A One-of-a-kind Offer!

Hello! Anybody still out there? If you are, thanks for sticking around while I took a little break. Just had to do a little thinking about what the whole point of this thing was and if I wanted to keep it up. Well, I'm back, and hopefully with a little more focus this time.

As a little "thank you" for hanging in there, I have a very special deal for any Stampin' Up fans who check in here. The new Fall/Winter catalog was just released and my silly UPS guy put my shipment of them in the bushes near my front door -- right before the sprinklers went on! The catalogs got a little bit wet, so I immediately called Stampin' Up to complain and they sent me a whole new box. Meanwhile, the original catalogs dried off and the damage was really minimal -- just some pages with wavy edges.

So, here's the point: UPS's mistake is your gain! I have this box of nearly perfect catalogs that will never see the light of day unless you adopt them into your homes to love and cherish! They retail for $10, but I'm selling them for a flat fee of $5. When you figure in the retail shipping and handling, you're really getting the catalog for LESS THAN FREE! Yes, that's right, it's like I'm PAYING YOU to take them!

Whether you know me or just happened to stumble upon my blog, please e-mail me (ashley@shescrafty.info) if you're interested in a catalog. And spread the word if you have any crafty friends. Seriously, you're doing me a big favor! I can accept payment via cash, check or credit card (through PayPal). I will ship the catalog right to your very own front door and pray that your delivery guy is smarter than mine!

And if you want a perfectly crisp and lovely catalog, I'm selling those too for a flat fee of $10. Since you're nice enough to read my blog, I'll wave the shipping and handling :)

Oh, and I should say that the stuff inside the catalog is pretty awesome. More on that later!

Good Start to the Weekend

My office closed a little early yesterday for the holiday weekend, which was nice! I haven't been feeling great lately, so I came home, plopped myself on the couch, and watched "Gone with the Wind" all the way through for the first time. I've seen the beginning part before, but never the whole thing. For some reason I thought it was like seven hours, but it was only four. Definitely worth the time investment.

Then we picked up pizza and went over to my friend's house to visit her new three-week-old baby. He was super-cute and snugly!

Tonight we are having my mom and dad over for a barbecue to showcase the skills we learned in the class we took last month. Should be fun. We're heading out to the store now to get our supplies!

The Lowdown

Before I go into today's vacation highlights, was that a freakin' awesome episode of "Lost" last night or what??! I can't believe we have to wait until February for more! Steve and I are planning to re-watch seasons one and two over the summer, since we have the DVDs. Hopefully we'll gain some more insights and get closer to solving the mysteries!

Today's vacation highlights will be short and sweet. First up: shopping. The shopping was good, especially for jewelry. Other things were not priced quite as inexpensively as I imagined. I bargained a pretty excellent price on a mystic topaz ring, but changed my mind at the last minute. I ended up buying a Mexican fire opal ring and Mexican fire opal earrings. I also got some very unique beaded earrings that are sort of shaped like a lady wearing a dress. I guess photos might be useful here, but I don't have any right now. Maybe I'll take one when I wear them next.

The accommodations: We got upgraded to a really nice room with a balcony. That was enjoyable, except that our neighbors were out on their balcony most of the time smoking. Having a window really makes all the difference, as I have previously cruised without one and felt like I was in a cave.

The food: It was good. However, I would say that the quantity was more impressive than the quality. The buffet area featured very diverse and plentiful offerings. The dining room food was good too. We were seated at a booth with another couple our age from Las Vegas who were celebrating their honeymoon. They were lots of fun! Here's a picture of the fancy midnight buffet on one of the formal nights:

The ports: My favorite was Puerto Vallarta. We were docked there the longest, and were able to do the most activities there.

Mazatlan was fun as well. I think they probably had the best jewelry shopping in their "Golden Zone." We spent a few hours at Senor Frogs there, and that was obviously a good time.

We only had a few hours in Cabo, and I think that was a good thing. We both found it to be very boring. Not a lot to do other than get plastered in the sweltering heat. Cabo had the most beggars on the streets. You could not walk five feet without someone asking you to buy a whistle or a silver bracelet or even drugs!! Yes, we were propositioned twice there! I think we should have done an excursion through the cruise in Cabo, cause we really were not impressed with what we saw. I should also add that every single person we've talked to who's been there absolutely loved it, so perhaps we just caught it on an off day?! Just so Cabo doesn't get mad at me for this poor review, here is a picture of Steve with some festive lizards there:

The weather: It was extremely windy and a bit chilly when we boarded in Long Beach. The next day at sea was overcast and the waters were choppy. It was the same on our last sea day on the way home. Other than that, it was sunny and about 90 degrees.

All in all, I found the cruise to be a great value, and I would definitely vacation with Carnival again. I'm sure everyone's probably totally bored of my vacation talk, so I think this will do it unless I think of some other fascinating point I left out.

Las Caletas

Today's vacation highlight is Las Caletas!

In Puerto Vallarta, we boarded a catamaran and headed to the beach. The crew was fantastic! They were so entertaining and kept the drinks from the free open bar flowing. Here we are enjoying some local Pacifico brew:


We cruised up the beautiful coast and saw tons of cool things on the way, including a whale, a few dolphins, stingrays and pelicans:

Las Caletas is now sort of a resort, but it used to be the home of famous director John Huston. It's right near where he filmed the movie "Night of the Iguana." I've never seen it, but it's on my Netflix queue now, as like every single person mentions it when talking about Puerto Vallarta.

When we got there, we were greeted by more free, open bars (!) and a lovely buffet of delicious, authentic Mexican food. On the beach, we had several hours to do whatever we wanted, including snorkeling, kayaking, lounging in the hammocks hung in the trees, tanning on the beach or playing with the critters that make their home there. One such critter is Tango, the monkey:

Some info about Tango: He is five, has three wives, likes to eat worms and is afraid of people wearing sunglasses! Tango is such an interesting guy!

After enjoying the beach, we participated in a nature hike up the hills at Las Caletas. We got to see some pretty interesting plants, like some orchids growing out of the sides of the trees!

We headed back to the port on the catamaran after a fabulous afternoon:

Before boarding the ship, we had a nice time checking out downtown Puerto Vallarta. If you ever find yourself in the area, I would definitely recommend a visit to Las Caletas!

Towel-gami

I'm having a hard time getting used to being on land! I constantly feel like I'm swaying. And that was exacerbated by the earthquake we had yesterday afternoon!

I don't really feel like spending two hours writing a summary of our trip, so I think I'll try to mention some highlights over the next few days. Today's highlight is towel folding!!

On Carnival, the cabin stewards are trained in the fantastic art of towel folding. Our steward surprised us a few times with these cool critters:



I thought they were so fun, I dragged Steve to a class they had on the last day to teach towel folding. It was great! here are some of our creations:




And I bought a book, so if you ever come and stay at my house, you might have a little towel critter waiting to greet you!

I'm back!

We're back from the cruise! Here's a picture of me sipping a margarita at Senor Frog's in Mazatlan. I'll post more when we're more settled in!

Pizza Time

Just wanted to give a shout out to my friends at Metro Pizza! It’s a little hole-in-the-wall down the street from my house. It’s strictly for delivery/pick-up. It’s in a very gross little shopping center and I never in a million years would have expected that I would enjoy the establishment as much as I do.

Their prices are fantastic! Tonight we ordered two medium two-topping pizzas for $16 (that’s total, not each) – And they came with a two-liter bottle of soda! Metro leaves coupons on our doorstep all the time. They never collect them and the coupons never expire. Our neighbors have told us that they pretty much just make up whatever price they want when they call in: “Um, I have a coupon here for a large for $10.”

Anyway, Metro is so tasty and so prompt with its delivery! If you are local and are looking for some cheap, delicious pizza, I really recommend giving them a call.

Early Bird

So, why am I blogging before 6 a.m.? I just can't sleep! I don't know if it's vacation excitement or work anxiety. I have a lot to do before we leave on Sunday.

Today I've already scrapbooked two pages, written a thank-you note, made a Mother's Day card, made coffee, started a load of laundry, cuddled with my kitties and watched part of yesterday's "Martha."

Speaking of Martha, here's a photo of my completed tissue paper bouquet. Ugh, it was stressful to make! I am actually quite disappointed in Martha; the instructions were disgracefully unclear.


We had a really good weekend. We did TONS of yard work. A bunch of our plants died in the frost this winter, so we planted some new roses, impatiens and fuchsia. I also planted some veggies. This year we have "celebrity" tomatoes, miniature red bell peppers, pumpkins, zucchini and cucumbers.

Also, I made bread on Saturday. I used the famous "no-knead" recipe that's been circling around the Internet lately. It was quite good! I don't have a photo, because Steve and I ate the entire loaf with some olive oil dip for dinner on Saturday.

We saw the musical "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" after that. It was a great show and really hilarious! I recommend that everybody see it if you have the chance.

Well, perhaps I'll go jump in the shower and get moving!

Martha at Michaels

I treated myself tonight with a trip to Michaels. Martha has been hyping her new product line there, and I wanted to check it out for myself. I must say that she did not disappoint!

