thirteen.

that's how many packages of thickers i just counted.
seriously? yes.

that's a lot of thickers. i didn't think my addiction was that bad.

but i really don't like that number either... i'm not really superstitious, but it still freaks me out a little tiny bit.
so. i need another package pronto. HA.

anyway. i'll be back with a better post soon. and by better, i mean photos and maybe even some layouts. :]

satc.

i just got home from the midnight showing a little bit ago.
it was SO good.
i'm a happy girl tonight.
sigh.

it makes me want to go to new york pretty badly.
and the public library. ha.

tomorrow i'm on the hunt for some sweet 80s gear.
radhika is having a little 80s party, and i think it might be time for some polaroid fun. :]

red velvet cake + a crafting woe.

my dad requested a red velvet cake for his birthday after having a red velvet cupcake from claim jumper the other day. so last night i went on a mission to find a mix. i had to go to 4 stores. ha. i was going to make it from scratch, but i wanted it to turn out since i wouldn't have time to re-do it if it didn't. i don't have a good cake recipe, so i went with a box. unfortunately even though i greased and floured both pans, neither of my 9 inch round cakes would come out today when i wanted to assemble and ice the cake. grr. i think it's time for new cake pans. i eventually got them out with some help from my mom. :]

i think the cake turned out ok. i'm definitely not a pro... there were some crumbs in the icing, which always happens to me, but it felt good to make the cake for my dad. it's been a while since he had a proper birthday cake. plus, now i have a small case of baking fever. and maybe i sort of kind of want to open my own bakery and become a pro cake decorator and have my own tv show. ha. ok... not true about the tv show, but i think it would be fun to learn how to decorate cakes. especially with fondant so i don't have to worry about crumbs showing through in the icing. :]

tonight i tried to make my sister's birthday present, but didn't have much luck. she just bought a house, which gave me an excuse to make the placemats and napkins from this book that i bought this weekend. why not give her a little birthday gift in the form of a housewarming present? works for me.

well problem numero uno is that my large self healing craft mat is being held hostage under the coffee table glass in hopes that it will flatten out. i accidentally left it in the back of my car a few months ago... and by accidentally, i mean i didn't know it would hurt it to leave it in there for a couple days. well it did. turns out that it warped like crazy and refuses to flatten back out. this little situation is not very conducive to cutting things, especially fabric. [it's also not very fun to try to paint or scrapbook on in its bent up state, rendering it basically useless.]
no craft mat to use my rotary trimmer with? fine. the book says to use a yardstick and a chalk pencil and cut the pieces out by hand with scissors anyway. i have all of those things. yes i do. except that at some point during mission: make myself a studio i have misplaced my chalk pencil. wonderful. let me add at this point, that i decided to make a practice placemat since i am still far from good at using my sewing machine. i got out some of the scrap fabric my mom passed on to me and chose a nice black/white combo for practicing. it's rather hard to make a mark on black fabric with no chalk pencil. oh but i do have this new white sharpie paint pen. perhaps i could use that? NO. BAD IDEA. messy messy messy and no help whatsoever. so i eyeballed it. after all, it's was my practice round.
finally, while i was sewing the practice placemat, i noticed that clearly something is wrong with my thread tension. i do believe it's a problem with the bobbin tension, which has happened before. but that's all i know. i have no clue how to fix it. so i finished the practice placemat with some too tight and some too loose stitches, and i gave up for the night.

i guess it doesn't look too bad from afar... and i have to admit... i kind of enjoy the fabric combo going on there. oh and yes, that's the craft mat under the glass. ha.

tomorrow:
1. buy a new craft mat. [i wish i could find a cute one. and by cute i mean fun colors.]
2. buy one of those rulers to use with the craft mat and rotary trimmer.
3. take my sewing machine to the store, and tell them i want to throw it out the window. i mean... tell them something is wrong with it, and i would like it fixed pronto.

yes indeed. one of these days i will be able to sew properly!
goodnight. i'm off to clean. :]

family day.

today was a nice day of me sleeping in and waking up in time to go do a little shopping with my parents and james.
we ordered a stool for my studio at dania. i'm pretty excited about it, but we can't pick it up until friday.
we also went by the car dealership because we thought it was going to be time to get me a new car in a month or so. my parents were planning on having it be my graduation present. but it didn't quite work out.
we got my car because at the time, they were having a ridiculously good lease offer. well it turns out that it happens to be a 39 month lease instead of a 24 month lease like we thought... oops. so i have another year with this car. i even test drove this really super cute red coupe that i was falling in love with before we got the news about the lease agreement. so much for my graduation present. ha. oh well. i'm sure in a year there will still be a really super cute car available. :]

today is also richard's birthday, so we all went to chinese food. richard's sister and jeff's niece are visiting right now, so it was fun to get to see them as well. i rediscovered how much i love chicken pan fried noodles... so i ate a bit too much. haha. maybe tomorrow it will warm up enough for a bike ride.

i hope you all enjoyed the weekend. the weather here could have been a little less rainy, but what can you do. :]

oh. can you believe this song has a 4.5 minute intro? ha. james and i picked up the cd for our drive back from ikea since it had been released 2 days earlier, and now we still love to listen to it while driving. so pretty. :]

switching crafts.

