darksided scrapping

Today....well yesterday, I was surprised to find a nice package at my doorstep. It was a nice RAK from Washington from one of the KI Memories winners filled with goodies. It's funny how I connect with scrappers from the state of Washington and Canada for some reason. It's a blue thing I guess. Today I also got an invite to a private gothic scrapping board. I never knew there were so many "darksided" scrappers out there! Looking forward to creating some chilling dark layouts for a change. :) It's gonna be a lot fun. This is the cover of my KI Memories album where I did a photo shoot at the cemetery with my punk doll. I dedicated this doll album to my grandmother and aunt who had to sell their Christmas dolls every year because they were pretty poor after their dad died. They both decided to get full time jobs at the ages of 11 and 12 at the General Hospital in Los Angeles because their mother lost both legs and eyesight to diabetes. (They weren't learning much at school anyhow because they were used for cleaning and cooking for the teachers.)They used their first paychecks to buy a furcoat for their mom/my grt grandma! And dolls. So whenever anyone in my family travels they know to pick me up a doll. My cousins picked me up this Hawaiian doll on recent their trip to Hawaii. The little girls on the island weave hair on these dolls and sell them to tourists.
<

In light of all the scrapbooker blog bashing going on I found this interesting section in Wayne Dyers' Intention book on 'Steps for Overcoming Ego's hold on you' pretty profound.

Step one. STOP BEING OFFENDED. The behavior of others isn't a reason to be immobilized. That which offends you only weakens you. If you're looking for occasions to be offended, you'll find them at every turn. This is your ego at work convincing you that the world should'nt be the way it is. But you can become an appreciator of life and match up with the universal Spirit of Creation. You can't reach the power of intention by being offended. By all means, act to eradicate the horrors of the world, which emanate from massive ego identification, but stay in peace. Being offened creates the same destructive energy that offended you in the place and leads to attack, counterattack, and war.

The Quran, Fruit Cookies......OMG!

Trying to adjust to this cold weather. This is the time of season I go out and buy a bunch of books, try new coffee and tea brands, and buy new PJ's before the drama of the holidays begin. While I began reading the thousand page book, 'The Great War For Civilisation-the conquest of the middle east' (by Fisk) I received a 300 pound brick in my mail from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Washington DC. I wondered what in the world it was since I'm always getting freebies in the mail. It was the Holy Quran! Then I thought, Oh shit! I'm going to be on some kind of FBI watchlist now! HAAAAAA! Weird huh? So anyway, it really is a beautiful book and technically NOT a real Quran for the fact that it's a translation. I found it interesting to learn that the great majority of Muslims cannot even read Arabic. They just memorize the sounds and words in the text. Maybe this is why the fundies can take advantage. I'll be reading it in bits and pieces and I'll have to send them a thankyou note.

These fruit cookies were made by an Armenian friend of mine that owns a bakery close by. While I was at the fair this year I noticed her cookies on display next to a first place ribbon and it wasn't her name! I told her about it and she said, "Oh, there are a lot of ladies that buy my cookies and take credit for them." Wow, I'm gonna wonder about all those contests at the fair now.

My gay friend Rene just got back from his trip from Italy. He has cancer and goes to these retreats there ran by local priests "to get away and relax." WELL, he calls me to tell me about his TORRID AFFAIR WITH ONE OF THE PRIESTS! WHO MADE A MOVE ON HIM GOING TO CHURCH! This is me on the other line.... "OMG?, OMG?, OMG! about 20 plus times! He is so scandelous! I remember when his sister was having an affair with 'Arnold' but that's a whole other novel. He brought me back a Zucchero CD who is the hottest thing in Italy right now. I told him to please keep the holy relics, I'll buy my own, thanks! Man, it's a crazy world out there right now!

It's all about Joe Nichols!

I discovered Joe Nichols in People magazine a couple of weeks ago and I fell in love with this HOTTIE ! AND he's a country singer. Very retro/classic sounding which is very cool too cuz I'm not really into country music but I DO like the pre-70's stuff. Ahem

Meet Blanket/Now BurBEARy

Meet little Blanket. Looks like Nap and Dyna have a little one. I thought I've been hearing something like a squeeky toy at nite. I figured it was the deer family. But here he/she is!. My brother named this bear. The wildlife have been bringing all their babies down during the heatwave. Yesterday someone had called the cops (a real estate agent) and the officer asked me, "Have you seen a bear?" I laughed and asked, "Why? are you gonna arrest him?" My gawd, how lame he was! "Nope! I didn't see a thing! I said. ;)


This weekend I went to the beach and stopped at King's Hawaiian Restaurant in Torrance for some fried Macadamian onion rings and guava/passion fruit cake. Yum! They had these new, interesting looking, paper-cut-artwork pieces on the wall.
I miss living at the beach so much! My brother is going to build some condos in Redondo Beach in a couple of years. I'm thinking maybe I should buy one of them and maybe design a scrapbooking loft in one of them. I'm not into the cluttered, show off every Prima bottle, and embellie, etc. scrapbook room look. I'd like to find a HUGE antique armoire to put everything in. Probably will end up designing something on my own. We were supposed to tear down this house and build a Japanese country Haiku house. (Japan is one of my top 3 fave cultures!)I wanted to do a Japanese art nouveau style look but the builders turned out to be con artists. I found out they had defrauded someone in town for $150,000. And their website is still up and running and they are even featured in HGTV. Frauds!

