Friday I'm in Love

I have the Cure song, Friday I'm in Love on my brain right now. I have been really digging the random song function on my ipod lately.

Today was another "work at home Friday". My third in a row. I didn't multi-task as much as I did last Friday (I baked cookies, did laundry, cleaned, etc in between work tasks) but I did get some grant management stuff done that is about 5 months overdue. It is a really good feeling because I finally have a handle on one grant 6 months before our next report which is when I usually go into crisis mode catching up and dealing with problems. Now I feel like I know about the problems and actually have time to fix them and prepare for the report well in advance. This is the way it is supposed to work in a perfect world. A world where I am not just reacting to problems and being bogged down with other stupid stuff. Of course I have 5 other grants to catch up on too! But I decided last week to tackle one per week and I am starting with the biggest ones (this one is a 5 million dollar grant). Progress is good. I have one work at home Friday left next week and then my boss is back in town and I have to work at work, so I am enjoying them while I can.

In preparation for my spa day tomorrow I stopped off at the local nail salon on Thursday for a Mani, Pedi, and leg wax. I know it is kind of ridiculous to do all this prep work to visit the spa, but seriously if I showed up with my gnarly toe nails and the forest of hair on my legs to this fancy pants spa I think they would turn me away! Plus I love a fresh french manicure! I stare at my fingers for days. I was going to take a photo of all my pretty nails but never got around to it. Sorry!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Wonderful Wednesday

My life is so boring that I have resorted to titles like "Wonderful Wednesday". So sad! It seems these days all I really do it work so there isn't much to say. So here are some random tidbits with links.

We have had really beautiful weather the last 2 days and temps so warm I have worn SHORT sleeves to work. I am so ready for spring I can hardly stand it. It is amazing what a little sun does for one's mood. Yesterday I took a walk around the park with my co-worker in the afternoon so we could soak in the sun. The park was bursting with people all equally desperate to synthesis some vitamin D!

Then on the way home the subway was completely backed up due to a "collapsed building" at 116th street. Collapsed building? How does that happen? Of course that is all the info we got at the time. They were routing both local and express trains on the same track so it was REALLY slow going and took me almost 2 hours to get home. Thankfully I had my ipod to keep me company.

For my birthday (almost a year ago! YIKES) I got a gift certificate for a Hot Stone Massage at a Spa in SoHo. Well today I finally made an appointment and this Saturday I am getting the Massage and also a facial at Mezzanine Spa. I have never had a facial before so I hope it is nice. I also wanted a super fancy pedicure but the weather isn't really warm enough for sandals yet and I can't bring myself to spend $100 on a pedicure only to slip it into socks and shoes. I will let them pick at my face instead. I'll have a report next week!

My office is infested with SilverFish. It is so disgusting. They scurry around under my desk. Apparently they are like roaches in that they will survive a nuclear fall out and they are pretty much impossible to get rid of. I have no idea why they have moved into my office since they prefer humid places like bathrooms but they have set up camp behind my desk (which is too heavy to move by the way). I curse them and step on them but they don't take the hint. I am over being grossed out and instead am just mad. I am convinced that the reason that my old computer died is because the silverfish sabotaged it in retaliation for the countless siblings I have squashed with my pointy shoes.

That is all that is fit to print today (just barely fit). Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Scrapbook Update

It is such a beautiful day out today. Too bad I am stuck inside at my desk.

I completed 3 more layouts last weekend. The first is this layout of my trip to the Martha Steward show. I copied a BH layout but used the Martha logo colors. Pretty simple really. Just cardstock, eyelets, ribbon, and some velvet letter stickers. Just what I like, clean lines and very graphic layout.

The next layout highlights my 30th birthday. It is a bit busier and uses an entire package of velvet rub-on flowers, some snaps, and lots of rhinestones. i also incorportated my birthday button and some ticket stubs.

Lastly is this layout of Greg's parents visit. This one has chipboard letters, and some paper flowers with brad centers. The funny thing about this one is that when I glued the photos down to the patterned paper I really hated the way it was looking. But once I had added all the embellishments I was actually VERY pleased with the way it turned out. Simple but cute. My favorite of the 3.


All of these layouts were ones I sketched in advance and ordered the photos pre-sized. So far this is working really well. It isn't making me ultra fast since I still have to pick papers, colors, and embellishments and I am slow at that, but it does give me a nice jump start.

