My Week

Hello! Sorry, the blog is a bit quiet this week. You see each quarter (january, april, july and october) is the time when we’re most busy at my job. That’s when we print thousands and thousands of people’s 401(k) statements. For that month we work like 12 hour days and weekends. Needless to say, I usually come home and go straight to bed. But! Since our company is growing, we’re able to start buying new equipment that makes life SO much easier. Running jobs that used take days, now is finished before lunch time. In fact, we didn’t have to work this weekend which was glorious!

Since I didn’t have to work this weekend Rob and I went to the Charlotte Clean and Green Festival. Held at the community college, this festival brings all sorts of cool eco friendly companies around Charlotte together for the public learn about. There’s also seminars, music, farmers market and yummy yummy food. This year I learned that our county is totally expanding their recycling program and we’ll be able to recycle a lot more stuff like more plastics, hard plastics and even milk/juice cartons! We can also get bigger containers, yay! I tried kombucha for the first time, which was weird and yummy at the same time. Kombucha is this drink that has healthy bacteria and cultures that’s been around for a long long time. The one I had tasted like a vinegarie ginger ale. For lunch I had a soy chicken salad sandwich and Rob had BBQ pork made from local farmers and such.

Rob sitting in the low emissions UPS van!

Also this weekend was the Rural Hill Scottish Festival. We headed right over there after the green festival! Being at this festival made me wish I had some scottish ancestry. There were so many kilt wearing men and women and clan flags and coat of arms. There were bag pipe competitions and the strong man sports like axe and log throwing. We had missed the sheep heading demonstration, which made me sad. We drank local beer and scottish soda and Rob ate a meat pastry that reminded him of a cornish pasty. While we did have a fun time, we had to pay $5 for parking and $20 per person to get in. Very steep price and not so worth it unless you’re scottish or there the whole entire day.


MiniMak and I traded ACEO cards and I got mine in the mail yesterday along with a sample of her handmade soap. I just love the ACEO! I think of Moulin Rouge and Ewan singing “All You Need is Love” ^___^ And I haven’t tried the soap yet because, hee hee, I’m afraid once I start using it, it’ll be all gone! But thank you so much Christine!


Running is going good for me. I did my best ever last Tuesday when I went for a lunch time run with my boss. Rob and I tried seeing if the dogs could run with us and the poor things just couldn’t do it. Molly was doing fine with me, but Ginny, our sheepdog mix, looked like she was going to pass out after like a quarter mile of running with Rob. We ended up walking the rest of the way. Hee hee, Ginny needs to shape up if we’re going to try taking agility classes!

This week I baked brownies. I had no baking cocoa, so I used mexican hot coco mix instead and it gave it an interesting cinnamon flavor. I also think I over mixed it, making them more cakey. Either way, very yummy!


I have all the intentions of starting new crafts soon! I’m going to try to sew a pair of shorts this week. And I’m finally going to sew a case for my Nintendo DS. I’m also working on some freelance illustrations with Rob. I can’t wait to share the website we’re working for because it’s such a fun and neat thing these people are doing.

Movies:
Sneakers: Me and my childhood best friend loved this movie had watched it so many times. This 1992 movie is about a group of “hackers” who are helping these men to try and find this black box that can break the encryptions on government “websites”, but there’s secrets and no one knows who to trust! Robert Redford and Dan Aykroyd and some other big names are in it. Rob had never seen it and it just happened to be on Netflix Instant.

Books:
Memory and Dream by Charles de Lint: I’m not even half way through yet! I really wish I had more time to read. I never did really say what this book is about, my bad. It’s about a woman named Izzy who was taught how to make things come to life through paintings from this crazy artist. The book goes back and forth telling the story of when she was in college and learning these things and when she’s older and is about to start illustrating an omibus of her dead friend’s writings and that’s opening all sorts of weird mysteries that she thought she got away from. It’s a good book, but rather slow going right now, explaining the history of how everything began for Izzy.

My week

I am just loving this weather! I’m sitting out in our backyard as I write this post. I just love to spend time there. My favorite thing to do when the weather is like this is sit and read out in the grass: )

I also love watching the birds! Now that the bird bath and bird feeder are next to each other I see a lot more birds and a greater variety. It’s so fun watching them splash around. We have all sorts of birds here. I’ve seen bluejays, robins and yellow canary and my favorites are cardinals and tufted titmouse.


