Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 1:52 am
Today’s fave five were:
- The whispered words from someone who thinks I’m special followed by a funny story and a “ditto”.
- B96 having someone from the RP give a shout out for loving the “commercial free hours”. YEAH BABY! ROGERS PARK REPRESENT!
- Today’s most fortunate fortune cookie from my favorite Chinese food restaurant (Yummy Yummy- that DID bring love to my tummy) said, “You will have a bright future”. I hope you are right fortune cookie of fate…can that bright future be within the next 3 months while I finish up thesis? Thanks…
- MORE MAIL BABY!!! Swap-bot is the freaking best! I send two to three out a week and get two to three items through the mail in return. It’s just so addictive! It’s keeping me motivated to work in my studio on these cold nights as well! Today I received one of my 3 of Spades APC. Thank you TrishGray17!!! The timing on this particular APC seemed a little ironic (in a humorous way) and is DEFINITELY perfect for the upcoming Hallmark holiday – Valentine’s Day. Thanks again – it’s great!!
"I love you" APC, 3 of Spades by TrishGray17
- This weekend I finished up my two APC’s, the 3 of Spades, but never got around to posting them, so since I sent them OUT today, I’ll also post them today! I went for a different feel with these two cards compared to my first two, but I like them just the same. I think they are a touch more fun and light hearted – appropriate for playing cards I think! Anyway…I’m excited about these little projects, they are definitely helping me to stop over thinking my work so much and to just GO for it without worrying all of the time. (No time to worry, I just must do!) Who knew Swap-bot would be such a great thing for me? I get fun goodies in the mail, it keeps me going to my studio at least three times a week AND I’m having a blast building my collections and making new connections with various artists and crafters. I’d say that’s just a pile of wins!!!
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Sunday, January 24th, 2010 11:49 pm
Today’s fave five were:
- Getting to sleep in after sleeping veeeeeerrrrrrrryyyyyy soundly. Woke up craving PANCAKES!
- Having the perfect running partner to motivate me to get out the door for our run, devising the perfect plan to get our run in, hit The Bagel in Lakeview for PANCAKES, Starbucks on the way back for a Signature Hazelnut Hot chocolate all in time to be back by the start of today’s football games! BRILLIANT!
- Adding a new fishy friend to the mix – her name is Black Eyed Susie (Susie for short). She’s the cutest little speckled fancy gold I’ve seen in a long time. One of her eyes is white around the rim and the other is black around the rim thus the name. Currently she’s living with MU’s fish, but I kinda wanna bring her to work to live with Tangerine (my totally awesome Betta). Time will tell if that happens or not…
- Meghan having nine lives. I got a phone call from her today while she was being taking to the ER in an ambulance. Her message, “Can you meet me at the hospital? I think I’m ok, but want to make sure. There isn’t any blood. IT WASN’T MY FAULT DEV!!! It wasn’t my fault!”…Aw Megion!!! She is FINE – totally ok, but very lucky. Her car took a big ass hit. Some new driver clearly should not have his license for he was headed north bound, than in an attempt to make a U Turn heading south bound, freaked out, popped the curb then (my assumption here) hit the gas instead of the break which propelled him forward while still having the wheel turned causing him to crash straight into the drivers side of Meghan’s car. She got some pretty bad whiplash and will probably have a bruise on her left hip in a couple days time, but no cuts or anything worse fortunately. The car? Not in such great shape. Poor Meg…She kept giving me lip about if I was ok…apparently I was a little flushed in the face. Uh yeah…won’t/can’t deny it. Hearing my baby sister is in an ambulance on her way to the ER after a car accident sends chills down my spine. In the moment I was fine – hopped into action, called Terra to inform her of everything I knew, got to the hospital and was fine. Late on tonight? Eh…maybe I wasn’t quite so *fine*. I keep repeating, just so happy it turned out the way it did and no serious damage was done to her skinny little body!!!
- Coming home after what ended up being a crazy night dealing with ER stuff, making sure Meghan got to fill out the report with the cops, waiting for her car to get towed and then taking her to get an el pass for the week, I was exhausted. So I kinda treated myself to an 830 calorie McDonald’s meal. OH SHAME ON ME I KNOW…I couldn’t help it. Then I noticed I had missed a fun piece of mail, another swap-bot swap! Thank you Sam Jowers!!! My “La Muerte” 2 of spades is AWESOME! I absolutely love it!!
