Checking in

I know I haven't been around much here or anywhere else lately. My friend J (this is the flaw, I guess, in giving somebody a nickname like brunch boy. Because I feel like I need to call him brunch boy so that everybody knows who I'm talking about, and calling him brunch boy now is really innappropriate.) lost someone he was close to, so I've been with him, basically, all the time for the last week or so. I'm gonna try to catch up with everybody else at some point though, and I have been thinking of you.

Good Morning Sun

This week's blog challenge from the scrapbooking forum I go to is to talk about your day to day life, so this is my attempt at it, with pictures.

The first picture here is this little cubby thing in my car, right behind my steering wheel next to the door. Just a little something I see everyday. The braclet is from brunch boy, he made it when he was taking care of his neices once and gave it to me. And a little thing of fuses because sometimes when I plug in my ipod in the car the fuse blows and I have to change it.
This is my favorite mug. I don't drink coffee, but I have this thing about drinking water out of a mug. I basically drink water all day at then at night I will have some soda and then go back to water. It's the one healthy thing I'm really good at.
This is pretty much just how to I look either early in the morning before I get dressed or late at night. I love my satinny robes, I wear my hair up all the time at home, I pull on the longer pieces in the back. I like to check my email and the news headlines online in the mornings first thing. I actually feel like I don't know what's going on in the world if I have to leave without checking. I also check my email right before I go to bed. Lately I've been listening to music all morning, but I'll also watch dvds or stuff I tivoed the night before sometimes. My apartment complex has a pool, so I usually swim in the mornings. I make little notes to myself everyday. I play sudoku. I stare at the tree outside my window. I live near a hospital (both at my apartment and at my parent's house, actually) so I hear an ambulance at least once a day. At some point during the day I sit on my foot until it falls asleep and then complain about doing it once again. I wear my watch from the minute I get up until I go to bed. 

