Crafting Time!

It's Friday, the last day of November! Sheesh, I can't believe December is already here. Sometimes things move soooo slowly... and sometimes the months just pounce on by.

So this is what I've been working on lately. Not my own designs except for certain embellishments and different uses of buttons, but it's always easier for me to follow someone else's rules than make up my own. It took me hours to create my own curious critter because I had to "design" it and I didn't know how.

Introducing......
my pals Jamie, Floopy, and Henri (from left to right). And an unnamed, half-sewn blue hippo.

Jamie is a crooked fellow. So crooked that he's confused about who he is. He thinks he's male, but he's such a bright fuschia pink with a girly blue and pearl bow that he questions himself. He's working on it. Don't judge him.

Floopy was never accepted in school. He tried really hard to fit in, but he's just a little empty-headed and couldn't keep up with the popular kids' drama. He's super fun to play with, but never count on him to be on time for the movies. Despite his seemingly neglectful nature, he's got a heart of gold and is very loyal once he makes a decision if he likes you (it may take a while to know where you stand, so be patient).

Henri, unlike Jamie, knows EXACTLY who he is and embraces being pink and striped. His self confidence is inherent in his French nature. There's no identity crisis here! His beautiful blue eyes draw others to him and his plump tummy just shows you how much he loves his French cuisine. He's actually thinking of enrolling in culinary school and becoming a fabulous (and humble) French chef. Mais oui! Bien sur!!

Sorry I didn't post about my other friends that I'd made a couple of months ago. Oh wait... I may just have a picture of them!!!

OOOH I DO!

Here are my friends, from left to right, who are ALL original creatures except for Pinkie:
Paul the mittened monster (inspired by Bloo)
Cheep the spherical blobule chickie
Pinkie the pig (yes, I know she's red)
Janna the nag
Teddy the bear snowman
Flora the snob

Their bios:
Paul is a distant relative of Bloo from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. He's so proud that Bloo has made it big time with his own tv show that Paul brags about him every chance he gets. Too bad the two have actually never met..

Cheep is the most serious one of all the bunch. He's small and round, but he packs a mean punch if you take him lightly. While socializing, one must stick to safe topics such as the weather and food, and never discuss the world's state of affairs. Not if you want to leave with your pride intact.

Pinkie is a happy piglet. She's got ADHD and it took all of her concentration to sit still for this group photo. Seconds after the picture was taken, she sproinged off the couch like a two week old puppy.

Janna is the oldest of the group. AHEM, excuse me, I meant, the most experienced and respected. She is the mother to all the crew, with her big red lips and uneven, blazing blue eyes, she can stop you dead in your tracks if you think you're leaving the house without your coat on. Reminiscent of the tough, no-nonsense diner waitress of yore, Janna is old-school traditional, and purposefully matches her paisley prints on a daily basis.

Teddy is proud that he fits in two genres: snowmen and bears. He's not so happy with his name, unoriginal as it is, and wishes to change it to something more debonair and refined. Like Rupert. Or McPaddington. He is decidedly British of some sort. Oddly enough, he was born in the United States, but he speaks with a Scottish accent.

Flora thinks she is the most beautiful creature ever made. Her flowery patterns and daisy print skirt are all that's needed for her to put that smug look on her face. She thinks she is better than everyone else and has won multiple beauty pageants, mostly by making other contestants cry and forfeit the competition. Unlike a couple of her counterparts, she is completely hand-stitched and pampers her stitches with spa treatments and other very expensive weekly procedures. People often mistake her for Janna, to which she haughtily retorts, "THAT bag?! Get your eyes checked, and apologize to me at once!"

Perhaps we'll have a holiday party soon and you can meet my friends in person. More to come later. :)

Gobble, gobble, *choke*, *hack*

So it's Monday. And I had the strangest and shortest work week last week and a long weekend to boot. I'm back to the grind, but things happened today that tripped up the wonderful, euphoric flow I had going.

