Painting!

About a month ago my mom and I decided to do some painting for one of our weekly outings. We loved it so much we ended up going the next week as well. We did our research ahead of time and found this small privately owned place. Their rates were pretty cheap and their pieces were also pretty inexpensive. I really enjoyed the feeling of this little shop as the owner was extremely helpful. She worked really hard to help us figure out exactly what we wanted and taught us some tricks we wouldn't have known about otherwise.
I decided to do this little, well, I don't know what you would call it. It's where I keep my ring. My mom is pretty talented and is the one that drew the flower on the piece for me. It didn't turn out as well as I envisioned. However, it turned out quite a bit better than I expected when I left it to be fired. I thought I created a mess of things. Turns out it wasn't so bad. Not as good as I was hoping but still kind of cute.


My mom decided to do this cute little cupcake. The yellow turned out a bit darker than we anticipated, but it's still really cute. The owner was the one that helped us figure out how to get the lettering on there nice and neat. It was a bit of work (I ended up painting the lettering for my mom), but it turned out really nice.


The next week we decided to go again. However, I saw a piece at the more expensive place that I really wanted to do. They also had much cuter Christmas pieces. So despite the cost we headed over there for another day of painting. This time I was prepared. I brought along different sizes of flowers to put on my piece. And because we went to the other place the week before I was able to know exactly what to ask for and what to do. I was very thankful for that because the people at this more expensive place weren't so helpful. They were nice enough. However, they didn't go out of their way to really help us out.

And this is how it turned out! I'm so happy with this. I think it's really cute. The top comes off and can be used as a jewelry box. I'm also extremely relieved that my mom convinced me to only do one flower. This one was extremely time consuming to do. I can't imagine having done more.

My mom decided to do this snowman plate as we both love snowmen. It turned out really cute. She even gave it to me. How sweet is that?

So that was our adventure painting. We really enjoyed it. I can't wait to do it again.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! I figured I would use this post to count the many blessings I have in my life. So here goes, one for every year I've been alive.

1. My salvation - The best gift ever given.

2. My relationship with God - I don't know where I would be without Him.

3. My husband - He is the second greatest thing God has given me. I'm so incredibly thankful that he is a part of my life.

4. My parents - I am so lucky to have two wonderful parents. They are such a great example. I couldn't ask for better parents.

5. My brother - I am very lucky to have such a great brother and the growing relationship we have.

6. My family - Some may say this is a little redundant, however, for me there is a big difference between my immediate family and the rest of my family. And I'm very thankful for them all. All my grandparents are still alive and I hope that one day I can give them great grandchildren.

7. My church family - Because we don't live very close to any of our family (never have really), our church family is very important. I'm so glad to have such a wonderful place where I can go and feel supported.

8. My friends - Growing up I never had many friends. We moved so often and I was very shy, so it would take me a long time to find good friends. I am so thankful that I have been able to cultivate a good group of friends.

9. Hope in God's promises - I am so thankful that I can hold on to the promises of God because He does not lie and what He promises He will do. That is a wonderful thing to be able to hold on to in the midst of any trial.

10. My health - I may not be in the greatest of shape, but things could be far worse. I am so thankful that my body is healthy, as well as the rest of my family.

11. My home - I am so thankful that I have a nice home where I am safe and secure.

12. My car - I am thankful that we have a nice little car that is reliable and will get us where we need to go.

13. My citizenship - I am thankful to live in a country where I am free to speak my mind, live my life, and worship how I want to. That is an incredible gift.

14. My education - I am so thankful that I was able to get a good education.

15. Food - I don't have to worry about where my food will come from. I don't have to worry about going hungry. That is truly a wonderful thing to be thankful for.

16. Water - These are basic needs, however, much of the world has to worry about these things. I am thankful that I don't have to worry about being able to get clean water.

17. California - While I may not always be thrilled with the state I am living in, it is a wonderful place to live. I am very spoiled to be living here. People spend their entire lives saving to be able to come on vacation here once. I get to live here.

18. My cats - This may seem silly. But they bring me such comfort. They are wonderful to have around and my house would be so quiet without them.

19. J.R.'s job - I am very thankful that he has a steady job. I don't know where we would be without it. While things aren't wonderful financially at his job, it is a secure job.

20. My job - Even though I haven't started working yet and I'm still trying to find another job, I am thankful for the job I know that God will provide for me.

21. God's provision - I am so very grateful for God's provision during this difficult time for J.R. and I. Despite my not working we have been surviving through God's provision.

22. Rain - It's just started raining again. It's much needed and I love it!

23. My blog - I'm so thankful for a place where I can express myself. And more importantly I'm thankful for all the wonderful people I've met through blogging.

24. My future children - I may not know when they will come, but I am so thankful that one day I will be able to hold my children.

