another day...

Man, this sucks. I have to work today. Like a lot. I not only have normal work, but then I have tutoring tonight too. I mean, it's highly unlikely that anyone will actually be there, but I have to go and sit in a little room for 2 hours. Woo-whoo...

Anyways.

I'm gonna go get some coffee and hopefully get excited about going to work...

still haven't been productive

It's 11:20pm and I still haven't done much of the stuff on my to-do list.

Here's the list...
[x] empty dishwasher - this was done before 9am.
[/] clean scrapbooking room - well, it's half clean.
[ ] clean kitchen/dining room - not done at all.
[ ] fold laundry - not done at all.
[/] pay bills - i paid 1 bill...the rest aren't due until next week.
[/] order more pictures - i'm cropping/editting/combining still, although i have two layouts worth of pictures ready to be uploaded.
[ ] make page kits for Friday Crop - haven't done at all because first i need to finish getting pictures ordered.

However, AT&T U-verse is installed. Tomorrow, I will be canceling Comcast. And I talked to Dell online and have a new print cartridge coming to me which will hopefully make my printer work. And I set up two more phone handsets to work with our base, so now we have 4 phones instead of 2. And I finished a layout. So I was slightly productive...but not very.

not at work and being unproductive

So, it's the last day of my "vacation" and I intend to spend most of it sitting around my house. I really ought to be doing something productive...such as cleaning. But I'm not. I'm just sitting here waiting for the AT&T guy to come back and continue to hook up our AT&T U-verse TV and Internet. Then I need to call Comcast and cancel them. But I'm not canceling that until AT&T U-verse works.

Okay. I really need to do something productive, so here's my list for today.

[x] empty dishwasher
[ ] clean scrapbooking room
[ ] clean kitchen/dining room
[ ] fold laundry
[ ] pay bills
[ ] order more pictures
[ ] make page kits for Friday Crop

And then I scrapbooked!

Here's a page I made tonight. This is from April when Anaya & I went to Crown Center. And I specifically bought the crown background paper for this layout because we went to Crown Center. I'm so special. :)

whoo-who for Friday!

It's FRIDAY! So excited. Can't wait to not have to work for FIVE days! That's right, FIVE.

Saturday & Sunday - weekend
Monday - holiday - Memorial Day
Tuesday & Wednesday - vacation days - just cause I can!

The only way this weekend could be better is if it were actually going to be nice instead of slightly cool and rainy. We were supposed to be going to the pool in my mom's neighborhood this weekend. We even have the kiddo and everything. But depending on what the weather is actually doing will decide if we get to swim. Sadness. But still FIVE days without work. Oh the joy! :)

But we still have lots of plans for this weekend...kinda. Actually, the only plans I have are to finish up the rock bed in the backyard and *maybe* start the flower bed in the front. Although hopefully once my dad and brother help me with the one in the back, I'll know enough about what I'm doing to do the front yard one. I had issues when I started the backyard one because I had never before attempted to make a flowerbed of any sort and it is NOT as easy as it looks.

I don't really have a To Do List for today. It's Friday. I get to relax. I'll probably pick up some of the random crap that is just spread around the house. I need to sit down and pay some bills. Transfer money around. But that's pretty easy to do, I just need to do it.

Peeling

Last night, my sunburn started peeling. Now it itches. Oh well. I'll probably live. Although I should probably try to stop getting sunburnt since I don't particularly want skin cancer.

Normally on Thursdays I get to look forward to watching Grey's Anatomy. Now Grey's is done for the summer and I don't have that to look forward to anymore. :( Although they are showing the rest of the episodes of Studio 60 on Thursdays now. And that is almost as exciting as Grey's.

I think Crystal Light Lemonade is going to help me through WeightWatchers this time around. When I just drink water in the afternoon, I'm starving. But yesterday, I drink Lemonade, not hungry at all. And I'm not filling up on the calories of it because it is only 10 calories for the whole packet. I usually make it a little weak so that the packet makes two glasses.

Justin drove out to Independence today to talk to Keita about when we need Anaya during June. She said yes to all of them. It is really lame that Justin has to drive out there anytime he needs to discuss Anaya with Keita. I wish she'd pay her bills so that her phone would work. It would make life much easier.

Tonight's To Do List:
[X] Grocery Shopping
[ ] Clean Kitchen & Diningroom
[X] Watch "Lady in the Water"

Ah, Wednesday...

