Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day & Happy Birthday to me (9 days and counting)...

Steve got me a great gift (dual gifting here) - he set up my own website...er, well, our website, but now I'm going to be working on porting this blog over and hosting there.

But I have to play around with everything first!

*squeal* I'm so excited!

Disney, Super Bowl, and a Whole Bunch of Lazy

Saturday was a complete lazy day, I gotta admit. Which is fine, I had a long week. I am now the queen of 1099 forms...or at least I was for 127 of them this week. What a pain! Coupled with a lot of month-end & year-end reporting we were wrapping up from December, I probably worked more this week than I have in quite a while.

Anywho, today I got started on my Disney perpetual photo calendar. First things first - I need to make a mental note that Super Bowl Sunday isn't the best day to go to Disneyland, especially when it's 70 degrees and perfect outside. I decided we should wander California Adventure for a couple of hours today, as it is usually less busy. DCA was still pretty busy, but we first managed a short wait for Screamin' (7 minutes), so at least we got on one ride today.

The numbers I managed to find in that short 2.5-hour time frame included 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 29, and 30. 21/31 is pretty great, and I'm confident I'll find the rest in Disneyland. If anything, I can cop out on a couple of the lower numbers, as the ticket booths have numbers on the outside. I also managed to find January, February, March, May, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday (or at least a letter or abbreviation). Steve had fun watching people watching me and trying to figure out what the hell I was taking pictures of.

The Disney pictures are intentionally random, I took over 100 pictures today, some of which weren't at all related to my project, but I liked them anyway.

We went over to Shannon & Cory's to watch the game. My favorite commercial was the LMAO commercial (and boy, do I wish that could really happen, because there are some days when my A would invert, I've laughed so much...*sigh*). And if the Steelers has not managed their game-winning touchdown, and could only muster a field goal instead, I would have been $100 richer from my office pool...but alas, it was not meant to be. But I liked the purely random format of our office pool, and I hope it will be resurrected for the NCAA b-ball champ game.

TTFN as T-I-double-guh-rrrr would say! Here's hoping that I can finish my couch quillow, and the swing bags this week, along with some piecing. And I MUST go to the gym this week!

A Follow-Up

...to my post earlier today - I downloaded some photos to share...

This is what the back of the new receiver looks like:
See, even Steve looks a little intimidated:
He got it all hooked up while I took a nap on Saturday afternoon.


This is what avoiding homework looks like tonight:

...xbox controller in hand.

And this is what my new B&W lap quillow is going to look like:

It's all quilted, I just need to put together the pillow part & attach, and then bind the quilt. But first, I need to wash the crunchy pillow/binding fabric to soften it up a little. I think this little quilt might qualify as my first stash-buster quilt - I'm using fabrics I bought with no specific purpose in mind (although I knew they would probably end up in the living room).

The front cheater cloth is this print from Marcus fabrics.

Ok, two things I need to vent about:

• I hate blogger's spacing issues in most of my posts - even if you look @ the HTML code, and that looks OK, doesn't mean it will publish OK. Maybe at some point, I can convince Steve to help me figure out how to use my own host for a Word Press blog.
• Second, I really don't understand the people who buy vowels on Wheel of Fortune when they know the puzzle. I end up yelling in frustration at the TV at least once each show for this very reason. Seriously people - $150 per vowel can knock a lot of your total!

The Curious Case of the Foxy Weekend

The working title of this post is "Did I ever tell you I was struck by lightning seven times? "

We FINALLY went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button this weekend for date night - I've been wanting to see this for a while now. Partly because of the strangeness of the story, partly because of the Oscar buzz, and mostly because Brad Pitt is one of the guys who lives on my island (my fantasy hot guy island). Plus, I LOVE Cate Blanchett - she's such a cameleon (she sort of freaks Steve out though - he says it's the eyes, I say it's just the crazy eyes in LOTR - see below).

