End of the Year

Today is the last day of 2012, so a look back at the year is a must and kind of a tradition here on my blog. The beginning of the year didn't start out to well for us with Richard being fired from Home Depot in February and being jobless for a bit before working at Sports Authority which that job was a freaking joke. Then our friend Brian got him hired on at Browns and he has loved working there, I think we finally found the perfect fit for him there. So Muchas Gracias to Brian.

The last weekend of June I was able to throw my mom her very first birthday party, with the help of our good friend Deb. Deb allowed me to have the party up at her place and we were blessed with perfect weather so we were able to enjoy her beautiful deck. My mother-in-law was also a big help by making cupcakes for the party. We enjoyed good food and friends, it was a nice way to celebrate her 60th birthday.

July came and I turned 29, that's right 2013 is the year I turn 30. I say bring it on! I didn't do anything major this year for my birthday, just the usual family dinner. I let the day pass like any other day.

Other then that its been the same ol day to day stuff, get a cold, suffer for ever and a day get better for a week and repeat,.. Actually this year was pretty good to me till this month with the sinus/ear infection. Which I was able to pop my ear and get most of my hearing back. Still a little plugged up but that's ok, as long as I can hear people in more then a whisper I'm golden.

Tonight We celebrate the New Year by going to an Aces hockey game, and a plus to this is Bobbie, (Richards sister) will be coming with us, this will be her very first hockey game.

However you decide to ring in the new year, do it safe, have fun if you drink don't drive and if you drive don't drink. Watch out for stupid people cause they will be out in force. Love to you all.

Till next year.

The Challenge

I have decided to do a little test, to see if I can do it. No not a test, a challenge. Starting January 1st, so Tuesday I am giving up soda  for 6 months. That's right you heard me no soda for 6 months, maybe longer we shall see. I know I can go for 1 month with out it so why not try for half a year? I will only drink tea, water, some juice, and my pink rockstars cause 1 can is only 10 calories and it's carbonated (thinking about when I get sick, like I am now). Just think of all the calories that I'm not going to be consuming, I think I will be better off with out it. After the 6 month mark we shall see what I do. I know it's going to be hard to start off with cause I have been drinking a ton of soda as of late cause I have been sick so I'm going to be detoxing and have killer headaches but that will only last a few days.

I'm posing a challenge for you too, I challenge YOU to give up 1 thing that isn't the best thing for you for a period of time, it could be deserts, soda like I'm doing, Coffee, you name it. You don't have to go as long as I'm going for either, set a goal for 1 month with out it. I'm not going to lie it's not going to be easy but just think how proud of yourself you will be if you accomplish it.

Going through the portal with a hippo

 Above is what I made my brother for Christmas, I almost kept it for myself cause it turned out so freaking cute! It's a guy going through a portal from the Portal video games and he is holding a block from a computer game called Minecraft. He seemed to like them so that's pretty dang cool.

 I made this cute little hippo for my mom, she loves hippos, She flipped when she saw him cause he is just so dang cute and the expression on his face. In the picture below you can see his little toes too.

I do believe that I have a real knack for the clay and my stuff just keeps getting better and better every time I make something. I'm still very much in making very simple stuff, but hey that's how you learn right? master the basics first then go from there.

Update on the cold front, turns out I didn't have a cold, I had a sinus infection that turned into a sinus infection with an ear infection (lucky me).  My ear was killing me on Sunday and I decided to wait till Monday to see if I could get in to see my ear doctor which was a no go cause they had no openings till Jan 3rd! So I sucked it up and went to the Doc-in-the-box to get treated. I honestly should have prob gone in on Sunday to them because I was running fevers and going down hill fast, like I tend to do with ear infections. Needless to say, I went got seen and got put on a nasal spray, antibiotics and an inhaler cause I'm having problems breathing and my cough is something else. Today I can actually sort of breath through my nose at least while sitting up so I'm slowing on mends from this lovely sickness. Leave it to me to get the cold my mom had and morph it into something way worse.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and Have a Happy New Year.

Projects and Colds

Last week was pretty good, got to spend some time with mom and ended the week making Christmas cookies with her and my SIL. The only downer of the week was mom getting sick and being such a nice person that she is, she shared it with me. I don't think I got it as bad as she had it but, it did manage to kick my butt this week. Today is the first day all week where I haven't fallen asleep on the couch watching tv. Of course the day is still young and it can still possibly happen. I am also trying to adjust to new glasses at the same time as being sick, not so fun. I can wear the new ones for up to 4 hours before I have to switch back to the old ones. Dang bifocals giving me problems adjusting to them. As I write this I'm in my old glasses trying to get rid of the headache from the new ones. OH the joy! I hope I get used to them, the last thing I want to do is go back yet again to the eye doctor.

I still need to make my brothers Christmas gift, I wanted to make it sooner but as I mentioned this damn cold has taken all my energy. I plan on making it tomorrow, so we shall see how that goes. It shouldn't be that hard for me to make and I think he will really enjoy it, if I can pull it off. Which I have no doubt that I Can, it's pretty simple really.

I also have a few ideas for some art to put up in the apartment, sadly I have to save up some money before I can give it a try but that's ok. Will make it that much better when I can actually work on it. I also got to do some research of what I want to make and colors so it's still in the planning stages. I think it will be extremely cool though when I do, do it.

I also need to get semi started on the next project for my brother, my hopes are to get it done for his birthday but if that doesn't happen I will get it finished for Christmas next year. I will just need some help from my mom and hopefully a really good friend of mine. We shall see cause I haven't even talked to my friend about it yet.

I also need to save money up and get a few knitting projects done or something so I can make a baby gift for a dear friend of mine in Montana. She isn't due till June so I still have some time there.

That's all that's on my small mind right now,

Christmas Wreath and Next Week

 I made this little guy Tuesday night, I had run out of wax paper so I used aluminum an learned not to use it for the clay really likes to stick to it. In fact it broke in two places before I could bake it. I fixed it but one spot is really noticeable but the other one really isn't unless you look for a flaw in the design.

Here is a close up view and you can see in the bottom right hand corner the fix but that's ok. I was just making this wreath to see how I like my new tools. All I gotta say is I LOVE them! They are going to help me out so much and add so much more to my projects, I can't wait! I just need to pick up the wax paper. This isn't the idea I had mentioned in my last post, well it sort of is and isn't, you will just have to wait and see.

Mom has all of next week off so I am going to be hanging out with her. Monday I go back to the eye doctor to get the prescription changed for my glasses cause I can't see with the new ones. Ok that's not entirely true, I can see with them but only things that are farther away, can't see things like the computer monitor though and to me that's more important. Other then that and the oil change on her truck the same day we will be finishing up sewing Christmas gifts, and making Christmas Cookies. My sister-in-law Bobbie is going to come over on Friday to help make the cookies so that should be a lot of fun.

Getting all Artsy Fartsy again

I just got this crazy good idea for something to make with polymer clay, only problem is I don't have all the tools to accomplish it. It will be freaking amazing if it works out the way I want it too. I just gotta price out the tools that I need. I know one of them wont be to expensive at all, the key there is actually finding the dang thing here in Anchorage. Actually I'm pretty sure everything will be on the cheap side. I haven't been this excited about a project in a while.

I still need to sit down and make my brothers Christmas gift, but that requires me to actually think about it when I have enough time to sit down and make it, I know by the time I get everything made up and ready to go in the oven mom would be on her way to get me to go to Costco's since we didn't go yesterday cause she worked late. I will sit down and do his gift prob this weekend then will post pics of it.

I also need to work on some knitting and some cross stitching as well, plus I want to work on some sewing too. Way to many projects to do. I think while I watch TV and wait for mom to get off work I will cross stitch cause I can leave that in the middle of a stitch and be ok.

