Never Gets Old

Mayhaps you have a dim recollection of me submitting cards for the themes "Change of Heart" and "odds & ends" back in July. You might recall that my favorite from both batches was a painted card with a jaunty flower that i made from some leftover fiber. While I was in FL I found out that my loopy flower is published in this month's Stamper's Sampler. I gotta say that i can't imagine that it ever gets old to see something you made in a national publication. I am excited, but humbled that anyone would think my work is good enough to print. I know that a lot of you lurking readers are way more talented than me. Be brave; submit some of your own work too. It doesn't hurt and you never know what could happen. Jan 10th UPDATE: Kaaren went to the website link and noticed that my card is there under the theme features! I hadn't even looked cause it never occured to me that it might be there; they only post a few pieces from each theme. Wow. I just changed the link above to the one that takes you where my piece is posted. Thanks Kaaren.

Mystery Picture

You just don't expect to find mystery pictures on a digital camera. I mean, on a roll of film you-betcha there might be something unexpected - a picture you forgot you took or accidentally took or a weird exposure or something. (i have this cool picture of me and Matthew swirled with trees or something from an accidental double exposure on Spring Break a thousand years ago) But generally i look at the pictures i take on the digital camera right after i take them. Imagine my surprise when i uploaded the winter break photos and found this. What IS that? It is from when i was at the beach. It is nestled between pictures i was taking of the shells. What is it? How did it happen? Why is it purple? I just don't know. But i do quite like it.

RESOLUTIONS

I love New Year's. I am pretty introspective most of the time so i completely embrace a holiday that contains as part of the celebration a tradition of self evaluation. Hopefully we all set goals and self-adjust consistently, but I am all about New Year's resolutions. It's a chance to publicly declare ways in which we intend to make ourselves better. In the past I've e-mailed my resolutions to people, but now i have this handy dandy blog. First, let's see how i did with last year's resolutions: 1. Reconnect with friends and family – CHECK (i love you blog) 2. Volunteer more – CHECK 3. Make flossing a habit – umm... (it is still the first part of the night time ritual to be cut if i'm sleepy) 4. Visit at least one new state – CHECK (MO and AR) 5. Give blood (you wuss) – CHECK (twice in fact) Four of five: not bad, i guess. So here are this year's. Niki's Resolutions for 2008 1. Make better language choices 2. Give thanks more often 3. Finish unpacking moving boxes 4. Put my work up for sale We'll see how it goes over the next 12 months. Anybody want to share your resolutions? I hope everyone had a nice New Year's and has a fabulous 2008.

