the betty crocker clinic.

i made brownies the other night and promptly finished off a whole row before going to bed.
honestly, i'm lucky i stopped there. i'm sure there have been times when i've gotten a little further into the pan than just the first row. james is never much help when i bake things because he doesn't like sweet stuff all that much. if i make brownies, i usually find a centimeter chunk about 2 inches long gone from one of the edges the next day. he only likes the crispy part apparently. i like the edge pieces over the middle pieces too, but i take more than a centimeter from the edge. maybe we should invest in one of those w-shaped brownie pans. hmm. i'll have to keep my eye out.
anyway. as i was finishing off my third brownie piece the other night, i was reminded of miranda.
this is one of my favorite moments from satc:

if you watch the full episode, you see miranda go into a cake shop and decide to buy a cake. when they tell her the absurd price, she decides she can make one for herself, and then can't keep from eating is, as you see in this scene. it always makes me laugh, no matter how many times i watch it.

anyway.
not much has been happening this week.
i was able to meet up with erin for thai food on tuesday. it had been so long since i'd seen her, so it was nice to finally have time to catch up.
james and i had pizza tonight with a group from his work to celebrate a co-workers birthday. gotta love half price pizza at the pub 'n sub.
i have another exam in micro coming up on tuesday, but i think i might take tonight to do a little more organizing and maybe even a little scrapbooking. tonight was reveal night at studio calico and looking through the new gallery kind of made me have the urge to create something. we'll see what happens.

oh and i have a favor to ask. if you wouldn't mind taking a couple minutes to watch this video and then give it 5 stars, my sister would be so thankful. her boyfriend wants the opportunity to interview for this job, so if you vote it will help them out. :]
in case, the link doesn't work, you can copy and paste this: http://www.islandreefjob.com/#/applicants/watch/9GpkG1rKQbc

i hope you all enjoy the weekend! :]

everything is amazing right now, and nobody's happy.

go watch this video.
it's so true.
and it will probably make you instantly happier. :]

slowly but surely.

yesterday was the last day that the scrapbook store i used to work for was open. i didn't stop by, but as we drove past yesterday i mentioned to james that it was their last day of business. he asked me if i was sad. i replied that i wasn't so much sad, but i would definitely miss those saturday nights of scrapbooking and [mostly] talking with my scrappy friends there.
i will miss the gathering place that it had become.

when i found out that the store was closing, i decided that it would be nice to be able to have my scrappy friends over to the house occasionally for some scrappy nights. so i've been using this as inspiration to clean up all of my crap.

i've been making slow progress on mission: organize my studio. a little slower than i would like, but progress is progress. james walked in there the other day and actually said something along the lines of "wow. you have been cleaning." it felt nice to have a little acknowledgment from him for my cleaning efforts because he usually doesn't offer any due to my slow pace. :]

as an added incentive, i've been wanting a flip camera for a while now. so i decided that once my studio is in order, i might just reward myself with one so that i can make a video of it to post. ha. we'll see if that happens for real, but it's fun to think about.

james and i attempted to buy paint today, but i got completely frustrated at the store, so we left. with no paint.
i like the look of flat vs. glossy, but the color i chose was only available in glossy. ugh.
what do you think? i should admit that i don't have much experience with interior paint, so if you would like to offer your opinion, i would love to hear it. should i go with my instinct and find a flat color that i like, or would the glossy look just fine?

tonight, i stumbled across this thread at twopeas that's all about organization. so i've read over it and made a few notes of ideas that i might like to incorporate as storage solutions. i'm going to look over what i have/what my needs are and then make comparisons with my list of ideas to see what options will work best for me.

i absolutely loved this line from jennifer pebbles: "i may not be good at cleaning, but i like things to look a certain way: pretty and tidy." i can totally relate. :]

i still haven't uncovered my d80. i really have no idea where it could be... frustrating doesn't even begin to describe how that feels.

ten random updates.

