Misc.

I can't tell you how nice it was to go right home after work last night (at the normal time), cook dinner (spaghetti and roasted veggies), and sit on my couch doing nothing! Things have finally slowed down a bit and I couldn't be happier. I am so ready for my week off from work to get my house back in order, scrapbook a little bit, and relax.

In honor of Greg finishing his Chemistry Final yesterday and being free from classes for the next month I present photos from his birthday extravaganza. As I mentioned before we didn't officially celebrate with a party but on Saturday night he opened his gifts and on Sunday morning I made him birthday scones. Last night I brought him home a celebratory cupcake to eat with his dinner in honor of finishing his class so we can count that as his birthday celebration too!

The little candle holder is one that he has used at his birthday most of his life. His grandma bought it in Gillman Village when he was really little. It doesn't actually hold double digits really well but we dig it out every year and have him blow out the candle. I think it is really cute!

Butterhorns

As a special treat for Greg's Grandma and Aunt Greg wanted to send them Butterhorns. Greg's grandma used to make them using her special recipe but she doesn't bake anymore. So last Sunday I set out to make 5 dozen of them. It took most of the day to prepare the dough, bake, frost, cool and package them up to be shipped overnight.

We have been enjoying the few extras that couldn't fit into the boxes. They are really yummy!

Craft Club

This last Saturday we had another successful craft club. It was our longest and most intense meeting yet. We crafted, ate and visited for 6 hours!!!! My project was to demo how to alter journals/composition books.

This first photo is the state of my hallway on Saturday morning as I was preparing my kits for craft club. It was a little crazy! The little piles on the floor are the individual kit papers. I later bagged them up with a blank journal, pen, glue stick, and appropriate embellishments. This project was a great way to use up most of my extra paper and scraps. I hoarded KI papers for many years and have just tons of it. This used up a nice chunk.

Here are the ladies working on their kits

And the final products. They all turned out so cute. I hope they all find good homes this holiday season!

In addition to my project we also learned how to make Christmas Crackers and do Christmas Origami with Neva:

How to make snowball ornaments with Rachel:

And how to make these paper ornaments with Alice!
Kelly also provided us with a very tasty lunch and ample space to work in her apartment. It was a great time!

Happy Birthday Greg!

Today is a special day for my dear husband. Currently he is on his way down to attend my lab Christmas party but today is his 30th birthday (yes, I like younger men! But only 6 months younger!). We aren't doing much celebrating right now because there is so much holiday stuff going on and he is right in the middle of his finals so he spends every spare moment studying (I am so proud of him and his hard work this year). We are hoping to go out to dinner tomorrow night and then there are all the presents. For a guy who really doesn't care much about his birthday he sure gets a lot of presents! His mom, Grandma, and aunt sent lots of stuff for him to open.

I don't want to get all mushy about him but I am so blessed to have Greg as my best friend and husband. He has an amazing sense of humor, is caring, patient, and he does chores! He is just THE perfect person for me and believe it or not I have known him now for almost half of his life.

Happy Birthday Greg! I love you!

Insane in the Membrane

Yes, it is the busiest time of year. Yes, I have a lot of stuff to do and my apartment is a jumbo sized mess. But yes, I am participating in craft club this Saturday and demoing paper covered journals! I am crazy! I was up till midnight last night working on some items I am going to show (and maybe sell) during my demo on how to take the same technique and use it to make other stuff. And I will probably be up just as late tonight finishing them up. Are my Christmas cards done? No. Am I done with my Christmas shopping? No. Am I ready for Greg's 30th birthday on Friday? No. Are the hair and dust balls in the bathroom planning a revolt? Yes. But that doesn't stop me from making big plans involving crafts!

I was going to take a photo of the explosion of paper and junk in the hallway as I prepare but I forgot. Just like I forgot to program the VCR for the hour long Office episode tonight. Thank goodness for itunes!

Perhaps there will be photos tomorrow!

