Happy New Year!

Hi Peeps!

Things are so busy over in my little corner of the world. You may already know from reading my art blog that I will be working with a number of new companies this year, as well as working on a line of scrapbook paper designs with one of them. It's all very exciting! I will disclose the names of the companies shortly, but not just yet. I guess I'll just have to keep you all in suspense until then! :P

I have been severely neglecting my family blog and I feel terrible about it. As a child, I would daily write in my journal, and if I missed a day, I'd double my efforts the following day to get everything written down. I would have wall calendars and if I wasn't able to get the day's events into my journal, I'd atleast scrawl notes onto the calendar for easier recollection the following day during catch up writing.

So now that technology has advanced, and we have the luxury of typing our personal journals at our finger tips on an online blog, that we can also decorate and make as mindlessly gorgeous as we please (mind you, it is broadcast to the world too, which can be kind of scary), I have absolutely no time for it!

And here I am creating excuses when I could have written atleast 2 paragraphs of my day today, LOL! Ok. Then very quickly (sigh).

My youngest daughter, Eden, is learning to walk! She is the most beautiful little thing this side of heaven. She bursts into squeals of laughter as she takes each step which develops into a tripping run. Then she falls into my arms and squeals with delight some more. It's SOOOOO darling!!! Her laughter is one of the most divine sounds in this world. I can all too easily imagine fairies shaking out their glimmering wings and springing up out of their trees to take a peek from whence the gorgeous sound is coming. I know, every mother is partial to their own kids. And I'm certainly not exempt from this fact. :)

I have to tell you my children own all of my heart. And yet, Clint owns all of it too! I don't know how I have room to love all them as much as I do; sometimes it feels like my heart will explode. You know the feeling. And though they take all my love, I still find I have more love to spare; every hour, they each seem to find more pieces of Mummy's heart to be loved by. I can't tell you how blessed I feel to be their mother, and to be my darling hubby's wife.

Cougar, our 2 year old, recently developed Pink Eye (aka: conjunctivitus). He has been on antibiotics for several days now and his eyes (the disease spread into both of them) are clearing up nicely. It's great to see him return to his bouncy, mischievious self again (yes, seriously, haha).

But Daddy caught his Pink Eye yesterday. Daddy has been rather under the weather this week. He is taking the entire tour off to recover. Several days ago, he got sick and came down with a lung infection. It took its nasty course, but now he's in the recovery phase where he's able to expell all the junk from his lungs. Truly not fun. But he's handling it all bravely, heehee. But as he was on the mend, now he has Pink Eye too.

Bummer.

So now I have 4 kids to take care of, hehe.

Can you just imagine how busy things are for me right now?? Sometimes I feel like I'm going insane (as much as I love them, LOL!) :S

And now to our beautiful eldest child, Alora. She's doing marvellous. I can't believe she'll be turning 8 years old this year. Time does not stop. It seems to go by faster and faster each year. Her baby teeth have almost all fallen out and are replaced with her adult teeth. She doesn't look like my little chubba bubba baby girl anymore. It's a bitter sweet thing for me. I think for every mother.

And her hair is finally growing back. It's nice to have to use hair clips again to pull it all back to keep from falling into her eyes! Haha

As for me, I am drawing like a mad woman, LOL! Plus keeping up with my beloved little brood. I have so many blessings and I count them each day. I always begin with 5. Yes, I include myself. :)

You may be wondering about those glam pics on this post. Well, it's the funniest story. I was in the grocery store the other month buying mushrooms and squash (so delicious sauteed in butter!) and an agent from a modelling firm approached me. Before I knew it, I was flown to California and doing a few shoots for them. So these are some of the pictures.

....JUST KIDDING!!!!! Hahaha, did I getcha????

Ok, I'll come clean (still laughing! heehee). Every now and then, I have some time to play a wee bit. I have a group of friends on my FaceBook account that I like to mess around with when I have the time. We've been having a little too much fun over at faceinhole.com. And here are but some of the results I managed to acquire from my crazy downtime!