1. i feel like i got out of bed on the wrong side today... know what i mean? i was just feeling totally out of it for most of the day.

2. i got the biggest best package of love today from may. i still can't believe it.

3. i might cancel my snowboarding plans with j tomorrow to stay home a craft.

4. i've been hunting all week for my d80. it is no where to be found. last night, i had j help me look for 45 minutes. no luck. tonight my mom and i looked again. no luck. i did find two of my nikon film cameras and a few lenses for them, but no d80.

5. helix is still escaping from the back yard. luckily he just sits on the front porch and doesn't run away. but still. i wish he would stop. i don't know why he wants to get out because he doesn't leave and he just acts totally freaked out when i let him in the front door.

6. martin + osa jeans are on sale right now. i'm debating whether i should buy one or two pairs.

7. i knew the movie version of confessions of a shop-a-holic wouldn't be as good as the book. i was fully prepared for that to be the case. but i really underestimated how "not as good as the book" it would be. i was borderline angry the entire time i was watching it. umm. tarquin is supposed to be suze's cousin! my friends who haven't read the book loved it though, so i'd say see it before you read the book. :]

8. i'm still getting a stomach ache every time i eat something. anything. there is no pattern that i can deduce between when the stomach aches occur and certain things i'm eating. it's frustrating.

9. google reader is one of the best things ever. i highly recommend it. i can't believe i took so long to try it. and it almost makes me want to turn the rss feed on for this blog. i'll have to give it some thought. since i have almost no idea who reads my blog as it is, maybe it's not that big of a deal to turn it on... hmm.

10. i'm off to meet james at tonic. :]

dream.

last night, i had a dream that i was drowning in a river.
someone came and saved me though.

what the heck does that dream mean!?

anyway.
it was a nice long weekend of nothing.

i thought j and i might go snowboarding, but then he reminded me that it's a holiday weekend and everyone would probably have the same idea. plus, it was snowing and cold. i'm a fair weather snowboarder. ha. he ended up going today with his friend eric. he said it was super packed, but the powder was worth it for him. he also said it was cold and wet because it was dumping snow on them. we agreed that i would have been miserable. ha. so i'm hoping for better weather next weekend. i've finally been getting the urge to go up.

i went to a few shops today in pursuit of new paper. why oh why did i think i needed more paper?
i didn't find a whole lot, which is probably a good thing.
surprisingly, i really like the penny lane collection, especially the maggie may papers like this cutie, from mme. i thought i was over mme, but the new stuff is pretty cute. plus, there wasn't anything else of interest.

tonight, i finished up confessions of a shopaholic. :] i wanted to give it a read because we're going to see the movie tomorrow for tnmn. i broke the news to james that for the second tuesday in a row, i was planning to see a girly movie with the girls. he said maybe he would do his own tnmn with some of the boys tomorrow. good plan.

otherwise, i'm not all that excited to go back to school tomorrow. it is nice to get back to a routine though. my students are running gels all week in lab, so that will be super exciting. ha.

time for bed.
oh, and alyssa, i'll post a photo of j's valentine's day gift soon. i'm too lazy to hunt down my camera right now. :]

happy valentine's day. :]

howie and james have been cooking up a storm in the kitchen today for deepa and me. :]
they decided to cook us a five course meal, which turned into a six course meal. we just finished course number four and we're taking a break. the soup was my favorite so far... it's a creamy bacon and potato soup with shrimp and a ton of other veggies. it was so yummy. we played a round of scattergories, which was hilarious and now we're watching our favorite performances from abdc. james and i have them all saved on the dvr thing. haha.

the highlight of the day was probably my gift from james. it came in one of my favorite little blue boxes. :]

last night, the boys had a poker tournament at the little wal, so i decided to stop by and hang out when they were done playing. i ran into owen there. we talked for a while, and it was pretty hilarious. he confessed that he changed his eighth grade schedule so that he would have some classes with me. all of this time, i had no idea. i guess he had no idea about my little crush on him back in the day either. it was just seriously so funny. he said, "wow. we probably could have had one of those month long relationships if we had known." haha. it was a good reminder of the awkwardness of the junior high days.

