Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Awesome.

I've seen this before..but now I love it even more.


The Richmond Plate
Looking for a fun and unique gift that celebrates everything we love about Richmond? White, restaurant-grade china is decorated with sketches of favorite landmarks, from historic St. John's Church to the stately Science Museum of Virginia. Available in oval and square platters, mugs and dessert plates. Pieces are microwave and dishwasher safe. Priced from $17.95 to $39.95. Members: $16.16–$35.96.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

was just thinking that Heath as a first name is pretty nice. just might have to save that for the far future.

scrubbed the uggs clean today, inside and out. it'll probably take them a few weeks to dry at this rate, though. too scared to put them in the dryer, but they are on a towel and stuffed full of paper towels right now.

i really hope it snows here soon, for real. when i'm home, anyway. looking forward to tx trip-it's much needed. i hope to spend some quality time with the brown bunch and maybe explore around tx a little bit if there's time.

we leave on wednesday, so i'm leaving work early that day. my birthday is on the 19th, don't have any plans for it since we'll be at a wedding reception that day. we come home on monday the 21st, so that's a nice amount of time there i guess. then we have a friend coming to visit after xmas. i don't go back to work until january 4th, so it'll be a nice vacation i hope. lots of comfy home time.

a flickr pro account would be really cool to have. i hate being limited to the amount of photos i can have on my page there.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Vampires..

my angel cookies could totally be vampires if i put purple or black sprinkles on them instead of yellow.

Friday, December 4, 2009

cookies..

So a friend/coworker & I decided to have a cookie baking party/exchange type thing next weekend.

Kristen & I also decided to do one for Stamp Club next week.

Tomorrow I will be working for a couple of hours and then going home to mix up all of my batches of cookie dough.

I will need to make:

-cookies or some sort of holiday goodie for Stamp Club
-gingerbread dough
-nana cookie dough
-joe frogger cookie dough
-spritz butter cookie dough

That's probably all the dough I need to make. It sounds like a lot, but they will all be small batches.

Yay for December cookies!

Thursday, December 3, 2009

silver white winters that melt into springs..

So today I put the wreath on our door. I would love to have an aluminum christmas tree, but it's unlikely i'll ever get once since they are so expensive..it's so weird how someone's trash is someone else's treasure. Anyway, so I figured this wreath would satisfy my yearning for an aluminum tree.

I put my vintage ornaments on it. Cute!








Also, not sure if you looked at the moon on Tuesday night, but we did. There was a lunar fog bow up in the sky. It's basically a ring completely around the moon, 360 degrees, spaced pretty far apart from the moon. Here's a picture we took, but it's kind of hard to see:



We had just gotten home from seeing "This is It" (the michael jackson film, very good btw, his concerts would have been awesome :( )..and came home to our neighbor looking up at the sky outside. So we did too, and we all just marveled over it. Anyway, it was really neat, and Daniel found this article about it online: http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/93215?fp=1

Some people say it's a predictor of bad weather, like snow or heavy rain.

AND it might snow this Saturday. I'm working & the parade is going on outside of the office, so I'll have a front row seat. Snow would be so neat this weekend!

Enjoy your weekends, everyone!

It's beginning to look a lot like..

Every year on Black Friday, after all of the shopping and craziness, I always set up our tree. We have an artificial tree, and yes we have storage for it in our apartment, believe it or not.

The first year (2005) we lived here, we bought a live tree from Lowe's, back when I worked there. Over the years there I had accumulated a lot of glass ornaments from there, since the discount was so good, especially during December (they always had a ton of specials for their employees).

After that first year, I vowed to never have a live tree again, because Dr. Wily tore it up, splashed water everywhere, and the tree was just sprinkled all throughout our apartment. Anyway, no more live trees. For now, anyway. Maybe once we're in a house with kids we'll try the live tree thing again. There's something heart warming about going out to the tree farm to get a live tree..

I really like our tree. It's pre-lit, just the right height, and just the right width. The tree topper is an origami star that Daniel folded with clear paper. I like it because the lights can shine through it and reflect off of it.

