The last few weeks I’ve had a fresh tea towel sitting out waiting for me to do something with it.  Tea towels are my favorite medium to embroider on, even if I end up not using the piece as a towel.  I love the versatility of the flour sack fabric

I knew that I wanted to stitch something wedding related, but it’s hard to embroider when you’re in the midst of wedding preparations.  I’m itching to stitch, but becoming a wife soon has been a roadblock… aside from the constant need to do well in school.  My life has become one crazy jumble of events, for example… Thursday night I got a phone call from my grandma asking if I could come in today to babysit their 7 year old lab.  Unbeknownst to me, she had surgery to repair her right hind leg and to remove a growth on her left hind leg.  This meant that for the next four weeks she has to be taken on a leash if she’s to get up and walk, or go outside to… you know.

She’s also one of the world’s biggest cry babies.

So, I’m sitting here in the kitchen right next to her while my grandparents are at their meeting.  Perfect opportunity to start going through all of my needlework patterns and pick one out, right?

Yes and no.

My mom started itching to get started on my wedding dress.

That’s right.  She’s making my wedding dress…

No, none of us have ever been institutionalized.  Yes, I get married in 80-something days.

You see, when you’re short but top heavy (thank you great grandma for your adventurous spirit, stubborn attitude, allergies, and large breasts,) bridal shops start saying things like “special order fee” and “additional alteration costs.”  Doesn’t matter if the shop totes on their website that they carry petites and the designers carry petites, they want to squeeze every penny out of the sale.

After the millionth dress I tried on, my mom whispered “JoAnn’s” to me.

We then went to lunch, looked up calorie counts on our iphones, and consumed a 1400 calorie sweet potato chicken dish.

Ok, so maybe Great-Grandma isn’t entirely at fault for my upper body.

Anyways, between baby sitting dogs, wedding dress sewing, ASL to English vocabulary learnin’, and work… I probably don’t have much time for starting a new tea towel.

But then there’s this…

And this…

Oh darn… can I connect to the printer on my grandparent’s network???

So, if you notice… there’s another part to my “about me” section.  It’s an in depth look into me via my iPhone home page. Go check it out!

I love Riley, she brings light to bad days.  She cracks me up, constantly humoring us with her personality.

My dog does handstands.

Seriously.  One of these days I’ll be quick enough with my phone to catch her in action.

Lately, my weekends have been dedicated to studying for school and studying lines of code for work.  But I have managed to fit in outings like this. Geocaching with Riley, we DNF’d this one several times before finding the log on the ground.  The owner (one of my best twitter friends) replaced it for us the next day.

And some more of this.  Riley walking with some of her Aunts and Uncles.

Then after a park that we’ve been waiting 15 years for opened, some of this.

Jeff was so proud that his daughter was the one leading the pack.

He wasn’t so proud of her after she laid down on her back in a mud puddle, but why should he care?  I had to give her the bath!

I was impressed by my mom’s dogs Peppermint Patty and Linus.  Linus was running around like he was an athlete (he spends all of his days watching TV.)  Patty was chasing around a huge lab (she fits in one of Jeff’s hands.)

I’m thankful that I can spare half an hour every now and then to take Riley out.  Not only does it calm her down, but it lifts my spirits.  If I don’t get outside and do something every day, my mood takes a nose dive.  Thankfully Riley gets along with my mom’s dogs, and we also have geocaching to get us up and out.

One of these days I’ll download our Yosemite photos from a week & a half ago.

The last month or two have been killing me, both physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Yesterday Jeff whisked me off to you-guess-where to recuperate.  The trip was completely unplanned (we left around lunchtime,) but I got to witness something that only happens a few days every year.

More to come, until then… just this phone pic!

… but to be passive aggressive when it comes to this.

I have a neighbor, who every morning sets off their car alarm for anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes.  It can happen as early as 5am and as late as 9am.  Maybe even earlier.  On the mornings when I have an early Bible study, I could care less about the alarm going off.  All the other mornings, I’m tempted to go out in my PJs to find the guy.

The hardest thing is, it could be anyone at like eight different houses because of how the houses are arranged.

I just want to know, why does he HAVE to set off his alarm?  And why does he let it go for over a minute sometimes?  Or even multiple times?

My theory? It’s to wake up the rest of their household.  Instead, they wake up ME!

A new semester has started, classes are filled with fresh faces, and I have a problem.  I’m in classes from 8am to 7pm, with one large break at 2pm, and an hour from 5pm-6.  Most of those days, I’ll probably arrive at 730 to use the printer & print out assignments, notes, etc.  So, I basically have a 12 hour day on campus.

