Days 286-292

The following pictures are from the week of March 14-20.

Day 286: Too Cool for School

Katie loves those sunglasses.  She wore them during her entire visit at our house today. Too cute!

Day 287: FAIL

Oh guys...saddest day ever.

I forgot to take a picture yesterday.  Completely spaced it!  I remembered around 3pm TODAY that I never took one.  I double-checked my phone, my iPod, and my camera for stray pictures, but there was nothing.

So SAD!  But since I'm so very close to the end of my journey with this project, I've decided to keep going anyway.  So here is a picture I took this evening that I will use as a filler for yesterday's screw-up.  I call it: Walk on By

Day 288: Headless

Self portrait number...whatever.  I still feel awful about missing yesterday's picture so I'm portraying that frustration by cutting my head out of the shot here.

Day 289: Old School

The two most used cook books in our house: Grandma's Betty Crocker cook book and the Better Homes and Gardens cook book we've had forever.

Day 290: One of These Things is Not Like The Other

I didn't stage this.  I found the cans perfectly lined up like this in our food storage shelves.  Pretty cool.

Day 291: Fun and Games

Hyrum and Esther trying to play Foosball tonight at the family dinner.  It's a good thing they're both on the same side because they were slamming those rods back and forth and were sure to poke somebody's eye out.

Day 292: Movie Food

Yum!

Days 279-285

Hey guys,

Sorry for the incredibly, ridiculously, embarrassingly late posts.  Hopefully I'll get back on track with these pretty soon.  This is a great indication of how I get easily overwhelmed and shut down.  It's amazing that I've made it this far on the project without giving up entirely. :)

The following pictures are for the week of March 7-13.

Day 279: Playdate?

Some cute cards my friend Kimmy gave me for my birthday last year.  They're so cute, I don't have the heart to use them. I know it's silly, but I'm weird like that.

Day 280: Pre-spring sunset

One day I might count how many sunsets I took at work during this photo challenge...I bet it's in the double-digits.

Day 281: I'm toast

Trying to get creative with bland-looking food by putting pretty plates underneath it.

Not sure it worked.

Day 282: Reading Party!

We like to have reading parties in our family.  They mainly consist of us all sitting around in silence, reading different novels.

...It sounds cooler than it is.

Day 283: Snow-capped Mountains

Some days I'm just struck by the beauty of this place!

Day 284: The Chocolate!

Coolest little bakery I've ever been to!  I'm going back.  Soon.  Who cares about that stupid, "no sugar" rule anymore.  Life after this place will never be the same!  There is so much I want to say about it...the awesome pictures on their website, the quaint atmosphere of the shop, the friendly staff who know how to joke around with customers, the AMAZING vanilla cake with chocolate ganache, the TO DIE FOR hot chocolate with spices in it that really make you feel like you're drinking Christmas in a cup all year round...

SO GOOD!

Day 285: My Triumph!

Inspired by that awesome bakery from yesterday, I decided to make a cake of my own...

After a fiasco with the first cake, Christine made a great red velvet from scratch so I could still use all of the awesome decorating stuff I got for my birthday.  This is what we made as a result!  I'm so proud!  I can't believe it looks almost presentable!  Cake decorating is easier than I thought it would be!

Days 272 through 278

Day 272: Inundated

This is the pile of mail that greeted us when we got home last night.  It's about half as big as the pile of paperwork on my desk when I returned to work.  I am thoroughly overwhelmed.  I have no idea where to even begin with everything I have to do now that I'm home.

Help!

Day 273: Glory in Imperfections

I got this penguin at the flea market in Cabo.  I picked him out amid a bunch of other, better looking, trinkets because I liked his little gimpy fin.  Being unique is something of which we all have the capability.  But here's the secret: you can't be unique when you're trying to be.  You can only pull it off when you are truly yourself - when you are no longer concerned with how you compare to others.

That is the challenge.

Day 274: The End of Something

Month 9 is complete!  That's right, I only have 3 months left!  The end is near...finally.

Today as I took pictures of the sunset, I was sad to know they would be the last pictures I took with this awesome lens I rented from Borrow Lenses.  I rented this same lens last summer for my family reunions, and I can't express how much I wish I didn't have to give it back.  It's too expensive for me to justify the purchase, but if I rent it any more times I will completely nullify that excuse.  The rentals aren't cheap, and soon I'll have paid the same amount in rental costs as I would have if I'd purchased the dang thing.

One day...

Day 275: The "Little" Things

I'm so glad RoseAnne came over tonight for our regularly scheduled girls night!  She was all dressed up for an appointment she had before she came over, and she looked so cute!  Jack was his usual adorable self, chasing the cats around the house in his speedy crawl, making faces at us, and being generally captivating for the camera.

I really love my family!

Day 276: Red Trees

I'm used to seeing trees turn red during the fall, but I'm not familiar with red trees with no leaves.  I saw these today in a parking lot and had to stop and capture them.  In the slanting winter sunlight, the bark on these trees shone a vivid red - almost fuchsia.  I wish I still had that lens I rented because it would have been able to capture these better.

Ah, well.  No use thinking about it.

Day 277: Note to Self

Note to self: put makeup on before taking an extreme close-up of your face.

If I had taken any other pictures today, I would have posted one of them instead.  This picture required an obscene amount of touch-up to make it even slightly acceptable, when all I needed to do was dab on a bit of cover-up and eyeliner before I hit the shutter button.  I guess I'm still shell-shocked from my return to work this week.  I can't believe how busy I was, and yet how little I got done!  So frustrating!  I guess all I can hope for is to do better next week.

Day 278: The Old Standby

Whenever you see a picture of my cats on here, you can almost be certain it's because I forgot to take a picture until right before I went to bed.  The cats seem to be my last resort subjects.  If I'm too tired to think of something original, I just run upstairs and snap a few of the cats and call it good.

I need a new standby I think.

Day 257: Confetti Stuff

A close-up of a cat toy.

Today I felt better than I have all week.  It's like the cloud lifted a bit and I can see the end in sight.  Maybe it's because we got so much done yesterday, or because I caught up a little on my blog posts tonight.

In any case, I'm glad for the respite.  I'm glad to feel happy and excited about my upcoming vacation, and I'm glad to go to bed! :)

Day 256: Bullseye

My parents' magnetic dart board.

The last Saturday before our cruise and we totally killed it on our chore list!

To Do Today:

*Grocery shopping

*Write packing lists and start packing

*Dress shopping for formal night

*Beauty prep

*Laundry

*Blog posts

Now, to get the second half of the list complete by next Friday!

Day 252: Signs of Spring

Our Orchid plant

This is a direct result of Christine's undying faith in our two dying Orchid plants.  We were sure we had killed both of them months ago.  All of the flowers had fallen off (which is normal) and the stalks were drying up and dying and we had no idea how to fix it.  Mom and I wanted to toss both plants because we both thought they were dead, but Christine wouldn't let us.  She was sure they were still alive and wouldn't let us kill them for no good reason (even though they were both really ugly).

So we took them upstairs to the guest room and set them in front of the west-facing window.  We watered them and watched them do nothing for a couple of months.  Then one day after watering the plants, Christine came into the room announcing that the Orchids had both shown signs of life.  And more specifically, that one of them was already growing buds!

Tonight I went to check on the plants and was shocked to see how many beautiful little buds were on the one plant!  The other Orchid plant had much farther to go (it was really on death's door when we moved it upstairs), so it doesn't have as much growth, but it's definitely still alive and kicking!

It's a good thing Christine was so insistent with those little flowers or we would have killed two perfectly good plants for no good reason.

Day 251: Kitchen Experiments

Pasta Alla Norma

A few days ago Christine and I saw this awesome episode of Kitchen Boss where Buddy taught us how to make two Sicilian dishes: Pasta Alla Norma and Steak Pizzaiola.  We had just finished dinner when we watched the episode, and we were starving by the end of it.  He made the food look really appetizing.  

So tonight, Christine went online and found the recipes for the dishes and got all of the ingredients.

I have two things to say of the experience:

1. Buddy makes EVERYTHING look way easier than it is
2. Christine is an amazing cook

These recipes were so much harder than they looked and Christine tackled both of them simultaneously, without any help (I was there at the end of the prep and was dismally absent for the most stressful part, but I did pitch in a tiny bit by the end).  And even though she was sure all of it was going to turn out horribly wrong, both dishes were AMAZING.  We were both dying over the food as we ate it and freaking out at how yummy it was!

Day 250: Breakfast for Dinner

My dinner (part of it)

I don't know what's wrong with me lately, but I am so stressed out!  It's not like I have a great excuse as I did at Christmas when everything was hectic.  I mean - yes - I'm swamped at work, and I have my church calling that I'm behind on, and my vacation prep that I'm behind on, and my household chores that I'm behind on, but all of that is the result of me being stressed to begin with.  I'm behind on everything because I couldn't face half of it at the time - for no good reason - so, of course that means that I'm even more stressed now because I've let everything slip and because I'm just playing catch-up on everything.

But how did it start?  What made me so wary of my every-day tasks in the first place?

It's things like this that unnecessarily keep me up at night.

Day 249: Errands

Some salsa, and my glass of water

Today was such a busy day!  We are gearing up to go on our cruise in a few weeks, and Christine and I had to run a bunch of errands in preparation.  In the middle of our crazy day we stopped to eat at California Pizza Kitchen.  It was a great break to be able to sit and relax for a while before the craziness started up again...

At least, that's what I thought at the time.  But, then we got home to finish our chores and found we had no energy left after our busy shopping morning.  So, even though we started the day at gun-shot-pace, we really kind of ended the day in a spluttering fizzle. 

But at least we had a productive morning!

Day 247: Ball of Nerves

The sunset through the trees.

I named this picture "Ball of Nerves" because I wanted to use the word "ball" since it's a picture of a bunch of dangling balls on a tree, but no matter how I tried to mix the words around, "dangle" and "balls" just couldn't go together in the title without making unintended references.

Also, because I was a nervous wreck today.

Obviously this happens to me frequently since I write about it a lot on this blog, but it doesn't make it any easier.  Some days I just handle the huge responsibility of my work load better than others.  Today all I could see was the big picture of everything in the world that I had to do (personally and professionally) and it panicked me so badly that I couldn't concentrate on a single task.  I even had to take a break in one of the empty offices by sitting on the floor in the dark, trying to calm my breathing and empty my mind.  Of course, this didn't work because I really think it might be impossible to clear my head of all thoughts.  I've tried oh, so many times, but there's always something going on up there.  Plus I have the attention span of a kid in a candy store.  My brain is always frantically running from one subject to another so fast that I tend to loose the thread of my own inner dialog every few minutes or so.

I'm not kidding though, I literally lasted 4 minutes in that dark room before getting up and walking out more frustrated than when I started.

And it felt like 20 minutes.

But, I'm sure tomorrow will go much better, because it usually works out that way.

Day 244: My Other Love

One of my favorite poetry books.

I have a poetic soul, somewhere deep inside me.
And it's screaming too be let out,
To find a place in my everyday,
To be in charge, or at least have a say.

My inner poet yearns for literary freedom.
It understands the power of words,
It glories in their beauty,
And feels the tangible strength they give.

My poetic soul is impatient and hungry,
And it scares me a little.
So I keep it locked up,
And only let it out on special occasions.

To be admired and mourned from a distance.

Day 240: Texting

Ryan in his natural habitat...texting.

It was 11:30, I was out with friends when I realized I hadn't yet taken a picture for the day.  Ryan graciously allowed me to take a picture of him as long as it was just his hands.  He entered this text just for the picture, "Why are you taking pictures of me ESDOMWEL?"

It's a funny story behind the acronym, ESDOMWEL, but it's not mine to tell (or in other words, I won't tell it well), so I'll just tell you what it means:

Every
Single
Day
Of
My
Whole
Entire
Life

I laughed when I read the text and said that picture was going on my blog.

Then I laughed when he told me that was fine since it was just picture of his hands this time.

Poor Ryan.  He'll never get over the last picture I took of him...especially since it lives in infamy on my wall of fame.

:D

Day 234: Candy Shoppe

My parents' candy bowl

So my parents are out of town this month visiting my aunt and uncle.  When they are here, they are the neighborhood grandparents, and they keep a bowl of candy at the front door to hand out to the children on the block.  They love it.

I am constantly tempted by that dang candy bowl and often cheat on my "no sugar" rule because of that bowl.

They left it at the front door, full of left over holiday candy.  How am I supposed to resist it when I walk past it two or three times every day??  And it's not like my parents are here to give it out to the kids in the neighborhood.

Dumb candy bowl.

Day 231: Flooding Hassles

The new padding for my carpet.

So...

Monday morning I woke up to a soggy carpet and wet furniture.  I live in the basement bedroom with my sister, and apparently our drain pipe outside got clogged and flooded the window well next to my bed.  At first we just tried to dry the carpet by moving all of the furniture out of the way and putting towels down and a fan on the area.

Then Dave (my brother) stepped in and reminded us of the padding underneath the carpet and it's mold potential.  Immediately mom was sure she smelled mold, so up the carpet came.  Dad rushed out in his sick state and bought new padding, moved all my furniture (bookcase, dresser, clutter of junk, bed, cabinet, etc.), ripped up the carpet, cut out the old padding, and dried off the cement in 2 days!

Tomorrow he'll place this new padding and replace the carpet before he Mom leave for Arizona for at least a month.  Crazy!!

Day 228: Steeping

Sleepytime Tea

I decided to make myself a cup of tea tonight, and as I was waiting for the water to heat, I decided it would be fun to capture a picture of the tea steeping and bleeding into the water.  So I poured the water into a glass jar in order to capture the process.  It was fun to take pictures along the entire steeping process.  I felt like a little kid doing a science fair project.  All that was missing was my science partner taking notes.

Today was tough.  I left work early yesterday to watch that movie with my coworkers, and I paid for it today.  I had to come in to the office to make up for the work I missed yesterday, and it was not fun.  I was tired and grumpy and slow.  It took me way longer to do my work than usual, which only made me more upset since I was missing my Saturday.

Needless to say, I'm a little grumpy about the whole thing, but I'm hoping I'll feel better about it come Monday. :)

Day 225: Ice

A frozen snow drift.

I went to lunch today with the express purpose of getting a picture because I knew I wouldn't have time this evening.  I drove around until I was almost out of time before I finally stopped and settled for this picture.  It's not the most eye-grabbing thing I've seen, but it's not horrible.

I went to the Jazz game with my family tonight and we had a blast!  It was great fun to go out to eat at a fancy restaurant first and then hit the game.  I would have taken pictures at the game, but I was too worried about my camera being damaged or stolen in that big of a crowd. So...maybe another time. :)

Day 216: Words and Work

Bananagrams

Today was my first day back to work after a 10-day break.  It wasn't as brutal as I was anticipating, which is really nice!  It makes going back to work a happy thing instead of a dreaded chore.

Also, I'm glad to get back into routine.  I'm not very good at maintaining routine, but I always feel better when I try.

Now, if only I had something interesting to report on for a change...I'll work on that and get back to you. :)

Day 215: Month 7 is Here!

A button I have that says, "Kiss me before another year goes by!"

So, month six is complete, and we are on to month seven!  I don't know if I should be counting myself as successful on this little project or not.  I may have taken a picture every day, but I was horribly neglectful with the blog posts last month.  Sure, I made excuses, but they weren't very good ones.  I have resolved to be better this month and the rest of the project.  Let's hope that resolution lasts.

Day 212: Menthol

Cough Drops

This image sufficiently portrays the day I've had.  This stupid cold that I've had for the last 8 or 9 days has finally gotten the best of me.  I've hit the cough-up-a-lung part of the cold, and it's wearing me out, so...

This is what you get.

Goodnight!

Day 209: Happy Birthday Christine!

Christine's birthday cake

Today was Christine's birthday, and it was super fun and very busy.

Some of the fun stuff we did today:
*Shopping with the girls
*Tasting the deliciously evil rum cake that Christine insisted on baking herself
*Lunch with the girls
*Movie and dinner with the fam
*Reminiscing over Christine's childhood
*Laughing over dessert
*Eating and spending way too much
*Family night movie at home with our new Blue Ray player: A-Team