Woolly Beasts!!

Here is my woolly beast from my art & soul class yesterday. Mine is the one with 4 legs. I'm still finishing up his feet. The others belong to my classmates.

Finally, some projects completed!!

My friend Maya is busy off at Art & Soul in Portland. I am soooo jealous. Sounds like she is having an incredible time, especially in Nina Bagley's class. I'm very lucky to have her as my buddy. She took my charms with her, and is trading them away with the charmsters group. I will leave tomorrow after work, but as of this moment, am only taking Keely Barham's class Woolly Beasts on Monday.

Received my photos from Snapfish, and once I get a check written out, I can mail them to Catherine of the Yahoo Photo Journals Group. This months photo journal is titled Curiosities. It will be my first time participating after lurking around for the last year or two. I saw some demo'd at Artfest 2007 and they are just gorgeous.

Huzzah, our kitchen is mostly done. The counter tops have been installed. We just have a couple of little minor things left, like the trim on the window. Its been a long and arduous journey for the remodel.....

Happy Anniversary 6 years later....

My hubby and I celebrated our wedding anniversary a little late this year. The kitchen is unusable again, as we wait for the company to finish putting on our kitchen countertop.

We went to Stella Mia, had way too much incredible food. We started off with a bottle of red wine and polenta with gorgonzola sauce. For dinner, I had the cannelloni, and Jeremy ordered the spaghetti with meat balls. And to top it all off, we had cream caramel and spumoni for dessert. Yum yum yum.

Here's to 6 years of marriage!!

Vacation Photos & Arfest 2008 talk

I've been back from my 12 day vacation in Port Loring for almost a couple of weeks now. Here are a couple of photos. Me with the bass I caught at Loon Lake, me holding Jeremy's 30 inch pike that got all twisted up, and lastly with my hubby and the pike.

I got 2 of my 1st choices at Artfest. I got Melissa Manley, Michael Demeng, and Susan Lenart-Kazmer. I'm pretty excited. Looks like I'll have class with Ellen and Kim as well as my buddy Maya. i think I only got 2 first choices this year, because too many people don't want to work with animal gut (Melissa's class).

I am such a procrastinator. I have 47 charms to make before Monday, when Maya leaves for Art & Soul. Crap crap crap. I tried felting at the lake, and they suck. They just aren't as cool as Sarah's. (Sarah was one of my many roommates last year at Artfest).
I wonder if she'll make it back this year.....

Artfest 2008 registration mailed!!

Whoohoo. Mailed our Artfest registrations on Monday, since it was a holiday, to get a Sept 4th stamp.

The classes that I am hoping to get as first choice are Melissa Manley, Misty Mawn, and Susan Lenart Kazmer. Susan's class is the one that I'd like to get in the most. The 2nd one I would like the most is Misty Mawn..... Other than that, I could get my 2nd and 3rd choices for anything.

Getting ready to leave for vacation. No email, no news for almost 2 weeks.

More kitchen, less art...

So the last few weeks have been working on the kitchen. We're trying to finish up the grout. My knees are rubbed raw from kneeling on the tile. Jeremy puts the grout in, I get to wait the hour, and wipe it off. I also get to wipe the haze off as well.

This last weekend, I got to spend some time with one of my best buddies, Maya. We were supposed to do crafts together. Heh. Saturday, we drove down to Lacey, Wa and went to Shipwreck Beads. Its kind of the Powells Bookstore of beads. It was a long drive there and back, but I think Maya ended up with lots of good stuff.

On the way back, we stopped off in Redmond to get my hair chopped/lopped/and razored off. First time I've changed my hair in 10 years. Not sure I like it yet. My hubby likes it. Other people have commented that its cute. Not sure if they really like it, but feel like they need to make a comment.

A short trip to Michaels and Joann's, and bam! It was 6 pm, and time for me to go home to work on the kitchen. *sigh*

Sunday, I was in the kitchen until 1 pm. Maya and I still managed to get a couple of hours of crafts done. She's working on a house trade for Art & soul. I'm trying to come up with some kind of charms.

And then, to plot what I want to make for trades for next year's artfest. I have to laugh when I see Maya sign up for all the different trades. I remember overdoing it my 1st year. Last year, all I did were the little stuffies for trades. No fatbaooks. No atc books.

I'm looking forward to the one Art & Soul class I signed up for in October with Keely. I'm hoping that it will whet my appetite until Artfest. I have all these sewing projects in my head that I want to get started on, and no time to do them. Arrrrgh.

Artfest Schedule 2008

Its up, its up, its up!!!!

Happy dance. Now, to determine what I want to take. The Keith LoBue class looks phenomenal, but its slated for the full 3 days.

On a side note, I pulled an ENORMOUS, gigantosaurus zucchini from my garden last night. I doubt its very tasty. Not that I have a kitchen anyways.

Turn back the clock.

