Friday, July 28, 2006

Let's Hug It Out


A few people have asked me why I haven't been posting much this week. Here's the answer: "Entourage."

I was reluctant to add another show to my life, but I had heard good things, so I ordered seasons 1 and 2 on Netflix and now we are addicted.

I guess it's sort of a "Sex and the City" for guys. It has some drama and a lot of laughs.

Last summer we got addicted to "The O.C." in the same way. It's been much easier (and faster) to get caught up on "Entourage." We finished "The O.C." DVDs just minutes before the premiere of season 3.

Not sure if we should aim to catch the remaining season 3 episodes of "Entourage" on HBO now, or wait for the DVDs. Maybe if we wait for the DVDs there will be less torment in waiting for season 4.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Love that dirty water ...


We represented Red Sox Nation in Oakland tonight, as the A's took on the Red Sox. Probably a good quarter of the people at the game were sporting Red Sox gear (including us). I'm not sure if other teams' fans show up in such full force at games across the country, but I'm always impressed when we go to see the Red Sox locally. It was a really good game. Very close for a while and then the Red Sox beat the A's 13 to 5.

We missed some major excitement while we were gone. We were informed by several neighbors that we lost power for a while (Glad I missed that). Also, as we turned down the street that connects to ours, the road was blocked by two cop cars who were speaking to some teenagers in a pulled over car. The cops told us to turn around and get to our house another way, which we did. Bizarre. Have no idea what was going on and neither did the neighbors. I'm sure we'll hear it through the grapevine at some point.

In other news, I've broken out in a prickly heat rash all over my neck and creeping down my back. Luckily, it's a bit cooler tonight, so I'm hoping it will go away fast. I took a photo so I could see the extent of the rash on my back. I'm absolutely not posting it here because I have strong feelings against people posting disgusting injury/bodily fluid-related photos on the Internet.

Monday, July 24, 2006

Burnin' Up

Haven't felt much like writing. It's f-ing hot.

On Saturday evening, the outdoor temperature was 112 degrees according to our car thermometer. On Sunday, it was 118.

We've had the air conditioner running non-stop since Friday afternoon. It never quite cooled the house to under 85, so we've been sleeping with fans.

When we came home tonight, it was 92 degrees in our house. Steve just discovered that we burned out the motor of our air conditioner.

I guess you could say it was inevitable. Central air was installed right after our house was built in 1963. But it couldn't have come at a worse time.

I think I'm going to spend the night at my parents' tonight.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

I had a dream ...

In a miraculous turn of events, the cats are getting along. We let them all run and play wherever they wanted to in the house this evening. Jackson didn't hiss or growl, and the little ones were fearless. Within 10 minutes, they were cuddling and playing together. So cute.

The only problem was when Jackson went to eat out of their food bowl. He started hissing then, and was even mean to Steve.

Yay! This might mean we can live a normal life again soon and not be totally preoccupied with keeping our menagerie separate and happy.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

But there is such a thing as a cheap dinner. Steve and I hit up Mountain Mike's on Snell and Santa Theresa tonight to check out the advertised $4.99 Wednesday night all-you-can-eat pizza and salad bar. It delivered. They didn't have air conditioning, which sucked as it is 90 degrees, but they did have fans. And "Baseball Tonight" was playing on a big-screen TV, so the man was happy.

I put my name on the Cricut waiting list at Michael's last week and they called tonight to tell me it has arrived. Except I'm waiting to pick it up when there's a 40 percent off coupon in effect.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Adjusting the Tension


I'm not really sure why I'm posting this P.O.S. to the Internet. No, I'm not referring to the table or the painting or my "custom" shag rug. I'm referring to the tablecloth.

Steve had a softball game tonight, so I decided to go wild and sew a tablecloth. I like my table and I don't usually keep it covered, but I'm having a Stampin' Up open house next month, and I decided to make myself an actual cloth tablecloth instead of buying paper ones every time I need to make sure glue and glitter doesn't get all over it.

What I don't understand is why, in this age of technology, we can't create and easy-to-use sewing machine? I know so many people who don't sew simply because they don't know how to thread their machine. Anyway, as usual, it took me like an hour to get the machine set up and then the stupid tension kept screwing up. I was so tired of working on it, I just stopped. If you look closely, the workmanship is super-poor, but I just don't care anymore. This should have been an easy-peasy project, but it made me want to tear my hair out!!

