Inspiration Alley

Texas Again

I'm back in Texas. I'll be here for the week.

Almost missed my flight this afternoon (seems like I do that often), but it wasn't my fault.  When I checked in for my 4:20 PM flight they said it was delayed until 7PM, so I was hanging out downstairs near the outside so I could smoke.  Then all of a sudden I noticed that the board now said ON TIME -- yikes.

I rushed through the security checkpoint, was stopped and had my purse searched.  I have a change purse and coins bother the xray people.  I wasn't on my game because I usually take the pouch out so it's separate.  Anyway, I made it to the gate at just about 4:10 and we were just loading.  I wonder how many other people almost missed or missed the flight.

I'm glad it was ontime.

I'm staying at a Holiday Inn which is right in front of the Hilton (who I am boycotting since my experience at the Bonita Hampton).  I walking distance from 2 local restaurants and a Cracker Barrel.  I brought my laptop and some basic scrap supplies, so I have enough to keep me occupied - I also have a book (of course).  I just finished Twilight and now am reading the next one in the series.

Blogs on Martha Stewart

Martha did a whole show on blogs and blogging yesterday.  She showcased several sites. Some to do with food, some with gardening, and even some with politics.  Overall she did a great job presenting a variety and showing all the different types of blogs out there.

She even showcased 3191 a day of mornings (link at the right) which has now released a book with their pictures and the blog is doing a day of evenings.  It's two women 3191 miles away that each post a picture for the day.  I've been viewing their pics almost from the beginning.

I find it interesting how blogs have evolved and how plain old "regular" people (not celebrity) can have a following.

It's all Good ...

Today is/was my birthday officially but I've actually been celebrating since Saturday.  I firmly believe in stretching it out as long as possible.

Saturday I had dinner at my MILs, and she made my favorite meal - Chicken Kiev - homemade, not the frozen variety, plus of course birthday cake.

Sunday I had dinner with one of my sisters.

Monday was dinner with a friend of ours who was in town (he moved to Georgia late last year).  He was the guy who set me up on the blind date with my husband, and was the best man at our wedding.

Today I went to lunch with a good friend at work - we went to McD's for 59 cent cheeseburgers.  Tonight I had dinner with hubby at a restaurant on the beach - it's called Arubas and is right at the end of Commercial Blvd, and you can walk out to the water.

Aside from celebrations and eating I've received calls, cards, and posts with well wishes.  I think I was sung Happy Birthday by no less than 5 people including my mother who asked if her singing sounded like Marliyn Monroe singing HB.  My old boss from Aero Systems called to wish me HB as well.  (His birthday is the day before mine so he always remembers to call.). 

Aside from people I know getting in touch, there are what I call fringe people who sent cards or called. My profile on Facebook wished me HB, a consumer opinion company sent an email, my dentist and insurance agent sent cards, and the Chevy dealer where I bought my car 15 months ago left a message on my phone.

It's been a great day and it's great to have a feel good week.  I know next week won't be as much fun as I'm heading back to Texas for work.

Crop Report

no not farm crops.

The KnK / Scrapbooks Etc crop is great.  Today we did a chipboard and acrylic album.  We used an assortment of rubons, glimmer mist, crackle paint, learned a few techniques for using the grungeboard, and worked with cosmo cricket paper line.  I was hell-bent to finish the project (which I did) because I know if I didn't, it would never get done.  Came out just lovely.  I enjoyed playing with the glimmer mist. I would upload a picture but the connection speed overhere is incredibly slow so I'll update the pictures during the week.

Besides the project ... here were some other tips and techniques I've learned while a the crop.

1.  when you have a new stamp, first ink with your versamark stamp.  It will leave a small amount of residue.  When you use colored inks it will not stain the stamps.

2.  When you're stamp pads seem dry, use the back of a spoon and rock it on the pad, and it brings the ink up to the top of the pad. (This isn't for dry pads where you need a reinker, but pads that just seem dry from usage).

Tomorrow we have 2 more projects - an acrylic card and a layout.  I can't wait to do the card.  My local stamp store is having a class later in the month and wouldn't sell the cards before the class, but I was able to buy the acrylic cards bases from Scrapbooks Etc.

There were some more tips, but I can't think of them right now ... I should have written them down.

Drama In Bonita Springs

Finally made it to the crop and had an enjoyable evening catching up with everyone.  I'm rooming with Jackie at the Hampton, it's Michele's birthday today, and lots of KnK and Hilltop friends are here with me.

Now here's the drama part ...

