Lipstick

Oops... so I forgot about the blog. Sorry. Good news, though: I was accepted to the credential program and have been in school for about 3 weeks. I love school :). Also, I got my camera charger that very day so I took many pictures of that cake I made for my mom:


I also had made a cake earlier that week (just for fun):

It's pretty much gone by this time, though. It was so cute!

I made some cupcakes recenty, but they weren't so cute. Tasty as heck, though! (no pictures for things that are so homely).

In other non-cake-related news I had a very fun summer spending time with family, friends, and Gary. I was able to go to Baltimore with my mom and we had a lot of fun together. I don't think we've ever spent so much time alone together before. I'm happy to know that we actually do get along for extended periods of time (not that I'm really that surprised, but it's nice to know).
Here we were after *gasp!* walking about a mile to Fell's point. A person who was supposed to help people know where the heck to spend their money was nice enough to help us out (I'm not sure who this person was but there were lots of people like her all over town... they looked very official). We did way too much to type about here so I won't even try. I can't even come close to Janie's blog prowess and her literary skills so I'll stick to my skill: brevity.

Our air conditioner broke at one point and so Gary and I did what all sane people would do: we bought a kiddie pool and made muchas margaritas!:
The air conditioner was fixed in about a week so we weren't suffering too much :).

I was also lucky enough to spend time with friends old and new. My friend, Tracie, from middle school and I happened to cross one another's path so we were able to spend quite a few happy times together. Here's a shot from her birthday party:
Tracie and her baby bro Michael are such wonderful people and I had fun with all the new people I met this past summer.

I've tried making sushi a few times this year. Here you can see Gary and Emily very patiently waiting while I took pictures. I need to make sushi again...
We went camping with Emily and Ryan. The campsite was wonderful after sunset, but during the day it was far too sunny for my taste. Gary and I are learning to be expert campers, though, so we'll do better next time. Currently we're proficient campers... working our way up. We loved spending time with Emily and Ryan and don't know if we would even bother camping with anyone else. They're great friends that we enjoy spending lots of time with in town and out of town. I'm definitely enjoying having my best friend as my neighbor. Here is a cute pic showing what a 'supportive' husband I have:
and another of our awesome friends:
On second thought, awesomely dorky might be more apropos. This is why we love them as much as we do :).

Later that same trip we all went to the Sierra Cat Haven. It was so freaking cool. Can you see how close those tigers are?!:
In other good news I'm still a dork:

Anyway... (can you tell I'm going through my pictures to help me remember everything? lol...)

My dad, Beans, and I went backpacking together and had a great time. I've never walked so far in my life but it was fun and beautiful. I mean, if Beans can do it, I can do it, right? Here is the one and only picture of both me and my dad:
A few other little things here and there, but I think I have the bulk of it done. I've let my camera battery die since this trip so I don't have anything from the last month.

So, without pictures: I started school and I love the education program. I feel like I've finally found what I'm meant to do because everything about this program just makes me happy :). Except the homework. Whatever, you can't win them all, right? I also celebrated my 22nd birthday and I had fun with family and some close friends. I even was able to see Melissa! It's fun to see her since she lives so far away.
Speaking of people who live far away, I was able to see my cousins yesterday and meet my cousin's baby for the first time! Chloe is very cute. I was happy to see them but sad that they'll still live so far away. Becky, however, is going to move closer so I hope to see much more of her next year. My favorite event of the evening was when Gary revealed to me that 4 year olds are liars. My cousin's kid wanted to play a game with him and they had clue out. Gary set the game up and tried to play, but then Kylan informed Gary that he didn't know how to read. Gary was so bummed. "Four year olds are liars! They said they knew how to play, but they don't even know how to read!". Lol... now he knows, though. Gary was very sweet and a fantastic husband. I'm so happy when he comes to these non-holiday family-type things because it gives me the opportunity to show him off :).

In knitting news, I've started some mittens. They may be mondo-mittens as I'm not sure I've guaged correctly, but at least they'll be pretty mondo-mittens, right?