Here is a photo of our tree this year:



The ornaments we used this year are just about all glass balls. There are some from a wedding set Daniel's Aunt Georgia Anne & her husband Joe sent to us back a couple of years ago before our wedding. Then there are a couple of special ones that Daniel had growing up, and some I had growing up, as well as some that used to belong to my grandma Runyon.

Here are some photos of some of our ornaments:





I found the Jefferson Hotel ornament this year and bought it because it's one of my favorite places in downtown Richmond, and also since that's where Daniel & I spent our wedding night at. It's such a gorgeous building, inside and out.

On Sunday 11/29, Bonnie, Kristen, & I made our Christmas cards for this year. I am going to mail mine out on the 10th.
Kristen also got us some gingerbread house kits, so we put those together. It was really fun :)

here is a closeup of my gingerbread house:



And some of my grandma's vintage ornaments:



And a pyrex bowl full of ornaments, just for fun:




I hope that everyone is having a great start to the month of December. This is such a fun time of year, but it can also be stressful. I am looking forward to going home and checking my advent calendar. Usually Daniel puts a little origami piece inside there, so we'll see what we have today. I'll post about the advent calendar some more later this month.

Whatever holiday you celebrate, I wish you a happy one, love, peace, and joy.

Thanksgiving 2009

For Thanksgiving this year, Daniel and I hosted at our apartment. My parents and my oldest sister & her two boys were there, as well as Daniel's mother & her husband.

On Wednesday we did a lot of preparation so we'd have more time to enjoy Thanksgiving day. It all worked out so nicely.

We made all our pies on Wednesday. I made apple and Daniel made pumpkin. We had some extra pumpkin filling, so we made little tiny pumpkin pies too. The apple pie was delicious!! I will have to make one every year for Thanksgiving, it was my favorite thing making (and eating) this year. Yum!! I'm not a fan of pumpkin pie, but Daniel enjoyed it and so did everyone else.



In between making things and getting stuff ready, I was watching the parade. As it turns out, I had it on the wrong channel all morning. I kept waiting for Matt Lauer & Al Roker to come on, but they never did. I had it on CBS instead of NBC. Horrible!!


Here is a photo of Dr. Wily soaking up some sun:



Our table set up (Kristen let us borrow her 6 foot table & 4 chairs, thanks again K!) :



Closeup of a place setting:



Our turkey!:




It was a lot of fun making everything and serving it all, but I don't know if we'll host again in our apartment. The next time we host will be in our actual house, once we're in it. Looking forward to that one day.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Hoarders

Did anyone else catch the new season (first episode) of Hoarders last night on A&E?

So sad..

I spotted some pyrex in all of the clutter, junk, and garbage in her house. It's unbelievable that someone can let their house get like that. I felt so bad for her, though. She seemed like she was losing her mind, but apparently she had been like that for the last 28+ years. It was just horrible. They removed over 8,000 pounds of garbage from her home. How did she survive?

I'm not sure why I felt so bad for her. Maybe because she really did look like she needed help and really was losing it, it seemed. I dunno..

the whole thing just made me much more thankful for the space that I live in.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

I'm done!

I'm done! I wrote a novel!


Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Sunday was our 1 year wedding anniversary. We got up extra early and drove out to Luray, VA. During the drive we made sure to stop at any little junk/antique/thrift store we saw. We saw a ton of pyrex, but I didn't buy any of it. It was cool seeing all of it, though. Saw some pieces I have never actually seen in person, and of course they were a small fortune.

The weather on Sunday was awesome, especially since it had been raining all week. The sun was out and it was actually pretty warm. Same thing on Monday.

So we went to Luray caverns, since Daniel had never been inside a cavern or anything like that. When I was little the whole family went to one of the caverns out that way (I want to say Skyline?), but I didn't remember very much about that trip. The walk through Luray Caverns was really cool though. There weren't very many people there, either.

