So it is April sixteenth and United States income taxes were due at the stroke of midnight yesterday. I’m free from the 1040 Form and back to Photoshop creations. I made a decision over the past few months that I think everyone of you will enjoy, I will no longer be charging for my creations.

Why, you say. Well after preparing taxes for the past 16 weeks I have seen the desperate financial state many are dealing with. Too many are having to live off unemployment or reduced salaries, mere scraps compared to what they were earning just two years ago.

I thought about this for a long time, going over the pros and cons of my decision. Up until now I was earning a small steady income with my online endeavors and it was tough to think about giving it up. My decision to do just that came after seeing an elderly couple cry at my desk because they owed the federal government over $10,000 in taxes.

So for all of you who enjoy my creations and bypassed them because you could not afford them this is my gift. I will post the links to them all soon and I hope you will share your pages as you make them. I will post each one here if you wish for them to be displayed and I hope to make it a regular post every Friday.

Kiss your Babies everyone.

I’m not sure if I have shared the fact that my oldest children do not live in my home. See I entrusted them into the lives of an older couple in an open adoption in 1996. Well as the years have gone by I lost contact with them and just recently found them again because of Myspace.

I now have pictures of my beautiful daughter and just had to put a page together for her. She has turned into a fine young lady and I am so proud of her. She looks so much like my sisters and I that I sometimes just sit and cry from the pure joy I feel. She is mine, no matter what has happened over the years I have NEVER stopped loving her or her brother.

Soon they willl be of an age where they can make the decisions to see me and meet their younger brothers and sister. I am waiting patiently because I know that what I did was out of love and I have suffered each and every day that I have been without them.

Well, I am soon to be back to this full time with a plethora of new kits and commercial use freebies for everyone. I am putting serious thought into new ideas and possibly changing all my kits into commercial use items.

Kiss those babies.

My family and I just went and had our pictures taken, the last time we did a family photo the two youngest hadn’t been born yet. I now remember why we waited so long, I tell you it was a trial getting them all to co-operate and sit still but it was definetly worth it. So I thought I would introduce you all to my family using a few items from my Spring Creations kit.

I know the last time I posted I told everyone I would be releasing the kit the next day; I didn’t intend to disappoint, only thing is I am just signing back on for the first time since that night. My PC crashed once again, this time it took every PC in the house with it. Still do not know what is causing this to happen so it seems I may need to wipe out the harddrive all together and start over. Until the problem is taken care of I am shut down completely. I can put pages together; I just can’t create and share anything until then.

So, how is everyone? I have been so caught up in my own spot here that I have been neglecting my usual updates. I hope to stop by everyone’s pages over the next few days to see what creations I’ve missed. Well, goodnight and kiss those babies.

I missed January completely, sorry for my top Droppers because I am not even aware who made the list. I do appreciate those who take the time to visit my little corner of the world and am upset that I did not spread some love. March is here, just two more days and I will celebrate another birthday. Spring is coming up and I can not wait, I am done with winter for sure.

 February’s Top Droppers

Robins Nest: Scrap Out Loud

Camping And Outdoors Blog

Memories Made Easy

Scraps of Mind

Cens Loft

And Life Goes on for A Filipino Mom

Knit Knack

MARKFE

3 Scrapbooking Ladies

So I am sure everyone can count and that we realize there are only 9 blogs listed. Well I followed the link to my tenth blog just to find it had been deleted. That was kinda shocking to come across, why would someone spend the time dropping if they weren’t going to keep the blog?

I guess there are other reason it could be gone, maybe a hacker took it out, or less sinuous things coulda happened. Kind of like life if you think about it, here today but you could be gone tomorrow. Hmm, think I will get off here and go kiss my babies.

I am working on a new freebie kit for everyone (about time!), I missed New year’s and Valentines Day so I thought it was time to forgo a bit of sleep to create something to share. I have a few pieces done already so I thought I would whip up a layout page and give you a sneak peek at my next freebie.

                  Spring Creations Layout

I still haven’t worked out the kinks in my software or figured out why I can’t access my storage space, but I always have my free space providers. I will work on getting it upload over the next couple of nights so everyone can download by Monday. By then I should have the entire kit done so I hope everyone comes back Monday for their freebie.

Work is work, not gonna complain tonight made myself promise I would not before I gave in and signed on to the internet. My family is doing well these days and I am, not much to fuss over since I tore the muscle in my left shoulder. Oh yeah, I never told anyone about that, I was up late one night staggering into the babies bedroom and fell when I picked him up. I wrenched myself around to keep the baby from hitting the floor and landed on my son’s toddler bed, hurt like you would not believe.

