Nearly finished!

I have always been a project starter, but only recently have I been working hard at being a project finisher. To train myself to finish things, I've been working on slightly bigger projects, and not allowing myself to get too carried away with tons of small projects at the same time. So, lets rewind a bit to get to the point of this entry.

Back in july, I was bored. Seriously bored out of my mind. So, I decided I was going to make a quilt. I figured it would keep me busy for a good long time, and I'd be done around the time Jason came home. I picked out one of those "quilt of the month" kits, selected my fabrics, and started hand-sewing my squares. (Yes, hand-sewing, because I figured it would take longer, and be more rewarding at the end.) I did all but the last set of squares by hand. By then, I was blistered and callused, and ready to pack up the whole thing and call it quits, but I didn't.

I worked on the quilt pretty much every single day. I machine stitched the outline quilting, the stippling, and most of the border, but the week before Jason came back, I realized the machine wouldn't be able to do the smaller patterns I picked out for the center of the quilt. So, back to hand sewing. Still, I didn't give up. (This was in the middle of october, and I had approximately 9 square feet left to quilt.)

This morning, I have 4 six inch squares left to quilt. That's it. Well, those squares and the edging, but I think I'll cheat on the edging and machine sew it.

I'm so so so so proud that I'm actually finishing this project. It has taken nearly 4.5 months so far, and will probably take another week at least, but I did it. Every single stitch. Every knot. Every time I stabbed myself with a pin or needle, or cut my finger instead of the thread. It was worth it.

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And, because I haven't been good with the pics as of late, I'm finishing up this entry with photos from the zoo, sunday.

playing with the polar bear

you think he sees us?

say ahh

300 lbs of prehistoric turtle

Holiday blah

I'm an early christmas shopper. I've always been. I bought my first present this year in august. I bought my last present friday. Usually, I'm perfectly content to be finished now, and start on the other christmas festivities like baking and decorating, but this year something is different. This year I see all the sales adds and all I want to do is get out and shop. Not necessarily for christmas stuff, but everywhere I turn, I see something I want to get either for family, or for myself.

I think part of this is the uncertainness of how the next month and a half will go for us. Face it, until the navy informs us of it's decision, we don't even know what type of house to look for in WA. We don't know how much furniture we will be able to take, or even who will move said furniture.

But that being the case, why do I want to buy more stuff to worry about moving?

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Jason left again today. He'll be back in a few days though. I was looking forward to the alone-time since we literally were together every minute the past 4 days.

Scratch that, I just got an email that they're not getting underway till tomorrow.
Feh - I bet that means they'll come back a day later, which may screw with our weekend plans.

Anyways, I was going to say that no matter how long the length of the underway period, I still get this wierd mourning feeling. I'm pretty used to it by now, but honestly, I didn't think I'd feel this way for just a few days.

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So, Thanksgiving. We had dinner. We watched football (go longhorns!)
We watched more football. We played blackjack. Jason woke up at 6 am on black friday to try to get a cheap dvd burner at staples. He was home by 6:30 with no dvd burner. They had already sold out. Later we went to sears and people watched. It was so interesting watching the dynamics of the shoppers, and even realizing how different the shoppers were demographically as we walked from sears to banana republic.
Saturday, we watched more football. It was cloudy and cold. Sunday we went to the zoo. I LOVE the san diego zoo. We're members, and it is worth every penny. One of my favorite things about zoos is that they combine my love for being touristy with my love for watching the discovery channel (venom ER rocks!). So, we saw the reptiles, and the galapagos tortises, and the polar bears. SDZoo has the best polar bears. I've never seen more playful zoo animals. Well, one was napping, but the other was in the pool right up next to the glass windows, and was playing with a chewed up plastic jack-o-lantern. Actually, he was throwing the pumpkin towards the spectators.

So, picture a 10 ft high glass wall with water coming up to about the 3.5 ft. height. There are literally dozens of kids standing within inches of a massive 8ft tall 2 ton, playful polar bear, who all the sudden leaps in the air propelling himself toward the glass wall and....

SMASH - he crashes right into it.

No, the glass doesn't break, but it was hilarious to see the kiddos freak out.

and now we are at today. Monday.

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Only crazy people name their kids Phinnaeus. Hazel isn't too terrible, but still. Phinnaeus and Hazel? C'mon. Besides, what kid today won't hear phinnaeus and think "Phinnaeus Nigelus, the most unpopular headmaster at Hogwarts"

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Since Jason has come home from the big deployment, I haven't read one single book. I'm taking at least 3 with me at christmas. 8 hours on a plane should help me catch up a bit. I haven't read Angels and Demons yet. That would probably be a good christmas book. Also, Jason is listening to the new "godfather" book, so maybe I'll start that when he is finished.

25 days till christmas!

Yumm! Liverworst!

Ok, so no pics from the cool new camera phone, but not because I don't have the phone, rather, I haven't gone anywhere. Well, we went to bl@ckbuster yesterday, but who wants to see pics of that?

