Monday, September 12, 2011

ATC - Brown Leaves, Seasons Change

ATC - All Shades Of Gray

ATC - Black As The Darkest Night

ATC - Orange Rhymes With...

ATC - Pink As Sweet Lemonade

A Picture An Hour Swap

Hi Partners,

Here are my pictures for the Picture an Hour swap.  I took them on my Iphone with Instagram.  These were taken Friday, September 2nd.

6:45 - I'm in bed.  My husband had to get up and go to work, but I had the day off - hooray!  I can go back to sleep!



7:05 - Actually I couldn't fall back asleep... So I laid around in bed for a while and played on my phone.



8:05 - By 8:00 I was ready to get up, so I decided to go to my craft room and work on some ATCs for a few swaps.



9:00 - At 9, I had finished quite a bit of work on the cards.  I still had some work to do, but I wanted to go out and run some fun errands before my husband got home around noon, so I decided to stop there.



10:00 - At 10 I was at Hobby Lobby!  Yay!  I had already been to Michaels before that, and I went to Joann after, but I forgot to take a picture at both places...  At least I remembered Hobby Lobby!



11:30 - At 11:30 I was back home again with all my goodies! I got paper, note cards, beads, fabric, punches, and a ton of foam stickers and those silly little shaped rubber bands for my niece.  They were on super duper clearance, so I decided if I can be the best aunt in the world for 30 cents, why not?



12:00 - At noon I was playing with my cat.  Hi Sarah!



12:30 - And at 12:30 I was still goofing around with the cat.  She was very excited in this picture because she could hear Daddy opening the garage door!



12:45 - At 12:45 my husband was home from work, so we decided to go run a few errands and go to lunch.



1:10 - First we dropped off some stuff at goodwill that had been sitting in our kitchen taking up space for WEEKS!  I'm so glad we got that stuff outta there!



1:30 - At 1:30 we had lunch at Newk's.  It's new in town and I'd never been there before, but it was REALLY good!  I had a delicious chicken salad sandwich - yum!




3:00 - Then I forgot to take a picture in the 2 o'clock hour...  We were at Marshall's, and then we went to Ross, seen here.



4:15 - Home again by 4:15 - look at all the exciting stamping/crafting stuff I found at Marshall's!



4:45 - I'd gotten some frames at Marshall's and Ross so I went about framing my photos of my little nieces - cutie pies!!



5:00 - At 5:00 I was lying on the couch playing pocket frogs on my iPhone - thrilling!!



6:45 - and as often happens when I'm lying on the couch, I fell asleep...  I woke up really hungry, so I ate my chips leftover from lunch.



7:10 - Then we watched an episode of Iron Chef that my husband had recorded.  Hello Jeffry Steingarten!



8:10 - Then we went to get sushi for dinner.  I'd worked a lot of extra hours that week (which is why I didn't have to work on Friday), and just finished a HUGE project, so a sushi dinner was my reward!



8:15 - Here we are, waiting for our takeout order...



8:30 - And home with our delicious dinner!!



9:00 - And then we watched some Mad Men - hello Don Draper!



10:30 - Then, a miracle occurred.  Baylor beat TCU!!  My husband and I are both Baylor alums, and we both work there now, so this was VERY exciting!


Sarah was excited too.  In fact she was so excited she decided to eat my shoes.



11:30 - Then I was back in bed!  It was a very full and fun day!


Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed seeing my pictures and hearing about my day!

Happy swapping and please remember to rate!

