My Machine got the best of me!!!

Ok, I have to tell a quick story that almost got my DS lite thrown through the wall:)

I got have a DS Lite and I got Brain Age 2 for Christmas. I love it. For me its great b/c I spend about 10-15min each night doing the training and testing my "brain age" and then I put it away and play again tomorrow:) I started playing with I think on Dec 30 or 31 but Since Jan 1 I have been doing it every day [B][I](You get a "stamp" for each day you do at least one training exercise and the more you do the bigger the stamp gets-so I usually try to do at least 3!)[/I][/B] Anyway, so I have diligently acquiring my stamps and the more you get the more games/trainings it opens.

Anyway, so over the last few days my "Brain Age" has been pretty good-right around my actual age. I think last nights might have been 29. (and I am actually 31 almost 32!) So tonight I do the brain age check after I do the trainings and you do a set of 3 different activities for the brain age. Well, I made a new record in two of the three activities and the third would have come off better but my touch screen didn't agree with me. Anyway....so I get done and go to where the little guy gives you your brain age and he tells me I am [B]71[/B]!!!
I was mad. I started saying "How can I be 71 when I broke two new records?" And I am thinking something must be wrong with this thing and I was not happy. Then the little guy on the screen goes "Oh I am sorry, I think I made a mistake on your brain age. Your real brain age is 29! Ha, ha, hoo hoo!!

I couldn't believe it. The little man in my DS was laughing at me from my machine-and he got him. He completely got me.Oye!

So that is my story for the day. I really don't have anything else new to write about right now. I had a CM meeting last night and tonight I want to save my CC journal and then scan my christmas cards in so I can put them into a digital book:) I keep the photo ones but this way I can keep them all together digitally too and get rid of the non-photo ones for now:)

Tomorrow will probably a long day at work. I think we might be going for pizza again this week for lunch but we have a staff meeting at 1:30 and that should be interesting-haven't had one in awhile and it can get good. Which reminds me I need to have my PDA all charged up so I can play some games while we are in there!

Saturday will be incredibly busy with my friends mother's funeral (in south jersey) in the morning, then lunch/build a bear/barnes and noble with my 8 year old niece (still in south jersey) and then drive back home to central jersey by 5pm so I am definately home in time to go to dinner around 6pm for our friend's birthday. I am not doing anything sunday!

So if you don't see me for a few days don't worry and feel free to keep it warm here. I promise to come back with photos!

Days of Our Lives

ok-I dont know if anyone who read this watches it and if not, that is ok, you can just ignore this BUT, I just have to note for the record that I have been thinking/saying since this whole "vendtta" storyline that Colleen Brady is still alive AND I think she is the one threatening Stefano.

I am officially stating that I think she IS alive and if she is not, she has a daughter who she is named after and that person is doing the things (to "avenge" her mother or something like that).


Now it is in print! Thanks!

I know I missed yesterday....

But I am here now:) I was going to post last night but I left my power cord at work and then we had internet problems so I only had a chance to check my email really and then I logged off.

Yesterday after work I took my friend Jay over to meet Eric (the friend who is currently in the apt he is getting) to see about buying some of his extra furniture. We didn't have to meet til 6:30pm so we went to the grocery store near the apt to check it out and then drove around to see what other stores were in the area. Then we met Eric and Jay's dad at the apt to see the furniture. Jay ended up buying it all-a great deal! He got an entertainment center, blender, two lamps that match two end tables and a coffee table, another rolling small cabinet, a stereo with 3-disk changer, tall lamp and the AC all for $240!! And today when he called to officially accept the apt and asked the landlord about leaving the stuff in the apt while they re-carpet she said no problem-yeah!! So the apt stuff is on track for him.

So, since we did that I didn't get home til almost 8pm last night and then I just ate dinner, checked my email and we went to bed. Actually we took the movie Superbad in to watch as we fell asleep but both ended up watching it. It was ok.

Of course its so ridiculusly warm here for January, that both of us had a hard time falling asleep. Ben already went to bed tonight, I am catching up on tivo:)

Work is ok-little busy right now, a lot of stuff going on but I will write more about it when its all settled:)

Speaking of work, I have a question for anyone else who might know the answer) related to HR and Benefits. I know NJ is different from NY or PA or others states but I thought I would ask anyway:) Here is my question:

If an employer selects the health insurance for its employees and provides it as one of the benefits (no contribution from employees), and they decide to change plans, do they legally have to provide any sort of "notice"? If yes, how much? If no, what keeps them from doing it multiple times in a year? OR is it that they pay those plans annually too?

