Calendar Desktops

 Who else gets bored by the same desktop background after a while? Yeah, me too.

 

 Oh, Hello Friend

 

Going Home to Roost

 

the Caroline Johansson

 

Happy Serendipity

 

Oh The Lovely Things

 

While on my lunch break, I was going through all the blogs I like to visit everyday, and I noticed that desktop calendars are becoming a thing.

 

Or maybe it's been a thing for a while and if so, I blame the mailman for delivering the memo late. Mr. Mailman, don't you know I like to be trendy and with it?

Fancy - Shmancy

Recently, I went to a wedding of a coworker of mine. The fabulous event took place in Newport, Rhode Island, so even if the bride turned up in jeans and the wedding cake was one tiny cupcake to disperse between all the guests, it still would have been amazing. Luckily, the bride (my coworker) was in a beautiful dress and the cake was delicious!

Like I said, it was beautiful. It was right on the water at sunset.

Here are some pictures of me with my date, and then someone the bride and I used to work with.

Cocktail hour at sunset.

Our poor place card got wet.

They had a live band for half the night, called Strictly Sinatra. AH-mazing!

Here's the new couple, not great shots, but I guess just proof I was there?

One of my favorite parts were the waitors. We sat 10 to a table, so 5 waiters came out with 2 meals, and circled our table. Then they all waited and one of them nodded, and they set down the meal that was in their right hand to every other person. They then took a step to the left, and the waiter nodded again, and they set down the other meal to every other person who was left. Once the meals were set, they put their hands behind their back, and all left in a line together. It was so cool!

So minor note, I've decided to marry for money. Haha just kidding! But seriously.

My Great Idea Evolved

In my last post, I told you guys that I bought fabric paint and was going to paint the black sections of my rug to be coral. Well, the paint soaked right in and didn't work, so  was conflicted. I just spent a lot of time and energy lugging that huge thing up 2 floors, and have 3 ounces of paint. What the hecksies am I going to do? So I decided to put my rug back in my room as is, just to see how I felt about it. I just luh-uh-ove the pattern and it's been tugging at my heart while sitting in the basement all year.

Is it possible to love a rug even more than I did? The black practically became an accent color with the few other black things I left in my room.

Rug. Check. Paint?

As I was clearing out everything that is stored under my bed so I could lay my rug down, I forgot I bought some white cloth lampshades from Christmas Tree Shop for like $2 each a while ago. I originally covered them in wrapping paper, which looked awesome, but not functional. Whenever I used that lamp, the heat from the bulb would burn the tape that held down the wrapping paper. Ew, gross! So I decided to get a little crafty.

I took strips of masking tape that was about 1/4 inch wide, and lined the while shade.

Then, I took a bit of that fabric paint I bought for my rug (womp, womp) and squeezed it onto a sponge. I used a sponge simply because I don't own any paint brushes. Cheap, I know. Especially fro being an artist, you would think I would own some.

Then, I just started to wash the shade with the paint...

Until it was covered.

I let it dry for a few hours, and then carefully removed the masking tape strips. And wah-lah! My new striped lampshade.

Paint. Check. :)

I Have An Idea, and It's Going To Be Great

I have this rug stored in my basement from when my room was red, black, and white.

 

But I have been developing my room over the past year (>.<) to be grey, white, turquoise, and my latest thing is to add a coral-red and yellow. Kind of like the color pallete of this bouquet...

Anywayyy, I have been seeing a lot of posts on painting your down pattern onto plain rugs to spice them up a bit. And it hit me!! I will just paint the black parts of my rug to be a different color. I'm thinking a coral-red color.

I'll keep you updated. Maybe :)

Easter on the Farm

This weekend I had the pleasure to spend Easter with Sarah's family. I didn't really know what to expect because I never spent more than an hour or two with her family, and I was honestly nervous if they were going to like me. They had a Farm Day to help clean up and set up their land for the non-profit program they are looking to start called Turn Back Time. Turn Back Time is a program meant to help children increase the quality of life by interacting with the animals and nature. They will learn how to work on the farm and play. Below are a few pictures from Farm Day.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was when the pigs escaped from their pen.

Sarah and I were showered and laying down reading, when her mom started yelling that the pigs got out. So we all run out and guide them back to their pen. The boy pig went in fine, but the girl pig was being so stubborn! It took us 30 minutes to play defense, like we were trying out for the Celtics or something, which I hear is pretty good timing for trying to get pigs back in.

I loved being on the farm and being with Sarah's family. They really made me feel loved and welcome!

My Muscles Have Muscles

I am so sore! It hurts to sit and to stand and to walk up stairs. Monday, I went to the gym with Sarah and Paige, which was actually a lot of fun. I've been apart of our gym for about 3 months now and haven't seen them there at all. Not that they don't go, we just go at different times. Any-who, it worked out pretty well, I found out Sarah and Paige hate the elliptical and prefer the treadmill, and I am the complete opposite. So it was nice to warm up on "each other's machines" and then switch off. After we did that for about 30 minutes, we did this full body work out that Sarah found on Pinterest. Man was it a work out. I feel like my muscles had muscles by the end of it.

My New Years resolution was to get strong and enjoy working out. I didn't want to obscure my thoughts and ideas on what I thought my body looked like, whether I was too fat or too skinny. I feel like there is something that is always too whatever. So I set my goal to be something I could achieve and feel great about, no matter what stage of working out I'm in. I have to say, I do quite enjoy it, especially yoga. And I think I am getting stronger. Soon or later I might be able to pick up a car!

