Phew!

That masthead took me nine millions hours to complete. There I sat in my pajamas, bloodshot and bugged-eyed at 2:57 am last night.....this morning.....wondering if it was possible to strangle Photoshop. At that hour, anything seems possible. I spent another few hours tonight begging Caleb to help me and then grabbing the laptop from him the moment we made headway. Like, QUICK! PROGRESS! GIMME, GIMME, GIMME!!! And then that would be it, I'd be stuck for another half hour groaning and melting boneless into the couch while simultaneously reaching for another fun size almond Snickers. When I finally made a little progress here and there I was completely and irrationally ecstatic. Eyes a little too wide, big sloppy grin. I'm completely worn out.

Farmers Market Sweep!

The other night we decided to visit a local farmer's market and make dinner with the things we found there.
It was lovely and warm and smelled of ten different things. Warm Naan, roasting rosemary chicken, and home-grown corn on the cob .....

His pumpkin flatbread was delicious.

We bought an asiago cheese baguette along with his organic Artichoke and Walnut Cheese spread. Absolutely divine.

Beautiful orchids - someday I'll find out how to keep these alive for more than two days. Until then, I'm keeping my grubby little hands off them.

One great thing about living in such a temperate climate is that you can get most fruits and veggies all year long. Like strawberries. Or artichokes (I could live off of those...).

It was an excellent experiment, try it! Go on! Find you local farmers market and dig in!

(See my strategy? Insert pictures to keep the paragraphs apart! Genius! Can't last forever! Am still trying to figure it out!)

Ahhh...halfway there.

I watch this every so often when I need a break. If you haven't seen it, well, enjoy. It's hilarious. I heart Maya.

An Oregon Weekend

I spent this last weekend in Albany, Oregon, the town we lived in last. I went back to re-take the test to renew my CNA license. It was odd being back, driving the same old streets, stopping by our old apartment*, the smell of burning wood chips always there in the background. If it wasn't for the fact that my best friend Abby and her husband Brian live there it would've been quite ridiculous. It look longer to fly there than it did to take the test. All went well (I think...) and I should find out if I passed or not by the end of the week. So.....yeah. My stomach is slowly un-knotting itself.

(Funny thing about when I took the test, in between the written and skills portion I studied with a kid who had been in the testing room. During our random conversation he brought up a time recently when he'd killed a moth and said, "It was so crazy, it CRUNCHED." And I said "Yeah, I know, they do that." And he looked at me like I was deranged and said, "How do YOU know that?!" Like....it was so crazy that I knew that moths went *crunch* when you squished them. Is that so odd? Am I the only one who kills moths? I can't be. That's ridiculous.)

(*I saw my lavender that I had planted outside the front door and I thought seriously about digging it up and bringing it home. I probably would have, but didn't have a burlap sack with me. And I don't think that'd be considered a carry on.)

The best part about the trip was after the test, when we were trying to decide what to do. It was my friends last Saturday before they started school and so we tried to come up with something celebratory. One last summer hurrah. And in true Albany, OR fashion, we ended up at the local Heritage Mall. It was a totally appropriate way to remember my time there, wandering around the "mall", which boasts a Sears and Bath and Body Works. And a few other stores that no one can really ever recall. We played Glow Golf, miniature golf under black lights. We ate dinner at The Roadhouse in Salem, a lovely little grill house with peanut shells littering the floor, wandered around a few home stores, and then curled up on the couch to watch Oprah. And that pretty much sums up our year and a half there.

The really odd thing is that the sun shone all weekend long, and I'd like to believe that it was for me. It really is green up there, I'd forgotten how many shades there are. Even more odd though was that it poured buckets here in the Silicon Valley, the first rain since, I don't know, April? May? I don't even remember seeing a threatening cloud since then. I'd like to think this was some sort of sign, the sun that is to come in the near future, if I can just keep going down this path. Slowly bettering myself, dodging the blues. Keeping my pants on, right? Steering clear of the No-Pants. That's my goal.

Excessive Borborygmus

At 5:45 this morning Caleb and I were jarred awake by what sounded like an alien trying to eek its way through a tiny hole. I lay there completely confused trying to make out what in the world that sound was. Was someone killing a rodent? Was it mating season? It sounds oddly familiar.....OH! I know what that is, I thought in my sleepy stupor, that's Gak being shoved back into it's container by the stubby fingers of an 8 year old boy. That's when Caleb grumbled out of bed and led the dog outside. Apparenly that alien was my dog's stomach, most likely trying to digest the entire bag of carrots he found in the trash the day before. Yeah, howdaya like that, Bear? I didn't throw them out for kicks, ya know....