But whatever, I always think she is great. And designer extraordinaire Heather Bailey had mentioned the scene with the red dress, and I sort of gasped in recognition when it came on!

I really enjoyed this movie, although based on the other movies in contention for honors this awards season, I can't say I'm surprised CCoBB hasn't won a whole lot - those awards tend to go to the movies without the large-scale mass appeal (except for Titanic & LOTR: Return of the King).

We also helped Circuit City liquidate some inventory this weekend. Steve bought a new receiver in anticipation of receiving his bonus from work at the end of this week. And I decided we should get a really inexpensive 19" LCD TV with HD Tuner. We're in the process of getting rid of our cable TV, and just watching network TV via HD antennae streaming from the desktop. The bedroom TV was originally going to be left out of this plan, since we had a small 13" one we bought with wedding gift money 4 years ago that had no such HD tuner. But now, this problem is going to be rectified with the additional purchase of another $40 HD antennae. I think we'll end up saving almost $1000 per year without cable, so we make up the cost of all these purchases in a very short amount of time. I hope I survive - I don't think I've EVER not had cable, so this will be tough on me. But we mostly watch the major networks, and we'll still be able to get those, so I think I'll be OK. Plus, the xbox interface with Netflix is amazing, so I can always find something to watch in my queue there.

On the crafty front, I have half of a new quilt quilted (wow, that seems poorly worded - "have half" and "quilt quilted"). I figured I better run with my mojo while it's still around. But...that doesn't mean I actually pieced together a new top...I took a cute yard of cheater cloth fabric I got a while back (and I can't remember what it is @ the moment, I need to look @ the selvedge again - but I definitely saw it in the newest Hancocks Paducah catalog) and used a white/black yard of Deb Strain's Daydream fabric for the backing. I'm going to practice making a quillow for our living room, in prep for the baby girlie quilts that are ready to be pieced.

Ok, time to go back to work - boo hoo me!

Guess What??

In August, Steve is going on a crazy backpacking trip along the Chilkoot Trail. And because, I think it's entirely unfair that Steve would visit Alaska while I stayed here & worked...I'm going to be joining him up in Alaska after his hike, and we're taking a 7-day cruise from Anchorage to Vancouver. Our friends Will & Karla are also on board (hehe, I'm so punny!).

I'M SO EXCITED!!

New Project

This is going to be my new project. :) And based on my past Mouse Adventure experiences, I bet I can compile photos from Disneyland to complete the whole calendar. :)

Fall 2008 MA Team - Cory, Shannon, Michelle, Steve

Vacation hangover...

...12 days in Nebraska has done that to me. We got back Monday night, and did manage to unpack pretty much everything (I'm delinquent on putting away some clothes). We grabbed a couple days of necessities @ the grocery store, but that was it. The dishwasher still needs to be unloaded, the laundry washed, and the apartment vacuumed (how is it possible that 2 cats create more mess in 2 weeks by themselves versus 2 cats + 2 humans in 2 weeks??).

And of course, work yesterday was sort of killer, so I passed out early last night. Hopefully tonight will be better and I will vacuum and maybe Wii Fit?? I dunno.

I do have a few photos to share...provided I get off my duff and download them from my camera. But in the meantime, here is a funny one for you:

This one is from September 2008, when I went back for my friend Abbie's wedding. This one ranks right up there with the redneck cat carrier. Only in Nebraska can you drive down the road and see a pathetic-looking cow being hauled in the back of a pickup truck! Never seen this before in my 26 years... See what I'm missing here in LA??

Happy Anniversary!

To me and Steve! Love you honey! :)

Weekend Update Dec20-21

We had a pleasantly busy weekend, and I forgot to pull the photos I managed to remember to take off my camera :(

After more than 1.5 hours in the car Friday night, I made it the 20 miles from work to Leslie's house for a wine tasting party (Leslie works with Steve and provides the cats love & attention when we leave them to go on trips). Great party, we ordered a couple of bottles. :) Steve & I agreed to open one present when we got home - I got this lil guy and Steve grabbed a box and tore into...only to find he was opening one of my presents. Uh, yeah...he was having a little trouble reading his own handwriting on the sticker. So he put that package back, and opened up his binoculars (a true Geek, yes - a camping Geek!).

