Sacrifices

A few weekends ago (the first round of carpet cleaning), we had to move a bunch of furniture ... including in what I like to call "the scrap room," but so as to not offend Greg (I don't call the garage "the man room"), I'll refer to it as the bonus room.

Anyhow, there are a bunch of ribbons on a spool over where my table normally is. The morning after we cleaned the carpets, I found this one bobbin of thin pink ribbon (3 year old ribbon - I think it was from the wedding stash) had been completely unwound. I was actually surprised that it was only this one bobbin, with all of them hanging there, just taunting the cats all night long.

So I sacrificed it. But this ribbon was so totally worth. It has provided, literally, hours of fun. This is the new "thing" that Lefty sits next to. (Her sitting next to it is your cue to play with her with it.) But they both go crazy for it. All Greg and I have to do is drag it around the house with us. (Not surprisingly, we have lots of pieces of ribbon that have been sacrificed to the cats around the house. It's one of their favorite toys. I've had to sacrifice bundles of embroidery floss before, that I've left out and the cats have "found." But somehow one of the smaller pieces of ribbon got stuck to a pair of my pants, or pulled through them or something, because a few weeks ago I had to run to Target, and when I got there, I was just opening the car door to get out when I found a piece of ribbon coming out of my pants.)

Caught some pics tonight. I am currently typing with the end of the ribbon tied in a loop around my wrist.

Cute Lefty Pictures

I haven't posted any pictures lately ... so here are some of the Princess of the Left, reclining on the sofa today.

A good deal for Starbucks junkies

Don't know if any of you other Starbucks junkies have seen the signs around the stores about registering your Starbucks card by July 14th. I've got a gift card from my inlaws (thanks again, Mom and Dad S!!!) that I've been slowly draining. Originally, I was opposed to registering my card and having them track me. But I looked into it some more, and I think the benefits are worth it. Check it out here. The 2 free hours of internet a day were enough to convince me.

As if you needed a reason to buy yourself a gift card. :)

My attempt at Photoshop instructions

My disclaimer, beyond being a Photoshop novice, is that I'm still using Elements 2.  A newer version (5?) is still sitting in a box on the floor right next to me.  And I'm on a Mac.  And I'm not promising this is the *best* way to do it, but it worked.  And I'm pretty proud of myself.  :)

1.  Open all 4 photos.

2.  Rotate any of the photos so they're all in the same direction.

2a.  Image -> Rotate ->90 Left (etc)

3.  Resize and crop photo 1.

3a.  Image -> Resize -> Image Size.  I changed Document Size params to 3 inches wide (which gives 2.25 inches high, at least on these photos) and changed the Resolution to 300 pixels/inch.

3b.  Click on the Crop tool.  Up at the top, in the crop menu bar, you've got a place to enter 3 inches wide by 2 inches tall.  Also change the resolution here to 300.  Then crop your photo.

4.  Repeat Step 3 for the other photos.

5.  Open a new canvas.

5a.  File -> New.  Make it bigger than 4x6 so you have some room to work.  (Mine was 8x6.)  Make sure the resolution here is the same resolution you've been using all along (300, in my case).

6.  Click on the move tool and drag each of the 4 photos into the new canvas.  Adjust them so they line up and make a 4x6.

7.  Crop one more time.

7a.  Click on the crop tool.  Enter 6 x 4 in the crop menu bar.

8.  Save!  (I flattened the images and saved them as jpegs to upload to Shutterfly.)

Planner Update!

It came today! And it IS NOT refillable. :( And it doesn't look exactly like the picture - same color scheme, but bit different. Maybe better, but I'm still a little upset that the picture wasn't accurate.

Normally, I get mine from Barnes and Noble, but they have a really limited color selection - usually red or black. They're textured vinyl that has held up really well, and they are definitely refillable. I ordered this one from thedailyplanner.com.

I ordered a new planner this week.

I am addicted to planners.  I am addicted to lists. Too many bad experiences with Palms. And I need the pen-to-paper feeling of checking things off.