We took tons of photos, saw some fried eggs, a wishing well, a bride and groom made of rock, and we heard the caverns play the organ. It was really neat. It was also cool how quiet the caverns were, there was no other sound in there, except for the occasional water drop. The air was so clean and fresh and crisp, too. It was awesome.

After that we checked out the gift shops there and then drove around for some more, looking for a nice restaurant to eat dinner at. We checked out downtown Luray (including the visitor's center) and stopped at a restaurant there, but after we got inside we realized it wasn't what we had in mind, so we left. Embarrassing!

We drove all the way to Woodstock, VA and then stopped at a hotel there. The hotel was brand new, and it was really nice. We were the only people staying there, and I'm pretty sure we were the first ones to stay in the room we were in. Everything was really nice there-there was an indoor heated pool & hot tub, so we ran up the street to walmart & grabbed some stuff to go swimming. They were out of swimsuits, so we improvised with some gym clothes and it all worked out fine. We found a neat little restaurant in the downtown area there, and we were one of the only ones there, too. It was delicious! We ate the top of our cake that we kept from the wedding, and the cake was pretty good. :)

We got up early on Monday and had breakfast at the hotel, which was actually good, and then we hit the road again. We headed out to Winchester, and visited Dinosaur Land. That place was nothing like I remembered it being when I was a kid. But we laughed about it and made fun of all the tacky looking fiber glass dinosaurs and grammatically incorrect signs. We checked out their gift shop and took a bunch of photos there as well. Let's just say at least I know I won't ever need to go back there again.

We ended up driving home through Warrenton, Stafford, and then stopped in Fredericksburg for lunch. After that we came back home to Richmond.

So we had a lot of driving, but we made a lot of stops at different thrift stores and junk shops, etc. It was cool. We didn't have any time issues either, so we could just go wherever we felt like going.

and yay for not buying any pyrex!

I did catch Daniel's cold, though. So now I am trying to fight it off... I have about 17k words left to finish my novel, and I have a feeling I can get to that by the end of this weekend.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

New hair

Also, I cut my hair.

and colored it.

For most of my life I've had the same hair. Everyone that knows me knows that I have always had the same hair.

Last Friday after work, a couple of us from work decided to go for it.

I did and I'm never going back to my old hair.



Senior Prom-twins-don't we look happy? Hah



Not sure what year this was..but it was at the ashland berry farm



some graduation shot



at mackenzie's bachelorette party



at billy's paris island graduation



getting ready for the wedding



before the cut



hair on the floor



hair on the floor



at billy's homecoming dinner, 11/8/09
Still staying on top of my daily word count goals. Last night I wrote another 2500, and plan to do the same or more tonight.

My story just took a turn..could be for the worse, could be for the better. All I know is I had to stop last night after I typed the last word, because I was thinking way too much about my character and what was happening. It's sad.

All I can say is, if a reader was reading it, I am at the point where the reader can't put the book down.

That's my motivation for later..that the book can't be put down.

Monday, November 9, 2009

20,024. haven't written yet today, i have been pretty busy at work. plus i feel more motivated at night, anyway.

my novel just took a pretty big turn, too, so i think tonight i will be doing a lot of explaining..

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Word count goals

8,523. Didn't write as much last night since I had some errands and things to do. By the time I sat down to write I was pretty tired.

That's why I wrote so much my first day. I knew I'd be too busy this week. There's all sorts of things going on all week so I am making sure I stay on top of my game.

I kept thinking about my novel last night though. I dreamed about it again, just like I did the night before last. So, all of my ideas are coming together. As long as I still get my word count goals for each day, then I'm fine. And so far I have.

After work today I'm going to vote before the polls close. Then I'll have dinner and work on my novel. I'll probably work on it during lunch today too, since I brought my laptop with me to work.

Anyway, that's all. Yay for word count goals.

Monday, November 2, 2009

7,788 words

Halloween's over..

My pumpkin, me in costume, leaning tower of pyrex, and pyrex with halloween goodies, all below.





Sunday, November 1, 2009

Yay

First day-wrote over 5,000 words. And I have more to write, but I'll save it for tomorrow. I want at least 2,500 words a day.

Yay!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Here we go..

November is almost here! Pretty soon I will be deep into writing my novel! This time next week I should already have 10,000 words down. We'll see how that goes. But I know I can do it! I found a cool spot near my job that I can go to during lunch and after work (or before work if I'm motivated enough!). It seems like a nice comfortable place to be, plus if I get off track there will be plenty of people watching to do to get back on track.

I am also planning all sorts of things during November. Like next week I have a Stampin' Up workshop with a few of my coworkers. Then we have a busy day next weekend for work. There's also that bridal shower and baby shower coming up too, for 2 friends of mine. Then our 1 year wedding anniversary is just around the corner, and I took off an extra day from work for that.

So I made a calendar with word count goals (as well as all of the events going on), that way I can stay on track with everything. I am done with the research I needed to do for my novel. I am sure I will need to look up more things during the writing process, but that's what the internet (and library) is for. I am all set and ready to start writing my novel.

This time next month I should be adding the finishing touches! I plan on being done by Thanksgiving.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Caramel Apples

So the other night I made caramel apples. I took some granny smiths, washed and dried them completely, and then dipped them in melted caramel.
I melted the caramel in a saucepan on the stove (following the directions on the package). I held the apple upside down for a couple seconds so the caramel would look nice and pretty. Once the caramel was set on the apples, I dipped them in melted chocolate (on a double boiler). After the chocolate dip, I rolled each apple in crushed candy pieces. Once that was done, I drizzled melted chocolate on some, and melted white chocolate on others. The apples I made:

m&m's
crunch bar
twix bar
baby ruth bar
snickers bar
marshmallows
oreo cookies

dipping

apples

apples2



Daniel & I shared the oreo cookie caramel apple that night. It was so good and probably my favorite. I brought the twix apple to work today, to share. I hope my coworkers like it! I am taking the other 5 somewhere this weekend for a surprise..

Just one of these apple slices is plenty for one person, so these things are definitely made for sharing. There is a thick layer of candy topping, chocolate, and then caramel before you get to the delicious apple underneath. MMm!

I think from now on when I make these, I will just use oreos, unless someone has a specific favorite from the ones I made this time.

Tip: Don't set the caramel dipped apple on wax paper or foil. It sticks and is very hard to get off of the foil or wax paper.... :( It's probably best to just hold it and let it set before you do the chocolate dip, but that could probably take a little while..

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Tori Amos Fall/Autumn playlist

I made a Tori Amos playlist for our drive to Georgia, plus I was just feeling like making one. This is the fall/autumn mix (in alphabetical order).


Abnormally attracted to sin

Amber waves

Black dove (January)

Body & soul

carbon

Carnival

Caught a lite sneeze

Code red

Crazy

Dark side of the sun

Devils & gods

Digital ghost

Doughnut song

Father Lucifer

Give

Girl disappearing

Gold dust

Graveyard

Happy phantom

Honey

Josephine

Northern lad

Operation peter pan

Original sensuality

Pancake

Past the mission

Pirates

Rattlesnakes

Riot poof

Scarlet’s walk

Secret spell

Siren

Smokey joe

Starling

Strange

Teenage hustling

Virginia

Wampum prayer

Pirates by Y Kant Tori Read

Last night I had Ourpod (what we call our ipod) going and 'Pirates' by Y Kant Tori Read was on. I love that song. Daniel said it sounds like "pyrex" though. I thought that was hilarious. He was right, too. It really does sound like "pyrex." Song of the moment!

