Weekend Fun

I have had a migraine headache since Sunday at about 7pm (which is why I didn't call mom!) but otherwise I had a very nice weekend.

Greg convinced me to go to a concert on Saturday. It was a Rose Melburg show in SoHo. So I put on my best indie rock outfit and we headed out to the show. We ended up getting there really early and found parking really easily so to kill time we walked around the neighborhood. We went into Babycakes Bakery for some Vegan Cupcakes (they also do gluten free if you are looking for a replacement for Yum Yum Yum bakery!) which were very tasty. Then we walked over to Teany and enjoyed a pot of tea and good conversation. Teany is a tea house owned and run by Moby the musician. I have seen it advertised in magazines and even on TV a few times and have always wanted to check it out. I kind of wished I hadn't stuffed myself with vegan cupcakes because Teany had a whole menu of luscious vegan desserts including pumpkin cheesecake which I love. I guess I will have to go again for lunch or dinner and tea!

The show was fun and very low key. We met up with friends at the Cakeshop (the name of the venue), grabbed a comfy seat, and enjoyed the music.

On the way home there was an incident involving Greg and pee pee but I will spare him the embarrassment. Just know that I now have really juicy blackmail material!

Blogger Update

You may have noticed a few changes to my blog. I have switched over to beta blogger. Blogger is working on some upgrades and are allowing blog writers to try them out. A couple new features I like:

1. There are several new features that are making writing and design easier (hence my purple masthead!).

2. I can now label my posts by themes. You will notice a menu of labels on the right hand side. If you click on a label like "scrapbooking" it will pull up all the posts with that label. This will make it easier to search for an old post or to see only stuff that interests you. I have gone back and labelled about 1/5 of my old posts so be patient. It will take a while!

3. Everything else I am still figuring out!

Celebrate Good Times...

...come On! Drum roll please.... I am happy to announce that as of 10/09/06 I completed my goal of scrapbooking 52 layouts in 2006!!!!!!
I really can't believe it myself but I am pleased as punch really. I have struggled for years with finding a way to scrapbook consistently. This system has meant giving up a permanent space in my hallway which hasn't been aesthetically pleasing but has allowed me to save on set-up time so I can get right down to the art of scrapbooking. Another thing that let me meet my goal was working on giving up on my perfectionism just a little so that I don't get as hung up on the whole process.

So here it is, the 52nd layout...
A simple layout using cardstock, photo corners (I had been slacking on my photo corner usage), a fabric flower, some buttons, waxed twine, and some things from the September kit including the cute patterned paper, the sequined ribbon, and the metal bar over the flower.

I have so many people to thank for this accomplishment. 1st I should thank Becky Higgins for her "1 Sketch Many Looks" columns and books. I use them all the time for photo placement (or just to outright scraplift). 2nd my dear husband Greg for putting up with this hobby of mine and the hoards of stuff I have accumulated over the years. 3rd all my blog readers, especially my mom who have been so encouraging and also motivated me to get my layouts done so I would have SOMETHING to post each week. :)

Greg has always asked me if I was going to keep scrapping after I reached my goal or if I would take break for a while. Well here is the answer....
Here is layout 53. If is a work in progress but proof that I will keep at it. I still would like to get caught up on my post-marriage scrapbooking while I have the time and energy.

Sorry!

Sorry sorry sorry! I didn't work Monday, then Tuesday was BSF night so I was pretty busy with work and preparation for class and there is little time to post. I was going to post yesterday but ended up leaving work early because of a migraine.

As I mentioned I had a 3 day weekend and it was fabulous. The lecture by Lauren Winner was great. Most of what she talked about was right out of the book (which was the whole point I suppose) so there wasn't really much new information but it was a great lecture and discussion none the less. Lauren was a lot like I expected. Very much an english doctoral student! She kept using words I didn't know! Ha! Her main topics were: lies (she used the word tropes!) the church tells about sex (this was the bulk of the talk), and singleness. One interesting thing she mentioned about the importance of singleness is that while marriage is a picture of Christ's relationship to the church and useful for teaching us about covenant relationships, singleness is a picture of our relationships in the afterlife where we won't be married or in families but will all be brothers and sisters in Christ. We need singleness to teach/point to that dynamic and in that way it is valuable to society. I had never thought of it that way before. Anyway, I got my book signed and thanked her for writing it and all the others as well. I never know what to say at a book signing. There was a whole line of people waiting behind me (pressure) and I didn't have a specific question to ask so I just said "blah blah blah you are awesome blah blah blah". Kind of lame I know. If anyone in the NYC area is interested in the book let me know and I will lend it to you.

