Project Monday- Paint your Nails a Favorite Color

Yesterday I visited Pinterest for some Lemonade inspiration for Celeste upcoming birthday party. And I ran across this pretty photo of a nail-painting DIY technique.

Source: sweettalkonthespot.com via Kristine on Pinterest

I really like how this looks like a foggy sky. Since project Monday this week was to paint your nails your favorite colors, I decided to translate this technique into my colors, purple and turquoise.

 

 

Keeping it Cool

Where have I been? Wish I could say somewhere fantastic. But no, just being me, at home, out with family, just living life. And its left me in an incredibly lazy state. I really need to get back on track to being my organized energetic self, but shes lost right now. It's like riding a bike, right? I hope so, because I have a little soon to be seven year olds birthday to plan!
This weeks project Monday is "keeping it cool," the hot weather is everywhere right now. I don't know about you, but I step foot into the heat and I just want to go back inside and take a nap. Wake me when the sun dips down. But there are a few things I've been doing to try and beat the heat. Cool beverages to start. A glass of raspberry lemonade, or some malibu and pineapple, and of course my favorite, bubble tea. I also change into shorts or a dress after work. Wearing my hair up rather than down also seems to help me keep it cool. How about you, what are you doing to beat the heat?

Project Monday-Magic Hour

This weeks prompt was to take some photos of your favorite time in a summer day. I actually have two. The twilight hours. Those hours in the day when we are still teetering between light and dark, the gorgeous glowing hours where the sun is rising or setting. I love those times in the day. And in the summer, the twilight hours seem to stretch on and on. There is something truly magical about that time. Almost like the world pauses.
Yesterday was my "holiday" for the Fourth of July. So I had a rare opportunity to enjoy the morning hours. I usually sleep in on the weekends, there is no rousing me out of bed before 9 a.m. on a Saturday or Sunday! So it was nice to sit out in my backyard, enjoy a warm cup of coffee, water my garden, and watch the sun come up. And then of course retreat back into my air conditioned home as it heats up.

We adopted a new doggy last week. So he's kept me pretty busy. He was a stray. He is a Siberian Husky and we named him Lycan. He is a sweetheart, very inquisitive and playful. They think he may have been stray for a bit, he is pretty skinny for a husky. Since he is very smart and an escape artist (as most huskies are) I have to be outside with him almost always! Hopefully he will feel more at home with us shortly and won't feel the itch to escape. We took him and Penny on a walk together and it was tough! He's a good walker, but Penny is so hyper, and she is constantly pulling and wants to run up and bark at other dogs in the neighborhood (and there are A LOT).
Maybe he will teach her by example. He has already taught her to chew a bone. Before Penny would just take the bone and bury it in the yard, but when she saw Lycan chewing his bone, she gave it a try too.

Hello there.

Oh my. I arrived back home from Seattle on this past Monday. I had grand illusions of editing and posting my photos right away. But then I went to work. And it was a disaster. Quite literally. My manager had planned to cover my vacation, but then she was called away out of town on other business. The department had coverage for two half days, then four days of nothing, so I came in to a pretty big mess. Sweeet. Just what everyone wants to come back to after a vacation. Icky. Needless to say, I have been busting my ass to try and catch up, on top of normal duties, and after work, I am all tuckered out. Even though I have wanted to stop in and post, it has been hard to do anything but put my feet up after a long day!
So I have so much to share with you about my fabulous time visiting my best friend in Seattle, but, I am going to save that post for the weekend, when I have more time. Today I'd like to share this week's project Monday. Which was actually for Tuesday, June 21, the first day of summer. The summer solstice. The longest day of the year. If I hadn't been so freakin' tired after that first day back at work, I would have crammed in a lot more. The project was to document how much you did on the longest day of the year.
so:
woke up at 3am, at work by 4. yippee. what a mess.
leave on my lunch break at 8:20ish to pick up Celeste and take her to Boys & Girls Club.
Find out they don't have her in the system, wait to talk to lady.
Back at work 9:20ish. Yay, now I get to stay even later!
1:20ish off work. Pick up a few groceries, home by 2:30
Head back out to another grocery store


Stocked up on plenty of fruits for healthy snacking, I was a bad girl on vacation.
Picked up Celeste at 4
Head home and put away the rest of the groceries.
We watch some ghost stories.
We fall asleep. (oops!)
Make me a Malibu and OJ
Make some shrimp skewers with sweet thai chili sauce and cilantro and throw them on the grill, serve with coconut rice




Make oven smores for dessert

In bed by 9:30
Phew!
Isn't it crazy how little things can just suck a day away? How about you, how did you rock the longest day of the year?

