Tuesday, December 28, 2010

My life as a housewife...

Okay, don't freak out. This is not a permanent situation. Actually it is only lasting for one day. Today, Tuesday December 28th. (posting two days late) For a random reason I have the day off! So I decided to document what my life would be like as a housewife.

4:40 Matt wakes me up to say good bye. I notice a cute kitty sleeping on my tummy.

4:42 I try to go back to sleep but I cannot! I lay around wishing that I could sleep in, seeing as how I actually have the day off.

6:00 Kitties are whining and I feed them, although its way too early

6:20 Eat a cranberry vegan muffin and some cold french press that I saved from yesterday. (Trying to cut down on coffee so I saved myself half a cup. But I didn't heat it...since I am lazy)

7:00 Look on the internet and get inspired to scrapbook

8:00 I made a 4x6 pocket page about Cannon Beach & Manzanita.

9:30 Vacuum the whole house, even the corners.

10:00 Load the dishwasher, run the load. Wash last night's dishes, wipe the counters.

10:10 Unpack from our overnighter at Phil & Heather's from last Saturday, straighten up the bedroom, put away some clothes, run a load of laundry, clean and wipe bathroom counter. Empty the litterbox.

12:00 make myself a tuna sandwich and let Leo eat some from the can.

1:00 get ready to go to the gym. Did NOT take a shower as I have no where to go today and I DON'T shower before the gym. Just put on mascara and deodorant.

2:00-3:00 1 hour treadmill intervals...watched King of Queens during part of it!

3:30 Come home and Matt is there already. We eat chocolate raspberry ganache that his friend Marie made for him. We also drank some French Press coffee.

5:30 Matt went to the gym and I cooked dinner! We had crab stuffed flounder, Yummy salad and a veggie medley (all TJ's of course)

8:00 Peter and Hannah came over and we drank some tea and talked.

9:45 I drove them home and we stopped at Safeway on the way. I purchased ingredients for tomorrow's dinner. So very "housewife" of me.


So that was my day. Just a typical day in the life of Jenn. Okay, just kidding...this NEVER happens. But it was fun to record such an atypical day. :)

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Recent photos

I have a few (okay LOTS of) photos that I thought I would share from the recent festivities.
Here is an example of one of my tiny gifts, given to my trainer and people at work. I would have cropped the photo, but the kitty foot was too cute. Whenever I photograph scrapbook pages or projects, INEVITABLY there will be a kitty nearby (or on top.)
Happy late birthday to Ellen! I had to make this one into a Polaroid to make it look cooler.
And while we are at it, this is my personal peach kuchen made by Renae for my 25th. (two weeks ago...eeek!) She decorated it with the same 25 that we used for her birthday. Way to go Renae!
Here is the pretty tree at Heather's house. I was driving every one crazy snapping photos (as usual) but what they didn't know is that I was using MANUAL mode so of course it took longer.
And here is a photo on Christmas Eve, with our second family. I am even in the photo...in the mirror! Yay!
This is a photo of part of Matt's family on Christmas day. We are all singing hymns before reading the Bible. THEN we had a crazy crazy gift exchange.
Matt and several of his cousins
Emily and I enjoying our yummy coffee, egg nog and whipped cream concoctions.
And FINALLY...this is my Christmas card banner. I will probably leave this up for awhile and just switch out new cards when they come. I am so glad I finally have found a use for my cards! Yay!

Sorry for such a long photo-heavy post. I only have five more days to take photos every day! Starting in January, I will NO LONGER BE TAKING DAILY PHOTOS! I know this is completely shocking. I will have to come up with something else to do with all my time!! :)

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Its been crazy!

We just got back from Whistler we have already been SO busy! We have been spending a lot of time at our new gym, which is 24 hour fitness Supersport. It is SO nice! And the classes are great. This morning I had a meeting with my trainer and she showed me a lot of the new equipment. I also had a wonderful pedicure with my friend Ellen this morning. I love red toenails!

