Lost

I saw a clip from tonight's NEW Lost episode on the View, Sawyer said something that made Hurley grab that thing and toss it in the other thing...can't wait. We watched 2hours of it last night to get caught up and it's been so long that there were a few things we forgot or didn't catch the first time. Do not call me tonight around 9 pm.

Kerry took yesterday off so that he could take me to the eye dr. He says that the bump/blister is probably pinguecula and caused by an alergic reaction. I got it just before Christmas, while shopping too much. I think I'm allergic to over-shopping. I got some really expensive drops, they hurt like crazy when dropped in my eye and they make my eye water so I'm not convinced much is actually staying in my eye. And the opthomoligist was funny, after he put eye numbing drops in my eyes I asked if I was okay to drive and he said "as okay as you were before". Ha Ha Ha. Laughter is the best medicine but it didn't help the weird sensation you get when your eyeballs are frozen.

I didn't do much of what I wanted to yesterday, but WE picked and installed a new light fixture in the basement, thought for about 2 seconds on new paint colour, Kerry said GREY, I said NO, Kerry said at least we don't have to paint the kitchen again, I didn't say anything.
Kerry got a new toy, a honking huge compound mitre saw. It's in the dining room because he has no room anywhere else to store it. The wall is gone, the whole house is covered in a fine layer of drywall dust. I had an absolutely disgusting skinny mocha from Starbucks, I had to toss it, it was that gross. Kerry said it wasn't worth it to drive back and get a new one. I only cried for about 6 minutes.
Linus and I pass Obedience Level 2, and are taking Canine Good Neighbour in Feb. He really didn't want to sit again, but when we got home he ran outside and did his business so I think that we have some insight as to why he won't sit, and for some reason he won't go before class. Kind of frustrating, but I can relate. And that was pretty much my day.
I didn't take a single picture yesterday.

Still got it...

After more than 2 years of not doing woodcrafts, I haven't lost my touch. I needed a more room on my stamp set shelf and found a piece of wood in the basement that was a bit too long. So I used my handy measuring skills, (held the wood up to the shelf and used a pen to mark it), and then using my handy bracing skils (my kneee and a broken stool), I cut the wood to size using my own strength (upper body strength of a kitten) and the hand saw. It didn't take me that long, less than 5 minutes and tomorrow my arm will be killing me, but my stamp shelf is looking good.

I'm trying very hard to be creative today, I'm trying too hard really. I wanted to do some tidying up so that I had room on my table, which lead to the shelf project (see above), then I had to try out all my markers and pens and weed out the dry ones. I found a book, Scrapbook Play and had to read 1/2 of it again. I took some pitures of my elephant collection. As I was doing this, I noticed I had a bunch of card kits that needed sorting, which somehow lead to an on-line order of rub-ons. AND that lead me here. Again. I have yet to make anything.

Saw this again today, Kerry sent it to me awhile ago. I hate spiders. Watching this give me the heebie jeebies. But it's funny.


Oprah, today, Gavin De Becker, author of The Gift of Fear. Read this 10 years ago, loved it, listen to your inner voice. It's worth it.

And to make it look like I made something today...

Tara made this birthday card.
I got this idea from SCS.

Tim the Tool Man Taylor he is not.

Kerry's best Jack Nicholson impression. This is going to take a long time, and not because he's goofing around, but because I am stopping him every 20 minutes to take a picture.
Kerry on why not to turn off the fuse while working with electricity: You can always get a new husband!
Me: Do you know how long it would take to train a new husband!?!
You can see the dangling light switch, and notice that the light is still on...I once replaced the switch face plates without turning off the fuse, so I know what happens when you touch those tiny little screws on the side of that little metal box. It's not how one should learn to break dance!
Linus at the take-out window: Dad, can I puleeeezzee have some drywall bits with my cheeseburger?
I had to build a 'wall' around the work area because Linus thought it was an all-you-could-eat drywall buffet. That dog will eat just about anything.
Today: Backyard on AUTO. IRL this is about the colour it was at 8:30 am.
Backyard on SNOW setting. I kind of like how bright everything is but it's also kind of blown out looking.
As you can see, I have not been very creative. I'm working on that today.