This week’s baked good was pumpkin bread muffins. It was for a coworker’s birthday. They came out pretty good and I’m becoming a decent baker! I’m finally learning my oven, things bake a lot quicker in there.



This week I also started running again. Rob’s a great runner and he’ll get up at 5:15am and run like 5 miles. That makes me feel pretty lazy! A couple of coworkers are also getting into running too. My boss ran his first race a couple weeks ago even. And being around runners, well it’s contagious! Especially when you’re using Nike+ and are on DailyMile.com. So I bought a new sensor and tried out the Nike+ feature on my iPhone and got myself on DailyMile. I hope can keep at it and one day run a race myself. Right now, I mainly want to tone up and get in shape and with out trip coming up, I don’t want to look at photos years from now and see myself looking “puffy”.

Other than that things are pretty good. I’m working on putting together a book for a friend of ours. It’s been kind of difficult, but definitely a learning experience. Me and InDesign are slowly becoming friends. That’s taking up a lot of my free time and once it’s finished I’ll start working on my own projects like my store, blog and a super fun secret project. Rob and I also went to dinner and a movie with a coworker and her husband. Us hanging out with other people is almost as rare as bigfoot! But we need to get out more and we had a great time: )

Movies:
Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland: Tim Burton never fails to create an awesome fantasy world. I just love his visuals! The story was pretty good, an interesting take on the book. It did feel shallow at times and I had a hard time understanding the weird Wonderland words they used, hee hee. But I am going to watch this again once it come on DVD.

Books:
Memory and Dream by Charles de Lint: Still reading this and I’m just past 100 pages. I do love his style of writing! The story is just starting to take shape and you see the fantasy elements of it. You learn the the main character can bring her paintings to life and her mentor is this crazy old guy who yells and beats her. (omg!) Oh but there’s so much more. So much mystery and drama he hints at…and I can only read so fast, hee hee.

My Week!

Happy Easter!
Rob and I are spending it just the two of us, relaxing and enjoying the wonderful weather outside. We had our ham dinner last weekend when Rob’s parents were visiting. So today we’re having hamburgers on the grill, yum!

The weather has been so awesome and warm! I’m so happy to be able to sit outside again in the backyard. Speaking of, we cleaned up the patio area real good. Rob trimmed the bushes and raked out the old weed blanket stuff. Then we put down new weed blanket stuff and pine nuggets. It looks so nice and tidy now!
Before: (last march)


After:


Friday, Rob’s mom and I went to the antique mall and Good Will. I got some cute rabbit figurines since I don’t really have any Easter decorations and I got a cute jug. Then at Good Will I found some nice canisters and Pyrex tea cups.




This week, I baked meringues for the first time. The first batch got burnt, but the second came out great! I wanted them to look like birds nests, but they ended up looking like dinosaur nests, which is even better:D And they were a huge hit with everyone! Yay!


For Easter presents, Rob got me a huggle from AJ’s Etsy shop. I named her Dandy and she’s super cute. I got Rob Robert J. Sawyer’s latest book WWW:Wake. And of course we have some yummy candies.

Movies:

Fantastic Mr. Fox: Truthfully, when I first saw the preview I thought it looked real silly and only wanted to watch because I love Wes Anderson. But, I really enjoyed this movie! The film probably wouldn’t have worked in any other style of animation. I’d love it if Wes Anderson would make movie animated movies.

Books:

Memory and Dream by Charles de Lint: This is the earliest Newford book I could find at the library. I’m still just a few pages in, but it’s pretty good so far. I really enjoy his style of writing, it’s easy to read.

Honey and Clover vol 2: I’m really enjoying this manga! It’s quite funny and very cute. I love the cast of characters and I can’t wait to read more. I love the art school setting and sometimes it makes me really miss college*pout*

My week

Hello! I have to say this week has gone by pretty fast. I’m finally getting to spend more time outside. My favorite thing to do it sit in the backyard and do some reading.