Truth be told, the only part of the pictures that belongs to ME is the face. Everything else belongs to a famous body or a model. And how about ME with Edward Cullen, hey?? Thankfully, Clint didn't freak out too much, haha :P.

But I have some good news (well, it's good news for me anyway *snick*). I have been working out more often and have been losing all the post baby weight et cetera et cetera. Infact, my skinny jeans are LOOSE on me now! Woo-hoo!

Sure, I'm bragging. And after having 3 kids and being married for 9 years, why not? I think we all deserve a bit of a reward in the "bragging rights" department. :D

By the way, it will be Clint's and my 9th Wedding Anniversary on February 5th. We're going BACK to Disney Land, this time WITHOUT the kids!! Woot!!! I only got to go on a total of 3 rides when we went as a family over the Christmas holidays. So now I'm gonna live it up in the place "Where Dreams Come True" and go on ALL the rides (and try not to get very sick and puke on the guy infront of us) with my very best friend. We'll be staying at the gorgeous Sheraton Anaheim Hotel, about half a mile from Disney Land. There is a shuttle that goes there twice an hour, and is complimentary to the hotel guests. We'll be at Disney Land ALL day!!!! I can't wait!!!

And after this week, I'm gonna need a vacation!! *laughs manically*

Whew! So finally, a blog entry! *pats self on back* I still need to manage to post those Disney pics from December though. Sigh. Next time.

Leave me some loves if you'd like and say hi! :) Oh, and Happy New Year!!!

Always,

Lissy xx

My Sweet Ebony and Me :)

Just a quick pic of li'l Sweet Ebony and moi. You can read more news regarding the latest on exciting my stamping escapades on my art blog. I still need to post details on our totally awesome (and totally exhausting) trip to Disney Land California last week so stay tuned!

By the way, I have finally posted pics of Alora's crazy hair cut attempt from earlier this year. Haha! The memories! You can see the new pics and read the blog here.


Update December 30th 2008

I also have tons of pics from our trip to California Disney Land and Sea World which I still need to post. Also pics of our family's Christmas. We had a lot of fun and the children made off like several very fortunate bandits! So stay tuned. At the moment, I'm just putting up my feet for a bit before the new year hits. Doubtless it will be so busy starting next week that relaxation will not only be a thing of the past, but also a miracle if I can squeeze any of it in!

Have a fabulous New Years Eve for tomorrow!

Biggest Hugs!

Twilight the Movie – Midnight Madness Vs. Second Glance Irony

Jabba the Hut Hair



Here is my take on the movie including my movie experience. Sadly it was not what I had expected the second time viewing. At any rate, enjoy! :)


Midnight November 21st, 2008. Saying the theaters were crowded at this unearthly hour is a grizzly understatement. One would be better to think the world had hit Defcon 1.

Obsessed female fans (with tag along, morose boyfriends and a smattering of male Twilighters here and there) ranging from tween to grandmother, bedecked in “Team Edward” garb and “I Heart Jacob” tees, spilled into each theater by as early as 9:00pm. According to various reliable sources, some obsessed Twi-hards confessed being in line since 11:00 that morning.

Armed with a Fandangoed ticket for the 12:05 am showing (only due to the 12:01 being sold out in record time and my lack of quick-thinkingness) my Twilighter buddy and I bustled into the theater buzzing with riotous, giggly chatter at approximately 10:20 pm where we managed to salvage two unoccupied and unsaved seats side by side. That in itself was a Herculean feat. Next to us, a young woman was swapping seats with her obviously besotted husband (as he had not, as yet, read the book) to avoid the mad enormous stack of Jabba the Hat hair perched directly in front of her (please refer to pic).

The frenzied babble died momentarily as the lights dimmed before it hit deafening decibel levels at the showing of the first preview; a shrieking roar as a victimized deer raced across the screen, which escalated in pitch when “Twilight” faded on against the eerie green of Forks forest and Bella’s voice pervaded the blackness of the theater.

