'tis the season.

i finished this layout last night. it's been half completed for about two months now, but i decided it was time to finally be done with it. just in time for the holidays. :]
we set up a christmas tree last weekend, so i decided it would be festive to take photos of the layout sitting in the tree. the lighting was great coming in through the window. but it didn't last long today, even though yesterday was the solstice. another storm came, so it's dark and cloudy, and we're getting more snow. i don't think we'll get as much as last time, but i could be wrong.

when i went to the crop with mandee in rocklin, we searched all over for kraft cardstock. i saw the k & co. holiday chipboard at one store, but didn't buy it. later that evening when i was stuck on this layout, i was kicking myself for not buying it. well. i found them at a local store yesterday. on clearance. :] so i got out my punches for some detail and finally just adhered the photo, which i had been moving all over the place. i still wasn't thrilled with the layout until i added those little journaling strips. now i'm pretty happy with it. i have it sitting up on the mantle with the christmas cards. i never really do that with my layouts, but this one is perfect for the season. plus it's fun to see victoria as a baby. i can't believe how much she has grown. here is a santa photo from this year. she refused to sit on his lap. haha.
seriously. it's insane how she's growing up. amanda said that she belted out "feliz navidad" the other day when the song came on the radio! hilarious. i can't wait to spend time with her and the rest of my family in disneyland in january. victoria knows and loves the characters now, so it will be fun to see her excitement over them. i think about the upcoming trip everyday. :]

ok. i have some work to get done before dinner. i hope you are all ready for the holidays and taking time to enjoy the season!

p.s. for some reason when i publish my posts, the photos become less bright and vibrant. it's frustrating me because they look fine when i am composing, but then on the actual post they look lame. i don't really know what to do about it, but i thought i'd mention it in case someone has a good idea. i've heard that uploading from flickr instead of the blogger uploader can help, but it just seems like extra work. maybe i'll try it in the future though.

p.s.again. i know i still need to post the last three layouts i made. i should have taken photos today, but i spaced it. and i still need to post about thanksgiving. yikes. i guess i have some things to keep me busy when i'm at my parents' house for christmas. :]

snow.

we've been getting an insane amount of snow here for the past week. we had a break for a few days, but it's been coming down again the past couple days. here are some photos from the initial storm...



helix loves the snow. he doesn't usually like to stay out in it for too long, but he definitely enjoys attempting to run through it. it's pretty cute. :]

otherwise, my anatomy final on thursday was pretty tricky. my professor made a departure from the style of the previous three exams, so although i prepared for it quite well, it was still hard. i did well enough to keep my A in the class though. i've heard repeatedly that the second semester is easier than the first and that there is less cadaver time in the lab, so that's exciting news.

last night, i decided to venture out of the house with james and some friends. one of james' good friends was fighting in the mixed martial arts fight at the grand sierra. he did really well. so well that i had to look away several times because i couldn't handle watching it. it was quite the experience to see a fight like that live. james has been wanting to go to the ufc fights when we're in vegas, but i usually convince him otherwise. haha.

after the fight, we ended up going downtown to the third street bar. it was snowing pretty hard outside by then, so it was kind of fun to look out the windows to see the snow falling while we were warm inside. :]


oh and i finally joined the gym. i've been going to the classes, and i really like them. since i'm not very motivated to workout on my own, attending a class is ideal for me. i can't give up and leave half way through, so i end up working pretty hard. :]

that's about all for recent news. i'm really hoping to be able to do some christmas shopping tomorrow. but i also want to go to the renegade craft fair in san francisco right before christmas, and it would be fun to buy some gifts there. if only it weren't so close to christmas. ack. either way, i just really need to get out of the house tomorrow. with all the snow, cabin fever is setting in pretty badly!

where did the time go?

i came home from my thanksgiving trip to no wifi. i've been keeping up with email from my phone, but i completely neglected my blog. again. but we finally got the necessary piece of technology to make the wifi work. and by we, i mean that i was with my dad when he purchased said piece of technology. so anyway. i'm back. and it's nearly a quarter of the way into december. yikes.