It was so loud and constant Caleb put him outside so we could get some sleep. I half expected to wake up and find all the local stray dogs in the area gathered around the fence trying to paw their way in. Luckily Bear came in alone, and he spent the rest of the morning sulking and groaning on his bed. Methinks someone learned their lesson.

Oprah* would be proud

*See this

Busted

I'm going to be that friend you hate, the one to oh-so-casually mention that they have a HUGE juicy secret that........they just can't tell you right now. Later, they always say, I'll tell you later. I'll tell you when you're older.

(Insert an imaginative paragraph here...since my blogger is continuing to throw a fit)

But seriously? I swear I'll fill you in. It's a sweet idea.

For now I'll provide evidence that here at our household if it's not one thing, it's another. Quite literally. You remember the oven episode right? 6 weeks of an oven that neither baked, broiled, or roasted. We grilled. We ate cereal. And we waited.

This morning when I was in bed, catching a few extra minutes of sleep, Caleb was busy putting holes in our sink. Or rather, a hole. A real live hole.

Exhibit A: Big Gaping Hole.

The offender? One small aftershave bottle, dropped into the sink. It's almost comical, isn't it? Except that we now have one working sink in the house, and no promise that it will get fixed soon. We're taking bets on how long it will be before it gets fixed, and how many times the decision to keep / fix / replace will change.

I'll go first - 2 weeks, and twice. Cause I like to keep things neat and even.

Suspense....

Update coming soon.....I found an amazing site, sure to blow your minds....

That's what I do here, in case you weren't aware.

Two clicks from a zombie

I've had trouble sleeping lately, falling asleep in particular. I don't know what spurred it, or what drives it, but there it is, every night the same old thing. I crawl into bed, exhausted, thinking, hoping that THIS IS THE NIGHT. The night I will fall asleep! Soon! And every night I wait....and wait....and wait.

I thought maybe it was caffeine related, I don't drink it very often so maybe it was getting to me. So I stopped and...nothing happened. Then I thought it was because I was watching TV before bed, and you know what they say about THAT. That didn't make a difference either. Then I tried writing down my thoughts / worries / concerns, because that's also what they tell you to do, and that didn't work either. Plus I ran out of space, and that sort of made me feel worse.

I'd sort of given up until last night when I had a great idea. As you might imagine, it's fairly difficult to get up in the morning to work out when you've only logged a few hours of sleep, and so my work out schedule has been suffering. Maybe that's it, I thought, maybe I need to just push through it and work out. Maybe that will get me to fall asleep. So I popped in one of my work out DVDs after getting home from our friend's house. I figured I might as well be doing something rather than laying in bed trying to decipher a tune between Caleb and Bear's snoring. (With the crickets outside, we've nearly got a full orchestra around here....)

Have you ever tried working out at midnight?

I guess what's most surprising to me is that I'm actually sore today. Like, even though it was late and I was emotionally and physically exhausted, I still managed to do enough to produce results. And I can't decide if that's because I just really worked hard, or because I was so tired that it took extra effort to make my body do what it was supposed to do.

Didn't work.

Just curious, how addicting is Benadryl?

(And here we go with the funky formatting again. Now it's screwed up all of my entries! I'm doomed!)

Jabber

I know this is like, the cliche of blogging, but I been seriously struggling to come up with something interesting to say lately. You maybe could tell. Just maybe.

Look at me, I can't even write about how I have nothing to say without sounding like a total idiot. I just stared at that last sentence for five minutes. Type something, erase. Sit there. Blank. Nothing.

I could tell you all about the exciting things at work, that's, what.....2/3 of my life? But there's only so many things I can say about alphabetizing. I did find another funny last name, Schmuck. That's funny. Poor kid.....

Or I could go on and on about um.....well.....that's it.

Wow. My life. Data entry and alphabetizing. I can FEEL your jealousy emanating from the glow of the screen.

These are the thoughts that have been swirling around my head for a while now, the sad state of my job. A month or so ago I decided to do something about it though, and dug around to see what I needed to do to renew my CNA license. At least it was a step in the right direction, a millimeter closer to something I actually had an interest in. To make a long story short, I ended up booking a plane to Oregon where I was last certified so that I could re-take the written and skills test, with a fake patient and everything. Then I'll have to transfer that license to California, and hope to find a job that doesn't involve me and a giant diaper.

