The coolest thing happened to me today...

...I got some international mail!

After staring at the cool stamps and stickers and noticing that Joy writes her "1" to look like an upside down "v", I painstakingly opened the envelope with a knife so I wouldn't tear it. And I found this....
So I put it on my fridge! I also put the card Joy made for me on the fridge as well as the envelope! Now my whole fridge reminds me of Joy.

This comment was inspired by these two trouble makers...
I LOVE the lightening bolt on Flash's back.
For future reference, Joy, since you mentioned not knowing about the spots, Flash looks like a tuxedo (white tummy) and Leo looks like a cow.

Thanks Joy for the wonderful surprise. It made my night and day. And I will keep it forever. Miss you!!!

Right now

Listening: Silence. I can hear my kitty breathing.
Eating: Nothing. I just finished some "fried cheese" from Trader Joe's about an hour ago. That's enough to make you full for awhile!
Drinking: Agua!
Wearing: comfy brown shirt + jeans
Feeling: tired (from my earlier work out) and relaxed (nothing to do!)
Weather: raining! That was a fun run.
Wanting: a nap. Yes, I am truly very tired. :)
Needing: Probably more calories soon (I worked out HARD)
Thinking: I like this little list. Glad I stole if from this blog: kinseygirl.typepad.com
Enjoying: That I get to spend my weekend with a close friend that JUST GOT ENGAGED. Yay!
Wondering: When we will get to go to the French Bakery. Hopefully soon!

My weekend has been fun so far! More on that later. :)

Photos from last weekend

I found some photos on my memory card from last weekend!

Chris always makes a BEAUTIFUL veggie platter...
A blurry, yet cute photo....
I just love it when kids make funny faces for the camera...
And now it is Friday again! Lots of fun in store: a friend's birthday tonight...another home meeting...a friend staying with me...an eight mile run...boot camp on Saturday...valentine card making with friends on Sunday. It should be a fun weekend and I will get to use my camera!

An apology

I have been a terrible blog poster!

I have been a terrible photographer. No photos of daily life for...yes, 26 days now!

But I am still living life. And life is good.

I missed a bit of life on Sunday because I was SICK with the stomach bug. It was reminiscent of my childhood days of puking my guts out every time I got the flu. Its been YEARS since I have thrown up that much. I was able to consume slightly less than 400 calories on Sunday, mostly from Gatorade.

But life is pretty much back to normal. Normal for me means lots of work and lots of gym. I haven't been spending as much time outside as I'd like, mostly because of the terrible weather and the lack of proper lighting (Come on sun! Come out!) But I really like my job. I like scraping those teeth and chatting it up to the cool people that let me scrape their teeth. And I REALLY like the gym. I am there almost every day and I really love the cardio machines and the classes, and I am even coming around to doing some weights on my own.

I am up pretty late. I am sipping some "hot chocolate" (warmed up milk with some cocoa powder) which I am hoping will put me to sleep. I had better go to bed, but I though I would first do a quick update on life and promise to be better with taking those PHOTOS!

Totally lazy Saturday...

It's been a completely lazy day! First, I woke up late, around 9:00. I managed to leave the house for an hour in the morning; I met Hannah at the gym and we worked out for an hour. It was SO HOT at the gym today, we were both sweating buckets and it was was moderately uncomfortable.

Most of the day I relaxed, did housework, laundry and dishes. I made myself some delicious oatmeal with dried cranberries, walnuts and brown sugar, one of my favorite meals to eat this week.

Matt went to work at 2:30, which was sad, I miss him! I spent an hour backing up and organizing my photos. Then I spent an hour and a half getting groceries at Trader Joe's. It was crazy! Talk about traffic, completely packed parking lots and so many people in the store that it was impossible to navigate. I tried not to get stressed out, and I ended up just taking my time in the store. While I was there someone parked in a way that trapped me in. The parking security guard had to help me out while I did what felt like a 15 point turn. I am glad I wasn't in a hurry or stressed because it would have been a nightmare afternoon.

Right now I am waiting for Matt to get home because he asked me out on a date! I took a hot bubble bath, put make up and heels on and painted my fingernails red. He says he already knows where he's taking me, but I have no idea! How exciting!

So I thought I would post a couple photos I've taken in the past few weeks.

At last night's home meeting we enjoyed using Chris's brand new Nespresso machine and automatic milk foamer. The lattes were delicious and so fun to make!
The kids decorated gingerbread men...and they let me decorate one too!
Good bye J & E's old place! Last weekend we helped them move to a brand new condo across the street. Its a beautiful place with beautiful views. Hopefully soon they will figure out a way to get their nice big couch into it! (The doors and elevator are too small and the couch is too big...sad!)

I thought I should take a photo of J's award wall...pretty cool.
And last, but not least, Poker! I love this game. I love the King of Spades (my favorite card.) I love snacking and chatting and losing this game. I love that Ben cooked us an apple pie in about 20 minutes so that we would have delicious food to eat.
Fun times in January so far!

Random Facts...

1) I have only taken photos on TWO days this year. I have photos of poker night and of Josh & Ellen's move. Interestingly, I haven't even uploaded said photos onto my computer yet. Last year I took photos every day and uploaded at least every other day. What is happening to me?

2) Matt bought me the new Zac Brown Band CD which I LOVE (And I'm listening to it right now!)

3) I still love my gym and have been working out and hour or two a day. (Yet somehow I am still gaining weight. Sucks!)

4) Seattle got tons of snow last night and it was gone in a matter of hours this morning. We had a torrential downpour of rain which washed all the snow away!

5) Renae visited me last weekend and we had a blast. We went to coffee, made Mexican food together, went to the scrapbook store, went to coffee again, went to Dilettante, went to coffee a third time and hung out lazily around my house. I have NO PHOTOS to document. But I had a blast!!! She even fed my very whiny cats yesterday morning so that I could sleep in for a little longer!

Happy January 12th! Hopefully I will start taking photos again so that I will have something interesting to post. :)

My scrapbook room

This weekend and for the rest of the month my goal is to re-organize my scrapbook room. I think everyone in my life would agree that I have TOO MUCH STUFF! I love my stuff. Don't get me wrong, everything I have purchased to scrapbook with I TRULY LOVE. But there is too much. I need to purge and reorganize so that I have an easier time using what I do have.

Here is a recent photo of my scrapbook room while it is "in use." As you can see, my cat Leo loves to be part of the fun.

Of course this is messy because I just made a page, but the problem is that it stays messy for for too long. I realize that there are some things that I need to sort through:

1) Letter stickers. I have tons! And I love them all! The problem is that eventually I run out of vowels and they become less useful. They still take up lots of space, especially the thickers. Since I never get rid of anything I have thickers packages that I've had for 3+ years! I think that someday I will use them. (But I don't. Yet I am still attached.)

2) Scrap paper. I used a TON of my scrapbook paper this year because I made a 365 album that used 4x6 sheets. I used scrap paper for all of it and almost EVERY PAGE was different (365 pages). So that leaves me with less scrap paper, but also less useful scrap paper. Its all smaller and cut up since I cut 4 x12 or 4x6 sheets out of it. The more I "use" my scrap paper (and I do a lot) the smaller the sheets get and the more crazy shapes I get. Yet I keep it all!!! What is wrong with me?

3) Embellishments that I got in kits that maybe I don't like as much. One of my goals is to use everything in the kits I get, that way I feel that I get my money's worth. But inevitably there is always something that I don't ever use, and it sits around my room.

So this weekend I will try very hard to purge some things. My best friend is coming into town and hopefully I can off load some of my extras onto her. Maybe we can even swap letter stickers or something, that might be fun.

I will try to report back on my progress. Happy Ninth of January!

Happy New Year!

Okay, its a few days late, sorry!

We had fun.

Peter, Hannah, Matt & I headed up to Mt Baker for some skiing/snowboarding/snowshoeing. I went on black runs for the first time and snowboarded the canyon three times. It was beautifully sunny, lots of blue sky and super cold, which kept the snow carvable. VERY nice day.

In the evening we went over to Peter and Hannah's place for some game playing, bringing in the New Year! We were pretty tired from our day, but ended up staying up until about 1 am. We were pretty involved in our game of Settlers of Catan, so we didn't watch any fireworks. (Oh, but we saw a few at the Casino on our way home from Baker.)

(Please don't look at our snacks!)

Isn't this a cute couple? (I did Hannah's make up! So fun!)
Matty got a little sleepy during the game. :)
On New Year's Day Hannah and I went to the gym together! She recently signed up at the new gym and I am so excited to go with her more often! I love that I have an awesome gym and a work out partner to help me start out the year right.

Happy third day of 2011!