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Jason came home yesterday complaining that someone threw something on his car. "grapefruit or a sandwich or something" So, before we went to bl@ckbuster, we got out the paper towels and some water, and some dish-soap, and went down to the car.

when we were 10 ft away, I could tell it wasn't grapefruit or a sandwich. It was puke. Some sailor puked on Jason's car.
hehe

Jason kept saying, "I thought it smelled familiar, but I couldn't place my finger on it."

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So, today is the day before thanksgiving, and if you're in my family, today should be included in the holiday. Today, you finalize recipes, bake pies, prepare stuff for snacking, defrost the turkey...

Traditionally, we only eat one "meal" on Thanksgiving. Usually early in the afternoon. The rest of the day we eat cheese/meat/crackers and pie and cookies. When we lived in Illinois, mom used to go to this little butcher shop (I think) and would come home with a roll of salami, bologni, and my favorite, liverworst. Who knew that the pickiest child eater would like liverworst!

I think the snacking in the morning was my favorite part of the day.

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I have got to add a divider to my css template so I don't have to keep typing in stars.

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If I don't hear back from my client today, I'm going ahead and buying my plane ticket for house hunting this afternoon. Buying a plane ticket makes it seem sooooo much more real.

Whoops! I forgot a title!

Today is one of those days when you wish you could curl up in front of the fireplace in warm jammies and drink hot cocoa and watch movies all day long. It is cold and grey (only 46 F at the moment.)

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Possible spoilers---

National Treasure was awesome! Even though Nick Cage isn't my favoritest actor in the world, he did a good job bringing intensity to his character. I do want to know who decided that every single movie has to have some sort of love story though, because this one just didn't fit. It seemed like it was thrown in afterwords because, well, what kind of movie doesn't have a love story? Sheesh! This kind! Also, I didn't like the end because technically, the only people who would exchange artifacts of that nature for cash are private collectors and insurance people. It just didn't click for me, but was a nice ending overall.

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How come the movies that came out over the summer were all bad, and now there is an influx of things that I want to see? My personal list: Finding Neverland, Bridget Jones, the Incredibles, Ocean's 12, A very long engagement, Alexander, Closer...

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I made my pumpkin/cheesecake and it turned out really good, but since it is no-bake,it didn't set completely and should be better defined as a pumpkin/cheesecake/pudding/crumble. It tastes great though.
Anyone looking for a twist this holiday season - add half of a block of creamcheese to your coolwhip or whipping cream.

Also, a few weeks ago, Jason and I went to a class that supposedly teaches how to pair cheeses with other food items for a holiday cheese plate. So, yesterday, we decided to try one of the pairings for a mexican cheese called manchego. (Hard cheese, tastes like a salty parmesan, but without the bite) The pairing calls for a guava puree, the stuff that makes gel, and sugar. Well, no guava puree here, so we used the frozen concentrate juice. And, it is sitting in our refrigerator ...not gelled at all. So, today I'm going to pour it back into the pot, add more gel stuff, and see what happens. Anyone know the ration of gel stuff to liquid you are supposed to use?

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Yesterday around 6 or 7, I noticed that my eyes felt swollen. Naturally, I thought it was an effect of the wine we were having with dinner, so I didn't put much thought into it, but when I got ready for bed, I noticed that my eyes were really swollen and this morning, they still are puffy. I'm hoping it is just from the wierd temperature changes/pollen changes, but if i'm still puffy tomorrow, I might just have to talk with my doctor.

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No picture today - Look for a new camera phone pic tomorrow!

The waiting game

What I'm doing right now:
I'm sitting here waiting for the windshield fixer guy to come and inspect and hopefully fix the brand spanking new chip in the window of our car. He's supposed to show up between 8 and noon, so i'm stuck in the house for the morning. Fun times here I can tell you.

Goals for today:
1. make a profile page,
2. make a booklist page,
3. Make the cheesecake that I talked about yesterday, although I changed my mind and instead am making a 2-layered pumpkin pie,
4. Laundry (will it ever end?)

What I learned yesterday:
Despite bragging about their nationwide service, and their new merger with @T&T, the assistant manager at the cingul@r store in California could not access our account because it was started in Mississippi.
This boils down to the fact that if you move and you want a new number, and you are in a different area of the country, you are forced to change your service plan.
BLARG

Tidbits:
No news from the realtor guy who said he'd email me listings. I need to get on that. I hate it when people say they will do something and then don't.

Tonight we're going to see "National Treasure" Woohoo! Hopefully it will be as good as the reviews sound, although, i'm pretty sure i've seen at least 15 minutes of the movie already through commercials. If they gave away all the good parts, I'll be pissed.

The holidays are right around the corner. We already have our tree up with lights, but no ornaments. We're making up for last year, when we moved on the 31st, so we decided to skip the tree. I think we'll do the ornaments this weekend though.

