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Monday, January 30, 2012

Things I Don't Believe In Part 2

A little over a year ago I complied a list. This was a list of things I don't believe in. I have since added to this list. I will now write Part 2 of Things I Don't Believe In.  
(Disclaimer, if you happen to believe in any of these things, I will not judge you, 
however our friendship might be reconsidered...depending)

I don't believe in repetitive high fives. Once is enough...even once is pushing it for some.
I don't believe in guys wearing sleeveless shirts.
I don't believe in opaque white tights. I'm guilty but I'm not to be blamed, I couldn't yet dress myself.
I don't believe in guys who have long fingernails.
I don't believe in boring white socks. Snooze.
I don't believe in banana laffy taffy...unless it's the only flavor available in an emergency situation.
I don't believe in fruit pie.
I don't believe in peeling an orange. Cutting them is best.
I don't believe in raking leaves.
I don't believe in paying for parking.
I don't believe in big hair poofs.
I don't believe in drinking warm water.
I don't believe in 1 ply toilet paper.
I don't believe in multiple ticking clocks in the same room.
I don't believe in body piercings in places other than the ear, and/or larger than a regular earring size.
I don't believe in belly buttons. Gross. I don't care who you are.
I don't believe in healthy Mexican food. Bring on the lard.
I don't believe in lace up shoes. Hi-tops=only exception.
I don't believe in the phrase, 'get 'er done'.
I don't believe in slow drivers.
I don't believe in black licorice.
I don't believe in round-a-bouts. We live in America, not Europe.
I don't believe in 70's wood paneling.
I don't believe in styrofoam cups/plates.
I don't believe in twitter.
I don't believe in guys (or girls) who take and post ridiculous pics of themselves. (sour apple face, high camera mirror pose, flexing, not looking at camera but we all know you took the picture because we see your arm, etc.)
I don't believe in the word 'Hubby'.
I don't believe in the saying, "I didn't come here to lose." REALLY?! Weird. Cuz the rest of us did....
I don't believe in cream filled donuts.
I don't believe in maraschino cherries.
I don't believe in white sunglasses. (insert rude comment here)
I don't believe in violent x box games.
I don't believe in toddlers and tiaras. No, you're 2 yr old does not need to go tanning, have huge fake teeth, and wear that awful fake hair.
I don't believe in canned fruit melody.
I don't believe in Elvis impersonators.
I don't believe in saying "I'll give110%" impossible.
I don't believe in cantaloupe.
I don't believe in abbreviated words. Like I'm totes def gonna B there B4 U. We speak English, not Bingo.
I don't believe in reality shows about "famous" people, who nobody knows WHY they're even famous. I'll give you two guesses...
I don't believe in Charleston chews.
I don't believe in eating takeout with metal silverware.


Thank you for tuning in, to this installment of, Things I Don't Believe In!!

A special thank you to our corporate sponsors, Soggy Bottom Diapers, Mormon Disco Ball Inc., and Todd's Premade Toast.


Please note, all companies listed above, if real, had NOTHING to do with this message. That is all.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Pampered Chef

Three of my favorite products. See below for description.
Yep, I'm going there again...another pampered chef party. I said two years ago that I wouldn't have another one but I just love their products and discounts for hosts so here I am :). My aunt had one last night and I just can't avoid it, I had to book myself a party. You are ALL invited. Even if I don't know you....weird. You can order from my site here. Sorry if you're a stranger you can't come to my house ;).


I don't know what the 'theme' of the evening will be yet but I'm going to have a vote sort of. I'm going to choose a few options I like and leave it up to my attending guests to decide what they want to make/eat.

Details:
When: Friday, Feb. 10th @ 7pm
Where: My house (comment or email for directions)
Who: You and any friends/family you'd like to invite


If you've never used a Pampered Chef product, this would be a great time. I LOVE all my P.C. products. I posted a picture of some of my favorites.

Their stone is so great. We have many stone products and they just get better with age. They cook evenly and things just taste better when baked/cooked in/on their stone.  

