Play date!!

When you're giving a friend LATE birthday gifts, the least you can do is bring donuts, right?

And cupcakes (it was a celebration, after all)

So, when I said "Kelly, I'm getting you the BEST birthday present! You're going to LOVE IT!" She said "Is it a toilet paper holder? I need one of those." So, I went to Target and got her a toilet paper holder that sticks on the wall. 

And while I was there I saw this really fun notebook and special pen and got one for each of us (I need a partner in my silly antics) and today we played with them!

But HERE is the fun present!! I don't know why, but I was SO AMUSED with the idea of getting her this giant jar of our favorite color of paint: quinacridone magenta. She found it amusing, too - I knew she would!

Then we did a little shopping...

Cheap Thoughts...

This is such an internal debate for me - do I want to have more than one journal that I work in? Every month I have the cartoon journal, the CTJ, and my regular journal. Here are cheap thoughts from the beginning of September...leaving MN and arriving in New Jersey...

...the next day at Aunt Sharon & Uncle Ray's house...

...the next day when we went to a salon to get eyelash extensions...

These things are worth documenting, to me. I take pictures every single day with my phone. I take plenty with my camera, too, but WAY MORE with my phone because it's always there. When my BFF Suzi talks about journaling everyday, she'll sometimes post prompts for us to follow along - I don't have the same kind of thoughts as her. I don't debate where I am in my life or where I want to be. I am where I am. I have thoughts, of course, but they are very seldom heavy thoughts. Today I ate a Zinger for breakfast, fed Liam graham crackers, took a shower, we walked to ITT Tech, I got accepted, we walked home, had lunch, and I've been playing in my journal and scrapbooking and taking care of things at Suzi Skool while he does puzzles and makes things with blocks. My thoughts are scrambled, I have no alone time to THINK heavy thoughts. So do I just get over it and learn to utilize my "regular" journal for cheap thoughts, too? Or "save" it for painting and drawing? I need someone to hold my hand and show me the way...

Labor Day Weekend

Every Labor Day weekend, I go to New York to see my family. They're the best, craziest, most amazing people. I love that there's not a single member of my family that's unlovable. You know what I mean? Some people hate their Aunt Harriet or Uncle Steven was a molester or Grandma and Grandpa's house smells like fish. Not a single one of us has ever been arrested, we don't do drugs, we're honest, taxing-paying Americans and we're FUN to hang out with. Here are the highlights:

Our first night, sleeping at my cousin Mer's in Sparta, NJ.

Liam & Joshua - they're second cousins who share a birthday, but Joshua is a year older.

My shmousin getting eyelash extensions:

Liam and Drew: second cousins

Me & my shmousin (Jeanine) at the house where we both lived with her parents:

My shmousins Jeanine and Coli (Nicole) doing karaoke at the party on Sunday:

We are the kind of people who disturb the neighbors but there are a couple of things you can do to NOT have the police called on you: First, have family members on the force (four uncles and three cousins). Second, INVITE THE NEIGHBORS TO THE PARTY. Then who's going to complain?? I'm sure you'll get sick of my pictures because I'm going to start scrapbooking them. I want to make an album for my aunt and uncle.

School Rules

This kit is School Rules by Kat's Creations and I got to pick the color palette! I mean, she asked for ideas and I put together a palette and she used it!! How fun is that?!?

They're also both templates from her Scrapping Made East, Volume 2.

First dark journal pages

I drew this in my new dark journal while talking to a friend who's in a dark place. I think she's feeling better at the moment, coming out of it a little, but it was pretty bad this day.

I wrote about it, about her and me and being friends with someone else to struggles. In some ways it's AWESOME to have someone who understands, who goes through these things, too, who really knows what it's like. On the other - I absolutely hate that my friend has to go through the same things because I know what it feels like for me and can imagine it feels horrible for her, too.

So we spent a few hours "together" on skype, drawing and talking about it and it made us both feel a little bit better. Enough to take a shower and function, and sometimes that's all you can ask for.

Digi 101

This is the COOLEST kit. It's September's Collaboration at Ahhh Scrap and it's called "Digi 101" and instead of just papers and embellishments, it's also got templates and tutorials. The theme is based on the idea of just starting to digiscrap - so along with the kit you get some instructions and a couple of templates to get you started! I think it's brill. (That's British slang for "brilliant" - see, you learned something already!!)

This is Liam making dandelion wishes. We love dandelions and do our best to spread their loveliness. Weeds are just unloved flowers, after all, and since we love them, they're not weeds.

 This one is made with one of the templates and is the first in a series I'm going to make. Kelly and I are coming up on our anniversary of meeting and becoming friends, and I have a million pictures of us being crazy idiots and making huge messes and torturing our children as they torture us. So I'm going to make a little album and this it page one.

I love that these two pages came from the same kit but have completely different looks. One very "in your face" and one a little more elegant - if not for the pictures of eyeballs and ponytails...

New tiny journal

I'm not usually a fan of working too small or too large. My ideal journal size is 7 by 10. This one is 4 by 5 and it's hopefully going to be for journaling during the dark times. The Indigo times. The times where I just wanna lay on the couch and watch Bones for three days and you can't stop me or make me brush my teeth.

One of the keys to getting out of these times is action. Take a shower. Call a friend. Leave the house. But you'd be amazed my how much better you can feel just by picking up the pencil and drawing something. Or grabbing a pen and jotting crap down in your CTJ. (What? You don't have a CTJ? Get your ass to Wal-Mart, composition notebooks are on sale for 40 cents!) 

It's not easy to draw pretty things when your thoughts and emotions aren't pretty. And you know what? I don't have to. I don't have to pretend in any of my journals, ever. BUT. This one is going to be specifically for the times I don't feel like making art. Journaling. Whatever. When my arms are too heavy to move and my thoughts are too heavy in my head.