Lunch with John and Aimee on Sunday was nice and refreshing. The difference between the lecture (where I sat and made small talk with strangers) and the lunch with old friends was staggering. It was so nice to just sit and talk with people who know you really well. We made pizzas for lunch which is a fun way to eat as a group. We provided lots of toppings and just let everyone build their own pizza. I did buy real mozzarella for our guests and boy did Greg jump right in and eat it too. He does still eat cheese just not usually at home.

Monday I just relaxed and did some odd jobs around the house. I scrapbooked my 52nd layout and did 80% of my 53rd layout and took a nice long nap. It was a glorious day of much needed rest!

I want to post about my 52nd layout but Greg has the jumpdrive in his school bag right now and I keep forgetting to load the photos onto my ipod. Perhaps tonight I will have some time to get it together.

One last thing. The Paula Abdul workout was terrible. I sent it back the next day. It was just far to advanced. What she called "step 1" was a 16 count dance sequence done in hyperspeed. She had 12 "steps" total! I suppose if you paused and studied it and worked hard to memorize the extremely complicated routine it would be fun (in a totally 80s dance video kind of way) but I don't have the time or patience. I can barely get up the desire to work out so I need videos I can easily do. Just my 2 cents!

Weekend Plans

Another couple crazy days here in the lab. On top of that I had to be up at 5am for BSF this morning so I am dragging right now.

I decided to take Monday off from work and discussed it with my boss. She agreed we could both use a break. I am hoping to get some scrapbooking done since the rest of my weekend will be pretty busy.

On Saturday I am going to a lecture on this book:

The author will be speaking to the women's ministries group at my church. I love all of Lauren Winner's books so I am excited to hear her speak. This book is on chastity but also deals with fidelity (and sees them as the same call) so I think I will still get a lot out of her talk. I may even get my copy signed, we'll see.

On Sunday our good friends John and Aimee are coming over for lunch and a long overdue visit. I am really looking forward to it.

So I will by tidying up and making some yummy pizza dough for homemade pizzas.

Have a great weekend!

Tidbits

Scrapbooking Tidbits:
There was some kind of problem over at Jenni Bowlin studios (where I get my monthly scrapbooking kits) and they are requiring everyone to buy the kits individually this month whether you were a member or not. For some reason the kit just didn't grab me this month (especially the patterned paper) so for October I have decided to take a break. I have barely touched my September kit so hopefully this will give me a chance to use up some of what I have.
I am almost done with my 2004-2005 album so I am going to start organizing the next year of memories. I think I may order all my photos from scrapbookpictures.com this time around and that means a bit more planning on my part. We'll see how it goes.

Garden Tidbits:
The garden is a mess!

Exercise Tidbits:
I have been making an effort to exercise each morning. Those who know me well know I HATE WORKING OUT!!!!! But when I hit 30 I started packing on the pounds and had to come to the realization that I no longer had a choice. My body has decided it doesn't want to play fair anymore so I have to show it who's boss. I have about 4 workout videos and after the first month of consistent workouts I was bored with them all. That is when I realized that Netflix has workout videos. Now I make sure one of our selections is always an exercise video and it has been great. I do each one for a week and it has kept it interesting. I tend to prefer dance style videos but just finished the "Biggest Loser" workout which is not dance at all. I liked it so much I bought it off Amazon yesterday (only $9). It has 4 different workout choices including some with weights and some plain aerobic options. It is a nice contrast from my dance videos. Right now I have "Crunch Cardio Dance" at home. Not one I will probably buy but it has been fun and pretty easy to follow. I don't sweat as much as with other workouts but the routines are short and lively. It was also very well produced. Next in my Queue is "Paula Abdul's Get Up and Dance". I know it will be cheesy but I couldn't help myself! It should be here in a couple days. Do you have a video you love? Let me know.

School Tidbit:
For those following Greg's drama at CUNY, it all worked out. He was re-enrolled in his class and they dropped all the fees and charges. No one could really explain what happened so it is possible it could happen again in the future. Pretty soon he will be taking a break from the lab to begin writing his thesis in addition to taking Organic Synthesis this semester. He is pretty burned out with the whole school thing but is trying to plod along in hopes of finishing this year.

Work Tidbit:
My job has been insanely busy right now. I am filling in for a person who has left the department while we try and find a replacement and it has been pretty stressful. It means that when I get home I mostly want to veg out in front of the TV. All the season premieres this time of year help with that too. So, I haven't been getting much else done at home which means fewer interesting things to blog about. Which is how we end up with a post entitled "Tidbits"!