In the last year, my body has taken a beating.  Since August, I’ve been doing Jenny Craig & lost a bit of weight.  Now, I can’t eat their food because of my wheat/garlic/life allergies.

So, somehow, I need to eat three meals at school without spending a dime on campus… except for maybe a dollar cup of coffee to get me through the first few classes.  As it is, I already have to carry my laptop, two text books, binder, and notebook in my back pack.  Along with all the little things that add up — keys, wallet, laptop charger, pen case, etc.  Where will my food go?

Fortunately, for students in my department we have access to a fridge and freezer, along with a microwave.  Still, things get crowded and I hate being wasteful with my money by buying frozen meals or canned soups.  I need actual balanced meals!

Image credit: babykins! on flickr, from a bento fan group.

So, I had a thought.  I remembered seeing a craft blogger share her lunches, one of those expensive “laptop” lunches.  Since I hardly have $8, let alone $50, I started searching ebay for other bento boxes.  I found one that fit my budget, it’s a two tier bento with a spot for a napkin and chopsticks.  It’s large enough for me to eat a full lunch at 2pm, then have a large snack at 5pm & have dinner when I get home around 7:30.  For breakfast, if I don’t eat at home, I’ll eat something in the car, like farina.  Between my morning classes, like in the example photo before, I’ll have a yogurt and fruit.  I’ll just keep those in my back pack.  I also always have two clementines in one of the side pockets of my pack.

I like the idea of bento boxes being a way to create art from your meal, but I probably wont ever do that.  I’m more into the ability to organize my food into a small container while making a balanced meal.  For Christmas, my mom got me several different silicone baking cups, much like the cups that are sold to go with bento boxes.  I’ll probably use one or two of the baking cups to separate things in my box.  I’m also considering finding a lock-n-lock container to decorate to make my own bento.

Hopefully, using this bento-method to my meals will help me to keep eating healthy, while still being attentive to my allergies.  I need to get into the habit of making my meals the night before, including breakfast.  Expect a blog post here and there about the recipes I’ve tried and what’s been working for me!

The New Year started off without a bang for us, I was pet sitting alone, drinking sparkling cider with a chocolate lab slightly larger than me.  However, it didn’t stay uneventful.

That first weekend, we traveled to the Bay Area for Jeff’s grandma’s memorial & burial service.  We had a great time with his family remembering her life.  I never got to know Jeff’s grandma (she had several strokes years and years ago,) but she definitely sounded like my kind of woman!  It was great getting to see all of Jeff’s cousins that I only ever get to contact via facebook, where his cousin Rob is my favorite Mafia Wars buddy because he sends me energy packs.

Ok, now my focus is drifting and we need to get back on topic.

Anyways, after sharing a hotel room with Jeff’s mom and getting zero sleep, I went down the coast with Jeff to spend the day fishing on the pier in Capitola.  Jeff shared a room with his dad and slept the full night, the benefit of being awake the previous 40 something hours.  The rest of us couldn’t sleep because the sheets were like paper — every time you moved, even the flicker of a finger, sounded like crumpling paper.  Other than that, the hotel and appletinis were really nice.

Once we got to the wharf in Capitola, Jeff bought his bait and we set up shop.  He kept going back to the bait shop on the wharf so many times that they wanted to set up a tab for him! (Note: this photos are the unedited iphone photos of this trip — I haven’t downloaded the photos from our cameras yet.)

It was his first time since childhood fishing on a wharf, so he had a ton of fun.

I let him buy a crab pot, which made him happy as a clam.

He caught a lot of hermit crabs and sea snails.

One teeny tiny crab.

One starfish.

?

… and I need the camera’s photos to show you what else he caught! Once I have access to Jeff’s computer, I’ll post them.

While Jeff was doing all that fishing, I sat there reading “The Shop on Blossom Street.”  Really good read, I’m now on the third book in the series!  I also managed to find the geocache on the wharf that I had DNF’d on the last time we tried to find it.  That was rewarding, because it really showed how much I’ve developed my geocaching skills.  Tomorrow I’ll have a post of photos of some of the geocaches I’ve found over break.  Until then…

Enjoy the sunset

I cannot NOT allow this to go unsaid, and since I haven’t seen a single news article or blog post about this, I’m going to have to cover it myself…

Lately there’s been a few stories in the news about people getting stranded “because of their GPS.”  The Air Force even went so far as saying it wasn’t a fault in their system, but they wouldn’t say who was at fault.  Probably because they didn’t want to upset the GPSr companies like Garmin & Tom Tom.

