Four Arts, Please

"One art, please!" -Dr. Zoidberg

We gots some arts! And hung them up!




Here's the artist: Matthew Mayes

The middle one - the tan-ish one that looks like a sunburst - made the biggest difference since we put it up on a previously uncovered wall.

Scrapbooker's Nightmare

Also known as, How My Crazy Grandfather Singlehandedly Destroyed My Mother's Family's Memories.

So this is what went down tonight. But first, use this as reference:

Mandarin character key:
媽媽 = ma1 ma1 = mother
婆婆 = po2 po2 = maternal grandmother, informal
公公 = gong1 gong1 = maternal grandfather, informal

So here it is. We were eating dinner at Cracker Barrel for Kevin's birthday when my mom mentioned that she wasn't going to Taiwan this summer, but was planning to go next summer. "媽媽," I said, "when you go to Taiwan, you should get copies of 婆婆 and 公公's family pictures for an album."

"Oh, 公公 threw all those pictures away," my mom said.

WHAT?!

I don't think that single pair of question and exclamation marks effectively conveys my shock and disbelief. Here's what it should look like: ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Apparently, my grandfather threw away ALL the family photos when he thought they were going to be moving out of the apartment they had lived in for close to 40 years. He didn't want to have to lug around ALL those pictures. But the books? The books stay because those could be useful to someone! And the albums that all the pictures were in? Those stay too!

So let me get this straight. My grandfather went through the trouble of putting family photos in albums in the first place, then in some unexplained bout of CRAZINESS, took all the family photos (we're talking wedding pictures and childhood pictures of my mom and her three sisters) out of the photo albums, chucked all the photos, but hung on to the empty photo albums?

60 or more years of family history . . . gone. I'm speechless. I can't believe it. I can't imagine what my grandfather was possibly thinking when he did that. I can't decide if he was always that crazy, or the craziness was brought on by old age. He didn't even offer up the pictures to his CHILDREN. Not even the one that lives ten minutes away. And why didn't my grandmother DO something and STOP him?

If I'd known the fate of those pictures, it would have been worth it to me to make a trip to Taiwan just to get those pictures. Ugh. Makes me sad just to think about what happened to those pictures.

Male-ish Birthday Card

I had to make a couple birthday cards for my dad and brother, who have birthdays at the end of July:


They both get the same card though, because I have a feeling that they don't really care about the thought I would have put into making two different cards.

And, because I know the minutia of using different ink pads is incredibly interesting: I broke out the black Staz-On ink pad I bought recently and I think I like it better already than the Brilliance ink pad I was using.

Pizzeria Bianco

A couple months ago, Yahoo featured this article claiming that the best pizza in the U.S. is in - wait for it - Phoenix, Arizona! Yes, Phoenix's very own Pizzeria Bianco is supposedly the best pizza in the U.S. - a lofty claim, indeed.

Further research on the all-knowing "Internet" indicates that Pizzeria Bianco has been:

• Featured on Oprah! (If Oprah says so, it MUST be good!)
• Awarded the James Beard Foundation's "Best Chef: Southwest" in 2000 and 2003! (I've never even heard of this foundation! But it's an award!)

A personal taste test was in order after all the hype. So, on June 25th, starting at 4:00 pm sharp, I called Pizzeria Bianco three times within ten minutes in order to get a reservation for six tonight.


We enjoyed our Pizzeria Bianco experience with Julio & Stephanie and Brad & Tara:


All in all, Pizzeria Bianco was good, but best pizza in the U.S.? I don't know, BUT at least we can say we tried it.

Bonus picture: Crazy boys!

Thank You + Wedding Cards

I had to put out some cards to be mailed during the week, so I carved out some time to finish these (nothing fancy):

To Greg's aunt:
(Made with Stephanie's Cuttlebug and flower punch).


To my friend, Esther, who is getting married in a week:
(Clear card with embossed cake. I envisioned embossing with white powder until I realized I only had clear powder, but it turned out well).


There's not enough time in a weekend to read and do homework for five chapters of tax, plus check all my blogs and screw around. :)/:( I should know better.

Distraction at Target

I'm easily distracted when walking through Target. Particularly when walking through clothes, shoes, and scrapbooking. Yesterday, on my way to meet up with Greg and Kevin (my brother) at Target, I happened to pass the shoe section when bright red clearance stickers, coupled with racks of cute shoes, diverted me from my fairly direct route to the men's clothes.

