My New Blog

Welcome, my name is Shelley and I just celebrated my 50th birthday at Yosemite National Park with my friend Theresa and her family! I survived 3 days in the van with 4 yo twins and a 5 yo! When I am at home in Washington State, I live with my sister J and our three pugs, Odie, Kala and Frankie. In the future, I hope to blog about my photography and adventures. Thanks for visiting, come back again!

Nash

I have been visiting Jennifer when she is in town. Nash is growing and is learning to eat and talk.
He reminds alot of Charlie. So cute.

New Activities

This is Jeannie visiting Bruno, our new pug from the Humane Society. He is a big pug and very loving.

I'll be adding more photos of Bruno. We have quite a pug pile now and the other pugs are accepting him. He fits right in. He was a stray and don't know anymore of his history.

Scrapping Digitally

I've been doing lots of layouts digitally. It's fun and addicting. I love all the elements you can play with and create pages that are fun to look at. I use Photoshop skills and it makes me excited to create and use the pictures I have.

It's a never ending work because I make a layout and think about other ways to use the same pictures. The websites are interesting as well. You get your kits by downloading them from the website. They often have forums and galleries. You can see what others are creating. I'm finding it all very interesting and fun.

Beach Bums

I like this picture of my sister, Sharon. She passed away 02/02/02. I think of her at this time of year and thought I'd do a page for her. This was taken at Kalaloch and the ones with her kids and husband also at Kalaloch. She loved camping there and we have lots of memories of her singing at the campfire and laying in the sun at the beach.

We miss you Sharon.

This is a second page for a challenge I'm doing for Faith Sisters Web Site. It's on the Attributes of God.

Sovereign

Happy Birthday Mom

I did this digital scrapbook page in honor of my mother's birthday on the 18th of January.
I remember mom telling me about the suits they are wearing. She bought them and the photographer was at the studio she worked at in Jamestown.

I'm enjoying this way to scrapbook. I like doing this page to honor mom. Happy Birthday Mom,
we miss you.

My Mother and Her Mom Layout

This is my first digital scrapbook page. It is a challenge with Faith Sisters which is a website. This challenge is a scripture challenge using the names of God. The first name is Holy. I took this pictures at Oysterville in Longbeach. It's an old church I love visiting when I go there.

Every two weeks we will get another word to scrap a page.

It's been fun and I'm using my skills I learned in school.

Smile Box Creations

Dinah took some pictures of me with her gun. Her pink gun. I enjoyed making this layout. I'm having fun. lol

Make a Smilebox greeting

Smile Box

I have been playing with a scrapbooking sight called smile box. It's been fun and gives me a place to use my photos and I've enjoyed sharing with others.
Dinah and Bryan bought a couple new guns and came over to show Jeannie and I. I took a few pictures and made the newspaper up. It's a laugh. Dinah bought a pink gun. They go shooting. Bryan bought a shotgun.

Make a Smilebox greeting

New Year Goals

Christmas is over and brings us to the new year. I always think this is a good time to make goals and accomplish them within the new year. I'll share here how I'm doing throughout the year on the things I want to accomplish.

One goal I have, is to be organized and clear the clutter. I read today in a devotional the following: Mark Twain once said; "The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one." I have found that this does work and if I remember to break down the large mountain before me into small sections I can manage the task. What's important is to stay with it every day. Fifteen minutes a day repeated over and over again.

Another goal I have this year is to be more disciplined with reading my Bible and keeping God near me each day. This is important to me and I don't stick with it. I find I am too tired, or too busy and days go by and I haven't read or studied. I think it is important because if I do it I feel better emotionally. It's a positive thing to do and I let life come in and I forget about God. So, 15 minutes a day repeated many times.

Goals for 2009

My first three priorites for this new year is to act on my weight problem. I must do something and it is the act of doing that I am concentrating on. Currently I'm on two different insulins. One is a slow acting and one is a faster acting one. I've been having to monitor my blood sugar and taking the faster acting one three times a day. My Diabetes is worsening. So, I plan on acting on this and do all the things I already know to do, but am not doing.I enjoy walking, hiking, taking photos, so I plan on doing more of these activities and adding bike riding. We have places to bike that are safe and so I'm getting on the bike. Jeannie talks about getting a treadmill this year so that will help. I have a couple walking DVDs that will help do a structured activity.

The second thing I'm going to act on is organization and downsizing clutter. I've made some progress recently and need to continue. My Mom passed away a couple years ago and I have had to organized some of her items I wanted. Everything got put downstairs and untouched for a while. It seems to multiply and reproduce if I don't stay atop of the clutter.

I think the third will be to do more creative things. Probably do more with my photos by doing digital scrapbooking and scanning some more older photos I have. I also want to sew/quilt this year. I love the process of quilting and need to do more. Mostly, because of clutter I don't.So, share your goals for this year if you wish. I'll share how I am DOING in the future.

Neighbors Sledding

Celina and Mackenzie are next door neighbor I spotted sledding. I took a few pictures. There hasn't been many times we could sled like this when I was growing up.

Happy 2009

Christmas Eve Celebration

Hope you all had a good holiday. Happy New Year. Most of us got together at my brother's house and enjoyed good food and conversation. The snow is now gone and it has been the usual rain and cold. The snow was beautiful and I really enjoyed it. The rain is familia and easier to get around in. I wanted to go to the mountains this year and see the snow. It came down our way and I enjoyed it while it was here. I visited a park nearby and took pictures of the barns.

New Years Eve was spent pretty quiet. Brian and Dinah stopped by for awhile. We did stay up until after midnight. Jeannie and I made a crab and shrimp boil. It was good and worth trying again perhaps in the summer. Seafood boiled in spices with corn on the cob and potatoes. It was fun.

So, hope everyone has a good 2009 and enjoy the pictures.

Christmas Eve Celebration

Christmas Day we got together with Matt, Aian, Brian and Dinah. We put costume's on the pugs. Always worth a good laugh. We did fondue and had fun.

Christmas Eve Celebration

Christmas 2008

Fort Steilacoom Park