So...it's Wednesday. And I'm ready for it to be over. Or, I at least want the part of the day where I'm at work to be over.

Weight Watchers update: it's not going so well. I like eating too much. And with all the other stuff I have to do (see below), it is hard to find time (and motivation) to exercise. Also, I can eat a bowl of cereal in the morning anytime between 7:00am and 8:30am and managed to make it until noon before I really start thinking about food. But I can't make it from 12:30pm until even 2:00pm without wanting something else after lunch. And I do actually eat food for lunch. Today, I had part of a leftover steak and some mac&cheese and a huge banana. It's been just over an hour and I'm already thinking about what I could have for a snack! That's not good. Maybe I'll go make myself from 10 calorie lemonade...that's better than the 190 calorie + 10 g of fat bags of chips that are in the kitchen (at work).

Back in March, I bought myself a little student planner thingy. I'm not sure how I remember everything before I had it. Actually, that's probably why I didn't remember everything. That's probably at least part of why I would end up not doing things that I wanted to do. Anyways, I love my planner. :)

Also, I've been wearing my glasses instead of my contacts for...at least a month. But I've been thinking about getting some new glasses. I kind of want the transitions lens so that I don't have to keep switching between sunglasses and regular glasses. Also, my prescription in my glasses is from when I was in HS and my prescription has changed since then. I really like these glasses, what do you think? They're violet. :)


Figured since it was now today, I'd repost my to-do list for this evening.
[x] Weed Eater (if not raining)
[ ] Dig around rock bed & put down weed block (if not raining)
[ ] Buy Groceries (will definitely do if it is raining)
[x] Fold Laundry & put away clothing

To Do!

So, I know today is almost over, but here's what I had planned to get done today...

[x] Mow
[ ] Laundry (just needs folding!)
[x] pay tuition
[ ] Mop kitchen
[x] soft scrub showers

And here's my to do list for tomorrow
[ ] Weed Eater (if not raining)
[ ] Dig around rock bed (if not raining)
[ ] Buy Groceries (I would like to, but it's probably a little too ambitious - unless it rains)

comcast sucks...

So, I got my Comcast bill over the weekend. 180 dollars! WHAT THE HELL?

In March, it was $94. In April, it was $127. Now it's $180! And they swear they didn't upgrade me. Nope, they just changed the name of the plan...and the price. What really sucks is that you can get a DVR with the cheapest cable package. WHY? Who knows. I just know I hate Comcast. Actually, according to the customer service people, I was upgraded. According to sales, the name of my plan changed. Whatever.

Now Justin is talking to them because I get way too bitchy about it. Do I really even need cable? Or could I live with just an antenna? Almost everything I watch is on ABC, CBS, NBC or FOX.

We're looking into AT&T's current deals. The only problem is that last time we had AT&T DSL, whenever we picked up the phone we got kicked off the internet. Even though we had the little things on all the phone lines. So I dunno is that is really any better of an alternative.

I just wish we had Time Warner. I like their DVR much better.

Turkey Creek Festival

Today, Anaya & I went to the Turkey Creek Festival. I am sooo sunburnt. We put sunscreen on, but evidently, mine didn't last for 5 hours! Hers did though, so that is good. Plus I put on much lower SPF.

The festival was really fun. I probably could've been done after about 2 hours, but oh well. We got there around 10:30am. Sat on the side of Antioch until 11:00 (in full sunlight) waiting for the parade to start. Then we watched the parade (which was really quite lame). Then we went to into the park for the actual festival. We rode on a little train, ate lunch, went to the petting zoo, anaya rode a horse, looked at the craft booths, anaya bounced in the bounce thingies, got anaya's arm painted, made a sand filled bear, got a balloon flower, built a planter (sponsored by Home Depot), ate ice cream, and listened to a concert. And for each of the bounce thingies and the horse ride and the arm paint and the balloon flower, we stood in line for many many minutes. We seriously stood in line for more than 15 minutes for a balloon flower! And I think we waited closer to 30 minutes for the arm tattoo that is probably going to wash off in the shower.

But it was fun. And I'm sunburnt.

Scrapjacked: Ashley Wren

This is my take on Ashley Wren's layout. These are all pictures that Anaya took of herself. It is the first page in an album I made for my MIL. TFL!

Unpubbed Challenge: Nicole Klein

This is my entry for the Unpubbed Challenge based on Nicole Klein's layout.

