at all, I found out that dishes still sit, laundry is still dirty, and hubby comes home to no wonderful aromas wafting from the kitchen with dinner!! My dh says I'm obsessed! Guess I'll just have to wean myself away from their blogs by blogging myself instead!! See I knew there must be a good reason to blog! But if I start blogging, when am I going to find the time to scrap?



A blog is a good way to let everyone know what you look like, AND everyone always posts such cute pics of themselves on their blogs. Well I looked & looked for one and this was the best I could come up with. What do you think? (At least I wasn't sticking out my tongue like others that I won't mention, dh!!)


Blogs need html code to make them work. What? Whoever came up with that?!?! Why doesn't it just say what it should like "this goes here, dummy!"?... after all, I have a high school diploma! Then there's something like Hypolink, sounds too much like getting a shot to me!! so painful! (oh maybe that was hyperlink) guess it subliminal messages from Tom's phlebotomy stuff.... sorry!!

Well let's see now, PRO or CON? Guess that's what I'll need to find out.

Hey! I think I'll just let my dh do the next blog. He know a lot of jokes - hopefully clean enough to let the world hear! And besides, his day is usually a little more interesting than mine especially when you deal with the public. hehehehe