I am great on this friday! : )

Well , yesterday I was bit weirry of things that I mentioned below this blog , Im better today , I know as time goes on I will get better and I will heal ,its all part of life , its the way its suppose to go . Its the big test that God /the universe has said I must learn to pass and ya know what.... I will...eventually. In the mean time I have been working on my cousins daughters baby scrapbook , wait til' ya see it ! I must say Im rather impressed with myself. I was so intimidated by it at first , I had my palette of paper that I had bought a whole pack of cuz I wanted to make sure it would be complete with color and ideas , and I definitely got that in the paper I bought , so I did the pages, so now today all I have to do is the journaling and the titles and the littles cards for the pictures to be placed on . I will put it up hopefully today if not today for sure tomorrow.

Im really excited to see my cousins . I don't see them much unless its at a wedding or baby shower , thats the only time I see them at all . all our parents are brother and sisters of a family of six , so all of us cousins their are a bunch of us. Me? well Im an only child , my mother didn't have anymore after me , but all my cousins well.. they have alot of brothers and sisters as well , so alot of cousins their is. Our parents were all kinda confused about life , while all us cousins we see life as , yeah it is what it is but ya get over it and you move on and ya have fun , you enjoy life don't look back at the past in the moment of hangin' with eachother , we are so happy when we see eachother , we seriously have a good time . Im really looking forward to see them indeed. : )

Well.... Im off to go and finish the baby scrapbook so I can come back here and show ya the final product I hope you all like it.

Off to meditate first and then get to work!

Thanks for listening and Nemaste!

Mary ann k.

It's Thursday....

So its thursday... it was hard for me to get up today . I got to see my grandbaby yesterday , I was so excited to see her that i spaced on taking any photos of her . Its strange how , the other family doesn't feel we're good enough for her but, when they don't have anyone to take care of her , all of a sudden.... we are good enough LOL! Its rather funny really. I know i may sound jaded,crazy, and a bit unusual , because .... well... I am! I don't hold anything back and I do speak the truth about myself , I mean honestly ... why should I lie to myself or to you ?

Anyways I have been through alot in the last 2yrs and I won't denye that I should be goin' to therapy , but I have been their done that many years ago and it just doesn't do anything for me . Art on the other hand does , it brings me to understand to let it go on paper , in my hubbys music , we sing it , I should probably put it on here so you could hear it , its pretty music , we have been practicing alot lately and we're gonna be playin' out soon , so its been good , when we go to gatherings we sing them and people geniunly like them . I always remind myself that I can't look back to the past , that I have to move forward , I start to feel that way , and then I see my daughter one day , and then it all floods back . It doesn't flood back when I see her alone , but when her boyfriend comes around with her , it floods back hard . She's not her self when she's with him , I see a person trying to please him , but when she is visiting alone , just her and my grandbaby , I see my real daughter ,the earthy gal that I use to know , and thats who I like to hang out with.

As for my nephew , well he's become a real drama king . He thinks that everyone in the family is mean and cruel and now all he has is his mommy and whats funny when its time to rat her out , he will , he has , yet she's his favorite only because she's giving him money in some way . I love the kid , but if your not gonna learn how to be a good human being , and its best not to know us who took you from a heroin addicted situation and gave him everything and try to protect him from his parents . He has a girlfriend who is very pretentious and reminds him to stay away from us , so he does . He decided to go to a school in east bay , which is up north cali , just so he could be close to her , the girlfriend is goin' to Davis ,which is 2hours away , but this relationship , probably won't last , cuz I don't know how he's gonna be able to robot it for too long , and I know my nephew , even though he wouldn't admit it , I know he will get bored of being told what to do , I mean he's gonna meet new people and girlfriend isn't gonna like them cuz she had sifted through all his friends and by the time high school graduation came around , he only had 3 friends she allowed him to have and she went to the other friends and told them to stay away from him and basically told him he needed to stay away and he did it . He's also not allowed to be close to his cousin , my daughter anymore either . Thats how weird its gotten with my nephew. Thats why I know it won't last. A girl who claims to love someone is gonna say , hey , you need to make things work with your family no matter what . He's forgiven his mom ,and he should have , but he thinks the people who saved him from the addicted situation are now not worthy of his presence , is rather bizarre . Dont get me wrong , I don't mind not being bothered by him , he was hard to deal with , but we had good times and to not remember that is crazy , I guess people can block out the good times .