Layouts 50 & 51

Oh so close!!! I can almost taste victory. I did manage to finish all the wedding photos from my sisters nuptuals. This one if from the reception:
Includes, some MM wordfetti on the top, MM velvet letter stickers which I forgot all about, a few paper flowers with brad centers, and some HS bling (rhinestone circles). Of course the cake ended up being front and center. What can I say, I made it and am oh so very proud!

I had to scrap these next photos seperatly. The story was too funny and I didn't want it to get lost in the reception layout:
I used some BG rub-on letters from the Sept. kit and then painted inside them for a pearlescent effect. The "in the" are some REALLY old letter sticker I found in my drawer. I used a little of the paint around the edges, added 2 pearl brads, and machine sticked on the vellum journalling and 2 paper flowers. Simple but lovely if I do say so myself. The jouranlling:

"Greg casually mentioned during set up "I wonder how many of the photos will have that NO PARKING sign in them". Yikes! The sign was right behind the ceremony setting. Mom and Dad lept into action and covered the sign with some left over decorating supplies. They also had to pick some extra foliage near the sign and hoped the "arboretum police" wouldn't catch them but the photographer did"

I just love the look on their faces when they turned around and realized they had been caught!

Scrapbook Update - For Real!

I did it! I managed to finish those 2 layouts from 2 weekends ago. I got the journaling done this morning. Of course I used that as an excuse not to workout! This layout details the ceremony and includes the invitation. The flowers and embellishments are pretty much the same as the last wedding layout. In the August kit I got these Heidi Swapp journaling squares that were really cute but I didn't know how to use them since I don't do much hand journaling. I tried to run them through my printer and that didn't work. Well I used them to make the bottom border. I added some more flowers and rub-on words. I have a detail shot here so hopefully you can see that they are little white pieces of shaped paper with light pink borders.
This next layout shows some of the posed family shots that were taken. Another really simple layout of cardstock, a metal frame, flowers, and more pearl brads.
In the September kit a piece of scalloped edge cardstock was included. I loved it but it was black and too dark for this layout (everyone is already wearing black) so I traced it onto a piece of ivory paper and cut out some scallops of my own. I think it is so pretty. As I look at this photo I realize that I seem to REALLY like symmetrical pages. Hmmmmm....

These layouts bring my total to 49 layouts! Wow! Only 3 to go and I have met my goal!

Garden Update

It looks like our yellow squash has recovered from the harsh summer and our neglect. We harvested this little yellow squash yesterday and it looks like there may be a couple more coming. Tomatoes are still going strong and one of the other gourd plants that looked dead seems to be enjoying the cooler weather and is growing steadily. I don't know what Greg was thinking when he composed this photo of the squash. Perhaps he wanted the weiner dog placemat to give you a sense of the size? Hmmm?

I am hoping to scrapbook a little tonight since Greg was a sweety and got the veggie "meat" loaf prepped last night while I was at BSF. We are going to have some mashed potatoes and gravy to go with it but that shouldn't take much time to whip up. Yum!

Monday

I didn't get any scrapbooking done this weekend. I finally got the my printer ink changed on Sunday night because I had to print out a new chart for my fridge (where I record my daily exercise). It kills me a little because I got such a great kit in the mail this month:The paper in this kit is so divine that I love BOTH sides of the double sided paper. I can't decide how best to use it! There are little felt flowers and big newspaper flowers and interesting journaling cards (in the black spiral bound notebook). I love it is all but I am still working in pink wedding pages. I suppose I could put them aside and work on this but I have so much wedding related stuff out that it would be a lot of work to set it all aside and change gears now. I must plow ahead. I am going to try and do a little work this week. Back to my old method, just a few minutes a day.

I am lame!

Since no one really wants to read blogs about what I ate for dinner or watched on tv I really have nothing to say!

I did catch the season premiere of The Office last night and laughed my butt off. Otherwise I haven't have done much else.

This weekend I need to pick up a birthday gift for little guy who is turning one on Sunday so that should be fun. I of course want to finish those wedding pages and clean the house a little. Then I am helping with the volunteer fair at church on Sunday after the birthday party.

Greg will of course be at school at least part of the weekend. He has had a tough week. We received a check in the mail from his school this week quite unexpectedly. When he investigated it turns out they dropped one of his classes and refunded his money. Why? Well we would like to know too! They claim it was a strange random fluke and now he has to run all over creation to get it fixed. I love when an institution makes a mistake and then make the victim run all over the rectify it. Poor guy! He is going to try and get it resolved after work today. I am just sad because he wasn't planning to go to school tonight and I was going to get to spend some time with him. Maybe this weekend!

