lots of stuff...

Okay, so lots of stuff in this post.

First- In Ran's photography class they had to "reproduce" famous paintings for thier final project. So we had some willing models that posed. Kim and Will were to great to pose outside with a sheet over their head and then Elke and Tammy came over to our house for a little photo shoot. Unfortunately, ran had his camera on a wierd setting and only one turned out well enough to print. The ones on Kim and will were super dark...he said he could kind of make out the outline of the sheet. The ones of Elke and Tammy were really washed out. At least he got one that will work. I took a couple of elke and tammy so here they are: (first is that painting they are replicating)




This was the picture that turned out. Ran then polarized it so it looks really creepy. Maybe if I get really ambitious I will scan it in.

So monday was memorial day. I had to work, but not until the evening so we had a little BBQ out on the porch.

Here is ran with his hot dog.


Here is the pup licking her lips, wishing for a hotdog.

After the little BBQ we went for a walk to the arboretum that is right by our house. We walked up to the viewing tower. I hated it...it was wooded and rickety and you could feel it moving as other people walked up and down the stairs. So I went...took a couple picts...and high-tailed it out of there!! Here is one of the picts:


here is just a super cute pict. of my pup when we were hanging out the other day:


okay- I know this long- here is my last thing.
So today I wake up at 5:00 a.m. to take ran to work and as I am driving I start thinking about words and how you pronounce and then I think isn't it wierd how you take a word like "Photograph" and then just by adding a "er" to the end makes it sound totally different. "photograph" sounds really different from "Photographer" - different vowel sounds, etc.

Memorial weekend...

I'm watching we were soldiers on tv tonight. I know I shouldn't because I get to emotional, but I do it anyways. I'm at the part where the yellow taxi cab pulls up with a letter of bad news, but he canft find the right address. so a couple of the wifes deliver the letter for him. it makes me sad. I remember when my brother was getting ready to go over to kosovo he called me and said he had to tell me the information about his torage unit, like where it was, etc. in case anything happened. He happened to have his car (a mustang) stored in it as well. At the time there was a country song on the radio about an ad that was placed in a paper for a car and the car had belonged to a soldier. In the glove box was a note about how if anyone was reading it, it ment he didn't come home. I couldn't listen to that song thw whole time my brother gone. I was glad I never had to find a note like that. When my other brother was in the air-force he was stationed in Germany and then went and fought in the first gulf war. I was little at the time, maybe 8 or so. Anyhow, my mom taught me that yellow ribbon song and we tied yellow ribbons on all the columns in front of our house. I didn't really understand war or the military back then.

just feel like blogging...

so I don't really have anything too exciting to mention. I just got home from work and I am little bored, but I need to wind down a little before I go to bed. So I was checking out the other blogs I frequent and I stole this from Sofia's blog (sofiasmith.blogspot.com) and I thought it looked fun so I am going to do it.

10 Firsts:

First Boyfriend: I really don't want to remember this...(typing in a whisper- if you can do that) Jesse Alvarez in 8th grade

First Best Friend: Kari Lamberson- we met in first grade

First Kiss: another one I don't want to remember. I can't type it again...refer to the first question for the answer.

First Piercing: I got my ears pierced when I was in 5th or 6th grade and that started an obssesion with it. At one point I think I had 6-7 in each ear and my belly button pierced. Now I don't wear any jewelry.

First Car: 1984 Plymouth Reliant in a nice shade of tan. I had her until I moved to Bellingham..I had to sell her before we moved.

First love: Randy. Sure I thought I had loved some guys before Randy...but it really wasn't looking back.

First Stuffed Animal: not really an animal...a doll. It was doll my great grandma made for me. I named her Virginia after the girl that lived across the street.

First tried a cigarette: so gross...when I was in 4th grade we lived in some apts. for a while and there were a ton of smokers around so one day after this guy threw his butt on the ground I waited for him to leae then I picked it up and tried it.

First Failed Class: I failed a math class in college but it didn;t go on my record because it wasn't college level

First MLB Game: is that Major League Baseball game?? never been to one.

9 Lasts:

Last Beverage: Dr. pepper from Wendys

Last Kiss: Randy

Last Vacation: too long ago. my last "real" vacation (aside from little road trips) was summer 2004 when we went to Hawaii.

Last CD Played: I don't play CD's. I listen to itunes. The last song I heard from itunes was Ashley Parker Angel- apology

Last Bubble Bath: Maybe a couple months ago. I don't like taking baths cause I always have crazy thoughts about the bathtub falling through the floor into the downstairs apt... and how embarrassing would that be?

Last Time You Cried: Yesterday

Last "I Love You": Today to Ran

8 Have You Ever:
Have you ever dated a best friend: I never had a guy as a best friend except Ran but that was after we started dating. But I did date my guy friends.

