Her? Observations...

This is my view from my window. If you look really well you can see a whole bunch of white wooden crosses in my neighbors backyard. This has always creeped me out. What have they buried? Children, Grandparents? If they are animals, some one has a serious problem. Even in Of Mice and Men they wouldn't let the crazy strong guy have a puppy because they knew he would kill it, which he did anyway and the girl right along with it. I know they have a puppy. Maybe I sould call the Animal Cops. I love that show btw, animal cops, ha. Who would take them seriously at the precinct.

I dyed my hair. I think it looks pretty nice. A little dark but it should lighten up.

Does anyone watch Project Runway? That is like one of the only shows I still watch. This season has been a little lame. No one really has stood out as a great designer. Kenley has the biggest mouth in the world. Serious. I think she managed to tick off all the judges in one swipe. I was furious that they let her even continue to try for the finale. I really hope Leanne wins. She is a Portland native. Plus she seems to be the nicest and talented of the bunch.

Greatest Product

Nice package.

I once read about a man who made millions by being paid by dairy farmers to buy manure from them and then processed it and sold it as fertilizer. Making money both ways. Brilliant. Then today I found the next greatest business idea. Selling tap water. Not just any type of tap water. New York City tap water. I came across this while looking through my favorite packaging design blog, thedieline.com. I wish I could come up with something this clever and stupid. Can you use clever and stupid at the same time? I guess, I would call Adam Sandler clever and stupid. Whatever. Buy tap water from one of the dirtiest cities on the planet.

http://www.tapdny.com/

Updated Blog

I finally got around to making a blog background. It took me long enough. I totally stole a girls idea for a top background image. She made one on Copenhagen that looked pretty awesome so I just took some of her elements, replaced all the buildings and the boat and put things in the exact same spot. Denmark... psssh. I had to add all my friends again on the side. It took forever, and if I left you off tell me. I didn't mean too.

On Monday I went to Powells books with my friend Lydia from High School. It was a blast. I drove downtown Portland for the first time. I only went the wrong way on a one way road once. I think that is some semi-form of an accomplishment. I will honestly admit I am a poor driver. I have given up on the fact I will ever be good.

Lydia and I went to a book reading by this Catholic woman. The book was all about Acedia. A word meaning a feeling of darkeness and lazyness. It was a sin. Pretty much she wrote a whole book about one word. She could have just called it depression and got on with it because that's what from the description of the word and her readings it meant. She really hated her dead husband. She kept ragging on him. Lydia said she does it in all her books. It was really annoying her. If my husband, if I ever get one, died I would at least try and say nice things about him instead of writing books about how he gave me "Acedia".

Lydia and I are going to start practicing violin together. She is going to help me out and she is going to get her fingers moving again. Lydia was in Poland this past year studying violin at a university in Krakow. The girl has some amazing talent.

My Art before Graphic Design

I thought I would show off some of my art work. My friend Carrie has an awesome blog where she shows off pictures of her life. I thought I would take some images of the things have have done. It took a while for me to decide what I wanted to do with my life. So, I'll show the things that brought me, or distracted me until I found, what I wanted to do. Long before I choose my career choice. I wanted to be a yodaler. Or not I just found the hat in my closet.

This was a pencil drawing I did in Art 111. Basic Drawing. This was around the point in my life when I was choosing between music or art. I put a lot of music themes in my art, but eventually gave music up. Sad choice. I should have done both.
In High school I wanted to pursue a career as a printmaker. I loved wood carving. My first few semesters at school I took printmaking. These two have religious themes. SLC temple and Elijah. Both are a form of printmaking called etching. You scratch on a metal plate and then place it in acid which eats further into the metal. Then you plave ink on top of that and clean the plate until the ink is only in the cracks. You then set it on a press and run it through. The paper catches the ink...


This was my first painting. It's of boats. I love marina's and Think old wood boats are so rustic and quiant. My Mom put a whole bunch of seashells on the frame. It made me cry. I left the frame out for that very purpose.

This is a mixture of my pottery and book making projects. I was studying my first three years at school to be a high school art teacher. I loved my pottery classes and loved the wood fire kiln technique. A lot of my early work had an aboriginal theme. I loved aboriginal art. I felt like I was Paul Simon, exploring another culture and taking elements and combining it into my own. Think Graceland when he went to South Africa, or Rythem of the Saints in Brazil. I loved how the aboriginees had a way of taking a line or a dot and creating a story. I wanted to infuse my work with that simplicity.

This is my bed. I think it is pretty cool. My Mom made the quilt. It has these awesome flannel flowers on it.

This is my cat. Romeo. I call him pussy-puss.

I made the picture frame in the back. I think I did a pretty awesome job. The other two pictures are of my Grandma's. They both passed away about a year before my Mission. It helped with the grief to have pictures of them.

Life in the slow lane

Jenessa is getting her papers in for her mission. We thought she could start by teaching the cat. He wasn't interested.

So I apologize for not updating. I always look at other peoples blogs and they have cute stories about their babies or trips with there spouse. It makes me realize how boring my life is so I never update. But someone will read, so I will write.

I went to see "Ghost town" this week and last. I went with some new friends last Saturday. I met them at church and invited them to dinner at my place, Norwegian Pancakes yum, and then we went to the movie. It was hilarious. Ricky Gervais is a comic god. The script was awesome. It had the same smart humor as Arrested Development. I went to see it twice I liked it so much, my Mom and I went yesterday while someone was looking at the house. Tea Leoni does a great job too. She really adds to making Gervais's character funny. Plot: Man is a bitter dentist who hates people. He likes his job because people are forced not to talk to him. He dies while getting a colonoscopy, comes back to life and can see dead people. The dead people want him to do stuff for them, but he hates them just as much as living people. One guy wants him to break off the engagement of his widow. He agrees to make all the dead go away.
Favorite line: "I don't mind crowds, it's the people in them I don't like."

What else.

Look at the children Jenessa! Going to school. Haha. we made lego children out of the round pieces because they looked like heads.

I played with Lego's. My cousins wanted to come over for a play date and I thought getting out my favorite toy as a child would entertain them. Wrong. In a world of video games, legos are almost uncool. I had a huge breakthrough when playing though. With legos everything is on a grid, placement of each lego on the grid is calculated and needs to be planned as to assure the structure will hold, and all the pieces fit. Since I was a child this sort of analysis has haunted me. I was obsessed with order. Maps were my favorite because they showed where things are in relation to another in the exact spot on earth. I read atlases all the time. I also had a weird love of home plan books and blueprints.

We were obsessive compulsive Lego players. We started by dividing all the pieces by color. Because multi-colored homes are unacceptable in the land of lego, each of us got a color to build with and we combined the colors that didn't have a lot of legos. In art everything for me is divided into pieces. That's why I love design. because I get to create pieces and then place them. I get to find the exact spot where something should be in relation to another. I thank Legos for my career choice.

Family Beach Trip

Top row: Keith, Cherie, Lily, Mom, Dad

Bottom Row: Kent, Jenessa, Me, Jon

This is my lovely family. We had to take a new family photo due to the addition of two wonderful people. My Brother-in-law Keith and baby Lily. We had a family reunion of sorts this weekend. It was the first time we had all been together since my sister's wedding like 2 and a half years ago. I am the second to the youngest. My oldest sibling is Jon, who I call by his real name Jonathan... but am the only one who still does that. Then comes Cherie, Kent, Me and Jenessa.

We decided to visit Long Beach, WA because it was having a kite festival. We got yelled at by some kid for stepping on his kite string. WELL EXCUSE US FOR WALKING UNDER THE RESTRICTIVE ROPE! Haha. It was unusually sunny for a Northwest Beach trip and I enjoyed wading in the water. I love the feeling as the water pulls back and it feels like you are being rushed into the ocean... but in reality you are just standing in the same place.

The Board walk. You can kinda see all the kites in the background.

The Obama Kite! I pretty much have decided to vote for Obama this year. It's still up in the air though. Which I think a lot of people might find funny given I am still a strong Bush supporter. I guess I like Obama's ideas of change. I think this country needs some positive thinking and Obama gives me the optimistic jive that everything is going to work out. I vote republican the majority of the time, but feel McCain isn't for me. I got pretty upset during the preliminaries how my religion was treated by the party and press. It was mocked, defamed and cruelly criticized by the American population and more directly in the south. It was sad to read how so many still believe that we practice polygomy and believe we worship Joseph Smith. The Republican party and the south pretty much said we weren't welcome. Um, Hello, some of your strongest support comes in the Mountain States which have a huge Mormon population. I don't see how so many members are willing to support the party as strongly as they do. I saw the door they slammed in our face.

I will be voting for Dino Rossi (R) for govenor. His ideas are what I think the state of Washington needs. He should have won four years ago, and did (before three recounts where ballots started disappearing), governor of Washington State. I thought slimy politics won the current gov. power.

Lily

So I finally met my little niece Lily this past week. She is so precious! My sister Cherie came last Wednesday and my Brother-in-Law Keith came on Friday along with my Grandpa Miles. We are having a family reunion of sorts and it's been fun relaxing with the family. Jon and Kent come on Wednesday. My Grandpa Miles came for the weekend and it was great to see him again. He took us out to Rose's Deli for lunch yesterday. It was delicious. If you are ever in Vancouver you have to stop there for lunch or dinner, the food is great and the desserts are to die for.

Lily started scooting for the first time the other day and I was there to watch, it was beyond cool to watch her make such a huge step.

The Olympics have been so fun to watch. I don't think I'll spend much more time watching now that the Gymnastics and swimming are done. None of the other sports are really intriguing to me. That Michael Phelps was unbelievable. Jenessa and I were debating if we like him or not. There is a hint of possible cockiness that holds me back.

Oh. I beat everyone at the families favorite game. Flarkle.