Have a wonderful weekend. Fall begins on Saturday so you have one night to live it up summer style!

Scrapbook Update?

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood! The sun is shining today and I love it!

I did work on a couple more wedding layouts over the weekend but my printer ran out of ink so I couldn't do the journalling and finish them. I finally got the ink last night so hopefully soon I will have something to show you. They look VERY similar to the last wedding layout.

I haven't had much time at home these days. I have been trying to workout each day and it has really been dominating my mornings. I can't manage to do much else. And then in the evenings I have been trying to make a home cooked meal every night to ensure we are eating right and saving money so that has been taking up my evenings. Combine that with BSF back in full swing and television premiers I don't have a lot of free time.

Speaking of premiers, The Office premiers this Thursday and the first episode is supposed to answer all our questions about Jim and Pam. I can't wait! I will be watching alone unfortunately since Greg has class so no one will be around to hear me squeal.

I hope to have more to report soon!

Weekend Goals!

It has been raining here for 2 (or more) days so I imagine I will be spending a great deal of my weekend indoors unless the weather takes a turn for the better. I am hoping to get some scrapbooking done. I haven't had a lot of extra time lately and have fallen behind slightly in my productivity when it comes to hobbies. I am so close to completing my goal that I can't give up now! I got my September scrapbook club kit in the mail last night and am really excited to use it. I think it may be my favorite so far. I was going to take a photo this morning but with all the rain it was so dark and gloomy I couldn't get a good shot.

Have a great weekend!

I'm In Heaven

I got this in the mail last night. If you don't already watch this show, please give it a chance. It is only 30min on Thursdays but it is HILARIOUS!! I am so addicted to the office that I watch is on the train on my video ipod and have to force myself not to laugh out loud (so people won't stare). Greg and I watched the blooper reel last night and we were both laughing so hard I almost peed my pants. I hope that season 3 is just as good as season 2! A lot of the extra footage is available at nbc.com for free if you want to take a peek.

And for you BBC Office lovers, give the US version a try. They really came into their own in season 2. I promise you won't be disappointed!

Tomatoes will survive the apocalypse!

The tomatoes were the only thing in the garden that survived this summer. Greg and I picked these over the weekend and turned them into a yummy spaghetti sauce. They were really delicious. We tried to harvest the beets but in our neglect they had become uncovered by the soil and were growing completely on the surface of the ground. Because of that they were really hard and dried out. So much for beets.

So we moved on to carrots. This is what we found. Warning! When you neglect your carrots they grow into each other and meld in to giant mutant carrots. When I cleaned and cut these up one was completely hollow inside and had to be pitched. There are a few more mutant carrots out there but that is about it. Just tons of tomatoes. I plan to make some more sauce and freeze it for the winter. I am sad that not one pumpkin or gourd survived. I love to use them as decorations in the fall. I guess I will have to visit the farmers market this year for my decorations!

Now we are trying to plan a garden clean-up day to get all the beds cleared and mulched for winter. We have new neighbors next door and I am sure they are wondering what is up with the weed patch out back!

It begins again.

Tonight is the first night of BSF. Over the weekend I didn't get much scrapbooking done but I did manage to make a new cover for my binder this year. Since I work with kids I try to do something fun. Last year I had 4 girls in my class so I did all pink with flowers and ribbon. This year I am teaching 6-7 year olds and I have 2 boys and 2 girls so I went with something colorful but not too girly (except for the big flower!). I think it counts as a layout toward my goal.
Today also happens to be the 5th anniversary of 9-11. Last night Greg and I reflected on our experience in the city on that day and were more moved than we thought we would be bringing up those old memories. Luckily we were fresh home from church and an awesome sermon on Mark 13:24-37. The passage reminded us of Christ's impending return and 9-11 reminds us how desperately we need Him when we recognize our capacity for evil. Christ is returning to right all wrongs and redeem and renew His creation. Knowing this we are able to LIVE in light of this hope (that was the sermon challenge). It was a great comfort as we watched the news last night and those images we hadn't seen in 5 years.

More Scrapbook Stuff

Sorry I don't have a new topic today. All I have been doing is washing clothes most days. I loving Rosie SOOOO much! I have her set to run a load today so that when I get home the drying will be almost done. Gotta love doing laundry while I'm at work. BSF starts in a few days and I haven't even begun planning my lesson! Oy!

