Housing Update

I hope you all had a nice holiday. We kept thinking it was Saturday all day on the 4th! Well there was no traffic so we were able to make 4 trips to the new apartment and moved about 70% of our things. That is 8 trips over the Whitestone bridge at $4 a pop but at least it is cheaper than a truck. The owners still had their stuff everywhere so we just piled our things in 2 of the rooms. We actually ran out of boxes on Wed so we had to take a break from moving. On a fun note we noticed there is a vegan bakery down the street from our new house! Don't you love those little confirmations that you made the right decision.

We collected over a dozen more boxes yesterday and packed a bunch more last night. We are pretty much down to essentials now so we decided that if they are done working on the place this Saturday that we will move in a week early and start sleeping there. Of course our furniture won't be coming until the 14th because that is when we have the truck reserved but that is OK. I can live without furniture easier than I can live without stuff (and without being able to cook!). We are borrowing an air mattress from a friend in the meantime. Then next week I can focus on unpacking a bit and also getting the Bronx apartment cleaned up and painted. Did I mention that we have to paint our super cute living room back to white? The landlords didn't like the color brown we chose. How can you not love this?

That is one of the photos we took for our landlord so she could advertise the place. She got over 20 emails the day she posted it on Craig'sList. They are showing the Bronx place to potential renters this weekend so I need to clean it up a bit. When we moved some of our furniture that has been in place for 4.5 years we found huge dust bunnies living in there. I wondered where those things bred! Apparently behind bookcases! On a side note, our landlords would love to find Christian tenants to take our old place. If you know of any trying to relocate to or in the Bronx please let me know.

A Sneak Peek

We visited the new apartment last night and took a car load of stuff over. The landlords are still working on the place. They have been painting the entire place pretty shades of pastel colors. Not my favorite but at least they are doing a really nice job. They still have lots of work to do so we told them instead of trying to do it all on June 30th to take their time and work all this week since we aren't moving in officially until the 14th.

We solved a couple mysteries last night. I had imagined a closet across from the kitchen that turned out not to exist and then we found a closet in the half bedroom that we hadn't seen when we originally walked through. It was hidden behind the door when it is open. A fun surprise! That brings the total to 6 closets! Wow, I am so jazzed to have lots of storage. We found out there is cable in most of the rooms. So now we have to choose between DirectTV or standard cable and DSL vs. Cable modem. Any suggestions readers? We haven't had any of them before so we are at a loss. The only thing I don't want is that stupid dish on the side of the house but Greg says they may be able to put it on the back side which would be OK. We also have more kitchen cabinets than I remembered which is great since we don't have that imaginary closet after all that I was going to use as a pantry. We also looked out back and there really is no place for our little table and chairs and BBQ. They use every inch as a parking lot so we will have to dump that stuff on Craig's List or something. There is a small planter in the kitchen window so at least Greg could grow a tomato or something if he wanted. There is also a mystery button in the kitchen. It looks like a doorbell and even the landlord doesn't know what it is for. Kind of weird. We met our downstairs neighbors, a young couple, who seem really nice. I think that is all of the discoveries we made last night.

I managed to snap a few photos but the landlords were there and when I whipped out the camera they started cleaning up all their stuff which I didn't want them to do. I want them to finish up and get out, not stash stuff only to have to get it out again. So I only took a few shots.

We are going to stay in the Bronx tonight to pack and then we will probably take a bunch of loads on the 4th and do some more planning. We want to get as much over by car as possible so that we can get by with a smaller truck and only 2 trips for furniture on the 14th. We'll see how it goes with our tiny little car.

It is so hard not to be in the new place but packing takes time and we don't want to rush unnecessarily. It is an exercise in patience for me.

First is the photo of the front of the house. We are the right side of the duplex (white building) on the 1st and 2nd floors.

The view of the dining room from the living room. I didn't get a shot of the living room for some reason but the 2 rooms are the same size. The living room has 3 windows and the dining room has 0. You can see our little staircase off to the left. We have 2 under the stairs closets. Lots of storage!

Next is the kitchen. Don't mind all the junk, it is for the painting and repairs the owners are doing. I wish the stove was a full sized one. This type is very common in NYC.