She has a whole aisle devoted to her stuff, and the presentation is lovely. I wanted everything, but unfortunately I needed nothing. I ended up buying a kit to make a bouquet of tissue paper flowers.

Here's a summary of my personal highlights:

-- Glitter! Really fine, pretty glitter in a lovely array of colors. And in big containers! Usually glitter this nice comes in teeny, tiny expensive containers.
-- Felt embellishments. I thought the strawberries were particularly cute.
-- Neat containers to use when presenting food as a gift, like special cupcake boxes and cookie bags.
-- Party kits to help make a pretty, festive table when celebrating.
-- Dainty eyelet stationary.
-- A variety of shadowboxes, including some petite little ones.
-- Great storage containers (a little expensive, though).
-- Fantastic patterned scrapbook papers and gigantic albums with paper to fit.
-- Perfect wrapping and tissue papers.

... and so much more! I can't wait to actually need some supplies!

Someone recommended the tilapia at Costco to me. I bought some to make tonight and it was really good! I just cooked it up in a pan with some olive oil and Lawry's seasoned salt. Simple, quick and delicious!

Guess what I'm writing on right now? A brand new laptop!! What a very nice surprise I had when I came home from work tonight. My dad bought it for me because my old one crapped out. It's a Dell Inspiron 6400 and it's really cool and fast!!

The weekends go by WAY too fast, but I’m OK with it this time, because now we’re less than two weeks away from Mexico!

On Saturday, Steve and I did a lot of shopping in preparation for the trip. We both got a bunch of new shorts and tops, and some dressier stuff for dinners. We went to Santa Cruz for dinner at Vasili’s to celebrate Steve’s promotion. We totally gorged and pretty much negated our dieting efforts. After that, we drove to Capitola and hung out around the beach for the rest of the evening.

Yesterday we attended two birthday parties. The first was a 60th birthday brunch at California Café in Los Gatos. I really enjoyed my strawberry Bellini and basically inhaled the lovely little array of muffins provided in the bread basket. The second was a first birthday party for our tiny next-door neighbor. It was fun to chat with our neighbors and to meet a few new ones! After that, we had dinner at my parents’ and were indulged in a little Target shopping spree. I picked out some books to read by the pool – I can’t wait!!

Back to Blonde

Today I had my hair restored to its traditional blonde shade. I liked the brown when I saw myself in the mirror. But in pictures, I thought it was horrible. I’m quite happy with the result!

Also, my sister sent me the new “Karaoke Revolution Presents American Idol” game for PlayStation 2 and it is fantastic! The character personalization options are cool and the song choices are excellent. Steve and I just played a match and I beat him quite handily.

Jump at Your Own Risk

I visited Sky High Sports in Santa Clara yesterday to attend its AIRobics class with some girls from work. It’s basically a place for children’s birthday parties that consists of like 30 giant trampolines sort of patched together, with another few slanted up the walls, so kids can essentially “bounce off the walls.” There’s also an area with some trampolines and a giant foam pit and another that is used as a dodge ball court.

Sounds fun, right? Um, wrong.

First of all, it’s located in a big huge warehouse with zero ventilation, so it smells and it got unbearably hot during the AIRobics. As we waited in line to sign up, I noticed a girl limping out of the previous class, supported by two friends, with an ankle that was so bruised it was basically black. Ow. Bad sign.

Once we got on our trampolines, it was fun to bounce around for about 10 minutes. Then the class started. Two minutes in, a girl in the front fell, screamed the F word and started bawling. Seems she had also experienced an ankle injury and was rushed out by her boyfriend and a staff member. At this point I wanted to walk out, cause it was clear that the odds of leaving there on two legs were not good.

But I persevered. Next up was an exercise in which you had to jump, fall down on your butt, and bounce back onto your feet. The first time I tried it, I got a sharp stabbing sensation running up my spine. Not good. Maybe I was doing it wrong? I tried twice more and kept feeling pain, so I decided to stand that one out.

As the exercises continued, it became clear that the instructor was just some random guy who worked at the place and had no fitness training whatsoever. The moves he taught were absolutely ridiculous and defied all guidelines of what is safe form for one’s body. For example, I have a feeling that running across some trampolines and throwing your body, shoulder first, into the wall is not a good thing. He also led some more traditional exercises like sit-ups and pushups, but again, I think those are probably not so good to do on a concave, jiggley surface.

The whole place just skeeved me out because you know they don’t wash those trampolines. An the foam pit? Ewww! I can’t even imagine what they’d find in there if they cleaned it out.