Red peep-toe heels first caught my eye from the main linoleum thoroughfare, but then when my "rational" side caught up to my "ooh! shoes!" side, I opted for the basic and classic . . . black.


But the sweetest part of my unplanned diversion? The $6.24 price tag!

Clay and Glass Arts Show

Our trip to San Jose last weekend to attend a clay and glass arts show turned out to be quite a fruitful trip, and by "fruitful," I mean "cost more than I anticipated."

Greg was on a mission to fill up some space in his rather empty/lonely display cases, and fill we did:

Perusing pottery:


Does Greg's face not scream "mischievous"? I think his aunt's expression answers that question (and in case there is any doubt - yes to mischievous):


Pottery that we got:

Camping and Heber Fireworks

Last Saturday: first-ever camping experience.

Stephanie invited me and Greg to go camping with her family over Fourth of July weekend. Greg took her up on it immediately. I did so after some convincing and moping on Greg's part.

My assessment of my first camping experience: not bad.
Of course, it was only for one day, but I was okay with that, particularly since this camping was pretty "authentic" - no toilets (except the pseudo-toilet/bucket called the "honey pot"), no running water, no a lot of things that the comfort of my own home would offer (but I guess that's not really the point of camping now, is it?).

Saturday night was the fireworks show in Heber, which Greg took a lot of pictures of. Here are a few:




That last one is Greg's favorite (it has since become his computer desktop).
(See the web album here).

Next up: Camping in August with my dad and brother.

Karnos Sibling 4th of July Festivities

Greg and I had his brother (Patrick) and sister (Kati), plus respective significant others (Arwen and Dan), over for an outdoor BBQ and games tonight.

Greg was quite pleased with how the dinner turned out. On the menu:

• Vegetable and pineapple BBQ kabobs
• Grilled bratwursts
• Marinated and grilled carne asada with sauteed onions/bell peppers/mushrooms

The salad (two varieties, courtesy of Kati) and dessert (also two varieties, courtesy of Arwen) were also good. Arwen made some pretty patriotic cupcakes that I just had to take pictures of in order to blog about:



There were plenty of cupcakes leftover . . . guess what we'll be noshing on tomorrow while camping!

Fireworks were not part of the agenda tonight, but there's supposed to be a show going on in Heber (maybe?) tomorrow night that we will be going to. Greg's hoping to get some good pictures of that.

By the way, we've found electronic Catch Phrase to be an incredibly addicting game. We not only played it tonight, but it will be accompanying us on the camping trip tomorrow!

Bridesmaid Dress Shopping

Met up with Kati and 2 other bridesmaids on Saturday to see about getting some bridesmaid dresses. While I was at the mall, which I don't make it to as often as I used to since moving out to Laveen, I also took the opportunity to get my ring fixed.

A prong on my ring needed fixing due to my hand ramming into the concrete while assembling some backyard furniture, during which the ring took the brunt of said hand-concrete ramming. This one jewelry repair shop in the mall quoted me $29.99 and 45 minutes to fix the prong while one of the other jewelry places did it for free in 5 minutes AND gave me a bottle of water. The prong's still not perfect, but as long as the stone isn't in danger of falling out, I'm good.

While actually dress shopping, I tried on this dress that I had been eyeing on Nordstrom's website:


I decided nay on it though, since (1) it's going to be difficult to find "undergarments" that go with the dress, (2) I wasn't a huge fan of the bow, and (3) I discovered that it wasn't quite the right color. I decided that I'm going to give this one a try:


During the trip to the mall, I also got a work-appropriate wrap dress from Express (rare, because I have never worn a dress to work before besides the holiday parties):


Lastly, since Greg has previously ragged on me for buying dresses that I don't wear, I'm happy to announce that I finally, since buying this black-and-white dress at least a year ago, broke out the dress and WORE IT on Saturday. It's 100% cotton though, so I hope it survives the wash without shrinking, unlike this Forever 21 dress. (Yes, I will admit, that the only reason I blogged about the Forever 21 dress was so that I could complain about it again here).

Note to self re: Forever 21

Note to self: you get what you pay for.

Forever 21 is not an expensive place, so I classify a $30 dress from there as an expensive dress (by Forever 21's standards, not "normal person" standards). And when said dress from Forever 21 shrinks after going through a cold wash cycle and being line dried, I am not happy.


The dress was already short to begin with, and then it became shorter after the wash. How do you sell dresses so short that even me, a barely-over five foot person, can't wear them? I am muy disappointed, particularly because it started out as a cute dress.