Recipe for a WONDERFUL SUNDAY!!

INGREDIENTS:
1 Free Roast from Albertsons
Roadtrip to Aledo
1 Cool Mom
1 Cool Famiy in Aledo

INSTRUCTIONS:
Cook roast in slow cooker all day Saturday before leaving
Drive to Aledo with cooked roast stored in to-go dishes, Marguarita Mix, and Pineapple Rum and put in "carry-on" luggage of doubled brown paper bags w/handles from Market Place. Also included in "carry-on" is a Starbucks bag with stamp sets, sample card, and acrylic block.
Arrive in Aledo and, after greeting Sara, Keven, Lillian and little Edison, continue on with a tour of all the "new" stuff at their house.
Then sit back, relax, and ENJOY!!!! (The roast was great, the company was great, the entire day was PRICELESS!!!

Thank you William family. This travel tip is brought to you by the happy participant, MOM!!

Tooting My Horn!!

I just wanted to share some exciting stuff going on with me over here! It's all good and I will go in order from good to GREAT!

Good: I am now the Design Team Coordinator for Glue Art and Paper Studio, which means I am in charge of organizing, reminding and keeping all the design team members motivated and up to date with the current happenings at Glue! (it's all for fun, I only get paid in product, but I love it, so I don't care!) I "hired" my friend Jen (now one of my best friends) as a new designer and she and I will most likely be helping to work the Glue Art and Paper Studio booth at the National Scrapbook Convention in Arlington coming up in June! Anyone up for babysitting?

Better: I was invited to join the design team for Verve Visual! This is one of the HOT companies right now in the stamping world run by a great girl named Julee Tilman! YAY! I am among some unbelievable talent, many of whom were already my friends before joining the team! Check out the Verve Gallery and The Verve Blog! This really is a dream come true and I am on a "short list" of future designers for My Favorite Things, another stamp company I am striving to be associated with, as I know the owner (Kim, who I will be meeting in person at the Arlington Stamp Day on May 3rd) and many of the designers on that team as well.

GREAT: I got an email yesterday from the editor of PaperCrafts Magazine and THIS CARD (click that link soon because I have to remove it for publication and that's why I didn't just put the photo...you know you want to) is going to be published in their special edition magazine called Card Creations in September!! I will get an advance copy before they hit the newsstands (don't you know that will be a happy mail day!) and will also be compensated $40-55 for it (some from their end and some from the stamp company's end)!!! One of my New Year's Resolutions was to be published in a magazine, and now it's happening! I have other things I plan on submitting soon too, as I am not stopping with just one published card!

I just love what I'm doing with my crafting and I hope y'all didn't mind me tooting my own horn just a wee bit!!! wooOHOOooooOOOO!!

iCarly

I know we all got the email but I thought Carly would like to see her project online. Be sure to leave her a comment!

Check out Carly's school project. They are learning about timelines and she had to create one about her life. Here is here completed project. She did this mostly by herself. Mommy helped picking out the photos, but Carly placed them, drew the iPod (again, with a little bit of our help) and wrote everything.
It turned out AMAZING!!!!!! Even cooler is that this will get to be displayed at the open house next Thursday.
Very cool for her. Although, this morning she was very nervous. She is a total ham in front of the family, but gets super shy in front of anyone else. I think she is worried that this project will draw too much attention to her because it was so creative. I think she feels that she colored too far outside the lines from what the directions were. We’ll see. I don’t think so. She hasn’t done too many of these type of projects yet, so I think she will feel fore comfortable once she sees all the other kids timelines.

We are soooooooo proud of her though.

Love y'all.

Michael

Audrie's Self Portrait

Just wanted to show y'all a picture Audrie drew of herself. Isn't it the greatest? It was laying next to my head one morning last week when I woke up, because she wanted it to be the first thing I saw!! I think it's pretty close to the real thing! Go Audrie!!

That's not her handwriting, though. I just thought it would look cute to have her own "watermark"!! (the font is Scrap Round, if you're interested). Also, on blogs, most pictures will enlarge if you click on them to see detail. You can't tell it in the scan, but her whole face is colored peach! Every time I look at it, I can just tell it's her!!!

Good News!!

Eric got a phone call yesterday from a placement agency, telling him he needed to call this lawyer at an insurance agency they had sent his resume to. He was under the impression that it would be for a phone interview and to set up a time for a "real" interview. Well, after the lawyer talked to Eric a bit (only like 30 minutes), he asked him if he could start on Monday!!! YAY!!! He will be doing regular paralegal work (discovery, evidence, real legal stuff that he hasn't done in a while, but really likes) for Standard Insurance Agency over on Pipeline in Hurst! Very cool! The drawback (there has to be one, because we are the Liles' family): it's an "indefinite temporary" position (huh?). So it's not a permanent thing, but could be later on, the attorney said. Therefore, we are keeping all of our irons in the fire. In fact, Eric is supposed to be getting a phone call for an interview with a company, Pioneer Energy out in Las Colinas, that would be really perfect for him and a great company to work for. The guy has been calling all his references and we found out he had talked to a couple of them. He got his foot in that door through a friend of ours from church and he has exactly what they are looking for. We are really hoping this one pans out. He also had an interview with a title company yesterday in Westlake and they are supposed to let him know something in about a week. So, grateful for the opportunity which was laid before us yesterday, but still in the market for a job that does not include the word "temporary" in it's title. Been there, done that!

Poor Anna

As you may know Lily has a NEW hamster. Well I guess the mice had a little party with because now I'm minus ALL mice and short a hamster. Needless to say Lily was sad. I foresee YET a new pet in the VERY near future.

Somehow he thought of a hamster running around the house isn't near as bad as mice. Why is that?

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OK...I was playing with a banner for us and I saw something in the corner of my eye....nothing. I see something again but further behind me. I look and guess who was there...Anna! But alas she is WAY FAST and a squeaker so I can never catch her! We NEVER even take her out of her cage...I'm getting that mouse in the house feeling again so I'm off to bed. Maybe she'll find the food I left out.

Oops

I forgot to allow comments from anyone...fixed it...sorry Michael!