Cooking Dinner

I had planned on cooking a fabulous Valentine's dinner for my sweetie this year. Sadly, my sweetie's mom passed away on Friday, February 13 at 5:09am. Instead of my fabulous dinner, I was treated to L&L Bar-B-Q. Hopefully, I will get to cook a fabulous dinner for my sweetie's gradmother this upcoming weekend, so wish me some luck!

Moving

Yeah, I am moving again. While the apartment has been lovely, Tahoe and I have outgrown it. On Dec. 1, we will be moving into a house that is closer to work and has a backyard for Tahoe to run around in. I am looking forward to decorating the house for Christmas and then throwing a party, which is one thing I could not do in the apartment. This move should not take very long since I will have a 7 day overlap in the two places, and I can bring things over one day at a time.d I even have a volunteer to help me move. How sweet!

Found

There is a website out there, www.foundmagazine.com, where folks send letters, drawings, photos, etc. that they find. They can be found inside, outside, on cars, in bushes, in the trash and anywhere else one might find something. I have become addicted to it. Some of the objects make me wonder what the writers life must be like. I really like the notes that are being written by two people, probably in a class or in a meeting because it reminds me of some of the strange notes I have written to people in those situations. While there are not too many of those, there are some rather hilarious finds such as these two:



Then there are the terribly depressing ones in which I hope the writers found some sort of peace in the end. One of the most poignant ones for me was found at an elementary school and was probably written by one of the students. Some child is wise beyond their years. I leave you with their note.

Personality Test

This is rather spot on. The two things I disagree with are that I tend to delegate rather well and I will fight back when confronted.

Your result for The LONG Scientific Personality Test...

ISFJ-The Protector

You scored 45% I to E, 53% N to S, 38% F to T, and 16% J to P!

The protector type is called such because you feel your life is best used to protect those you love from the pitfalls of life, to see to their safety and security. You belong to the larger group called guardians. You find great satisfaction in assisting the downtrodden. You are not talkative with strangers, but you can chat tirelessly with those you trust. You have a good solid work ethic. You are thorough and very likely frugal. You do not like to be in a place of authority, and will delegate poorly if forced into a lead position. You share your type with 10% of the population.

As a romantic partner, you are generous and gentle. Occasionally you may be taken for granted because of this fact. You are tireless in providing acts of service for your loved ones. You run the risk of always being exhausted because you won't say no to your partner. You are sensitive to criticism and will withdraw rather than fight back. You wish to be appreciated for your loyalty and whole hearted nuturing. Your values must be respected and you thrive on consideration and kindness.

Your group summary: Guardians (SJ)

Your Type Summary: ISFJ

Take The LONG Scientific Personality Test at HelloQuizzy

Premium Desserts

I know I am a chocolate snob. I admit it freely. When you let fine chocolate melt in your mouth, it is creamy, velvety, smooth and a whole host of other things all at once. There are different complex flavors and aromas. It's a beautiful thing. When out at a restaurant, I know that they will not use premium ingredients, and that is not a great issue for me until you are going to charge me premium prices. Don't try to sell me a $12 slice of cake that has the complexity of a Costco cake. Telling me the baker slaved away between the lunch and dinner shift to make these cakes does nothing for me aside from making me think of what a rush job it might have been.

I had a cake tonight that was described as this wonderful confection full of intense flavors and textures. The fact that it was chocolate made it even more exciting. The slice of cake I was given was presented beautifully, but that was its only high point. First, the baker needs to figure out the difference between whipped cream, ganache and mousse because whatever the heck the two layers of white filling were on top of the cake was none of these, unless it was a mixture of the three. I am assuming there was a dark chocolate layer of cake, and on top of that was a milk chocolate layer of cake, both of which had no flavor. Here's a hint: Dutch Processed Cocoa has much more flavor than the Hershey's cocoa that was being used. Yeah, I can pick out the cocoa they used. There was alcohol somewhere in the layers, but as always, it was used as a way to moisten a dry cake, so you really get that alcohol flavor. Then there was the white stuff that was taller than the two layers of chocolate cake on top of each other. The chocolate shavings were off a Hershey's bar or something because there was only a sugary flavor to them, and the tissue paper thin shavings did not melt between my fingers. That's not normal. Somehow, they screwed up cream cheese frosting because the stuff that had been piped on top of the cake and the sides was grainy. Here's the kicker: The chocolate syrup drizzled over the cake was Hershey's Syrup from the bottle! While this does fool many people, it does not fool me.