Have you ever skinny dipped: No, but I've been in my underwear

Have you ever been on TV: On the news. Most recent...a few winters ago it was super snowy and I was in the parking lot de-icing my car to go to work when the news truck turns in and they are going around to different people and having them sing the 12 days of christmas so I did it and then on the news they took all people they recorded and had each of singing one day and made a little video montage.

Have you ever kissed somebody and regretted it: yes. that's all I am saying about this one.

Have you every had a sex dream about someone you know: Yes

Have you ever fallen in love: Yes

Have you ever lost someone you loved: yes. a few because they have passed way and some because we went our different ways.

Have you every been depressed: Yes. In high school I had a real battle with it. I was on anti-depressants.

7 Places You've Been To:
Hawaii
New York
Washington, DC
Las Vegas
Georgia
Alaska
Mexico

6 Things You've Done Today:
Slept in
took pup for a walk
had a couple friends over for a little photo shoot with Ran (I'll post about this later)
played with the cutest little boy, Maxwell, while his mom was out for a while
went to work
ate a bagel


5 Favorite Things In Random Order:
Scrapbooking
Reading
Movie Watching
Mexican food
Soda

4 Things You Want To Do Before You Die:
Live in New York
Go to Maine
Own my own business
write a book

3 Things You'll Do Tomorrow:
Work
homework
go to the bank

2 Things You Want To Be (That You're Not Now):
A mom
A professional (like a gallery curater or a teacher, etc)

1 Thing You Are Now:
a student

check out our new flooring...

It's called wet clay and the color is terra cotta. Don't you wish you had some in your kitchen? It is for another of Ran's art projects for this installation class. He put a layer of clay down on our kitchen floor and then as we walk on it and such the foot prints, dog prints, things we drop, etc...all show up on the clay. When it starts to dry he will cut it into tiles and then fire it. Also, as this is going on he is video taping is walking on it...just from the knees down. Then he is going to have TV's going with that playing on it. Quite an interesting concept. For now my feet are permanately orange and the carpet going into and out of the kitchen is orange.

Here are some more picts:

Welding Rodeo...

So this weekend Ran and 3 of his classmates from WWU competed in the welding rodeo. Apparently this is quite a big deal...there was even a team there from Denmark!! WOW!! They had 8 hours to put together a sculpture that had to do with a water theme. Most of the teams did like fish or a waterfall or something. Ran designed his teams sculpture and they did a sinking ship. They won second place!! YEAH!! All 4 of them got welders. They were all pretty excited. I am excited too because whenever we would go to lowe's Ran would try and convince me to buy him a welder. Here are some picts. from the rodeo:

more layouts...

here are some more layouts I did a few weeks ago. had fun doing them:


here is a layout all about the 20 hour crop and the amazing mighty max. Visit his blog by clicking on the link on the left that says "Mighty Max."

Need everyones help...

Okay- so like I said earlier Ran is in this installation class. So we thought of another cool little installation to do. (he has to do like 4 this quarter)

So we need everybody to send us a postcard- if you live close to me you can just give it to me. (it can be a bought or homemade postcard)

Then on your post card you need to write something...anything. Some examples: part of your fav. quote, a line from your fav. song, a little blurb from a book, a line of diretions from your shampoo bottle...anything at all.

Send the post card to me. (email me or leave a comment if you need my address)

We are going to set up mailboxes in the gallery and have all the post cards in it...then people can go take a post card then write whatever is on the postcard in a little journal we will have and it turns into a poem. The technique of randomly picking out words is called the Exsquisitete(sp) corpse and has been done for a while. We thought it would be cool to have people from all over help in the writing of the poems.

So, I know you all can do it AND if you really want to help you could have yours kids, friends, signicant others, etc. all write a post card too.

here is a little sample:
I just randomly write little things on pieces of paper, folded them up, and then drew them out. Each line of the poem was something I wrote down.

We all the power to make a new tomarrow;
we shall not be liable for any lost data.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
the truth and the questions
Oh, the places you'll go.

So they can end up being kind of wierd, but cool.

Some random stuff...

some people in Ran's art class told him about this cool store and the gals from Treasury confirmed we should go check it out:

so we did and we loved it!! It has the coolest stuff...old windows, chairs, fixtures, doorknobs, wood, etc. We got Ran's mom her mother's day gift there. Maybe I will post a pict. of it after we give it to her next weekend.

