Sunday, August 26, 2012

I wish "hectic" wasn't the norm!

I was going to write a post here talking about how busy I've been since I finished summer session for college.

I've picked up a bunch of extra hours at work, I volunteered to help run a Vacation Bible School with my church, I took Buddy camping, and I am trying to get this next semester of school organized (WAY harder than it sounds, apparently most of my classes are only offered at night and... umm... that doesn't work for me).

But then I realized that this is my life! I don't know what I would do if I wasn't crazy busy and stressed all the time, and past experience shows that instead of going to the gym or reorganizing my closet, I would probably play Angry Birds in my pajamas all day. Or maybe watch an entire season of a cheesy CW soap.

Anyway, I have off until Tuesday, at which time I have 3 days of really intense training for the BGC and then on Friday have a meeting about the training. Immediately after the training I am leaving on my big vacation for the summer, my friends and I are going to Jackpine Jamboree which is going to be AWESOME and then immediately after that I start school again.

Hello, crazy schedule, I've missed you!

Also, just so this post isn't empty of pics, this is what it looks like when I inflict my scheduling issues on my son:

This is what happens when I overschedule my buddy. I should know this by now.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Blogging Edicate

Unwritten Rules Of Blogging:

1) Take pictures. Lots of pictures. People don't want to read posts with no pictures.

2) Make sure to be very crafty. If you are not, it means you are not a good mom.

3) Publicize yourself. Who cares if you're only writing this to have a record of this time in your life? Maybe you can make money off of ads or something, so it's totally worth it to pimp yourself out online.

4) Never write anything unflattering about anyone in your life. Every person that is in your life must be amazing, and even if they aren't... you must lie. It's unacceptable to write the truth if that truth might maybe injure someone's feelings.

5) Never write anything about being unhappy. Unless you can somehow make it "meaningful" or put a happy ending on it.

Follow all these rules, and someday you may have one or more comments on each painstakingly written blog entry, more than 10 people who "follow" you online, and you could even get a book deal. Ya know. Because that happens often.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Mani Monday, part 15 or something.

I'm in love with this new lavender color I got! I have been using it for EVERYTHING.


I also have new skinny brushes. That I may have gone overboard with.


And since I've been being so obsessed, my nails are turning yellow and looking horrible. So I have been doing a simple french mani just so it doesn't look horrible, but hopefully I can grow out my stained nails!

Monday, August 13, 2012

Mani Monday

Sparkly!

Geometric! I did this with tape, BTW, since a lot of people were asking.

That's all I've got for today, yay fingernail polish! I'm addicted, I know.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Shadows on the Wall

As usual, it was a lazy Sunday around these parts. And lazy days are always the days I can get Buddy interested in crafts, so we worked on a really cool one today!


This idea, as usual, was found online, though obviously the idea of paper silhouettes is a pretty common one. But to tie-dye the paper with markers and coffee filters was definitely a new spin!

Anyway, first I used a really bright lamp to help me trace the shadow of Buddy's profile. It took me a few tries to get right, so the paper got a little bit wrecked, but since I knew we'd be cutting it out eventually I didn't care.


Next we colored coffee filters with markers and then placed them on the profile, spraying them with water to transfer the colors. (Just a warning, I had to pre-select Buddy's colors for him. Otherwise he has a habit of using only black and brown and it wouldn't have been pretty.)



Once it seemed like the colors had successfully bled out of the coffee filters and onto the paper, we removed the coffee filters. It took about 10 minutes for the colors to bleed this well.


Finally I just cut out the profile, put it on some black paper for contrast, and wrote his name in the corner with some of the extra tie-dyed paper.


Oh, in case you didn't know, Buddy's real name is Shiloh. Guess the secret's out!

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

School's Out for (the rest of ) Summer!

I finished summer classes today! Hooray! If only there were more than a few weeks of summer left...

Oh well. I got A's this summer, which is great considering that I actually went into the school building and didn't have a panic attack and leave, and spoke in front of groups, and... well, I think this summer has been a huge step forward.

The doctors have me on new medications again, and I think I finally like this stuff. So hopefully that will continue to go well, and I'm very excited to spend some time with my Buddy with a little less stress for these last few weeks up until school starts again.

Anyway, yay!

Monday, August 6, 2012

Manicure Monday, part 2

This is still a bunch of old nail designs, I've done some cool things to my short nails recently but I figured I'd wait to post those until I (inevitably) get behind :)


This started as sort of a french manicure, I wanted to do the gray with silver tips. But it turned out looking really not cute, so I added more stripes of silver, then I added random pinkish dots... I think overall it worked!


Ooh, and this one was done when my nails were still short, but look how cool! I made a bumble-bee themed manicure! Also, please realize that this picture is of my LEFT hand, and I am left handed. so this is pretty impressive, since I was doing the design with my non-dominant hand! (Ok, truth be told I really screwed up the bee on my other hand, so I just used this hand since it was easy, but still!)


Sunday, August 5, 2012

Triath-lete

YOU GUYS. I usually post stuff here that's pretty self-centered, things about myself and my kid. Which, duh, is fine because that's the point of blogging... it's like a journal except you don't care if people read it.

And I'm never sure what my exact demographics are, I don't know if the 60 or so people who read my posts are friends, family, random strangers who find me engaging... and I don't usually care!

But today, I want EVERYONE to read this post. Because I'm writing about my daddy. And he ROCKS.

My dad is a pretty cool guy. He's smart, funny, musical, athletic... and most important to me, he is always there when I need him. So, this year he turned 50. And my little brother and I tried to do something special for him, but our family (who are all horrible procrastinators, as we are) didn't respond as we'd expected and so our awesome "50 letters for 50 years" plan that we tried for like 6 months to achieve ended up being like "23 letters for 50 years" which was still nice, but not as awesome.

But it doesn't matter at all! Because my dad, being the most awesome person ever, decided that as his present to himself for hitting half-a-century, he would participate in a triathlon.
After he swam half a mile!

Getting ready for the bike portion!

Here's my crazy cool pops (with "great posture") starting out the run!


AND HE WAS AWESOME. I'm not sure what his time was, I'm not sure how many people he beat, but YOU GUYS. My father, who turned 50 this year, swam a half-mile. After that, he biked 17 miles. AND THEN, ran a 5K.

And he finished running, with a smile on his face, in less than 2 hours! While I sat on the sidelines, not sure I could even do one part of the race. My pops is an inspiration, and it's lame to admit but every time he finished one event and moved on to the next I got all teary-eyed and was trying really hard to be not a sappy lady but he's pretty awesome. Anyway, watch him finish the race! This is after almost 2 hours of hardcore physical labor, and look at how he's actually running! (I would be limping slowly across the finish line, if I managed to get through it at all...)

So, seriously, click the link to watch him finish the entire triathlon! (Only because I can't figure out how to get it transferred nicely onto this page which is pissing me off, but I really want everyone to see him cross the finish line...)

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151969992575462