Yeah, I know I promised an update but it's too late now and time for bed.  Here's pictures from that last two days.  I'll be back soon and tell you what I though of Potter and the latest goings on.

July 29

I cannot believe it took me an entire week to finally finish this book.  Life just got in the way.  Now at least I can go back online and not worry about spoilers!

July 28

The asian slaw I made with last nights BBQ chicken.  It was yummy.

Hi girls.  I'm finally getting around to posting some of these pictures.  I intended to do a little update too but we're headed out to see Ratatouille soon so I'll try and do it when we get home.  Later!

July 27

Sweet Peas growing in my moms garden.

July 26

We stopped in Santa Barbara for dinner on the way home from visiting the family.  This is the path around the marina.

Oh my, I've been really bad at posting my pictures.  Anyhow, here's my last, oh I don't know...ten days or so.  

I decided that I wanted to start documenting things that I've made, so the first four days are pictures of crafty projects I've attempted.
Jan. 8

We went to see <Nightmare Before Christmas 3D</i> a few months ago and I still have the glasses sitting on the shelf.  Evan was fooling around with them the other night and agreed to be my picture of the day.  The image is fuzzier than I would like because the light in our apartment sucks.

Jan. 11


Jan. 12

I was at the mall yesterday and went inside Crate and Barrel where they had a display of these amber colored glasses.  The picture of it came out better than I thought.

Jan. 13

I guess glasses are a running theme with me this week.  We went to Islands for dinner tonight and I ordered a beer.  It came out in a frosty mug that was so cold it froze the foam on top...it was like a beer Slurpee.  Kind of strange, especially since it was so cold here today.  I'm a wussy southern California girl....I should have order a hot toddy.

This is what you do when you're drunk and bored in Japatown. God bless San Francisco.

And this is what I do when I'm sitting in class and my teacher is 15 minutes late....and she wonders why we're behind. Oh well, back to reading TWOP.

Yeah, I'm no where near where the rest of you are, but I did finish my third book of the year last week.

3. Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood - 1-30-06 (527 pgs.)

I've also watched the entire first season of Veronica Mars on netflix in the last two weeks (probably why I haven't read more) and absolutely loved it! What a cute show. It's even well written and acted...I'd been hearing about it as this cult hit for a while and I'm so glad I decided to give it a try. Now I just wish I didn't have to wait for season 2 on dvd.

In honor of the Superbowl (which I don't watch) Evan and I decided to eat a whole bunch of fried foods and have some beer. I've been watching the Food Network all week and they've been making all this tailgating food that I've been drooling over. We broke out the Fry Daddy and we're making french fries, fried mozzarella sticks, buffalo wings and burgers....mmmm fried food.

I'm going to go overdose on grease now...

It's finally cooled off a little here so I opened the window to enjoy the cool breeze, and then it started raining. It smells sooo goood, all clean and fresh. I love this time of year, the air gets crisper and you can just feel the change in the air...and this is only a California autumn, I'd love to experience it in another part of the country where they actually have real weather.

I've become a hermit since school started. I can walk to school, and I'm working out of the house so I rarely have to leave. Having completely reverted back onto a student's time schedule I'm lucky if I even know what day of the week it is anymore. We stayed up until 3am the other night watching the end of the first season of Lost (which I'm completely hooked on, darnit) and I never even started to doze off. It's going to be so hard when I get done with school and have to go get a real job. But since that's going to take me several years I'll worry about it later. ; )

My father came down this weekend and we actually got out of the house and did something. First we went to see an exhibit of Star Wars costumes at the Fashion Institute. They were mostly from the new movies, but impressive none the less. The detail they put into some of them was amazing and it's a shame that you couldn't even see a lot of it on screen. It's also a shame that the costumes were the only good part of the last three movies...but that's George's fault....and his goiter.

After that we went to see what very well may have been the worst live performance I've ever seen, and I've seen quite a few. Evan is taking a theater in performance class and had to go see this show called The Threepenny Opera. It said it was a "biting and witty satire", and since my dad likes musicals we said we'd go with him. Wow, what a mistake! Not only was it 3 1/2 hours long, but it was also boring as shit. I had a glass of wine with dinner before so I immediately started to fall asleep as soon as I sat down. I felt bad at first because it was a small theater and the cast could totally see me nodding off, but then when I heard their singing voices I didn't care so much. I'm just trying to figure out why they were sold out for the entire week and extended performances to the end of November. Have people never seen good theater? I guess not because this was a big, stinking turd!

But, on a much more intriguing note, we'll be seeing this at the end of the month:

Lucha Vavoom

How can you go wrong with mexican wrestling midgets and burlesque?

...really is as much of a pain in the ass as everyone told me it would be. But you know what? Totally worth it! Even if it did take three coats of red over the tinted primer, it still looks good. I am glad I only chose to do one wall in the red though, because I can't imagine how long it would have taken to do that many coats on the whole room. Anyway, here is a picture. Keep in mind it was completely dark in the room when I took it (having no over head lighting sucks) but you can get the idea:



We also did the bedroom in green, which, if possible, I like even better than the red:




All in all a very productive Saturday, but I think I'll hold off from painting anymore for a while. If for no other reason than to spare my aching back.

Went to see Wedding Crashers last night. I hadn't wanted to go, but I kept hearing it was really funny so I gave in and was pleasantly surprised. It really was funny, not the best movie ever made, but a decent summer flick good for a laugh.

Anyway, I have to go start dinner. My goal is to eat everything we can out of the freezer before we move, but I have to start digging to see what's actually in there. I found dog treats in the cupboard the other day from when you lived here Kris so I'm kind of scared...

So we went to the Renaissance Fair yesterday. All in all not that exciting, but I thought Kandace might like to see this young lady:



The pie pans were a nice touch I thought...

Is it wrong that the most exciting thing that's happened this month is the fact that Harry Potter might be on my door step when I wake up tomorrow? I'm just about to move to LA and make a major change in my life and all I really care about right now is the book I ordered from Amazon a month ago. But seriously...Harry Potter...in like twelve hours!! (hopefully)

If all goes well, escrow will close on the apartment on Tuesday...cross your fingers. That means that we will hopefully spend our first night there on Friday. We aren't going to officially move for at least another month since we both want to keep working and bank as much money as we can, but we have tickets for a Beck concert next Friday in LA and we'll need a place to stay. It'll give us chance to try some paint samples on the wall. I'm really starting to stress over this decision, everything in that apartment is entirely white, it's a completely blank canvas, and I have no idea where to begin as far as colors go. I know I'm going to go with warmer earth tones, but looking at the selection of colors at the paint store is overwhelming...where to start?? I'm just afraid I'll decide on something I'll regret....y'all are well acquainted with the mint chip ice cream green walls in my kitchen...not that I regret those (I still think they're retro and cool, or that's what I keep telling myself), but they are very green...

I went for a bike ride earlier today for the first time in years. Since we'll be living so close to school my mom offered me her old bike that's been hanging in the garage forever. I took it to a bike store for a tune up and decided to ride home today after I picked it up....that was interesting. I was ready to die after pedaling uphill for one block...I need a little practice to say the least.

Anyway, I should be cleaning out cupboards and packing right now, but ever since I heard Shari (hello Shari!) talk about Iolokus I've had a hankering to read it again. About six months ago I read the first two books again and now I need to finish what I started.

I swear I was about to go crazy last week. The status of the apartment my dad is buying changed just about every 2 hours. I was sure he was going to back out, but the selling agent ended up lowering the asking price after all. I never thought she would, but that is awesome because now I'm almost positive it's ours. We still don't have the keys, but everything has been agreed on and all the paper work is signed...now we just have to wait for escrow to close. Cross your fingers!

In the mean time here are a few pictures of the place. It's basically layed out just like your apt. Kandace. Bedrooms on both ends with the kitchen in the middle.












Any ideas on color? We gotta get going on that pretty soon.

I knew I spoke too soon about the apartment. I shouldn't have said anything until we had the keys in our hands. Long story short, it looks like we won't be getting that apt. after all. It ended up appraising for quite a bit less than my parents offered, and the woman selling wouldn't adjust the price accordingly like she said she would in the beginning. What that all means is they would have to put a lot more down on the place than they planned, which is a bad idea, so they told her unless she lowers the price they're walking away...and it's really unlikely she'll lower the price.

Anyway, it would have been really cool to rent from them, but it's not their fault the deal went south. The only part I'm bummed about is that now we have to begin the apartment hunt. I'm sooo not looking forward to that. I have a whole list of places to call this afternoon. Wish me luck....hopefully we'll still be able to get a place with an extra room.

So, it's all official now. I'm admitted to school and I have documentation and everything...finally! It's going to be so weird going back, but I'm kind of excited because this time I'll actually be working towards something rather than just going for the sake of going.

In even better news, we also have a place to live! My parents found an apartment to buy that's less than a mile from campus and we'll be renting it from them. It's two bedrooms and two baths, it even has a little deck for a BBQ etc., plus did I mention that it's walking distance from school...you have no idea how happy this makes me...no parking permits! If all goes well with the escrow we can get into it the middle of next month. I don't think we'll officially move until the middle of August, but I plan to paint before then as the entire apt. is white and it makes my eyes hurt. I'm going to have at least one red wall! The move should be interesting since we'll be on the third floor, but worth it once we get in.

