Runaways!

Just a quick post about all the crazy goodness going on in our lives.

I started school yesterday. As a result free time will be at a premium for the foreseeable future.

As a sort of a last hurrah/E taking his first vacation days in FIVE YEARS! Seriously, I think he once took one day so we could fly to Canada and see my family for Christmas. Anyway, we ran away to DISNEYLAND!

Some adorable little five year old’s we know were celebrating a birthday so we decided to crash the party. I kept telling E that some day we will live somewhere else and a quick weekend trip to Disneyland won’t be happening so we should enjoy it while we can. AND WE DID! We spun like tops on the teacups, drank pineapple juice in the Tiki room, blasted our way through the new Toy Story mania ride and had a romantic dinner at the Blue Bayou. We also loved: the beignet at Ralph Brennan’s, California Screamin’ (e), fantasmic, little miss matched store (a) and turkey legs! E has his first chess tournament this weekend so I’m escaping as well. Down to Phoenix to get in some girl time. But for now…there is an English class calling my name and hundreds of photographs waiting to be uploaded and shared.

long time no blog...

so this video....loving it lots

and these pictures we made in july.....

i really loved taking.....the highlight of e's reunion for me for sure.

i love that i brought the idea and everyone got into it.

work....i'm not so much loving...some days the ugly of it all just really gets to me and it's overwhelming....the sadness and wretchedness of the things people do to other people. sad.

however, i have some super happy things on the horizon and lots of love and happiness at home and overall i am BLESSED.

Stuff!

First off, Love this quote! Happy mother's day to all of you!

"this ability and willingness properly to rear children,
the gift to love, and eagerness, yes, longing to express it in soul development,
makes motherhood the noblest office or calling in the world."
-- president david o. mckay

Worked on this page from a prompt we did on the challenge blog. Head on over to participate in our latest challenge based on Razzle Dazzle from Chicago! Link on the sidebar.

Very inspired by this:


Loved this

Have a great rest of the weekend!

chill

There is something so soothing about adding ingredients, stirring, and making something delicious. E was at the school spring concert tonight and one of the girls in his class, who also happens to live across the street, dropped her baton into the orchestra pit.

I. so. know. how. that. feels.

He called and asked me to whip up something sweet and delish as a pick me up for her. While I was stirring and mixing I started to think about how sometimes the baton feels like EVERYTHING. The most important thing EVER. When really it's so small in the bigger picture. So for tonight. I'm trying to think of the bigger picture.

As a perfect reminder I added this letterpress card from Etsy to my rotating metallic boards this week. Find it here.

I really loathe spiders....

So when we pull up to our house and see a big one like this....it makes me freak out...

Not quite sure how big it was? That's a 2X4...manned by E...my spider killer and defender.


I felt a little better once it was a spot of mush on the end of the 2X4. The right side.

Random part? I was on the phone with my sister wishing her a happy birthday and she used to be my spider killer. She totally remembered!
I really need to learn not to google "large black spider in Arizona"...not a good idea. Ever. Bonus points if you can identify the species. We are thinking black widow as we've had those before but not sure.

Crack....It's an addiction.

I've had this before but I completely forgot how good it was until I saw it on Smitten Kitchen.

That was the beginning of the end. E has found a new love...people at his school are talking about how Mr. F's wife makes good crack. The jokes at the office were endless. I routinely hear things like "They found 500 pounds of marijuana in the car." and "The blood sample tested positive to methamphetamine.". You can imagine the joke potential of a dessert nicknamed crack.

Make it....make it now! Except the Cope's because I'm bringing you some this weekend.
Here's the recipe!

Easter

I miss my family. I miss Sunday dinners. A roast, roast chicken, ham, grilling on the barbeque or even a simple stew. Sunday’s were the one day of the week that we would usually eat together and talk. And Easter Sunday? Time for a feast! Yummy food, many friends who didn’t have any place to go, great conversation, movies and games and yes…a chocolate Easter bunny.

Now E and I are the lost friends who don’t have a place…luckily for us we have great friends. So our Easter plans are as follows. We had dinner with the Parkers et al tonight. I brought rice dressing.

Linda made performance art jello and it was lovely and delicious.

Easter treats for our nieces and nephews are already delivered and probably devoured.

Easter cards have been mailed out to dear people near and far. (a recent goal of mine is to actually mail out more of the handmade cards I make) and that’s it.It’s good. It’s enough. But I miss my family. A lot.

fun at the park!

Had the best day at the park yesterday with Kimmy and Kaitee. Got some fun pictures and had a great time. Enjoy!

MEME

My friend Lou tagged me so here you go!

1.Make a list of 5 things you can see without getting up.
e, my blackberry, afghan, we the people textbook, ariel

2. How do you style your hair?
I usually blow it dry and sometimes straighten it.

3. What are you wearing now?
Black top, jeans, glasses

4. What do you want to be when you grow up?
happy and content

5. The best thing to happen to you as late?
life is pretty great in general....new iPod maybe?

6. What is one word you would use to describe yourself?
fun

7. What's your current fandom/obsession/addiction?
limon chips, blackberry messenger, baking lemon bars, the office, ramen, itunes

8. What's the last thing you ate today?
an energy drink

9. What calms you?
music, creating, baking, e

10. What websites do you visit when you go online?
facebook, google reader, cnn (so bad), post secret

11. What's the last thing you bought?
itunes (endless), bowls at anthropologie, pinking shears, prints on etsy

12. What are you listening to now?
Jimmy Fallon and Kristin Wigg

13. What do you think about before you go to bed?
I am a total night owl so it's hard to shut down....usually I run around trying to do everything I know I will have to get out of bed to do before I can sleep and then just put headphones in and try not to think

14. What was the last CD(s) you "bought"?
A Night at the Opera, Queen

15. What is your favorite weather and why?
Spring and Fall because they are not too hor or too cold.

16. If you could play any musical instrument, which one would you play?
Guitar

17. Anything exciting as of late?
Ummmm....not so much?

18. What's something you'd like to say to someone right now?
Really? Another kid? Hmmmmmm.....

19. What’s the one thing you wish people would stop asking you?
When are you going to have kids? (that would really put a damper on the hot sex FYI!)

PSA re: Bows!

So I don't have kids. I KNOW!
But I do have nieces (two) and I'm always looking for cute presents.
I have totally fallen in love with THESE bows from my friend Kim's etsy!
Bitty Bows & Clippies
SO STINKIN CUTE! Really reasonably priced, really well made. Love it all around!
Go check it out.

Lemon Bars =YUM

These are easily the item that gets requested most by people at my office.
I like a crisp crust with a soft moist lemon layer....topped with powdered sugar of course!
This recipe from Ina Garten has a lemon layer almost twice as thick as the recipe I used to use which makes it much easier to get the filling set but not over baked.
Handy tips and hints:
Use fresh lemons and zest. Sometimes I will freeze extra zest if I'm using lemons for something else and use bottled juice but really fresh is best.
Do not over bake....the filling should be set but wiggle a little if you shake the pan.
Cool before eating. E detests warm deserts for the most part and with these I agree. If you dust with powdered sugar too soon it will melt on them if they are too warm....you can buy special non melting sugar but seriously....just wait. I will usually make these in the evening to use the next day.
Cut and then dust with powdered sugar...makes for a nicer presentation I think.
Enjoy!

Randomness & Love

I love polaroid....and since they are no longer making the film I am hording. So while you hoard....you can always use Poladroid My cats LOVE wet food.

I was dozing on the couch and E turned this on. Pride and Prejudice is one of my FAVE books. Love this movie.

I have had a serious craving for these lately. Salty and sour. Yum!

This kit = ADORABLE!
This book = completely sucked me in so far.....I want to make pie now.

Cupcake Frosting

Yes I know i'm cupcake obsessed...I like to bake and these are such a easy fun thing to bake. On top of trying to make them taste great you also want them to look great and one of the ways you can do that is with frosting.

The tip I like best is the Wilton #1M open star. It gives you this distinctive swirl. To use it you will need a large coupler and I would recommend a larger than average pastry bag. I like to frost a whole batch of cupcakes at a time and I don't like stopping to fill the bag with more frosting. Links below...happy baking!

Large coupler.
#M1 open star tip.

Large featherweight bag.

Is it the weekend yet?

Time to move that picture and depressing post down a notch!

I’m so excited to go to Phoenix this weekend. We are headed to the valley to do a few things. Visit the Cope’s! My best friend, confidante, cousin through marriage (ok that one is a stretch but has some basis), and her lovely husband and son. We get girl time, boys get Halo time, Caleb gets the little things I’ve collected for him since I saw him last and perhaps a trip to the Disney store for an early birthday present. Everyone gets lemon squares = everyone wins!

See RENT! Again. I can’t help it! I love this show and we have third row tickets to see Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp. Love it!

Diagnose iPod and probably replace it. This is a mixture of happy and sad…either way at the end of this weekend I will have a working iPod I guess so lets go with happy! Weigh in on the critical colour choice, black vs. silver in the comments.

Setting up entries for the state science fair. E heads up the science fair with our lovely friend Kimmy and on Saturday he and I will be setting up the winning entries from his school for this http://azsef.asu.edu/In fact we will get home from Phoenix Sunday and he will be going back with students on Monday morning. Fun, except that it will be at 5 am and it’s a quick there and back type of a trip oh and did I mention that it’s also the first day of his spring break? Still it’s a great experience for the students.

Throw in some Jamba Juice, shopping, gossip, great company, great food and it promises to be a great weekend. I can’t wait.

just in case.....

Just in case I was feeling too happy and content...I had a truly awful week. It started with a migraine that kept me in bed for two days. Nice. Followed by two days of a headache that would not go away (but I could deal with it) and then. I got a bug. But that sounds so small and insignificant. SO different from how I felt!

I was sick, repeatedly, every 20-30 minutes, for six hours, ending at 3:00 am Friday. Oh and that came with a 102 fever that lasted through the day. And yes, in answer to my friend Linda, I did break a bunch of blood vessels around my eyes and I do look like I was beaten. Photo evidence below.

Seriously though, any help? Every time I'm ill the blood vessels around my eyes and sometimes all over my face burst and it doesn't go away for 4-5 days. I'm sure it does not help that I'm really freakishly pale and don't wear makeup but it's not the best look. Really, not a great week for me. Hope yours was better!

Best.Husband.Ever

I am SO CLUMSY. I cut myself constantly at work on PAPER. I drop things and slip...it's completely ridiculous actually but the relevant part of this is that I dropped my ipod and I think it's broken. *sob* And by I think it's broken I mean it won't restore and I can just see the menu's but not actually load it with music or play anything on it. SO BAD/SAD!
Bright side: E has let me borrow his tiny and oh so cute nano.
Now I'm conflicted. I had a 30 gb video. It fit pretty much all of the music I have on my computer (some CD's I didn't upload) but it was pretty full. So what I would love input on is I love the tiny little nano in *pink*! But the biggest is 16 gb.
For $50 more I can get the newer HUGE 120 gb classic. A little bulkier, heavier, only comes in silver and black. But the upside is that I can have all of my music + videos + photos. I do really like the option of feeling like listening to the Beatles and having all of the music of theirs that I have at my fingertips.
HELP!

Project 365 update

So i've added a sidebar slideshow of all of my project 365 pictures. Over there --------->
Also! A friend asked me to contribute to her Theatre Loves Challenges blog to be sure to stop over there and join in. The challenge this month is make a project inspired by the song Seasons of Love from the musical Rent.
Here's mine!

Papers are prima and the photo collage was created in picnik and printed by scrapbookpictures.com

Come over and PLAY!

*Lucky Girl*

I am a lucky girl.

I have awesome friends.

Who love girls day out, Canada, starbucks and Target!

I am slowly getting over the cold that stole away 72 hours.

And even though I totally unintentionally made my whole office sick,

Bob still offered to make me tea.

I have an awesome husband. Who works way too hard. Science fair+teaching+taking classes+parent teacher conferences=lots of late work nights like tonight.

He's still at work. :-(

My crazy cats, watching me brush my teeth. Super random but sweet!

Cough*Sniffle*Whine*Sneeze

Nyquil here I come!

Rainy Sunday

It's a drizzly, rainy, gloomy day here today. It's actually quite comforting because we have had some really warm weather lately. You almost forget that it is February and it should be more dreary and cold.
Lots of hot tea and relaxing happening which is lovely.

I've been really random with updating here but our 2009 so far has been really calm, lovely and relaxing. Filled with lots of friends and love. Work has been great for both of us. E just finished teaaching a smart board class and I've been taking on some new responsibilities at work as well as working with a lot more sex crimes against minors. Which is obviously a difficult challenging thing to have to deal with on a day to day basis but it is good to hopefully assist people through the prosecution.
Well the rain has turned into hard pellets of snow and that may be a cue for me to take a nap.
Bisous!!

Project 365 Week 3

1-11-2009 No picture posted. I took pictures for a friend and didn't want to post the family picture on my blog without asking.

1-12-2009 Ariel. I was super sick in bed and she kept me company all day!


1-13-2008 Still sick...the house was getting progressively messier.

1-14-2009 E scraping ice off cars...he took neighbors to school with him and I went with my friend/their mom.

1-15-2009 Parking lot at work. The sun sets just as I leave every day.

1-16-2009 By the time we get our mail on the way home it's almost set.

1-17-2009 Eldon taking down part of our fence with his dad....do you like my dirt yard?