I had the best time at the Seattle Mariners game yesterday afternoon. I got a pair of tickets from work (section 123, row 22, seats 9 and 10). I took my mom, who's never been to Safeco Field. She's a bandwagon groupie. She used to make fun of me wasting my time going to baseball games, until Ichiro was brought into the organization...

Anyways, it was Turn Back the Clock game, where people dressed up in 70s gear. They had Erik Estrada from the popular 70s show CHiPs throw out the ceremonial pitch. Then they mentioned you could meet him in section 335. I ditched my mom and ran up the stairs. I was still a good 40 or so people back by the time I got up there.

A great time was had by all. He was only there until the 3rd inning, and there were some really cranky people behind me, calling out all the ones that tried to cut in line. I had somebody take my photo with my iPhone which you can see here.

Attack of the killer Diet Coke

6 am is too early to be attacked by a can of Diet Coke. I was refilling the refrigerator at work, and cut off the plastic off a Costco order of Diet Coke. Turns out, while I was cutting off the plastic, I punctured a can.

My shirt and pants are still damp, and very sticky. My coworker asked me if I stopped drinking coffee. I let her know, that one incident a morning is all I can handle.

I just started this 6 am to 3 pm shift a couple of weeks ago, and the first 2 days I made coffee, I didn't wedge the lid in right, and ended up with coffee all over the place.

*sigh*

Ladybugs, ladybugs..please eat those aphids.

I bought 2 bags of ladybugs to eat the aphids in my yard. Each bag of ladybugs is 1500, or approx 1/3 of a cup. I released one bag last night.

When I checked up on them later last night, some of them seemed more interested in getting laid than in eating aphids, although I caught one chomping.

This morning, they were chilling out as well, but when I checked up on them this evening, only a few were visible. Will try the second bag later tonight.

Feeling a little batty.

Its 9:55 pm.

I'm sitting in my bedroom. My heart is still racing. I've gotten a little closer to nature than I'd normally like to be this evening.

Jeremy and I just finished watching the last episode of Twin Peaks season 2 in bed. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a black shadow pass across the window. And then another one. And another one.

"What's that?" I asked.

"What's what?" said Jer and turned on the lamp.

We were then dive bombed by a lone bat. Much mayhem ensued. There was cowering under the blankets and much shrieking. The bat flew out of our room, and into the rest of the house, and then back into our room, and out of our room, and back into our room.

Jer ran into the bathroom, and shut the sliding door.....

I threw a blanket over my head trying to find the camera to catch a movie of being attacked by the bat. I never did find the camera while the bat was fluttering about. We ran to the living room, and then Jer opened the sliding door, and tried to herd th e bat out the back. He managed to knock it down with his red fleece shirt, and then threw his shirt out on the deck.

He fluttered the shirt a couple of times. No more bat. We didn't see it fly off though.

Gravity missed it all. She looked around, but never caught the bat movement. I am just sitting here giggling in hysterics, because now that it is over, its pretty funny. Jeremy theorizes it got in through the attic, with the remodeling of the kitchen going on right now.

Anyways...bedroom door is now closed. Computer is being turned off. Hopefully there will be no Batman dreams. Holy bat-mania!!!!

More kitchen demolition.

And still more kitchen demolition.

Exhausted on the Fourth.

I can't wait to go to sleep tonight. We ripped out most of the kitchen and living room in 2 days. Alison, Mark, and Lisa came over to help us demolish everything today. Here are a few of the photos.

Another weekend gone bye bye.

9:45 pm, and another weekend gone by too quickly.

Last week I finished 2 sock doggies, commissioned by the admin at the company that I work for. My first commission!

Actually, I'm too much of a softie. I only asked that she buy the socks. She also gave me $10 per sock dog as well! Technically, if I was to sell them, the price would probably be $40 each. Its amazing how much time goes into making one of those things.

Its weird though. I'm sewing...but I don't feel like I'm crafting. But I am doing some sort of arts and crafts.

Yesterday, my hubby and I drove to Bellingham to hang out with his cousins. Jeff's girlfriend Yuki has a 3 month visiting visa from Japan. She's quiet, but quite the jokester. She put a temporary tattoo on Jeff while he was sleeping. She also hid his beer from him during lunch, behind a wall made of napkins.

We looked around at the Farmer's market afterwords, and then hiked for 3 hours at the beach near Larrabee State Park. We harrassed a couple of lizards, some little crabs, and a handful of snails. While we climbed some rocks, we saw a crab in the water large enough to eat, and another that had grass growing on top.

Today was a mellow day. Laundry day. Threw out some items. Put a few more on Craigslist. Hope I make a little bit of money.

The birds.

Yesterday at work, a couple of crows startled her, when they slammed into her window. We all went and looked at the bird, as it recovered from being stunned.

This morning, about a block away from work, I got tagged by a crow. I was happily minding my own business, listening to Kevin Smith's SMODcast on my iPod, when a crow swooped over my head. I noticed the wind it generated as it swooped by. It landed on a branch a few feet away.

