There's no place like home for the holidays...

one step closer

I did it.

Today I went Christmas shopping.

This year the family (my side of it, that is) will not be giving out presents to any of the adults, just the kids. I always have a hard time buying gifts, no matter who the gift is for. But, just how bad could it be? Kids are easy to buy for, right? It took me forever to decide what to buy. Well not forever as I only had an hour before I had to pick up the hubby. But it took that whole hour! It sure was easier to buy them presents when they were babies. Now, not so much.

All I have left to do now is buy a gift for the hubby and I will be all set. Oh wait...I still have to wrap them. That is unless I go with my Mom's method of wrapping. That method being to just give out the present in the store bag it came in. ;-)

Either way I am one step closer to kicking that kitty off the tree skirt and putting something snazzier in her place.

intention

Have you finished your Christmas shopping? Have you even started?

As for me, I would be in the latter category. No shopping has yet to be done. Nothing has yet to be placed under our tree. The tree skirt is bare...well except for the cat!

I was thinking of going shopping tonight but did not get home until around 6:30pm and by the time I even got motivated to head out it was already 8pm. I ended up not going. I still have tomorrow. Most definitely tomorrow will have to be the day to start as I am involved in a gift exchange at work and I need a gift by Thursday. Nothing like waiting until the last minute. Wish me luck.

Christmas polka-dots

11 days left until the big day. Are you ready?

candy canes & stockings, oh my!

Not only does this get me into the mood for Christmas, but it also gets me into the mood for doing another 365 day photo project. But that might just be the late hour of the night talking when in reality what my subconscious really wants is just some really cool socks.





Photo credits:
1. fullofbliss, 2. Gabriela D Costa, 3. Simutis [nancy]

Goodbye Monday, Hello Tuesday

 

Ever have one of those days where it is super extra long and you are kept busy with things that make you want to strangle someone. Then when the day is over you find that you really have not accomplished anything the entire day?

Please tell me I am not alone.

Here I sit, late at night and I really cannot tell you what I did all day. Work did not really go so well today. We have hired some contract workers to help with our backlog of cases. One in particular had me ready to pull my hair out. Each week I assign a list of cases and at the end of the week they are to send the list back to me with notations of the cases they completed that week. We have done this for about the past 2 months. Two weeks ago, one of the ladies did not send me her list. I finally got that list this past Saturday. But then today, she again did not send me last week's list. She called me to tell me it was too confusing. (This coming from someone that makes at least 4 times more than me). Marking off on a list the cases she completed and emailing it to me was too confusing. It was totally frustrating!!

Then I went thru some of her cases. It looks like we may have a problem. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

The only thing that made up for this day was that I won a Gift Certificate to Scrapbook Dreamer!!! So Totally Excited!!!

Now it is cold and there are really scary wind noises outside. I think it is time for me to go to bed and hide my head under the covers. I am positive that Tuesday is meant to be a better day.

Winter + Cocoa = ♥

Photo credits:
1. flint knits, 2. #mari, 3. C.Mariani

A tree is found

We found a tree.

You don't know how happy those words make me. We were going to go back to one of the stores we visited the night before and buy the one the hubby liked. This morning we decided to try just one more store. We lucked out and found a tree that we both liked. We did not plan on buying a slim tree, (we have never really liked them) but we found one that looks great.

We had just planned on going out to buy a tree but decided to stop to look at ornaments. We found some we liked but the store only had 2 boxes. We ended up driving all the way across town with the hopes that the store's other location would have more. We lucked out and were able to buy a couple more boxes. I am excited that we actually own a tree that is large enough for the ornaments we already have and of course the ones we just purchased.

The hubby worked on the tree all night making it look nice and full. The only problem we encountered was that it was a bit taller than we expected. Going from a tree that is under 5-feet to one that is 7 1/2 feet is quite a change. The ceiling is high enough to accommodate it however we forgot that our ceiling also slants and of course the perfect spot that I had planned to use just happens to be the lowest part of the ceiling. But, I think with a bit of creative furniture re-arranging we just may be able to find a place for it. Then the fun of decorating begins. However.....that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Let's talk trees, Christmas trees

First there was Michael's, then JoAnn's, K-mart, Wally Mart, Big Lots & finally Kohl's. All this and still no tree. Oh we actually saw some, which is a big improvement over last year, we just could not decide which one we wanted. Each of us likes a different tree.