Not to knock those who currently have this daunting task, you really are angels. Saints.

The written portion will be easy enough, I took a practice test without studying and "passed". No worries there. It's the skills portion that makes me nervous, not only because it's been over three years since I took the class, but the class was in Utah and every state is a little different. They sent me a 34 page booklet of the different skill sets they could ask me to perform, and this is all I've got. You can see why I'm a little nervous, not made any better from the few conversations I've had with the ladies at the Oregon State Board of Nursing, "Don't worry honey, if you don't pass you can just re-take the test." Just retake the test, spend another $400 to fly up and re-take the test. Uh huh.

There is a small portion of me that wants to crawl under the covers for a few months. A small portion that seems to be growing bigger and bigger.

Is that a step up or down from no-pants? I can't tell.

Also, since we're on the subject, what in the world is up with my format? Where did all my paragraph spacing go?! Why does it look one way on the preview and a completely different way online? Is this a widespread problem, or just reserved for special people like me? Is it time to leave Blogger for bigger and better grounds? Anyone have any strong opinions about a hosting company? (Only 14 more questions to go....)

Is it bed time yet?

Psst!!!

I love Benefit Cosmetics. I love the packaging. I love the products. I love the origins. I am enamored. I am not being paid to say this.

I first ran into their cosmetics line in Australia, and I have to admit, I was first drawn to the packaging. They go for an old fashioned, rummaged-in-your-momma's-cabinet (or grandma's...) look, and the design and colors and pictures just appeal to me.


'Nuff said, I know. I'm not exactly the model of gorgeousness for you all to glean your make up advice from, but whatever, we can pretend. I had to pass on this little tidbit, I got an email from Benefit saying that if you spend $25 on Benefit products, you can get a year subscription to Lucky Magazine for free! Enter promo code LUCKYMAG at checkout. And trust me, it'll be easy to spend the $25. If nothing else, the Maybe Baby perfume is absolutely amazing. So is High Beam. And Boi-ing. And Lemon-Aid. And so on and so forth.


So there. My good deed for the day.

Tahoe Trip: In all it's glory

Our trip to Tahoe was by most standards fairly uneventful. We spent a few hours eating lunch at the lake, walked around the historic downtown, napped, watched a few movies....and that's about it. It was absolutely wonderful. Since we were so privileged to have our friend's little guy around...

we worked around his schedule. This meant a lot of down time between the hours of about noon and three, which suited us just fine.

Is there anything better than a nap after sifting through magazines? I submit that there is not!

The clicks of the camera wake me up, and I un-roll my lanky, funky-jointed arm to let some blood in....hmm....there is a perfect impression of the couch on my arm....

Mmm....afternoon nap.....can....not....wake....up......

Besides catch up on some much needed sleep, we also celebrated two birthdays.....

Are those not the best candles EVER?! Seriously....(notice the missing frosting?! Can we say curious one-year-old?!)

But mostly we entertained ourselves with the baby.

(Warning: cuteness of this magnitude has been known to cause severe baby-hunger. Proceed with caution.)

Here's a great one - me attempting in vain to put my arm around both Abby and Bridgette. Failed miserably. Abby was crouching, and I was on my toes, but I still look a little reminiscent of Igor...("You know, I'm a rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I can help you with that hump."...."What hump?")

Just in case you thought we took ourselves a bit too seriously in that last shot. Maybe you were feeling a little awkward with the formality? A nice little pose, no silly commentary? Thought so.

Nature Walk

We're spending Labor Day weekend in Tahoe this year with our good friends. Our friend's little boy had a rough night, what with us interrupting his sleep and all to drive here, and so I decided to take him on a walk this morning to let his parents have a break. I came home and wanted to know how far we'd gone, so I googled "track my run" or something. I found this FABULOUS site, Map My Run, and quickly typed in our address and drew our route. You can save your runs on your profile, leave comments about the run for yourself, specify the type of run, intensity, things you saw etc. Such a great idea! Had to pass it along. Here's our little walk, or mine I should say, Owen enjoyed the roaming dogs, squirrels, and chipmunks from the comfort of his stroller while I pushed him up the hill.

Lucky kid.



I hope you all have a lovely Labor Day! I'm going to go enjoy mine...