Their garlic press is amazing!! If you love garlic but don't like your hands smelling like garlic for days, this is such a great product. You put a whole clove (with skin) in the press and squeeze, it peels and minces the garlic in one easy step. 
Last night I got to try a potato chip that was made in the microwave...with that black thing that's pictured in the middle. I was very skeptical because the microwave makes thing soggy. These chips were actually really good, they had no added oil or other additives and they were just as good as the chips you buy. You can also use sweet potatoes or apples on this thing. I'm going to be ordering this for sure!!

Let me know if you'd like to come, remember you can invite friends/family too!! I'm really excited. 

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Pinterest Crafting #4

For this week's pinterest craft, I made a really neat holder for my small church books. I found the link last night and pinned it, then just made it in about an hour.

It's meant to hold the YW Personal Progress book, Journal, pen, and strength of youth pamphlet. However, I don't have the journal so I just put my YW camp for leaders pamphlet in there for now.

Then it folds over itself to make this cute little package:
I love it. I have a hard time keeping all my little books in one place and this is the perfect solution for me. It's not a big bulky case, it's just barely bigger than the books themselves.

Here are a few links if you'd like to make your own!!

Direct link to the directions/tutorial

My Church Board


My Sewing Board

On another note, on Monday I got to take one of the residents at my work on a fun overnight trip to Semiahmoo Resort. If you want to getaway, I highly recommend this place. Right now is their off season so we were given a free upgrade to a waterview room (which is another $80 value). It's so pretty up there I could have spent the entire time on the beach but it was pretttty cold.





All pictures were taken with my point and shoot, which I was pretty impressed with, much better quality than my old one, hurray!!


Next Week's Pinterest day....might be about New Beginnings we're planning for church..maybe. I spent an entire day last week paper macheing balloons to go with our theme. We'll see.

Oh ya!! This was originally going to be my Pinterest Craft for the week:


CAKE POPS!! Prolly not the cutest you've ever seen but nobody seemed to mind :). The half covered ones were for my family...the chocolate started hardening and I didn't have enough left anyways so they got the gross looking ones, they didn't care.

Littlest Warrior

While browsing a favorite blog this morning I was reading about a craft project this lady was participating in. I decided that it would be a really good idea to get in on the 'action'. I haven't read much about the program but I did check out their site. Every year they get donations of a certain crafty variety to give to kids of all ages who are battling cancer.
This year they are looking for beanies of all sizes and all types-knit, crochet, fabric. As well as homemade tote bags to use in the hospitals. What a fun way to help the younger people who are going through such a tough time. All the info is on their site if you'd like to participate.

I am going to try to make several hats and maybe a tote to donate, I have enough yarn to make hats for the entire country so half the work is already done ;). I figure if I can do one hat every evening by the end of the week, I'll have lots to donate...that is if my poor fingers cooperate.

Here are a few links to patterns if you'd like to participate...although ANY pattern can be made in any color.

very easy, very basic beginner knit pattern

20 minute sewed tote bag. Such a fun/easy pattern

sewed fleece hats for those who sew

There are so so so so many patterns online, the options are endless for these tough kids. I'll post an update when I get some of my stuff done.

OH YA this is Pinterest Thursday...I'll post later about that...I have some pinterest plans for today...

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Pinterest Crafting #3

please note that my kayak (seen in blue) does NOT make a good sled...
This Thursday has snuck up on me big time!! I'm going to be honest, I haven't left the house except on Sunday (when I went to a meeting--in between snow falls) it's now Thursday. It takes me about 15-20 minutes to drive to work on a regular, no snow day. There is also one significant hill, and one smaller hill between me and work. I don't drive in the snow so everyone who lives just a few minutes from work have been covering my shifts...I hate being that person who is a 'driving through snow baby' but I am. So I've been cooped up all week along with the rest of my family --except my dad who knows how to drive in the snow and has a bigger vehicle. I've made snow ice cream multiple times, had snowball fights when the snow was packable (now it's lame-o powder), made a small snowman, blogged a lot, listened to spotify pretty much constantly, watching season 1 of Prison Break (Michael cough Linc cough).