I have always promised myself that once we had the space, we would get a larger tree. Our current tree is under 5 feet. We have only ever had tiny trees. The day after Christmas (last year) we went shopping for a tree. We got to the stores too late I guess because every store was out. This year there are some good sales when it comes to trees. Now if we could just decide which one to buy.

So tell me...Do you already have your tree?

Dreaming of a Wooly Wonderland

Being the beginning knitter that I am (even though it has been a few years), I found it interesting when my blog was listed as one of the top knitting blogs back in 2005.

Having only completed one actual project, I still consider myself a beginning knitter and definitely not someone that would have been considered as having a popular knitting blog back then.

Okay, so from what I remember of the original project the results were due to the folders people set up in bloglines and the blogs that were listed in these folders.

The other day I came across this. Someone updated the info (albeit a few months back). I am happy to see that I am still on the list (even though I have not blogged about knitting since 2005) and that I even picked up a few more readers.

I have been thinking lately that I need to pull out some yarn, maybe it is the cold weather that appeared overnight. This new house gets cold! Then today I came across this wonderful bit of inspiration. Now I am really in the mood to get back to it.

Where will I find the time?

Today was a long day.

Nothing out of the ordinary, just a day that felt extraordinarily long. Well it felt that way at work. I was feeling quite weird all day. Really woozy and dizzy and I just could not concentrate very well. Being dizzy is not something that worries me. I get dizzy a lot. Not vertigo, just dizzy. Well actually I really don't know if it is vertigo as I have never talked to any doctors about it. Today was not the usual kind of dizzy. This was more of a not being able to focus (mind or eyes) type of feeling. I did feel somewhat better once I got home. I think it may be due to lack of sleep. Just don't tell the hubby I said that.

Once home I packed as much as I could into the couple of hours that I had. I actually got some studying done tonight and I think I just may make it thru the class before the end date. I totally was not thinking about how the holidays would affect being able to spend time on this class. But since this is a class for work that needed to get done last year, I really needed to start it as soon as I could.

So many things to do this month...what with Christmas, get togethers with friends from long ago, and then of course my class (which needs to be completed by the end of January). I want to send out Christmas cards, decorate, clean my house, get a haircut and I need to go Christmas shopping. I also want to make a few things. I have no idea when I will get to do all of these.

Am I crazy for wanting to do so much? No maybe crazy comes into play when you hear that I have plans to be part of some online crafty fun. So many crafty and scrappy challenges out there this month. I would love for you to join me. We could be crazy and time starved/sleep deprived together.

So....Head on over to ScrapbookDreamer to be part of their 25 Days of Christmas where there will be lots of challenges and prizes!!

If you sign up for the forum please let them know I sent you. We could both win a prize!

In an instant

The hubby and I have been renting movies from Netflix since they first started. When they started offering Instant Streaming of movies I thought it was a neat idea but since it was only available to view on the computer I did not use it very much. Then they started offering the option to view on your television. However to do that you had to either purchase one of their systems, have an Xbox and I think Tivo may have been another option. Having neither of these I just grumbled to myself and stopped paying any attention to that area of the service. That is until this past weekend.

When we received our last movie rental something caught my eye. An advertisement to view Netflix Instant Streaming movies via PS3. Well hey! I have one of those. So I went online and requested my disk. This thing is so cool! Once the disk is in the player the Netflix screen comes up. It is automatic. You don't even have to go to the website. Our Instant Queue popped up on the screen and so did other suggested items to view. The pickings are usually older films but a few newer ones are sprinkled in there. The hubby already watched a couple and I think it will work out great for me to watch all those foreign films that the hubs would not be too happy to have received on DVD.

instead of chocolate

I have been off line for a couple of days. But getting away from all the online distractions really did not help me accomplish anything. I always seem to be doing something else INSTEAD of what I SHOULD be doing.

So on that note. I made a pretty word cloud of all my facebook status updates from the past month. I guess chocolate has been on my mind lately.

Chemistry

Maybe it's the way the chapter is written, or that I should not be reading it so late at night. Maybe it's just bad high school memories. What it all boils down to is that I am not a lover of Chemistry.

It's sad really. I used to love science so much and was so excited when the time came for me to take Chemistry in high school. That is until I actually took the class.

I remember enjoying the experiments and the subject matter but the teacher really put a damper on it. She was known as a hard-ass. Others seemed to like her though, me . . . not so much. Especially after getting a note that I received a C on an assignment because my handwriting was too girly or something along those lines. She also told me that my over all grade in the class was lower due to my doodling on the outside of my lab book.