Across from the kitchen is the downstairs bathroom. It is really narrow. Just a toilet and sink. If I get too fat I won't fit in this room! Just a pit stop so you don't have to run upstairs all the time to pee.This is the back bedroom. We plan to use it as an office and scrapbook studio. I am not jazzed with the yellow and the striped wall paper. It has a large closet.I didn't get a picture of the "master" bedroom. It is on the street side of the house. It has a "step in" closet which is very nice and will hold all our clothes effortlessly. The photo is the view from the master bedroom looking into the half bedroom. We haven't decided how to use it at this point. Guest room, Huge closet, or pinball arcade. So many possibilites. You can see the closet that was hidden behind the door. This room has no windows.

And lastly the upstairs bathroom. It is completely new. Really small but super cute. All upstairs rooms are connected by a long hallway.

That is all for now. I probably won't blog tomorrow so I hope you all have a really nice 4th of July!

whirl-wind

I don't have time for a long post today but I did want to share that Greg and I found an apartment on Saturday and signed the lease. We now officially live in Sunnyside, Queens... and in the Bronx. Long story but we have both apartments for the month of July.

We are heading to the new place tonight and I hope to get some photos to share as well as take another look. It all happened so fast I can't actually remember how many closets or outlets there are or if it has cable or a dishwasher or what exactly is out back. Greg and I have different memories.

I can tell you it has 2.5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 floors, and at least 5 closets maybe more, and it is 2 blocks off the 7 train (41st st stop).

I will have more specifics tomorrow for sure but at least the hunt is over!

New Profile

Well we saw 2 more apartments last night. Both in nice neighborhoods in Manhattan. Both totally wrong for us. We have an appointment in Queens tonight with a broker so we will see how it goes.

My friend and co-worker Suzan is working to develop and design a new web page for the lab so yesterday she set up a little photo studio and took everyone's picture. She did an awesome job with them in photoshop. The webpage is far from finished but I forced her to hand over my pictures so I could use them here.

My new profile photo:

Here was the other photo she got:

They are practically Glamour Shots! Plus in the second there was a garbage can next to my head (photos were all taken in the lab) and she artfully blurred it out in photoshop. Everyone looked amazing in their photos when she finished with them. Everyone will want to work here with the "pretty people" when they see our web page. Now I just need her to do my Christmas card for next year! Here she is:

Best Birthday Ever

We didn't look at a single apartment last weekend (not much on the market). Instead we focussed on cleaning out our current apartment. We are only about 50% done but it felt so good to toss stuff. We worked systematically through each room, each cabinet, each shelf and evaluated every item together. Did we use it, did we love it, did we need it, did we have more than one. We both encouraged the other to really be honest about what should stay and what should go. We tried on every article of clothing we owned. Here is an example:Two dresses I have been holding on to for years. Why? I don't know. I never intended to wear them again. So instead I tried them on for kicks and then tossed them in a bag. One of the best parts of the decluttering weekend was remembering the stories behind some of the stuff. That is why we keep the stuff, to remind us of things. Well, take a picture and write down the story! The black dress was purchased for a New Year's Party organized and heavily attended by the BSF Young Adults class in Seattle. My best friend Katie and I went. I was having a really hard time finding a formal dress. Katie and I tried on this same black dress (she found it first and she looked great in it!) and she wanted to get it but I liked it too and I wasn't having any luck so she let me get the dress. Such a good friend! I loved that dress that night! The other dress was the Maid of Honor dress I wore to Katie's wedding, and I felt gorgeous in it that day. Both were way too small for me now! Now hopefully they aren't too out of style to bless someone else.

Here are just some of the bags of stuff we decided to get rid of. The whole area under the table was full and a lot had already been taken downstairs. Some garbage, some recycling and lots to take to the GoodWill. I wish I had taken some before and after shots, especially of the desk. Yikes that was crammed full of junk and now looks so neat and tidy. Now we need to tackle the kitchen, Hall Closet, craft and music areas! Is it weird that I thought this was the most fun way to spend a weekend?

Birthday Blogger!