Here are the lyrics:

traveled far
from my home
foreign streets
paved with stone
deep in my dreams
moroccan sand
now i sail my ship
on dry land

there is a light that
shines on the frontier
pirates yeah
pirates
and on a dark night
when you feel lonely
and the world just
can't understand you
pirates yeah
pirates

steal the jewel
watch it break
it cuts with an eye
i can't escape
the ruby heals
alone i stand
when i sail my ship
on dry land

there is a light that
shines on the frontier
and baby someday
we're gonna be there
pirates yeah
pirates
and on a dark night
when you feel lonely
and when the world just
can't understand you
pirates yeah
pirates
there is a light that
shines on the frontier
pirates yeah
pirates
there is a light that
shines on the frontier

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Weekend in Athens, GA

We're going to Athens, GA this weekend. Daniel's brother Jerrod is getting married to Lindsey on Saturday! We are both really happy for the two of them-they have even been together longer than we have! They are a gorgeous couple and will make a wonderful family one day.

You might remember Lindsey caught the bouquet at our wedding. Here ^ they are posing with it. :)

We are driving down to GA early on Friday, and then driving back later on Sunday. I wish we could have more time there to spend with family but we will see all of them again in December. Jackie is getting married on December 17th (which is Lindsey's birthday), and my birthday falls during that weekend too (December 19th). So, we're going to have a nice birthday weekend in Texas and a nice early Christmas with family (which is what Jackie wanted-all of us together for Christmas). :)

My friend Sarah is having a baby BOY! and her baby shower is in November. Another friend, Stefonia, is getting married in January 2010, and her bridal shower is also in November. So, I've got a lot of registries to shop from! Exciting.

Lots of excitement! I can't believe our one year wedding anniversary is almost here! It seems like just yesterday we were folding all of those roses..

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Notebook

I spent my lunch break today writing out outline stuff for my novel. I almost filled up the entire notepad! It was one of those small legal pads. About the height of a novel, actually.

I know I write pretty big but I was writing down a ton of stuff. Chapter information, word count goals for each section, character descriptions, names, etc. I wrote down the things I need to research some more information on. I am feeling motivated. I feel like I know my character more so now I can actually daydream about the character and the adventures he/she will be experiencing so I can write my novel!

All I can tell you is that my research has something to do with old post cards and old road maps.

I see walking through dark library halls and sifting through dusty pages in my future. Yay for research!

I don't really have a genre, but on the Nanowrimo website I chose 'chick-lit.' I feel like that is a bit cheesy, though. I don't want it to fall under mystery or horror or adventure or romance, because it can be all of those things. We'll see.

Monday, October 5, 2009

October!

It's October and outlining has officially started for my novel!

I don't think I'll be posting details here but I will definitely update my word count/progress here. I really want to be able to do this.

I have a ton of ideas, and I need to organize everything for my outline. I'm going to get a lot of satisfaction out of completing this. Can't wait until December 1!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

New Laptop!

My wonderful husband got me a new laptop last night! It is a mini notebook, made by Dell. I love it!!

I plan on using this to write my novel in November. :)

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

This week's haul

This is my haul from this past week's hunt. 12 pieces of pyrex, 3 vintage items, a lotus bowl, and 1 pieces of glasbake & 1 piece of fire king:


I really love this metal canister. It has the alphabet on it. The copper mold will hang in my kitchen next to my other copper molds. The green lazy susan thing will look cute in my cabinet with mugs on it. The lid is a pyrex lid, and I figure I will find a piece that matches it or another pyrex collector might need it.



The 2 orange dot bowls are from the New Dots set-they are 401 (the smallest) size. I couldn't believe the antique store Bonnie & I went to on Sunday had the 2 of them for so cheap!
I'm saving the snowflake dish for the holidays..and the spring blossom bowl just needed to be rescued.

I've been looking for this herb dish (the center piece) for a while-it is so cute. I have seen it on mugs and loaf pans. The 2 little square refrigerator dishes are adorable. The rectangular fire king dish I am thinking will be a piece up for trade..





Saturday night I made some blueberry muffins @ Bonnie's house, so we would have them in the morning for breakfast. I just had to take a picture of the batter in a pyrex bowl:

Thursday, September 17, 2009

I think I figured it out..

I'm pretty sure this is why I am so domestic.