25. My clean house - It's taken a while to get to this point and I'm hoping I can hang on to it. But I'm so thankful that for the last few weeks I've had a clean house.

26. My mother in law - As much as she can drive J.R. and I crazy, she is really wonderful to help us out whenever we need it.

27. My former students - While many of them caused me quite a bit of aggravation, I learned so much from them. I am so thankful for the time I was able to spend with them.

28. My books - I am thankful that I am able to have such a large collection of one of my favorite things.

So Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you have a wonderful day spent with friends and family!

Makeover!

A week or so ago I began seeing commercials for a certain company. I was intrigued as my mom used to sell their stuff. I had never seen them do commercials before. So in a fit of boredom one day I made my way to their website to see what they had, not that I can afford to buy anything from them right now.

When looking through their website I came across this cool little feature they offered. You could do a virtual makeover and even upload your own picture. I was curious. Many of these that I have seen are pretty lame. So I uploaded my picture to see what would come out. What I discovered was pretty cool. The makeup feature didn't make you look silly and cartoonish, that is unless you used certain colors. No it was pretty real.

Then I discovered the hair feature. This is when I started to have some fun. A lot of the styles aren't too flattering, at least on me. But it was fun to see what I would like like with different hair styles. I also discovered that I really like me with very light auburn hair. I've always wanted to try it but never brave enough. At one point I put on a particular hair style and gasped. I was no longer looking at myself. I was looking at my mom. It was unreal. My mom and I look insanely alike anyway, but when I put on a hairstyle similar to my mom, I was staring at her.

A few days later I was showing my mom the new toy I discovered. She fell in love with a couple of the hair cuts on me. She really fell in love with the red hair on me. So much so she was offering to give me that for my Christmas present, as I haven't had a hair cut in close to a year. Blech! I am really in need of one. I just can't justify the cost right now. So I sit and dream about what I might do. So for kicks here are some of the looks I discovered.

These are the two my mom loved.

I love this one but I'm not sure it looks ok with my face.

This is the one I thought I looked exactly like my mom.

My mom and I (Yes it's an older picture but she isn't going to be happy about me even posting this one. Silly.)

As much as I love long hair, short hair suits my face better.

Cute but wrong color.

For fun some silliness

Bouffant anyone?

What I would look like if I were Wolverine. :)

So which one do you like? And how about that color? Oh and if you'd like to try this for yourself, you can find it at Marykay.com. Have fun with the makeovers! :)

In Sickness . . .

Yesterday, J.R. and I both were sick. J.R. quite a bit more than me. It wasn't fun. I tried to do my best to take care of him. He threw up from about 5am to 10 or 11am. It wasn't cool. And I had to keep my distance otherwise I would have been in the same situation. I did manage a run to the store to pick up some essentials. But I was quickly beginning to suffer the same fate. Thankfully, I never threw up because I hate throwing up probably more than anything in the world.

So J.R. and I spent all day in bed. We had a little Star Wars marathon. I'm amazed at the attention to detail the Logos Star Wars game has. It's incredible. The sets looks almost exactly the same. So we slept on and off throughout the day. J.R. came down with a fever. I shortly after came down with one as well. We were miserable. Thankfully, I have wonderful parents who sent Greg over with some soup and Tylenol (we had run out). My mom called later in the evening to check on us. She even waited on the phone while we took our temps. She's such a great mom. We are feeling much better today. J.R. went into work, albeit pretty sore from the workout he got yesterday. I'm starting to get hungry, so that's a good sign.

Turns out it was food poisoning from Tuesday night. A few others from church were sick as well. We still haven't figured out what caused it. I hope and pray it wasn't my pies, though I doubt it. But that settles it for me, no more potlucks. I've gotten food poisoning twice in the last 3 months from those things. I guess I'll be a little more picky with what I eat from now on.

Pies!!

Before this weekend I had never made one pie in my entire life. As of today I've made 4!

Saturday J.R. and I went to a dessert party at the Marcus and Allissa's. We really enjoyed spending time with them and meeting new people. I made a pie. I have never made pie before so it was quite the experiment. It turned out very tasty, though not so pretty. There was too much filling and it was in a constant state of seepage. I had in the fridge for the allotted time, but it still didn't quite set. Oh well, it was really good.

Mud Pie

Today I baked my first pumpkin pie. It turned out very nice. I actually had so much filling I was able to make three pies! The young adults group we attend on Tuesday nights has a Thanksgiving dinner every year. As my mom and I bake cakes, I am typically tagged to do some sort of dessert. So I figured what could be more appropriate than pumpkin pie? Not everyone was so pleased with the fact that I brought pie instead of cake. One of the guys (*cough*Jones)chastised me for not making a turkey shaped cake.

