The new Stampin Up catalog will be here before we know it!  When a new catalog comes out, there is always things that have to be discontinued to make room for the new items. As demonstrators, we do not know right now what is going to be dropped. The only thing we know for sure is the In Colors for 2015 - 2017 will be going away. I love Watermelon Wonder and Tip Top Taupe! It is such a pretty color. Be sure to stock up on the colors you love from the 2015 - 2017 In Color Collection. Here is a graphic to show you which colors they are. 

Click here to go to my Stampin Up Website! 

It is time for another card club! This month, we will be meeting at my home on Friday, February 24 at 7:00 pm. There is also a mother/daughter evening set for Monday, February 27 at 6:30. 

The card club is set up as a card buffet. I prepare the materials needed to create 6 different cards.  Participants can choose which cards they wish to make and how many of each card. 

We have a Facebook group for members of the card club. If you are interested in attending, let me know and I will add you to our group.

The cost of the event is $2.00 per card made. Contact me for more information. We would love to have you join our group. 

It has been a very busy month! I have not posted in several days! The preschool had their winter program. All of the children did great. They were definitely entertaining!

I held the first Card Buffet at my home on Friday night. There were some people that had to cancel, because of sickness, so there ended up being 6 people there. I am going to have to figure out how to get space for more people. I have had large crowds during the holidays, so it can be done, but 6 - 8 people fit easily. I had 6 baskets of cards ready for people to put together. Here are all of the cards they had to choose from.

It was a lot of fun seeing how they put their own twist to the cards I had ready. It seemed like most people made about 4 cards. I think that will change as we all get more experience with this. 

This event put me in the mood to make some more cards myself. I have several card kits from my Stampin Up upline to finish and I have several Paper Pumpkins to complete. I decided to work on some cards from a kit I purchased from my SU upline.

In this picture, the ones I made Saturday are in the top row, the center one and the one on the right and the one on the left in the bottom row. I have a fantastic upline. I love making the cards she creates and gives us the instructions for. These are all Valentine Day cards that I have made. 

One of my New Year's resolutions is to send birthday cards to family and friends. I have several birthday cards to send out this week, a sympathy card and an anniversary card. I did not have any anniversary cards already made up, so I went on Pinterest and found one similar to this one. I just made a few minor tweeks. I embossed the tree trunk and I think it looks great! 

Have a great week! 

It has been a few days since I posted about eMeals. I have run into a bit of a snag. I had my meals selected for the next week. By the way, I decided to try a different plan. I easily switched over to a plan called Classic Plan for 2. I think I will give the Quick and Healthy another try after I have gotten into this new weekly shopping thing. Any way, like I was saying, I had my meals selected for the next week, I had my grocery list ready, I marked off the items I already had and then the anticipated ice storm was ready to hit. My husband said he was in the mood for chili and his favorite chicken casserole. He just threw my plans all off, so I shopped to make those items instead of the ones I had planned. 

Tomorrow, Wednesday, eMeals will post a new set of meals for the next week. I will then look over the new list, get my grocery list prepared, mark off the items I already have and go grocery shopping again. This time I think I will leave the hubby at home so he does not change all of my plans on me.

I will let you know what meals I select. I thought the ones from last week looked good. If you are interested in checking out eMeals and subscribing, please click this link. You can subscribe for 3 months or 12 months. You can also try the site out free for 2 weeks.  If you try it out, let me know what you think of it. 

I came home from work to find happy mail!!! My package from Stampin Up arrived. I am so excited. I received my Big Shot a day or two ago and it was still on the table, so here is a picture of my new Big Shot and my package, not opened yet. 

Let's see what is inside!

It looks like fun to me! There are some of the boring things, like dimensionals and tape runners, also some empty dvd cases that I store my Thinlets in. I can see a stamp set in the lower left corner. 

There were 5 stamp sets in all in the box. I can't wait to play with them. What else was in the box? Let's see.......

There is some cardstock! I got 2 packages of Brights Designer Series paper, 4 packages of Whisper White cardstock, a package of silver foil sheets, Rose Red cardstock, Sending Love Paper stack and Carried Away Designer Series. I wanted the Whisper White cardstock for the upcoming card buffet. It will be used for the card base on most of the cards. 

