It’s so close, I can almost smell it.

10 more classes.

Think I can shove them in two semesters? Think I can pass all of my classes this semester so that I can have the opportunity to finish this in two semesters?? Let’s hope you think more positively than I.

Edible Flower Arrangements by Adam Smith

We went to my parent’s place the other day, and my stepmom had this amazing idea. She said since Adam was so good at pumpkin carving and made all of that money, that he might try his hand at edible flower arrangements, the ones made of fruit. I thought it was perfect! Adam was a little hesitant, but I believed in him, and so Lynette bought him a ton of fruit and some dowels, and showed him some pictures off of the internet, like this one:

I was seriously so excited. Lynette peeled the melons and the kiwis for him, and got him a Cutco paring knife and everything seemed real good. He made his first flower, and I was in love.

Adam was disappointed to say the least. He said it was ugly and looked at it like it left a bad taste in his mouth. I gave him some encouraging kisses. He was lost in some sort of inspiring thought, got a little twinkle in his eye and asked for the cantelope. I thought I was the best wife int he world. I actually encouraged him to do something he would be good at, and it was going to epic. I got distracted by something shiny and didn’t see what he was doing. About 10 minutes later, he called me over in a jovial/proud voice.

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and this is what he showed me:

It’s a fruit lady . . .

I like her. She made everyone laugh. I like her honeydew hair and kiwi eyes…. I just don’t think she’ll be very profitable for Valentine’s Day.

Our little family is going to get bigger!

….and by bigger, I mean fatter.

My uncle Jim just moved from his Utah apartment back to California and he “left” most of his things with my dad. One of them being a GIGANTIC orange kitty cat, Charlie. My dad and my stepmom don’t really want him, but he is sweet as pie and cute as any overweight cat I’d seen. I wanted him, but Adam felt three animals would be too much. So we said we couldn’t have him. Last night we took the train and spent the evening with my dad and then this morning went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, and so we spent some time with the lion kitty. Adam was smitten. So, we are most liekly going to be adopting him from them. He is SO cute.

(all the photos were taken with camera phones…. when we get him, then I will do an actual photo shoot)

Here he is with all of his fur:

And here is the bugger with a shave, (they wanted to shave him like a lion):

So, first he needs to be declawed, then he is all ours! I hope Django and Arnie get along with him, but I think they will, because he is like the comical fat friend everyone needs to have.

My Dream Dining Room

All day today at work I was telling everyone about my dream dining room set. I have been talking ti about it since I worked there, but this time I pulled all the pieces together and calculated the price. It is a little pricey, but in my dreams, I have more than enough to get elements together.

The first part Adam came up with just the other day. We are going to rip out the stupid beadboard backspash we did a few months ago and do the back splash and walls with thin brick. It will look AmAzInG! I know this because when he told me I knew it was perfect. Here is a picture of what it may look like, but we have black cabinents, and we’d want more reddish bricks:

The second part of the dream dining room will be the furniture from Pier One that I have been drooling over since day one.

This table is on sale and beautiful! I love everything about it!

We would have two of these gold damask chairs on either end. I love the pattern on the back, and they are so comfortable. The gold color goes real nice with my curtains I have already.

Then these would be the other four chairs. They are leather and gorgeous. This would look so urban with the brick and leather. These chairs are very comfortable, too.

So that with my current cabinets and shelves would look just perfect! I think I drove some people at work a little bonkers with my shopping today, but I really hope to pull this all together!

Two Heads is Better than One

In my photoshop class we took a look at this website Worth1000.com. For this assignment we were to pick a competition and do a photo for it. My category closed before I could finish, but I may submit in another area. Here is my category: Two Heads is Better than One. Because I was in a cutesy mood I decided bunnies would be a good way to go. So here is my photo:

 

Pretty good for a beginner, aye?

A Posters for WSU

So I am trying to get this position on campus as a graphic designer. I would LOVE it! My stepsister told me about it, and I had my interview this last Friday. However, part of the interview process is to make a poster for an event, and with everyone’s posters in they will decide who will get the position. It is a little grueling, I am not going to lie. So, the event is a Stress Spa. They wanted a serene look to it, and certain things to be said. Here is a picture of the poster, but you can’t really read it, because the poster is going to be bigger….

Also, my stepsister, Vicki, needed a poster for her campaign to run for Student Body Officer for Weber State. She wanted to do the whole “Victoria’s Secret” angle, and so this is what I came up with:

5 reasons why you should own an iPad

iRock: it just sits there and makes you feel good about yourself

So, the iPad, huh? Islate nor iTablet seemed like a better choice? Oh, alright, cool. I myself don’t like to say things with a Boston accent or that have negative feminine conotations . . . but that’s just me.

I watched the video on the iPad and was just as confused as the rest of us about finding a 500+ dollar reason to own one, or pay the 30 dollars a month have the 3G network with also dealing with AT&T. SO i pondered all of this with my college educated and pop cultured raised brain and came up with 5 reasons to own and iPad, and some other thigns amongst it all.

1. If I use it as a cookbook. This is an AWESOME idea. I would love them to push this in their advertisement. I would love to have a full-colored bright beautiful index of all of my recipes without the hassle of trying to keep open my recipe books and getting food all over it. Adam dreamed up our dream kitchen with a computer screen in it for my recipes, and this would go with that beautifully.

2. If I traveled on the Frontrunner regularly. People who hassle with their laptops on the train looked tired after it all comes together, and personally I wouldn’t bother with it, and just leave it hidden away for the trip. It’d be pimp to have your media consol to accesible on the train while commuting.

3. Feeling  cool, looking obnoxiously ostracized . . . as it goes generally with Apple products . . . or bluetooths (or is it blueteeth?) let’s be honest.

4. Wanting people to think you are referring to your iPod but that you are from Boston also.

5. And the fifth and final reason to own and iPad is have yet another unit of uber expensive electronic to brake or lose and have it totally ruin your life.

And there you go friends, the 5 reasons to own and iPad . . . and let me tell you, after number 1 I was grasping at straws.

The wonderful benefits of Photoshop

My Photoshop class is teaching me many valuable things, one of them is this: You don’t think you look good in this photo? Change it. This latest assignment is about adjusting color and contrast among other things, so here are my before and after pics (yes, they are of me):

Before photoshop....

After photoshop!

Before photoshop....

After photoshop!

Best Tasting Meatloaf Ever

That’s right, Internet land, I made the best tasting meatloaf ever. I merged Adam’s mom famous recipe and the recipe of Adam’s favorite youtube chef, Chef John. It was just so tastey. It was full of flavor and tasties and it smelled very good, and I am so proud. Upon request, here is the recipe:

1.5 lbs of lean ground beef
1 medium sized onion, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 c. milk
3/4 c. oats
1 egg
1 package of Good Seasons Italian Dressing Dry
1 tblsp or so of garlic salt
2 tblsp or so of olive oil
Ketchup and/or  BBQ sauce

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat oil in a pan on cooktop, and cook onion, celery, and garlic salt until the onion has carmelized and celery has softened. Combine the rest of the ingredients and onion/celery in a large bowl and mix with a wooden spoon, but not too much, just enough to evenly distribute. Line a 13″x9″ pan with foil, unless you like a heavy cleanup, spray with cooking spray or rub with olive oil. Put meat loaf mixure in and frost with kethchup and/or BBQ sauce, I use the spicy flavored, Chris and Pitt’s BBQ sauce. It is vey good stuff.

Cook for an hour and fifteen minutes, or until an insterted thermometer reads 155 degrees exactly. Enjoy with some mashies and cold soda.

Babies

I am issuing a retraction. I seemed to have created this onslaught of friends/family FREAKING out about my New Year’s resolution. Sure, I want a baby. Sure, I am too young and know nothing. Sure, I am poorer than a church mouse and don’t have insurance. However, your opinions just create bad feelings between us and those you are expressing them to. So let’s all just calm down. Adam and I are just getting used the idea of having a baby, not actively trying to change our lives. Talking about it like it is a plan is helping us see our life with a new addition. See our house and finances also with this new addition.

And I don’t have baby fever, I just like the idea of a baby.

=p

The pet bed in sequence

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Wembley Ties and the DI

The DI is the best place ever!!! Adam got this amazing polyester Wembley tie for 2 dollars. He says it is an 80 dollar tie. He schooled me on this conclusion. There are these stripes on the inside of polyester ties that gage the quality of the tie. No stripes means it is shotty, 5 means it is really high-end. Adam thought that 5 was the max, but when we brought this tie home he noticed 6 stripes. He went crazy with excitement. Here I will show you what I mean:

This picture shows a 5 stripes that I am talking about. Can you see the 5 lines through tan meshy material found on the inside of the tie? It’s easier to see in real life. Well, we went back to the DI and found a bunch more ties, all for 2 dollars, and all are 5 stripes. Don’t be confused with the pattern, it can have dots or paisley or be plain, but still be a “5 striped tie.”

