Society of Stampaholics

June 2016 Card Chain Challenge Sign-Up

It's May 7th - which means it's time to sign up the June Card Chain Challenge!

If this is your first time here, I hope you'll sign up and join in the fun!

So let's get to it!

 

This Month's Prize

Lovely Garden jumbo cling rubber stamp set from Stampendous:

 

To be eligible to win this prize, you must email me a photo of the card by June 29, and your card must arrive at its destination by June 30, 2016. A winner is then selected via random draw.

 

Challenge Directions

Make a card using at least one of the following four options. (You can actually use two, three, or all four options, but you are only required to use one of them.)

Color Palette  

These colors are your guideline - exact matching is not necessary.

OR

Sketch

You can orient this sketch in any direction and/or flip it.

OR

One of the following themes: – Patriotism or Water or Friendship (updated 5/12/16)*

+NOTE: I misread my chart and ended up originally posting the same themes I used in May, so if you already made your card using dogs or food, that's okay!

OR

One of the following products: Elizabeth Crafts, buttons, or bling

 

Sign Up Deadline

You have until Monday, June 6, 2016, 11:55 p.m., EST, to sign up below and email me a photo of your card (please include a link to your blog/photo gallery). Please sign up using your first name and your state, province or country. EX: Ann in Texas; Betty in Ontario; Cathy in Wales; Darla in Italy.

 

Reveal Post & Winner Announcement

All of the cards with links to their creators' blogs or online photo galleries will be revealed here on Friday, July 1, 2016.

Come play with us and join the ranks of participants from more than 25 countries who've made and mailed more than 2,000 cards! I hope to see your name here!

Don't forget to check back here July 1st for the Reveal of all the cards made and exchanged in the June CCC!!!

It's just come to my attention that my free "lifetime" InLinkz membership has expired. I'm not allowed to change the links from thumbnails to a list, so I'm pasting a picture of the links here and have created a continuance of the sign up (text only - no thumbnails) below the picture of the thumbnails. I hope this isn't too confusing - my apologies!

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for stopping and have a blessed day!

Deborah

*This is an international card exchange - you send a handmade card to the person above you on the list, and you receive one from the person below you on the list. If that's not enough of a win-win, I also randomly draw a prize winner each month. I do a reveal of all the cards with links to the challenge participants' blogs or online photo galleries - which is a great way to increase exposure to your blog or photo gallery!. Please read the Rules and FAQ's if you want to play along. :~D

See a past CCC reveal.

Total cards exchanged as of May 1, 2016: 2,038

Spouse and the Good News

I've sort've been keeping some information under wraps for the last five years because it's not the thing you want to advertise on the Internet.

When the economy hit the skids back in 2007, Spouse's job was one of those hundreds of thousands that bit it big time here in Indiana. Talk about your nightmares. There was no employment to be had - and especially if you had any education (he has a Master's). After about a year, he finally landed a job, but it was third shift.

(No woman in her right mind is going to announce online that she and her young daughter are sleeping home alone every night, so that's why very few people knew about it.)

The work was manual, the pay, crap (less than half his former salary). So it's been tough financially and emotionally because having the Daddy-Man living on a different schedule is just not conducive to family happiness. Somebody's always tired, you can't plan on doing activities at normal times, and it's really kind of lonely for everyone. Oh, and trips... trips are just plain hellish.

Well, friends, I'm here to announce that Spouse has a new job... and it's during the day!!! He's now a supervisor at U Indy - he started last week. He took us to visit his office on Sunday, and I must say he's fixed it up fine. The only thing it's missing is windows, but he's got lovely lights on a dimmer, so he's escaped the dreaded florescent "hummers" that typically illuminate the workplace.

He and Gigi and I have spent this past week luxuriating in his vertical presence during the day. I love having him next to me at night while we laugh and make fun of whatever is on the television. Of course, it's not all roses. The logistics of three people suddenly being on the same schedule has been surprisingly tricky - we've had to rearrange shower and laundry times, who drops off and picks up the kid every day, and all sorts of other things.

BUT THAT'S OKAY BECAUSE OUR FAMILY IS ONCE AGAIN ON THE SAME SCHEDULE!!!

Today just happens to be Spouse's 50th birthday, and Gigi and I are so looking forward to celebrating it with him today rather than on the weekend!

This really IS awesome, and I just wanted to share!

Thanks for stopping and have a blessed day.

Deborah

A Gigi Moment: At the Post Office

Okay, so we all know Gigi is 13 now, right? (And if this comes as a shock to anyone, I'm right there with you!)

So I'm going to the post office because I have three packages and about eight cards to mail, and I have my little sweetpea with me. I had to fill out a form for one of the packages as it was going overseas, so I gave Gigi the postage stamps and the cards and said, "Here - put these stamps on."

A few minutes later, I've completed the form, and we're continuing my transactions, and all I need to do is give the postmistress the stamped envelopes. To my horror, Gigi had put the stamps all over the place on the envelopes! Not ONE of them was in the upper right corner!!!

I was speechless. Stunned. Then I recovered.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" I gasped as the postmistress totally fell out. I mean she lost it."The stamps go in the upper right corner!"

"I didn't know they were supposed to go there," said Gigi.

"But you bring in our mail every single day. Are you seriously telling me that you didn't know where the stamps go?"

"Well," says my child, "I thought you wanted me to be creative because they were cards."

By this time the entire line is snickering.

Oy!

Here's a picture I took of her last weekend. She's started to pay a lot of attention to her appearance and is wearing cosmetics. Curling her hair every night has become a ritual....

