Down in the dumps

How are you today? I hope you are doing well!
I apologize for not posting, but I've been in a really bad funk lately, and have misplaced my creative mojo somewhere. I've been doing some other stuff trying to get out of my funk, but that hasn't been helping either. Tried doing some jewelry, but that mojo seems to have disappeared, too. Not sure if it's the change of seasons or the holiday's coming up or I'm just temporarily burned out on being creative, but this lack of creativity totally sucks! Especially since this is the season where creativity is important to me to create something for my family during the holiday. I'm not in the fun place to decorate the fire place mantle or a Christmas tree, and that's just not me.....not at this time of year. This is the time of year that my creativity is usually abundant and over flowing.
Hopefully I can find my creative magic soon, especially since I had started some Christmas stuff to share with all of you before my bad funk showed up and kicked my creativity out the window.
Hope you have an AWESOME day! And an TERRIFIC Holiday Season.....whatever Holiday you celebrate wherever you are and whatever Spiritual path you follow.
Know that I do appreciate all of you very much, and I really miss posting creations for you to use.
LOVE YOU ALL! HUGE Holiday Hugs.
Trish aka Dragon

Halloween Template

Good Afternoon! I hope you are doing well today! It's chilly and damp here, and my bones and sinuses are telling me all about it. The changing weather is not being kind to me at all. But, I will survive it....been there, done that. Everybody in the family as some sort of cold or sinus problem with all of this yo-yo weather. Plus, we have all been out in public, either at school or at work or out shopping. I haven't had my bad cold yet, but I know I'll have it at some point in time before winter gets here, and it's inevitable no matter what I do. I can only take so much vitamin C, and I'm going to get some echinacea, too. That seems to work better for me than some of the other stuff on the market for colds.

Today, I have a Halloween template for you to create with. It is for personal use only, no commercial use please. It is in .psp and .psd formats for you to create with. Here is a preview of the template and what I created with it.

Here is the media fire link for the template file. Have fun creating with it!
http://www.mediafire.com/?plsrmd5z20c3k5f
HUGE Thank You for visiting my blog and for downloading! Have an AWESOME day!
Enjoy!

Halloween Frame Mask

Good Evening! I hope you are doing well tonight! I've been spending time with my parents today. My mom had a CT scan on her stomach today. She's been throwing up after eating for a few weeks. She's not one to go to the doctor, but we all finally got her to go. I know that she's been under a lot of stress since dad had his triple by-pass in May. I know the feeling about the stress. I went through it years ago. NASTY stuff! I lost twenty pounds in a month and didn't have much of an appetite for about 2 months.

Today I have a frame mask I created for the Halloween kit. I also have a preview of the finished mask by itself. Just click on the image to open it, then right click and save in your folder on your computer. This is for personal use only please.

HUGE Thank You for visiting my blog and for downloading! Have an AWESOME evening!
Enjoy!

Halloween Kit

Good Morning! I hope you are doing well today! I apologize for being late in posting the Halloween kit. I had a migraine over the weekend. Not a good thing, and I was miserable. Not only with the headache, but also because I didn't get the kit posted for you to create with.

This kit is LOADED with all sorts of goodies for you to create your Halloween pages with. There are 45 papers and a whopping 132 elements for you to create with. There are witches, potions, creatures, monsters, bows, brads, frames.....all sorts of goodies. I've created 2 previews....which only show a very small portion of what's in this humongous kit. I've had to split this kit up into papers and elements. I didn't want you to have to wait all day for this kit to download. I hope you create a lot of totally cute pages with this kit for your little Trick's or Treater's!

Here are the Media Fire links for this kit.

Elements 1  http://www.mediafire.com/?o5brydc06g7098y

Elements 2 http://www.mediafire.com/?qx0oskm9s0limub

Papers http://www.mediafire.com/?arg9q5ie1842oab

HUGE Thank You for visiting my blog and for downloading! Have an AWESOME day!

Enjoy!

Breast Cancer Awareness Kit

Good Morning! I hope you are doing well today! The chilly weather here isn't lasting long. It will be up in the mid 70's by the weekend with the chance of thunderstorms. But I also know that cold weather will be hanging around in the area soon enough. I am finding that most of my body likes the cooler weather, but my bones/joints don't. My hips have been hurting more, and my finger joints, all of them, have felt like I've had an elephant in stilettos dancing on each of them. That's what I have earned for being a huge tomboy and doing heavy lifting. Proper body mechanics may help most things, but it's the OTHER stuff I've done since I was a kid that are catching up with me. Like jumping down stairs, jumping out of trees and swings, roller skating and falling down a lot, standing in high heels for 8 hours, wearing flats the last year, playing any and all sports, and various other things I've done that my joints are reminding me that I shouldn't have done! But, that's what happens when you live life the way you want to live it. Even though I hurt, I don't regret any of it! I've had fun most of the time!!! So I'm just going to suck it up, take ibuprofen when I need it, and try to keep my joints as warm as possible and is comfortable.

Today is the Breast Cancer Awareness kit. There are a lot of elements and papers not shown in the preview. There are 49 papers and 74 elements in the kit. And, since men can get breast cancer as well as women, there are some male figures included as well. It affects us all in some way. I know that you will find plenty in this kit to create with! You can re size as is necessary to create your personal pages. Please remember that the kit is for personal use only, no commercial use is allowed.

Here is the Media Fire link for this kit.

http://www.mediafire.com/?2p89lesina3h224

HUGE Thank You for visiting and for downloading! Have a GREAT day! Friday's kit will be for one of my favorite holidays......Halloween!

Enjoy!

Fall Brag Book Pages 8, 9 & 10

Good Morning! I hope you are doing well today! It's been chilly here. It is 31 degrees as I'm posting this. The high today will be in the low 60's. I'm not holding my breath that it will get into the 60's. It was about the same temps over the weekend, too! The temps are cooler in October here this year than last year. Maybe we will actually have snow here this winter??

Today I'm sharing the last three pages of the fall brag book. There is plenty of room for your text and for adding your own embellishments to make these pages uniquely yours for your pictures. Page 10 I created a contents page so you can put the name(s) and location(s) of the pictures of each page in your brag book. You can either put it at the front or the back of your brag book. Please remember, these are for personal use only, and not for commercial use.

HUGE Thank You for visiting my blog and for downloading! You are very much appreciated!! Have an AWESOME day! Wednesday, I will have a Breast Cancer Awareness kit for you to create with!
Enjoy!

TGIF & Pages 6 & 7

Good Morning! I hope you are doing well today! It's going to be in the low 50's here today through Monday, with low's in the low 30's and high's in the low to mid 50's. I've been feeling like I'm going to have a cold for over a week. You know the symptoms.....the sinuses feel sort of full and the back of the throat and down the throat feels really funny, not scruffy and raw, but your throat just doesn't feel right. My bronchial tubes/chest feel sort of strange, like I'm going to by pass cold straight to outright bronchitis and sound like a dog kennel when I cough. I'm one that doesn't remember to take pills. I'm not sick all that often, or need to take them on a daily basis for a medical condition. When I had to take the meds after my surgery, I actually had to set a special alarm on my phone to remember to take my pills every 12 hours. But, it's time to get the herbs and cough drops out for the season. I need to check the stock of cough drops and stock up for the season. Thankfully, I only get a cold once or twice a year, but the one or two I do get are bad ones.

I like sports, especially LOVE baseball. Tonight is the beginning of the major league baseball play offs. I don't care that the Chicago Cubs didn't make it into the play offs, it's baseball! I've already picked my favorites to win tonight's games. Go Texas Rangers! Go Atlanta Braves!

Today I'm sharing pages 6 & 7 of the fall brag book. Three more 2 pages and the back page to share! There is enough room to add your text and any additional embellishments you want to add to make them unique to you for your pictures. Just click on the image so it opens up on another page, right click and save to your computer folder. Please remember that these are for personal use only.