By mid-afternoon the next day I was doing tax returns with tears running down my cheeks. Called in my Mom (she works for the same company) and off to the ER I went. Not broke just tore the muscle and bruised it, they gave me muscle relaxers (nothing stronger because I am still breast-feeding my little Charlie boy) and a sling (not much help actually). They tell me a torn muscle takes longer to heal and hurts more than breaking a bone, couldn’t say about broken bones because I have not broken anything other than my baby toe and my nose. I can tell you my shoulder throbs on a regular basis and I still can’t raise it past elbow height without wincing.

Well thats the last of my rambling updates, I hope you all come back Monday for that kit and remember to kiss those babies.

I have seriously been lacking here in my little digi-scrap world. I have realized that right now it is just not feasible to keep up with the trends and work a full-time job while taking care of 6 kiddos.

I want to take this time today to say that I have been married to one of the most amazing men for 12 years. He gets up every morning at 2 am and goes to work, gets home by 6am and handles all the children effortlessly (or so it seems). They get to school on time every morning, they get dressed and fed. He changes the diapers (we still have two in them), he soothes all the owies, he handles the mid-afternoon meltdowns. I sit at work for 50 hours a week while he keeps the house like any paid housekeeper would. He has dinner on the table when I get home even on the days he takes me to work and picks me up. The laundry is always done, the kiddos are all happy and I am trully appreciative. I can not wait until this tax season is over, it is time for me to spend time with my children, love my husband and be happy.

I need to stop looking for the next big money making trend, money is overrated. Necessary, yes, overrated and over used definetly. Where is the time of the barter system?

So I was told I have a stupid, pointless hobby today. Do you know how incredibly miffed that made me? I got red in the face and completely ticked, pointless my foot! Scrapbooking, wether traditional or digital, is a time honored memory preservation technique.

Digital scrapbooking has brought the traditions to everyone and gave it new life. I have not seen such a diverse set of people scrapbook as I do in digital scrapbooking communities, all age groups and both sexes alike. You would never have been able to convince me a year ago that men were just as avid a scrapper as women.

From children to great-grandparents, I have seen stunning works of art created with treasured family heirlooms from all who dabble in this so-called pointless hobby. How can art of any variety be called stupid and pointless?

Pictures will be my families legacy hundreds of years from now, with time passing and faces fading away, pictures will be our memories. With scrapbooking you not only capture the look, you can capture the esense of the moment by adding your thoughts and actions of that moment for all who come after your gone.

To me scrapbooking is not a hobby, it is history in the making. On that note I will say goodnight to you all, I have another long week ahead of me. Well, kiss those babies everyone.

I miss my family so very much. If there was a time machine where I could go back and choose to work like this again, I would choose to stay with my babies instead. By the time I get home every night not one single child is awake and my husband is usually fast asleep within the hour. I rush in the mornings trying to get ready and out the door on time kissing babies and hugging my boys on the fly.

I came home from work a few days ago and found out that my eight year old son took my wedding rings from off my desk. My fingers swell at night so I take my rings off and put them on my desk, well that morning in question my fingers were still too swolen to put on my rings. He apparently took them to school and at some point he tried to pry them apart thinking that it was more than one ring.

My husband picked him up from school at which time he proudly showed him what he had “found in the prize box” at school. I am just so completely at a loss for words, I am too upset to really do more than explain why they are important to me. He does not understand, he does but he doesn’t. He knows only that it made Mommy cry when she explain why they were important to her.

 Well I could whine some more but I won’t, I hope each of you have a better week than I have had. Kiss those babies everyone.

I have been trying to figure out a way to combine traditional scrapping with digital in a way that will allow me to have some fun with my old scrapping buddies. Most of them have smirked at the idea of switching over to digital and I can not convince them to even try.

My idea is to hold a scrapping party and have all my home computers set up in the dining room hooked up to the internet. I want to walk them through every step I took in finding my little niche here in the digital world.

They will have an advantage over me, they will have someone sitting right next to them when they get stumped on their next move. I hope that by showing them all the fun I have had online will push them into gaining more enthusiasm when I ask them over to scrap with me.

Well, I have a few things to work out before I can make that happen. I do have plenty of time to do it considering I won’t have the time until after April 15th. Kiss those babies.

I am just about completely drained, lol. Well I am done with updating and installing my programs again, now I am working on a few new kits. I want to get them finsihed by the end of next week but I am not promising anything.

I do have a few layout templates ready just need to save them as .png and .jpeg files for my PSP buddies. Funny thing lately, I get inspired to create something in the middle of preparing a tax return. What on earth is inspiring about a tax return is trully confounding me but it works.

I love the new Photoshop my family bought for Christmas and since it was not a digital download I still have it. Everything else I had has vanished even my tech friend said I was never going to recover them. Oh well, means I can really make a decision based on experience. I do have way more storage space and I am building everyhting with digital scrapbooking in mind.