Welcome Back

Hello from the Nikiverse! It was a lovely break. In the spirit of all of those "What I Did on My Summer Vacation" essays foisted upon us in elementary school, here is a quick recap of what i did over the last 2 weeks. I flew to FL on Dec 21st, went to Ft Meyers Beach and hung with my dad and his girlfriend, Shirley. The next day i drove to Orlando to visit Douglas. We had a great time and tried a new sushi place. He had to work the overnight shift at the Park Plaza Hotel in Winter Park, so i got to sleep in a $250 a night room - it was pretty plush. After lunch the next day i drove to Deltona to visit with David and Kaaren. It amazing how big their kids are already. We had a fun dinner and David and I stayed up till 4 catching up. After a late breakfast of pancakes I set out for Gainesville, but partway there i came to my senses and realized there was not actually enough time in the day to drive all the miles i had to drive. So no Mel and Mike this trip. sigh. I arrived at my Mom's in North Port around dinner time. After much discussion on which Christmas Eve service to attend, we ended up not going to any, which was probably a good thing cause my sister called to say that her ex-husband had just died. He was really sick, but the timing was a bit unexpected. I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with my sis and my nephews, but it was still a good night. Mom and i had a nice leisurely Christmas morning with a visit from my aunt and uncle. Then i made a full turkey dinner for my mom and 2 of her neighbors, Miss Ceily and Miss Evelyn. We dressed for dinner cause Mom wanted pictures of us together: The next day was beach day I went to my favorite beach, Nokomis, which is on Casey Key (in the Gulf, of course). I've been going here since i was little. The beach is mostly made of shells which i love. It was a little cold, but i did go in (at least to my waist) Mom and i had a really nice dinner at home and worked on some projects. The next day we were supposed to go to Myakka State Park, but it was grey and foggy and gross so we slept in instead. After finishing several more projects i drove back to my dad's in North Ft Meyers. We barbecued, had Christmas and played cards till late. After a few hours of sleep it was back to the airport and back to MD. Matt picked me up and we spent the day hanging out and finally found the road to the giant woman in the middle of the forest on the side of 95. (alas i didn't have my camera) Saturday was an errand day with a trip to the trainer in the middle. Sunday Matt and I went on a tiny adventure. Some of the highlights include cheese steaks in Philly (he really loves ketchup; it was really hard to get a pic with the drip in the frame) after touring some of the more scenic neighborhoods (we were a bit lost), eating ice cream in an ice storm in NJ and discovering that there really IS ivy all over Ivy League schools (at least there is at Princeton) New Year's eve i went to the gym, gave blood and had a relaxing night at home. Tuesday i started the year out right with shopping, errands, writing a new budget and some home improvement projects. While Wednesday I designed and made the first batch (about 50) of New Year's cards. Then it was back to work. Overall, i traveled 3000 miles (2000 by plane and 1000 by car), visited 13 people and was in 5 different states. It was a nice break from work, but i certainly wouldn't call it restful!

See ya!

I am off to Florida for a week to visit parents and friends. I don't know if i will be posting anything while I am away, so i wanted to tell everybody to have a joyous Solstice and a wonderful Christmas. Happy, happy Holidays from the land of Grinch balloon sculptures hanging from the ceiling and happy dragons peeking from around the boards.

Wookie pain

ohhhhhhhhh, the pain. My brain will never recover. We were in-house today training on various shows when team member Rob mentioned that he had a terrible song stuck in his head called "What Do You Buy a Wookie (When He Already Has a Comb)?" ummmmmmm, what?!?!? He said that it was from the Star Wars Christmas album entitled Christmas in the Stars. Now, given my friends, I am quite familiar with the Star Wars Christmas Special, but i was unfamiliar with this record. Rob tried to describe it to the rest of us using words like "droid voice effects" and "random Wookie sounds" and "Anthony Daniels." He made it sound like each song was worse than the previous one. There's C3PO singing about the odds against Christmas, droids trying to decide what to get Chewbacca, a choir singing to R2-D2 (fronted by a teenaged Jon Bon Jovi, BTW) and a song that teaches droids that the meaning of Christmas is that they make gifts to make kids happy, though they get no gifts themselves. Wow. I didn't really believe him so we looked it up and found a posting on Avoidinglife.com where you can actually listen to the songs. That is, you can listen to the songs if you dare. Dear lord, it's AWFUL. It is a crappy production of a poor execution of a terrible idea. My goodness, how can so much badness be in one place? The music is bad. The lyrics are bad. The performances are bad (though i will say that Anthony Daniels can carry a tune) The effects are bad. And the worst part of all? Now I have the Wookie song stuck in MY head. I am surprised that I somehow managed to miss this crap until now. But here it is, stuck in my head. Time for me to pass the pain on to someone else. Here ya go.