I visited A-Z Scrapbooking for the first time and fell in love with Brittany the scrapbook store mascot. I don't know why I didn't take a pic of her! She is such a little sweetheart. I guess I was busy tweaking in the store. Next time.

Me and my Guardian Angel

Okay, look at what I found in my Yahoo folder. I thought I had lost this. This pic was taken back around 2000 in my old apartment that I rented at a convent. This must have been around Nov. 2000 because of that lollipop I'm holding. My veteran friend takes me every year to Knott's Berry Farm cuz he gets free passes. So anyway, the ONLY reason I find this picture interesting is because I asked, "If anyone is here with me right now, please show yourself in this picture (that I'm about to take)!" This was probably after midnight and I was alone in my apartment where I always felt the presense of my grandfather and Godmother. This is what showed up. I showed my veteren friend and he's like, "Uh, yeah." Then I showed it to three other guys and got some more "Uh, uhhhhhs?" So perhaps I'm the only one that sees a face here. Turns out the convent I lived at is more interesting than this pic because Mother Teresa lived there when she was recovering from one of her heart attacks back in the 90's. And St. Teresea's relics were here too as well. The city closed the streets down and everyone walked down the middle of the street at midnite with St. Teresa's relics. That was very surreal.

Well, other then talking and taking pics with ghosts in the middle of the nite I've been extreme scrapbooking. I've been working on my KI Memories contest album. My gawd it's so nice scrapping 6x6! I got one of those Heidi Swaap kits at Costco and that has been so helpful. Yesterday I got on my roof and was throwing Lil Davis paints on my layout below. My cat looked up at me and gave me one of the dirtiest looks! Also did a mini photoshoot at the cemetery with my fave punk rock doll I got in Paris years ago. Her mohawk got flattened out in the box she was in so I've been trying to reshape it with my fingers.

Well, Nap AND FAMILY or friend were here the night before last running aroung like a couple of gorillas. I named the smaller bear "Dyno" or "Dyna." They were Thing One and Two out there causing a rucus? around 2AM. Whenever I'd get up to catch a glimpse of them I'd see black fur flying by. They are some FAST creatures!

My newest love is Creme Brule frenchtoast from Whole Foods Market. The olive bar used to be my fave thing BUT OMG this stuff is the bomb! Do I need spell checker or what! The blogger one doesn't seem to be working. Well, it's not like a give a shit anyhow. Back to some more extreme SBing..............

My bear loves jLoZ

Haven't been around much lately due to all my summer family vacations. I've had family over a few times as well as traveling up north for graduations, baptisms, and birthdays.. I've been getting over a few hangovers. ...a Disney (bad) one, a Cadillac Margarita one, tequila shots (uh!) one, and a Mojito (good one) every week. Our last family dinner was at jLo's restaurant, Madre's in Pasadena. The Mojito's there ARE TOO DIE FOR! The Sangria's arent that bad either! jLos father hangs out there a lot in the bar and sent us a round of Mojitos and an appetizer plate. He's a very sweet man and sat down at our table and was speaking to my mom in Spanish. I'm not a fan of his daughter nor anyone else in my family either BUT I love her food and shabby chic decor! Whenever jLo comes in we get a call that's she there but we're always busy doing something else. I think I'm gonna do some shabby chic favors or something and see if she likes them and put them in her restaurant. Maybe we can sell them for a charity. The Madre menus are cute. They are cigar boxes and cost $100 a piece. Oh yeah, and I saw Hillary there during her book tour a while back right after I saw her at Border's. AND Aye yi yi my bear Nap got into the trash last nite and ate my jLo leftovers I threw out! I'm gonna have to keep my trash inside now. He looked so cute lying there sideways with his belly hanging out! I need to keep a camera outside so I can take a pic of him.

Birthday pics coming up...... These are pics of Alex and his new Mustang on his second birthday. As you can see he was VERY STOKED!!!! A little TOO stoked but it was a pleasure seeing him so happy. The cowboy theme of the party was scrapped for Barney! Bleah! Alex's Barney stage has begun! Lucky us. What a challenge it was coming up with Barney party favors. I was so uninspired. I ended up hollowing out some styrofoam eggs and filling them with plastic dinosaurs and candy, glue gunning them back together than spray painting them PURPLE, GREEN, and YELLOW. What a mess BUT worth it. Figured all the kids would have fun slamming them open outside and they did. There was another mother with a child with Downs and autism there who said her kid's Barney stage lasted up until the age of 11/12!

Nap's back!

Earlier tonight I heard the heavy steps of something walking around outside. It was my Napoleon!!! I walked out to my porch to watch him in all his glory walk by approx. 12/16 feet away from me. I can't believe I called him Pookie! :P He's been napping for a couple of hours now and grooming himself. Looks like he has fleas too. He lifts his huge head up ever 15 mins or so. Light sleeper. Looks like I'm gonna have to get up extra early to make sure he's gone before it starts getting light. Will set my alarm for 4am. I shall be paying attention to my dreams tonight after receiving my big dose of bear medicine.

The Bear



Power
Strength
Introspection
Healing
Self-Knowledge

Bearpaw: power and direction



Bear's Wisdom Includes:

Introspection
Healing
Solitude
Change
Communication with Spirit
Death and rebirth
Transformation
Astral travel
Creature of dreams, shamans and mystics
Visionaries
Defense and revenge
Wisdom