My First Sketch Challenge

I have been trying to be craftier lately as I have been buying lots of cool stuff and things, but I haven’t been doing anything with any of it. Mostly it is because my life during the week just doesn’t seem to allow it, and partly because I just feel like I will not make anything that looks good. And partly because I love the papers I buy and can't bear to cut them up! I get compliments on the cards I do make, but so far they have only been for family, and of course my mom and sister are going to tell me “It’s wonderful!”

I’m just my own worst critic, that’s all. So, I am trying to overcome that, and hopefully learn some stuff and make some cool stuff to boot! I watch lots of YouTube videos (Jennifer McGuire and Kristina Werner are two of my favorites – sorry, can’t link to their channels since I am doing this post from work and YouTube is verboten here!) and read lots of blogs. I recently found Mojo Monday, a sketch challenge blog. I loved the sketch for this week and decided that I was going to submit something come hell or high water. The problem is finding the time to do the card during the week, get it photographed and on the blog by today. The challenge is actually open through Sunday, but because I no longer have a (working) computer at home, I have to do my blog post here at work.

Well, enough whining about that.

Blogger is having some weird issue with posting pictures all of a sudden. I can't get any pictures to load at all, and apparently I'm not the only one having issues with it. I've tried everything to link to my picture, but nothing works. I tried linking to my Flickr account, but that isn't working either. Thank you, Carole and Teresa from Mojo Monday for trying to help me out! If you want, you can go to Flickr and search for Hello Handsome and maybe you will find it. I am so sorry. I am completely bummed out about this.

Well, other life news: Mom fell at home and broke her left clavicle (collarbone). I felt so bad - she has never broken a bone in her life, and the pain was pretty intense for her. She has quite a high pain tolerance, so I knew something was really wrong when I raced down that morning to take her to the doctor. She fell on a Thursday; the xrays didn't show any breaks, but they mostly looked at her shoulder as that is where most of her pain seemed to be concentrated. At first we thought she may have dislocated her shoulder, but the xrays didn't show anything. But the physical exam seemed to indicate that it wasn't her shoulder, but her collarbone. They gave her a pretty fancy schmancy sling to wear, which helped some. I made her come back home with me, which she fought pretty hard. When I pointed out that she couldn't dress herself, feed her puppies, or even get her pants down to go to the bathroom, she acquiesced. I packed her and her two little dogs up and brought her to the house. Sis took most of the weekend off of work, and we both did our best to make sure she was comfortable and didn't try to clean the house (her favorite pastime!). Meanwhile, the Fracture Clinic at Kaiser tracked her down and wanted her to come back in that Monday morning for more xrays. That is when they discovered the fracture. She had to take two weeks off work, but is back to work now and doing pretty well. Not a great way to spend her 79th birthday! That woman, I tell ya.

The other major news is that we have another addition to our four-legged family. On Tuesday, Sis came home with a tiny Chihuahua named "Shy Guy". Stupid name, but actually quite perfect for him. I don't mean to imply that he is stupid, but rather that saying he is shy is like saying the Pacific Ocean is a damp puddle. He is super cute - smooth haired, white with tan spots, and one ear flops down while the other stands straight up. He came from a home that had waaaaaaaay too many dogs - we suspect the lady may be a hoarder. She said that he was picked on by the other dogs constantly and finally just refused to come out of his kennel at all. So, Sis brought him home to our five dogs! I was very proud of our kids; they were very welcoming, and except for Sammy crowding into his personal space right off the bat (he just wants to BE YOUR FRIEND!!!!), things went really well. He sits on Sis like she is his personal savior, and will not leave her lap or her side. He is at least a year old but is not house trained. I guess this gal only let her dogs out twice a day and that was all. So, we have him in an infant diaper until we can house train him. I'll try to get a picture up of him soon.

Well, I guess that's it for now. Wish me luck on the picture thing; I don't know what I'll do if Blogger can't get the problem fixed.

TTFN!