Scrapbook DooWop

Last summer Greg's parents came out for a visit to celebrate Dave's 60th birthday. Marcia had secretly bought him tickets to one of those DooWop reunion concerts (you see them on PBS sometimes) out in NJ. He was very surprised when he found out and they ended up having a great time at the concert. Well, after the concert Greg's mom handed me 2 ticket stubs, 2 programs, and a sheet of white printer paper with concert info on it and asked if I could "turn it into something" that could be hung on the wall in Dave's office. WOW! That is a tough request. They didn't have a camera that night so there was not a single photo and the memorabilia wasn't great either. So I put the stuff on a shelf and forgot about it.

I had finished all my shopping for Greg's family and found out one item I had ordered for Dave wasn't going to come in time for Christmas. I sat on the couch really annoyed trying to think of another option. Just then I remembered the concert memorabilia sitting on the shelf and thought I would try and "turn it in to something" as his Christmas gift. I finished it last night.
First thing I did was get on the trusty old Internet and found lots of stock photos of the bands that played that night. I tried to find an old and new photo of each. I printed them out in 1.5 inch sizes and began putting them together on the layout. The title mimics the title that was on the program (which I am going to stick in a pocket on the back of the frame with the white piece of paper). Greg helped me come up with some journalling, I labeled all the bands, attached the ticket stubs (after spraying them with archival mist), added some ribbon and painted the edge. I feel like it could use something else but it is going to be hung in a man's office so I didn't want to go too crazy with the embellishments.

I hope he likes it. I am going to swing by the frame shop today. It felt really good to scrapbook again. I am definitely going to do more of that over my Christmas break!

Garden Update?

When we decided to try photographing outside on Sunday I was down in the yard setting up the camera and waiting for Greg to come down. So I wandered into the garden and saw that there were a couple carrots we never pulled up. I reached down and grabbed one and this is what I found:

That is one giant carrot! Apparently they will keep growing forever, even if you stop watering and it is really cold out! Needless to say we won't be eating this one. It was just cool to see.

Christmas Photo Rejects

Unfortunately I had a 2 day migraine this weekend which really put a damper on my plans. It didn't start until after the craft fair (a bit disappointing this year) and a trip to Target so I at least got that done.

On Sunday the migraine subsided at about 11am so we went ahead and worked on the Christmas photos. Greg tried to convince me that we could use a photo from earlier in the year but having a unique Christmas photo each year is really important to me so I convinced him to give it a try. We set up the "home photo studio" and put on our nice holiday clothes and snapped a few shots. We decided the colors were way too dark against my black velvet background (top left photo) so we did a clothing change (just like for senior photos!) and went with red and casual. We tried lots of poses, angles, and lighting options (top right no flash, bottom left with flash) but we just weren't happy with the results.

So we did what we have done the last 2 years and we went outside. After just a couple shots we had a winner. There is nothing like outdoor natural light to make a great photo. Plus it was 50+ degrees on Sunday so that meant we could sit outside without freezing. The bottom right photo is me getting up but not knowing that the timer was set! It is probably the most genuine face for Greg but unfortunately not my best pose!

The final photo will have its blog debut later!

Have a Happy Weekend

Work has been pretty crazy this week but I feel like I say that every time I blog these days so I guess I should say.... Work has been normal.

Anyway, I didn't get to blog as much as I wanted to. I didn't get to do much of anything I wanted to this week! My big accomplishments were grocery shopping last night and getting all my Christmas cards glued and sewn (yes I added some stitching at the last minute) so now they just need a photo and a note and they are off in the mail.

This weekend I am going to a indie craft fair in Brooklyn with friends and then am spending the rest of the time working on Christmas stuff. I need to do one scrapbooking project this weekend that is a gift for Greg's dad and I am getting the Christmas photo taken and sent to the printers too (watch out Greg!). Then I need to finish a little Christmas shopping and clean the house a bit. That should keep me very busy. If there is any time I have a bunch of Netflix that we have had for weeks and not watched so I may pop one in while I work.