I’ve been trying to bake more and get good at it. This week I made peanut butter and jelly cookies.

I finally cleaned up our Roomba and took it for a spin for the first time in the house. It works so great as an in between clean. The dogs were quite excited about it^_~


A bottle of the world’s strongest beer finally arrived at our house!! Rob and I had bought Sam Adam’s Uptopias a few years ago that boasted strongest at around 24%. Brew Dog’s Sink the Bismark is at a whooping 41%! It was pretty tasty, but packed a mean punch, hee hee.

Spring is definitely in full force here! All the trees are starting to bloom and some are even getting leaves. My mini daffodils are blooming even.

Rob and I went to a friend’s house for a bbq. We brought the dogs with us so they can play with our friend’s dog. It was a lot of fun and our pups were completely exhausted when we got home. (score!) Fun Fact: We were actually going to buy their house, but that very same week, our friends put an offer on it!

I almost forgot about Earth Hour, but I remember right at the last minute! I read by candle light and then had a great talk with Rob.

Still working on my crocheted shrug. I’m working on the edging now, so it’s almost done. Finally I made something that I can wear and actually looks good!

I received a package from my pin cushion swap partner. I got a postcard, an adorable card and a snow globe as an apology for being late with the pin cushion. How very sweet of her!

Movies:

How to Train Your Dragon: What a great movie! I like how it didn’t try too hard, ya know? And the dragons, way cool! The Night Fury dragon reminded me of a cat and I just loved it. Rob and I now want a pet dragon.

Books:

Blue Girl by Charles de Lint: Wow, great book! Ok, I really don’t care for the ghost story part, but it’s the whole world and background of the story that I love. I’m so very excited to start reading the other Newford books. I can’t find the first one, but I’ve reserved the second book. Yay for reading!!

My Week

This week was all about getting over being sick and having a normal week with Rob and at work.

We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with some slow cooked corned beef and cabbage. I also made Irish Sodabread Cookies which turned out rather yummy. We tried drinking some Guinness, but both of us were still sick and couldn’t even finish a glass.


I got the recipe for the cookies here.

Since it’s now spring, I finally started planting my seeds. I’m starting off with flowers and within the next month or so, I hope to start my vegetable garden.


I made a little area for the birds. It looks quite dismal, but it will be surrounded by shrubs, flowers and bushes.


I also hung up pine cones and put some scrap thread and yarn so the birds can use them for their nests. It also looks kind of cool: )


I thought I’d share some movies and books I’ve been into this week.

Notable Movies:
Food Inc. : We finally sat down and watched this. Needless to say that we are going to be more conscious of what we buy to eat. And we figure if we cut down on eating out, then that gives us more money to buy better quality meats and such.

Beer Wars: This entertaining documentary talked about the struggle of microbrews and the insane (and revolting) dominance of Bush, Coors and Miller. Rob and I have been supporting microbrews pretty much since we started dating and now we want to support it even more.

Books I’m Reading: (I always have at least 5-6 books from the library each week, heh)
Blue Girl by Charles de Lint: I’ve been wanting to get into Charles de Lint and his Newford books for a while now. I thought this would be a great place to start. I just started it, so no real opinion yet.

Don’t Dump the Dog by Randy Grim: I originally got this for a coworker since she’s been having problems with her new dog. It’s a great book that offers help through funny and crazy stories.

What to Expect Before You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff: Rob and I are going to start trying to have a baby this summer (woah!!) and this book is just awesome! I’ve learned so much to help me get my body healthy and ready to start trying. I rave so much about this book, that my coworker ordered herself a copy.

And that’s about it for me. Didn’t do much of crafts this week. I did start crocheting a shrug that I hope turns out nice enough to wear. Maybe next week I’ll have photos of it: )

See ya next time!

Hello Arizona!

Last week I went on a last minute trip to Arizona.

The stints in my dad’s heart ended up not being what his heart needed, so he ended up back in the hospital and getting a double bypass. Scary! So I flew out to be there for him and my mom (and my family too). Thankfully, the surgery went well and my dad came home that weekend.