Rachel and Chris just celebrated their second anniversary yesterday so it is fitting that I post this layout which I finished last weekend. I am not thrilled with the dead space on the right but I love the detail around the focal photo. Please excuse the color differences. They are the same pale pink paper on both halves. The lighting was just kind of bad. The detail work:
Pearl brads, paper flowers, rhinestones, and white brads too. I copied this right off the cover of CKs Special Wedding Issue. I loved it so much and I think it worked really nicely on my layout. I have lots of wedding photos left so I think there will be 2-3 more wedding layouts.

Scrapbook Update

My photos arrived from www.scrapbookpictures.com and I was very happy with my order. As you can see the photos were all different sizes and most were pre-cut for me. All I had to do was trim and add them to my prepared mini-book. I added a few more embellishments and I was done. I will definitly use this company again. They have so many more options than the other places I was using to develop my pictures.

Most of my photos were 2x2 inch. Having them printed at that size was much better than what I usually do which is attempt to crop them myself.My mom found some dies for my Quikutz that are of punctuation () {} [] * etc. I used them in this little book (thanks mom!). Most of the other supplies came from the August scrapbook kit. It was so nice to have everything coordinated for me. It made it really easy.

These are just 3 of the 8 layouts that highlighted my experience in San Antonio. So far people have enjoyed looking through it.

Our baby!

We are pleased to announce a new addition to the Cruikshank household. Meet Rosie!

We decided after much deliberation and planning to purchase this little washer/drier combo. That's right, she washes and dries all in the same machine.

Now for you non-New Yorkers I know you are wondering why on earth I would even care to post this. BUT having a washer of your own is UNHEARD of in this city. I recently read a New York Times article about how washing machines are a great equalizer. Neither the rich nor the poor have laundry capabilities in their homes. It just doesn't happen. Well one of the perks of living so far up in the Bronx is that out apartment has always had washing machine hook-ups in the kitchen. Our lease has a clause that doesn't allow driers but Rosie here doesn't work like a regular drier and requires no special pluming, venting, or an additional outlet (none of which we have). So she was allowed in.

I am on my 5th load (we had quite the back up of laundry and she doesn't hold very much) and I am loving her. Welcome Rosie!

Camping

Over the weekend I went cabin camping with my friends Suzan and Shelly. Suzan had never been camping before and really wanted to stay in a cabin in the woods. Well she found one in the Taconic State Park and invited me along.

We enjoyed a hike up to Bash Bish Falls which involved crossing the border from NY State to Massachusetts. The falls were very pretty.

We also built a campfire and introduced Suzan to smores which she had never experienced before. I was very proud of myself for building a fire (plus a second one indoors in the fireplace!). Watching Greg all these years must have rubbed off on me.

Suzan shares my love of jigsaw puzzles and brought along a 3D puzzle for us to work on. We stayed up till 2am the first night putting it together and managed to complete it by lunch the next day. We left it behind for some other campers to try. I never do the same puzzle twice!

It was a quick little trip. We went up on Friday night and were back by Sunday afternoon. It reminded me a lot of camping in the northwest because it was really overcast and rainy the whole time and kind of chilly. Plus I don't see a lot of forests in my day to day activities in NYC so that reminded me of the PacNW too. We had lots of fun!

Garden Update

When we had the heat wave her in NYC a few weeks ago we lost a great deal of our garden. Several days over 100 degrees was just too much for some things to take, even with lots of watering. We lost most of our cucumbers, watermelon, bowl gourd, zucchini (though it was almost dead from pests), pumpkin, and and some other vines. Not much is left.
One thing that did make it was a warted gourd that Greg planted. This morning I came down to these giant blooms. It has just rained and they looked so fresh and pretty. Unfortunately we can't eat warted guards but they make pretty decorations at Halloween.

Another thing that not only withstood the heat but is doing great are the tomatoes. Greg is delighted. I don't really like raw tomatoes but I planted Romas this year in hopes of making some sauce with them (I love cooked tomatoes!). These beauties came off the vine this morning and are coming camping with me. Don't tell them we are eating them on our tacos!

Lastly are the yellow squash or summer squash. This one ended up getting a little too big and may not steam up as nice as a small one would. So far this is the only fruit from this vine but it has a few blooms and may produce something else.

The morning glory was blooming this morning too. Unfortunately its beauty is tainted by the fact that it is such a nasty weed. We also have lots of big carrots and beets which I will photograph soon when we pull them up and eat them.

Have a great weekend!