HUGE Thank You for visiting my blog and for downloading! Have an AWESOME weekend!
Enjoy!

Fall Brag Book Page 4 & 5

Good Morning! I hope you are doing well today! I apologize for being a day late in posting. I was feeling rather down in the dumps yesterday. The weather wasn't helping much either....gloomy, grey, and a wee bit chilly. I spent most of the day trying to stay warm as it is a little early to be turning on the furnace. The weather here is going to be in the mid 70's with lows in the mid 50's today, Wednesday and Thursday, with a sharp drop in temperatures over the weekend.....highs in the mid to upper 50's during the day and lows to the mid 30's. YEA! Fall is here! They were saying that Thursday was going to be in the upper 70's to low 80's. Sorry, but the weather forecasters were maybe just a bit too optimistic about the temperatures. And they say we are going to be a few degrees under the "average temperatures" for this time of year. It's nice that they TRY to forecast the weather, but I think that their crystal balls are cracked and out of service. It's like last year when I was in Oklahoma. They were forecasting up to 18 inches of snow for where I was living at the time about 4 or 5 days before I was going to be leaving for home on the 20th of December. As time got closer to when I was leaving, I swear they changed the weather forecast every time they were on the air. OMG! It was 41 degrees when I left my late mother-in-law's house on the 20th! Sorry, but it doesn't snow at 41 degrees....but it was RAINING! I'll take the rain over the snow any day of the week! I hate driving in snow and ice. I would rather pull teeth from a tiger without anesthetizing it first than drive in the snow and ice. I've been raised in this area and well remember how to drive in that mess, but for some reason, there are a LOT of people who get a case of amnesia on how to drive on the roads with snow after the snow melts in the spring. It's been since about December of 1978 since we've had what I call a bad winter here, so my kids and grandkids don't know what it's like to be without electricity and be house bound for days. That will not be a fun thing around here! No computer, no computer games, no TV! I don't think that things will be very peaceful around here! I'm going to stock up on AA batteries for the MP3 players so that the kids have something to listen to to keep them occupied.

Today I'm going to share two of the fall brag book pages for you to create with. There is space for your text and other embellishments you might want to add. These are for personal use only. Click on the images to open them up on another page, right click and save in your file on your computer.

 

HUGE Thank You for visiting my blog and for downloading my creations. Have an AWESOME day!

Enjoy!

Fall Brag Book Page 3

Good Morning! I hope you are doing well. It's Friday!! Just a few more hours until the start of the weekend for those of you who are working today.

I don't know what's gotten into me, but I am totally motivated to rearrange my living space! It's like I've seen a vision of what it is to look like and it is.....AWESOME!! I've even envisioned an area that will be my closet and dressing area. I've got a "time line" in which to do each area so that I've got everything clean, moved around, and where I basically want them. I know that there will be some tweeking of the various pieces of furniture and other stuff in my "grand scheme", but that is to be expected when you are taking on a HUGE task like I'm taking on. There is going to be a LOT of purging of  my stuff  and stuff that I brought back from Oklahoma from my late mother-in-law, but it will not be going to waste. Some of the stuff I don't need right now is going into storage. The other stuff that is still useable but I don't need is going to go to either Mission Mart, Good Will, or to the Salvation Army. If it is not useable, it's going to hit the curb. I'm also going to convert an old trunk into a cabinet for my multitude of jars of herbs. All I need to do is add some shelves and make a new door, but that's not a problem. I've already got the wood for the shelves, but I need to make the door. I don't think I can get the original lid put back together as it split in three pieces and one of the pieces is broken in an odd way from the part it was connected to. But, I'm going to try to put it back together. I need to get about three pipe clamps to hold the glued pieces together, if I can actually get them to marry back up the way they were originally. If I can't, well, then I make a new door and refinish the whole thing. If I have to do that, it will be just clear varnished. I like the natural look of wood. Staining wood is alright, but I like the look of the raw wood with just a clear coat of varnish to let the natural character of the wood come through.