Well first of all, I went to Felt Club yesterday and spent $60 on this:

And someone decided she wanted to play too (it's a crochet kit of 2 snails in a toadstool):

So anyways I get to work early and decide to be good and not have coffee, but tea instead. I start working and check out some of my blogs to catch up from the short week I had, and saw that two of my eBay auctions have sold and been paid for! OMG! I'm, like, 12 hours behind!! So I send off an email to the buyers saying thanks and that their stuff will go out tomorrow. And I hope my tardiness (ok, so it's just a matter of hours... but still) doesn't affect their giving me good feedback on my 0 feedbacks so far. And I have to get Rick to ship them out for me tomorrow.

Then get this email about my application to grad school. To make a dramatic story short and not so dramatic, an aspect of my application is incomplete, yet I have a perfectly good answer to why it is incomplete, and there is nothing I can really do about it being incomplete as it's out of my hands. I ask what steps I need to take, and get emailed that it's required. I email back, saying Yes I know, but what should I do now? and get emailed that it's required. Yeah. Pain in the butt much? And it's signed by an actual person, so it's not like it's automated, although you could have fooled me with the robotic unintelligence.

So then I find out we get a 20% discount on tuition. But you can either do that OR get work credit. So then I have to do math (UGH) and try to figure out what's the best 'deal'. And then I realize that I didn't get any financial aid so no loans to help me out, so can afford to take two classes a quarter??

I get a few emails from my mom with her updating me about things going on and then I get depressed. Sheesh. Not that it's her fault, it's just that Sh*t happens sometimes. And you can't always prepare for it.

I was hoping this week was going to go super smoothly since it's short and a lot of people are on vacation so things in general should be quiet. Maybe it still can be. But I'm already stressed and I haven't even thought about the impending holiday yet. Which is a smaller stressor than Christmas, but still a stressor.

Ergo, I wish you a happy Gobble, Gobble, Gobble... while I Gobble, Gobble, *choke*, *hack*, *cough*, *grunt*.

Winding down

This weekend I finally finished my app. YIPPEE!! I actually had a really good and relaxing weekend. :) On Saturday, Rick and I went to breakfast at our usual greasy-spoon diner, Ben's, stopped at the farmer's market across the street, and just a block away was the West Coast Artists' Fine Arts Festival going on in Downtown Burbank. We spent a good 2 hours walking the street fair, checking out the jewelry, paintings, and modern art ideas. It was so much fun! The end (or beginning) of the fair started right at the mall so we walked inside and browsed some of the mall stores there. I almost got an Old Navy coat since they're having a 40% off sale this week, but they were out of my size - and I realized the next day that I can't do math and I thought 60% of $90 was somehow $36 ( 9 x 6 = 36, like DUH) so of course, much to my surprise, it was actually $54 so good thing they didn't have my size. Stupid me. How am I supposed to do well on the GREs when I can't even do multiplication????!

Later that evening we went out to dinner with our good friends, Raul and Kathleen, to a Chinatown place that was supposed to be a jazz club, but they didn't have their jazz band playing that night. We ended up leaving and going to Hop Louie just around the corner for dinner, and that was pretty good. :) Stopped in a couple of those little shops that were still open, and then headed back to their place for some TV. Ended up watching many episodes of Robot Chicken, and I gotta say - that series is for someone with extreme ADHD. Someone like me. :) I enjoyed it sooo much and was the only one of us who didn't fall asleep from over-stimulation.

On Sunday I final-proofed my essay, whipped up my resume, and packed up my app to go. It's out of my hands now! This Wednesday I'm taking the day off to take the stupid GRE so hopefully that will go alright. I've been having anxiety dreams about the test, so I really hope I don't get a migraine that day. $140 is not fun to waste.

Things are coming along nicely. I'm happy that all my loose ends and busy weekends are winding down slowly, even as I try to find activities to do on the weekends. Perhaps next weekend I will finally be able to take Rick up to the Griffith Observatory. We can now park up on the hill instead of taking the shuttle, so I'm expecting crowds to be at a max.

Disneyland this Friday!! :) Maybe this time I will go on rides by myself while my pregnant sister patiently waits. She's having a girl!!

Recent craft ideas:
Mini origami crab and crane earrings. I have small gold foil paper (about 4" x 4") that will fold into small crabs and cranes. :)

Mini felt horses, giraffes, snails. The instructions I had been working from were a good, basic introduction to understanding the design and layout of bunnies and kittens. Now I can try to make my own favorite critters with the techniques I've learned.