Scrapbook Update - August Kit

I received my August kit last week in the mail. It was a little late because I had to pick it up at the post office. I was a little disappointed that the color were orange and pink. What am I going to do with this? Then I got a brainstorm. I am using this kit to make a mini-album of my trip to BSF headquarters. I know you are sick of hearing about BSF but I have a workshop next week and I thought taking a mini-book would be a great way to show people the trip and even drum up some more volunteers for next year.

I don't have any photos of the book because I am doing it a little bit backwards. I am using a new-ish photo service called www.scrapbookphotos.com which is a lot like other online photo developers except that they have tons of photo sizes to choose from, artsy borders, even color spot treatments. This mini book is 6 x 6 so all my photos are 2x2 or 2x3 in size. And they are coming to me pre-cropped. I am really excited about this but it took a ton more work than I usually do. I had to sketch out each page in advance to figure out how the photos would all fit and to pick the sizes. I was hoping the photos would arrive before this blog entry but I am still waiting.

I am going camping this weekend with some girlfriends so I probably won't get to scrap again until next week. I will be taking some vacation days and hope to spend one whole day scrapbooking. I may even meet my goal next week since I will only need 7 more layouts to make it to my goal total! How cool is that!

Rafiki Foundation

One of the perks of visiting BSF headquarters is that the Rafiki Foundation also has their headquarters on campus there too, as well as a store.

The Rafiki Foundation is a non-profit that's aim is to:
"help orphaned and vulnerable children in Africa to become godly contributors to their communities and the world"
They do this through specially designed orphanages and girls training centers.

The orphanages are cool. There is a village with a main center building and then small cottages around the perimeter. In each cottage live 10 orphans and one woman who is designated their permanent mother. Siblings are kept together and the cottage does everything together as a "family". They receive food, clothing, medicine, education and some kind of marketable skill training within the little village. I just think it is such a cool concept.

The training centers specifically target girls in developing countries who would not be able to attend school or are too young to find jobs. They receive an education and are taught a skill that results in a product. The products are sold in the US and all proceeds go directly back to the training centers. The photo shows the items I picked up at the Rafiki store.

Carved wooden ark - Malawi
Trees - Tanzania
Soaps - Cape Town
Quilted bag - Nigeria
Earrings- Can't remember

They had so many wonderful things and they were all very inexpensive. It is so nice shopping with the assurance that the products are helping children. Please check out their website and if you are in San Antonio definitely swing by the store. They do have a child sponsorship program too.

Super Nanny Alexis!

While my friend Karen is away on vacation I have been feeding her cats twice a day for the past few days. The only way to get them to hold still for a photo was to feed them. I have been calling them "Fat Buster and Mini Meow". If you know Austin Powers you will get it. The older cat is Buster and he is a little, well how should I put it....big boned. And then there is the new kitten Margarita. They look like twins but Margarita is from totally different stock.

This morning I went to feed them and I poured out their water and went to refill the bowls but there was no water coming from the faucet! I forgot that Karen got a note on Sunday that the water was going to be shut off for a day. I couldn't leave them with no water so the kitties are drinking Evian today. It's all I could find besides Diet Coke and OJ. For one day they can live the high life!

In the evenings I play with them a little.
Mini Meow is easily entertained. Greg came with me over the weekend and found this elastic ball thing to hang from the door. She loves it and it keeps her entertained for a while.

This is the extent of Buster playing. Mostly he flops his big belly out on the coffee table and lets me brush him. He is a real sweetie.

Occasionally I think about getting a cat. I am really allergic but we aren't allowed to have a dog in our building but cats are ok (so unfair I know!). Cat sitting has cured me of the desire. Cleaning out the litter box and dishing up the nasty smelling wet food is a little much for me. Oh and did I mention that Buster vomits if he eats too fast. Yeah, that was fun to clean-up too. I will just settle for visiting them when I hang out with Karen.

Have a good weekend!

Greg is here to pick me up so I have to run. I am hoping to get lots of fun projects done this weekend and will post about them next week. I leave you with a photo collage of my BSF trip that wouldn't post yesterday.

Have a great weekend!

Sorry! BSF trip update.

I have been a REALLY bad blogger. It has been almost a week since I posted. When I started this blog things were really slow at home and work so I had plenty of time to post but lately it has been go, go, go. I will try harder!
We made it home safe and sound from Texas (eventually!). It was a great trip and we especially loved working at BSF headquarters for a couple of days. In the above photo Alice and I are on a tour of the facility and got this photo in the library where the BSF staff meet each morning for their devotional time. It was fun hearing a little more of the story of BSF's founder. The facilities were wonderful and so well kept and run. The volunteer coordination staff couldn't have been more friendly or more accommodating. They made sure that we took lots of breaks and they were constantly feeding us! That may be a Texas thing.