I am off to a BSF meeting/Christmas party so I have to run. Have a great weekend everyone!

Christmas Time

I am mostly done with my shopping. In fact we took most of our gifts with us to Seattle on our recent trip so we could avoid shipping charges. I wrapped and distributed everything while we were there. I had also put up the Christmas tree and decorated the house before we left so we could come back to a warm and cozy decorated apartment. I am really glad I did because we have been really busy since we stepped off the plane. The only thing left to do was put the ornaments on the tree which we did last Sunday night. It is officially done. I LOVE my tree. I sit and stare at it at night. We also have a fake fire that we run this time of year. It makes crackling noises (our fireplace is faux with no chimney). It just makes me happy!

Welcome Back

I'm back! Sorry I didn't post on vacation. I didn't do much of anything on vacation. We had a really lovely holiday with the families. Thanksgiving in Oregan was wet but fun. We hadn't seen some people since our wedding and all the others we hadn't seen in a couple years at least. All the kids had grown so much! Greg's Aunt and cousins did a wonderful job putting together a very tasty meal and were even willing to deal with our tofu-turkey! We enjoyed a "young people's" movie night, tours of Mcminnville, and lots of time to visit.

One activity the entire family did one afternoon was go to the local museum of flight to see the Spruce Goose. This was the plane you may have seen in the movie The Aviator. It is the largest wooden plane ever built and was only flown once by its creator Howard Hughes. It filled the entire museum and was so big all the other planes fit down below its wings. Amazing that it ever got up in the air!

We drove up to Seattle after stopping for Hazelnuts and a wine tasting (Oregan is now a hotspot for wine production! Who knew!). While in Seattle there was a snow storm that shut down the whole city. I tell you, these people have no idea what to do in the snow! There were no plows in Renton where we were so we were pretty much stranded at home. Next time I am packing some salt in my suitcase! Don't worry, salt can't "hurt the roads" if you only use it twice a year!!!!!!!!! The snow forced me to cancel a lot of my plans to visit people and do things but we did manage to see my sister's new house, do a little shopping (3 new pairs of shoes for me!!!!), and I even got to see baby Ava for a little while. I love this photo of her!Plus I got to sit and visit with my mom a lot which is always nice. She gave me a lesson on ironing which I needed help with. The new washer/dryer leaves our clothes so wrinkled I am now having to iron more than 4x a year and I wanted to learn some of my mom's secret techniques for quick ironing. She can iron a shirt in like 10 seconds or something crazy like that.

Here is Greg acting like a dork! I had to throw that in. Being trapped inside during the snow did give me an excuse to knit and get my hats finished for HFNY. Here I am wearing the basketweave hat. I liked the style so much I knit an extra hat for myself out of some cheap black yarn I picked up on my last day in town. I got the hat finished in time to wear on the plane. I sleep best when I am really warm.

Well, there is a brief re-cap. For those I didn't get to see while in Seattle, don't worry, we will be back before summer time.

Happy Monday!

Hello all!

I had a very fun and relaxing weekend. Thanks to all who were praying for me and my hectic schedule. Since we are going to be away for Thanksgiving and because I normally decorate the house for Christmas the day after I decided to get a jump start! So on Sunday I took down the fall decor and put up the tree (we use a fake tree) and all the decorations. Greg even let me put on a Christmas CD which is normally strictly forbidden before Thanksgiving (he also loaded my ipod with all 7 of my holiday CDs!! Yippie!). The only thing I didn't do was put on the ornaments which I will save for when we return and can do it together. I am thinking of photographing some of them for a mini-book class I am going to take at www.bigpicturescrapbooking.com

This site is run by Stacey Julian the founder of Simple Scrapbooks and is basically an on-line scrapbooking class. This class is 4 weeks long and only costs a few bucks so I thought I would give it a try. A lot of my ornaments have special meaning so I think it will be fun to have a place to record my memories of them.

Ok, back to work. I have a HUGE list of things to do before the end of the day so I had better get back to it!