My paradigm was to view the movie with little to no expectations except with the intent to enjoy the flick. The two point something hours went quickly, fueled by the frequent, intermittent squeals and titters and endless giggles of Cullen crazed fanatics. The ambience was electric, hard to miss, hard not to enjoy, hard not to loathe, and loaned itself well to the excitement of the Meyer-slash-Hardwicke screen play. The forgivably unforgivable, ridiculous irony of Midnight Madness.

By the time Edward and Bella had become “an item”, the shrieks and sighs of the teen giggling gaggle had reached the point of (past) pestilential.

Still, much of the 2 hour screening held good value. It seemed greatly funny. Infact, practically every scene conjured hysterics from the adoring audience. The awkwardness between Charlie and Bella when he picked her up in her truck. The random scene with the semi carrying the big logs in the middle of the street in Forks. The scene in biology with a disgusted Edward. Bella’s hair blowing in the fan. The school excursion to the green house (not in the book). Billy Black staring Edward down as they passed eachother in their legendary vehicles. And so forth.

The movie remained on par with the book as far as scene adaptation. It wasn’t perfect. But a movie rarely ever is when based on a piece of literature. Admittedly, I had a couple of irks that nagged me.

One was Edward’s sexy Volvo. It was meant to look luxuriously sporty and scream HOTNESS.

But a hatch back?

*Raises eye brow*

Of course Rosalie wasn’t insanely beautiful. But that’s a fact that’s been ambushed all over the cyber world since pictures of Nikki hit the net. Nothing new.

Then there was the kissing scene in Bella’s bedroom. Since when did she wear underwear over sweats to bed? And when the heck did sexually clueless, unaggressive Bella know HOW to kiss so freaking well?

I shrugged it off.

But despite these setbacks, all in all, the movie was good for a small budget. The closing titles received thunderous applause and piercing two-fingered whistles from the frenzied fans and I left with a sense of overall satisfaction and a strong desire to see it atleast five more times that week. And though I met a throng of negative reviews on Facebook the following morning, they did not sway my tenure and the giddiness did not pass…

9:45 pm, December 10th just under 3 weeks later. Without the obsessed fans. Without the hype. Without the gushy crowds. It was simply my hubby and me in a quiet theater with no more than six people in the enormous room altogether.

Our intention was to enjoy Twilight. We had been waiting to view it together for weeks. He was excited. We’d read the books together and hubby loved them (even more than the Eragon series *cough*). With such a cozy atmosphere and zero madness of teen femme chatter, it was only too easy to see the movie for what it was; to be objective (the irony being opinions are all subjective). Of course I knew what to expect. And doubled with my husband’s next-to-flawless memory of the book, Twilight the movie, sunk.

Scene after scene conjured problem after problem.

A quick preface. To all my Twilight friends who’ve read the book and loved the movie, and STILL love the movie after each viewing, well done. You rock! I love you!! Don’t get me wrong; I – hubby and I – love the book! The movie, however, is left wanting…

To all those who saw the movie for the first time and didn’t like it, I can empathize. Finally.

To all those who hated the movie at first but found that it got better with each new viewing, wow, how do you do it?

To all those who saw the movie once, loved it, then saw it again and felt bored half way through the second viewing, let’s do lunch some time.

I have listed below a few of those scenes that I, in my opinion, felt to be problematic. There are probably tons more (or fewer, depending on your perspective) that are not mentioned. Of course, this in no way infers they are a universal given or a problem at all by another’s standard. These are factors that I personally didn’t like and in no way suggests that anyone else should feel the same way about it. Feel free to add or to comment on any of them. Furthermore, these problems are not intended to demote the book by any means. It is because of my individual love for the book that I have decidedly found “problems” with the following scenes in the movie.

True. It’s only a movie.

Which goes to show, once again, the book is always better.

By the way, you can go here to view all the differences between the book and the movie: http://twilightsaga.wikia.com/wiki/Twilight_book_to_movie_differences

*sucks in a big breath*

♦ Edward’s Volvo. What the. It’s meant to be sleek, sporty and the personification of sexiness in a machine. Edward is hot. His car is meant to reflect its driver and exude major HOTNESS.

A hatch back doesn’t cut it.

