PamAndMatt

Our Year In Review

2012-01-05T23:06:00.001-05:00

Hmmm...let's see. I know I'm almost a week into the new year, and haven't blogged in quite a while. So, I guess I'll catch you all up who don't know what's going on in our exciting lives---

(I'm taking this format from my sister, Gwen, so, I'm kind of a copycat :)

January: Matt and I went on our first vacation of the year to Belize. We stayed at the Hamanasi Resort and had a blast. We went cave diving, explored Mayan ruins, saw tons of new birds, and relaxed, relaxed, relaxed. I've decided January is the perfect time of year to visit Central America; it's not too hot, and we hit the tail end of the dry season so it only rained once!
To see pictures from our trip, check out our archives
Also, Matt continued to love his job, and I finished up my tutoring job from the previous year. Boy, was I glad to be done with that! I loved it, but the paperwork was a little overwhelming. Plus, I thought I was unable to be as effective as those kids deserved!
At the end of the month, Beth, Chad, Mom, and the kids came down to Southern California to visit Disneyland, and I was able to hang out with them for several days. It was a lot of fun! Mom and I went hiking near my house, visited the Getty Museum, and had a great time. We enjoyed walking around Disneyland together, and getting to see the look of amazement on the boys' faces :)

February: Kate had her 4th baby, and I flew out to Virginia to take part in the celebration. My plans changed at the last minute due to a job opportunity (I was scheduled for an interview right in the middle of my planned trip) so I had to change my flight and ended up not staying as long as I had hoped. But I still had an awesome time and realized how much I miss those kids! Grandma Dot was kind enough to let me stay at her house, and she drove me back and forth through the cold to Kate's. Gwen and Danielle (with Allie) also came to visit on my last few days, and that was really cool to get to meet my grand-niece (great-niece?).
I didn't end up getting the job-too many qualified applicants. But my name is still on the list and I'm crossing my fingers for the next round of interviews.

March: The month kind of went by in a blur. Probably did a lot of gardening, taking care of those plants!
Oh, at the end of the month, Matt and I went to Sacramento for a week. He had a conference to go to, and I occupied myself during the days, and we hung out at night. We got a call midway through the week that our car (the electric Nissan Leaf) was ready for pickup, so on Friday we raced home, drove out to Fontana, and filled out the paperwork to bring him home. We're so pleased with the new addition to our family ;)

April: In April, I worked a lot on craft projects. Look at my blog, and you'll see plenty of sewing projects that I tackled that month.

May: More of the same. Boy am I exciting...

June: Peggy and her family moved to San Diego, and came up for a quick visit. We're excited to have family close by! Also, Matt and I flew up to Seattle to watch our friend Rene' graduate from college and to have a super fun visit with Jill, DeMarko, and the boys. It didn't even rain on us practically the whole time we were there. We drove the Olympic Peninsula, stayed in Forks, hiked up Mt. Rainier (there was tons of snow!), toured UW, and had a great time.

July: We were feverishly working all month to remodel the bathroom. We took it down to the studs, and built it up from scratch. We put in a new bathtub and vanity, added a wall with a pocket door, did tons of drywall and tiling, and got it done just in time for company!
We also spent a week at El Capitan State Beach camping with Matt's family. It was a great time, but probably too cool, so I think we'll stay in a hotel this year. :)

August: August was a busy month. We had lots of visitors in the area for my nephew's wedding. First, Jill, DeMarko, and the boys came to visit. We were still finishing the bathroom, but we made it work. Then Gwen flew in, Adam took the Greyhound down, Penny and Mike arrived, and we had a full house. My mom (who was staying with Peggy in San Diego) invited her "boyfriend" to the wedding, where we all got to meet him before he proposed marriage to her. Good for you, Mom!
We have a roommate! Gwen decided to make a drastic life change and move in with us. It was a big, scary step, but we're sure glad to have her here and be able to help her out. She's going to an online university, pursuing her career goals, and is now the store manager at an ice cream shop. Way to go, Gwen!

It was in August that Matt realized that he had a lot of time off saved up, and he risked losing some of it, so...we decided to go on a bicycle tour! From Canada to Mexico! We had less than a month to prepare, and feverishly ordered all the last minute things we thought we would need.

Matt also had a conference in SLC at the end of August, so we drove up and spent a few days there. I drove up to see Mom and Beth and the boys one of the days. But I mostly spent time reading books down by the pool while Matt went to class :)

September: On the 19th, we left on our grand adventure. 44 days, 1,893 miles. Just an amazing time. I can't wait to do it again. If you missed our ride, we kept a journal at this site. We're still in the process of adding pictures-the pictures uploaded so far are just from our phones, but Matt took his big camera on the journey, so he'll get those uploaded.
Mom got married while we were on our trip, and we missed out on going, but our thoughts were with her and the rest of the family!

October: Bike trip. Amazing time. Met Helena. See her journey here. I can't believe we spent a whole month (and then some) bicycling practically every day. Awesome!

November: Finished the bike tour on the first. Peggy drove us home from the border, and it was surreal being back. It was instantly back to reality. A couple weeks into November, Helena stayed with us a couple days, then I drove her down to Ensenada, Mexico. I've never driven in Mexico before, and that was an experience. It took me so long to get back into the states, I was exhausted, and stayed the night at Peggy's in San Diego. In the morning we paid a visit to Charming Charlie's, an awesome jewelry store that just opened up in San Diego, close to Peggy's house. I think she was suitably impressed. While it's a long way to drive for jewelery...I might have to make another trip down there soon. That store is way too fun!
Of course, Thanksgiving was fun. Matt and I went to his mom's cousin's house for dinner. He had to eat and run, but I got to stay and visit. It was nice to meet his relatives, and get to know them. They live so close by, hopefully we can hang out more.
I also got accepted into a certification program through a company called Power4Vets, who try to help veterans get jobs in the power industry by training them for certifications. I'm in the process of becoming NERC certified, which is basically the certification required to work in the power industry. This certification will definitely help me get a job working in Matt's field. Plus, I love learning new stuff, so this is almost like being is school again!

December: Well, December was a crazy month. Matt's birthday was right at the beginning, and then I drove 1,383 miles to Penny's house in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. I stopped at Mom's house on the way up, stayed the night, then left insanely early to get to Penny's in the early afternoon. In fact, she was still at work when I got into town, so I met her there, picked up a key, then introduced myself to her 3 dogs. They were a little excited to see me, but they did pretty well. That was Penny's last day of work before maternity leave, and we spent the next week trying to get stuff done on her list, and hoping she would go into labor. She didn't, and Mom drove up to see if she could be there when the baby was born. On Mom's last day in town, Penny was induced, and after waiting all day, Connor was born early in the morning on the 21st. Mom left later that day (we got back to the house around 3 am, slept until 8 am, and went back to the hospital for a visit before she left). Penny stayed that night, but checked out of the hospital the next day, brought the baby home, and Matt and Beth (with the two boys) arrived that evening. We had a LOT of fun, visiting. The next day, Connor went for his first appointment, and Matt and the Popes did some shopping and playing in the pool. They joined us for dinner that evening, we had a mini-Boggle tournament, and watched a short movie. It was a fun visit!

I know it was hard having an extra person in the house, but I tried to make myself indispensable by cooking, cleaning, and just generally helping out. It was weird that my twin sister was having a baby, and boy was it even weirder when we brought that baby home! Penny and Mike make amazing parents, and it was really fun to see the very beginning of their expanded family. I'm sure that, while they were glad to have the extra help, they were also glad to have the house to themselves and to get started with the rest of the story.

Since Matt and I didn't spend Christmas or our anniversary together, we decided to meet in Las Vegas for a couple days. I drove back to Mom's house on New Year's Eve, and we had a pleasant evening. The next day, I stopped by Beth's before church and visited with her and Chad, and the boys before driving a 9.5 hour drive in a little more than 8 hours. Yep, I think my average speed for the second half of the drive was 80 mph. I was CRUISING! I picked Matt up at the airport, and we checked into the Bellagio Resort, which was awesome. We had fun the next two days exploring Vegas, seeing a Cirque du Soleil show, and enjoying watching the Bellagio fountain show from our hotel room window every 15-30 minutes. :) What a great time! We were ready to come home, though. I'd been gone for so long! I talked Matt into driving for me (hey, after 17 hours of driving, I was ready for a break) and we made it home in the early afternoon on the 3rd. I was able to open my Christmas presents.My husband is the BEST!

Well, that's about it. Our year in a nutshell. I'm sure a ton of other exciting stuff happened, but it's hard to remember back that far :)

My goals for this year:
Complete P90X, round 3 (I'm starting on Jan 9th. Check out the other blog to follow along!). Complete P90X2 after.
Become NERC certified.
Blog more.
Get some sort of job. Or, commit myself to working on the house more and getting it up to the standard I want it to be.

One example of bad leadership from our EDMC: MMCM Phillips

2011-12-07T20:46:00.003-05:00

Browsing through my old e-mails found this quality little gem sent by the Engineering Department Master Chief, one of the higher ranking officials on the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), MMCM Phillips. This is one reason why I left the Navy, to have the option to quit when yelled at for someone else screw ups:

"Subject: Liberty call is 1800...
Message: for all CPOs, LPOs, and WCS until SFIMS is un-screwed. I and the CHENG are here going through this @#% database and frankly, it is not our job. There are almost 300 late to start jobs. Be prepared tomorrow to explain each one to me. We will meet at 1600 in the RT upper trailer. CPOs, WCS, LPOs all present.
-EDMC"

Translation:
Subject: You can't go home until 6pm
Message: For all cranky old leaders, cranky young leaders, and 18years olds with enough brains to be in charge of a work shop, until our work tracking database is not *bleeped* up any more (you can't go home). Me and the guy who is my boss are going through this *bleeped* database and we shouldn't have to even though we are responsible for the entire Engineering department. There are almost 300 late start jobs (the database tells me an exact number but I choose to round up to sound important). Be prepared tomorrow to explain each one to my grumpy face while I ignore your legitimate reasons and then make you feel stupid for each one. Even though I said tomorrow I want all of you to be in this portable trailer to yell and scream even to make my self feel better. Everyone will be present.
PS: I am showing total dis-regard for you and your family, and I don't care at all if your work center has done it's job and you have done your job, you will be yelled at along with everyone else.
PSS: Have a nice day shipmate...

-Matt

Our other journal

2011-09-11T04:46:00.002-04:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are going to be documenting our progress of our bike ride from the Canadian border to the Mexican border on a cycle site:

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/PM2011

you can follow along with us there if you care to =)

-Matt

We are doing it!!!

2011-08-17T20:24:00.000-04:00

For those of you who have known us for any amount of time, you know that Matt and I were planning on taking a *small* bike trip across the country last year. Our plan was to ride from Virginia to Washington (state) and then maybe on down to California. Well, those plans were dashed/put on hold when Matt got his most excellent job right away after the navy. So....fast forward to just a few weeks ago, when Matt was looking at the time he has available to take off from work, kind of a use it or lose it situation. He had several weeks saved up, so.....we decided we are finally going to go on our bike tour!!!! Our plan is to ride from Canada to Mexico, along the Pacific coast. Just shy of 2000 miles. :) In September, we'll fly to Seattle, hitch a ride to the border, and begin our journey, hoping to finish up by November. I'm getting super excited. We were looking at the gear we have for the trip last night, trying to think of what else we need to buy, and it started to hit me. This is going to really happen! We'll be camping out most of the way, and expect to take about 5-6 weeks to complete the tour. If we can average 50 miles a day, we'll be golden! Our plan is to take all our camping gear on our bikes, and only stay in hotels once a week or so. Crazy, huh?
Anyways, sorry that my updates have been sporadic at best. I'll have to get Matt to show you pics of the bathroom, since it turned out fantastic. Still some finishing work to be done. Oh, and we had lots of family visit, which was pretty awesome, too. Gwen is starting to settle in (she's living with us now) and it already feels like the natural thing, having her here ;)
Well, that's about it. Should get started on dinner, soon.

~Pam

U-Socket Vampire Power Draw

2011-05-29T22:16:00.000-04:00

A company called FastMac has released a product called a "U-Socket" (link) which is a power outlet with two usb outlets on it for charging any devices that accept this method of charging (most new cellphones, tablets, etc.) One of the largest concerns with this method is that you can never unplug the usb power adapter, so there will always be some energy draw. I was concerned with the energy draw and wanted to compare it to my HTC EVO's standard USB adapter.

U-Socket Draw with nothing plugged in: .8ma (.8ma x 115V = .092Watts)
HTC USB adapater with nothing plugged in: 2ma (2ma x 115V = 0.23Watts)

In conclusion FastMac did a very nice job of keeping the Vampire draw to a minimum. You are looking at almost a year and a half before it uses 1 kwh, so this convenience is costing me less a penny per month in wasted electricity.

As for the installation I had no problem cramming it in to an old box that is original to my house, but your mileage may vary, the outlet is huge compared to a standard one. If you don't feel comfortable with the fact that electricity can kill hire some one to do it for you.

-Matt Emerson

Dear NRA...

2011-05-15T15:49:00.000-04:00

We get called by the NRA 1-703-291-9005 multiple times each day, and they just hang up on us over and over again. I can't even hear their message or ask to be removed, so what I have decided is that every time in that NRA's lousy automated system calls me I am going to donate to The Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence (http://www.bradycampaign.org/) which is as close to the exact opposite of your groups beliefs that I can find. So please keep calling me and hanging up, and I will keep donating to the people you oppose.....

-Matt

Two Summer Dresses

2011-05-14T01:21:00.001-04:00

Ok, so the other day, I was inspired when I saw this dress by EmersonMade, a clothing company that just happens to have a similar name to me, no relation ;) I saw the dress and thought "I think I could make something similar." That looks like a button down shirt turned dress. So, Matt and I went shopping at my favorite Thrift Store, and came back with two Extra Large men's button down shirts. These things were HUGE! I started out with the short sleeved shirt, which was huge. I don't have many pictures, because I wasn't sure how it would turn out.

This is what I started with.

And here's the other long sleeved shirt to start with.

These pictures are horrible, I know. But my husband was either sleeping (he was working the night shift) or working (working a double shift) so I had to take them myself in the mirror. But, you get the idea, right? I made sure the shirts were long enough to make a decent length dress.

The first thing I did was cut the sleeves off. They're ungainly and make it hard to fold the shirt in half to cut it.
For the plaid dress (the first one I did), folded the shirt in half, laid a tank top over it as a guide for the top, traced around it, and cut out a dress shape. For the second dress, I laid the first completed dress on top as a guide, since I already knew I liked the shape.

Then, I pinned up the sides, to make sure it fit nicely, and here's a picture of that.

Then, I sewed up the sides, making sure to leave the arm holes open ;) (sometimes I forget, but that's what a seam ripper is for, right?)
I still wasn't quite happy with how it fit, so I had to sew two darts on the back (of each dress, coincidentally). I used this tutorial. And this one. It made the fit just that much better. The last step is finishing up the arm holes and the neck holes. I just folded over and sewed :)

For the plaid dress, I had to do a little extra: I didn't like how "loose" the button line was, I felt like the dress was going to blow open on me. So, starting halfway down the dress, I topstitched it closed (halfway down, so I could get the dress on over my hips.). I didn't need to do it with the purple dress. It was pretty secure. Also, with the plaid dress, I cut a "v" in the back so I can move a little more freely. It ended up tighter than the purple, which doesn't need a "v"

I'm really happy with how they turned out. When asked, my husband said he couldn't believe I and made them, and they definitely didn't look like they used to be men's shirts either. :) I'm thinking of changing out the buttons to something more exciting than small clear buttons...something fun, perhaps?

~Pam

My {first} Pillow!

2011-05-06T13:06:00.001-04:00

Ok, here she is. My first pillow. :)

I love it.Want to know how I made this? Well, I got the inspiration from the crafty cpa. The paper she used was so cute, and totally inspired me to do something like that. Of course, I had to do my own take :) I'm new to making pillows, and this was a great first project for me.

Ok, so this is ridiculously easy. Here's what you need:

semi-see-through fabric (I used muslin. I got it at JoAnn's for about $1.79 a yd)
cute scrapbook paper, with a design you like (this paper is for a different pillow I'm making)
sharpies (ultra-fine tip for the tracing, fine tip for the shading)
sewing machine (and needle and thread to hand stitch up the opening
fiber fill (or pillow form)
iron

First, decide what size pillow you want. You'll need a front and a back. The scrapbook paper is 12x12, but don't let that limit you. My pillow ended up being 18x10.5. You could even do a round pillow! Let your imagination flow :) Once you cut out the muslin, you'll want to make sure it is nice and ironed. You want a flat surface!

Next, you'll need to trace the design onto your fabric. Now, the crafty cpa used a light box to trace her paper, but I don't have a light box. I simply taped the paper to the window, and then the fabric over it. Like so...

You don't have to trace it all, and you don't have to stick with the design of the paper. I liked the flowers of this, but thought some of them were too busy for what I was going for. I traced around the outside of them, and put them all in a line, at different heights. I had to extend the stems of some of the flowers, and add leaves, but that wasn't too hard.

Once you have the design the way you want it, shade as needed. I traced in yellow around the flowers, and traced the stems and leaves in green.

Now, make your pillow. I just put right sides together, pinned, sewed around three sides and most of the fourth side, leaving enough to turn inside out. I ironed the seams down, and turned it. I filled with fiber fill, trying to make sure my pillow wasn't too lumpy. Then, I hand-sewed the opening shut. And Viola'!

A nice, fun pillow. Might make a good mother's day gift. Super easy, fast, and fun! :) Oh, and this pillow cost me probably about $1 total. :)

~Pam

Linking up:

Clothespin Holder {A Mother's Day Tribute}

2011-05-04T10:51:00.003-04:00

My Mom, last year at Lindsay's wedding
Isn't she beautiful?

I remember growing up in Menan, and every spring/summer/fall my mom would hang laundry up on the line. I remember there always being clothes on the line, drying. With 8+ people in the house at any one time, there was always tons of laundry to do. Our clothesline was huge. The lines were long and very sturdy. They seemed to be really high, too, but that might be because I was so little when we lived there. I especially liked to help out putting up towels or taking them down. They were the easiest! I remember having to run out and bring them all in really quick when an afternoon thundershower would roll through, which happened often enough. Yes, the clothes, especially the jeans, ended up slightly stiffer than they would coming out of the dryer, but nothing beats the smell of fresh laundry, right off the line. So, Mom, this post is for you! Happy Mother's Day :)

Now that it is May, and my husband set up the clothesline, I decided I wanted to start drying clothes out on the line. Yesterday I ended up doing two full loads of laundry, and drying them on the line. It was so warm and dry outside that I think it took less time for most of the clothes to dry than it would have in the dryer :)

Here's my clothesline. There are three lines at the moment, but there's room for two more...I'm thinking I'll have Matt hook me up and put up the last two lines :)

OK, I have a confession to make. I didn't have clothespins yesterday when I put the clothes on to wash. I had to make a run to the store to find some. I spent $3 on 75 clothespins, and I'm thinking I could probably use 2 more...But I didn't have a place to put my pins. So I decided to make myself a clothespin holder.

I got some ideas from one of my crafting newsletters. Yesterday's post was all about clothespin holders. I decided on this idea, using a placemat to make a holder. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a placemat that I wanted to use, so I actually used some of my scraps and used a pant leg from a pair of old pants of Matt's.