What I have learned though is that other families like the one that came from england , they gave me hope . That they were this sweet family , and they reminded me that to enjoy your kids while their around . I can tell they were , and I always reminded them of that , their only 14 once their only 16 once , and these kids loved their parents and I can tell their not gonna give their parents problems like mine did . Those kids they listen , they don't want to learn the hard way . I hope , for Andy and Annette that it stays that way for them , I can only imagine what it must feel like to wake up every morning knowing your kids are their and love you so much and respect you more than anything. They made me realize theirs hope for families out their all around the world , that not every kid on this planet is gonna dislike their families who loved them and wanted them to learn to be humble not think money is the way and only way to happiness.

There is hope for the children of this world . I hope theirs hope for mine....

My weekend with my friends from Brighton,England .

So I have been speaking of my friends from Brighton and hadn't quite been able to tell or show you what kind of time we had with our wonderful friends , so here it is . I can't believe that a week ago I was having a great time showin' them around L.A. and now their already back in england. Time does fly when your having fun indeed. So here we go , they got here , I believe last two thursdays ago it would have been Aug. 15th . They came by with a taxi and we greeted them and headed out to a thai restuarant in hollywood . We were so happy to see eachother,we had a great time drinkin' some thai beer and then we headed back to the house in hollywood. Our house in Hollywood was really weird to us , because the nite before we were rushing to get it clean , not to mention get it cleaned out of the kids , because as far as they were concerned they were already out , yet their stuff was still there so i had to call both my nephew Mikey and my daughter krystal to come over and basically officialize their , " moving out ". if you will , they never want to do the grunt work , but its their stuff so they took out all their stuff one last time and both of them , even though they didn't want to let me in on their thoughts , I knew , were sad , but if they wanted to continue to live with us , they would have done so , so their was no need for the emotional depression, I was seeing from them ,but ... I was glad they still loved us even though they would never give us the time of day to know that lol! I know both of them will be back , their just teenage kids learning what the worlds about , and both of them wanted to learn the difficult way, so what are you gonna do? I guess I should give them credit for that , I mean whats so funny is they both know they can depend on us when they get in a jam , but they gotta learn! neways back to my story of my friends from england , so the next day we had to be back here for my kitchen to be approved by the permit lady so we had to wait until she came by and she took a while to get over to the house , so the mom of the bunch from England really wanted to see her friend that she hadn't seen for over 20yrs! She made it sound soooo dire , that if she left her waiting even for a minute it would be absolute sin! the drama of it all , nice lady butt... neways so she started to go into a panic and we finally got their to the hollywoood house and she was out the door waiting to get into the car saying in her accent, " we need to really get goin' because my friend is waiting for me , and i haven't seen her in over 20yrs . , " ok heard you say that a thousand times already! so I bite my lip and go with a smile , " ok lets be goin then , so we head out to Venice Beach. In this picture we were all happy to be hangin' out ,In fact, Im surprised the mama on the left is actually smiling for the picture because she was very stressed out, she was keeping her precious friend she hadn't seen for over 20yrs waiting,

So... we were having a good time and all was well.....

Now when ya come to Cali , you gotta be chill... you gotta relax , especially when your on vacation with some really fun , earthy peeps seriously , the kids understood that , the dad Andy understood that , but mama Annette , well she couldn't always dive into that mode ,especially when it came to her iceland friend buddy again, " that she hadn't seen in 20yrs!" So off we went . We're called La La Land for a reason , you gotta be chill , fall in...enjoy....