This sore lack of attention created a huge black smudge in my books.

Low budget or not. This one is unforgivable.

♦ Bella clutching, HUGGING a cactus. 0_0 Um. Lame. Did I say lame? I’ll say it again. LAME.

True that it's a minor detail, but it really bugged me. It was so appalling that at first I did not think the cactus scene was in the book. Upon retrospect, it IS.

But this did not improve the scene. Ok. So she misses Arizona. But I don’t understand how she, the Bella in the movie, doesn’t like to be coddled (see scene with Edward trying to put on her seat belt) yet here she is coddling a keepsake.

Inconsistent. And horrible. Take care of the small details and it will lead to big dividends.

♦ What’s with Charlie and Bella feeling awkward ALL the time? In the book, they were comfortable around eachother. The awkwardness didn’t last.

♦ Bella’s mind was strong and mentally, she knew where she stood. But it didn’t mean she felt secure as a person. She was clumsy and just like any teen, felt insecure about her looks and who she was as a person. In this particular sense, she fit into the “ordinary” teenage girl stereotype. Since when did she start giving girl power advice? (Eg. Bella’s conversation with Angela at the beach). Then when Bella pulled the “cool” greeting/hand sign thingy at the prom. What the -?? Since when was Bella “cool”?? Wrong. Wrong!

*Shaking head furiously*

♦ Bella’s prom dress. In the movie, she’d said it was something she’d “borrowed from Alice”. One look at that ugly thing, anyone would KNOW that Alice wouldn’t be caught dead (ha ha) with that relic (double ha) in her closet. And in the book, Alice had doctored Bella up AMAzingly. Bella had even worn amazing heels on one foot that Edward couldn’t stop looking at her legs. One pair of sneakers and old school 80’s tights instead? This was a disgusting adaptation of the real thing. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

I wanted to barf.

♦ Baseball uniforms and baseball caps.

I repeat. Baseball uniforms and baseball caps.

Holy crow. Can someone hand me some butter with all that corn??

Pull-lease.

♦ Bella never once said, “Holy crow”!

*fume*

♦ Bella is wearing underwear or panties in bedroom kissing scene. Of all the sexualized, Hollywood stunts. This had to be one of the sweetest, innocent scenes in the book and they went ahead and screwed it up with little panties and Bella KNOWING how to kiss!!!

NOOOOOOO!!!!

SOMEONE PASS ME A BUCKET.

♦ Is it just me or did it seem that Bella and Edward always seemed so tense around eachother? She seemed anxious and disturbed in his presence all the time. Dare I say annoyed? They’re supposed to be in love. She hardly EVER smiled at him. Infact, she looked more comfortable hanging around Jacob! For crying out loud… Lighten up Stewart. Read the book properly BEFORE the script.

♦ Edward’s skin didn’t merely “glitter”. He was “beautiful”. Breathtaking. I imagined a more powerful, prismatic, radiating effect. I know. Low budget. They could have spent more money here than on the cactus.

♦ Jasper. Dude. Lighten up. He was supposed to exude calming feelings. He certainly didn’t LOOK calm. But always tense. Anxious.

Why does everyone LOOK this way in the movie?

♦ Rosalie.

You know the rest.

♦ Edward mauling into Bella’s wrist to suck out the venom. No. No. No! Edward was always very careful of Bella. He never wanted to hurt her. Her well being was always his first priority. And he was always, always very gentle with Bella. It was one of his outstanding character traits when it came to her. And though he was afraid that he couldn’t stop in the book, as soon as he tasted the morphine and that her blood was clean, he released her. He found the power within him to do this. In the movie, it looked like he was losing control and wanted to tear her arm off. WRONG. Thanks for the insight Aubry. You are so right!

♦ The acting over all. For those actors who professed to have read the book, it looked like they hadn’t or that their hearts certainly weren’t into the story. The acting wasn’t much to rave about by any means.

♦ Special FX = Low budget. Or rather Low Budget = Low SFX.

Oh well. Here’s to hoping New Moon will be better (FINGERS CROSSED).

And please. Correct the Volvo. PLEASE.