When you volunteer you do whatever they need that day but most of the work is done in the warehouse sorting, packing, weighing, and organizing the materials that are printed in-house. Alice and I spent half our time sorting and organizing packing slips and letters and half our time weighing out Home Training Pages into 100 sheet bundles so they could be shipped off to classes around the world. It was very cool to see the process it takes to get materials to the classes, the materials we enjoy using each week. It is truly an opportunity to see the BIG PICTURE!

We met lots of great people and got to rub elbows with some of the executive staff (or BSF celebrities as I like to call them) and we were kind of like little celebrities too since we were from the NYC class. Everyone wanted to ask us about it. Alice is already organizing a trip for next year (we hope to get into on-campus housing for $10 a day! You can't beat that!) so if you are interested drop me a line and I will forward you on to her.

OOPS!!

I am in San Antonio right now with my friend Alice. We are SUPPOSED to be on a plane right now but we missed our flight!!! Mom, you aren't the only one who has trouble in airports I guess! With the recent problems with air travel we were extra careful to be at the airport 2 hours early sans viscous liquids. Only problem was we thought our flight was at 7pm but in fact it had been at 5pm! We had misread the itinerary. Or rather Alice mis-read it and I was too lazy to check it at all. We make such a great team!!!!!

Anyway, we are staying in a hotel tonight by the airport until our flight first thing in the morning. We had a great time volunteering at BSF headquarters on Thursday and Friday and met so many wonderful and fun people. We ate our way through Texas and it is true, everything is bigger here including the portions. We visited the Alamo and the Riverwalk, Market Square and did lots of shopping. We are looking forward to getting home but are enjoying this evening to take a break and relax. We have been working on some knitting projects and I am currently washing laundry since I was out of clean clothes after today.

I have tons of photos to share soon. Have a wonderful Sunday!

Good-Bye Again!

It is such a beautiful day today. Not too hot, breezy, and low humidity! I love days like this. This is what summer SHOULD be like, for everyone. I wish I had some fun photos to post today but that would mean I have been doing fun things and alas I have not. I have been working pretty late most nights and I have been trying to go to bed at 10pm each night this week so that I can get up earlier and that leaves little time for much else.

I am leaving tonight on a jet plane for Texas with my dear friend and faithful blog reader ALICE (hi Alice!). We are heading to San Antonio for a few days to volunteer at BSF headquarters. I am really looking forward to it and hope that it will really get me excited for class to start in just a few short weeks. I am packed and ready to go. I just have to tie up all loose ends at work.

On a fun note my friend Susan (from Texas!) is here in NYC today and I will get a chance to say a quick hi to her and Lily this afternoon. You can see a photo of her and baby Lily on my last post. It was her baby shower that was featured.

I won't be able to post again until next week so I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Scrapbook Update

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. We enjoyed much cooler weather and I had some time to do a little scrapbooking. I am now only 8 layouts away from meeting my 2006 goal. I can't express how excited I am about that. Space is clearing up in my scrapbook area where boxes of photos used to be and it feels so good. Here are the layouts I did this week. I have been changing the way I scrapbook in that at times along the way I will just glue things down instead of agonizing over them and rearranging for hours. Sometimes it works great and other times I regret doing it but I move ahead anyway. This was one of those times. I started sticking down stickers and putting in brads and then decided I hated the way it looked. But I moved on anyway. I ended up added some paint to this layout (I am now loving paint!) and I think it redeemed it a little but this is still not one of my favorite layouts. I am slowly learning to let go of my perfectionism and just live and learn.
This layout features a baby shower I attended for my friend and recent blog reader, Susan Glassmoyer. I had a ton of photos of her opening each gift and a few not so great crowd shots. So I picked the best of the present shots and cut out individual heads from the group shots. I added the photos from her birth announcement to complete the story. Greg agreed that this layout used the pictures really well considering the limitations. I used some Ghost Letters from Heide Swapp but I painted the back of letters with peach paint to coordinate with the paper. I am loving paint right now. It is such an easy way to add color. I just have to be careful not to go buying a million tubes of it.

This was a quicky of a bachelorette party we had at work (or with work people I should say). Super simple and using KI paper which I have tons of. No real embellishments except letter stickers.

I received notice that my new August kit will be shipping soon. I still have old kit stuff to use so I had better get busy!