We opened the rest of the presents in the morning on Saturday...and I got Seams to Me, David Cook's CD, electronic Monopoly, Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts, Rabbids for the DS, and a bunch of great lil stocking stuffers, including these yummy things, which will go on the airplane with me on Wednesday (it's tradition). Apparently, the cashier @ Target asked Steve if the Monopoly, Rabbids & David Cook CD were for his kid... Um...not quite!

(photo added in as a post edit later)

On Saturday, we went over to Shannon & Cory's for turkey dinner & Rock Band. I can manage playing bass on easy mode and hit most of the notes - but Enter Sandman almost did me in, there's quite a few "easy" bass notes in that song! I like singing, but other people do too, so I just sat down to press buttons and hope my hand-eye coordination functions properly.

Sunday was spent crafting a few last-minute gifts. I've had this USC fabric for a while now, going to incorporate into a quilt for us since Steve is getting is Master's degree from USC, but I realized very quickly that the fabric wasn't going to be used for him. Fortunately, my friend Christina is now teaching @ USC, and fiancee Jason is also an alum. So I made Christina a fully reversible tote bag with the USC on one side, and this cute Recess panel making up the reverse (from local fabric store though, I needed to match the fabric up). I took the remainder USC fabric and made Jason a scarf backed in dark gray fleece (50% off @ Joanns right now!). Of course, I neglected to get a photo of the finished product. Gave them their gifts last night, before we went and walked around a crazy neighborhood in Torrance totally decked out in white lights and decorations. *sigh* I love white Christmas lights (there were a few blues in the mix, guessing for Hanukkah). This is what I came up when I googled for the Torrance lights. We didn't see the Simpsons...but we did see a polar bear praying to Baby Jesus, but I thought it looked like the polar bear was ready to stage a coup on the manger.

These scarfs are my favorite thing to make right now - super easy, and if you get a nice geometric print, you can just sew right down the lines. So then I took the leftover Echino airplane fabric from Joelle's bag and whipped up a scarf for my friend Carrie, one of my college roomies, later bridesmaid @ my wedding, and an aerospace engineer working @ Boeing. I'll give her the scarf on Friday, we're meeting up in Omaha to have breakfast @ Village Inn...I haven't seen her in over a year, and Steve has never met boyfriend Dave, who is a great guy!

Sorry for the linky post with no 1 photos - boo for me! :(

Tonight, I need to attempt to pack a bunch of warm clothes in one small carry-on suitcase... I will deserve a prize if I can accomplish this! Plus, my anxiety levels have kicked up a notch after hearing about the airplane near-disaster in Denver on Saturday night... Let's hope Denver has learned their lesson and stop allowing airplanes to take off in 31 knot crosswinds!

Crafting has gone by the wayside...

After my exhausting Sunday (still cursing that darn reversible bag!), I haven't really gotten back on the sewing wagon, and I need to... I'm still trying to be ambitious and put together a few more fabric baskets for my grandparents, along with a couple more handmade gift items for a couple of friends. All I've been able to do the last couple of days is just chill on the couch after work...and maybe muster up the energy to play a game or two of this:


Turns out that I'm really good at putting movies in order by their release, while Steve is REALLY good at identifying movies from just one screencap or drawing. So, by sheer dumb luck, I am sometimes able to beat him if there aren't too many of these picture games...
We also discovered last night that you can very cheapy buy UNO as an xbox download...but Xbox is a cheater! Somehow, I think there might be some UNO looming in my future!