To sum this tirade up, if you want sub-par confections, use sub-par products. If you want premium confections, use premium products. It's as simple as that.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have some chocolate chips to go suck on. At least they are Ghiladelli.

Pho sho!

I got a couple of big hoorays to give out:

Hoory to my sister! It's her birthday today. She's my favorite sister.

Hooray to Michele and Ken! They should be welcoming a new baby boy into there arms and hearts today.

Hoory for pho... Yeah, I know it is no where near as big of a deal as births and birthdays, but some days it really makes it for me. Today was the kind of day I did not want to get up for. I rolled around in bed until I only had 20 minutes to get ready. This has been happening a lot lately, and it is not a good sign. As the day wore on, I was about to go out to my car and nap, but I got a message that Michele was in labor. That perked me up, then the boys in the office wanted to go grab lunch, so I got some pho.

So now I am munching on pho and waiting to find out what how our newest CM baby is doing.

Cutest Cards Ever Week!

"Such cute cards, such cute cards." (sing-songy voice) That is me tooting my own horn. I am working on what my horn sounds like because "toot, toot" does not really bring images of cuteness to mind. Tonight I made a baby shower card for my original babysitter. She's the person who taught me that ranch dressing on pasta was one of the best foods. I taught her to never let a 4 year old pour their own juice. She watched me bring the juice over my head to pour, and then watched me tip backwards because it was much heavier than my 4 year old self could handle. My mother has explained that apple juice does not really ever come out of carpeting. Yeah, she will never live that one down. This one's for you, and your old Billy Idol poster. It was rawsome!

Rainy Days and LOTR Marathons!

Nothing makes me want to be crafty more than rainy weather. I love the rain, and when there is a Lord of the Rings marathon on, I can really get my craftiness on. My only issue with movies like this are that so many animals are killed in the battles. Why we feel the need to drag animals into battle, I will never know. They did not ask for it, and it is not their battle. I digress. Hopefully my former boss does not read this blog because this is his card, and I don't want the surprise to be ruined. I used a photo of him as a child for the inspiration behind the card.

Now I have 2 baby cards to make in the next couple of days, and the ideas I have for them are amazing! Good thing this rainy weather is going to hang around for a few more days!

Here It Is!

**Warning** **Spoilers Ahead**
If you don't want to see what the invites look like to a certain wedding, turn back now!

Prom Dress Prints has officially given its first customer their customized order! At first, I had spread it out over many weeks, a few cuts here and a hole punch there, but the closer the deadline got, the more I feared I would not get the product out. In the final week, I would come home from work, fix dinner and get to the invites. I did not go to bed before 1am that entire week. I had miscalculated some numbers, so that required doing another mini-assembly line to get those put together. I went through 4-5 different adhesives before I settled on one, which happens to be the same adhesive I started scrapbooking with 9 years ago. Good old Pioneer double stick tape! The only time I used another type of adhesive was for the cover letters because double stick tape takes way too long to work with. A few nights too late, a coworker did offer his help, but it had gotten to the more intricate of tasks, and I feared he would not do well. My mother on the other hand, was helping me until 2am on the very last night, putting everything together as I printed out the last items. Thanks mom! I promise that when this company takes off, you will be my head creative consultant and eyeballer. To make a long story short (too late!) I pulled together 200+ invites. Here they are:





Did you really think I was going to let you see all the invite information? Haha!

Working Photo

Here is the first photo from the wedding invitaion creation.


The white things in the bag are 144 letters for the covers. The four bags with red rectangles are 138 invitations, there is a bag with black stuff in it, which would be 138 black ribbons and 33 more invitations. The big metal rectangle on the table would be my super fabulous paper cutter which saved my life. I packed it in my luggage, so I was rather sure that security would go through it. If they did, I could not tell.