I have been extremely crafty recently! I made a banner to hang up all my Christmas and birthday cards that I have received recently. I never know what to do with them! So its fun having them hung up for all to see. I also have been wrapping, wrapping, wrapping! Of course all the tags are already done, but wrapping presents is hard work. I am tying them up with twine and adding a little bow tie pasta (Thanks Renae for the idea...and the pasta.)

Heather asked me to make place cards for the Christmas Eve party at her house. So that is what I have been up to. I've been embossing, stamping, inking and stickling. So much fun! Now I have glitter all over me. I will try to upload some photos of my projects...its been hard finding some light!

And now one Whistler photo....why not?
Its Renae and I on the Olympic rings! Our trip was so fun. I will have to post more photos later. Now I am off to work! Last day before a three day weekend!

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Here are my tags!

I made a couple more Tags that I said I would post. Two of them I have already posted. Now I have four. Hopefully next week I will continue to make some, since they are so fun.


My plan is to wrap gifts with brown paper packages (TJ's bags) tied up with string (twine). Then I will attach a cute tag on each gift. I am glad all the planning is over...now all I have to do is buy the gifts!

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

I made a couple more tags...

...That I will have to post later! Unfortunately, there is really no sunlight except when I'm at work. So hard to take photos of projects!

I have been staying up every night until 12 am when Tim posts his new tag. Silly, right?

I just wanted to mention on my blog that Matt and I cleaned and organized our whole house! And of course, I have pictures! See how the bikes are NOT in the living room? And the futon is gone from the spare room? More room for my scrapbooking! We are so excited about our new clean space (and I know my mom would be excited too).

Another random bit of information...I am finally getting use to using my camera in manual mode. This is huge for me!

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Making Tags

For some reason this year I have been making lots of tags. I made six different tags a couple weeks ago...
I copied the techniques from videos I have watched made by Tim Holtz and Jennifer McGuire, but the designs are all my own. On all these tags I embossed an stamped image with clear embossing powder and then covered the tag with distress inks. As my husband and many other people know, I love Tim Holtz products, especially his distress inks! I counted all the colors I have...I have 12!!! And I use them all often.

The last couple of days I have been looking on Tim Holtz blog, found at TimHoltz.com. He has been doing a series called his 12 Tags of Christmas. His tags are all AWESOME. His instructions are so detailed and Day three even had two videos! So I got so excited last night and I recruited Peter and Hannah to make tags with me!
Here we are! I got out tons of my supplies, stamps, embossing powder, distress inks, cuttlebug, scrap paper, brads, and lots more and made tags on the dining room table. They both made tags similar to the tags I made above. I taught them how to emboss and put distress ink over it with the blending tool. While they worked, I copied Tim's last two tags, for day 2 and 3. His first tag is a little complex for me, but I might try it later. Here are my tags:
On the second tag I had to change it up a lot because my supplies are so much different than his! I used a cuttlebug embossing folder to make the background (he used a stamp.) I embossed with white on the edges to make it look like snow (He used a speckle stamp and white paint). I used a chipboard bird which was much different than his. But I made a tissue tape flower and added trims and a little stamped tag. I did notice that my tags to start with are much smaller than his, which made it a little more difficult. Here are his tags...
Yes, I know I am not as good as Tim Holtz. But I had a lot of fun and I want to copy more of his tags!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

December 1st is here

Which means...

Only one more month of daily photos! (at least for awhile) I am excited about this!

Only 13 more days until I turn 25. Craziness!

For the next week or so I will try to document the beginning of winter in my picture of the day. I have already taken a photo of my coat collection and my messy table. (My table full of catalogs and Godiva ads and graduation announcement, all fun end of year stuff!)

And of course there is soup. I made some soup on Sunday with left over Thanksgiving turkey. It was delicious! I am so proud that I made soup!
I love December. I remember as a kid being asked what my favorite month was and the answer being "December, of course." At the time December meant two whole weeks off school! Now I am not so lucky to have two weeks, but I do get lots more time off!