This was the day we got that TV stand for 15 dollars and the entry light for 5. The entry light works too! Adam put it up the other day, doesn’t it look amazing for a goodwill 5 dollar light?! And even better than the hole int he ceiling that was there before.

Soul Food – Chicken and Waffles

Sounds a little strange, doesn’t it? Fried chicken, good. Waffles, great. Fried chicken and waffles . . . . iffy. Well, I made it, and let me tell you…………………They were fan-diddily-tasticly delicious!! Probably because they might be more Calories than Thanksgiving dinner plus the pie, so it might just go on the once-every-few-years shelf. Adam described it as heart attack on a plate.

I adapted a recipe and kind of made my own, so here it is:

Fried Chicken:

2 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken cut into chunks
2 Tablespoons Old Bay
1 Tablespoon salt
1 Tablespoon garlic powder
4 cups milk (or buttermilk)

First coat the chicken in the seasoning, then put in a bowl and cover with milk. Cover with plastic and marinate for 2 to 6 hours. I did 4 and it was super good.

2 cups of flour
2 Tablespoon Old Bay
2 Tablespoon garlic salt
1 Tablespoon salt
Oil (peanut or canola)

Take chicken one by one out of the milk and coat in the flour, then place on a plate. Heat oil in a medium sized pot to 350 degrees, fill about 2/3 of it with oil. Place chicken in and cook for about 20 minutes, stir about halfway through to make sure they aren’t stuck together.

Waffles (makes 3 in a Belgium maker):

2 cups of plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp extra fine sugar
1 egg, separated
1 1/4 cups of milk
1/4 stick of butter, melted

Mix the dry ingredients, then make a well with a spoon. Add the egg yoke to the well and gradually mix in the milk with a whisk. Beat until smooth then stir in the melted butter. Whisk the egg yolk in a separate bowl until stiff then fold into batter with a spoon.

Pour a third of the mixuture onto a hot waffle iron. You know when it’s done when steam stops rising from the sides.

Combine the two:

Pour hot butter into the wells of the cooked waffle and place the fried cicken over top, then pour maple syrup over it and powdered sugar. If you are feeling more adventurist, add some hot sauce to the chicken. Serve with ice cold red Koolaide with slightly too much sugar. Enjoy!

Here is me enjoying the fruits of my labor. About twenty minutes after this photo my stomach didn’t like that we began night games and ran around the neighborhood,  needlesstosay, I was very close to puking. I don’t regret it though!

We’re with Coco

Adam started the facebook group – Jay Leno isn’t funny and should get off TV. I know it’s a little on the negative side, but it does illustrate our feelings nicely. We love Conan O, and have always made the time to watch his talk show, and have always avoided Jay Leno. This whole mess with NBC seems pretty simple to us. Force Jay BACK into retirement, and leave Conan to build his ratings. Not to say this scandal won’t ensure those rating that NBC desires, so from here on out, it seems pretty simple.

If you are with Coco, become a fan of the group, or blog your feelings.

Alright, stepping off of my soap box after this photo.

My new phone, the Droid

It’s true. I can have the GPS running and Pandora radio on through my car speakers, then get a call, talk to the car, then when that’s over the GPS navigation returns and so does my Pandora. It was kind of scary how much technology is in my phone. It is heavy. It is sexy. And it is pretty complicated and will take some adjusting. I have an app that tells me where all the zombies are close by, and I have to literary RUN away from them before I get killed! I can see all of this in a satellite reading of my location on the GLOBE!

Bay Window Blinds

I looked all over online to all these websites people swore were the best deal for faux wood blinds. BOGUS! JC Penny had the cheapest, and I could just run over there or get the free! shipping. Which I did. For the longest time our front room bay window had NO window coverings, then, because I feared for our neighbors eye sight, I nailed some material on the wall . . . ghetto, I know, but that is what you do when fundage is low. Well, fundage wasn’t always low, but we stopped noticing it, and eventual it just became part of our home. At one point Walmart clearanced out some blinds we wanted, so we bought them, then realized they didn’t fit, however we found other windows in our house that worked for the sizes. So, again, we were left with our weird window coverings.  I said ENOUGH just a week ago and ordered our new set of beautiful blinds.

