Breast Cancer Awareness Month

In Celebration of Women all over the world, remember to have your mammograms and do self checks.



How to train for a mammogram...

XO, Marlo

Enabler Alert!

Many of you know that my little sister Natalie moved up here to the high desert. She bought a beautiful new home just minutes from me. She's terribly lonely and misses my dad really bad. We spend quite a bit of time together during the week, which has been nice. She's very different from me. She's quiet and shy and well, you all know, I'm neither of those. LOL Anyhow, since her move up here she's been coming to my monthly crops. Hehehe!

She's got the scrapping and stamping bug baaaadddd! After our September crop, her hubby put together the cutest scrapbook room. It's pink and brown and ooooohhhh soooooo cute! According to her hubby, she's in there all day and night. Jenny and I are dying to break it in...which means it'll never be the same after we leave.

This is her room 1/2 way done. Super cute. She's added a cute draping around her work table. Not pic on that yet. Her table wraps around three walls. I'm totally jelly, wish my scraproom was in my house.

Jim has been enabling her hubby also. That's a whole different story. I'm thinking we might be a bad influence on them. Hehehe!

But, I'm loving that Natalie found a hobby and has her own space to keep her busy. Keeps her mind off being away from dad.

Jim says I'm a really bad influence on people. I told him he's just jealous he doesn't have a scrapbooking community like I do.

XO, Marlo

Kiss My Peaches Blog

Well, I decided a blog was better than a myspace page. I have no clue how to work the myspace page and I was getting frustrated. I attended a sand show last weekend with the whole family, including Val, Daniel and Nathaniel. Each of us donned one of my handbags. I was stopped many, many times by people inquiring where I got my purse from. LOL, I just handed them a business card and since then, the emails have been rolling in with inquiries and orders. Having a blog will be easier to keep up and to direct customers, as well as future customers to. I still have a ton of pics to upload but there are some for now.

Thanks for taking a looksie!

http://kissmypeaches.blogspot.com/

xoxo, Marlo

Trying to get back to my old self

The last couple of months have had me in a whirlwind. I feel like I have no time to do anything. Homework consumes all my time. I've been so tired that most days I'm in bed by 10:30. SERIOUSLY!! I know, hard to believe but it's true.

I had to go to the dr. yesterday because I was having problems with my eyes. Turned out to be pink eye. While at the doc's I had to be weighed and I gained 12 lbs. I was so disappointed I wanted to cry. But I knew that skipping my workouts and eating on the run was not helping the situation. So back onto www.myfooddiary.com and to my workouts. I MUST make time for this. So, my goal is to drop the 12 lbs. by the end of October. Gives me a month and a half. Should be doable. Hopefully this will help with the energy loss and the over sleeping. LOL You all know Marlo McBoing Boing likes to stay up late. LOL

On a happier note, I think I found a printer that is going to be able to do my pattern printing. They are located in Indiana, down in the tri-state area. After months of going back and forth we finally got things ironed out. I'm looking forward to getting some more patterns printed up. Won't be right away, but should happen in the next month. That reminds me, I need to have my sister update my MySpace page. I have a ton of new purses to post. Some are super duper cute too!

On a sad note, many of my dearest friends will be flying to Portland, Oregon this weekend to hang out and just have a girl's weekend. It was planned for me to attend but my schedule and finances just didn't cooperate this time. Totally bummed that I won't be there. Jim is so going to have to pamper me this weekend.

Hope all is well with everyone,
XOXO~~MARLO

Just Chillin'

Our weather is finally cooling down some...high 90's. LOL

I'm really looking forward to some cooler weather. I'm tired of the swamp cooler. I freeze in the house and in my classroom. LOL I know, it could be worse.

Things are pretty mellow around here at the moment. Just chugging along with our daily schedules. The kids are well into their school routine. Fall break in just around the corner.

Jim and I have been dealing with finance issues. Jim's business credit card was tampered with over a period of 3 days. Over $16,000 worth of charges. All at stores in San Francisco. Each store had at least 3 purchases and each around $500. Expensive stores also. Poor Jim has had to do some major paperwork for this. On top of that we get a letter from CountryWide, our mortgage company, that an employee stole all our information as well as social security numbers. We know it's a 'He', but that is about it. So they set us up on this credit monitoring but it's such a pain. We get daily phone calls from our bank if we use our card more than 3 times in a day. Ugh!! So far though, none of our personal accounts have been tampered with. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Other than that all is well. The kids are great. Val is doing great as well. She's driving a new car, Jeep Patriot. Her and that baby have to be styling all the time. Nathaniel is doing well. Growing quickly and such a happy little guy. Val is already planning his 1st birthday. Between Val and Daniel, they are ridiculously spoiled so they have the little guy the same way.

That's it for now. Nothing too exciting around here. It's always work and school.

Toodles for now!
Marlo

Where has the time gone?

Wow, the summer just flew by. I totally lost track in everything. Seems like life has been super busy and getting on the computer to just have fun, browse my yahoo groups and read blogs is not fitting into my schedule.

Most of my summer was consumed with starting my business. I told you all that I was going to do it this year and I finally did it. I started putting my purse/apron/etc in pattern form. My first run of patterns have been a big hit. Three stores are carrying them at the moment. I only wanted to sell my designs in pattern form, but it seems that I'm selling more of my completed designs. Hasn't been bad, but it's been alot of work for my busy schedule. I have a group of ladies that test all my patterns for accuracy. They are simply wonderful and so encouraging. These ladies are spitting out dozens of purses in a weeks time. I joke with them all the time that I may have to hire them to do my piece work. LOL, If my orders keep up, they will end up working full time. I'm working on getting a website done. Seems like everyone is eager to help but once it comes right down to it, they all disappear, no where to be found. My three sisters started a myspace page for me, you can check it out at www.myspace.com/kissmypeaches.

So summer flew by. Before I knew it, it was time to return to work and school. The kids were thrilled, but for the first time I was not. We usually hit the river every other weekend in the summer and this time we didn't go at all. About the only thing I did with the kids was take them to Raging Waters, which stinks by the way.

The kids are well into school. We are in our fourth week and all is well. James is loving 7th grade and is enjoying his teachers. Wrestling season starts soon so that will take up alot of his time. Tiffani is now in 5th grade. She loves her teacher and is finally being challenged. This is my "IT" girl, a know it all and excels at everything. I'm so pleased to see her working hard.

Nathaniel is now 8 months old. We love having him over every weekend. He is growing so quickly, way to fast for us. Val is starting to get sad that her little baby is turning into a big little boy. He has 5 teeth and is realizing now that he has them. He likes to bite!!

I'm down to my last two classes of school. I have my graduation date, December 13. Yeah!! 3 days before my 40th birthday. I passed all my tests and I'm ready to go. Each day that passes I get more and more excited.

Jim is traveling alot. It's tough when he's gone. I don't get much "ME" time. Thank goodness for my friend Jenny who really helps me out and keeps me sane.

I'm looking forward to a girl's weekend out to Portland, Oregon. I'm due to go in mid September. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it works for me. I had an unexpected expense, stinking water heater went out on us, UGH!! $600 in a blink of an eye. YIKES!

Well, that's been my life in a nutshell. I will try my darnest to update at least once a week.

Thanks for peeking in on me.

Marlo

Bad Blogger

Okay, so I've been a bad blogger. I'm not sure where the time has gone. My head is forever buried in school books and homework. I thought I was going to get a bit of a break this summer. My stinkin' science class sucks! I don't plan on teaching science so why in the h*** do I have to take it!!

I've been teaching sewing classes everyday in the mornings so that keeps me busy as well. All my students have been very productive and I have not. When I do have spare time I making up my class samples. I've not done anything I want to do. Sad.

Oh and that dumb math class that I cried about all spring, I got an "A"!! Not sure how. I think the teacher seen that I was persistent and had good attendance. I'm guessing she felt sorry for me after I told her that I have a 4.0 gpa and that her class was going to kill it. LOL

Things are going well here besides being busy. Jim is redoing my backyard. I'm so thrilled. I'm geting a few decks and a new patio and an outdoor kitchen. It's tough with an acre property. Too much to fillup and too stinkin' expensive.

I've also been working on my purse patterns. I finally got a program that I can understand. I had adobe illustrator and that sucked. Too hard to use. So this weekend I got Visio and within 5 minutes I had one of my purse patterns laid out. Now my big job is to find a printer that can print from the Visio software. Once that is done then I'll do photo shoot with my prototypes, print out the instructions and package the pattern. I'll take a week to visit some quilting and fabric stores in the So. Cal area. Hopefully the store owners will love them and buy them.

So, that is me and my last couple of weeks in a nutshell. The kids, Val, Daniel and Nathaniel, will be coming up Thursday afternoon to stay for the weekend. I can't wait to see Nathaniel enjoy his first 4th of July.

Hope all is well with you!
Hugs,
Marlo