Death & CHA

First, Pat's Uncle Joe passed away this Friday. He lived in Buffalo, NY (where Pat's parents are from)......Pat is headed to NY with his brother & sister for the viewing and funeral early tomorrow morning......I opted (or rather Pat insisted) that I stay behind - even though I feel pretty bad about it. Yes, I know I've never met the man, but Pat is my husband and I want to be able to stand beside him through this kind of stuff. The issue is me sitting in a car for 8 1/2 hours Monday & again on Tuesday - for a total of 17 hours in two days. That's with normal people. I would probably add a little more time onto that if I went to take into account me peeing every two seconds, and needing to stretch my legs, hips and back. I think at most, I might be in the car for work about 5 hours in a day - and even then I'm stopping at least every hour or so to rest and stretch. Medically safe, probably - comfortable and fun for the whole family? Probably not.

We had another death this weekend too - Rev. Dick McCool - a family friend for many years - passed away. He was a paraplegic (or was it quadriplegic?) that lived around the corner from us. Keith and Kyle used to help him out with daily activities when they were in high school......and I think Karli did to some extent as well. He recently had another surgery, which didn't go very well - and slipped into a coma. One he wouldn't awake from :( I didn't know him very well - but he was always the most kind man.......I know he'll be missed.

::::::::::::OK ENOUGH GLOOM AND DOOM:::::::::::::

Before I get myself crying again - lets talk about something more light hearted. I spent most of the weekend at a scrapbook trade show put on by the Craft & Hobby Association. Very very cool experience. I'll be taking photos of the projects that I completed hopefully tomorrow, so I'll share more then - but lets just say it was a whirlwind of seeing all the new products displayed so creatively was about enough to make me want to paper scrap again instead of digital! I MUST venture more into hybrid scrapping......when I get a little more room to work, anyway!

The other cool thing is that I went as a member of the A Cherry On Top creative team - so I was able to meet some of my online friends in real life!!! We got together for dinner on Thursday (I think there was 9 of us) and had a great time! 3 people were the store owners, four of us were on the design team, and two were designers - from all over the US. It was too cool :) And I got to meet some Scrapbook Celebrities - and I even won a book that was signed right there by Becky Higgins herself! It was cool because the book isn't even in distribution yet - not until September 1st - so when we saw the book it was the first time she had as well! Yeah, I know its cheesy, but we all have to have passions, right?

So now, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow is a big work day, and then I have to do some serious cleaning around this house. Ta ta!