where did you go, september?

i was hoping september would be a month of kicking things up around here.
definitely didn't pan out quite as i had hoped, but it does not do to dwell.
i did get a few things accomplished like getting the clothes out of my closet and a bit of studying for the gre. :]
oh and helix and i have been going on lots of walks as of late. there's even a chance i could edge out james as helix's favorite human pretty soon. ha.

i'm ready for fall. excited for the weather to cool down. happy to see the leaves change. and elated to wear scarves, as you may well know by now. :]

so maybe the last day of september is a good time to look ahead and set a few goals for october.
how about...
1. get those apps done!
2. get the studio in working order. in it's current state it's just a total creativity sucker, and i want to make some stuff!
3. get the closet full of current clothes and actually put those clothes in the donate pile out for the donation pick up. october 8th is the day... old clothes, be gone.

on that note... as an extra incentive to get rid of the old clothes, i've been telling myself that i can get some new things if i get rid of the older stuff. so i guess you could say that i've been doing my part to help the economy by acquiring a few new pieces. :]

for the first time in a long time, i had excellent luck finding jeans. i wear mainly joe's because they seem to fit better than other jeans i've worn... still it can be a struggle to find a good pair. not today though. i found 4 paris that i really liked. i narrowed it down to just one, but i do have one more on hold just in case. [in case of what, i'm not sure. haha.]

i found a few new tops as well, at which point i decided there are definitely more old shirts in the closet that are ready to go. :]

oh. and about a week ago at j. crew, i decided to get a new winter jacket for this year:
it looks so cute with the top button undone and a fun scarf.

i really think i've found the perfect way to motivate myself to purge old stuff. :] you know... different things work for different people, and unfortunately... shopping seems to be just about the only thing that works for me. ha.
i doubt that excuse will fly with too many people, but maybe just maybe?

i'm also debating attempting to make christmas gifts for my family this year.
i'm thinking more along the lines of sewing projects than scrappy projects. [i can't make scrappy things and actually give them away. i tend to get too attached.]
i'm trying to be realistic though, and when i do that... i basically come to the conclusion that it won't work out. ha. i still might give it a try though. especially if i can figure out how to sew in a straight line. :]
so does anyone have good ideas for handmade gifts for men?
i might be able to get away with making some sort of apron for my brother. a manly, grilling apron of course. he loves to cook and is great at grilling things, so it might work for him.
otherwise... i don't have a whole lot of ideas.
sigh. women are so easy to find gifts for...

okie dokie.
time for dinner.
i still can't believe it's the last day of september though.

good news.

well. i think the consensus on the high pony tail in public was that it is permissible. :]
deepa approved of the look.
and later, i went to pick up james from his friend's house and he complimented it before i even asked him what he thought. a good sign, i'd say.

there chocolate bar was not busy at all, so we got a nice table in the corner. my favorite.
turns out that radhika had to stay home to finish grading lab reports... a fate that lies ahead for deepa and i, but i'll get to that in a moment.
deepa nor i had eaten dinner, so we looked over the small plate offerings and had some real food before the chocolate fondue. i'm going to keep that place in mind for late dinners in the future. we both loved our meals and sampled each other's too. the food was so delicious that it almost overshadowed the fondue. not quite though. :]
it was just nice to get out of the house and have a little bit of girl talk.
there are always things to discuss...

lately, i've been realizing that my rough timeline of events to happen in my life is a little bit off.
it's certainly off if i go to graduate school. for some reason, i hadn't been adding that into the time line.
see... i sort of had a target age of 25 in mind for getting married and starting a family. i think i'm going to have to adjust that. and by adjust, i mean push back.
i was freaking out over that realization for a bit, but then deepa reminded me that she's in the same boat. except her boyfriend has told her he never wants to get married. eek. and radhika is in our boat too.
so. i'm getting used to the idea more and more. it's just taken me a little bit of time to get comfortable in this boat.

i don't remember if i mentioned that i finally went to campus on wednesday. it took me a while because i've been feeling unsettled about the whole not going back to school situation. it just feels incredibly strange after being a student my whole life. but i finally faced all of those feelings and went to visit.
i went by my lab and spoke with claus, which was really nice. he always makes me feel better about my prospects and the future. i also talked to andrew [one of the grad students] for a bit. sharon and rubi are on vacation, so i missed them.
i spent some time talking to dr. howard too. so here's the good news: deepa and i are going to TA for her next semester. she teaches the molecular biology lab, which was by far my favorite laboratory course. i'm so excited to have the opportunity to TA for the class now. i'm super excited to get back in that environment. and i'm excited to get to do all of the behind the scenes stuff for the lab. i'm even a little bit excited about buying a few red pens to grade all of the lab reports. :]

i took james and his friend to the airport tonight. they [along with nearly everyone else i know] are heading to vegas for the weekend. tomorrow is the unr/unlv football game. i also heard mention of needing to bring collared shirt, which means a club is probably on the docket. and there was a last minute addition of board shorts to james' bag, so perhaps some time will be spent at a pool as well.