I continued walking, and then got tagged on the side of the head, as the crow swooped over me again. What the heck? I kept walking, and it tagged me a second time. It perched up on another branch ahead of me. Mr. Crow (Mrs. Crow?) cocked its head, looked and cawed at me. I asked it what it wanted...it looked at me with its beady eyes and didn't answer. I continued on my way to work, and was not bothered again, but I could feel it watching me.

I looked around, and didn't see any babies around, but thats the only reason I could think I was being divebombed. Unless I had somehow managed to insult the crow gods.

Take me out to the ballgame.

The VP of operations gave me a pair of tickets to see the Seattle Mariners play the Texas Rangers yesterday. The Mariners won, 5 - 4. They were fantastic seats, aisle 123, row 22, seats 9 and 10. I invited my hubby's cousin Jeff, but he was already busy, so I took my dad.

It was dad's first time to Safeco field. He seemed to enjoy the game. We had some drunks sitting behind us. There was a very large gentleman from the Lakewood area sitting to the right of me. He was eating a bowl of Ivar's clam chowder, and with every two or three bites, would dribble some down the front of his shirt.

He proceeded to make small talk with me, and of course, almost immediately started with one of my pet peeves.
Large man,"Are you from Japan?"
Me "No."
Large man, "Are you from Korea?"
Me "No."
Large Man, "Are you from China?"
Me "No."
Large man starts to look perplexed. My father's with me, so I don't want to yank his chain too much. I break down and say "I'm from Seattle."
Now he really looks perplexed. "I was born in Seattle."
Blank look. "But my father sitting NEXT to me was born in China."
Face lights up. "I was in Taipei once."
Sigh. A few more minutes of his remembering the olden days, and it was back to baseball.

Damn, but Sammy Sosa looks scrawny now that he's off the 'roids. That was probably one of the biggest comments I heard at the game. He definitely looks smaller than he used to.

Today was a nice mellow day. Didn't get any arts & crafts done. Just some laundry and a little weeding, and a bit of snoozing with my dog. The hubby took me out for dinner , and we browsed for a little at Third Place Books. How good was I? I didn't buy ANY books. Although there was on that I ogled and had a hard time leaving alone. I have too many projects, and not enough time for a new one.

Will the real dog stand up?

So I've been very busy working away at sock dogs. I had to badger Gravity into this photo, and to not tearing the buddies apart. One of them is blind and can't smell anything yet. I'm still working on that one.

My first attempt at making a sock dog.

This is my very first completed sock dog. Instructions came out of Martha Stewarts Kids magazine, Special Winter 2003 issue. You can still find copies of them on Ebay.

I'm pretty happy with him, even though he didn't come out quite as I expected. It might be the material of the socks, because I wanted a soft and fuzzy sock dog. Additionally, I don't know how to hand sew very well. The magazine quotes that it takes an afternoon to create. I spent an hour on it on Friday. Maybe 2 hours yesterday, and another 4 hours tonight. I hope to get much better at it.

Positive note, I completed my first sock dog!! Sad note, they postponed The Killers concert. Apparently the lead singer has bronchitis. My sister in law is going to the Sasquatch festival next Sunday, so is unable to go. Do I get a refund, or do I go anyways? Decisions, decisions.

What Gravity brought in.

So Friday evening, Jeremy and I went to Mark and Lisa's get together, where we drank Georgetown's "Bob's Brown". Its a fantastic beer, that is only created once a year. All the proceeds are donated to the charity that helped Bob out, before he passed away. Bob was a friend of Manny, the owner of Georgetown Brewery, a local Seattle microbrewery.

We got home just after one am. Let the dog out to go potty. Half an hour later, and not answering the calls of "Chicken strips!!" I started to worry. Gravity finally came up the porch stairs, but with an additional something in her mouth. I thought it was a very large rat.

Luckily she answered to the command "Drop!", dropped it, and went inside the house. I quickly went inside the house, and left the porchlight on. Not a large rat, but a small opossum. Was it dead? No, it was breathing. Gravity whined, and pawed at the glass sliding door. "Mine! Let me get it!" I'm fairly sure she was saying.

I continued to watch for the next half hour. Apparently it had been playing "possum". It slowly got up. Hissed when Gravity threw herself at the glass door again. It slowly meandered around the porch, trying to figure out how to get away. At 2 am, I turned off the light, dragged our beagle to the bedroom, and shut the door.

Where Jeremy and I was then subjected to 6 hours of whining and door scratching. She begged and begged to be let out to collect her prize. "I caught it, its mine. Let me catch it before it gets away!!"

Here area couple of hazy photos through the glass door, as I was not about to get up close and personal with our neighborhood wildlife.

Wrong number...

I had the best wrong number phone call at work the other day. This probably tops my favorite list.

"Hi this is Cyndy at ****. How many I help you?"
"This is Alfie, NSL, No sex life....mumble mumble mumble."
Thinking this had to be a joke, I said ,"Excuse me?"
He said, "This is Alfie, NSL, No sex life, I'd like to cancel my ads."

How's that for a wrong number to perk up your day?

Heh.