How stinkin' cute is that?

Thanks for stopping and have a blessed day! 

Good and Bad News

Well, I have had to have That Conversation with my dad... the one where I have to tell him he's going to be in a nursing facility for the rest of his life.

It was not pleasant. I have now officially been added to his list of those who are out to get him. I think the worst may have been when he stated that he had never done anything this awful to me and what a horrible daughter I was to betray him like this.

Of course, no amount of reasoning with him will resolve things. He told me I was crazy when I gently tried to let him know that half the time he gets mad at me because he thinks I'm not returning his calls but, in reality, he's simply not remembering that I called him.

He's gone off down the paranoia trail again. He reminded me that the only reason he was in there in the first place was because the Sheriff's Department had cut his brake lines (thereby causing him to run into a car stopped at a red light). And I had to correct him (I've let him make this claim up until now without arguing with him after my initial attempt to set him straight). A few minutes later, he was right back onto the accident being a frame-up - only this time it was the nursing home who caused the wreck: they had deliberately rammed him from behind. (Exactly WHY he's sure various agencies are determined to put him away has never been made clear, but I suppose this is beside the point.)

So now I am officially Dishonorable Daughter #1.

 

 

 

June, 2014 CCC Reveal to Post July 3

Hi, all -

I'm having a bit of a family crisis involving my dad, and I'm having to deal with it long-distance. It's time for him to move into a facility, and he's fighting it like somebody's suggesting he be buried alive. He has rapidly increasing dementia and some other mental health issues, so we can't put this off any longer.

Last week he plowed into a car stopped for a light (luckily nobody was seriously hurt). As a result of his accident, he's landed himself in the Serenity Unit at St. Mary's Hospital for the second time in the past 30 days. I'm beginning to feel the strain as this whole ordeal is exhausting and has been going on for over a month.

If it were just dementia, I think we'd be okay, but there are bigger issues. I've always suspected he was mentally unstable, and the doctors believe he has some schizophrenic-related disorder(s) that are making nursing home placement nigh on to impossible. Mental health facilities are also loathe to take eldery patients because they come with so many physical health issues, so this whole situation is incredibly complex and difficult. 

In the meantime, he's unbearable to deal with. He's got paranoia and delusions that bring out his worst side. He's convinced the local police tampered with his brakes so he would have a wreck. (You don't want to know why he thinks this - trust me.)  

So thank you all for your patience and prayers. It's all appreciated. I'll have the June CCC reveal posted on Thursday.

Thanks for stopping and have a blessed day.

Deborah

Robert Nolan, Rest in Peace

We are very sad at our house right now as Spouse's Uncle Bob passed away from a massive heart attack. We became aware of his weak heart only recently, and the irony of his condition is not lost on anyone who knew him, for his life bespoke of a man whose heart was mighty.

Bob's generosity was well-known and his home was always open to any member of the Nolan clan - which is saying something, let me tell you! Since he resided in the suburbs of Washington, DC, there were many of us who had cause to "drop in" and stay awhile. Spouse had a particularly long stay at "Hotel Bob & Hilda" when he did his graduate internship at the Folger Theatre (which lasted an entire semester).

Bob was recently experiencing some extra strain since Aunt Hilda was not recovering as well as could be hoped from an earlier fall and injury. He was independent and determined to take care of her himself - they had been married for more than 50 years, and I find that kind of devotion inspiring. He went into the hospital for a minor procedure and was in good spirits in the recovery room when his heart failed him.

Thank you, Uncle Bob, for all the kindness you showed all of us... you were a prince among men and you shall be sorely missed.

Spouse's sister Kathy with Aunt Hilda and Uncle Bob at the last family reunion.

Random Observations

It's Friday night, and I think my retinas are officially fried.

I have spent no less than 67 hours in front of a computer monitor this week, and I suspect that, in addition to the retina thing, I have a blister on my backside from sitting in this chair for so long. (I think I got up to go to the bathroom on Tuesday, but it's all just a blur to me now.)

Despite my near-blind state, I've been tooling around the Internet for the last two hours, visiting blogs, leaving comments (I know - unbelievable, right?), drooling over eye candy - stuff I haven't been able to do for the better part of a month. I am able to do this because Spouse is in the bedroom watching The News Hour and talking back to all the public officials who have outraged him this week.  

I don't think he's shut up since it started.

Gigi is glued to the television. She has recently discovered Seventh Heaven and is clearly enamored, if her blow-by-blow recaps are any indication. I had never seen the show before but I'd heard it was Chock-full of Family Values. After watching about five minutes it was clear there was going to be A Moral, and the father was a minister who had managed to sire about a dozen children - all of whom were unrealistically polite to one another, and the house was very large, very nice and very NEAT.

I didn't know it was a fantasy program! BONUS!!!

Does anyone else appreciate the irony here?

Well, I hear the theme music for America's Funniest Home Videos. This means I need to go be with Gigi because she LOOOOOOOVES this show. She loves this show so much that she can't bear for anyone else to miss it - although I am allowed to avert my eyes when people go flying through the air until a tree stops them. Or drive their bicycles into suddenly opened car doors. Or jump right off the trampoline to land neatly on their heads in the rock garden. (I have tried to explain to her that she will not understand my aversion to injury until she's a mommy, but she's not buying it. But this is the child who finds the sight of a chair collapsing beneath a Shriner hysterical - especially when his little fez gets flattened.)    

So I'm off, but I have plans for tomorrow!