superstition

I broke a mirror the other day. I was trying to put some shampoo away in the shower, and the mirror joe keeps in there fell. I was hoping it didnt break. But as i picked it up, there was a big crack in it. I am not really superstitious, but some things will get to me. Like at work, if our press is running good, and someone comments on it. i do the "knock on wood" thing. likewise, i get kinda weirded out if i break a mirror. But spilling salt? doesnt really bother me. I really hope i dont have the 7 years bad luck thing. Not only that, but now i have to buy a new mirror. Rats!

like what you see? you can purchase cards at www.sobeejoe.etsy.com

On a lighter note... i made some valentines cards. I am SO trying to keep ahead of myself this year. I have been working on them for a few weeks. I put out some feelers at work, and i think a bunch of the guys are wanting to buy some. plus i have my "Regulars" . This year, they were really fun to do!

aaah, the joy of sleep

yesterday i slept. and not just slept in, but slept. I got home from work around 8am. I hightailed it straight to bed. (with my book, just in case i woke up, and didnt want to get out of bed) I turned the t.v on, turned the volume down so i could barely hear it (weird how that puts me to sleep)
I dozed off and on all day. I remember waking up, and Trivial Pursuit was on. I remember thinking "grrr, way to early" so i rolled over, snuggled up to my pillow, and went back to sleep. I woke a couple more times, and did the same thing. Finally, around 4:30, I woke up fully, looked at the phone, and there was a message that Joe was on his way home. I shamefully sent him a message that said i was still in bed. Then, i cracked open that book, and put myself to sleep once again... I woke when he came upstairs, and luckily, he just wanted to go to bed. So, we were cozied up in bed by 7:30. And we slept. all night.
i guess what i am getting at, was that yesterday i was probably the most lazy person of the day, but you know what? it felt good. it felt great actually! today i feel refreshed and ready to take on ANYTHING (i better be, becuase i have to go to the dentist) So i guess what im trying to say, is that once in awhile, a bunch of sleep will do a body good.

good morning!

its another day, and tonight it will be another dollar. Going back to work today... All week long, i have slept in till about 9am. today, woke up at 5 am and cant go back to sleep. So, i am working on some valentines cards.
For a couple of weeks i have been talking about wanting to turn the loft into a "mini library". for Christmas, Joseph gave me the bookcases to make it happen. He also gave up one of his chairs that ninnie gave him. (muscles brought it upstairs by himself) so now, instead of laying on the bed (and falling asleep) i can sit in my chair, enjoy a cup of coffee, and a great book. This week off i have taken advantage of that! (i read 3 books) its very weird how i obtained so many books. Originally, i just wanted to collect dean koontz. so little by little i have been getting one here and there... Well, i saw a posting on craigslist for some free books, and since i LOVE to read, and at the time, had no new books, i went and got them. She had about 40 books, mostly James Patterson. So, i stacked them on a shelf i had over my desk in the spare room. Fast forward a few months, and my parents come to visit. My mom says she has a big box of books for me to read. Turns out, she had brought down a bunch of james patterson as well. so she says "you can add them to your collection" so i guess thats how i started collecting his books.
Then, we went to a book sale, and they had a bunch of J.D Robb books (Nora Roberts' alter ego) and they just happened to be the ones i havent read, so i picked em up. Then my mom says, "you should get all hers too!" So, theres a shelf for good ole J.D Robb. Plus I belong to 2 swap book clubs, and i posted some Ann Rice books i had gotten (in that big ole pile of free books) and swapped em out with Jodi Picoult... alas, another author to collect. :) it feels good, because i havent read all my books, so when i feel like reading (usually when Joseph wants to play gutair) i can pick one from my stacks...

looks cozy doesnt it?

i still need a gutair stand for that gutiar... i have to share my space with the gutairs... but thats okay

booda loves it when i take pics... he tries to get in everyone

I printed out some of my favorite pics and put them on my bookcases, to remind me of fun times, and family i miss...