Overall, I would say that this is a place for kids and NOT adults (though the majority of girls I went with really liked it). I should at least admit that it was a good workout – I was totally sweating and out of breath. But I’m not really willing to risk life and limb for an exercise class.

P.S. Big congratulations are in order for Steve! He got a well-deserved promotion today! Hooray! He's the best accountant ever!!

A Watercolor Wonder

My mom placed a Stampin’ Up order with me last week that included some products I had not used before: the Watercolor Wonder crayons and Aqua Painters. We played with them last night (see above) and let’s just say I am going to be needing to place an order with myself! They’re really fun and easy to use, and I think they make the finished product look very professional! Not to mention how well they complement the cute “Voila” stamp set she picked out. You can change the food on the chef’s plate to suit the occasion.

Baseball, Grilling and Rags!

There’s been a lot going on here lately! Yesterday, we went to the Giant’s game with the tickets I won. GEEZ! – It’s $30 to park there! No wonder so many people take BART. I guess it’s not so bad, Steve told me it’s $80 to park at Fenway.

We’ve been doing the low-carb diet thing for a week now in preparation for our Mexico trip. It was excruciating to see all the delicious food and not be able to have any. We both had a hot dog with no bun. No fun.

The game was good, and we got to see Barry Bonds hit a homerun. Now we can exchange our tickets for special collector’s pins, which is kind of cool. It started raining in the bottom of the seventh inning, so we headed home after that and had some tasty salads at California Pizza Kitchen for dinner.

Last Thursday, Steve and I took a class on grilling at Sur La Table in Los Gatos. The class was excellent – we learned how to grill a lot of tasty things, including tri-tip, salmon kabobs, vegetables and fruit. They even showed us how to bake flatbread on the grill! At the class, we bought a really nice grill pan that can be used on the barbeque or on the stove. It has a side with grill lines and a flat side, which will be nice for pancakes, etc. I decided to try it out this afternoon and grilled up a bunch of zucchini, eggplant and onions. I figured it would be good for us to have some veggies ready to go for during the week because of the low-carb thing. I think they turned out pretty good! I can’t wait to try out the rest of the things we learned (especially the fruit and the flatbread), but those will have to wait till we’re back from the cruise!

Also, in honor of Earth Day today, I thought I would do something environmentally friendly. I decided to start lowering our consumption of paper towels by cutting up a bunch of stained dishtowels and Steve’s old undershirts to use as rags. I cleaned the whole house without using one paper towel! I even recycled this old coffee container to make the rags a little home that will be located under the kitchen sink. I’m thinking about trying to switch us to fabric napkins too. Obviously, there will be situations in which a paper towel or napkin will be necessary, but I think it’s still a good little start!

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Today was a good day. First, at work, I won a little trivia contest. The theme was baseball and the prize was super-generous: tickets to a Giants game next Saturday! I knew listening to Steve talk would come in handy one day!

Then, at spinning, the teacher complemented how strong I was looking. I guess hanging in there when I was ready to practically collapse during all those hellish classes has paid off too!

Martha is having a scrapbooking contest, and I’m kind of stressing out over what to enter. The problem is that you can only enter one page, and most of my favorite stuff is best when viewed as part of a two-page layout. I’m kind of toying with creating a special page just for the contest, perhaps to highlight all of my Martha-like endeavors. We’ll see how I’m feeling once the weekend comes.

It was cold and it rained today. I had to break out the closed-toe shoes and sweaters. That is the one reason why I don’t like spring – it can’t seem to ever make up its mind!

Above is a really horrible photo from Easter. I know it’s ugly, but it’s all I had. It features Steve, me and my sister at Hayes Mansion, which is where we had Easter brunch with my parents. I don’t think we’ll be returning. The service was terrible and the food was just OK. My mom made a luscious ham and some potato salad so we could snack when we got home. Her stuff was vastly superior to the Hayes offerings.

Other things that have been happening:

-- Since my sister was in town, we had a yummy family dinner at Claim Jumper on Friday night. I ordered a plate of sliders and french fries, and I must say that the fries were the best I’ve ever had!
-- I got Steve the game Pop5 for Christmas. We played it for the first time this weekend with my parents. Hilarity ensued. I definitely recommend purchasing it if you’re looking to broaden your board game library.
-- I started shopping for some sun dresses for our cruise. I can’t wait!
-- I made some good headway on the honeymoon scrapbook.

-- I watched the “Beverly Hills 90210” senior prom episode on TV. I CANNOT believe that it was almost 15 YEARS AGO! Oh my gosh – I’m SO OLD!

Well, that’s all for now. Hope everyone had a lovely Easter!

Ugh. Baseball is back. I can tell I'm going to get a lot of crafts done in the next six months!!