My friend Isabelle got me hooked on these planners back in college that she used to bring back from France for me every year. Seeing as she now lives 750 miles away, and is no longer responsible for my planning needs, I've had to switch to these Quo Vadis ones.

The key components: 1 page for each day, a small hour-by-hour section but a bigger list area, little tabs that tear off the corners of each day, and it fits in my purse. The one little idiosyncrasy is that this is considered an academic planner. (Perhaps I'm trying to hold on too tightly to my college years. But Franklin Covey annoys me.) So, while the rest of the word shops for planners at the end of the year, I'm stalking them now, as my current one ends July 31.

I broke down and bought a new cover this year; it's the brown one. She should be arriving any day. And I'll finally be able to let go of this terrible, gripping pain that results from my not being able to plan anything beyond July 31.


I think I need serious help.

It's not that I don't love you...

... but there really hasn't been too much to blog about lately.

I could tell you that we're going to a different "branch" of our gym this week (our locker rooms are closed this week), and it's fabulous! Everything's new and not all crowded together. There is plenty of equipment. All the ellipticals and treadmills have tvs on them, and they all face out the window, so you can look outside and don't have to make eye contact with other sweaty people. It's a little bit further from work and home, though... So we'll see.

I could also tell you about how I finally mastered the art of making my own wallet size photos by using Photoshop to put 4 photos onto a 4x6 photo. And how Shutterfly wanted to charge me $46 for wallet prints of 24 pictures. (They're low resolution.) But how I had 25 free 4x6 prints in my Shutterfly account (stuff appears there randomly, and I don't know it's there unless I log in. I wish they'd tell me it's there...), so all I paid was shipping on my Photoshopped beauties. (Actually, I think the 25 free prints were a "we're changing our interface and it's extremely annoying right now, but please don't bail" gift. I'll put up with it a while longer.)

Like I said, not very exciting.

Some things I am looking forward to, though:

• first and foremost, this weekend.  It's been a crappy week at work.
• having the 4th of July off and having no plans, other than eating hamburgers and perhaps some ribs from my mom that may be floating around in the freezer.  
  
• possibly making it to NJ for a family reunion
• scrapbook convention in August
  
• Nova Scotia in September
  
• my cousin-in-law's wedding in October
  
• the beach in November
  

The night life is for you.

That's a fortune I found in my wallet on Saturday night when we went out to dinner, apparently from the last time we were at Doc Chey's. I found it utterly ridiculous enough to stash in my wallet with our "points" card for the place, so it was a nice little surprise when I found it again this weekend.

Because the night life clearly isn't for me.

We went to a work picnic on Saturday, which wasn't too terribly painful. I made some brownies, as we were supposed to bring dessert (since when does a package of store made cookies count as dessert? at least put them on a plate or something!), and they were a hit - brownie mix with a layer of Andes mints in the middle. Of course, the recipe calls for making them from scratch... but brownie mix was much easier.

I had also volunteered to take pictures for the department, which turned out to be a little awkward. Like, I felt really intrusive. Normally, you know the people you're taking pictures of, but when you don't (or when you don't know them well), it really feels like you are stalking them. I switched to the telephoto lens, which helped a bit as I could keep my distance, but it was still weird.

Otherwise the weekend was quiet. Not really relaxing, though. Greg and I both marveled at how we finally were starting to feel relaxed last Sunday, but this week we both agreed that we never really got there.

Obsessed

I caught this tonight.


Greg and Harry Potter 5. If you could see me, I'd be shaking my head. Or perhaps rolling my eyes. But I got some fabulous grilled BBQ pork tenderloin out of it, so I can't complain. I did give up and let him have book 5. There is no way I could make it through it as fast as he's reading, and I'm still trying to catch up on magazines.