Definitely not something a young girl with terrible self esteem needed to hear. I have always felt just a bit as though I was not smart enough for the subject.

I used to have dreams of being a Veterinarian or even working in Genetics. But that all changed after Chemistry.

In college I took Biology but when the time came to take Chemistry I found that I could not do it.

I picked non-sciency majors. Got non-sciency jobs. I worked in teaching, bookstores and even with computers.

Then came the job I have now. A science related job. I am currently taking an Anatomy & Physiology class. First chapter was a breeze. Medical stuff I already knew. Then came Chapter Two.

I had such high hopes of finishing this class quickly. That is until I got to Chapter Two.

Our first over-night houseguest

It all began a couple of days ago. I awoke early, before the alarm. I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. On my way back to bed, I flipped on the switch for the cooler's water pump. I heard a noise that sounded like something was inside the cooler vents. Then it sounded a bit like a cat running on the roof. I tried not to freak out about it and when I woke the next day, I asked B if there was a way that something could get into the vents from outside. He told me no.

After that I just kept feeling there was something inside the vents. I half expected to look up at a vent and see something looking back at me. I kept bringing it up but B would respond (or not respond) that there was nothing there.

Shortly after we arrived home one evening B mentioned that it sounded like one of the cats was trying to puke up a hairball. One of the cats was on the bed and the other I did not see. I got concerned because it (the sound) was going on for awhile so, I followed the sound to make sure she was not choking. The sound led me to the kitchen. There was no cat in the kitchen.

The sound stopped for a bit and then started again. It was coming from behind the kitchen wall. I yelled out to B that the sound was coming from behind the wall and it sounded like there was something behind the wall. Of course B responded back that there was nothing behind the wall. I think about this time he was a bit tired of me talking about something being in the house. Okay, I admit at times my imagination may get away from me but I just KNEW there was something there. The sound stopped and I didn't hear it again.

That night when B was asleep and I was working on my school work, I heard a noise come from the kitchen. I thought that one of the cats may be on the counter or getting herself into something she should not be into. So I went to investigate (and see if I could catch her doing something she shouldn't). I snuck into the kitchen to see if I could catch her but when I flipped on the light. . . there was no cat in the kitchen. There wasn't a cat even anywhere near the kitchen.

I then heard a rustling sound come from under the rolling kitchen cart. I peaked under the cart and saw a pink nose that quickly moved backward. Oh boy! It was definitely not the cat under there. I was thinking maybe a mouse, a rat, a hamster, a guinea pig....

I got the broom and moved it toward the cart. What ever was under that cart GROWLED! Okay, something was definitely in the kitchen! I yelled this out to B and woke that man up! It wasn't until I moved the broom again and it growled that he believed me. What could be under that cart? What lives in the desert that would make that noise? All sorts of ideas where going thru our heads. B tried to look under the cart and said from what he could see, it looked kind of like a ferret. So we were thinking maybe a neighbors' pet had gotten loose.

Then we saw it. It's head peaked out from behind the rolling cart, and so did its tail. B saw it first and said it looked like a Ringtail Cat. But what was a Ringtail Cat doing in our house? I have lived in the desert my entire life and have found all kinds of creatures in my house, but this one, this one was for the record books. I have never even seen a Ringtail Cat in the wild.

I had a plan. I opened the back door and started to move the cart away from the wall hoping that the creature would run out the back door. That was the plan. Of course when dealing with animals nothing ever goes according to plan. The Ringtail ran out from behind the cart, ran around B and went straight under the stove. B pulled out the stove but the Ringtail was no where to be found. There were no holes behind or under the stove. We did not know where it went.

B found someone in the phone book that was willing to come out (at 1am in the morning) to help. That awesome someone would be Marc. Once Marc arrived he and B went to work looking inside, around, and under the stove/oven. They still could not find it. After looking for awhile, B found an opening under the cabinets that just maybe something could fit thru. They pulled apart the baseboards around the cabinets and removed the bottom of one cabinet. JACKPOT! Although there was no Ringtail under the cabinet, we had evidence that it had been there. It appeared that we were going to have to set a trap and wait.

Marc explained to us how to set and disarm the trap. He set a couple of traps and then we said good-bye. I closed the door behind him and turned around to see the Ringtail sniffing the food in the trap. B ran back outside to see if he could catch Marc before he left and let him know that we probably would not have to wait long. B and I stood there watching as the Ringtail came right out from under the cabinet, looked right at us and went straight into the trap. It sure must have been hungry.

I guess we can officially say we have had our first over-night houseguest in our new home. It may have caused a lot of commotion but at least it was cute.

chapter one

Well I started.

I have activated my class and I am ready to read that first chapter. I am a bit excited, anxious and kind of wishing I was already finished.

I have 15-weeks to complete the course. I would really love to finish it early. Especially since I have so many more that I need to take. I have never taken an online course before, self-paced, yes but online, no. I just hope my time management skills are bit better than the last time.

It's time to learn something

So remember when I got approved (from work) for training reimbursement and I was all gung-ho to start? Well here it is almost one year later and I have not even started my first class.

First there was a problem with getting my completion certificate from the college. I was officially finished with classes in April 2008 but it took until February 2009 to actually receive my certificate. All that waiting only to find out that the document in question was not anything more than a fill-in the blank certificate that looked as though it had been copied.

This new online program has some prerequisites that I have already completed as part of the college program. Since the certificate (that I waited 9 months for) would not work, and the college classes were not credit courses (so no transcripts available), I had to have the college write a transcript letter. I tell ya. . . I was not expecting this whole college letter writing thing to turn out well.

So. . . some time passes and I don't hear back from online program people. I email them and I am told they never received the letter. I do receive a copy of the letter sent from the college and I find it is not the right kind of letter. It was just a copy of the completion paperwork when I completed the course. So I have the college write another one. The college sends me a copy. This was the correct type of letter. But I never hear back from the online school. I wait. I email. I email some more but I hear nothing back.

So I created a new support ticket asking the turn around time for responses. I am told 24-hours. By this time it has been months without a response. So now I KNOW they are ignoring my requests and that it is not just my imagination. I finally get someone on the phone and explain EVERYTHING to the guy. He tells me they never received the letter from the college. I mentioned that I had a copy and he told me to email it but that since it was not officially sent from the college he would have to see if it was acceptable. So I did. And I waited. Just when I was about to contact them again I get an email telling me that they would be accepting my copy and that they had found the original college letters in someone else's transcript file. At least they waived the prerequisites. That was in August.

It is now October. Yesterday I finally purchased my first course. I have 15-weeks to complete it once it is activated. I had hoped to do that last night but ended up with a migraine. No problem. I tried for tonight. Yeah, I wrote this blog post instead. LOL! At least I have not activated it yet. I have a feeling that weekends will work out much better when I comes to working on class work.

April has ended

Well it has when it comes to my Project 365. I finally uploaded the last day of April.

1. gum. lots and lots of gum., 2. cat, computer, bed, 3. sprunch, 4. Once a Badger, Always a Badger, 5. good food, good friends, good times, 6. two. zero., 7. packed, 8. zzzzzzzzzzzz, 9. diner, 10. clean & folded, 11. bench, 12. looking thru the golden glass, 13. crossed, 14. house hunting, 15. Miss Cairo Kitty, 16. fruit loopy, 17. splash ball, 18. on the road, 19. little miss blue eyes, 20. the way i am, 21. scrappin' the project, 22. rusted, 23. a window's reflection, 24. scallop, 25. What light thru yonder branches breaks....., 26. searching, 27. What's for dinner?, 28. post*it, 29. Who broke the cookies?, 30. just bananas

titles hinder creativity

I still have not unpacked all my crafty stuff but that did not stop me from starting to scrap a page. It has been awhile so I thought I would start off easy. I decided using a sketch was the way to go. I only have a few printed photos to scrap but I was able to find a few that would work with the sketch. . . This was over a week ago (maybe longer). I have been slowly working on it but now I am stuck more than ever. And what is it that has me stuck? A title. A one-word title.

Titles have hindered my creativity in so many ways. I take too long to blog because I am thinking of a title. I take weeks to upload my photos to Flickr all because of a title. Then there is scrapping. . . not that every page needs a title, but sheesh! Creativity should not be this hard.

The hubby and I have been off of work since last Friday. We took some time off to celebrate our anniversary. We had many different ideas about what we were going to do during our time off but we ended up doing none of them. We were quite the lazy couple. It will be hard to go back to work tomorrow, but even more so since the hubby still has the rest of the week off from work.

H1N1

All the buzz at work the last couple of days has been about the Swine Flu. It's here. Not that it ever went away.

AZ is currently listed as one of the few states with widespread occurrence. So that being said, yesterday there were some new rules put into effect at work. The main one being no children 13 and under allowed. Oh and if you come to the ER you are not to come inside the building but to use the phone outside first.