The pictures are all pictures that Anaya took of herself. She has a small obsession with holding the camera out in front of her and taking pictures. Luckily we let her use a digital camera so we don't have to develop all the ones that are blurry and with most of her head cut off.

Already Feeling Productive

It's only 9:25am and I'm already feeling pretty darn productive. I got up early-ish (about 7:15) and ate breakfast and then switched the laundry around and started folding. And I watched CSI. Then, once CSI was over and I was done folding the laundry, I came to work. And that's it so far. But still...normally by now there is no way I would've messed with the laundry.

Although it does make me wish that I could've just stayed home today. I would've gotten the last two loads finished (one is in the washer and one is in the dryer). And then I would've put clean dishes away and dirty dishes in the dishwasher and wash the stuff from cooking dinner. And the laundry would get put away. And then I would go and scrapbook for part of the afternoon. Or maybe I would've even gone outside and mowed the backyard! Oh the household chores that would've gotten done today if I didn't have to work.

But there is work to be done, so now I must get to it.

Oh, and the Grey's Anatomy season finale was dumb. And the CSI season finale was good, although really, I could do without a season finale where a CSI is in danger of dying before the next season premier.

New LO

I think this layout describes me pretty well. :) What do you think?


This layout is for the One Little Word Challenge. The word was Go. My first thought was "go away" and then I remembered that I had this picture. I do like this layout, although it seems really bare in the upper left. But oh well. :)

TFL!

WeightWatchers

I'm starting WW again today. I started it the first time back in August 2005 and by August 2006 I had lost the 40 lbs I wanted to lose. It's weird to say that I lost 40 lbs because I never really felt that overweight, not even a little bit. Then I lost 40 lbs, now I've gained between 10 to 15 of it back and I feel SOOOO overweight even though I know I'm nowhere near where I was when I started in the first place, which wasn't particularly overweight anyways. It is weird how we perceive things. Anyways, so I'm starting over. And it is so much harder the second time around. I just kind of decided that I get 22 pts per day (I'm not going to the meetings b/c I'm broke). I probably really should have about 20 daily pts + 35 weekly pts. But oh well. I figure 22 is doable and I'll still manage to lose weight, it'll just be slower. Which is okay...kind of. I really want to lose 15 lbs by tomorrow so I can wear my cute GAP jeans that I outgrew last month. I miss my cute jeans.

Anyways, so today. Weight Watchers. The problem with WW is that I think about food CONSTANTLY. That is a problem because thinking about food leads to eating food. And eating lots of food is a no-no. Maybe in a little bit I'll have some pretzel fish...

Of all the places I'd thought I'd be at 25...this isn't one of them...

This life that I'm living does not resemble any of the possible lives that I imagined I'd have at 25.

Granted, that "perfect life" that I had imagined for myself doesn't happen for very many people by the age of 25, but that is not the point.

And I know that whole thing about you're the only one that can change your life. But that's not really true. Justin's knee could finally get fixed. Seriously, it has been over TWO years. And I'm starting to wonder how much more of this I can take. Our entire marriage (and engagement for that matter) as been in sickness. We haven't gotten to the in health part of our marriage yet. And that just sucks. Luckily, next month things will get a little bit better when insurance finally starts paying Justin again. That will at least lift some of the strain.

Anyways, I guess I'm just going to have to learn to make the most with what I have. I've never really been one of those optimistic "when life gives you lemons make lemonade" type of people. So we'll see how this goes.

Me!

So, Elsie challenged us to take a self portrait today. Here I am...

NBC Fall Line-up

Pretty much, NBC has nothing new I'm interested in and will be taking up less room in my DVR than they used to. Heroes and My Name is Earl are the only two things I really plan on watching. And I'll probably continue to record the Law & Orders and Las Vegas, but then delete when my DVR gets full regardless of if I have watched them.

Monday: Deal or No Deal, Heroes, Journeyman
Tuesday: The Biggest Loser, Chuck, Law & Order: SVU
Wednesday: Deal or No Deal, Bionic Woman, Life
Thursday: My Name is Earl, 30 Rock, The Office, Scrubs, ER
Friday: Rotating Reality Block, Las Vegas, Friday Night Lights
Saturday: Dateline NBC, Drama Series Encores
Sunday: Football Night in America, NBC Sunday Night Football
Sundays in January: Dateline NBC, Law & Order, Medium, Lipstick Jungle

The new:
Lipstick Jungle - Sex in the City...AGAIN!
Bionic Woman - a woman who is given extraordinary powers and tries to use them for good.
Life - a detective is given a second chance, returning to the police force after spending years in prison for a crime he didn't commit
Chuck - a computer geek opens a government email and downloads a server-full of confidential data into his brain
Journeyman - a San Francisco newspaper reporter and husband/father who suddenly travels through time, changing people's lives and reuniting with his former fiance.
The IT Crowd - based on a British comedy about the overlooked techies who work for a large, impersonal corporation.
The Singing Bee - Karaoke variety-competition show where contestants must sing the lyrics correctly to popular songs.
World Moves - a competition series from Idol judge Randy Jackson featuring dance teams from around the world hoping to win an international touring contract.