"La Muerte" APC by Sam Lowers
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Saturday, January 23rd, 2010 11:59 pm
Today’s fave five were:
- Waking up feeling well rested, toasty warm and content. No better way than to start off your day with a smile on my face, and the *thing* that puts a smile on my face doesn’t cost a dime…
- Remembering the late night fun I had sucking SO BADLY at darts and having my ass handed to me FOUR TIMES while trying to win at least ONE GAME of Cricket. First game I managed to pull a triple 20, a triple 17? or 18? and a few doubles…but couldn’t close out my 16′s in time…then it became a race for the bulls eye. Obviously, I lost that race. DAMMIT! But hey, we’ve got good days, and we’ve got bad days…I still had a blast and thinking about redemption almost got me out of bed this morning. Almost.
- Taking a much needed mental health day. Today, I didn’t do much other than sit on my ass, laugh, goof around, cuddle watching tv and play the ever addictive Bejeweled on MU’s iPod of power…damn him, he’s beat me at every game on that thing…every.single.GAME! I WILL prevail!!!
- Going away parties for my lovely friend Hillary. In a couple weeks she ships off to England for two (possibly more?) years enjoying the country she so loves and helping people through her profession. Yeah, she’s kind of a big deal.
I WILL MISS YOU MY GORGEOUS FRIEND!!!
Me and my lovely "soul friend" Hillary!
- Having a blast at said party and then getting back into the city without worrying how to get back to the highway with the help of a kind party goer…finding parking in Lincoln Park around the time ALL THE BARS WERE CLOSING and the streets were mobbed, and sneaking into the apartment without making too much noise. Then, curling up into the softest bed and snuggling into the warmth that soothes me to the best sleep I currently get.
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Friday, January 22nd, 2010 10:15 pm
Today’s fave five were:
- The fact that it’s Friday and “Happy 22nd” text messages.
- Justin Timberlake being incredibly talented and singing Hallelujah differently but just as amazingly as I’ve heard Damien Rice sing it…
- The fact that I am lucky to live in a country where the worst I usually have to deal with is cold weather and wind. My continued prayers are going out to the people of Haiti and of course their families…
- Running with my beau – I think it’s become my favorite past time. It’s the best thing. EVER! – I’ve always wanted to be with someone that wanted to be active with me, and it was always my secret hope that the activities would revolve around sport (running, volleyball, soccer) and the outdoors (camping, fishing, hiking, white water rafting…). But really, running was the big one for me because it’s something I can do anywhere anytime and it’s even more fun to do it with someone. Nothing better than doing it with your partner and having the opportunity to watch the, blossom into a kick ass marathoner. We’ve only been running for less than two weeks (5 runs total) and he’s already at 10 minute miles (with walk breaks). Yeah…the happiness it brings to my heart is kind of indescribable, but I’m sure I’ll keep trying to describe it.
- SWAP-BOT MAIL!!! I LOVE IT! I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT! Thank you to Chrisley B for my awesome “Color of the Rainbow” inchies. They are indeed, colorful. They are great. Thank you so much! Getting goodies in the mail is TOTALLY AWESOME!
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Thursday, January 21st, 2010 11:56 pm
Today’s fave five were:
- Today was Amanda’s birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMANDA! To celebrate we got warm beverages from her coffee bar of choice, The Italian Coffee Bar in the old Playboy Building. I have to say, it was the best REAL latte I’ve ever had…it was the closest thing to real COFFEE (I’m saying there was minimal sugar in this thing people) I’ve ever purposefully drank, and I must admit, I kinda enjoyed it more than I suspected. NO, I am not ready to make the leap over to real lattes, but it was a good one that deserved mentioning…
- Space heaters. They are the best, and total life savers. All I do is freeze at work all day long. My space heater saves me. Thank you, space heater.
- Art show cheese and fruit platters! Today was the closing of the little art exhibit at the hospital I had a piece in. They had a little reception for the artists and they had this UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME cheese platter…there was this horseradish mustard seed type cheese that made me think I had died and gone to heaven. Add in the raspberries that were on the same tray and I WAS in heaven. For the show the organizer wanted to take my picture next to my sculpture. I declined. Then I remembered I have to suck it up and do this stuff in the future so I might as well practice now. Amanda was awesome, the photographer asked her if she would get in the picture and “ask me questions about the piece”…I was laughing, but Amanda totally did what she needed to, it was hilarious. I’ll be interested to see how the photos come out. But in any case, I DID get Amanda to pose with my paper sculpture, body of work no. 1 – self love, and I think the picture is pretty cute!