The last items are things I will use in the Big Shot. I fell in love with the hexagon embossing folder. Just had to have it. The other one is called Softly Falling and could be used with the tree thank you card for the card buffet. The next thing are some thinlets. The are small dies that will cut the cardstock into the shapes. They are also used with the Big Shot. 

Right now Sale-A-Bration is going on. For every $50 in merchandise that you order, you may select something out of the Sale-A-Bration catalog. Let me know if you want more information.  

I think I am off to play. I will post pictures if I get something made, but I will probably just put my items away for tonight and really play this weekend. So glad it is a 3 day weekend!

Meal #2 from eMeals.com is in the books. Tonight we had Broiled Salmon with Citrus Topping, broiled Asparagus and barley. The recipe says it will take 15 minutes of prep time and 15 minutes of cooking time. It took me longer, but I am a very messy and disorganized cook! I think it would take most people the time they said.

Here are the main items for our meal. 

Do you see the first thing I did wrong? Look real close at that nice piece of fish. The reason I don't consider myself a good cook is I don't like to pay attention to details in the kitchen. That is a piece of trout, not salmon. Ok, I have 2 choices. Pretend I didn't notice it was trout and follow the salmon recipe. Does it really matter? Or I could go run to the computer, look up trout recipes and change my recipe for the night. I decided to go ahead with the salmon plan. Fish is fish, right?

I cooked the food according to directions, mostly, and this is what it looks like. 

I asked Bill if he had every had barley for dinner. He said no, it was a first. We both thought it was okay. Not anything spectacular, but okay. 

This is the meal on my plate. There is a citrus topping on the salmon (trout). I enjoyed this meal and would make it again, with salmon next time though!

If you are interested in using eMeals, please let me know. I will send you a referral. I get my subscription extended for each person that subscribes from my referral. I really enjoy the program so far. My favorite part is I have food in my fridge for several nights of cooking. There is no "What on earth am I going to cook/heat up tonight?"

I did it! I managed to fix my first eMeals meal, (kind of). When I signed up for this program, I chose the Healthy Eating for 2 menu. The meals from the weekly menu that I thought Bill and I would like are Apricot-Glazed Pork Tenderloin, Caribbean Jerk Burgers with Lime Mayo, Broiled Salmon with Citrus Topping and Spanish-Style Chicken Legs with Potatoes.  These are the meals I shopped for last night.

Earlier today, I asked Bill which one he was in the mood for. He was completely confused that I was asking that! The truth is, I usually only "cook" once or twice a week. The rest of the time, we eat frozen pizza, pot pies or we go out to eat. This routine started when our youngest moved out. I have been on a 5 year break! So anyway, back to Bill. He said he was in the mood for the tenderloin. 

Here is what the weekly menu looks like. 

The recipe was very east to follow. It said it would take 10 minutes to prep and 20 minutes to cook. I think their estimate was pretty close.

I gathered the ingredients for the sauce that the tenderloin was basted with. It was quick and easy to mix up. 

The next step was to put the tenderloin in a pan, add salt and pepper and then baste it with the apricot mixture. 

It cooked for 25 minutes and I basted it a couple of times. The eMeals menu includes a side dish. I guess it was a good thing that they did not have baby beets at the store last night. I told Bill that I was going to make the side they suggested but couldn't get all the ingredients. He asked what I was missing and after I told him, he very emphatically said that he does not like beets! Guess I will scratch that side off the list. We had scalloped potatoes instead. I am afraid it was the kind that comes from a box too! The Pioneer Woman does not need to worry about me being competition in her cooking expertise yet! Here is the finished tenderloin. Well, half of it. The other half is still in the oven. It kind of split in 2 and so we ate the smaller half first. 

It was nice and hot. See the steam rising? This was a recipe I would make again. Bill said he liked it too, but he is not as picky of an eater as I am.  

I really need to be working on lesson plans for the week and the preschool program that will be here very soon! But....instead......here is basket 2 that is now ready for the card buffet. This one could be a valentine card or just a note card, it depends on the sentiment you stamp on it. I love the Rose Red and the Crumb Cake colors together. Let me know if you live in the area and want an invite to the Card Buffet.  

I am like most people and love my weekends. Yesterday, I did nothing until around noon. It was great! 