eta: i just got a call from james. his flight was delayed, so he's still at the airport.
but. he's waiting for his flight with too short.
hilarious if you ask me.

oh. the other night, i actually went to my closet and pulled out a bunch of stuff. :] i have a bit more to go through... mostly just pants that i need to try on and see if i ever realistically plan to wear them again. i really made some progress though, and it felt good. i think i'll go work on the studio a bit more now. :]

i hope everyone has a good weekend!

tonight = chocolate fondue night.

the high pony tail...
is it permissible in public?
not sure, but we'll see.
i'm going to get chocolate fondue tonight at the chocolate bar with deepa and radhika.

why?
just because.

sometimes that's the best reason. :]

more organizing woes.

seriously. this is me in a nutshell.

i [and many others including james] sometimes find it perplexing that i am a perfectionist, yet if you walk into my bedroom or my studio... you see complete mayhem. my dad once said that he should just board up my room and tell people that a hurricane went through there and they should enter at their own risk. sadly, it's not much of an exaggeration most of the time.
you will find, however, that the clothes in my closet are in perfect rainbow order with the long sleeved shirts on the bottom portion and the short sleeved shirts and tank tops on the top portion. and when the socks make it out of the laundry basket and onto the shelves, they are perfectly matched and folded and placed in precise piles of equal height on their designated shelf.
those are just two of my quirks.
the thing is... it's such a daunting task to organize my clothes in the manner that i feel necessary, that i rarely do it.
meanwhile, i'm envious of james' socks actually being in their drawer instead of in the clean laundry basket. his aren't stacked up in neat little piles of equal height, but they are all in their place.

as for my studio... i'm currently so hung up on organizing my paper that i have it all out in messy piles waiting to be sorted and placed in the proper container (by manufacturer) in correct order (newest releases on top, oldest on the bottom). then there are the embellishments that need a system too = blah.
the only thing that is truly organized is my ribbon, which is in cute little bowls and tins roughly sorted by color. it's not perfect. i let go of the uberorganized cropper hopper embellishment containers with the ribbon neatly wound up inside and placed in rainbow order in the plastic carrier. i still have all the original ribbon that i sorted into that thing stored that way, but i never use it. the ribbon in my little bowls is much better. i'm free to dump it out, then scoop it back into it's container. it's the perfect imperfect ribbon storage solution.
so...
it's time to carry this theme into all parts of organizing.

i know. i know. i've probably just made you yawn with yet another post about is my organizational shortcomings.
but. the post i linked above that spurred me writing this post states that i need to recognize that i have a problem.
so here i am.
fully recognizing my problem.

now i'm going to attempt some imperfect organizing in my studio. :]

no sleeping for me.

i'm finally feeling a bit better.
but.
yesterday i could barely move. my head just hurt so badly. i went and fell asleep on j's bed for a while because his room has the ability to stay pitch black no matter what time of day it might happen to be. my head needed the dark. and apparently my body needed the sleep.
the only problem with sleeping for a day is that the nights get totally out of whack.
so.
it's 4:30 in the morning. i'm wide awake. and i have to go to work in the morning.
awesome.

but today i had the day off. sweet deal.
unfortunately, i didn't make much of it. still wasn't feeling 100% better. i did manage the strength for a shower though.
oh the wonders of a nice shower when you've been feeling sick. :]

j, momma, and i ate japanese for dinner tonight.
oh how i love japanese food. seriously. it's good stuff. [aside from any sort sushi of course. including the dessert ice cream sushi that kwon made in an attempt to win me over.]
j admitted the katsu at the hawaiian place really is as crappy as i tell him it is after trying the katsu from kyoto.
victory. :]

after dinner, we went to get tcby for the freezer since we were all so full.
oh how i love tcby.
i know that big cities are starting to have all of the swanky, modern, healthy yoghurt places, and while i'll admit to wanting to see what all the fuss is about... tcby will always have a place in my heart. ha.

then j and i made our way over to best buy for some new music.
finally. it was really time for a few new albums, and while i didn't find all of the ones i was looking for, the two that i managed to get are pretty amazing. new music = happy amy.
we decided to just head down the little row of the shopping center after the music success, so we went to the pet store next. i fell in love with a few fish, as i generally do. and then we found the cutest little hedgehog toy to bring home for helix. [perhaps this offers some potential for a photo good enough to use with some of the new sassafras papers. if i can get my hands on some, that is.]
finally, we stopped into barnes and noble. by now, i know there is a limit to the amount of time we can spend in there before j is beyond ready to leave. so i quickly found what i needed and then enjoyed my time browsing around until he was ready to go.
all in all, it was a successful little shopping trip. :]

after we were home for a bit and had loaded all of the new music into iTunes and updated the iPods, he actually *volunteered* to go to starbucks with me for some tea. i pushed things a little further, and he agreed to sit outside with me for 15 minutes. lucky for him, the tables and chairs were all put away when we arrived. but we did get properly suited up in out coats + a scarf for me. you probably can't even imagine how excited i was to wear my new coat and new-ish scarf. :]

this kind of a day makes it really hard to want to go to work tomorrow.
i guess it's time to crawl in bed though and try to get a few hours of sleep.
i hope everyone else is enjoying the weekend.

girls night + more.

last night, deepa, radhika and i went to see the women.
it was really good. i'll definitely see it again. perfect movie for a girls' night. :]
before the movie, we had dinner at silver peak. james joined us because we weren't sure what movie we were going to see. as soon as we walked over to the theater and saw that we were just in time for that movie... he said, "alright. see you later." haha.

yesterday, i felt inspired to clean. i took advantage of the feeling for as long as i could, and i'm happy to report that i can now see the floor of my bedroom. ok. so maybe that's only in one area. but it's the main area. that has to count for something. and in my defense [yes. shamelessly making excuses here.] the cleaning bug doesn't usually strike me until late at night. well. the main light in my room is broken. [did i mention that? yeah. james took it down and the cord is melted through and there is a black mark on the ceiling. clearly, there was a small fire at some point. you can imagine that i was 100% freaked out by that discovery.] the point is... it's hard to clean with only the hallway light and my closet light and my silly little lamp. it just doesn't cut it. i'm not hardcore enough to clean in the dark.

i'm not feeling well today.
in fact, i wanted to leave work.
unfortunately, as the only one working, i can't just leave when i don't feel good.
fortunately, there wasn't a sole in the store besides me for most of the day and there is a little couch in there. i absolutely laid down on it today.
all i've been wanting to eat is rice, but i didn't feel like calling the thai place next to my work and ordering $1 side of jasmine rice. they already know me as the girl who orders the exact same thing every time, and i can sense their judgement. [you know that episode of sex and the city!? yeah. i'm just like miranda.] i'm sure they don't honestly judge me at all, but i still couldn't muster up the courage to only order rice.
so i went and got some tea instead. it helped for a bit.

the best part of the day was when james called me near the end of the workday. he just wanted to say he was going to the gym and then he would be home. [he forgot i had work.] anyway. when we were hanging up, he said "bye love." which is what i generally say. and he said it first. and i had the biggest smile on my face when i hung up the phone.
it's the small things. :]

oh. and tonight, the inevitable happened.
james went out to meet up with his brother for a bit. i stayed home. [shocker.]
a couple hours later, i get a text from garrett. "does your bf have a half sleeve?"
before i could reply, james called me and mentioned that he saw my ex.
ha.
i called deepa. we talked about how it was bound to happen sooner or later. although deepa thinks it would have been amazing if i was, i'm really glad that i wasn't there. :]

tomorrow night, the muggs [that's james' big group of friends from way back when that he is still friends with] are having a fundraiser beer pong tournament thing. james told me they are collecting clothes for charity, and he's expecting me to clean out my closet tomorrow.
[here we go. back to my cleaning problems.]
have i mentioned here that my closet houses all of the clothes that i no longer wear, while the laundry room racks house the clothes that i currently wear? yes. it's bad. i'm aware of this, and i've been talking about how i need to get rid of some clothes. big time. it's out of control. and i actually tried yesterday during my cleaning time, but it's just hard for me. i always think "oh. i wore this shirt on the first day of school one year. i can't get rid of this shirt." or "i took these pants to san francisco with me, and i wore them that night that andrew and evan took me out. it was raining and they sung the full house theme song as we walked by the full house house. obviously, i need to keep these pants."
so even though i have no plans to wear this stuff again... i just can't get rid of all of it.
i need an intervention.
maybe i can force one on myself tomorrow.
we'll see.

i guess i'm going to need some sleep if that's supposed to happen though. :]

oh. and if i can make friends with the red ink cartridge and get some photos printed, i just might have a scrappy post coming soon. i have some pages in the final stages of construction. :]