I spent the time helping out my mom with shopping and just being there and helping her get her mind off of things. I also hung out with my sister one night, my brother another night and then seeing my sister-in-law’s new nephew. While I was there on not the bestest terms, I did go out and have fun and soak up all that I miss about Arizona since I don’t know when I’ll be back again.

Here are some highlights!
Toka Sticks! This is where my mom buys her cigarettes. It’s a shipping container that’s a drive-thru. AND it’s called TOKA sticks and the guy totally looks like he likes to “toke up”. It’s actually on a golf course called Toka Sticks, but come on! hee hee.

It’s not a trip to Arizona without having lunch at Joe’s Farm Grill in Gilbert. This is my fav place to eat! And the weather was so nice that I stayed there and ate it outside. Also got yummy cupcakes from the CoffeeShop next door.

I just happened to come during Phoenix’s Art Detour, a weekend long gallery crawl. I haven’t been since I lived there and it’s one of my fav. events. I love to look at the local art and this year had some awesome stuff! There was even a gallery that had Shag prints!
My fav. painting that day. I love the colors and her expression.(ok, i don’t have the names of any of the artists next to me, sorry!)

Weird graphic mouse porn that you couldn’t help but just love. I loved the shadiness of the mouse photographers.

His art can be found everywhere downtown. So amazing.

There was lot’s of crafty goodness to buy and it was such I shame I didn’t have money to spend. But I did buy these cute barrettes!

I got to ride on the LightRail for the first time! So awesome the Phoenix has a transportation system like that!

I got to meet Jasper my brother’s new puppy. He is such a sweetheart! So cute, smart and mellow.

Then I met Lou, my sister-in-law’s brother’s new baby: ) Aww babies!

And we celebrated my sister-in-law’s birthday too! I made her some Mad Men earrings that I learned from Style School.

I bought myself another cactus since all mine are dead;_; Kids, don’t leave your cacti outside during the freezing weather, ‘specially if it rains and freezes.

And that’s about it! It’s always nice seeing my family. I also forget how cool Phoenix is and how much it’s changed. Now I’m back home trying to get everything back to normal. I have a lot to catch up on, I haven’t even started my Indie Business class. *pout*

Well…until then! Ja matta!

Valentine’s Day

This year’s Valentine’s Day turned out to be quite lovely^_^ We always keep it low key and simple.

This year we both agreed to make presents for each other, something I was SO excited for.

Rob, being a brilliant painter, painted me my fav. dinosaur a parasaurolophus!

I am just stunned and giddy on how awesome it is!

On the other end, I did a digital drawing for Rob.

Silly inside joke that of course only me and Rob find funny. But I love how it turned out! A reminder that both me and Rob need to do some art more often!

For our dinner, we made our own sushi! This is a first for us, but definitely not the last. It’s pretty easy to make, but getting the rice and nori (seaweed) right it something we can only perfect with practice. It all turned out real yummy! We used Trader Joe’s tempura shrimp, cucumber and avocado for the inside.


For dessert we had mochi, chocolates and chocolate covered strawberries.

Then we spent the rest of the night finishing watching the anime Last Exile. Yes, a very japanese themed Valentine’s Day^_~

My Last 2 Weeks.

Where does the time go these days? It always seems we are running around doing something. I guess that’s a good thing that Rob and I are busy, right?

What have we been up to? Well, the weekend before last Rob’s stout beer was finally ready to drink! While I’m not a big fan of stout, it was a pretty good beer. I even made some beer bread with it and it turned out delicious. What’s even better is today I made croutons with it! Homemade croutons rock. I also want to try making a irish stew…but it’s hard to want to do that in hot summer nights.

I’ve been busy sewing a new top, which just needs to be hemmed. I also bought 10 patterns from shirts, pants, jacket to a few costumes. How fun would it be to make my own jacket for this winter? I’ve also been embroidering a special gift for my mom’s birthday. Once it’s finished, I’ll take pictures.

This last weekend we went to New York to celebrate Rob’s cousin getting married. They had a kick ass party in their huge backyard. There was a big tent for the tables and fun things like cornhole, snowcone machine, beer pong and port-a-potties. Everyone was dressed casual, drank and ate good food. Ginny got to meet Rob’s parents, who couldn’t help but love her. Both dogs did awesome on the 12 hour drive, I think it helped them bond more.