I decided I couldn't be a bum all day, so I  got to work on my upcoming Stampin Up Card Buffet. At a card buffet, the host makes some sample cards and has the supplies ready for the guest to make the cards. Right before Christmas I found a card on Pinterest that I loved! The even better thing, I had all of the materials on hand to copy it. In the card making world, that is called CASE, copy and share everything. Julie Davison is the name of the person I copied from. I did not have the same embossing folder, but I had a different one I liked better. I also put the bird on a dimensional. I liked that look better. Here is a picture of the basket ready for the Card Buffet.

The next thing I did yesterday was go on my first grocery shopping trip using the eMeals app. This is a subscription web site that plans your meals for the week and then gives you a grocery list. I found out that Saturday late afternoon is not the time for this activity! I went to the Walmart that is about 20 miles from me. I was able to find most of the items I needed until I got to the produce section. The asparagus was already gone. The fresh herbs were picked over or gone. I also decided that one of the healthy benefits of this app is the amount of walking around the store I did trying to find the items.  I think when I get more used to the grocery list, it will be better. Tonight, I am going to make the first meal from the list. I will let you know how that goes. I am in the process of signing up to be an affiliate for this website. I will post links when I get that done. Thanks for reading and leave comments so I know you are out there! 

Today is an inservice day at school. The inservice is being held at the high school, so just a few blocks from my house. I have time to run home for lunch today! It always feels like I am doing something I am not supposed to when I have time to run home during the work day. I promise, I will be back at the school on time! 

I have had some questions about the meal planner I am using. I signed up at eMeals.com. It costs $5 a month. I have played around with it enough now that I feel I can tell you more about it.  

If you decide to sign up, you have several meal plans to choose from. Some of the choices include clean eating, quick and healthy, paleo, low calorie, low fat, low carb, 30 minute meals and kid friendly meals. There are a lot more choices too. About any kind of food program you want is listed. I chose the quick and healthy plan for 2. I put the eMeals app on my phone. It comes with membership. Every Wednesday, they post the menus for the next week. I looked at the meal choices and took off the ones that I don't think we would like. I don't like broccoli and Bill is not a big rice or vegetarian eater. Then I went to last weeks menus and picked a few from there to add to my menu. I decided to put 5 of their meals on my menu. We eat out at least 2 meals a week. I clicked on the shopping cart and it gave me a detailed list of items I needed for each meal by category. I checked off the items that I already have and now I am ready to go to the store. It was very simple to use. I can't wait to try some of the recipes. There is a place to mark your favorite ones. Wish me luck! 

I was very much in the crafting mood around Christmas time. I still am in the mood, but I am a teacher, so it is time to get back to the real world and back to work for me. Crafting will have to wait again.  I do want to host a card buffet at my home, so I will need to do some prep work for that. I hope to do that at the end of the month.

My attention has been pulled into a couple of different directions the last couple of days. I am wanting to deal with the clutter in my home. I am a preschool teacher, so I always have projects for the kids in the works. They tend to gather all over the dinning room table and the kitchen island. I am determined that I am going to get the clutter under control in 2017! 

To work on my goal of getting the clutter under control, I started reading the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo. I am finding it to be a good and motivating book. I will keep you posted on the book and the decluttering. I am afraid I did not get much done as far as the clutter goes today. I guess you could count that my grandsons, daughter and her boyfriend came by and we had Christmas today. My tree no longer looks as if Christmas has not happened. So, I got rid of Christmas present clutter today! 

The other thing I really want to work on in 2017 is the typical "get healthy" resolution. I know I need to loose many pounds, but I am not going to set a specific amount. I know I need to exercise more, but I am not going to set a specific amount. What I am going to do is concentrate on my food choices. I decided to try out an online food menu program. I select the items we will eat for the week and it gives me the recipes and a grocery list. The nearest grocery store is about 20 miles away, so a list will be very helpful. Running to the store for one or two items is not a good plan in my situation. I will let you know more about how that goes in the days, weeks and months ahead. 

Happy New Year to everyone and I hope you have a fantastic 2017!

I can't end this post without some crafting news. Here are some of the things I helped a friend with right before Christmas. She came over for an afternoon and we designed and cut these items on my Silhouette machine. She then took them home and made wooden signs and a window frame sign with these vinyl items. I love my Silhouette!