Returning Show News:
Las Vegas - Tom Selleck is playing the "adult" now that James Caan as left.
Law & Order: CI - Will show new episodes on USA and repeats of them on NBC at some point during the week.

ABC Fall Television

I really love when all the networks start announcing their new series for the coming year. I get to look forward to new shows and scratch my head and wonder about the sanity of television producers on other shows.

Things I'm Looking Forward To:

"Private Practice" features Dr. Addison Shepard, who leaves Seattle for work in Los Angeles. Starring TV actors Merrin Dungey, Tim Daly, Taye Diggs and Amy Brenneman.

"Women's Murder Club," based on James Patterson novels, is a drama about four women in San Francisco — a detective, district attorney, medical examiner and reporter — who work together to solve crimes. (I LOVE James Patterson, so I'll at least start off the season watching this.)

Things That Confuse Me:

"Cavemen," a comedy adapted from the Geico insurance commercials.

"Carpoolers," a comedy about four men from different backgrounds who get together each day for some male bonding on the drive to work. (I guess you save on set design when you're show takes place in a car?)

"Sam I Am," a comedy with Christina Applegate, about a woman who awakes from a coma with no memory, only to find out she was a creep before.

There are other shows that ABC has announced (11 total). I'm not particularly wanting to watch any of them, but they all make at least a little bit of sense in the world of television.
"Oprah's Big Give" - a reality series where contestants compete in philanthropy.
"Pushing Daisies" - a forensic fairy tale
"Dirty Sexy Money" - a prime-time soap opera about a wealthy New York family.
"Big Shots" - a drama about four hard-charging friends who are dysfunctional CEOs.
"Cashmere Mafia" - Sex in the City...again.
"Eli Stone" - a top lawyer in San Francisco who begins having visions because of a brain aneurysm.
"Miss/Guided" - a comedy about a former high school geek who returns to her alma mater as a guidance counselor, only to see an ex-cheerleader and former nemesis come back as an English teacher.

The original article.

so much to do....

There are some many activities and such that I would LOVE to get Anaya involved in this summer...mainly Swim Lessons and Tumbling. There are Nature parks to visit. Festivals to go to. It's hard to choose when to do everything. Particularly since we don't have her ALL the time. I can only get her into two swim lessons this summer. There is a tumbling class I could probably enroll her in. It's in the evenings one day per week and only 2 of the weeks are weeks she is at her mom's so we might be able to work something out where Justin or I could get her that evening and then bring her back either after tumbling or take her to summer school the next morning.

I also CANNOT wait to go home. Justin just called me and he checked the mail and my new Cricut cartridge is there! I want to go home and play with it! Although before I start playing with it, I will have to clean up my scrapping room a bit. It's a mess after all the creating of Mother's Day gifts this weekend.

FINALLY!

Friday night I started two Mother's Day projects. One for Justin's mom and one for my mom. I'm finally done with both of them! I missed church this morning though to finish Justin's mom's one up before Josh leaves. Which saddens me because I was looking forward to Sunday School. I just wasn't sure how long Josh would be here. Anyways, the box one is for my mom. Since Justin's Mom's Album has 20 pages, I uploaded it to Flickr and have set up a slide show here: Album for Justin's Mom

so excited!

Last night, I ordered 3 cds, a Cricut cartridge and the Cricut toolkit from Amazon. Today, I got an email saying the Cricut stuff had been SHIPPED! Not even 12 hours later and it is ready to be on its way to me! YAY! The cds won't be mailing until next week because one of them won't be released until the 15th. None of the cds are for me anyways, one is for Anaya (but I'll listen to it too) and the other two are for Justin. Anyways, I really really really cannot wait for my Cricut stuff to arrive.