I am looking forward to:

Annual work Christmas party on Friday (Dec 3rd)

Watching apple cup on Saturday (Dec 4th)

Possibly going to Spokane on December 11th, maybe even getting to see Bethany graduate from nursing school.

Birthday on the 13th (as already mentioned)

Whistler trip on the 18th...yay!

And of course the awesome holidays and fun at the end of the month. Should be a great end to an awesome year!

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving!

I told my family that I finally figured out what I want for my birthday. I want a Polaroid instant camera. I was met with great disagreement from all parties. I guess because I already have a nicer camera, why would I want to pay for an instant camera? I thought it would be fun. But apparently it is a BAD IDEA as evidenced by the opinions of Matt, James, Dad and Mom. (Josie thought the camera was cute.)

So....I downloaded the poladroid which sits on my desktop. I drag and drop photos and they form Polaroids right there in front of me! Its complete with cute sound effects AND you have to wait for the picture to develop. Its really fun!

So here are a few photos from Thanksgiving that I made into Polaroids. :)

Anne-Marie and I did a little swing dancing on the ice rink the day before Thanksgiving. I have had a really nice time here in Spokane!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope everyone ate as much as I did!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

SNOW!

Matt and I went on a little adventure last night at 11pm. We tried to get some coffee at U. Village, but the 24 hour Starbucks was closed! At least we got some (blurry) photos in the snow with the lights behind us.
And this morning I have this view off of our porch...
Have I mentioned that I love snow?

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Should have been a fabulous weekend...

But I am sick!!!

Despite my ignoring it, I have been mega congested for two days and blowing my nose constantly. It has been completely miserable.

But we did some fun things.

I made holiday tags today and made a huge creative mess. It was a total blast!
We got a little fake snow today! Actually the snow was real, it was floaty and sprinkly. But it did not stick. So that's why I call it fake snow. Matty and went on a walk to Starbucks where I sipped on a peppermint mocha and stared at the snowflakes falling.
We went to a friends house for a nice dinner and finished the evening off with Trophy cupcakes! They are delicious...puts the Cupcake Royale to shame! The heart on the red velvet cupcake was so cute.
I hope that tomorrow I feel better because I have a full week ahead of me. I have an appointment with my trainer at 9:00 and an appointment with myself to get some online CEs done tomorrow. Its going to be a crazy week!

Friday, November 19, 2010

Up way too late

I am up way too late and I'm getting sick so I'm not supposed to stay up late! I just can't seem to go to sleep. Part of the problem is that I have so much snot that its hard to breathe! Okay, I know that is a bit disgusting. So sorry!

I haven't been taking photos and putting them on my computer and printing them out right away! I know that this is fine. But I was SO GOOD for about nine months, and then October hit and NOW its NOVEMBER and its so hard to take photos. I am at work during most of the light hours! Its so hard to take photos in my condo at night. What is there to take photos of? Cats? Food? I've pretty much exhausted all my possibilities for Picture of the Day.

But I am still trying. Here's a photo I took this week. Leo was sleeping on Matt's back and he tried to stand up and Leo just stayed there! Matt decided to SLOWLY stand up all the way and Leo sort of climbed on Matt's shoulders. It was very cute.
My half marathon is in ONE WEEK.
Thanksgiving is in FIVE DAYS.
Life is about to get VERY BUSY.

Thanks for putting up with this completely random post. :)

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Pictures of the week

Here are pictures of the week from last week. I will have to catch up on a different day. Right now I need to get off the computer and go somewhere because a VERY ANNOYING little dog is barking in the back yard and its driving me CRAZY!!!

Sunday, November 7th:
It was a crazy day of talking and socializing all day. Matt and I helped with the kids in children's meeting. Then we had lunch with Dave & Christie W. and ended up talking to them until 4:00. Then we headed to Emiliya's house for Turkish coffee and cupcakes.

Saturday, November 6th:
Today was a full day. I ran 12 miles, watched the Ducks v. Husky game at Phil & Heather's and went on a date with Matty. My photo of the day is me getting all dressed up; I took photos in the mirror. After all, I never get dressed up! I even painted my fingernails!