JBolech

30 Drinking Questions

  1. How old were you when you had your first sip of beer/wine/alcohol?
I really don’t remember… probably around 16 or so?  My mom would let me sip her drinks whenever she had them.
  1. Red or white wine?
Red – no question.  Although I like some white wines, red is definitely my preference.  And I HATE sweet wines. Yuck…
  1. Tequila or rum?
Hmm… I like both, but I guess right now I prefer tequila for drinking straight
  1. Alcohol or beer?
It really depends on the day/mood/setting… I like both!
  1. Whats your favorite beer?
I don’t know – I have really strong sensory memories associated with Budweiser (grew up in Tampa going to Busch Gardens, back when they still had a brewery on site and you could smell it all over, and my mom is a diehard St. Louis fan, and we never go there without visiting the brewery – is it weird that brewery is one of my favorite smells??)  I hardly ever drink it though.  I guess my favorite is Shiner.
  1. Whats your favorite alcohol?
Gin
  1. Whats your favorite mixed drink?
I love martinis!  Gin. No olives (gross).
  1. Whiskey sour or bourbon sour?
I don’t know that I’ve ever had either
  1. Do you like craft beers?
Yes!
  1. Do you like wheat beers?
Yes!
  1. Beer in a can or in a bottle?
A bottle mostly, but I think there are some situations where can is a must (like floating the river!)
  1. Whats a beer local to your city/state/town (something brewed nearby)?
I guess Shiner – brewed in Shiner, TX which is only about 15 minutes from my husband’s hometown.  I’m sure there are tons of other local beers from Austin that I’m forgetting about, which is actually closer.
  1. Do you like doing shots?
Not really…
  1. Whats your favorite shot?
Tequila?  I’ve never had a mixed fruity shot.  I actually have no idea what goes in those, and they sound disgusting!
  1. How often do you drink?
Maybe once a week.
  1. Have you ever gotten really toasted?
Yes…
  1. When was the last time you got really toasted?
When we had a wine tasting party at our house earlier this year
  1. Who do you like to drink with?
My husband and my friends
  1. Worst drink you've ever had?
I hate any bitter cocktails, and absinthe (licorice is one of my least favorite flavors).  My husband accidentally made mojitos with flour instead of powdered sugar recently – Yuck!!
  1. Most expensive drink you've ever had?
I really couldn’t tell ya!  Probably something in the 10-12 dollar range…
  1. Do you prefer to drink at a bar or at home?
At home.  Bars are too loud and crowded
  1. How old do you have to be to LEGALLY drink where you are?
21
  1. If you could only drink one alcoholic drink for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Probably red wine
  1. Have you ever had champagne?
Yes but it gives me a headache and heartburn usually, so I’m not a big fan
  1. Ever blacked out?
Nope
  1. Ever had embarrassing photos taken while you were drinking/drunk?
Nope!  At least I don’t think so.
  1. Do your friends like to tell stories about you that you don't remember when you were drunk?
There aren’t any that I don’t remember!
  1. Favorite bar?
Dancing Bear?  There aren’t many good bars in town, but this one seems pretty cool, even though I’ve only been once.
  1. Ever been arrested for being drunk?
No
  1. What is your drunk personality like (are you happy, do you get angry, do you cry, do you get touchy feely)?
I get VERY talkative.  So much so that my husband knows not to give me alcohol if he wants to watch a movie or something.



Thanks for reading!  Please remember to rate :)


Happy swapping,


JBolech

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Clean House Challenge #2- Office/Craft room

Hi Partners!

This swap was just the opportunity I needed to get my craft room at least partially cleaned up.  I helped host a scrapbooking shower for a friend a few weeks ago, and I ended up pulling out all of my supplies, packing them up, and lugging them to the shower.  Then when I got home I just dumped them in the middle of the craft room floor, and there they stayed.  I have some sewing projects I needed to get done this week, so my main goal was to get the floor cleared off, my sewing table straightened up, and my craft shelves organized.  I'm going to need a little longer to get the whole thing cleaned up though. See what I mean???


This is the view of my craftroom (and guest bedroom) from the door.  It's never been quite this bad before!  And here's the after shot:


So much better! There are still a few little piles of things to put away:

Some boxes that need to get stored in a closet somewhere,
I'll probably use them for mailing Christmas presents.  
My scrapbook paper is stacked up here too.

This is a small pile of various little things that don't have  place yet. 
Plus a drawer for a storage cabinet that I'm working on fixing up 
- it will make a great addition to my craft room when it's done!

My wedding scrapbook project.  
Let's pretend that it hasn't been over 2 years since I got married!

This may as well be the before and the after picture of the bed. I didn't really do anything with this.  It's mostly a bunch of fabric scraps that I got off of freecycle.


Here is the before and after  of my craft desk. I know it doesn't really look that different, but I promise it is!!

Before

After

I realize now I don't have a before picture of my craft shelves, but here's the after:


Here are the before and after photos of my sewing table.  This was a big improvement!  I've already gotten some sewing done!

Before

After
And here's another angle of the horrible floor!
Before

After

My main strategy for cleaning up a mess like this is just putting everything in a big pile in the middle of the room and sorting it out, and then put it back away.  Lucky for me, I was already well on my way to having everything out in the middle of the room - haha!

I had a little bit of a tough time getting this project done because my cat Sarah really likes to "help".  And of course by that I mean, get into everything and sit in every box she can find.







Eventually I found a piece of cardboard she could play with and threw it out into her cat room.  It kept her pretty well entertained!


I really enjoyed doing this swap.  Sometimes I need that extra motivation to get projects like this done!  Keep the clean up swaps coming!!

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed and please remember to rate :)

JBolech