Buttt!!!! Their went Annette again , " my friend Ally is waiting we have to go", she was the most long playing record I had met at this point . Now I only met her once , and Im sure in the end she didn't care to much for me , I was totally not her type of friend , I don't think I met her maturity qualifications , she did say she was older , so....

She finally gets to her precious Ally , this woman was like a moviestar to me at this point , "Ally this! and Ally that! " ALLY!ALLY!ALLY! I was very curious to know what she was about , what made Annette just bow down so intensely , I was thinking did she come up with a cure for cancer? thats how much she looked up to this woman , I found out later , it was a bit obnoxious really , she's just like you and me.....


This was the infamous Ally , just a wanna be high class / middle class woman , single mom tryin', like the rest of us, to make it in an enteprenaur world . Beside her was her daughter Petra , who didn't care to much for us , but was very well cultured , she has traveled all around the world for only being 14yrs old . We were all kinda bored , they really should have had their time alone and we all could have checked out Venice Beach , I think they would have liked that alot more than just watching Annette converse with her Ally .


This is who I am , I don't try to be something I'm not . I love being me because I am a happier person when I can truly be myself . If someone doesn't like who I am , what I am , then it be best that ya stay away . I think at the end of their trip , mama Annette realized she probably doesn't want to know me . I am just a boheimian , hippie chic that doesn't meet her qualifications as a , " successful woman ", I mean , she couldn't even stomach my smiles thats how much she didn't like me LOL! what can I say....

Well this was part 1 of my lovely time with my friends from England , dont get me wrong ,I think they are an adorable family , it reminds me that we all tolerate one another, just so we can have a good time.I don't think I won't know these people again , I just don't think that mama Annette is really gonna be able to handle having me around , the rest of the family loved me : )
I will tell you more about this story later on... in the mean time , I got to get back to work on my lovely house , my grandbaby is comin' over to visit me tomorrow so i gotta tidy up . talk to ya laters!

well I have been recovering...

So this week has been veggie for me , ever since my friends from england came and went , I haven't been the same . I enjoyed their company, but I guess getting the Hollywood house ready for them and being their tour guide , plus tending to my remodeling of my house up here in the desert kinda took its toll on me . I took the time to recharge by listening to my depak chopra meditation tapes to bring me back to life ,its been helping. Neways , Im heading back to hollywood again to visit my daughter Krystal and then I will be back here later . I still have my lyric challenge to work on and I need to go and see what other challenges their are for me on other sites as well. I hope all of you are doin' great and remember to regroup so you don't loose it scrap and meditate , it does the soul wonders!

Nemaste! Mary ann

This was a layout I did for Bombshell Stamps...

I really want to get on this design team so badly , I hope my dream comes true, we'll see. I did this layout for a stamp co. called Bombshell , I just love that tattoo , muerto sugar skull look about their stamps , they work with the line of work I'm in which is being in a rock band , hangin' out with my homegirls after painting the town red and scrap about it. This layout I did was on a band my hubby was in back in the 80's , I have to say they rocked indeed , they kicked some serious ass on stage , good times...

Here is my layout for Cafe Mojo, Scrapout loud,dreamgirls....

Hi everyone! I hope everybody had a great weekend , I had a decent one I must say. I have been really busy with my remodeling of me casa but its movin' right along. While I have been in the mist of my remodeling , I did a couple of challenges in one layout which was really cool! I was so proud of myself that I was able to do that. Cafe Mojo wanted rub-ons , Scrapout Loud wanted the layout and word which was "listen", oh! and rip it real good! , Color Combo wanted certain colors which are in the layout , and Dreamgirls wanted wings . So I did all that hope ya all like that and can't wait for the next challenge.Thanks for the challenges , I do enjoy them very much , and I don't fear doin' a layout anymore. : P

Hey everybody! its a lyric challenge : P

So I have fallen head over heals for Bombshell Stamps Seriously! Im just so excited about them , they ink up really well and when you stamp them on to your paper its always complete theirs no need to get your thin marker and trace over on top of the lines....their awesome! neways over at Papercraft planet they have a challenge and its called the lyric challenge , so basically your taking some bombshell stamps ( so ya gotta go over to my side bar and click onto the sacred heart tatoo & get some stamps) and your puttin' a song that you love basically, we all have our favorites so it shouldn't be a prob to find a song and scrap it! Its that fun and easy. So here is a sample from the gals over at Bomshell :

Im havin' a good time scrappin....

