Category Archives: Stampin’ Up! Independent Demonstrator

Scared to Death!

 

WARNING:  Some people do not like to think of the prospect of death.  If you are one of those people, you may not want to read this post. 

In a few weeks, I will undergo a medical procedure known as Cardiac Ablation. Cardiac ablation is a procedure that can correct heart rhythm problems (arrhythmias).

According to the Mayo Clinic, ablation uses long, flexible tubes (catheters) that are “inserted through a vein in your groin and threaded to your heart to correct structural problems in your heart that cause an arrhythmia. Cardiac Ablation works by scarring the tissue in the heart that causes the abnormal heart rhythm.” In my case, the arrhythmia to correct is Atrial Fibrillation.  I have had this condition for several years. Until the latter part of this past year, I have taken medication for it and it has not been an issue.  During my routine yearly visit with my cardiologist this past December, I learned medication was no longer in control of the situation.

About a month ago, I wore a heart rate monitor for about 30 days, and it was determined that I am in A-fib 26% of the time.  Therefore, the doctor wants to do this procedure on me.  If it works, I will no longer have to take any type of heart medicine or blood thinner.

I am scared to death to do this!  As is my standard modi operandi (M.O.), I have been trying not to think of how frightened I am.  I am frightened of “biting it” during the procedure.  Moreover, by my thinking, if I allow myself to feel this way then it inevitably will happen.  How silly is that?

As I was stepping out of the shower this morning, I realized I needed to go with my emotions and not be afraid to feel. In experiencing my fear, I realized I am not afraid of dying.  I am afraid of what will become of those that I hold so dearly when I am gone.

Okay, so I am not one of those people that are so self-centered that I think my husband and children won’t be able to live life without me.  I know life goes on, but especially for my children…who will be there for them when they need that “motherly love”?  I DO know there is no love like a mother’s love.  I believe a mother’s love is the only true UNCONDITIONAL love we will ever experience.  Will they know how much I loved them?  Will it be enough to get them through to the end of their lives?

I experienced the devastating loss of my father in 2004.  I still have my mother. At age 58, I am not yet ready to envision what life will be like without her.  I still call her every Saturday to check in.  I continue to enjoy hearing how proud she is of me and my sister.  I still like to hear her words of encouragement when I need them.

If I die, who will do this for my children?  Yes , they are grown; ages 30 and 28.  They still have a long way to go before they are settled in their lives.  Who will encourage them?  Who will tell them how proud they make me?  Who will love them to the moon and back?

Garth Brooks said it best in the lyrics to his song If Tomorrow Never Comes.

If tomorrow never comes

“Will she (they) know how much I loved her (them)

Did I try in every way to show her (them) every day

That she’s (they’re) my only one

And if my time on earth were through

And she (they)must face the world without me

Is the love I gave her (them)  in the past

Gonna be enough to last

If tomorrow never comes.”

I have come to one conclusion.  I WILL NOT BITE THE DUST!   Not yet!

On to happier thoughts!  Here are some cards I’ve been working on with a few retiring products.  Hope you like them!  Until next time…

Happy Stamping!

Josie2

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Five Signs You Are Loosing It

You  know you are loosing it when you ask where your cell phone is while talking on it,  or you mistake a kitchen cabinet for the refrigerator when you are putting away milk.  You also know you are loosing it when you put something away for safe keeping then can’t find it when you need it.  (This is true stuff here!  I’ve done all of these.)

You know you are loosing it when you walk around the house for 10 minutes looking for your glasses only to discover they are exactly where you left them…on the top of your head.  Honestly, I get so used to having them up there sometime, I don’t feel them after a while.  And sometimes, when they aren’t up there I think they are and reach for them.

I used to do the same with my classroom keys when I was teaching.  No, I didn’t wear them on my head; I’d wear them on a lanyard around my neck.  I would on occasion find myself teaching and keeping 35 kids in line, while looking for my keys to open my classroom  closet only for one of my students to say to me, “Mrs. Cauler, they are hanging around your neck.”  Invariably, the class would erupt in laughter, and so would I.  You just have to learn to laugh at yourself!

I think the root cause for having these kinds of memory lapses is having children and a husband!  They are also the reason for gray hair and wrinkles.  A colleague once told me of the time she asked a 97 year-old nun in Colorado Springs  her secret to such beautiful and wrinkle free skin.  Sister’s response was, “I’ve never been married, and I’ve never had kids.”

You know your husband is loosing it when he can’t figure out why his socks are too tight and you have to tell him he inadvertently pulled a pair of your socks out of the laundry basket; not his.

Here’s my card for today.  I used the Sheltering Tree stamp set by Stampin’ Up!

sheltering tree

Hope you enjoyed your visit here today.  Until next time…

Happy stamping!

Josie2

 

 

 

 

Back From Leadership

I am back from Leadership, and I am exhausted!  My return flight landed in Colorado Springs yesterday at approximately 11:30 a.m., I stopped to get lunch on the drive home, and the rest of the day, I was in recuperation mode.  I napped all afternoon.  My husband and I flew to Orland together last Monday and spent a day in Epcot.  I had never been before.  It was fun, but I was a little disappointed in the fact that it appeared to be mostly restaurants and gift shops.  But, we did get to see some of the other attractions like Mission Space, Spaceship Earth, and Soarin’.  We were going to do the design a car thing at Test Track, but it began experiencing technical difficulties as soon as we got into line and it ended up being a longer wait so we skipped that one.

Hubby left Orland on Wednesday morning as my stampin’ friends began to arrive.  Leadership was a whirlwind of activities with many new announcements mostly relating to Stampin’ Up!’s renovation of their compensation plan and events schedule since it is quickly becoming a global company with demonstrators all over the world.

I left Orlando exhausted, excited about all the new changes, and loaded down with a lot of free product from Prize Patrol and give a ways.  I am anxious to get into my stamp room.

Today I am posting the card I made for our team swap along with a gift cardholder I made for my roommates.  A word about the card: the sentiment is done in Early Espresso Embossing Powder.  I used this color because the Soft Sued ink the rest of the card is done in didn’t appear dark enough.  It is stamped on white vellum.  Before I stamped the fern design behind the sentiment, I stamped off once.  I also stamped off once before stamping on the Crushed Curry circle.  Another thing you might want to know is I used Best Year Ever Designer Series Paper and ribbon from the Best Year Ever Accessory Pack which are both in the Sale-a-bration Catalog.  You get 1 item FREE from this catalog for every $50.00 you purchase.    The gift cardholder was cased from one I saw elsewhere, but can’t remember who I should give credit to.  Sorry.   The hearts are embossed on vellum using the Happy Heart Textured Impressions Embossing Folder. Hope you like both.

Leadership Swap

 

Leadership Roommate Gift - 2

Until next time…

Happy Stamping!

Josie2

 

Butterfly Basics Wood Stamp Set
$47.95
Butterfly Basics Clear Stamp Set
$35.95
Butterfly Basics Photopolymer Stamp Set
$23.95
Soft Suede 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock
$6.95
Crushed Curry 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock
$6.95
Coastal Cabana 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock
$6.95
Best Year Ever Designer Series Paper
$0.00
Vellum 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock
$6.50
Soft Suede Classic Stampin’ Pad
$5.95
Versamark Pad
$7.50
Early Espresso Stampin’ Emboss Powder
$4.95
Heat Tool
$29.95
2-1/2″ Circle Punch
$16.95
Decorative Label Punch
$16.95
Elegant Butterfly Punch
$15.95
Tea Lace Paper Doilies
$2.95
Best Year Ever Accessory Pack
$0.00
1-1/4″ Burlap Ribbon
$7.95
Handheld Stapler
$9.95
Groovy Love Wood-Mount Stamp Set
$24.95
Groovy Love Clear-Mount Stamp Set
$17.95
Whisper White 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock
$8.50
Real Red 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock
$6.95
Vellum 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock
$6.50
Red Glimmer Paper
$4.95
Silver Foil Sheets
$3.95
Real Red Classic Stampin’ Pad
$5.95
Tea Lace Paper Doilies
$2.95
Mini Treat Bag Thinlits Dies
$39.95
Happy Heart Textured Impressions Embossing Folder
$7.95
Texture Boutique Machine
$29.95

The Bagger Chronicles; Part I

It seems the last two months have been a whirlwind of activities. I haven’t had much time to stamp, and I have missed it quite a bit.  I’ve thought about it every day.    The whirlwind  started with our first time trip to Cancun, Mexico the week before Thanksgiving.  Remind me never to take a vacation immediately before a major holiday again.  We returned home the Monday just before Thanksgiving.  I was fortunate in that I didn’t have to prepare Thanksgiving dinner as we were invited to a friend’s home for the event.

Shortly thereafter, Christmas preparations began with decorating, baking, and shopping.  It seems we always make such a fuss for such a short amount of time.  But, Christmas was excellent this year.  We  were lucky to have all four of our collective children home for the holiday.  Only one, my daughter, lives out-of-town and she was able to be here.  She doesn’t live that far out-of-town; she’s only a two-hour drive away in Ft. Collins, Colorado.  I was able to spend four entire days with her, as her boss allowed her to work from home one of the days, so she worked from my home.    Unfortunately, she had to return to work early the Friday after Christmas, so she had to leave here by 2:00 p.m. on Christmas day in order to miss the snow storm that was due to arrive.  As it was, she hit snow just 5 miles north of Denver and had to spend the last hour of her trip driving in it.

Something else was thrown into the mix to make life a little extra hectic around the holiday.  I started a new part-time job as a bagger at one of the local military commissaries the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  For those of you that don’t know, a commissary is a grocery store on a military installation. Only active duty or retired military personnel and their dependents are allowed to shop in it.  Government employees work in them as cashiers, butchers, etc.  Only active duty or retired military and their dependents can be baggers.  Baggers work for tips only.  My husband put his name on the waiting list to be a bagger about a year ago.  He thought it would be a good thing to do to keep himself busy since he retired from his civilian job.  It has been 10 years since he retired from the Air Force.  He started bagging in September. After his first day of work, he came home with $60.00.  I said, “Hey, how hard can it be?  It isn’t rocket science.  Put my name on the list.  I want $60.00 a day for bagging groceries too!”  So¸ he put my name on the list.  I didn’t expect to be called for about a year.  But, the phone call came the week before we went to Cancun.

It is low stress, and those bags and buggies don’t talk back like kids (or parents and principals) do.  LOL!  How hard is it to bag groceries?

You would think it is simply putting groceries into a bag, but did you know there are thirteen rules on the How to Bag Groceries hand out presented to me at New Bagger Orientation! In addition, there are 34 items on the Line Procedures and Bagging Rules to Promote Equality for all Baggers handout.  (Recently revised on September 19, 2014, so I know it is current).  Moreover, I had to sign a Commissary Bagger Independent Contractor Agreement and the Defense Commissary Agency’s Bagger Standard Operating Procedures before I could start working.  So is it NOT rocket science?

Some of the baggers I am working with have spent years perfecting their craft.  Some have bagged for 10…No…20 years!  I am not exaggerating.  It is out of the bag now!  Commissary bagging has been the life work of many.  Imagine…20 years bagging groceries!

That is all I am going to write about this for now.  Some of my experiences as a Commissary Bagger would, according to my children, make an excellent Will Ferrell movie.  You will just have to wait until next time before you learn any more about my bagging adventures.   I am sure you are waiting with bated breath.

I got the inspiration for my card from December’s My Paper Pumpkin.  It’s a Valentine Card that uses a few new things that you will be able to order when the new Occasions Catalog goes live next month.  It is a pop up shaker card.  I think that’s what you would call it.  The stamp set I used is in the Annual Catalog and it is called Groovy Love.   I used the new Confetti Heart Border Punch and new Stacked with Love Designer Series Paper Stack that will be available in the Occasions Catalog on January 6th.  It looks as if I punched some confetti hearts out of white paper, but I didn’t.  You are just seeing the backs of some of the ones I cut using the Red Glimmer Paper.   Hope you like my creation and you enjoyed your visit today.

2015 Valentine

Until next time…

Happy Stamping!

Josie2