**Insert Gnarls Barkley Song**

I feel like I've been MIA for awhile. I haven't chatted with my girls on yahoo in a really long time. I'll be on tonight. I miss those crazy ladies.

The next few days are going to be a whirlwind for me. I'm taking a breather from doing layouts to post an update.

I'm leaving for the Netherlands on Thursday. Wow. Thursday!! I'm not even close to being ready. Last night I pulled down my rolling scraptote and found my cropping bag that I've never used. I plan on packing light since I'm hoping to score a lot of stash while I'm there.

There's nothing like the unexpected to put a little shake in your hands. I was trying to scrap yesterday for "Scrapping the Music" and I found it extremely hard to concentrate. I did my layout THREE times before I was satisfied. My anxiety is a bit on edge but this morning my transportation from the airport to the hotel was confirmed. For a while I thought I'd have to take a train from the airport into Amsterdam. Then from there take another train to a different city, then ride two different buses before arriving to the hotel. *phew* That is one thing I DO not want to do.

Here's some work:

The newest Scrapping the Music challenge is up, "Lost in the Moment" by Big and Rich. I don't remember the details of the day when I took this photo. One thing though, Josh rarely takes naps. I don't know how he does it. My mornings start around 630-7 am, depending if Anberlin goes to school. His starts with exercise at 530 and then he works until 5 or 6 pm. Naps are wonderful and if I can get one in with the kids, I'll do it in a heartbeat!

I have another layout up at A Daily Inspiration. Actually I whipped this one out this morning. Please visit the blog for a how to.

I started making cards in hopes of selling them on my Etsy. I liked the way these came out, although Josh thinks he would like them better if I didn't age/distress the backgrounds. At any rate, I used a mix of prisma color pencils and Sakura Gelly Rolls (Glaze and Souffle) to add a bit more dimension. I plan on making 2 more designs to sell tham as a set.

Lastly, I have decided to sell my Cricut. If anyone is interested please email me at jessica.griffinsummers@gmail.com. I have the machine, instructions, one new mat, one extra cutting blade and FIVE cartridges to sell. I'd prefer to sell it as a set and I'm asking $375 for all of it (that includes S&H). Please pass an "enabler alert" if you know anyone who has been wanting one of these.

Ok. I've procrastinated and have to do my Mojo layout.

Remember.

Cricut for sale. Pass it on.

xoxo

My Flatlined Inhibition is my Ammunition

Blog. Blog. Bloggity. Blog.


Life in general seems to be a lot busier these days. I'm husbandless for another week.


Some shout outs before we get to the scrap ish.


A few weeks ago, I received an wonderful package from my design team member Barbara from Scrapping the Music. She sent me a couple of gourmet teas which I absolutely LOVE. One of them was an apple flavor, the other a tropical mix. YUM. In fact, I think after I'm done with this entry, I'm going to start some tea.


Then there's Cathy. You wonderful wonderful woman. I really need to take a picture, but she sent me a HUGE box for our Rainbow Swap. She seriously spoiled me. Seriously.


Scrappity Stuff. Well, I have a few new layouts to share.


Scrapping the Music

Wow. The ladies agreed to do one of Josh's songs (the one currently on my player). I used lots of new My Mind's Eye for this one (and some rubons I've been hoarding for almost 2 years). I hope we get alot of entries this round and I also hope it gives the guys a little more exposure.

ScrapMojo's new challenge is up!!! I used alot of the Rainbow stuff Cathy sent me for this one. Also I squeezed in some stuff from last month's kit from Magistical Memories Look at my little Anberlin. She's a rocker in the making. ;)

FTW= For the Win. Representing Hollywood Squares.

This is the older layout I used as inspiration for the Mojo lo. This was one of my beginner layouts.
So Saturday was National Scrapbook Day. SiSTV had festivities and challenges all day. I managed to do ONE. It was a beautiful day and I just couldn't keep the kids couped up while I scrapped. But it is a good thing I did this one because it made the Cat Walk at SiS today. :) Thanks Lucy for the challenge/inspiration!!

The non scrapbooking stuff. I put a bulletin board up in my scrap area. There's not a lot up on it, but I cut some drawings out of my sketch book to put on the board. Josh saw this teddy bear and now he wants to get 2 of them tattooed on his arms. One in the pink and one in blue (this one has Anberlin's birthday on it's stomach). He wants them on his forearm...one on the inner part and one on the outer. I like the idea, I think it's adorable.

Look! I was ecstatic when I found this book as a Buy it Now on EBay. Why? Well, for one it's illustrated by my favorite illustrator. Two, it's in excellent condition. Three, it's the 423rd book printed. Four, the price was WAY WAY WAY below what it should have been. I think the seller did not know what he had. It's in French, but I didn't buy it for the poems.


One day I'll share more of the illustrations. I did also get another vintage cocoa ad designed by her a couple of months ago. :)

Anberlin's birthday was on the 1st. Four years old. She had a great day, even though it started off with 2 hours with a speech pathologist. She thought it was fun, she felt like she was playing school. I, however, had to try to keep Sebastian quiet in the elementary school while she was being tested. O_o

Off to do...something.

xoxo

ps-Some new tuneage...check out Panic! at the Disco's newest album. And Cab "Whisper War." *drooool* I did the last layouts while listening to those 2 albums.

ho hum hum

One more day down, only 6 more to go until Josh is home again. I so need a break from the kids! lol. I was supposed to take a trip to Poland on the 20th, but yeah. Those plans went down the drain. So to make myself feel better, I bought myself a Polish Teapot from a Bazaar that was held on our base a couple of weekends ago. It's so pretty! I found a very similar piece online:

The spout on mine is slightly different and there's a thumb rest on the handle. But it's the same print. One day I plan to go to Poland though, and go to one of the pottery factories. It's ALOT cheaper to buy it here than in the states! There was a cute blue with white polka dot dinner set that I saw that I REALLY wanted.

