Laura Vegas

so, i did this fun and exciting thing last weekend.

it was my first time teaching at CKC, for creating keepsakes magazine. i have to admit, it was really cool to see my posterboard sitting outside my classroom.

i did a little of this.

 

and a little bit of that.

and even a little of this.

i had so many great ladies in my classes. 7 classes total, so i also saw some of the faces a few times. which is always fun.  

and even did a little shopping. and i remembered to go and find the sweetest girl in the SEI booth that had emailed me a few days earlier and was bummed that she wasn't going to be able to take any classes since she was working. hey christy 🙂

 

and was so glad that two great friends, ann and deneen, came along with me for the 6 hour drive to and from the convention. it made the time go by so much faster. i didn't have much time to hang out with them and do anything. but i know they got to do lots of fun stuff, while i was busy. including this boat ride, which they loved.

and now, i'm still trying to play catch up, since getting home. joe took excellent care of the girls and the house the 3 days i was gone. but there was still so much waiting for me. but i'm making progress and can see the light at the end of the tunnel. then i can get back to my normal blogging self 🙂

11 years ago today, sarah bombarded her way into this world. we got to the hospital at 5:00am, and she was born 20 minutes later, at 5:20am.

this is one of the very first photos of her, and it always makes us laugh. she has always asked us why they cooked her in a pot when she was born. they were really just cleaning her up.

but it does look like she's in a pot. so i had her re-enact the scene this morning. she's always up for a funny photo 😉

she was just in a really big rush to get her life started. and to wish her daddy a happy father's day. yep, she was born on father's day, 11 years ago.

and here they are 11 years later. celebrating sarah's 11th birthday and father's day on the same day again 🙂

now for the second 20 years of my life. to be honest, the last 20 years are a blur of working, moving from house to house, marriage (x2), and kids. i loved doing that last post, on the first 20 years. but i'm having a hard time getting motivated to do this list. lol! i decided that if i wanted to get this done, i'd let go of the expectation of adding in photos. even though it makes the list more fun. since all my photos for the last 20 years are in scrapbooks, and i'm not up to digging around in them right now. i also didn't mean for this to become a timeline for my life. so i'm not worrying about getting all the important dates and moments in there. they happened, that's all we need to know. lol! anyways, enough explaining. honestly, it's my blog and i can do my list like i want too 😉

21. i worked in grocery for about 13 years, for 2 different companies. i went from curtousy clerk, to checker, to stocker, to frozen food and ice cream, to the pricing department, to managing the pricing department, to price comparing at competitor stores, to working general merchandise, to night crew stocker and checker, and back to the pricing department.

ETA: i did some college here and there for a few years. just never got super serious about any one subject. i mainly just worked. held some extra jobs on the side here and there. office job doing accounting. and retail clothing store, doing cashier and stocking.at one point, i was working grocery full-time, and retail part-time. always busy.

22. since i worked in grocery a lot, the few guys i dated and married (that i can count on one and a half hands), were all ones that i met through the grocery store. either working there, delivering there, or being a regular shopper there.

23. since moving out of my parents house, i have lived in 4 different places. 2 condo's, a tiny little house, and our current house. each one felt so big at the time. but we quickly filled each one up with "stuff" and now they don't seem big enough. ETA: yep, lived in northern california all my life.

24. i started official scrapbooking when i was about 25. right before alyssa was born. i used to believe in scrapping EVERY SINGLE photo. so if i had 40 photos of her eating in her high chair, i scrapped all 40 photos of her eating in her high chair. this would explain why she has 4 FULL albums, just from her first year of life. lol!

25. i used to love making floral arrangements. mainly using dried flowers and silk flowers. i would make things in vases, baskets, buckets, things to hang on the windows, things to put on the tables, and things to hang over doors. i would also dry apple slices, and make wreaths out of them. my mom still has some of my little creations decorating her home. 

26. i have never been a morning person. i worked a normal, office job for about 2 years (doing accounting). and it was the hardest thing for me to get up and to the office at 7:00 or 8:00am. i then went back to grocery, and was doing pricing, which meant i had to be at work at 2:00 or 3:00am. like 2:00 in the morning. or the middle of the night, depending how you look at it. that was so much easier for me.