Friday, November 5th:
Luckily I snapped a photo of Flash sleeping in the early morning, because I didn't have my camera the rest of the week. We had an awesome home meeting at Glenn & Audra's. They got a piano! I played it all night.

Thursday, November 4th:
This was a beautiful day! Emiliya and I walked around the lake and we took pictures of the gorgeous leaves.

Wednesday, November 3rd:
The perfect day. 70 degrees! We sat at Greenlake on the beach in shorts and T-shirts with the sun in our faces. Too bad I didn't have my camera for that! I did pick up Thanksgiving blend and a latte in the new Christmas cup!
Tuesday: November 2nd:
A very ordinary Tuesday! We ate dinner in the living room watching Superman. Matt made dinner and then he made two types of pudding that we devoured.

Monday: November 1st:
I finished working on my October book, which has been super fun!

Sunday, November 7, 2010

New Obsessions!

I guess I am easily obsessed. This is the third post on obsessions that I've done in just a few short months. When I like something, I REALLY like it.

I've been watching Lois & Clark on Netflix! Its a super campy show, but as I am a secret fan of anything Superman, its a new favorite of mine! And I love all the little reminders of life in the nineties! I especially like those shoulder pads that Lois wears...ha ha.

My converse shoes! Yes, I love them.

Red fingernail polish! It does a wonder of good in the fall! Makes me so happy to glance down at brightly colored red nails.

Kefir! Yes, the sour drinkable yogurt. I think its delicious and it supposedly even helps weight loss...I think. Not sure that I have heard this from a reputable source, but oh well!
Tonight I am enjoying a relaxing Tuesday. I did some intervals at the gym, and now I am eating chicken noodle soup and watching Superman. So much fun! I just wish Matt were home to enjoy the evening with me. He wont get home until 9:30! Sad!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Update on photos

Tuesday, October 26th:
Matthew is in town from Virginia. Matty and I had coffee and breakfast with him on Tuesday morning. Here is my latte...
Wednesday, October 27th:
Between working, running eleven miles and a late night CPR class, I had a very busy day! I managed to snap a photo of the kitties eating their dinner with their cute little bowls!

Thursday, October 28th:
Here is a photo of some of Renae's apple butter that I've been devouring...
Friday, October 29th:
Marcia & I are hanging out in our awesome cabin at the retreat on Whidbey Island
Saturday, October 30th:
Another retreat photo. James is kissing Josie. I guess they must be sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
Sunday, October 31st:
Halloween was pretty low key for us. In fact we didn't celebrate it! Instead we had Hannah and Peter over for a little Harvest party. I tried to get my Martha Stewart on and made some tags for the mugs. I got out the napkins and placemats and even made some yummy pumpkin muffins!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Photos from October 18-25

Photos from my week!

Monday 10/18:
I ate cake for lunch! Thank you Kayla for making a yummy cake and decorating it so cute. I do wish I had eaten less though.
Tuesday 10/19:
We walked around Green lake after work...a beautiful night! We love the beautiful trees! They are finally changing colors and I love the red ones best.
Wednesday 10/20:
Matty and I grabbed some coffee at a Green lake coffee shop. Who can't love a yummy latte when its served in a huge red cup?

Thursday 10/21
I took a photo of my perfect pre-run breakfast! Black coffee and waffles with peanut butter. Last season I used to eat toast and PB and now I have upgraded to waffles! I eat this every time I go on a long run. It gives me energy to finish.
Friday 10/22: Bethany's wedding
I took a lot of photos so I just picked one to post up here. Its me dancing with the bride!


Saturday 10/23:
I went shopping with the girls and Renae and I bought new shoes. I've been waiting a long time to buy some Converse shoes. :)

Sunday night 10/24:
Hannah and I rode in the car with Bernie in the back seat!
Monday night (tonight!): I went to a Silent film with Peter. It was a blast! He won the tickets, so we got in for free. We even got VIP lounge tickets so we got to taste all the Trader Joe's goodies. Peter actually won the raffle...6 more tickets to the Paramount!