First, I cut out a section of the pant leg. I didn't use the very bottom, although that would have been nice since there's already a seam there...but, no, I decided it wasn't a big enough "pocket". I turned it inside out, sewed the bottom (in this case, the skinnier side. The pant leg kind of tapered, and I wanted the wider side to be the opening.), and turned it right side out. I wanted the seams to look sort of finished, so I folded down the top, and topstitched one line all the way around. Then, I turned it inside out, and stitched close to the "cut" edge. {Does that make sense?} I have black thread in the top of my machine, and gray thread in the bobbin (don't ask) and that makes for some varied stitching :) You can see in the picture it is still a little raw, but I figured that would be ok.

See the two different colored stitches?

Ok, for the handle, I took a 2 1/2" section of the pant leg, cut it down to where I thought would make a good handle, sewed around all the edges. Then I sewed it onto the back of the bag. I used a zigzag stitch, plus topstitched with a straight stitch all around the edges. I want to make sure that baby stays on! I then attached velcro to the inside, right on top of where the handle attaches. I put the other side of the velcro on the end of the handle.

All in all, this took me about 20 minutes, and by the time the clothes were done drying, my clothespin bag was ready to hold clothespins for me :)

There it is :) I like this idea better than the ones with a clothes hanger to hold it on the line, mainly because I don't have any clothes hangers, and also because it will NOT fall off the line :) I slide it right down the line with me as I go, and it makes my life easier! I don't think my mom ever had a holder, or at least I don't remember one. The pins would just stay on the line, spread out, and they'd be there to use as needed. Maybe it didn't get as dusty in Menan as it does here in LA, but I'm thinking that to keep my pins clean, I'll need to keep them inside :)

One thing I kept thinking as I was hanging the clothes out was that the energy that was drying the clothes was totally free. Love it!

~Pam

Linking Up!

May Day Garden Update

2011-05-01T21:34:00.000-04:00

Happy May Day everyone! {Or Beltane, if you prefer :}

So, I decided that a pictorial update on the garden might be in order. Most of this stuff I planted back in February, and have been continuously adding since. So, without further ado, here it is...My Garden :)

Here's looking out at the 4 raised beds in the yard.

Here's some closeups: This is watermelons and cantelopes.

Here's yellow squash, zucchini, and winter squash, plus some romaine lettuce.

Matt's Amarinth and tomatoes.

Matt's corn. It's going crazy!

The newest bed: strawberries and herbs.

Here you can see strawberries in the foreground, and two types of basil and rosemary in the background.

More strawberries. I planted 18 strawberry plants. Some of them are runner producing, some aren't, but they are all everbearing. I counted 12 strawberry fruits growing just today!

Here's the original square foot garden from this past fall/winter. There's a lot going on :)

Here we have romaine lettuce, onions, peas, marigolds, and some sprouts of something...can't remember right now!

Here's some beans, peas, radishes, lettuce, and a few carrots.

And, the pie'ce de re'sistance: Potatoes. :)

I was trying to help out one of the plants today that had fallen over in the wind, and I actually skewered a new potato, so I decided to harvest them :)

Don't they look yummy! I'm actually going to roast them in the oven right now, and we'll eat them with some grilled chicken and sauteed asparagus that we got from our shipment of veggies from Farm Fresh To You. What a neat company. We get a box about once every 4 weeks, and it's only $31.50. Can't beat that for organic produce right to our door. We love it! :)

Anyways, I need to get dinner going, so I'll wrap this up. Hope you enjoyed reading about my garden. I'm lovin' it!

~Pam

What I've been working on...

2011-04-30T20:30:00.000-04:00

Ok, so after the skirt I made earlier this week, I decided to take a little break from sewing, and work on some other projects. Here's a bit of what I've been working on:

I just finished crocheting this beanie :) Love it! It was a really simple pattern that I got for free from Lion Brand Yarn. Took me just a few hours; I worked on it a little bit last night and finished up this afternoon. Nice!

{P.S. I look like a dork. I know. I can't help it! This is what I get when I take a self portrait :}

This is a project that I started. I saw a tutorial on turning scrapbook paper into fabric pillows, using a lightbox and tracing {obviously I don't have a lightbox. I taped it all to the window and traced away!}.

I've gotten to the point where my tracing is done, but now I have decisions to make on how to finish the pillows. This is only 12x12 square, which I think would make smallish pillows, so I think I'm going to have to relearn how to quilt and add a border all the way around to make it bigger before I make it into a pillow...more to come later!

This necklace is made out of magazine paper, rolled into beads. I tried to find colors from the magazine in similar shades, and settled on the yellow/orange tones. I actually like it a lot, and it didn't take me that long to make it, either. I just strung it on a piece of yarn, so it's not going to last forever, but, hey! I'm alright with that. This magazine would have ended up in the recycling anyways :)

One more project I'm working on is a waste basket made from magazine pages...I don't have a picture since I'm in the very early stages, but here's a link to where I got the inspiration. Because there aren't instructions on how exactly she made the basket, I'm kind of making it up as I go along. I'm not quite sure I like where it is going...it might just turn into something else. It is taking me a long time, and I'm not quite sure I have the patience.

My Grapefruit Essential Oil experiment is coming along. The grapefruit peels are drying; it is taking a while, but that is to be expected. Every once in a while I get a whiff of grapefruit somewhere in the house and it makes me smile; I know where that's coming from! :)

Oh, did I mention that I won two different giveaways? Last week I entered a bunch of giveaways for fun, and I actually won. Twice! I never win anything! The first thing that I won was a sample of Shaklee Basic H2, which is an organic super cleaning concentrate. I won it in a giveaway from Someone's Gotta Pay.

From the packaging: "Inside this tiny capsule is enough power to make a whole bottle of all-purpose super cleaner and another bottle of glass cleaner-16 earth-loving ounces each." Basically you use 2 drops mixed with 16 oz of water for glass cleaner, and the rest of the little bottle (about 1/4 tsp) with 16 oz for the multi-purpose cleaner. I have to admit I haven't tried it yet, because I don't have spray bottles, but I'm looking forward to trying it out.

The second giveaway was from one of my favorite crafting sites: Chica and Jo. They were doing an Earth Day giveaway, and I was one of the winners! I got this awesome sketchbook and journal :) They make me happy!

Don't mind the mess all around. My desk is driving me nuts and I'll get to it soon.

So, about the sketchbook. From the packaging:
"The Sketchbook is made from 100% post consumer recycled paper. 100% Made in the USA
The Cover is 100% recycled board covered with 100% recycled post-consumer recycled paper stock, dyed with vegetable based ink.
The Paper is 100% post-consumer, acid-free, Process Chlorine Free paper stock. Printed with vegetable -based inks and bound utilizing environmentally friendlier adhesives.
The Rest: The outer elastic closure is covered with 100% organic cotton. Inside, the ribbon bookmark is made of 100% organic cotton. The band wrapping the book is made of 100% post-consumer recycled paper stock, printed with vegetable-based inks.

How cool is that? I'm really excited to get to use these. I haven't had a journal in FOREVER!!! I guess my blog has been like my journal. But now maybe I'll actually write some of my more private thoughts down, since I have such a convenient place to put them :)

Well, that's about all. Matt is taking a double-time shift tonight, so, after getting off work at 3 pm this afternoon and working out, he's catching a bit of sleep before he has to go back to work at 11pm (until 7am). I don't think I'll be able to stay up the whole time tonight, but I'll stay up late so I can be on at least a similar schedule.

I'll have to do a garden update, but I don't have pictures yet. Maybe I'll take them tomorrow. My transplanted strawberry bed is doing great, the watermelon/cantelopes finally sprouted and are doing well; the zucchini/squash are doing fantastic. I've harvested radishes already, and boy were they yummy! A lot of my other stuff has sprouted. The beans and peas are growing nicely. I'll definitely take pictures tomorrow and show you all.

Thanks for reading!

~Pam

Another T-shirt remake: Three T-shirts = 1 cute ruffled skirt

2011-04-27T22:25:00.001-04:00

So, a few days ago, I was blog cruising, aka looking at other people's blogs to see what ideas I could ~~steal~~ come up with, and I came across a tutorial for an Anthropologie skirt knock-off. I have to admit, I'd never even heard of Anthropologie before I started reading other people's blogs, and I would have to say that I probably like most of their stuff since I want to try to knock off so many ideas of theirs that I see. Anyways, the tutorial from Ruffles and Roses inspired me, and Holy Craft gave me the idea to use t-shirts to do it at this tutorial.
So: Here's the skirt. I love it!

Want to see how I did it? I have a few (very few, sorry! The other tutorials are much better than mine, so if you want to see more details, check them out!)

First of all, I started with 3 large t-shirts. One dark grey, one light grey, and one black. The dark grey one was the one I was going to make the base of my skirt, and it was an XL or XXL (found these at the thrift store, in the men's section. Total cost: $2.75 :)

I cut off the bottom of the dark grey shirt. This ended up being just the right length for me. I was going to add some length to the bottom with ruffles, so I wasn't too concerned about it being too short. It's probably a good thing I'm not very tall (5'6'').

Ok, this picture is hard to see what's going on, but I basically laid a skirt that I knew fit me on top of my skirt base, and traced around it, leaving a seam allowance, then cut away the excess. Then, with right sides together, I sewed up the sides. Easy!

Next, I started working on my first ruffle. I wanted the bottom ruffle to be black, so I took the black t-shirt and cut a 4" wide section off the bottom. I cut one end of the "loop" to make a long strip, but I knew based on the size of my black shirt vs. the skirt it wasn't going to be quite long enough. So, I cut another 4" wide section and sewed them together. Using a gathering stitch, I ran a stitch down the top, then pulled the top thread to gather. It's hard to see, but this is the ruffle....

Ok, then I sewed the ruffle onto the bottom of the skirt (this picture is upside down, but you get the idea, right?) I sewed it onto the right side of the skirt, since the seam was going to be hidden by the next ruffle.

Ok, I skipped a few steps in the pictures here. Sorry! In between, I cut a 4" wide strip of the light grey, made a ruffle that went just halfway around the skirt, and sewed it on top of the black ruffle. Then I cut a 4" wide strip of the dark grey, and made a ruffle slightly smaller than the light grey ruffle, and sewed it on top of the light grey. Here's a picture of the dark grey ruffle getting sewn on.

Finally, I cut a last 4" strip of black shirt, made a ruffle that went around the whole thing, and sewed it to the top. However, this time, I sewed it upside down on top of the dark grey ruffle, so that it would fold down over the seams and hide them. does that make sense? See the Ruffles and Roses tutorial: she has much better pictures than I do.

And again, my finished skirt.

And, my ever-present dilema: what shoes do I wear with it? :P

I'm actually really happy how it came out. The ruffle is so fun! That's my first real time doing a ruffle, and I had to make quite a few, so I got a lot of practice. I'm thinking I could do this skirt in a bunch more colors and fabrics, as well....hmmm....we'll see if I have time :)

~Pam

Linking up:

PS. As a side note, another project I'm working on is making grapefruit essential oil. Condo Blues had a tutorial on how to make Orange Essential Oil, and I thought it would be the perfect solution to my grapefruit problem (namely, what in the world to do with all the grapefruits on my tree. I can't eat THAT many of them!). The first step is to take the grapefruit peels and let them lay out to dry. I did that today. Now just wait a week (gulp! a week?) until they are solid. *sigh* I'll keep you posted on the progress :)

T-shirt to Dress

2011-04-27T11:09:00.002-04:00

Well, I was a little bit busy yesterday. I went to the thrift store, and spent about $10 buying some shirts. I had seen this tutorial for turning a tunic shirt into a dress, and I wanted to try my hand at it. I spent $2 for the supplies for this project ($1 each for the shirts). I couldn't quite find a tunic shirt like in the tutorial, but I shouldn't be surprised, because it is, after all, the thrift store. Here's pictures of my project:

Ok, first of all, here's the shirt. I actually kind of liked it, and would probably have kept it the way it was...those are polka dots, which I never wear.

Step one: use seam ripper to take off the bottom of the shirt. I removed below the bottom of the band. The bottom of the shirt is going to be the bottom of the dress.

Step two (not shown): Measure how long you want the finished dress to be, and figure out how much of the "t-shirt" or other material you need. Cut out that much material. I used a large black t-shirt, turned inside out so the logo on the shirt wouldn't show.

Step three: lay the black t-shirt material in between the top and bottom. Mark a line from the top to the bottom, giving yourself a seam allowance.

Step four: Cut away excess. See the chalk line in the picture? That's where I decided to sew.

Step five (not shown): Sew up the sides, and then attach the top to the middle and the middle to the bottom.

And here's the finished product:

Do you like it? I had to add some darts in the back to make it fit a little better. And I'm thinking I need a belt...maybe a thick red belt...Also, I'm not sure what shoes to wear with it! I'm kind of shoe poor at the moment...

I must say, this dress is very comfortable. I think it will become my around-the-house dress. I could wear this dress all the time. Actually, the last picture was taken this morning, and I'm still wearing the dress. I wore it half the day yesterday as well :)

Ok, all in all, I think this project was fairly easy. I think next time, I'll try to get some knit material for the middle section, instead of using t-shirt cotton. The top and bottom is knit, and it might be easier to work with the same material. I'm kind of learning as I go, you know?

~Pam

Linking up:

Belize Pictures Update

2011-04-20T22:59:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I know we've been back from Belize for quite a while, but Matt finished up the pictures from our trip a couple weeks ago. I keep forgetting to make a post about it. If you would like to see our pictures, the album is posted on line HERE.

Enjoy! When you view the pictures if you click on the "i" on the top of the page you can see the caption with the picture or download the high resolution original file.There are some videos there, as well.

~Pam

Make a T-shirt Better

2011-04-20T22:47:00.003-04:00

Ok, why is it that when you get a free t-shirt, it is so boxy? Seriously. When we ordered our Nissan Leaf from Fontana Nissan, they sent us a bunch of goodies, these t-shirts included. We got 2 medium shirts, and this is what they look like:

Don't mind the leftovers from my dinner in the foreground.... Anyways, I decided to make MY t-shirt better, fit a little better. This ended up taking me about 1.5 hours...not too shabby, seeing as how I didn't really know what I was doing.

First, I folded the shirt in half and cut off the sleeves. Now, I realize that the shirt should have been inside out, but...don't make my mistake! Turn it inside out, first! Then cut off the sleeves. Set these aside. You'll need them later.

Next, I laid a nice fitting t-shirt over top of it, folded in half, the folds lining up. I cut away the excess shirt, leaving about a 1/4 inch for a seam allowance.

I curved the sleeves by folding back the top t-shirt sleeve to give me a line to follow with the white shirt.

Then, I sewed up the hem on the bottom, and up the sides, making sure NOT to sew up the sleeve holes. I tried it on to make sure I liked how it fit. Looking good!

Now to make the sleeves...Using the black t-shirt as a template, I took the cut off sleeves, and cut them into the same shape as the black t-shirt sleeves. I kept the bottom hem of the sleeve so that I would have less sewing. Notice that the sleeve is kind of a triangular shape, not rectangular.

Ok, to sew the sleeve on, make sure your shirt is inside out, then turn the sleeve right side out and slide into the sleeve hole. This sounds weird, but I promise it works! Sew all around the sleeves, press all the seams, and try on your finished shirt.

Sorry that the pictures are so bad, but I think you get the idea. I'll maybe have Matt take some pics of me later, and I'll replace them. But, now, I have a fitted t-shirt that I might actually wear! :)

Thanks for reading! I am thinking that I'm going to be changing a bunch more t-shirts into wearable shirts in the future. This was so easy!

~Pam

And, I guess I'm linking up to some parties :)

Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts

Duct Tape Beach Bag

2011-04-18T13:32:00.001-04:00

Ok, two posts, right on top of each other. I know. It must be because I'm finally on a normal schedule, or something.

Don't forget to add your Dadisms to the last post {all of you who read this and knew my dad :}

Well, I was browsing Totally Tutorials when I saw an idea for a bag made using Duct tape. Did you know that duct tape comes in a variety of colors, and even prints? Who knew. It is actually called "Duck Tape" but that drives me crazy, so I refuse to call it that ;)

Well, here's how I made this bag my own. I had to change up a little bit from the tutorial. I didn't have the clear plastic she used, and didn't feel like going out and buying some. So...I used a plastic bag from Nordstrom Rack.

I liked the shape of it, and thought it made a good starting off place:

I cut the bag open and laid it flat.

I started laying down the tape. I taped the printed side, so the inside will be plain black.

I actually ran out of tape (Yikes! that roll was $3.89, and I used the whole thing! Oh, well, it is still cheap, and I ended up with a pretty cool bag :) So I had to trim the side.

I don't have pictures of the next steps, since I needed both hands to form the bag. But, I followed Braids and Brown Boots instructions for forming the bag. I had to use the turquoise tape to seal up the sides, and form some handles. This is my almost finished bag:

I didn't like how the handles turned out. I basically wrapped the handles that were there in tape, but since the bag was no longer square, the handles didn't line up. So, I cut some strips of cardboard, wrapped them in tape, and attached the handles. Much better!

I'm thinking of adding flowers to the bag, kind of like Braids and Brown Boots did here.

Oh, and I didn't add pockets to the inside yet. I'm not sure I need them, since I'm planning on having this be a beach bag.

Moral of the story? With just a few dollars, you can make your own cute Damask bag, great for the beach, or groceries, or whatever. I would make sure those handles are on there good, though. Oh, and the duct tape comes in other patterns and colors, like zebra print. So....GO WILD!

~Pam

Dadisms

2011-04-17T23:41:00.000-04:00

First of all, I'd like to thank all of you who commented on my last post about my father. Here are some of the great stories you all shared:

Lani-
Does this ring a bell for anyone?

1) "Get my pocketknife. I'll fix it for you."
2) "It looks like you combed your hair with a shower shoe."
3) "If those long-eared boys come around here, I'll get my shotgun."

My question was always, what does "long-eared boy" mean? And where are the boys? Where? I never saw any. But then again, maybe when they showed up, he ran them off. Yeah, maybe I'll rewrite my high school years to include hordes of boys showing up at the house and being run off by my dad!!!!

Jill-

one day, we were down by the river there in idaho falls. dad had taken that geology class at i.s.u. so i asked him what kind of rocks were there...he picked one up, looked at it...turned it over and said...(are you ready for this....)river rocks...

how about when dad and i went to broulims and he got "greatest moments in sports history" and we told mom it was between that and "Anne of green gables?" i don't think mom EVER forgave him for that...nor did she ever find it funny when we would laugh about it...

or...christmas one...when we begged and begged to be able to draw names....dad said we had to keep it a secret....we were living in calf. at the time...got on the stairs..."peggy, who do you have?" "i have dad...who do you have?" "I HAVE DAD!" "Lani...who do YOU have?" "I have dad...who do you have?"
dad is downstairs just laughing....thinking he is so funny...actually, it kinda was.

Gwen Marie-

Favorite memory? Let's see... Driving all the way to Klamath Falls to get my "stuff" that had been sitting in storage for a very long time (about 2 years I think) we had some interesting conversations along the long long way.... First time we really seemed to relate as adults.

Trying to learn to drive a stick and Dad took me out for a spin in the rabbit. We got to a stop sign and the car started bucking. Instead of yelling at me, telling me what to do, he just calmly told me to figure it out myself... and let me! He knew I needed to learn from my experience, not from someone telling me what to do. I love love love driving a standard vehicle to this day.

OR how bout when Aunt Jo and Robert came to visit, it was the middle of winter, and we took Robert outside to see "stars up a coat sleeve". Dad was soooooooooo funny!

I miss you, Dad!