Scrapjack & Unpubbed challenges

So, I I lifted the idea of using small pictures and the basic layout from the scrapjack challenge. Then Unpubbed's challenge was to make a layout about an item (or items?) around the house that make you smile although they may mean nothing to the casual observer. So, I picked the topic of Anaya's things that are left around the house, shoes, easel, bike, refrigerator magnets, etc... Whenever I see these things (and more) around the house, it makes me think of Anaya which makes me happy.

TFL!

Products:
PP: American Crafts
Flowers: Bazzill, Prima
Letter Stamps: The Paper Studio
Flower Stamps: Autumn Leaves
Ribbon: Michaels

mondays suck...

Okay, so over on Go Fug Yourself, they made this post today. Now, I agree with their assessment of her look. However, they did not mention the fact that she is a walking advertisement for the Australian radio station Mix 106.5. Seriously, she has their logo all over her dress! This is almost like that time Kelis modeled a dress made out of McDonald's gift cards.

Mother's Day Cards

Here are the two Mother's Day cards I made today. The one with the birds is for Justin's mom and the other one is for my mom. On the inside of the one for my mom it says, "but somewhere along the way we became friends".

Now that I have finished both of those, I think it is time to clean my scrapbooking room. It is such a mess because of the crop last night and some shopping today. I haven't put anything away and now that my computer is in here all my scrapbooking stuff gravitates toward my computer desk so that I can work and play on the net at the same time. Also because I was using the computer to make my mom's mother's day card.

finished another one...

Here's another layout that I started last night. I just had to put the title on it still. I didn't have any letters that I wanted to use with me at the crop.

i love crops.

I love going to crops. Well, not always, but the one tonight was good because I got so much stuff done. Would I have done more or less if I had been at home? I dunno. There's one 2-pg layout I did that I don't particularly love and there's one 8x8 layout that I did that I detest. I mostly did it because one of the other girl's 7-yr-old was keeping me company and so I let her help me decide what paper to use and what stamps to use and where to put the stamps. So, yeah. Luckily, since she's not my 7-yr-old, I can completely redo the page and she'll never know. And if for some reason she ends up over here looking through the cat's book and asks about it, I can just say something happened to it. I just won't say that what happened to it was me... :) Anyways, so here's what I did tonight:

And really, I felt like I got more done than this, but oh well. Actually, I have one page that is mostly done, just needs a title and then the one that I'm taking apart. So, I did a little more than what you see here.

Happy Friday!

I cannot wait for work to get over today! Tonight, I'm going to a crop at church. Hopefully I'll get lots and lots of pages done. However I still need to get all my stuff together for tonight. I was planning to get it all together last night, but then there was a 2 hour long Grey's Anatomy on. So, yeah, I didn't get anything done that I had meant to do last night.

However I did LOVE Grey's Anatomy. I think I'll probably like Addison's Spin-off. I didn't like the story involving Meredith's step-mom. That was a little too..."let's cause more conflict for Meredith". Come-on, every bad thing does not have to happen to her. I liked Susan and I liked Meredith having a good mom-person.

Also, I just found this new scrapbooking challenges website called Unpubbed - Your 15 Minutes of Scrapbooker Fame. How awesome is that?!?! Anyways, they do challenges every other week and you have almost 2 weeks to submit a layout and they pick their favorite. I don't think the favorite gets anything other than to be the favorite, but still, it's nice to be picked as a favorite. So, if you're your a scrapbooker...check it out.

journaling for a soon to be in existence page...

I love walking around our house and find all the little reminders of Anaya.

her shoes by the front door
her shampoo & conditioner in the bathroom
her bike in the garage next to mine

---

Then there's going to be some little pictures of things around our house that remind me of Anaya while she's not at our house.

unrealistic...

Sometimes, when Justin has what I call unrealistic goals, I'm not very supportive.

But really, I have just as many unrealistic goals as he does, I'm just not trying to make my unrealistic goals my main source of income. I realize that we need to pay the bills and therefore I get to be a software designer. But in my free time, I like to scrapbook and would LOVE to find a way to make money doing that. But really, I don't think I'm all that great of a scrapbooker. Recently, I've been submitting my stuff to magazines, websites and all kinds of contests. None of it has been picked as a winner, not even as a runner-up. Then I read all these blogs of other scrapbookers that are on two or three design teams and getting published in magazines and it makes me even more depressed. Will I ever be able to find something that I enjoy doing AND can make money doing? Even if it isn't my full-time job...

Anyways, so my goal is to be more supportive of Justin's goals...regardless of how unrealistic I think they may be.