Tie Quilt

I'm planning/thinking/plotting/scheming on making a quilt out of ties. Unfortunately, the few ties my lovely husband owns are his only ties which he probably won't be keen about donating to my crafty quilting hands. That being said -

does anyone want to donate ties to my project?????? Please?!

Exciting News!

There have been so many exciting things happening in our life, so I'll keep this post brief and filled with pictures!

First off, my little niece, Zoe Danielle-Lynn Griffith, was born! Isn't she adorable?





I'm so excited! I made her a quilt for her first birthday present. I forgot to take pictures of the quilt, but I'll try to remember to next time I see Robin and the family.

Then, onto our exciting news, Andy and I put an offer in on a house. We're soooo excited! We plan to close at the end of April, and if everything goes smoothly, we'll own our very first home!

Here's some pics that the builder posted:













When I get a chance, I'll try to remember to take some "real" pictures so that you can get a better idea of what it looks like!

We're really really excited about our new home and moving in! I've been having a blast imagining all the homey ways we can decorate.

I'll post some of my ideas later when I'm not so crazy busy with photography, buying a house, etc. Well I'm off to edit Natalie and Kris' wedding!

Inspired

I was inspired by Zack Arias' tutorials (http://www.zarias.com/?p=123) to try out some fun stuff for myself. Becca (my lovely friend) shot this photo of me in my office. We just propped a light on the ground and then shot away. I think next time I play with this idea, I'll probably set up the whole gamut and have fun with it (and maybe I'll actually do the shooting next time!).



The original looked like this:

Chore Buster!

So, recently Andy and I have decided to be more responsible and diligent in our house maintenance efforts. Since we haven't had a time to sit down and divvy up chores, I've enlisted the help of the all mighty chorebuster.net to help us out. I spent a little time this morning imputing chores and their difficulty levels and then chorebuster will send us a list each week of what chores we need to complete each day. Hopefully, it will be helpful and not irritating. :)

However, we desperately need to do something about our living habits - see our living room that has Elisha's quilting stuff everywhere?






However, look at the pretty quilt I'm making!!!







I've finished the quilt face, but I still need to do the back and then actually quilt it all together. ::grins happily:: I heart quilting. :)

Okay, I'm still on a mad rampage to finish editing Sam & Laura's wedding. Hopefully I'll get it all finished today. Woo hoo!

More editing

I'm keeping myself sane by periodically blogging throughout my photo editing filled day. I'm such a procrastinator that I tend to push off BIG editing jobs until the last minute and then I stress and spend hours upon hours trying to get everything finished in time. Boo on me. Anyway, I thought I would share the beauty of Lightroom. This is a before and after of a photo that our assistant, Becca, shot.

Before: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ After:


Pretty much I just raised the exposure a bit in Lightroom and did some other minor adjustments and voila! - you can take a photo that is too dark and not usable and make it something that you would be happy to give your clients.

Photo Editing

Since I don't have time today to compose a witty and amusing post for your reading pleasure about my adventures cooking last week and the subsequent amusing things that have occurred over the following seven days, and yet still feel the burden of our promise to be more bloggy, I've decided to leave you all with a photo.

Since I'm editing photos today, I thought you all might like to see a photo that Becca, our assistant, shot of me at Laura and Sam's wedding in the end of February. Woot!

The Vacation (a.k.a. lots of puppy pictures)

So we, got back from our vacation and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves - mostly, by doing absolutely nothing. We sat and read a lot of books (I made my way through 3 Hornblower novels), relaxed in the hottub, enjoyed the great flavors at High Tides (amazing seafood) and mused over our future.

The highlight of the trip was on Friday morning, when we decided to take Siku out to enjoy the sun and snow, leashless. As many dog owners know, it's hard to find a place to let your dog run free in the city/burbs/anywhere. Especially an extremely curious and hard-of-hearing six-month old Husky who loves to run. Dog runs are OK, but they're not ideal, and since he hasn't had all his shots, we don't take him to them.

Enter a long-lost secret: National Forest Service roads. We found a road that was on the way to Mt. Bachelor that had been snow-cat groomed for x-country skiers, perfectly patted down for a walk. We went in about 100 yards and off came the leash, on came the fun! We saw only two other people in our 3 mile hike - and they were on snowmobiles. Siku ran and ran, jumping in and out of the snow, tackling errant snowballs and generally having a good time.

On the plus side, we learned that he is indeed decently trained and responds to our commands even off-leash. Now, he was no attentive lab who was eagerly awaiting our every word, but if he heard his name, he responded and came to our sides with no problems! At least the last 4 months of training are starting to pay off. We'll definitely be revisiting the NFS roads come summer.

On to the pictures - so you can see how cute our dog is. Notes:
1.) No, he's not for sale.
2.) Yes, he's an all-white purebred Siberian Husky.
3.) No, his coat won't change colors.
4.) Yes, both eyes are blue.
5.) Yes, he sometimes gets away with murder just because he looks so good.
6.) Sometimes he looks like a huge dork.
7.) Sometimes he falls on his face, and it's funny.


The Forest Service Road:



Elisha, enjoying the walk:



Siku, doing his favorite thing:






Siku, jumping after snowballs:






Sometimes he looks like a huge dork:



And sometimes, he proves it:



The closeup:



Finally, our happy, curious, finally leash-free doggie:



And now you're all saying "Please, no more dog pictures." Too bad. They'll keep coming.