Prayer Update

For those BSFers who prayed on Saturday for my Grandma I wanted to give you an update. My grandma had a fall a few days ago and fractured a vertebra in her spine. My mom was able to visit her in the hospital and she is doing well. The specialist says that it is a compression fracture and if she wears a back brace for a minimum of 12 weeks it should heal in time. My uncle has been building an addition to her house so she can live completely on the first floor (she lives alone now). This is really wonderful news. Thank you everyone for your prayers. Please continue to pray for healing and steady feet so she doesn't fall again.

Praise God!

Scrapbook Update

On Sunday I managed to do a couple layouts. I am not really happy with either of them but I figure that it has been a while since I worked on anything so I just need to get my mojo back.
This first one is from a trip to the Hampton's we took last year. I LOVE the color palate but felt that it fell short with the embellishments. There are shell buttons, shell sequins and a starfish charm as well as the big metal letters for the title. I also used some of my old favorite photo corners! The colored ones are hard to find these days so it is a good thing I have a punch to make my own.
This next layout I really hate. I like the photo placement, the 29s, and the big {} but I am not loving the rest. But my motto now is JUST DO IT so instead of ripping it all apart and starting over I just ran with it and figured I would do better next time. This was for Greg's 29th Birthday.

Best Laid Plans

We ended up with about 4 inches of snow accumulation from last nights storm which Greg helped shovel this morning. I woke up with a pretty bad headache and then when I tried to boot up the computer it had a fatal error. So Greg has spent most of the day on the phone with Dell support. Turns out our Windows Operating System had a fatal error and had to be reinstalled which erased our harddrive. Now we are reloading software and files and I just spent the last 2 hours hunting down as many of my fonts online as I could remember I had. We do have a back-up drive but probably haven't updated it in a month so we are still trying to figure out what we lost.

Long story short, I haven't done any scrapbooking yet. We'll see what happens tomorrow! It sounds like Greg is making popcorn in the kitchen. That will be a nice treat!

Freezing Friday

On Wednesday it was so warm (almost 70 degrees) and beautiful out I took my camera to work and snapped photos of the neighborhood while wearing only a hooded sweatshirt to stay warm. I really thought it was the beginning of something special! I cought this squirrel and bird fighting. The squirrel stuck its head in the hole of the tree and the bird swooped in and pecked it in the butt. It was pretty funny and happened right over my head.

Today it is 30 degrees and has been snowing all day. We are due for a Noreaster tonight and they expect 4-8 inches of snow by tomorrow. What is up with that? I had the benefit of working from home today which was nice and was able to get my taxes done (refund check on the way! WHOOHOO!).

This weekend I am determined to get some scrapbooking done. I even tried to convince Greg he should go away on Saturday to school to work so I could have the place to myself to create. With the snow I am sure he will stay home and hog the computer and get in my way but I don't care. I won't let it stop me from doing so layouts. Have a great weekend!

Yummy Treats

On the way home from Amish Country we took a detour through Bethleham PA to visit a place called Vegan Treats. This bakery makes really yummy vegan deserts and supplies many of the restaurants in NYC with fresh vegan goodies. We thought we would swing by and sample some yummy treats at their source. They had mini versions of their cakes and treats to buy (you have to order full sized stuff in advance) so we picked out a few things to take with us. Of course they are adorable to look at but how will they taste?

I picked out a cherry cheesecake. Sorry I took the picture after a couple bites. It was creamy and delicious. I had been craving cheesecake for the whole trip so this really hit the spot.

Greg loves anything peanut butter so he chose a peanut butter bomb brownie. This had peanut butter mousse on top of a brownie overed in chocolae ganache and peanut butter drizzle. Yum! Even I liked it.

Then we got one of their specialties to take home and have a day later. Chocolate encased strawberry shortcake. We cut into is on Monday night and it was super yummy. We both wished there were more strawberries in it but it was really good.

Amish Country

One of the main reasons I was MIA last week was that I had planned to take Friday off from work so Greg and I could go down to Lancaster PA for a little weekend vacation. In order to do that I was working around the clock to get caught up. Even then there was a crisis on Friday and I had to go all the way into the city for 2 hours to straighten is out (and discover there was actually no crisis as all!). Greg and I drove to Lancaster on Friday afternoon and arrived at our hotel around 8pm. We were supposed to go to a dinner theater production of The Full Monty that night but the 3 hour drive ended up being a 5 hour drive including 1 hour just to get over the George Washington Bridge and out of Manhattan, so we missed the show. Instead we enjoyed a nice quiet dinner in the hotel restaurant. The food was horrible but the conversation was very nice.

