a little story about the lost dixie lid.

i often wonder why we continue eating at claim jumper with all the interesting experiences we've had there. i mean... it's a rare occasion when i don't have to ask for a new fork or knife because the one on the table is dirty. [i know some people aren't bothered by that, but i can't handle it.] then. when the drinks come, usually one of us has something nasty on our glass. you know a crusty, lipstick, food remnant... something like that. for radhika's birthday, they gave james the wrong kind of salmon, and when he finally got their attention about 10 minutes later they said there was a mix up, picked it up, and gave it to the person at the table next to us. they didn't even ask james if he had touched it or anything. gross. and tonight. my iced tea had a plastic dixie lid in it. i started laughing out loud, and was laughing so hard that james had to tell the server about it. he was like "there's a what in the drink!? i've never seen something like that before." ha. the manager said that the takeout lids must have fallen into the ice. anyway. i know we probably shouldn't give them our business anymore, but the food is so good! i can't help it. i just make sure to pay a little more attention and look for things like that when we go there.

a dixie lid. so funny.

oh. i also wanted to share a little photo printing tip in case anyone who reads this prints at home. i don't use photoshop. i have it, i managed to install it, but that's all. i'm way too impatient to learn how to use it when iPhoto is so stinking easy and user-friendly. the only thing i really wish i knew how to do in photoshop [but again, am too impatient to figure out] is making a canvas to print different sized photos on one page. the reason for this is two-fold. first, the only paper i've found that i like for home printing is only available in 8x10 or larger. i can't just print a 4x6 and waste the whole rest of the paper. i just cannot do it. and second, iPhoto allows for several different printing options, which generally do the job... but sometimes i can't get exactly what i want [as far as photo sizes and the arrangement on the page] with the available printing options. so. let me get to my point... my solution. i've started using a word document. :] i formated the page size to 8x10, and i can easily arrange the photos exactly how i want them on the page and then print. it's so easy. and it can be done for sizes other than 8x10 too. it's a really simple way to create collages/clusters of photos that you don't intend to cut apart too. i'm having a lot of fun playing around with this, and i hope if you are afraid of photoshop like me, you'll find this helpful. one more note: you can do this in powerpoint as well by just resizing the slide to your paper size. this would probably be even more simple than using word because it would be easier to move the photos around on the slide [or canvas].

oh yes. to answer your question alyssa... i go back to school next tuesday. usually i'm feeling ready to head back by now, but i am so not ready yet! i just keep telling myself that this is my last back to school, so i should be excited. it's not really working though. ha. :]

sore.

today, james and i ventured up to mt. rose for a little snowboarding. we went by ourselves so that i could have his full attention like a private lesson i guess. :]
[i only lasted two runs though, so he was left alone for the rest of the day. ha.]
i had a lot of fun, but i got beat up pretty badly. i can already feel a bruise in a certain spot every time i sit down. ha.
james said we could do the run called "around the world" and i was so excited! that was my favorite adventure as a kid.
i noticed that i was feeling a little more comfortable and in control of my board, which is nice. i still have a ways to go though. my board doesn't get away from me as much as it did last year, so i fall less, but i still took a few decent spills. [namely when i accidentally when into the mogul section. ha.] i have the "falling leaf" technique down, so i can definitely get down a mountain without falling, but i need to be able to actually ride down. :]

in other news, i started constructing my birthday countdown album. i'm pretty happy with it so far. full of hambly goodness. i wish i had a few more pieces of certain patterns in my colors of choice, but i don't have time to wait for an online order, so i'm making the best of what i have. tomorrow, i hope to go out to the summit to pick up some envelopes at paper moon. i do need to order the album online i think, but i can start without that. we were supposed to get the albums at the store, but it doesn't seem like we actually will. :/

yesterday i worked on a valentines mini, and last night i actually made two layouts. i was just playing around, but it felt really nice to have some pages to put in the album again. it's been a long time since i've added to it!

so yeah. lots of playing around these past few days. it makes me so happy. hopefully i will finish a couple minis soon so that i can share. :]

mini fun.

last night, angela and i held a fiskars training. it went really well. i was a little worried because it was at a scrapbook store that i used to shop at all the time, but haven't been to since i got my job. [things are kind of competitive here between the various stores, and i just felt awkward.] everything turned out just fine though. i got to talk to the owner again, which i realized i've sort of missed. she's super nice and was always fun to talk to while i browsed around the store. so now i feel like i can go back again, which is good. :]

also, i spoke with angela while i was there about scrapbook organization. i need some serious help in that department. while we were talking, i realized that a big part of the problem is that i just have too much stuff. i think paper is the biggest problem. so when i got home, i went through my paper. i re-organized it and got rid of almost all my scrap pieces [i can use them to demonstrate the tools at our next training class] and any full sheets of paper that i wasn't 100% certain i would use. then i cleared off the ledge behind my desk, lined up some cute boxes, and organized my embellishments and things into various categories in the boxes. i also put any components to projects that i'm working on in clear bags so they are like little project kits instead of just making more piles on my desk. i still have a lot of work to do, but i'm feeling a little better about the situation. for a while now, i haven't even had the urge to scrapbook because things are so messy in my scrap area.