Post 5 Food!

I had to post about food! Remember the veggies I mentioned earlier? Well I did use up the spinach (among other things) in an eggless quiche and it turned out really well.

I thought I would share the recipe!

Tofu Quiche with Spinach

1 ready made pie crust baked according to pkg

1 medium onion finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic minced

1 lb. of chopped spinach cooked till just done

1 lb. extra firm tofu, drained

1/2c. soymilk

2 T. soy parmesan or nutritional yeast

1/4 t. dijon mustard

3/4 t. salt

1/4 t. ground nutmeg

1/2 t. ground red pepper

1. Cook spinach until bright green and just soft.

2. Cook onion and garlic until golden and then add spinach to heat through.

3. In a blender or food processor puree tofu, soymilk, mustard, salt, soy cheese or NY, and seasonings until smooth (I added a tablespoon of arrowroot to help thicken it!).

4. Add pureed mixture to the veggies and stir to combine.

5. Pour into the pre-cooked shell and bake at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until quiche is set (half way through cooking brush with olive oil to give a nice golden brown top).

6. Allow to sit for 5 minutes before cutting. Serves 6.

Post 4 Knitting

Here is a self portrait if you couldn't tell! I have only managed to finish one of my 3 hats. It turned out a little too bulky for my liking but it is done and it matches the scarf I knit. I have 2 more hats to go and hope to be working on them while flying out to Seattle.

Post 3 Scrapbook Update

I haven't done much scrapbooking lately. Instead I have been working on my Christma cards a little at a time.

Here is the next step waiting for action. I need to glue these 100 inserts into my 50 cards. I probably won't get to this until after my trip home. The top one will be the sentiment and has a place for me to write a note. The hidden card is the Christmas newsletter. I only do a newsletter every other year (our lives aren't that exciting) and it is really short and sweet.

I did get a new scrapbook kit from Jenny Bowlin Studios though. This is the November kit. Cute papers, some rub-ons, foam letter stickers (I am really excited about these), ribbon, felt flowers, journalling cards, chipboard shapes, and my favorite part a little 4x4 chipboard book. The best thing about this month is that on the Jenny Bowlin design suggestions she has some really great ideas. Most months I don't get much out of her suggestions because her style is radically different than mine but this month her guest designers are more in line with what i like. I can't wait to get to using this kit. Again, it will probably wait until I get home in December.

One photo related thing I did work on was this. I got this little pendant years ago and it had a really outdated photo of Greg and I so one day before work I swapped in a more recent picture. I have gotten a lot of "oh, that is cute" comments from people.

Post 2 Haircut

I ran out at lunch today for some color and a cut. My hairdresser, Chie, used this new product on me that makes your hair smooth and shiny after blow drying. I really like it so I ran out and bought a bottle around the corner. I keep touching my super soft hair!

Gotta look good for the Cruikshank family reunion!

Post 1 Party Time!

As promised some pics from the party 2 weekends ago:

The birthday girl blowing out her candle. Alice made an awesome chocolate cake a few hours before the party. I was fantastic!

Remember this kid? Yes, little William likes to work the party circuit entertaining guests with his adorableness wherever he goes! He especially loves 30th birthday parties!

And here is one of Greg and I (yes, my eyes are almost closed but hey). Is is Christmas? What is with the red and green?

See Shelly, 30 isn't so bad!

For the parting shot I give you the requisite long table picture. The bane of waitresses everywhere!

The dam is breaking!

I know I have been a bad blogger and have left you all high and dry but get ready. Today I am going to flood you with posts. All the things I have wanted to post but couldn't because of my work load right now. I am less than 7 days away from a vacation and have some very serious deadlines looming so I have been working like a mad woman (till 10pm last night) and that has kept me from posting. But no more! Get ready for posts throughout the day!

Special Delivery Veggies

I will post pictures from last weekends party tomorrow. I thought I had moved the photos onto my computer but apparently they are still on the memory stick which I left at home this morning.



Today we are going to talk about vegetables! In an effort to eat better (yes, even vegans can consume only junk food!) I signed us up for Urban Organics. It is a home delivery service that brings farm fresh organic produce right to your doorstep. We get a delivery every Thursday and the photo shows what was in the box last Thursday:
Lettuce, Spinach, Red Chard, Broccoli, Potatoes, Spaghetti Squash, Carrots, Zucchini, Onions, 2 kinds of Apples, Oranges, Plums, Bananas, and Kiwis (a surprise not on the posted list!). This seems like a lot of fruits and vegetables for 2 people to eat in a week but if we were actually eating 5 fruits and veggies a day like we are supposed to than it shouldn't be a problem right. So that has been the challenge, to eat all this yummy produce (and it really is good quality) in 7 days. I especially love the challenge to eat all the greens since I am so bad about eating greens and they are so good for the body. We have only been doing this for 3 weeks but we are slowly improving and have to toss less and less unused produce each week (usually the lettuce because I hate salads in the winter).

This week we are getting pretty much the same spread but cauliflower instead of broccoli, a different squash, garlic and some green beans. So I planned to make the following this week:

Potato burritos-These are one of Greg's favorite things. They remind him of Casa Que Pasa in Bellingham. Will use lettuce and potatoes.

Spinach Tofu Quiche - Greg HATES eggs with a passion but will eat a tofu Quiche. Will use onions, garlic, and all the spinach

Chickpea and Chard Cassolet-Will use all the chard from last week and the chard coming this week.

Squash stuffed with sausage rosemary stuffing and green beans-Will use up a squash (we actually have 2 already so I may also make soup out of one!) and the green beans.

The rest we eat during the week at other meals. Most of the recipes above came from www.vegweb.com where you can search by ingredient. Alice also tipped me to www.epicurious.com which allows for the same thing but doesn't specialize in vegetarian foods like the other one does.

Mom-I need your applesauce recipe. I want to try it out with all my apples.
Kate-I need your Brussels sprout recipe. You promised it would make me love Brussels! We'll see!

Scrapbook Update

Last Saturday I attended a surprise party for my friend Shelly. Alice, Suzan, and I went to great lengths to make sure that Shelly would always remember her 30th Birthday and it worked. She was really surprised! It was a really great party all around and people have been talking about it all week.

My job for the party planning was to solicit Shelly's friends and family for funny "Shelly" memories and photos. If you know her you know that crazy things happen to this girl all the time. People sent me really great stories and I fashioned them into this memory album. I really only had 1 day to physically make it because the supplies I ordered online took a little longer to reach me than I thought but I am still very happy with how it turned out. Suzan was kind enough to photograph the pages for me (since I was so sleep deprived I forgot!) so that I can show you just a few of the pages here.
I broke up all the memories into 30 Shelly characteristics. Then I tried to include photos that went with the theme.

Now for the scrapbook details: I found this really cute Bazzill Basics album that was 6 x 12 inches. It ended up being the perfect size. Just enough room for a 4x6 photo, journalling, and embellishments. I had originally wanted to do a 6x6 but couldn't find the album I wanted. Now that I think about it I would have been really limited on space if I had done that.

The patterned paper is all American Crafts and it is so yummy, I love it. I used 3 fonts throughout the book to make the different memories on each page distinct (one was 2peas little lady bug, thanks Kate!). Each page had an embossed circle with a number (punched with my Quikutz). I also punched photo corners with my Quikutz (thanks mom!). Each characteristic was a tag held on by a brad and then there were a few extra embellishments. Mostly flowers and rhinestones.

I love scrapbooking and making theme albums especially. I also love making books for other people but it is so hard to let them go sometimes. This was one of those books and it wasn't even about me! But I loved it and hope Shelly loved it too.

This weekend I also finalized my Christmas card and wrote the little newsletter for this year. Now I just need the photo and I am done. I love being ahead of schedule!