Archives for 2009

Lots of stuff to put in this post, but I will try not to make it tooooo long. : )

First up – a new giveaway!! I finally unpacked some of my scrapbook stuff today and found some fab Jenni Bowlin Studio stuff – so it’s up for grabs this week!

Just leave me a comment here by Sunday, August 16 and I will announce a winner on Monday. (chosen by Random.org). What are you working on right now or what was your latest project that you completed? I’d love to see some pics, so please leave a link if you can.

For all of you who wanted to join in on my monthly mini book challenges, they are starting now! Except for August, the rest of the months will begin on the 1st of the month, and you will have until the 29th of the same month to post a link to your mini book. One winner will be chosen to receive the prize of the month (also chosen by random.org).

How it works: each month I will post a 2 part challenge: one will be to create a certain type of mini album, and the other will be the theme. You can choose to do just one part of the challenge or both. I’m going to be doing this along with you so I will post my album as soon as I get it completed. : )

August’s Challenge

For this month the type of mini album is going to be a simple shape. This can be a heart, a circle or a square. You can used a pre-made bought mini album (such as the maya road chipboard albums or any other brand), or you can be extra creative and cut the shapes yourself. Try to keep this one simple and focus on the journaling.

The theme: Changes. Take that any way you like. Changes in your life this summer from this time last year, changes in your house as your kids get ready to go back to school, changes in goals, anything. This does not have to be the title of your album.

Let me know if you plan to play along in these challenges : ) (and feel free to email me anytime if you have any questions).

I will post a pic of the prize tomorrow.

Free Technique Classes

I have been getting some people asking if I’m going to run my series of free technique classes again. I would love to start them again this Fall. Please let me know if you are interested.

Now an update on what’s been going on here (for those who are interested)

thank you so much to everyone who left a comment here, emailed me, and messeged me on facebook to see how I was doing after the “nightmare” of a couple weeks ago. It was indeed quite the stressful ordeal but I did find another place to live and it’s a much nicer place too!

I have 3 roommates and they are awesome! I’ve never had girl roommates before so this is all new to me but so far its been a lot of fun – we get along really well and it’s been great having a couple weeks before school started so we could get to know each other. The dogs are doing great, they are enjoying all the extra attention, especially Angus who is loving his new role of “man of the house”.
Fro (the guinea pig) is doing good too and we have a new pet in the house now – a rat named Huxley. 3 more rats will be joining us in the next several months as we each have to train a rat for a class next semester.

School starts tomorrow. Part of me is super excited for it to start, and part of me is terrified.

here is a short slideshow of my first month here in California (minus the horrible house drama!)

California Adventures

Yep, that is exactly what I am going through right now: a complete nightmare.

The week started off well – last weekend my good friend Jen and her husband came from San Francisco for the weekend and we all went to Disneyland for the day. That was awesome! But then things went downhill.

It started off with the air conditioner leaking and dripping through the doorframe in my bathroom. So of course our landlord couldn’t get anyone to come look at it for a couple days so we had to have the air conditioning off – which was a nightmare all on its own. And it had to be when this area is going through an unexpected unusual heat wave. nice.

After 2 very long very HOT nights of not sleeping well, I had to go to the college yesterday morning to register for my classes and when I got home there was water (a lot of it) dripping through the ceiling in the family room. There was about a 6 foot by 2 foot section of the ceiling that was soaking wet and water droplets continuously falling from it onto the carpet. I called the property management company right away and said it was an emergency – that they need to send someone NOW. 3 people rushed over and within half an hour, a quarter of the ceiling was completely missing. They finally got a plumber to come by an hour later and an air conditioning guy like 4 hours later and when they finally figured out the problem it was about 9:00pm. We had spent ALL day just hanging around waiting to find out what was going on. The huge leak was from a small leak in a pipe that was upstairs in my bathroom. The other leak was from the air conditioner – both were completely separate from each other and just a major coincidence that they happened simultaneously.

Since there was so much water damage, they called in a company to come dry it so we have these huge LOUD dryers all over the place and they have to stay on for 4 days straight. And we still don’t have air conditioning and might not for several days. HOWEVER, the best is yet to come. Today we got eviction letters (me and my 3 roommates who haven’t even arrived yet). We were told that the house has been deemed unlivable and we have to get out ASAP. Well actually the other 3 girls were told that they aren’t even allowed to set foot in the house (and they are supposed to move in on Sunday- have their moving companies booked already). It states that since I am here, I am allowed to stay for a few days until I can remove all my belongings. OMG

Where are we supposed to go? It’s not even like I can easily find a place to stay in the meantime until we find a new house – as I come with 2 dogs and a guinea pig. This is a complete disaster, but 2 of my roommates are coming tomorrow and we’re going to try to find another place to move into ASAP. Crossing my fingers….

here’s a couple pictures of the disastrous mess..

the family room

the ceiling in the living room

and my bathroom. When I went into it to take this picture it was like 200 degrees in there

Anyway, thought I would put an update on here while I still have internet. Time to get out of this hot house – heading to the dog park with the pups!

Finally I have internet at my new house! yay! No more trying to do everything via my iphone, haha

The winner for the October Afternoon products is:

Please send me your address Amanda so I can send your prize out to you! I totally loved reading everyone’s stories about the scary things you’ve done!

I will have another giveaway posted next week: I still have to unpack all my scrapbook stuff! I will also be starting the Mini Albums monthly challenges in August.

The move went well for the most part. It was a very long drive (22+ hours in the car total). The dogs were fabulous, they barely made a peep the entire time. They absolutely love our new place – so much room to run around both in the house and in the backyard! The weather has been great too – some days have been extremely hot but it totally cools down at night. I’ve been having to bring a sweater with me wherever we go cause its so hot outside but so cold in all the buildings cause the air conditioning is cranked up – lol! Just something I have to get used to.

This week has been nonstop crazy busy since we arrived. Getting my cell phone hooked up with AT&T was a major ordeal – took over 3 hours in the AT&T store! Getting a bank account down here and the cable and internet set up wasn’t as difficult though luckily.

We did have a little mishap on our way back from Ikea… we bought a bed and a chaise there and had to strap the mattress to the roof of the SUV. As we were driving down the I-5 freeway, the mattress fell off!!!! It was still partially attached to the car so it got dragged a bit before we could pull over. Thankfully we were in the right hand lane and there was a bit of a shoulder to pull over on. Needless to say I did not get any pictures of the glorious event as we were both extremely stressed and frustrated (and trying not to get hit by the cars whizzing right past us) and it took awhile to get it secured back onto the car – plus it was almost 100 degrees out and we were dying in the heat.  We can kind of laugh about it a bit now, since we made it home safely eventually, and that it didn’t cause a major accident!

Car shopping was the next big thing we did – 2 solid days of it, so not fun at all. We heard about car auctions that towing lots hold – to get rid of impounded cars and thought that it might be fun to go to one of those. Um, not so fun. That was sure an experience, one that I will never EVER repeat again. Lets just say that we found ourselves in a very sketchy part of Los Angeles, like a place I thought only existed in movies…how naive of me.

We finally found a car yesterday through a dealership – so here is my new car: a 2004 Ford Focus! Seems to be a great little student commuter car : )

And one last picture for now: Zoey enjoying her new chaise. She has already claimed it as hers and has slept on it each night since we got it. (which isn’t all bad cause it means she isn’t sleeping on MY pillow and kicking me in the head repeatedly during the night which is our usual routine). I have since covered the chaise with a blanket as white chaise + black dog = cleaning nightmare