I don't usually blog on the weekends so this is my official Birthday post. This Sunday I turn 31 years old. Where did the time go? It seems like just yesterday I was planning the big 3-0 party.

Tonight we are having a small scale celebration. Greg got us tickets for Shakespeare in the Park tonight (Romeo and Juliet) and we are meeting some friends for a low-key dinner before hand. I am actually really swamped at work today so I hope I can get out of here on time to make it to the restaurant.

Then this weekend we are trying to get some appointments set up to look at more apartments. Not the way I would like to spend my Birthday but I would like a nice new place to live in my 31st year so it is a must.

I snapped this photo while sitting at my desk today so I would have something to post. Not bad for a self portrait right?! And mom, notice the earrings!

So I leave you with this:

-

31 Things I Love (in no particular order)

1. My husband Greg

2. iPod Video and watching TV on the train

3. KI Memories scrapbook products (just placed an order yesterday!)

4. Chewy Runts and Chewy Gobstoppers Candy

5. Caffeine Free Diet Coke

6. Driving in the car on a sunny day with the radio blaring

7. New clothes from H&M

8. Naps in the mid-afternoon!

9. Homemade Pizzas warm from the oven

10. Aussie Licorice (did I mention I love candy!)

11. Long tank tops from Down East Basics

12. Hot Showers even in the summer

13. Manis and Pedis

14. Discovering a cool new blog and then reading all the archives

15. Throwing things out and decluttering

16. Getting into the Scrapbooking zone

17. Talking to myself

18. Finding shoes in my size that are cute (11 is a tough size!)

19. Remembering something totally random at the perfect moment

20. Getting my teeth cleaned at the dentist

21. The Office on NBC

22. Snuggling with Greg on the couch

23. The moment when I am just drifting off to sleep

24. When my house is really clean

25. Opening the mail, especially if there are packages

26. Margaritas, preferably frozen with no salt

27. Being at home all day

28. Seeing friends and family after a long absence

29. Getting into a made bed

30. Making up new silly lyrics to songs and annoying Greg

31. Anything miniature sized!

Wow, I could go on and on but I will have to wait until my 32nd Birthday!

Busy little blogger

We sent the last 2 evenings in Queens looking at apartments. We came REALLY close last night to finding a place only to decide that it was going to be a little too difficult of a commute for Greg. To bad too because it was 2 blocks from the Beer Garden and fairly spacious. The commute of course wasn't the only problem with it but it was by far the best apartment we have seen so far. It gives me hope that there are good places out there, we just have to keep searching. Each place we look at helps us know a little better what we want and need.

Work has been a little bit hellish this week so I don't have much else to report on right now. More later!

Scrapbook Update

Well I finally finished the theme album for my co-worker Karen who recently moved to Maine. The album has 40 single pages (20 double page layouts) so here is just a sampling to give you an idea of the design.

The title page. The whole album featured Urban Chic paper by Basic Grey, brads and paper flowers. The majority of the pages look like this. A main photo with catchy title and then a photo collage on that theme opposite. This one is about Campus life and shows photos from the building, lab and park.There were 3 layouts like this that feature people. Faces from her 6 years in the lab. We have a lot of people come through this place each year. Post-docs, techs, and lots of students.

Then in between the collage pages I would stick these layouts that feature individual people and their well wishes/sentiments for Karen.Some layouts featured parties or events. This one shows our trip to New Orleans. A bunch of us girls from work went. Other layouts show lab clean-up days, happy hours, baby showers, bachellorette parties and birthday parties. We have a lot of fun in this lab!Near the end of the album I made this layout. I raided her desk one day while she was out and pasted in a few of the items she had stuck up in her work space. The last page is this one where I listed lots of random memories of work. Just little blurbs to jog her memory and make her laugh.

Overall it was a really easy album to make. I did all the photo collages in Adobe Elements and had them printed out 8x8 at scrapbookpictures.com then just slid them in. The last shot is my planning day where I laid all the blank pages out and planned the order of everything. Now I just need to get it in the mail to Maine!

Flat Tire

On the way to church last night we got a flat tire just as we had come off the freeway and made our way across the bridge into Manhattan. I of course couldn't do much to help Greg except watch. That is until I remembered that I had my camera. This first shot is of the area where we pulled off. It is a small median area where the road splits. A lot of people were cutting across the median area pretty close to the car. Crazy NYC drivers!