Annette reminded me that Felt Club is coming this Sunday! I'm going to try to make it.

I've also just set up an eBay selling account and am trying to get rid of some of my stuff. Nothing great, really, just some new, old shoes. I love my high heels but sometimes they just hurt me too much.

Thanksgiving is coming up very soon....

Happy Halloweenie!

It's Halloween! I bought a pumpkin a few weekends ago and didn't get a chance to carve it. So on Monday I decided to do more with it than just have it carved for a few days for the holiday and then throw it out. Such a waste. So I decided to make pumpkin pie.

I cut out a big section of the pumpkin and boiled it. Yeah yeah, I know I should have roasted it to keep the flavor and nutrients. But boiling was faster. ;) After the meat was cooked, I cut it up and squished it in a colander to drain out excess liquid, and set it in the fridge. Last night, I pureed the pumpkin in my blender, added all the spices, milk and cream, bought pre-made crusts, and VOILA: my very first (two) pumpkin pie(s). :)

I brought one in to work today and it got pretty good reviews. And no one upchucked in the wastebasket or made a high-speed dash to the restroom, which makes me think the pie was palatable and safe. :)

This week: still workin' on my application, drafting my essay (500 words, but mine is about 1,000 words of irrelevent material), and planning on taking the stupid GRE. *whine*

Anyways, I'm kind of uninspired with posting right now so I better sign off.

Irritated Iguana

So I decided to continue these posts with the animal alliterations. I think they're fun. This time I'm irritated. And I'm an iguana because they're slow-moving reptiles, and no matter how hard I've tried to get my life back to normal, things keep coming up to slowwwww me down from accomplishing things. But Mercury's in retrograde, so what can I say.

Today is Wednesday. And it took me 1.5 hours to get to work because traffic was a nightmare. Again. Seems like what used to be a nightmare commute is turning out to be the norm. Which really beats on one's patience. Especially mine.

To add to my ongoing irritation as of late, I was cleaning the apartment last week and in the process of being irritated and lazy, decided to stuff a whole jar of pickled carrots (sliced) down the garbage disposal in the sink. Not a good idea. I clogged the thing, whined, cleared it via telephone advice from my mother, and left it alone. Only to discover the next day that yes, I cleared the disposal, but the drain was clogged. So after a few days I poured Liquid Plumber down there. And then a few days later tried baking soda and vinegar. And entertained the idea of buying a cheap plunger and having at it. But instead I wrote a note to the apartment manager asking for her to call a plumber with a snake. OH SIGH. So now we're waiting for the plumber. But the manager couldn't get a hold of him, and now the owner of the apartment complex is involved; and she's given out our number to her Roto Rooter man. Who hasn't called yet.

OH SIGHHHHHHHH. I'm mad at myself because I caused it. Stupid me. And Rick's stupid pickled carrots. That he didn't even eat more than two pieces of because he said they tasted funny. Like pickled carrots would. Sheesh! ;)

Went to the library yesterday after work because there was a book sale going on. Got lucky with parking but when I went into the library, I couldn't find where the sale was. I knew it was upstairs... but the stairs going up to the children's library was closed off. I wandered around, found some GRE books that I was going to check out, and tried to find any stairwells and elevators. Nope. I was close to asking someone for directions (gasp!). I went back out towards the staircase I'd first seen and saw someone come out of the doors, so I decidedly ignored the "DO NOT ENTER" and "PAINTING IN PROGRESS" signs and went in. Smelly, yes, but I was determined to get to the book sale. And no one ran me down to stop me. At the top of the stairs, and into the children's department was a backwards sign that said "CLOSED," taped across the door frame. Oops. So I definitely wasn't supposed to be in that stairwell. I waited a few moments for the librarian in there to turn away, and snuck underneath the sign. I felt like a rule breaker! God forbid. Walked down the hallway and the sale was there, being held in what they called the "auditorium." And I thought, How did people get up here?! And then I saw the stairwell across from the auditorium and thought... Hmmmm. I guess there's a stairwell on the opposite side of the building where I walked in. DUH. Irritation.

Anyways, I went in and pored through the aisles of paperbacks and hardcovers, fiction and nonfiction, children's books, CDs and cassettes, textbooks and reference volumes, and found... wait for it... MUSIC books. I was floored. Literally, since the boxes were on the ground. (HAHAHAHA... ahem) Four heaping boxes of classical piano music books, brand spankin new, stuff that I used to pay an arm and a leg for every year depending on what my piano teacher had planned for me that year according to my level's standards. There were no signs saying how much the books cost, but I didn't care. Couldn't have been that much anyways because "small books" were 25 cents, "medium books" were 50 cents, and "large books" were $1. How do you distinguish what's what by that description anyways???

I squatted there in my 4 inch espadrilles and dress (ARGHH) and picked out a few choice books before finally having to get up and stretch out my toes and calves. Sheesh. Of all days for me to have decided to dress up for work. I made my way to the cashier after maybe an hour and the music books cost... wait for it... wait for it.... TWENTY FIVE CENTS. Of course, while I was there, I overheard some awful 90 year old librarian who had her panties on too tight complaining about her student volunteers who weren't do anything. OH SIGHHHH. Why do some librarians give us a bad rep? Those kids were in there volunteering their weekday evening (albeit a requirement for graduation), staying out of trouble and off the streets, potentially missing dinner, and she didn't even give them specific instructions other than "clean up and make things look nice," so what else were they to do but mill about and chat? Can't expect everyone to be proactive, especially with a control-freak librarian in charge.

If she had said, "You - take charge of the nonfiction section by making sure that all the books are facing right side up and whenever there are gaps, fill them in with other nonfiction books that are on the floor underneath the tables. You - do the same with the reference books and children's books" the kids would have had something to do and been accountable for their areas. The librarian was being passive agressive towards the kids and I heard her complaining to the other librarians about two kids and said, "I don't want them here, they're not doing anything, they must be from the community service club, they're bad" and I wanted to protest. Or slap her. The other ladies, who were nicer and seemed to just tolerate this lady's rantings, told her to just send them home. Which she did by saying to them, "Just sign off and go home. There's not enough to do and there's too many people here." Not enough to do? Then why complain about them not doing anything??? Perhaps if she gave them something to do, they'd do it, and then there would be things do to. ARGHHHH. Obviously, this lady had issues.

I even heard one of them ask her what he could do to help and she replied, "you mean like clean up like I told you to do, which you didn't??" (I felt my eyes widen as I thought "Holy sh*t!") and there was a long pause from him before he replied, "...but you told me to go over there, so I couldn't finish here," and she bit back, "Yeah, okay, whatever."

Ten bucks this lady was the classic, stick-in-the-mud, old-maid librarian who never married or had kids. And obviously had a problem communicating with human beings. I was irritated.

Off my tirade.. anyways, I was irritated. Again. Because although I made out like a bandit with my $3.25 armful of books, I sat in the Del Taco drive-through for FORTY MINUTES. I could have driven to my sister's house 30 miles away and had dinner there in 40 minutes. By the time I made it up to the one and only window, I was soo peeved (but not enough to leave), but as I looked into the face of the nice lady who was running around inside with two other workers, I couldn't be mad. She was trying her best and moving as fast as she could (and she was a hefty lady). She got my order right, gave me the right change, gave me a zillion packets of mild hot sauce, and was still nice to me, so I couldn't yell at her for the line being slow even if I'd really wanted to. I wished her a nice evening and she smiled and said, "Thank you for waiting."

Who can be irritated when someone else who should be irritated smiles and says, "Thanks"?

Pooped Pup

I am one pooped-out pup.

Thursday night I cleaned the house. I was so tired from running errands on Wednesday night and thinking about all the plans coming up ahead, so I decided to clean. I cleaned out the fridge, and in a lazy attempt to throw out pickled carrots from months ago, I stuffed it down the garbage disposal instead of throwing it in the trash and taking the trash out. So.. of course.. I clogged the drain and the disposal and the whole thing started backing up on me. I panicked and kept the disposal running but the water just kept coming up, burping up gross pickled smells and dirt from the inside of the drain. I totally bawled because I was so tired and look what I just did!!!! I called my mommy ;) and she walked me through the process of unclogging the disposal. :) Later that evening, I tried to run water again, and the disposal is clear, but there is definitely a clog in the drain. :(

