Good Morning from Cookie Central! DeeMarie - I figured I had better post, as it looked like you were talking to yourself again! LOL I have all my cookies made and in the freezer except for the Pizzelles. I will do anise and orange ones on Saturday. They aren't hard, just time consuming, as I make extras to give away. I also made 13 dozen Lady Lock Squares and 15 dozen Cream Wafers to give away. Why do I do this to myself?! Jen - I mailed your package on Wednesday. It is big! Hope it gets there in one piece. I apologize now for all the packaging tape I used! LOL DMIL is getting better, but she is getting mean in the process. She can't accept help easily and she keeps yelling at everyone who tries to help her. She is still using the walker to get around, but I can tell she is getting stronger. Yesterday she ate eggs and toast for breakfast and beef noodle soup for lunch, so we are making progress. I wrapped everything I had bought and now I am waiting on some late arrivals form UPS. I ordered a couple of things that were guaranteed to be here by the 23rd, so I am keeping my fingers crossed. DD will graduate on Friday and we are having a small get together for her Friday night. DS won't be in until Saturday though, as he is driving from FL instead of flying. Luckily DD arranged to graduate at a branch campus near us, so we don't have to drive to State College. DD has been offered a temporary job in State College in her field, HR. She accepted, but she had to find another apartment, since she had arranged for someone to sublet from her when she thought she would be coming home. I am happy she found something that will give her experience and look good on her resume, but I told her she has to leave PSU sometime! LOL ((Raeanne)) - I hope your DD can make it home for the holidays. I dread the days when my kids can't be here. Patti - LOL - I read that Peanut M&Ms aren't supposed to raise your blood sugar, but I am afraid that moderation isn't one of my strong points. Also, I have found that sugar and chocolate in particular, affect my sleep, so I am trying to avoid them as much as I can. (You may ask why I made so many cookies, and I don't have a good answer for that! LOL I guess tradition is stronger than common sense!) Give Dave a HUG for me! Have you talked to Milkdud recently? I wish she would come back and post again. Donna - Did you ever get the new URL for Picture Trail. I don't have your email address. I will try sending an email through this site. Let me know if you don't get it. Are you getting in the Christmas groove yet? LOL Joanne - I hope you are able to slow down and enjoy the holidays. How is your mother doing? Besh - Are you going to have your family home for Christmas? NHSuzanne - I bet you are loving this warm weather. I hope we don't have to pay dearly for it later though. Any pictures of the eggs yet? I bet the blues ones are gourgeous! Tikanas - Did you get the gingerbread houses made yet. I have always wanted to try making one, but never got around to it. I did make Ginger Snap Cookies this year though. LOL Maddie - Waving back just in case you are waving your hands in the air. I have to finish some last minute craft projects and hop in the shower. I have some errands to run and I dread the traffic, but someone has to do it, and I guess that someone is me. Hello to BJ, John, Amy Gretchen and anyone else I missed. Later, Marci

One other scrapbooking rule I'd need to follow is, it's not about the stuff you buy at Michael's. It's ONLY about the stuff you get from LIFE as you go through it. The program from the school play, the ticket stubs, the travel brochures, the photos. It's the EXTRA stuff that would make it even worse. And that I believe detracts--distracts?--from the memories the scrapbook is supposed to preserve. I think scrapbook pages that have doo-dads on them are about the MAKER, not about the event, or the people in the pictures. it can easily become an ego thing, and not a record-keeping thing. I too need to just jump right in, even if the old pictures never get in an album, maybe the new ones can. Instead, I've just stopped taking any pictures.

Hey man looks like you did a stand up job fixing your pool by reading the comments. For some reason I am unable to see the pictures. I would love to see them though if you would be willing to send them to me? Also I just recently purchased a fixer upper house myself with a pool in the back yard. The previous owners filled it in with dirt when they got to old to take care of it. After digging a little of it up I have determined that it was a liner pool that was a wood frame. I intend to undertake the project myself in time. I would love any and all advice from you if you would be willing to email back and forth me a little. Row797@hotmail.com

There are a lot of great papers that you just insert your cropped photos into the open spaces. The one I used still had plenty of space for journaling, too. They still look great and it saves a lot of work. You may want to slip one in here and there since you have 20+ years worth! Might break up the monotony for you. I have also seen a paper piecing pattern for a stocking that was patchwork Christmas papers. Instead of a few of the pieces they had three or four pictures. I can't remember where I saw it, but there's a few places I can look. Even if I can't find it, I think this would be pretty easy to do. Just draw a simple stocking shape that takes up most of the page. Crop a few pages into wedges, triangles, etc. that would fit on the stocking, leaving plenty of space between them. Then use assorted Christmas patterned papers to fill in the spaces to complete the stocking. Finish with holly leaves or whatever around the edges. It sounds confusing, but it's hard to explain. If you can picture it in your head from my explanation, you can do it. I'll look for the pattern and if I find it I'll post it. Good luck and happy scrappin'! -Sarah