BABY!!!

Thaaaat's right, folks! My dear, dear, dear friends had their first child today!!! A little boy. I am distracted with happiness. I cannot stop GRINNING. I'm "Auntie Bagel." HA! I am so excited and happy for them!!!!!!

Welcome to the world, Daniel!!!

Military Love

Crickey. It's been a while.

In the past couple of weeks my life was turned upside-down, shaken violently, and then put back. Kind of like a snow globe. My brain kind of resembled that blizzard. The little fluttery pieces are falling back into place, though. They move slowly, suspended as they are in some sort of watery substance, but gravity wins out in the end.

Geez. I got excited about that metaphor. Moving on.

I would love to show you a new layout... but I ran out of adhesive. I know. TRAGEDY.  I was in the middle of a layout and POW, no more adhesive. Tears were shed.

So what I will do is tell you about the MCAS Miramar Airshow. It was on Saturday. It was fantabulous. There were loud, fast airplanes, big guns and explosions, paratroopers falling from thousands of feet up in the air...

... and cute men.

EVERYWHERE.

The last time I went to an airshow, I was 17. For some reason, the fact that there were cute, young, in-shape, uniformed men every five feet didn't make an impression. But it did this year. Oh man. Talk about a target-rich environment. I was so besottedly happy.

I spent most of the day flirting with talking to them. There was the Osprey pilot from Sacramento and the helicopter crew captain from Indiana. Then there were all of the men from the local battalions and squadrons selling stuff to raise money for their events. I may or may not have bought not one, but two, hoodies. One of which is an XL... it's huge. But I couldn't say no. How could I? The Death Rattlers are cool!

I should, however, consider more carefully the relative lengths of my hoodies and dresses before I combine them. Ha!

One of my favorite moments of the day was right at the beginning. The guy who was manning the metal detector at the gate asked me, "You want to go to Sea World? Six Flags? We can go anywhere you want, girl."

I love Marines.

{on a cheerful note}

A layout for my mama :)

Blog Your Heart, September

I've never done one of these before, but I felt inspired by my new hero. And these days I have a lot on my heart. Maybe none of it is that important, but the pile of little things makes it necessary to remind myself to keep breathing and put one foot in front of the other. I can do this.

If you don't know the "rules," you can follow the link above to Stephanie's blog where she's listed the rules along with her BYH post. :)

1. I don't have any local friends... and this makes me sad. I have a lot of friends... but they're all up at school or moved away to other parts of the country... or, in some cases, Europe. I have the young adults from the parish, but I'm not close to any of them. I have what Aristotle would call "friendships of pleasure" - I enjoy their company, but it doesn't go beyond that. It feels shallow and dry... at least for now. Maybe after I've been here longer, things will get better. Trying to live with hope over here.

2. I hate my job. Ok, maybe that's too strong. I dislike my job. I don't find fulfillment in it or look forward to it. It's mind numbing repetitive tasks that don't require any brain power. I tested this by listening to music while I did it the other day... and I could do it just as quickly. I always did homework with music, but it definitely slowed me down a bit. I wish I could derive some pleasure from it... but no. *sigh*

3. I don't like having a pharmacy living in my stomach. I am on so many pills... all for hormonal imbalances. And I never wanted to be "that person." I know that sometimes prescriptions have to get filled, that it's not my fault, etc. I know all of the "right answers." I just don't like it. I don't like needing help. I like... helping.

4. I miss my best friend. This one's a long story, but it's probably the #1 thing on my heart and mind right now. I just miss him. I feel like I'm walking around with a large part of me missing. And it hurts. I don't see this changing... the definition of stupidity is to do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. So I'm trying to stop missing him... but as soon as I think about it at all, I start crying. Honestly... it would be easier if I could be mad at him.

5. Grad school scares me. Driving scares me. Life scares me. Apparently, that has something to do with my hormonal imbalances, but it's an unpleasant feeling. Everything scares me.

6. On a positive note, I love scrapbooking. It's my new outlet to relax and have some quiet time. It doesn't really require thinking, so it allows for some quiet, non-stressed time. I just focus on the task at hand... and then I'm happy. :)

That's all I can think of at the moment. Happy Sunday!

Titleless, Even

A mostly wordless post about a titleless layout. Nothing was coming to me. So I just embellished it like crazy. Bahaha!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love scrapbooking? and my big brother superhero? and doilies???

Wordless

I'm too tired to use words. So I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

But "Queen on Screen" was so epically 80s... definitely worth the brain-dead state in which it left me.

And in case you were wondering, I did this layout before watching a Queen concert on the big screen and sitting in Charger's game traffic. Just on the off-chance that wasn't self-explanatory.

Grimm Drama

If you live anywhere in southern California and you are at all associated with the Catholic Church, you know a Grimm. If you don't know a Grimm, then you've at least heard of the Grimm family. 17 children, 150+ grandchildren, etc. They are everywhere. Outside of southern California, it's still pretty likely that you know or know of a Grimm. We have a joke at TAC that in 100 years, the whole world population will be composed of Muslims and Grimms.

If you are among those who have made their acquaintance, you know that they are dramatic, loud, and incredibly fun people. I was privileged enough to go to school with a great number of Grimm grandchildren. I am particularly close to one of the Grimm families that lives near to TAC. Mr. Grimm is the choir director, Augusta was in my class, and Jack was a freshman my senior year. I spent many wonderful hours at the Grimm household, enjoying amazing food, stimulating conversation, music, and the best company you could ask for, and was privy a lot of drama. These people are not afraid to perform and they are not camera shy. Thank goodness I have my camera with me most of the time.

So today, I did a layout featuring pictures that I captured of Grimm Drama. I utilized some of the many, many things I picked up from the $1 clearance bins at Michael's. Doilies, rhinestones, ribbons, etc. Yay!!