Huge Blog Candy Opportunity

Most of you probably don't know it, but my both of my mom's grandmothers had Alzheimer's. I grew up in California, very close with her maternal Grandmother, the woman I called Granny. She lived with my Grandparents for a very long time, but eventually had to be put into a full-time care facility. Luckily, my Grandmother worked within the industry, so I was able to see Granny a lot. One of my favorite memories of her, other than her huge crush on Bob Barker, was that she used to let me wheel her around the convalescence home. We'd go shopping, meaning I'd wheel her around the facility and pretend to go to placed I'd never heard of, like Ben Franklin. Sometimes she'd take things, arguing with residents and staff alike as she held up what she thought to be an advertising flyer, asking why they didn't have any more slippers or pantyhose on sale. Granny also lived with us for a while, and she locked herself in the bathroom, arming me with a bobby pin and told me that it was my job to get her out using only a bobby pin. Thanks for showing me how to pick a lock, Granny.
Anyway, my Grandmother wanted to transport her back east when we moved, so she'd have someone close. Granny turned and hurt her foot on the plane ride. I remember her checking into the home across from where we lived, and my mom's paternal grandmother stopped in and the women talked like sisters, they hadn't seen each other in so long, but the years melted away. Within a few hours, Granny was rushed to the hospital and my Mom and Grandmother left our house to go to the hospital (coincidentally it's right next to the convalescense home), and I stayed home with my Mom's boyfriend/fiancee at the time. I can remember that when she didn't make it through the night, he was the one who held me and told me and let me run upstairs and I cried for what seemed like hours. At her funeral, we didn't know it, but my mom was carrying my older little brother...I like to think Granny knew that life would carry on, and that's why she finally succumbed to the ravages of old age and the disease.
My mother's paternal grandmother lived back east, and when we moved to Ohio, we lived across the street from the convalescent home she lived in. A few times a week I would stop by and talk to her. I volunteered at the home as well, it was really cool to be able to learn bits and pieces about a woman I'd never met before. Now I wonder what she might have thought of me. She had no idea who I was, I got a smile and a hug on every visit, but I'm not sure if she really sensed our connection. My Great Aunt spent a few days a week at the home, taking her mother's clothes to be cleaned and such. When she passed, it wasn't a surprise because we'd known she'd eventually pass--I want to say people were waiting for it to happen.
Anyway, I apologize for the long disclosure. I wanted to give you a heads up on a huge, over $900 blog candy opportunity... Make a card for an alzheimer's caregiver by 8 CST today and head on over to: http://myblogbycammie.blogspot.com/2008/09/heart-to-heart-blog-candy.html to post the card and participate in the contest. And take a moment to think of those with Alzheimer's and those who are fighting this disease. With hope and support we can find a cure...

Overwhelmed!!!

I use Bloglines as my RSS feeder, so before the great minds at blogger started using the 'follow this blog' widget, I kept pretty good track of people that I followed.
Now I've probably got 25 people that I follow in my scrap folder alone. Too much input!!
Or is it?

I like the flexibility of a RSS feed because I can look, clip and save stuff for later. If I like something, it's kept on the backburner until I decide to get rid of it. If I tend to not check it for a few days, the posts get a little crazy, but about 20 minutes later I can usually have most of the posts organized. I have a scrap folder, a book folder, a few review sites, a giveaway folder, a folder dedicated to celebrities (yes, I follow celebs!) and a few more and while it seems like a lot, it's not because they're all in one place.

Anyway, the purpose of this was to let you know that if I can follow you, I will probably be following you in the coming weeks. Just have to get to your blog and click the little button and let the magic of the internet work...

Confessions of a Font Nerd: Thickers

I'm a font lover. When I used to work as a creative, my mouth would literally water at the thought of new fonts. I had serif, sans serif and all different types of fonts in my computer (over 400)--and I used most of those in different projects. I used to be able to tell you a point as well as the font type (along with kerning) at first glance. I was, for lack of a better word, a font nerd.

I was introduced to thickers by twopeasinabucket.com. I got my first set of chipboard thickers through a promotion they ran, and I've been running strong ever since. One day, I want to just go into a few stores and just grab as many packages as I can and buy them. Then quickly leave so I can start playing them. I even have a thickers wishlist. Seriously, I have a problem.

A few weeks ago, thanks to the lovely ladies on the boards who posted about their thicker issues, I checked my thickers that were on projects and found that they weren't staying where I'd put them.Agghh! I was mortified, then worried about all the vinyl I had.I decided to go through my other sets and see if any others were affected. I sent back three sets of Thickers to American Crafts, and they promised to send me replacements within 6-8 weeks.

Last night, about 4 weeks after I sent out my request, I get a package. What's in the package? Thickers. 3 sets of awesome thickers in the fonts that I fell in love with. I pulled out a set and went to work on replacing the text on my cover page that had succumbed to thickers with minds of their own. And a box with a sticker on it saying simply 'The Goods.' Apparently, AC is also providing product to customers effected by the vinyl thicker issue.

Inside the box was 50+ sheets of paper from American crafts. All different colors and styles... BEAUTIFUL PAPER.

Thank you, AC, for your commitment to your customers. I would suggest anyone reading this can go buy a few packages of the product, they're very versatile and really fun to play with. And they can rest easy knowing that a company will stand by the products they manufacture. Okay, back to adding the new Xmas lines to my wishlist!

Blog Candy Time

Bev, of Cards by Bev, is holding a really sweet Blog Candy contest, featuring a beautiful stamp, some flowers and ribbon.... Very nice!

In order to check out this very popular stamp, visit cards by Bev here.