In other news, I locked a cat in the pantry again tonight. Just for a few minutes! But Lefty has this meow sometimes where it sounds like something is horribly wrong, so we'll come running and she'll just be standing there, as if to say, "Told you I own you." And I heard that tonight while we were making dinner. But when we're making dinner, she's always underfoot and begging for whatever we have. "Raw pork? That's my favorite! Sweet potatoes? They're my favorite! Onions? My favorite!" So I was trying to ignore her. Dusty was perched up on this cardboard box in front of the window (next to the pantry) for a while, but then she got down on the floor and had her 2 front paws under the pantry door. Dusty hunts her food, and LOVES to chase things around on the vinyl floor. I figured she had knocked a toy or a piece of food underneath, so I opened the door to let her play again, and there's Lefty. The poor thing! She couldn't have been in there for more than 5 minutes. But how sweet was is that Dusty was trying to help her? I've never seen that cat be so considerate. She usually could care less. When we first got the two of them, it was Lefty who cried whenever Dusty wasn't around. Dusty ... not so much. Maybe she's changing her kitty ways?

Hoarding and Carpet Cleaning Pay Off.

With cleaning the carpets this weekend, I had to move my pile of "projects I'm going to work on" and found this (which I bought around Christmas of '06):


When I saw Pat's challenge on Saturday, I knew it would be perfect! So I covered it with some left over Lily Kate, and here it is:



Greg and I have both been doing Weight Watchers since the beginning of the year, and we've had some success. We're starting to hit a slump, though, where we're sick of being hungry. Since everything we log is online, I made this to print out the point values of some stuff we eat all the time to keep in the kitchen. It's all about planning.

Blueberry Memories

The weekend was again a blur. I could just use a few more days in the weekend. This was the first weekend in as long as I can remember where I really felt like I was winding down -- unfortunately, that wasn't until Sunday afternoon.

Sunday evening also brought some strong storms near us. We didn't actually get any rain, but Greg got some neat pictures of the lightning - it was really fierce and almost continuous for a while. These were from around 10:30pm.




I managed to make iced tea this weekend without cracking the (2nd new) pitcher, so yay for small victories. I also made a pot roast on Sunday, the first one I've ever made. It was good, but just pales in comparison to the one my mom makes. I found out, though, that hers is the Alton Brown recipe. But when I googled it, I found an Alton Brown recipe that included raisins and olives. I don't think this could be the one. Surely my mom would not make pot roast with my two least favorite foods in it. Maybe she left them out ... but that doesn't leave very many ingredients. And I don't think hers called for the cream of mushroom soup. Pot roast may be my new obsession.

While on the subject of food (my favorite!), I got a big container of blueberries at Costco this weekend. I was a little skeptical, but they are actually really good! I guess I should confess that I am a bit of a blueberry snob. Well, actually a fresh fruit snob. I know only now that my family's obsession with fresh fruits is not normal, but it was all I knew growing up. We picked a bunch of things: apples, peaches, strawberries, tomatoes. But the true family obsession is blueberries. We would (well, they still do!) get up at 4 am and drive about 2.5 hours south to pick them. And I'm not talking a couple of pounds. I'm talking like 80 lbs at a time. That was July in our house. Now, some was usually to give away -- but the bulk of the blueberries were eaten (or frozen) in a matter of days. So having the colander of blueberries in the fridge now, where I can always sneak in for a handful, totally takes me back. Actually, we hazed Greg a bit back in the summer of 2006 when we were visiting NJ and took him blueberry picking. I don't think he has any desire to go again.

I got my hair cut this weekend. Part of the reason why I love getting my hair cut is that she straightens my hair, and I get to pretend like I'm someone else for the day. (Someone who's not too lazy to straighten her own hair?)

Ah, another of our brilliant ideas was to steam clean the carpets this weekend. We haven't had them cleaned since we've been in the house, and for some reason, we thought it would be easier to do it ourselves. So the weekend consisted of a lot of moving furniture around. We could only rent the thing for 24 hrs ... it wasn't clear what the late penalty was... so we got some done, but we're going to have to move the furniture again this week, and then rent it again next weekend. Only one mishap ... while doing the stairs, the machine itself was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, kind of in the entry way. And it leaked. And left a big fat huge wet spot. Which is now a big fat huge stain. **Luckily,** this is part of the carpet that's going to get ripped up (soon?) when we put down laminate in the kitchen, dining room, and entry.