27. i have never been very good at doing makeup or hair. i can't do eye makeup for anything. it always ends up looking goofy or trashy to me. lol! i have never curled my eyelashes or waxed anything. i've never found a lipstick that stays on for longer than 20 minutes. thanks to my mother-in-law (alyssa's grandma), i have an entire collection of hair products, since she works in a beauty supply store. i don't know what half of them are for, or how to use them. i don't know the tricks to styling hair. i sort of fake my way through it, and stick about a zillion bobby pins in my hair to make it look like i knew what i was doing.

28. i'm terrible with directions, and finding my way places. i think part of it, is because i'm not always paying attention to where i'm going. maybe it's the kids in the car, talking my ear off. or me yelling at them to "knock it off". or maybe i'm by myself, and talking to myself about all the things i need to do. bcause i really do that. whatever the reason, i'm never really paying attention to my surroundings.

29. i was always really bad about buying the girls toys ALL the time. anything they wanted, i would get. i would even buy them stuff, when i was by myself. we had about 10 times more toys and books, then they could have ever needed. looking back, it was overkill. they didn't need it all, they never played with it all, and it was a waste of money. lesson learned, and we keep things simpler these days.

30. when we moved to the house we have now, i decided to quit the grocery business and start a daycare business in our home. i wanted to do something, where i could be home with the girls, who were 2 and 5 at the time.

31. on a whim, i decided to try and teach scrapbooking classes. i remember calling up my lss, and going down to talk to the owner and show her some of my work. i started teaching a few weeks later, and taught 2-3 classes a month for the next 2 years. and the owner dina and i became super good friends, and our youngest daughters are BFF's 🙂

32. during the girls third year or so of soccer, alyssa's coach at the time somehow talked me into playing women's soccer. now, i grew up playing. but at this time, i hadn't played in about 15 years. when you havn't played in that long, it's not the brightest idea to join a team that had been playing together for a few years. hard to fit in, when they all have their groove going. and also not a good idea to play on a team with no subs, when you havn't run at all in years. lol! i lasted about 2 games, and then a ton of them got rained out, and i never went back.

33. mid-way through my 30's, i decided that i had too much clutter in my life. so i got rid of almost every country knick knack in my house, and started going with a clean and simple decor. i also NEVER had photos on my walls. they were all in scrapbooks or put away, waiting to be in scrapbooks. but i finally started having my favorite photos enlarged, and display them on my walls for everyone to see.

34. at some point, i stopped using capital letters when i type. i'm not sure why. it's just easier, and i like the way it looks. although, if i'm doing an important email for something more business-like, then i do use the capitals. but when i write with pen and paper, i write in all capitals. i think this comes from my days working in the pricing department at the grocery stores. i used to make a lot of signs, to hang on displays. and that was always using capitals. so i guess i just kept that up, even after i left. it's extremely hard for me to write in lowercase letters.

35. a few years ago, i was diagnosed with a chronic pain disease (fibromyalgia). it came out of nowhere and hit me like a ton of bricks. for a few years, it was the hardest thing to deal with. but it never slowed me down. it became a new "normal" to me. and while i hate to jinx myself by saying this. i honestly feel really good these days, and wonder if maybe it magically left the way it magically appeared. and now, i'm off to knock on a bunch of wood.

36. we never go on big vacations, or travel much. and yet, in the last year and a half, i'll have made 5 trips for scrapbooking gigs. 2 trips to utah (the golden ticket trip, and a making memories meeting and training session), and 3 trips down to southern california (for the infomercial shoot, for CHA, and this weekend for CKC). i'm actually getting more comfortable with traveling, although i'm still a homebody at heart.

37. i'm not the greatest speller. and apparently, i spell "havn't" wrong every single time i type it. i'm told that it's spelled "haven't". my mom says it annoys her every time i write it. lol! i never use the spell-checker. sometimes, i even see spelling errors on my layouts, but i rarely fix them. just being honest.

38. i have some serious focusing issues. some might call me scattered. i'm always thinking or doing 27 things at once. and i very sporatically work on them all at the same time. if i slowed down and did things one by one, i would probably get more done. instead, i run around in circles half the time, taking even longer to accomplish any one given thing.