Here is Greg removing the flat. He was really annoyed that I was taking his photo. Poor guy. It was really humid out and at one point he had to lay on the ground to position the jack.
This is our 2nd flat since moving here and both times they happened around the same place. There was no major incident just rough roads in general. Today Greg is out buying 4 brand new tires. Hopefully they will last a while!

Scrapbook Update

My June Kit arrived from Jenni Bowlin Studios. Unfortunately I haven't even touched the May kit. I haven't been doing any scrapbooking in a while. I barely managed to crank out a Father's Day Card for my dad and the scrapbook for my co-worker is still sitting here 95% done.

Here is the kit. Pastel purples and greens. The things I am most excited to use are the damask flower sticker from Heidi Swap and the Heidi Swap Ghost Flowers (I've never used her ghosts before so I will have to do some research and figure out how). I read that Heidi Swap is going to start her own monthly kit club so I may have to join that one instead since I love all her stuff.

As far as weekend plans I don't know if I will get any scrapping done. I am going to Renegade on Saturday and then may be meeting with our broker to look at apartments all afternoon. Maybe on Sunday I will try and get one small project done. Sometimes just a minor accomplishment is all it takes to get the juices flowing again and get me revved up to scrap during the week. I need to move my scrap table to the living room so I can watch all my new favorite shows while I scrap. Hell's Kitchen, So you think you can dance, and Last comic standing to name a few. Why are summer reality shows so much better than what's on during the rest of the year?

More Crafts!

This weekend is the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn. It happens twice a year in Dec and June. This year they will be having 200 vendars. I have been to it 3 times and can tell you that is it really cool. NYC doesn't have many honest to goodness craft fairs and this is the real deal. It is pretty sweet so if you are local and want to meet up let me know. I won't be missing out on some hipster homemade crafts! They have a vendar list so you can even pre-shop!

Craft Club

Last Saturday I attended another craft club. This time we learned how to make dishcloth aprons with Peh. She actually made us HAND SEW them. I haven't hand sewed anything in years. But it only took about 15 min to do the stitching and these babies were done. Super easy but super cute. I have been wearing mine all week in the kitchen. Thanks Peh and thanks to Kelly for letting us meet at her house and feeding us a yummy lunch.

The rest of the weekend was spent looking at apartments and listings with our new broker and friend Joann. She is trying to convince us to buy an apartment so now we are going through the motions to see if that is even possible. So much stress!Greg had his final class all day yesterday so now he is officially done. He has to deal with all the administrative crap now to file for graduation and get his thesis credits counted. Hopefully it will go smoothly. Of course he still wants to write a paper to get his thesis results published but that is an added bonus and shouldn't be too hard.

Thursday

The apartment we saw last night was not for us. It was next to the Hell's Gate Bridge and much too small. It was a convertible 2 but they were calling it a 2 bedroom apartment. I hate that! Anyway, the hunt continues.

Another thing we did last weekend was visit this:

It is a modular home that was built during a design contest. Designed to be used in Africa. I don't know much about it (the boys, Greg and John were more into it than I) except that it is being auctioned off at Christie's and it is set up here in Queens for public viewing. The architect is pretty famous. Maybe Greg will enlighten us in comments. It was rainy when we went but it was interesting to see. I think this home is bigger than my apartment! You can see some of the restoration when you look at the support leg in the foreground compared to its partner.

I can't believe...

...it has been a week since I blogged last. I have been having really bad allergies and migraines lately so it seems when I have some free time I feel too lousy to post. Here are some updates:

• We are working on our housing issue. In fact Greg and I have an appointment to look at a place in Astoria tonight. It sounds promising but I have learned never to get my hopes up when it comes to NYC real estate.


• I am 95% done with the gift album for my co-worker and will try to photograph it this week. Otherwise I have done no scrapbooking in almost 2 weeks.

Last weekend Greg and I spent some quality time together. On Saturday we ventured over to Connecticut to visit the Barnum Museum. It explores the life of P.T. Barnum (from the circus). It was a very small museum but was interesting and fun to check out. I took a whole ton of photos and then noticed on our way out a sign saying "no photography please". Oops! Anyway, here are some shots:

The highlights:

Barnum really came to fame with roaming sideshows and saloon appearances. The museum actually didn't talk that much about the circus which came very late in his life.

Barnum struck it rich promoted a "little person" named Tom Thum and promoting Jenny Lind the famous singer.

The top floor of the museum featured a hand carved scale model of a circus. It filled almost half the floor.

Barnum also claimed to have a mermaid, a mummy, and a 160 year old woman in his company. The woman ended up being only 88 when she died, the mermaid was a monkey body on a fish tail, but the mummy turned out to be authentic. Barnum also featured Siamese twins, bearded ladies, skinny men, and all the other "regular" side show type attractions but Tom Thumb was his most famous.

The photos above from the upper left:

-Greg with Tom Thumb image to show his scale.

-The mummy

-The scale model of the circus from above on a catwalk

-Circus items

-A circus buggy

-An elephant replica (Barnum featured a baby elephant long before he started the circus. He used to use the elephant to plow his fields near the train track so train passengers would want to come and check out his show).

-The Barnum Institute from the outside.

-Greg next to Tom Thumbs carriage.

After the museum we enjoyed a mediocre lunch at Taco Loco. The LOCO thing is that they were voted best Mexican food and best margaritas in town. The people of Fairview need to get a clue!

Pop the cork....

HE PASSED!!!!!!!!

Greg said the whole thing went really well and everyone was very complimentary. They gave him some minor revisions to his written thesis which he can fix quickly and easily. Now he has one class night in June and he is officially graduated.

We are both so excited and Greg is so relieved to be done with the hard stuff. The whole grad school experience has had its ups and downs but the Lord has been faithful to provide all Greg needed to succeed.

Greg says it feels like his life can start again or restart with his graduate work done. We are taking the week off and then starting our next big project, looking for a new place to live!

Thesis Defense Today

I hope you all had a great weekend. Greg worked really hard practicing his thesis and I lounged around the house. It was a great weekend of sunny weather so we threw open all the windows in the apartment and aired the place out. I also got a chance to read for fun! Haven't done that in a while.

Greg is defending his thesis today at 3pm (eastern time). Please keep him in your prayers as he delivers his 40min presentation from memory. We don't know exactly how the process works but we hope that they will grade or pass him today at the defense so he can truly be done with his graduate studies (of course he has one class night in June to be truly done but that is no big deal).

Thanks everyone for your prayers and support over the last 2 years!

T.G.I.F.

First some updates:

Sewage Problem-Apparently ConEdison (or power company) was partly to blame for the sewage problem. This week they replaced a sewer pipe next door. Now we are just hoping they finish the job in a timely manner. Someone finally cleaned up the pool of goo in the back of the house.

Thesis- Greg is scheduled to defend his thesis next Tuesday at 2pm. He will be spending the entire holiday weekend finishing his slides and practicing. He is SOOOOOO close to being done. I am getting excited but I think he is still stressed.

Yesterday we had one last girls night out with my friend Karen who is moving to Maine today. She is 7 months pregnant so that limits the kind of fun we can have! We opted for manicures and pedicures (I threw in a leg wax too) at a salon near work. Here are some shots:
Not a day too soon. Today it is over 90 degrees and I finally broke out the capri pants and sandals. Now I have cute toes, smooth legs, and clean fingernails. I love it. It is hard to say goodbye to friends. That is the nature of the lab and of New York City. People come for a few years and then move on. But I am really excited for Karen and her new adventure. I remember how scary it was to move to New York and leave behind all my friends and family and have only my husband to rely on. It was scary but really exciting at the same time. My hope is that she fully embraces the change and makes the most of it. Of course I have to make a trip to Maine now to visit her and her new baby (and William the famous party baby!).

Do you have big weekend plans? For the holiday weekend we are hanging around the house. I have a pile of ironing to do, some housekeeping, some scrapbooking to finish, and some relaxing to do. I may coax Greg out of the house one day for a walk around the botanical garden or something outdoors. He is planning to do thesis work all weekend. Until next week!

