Mail and Dvds

So today I got my photobook in the mail. I'm pretty excited about it. I think it turned out well for the most part. There are a couple of things I will remember to change for next time.
1. Leave more space on the outside edges to compensate for printing/cutting the book.
2. Remember to take the page numbers off (whoops on my part).
But pretty much it looks awesome. I can't wait to have a couple more done. It will be like my own personal little library dedicated to me. And since I am so egotistical, this will work out just great.

I also ordered a couple magnets. If I spent $30 dollars then I could get free shipping, which would save quite a bit of money as it was shipping from hong kong. So I put in a couple of dollar magnets. On one of them, I put the picture of us at the beach that I have on my blog, back when we were thinner. Then I put another one of last summer when we had gotten fat. And now those are hanging on my fridge to remind me how fat I am and how I want to be. People always put up skinny pictures as their goals. But I really think the fat picture is going to help more. So it was a fun mail day today!

The other day I also got my blank dvd's in the mail. I found a really good deal on some at buy.com. I got 150 blank dvds for $25. And if you've looked at prices, you know how awesome that is. So as soon as I saw them, I ordered them. My plan is to back up all my files that are on my hard drive. I know that hard drives can crash (in some cases, catch on fire... holly). So I want to make sure all my data and pictures and all that is backed up to something more predictable. And so today I am starting that process of backing it all up. I have a lot of stuff.

Grilled Pizza and Beads

So tonight I went over to the parentals house for dinner. They were having grilled pizza and it sounded fun and delicious... I was correct in my assumption. You just cook the dough and all right there on the grill. Good stuff. Then Sandy and I went to a jewelry making party that someone in her ward was having. So I got to learn how to make jewelry. It was fun and I got a couple of new pieces for my collection. I don't have a whole lot of fancier looking stuff, that's good for sundays and special occasions or real nice date nights. And I've been looking at pearl (or more like fake pearl) necklaces and bracelets. I own a couple of pink ones that I like, but didn't havea ny white ones. The picture below doesn't do them justice, or even show them in the correct color. Just know there a whitish color. And the oversized chair we have is super ugly as you can also see from the photo, but it is super comfortable. But I think that jewelry making could turn into a hobby at some point. Now all I needis lots of beads and such. I actually have tools for it that I found on sale at Michael's one day. I got them for 50 cents! They were a returned item, which was okay with me, especially for the price :). And I thought that maybe one day in the future they might come in handy. So yay for good buys. I always like new hobbies. I like to have enough that I can rotate them and not get too bored. So if I see any awesome deals on beads and such I'll start that, or maybe buying one thing a week. Yup. Ok, so that was my super exciting night and hopeful future hobby.

Not the best picture. Taken with my phone camera... you can tell. I promise they really are white!

Taken with my webcam at my desk. Here is a shot of me wearing all the things I made! And in all webcam pics, you have to be making a silly face (it's the rules).

A shot of my necklace and earing. Who needs a face when you have sweet sweet jewelry like this?

Elephants, Owls and Whales... oh my?

I have found the perfect layout for myself at the moment. I have never expressed how much I love owls on here before. I LOVE owls. If it has an owl on it, chances are that I am going to love it. I just think that these little cartoony owls are adorable and they make me incredibly happy. So when I saw these owls and all the crazy fun bright colors I had to have it. My love of owls extends past my blog though. Every time I go to the walmart or target and see things with owls on it I almost squeal in delight. Jamo thinks I'm crazy. I also do this a lot with whales. There is this whale stuff at Target right now that is to die for. I've decided I need to have a baby, if only to have an excuse to buy silly things like that. I would do my whole bathroom in that silly whale. And if I have a girl, there will be an "owl" theme to her room/life. If it's a boy I like the idea of elephants, there is some ridiculously cute elephant stuff too. I could also do whale, it would stay with that color scheme. I have far too much time on my hands and think about things far too much. If I have a girl first, it will be brown, pink and green, with owls. If it's a boy, it will be gray, green, and blue, with elephants (possibly whales?). Now all I have to do is have a baby, lol. In the meantime I will save all my silly nonsense for my blog. So may you all enjoy bright and colorful owls.

