First day of summer

Welcome to the dog days.

the mystery of the critics muting

I went to see the new Nancy Drew movie with my nieces and sisters yesterday. Having been a fan of the books as a young girl, I was pretty excited to see how they put it all together. Frankly, I was quite impressed. I really enjoyed the movie and my nieces loved it.

My oldest niece has yet to read the books and my sister is just itching at the chance to get her started. She and I were furious readers of the series and since the library didn't carry them, we would read whatever we could put our hands on. My niece, having struggled with reading last year, is turning into quite the little reader and this we are pleased about.

Which brings me to my real rant: the critical outpouring of negative comments about Nancy Drew. Whether it's the movie or the books themselves, I have yet to read a good review of anything. This weekend the Globe and Mail had a scathing commentary on the negative feminism surrounding Nancy Drew, how she was always so proper and how it would be hard to get girls on board with this.

Frankly, I'm not impressed. When I read Nancy Drew back in the dark ages of the early 80's, the only feminist links I found were that I wanted to be like Nancy. I wanted to hunt mysteries. I wanted a sleuth kit. I wanted to be able to go out at night and drive a cute little car and do better than the boys. After all, where was Ned when she was on all her adventures? And the added bonus to this book? I liked to read. I neglected the television, the radio, the --well-- we didn't have video games when I was a kid but if we did, I wouldn't have been on them. I would have been reading. And considering that at that age I knew nothing about boys, clothes, music, or anything else little girls seem to be wrapped up in, it was safe to say that my impressions of the book were that I believed every word written because I had nothing else to compare it to.

I'm tired of this crap about how boring the books are, how plausible it is to believe Nancy could be so wholesome, how she dresses is wrong....and so on. I'd rather read critics cheering that girls are getting back into books again. That finally there is something out there to draw attention to reading a book to follow Nancy and her mysteries. Instead of having them sitting listless on a couch stuffing their faces.

Things to look forward to

I'm in London again this weekend. This time we're celebrating my mom's birthday (68!) and having a little family dinner. It will be nice to hang out together. The kids are looking forward to it and so is my mom.

It's been a rough few weeks and I'm glad that I'm having this time to just chill out and enjoy the summer nights. I'm not looking forward to the next month, but it's just another thing to get through. I've got the day before Canada Day weekend booked off to just hang with the girls and enjoy the four days. Right now, that's the start of the good things in store for July. Other items include a trip to Chicago to hang with the Luxe girls at CHA, of course a trip up here to celebrate the birthday and a night with the kids taking them to see Hilary Duff (cue the youngest: "she has brown hair now, and she wants to be sexy like a grown up")

I sent off my designs for the Luxe team and I'm hoping I see it elsewhere in the next month. That will be really cool for me. Haven't had anything published yet so having that used in any way will be really neat. I'm looking forward to that too.

I have so much to do though. I've let the last couple of weeks go by with lots of stuff slipping. Have to get my scrap crap organized. And finish the last three albums I was going to make. Also have to take some photos of the album I made for my aunt so I can show a few people. Really need to clean some stuff out, go to the cleaners, get organized for a card night....the list just seems endless and you would think with the weather being good and the light lasting longer I wouldn't be so lazy....not quite the case.

So I'll just enjoy the weekend with the fam. And then start doing the other tasks once I get that done.

Goodbye

So my nieces were here this weekend for a big babysitapalooza. And while I love them dearly, kids are a whole pile of work. Really, it took me forever to clean up after them. They arrived late on Friday night and once we got them all set up for bed, it was close to midnight. They were up at the crack of dawn (or as the oldest says "it wasn't the crack of dawn, the sun was out") and just went straight until I made them take a nap in the afternoon. They played with a friend's daughter who came over and once the younger one fell asleep, I had them both hit the hay for a nap. We all slept for three hours. Took them to see Surf's Up (which was cute, loved it) at the late show and then they finally went to bed at midnight. No joke, midnight! They were up again early this morning and going straight. We went swimming and then they took a bath while I cleaned up. I swear it took me an hour to pack up all their stuff, clean up the guest room, clean up the kitchen, clean up the bathroom and get them all organized to get out of the bath. And while I was sad to see them go, I was glad when my sister and brother in law got back to take them off my hands. Kids are too much work.

It was sad though when they were crying when they left telling me that they were going to miss me. Even though I'm going to see them on Friday and this is not at all a long time between visits (we've gone four weeks before). It always makes me sad to say goodbye to them. I hate it. And it just seems to be getting harder and harder for some reason.

How to design for Luxe part 2

So my big plan was to take photos of the process. Because it's really quite funny when I get going. And at one point on Sunday, I had the entire dining room table covered in paper, the table in the family room, the couch, the island in the kitchen, the kitchen table and one counter covered in supplies. Paper was everywhere, cut outs were everywhere and photos seemed to be everywhere but where I needed to find them. My scissors disappeared at one point as well.

However, my camera is still in London, so my photos are nowhere to be seen. Which also sucks for another reason, I can't send photos of my layouts to the Luxe girls to see if they can use them or to see if I need to do more.

Forget about what we did before we had computers and television, what did we do before we had cameras?

How to design for Luxe

Step 1: Agree to design for Luxe.

Step 2: Wait for box to arrive.

Step 3: Open box of goodies shipped from Texas.

Step 4: Jump up and down giddily at all the goodies inside.

Step 5: GET TO WORK!

Stay tuned for pictures.