Oh, yeah. Our hotel was shaped and themed as a river boat! I can't forget that detail. A big riverboat maker from Lancaster decided to build a hotel like one of his famous riverboats in his home town. It had fake seagull noises playing outside, a Victorian lobby, and rooms with boat decorations. It was actually very nice inside. We just love strange attractions like this!

Saturday morning we headed out for a mud sale. These are huge auctions that are used to raise money for the local firehouse in the area. They are a big social occasion for the Amish people and a chance for us "English" people to mingle with the Amish. You can identify the Amish men by their straw hats in the photo. When we arrived Greg and I were shocked at how big it was. Now the Amish feel it is against their religion to have their photo taken so I was only able to get an overall shot of the scene. This picture shows the main part of the auction. There were actually 7-8 auctions taking place at the same time in different areas in the field. This was mostly farm equipment, tools, animals, and buggies (you can see all the grey Amish buggies lined up on the right). In another area was a massive furniture tent, a huge building for crafts and then a whole separate building for quilts plus food carts (the Amish love Auntie Ann's Pretzels apparently). We didn't bid on anything but it was cool to walk around and people watch and take it all in. We got to peek inside the buggies too. They don't lie when they call it a mud sale. The entire field is just a mud pit and are shoes were caked by the time we left. Note to self, next time bring boots!

The rest of the weekend involved touring the countryside, shopping, eating, and a nap on Saturday. We tried to visit the Mennonite Society because they have a life sized replica of the biblical Tabernacle which you can tour but we were 20 minutes late for the last tour (they were still on winter hours) which was a bummer.

Overall it was a nice and relaxing weekend.

13 Years and Counting

Today Greg and I celebrate the 13th anniversary of our first date. This photo isn't from that day but it is pretty close to that time.

I had been flirting with Greg almost daily in Physics class my senior year in high school. In fact when class would end we would both lag behind to "pack our bags" so that we would "accidentally" end up leaving the room at the same time and walk down the hall together to our lockers. My friend Katie and I had even had a planning session at one point to strategize how to get him to ask me out, but nothing was working (I was pretty shy back then). Well, one day Greg claims that he overheard me tell my friend Jen that he was crazy (I wasn't talking about him at all in fact) so he decided he had better ask me out on a date in order to prove he wasn't crazy. So one day after class as we walked to our lockers together he said "So do you want to go out sometime?" I said "sure". Then he just walked away without another word. I was a little confused. So I opened my locker and was getting my books together to go home and all of a sudden I looked up and there was Greg holding a piece of paper with his phone number on it. Sweet!

For our first date I picked Greg up in my mom's Honda Civic Wagon and we went to the bowling alley. It was both of our first dates so we were really nervous. So nervous in fact we hardly spoke and ended up bowling the fastest games of our lives. On the way back out to the car I said, "well that was fun, we should do it again some time" and Greg said "what? That's it?". I can't blame him, I am sure we were there a whole 30 minutes. He told me there was an MC Escher show down at Seattle Center and perhaps we should go see it. I agreed although I hadn't cleared driving my mom's car downtown with her in advance (sorry mom!). We got lost trying to find the center and ended up going to Pike Place Market instead. We wandered around, probably had a crepe and then went home where I dropped him off. I can only vaguely remember the whirlwind of excitement and emotion I felt on that first date and when I recount it here I am reminded how dorky we were in high school!

While our lives aren't all that exciting these days and we are still pretty dorky, it hasn't been boring. These last 13 years have been quite the adventure and I am still enjoying the ride. I love you Greg and I am glad that 13 years ago you finally got up the nerve to ask me out after Physics.

Mini Cards

I am really into making mini cards right now. This one is 2x3 inches and was thrown together last night for my Mother-In-Law's birthday this week. Greg is right when he says women love things that are miniature size! I also have rediscovered my shrinky-dinks. The little flower arrangement is actually a shrinky-dink I made years ago when my mom introduced me to the technique. I want to make a whole bunch now so that I can create a bunch more of these teeny tiny cards! Shrinky-dinks would make a good craft club too I think!

