Good day! Brick here again. I noticed that our friend Chuxfox only has 4... look at the list...4 people following her blog. Now I'm pretty sure that there are more than 4 of us signed up to follow Me, Myself and.....Them (BTW my user name is Bean-Counter, Brick is what my husband refers to me as- short for Brick House...lol).

Most bloggers have blogs to communicate to anyone whose part of the blogging community, but in order for them to communicate more effectively to potential bloggers and blog readers, they've got to have Followers. So come on people!- sign up as a F0llower on Me, Myself and.....Them. If your Followers (provided you are blogging) see who you are following then that will drive more traffic to the followees blog and they will get more Followers. Dig it?!

I'M BACK!!!!!

Hey everybody! I am back from my sail of the high seas. It was an adventure. But first I have to thank my girl Brick for blog-sitting for me. Thanks Girl!

Now on to business. I am home and tired. Who knew you could drive for 11 hours in the same state? Florida is too long in two directions. We drove to Miami from West Florida with our three kids. That was cool because they are so used to riding on long trips. But the drive home was rough. It rained for 270 miles of out trip! But that was the only low of our trip.

For spring break we took a short Western Caribbean cruise to Key West and Cozumel. We had a ball. We cruised Carnival and all slept in the same cabin. That's right, five people in one cabin, and an inside cabin at that. Whew! It was tight, but it was managed chaos! Kids had a ball in Camp Carnival and Circle C. We took a great excursion in Cozumel called, "Isla Pasion by Twister". This is where we took a speed boat out to a private beach and on the way the boat did 360's in the water. We were soaking wet and screaming our heads off! Way too much FUN!

Anyway, we love cruises because you get a lot for your money. Not to mention it is one place where you can meet people from all over the world. We loved our table mates, a beautiful Puerto Rican family that was so sweet and a perfect fit to our family. Not to mention they were devout Christians so there was no shinanigans at our table. The mom said she prayed to have good people at their table and the Lord answered her prayers. How sweet is that! Cruises are awesome, you see the beauty of all the different people and nationalities. We met a really neat couple from Canada that didn't know where Alabama was. I thought that was so neat because we didn't know exactly where Toronto was either! But I knew it was in Ontario! We asked them if they were considered African-Candians like we say African-American here in the states and she said yes. Who knew?

There was one down point but I won't mention the details here. It involved domestic violence, and it was a sad thing to witness. We were very glad to see security and passengers immediately step in and assist. As women we have got to get wise and make good healthy choices in regards to relationships.

Lisa Bearnson on QVC today!

Good day creative scrapbooking and paper crafting friends! Brick here. Lisa Bearnson from Creative Keepsakes will be showcasing new and exciting items today from 1-3 ET on QVC. I so look forward to when Lisa is on QVC, but I have to admit, I rarely buy anything...I love to watch to see what's new on the market and to learn new techniques. Don't be bummed if you're not at home to catch it on TV because you can watch it live on QVC.com... No, I'm not condoning you to watch it while you're at work!

After while Crocodile!

Sailing the High Seas

Good day ladies! My name is Brick and I am a guest blogger this week while our talented friend Chuxfox is cruising the Caribbean with her family during their Spring Break. Being the guest blogger this week reminds me of housesitting for your neighbor- you make sure that the house looks somewhat lived in while the family is away to deter others who may be interested in seeing what's in your home and taking it with them by way of a getaway car. My job this week is to make sure that you faithful followers of Me, Myself and.... Them are provided with blog posts so you won't get that neglected feeling... so I guess you can say that I am "blogsitting". Although there's nothing to physically to take from a blog, I'm sure that Chuxfox hopes you can always leave with the inspiration to be creative in your craft or with a chuckle of the things that she shares about her daily life or encouraged and challenged to go deeper in the Word of God.

Later alligator!

A little something

I saw this challenge on If the Shoe fits...Scrap It. Here is my attempt at an Artistic Trading Card challenge. Check out their blog for some neat ideas.

It's Green!

Hey everybody! Here are the layouts to our Green Challenge. I must say that these lady's have done a great job. I am getting so much inspiration from so many of you. I want to learn to do the layered looks and how to put all these funky colors together. Check this layout out, it is by Haberdawoman. Don't you love it! Check out her blog because she did not just do one layout but TWO! What is really neat is that the layouts look completely different. You are going to love her blog.

This is Brick's latest layout and I love the grid look. She used flowers, flair, felt, stamping, bling and beautiful photos. I am totally stealing the grid, because I am a scraplifter! Brick, when did you get them brown Thickers?

Here is my girl Renee's layout. I will be lifting the "How Silly are you Meter". Her photos are perfect. Look at all the shades of green she incorporated. Check out all the different stamps on this page.

Lastly, here is my layout. Um, my butterfly has a few issues. See what had happened was, I tried to get all fancy with the some white paint after I had dropped a big blob of it on my page on accident. Then I tried to make it all fancy (that did not work). So I tried to go over it with black paint. It's a mess, but it is what it is. Other than that I liked it. My family won't even notice but I knew y'all would. Scrapbookers!

Thank you ladies for participating! I hope you guys come back! I promise next time I will produce perfection. This was fun and we will do it again next month. Also, if you are into that layering thing, can you please school me? I am trying to get there.