Happy Hump Day!

Goodness gracious it has been a while since I posted. Where here are some random thoughts:

It took me 2 hours to get to work this morning! The trains were all messed up and I had to take 3 trains to get to work. Yet another reason to move.

They shampooed the carpet in my office and now it smells like sour milk. It is really gross and extra pungent in the morning after my door has been closed all night. YUCK!A couple weekends ago Greg and I got all dressed up and went to the members dinner at church. I meant to post this earlier and forgot. I snatched this lovely centerpiece on my way out (they told us to take them, honest!).

I have been making a photo album for a co-worker who is moving away and I went through the photo archive on the lab computer to find pictures. Suzan in the lab is really good at shooting our events and parties and stuff around the lab. Well I found some photos I had never seen before:

This one captures my obsession with DSW and shoe shopping. I used to go weekly. I don't even remember her taking this one. Another shoe photo. This one highlighting the day my favorite flip flops broke. Check out the hair! This one proves I used to do lab work back when I was a technician. I am setting up a real time PCR reaction. Here I am grinding plant tissue with liquid nitrogen. I must have been training Maricela since she is wearing a lab coat and safety goggles. Notice I am not wearing safety equipment.

Here I am explaining to Rodrigo why he was cheating at pictionary and how speaking english as his second language is not an excuse (our Christmas party).

I love this photo because it was taken at work yet it looks like I am at a slumber party. We had basement clean-up day which explains the horrid outfit (only wear stuff that can get ruined). We were pretty hot and sweaty and tired by this point. It is about 100 degrees in the basement.

I found this great picture of the park next to my building. Washington Square Park. Suzan took it from atop the student center. This really is a great place to work!

Blogger just crashed and would have lost this whole long post except that there is a new auto safe feature! Thanks Blogger!

Misc Musings

I have been working from home the last couple days which means it is hard for me to post pictures with my slow dial-up connection. We were planning to get high speed but then decided we wanted to move this summer so it seems silly to go to all the trouble now.

I recieved a scrapbook kit in the mail last week. You may remember I was in this club for several months. I re-enrolled to give it another chance and got this kit for May. I am not super excited about it. It features all Jenni Bowlins own products. Which is cool but it seem that in the past I got way more stuff (and more interesting variety) than this kit. Plus it seems like less volumn and since she is making 100% profit with this stuff I hoped she would at least keep the amount the same if not more. Perhaps I won't be a member much longer.

Featurs: paper, cardstock, mini paper, journalling cards, rubber stamp, ribbon, sequins, felt flowers, rub on alphabet, and more journalling stickers. I really wish I did more hand journalling. I may need to think of some other way to use all these journalling cards.

Another think I got in the mail last week is this:

My new Blackberry. I am still figuring out this baby but it has been very nice getting my email without having to get on line which as I mentioned previously is a bit of a pain! My last phone was the total strip down Nokia with no bells no whistles, no color, no nothing (Greg got the fancy phone last time). This phone is much more high tech and fun. Now if you email me I can reply at all hours of day or night!

Well today I am home taking the day off and working on a last minutes scrapbook project. I was up all last night working on my photo order and today I am going to get the layouts started. I only hope I can finish it on time! More on that later!

Power Outage

I know I disappeared at the end of last week and I am sorry. Last Thursday we had a planned power outage at work to fix a problem in the basement next to the main power bus. As you can imagine in a lab that is not a good thing. We have 12 small freezers, 2 large refrigerators, a cold room, 2 large ultra low freezers, and 10 growth rooms/units. That is a lot of stuff that requires constant power. In the end they allotted us 5 small freezers, 1 ultra low freezer and 1 large refrigerator to run on emergency generators. So we spent the entire day on Thursday cleaning things out and throwing away samples so we could consolidate all our units in to those few units that were allowed. Of course we couldn't just turn off the empty freezers since they are full of ice and would melt into a giant mess. We also spent the day defrosting the freezers and chipping away at the ice in a controlled way.

