Thank you for your patience!

Happy Sunday Everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic weekend. I am SO HAPPY with the results of the Austrailian Open...both of my faves won their respective titles: Kim Clijsters for the women and Novak Djokovic for the men! Woo Hoo!

As you can see, I changed up the look of my blog. I am just so frustrated with my computer right now, I had to accomplish SOMETHING today! I am unable to link to parties, I've lost everything that was supposed to have been saved before wiping the computer clean, and I still cannot get Windows Live Writer to run on this new set up. It is so frustrating to be computer illiterate! When I Google the problems, some very technical advice pops up...well, I am not good with computers (I just want to turn it on and have it work!), so the advice really does me no good. Anyway, I just wanted to say HI, and thank you all for you patience. I'm going to try and contact the person who changed my operating system, and see if we can't get all the problems figured out.
Until then, I am in the midst of a craft room re-do. It's a HUGE mess right now. But, I took 'before' pictures (glad I remembered this time), and cannot wait to show you the finished room. I think it will be at least another week or so...like I said, it's a HUGE mess (when you see the 'before' pictures, you'll know what I mean). I love getting in there and completely rearranging and reorganizing my space. It always takes a lot longer to get it done, but it makes me feel so good once it's good and clean! How about you? Have you been bitten by the 'organizing bug'??

I hope you had a great weekend, and thank you for stopping by...drop by again!

I'm Back (finally!)

Hi Everyone! It's so good to be back! First, I must give a big THANK YOU to my good friend Sarah, over at The Castle Diaries for letting you all know what was going on in my world (THANK YOU AGAIN SARAH!). Sadly, my computer is not the same. I cannot figure out how to run Windows Live Writer (which is why I'm using Blogger), and I've lost a bunch of stuff, but at least the virus is gone!

So, how have you been? How are the kids? What have I missed? I feel like I've been lost on a deserted island for the past couple of weeks :) Things here are much the same as ever...I've been trying to master my new Scroll Saw, but I must admit, it's harder than I thought it would be (anyone out there -hint, hint, GAIL- have any advice???please???). I have been enjoying football playoffs, even though none of my teams made it :( I love watching all the action at the Australian Open, and am ecstatic that two of my faves, Kim Clisters and Novak Djokovich (not sure on the spellings on those!), are still in it! woo hoo!! And, finally, I'm so excited for NASCAR to start up again! Lots of fun sports action going on. As for my family, we are all well, and healthy :)

So, while I was gone, I finally got to complete the Birthday Countdown Block set that my daughter had requested (in December). I love all the cute cupcake papers (and you know, cupcakes are one of my favorite things!), but with this set, I wanted it to be gender neutral, so both my boys and girls could use it. I love the colors, muted greens and aquas with some brown thrown in = gorgeous! Of course, I think I'll need to make another Birthday Countdown, because two of my boys have birthdays one day apart, and I just cannot make the littlest one get only one day to count down his birthday...so, I'm thinking on how to do that! The weather was too nasty in December to go outside and work, but we've had some beautiful days lately, and I actually got to go outside and sand and paint this set...it felt amazing! The whole time I was spray painting, I kept thinking how much I love (and missed) the smell of spray paint and wood...does that make me weird? Probably! Does anyone else feel that way??? Or am I the only one?? One of the best things about this project is that I only had to spend $3 on the paper...I had the wood and clothespin on hand. This was super simple, as I just used 2x4's that I had, sanded and painted them, then used Gorilla Glue to glue them together. I sanded and painted some left over blocks, then added scrap paper and vinyl to the blocks and bases, and used a light coat of Mod Podge to finish it all off. The clothespin was painted and I just glued a piece of one of the block papers to it, to tie it all in. I then used the Gorilla Glue to glue the clothespin onto the block bases. I thought about drilling a tiny hole and attaching the clothespin with a nail or screw, but opted for the easier way out. I'll let you know if it doesn't hold (but I'm hoping it will).
Anyway, it's good to be back, and hopefully I can get my Live Writer working again. Thank you all for your patience!
PLEASE leave me a comment and let me know you were here. I really have missed you!!

Guest Post

Hi Dear Readers of Blooming Freckles--

This is the Queen from Castle Diaries in for Kelli today. :)

Her computer has been fighting off a trojan horse virus this past week, but she has high hopes that all will be well soon! She wants you to know that she is missing all of you in Blogland, and asks that you bear with her as she tries to get her computer fixed. So frustrating!!

Check back soon, as I am absolutely positive that Kelli will be back as soon as she can, to wow us with her fab crafts, entertain us with stories of her wonderful kids, and astound us with amazing furniture re-purposing projects!!

God Bless! And thank you for your patience and understanding.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Hi!  I know I’ve been naughty (good thing Christmas is over…lol) and haven’t been around much.  BUT, I’ve been focusing on my family and truly enjoying the Christmas break.  I also promised myself I’d be taking January off from crafting, but, I don’t think I can do it!  You see, although I haven’t posted a picture of it yet, my good friend got me a SCROLL SAW for Christmas!  I am so freaking out, and itching to use it…The night we opened presents, her husband and I ripped into that box, pulled the saw out, placed it squarely on the kitchen counter and played!  It was awesome! (They were humored to see my small stash of 1x8s sitting in the kitchen…but they came in handy with the saw, now didn’t they?).  :)   Anyway, I am so excited, and I am dreaming about spring, when I can get out there and cut and sand and paint to my heart’s content! To make it even better, my stocking was stuffed with various ear plugs and pink safety glasses!  SO.MUCH.FUN.  I can barely stand the wait.  Something not so fun around here right now, is the process of getting rid of the binky for my sweet 3 year old.  I know, I know, I should’ve done it sooner…but I’m such a softy, and she LOVED that thing.  The dentist gave me a deadline (which I purposely skipped…I’m stubborn that way).  But, Thursday night was her last night with a binky (or Me-Me, as she calls it).  She is so very brave, and has only cried for it once, which was last night.  It broke my heart…I almost gave it back to her (I didn’t really throw them away, like I told her,  I hid them…just in case  I couldn’t handle it  she got too upset).  I’m glad I didn’t give in, because I know it’s better for her, but like I said, I’m a softy and hate seeing my babies cry, and to make it worse, she kept saying <with pouty lips and big teary puppy dog eyes> “My MOM threw away by me-me”…over and over she said it, with tears falling…  It was awful!  So, I’ve been busy trying to distract her from the thought of it, and haven’t even been on the computer for the past 4 days or so.

I hope you had a wonderful start to your New Year.  I already blew my resolution, even though it was simple (drinking more water).  I think the stress of the binky thing has been an excuse to consume large amounts of Diet Coke!  So, we’ll try again, with the water, maybe tomorrow…  And, hopefully get school started again, and get back into our ‘normal’ routine.  I’m looking forward to it.

Thanks for stopping by, and for being patient with me!