More to come tonight now that my life has settled.

I lied.

No photos today. Too darn busy.

Down to the Wire

Here I am. So close to the finish line of the wedding invites. One more night, and I am done. One more trip to the Michael's, and I am done. One more of those "lift you up and triumph over all" movie marathon.

Tomorrow, I hope to post photos. Today, I hope to change the course of my life and put out the first profitable order from Prom Dress Prints!

Dehydrated Broccoli

I found something very interesting out today while attempting to make my lunch. I am eating a healthy diet currently to try and lose some weight and feel better. This means that I am not eating as much food as I am used to, and thus I treasure every little bit of my meals. Today's lunch: 6oz baked potato, 2 oz low-fat cheese, and 1 cup of broccoli. Due to the fact that our new office has that itty bitty problem where you cannot run two microwaves at once, along with the fact that I am way to energy conscious to use two, I stuck the broccoli and potato in the microwave together. After 3 minutes on high, I got all excited to eat my steamed broccoli only to find that my 1 cup of broccoli was now 1/3 of a cup of broccoli tops. It was a sad moment when I realized that broccoli was full of water and could be dehydrated to this point. It was one of the most pathetic things I have ever witnessed, and I am sure that anyone walking by the lunch room thought my body language was the most pathetic thing they had ever seen. For some reason, food that is bad for you stays moist and fresh in the microwave while the healthy stuff disappears.

Note to self, 3 minutes on high in the microwave is too much for broccoli.

I Have Issues

1. Cannot read or see movies about scary, supernatural things
2. Must wash hands numerous times in the day because they feel dirty
3. Must wear nylons with heels because I cannot stand the feeling of my feet in the shoes
4. I will not eat at potlucks because I do not know how clean their house is or how often they wash their hands. I will eat your food if I have been to your home and watched you prepare food or have seen your cube day in and out, and there is a cleanliness factor to it

I mean, they stretch on and on. There are some that stem from me wanting perfection and that is what this current blog is about. Prom Dress Prints (I have got to register that name), is working on its first big account. By big, I mean more than 100 wedding invitations. The bride and I collaborated on the design, colour scheme, font and overall look of the cards. When most people start their first designs, they are crafty, but not overly intricate. Not so with me. I cannot give away the look, but they have a booklet form, fancy lettering, some cute little humorous touches and what I hope represents the bride and groom very well.

It has been overly warm in Salem as of late, which means I am all sorts of sweaty. I don't like being sweaty to start with, but it makes it even more difficult to make cards. I want the invites to be so perfect, that one little mark would tip me over the edge. I have been waiting ever so patiently, and my time has finally come. The weather has turned to overcast and cold, and blankets are a required evening item when I work. If the weather keeps up, I will have them done before the week is out.

This first project has taught me a number of things, but the most important one is that I cannot have a card making shop unless I can keep an internal temperature of 68 degrees at all times in the place. I was not made for warm weather.

Back to the Food

Well, the most depressing food related thing has happened to me. I have been having issues with produce going bad rather quickly up here, but never stopped to think about it. Then last week when I was at the store with Carl, I asked him to get a bag of spinach but to make sure that it would not expire in a day like the last bag I got. He was able to dig through and find one that expired in two days! Oh boy, what a deal. For the amount of money we now pay for produce, I would hope that we could get it to the grocery store in a timely fashion. When I bought strawberries two weeks ago, they were rotten in 4 days, which just made me mad. This week, a few days after I bought the strawberries, I was already looking at rotten berries. It was really making me mad, and then I discovered the issue. I am used to living in CA where everything is grown and you can buy fresh fruit along every highway. Looking at the strawberry package I realized that these berries travel all the way from Monterey County, California all the way up to Salem, Oregon. There are at least 3 days of travel time in there on top of what ever amount of packaging and truck loading and off loading time. You don't want me to even start on the lettuce.

I will be checking out the Farmer's Market this Saturday, and I am hoping to have a healthier selection of produce.

Hello Lady.

This one is short and sweet. This is my new ride: