I've had the week from hell...

... but ended it in the stamp room, so things are looking up!! And now it's Monday - a new week - hooray!! I'll tell you more about my week in a bit, but first I'll tell you about this card so that those of you who don't care to hear me whine can skip that part. ;-) For this card I finally inked up my Time Well Spent set, which is currently an SU Level 3 hostess set, but SU sent to all of us demos as a freebie (woohoo!). I embossed the flower in black, and colored in with a combo of my Apricot Appeal watercolor crayon and my Apricot, Rose Red, Sage Shadow and Basic Black SU markers. Ah yes, those colors - not my first choice for a color palette (my first reaction was "ewwww, u-g-l-y!") but I decided to give it a go anyway. It was last week's SCS Color Challenge - as usual, I'm playing "better late than never". Anyway as I played with it (and after seeing some lovely creations on other blogs) it has grown on me a little. After coloring the flower I went a little nuts with the Star Dust Stickles (along the outer Rose Red bit), liquid pearls and Copper Stickles in the flower center. I added more liquid pearls to the corners of the main panel and along the scalloped bottom. My liquid pearl application techniques are improving, but still not great! I had been ending up with little hershey kisses like on this card, but when I saw Her Stamping Majesty use pearls so perfectly on a project, I left a comment asking how she gets them so perfect - and being the extremely nice person that she is, she replied and told me to tap the back of the paper after applying them! And OF COURSE she was right, it did the trick! Now I just need to better control the AMOUNT I squeeze out. You'd think being a cake decorator and all, I could do this better - it's like squeezing out dots with a #2 tip - but oh yes, I just remembered - I'm pretty lousy at making perfect dots on cakes too! :-) Ok so here's the card recipe - and below I will do my whining... :-)

• Stamps: Time Well Spent, Small Script
• Paper: Apricot Appeal (textured), Sage Shadow, Rose Red Prints DP, Basic Black, Whisper White
• Ink: Versamark, Black StazOn, SU markers, Basic Brown (sponged around flower panel)
  
• Accessories: Black EP, Watercolor Crayons, Liquid Pearls, StarDust & Copper Stickles, SU Corner Rounder for scallops, SU Ticket Corner punch, Pomegranate ribbon, Michael's ribbon, paper piercer

So why was last week awful? Well first of all some background info - I haven't talked much about this on here because I don't like to "advertise" being home alone, but Joel has traveled A LOT since September, on business trips to Korea. For most of the fall his schedule was pretty much gone ~2 weeks, home ~1 week, gone another ~2 weeks, etc. Obviously that much traveling to such a different time zone was not easy on him, and me being home pregnant with a toddler was not easy on me (not to mention Carter really missed his Daddy!). But we all managed to survive. Joel had a nice "long" break at Christmas, and then last Sunday had to leave again on one last trip before the baby comes. I was super nervous about him going - I thought for sure baby would decide to come early since I was here alone - but she was a good girl and stayed put! And it was a short trip - leaving Sunday night, back Thursday night - only 4 nights on my own, how bad could that be? WELL! The first night Carter was up for several hours in the night. I thought it was separation anxiety about Daddy leaving again, because he kept saying "Daddy trip 4 days" and crying (when Daddy said goodbye we told him it was for only four days this time). Then again on Tuesday night - up for an even longer stretch. And finally on Wednesday I figured out why he was probably having trouble sleeping - he threw up right before bed (all over his pile of BOOKS, no less - what a mess!) and then a few more times throughout the night. So then I got nervous - just over 2 weeks until my due date - I REALLY did not want to catch this bug! I was doing my best to wash my hands like never before - but when sick #4 happened around 3am while Carter was snuggled in my lap - with the result of it ending up all over both of us - I knew I was probably doomed. Sure enough it hit me Friday night - THANKFULLY after Joel was back from his trip - but still NO FUN at all. I mentioned before that I have a hard time getting me & my huge belly out of bed these days - well couple that with HAVING to get out of bed QUICKLY to run to the bathroom - not a pretty site. And I was already so exhausted from the hard week that came before the sickness. Ugh. Again THANKFULLY it was rather short lived - I felt much better by Saturday night - but because of this stupid bug I had to miss a brunch my sister & some friends were throwing for me (a baby-shower-like-thing). I was so bummed about that. :-( So now that I'm feeling better, you'd think my body would say to itself - ok, let her get some good rest - but no, as you can see I'm posting this in the wee hours, my stupid pregnancy insomnia has not gone away. SO ANNOYING! So there you have it. I know there are many out there who go through much harder things - it's not like Joel was gone to Iraq or something this fall (I am sooooo not cut out to be a military wife, I really don't know how those amazing women do it!) but it hasn't been a very fun pregnancy, really. But - it's almost over. Now all I have to go through is labor and sleepless nights with a newborn... *sigh*