Anyhoo. On to some layouts.

Have I mentioned A Daily Inspiration is up and running again! I'm pretty sure I have. Here's my latest layout that was posted today. My silly crazy little boy! He's always into other people's shoes. Early today he was marching around in Josh's army boots. I'm really starting to like the color orange! That and the color yellow. Such happy colors.
The new Scrapping The Music challenge goes up tonight! I suppose I'm giving some of you a headstart, but it's night time here and I wanted to post it now. LOL. The photo was taken the night before Sebastian's surgery back in January. I wanted to make sure we had a recent photo of us 4...well because I'm paranoid and have horrible situations running through my head constantly. Ah,the worries of a mother. Anyways, you can see how sleepy Josh and I look.

Here's a layout I did for Say it in Scrap. It's a cool new challenge blog put together by my buuuuuuuddies. :) The colors are off...it's brighter IRL. The journaling says, "I love it when yo put aside your rockstar 'cool' and go along with what I want to do. Makes my ♥ go flip-flop." The photo is from our trip to Sea World in San Antonio about a month before we left the states. I love this photo. :D

Hmmmm. I think that's about it. OH. If you want to see a cute video, peep this: Ring Around the Rosies. I love my crazy kids.

xoxo
Jess

ps- Yes, those are dish towels wrapped around their waists. I think we had watched "Lilo and Stitch" that particular night and they were pretending to dance the hula....they insisted on wearing them. :)

"World." Scrapping the Music

The new challenge is up for the week! The song this time around is "World" by Five for Fighting. It's such an underappreciated song, so I hope you take a moment to stop by the blog, listen to the song, and try the challenge! Our sponsor for this round is the stinking cool kit club, My Sweet Spuds. So the kit that is up for grabs is SOLD OUT! If you wanted it, but missed out, try the challenge out. :D You have until Sunday.

Back from the Hospital

Let me start off with the Urban Lily Secret Keeper album. There were was a bit of confusion on how it works, so here is a photo of the boards pulled apart to expose the journaling. :O) Cool, huh?

Sebastian's surgery went well! Thanks for all the well wishes. My experience was pretty good despite the language barrier. Some of the nurses spoke a bit of english, others didn't at all, but I toughed it out. I'm going to admit, despite the fact that I was there helping Sebastian recuperate, I had a pretty awesome break from everyday life. We had a private room. All of my meals were brought to me (and unlike American hospital food, the German food was YUMMY), in the afternoon a lady brought me cake and whatever coffee drink I wanted (regular coffee, cappuchino, machiatto, etc). I didn't have to do any cleaning, and I was able to do a bit of scrapping and Sebastian got alot of one on one time with me. :) Plus, just down the hall was a fab coffee maker at our disposal. It was SWEET! Seriously. At the push of a button (choose which type of coffee you'd like) it would grind fresh coffee beans, and then make your drink. FOR FREE. lol. Josh kept going back...he'd get an espresso, then cappucino, macchiato, regular coffee, then hot tea. LOL. And they also had about 7 tea bag assortments for us when we tired of coffee.

(I brought my old digital camera and it's been on the fritz. Alot of my photos came out blurry.)

Anyways, enough about coffee. So the day of Sebastian's surgery, they gave him some drops to make him "sleepy." He seemed fine to me! When it was time to go to the operating wing, the nurses said we couldn't go past the doors. :( He seemed fine when they wheeled him away, but I started sobbing. I've always been one of those "what if" type of person and a million scenarios were going through my mind. The night before I sat all of us down and did a quick family photo just because IF anything happened, I didn't want that regret...you know, not having a family pic. I'm a sap. What can I say? About 2 hours later, they brought Sebastian back to his recovery room and he was screaming bloody murder. The nurse was holding him because he tried clawing his way out of his bed. When he saw me, he nearly jumped into my arms. He was shaking and my heart nearly broke. I hate seeing my kids like that. It took about 20 minutes for him to calm down. He was kinda out of it for a couple of hours, but once the anesthesia wore off, he was nearly back to normal. He was sitting up in his bed, playing with toys, watching movies that I brought. :) The next day he was out of bed and didn't even act like he had surgery. He only has one stitch on his abdomen and I think it took like one or two stitches to fix the problem on his inside.

Anberlin did pretty well with the whole experience. After her visit on Saturday, she got to spend the night with her best friend (Josh's bandmate's daughter). Josh stayed the night there too so they could leave together in the morning. She loved it. The next day she talked nonstop about it.

Now that we are back at home, he's back to his normal, hyper, crazy self and it's driving me crazy!! LOL. I guess I'm freaked that he'll rip his stitch or hurt himself. Anyhoo, here are some older pics from a couple of weekends ago when we ate sushi. This was the best Chirashi bowl I've EVER had. I just wish it wasn't so darn pricey.

Anberlin couldn't quite get the whole purpose of chopsticks down, so she used them the best way she could. :D LOL. She was really proud of herself. Pardon the grainy photos. I'm still figuring out the settings for indoor, lowlights on my camera.

I'll leave you with some sneaks. If you haven't yet, you NEED to check out the European DT that I am on. http://adailyinspiration.blogspot.com/. It's pretty awesome. Everyday a new layout is posted by our extremely talented design team. Seriously. These ladies blow me away! Also, don't forget that Scrapping the Music has weekly challenges and ScrapMojo will be having an uber cool new challenge coming up. PLUS we're having some pretty friggen cool guest designers in the upcoming months. Some serious talent that will make you shriek. I know I did. hee hee.