When I was around 9, my mom got me this toy set for my birthday & Christmas one year. Each occasion after that I would get more stuff to add to this set. It was called Kitchen Littles, made by Tyco. The company eventually stopped making them but last year they started coming out again-a variation of the originals. I still have my original, which you can see below. I still have most of the goodies that go with it, too. The stove makes noises, like a timer, kettle, & sizzling bacon. The fridge has a light, and little ice cubes actually come out of the ice dispenser on the door. Water comes out of the faucet and you can also run a cycle on the dishwasher. Each cabinet & drawer opens, as well as the drawer on the stove. This is one of the few toys I still have from my childhood and I plan on keeping it and maybe one day passing it on to one of my own.






Here we are with a bunch of breakfast food laid out. Pancakes, french toast, toast, eggs, bacon, grapefruit, orange juice, milk, doughnuts, cantelope, & jam. Mmm!





Here is the inside of the fridge/freezer. Ice cream comes out of the Dreyer's buckets, chicken comes out of the chicken bucket, the hot dogs come out of their buns, eggs come out of the carton, meatballs off of the spaghetti, the sandwich & hamburger come apart so you can put them together the way you like them, the Italian bread comes out of the package, the birthday cake is sliced, and there's so many more little details like that which make it so much fun!





They sure don't make 'em like this anymore!

You can look them up on ebay and see they go for a lot more now. Toysrus and a lot of fancy toy stores sell the new kitchen littles sets, but they are not really the same..

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Inventory Time!

This needs to be updated..


It's time to take inventory of my pyrex and other glass pieces! My cabinet is just about finished, but before I start putting any pyrex on it for display, I want to make sure I list everything that I have. This will help me stay away from duplicating pieces as well as help others keep track of what I am searching for, if they just so happen to be out & about and spot some pyrex!

I plan on putting this into a spread sheet, with more specifics, just for myself. Crazy, huh?

Pyrex:

2 spring blossom small round casseroles with lids (size?)
1 verde larger round casserole with lid
1 spring blossom (white) medium round casserole, no lid
1 autumn harvest medium round casserole, no lid
1 bright green oval casserole, no lid
1 white spring blossom oval casserole lid-fits on the green oval casserole perfectly
1 butterfly gold cinderella bowl (size?)
1 small old orchard round casserole dish with lid
1 smaller old orchard round casserole dish with lid

404's:
1 old orchard bowl
1 primary yellow bowl
1 primary green bowl

403's:
1 primary green (turquoise) bowl
1 primary yellow bowl
1 autumn harvest (red) bowl
1 autumn harvest (orange) bowl

402's:
1 verde square bowl
1 old orchard bowl
1 autumn harvest (orange) bowl

401's:
1 blue primary bowl
1 autumn harvest (orange) bowl
1 orange bowl
1 woodland bowl

Other:

Glasbake w/ green flowers-2 different sized small casseroles, no lids
1 Nature's Bounty small casserole, no lid
1 milkglass bubble bowl
1 large white sunbeam bowl
1 white glasbake divided casserole, no lid
1 small orange rind bowl
1 milkglass sea shell bowl
1 strawberry glasbake mug
1 apple glasbake mug
1 virginia glasbake mug
1 zinnia glasbake mug
1 green design loaf pan dish
1 vegetable design loaf pan dish

Saturday, September 5, 2009

The Cabinet


This is the cabinet. We are replacing the side of it that was damaged, and I need to finish priming it. Today we are going to drill the holes in the new side so that everything matches up like it should, and then put it all back together again. I will paint it and then it should be all ready to go either tomorrow night or on monday. Yippee!!

Friday, September 4, 2009

My Pyrex

Here are some pictures of my collection:


My bowls: 3 404's, 3 403's, 3 402's, and 4 404's

My primary bowl set: Green 404, yellow 403, red 402, & blue 401


Greens: These are my spring & summer pyrex pieces.


The lid on this one was found by itself at a thrift store, but when I brought it home I found the perfect lidless partner for it. They were made for each other.




Browns/Oranges:



These are my fall/winter pieces.






Misc.:



My yellow 403 primary on top, and the yellow 404 primary on bottom. See the difference between the 2?