Kat's World

Scrapbook layouts from before the move!

2008-04-19T15:16:00.003-05:00

So, we moved back in February, and I probably created these layouts in January but never got around to posting them until now. Most of the layouts are from time we spent in Chicago on our vacation last fall. Enjoy.

Shedd Aquarium

Globes Exhibit along the waterfront

Sears Tower

Thanksgiving 2007

And, a layout with photos from March 2007 showcasing Tysen's fraternity alumni club chartering.

Layouts from 2006 and 2007

2008-01-15T19:04:00.000-05:00

Well, over the last few months I've been catching up on some scrapbooking, finishing my album for 2006 and scrapping all my photos from trips in 2007. Some of these layouts are a few months old, I just never got around to photographing them and posting them to flickr and then here. Enjoy!

Painted Tanks - I think I shared these photos a long time ago, and I finally got around to scrapping them. The patterned paper is by Rob & Bob.

White Oak Canyon - hiking trip to Shenandoah National Park

Thanksgiving 2006

Thanksgiving Disc Golf

ACC Championship, 2006

First Camping Trip, May 2007

Shenandoah National Park

Grand Canyon National Park, July 2007

Chicago, September 2007

Africa Scrapbook

2008-01-15T18:30:00.000-05:00

It's finally complete. Well, the pages were done a while back, but the journaling and titles are finally complete. Here's the book from my mother-in-laws hospice trip to South Africa.

Title Page

Traveling in and around Johannesburg & Soweto

Bara Hospital

Number Four Prison

Constitutional Court

Home Visits

Mapetla School

Inpatient Pediatric Unit

Lesedi Cultural Centre

Kruger National Park

More Scrapbooking

2007-10-21T12:47:00.000-05:00

Some of these layouts are from a while ago...and some I completed just yesterday. So, first I'll start with the remaining Wisconsin layouts:

Arboretum (from day 1)

I finally got my 4x10 panorama printed, so I was finally about to finish this layout.

Day 6 (con't)

Birds from the Milwaukee Zoo.

Milwaukee Fireworks on July 3rd.

Day 7: Leaving Wisconsin

Jelly Belly Warehouse Tour

And, on to our Arizona Trip. Towards the end of July, we spent a long weekend in Phoenix, Arizona. The purpose of the trip was to attend Tysen's fraternity convention, but we spent a few extra days hanging out with some relatives and spending a few days at the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed over 12 hours, so we ended up getting stranded in Atlanta for a day. Fortunately, Tysen's brother and his girlfriend go to school there, so we were picked up and had a bed to stay in before returning the next afternoon to continue our trip to Phoenix.

Layouts from the Grand Canyon to come... still trying to decide on photos!

And, one more layout.

Layout for Baby Lehman who we visited at the end of August.

Wisconsin Trip con't

2007-09-08T17:29:00.000-05:00

Let's see... where did I leave off? Ah, yes, Day 3.

Day 3 (con't): I already told you we went to the Farmer's Market at the capitol building. So, first off is the promised layout of the food and fun at the event (layout 1). Next, we picked up Tysen's grandmother (on his dad's side) and took her to lunch at Pasqual's and then for custard at Micheal's across the street (layout 2). Then, in the evening, we went to Tysen's aunt's wedding party (the main purpose of this trip to Wisconsin). The party was held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Student Union and included a surprise visit by Bucky Badger (the school's mascot) and enjoying the Madison fireworks display along the lake (layouts 3, 4, and 5). Here are the layouts:

Scraplift of an Ali Edwards design.

Based on sketch by Valerie Salmon.

Based on sketch by Becky Higgins.

Bonus layout:

I didn't take any of the photos in this layout, but I needed a filler page from the Madison events so my 2-page layouts wouldn't be separated. So, a University of Wisconsin-Madison layout seemed appropriate.

Day 4: On Sunday, July 1st, we hung out with family in Madison and said good-bye to some who headed back home. We, however, were staying in Wisconsin for a few more days. So, we had breakfast at Bluephies with family, then went to a local pool for some sun and swimming, then heading to Milwaukee to stay with Tysen's other grandmother (mother's side). There really aren't any layouts from today, other than a filler layout showcasing some of the buildings in Milwaukee.

Day 5: We intended to get up and go to some museums, but instead we slept in a bit then headed out for one of the beaches along Lake Michigan (layout 1). After spending some time there, we did a bunch of shopping...Sprecher (layout 2), Atomic Records, and American Science & Surplus. For dinner that night, we invited over one of the Serebin families (there are 7 families in total) for dinner and we cooked a pasta meal with the fresh pesto we got from the farmer's market. And, after dinner, we had frozen custard at Kopp's (layout 3).

Based on a sketch by Valerie Salmon.

Day 6: On our last full day in Wisconsin, July 3rd, we joined up with some family and went to the Milwaukee Zoo (layouts 1 and 2). A third layout of birds from the zoo is planned and will come later. Also, photos from the 1-hr long fireworks show in Milwaukee is also to come.

Based on a Becky Higgins sketch in the October 2007 issue of Creating Keepsakes.

Scraplift from the Oct. 2007 issue from Creating Keepsakes.

Alright, that's all for now... more to come, eventhough I'm almost done with my Wisconsin pictures, I've printed a few photos from our Arizona trip from the end of July.

Bike Trip

2007-09-04T20:05:00.001-05:00

So, I'm cheating here, but I made this post tonight on my family blog, but I also wanted to share it with everyone else who doesn't check out my family blog (as who would since we last updated it in March 2007!!!). Anyways, the gist is that I went biking on Friday (Aug. 31st). Since I had the day off, but Tysen didn't, I rode my bike from home into DC and had lunch with him at L'Enfant Park behind the White House, then rode back home. The bike trip, a total of about 30 miles round trip, took me about 3 hours total, plus some time walking around DC and having lunch. If you want to see my route, check out my post at the Perszyk101 blog.

Been a while!

2007-08-26T12:01:00.000-05:00

Been keeping busy this summer with travels to Wisconsin and Arizona and having visitors from Atlanta and Jacksonville. Plus, I've even enjoyed a few weekends of scrapbooking. Here are some older layouts that I just never got around to posting:

Lauren & Bryan's Wedding, March '06

Haircuts, Jan. '07

Photos from Jan. '07 when we got our hair cut and colored. I donated my hair to Locks of Love.

And, more recent photos from our week long trip to Wisconsin, where we stayed for a few days in Madison (mainly there for Tysen's aunt's wedding celebration) and then a few days in Milwaukee before heading home.

Day 1: We arrived in Madison on the morning of June 28th after driving straight through from DC to WI. Our first stop was the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, but I haven't gotten all the photos printed, so that layout will have to come later. Next, we met up with some of the family and went to lunch at a restaurant called LuLu's where they served Mediterranean food (layout 1). After lunch, we regrouped and went to a farm to show Amelia, Tysen's brother's girlfriend, the cows, which she loves (layout 2). Then, that night we (being myself, Tysen, his brother, brother's girlfriend, and his mom) went to the Blue Mounds State Park to camp for the night (layout 3).

Day 2: The morning of June 29th, we got up and went biking on the path from Blue Mounds to Riley. On the trip we stopped and ate some wild berries (no fear, they weren't poisonous). On the way back we stopped for lunch in a little town that had wooden troll carvings (layout 1). Once back at camp, we packed up and drove back to Madison to enjoy a BBQ at the Curran's house, where we celebrated Sandy's birthday and Laura & Kelly's wedding (gave them their family gift for the big party the next day!) (layout 2).

Based on sketch by Valerie Salmon

Day 3: Saturday morning we woke up and went to the Madison farmer's market at the capitol building in Madison, WI (layout). I have another layout planned showcasing the fresh fruits, veggies, flowers, and local talent we observed at the market. Plus, layouts from the rest of the activities of the day... stay tuned.

More layouts...

2007-06-19T18:24:00.000-05:00

From a few weekends ago...

DC fireworks, 2006.

Tysen's Fro, May 2006.

Snakes on a Plane

Christmas layouts

2007-06-19T17:04:00.000-05:00

Been trying to scrap some lately, and as a way to avoid finishing the map overview pages of my NZ album. Here are a few pages I added to my 8x8 Christmas Album from last year.

Our 2006 family photo.

Trees at both my mom and aunt's houses in Florida.

The standard photos taken every Christmas with my mom's family... The height line-up, the group photo, and the silly face photo!

Every year people from my high school get together at a restaurant back in Jax, FL to catch up. The first year approx. 20-30 people stopped by. Since then, the numbers have dwindled with approx. 10 showing up last year.

More layouts to come soon once I get them photographed!

Better Late than Never

2007-05-17T16:10:00.000-05:00

So I totally meant to post these on Sunday, i.e. Mother's Day, but somehow got distracted and didn't get around to it until now. I made these cards way in advance of Mother's day, and actually just got around to sending them to the respective mothers today! So what if I'm a little behind! :) Anyway, the patterned paper is from a kit I got a Target, the stamps (flowers and text) are from the $1 bin at Michaels, and the rest was from my stash.

So, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

Finally

2007-04-27T15:32:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile, I know... not very good at keeping up with my promises, or new years ideas (not resolutions...too much pressure to keep those). Anyways, I finally got a promotion at work that I've been talking about and working towards for what seems like months... So, since I work for the state, it's not really a promotion since I had to apply and interview for the position, but the job came with more money so I call it a promotion. So, I'm now a permit writer instead of an inspector, which means a bunch more work and responsibility. It should be interesting!!! My official start date is the 10th of May, but I've already started moving some of my things into my new office... yep that's right, no more cubicle for me. I'm moving to a windowless office which I'll share with a co-worker who works from our office twice a week (so I'll get 3 days to myself). Anyway, I'm starting to think that I'm going to be in over my head with the outstanding permits we have in our office (some from 2001!) but hopefully all will go well and I'll get lots of help along the way!

Been creative lately!

2007-04-07T12:48:00.000-05:00

Well, so much for my attempt at blogging more frequently. I'll guess you'll just get what you get. Anyway, I've finally been motivated to do some crafty things. YAY! :)

Here's a few thank you cards I made several weeks ago to thank family member's for b-day presents. They've been received by their recipients, so it's safe to post them here.

And, some new birthday cards I made last night. Same card, just two different orientations.

And, at last, a scrapbooking layout that I made today. It was really hard to put this layout together, since all the photos were printed as 4x6s, and I've gotten used to printing smaller photos for use in layouts. But on the whole, I like the way the page turned out.

Anyway, I've been inspired to do more crafting, so I'll be spending some time on the computer this afternoon looking for photos to print. Ready to get together AS for some scrap time next weekend?

More Layouts!

2007-01-31T21:13:00.000-05:00

Almost done with the scrapbook for New Zealand.. well, the pages with pictures. Next will come the overview pages which will include maps of our driving, pinpointing stops we made along the way, and summaries of what we did each day. That's project No. 2!

Anyway, on to the layouts!

Day 12:
Yellow-Eyed Penguins

Watching the yellow-eyed penguins come home was quite exciting. These penguins are quite shy and came ashore one by one, each one coming up about 20-30 minutes apart. It was annoying waiting for them to come ashore, but well worth the wait. We saw five penguins total, although it seems like more.

Day 13:
Otago Peninsula

Photos on the left page were taken at the Royal Albatross Centre... unfortunately, we saw no albatross as it as the wrong time of the year. Instead, we saw sea gulls, herons, and shags (or cormorants). The right page shows of photos from around the Otago Peninsula.

Moeraki Boulders

These boulders are on Koekohe beach in Moeraki. These boulders originally formed in ancient sea floor sediments during the early Paleocene some 60 million years ago and have been exposed through shoreline erosion from black mudstone coastal cliffs.

Day 14:
Willowbank Wildlife Park - still to come (way too many photos to crop - 28!!)

Day 15:
Images of Christchurch

Photos taken mostly on day 15 while walking around Christchurch. Some photos (DuxLux and metal statue are from day 14 when we went to dinner in Christchurch and did some tourist shopping!).

Botanical Gardens

We walked around Christchurch all morning before catching our flight out that afternoon. These are images from the Christchurch botanical gardens. I had lots of fun using the macro setting on my point-n-shoot camera capturing these flowers.

Yummy Caramel Apple Cake

2007-01-31T20:21:00.000-05:00

So, I elected myself to be the group baker in our office. Basically, this means that on people's birthdays, I bake cakes and as a group we get together to celebrate the birthday and eat cake. Anyways, the most recent cake I made was this Caramel Apple Cake. I wanted to make something extra special since it was this co-worker's 50th birthday and I saw this recipe in the Kraft Food & Family magazine and decided it would be yummy. And boy was it!

You can find the recipe online here.

The only difference between my cake and the cake pictured with the recipe is that I waited to add the caramel until at work, because if you add the caramel and let the cake sit, it will get soggy!

Anyway, I got rave reviews on this cake! I also plan to make it again on other special occasions!

A few more layouts from this weekend

2007-01-21T16:18:00.000-05:00

Milford Sound

Fossil Forest

Nugget Point

I also made a layout for some birds at the Otago Peninsula Royal Albatross Centre (no albatrosses were viewed unfortunately), but my cat Zero hopped on the layout and left claw marks through some of the photos, so I'm going to reprint the two photos he ruined then post the layout.

More New Zealand

2007-01-18T22:23:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been a busy scrapper recently... Here's some more layouts from NZ:

Day 8 (events happened on the same day as the Fox Glacier Picture posted previously!)
Pancake Rocks & Blowholes, Punakaiki, NZ

Gillespies Beach, Fox Glacier, NZ

NZ Sunset, Fox Glacier, NZ

Day 9
Franz Josef Glacier Hike, Franz Josef, NZ

Franz Josef Ice Pool Swimming

Day 10
Jip Jop, Te Anau, NZ

Day 10 was a big driving day. In addition to eating ice cream, we also went on a Glowworms tour in Te Anau. Unfortunately, you can't take pictures while on the tour because light and noise will disturb the glowworms. Go here to find out more about these interesting creatures! (The link isn't where we went, but the photo is pretty good of the glowworms.

Day 11 Milford Sound Boat Cruise, Milford Sound, NZ
(Layout is complete, but I had some photo issues so it will have to be posted at a later date).

Underwater Adventure, Milford Sound, NZ

Kea, Milford Sound, NZ

Chasm, Milford Sound, NZ

Day 12
Curio Bay, NZ

plus, more to come from Day 12... Lord of the Rings Sites, Petrified Forest, Nugget Point, and Yellow-Eyed Penguins

Today's VA State History Lesson

2007-01-12T12:21:00.000-05:00

It's wierd to just come off the Christmas and New Year's holidays and then get another long weekend. Crazy. And, it's all because I work for the state of Virginia and I get both Lee-Jackson Day (today) and Martin Luther King Day (Monday). Lee-Jackson Day celebrates the birthdays of Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. The original holiday was created in 1889 to celebrate Lee's birthday, and Jackson's name was added to the holiday in 1904. Then, when President Reagan approved Jan. 15th as Martin Luther King Day, Lee-Jackson-King day was born, celebrating both the Confederate generals and the civil rights leader. Due to the incongruous nature of the holiday, Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore split the holidays in 2000, giving Virginia state employees a four day weekend as Lee-Jackson day is celebrated the Friday before Martin Luther King Day.