today i went to the fabric store and had very good luck.
everything i purchased was on sale... 30-75% off.
not bad. i came home with some pretty cool stuff and a list of sewing idea books that i want to buy.
so i think i'm going to switch crafts and try my hand at sewing for a bit since scrapbooking isn't really happening for me. :]

i'll be back soon with the operation: craft room update post. [can you tell i haven't decided what to call it? craft room... scrapbook room... studio. not sure yet. ha. maybe once it's done i'll have a better idea.]

i'll leave you with this fun message.

hmph.

i've been wanting to scrapbook today and tonight
but
i've got nothing.

no motivation whatsoever.

the same thing happened last night too.
i managed to get 1 or 2 things done, but it was a struggle.
it shouldn't be a struggle.


this whole being sick thing is seriously lame.
energy draining.
inspiration sucking.
and generally annoying.

color me frustrated.

looking forward to tomorrow though:
-planning to hit up the sale at nevada fine arts. looking for a nice chair for the new room and a few other fun things.
-if i'm feeling up for it, i'm going to the eye doctor and hopefully getting new glasses. i've never totally loved my current pair. i think they were a step down from the last pair and i've been ready for something new for a few months now. plus the headaches are starting up, which tells me it's time.
-maybe a movie tomorrow night. again. it will depend on how sickly i'm feeling.

graduation and other goodness.

i've been drinking defense vitamin water like a mad woman lately trying not to get sick.
i have a sore throat and my ears are all clogged up, but i'm still trying to convince my body that it doesn't want to be sick. :]
i'm so glad this waited until after graduation!

aside from vitamin water, i've been soaking up time with my grandparents. we had a big group dinner on sunday night before my sister left, which led to a photo shoot.


i managed to get everyone to agree to the group photo. i'm still not sure how i pulled that one off.
and the second one seriously melts my heart. :]
after the photo grandma said, "you'd think that after all these years he'd give up!"
so cute.

yesterday, james and i played golf with my parents.


well.
i suppose that's not entirely true.
i rode in the cart, while james and my parents played golf.
i decided to go along with them because it would be a nice opportunity to take my camera out and shoot some scenic photos. except that i forgot to bring my slr. nice one. :|

i still managed to get a couple nice shots with my point and shoot. they only played the back nine holes, but some of the views are just so nice. in the shot of my parents you can see mt. rose in the background. it's funny how you can wear shorts and look up and see snow on the mountains. kind of like when you go lay on the beach at tahoe and are surrounded by snow covered mountains. it's just a little bit strange, but pretty enough that i don't mind. :]

so far though, operation: take photos/experiment with new cameras is not going well.

graduation was really nice. aside from only getting two hours of sleep the night before, that is.
i was up cleaning the house to get ready for a graduation lunch party.
[operation: living room to scrapbook room made huge progress! i'll do a separate post for that soon.]

luckily, all of the graduates were seated on the shady side of the quad. unfortunately, all of the guests were seated on the sunny side. i was like the 10th person to walk, so my family didn't have to sit in the hot sun for too long, but my poor grandpa has been having problems staying warm due to his cancer treatment, so he was wearing a few layers of shirts. he had to go take one of them off and left his seat for a few minutes at which point my name was announced! so they came all the way from colorado to watch me graduate and then he missed it. ack!
it's funny how summer finally decided to show up just a few days before graduation.

anyway, here are a bunch of photos from graduation:

unreal.

seriously... only one more final!
most of my friends are already done, so there has been some premature celebrating. ha. :]

on thursday, i found out that i won a prize for my poster. three of us won $200, and i was shocked and grateful to be one of the winners. the best prizes are the unexpected ones, huh?

that day, we had a lab lunch at genghis grill. i was a little nervous because i suggested we eat there, so i worried that people might not love it and would wonder what in the world i was thinking by suggesting we eat there. BUT they loved it. i'm fairly certain that i heard everyone say at some point that they wanted to go back... or so-and-so would love this place, i need to bring her here. :]

plus i rode out with dr. tittiger, and we had a nice talk on the way about grad school, traveling, james. yeah. we covered lots of ground. haha. he was encouraging about a trip to korea, and it was just interesting and nice to hear his input on things.

on friday morning, i had my evolution final bright and early at 7:30am. i'm fairly certain that i did well enough to keep my A in that class. woot!

then it was a mad rush to turn in my thesis to the honors program. it turned into a big ordeal. grr.
my honors advisor told me that all i had to do was submit a bound copy of my thesis and all would be fine. well... when i turned in my $7 kinkos bound copy, the lady asked me where my signature page was... umm... excuse me? wth is a signature page? then... she asked my where the other two copies were... umm? you're kidding me right? then... she flips through it and says "is this normal copy paper!?" seriously. all my (worthless) honors advisor told me was ONE BOUND COPY. nothing about a signature page. nothing about *three* copies. and certainly nothing about archival paper. [honestly, in 200 years no one is going to want to read my thesis.] i explained to them that in biochem, we don't have any sort of signature page. we don't even submit bound copies, let alone bound copies on archival paper. WE EMAIL IT. i subtly told them to get with the times, and i think they got the hint. :]
still. i had to come up with three archivally bound copies. so so so thankful to sharon in my lab for helping me find some cool watermarked unr archival paper and teaching me how to use the special binding machine in the department office. she was a true lifesaver.