I did attempt to make my pies a little more decorative than your typical pumpkin pies. I have a turkey stencil so I used it and some powdered sugar to make a turkey on my pies. It turned out really cute. However, my pies were still a little warm and the pie just absorbed the sugar. Oh well.

Tonight was a lot of fun. Just a lot of food and friends. There were quite a few people there tonight. It was a little overwhelming for me. I'm not one to like big crowds. I much rather prefer smaller groups. But it was a nice time to spend with friends.

Pumpkin Pie

Busy, Busy Weekend!

Thursday I got a call from Rose. It seems she was helping Christina plan Chloe's 1st birthday and they needed a cake. That's where I came in. She wanted to know if I could make a cake for Saturday. Yeah, two days to whip something up. Not a whole lot of time. But I gave my mom a call and we figured out that it could be done. So my Thursday evening was spent making cake.

Friday my mom and I headed out to Orange County to a craft fair. It was a small one but we had a great time looking at all the items. It was a Christmas craft fair so that makes it all the better. We bought a few things and found some ideas we would like to create on our own. We also ran into these ladies that were selling cupcakes. 2 for $5.50! And the cupcakes weren't all that impressive. We took a look at their "portfolio" (which was actually just a cheap plastic picture holder) and weren't impressed at all. My mom and I walked away wondering why we couldn't do something like that for a living.

Friday evening J.R.'s grandparents came out and took the two of us out to dinner, for my birthday. Yes, I know. My birthday was over two months ago. They promised to take me out for my birthday and well life happened. We finally got together and had a very nice dinner.
After dinner, J.R. and I raced over to my parents house where my mom and I finished off the birthday cake. It turned out really cute.

Saturday afternoon was previously mentioned birthday party. It was at a park. We initially had some difficulty finding the park, which was frustrating. But we eventually found the place and delivered the cake. Everyone was very impressed and loved it. We had a nice afternoon hanging out with friends.

After the party, Greg met us at our house and we went to their softball game. J.R. and Greg play on the church softball team. That is where we can be found most Saturday evenings and usually where I get my homework done. :) At the game I met up with Melissa, who I hadn't seen in what felt like forever.

The game was over quickly and about 15 of us decided to get something to eat. So we invaded a local restaurant and terrorized some waitstaff with our large grouping. We had a really nice evening. During the course of the meal, my brother invited Travis and Melissa over to our house the next day. Remind me to invite people over to his house once he actually moves out.

Sunday we went to church, then raced home to clean before our guests arrived. We finished just before they showed up (thank God.) We got a few pizzas and watched a movie. As the evening went on we finally decided to do what we originally planned, the spa. Melissa and I made our way down to the spa while the boys finished whatever game they happened to be playing. We were actually down there almost a full 30 minutes before they showed up. We didn't mind too much as we were having a nice conversation.

Once they showed up we were so hot from the spa we decided to test out the pool. It happened to not be so bad and we swam for a bit. Then the boys traded with us as we went back into the spa while they threw a football back and forth in the pool. We eventually all started playing a game in the pool. We had a lot of fun and probably disturbed the neighbors. Oh well. We swam for almost two hours.

One would think that would be the end to a very full day. But it wasn't. We decided to play cards. It was already starting to get late when we began the game. By the time it was over, we were all so tired and slap happy we didn't care who won. We just wanted the game to be over.
So our weekend was very full and a whole lot of fun.

And now what you really want to see. The cake!

Wonderful World of . . . Video Games?

I have never been one to play video games all that often. As a child, my favorites were Super Mario Bros and Tetris. That was it. As I got into my teen years, almost any desire to play video games disappeared.

As I got to college one of my roommates turned me onto the Sims. That became a bit of an obsession unfortunately. My favorite part about the game was creating new houses and decorating them. Still not much in the way of an "actual" video game.

A few months ago, J.R. and I were visiting his aunt and uncle's house. It was then I discovered the most incredible invention known to man, the Wii. Ok so maybe it's not the most incredible invention known to man, but it is pretty cool. I was hooked. J.R. and I have been talking about the fact that we want a Wii ever since. However, seeing the current state of our budget, that just doesn't seem to be a possibility. We're hoping we can get one someday.

On Monday of this week, we again went over to Chris and Jerry's house for dinner with the family. We, as usual, had a nice time. But we discovered a new game on the Wii, boxing. Yeah, I'm sitting here two days later and am still pretty sore. J.R.'s 13 year old cousin had a great time laughing as he watched us try to beat each other up. I'm sure we looked pretty silly. It was a lot of fun but wow what a workout. I was almost to the point that I was sweating. Yet another great reason to get one, its a way to workout as well.

So we'll see if J.R. and I get our wish to own our own Wii. Until then, I think I'll finish recuperating from this last experience. :)