Also, are there any regulations that a company HAS to provide benefits to employees who work a certain number of hours or are salary vs hourly?

I will give more details on this and why I asked later:) Its nothing major, I am really just curious b/c of someone else I know. Thanks!

In other news....not really much of anything.I have a CM (creative memories) consultant meeting tomorrow night. Its nothing fancy but it keeps me up to date. Oh, I have to talk to a friend about the Zumba class we were talking about taking and see if she is up for starting next week. It actually starts this week but since I have the mtg tomorrow and the woman didn't email me, I only found out b/c I went in and asked again she said its no problem to start next week. The only thing about is the classes are 8:30-9:30pm so its kind of late but I figure by the time the class is over I will be exhausted and ready for bed!

I guess that is really about it for now. I just wanted to stop in and say Hi!!

ta ta for now!!!

Weekend update

Look at this...another post! I am on fire!!

This weekend was not too crazy. Yesterday I spent most of the day watching some tivo to catch up on ER and my soaps and last week's TAR.Oh, and we watched the Rutgers bowl game since it was on SATURDAY and not SUNDAY like we thought! Ben called me at 11:50am to tell me to set the game up on tivo b/c it was on at noon! It was a good game, Rutgers won-yeah!!! And I spent most of the day online reading through the drama on LJT in all honesty. It was quite entertaining and I just couldn't help myself.

Anyway, back to my update. Today was the wedding shower for Ben's cousin.It was nice. The theme was Alice in Wonderland and we all got pretty china tea cups with tea as favors:) I also won a silver frame in one of their games which I thought was cool. While she opened her prices they had a timer and every time it went off, who ever's present Jenny was opening would get a prize and they would reset it for random amounts of time the whole time. It was fun. I was a little bummed b/c my SIL actually got her the exact same gift (Frame and game from registry) as I did, and someone else got the same game too. Target really screwed up in updating her registry b/c I went shopping last night! I also gave her the Storybook Creator Plus software b/c I know she really liked used the free version to make her Guestbook and she was really happy to get that. At least with the gift receipt she can go exchange the stuff she got in duplicate from me for something else!

Here is a pic of her and I from the shower:


After the shower I came home, ate some dinner and have been online the rest of the night. Processing the photos from earlier so I can upload and post them and get the link out to Jenny as soon as possible. I had high hopes to work on some of my own photo stuff tonight but I don't see that in the cards at this point.

Back to work tomorrow. I still have a bit of a cold and that is a bit annoying but otherwise work shouldn't be too bad. Which reminds me I need to check and make sure all my doctors are still in-network with this new insurance they got us. I do wish they had told us in DEC that they were going to be doing this b/c I have a few appointments sceduled in the next few weeks and if I had known I could have made sure BEFORE I made appointments. Oh well, hopefully it will all work out ok.

I guess that is all for now. Be back soon!
ta ta for now!

Friday night review

*I have to write that ben beat Maat tonight in his game-yeah!I know it won't mean anything to anyone else but I wanted to mark the date!*

I am on a roll this week....sure hope I can keep it up but we will see. Keep your fingers crossed (of course that is only if you want to read what I write!LOL)

So, first up, today's report from the pizza place. I can say I think it went well.Six of us when down and I dont think we could have done it as individuals but as a group it was ok. When we went in the guy recognized us right away and said he had missed us. Some how I got to be the one who took the lead up to the counter to talk to him and then we explained to him why we hadn't been there and what happened to larry. He was very shocked to hear about larry and remembered him and even commented he knew he was young and was so saddened. After that we started to order all our food and he asked me my name and then said not to tell anyone or make a thing of it but that our lunch was on the house today. It was a very nice gesture and we appreciated it and think it was very classy and thoughtful thing for him to do. We took our food and had a good lunch. For me, I don't think I could have done it alone but I think it was good for everyone so we can start out the year in the right direction. Aftwe we finished eating, we went back up and thanked Camilio again (pizza shop owner) and told him he would see us again soon.

At work,not too much but Right before I left for the day I checked my work email and realized they sent a message earlier telling us they are changing out health insurance and while we still don't have to pay anything ourselves, we do now have a co-pay of $30 per visit for pretty much everything. Doctor visits are still covered 100% but we went from $0 co-pay to $30 co-pay which to me is a bit of a big jump but what ya gonna do? Its the same price as Ben's insurance and I have to look at his but I think he might have the same as this new one. I have to look into a few things and see how different it is, the biggest being if I need referrals or if I can still just go where I want when I want. Fun stuff-not!