i hope everyone is enjoying valentines day!

teamwork.

i've mentioned before that james is a better cook than i am.
and i've mentioned that i'm trying to become a better cook.
but still, my favorite times are when we cook together.

tonight we made a pasta dish, that i like to call "andrew's pasta" because andrew [nelson] is the one who introduced us to the idea of using goat cheese in the pasta. normally, i refuse to mix the pasta with the sauce. i like to keep them segregated on my plate and then assemble each bite one by one as i eat. but when there is goat cheese involved, i am all about mixing it all together before serving it up. it sort of makes it a little more on the lasagna side, and i love it.

we also cooked up the chicken and rice soup tonight. i swear, once you make it from scratch, it's very hard to enjoy the canned variety. i'm so thankful that james handles the whole disassembly and cutting of the chicken breasts.

so yeah. it was a good night of teamwork in the kitchen. i'm just really happy that we can enjoy cooking together.

and how about a little survey that i'm taking from mandee's blog. :]
some of these are seriously random questions...

1. what is your occupation right now? hmm. teaching and learning.
2. what color are your socks right now? no socks today. i wore heels.
3. what are you listening to right now? ace of cakes is on tv.
4. what was the last thing that you ate? a piece of cake. oh and some hershey's kisses.
5. can you drive a stick shift? not so much. i know how to shift, but that's all.
6. last person you spoke to on the phone? james.
7. do you like the person who sent this to you? she didn't "send" it, but i like mandee. :]
8. how old are you today? 23
9. what is your favorite sport to watch on tv? snowboarding for now. it's winter, after all.
10. what is your favorite drink? tea.
11. have you ever dyed your hair? yep. it's been a while though.
12. favorite food? ha. i can't pick one. i love good food. chocolate fondue is a recent craving though.
13. what is the last movie you watched? she's just not that into you.
14. favorite day of the year? hmm. any day that brings the whole family together, hard to say what that is these days now that we have dispersed.
15. how do you vent anger? either go for a walk, blog, or talk to someone.
16. what was your favorite toy as a child? i loved my american girl dolls. also loved my bike. oh and remember the skip-it thing? i was in love with that thing one summer.
17. what is your favorite season? i like different things about all of them. usually half way though one, i am so ready for the next.
18. cherries or blueberries? blueberries.
19. do you want your friends to e-mail you back? it seems this isn't an email anymore.
20. who is the most likely to respond? hard to say who will even read this far. ha.
21. who is least likely to respond? see above answer.
22. living arrangements? with james and helix. :]
23. when was the last time you cried? friday night. ridiculous.
24. what is on the floor of your closet? umm. a basket with clothes that i haven't looked at in over a year. a huge bag full of shopping bags. a box full of other junk from my apartment. yep. i realize how ridiculous that sounds, and that i need to just throw all of that stuff away, but i am who i am.
25. who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending this to? not "sending" it, and i don't know who reads my blog really, so it's hard to say.
26. what did you do last night? made some slides of various bacteria in micro lab, ate a piece of pizza after lab that my ta's brought for us, talked to mandee, watched an hour of tv, played solitaire on my phone, read until i fell asleep.
27. what are you most afraid of losing? blah. i don't have a good answer to this that won't make me sad, so i'm just not going to think about it.
28. plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers? usually i prefer cheese.
29. favorite dog breed? well. i obviously love helix. he's a shiba inu. i like dachshunds too. in fact, i nearly bought myself one for my birthday, but made myself walk away.
30. favorite day of the week? friday is nice.
31. how many states have you lived in? uno.
32. diamonds or pearls? diamonds, obviously.
33. what is your favorite flower? lilacs smell so good. i wish they lasted longer.

