:]

i love this photo of victoria. i kept looking at it over and over, and eventually i realized that i think i've seen a similar photo of myself when i was little. i asked my mom about it, and she said that it does indeed look a lot like me and she remembers a photo of me with a similar pose and facial expression. i'll have to see if i can find it.

next week, my sister and jamie are coming to town for a few days. then on the weekend, my brother and victoria will arrive to stay for a week. i am so excited to have some good family time. i only wish i could find my d80 camera to get some nice shots since we'll all be together. it doesn't happen that often anymore.

i started my anatomy class this week, and i also started working in the environmental chem lab again. so far so good for both of those. i'm hoping that eventually my anxiety and panic about the cadavers in anatomy lab will subside, but i'm not counting on it. luckily, roxana was able to sign up for the class. anatomy usually fills up fast and becomes impossible to add. luckily someone dropped it, and it happened to be in my lab section! i'm so thankful to have the support of a friend in lab.

this weekend i get to clean out my old car and start driving the new one. i suppose it's about time, since it's been sitting in the garage for a few months. i've just been sort of putting it off. i definitely don't have the hang of driving a manual yet, so i need to get some serious practice this weekend. otherwise, i'll pretty much be stuck at home next week and my schedule is crazy between helping with the boys, going to class, and working in the lab. wish me luck on quickly mastering the clutch.

james and i might attempt dinner and a movie tonight, so i'm off to get ready!
i hope you all had a great week. :]

late night snackers.

i just got out of bed after over three hours of trying to fall asleep. i have too much on my mind. anyway. i thought i would have a little snack [a hand full of life cereal and some milk] to see if maybe it would help me sleep.

so i'm sitting here finishing my snack, and i hear helix get up. now he's munching away on his food too. ha.

here's a recent photo of him. i need to take more, but it's hard to get him to hold still for very long before he finds a toy or something more interesting. he's pretty spoiled. he's pretty much taken over every blanket in the house as his own. :]

deepa had dinner with james and i tonight, and then she came by the house for a bit. she said that helix is the cutest dog ever. maybe i'm a little biased, but i tend to agree. even if his hair gets everywhere and he chews up my clothes from time to time. ha.

another reminder...

that every page doesn't have to be your favorite page.
i had this idea in my mind and it definitely didn't translate onto paper very well at all. as a result, i turned to those buttons. i didn't like them very much though, so i turned to the flowers. i didn't really like them either, so i added some of the dots from the thickers alphabet set. still not in love, so i decided to add the stitching around the label shaped paper. that didn't quite do it either, but i decided to just call it quits at that point. sometimes you have to know when to walk away.oh i tried to use one of the studio calico stamps in an attempt to accessorize a bit before going overboard with the buttons and flowers, but i think it was pretty much a failure too. i couldn't find my brown ink on my desk, so i went with the black. eww. bad choice. haha.
the photo printed out pretty dark, but i just went with it. i guess i had somehow anticipated that it wasn't going to be one of my favorite layouts. ha. i'll probably make a new/different layout with this photo anyway because i do really like it.
oh. and when i finally decided to put the layout aside and be done, i realized that the overall layout [the placement of the single photo] is nearly identical to the waimea bay layout. hmm. maybe i'm stuck in a rut? i made it before the dream vacation layout below too, so basically i made back to back nearly identical layouts. how sad. so i today i remembered that kelly purkey is hosting a monthly sketch at twopeas. i think i might try my hand at a few of them to see if i can move past the single-slanted-photo-slightly-to-the-left-near-the-bottom-half-of-the-page layouts. ha. :]

yenh and i saw julie & julia tonight. i wasn't sure what to expect, but it ended up being a good one. something i would probably watch again if it was on tv, and i was staying in alone for the night. yenh and i are both definitely feeling inspired to learn how cook too. you know... like really cook. making your own sauces and everything. that would be pretty cool.

ok. i'm off to bed now.

goodnight. :]

pcat.

well. i took the pcat this morning, and promptly filled in the "no score" bubble when i finished the last problem.
all in all, i think it was ok. but as expected, the chemistry part was not so good for me. i feel like that's the area that i need to do the best on, so i decided to cancel my score, and i will take the test again in october.
i had an idea going into the exam that i might end up doing that.
it was still a good experience though. now i know what it's like to take a full length exam in one sitting, and i know more of what to expect and what i need to work on for the next time.

