currently:

1. resisting the urge to buy everything on this website.
love the clothes. love the prices. :] maybe i will use this as a bribe to myself to donate more of my older clothes.

2. considering whether or not i "need" this. i mean really... who doesn't need graph paper masking tape? i can think of plenty of fun uses, the problem is that i would probably just hoard it anyway.

3. craving this. i've made it for dessert previously, and it was super good. i'm thinking maybe friday night i'll pick up something to grill and get a bunch of berries too.

4. also wondering how these taste. maybe i'll just hold out until i am near a cheesecake factory and just fulfill my craving then. i mean, it's probably better for my calorie intake to not find a good cheesecake recipe that i can make at home. but then again, they are minis. :]

5. listening to this song quite a bit. it's just pretty.

that's about all i can think of for now, but i thought it would be fun to post some links.

at my mom's appointment yesterday, the ophthalmologist said that her corneal abrasions are already looking 50% better. so that is definitely a good sign. her vision will still be blurry in that eye for a while, and there is still some glue that is stuck to her eyelid, so we just have to keep an eye out for it and remove it as it comes loose so that it doesn't get in her eye. she's doing pretty well though. :]

i hope everyone has enjoyed the weekend.
tonight, we are going to have a little birthday dinner celebration for my dad.
i better go get ready. :]

a trip to the ER.

this morning, i woke up around 6:30 [after 3 hours of sleep] because helix was going insane. i jolted myself out of bed to find that my mom was crying hysterically, basically inaudible, and trying to come downstairs to my room. i ran over to her, and found out that she had mistakingly used nail glue instead of her eye drops. i told her to get her eye under running water, but she said she couldn't because it was sealed shut. CRAP. i tried calling my dad, but he didn't answer. so i looked up what to do, and decided to just take her to the ER.

when we got there, they got her checked in pretty quickly, but not without answering the same questions three different times. [i love that about the ER.] then we waited. and waited. and waited. a nurse popped into the room occasionally, but all he said were things like "i've never seen this before, so i don't really know what we're going to do." umm. thanks for the reassurance! i eventually got ahold of my dad, who had slept through his alarm. so he was frantically trying to leave the house as i explained where i was and why i was there. i think he was in a bit of disbelief when i first told him because he called me about ten minutes later and started asking questions. at that point, he tried to reassure me, but a lot of things were still uncertain because her eye was still sealed shut.

eventually, they put some mineral oil ointment on her eye, which was supposed to help it separate. it didn't quite work to the extent it was supposed to... i think she was crying too hard and washed most of it away, but crying was good for this situation too. the doctor finally came and basically pried her eyelids apart.
oh.
my.
gosh.
i couldn't watch it, but i definitely heard how much it was hurting.
i felt so bad. and it only made the pain worse for her because now she could move her eye more and all the hardened glue was able to scratch her eye more than before. the ER doctor tried to trim some of the glue off her eyelashes, but didn't have much success.

finally, the ER doctor gave us a referral to an ophthalmologist. she couldn't see at all at this point, so the nurse helped me get her into the car, and off we went. i got her all checked in at the office, but i had to leave for class at that point. i was going to just miss it, but she insisted that i go. my dad called again before i left, and when i told him that mom was pretty upset (still borderline hysterical because of the pain, and i'm sure also because of the uncertainty... she hadn't been able to see out of her eye and was keeping it shut for the meantime) he reassured me again, and he insisted on talking to her when i told him she was crying too hard to talk to him. he really did a good job of calming her down. :] that triggered my own tears though. funny how that works. my dad has a good way of telling us everything will be ok, but it tends result in me shedding some tears. i think at that point, my adrenaline rush was wearing off too, but i made my best effort to quickly wipe away the tears so my mom wouldn't catch on to the fact that i was crying. ha.