And just to add a bit of balance, here are some of the things that I DID like about the movie.

♣ LOVED Alice. Spot on.

♣ Jessica was great. The semi-pretty I’m-so-everything snob. She pulled off her lines convincingly.

♣ Mike. Good choice.

♣ Charlie was a great choice, although I envisioned him slightly heavier set.

♣ Carlisle and Esme were great personifications of the characters in the book.

♣ When they first met in Biology was funny.

♣ Edward saving Bella from becoming a memorable dent in the side of that oncoming van was well done. Yes. I liked that part.

♣ Kitchen scene at the Cullens where they’re preparing an Italian meal for Bella. Very cute. I laughed here. Especially when they said, “Mmm. Smell that!” upon Bella’s entrance into the kitchen, despite the food they were making.

Feel free to add more.

Overall, the movie was enjoyable clearly on a superficial level, though for me, even that didn’t last long. Despite my hang-ups (and experiencing near boredom the second time around), I’ll most likely still buy the DVD when it hits the stores; I’m a sucker for collecting movies to go with its books.

I just read in an email sent to me via Summit Entertainment that Chris Weitz will be the new director for New Moon. Perhaps [hopefully] he’ll add a [much needed] fresh tangent to Catherine Hardwicke’s direction.

And of course I won’t be missing out on viewing New Moon, most likely as another Midnight Madness deal too.

LOL.

Pics!

Just popping in real quick to post a few fun pics that my wonderful sister, Galen (photographer extraordinaire!) took of yours truly last week.

Love always,

Holy Crow!!

An oldie of my "Edwardian" Clint and moi. *sigh* He's absurdly GORGEOUS!!



That said it all, "Holy Crow!!"

I just HAVE NOT been here for, good grief, how long?? TOO long!! I apologise. It's time to get back to my personal blogging!

A google-plex of happenings have been happening (haha) since I wrote last. Ironically enough, my last post, I believe, was about attending the midnight release of Breaking Dawn, the last book in the absurdly awesome series called, "Twilight".

If you haven't read it, you need to.

Need.

The irony lies in the fact that Twilight the movie will be released here, in the States, on November 21st 2008. And what will this faithful, die-hard fan be doing? Why, she will be leaving the kids in the care of dearest Daddy Clint, and attending the midnight release at exactly 12:05 am!!

*giddy, girly SCREEEEEEAAAMMMM!!!!*

Needless to say, she - being me - will not be viewing this cult film alone. I will be traversing with 2 other giddy Moms (Twilighters no less). I plan on wearing my black "Edward" tee with my latest super hot acquisition, a pair of yummy American Eagle jeans (size 2 - and am proud of every solid digit), black heels and red lippy.

Hot.

Hot!

I purchased the tickets a couple of nights ago on Fandango.

It is safely. Securely. Placed in the middle pocket of my red hand bag.

Can't wait!!

*Hyperventilates*

*Drops*

*Stops breathing*

*Is resuscitated by hubby...

*and is resuscitated again. haha!*

Oh-kay, now THAT was fun! Ha ha!

On Monday night this week, my Twilighter friend and next-door neighbour Heidi (who, you might recall, also went to the Breaking Dawn midnight release with me and will be attending the Twilight movie midnight release with me... she is a true kindred spirit) and I had some much needed, away-from-the-kids girly time.

Once again, our hubbies looked after the kids.

Yes. We are spoiled.

Ridiculously spoiled.

But she will be viewing the movie TWICE. At midnight and at 1pm the following day.

This must mean she's a bigger Twi-hard than I am...

Noooooooooo!!!!

Mehhrrrrrr.

I guess I'll just have to go with her again!!

We both got the newest Twilight movie soundtrack on CD (some of the music playing on my playlist is on the soundtrack, such as Flightless Bird. LOVE that song!). Borders Book Store was sold out. The supposed reliable source.

Peh.

So we called the bigger, better book store, "Barnes and Noble", which of course had the soundtrack in stock. We had them reserved, drove over and made the acquisition!