So, now that I have off this long weekend, it's hard to decide what to do. Right now I'm getting some photos ready to print up for the infamous New Zealand scrapbook that will one day be finished. As for the rest of the weekend, the only concrete plans are to go and sign the lease to our new place tomorrow. Other than that, we'll probably just be hanging out and avoiding the bad weather. Oooh, and now we are scheduling hair cut appointments to get haircuts... hopefully we'll be quite stylish! :)

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Finally

2007-01-04T19:48:00.000-05:00

After see other people posting about the New Year, I figured I should jump on the band wagon and stop avoiding my blog. Well, its not that I really am avoiding it, I just can't blog at work, and that was when I normally would blog at my old job. One resolution for 2007, try to improve on my blogging frequency! I'll try, but I make no promises!

Anyway, as for the holidays, we spent a good chunk of it traveling around Florida. We left VA around 2pm on Thursday, Dec. 21 and headed to Jacksonville FL to stay with my parents and to visit with Tysen's dad. We were in Jacksonville from late Thursday night to Sunday morning, when we traveled to Orlando to have a family Christmas with my mom's sister and their family. Then, Sunday evening we drove to St. Petersburg FL to spend time with Tysen's mom and brother. We stayed there until Tuesday Dec. 26 around noon and then headed back to Jax to go to a mini/imprompto high school reunion. We couldn't stay long, as we started our trek back to VA on Tuesday night. I drove until about 1:30AM when I pulled over at a hotel in Florence SC to spend the night. On Wednesday morning we got up and drove to Williamsburg to meet up with Tysen's grandmother and other family on his dad's side. We stayed with them from lunch through to dinner when we finally got in the car and finished the drive home. Tysen and I then both went to work on Thursday, and I skipped out Friday to run some necessary errands.

That brings us to New Year's weekend which was pretty uneventful for the two of us. Since we spent so much time traveling and little time relaxing over Christmas weekend, we spend most of the New Year's weekend planted on the futon either playing video games or reading. The only productive thing done was re-financing our car loan (Oh yeah, have I mentioned that we got a new car! A 2007 Toyota Camry in dark metallic blue - very pretty!) and finding us a new place to live, which was all done on Friday when I took my day off work.

So, this leads in to our other news, which is that we are moving! Yipee! We are moving into a rental townhome in Alexandria next month, so we'll be quite busy packing things up. Fortunately, we have most of the month of February to move, although we'll have to pay two rents for that month. We'll be sure to update you all on the new place so you can come to our "Check out our new place" party sometime in March (hopefully!)

Well, that's it for me. Hope all is well with everyone out there! Hope you all are having a great start to 2007!

More New Zealand... about time!

2006-11-29T20:14:00.000-05:00

Here's some more recent scrapbook pages I've completed from my trip to New Zealand. I've been skipping around on doing some of the pages, so there are some gaps in the sequence, but eventually they'll be filled. Enjoy!

Missing layout from Day 3: Overview layout of Wai-O-Tapu geothermal area. Pictures on the left are of the colorful pools and sites.

Day 5: Driving from Ohakune to Wellington
Rainbow - page dedicated to one of the rainbows we saw on our drive to Wellington. We saw a few other rainbows later in our trip, but didn't take any pictures.

Wind Turbines - In Ashurst, we stoped to take pictures of these wind turbines on the hill.

Owlcatraz - On the way to Wellington we stopped at Owlcatraz to see the owls and other animals in the park. The owls were all named after famous people, like Owl Capone, Owlie McPherson, Owlvis Prestley (you get the idea). The owls are protected in NZ so we didn't get any pictures, but we got pictures of their other animals, like the NZ pigeon (it's twice the size of a US pigeon), the kune kune pig, land beasts, and more. Check out flickr for notes on the animals in the pictures.

Day 6: Ferry ride from Wellington, NZ on the North Island to Picton, NZ on the South Island. After the ferry ride, we drove from Picton to Motuake, where we had dinner at Hot Mama's, a unique organic/vegetarian/wheat-gluten free restaurant. The food was very yummy!

Coming soon there will be a 2-page spread of photos we took while on the ferry and along the mountain road between Picton and Motuake.

Day 7: Kayaking and Water Taxi around the Abel Tasman area.
Kayaking - we went on a guided kayak tour. The day was beautiful for kayaking! We started out with about an hour of kayaking, then we stopped on a beach to have tea and cookies before heading back to shore. The tides varied there so much due to the full moon that we returned to shore at a different place than we left, because the tied had gone out so much that the area where we left from was dry about 2.5 hours later.

Abel Tasman Water Taxi & Walk - after kayaking, we headed back to the office to each lunch. After lunch we boarded a boat to take a water tour of the surrounding coves and beaches. Towards the end we were dropped off on one beach and given 30 minutes to take the trail to the next beach over where we'd be picked up and taken back to the office. The blank pink space on this layout will eventually have journalling about the tour.

Day 8: Punakaiki
Beach Camp - on the monring of day 8, we walked around the beach at the camp where we stayed the night before in the campervan. We picked up tons of round smooth stones that we eventually brought back with us.

Also on Day 8 we saw the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. I've printed the pictures from this park, but have yet to scrapbook them... they will appear here at a later date, in addition to a layout from Gillespies Beach which we stopped at near Fox Glacier.

Fox Glacier - on Day 9 we hiked on the Franz Josef Glacier, however, on day 8 we got to town early, so we drove on to Fox Glacier and Gillespies beach. Here's some pictures of the glacer from the road. On the way to the holiday park after the beach, tysen took tons of pictures as the sun set over the area. He even coaxed me out of the van and into the cold to take this picture of us.

** Totally in love with this layout. I bought the paper at Recollections the other day. It's from SEI's Paisley & Petals collection, and I loved how all the paper went together to create the layout!

Alright, that's all for now. I've still got quite a bit of this album to complete before Christmas when I hope to finish the album so I can show it off to family. I'm on day 9, and we spent 15 days there, so just a bit left to go. Wish me luck! Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake

2006-11-12T18:06:00.000-05:00

Since I had Friday off for Veteran's Day, I had decided I would make a cheesecake from scratch for my friend AS's party on Friday evening. After recently watching an episode of Take Home Chef on TLC, I got the inspiration to make a candy cheesecake, and since peanut butter cups are the best candy to put in baked goods, I decided to make a peanut butter cup cheesecake. I've never made one of these before, and found the recipie on CDKitchen. Apparently the recipe is supposed to be a close resemblance to the peanut butter cup cheesecake at Applebee's. All I can say is that this cheesecake was delicious. And, everyone at the party seemed to enjoy it too. And, one of the best parts about it, was that I substituted low-fat ingredients (like low fat cream cheese and low fat oreos) in the recipe to help counteract the fat and calories in the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and other ingredients.

(Picture taken by AS after the first few peices had been cut and some devoured.)

PS - I hope to upload a few more NZ scrapbook layouts either tonight or hopefully by tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Ultimate, Blonde Brownies, & Fall Colors

2006-11-05T18:27:00.000-05:00

Oohh! How exciting, a real post, other than scrapbooking uploads. So, I've been staying moderately busy with my new job, working out (although I've been slacking greatly these last two weeks), and just getting stuff done around the apartment, oh, and X-mas shopping. Anyway, this weekend we went to MD on Saturday to buy presents for family and look at sewing machines, because that is what I wanted for Christmas. So, we went to MD because I wanted to look at machines at the Joann's Superstore in Columbia. Well, as it turns out, they really only sell two brands of sewing machines and they didn't have much in the lower price range. So, we went to Target and found a great little machine that I'll be getting for Christmas. We were also shopping with a Gift Card to Macys which I got through my credit card reward points, and had plans to buy out the rest of our formal china, however, the china wasn't it's usual 40% off (even though they were having a sale) so I didn't get the china. Maybe another day. Also during our shopping trip, we bought some things for the kitchen at Bed, Bath, & Beyond, and Tysen got some new loafers at DSW. On our way back from MD, we stopped in College Park to have dinner with my brother. We were craving pizza, and got some at a very crappy Pizza Hut. But, all in all, a good and busy day.

Now, on to Sunday. Tysen's second round of the Ultimate tourneyment was this weekend at Anacostia. He told one (or more) or his teammates that he'd have me make something for the tournament, so this morning I got up early to bake some blonde brownines. I first had to run up the street to Food Lion to get some last minute ingredients, then made these browning pictured below. The brownies came out pretty good and everyone seemed to like them.

Recipie:
2 cups packed brown sugar
2/3 cup butter or margarin
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup (6oz) chopped sweet cooking chocolate
2/3 cup chopped hazelnuts or almonds (I'd recommend almonds, but I made these with hazelnuts because the store didn't have any almonds that I could find.)

In a large saucepan heat brown sugar and butter/margarine, stirring constantly till sugar dissolves. Remove pan from heat. Cool slightly. Add eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla. Beat slightly by hand just till combined. Stir in flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
Spread batter in a greased 13x9x2 in baking pan. Sprinkle with chopped chocolate and hazelnuts/almonds. (I recommend mixing some of the chocolate and nuts in with the batter. I seem to have a lot of the topping fall off the brownies because it didn't stick.)
Bake for 35 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Cut into bars.

Here's a picture of the changing leaves at Anacostia Park. It was pretty cold out, so I didn't take any pictures except of these two trees (and the above brownies). I'm not looking forward to the extreme cold weather, but the leaves changing is nice to watch.

NZ Days 2 - 4

2006-10-31T18:48:00.000-05:00

Been awhile since any updates here, but have no fear, I've been busy scrapping away each weekend. Here's a collection of pages that I put together over the last two weekends encompassing Days 2 through 4 of our trip.

Day 2:
Sunrise over Auckland

NZ Sunrise over Auckland. An insert moves up on the page to reveal a picture of the sky at different times of the day.

Miranda Birdshore

On the morning of Day 2 we drove to the Miranda Bird Shore to see some birds. Unfortunately, we were there at the wrong time of day, so we only saw a few birds instead of the many that are known to migrate there.
** Scraplift of a page by April Peterson in the October 2006 Creating Keepsakes Magazine.

Hell's Gate Spa

Wai Ora Spa at Hell's Gate. The spa package included a walk through their geothermal area, hence the pictures, followed by a mud bath, a soak in the sulfur pool, and a 1 hour full body massage. How nice!
** Scraplift of a Kim Kesti page in the October 2006 Creating Keepsakes Magazine.

Day 3:
Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland

At the start of our walk around the park, we went to see the Lady Knox Geyser erupt. It was disappointing however that the guide had to add soap to the geyser to cause it to erupt each day.

The Champagne Pool was one of the bigger areas of the park, which had this neat orange growth on the side of the pool caused by iron.

They had an area of mud pits/pools that we stopped at and took tons of pictures. Here's some of the neat spatters the mud made.

I've also put together half of a 2-pg layout for the Wai-O-Tapu geothermal park. Once I finish the other page, I'll backtrack and upload it for all to see.

Rotorua Museum

After spending the morning at the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, we drove to Rotorua and walked around the tourist-y shops and went to the museum, which is the old bath house.

Day 4:
Mt. Tongariro Hike

NZ Day 1

2006-10-09T10:41:00.000-05:00

Well, the long awaited start to the New Zealand pictures and stories. We plan to post some more indepth photo galleries, maps, and stories on Perszyk101, but until then, here's a start. Here's 3 scrapbooking layouts from our first day in New Zealand.

The Campervan:

Upon arriving in Auckland, NZ we got our campervan. Here's some different views of the van. The journalling describes what was in the van (stove, microwave, etc) and our initial troubles driving the van.

Mill Bay:

Once we got settled in the van, we started driving around Auckland and the Waitakere region. We were heading for a beach along the coast, but due to the small wind-y roads, we stopped a few kilometers short at Mill Bay.

Arataki Visitor Centre:

On our way to our hotel for the evening, we stopped at this visitors centre in Waitakere. Displayed are some Maori totem pole carvings, the fern/symbol of NZ and some views from the visitors centre.

Stay tuned for pictures/layouts to come in the near future. My next layout is from the begining of day 2. I'll try to finish all of the layouts from day 2 before posting any of them, so you'll get a complete recap of each day.

Tofu Pot Pie

2006-09-26T18:13:00.000-05:00

Tonight's dinner was a complete experiment. While at the grocery store, I picked up a can of Cambell's Cream of Potato Condensed Soup. On the back it had a recipie for "Easy Chicken Pot Pie." Since we don't eat meat, I thought we could replace the chicken with tofu. So, I picked up the rest of the ingredients, and made the meal when I got home.
So, now for the recipie:
1 can (10-3/4 oz.) Campbell's Cream of Potato Soup
3/4 cup milk
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
1 cup frozen mixed vegetables, thawed (I used Birds Eye Mixed Veggies - carrots, peas, corn, green beans)
8-10 oz. cubed tofu (I used ~2/3 of a 140z. pkg Extra Firm Nasoya tofu)
1 egg
1 cup all purpose baking mix (I used Bisquick)

PREHEAT Oven to 400 deg F
MIX soup, 1/4 cup milk, black pepper, vegetables, and tofu in 9" pie plate
MIX remaining milk, egg, and baking mix. Pour over tofu/veggie mixture. Bake 30 minutes or until hot and topping is golden.

ENJOY!

Wedded Bliss

2006-09-25T17:20:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in my last post, this past weekend I traveled to Alabama for a friends wedding. As I promised my friend, I intended on having a good time, and a good time was had by all! The event started out on Thursday night when Tysen and I flew to Atlanta from DC, then rented a car and drove to Attalla, AL. We got in late, and I stayed up even later making the favors/decorations for the Bridal Luncheon the next morning. Here are the favors I made:The mugs were purchased from World Market and filled with all kinds of goodies pertaining to tea, hot chocolate, and coffee. I found this theme fitting as the location of the luncheon was a coffee house that served good southern food.

Also on Friday, there was the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal went well, although it did start raining, which was bad since the wedding was supposed to be outdoors. Luckily, we were able to continue the rehearsal under the pole barn where the wedding reception was going to be held. The rehearsal dinner was held at Noccolula Falls, where the groom's family served barbeque.

Saturday was the big day! In the morning the bridesmaids and the bride got together at a local salon and got our hair done. The style was half-up and poofy. Here's a picture. No one really liked it, but what could we do...it's what the bride wanted (or if not the bride, the crazy wedding coordinator/hairdresser).Then, there was the wedding. Fortunately, the weather held out and it didn't rain at all, until after the bride and groom left in their limo. We were lucky considering there were tornado warnings and heavy rains during the rehearsal dinner.
(Ok, so the panoramic is pretty bad, as you can see where the photo was stitched, but since Tysen's not around to teach me how to use his complicated programs, this is what you get.)

After the I do's were said, there was the reception under the pole barn.
The reception was lots of fun. Even though it was all outside without air conditioning, the previous day's rain had cooled off the temperatures and it was bearable. A few of my fellow sorority sisters came to the wedding, so it was a bit of a family reunion of sorts for me, as the bride was my first sister-daughter in the sorority, while my second kid also attended, and the bride's kid came as well. Here's a picture of us. Too bad it's blurry...hopefully we can get a copy of the photo from the professional photographer.
And that's about everything. We have a bunch more photos, but some are kind of bad since it was pretty dark out. After the wedding we went back to the hotel and hung out with some of the other wedding guests drinking and eating leftover mac-n-cheese and oreos.