Sammy Saturday

On Saturday, we went out with Sammy, even though it was early (you know, 8:30am) and it was slightly rainy and cold outside... And wouldn't you know it, we were the only crazies out there...at least with the horse! Steve & Scott went with me, so they could practice hiking...and they got to break their boots into slightly muddy trails, and figure out how to deal with that!

It was a good time...here are the photos! The sky was really dramatic, with these light beams poking thru the cloud wall...they looked like spotlights on the water! The air was really calm...then a few hours later, the wind really kicked up and eventually blew in the rain Sunday night/Monday morning. In the last photo, Sammy is wondering if the camera is perhaps a carrot...I think not! He loves his treats!

The Weekend Update

I suffered my first crafting injury on Friday night:

I was making a little card keeper thing, and trying to hammer on a snap using this thingy. Obviously, that didn't quite go as planned... Now the blood blister just looks very dark under the skin, and I keep trying to lick what I think is chocolate off my finger. That was too much information, huh? Well, it's going to happen again during this post, so consider yourselves warned...


I finished up my Winter Foxes handbag...but have since discovered I apparently have no idea how to properly attach magnetic snaps and need to un-sew my lining so I can place the snap washer BEHIND the fabric (shoulda asked my mechanically-inclined hubby when doing this step if it looked right to him). Which means I've screwed up more than one magnetic snap... *grr*

The bag was difficult to put together - the mini-cord lining/side fabric coupled with Pellon 987F fleece and some DecorBond make for some thick layers (I even bent a denim needle!). But other than the snap issue, I'm really diggin' this bag...it's cute! And my handles are super sturdy - one of these days, I'm going to do a tutorial on making bag straps, because I really like how hefty and professional-looking they turn out, and I haven't seen a tutorial that provides the same level of heft. I just need to make another bag with straps, so I can do the photos for the steps.


After a whirlwind Saturday morning finishing and packaging up some birthday presents (SIL Kristina and step-mom Donna) and just-because presents (for 2 of my fav baby girls Jacqueline & Leah), we headed out...

for Donna

For my girl Jacqueline

I made Steve go with me up to Echo Park, to the BUST Holiday Craftacular. His efforts were rewarded by the sight of hundreds of people dressed up as Santa, riding bikes and singing on a school bus - only in LA! The craftacular was OK; I didn't end up buying anything, but the stuff was way better than the Redondo Beach craft fair a couple of weeks ago (that was just old ladies selling stuff like doilies that doesn't really appeal to anyone in my age range, although I appreciate the effort)...but there weren't that many different vendors (maybe 20), so that was sort of disappointing. But I think this was the first year in LA... The other random thing was that this was held in what probably turned into a nightclub later that night... My fav vendor was I Heart Guts; completely unique, I liked the "I'm a Liver, not a Fighter" tees! And speaking of...I guess I Heart Guts will also be participating next weekend in Unique Los Angeles - maybe I'll go check this one out too, hopefully sans Steve (I feel bad torturing him!).



We hung out with Gabe on Saturday, sans Joelle (in DC for work), as Steve is busy learning all things xbox and Media Center. He also was transferring some DVDs to the new TB drive. As of last night, we (and by we, I mean Steve) figured out the best way to get the connection to the main router is to use good old fashioned CAT5 cable (of which we have hundreds of feet, so definitely didn't need to go to a store to get some of that). We just couldn't get the wireless to work at a speed necessary to stream to the xbox. But we were able to stream Kung Fu Panda from the TB drive in the other room, and watch it last night - good times. Steve will be drilling a hole thru the wall next weekend, so he can feed the CAT5 thru the wall to the spare bedroom/office where the router is housed. I am cringing already, as would my landlord if he knew we were putting more holes in the walls. We are going to have to buy a gallon of spackle to repair those holes when we (eventually) move out!


We also put up the Christmas decorations - we don't actually have as much as I remember, but it's still quite a bit for a small apartment with very little storage space. I think I'm going to do a separate post on the random ornaments that decorate our tree - it's very "scrappy" with no cohesive theme. But my tree skirt looks awesome underneath the fake tree! And hopefully it will hold up to repeated washings from the cat barfing on it (keepin' it real here, folks!).

