Saturday Night Ramblings

When Sam is gone, I stay up way later than normal. I spend way more time on the computer, especially before the new fall season starts and there is NOTHING on TV to watch.

Two weeks ago when he was gone, I was once again up late wasting time on the computer, when I remembered a conversation we had had about my blog.

He asked me one day what would happen if Blogger went out of business, and I lost all the writing. Lost all the funny stories, the narration of vacations, lost it all. That thought has troubled me for a long time. One friend has figured out how to save hers to her computer, another friend was able to show me how she printed some of her own blog pages, but I wanted something better. SURELY there was a way to save it in a nicer way then printing it out on my computer and sticking it in a folder.

I STRUCK GOLD!!

I Googled the idea, read through a bunch of sites, and FINALLY stumbled upon exactly what I was looking for but didn't know existed.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce, ................BLURB!

www. blurb.com

No, I am not being paid to endorse this, but maybe they need to think about doing that so people will know about it!!!

Blurb prints books. One option they have is making your personal blog into a book!

I clicked on it, watched the 36 minute tutorial, and I was hooked. I gave them my blog name and password, and within minutes, they accessed it and had it all.

I chose to print the year 2007. Mostly because the 2006 scrapbook was almost done. It reverts the entries into chronological order, I can delete the ones that I choose, and off to the creative part. Pick your page colors, pick the page layout, pick fonts, pick sizes, really and truly create your own book!

I spent about 5 hours that night "playing" with 2007. Mostly with the layouts and the photo presentations. There were 779 pictures for that year. :) The ones that I blogged anyway.

I was finally done and hit UPLOAD. It seemed to be a long process, so I went to bed and by the time I woke up in the morning, it was done. YAY!!!

But, when I read the red print, I only had 15 days to order it or it went away. Now, I wasn't planning on spending the money, but good grief! That took a lot of work! So I thought about it, and played with some numbers.

I am a scrapbooker. An avid creative -memories -only- scrap- booking -addict. But I am getting farther and farther behind. 2006 isn't completed, 2007 hasn't been started, and 2008 will be over before I know it and I will be even farther behind!.

If I were to buy the supplies to complete a 2007 scrapbook, the cover, pages, protectors, paper, borders and embellishments would be around $266.00. Seven hundred and seventy nine pictures printed would be $116.85. None of those costs include shipping.

So, I really didn't SPEND $65.00 on my blog book, I SAVED over $249.15.

It arrived a week later, a hard bound book, black pages, personalized cover with our family picture on it, and every story and picture preserved, including all the typos and mistakes, but hey, we aren't a perfect family! :)

My blogging friends, I HIGHLY recommend this site. All the work we put into our blogs is worth saving. I can't wait until January so I can do 2008!!!!!!!!!!!!

On to other news (can you tell yet that Sam is gone again) :).............................

We agreed on a house. One that Sam found while there. We made an offer. Offer was accepted.

Now for a bit more details. This family belongs to the church where Sam's best friend was pastor for 8 years . This was the friend who was killed in Haiti over 2 years ago. It was so special to both Sam and the house owners to have that connection. They were not ready to sell, having only called the realtor over to get an estimate on what they should list it for next summer and what they needed to do to fix it up. They were stunned to have somebody want it within days.

We have talked several times on the phone, realizing we don't need or want to go through a realtor for communication. I feel like I have a new friend. They home school 8 children and she has told me so much information about the house, the neighbors, and the area.

They found a rental they like that will fit their large family only 5 minutes away. It will be a door to door move for us. What a blessing! What wonderful things God has done to work all this out.

Next week all the inspections start we are required to have (and pay for, ugh). Please pray everything passes and all the paperwork goes through smoothly.

The packers come October 20th. The loaders should finish on the 23rd. We close on the house October 23. We leave Idaho probably on October 26th, and arrive in Yazoo City around the 31st. Hopefully the movers can unload on Monday, November 3rd.

I will tell you about the house after everything is permanent. :)

Time to go crash, it is late and I am tired from all the detailed cleaning today and repainting this gorgeous house back to its original stunning color. (For those of you who haven't seen our base housing, that was typed with fingers dripping with sarcasm).

Good night! Let me know if you print your own blog book!