Then, Sunday morning, we drove back to Atlanta to catch our plane back to DC. On the way, we stopped at a Waffle House near the airport and hand lunch with Tysen's little brother and his girlfriend and one of Tysen's little brothers in the fraternity (who also happens to be the big brother to Tysen's real brother - did you follow that?).

Now that we are back in DC and I no longer need to have any time off, I've finally started my official work schedule of 7am - 3:30pm. It was definatley great to leave work at 3:30 today, which has given me plenty of time to work out and update all of you on my weekend. Maybe eventually I'll get around to posting NZ stuff.

Home Again, Home Again

2006-09-20T22:46:00.000-05:00

Well, I've technically been home since Sunday, but have finally gotten around to posting here to let you all know. So, before Sunday, I spent the past two weeks travelling all around New Zealand on my Honeymoon... Ok, you might be wondering why I call it a Honeymoon when I got married over a year ago. Well, we post-poned the honeymoon in favor of moving to VA after our wedding last year.

The trip was lots of fun, although I did get tired of living out of a campervan. We took tons of pictures and saw tons of sites. I don't know how many pictures will actually make it here, but here's one of my favorites that I think Tysen took of the sunrise over downtown Auckland.

And, staying home isn't lasting long... This weekend (tomorrow actually), Tysen and I are flying down to Atlanta then driving to Alabama for a friends wedding that I'm in. The wedding and subsequent festivities should be fun, but right now I'm extremely exhausted from our NZ trip and from working 10 hour days so that I can take Friday off to be in Alabama. It's totally worth it, although I'm starting to get cranky from all the craziness. Fortunately, things should slow down soon! :)

Out of Country

2006-09-01T14:34:00.000-05:00

Well, Tysen and I have made it to New Zealand for our Honeymoon! We've got a busy trip planned travelling both the North and South Islands of New Zealand. So, sorry for teasing you last week with a "Friday Favorite", as I won't be posting another one for a couple of weeks. See you all when we get back!

Chirp Chirp

2006-08-28T18:28:00.000-05:00

Sorry, but this post is not going to be about cute little birds, but crickets. Today, there were crickets in our office. Somehow they've infiltrated the building and taken up refuge in a cubicle near by. When the office gets really quiet, they get really loud. So, all day we listened to chirping crickets.

At one point one of the crickets came out, and I was brought in to kill it with my steel-toe shoe. Unfortunately, they didn't know I'm not big on killing bugs manually, as they crunch when you hit them and sometimes squirt out puss. I much prefer the route of bug spray. Well finally, around 3:30pm or so, the bug man came to the rescue and sprayed the corner where the crickets were. It was nice and quiet for the 10 or so minutes after he left, and then they started their song again. Apparently not having found the poison yet. Hopefully there won't be any chirping crickets tomorrow as I'll be in the office for most of the day by myself, and the chirping makes it quite difficult to concentrate and get anything done!

Scrapbooking Time

2006-08-27T20:01:00.000-05:00

I got together with AS today to do a little scrapbooking. I haven't scrapbooked in over a month, so it was nice to get the creative juices flowing and get some pages out of the way. These are pages displaying pictures from the 2003/2004 trip Tysen and I took to San Francisco, CA. Tysen's mom bought us the plane tickets for Christmas, and we were able to stay with Tysen's relatives.

Point Reyes & Chimney Rock in Marin County, CA.

The red tab with journaling pulls out to display a third panoramic sized photo, completing the pages' panoramic beach photo.

Point Reyes & Chimney Rock: Layout 2

Day 2: Muir Woods

Also, a crafty project I put together a few weeks ago for my brother's birthday. It's just a box with the sides removed then covered in dollar store wrapping paper. Then, it's filled with my brother's favorite junk foods. I gave it to him for his birthday (obviously), but I included lots of snack foods since he was going back to school early to start a school job, but the dining halls weren't going to be open yet. I talked to him today and he said he very much enjoyed all the snacks! :)

Friday Favorites

2006-08-25T16:20:00.000-05:00

Back by request...it's Friday Favorites!

This week: Now that summer's almost over and kids are preparing to go back to school, the summer TV series are winding down in preparation for the new Fall Season. So I ask, what was your favorite summer TV show?

Mine was "So you think you can dance" (SYTYCD). I'm a little late in writing about this show as the season finale was last week. If you don't know, the show aired on Fox and the format was similar to American Idol (AI), except the contestants perform dance routines. I watched this show last summer and wasn't all that impressed with the participants, but this season I was quite proud of the final 10 and Icouldn't always guess who was going home next. My biggest problem with the show was how they changed the voting method half way through. Initially, America's votes determined the bottom 3 guys and the bottom 3 girls then the judges decided which guy and which girl would go home. Then, half way through, America's votes determined who went home each week (guy and girl)--This is what I don't like about AI--America doesn't know talent, they vote for who they like best based on personality and looks and that's not always everything. To prove my point, I really thought Travis should have won SYTYCD based on his versatility and technical skill but Benji won because he was able to play the crowd. I guess that's just the way the reality show world works.

So, what was your favority summer series?

And, if you watched SYTYCD, who were your favorite dancers? [I liked Allison and Travis]

Weekend Fun!

2006-08-14T21:11:00.000-05:00

So much went on this weekend, that I was incredibly exhausted at work today! So, here's the run-down.

Friday: Tysen & I celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary. Technically our anniversary was Sunday, but I was going to be out of town, so we celebrated early. The plan was to make cheese fondue and chill. I went to the store to get all the fresh fondue ingredients, and as a surprise I also got some flowers, strawberries to dip in chocolate, and a carrot cake (we didn't save the top tier of or wedding cake, but our wedding cake was carrot cake, so I figured it'd do). I got home before Tysen and set up the dining room laying out a table cloth and setting the table. Tysen was quite surprised, I think! He also brought home some red roses for me, which I added to the bouquet of pink/orange roses and carnations I had picked up. Here's the formal dinner table before we sat down to eat.

We had a cheddar cheese fondue with sourdough bread, carrots, broccoli, and green apples. The fondue was a little soupy, but I'll chalk that up to this being the first time we ever made fondue on our own, and we had to substitute some ingredients because I didn't get them. Oops!

Saturday: I was dropped off at BWI early to catch a flight to Birmingham. Despite the new travel restrictions, it only took me 25 minutes to check my luggage and go through security, even though the lines to check bags were really long. The flight to AL was pretty uneventful, except that I sat next to an older Indian woman who didn't speak much English, so I helped her order her drink on the plane as well as find baggage claim, where she met up with her daughter. Then, I got a rental car. What I love about rental cars is that you can sign up for the economy or compact car and if they don't have any on the lot you get a free upgrade. Well, I got upgraded to a luxury car (a 2007 Buick Lucerne with leather seats and all kinds of bells and whistles on the inside). Due to lots of flight delays caused by the new flight restrictions, the rental company was all out of cars (even though I had a reservation) and as soon as someone returned a car, it was immediately sent to be cleaned then came back for the next person in line. Thankfully I didn't get the minivan that went right before me.

So, after getting my car (after waiting for almost 40 minutes) I drove north to Attalla to meet up with my friend Amy who's getting married next month and was having her wedding shower this weekend. I got to hang out with her, her family, and her fiance's parents. We went to dinner at Jitters, a hole in the wall coffee shop/restaurant with very yummy food (I had squash casserole, green beans, candied yams, and a small house salad - all very good southern cooking). That night the youngins (me, Amy, Amy's brother and Amy's brother's wife along with Amy's fiance via a phone connection) challenged the parents (both sets) to a game of Trivial Pursuit. After playing for hours, we finally tied. That night I stayed in Amy's brother's old room at her parents house. The room was still decorated as if Amy's brother lived there and had a bunch of deer antlers on display around the room, as well as a deer head mounted over the bed. So, here's what I saw when going to bed:

Deer head mounted above the head of the bed.

View of deer from where I put my head to sleep.

Sunday: Today was the day of the shower. They were expecting 50-60 guests (probably more like 30-40 actually stopped by). I got to meet some of the other bridesmaids in the wedding. Here's a picture of Amy practicing her excited face for when she opens presents.

The shower was fun, just a mingling of people catching up. No real shower games or anything, just eating food, chatting, and opening presents. The shower ended at 4pm and then I had to hop back in my rental car to get back to the airport to return to DC. My return flights were slightly delayed, but that only got me back about 5 minutes late. After driving back from BWI, it was 2am when we finally got in bed. The alarm started going off at 5:15am and I finally managed to get out of bed by 6:15am, giving me about 4 hours of sleep.

Monday: And now, after posting this blog message, it is again past my bedtime and I must hurry off. My mom and brother are heading up to DC tomorrow to drop my brother off at University of MD to start his fall semester, so we'll be going out to dinner, destination unknown. Any ideas?

Chocolate Mousse

2006-08-08T19:33:00.000-05:00

So, this weekend I made a chocolate dessert to share with friends, and since I always like to try new recipies, I made a chocolate mousse that was recommended by my friend Ashley. A while back she posted the recipie for a chocolate mousse made from tofu. Yes, I said TOFU! Normally I would be skeptical of this, but her pictures made the dessert look yummy, and she gave it a good review, so I figured it had to be good. And, it was! My version came out a little softer than what her pictures look like, so it was almost the consistency of chocolate pudding, but it was still very good. I think next time I make this reicpie I'll have to use a different brand of tofu, as I used Silken brand, and that brand, even though I used the extra firm, usually comes out very soft and smooshy, which I'm guessing led to the soft mousse. But, nonetheless, it turned out yummy and I got nothing but compliments from all who tried it. I wonder if my friends will think differently now that they know tofu was in the mousse!

What's new?

2006-08-03T21:07:00.000-05:00

Well, definitely liking the new job, mostly because I'm not nearly as concerned as I used to be about how I spend my time at work since I'm no longer a consultant! Woo hoo! Works been good. I finally got my assigned counties, so now I know what facilities I'll be visiting regularly so I've been doing a lot of file review to get prepared.

Also, I've been going to the gym ALOT lately! One of my co-workers has a gym membership at the same gym as me so we've been attending the evening classes. Tuesday night we spent 30 minutes on the treadmill walking then took the 30 minute Abs & Back Class (which wasn't worth it - the teacher was obsessed with planks and hovers). Wednesday I did 20 minutes on the treadmill then my co-worker and I took the 1-hr Body Step class which is basically just a step class for beginners, however I had some trouble keeping the right feet going. And tonight, I spent a record 2.5 hours at the gym!!! First I did 30 minutes walking on the treadmill, then when my co-worker showed up we took the Abs & Back class again (but this time we did a circuit training, so we did each exercise for 1 minute then rotated around the room doing various ab and back exercises - much better than the other ab/back class) and then we took the 1-hr Body Combat class (a mix of boxing/kickboxing). All in all, it's been fun, but I've definitely been sore from the classes!

Monday night we went and saw a free screening of Little Miss Sunshine. I think it comes out Friday, and I recommend everyone go see it! This movie was hilarious!!! The movie starts out introducing the characters: Steve Carrell plays the brother-in-law who attempted suicide when he lost his job and his gay lover, Greg Kinnear plays the husband who is trying to launch a book/seminar deal on his 9-step success program, Toni Collette plays the wife and is Steve's sister who puts up with everyone, and then there's Greg's father who is a heroin addict who was kicked out of his retirement community, and there are two children: the teen son who gave up speaking because of Neitche and discipline until he gets into Flight School, and their 7-year old daughter who is obsessed with beauty pageants. The plot starts out when the little girl gets a chance to compete in the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant in California and the family, for lack of other resources, packs their VW van and drives from AZ to CA for the pageant. The movie follows the trip to the pageant and contains lots of entertaining stops along the way, all culminating in the Little Miss Sunshine Beauty Pageant. The movie is downright funny and everyone should see it!

Where've I been?

2006-07-27T21:34:00.000-05:00

Well, with it being summer, you'd think I was off vacationing somewhere, but in reality I've been here all along, just staying busy. I'd update my blog more recently, but with my new job, I've had the fear of God put in me to not use the internet too much as "they" are always watching and will be able to pull up screen shots of what you look at on the internet and your computer, and this could result in immediate termination. So, instead, while at work all I do is log into my email accounts and check them, but for no more than probably 1 minute each, and rarely even send response emails. This results in me spending hours at home, when I get the chance, catching up on all the blogs in my blog reader and if I'm not too tired, posting messages here.

The new job is going well. I'm definately happy that I took this job. Everyone I work with is very nice and friendly, and the atmosphere is so laid back. I also like not working in the consulting field anymore for the simple fact that I don't have to track every single minute of my day, and don't feel guilty for taking 5 minutes to go to the bathroom and walk around the building during the day. The only downside is that it's gotten a little slow this week. I know things will pick up, as this week has just been especially slow since the guy who's been training me has been out sick almost the whole week. And tomorrow, I'm practically going to be the only person in the office from our group as everyone is either off on vacation or working in another office. So, it should be fun trying to entertain myself without the internet... And, for 9 hours, as I've been working longer days to save up some time off for the big trip Tysen & I are taking in September.

Hmm...what else is new? Well, I haven't scrapbooked in forever, however I did just read the 4th Harry Potter Book. I'll now have to acquire the 5th so I can catch up in the series before (or soon after) the last book comes out. Went to the screening of Scoop on Monday night. I haven't seen many Woody Allen movies (if any), so I don't have much to compare it too. However, the movie was cute and had it's plot twists, although it also had a few dull moments to deal with. Overall, pretty funny, but if I had to pay to see it, I'd see it on DVD. Tonight I went to bookclub witch was super fun, with yummy food, and good conversation. Tomorrow we're going to the Indian Buffet restaurant in Springfield that we frequent, although we haven't been in a while, so it will be good to go back and get our fill of yummy Indian food.

Well, that seems to be it. I made some very yummy (yummy seems to be my new favorite word) orange cheesecake bars, so I'll try to take a picture this time and post the recipe soon for all to enjoy.

Updates!

2006-07-18T19:15:00.000-05:00

Since starting my new job it's been pretty quiet here, but I hope to get around to having some interesting things to write about...First off, I finished the book I was reading for bookclub, Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld last week. I thought the book was good and an easy read, however I was disappointed in the ending. I wanted the book to end differently. I've noticed this as a theme with the past few books I've read and maybe it's because I enjoy reading murder mystery novels and trying to figure out the ending and usually being shocked by what the author comes up with, whereas with the past few books I've read I felt the endings were just endings and were usually below my expectations. Other than that, I felt a connection to the main character from when I was going to school, especially when I transferred from a private school to a public school and how I was a bit self conscious and very much a people watcher, trying to figure out who I wanted to be and who I wanted my friends to be. So, overall a good read.

This past weeked was somewhat eventful. Saturday night we drove into DC to attend a DJ/House party thrown by one of the ultimate players on Tysen's summer league team. The night was fun overall, however I'm not much into playing drinking games, which is what we ended up doing. However, being the DD, i was playing with diet coke.

