Out Sick

I'm finally admitting, I am sick. Luckily its just a cold and I am not feeling so stuffed up this morning. I've been trying to take it easy and not do too much so I can get over it faster. So, the only thing I've been up to these past couple days is watching movies, napping, and maybe some occasional scrapbooking when I have the energy.

Yesterday I watched Nine Months for the first time. I know I'm way slow in seeing it, but I enjoyed it for sure. I re-watched The Wedding Date and remembered how much I adore Dermot Mulroney. I saw Nights of Rodanthe a few weeks ago and really enjoyed watching it. It was incredibly visual. The house in the movie is just awesome. Plus, I adore Diane Lane and Richard Gere. Even better that they didn't end the movie all Hollywood style. Of course, I watched all the extra stuff on the Twilight DVD's. It was mildly entertaining. I suggest watching it when you're sick. ;)I started reading Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke, about a week ago. It is a story that was originally written in German and then translated into many other languages. I'm enjoying what a different world it is from mine. I've got the next two books sitting next to my bed and I'm pretty sure I'm hooked.
And finally, I've been listening to Lady Gaga's cd, The Fame almost non stop for the past two weeks. Check her out if you haven't heard of her yet. I have a Black & White photo midterm tonight so I'm off to prepare for that. Happy hump day!

Geeky Moments

I met up with my friend Mike from the air force on Monday night. We went out for Thai before seeing the incredible movie, Slumdog Millionaire. What a movie! The cinematography was outstanding, the acting was great, the story was slow at times, but totally worth the wait. I wasn't thrilled about the violence and disturbing images at times, but sometimes life is like that. I'd say, if you are like me, its probably better to wait for DVD so you can turn down the sound when necessary. I spent a bit of time looking at my palm. I totally forgot to take pictures with Mike, so sadly, I have no photos from our fun night out.

I visited my grandma in Walnut Creek and watched Dancing with the Stars (she taped it). I was really amused to see Steve O trying to dance. It was very entertaining. Then I drove to meet Eric in Palo Alto for an early dinner. I drove for about 3 1/2 hours yesterday so I'm not doing much driving today! We chatted about my obsession with Twilight and the reasoning for it being released on a weekend. I've decided its so the teenage girls can stay up late to get the DVD and not have to worry about a school night. That and its exactly 4 months from the release of the movie in theaters.

Eric & I enjoyed yummy goodness at the Peninsula Creamery, one of my all time favorite diners. Here is a picture the waiter took of us right before leaving.
I got home in time to watch American Idol last night. I am completely crushing on Danny Gokey. My mom wants him to change his last name. I don't care though. And Kris Allen is adorable too. Very cute and geeky. Almost to quirky. I thought it was hilarious when Simon told him it was too soon to bring the wife out. They are newly weds you goof!

I'm planning to go to Michael's for the 4th day this week. Yes, I am an addict for the 50% off coupon. And I might apply for a job there so I can help the habit. We shall see. I finally finished a lo that has been swirling around in my head since the paper was released at Winter CHA 2008. I think it fits the picture perfectly. A layout for fun? Not for any specific challenge, what? I noticed that I haven't scrapped many photos of Dan just by himself. So why not? The adorable mustache tag is designed by the lovely Michelle Clement. I admit I went a little crazy with the stickles, but its been a while since I've used them so I had to make up for it. And thanks to Jenna for the silly title. I am so horrible at coming up with witty titles.
Ok, geeky moment!Jenna called me into the living room this morning because John Lasseter was on the View this morning. He's the MAIN guy at Pixar and they had a clip of UP, the newest Pixar movie, which is coming out May 29, 2009. It looks totally cute and lots of fun!

Friday the 13th

Happy Friday! I'm not a superstitious person, and here is why:

I went to the Apple store today (second time this week) and they gave me a new iPod because my 7 month old one was misbehaving. On top of that, my great friend Misty got a job! Congrats to you!

How do you like that I was in Taco Bell (for the first time this week!?!) and they have a new item on their menu. Its the NEW Bacon Cheddar Crunch wrap. WHAT? That just sounds nasty and I want to know how that is Mexican food? I can't remember seeing bacon on anything Mexican and I live in California. So naturally tried the new Soft Taco Beef platter and had forgotten why I hate soft tacos so much. Can you believe I deviated from my Mexican pizza and bean burrito? I'll be reuniting with my old favorite next time.