Thanksgiving dinner: Cornish game hens, stuffing, cranberry sauce, bread, 2 layer pumpkin pie. I really wanted a turkey, but I can't justify getting 10lbs of bird for just the two of us. Plus, I don't think we have any space in the freezer for a whole turkey.

In honor of the ship christmas party in 2 weeks, below is the pic from last years party.

My cat's uterus is none of your business!

Is is sad that when the property management office asked if Lola was spayed/neutered, i wanted to shout out that Lola's uterus was none of their business?

So, yes, talked with some moving people yesterday, and it looks like we might have to move househunting up a few weeks. Which means we will most likely have to pay an extra months rent in duplicate (CA rent + WA rent for Dec and Jan) Plus, I'm supposed to run a conversion (hopefully) sometime in the next month, so add that to my schedule, and I'm going to be one busy woman.

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On a serious and heartbreaking note, I want baby baby to know that she is in our prayers. She has found herself in the most difficult non-decision situation a woman can be in, and I pray that monday brings good news.

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Yesterday I spent most of my day in the sudafed induced fog, but I still managed to cross off everything on my list. Today i'm going to quilt, hit the grocery store, and attempt to bake my first real cheesecake. I want to test a bunch of recipes before christmas. Unfortunately for us, most of them are desserts. I should find some shelter or something to donate them to after we taste-test.

My little helper

Dealing with the Rogue Smoke Detector

I just cannot take it anymore. I seriously wanted to pack my bags and move out of our apt this morning. I had to wake up ungodly early to drive Jason to work this am, and was looking forward to a nice snooze when i got back. (Thanks to the sudafed gods/devils, i barely slept a wink during the night) I walked in the door, and was happily greeted by lola, but most unhappily greeted by the smoke detector.

For about the past month, it has been going beeping as if it needed a new battery, BUT IT DOESN'T NEED A NEW BATTERY. See, it only goes off when Jason is not home. It only goes off early in the morning. It really likes to go off when i have a conference call. After a week of beep-less mornings last week, i thought the problem was solved. Silly, naive me. Yesterday I awoke to one shreiking beep around 7:15. Yes, just one. I went back to sleep. This morning, i walked in the door at 6:30, and it kept beeping. I tried to sleep through it, but still the beeping wore on.

(on a side note, when smoke detectors beep, isn't it usually on a time schedule? like every 20 seconds or something? I swear ours is possessed because the intervals between beeps change. I'll hear 2 quick beeps, then a whole lot of nothing, and as soon as i start persuading myself that it is finally over, BEEEEEEEEEP)

So, after 30 minutes of sleep-deprived, sudafed induced torture I crawled out of bed, found the can of air, and tried to blow out whatever was causing the problem. This really was my only option, since we have 9 ft ceilings, and I am closer to 5 ft, than 9 ft tall. We have no chairs in the house that allow me to be anywhere near the ceiling at all, in fact.

The gusts of air did nothing. I climbed up on the dresser and rattled the stupid thing in a last ditch effort (bad idea) and the alarm started alarming, which is way worse and way louder and way more ear-piercing than the beeps. I nearly cried.

I sat down on the stool and tried to shed light on the situation.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEeee.....

That's right folks, it stopped all by itself mid beep.

I'm so calling the apartment office this morning.

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In other news, I finished my secret project for my sewing machine benefactor. See, she gave me her old machine and all its accoutrements, which included all her hand-sewing stuff, so I made this cutesy little kit for her. She has a thing for shoes...

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And on to the really big news, Only 4 weeks left till we find out if Jason gets his transfer. So, we pretty much decided that I'm moving to WA regardless. I'm planning to house-hunt while the ship is moving there in January, then fly home and pack up, throw the important boxes in storage, toss the rest, and then drive through 2 snowy mountain passes with a cat and a gecko. Yep, you know you want to come with!

Seals at the Children's Pool - San Diego, CA

The beginning

Ah - welcome back to journaling. I've missed you!

So, why am I venturing back to the world of journaling? Well, the main reason is that I missed it. I would watch a commercial on tv and think to myself, "self, I wish I could tell someone about that funny commercial (other than Jason, cause he's already heard it)"

Most of this stems from the fact that Jason was recently gone for a long period of time (Thank you US Navy) and I didn't have much of an outlet to share my life with. Now he is back, and I feel like I'm bombarding him with anecdotes from things that happened when he was gone, not understanding fully that gone from my life doesn't necessarily mean gone from world events in general.

So, perhaps reviving the journal. Just maybe if I use this as an outlet, I'll be able to fall asleep without thinking about all the stuff i wanted to say and haven't yet.

I do want to include a disclaimer that I may not be the best journaler out there. My grammer ain't great, I'm not the type who cares if my argument is structured properly, and I tend to "forget" to publish an entry now and then. Oh, also, I am by no means an expert on any subject really, so my opinions and comments on this site are exactly that. Don't bet your life savings based on what I say here.

So, that's that, and now on to the fun stuff!

edited to add...
Oh, and expect some big changes to the site in the next few weeks. I haven't had much time to play around with css yet!