We went back to the Lazy Goat for dinner on Saturday, probably my new favorite restaurant. We tried some different stuff this time, and I hate to say that it wasn't at good as last time. But I was excited to see that the menu had changed a little bit (though they still have the fried goat cheese, phew!) since the last time we were there.

Did anyone go to a wedding this past weekend? Because I couldn't go anywhere without running into a dozen. A guy I work with got married. There were people at the salon getting their hair done to go to a wedding. There was a (quick!) wedding at the restaurant on Saturday. We drove by another restaurant (that I had remembered I had wanted to go to again soon) on our way in to downtown that was closed for a wedding. And from where we were sitting at dinner, we could see another wedding at a restaurant across the river. (The bridesmaids were wearing orange dresses... don't know if it was a Clemson wedding or what. That's what I'm telling myself.) And then when we were driving home from dinner, there was a girl in a wedding dress posing for what we think were wedding photos (apparently the tradition here is to have just the bride's photo printed with the wedding announcement in the paper. up north, you're much more likely to see a picture of both the bride and groom. heck, if i had tried to wear my dress for photos before the actual wedding, i would have gotten something on it, or ripped it, i'm sure.), as the 2 people with her were dressed in shorts. Anyhow, she was doing some weird poses in this old doorway. It was odd.

That's all I got.

Hypermiling

The term is new to my vocabulary in the last week or so, but apparently I've been working on my hypermiling technique for the last month or two. There was an article in the Sunday paper last week about it, and then a CNN article sometime this week. I've also seen commercials for new shows about supposedly unsafe driving techniques aimed at maximizing fuel economy.

We've been trying to carpool more and drive less, but I have also managed to get my 6 cylinder, manual transmission, 8 year old Jetta from about 22-25 mpg to and from work up to about 28-30 mpg. It depends on the day, the lights I hit, and who is behind me. Now that school is out, there are fewer SUVs and minivans tailgating me for doing the speed limit.

My techniques are really taking advantage of hills: keeping the clutch in (with the car still in gear) as I go down hills, and trying to maintain an even speed up hills without too much acceleration. Coasting to stops is one I've been doing for a while, too. I am also more likely now to put the car in a higher gear than I would have normally (so I do more driving in 5th gear).

Here's a Wikipedia article, too.

I can, of course, see how some behaviors could be unsafe. Most, though, are just smart. If you have any other (safe) tips, let me know.

Anniversary Album

I made this album a few weeks (months?) ago for a contest at CC to use the die cuts and paper lines from a particular manufacturer, Teresa Collins. I made it for our three year anniversary, hence the 1096 days, but I was waiting for a picture from our actual anniversary before I could call the album finished. Beth reminded me this week that I still hadn't finished, so I finally pulled it out again and did the last page.

Are you still looking for a father's day present?

Because you certainly couldn't go wrong with this gem, from World Market:

Backwards Day

Well, not really backwards day. But the pants I was wearing all day had the fly zipping on the wrong side, and it was driving me crazy. But now I'm all decked out in the elastic waist pjs (a.k.a lazy pants).

After fixating on plain yogurt and granola while on vacation, I decided I was going to make some granola this weekend. I found this recipe on Cooking Light. Everything I read said to make sure that you cook it long enough to dry it out, or it will never be crispy. But I think I overcooked it a bit, in part because I missed the "stir well" after 10 minutes of cooking. But I'll definitely be making more.

One other purchase from Market Spice in Seattle that I forgot to mention were some "pomegranate splash iced tea bags." So, I got all excited for iced tea. Of course, I decided we needed a glass pitcher. I was starting to run short of time on Saturday, so instead of making sun tea, I decided I'd boil water. And pour it directly into the brand new pitcher. Yeah. Don't do that. There's a huge crack in it, and as any good home disaster does, it required the use of a siphon. (Thanks, Greg!)

I'm really hoping the heat breaks tomorrow like it's supposed to. We had some thunder yesterday, but that was about it. It's been like 100 degrees for the last week. I did get some weeds pulled this past weekend, though, and got the shrubs watered. The hydrangea are blooming like crazy like now. The two below are different varieties. The first one (which we have 5 of, I think) are the "endless summer" ones that we got at Lowe's. The 3rd and 4th pictures are of one we got at the Clemson plant sale a bunch of years ago.