Uniquely Spring

This weeks photo prompt at Bubble Gum Life is "uniquely spring." Spring here in Reno is nothing short of unique, and often nothing like Spring anywhere else. It's mostly an unwanted extension of winter, with a couple teases of sunshine. Last week it was in the 50's, this week 80's. There is no predictability. So I could probably post a picture of the snow on Peavine and it would be uniquely spring for us! But this weekend was spent cleaning, doing yard work, and playing in the sprinklers. Celeste has a water hopscotch that we hooked up to the garden hose and let her run through. I used it as an opportunity to try and capture some water droplets frozen in time.

Project Monday- Out for a Walk

Can you believe it? I didn't turn on my computer once this weekend. And I wasn't out of town camping, I was home, prepping and planting my vegetable garden. On Saturday I spent pretty much the entire day with my butt in the dirt hand digging the weeds out by the roots from our rock hard Nevada soil. This also helped loosen the soil. Then I turned in some chicken manure, just in time for it to rain. The next day I got together a few more things for the yard, but it was still raining off and on, so we stayed inside. Then, we planted yesterday. After all our hard work, we decided some play was in order, so Celeste and I walked to the park! After a minor detour to get a slurpee of course.

Project Monday- Vanishing Point

 

These photos of our walk in Montana during last year's vacation immediately came to mind when I read this weeks Project Monday post over at Bubble Gum Life. When I think of a vanishing point, I think of a viewers eye being drawn in to the photograph by a line that disappears at a point in the image. I think these photos accomplish that effect. I also created a layout using one of my favorite photos from these shots. It's my favorite because the look on my daughters face is so totally her. She is such a dramatic little girl, with everything being so very intense, even picking flowers!

Project Monday-Comfort Food

Yay, it's back. I really love the Project Monday photo prompts from Carrie and Gloria over at Bubblegum Life. And the prompts have never stopped coming, if you want to head on over to their blog to check it out. I just couldn't keep up with it towards the end of the semester. My workload became too tremendous, and my Project Monday posts suffered. But I hope to get back into the bloggy swing of things for the summer at least, I am making no promises about next semester!
Comfort food is this weeks topic. I could probably say all food is comfort food for me, I just love food. Especially sweet foods. Hence the almost constant supply of cupcake recipes here on the blog. My Grandma Oma worked at a bakery when I was little, and my favorite thing to pick out of the big shiny cases was eclairs. All the ladies found it pretty funny that this little girl wanted such a particular pastry, but I loved them. Granted, I tried those alluring iced cookies, and had a cupcake or too, but I knew I could always count on the delishness of the eclair. My favorite part, the whipped cream inside. I don't like custard filled eclairs, the whipped ones are the best.

Alas, after my elaborate eclair story, I do not have a picture to share with you of an eclair. But my mouth is watering now. My other comfort foods are cinnamon toast and tea. And thats what I had today. I am a wee bit under the weather, so a nice hot cup of tea was soothing to my sore throat. I remember grandma Oma making me cinnamon toast when I was a little girl staying at her house. I was one of those kids that always wanted "dessert" and that might be why she started giving it to me. But it really is a comfort now. I still sometimes make myself cinnamon toast before bed. Must be great for the metabolism.

Project Monday- yes, I know its Tuesday

So, this weeks photo prompt was "other cameras need love too". Agreed! I have an old school Canon T50 which may be older than I am. It was my first SLR. It is a truly beautiful piece of machinery, and it still takes gorgeous pictures. I ruined one of lenses at Craters of the Moon, Idaho when I was younger. Like a dummy I switched lenses in the lava park and little granules of lava sand got inside and completely stuck the moving parts. So all I have is the portrait lens. Which is fine because that is what I prefer to shoot. Oh, then there was the time my niece pulled it off the table (she was 3, I'm a dummy) and broke the external flash (it has no internal). Like I said, my first SLR. Abused, but works! As long as your well lit and close. My other non-digital camera is a Yashica Electro 35, I need to replace the light seals and modify it slightly to take a present day battery (they took mercury batteries), but I haven't found the time.
So all this was just a really elaborate excuse as to why I can't really take a picture and give my other cameras some love. But, I did use a Polaroid for a recent assignment, so I thought this a good opportunity to share. Lucky for me one of my class mates had one of these bad boys, and with film, so I could see my project to completion. We actually used Polaroid at work up until a couple years ago, but it was still awkward and foreign to operate, and the picture I took came out crappy. Maybe because I took it inside a fluorescent lit classroom?