Locks of Love

I decided back in August that I was going to grow my hair out to donate to Locks of Love...I certainly have enough hair, and even though I'm not really a fan of the thick mess going past the tops of my shoulders, I'm going to tough it out.

I haven't really had long hair since 6th grade...it was sort of long for my wedding, but I don't think I have any good pictures of exactly how long it was before I cut it back to chin length (my CA driver's license picture has a girl on it who only sort of resembles me - inevitably took the most horrible photo possible - she looks high in the picture, and that just isn't me at all - at least I know what I could look like high; I'm planning to retake the photo when I renew next year). Maybe I'll dig up a 4th/5th grade era photo to show my hair in it's full (and probably permed) glory...

I discussed my plan in September with Marili (pronounced Marley), my hair chick. She thought it would take me about a year, given how fast my hair grows, about 1" per month (normal is 1/2" per month). So now I'm due for a trim (and some shaping), and I think I have about 5" already...so yeah, 1" per month. I need 10" to send in, but I'm going to try for a full foot. The problem is that it will be totally thick & yucky during SoCal summer, so that's not that much fun.

OK, now that my intentions are out here in blog land, I have some incentive to follow through. :-D Updates to follow...

My Christmas Gift!

So, this summer, my good 'ol Canon PowerShot S500 starting turning some pictures pink:





Which was really sad...the Elph was my first digital camera...Steve bought it for me in the fall of 2004 (yeah, maybe a little slow to hop on the digital camera bandwagon). And it has taken some real gems, including this (which is still my favorite photo I've ever taken):



But it seemed like the logical time to get a new camera...and since I've had such good luck with Canon thus far, I decided to get the Canon Powershot SD790IS.

It came today, and I had to do a picture comparison.

Test subject: Sylvester

Spot: by the coffee table in the living room, approximately 6 feet away

Old camera, max zoom:

New camera, max zoom:

So yeah, I'm pretty happy!

Cyber Monday arrived on Tuesday

Now that's what I call service (and yay! for free shipping!).

So apparently if you order non-computer items from Dell, including an xbox and a terabyte (TB) drive, it will arrive next day (versus the desktop near-fiasco a couple of years ago which involved me pulling basically breaking into a FedEx ground facility). And thanks to cyber Monday deals coupled with a corporate discount from Steve, we saved $100 and didn't pay shipping.

This is all a part of Steve's master plan...which is a modification (ie, slightly less crazy) of Gabe's master plan that involves not renting DVRs (using the computer to record shows and stream throughout the house) and storing copies of all our DVDs on the TB drive.

Merry Christmas to us!

Back in Time...

So I realize I posted about Sunday before I posted about Saturday, but I had to get the photos downloaded off the camera before I could do that. Just pretend this is my version of Back to the Future :)

Saturday started out normal...Steve ran the 6+ miles to the farmers market, I drove & met him over there (with a stop @ Joanns along the way to pick up backing fabric and thread for Snowman - I actually got out of that store spending less than $10!). Then we came home, and chilled... I get a call from Joelle, around noon-thirty, saying she's not going to do MouseAdventure on Sunday because the fires in Orange County were creating havoc on her lungs (severe asthma). I encourage her to think about coming to our place (we're further north, no hills really that close to us), we don't smell anything here, it's bright & sunny outside, blue skies are smiling, put on a happy face, all of that...

Two hours later, this is what it looks like outside:

Down the street:

The sunny afternoon has turned orange, from the smoke & haze in the air. Ash was falling, we closed all of the windows up in the apartment. We have lived in the South Bay for 4 years, and there have been a lot of fires in SoCal during that time... we have NEVER experienced anything like this, these fires were terrible! Plus, it was warm last weekend (almost 80), and uncomfortable with the windows closed up...