I also procured the lucsious Twilight Movie Companion, plus the latest glossy mag known as Vanity Fair. There is an amazing photo shoot of the Twilight movie cast in it.

I now deem myself: Ready. For. THE. Movie.

I still need to post lots of pics. Like the before and after shots of Alora's crazy hair cut. Wow. I'm glad that's over!

Hey! Here's another take on the crazy fervour our household has on midnight releases. My sweetest hubby, Clint, loves gaming. But not just gaming with any game. He's a World of Warcraft uber pro-fanatic.

He's a WOW "nerd".

I mean, he has two 70's and spends way too much time on that crazy game (so much so, he's been thrown the evil eye by his loving wife around dinner time more than once, yea, more than thrice, yea even umpteen countless times).

Do you have any idea how long it takes to create a level 70 character??

*feigns a horrified expression*

He's tried to get me hooked on it, but the poor man may as well be barking at a brick wall. I have a ton of better things to do (like I'm a MOM for crying out loud).

Like read Twilight and its sequels four times through.

Du-uh.

So WOW recently released their latest expansion where you can level your character up to level 80. Apparently, this is major "Uber Woah" material.

*rolls eyes*

But I really can't talk. I'm a crazed loon who's pro Team Edward.

(For all you non-Twilighters who have no idea what I'm yammering about, I apologise. Unless you read the books, you won't get it. :S)

*rolls eyes*

So at 11 pm, Wednesday November 12th, he drives out to the GameStop on Broadway and Old Spanish Trail (for you Tucson people who are familiar with the area) to get a good spot in line. Upon arrival, there were already two impossibly long lines, snaking from the front of the store all the way down to Pier One Imports.

As he related this story to me, I was flummoxed. I had no idea that WOW was that popular here in but one portion of Tucson suburbia!

Apparently some people don't have a life. Staying up past midnight to get a GAME.

0_0

Tsk. Tsk.

He was surrounded by three kinds of people: the nerds, the fat guys and the goths.

My strapping, handsome, tall fire fighter just didn't fit in! LOL

He said you could totally tell who the Hordes were verses the Alliance. Ha ha!

One of the die-hard WOW-ers happened to be a grandmother! She was getting the expanision for her and her 25 year old son who had to work. Apparently, she was standing next to Clint in line, and she was telling him about all these other places in WOW that she had gone in and raided, places he'd never even visited or heard of!

Laugh. Out. Loud.

My man is all guy. He rues shopping. Once he got the game, he paid for it and got out. He arrived home a little after 1 am. He had to get ready for work in 5 hours. So he installed the game.

And started playing!!

Ahahahahaaa!!!

He went to bed, happy and excited, at 5 am. Got up at 6 am and made it to work.

Holy crow.

I guess some people never grow up!!

Tee-hee!


With that said, it's time to read the Twilight saga for the fifth time...

Y'know. To preface the movie.

All four books.

Seriously.

I'm going to do it!

*Nods furiously*

*Spies hubby rolling his eyes*


Ooohhh!! WOW Alert!

Clint (AKA: CLINSTER or RALINDA. All cower and despair!!) just told me he got a text from one of his WOW buddies (Steve, AKA: GORTHANK) yesterday. First of all, he wanted me to state that he doesn't play WOW that much.

And he's not a WOW nerd. He's a WOW fan.

*rolls eyes*

Yes. That was me rolling my eyes.

Anyway, so the Great Gorthank texted Warrior Clinster (all cower and despair!!) yesterday. Apparently, a Human Paladin was the first to make it to level 80 yesterday on his server.

HOLY CROW!!

Like Mr-Has-No-Life-Paladin must have been playing 2 whole days straight to move up ten levels! Mr-Has-No-Life-Paladin must have had ZERO potty breaks but sat in an adult diaper for 48 hours!!

*Shudder*

Maybe it wasn't a "Mr". Maybe it was a "Ms".

*Shrugs and shudders*

And that. People. Is World of Warcraft news at its finest. My eyes about fell out of my head this morning when Warrior Clinster (all cower and despair!!) told me.

IT HAD BEEN TEXT-WORTHY!!