i went to class, but left after about 30 minutes. i got back to the ophthalmologist's office about ten minutes before she was done, and when i saw her, i felt instantly better. she looked so much better and so clam from when i left her. the doctor trimmed her eyelashes to get rid of lots of dried glue and removed a few large chunks from her eye. her cornea is scratched pretty badly, and her vision is really blurry in that eye right now, but it will improve over time. the ophthalmologist also reassured her that she sees this situation all the time, so i think that really helped her ease up on beating her self up over it.

i'm taking her in for a followup tomorrow afternoon. hopefully it will be all good news. my dad is going to try to get done at the hospital early enough to meet us at the appointment tomorrow. hopefully that will work out too.

so it was a very eventful day. it's so hard to see your mom hurting, and feel like you can't do much to help except provide plenty of tissues. i'm just really glad that she is feeling ok now... aside from her eye being very swollen and being in some pain. we got some food after we were home and showered and everything, and we had a good talk while we were eating along the everything happens for a reason lines. i think she was sad that she missed her golf tournament, but hopefully our talk helped a bit. :]

i had to take my midterm for psychology today... luckily it was online, and i had until 10pm to get it done. somehow i managed to get 100%. i was beyond tried and my mind was just completely out of it, so i was thinking that taking it would be pretty interesting taking it, but thankfully it was easy. the funny thing is that i changed my mind on two answers in the last minute [it's a timed test] and usually i regret doing that, but for once it worked out. i was pretty excited when i saw my score. haha.

alright. i'm way past being exhausted, but i can't sleep because i'm thinking about everything. i think i'll go start a new book and see if that does the trick.

so glad it's the weekend!

signs of summer.

my psychology professor finally figured out how to turn on the air conditioning in the classroom today.
we only have one week left of class, but i am still thankful. it was seriously so hot in that room, and sitting in there for three hours was getting to be too much. ha.
otherwise, psychology is going well. it's actually not as annoying as i anticipated. my professor has a pretty straightforward scientific approach to the subject, which i appreciate. it makes it much easier for me to stay interested in the material.

other signs of summer:
-we had corn on the cob with dinner last night. james grilled our whole meal. i think that to boys, grilling = summer. ha.
-i met erin for frozen yogurt today. i love frozen yogurt on a hot day.
-i've nearly finished off the first box of popsicles of the summer. there will be many more to follow. i'm a big fan of popsicles.
-i'm getting the urge to wear the summer dresses i've been accumulating for hawaii. i'm going to try to wait though.
-i'm no longer craving london fog on a daily basis. it's too stinking hot to drink something hot. even if it is so yummy. instead, i'm craving fruit, which is more healthy anyway.

otherwise, not a lot going on around here.
-i'm staying pretty busy with my psychology text. my midterm is tomorrow. it should really be called a 2/3term because we are 2/3 of the way done.
-also still on the hunt for cute vintage items. we had another art journal club meeting tonight. it was fun. we talked and talked and talked. we talked about where in the heck our time goes each day, but none of us came up with an answer. ha. i was really wishing that i had brought more cute stuff with me for collaging. i'm hoping to go on a treasure hunt for cute stuff this weekend. we'll see how it pans out.
-i've been reading mary poppins in order to help myself fall asleep lately. i finished it up last night and fell asleep with a smile.
-oh! and i scrapbooked! the other day, something came over me and i got a two pages finished. both of them were made using the may studio calico kit + older, already printed photos, which makes me super happy. i need to be more diligent about using up the kits. and i need to stop using the "no new photos" excuse for not scrapbooking. i was feeling a serious sense of yay! when i finally got these photos onto layouts.
here's my best effort to get some images with my point and shoot camera...
i've had this photo sitting in the to-scrap pile for a good amount of time now. it's from the fiskateer crop last november. i'm so glad mandee came. :] the layout is really meant to focus on one of the many awesome friendships i've made through scrapbooking.


these photos i have seriously attempted to get on at least three layouts now. i'm glad something finally worked out, and they are out of the to-scrap pile. :]

i'm hoping to maybe get one more layout out of this kit, and then tackle another older kit and make another layout before the next kit arrives. we'll see how i do with that.