Sunday Tysen had an Ultimate game in DC, so I went into DC with him and brought along my camera to take pictures of the memorials near his game. I've started compiling all my DC pictures into folders to prepare for making the DC Scrapbook. Here are some of my favorites:

First stop, the FDR Memorial:

I can't take credit for either of these photos, as Tysen took them.

Next, the Korean War Memorial:

Then, the Lincoln Memorial:

The Vietnam Memorial:

I couldn't get a good picture of the wall with all the people, so I only got a good shot of the Three Soldiers at the Vietnam Memorial. I'll have to go back another time to get a picture of the wall.

The Federal Reserve Building:

The World War II Memorial:

The DC War Memorial:

I'd never heard of this Memorial, and it's tucked in behind some trees between the WWII Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. It's a memorial for the local DC residents who served in World War One.

And finally, the Jefferson Memorial:

Due to ongoing construction on the memorial, I didn't go over to the memorial to take pictures inside.

The New Job

2006-07-11T19:08:00.000-05:00

So far, so good! Everyone I've met and everyone in my "group" is super friendly and nice. Since it's only been two days, I haven't done much actual work, other than reading stuff...but I haven't been bored out of my mind yet (probably because I'm not stressed as to what I'm going to charge my time to!).

As I'm sure you've all been anxiously awaiting, here's my review of the company bathroom: The bathroom has 7 stalls, one of which is a handicapped stall and one is a wider stall than all the rest. So far, I haven't noticed any improper bathroom etiquette. The one thing I have noticed, however, is that there is a basket of magazines kept in the bathroom for you to peruse while in the stall. I found this somewhat odd, as I thought it was mostly a male phenomenon to take reading material into the bathroom with you, however, apparently it is a woman thing too.

Also, even though I only started Monday, today I went on my first site inspection, and tomorrow I'll be going to two more! It's very exciting for me to get out of the office and not have to stare at a computer all day...so, I'm excited. Today I also got taken out to lunch by my boss, and the rest of our group tagged along. I felt so welcome, and it put all the negative thoughts about my old job in the past. This job is looking like it will be a great fit (knock on wood, just incase).

DC Scrapbook

2006-07-07T11:15:00.000-05:00

I've decided that it would be fun to put together a scrapbook of the sites... this way, when friends and family come to visit us and ask us where they should go, they can flip through a scrapbook filled with maps and pictures of museums, monuments, and historical buildings in the area and decide what they want to see. So, my plan is to make an 8x8 album filled with pictures, maps, etc. of all the popular sites in DC. I started out my project yesterday, when I went into DC to meet with Tysen, Matt, and Lauren for lunch. After lunch I went to the Natural History and Air & Space Museums and took some pictures for the scrapbook. Here's some of the best photos I took.

Natural History Museum:

The Museum...

Leatherback Turtle

Quartz

This was the first thing you saw as you entered the museum. When I visited DC in 5th grade, the T-Rex fossil was front and center... T-Rex has now been moved to a side exhibit with the rest of the dinasaurs.

Display in the African Exihbit.

Air & Space Museum:

The Museum...

NASA Shuttle

Air Balloon with ship

Statue in their art exhibit.

The Red Baron.

Red plane propeller

Side of silver plane.

Yellow Space Sphere.

I've posted a few more pictures on flickr, so you can check them out there. I took a bunch more pictures, but some of them didn't turn out as well. In addition to collecting pictures for my DC album, this also provided me the opportunity to play with my camera and figure out some of the settings....

Food & the 4th...

2006-07-05T06:41:00.000-05:00

Food first: I made these delicious Apricot Macaroon Bars to share at a 4th of July picnic (of sorts) that I attended yesterday on the Mall in DC. The bars turned out so good, that I thought I'd share the recipie incase others wanted to try these yummy bars. If I had thought of it, I should have taken a picture of these yummy treats before I made a mess of them by cutting them up and storing them in tupperware.

Ingredients
Crust:
3/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/4 tsp almond extract
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup shredded coconut

Filling:
1-1/2 cups dried apricots, chopped (I did this with a food processor - might be easier to buy chopped apricots)
1 cup water
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup toasted shredded coconut (I just used regular coconut)

Directions
For crust, in a large mixing bowl beat butter or margarine with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add the granulated sugar and beat till combined. Beat in eggs and almond extract. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour with a wooded spoon. Stir in coconut. Spread the batter into a well-greased 12x9x2" baking pan. Bake in a preheated 350 deg. F oven for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, for filling, in a saucepan combine the dried apricots and water. Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for 7 - 8 minutes, or until apricots are tender. Stir in brown sugar. Cook and stir till sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Spoon over hot crust. Sprinkle evenly with toasted coconut.

Bake in the 350 deg. F oven for 10 minutes more, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a rack. Cut into bars.

and the 4th: Tysen & I biked early in the morning, then headed into DC in the afternoon to watch the fireworks with friends (as well as enjoy the yummy bars mentioned above with some other yummy foods as well). Tysen & I both took pictures of the fireworks with our cameras, which caused the fireworks show to seem soo short since we were both preoccupied with taking pictures instead of just enjoying the show!

Here's my favorite photo out of the ones I took with my new camera!

New Camera

2006-07-03T09:15:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, Tysen and I went to Ritz Camera to get Tysen a telephoto lens for his digital SLR camera and to get some pictures printed for my cousin's wedding album I've been working on. Well, when Tysen got his new digital SLR camera, I started looking at new Sony point & shoot digital cameras. Back when Tysen and I were in college, we both bought Sony P5 digital cameras which were great. When we moved to Virginia, we gave one of the digital cameras to my brother since he was wanting one, and no one wanted to spend the money to buy him one. And, even though there is nothing wrong with the Sony P5 we still have, I wanted an upgrade... So, I bought a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W7 this weekend.Over the weekend Tysen & I went to Ritz Camera to get Tysen a telephoto lens for his camera. We were also It's a fun little camera, and I was quite excited that it was in black, instead of silver, as it seems all cameras now a days are sivler... The camera has all sorts of neat settings, and even has a manual mode. I haven't quite figured out all the manual settings, but it will definately be a fun toy, especially for our upcoming honeymoon! I'll try to post some of the pictures I tok of Tysen and the Mason Neck park later.

Also, this weekend I finished reading The Devil Wears Prada. I found the book very refreshing. I normally read murder mystery type books by James Patterson, Patricia Cornwell, Lisa Scottoline, Stuart Woods, etc., and I was really into reading something more along the lines of "chick-lit". This definately hit the spot. My only problem with the book was the ending. Although I was left feeling happy for the main character, I wanted more out of the ending...I don't want to say too much, to not spoil the book for those of you who've yet to read this book. Although, I'm now interested to see the movie, but will probably just wait until it comes out on DVD and get it through Netflix.

Layouts I completed this weekend. They are all for my cousin's wedding album, and I only have a few pages to go before I'm done. I'm hoping to be finished with the album by the end of the week!

Food from the Couple's Shower.

Guests at the Couple's Shower.

Guests at the Rehearsal Dinner.

What I should have posted Friday!

2006-07-03T09:08:00.000-05:00

So, what was Friday? Only my last day at a job I was really unhappy with! By the time I left, near almost 6pm (when I normally left at 5pm), the company had already deleted my computer access logins, so I couldn't send any more emails, or even access the company's intranet or the regular internet. It was a miracle I could submit my final expense report and time sheet for the week.

Although it's never fun to leave behind the co-workers you liked, I'm so glad I never have to return to that office or do the work I did there. I really liked some of the people I worked with and got to know, but I found it really disheartening for the company that everyone congradulated me on leaving this company in particular, with comments like, "YAY, you're getting out!" Well, I know I'm happy to be out, and I'm enjoying the start of my week off before I start my new job next Monday. I'm looking forward to a change in atmosphere, a much shorter commute, and a change in environmental fields.

Picture Post

2006-06-25T20:41:00.000-05:00

The long awaited pictures of the painted gas pumps:

Now, upclose:

Layout I did last week. Pictures are from Tysen's birthday on St. Patrick's Day (hence the clover paper).

Layouts from this weekends scrapbooking get-together. AS & JC came over we we scrapbooked for a few hours before getting into our bookclub meeting... It was sad that no one else came to this month's bookclub, but hopefully we'll get more people next month!

Bachelorette Party Title Page

Last night out layout... Just pictures of the girls at dinner and at the club.

My cousin dancing with some body builders at her bachelorette party.

Alright, that's all for now. Enjoy!

New Layouts!

2006-06-19T20:25:00.000-05:00

Tonight I had a chance to put the finishing touches on some layouts that have been almost finished for the past few weeks. The three pages are ones I've been working on for my cousin's pre-wedding album.

Bridal Shower

My first layout using tags and objects which move on the page. Inside the Memories pocket, I typed up the memories that guests wrote about the bride to be on regular computer paper then cut them out in the shape of tags. I added green and purple eyelets to the tops and attached the spotted ribbon so the memories can be pulled out and read.

Couples Shower

Layout was inspired by a sketch by Tiare Smith. This page features chipboard letters (which I've never used before) by Marcella K (sold at Target), which I painted black to go with my layout. The top circle was created using black letter stickers surrounding a wedding cake image stamped with versamark ink and heat embossed with red glitter embossing powder.

Fun but Exhausting Weekend

2006-06-19T08:33:00.000-05:00

I had so much fun this weekend, and I can't believe it passed by so quickly. Friday night Tysen and I watched Delicatessen, a movie we had received from Netflix. The movie was just plain odd! It's a French film described as: "Post-apocalyptic surrealist black comedy about the landlord of an apartment building who creates cannibalistic meals for his odd tenants." It was definately odd, entertaining, and gross all at the same time.

Saturday we relaxed at home for the majority of the day. I did a little scrapbooking, but only finished one page, but cut out some letters and journalling for a 2-page layout that is complete except for the letters and journalling. I'm hoping to add these elements to the pages tonight and hopefully get the layouts uploaded. I'm very proud of my newest layouts (they seem very fancy and hip with some of the new scrapping tends). You'll just have to wait and see.

Also on Saturday we went to a vegetarian BBQ at AS & AS's place. Their townhome is lovely and I can't wait until we can afford one just as nice! The BBQ was much fun, and we got to meet some new friends while enjoying lots of yummy food!

On Sunday we went to the Shenandoah National Park and did a hike. It took us almost 3 hours to get there because we took small backroads. Although, one of the benefits of taking these roads was coming across these painted old gas pumps (I'll have to upload pics tonight!!) The hike was fun and a bit tough as we were breaking in new hiking boots. We got lots of pictures that will be up in some form of a web gallery soon. In the evening we met up with my mom who's in town for work. Since we were so tired, we ordered in Chinese food.

Friday Favorites

2006-06-16T07:56:00.000-05:00

So I know I skipped out last week on posting a Friday Favorite, but I've got one this week.

Favorite Pain Killer: ADVIL
Ever since I've had the ability to choose what pain killers to buy, I've always gotten advil. Weather it's regular advil or advil migraine, I think I've always liked the pink shell and the candy flavored coating. Even though I'm not a huge fan of taking pain killers, there are those occasions where my headache is unbearable or I have other body aches which require medicinal intervention.

Today is one of those days. I don't know what I did, but I woke up with a very sore shoulder. When ever I move my head from side to side, up and down, or tilt it, I have this excrutiating pain in my right shoulder. I've described the pain as having a metal rod shoved near my shoulder blade that feels like it could snap in half when I move! So, I took some advil this morning, and hopefully that will help. I also brought along a heating pad to relax the pain while I'm at work, although it doesn't seem to be helping much.

So, what's your favorite pain killer?

Foreshadowing

2006-06-15T08:09:00.000-05:00

Why is it that when someone tells you not to do something, like cut yourself on a knife you are using, you inevitably end up cutting yourself? Maybe this isn't true for everyone, but I was cutting some tape off a tube yesterday with a small pocket knife. I was doing fine until a co-worker reminded not to cut myself, then immediately after those words were spoken, I stabbed my index finger with the knife. Luckily, my finger didn't bleed, and the cut wasn't bad, but still...it made me wonder if the co-worker hadn't said anything, would I have cut myself???

In other news, after all my hinting about big news, I think it's finally safe to post this here! I GOT A NEW JOB! YIPEE! I'll be starting July 10th. The job is much closer to home (can't wait for the 10 minute commute) and my co-workers seem friendly. I'm also looking forward to getting proper training, for once. No more complaining about my current job, not that I do a lot of that on my blog. I'm also hoping for better bathroom ettiquette...

I've been in Baltimore at a job site the past two days, hence the lack of posting. Also, when I get home I've been trying to do some scrapbooking for my cousin's wedding album. I've been working on some pages for their couple's shower, and I've been perturbed at my inability to find some skinny chipboard letters. I know Target sells some, so I might head there for lunch to pick them up. I'm working from a sketch, and I think the letters will be a nice touch to the title page for the shower. Hopefully I'll be able to post the page soon!

Dinner Party Fun

2006-06-11T16:32:00.000-05:00

Last night we hosted a dinner party, and I was super excited because I was able to use the china we received for our wedding! Anyway, we had two couples over for dinner, and I cooked up a 3-course meal. The recipies I used tured out so good, that I'm going to post them here for all to enjoy!

1st Course: Salad - romaine lettuce, walnuts, feta cheese, and raspberry vinegarette dressing

2nd Course:
Spinach & Blue Cheese Phyllo Pastries (from New Vegetarian Entertaining book by Jane Noraika)
Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
12 oz. spinach, washed well
1/2 tsp ground nutmet
1 garlic clove, crushed
a small handful of fresh dill, coarsely chopped
6 oz. blue cheese, such as dolcelatte, cut into small cubes
2 oz. dried apricots (about 3-4), soaked overnight, drained, and sliced
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted in a dry skillet until golden, about 2 oz.
8 oz. phyllo pastry dough
olive oil or melted butter for brushing
salt & pepper
baking tray, lightly oiled.

Directions:
Heat the oil in a wok or skillet over medium heat. Add the spinach, nutmeg, and garlic and stir fry until the spinach has just wilted. Drain through a colander and let cool, then squeeze out the liquid with the back of a spoon. Put the spinach mixture in a bowl and add the dill, blue cheese, apricots, pine nuts, and salt and pepper to taste.

Cut 2 sheets of the phyllo dough to about 12" x 6". Put 1 sheet on a work surface and brush with oil or melted butter. Put the second sheet on top. Divide the filling into 6 portions. Spoon 1 portion along the narrow edge and firmly roll up the double layer of dough, tucking in the ends as you go. Repeat until all the filling has been used and you have 6 rolls.

Transfer to the prepared baking tray and bake in a preheated oven at 350 deg. F for 25 minutes, then turn over and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

Baked Peanut and Rice Pilaf (from The Little Guides: Vegetarian book published by Fog City Press)
Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion chopped
1 cup brown or white long grain rice, or wild rice, rinsed and drained (I used brown long grain rice)
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/8 - 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2 cups water
1/4 tsp salt
8 oz. fresh or thawed frozen peas
2-1/2 oz. peanuts (any kind - I used regular salted peanuts)

Directions:
Heat oil in a large ovenproof frying pan (If you don't have one, use an ordinary frying pan and transfer the rice mixture to a 2-qt. casserole dish when time to cover and bake.) Add onion and cook for 2 minutes. Add rice, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, and cayenne pepper; stir until combined. Add water and salt and bring to a boil.