now that things are a little more clear on my table, i feel ready for a new project. i sort of regretted not doing ali's december daily album. it's *such* a good idea. documenting the little things each day leading up to a big day. and the premade format is genius. so. i'm thinking of doing a little birthday countdown album.

and i'm finally posting photos of the christmas mini that i finished a while back. they aren't the best photos because it's been cloudy here, but you get the idea. the album construction was kind of inspired by one of the albums i made in the kc class. i love love love envelopes. :]

the grass is greener, but just as hard to mow.

i'm not feeling 100% better yet, but this song definitely helps.
really really seriously excellent song. i hope you like it too. :]


oh. and i went back to the old colors. i liked the white, but after being snowed in... it wasn't working for me. ha.

a good laugh.

my stomach muscles hurt so much [see the post below] that i thought twice about watching chelsea lately tonight, but i couldn't help it. i needed the pick me up of a good laugh.
and indeed, i laughed so hard that i *almost* regretted watching it.
i found the clip online too. it's a pretty long clip, so if you want to get straight to the good stuff, it starts at about 4:35.


ha. i always love it when celebrities admit to scrapbooking. and this is just hilarious. :]

cabin flu.

i guess the cabin fever led to the flu.
no fun.
i'm feel a little better now, but my whole body hurts. maybe because i slept on the bathroom floor.
not quite what i planned for today. :/

wasting time.

i'm pretty much snowed in. i tried to shovel the driveway again, and the snow is so heavy that i only shoveled about half of it. eek.

my poor mom is stuck in vegas. her flight got canceled after she waited at the airport all day, so she has to wait until tomorrow morning. hopefully things will be clear enough by then. i'm snowed in and she's snowed out. awesome.

so anyway. i went to susan's floor plan search website, and low and behold my dream home is the featured home. ha. [i'd hate to think of how many more dream homes i could find if i spent too much time on that website.] the code is DHSW43137 and the house looks amazing. i would have to make a few changes probably, but it's a good start. :]

yeah. i must be getting delirious from all the snow and the cabin fever that is setting in. but. it is *so* fun to think about that stuff. i love the idea of two staircases. my dad would tell me that it's a terrible waste of space. but. i still think the effect is really nice.

what else... last night, i started emily falconbridge's weekly art journal cards. i bought the deck of cards a long time ago, but never started it. i figure now that i'm a whole year behind, it should work out pretty well. so i made several backgrounds and the card for the first week. i'll try to post it later. i have to find the internet password for my computer that's hooked up to the scanner, and i have no idea where it is. probably a good project to occupy my time though.

i want to make brownies so bad right now, but we don't have any eggs. i totally forgot to pick some up last night when i stopped at the store to get milk and a few things. i just think it's a really bad idea to try to drive up there now. a couple people have managed to get out of our neighborhood, but they all drive hummers. i don't want to be without my car for a month like i was last year when i decided to drive in the storm. and i could probably walk, but it's just so cold. it would be a definite workout walking in the snow though. it think it's a little over a mile probably? yeah. i guess i'll have to find something else to cook. plus. i would probably eat the whole pan since i'm home alone. ha. better not make brownies after all.

back home to a blizzard.

i think we have about a foot of snow outside now. it's crazy, and i'm quite excited about it actually. :] it's just beautiful out there, and it sure would be fun to make my first snowboarding trip of the season after this fresh snow.

the boys who came by to shovel the driveway during the last storm came by around 7 or so tonight, so i told them they could shovel again even though they increased their rate. [$15 is pretty good money considering it took them about 15 minutes!] i went out about an hour and a half later and shoveled again. then. i gave up. ha. i just looked out a little while ago and i had to do a double take. i could not believe how much snow has filled up the clear driveway. my car is completely covered too. [thanks a lot garage door. you had to decide to stop working just before a big storm, eh?]

anyway. the trip to vegas for new years was great. it went by pretty fast, and of course, i didn't take as many photos as i should have. it was fun to see my aunts and uncles again. my aunt janet is the coolest. she's all about taking photos too, so i didn't feel like such a dork at some points. ha.

the flight down was fine. we were delayed a bit because there were too many planes trying to land in vegas. so we sat in the plane for a while before takeoff and then circled around vegas once we arrived. my sister's flight didn't get in until after ours anyway, so it was fine to be a little late. it was crazy how cold it was when we got to vegas. i knew it wouldn't be hot, but it was just surprisingly cold for the whole trip.










after we got checked in and everything, we wandered around the conservatory at the bellagio, which was still beautifully decorated for christmas. we had to get a picture by all the penguins. :] i love penguins. ha. we also wandered over to the miracle mile shops at ph for a little shopping. [they have a really cool urban outfitters there.] eventually, we had a nice big family dinner at cafe bellagio where they gave all of us new years hats. how funny. i intended to get a group photo with all of us in our hats, but totally forgot. my dinner wasn't so good, and i missed lunch since our flight got in late [we had planned to get food while waiting for katie's flight to arrive.] so it was just a bad food day for me.

after dinner, james and i went back to ph to see some of his friends who were also in vegas. we found the cutest little bar place [to me anyway] called yolos. it's all bright pink with pretty flowers. super cute. then after watching a the bellagio fountains from the room for a while, james and i went out onto the strip [even though it was super cold] to watch the fireworks and just be part of the crazy celebration. it wasn't as packed as i expected, but i liked it that way. it was nice to be able to move around and have some personal space. ha. my sister's boyfriend's friends were there and they were super out of control... singing and everything. it was hilarious. all in all, it was a nice new years celebration.

the next day was a definite sleep in day. ha. james and i went to the fashion show for lunch and a little window shopping. then my brother came and picked us up so we could all head out to henderson to go to lucille's for dinner. we love that place. :] when we got back to the strip after dinner, we wandered around some of the other hotels and watched the little show outside of treasure island. we all thought the show was pretty bad. ha. james had seen it as a kid and said it used to be much better, but they tried to make it more of a dancing thing now and yeah... not so good. i hadn't been to many of the other hotels, so we went to the wynn, which was so pretty inside. they have the coolest big lantern things and a really big waterfall outside. i think they have a show at the waterfall maybe. they also have a pretty big chanel store that i would like to check out sometime. :] we also went to the palazzo and the venetian, which are both really pretty. lots of good photos opps for sure. later that night, james and i took this little tram thing from treasure island to the mirage and walked around the strip trying to find some hair gel stuff because his got taken away at the airport since the bottle was too big. ha. we didn't have any luck though. but it was fun to just walk around a bit. lots of walking during this trip. i don't know if it was quite as much as a trip to san francisco, but it's possible.

the next day was more shopping, but james and i were pretty tired. my sister wanted to go to ruehl, which is a really crazy store. seriously. if you ever see one, go inside. i think it's supposed to have the feeling of a library or something? but there are so many walls and hallways and then little rooms with the clothes and crazy light fixtures and some rooms will just have like a bed/couch thing. ha. james and i took a few photos while we were waiting for my sister to shop. if you go to the website, and click store listings, you can see what the outside looks like. yes. in the middle of a mall. they make it look like a street side brick building. pretty intense i guess.

that night, we ate at the bellagio buffet for dinner. james was happy about that. ha. and his cousin came too. she took us to see juno afterwards, which is amazing. really. on my top 10 list of favorites. and it turns out, it opened in reno today. so now i can go see it like a billion more times before it comes out on dvd. :]

in the morning. we had the buffet again for breakfast before heading to the airport. i'm not a fan of buffets at all. but. the bellagio buffet is an exception. it's really pretty good. and for breakfast, i can have all the bacon i want. ha. so yummy.

when we were waiting at gate for our flight, there was this girl across from us. i have no idea what was wrong with her, but she was seriously out of her mind. james said she had to be on drugs or something. it was hilarious and really scary at the same time. she would pretend to talk on the phone to someone and kept saying "this is vanessa! who is this!" followed by a series of slurred expletives. but there was never anyone on her phone. and she would talk about how everyone was staring at her. finally a lady right behind her was brave enough to talk to her. she asked the crazy lady if she was feeling badly or something, and the crazy lady said "no. i'm feeling good, but they wouldn't let me fly." and the brave lady told her maybe she needed to feel a little worse. ha. then security came, which was pretty entertaining as well.

once we finally boarded the plane, there was one delay after another. waiting for some people to transfer to our flight. waiting for their bags. waiting in a line of planes to take off. and the pilot came on and announced that a storm was entering reno and there were winds over 40 mph so it would be a rough flight. everyone was freaking out. especially when we were making our final descent. the guy behind james was grabbing onto james' seat so hard. and the guy next to me had his bible out and was freaking out too. they all clapped when we landed. dramatics. but really. it wasn't that bad. the landing was considerably smooth. silly people. flying into reno is usually pretty bumpy. they should try a little dramamine. :]

well. since i'm basically snowed in, i've been doing a little cleaning. but i got totally overwhelmed, so i decided to come post the update. i have too much stuff. seriously. but not enough of it is junk that can be easily thrown away. grr. maybe i'll just crawl in bed put on a movie now. :]