wordless wednesday. favorite flowers edition.

weekend visitors.

paul, amanda, and victoria were here for the weekend. it was so nice to have some family time. on friday, we got the news that my dad's best friend, keith, had unexpectedly passed away. so i really found myself cherishing the time together even more. my dad is just really sad, so i think it was nice to have them here to at least brighten his spirits a bit. here are a bunch of photos of little miss victoria:
she loves to play with her doll and just stay busy at all times. she's constantly moving things around and changing the setup for her play. it's pretty fun, but exhausting at the same time.
i also can't believe how much hair she has now. for the longest time, she had so little hair, but now it's really growing. and those curls are adorable on her. they definitely remind me of how my hair was as a little one.
she really liked interacting with "the doggy" and kept wanting to go outside to see him. i showed her how to play a little game with him, and she was laughing SO hard... it was awesome. she will also say "cheese" if you ask her to let you take a photo, but she immediately requests to see the photo.
helix did a good job of being patient and letting her pet him. he's mellowed out a bit recently, which was beneficial for her because he was more willing to stay still.

before they had to leave, we had an early dinner at mi casa too. i'm not a big salsa person... in fact, usually i'll just eat tortilla chips plain. but i absolutely love the salsa from mi casa too. i've said on many occasions that i could drink it. and if i've planned in advance to make tacos at home, i will often go by and get some chips and salsa to go because they are just that good. amanda feels the same way, so we got a good laugh when victoria picked up the salsa dish and brought it to her mouth in preparation to drink it. hilarious.
then she proceeded to put the olives on her fingers, which is a favorite pastime of mine as well.

and finally, when amanda suggested that she use the spoon for better success in eating rice, she decided to just use both. she took a bite from the fork, then the spoon. :]

i know i'm probably very biased, but i just think she's incredible. i've said before here that it's so cool to see her little mind working. she just amazes me. i'm so thankful that i got to spend some time with her this past weekend.

yum.

i decided to try this cookie recipe last night.they are pretty awesome. the only thing is that i wish i'd used semi-sweet chocolate chips, but i found these chocolate peanut butter swirled chips at the store and decided to try them. umm. not good. never ever dump chips into your cookie batter before testing one. i didn't taste one until after i'd added them, and immediately i knew it was a mistake. the cookies are still good despite the not so good chips, but i can't wait to make these again with better chocolate chips. vanilla pudding is something i'd never heard of in my limited cookie baking history, but it's pretty much fabulous. :]

i'll be back with more soon.

my interview.

i'm anxious by nature, so it's understandable that i was quite stressed out about my interview. all in all, it was a pretty good day though. definitely not as stressful as i'd built it up to be.

there were nine of us interviewing that day. we started out with a brief introduction of the day's events by mr. davis. then we did a writing sample. we had 45 minutes and a choice between two topics. i wrote about whether or not i agreed that something earned is worth more than something received as a gift, and why. the other topic had something to do with being stranded on an island with a certain number of people and having a limited amount of resources [they were listed] and you had to tell how you would decide who got what. so neither of the topics were related to pharmacy in any way. they said our writing samples would be evaluated for spelling, grammar, and writing level/style/basic principles. i don't think they cared too much about content, as long as we wrote a well supported argument.

after that, we headed down to the lower campus and into this building. here we received a presentation from mr. goldsmith about the program, including statistics, an overview of the curriculum, and other basic information about the school. after that it was time for the interview. we were divided into two groups. mine was the group of four. based on general impressions and a round of questions from mr. goldsmith, there was one girl in particular who i knew i didn't want in my interview group. i got lucky because she wasn't. :] i got a little bit unlucky because my interviewers were pretty serious and stern, while the other group had laid back interviewers and kept commenting on how one of the faculty members was really funny. :/ so overall, it was hard for me to read how the interview went. it was an hour long, but it seemed much shorter. we only got through five questions. first, there was the basic "tell us about yourself/why pharmacy?" general question. next was the situational question, which was something to the effect of "you work as a pharmacist for a big retail chain, your boss wants you to increase productivity and volume, while also increasing your time with the customers... how do you go about this?" then there was the future of pharmacy question, followed by "what is your best characteristic/trait?" and you had to give some examples to back it up. and last, they told us that they are having a big problem with class attendance, especially when students have a quiz the following day. it was kind of a two sided question about what students should do to not miss class, and how could professors increase attendance. i think i did pretty well with my answers. there was nothing hard or unexpected, except maybe the last question, but i think i answered it well. there was one guy in my group who sounded way too rehearsed. then there was a girl who was so nervous she was shaking. i've been that nervous before, so i was glad that i remained relatively calm. :]