Beth-

I've been trying to come up with just one favorite memory of Dad and it has been pretty tough. I guess that I will always treasure the times that Dad and I, and sometimes Matt, would float the river from Annis to Hancocks after school. I particularly remember one time that it started raining on us. We couldn't get off that river quick enough. And I'm not sure if it was the same time, but I got skunked all the trip and could not catch one fish. But then we pulled into one last sandbar, and I plopped my line in and pulled out a nice german brown. That was pretty awesome.
I like to recall the times when Dad would call just to talk about what was going by on the tracks. And wouldn't you know, we'd be talking for about an hour and that same train would be going by my windows. I miss being able to call him when something cool is driving by.
I loved the Sunday drives to nowhere in particular...or to see the world. I think I get my spontaneity from him, or maybe just my wanderlust.

Penny-

hmm....there are so many,....lone pines....you might learn something....an old trick i learned from the indians.... :P my favorite memory of dad, however, is when us kids (penny pam matt beth (?) and kate) were watching bay watch, and dad told us everything that was going to happen, "guy sees girl in water, guy runs down to edge of water, guy takes off shoes and watch," etc. we were so amazed! how did he know what would happen?!? he just shrugged and said "well I don't know. I just do" come to find out he'd see the whole scene on oprah while we kids were at school. He sure was amazing! I miss him so much

ooh ooh, or what about the time he told us on christmas eve that for the first time ever we could open ONE present and after we got so excited trying to decide which one we would open up he convinced us to open uncle johnny's present. now, actually, it was a pretty cool gift (a grill for the campfire) but that's not the unfair part. Dad had opened it up already when he got it in the mail....so he knew what it was....that's so cheating!!!

Pam-
One time, Dad and I went bird hunting with Mr. Dean, our Principal/Superintendent. I don't think we were very successful, but we had a good time. At one point, Mr. Dean decided to show his birding expertise. We were looking at some small birds, which had landed in a group of rocks. Mr. Dean informed us that those were "rock wrens." With a completely straight face. Dad and I looked at each other, but didn't say anything. After we parted, we had a good laugh. Rock wrens? Seriously? I mean, if they had landed in a tree, would they have been "tree wrens"? After that, whenever we saw an unknown small bird on a rock, it was a rock wren. Or if it was in a tree, a tree wren. Or on a bush, a bush wren. No one else thinks that's funny, but to this day, when I see a small bird, I call it a _____ wren.

Kate-

one of my favorite memories is from my freshman year of highschool. it was a beautiful sunday afternoon, and dad and mom were driving me to get my patriarchal blessing.
when we got there, the patriarch asked if both dad and mom could say a prayer before we began. this was the first time i ever heard dad pray. it was the sweetest prayer, and when he was done, his eyes were misted with tears. i remember feeling so loved by dad.
i will never forget that day.

Tandy Gilbert-

One time I was staying the night at your house and there was something cool going on with the moon, (can't remember exactly what it was). But we all ran out to see it and while I was running outside, something hit me. I saw your Dad laughing and realized he through something at me. It was dark so I couldn't tell what it was. The next morning when I was leaving, I looked down and saw a gofer head. I looked up at the front porch and your Dad was standing there laughing at me. It was so gross!!

Your Dad had a great sense of humor! What a great guy!!

Thank you for everyone who shared stories. If anyone has anything to add, or another story to share, leave a comment, and I'll update this {hint, hint!}

Ok, so, as I was on a hike the other day, for some odd reason I had weird thought. I wondered if there were any "slow elk" around. Slow elk? Well, that was what my dad called plain, old domesticated cows. When I was little, he would get me every time with that. He'd say, "Oh, there's some slow elk up there on the hillside..." And I would fall for it, looking for the elk. My dad sure did have a whole lot of words and phrases for things. I call them "Dadisms": little words and phrases for things that were all his own. I want to make a list of all the ones I can remember, but I need your help, once again. I'm going to get us started. Let's see:

Slow Elk: Domesticated cows
Tree Bass: What you catch with your fly rod when you're too close to the trees on the bank
Gamboling and Cavorting: What deer do all day, as in "those deer are gamboling and cavorting up the hillside."
Potlicker: A dog that is basically up to no good, or can't do anything right (I hope that's not offensive to anyone)
Church Key: Bottle opener
Big (long)-eared boys: Any boy close in age to one of his daughters
Diet Pill- Fat Boy Ice Cream Sandwich
Boy Scout Juice-Gasoline. Helps boy scouts start fires.

I know there are tons more. Help me out! What Dadisms do you remember?

~Pam

New Purse

2011-04-16T23:11:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I have to say that this was one of the toughest weeks for me. Matt was working the night shift, from 11pm to 7am, and I switched my sleep schedule to stay with him. It was so much easier 8 years ago when I was in prototype and had to work rotating shift work. Maybe it was because I was kept busy....there's not much on tv at 3 am, let me tell you! So, anyways, now that the week is over, I'm a bit relieved. We're switching back to days (Matt goes to work on Monday) and it will be nice to sleep when the sun is down and wake when it comes up :) So, with all my free time, you would think I would have been really creative and got tons of projects done. Well, not really. I was really just too tired to do much of anything for practically the whole week. Until Thursday/Friday, that is. I decided to use up some of my scraps and make myself a new purse. The one I've been using was the first one I made, and I've gotten a bit better at making them. So the quality of the stitching is a little bit higher. I used the same tutorial as last time, from Flamingo Toes. So super easy! And, here's the finished project:

Here's the front. I used a green scrap to break up the black floral pattern.

The back.

And the inside.

And I was going to leave it at that, but I decided that I needed something more on the back. So, I searched the web for a flower tutorial, and decided on this one from Sew Ritzy~Titzy. I think it turned out quite nicely!

AND, I got rid of some of my scraps :) Always a good thing! BTW, the black fabric is t-shirt fabric left over from my t-shirt dress. And, the floral fabric is what I used to make Mom's Christmas present. The green is left over from my VERY first purse that I made. Remember that? :)

Ok, well, it is 8pm, and tomorrow it is our plan to go to the Long Beach Grand Prix. My future niece-in-law Sam has tickets that she can't use, and we're more than happy to take them off her hands. Last year we happened to be in Long Beach a couple days before the race, and we drove the race path for a ways. Didn't think we'd be going to see the race just one year later, that's for sure. Thanks, Sam!!

~Pam

Inspired

2011-04-10T02:22:00.000-04:00

Ok, so, of course, I was blog hopping the other day. I mean, what else do I have to do? Right? Just kidding. But, I was checking one of my favorite sites, One Pretty Thing, and I saw a project by a girl named Natalie, and I thought, "I can do that!" {Watch her video. She tells exactly how she made the dress, and that's pretty much what I did as well :}

So, anyways, I went to the thrift store, picked up three t-shirts from the men's section, just to make sure they would be big enough. I picked out shirts that were on sale, so I spent a little over $2 for all three.

Like Natalie, I got one black, one orange, and one red. I turned all the shirts inside out, since there was some writing on the fronts.

Next, I cut the sleeves off the black shirt, and sliced off the arms.

I cut it into various sized strips. I also did this with the orange and red shirts.

Then, I laid them out, in a semi-random pattern, mixing color and size of strips.

I also cut up the side of each strip on both sides to make two strips.

Finally, I was ready to start sewing. Just a straight stitch to attach the pieces together. Since the top piece (with the neck hole) is together, it gave me a good top piece. I sewed a front strip and then a back strip, that way the color/size strips would match up when I sewed together.

It was a LOT of sewing!

Once it was all sewed together, and it was as long as I wanted it, I had to press all those seams. I didn't count them, but that's a WHOLE lot of seams! Whew!

Next, I laid it out and folded in half. This was tricky, because I needed four layers to line up. Once it was nearly lined up perfectly, I laid a tank top on top and used it to trace the outline I wanted. I wish I would have given myself a larger seam allowance--I always underestimate. I thought I was giving a 1/4 inch, but it was probably more like 1/8, so the dress ended up a little tight.

The fun part was cutting away the extra fabric.

Now, it was just a matter of sewing a straight stitch up the sides...after I had to use my seam ripper to undo the seam I had accidentally sewn on the arm hole....don't sew up the arm hole! Just sew the sides!

I decided that I liked the length of the dress, and I didn't need the extra flair that Natalie's dress had, so I just hemmed the bottom, as well as the neck/back and straps. Finally, I put the dress on:

Add some heels, and viola'! A cute dress, made out of old t-shirts. Who would have thought? :)
I must say, that's the most sewing I've done at one time. By the time I got through those seams, my back was sore, and my eyes were strained. I think I sewed pretty much continuously from 3 pm to 8 pm, with a short dinner break. Oh, and a break for when I was pressing those seams, but that's a whole different kind of torture, you know what I mean? :)

Well, as I'm writing this, it is after 11pm on Saturday night. Matt has to work the AM shift (11pm to 7am) starting tomorrow night, and so we're trying to rearrange our sleep schedule. I'm trying to stay up as late as humanly possible, but my body is already telling me that it is time to go to bed. So... wish me luck! I'll need it :) Maybe I'll get inspired again and start a new project tonight...hmm...we'll see!

~Pam

Second Attempt

2011-04-05T22:05:00.000-04:00

Ok, so remember yesterday, when I said I bought two sweaters with the intention of turning them into sweater dresses? Well, I would have to say that my first attempt turned out OK, but my second attempt turned out fabulous! I'm so excited. The first one isn't that comfortable. I made it too form-fitting. This one, today... well, there's a bit more wiggle room. I started out with an XL sweater that I picked up at the thrift store. It still had the tags on it, so, score! Never been worn! :)

See how baggy it is? Yep, that's what an XL will do for you. But I got it b/c I knew it was going to be long enough, and it was so soft!

Well, this is the finished product!

I went a little different on the sleeves, because I had a hard time with them yesterday, so I basically just cut these ones off. I kind of like them. I think they are called "cap sleeves." Or something...

And, here's what happens to your floor when you decide to cut up a sweater. Sweater fuzz all over the place!!!

OK, so I was reading another blog and there were these adorable origami bunnies, and I just had to make one. Or two. Or three. Well, as you can see, these little guys multiply just about the same as the live ones! :P

Well, what do you think? Like my sweater? Seriously, if I can do it, anyone can! It's just a matter of not being afraid to cut up the sweater. I mean, I spent a grand total of $6 on this sweater. So if I mess it up, who cares, right? One thing I didn't mention yesterday and I'll mention today is finishing off the seams. I'm a little afraid that the seams are going to come unraveled over time. I would HATE to have my dress fall apart, especially if I'm wearing it at the time. So...I came up with an ingenious idea. I'm going to take yarn, in approximately the same color as the sweater, and run a ....blanket stitch?...is that what it is called?....Anyways, I'm going to basically wrap the seam in yarn. That way it should hold up a little better. Unfortunately, I have every color of yarn imaginable except gray, so I'm going to have to get some tomorrow to finish this latest sweater's seams. :) I'm in the process of working on the first sweater's seams. I have about 50% done. It is pretty tedious, so I took a break and whipped up this sweater-dress instead!

~Pam

Two for Two

2011-04-04T17:50:00.000-04:00

Ok, I don't really know what has gotten into me. I guess I've been feeling a little creative or something. But, today I want to share a project that I started and finished today. Once again, I was browsing Totally Tutorials and saw this awesome sweater dress tutorial. I wanted to try it, and Matt and I stopped by the thrift store this morning. I bought two sweaters, and I spent a few hours transforming the first one from this:

Seriously? This was a SMALL sweater, too! It cracked me up reading the tag: 50% wool, 20% Mohair, 10% Acrylic, 10% Nylon. I don't think I've ever owned a piece of clothing with such a mixture... But, how ugly is the sweater? It's so baggy, it just hangs. I can't believe it is a small...what, for a small giant? ;)

Anyways, after a few hours, and some painstaking sewing, I came up with....

This:

I mean, seriously. can you believe I made this? I'm amazed. I need some leggings, though. I have tights on, but I feel kind of naked :)

I got this sweater for $2.50, and used some thread that I already had. So...total cost was $2.50! :) Incredible!

Well, thanks for reading, and check back tomorrow. I'm hoping to work on the second sweater and make a beautiful dress out of it as well!

~Pam

Latest sewing project

2011-04-04T00:42:00.000-04:00

Ok, so, I was reading a new blog I found called Totally Tutorials, and got this great idea for turning a pair of pants into a skirt. Today, I decided to try it. The girl on the post used a pair of her husband's jeans, but I had a pair of capris that I thought might work out.

Beth, do these look familiar? :) Yep, these are a pair of pants I got from my sister. I followed the directions from the blog, and viola'! A skirt!

And, here's what it looks like on:

Sorry that the pictures aren't the greatest, but my husband is at work, so I had to take them myself. In all, I think this project took me 2 hours, start to finish. I'm really happy with it. It makes me think of many more possibilities for making new clothes from old. Matt has a pair of slacks that I might turn into a skirt....maybe a little shorter :)

What do you guys think?

~Pam

I've been thinking...

2011-03-17T00:21:00.000-04:00

...about my father a lot lately. It's probably just the time of year, but I just keep thinking of all the fun memories I have of him. So, this post goes out to all my family members, and friends, who have memories of my dad. What is your favorite memory? And, it can't be something you heard, it has to actually be a memory of your own. Ok, I'm going to start:

One time, Dad and I went bird hunting with Mr. Dean, our Principal/Superintendent. I don't think we were very successful, but we had a good time. At one point, Mr. Dean decided to show his birding expertise. We were looking at some small birds, which had landed in a group of rocks. Mr. Dean informed us that those were "rock wrens." With a completely straight face. Dad and I looked at each other, but didn't say anything. After we parted, we had a good laugh. Rock wrens? Seriously? I mean, if they had landed in a tree, would they have been "tree wrens"? After that, whenever we saw an unknown small bird on a rock, it was a rock wren. Or if it was in a tree, a tree wren. Or on a bush, a bush wren. No one else thinks that's funny, but to this day, when I see a small bird, I call it a _____ wren.

Ok, your turn. Tell me your favorite memory. :)

Love,
Pam

Belize, Part 6 {Snorkeling!}

2011-02-05T00:38:00.000-05:00

Ok, so anyone who knows me well knows that I'm more than a little scared of swimming in the ocean. I can usually do it for a little bit, and then I get freaked out by the thought of fish and {gulp} sharks swimming in the water with me where I can't see them. So, it was with much trepidation that I told Matt I would go snorkeling with him when we went to Belize. It was stormy our first 5 days there, so I had plenty of time to get used to the idea. By the time Sunday came, the water was so calm, and I was a little excited to go. I mean, what the heck! When was I going to get a chance to go snorkeling off the world's second largest barrier reef (second only to the Great Barrier Reef off Australia's coast)? This was a time for me to do things I never thought I could/would do in my life. So...I gave it a shot. We decided that even though the water was around 86 degrees, it would be a good idea to wear wetsuits. So, we got fitted the afternoon before, and the morning of the swim was beautiful! I can't even describe in words what it was like. I mean, it was like looking on another world. Like we were at an aquarium looking down at all the fish. I don't know...it was incredible. The water was so clear! And there were so many different types of fish! We went to two different sites; the first was on the bay side of the reef, the second on the ocean side. They were both awesome, but I have to admit that once I got the courage up to get into the water again that second time, it almost took my breath away. We really put the underwater camera to good use, and here's a sampling of our pictures:

Waiting on the dock for the boat. Isn't the water so calm? It was so clear, and we could see all the fish that hung out near the pier. :) Look at me, so responsible. Wearing a hat to shade my head!

Oh, yeah, I forgot about the dolphins that swam right up to the boat on the way to our first site. I've never been so close to dolphins, before!

That was the end of our first "dive". Then we headed out to the ocean side for a second swim.

:) Matt and I finally got a decent picture of us snorkeling together. It is much more difficult than you would imagine. This is the best we could do! :)

Ok, look closely, and you'll see the nurse shark down there....yeah, I went snorkeling, and saw a shark. I'm glad it wasn't swimming around...not sure what I would have done...

There were so many fish, they were everywhere we looked!

And, also, more kinds of coral than I could ever identify.

There were schools of really huge fish that we were swimming with, as well!

This was an awesome Eagle Ray that we saw. We swam with it for quite a while.

There's me, climbing into the boat. Whew! What an experience!

After that trip, we were so exhausted. We got back, ate lunch, relaxed all afternoon, ate dinner, and went straight to sleep. We even took the whole next day off, relaxing in the sun and the room all day. It was nice to have that option, kind of to totally unwind after so much activity the days before.

Well, who would have thought it. Pam went snorkeling. And liked it!

:)

~Pam

Belize, Part 5 {Mayflower Hike}

2011-01-31T20:01:00.000-05:00

Ok, so this video is on our hike through the Mayflower Preserve, up to the waterfall. Obviously the video was taken near the beginning of the hike, because there are no sweat stains under my arms yet. That was a tough hike! Also, since we were hiking with two young people (such as ourselves) we were kind of competing with them :) So we went REALLY quickly up the mountain. And it was rough! But, at the top of the hike was the best reward: a waterfall and clear, cool water that we could swim in.

We also got to try out the underwater features of the little camera we brought with us... a preview for our snorkeling the next day. Boy! That water was cold! In Belize, they call it "refreshing." Matt said it was probably about 70 degrees, but it might as well have been ice water :) But, it sure did feel good after that hike, for a little while, at least. And it was so clear!

Anyways, after that hike we were pretty exhausted, as you can imagine. We went back and had dinner, and slept really well. We made pretty good friends with our tour-mates: Chase and Allie. They also ended up on the snorkeling trip with us the next day. Good times!

You can tell how tired I was, huh! :P

~Pam

Belize, Mayan Ruins, Part 2

2011-01-31T18:53:00.001-05:00

Ok, so I know I've been keeping ya'll in suspense and you all are dying to know about the second Mayan site we visited. So, I'm finally back to show you some pictures of the site. Also, I'm planning on going back into the bird watching blog and updating with some cool pictures Matt took of some of the birds :) So, make sure to go back and look at that!

Our second Mayan site we saw that day was Xunantunich. This is a much larger site, located next to the border of Belize and Honduras. It is not as old as Cahal Pech, but has been excavated more fully.

Here's me, with the large tomb behind me.

And, here it is, a little closer.

View from the top.

Me and Matt, with Honduras in the background.

Matt, at the top, taking pictures.

Some nice people at the top took pictures of us :)

And, another one.

Matt and I tried out some settings on the camera to take some pictures of ourselves. Turned out all right :) This is down at the bottom again, in one of the plazas.

Well, eventually Matt will process his pictures of the Mayan tour, and I'll post them. But, you at least get to see a bit of what we saw. :)

~Pam

Belize, Part 4: Mayan Ruins

2011-01-21T18:31:00.000-05:00

Ok, here's a short post on our Mayan Ruins trip. I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I'll show you what I have. We went to two Mayan sites: Cahal Pech and Xunantunich. They are pretty close to each other, near the Guatemala border. After a 3 or 3 1/2 hour van ride, we arrived at Cahal Pech.

Here's me, getting ready to go.

Oh, did I mention there was a jacuzzi on our deck.

Ahhh! Pictures of us together :)

This is at the resort, looking at one of the buildings.

Ok, ok, here it is. Cahal Pech. This is in the central plaza.

Yep, we're going to climb those steps :)

ANOTHER picture of us together. Unheard of!

Matt, standing in front of the temple.

Here's one of the bedrooms.

Stairs going down from the top of the temple.

Hey! Stop so I can take your picture!

Here's the timeline for Cahal Pech, found in the visitor's center.

And the last two pictures are for my mother, who loves pictures of flowers :)

Ok, so maybe this is just grass, but it is crazy grass! Look at how it twists!

Well, Matt is home from work, and I should let him take over the computer. Maybe he'll process some of his pictures so we can post them (hint, hint!)

I'll tell you more about the second site, Xunantunich later.