39. i forget everything. even things that someone told me 3 minutes ago. i've been know to email myself, with little things that i need to remember. we were at alyssa's soccer game one saturday, and i remembered that i needed to grab a pony tail holder for sarah's game. so i called and left myself a message on the answering machine, since i knew i would forget by the time we got hom 20 minutes later. any time the girls ask me to do something, my response is "make me a note".

40. i'm so grateful for my life and where i'm at. i have a gorgeous family, a loving husband, 2 amazing girls, a fun job with great kids, lots of wonderful opportunities in the scrapbooking business, family that loves and supports us, and friends that keep me sane and listen to whatever i want to talk about 😉

happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me! yep, it's my birthday. i had a funny moment last night. i'm a total night owl, and never go to bed before 1:00am. but i was feeling really, really tired last night. i happen to look up at the clock, and it was exactly midnight. i actually said outloud to myself, "so this is what 40 feels like". lol! i know i said i was going to do my other "20 things about me" today. but i never got around to typing it up. so i'm giving myself a free pass, and will try and do it tonight.

but in the meantime, i have 40 other things to share with you. my BFF deneen said that she had to come see me this morning. i'm not a morning person, but i was up and dressed and ready at 9:00am. she came to the door, handed me a starbucks, and told me to turn on my computer. turns out my friends have been planning behind my back for a few weeks now.  my bff's lynn and carla organized a 40th birthday blog hop in my honor. i'm so touched and honored, by everyone that participated. it means so much to me, that 40 of my scrapping friends and colleagues took time to make me a card and send me birthday wishes. i havn't had time to read all the posts yet, but i've glanced through the cards and they're all adorable! i think i'm going to wait until tonight to read everyone's posts, so that i can really appreciate them. without my family all yapping in the background, which is what's going on right now. lol! they're actually trying to ask me what i want for my birthday lunch, so i guess i should go and figure it out 😉

so, all i want for my birthday is for you all to go and check out their blog hop. you'll see some gorgeous birthday cards, and maybe get some ideas along the way. you can start HERE.

on the day before a very big birthday for me, i thought it would be fun to give you 40 random facts about me. however, 40 is a HUGE number. as i realized typing this up. add to it the fact, that i had to expand on every fact and make them longer than they needed to be. you know me, i'm a rambler. then add to it the fact that about midnight last night (when i was typing this up), i decided it would be funny to add photos. i'm very limited on the photos i have on hand, so i'm working in what i can. so, long story made short. you're going to get 20 facts today, from my first 20 years. and then you'll have to come back for 20 more facts tomorrow. on my actual birthday.

1. i was born 39 years and 364 days ago. which means tomorrow, i will turn 40 years old.

2. i'm the oldest of 3 kids. my brother is 2 years younger than me, and my sister is 4 years younger than me. and we always had dogs growing up. the black and white dog in this photo is mickey, who looks really mean there, but was the nicest dog (from my memory anyways). and the little dog is sherman, who was really the meanest little thing.

3. i never talked to anyone when i was younger, and once i got a swat with a wooden paddle in first grade for NOT talking. true story. and yes, the private school i went to did use a wooden paddle. lol! i had forgotten a permission slip, and they wanted my phone number to call my parents. i wouldn't tell them. i think my reasoning (in my head anyways) was that they probably had it on file, right 🙂

4. i also once got stuck inside the girls bathroom, because the door was too heavy for me to open. i had to wait until someone noticed i was gone from class and came looking for me. since i rarely talked, that took a while 😉

5. i grew up in a camping family. we would go on driving trips across the states, setting up camp in a different state every night. we were brilliant at setting up and taking down camp in record time. you would never know this now, since we've taken the girls camping all of ONE time. and my parents used to make us write in journals every night, about what we did that day. i'd be really curious to know if they still have those journals.

6. i have always loved to organize things. i would re-arrange the furniture in my room constantly, which is hard to do in such a tiny little room with such chunky huge furniture. i would even beg my sister to let me organize her room. she never let me. and check out this gorgeous room i had. i LOVE how the bedding matches the wallpaper. genious! what can i say, i grew up in the 70's.