Books and Work

Not too much has been happening lately. Mostly I've been spending my time working on photography stuff. I've had a couple of shoots and hoping to line up more. So I've been working on getting all my photos together to put on the web. And I've been researching different things. I've also been photoshopping stuff that I should have months ago. I also have a wedding coming up this weekend. So my life has been pretty busy with that stuff and working a few days at my sub job.
I've also taken a small break on my digi-scrapping (I think because of all the photoshopping I've been doing on other stuff). So when I get of looking at my computer I've gone back to reading. I'm re-reading New Moon at the moment. I never did when the new movie came out. And I want to read Eclipse before the movie comes out in June. While reading New Moon I'm actually surprised at how close the movie came to this book. I feel like Twilight they got all cheesy and had a lot of lines that were not in the book and kind of left me wanting. New Moon though was a lot better in my opinion. I hope Eclipse will be even better. And I'm loving New Moon better the second time reading it through. The first time was just too intense and sad and I didn't know what was going to happen. But since I know how it ends, I'm okay with this time. One book though that I didn't enjoy the second time, just like I did the first time, even though I knew the outcome, was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. That is just one of the most frustrating books I've ever read and will think that every time I read it. I do love Harry Potter though. I'm also thinking about reading His Dark Material again (The Golden Compass series). It was such a great series, it's in my top three trilogies I think. I don't really read books now though, that aren't in series. I feel like I'm only getting a small piece of the story and it bugs me. I also have the problem with movies sometimes, like I want the story to continue. That's what tv is good for, a running story.
Aside from my reading rant... Jamo is in his last week of this semester. Two more days of classes, which are actually finals days. So I won't see him a lot until Thursday. Or if I do see him he will be studying (or he better be dang it). And then he gets a month off before summer semester starts for him. He's taking a class or two for 8 weeks. It shouldn't be bad at all. And our exciting news is that we've kind of finalized our trip to South Carolina, like we're are going for sure. So I'm very excited about that. It's been a while since we've been a bigger vacation. We've taken small ones to KC, but nothing else since our honeymoon. And we're going to see Heather! I haven't seen Heather since June 2004, so it will be almost 6 years exactly. That's far too long between visits for the family. Maybe we should have some sort of family reunion one of these years. I hear people have those kind of things.
Ok, I'm sick of sitting at my computer. Plus, I should go figure out what to have for dinner.

Engagements Photobook

It's finally done. It's two weeks later than I thought I would be. But really, it's only 2 weeks! I had this schedule of how many pages to do a day and when I would have it finished by. But I got quite lazy there for a few weeks and did nothing on it. And then this week with the new computer it opened up a whole new world of speediness I didn't know I had. I don't know what is my favorite page, I have a lot I like. And there are some I know I could have done better on. I'll post a couple of pages on here just to make my bloggy blog have more pictures and to catch everyone's eye :). Most of the file sizes are too big for blogger to handle. So here is the link to view the whole book. Take a look!
http://www.artscow.com/share/Engagements-3s7ncbtougtx

And a few of the pages...

Now I get to work on my honeymoon album. I had started it months ago. But then my laptop died and all my files were on it. So haven't worked on it since then. But Frank backed up all my files for me this week and so I'm going to get them all off there tonight. Woot!

Desktops and Speed

Last week we decided to buy a new computer. My netbook is not adequate for doing anything with photos really, it takes forever and a day to do anything. And we're afraid Jamo's laptop may crap out at some point. And his is even slower than mine, it's ridiculous. And we've been talking about getting one for ages now and so we bought a desktop. And again we want to get one before we have other money obligations (cough baby cough). And here's the thing about having 8 gbs of RAM on a computer... it goes SUPER fast. In the past day I have completed 14 pages in the digi-scrap book that I am working on (my engagement photos). It took me like a month to do that before. I was averaging two pages a day when I did scrap and now I can do a ton! It's amazing. And so I think my book has the potential of being done by the end of the week. And it will feel nice to have something accomplished. And hopefully by that time I'll have the old project I was working on (my honeymoon pics) back from my old hard drive and I can start working on that again. The only problem I am running into in this project, which has potential to slow things down exponentially again, is that the font I was using on my netbook is not translating into the same thing on our new computer. So I think once I'm mostly done (everything but words) that I'll have to move it back to my netbook and add them there. Then I'll move them back to this comp and save the jpgs for the website. But I think first I'll finish all the pages up to that point. I'll have to post a few of the pages on here or something when I get around to it (like when it's done). I just have so many unfinished projects that it will feel nice to get one of them done. Ok, enough blogging, time for more digi-scrapping!

Puddle Jumping and Baths

It actually feels like spring here. I was afraid that we wouldn't get any this year. Last year it seemed like we had Spring all year long. But after winter I was ready for Spring to come. Only what really happened is that Summer came. It's been ridiculously hot for this time of year, like in the 80's. It should only be in the 60's. And if felt like it hadn't rained in weeks (which some people were really enjoying). But it's Spring, which means there should be rain and thunderstorms and all of those beautiful things. And today it's pouring and I'm absolutely loving it.
I've decided to spend the day at my little netbook and digi-scrap. I'm doing this by and open window so I can see and hear the rain. Now at one point, the temptation of the rain became too much. So I ran and put on a swimsuit, shorts and tshirt that I didn't mind getting wet and headed out. Mostly I just walked around the apartment complex frolicking and puddle jumping. It was delightful. Then I decided to go into the field/construction area that is now in front of our apartment and trudged through the mud. Messy. And after thinking about the movie Big Fish (why I was thinking about it I don't know) I remembered the scene when the father was in the tub in all his clothes. He said he felt like he was drying out. So because I felt like it and because I didn't want to get a chill after this rain incident, I went and took a bath in all my clothes. It warmed me right up. And now I am sitting here at my computer again. It's been an odd kind of day. There's just something about the rain that's making me silly and feel like a kid again. I used to play in the rain a lot, that happens in Washington I suppose. I used to pretend to be a hobo and live under the umbrella tree and play my badminton racket guitar. Or pretending I lived in the outdoors and had to find shelter from the rain and and hunt for food. I wish I had that kind of an imagination sometimes. But since I don't I'll sit here and digi-scrap and drink my chocolate milk.