I'm in a totally giddy and random mood. I'm sure you hadn't noticed. I decided to sit down and read J.K. Rowling's the Tales of Beedle the Bard on Wednesday. I didn't realize how short it was going to be and I probably should have read reviews before hand. It was a cute book but I finished it in just over an hour and of course, it was geared towards young children.In other news, Scrap Mojo is having a DT call. We would love to have you apply so get on the band wagon! We'll be announcing a new challenge on the 20th and I can't wait to share what I've been up to. I have been scrapping, I just can't share right away. So keep your eyes open next week for some fun stuff I've been working on. Alright, hope you all have a Happy Valentine's Day! XOXO!

Inspiration

Just stopping by to say hi. I had a pretty laid back weekend and I definitely enjoyed that. Since I finished reading Eclipse on Thursday night, I picked up the fourth book in the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn on Friday afternoon. I was hoping it would arrive at the library before the weekend, but I was not so lucky. I spent a decent amount of this weekend reading. I still have about 200 pages to go.

I gladly took BART to Danville (more reading!) and hung out with Dan's father's family. I was really happy to talk with Dan's siblings about their reactions to the book. They kept coming in and asking what part of the book I was at. So cute!

I will admit, I have this weird craving for waffles all the time now. Yesterday on my lunch break, I went to Safeway and bought chocolate chip frozen waffles. Normally I would think they are nasty, but it was cold and raining outside. I really enjoy them as comfort food. It made me crack up when I watched the movie Alvin & The Chipmunks last night because they were obsessed with frozen waffles too! We also watched the hilarious movie Evan Almighty. Silly me, I didn't realize it was a sequel to Bruce Almighty until Dan mentioned it at dinner. We cracked up a lot and I really enjoyed that. I could laugh for hours easily. I adore Steve Carell.A bunch of my friends went to CHA yesterday and I want to thank them for including me in their experiences! I really enjoyed getting all sorts of text & picture messages about your time in Anaheim!

Sorry this post lacks pictures, but the weather was just not fun at all. The sun is out today so maybe I'll get some photography in at some point today. We'll see if I can manage that between photo editing, reading, and doing homework for my flash class. With that, I leave you with a link to incredibly beautiful and inspiring photos that I found through the Strobist blog. Happy Monday!

Lately

 I just finished reading Jane Austen's book Emma and I truly enjoyed it. I purchased it at a used book store in Ireland and I definitely got my euro's worth! I have some new stuff to show but I can only do sneaks since the new Mojo challenge won't be posted until Tuesday. I also did a fun portrait shoot at a beautiful house in Burlingame yesterday. So I've got plenty to keep me busy until the rest of the books from the Twilight Saga arrive at my library.

How much do you love that our friend Kelly e-mailed Jenna an article about a couple getting married in taco bell? Jenna was upset that someone beat her to the punch. At least our taco bell is at the beach! You can read more about the wedding here. Hope everyone enjoys the weekend. Its positively beautiful here.

*Scrap Mojo 20* No More Kings

Challenge #20 is up over at Scrap Mojo. The challenge is to use an episode title from School House Rock some where on your project. The other half is to incorporate glitter. Hope lots of you can play! Due August 30th.

I got a chance to play with my new Hambly overlays!
These past few days have been such a whirl wind that Monday feels like it was last week. I ran a bunch of errands all day Monday. I did get a chance to relax and finish reading Deception Point. Ooh was that good. I learned so much about ice, plankton, meteorites, and NASA. I started reading The Time Traveler's Wife and find it hard to put down. I'm trying to balance reading travel books and a fun book too.

Celebrated my mom's birthday at my aunt's house on Monday night. I enjoyed catching up with them and looking at their photos from their European trip from 2005.
In other fun news, I finally broke down and replaced my sad broken iPod. The apple store has a recycling program which gives you 10% off when you purchase a new one! I bought the silver one but haven't had a chance to do a photo shoot with it so here it is off of their website.
I got my beautiful Whimsy jar from Chez at the beginning of this week and I loved digging through all the fun stuff. Thanks so much for happy mail!

And finally, a very belated photo mosaic of France. I have three great grandparents that lived near the Pyrenees. And family in Lyon and various other parts of the country. So without further ado, my favorite photos from Flickr!
1. Indiscretion, 2. Palace Of Versailles (Chateau De Versailles), 3. Versailles / Le Hameau, 4. Cahors cathedral (HDR), 5. An sunny afternoon at Eus, 6. city hall in Paris, 7. the Concorde square by night in Paris, 8. autumn begins in paris, 9. Paris Cathedral, Notre Dame, 10. Notre Dame at Twilight, Paris, 11. Crozon Morgat - brittany - France, 12. Hotel de Ville, Lyon, France, 13. Arles, France, 14. Calanque (Provence / Côte d'Azur, France), 15. Cascade des Tufs - Baume les Messieurs - Jura - France, 16. Moulin de Chambeuil - Auvergne - France, 17. BOUTIQUE A HONFLEUR (FRANCE), 18. Moroccan flavours in the South of France, 19. Petite France, 20. Solar Furnace France @CNRS, 21. France, Rodez - Cathedral, 22. France, Strasbourg la cathedrale, 23. Chateau Chenonceau, Loire Valley, France, 24. + The Castle (en France) +, 25. Aisle of the Cathedral of Chartes, France.

Coit Tower

I got some of my scanned photos off of the lab computer. This is another portrait done by Doug Yost.


I finished reading the last Harry Potter and I really enjoyed it. So much that I stayed up until 2:30am!

Dan, Toby, Lisa, and I went to North Beach last night and had dinner at Michelangelo Cafe. It took a little searching to find a place that wasn't crowded. We were originally planning to take a lot of night photos around the area but the parking lot was expensive.

Coit tower was lit with red lights so we decided to drive up Telegraph Hill and spend a little time photographing the night scape of San Francisco.



I would have taken more photos since I have such a passion for night photography but I was the driver for last nights outing. Next time I'll remember to have some one else drive so I can do the out the window shots!

I have a few other scanned photos that I'll add to my flickr account, so check that out too.

This morning's events and more

I've been working a lot lately. We had a 26 box shipment to the Christmas store on Friday. I left at 7pm to have a wonderful time with Valerie and Anders. Their car needed to be charged and I managed to find a 6 volt battery charger for them. I think we were all really surprised that I was able to find one for them. Thanks to my neighbor Judy for helping!

I finished the book Nighttime is My Time by Mary Higgins Clark. I'm so happy that I finished it since I started it two months ago! I love her mystery novels because I can't figure out who the murder is. Usually I'm really great at it too. Must have been all those Nancy Drew books I read as a kid.

This morning was very interesting. One of those days that was so bizarre you had to laugh. Jenna had an appointment at 9am to have her 4 wisdom teeth removed.
My dad took her there and I was supposed to arrive a few minutes before she came out of the procedure. I got there to find that she hadn't been taken in yet because they had to reshoot the x-rays our dentist had taken previously. When we compared the two x-rays it was quite obvious to the untrained eye that the ones our dentist had sent were not her teeth! Apparently the dentist thought Jenna had 4 wisdom teeth that needed to be removed and the new x-rays showed that she only had two wisdom teeth!

Jenna is in great spirits. When the doctor asked how she felt she gave him a thumbs up sign and said "spectacular." She tried skipping down the hall way to show that she was fine but dad and I decided that she should walk slowly since the anesthesia had not worn off and she was seeing double.

A Day at the Beach

I visited with my friend Eva and her lovely children, Elizabeth, and Josiah this afternoon. They are growing so quickly; I hate to go so long without seeing them. They went to get their photos taken today so they had on extra cute outfits and I couldn't resist snapping a few shots. Here is Elizabeth in a beautiful princess-esque dress.

And here is baby Josiah (2nd outfit for the day) trying to hear:


It was such a beautiful day we couldn't resist going to the beach. It was a priceless memory. We had such fun building a fort of shade for Josiah!


I also had the pleasure of reading a book by Tracy Chevalier titled Burns Brighter. She has also written Girl With the Pearl Earring and The Virgin Blue. I love her knack for really making the reader feel as though they are right there with the character in the time period of her books. It feels like a lot of movies have been focusing on the French Revolution recently and so it seemed like the perfect time to read a book set around that era. Well it's good night for now!