i also just now realized that my thanksgiving post didn't post. i wrote a little something on thanksgiving from denver, but apparently i didn't publish it or something went wrong. so i'm going to see if i can fix that. if you see it below, i was successful in my recovery. :]

after my thanksgiving trip [which i intend to post about once i find my camera cord so i can hopefully add some photos], i was able to meet up with alyssa in fallon on monday evening. it was so awesome to meet little lucy and see how much jessie has grown up since i last saw her. on my way out to fallon, i told myself not to forget to take a photo with alyssa. naturally, i forgot. the time just flew by as we caught up. we both mentioned being thankful for keeping in touch via blogging, but catching up in person is always a treat.

other than that... not a whole lot has been happening around here.
it's been cold. really really cold. i can't stay warm. it snowed basically all day today, so we now have a nice blanket in my neighborhood. it's pretty, but i'm definitely glad that i don't have to be anywhere early in the morning. i'm guessing my street will be a mess since it never gets plowed.

in other news, i have my final for anatomy on thursday, and my last practical was this past wednesday. i did pretty well on the practical, which takes a little pressure off for the final. always nice. i'm immensely glad that the course is winding down. i need to make some fun plans for my break in order to gear up for next semester. i've always found that when i don't do anything too noteworthy during vacation time, i just feel like i didn't even have time off. i need to feel like i've had a break in order to be ready for another dose of this class!

one thousand miles together.

today i'm thankful for so many things.
i'm particularly thankful to be in denver with james and my grandparents.
every time i visit, i love the connection that i feel with my past. today i came across a family tree that my grandpa has constructed of his maternal side of the family. i should probably take a photo of it. anyway, i learned that my great grandpa's first name was arch. and my great-great and great-great-great grandpas shared the same first name, which was guy. lots of other names that i hadn't known. i also noted some family names like mary, which was my dad's older sister's name as well as my great grandma's name. louise seems to be a family name as well. so today, i'm thankful for the opportunity to explore my family history a bit.

it was interesting to see james' reaction to my grandparents' house last night. i think he had expected something modern, like my sister's house. but this place is like a museum. most of the house is just as it was when i was a little girl. i love it. i love that the walls are covered in art, much of which was painted by my aunt mary or uncle david, and photos of family members. i could do without the photos of me during my awkward years. ha. i love how the kitchen is just how i remember it, and the flour and sugar canisters are the same as always... lovely blue antique glass. there is a lot to take in here.

james and i are actually home alone right now. my sister and jamie went to his mom's house, and my grandparents made plans with friends before they knew we would be coming. so we're having a big thanksgiving celebration tomorrow at my uncle's house. there will be lots of family there, and i'm sure the food will be wonderful. i'm definitely looking forward to that meal, although waking up this morning and having a home cooked breakfast thanks to my grandma was pretty fabulous. :]

in the meantime, james is watching football and i'm thankful that my grandparents have wifi. ha.

as i get older, thanksgiving celebrations take more and more of a departure from what i remember as a child. this marks the first year that i'm not with my parents. they are in vegas celebrating with my brother and his family. i'm sad that we aren't all together this year, but i am happy to be here. thankful to have this time with my grandparents and thankful that james gets to see a little piece of what i remember as a big piece of my childhood summers.

happy thanksgiving to you all! :]

update.

i guess i forgot about my blog again. oops.

i still haven't managed to get decent photos of my latest layouts. i tried again, but it was another failed attempt. i'm going to look for my old point and shoot camera and give that a shot because this new one just isn't cutting it.

i had an exam on tuesday, which went well. i left the exam thinking "that was the easiest exam so far... if only i had studied a bit more." but upon checking my grade... apparently i studied enough. :] otherwise, it's been a busy week at work. we've had more samples than we've had in a long time. it's kind of nice because busy days go by fast.