why 33 questions? seems like such an odd number. ah well. i'm off to bed. :]

officially feeling like a student again.

today i had my first exam in microbiology.
it was like a moment of truth on how well i taught myself from reading the book, and also how much i could remember from my past classes.
i spent two nights reading the chapters then studying my own notes, as opposed to my usual one night of studying.
i got a 96%, which i am pretty happy about. :]

i think i'm going to be really ambitious and try to read the chapters before lecture so that i can just listen during lecture. i didn't use my class notes at all to study, so i don't think they are necessary. we do have to go to lecture though because we have little electronic "clickers" that we use to answer questions. i think it's basically a way for the professor to take attendance, which i think is lame in a college course. ah well.

so that's basically what i've been up to lately.

tonight, i might go see he's just not that into you again because it's tuesday night movie night for one thing, and i kind of want to have a mini celebration about my exam being over. plus a bunch of my girl friends are going, so it will be fun. i just need some caffeine. :]

in cooking news, james and i went grocery shopping on sunday and picked up the supplies to make the best chicken and rice soup ever again. i might tackle that tomorrow. my mom is sick, so i think she would love having that soup. i also want to figure out how to make my favorite thai dish at home. i'm convinced that it really can't be too hard. i just need to research the sauce a bit.

otherwise, i think it's about time to get a haircut. i'm just debating about how short to go. i'm sort of missing my long hair, but it's sooo easy to straighten these days. i seriously think it takes like half the time. pretty fabulous.

oh. and i want to go to san francisco this weekend, but i don't think it's going to happen. i guess a nice long weekend at home will be fine too. maybe i can try my luck at scrapbooking again. :]

alright. time to get some coffee in my system so i can stay awake for the movie. :]
do you have any fun plans for the long weekend ahead?

a bit of a carrie day.

i spent the morning wearing my sunglasses to hide puffy eyes.
i took them off at one point and looked in the mirror and couldn't help but think of the part where she's on what was supposed to be her honeymoon and takes off her sunglasses and you see her reflection in the mirror. yeah.
but it's all been worked out now, just like it all worked out for carrie. heee. :]

last night, i had a little post-birthday celebration with my friends.

we ate my favorite pizza at jj's.
then we had chocolate fondue at the chocolate bar.
then we went to imperial, where the night ended badly for me.
i think i was just tired and overly emotional, so i let things that normally wouldn't bother me at all really bother me. it was such a fabulous night... aside from the last 2 minutes, [right before i stormed out of imperial and ended my night]. i was really excited that so many people we able to come out for a little celebration. so much kindness. it was like a little mini biochem reunion, which i've decided we need to have more often. at jj's, i started laughing so hard a few times that i'm certain i stopped breathing.

today, james and i drove down to carson so that i could visit the scrapbook store there. i knew she would have the heidi grace valentines papers that no one else here has, and i was so excited to see them in person. finally. james even indulged me and said that a couple of them were cute. i know he could care less, but i always ask his opinion and i usually get a lame response. [what do i expect?] but today he was being extra nice. we ate lunch there and stopped by a puppy store before coming home.

i went to sushi with radhika tonight at the only sushi place where i'll agree to eat, hiroba. a nice rehashing of the events of last night with radhika was just what i needed to sort out my feelings from the night. so perfect. and since i don't eat sushi [as you know, if you know me] the hiroba beef really hit the spot. :]

when we got back to my house after dinner, james had just arrived from a family dinner, so we decided to go see he's just not that into you. james agreed to see it with me a few days ago because it has a few actors he likes, including kevin connolly from entourage, one of our favorite shows to watch together, and justin long from the mac commercials. ok. maybe i'm the one who likes justin long, but luckily i don't think james will read this to correct me. ha. anyway. we all enjoyed the movie. so many truths in there. girls sometimes have a funny way of rationalizing things. even i will admit to that. :]

alright. time to get to bed. tomorrow i have to attempt to buy my micro text for the 3rd time. i'm so sick of athletic events at unr. they block off all of the parking for them now. seriously. i think students should have some sort of priority. apparently the university doesn't see it that way though. i wasn't going to buy the text, but i think i explained previously that my professor's lectures leave a lot to be desired. so i'm buying the ridiculously overpriced text. ok. rant over. :]

goodnight.

scrappies.

two peas had a promotion last month for uploading your work to their gallery. you just had to upload 20 projects and tag them in various ways, and they would award you with a $20 store credit. since it had been roughly a year since i'd uploaded anything to my gallery there, i figured that 20 projects should be easy peasy.

then i started looking for 20 completed layouts.

i discovered that there weren't many to be found. certainly not 20.
have i really not been scrapbooking this past year? i guess not.
so i spent last friday working on some new layouts and finishing up some layouts that were in the "in progress" pile. i have a lot of those. probably more than 20. maybe that's the real problem. i work on layouts, but i don't finish them. oh and when i used to get bored at work [at the scrapbook store] i would sometimes start a layout. i never had any photos or any real idea of where i was going with the page, but it was a good way to pass the time. so i have quite the stack of those half-layouts.

it felt pretty awesome to finally actually have some new finished pages. here are a few of the highlights. aka my favorites.

i had fun just playing around with this layout. it wasn't a struggle to put it together, which was nice for a change. i wanted to document my hair cut, since i used to hate getting my hair cut for fear of a bad result. i love this patterned paper, and wanted to pull out the teal, so i tried to add little details to do that. i really love those technique tuesday chipboards. i found them when i was cleaning, and made a note to use them. they are so perfect for all kinds of pages.


i started this one when back when mr. campy was still new. yep. it sat in the "in progress" stack for quite a while because i couldn't figure out how to finish it. i finally just went with a little stitching and presto, i felt like it looked complete. oh how i love a little stitching. :]

this one was in the half-layout pile. i originally thought that i would scrap some pumpkin patch photos on here, but it didn't look right. for some reason, i had this photo printed, so i just went with it. i started may's online class at bps, which is all about scrapbooking in seasons, so i had that on my mind, thus the title. i know... super creative. ha. :]


the blue and green paper that i used on this page is probably one of my most favorite papers. i just thought it was rather perfect for a winter page. unfortunately, i don't have any new photos of james and i snowboarding this year because i haven't gone up with him yet. instead of wait for that day to come since it might not this year based on my extremely low tolerance for cold after the new york trip, i decided to just do a little re-scrap of this photo from last year. this is probably the third time i've scrapbooked it. but this one is my favorite. :]


this one isn't super new. i made it in the middle of january. just a little documentation of my current resolution. :]


during cha, i hosted a challenge over on the fiskateer message board which was to use some type of overlay or transparent element on a layout. i took my own challenge, and this was my result. the chandelier is from the 2008 hambly catalog.



anyway. those are my latest attempts at scrapbooking. now i just need to try to keep it up so that i have more than 20 pages for this year. ha.

p.s. i need to start using my other camera. no matter how hard i try, the point and shoot i use now likes to warp straight lines, change colors to different shades, and never seems to take good photos of layouts with white backgrounds. so i assure you, the lines are straight, the colors match, and these look better in person. but i still wanted to share. :]

why not...

eat birthday cake for breakfast?
especially when it's from nothing bundt cake.

sounds good to me. :]

yesterday was a good day.
i had lunch with my mom before finishing up some homework.
after an easy lab, i enjoyed dinner at my favorite little italian place with my parents and james.
then we came home to the aforementioned cake, which topped the day off perfectly.

thanks for the birthday wishes!

when life gives you lemons...

today was not one of my better days.
i think i have myself to blame though. in true amy fashion, i expected too much. i expected that my friends would be interested in a TNMN to celebrate my birthday. i expected that since i had mentioned it to them, it would happen.
it didn't.
i was left frustrated and upset.
and now i'm kind of over making any attempt to celebrate my birthday with my friends. we'll see.
i did this same thing for my 21st birthday, and it turned out to be ok in the end, even if it wasn't what i had expected.
for my 22nd birthday, i didn't expect much and my birthday was fabulous.
you would think i would learn from this, right?


anyway.

we flew back from vegas yesterday morning on the first flight out, and it was time to get right back to business. i had to go to school and james had to go to work. we were so tired! actually, i set my alarm wrong, and we almost missed our ride to the airport. luckily, my sister and jamie were leaving with us in the morning, so they called us 10 minutes before we were supposed be out at the limo to find out where we were. um. asleep. but we made it just fine. :]

the trip was a lot of fun. my sister, jamie, james and i went to see O on saturday night. it was my second time seeing it, and i noticed so many more details. still totally amazed by what they are able to pull off. everyone else loved the show too. it was their first time, and they all agreed it would be fun to see it again.james was hoping to get tickets to the big ufc fight that took place on saturday night, and my dad's casino host told him it wouldn't be a problem. i guess his host had overlooked the fact that it was "an epic fight" so he didn't secure tickets for james and jamie in time. sorry boys.

we also went to the superbowl party, which was fabulous. the amount and variety of food available is just ridiculous. not good for anyone's diet, that's for sure. i finally figured out that maybe they went with the palm tree theme because the game was in florida? i think i would just go with a general football theme, but i guess that's not good enough. ha.

everyone was happy to get to hang out with victoria. my sister doesn't get to see her very often, so she was really happy to have time with her this trip. unfortunately, she's be a bit sick lately. she's still a pretty happy baby, even when she's sick, but it's so sad to hear her little cough. i think she got pretty worn out from all of the attention and stimulation of being around so many people. so cute.she is trying to walk, but still being rather cautious. she will take a couple steps to get from one piece of furniture to another and she loves going for walks if you let her hold onto your fingers, but her preferred method of transportation is still crawling... she can really scoot around!

it was a fun trip. too short though. i'm trying to decide if i can swing a trip down for victoria's first birthday in a month. we'll see how busy things are with school. grr.

yesterday turned into one of those days that feels like more than one day. at dinner, i asked james if it felt like we had flown back from vegas that morning, and he said no. i totally agreed.

in micro, we were drawing various types of organisms as we saw them under the microscope. i have a love/hate relationship with microscopes. i love it when they cooperate with me because it's so cool to see things so differently when you magnify them 1000x. especially with oil immersion. but i hate them because they never seem to focus for me as easily as they do for other people. i think it's because i wear glasses or something. i was so glad to be done with the lab, but i basically have a whole semester of microscopy ahead of me in this lab. i need to find a way to befriend microscope #14, my microscope.

as far as teaching, i'm getting a little frustrated. i need to be more patient i guess. i just feel like these students should be able to read directions and follow a protocol! the other thing that makes me so angry, is when they argue for a point on their quiz. one point! are you kidding me? not only were you wrong, but you are shameless enough to ask me for a point for your wrong answer after we've been over the correct answers? ugh. i will definitely need to find some extra patience somewhere. and soon.

otherwise, i've gone through the past few weeks thinking that my birthday was on thursday, and it wasn't until yesterday that i realized it's on wednesday. i even said something to james about it being on thursday, and he took my word for it. so when we were in vegas, he said something about my birthday being on thursday, and my mom and sister gave him a hard time about not knowing when my birthday was... poor guy. ha.

i know i still need to post photos from new york. i don't know why i've been so lazy about it. i think it's just because i got sick on the trip, so it didn't turn out how i would have liked. and i definitely don't have as many cool photos to share as i would like. i'll get them posted soon. i have another post in the works with some scrappy stuff too.

okie. i'm off to read.
goodnight!