My stepmom got us that vase for our wedding present, from Ethan Allen, and at Pier One I found that grass for just a dollar! I was so proud. Also, that table is new! We got it from the DI for 15 bucks and painted it balck with paint we already had. It is perfect. Here is Adam playing some Mario on the Wii.

Haha, he is so cute. There is my dog, just a staring.

Vampire’d

Here is my first assignment for my photoshop class. I still have more to do, but I thought I’d share it now. This is a comic I drew and made up all on my own, then had to scan it and color it in using the paint tool in photoshop. I have never used photoshop so it was kind of a hard project.

Here is the initial drawing:

And here is the photoshoped one:

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world . . .

. . . the master calls the butterfly.

Spring semester 2010 begins and I will tell you I almost psyched myself out. I sped in the parking lot and got pulled over and almost got a $500 ticket, but he let me go. I showed up a half hour early to my first early morning class. Went to the wrong room. My prof doesn’t even say hi or introduce herself before she is writing the quiz questions on the board. I haven’t taken a math class since high school . . . 4 YEARS AGO! Worst part is, I am taking Math 1080, and got special permission to skip the prerequisites. Stupid me. I was so scarred while writing the first problem down that I actually thought I would forget everything I thought I might have remembered and ruin my college track. I almost had a panic attack, but I felt a calm from outside of me and underwent solving for x. X equaled something with great ease, so I moved on and pretty soon I had answers to all of the questions, and a while later I realized I only missed one problem. Woah. I calmed down and took my first set of math notes since Spring 2006.

Here is a picture of my cute prof, Maomao Cai, who goes by Chloe. She is from some Asian country and hardly speaks English, and is a little bit of a hardass, but I think we are going to get along just fine. (I got the photo from the Weber faculty index.)

Next is my Computer Science class. Holy ridiculous, Batman. He started out by saying how we are going to be easing into the semester slowly, because Jan. 4th is too early to start the class out fast. Lie. I want to go back in time and be like that guy who called Obama a liar, that would have felt sweet. He gave us this 50 minute evaluation with the most INSANE questions ever. I knew it was trying to be all sneaky and evaluate our way of thinking and processing and how we think things work . . . but really it was just testing my boiling point of FREAKING out! It was just far too difficult for me to handle. I am hoping things get better.

Here is the prof for this class. He has this whole “Charles in Charge” sort of outfit and look about him.

I have two more classes tomorrow, another CS and an Art. I am less scared, but now a little stressed. I want to get AMAZING grades! I want to have an excellent attendance record! Gosh, this semester needs to rock.

The Flatware Drawer

Adam and I were blessed with two sets of beautiful flatware for our wedding. They compliment each other real nice too, and it’s nice to not have that many excuses to do the dishes right away . . .

Our drawer for the sets is a little odd. It is long and skinny, which is different than most drawers for flatware, but like most, when you open it it moves all the flatware to the front and jumbles it all together. I got a rubbery liner to prevent it but it still does it, and it has always been annoying. At Adam’s work they didn’t get the shipment in so his boss said he could make something for fun if he wanted. So, Adam drew up some nice plans and constructed an AWESOME divider for the flatware drawer. It is the coolest thing. I was so surprised. The look of it is modern and functionable and just perfect. Thanks Adam!

New Year’s Resolution

This past year has been amazing. We bought a house, went on vacation to Wyoming and almost got killed, tore apart the house and put it back together, celebrated our one year anniversary, Adam started his own pumpkin carving business, we both completed two more semesters, watched a lot of tv, got a dog, got a cat, made friends, got a little fatter, got new jobs, and best all, we still never have been one day apart.

I have some goals for this year and I thought I’d lay them out in the order I think of them:

• Don’t get any fatter. I want to join the Hatha Yoga gym on 25th street so much. I did Hatha Yoga once, and I count it as one of the most difficult things I ever have done. It was be fantastic if I could have a pass to it and get better at it.
• Try  to have a baby, but towards the end of the year. I want to spend this year preparing for our life for a child. I want to be as prepared as I can be, and I only have three more semesters until I have my degree, Adam too, so we feel like we can start getting our life ready for a miracle.
• Earn enough income to sustain are needs and satisfy our wants.
• Finish the basement of our home. We had to rip up what was done (by the previous owners) in the basement and are going to need to start over.
• And last and most important of all, my resolution for this year is to delight in other people’s blessings. I seem to feel jealous or puffed up when I hear of other people’s fortunes and blessings, and I really need to stop it and honestly feel delight for them. Because if I can delight in blessings, rather than feel negative for them, then my life can be open to receive blessings.