Bye my peeps!

Challege Reveal on Monday Morning

Hey everybody. I am going to post our layouts in the morning from our green challenge. I can't wait. I would do it tonight but I am blurry-eyed because I am sooo tired. We went to a wedding this weekend (in Georgia) and my husband was breaking his neck to be back in town for church this morning. A brother is not going to miss church for NOTHING!!! Blinding rain and a 5 hour drive was not stopping him. I love it though, a brother is faithful.

Anyway, my layout is done and I think it is cute; I have seen a few of my girls' layouts and they are ALL THAT! Come back and give it a look in the morning.

This is not right....

My husband is the proud new owner of a Digital SLR. Yep, you heard me right. This puppy is not mine. Don't seem right does it? I have been well informed that this is "his new toy". This is kind of messed up because I have been wanting a Canon Rebel xsi for about two years. He bought the XS, but still. It is a great beginner camera. He told me I will be "allowed" to use it. I think this brother is going to be in for a huge surprise. I bet he'll share with me after he's been in charge of taking pictures of all my layouts for a few months. What husband wants to do that?! Hee-hee-hee, I'll see if my "evil" plan works! Either way.... some how...some way, his new toy is going to be my new toy.

I love you, Baby, but we have to share the camera. This is just not right!

Don't Forget

Hey ladies. Don't forget that the 15th is when we are doing our green challenge. Do a layout using the color green in any shape, fashion or form. Doesn't matter how you chose to use green whether it be paper, embellishments or photos. Get a photo of your layout and send it to me via email. My email is in the sidebar. This is open for anybody and I know a lot of us are just regular scrappers who may like to share their work. Get it to me by Sunday the 15th and I will get it out here that night or Monday morning.

Take care.

I'm back

I had a busy few days. I went to a baby shower that was really nice. My girl Renee hosted a fabulous shower. Have you ever attended a baby shower that instead of games you scrapbooked? That was a task because every body does not scrapbook, and do NOT like the idea of being "coerced" into it. All in all we had a good time and their layouts came out pretty nicely. However, it would be just like me not to take pics of the layouts, duh!

You could tell Renee spent hours and hours preparing and made some really neat items. She decorated everything so nicely. She is a scrapbooker and I swear she is an amateur chef. She had so many little things that were just the right touch. She made the banner below using the Cricut for the letters. She made party favors, and name tags..

She did an amazing job on all the extras. She made these flowers and vases. Some of them were made of folded paper or painted wood in shower colors. My photos aren't the best but you get the idea. Y'all should have seen me looking at how she did everything, I am totally going to steal her ideas.
I did not get pics of the food but WOW! Everything was so good. Everything tasted GOURMET, and I ain't lying either. Renee even made place cards for the food. The menu was ridiculously good!!! I was so un-classy by making sure I went home with some of the food goodies. I was classy enough not to pack a plate myself, Renee did it for me! What? She wasn't going to eat all of those left overs! Plus, nobody saw me. And that food was good on my 5 hour ride back home, for real.

DUDE, for real?

That is the kind of day I had today. It is late, I am looking over some things and I needed to update blog land. I have so many thoughts going through my head I can't even articulate. I can imagine it would be so easy to fall into the trap of bearing my soul to the whole wide world on the web but I have discovered only about 5 people care anyway so why bother.

I am tired of gloom and doom in the news. We made this mess America, and like God told Job, "Brace yourself like a man." (totally out of context) It is time to man up people.

Heck, I need to man up. For real!

You know, we are all searching for answers to this, that, and the other, but I am beginning to think that there are very few answers. At least there are very few answers to raising teen age girls except one that goes like this, "Please Lord, help me so that I don't go to jail for knocking this kids block OFF!" Some of y'all know what I am talking about. Count to ten? Please. We need to teach our children to count to ten. Like, count ten steps away from yo' mama before you say something smart. Count to ten before you decide to pop your brother upside his head. Count to ten before you decide to roll your eyes at me. We need to teach them people to count to ten! Count to ten...please. 10 ain't enough. Who picked 10? Depending on what they have done I might need to count to 4 hundred and 10. If you want to help us parents, tell us to run some laps, do some push ups and chin-ups, or something! I swear I'd be the finest mama ever.

Yep, I think I have just invented the next exercise fad.

Anyway, I need to simmer down. I was about to get on a roll.

Good Night Girls. Y'all ponder that.

New Challenge - GREEN

Okay, for all us regular scrapbookers here comes a small challenge if you would like to participate. Brick and I are doing a layout using the color green in recognition of St.Patrick's Day. Just use green in anyway you want on your layout and email it to me. You can make it all green, or use green embellishments. You can use any shade of green you want: lime, forrest, emerald, asparagus, jade, kelly, moss, olive, you get the point. Pick whatever you like. I think I saw this challenge in Creating Keepsakes March '09 issue and thought it would be fun to try. The deadline is Sunday, March 15th at 5pm. My email is listed in the side bar. I will post the layouts here so we can admire each others creativity. I have told you all before that I am totally a scrap-lifter, so if your layouts are fabulous I am going to want to try it out. If Brick and I are the only ones who participate that's fine, but if you want to share your work with us go right ahead.

That's it ladies. Hope the start of your week is great.