In other news...
I have a wedding shower on sunday. Thankfully, and very luckily, its actually up here in my kneck of the woods b/c the BMs are all spread out and this area was in the middle. The other good thing is it is at a Restuarant (Which has a bar) and means I will be able to occassionally sneak out and check the score of the Rutgers bowl game that I will be missing by being at the party! I will get to see the begining b/c it starts at noon and the party isn't til 1pm but I might just go to the restaurant and hang in the bar to watch while I wait-especially since its only about 15min from my house-yeah!!! I am sure I will have some photos from that next week!

Tomorrow I need to clean up the house, run the Roomba (I LOVE it!) and go to Target to pick up some things for shower gifts. I am giving her a copy of that Storybook Creator Plus software b/c I know she enjoyed using the free one to make some things and with all the photos betweent the shower, the wedding and their HM in Disney-I am sure she will want to make some more and now she will be able to do more with it too. And I want to be sure to pick up a few small items from her actual registry too:)

I guess that is all for now. Oh, I did end up deciding on a purse from www.thesak.com and I used my credit it purchase it AND it was on sale enough that it covered my shipping too with $0.76 to spare! It shoudl be arriving next week.I went with the shoulder strap one instead of the cross body b/c I have two others that have long enough straps for cross body when I want something like that. Here is a pic of the bag: (sorry I can't post pics from the site)
http://www.thesak.com/product-exec/product_id/1126/category_id/4885/last_cat/4885
That bag in chocolate. Its nothing fancy but it didn't cost me anything so I am not going to complain (well I guess it technically cost me the price of my original bag but I made out on this deal!)

And as a closing note, be forewarned that you may hear me write/post more about some scrapbooking stuff, name the storybook creator and the pages I make b/c I need a good place to post my book ideas and then share pages, so you have been warned! Of course I say this but at this rate I won't be making a book for a few more weeks!LOL

OK...that is all for now. Have a great weekend!!
Ta ta for now!

Complete and utter randomness

But not too much exciting happened today. I mean a few silly things happened but they aren't things I think anyone really cares about but since I have nothing else to post about that I can think of...I will post these things.

Let's see....today at work was fine. Nothing too special. Its a short week and I am thankful for that. I did get a funny call from Ben today and he asked me if the chinese food from last night was behind the milk and I told him NO! If there was still chinese food behind the milk that was from last week and I forgot to throw it away, the new stuff was on the bottom shelf. His reaction "Well I will just toss this into the trash then....good thing I didn't start eating it!LOL" Opps!!! And this would be why I don't put things BEHIND anything-I forget they are there!!!

Ben's cousin Josh called me today to ask if I would try taking some head shots for him b/c he wants to try and get into being an extra for TV/Movies with a friend of his. I told him I know nothing about head shots but I would be happy to try for him. He said he woudl do the research (see what sort of stuff is expected and needed and such) and then I will do the shooting! We will see how that goes!!!

I talked to my sister today and told her I would take my niece out next saturday on her birthday to lunch and then barnes and noble.

Oh, did I tell you all about my niece and getting a present for josh? Tara knows ben's cousin pretty well since he goes to all the Eagles things with us all the time. Well, when my sister had taken her out shopping to let her pick out some gifts for people for christmas, my sister asked Tara if there was anyone else she wanted to buy a gift for and she said Josh. All on her own she thought of him. He thought it was the sweetest thing ever and so had said he wanted to take her out for ice cream or something since she did that so I think we are going to see if he will be around next weekend and then the three of us can go out to Friendly's.

A funny story about my grandfather, well funny in a good way more for me than anything but today my cell phone rang at work and I looked and it was my grandfather's cell phone. I picked it up but he had hung up by then. I tried calling back but no answer so I wanted a while and tried again. This time he answered and he was quite excited to 1-talk on this "little phone" and 2-that he could actually hear me with his hearing aid in on this "little phone". He got a kick out of it. He said he had been trying to play with the phone and figure out what numbers were in it and didn't know I was the first number til he tried to call it! He had called himself with it before but had not recieved a call on it or talked to anyone on the phone yet so that was pretty cool. He said he has been reading the books on how to use and he thinks he was done with the "little" book (quick start guide) and was ready to check the "Big" book (the really long manual!). I am glad he is trying things out with it.

In other news, my friend Jay from work got approved for an apt. This has no real bearing on my life but all of us at work have been helping him to decide if he wants to take the apt and check it out and apply for it and all for the the last month so now that we know he got approved, he has til next friday to decide. I think he will take it-its a great deal and not one he will find in this area again easily. It's actaully a friend of ours apt who is moving in with his fiance. So lets keep our fingers crossed it all works out. I think he will take it but he has never really lived on his own and is just nervous about it.