Cover and bake in a preheated 350 deg. F oven, allowing 35 minutes for brown rice, 20 minutes for white rice, and 40 minutes for wild rice, or until rice is tender and liquid absorbed. Stir in peas and peanuts 10 minutes before rice is done, cover again and continue to bake.

Spiced Carrots: (Personal family recipie)
Ingredients:
4 cups sliced carrots
1/3 cup minced scallions
1/2 stick butter, softened
3 heaping tbsp confectioners sugar
2 tbsp minced parsley
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ginger

Directions:
Boil carrots in salted water until cooked (about 10 minutes). Drain carrots and combine with other ingredients in microwave or oven safe bowl. Bake uncovered in a 350 deg. F oven for 20 minutes or microwave on high until hot (4-8 minutes).

3rd Course: Dessert!
Strawberry & Mascarpone Trifle (from New Vegetarian Entertaining book by Jane Noraika)
Ingredients:
Sponge Cake - 1 stick unsalted butter, softened; 1 cup + 1 tbsp sugar; 4 large eggs, lightly beaten; 1/3 cup all-purpose flour; 3 cups ground almonds (if you can't find ground almonds, use 10 oz. slivered almonds and grind them in a food processor or with a mortar and pestle)
Mint Syrup - 3 tbsp sugar; 12 mint leaves, finely chopped; 1/3 cup water
Trifle Filling - 1 lb. mascarpone cheese, 2 tbsp sugar; 3 egg yolks; 8 oz. raspberries (about 3/4 dry pint); 8 oz. strawberries; small handful of fresh mint leaves
8-in cake pan lined with wax paper

Directions:
To make the sponge cake, put the butter and sugar in a medium bowl and beat with electric beaters until the mixture is pale and creamy. Slowly add the eggs, beating well between each addition. Using a metal spoon, fold in the flour and ground almonds.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake pan and bake in the center of a preheated oven at 350 deg. F. for 40 minutes until springy to the touch or until a skewer can be removed cleanly when inserted in the middle.

To make the mint syrup, put the sugar, mint, and water in a smal saucepan. Bring to a boil and continue to boil until reduced by one-third.

To make filling, put hte mascarpone, sugar, and egg yolks in a bowl. Using electric beaters, beat the mixture until creamy. Using a fork, lightly mash the raspberries into a puree. Chop half the strawberries into small pieces and cut the remainder in half, leaving the stems intact for decoration.

To assemble the trifle, break the cake into large pieces and put into a large dish or 6 individual dishes. Moisten the cake with the mint syrup and add some of the mint leaves. Spoon in the raspberry puree, then the chopped strawberries, then the mascarpone. Top with the strawberry halves, then chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving.

I Scraplifted!

2006-06-08T22:26:00.000-05:00

I was so inspired by AS's recent scrapbook layouts posted to her blog today, that when I got home I scrapped. This weekend I had pulled out these photos of my cat to scrap, but I had no ideas on how to fit them all on a 2-page layout. Well, when I saw AS's Jamica layout, I knew what I wanted to do. Here's my scraplift:

The papers are by Karen Foster and were part of a cat kit I got for Christmas. The ribbon was found in the $1 bin at Michaels.

New Layouts

2006-06-04T15:04:00.000-05:00

I spent some time this weekend working on some scrapboking layouts. Here's my newest layouts!

Page dedicated to the Praying Mantises that kept us company while we waited for U-Haul to send someone to replace our tire which was losing chunks of tire tread on the highway. My first attempt at creating a page with multiple small photos (2x3 and 3x3), printed intentially small to fill up the page.

2-Page layout for when Tysen & I visited our friends MW & DW and their baby girl in OH on our way to my cousin's wedding.

That's all for now!

Blogger is still screwing up my blog, so I'm not able to format the text like I want it, and I get a white screen when I try to go to my blog's page. Hopefully this will be fixed soon, as I don't know what the problem is!

TGIF

2006-06-02T07:32:00.000-05:00

I'm so glad it's Friday! YIPEE! I'm not doing anything special this weekend, but I'm still glad I get 2 days off before I have to come back to work, and that's always a good thing!

I've been having blog issues lately, so I don't know if this message will even show up, as when I go to my blog, I just get a white screen. I don't know what's going on with that, but I'm hoping that by posting this message, my blog will magically work again!

Last night Tysen and I went to see An Inconvenient Truth, staring Al Gore. The movie is all about global warming and the effect it can have on the earth in the somewhat near future. The movie was interesting, and was more of a film lecture, as the movie followed Al Gore has he made speeches on global warming. Some of the pictures and evidence he presented was hard to fathom, how humans have had such a negative impact on our world, and some of the information I had seen before in school. If you are concerned about our environment, you should check out this movie.

Since I skipped out on Friday Favorites last week, I'll try to do two today. Favorite sport to play (or watch, if you don't play): I love playing soccer, even though I haven't played in a few years. I played lots during middle and high school, and once I got to college I played intramurals. Now that I'm living in DC, I've considered joining one of the co-ed leagues, but have never gotten around to it, or I always look it up just have the sign-up for the season has ended. Favorite outdoor activity: I like to go biking. I was never much of a biker as a kid, although I'd ride my bike around the neighborhood, but once I got a car, who needed a bike to get around. But, since being in DC, and since Tysen's mom gave me an old bike she had, Tysen and I have been biking on the trails around Virginia and DC, enjoying ourselves. So, what are your favorite sports and outdoor activities??

I'm sure that there is more news to tell, but I've forgotten. I still can't tell you my secret news, not until I get official word, although I've been informed it's to come. Any guess to what my news is?? (And, Tysen, it's not fair for you to guess!!)

Last Day of May!

2006-05-31T11:55:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it's already the end of May, and even though I love warm weather over cold weather, it got warm here mighty fast. But, I guess that's to be expected since it's almost June!

I very much enjoyed having a 3-day weekend. Tysen and I didn't do too much. We went on a bike ride on Saturday morning, then Sunday we went and saw the 3rd X-men movie. And, on Monday, I think we just hung out around the apartment doing chores such as laundry, etc.

I'm so glad this is a short week. I'm in Baltimore today for work, and tomorrow I'm starting up a big project out in Vegas. Of course, I've never gotten to go to Vegas, I've only been setting up this project in our work office through email and phone calls.

I haven't been scrapbooking much, but did finish the last of the cards my mother-in-law ordered, and shipped those out yesterday. I've also started the scrapbook for my cousin's wedding. I got one bachelorette party page done, and a 2-page layout for one of her bridal showers. The pages are complete, minus the necessary journaling, which I'm waiting on my cousin to send me... should be tonight, so I'll be able to finish up the layouts for good.

I'll have some news soon, assuming all goes well. I'll update you Friday (should know by then!). Don't want to jinx it by putting it here just yet!

Why does it feel like Friday?

2006-05-25T15:26:00.000-05:00

Man... at first it seemed as if this week was flying by, since I spent the first half of Monday in Baltimore, then Tuesday I left early for an appointment, and I can't even really remember Wednesday, and now it's only Thursday, but when I woke up, and all day today, it has felt like Friday! WHY?!?! It is so evil for it to feel like Friday, especially since it's not Friday or even the weekend, because I'll have to come to work tomorrow. :( If I wasn't taking a really long vacation in September, I'd be taking tomorrow of to have a super long holiday weekend!

Not much going on this weekend. Tysen and I are planning two bike trips. On Saturday we'll ride the WO&D Trail, although we aren't sure how far, and on Sunday we'll ride the Mt. Vernon Trail. I've never been on the WO&D Trail, although it crosses right near where I work. Other than that, apparently Tysen has planned for a X-Men Marathon. He's posted on our joint google calendar to watch X-Men 1 on Friday, X-Men 2 on Saturday, and to see X-Men 3 at the theatre on Sunday.

Stopped by Recollections and Michaels in Sterling on my lunch break today. I was looking for some special papers for the scrapbook I'm doing for my cousin. I got some paper, although the only problem is that the paper is only 8x8 and I'm making a 12x12 album, so I'll have to be creative when I use it. I've already got some ideas, so hopefully I'll find some time to scrap this weekend!

Also, I never got around to posting these scrapbook pages. This 2-page layout is from thanksgiving last year up at my grandmother's brother's house in upstate NY.

And I'm back...

2006-05-23T08:53:00.000-05:00

Well, not back from any place in particular, although I did go to Baltimore, MD for work again yesterday. I mean I'm back in a sence to my blog, as I feel it was a bit neglected last week. So, here's a recap of recent events:

Friday: Went to a friend's party in MD. The party was smaller than the usual parties held, but a bunch of us started playing a game called Guesstures. This game was so much fun! It's pretty similar to Sharades, but you had this electronic box which gave you your word, and you had to act it out without making sounds or saying words, and your team guessed the word. You tried to see how many your team could get right in 30 seconds, getting points for the number you got right. The only tricky part was if you didn't guess the last word before the time ran out, then you didn't get any points for that turn. Anyway, we are going to have to buy this game, it was so much fun!

Saturday: We went to a co-workers wedding in Alexandria. We felt like the odd couple out not knowing anyone, so we cut out early after the ceremony and went and had dinner at Penang in Dupont Circle. The food was good, although we were surprised at the lack of vegetarian entrees on the menu. After dinner, stopped in a little bookstore called Olssons before meeting up with some friends at Buffalo Billards for one of our friend's birthdays. Tysen and I were early, so we started playing pool before everyone else. I was pretty impressed with my skills that night, as I was making shots that I'd never made before, using angles to my advantage. Then, after playing pool for 2 hours, we got some Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream before getting back on the metro to go home.

Sunday: Sunday was relatively calm, as the only thing I really did was go to a bookclub meeting. We had read My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult and choose to read Inside the Kingdom by Carmen Bin Ladin for our next bookclub meeting.

Anyway, that's all for now. Hope everyone's having a good week!

Friday Favorites

2006-05-19T07:42:00.000-05:00

Favorite TV Show on TLC/DiscoveryHome/Home&Garden/etc.: What Not To Wear!
So, this show isn't my only favorite, as I also like Little People Big World, While you were Out, and Trading Spaces, however, it fits into the theme of what I want to talk about today, and that's clothes shopping. So, while watching What Not to Wear (WNTW), I've never considered applying fashion trends they tell the guests to wear with my own wardrobe. Personally, I'm a t-shirt and jeans with tennis shoes kind of gal, and more recently I've been unhappy with my clothes. So, last night, while Tysen was at a meeting in DC, I set out to buy some new clothes that fit the rules of WNTW. Now, I'm not up for spending thousands of dollars on new clothes (although if the show gave me $5K, I'm sure I could spend it), so I stopped by Kohls, TJMaxx, and Ross. At Kohls, I got a brand new pair of jeans -- mid rise, straight leg, dark wash, just like they usually tell their guests, especially the ones who are a bit hippy. At TJMaxx, I bought a $100 pair of Anne Klien pants for $30. These pants are dark brown (I've never owned brown!!) with blue and green pin stripes. Then, at Ross, I got a pair of black pants with many colored pin stripes and a pair of blue strappy heels. The blue heels go great with my brown pants! I can't wait to wear my new pants, although, now I feel like I need to get some nicer work shirts/blouses to wear with my new pants.

When I got home from shopping, Tysen was home, and I was so excited about my new clothes that fit me and fit the WNTW rules, I put on a mini fashion show for Tysen. When I put on the brown pants with my blue strappy heels, he mentioned that I looked like one of my scrapbook pages. I thought this really funny because it was exactly what I was thinking when I picked out the pants!

And, I feel so fashionable at work today! I am wearing my new jeans, the blue strappy heels, a blue cotton t-shirt (probably not up to WNTW standards since it's from Walmart) and a new khaki colored fitted jacket that I bought last weekend. I feel so stylish! We'll see how long I keep this wardrobe up!

This is going to be a long week...

2006-05-16T12:15:00.000-05:00

I don't know what it is, but this week seems to be dragging along, and it's only Tuesday, so this week better get it's act in gear! Yesterday was a very long day, as after I arrived at work, I had to then travel to Baltimore with a co-worker for a project. We were in Baltimore until after 1pm, then drove back to the office, arriving around 2:30 pm. Then, when I got back, I was rushing to do some work on another project I had gotten. Just made for a long and exhausting day.

This past weekend was good. Did a lot of relaxing and apartment cleaning. It was so nice to dust and vacuum and clean!! It was partially done in preparation for my scrapbooking guest on Sunday (AS), but it was also done because it needed to be done and I happened upon one of those mega cleaning moods where I just cleaned everything! Scrapbooking with AS was tons of fun, and I finished up all my birthday cards for my mother-in-law. I posted all the pictures on my flickr page, and instead of posting all of the cards here individually, I made one of those cool flickr photo mosaics of the cards (Directions posted here).

So, plans for this week include having lunch with my mom on Thursday, Party in Maryland on Friday night, afternoon wedding in Alexandria, VA and evening Billards birthday party in DC on Saturday, and biking trip and book club meeting on Sunday (got to finish the book this week!). So, if I can make it through this seeming long week, I should have an exhausting weekend before returning to work again.

Friday Favorites

2006-05-12T14:50:00.000-05:00

Today has just dragged on... 5 o'clock can't come soon enough! So, that being said, today's Friday Favorites is an easy one... well, one that I didn't have to put much thought into.

Favorite Hobby: SCRAPBOOKING!
If you couldn't tell from most of my blog posts or even from the pictures I post to my flickr account, I love scrapbooking. I wasn't always this way, and really just got fanatical about the hobby recently after putting together my pre-wedding and wedding albums. I started scrapbooking the summer before my senior year of high school (almost 7 years ago), and my first scrapbooking project was to scrapbook my life from birth to senior year, as my mom had saved pictures and my school artwork and such, but had never put it into an album. After attending a craft fair and meeting a Creative Memories consultant, I had purchased some fun toys and an acid/lignin free album and was on my way. However, after senior year and all throughout college I didn't really scrapbook at all, and now that I've got more free time I scrap like crazy. It's almost as if this hobby came out of the blue, but I've always had a passion for doing crafty things, so scrapbooking, and more recently card making, have been a great fit.

What's your favorite hobby?

Odds & Ends

2006-05-11T07:46:00.000-05:00

Over the Hedge: Last night Tysen & I went to a free screening of Dreamwork's newest animated film, Over the Hedge. The movie was very cute, although I had a hard time laughing at some of the funny moments because all the kids in the theatre were busting out laughing, and then I felt the moment wasn't as funny. But, overall the movie was cute and had a good moral message about family.

Also, while at the theatre, there was an abundance of security inside the room where we were watching the film. There were 3 guys in suits, and at least two of them had on earpieces, and they kept roaming the theatre during the movie. We actually thought they were going to come and say something to us because we were eating outside food inside the theatre, but nothing was said or done during the course of the movie. Then, after everyone had cleared out, the men started checking the rows with flashlights. It was all quite strange. My guess is they were there to help protect someone who was attending the screening as part of this big 'NPC' group that was there, but I really don't know. And, the security definately wasn't part of the movie theatre secuirty, as that guy had on just a red button down dress shirt and a name tag. These other men were more ominous.