~Pam

Belize, Part 3 {Updated wtih Pictures}

2011-01-21T17:55:00.046-05:00

Ok, so Thursday was our birding day. As I said, Matt took all the good pictures. I didn't even pull out the camera to take a picture of a bird. I was just enjoying finding all the birds in my new binoculars that Matt got me before we left. They are AWESOME! I'm so excited to put them to use here in CA...Anyways, we went birding. THis is something I've never really done before. We basically drove around and looked for birds. Here's a list of the 38 birds or so that we saw that day:
Great-tailed Grackle

Pale-Vented Pigeon
Bat Falcon
Boat-billed Flycatcher
Fork-tailed Flycatcher

1. Great Kiskadee
2. Social Flycatcher
3. Tropical Kingbird
{I get those 3 confused, and can't really tell the difference, so these next pictures could be any of the 3...}

Vermilion Flycatcher

Roadside Hawk

Black Vulture

Turkey Vulture
Red-legged Honey Creeper
Summer Tanager

Masked Tityra
Brown Jay

Gray Catbird
Tropical Mockingbird
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Altamira Oriole
Baltimore Oriole
Orchard Oriole
Olive-throated Parakeet

Red Lored Parrot
Cattle Egret
Great Egret
Little Blue Heron
Blue Grosbeak
Blue-black Grassquit
Blue Seedeater
Indigo Bunting
Variable Seedeater
White-collared Seedeater

Keel-billed Toucan

Black-headed Trogan

On other days, throughout the visit, we also saw:
Smooth Billed Ani
Plain Chachalaca
Ruddy Ground Dove
Green Kingfisher
Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture
Red-throated Ant Tanager

White-collared Manakin
Blue-crowned Mot Mot

Rufous-tailed Jacomar

Hooded Warbler
Wood Thrush

And, the mystery bird. Matt and I both don't remember what this was...but it's kind of pretty!

Amazing!

Look closely at this picture: you'll see the green iguana in the tree. He liked sitting up there; the next time we drove by a few days later, he was still there! He has a spiny back, but is not a spiny-tailed iguana. The young of this iguana are vibrantly green, which is where they get their name.

Matt and I, on our birding trip. I told you I didn't take any pictures of birds...I was too busy looking for them!

We stopped for breakfast at Maya Center. Our guide was kind enough to take a picture of us :)

Here we are, posing with the plant called "Hot Lips." Can you tell why they call them that?

Ok, after our birding trip, we decided to walk down the beach. It was stormy, hence the jackets. And the storm had washed up all sorts of junk onto the shore. Here's a coconut.

And the inside of a coconut.

Here's a croc! Ahhh!

A lot of garbage washes up....

We headed back to relax in the hammock. Yes, we both fit.

See!

:) That was a fun, relaxing day. Not too strenuous. I've decided that I like looking at birds with someone who knows what kind they all are. But, I also just like looking at birds. Especially with a good pair of binoculars. I promise to light a fire under Matt and get him to post some pictures of those birds.

We went to bed that night, anticipating the next day. Mayan Ruins!!!

~Pam

Belize, Part 2

2011-01-21T14:12:00.000-05:00

All right, I took a short break, did some gardening (you would think that 10 days gone wouldn't be enough time for our flower beds to become overrun, but it is...) and made some phone calls. Now, back to the story...

Where I left off was Wednesday morning. Matt and I woke up and had a delicious buffet breakfast, went down to the beach to relax, and got ready to go on the Caves and Jungle Tour. This tour was to the St. Herman's Cave and Blue Hole. St. Herman's cave was used anciently by the Mayans as a ceremonial place. They believed it was an entrance to the underworld, and they would bring their pottery to smash inside. Pottery held spirits, and they would release the spirits to the underworld...
We rode in a van with a family with two young girls. I was kind of skeptical on how the girls would behave, but I was most impressed. The family ended up being from Concord, NC, where my sister and niece live...small world. Anyways, we hiked into and through St. Herman's Cave, and then through the jungle back to the van. We drove a short way to the Blue Hole, and had lunch and the others had a quick swim. Here are some pictures. Again, Matt took some more with his big camera, and I'll be sure to post them when he processes them. :)

Here's where the hike through the jungle to the cave begins.

They have to mow the path about every 6 weeks in the "dry" season.

Me :)

The entrance to the cave is through that brush.

Walking down to the cave entrance. It was slippery!

Now, we're down inside looking back at the beginning.

Our guide, Golden.

We had to climb up using a rope at one point. The girls were champs and did awesome.

Me, again.

I had to climb through the rocks.

Matt, very excited about having his picture taken.

Our "Sweetheart" shot.

Stalactites.

Broken pottery from the Mayans.

The end of the cave!

Me, standing next to a "Real" Bird of Paradise. Our guide told us the American version isn't the original. This is.

A summer tanager, a migrant down for the winter. Like us!

In front of the Blue hole...look closely, you'll see the crystal blue water. Matt has better pictures.

Ok, so after our Cave and Jungle tour, we went back to the hotel and waited until 7 for dinner. Big mistake...we had to make reservations every morning for dinner, but we didn't account for how starving we would be when 6 o'clock rolled around. We learned our lesson and reserved for 6 every night after that. Anyways, we got our suitcases before dinner and were able to freshen up a bit. It has never felt so good to put on a change of clothes.

This is when we were waiting for dinner, enjoying the breeziness outside by the Caribbean Sea.

Checking off the birds we saw on our tour from the bird list. We actually saw some pretty rare ones :) Matt has pictures of them, hopefully.

We went down to the end of the pier and relaxed in the hammock.It felt so nice!

And our luggage came before dinner! Yeah! We got to change and look all nice and pretty for dinner :)

Mmmmm...This was so good. I don't even remember what it was. I think this was Matt's main course. We shared all the food, of course :)

Yeah, totally content, waiting for dessert. See the spoon and fork in front of me? Dessert spoon and fork. We had to learn quickly which utensils to use...they removed the appropriate ones at the end of each course, and if we weren't careful, we wouldn't have enough silverware at the end to eat dessert! :)

Our bed, after the turn-down service. They were so nice, every night while we were at dinner, the maids would come and turn down the bed for us, spread the mosquito netting, and turn back the covers. :)

Ok, that takes us to the end of Wednesday. Thursday we went tropical birding (most of the pictures of that are Matt's and need to be processed), and Friday we saw the Mayan ruins. I'll definitely have to blog about that :)

~Pam

Belize, Part 1

2011-01-21T10:21:00.000-05:00

Ok, we've been home for about exactly 1 full day, and I guess everyone is curious about our trip. I think I could probably go on forever about Belize. I'm in love with that country (at least at this time of year: the weather was perfect!). Let me tell you a little bit about the place we stayed. The resort is called Hamanasi (pronounced Haw-man-aw-see), and is located in the District of Stann Creek (there are six Districts in Belize, kind of like our states) outside the village of Hopkins and close to the village of Sittee River. It's pretty isolated: to get there we had to fly to Belize City, take a small plane (tiny) to Dangriga, and then a 45 minute car ride to the resort. The people who live in the area are diverse: descendants of ancient Mayans and other tribes, as well as Afro-Caribbean people descended from escaped slaves. The main language spoken is English, but you'll also hear Caribbean Creole', as well as three different Mayan languages and sometimes Spanish as well. The countryside is covered with orange trees. The harvest season runs from October to June, and so the fields were being hand-picked while we were there. Working in the citrus industry is a really difficult, back-breaking job. These guys work to fill up fertilizer bags (huge bags) of oranges and get about 35 cents US for each one they fill. Most of the oranges get made into juice or concentrate. I was told that the majority of the people working in the citrus industry come from Guatemala. Even at such low wages, they make more in Belize than they could at home.
The people in Belize are poor...but that doesn't mean they live great lives. In fact, one of the guides at the resort told me that even though the annual salary for the average Belizian in his area is around $200-$300 US, no one goes hungry. The jungle is abounding in food, and the money they make goes to paying for things they can't hunt or gather. So, everyone seems to do pretty well. I mean, they're surviving. They definitely don't have all the STUFF we have, but most of them have cell phones. (Think about it. It is much easier to put up a cell phone tower to service thousands of customers than to string telephone wire to thousands of homes. It makes sense :)

Ok, well, enough of that. I'll tell you about our first day, and show you some pictures. We had a bit of an adventure on our way to Belize. This was last Monday night, and storms were raging across the East and North East. We thought for sure we would avoid any travel delays, though. We had a direct flight from LAX to Miami. Surely southern Florida would escape the bad weather, right? Well, we made it as far as the Gulf of Mexico, when our captain informed us we would turn around and land in Dallas/Fort Worth, to take on more fuel. Something about fog in Miami, or something. No worries, though, the fog would clear once the sun came up. Well, we took off, headed for Miami again, and when we got there, we were put in a holding pattern because there was a ground-stop at Miami. The fog was so thick I think the visibility on the ground was 3 feet. So, we headed to Tampa, landed, took on more fuel, and this time got to leave the plane for breakfast. By this time, we had already missed the flight to Belize from Miami, but all flights had been canceled anyway. After a couple hours, they got us back on board, and the fog had lifted enough at Miami that we were able to take off and land no problem. Well, once in Miami, Matt worked his magic and got us on the last flight to Belize City. Whew! We had a little while, so we relaxed. By this time, it was around noon or so CA time Tuesday, and I had been up since Monday morning. I was getting tired! We took the flight to Belize City, and had to clear customs. Only, our bags did not arrive in Belize City when we did! So, clearing customs was pretty simple. We managed to get on the last Maya Island Air flight to Dangriga of the evening and after a short wait, took a 17 minute flight in a ridiculously tiny airplane. Thank goodness for motion sickness pills! That flight was a little bumpy. In Dangriga, the guy from the resort was waiting to pick us up, and he drove us to the resort. I felt so dirty and was STARVING by this point, but they gave us a tour and showed us our room and dinner was still being served. We signed up for a Caves and Jungle tour the next day, and sat down to a gourmet dinner. Three courses. Soup or Salad, then the main course, and then, my favorite-Dessert. I don't even remember what we ate that night, but it was sure good!

Of course, we went back to the room and fell asleep quickly, but we were up at first light with the birds. What we couldn't see the night before because it was dark was that we were basically in the jungle. The birds were calling and the sun was rising so beautifully! It was amazing!

Ok, so here are some pictures....

Me and Matt starting our journey, so fresh looking still! This is at LAX before our flight :)

I think this is part of the FL Keys, but it was definitely on our way to Belize.

Through the cockpit window of the tiny plane we flew to Dangriga.

My first dinner at Hamanasi. I was so hungry, I probably didn't even taste the meal...Look how tired I look!

Matt, enjoying his dinner as well.

Sunrise, from our balcony. The sky was so beautiful!

The path to our tree house.

The Hamanasi pier. We got to sit and enjoy the sea breeze.

Me, waiting to go on our first tour, wearing the change of clothes I fortuitously packed in my carry-on.

So beautiful!

Ok, well, that's about all. I've caught you up to Wednesday morning, before we took our first tour: the Caves and Jungle tour. The next post will continue from there. Any questions? :)

~Pam

Arduino Wireless Garage Door Opener

2010-12-25T19:48:00.000-05:00

First off contain yourself, that is right Matt Emerson is posting a blog page... Doesn't happen often but I wanted to put this information out there to help anyone else who is trying to do something similar.

If you are interested in programming hardware check out Arduino

The entire idea behind this project was to have my garage door open wirelessly. So I have a transmitter and a reciever, and when the receiver gets a signal it simulates someone pushing the button by closing a relay, shorting the two wires to operate the garage door. (this garage door is OLD, I am talking REALLLY OLD!!!)

Parts:
$25 - Nordic FOB http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8602
$20 - Nordic nRF24L01 http://www.sparkfun.com/products/705
$15 - RBBB (Ardunio Clone) http://shop.moderndevice.com/products/rbbb-kit
$4 - Sharp S101S02 Solid State Relay http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&productId=164988
$.50 - Misc. Transistor that came with Ardunio kit I bought.
$.20 - Misc. Resistor that came with Ardunio kit I bought.

Random antennae that i had....
----
$65 - Just to prove that I could. Of course the Ardunio is capable of much more then I am using it for so I plan to expand it in the future, temperature, barometric pressure, and more reads... just haven't gotten to it yet.

And now the code:

#include 
#include 
#include 
/* Pins:
 * Hardware SPI:
 * MISO -> 12
 * MOSI -> 11
 * SCK -> 13
 *
 * Configurable:
 * CE -> 9
 * CSN -> 10
 */
 byte data[4]; //set the data to be retreived from wireless module
 byte lastdata; // compare new data to last data
   //I am having a problem where the reciever keeps on reading "new" data in the form of a 'right' button press. but it is not new data, it is simply reading old
   // data over and over again... as evidence by the data[2] bit not changing... this data bit from the FOB is the number of button pushes since battery replacement
   // or at least it changes every button push, but does not change when faulty data is being read. So I store the last bit 2 and compare it to the new one, if 
   // there is no change, toss the data out it is garbage.
 int timer = 0; // set the timer to prevent repeat button presses (bounce)
 int subtimer =0; // ser the subtimer to trigger the real timer (allows for reading of the buffer faster but only responding every so often to the fob presses)


void setup() {                
  pinMode(4, OUTPUT);  // This is the output connected to a transistor, connected to a solid state relay.
pinMode(2, OUTPUT);

  Mirf.csnPin = 10; //set the nordic CSN pin to 10
  Mirf.cePin = 9;   //ser the nordic CE  pin to 9
  Mirf.init();      //initialize the nordic

  byte rx_addr[5] = {0xE7, 0xE7, 0xE7, 0xE7, 0xE7}; 


  Mirf.setRADDR(rx_addr);

  Mirf.configRegister(RF_SETUP, 0x07); //Data rate 1Mbit / 0dBm 
  Mirf.configRegister(EN_AA, 0x00); //Disable auto acknowledge
  Mirf.payload = 4;  //bytes to be read
  Mirf.channel = 2;  // channel used
  Mirf.config();
//  Serial.begin(9600);     //used while developing
//   Serial.println("start"); //used while developing
   Mirf.flushRx();  // start with a clean buffer, I had issues without this occassionally.
}

void loop() {


        Mirf.getData(data);  // get data from the buffer
//        Serial.print(data[0]);  //used while developing
//        Serial.println(" ");
          if (data[2] != lastdata){  // check if the data[2] is the same as last time, if it is do nothing.... bad data
            lastdata = data[2];
              switch (data[0]) {
                    case 0x00:
                    break;
                case 0x1D:
//                    Serial.println(timer); //used while developing up button
                    OpenDoor();
                    break;
                case 0x1E:
//                    Serial.println("DOWN"); //used while developing
                    OpenDoor();
                    break;
                case 0x17:
//                    Serial.println("LEFT"); //used while developing
                    OpenDoor();
                    break;
                case 0x1B:
//                    Serial.println("RIGHT"); //used while developing
                      OpenDoor();
                    break;
                case 0x0F:
                    OpenDoor();
//                    Serial.println("CENTER"); //used while developing
                    break;
                default: 
                    break;            
          }
       }
  delay(5);
  // for ever 40 subtimer clicks, click one timer click
  // yes is is crude, yes it is wierd, yes I could have multiplied it out an done it with on timer
  // but you get a little crazy writing code some times....
  if (subtimer >=40) {
    timer = timer + 1;  
    subtimer = 0;    
  }
  if (timer >= 100){ //don't allow timer to get greater then 100... if it gets too high will turn massivly negative
    timer =100;
  }
  subtimer = subtimer + 1;
  
  // End of LOOP
}

void OpenDoor() {
  if (timer <= 34) { //If timer isn't ready yet, short pulse the LED, to at least let you know signal was recieved
      digitalWrite(2, HIGH); // This is used to light an LED on pin2 to make sure board is working 
      delay(100);
      timer = timer + 1;
      digitalWrite(2, LOW);    // This is used to light an LED on pin2 to make sure board is working 
  }
  if (timer >= 35) {  //time is ready and this will allow the garage door to operate
          timer = 0; //reset timers to allow for delay before next operation
                     // THIS IS A MUST BECAUSE THE NORDIC FOB HAS KEY BOUNCE!!!
                     // it will send multiple key presses for one physical press
          subtimer = 0;
//          Serial.println("start door");//used while developing
         digitalWrite(2, HIGH); //trigger LED on for long pulse to let you know signal recieved, door should be operating
          digitalWrite(4, HIGH); //trigger the transitor -> the solid state relay to closed (this simulates a button push of the garage door)
          delay(2000);
          digitalWrite(4, LOW); //turn off transistor after 2 second delay.
          digitalWrite(2, LOW); //turn off OPTIONAL LED for evauliting if board is working...
//          Serial.println("stop door");//used while developing
  }
}

Please let me know if you see anything horribly wrong with my code or hardware, I am very much in unknown territory here.

-Matt

It is gearing up....

2010-12-18T12:14:00.000-05:00

to be a busy week for me. I NEED to get Christmas gifts for my students. I've been putting it off, but maybe today after my tutoring session I'll brave the weather (it's raining :) and the Christmas shoppers and get a little something for them all.
This next week will definitely be a busy one for me. I've got one 1.5 hour session and two 2 hour sessions scheduled for Monday; three 2 hour sessions and one 1.5 hour session scheduled for Tuesday; one 30 minute, one 1.5 hour, and one 2 hour session for Wednesday; and one 1.5 hour and one 1 hour session on Thursday. Let's see...that's 19.5 hours in one week! And I might have a couple more hours to schedule, depending on what some of my students' plans are.

Well, I guess I should probably get ready for the day...I have already done my lesson plan for today. We're going to talk about African Elephants, Skateboarding, and the Food Pyramid. :) My student is interested in becoming healthier, so I thought we could talk about nutrition and ways to become more active. He's only in 2nd grade, so I hesitate to say he needs to "get into shape" but he thinks he does. Maybe I can help him shift his thoughts into making healthier eating choices and wanting to become more physically active. He definitely shouldn't be obsessed about the numbers on the scale, but if he could make some small changes now, he could be a healthier adult in the future...at least, that's what I'm thinking.

Well, off to the shower for me. Oh, yeah. AND it has been 4 years since Matt and I got married. In some ways, it seems longer than that. In others, it feels like just yesterday. I remember my wedding day-it was a gorgeous December day in Virginia Beach, with the sun shining and about 60 degree weather. Couldn't have asked for a better day. And the ceremony and reception were perfect. Thanks, Matt, for deciding to spend your life with me. It has been one wild and crazy adventure, and I'm looking forward to the future with hope and anticipation. It is already so good, and I know it will only get better. I can't wait! Love you!!!

~Pam

Oh the Weather Outside is...

2010-12-13T17:05:00.001-05:00

oh, so very nice! :) It is so hard to believe that this is December, and Christmas is right around the corner. Looking at my sister's blog and the pictures of the snow makes me realize how much I'm enjoying the weather here! Matt's new work schedule has him working on Saturdays and having Sunday/Monday off. Except, for the last two Mondays, they've been doing special things at work and he's gone in to do things he wouldn't normally have an opportunity to do. So, Sunday was our weekend this week. We started out by priming some of the trim outside. Sitting up on the roof, just basking in the sunshine and looking up at the clear, blue sky...well, it was a little slice of heaven :) Then, we decided to go for a run down on the beach in Santa Monica. We ended up running from the pier, along the beach by the water, all the way to Muscle Beach in Venice. That was about 2 miles, then we walked back. My feet ended up being really sore. Big surprise, right? Especially since we were running in the sand. It was so nice, though. We had lunch in Brentwood, at a Fish Taco place. Yumm...grilled fish tacos...:)

On our way back, we decided to stop at our friends' the Masciale's house, and they were there! So were Vince's parents and sister, and we had a really nice visit. :) We headed home, and when we got here, it was dark. Jupiter was shining brightly, and I took some advice that I heard on the radio and got out the binoculars. I don't have a great pair, but I think I was able to see some of the Galilean moons of Jupiter. Of course, I was so shaky, it is hard to tell...