also on tuesday night, i met up with the art journal group again. it had been quite a while, so it was nice to see everyone and catch up. i actually bound a little 4x6 journal during our meeting. later at home, i tried to do a photo transfer technique onto the front cover, but it didn't work. i couldn't find my gel medium [still can't... i have no idea what happened to it because it should be with the rest of my paint. ugh.] so i tried just using gesso... bad idea. only a bit of pink ink actually transferred. so i tried acetone... nothing happened, but i was able to get the pink ink off of the cover with the acetone. so at least the journal is not ruined. i'm going to try again... maybe a different technique though.

today i went to dr. tittiger's house for a lab potluck. it was good to see all of my entomologist friends again. :] there are quite a few new faces between the bark beetle labs too, so it was fun to meet new people. rubi brought her four and a half month old son, and i was smitten. he is just so cute and such a happy little guy.

i decided to bring frog eye salad as my contribution. earlier in the week, i told andrew that i would be brining it so he could put me down on the sign-up sheet. i guess there must have been some speculation as to what in the world i was actually bringing. people were quite curious and a bit skeptical when i showed up with it. someone asked me if i was african when they found out that i was the frog eye salad girl. [i wish i was kidding.] and kay took photos to document it for people who didn't make it to the potluck. thanks to sharon for being brave enough to try it, and then spreading the word that it was actually pretty yummy, i ended up getting good reviews. andrew said he went back for thirds. :]
if you don't know what it is... it's just acini di pepe pasta with mandarin oranges, pineapple, marshmallows, cool whip, and a custard sauce made from pineapple juice, flour, and sugar. you can also use vanilla pudding... but my grandma would be ashamed of me for going that route. the custard is better and doesn't take that long to make. we're big fans of the dish in my household. but for the longest time my sister and i just called it "that one dish that grandma makes" because we didn't know what it was called. i think my mom and/or grandma may have opted to not tell us the name so we would eat it. ha.

tomorrow i am planning to see coco before chanel with roxana. it will be my first time seeing a movie that has subtitles in a theater. should be fun.

well. i'm off to get some dinner then write my personal statement. that's about all i have left to finish for my applications, so i've made a goal of getting it done this weekend. it will be nice when i can stop thinking about it. :]

sneaky.

last night, i spent the evening scrapbooking with mandee. i made a goal to make three layouts with the october studio calico kit, yearbook. i wasn't so sure i would be able to fulfill my goal, but i ended up having a successful scrappy night! i can't remember ever making three layouts in one night... let alone three layouts with a kit. usually i just add my kits to the pile of unused kits, but i need to stop. i was happy to break the habit last night.

unfortunately, the lighting wasn't too good when i attempted to take photos today, so i don't have photos of the completed layouts to share. i'll share one detail shot that sort of came out though.this is the first page that i completed last night, and it's probably my favorite. :]
if i'm being completely honest... i should say that i'm not really a fan of those woodgrain alphas. but they were in the kit, so i decided to just go ahead and use them. another item i wasn't in love was those gold sequins... when i first saw that prima was making those little sequin centers, i knew i would love them. but gold? um no. not so much. but they do work pretty fantastically with the kit, and i ended up using them on all three pages. go figure.

in other news, james and i went to see where the wild things are on thursday night with some friends. i wish i had loved it, but didn't. it gave me anxiety. and i left the theater feeling pretty sad and dismal, which does not = good movie in my book. it was just weird. i knew that it wouldn't be what i expected after hearing people talk about it, but "not what you expect" doesn't even begin to cover how weird it was. and i know there are people who will just say something like, "you just didn't get it." ha. ok. whatever. all five of us pretty much left the theater not really knowing what to say about it. i don't plan to watch it again.

otherwise, i have a test this coming week, which is not very exciting.

and i'm getting sick, once again. but james brought me some soup yesterday, which really hit the spot. i think i'm going to need some more awesome soup for dinner tonight. :]

wordless wednesday. fall edition.