Colourblindness, Mini Eggs, Freezing Temperatures, and Bad Eyesight.

After much procrastinating and discussion, Kerry and I finally started to start to get the house ready for our hardwood flooring installation. We had the whole "if money was no object" conversation, went something like this...
Me: I'd take out that wall and made the kitchen larger, and get a stackable washer and dryer and maybe put an island in.
Him: I'd buy a sports car.
Me: Then I'd make a deck on the front of the house and push the front door out and make a vestibule.
Him: I'd buy a sports car.

Okay, so he didn't really say that, he didn't really say anything. Just kind of nodded. What we are doing is removing the walls around our 'hutch recces' in the dining room. We will have to re-paint, and re-do the ceiling. I know it's not going to be pretty, we have zero space in which to move our stuff and I caught Linus trying to remove a part of the wall this morning.
Here are some pictures of what might be the beginning of the end...
The beautiful Gable Green wall is what we found behind the cupboard. This is the original colour of the interior of the house, we believe the trim was yellow. The outside of the house was mint icecream green. The carpet, some shades of orange. Some one's eyes needed to be checked.

This is where I think it's my eyes that need checking. I was taking down all the wall decorations and out of the corner of my eye saw a snowman ornament and reached up to get it, it's a hole in the wall, the one I had just watched Kerry make. We had a good laugh, I took a picture.

Micro Mini Eggs thanks to Tara. I {HEART} Mini Eggs. The Cadbury ones. And these mini mini ones were so darn pretty. I just had a look at the picture,it's ink on my fingers, really, and those are my own nails, I don't use my hands for anything so I can grow my nails abnormally long in short periods of time. Which is another way to say I avoid hard labour and drink milk.


My new things from the weekend...
Great Pizza/Deep's Pakora Palace and Sweet Shop is a weird name for a restaurant, but it has terrific food.
Linus may look exactly like his siblings, but he's still the best looking in the bunch.
Sally's drugs are making her happy.
Chili powder and Cayenne pepper might not be the same thing.
And the worst one...Emily came in second for the Canspell contest at school. If I had known that the spelling words we were halfa$$edly practicing were the real deal, we would have been trying harder. I thought it was a mock spelling bee. I'm a baaaaaad mom. We did learn some new words, okay, I did, and we did have a few good laughs doing the whole spelling bee thing where I say the word, think really hard for a sentance to use the word in which usually ended up being "I don't know what _______ means." And then she would say "Origin Please" and I'd say "latin" and then she'd say "Meaning of the word", to which I would probably say "Ask your dad."

And right now, PS7 is good for things like this...

That's right, -12 degrees on our deck(-24 with the wind chill). It's 13 degrees in Disneyland, in case you were wondering. And if my math is right, that's 25 degrees warmer than here.

Lazy Sunday

I have a class this afternoon, the card tin with cards and dividers. So I have to clean up my scrap space. Good thing Tara didn't leave a huge mess, I only have to clean up my part of the table.
We had a great hike up Crawford with the dogs yesterday. I found out Sally is not big enough to pull me down a hill. Or maybe that I am too big for Sally to pull, dog sledding is out of the question. Then we went to Costco, then home to make cards and Butter Chicken. We had naan and samosas from Great Pizza/Deep's Pakora Palace. Yummy! Then made more cards. Well, Tara did, I just slept with my eyes open.

Updated:
Class went well, great bunch of ladies, all with different card tins in the end.
We have officially started the demo of the upstairs. Not looking forward to it at all. I'm sure the end result will be worth it, but it's still not going to be fun. Some wall removal, possible wall inserting, lots of dust, and great things for dogs to chew. I'm packing up all kinds of knick-knacks that I don't think will get unpacked. A possible IKEA trip is in the near future.

ah...friday.