Scrap space part 2

3. This sits right below where I scrap. First shelf is where I throw my scraps, and it's probably the best thing I did when I was organizing, because it's right below me and I can just drop them in as I go along. Second shelf holds the layouts I'm getting ready to do. The majority of my scrapping supplies are at my parents because I don't have room for them, so when I go home I get paper and cardstock and pair them up, and they sit on the second shelf until I'm ready for them. Third shelf is a bunch of letter stickers that I use all the time, mostly American Crafts and Making Memories. Fourth shelf is KI Memories and 7 Gypsies embellishements. Fifth shelf is just a bunch of embellishments that I use often. The bottom shelf holds some templates and stuff.
4. This is the other half of the top of my desk. The bottom green memory dock thing holds all my pictures. I have a whole system for organizing them, but it really only makes sense if you're me. The top Memory Dock two drawer thing holds a bunch more embellishments that I use alot, organized by theme. The little box on top is some chipboard embellishments, and I also keep my paper cutter up there when I'm not using it because it's out of the way and I can grab it when I need it. The bag is my crop bag, it holds a bunch of rub on letters, stuff like glue dots, and also some tools, like my tag maker and xyron and stuff.
5. I actually just hung this up, it's right next to where I sit. Right now it just has some quotes I want to use on pages written out on index cards, but it's pretty handy to have it right there.
Brunch boy took this picture of me the other day when he was over and I was finishing something up. So I guess this is as good a place as any to talk about how I scrap. It might be boring, but I always find learning about other people's processes interesting, plus my desk is pretty much set up the way it is because of how I scrap. I scrap at the end of the table so that I can watch tv if I want to (I have figured out exactly what I can and can't watch while scrapping. Can't watch 24, I get too caught up watching all the actiony stuff, plus I have to see whatever delightful face Chloe is making. Can't watch CSI, I get distracted by it. Can't watch soap operas because I have to fast forward too much. Stuff that's just kind of mindlessly entertaining works best for me, like 90210 or Melrose Place 0r the OC or Desperate Housewives). If I'm not watching tv I'm listenting to my iPod, I'm always changing my playlist so it's basically just whatever music I really love at the moment. I'm a really fast scrapbooker, too. If it takes me more than an hour to do it, I probably won't end up doing it. I generally take about a half hour to do a two page layout. A lot of what makes it so quick for me is that I tend to plan everything out in my head before I start, when I'm like, sitting in the car or trying to fall asleep I'll think of ideas or certain papers I want to use with certain pictures and have it all figured out before I start. I have the creative planner from Memory Dock, so I do sketch stuff out using it, and I also make just like, random rough sketches on scrap paper that no one but me would understand. My journalling is always written before I start. I took a lot of writing classes in college and I really developed my own voice, because of that I have to hear everything in my head first and then write it down and then I generally edit it again at least once before I'm done. I do the same thing with blog posts most of the time, it's the best way to say everything and have it sound like me. I also think of a lot of journalling when I'm trying to fall asleep or stuck in traffic. I have trouble journalling on like, birthday pages or whatever, I'm not so interested in the whole we went here and did this stuff, but I can write pages on like, my subway token necklace because it says something to me, something I want to share and put out there. It's not so much that I don't want to remember the birthdays and Christmases and such, it's just that I think I'm a little bit more inspired by all the random little stuff in life. I have kind of a quirky way of looking at things and that's what I really want to get down, the stuff that makes me different from everybody else. I do think it's important though, to have a record of all the we went here and did this stuff, so I do pages like that because I want to get it all down. I used to fool myself into thinking I didn't need to because I'd always remember, but I got over that notion. I also use a ton of quotes and song lyrics, sometimes as titles, sometimes as a place to start my journalling, sometimes just by themself, because I do think the right quote can kind of sum everything up sometimes. I don't mess with stuff a lot once I start putting it together. I kind of just trust my instincts and go with it. I'll get my pictures and journalling and then maybe a couple of embellishments to choose from (I generally know what I'm going to pick between before I start too, again, all in my head) and maybe move stuff around a little bit, but I do generally end up going with whatever was in my head to begin with. It only rarely doesn't work out the way I plan. Sometimes I get the idea for a page and then take pictures to go with it, but a lot of times I already have pictures. I take a ton of like, random pictures of whatever strikes me and don't worry about figuring out what I'll do with them until later. I figure, basically, if it speaks to me enough to want to capture it, I'll find something to say about it. I also don't scrap or store my pages in any kind of order. They basically go into my albums in the order I finish them, though I switch stuff around sometimes in my books if I think two pages look too much alike. I know myself well enough to know if I started going in order I would never, ever let myself be out of order and I'd drive myself crazy, so I just never let myself start. Since I'm not very eventy in my pages anyway, I also use pictures taken at different times together if I have some that help illistrate what I want to say. I've basically just learned to trust myself and that I know what I'm doing, and that at the end of the day I know what I like and want and it doesn't matter if it doesn't match up with what somebody else is doing.

That was really long. I hope it wasn't horribly boring. Happy Saturday guys. 

Scrap space part 1

I know I said I would show some pictures of my scrap space, so here they are, all nicely numbered and even with little arrows to make it easy. Don't say I'm not crazy.

1. This is the shelf under my scrap island thingy. The red container holds a bunch of letter stickers, the pink container holds random embellishments. One arrow is pointing to my quickutz (even though I almost never use it), I keep the binders with all my quickutz shapes between the back of the desk and the wall. One the floor I have a bunch of cardstock stacks. 12x12 to use on my pages, 8 1/2x 11 to run through the printer.
2. This is the top of my desk. Those little plastic things the arrows is pointing to hold different sets of letters, I had a bunch of little plastic containers so I just pulled them out of their packaging and put them in there. I also have a couple of stamps that I use all the time, black ink, photo tabs, and some Queen and Company stuff (in the little pink bag). There's a bunch of ribbon in those little boxes. This is also the end of the table that I actually scrap at. 