7. i loved to sing and dance in my room. and i was convinced that no one knew what i was doing. close the door, turn off the lights, plug in my big headphones to my HUGE stereo system, and lip-sync to the music. but since i had headphones on, i'm pretty sure i was actually singing outloud, without realizing it. i always wanted to be a performer. if only i wasn't the shyest person ever 😉

8. my mom sewed me and my sister matching suits. yes, suits. pants, button down shirts, and a vest. i believe there was a jacket too. the best part of this? the material was a sesame street pattern :0)

9. i had to ride my bike to soccer practice. and occasionally, i didn't go to practice. instead, i would go to the library. i was a huge reader, with my nose always in a book. i could read a book or two a day. my parents still say that about me. "always with her nose in a book". good that i liked to read. but not good that i skipped soccer practice to read.

10. i honestly don't remember much about my childhood. which doesn't mean it was bad or un-memorable. because it was good and filled with memories. i just forget stuff. my brother, on the other hand, can remember EVERYTHING. it's sort of crazy.

11. as a teen, i apparently didn't want anything to do with my family and holed myself up in my room. which, i guess is sort of normal for teens. but now that i have a teen, i would feel terrible if she did that to me. so i'm forever sorry for doing it to my parents.

12. i went to the same private school for 13 years, kindergarten through 12th grade. towards the end, my parents had to move my brother and sister over to public school. i was scared to change, since i was in high school at the time, and still very shy. i'm so grateful that i got to finish out my schooling in one spot.

13. i rarely talked, even in high school. only to my friends. i talked a LOT to my friends. but i was always the shy one. when senior year rolled around, and it came time to vote for class favorites, i knew i would get voted "shyest" (is that a word?). luckily, i was on the yearbook staff, and was able to get that catagory eliminated.

14. i played soccer all growing up. played on the varsity team for all 4 years of high school, and made all-stars every year. i got my letter as a sophmore. a nice big orange "FC". i always wanted to get a jacket to put it on. but i never got one. i also never got a class ring. no idea why. instead, my giant "FC" is glued in a scrapbook (before i even knew what scrapbooking was).

15. i have never been to a school dance. NEVER. i went to a christian school, that didn't believe in dancing and figured that nothing good came out of it. so we had "JSB's", which was a junior-senior-banquet. we got dressed up, and had dates. and then just ate a dinner and listened to a comedian or something. that was it. this could be one reason that i refuse to dance in public. i'll blame it on my school, and the fact that i've never been to a dance. lol!  

16. that being said, i never dated anyone until i was about 18 years old. for the two JSB's that i attended, i just asked some guy from work to go with me. and both guys ended up being losers. i can count the number of guys i went out with (in my entire life) on one and a half hands.

17. i got my first job when i was 16 1/2 yrs of age, working at safeway as a curtousey clerk. also known as a bagger. i was an excellent bagger. i still am, and usually take over my own bagging when i go grocery shopping. i never like how they do it. i was a great cart collector too. you always had one hour of cart duty, for every shift. i could bring in more carts than half the guys. i didn't know it at the time, but i would continue to work in grocery for almost 14 years.

18. i'm pretty sure THIS is the reason that i had to get that job. yeah, i did that. picking up my little sister from school. some other car had their turn signal on, and young and innocent little me, thought they were actually going to turn. so i pulled out. they didn't turn. i paid for that one.

19. i had REALLY big hair in my junior and senior year of high school. it wasn't just about the big hair, it was about the TALL bangs. i'm embarrased about this hair choice now. as i can look back and realize how absurd it looked. but at the time, i thought i was cool.  and for the record, everyone had big hair. so i was actually quite stylish at the time 😉

20. i graduated in the class of 88', along with about 90 other kids. and sadly, this is the best photo of that night. lol! i can be such a lovely picture taker, can't i?

whew, that was long winded. and now, by adding in the photos, i have raised the bar for what i have to do for the next 20 years. this started out such a simple idea, and in true "laura fashion", i turned it into more work than it needed to be. lol! although, i think i might have given a few of you some good laughs, at my expense. so it's all for a good cause 🙂