A plea for vacation.

I think everyone gets to this point every year, or every six months, or every week...whatever your stance may be, we all need a BREAK. And let me tell you, my vacation-o-meter is off the charts. I need some time off. So bad that I was willing to call my work, tell them I wouldn't be in for the next week, and hop on a plane the next day to go to Hawaii. Prudence and common sense (plus the fact that Elisha was scheduled to work 2 days and wouldn't get some photography editing done) narrowly averted that plan. I mean, we actually thought about this!!

However, the desire still lingers, like a lion stalking an unwary wildebeest. Vacation-fever is like cowbell-fever, there's only one prescription. So, in lieu of a crazy, $1000+ plus spur-of-the-moment trip to Hawaii, we'll have to settle for my parent's house in Sunriver.





It's nice to have parents who own vacation homes that one doesn't have to pay for. So for the next few days, Elisha, Siku and I will be happily lounging in Eastern Oregon, far away from all kinds of things that constantly press on our everyday lives. I think others can sympathize - are there other folks who just HAVE to get away from their place of residence to actually become un-busy? We find ourselves constantly filling our plate with things to do if we're home on the weekend, so much so that a weekend really doesn't feel like a break, it feels like the work of the week with different stuff going on. Instead of work, we're running errands, or cleaning, or trying to come up with something else to do. A weekend with a fireplace, hot tub, good books and good company sounds just like what the doctor ordered.

Oh, and we're already planning our next vacation, and all of you ski/snowboard enthusiasts should join in. Whistler/Blackcomb is holding a weeklong ski/snowboard competition/party and has some great rates - about $200 per person (US) for a 3-night, 4 day stay + 2 day flex lift ticket. We'll be there, will you?

Cooking!

I've decided, in an effort to be healthy and more fiscally responsible, that I need to learn how to cook. It was a painful decision, recognizing that it will involve going grocery shopping (which I compare to undergoing painful torture) and time management (of which I am notoriously hopeless). However, being healthy is important to our overall life, so I'm off on a new adventure (or at least I'm trying to convince myself it will be an exciting adventure so that I have the courage to tackle this new and intimidating thing). With that said, if you have any good recipes that are healthy (and easy!), please send them my way.

Andy is so enthusiastic about this "new" Elisha, that he giddily subscribed me to "Cooking Light" Magazine. Apparently, he thinks that I'll join him in his love for cooking. So far, I haven't had the heart to tell him that I'll probably never EVER love cooking the way he does. But I didn't have the heart to ruin that cute enthusiastic smile he had when I told him I wanted to learn how to cook.

Let me present some evidence of my new endeavors!

Exhibit A:



This is the first part that needs tackling - I'm going to clean the fridge, organize it, and catalog what we have so that I know what I need to get from the grocery store.

Exhibit B:



Tonight's first endeavor. Our very brave friends, Craig and Lauren, have offered to be my test subjects for the night. I'm not sure if our friendship will survive after this or, at the least, if they'll ever let me cook for them again. Please pray for them.

Exhibit C:



This is dessert. Seriously, how wrong can it go? I didn't aim at the very complicated recipes while starting out. I figure I should tackle a little bit at a time. ;)

Exhibit D:



Like I said, I'm not going for complicated. This little cookbook was given to me by my mother when I moved out of the house. Sadly, this is the first time it has ever been opened. Still, the cover says "quick and easy" and when it comes to cooking, that little line had me hooked.

On a different note, I'm trying to figure out how to keep plants alive. Suggestions?

Here's what they look like when I get them:



Then they digress to something more like this:



And then hope starts fading when they look like this:



(this was once a beautiful orchid....)

And they end in their doom, in the garbage can, and all I have left is this:



Some people want to save the world, but I'm still working on trying to save a few plants first. Once I get this plant thing figured out, maybe then I'll take on the world. :)

I need to be more bloggy.

There you have it. Inspired by my high-school friend Allison, I have decided that I need to be more bloggy. Despite being preggo and doing many fancy remodeling projects on their house, she is still able to blog regularly. Perhaps I just need a more interesting life with which to blog about.

Wait. I have a motorcycle (interesting), snowboarding hobby (interesting), a job (somewhat interesting, wait I serve homeless people, so it's interesting), a wife (very interesting, in a good way) and a puppy (very interesting, in a cute-yet-destructive way.) I have things to blog about! So why am I not? The answer: I'm lackadaisical. I must change this. I must share silly things about my everyday life with the world. So here goes. Put my English skills to the test, and see what I can come up with.

First, a picture of my hair(thx Macbook webcam!):


Yeah, bet you never saw that one coming.

Second, a picture of my puppy:


He's much bigger now, that was a month ago.

Third, a picture of my inaugural motorcycle ride for this year (the first purely-for-pleasure):



And uh, yeah. As more interesting things happen, I guess I'll ramble on about it. Elisha and I are going to Sunriver this weekend, so there should be something interesting there. Like...uh...well, we'll just have to wait until we're there to tell you.

The dreams of a bibliophile...

These photos make me want to cry and laugh and dance. I have deep feelings for libraries and my heart skips a beat thinking of visiting these wondrous places: