This is gonna be a LONG ONE........

...so get a cup of coffee and get ready for the story!!

First of all, in my last post...I said I was "no fool." Turns out I was wrong.
Ha! Ha! Ha! The husband of my best friend played one heck of an April Fools Joke on me and I bought it "hook, line and sinker!" That big turd!!!!
(and mind you, he played the joke on me not 30 minutes after
I made that post!!)


The next day was Wednesday, April 2nd. And I caught a plane to St. Louis, MO for CKC-St.Louis. My connecting flight went thru Atlanta and so did Amber, so we were able to share the second leg of our flight into St. Louis. We had a great time on the plane...laughing and sharing stories!
And of course, we had to get a picture!! Although, it was called CKC-St. Louis, the convention center is actually in Collinsville, Illinois. It's a small area with basically 8 restaurants, a few hotels and the convention center. I thought the convention center was nice, but my bed at the hotel, well, it was the worst I've slept in yet. So, I started work with an aching back. Thank goodness for Advil!!!! :)


One of the nights in the hotel, I made this little KaiserCraft mini-book! (KaiserCraft is an Australian company that has a large line of wood products, in addition to their fabulous papers, felts and their well-priced bling I love!
I used the new Fancy Pants Celebrate line! These papers are really cute!!
The ribbons are all Fancy Pants, too! The little shapes are little die-cuts that come on a 12x12 sheet. Really makes it easy to make your own embellies. And each line has these "Titles & Tags" and rub-ons to match, as well.

The felt, I cut from a large KaiserCraft felt. And I've added bling, as well.The brads I used on the left side page here are left-over KaiserCraft brads. They are really nice quality and match so many different things! Aren't these the funnest papers?!?!
That was using the half of the Fancy Pants Celebration that is girly, the remaining papers are more boyish...so I decided to throw something together for that, as well. And here it is.....a tag with my sweet Griffin.
(and a super old picture from when he was 2 years old.....) Love that BLING! And the back has those lovely KaiserCraft brads.... I have another yummy layout I did, but I haven't gotten pictures of it, yet.
I promise to try to get that done...and show you soon.


Here we are getting ready to go down and finish up the conference on Saturday. It's Amber, Amber's baby boy, me and my boss, Kim. We really have a great time together and we work as a very good team. And this trip, Kim brought her cutie-pie daughter! This little girl is a really good scrapbooker! She is obviously her mothers' daughter!! One of the best parts of my trip was getting to see my Uncle Richard and Aunt Penny, who live just outside of St. Louis. They came the 45 minutes to come see me and have dinner with myself and Amber. We had a nice time, we laughed and talked about old times. And I got to see them. Which was really important to me. I love them both so much. I only wished we lived closer, so we could see each other more often! Maybe again someday....

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When I got back to Tulsa, my Step-Mom suggested that I stay an extra day so we could hang out. So, I did. It was fun. We went to 2 scrapbook stores in Tulsa and checked things out. It was really fun! (can you believe I got off a plane from that convention and I was back in a scrapbook store within 3 hours?!?! Hilarious! It's an addiction, I'll tell ya!!!)

So, we did that....then we went to Chili's for dinner with my dad and shared a big plate of Fajita's, which were delicious! After we got home, we watched a "chick flick" we had rented....and that was a really nice change for me!

Then, I went to bed at 10:15pm and slept like a rock! I was T-I-R-E-D!!!
And I was so sleepy, it was good I stayed instead of driving home tired!

Then, the next morning we were just getting ready to watch our 2nd "chick flick" we rented......and we hear this huge POP. And all the electricity goes out! A squirrel had stepped on the transformer and fried himself!!!!
So...we sat in the dark for the next 3 hours. So, I finally just threw on some clothes and got on the road home. I got back to Topeka on Monday night at about 5:30pm. So, I'm running a day behind this week!!!!



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So, the thing is, I had found out the day before I left for California (about 3 weeks ago) that the diabetes is back with a vengence! I lost some weight, I've maintained the loss and I am still having blood sugar issues. It's not really surprising, considering there are so many people in my family who have been diabetics. (my mother, 2 of her brothers, both maternal grandparents and my paternal great-grandmother.) But, I guess why it surprised me so much was that in October, my numbers were back to normal. And now, they have jumped. It's scary. It's annoying. It makes me mad.
But, now I am gonna fight this thing like hell.

It really stinks because now, me...the girl who hates needles...I have to check my blood sugar levels (meaning use a lancet to poke myself) 8 times a day. I hate it! Every single time I sit there with the machine loaded with the lancet and I have to really work up the courage to do it, each and every time.

So, there it is. The bad news.
I had to kinda soak it in a bit before I was ready to share it.

So, keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

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