alright. well. that's about all for now.
except one more thing... i'm wishing my dad a happy birthday today. he had to work, but i'm excited to have a celebratory dinner this weekend. :]

the past two weeks.

school finished up nicely with an A in micro and little hassle in submitting final grades for my lab section.
now i'm back at it with a psychology class. i'm not a big fan, so i decided that getting it over with in three weeks would be the way to go. :]

during my week off of school, i got in a lot of hours at work. i won't be working again until late june or july because of summer school and hawaii. now that i'm away from the lab, i'm realizing that it wasn't as bad as i was thinking. ha.

i celebrated mother's day with my mom. actually, she enjoyed a day of golf with my dad, and we had dinner together in the evening. i was happy to find these vibrant flowers and a fun card to give her.[excuse the bad photo. my point and shoot is failing me, and i still haven't uncovered the d80 in spite of hours of searching.]
seriously... i love how my mom is my biggest cheerleader. she always supports and encourages me in all of my endeavors and helps me out however she can. lately, i've been appreciating her expert advice on some sewing projects. [i have nothing to show of my attempts yet.] she is also always willing to listen to me talk about whatever i may need to discuss and offer advice when i ask for it. i've been enjoying that our relationship has grown to the point where she can talk to me about all sorts of things now too. it's nice to have someone who unconditionally understands. :]

last week, a bunch of us celebrated mike's birthday. we had a crowd of over 20 people for dinner. afterwards, the biochem portion of the group encouraged mike to go the chocolate bar to prolong the celebration with fondue. i think it was his first time at the chocolate bar... hopefully we can convince him to come out again. i was happy that we got this photo of the some of the biochem girls together.
our friend katie [to the right of me] decided to take an extra year to graduate so she could get a minor, so we missed her during our last year of biochem... it was nice to catch up with her again. she's off to med school in the fall with kira and deepa and mike... and the list goes on and on. one thing i've realized lately is that i will have no shortage of medical professionals to turn to in the coming years. ha.

last week was also the first art journal club meeting. jeanne organized the group, and i'm really thankful that i'm part of it. i've never made an art journal from scratch, so i'm excited. i've been having fun in my spare time [there hasn't been much lately] looking for vintage-type items. i was really tempted to buy this game because i thought it might contain cards with images similar to the images on the box. i opened it up and found no such cards, so i left it behind. now i'm almost wondering if i should have brought it home just for the cute box. ha.
i found some old dress patterns at the thrift store too. some of them will be cut up and used for art journal collage, but there are a few that i totally adore. i'm going to try to find a way to display them as i get my studio more and more put together.

on saturday, i got to see miss victoria for about an hour before she went back to vegas. despite my best attempts with my iphone, she wasn't in the mood for a photo.
she and amanda were visiting because amanda's brother graduated from unr. they had to leave after the unr graduation because amanda's med school graduation was on sunday. my parents went down to vegas for her graduation and have stayed through the week to help them move into their new home, which they closed on earlier this week. my dad also had the honor of hooding amanda at the ceremony. that entailed a great adventure of buying a suit before my parents left for vegas. so funny listening to my mom talk about it. my dad is not much of a clothing shopper... let alone the process of buying a suit. ha.

on tuesday, james and i went out for a tnmn to see star trek. we loved it. i always watched it on tv when i was a little one with my dad. james was never a big fan of the tv show, but said that the movie made star trek seem so cool. i inquired about why it wasn't cool before, and he told me that he had never wanted to be one of the characters in the tv show, but with the movie, he definitely wanted to be one of them. i asked him if that was his criterion for "being cool", and he said that's pretty much what it takes. i thought it was pretty hilarious. my criteria are totally different. i don't have to want to be the character for it to "be cool" in my opinion.

