Did I tell you I started reading the Harry Potter series? (finally) Jalen has been reading them since last year and this past summer he read and reread them.  after going to see the half blood prince I decided I’d start the series.  I love it!  At first I was having a hard time not picturing the movie characters and wishing I had read the stories before watching the movies.  I was reading diligently at night time, which meant I couldn’t craft. no crochet, no scrappage, no blogging.  It was highly frustrating because I love all of it, but could not multitask.  I popped over to iTunes store to check out the audio books and the first two books were like $32 each! and then the others were all around $50! UH, no way jose.  then somehow I thought of the library. You know the place where they let you borrow stuff for free?! I went and got my first library card (since elementary school) and reserved the audio books and had them sent to our local library.  It’s right around the corner from our house, and the librarians are so nice.  We just finished listening to the last in the series (we borrowed, loaded and listened to all in order) this past weekend. I was getting worried that I’d be disappointed in the ending of the last book, but I wasn’t. *sigh* I loved them.  I highly recommend listening (or reading them). I laughed, I cried and laughed again. I am  JK Rowling fan for sure!

The latest ATC swap I participated in was under the theme of books. I went with the iBook theme:

**i had a shot that was not angled,  but I liked that Jordan is peeking in the back ground. ;)  The cardstock is Stampin’ Up! YoYo Yellow,  I used my handy dandy circle and rectangle punches in my abe lincoln book and created the ipod look. I rounded corners and added glaze with gold pearl ex. and memento ink in canteloupe.  do you see that frog holding my card? I got that in the mail from my pal Chrispea. what a sweetie. She also sent lots of goodies and sweet treats for my boys and I.

and seriously, how cute are those goody boxes! The boys were so excited to see their names on the labels :)  I told them aunty chris(pea) made them especially for them.

I so loved this little envelope of goodness. I mean really. the buttons and keys are so awesome. but even that envelope. sigh, it’s a sickness, this love I have for envelopes and paper. ha.  There were also scrappy goodies I can’t wait to use too. Thank you so much Chris! :)

I have also been loving the Japanese Washi tape you see everywhere.  I have seen these at happytape and digi versions from Danielle Thompson.  I have also seen some plain colors at a local store.  I had already started a collection of these and then saw these stripey and *sigh* graph paper tapes. had.to.buy. here.

Sometime in the last year, adobe offered up an upgrade to CS3 for 299. I really wanted to upgrade. really.  but I also was toying with the idea of getting a mac.  I did not want to buy some expensive software and then end up buying a computer that wouldn’t run it.  So I didn’t buy the upgrade. I was so sad because I didn’t even end up buying the mac.  Then last week I got an email from adobe offering a $299 upgrade to cs4. I jumped on that opportunity. I know I won’t be buying a new computer anytime soon, so I was so glad to have to opportunity come up again.  and then I also heard about crucial.com It is a site where you can go and plug in information about your computer and it will tell you how much RAM you can upgrade to and what type to buy. So happy. I ordered more RAM and my computer is humming along so well! I can now listed to iTunes while I use CS4 and blog and all of that and it doesn’t skip anymore. yay!  These pictures for the blog are the first items I have processed in CS4, nothing fancy, but I am so excited to get into it further. YAY! saying goodbye to these old sticks of 512MB ram.

Thanks for stopping by!  I have been so so busy around here, and I am glad I had some time today to update.  Check back next time and I’ll have stories about my van and other fascinations of our life, ha! Oh yes and two more things: I have a halloween layout in the last issue (October) of Memory Makers Magazine and a layout in the October issue of Creating Keepsakes (eeeeeeeeeee!) I haven’t seen the CK yet, no sightings in the store or mailbox just yet.

Love Love and Blog you Later!

Joscie, rhymes with bossy!