We were all exhausted by the end and had to stay late to wait for the electricians to come and switch us over to the emergency generators. When they showed up they couldn't figure out how to cut our power. One of my employees had to show them where our electrical panels were in a closet down the hall. When they went in there they realized that our lab wasn't connected to the power bus that was being repaired. WE DIDN'T HAVE TO LOSE POWER AFTER ALL!!!! What a waste of time. It is good to throw stuff out and purge but we probably wouldn't have sacrificed as much as we did if we didn't need to. My boss was not thrilled.

On a happy note the building was closed on Friday due to the power outage so my friend Suzan and I went up to Woodbury Commons Outlet Mall and shopped all day. I found lots of cute stuff for me but I also found tons of stuff for Greg at the American Apparel Outlet (the only store he lets me buy stuff for him from). I also got Father's Day gifts and some baby gifts that I needed to get. Plus I had a great time hanging out with Suzan for the day.

I do have stuff to blog about this week and I hope I will have time. So more to come.....

Sewage Sucks!

This is the lovely sight in our backyard right now. Our neighbors who share our driveway have a sewage backup behind their house. Now when I say sewage I use the term loosely. It is waste water but we don't know if it actually has human waste in it. Never the less, it has been like this for over a month and is beginning to smell like a water treatment plant (when did I move to Tukwilla?). When it rains the flooding gets really bad and floods the basement apartment over there (you can see the carpet they ripped out after the last rain storm to the right.). Sometimes the puddle swells to 10-15 feet even when it doesn't rain. We joke that it happens when they flush the toilet but it could be the washing machine which drains through the white pipe on the left. Our landlord called public health this week to file a formal complaint. This is yet another reason we have decided not to grow anything in the garden this year. Between this and the neighbors draining their pool into our yard we don't trust the soil content any more.

We are actually looking for a new place to live (this is only one reason why we think it is time to move on) so if you know of anything in the NYC area let us know!

Scrapbook Update

Here is layout number 2 from our ski trip. Pretty much the same elements as the other layout. some flowers, brads, and paper. Sorry the picture is kind of blurry. I have been really busy at work this week. We had a big symposium last week that I was in charge of organizing and I put off all my regular work to make it happen. Now I am playing catch-up. It is 8pm and I am still at work.

I do have more blog entries planned so stay tuned.

Cupcake Love

To help celebrate the birthday of a friend and co-worker I whipped up some cupcakes last night in the hour before Lost came on. I own a little vegan cupcake cookbook that I have never tried (though I read it often and drool over the pictures). This was my first attempt at one of the recipes and they turned out great! I made Mucho Margarita Cupcakes. They are flavored with lime juice and a little tequila. I decided to bring them to work naked and decorate them here so that they would survive the hour long subway ride better. Of course I had to frost and eat one this morning just to ensure that they turned out OK. I can't show up with mediocre cupcakes! These were moist, not too dense, and the frosting was sweet, tangy and a tiny bit salty just like a real margarita. Oh, and cute too!

A taste of the Caribbean

Greg and I recently became members of the New York Botanical Gardens. They are right down the street from us and we seem to go at least 4 times per year which costs more than the membership. We went to the Orchid show in March which was amazing. Well last weekend was the opening of the Caribbean Gardens Show so we thought we would go and check it out. The flowers were very pretty but there was much less volumn than the Orchid show (which is so over the top). That made it a little disappointing. No matter, it was fun and free! This time I even remembered my camera.

Weekend Crafts

This weekend I didn't have a lot of time for scrapbooking. Partly because I got distracted with the above project. The necklace on the left I bought at H&M but it broke so I was restringing it on Saturday and then remembered that I had a whole bunch of black beads I bought way back in college. I had been regretting that I didn't buy a black bead necklace at H&M when I picked up the white one so I decided to make the necklace on the right. It is certainly nothing fancy but it was easy to make while watching one of my new DVDs.
I did manage to finish this anniversary layout. I had done most of the work the weekend before so I just needed to add some journalling. I also started another ski layout but didn't complete it. Sometimes a little crafting here and there is all there is time for but at least it is a baby step in the right direction. This layout features Crate Paper, Heidi Swap clock faces, brads, flowers, and a really old definitions stickers. When Definitions Stickers first came out I ordered the whole line and have never used even 1! I have had them over 3 years I think. I am such a sucker!