otherwise, i've been craving chinese food like crazy lately. i'm in love with the orange chicken at my favorite local chinese restaurant, and i keep telling james that i want chinese for dinner. so he set up a dinner tonight at p.f. changs. hmm. not what i had in mind since i won't get my orange chicken, but it will still be good. ha.
i guess i should have been more clear when i was telling him what i wanted. :]

i guess i need to go get ready.
i hope everyone is enjoying the weekend.
taking that test today has sort of thrown me for a loop because i keep thinking that it's friday for some reason. ack!

five.

emily issued a challenge over at studio calico to make a layout using just five items: one sheet of patterned paper, embroidery floss, metal, paint, and alphabet stickers. she said you could add cardstock for the base. here's what i came up with...
as usual, i struggled to get a good photo of this layout... white layouts seem to be particularly hard to photograph.

i used a piece of studio calico paper called "cafe american" because it had the teal color that i wanted to use to accent the photo.

the detail shots are a bit better than the overall shot:
for the metal element, i used black wire and twisted it up with some pliers. i'm not sure if you can really tell, but i made a little heart at the beginning. i like how the wire added some depth to an otherwise flat layout.
i used acrylic paint to paint a bunch of hearts all over the white cardstock, then i sewed around the perimeter of each heart with black embroidery floss.

all in all, it was fun to work on this page and try to figure out how to incorporate each element, and only those elements.

happy friday! :]

seriously!?

seeing this just made my day!
i decided to update my twopeas gallery last night because i couldn't sleep, and today i got a peamail from someone letting me know that i had the featured layout. :]

p.s. if you click on the photo it's much less blurry.

wordless wednesday.

ok. so i got this idea from mandee, who got the idea from kelly noel, who got the idea from someone else... you get the picture. this isn't my idea, but i like the concept. so i'm going to try to do it too.

i don't have any new photos to share, and my camera is dead so i can't even upload the latest ones. but here's a photo from a couple weeks ago that i haven't posted.
i met up with yenh and some other friends at the chocolate bar for fondue one night. curly hair and all. eek. you can generally tell when i've been watching a lot of satc because i get inspired by carrie to start embracing my curls. :]

i hope everyone is having a great wednesday!

james and i just washed all of the cars and had a nice home cooked dinner. we got our dose of omega-3s from salmon, which is pretty much the only fish i will eat. now we're off to bowling night because james filling in for a friend who broke his foot.

[i know. it's supposed to be a wordless post, but you know me. wordless wednesday posts will probably never be entirely wordless, but at least they will ensure more photos make it on here to keep things interesting.]

tired.

by 10:30 this morning, i was feeling exhausted. i'm ready to go to bed, and the day isn't even half over. ugh.
i stayed up all night cleaning my room before getting up at 7 to go help with the boys. three hours of sleep just doesn't get me as far as it used it. you'd think i would have taken note of this by now.
anyway.
did i mention that my dad decided to get everyone new beds after he found out that he could order the bellagio mattresses? they are seriously the most comfortable beds ever. we talk about them all the time, especially when staying in other hotels with less comfortable beds. so my dad asked his bellagio host guy and found out that the mattresses are specially made just for bellagio, but they will sell them to individuals. score. :]
today is delivery day, which meant that james and i removed my old bed from my room last night to clear the area. with the bed out of the way, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for an organizing/purging/deep cleaning session. so i spent about 5 hours last night doing that.
every time i get caught up in a big cleaning process, i vow to never let it happen again... keep up with all the organizing as i need to instead of letting the piles accumulate. i never seem to sick to it for very long though. :/
the good news is that my bedroom looks the best it's ever looked, and i have pinpointed my two biggest problem areas. first is the clothes problem. shocking right? the second is receipts. those things pile up so quickly. so along with my attempts [which have gotten better, i'm happy to report] to do laundry more regularly, i'm also going to go through my receipts more often.