Anyone who knows anything but just the basics about GPSrs can tell you what the problem was — both the users and the maps.  The maps are either from the device manufacturer or a third party, not the Air Force and GPS satellite system.

So, just like when we plug in addresses for directions on Google Maps, there’s some error involved.  When I had to go to the California School for the Deaf in November, Google Maps had me take two U-Turns immediately after each other, which put me back in the same direction.  It also told me to get on and off the freeway at the same street (I caught that error before executing it, but I have to admit I very sheepishly made those U-Turns.)

When I ended up getting lost in San Jose the next day, I used my GPSr to get back on the right track.  My GPSr has the most current Garmin maps installed on it.  Yet, it still told me to turn left, straight into a median on the expressway… no where near the actual entry onto I-880 a mile ahead.  My friend & I broke out the DeLorme Road atlas, which wasn’t any additional help, and decided to keep driving.

Road signs are also mis-leading *cough 152-E*Watsonville*cough,* but they do help.

Maps on GPSrs are not nearly as updated or advanced as Google Maps is.  Google takes into account what’s a back road and what isn’t, or traffic problems.  GPSr maps just see Point A and Point B, and they just simply connect the dots.

My recommendation for novice GPSr users?  If you have the ability to do so, export the route generated by Google or Mapquest to your GPSr instead of letting your GPSr decide for you.  I believe for Google you have to export it to KML file to Google Earth, then from Google Earth export the route to your device.  Google does have an export function for GPSr directly in the browser, but it’s only the end point, not the route.

Personally, I always use Google Maps.  You can alter the route to your heart’s content.  For example, we travel to the Monterey Bay area frequently for fun, work, & family (Jeff grew up in Mt. Hermon, at the Christian camp.  His mom grew up a stone’s throw from the Red Castle in Santa Cruz.)   Anyways, we take a road off of the freeway thru… Castorville? I think?  Even getting out of town we disagree from Google Maps, because we prefer to take advantage of the country roads that have zero traffic.

Basically, don’t rely on auto-pilot.  If it worked, we wouldn’t have airline pilots anymore.  Or taxi drivers.  Or wives who force their husbands to ask for directions.

The blog might be silent for the next few days, we’ll be in the Monterey/Santa Cruz area for Jeff’s grandma’s memorial services.  If something interesting should happen, I have wordpress on my phone, you’ll get an update!

Today I didn’t spend much time scraping, but I did manage to finish this week’s Designer’s Spotlight Challenge at O Scraps!  I got third place for last week’s challenge, pure luck that I would get selected on my first challenge

Of course, the prompts for this week are “Year in Review” and “New Beginnings.”

First, I managed to squeeze out my new beginnings LO.  It was easier because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my “adventuring” and “lifestyle” goals.  Maybe I’ll elaborate on them in another post, but for now you can settle for this page.

After finishing the New Beginnings page in the morning, I had plenty to occupy myself while I thought about the Year in Review page.  They gave us a great freebie template to use, but I knew I wanted to use my own to practice layout arranging.  I’m pleasantly satisfied.  There are a few changes I’ll make before printing this, but for now it’s fine for me!

I have a pretty big to-do list for tomorrow, so I doubt I’ll allow myself to do any more scrapping.

Credits: NinaScraps “Simply Together” papers & Sue Cummings “Vintage Brown” papers

Riley embraces the Jack Russel in her and makes sure we all know it.  From bouncing and bounding around the house, to getting herself covered in dirt and mud in the back yard.

I made this page for another O Scraps challenge, Web Inspiration.  For this challenge, a screen shot of something online is posted & O scrappers are to use it for inspiration in creating a page.  Click over to the thread to see the inspiration for this month’s challenge.

My page details:

The photos are texturized with a cement texture.
Papers are from Sue Cumming’s Paper Brown Vintage & Paper Whitewash V11.
Bow is from Sue Cumming’s Paper Whitewash V12.
“Riley” text is a clipping mask of a paper from V11, but the levels were bumped up to get that burned & brown tone.

Until Wordpress fixes the post scheduling bug, you’re probably going to see back to back postings from me like this.  I would prefer to schedule my posts to be published at a set time after I write them, but the newest update to wordpress broke that function.  A week ago they said they would post a fix “in a few days” but that hasn’t happened, and I’m not going to tamper with wordpress to fix it myself, like others have done.

I also promise this isn’t turning into a scrapbooking blog, you’ll still see plenty of our travels & usual antics.  This weekend we’re going to the coast for Jeff’s grandma’s memorial & burial services.  He’s planning for us to spend some time either in Capitola or San Francisco, but we’re still waiting on the final details to fall into place.