New Decor & Flowers!!!

Hey all,

I haven't updated in a while - same old reason too - WORK :P My work has been paying off though. I got an award yesterday during an offsite we had. I am pretty thankful because my hard work lately was appreciated during yesterday's activities.

Anyway, I'm getting things prepared to go to Dubai in a few weeks! I CANNOT wait! Ramin and I so excited to take this trip together and see all of his family on his mother's side. We will take tons of pictures, don't worry :)

The weather in Utah has been weird lately, rather warm. My crocus flowers have even bloomed ALREADY!

 

I also decorated the front entry with some St. Patty's Day stuff. I've never had anything to decorate with other than a door decoration so this year I figured I'd get some stuff. It's not much but it's a little start ;) 

 

  

That's all I got for now. I'm going to try and take some pics of tomorrow's game night at the Baugh house :)

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Next to Halloween, Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday to decorate! It seems like this year it came up too fast and I didn't have much of a chance to totally enjoy my Valentine's decorations. I'm thinking I'll leave them up for the rest of the month. I don't have much St. Patrick's Day decor so I'll have to buy some this year :)

Anyway, here is my decor this year - the table is pretty much the same as last year. The only new additions are the wall decor items which I LOVE! I wanted some more sparkle so I found some things that were very sparkly!

 

  

  

It just so happens that this year, again, Ramin is out of town for work. He was gone last year too for the same thing so it's kind of sad. Last year I hid a cute card in his suitcase and this year I did the same thing ;) I like to be sneaky. Last year he sent me cute red roses but knowing how practical Ramin is, it didn't surprise me that this year he sent me flowers with a twist! 

Can you see the pot in there? Yep, he was able to get potted flowers that I can actually take care of, instead of ones that will die! I LOVE them! And somehow he was able to remember that my actual favorite flowers are hydrangeas! But of course, you can't forget the roses since those are tradition as well as my middle name ;)

So last night I went to work and bought some new pots and potting mix and put each of these plants into it's own container. The bunch also came with a cute little green plant but I forgot to take a picture of it :-/

Anyway, I kept the roses in the overall basket cause it's just really cute and matches the pink of the mini roses.

 

And then I put the hydrangeas in a brand new pot. Yes, those are straws in there. Hydrangeas need support for their heavy blooms so I was able to jimmy-rig some straws to help the blooms stand up :)

 

 

It's kind of crappy because we do not have good natural light in our house. The best window in the house is downstairs and I'm afraid of keeping plants down there because of the cold and because of the fact that I might forget them down there. So, all of the plants have to either go into the office, or near the dining table - which also has issues because some plants don't like to be there because we open the back door a lot to let the dogs outside. So I've got 7 pots/baskets of plants in the office and then 5 pots throughout the living/dining room. I hope I can keep these hydrangeas alive because they seem rather sensitive. Ramin did good this year :)

Completion of Goal!

You should be proud - because I actually completed my goal of adding new pictures. Although I still didn't get any new pics of people :P But that's only because the pictures I'm showing today are actually significant in terms of the animals.

So we've been babysitting "Buff" for the past few days now - we'll have him until Tuesday I think. He's a bundle of typical Boxer energy. Him and Belle play like crazy outside. We've also had a few interior scuffles as well so we have to keep a close eye on him at all times.

 

When Belle does her cute cozy thing though it's pretty cute!

 

 

And then there's Lady. Poor Lady. 

 

Ramin and I got home Friday evening and fed the dogs as usual. Then when Chris came home he noticed the huge mat of red fur on Lady's face. I freaked out a bit and went to the bathroom and tried to detangle the mat. At this point I was thinking either her and Belle got into a fight during the day (we keep Buff looked up in his crate) OR that she had scratched at her mole too hard. As I cleaned away the fur and blood I realized it was probably her mole because I could clearly see a hole in her face. The hole wasn't bleeding though. It was weird. By that time it was too late to go to the vet and I didn't think it was super serious so I left it be and trimmed her fur around her face so she'd be presentable at the vet on Saturday.