Also this week, i had some crazy mojo, and made about 75 cards! they just flew outta my crafty little fingers. i will be sad when its time to work again, because i do nothing on work days but sleep, eat dinner and go to work. I hope this mojo stays with me until monday.

a couple of the designs i came up with... kyia took the rest of the cool ones for her thank you cards...

Oh yeah, and ONE of my bookcases is almost done. i just have to spray a coat of glossy topcoat. Joseph said that will dry in 10 minutes though, so i figure i will give it about an hour, then bring em in, and load em up.

last day off before i have to go back....

its that time again. time for work. Today is my last day off before going back into night shifts. I still have a long list of things to do, but i am doing what i can. So far today i have:

• loaded and unloaded the dishwasher (twice)
• completely cleaned the fish tank (poor little guys are swimming in some MURKY waters)
• Put a base coat and another black coat on my bookcases. (i am so anxious to get them upstairs)
• started on the mountain of laundry that has piled up this last week
• started cutting papers for cards (i NEED to get some in my online store, just in case)
• and started on a special starbucks project for the empty wall space that sits to the right of this computer.

slowly my to-do list is getting shorter. for now, i am killing time so that i can go back out and work on my bookcases. I would at least love to get one completely done by tomorrow, so i can bring it in, and fill it with STUFF.

working on some side projects...

well, i had a to-do list for this week off that was about 50 items long. I tried to do some things like computer work, but the computer just didnt want to corporate. I did, however, pick up a couple of bookcases from craigslist for free. They were a yucky brown color, so i am repainting them black, to match the rest of the bookcases i have. As of right now, they are out in the garage drying. (thats what i hate about projects, especially PAINT projects)

I got some mojo back this morning and had a few idea for some cards. So, i guess in between drying times, i can work on some cards. I was asked to come back for the craft fair every 3rd saturday of the month. So i am working on some cards for that.

I found some pics of when everyone came over for a "pre-Thanksgiving" dinner. They turned out pretty nice. All in all, we had about 13 people over for dinner, dessert, and good times.

Booda, the King of the kitchen

part of the party chowin down, and doing what we do best in our family, take pics

Miss Pauli

My Mom, after a long day in the kitchen, with me

While we finished up dinner, Joe entertained everyone in the garage. "a game of darts anyone?"

My Aunt Brandi

Kyia's Husband Eddie

Nana and Aunt Brandi

I think this pic was taken after I told him he was doing the dishes

MMMM. steaming broccoli and carrots. my favorite

My Cousin Katie, She was the photographer for me since i was busy cookin.

happy monday!

okay i am back for another posting. This weekend i didnt post a single thing, because we did nothing but lay on the couch and watch movie after movie. Once a month we will take a weekend and just lounge around and catch up on movies. we watched:

• Babylon AD (good movie)
• A righteous kill (not so good movie, good twist at the end, but boring)
• Crank (good action movie)
• The golden compass (i fell asleep)
• Zodiac (pretty good movie, based on serial killer from Santa Rosa)
• Bangkok Dangerous (really good movie)
• Pineapple Express (pretty funny movie)
• Eagle Eye (great action movie)

So now its a monday and i guess its back to work. I have the week off, but have a slew of chores to get done. I am also working on a "special project" with my favorite pics. I have some pics from my "pre-Christmas" party i had two weeks before christmas. I would love to share them with you. so here they are:

First off, we had food! Joe and i didnt go too crazy, but we had:

• chocolate fondu with the fixings (angel food cake, cherries, bananas)
• Hot artichoke dip with homemade chips
  
• Homemade guacamole and salsa
• Pumpkin cookies (brought by Joe's mom
• Hot Coco, Coffee, and peppermint tea
  

Ninnie at the "food bar"
everyone chowin down

After we ate and visited for a bit, we got right down to business!
we had WHITE ELEPHANT gift exchange, and then i handed out the gifts i had been working for months to get


aunt brandi opening her white elephant gift
there were lots of oohs and aahhs
she got a candle set

Nana is opening her gift. (she got a mug boss, its a thing that goes over a coffee mug to organize your desk. they make them for paint buckets for your tools, and i saw this and it was too cool)

for some reason, the batteries died for the rest of white elephant, so i couldnt get pics. we did get them recharged for me to play "santa" though.

