Sudden Burst of Craftiness.

So, I adore Christmas. Well, the season, rather. I love the cold, brisk mornings (provided I am not out there too long) the cute sweaters, the cozy evenings with a cup of hot cocoa, the lights (I even like the tacky, gigantically bulbed, multi-colored ones), heck, I even like the music.

During one of these cozy evenings, Evan and I were trying to think of what to do that didn't involve leaving the relative warmth of our apartment. He looked at me warily and said, "What do you think about making gingerbread houses?"

The cause for wariness stems from the fact that I am the least domestic person you'll ever meet. I don't like to cook or bake, I have never owned any sort of scrapbooking paraphernalia, and the last time I sewed, my stuffed horse ended up with just two legs instead of four. My "projects" never come out quite right, and I think it's just better for the craft world if I don't come around and insult it.

Naturally my answer to Evan's question was, "You mean the kind that come in kits, right? The ones that you just stick together?"

I got a significant eye roll, and all of a sudden, I was attacked by a bout of craftiness. I wanted to go and get all the things needed (and then some, I realized) for making an amazing gingerbread house. So we managed to convince our roommate, Ira to join in, and we trooped off to Winco to load up on anything made with sugar. I told myself in the beginning that I would use all of the candy for the houses, and I kept my promise, for the most part.

The necessities: M&M's, gumdrops, gummy bears, choco-rocks (more on those later) three kinds of frosting, and graham crackers (this was on a college student (and fledgeling EA's)budget. Oh, and for sustenance for me, a glass of green tea.

This wonder of the world is a choco-rock. We found them at Winco and I had visions of a pathway to my house, along with stone pillars...I actually do love architecture, and if I had any sort of a penchant for math, I would have probably wanted to be one. As it stands, however, my math skills are nonexistant, so choco-rock pillars it would be.

Evan concentrating on his task at hand. He had actually done this before. Ira and I had never even tried this and were actually failing miserably on the other side of the table.

Ev actually managed to finish his basic house before Ira and I even had three walls up. Yeah, that open space? "It's a sun deck. I'll make a railing soon."

Proof that I was a graham cracker building failure. This was my second wall, and when I started to attach the third one, it just broke off. Maybe it's a good thing I never went into architecture. Then again, the Great Wall must have lost a few stones, right?



This is what we call Karma. Evan rushed the building of his silly deck, and the whole second story of his house fell on his Gummy Bear BBQ. I get the biggest kick out of the surprised expression on the red gummy bear. He just seems to be saying, "oh dear..."



This was Ira's house. We looked away, and when we looked back, his house looked as if the the Keibler Elves had thrown up on it.

We were amazed that the roof didn't collapse from the sheer weight of peanut-filled M&M's.

When I got tired of repairing collapsing walls, I made a snowman out of gumdrops.

This was my door, and while my dreams of an amazing, decorative, choco-rock pathway didn't come completely true, I still think it's cute.

Evan's finished house. He has since eaten all the gumdrop shrubs, the M&M railing to his sun deck, as well as the gummy bear inhabitants of the deck, and is now eyeing Ira's landscaping.

I'm sorry for the blur. I despise flash, and our apartment manager doesn't understand the need for decent lighting lest there be an amateur photographer living in unit 302. Anyway, here were the (now deceased) inhabitants of Evan's house. Evan is quite crafty, and I need to point out the orange bear workin' it on the black jellybean bbq.

Again, the blur. I'll write a strongly worded letter to the management later. As for now, just take note of Evan's little garage and car he made while he waited for Ira and I to try, yet again, to put a roof on our houses.

My finished home. I went with the open-air attic, haha. Easier to find things, I think, when all the daylight streams straight into your attic.


The finished subdivision. I think these homes will go for anywhere in the low 300 thousands to the 450 range (that right there was my immense pride in myself for doing something remotely crafty and it coming out relatively tolerable, and my love for the HGTV channel.)

I think this could become some sort of tradition.

Hi everyone! So it's been a busy couple of weeks, what with Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Middle School Tweenager Wrangling, and trying to stay sane. I've been having a bit a rough patch lately, mainly dealing with things that are far beyond my control but being far too stubborn to admit it, and it has resulted in my reading every one else's blog but skittering away from the trouble of writing in my own.

Luckily, it's Finals Week here in sleepy little Corvallis, and it means the majority of my (still) college-attending friends have holed themselves in their apartments or the Valley Library to cram 10 weeks of material in 5 days, so I have found myself with a little free time to write.

Before the dreaded Finals Week hit, Evan, our roommate Ira and I had a few fun times.

