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!

oh well.

i decided since i had ruined the layout with journaling, that i should go ahead and try adding some mist. i still don't like it as much as i did pre-journaling, but it's ok for now. eventually i might replace the white, but the thing is that the title really needs an explanation. so i felt like i had to have some journaling. so then again... maybe i keep it this way. ha.

also, for some reason the photos are looking a little dull when i upload them here compared to how they look in iphoto. not sure what the deal is... but oh well. :]
one night when james and i were saying goodnight via text, he sent "i lobe you." so i wrote back "i lobe you too." so now we continue to use the typo as a little inside joke. :]
i used almost an entire package of sassafras paper whimsies on here. i was just going to use a few, but i couldn't help it and just kept adding them. i popped some of them up for dimension and added some little black pearls to some of the centers for a little extra detail.

that's all for now... i'm going to attempt to buy a bigger pumpkin now so that james and i [well. mostly james.] can carve it for the trick-or-treaters tonight. i'll be back soon with photos from a couple halloween parties and deepa's birthday celebration.
oh and happy nevada day! :]

crop results.

i finished 3.25 layouts at the crop. for a little while it looked like i would come home without a single completed layout. i was struggling quite a bit, but finally pulled it together a few hours before it was time to leave. i actually decided to just be done because i felt frustrated and just wasn't getting anywhere. i called james to check in, and he kind of gave me a little extra push. i found a favorite photo of the two of us that had made it's way into the small amount of stuff that i'd packed. so i decided to just play around with that photo and have some fun. i didn't really care if i came out with a great layout, but i ended up with one of my favorites. that happens more often than not when i just throw caution to the wind and make something for fun with no expectations. unfortunately, i can't share that layout because i decided to add some journaling when i got home, and i don't like it now. haha. so i'm going to fix it, then i will post it. :] i have two others to share though. i struggled to get good photos of them and finally just gave up. you'll be able to get the idea.

i'm not going to lie... i was pretty bummed when we arrived and checked out green tangerines. i was expecting to see all sorts of fabulous new product. but there was nothing. i mean... a few new things from american crafts, but nothing that i had been hoping and planning to buy while i was there. i was pretty sad. i hadn't packed very much because i was anticipating finding lots of new product to buy. so on friday night i didn't get much very accomplished at the crop. luckily, i brought three studio calico kits with me, so i was able to start this layout after realizing i wouldn't be buying much.don't you love my super creative title? :]
there were a couple challenges issued, so i decided to participate in one of them. we had to use elements on our layout that started with the letters of our initials, so i did "apple patterned paper" or "alphabet thickers" for "a" and "green ribbon" for "g".
as i mentioned... i had a hard time figuring how to finish this one. in fact, i didn't finish it until shortly before packing up to leave on saturday night. i had set it aside and was just going to finish it at home, but i finally decided to pull out my trusty fiskars punches. then i chose another chipboard sticker from cosmo for the final finishing touch.
i had planned a lot more journaling about the yummy pies and our lunch at bodhaine, but i couldn't get it to fit and look good, so i left it off the final layout.

that night at the hotel, i was searching around on the internet via my phone and found out that there was a small stamping store called the stamp art shoppe just a short drive away. in the morning i asked mandee if she wanted to go check it out, so after breakfast we headed over there. i'm so glad that we did... it's a nice little store and the owner was so friendly. they had the new basic grey nook and pantry collection, which i wasn't too excited about when i saw it online, but holy smokes! in person it's wonderful. i'm in love with the backsides of most of the papers... they are just so pretty. that lovely brown doilie pattern below is from the collection, as well as the cream linen looking paper. i should have purchased more... i seriously can't tell you enough about how much i love the patterns.
i really like that photo of erin on the left, so i decided to document our pumpkin hunt.
i was excited to finally use some of the twine i've been collecting from studio calico. i also used some cute little nutmeg chipboard stickers that i won from cosmo cricket and some jenni bowlin chipboard buttons that i picked up at the stamp art shoppe.
and i have to thank mandee again for letting me have the jenni bowlin label journaling paper. i had attemped to cut one from brown cardstock, but i didn't have a good brown with me and the cardstock selection at green tangerines was pretty pathetic. i don't mean to keep saying bad things about the store, but i definitely feel like if you are having a big crop, you should have your cardstock section well stocked.

all in all, i had a good time on the short trip. it was nice to get away and have some creative time. plus, mandee and i got to meet rachel, a fellow studio calico fan, on saturday at the crop. she lives in the area, and i'm so glad that she was able to make it. it's always fun to meet online scrappy friends in real life. she is super sweet, and i'm really hoping that we'll have the chance to meet up again sometime. :]

i'm so tired, i feel like i'm forgetting to mention something that i had intended to about the trip... oh well. maybe it will come to me later. i guess that's all for now. i'm off to bed!

pumpkin patch.

james and i visited the pumpkin patch last night. it was pretty much dark when we arrived, which was nice because there wasn't a crowd. the only problem was that the patch wasn't very well lit so it was hard to see the pumpkins. i ended up picking two small pumpkins to befriend my squash from apple hill on the counter. :]

i think my practical went pretty well. i was tempted to write "adipose tissue" for one of the cadaver questions because as far as i could tell the needle was pointing into a yellow fat blob, but there wasn't supposed to be any histology on this practical. the cat questions went surprisingly well though. so i think it went better than i was anticipating. we'll see when i find out my grade.

not much else going on around here. i had a chance to visit my old lab on tuesday, which was really great. i need to stop by more often. i miss that place a lot. it was so nice to catch up with everyone. rubi has a baby boy now and sharon has a grandson! time seems like it's just going by so fast.

anyway. i'm off to green tangerines with mandee for some creative time. i better go find my shoes [of course the ones i want are no where to be found today] and throw my stuff in the car so we can get out of here.
i hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!