I expect visitors once we get down there. We'll have an extra bedroom (with a bed even) and we're less than 30 minutes from LAX. I don't know the area yet, but I know we can find plenty of trouble to get in down there. I'll be pathetic as I need to be to get visitors. ; )

Anyway, I might post some pictures when I get home. Not that anyone cares, but I'm excited dammit and someone has to listen to me ramble. Later...

And Ta Da!! I've been working on this damn pillow for like two years and I finally made myself sit down and finish it. I'm actually pretty happy with how it turned out, but I won't be doing another applique project anytime soon.

In other news, I finally heard something from Northridge. It took having a man from the church, who is a former Poly professor, call the school and use his name to get some info out of the admissions office. Somehow a wrong boxed got checked on my computer application, and they thought I was on a credential track. Apparently that put me in the wrong pile, and my application was just sitting there...waiting for what I don't know. Anyway, after many phone calls and emails someone finally wrote back. She indicated that she was going to fill out whatever form was needed and request I be admitted as a Post Bacc. Undeclared student. I don't have any official documentation yet, but it sounds like I'm in. Finally! Thank you Mr. Webb, a man I've only met once, for taking time out of your day to wade through the red tape of academia for me. You're a saint!

I've been trying to finish up all these little projects I've had lying around here forever. This is my first knitting project. It's far from perfect, but the nubby yarn really helped hide a lot of mistakes. Good tip, use weird gnarly yarn, then you can claim it's supposed to look weird like that.

I haven't figured out how to do multiple photos in a post yet, so here's another one. It's my favorite...

This Flikr thing is dangerous. It's so easy to post pictures that I could easily sit here and do it all afternoon...but I'll spare you. Last one for now.

So I can post pictures now...prepare to be spammed.

This is from my birthday. Polly crocheted me an Otama and I'm pretty sure that Danica thinks I've lost my mind...I blame the wine.

I think I may have finally found a way to post pics on here. Damn SBC doesn't let you remote load...but I think this thing called Flikr will.

Can you see this:

For the longest time I held out against getting an ipod. I kept telling myself that I really wouldn't use it that much, and I didn't need to spend the money. Well finally the other day my mom and I were at the Mac store looking at laptops for her, and in the process we fell in love with the ipod minis. I decided to get her one for mothers day/birthday, only to find out that she bought me one on the same day. So we pretty much just swapped pods that we bought for each other. Mine is green, and I love it...it's so cute. I'm not usually one to get into gadgets like this, but it's so handy, and with the tape deck adapter it's so easy to play music in the car. I love fun new toys! Now I'm seriously considering getting an iBook too. The Macs have seduced me, and a laptop would be really handy for school...we'll see.

Speaking of school, still no news. I spent a week trying to get a hold of the woman that was supposed to be able to look up my file. She finally emailed me saying she was really busy and would get back to me in a couple days...that was more than a week ago. It's to the point where I'm going to have to drive down there and sit in the office staring at them until they look my file up and tell me what's going on. This certainly isn't inspiring any confidence in me about their program. I keep wondering if I'm being unreasonable, but then I realize that Polly applied to five grad programs the same time I did and she heard back from all of them more than a month ago. I just have this weird feeling that something is wrong, and no one will tell me.

We drove down to the area on Saturday to check things out and it really helped to orient me, but we found that even the skanky, dirty apartments are expensive (no surprise, it's southern California). But it sounds like my dad might be considering buying a piece of property as an investment that we could rent from him, which would be awesome because it might just kill me to flush $1500 a month down the toilet for rent on a shitty apartment.

Anyway, I'm done here at Pancho's and want to try and stop at the gym before it gets crowded. Then it's off to my dads...later.

So up until now I've never been to any kind of a memorial service or funeral, and this weekend I went to two. When things happen they all happen at once.

We drove down to San Diego on Thursday night to go to Evan's grandfathers service and then Sunday I went to a service at Cal Poly for my old English professor (the one who wrote me a really nice letter of recommendation) who had been dealing with cancer for the last two years. Kind of a downer of a weekend. Plus, on top of it all, my grandmother who's in the nursing home is doing very poorly and probably won't make it through the night. Although, and I hope I don't sound callous, that's the best thing for a her at this point. She has no quality of life, she's 96, can't walk, can't see and I don't even think she knows who any of us are anymore. Her mind is ready to go, but her body is being stubborn. I just hate to see it drag on like this because it's hard on my mom.

I'm also starting to get really nervous that I haven't heard back from school yet. I know they received my application packet because I sent it next day air and tracked it, but it's been over two months and I'm getting impatient dammit. If I haven't heard from them within the week I'm going to start calling and bugging them.

Anyway, how did your "hammered" chicken come out Kandace? I might have to try some other variation on it again this week. And I might have to get me some of that Vanilla Bacardi. I have mint planted in the backyard that went crazy after all this rain, so I think it's time for another Mojito/Mint Julep party. Mmmm...Mojitos....