I've also done a few Pinterest things that I'll post now.
 this is the beginning of a hat that I started last night. I don't think I really should be knitting/crocheting with my messed up hands (they keep 'freezing' in a curled position when any pressure is put on them) but it's SNOWING for crying out loud, snow is made for knitting and drinking hot cocoa don'tcha know.
I've made this hat before but I just pinned the pattern this week. See my knitting board here.

This is kind of a cheat post since I haven't completed this hat yet, but I also have made these cookies 2 times. I was trying to find something for Shelley to do this week so we baked. Our first batch did not work and went in the trash. I tried to tweak the recipe and added half a teaspoon of peppermint to the batter (in theory, good. in real life, bad). So today we remade them how they're supposed to be made. They are flour-less and pretty chocolaty. They are like a brownie but flatter and less calories. This recipe makes 24 cookies so I did 12 regular and the other 12 I added half a crushed up candy cane which turned out a little minty and much better than using the extract.

The recipe was found on King Arthur Flour site here's the recipe:

  • 2 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon espresso powder- I did NOT use this FYI it's optional
  • 1 cup cocoa powder, Dutch-process (European-style) preferred*
  • 3 large egg whites
  • 2 teaspoons gluten-free vanilla extract
  • *For darker, richer-looking cookies, substitute 1/4 cup black cocoa for 1/4 cup of the Dutch-process cocoa
I have no idea what the heck dutch process cocoa powder is, all I know is it's way expensive so I just used the cheaper hershey stuff and it worked just fine.

Mix everything together in a bowl and bake at 350 for 8-12 minutes-- mine baked for about 12 min and were still a little soft which I like.

They are good, definitely a richer treat but moderation is good, or so I've been told ;).



Hope everyone is enjoying the snow, or whatever weather you happen to be experiencing, it doesn't snow here that often so when it does I love to hunker down and do my own thing, can you pick up what I'm throwing down? (Sorry wayyy too much Prison Break , I've been working on my street cred.)

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

41,128

That's how many words I have written for my book. It's 90 pages long so far (8.5x11). I remember in school I always had to write long papers and I remember being so stressed out about not being able to write enough words but I always had more than I needed...usually. I'll be honest, some papers were bulked up with excessive use of the word "that" :). I just love to write. I'm not a great speaker (not saying I'm a great writer either :p) but I do enjoy writing much more than speaking.

About two years ago I woke up from a really intense dream. Usually I have dreams but can't remember them or they were just silly dreams. This one was different. I woke up in a panic and felt very much in distress, weird. It took me a few minutes to really remember what I had been dreaming about but when I remembered I thought, 'hey, this would be a really good book'. It may have been the sleep talking but a few weeks later I decided to write it down. I couldn't get it out of my mind, I would carry around a little notebook to write down ideas and plot twists as I thought of them. Then I started typing it up. I made up characters' names and just started typing.

I'm sure many authors use a much different method and write an outline of events, but I'm too ADD for that, I just wrote whatever I felt like writing. Then I'd reread and rewrite parts. I have a general idea of where this is going but sometimes I start typing and I can't stop so I have to go through and check the continuity. One mistake I made was one of the girls didn't like mustard, then a few chapters later she ordered extra mustard...no bueno. Now she likes mustard in case you were wondering :).

I always thought they should hire me as a continuity person on TV and movies, I always hone in on the silly mistakes and can't stop thinking about them throughout the show...

I like that I get to decide what happens. In some books or movies I am mentally yelling at the characters to chose another option, to change their 'path' and live a happy life. Sometimes I don't want a dramatic plot twist, I want everyone to sit on clouds, eating rainbow lollypops, and singing covers of Elton John songs....granted I wouldn't really want to read boring books so I guess plot twists are good, unless they involve a certain red headed twin dying at the end of a certain series of books...good one J.K. good one.
I'm still bitter but I'm in counseling and will pull through somehow.

I digress. Again. ADD. Sorry.

My book doesn't have a title, you could call it title-less. Eventually it will have a title. There's a large probability I'll change character names and 'destiny's' but I reserve that right.

Would you like to read an expert? Of COURSE you would. OK I'll find a part to share.

Please be warned, you can click back on your browser at this point and save yourself from more random words. BTDUBS, this is copyrighted so I don't want to see no tomfoolery :) In honor of SOPA ;)

  ...My last obstacle was getting around the 8-foot high trees that lined the border between our two yards. I couldn’t go in the front the officer would see me. My only choice was to try to crawl under the dense bushes. I got down on my hands and knees and pushed my way through the thick trees. The branches snapped across my face and I could feel the knees of my jeans getting soaked through. It took a little maneuvering but I made it to the other side. I could see where the sliding glass door had once been; it was now sealed with thick plastic and bright blue tape. As I got closer to the door I reached into my backpack and pulled out the pocketknife I had stolen from Kyle’s room before I left. This knife had duel purposes; first I was hoping the broken door would still be broken and covered exactly how it was so I could cut through and be in no problem. The second reason was a little more nerve-wracking; I had to have a weapon to protect myself if anything went wrong. Someone could be here just like last night and I had to give myself a fighting chance. As I made my way across the yard I snapped the knife open, my hands were trembling so bad the knife fell to the grass. I picked it up and continued to the door. There were several layers of heavy plastic covering the door so it took a few minutes to cut a big enough slit for me to fit through. As I stepped through the plastic a terror ripped through my body, the last time I had been in this house was when I found the bodies of my dead parents. The fear gripped my whole body and I stopped just inside the kitchen. I couldn’t go upstairs where her body had been, couldn’t see the red stained carpet. Taylor, the mental image of my sister flashed through my head, I had to do it for Taylor. If we were going to stay together, I needed to do this. After steadying my breath I crossed the kitchen into the hallway, I rushed past the office door that, thankfully, was closed. I started climbing the stairs, each step I took brought me closer to the horror, the awful images crashing like waves through my thoughts...

This book is about two sisters who have to deal with finding their parents murdered and finding a way to stay together amidst turmoil and heartache. PS-the formatting didn't transfer over from Word so it's all one big paragraph. 

Only one person (hollla Michelle) has read this partially written book and she only read it when it was like 40 pages long but she said she liked it. It might be a situation like that ugly sweater your grandma gets you for Christmas that you just 'love' and wear the next time you see her then it goes in the donation pile....it's highly possible.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Pinterest Party

Take 2...

haha The plans for the last party didn't quite pan out. It was just far too busy to get together at the end of December. It will be better this way anyways, we will plan a date and time that will work for most everyone. We'll also find a good location with enough space.

I've been thinking about what the best way to have this get together would be. After reading a few other ideas from successful pinterest parties, I've decided how I think it would work best.

I have made a new Pinterest Board if you haven't already been invited to join it, let me know and I'll invite you so you can contribute to the board. If everyone pins a few of their favorite crafts/recipes then we can get an idea of what people want to make. Then, each person will pick one item that they want to bring to share. If we each pick a project we want to do and bring supplies for three additional people (4 total) to make, then we could have a variety of projects to choose from. Not everyone will get to do everything but I think that's ok, we all have different tastes so it should be ok. If you choose a simpler project that would be cheap for everyone to make that's fine too. Then everyone (or whoever wants to) could bring a refreshment they've pinned to share. We could all bring extra crafts we want to personally work on too if we wanted.

What do you think? Good, bad? I'm not married to this idea so if it seems difficult to pull off, we can make it simpler, it's OUR party, we can craft what we want to, craft what we want to....ok sorry.