This week should be pretty easy. I’m finally going to yoga tomorrow! We’re also getting a new toilet. Being at Rob’s cousin’s house and seeing it all moved in and renovated makes me want to get our house into our and out of this cluttered settling in phase. I think I might need a trip to Ikea^_~

My Week…

Boy, what a week this was! I’m actually quite glad it’s a brand new week.

So, from the previous post, Mason did not work out and we switched him for Ginny. Ginny is doing wonderful! She is becoming a real great dog the more she opens up. Her and Molly have a blast rough housing all over the house, the couch being their favorite spot to tackle each other. Doesn’t even matter if there are humans on said couch.

Saturday was a BIG day for me and Rob. We went down to Fu’s Tattoo’s and got our outlines done. Both of our dinosaur tattoos are so freaking awesome! I got a Parasaurolophus and Rob got a Stegosaurus. I love my dinosaur so much! I can’t wait to see if finished in a couple of week! Tom is such a great artist and a cool guy to hang with. We were there from 1pm to midnight that day! It was a very long day, but at the same time it gave me a chance to totally zone out and relax even with a needle poking me. And being stuck in NoDa all day is not bad at all. Lunch at Cabo Taco, dinner as Solstice Traven, coffee from Smelly Cat’s, love it!! What’s funny was that our chair was right in front of the window and everyone walking by was able to see us getting tattooed. The reactions of some people were too funny.

On a sad note, my brother and sister-in-law’s dog died this past Friday. Maximus was one of the coolest dogs I ever met. He was just so sweet and one of those dogs that knew that you needed some comforting, good doggy vibes. Max showed me that a great dog doesn’t have to be purebred, naughty, bark all the time, or not listen to you. And I only hoped that I could one day own a dog that’s as great as him. Molly turned out to be just like him and I really wished they could’ve met each other. I’m sure they would’ve been best friends.

This is him and Rob hanging out when we went to Arizona in June.

My last 2 weeks

Things have been pretty busy around here, so I never really got to post about last week. So, I’m just going to combine it with this week.

Rob’s parent’s and brother came last weekend to visit, which is always a fun thing. Saturday everyone, excluding Rob, went to tags sales in the morning, which included a stop at a house selling civil war and other historic memorabilia. Later, Rob’s brother Eric, his mom and I went to the flea market grounds and while the flea market was closed, there was an old toy and collectible show going on. This place had so many awesome things! Vintage toys and pins and old toys I played with as a kid. Too awesome! At the end of the day I had bought; a bookcase, Pyrex bowls, a pin from cold war Russia, a planned parenthood bumper sticker from the 70’s that says “Love Carefully” (too funny), little painted wooden figurines, a frame and a wooden cat.

The rest of the week was just busy busy. Work is still crazy as ever, but I’m handling it well. We’ve been to Ikea, Super Target, Petsmart and other stores. We rented a dumpster and Eric is tearing down our ugly DIY shed. Eric also painted out picnic table. It’s been fun having Eric around, he’s a great guy to hang out with. Always has a story.

Of course one of the biggest things this week is adopting Mason! He’s doing very well and him and Molly get along wonderfully.

This weekend was the Bele Chere Festival in Asheville, NC. Rob and I went last year and had a blast, so we just had to go this year again and bring Eric along with us. As always, Asheville and Bele Chere was a lot of fun. We ate at our fav. vegetarian restaurant Laughing Seed, walked around looking at cool stores and art while live music played all around us. We ended up buying a lot of cool things like a wicked awesome original painting which I’ll have to take a picture of and get the name later, a hand painted maneki neko, an all-in-one fork/knife/spoon utensil that’ll be perfect for my lunches, a Life is Good sticker, a bumper sticker from an animal shelter that says “Dog is Love” and a shirt with an old story book picture that says “And suddenly she found herself in a circle of cats”.

And we checked out the booth for Wii Sports Resort!! Me and Eric tried out canoeing with the new Wii Motion Plus. OMG!! I have to get this game, it’s so fun and awesome.

And now, I’m relaxing outside with a beer (Harpoon’s Raspberry Hefeweizen) and watching the dogs play. Good times!