Bye, Bye, Bye Cable

Richard and I have decided to cancel cable again. We just can't see paying around $30 a month to get 20 channels but we only watch around 5 of them. Just isn't money smart to do that. We have however signed up for Hulu Plus which allows us to watch tv shows that we like, and ones we haven't seen in years for $8 a month, so yeah way better and a savings of 22 dollars. It's great We are watching Major Dad a show we both liked and haven't seen since the early 90s, I can even watch ALF, the Snorks, the Original Care Bears cartoons, and the original Garfield & Friends!

Assigned Reading

A friend of mine who teaches 3rd grade and is going to school herself was assigned an assignment to list 40 books to have high school students read.She was having trouble coming up with a list and went to Facebook asking her friends for their favorite books from high school, that was assigned by a teacher. Apparently it's for a class to help kids fall in love with reading and books. I had a hard time coming up with books to help her and I was just in high school 10 years ago. I managed to come up with a book that we read in class that I thought was ok, which was Hatchet by I believe Gary Pulsen. My English teacher was obsessed with his books.

I have a confession to make, when it came to books being assigned to read on our own to read I wouldn't do it. Due to the fact that one I hate being told what had to read and teachers NEVER picked a book that I would read in general. Heck even when we had to read a book in class together, each student taking a turn to read out loud was torture to me. It wasn't so bad in grade school except in I believe 4th grade but I will get to that in a minute. Why was it torture to me to read out loud in class? It wasn't cause I had problems reading out loud, it was because other kids had problems reading out loud and when they would read it would be in monotone, choppy and just drove me nuts. I would actually read ahead of everyone and when it came time for me to read again I knew where we were and would flip back to where the class was would do my part and when done go back to where I was.  If I hadn't of already loved reading this would of turned me off of it.

Now why was it so bad in what I believe was fourth grade. Well because we were reading a book called Guns for General Washington. That book was soooo freaking boring, it was the first time ever that I started falling asleep in class. I hated that book so much. I dreaded that time in the day when we would read it. Now in all fairness my 4th grade teacher did read a few books that I didn't mind listening to like Where the Red Fern Grows, when she finished that book I vowed I wouldn't read it ever again but that was because it was such a sad book cause the dogs died. but it was a good book. A book I loved that my teacher read to us and I own a copy of is Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.

My 6th grade teacher read to the class and I actually own 3 books she read to us about WWII which are Letters From Rifka by Karen Hesse, Number The Stars by Lois Lowry and The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen. I vividly remember her reading The Devil's Arithmetic because it was the first time I ever envisioned myself in the book. I was living the book as if it was actually happening, I was seeing it through the eyes of the main character. It felt like I was actually there. I wasn't in class anymore, when she would stop reading it took me a few seconds to come back to reality. It felt so real to me, it shocked me. I had never done that before, now I do it all the time, when I read I am transported into the book.

I think how I got my love for books is from my dad, he used to read to me at night. He didn't do it every night but I remember him reading to me. In fact I to this day still have the last book he ever read to me, which is Oscar Wilde Stories for Children. I'm pretty sure mom read to me too, I just don't remember it, but that's ok. I also remember the first Chapter book I read on my own which was a Ramona Quimby book.

I strongly believe that parents should read to their kids, I believe it's what will help kids fall in love with books, not teachers assigning books. Those books wont appeal to every student. I know if Richard and I have kids that I will be reading to them, in hopes that they will love to read as much as Richard and I do.

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It's Black Friday and for the first time in a very very long time I am by myself for it. Richard has always worked Black Friday as long as we been married but mom hasn't, I can't remember the last time she worked the day after Thanksgiving. So what am I doing? Well I'm listening to Christmas music, cleaning the apartment and decorating. I have 2 windows left to put window clings in, gotta find a place to hang our stockings cause I got rid of out floating shelf after last Christmas cause it was worse for wear, and I haven't even begun to think about where I'm putting up lights. I have however put up 2 out of 3 trees and the bathroom is decked out for the holiday including our singing snowman.

When I was a kid we didn't start decorating for Christmas till dad's birthday which was Dec 10th. I think that was dads idea cause we always got a live tree and he didn't want the tree to die before Christmas. I want to say Christmas was dad's favorite holiday, he always had the Christmas spirit, I to have it as well. As you all know Christmas is by far my favorite holiday. For the first couple of years of being married I really didn't decorate for Christmas cause I didn't have any decorations, and mom wouldn't give me my frosty and friends ornaments quite yet. When we finally were able to get decorations I decided to change the tradition from dads birthday to right after Thanksgiving dinner or if too stuffed to the day after. Richard leaves the decorating up to me, he says it's my job to decide where things go. I'm ok with that cause I know if I need his help he will help me, especially with the lights. I don't use my ornaments yet, cause we don't have room for a big tree where we are living, but once we do have the room we will get a bigger tree then the 3 small ones we have and frosty and friends will be out once again.

I only have 2 more Christmas gifts to worry about, those are for my brother and mom. I'm making my brother something out of polymer clay like I do every year, and keeping with the theme it's video game related. My mom on the other hand I have no clue what to get her this year. She is very hard to shop for. I would list off ideas I have but well she reads my blog so not giving anything away. Other then that everyone else is done. Well besides Richard, but we have never really had the money to get each other something for Christmas, maybe one of these years we will. I am just happy to spend the day with him as we travel over the river and through the woods to both parents places on that day.

Fabric stores through the eyes of a child

As I sit here waiting for it to be time to head off to the Crafts Emporium, my favorite craft bazaar to go to every year with mom, I can't help but think back to a conversation I had with her last weekend. We were in the truck and headed to Barnes & Noble to get a few books and she asked if it was ok if we stopped at the Quilt Tree to just look, I said sure cause I find it fun to go look at all the fabrics. Plus it's pretty much always a given that we will go to the quilt shop if we go to book store cause the quilt shop is right behind it.

I can't remember who brought it up first but we got to talking about how when we were kids and dragged to the fabric stores we both hated it. Mom remembers being really bored as grandma would look through patterns and I agreed with her that yeah that indeed is boring to a child. There is nothing for a kid to do at fabric stores besides be bored and depending on the store swivel around on the stool and make yourself dizzy. I did that A LOT when mom would haul me to Joann's. Oh how I hated it, I would sit there and think can I be anywhere else but here please? cause I could only just sit there and wait for her to be done cause if I did anything else I would just get myself in trouble. It also seemed like the more I nagged her about being done the longer it took her. I thought for the longest time that the fabric store was my own personal hell, I would groan and pout if mom said we were going there while we were out and about.

I don't feel that way anymore, I grew up and lo and behold I actually enjoy going now. I have helped mom so many times now picking out fabrics that complement one another. I'm actually rather good at doing it too. I have an eye for colors which is amazing cause my eyes suck at everything else (besides finding a certain drink mom likes in a big bin at the store). The only time I don't like helping her is when she has a very distinct idea of a pattern in her head for the piece of fabric we are looking for. That's only till she shows me what she is kinda looking for cause she stinks at describing what it is she wants. But once I get an idea it goes better.

I think it's funny how as a kids it bored me and mom to death to go to the fabric store,but now we both enjoy it. Is it because we got dragged kicking and screaming so many times to the store that we just gave in to it? The likely reason is as we grow our brains grow and we find stuff that once bored us cause we didn't understand it, now entertains us because we do understand why our mothers found what they were doing so entertaining. It is also likely that I am more like my mother then I  tend to want to admit. She is very much into quilting, knitting, crocheting, and cross stitch as am I, well besides the crocheting (I suck at it). I remember watching her sew and finding it amazing that she could take strips of fabric and make it into a quilt, or a bag. I loved helping her while she was sewing and I still do. I know she likes when I help too cause it makes the project she is working on go a bit faster.

Thanks mom for dragging me to the fabric stores when I was younger, I know I didn't like it then but I understand now why you like to go.