There were meetings all day on how the hospital is going to handle any issues and what we should do if we happen to get sick. The meeting was pretty informative. I learned that I need a manual can opener (got two) and I need to practice social distancing (min 6-feet from others). As you can see in the handout below, these items are in bold which I think pretty much means they are important. ;-)


It is expected that 30-40% of the population will get sick. There were quite a few people (in my department) that stayed home today, it was really quiet except for the occasional sneeze (myself included). Since I work around a limited number of people, rarely leave my desk and I never really go out anywhere after work, I am not too worried about getting sick. Well at least not with the flu. I have been a bit under the weather this week but I can attribute that to allergies.

However....the husband is sick. He is never sick. He came home early from work and now he is asleep. Hopefully he will feel better in the morning.

it's so basic

Basic Grey cardstock.

Have you seen it? Is it new? Has it been around awhile?

Basic Grey now sells their plain patterned paper (you know the "plain" side of their patterned papers) in separate packages. I took a quick trip to the local scrappy store yesterday and happened to come across it. I saw it and just had to have it. I limited myself to just one package though, as with anything Basic Grey it is quite pricey. Well that and the fact that I need more paper like I need a hole in my head.

Okay....WOW! While looking for a picture to share ('cause my camera battery will not cooperate) I came across Scrapbook.com. Again, let me just say WOW! The site lets you select a color scheme based on the item (or uploaded picture) you have selected. Now that is just too cool.

September 9, 2009: 09-09-09

Now what kind of blogger would I be if I did not post on this memorable day in history, 09-09-09. Albeit the day is pretty much over but I made it just under the wire.

This month has already shown itself to be a whirlwind of activity, but to be honest September usually is a busy month around here. I was lucky to have this past Labor Day weekend off from work, sadly the husband did not. I am actually pretty happy the weekend is over. There are parts of it that I want to remember and some not so much.

Saturday we had my parents over for dinner. It was the first time having them over for dinner since we moved into our house. The husband grilled steak and made his famous Whiskey Bread Pudding. It is times like these that I love being married to a chef, especially when he does all the cooking.

We had some bad news this weekend. My cousin's husband had a stroke. 37-years old is too young to have a stroke, especially when one does not have any of the risk factors. I spent some time on Monday (Labor Day) & Tuesday visiting at the hospital. He is making progress and we pray that he gets better quickly. It really does make you think though, especially since he is younger than the husband and I.

Yesterday I found these awesome 1 gallon mason canning jars. I thought they would be awesome to use in my new crafty space. That is if I ever finish unpacking the boxes. I thought it would be cool to fill them with something . . . now I just need to decide what to put in them. One of the ideas running around in my head was to fill them with foam letter stamps but I wonder if there may be a better use for them. What are your ideas? What do you think would be the perfect thing to use to fill them?

September has begun

I had high hopes of starting a new monthly photo project today but sadly I have not even listened to a single song today.

The networks went down at work again today. When it happened last Friday, we were sent home after 2-hours. Today I ended up staying 2-hours past my shift. Today I got to prep charts, in-patient and ER. It is not hard work but once you get the process down it can be kind of mind numbing. It is also hard on the back. It sure did keep me busy. I had no problem with staying awake today. I also had no time for breaks and lunch was really late. The husband had to work open to close again today so we did not get home until 7pm. 12-hours away from home, 2 days in a row, is pretty tiring.

Tonight I managed to upload only one Project 365 photo. I got distracted while uploading (and writing this post) and ended up listening to a song. Of course it ended up being one I have only listened to (according to Last.FM) only 8 times. Although not as creative as others that had their photos (and songs) already planned, I think I may have something that I can use. I HAD to do it. It was just too weird NOT to take a photo today.



I can't believe it is September already. It always seems to sneak up on me. Maybe because my Dad's birthday is the 2nd. Hey! That's tomorrow!

last day

Today was the last day for my current Project 365. I am so proud of myself that I did not miss a single day this time around. Of course, like last time, I am a little late in uploading my photos. Four months isn't too bad is it? So far I have uploaded 242 photos. Only 123 to go! Here are the last 2 that I uploaded tonight.


I keep trying to decide if I want to immediately start another year (of photos) or take a break. I guess it all depends on how I feel tomorrow. I was thinking of maybe a fun (and musical) month long project.

Although I didn't accomplish anything creative this past weekend, I did happen to find oodles of creativity out there on the World Wide Internets. I found tons of new blogs that I probably will never find time to read that I was pretty excited to see. But I will post more on that later or maybe tomorrow, or the next day.