So Saturday comes and I couldn't take her to the vet until 5 pm (earliest time they had available). Once we got there I explained the story. They took her to the back operating area and shaved the fur around the spot and dematted the rest of it. Yep, it was her mole/absess. She really just must have scratched at too hard. 

 

 

So apparently they don't clean out that sort of thing. I asked them if they were going to and they said no. Hmmm ok. Anyway, they gave her an antibiotics shot and then gave me some pills to give her twice a day. I also have to inject this stuff into the hole of the mole twice a day as well so that it will help the thing heal properly. It is rather disgusting and I know I'm fond of posting about wounds on my blog, but this really was the major event of the weekend for me. 

 

I'll keep watch over it this week and see how it heals. If it starts looking worse they told me to come back to the vet, and that's just what I'll do!

Goal

Goal: Take some kind of picture of my current life sometime this weekend and post it on here :P I haven't had many personal pictures of my life since Christmas so I figure its about time!

Need....to....see

Dunno why, but this seems to be my style of movie. I absolutely ADORE the trailer music - all of it must be good because it's nominated for a Golden Globe. I really want to see this! It's called "A Single Man" and it stars Colin Firth and Julianne Moore (love them both!)

Updates

I'm exhausted. Physically and mentally. I've been this way for the past 2 weeks, essentially since we all got back to work from the holidays.

Work is just ridiculous. It's so incredibly crazy busy that I cannot even go into detail to try and explain everything. It feels like I'm always saying that work is busy and tiring, but this time it's like a thousand times worse than all of the previous times.

We have a new boss and he's great but our group is only 5 people big and we've been tasked with some majorly HUGE projects at eBay. I mean MAJOR! There is so much to do! I won't be surprised if I put in 50-60 hour work weeks through the end of the month through February. Don't get me wrong, I love having lots to do and the overtime isn't awful either, but it's just really mentally stressful.

I woke up last night at 1 am (after going to bed at 10 pm - I was THAT tired) and I had a MAJOR headache. It was so bad I could barely lay in bed with my eyes closed. I got up and took some Tylenol - it took an hour for it to kick in. I'm not the only one on my team having sleeping problems, we're all plagued by them lately.

I also started school again on Monday. Thank goodness my load won't be hard for the next few weeks. I think I'll be ok cause school is sort of an outlet for me and a mechanism to get away from work. I'm not worried about it, but it's just another stressor.

I just wanted to let everyone that I am alive. I am fine and happy....I'm just BUSY. I'll try to keep up on correspondence but please don't be worried if you don't hear from me in the next few weeks :)

I've Taken The Plunge

So over the last few weeks I've been spending all of my spare time sewing and crafting and creating these cute little pin/brooches made out of felt, beads and sequins.

I'd spent months and months prior to actually making anything just looking at Etsy.com and wondering if there was something I could make, because I really liked the idea of it. I'd realized through time that Atmina and editing the photos and going to photo shoots just wasn't what I wanted to be doing. Don't get me wrong, it can be fun, but it wasn't fulfilling to me like it was to Jill. So she's taken over the reins completely and while I'm still here to support her, she is managing all of it now on her own. But I still wanted some sort of creative outlet of my own that actually would have some purpose.

If you've never been to Etsy.com before, you should check it out. It's a marketplace striclty for handmade and vintage items. I absolutely LOVE it. I've literally spent months reading the site and all of its features and looking through all of the items and sellers. I wanted to make sure I was totally comfortable with everything before I actually started doing anything.  And then I saw all the things you could make with felt!

Who knew felt was such a great material! I wanted to get into working with something relatively cheap and easy to handle, and felt is just that! In the past I've dabbled in cross-stitch and other forms of sewing, so I already had a lot of the supplies I needed. I went to some craft stores and bought all colors of felt, more embroidery floss and lots of sequins and beads. It's been SO MUCH FUN!! I cannot even tell you how relaxing it is to me to sit in my little craft area and just sew things together and be creative with them - I especially love embellishing them with the beads and sequins.

