Hello, crafty friends!  Monique here.  Sorry it’s been so long since we’ve posted on the blog.  The summer started off with a bit of a health scare for me, which thankfully turned out to be fine.  But I also figured out that it was imperative for me to take some time off immediately for my mental and physical well-being, and work on finding a healthier balance in my life.  So I have been spending lots of time with my little girl, hubby, and the rest of my family and friends, relaxing and traveling, and exercising a lot.  (I’m even training to do a triathlon in October.  Crazy, but fun!)  It’s been a really incredible summer, and it took that little health scare to shake me up and realize that I need to be spending the bulk of my time a bit differently.

Jared, Emily and me with Goofy at Disneyland in June.  What a great family trip this was with the 3 of us, and now I can't wait to go again!  It was so much fun to feel like a little kid.

Now what?  Well, now that you know I haven’t actually fallen off the face of the planet, I think you also may be pleased to know that the design team and I have been busy the past month.  We each have a layout kit to release very, very soon.  We’ll start it off in the next few days with Susan’s “Cruisin” layout, which uses the Nifty Fifties cart.  Then Becca will introduce her adorable “Go Wild” layout, using the Create-a-Critter cart.  Next up will be my new farm-themed layout “The Simple Life”, which uses the Country Life cart.  And finally, Wendy will make a splash with her “Pack Your Bags” layout, using the Pack Your Bags cart, of course! 

We won’t be posting daily as we were previously doing, but we’ll at least try to post a couple of fun things each week, and a giveaway now and then too.  Whatever we can do while still maintaining some healthy life balance!

Thank you so much for all of your patience and understanding, and to those of you who dropped me an email to check on me.  Things are going much better now!!  I’d love to hear from you all.  Leave me a comment and let me know what you’ve been up to this summer – or if you still have some exciting plans before school starts up again.