Busy Summer

I got an email from my professor last week. It listed a ton of homework problems to do for the first week of class. Class doesn't even start until Tuesday. Yeesh.

I'm embarking on what looks to be a busy summer.

Camping. Wedding in San Diego. CPA exam. Roadtrip.

Crafty stuff will have to take a backseat. Shame. I've got ideas in the pipeline.

Chicago

Went to St. Charles for training last week. It's only about 45 minutes outside of Chicago, so Stephanie and I stuck around for an extra day to check out downtown. After our training ended about noon last Friday, we headed into Chicago. We took the train into the city and spent the rest of the day shopping on Michigan Avenue. Dinner at Edwardo's was pretty delicious (deep dish spinach pizza), especially since we used up most of our time shopping and it was late by the time we made it to dinner.

Silver bean:

Chicago Theater:

We went back into the city on Saturday for the Chicago Architecture Foundation's river cruise.

I'm on a boat:

With my flippy floppies:

(Check out this SNL digital short if you don't get my reference to being on a boat with flippy floppies).
And Stephanie:

Skyline from boat:

We had lunch at the Weber Grill Restaurant before heading back to the airport for home. It was somewhat of a novelty since we'd never seen one before.

I had fun tooling around Chi-Town with Stephanie. Greg was a little envious, but we'll go together some other time!

Sprinkles Cupcakes

Greg took me on a date night a couple weeks ago, just for fun. We had dinner at Nello's Pizza in Old Town Scottsdale, walked around for a bit, then headed over to Sprinkles Cupcakes.


Looks yummy, doesn't it? "A" for presentation!

We tried out three flavors: red velvet (they informed us this was the most popular), black & white, and vanilla.

Personally, the red velvet was my least favorite. I thought vanilla and black & white were pretty good. I was underwhelmed by the value though. $3.25 per cupcake is a little pricey and they weren't that big. The red velvet cupcake from The Coffee Shop next to Joe's Farm Grill was better value since it was bigger. Also, we wanted to get an extra box so that I could take a red velvet cupcake to Stephanie the next day, but extra boxes cost over a dollar. What's up with that?

Sprinkles was worth a try, but I doubt we'll go on a regular basis.

Taiwan and Real Dollars

My mom just got back from Taiwan on Monday and she brought goodies with her! I love the street markets in Taiwan. They have all sorts of things (food, clothes, everything) and the vendors change every day. The last time we went to Taiwan, I wanted to go to the market next to my grandparents' house every day, but Greg was not as much a fan of that.

How cute are these owls?


My mom says a lady was making them when she went to a place called Danshuei in Taiwan.

My mom also got a few other things:

1. A hot plate that says "KISS ME LOVE YOU" all over it. I told Greg we should make pancakes or something on them.
2. Pineapple cakes. They have these at Lee Lee's, but I feel like the ones straight from Taiwan are tastier.
3. A handbag. Not a fan of the logo on the outside, but on the whole, the style of it is pretty trendy for my mom having picked it out. I'm impressed! It also came with a bag to store it in and I was like, whoa, this is pretty fancy for the street market.

My mom was also showing us something else she bought for 50 yuán (Taiwan Dollars), to which my brother responded with, "How much is that in real dollars?" Heh! At face value, it's comically Americentric.

Chihuly Exhibit

We checked out the Chihuly exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden last Saturday with my brother and our friend, Eli. Some pictures Greg took of the exhibits:






Interesting to look at, but it was pretty stinkin' hot outside. We probably shouldn't have waited until May to go see it . . .

Mother's Day Cards

Mother's Day is over, but I made cards and since I try not to post cards before I've given them out (I've confirmation that both cards were received by respective mothers), here they are:


Glimmer Misted those babies up using a screen. Greg referred to himself as the "financier" of said Mother's Day cardmaking. So true.

Store-Bought Card Exchange

Card exchange about a week ago that I couldn't make it to, but I sent my cards with someone else. Theme was to embellish store-bought cards. I found packs of cards at Michael's for 50 cents each, so that was sweet and cheap. I actually found it kind of hard trying to decide how to embellish a card that already had a design on it compared to creating my own card from scratch.

I ended up with this:


which turned out better than I was expecting. For a while, when the card was only partially complete, I was feeling pretty blah about it.

And a little collage of the other cards:

Color Inspiration #51 Card

I've been liking these color challenges because they prompt me to use colors that I may not otherwise use (together).



Used a Glimmer Screen as a stamp and embossed with white. Sprayed Dreamsicle Glimmer Mist on after that. Embossed the white birdies on chocolate cardstock.

Side note - I'm so much happier with photos I take during the day. Natural lighting is the best. And . . . I was too lazy to set up my desktop studio.

Spotted in the Yard

This morning.

A kitty chillin' in the chiminea. (It was a kitty from the neighborhood, not one of our kitties).


Cute!

With It

My brother was commenting over dinner last night that we didn't used to really hang out when we were younger. I responded to him that the age gap between us was a bigger deal when we were younger, but now he's more "with it" and almost an adult. He then asked what "it" was and proceeded to quote Grandpa Simpson, which I thought was pretty funny:

"I used to be with 'it.' But then they changed what 'it' was. Now, what I'm with isn't 'it,' and what's 'it' seems weird and scary to me."

From way back: