Spillin' the Beenz: FROZEN!!!!

Yeppers, that's what I am. I am completely frozen here in AZ in mid-May. Not frozen as far as temp but as in funds. All of my accounts have been frozen and have a "hard hold" on them. I cannot touch my money right now. I am glad I have a full tank of gas, food, pepsi and ciggarettes!

I got a phone call from the fraud dept at my bank around 7:15 tonight. I was happily cooking dinner and thinking about what a great day I had had when I got the dreaded phone call. After carefully varifying who I was, they informed me that someone had been making purchases on my debit card. $400+ to Zune, 2 different $350 to Nordstroms, and 4 charges to some online company I never heard of! They tell me they have frozen my debit card and will be issuing me another one. They said my actual account had not been breeched - just the card. While we talked on the phone I went online to look at my account and found another charge that I did not make that they did not find - one for Macy's! So, they filed a claim in my behalf and said all should be well in about 10 days. So I hung up and went back to cooking etc.

After dinner my mind wandered to an email I got last week from Paypal. It said there had been some security issues and unusual activity and wanted me to update my info. That sounded legit to me since I have been using my paypal account so much lately. It had been about a year since I had used it, and since I have been selling so many flower files I went ahead and clicked on the link and gave them ALL of my info!!!! I looked that email up and clicked on the link again - "website Not Found"! I called Paypal and told them about the email - they had me read it to them - NOT sent by them! What a FOOL I was to answer that email and give them all of my info. I am typically so careful with my money and accounts. But it just made sense to me - it looked legit - it had their logo, it had Paypal in the email address.

Well I called my bank back and told them about the bogus email and my foolish response to it. They had no choice to freeze all of my accounts! Not only that, they had to close them all! I have had those accounts for over a decade - now I have to learn all new numbers, get new cards and be without my money until all is settled.

I sure hope they find this person(s) and throw the book at them! WARNING: Becareful friends! Don't be a fool like yours truly!!!

Now on to something "Crafty". . .

Remember I took that Teresa Collins class on Thursday? The one I did NOT finish during the class? The one I said I would have finished over the weekend? Well, I did NOT finish it this weekend either. Not for lack of trying though. This 6x12 format is hard for me to get used to. I was talking to a friend on the phone and she suggested I put the 2 facing pages together and think of them as one 12x12 layout. That is starting to help me a little. But still it has been over 3 years since since I have done a traditional scrapbook page. But I am trudging along and pretty happy with what I have come up with so far.

Teresa was very generous with all of the embellishments she gave us at class. I really wanted to take advantage of using them but again I struggled in how to keep them accessable as I worked. I tried little baggies (you all know how I love my baggies) but that was not working. Then I remembered this coffee sorter Liz brought me from Starbucks - PERFECTION!!! I think I will use this little tool for all of the big projects I work on now - it really works for me! It doesn't take up a lot of space on my table, it's clear so I can see everything and it has 10 compartments to keep things seperated. I still kept the bigger tags in a baggie but that's it - just these 2 things on my workspace as I create - well except for the actual page and photos I am working with at that time.

I took some pictures for you tonight if you are interested. . .

One baggie and the coffee sorter

The coffee sorter - isn't this great!

The front cover - I stamped on some acrylic I had at home and covered the photo with it

See the stamping?

Mounted the title on the 7G's black double adhesive sheet

These are the pages I have done - I am using 3 of the file folder pages and dividing my book into 3 days for the 3 days we were in Vegas for Lizzy's 21st Bday

I folded one of the postcards and wrote my journaling inside. Then I added a BG magnet and one of the TC phrase tags as a closure for the postcard. Since all of her papers are 2 sided I was able to do this nicely.