Frogs and Glasses

I got my frogs back the other day, I think they turned out super cute! They are now sitting on the computer desk. One of the backs turned out better then the other but still cute. I know we will be going back to color me mine again and I can't wait. Don't know when but yeah it will happen.

In other news on Tuesday I went and got an eye exam and was able to buy me some new glasses and sun glasses. They will be here 7-10 business days, I'm looking forward to getting them. For the first time I didn't have to get my eyes dilated which was very nice change of pace.

Gargoyle, Box and Kitten Oh MY!

 Above is the Gargoyle Richard painted at Color me Mine. I think it turned out rather well, He is now working on a Dragon as we have money to pay for the studio fee, and for me to paint.  Sadly I wasn't allowed to take my box home that I painted because of a flaw in it. It was in fact recalled because it wouldn't hold the paint and it would come off in sharp shards. I was however able to see it and take pictures of it.

 I thought I did a pretty good job on it too, not to mention it's to dang cute so it irks me that I can't have it. They did however let me paint again waving the studio fee and the price of what I painted. the frogs in the background is what I painted and I will get them here in a couple of days.

 Top view of the really pretty box I can't have

 The inside of said box

 Here are a few pictures of my mom's newest addition Flynn, he has grown a lot since I got him from a friend, who couldn't keep him due to her condo association.

 He is so stinking cute but a real pain as well, he gets into everything and attacks poor Data.

He is losing his cute kitten look and becoming a grown cat he is I believe 6-7 months old now. I think it's his cuteness that keeps him alive. He also plays fetch with his toy mice.

Painting Recipes with Winter

Yesterday Richard and I went to Color Me Mine a local business where you can paint ceramics for a small fee. We went there with our Friends Kaori and Peter and their little boy Puckles aka Peter Micheal. I painted a box and Richard painted a gargoyle with Bright red eyes. It's going to take 10-14 days for them to be ready for pick up so when we get them I will share pictures of them. We had a blast, and will defiantly be doing it again as it's not that expensive to do it.

There is a new recipe up on my recipe blog, this one is a breakfast Sandwich that is like stuffed french toast. It is amazingly good and fast and easy to make. Make sure to check that out by going here : http://recipesfromak.blogspot.com/

Winter is approaching pretty fast here as of right now it's only like 15 out our highs are only in the 30's now. Pretty soon it will snow and actually stick. Last year it snowed the day before Halloween and didn't really stop snowing all winter. I'm wondering what this one is going to be like.

that's all from here for now.

Why being who I am is hard sometimes

How do you help someone with out getting in the middle of things? That's a tough question to answer the right way cause there is no way to really truly "help" the person and stay out of things besides just being there when they need to rant and rave at someone other then the person they are truly mad at, or hurt by. You can give them your two cents worth of knowledge or tell them how you would think you would handle the situation if you were in their place. But does that actually help them? Do you truly and honestly know how you would act and handle it if the same thing happened to you? You can say you do but you will never know till it actually happens to you. God forbid it actually does.

I have heard from other people and even my own mom that it's best to not get involved with other peoples problems/drama. I know this and I try my hardest to stay out of things but my friends problems have a way of finding me. I mostly take on the role of counselor/therapist I let my friends rant to me all the time about problems that they have. I'm a great listener and even sometimes have a point of view that they themselves didn't even see or think of cause they are so close to the problem. I have such a good heart and want everyone to be happy and try my best to make it happen even if it is for just a few seconds when I crack a horribly corny joke. But if they smile and or laugh I know for one second they weren't thinking about what was bothering them. Trust me there are times where I want to take a person who has hurt a friend and yell at them and ask them what the heck is wrong with you, why did you do that? but then my little voice in my head says wait don't do what your thinking cause it could only make matters worse. So my heart silently breaks for my friend and I feel their pain and wish I could do more for them knowing in my heart that the only thing I can do is be a shoulder for them to lean on and an ear to listen.

Happy Birthdays! and busy crafts

Today was Richards birthday, it was also my very good friends Deb's husbands birthday as well as my Friend James. Lots o Birthdays to all of them I hope you had a wonderful birthday. We had family Dinner at the Glacier Brew House. The entire Alaskan fam showed up, which was cool. I also made Richard cinnamon rolls for breakfast this morning and last night I made him a no sew superman blanket.

I have so many projects going right now it's crazy. I have 2 knitting projects going, a cross stitch pattern I'm working on, 7 soon to be 8 or 9 Christmas gifts that need to be done, I have a few wedding pictures getting printed so I can put them into frames, plus kinda playing around with my sewing machine to get used to it now that mom has fixed the problem for me. I also have been doing lots of origami as well.  On top of all of this I think I'm coming down with a sinus infection (oh joy) we shall see here in the next few days if I'm right or not.

I was surprised to find out tonight that my name was drawn for a gift from my friend Deb's blogs 700th post. I actually had to reread my name 3 times to make sure I wasn't seeing things as I am sitting here with out my glasses on and am having to squint to type this out. So please pardon any mistakes as I'm blind as a bat with out my glasses on. Why then do you ask am I not wearing them, well thats simpel my headache isn't as bad with them off as it is whith them on.

Off to go lay down and try to get some sleep.

Health Insurance

We had to wait 6 months before Richard and I would be eligible for health insurance through his work. But we had to apply for me to be covered when he started there. His work will pay for his insurance so we only had to pay for mine. We didn't know how much it was going to cost and figured if it was too expensive that I could always opt out. That's just what I did. He called me up about an hour ago to tell me that I wasn't going to be insured because it would be $1000 a month. That's right a MONTH! It costs more then our freaking rent does. The only way we could afford that is if we were living rent and bill free and that's not going to happen.

How does the government think people are going to be able to have health insurance by 2014 if it's so damn expensive? Especially the people who struggle and live paycheck to paycheck like we do? We are a one income house hold we just manage to make most ends meet with a little help from mom. I would get a job but it's just not an option at the moment, there is no way for me to get to and from work. It's not fair to penalize people because they can't afford to have health insurance and it's WRONG to force people into something they can't afford to do. Why do they have the right to tell me what I do with MY money? Or lack of money.

so there is my rant, do with it what you like but know you will not convince me that the government is right in this.

Rain Rain GO AWAY!

This is Archimedes from The Sword in the Stone, this is also how probably a lot of Alaskan residents feel at the moment after a week of nothing but rain and looking forward to more rain for another week. We have a small lake in the parking lot of our apartment complex right in front of the dumpster of course, so I have to wade through it to throw anything out. Mom even has a corner of the backyard that is under water at the moment. I have a feeling it isn't going to stop raining till it starts snowing. I keep expecting to be carried away by all the water. Thankfully though the wind has finally stopped blowing. 

I spent this week helping out mom getting stuff ready for the nursing conference that is going on Friday-Sunday. I typed up a bunch of stuff for her so she could finish up some other stuff that needed to be done. I think I was able to help her out and take some of the stress off of her for a bit. I also stapled packets together for her as well. I was all about the paperwork, and helping her remember to do stuff. 

I have also come up with a great gift idea for my brother, with a little help from mom on what to do with it. I would love to get it done by Christmas but in reality it will probably get done by his birthday next year and that's ok. I found a bunch of patterns of Mario characters and objects on the internet this morning for bead fusing but I'm going to cross stitch the pattern instead and then combine all the squares of cross stitching into a wall hanging quilt. I was able to print off the patterns while at moms today with out him finding out about it, now I just gotta make sure I have the right color threads and figure out how big I want to make each character then start stitching. This might be the first major sewing project I do. Of course hopefully with a little help from mom. 

Also I need to finish knitting my shawl and knitting my blanket as well. Hopefully I will get those done this winter. I just haven't been in the right mood for knitting. I also need to catch up on my reading too. So much to do and all the time in the world to do it and yet all I manage to do is play computer games and video games. 