*rolls eyes*



I will write more again soon on the latest shernanigans of the Bell household.

...fingers crossed!

*wink*

Plus I have tons of highlights to share with relevance to Whiff of Joy Stamps, Sugar Nellie and other exciting stuff going on in my neck of the woods pertaining to the fantastic craze with regards to all things stamping and other areas of my art work!

*gasps for air*

Hugs always!

I'm Back!

Life has been a whirl wind. One giant dust devil. Very much like our breaking down vacume cleaner. It smells dusty and creates havoc in its wake. Instead of sucking up debris properly, it coughs it out.

Okay, not quite. But it makes for an interesting analogy, eh? :)

Soooo much to catch up on! My mind is spinning in an endless vortex! Sorry for being away so long. Gee'willickers, the Breaking Dawn Midnight Release was over aeons ago, and I've read the book TWICE already! And thoroughly LOVE it! The second read was with hubby. Oh, he is truly a covetous calibre of man!! :D Hehe!

The Breaking Dawn Midnight Release was tooooo much fun! We arrived at 10:30 pm. Borders Book Store was like Defcon 2 with screaming teens beserk over the prospect of finding out what would happen next between the famed and drop-dead-perfect Edward and ever popular Bella. Plus, teens teemed in costume. Werewovles. FANGED Vampires (tsk tsk). Old-school prom dressed queens. Every time a vampire passed my friend Heidi and me, we cringed. Stared. Then laughed. And quickly moved in the opposite direction.

Haha!

We met up with the rest of our group of crazed Twilighter Moms and survived the countdown to 12:01 am and toughed out the neverending countdown it seemed AFTER that to finally get our books.

Then we chuffed over, bleary eyed and fighting constant manic urges to fall asleep (afterall, we're not used to this, staying up past 1 am - speaking for myself anyway), to the VCA Hotel on Alvernon and Speedway.

Followed by an eventful stretch of hours of reading! We endeavored to uphold the one chapter reading rule, but after chapter 5, we all gave up and read at our own pace. There were about 10 of us gals altogether, and at one point, we all found ourselves squashed on the same double bed in one of the rooms. Poring thrilled and red eyed over every word over each of our books.

Some dropped into LaLa Land by 4 am and got a good, sane several hours of shut-eye. The rest of us trooped on with our reading. By the time we got home the following morning, we either crashed (lucky girls!) or fulfilled the busy Mommy agendas we had no choice but to sluggishly slave through.

As for me, Clint was home. Yup. I crashed! My day was done! Wot would I do without my hubby?

*sigh!* Thanks, babe!

I'm up for another round of all night reading. Who's with me??

AND! I've got my sister Cynthia hooked on the books! Mwahahahahahahaaa!!! LOL!!!!!!

We're going to Forks next year for a couple of days! Woo-hoo!! Can't wait!!

Okay, so I still have so much to do. Here's my list.

Experiment with my stamping inks and pens that I bought AGES ago!
Post the results.
Post the Before and After pics of Alora's hair cut.
Blog about it.
Tidy up my studio office.
Wash and fold the laundry. (Mundane. Neverending. Story.)
Paint a mural on Alora's door.
No wait...in our new house.

Whoops! Breaking news!

We're planning on selling our house. If all goes on schedule, it will be up on the market next month. So now we're looking for a new house. I'm ready for the change. But oh, the stress!

Meehhrrrrrr!

Sooo, paint a mural on Alora's door in our NEW house.
FIND a new house!
Save. Save. SAVE. For our trip to Oz.
MAKE our trip to Oz happen!

Make plans to go and do the popular Polar Express Christmas event around Christmas time with Heidi and their family.
Acquire new jammies and robes for this event.

Work on totally FUN Flag project with Aubry! (Can't wait Aubry!)

Get Aunt Sharon's (late) birthday gift to her as soon as it arrives.

On the business side:

Create (more) images for Whiff of Joy Stamps stamp company in Switzerland (these are already in the works - they're beautiful!!).
More images for Sugar Nellie stamp company in the UK.
Paint Melody's wall mural of faux stone.
Complete Laura's trade mark for her business.
Draw Aubry's pic of Collin.
Draw Aubry's pic of "Follow the Son" with all her boys.