the weekend was full of studying for the biochem final. so weird to think that it was the *last* time that all of us will study together. kinda sad really. the final was rough. i feel like i disappointed dr. welch by not doing as well as i should have. sigh.

but we did arrange a gift for him since he is retiring... we got a nice picture frame for the group photo from our CABNR dinner and most of us signed it. he genuinely seemed to appreciate it. :] i signed it dr. amy griffith "the one who is going to travel" because he and i had a long talk on friday about traveling. he said now is the time to take a year off and live because i'll never have the chance again. so when i turned in my final, he said "there she is... the traveler." ha.

immediately after the final we went to the wall [a bar across the street from campus] for lunch. everyone except me had a few shots/beers. yikes. then that evening, we had a bbq at mike's house. i was so tired. i wish i would have been a little more into the evening, but i just wasn't quite feeling it.

anyway. i was having trouble sleeping, so i thought it would be a good time to update. my blogging has been sparse lately, and i kind of regret that. i will get my photos uploaded one of these days though!

oh and today i picked up my organic spec exam 4 and i am sitting at a 90% average going into the final. it's so weird that you can go from feeling like you're going to fail [hopeless] to feeling like you can get an A [hopeful]. as i was walking with james after i picked it up, i said "i guess this is my lesson for the last semester of college... don't give up!" [too bad i didn't learn that one a little earlier... it could have helped in a couple other classes. haha.]

ok. better get some rest so i can do well on my final. it so doesn't feel like i am about to be done. the semester definitely feels done, but not school. so unreal still.

today.

today was poster day. :]

i haven't uploaded my photos yet, but this one is from rubi. i will probably post more when i have mine.
it was actually really fun to talk about my work to other biochem professors and people from local biochem industry companies. and of course it was fun to see everyone dressed up standing by their posters knowing that we've all been working pretty hard to get to this point.

tonight i sent in the final draft of my thesis. so crazy. i have to get a bound copy to give to the honors program, but otherwise my thesis is finished. eek.

i decided to reward myself with a little shopping. my favorite scrapbook store [besides where i work] in town recently got a new owner. i'm sort of sad about it... ok really sad. i'll just miss the atmosphere. it was my favorite place to visit on a bad day. talking with mary ann while i shopped was just really nice. anyway, when i gave the new owner my name to check out, she knew who i was and had some things waiting behind the counter that mary ann told her i would want. so i got a total surprise at checkout and went home with this and this. i'm not sure that my bank account enjoyed the surprise, but i am in love. i so wish that i was feeling a little tiny bit creative tonight, but i've got nothing. sigh.

i think i'm off to bed now. feeling rather exhausted.

checking in.

i forgot i had a blog for a few days. oops. time to check in.

-today i did the final re-print of my poster. i'll present it & & turn in the final copy of my thesis on wednesday. big day.

-tomorrow i have an exam in organic spec that i have yet to study for because i've been working on writing my thesis most of the day.

-friday i have my first final. it's evolution. no big deal. i think i can get like a 54% or something ridiculous like that and still get an A. i love love love when classes work out like that. :]

-monday i have my molecular biophysics final. so the weekend will be full of stress and studying. but i'm *finally* learning how to put things in perspective and not stress out *too* much. i guess i only learned this skill about 12 years too late. ha. yes. i've always been a worrier with huge test anxiety.

-right after the final on monday a bunch of us are heading up to tahoe. it's sort of a tradition. :]

-next wednesday is my last final ever! unfortunately it's in organic spec... so another stressful one.

-then it will be family time and graduation. woot.

in other news...
-i seem to have taken a break from the daily photos. remember those? i was keeping up with them... not so much on the posting though. but lately, i've been so busy that i haven't always remembered. i guess that in and of itself is evidence of what's going on in my life, right? so documenting daily life is still sort of going on, just not visually. ha.

-i am keeping up with the daily countdown-to-graduation cards. :] i'll post those one of these days when i have time to take photos or scan them.

-i have some other recent photos to post too. so once i have a minute i'll do a photo catch-up post. :]

that's about all. it's getting late so i should either go to sleep or go study. i haven't decided which one yet.
i hope everyone had a great weekend!

yikes.

that is my revised poster that i've been working on most of the night.
i'm printing it out tomorrow.
have i mentioned lately how crazy this is all feeling to me?
ack!

ok. off to bed for a few hours.

p.s. look how many red squiggles there are on the poster. it's funny how few scientific terms are included in the spell check.

p.s.s. today i found out that i have been added as a contributor to one of the papers my professor is presenting in nice, france this summer. i was/am pretty excited. i've been a contributor a few other times in my old lab, but this time he is actually going to mention my specific work. how cool! now if only i can convince him that i need to go along on that trip. ha. :]