On another note, I've been really into politics this year (relatively... especially compared to my interest in the past, which was not at all) and researching things that are up on the ballott. I feel empowered to know what's going on in our country and relish the opportunity to learn more about issues that affect my life and the progress of America. Go politics!

Well, that's all for now. Time to go to bed. Tomorrow is my long day so I'll need more sleep than I've currently allotted. Bummer.

I'm going to make a cake tonight. It's my mom's birthday and she's actually going to stay in town! Yay! She requested a very specific cake so hopefully it turns out how she envisioned it :). I made a TMNT cake for a friend's little boy, once. Hopefully it will turn out as good as that cake:

That was lots of fun (and time). Hopefully this next one turns out well. I'll try and post more pictures. On a side note: When, oh when, will my battery charger for my camera come?! So Lame!

Waiting...

I honestly don't know what to do with these credential people. I want to be patient, but I'm dying to register! They've stopped bugging me at work about when I'm going to change my schedule, but I really don't know.

Anyway, I made a bucket list recently (stuff you want to do before you die kind of stuff). I put lots of fun things on there and hope to accomplish them all. Some are contingent on owning a house (getting a dog, planting a garden, owning a house, etc.). Others, I could accomplish right now with a few bucks and/or time.
A few examples:

Get a facial
Ride a hot air baloon
Volunteer at an animal shelter
Knit a blanket
Make a quilt
Sew a dress I will actually wear
Get a toned body

Oh! The last one will be helped significantly by the push-up challenge here at work! I've been doing knee push ups (aka girly pushups) and my abs and arms hurt hecka bad! Hopefully the Wii fit will help out :).

In other news, last night Gary and I went to the Miss California pageant (3rd year in a row, baby!). All was well and we were only a few minutes late, but by then I was sooo hyper that I became rather annoying :(. Gary got peeved and I couldn't seem to stop. Why do I get so hyper anyway? Ohhhh.... maybe it was the cake. I made a chocolate cake that was delicious. I couldn't find my powdered sugar for the life of me so I got some from Ryan. Apparently my sugar was in the flower canister. Gary is such a weirdo sometimes :S. Anyhoo, I offered to give Em and Ryan their sugar back unused, but they said they would rather have their sugar back in the form of cake.

I don't really think the last part is going to help with the push up challenge. Hopefully I'll remember to post after the challenge on July 31 to tell all how it went :).

Ok, this sounds pretty much like a super ADD blog. Maybe it's because I thought that yesterday was Thursday so it feels like today should be Friday. What a bummer. I hope that at least Sunday feels like Monday. Then it'll feel like I'm playing hooky.

Well, I suppose I should go and warm up my lean pocket. They're God's work, they are. Gary doesn't appreciate them nearly as much as I do. Yesterday I shared my lean pocket bounty with him and he insulted it! Can you believe it? Off to eat...

bah!

Gargh! I'm going to go nuts applying for the credential program. If it's not one thing, it's another, I swear. Tomorrow I'm going to turn in more paperwork (because the first time the kids were a year too old or something) and hope for the best. Don't they need teachers? I thought they needed teachers, but the way they're going you'd think they had plenty! Hopefully I'll have an answer by the end of this week (which is exactly what I thought last week... actually, I did have an answer, it's just that it was the wrong answer entirely). Anyhoo... think positive thoughts!

Pretty good doily closeup - with flash!

Pretty good doily closeup - with flash!, originally uploaded by rambunctious_squirrel.

Here's a picture of that doily I was talking about. I'm not sure if it's currently covered in strawberry jam or not. Hopefully not.

Random first postings

So I've spent a fair amount of time reading other people's blogs and have come to realize that what I write will never be as clever. Also, I tend to have issues with regularly completely projects that don't either pay me or give me a grade. Such are my habits.

This being said, I would like to present you the anomaly to the status quo: a doily. This doily is created from a sense of indebtedness and guilt that will not be asuaged by a normal thank you. I'll try to write more on this later to clarify, but if you read the first paragraph you know that's probably hit or miss. Here's my lovely as of today:


Or not... the blogger upload tool isn't working for me now. Oh well, maybe later :)