Create a blog candy give away on my art website soon!
Send off special "Thank You's" to Marlene and Tiets. :)

Follow-up with families waiting to receive children's art lessons.

And I think that will keep me on my toes for a while.

By the way, Katharina of Whiff of Joy Stamps told me that someone had asked her if they could use one of the Angel images I created for Whiff of Joy as a tattoo!! LOL! How crazy cool is that??

And I was approached by a third stamping company to design for them! Wow, I was so flattered! Unfortunately I had to say no at this time, but perhaps in the future. It will be fun to see what happens next! :)

I've also been getting so many lovely emails from admirers of my Sugar Nellie Sweet Ebony images. I can't tell you how excited I am for the "Elisabeth Bell" range of images to be launched through Whiff of Joy Stamps! If you'd like to read more about the art business side of my life, please visit my blog on my art website.

It is late (11:33 pm), the kids are sleeping and I hear thunder overhead. Monsoons. I'd best get ready to hit the sack and get some more shut-eye.

Love to you all!!

*Ahem!* And now to Breaking Dawn...

The wait is almost over!!

*Decibal shattering EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

My sanity has held out this far! As I write, there are precisely 2 days, 9 hours, 15 minutes and 2 seconds remaining...no wait, make that 2 days, 9 hours, 14 minutes and 55 seconds...52!

Okay, okay. So my sanity is questionable.

I have read all 3 books in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga 4 times over (twice with my husband, bless his sweet, handsome heart, I love you Clint!) and hubby and I have read Meyer's "The Host" (which we absolutely loved!!) in the past month to fill in the ever decreasing gap between the official book release of Breaking Dawn and the current day!!

*gasp of breath!*

As it stands, BD will be released in exactly 2 days and Oh. My. Gosh. I cannot tell you how deliriously giddy and excited this makes me feel. As for hubby, he can't wait either!!

So, my good friend Kris Crandall, and my friend and nextdoor neighbour Heidi, who swore that she doesn't read but read all 3 books in a matter of 2 weeks(!), and a number of other deliriously giddy gals, and moi, are choofing over to Borders Bookstore at 11pm Friday eve (August 1st) to wait out the bewitching hour of midnight. At one minute past the bewitching hour, we will claim our already reserved titles of Breaking Dawn. We will then consider staying on to party with the rest of the Twilighters at the bookstore before heading over to a hotel that is reserved for our band of crazy, squealy group of Twilighter Moms to read Breaking Dawn - til the break of dawn! LOL!!

How does my sweet hubby and soul mate Clint fit in all of this? He has made the ultimate sacrifice by staying at home to watch the kidlets for me while I go and be a bit inane with my girly friends. And he actually took time off work both days to do this for me! And I didn't even have to twist his arm! He volunteered on his own!!

Now now, girls, he's all mine!! LOL!!!

I am one lucky gal for sure!!

One rule does stand however. As we are reading as a group of girly, giggly, silly Moms, once one person finishes a chapter, they must wait for the others to complete that chapter too before continuing. Can you imagine the dilemma a speed-reader would present in our situation? We just can't have someone bursting out in fits of laughter when they're 3 chapters ahead of everyone else!!

And you may ask, how much reading will one actually digest in a sitting of less than 11 hours in a room with a bunch of giggly girls poring over the words of the same book title?

Not much of course.

BUT! How fun will all this be, eh???? *hehehehehehehehe!!*

Okay, I'm already giddy and the day hasn't even arrived yet. LOL!!

So, to rectify this most horrifying conundrum of the aforementioned question proposed, I (for one) will return home, and re-read the entire contents of the novel with my hubby, thereby savouring all the delicious ingredients of the storyline bit by bit.

Savyy?

Hee-hee!! Too much fun!!

Ooohhhh!! I have more things to post, like Alora's "Before" and "After" shots of her hair and some fire pics from California!!

Back soon!!