We actually decided to have our own Thanksgiving, a week early. We are always out of food anyway, and this way, we figured, we'd have a lot of leftover food to keep us until the actual day of Gluttony.

What's more funny is that I don't cook. Not at all. Maybe toast, if I'm feeling inspired. But, I did manage to make our mashed potatoes. I'm not sure the boys trusted me with anything else.

Evan made apple pie from scratch, and it was fantastic. I did, however, make the apron in a sudden burst of craftiness.

The next two are just of the wonderful fall colors we get the pleasure of seeing everyday outside our apartment.

And, since it is a Tuesday, I decided to share a song that has helped me through my rocky, too-stubborn-to-realize-I-can't-do-anything-about-it-now moments.

More posts to come! Including one where I had another sudden and unexpected attack of craftiness!

Picture Movie!

I've decided to try something new. Instead of making you sift through a huge, long, photo-laden blog, I used Picasa and made a sort of slide show (I call it a movie) with all the pictures on that. I hope you enjoy it!



Since I don't particularly like silent films, I thought I'd attach a song you can play while you watch. It is "Be Gentle With Me," by The Boy Least Likely To. Hey, I don't name these bands.

"My Summer Vacation..."

I think I have started a post about 30 times. First it was about the last bit of my summer vacation, much like the essays we were forced to write in elementary school. If I had to write that essay/speech now, it would probably go something like this:

"I spent the last few weeks of summer in Sunriver, Oregon, where it is possible to feel under dressed while doing relatively mundane things, like getting the paper.



I then came back to my hometown, Hillsboro, and was the maid of honor at one of my oldest friend's wedding. Not without it's fair share of drama, however, as I almost fainted during the pastor's 16 hour (slight exaggeration, but not much) monologue. Thankfully, most people only remember the good stuff, as is the trend of most weddings. Oh, and Tatiana stole (note: not caught) the bouquet, so I shall be planning her bachelorette party soon.




About two days after the wedding, I began my first "real" job at Linus Pauling Middle School. I really object to the quotations, because I still stand by the fact that sheep wrestling/midwifing/vaccinating/more wrestling was a real job.


Yeah. You wish our middle school had looked this cool. Heck, I wish my University had looked this nice.




I do have to admit, however, that my "real" job is by far my favorite, and that I enjoy just about every minute of it. The minutes that aren't so enjoyable are the ones where the kids feel like rejecting every possible iota of common sense and instead opt for the poorest behavioral choice imaginable. I have learned quickly, though, that reverse psychology works wonders.

"Oh, you're not afraid of doing a little worksheet on semicolons, are you?"

Also, the kids I work with are pretty awesome. It's hard not to have certain students you enjoy more than others, but in all honesty, I see the potential in all of them, even if they may not. There are days when I wish I could pull them aside and just tell them how much I believe in them, and how much I know they can accomplish. It's my goal this year to help them see that.

It hasn't been difficult to get to know the kids, either. A reason may be, as one teacher put it, "well, you are closer in age to them than to most of us." She may have had a point, as I get accused of being an 8th grader almost daily. I thought my days of, "Where is your hall pass, young lady?" were over.

A rather unfortunate result of having a "real" job is having a "real" alarm set at 6:50 am. It's a rare moment now to catch me anywhere near awake after 11 pm.

The mention of which is actually a good transition into the conclusion of my essay, where I say that overall, it was a wonderful end to the summer, and that I am truly content with how my life has turned out as a result of things that happened in the last 6 weeks or so. I am excited to see what the rest of the year has planned for me. I am sure Fall and Winter won't let me down."


In hindsight, my speeches in school would have been so much cooler with a song at the end. Like a personalized credits scene. So here goes:

Life Music

Sometimes, I wish that I had a constant soundtrack for my life. That, whenever something big happened, or just when I was walking down the street, there was the perfect song playing in my head, without the help of an i-Pod. If anything, they hinder my life soundtrack because the shuffle mode can't be relied upon to choose the right song for the moment. I know that I'm not the only one who's experienced a truly amazing moment just in time to hear "Baby Got Back."

What I need is a personal assistant who has a database of awesome songs; like the guys (or girls) who choose what song to play at a certain part of a movie (is there an official title for that?) to follow me as I go about my day and just know what song to play when.

Anyway, I heard a song recently that I would definitely play in my life soundtrack a few times a week, when I feel like nothing makes much sense, and the world seems so big, uncertain, and scary. This song would play after reading the first page of the newspaper, or watching the news, and then going outside for a walk to clear your head of the dark things. Cue song...now.