If you want to participate, let me know!! We'll work it out. If you have friends/coworkers/neighbors who want to join us, they are more than welcome too!! It would be important to know how many people to expect though for space and craft supply reasons. If they are on Pinterest they can also be added to our board if they'd like to be, just let me know!!

I think a Saturday would work best, I have a fun coworker friend who really wanted to participate last time but she works pretty much every evening. If a Saturday doesn't work, we can change it to a Friday too.

Get Pinning Party People!!

p.s. who else LOOOOVES this snow?! I love having snow days even though I'm old. =)

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Divergent

On Wednesday I spent the day at the hospital with my grandma. She called me in the morning and asked me to drive her to the ER so off I went to Ferndale to pick my grandparents up and drove them to the hospital. We sat around and waited, ate a realllly good lunch, waited some more, changed rooms again, etc....This might make me crazy but I really don't mind going to the hospital, so if you ever need a ride and someone to wait around let me know! I find hospitals so intriguing. I make up stories about the patients/nurses/doctors in my mind and try to imagine what their lives are like..weird? Yes. Oh well. This has nothing to do with this blog but it happened to be Wednesday that THIS book came from the library:
 if only it had been there six hours before so I could have been reading it while waiting. I digress.
This was one of those books that I literally could not put down. I carried it around with me everywhere. When I couldn't sleep at work (up at 1:30 ugh), I got it out and started reading it, while I blow dried my hair in the morning, I read it, while I ate lunch, I read it....you get the idea. There was something so interesting about this book, the choices that the main Character (Beatrice) Tris has to make had me on edge the entire book. It's kind of intense. It reminded me of the Hunger Games series in a way, but I didn't find it as intense, although it had it's parts. It's teen fiction so it's fairly easy to read and I ended up finishing it in about 24 hours. I would highly recommend this book, the next book comes out in May. I think there will be three books total.

Am I the only one who gets extremely bummed when a book series end?! I get so engrossed and I have the 'movie' playing in my mind and when it's over, it's so so sad. Maybe that's just me?!

The main plot of this book is the choice the 16 year old's have to make. Their world has five Factions. Five ways of life. At age 16 is when they chose what faction they will live in for the rest of their lives. There are those who live factionless but that is worse than death to most. These are the factions:


ABNEGATION: 1. to refuse or deny oneself (some rights, conveniences, etc.); reject; renounce.
2. to relinquish; give up

The people in Abnegation never think of themselves, they always think of others first, they don't even use mirrors because it's considered selfish. This is the faction the main character, Tris was born into, will she choose to stay with her family? Or not? Hmmmm read the book.


 AMITY: 1. friendship; peaceful harmony.
2. mutual understanding and a peaceful relationship, especially between nations; peace; accord.
3. cordiality

I took a faction test online and was told this would be my faction if I lived in the Divergent world. I would have said it's a toss up between this and Abnegation for myself.


 CANDOR: 1. the state or quality of being frank, open, and sincere in speech or expression; candidness.
2. freedom from bias; fairness; impartiality.

The Candor never lie. They see things in black and white, and only wear those two colors. They are honest never even telling a white lie.



 DAUNTLESS: fearless, undaunted.
Undaunted: courageously resolute, especially in the face of danger or difficulty; not discouraged.

The Dauntless are reckless in my opinion, they jump off buildings and trains. They are there to 'protect' the people. They should be brave and without fear.


 ERUDITE: characterized by great knowledge; learned or scholarly


The Erudite devote their lives to learning and knowledge. They are too smart for their own good.


So why is the book called Divergent? What if someone was a mix of two of these factions, would that be a good thing or a bad thing? Someone who is a mixture of two factions is called a Divergent, which is a very dangerous word and it should be kept secret.


Just read it. Seriously it is good.


What faction would you belong in? dun, dun, dun.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Pinterest Crafting #2



P.S. Please don't judge my horrible picture. I just can't bring myself to take out my big camera to take a good picture, besides she has good pics of the same thing on her blog.