YTIC: So, maybe you are wondering where I get these free movie screening passes. Well, there are several sites out there, but you usually have to wade through all the movie screenings in other cities to find the ones that pertain to Washington, DC. Well, one site has compiled most of the free screenings for the DC area. You have to sign up for the service, then apply for different contests in order to win the free screenings. The only downside I've noticed is that you get your winning notice at the last minute, and you have to login to the site to find out if you've won...like just a few hours before the screening, so you have to be willing to make plans to attend at the last minute. So far out of the three movie contests I've entered, I won tickets to 2 of the movies, and only attened one screening, as the first movie contest I won, I didn't see that I had won until the day after the screening.

Name Change: So, one of the most frustrating things about getting married is making sure you change your name on all your formal IDs, papers, and bills. During the process of changing my name, I've found it interesting that each place you need to change your name, the system is different and they require varying amounts of information. For example, when I changed my Social Security Card, I had to take my birth certificate, marriage license, old SSN Card, to the social security office. When changing over my credit cards, I just made a simple phone call and everything was done over the phone without any proof. When changing my cell phone, I had to fax my marriage license to them along with a statement of outlining my name change request. In all, these changes were free, they just took some time to either call, fax, or visit the office. So, my newest name change endeavor involves changing the name on my professional engineer-in-training license. In order to change my name, I must write a letter spelling out the name change, include a copy of my marriage license, PAY $25, and mail the letter to GA so they can print me a new sheet of paper with my new name. I feel that paying them to change my name is ridiculous, as I spent some $100+ dollars to suffer through an 8-hour test, and now they want more money just to change my name. Does it really cost $25 to spend 5-seconds changing my last name and printing a new copy of the license, then add $0.39 for the stamp to mail it back to me. So, now I wonder what's the harm in having the wrong name on my EIT license? I guess it will hurt me in the end when I apply for my PE license, so I guess I should change my name, but still, I'm feeling ripped off by paying $25 for a name change when all my other name changes have been free!

It's Official

2006-05-10T07:53:00.000-05:00

I've gotten my first order make handmade cards. My mother-in-law, after receiving one of my handmade thank you cards, was interested in what it would cost for me to make cards for her. So, I worked up a price list based mainly on the material costs of pattered paper, adhesive, embellishments, cardstock, etc. and she turned around and placed an order. I'm making 2 special graduation cards, and 14 birthday cards. Woohoo! Because the card recepients might check out my blog or flickr site I may not be able to post my work for a while (I'll have to check on whether my mother-in-law is okay with me posting them or not). But, I made the first card last night and I really like it. As for the other cards, I've already got some ideas for the card sets I'm making, I just have to go out and get the patterned paper I have in mind. I'm hoping a trip to AC Moore on my lunch break will be fruitful, otherwise I'll have to make a trip to Recollections to get the paper I want.

One of the pressures of making either handmade cards or scrapbook pages for other people is worrying whether or not the recepient will like the end product. In addition to fulfilling this card order, I will also be putting together a wedding scrapbook for my cousin who got married in March 2006. I'm excited about putting this scrapbook together for her as her wedding present. My cousin and I will be meeting this weekend so I can get the pictures from her and ideas of what she wants. Should be fun, with a little bit of stress added in.

Un-Safe Topics

2006-05-09T13:39:00.000-05:00

So, I started out this post writing about how one should deal with the personal problems presented to them by co-workers. Not wanting to go into too much detail on other people's lives, I kept stopping the post short. And, it got me thinking about topics you shouldn't share with people unless you know they are trustworthy, or you know they won't think differently about you after learning about intimate details concerning your personal life.

For example, if you and your co-workers go out to lunch and are chatting, maybe you shouldn't admit that your husband will only have butt sex with you to them. And why shouldn't you discuss this? Maybe because out of all those present at the lunch, can you be sure that not one of them will think down on you about this? Or, worse yet, tell others in the office about your sexual predicament. So, I say any topics of a sexual nature should be off-topic for work and shouldn't really be shared at all (unless you and your friends are into that!). -- Now in this story, I was not part of the lunch group, but heard about the situation from a co-worker who attended the lunch.

Back when I was in college, and each year when I would participate in formal recruitment, we were always told that we shouldn't bring up 3 specific topics while talking with our recruitment guests. Those topics were religion, politics, and partying/drinking/sex. So, if those topics are taboo in that situation, then the same should be true for the workplace.

Let me know if you think any other un-safe topics should be added to the list?

Mother's Day Craftiness

2006-05-08T21:52:00.000-05:00

Mother's Day: Well, this year's mother's day cards are complete. One for my mom and one for my new mother-in-law. Such fun making these, although with the first card (the one for my mom) I really thought I wouldn't like it, but in the end I love it. Tysen helped design the second card, purposly allowing the edges of the colored paper to line up with the background paper. Hopefully our mom's like the cards!

Injury Update: I've been recovering pretty well from my bike fall on Saturday, although every day I find new sore spots or bruises. For the most part though, I'm on the road to recovery, and getting ready for next weekend's bike trip.

W-W-W--Wipeout!

2006-05-06T18:03:00.000-05:00

So, on our biking trip today, I had a little biking accident while coming around a curve at a high rate of speed, the bike slid out from under me and I went sliding on the bike trail. I was in a bit of shock after it happened, as I haven't fallen off a bike since I was a kid. And, I learned why you wear a helment while biking, to protect your head when you smack it on the ground. Here's a pick of the worst injury... it's where I landed and skidded on the trail. I also have a pretty big bruise on my right knee, a smaller bruise on the inside of my left knee, and a bruise on my butt where the bike seat attacked me during my skid. There are some other smaller scrapes and bruises as well. Luckily, it doesn't appear that anything is too serious.

Friday Favorites

2006-05-05T12:17:00.000-05:00

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I thought my Friday Favorite would deal with ethnic cuisines. So, today's question, what is your favorite ethnic cuisine?

Friday Favorites: Ethnic Cuisine
I can't just choose one, but my two top favorites are Indian food and Thai food. I used to love Mexican food as well, but there was this instance once that involved heavy drinking after eating cheese enchiladas, and I just haven't been able to stomach Mexican food as well. Don't get me wrong, I still like it, I just stay away from the cheese enchiladas. Now, on to talking about Indian and Thai food. The thing I like best about these cuisines is the variety of spices used in the dishes. I'm a big fan of curries, and that is usually what I order when I go to these kinds of restaurants. I love that the dishes are usually spicy, but not so bad that I can't eat them. My love of Thai and Indian cuisine would have never developed if it hadn't been for my husband. See, before I became a vegetarian, my family would always eat at traditional American restaurants with little variety. When I started eating vegetarian, these traditional American restaurants didn't have many or any vegetarian dishes to choose from in some cases, so I started branching out with Tysen's family eating all kinds of ethnic foods. Now, I can't imagine not eating these ethnic foods!

Some great Indian & Thai restaurants:
Pasara Thai Restaurant (Thai) A little pricey, but the food was excellent
Bombay Buffet (Indian) Mostly vegetarian
Vatica - (Indian) It's back in Atlanta, but it is great

I'm sure there are more great restaurants, but this is what we've found so far!

Obsessed

2006-05-04T07:30:00.000-05:00

So I'm obsessed with bathroom behavior, which can been seen by my 3 previous posts on the subject: here, here, and here. And, I wanted to start this post out by complaining about how this one woman always leaves her personal belongings like her purse, keys, etc. on the counter by the sinks before going into one of the stalls, but found that I actually already talked about her in the last post linked. So, I won't dwell on her, but instead make an overall observation about how people use private bathrooms over public ones. Now, I for one, dislike using public bathrooms at all costs, and only use them when I really have to go and there is no other option, as I like the privacy of my own home where I know how clean everything is. But, on the occasions when I do use public restrooms, I'm always very careful about making sure the toilet I'm using is clean, using the paper liners (if provided) or squatting. Another thing I always do is wash my hands with soap and warm water to prevent the spread of germs (since I don't know what other germs I've touched/picked up since entering the public restroom). Now, what surprises me is that not everyone does this! I'm shocked by this because weren't we all taught in school at a young age the importance of washing our hands? I guess I'm also obsessive about this because I used to volunteer at a hospital, and a block of time was devoted to how to properly wash our hands during our orientation session each summer. So, anyway, some people are gross is my only conclusion on this... They aren't aware of the germs they might spread becasue they can't see them, or maybe they feel invisible to them, but the point here is that you should wash your hands!

Things I'm also obsessed with: buying things on clearance or sale! My mother was always a stickler over prices we paid for clothes, and we always searched the clearance and sale racks before checking out the regularly priced items. This has rubbed off on me, however I search the clearance and sale racks everywhere I go. Whether it's scrapbooking supplies (which I love buying the $1 spools of ribbon and $1 stamps from Michaels, as well as the clearance paper at any scrapbook store), groceries, clothes, shoes, etc. I can't not look at the clearance/sale rack and pick something up because I feel it is just such a good deal.

I'm sure there are other things I'm obsessed about, but these are the only topics I can think of at the moment. What are you obsessed about?

emails

2006-05-02T09:08:00.000-05:00

So before I got married, my last name was Jones like thousands of others in the US and the world. One of the funny things about having such a common last name is that there are so many people who can have the same name as you and potentially similar email addresses. My old email address, which I still have, starts out with kathryn.jones, and several times I've received emails for people who aren't me because the sender left out a letter or number from the address, and therefore I get the email. One occassion of this was an email I received this morning from the British Government concerning a girl's passport renewal and US visa. They had left out a letter 'a' from the email address, so I got the email. Since the girl's email address was in the email from her original email to the government, I was able to forward on her information, which she was thankful for. She also informed me that if I received emails from another organization that those emails were for here, and asked me to forward them on. Another instance of this happened last year, where someone signed up for a club in Atlanta and listed my exact email address as hers, and I started getting the club emails. I had to email the person sending the emails, and she fixed the problem. The most annoying of these occurances is that my email address has apparently been signed up with match.com under the username peskykat. I think peskykat is a female, and she's looking for other females to have relationships with, so I get 3 emails a week with my update on girls that would be a match for me. The worst part is that I can't get rid of these emails without signing into my match.com account, which I don't have... so, instead these emails just go to my spam folder.

In my previous post I forgot to mention that Tysen & I had a date night on Saturday and went and saw the movie Lucky Number Slevin, then had dinner at Generous George's Positive Pizza and Pasta Place. I really liked the movie because of the little twists that you may or may not have seen coming. One thing I hate is being able to figure everything out in movies and even books, and I like the twists that are put in to throw you off, or they give you just enough clues to where you think you know what will happen, but then you're wrong. I loved this about the movie because it kept you guessing as to why things were happening and where they were going. In case you don't know what the movie is about, here's the synopsis:

A case of mistaken identity lands Slevin (Josh Hartnett) into the middle of a war being plotted by two of the city's most rival crime bosses: The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley) and The Boss (Morgan Freeman). Slevin is under constant surveillance by relentless Detective Brikowski (Stanley Tucci) as well as the infamous assassin Goodkat (Bruce Willis) and finds himself having to hatch his own ingenious plot to get them before they get him.

As for dinner, we got pizza (why else do you go to a pizza place), and it was delish. They had a little mix up with our order, first brining out a smaller pizza than we ordered with meat, and then taking it back to get us the right pizza. We still aren't sure how they messed up the first pizza, but our waiter was nice about it, and we left happy. The best part about the pizza, was that even with all the juicy toppings, the bottom of the pizza was still nice and crispy! That's one of the most important things about the pizza for me... a crispy bottom. Tysen's main comment about the pizza joint was that it's theme was similar to Isaac's Restaurant & Deli which only has locations in Pennsylvania. Both restaurants use a lot of pink in their decor and flamingos.

Weekend Update

2006-04-30T17:51:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, Tysen and I went biking on the Mt. Vernon Trail and biked about 30 miles. That's been my longest trip to date, and my legs were very happy when the biking was over. Surprisingly, my muscles aren't too sore today, however they were feeling very tired last night.

Today Tysen went to his ultimate games, and I stayed home watching TLC and did some scrapbooking. Here's the final pages devoted to our trip to the Baltimore Aquarium. Enjoy!

Friday Favorites

2006-04-28T08:08:00.000-05:00

Favorite Number: 9
The reason I have a favorite number comes from many years of playing soccer and always having to pick a jersey number. Well, for the most part, people pick their numbers and try to stick with them no matter what team they are on. I know at one point my number was 13, as my mom convinced me it wasn't unlucky because she was born on a Friday the 13th, and on another team it was 19. And, one year I got 9 instead of 19 because another player who had been on the school team longer than me was 19, so there was no way I could get the number. This happened in high school, and 9 has stuck with me ever since. It's even part of my AIM name, however, I rarely ever go on AIM any more.

What's your favorite number and why?

Frogs!

2006-04-27T17:58:00.000-05:00

As promised, here's my newest layout showcasing pictures from our trip to the Baltimore Aquarium in January. The Aquarium had a big exhibit on frogs, and Tysen made sure to take pictures of most of them. Enjoy!

More Craftiness

2006-04-26T07:28:00.000-05:00

Recently I made these thank you cards to send to relatives that sent us Easter gifts. Hopefully the recipients have gotten them in the mail, as I'm tired of waiting to post them. So, here they are:

Also, last night while Tysen was out at a fraternity alumni event, I did some scrapbooking instead of going to the gym. Well, I created a fun 2-pg layout about the frogs exhibit at the Baltimore Aquarium. I'd share the photos, but Tysen had the camera with him, so maybe I'll get pictures of the layouts and post them tonight.

My mom is coming into town today for business and is taking Tysen & I out to dinner. We are going to the Bombay Buffet in Springfield which is this small Indian restaurant that serves mostly vegetarian Indian food. The food is always good, and we always leave stuffed. The only problem with the restaurant is that it's not always open, as the owners sometimes leave for a week at a time. Hopefully their open tonight!

Happy Anniversary

2006-04-25T08:36:00.000-05:00

Today is my parent's 25th Wedding Anniversary, and even though I don't think either of them read my blog, I wanted to give them a shout-out. So, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY Mom & Dad!

What a Weekend

2006-04-24T07:41:00.000-05:00

This weekend was both short, busy, and exhausting. I had so many events to attend this weekend, and I was actually surprised by how exhausted I was when I got home Sunday night. Here's a recap:

Saturday:
There was a luncheon planned for my sorority's International Reunion Day at Timpano Italian Chophouse in Rockville, MD. It was certainly a trek to the restaurant, but I met a few nice alums, and had a good time chatting with some other newcomers to the DC area.

In the evening, one of my buddies from work had an "Engagement Dinner" at her house in Sterling, VA, so Tysen and I drove up there to partake in the festivities. The only downside was that it was raining so hard when we got there, and we didn't have an umbrella, so we got soaked on the way to the door. The dinner was funny as Tysen and I were the only white people in attendance, and we got strange looks at first from other party goers because they didn't think that the engaged couple had white friends. Only slightly awkward.

Also on Saturday I got a call from one of my best friends from school and found out she was engaged! YAY AMY! CONGRATS! I'm so excited for her and her fiance. They are thinking about a September wedding and I'll get to be in it. How fun!