& & i love that bold print actually shows up with the new blog colors. sweet deal.

dilemmas.

dilemma number one.
james took my car key + house keys to work with him today.
i have a spare car key, but not a spare house key. i needed to leave, so i tried to run underneath the garage doors. yes. i tried them both. multiple times. but our garage doors took up the habit of randomly popping up when you are trying to put them down. yes. both of them. eventually i just went out the back door, which is easy to lock yourself out of because of the type of lock.
so yeah. i locked myself out of the house today.
as a result, i went shopping. :]

dilemma number two.
i had lunch with my friend mike today. at peg's, of course. :]
[this was the main reason i had to lock myself out of the house.]
anyway. we talked about how sometimes friendships can be more difficult than relationships.
the thing is... friendships shouldn't be frustrating.
and that fact makes it even more frustrating when things go awry.
it's hard to lose a friend. yes. but it's also hard when a friend stops acting like a friend.
so what's the solution?
who knows.

interestingly, garrett sent me a text tonight.
how very apropos after the lunch conversation.

dilemma number three.
i've had a scrapbook page in my mind for a while now. i know the photo i want to use, and i know one other element.
right now i'm in the phase where i just imagine this awesome page. i know it looks sooo good. but the truth is... i don't really *know* what it looks like. it's just this foggy abstract image in my mind. this happens a lot. and generally, my pages don't live up to that amazing expectation in my mind. ha.
when i got out the element i want to use on the page the other night... i realized it's so much larger than i've been thinking. so this page that is so awesome [although i don't actually know what it looks like] in my mind just might need to be a two page layout. yes. that's a dilemma for me. i don't really do two page layouts.
we'll see. maybe i can still make it work with one page. but the image in my mind is definitely not happening.

dilemma number four.
the red ink cartridge of the photo printer is causing major problems since i replaced it a little while ago.
this is usually the sequence of events when i try to print:
error message number 1: missing ink cartridge. there is no red ink installed.
umm. yes. actually there is a red ink cartridge installed you crazy printer. so i take out the red ink and put it back in.
error message number 2: you have two red ink cartridges installed.
umm. no. there is one red ink cartridge installed you crazy printer. so i take out the red ink and put it back in.
generally, one page will print at this point, then the process repeats itself.
but last time, two pages printed in a row. woot. i was thinking the red ink woes were over.
UNTIL I NOTICED RED DOTS OF INK IN VARYING SIZES ALL OVER THE SECOND PAGE. whaaaaat? and it happened to be photos of my niece, which makes me even more angry than the wasted ink and paper.
so. i don't know what to do. i guess i have to call the company or something, but i just don't feel like dealing with it. i've been so happy with the printer until this whole red ink ordeal. sigh.

double date + more.

on friday night, james and howie took deepa and me on a double date.
we ate at hiroba, which i always love.
then we went to chocolate bar because we had about an hour to kill before going to a movie.
luckily, deepa likes taking photos too. so i don't have to be the weird one of the group when i get out my camera. love that.
i don't really know what to say about that second shot. :] but just look at howie. perhaps he was a little tiny bit horrified? i'll let you be the judge.
we saw burn after reading.
i thought it was ok. i guess i would watch it again if it happened to be on tv or something, but i wouldn't really pick it out as a move to watch. does that make sense? it just wasn't nearly as good as i thought it would be.
anyway. it turned out to be a really fun night. :]
good job boys.

on saturday, james went to visit a pharmacy school in california with one of his friends.
i think it was an informative visit, and if nothing else, it gave him a little kick in the pants to get to work on applications. he started them today and made pretty good progress.
good job james.

as for me... i just had work all weekend.
i missed out on sarah palin's visit to carson city. i think it would have been a good experience to see her talk. [add that to the growing list of reasons i don't like my job. ha.]
last night, i stayed for the late night crop at the store. that means i was there for thirteen hours. yikes. i didn't really get anything accomplished, but i had fun hanging out and helping jeanne and julie get their pages done. julie is new-ish to scrapbooking, so jeanne and i had tons of fun being a bad influence on her. we showed her all of the latest and greatest papers and steered her away from the older stuff. ha.
good job girls.

tonight james and i went to target because helix was running low on food and bones.
he has been going crazy at night ever since that raccoon visited us a while ago. i'm not sure if i mentioned the return visit of a raccoon maybe a week ago? it seriously sends helix over the edge when the raccoon is in the back yard. every night he goes to the door and just watches. and he usually goes a little crazy even when nothing is out there. i don't really know what to do to help him get over it. poor little guy. but bones seem to help take his mind off it.
good job bones.