So before I get to my HUGE task at hand, I'm going to share page three of the Fall Brag Book pages. I've left you room for your own personalization and text. Please remember that these pages are for your personal use only, and not for commercial use of any sort.

Have an AWESOME day and a TERRIFIC weekend! HUGE Thank You for visiting my blog  and for downloading!
Enjoy!

Fall Brag Book Page 2

Good Morning! I hope you are doing well. I got the stitches from my surgery out yesterday afternoon. It felt like little pin pricks on my eyebrow when he pulled them out. All of the cancer is gone. He said that if I had come in to talk to him about it 6 months from now, he would have had to take more than what he did and would have possibly had to actually go into my eyebrow and possibly into my upper eyelid. I'm glad I didn't ignore it!

I'm going to have to figure out how to fix my computer desk. I got up from my chair and my cat Rufus jumped up on my desk last night while the slide out for my keyboard was out about 3 inches. He didn't quite make the desk top and hit the edge of the slide out with his back legs. He's not a small cat. He's part Maine coon, and weighs about 20 pounds. The slide out isn't meant to hold that much weight, and it went crashing to the floor with my keyboard and mouse. His back legs hit the chair so he didn't fall on the floor. Stuff happens, and I have been wanting to get something else to put my computer on for the last couple of months. The slide out hasn't been working all that well for the last couple of years no matter what I've done to it to fix it. The slide outs are fine when they work, but I would rather have something more stable to put my keyboard on. I'm pretty handy making things, so it won't take me long to figure out how to make a more convenient computer desk. The current desk is taking up a little too much room in the space that I have to put it in anyway. And, I don't have any space for shelves to put books and the printer paper on so that they are handy when I need them.

Today is page two of the fall brag book. Click on the image below, which will open it on another page, right click and save as to the file where you want it. There is enough space on the page to add your text and any personalization that you wish to add to make it special for you.

Have an AWESOME day! HUGE Thank You for visiting my blog and for downloading.
Enjoy!

Brag Book Page 1

Good Morning! I hope you are doing well today. It's a wee bit chilly here this morning. It got down into the upper 30's and we have been under a frost advisory. We were under a frost advisory yesterday morning, too. My mandevillas and Boston ferns were protected the last two nights. I've got to take them in soon before the weather decides to stay cold, and put the hanging stands in storage. It's getting to be that time of year when the weather is fluctuating between being cold and warm. We've had highs in the 60's over the weekend, and the highs this week will be in the mid to upper 70's with lows in the 50's at night. Still more comfortable temps than being in the mid to upper 90's to low 100's. I'll take the 70's any day! I'm also hoping that we actually HAVE a winter this year! Last year's winter was more like spring/early summer than winter. I will take some snow and cold temperatures in winter.

It's been 34 years since we've had a really bad winter here where we've been without electricity for a few days. There are some who have been saying that we are a bit over due for one of those winters. I remember that particular winter! 1979! Snow, ice, snow, ice over a couple of days. Coated trees and power lines with ice about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch thick breaking power lines. Split trees in 1/2. Took huge branches off of trees. Driving on the roads were out of the question for a couple of days. Power was out for 10 days. Pipes burst ruining hardwood floors, carpets, ceilings and furniture. It even froze about 2/3's of my grandmother's 55 gallon aquarium, putting her prize Koi into suspended animation in the water under the ice. Yep, it was COLD! My son's and grandkids have no idea what it is like to be without electricity for days during any kind of a storm. And they think I'm totally nuts for wanting to get stuff stocked up during the winter! In the winter, you may not be able to get out to get to the store for two or three days because of deep snow and thick ice. Also, if you don't have electricity, the store isn't going to have any either. But, they haven't experienced that type of weather before, so they don't get the advanced preparations for such weather. I've also bought solar powered lanterns, flashlights, and weather radios, but I also have regular flashlights with batteries, hurricane lamps with extra wicks and fuel, and candles. I have got to get a gas stove into the basement. Not only to cook on when the electric stove doesn't work due to no electricity, but it will also help keep the pipes from freezing. And my oldest son doesn't get the idea of having so many blankets either. Cold is cold, and when the furnace isn't running due to lack of electricity, or you don't have a fireplace to keep you warm, blankets are really nice to have! They will learn that being prepared for any eventuality is the best thing to do. Summer is one thing, but winter can be even more brutally deadly without any electricity to keep you warm.