Let's see what else...oh, did I mention I got Brain Age 2 for my DS Lite for christmas? I really like it. Its fun and quick little memory games each day to help practice your brain. When I started I was brain age 31 but yesterday I was brain age 60 and today I did better and was brain age 40. It says that after age 20, basically your brain turns to mush if you don't "Excercise it"!

Another work related thing, Tracy got her new phone today-the Venus and its so awesome. I love it and its not even mine! Also, we decided that tomorrow we are finally going to make the lunch trip to our old pizza place that we haven't been back to since larry died. We have been putting it off long enough and we just want to get it over with. I know it sounds really silly that it would be so hard to go to a pizza place but its hard to explain if you aren't part of our little group how much this place was a part of us as a group. We wanted to do it all together to make it easier and so I think all 5 of us are going down tomorrow. Fridays are best b/c we don't have to rush back after lunch if we run a few minutes b/c the students are gone at that point. The afternoon is paperwork and I will be swapping out a computer that doesn't work right in my area.

Ok, I think that is it for me today. Lots of babble and nonsense but I did post and that is what I am trying to do. Have a great night everyone and I will talk to you tomorrow!!

ta ta for now!!!

In my effort to post every day-today's topic is Digital Scrapbooking!!

Hi! I know digital scrapbooking is something you have probably heard me talk about before but I thought I would make an official post about it.

I am a photo freak-I admit it and I am proud of it. I got into traditional scrapbooking shortly after I got married when I met a neighbor who sold creative memories stuff. As much as I enjoy it and I have way too many supplies for what I need, when photobooks or "storybooks" as creative memories calls them started popping up toward the end of 2006 I was thrilled.

I tried out the CM ones, and I tried Shutterfly's, Snapfish and Kodak and while some of the others were cheaper in $$, I found myself gravitating to the CM (creative memories) ones b/c while they were a little more $$, they seemed a bit nicer, at least to me. I also figured with the way I would print photos for my scrapbooks it worked out to cost me about the same if not cheaper in the bigger picture!LOL I even started selling the CM products this past august b/c I love all their digital options so much. I don't really make money from it, more or less helps me to keep costs down in feeding my own habit! I mention this here only because the program of choice I use is their new Storybook Creator Plus and if anyone has questions I would be happy to try and help.(and you can order your own copy clicking the previous link or by going to www.mycmsite.com/colleenf and look under Products, then Digital!)

I can say this, I LOVE the CM software I use to make my books now. When I first heard about it was before I became a "consultant" and I would have bought it anyway. I made 6 books for christmas this year plus a whole ton of pages that I was able to just print out or have printed and slid into albums.

So...now that my babbling is over, who else prefers to scrapbook digitally? What programs do you use? What do you like best about it? Any tips? I guess I will get the party started here....

To answer my own questions:
1.I use Creative Memories Storybook Creator Plus. (they offer a free version of this software but it only makes storybooks and is basically a template drag and drop. The plus version lets you make individiual pages and save them as jpgs to have printed if you don't want a whole book-and its completely customizable. I call it my "photoshop" for scrapbookers on crack!

2. I love lack of mess. Not printing all my photos and having extras, or having to spend an hour "Setting up" to do a few pages. With digital scrapbooking I can sit on the couch while we watch a movie or TV and make a few pages and then just shut down when I am done-LOVE it.

3. Tips....I don't really have any of those right now. I sort of make it up as I go along!

And for fun....here are a few of my recent pages:

This is a quick page I made for my good friend after we went to the American Idol Concert-Blake being our fave:) It is actually a 12x12 page print


THis is another 12x12 page print that I made of photos and text from a news article my BIL was featured in:


This is a 4x6 print I made for my dad of his wedding (I made a whole bunch of simliar ones and slide them into a Picfolio Minutes Album mounted on some paper-they loved it!)


I also made his new wife a Picolfio Mini album (about half the size of a 4x6) where I made a whole bunch of photos with the calendar on them and the whole mini album fits in her purse. I made two of these on one 4x6 print then cut them.


Another 4x6 print


And one more 12x12 page print I made for my dad. I actually made about 7 pages and put them in a 12x12 Picfolio Max album and now when we have some event, I cna just make a page and mail it to him instead of a bunch of photos that will sit in a box:)


I actually have a ton more if people are interested-just let me know!!!

Hope to see some pages from others!