after the interview, we had a tour of the campus led by a student. overall, the campus is pretty, but not overly impressive. they have a lot of land, but not a lot of it is used. the school is actually on mare island, which used to be a naval shipyard. you can see some evidence of that here:many of the buildings on the campus are from that time and just sit vacant. apparently there is a 10 year plan to renovate them, so i'm sure that in time, the campus will become pretty nice. this next picture used to be the nurses quarters. i thought it was a pretty cool looking old building, but it just sits empty for now. all of these were taken with my iphone, and the sun was super bright so i kind of just pointed and hoped that i got something in the frame. :]there is a small library, but i guess it would be sufficient. then there are two large pharmacy classrooms, one for the first year classes and one for the second year classes. each of the classrooms has 10 breakout rooms that can be used for group activities during lectures or as study rooms after lecture. there's also a big auditorium/theater room that is used for ceremonies and other campus-wide activities. there is a DO program on this campus too, but i'm not sure how much the pharmacy students interact with the DO students. that's about it, aside from administrative/faculty buildings.
this building is where we first entered for the day. it's considered the upper campus. most of the building seems empty though. there is one room that seems like it used to be a restaurant or something, one room with a big stage... i don't know. it was kind of strange.

after the tour, we had sandwiches and a final talk from mr. davis. he told us that they get about 3000 applications, send out 1500 secondaries, get back 1200 secondaries, offer 450-500 interviews, and give 160-180 offers of admission to fill 104 spots. i thought that part was pretty interesting.

the main thing in my mind right now is that i didn't really fall in love with the school. i think it's a good school. they said that 26% of their students get accepted into residencies, while the national average is 17%. they have been winning quiz bowls against students from schools like UCSF. so i'm sure it would be a great program... i just left feeling a little bit underwhelmed. i'll find out my status by the end of the month, and i guess at that point i will know whether or not i have a big decision to make or not. :]

for now, i just can't believe that i have nothing to stress out over for a while! no school, no grading, no applications, no interview, nothing. hopefully that will mean that i spend my time making stuff!

number twenty.

i think this brings my total for the year to twenty layouts. not bad.

i decided to re-visit the soda fountain kit. i think i've only made two layouts with it previously. all of this scrapbooking means that i'm finally digging into my kits, which is pretty awesome. i feel guilty having so many of them just sitting around.
i also used may's nsd sketch to help jumpstart this layout. i printed the photos in preparation for nsd, but it wasn't until a couple days later that i saw her sketch. i knew immediately it would be perfect for the photos. they are a little bit smaller than the dimensions called for in the sketch, but i think it still worked out pretty much perfectly.
after uploading the photos here, i've realized that the dot on the "i" fell off. ack! it looks pretty silly without the dot. it probably came off in my attempt to find good lighting. haha. i'll have to replace it when i finish here.

i have two more layouts in the works with this kit, but it might be a little while before i finish them. i really have to get the lab reports graded! it will be such a relief to have those done, and even though i know how nice it will feel to finish them, i keep putting it off. :|

i've also been trying to organize my finished layouts. i have never put much thought into how i organize them before. i've always just sort of put them into an album as i finish them, but i've decided to try to put them in a rough order based on the photos. now the only problem is that i need to buy more albums. i can't find the ones i want locally though. i'm hoping to stop by scrapbook territory after my interview on wednesday, but if that doesn't work out then i guess i'll place an order online. it will definitely be nice to get them into albums.

ok. it's past my bedtime now. i hope everyone has a wonderful mother's day!

softball and school.

with no new layouts to share for now, i guess it's time for an actual update. :]

yesterday, i had my last a&p exam ever! so exciting. and i managed to keep an A in the class, which is good news. now i just have to grade the final set of lab reports, and i'll be done with the semester. woot!

i miraculously also had some success in finding an interview suit yesterday. i went back to banana republic for the third or fourth time, and they finally had the jacket i wanted in my size. it's nice to have that checked off my list. now i just need to keep preparing for the interview.

on aril 24th, i played in my first ever softball tournament with james and a bunch of our friends. it was a little bit of a struggle for me during the first game because i was still trying to figure it all out, but during the second and third games i had a lot of fun and was actually playing pretty well. we played four games before we had a break, then we played one more game. it was a long day of softball. here are a few photos:
here's a group shot i managed to get with my self timer. yay! along the top is becky & ricky, then mike, james, howie, and evan. the bottom row is tiffany, me, sarah, and chelsea.
here's a not-so-much-action shot that tiffany took of me.
james and i played in the outfield together. since it was a co-ed tournament, it meant a lot of moving in for girl batters, then moving out for boy batters, which meant that for a few days after playing i could barely walk from soreness and my nice sunburnt calves.
this is chelsea's photo because mine turned out blurry. it's been so much fun getting closer to the girls lately. it makes me look forward to the summer even more when we can all go to the beach together. :]

well. i hope everyone has a good weekend, and happy mother's day to all of the moms i know!

two new + one edit.

i recently described myself as a binge scrapper. i think the description fits me well. here are two new layouts from this week, plus an enhanced version of an older layout.

i'm happy that so many of the nsd challenges sparked some creativity inside me. this layout was made for a color challenge from the cosmo cricket blog. i printed this photo from my iphone when i printed the others i've been using. i need to remember to print those photos more often. while they aren't the best quality, they often capture moments that otherwise might have been forgotten. like this one of victoria having a tea party. :]
i'm still using the quilting bee kit and honeycomb add on. i'm happy that i had the perfect papers left in that kit for the challenge. the thickers are from my stash... can you tell that they are two different shades of yellow? grr. i've made a mental note to compare the color of the two sheets in the package before buying them from now on, but i got these from twopeas anyway, so i didn't really have a choice.
i hit a bit of a block on embellishing this layout, until i remembered seeing these fun handmade paper flowers recently. they are pretty easy to make, and i had fun experimenting with different sizes.

the next layout was for a challenge from studio calico to scrap your avatar photo. i picked up that bingo card the other day at my lss, but everything else if from the kits mentioned above. when i was finished constructing the layout, i asked james for a title suggestion. he recommended just going with "bingo". nice one.
i also added some maya mist to the music note paper. in person it adds a little bit of glimmer, which is kind of nice. it's a pretty simple layout, but i like it. :]

i'm in the process of cleaning, clearing, and organizing my studio area. it's a never ending task, but i know that the key is really for everything to have it's own place. there are currently a lot of items that don't have a home in there... so i'm working to either find them a home or get rid of them. my dad even commented on my progress the other day, which felt nice. a little bit of affirmation from those around me serves as one of the best sources of motivation.

anyway. as i was clearing out a bag that i took to a crop a while ago, i found a decent sized scrap of red cardstock. later that day, i was organizing a stack of layouts, and i realized that the red cardstock would be perfect for this older layout. it was pretty simple to insert it, then i decided to add some stitching too. i like version 2.0 quite a bit better.

i'm still occasionally running into some added dullness to my photos when i export them. the layout is a bit more vibrant in person, but you can see that the red really sets the title and other embellishments apart now.

ok. that's all for now. but hopefully not for long. i'll see if i can get a few more layouts made before i shut down creatively again. haha.

nsd.

yesterday i ignored everything i should have gotten done and spent the day scrapbooking since it was national scrapbook day. studio calico was hosting a bunch of challenges, so i used those as a little push to be creative.

the first layout i made was based on a sketch and was made with the joyland studio calico kit. this page was a struggle and didn't come out as i had envisioned, but that's ok. the first page is always the hardest for me. in other words, my energy of activation is pretty high for the first layout as i'm overcoming the energy barrier for creativity. i tried to use the sketch as a catalyst to speed things up, but it wasn't as effective as i'd hoped. yes. i'm a nerd. it's time for finals, so i'm in science mode. :]
the sketch called for three photos, but i substituted those little frames instead. i didn't think i would like those frames as much as i did... i may need to pick up another package because they are handy. you'll see more of them later in this post.
oh and for the record, when i showed james my layouts, he said this one was his favorite because it's about the softball tournament. i guess that just goes to show that even if a layout isn't my favorite, it's still nice to include it in an album. he likes my layouts more for the content, which i can appreciate.

the second layout was also made with the joyland kit and was for a challenge to scraplift yourself. the layout i lifted is in this post. lifting really helped me overcome the energy barrier. :] the original layout is still one of my favorites, and i think this one is right up there now too.
i knew i wanted to have more journaling than was on the original layout, so i added this text box. my photo was also larger, so instead of clustering my embellishments into a rectangle, i substituted the larger photo and added my embellishments elsewhere. and instead of machine stitching with no thread, i did some hand stitching with thread.
i made those little folded flowers because i've been seeing them a lot lately, and i think they are so cute. they definitely add lots of dimension to the page, so i might have to keep this one out of my album and find a frame or some other way to display it.
and i should also mention that the topic for the layout came about because i've been noticing some seriously lame titles and journaling going on here lately. haha. i'm trying to improve that, and this layout was a definite step in the right direction for me. it was fun to actually plan out my journaling and get some thoughts down about our relationship that haven't really been documented before... even if i did get the paula abdul song stuck in my head for a while as a result. ha!