The picture I didn't take

You know, I feel kind of bad about not having a handy dandy song lyric for the title of this post, but it does build sort of well off of the last post, right? (and gosh, how many freaking times can I post in 24 hours, seriously)

Anyway, for some reason I was thinking tonight about this picture that I didn't have the guts to take. My cousin Chris does a bunch of plays (he's really talented) and I always try to go to them, and one time I had to park and kind of walk a little bit, and the way I walked went by the alley that runs alongside the theater, and when I walked by these guys from the play were outside the stage door, kind of just hanging out and smoking and I just kind of stood and watched them for a couple of minutes because it was really interesting to me. And I wish I'd taken a picture of them, I thought about it, but them it seemed kind of like I was invading their private space or something. Anyway. No idea why I'm thinking of it now.

In your own way

Alright, taking a temporary time out from my current emo kid status to post this. Made it this afternoon (storyboard and color wash actions from photoblast, font is AL Charisma) and I really like it. I'm thinking about getting it printed and hanging it over my desk. 

It's a hole that I'll never quite fill

So I decided a while ago that I would try to be a better person. I don't know why, it just seemed like it was time. I'm trying to be nicer, to be more patient, to not be so angry, to not swear all the freaking time (see, freaking, that's a big step up for me). Being a good person is really hard. And I'm not even actually trying to be a good person, I'm trying to be less of a bad person. Anyway, in my continued search for my better self I decided that I should talk to my exboyfriend so that he would that months later I see what an awful girlfriend I was and that I'm really very sorry. I don't know why I thought that was a good idea, why I didn't see that the only peron that that helps is me because I get to feel a little bit better about myself, because I get some kind of absolution or something, all the while being really selfish and asking someone who really, really shouldn't be making me feel better to make me all better. What can I say, I drink a lot, I probably killed the brain cells that would make that obvious (that is a lame attempt at humor, I don't actually need an intervention, though I can see why at this point it would be hard to tell), but once I started talking I finally figured that there wasn't anything that I could say that would make things better and felt like an even bigger jerk. I'm thinking this journey of self improvement should stop because I'm really much better at being awful, it seems.

Helter Skelter and the summer swellter

So I have a lot of fears (I know this much be shocking, completely out of character for me news to you all) but by far the weirdest one is that I'm scared to change lightbulbs. I have this stupid freaky recurring dream that I'm changing one and it breaks and cuts up my hand, and thus, I try to get other people to change them for me. I only bring this up now because I somehow convinced Brunch boy to change my lightbulb for me tonight, since I had such a bad week with my car breaking down and such (I did get my car back, finally, so that was kind of exciting, I guess). I was going to say that his superpowers involve being able to convince/charm/manipulate me into doing whatever he wants, but I guess I'm not doing so badly in that department myself. Perhaps I shall one day have my own superhero name too.

The thing about the girl in question

It's costing almost six hundred dollars to get my car fixed. And thus, I am in an awful, awful, mood. So I'm going to share a bunch of things about myself that I wouldn't probably normally, because my awful mood has put my head in such a wierd place.

1. I'm not really a very open person. I have, however, figured out how to seem open, to share the things that don't freak me out, becaue I don't even want people to see how closed off I am, because that would be sharing a big part of myself. And I think that it's kind of a manipulative thing to do, and I am sorry about it. It's not that I haven't shared stuff here, even stuff that's kind of big in my life, it's just that there's a whole lot of big stuff I hold back.

2. I fidget, all the time. I have a huge problem sitting perfectly still. I have all this little random stuff sitting in front of my computer that I play with while I'm sitting here. My exboyfriend called them my fidgeters, and I loved that, because I knew he really saw me and got me, and it's one of the wierd things I miss about him.