Ran needed to take some picts. the other day for photography so we went down by the bay to these old abandoned buildings and walked past the no trespassing signs and the danger signs in order to get the "perfect" shot. I also cut my toe open...boo. It was so gross it started bleeding like crazy and of course I had nothing to clean it up with so I had to walk back to the car with it bleeding and of course, I was wearing flops so the blood was like pooling in my sandal...sorry if thats too gross for some people, just felt the need to share it for some reason. Oh, I remember where I was going with this. So when we first got to the place there were 2 ducks (maybe??) with 3 little cute babies. At first they were on the beach and then they started swimming...too cute. I snapped a quick pict. of them:


oh- here is a heads up- in the next day or so I will be posting an art project that I am expecting everyone to participate in. AND if you want to be especially great you can get all your friends involved too. So get ready. I promise it will be fun and nothing embarrassing.

Here are some picts. I took these of Ran at the old, creepy, eerie, spooky and scary buildings we went too:

My cell phone and me...

Cellphones.
You love them or you hate them.
How has having a cellphone changed your life?
For the negative or the positive?



I LOVE my cell phone.
My cell phone is my only phone. No home phone. If Ran and I didn't have our cell phones we would never talk to each other. It's how we keep in touch during the day. He is normally at school ALL day long and I am usually at work.
Having a cell phone has eliminated some "needs" in my life as well:
the need to wear a watch
the need to have an alarm clock
the need to carry a planner/calendar

My phone has also come in handy in emergency situations. For examples- last year Ran and I were driving home from Seattle (to the Tri-Cities). I heard a wierd noise and the car started moving funny. I told Ran to pull over because we had a flat, but he said no, no, we will check it out when we get to Yakima. Next thing you know the whole rubber tire part has fallen off and flew off the road. The car swerved like crazy as the back wheel thingy hit the road. We pulled over and put the spare on. Then the same thing happened to the spare...went flat. So we had to call a tow truck to come tow us to Yakima. I was happy I had a cell phone.

recent layouts...

just for fun. It is kind of wierd- I totally go through phases where I will scrapbook like crazy and then all of a sudden I stop. I am sure everyone does this. II will eat, sleep, and scrapbook for like 4-5 days and then I don't even want to look at my scrapbook room for like a week or so and then I go crazy scrapbooking again. Anyhow- so recently I was on a scrapbooking kick- well actaully like last week and so I got some stuff done- yeah!


This one has fun pictures from when Tara and Robyn were up to visit for the 20 hour benefit crop for the Mighty Maxwell guild. We ahd so much fun! I loved having them here and showing them around.


These have fun ones of me and ran. We love to take self portraits together. I am totally into using white cardstock as my back ground...I love it.

Can you...

get any more generic than this:



for real- Red pop? It doesn't even have a flavor...like cherry or strawberry? nope. just red pop. But apparently has a lot of fizz. This is what i get for going to Right-Aid.

love this sight!!

If you haven't seen this web site- you HAVE to go check it out. It is one of my favorites:

www.postsecret.blogspot.com

people write thier secrets on homemade postcards and send them in. I love the secrets and I love seeing the post cards. It has become my new obsession...mail art. Who knew there was a whole genre of art dedicated to this. I even had to buy the book...I love it! Anyhow- just wanted to share this great sight. It updates every Sunday so check it out once a week- its fun.

Crazy week

Holy cow...so this past week and half or so has been crazy busy. I started working another job, so I was training for that, I was working like crazy on my classes, plus this past weekend was National Scrapbook Day and I taught two classes, so I get ready for those. But, now it is over and hopefully things will chill out for a while.

Yeah, so I started another job, for some extra money, at this super cute little kids store in Fairhaven called Wild Blueberries and I love it. They have so many fun things there.

NSD was this past sat. and me and Sara taught classes. I taught a ribbon class and a canvas class and she taught a paint class and a mini book class. They went really well and I was happy, but it was a little crazy getting for them...like I finished the ribbon class kits maybe 5 mins. beofre class started. Oh, well...it was really fun.

Today after work Ran and I went to the park. He needed to take some picts. for his photogrpahy class so off to the park we went. The pup had so much fetching sticks although she was easily distracted by all the people passing by.

Here are some fun picts:





Here is a cute one I took of Ran and the pup taking a nap on the couch. How cute are they?

Big Rock Garden

So on Sunday Ran and I had wanted to drive down to Seattle for the day, but we were just too busy with homework and such so we didn't go. Instead we took a quick trip to this garden I had found online called the Big Rock Garden. It was so amazing!!! It is an outdoor sculpture garden and it doesn't just have a few sculptures, it has a ton...like at least 30 or more pieces. It was great, plus they are not spread out over a huge area like WWU where you have to hike from one end of campus to the other to see like 10 sculptures. Anyhow, we had so much fun. If you haven't been there you should really go...it is at the top of alabama hill, there is a sign on the right hand side, but you will turn left and then just follow that street until you see it. Super easy to find. So here are some picts.