I suppose I should have gotten a flu shot.

I left work Monday afternoon with a sore throat. I assumed I have overused my voice in class, and didn't think much of it. Although it seemed worse by bed time, the real surprise came yesterday morning when I woke up feeling miserable. Really?? Apparently life didn't get the memo that I don't have time to be sick!

I didn't venture from bed for much of the day, but I did manage to creat a few cards and throw them up on my Etsy site. I spend the majority of the day resting in efforts to rid of this bug before I had to get back to work today. No such luck. With an 11 hour work day looming ahead, I had to physically drag myself up and attem' this morning. I also go back to school this week. Looks like the laundry is taking a back seat to my sniffles (but, hey... I don't cook or clean anyway, right?). Blah. Really, that's all I have to say about that.

Paying it Forward.

As you all know, I have been keeping myself busy experimenting with card making. This is all well and good, and I have enjoyed starting up my Etsy site and working with the vintage shop.


As my box of "finished" cards filled up, I began to wonder how and when I would use all of those cards. The answer was so clear. I googled a few key words and found several great sites for sending greetings to hopitalized children and war veterans. My daughter got in on the action and even made a sweet little card for "a sick kid" which she is SO proud of.

So far I have sent a card to 6 year old Peyton who I found on Hugs & Hope, and Aiden and Isabella who were featured on Make a Child Smile. I am excited to send out many more to other organizations as well!

So, my dad is now on Facebook.

A few months ago, my mom got on Facebook. I found the whole thing to be silly and adorable. After the London Couture fashion show (could these guys be getting any more promotion from me?! haha), I thought maybe my dad should look into creating a Facebook page for his photography company, Images. We got him all set up this morning, and tagged all of the models who participated in the show. Ta-da! You can now contact him and set up your own portrait sessions through his page HERE. And, as always, on his website HERE. Love you, dad!

I've always loved my kids little feet :)

This card-making is getting serious.

With the grand opening of the London Couture Vintage store just a week away, I have been hard at work getting all of my ducks in a row. I can't believe that my art work will not only be on display, but will be for sale, and I am ecstatic that the owners are so excited about featuring my cards.

I came across Vista Print where I designed some great business cards, labels, and a stamp that feature my blog and Etsy addresses. I also decided to copyright my blog and artwork. I now feel completely ready to take on the crafting business world!

ooh la la.

Halloween = success thanks to MyPartyShirt.com!

I have a confession to make. When my husband and I decided on our Halloween costumes, I found the website MyPartyShirt.com. I read that if you blogged, facebooked or Twittered (is that even a verb?) about their company, you could get a discount on your purchase. So I wrote the following:

Lyle and I have decided on our Halloween costumes, and I couldn't be more stoked! We have decided to go as contestants of the *amazing* game show Legends of the Hidden Temple!

I wasn't sure where I would find a costume, so I had to google it. The best deal seemed to be mypartyshirt.com, which offered not only the t-shirts, but all of the accompanying accessories. I have decided on Orange Iguana, and Lyle is going to rep the Blue Barracuda.

They have other awesome costumes including Wheres Waldo and Buddy the Elf. If you hurry, you can take advantage of the discounts on the website and get your costume guaranteed before Halloween.

They sent me a discount code to save 20%, which was really cool, and I ordered the costumes. That sounds like the end of the story, right? Wrong. Not only did I save 20%, but I got one of our shirts free because there was a Halloween sale going on. The site was easy to use, and here is the best part: I selected the slowest/cheapest shipping option... and my order was in my mailbox two days later! No kidding. I will definitely use this company again. And so should you.

Disturbing beyond belief.

WARNING:: the following video is not for the sensible.

Twenty-one year old idiot Jessica Gamble is giving mothers everywhere a reason to feel furious and appauled. Apparently she has nothing better to do than give her two-year-old daughter a marijuana cigarette, videotape the nonsense, and post it onto YouTube. Obviously the video was reported to child services, and Gamble has been indicted on charges of Child Endangerment for which she faces up to 11 years in prison.

I am sickened at the thought of a mother intentionally putting her baby in harms way. It's wrong enough that she is smoking in the same room as her child, while the young girl is in her care, but to allow her to put a lit cigarette into her hand, and a drug into her system, is sinister. I hope that sweet little girl is taken away from her mother - for good - and forgets that she ever knew how to accurately smoke a joint.

Happy "National Talk Like a Pirate Day"!

More greeting card news.

My friend Andee has recently opened a vintage store, London Couture. Last weekend I participated as a runway model in his grand opening fashion show, Strutts For Mutts, which was a charity benefit for the Metro Animal Shelter.

Since I had already created a number of vintage-style cards, I asked Andee if he would be interested in having them in his store, and he was very excited about the idea. I made a decent size collection for him, but after the show, I felt inspired to try out some fashionista-themed cards as well. I got ahold of two new Cricut cartridges-- Forever Young and Summer in Paris (limited), which are perfect for the cards I had in mind. Here are a few of my new designs (don't mind the camera phone quality photos, haha):



Of course these cards will be packaged up with envelopes and my logo before they are sold to the store, but I wanted to snap a photo first because I am really happy with how they turned out. Don't forget to check out some of my other paper gifts over on my Etsy site here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/mrsjmattson. Unfortunately I am reserving all of my Vintage and Fashionista cards for London Couture, but I will let you know if I put any up!

Chinese Gender Predictor.

Attention mothers-- have you ever checked out the Chinese Gender Calendar? Around for centuries, it is reported to be more than 50/50 accurate, and some claim it's accuracy to be 93%.

This chart is supposedly able to predict the gender of your child based on the mother's age at conception, and the month she became pregnant. I tested it out with the data from my pregnancy with my now 5-year-old daughter and, low and behold, it was correct. According to the calendar, if I were to become pregnant right now I could expect another daughter. Pretty cool.

Hey, I made an Etsy site!

I've been scrapbooking for years, but never expanded beyond photo albums. After purchasing my Cricut machine in July, I found myself eager to cut out new things, and I started exploring with greeting cards.


Now that I have made a whole basket full of cards with various themes, I have decided to try and sell some of my inventory. Check out my Etsy site HERE.

Gone too long... again.

I've had the intention of posting some new stuff for days now. As with all things in my life, however, my good intentions rarely blossom into anything else. Forced to be home today with a sick little girl, I am catching up on my interneting (yes, I just made that verb up).

A few days ago I was directed to a pretty funny site, http://www.horriblelogos.com/. According to their page, they have been "drawing bad logos for beer money since 2010". It appears that for just $5, you can purchase a lousy logo sketch for your business, band, or whatever. What a bargain, yes?

Hamill.

View all Seattle events on Eventful

This Just In!

Antoinne Dodson, star of the auto-tune-edited hit "Bed Intruder Song" (a youtube sensation) has reportedly sold over 91,000 copies of the song on iTunes, and was able to move his family out of the projects. Beautiful.

What a weekend.

There must be something in the water, because my kids were monsters this weekend. I started out Friday ecstatic for some family time, especially after heading back to work that Monday. By Saturday evening, I was ready to forfeit my holiday.

Saturday we did our big grocery shopping trip, and treated ourselves to both lunch and dinner out. Sunday I did lots of baking-- oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, sparkling jello, and my first ever attempt at Cake Pops. If you don't know what those are, they're simple in theory: crumble a baked 13x9 inch cake and mix with 1 tub of frosting. Roll the mixture into small balls, insert a lollipop stick, freeze for 15 minutes, then dip into melted chocolate. I, personally, found them to be a bit sweet, but my family liked them. Since I used Funfetti cake mix and vanilla frosting, I might try them again sometime with a more subdued flavor combo: probably yellow cake and cream cheese frosting.

Today we opted for a family activity, but with the promise of rain we knew we had to stay indoors. We agreed on Glo Golf, and sans a few meldowns, it was pretty fun. I also scored a few baskets made out of recycled magazines at Marshalls for $5 each, and treated myself to a Cheese on a Stick and frozen lemonade from Hot Dog on a Stick-- a favorite treat.

I finished off this weekend with a long, warm shower, and my best attempt at a positive attitude. This was in lieu of dinner, which I let everyone else enjoy without me (lucky them... I mean me). Tomorrow is my first day "off" and my daughter and I will be going out to lunch after she gets out of Kindergarten, and I finish helping at the preschool my mom works at. Should be a better day. Let's hope.

Gaga.

I love Lady Gaga. Her music, yes, but mostly her. This being said, I am not a music video person. I haven't seen most music videos, even insanely popular ones. I love Michael Jackson, too, and I had never seen more than his Thriller video until last weekend on our birthday when they played a marathon of his videos on the TV in my nail salon. Last night we gathered around the computer and my husband showed me the Paparazzi video. I think I official fell head over heels in love with L.G. after that. The clip was so freakishly fabulous, and reminded me of a Marilyn Manson video I saw once, but with a sexy, glamorous twist. Old news to you, I'm sure, but here is the video:

Envelopes that taste like bacon... and not armpit.

Nobody likes licking envelopes, and it's about time someone did something about it. J&D Mmmvelopes is now offering Bacon Flavored Mmmvelopes, which smell and taste just like your favorite breakfast treat.

Here's what they have to say on their site:

Technology has given us a lot lately. The car. TV. X-rays. The refrigerator. The Internet. Heck, we even cured polio. But what have our envelopes tasted like for the last 4,000 years? Armpit, that’s what. Really, people? If we can’t overcome this kind of minor technical challenge, it’s only a matter of time until some super-advanced race of aliens with lasers, spaceships and a delicious federal mail system comes down and colonizes the world. And nobody wants that (except for the aliens, of course). So, after thousands of years and kajillions of horrible tasting envelopes licked, we’re happy to report that J&D’s Bacon-Flavored Mmmvelopes™ are here to save the day.

No longer will envelopes taste like the underside of your car. You can enjoy the taste of delicious bacon instead. That’s right, bacon. It’s not real bacon, mind you, so you won’t have to start storing your envelopes in the refrigerator. But it really does taste like bacon. Which is what you really wanted in the first place, isn’t it? And it only took us 4,000 years to get there. Eat that, alien invaders.

These porky letter coverings retail for $6.99/25-pack, and can be found at http://mmmvelopes.com.

Throw snowballs, feel less pain.

Well, I went back to work this week. Even though I follow the same schedule every September, it's always a bit of a shell shock adjusting from sleeping in and lounging around in yoga pants all day, to waking up early and leading my high school classes. Plus, to make things a bit crazier, September means my own children are heading back to their school, and I have to effectively manage that (without losing my mind in the process). Aw, the joys of adulthood.

Fortunately I have an awesome support system. My parent's invited us over for dinner last night so they could hear all about every one's first day of school. This meant not having to cook, which is awesome in my book... as if you didn't know.

While waiting for the spaghetti to finish up, I caught a very interesting story on the news. There's a new and exciting technology now available to burn victims: Virtual Reality. The program, developed at the University of Washington, is called 'Snow World', and it allows the patients to immerse themselves into a fictional world of penguins and snowmen, which is not only visually stimulating, but also interactive (you can participate in virtual snowball fights with the creatures).


Studies have shown that the game is able to distract the brain from sending pain signals, causing patients to perceive less pain when receiving treatment to their wounds. Doctors are also needing to give less pain medication which can help reduce prescription pain abuse.


SnowWorld is also proving helpful with military war victims who are returning from overseas with combat burns and post traumatic stress disorder. Snowball fights and 50% pain? This sounds like one rad videogame.

Life is not fair. But life is not fair for everyone, so life is fair.

"Some people raffle TVs", and some politicians raffle breasts.

"CARACAS (Reuters) – A Venezuelan politician is offering breast implants as a prize in a raffle to raise funds for his parliamentary election campaign.

"Some people raffle TVs and we decided to offer this. It's an interesting prize and there's a lot of interest," Gustavo Rojas, an opposition candidate for a National Assembly position, told Reuters while campaigning in Caracas.

Cosmetic surgery, especially breast enlargement, is widespread in image-conscious Venezuela, whose beauty queens have won numerous international pageant titles.

Even a recession has not diminished Venezuelans' appetite for cosmetic surgery, with many people taking out loans for operations.

Rojas, of the opposition First Justice party, said he was not too worried about potential feminist criticism or the medical details of his offer.

"The raffle is a financing mechanism, nothing else. It's the doctor who will do the operation, not me," he said.

"When someone raffles a TV, some people think it's a good TV but others don't like it. It's the same. I'm not showing disrespect to anyone."

Venezuelans vote on September 26 for a new parliament."

--http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100827/od_nm/us_venezuela_implants_odd