3. I loved him, in a huge, huge way, but only as a friend, no matter how much I wanted to, I could never manage to fall in love with him, even though he was lovely and wonderful and I fooled myself for a while. But he did really see me, and get me, and he figured it out, and I hurt him, and I am so, so sorry for that, because I never meant to. And if he hadn't figured it out, and we could have worked it out, I think I would have stayed with him forever, because I was happy. And I know that's kind of sad, and very the sound of settling (I love that song, by the way. Do you like Death Cab for Cutie, Annette? I love them almost as much as I love The Killers) but I don't think it would have been that awful.

4. I grind my teeth and clench my jaw and my hands in my sleep. I have TMJ from the teeth grinding and I try to get really calm before I fall asleep so I don't do the clenching, but my jaw and my hands are basically always sore in the mornings because I get so stressed out.

5. I have OCD, though I don't have it nearly as badly as so many people, which I'm very grateful for. I think it's the reason I can get so hyperfocused on things. Like, I get obsessed with a different tv show every month and it will be almost the only thing I watch (there are shows I watch every new episode whether I'm obsessed or not). This month it's 24, last month was Everwood, the months before kind of went back and forth between 24 and Prison Break, sometime in the fall it was Grey's Anatomy. I think at this point I've watched every episode of 24 about a hundred and twenty times, and wierdly I don't get tired of it.

6. I wish I could go to sleep and wake up ten years in the future, to see if I ever get it together and get the husband and the house and the kids (if I can only have one, I'll take the kids, if you're reading this fate) because most of the time I don't really believe that it's ever going to work out for me, and I think just seeing for a minute that it did would be enough.

7. I have a pretty bad relationship with my dad, though we certainly have good moments. I don't want people to know we have a bad relationship, though, because I don't want anybody to think badly of him. I'm trying to work on things with him, but I really don't know that that's ever going to work out.

8. I'm in love with this guy, and I think he might know, even though we haven't ever and probably never will, talk about it, because we both know it would be a terrible, terrible thing. It's all very complicated, and I pretty much end up heartbroken no matter what happens and I hate it. And I really can't say more on that subject here in public because that would ruin the secretness of it. I'd like to stop having the complicated human emotions, now, okay thanks?

So now, you know almost all my secrets, and I've made myself all vulnerable and freaked myself out, but I'm giving myself a goldstar for all the sharing. And hey, I promised to try to not be boring this week, and I think that this is an excellent start, because while it feels kind of soul crushingly sad to me, it's not boring.

Brokedown Palace

My car brokedown 5 minutes from my apartment an hour and a half ago. And brunch boy came running to my rescue, because that's what he does, I cry and am generally all kinds of damsel, and he rides in and saves me and takes care of me because that's what we do. And it should be annoying, I think, being rescued all the time, except there's something comforting in the constatness of it. So now he's off buying us beer and we're going to watch 24 because it's weirdly what I'm in a mood to watch right now. I hope you're all doing well.

Catching Up

Okay, this is kind of a catch up post, trying to answer a bunch of comments from the last few days.

First, I thought Pirates was awesome. Love, love, loved it. I am not at all objective about those movies though, it would be hard to dissappoint me, I think.

Annette, I do have a shirt from thinkgeek. If I didn't already know we were soul sisters, we totally are now.

Thank you all for all the nice comments about my pictures. I'll share here how I learned what little I know about my camera, and photos in general.

First, I'll admit that I've never read my camera manual. And I know that reading it is the very first thing you're supposed to do. I can't understand it, I get nothing out of reading it, it's like, a language I can't speak. I tried, I failed. I am an awful, horrible camera owner. Glad I got that out in the open.

If you have a digital rebel, I recommend this site: http://2peasinapicture.blogspot.com/
I learned a lot about the settings on my camera from there and it's easy for me to understand.

I can't talk about my camera with mentioning my friend J (also known as the guy who made me go to brunch when I totally already had lunch plans for those of you who heard that story at lunch) who might not help me out nearly so much if I didn't say he's wonderful and fantastic and I'd get nowhere, camera wise, without him. He has the same camera, and he'll answer the phone when it's like, midnight, and I'm trying to figure something out, and explain things to me over, and over again, until I get it. And he bought me my way cool camera bag, so he's the best.

I think beyond all of that though, it helped me just to learn about composition, and you can use that no matter what camera you use. I think the biggest thing that helped me develop my eye and take better pictures was looking at pictures all the time and seeing what I liked and then just taking a ton of pictures. I have a much better eye for it now than I did even a year ago, basically just from that. Photography for Scrapbookers by Tracy White was one thing that I looked at a lot, I also look at the photography board on 2peas (http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/pg.asp?gallery=2).

For the record, I still take a lot of crappy pictures (I just don't post those, hee), I just take more good pictures now than I used to, and I take good pictures on purpose now, instead of by accident (though one of my favorite pictures is a great one I took on accident years ago, and the pictures I love the most are sometimes not the greatest pictures, but the most sentimental ones, because I am a sentimental girlie girl).

Okay, that was really long, and hopefully a little bit helpful and not completely boring. I promise to try to be more interesting next week.

lunch pictures part 2

 

lunch pictures

Part one, anyway. I'm posting these straight out of the camera here for now so the girls can see them, before I run off to have dinner with my dad. I didn't take to many pictures, I got distracted talking about Jack Baurer.

 

Geeking out

Okay so, I'm secretly (perhaps not so secretly) kind of a huge geek. Perhaps that explains my deep love for Chloe, because she's the coolest geek ever. Anyway, I'm going to lunch today with some girls from my favorite scrapbook store, and I'm like, super excited it. Like, picked out my little outfit last night because I was so excited, excited. So geeky. Also, geeking out over seeing Pirates tonight, I bought my tickets, so I'm ready to go. All in all, this is looking like a pretty awesome day in my little corner of the world.

I think I did a pretty good job for my first time shooting fireworks...if only that stupid tree hadn't been in my way. I had a nice, laid back fourth.

I'm trying to think of something interesting to talk about...Emmy nominations? I do watch a lot of tv. So, I'm happy about all the 24 nominations, but I wish they had nominated Chloe. I just love Mary Lynn Rajskub. I pretty much figured out last year that the show could kill off anybody they wanted and I'd keep watching as long as they kept Chloe around. I know a lot of people who watch the show say they hated her at first but love her now, but I loved her from the beginning (I was cool before my time!) so I want some kind of credit for that. What else? It would have been nice to see some nominations for Prison Break, because I do love that show, but I'm not shocked. Hugh Laurie not getting nominated for House though, is shocking. Ditto James Spader for Boston Legal. It's always nice to see Sandra Oh get nominated because I think she's pretty lovely. And you're all probably bored to death now, so I'll stop. Hope you're having a great day. 

So I totally had a whole post planned out, to talk about these two upcoming family weddings and I was going to post the storyboard I made with pictures from my cousin's wedding in March and it was going to be all themed. And then the internet went out at my mom's house, which is where the storyboard is saved, so I couldn't post it. So instead, I shall talk about the weddings and leave you with this picture of my parents playing with sparklers the other night.


One of my cousin's is getting married the 5th of August, and I'm starting to get pretty excited. I have a pretty dress to wear and I figured out what shoes I'm wearing and I get to get my hair fixed and I'm going to wear this pretty necklace my grandfather bought me. Plus, my dad is doing the wedding ceremony, so I think that will be cool.


Another one of my cousin's (my most favoritest cousin) is getting married next September (2007), and I'm already super excited about that. She's getting married in Arizona, and I'm planning on flying down for it.


Other stuff going on...I got a new scrap table. I'll try to remember to post a picture of it. I need to make reservations for this place I want to eat breakfast on vacation. I need to figure out what to get my mom for her birthday (I have a few ideas, I need to narrow it down). I'm applying for another job. Trying not to stress. Super excited about Pirates of the Carribean opening up next weekend, I saw the first movie like, seven times in the theater (more than any other movie I've ever gone to see). I think that's about it.