Oh well, guess it does the job of covering the table. And obviously, I know I have to iron it before people come over. I just couldn't face that tonight.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Presents

I forgot to mention our anniversary presents yesterday. Steve got me a lovely Brighton necklace with our initials that I love:


And, since the traditional first anniversary gift is supposed to be paper, I got him a print of the Norman Rockwell paining "The Rookie," which he likes a lot, as it features the Red Sox dugout and his favorite player, Ted Williams:

I still need to get it mounted and framed.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

We're Back


We're back from Cambria and we had a lovely time. We got there on Friday afternoon and did a little shopping in the downtown area and visited Moonstone Beach. We went out to a nice dinner and then went in the hot tub at the hotel.

On Saturday we went on the wine tour. We visited five wineries for tastings and had a nice lunch. We bought a bunch of wine and a few bottles of port. The photo below is at one of the really pretty wineries, Robert Hall.

We had another nice dinner on Saturday night and went for a walk on the beach. We went back again this morning to see the elephant seals. They let you get so close up to them!


These little squirrelly things on the boardwalk got really close too:

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Our First Anniversary


Sunday is our first anniversary! The time has just flown by!

We are going on a romantic getaway to Cambria this weekend. We both took tomorrow off the get a head-start on the fun. We are very grateful that our friend Jim will be looking after the kitties (had to mention that so you wouldn't think we are horrible parents).

I went to pick up the "replica" cake top this afternoon. Hmmm. Not really a replica. It is way smaller and uglier and features inferior frosting. And the cake place neglected to tell me they had moved, so I had to frantically have my mom look up and Mapquest their new address while on the road. The cake hadn't been in the refridgerator, and on the way home it completely slumped over on its side (it's pretty hot out today). I was able to sort of get it to stand again, but one side is mangled. I put it in the freezer. Not sure if it's going to stay upright until Sunday, but I'm sure it will taste good nonetheless.

To kickoff the festivities, Steve brought me a lovely bouquet of flowers.


We had yummy flank steak for dinner, with wine and sides of zucchini (home grown!) and rice.

Here is the card that I made him for our anniversary. It features many NEW Stampin' Up sets. Oooh ... Aaaah ... You know you want to buy some:

And finally, one of our pumpkins is turning ORANGE!!!

A "Winner" of a Movie


Last night we watched "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio" from our Netflix queue. It was SO good. I definitely shed a few tears. Even Steve liked it. It's about a woman (Julianne Moore) in the 50's who supports her family by entering contests. I highly recommend that you add it to your Netflix queue too!

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Poor Guy


This is making me so sad. Jackson got fixed today, and he kept licking the stitches, so we had to put him in one of these. It is just terrible watching him walk around all disoriented, bumping into things. I really can't have a kid, cause I don't know what I'd do with myself if he/she got sick or hurt ever.

This story was in the paper today. I was a part of the survey! I answered about 15 minutes-worth of questions a few weeks ago over the phone. I think I brought the averages down, cause my answers were not at all optimistic.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Another Project Done

I finally got around to scrapbooking my bachelorette party. Click on the photo to see the pages.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

New Wheels

We bought a used Toyota Highlander today since Steve doesn't have a company car any more. Yay! We like it a lot and can't wait to take it on our romantic getaway next weekend!



In other news, Jackson pooped on our shag carpet today.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Celebrity

I was on the news yesterday! I went to donate blood at the Stanford Bloodmobile with a bunch of ladies from work and the news was broadcasting live from there. Two other ladies and I were interviewed on camera! Since it was live, there wasn't enough time to alert anyone to tape it, so unfortunately, there's no proof! I haven't started being stalked by the paparazzi yet, but I'm sure they'll start following me soon.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Tubbs: The Conquistador

There have been three occasions when one of the little kitties have gotten out of their safe haven at the end of our hall, venturing out into the vast openness of the rest of the house (which Jackson has claimed as his territory). Usually, we're quick to find the escapee, but tonight Steve freaked out and couldn't find the missing little guy. He was finally located under the armoire holding our family room TV. It's so funny, because it's Tubbs who escapes every time! Crockett has no desire to explore the outside world.

I feel like I've missed talking about a lot over the past two days, so here are a few quick updates:

-- On the Fourth of July we just hung around at home and I read most of the day. We went to my parents' for dinner and several rounds of the new family-favorite board game Kazink. We watched some fireworks over the fence.

-- Going back to work yesterday made me realize how much a job can suck the life out of you. Not that I'm complaining about my job, but it's rough to go back to the daily grind after four days of freedom.