- I got more goodies in the mail!!! YAY FOR GOODIES! Today I received my ATC that was themed “Ex Marks the Spot”. It was supposed to be about one of our exes…I thought it seemed like a fun first ATC swap and one that I have plenty of material to draw from so I signed up for it. My partner ended up sending me two cards because the first one she thought looked a little to “stickery”…I get what she was saying, especially when you compare it to her second attempt which I really love more and more with each glance I take. Look at the expression on the sleeping girls face, it’s really engaging. Anyway, thanks B Monster, or is it TheBigB?! ANYway…THANKS LADY!! The ATC’s are really fantastic and I totally love them both!!!
- I CLEANED UP MY STUDIO!!! It was starting to get a little too cluttered in there and out of control. I put things AWAY and I cannot stop expressing how awesome it is to have an art studio to call my own. Everything has a home, it all fits in the space so nicely and it’s cozy (though occasionally on the cold side). I love my studio. It makes me very very happy to be in there and be creative and then to be able to leave my “work space” to come home and have a “home” space. So.Nice!
- (sorry, there’s a sixth “fave five” today) I FINALLY finished my own Ex Marks the Spot ATC. I only made one, primarily because I spent a lot of time on this one and just don’t have a ton of extra time to spend…I think I probably take 100% longer to make something than most people. I’M SO SLOW MOVING! Ugh, but whatever, I completed it and I’m happy with it. (Click on the thumbnails below to see the photo enlarged.)
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Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 11:50 pm
Today’s fave five were:
- Almost getting to work on time.
- Getting my first couple of ratings on swap-bot (I got to fives – the highest number you can be given)…still waiting to get some verbal feedback though…
- Dinner with my England bound Hillary and a few fabulous women…can we say, sexy Hillary, in a hot civil war styled jack, yummy raspberry mojitos, guacamole & chips to die for AAAAANNNNNDDDD some of the coolest colorful art collections I’ve seen in a restaurant in a while? Yeah, the place is called Carnivale and I’d say it’s a Chicago must try! Love ya Hill…thanks for inviting me to come! xoxo
- My Argo Tea peeps hooking me up with another delicious Chocolate Biscotti Latte…it’s as if they all know how much I need them and that drink, and there they all are, smiling faces and love pouring out, overflowing into my cup and sharing their happiness with me. Seriously, I think these guys are the greatest. I cannot wait to be done with school so I can actually go hang out with some of them off work hours, shoot the shit and have some fun!
- To be honest today I was kinda crabby…no reason for it, so I have to thank everyone who helped try to pull me out of my crabby mood. For all of you, I am thankful and you are my favorites. The list: Miss Lossia, TK, Jaime/Marlana/Dan/Molly of Argo Tea, Hillary, Ivan and MU. You guys so totally rock!
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Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 9:58 pm
Today’s fave five were:
- Not waking up to bad dreams.
- Being able to see sunshine most of the day long from an open office window!
- Looking forward to the goodies coming my from Swap-Bot in the mail. Today I received two of four I’m expecting: 1) my “free theme” inchies and one of the 2 of spades APC. Both were quite fun to open! CraftyWench you had made my inchies went with a vampire/faerie theme also incorporating a lot of green into the work which I love. She clearly had checked out my loves/likes list and drawing from that came up with something really fun and unique with me in mind. She glued the inchies down onto a giant puzzle piece which was so radically different than what I had done with the inchies I had made that I was surprised at first. But I think it’s really neat to see how she worked with a really solid theme and created an easily displayable work of art. THANKS CRAFTYWENCH (Christina)! My APC from Cocoa is really awesome too. I had checked out her website and actually was pretty sure I saw the two APC’s she had made. I ended up getting the one I secretly hoped would come my way, so that was pretty nifty. Anyway, a big thanks to both ladies for helping brighten my day and giving me something to look forward to in the mail! (click on the images below to enlarge them – my apologies the blurriness…I’m using my scanner since I can’t find my digital camera and it’s just not as clear as a camera would be)
- Having a running partner who is really working hard and kicking some ass! Way to go MU. Tonight we had our fourth run – what I was aiming to be a two miler turned into a three miler (accidentally) and we NAILED it! It was 30 minutes exactly and that was with a couple extra long walk breaks. It was not my intention to run quite that fast, but I felt like we were running at a comfortable (and slow enough) pace for a newbie. I’m going to work on bringing it down a notch, but really, we were doing a run/walk ratio of 6:1 so I guess I ended up feeling too rested and pushed it a bit to hard. Regardless, Mike did beyond awesome and I’m continuously encouraged by his natural ability. This is gonna be a great running season I think!