the weekend was pretty laid back. i took a beading class with michele on saturday, and it was pretty cool. i learned a few new tips and tricks, and i'm pretty much addicted to making bracelets and necklaces now. it's fun, fast, and more simple than scrapbooking. i guess i needed another hobby to add to the growing list? ha. i'm excited to hunt for more beads to add to my little collection now. that was about it for fun stuff. on sunday i watched the boys pretty much all day. oh and james and i watched abdc sunday night. i have my clear favorites already, and it was only the second episode. :]

ok. well maybe it's time for some tea so i can get more things accomplished today. happy monday.

see you soon.

as people finished the econ final today and handed it in, my professor would say "thank you" to each person.
then when i turned mine in, she said, "i'll see you soon. you have my email address, right?"
the thing is that i started getting sad when i was getting to the last few questions because i realized the class was over. i guess i liked it more than i realized and definitely more than i anticipated. it was all thanks to my professor. :]

p.s. both finals went well, even though i did get sick last night.
time to move on to studying for the pcat. :/

two.

tomorrow is my last day of summer school!
so i have my two finals tomorrow.
i've calculated it out and it looks like i can get under 65% on each final to keep my A in both classes.
so why do i still feel anxiety!? i think it's because i would be disappointed with anything close to that grade on either of these tests. i'm hoping to finish strong. :]
i gave my last speech today, which was a relief. after class, my new friend mary and i were talking about how neither of us feel like we've really become better speakers as a result of the class. i think the main things that have made me better at public speaking were early experiences... like those presentations in mr. johnson's class and the whole science fair experience, and then during college, i think teaching really helped me get better at being comfortable speaking to large groups and definitely presenting my research in lab meetings, proseminar, and during poster day was probably the biggest help. i wish i could say that i took something more valuable away from this class. oh well... it's another pre-requisite checked off my list.

in other news, i bought two new pairs of shoes on monday. i decided it was time to purge a few, and i'm not going to allow myself to take the new ones out of their boxes until i get rid of two old pairs. that should be a good motivator. :]
i've also been helping to look after two little boys in the mornings a couple days a week. i help get them ready and then take them to school and whatnot. so i have two car seats in the back of my car these days, and i have two cds of funny sing-along music in my car. ha. good times. even if it means i only get three or four hours of sleep per night.

alright. i'm exhausted. hoping to get six hours of sleep tonight, which will feel amazing. :]

waimea bay layout.

here it is...
like is said, this one is pretty simple. i attribute that to the making memories paper being so covered with print... half the work of embellishing was done for me. i like how the paper is embossed too. it just gives the pattern a bit more depth. the funny thing is that i generally look at papers like that and dismiss them, thinking that i won't actually use them. i guess that's another good thing about kits, sometimes you get to try new things that you might not have considered previously.
this was also the first time i've used the fabrips that show up in the kits occasionally. i've actually been meaning to use the ones from the garment district kit because i like some of the patterns a lot, but it hasn't happened yet. the bigger middle flower was made with a strip of the fabrip. i was also surprised to use the making memories tape... another item that i had sort of dismissed. i used it for the other two smaller flowers.

i also have to add here how nice it is to scrap with a friend... it tends to help speed up my process because instead of debating things forever, i was able to ask mandee and end the debate. :] and she always gives me the extra push i sometimes need to start cutting into papers. ha.

i hope everyone is enjoying the weekend. i have to write a speech critique [of one of my own speeches that was recorded] and otherwise, i have a few more loads of laundry to catch up on today. i'm hoping to pick up some more of those hanging folders and make some progress on my paper organization. i think james and i are having dinner with deepa and howie tonight too, so that should be nice. ok. well i better go get busy. :]

finally.

i'm officially in love with staples office supply store.
i had some extra time between classes on thursday, so i decided to check one of them out since a few of them have recently opened in the area.
first of all... i just love school supplies. i was instantly excited when i walked in and saw all of the displays. they even have this little "supply bar" type thing, where you can choose a container and stuff it with various types of clips, pins, etc. that are all decorated in cute patterns or shaped in cool designs. my favorites were the guitar shaped paper clips. :] i decided not to fill a container, but i keep thinking about it, so i'm sure i will eventually break down. ha.
but the best and absolute most exciting part was that i was able to find the red ink i needed for the photo printer there! you can't even imagine how happy i was to finally be able to buy it. :]

i put the new printer ink to use to print a few photos from hawaii to scrapbook tonight. i finished one layout, which i felt was good progress. it's another relatively simple layout, and it came together pretty fast. i'll try to take some photos tomorrow to post on here. i'm happy to finally be able to scrapbook the hawaii photos. the july studio calico kit has lots of vacation themed items in it, so it's nice to be using the kit as well.