Jim with his gift. he got a $10 starbucks card.
(i figured a hot cup of coffee or coco would be nice when he was out there putting chains on his truck)

aunt brandi opening her christmas gift. I am ever the cheapskate, and i MADE the wrapping paper at work, and MADE the to/from tags on the gifts. The words i heard the most were: "where did you get this" at which i replied "i made it"
here she is asking me how i did it.

now she is opening her gift. I had gotten her $15 in fast food gift cards. notice Uncle Dave's face in the background? he knew what i was getting and why, so it was funny. I wrote on each of the gift cards EXACTLY what she could get (at jack in the box with $5 you can get 10 tacos, or 5 items from the dollar menu)

looks like she was pretty happy with her gift

next its Uncle Dave's turn


I found this thing that's called a "buttstation" its a guy that looks like he is sitting on the toilet. he holds a roll of tape in his hands, and a pen in his mouth. In the "bowl" is where you keep paperclips. and there is a magnet on the guys butt, so when you lift him up, they stick. It was soo cool.

he is looking at his notepad paper i made him, there is a slot in the back for a notepad

it has this on the bottom of the sheet of paper. So now, if he leaves notes they will have his "stamp" on em.

after he went back to work, he sent me this pic of the guy on his desk. i guess the people at work thought it was pretty dang cool.


now its Ninnie's turn. Ninnie loves thomas kinkade. Joe and I were out shopping one day, and found a mug/tea set with a thomas kinkade image on them. as soon as we saw that, we knew that we had to get it for her.
I had a friend who has rubber stamps of his art work, so i asked her to send me some. I then made a set of 10 cards for Ninnie to use for birthday or whatever she wants to . She really loved em.


Joe's Mom is getting into scrapbooking, so when Ninnie gave me some rubber stamps with borders and stuff, i knew what i wanted to get for his mom! i went right to where Ninnie got hers, and ordered every set of stamps they had! She was tickled when she opened her stamps.

Now its time for nana's gift. Nana is not too hard to shop for. Her gift was wrapped with my "handmade" wrapping paper. That paper was a hit for gifts.

i used alot of tape when i wrapped, so nana had a hard time getting it open......

.... but when she did it was worth it. I had some of her FAVORITE cookies imported from Holland and gave her some chocolate syrup to go with it.

now its Katie's turn. I had picked up some white t-shirts, and tye dyed them pink (i refuse to use gloves for any kind of project, so after i tye dyed, i had bright maroon hands for about 3 days). Then i looked for some cool graphics to iron on. i found two that i really loved. And i was so worried she wouldnt like them. But she LOVED her shirts.

she has this look, like what is it?


and then she says, oh my! sweet! oooh! my camera couldnt take pics fast enough.
(as you can see, these pics arent in order of when people opened their gifts. because uncle daves gift is sitting on his lap, unopened.)

katie with her shirt....
...and then she went and tried it on. and it fit. Yaay!


oh yeah, and my mom had some gifts for everyone as well, and i gave them out for her at our party. everyone got some nice goodies.

I also mailed a box of goodies to my brother, cheryl and jacob. And another box went out to Jess and Kayla. and yet another box went to my mom and dad.

Bob, Cheryl and Jacobs box had:

• movies for bob
• The whole complete set of Nirvana for cheryl (she is a big fan)
• movies for jacob
• and some onzies for jacob. she sent me this pic of him wearing his sailor jerry onzie

(i did some iron on transfers for his little t-shirts, but forgot to take pics)

my sister got some really neat shoes i found on SUPER CLEARANCE, and kayla got some hair barrettes i made for her, as well as a headband.

My mom and Don got some movies, my mom got a neat cold weather hat (see below) and Cds. and Don got a bunch of cool things for his bday and xmas. (poor guy has both on the same day!)

Oh okay, i will do a 2 for 1 today ;)

yes, i am here and i will just put a ton of pics into this post. So here are the reception pics.