A really good friend of mine has moved back to state, I'm so happy to have her back. I ran into her, her hubby and their little boy at the store the other day and we are going to try to get together and do something this Sunday. I so enjoy spending time with them. She also wants me to teach her how to knit, which I will gladly do once they find a place of their own to live. She can't hang out at my place due to being allergic to cats. 

Well I do believe I have rambled on enough for this post, I think I will try once again to get some sleep.

Up and Running

My New Blog is up and running. It has two recipes on it that I have made this week. The title is still a work in progress and I might change it if I find a better name for it.  but here is the link feel free to check it out. http://recipesfromak.blogspot.com/ 

New Blog

I'm starting a new blog, this one is going to be different then the one I am in now. The new blog will be recipes that Richard and I like and also new ones that we try. I'm doing this so I can share the recipes easily. I will also rate the recipes and suggest improvements to the recipes if needed. Oh and if it's spicy since not everyone can handle spice like Richard and his dad can.  My main issue with the new blog is the name. I can't think of what to call it. I have it all set up and it has been created but I want a catchy name to go along with it before I really start posting on it.

I called mom at work today and had her and the gals she works with brain storm and they came up with some cute names. The ones I like are:

Briggs Bites
Kramer's Kitchen
The Naughty Oven
Stephanie's Succulent Scrumptious Recipes
Food-N-Things
Stove Top Munchies
The Tasty Table
Arctic Appetizers
The Yummy Igloo
Tasty Snowball or Snowflake
Moose Munchies

I'm still looking for suggestions so feel free to leave your idea in a comment and I will let you know when I pick a name and fully launch the blog.

Wild Wind Wednesday

Tuesday Night/Wednesday Morning we had a pretty bad windstorm blow through Anchorage. This poor May day tree and one farther down sadly didn't make it through the storm. You can see how bad it's leaning into our driveway at the apartment, right after I took this photo maintenance came and took it down.

We lost power at 10pm Tuesday night and didn't get power back till 4pm Thursday, that's 42 hours with out power (YIKES!). That was by far the longest I have ever gone with out power, needless to say I don't want to do that ever again and am very thankful that this didn't happen in the middle of winter. Sadly the food in the fridge didn't fair so well and it spoiled, on the other hand we only lost a few things from the freezer. Thursday morning we took the frozen food over to moms house where we have a freezer that we bought a few years ago for extra storage as our freezer here is on the small side. It's still there as we have yet to go back to get it, but will be doing that tomorrow while we do laundry.  The major thing I didn't like about not having power is Richard and I sleep with a fan on more for noise then to help cool us down but it does both which is a plus. Going 2 nights with out it was tough, neither one of us slept very well with out it. Thursday night we both slept through the night and didn't wake up till the alarm went off to get Richard up for work. Today we went shopping and replaced the food that went bad, mom was nice enough to help us replace the food as well so a BIG THANK YOU to her.

In other news, I wasn't able to get any pants from the clothing store that's closing but I was able to get a few shirts and a nice fall jacket. They were completely out of the pants that I liked, I figured I wasn't going to be able to get any but it would of been nice. I do love the shirts and jacket I got though, I was in desperate need of some new shirts so that worked out really well.

I have also set up a few goals for myself in the month of September, one is I'm not going to drink any soda for the month, the other is I'm going to try and lose 20 lbs this month. So far so good. I have lost 4lbs and haven't had a soda. Tuesday I walked 3 miles on the treadmill then haven't walked on it since but, for good reasons. Wednesday and Thursday as you know I had no power and my feet have been hurting ever since the 3 mile walk. I believe I over did that just a little. But come Monday I will be back on the treadmill and will only walk prob a mile and see how it goes from there. I do have a plan for increasing how many miles I walk. Just got to be careful about it.

Minecrafting sewing pants

I have gotten sucked into a video game/computer game, all thanks to my brother. For quite a while now he has been into Minecraft on the computer. For those of you who don't know what it is, it's a game where you can make pretty much any kind of building your heart desires by mining materials and crafting them. I have watched him play and make some pretty spectacular buildings for well over a year or 2 now. He has made a fire breathing dragon, a huge library (see mom I can spell it right even if I don't pronounce it right), numerous houses of different designs and sizes. He is very creative, you should see some of his drawings. I have always been jealous of his skills. Anyways, he had me try out the game on the xbox 360 and I kinda liked it for how long I played it cause it was just a demo. I had it in the back of my mind for a while and I started having the urge to play it more and more so I forked over some money and bought it for the xbox and started playing it. The more I played the better I got. I managed to make a swimming pool complete with diving board and a couple of houses. I am in the middle of making my biggest house yet on that version of the game. I have even set that house on fire, on accident and was able to save 98% of it thanks to the fact that I had water on hand (my brother says I'm a true player now cause I have set a building on fire).

I also have Minecraft on the computer as well. Why you ask, well because it was the first version of the game and you can do more stuff on this version plus the world is 8 times bigger then earth. Lots of places to explore and get lost in. Yes you can indeed get lost in the game, it's happened to me before and even my brother a few times. You can also die in the game either from monsters at night, falling from high up, drowning, or burning up in lava. I easily lose track of time while playing the game, in fact yesterday I sat at the computer dang near the entire time Richard was at work playing the game. So yeah I'm addicted thanks to my brother but that's ok cause it gives us something to talk about with each other. Which sometimes will drive my mom nuts cause he will want to show me what he has done and she will want to go somewhere.

In other news, I did in fact use the sewing machine I got, till it started acting up on me, I haven't used it since cause I need mom to take a look at it and see why it's binding up all the sudden. So it's just sitting on the table at the moment cause I keep forgetting to bring it with me when I go up to moms house or have her come in to look at it. Well that and mom has been working a ton of overtime and has been extremely tired so don't want to push something that can wait. She has a week off coming up in a few weeks but she will be busy getting ready for the nursing conference that is happening here. It will get looked at sooner or later not in too much of a hurry.

A local clothes shop that I frequent is closing at the end of the month, which sucks big time. I go there to buy my pants so I have no idea what I'm going to do for pants after they close. Mom is taking me there today to get me a few pairs if there are any left in my size. Most of you are thinking what's the big deal just go to a different store to get pants. Well the big deal is, is that I hate hate hate HATE pants that sit across my stomach have been that way since I was little. It's not comfortable to me plus it actually  aggravates a stomach problem of mine. I can do skirts perfectly fine but for some reason jeans or most any kind of pants constrict and cause the problem to flair up. So I wear leggings that sit on my hips. I guess I will have to start looking in catalogs for pants that look like they will work till I lose some weight. 

A new Challenge

I have a sewing machine now. I had toyed with the idea of getting one for years but they are just so expensive. Mom has two and then bought a friends that she was selling and I mentioned I had been wanting one so I got the one she bought from her friend. Mom then gave me a bunch of  fabric that a different friend of hers gave her because she was moving. The bag of fabric I got also had a bag of thread in it. I'm thinking today of just kinda goofing around and getting a feel for the machine. I haven't really ever used a sewing machine but I have some ideas of things to make. But first I want to get comfortable with using the machine before really going off and making things.

I have gotten a few other supplies for sewing, I have a tape measure, fabric scissors and pins. I just need the rotary cutter and cutting board. mom said she would let me have one of her cutters and borrow a board I just need to go get them/ pester mom about them.

Operation Organazation

I just spent the last hour de-cluttering  the living room and kitchen. In the kitchen all I did was get stuff off of the top of the fridge and put it where I thought it belonged and cleaned off the top of the microwave of everything except my few puny cookbooks that I have. In the living room I got rid of an organizer on the computer desk which really opened up the desk and makes it look nice, and threw away our piece of crap never worked right printer that we got for free when we got our computer. I also moved my camera bag to under the desk instead of on top of it. Then I went over to our gaming shelf that holds all our games and game systems and took all of our walk through and put them in the entertainment center behind solid doors so you don't see them. Where they once were are now two black storage bins (blends in with the shelf) that hold all of the game controllers. Just this tiny bit of organizing has made a big difference to the apartment. I still have more that I'm going to do but that will have to wait till tomorrow as I have run out of energy and it's now after 10pm so I can't make a lot of noise. I still need to tackle the spare room, the stereo shelf in the living room and maybe the closet in the bathroom.