i also had another good find on thursday.
they've been updating/rearranging our local joann's craft store, so i spent some time wandering around checking everything out.
they are now selling the jacquard lumiere paints, which i fell in love with when i tried jeanne's in my art journal. i'm definitely going to be adding a few of those to my paint collection.
i was also able to find some 12x12 hanging file folders to use with the new cart that i'd ordered online. i forgot to order the folders when i ordered the cart, so i'd been meaning to place another order online. i was very happy to see them in the store. they are a different brand, so they don't quite fit the cart. but i was able to manipulate them a bit, and i think they will work out very well. i've started the process of transferring my paper, and i really think i will like the new system. i'm trying to purge some old paper as i put it into the folders too. i'm amazed at how much paper i have that i don't really like. what was i thinking buying all of it? ugh. it makes me a little bit sick sometimes to think of all the junk i've purchased in the name of scrapbooking. :/ oh well. not much i can do now, except learn to be more selective in my purchasing. i have gotten a lot better about that since i stopped working at the scrapbook store, but i think i could still probably improve a bit more.

ok. well i'm going to find a little snack and then head to bed. i'm super tired. definitely ready for the weekend.

little bits of excitement...

*i set the curve on my econ exam. i honestly didn't think it went that well, but i'm happy.
*getting tea with erin on thursday night. always fun.
*scrapbooking planned for friday night. it's been a while, so i'm excited.
*beading class on saturday. hoping to learn the proper way to do some things instead of just my random methods.
*i gave my second to last speech today. i thought it went ok, but based on my record of self-analysis that probably means it was a disaster. ha. we'll see. either way, i'm ready for that class to be over.
*the class will be over after just six more meetings!
*got a little reward gift card from my j. crew card, which i'm looking forward to spending. ha.
*decided to grow my hair out again. at least for a while.
*james and i have been doing a bit of re-arranging downstairs, and i'm liking the change. also creating more room in the storage/furnace room, which is good. i need to box some things up and get them stored away.
*i'm off to bed. i have to get up ridiculously early tomorrow and thursday. i'm staying positive by envisioning the london fog tea latte that will be in my hand at 6:45 tomorrow morning and tasting so good. :]

curls.

today i was feeling too lazy to spend my morning with the blow dryer and flat iron. so i got out the product i used in hawaii and tried to embrace my curls.not my favorite hair style, but today i was reminded of how much time it saves to just go curly. i might end up doing it more often. it was a good choice today too because the rain was pouring down on the other side of town where we had dinner. we have been having some crazy rainstorms lately accompanied by plenty of lightening and thunder.

james and i had a low-key but fun weekend.
on friday we went to carson to have dinner with james' parents. his mom made his favorite soup, which i hadn't had before. it was really good. it was basically just broth (really yummy broth, i might add) and beef, and then there were tons of little dishes with extra items that you could add to the soup. lately, when we go to dinner there, she makes certain side dishes just for me that are not *supposed* to be spicy. so for example, i get my own little dish of kimchi that isn't red, so it shouldn't be too spicy. it still tastes spicy to me though. ha. usually she'll spend a few minutes showing me what items to combine and how to eat various things. on friday, his dad joined in on trying to get me to eat certain things, but his mom quickly stepped in and corrected him. she's starting to understand my limitations. they all have fun giving me a hard time about my food preferences. :]

on the way home, we decided to see the ugly truth. i enjoyed it. it was a slow starter in my opinion, so i was happy when it started to pick up. i wouldn't mind watching it again.

on saturday night we decided to see funny people. i liked it too. the only problem was that i didn't really have a clue what it was about, so i went in expecting the wrong type of movie. if you don't go into it expecting a funny movie, i think you'll enjoy it much more.

i guess that's about it. tonight i need to catch up on some laundry and work on my powerpoint for my next speech. my parents are in vegas, and needless to say... i'd much rather be there hanging out with victoria than at home doing the above.

i hope everyone had a good weekend!

p.s. it's august already?