Relaxing :)

Not much to say about my Thursday, yesterday. It was pretty mellow. I was going to go to the gym, but then I had to wait for a friend to come get something at my house and ended up waiting all night. So I just had a relaxing night in my sweats on the couch, catching up on all my TV shows and giving myself a mani and pedi. What more could a girl ask for?

A Surreal Dejavu Moment

I am just now writing about my day yesterday because it was so full and exhausting. I have been really busy at work, but also having things to do right after. So I have to work harder faster, which I actually prefer. I don't like when I am sitting around waiting for feedback from clients and scraping to find work to do. I mostly end up helping other people with their projects while I wait for mine to come back.

 

Right now, I am working on a bunch of short animations that are about this gel-like goo that is injected into an artery to stop the blood flow, so that the surgeons can repair whatever needs to be re[aired without constant blood flow and loss. It feels really good to be creating play through animations again. The difference between the play throughs and our interactive modules, is there is so much more effects and cool things you can work with when it comes to play through. You can experiment and figure out what you think looks best compared to being restricted to the gaming engine we use to build our interactive modules. You can kind of compare it to painting verse coloring with crayons, not that our interactive modules seem less mature than our play throughs. They actually are really cool and are based off our main product. You just can't do so much blending and effects you would with a crayon as you would with a paint brush.

 

So after work, Katelynn and I went to midweek early, and I had some time to kill while Katelynn was in her teen d-group. So I decided to grab a bite to eat at the same Subway I worked at all through college. Woah! Talk about flash backs. I walked in and there was a girl there who looked to be as young as I was working her tail off to get the food ready in the back while racing to ring people up as they were ready. I just pictured myself taking the same steps she did and remembered I had the same look on my face as she did, "I have so much homework to do but I'm not looking forward to leaving here smelling like lettuce and mayonaise." *I know, gross* But she did a great job and was really nice. So I sat down to eat my sandwich, and just looked out the window as the people passed by, and I wondered how many people I would recognize from my time there a few years ago. You know, the regulars who would come in everyday, or the school of toddlers filed in a straight line holding onto a rope. It was kind of surreal, I felt like this should be a dejavu moment, yet so many things were new and just a few were the same. The world is moving on, developing and maturing, and frankly, so am I.

Stumbling Upon Life

Last night I was stumbling as I was drowned in boredum. Constantly hitting, the "stumble" button, click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Then, I came across the one website called ohlife.com. The website emails you a question everyday, usually asking how your day was. You, then reply to the email and it automatically posts to your account on OhLife. It's completely private, so if you have an absolutely aweful, achy, boring, stif, cloudy and rainy, lonly day, you can still write about it and not have anyone see all your ugly feelings. It basically helps you record your past so that when you get to the part of your future, where events and names get pretty fuzzy, you can always go back to remind yourself. (Unless you can't even rememeber the name of this website to get to your account. Here, let me help you. O-H-L-I-F-E-.-C-O-M)

I figured it could be a good way to give me the push to blog everyday. I really have a hard time getting the motivation to blog unless asked to about something specific. *I know, pathetic* Here is what I wrote about yesterday, and stay updated later on tonight, about my day today.

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My day was so busy! I've been out the past 2 Fridays, so I've had work waiting for me to come back on Monday. I'm doing a bunch of animations for this one client, who is great at getting us their critique back quickly. But they also want the newest version ASAP. So I've been working hard and fast! So hard in fact that I almost missed my 5:00 bus and I had a yoga class to get to.
Oh yoga... I haven't been in a couple weeks, and boy do I feel it. My body, especially my hips, were killing me! I don't know what the universe is trying to do to me, but the last couple times I've been, the teacher for some reason thinks that everyone taking the class is a level 2 and 3 yogi. This is my 7th class... EVER! I am NOT level 2 or 3, but man, it's an amazing workout. We did this one position where we had to twist and balance on our forearms with our legs stretch out to one side. I just kind of squatted and rested there.

Now, I'm home watching "Castle" with Chantel. I love this show, it's funny and suspenseful and romantic. But my favorite part about it is the quality time I get with Chantel, and the "experience" I have with her. Relationships are based on mutual experiences, that's how people connect with one another. We don't get to hangout much, having different schedules and all, so I'm glad we get this time together. :)

PS. Love "New Girl"

Love is in the air!

This weekend I found out that my little sister is dating, my cousin got engaged and a couple friends of mine, Alexandra and Jesse got engaged as well. Not to mention, everyone else that got engaged in the last couple months. Wow, love is definitely in the air.

I couldn't be more happy for all these people that God has blessed them with a person who thinks the world of them. :)

When I grow up...

I know, I know.... it's been 5 months since my last post. I told you, I'm really bad at blogging, but for some reason I think I may be on my "second" wind. And when I say second wind, I really have no idea how big or small it will be. Could be a giant gust that will finally last, like a tornado where I take you all out by the amount of wind. Or this could be a nice breeze that will only last a post. Slash it defintely could be like when someone blows their bath breath in your face, short and not pleasent. But I'm going to try and be a tornado.
So anyway, this past fall I fell in love with French Vanilla Hot Chocolate. It was perfect. I found our biggest mug in the cubbert, made some Swiss Miss FVHC, then pulled apart a HUGE marshmellow into pieces before dropping them in, and sprinkled some cinnamon on top.

It has become my new "Don't bother me, I'm relaxing" drink. Then some how it turned into an actual dream of mine. Want to know what it is? Ready?

Okay okay. So I want to open up my own hot chocolate shop one day! I got really excited about this because I feel like I am currently in the profession I wanted to do since high school and have been nervous if I was ever going to dream to do anything else.

I daydream a lot about my furture HoCho shop. What it's going to look like or who will be my regular customers. If you read this, I promise to give you a cup of yummy hot chocolate on the house!