Overflow

Well my cup certainly hath been running over. This isn't a bitch and moan post since pretty much everything in my life is wonderful. Who can complain about that??

But my life is certainly overflowing. I started up working on a website outside of work, which is taking a good bit of time and my mom and sister recently joined my gym, so there are a lot of group workout sessions which lead to a bit more wait time or time spent at the gym. Plus, now that the holiday season is upon us, I have loads of holiday projects to work on.

Ooh … that reminds me. I really should make a fall theme for the site. And a Christmas one. And a Winter one…

Scrapbooking Case … Done!


I mentioned last week that I bought some sort of army case at the flea market I went to. Well, after a bit of work, it is my new handy-dandy scrapbooking case.

I started by painting all of the metal bits with some spray paint. I had to mask off the cloth parts using painters tape and target bags (they are a bit more heavy duty than grocery bags). Then I made up a bunch of graphics and printed them up on my office's color laser (I paid for the copies, thank you very much … hehe) and then I cut them out and decoupaged them on the outside and sprayed a coat of clear polyurethane to protect. I can add more if I want … sort of making my scrapbooking case look like a scrapbook itself. I like that idea.

More photos here.

7 Tag Game

Ani tagged me to play this game a couple days ago, and as I'm waiting on a phone call before I can leave, I've got time now!!

7 things to do before I die
1. travel …. to lotsa places
2. have kids!
3. buy something totally impractical, like a fun car or something
4. learn a difficult skill (like welding or something)
5. travel s'more
6. live in a big city or a small town for a few months or a year
7. learn how to cook really well Continue reading “7 Tag Game”

LokiMobile


Taking Loki just about anywhere is an experience. He doesn't like to stay in the back. He likes to climb on your lap (this is actually Loki's mantra 24/7, but who's counting?). Luckily, my lovely little Honda CR-V has some metal rings in the back, probably for tying down cargo, so we use them to tie down Loki, strapping his leash through it and clipping it into his collar. It works pretty well …. but I flipped when Matt sent me this article about my favorite car maker, Honda, making a car specifically for dogs!! It's just an exhibition sort of thing right now, but I so hope they put them into production. For little dogs, they have a glovebox area where your pooch can ride in style as well as a pop-up crate in the back. For bigger dogs, there are harnesses. The doors open wide and the whole vehicle is easy to clean … and even has paw-prints embedded on the tire treads. How cute is that? Continue reading “LokiMobile”

Flea Market Finds


I know I've mentioned A Paris Street Market before. It's a fabulous little flea market with amazing stuff to find and some great handmade goods.

Above are some of the purchases we made last weekend. On the left are a pair of suitcases that I picked up for $19. Most vintage suitcases were going for at least $20 and these were effectively $9.50 a piece!! These babies need some work and I want to paint them (though Matt insists he figure out if they're worth anything before I touch them). But I liked their shapes and I think I can do good work with them.

The case on the right is … well I don't know, but I think it will make a great scrapbooking case. It's got all those cool pockets for tools and pens and stuff that you see and below the bottom set, there's a large compartment that would be good for paper, pages, stickers, etc. I'm planning to fix it up and paint it a bit too. It was $20 in case you're wondering.

We also got a pair of (fugly) end tables for $15. As I said, they're fugly, but we can definitely sand, paint and add new hardware and legs and make them something decent until we get real night-tables in our bedroom.

It was the last weekend for the market and I'm really going to miss it. But I can take great solace in the fact that I have TONS of projects to complete before it's back again. Happy crafting.

The Search

I didn't want to write this, largely because I was hopping it would be over by now, but a member of my family has been missing in the mountains since Saturday.

Michelle and a hiking partner took off on a (long) day hike near Vail, CO. When she got too tired to continue, she encouraged him to go on. They were to meet up after he had summited the mountain. She has not been seen since then.

Yesterday, a load of volunteers including my Dad and Matt and two great people I work with went up to join the rescue. They had at least four dog teams on the ground and at least two helicopters in the sky. They had so many volunteers that they had to get extra maps. Still, at the end of the day, little had been found. Found or not, it was moving and encouraging that people can be so great. You've got to believe that humanity is more good than bad.

Of course, this is all very personal to me. She is not in my immediate family (she is my third cousin), but I probably know her at least as well as most people know their cousins. She used to babysit for my sister and I and taught some of my other cousins how to swim. More recently, I've seen her with her beautiful family.

We're all still hoping for a happy ending. We look for all the good thoughts and prayers (as your religion or non-religion allows) that we will find her safe and well.

USB Ducks

A while back, I posted an entry about craving sushi and posted a photo of sushi with it. I liked the photo, but I was in a bit of a hurry and failed to realize that these were very special sushis. They had USB plugs attached to them. As I looked back to the entry over time, I was kerflummoxed. What the hell were USB plugs doing on sushi?

Luckily, my old friend Google was able to help me out. I googled “usb sushi” and came up with this site they make all kinds of crazy looking usb thumb drives including the little friend up there to the left and some other colorful duckie thumb-drive bretheren. Check it out. You have to see some of these to believe them …