Today is Pinterest Thursday!! I almost forgot it was Thursday after a rather unusual Wednesday. But I remembered just in time. This week I am posting a handout I made for my Visiting Teaching ladies for January. There's a blog that I pinned on Pinterest a few weeks ago and I've gone back to it several times since pinning. She has some really cute church related ideas and free handout ideas. Her site is called Inkablinka. If you'd like to follow my Church Pinterest board click here! Here is the direct link to the instructions to make these wheels.

I really love handouts, making, giving, and receiving them. It's not a waste of time to me, even if it gets looked at for a day or two then gets thrown out, I still like making them. I hope that this site will help me be a better visiting teacher. I'm more likely to go if I have a cute handout or treat for them :D.

here are a few very random pins from my funny board. They have nothing to do with anything but I thought they were funny...duh


Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Test Blog



Blogger is being wack. I'm trying to upload a new header but it says I have exceeded my photo storage....what?! Looks like I'll be looking for a new blog hosting site if I can't figure this out soon. I never even knew my pictures were being sent to some random picasa album I knew nothing about.  So enjoy some random quotes!!

Monday, January 9, 2012

DTE

Distance to empty. Woops. Second time in a row that I've been sweating my cars gas level. I made myself a rule when I bought my very own car when I was 18/19ish. That rule was I'd never let my gas tank get below half full, you just get better gas milage and you don't have to worry about running out of gas blah blah. Well our Costco is basically another territory of Canada if you didn't know...if I wanted to go to a Costco with less canadians, I'd go to canada. It's ridiculous. so i avoid the Costco gas line as much as possible. I will go if it's before 8am (when the line to get into Costco starts) or after 9pm. Lately I just go after I get off work at 6 in the morning and I never have to wait in line!! So that will be my plan tomorrow after I get off work. Be jealous.

Music of the week:
Worst: call me maybe -- Carly Rae jepsen
Best: holding on and letting go -- Ross copperman

P.S. I can call it the worst because even though I can't stand it, I know the chorus and find myself humming it :/

This has been a public service announcement.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Pinterest Crafting #1

If you saw my subway art of 2012 goals yesterday, it might be a little confusing but I know exactly what each thing means and I guess that's what matters since they're my goals!! One of the more mysterious words was Pinterest. My goal isn't to pin more (we all know I DON'T need to do that) but my goal is to make something that I find on Pinterest every week. It could be a new recipe, a craft, knitting, crocheting, sewing, photo idea, etc... I've decided that I am going to try to use Thurdsday's as my Pinterest idea day.

 The big idea is that I'll go through my boards and kind of clean up a bit. I have pinned A LOT and in the beginning I pinned without abandon so I need to go through and reorganize and unpin some things. I'm also trying to be really good at pinning the PermaLinks, not just the blog where the idea was found. That is one of my BIGGEST pet peeves about Pinterest is people don't know how to pin properly. So often I click on one of my pins and am taken to some blog where I have to scroll through two years of blogs to find the ONE. So I've started just going to the pin's link and pinning it for myself so I know it's right.

ANYWAYS.....sorry for the tangent.

Today's project is from a pin I pinned a few days ago. I made myself a pair of "15 minute PJ pants". Truth be told, just folding the fabric right took 15 minutes but once that was done, they were pretty simple.

I had purchased a whole bolt of this crazy pink houndstooth flannel the day after Thanksgiving for $6.99, when it's usually $50-60 bucks for the bolt. That's a good deal to me!! The next day they were all on sale for $25 which is still a 'good deal' but not a 'great deal'!!

Since our YW activity yesterday was to make PJ's I thought I'd make a quick pair. Here is a horrible iPad pic:

They are super bell-bottom-ey because I didn't use the best pair of PJ's to trace...oh well.

Here is the direct link to the blog with the instructions and here is a link to my sewing board if you're interested.

Happy Pinning/Crafting/Creating

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

2012 Goals

in the form of Subway Art. (to see the whole image, click on it, you know you want to.)

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