I've been having fun putting these pages together, and I hope that you can find plenty of pictures to add to these pages and add some creative touches of your own. Today is the first page of the brag book. The pages will just be posted on my blog and not on Media Fire. The pages are coming up in the 6x4 size.

 Have an AWESOME week! HUGE Thank You for visiting and for downloading!
Enjoy!

Surgery and New Quick Page

Good Evening! I hope you are doing well. My surgery went fine. I was supposed to have my surgery at 11 AM Thursday, but the hospital called and told me that the doctor was running a bit ahead of schedule and asked if I could come in early. Well, I was already on my way to the hospital when they called me on my cell. I was at a stop light when I answered the phone. I told them I was almost there. I don't think I was in the waiting area 10 minutes when they called me back to the room where I was going to be before and after the surgery. What I didn't know was that I was actually going to go to an operating room and had to get fully undressed and into one of the lovely *cough* hospital gowns. OMG! I HATE those things! Unless you are a twig, the gowns don't exactly cover your behind if you are over a size 10! But I survived the ordeal. The doctor did get all of the squamous cell carcinoma, and now I have an inch and a half to two inch suture line above my left eye brow, which, as my youngest son explained to his friend the other night, I had been in a fight. He told his friend "You should see the other guy!". My youngest son's friend thought he was serious, until I told him that I had had surgery earlier in the day. The look on his face was one of those "I wish I had a camera" moments! It was precious!

I was a bit busy with things before I went to surgery, and the last couple of days I've been recovering from my surgery. It has been hell looking at the computer screen. My left eye felt like I'd actually been head butted by an elephant Thursday afternoon. The slightest breeze made my whole left eye area hurt. Yesterday and most of this morning, my eyeball felt like someone was trying to pull it out of its socket and they had their thumb in it, too! But Thursday I couldn't wait the 30 minutes until the Tylenol with Codeine was filled at the pharmacy so I just took some Advil. The first two pills I took only deadened the pain a bit. I HURT!! I still haven't taken any of it. I've been taking the Advil. At least I'm not going to be a snoozie Suzie just to take care of pain. I've got other things to do besides sleep! It's bad enough I have to take an antibiotic for 5 days. Most pharmaceuticals and I don't get along anyway. I have interesting reactions to penicillin, tetracycline and a muscle relaxer. And some meds just don't work on me like they are supposed to. I'm taking ciprofloxacin, which fights bacterial infections. Interesting reading for this particular drug!

Today I'm going to share the first page of a multi-page fall brag book. The share today is the "cover" of the brag book. I had started this before my surgery and things just didn't play out like I wanted so that I could start sharing them with you on Wednesday. So here is the cover page of the fall brag book. There will be all sorts of fall themed pages, including some with "fruit pies". Most of the pages will have plenty of room for you to add text and your own personal additions to the pages and they all have frames for your pictures. I'm still working on the last couple of pages, and I'll put all of the goodies into a kit to share later so you can create your own full sized scrapbook pages. Here is the preview of the fall brag book cover. All of the pages will be 4 inches by 6 inches. I think that the right click "save as" will give you a much smaller version.

Here is the Media Fire link for the full sized 4 by 6 inch brag book page:

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?z1085enw59j1twt
Have a GREAT weekend! HUGE Thank You for visiting my blog and for downloading!
Enjoy!

New Look for my blog!

Good Afternoon! I hope you are doing well today! I decided it was time for a new look to match the season. I can't wait for all of the holidays coming up! I have way too much fun creating for the holidays, which is usually for my IncrediMail letters, and I really need to get creating those again. I haven't created a new letter in about six months!

I just got back from the doctor, and next Thursday, I am having some very minor surgery to remove the rest of a squamous cell carcinoma above my left eyebrow. Not a biggy my doctor told me. He's just going to numb the area up....yea! no anesthesia!....and keep slicing into the area until there is nothing found on the slides in pathology. No big deal, except that it hurts a bit when he numbs that area like he did two weeks ago when he removed the major part of the growth. I was calling it my second nose, because that is what it was looking like....right over my left eyebrow! I kept tearing it when I would brush my forehead in my sleep, and I decided that enough was enough it was going to go away. Not sure if this has spread anywhere else because it can spread to other places, and I've only had this for a year....and it's been sliced off twice since the beginning of the year.

Today I have a couple of mini masks for you to use in your smaller creations. No media fire download necessary. Please remember, these are for personal use only, no commercial use is allowed. Here are the two mini masks, and what I did with both of them. I removed the background colors on both so that they are stand alone images. If you want to snag them for your personal creating, go ahead.

The masks are 450x336 with the usual white background. As you can tell, I just couldn't leave well enough alone when I used them for my creations! Just right click and save to where you save your goodies! Enjoy creating with these little masks!
HUGE Thank You for visiting and for downloading! Have a GREAT week!
Enjoy!

It was a long trip

Well, I didn't get back Tuesday night like I thought. We didn't leave my sister's house in Alabama until about 8 AM Thursday. My sister was under the weather on Monday, and that couldn't be helped. Stress sometimes does that to people. She's left her two daughters and four grandsons in Alabama. She left a lot of familiar behind and jumped into the relative unknown here in Illinois. She's staying with our parents until she can get a job and get herself established here.

We left about 8 Thursday morning and got to my house about 1:30 Friday morning! It was a very long trip, with about an hour stop in Paduca, Kentucky because of a storm blowing through with 60 mph winds. We really didn't want to be driving with 60 mph winds blowing from the west in a U-Haul truck going north! The truck would have been like a sail on a boat, and driving would have been treacherous blowing us all over the interstate. We could have ended up in a ditch down the interstate on our side with all of my sister's worldly possessions broken and scattered all over the place.....plus her car that we were towing behind the U-Haul truck! It wasn't an option for either of us. So we parked the truck and sat for a while at a local truck stop. Not sure just how many miles we drove, and we did take a side trip to see her oldest daughter at work, which made the trip about 50 miles longer than it should have been. But, it was something we had to do. Her youngest daughter was at the house to say goodbye before we left and she wanted to see her oldest daughter to say goodbye to her, too.

I'll be back to sharing on Monday. Today we are unloading the truck. We spent yesterday trying to catch up on our sleep, plus, my two sons were doing other things, and we really need some help in getting things unloaded from the truck. It took my sister, a male friend of hers and I to load up the empty double dresser in Alabama because the drawers don't come out! The drawers are on rails that are attached to the inside of the dresser and the drawers are on wheels that run inside the tracks. The tracks don't have an opening on the ends of each rail so that the wheels can come out of the rails, like on most drawers made like that. So we taped the drawers to the dresser with painter's tape so the tape would mar the finish on it. It was the most cumbersome and heavy piece of furniture she had to move! A dolly or hand truck would not have been of any help with that dresser at all as it would have scratched the dresser on one end, the edges, and the top, even if we had put a blanket on it. The dresser is a nice piece of furniture regardless of how much trouble it was for us to load. It will be REALLY interesting to get it into our parent's house! There is not a straight line from any door to move it into the house. The side of the house we will be moving her stuff into the house has a deck that is about five foot wide by about ten foot long, and there is a rail on the deck. Long furniture is going to have to be put on end to get it into the house. Thankfully, there is only the double dresser and the head and foot boards of the bed that will have to be stood up on the ends to get up on the deck and through the two doors they have to move through!

Have an AWESOME weekend!
LOVE YOU ALL!