Relief

The heat finally broke today and we are enjoying temps in the low 90s and much less humidity. Still pretty darn hot but so much more tolerable. Work was a lot quieter today and I was able to catch up on all my normal work. We have plans this weekend to visit with some friends we haven't seen in ages and will even be taking in a movie IN A THEATER. Something we don't often do. So here are some pictures from our trip. Nothing amazing mind you!
Greg jumped a fence to get this shot on Martha's Vineyard in Edgartown. Such a rebel!

Here I am at American Stonehenge in New Hampshire. That face is the one you get when you say to me "go and climb inside that little cave". Are you joking!?! I was a little overheated and tired by this point in the day so I wasn't amused by Greg's request.

A problem we faced on this trip was that we didn't end up with a single photo with both of us in it. I'm definitly one of those people who doesn't want to stop strangers on the street and beg them to photograph us but there really weren't any of those kinds of opportunities. If you have been following my scrapbooking on this blog you know that I end each album with a page about our anniversary complete with a photo and since our anniversary occurred on this trip I had hoped to get a cute photo of us after 5 years of marriage. So when we got home I forced Greg into a home photo session. I pulled out that piece of black velvet I bought at Christmas and we tried our best at an artsy portrait. It is a little off since we were using a tripod and a timer but I still like it a lot. Happy Anniversary darling!

Have a great weekend everyone!

When it rains.....There is fire!

What? Upon returning from vacation I found out that there was a big problem with one of my multi-million dollar grants at work. So since pulling up in the driveway from a wonderful little vacation with my hubby I have been dealing with the problem. I am known at work for not getting worried but this issue has worried me. Mostly because my boss is away on vacation and I have had to deal with it on my own. It isn't really resolved yet but I feel that I have done all I can do and now I just need to pray that it will work out fine. But in the heat of that problem we had a lab fire yesterday!

I couldn't help but laugh. We were working in the lab (I was actually seeding plates to help out a post-doc, something I haven't done in 2 years) and the fire alarm went off. We were kind of annoyed because not only were we all really busy but it was 110 degrees outside and we didn't really want to stand out there. We assumed that it was a drill or someone pulled the alarm which happens often at this school but usually during finals week! So the girls and I went down and ran off to get some coffee instead of standing around. When we returned to the building we started hearing rumors that the problem had been on the 7th floor. HUH? That is was room 766. HUH? That's my lab! Turns out that in the room next to where we had been seeding plates the temp had gotten so high (it is a growth chamber used for growing plants and has lots of hot lights in it) that the sprinkler head had melted and set off the sprinklers which triggered the alarm and then the spraying water ignited a light socket and caused it to blow. And we were right there and didn't hear or see anything! When we returned to the lab there was about an inch of water on the floor and about 4 inches inside the room so they couldn't open the door. The room is supposed to automatically shut itself off when it gets to hot but apparently there was a glitch in the control panel and it just kept heating and heating and heating. We had about 40 NYU personnel here cleaning and investigating the whole thing and I couldn't help but laugh. When it rains it pours (or starts a fire!).

I had wonderful plans to post this week about my trip and some other stuff I am doing but have been really pre-occupied. Last night I worked till 10pm but after today things should quiet back down. Unless something else in the lab decides to explode!

Welcome Back Cruikshank

I just wanted to let everyone know that I am back safe and sound from our little road trip last weekend. Things kind of blew up at work while I was gone (it's amazing what can go wrong in 3 days time!) so I have been really preoccupied since getting home and checking my email for the first time.

We had a wonderful trip. Here is a quick break down (places we stopped to visit and/or stayed in):

Day 1: Mystic Connecticut, Newport Rhode Island & New Bedford Massachusetts. New Bedford is an old whaling town where Moby Dick was written and featured.

Day 2: Martha's Vineyard

Day 3: Boston & Salem Massachusetts, and American Stonehenge North Salem New Hampshire. We celebrated our anniversary in Concord New Hampshire and had a really nice dinner and some swimming. Perfect evening!

Day 4: Canterbury Shaker Village in Canterbury New Hampshire & Lowell Massachusetts. The Shaker Village had the BEST brunch I have ever eaten. I would highly recommend a visit just for the food.

We were supposed to stay away 5 days but decided to drive home on Sunday instead of paying to sleep somewhere just to drive home Monday. We rolled in at about 12:30am.

We had a marvelous time but are glad to be home. Unfortunately with the heat index today it is 106-110 degrees and there are tons of heat warnings and I am worried about brown-outs tonight. I just want my one little air conditioner to run so I can sleep. That doesn't seem like too much to ask!

More later!