So I am having alot of fun with these challenges from all the stuff from the side bar . These are all the places I have either bought some stuff from and or do challenges on their site and they are always very challenging and fun so I suggest that you all swing on over and get your pictures out and start scrappin'. I just want to say , I always have a camera with me when I see my friends they always tell me , "why do you take pictures of everything?", I say , "because,for scrapbooking.",and I always tell them we should scrap,and for some reason it is always so hard to get them to get on board and scrap , so to all of you that inspire me all the time,hats off to ya!because that just means you make time for yourself to take your memories and make them pretty on paper. I think that lookin' at good times is such an importance to our minds , it reminds us that no matter how difficult times get , you can always look at the good times to make you feel better and that is so vital,I look at how much people are on anti-depressants and its overwhelming that theres so many people sad.I believe scrappin is Therapy. So on that note here is a sketch from Scrap out loud for this week:

The whole idea of this challenge is rip it good! so anything or everything das rip away!and the word of the week is " LISTEN " have fun cuz Im gonna! : P

Here's my layout for Scrap out loud.....

Here is my layout for Scrap Out Loud , I had fun doin' the challenge can't wait for next weeks. I did do the word of the month , and I did the sketch of the month as well , I just wanted to try the challenge in its complete form. : )

Well I didn't end up using the theme below me instead...

I decided since Dave and I have been just us now a days I thought I would focus on him and I and the journey we have been on for the last 20 years . Its funny when i look back on the day we met , we had met at the country club in reseda , his band was playing and my friend Ellis was his drummer. I remember , when I saw him on stage he was the cute singer of course LOL! , I remember telling my friend Deana that I thought he was cute. Anyways , we've been together ever since. So I thought it only be right that I focus on our love , cuz it is what has kept us goin' and we have been through soo much together and we're still together so here is a layout I did , I turned it in to a challenge for Color combo galore , but today I will be puttin' it into the scrap out loud challenge with a little more flare. so here it is not exactly done but it had to be done enough for color combo their deadline was last night and scrap out louds is tonight , I'll come back and show ya the more done up layout later on cuz Im workin' on it right now.


So here it is kinda done ,the picture above , i guess the main photo is of us today , notice dave has a long beard today LOL! and the little pictures are when we went to Europe ,these were in Italy to be exact , we were soooo happy , I remember we didn't tell anyone in the family we were goin' until like...3 days before we went because we didn't want them to try to sabatoge it cuz they would have tried if you knew our family.

So Im workin' on a layout challenge or two...

Its sunday and a beautiful day it is , I started my day with the typical cup of coffee , watched my morning shows which are L.A. homes and Wine Country , and off I went to finish this layout I've been workin' on , again remember I call it my therapy for a reason , it helps me realize alot of things about my life , one , that I have had a great one with my daughter and my soulmate whom I love both very much with all my heart. When I look back at all these pictures that were taken 4 years ago , its astonishing how we were so happy. Family isn't always nice , I know because right now I find myself healing from sooo much anamosity and regret that has consumed so many in our family that would come back to hurt us ,but we had always just pushed it aside and continued to try to be happy. Here are some pictures that show how easy it was for us three , who use to say no matter how unhappy everybody in the family was , our little family remains unbroken.

These is one of the pictures I will be using in this next layout :


krys (chris) was so happy to be in Europe ,we took a trip out there for her graduation present from junior high , she had just turned 14. We loved Venice. Krys would say Im gonna move out here someday to study art for a summer . Well... her decisions have changed since she graduated from high school .Im off to scrap it and I will be back to show you how it turned out.