The Heart of Life - John Mayer

The little things.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Mainly, I've asked myself questions, and the answers have really had a great effect on me.

See, I've been really stressed lately. It tags along with the 13 credits I have to cram into the next 3 weeks.

Usually, I do not handle stress well. I get panicky, irritable, and just want to sleep until all my burdens are gone or overdue. Essentially, stress makes me its minion, and stress tends to feed off of refined carbohydrates and sugar, usually in the form of chocolate chip cookies. Once stress leaves, however, I am the only one that's left to deal with the consequences.

Anyway, I started getting stressed last week, and I could feel myself just breaking down under the pressure, and while I was having a really good cry about it, I asked myself what good all this did. Did I honestly believe that I couldn't achieve this, that I couldn't see myself through a mess I admittedly signed up for? Why was I saying I couldn't do it?

Of course I could do it. For the first time, instead of cowering behind the fear that I couldn't do something, I found strength in proving to everyone, and most importantly myself, that I could.

So, now, instead of letting stress and worry get me down, I let it force me to be confident in myself and my abilities, and to trust that things will work out.

The most annoying thing about stress was that it gave me a sort of tunnel vision. I could only focus on what I had to do, and how little time I had to do it. I was completely oblivious to the amazing things going on around me. Forcing myself to see around the stress has really let me stop worrying about the big things I can't control, and to really enjoy the little things. Of which, of course, I have photos of, just to remind myself.

Little things I have been witness to lately have been:

A flower growing in a pile of weeds and roadside trash.

The vibrancy of the Corvallis Farmer's Market reflected in tomatoes.

A summer league championship game. Oh, and playing with Ev's DSLR.

A wonderful sunset.

Stress and worry isn't worth missing out on nifty things like these. Evan bought me the ring at the beginning of this post, and looking down and reading that promise to Live, Love, and Laugh has only made my resolve to not let my anxieties about silly things (they will certainly seem petty in the long-run; of that I'm sure) get the best of me.

I promise.

Farmer's Market!

Evan and I decided to swing down to the Corvallis Farmer's Market this last weekend because it was a gorgeous day, and because this event has been going on steadily every weekend we've lived here (and probably a few thousand years before) and we've steadily slept through it every weekend.

We usually save our Saturday "dates" for the evening, opting to stay inside and be hermits for the day. Switching it up was fun, minus the fact that we emerged into the early afternoon sun like a pair of moles, squinting and shying away from the bright light.

Anyway, we headed down a few blocks, and we had a really good time. At the risk of sounding like a travel brochure, the Corvallis waterfront is really nicely laid out, and even though there were a lot of people, it was comfy. The vendors were really nice, and had samples of just about everything, including some homemade french bread, which I painfully had to pass on. Instead, I took my carb-frustrations out on some organic cauliflower.

I could never make it look as good as that bread.

Next, we hit up the local artisan's market, which was also very cool. Not Saturday Market cool, but I can see how living in puny Corvallis would stifle your creativity.

Why is it that we are so tempted to buy homemade stuff we don't need? I don't even drink tea. But I wanted it.

I wasn't so tempted by these, as I don't need an already dented...thing.

Another prime example of something that I totally fell in love with, and I have no idea why.

After we perused all the things we wanted for no reason and thankfully couldn't afford, we just meandered around Corvallis. Actually, that's not true. Evan ended up buying an elephant carved out of wood. It was five bucks because it was missing a tusk, so we named it Tusko, after the elephant that had a tusk removed at the Oregon Zoo.

It's funny to think I've been here for four years and I haven't really explored the town outside of campus. I always used to scoff at New Yorkers who'd say they had lived there their entire lives and they've never been to Times Square, but now I can relate.

There is also some pretty nifty architecture in this town. I'm impressed that Corvallis had the foresight to save some of its earliest buildings. I actually really like learning about architecture, and if I wasn't completely inept with all things even remotely mathematical, I would have considered being an architect. Oh well. Taking pictures will have to suffice.

This building used to be a general store in 1908 or something, and now it houses a Sprint store and disgruntled college students.


Same building. I love that some guy has been forced to climb up the building and paint those little decorations bright blue for the last 100 years.


This is the City Hall. We can actually see it from our apartment, and the bells still ring out the hours, which I like. I'm sorry I caught the flag looking so droopy.

Overall, it was a really great afternoon. I'm sure there will be more Corvallis exploration adventures, even if the town is only about 5 miles long.

sdrawkcab

If you haven't figured it out already, the title of this is the word "backwards" written backwards. This is because I've started to notice that I do a lot of things backwards. It's not something I do on purpose, but it's definitely something that people have asked about.

So, yeah. I tend to read newspapers, magazines, operation manuals, and menus backwards. Also, when I resume a book, I open it to the last page and work my way to my saved spot (I never use bookmarks, because it frustrates me to no end when you put all your trust into a stupid bookmark and then the damn thing slides out, leaving you to remember the page anyway), and when I take a test, I always, always, start with the last question.

I can't imagine three 6 year-olds being so enthralled by the newspaper, but she is reading it backwards, for what it's worth.

The only one I can maybe explain is the test one. A lot of my upper division classes had the fantastic short answer portion for the last 5 or so questions, and I like to do those while the information is still completely fresh in my mind. I am not a good test taker, and when I get nervous, my brain likes to take a vacation to the Bahamas while I have a small coronary in the non-air-conditioned classroom. Plus, a lot of what professors tend to ask on the short answer pops up again in the multiple choice (or my favorite, matching or fill-in-the-blank) which takes away the anxiety one feels when trying to choose between A or C. Or maybe it's E, which says that both A and C are correct.

It almost always goes something like this. Not pleasant.

I have absolutely no idea why I do any of the others that way. It's not like I enjoy reading the endings to all the articles before I even know what the headline is.


Maybe I started thinking about this quirky (which sounds better than just plain ol' strange) routine because I am currently unemployed and was thinking about what sort of unique skills I could put on a resume to make myself more appealing. Alas, this little habit of mine probably doesn't make the list.

I've decided that overall, I don't really like the hiring process. I feel like a resume is just a place for you to flaunt yourself, the interview is where your potential boss measures the real you to the resume you, and the "call-back" step is just to test your patience with other people, because your resume said you were patient.

Which I'm not, by the way. At all.

Yep.

Totally Cool Stuff Tuesday #5...?

It has been a while since I posted a totally cool stuff Tuesday list, because my life has revolved mainly around Fundamentals of Accounting, which sucks the fun out of just about everything. But, I have found myself with some rare free time (or so I hope. I probably have a midterm tomorrow that I didn't know about) so I thought I'd update a bit.

1. Nintendo Wii - I received one of these from my mom and I finally found the time to play it, and I am already addicted. I think Evan, an avid lover of all things Xbox 360, is even warming up to it, especially since his beloved 360 officially bit the dust a few weeks ago. Wii wins!
2. Nick Brandt photography- Seriously, these pictures took my breath away. This is wildlife photography at its absolute finest. Below are two examples, but totally check out his website to see some more of his amazing work.

3. White Old Navy flip-flops - I am putting this on here because they will most likely only be white for this week, and so I will treasure them. I don't know why I do this every year, but I am compelled to buy a pair of $2.50 white flip-flops every summer. They are just the perfect, lazy college student's footwear, because the white color somehow makes up for the fact that they are the cheapest form of footwear available. Anyway, this summer, I resolved not to, only to be given a pair for my birthday. C'est la vie, right? Maybe next year when I'm actually getting a paycheck I will splurge and get a pair of real sandals, but for now, these are wonderful, and still white.

4. The satisfying feeling of getting really cool pictures- I know I've slacked on posting pictures, but it's because Blogger feels the need to frustrate me when I try to post them, and seeing as how I tend to be impatient, this results in my storming away and no pictures ever getting posted. Today, I will triumph.

Steps leading to one of many waterfalls at Silver Falls State Park

One would think I was a flower enthusiast or a botany major with all the pictures I take of flowers, but truth is, I have no idea what any of these are. Nor do I care. I separate them out using a, "This one is pretty, this one is not, is this one poisonous?" system.

I don't know which one this is. But it was pretty.

This is at the Olympic Track Trials in Eugene (or as the clever newspeople called it, "The road from Eugene to Beijing") and this guy was the scrawniest of the bunch. I had my camera on drive mode, and I probably was very successful in annoying everyone in the stands with the constant, click, click, click, click...

The women's 1500 meters. I love their looks of determination. And, extra bonus: seeing them made me want to get to the gym a lot more often.
The three guys from Oregon who are going to Beijing. Okay, I'm going to be honest: I took this picture from the giant screen at the end of the Hayward field. If you can't be down there to take the picture, steal it from the Jumbo-Tron, I always say.

My favorite of the day. It took me 10 laps to get this one.

5. Summer -India Arie - I really like this song, because it's light and summery, which cheers me up when I'm stuck inside listening to cash-flow this and prokaryote that, watching summer go by through classroom windows. I hope you guys like it!

That's all for this week. Next week will be a lot less chaotic (knock on plastic desk) so I hope to get on here more often. Later days!