The Cake Is A Lie

 I made this cake for my brother for his birthday. As the title implies, the cake is a lie, it's made out of Styrofoam for the cake, polymer clay for the whip cream, and wood for the cherries. Oh and Spray paint for the Styrofoam and wood.

Mom went to Fred Meyers and bought me a cake box to put the cake into. It was just a plain white cake box and mom said I should stamp Happy Birthday onto it but I had a better idea, why not take the logo from the game I got the cake idea from and put it on there. Which turned out to be quite some work cause we don't have a working printer here and couldn't go to moms to print it out for fear of my brother seeing what I was printing. I ended up holding a piece of paper to the computer screen and tracing the design. Then cut it out and traced it onto the box in pencil then went over it with sharpies. It took me an hour to put it onto the box and color it in. I added on the the little saying on the flap. He really seamed to enjoy it and said I did a great job making it. He doesn't know where he is going to put it yet since it is quite a bit bigger then the usual stuff I make him. 

Here is the back story to this cake. It is a replica cake of one in a video game called Portal 2. You go through this entire video game going through test chambers and at one point they tell you there is going to be cake, but the cake is a lie, there is no cake, or is there? Once you beat the game the screen fades out and then said cake is shown for a brief minute. Both my brother and I like this video game, so I knew he would get a kick out of having his own version of the cake.

Now I have 4 months to figure out what the heck to make him for his Christmas gift.

One week later

I finally went to the dentist to have him look at my tooth. They took x-rays of my mouth and he was hoping that they caught the problem in enough time to save the tooth, he based this off of the x-ray which was deceiving. He looked at the tooth and first started out saying we could save it, then after poking at it for a few minutes decided nope, we were better off pulling it and how I felt about getting it pulled. I told him I knew he was going to have to pull it and how I told mom that but mom was all no he can fix it. HA! mom should know by now not to second guess me cause I'm always right. (like knowing which way to go in Hawaii to find places) So the dentist starts numbing up my mouth and that took like 5-7 shots to numb it to his liking. He even cracked a joke saying "let me know when your left foot is numb".  Now comes the fun part, yanking out my tooth with out having to break it into pieces to do so. It was happy where it was and DID NOT want to come out. He was hoping it was going to be an easy tooth extraction cause as he says jokingly "I'm a lazy guy, but your tooth is stubborn"  so he pushes and pulls and wiggles the tooth and my jaw and finally the tooth pops free, you could actually hear the tooth pop free.  Gauze gets put in my mouth and I look over at the dentist and say "Of course my tooth was stubborn, cause I'm stubborn" which gets a chuckle out of him, and he sends me on my way.

Now what I didn't tell you was this appointment was set for 8am and that I was going to have to walk home from it because both Richard and mom had to work today. Mom dropped me off at 7:11 and I went in and sat down and read till they were ready for me. Thankfully I only live 1.2 miles away from my dentist so it wasn't a bad walk and it is a beautiful day today. It only took me 39 minutes to get home, so not bad there. I was thinking/hoping that the appointment would be just a look and see and come back on another day to do anything. But I also know better and have been going to the same John Denver look alike dentist all my life and knew that he would just fix it today.

By the way I'm  freaking starving!!!!!! I can't eat regular food till tomorrow and even then gotta be a little careful and stupid me didn't think about getting anything soft food wise before today. So here I sit listing to my stomach growl, drinking water and waiting for the phone to ring to tell me mom is on her way home so she can get me some ice cream or frozen yogurt and pudding and maybe some popsicles as well.

 On a side note, Richard doesn't work for Sports Authority anymore, no he wasn't fired he left that job a little over 2 months ago and started working at Browns Electric.  A close friend of ours pursued him to come work for him in the warehouse of one of the stores. Richard now works at the main warehouse for Brown's Electric. He loves his job, I love his job and the pay, cause it's FULL TIME! I just realized I hadn't updated you guys on here about his job. My bad. 

Happy Birthday to Me

As the title says Happy Birthday to me, YUP I am officially 29 years old today. Whats this mean? well for roughly 3 months I am a year older then Richard.  It also brought up a conversation I had with my dad when I was prob I wanna say 8 cause we were coming home from a night church service and we were talking about the year 2000 and if I thought the world was going to end then or not. I thought it would and said that I was going to be old by the year 2000. Never mind that 16 turning 17 isn't old at all but to a little kid of 8 that's hundreds of years away. So to past me I will say, hey its 2012 and you are now 29 so there!

Along the lines of younger me saying 16 is old I have come to realize as I have gotten older and am approaching 30 (cause it's only a year away now) that 30 and 40 really aren't all that old. Amazing how when you are younger you think its so old and as you get closer to that age you realize wait it really isn't all that old at all. I also find it amusing how people have such a hard time turning 30 and they freak out. I'm going to embrace my 30's it's just a number it doesn't mean squat, big deal I will be 30 nothing special about that, it's not like turning 16, 18 or 21. Those are milestones in your life you are able to drive, then you are an adult and then the thing you wait for you're legal to drink and then drinking for at least me loses its appeal cause you can drink when ever you like. 30 is just well 30 nothing special happens when you turn 30 congrats you have made it to middle age. You can now check the box 30-40 years old. So I guess you could say I don't see the big deal, and why people freak out so badly when they hit the magical age of 30. I mean what is there to look forward to, graying hair (which I already have), your body making noises it never used to make when you crawl into or out of bed, loss of hearing (which again I already have) and forgetting stuff. So I'm not going to freak out this whole next year of my life cause I will be thirty in exactly a year. I'm going to enjoy life. Besides if the Mayans were right and the world ends later this year I wont make it to my 30th birthday anyways.

Stupid tooth baseball

So some how or another I lost the corner of a tooth on my left side of my mouth. I noticed it last weekend. I had originally thought I just had something stuck in my tooth, that is till I went and checked it out in the mirror. The tooth doesn't hurt at all but, that side of my throat does as does my left ear. I don't know if they coincide with one another or not but I have a feeling they do. I am going to go to the dentist to get the tooth fixed, I'm just trying to wait a little longer so mom can pay off the dentist for my brother having to go in and Richard having to get a tooth pulled both right on top of each other at the beginning of the year. Mom is nice enough to pay for our dentist visits, so I'm trying to wait this out as long as I can. My tongue is irritated cause it rubs on the jagged edge of the tooth as well but that doesn't bother me as much as the not so bad but constant pain of my ear and throat.   I know it's not an ear infection cause trust me I KNOW what those feel like.

Yesterday Richard and went to a baseball game that went 21 innings before someone finally won. We were there for over 5 hours watching this game. This game tied the record for longest game from back in 1992 and if it had gone only half an inning more would have broke the record. It was a good game, we couldn't believe how long it took to get a winner though, those poor guys had to of been tired. I read today that both teams combined went through 15 pitchers and each team had a player each bat 9 times.

Ch Ch Ch Changes

Change is a brewing over here, I'm sick of how some things are with me so I'm going to try and change them. I have set a goal for myself and I hope I stick with it and can accomplish it. It starts on July 12th and ends on July 11th of next year. Why those dates? well because July 11th of next year I turn 30 and I want to accomplish this before I turn 30. I want to reach a certain weight by then, for personal reasons I will not tell you how much I weight now. I will however let you know when I get halfway to my goal, and how much weight I have lost. If I manage to make it to my goal or past it, I will be THRILLED. I'm going to be really testing my self control this go around. I did really well back before I took the trip to California in May of last year. I sadly let that trip get the best of me and never got back to dieting. and gained most the weight back but not all of it. So since I had such success with that I'm going to do what I was doing then again. Which was just basically cutting back how much I eat, no calorie counting just cutting my servings down. Calorie counting I have found out is not a good way for me to go about losing weight, I get discouraged to easily. I am sorta starting now but wont officially start till after my birthday this year. We shall see how well this goes, so wish me luck!

A Simplistic Life or Over Runned by Stuff?

I have been thinking a lot lately (yeah yeah I know scary huh?) about how much stuff Richard and I own and how much people own in general. I gotta say, Why do we have so much crap? Think about it, look around you at all the stuff that surrounds you. How much of this stuff do we actually need to survive? Do we really need T.V.'s, computers, cell phones, Ipods, video game systems, web cams, GPS and any other electronic devices we might have? Then on top of all that stuff there are the accessories to it all, if you have a game system, you have games, controllers, power cables, for the more challenging games you have a walk through.Heaven help you if you have more then one system like we do. You own a T.V. or two or three, you have DVD players, DVDs and that controller, and most likely a DVD play for each T.V. you own, I know we do, we have a DVD player in the bedroom and a Blue Ray player in the living room. With the computer you have all the stuff that goes with it, plus cables to plug in your ipod to it and any time you upgrade your Ipod you get yet another cable to connect to the computer with. Same with your digital camera, how many of those do you have? My mom has at least 4 that I can think of.  Then there are pictures and picture albums, decorations, cleaning supplies, Holiday decorations. On top of all this stuff you have to have a place to put it all, so now you have storage boxes and shelves. I wont even go into the things we all have that just sit around and collect dust cause we never use them but don't want to throw them away because we have some form of attachment to them or we are just lazy or better yet as I have caught myself saying on more then one occasion "I might need it one of these days".

I have an entire closet at my moms house full of stuff that I haven't used in 8 years, or longer and I can't seem to convince myself to go through it again and see what I truly need out of there and what is just there due to "I might need this one of these days". Now I know there are stuffed animals that I will hold on to cause they are from my child hood and from my father, but a lot of that stuff I could probably do with out. I mean I haven't used it in 8 years I obviously don't miss it. A couple of times a year I go through this phase of wanting to get rid of stuff I don't use, that's just taking up space. I don't want to have so much junk laying around.

I guess sometimes I yearn for a simplistic life, where I don't need a T.V. or computer, or any electronic device. I think about how nice it would be to just to be. I already hardly watch T.V., we haven't had cable or direct T.V. or satellite. It only gets turned on when Richard is home for the most part. But at the same time I realize if I didn't have all this stuff how bored I would be. On the bright side though I do find myself asking "do I really truly 100% need this item, or can I live with out it?" when I go shopping and see a nifty new device. So I guess in my own way I am leading a more simplistic life then I have in the past, but in reality I am just like everyone else and will always have the yearning to have the newest device depending on what it is I will give in sooner or later. Usually when the price goes down to a more reasonable one. I am after all only human.

Road Tripping

Mom and I might road trip down to Seward on Saturday, just for the day and to get out of town. It's not a bad little trip and takes about 2 hours to get there. If we go I will take my camera and snap some pictures. Mom and I have always been real good partners for road trips, we have always had a great time and get along amazingly well. No matter what my age was, you put her and I in a car together and let us travel the open road and we get along. It always amazed me cause I know I could be a MAJOR brat (still am some days) but something just clicked and we never fought, we would just talk, laugh and sing along to the radio or tapes or Cd's.

There is one such road trip that sticks out in my mind. I was 13 turning 14, mom, my brother and I went down to Washington to visit family, my brother went to stay with our aunt in a different part of the state while mom and I went to spend some time in Spokane with grandma and the rest of the family that lived there. We spent a couple days there hanging out I think maybe a week, then mom and I hit the road to go pick up my brother, head down to I want to say Yakima (don't hold me to that I could be wrong) to see more family and friends of moms, then we continued down into Oregon to see even more family. Once we picked my brother up any time it was just the 3 of us he would complain about wanting to go home, over and over and over again. Once we were done in Oregon and made it back to Seattle, mom had had enough of his Complaining and sent his butt back home, he was 17 turning 18 so don't get any ideas, he was old enough to be home alone. We stayed at the Double Tree Inn and with check in we got 2 free cookies, it just so happened that it was my birthday the next day so I got 2 cookies all to myself. Plus the added bonus of not having my brother around on my birthday cause he was flying home. So mom get's him off to the airport the next morning and we check out and go get breakfast.

Mom asks me what route we should take to go back to Spokane, we could go the short way and be back to the farm in 4 hours or take the North Cascade Highway which is an all day drive that she has always wanted to do. So we decide to do the all day route back to the farm. I have been the navigator for the whole trip so me and the map were close friends by this point in the trip and by the end of the trip we were even closer friends. Because of never traveling this route before mom wasn't sure if we had missed the turns I had mapped out so she kept having me open the map up to double check, I must have folded the map a thousand times just on this one part of the trip. Mom made a drastic mistake on this trip, we had stopped in some little town to get drinks and snakes and I ended up getting a bag of mini reeses cups and a 6 pack of 20oz Surge soda to help keep me awake. The mistake here was I was now hyped up on sugar and caffeine stuck in a car with no outlet for the energy I had, I was also slightly bored not a good combination. At one point we passed a bunch of cows in a field and I rolled down the window and proceeded to moo at them. Yes you read that right I MOOED at cows! We finally make it back to Spokane, pick up a birthday cake for me at the store and once on the road that lead to grandmas house mom decided to let me drive the rental car. I'm pretty sure I gave mom quite a few gray hairs that day, being as it was the first time I had ever driven and that I almost took out a fence as I turned into grandmas driveway. Which wouldn't have been good cause that fence was keeping horses from getting loose. All and all it was a great road trip when it was just the 2 of us.

It has been almost 10 years since we went down to the states and road tripped, I miss it, I want to go do it again so bad. I would love to do a cross country road trip. But would settle for doing a road trip like mom and I have done in the past with just doing a few states. Yes I know I said we were possibly doing a road trip to Seward but it's not the same, granted it's still fun but well there is only 2 roads out of Anchorage and we have traveled them many times before. Don't get me wrong I like going on road trips but I feel as these ones up here are just a big tease cause you really don't go all that far, And been there done that got the t-shirt, mug, hat, magnet, underwear and pants.

Walking Plans

This is a follow up post to my last one about walking. I have kept up walking, there was a week where I didn't walk at all due to being in pain in my shins from a new pair of shoes, which I no longer am wearing due to the fact that it started to hurt my heel and I didn't want that pain back again. So for now I am in my old shoes again but do need to get new ones soon.

Today will be the third time I have gone for my walk this week. Hopefully I do better today then I did on Wednesday, Wednesday I was a minute slower then I was on Monday but that's ok cause it only takes me about 47-48 min to walk the 1.8 miles now instead of an hour so that is a good improvement for as little walking that has been done before this week. I got an app for my phone that tracks not only the route I take, but how fast I walk, how many calories I burn and how long it takes for me to do it. Once I get my time a little better and I'm not so tired or winded while walking I'm going to increase how many days I walk and how far I walk. I figure Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I will do the route I'm doing now and Tuesdays and Thursdays I will do a slightly bigger route by walking up to Lore instead of 72nd which instead of being 1.8 miles will be roughly 2.2 miles that way I have some difference in my walks and easier days and harder days and then when that gets easy I might switch them around and do the bigger walks Monday, Wednesday and Friday and do the smaller walks on Tuesday and Thursday.

My walking also depends on the weather, if it's pouring down rain I wont go for a walk cause I don't want to get sick or I might go for a small one if I have an umbrella, not sure though on that part yet, so far the weather has been in my favor although Wednesday was freaking cold for half the walk which I am glad that I wore a light jacket, will prob do the same today, we shall see what it feels like when I walk out the door.

I just did WHAT??? Wow go me!

I just got back after an hour long walk around where I live. I didn't think I would be gone that long or go as far as I did, but I pushed myself and made myself do it. I was originally just going to go till my feet started to hurt then  turn around and go back the way I came but something clicked in my brain and said "Stephanie you will walk all the way up 68th and then walk along Lake Otis to 72nd and down 72nd back home, no ifs ands or butts about it" so I did. I'm proud of myself for making me do it and plan on doing it again probably Friday. I think I will try to do this walk 3 times a week depending on weather of course. I of course had a water bottle with me, my cell phone and my keys, Figure best to bring the cell phone just in case something happens and I need help or something, plus I never go anywhere with out it. It was a nice walk and am surprisingly looking forward to doing it again.

Oh the things we do for friends

Oh the things we do for our friends. A very dear friend of mine came over today and asked for my help with her webpage for her mom's bakery. I'm thinking what can I do to help I can't make pages or anything like that, nope, she wants me to take pictures of bread for her. I gladly excepted the challenge of making bread look good. I sent her 5 pictures that I like from my photo shoot today, and tomorrow I am borrowing a china plate from my mom so I can take some pictures of the bread on the plate. I have never had to think so hard about how to photograph bread before in my life.

Knitting Frenzy

Scarf I knitted for a little girl named Cassandra who's mom works with my mom

First set of fingerless gloves I made myself

Headband I made for myself

Second set of fingerless gloves, cat toys and a bag for my moms ipod

I have been in a knitting frenzy since last Wednesday, this is everything I have made in one week. I'm still knitting too, I am now working once again on the blanket I have been knitting on for a while now, this time I'm not going to stop till I'm done with it. My only problem with the blanket is because there is so much of it I can only do a few rows at a time because I get to warm with it in my lap and start getting tired, but I figure if I do a few rows every day or even take a break from it for a few hours then come back and work on it some more in the same day that here shortly it will be done. I also have someone who is thinking about having me make her daughters scarfs and is willing to pay me so I worked out a price with her and am just waiting to hear back from her if she wants me to make them or not.

Mom's ipod bag I made up on my own, I got the idea from a dear friend of mine who crocheted me a bag for my ipod which I absolutely love, I use it all the time when I take my ipod in my purse, it's great at keeping the screen from getting damaged. My one and only problem with it, is that there is no way to keep my ipod in the bag, it slides out. I kept that in mind when I made moms and threaded a piece of yarn around the opening that way mom can cinch it shut and not have to worry about her ipod and headphones falling out of it. She seemed to really like it, and said she would use it.

Richard and I have joked around about me starting up a knitting business, I dunno if I would want to knit all the time, nor do I know if people would actually buy the stuff I do knit after all I'm just still learning how to knit and am still doing just really basic patterns. In fact Richards Aunt Kendy sent me a link on how to make bunnies so I will tackle that one when I get the blanket finished. 

Creative Spring

I have been very into making stuff and being creative, as you could tell by my last two posts. Today I knocked out a scarf for a very cute, sweet little girl that I know, through my mom and her mom. This little girl loves pink so as you can imagine her scarf is pink. I think she will like it, I'm going to go to the hospital tomorrow and give it to her mom so she can give it to her. Yesterday I worked on the invitations to my mom's birthday party, I think they will turn out cute when they are printed up. I showed mom them yesterday and she liked them. I basically made a flyer with all the info that is needed. Thanks to Deb for coming up with the 50's theme, I can't wait to show her the invites. Yep that's right mom's birthday party is 50's themed since she was born in the 50's.

In other news it looks like Richard has a job with Sports Authority. We are just waiting for the drug test and background checks to clear.

Off to read, and give my poor hands a rest before I finish up knitting one of two fingerless gloves that I'm making myself

More Fun With Clay

I just got done making this just a few minutes ago, if you all can't tell I made myself a bracelet out of polymer clay. It was rather easy and I might make more at a later date. If I make one again I will work on a better way to connect the ends so I don't have such a bump of clay like I do in this one.

The real pain of making it, was using the clay gun, it takes a lot of strength to push the plunger down to get the clay to come out. I was able to do two of the ropes but had to have Richard do the third one for me cause my hands were hurting so bad. I'm thinking I might look for an easier gun to use when I have the money to buy one.

Here Piggy piggy piggy

I made this cute little piggy yesterday out of clay, I think he turned out super cute!

Here is a side view of the pig so you can see his tail. I need to get some more clay cause I want to make a pig playing in mud but I don't have any brown clay to make it yet. I tried making a lady bug, it didn't turn out right. In fact it looked like a certain part of the male body so I scrapped that idea. I might try at a later date to see if I cant get the lady bug to work out if not oh well.

What a way to end a Month and start a new one

What a week I have had. Spent Monday and Tuesday at the court house helping a friend, Wednesday We hung out with Richards aunt and grandparents who are up for the start of the Ididarod, yesterday we stayed home so we could relax and I could finally get caught completely up with chores and dishes and his sister arrived up from Ninilchick. I have no clue what the plan for today is, We will go where the wind takes us I guess.

Now that Richards' family knows, I can now post it on here, 2 weeks ago, so February 17th Richard lost his job at Home Depot. He lost it due to being late to many times, the real kicker is, is that most of the time he was late was due to his manager talking to him as soon as he walked through the door and not letting him walk back to the computer that you can sign in on which was at the back of the freaking store. What made me mad about how he was "let go" is that Tuesday he had an interview for a full time spot at the store and was told he would know Friday if he got it or not. Then come to find it it was like Hey so you're fired we were only teasing about the job, ha ha ha. What a slap in the face, I mean why interview him if you knew he was going to be fired in a matter of days? Why get our hopes up for full time to be told sorry denied and oh by the way you no longer work here. I am very displeased with Home Depot and it will be a while before I physically step foot in one again. I mean at least with Lowe's we had an inkling of an idea it was going to happen, there was no warning or anything this time. AND don't even get me started on how they gave him his last paycheck, which was a FREAKING JOKE! So he is now applying for a new job so hopefully he gets one soon, in the mean time we get to hang out together, which isn't much of a difference from when he was working cause he only ever worked from 5am-9am for them and I didn't get up till 8am so yeah not a big change for us, just now we stay home more.

blarg blarg all over the place blog

I want to clean clean clean. Why? well because we have family coming up to visit. Now mostly no one will be here with us due to allergies to a certain 4 legged animal called Kramer but still might have someone stop by to visit and I want this place looking good. Not that it looks bad right now but still, it could look a tad bit better, mostly cause this weekend I didn't do my usual chores (oops!).

In the last 2 weeks I have lost 7 lbs, woot go me! anyways enough about that, its nice but not going to go all I'm losing weight go me then stop losing weight and have to tell you that so for now that's all you get to hear about. Big thanks go out to mom and dad for letting us borrow the treadmill.

There is other stuff to tell but, I will not post about it now cause not everyone in the immediate family knows yet. No, not expecting so no going there, trust me if I was I would of started this blog off with that.

Oh so, Sunday at least I believe it's Sunday Richard and I are meeting with a friends lawyer, this is to help her out with her custody battle/divorce. Shall be interesting to say the least. On the subject of court, I once again have Jury Duty in March. *rolls eyes* I can't believe I got called up for it again. They must really want me to serve on a jury. I don't mind if I get called up, god knows we could use the money.

Rearranging the Meowing Kramer

Over the weekend Richard and I rearranged our living room and dinning room. At first I wasn't so sure about it, but I love it now, and so does Kramer. Kramer has been more playful and running around like a crazy cat all week. We have a lot of open floor space in a straight shot for him to play in. I have noticed now that Richard and I spend a lot of time out in the living room again as well. For the last couple of weeks we have been hanging out in the bedroom watching tv, playing video games or reading and now we are back out in the living room.

Kramer has been super annoying in the mornings this week. He starts meowing at me at 7am for his wet food, I'm still trying to sleep at 7am and he doesn't stop meowing at me till 9am when he actually gets fed. I have no clue why all of the sudden he is doing this, but it's really starting to annoy me. It's not like he is nice about it either, he will walk up the bed to where my head is laying and meow right in my ear a few times then walk down my body and off the bed then sit in the door and meow for a few minutes then repeat. I can only take about an hour of this if I'm lucky then I get up and sit at the computer and he sits next to me on the desk and continues to meow till 9am. He shuts up only to eat then does his usual morning talking and then waits for Richard to come home and sit down so he can jump up and lay in his lap. If Kramer starts meowing tomorrow morning at 7am I think I will just get up and go play video games or something, maybe he just knows I want to be up at 7 but most the time I just don't convince myself to get up when my alarm goes off.

Mom Was Right

I hoped beyond hope that mom would be wrong about this one thing, but no, she just had to be right. I found my first gray hair today. Well tech I found it a few days ago but wasn't sure I saw what I saw cause I was in the car looking in the little mirror in the visor. I just remembered about it a few minutes ago and went to that bathroom and looked, and yup I was right I had a gray hair in my bangs. At first I just thought it was a hair from Kramer but it was attached to me. Yes I just said was, I yanked it out, It will be the only one I ever yank. If I remember correctly my dads mom when gray at an early age, mom has been telling me this for years, that I would most likely would too. Well I guess that's why they make hair dye. I guess it will soon be time for me to start looking for a color I like.

Snow and Bubbles

It snowed today, and pretty well too. My friend Kaori called me today and asked if Richard and I could come help her get her car unstuck, she got it stuck at the bottom of her grandma's driveway. I told her we would be right there and we left to go help her. We turned onto her grandmas street and as we were turning the corner we got stuck in a big ole pile of snow in the middle of the could-d-sac (or however it's spelled) we couldn't even see the pile of snow! Richard tried on his own to get the truck out and all he ended up doing was falling twice and getting snow down the back of his pants. He went down the street to get Kaori and with her help and the help of a neighbor we all got our truck out. Then Richard and I had to push Kaori's car to get it unstuck and were able to do so. So we had quite the adventure out in the snow.

Other then that I have been working on knitting a lap blanket for myself and reading. I haven't finished a book yet this year cause I just haven't been in the mood to read. I am slowly getting back in the mood though.

Oh so we had maintenance come over a couple of weeks ago to fix our kitchen floor that had bubbles in it, which was caused by a leaky dishwasher, that took them 2-3 days to complete because they also had to redo our entry way cause there was a bubble there. Then they just came back this week because we had yet another bubble show up in the kitchen floor, but this one was caused by a steam leak in one of the pipes below the apartment complex, so they fixed the pipe then fixed our floor. while fixing our kitchen floor they heard water dropping only to find a pin sized hole in our ceiling, apparently there was a leak in the upstairs neighbors water based heater or something so it came through, so they fixed it and told us to keep an eye on it and if it started up again to call it in. So far nothing has happened with that, thank god. On the bright side we have a new kitchen and entryway floor.

The Hazards of being me

This month is out to get me. I fell outside of the local video store at the beginning of the month, didn't really get hurt it just kinda smarted for a bit then I was fine. However yesterdays fall freaking hurt. Richard and I were at moms house yesterday doing laundry and watching the football games, I had gone down to change the laundry around earlier and had almost fell going down the stairs to the basement because my right foot hurt when I stepped on it but managed to catch myself and didn't fall. I wasn't so lucky my last trip down the stairs, I don't know exactly what caused me to go down. I can only guess that my right knee just decided to quit working, cause the next thing I knew I was pitching forward and falling. I was able to grab the railing to keep myself from falling face first but this caused me to ride the stairs on my knees, threw my left elbow into the wall, and have to worry about hitting the closed door at the bottom of the stairs with my face. Lucky for me I was fast enough to get my hands in front of me so my face didn't hit the closed door but it hurt my hands hitting the door. Needless to say no one saw me fall but Richard and my brother heard it, it was a very loud thud thudding sound. After I opened the basement door my brother quickly quips that all I needed to do was knock. I laughed cause it was actually pretty funny.

My left knee and hip are still hurting today along with my left thumb and shoulder, I just am thankful that it isn't as bad as it could of been had I not grabbed the railing or if I had been outside and had gone down the front steps. Hopefully I can make it through the rest of the month without falling again.

Friend visits

*Yawn* I have not been sleeping well for the last week, a lot of it has to do with that we have had a friend staying with us. I don't mind that she is here, it's just that we stay up late talking then I guess I don't sleep well cause she is in the next room over so I don't let myself get into a deep sleep and I don't realize that I'm doing that. You know how it is, how you are not completely yourself when you have company and your daily routine is thrown off. I have been living off of energy drinks the last few days, just to wake me up enough to function with out getting myself in trouble or hurt. The nice thing is, that the energy drink I like only has 10 calories a can.

Kramer hasn't been liking our company, our friend has a 4 month old daughter and Kramer gives the baby a ton of room, wont go any where near her. He is so scared of this little baby it's funny. She hasn't done a thing to him and his eyes go all wide if she makes any noise and he takes off like a rocket. or he will sit in his cat tree and just glare at her. I'm pretty sure he will be thrilled when the evil wiggling creature leaves.

Other then that not much to report here.

What I have been up to

I have been knitting a few scarves lately, the above picture is Richard with the one I made for him. He wanted a really super long one that wrapped around his neck twice, as you can see the scarf is longer then he is tall. He loves it and uses it every morning while on his way to work.

The pink one I made for Richards Aunt Kendy, she won the contest about how many books I could read in a year. I gave her a choice of either a gift card to Barnes & Nobel or a scarf. She wanted it a very bright shocking pink with black, there is some black in there if you look closely. She will get her scarf when she comes up at the end of February. She doesn't know what it looks like yet.

This scarf has quite the story behind it, it was the one I made for M. for Christmas, but as you all know from an earlier post her and I aren't talking anymore. I ended up giving this scarf to Susan, a friend of ours that works at the Video City by where we live. Her favorite color is blue so I figured she would like it and she does.

I just started knitting a scarf for myself last night and when I'm finished with it I will take a picture to show you. Oh Kendy's scarf (the pink one) is the first scarf I did completely on my own, the other two mom started for me and the blue stripped one she finished for me as well, I finished Richards on my own. After I'm done with the scarf I'm making for myself I am going to start working on my blanket I started knitting a while a go and hopefully will keep going on it till it's finished. I have found that I really do enjoy knitting and am looking forward to doing more with it.

Happy New Year!

It is officially the second day of 2012, and so far not so bad. I am finally almost completely over my cold and yes that means actually being able to hear again, my left ear is still a little on the plugged side but every day it gets better. I didn't have to go to the doctor either which is nice. Though I know it's only a matter of time before he gets more of my money cause the winter is far from over.

Mom taught me how to knit years ago, a very simple pattern to make a scarf, then I wanted to try something else and am in the middle of making a blanket. I have been in the middle of this blanket for over a year if not 2 now cause things just keep coming up or I'm not in the mood to work on it so it hasn't gotten very far. Anyways not the point, she tried to teach me how to start a knitting project with the blanket but for some reason I couldn't quite get it right and would twist the stitches and you aren't supposed to do that. Well on Saturday I went to Micheal's to get myself my own set of knitting needles to see if I could figure out how to cast stitches on so I could knit. I found a book Called I Taught Myself to Knit, it came with 2 sets of needles and a bunch of other stuff, well with the help of that book I was able to figure out what I was doing wrong and I also learned out to end a knitting project. This means I no longer have to ask mom to help me start a project or end one. I'm sure I will still come to her for advice on knitting cause after all she has been doing it a lot longer then I have. But it's the first of the year and I have already learned something new!