after class yesterday, i had lunch with one of my students from last semester, emil. we ate at the rubicon deli, which never disappoints. i have to give them credit for having a sandwich on the menu that i can order. usually i do the create-your-own option because i am so picky. ha. lunch was great and we spent about an hour talking about all kinds of things.
then i met up with radhika to see ghosts of girlfriends past. we both really liked it. it's a movie that i will probably watch again sometime when i am home alone one night and wanting to watch a movie. or maybe a night at home with some girl friends. i don't think james would really be into it, but i thought it was cute.

otherwise, i've been stocking up on books lately, but not getting anywhere with my summer reading attempts. my psychology text is getting in the way of that. if i try to read for fun, i just feel guilty. grr. at least it's pretty easy reading. it's funny, as an actual undergrad, i very rarely read the texts, but now i'm finding classes are pretty darn easy when i do the reading. granted, these classes are far easier than most of the classes i took as an undergrad, but if i could go back in time with this knowledge... i bet i could erase a few blemishes on my transcript. ha. oh well. i'm thinking maybe this weekend i will head up to the beach and make an attempt at some fun reading. we'll see.

as i mentioned briefly in my last post, i've started working out. it feels completely terrible during the process, but pretty amazing afterward. not being able to walk normally or go downstairs is a bit bothersome, but the soreness is just a reminder that i must have gotten a good workout, right?
as deepa told me, i just need to keep my eye on the prize. :]
i also mentioned that i went out to celebrate graduation. here's deepa, roxana, and me that night. it's the only good photo i have from the whole night. i only took four photos though, so one in four is not too bad. ha.

i think that's about all for now. i'm sure i've forgotten some details of the past two weeks, but the highlights are there. :]

sore.

i worked out for the first time in ages yesterday, then went out to celebrate with some friends who graduated yesterday.

workout + dancing + wearing heels until 4am = bad news.

today i can barely move.
legs, abs, arms... all completely sore.
as much as i hate not being able to move, i also sort of love knowing that i got a good workout.


anyway. i'm not sure why, but i've been ignoring my blog as of late. i'll be back with a more substantial post soon.
i hope everyone is enjoying the weekend. :]

over it.

tonight, i hit a wall when i was attempting to study for my final, which is at noon tomorrow.
i can't get past it. i spent a while at school trying to re-group, but it's just not happening. i'm hoping things will come together in the morning, and i can do a bit of studying.
i only need a 70%, so i'm not feeling much pressure. i guess that's part of the problem. but it's not in my nature to just do the bare-minimum. i still want to do well on the final, even if i pretty much have an A secured.

today was poster day for the graduating biochem majors. i stopped by to see some friends and some professors. i was mad when i noticed that some people had copied my poster layout and used some of the same photos i used. i had been warned about this when i saw a professor at starbucks on monday morning. i knew i should have taken my poster down, but i was asked to leave it up as an example. :/
aside from that, it was nice to visit the med school labs. i sort of miss walking down those halls everyday. and i couldn't help but wish there was some [any] position available in a lab up there instead of just my current job.

a bunch of us went to lunch after meeting up at the poster session.
i can't even put into words how amazing it was to meet up with the old group.
there were eleven of us, and we spent two hours reminiscing. i hadn't laughed that hard in a good while. :]

i'm looking forward to being finished with my final tomorrow, even though i'm most likely taking a mini term class, so i won't have much of a break. during my week off, i'm excited to knit, sew, scrapbook, shop, and go to the beach.

ok. off to bed i go.

nsd.

today is national scrapbooking day, so i decided to take a break from school stuff to participate in a couple challenges over at studio calico.

these two layouts came together very fast, each one took me less than two hours to complete. i decided to just sort of go with whatever came to me, and not fight it or try to make things look a certain way. i'm happy with the results.

this layout was a combination of the "embrace white space" and "music" challenges given by the two tinas. i took that mini polaroid shot this morning. i think the film in my camera is bad, but i just went with it. :]
i'm also excited that i finally figured out a way to use that dotted swiss cardstock from bazzill. when i first saw it, i thought it would be my new favorite cardstock, but it turned out to be a struggle for me to use. i always found myself wishing that the core was white so that you could sand it and get that cool distressed look. well. today i decided to sew that teal paper over it, and messed up a little bit bit with my sewing. so i decided to use sand paper to give the sewing the intentionally messed up look, and when i sanded on the teal paper, i quickly realized that the dots were showing up. i'm definitely going to try this technique again.


this one is for the "use three different patterned papers", "hand stitch", and "use ledger paper" challenges. i just realized that it sort of fits the "use cute animals" challenge too. :] the photo is one that amanda mailed to me back in december. i put in with the rest of printed photos that i might one day scrap. today was its lucky day. ha. every time i hand stitch, i'm reminded of why i hate hand stitching. my thumb is still sore. not sure why i thought it would be a good idea to sew through ribbon that was adhered with glue dots, but i ruined my needle. ah well.

tonight, i'm going over to a friend's house for some more crafty time. i need to work on some atcs for a swap, so i think that will be a good project for tonight.

james is playing softball all day. his company is participating in some type of tournament where different local businesses compete in various sports. he called me a while ago to let me know that they are winning their games. he was pretty excited. ha. so i don't imagine he will be home for a while.
eta: they won the championship. :]

otherwise, this weekend will just entail me getting ready for two exams next week. not very fun, so i'm happy to be enjoying today with some scrapbooking.

hope you are all having a fabulous weekend. :]

do i talk about food too much?

i often say that i am a fat girl at heart. usually when i'm going on and on about food and someone makes a comment about how i couldn't possibly eat very much being my size.
this post might be evidence of my inner fat girl because i feel like i have a lot to say about food. :]

last night, our friend mike asked me what i want to do in hawaii, and i replied "eat pineapple and have lots of shaved ice."
ha.
then i told him i want to go on at least one good adventure, so we discussed a little trip to manoa falls for some hiking.
anyway. today when james and i were at costco, i almost bought a pineapple, but then i remembered how good the last pineapple that mike brought back from hawaii for me tasted, so i passed. i knew it probably wouldn't live up to the last one i had. plus, i wasn't kidding about the eating pineapple while in hawaii thing. i'm planning to have several meals of pineapple, so i think i can hold off for the good stuff.
i bought strawberries instead, and promptly ate a bunch of them when we walked in the door. ha.

this week has been a busy one, but that's to be expected since the semester is coming to an end.
i had my presentation in micro on tuesday. it went pretty well. i always get so worried about presenting, but i need to just remind myself that i have a tendency to hold myself to a higher standard than most other people. everything always turns out well no matter how much i stress over it, so i need to learn not to stress so much.
i also had my last lab. it's just a weird feeling. i got a little sad that i won't see some of the people anymore. i don't remember feeling like that perviously. i guess i'm getting weak in my old age. ha. but there were a couple girls who were just really nice, and i sort of regret that i didn't get to know them better during year. sigh.

even though i had a lot going on, i made time to make cookies on monday night. it had been a while, and i wanted to try out a recipe. i know that i've mentioned one of my favorite local restaurants is the sup. well. they always put a little cookie on your plate, and they are so yummy. so deepa and i were telling the lady how much we love the cookies and she gave us the recipe! so cool. so i tried it out, and the cookies are sooo good. :] they are even a hit with james, which says a lot since he doesn't tend to like sweets at all. i think my mixer was happy to be taken out of the cupboard and put to use again too. ha.

i was supposed to update about the weekend with erin.
we had a lot of fun venturing all over the place downtown after deepa's party. we had tea at seven, made a few stops into imperial, went on an epic search for food, visited with old friends, and had a little dance party at tonic.
and we had the best breakfast.
[gotta love taking pictures with the phone. you can catch people off guard. i stillllll can't find my camera.]

it had been too long since i'd eaten at peg's for sure. definitely worth rolling out of bed after three hours of sleep to go eat there. :]
it was really nice to spend time with erin again. and she might be getting a job in reno soon, which would be awesome.

anyway. i have a long day at work tomorrow. i guess that means it's time for bed.