Poor Joelle stayed sequestered in her house all weekend. :(

Reindeer Monologues

Tonight, Steve & I did a date night...we drove down the street to Hermosa Beach, grabbed a quick dinner at the Pita Pit (I always forget how much I like this place...we had one in Ames, and I was super excited to find one out here in SoCal), then headed to the Hermosa Beach Playhouse to see the "Reindeer Monologues." I can't describe it better than this article or this one, but I will tell you I laughed my arse off through most of the play. Sometimes I just laughed because I wasn't sure if any of the older crowd was getting all of the humor infused into the monologues. Cupid, the gay reindeer, was my favorite - he work pink cowboy boots (I want some like that!). :) So, if this production ever comes to your neck of the woods, and you can handle the satire, I would highly recommend it!

BTW - Steve & I were definitely among the youngest, if not the youngest, audience members at our tender age of 26... But I know this production would appeal the most of our demographic - they need to figure out how to market this stuff better!

Sometimes I wonder...

...what I will be like when I become a mother. I really hope I'm not like the crazy lady @ Target today, who had stopped the stroller in the middle of one of the main aisles to coo at her baby and take photos, while her toddler walked around the stroller, trying to figure out what was going on. And by coo, I mean that really oohey-gooey goochie-goochie-goo kind of cooing. I was looking at her like she was an alien life form.

At the moment, I view my cats as my children, and I love them to death. And I will probably someday become the crazy cat lady (as predicted by my brother). But I don't do any of that overly excessiving cooing crap with them...so hopefully that stays the same way with kids...

In fact, I want to make a declaration.
I, Michelle, will not become one of those mothers I despise. I will talk to my child in a normal voice, except when I need to soothe/calm the child. There will be no goochie-goochie-goos uttered from these lips (unless I'm mocking someone). This I declare!

Alrighty, now back to the business of eating my Healthy Choice steamer, the resultant purchase from Target.

P.S. Dear Lord, please help me keep my declaration true!

EDIT 40 minutes later - email from my mom: Why you think you turned out so smart?Your mama never coochie cooed you thats why!
Love......Mom

Now I know - my mom's lack of coos are solely responsible for my intelligence! ;)

1 Franc

I just went to go get a diet 7-up out of the machine @ work, and grabbed some quarters that came from a roll from Wells Fargo... Well, the problems with Wells Fargo continue, as it turns out one of my quarters is really a French franc, which hasn't been used since 1999. So apparently the coin machines @ WF aren't able to differentiate between a quarter and a franc (the franc is slightly less heavy), but the crappy soda machine @ work is?? Strange!

Fortunately, I don't mind this gaffe, because I have this thing for collecting moneys, especially foreign currency. So now I have a franc, which is currently only worth about $0.15 USD.

Kyle's Batism

No...that's not a typo in the title... Kyle and his mom Elizabeth were baptized this morning...but according to their cake, they were batized:

So I'm mildly concerned about the degeneration of society...if they failed to properly read Elizabeth's perfect "kindergarten" handwriting, I'm much more concerned about other things...

The baptism itself was also entertaining... prior to that part of the service, the little kids @ church portrayed various saints in commemoration of All Saints Day. Pretty cute...but not as cute as little Kyle. He splashed his little paws into the baptism water, which turned out to be a good thing. Some random church helper decided it was a good idea to let the 18-month old be close to the candle he received to mark the occassion. Because, as I'm sure any good mother will tell me, it shouldn't be hard to guess that Kyle's next move was a quick grab around the candle flame. According to Steve, who was at ground zero performing his godfather duties, you just heard a sizzle noise (wet hands, remember). It wasn't until he heard the collective gasp of the congregation that Kyle realized something wasn't quite right about the situation (though he wasn't hurt), and went a little balistic. The little tyke was completely fine, and the rest of the service way more boring after Kyle-the-fire-killer has his moment in the spotlight! :)