- McDONALD’S HOT FUDGE SUNDAE FOR DESSERT!!! Yeah, that’s right baby…I had me some Micky D’s. YEAH! I don’t know how many calories were in that bad boy, but it tasted so good…(there goes the work out from tonight!). I’ve been good all week though, taking the stairs at work, keeping a VERY LOW sugar diet (I’m killing myself with this) and being very mindful of what I eat. I think we both deserved a treat, and since I’m the only one who really has to work on slimming down, I think I’ll take the hit on the hot fudge as long as I work on being good the rest of the week. It tasted GOOOOOOD (almost as good as skinny feels
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Monday, January 18th, 2010 11:47 pm
Today’s fave five are:
- Not having to deal with too many crazy requests at work today.
- And easy commute into work (because of MLK Day) which made bringing in my paper sculpture that will be on display at NMH this week much much easier!
- My lovely friends from Argo Tea…even when I don’t go down and get a beverage, they manage to brighten my day – I love them all! THEY ARE SO GREAT!
- Having people in my life I can be genuinely happy about…you all should know who you are…
- Text messages that make me happy. Good night messages, good morning message, just thinking about ya messages…whatever the message may be, I really am excited to receive them if they are full of love…
- …and speaking of love we have a sixth category today…I re-watched When Harry Met Sally. That movie tickles my heart. Sometimes it may take years for people to connect that should have, but when they do, it’s pretty amazing how a long time friendship can blossom into something so much more than either one involved could have expected or imagined…not that I know anything about that right now…
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Sunday, January 17th, 2010 11:59 pm
Today’s fave five are:
- Waking up to morning kisses and a see you soon from my handsome who I can never help but notice looks incredibly attractive even when in his none “cool guy” jeans…waking up like this, only to fall back asleep and wake back up to the same treat is really the best…makes a girl never want to get out of bed.
- Running three miles that made me laugh because the whole time I either had tears streaming down my face, my nose was dripping with snot (I’m creating a pretty image here) or drool was pooling in my mouth (sexy images right?) which made it impossible NOT to laugh only worsening my situation. BUT, the run was completed and 2.99 miles were clocked so I feel pretty darn good considering how out of shape I am and normally how bad I am about doing my training runs…bring on the snot baby, this girls get’n in shape!
- Being treated to a VERY DELICIOUS “signature” hazelnut hot chocolate from Starbucks! Yummy yummy, I don’t care how many calories were in that bad boy – I NEEDED THE WARMTH!
- Spending a lot of time goofing off today; watching football, playing bejeweled (again), watching the Golden Globes (YAY JEFF BRIDGES ON HIS WIN, Booooo James Cameron for still being a douche bag), eating lots of food (tea, wonton soup, cereal, eggs and “sausage” and more cereal) and catching up a bit on the phone with one of my besties…
- Hitting up my studio and finishing up the two APC’s (altered playing cards) I was working on for one of my Swap-Bot swaps. I think I’m pretty happy with how the two of them turned out and I look forward to how working on these small projects is helping to unlock my creative blockages.
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Saturday, January 16th, 2010 11:58 pm
Today’s fave five are:
- Being able to sleep in a little considering I was up late throwing darts most of the night. I love sleeping in and good morning snuggles!
- Finally getting out of bed to hit up COSTCO for the first time in months – it’s amazing how much money you really can save if you shop there wisely…I feel like I have saved a lot of money now on future lunches that will be made at home and brought to work instead of bought at work…also, I just had a general good time enjoying a slice of Costco pizza and a coke, getting a fashion show of glasses and hoping from aisle to aisle with a smile on my face.
- Walking into JoAnn Fabrics and walking out with goodies for thesis INCLUDING a dress form (FINALLY)…it’s not the best or really that great, but it was “affordable” and I desperately need one at this point.
- Getting home and taking out trash, doing the dishes, spending some time with the animals and then enjoying a dungeness crab for dinner.
- Ending the evening lounging on the couch, forensic shows on in the background, completely entranced with bejewelled on MU’s iPod of Power before loosing said “power” and forcing myself to go to bed…all in all and really classic day (much of which was spent avoiding any real thesis work. le sigh…)
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