They're Heerrrreeee!

My photos showed up on Friday! I love this service. The quality was outstanding and how cute are all the different sizes! Laying all the photos out on the table got me really excited to start scrapbooking them. But first I had to organize them with the sketches I made earlier. I only found 1 photo I forgot to order.

Dental Work

This is kind of a scary photo, I'm sorry. In this photo you can kind of see that my front tooth (on the right) has a small chip in it. The chip was mainly in the front plane of the tooth and hard to see. The dentist was worried that it would continue to chip more so on Thursday I had to go in and have it fixed.

The dentist did a great job. You can't see the repair at all.

Am I getting desperate for blog subjects when I am willing to show a close-up of my mouth? hmmmmmm

Scrapbook Update

I did manage to complete one scrapbook related project over the weekend. As I mentioned in the past I have had the desire to replace some of my scrapbook albums for various reasons. I finally settled on a new book and ordered a bunch of them. Then I decided I wanted all my books to match. That unfortunately is impossible because they are all different sizes and styles of pages (strap bound vs. post bound etc.) so I thought if they can't be identical they could at least be the same color. And what better color than BLACK! It is timeless and universally available in nearly every size, style, and brand.
So here they are, my new albums. I have replace the Memory Makers albums with American Craft leather albums (the first 4). I had to go through a rep to replace my Creative Memories albums with black versions (the next 2). I already had 2 8x8 black mini albums so I found 2 more on the Internet and my mom is sending a 3rd so that I can make all future mini books black (they are discontinuing that album so I wanted to stock up). I still need to order a mini 6x6 album and an 8.5x11 album but that can come later. I suppose it is a little boring that they are all black and similar but I think it looks so slick up on the shelf.

Weekend Recap

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. Mondays are a hard day for me to post because I have BSF after work so I have to leave on time and that means I also have to be very productive during the day.

Last weekend I attended Craft Club on Saturday. We had a baby shower for a friend who moved to CA but was in town for a visit and just a couple months from her due date. There was a lot of visiting and very little knitting done. I did decide to start the bunny hat but it is a little on the small side so I think I need to frog it and start over. On the way home Greg picked me up at the train and we stopped in at the Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden. Sadly I had the camera in my bag and then forgot to bring it in to the garden so I don't have a single photo of an orchid to share. The show runs until April and Greg and I are now members of the Botanical Garden so we will probably go again before it is over. The flowers were REALLY pretty, the crowds were not. It was opening day (members only!) so there were a lot of people. After we got home I took a long nap on Saturday and watched movies with Greg in the evening.

Sunday I spent most of the day working and then in the evening we attended an Oscar party with some folks from work. I thought the Oscars were fairly entertaining this year. There was a little wagering going on to see who could predict the most correct awards but I didn't win this year. Sunday night during the Oscars we had a bit of snow storm. It wasn't too bad to drive in and in the morning we woke to find the snow wasn't so deep and it was already melting. They had predicted 7-8 inches total but we only ended up with 3 or so. You know, in the Old Testament when prophesy didn't come true the prophets were killed. Weathermen should be glad we don't hold them to that same standard!

Friday I'm in Love

No excitement here. It is Friday and the sun is shining which is nice for a change. I am crazy busy at work right now unfortunately and will have to work most of the weekend. In order to do that I had to order a new laptop to replace my desktop computer at work. I spent ALL day yesterday transferring files and reloading software (the IT guy is of course on vacation). I was about 75% done. Then this morning I come in and my desktop computer wouldn't wake-up. It is fried!!!!!!! Glad I had the laptop! The computer geeks in the lab were able to salvage my old hard drive and I can get the rest of my files but I had been hoping to use my desktop computer today. There is not printer working on this laptop yet and a bunch of other stuff that needs to be configured and I just don't have time right now. I must single handedly stop the government from taking away all our money. Not really but a little. Pseudo accountant Alexis is budgeting up a storm today.

The worst part about this computer fiasco is that I missed the office last night and there is a new episode ready for download on itunes and I don't have itunes set up yet on the laptop! ARGH!

Have a good weekend!

Misc Musings

Today is promising to be a busy day. I have several projects at work all converging this week. So all I have today to share are tidbits.