I laugh at myself

I really kind of have too. I do a blog post about being back from a blogging hiatus, then disappear again! Oh, I crack me up. All kidding aside, is it weird that I feel super remorseful that I have failed my blog, Epically? Is that even a word? Well, I did it none the less. Once upon a time I had delusions of grandeur and dreamt of someday having an awesome blog with tons of reader worthy content. But then I get so enveloped in my scholastic studies and, well, life in general. And my poor blog goes by the wayside. I feel like I've said this before. Maybe I've just thought about it a lot. I need to jot my ideas down more often, they are way too fleeting. Then maybe I'd have some reader worthy content. I even tried "scheduling" my blog time. But sometimes I just can't fit it in.
I do feel especially bad for missing the past two Project Monday posts, but I have them here today. The topic from last Monday was spring flowers. 'Not fair' is what I thought when I read that over at the Bubblegum Life blog. It was still blustery and threatening snow. And it still is, in between days of 70-75. The next day the fates opened a beautiful bright yellow daffodil in my front yard. So that's what that plant that always dies from the snow looks like. It's come up a couple times since we moved in, and I had an inkling it was a daffodil, but then it never bloomed, or was killed by a freeze. They are quite lovely, and a most definite sign of the season.

Yesterdays  project Monday topic was "sharing happy thoughts". I was inspired by Carrie's photograph, and decided to take a picture of a card Celeste made for me. She draws me pictures and makes me things all the time. It makes me feel so special. I love that she creates wonderful and precious things for me. Lately she has been putting "MPU" on her works of art.
"what's M-P-U?" I ask her
"Muh-wah" she makes a kissing sound that we always make at each other.
How cute, she totally spelled a kissing sound for her mommy. I love it!

And lastly, for my wonderful little catch up and say sorry about my lame forgetting to blog-ness.... I really can't remember my last outfit post. I love sharing my outfit posts. At first I felt like a big fat dork, Same as when I first shared pictures of my home. But then I realized those are my two favorite things from other blogs I read, I love to see how they dress and how they decorate their homes. I first embarked on my little "anti-jeans adventure this past fall. The whole idea was to replace my average jeans and tee shirt get up with something cuter, something a with more style, something not jeans. Well, some of the time. I have been making it a point to dress nicely to all my critiques in class. Yet again, epic fail here, haven't taken any pictures. It's usually cold, windy, poor light... I know, excuses! Anyway, this Spring will be an interesting transition. While I usually pair my skirts and dresses with cardi's, I will have to find a short sleeved substitute as warm weather approaches. It will be a whole new sort of adventure now! I hope I can transition flawlessly, or at least with some grace - XO.

Cardigan-Old Navy (one of my faves!) Skirt- Forever 21 Shoes and Earrings- thrifted vintage

Back From a Blogging Hiatus...

I started out the week of my spring break break thinking I would do all sorts of blogging and even finish a new painting for my Etsy shop. But all fell by the wayside when my six year old commented "Your always on the computer mom". To be fair, I am a graphic design student, so while I do spend a great deal of time on the computer, it is working on school work mostly. In fact, I was really looking forward to putting more time into my blog and my poor poor neglected Etsy shop. Instead, I put down the computer for the whole week of spring break. *gasp* I did FB and Tweet from my phone on occasion, as well as check my email. But no blog writing or reading, no etsy browsing or treasurey making. No vintage recipe post or little things post.
And we did have fun. We received a bonus at work, and I have a new tattoo scheduled for this Friday that will probably be a good chunk of it. I've wanted to get a couple new tattoos for awhile but I'm always so broke. We also went out for some sushi and I took Celeste bowling for her first time ever. It was nice to do things "normal" people can do. It's just sad that it takes a once a year bonus to be able to afford it.

And since I wasn't in class, I was able to go to a couple of Celeste's school functions last week. On Tuesday she had a music show. It was themed dreamland, so all the kiddos wore their pj's. It is so cute to see her little face scan the crowd and when she sees you are there her eyes light up and she grins from ear to ear. And on Thursday she was awarded the silver honor roll award for being an exceptional student. Yay! This is her second one, she also made silver honor roll last year. And on Saturday we got dressed up and headed out for some shopping. We stopped and shared a bubble tea first though! And last night we had my little brother and his girlfriend over for a homemade manicotti dinner and a game of Parcheesi.

Time for Project Monday!
This Monday the photo prompt is look up:

4 Days in a Row...

Man, I really dropped the ball on this one. I didn't check out Bubblegum Life's photo prompt until Sunday, so I don't have a "Four Days in a Row" post compiled of photos over this weekend. I did take photos over the weekend, but I've already shared them! So these are from March 2-5...

On March 2nd I wore a pretty scarf I picked up at the Salvation Army. Purple is my favorite color, and the lovely greens are delightfully spring.

On the third we started to demolish a wall in our bathroom. Fun stuff. Remodeling your only bathroom with a shower is always awesome.

This one I took on the fourth. I was going to do an outfit post because I haven't done one in forever, but I didn't like how my pictures turned out. Oh well, her it is!

And the fifth was my birthday, yummy Baskin Robbins ice cream cake!