We get back to our room at 12:30 AM (the crop for the day ended at midnight).  We step off the elevator on the 3rd floor and smell a natural gas smell.  Strong.  Stronger than strong.  In the room it doesn't smell, but the hallway is terrible.  I tried to call the front desk, but there is no answer.  Finally I get through.  He says he'll come check it out. We're in a smoking room and I tell Jackie no smoking.  We go downstairs because I'm not going to bed until I'm sure the guy checks it out.  Finally he comes down and says he checked the valves and they're turned off and he's working through his "procedure". 

Enter Dee, Ginni, and Michele who I make go up to the third floor and do a sniff test and sure enough they smell it too.  Still very strong.  We all go to the lobby area and the front desk guy says he called the manager and that the manager said not to worry it's the venting and that maintenance can check it in the morning.  This does not sit well with me.  Concern 1 - dying in my sleep from carbon monoxide poisoning.  Concern 2 - someone in the smoking rooms lighting a match and the place goes boom.  He offers to move us to the first floor (which is a start), but is not going to go further to resolve the problem because his manager has made the decision that all is well.

Quick conference with Dee, Ginni, Michele and Jackie and we decide that we would feel terrible if the 25-30 friends staying with us at the hotel all died or if the place went up in flames so we insist on calling the fire department.  Well it seems there are all sorts of fire department numbers to call but could not find a non-emergency number for the fire department.  End up calling 911 anyway in order to talk to someone.

Must of been a slow night in Bonita Springs because not 1 but 3 trucks respond. The check the floor out - tell us we were right to call because it is better to be safe.  They open the vent area and air it out.  They were here for about 45 minutes and then left through the other door so we didn't get to find out the full scoop.  But the front desk guy told us that they turned off the hot water heater so in the morning we might run out of hot water at the hotel.  So if any of y'all staying at the hotel with us run out of hot water just think that it was that or possibly your life.

We didn't feel like going up to the 3rd floor to investigate, but we feel sure that calling the fire dept was the right thing to do, since they spent close to an hour up there and ended up turning off the water heaters.  The downside is we are in a lesser room - no microwave and no fridge.  I guess we'll just have to deal with it.

It's late (or is it early) now, and I think I am finally getting tired. So I'll report in tomorrow from the crop.

Late Again

So every time I attend a crop - I end up with something that prevents me from getting there ontime. Last crop was the Fried Green Tomato Crop in Sebring where my cat wedged himeself next to the washing machine and I spent several hours extricating him. So I was several hours later than I expected.

Now today for the KnK Hoe Down -- yep ... Late again.

Today's drama was my laptop.  I was online at 7AM updating the blog, checking in for work in YoVille, playing some games on Facebook, and then I signed off.  At 8:30ish I went to sign on again to check on Ike's progress and low and behold I have a computer failure.  I could not get the thing to start with a message about a configsys failure.

So off to work I go with the restore disks and had the computer guy at work try to fix me.  He couldn't get it started by just repairing leaving my files intact, so he had to reinstall the operating system.  Then he had to load up all the programs.  Then I had to load the ATT aircard software, virus protection, and so on. To make a long story short ... I had wanted to leave work by 2:30/3 but since it's 4PM now, I probably won't get on the road until 5:30ish.

So I'll be late again.

Jackie already called to find out where I am.

The Cone

The weather stations call it a "Cone of Concern" but hubby and I refer to it as the "Cone of Doom" or with big storms "Cone of Death".  At this point, with every broadcast the strike point on Ike changes - it could come straight to So. Florida, it could go off to the North following Hanna, or it could drop below the keys near Cuba.  Regardless, practically the whole state of FL is in the Cone.

I'm prepared (as well as one can be).

Even with the "Cone of Doom" hanging over us, I'm heading to Naples/Bonita Springs today for a weekend crop. 

Hurricanes are one of the areas hubby and I differ on.  He gets into a state of not really panic, but grave concern where he can't sleep or eat, and I remain calm.  He plans to spend the weekend getting shutters in order and down, and I'm already prepared and am going to a crop.  I'll be watching it, but I figure if he needs some last minute stuffs I can get them in Naples since there won't be storm panic buying there.

BB10

Getting down to the wire now.  Can't say I have a favorite at this point.  It's been a wierd season = usually I have a clear favorite, but not this run.  I like Dan for his game play, and I've liked Keesha, and I like Jerry just because I never expected him to still be there.  I'm not even sure how the jury votes will play out since Keesha, Dan, and Memphis are not well liked by anyone in the jury.

Aside from Big Brother my TV viewing has been overshadowed by watching storm reports with the triple threat of Hanna, Ike and Josephine.  Hanna is moving north, but I've been following Ike since he is a major storm.  It's a wait and see for now.