I'm seeing an opthamologist next week. Kerry will take the day off and go with me. Not really looking forward to this trip or to the possibility that someone might touch my eyeball, but it's one of those things that has to be done. I happen to like my eyes and they happen to work quite well, so unless the dr. can give me camera eyes, I'd rather not go.

I'm still playing with my camera settings. The first picture is of our kitchen window yesterday. Nothing like waking up to -13. At least I don't work outside, poor Kerry. Lots of stress at work and it's freaking cold.




Emily is developing her own sense of style and has been wanting a pair of Chuck Taylor's for some time. But her feet are not really in women's sizes and are too big for kid's sizes and to make matters worse, Chucks are sized weird. We have been to every store in the mall that carries them and can't find anything in her size. So we had to venture downtown, we ran into X.10.sion 207 and of course, nothing in her size that she liked. But then the sales person says "What about these? They are youths and they are not high tops but they might fit." And they did and Emily liked them. The best part...they were 60% off, so she got her shoes for $15!!! Then she says "Maybe we have enough left over to buy a pair of Uggs!" Not likely kid!


I have to either embrace my magazine addition or quit cold turkey. I have the newest Scrapbooks Etc. and just got the new Scrapbook Trends, by subscription, and I have read the SE already and will probably have the other done by tonight and then will want more. I think I need to come to terms with it and start saying I'm collecting magazines, and not addicted to them, even though I'm pretty sure it's an addiction. Collecting just sounds more sane.

I'm going to the dr. about my eye, again. I'm opting for a transplant, this bump thing weirds me out. Then I'm off to work. Not much else to say to day, kind of worried about the old eye.

Fruit Cake, Tea Pot and Dogs.

I've been playing with my different camera settings. The following pictures were taken in AV mode. I'm getting the idea of it. I really like the focused foreground/blurry background look and have figured out that the farther away you are from your subject, the better and the tripod is my friend.


The last of the Fruit Cakes. Note to self: Next year make 4 times as many as this year.

Shaun's teapot. He's like a little old man with his tea.

My helpers, making sure the teapot behaves while getting it's picture taken.

Sally, looking all pretty.

Linus, just looking.

Did a little bit...

of stuff today.
Finished a layout.
Bound my catalogue.
Took some pictures.
Learned Heath Ledger died.
Put these cute 7gypsies tags on a ring. Whew. It was work to decide what order, but I managed.

It's starting today...

The babies are coming, the babies are coming!!! I have a source and I've been told one person I know is going to become a MOM today!!! ( I hope for her sake it's today!) Very exciting. I hope all goes well.

This is the start of a few months of many babies to come for our friends and family. We know at least 7 people that are due in the next couple months! I love babies!

And speaking of babies...today is our baby's first birthday. Happy Birthday Linus!!!

This is his first family portrait. This was one of 2 photos we received before we decided to get him. We were pretty dead set against getting another dog, we (and Sally) were pretty set in our ways, like we could sleep through the night, go out for more than 4 hours, etc. And then we got a few more emails saying that because he had no tail, people weren't picking him, he was thought to be the first to go. Really, what kind of person could leave any puppy behind? We discussed it, the pros (no tail to knock things over, a friend for Sally) and the cons (fur, food, poop, training, etc.) and the cons definitely outweighed the pros. And then we went to see him, and well, duh, everyone knows you don't do that. So we got him at a huge discount because of his lack of tail. And some days we wonder what we did, but most of the time, we're really glad we got another dog. Like right now, GLAD.

Here's some shots of him today with his kong full of peanut butter, right now. I think he was a bit worried that I was going to take the kong from him. Like I want to touch that slimy thing.
Thoroughly enjoying every last bit of PB.

Should I be worried that the stock market is doing funky things? No, I have people!

Weird Cats and a Dredged Dog

I find this site hilarious, Emily and I check it frequently... http://icanhascheezburger.com/
Check it if you need a good laugh.


Having two furry dogs, we often find dog hair where we don't want it, like maybe in our flour, but today, we have flour in our dog hair.
Linus likes to position himself between me and the cupboards so that if I drop anything while baking, he can be the first to pick it up. Today, I dropped flour. Poor LiLi, I don't think he even knew what happened.
It's his first birthday tomorrow. He's a lucky dog to have made it this far!

It's Black and White

I have been trying unsuccessfully for days to print a true black and white photo. And every time I do it, I get an almost sepia photo. I asked Adobe savvy Yolanda to give me some tips, and still nothing changed. I googled 'converting colour to b&w" and nothing. Then today Yolanda descending on our house like an angel, only she kind of waddles, doesn't really float. Sorry, YO but it's true. Anyway, she plops down in front of the computer and clicks on a bunch of things, and I took notes. The steps she did were similar to the ones I did earlier. Then she hits PRINT and oh, look, did you click on Print Grey scale? NO.
And my problem was solved. We're talking almost 2 years of sepia!!!
It's good to have friends that know things, like Photoshop, camera tips, drug info, hair, the important stuff, now if only I could find Hardwood Floor Installation Helper. I think Linus is taking care of carpet removal.

Yucky new thing

Did you know that you can make bones, as in skeletons, white by soaking them in peroxide? Now you do.

Me and Tara B. went to a crop in Winfield this weekend. We got stuff made, had some fun, and won some stuff. I came home with a new leather album, a Rhonna file folder album kit and a bunch of other goodies. Pretty nice haul!

I made this...




And I'm working on a layout using some Autumn Leaves Manhattan stuff...

I'm actually doing stuff for me and not for classes.
I'm supposed to go for lunch with M-R and then we're doing some scrapbooking tomorrow, but she's sick and I don't want to get it.

I made these for a Valentine's class...

Highly Recommended

For Kerry's work Christmas party we went to the Yellow House downtown. It was okay, not great by any means. I had the tenderloin, if I remember right it was $27.00 and I had cheese cake at about $8. The steak was absolutely delicious, but if I was paying for it, I wouldn't have ordered it. The cheese cake didn't have a grain of sugar it it, it was so gross. Overall, very expensive, not worth it.
Fastward to last night...we made reservations to eat at the restaurant run by Shaun's culinary arts class. Not really knowing what to expect in the way of prices or food, it was an adventure. HOLY CRAP!!! We ate way too much, WW points be damned.

The menu...you pick how many courses you want, 2-4 courses all priced accordingly. Then you pick which courses...appies, soup/salad, main, dessert. We went with 3 courses at $18, adding $5 extra for my tenderloin, Emily had a bacon, cheese burger with fries. We had foccacia bread with swan shaped butter, and balsamic vinegar and oil for dipping. Kerry had the tart tatin, oven dried tomatoes and peppers topped with puff pastry and arugula, and I had the Infusions salad with avocado, shrimp and feta.
Then we had watermelon sorbet to cleanse our palate.
Kerry's chicken was stuffed with proscuitto and boconccini cheese. Both his chicken and my tendloin were served with garlic mashed potatoes and veggies. My beef tenderloin was so tender, and tasty. I kept asking Emily if she wanted to try it and she kept saying she was too full, then she caved and tried a bite. She said it was so tender she could break the meat with her tongue and then asked if she could have more, like a plate full. So I was a good mom and I cut her about 1/3 of my steak up.

For dessert, Emily ordered the chocolate pate, made by Shaun and Kerry and I each had the sweet potato cheese cake. Emily didn't want the cheese cake because of the sw. pot. factor, but she tried it and we ended up switching desserts because she loved it.
We ate everything on our plates except for the stalk of white asparagus, neither Kerry or I liked the taste.
I have never seen Emily eat so much and she has never been that full in her life.

So for under $60, the 3 of us had a first class meal, terrific service, a restaurant all to ourselves, and I now have pictures for scrapbooking. I didn't get any of that at the Yellow House.
I give Infusions 5 stars!
And we got to meat a couple of the chefs, I heard the group say they all wanted to come out but someone, probably Shaun, wouldn't let them.