Well, that was our weekend. Matt got up early this morning to head to work, and I've been catching up on housework all day. I'm starting to make some headway, though :)

Well, back to it, I guess.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Look who I saw riding the Santa Monica Pier's Roller Coaster:

Santa sure looks like he's having fun! :)

Two for Two

2010-12-11T10:27:00.001-05:00

Ok, so I was going to post about Matt's birthday, and how successful I was at getting him the gifts he wanted, and post pictures of it. Then, I realized that that would be silly, since I only got pictures of him opening up the chocolate before my camera's battery died. So....I guess I will just tell you about his exciting gifts instead.

He really wanted an air compressor, so I got a great deal on a small one :) but what he really wanted was a hammer. Not just any hammer. A nice framing hammer with a nail starter on it. That's a little bit of magnet on the head, so you can lay the nail down, and start the nail without smashing your fingers. He's so in love with that thing. I'm glad I listened to him when he told me what he would like.

Oh, and I also got him a small rock tumbler. We always find cool rocks on our excursions, and the don't look nearly as good when we get them home. So, I thought the tumbler would be cool to polish them up a bit :) He's got some tumbling out in the garage as I write this.

I guess the most exciting news, at least for me, happened when I climbed on the scale this morning. I've been working out nearly consistently for about the past month, and it is FINALLY starting to pay off as far as numbers go. I've been noticing my energy level go up, as well as my clothes starting to fit better again. But, as I'm sure is true with most of us, the numbers on the scale hold a magical sway over me. My weight fluctuates, up a bit, down a bit, but for about a year now it hasn't gone below a certain number...Until this morning, that is!! I'm back, back again! Back to the 120's!!! Whew! I know that my journey is not over, has just begun. I don't want to obsess about my weight. I just want to be healthy, have tons of energy to do the things I want, and feel good about myself. I just think I could do all that and be the number on the scale I want as well, you know? I'm slowly making progress to my goal, which culminates with the trip to Belize in a month.

Wait a minute, a month? Man! I haven't even started getting ready for that! Shoot, better put another thing on my list of stuff to do :)

Well, let me get to it then. Cheerio!!!

~Pam

I'll leave you with this image. On our hike a couple weeks ago, Matt and I stumbled across a truck that seemed to have a bit of trouble. There was a tow line still attached, like they tried to pull it out. It's pretty well hidden, I must say. :) It's really rugged up there, I'm not sure how I would have felt about driving along the top of THAT mountain, and I've ridden across some pretty rugged country in my day!

I love it here

2010-12-10T11:16:00.001-05:00

Ok, I won't lie. I've wanted to live in California since I was little. Ok, maybe more like since I was younger, like 14, when I came here with Marie and her kids. It was so nice and WARM in the summer, and so green! (That was up north near San Jose.) And, then we came down to San Diego to visit Aunt Stormy when I was 16 for Thanksgiving, and I was hooked. Did I ever admit it? No. Of course not. It is a pretty well-known fact how Idahoans are supposed to feel about California. All the Californians coming to Idaho are just ruining the state. There's no public land for you to do anything in California, you know. Everything is just private land, and no one will let you go on their property. They post "No Trespassing" signs everywhere. Right? Isn't that how it is??? Well, regardless, I've always wanted to live here. There must be SOME reason all these people want to live here, isn't there? Well, Matt and I have definitely gotten the opportunity to see some of the reasons why people love living here. And you know what? If you don't want to live here, fine! There's more than enough people, and that just means there's more for me to enjoy :)

Here's some reasons why I love it here:

Look! It's the Hollywood Sign! Matt and I went on a hike (that's right, a hike. On PUBLIC land. No "No Trespassing" signs in sight. They actually let you hike all over the mountains here. There's trails everywhere. And, yes, you have to share with other people. You won't be the only ones on the trail. But, honestly, who cares? My tax dollars are definitely put to good use here!)

Matt, overlooking the city of Los Angeles. Absolutely incredible. There's so many people living down there! :)

Ok, this picture was taken about 10 minutes from our house. We're looking down on the "Valley," the San Fernando Valley, that is. This is the valley where we live. That day, we actually hiked up high enough to see the ocean, which is behind that far ridge of mountains you see in the picture. Those are the Santa Monica Mountains; we are in the San Gabriel Mountains, part of the Angeles National Forest. All PUBLIC land, by the way :)

This is more of that hike. Gorgeous mountains, right outside our back door :)

Ok, if you look really closely, you can se the ocean in this picture. It was a little foggy out on the water, but there's a little patch of it... :) we can actually see the ocean from close by our house! :) Oh, and a spectacular view of the San Fernando Valley, as well. What a gorgeous day, and a gorgeous hike!

Ok, this was a different day, and up the coast a bit, at El Capitan State Beach. We went camping there in July with Matt's family. What, a State Beach? We don't have those in Idaho, that's for sure! The State Beach system in California is awesome! Matt and I are looking forward to riding our bicycles and staying at the campsites on the hiker/biker rate of a few bucks a night :) That will be little bit in the future, tho.

Gorgeous sunsets. I know, I know. We had these in Idaho, but I truly missed them in Virginia. It was hard to see the sunset for all the trees, and the flat land. You could go up on Mount Trashmore, I suppose....

Disneyland! We have Disneyland just about an hour away :) We've only been once, but I'm sure we'll go again. What fun!

And, last but not least, Palm trees. We definitely didn't have these growing up. And I must admit, the first one I ever saw was at a hotel Marie and I stayed at on our epic journey to CA when I was 14...and it scared me! It looked so foreign, and somehow sinister...ok, so it had been a long car ride, in that little Geo Metro with 3 kids, two bigger kids (I won't say adults.. hehehe) and only 4 seatbelts. I rode most of the way in the middle back with no seatbelt so Tansy would be protected...I guess I thought it would be ok for me to go flying through the windshield....

Anyways, that about it for my rant. I guess the moral of this story is...I love it here. I'm glad Matt got his job here and we were able to live my {secret} dream of living in California. Beautiful, sunny, southern California where it is slated to be 78 degrees on the 11th of December :) Can't wait for tomorrow. It's been a long time since I've felt like that every day. I think this place is good for my depression. Ok, I don't just think it is. I KNOW it is. (Didn't know I suffered from depression? Where have you been? :) Just kidding. Seriously, though, that was the reason I got out of the Navy early, depression. Evidently I suffer from cyclical bouts of depression, which have recurred throughout my life. My worst cycle happened while I was enlisted, and that shouldn't be a surprise. But I've had some minor cycles, even here. But, the extra sunshine in the winter is helping, and I'm looking forward to the Solstice when the days will start to get longer again. I've not been diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder, but I suspect that the lack of sunshine in the winter contributes to my depression....anyways, what I'm trying to say is I'm feeling a lot better now than I have in a long time. Looking forward to the future. Not scared or anxious about what will happen next. It helps that we can literally go on a hike from our house up into the foothills of some amazing mountains, get some fresh air and exercise, and just feel good about things.

Well, guess I should quit stalling, get onto the next thing I need to do, which is exercise, then get ready to tutor 3 students this afternoon/evening. Thanks for listening (I mean reading) to my rant. :)

~Pam

PS. So, I got my packages sent off for Christmas yesterday (cost me a lot more than I thought it would) and now I need to work on the presents for those a little closer to home. The ones I can deliver in person. Since there's still a couple weeks before Christmas, I have plenty of time. Plenty of time, I say! :P

Quick Update

2010-11-23T11:22:00.001-05:00

Ok, so an update on how I've been doing as far as fitness goes. Let me tell you: having a body bug sure does make it a no-brainer. I mean, I can sync up and find out how many calories I've burned, and then make sure that I eat less than that. So far, I've lost about 2 pounds since I got the bug. Which brings me to a little over 4 since I started wanting to work out. I would really, really like to get down to my goal weight before we head to Belize. I also want to be really strong when we go so I can enjoy all the hikes and stuff while we're there. I don't want to be a slug and sit in the hotel all day, every day.

So, here's the summary that I get every time I plug my bug into the computer.

The first graph shows calories burned per minute. It's pretty cool. You can really see how many calories you burn with different activities. Then, calories consumed depends on you inputting the information yourself: you have to be honest, or it won't work!
Physical activity breaks down into moderate and vigorous activity. I have daily goals for amounts of each. I also have a daily step goal, which I almost never reach for some reason. 10000 steps is a lot, I guess...
This thing also keeps track of my sleep. It can tell when I'm sleeping and when I'm just lying down. It is interesting to see how well I sleep through the night--usually not very.
And,of course, I keep track of my weight and weight loss. Another thing I have to input myself. Honesty is key.

Well, that's it. I have a really busy week ahead of me. I have 4 students to tutor today, starting at 1 and ending at 8. I also need to start making some of my Thanksgiving dinner. I've decided to make the Cranberry Relish, sweet potato tarts, and apple tarts today, if I have time. Also, I need to work some more on my Christmas gifts. Oh, and get in a workout, as well. Whew! Let's see if I can figure out how to get all this stuff done! And go check on the turkey. It needs to defrost! It was still a block of ice when I checked on it this morning. I put it in some cold water, which I'll be switching out periodically, until it gets defrosted. Nothing worse than waking up on Thursday morning with a frozen turkey! :)

~Pam

My Body Bug (Bio Fit Media)

2010-11-18T00:07:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I got an early Christmas gift from my husband (he rocks, by the way!). He got me a body bug, you know, the things they use on The Biggest Loser, that keeps track of the calories you are burning all day long. He gave it to me early, since he knew I wanted to work on my fitness goals before our trip, and it made sense to open it now and put it to good use. If nothing else, it is really fun to look at the graphs of my physical activity :) Anyways, this is just one more tool to help me reach my goal.

So, yesterday, I did spin, and boy did it about kill me! Today, I did Boot Camp, lifting weights again. I felt really good afterward. I actually had a really fantastic day today. I feel like I got a bunch of stuff done, AND I fit in a really intense workout, and my tutoring sessions went really well. Even though Christmas is coming up fast, and I have a bunch of projects to get done, I feel really optimistic about the next couple months :) Life is pretty darn good, you know? :)

Love you all.

~Pam

Monday

2010-11-15T18:19:00.000-05:00

Well, today I woke up with Matt at around 6 with a splitting headache. I REALLY didn't want to go workout, but it is difficult to cancel when you sign up in advance like you have to...so...I went. I'm really glad I did. I did a boot camp workout, and we worked on strength training. I'm already feeling stronger and that I have more endurance than I did even a week ago. I'm feeling pretty good about these workouts. It doesn't hurt that the numbers on the scale have gone down steadily, either! :)

Speaking of numbers, I've decided to cook Thanksgiving dinner, and try not to sabotage the work I'm doing on my body. So, my dinner will consist of <500 calories per plate (not including dessert). What's on the menu? Well, I'm signed up at Spark.com, and they had a great idea for a low calorie Thanksgiving dinner. So here it is:
Appetizers:
Pumpkin dip and apple slices
Soup: Roasted Squash Soup
Main Course:
Vegetable and Fruit Stuffing
Roasted Root Vegetables with Apple Cider Gravy
Herb Roasted Turkey with Cranberry Relish
Dessert:
Mini Apple Tarts
Mini Sweet Potato Tarts

Guess I'll have to start grocery shopping, huh? :)

I have one student to tutor this evening. I need to be there around 530. So I still have time to do the lesson plan, right? I've got dinner in the crockpot, laundry done, floors swept and vacuumed. I'm exhausted, but I got a lot done today :)

~Pam

Update, Update

2010-11-14T23:07:00.000-05:00

Ok, so last week, I worked out 3 days: Tues, Wed, Thurs. By Friday, I knew I needed to take some time off. It is kinda hard to get into a routine working out. I also have to consider when to prepare my lesson plans, and figure out what will be for dinner. Not that I'm making an excuse or anything, but...
So, since I worked out really hard 3 days last week, I'm thinking of setting a goal for 4 days this week. I am scheduled for M, Tue, and Wed, for workouts, but I'll see how I feel on Wed if I want to schedule a spin class for Thursday.

On another note, I got paid for last month's tutoring. No missing or incomplete paperwork for me! I dotted all my I's and crossed all my T's. Paperwork competed satisfactorily for 11 students. I'm actually pretty proud of myself :)

Well, I'm bushed. We painted the white on the front of our house today. It looks awesome. Oh! And, we ate some turnips and turnip greens for dinner. The turnips were kind of spicy. And, I'm thinking I need to figure out how to cook greens. They were ok, but nothing spectacular.

And, finally:

My latest craft. (Those are supposed to be turkeys. They look much more turkey-like in real life...)

Love,
Pam

How am I doing?

2010-11-10T16:41:00.000-05:00

Well, I'll admit. My body is sore. I can barely move. But I feel pretty good. I did the bootcamp yesterday, which was a bunch of different cardio and strength exercises (a whole hour's worth!) and today I did spin class. I seriously about died. At the end, the instructor was like "I know you were holding back! Don't hold back now!" I looked at him like he was crazy. I must have lost ten pounds just in sweat!

Anyways, I need to get some lesson plans done. I'm totally multitasker Pam today. I've worked out, done laundry, folded clothes, done dishes (twice), put food in the crockpot (and figured out what will go with dinner tonight), watered the plants, showered, and now I'm onto my lesson plans. Whew! It will be a later than usual night tonight, since I have my rescheduled student from Monday after my usual Wednesday students. Ok, I'm done procrastinating. Let's get this done!

~Pam

My Goals

2010-11-09T13:45:00.000-05:00

Ok, that's a little frustrating. I had this whole big post, but I lost it all. So, here's the abbreviated version:
I'm writing down my goals, so that I can be held accountable.
I want to lose 10 pounds by the time we go on vacation to Belize.
How will I accomplish this:?
I am committing to working out 6 days a week.
Tue/Thur will be All About You Fitness Bootcamp-8 more sessions.
Wed/Fri will be Pedal Spin class-9 rides left.
Sat/Sun/Mon will be working out with Matt. One of those days will be rest day, but it will depend on our schedule.

So, that's it. That's my plan. Wish me luck. I know it takes 23 days to make a habit, and I'm hoping that I finally make a habit of fitness once again. I was so proud of myself last year and the accomplishments I made, losing ~45 pounds. I mean, who wouldn't be proud of that? But, I've let myself slip lately, and would like to get back down to that weight (and maybe pass it up, too!)

Anyways, wish me luck. But I'm excited to get started.

:)

Pam

Mid-October Garden Update

2010-10-17T14:17:00.000-04:00

It has been one month and 5 days (35 days) since we planted the garden. I'm happy to report that it is doing REALLY well. Better than I could have hoped or imagined. Here's a look at the garden:

Matt's Poppies!

Matt's giant tomato plant and his crazy garlic---that stuff has grown faster than anything else in the garden!

From back to front, left to right:
Parsnips-sprouted; Marigold-growing taller; Turnips-growing; Broccoli-growing; Beets-struggling to not fall over every day; Swiss Chard-Struggling to grow upright; Onions-growing taller; Spinach-the only patch of spinach growing.

Marigolds, Marigolds-Growing; Peas-2 plants growing up the trellis, one random plant sprouted, not sure what we're going to do with it...; Cabbage-one growing taller; Radishes-almost ready to harvest; carrots-growing, needing thinned about every day; Lettuce-ready to harvest; Carrots-thinning needed.

Marigolds in the back-growing strong; Onions-growing tall; Peas-one plant growing up the trellis; Beets-a couple heirlooms growing; Carrots-needing thinned; Spinach-can't seem to get to grow in this square; Carrots-needing thinned.

Marigolds in the back-growing; Cabbage-one plant growing; Broccoli-one plant growing; Radishes-ready to harvest; Swiss Chard-struggling to grow; Lettuce-ready to harvest; Spinach-Struggling to grow.

Parsnips in the back-sprouted and growing; Turnips-the drips from the gutters almost destroyed the turnips...; Beets-struggling to grow; Onions-growing tall.

Now for the herbs, back to front: Mint-2 sprouts; Chives-3 or 4 sprouts; Basil-2 sprouts; Oregano-a bunch of sprouts.

And the strawberries (big pot) are growing well, and the Catnip (small pot) are thriving.

So, I mentioned that some of the crops are ready to harvest. Well, Thursday I supplemented our salad stuff from the fridge with the following:

Don't they look yummy? Well, they sure tasted yummy. I'm thinking I'll have to pick some more radishes and lettuce for lunch today. There really is nothing better than growing your own food and being able to eat it. :)

So, what else has been going on? Let's see...I'm tutoring pretty much every day. With 11 students, it is a little challenging coming up with 11 different lesson plans. But, seriously, I love all my kids. They're awesome! Motivated to learn (so far) and excited to have the attention. Now, if I could just get over this cold and get my voice back, everything will be perfect. I started losing my voice about a week ago, after an awesome and long conversation with a good friend, and it got progressively worse over the week. By Friday, I was basically whispering. I can not talk loud today...which I'm sure Matt is glad of ;) Other than that, not much going on. I'm enjoying the great weather here: sunny and warm almost every day. The rainy days (like today) are a nice break and still beautiful. I never thought I would say that; coming from Virginia, I hated the rainy days. They just happened too often for my taste!

Well, that's about it. I'm going to sip a hot mug of tea and enjoy reading a book. Matt's up in the attic crawling around, and he might be taking the power down, so I'll just try to relax and take care of myself. I might *gasp* even take a bath, or something :)

~Pam

Wednesday, Wednesday

2010-10-06T15:58:00.000-04:00

OK, to make this clear, I'm definitely NOT complaining. About the rain. Not gonna do it. Nope! Because, this moisture is SOOOOO good for my garden. Well, most of it, anyways. Matt and I didn't count on the rainy season starting so soon, and haven't repaired the rain gutters, and the ones right over my garden are LEAKING!!! Most of the veggies are ok, but my turnips are right under a drip, and I had to take drastic measures :) I grabbed a cardboard box, and tried to redirect the drips. This is what it looks like...

It is doing a decent job...

So, what else have I been doing today? Well, since I'm obviously not spending much time outside, I decided to try to clean up the place a bit. I've been wanting to make reusable swiffer sweeper cloths for a while now. I found this AWESOME tutorial over on Sew Much Ado and decided to give it a try. I pretty much followed her tutorial, except I used a microfiber cloth, t-shirt material I cut up, and didn't topstitch around the whole thing. Here's what mine looks like:

Top:

Bottom:

And with the swiffer attached:

Ok, so I made two of them. And I actually used them both this morning, then hurriedly hand washed them and dried them so I could take pictures {I know, I should have done it before I cleaned with them, but I forgot. And trust me, they pick up the dirt!}.

After cleaning, I decided to put something on for dinner. I probably won't be home until after 6 tonight {tutoring} so I put something in the crock pot. I had picked up some butternut squash from Costco the other day, and decided to try out my version of this recipe from Made with Love.

I'm letting the carrots and squash cook in the slow cooker. And I don't have potatoes, don't want to go shopping {in the rain} so I'm planning on adding instant mashed potatoes to the mix at some point. I'll let you know how it goes.

Well, my tutoring job is picking up. Today I have two more pretests to give, and that will be 10 total. I picked up another student, to bring my total to 11, and next Tue I'll give my last pretest! After the pretest, I can really get to work, making lesson plans, and deciding a tutoring plan. Twenty hours might sound like a long time, but sometimes I think it isn't quite enough time to give these kids what they need! I'll just do my best :)

Well, for all of you out there in the rainy country, enjoy it! My garden sure is! :)

~Pam

Hooo Are You?