I didn't think the gladiola usually flowered until late June/early July, but those were peaking out this weekend, too. Actually, I took these pictures on Sunday, and those pink flowers in the 2nd picture were open by Monday.



And some cat pictures while I'm at it. I always wondered if Dusty minded being the "pillow."


I think, in this 2nd picture, I got my answer. (I taught her that look, dad. She's a quick study.)

Saturday Challenge

I took a stab at Pat's challenge to use stamps for something other than their intended purpose and came up with these:

This was the first one


using the "i", "j", and "l" stamps from this set for the flower stems.


I wasn't thrilled with it, so I tried a 2nd one. It's not really very far out of the box, but I like this one a little better. Maybe because I'm an engineer. And yes, I fixed the crooked strip of paper after I took the photo.


I used this journaling stamp for the graph

Back

Back on the diet. We both gained about 2 pounds on vacation, which wasn't as bad as I feared, with all that we ate. But it's back to counting points and feeling hungry. Back to exercising more and eating less.

Back to the cats. They were meowing non-stop for the first half of the week. They've quieted down a little bit the last day or so. But Dusty meows to be pet, and Lefty meows for food. Their last official day on wet food is approaching shortly (as soon as we run out). We've had enough. Dusty refuses to admit she's an indoor domesticated cat, and insists on hunting her food. With wet food, that means scooping it off the plate with her paw, and then eating it either off the floor or off her paw. But then her paw is covered in food ... and so she flicks it. And we end up with cat food EVERYWHERE. I'm sick of cleaning it off the walls and windows and cabinets. So we're switching to dry for the time being. She still hunts the dry food, but sweeping that up is much easier than soaking and scrubbing dried, hardened cat food off the floor. Trust me on this one.

Back to the 90s, even 100 this weekend. This is way too hot for the beginning of June, about 15 degrees above average, and makes me miss the Pacific Northwest, for sure. We've got to get out in the yard and get the hoses set up to water the shrubs; the hydrangeas look all shrively and limp when they don't get enough water.



Back to work. The first week back is always so depressing. Lots of ups and downs this week. I totally made an idiot of myself in one meeting, but gave a pretty good presentation on Thursday (if I do say so myself). While we were on vacation, it felt like SO long since I'd been at work. But now that I'm back at work, vacation seems like forever ago.

Back to a messy house and a kitchen floor that desperately needs to be replaced. Back to a roof that needs to be patched. Back to mountains of laundry.

The Best of the Worst (Alternate Title: The reason why we took 897 pictures)

My attempt at using the manual settings on the new camera.


What happens when a) you don't zoom all the way out and try to do an arm shot, and b) are looking into the sun (this one becomes a theme...)


Wind? What wind?


Looking into the sun again. Greg looks like he's in pain.


I am trying to figure out a way to blame this one on the flash... but I can't ...


Why did we come home with 2 different pictures of ketchup bottles? Greg? I'm looking at you on this one.



I didn't start drinking until later, I swear.


"The first town on San Juan Island, located along the shore to your front, was built in the late 1850's by the first wave of U.S. Settlers. The arrival of Army troops provided additional impetus to its growth. It had a pier but, because of shallow water, only small boats could land supplies. In 1859 an observer described it as having: 'about 20 houses: one of them is occupied by a store keeper who keeps an exceedingly limited supply of goods; five or six are "rum mills", and the balance are vacant. The population of the place numbers about 30 or 40... white men, Chinamen, and Indians. Whiskey drinking seems to be the principal occupation.'"


More looking into the sun photos. "If you don't stop making funny faces...




I'm going to tickle you and MAKE you stop."


We didn't go there.


"When are you going to put that stupid camera down?!?"


In case the engineering thing doesn't pan out.


I'm not as disgruntled as I look.


Surely your camera lens is deformed, because my face doesn't really look like that... does it?