i was going to put joyland away at this point, but i do like to try to get three layouts per kit, so i decided to make one more... that way if i don't get back around to joyland anytime soon i'll still have met my layout goal for the kit.
here are some more of those cool frames i used in the first layout. i had a lot of fun making little layers for each frame here and those little scrunched flowers are made out of tape from pink paislee that i also punched through as well. here's a tip: place decorative tape like this down on paper in order to punch it. i just used plain copy paper so it wouldn't get too thick for the punch. :]
again i tired to improve my title work and journaling here. my journaling isn't exactly profound, but it's better than some of my previous attempts.
the photo looks a little bit washed out in the photos of the layout, but it's actually one of my favorite photos. my dad took it as we were about to get on thunder mountain at disneyland. you can see the blur of the train arriving in the background, which was totally unplanned but looks pretty cool.

the fourth layout was for a challenge to scrapbook about your mom. i switched to the quilting bee kit and honeycomb add on at this point, but i used the sassafras glitter alphabet from joyland because it matched pretty well, and i love the smaller size of the letters.
my mom's favorite disney character is sorcerer mickey. i love this photo of her with victoria because she didn't know i was taking it, and i think it has that spontaneous look too it.

i used some blue mist here that matches mickey's hat really well in person. i have only two maya mist colors in my collection, so i was thrilled to have the perfect shade of blue.

the fifth layout is another one that i really like, but it did not photograph well at all. :/ it really does look better in person. it was for a challenge to scrapbook photos from your phone. these are ones that i've taken on campus recently. people tend to give me strange looks when i'm pointing my iphone at trees, but i'm starting to get used to it. i was actually planning to do a wordless wednesday post here with a bunch of these photos, but i never managed to get that done. oops!
you can barely see my journaling along the white borders of the photos, but it's there. :] and i'm happy that i came up with "campus in the spring" for my title after writing my journaling because before i wrote it, all i could come up with was "spring" or "springtime". haha.
i'm not 100% sure that i'm into the butterfly trend, but i'm trying to use them here and there. i don't mind them of this layout. i decided to keep them really neutral and just painted the bases black and left the tops in the natural chipboard color. i wanted the color of the blossoms to be the focal point, so i think it worked out well to keep the butterflies really simple. i added some stickpins though to give them just a little extra touch.

i was going to be finished with my national scrapbook day festivities after the fifth layout because it was time for dinner, but i wanted to complete the scrapbook your opposite style challenge. since i knew that minimalist would be a good option for my opposite, i had a feeling i could finish the layout pretty quickly. and i did. :]

i started by splattering some black paint onto to kraft cardstock... i couldn't just leave it completely untouched no matter how opposite i was trying to scrap. another tip i picked up somewhere along the way is to dilute the paint with water for best splattering results. next, i just cut out some of the doilies from the patterned paper using a craft knife and layered the centers using foam tape for a little dimension. the photo is another that i'd taken on my iphone. it was during the trip to apple hill last fall. i was feeling carsick in the backseat of joey's car, but trying to make the best of the trip anyway.

there was also a challenge to find inspiration from your tumblr account, so i used a quote that i saved a while back in my tumblr [which i haven't added to for a while, i realize] for the title. james came in while i was hurrying to finish and told me which letter was next since i was stamping the letters from right to left and had to keep thinking about what was next. he definitely sped up the stamping process.

i actually like the minimalist look quite a bit when i see other people doing it, so it was fun to give it a try. i'm pretty happy with my layout and based on how quickly i assembled it, i'm thinking i should give it a try more often!

all in all, i had a pretty productive scrapbooking day. maybe next year i'll be able to have some friends over to scrapbook or something more social, but my plans were definitely last minute this year.

in other news, my last anatomy practical went pretty well. i thought i got a perfect score, but it turns out i missed one question. i'm trying to figure out which one it could have been, but i'm thinking maybe i just had some misspellings. my mind kept going blank on spelling during the practical. now i just have my final exam in lecture on thursday, then i need to grade the last round of lab reports for my students before i head off to vallejo for my pharmacy school interview. eek! at least it will be summer afterwards. i'm looking forward to spending some time at the beach this year, since i didn't go to tahoe at all last year.

i still need to post photos from the softball tournament last weekend, so i'll try to do that soon. i hope everyone enjoyed the weekend! :]