this one makes me smile.

james and i had a funny conversation after this photo was taken where i mentioned that it was too bad we didn't get a photo of the three of us because we could have sent it as a christmas card. it was a joke and a clear reference to an episode of friends.

you see, friends is to james what satc is to amy... we constantly relate our lives back to the shows. so i'm happy whenever i can throw a friends reference at him. :]
shockingly, he has yet to throw an satc reference at me. ha.

i guess i could have called this one: "wordless wednesday. favorite tv show edition." hmm. oh well.

halloween costume adventures.

on thursday night, roxy and i went to the med school party at divine with deepa. we had a good time, but i didn't come out with any good photos of my rainbow brite costume. i honestly can't believe that roxy let me wear it in public. the costume part isn't actually too bad. i bought a blue dress on clearance from old navy, altered it a bit, and paired it with rainbow leg and arm warmers. the problem was the cheap wig that i bought at the last minute from the halloween store. oh goodness gracious. it's a horrible wig. so the next day, i knew there was no possible way that i would wear that costume again... let alone to the boys' halloween party. deepa had planned a birthday dinner friday night as well, so i was mulling around at the last minute before i needed to get to her dinner trying to figure out a good costume option. i finally just threw some of my old tennis stuff into my car before i left for her birthday, which happened to be at cadillac ranch at legends mall. i stopped at target to pick up her card and for some reason i looked through the scarves/hat section and found this cute beret. it gave me the idea that i should just go with a simple costume and dress like a french girl. but i couldn't find anything else i needed at target, so i didn't buy the beret and was just going to go with my tennis outfit. then at the last second i decided to stop at forever21 when i was pulling into the parking lot of the restaurant. so i picked up all the elements of my costume in about five minutes. ha.

james dressed up as bobby light. if you aren't familiar, bobby light is a character that pro skateboarder rob dyrdek came up with for his tv show. james was seriously hilarious the whole night and did a great job of acting just like bobby light with crazy dance moves and just being generally out of control. i have to thank sarah for getting this photo of james and me. my camera was refusing to take good photos that night... and it's hard to ask someone to take five photos of you so that you can get one that isn't blurry.
james' brother johnny and his girlfriend dressed up as jon and kate plus eight. it was hilarious. their costume was definitely a hit with me. :]
and i impulsively bought this little pumpkin costume for helix. haha. i need to put it on him again to get better photos. he doesn't mind the actual costume part, but he takes the head piece off within thirty seconds of me trying to put it on him. :]

the boys' halloween party turned out to be insanely fun. james' best friend eric libby was the dj for the night. they had turntables and everything all set up on the landing by the stairs where you can look down to the family room... which served as the dance floor. eric was one of the first guys who i really got to know when i started dating james because they were roommates at the time, so i'm always happy to see him. i spent some time up in the dj area with him, and he taught me a little bit about how to work the ones and twos and how to mix beats. i'm definitely not a mix master, but it was fun. :] and as the party was seeming to come to a close, we switched over to good old techno and had the best dance party ever. i'm telling you... it was epic. quite a few people had left by then... but those of us who were still there had the best time. i've honestly gotten slightly sad anytime i think about it because i feel like nothing will ever be as much fun as that dance party. haha. but james assures me that we will have plenty more.

we were actually going to just stay home on saturday night, but we ended up going out to a few places downtown. i enjoyed getting to meet more of james' friends that night and get to know some of them that i've already met a few times a little bit better. sometimes i'm a little bit in awe of his group of friends... they are like an extended family. i mean some of them have known each other since kindergarten! when i moved after fourth grade, i lost most of the friendships from my early childhood. i think that is probably true for most people who moved when they were growing up. my dad went to three different high schools because his dad worked as a geologist for mobile oil... i can't imagine that.

anyway, it was a pretty amazing weekend. :]
i'm off to study for lab. i'm getting really tried of anatomy, but it's only about half over. plus i still have another semester coming up... so i better find a way to get over it!