Sunday:
Today was a day to meet new people. First, I went to the first meeting of a local scrapbooking group in Alexandria, VA. Normally I just scrapbook by myself, so I thought it'd be nice to meet some fellow scrapbookers around my age and hang out. Only 6 people showed, and it was a nice group. We all sat around scrapbooking and chatting for a few hours. FUN. While there, I even got two pages completed on a recent trip to Baltimore, MD. These are the start of my first pages for 2006! Woohoo! Catching up.

After the scrapbooking club, I went to the first meeting of a new book club in Kingstowne, VA. I've never participated in a book club before, and our first book to read is My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. I'll have to go out and get the book, and we'll see how it goes.

Speaking of meeting new people, I met some fellow GT alumni, AS and JC. I attended both the scrapbooking club and book club with these two, and afterwards we went to dinner together. It was great getting to make new friends up here in the area, and so funny to find people with so much in common.

Friday Favorites + American Dreamz

2006-04-21T09:15:00.000-05:00

Friday Favorites: Pizza Topping
I'd have to say my favorite pizza topping is cheese! Even though I don't eat pizza too often, I'd prefer a slice of cheese pizza over one topped with veggies. Although, if I had to choose a topping other than cheese, since that comes automatically on the pizza, I'd choose pineapple. Before I became a vegetarian, I never thought to put pineapple on a pizza, and the first time I had it, I was quite skeptical, but it's really good. So, if you haven't tried it you should. Especially on a thin crust pizza from Papa Johns and add the little packet of spices they give you. Yum! Wow...I want pizza now... hehe. :)

What's your favorite topping?

American Dreamz
Last night I went to a free screening of "American Dreamz" in Georgetown. The movie was pretty funny, and makes a complete mockery of our current society's obsession with American Idol, and political situations such as a lackluster president and the situation with the Middle East. The movie is complete with a president who is loosing it, a vice president who acts as a puppet master for the president, and American Dreamz contestants which mock recent contestants on American Idol, such as Clay Aiken, Bo Bice, and Fantasia (I think that's who it was). Mandy Moore was quite cute in the movie, playing a mid-western girl wanting to be a star, and the Omer character played by Sam Golzari was funny along with his 2 cousins he lives with in Orange County. Overall, the movie had its funny moments, with the only downside that it was a bit long for the content, and it seemed as if certain drawn out scenes could have been cut.

"American Dreamz...Dreams with a 'Z'."

Walking, Hitch & Thank Yous

2006-04-20T08:52:00.000-05:00

Last night Tysen & I went on a walk around the neighborhoods where we live. We walked down a bunch of streets that resulted in dead ends, and scoped out the types of homes that are right near our apartment complex. The area seemed pretty nice; quaint houses, quiet streets, abundant parking. We spent so much time wandering around, that by the time we got home to start cooking dinner it was quite late. Tysen fixed up some cheesey rice & curry tofu nachos. It probably sounds gross to you, but it was quite tasty. However, since we were running so late, I stayed up late watching a movie so that I didn't go to bed right after eating dinner.

The movie I watched was "Hitch" which we had received in the mail from Netflix. The movie was a cute chick flick, and really spoke true to some of the things women do while dating, ie overlooking a guy because of something stupid they say or do or overlooking them because they aren't the best dressed, most spontaneous, sweep you off your feet kind of guy. However, Hitch (played by Will Smith) teaches guys how to be themselves but yet get women to notice them.

Also while watching the movie I made 2 Thank You cards for recent gifts we've received. I can't post them yet, at least not until they are in the mail and the respective recipients have recieved them, otherwise they might see them here first! Anyway, I'm quite proud of the 2 cards I made. The cards both use the same papers and are copies of each other, however I switch up where the colors were put. I also used word rub-ons for the first time, and really liked how they looked on the paper. I will definately have to buy more and use more of these in the future! Anyway, I know the suspense is now killing you to see these cards, but you'll just have to wait until next week (unless I can't resist sharing them...as they are already scanned in the computer)!

Littering

2006-04-19T08:26:00.000-05:00

Why do people do it? On my way to the gym last night, I walked by a group of kids who were eating candy and junk food outside by the Dollar Store where they had just purchased their treats. When I left the gym to head home, I passed by the spot where these kids were congregated, and they left behind the wrappers and packaging of the food they were eating on the sidewalk. This aggravated me, because they also left a trail of candy wrappers behind the dollar store and gym, which means they walked right past 3 dumpsters where they could have deposited their trash, but instead felt the sidewalk was a better place for it. Why couldn't they have just thrown their trash away?

In other news, this weeks been kind of boring and slow. We don't really have a lot of work right now, which is bad since I work for a consulting firm, and since I'm the lowest level employee of our group, I get to do the grunt work that I can't bill to a project. So, I've been working on preparing files for an audit. Oh joy!

100th Post

2006-04-16T18:04:00.000-05:00

Given that this is my 100th post on my very first blog ever, I thought I'd take the opportunity to post about a somewhat serious issue. The issue being my irrational dislike of crowds. I don't know what it is, or where it came from, but I get really frustrated around crowds of people. This mostly occurs when walking through the mall, going to concerts, or walking crowded streets, museusms, etc...basically any place where there are crowds of people, and they encroach on my personal space, or walk extremely slow in front of me, or even take up so much space that I can't walk around them, then I get so frustrated that I have to just leave the situation by zooming by them or slowly retreating away.

The most recent example of this was when I went to the LadyTron concert in DC on Friday night. Tysen & I had arrived early and had secured spots at the railing on the 2nd floor near the center to watch the show. Well, as the show went on, more people crowded the 2nd floor, and forced me to move over as they slowly encroached on my personal space. This got me so frustrated, that for a while I couldn't enjoy the show because I was too pissed off at the guy touching my arm with his arm.

This frustration/dislike also occurs when walking the mall, especially. It always happens that I'll end up walking behind a family with a stroller or two, or people who are walking slow, and I just want to get to a certain store then get out of the mall. But, instead I have to dodge these obstacles.

Does anyone else ever feel this way?

On another note, over the weekend, I only scrapped one 8x8 page for our family Christmas Album. But, I also made a beaded necklace. I've had a bead collection for a long time, and haven't made anything recently, but a few weeks ago I had bought some pretty pink beads to make a necklace, and this weekend I sat down to make it. I think I'm going to make a blue one just like it next weekend with some bright blue beads I bought at the same time as the pink ones.

Friday Favorites

2006-04-14T07:58:00.000-05:00

Favorite Ice Cream Flavor: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Even though I do not indulge in ice cream that often, chocolate chip cookie dough has always been my favorite. I guess it stems from the fact that my mom used to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch and let my brother and I 'lick the beaters' and occasionally we'd also steal spoonfuls of the dough once the chocolate chips had been mixed in. I know maybe I should be concerned about the raw eggs, but the cookie dough is just too yummy to care, especially when big chunks of it are inside my ice cream!

So, what's your favorite flavor?

Lesson Learned

2006-04-12T14:02:00.000-05:00

When a toilet is running, don't flush it, unless you want to witness toilet water spewing forth from the bowl onto the floor.

So, how did I learn this valuable rule? I went into the restroom, and went to my favorite stall, and noticed the water in the bowl was moving, so before I went to the bathroom and was unable to flush, I wanted to test the toilet. Well, that's when water came spewing forth, flooding the floor and going down the bathroom drain (thank goodness there was a drain!). Since I'm wearing strappy dress shoes today, I quickly exited the bathroom and went to our receptionist to report the problem so she could notify the building maintenance person. Then, I went to the bathroom on the 1st floor instead (where you could hear the overflowing toilet on the 2nd floor, and I'm glad the ceiling wasn't leaking!).

Well, now I'm happy to report that the 2nd floor bathroom is back to normal, the maintenance guy having come and fixed the rebellious toilet.

This could be a great card!

2006-04-11T07:21:00.000-05:00

So, I came across this on another blog, and thought I'd share it. They've apparently come out with a credit card for scrapbookers! Basically, depending on what you buy, you get rewards back in Scrapbuck$ that you can redeem for scrapbooking products. They don't have any products listed yet on their site, but if it turns out to be good, I just might want to change out one of my credit cards! They also have super cute cards!

Details:
You’ll receive Scrapbuck$ for every purchase you make with your Scrapbook Rewards Visa card, issued by National City®.

Reward Earnings OverviewScrapbook Rewards Visa cardmembers receive Scrapbuck$ with reward rates based on purchase type:

4% back on scrapbook and craft suppliesShop at your favorite craft store, scrapbook store, and for the first $100 every month, you get back 4% in Scrapbuck$

3% back on pay-at-the-pump gasoline Up to $200 in monthly purchases

2% back on purchases at grocery stores and restaurantsUp to $500 in monthly purchases

For all other purchases, receive 0.25% back on your first $10,000 spent every year* - then 1% for every dollar thereafter, with no limits!

Holiday Album

2006-04-09T20:29:00.000-05:00

Since Tysen & I got married in August, I thought it'd be nice for us to have a separate holiday album, starting with Christmas 2005. I've always done 12x12 albums, but I never figured we'd have lots of holiday pictures, so I wanted to try out a 8x8 album for this purpose. I really enjoyed making these 8x8 pages because they required little effort in putting together pages, especially since I bought some clearance 8x8 Christmas paper at Walmart. So, here's the beginnings of our Christmas album.

Layouts Galore

2006-04-09T13:31:00.000-05:00

Well, Tysen's home and so is our digital camera! So, I was finally able to upload pictures of some recent scrapbooking I've done to forever remember our weekend trip to Hershey, PA. More layouts are posted below.

Friday Favorites

2006-04-07T12:04:00.000-05:00

Favorite Reality TV Show: America's Next Top Model
So, I've never been much of a reality tv junkie, but there have been certain reality tv shows that I have watched and enjoyed. I think the first show I ever got hooked on was Trump's "The Apprentice." I watched the first 2 seasons before I became bored with the show, but found the tasks unique and it was always fun to try to guess who was going to get FIRED. After that show, I got hooked on "Outback Jack." That show was funny because it took high-maintenance women and stuck them in the Jungles of Australia. Since there was only one season of Outback Jack, when that show was over I had to find a new reality tv fix...and one night I found it on UPN. I started watching "America's Next Top Model (ANTM)" towards the end of its 3rd season, and immediately fell in love. I don't know what it is about the show...but I can't miss an episode.

Oh, and I guess since we are talking about reality tv shows, I also like Trading Spaces, While You Were Out, Clean Sweep, and What Not to Wear...but for some reason I put these shows in a different reality tv category. I guess it's because a group of people aren't vying for a specific position or title like a lot of other reality tv shows.

So, what's your favorite reality tv show?

Sick sick sick

2006-04-06T07:58:00.000-05:00

The title says it all. I can't believe I'm still sick. I used to never get sick, and now I'm sick. I've had mild fevers, a stuffy and runny nose, popping ears, and a sore throat. I can't win! But, I did take some Dayquil this morning, but it's just made me numb to my symptoms. I called in sick to work, cause I don't think I could get anything done in this state, and I think I'm heading back to bed now...Hopefully I'll feel better soon!

3rd Time's a Charm

2006-04-05T13:47:00.000-05:00

Well, I finished smoke school and shall receive my official certificate in the mail in 4-6 weeks. Woo hoo! Yipee! I failed the first 2 runs, but on the third run, I was determined to pass, and I did! Thankfully too, because it was cold outside...We started the day with a sleet/rain mixture and high winds, and finished with sunny skies, but still breezy.

Now I'm home, and not going back to work. I've put in for training time, so that's what I'm taking. The Netflix movie, "When Harry Met Sally" arrived, so I'm going to get cozy on the couch and watch the movie. I'm also not feeling well. I've been really stuffy/sniffly since last night, and it wasn't any better this morning. The congestion is also affecting my ears, which feels strange. After watching the movie I might do some scrapbooking, or I'll read my book and then try to get to bed early to help get rid of this illness I have.

Smoke School - Day 1

2006-04-04T16:30:00.000-05:00

Today was my first day of SMOKE SCHOOL. How exciting, right? Well, I bet you are asking yourself what exactly is smoke school? A place where they teach you the 'art' of smoking? Does it have to do with fire? Well, to save you from guessing any more, I'll just tell you. Smoke school is where you learn to read the opacity of stacks. So, now you might ask, what's that mean? Well, once I'm officially certified, which will happen either Wednesday or Thursday depending on how good I am at reading stack opacity, then I'll be able to go to our clients' facilities and do their opacity readings as part of their environmental air permit requirements. Sounds exciting right? Well, it's very exciting to me because it will get me out of the office, and allow me not to have to stare at a computer screen all day!

So, as for the class, it was held down in Woodbridge at the VA Dept. Environmental Quality. Today lesson was mainly to tell us the background behind opacity and opacity rules, as well as get us familiar with the forms official we will be using when we do opacity readings for facilities. Well, I got picked on a little at the training because I'm an engineer, and I was trying to be too technical on some issues...but it's ok. I had a good laugh. Another good thing about the training, is we got an hour lunch break, during which I went to Recollections and bought a bunch of 12x12 paper on clearance (my favorite price), and we were finished at 3pm.

Tomorrow, we'll be doing the outdoor portion of the training, where they set up a portable stack for us to read the opacity from. They'll burn either tolunene or a diesel propane mix to produce white or black smoke, and regulate the air flow to alter the opacity. Hopefully I'll do well!

When I got home, I changed into bike clothes, and took a bike ride. I didn't end up going very far, as I was having trouble breathing do to some phlem issues (I'll spare you the details). It was also a bit colder out than I expected, so I was a bit chilly in bike shorts and a t-shirt.

New Birthday Card

2006-04-03T20:43:00.000-05:00

Birthday Card 2
Originally uploaded by KraftyKat.

I really want to upload my new layouts, and tried using our 8.5x11 scanner, but got immediately frustrated with photoshop and quit. But, then I remembered I could scan the birthday card I made for my sister without having to piece two pictures together. So, here it is. You'll have to wait for the rest until Saturday when the digital camera returns.

Scrapbooking Hershey, PA

2006-04-03T07:47:00.000-05:00

Since Tysen ran away to Atlanta, I had the whole weekend to myself. I spent most of the weekend at home working on scrapbooking, and completed most of the pages I wanted to do for a trip to Hershey, PA that Tysen and I took in November 2005. These are only 2 of the pages I've completed, and I won't be able to post any more until Tysen returns with our digitial camera, so you'll have to wait to see the 6 other layouts I completed plus the birthday card I made for my sister, complete with matching envelope. :)

Also this weekend, I took a trip to College Park, MD to hang out with some friends for a "surprise" birthday party. Well, by the time I arrived, the surprise had been ruined, but it was fun hanging out with people, some of which I'd never met. Then, on the way home, I got mildly lost...but not too lost, since I was following the signs to 95, but when I came to the sign that said '495 W to Northern VA or 495/95 E to Baltimore' I took the 495 W and went the long loop around 495 back to where I live in Virginia. At least since it was like 1am when I was driving, traffic wasn't bad at all.

