Four Things.....

My friend Riikka posed a challenge to me in her blog the other day. Most of my other friends have already seen this stuff in one of many e-mail surveys that I fill out in order to avoid doing actual work, but since she asked:

Four jobs I've had:
- bank teller
- store cashier
- hotel night auditor
- payroll specialist

Four television shows I like to watch:
- House M.D.
- Sex and the City
- How I Met Your Mother
- iCarly

Four places I've vacationed:
- Death Valley, CA
- Boston, MA
- Seattle, WA
- Virginia Beach, VA

Four web pages I visit almost daily:
- Facebook
- Blogger
- Gaia
- Google search

Four of my favorite foods:
- Tacos
- Grandpa's fish (both salmon and cod)
- Steak
- Baked potato

Four places I'd rather be right now:
- At the beach (preferably a warm one!)
- Disneyland
- In Seattle visiting friends
- Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Four friends I challenge:
- Steph
- Melissa
- Heather
- Colynn

Some of you might be tired of sharing this information with me (like I said, I fill these things out a lot), but I'd still like to pose the challenge. Perhaps you put it in your blog, or maybe you leave it as a comment on this one. Maybe I didn't tag you, but you'd still like to share. In any case, please feel free; we can consider this a little getting-to-know-my-readers information.


PS: the pictures above were take around Clark in the recent days. With the exception of the one of me and Steph and Jade. That was taken at the dog park this past weekend when she and the kids were down here for Memorial Day weekend.

The Dress

Sunday morning.

The alarm sounds, but I'm not quite ready to surrender the coziness of my warm, comfy bed yet. I roll over and hit the snooze button and snuggle down for another nine minutes of dreaminess.

This happens several more times. Finally I remind myself that I have a responsibility to the nursery and drag myself out of my downy cocoon. *Yawn* Why does morning have to come so early? Course, it could be worse. It could be yet another Monday and I could be getting ready for work.

I stumble through my bathroom routine quickly thanks to my late start, then wander back to my room to start getting dressed for church. The alarm clock next to my bed tells me that I'm running late because I should be at the church already and we're supposed to start checking in the little ones in about 15 minutes. I pull on my nylons to cover the leg stubble I chose to ignore in the shower (I hate shaving my legs, so I don't do it whenever I can get away with it) and step into my walk-in closet to find the dress I had decided on last night before falling asleep. I slip the silky material over my head and around my body, then reach to the side to get the zipper. It zips smoothly about halfway and then catches. Hmmm....

I unzip the zipper and start again. Up, up, up to the middle, then STOP. Dang it! What's wrong with this stupid dress?

I tug and I pull. I twist the dress for leverage and pull some more. I unzip and start again. I jump up and down trying to redistribute my body and adjust the zipper. Nothing!

It's no use! This dress is determined to stay unzipped. It's times like this when I really hate being single. Even if a guy is good for nothing else, it's always useful to have a second set of hands to help with a stuck zipper.

But wait..... There is another set of hands in my apartment. Derrick is in the other room, fast asleep. I'll get him to help.

I bang on his door and run in before he has time to realize what woke him up. "Derrick, I need your help with a zipper, please!"

Jade and him blink at me in confusion. "Um, okay....?" he mutters as he reaches up to help me. Tug, tug, tug. Nothing. He sits up so that he has a better grasp and pulls with all his might but to no avail. "Sorry, Deema, but I think it's stuck."

Fine, I'll find something else to wear. I thank him and apologize for waking him up as I dash back to my room, Jade following happily at my heels. I grab the dress and pull it over my head and drop it on the closet floor while sifting through all my other pretty dresses. This one should work! I grab another dress off it's hanger and start to pull it on while mentally locating the sandals that go with it. But wait, sandals mean that I have to go without nylons and I'm not prepared for that. Drat my lazy, anti-razor ways! Shoot! Guess this dress won't work either. And besides, I really wanted to wear the other one. I pick it up one more time and pull up the zipper, which goes up with complete ease without the strain of my body inside. Naturally. I know the dress is just being stubborn because I wore it to work not too long ago and had no problem with it. Well, I'm determined, so I pull the zipped up dress over my head and start pulling it down. I'll show it! I will get this thing on!

Jade pokes her head in the closet to see what is keeping me. "Auntie, shouldn't you be going downstairs to let me go outside and then feed me? I'd really like to pee and then eat something soon."

"Jade, please leave me alone. Can't you see that I'm in wardrobe crisis mode here!"

Esther pokes her head in, too. "Don't you dare think about feeding that big ugly cat before feeding me!" she growls at me. "Don't forget who you really belong to!" She's got a point, I know. Usually I take a little more time with her in the mornings, but as the clock is now telling me that the nursery is taking in babies without the Creeper Room coordinator, I don't really have time to correct this.

So, there I am, standing in my closet with my dress over my head and an audience of arguing animals. I pull on the dress, struggling to get the 32 inch waist of the dress past my 39 inch bust. Thank goodness I've still got my God-given, squishy kind instead of the hard, plastic silicon kind. Holding my breath, I finally manage to coerce my hearty D-cups through the waist of the dress and into their proper location of the bodice. Whew! Finally!

It took a lot of effort and made me late for church. Was it worth it? You be the judge.....

**After church I decided I needed to take a nap and start the day over again. It helped my mood a little. But the dress was such trouble to get on, that I insisted on wearing it for the rest of the day rather than change into something more casual. So take that, Stupid Dress!**

The Ultimate Girly Weekend

Mom and Don had a boat thing out of town this weekend, so she was gone for Mother's Day. I made the best of it by having a girls weekend.

It started on Saturday. I invited friends, coworkers, and fellow nursery workers to mom's house for a scrapbooking party. I invited a mixture of seasoned crafters and newbie scrappers. It was an open house type of event so that people could feel free to come and leave whenever they wanted. It worked out well because one person came early and left around noon to go to a family gathering and another person was able to spend the morning with her son and come out after she put him down for his afternoon nap so that his dad could get some stuff done too. We had about 7 or 8 people in total show up through out the day (which is actually a pretty good turnout).




Kristina and her mom brought the 8 week old J'sai out for his first crop party. It was a good chance for Kristina to get some pages done (which she hasn't been able to do for awhile due to the whole "new mother" thing) because there was no shortage of arms willing to hold the little guy.


The dogs all found the baby quite fascinating. Perhaps it was the novelty of such a tiny human. Every time we put him in his car seat or I bent down to get something off the floor while holding him, they would surround him and start licking him. Maybe baby skin tastes good to doggies. Poor J'sai did not like being a doggie popcicle.

Sunday was Mother's Day. With my mother out of town (and not being a mother myself) I was left to my own activities for the day. Originally, I had made plans with my aunt since her daughter now lives in Arizona, but in a sudden twist of circumstances, Sara and Ashton were able to come up to spend some time here in Washington. But the day Colynn and I had planned was too much fun for us to cancel, so instead we just brought them with us, which made the day even better.

We had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. Sara and Ashton had never been to one before and enjoyed the experience (except for the service. It was the only time we've ever had a problem with the service there). We chose BWW because Colynn and I both really enjoy it and we figured it wouldn't be too crowded since most people take the mothers to fancier places than a sports bar for Mother's Day.

After dinner we went to the new shopping area across from BWW and did a little girly shopping.

We paid Ashton a dollar to take our picture.

Poor Ashton had to suffer through dress try-ons and shoe fittings. Considering the fact that he's 7 and we were out and about for five hours or so doing NOT child-fun activities, I think he did pretty good.

Ashton and his monkey, Jake

I miss shopping. It's been so long and my poor closet feels so very neglected. But after my Sunday shopping with my aunt and cousin, I was able to add a few sundresses and a BEAUTIFUL pair of shoes to the set. I think my closet will be okay for a little while now.

National Scrapbooking Day

Finally! A holiday I can appreciate and take part in!

My friend Barb's company was hosting a scrapbooking event in celebration of National Scrapbooking Day today. She invited me and I of course accepted immediately. Even despite the fact that it started at 9:00, which meant giving up my one sleeping in day, I was very excited to participate. We packed up our Cricut machine and multitude of papers, stickers, photos, and cartridges and carted them out to her company.

It was fun. I like being with other scrapbookers. I find it facinating to look at all the different ideas and styles and creations that different people come up with. I was also pleasantly surprised to find another Cricut believer who had cartridges I have been looking for and they were more than happy to share with us.

By the time we decided to clean up our table and head home (around 4:00), Barb had completed 5 whole pages and I had done 5 and a half (I realized toward the end that I had left something I needed at home and figured I'd finish when I got back to it).



I finished the "half" page when I got home and then continued on to finish one more for a total of 7 pages. I think it was a very productive day.

I'm planning a scrapbooking party next weekend too. It will be at mom's house and I've invited several people over to join me. Some are even new to the art of scrapbooking, people I've chatted with about my hobby who have expressed interest in learning. I'm really looking forward to doing some more pages. I think today's activities are what I needed to get me motivated to work on my books again.

By the way (not that anyone really cares), the book I started working on today was my Death Valley trip. I'm hoping to get it finised by the time DJ comes home so that we can look through it together while he's here.