Anyway - I finally got my store up and running and it can be found here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/EnchantedCastle

I decided to keep with my "enchanted" theme because it's been one of my favorite words my entire life :) I also created a new blog for myself, just relating to my new endeavor: http://www.jennsenchantedcastle.com/

I hope you'll check it out and spread the word to anyone who might be interested. For now I'm just focusing on pins/brooches but I eventually want to make ALL sorts of things from my felt collection.

I don't plan on this being something that will replace my career or anything. This endeavor is very different from doing Atmina because I don't have to rely on anyone else's time other than my own and I'm in complete control of everything...which is really what I've learned I need to have in order to feel good about things. Hey, if times get tough, I can just pair down what I have in my shop. When times are easy I can fill the store up. It's all dependent on me alone and I like that :)

Happy New Year 2010!!!

It's always a little sad when the New Year rolls around because you start thinking about the previous year and things you did or didn't accomplish. I'd say 2009 was a pretty good year for me school-wise because I did finally graduate. But I also started up Grad School so in a way my graduation was kind of negated because I went back right away :P

I do like to make resolutions. I know everyone says you never stick to them or they only last a few weeks or months. But for me I've got some pretty good goals I've been planning to accomplish in 2010 for a very long time. Here's a run down of some of my goals:

• Lose 20 lbs by March just in time for our Dubai trip! I gotta feel confident about myself for the biggest trip of my life!
• After Dubai, continue weight loss throughout the year. Goal of 130 lbs by the end of the year (VERY doable!)
• Pay off all of my credit cards! I've been working on this already of course. Since August I've cut my credit card debt in half and Ramin is super proud of me! This goal is REALLY important to me because once we're more financially secure we can really start planning for marriage and babies :)
• Think before I judge! I've learned a few of these lessons lately and I've been challenging myself to think about people or situations FIRST before I actually judge them - because honestly, many times things aren't always what they appear to be at first glance. 

So those are my main goals. The biggest of course are weight and debt :P That seems to be the
norm for most people, but honestly I really don't feel like my goals are like anyone elses. The key here is that I've ALREADY been working on these goals. It's not like I waited for the New Year to start them. My Resolution is just to continue working at them and keep up my motivation :)

Hope you've got some Resolutions thought out - or not!

Happy New Year 2010!

Christmas Day

We had a great Christmas Day. As usual my Mom, Bob and Taylor came over to our house. This time they came over around noon because we don't have any anxious children awaiting their Christmas gifts ;) We all figure we might as well take advantage of the easy going Christmases before they disappear in a few years.

Anyway, there are no pictures of me here because I was the one taking all of the shots :P Some of the highlights of my gifts were a new Cricut Expression machine, the Sims 3 computer game, Seinfeld Monopoly board game and a cashmere sweater!

Below is a run down of some of the other highlights of Christmas Day ;)

Here is Chris with his Butt Station tape dispenser :P

It's a tradition in our house to put all of the bows on Bob's head. This is just the start of it.

Chris is opening a board game from one of his best friends. It was wrapped in a movie poster.

Taylor got a new computer - built just for gaming and built by Chris. Taylor loved it!

Ramin and Babak look deep in thought. Babak is reading about Chris' new board game. Ramin got some Florida Gator gear.

Mom got a Chia Herb Garden from "Santa" - she's laughing so hard because it matches the SpongeBob Chia pet Bob got from Chris ;)

When you have loose ribbon it can't really stick on your head, so it went on Bob's wrist :P

I got some Terracotta Warriors straight from China for Chris. He was super excited about them!

Ramin opened his Millsap jersey I bought him. Go Millsap!!

And mom's gift from me was the finale of the day. I'd already given her some smaller frames with pictures of the family in them and this was the icing on the cake :)

Also, as a side note, I got the exact same 16x20 frame and put the same picture of the family in it as well and I hung it up near our picture wall. So now we have the same picture in our houses :) I'll take some pictures of the picture wall soon so you all can see it.

Remember the Letterpress?

So remember the Letterpress I posted about a few weeks ago? (Just scroll down a bit)....well now they are GIVING one away for free!! So I'm totally entering the contest.

Here's a link to their awesome blog: CLICK HERE

Wish me luck!!!