-- Animal Services called and Jackson is scheduled to get his privates cut off on July 12. Hopefully he'll calm down a bit and be friendly with the other little guys after that.

-- I made dinner reservations for our anniversary getaway and also bought Steve's gift. More on that after I give it to him. Although I could probably write about it now, as he doesn't even read this.

-- We just had little cups of the Frrrozen Hot Chocolate for dessert (very good) and topped them off with some fat-free Reddi-wip. I think they need to adjust the number of servings on the bottle (40) cause we just finished the whole thing in one sitting without even trying.

-- Steve is dog-sitting for our friends' pit bull and when he was just over there playing catch with him, the dog broke through their backyard fence and ended up in their neighbors' yard! Steve kind of propped the broken part of the fence up and brought the dog inside. He isn't planning on telling the friends till their back from vacay. I hope they don't read my blog (I'm quite sure they don't!)

-- Steve and I decided to get season tickets to American Musical Theater San Jose. But we got the absolutely horrible, cheap, cheap tickets. They called us today and told us we got upgraded to dead center in the ninth row of the balcony. Yay! Oh, and if anyone would like to join us as subscribers, please do! We can go out for fun dinners before (we subscribed for Saturday nights).

-- My sister is officially starting medical school at Creighton in August. Yay for her!

Ashley's Book Club


I spent most of the day on July 4 reading this book. I'm not a fast reader at all, but I almost finished it in one day; it was so good.

I picked the book out because the author is from the neighboring town of Los Gatos, and the main character lives here in San Jose. And she is in biotech PR, which sounds like someone I know.

Anyway, the book is about a young woman whose husband dies of cancer and her grieving/moving on process. I thought the climax was sort of over the top and the end was a little optimistic/unrealistic, but other than that, it was perfect. Loved it and totally recommend it!

Monday, July 03, 2006

Three Down

This four-day weekend thing is great! I got so much accomplished today. This morning I did some chores around the house and went to the gym. Then I took Steve to lunch, got new batteries installed in our watches, and did a bunch of other shopping errands. I even got a copy of a photo made of our wedding cake and called the cake place to order a replica of our wedding cake top for our upcoming anniversary. We served the top of the cake at the wedding because the shop we went to will recreate your top for free for your first anniversary if you provide them with a photo of the cake at the wedding for their portfolio.

After dinner, Steve and I went to the movies to see "The Breakup." I thought it was so funny and so true! Those scenes with "Grand Theft Auto" happen in my house occasionally!

The paint chips were featured again today in a project I made for another swap I'm in. Check it out:

Home Depot Has It All


We went to Home Depot yesterday to buy a new toilet seat (the hinges on one of ours broke). While Steve checked out the options, I visited the paint chip area and helped myself to about 100 color swatches. Last night, I incorporated the "harvest" colors I took into the cards I made for an autumn/Halloween card swap I'm in. I think they turned out pretty cute!

Ashley's Book Club


I finished this book last night. It was a mystery, which was a nice change of pace, as I don't really read mysteries too often. Anyway, the premise was interesting, but a bit unbelievable. The whole set-up is that a woman's husband buys her this old house for her birthday as a surprise. It turns out that it is actually the house she grew up in as a child. When she was 10, she accidentally shot and killed her mother in the house. Her father had recently died in an accident, so she is adopted by cousins, moves away and changes her identity. So it is just a total coincidence that her husband buys her this same house. Right.

Drama ensues as there is a chain of murders that begins as soon as she moves back into town.

The book is a little predictable and full of those moments like in horror movies, when you want to scream and shake the character to tell them that running up the stairs and hiding in the closet is not a good idea. Still, it was kind of fun and a quick read.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Beach Day

Our day at the beach was pretty fun. Someone brought a power kite, which I had never seen before. I was pretty cool to watch all of the boys at the party fly it and try to hit each other with it. They attracted quite a fan club of people on the beach!

I spent my time there reading my book and the new issue of "Star." Doesn't get much better.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Four Days!

Happy Fourth of July weekend! I couldn't be happier, because I get both Monday and Tuesday off from work. AND we closed the office at 3:00 p.m. yesterday!

I took advantage of my free afternoon and hit up Valley Fair. I visited Williams-Sonoma and bought the pan to make the lovely cupcakes pictured below!

I also got some Serendipity Frrrozen Hot Chocolate mix there, which I'm excited to try!

Today we are going to a friend's birthday party at the beach. Other than that, we have no plans, and I'm totally excited to relax and enjoy some summer fun!