First, this is the Valentine's Day card my sister made and sent me. How cute is that (it's a human heart in case you don't "see" it). I gave her a t-shirt for Christmas with this same design on the front (over the heart) and she used it as a pattern for this card. I love it.

Next is another one of my weekend projects which was re-organizing my hall closet. It is where I keep cleaning supplies, and extra toilet paper and shampoo, and my hot rollers and stuff like that. I have 2 main shelves I use and have been thinking for a long time they needed to be switched. So last weekend I swapped the shelves and toss out old stuff we don't use anymore and cleaned it all up. Now when I open the door I smile.
Here is a photo of me today. I tried a self portrait in the mirror but the lighting was really bad. I have on a new shirt (the black one) which I really like right now. I found it at www.layersclothing.com . They sell long shirts which I am really into. My other favorite place to buy long shirts is www.downeastbasics.com

Lastly is a picture from a magazine of a knit cap. I am going to craft club this weekend and it is a knitting/crochet meetings so I need to come up with a knitting project. I am either going to make this hat or finish the world's ugliest bear. It will really come down to supplies on hand. If I have the stuff to make the hat I probably will. If I don't I will finish the bear.

That is all for now!

Scrapbooking: the new process

I am trying something new for my 05-06 scrapbook. I shared my old process with you a few weeks ago. With the old process once I got my pictures printed I was ready to go. The problem is that since I got the digital camera I take way more photos than I ever did when I used film (that is the beauty of digital) and most of them are not really scrap-worthy. In the past I used to print everything and then just toss out photos that weren't good enough. That is a huge waste of money and paper. So I am trying something new.

First I printed out thumbnails of all my photos from the computer harddrive.

Next I grabbed my idea books and magazine clippings for inspiration.

Then I tried to come up with an actual layout sketch. I picked the photos I wanted to use from the proof sheet and made a list of photos and sizes. I stapled together the proof sheet, the sketch, and any magazine pages. I then uploaded only those photos I planned to use onto scrapbookpictures.com. I am ordering the photos pre-cropped to the size they will be on the layout. The goal is that I will only print photos I will use and I save time not having to crop them myself. My only complaint about scrapbookpictures.com is that they take a little longer to come than other sites like snapfish or shutterfly. It is worth is to have so many other crop and size options. In the time I spend waiting for the photos to be delivered I am going to start finding papers and embellishments for these planned layouts and organize them in the Cropper Hopper plastic folders I ordered and blogged about last week. Over the weekend I did about 20 of these planning pages. We'll see if it makes things go faster during the construction phase!

Bad Blogger!

My mother pointed out that I was a bad blogger last week and it looks like this week is going to be no different! SORRY MOM!

We had a very relaxing 3 day weekend. I spent it cleaning and decluttering the apartment (a little at a time) and working on my 05-06 scrapbook project. I took some photos of that so I will update you more later.

Greg did a bunch of stuff for school including working on his thesis presentation. He found out that he has to form a thesis committee and then defend his thesis to them. Right now his mentor is still reading it over but really wants Greg to start writing it up for publication so he is going to begin that soon. Greg also spent lots of time outside chipping away at the block of ice that is our driveway. We had several inches of sleet/snow last week that instantly froze and created a lot of ice everywhere. I have been driving on top of the ice until recently but over the weekend the temps were finally above freezing so Greg started the huge job of moving the ice out. You can't shovel it like snow. You have to pound it until it cracks and then use the shovel to lift out a section of ice. Not a lot of fun which is why I watched from the window!

I also ran to Target, made banana bread, cut Greg's hair and we watched a movie (not all at the same time). We saw On A Clear Day which is a British movie about a guy who swims the English Channel. It was really cute.

More V-Day Fun

Last night Greg cooked us a Valentine's Day dinner. Remembering our dinner last year (here), he decided to cut some tofu with a cookie cutter into hearts as a surprise. Those were fried up and later added to some stir fry.

How cute is that! My stir-fry was drenched in homemade Terriyaki sauce and was oh so tasty. We also had margaritas (my favorite). I suppose it is a strange combination but isn't that what everyone is into now, FUSION. So I guess we had some Asian/Latin fusion last night!

Stir fry isn't the most romantic meal but it is a great way to use up the leftover food in the fridge and we needed to free up some space for our vegetable delivery today.