2010-10-05T12:49:00.001-04:00

And I've decided to do the Night Owl Crafting "Hoo Are You? #17" post. Every week, NOC posts new questions, and readers post answers on their blog, then link up in a linky party. Here's this weeks questions, and my answers:

1. If you could add one room to your house, what would it be?
Wow, our house is already just about the right size for us right now. But, eventually we're going to combine our laundry room and kitchen into one giant kitchen, so I guess that counts, right?

2. How many pillows do you sleep with at night?
Just one. Sometimes none. :)

3. What is the best costume you've ever worn for Halloween?
I think my only adult Halloween costume was Pippy Longstockings. My best kid costume had to be....the boogeyman???? My dad had an old gas mask from WWI or WWII, and we would put it on for our costume. I'm pretty sure each of the kids used that as a costume at one time or another!

4. If you could erase one item off the face of the earth, what would it be?
Rhino poachers. Just heard a terrible story about them in South Africa. Evidently they fly in on helicopters, spot the rhino, shoot it or tranq it, and then use a chainsaw to get the horn. Then the animal, if not already dead, bleeds to death. Such a waste!

5. Where do you do your best thinking?
Probably in the car. Or when I'm by myself. I need some peace and quiet, you know?

OK, if you're interested in joining up, here's the button. It'll be fun! You'll get to know some more people of the crafty persuasion :)

~Pam

Rainy days and {Mondays}....

2010-10-04T14:17:00.003-04:00

Well, today it is raining. And it is Monday. So, I decided to do a little project. Ended up taking me longer than expected, since I did MORE than I expected, but here's what I did!

At the Alt Expo, I saw this really cute bus:

It's made of cardboard, and opens at both ends. So, its basically just a box. I opened it up:

This will be my template {for the moment}
And then, using my stash of cereal boxes {yes, we eat a lot of Special K, there's actually one more box not shown}

I opened up the cereal boxes, and traced out my template. It fit perfectly on the bigger box, and I was able to make 2 buses from it.

I used my scoring tool and my cutter to score along where I was going to fold.

Then, it's just a matter of cutting it in all the right places, and hot gluing it along the edge.

Unfortunately, the smaller cereal box made it a little harder. The template didn't fit. So..I made myself a new template. I have the .pdf, if anyone is interested. Just email me or leave a comment with your email. The .pdf is in two pages, which you just cut out and tape together. Worked pretty well for the small box, and made a slightly smaller bus :)
And, here it is. My fleet of buses.

I'm going to need to get cute paper to cover them. So, this project is only half finished. On the upside, I thought I was going to go tutoring at 3pm, but instead it is 5pm, so I have 2 extra hours! Woohoo! Maybe I WILL go shopping :) I need to run to Costco at the very least. We are pretty slim on the lunch fixings....

Well, there it is. I'm thinking I have 6 little nephews that might be getting a Christmas gift. These things could be filled with all sorts of goodies!

{hehe, I'll see which of my sisters is paying attention to THAT one!}

~Pam

And, I'll go ahead an link up here:

What a {productive} Sunday

2010-10-04T10:28:00.000-04:00

Ok, so Matt and I have decided to go ahead and start our {next} home improvement project. We're taking this one slowly, one step at a time. Our goal is to have plenty of storage in the garage for all of our boxes of stuff, plus a workspace to help complete further house projects, and a whole section for emergency preparedness. Did I mention that we live in Earthquake Country? Yeah, one of the most active places on earth. So...it is never too soon to start preparing for the {BIG} one, right? Matt got a good deal on some supplies from Costco. A 6-month supply of food for each of us. Unfortunately, right now we don't have a place to put it. So...on to tackle the garage. We have plenty of space up in the rafters, but, well, the rafters, instead of being spaced 16", they are more like 3', almost 4'. So...we had to do some reinforcing. We put up some 2x4's between two of the rafters, reinforced the rafters vertically, and man-handled the 3/4" piece of plywood up there. Now, we have a nice 4x8 storage space, up out of the way. We even had enough energy to start putting stuff up there!

Here are the before and after pictures. I didn't take a picture of the whole garage, because, well, no one needs to see that!

Before: but after we attached the 2x4 to the wall. With 4" screws, I might add. That puppy is not going ANYWHERE!

And, After: See! Already being used! Notice the vertical support coming down from the ceiling. We definitely needed that!

So, in other news, we've had a bit of an infestation in the garden. Leaf miners. I noticed yesterday that my marigolds' leaves were changing to a lighter color. When I looked closer, I could see that there were little tunnels in the leaves. Then, I looked around the garden. EEK! They were EVERYWHERE! Radishes, turnips, peas, all of them had some leaves affected. We quickly googled how to get rid of them, then went out with a pair of scissors and did some surgery. We had to cut off the affected leaves, and destroy them. No mulching for those! Leaf miners are basically the larvae of adult insects. The adults lay the eggs on the leaves, and the larvae tunnel their way through the leaves until they get big enough to metamorphose into adults. They are deadly to leafy green plants. Which is what I basically have in the garden. Oddly enough, the cabbage and broccoli that are MOST susceptible to pests and disease didn't seem to be affected much. Hmmm....So, anyways, I'm about to go out and check on the garden. It is raining today {!} which I'm very happy for. I'm not sure if I will water today like I planned. We'll see. It depends on how much it actually rains. Right now it is just misting. I'll keep you updated. Hopefully my plants recover!

~Pam

Saturday, In the Park, I think it was....

2010-10-03T13:24:00.000-04:00

...the second of October. Ok, so not quite. Oh, and there wasn't a park. But, yesterday Matt and I had a really full day. We went to the Alt Expo in Santa Monica. Guess what! It rained on the way there!

"It never rains in Southern California..."

Wow, I'm all about the songs this morning.

Anyways, obviously the song is inaccurate. I think a pretty good shower came through Santa Monica before we got there, because there were puddles on the pavement. We haven't really seen rain since about April, so it was kinda nice. It was sunny the rest of the day.
Oh, what is the Alt Expo? Well, it is where all the major car manufacturers show off their alternative fuel cars, and other vendors give out tons of information about "going green." There were Fuel Cell (hydrogen) cars, EVs (electric vehicles), Natural Gas vehicles, and even a pickup that ran on propane. No joke! It had a miniature propane tank in the bed of the truck! I got a bunch of information AND I got to ride in the new Nissan Leaf {Matt got to be the driver}. That was tons of fun, especially since we've already ordered our Leaf and are waiting for it to be delivered sometime in the Jan-Feb timeframe. The Leaf is an EV (electric vehicle), with a range of about 100 miles. Could be as much as 130 miles, as little as 70 miles, depending on how you drive. This is perfect for us, since we could use it as Matt's commuter car and our drive around town to do errands car. We qualified for a home charging station, so instead of having it charge in 20 hours, empty to full, it will take about 8. Although, I bet we could go a week on a single charge! Now, we will be able to use the hybrid for long trips, and the pickup for hauling stuff. And we'll save tons on gas. Hopefully we'll be getting the Federal and State rebates associated with the EV, and that will reduce the final price by quite a bit. :)

Here are some pictures from the Expo:

Here's a Leaf doing a fast charge (80% in 30 minutes)

Leaf Interior:

Me, standing next to the Leaf inside the Expo:

After the Show, we decided to get lunch at a great Caribbean place down the street. I had Chicken Gumbo, beans and rice, and Matt had Jerk Chicken Enchilladas, Fried Plantains, and Baked Sweet Potatoes. Yummy!

We were so close to the beach, we HAD to walk down to it. There's the Santa Monica pier off in the distance. We enjoyed ourselves, watching the cyclists and runners going by.

Then, it was down to Orange County for Matt's 10-year High School Reunion. We stopped in at his Mom's place to change, and had a nice visit.

Well, that's about it. The reunion was at Angel Stadium. I got to meet a bunch of people Matt went to high school with. It was a pretty fun evening. We left there around 10, got home around 11, and were in bed by midnight. I was ready to SLEEP IN this morning! Whew!

Well, we're going to try to do some mulching today. Last week, we tried to pick some up, and were unsuccessful. I'm not sure if they ran out, or what, but we couldn't find any free mulch from the city. Wish us luck! :)

~Pam

{Eek}

2010-09-29T22:10:00.000-04:00

I've been featured!

Go check me out! And also check out the awesome chalkboard painted pumpkin below me. And the turquoise pumpkin in the post below that. Someday Crafts has so many awesome ideas! I get a lot of my ideas from that site and the linky parties there :) I'm so excited! {as if you couldn't tell}

Garden {Update}

2010-09-29T19:13:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I know I promised a garden update a little while ago, and I'm sure you all are just dying to know how the garden fared after the record-high temperatures. Well, I'd have to day, "Not too shabby!" I think all my little plants survived the heat, and I'm hoping it starts to cool down a bit. *shrug* Might be asking too much, but we shall see. Well, here's a pictorial update for you. :)

First off, here's our resident lizard. I've heard lizards are good at killing and eating black widow spiders, so this little guy is MORE than welcome in my garden! He usually runs away immediately, but today he stayed still for a quick picture before he was off again to his favorite hiding place. :)

We'll go from back to front, left to right:

Parsnips-Still waiting to sprout.
Marigold-sprouted and thriving
Turnips-doing great
Broccoli-surviving. Definitely prone to disease and pests!
Early Beets-sprouted like champs! Growing quickly
Swiss Chard-only 1 plant sprouted. Might plant another, so it doesn't get lonely.
Onions-growing like crazy
Spinach-this square is doing ok. I have a few sprouts. But, not doing as well as I had hoped.

Back two: Marigolds-sprouted and growing.
Peas- Two peas sprouted and growing!
Cabbage-slowly growing
Radishes-Growing like crazy!
Carrots-slowly growing. had to thin today :(
Lettuce-doing ok. I've been thinning it out a bunch, which seems to be helping
Carrots-slowly growing. had to thin today ;(

Back two: Marigolds-sprouted and growing.
Onions-growing well. getting much taller
Peas-One pea, sprouted and growing. Two peas trying to come up. I can see them poking up!
Beets-these are not the early variety, and are slightly behind the other squares, but doing well.
Carrots-Like the other squares, had to thin today. Growing well.
Spinach-this square isn't doing so well. Have a couple of sorry sprouts, trying to give them some love :)
Carrots-this square is doing well, thinned today.

Back two: Marigolds. Sprouted and growing.
Cabbage: Sprouted. Growing strong.
Broccoli: Sprouted. Pestered by pests, but still growing. I have high hopes for this one!
Radishes: So far the quickest to grow, and seem to be doing well. Have thinned out :)
Swiss Chard: Doing ok. Not growing as quickly as I hoped.
Lettuce: only half the square sprouted. Planted more in the other half of the square a couple days ago. We'll see.
Spinach: My spinach is not doing too well, in any of the squares. Not many sprouts, but the ones that sprouted are growing, at least.

And the final row: Back: Parsnips-not sprouted yet.
Turnips: Doing fantastic. Growing bigger every day.
Early Beets: Doing almost as well as the ones on the other side, but not quite.
Onions: Growing tall pretty quickly. Had to thin these as well :)

Strawberries are doing ok. I don't think they liked the heat very much. And the little pot is Basis. Hasn't really sprouted yet. Still waiting :)

Along the back wall are: Mint, Oregano, and Chives. None have sprouted. I'm expecting sprouts within the week, though.

And what about Matt's garden? Well, from back to front, left to right:

back two: Marigolds-sprouted
Tomato-growing taller.
Three squares of garlic: growing super quickly! I think we might have some mutant garlic or something! One plant grew about 4 inches on those hot days! I guess it liked the heat :)

And, don't forget the poppies! Matt's been thinning them, and they are doing well. They're getting more leaves, which is a good sign.

Well, that's about it for the garden. Thanks for stopping by! I'll make sure to keep you updated on the garden, maybe a post once a week or once every two weeks. We should actually be ready to harvest some radishes pretty soon! :) Yum! Fresh radishes from the garden! :)

More Paper Pumpkins :} Tutorial

2010-09-27T23:59:00.015-04:00

You know I can't resist. I was sure, just a couple days ago, that I was done. Not making any more pumpkins. But, then I saw this cute idea over at Craftberry Bush, and it got me thinking. Well, I don't have a paperback book I can destroy {I'm not sure I could ever do that... :} but I do have scrapbooking paper. So...I tried my own take on these pumpkins. AND....I have a tutorial for you. This is my first try at doing a full tutorial, so bear with me. Well, here goes....
So, you wanna learn how to make these adorable pumpkins?

Here's what you'll need:

Paper (my pumpkins are 6 inches in diameter, but you need to decide how big you want your pumpkins)
You will need enough for at least 6 "layers"
Paper cutter
Glue Gun
Craft knife
Scissors (optional)
Paper scorer (the end of my craft knife)
You will also need a template (the red paper semi-circle in this picture) and paper for a stem

First, cut your paper into rectangles. Mine are 3"x6". I would suggest making the rectangles half as wide as they are long.

Next, score your paper in half. This is not essential, but it makes a nice clean line for folding, and allows the paper to be folded together. You could fold it by hand, too.

{Not shown: My paper was pretty flimsy, and only one sided. I actually laid two pieces back to back and glued them together. That way, there is no white showing. And the layers are more sturdy. You could eliminate this by using thicker cardstock or double sided scrapbooking paper.}

Then, stack your paper together and fold in half. Lay the template on top and trace it out.

Cut out with a craft knife. This is the hardest part, getting all the layers. My hand got tired by the end!

Now, decide on a layout. Begin to glue together.

Start with the bottom layers (in this picture) first and work your way up. I just put a line of hot glue on the spine of the first layer and attach the next layer to it. I held it in place the way I wanted it to dry. This makes your job easier later.

Halfway, you'll want to attach your stem. I cut a strip of 1/2"x4" brown paper. Hot glue into place. {I realized this was too long, and cut the stem later}

You'll end up with something like this. Not very pumpkin-like. But, never fear, just fluff the layers.

And, here it is. The finished pumpkin. :)

And it joins the pile. The pile of pumpkins. The pumpkin patch?

Well, there you have it. My paper pumpkins. I think they are super cute!

~Pam

Linking up!

a {productive} friday

2010-09-24T19:41:00.003-04:00

Ok, so today, I decided to try my luck down at the local thrift store, Sunland Thrift. Just to see what gems they had for me. I was looking for a clock, and this is what I found:

Here's what I ended up getting from the thrift store. Don't mind the fuzziness. It IS in focus. But, apparently, I left a honey fingerprint on my shutter....

Anyways, I got: a clock, a children's story book, and three broom/fans, that I think look like witches' brooms. :)

Then, I headed over to the dollar store, where I picked up this stuff: A wreath, crow, and flowers and garlands. What, oh what, could I do with all this? :P

Maybe a wreath?

Let's see...hmm....

Yep! A wreath! I like how it turned out. And it only cost me $5!!

Now, what did I do with the clock? Well, I saw this awesome tutorial over on eighteen25 and decided that {I} could do that! And here it is!

I absolutely love it! Probably my favorite Halloween/Fall decoration that I've made so far :) I also have to give Flamingo Toes credit for her tutorial on crazy easy transfers she did here. I used her technique to do the webs. It was redonculously easy!

Oh, and don't forget those brooms. Well, I have some big plans, but in case I don't get around to it, I decided to do this:

That's a shadowbox we've had for forever. It has been sequestered for the season, I guess! I just stuck them in there, by the way. I'm hoping we don't get an earthquake and lose it, tho.. ;(

Well, here's my mantle for the moment. What do you think? Don't mind the broom handle in the left corner. THAT'S where that went! I've been looking for that, hehe!

Like everything in my house, it is a work in progress. But, I feel like I had a productive day today....3 projects! And I like them all! :) Only spent $21 total, but I bought other stuff in there, too :) Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. I'll be posting a garden update probably tomorrow. We've got some exciting things going on!

~Pam

Linking up here:

2 x 4 Pumpkins

2010-09-21T20:20:00.000-04:00

Ok, so ONE more project. I know, I know. I'm sure you're all sick of seeing the fall/Halloween craft projects I've been doing lately. It's almost like I can't stop. I see a cute idea, and think, hey, I have most of the materials for that. I can DO that! So, I do it. And it is generally pretty easy.

So, here's my latest: the 2x4 pumpkins. I got the idea from this post.

I like how they turned out. You can't tell in the picture very well, but they have grooves down the fronts that give them a more pumpkin-y texture. So, now my front entry looks like this:

I would have to say that it is taking shape! :) Today was pretty cool, around 70F for the high. So, the temps are coming down. Oh, wait. Not really. Tomorrow the high will be in the mid to upper 90s. *shrug* That's ok. I really do love it here. It has been a perfect year so far :)

Well, guess that's it. Matt is home, and when he gets back from his run he'll fix the broken sprinklers in the backyard before dinner. I guess I should get started on that...

~Pam

I've been featured!

2010-09-21T13:34:00.000-04:00

I love it! I keep seeing these amazing projects on people's blogs and decide to try them. Twice, now, I've shown the blog authors my take on their project, and they've featured my creation on their blog. Remember the Dryer Vent Pumpkin?

Well, House of Hepworths showed mine off here.
And, the Wristlet/Purse thing I made (my first sewing project)?

Well, Bev at Flamingo Toes featured mine here

It's so much fun doing these projects, and getting recognition that others like what you're doing. Not that I need that validation, but it is nice. You know?

Anyways, right now I'm working on some 2x4 pumpkins. We'll see how they turn out. The paint is taking FOREVER to dry. :(

Later!
~Pam

Pumpkin Garland

2010-09-21T10:32:00.001-04:00

Well, yesterday I decided to make this pumpkin garland I saw here. This is what I came up with. They're made with toilet paper and paper towel rolls. All I needed was the rolls, paint, hot glue, and I used raffia for the string, since I don't have any twine. Once again, I use what I have, you know? I'm pretty happy how it turned out. Sorry the pictures aren't the best, though.

It kind of looks like I'm almost ready for fall, doesn't it? What will I come up with today?? :P

~Pam

What do you think?

2010-09-20T14:12:00.000-04:00

Yea, or Nay?

I had a couple extra cereal boxes lying around, and didn't just want to throw them out. So...I tried to turn them into some festive Halloween decor. First, I opened up the box, and cut out a design I drew onto the inside. Then, I cut some cardboard from another box, painted it black, and attached it behind the design. I put the box back together with hot glue. This is what it turned into:

What do you think? Do you like it? Or is it just too...I don't know....craft-like. Most of the stuff I've done, like the pumpkins and the mummies/ghosts are cute. I'm undecided on this one.

This is what guests will see when they first come through the door:

It is starting to come together, I'd say!

~Pam

PS. For anyone wondering, after the last post, I AM NOT PREGNANT!!! Just thought I would put that out there! :)

A {Ghost} Story

2010-09-18T23:54:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, there was a ghost. A lonely ghost. He was so lonely. All by himself...

Ahhh! Doesn't he look sad??? Well, one day, this lonely ghost came upon another ghost. She was lovely. They fell in love :) And the ghost wasn't so sad anymore!

What a cute couple! But, this ghost couple knew that they weren't quite complete as a family. So, what did they do???? They had a BABY!!!

And the ghost family lived happily ever after!

The End!

Don't you love these? I made them out of, let's see. The daddy ghost is made from yogurt containers, the mommy ghost is made from jello containers, and the baby ghost is made from hummus containers. I knew I saved all those for a reason! They started out trying to be mummies, like the ones here but Matt said they looked more like ghosts, so that's what they are. My little ghost family.{If you want to know how I made them, I pretty much did the same as Inspiring creations, only I used plastic cups instead of terra cotta, cut out foam eyes instead of googly eyes, and didn't paint the containers. Other than that, pretty much the same thing!} Of course, I can't get away with putting these out for a couple more weeks. It isn't quite October, yet, and these are definitely not "fall" decorations. hehe.

Well, test complete. Waiting for the score. Matt's mom is coming for a visit tomorrow, so I guess I'll be doing some mad straightening up in the morning. My garden is doing awesome! I think the neighborhood cats are enjoying walking around in it, though....ergh! That's annoying! I'll have to do something about that! But, I have tons of sprouts coming up: more every day.

Happy Fall, Everyone!

~Pam

2 in 1 day {updated}

2010-09-17T17:41:00.004-04:00

Ok, I couldn't resist. While taking a break from studying, I came up with this little guy:

But I didn't stop there:

And then:

Here's the three of them together:

Like a little pumpkin family! :)

And now, they are the perfect addition to my fall table centerpiece!

It is coming together! Maybe I need some sort of table runner, maybe like this one. What do you think?

Well, it is back to studying!

~Pam

6:42pm: Here I am, adding yet more pumpkins to this blog post. I found this cute idea at Make Mine Lime for using scrapbook paper to make pumpkins. So:

The small ones

The big ones

Ok, seriously, I gotta stop! :) ~Pam

Linking up here:

How does your garden grow?

2010-09-17T13:35:00.000-04:00

Well, it is official! Our garden is taking off! This morning, Matt checked on it and said, "You better go check your garden. There's sprouts!" I didn't expect anything to sprout so quickly, not for a few more days. That's only 4 days to sprout! (It should take about 7-14 for most of the veggies I'm growing.) So, without further ado, here are my newly sprouted veggies:

Radishes

Lettuce

Broccoli

Turnips

And Matt's Poppies!

Isn't it amazing how similar the sprouts look? :-}

We're still waiting patiently for: Onions, Cabbage, Swiss Chard, Carrots (which will take a while), and Peas. I have a couple Marigolds peaking up, but I couldn't get a decent picture of them. This whole drip irrigation thing is awesome. Once the seeds sprout, I pretty much just turn the water on, set a timer, and come back to turn it off. I'm also really impressed with Mel's Mix. It is holding the water perfectly. I was a little bit leery, since we bought it premixed from Lowe's, but so far so good. I mean, we're getting sprouts 2-3 days earlier than I expected! Now, if we can only keep the critters away...we have something that is liking to dig in the garden. So far it is digging in the squares that have no plants, but I'm not sure how long that will last. We put a mixture of chili powder and dried cow's blood around and on top of the garden, and that seems to have kept the digging to a minimum. And we also did our "hang the cd's" trick to keep the birds and squirrels away. We tried this in Virginia on our garden last year and it worked wonders. We simply tied old CD's together in a line, and hung them up so they sway in the breeze. The flashing seems to keep the birds and squirrels away, at least when it is sunny and breezy. :)

Well, that's about it. My test is tomorrow, and I'm pretty nervous.

I'll leave you with this:

The start of my fall centerpiece :)

This year

2010-09-14T19:35:00.000-04:00

It is going to be all about the pumpkins! I'm not one to decorate for seasons, but hey, there's a first time for everything, right? Last year, at Kohl's, I picked up this adorable pumpkin for like 2 bucks. I couldn't pass it up.

It's cute, right? Well, then, I found this awesome tutorial for a dryer vent pumpkin. I thought, that's pretty cool. The other day I was looking around my garage for something, and stumbled across a bunch of leftover dryer vent. Perfect! And, it's the white kind of vent, instead of the aluminum...so....I don't even have to paint it! It looks like a white pumpkin. Well, I don't have any cinnamon sticks, either, but I have plenty of other sticks lying about in the yard, and Matt was kind enough to cut one for me for the stem. Some found twine, and Viola'! Another cool pumpkin!

I'm pretty excited to see how I can add to my pumpkin collection this year...

Oh, and speaking of pumpkins, I planted my fall garden yesterday (although I didn't plant any pumpkins...). Just went out and got it done! Here's what it looks like:

Matt helped me put in the soil, but I planted everything. The grid was made with the leftover slats from our plantation blinds from our bedroom. And the lines you see running between the white grid? Well, that's our drip irrigation system we put in. This garden is going to be so easy and well-maintained! (I say that now...) Not pictured are the markers I made for each square so I know what I planted in each. I wrote on them how many days to sprout and harvest. I should have some plants coming up in about a week or two. I'll keep you posted. For more information on Square Foot Gardening, visit: www.squarefootgardening.com.

In other news, my job has been postponed. Seems they don't want us using our own personal computers anymore, so they're letting us use their laptops. Unfortunately, they haven't come in yet, so I have to wait for my laptop to come before I can continue my tutoring sessions. I'm pretty angry because I had just scheduled my last pretest...If I can't get two sessions in before the end of the month, I'm going to have to wait until October to start. That's going to really push back my end date....Oh, and for those of you who know, I'm taking the test on Saturday. Wish me luck. I've been studying my butt off, and I hope it pays off....I'm nervous and excited at the same time. Anyone who's curious about what I'm talking about, email me! I'll let you in on it. I'm not quite ready to come out and tell everyone my big plans just yet....maybe after the test is done!

Well, that's about it. I guess I should start looking into what to have for dinner. Probably will involve pasta or beans...that's about all we've been eating lately! Happy Fall, everyone!

Pam

PS. Happy birthday to my mother. I won't tell you how old she is. I'll just say that she just keeps getting better with age! Love you, Mom!

Finally!

2010-09-10T13:55:00.000-04:00

Well, as of today I have all my students scheduled for their first tutoring session! Whew! I was having trouble getting in touch with one family, but it worked out perfectly. My Wednesday tutoring session fell through, because the libraries close at 5:30 on Wednesdays, so I had Wednesday wide open. I was able to schedule this child from 3-4 on Wednesdays! :) I'm pretty excited. So far it has gone really well. I've tested 4 students, and they've all been really fun. I have two more today to test, and that will put the total of tests up to 6. The other 4 will get tested next week. I'm a little worried, because the 5th grade language arts test seems to take about 2 hours to complete, and in some cases I only have a 1 hour session with 30 minutes until the next session...so we will have to see how that goes. So far I'm not buried in paperwork, but we'll see how it goes as time goes on. I'm definitely excited to be bringing in some money, even if it is a small amount. But, hey, every bit counts, right?

So, if you are interested, here's how my tutoring days will go:

Monday: 5-6
Tuesday: 3-4; 4:30-5:30, 6:30-7:30
Wednesday: 3-4
Thursday: 4-6; 6:30-7:30
Friday: 3-4; 4:30-5:30; 6-7

Looks like it will definitely keep me busy. I should be home by 8 on most evenings...although the Friday 6-7 first appointment will likely take much longer...Fortunately for me, all the students live within about 15 minutes of me. And they all live pretty close to each other. We shall see how it goes, eh? :)

Well, that's about it. Wish me luck! I hope that I can give these students at least a little bit of what they need!

~Pam

This weekend

2010-08-30T00:58:00.001-04:00

So, this weekend has been decently relaxing. I received my list of students: I will have 10 students; 8 boys, 2 girls. 1 first grader, 3 second graders, 1 fourth grader, 4 fifth graders, and 1 sixth grader. Four students will be tutored in Math, the rest in Language Arts. Unfortunately, my laptop, which I need for this job, decided to corrupt its hard-drive, and Matt has spent the weekend fixing it. I think he has been successful; it is updating as we speak. All my documents and pictures are on his computer now. That works for me; I don't have to worry about the kids accidentally deleting anything during a tutor session.

Before my computer decided to die, I got it in my head to try a project. I saw on One Pretty Thing a post by Little Black Teapot for an adorable sock dog. Here's what I got so far:

What do you think? Pretty cute, huh? I think so! Oh, and the one on the left is definitely a mouse. Not sure how that happened. It started life as a dog....The second one is decidedly more dog like :)

Well, Matt stayed up until about 330am fixing my computer, and he was up around 730am, so he's already off to bed. I guess I need to head there soon! If my computer is for sure fixed, I'll start calling my parents to set up first sessions tomorrow. And maybe I'll set up a sewing class with the guys we got the sewing machine from. Also thinking of a spin class....I've got 4 unused paid-for sessions. Should use them up!

Well, good night, all.

Pam

Update on New Job

2010-08-26T00:13:00.000-04:00

Well, I still don't know who my students are going to be. But I do know that I have 10 of them. Yep, that's right. I decided that I wanted to have as many students as possible. Especially seeing as how I don't have a whole lot going on around here for a while....My students range from 1st grade to 6th grade, and will be tutored in Language Arts or Math. I am required to tutor them for 20 hours total sometime between September 1 and April 30. Let's see, 10 students, 20 hours a piece, that's 200 hours total, right? Not too shabby. Actually, if I finish up with some of the students by January, I could potentially take on some new students. That all depends on how I feel about this whole thing come January, of course. And if I don't get another job, too. My plan is to meet with each student at least once a week, for 1 hour 45 minute sessions. So, that's 17.5 hours a week. A decent part time job. I'm hoping I can stay organized, which will be the key. And that the kids will benefit from my tutoring, of course. I'm excited to get started! Unfortunately, my fingerprint check hasn't cleared yet...hopefully I'll get my list of students by this weekend (actually, it cleared, but it wasn't entered into the system, yet, so they wouldn't release the list...*shrug*).

that's about it. Other than coming home to a small power outage. We ended up going to the Americana mall in Glendale for some shopping in A/C stores and dinner at Cheesecake. I ordered the Weight Conscious Chicken, which was pretty yummy, and had chicken left over. And I don't feel guilty about eating there, because it was very reasonable as far as calories go.

Oh, and for those of you who don't know, my wristlet was featured on Flamingo Toes! Bev was excited to see what I had made from her tutorial and posted pictures of my project! I'm pretty proud; actually I'm ecstatic!

Now that the power is back on (obviously since I'm typing this. As much as my phone can do, I hate typing a large amount on it!), I am thinking of going to bed. I've got a new book from Barnes and Noble, and I can save the organizing for tomorrow, right? I hope you all have a wonderful night!

~Pam

New Job

2010-08-23T22:14:00.000-04:00

So, a new chapter in my life is about to begin. I am joining the ranks of the gainfully employed! :) I was not actively seeking employment, but on a whim decided to check Craig's List a few weeks ago. There were several tutoring jobs, and I decided to apply for an interesting one. I wasn't expecting anything, but a few days later I got a phone call which turned into a phone interview, and I was hired! Today, I had my first day of orientation/training. Let me just tell you, it was a crazy morning. First, I decided to give my good friend Krysta a call and see if she was doing anything in the morning. I didn't have to be at my job until 1030, and Krysta was on the way. We were able to have breakfast together, and got to chat. Well, we kind of chatted too much. I was planning on leaving her house at 930, which would give me an hour to get there. It should take 30 minutes, and then I'd have 30 minutes to walk if I had to park far away. All was going well; I got to the area at 10. But, then I had trouble finding the place. The address was on Century Blvd, and I couldn't find the address! I went up and down the street. Finally, I decided I would give up, find a parking spot, and walk up and down the street until I found it. I turned on what I thought was 96th street, the street the directions said to park on. Oops! I was driving on 98th street. Well, as I was trying to figure out how to get to 96th, I looked to the right, and there was the address! Why was it a Century Blvd. address on 98th street? Very confusing! Anyways, I was relieved, but I still needed to find a place to park. So, I drove down to 96th street. A yellow car was right in front of me, and took the last spot on the street. Where to park? I turned down a side street, and 2 more blocks down the road I found a spot. Not a moment to lose! I threw all my stuff in my bag, and raced out the door. I had 13 minutes to get there on time. Not a good impression to be late on your first day! So, what did I do? I RAN! In the heat, in my dress shoes. I ran like the wind! (OK, an exaggeration, but I did run. Until I was out of breath. It is hard to run in those shoes! I would definitely NOT recommend it!) I went the wrong direction on 96th, and ended up going much further than I really had to....Darn! But I made it to the building, found the elevator, and found the office. I walked in right at 1030. Whew! But, now I was standing there in the office, with 30 others, sweating. Dripping with sweat, as a matter of fact. I didn't want to sit down (not that there was an empty seat, or anything) because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to cool down enough. I didn't want to leave a puddle of sweat on the chair: Yuck! A nice gentleman offered me his seat, but I thought it better to stand, a little distant from anyone else. Keep my stink to myself, so to say....

Well, the rest of the training went pretty uneventfully. We learned a little more about the company and the program we'll be working for. I will be tutoring under the umbrella of No Child Left Behind. You know what that means, don't you? Paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork. But I don't mind....I'll find out Wednesday who my kids are going to be. What subjects (Math or Language Arts) I'll be tutoring them in. What grades they are in. Until then, I don't know. It could really be anything. I'll be using my laptop to help teach these kids. Each one will get 20 hours total from me between the start of school and April 30th. It is totally doable.

I'm glad my students will be in the Northern Valley area, and not in LA. Holy cow! That commute would drive me INSANE! I left the training at a little after 3 and got home after 5. And it was bumper to bumper pretty much the whole way. I know that a LOT of people do that commute each and every day. I don't know how they do it! I'm grateful that Matt has a job close to our home, and that I'll be working close by as well.

Well, I'm excited. I'll be using my degree, earning some money, and making a difference in the lives of kids who might not have had the opportunity before. I'm ready. Bring it on!

~Pam

On Sewing and Handbags

2010-08-20T22:43:00.000-04:00

Well, let me just say that I have the best husband in the world. For my birthday, he got me the best gift ever! He listened to what I've been saying for a long time, considered all the things I NEED and want, and got me a Bernina sewing machine! It has been so long since I've sewn anything-since that first summer in Alaska to be exact. That's when my cousin Patty taught me and Penny to sew. We made some quilts. It was awesome! (I think Kate and I might have quilted one summer as well...its all kind of fuzzy...so long ago...) Anyways, I've been wanting a sewing machine for a long time. All part of my efforts to become more self-sufficient. Even if I don't actually make my own clothing, I would like to know how to alter clothes, revamp them, that kind of thing. Well, it has been a week since my birthday, and I hadn't sewn anything using my machine except some practice sewing on some paper. I decided that I wanted to do a project today. Just go out there and do it! I had seen this really cute tutorial on Flamingo Toes for a small purse. Perfect! I've actually been annoyed at my purse lately. All I put in it are my wallet, cell phone, and keys, and they all seem to get lost inside. I asked the owner of the blog if she thought that I could use place mats for the fabric. She responded that it would probably take two place mats, and I'm glad she did. I went first to Target this morning, and picked up two place mats. One was a solid green color. The other a beige with yellow, green, and brown flowers on it. I loved the flower pattern, and since I love green, they were perfect. Then, I ran (drove) over to JoAnn fabrics and picked up some thread and a zipper. Total, I spent $14.00, which I don't think is too shabby. Especially considering I have enough thread to last me a little while....

Well, when I got home, I went straight to work. I followed the tutorial pretty closely, except I decided I didn't need to do the inner pocket. I don't have anything that small that would fit. Also, Flamingo Toes breaks up the pattern on the front of her purse with a solid stripe, but I decided I liked the flower pattern on the placemat. I was able to thread the bobbin, thread the machine, sew a zipper on (that was tricky, but I finagled it, and it looks great.) and even do some hand-stitching, which turned out alright.

Here is my finished project. I'm so proud! It turned out fantastic!!!

Seriously. So cute! And it only took me a couple hours! For a beginner seamstress, I would say that this project was perfect. Just the right combination of ease and challenge. I'm thinking I might try to make a slightly bigger one...I could spend the same amount of money, just get a longer zipper.... I dunno? Anyone have any good ideas for my next project? Know any good tutorials out there?

Have fun!

Pam

The last little while...

2010-08-02T18:22:00.000-04:00

So, we've been doing some decently exciting stuff around here. Lately we've been focusing on our future garden and our yard/landscaping. We decided to plant a Valencia Orange tree in our front yard, and are looking forward to fresh squeezed orange juice sometime within the next 5 years, haha.

Here's Matt planting the orange tree. Its doing pretty well, I think (hope). Also, we transplanted some bulbs from the backyard (what will soon be our vegetable garden) to the front.

Our future plan is to have steps going up just to the right of the bulbs. We'll see what happens :) This bare spot in the landscaping was created by the septic hunt earlier this year. There used to be a gigantic, gorgeous bush right there. Now, there are bulbs, and hopefully someday there will be steps.

In the backyard, we removed the bulbs from the flower beds to make way for vegetable beds. :)

I'm still working on getting all the bulbs removed and clearing out the dirt. We've decided to do Square Foot Gardening this fall. To start, we'll remove at least 6 inches of soil from the beds, and add Mel's Mix. We'll be good to go! My plan is to sow in late September, early October. We'll be planting: broccoli, beets, carrots, swiss chard, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, parsnips, radishes, sugar snap peas, spinach, strawberries, turnips, and marigolds for decoration.
We also decided to pretty up the yard. Under the trees was getting a little out of control, with grass and weeds about knee-high. We have a gardener that comes once a week, but he only mows the lawn and trims edges. Well, we found out that the city of Los Angeles gives away free mulch. Yep, all the yard waste that goes into the green bins every week gets turned into mulch, and you can go pick it up any day!

So, we took our truck and a shovel, and so far have used two loads full. We laid down landscaping fabric, and then the mulch, and we're hoping that solves our weed problem. We shall see. Here are before and after pictures:
Magnolia tree: before

Magnolia tree: after

And our other tree (not sure what kind): after

I have to say that I'm really happy with it.

We're also starting to compost. If you do SFG (Square Foot Gardening) you start with the perfect mix of soil, and then the only thing you ever add is compost. That's right! No fertilizers or chemicals. Just compost. Well, we'll need a bit of compost in the future, so we got started early. We have about half of a trash can full of compost already (we drilled holes all around it to let air in, add stuff once a week, and "turn" it {really just roll it around} a couple times a week. Couldn't be easier than that! Compost city!) and we are making more. We also have a compost pile-we decided to try two different methods. The trashcan is the much faster method, but I have hopes for the pile.

Well, that's about it. We DID have some guest come by yesterday. My nephew, Ryan, just got engaged two days ago, on his birthday. He lives in UT, but came to CA to propose to his girlfriend. They both came up for a visit last night. It was so much fun having them! It is weird to think that Ryan is all grown up, but I guess if his little sister is old enough to be married, then he is, as well. The funny thing is that for the second time I've been the first one to see a Blair child after he/she got engaged. Lindsay invited me and Matt down to Disneyland the day she got engaged, and we had an awesome visit with her. Now Ryan comes to visit. :) It makes me feel pretty special, tho...

Anyways, not much else. Anyone planning on staying up to watch the Perseids Meteor Shower on August 12-13? I've always felt that it was MY meteor shower, since it falls on my birthday every year. Some people are predicting up to 100 meteors an hour, with an average of around 60. That's more than one a minute! The moon will be nonexistent, so, enjoy! Get out there on a blanket in a dark spot and watch those falling stars!

Well, that's really all. I need to go get some stuff done, maybe start making dinner. Talk to you guys later.

Pam

PS. Happy birthday to Dad, who would have been 71 this year. We miss you, Dad!

I guess

2010-07-15T16:37:00.001-04:00

I could update ya'll on what's going on over here in sunny California. Well, the first heat wave of the summer hit yesterday, and today it is supposed to reach 103F before long. Our plan was to get AC in the whole house, but it was WAY too expensive, and we ended up getting a window unit for our entertainment room. I guess if there is one room in the house to put a unit in, it would be the entertainment room. And it is nice, being able to relax, watch tv, work on the computer, read, in a nice, cool room. I'm considering, however, getting another unit for the bedrooms. It was tough falling asleep last night with it being so hot! I usually don't have trouble sleeping in heat (I love having a ton of blankets on) but I can't sleep without something covering me! It was too hot for even the sheet last night, therefore, I had trouble drifting off. Oh, well. I'll survive. This heat wave is only supposed to last through Sunday, and then its back down to the mid- to upper-80s. Nice and comfortable.

Speaking of Sunday, Matt and I are going camping! Yep, that's right. Matt's mom reserved a campsite at El Capitan in Santa Barbara. I think that's a place they like to go. It definitely is not wilderness camping :) Matt's mom told me that you can get all the cold water you want, but you have to pay for a hot shower. A what? Shower? What kind of place is this? Oh, and the Albertson's is about a 2 minute drive, so we'll probably be picking up food every day. That makes it easier, anyways. I am excited to be sleeping in a tent again, though. And it will be cooler right down by the beach. My foot has healed enough that I think I'll be able to enjoy some nice hiking while we're there. And I'm looking forward to s'mores, as well. Yum! I could probably eat s'mores all day....

I've started doing P90X again. This is officially my third round of the program. I've survived the first week. The first two or three days were excruciatingly painful. My body is getting used to being sore again, and that's a really good thing. I'm looking forward to being in shape again :)

Update on the house: Well, we haven't done a whole lot more to it since the last time I updated. We rented a small dumpster and got rid of the old carpet, finally. It was taking up a lot of space in the garage. With the extra space, I was able to bring in the boxes of stuff that have useful items in them, and unpack most of them. There's still the odd box of nic nacs lying around, but I'll eventually get to those. Our sunroom is in almost usable condition, as well. I was able to take a bunch of the stuff that was cluttering it up and move it to the garage. We need to rent one more dumpster and our garage will be perfect, I think. Our entertainment room is coming along as well. We bought two big desks from Ikea, and after much rearranging, got them arranged the best way for the room. Matt and I each have our own workspace, which is a first for us :) There's also a tv viewing area, which works out nicely. And I have plenty of space for my workouts.

The other night, Tuesday, we had a little bit of excitement. The power went off around 5:30pm, just as I was in the middle of making dinner. Luckily, we have gas appliances, so the power outage didn't bother me. Matt, as a good employee of the Department of Water and Power, went out to investigate. He informed me that it was probably going to be a while before it came back on. *shrug* Oh, well. What to do on a warm summer evening without tv or internet? (Well, technically, we both still had internet on our phones. But that is beside the point...) We took a walk. Down to the river, up the riverbed, and then back. It was a 3 mile loop. When we got back, it was right at sunset, and we decided to drive up to our favorite lookout spot and see the valley. Such a clear night! We sat up there and watched the stars come out. Very cool. Then, we headed back down to the house. Still no power. Ice cream sounded good, so we went down to 31 Flavors. I got a single scoop, and was expecting it to cost around $2.70. When the lady rang me up, it was $1.50 even. Wow! We definitely picked the right night to go. It was evidently Dollar Scoop Tuesday. I am thinking of a new tradition in the making... :) The power came back on at 2 am, and I had to get up and make sure all the lights were off, and the electric griddle I was going to use for dinner was turned off. Fun stuff!

Well, that's about it. Today I'm going to try to hang all my pictures on the wall in the entertainment room. That should be fun! And wait for Matt to come home. I went grocery shopping at Costco, and stocked up on beans and diced tomatoes. Those are things I always had in Virginia, but I haven't been able (or willing) to stock my pantry up yet. Well, now I need to figure out what to make with them :)
I'll try to update more often, but, well, it feels like every day is the same, here. Not much changes; time goes on. I'm really loving it here, though. We have a beautiful place, and we're going to enjoy living here, I think.

Later,
~Pam

Sorry that it has been so long....

2010-06-27T19:49:00.000-04:00

since I've posted. There have been many changes in our house, but a lot of them are hidden behind the walls, so I feel like there's not much to see. But, since Penny requested it, I guess I'll post some updates on the house.

We have a new fridge! Goodbye old white, small fridge. Hello new, stainless, big fridge. And look! It fits! :)

Here's the kitchen, with it's new color and no wallpaper.

The dining room, with new color.

The living room. The TV will be leaving soon to its permanent home in the den.

The guest bathroom, with nicely colored walls (no wallpaper) and brown vanity (instead of pink)

Here's our master bedroom: painted, pictures hung, 2-inch plantation blinds hung, curtains hung, decorative fabric over the windows. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out :)

And then my camera died... :( Sorry! But everything is really coming along nicely, as you all can see. I finally scraped up all the carpet padding in the hallway, so there is NO MORE CARPET in the house (until Wednesday, when we get the den carpeted)!

Maybe I'll take some more pictures later.

~Pam

What We've Been Up To Lately

2010-05-26T13:03:00.000-04:00

Well, I have to apologize to everyone for not keeping up with the blog. We've been busy. I'm talking 10-12 hour days (for me) working on the house every day. I'm physically exhausted every night. But, I'm happy to report there's progress. Wanna see some pictures? Well, here's some before and after pics:
Living room before:

Removing the carpet and padding:

Yes, it really was a matter of peeling back the carpet, tearing up the padding, and then scraping the yucky green padding that had fused to the floor. But...here's the payoff! {By the way, this picture is misleading. Matt scraped a 5 foot by 5 foot patch of floor. I did the REST!! :}
Living room after:

Master bedroom before:

Master bedroom after:

Guest bedroom before:

Guest bedroom after:

Den before:

Den/media room after:

I still have a little bit left to do. On the agenda today is cleaning up the glue from the glue down wooden tiles in the front entry-way:

CLose-up:

Yeah, it is a matter of scraping each little circle up and running Goo Gone over it with a micro-fiber cloth. Not difficult, just a lot of work. Oh, and one last thing for today: remove the last bit of carpet---in the hallway.

And then....spot paint. The trim in most of the rooms need painted. And the ceiling in the den needs some touch-up. There's always something more to do. Hope you enjoyed my little update. I'll try to do better and keep ya'll posted on what we're doing. It is hard, because I know I'm making progress. It just seems like it is taking forever! Anyways, hope everyone is doing well. I'm looking forward to our "mini reunion" in a couple weeks in ID/UT. I'm planning on driving, so we'll see how that goes.

Talk to you guys later.

~Pam

I just had the juciest...

2010-04-25T23:30:00.000-04:00

Orange in my whole life! Holy Cow! So, today, we had the final walk-through for our house. Just to verify the condition of the house, and make sure everything looked good. It did! I'm so excited! Wednesday {hopefully} will be the day. The house will be OURS! Anyways, while we were there, our new neighbor, an older gentleman who lives down the road, brought us a housewarming gift: a giant bag of oranges and avocados. :) Can you believe that?

I decided I MUST try one of the oranges tonight. Boy was it juicy! And so delicious! I don't think I could go back to having store bought oranges after that!

Anyways, after we got one last look at the house {which, by the way, is still full of vintage furniture :) That's so cool! Some of the stuff is gone, but I look forward to exploring and looking at all the things that Lucy collected over the years. She saved EVERYTHING!} we went to the Montrose Harvest Market.

I've never been to one, and it was sort of like a fair or carnival, without the rides. Lots of booths with good food and crafts.

We ended up eating lunch there: I had a handmade Mexican Gordita, and Matt had a burrito. Very good! Here's Matt enjoying the burrito :)

After lunch we bought some fresh fruits and veggies: very ripe and yummy strawberries, lettuce, carrots, and potatoes. We also picked up some delicious bbq sauce and some honey made by a hive right down the road from us. All in all, it was an awesome time. I look forward to going more often. I wish we could have gotten more, but with it all so fresh, I didn't want any of it to go to waste before we leave for Matt's wedding in Logan, UT on Thursday. We will be bringing some of the oranges and strawberries, if there are any left! :)
Well, it's almost time for bed.
Later,
Pam

Weekend in Mexico

2010-04-19T11:04:00.000-04:00

Ok, so here's what the dealieo is. This weekend, Matt and I went down to Mexico for our friends' wedding. We had a great time. Here's a photo montage of our weekend. :)

First up: Mexico!

This picture is right after you cross the border into TJ, and there's a giant Mexican flag flying. Kind of cool.

Then, as you come close to the resort in Rosarito Beach, you see this:

He was overlooking our resort/hotel. :) Which was beautiful, by the way:

You can see our room: It is the third one up from the bottom on the left :) We had a great view:

Amazing, huh?
So, we got there on Friday afternoon, checked into our rooms, and went down for some authentic Mexican tacos at this little shop called:

It was pretty good. You just told the guys how many you wanted, ate them, and paid after. Matt and I each had 3 tacos; there was the choice of beef or pork. Not bad :)
Then, we all headed down to the pool for a little sun time. Can you blame us?

I mean, seriously, how gorgeous is that? :) Ok, to be fair, that last picture is of the OTHER pool that we didn't really go in, but still. There was a jacuzzi hot tub that was way popular for the weekend. It was a little chilly at times, and the warm water felt nice.

After the rehearsal, we had dinner, which was...surprise! Mexican food :) {I'm not going to be able to eat Mexican for quite a while. Although it was delicious, I'm good for a long time :)}
It was neat to get the four guys together for a picture. It doesn't happen often enough. From left to right: Brandon Cant, Vince Masciale, Matthew Emerson, John Wald. These four guys were inseparable in high school. Look at them now, all grown up :)

We were able to run outside and watch the sunset. So gorgeous!

Matt and I called it an early night, and woke up early to be the first ones in the restaurant for breakfast. We noticed a lot of cyclers come in to eat, and didn't know what to think. Then we headed down to explore the tide pools. Awesome!

Yes, that picture of my feet is real. Those are called Vibram Five Fingers, and they are so much fun! It was awesome to walk around on the rocks, being able to grip them with my feet. I got a lot of questions about my shoes during the weekend. I wonder why... :) The two pictures of the tide pools are of a sea anemone and a sea slug. We saw tons of anemones and some GIANT slugs. Way cool!
And the reason for the cyclers at breakfast?

A bike race! We watched some of the cyclers as the passed by. Looked like they were having a lot of fun. :) Maybe next year...
Finally, it was time for the wedding festivities to begin. Matt got ready with the rest of the guys, while I relaxed in the room, watched a little tv, and enjoyed the sound of the ocean. Here's all the groomsmen, down on the rocks:

It was a fantastic night. Only got one picture of me in my dress:

Not even a full length, but that's ok.
Sunday morning, after a restless night (the partiers were up way too late for my taste, which means I had a hard time sleeping) we explored the tide pools again after breakfast.

It was foggy and beautiful. I had a great time. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Oh, and one last picture to leave you with:

House Update

2010-04-09T19:19:00.000-04:00

Well, if some of you were paying attention, you would know that today was the original closing date on our house. Well, due to some unforeseen problems, namely the septic system, we are not closing today. Not sure if we will close next week, either, the way things have been going. I'm a little bit annoyed, and slightly frustrated, that they can't seem to find the septic system. That's right. They can't find it. For anyone who has sold a house with a septic system, you know that the seller has the responsibility to verify the septic system is working and to pump it out before closing. Well, these sellers can't seem to find the septic system, let alone verify it and pump it out. Right now, we're waiting for "specialists" to come and FIND the darn thing. Then, maybe we can move forward with closing on the house. I'm ready. I'm ready to get started fixing up the house that will be our home for many years to come. I'm still excited about the house, but my excitement is dwindling as time goes by. *Sigh* Oh, well. It will all turn out. It will just take us a little longer before we are able to get settled in down there. Wish us luck.

Pam

I Felt It!!!

2010-04-04T19:09:00.000-04:00

Happy Easter to all! So, here's the story. As I was laying on my bed, reading LOTR and thinking about taking a nap this afternoon, Matt came inside from outside and walked across the room. I actually felt the bed move from his footsteps, and I laughed out loud. I've never noticed that before. So, I yelled to him that it was funny that the bed was moving, and then I looked up at the closet and noticed that the hanging organizer and the hanging shirts were all swaying slightly from side to side. Matt told me it was just because he opened and closed the door, but I thought, "Could it be an earthquake?" A few minutes later, we got a text from Matt's mom, Tracey, that said, "Welcome to southern CA and the earthquakes." So, Matt looked it up, and sure enough, there was an earthquake in Mexico, and I felt it! It is my first earthquake, and even though I can say I BARELY felt it, I still did. Kind of exciting. To me, anyways :)

If you believe that...

2010-04-01T23:06:00.001-04:00

I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona for you. You know, from my front porch you can see the sea.

Happy April Fools Day, everyone!

PS. Penny made me do it!

Surprise!

2010-04-01T10:58:00.000-04:00

I am loving...

2010-03-30T23:32:00.000-04:00

California. Seriously. It is great. Last week, Matt and I went hiking several times. The first time, it was a very strenuous hike, and I didn't bring my camera, so, no pictures. Sorry! Although, it is probably for the best since I was very, very sweaty and worn out on that hike. The second hike I brought my camera. Can I just say that the wildflowers are so beautiful this time of year? I love it!!!

Here's a mountain stream that we happened upon:

And I climbed up there :)

The trail:

Which path did we take? The left one. Although, it is actually a loop, but we didn't quite complete the whole thing that day. Maybe another day...
Beautiful flowers, in bloom everywhere on the mountain:

We climbed up to the top, and this is what we saw:

If you squint, in the background you can see the LA skyline. It was a little hazy, so Matt and I plan on making this hike on a day after it rains. Hmmm...it is supposed to rain tomorrow. Maybe we'll take a quick trip up there :)
We also got acquainted with the local wildlife while we hiked.

Yes, that is a rattlesnake, right across our path. We gave it a wide berth.

And, if you look closely, you can see the ever-present lizard, chilling in his hole. He was not concerned about us being near him. He was just enjoying the sunshine.
We had an awesome time hiking, met a friend (who we saved from the rattlesnake) and really enjoyed ourselves. I can see us doing this a whole lot more often.

On another note, I got a dresser. For free. I was complaining about the lack of storage in our closet yesterday and Matt recommended going on Craigslist to find a dresser or something. Well, as we drove down our little street, we noticed a free dresser alongside the road. So...we picked it up, brought it back, spraypainted it, and now it is in my bedroom. It is a little dresser, but it looks nice in there. NOw, if I can just be assured that there are not any more spiders inside it... ;)

Well, I'll keep you updated on our house. Hopefully we'll be closing on the 9th. Wish us luck!

~Pam

I don't have terribly exciting pictures...

2010-03-20T00:19:00.000-04:00

...of our afternoon, but here's the rundown. Matt got off work early today (thank goodness for paid time off!) and we headed down to Burbank. Matt's friend hooked us up with VIP tickets to see the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. I've never been to a taping before, and Leno was a cool one to watch. For one thing, it is actually filmed "live." Of course, it isn't shown live, but there's actually breaks for commercials, and there are no second takes. Very cool. So, we weren't there for hours having to laugh at the same jokes over and over, like with a sit-com. For another thing, Matt and I got front row seats. I was utterly amazed when the NBC page sat us down in the seats closest to the stage. You know, the one where Leno does his monologue. Yeah, that one. When he first came out, we got to storm the stage, and he shook Matt's hand (along with a bunch of other people's). He didn't shake mine, passed right over me, but that's ok. I think it's weird that people want to touch famous people. Like it will rub off on you, or something... Anyways, the monologue was great. Sitting right there in the front was awesome. Of course, there are no photos, but I'm sure if you watch the video (on Hulu or something like that) you'll see me and Matt, right there. The music was great, the guests were funny. All in all, a great time. I did take a couple pictures, but not until we were driving around after the show, trying to find something to eat.
Here's the NBC studio sign, just to prove that we were there :)

And the show was filmed in this big, non-descript building--Studio 11.

Then, as we were driving around, we passed Disney Studios in Burbank.

Look closely at the fence posts. Cute, huh?

I wish I could have gotten a picture of the big building on the Disney lot. It has the 7 dwarves on the side of the building, looking like they are holding it up, or something.

And, finally, something that caught my eye:

Just look at all the nails and staples and screws are in this light pole. Wow, huh? Pretty popular corner, I guess. How many years did it take, do you think? Or did this just happen in like a month? Hmmm...

Anyways, we drove around a bit, then decided to head over to the mall to find something to eat. We ate at an Indian restaurant, and had a great discussion on the spiciness of Indian food. Not necessarily hot spices, just the diversity. Then, we drove home, just as the sun was setting and dusk was settling in. Beautiful evening. Just perfect.

Don't forget that the Vernal Equinox happens tomorrow. Equal amounts of light and dark. Only happens twice a year, you know?

Well, I'm about ready to head to bed. Goodnight, all :)

~Pam

It is Official!!!

2010-03-18T19:29:00.000-04:00

You are now reading the blog of a California resident. Yep, that's right. I braved the DMV today (so glad that I had an appointment) and two-and-a-half hours later, I am in the possession of a temporary California driver's license, along with registration for the truck. Let me just say that it was a MADHOUSE at the DMV. The wait time, just to be seen by someone, after you got through the line of about 40 people, was 2 hours. Well, since I had an appt., I skipped that line and got my number in a few minutes. Then, it was about 20 minutes for my number to be called. But, since I had driver's license, as well as registration to do, just wading through the paperwork and waiting in other lines took quite a while. For once in my life I was completely prepared with all my papers when I got to the DMV. That totally saved me. I watched the employees have disputes and shouting matches with customers. I saw people get really upset. I even saw (after it happened) a woman fall off the curb and hurt herself. I told you it was a madhouse! But, you attract more with honey than vinegar, and I just remained very calm and pleasant when dealing with the workers, and they were polite back. Also, I had to take the driver's license test: 36 questions. I could miss 6. I got a perfect score :) I did have some last minute study help with my fellow line holders. That was my saving grace.

Anyways. I never thought it would happen. But now it is happening very quickly. Can't be mistaken for an out-of-stater, now. I am a resident :)

On Earthquakes

2010-03-16T09:32:00.000-04:00

So, did you hear about the earthquake this morning at 4am in LA? Well, I heard about it...at about 6am. Yeah, I slept right through it. Matt THINKS he woke up to it, heard the lamp moving or something. But, he's not sure. Nothing fell off shelves in our little place. Nothing broken. Pretty anticlimactic. I don't even think I can count it as my first earthquake, since I slept through it. Oh, well. There will be plenty more, I'm sure. I found out that our new house (see previous blog) is near a fault line. So, that might be fun...

Anyways, speaking of our house, I'm going to get an estimate on getting the piping redone for the whole house. Should be interesting to hear what they would charge. Maybe we can get the sellers to help us out on that. It shouldn't be too much, considering there IS a crawlspace. We were also going to get a camera down the sewer line to see if there was any problems. Only thing is, we found out that the house is on a septic system. We think. We're still finding out. So, I'm going to cancel the camera for now. And someone might be calling me to give an estimate on hooking up the house to sewer. Which is available.

One bright thing, though. Verizon Fios is available at the house! Yeah! No more Time Warner Cable. I'm ready to have Fios back. And the internet speed will be even faster than in Virginia.

Well, I guess I should get ready for the day. Lots to do. Who cares if I still feel like crap? I need to mail off my Virginia license application, be at the house ready for the inspectors, get the laundry done, shower, man. Big list today, huh?

Talk to you later,
Pam

For Kristin

2010-03-15T22:39:00.000-04:00

Ok, Kristin. Here it is. For everyone else, this is a really boring video (unless you are learning how to crochet, that is) that I made on how to make a scarf. My friend Kristin has been wanting to know for a long time. Well, here it is :)

Enjoy!

~Pam