mcdreamy

On our way to work this morning at the T station, my boyfriend spotted the new issue of Details magazine and pointed it out to me because it just so happens that McDreamy is on the cover. McDreamy - for you non-Grey's Anatomy followers - is Patrick Dempsey. You know? Of that adolescent flick, Can't Buy Me Love?

Anyway, I have always thought he was really cute. And now that I've been hooked on GA, I think he's ten times yummier and I like him even though his character had an affair. I totally think he should divorce his wife and be with Meredith. Yes, Meredith is a little coo-coo, but she's so in love with him.

Getting to the point ... so seeing the magazine cover was somewhat of a coincidence too. Last night, my boyfriend told me that someone in his band told him that he looks like McDreamy. And come to think of it, he kind of does! Not like this photo on the cover since my boyfriend doesn't have a mustache and beard, but I found this photo from a whole slew of them posted on the web and it's pretty similar.

Cool.

:)

blog tag

Okay, so one thing that I know scrapbookers with blogs have done is these questionnaire "tags" ... basically, somehow someone somewhere starts a list of questions, answers them, and then "tags" other bloggers to answer them. Silly? Maybe. Fun? Yes.

So I was reading one of my favorite bloggers, Heather Ann Melzer, and saw that she had a new one up and the words, "If you haven't done this yet, consider yourself tagged!", so here I go. My first "tag"!

What scrapbook lines/products, etc. do you dislike? I generally like all scrapbook lines. Okay, I shouldn't say that. I find it hard to work with lines like Karen Foster, and products like stickers and buttons.

What is the hardest thing you have ever had to scrap? I struggle with wedding layouts. They just never come out as pretty as I want them to be.

What technique do you use more than anything else? Paper tearing.

What is the smallest scrap of paper you save? (Note to boyfriend: skip to next question!) Um, let's just say that there are little bits of paper floating around everywhere in my scrap room! Hey, you never know when it'll become useful!

Have you ever had any scrapbook related injuries? Seeing how I'm extremely accident prone, I'm going to knock on wood on this one and say that luckily I think the worst thing I've ever done to myself is a paper cut.

Finish this sentence, "If I wasn't a scrapbooker/stamper, I would spend my money on..." Traveling around the world with my honey.

Give us your best storage or organizational idea. Tupperware containers! Ziploc bags! Oh and large plastic crates for paper. :)

You just won a week long scrapbooking cruise for 5. Who is going with you? 1. Renee, 2. Debi B., 3. Marina, 4. Linda (my sister - we'll teach her how to scrapbook just to give her a vacay!), and 5. Kelly (when she moves back to Boston from Maryland!)

When you received your first publication notification, who did you tell? And if you are not yet pubbed, who will be the first person you share the news with? I told my boyfriend, my sister, then my parents, and every other person I know!

Okay, so now I'm going to tag two people ... Debi B. and Susan W.! You're it, ladies!

playing catch up

That seems to be the theme for me lately. So here I am playing catch up since my last post was ten days ago! My trip out to California - although too short to see every friend and family member - was fun-filled and a breath of fresh air. Mom, Linda, and I took my nephews down to Carmel and Monterey for two days. They had a blast at the Monterey Aquarium and we had lunch at Bubba Gump's too. This photo of the palm tree and skyline is kind of deceiving - it wasn't like it was very warm there - I think I brought some of the New England chill with me. Nonetheless, it felt good being with family and away from my usual routine.

My boyfriend and I went wine tasting with my Mom and stepdad throughout the Livermore Valley one afternoon. Betcha didn't know that Livermore Valley was the original wine country. It's home to wineries such as Concannon, Steven Kent, and Retzlaff. The rolling hills full of grapevines is such a beautiful sight. We had lunch at the Wente Vineyards restaurant and got a peek at some of the trails leading to holes on the golf course.

We did a tasting at the Rios-Lovell Estate Winery and tried about nine different wines! One of the women that poured for us is originally from Massachusetts (her Grandma grew up in Somerville - go figure!) and so we got all chatty with her and she gave us a couple of extra kinds to try (hence the nine total). She took a real liking to my boyfriend and gave him a champagne-like one to try at the very end! Needless to say, after all that tasting (p.s. we don't spit it out - ha ha), we walked out of there with something like 6 or 7 bottles. Suckers. Lushes. Call us whatever you want. Good stuff.

But of course, the bestest part of my trip was seeing my two favorite little faces! Gosh I love being an aunt! They're both getting so big - I wish they'd stay this small forever!

On to more catching up ... !

make-shift valentine's day

We originally were going to have our Valentine's dinner on Sunday night (it's like 12:22 am Monday morning as I write this), but alas, a huge Nor' Easter decided to dump about 17 inches of the pretty white stuff on us this weekend. So, there go the dinner reservations.

Luckily we planned ahead and went to Costco on Saturday and picked up two racks of lamb for our make-shift Valentine's dinner at home. Since I'll be out of town this week, we had to forego the usual spend-twice-as-much-because-it's-Valentine's-night restaurant adventure. It was a nice way to end a very busy Sunday together.

My boyfriend went out to dig out the car and while he was outside I took a photo of him. There's a huge snow drift hanging off our patio that we know is just gonna land on some unsuspecting, poor soul tomorrow morning.

And while I was taking a photo of him from our bedroom window, I noticed a pile had formed in between the glass and screen. That's a lot of fluffy white stuff.

Oh and back to dinner. Dinner was a hit! Rack of lamb, broccoli, and mashed potatoes with a nice Petite Sirah from Concannon. Dessert, on the other hand, was not so great. Basically, the little chocolate cakes didn't rise like they should've and we now have enough homemade whipped cream (gotta love that Kitchen Aid mixer!) to last us till next Valentine's Day. Seriously.

But what brought my spirits up was that my boyfriend gave me a beautiful, sparkly heart pendant with a cute little bear strapped to the box! :) He's such a sweetheart and I love him!

Hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's day, too!

how it should be

I was walking past my friend's desk at work yesterday morning and noticed something. It was her breakfast. It was the way a bagel with cream cheese and lox should be: actual slices of smoked salmon, thinly sliced tomatoes, shaved red onion, and pieces of chive on top.

Perhaps I am a food snob, but this seriously is how all bagels with lox should be served! Alas, I'm not one to turn away the kind where bits of salmon are mixed into the cream cheese. But hey, this is the real deal.

Anyway, I made a bee-line to Sebastian's after getting off the train this morning and grabbed a nice, big cup of coffee and one of these yummy concoctions. Oh and a bottle of Izze. (Can't forget the Izze!) I got to my desk and unwrapped it. Sprinkled on the necessary condiment (black pepper - my boyfriend will attest to the fact that I put it on everything).

That first bite was so heavenly. Yum!

So let that be a lesson in how a bagel with lox should be made. Oh and the bottles of Izze? That's proof of how much I like this stuff. Seriously! I collect the bottles and the bottle caps. Yes, my coworkers know this about me. Hey, it's THAT good!

On a slightly different note ... I took a few photos at the Spark anniversary party last night but since there was a real photographer there, I didn't get any after people started showing up. Ha. It was a fun time and the store was PACKED! The cake they got was so yummy and Rosie's did a great job with the logo on top. My friend Sara dropped by and made a Valentine card for her honey at the card station that my friend Renee put together. Happy first anniversary, Spark!

Have a great weekend everybody!

happy hump day

You don't remember that? Hump day? I.e. Wednesday? I can't remember what Monday and Tuesday were (they were usually not very fun days anyway), but Wednesday was hump day because it's the middle of the week and once you're over the "hump", then you can look forward to the weekend. (What kind of hump did you think I was talking about?) Or to if-you-wear-green-it-means-you're-horny Thursday. Which, of course, was only second best to "Friday flip up day". When, if you wore a skirt, the boys would try to flip it up. Thank goodness for skorts.

Anyway, I came across (and eventually my boyfriend did too shortly after I did) something rather interesting on the walk home from the train station.

Yes. That is what it looks like. A bra.

What the ... ??!

Maybe someone else took "hump day" literally?! (Okay, bad joke.) Anywho, not your typical commute home type of siting. And funny enough, I had my big camera with me so it probably looked like I was a pervert while taking this photo to the traffic passing by. Not to mention that it's below freezing outside, so this would bring a whole new meaning to that saying that's it's "colder than a witch's ___" (fill in the blank)!

On a more serious side, I wanted to say thanks to everyone that took the time to email me about or leave comments on some of the layouts mentioned in the previous post. Thank you for the support!

Spark is celebrating their one year anniversary tomorrow night by throwing a big party at the studio from 6 to 9 pm! Everyone is welcome to stop by for pink & green drinks (those are our colors) and some snacks, so bring a friend! One of the co-owners warned us that there will be a photographer there and that we should wear makeup. Ick. I don't wear makeup! Oh well. Suck it up for this one moment.

We watched "Finding Neverland" last night. Wow. Great movie! We both love Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet so seeing them together was awesome. That little boy that plays Peter (Freddie Highmore) is just an astonishing little actor, too! He is so cute and so serious at the same time - I can totally see why Johnny (listen to me, calling him by his first name as if I knew him, ha!) wanted him to be in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Tear jerker, but wonderfully made movie.

And here's wishing my boyfriend's grandmother a very happy 85th birthday tomorrow!

can you believe I kept a secret?!

Okay, I admit that I have held a secret for about a month now. (And that's like a really long time for me!) Wendy, the owner of an AWESOME scrapbook website, ScrapSupply, asked me to be their guest designer of the month!!

So for the whole month of January, I've been super busy cranking away on layouts and cards to post in the "secret gallery" -- can I just say it was probably my most productive month when it comes to scrapbooking?! I managed to put together 13 layouts and 2 cards -- oh my!

When you get a minute, check out the February newsletter!

i've been turned in!

Creating Keepsakes Magazine recently ran a contest called "Turn in Your Friend". Basically, someone could submit three of your layouts to them in the hopes of winning the grand prize - tuition for the turned in friend and the submitter to CKU in Provo, Utah this summer plus about $1,000 in products - EACH!! Tony's sister-in-law, Marina, turned in three layouts for me the other day and she received an email from them yesterday saying that I made it into the top 20!! I can't even tell you how EXCITING it is to know that I made it that far! They said they'd determine the winner today so I'll keep my fingers crossed!

On a totally different note ... I have a consultation appointment with the oral surgeon in about 2.5 hours to talk about extracting four teeth. Lovely. Doesn't help that it's raining cats and dogs outside, too. Oh well. At least it's Friday! And payday!

Have a great weekend!

six more weeks

Unfortunately, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning and so they say we're going to have six more weeks of winter. Ugh.

Actually, we've had a pretty mild winter this year, so I probably shouldn't be complaining. And today it's in the low 40's and very nice out. (I know, all you Californians are just shivering at the thought of it being that cold ...)

On another note, we were quite disappointed yesterday when we picked up the Valentine's issue of "Stuff @ Night" magazine. Instead of featuring one of the gazillion photos that their photographer took of the three of them making cards, they used a photo of some wooden beads. Poop!

I'm almost done reading Gregory Maguire's "Son of a Witch" ... only 26 more pages to go! If you read "Wicked", I highly recommend reading this sequel. Very interesting stuff. Could make for great conversation.