On Friday I left work early to make it to a birthday dinner with friends. It took me over an hour to get there, but of course, I was one of the first people to arrive. ;) I got a glass of wine at the bar to start off the evening. The guest of honor showed up maybe just 10 minutes later and we moved into the banquet room. About 30 minutes later, the 8 sips of wine had totally relaxed me and I was ready to pass out in the dining hall, and I didn't care who saw me sleeping. I stayed awake and managed somehow to stumble to the restroom a little while later. And I was so tired that as I was washing my hands and staring at the dark circles under my eyes in the mirror, I didn't even notice that I was washing my hands in a sink filled with vomit!!!!! I think I even touched it before looking down and seeing the stuff in there. And I panicked and thought to myself, DID I DO THAT?!

So sad. I got home around 10pm and crashed. The next morning, I got up early, refreshed, to get my sister's SURPRISE birthday party going!! Rick and I drove to this 99cent store near my sister's house to get cheap helium balloons. $1.29 for mylar, 50cents for regular solid color ones. Did you know Party City's balloons cost about $6 each?! So I got a whole bouquet-ful of balloons for only $11. Cheapness!!!

There were a few setbacks and miscommunications throughout the morning, but when my sister finally showed up to the party, boy, was she surprised!!! She practically was going to cry and tried not to. :) So we had food and cake and presents and it was nice. :) Then her husband had to go to bed so Rick and I stayed with my sister and watched the NASCAR race and played Guitar Hero. :)

On Sunday, yesterday, I took my sister to Disneyland and we had breakfast at the Plaza Inn, where there was buffet and character greetings. :) So we got lots of pictures with all these different Disney characters, even Gepetto and Captain Hook!! :) I even got rough-housed by Brer Bear from Splash Mountain...!! Three times!!! I guess the guy in that costume really liked me...

We walked around a bit after breakfast, and when my sister said to go see the Aladdin show at CA, I thought it was such a perfect idea since her husband was going to SURPRISE her later that afternoon, and it would be perfect timing, rather than try to figure out where we'd be next and have him track us down. So with lots of secretive phone calls and text messages during the Aladdin show, her husband was waiting for us outside the theater, and while my sister and I were walking out (I saw him, she didn't), he snuck up along side us and surprised her!!!!! And this time, she cried!!! ;)

I had called too late on Friday to make reservations for dinner for Blue Bayou and their only opening was for 9pm. Now that my sister's husband was finally there, I could tell her that I wanted to take her to Blue Bayou for dinner - and so she called to see if there were any cancellations - and there were!! Talk about good karma! We got a reservation for 5:30! So after a while, we headed on over to the restaurant and checked to make sure our reservation got moved. Of course it didn't (computer system when you call vs. paper reservation slips when you walk up) and so we had to do some explaining. We actually got seated around 5:15 and we even got a table on the water!!!! So nice!! I stuffed my face with prime rib, creamed potatoes, and sauteed spinach. Soooo good. And our whole meal came out to be free too since my sister had a "rewards" card which is pretty much free money (cashback) from her using her Disney Visa. :)

We ended the evening walking out during the fireworks. Not my sister's idea of a good end to an evening, but it was still a really good day!! I even got to go on Big Thunder Mtn with my brother in law. :) I got home around 11pm and flipped through my Nightmare Before Christmas sheet music that I had bought at Dland before crashing, yet again.

Today is Monday and after lengthy research and emailing back and forth on Friday and this morning, I booked a room at the Hotel Menage for this weekend for the CHOC walk. And when I tried to cancel the other room I had booked at another hotel on Friday, they had no record of me. So I had to tell the reservation lady that I had gotten a confirmation email and yaddi yaddi yaddi. I still have to get a confirmation from this lady to make sure my reservation is cancelled!! So I've been dealing with all that today. Sheesh. Talk about being pooped.

I'm about to fall asleep on my keyboard here. And I almost don't care if I make a giant KERPLUNKEDY THUD RATTLE if I can just get a few seconds of shuteye.

Tomorrow, the Transformers movie is coming out on DVD! Just another thing to remember that I HAVE to do...! :)

Saturday is the Animal Shelter orientation at 9am and then I'm heading back down to Dland for the weekend. :) I don't know when I'm going to have time to study for the GRE's and write my personal essay... *sigh*

Busy Bee

I've been keeping busy these past couple of weeks. Not really on purpose... it just kind of happened. Here's what I've done, and what looms ahead:

October 1: I got bravedy brave and mentioned my interest in library school in the middle of a casual email to my boss, who in turn, told her boss, who in turn, pounced on me in the hallway and said, "I think it's a great idea that you go to Drexel, don't you? Don't you think it's a great idea?" :)

October 2: I met with two people who are in the Drexel program (Library and Information Science) who gushed about the online program and how much they've enjoyed it. Needless to say, it wasn't difficult for me to decide to do this program, especially since I was already leaning toward this school.

October 3: I started my online application. And thought about having to study for the GREs, write my personal statement, ask for recommendations...

October 4: Finally crafted another curious creature this evening after a weeklong hiatus of crafting. It actually wasn't THAT curious, it was fat little yellow chick that looked like a chick, but also resembled a pumpkin (in the lines and creases). I'll upload a picture of my creatures when I can. I've given them all to my mom to sell but I was sure to take a picture as proof that I made them!

October 5: Went to the doctor's with my sister and her husband and heard her baby's heartbeat on the monitor. THUMP THUMP THUMP WHAMMO THUMP THUMP and the nurse said, "We've got a kicker here!!!" Then my sister and I headed off to Disneyland and walked around. Nightmare Before Christmas is installed already at the Haunted Mansion. The park was packed!! Got home late, and went to bed late.

October 6: Got up at the buttcrack of dawn to go fishing with Rick's family. Caught a whole bunch of nothing, while this little 12 year old next to me caught this 14" trout. I also drove around the town with Rick's mom, visited the antique shops and stopped for some ice cream. Got home around 7pm and passed out. Our poor baby Sammie was totally confused since she'd been sleeping all day and wanted to come out to play!! But we covered her before 9pm and hit the hay.

October 7: Had to take my grandpa out to the flea market my 7am alarm was too much noise so Rick shut it off... only for me to jump out of bed at 7:45 and rush out the door. Got some more cute linens, vintage kiddie patches, and some antique sewing notions. All still usable!

October 8: Today is Monday. And I've done a lot of records today, but am feeling super tired. Like I've pulled all-nighters in college. ;) The employee appreciation sale at the bookstore started today so I spent $50 on few gifts for people for Christmas, and I got some museum wax for my stuff at home in case the big anticipated earthquake hits soon... And I'm going to visit my friend Austin at his new condo tonight after work.

Coming up this weekend: My sister's birthday.. I hope she's not reading this... so I can't say much more about the weekend... I think she knows she's getting a party, though.. She demanded that she get one!!

We should be having our annual fire drill here at work sometime this month, usually on a Monday, when the Center is closed to the public. On the 22nd there will be a Benefits fair and I think I'll get my cholesterol and blood glucose checked this time (which reminds me that I need to call my doctor for my annual checkup). And they'll be selling emergency kits. I have to replace the ones I got from 2003, so I'm excited. I hope they have new kits.

October 20: Burbank Animal Shelter orientation at 9am. I signed up a few weeks ago, thinking I kind of need pet therapy and I've always wanted to volunteer at the shelters to help out. Now that I'm going to be starting Library school in January (oh wait, that's right, I have to APPLY first and then get accepted...!), I was worried I wouldn't have time to volunteer. But I'm going to the orientation anyways; they only require 8 hours of volunteer time per month. So I hope I can do it.

October 21: CHOC walk at Disneyland, benefitting the Children's Hospital of Orange County. It's a 3 mile long walk around Dland, CA, and Downtown Disney. My sister wants to spend the night before the walk since the walk starts at 7am sharp and she doesn't want to get up at 5 to make it down there on time. But that's all dependant on if she's feeling well enough to walk THREE miles now that she's pregnant. :)

October 26: Scrapbook Expo in Ontario. I'm going to take the day off and my sister and I are going to spend all day elbowing ladies at the dollar bins. :)

October 27: Hopefully this day we'll be able to get out fishing again. Perhaps the same lake, Gregory, or one closer to us, Castaic.

It's been a busy, busy month! Or, it's GOING to be a busy, busy month!