On Sunday I did more of the above mentioned scrapbooking, and went to Michaels down in Woodbridge. I wanted to go to Recollections as well, but was afraid I would spend too much $$ since I was only going to Michaels to buy photo mounting tape. Although, I am going to Woodbridge for work on Tuesday, so maybe I'll stop by Recollections then!! On the way home from the store, I stopped at the Mason Neck Wildlife Preserve {near Mason Neck State Park and Pohick Bay Regional Park} and walked the Woodmarsh Trail. It was nice to spend some time outside since the weather was beautiful!

Friday Favorites

2006-03-31T08:13:00.000-05:00

Favorite Movie: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
This has always been my favorite movie, probably since the first time I saw it. I don't know what it is about this movie, but I've always loved the characters and the plot. I like to even sing along with the songs! And, in my book, it definately wins over the newly released Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Movie, although that movie followed the book more closely than the first movie. However, I didn't read the book until shortly before the new movie came out, so I had no idea that parts of the storyline from the book were changed for the original movie.

What's your favorite movie?

Blogger Updates!

2006-03-30T11:40:00.000-05:00

If this is your first time viewing my blog, then you probably won't notice the changes, however, a few were made last night to the title block, profile placement, and my profile picture. I really like how my title block turned out. The background picture is one I took of my 12x12 scrapbook paper organizer with all my papers sorted by colors. Tysen spent a bit of time formatting the block to be just perfect! (THANKS TYSEN!!!) Also, my blog description got moved to underneath my profile section so that you can actually read it. (It was difficult to read the text once the title block backround wasn't solid black.) And, I changed my profile picture. Since Tysen was helping me, and managing the controls (i.e. sitting in the computer chair with keyboard and mouse in front of him), he decided to alter the picture a bit. Now before, my picture was black and white, so if I weren't telling you some of these things, then the picture would seem mostly normal. Anyway, my eyes are blue, but they are not as blue as the picture would lead you to believe, and my hair is really brown, not a red-brown, and my teeth have been "bleached" to pure white in the picture. Since I know these things (and now, so do you), I find the picture comical and strange looking...but it got updated anyway since Tysen was doing all the work.

Pictures!!

2006-03-29T09:14:00.000-05:00

Baby Tweed (aka Josie)

Cousin's Wedding

Time to Play Catch-up

2006-03-28T16:10:00.000-05:00

So, it's been almost a week here without an update, and I missed posting my "Friday Favorites" for March 24th because I was on the road travelling to Ohio. Now's my chance to make up for all this:

Friday Favorites: Candy Bar
My favorite candy bar is Twix. I haven't had one in a while, but if I'm picking out a candy bar at the cash register, it's going to be Twix. How about you?

Tweed's Baby:
On the way to Dublin, OH for my cousin's wedding, Tysen & I took a detour for Steubenville, OH to visit with our friend's from college Michelle & Daniel West who had a baby in January. Their baby is adorable with the cutest big cheeks. I'll have to post some pictures (maybe tonight), but this kid is the cutest!

Ohio Wedding:
As for the wedding, it was very nice. On Friday night we attended the rehearsal dinner at J. Gilbert's Steakhouse and had a nice dinner with family and the wedding party. On Saturday, we didn't do too much, other than hang out with my parents and brother watching TV and relaxing. The wedding was Saturday night, and my cousin looked gorgeous! Can't wait to get pictures back from relatives and my cousin so I can start putting together her wedding scrapbook/wedding present!

Travelling back to DC:
Unfortunately the trip to Ohio was a short trip, as we drove out there Friday and returned Sunday for Tysen's ultimate Frisbee Game. I wasn't feeling too well, and had to return my brother to his dorm at U. Maryland, so I left Tysen to play his game and I went home.

Well, I think that's all the news for now. I'll try to get some pictures up too! (got to take the pictures off the camera's memory stick.)

Love Card

2006-03-22T21:13:00.000-05:00

Love Card
Originally uploaded by KraftyKat.

So recently I've had a facination with producing cards instead of scrapbook pages. I think this is mainly fueled by all the stamping blogs and galleries out there on the internet that give me ideas. This is a card I created tonight for my cousin's upcoming wedding (it's this weekend). Tysen and I'll be travelling to Ohio for the wedding, so it will be another long weekend. I've posted a few other recent cards to my flickr account, so check them out!

Perceptions

2006-03-22T08:33:00.000-05:00

You ever overhear people talking without viewing them and start to picture what they look and dress like, only to turn around and find that what you perceived them to look like is completely wrong. Like in the case of listing to radio personalities, but then when you see these people in TV commercials or in public, they look nothing like you imagined?

Well, I had an instance of this last night while I was at the gym, doing my cardio exercise on the elliptical. There were two girls chatting behind me, and I heard most of their conversation. While listening in, I figured these girls were, and pardon my stereotype, ditzy sorority girls. In essence, this comment should be a insult to myself, as I too am a sorority girl, but I don't consider myself one of "those" types of sorority girls. I imagined these girls had great bodies and looked like they didn't need to work out, were wearing cute and coordinated workout clothes (unlike my old soccer shorts and a t-shirt), had on flawless makeup. Well, when my 30 minutes were up and I got off the elliptical, boy was I surprised to find out that these girls were nothing like I imagined. It's hard to describe what they actually looked like, but they were definitely not the sorority girl you find in movies (I'm thinking Legally Blonde) or even some college campuses (I'm thinking Alpha Delta Pi's at Georgia Tech - my only frame of reference). Anyway, one of these girls was quite overweight, wearing a baggy orange t-shirt, no makeup, hair pulled back in a small ponytail. The other was slim, wearing a white fitted t-shirt, and she had curly long dark hair pulled into a ponytail at the base of her neck, wearing no makeup. I think I felt better knowing these girls were normal gym girls, but I still find it interesting that based on the stereotypes we know and live by, I thought these girls were the exact opposites of what they were.

Friday Favorites

2006-03-17T15:08:00.000-05:00

Since last week we did carbonated beverages, this week is alcoholic beverages!! So, let's get to it.

Favorite Alcoholic Beverage:
I don't know the official name for this drink, but I first had it a few years ago at the Jacksonville Landing during some type of festival weekend. The drink contains Parrot Bay Coconut Rum, Pineapple Juice, and a splash of Orange Juice. It's great, and very yummy. The Coconut Rum is good because it doesn't smell or taste like real alcohol. Whenever I make a drink, it's usually this!

What's your favorite alcoholic drink?

False Advertising

2006-03-16T10:31:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday I ventured into the Target Store at the Springfield Mall and perused the aisle with scrapbooking products. To my excitement, several items were on Clearance that I was wanting to try out in upcoming scrapbook pages. So, I picked up 4 items: a stack of rub-on alphabet letters by making memories, a set of stick-on clear crystals, a box of chip board large letters, and a set of red and pink love themed rub-ons. All of these items were listed on the racks as clearance, and I was excited to be paying $1.99 for each item. Well, to my surprise, when I got to the register, these items did not ring up at their clearance prices, and the stupid cashier girl didn't do anything about it. I remarked that these items were on sale, no offer of a price check or anything...just too bad, so sad. So, to further fuel my anger with Target and this cashier, I went back to the scrapbooking aisle to verify that these items were on clearance. Well, the items were definately on racks with big red clearance signs posted over the price, but once the clearance signs were removed, it was found that all the items on this aisle weren't matched up with their proper price tags. What crap! I so wanted to find a manager or customer service person and let them know what I was feeling, but instead I left the store empty handed and pissed off at Target. We'll see how long it takes me to go back!

Did you pass 8th Grade math?

2006-03-14T13:18:00.000-05:00

Well, if you did or didn't, could you pass it now? I was always good in math, hence why I went to an engineering college and graduated with an engineering degree, and I'm glad that I passed this quiz with flying colors. I would have been personally embarrassed if I hadn't done so well!

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Ultraviolet

2006-03-14T10:36:00.000-05:00

So, last night after having dinner with my mom at Pasara, a Thai restaurant with yummy food, Tysen dragged me into seeing a movie at the movie theatre across the street. We had a bet going, that if there wasn't a movie showing that we wanted to see within 15 minutes of the current time, we'd just go home. Well, we got there at 7:26pm, and the movie Ultraviolet, which Tysen wanted to see, started at 7:25, so we quickly purchased tickets and went into the theatre. We were the only ones in the small theatre, and it was nice to be there alone, with out disturbances from other people. My only critique of the theatre was that the sound was quite loud in our little room.

As for the movie, it left you wondering. The special effects and the animation were pretty neat, however the story was lacking in content and a flowing plot line. When the movie started out, you know there are two types of people, those who have a blood infection, and those who don't. However, as the movie goes on, you find out that the people who have this blood infection are vampires, but they don't suck blood or have light aversion, or act like normal vampires (based on other vampire movies). Quite strange. And, for some reason, the main character, Violet (played by Milla Jovovich - girl from Fifth Element) has her hair and clothes change color on a whim, i.e. hair changes from purple with sparkles at the bottom to black and clothes change from white to yellow, to red upon entering rooms or in one instance where her outfit turns red after her hand starts bleeding. No explanation. I'd say they threw in a bunch of special effects to cover up the bad story line.

Crazy Busy Week this week

2006-03-13T09:31:00.000-05:00

This week will probably be long and exhausting, but fun all at the same time, well, except for the time I'm stuck at work, that might not be too fun. So, here's this week's plan:

Monday:
Arranging catering with Subway
Picking up Zero's specialized cat food
Dinner with my mom

Tuesday:
Grocery Shopping

Wednesday:
Only real free day, and maybe I'll get a chance to make it to the gym

Thursday:
Family is coming to town, and Tysen & I will be running shuttles to and from the metro.

Friday:
I'll be working from home for part of the day, while also getting everything ready for a family dinner. A few of Tysen's relatives are coming to town to attend the burial of Tysen's grandfather at Arlington National Cemetary. Friday is also Tysen's birthday, which happens to be St. Patrick's Day as well, so I've planned a St. Patrick's Day theme dinner party for everyone to attend. So, when I'm not working, I'll be getting things ready and setting up for this party.

Saturday:
Tysen's family will be in town, and most will be flying out, so there will be more metro shuttling, and possibly haning out in DC.

Sunday:
We'll be returning Tysen's mom and brother to the metro to catch their planes home, then Tysen and I have plans to go ice skating in Maryland (unless Tysen's ultimate frisbee game conflicts).

Gee, then we'll start another week... Where does all the time go?

Friday Favorites

2006-03-10T08:16:00.000-05:00

Being Friday, it's time for my second installment of Friday Favorites:

Favorite Coke Beverage: Coke Zero
Coke Zero is great! It has all the flavor of regular coke, but no calories, like diet coke. It's the best of both beverages! Now, today's segment is entitled favorite coke beverage because I'm not a fan of pepsi drinks, and I didn't want to call it favorite carbonated beverage because I like some of the flavored carbonated waters out there. So, favorite coke beverage it is. What's your favorite? (And, if you prefer a pepsi product, I'll let it slide, and you can post your favorite pepsi product here too!)

Craft Supplies

2006-03-08T07:55:00.000-05:00

Like I said I would, here are some pictures of my recent craft purchases. You can also check out my flickr page for more pictures of my craft supplies and craft storage solutions.

Embellishment Storage Box

Medium-size Star Brads

Supplies I bought for my cousin's wedding album

Saturday Shopping

2006-03-06T10:25:00.000-05:00

For my birthday I received money and a gift card to Joann's Fabric & Craft Store. Since Tysen and I were travelling to Maryland this weekend to attend a party, we also made a trip to the Joann's Superstore in Columbia, MD to do a little craft shopping for me! Well, I spent all my birthday money in that store! Since Joann's was having a super sale to celebrate National Craft Month (that's March), most of what I wanted was on sale. I walked out of that store spending over $100, but part of that money was spent on getting scrapbooking supplies for the scrapbook I am going to make for my cousin's wedding. So, items I bought included:

Stuff for me:
24-color chalk set - I'm looking forward to trying these out. I've seen lots of scrapbook layouts where people have used chalk to outline and shade the cornes of cardstock, and I'd like to try this technique out.
Watermark/Resist stamp pad - Seen lots of cool stuff done with this, so I want to try it out, from making watermakrs on the paper to doing dry embossing with embossing powder
Bottle of black embossing powder - To try out my skills at dry embossing (still need a heat gun though - plan to order it online from Joann's)
Various brads (multi colored hearts and squares, pewter colored hearts and stars, black and silver circles, and word clips)
Alphabet charms (red circles and black squares)
Embellishment Organizer - this by far was the coolest part of the purchase. The container comes with 52 small plastic boxes to store all your embellishments (brads, eyelets, beads, etc.). If you know how much I like to organize things, then you know I had a lot of fun putting all my brads, charms, and beads in their place in the box.
Beads - a sets in bright blue and various shades of pink. I plan to make myself bead necklaces with them to match some of my clothes I routinely wear.
Photo Boxes (3) - mainly for Tysen storage, but we used one of the boxes to store away all the extra wedding photos
Stamp - again for Tysen. Every time we go to the craft store he always picks out a stamp for himself...however, he has yet to use the last three he's bought.

For the wedding album I'm doing for my cousin:
8x8 Wedding Themed Paper Pack
Wedding Themed Rub-ons
Heart Stickers
Mini spool of red ribbon

I think that's everything I bought. I feel like there was more, but I spent some time both Saturday night and Sunday morning putting everything away and finding new spaces for my supplies. Anyway, now that I've bought all this stuff, it's time to make some more scrapbook pages. I think I'm finally ready to attempt more pages after finishing my wedding scrapbooks. I'll try to post some pictures of this stuff you get a visual of what I'm talking about.

Friday Favorites

2006-03-03T11:11:00.000-05:00

In recent weeks I have found my self perusing other blogs in search for blog friends and finding creative ideas from bloggers who post their scrapbooking and paper crafting projects. In doing this, I've come across several blogs which partake in posting special posts following the day of the week's theme. For example, there is "Self Portrait Tuesdays," "Things I Love Thursdays" (recently started by Joy), and "Half-Naked Thursdays (HNT)" to name a few. While I don't take part in any of these, I wanted to start my own...called Friday Favorites. I was considering posting one of my favorites for every day of March, but figured I'd probably slack off and not regularly post, especially on the weekends. So, I've my a list of some of my favorites, and now I'll share them with you!

Favorite Color: BLUE
My favorite color is blue, and sometimes red, but mostly blue. I don't know what it is about blue, but I find that I am usually drawn to blue clothes, like sweaters and t-shirts, blue paint, blue everything. Even when I repainted my bedroom in my parents house, I wanted to paint it blue, however, because my brother was going to paint his room blue, I picked another color (pale mint green). I also like all the shades of blue. With some colors I'm not fond of all the different shades available, but with blue, any shade from light blue to dark blue to neon blue is a great color!

So, what's your Friday Favorite Color?

Birthday Card

2006-02-28T22:18:00.000-05:00

Birthday Card
Originally uploaded by KraftyKat.

Ok, I know it was just my birthday, but I didn't receive this card. On the other hand, I made this card for my friend who's birthday is before mine, but I was late in sending her a gift. So, here's my first ever hand made card. I always thought card making seemed so difficult, but its actually a real easy transition after making scrapbook pages, and I already have all the necessary supplies. Hopefully the receipient of this card won't see this post until after she receives her package!