B-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R

So the Nor'easter predicted for Baltimore on Saturday did not snow us in. There was a ton of rain, but it wasn't cold enough to snow. However, the wind was viscous all weekend. I was doing laundry and reading a book at 4:30 yesterday afternoon when i saw a bright flash and heard the transformer blow up. Good-bye electricity. I pulled the clothes out of the dryer, hanging them all around the basement so they wouldn't mildew, but there was nothing to be done for the washer full of clothes and water. I read by candlelight until 8:30 when i surrendered to the dark and went to bed. Yes, i realize it is slothful and indulgent to be in bed that early if one isn't sick or in love, but pretending i was a pioneer woman really was exhausting. My dreams this morning were confusing and culminated with images of me running naked in the snow - which made more sense when i woke up and it was 56 degrees in my bedroom. Let me say that 56 degrees is damn cold people. It was too cold to take a shower. It was too cold to think. So i left the house and drove to work. I stopped to pick up some breakfast even though i went grocery shopping this weekend (didn't want to open the fridge and couldn't cook anything from the freezer) and a mile from work my cell phone rang. It was team member, Felicia whom i was supposed to pick up at the Saturn dealership this morning at 8:30. D'OH! She called last night to remind me, but with no electricity the phone didn't ring and it was too cold this morning for me to think to check messages. Time to turn around, drive back PAST my house to Ellicott City to get Felicia to drive PAST my house again to get to work. Late, unshowered and not in uniform - and I'm the BOSS! Dang. Oh, Monday, i tip my hat to you, sir. You definitely won today. BGE claims that my power is restored. We'll just see about that. Hope everyone else had a better Monday then me.

Elf Night

Are you familiar with the Christmas Angels from the Salvation Army? You know, the ones that you often find hanging on a tree and that list the name of a needy child that you'd buy presents for? Have you ever wondered where all those donations go or how they get to the kids? Last night i volunteered at Elf Night at the Salvation Army warehouse in Baltimore. Stacey gathered volunteers from her friends and from work in conjunction with a volunteer organization and we helped get boxes ready to go to 4000 kids in the Baltimore area. The best way to describe Elf Night is "barely controlled chaos." Donations are gathered, scanned and sorted by the Salvation Army. Rows and rows of boxes, stacked three high, are marked with the names and ages kids. Gifts that were bought for specific kids are placed in the boxes and then you go through to check that each kids has 3 presents, some clothes, shoes and a jacket. If you are missing anything you go to huge bins of presents sorted by gender and age and choose something (see Jed carefully rifling through) There are dozens of people milling everywhere carrying toys and books and games while muttering to themselves "12 year old boy, 8 year old girl, i need a Dora doll for the 5 year old..." and you hear things like "Are you going to take that Candyland? Has anyone seen a black Barbie? Are there helmets to go with these scooters?" It is like Christmas shopping, except fun. The only drag is trying to get the clothes. There is a corner where all the clothes are sorted; if you need clothes you write down a list of ages, item and sizes and turn it in. After someone has pulled the right clothes for you they call out your name. Unfortunately it took forever to get them. Some enterprising members of the group elected Will to pick up all of the clothes so he turned in slips for about 8 different people and then lurked around the clothing corner, waiting. Once your box was all done you signed off on it and moved to another. Here's Jami completing an order (and i just noticed that you can see half of Karen coming down the aisle as well) It was crazy and fun, as well as a chance to help those less fortunate than myself. I can't really afford to give stuff, so i like to give time instead. The event was from 6 to 9 with most people clearing out around 8:30ish. I started to leave around 9:15, but realized that the staff was pulling out more boxes of sorted toys to refill the bins for today's shift (it takes weeks to get everything done) so i stayed until 10:00 to help. I did get to see some pretty odd things. Diamond is a very popular name. Someone thinks it is appropriate to give a 3 year old a half-naked Barbie with a belly button tattoo. Someone actually named their 3 daughters Carey, Caren and Carol. There are teddy bears with an alarming amount of makeup and fake eyelashes that look like French prostitutes: Probably my favorite thing was a box that i started working on that had written on it "4 stuffed chickens." What? That's just not a phrase you'd ever expect to see anywhere. Lo and behold in the box i found Anybody need a bike?

Viva Capitalism!

As more and more people I know branch out into the world of Make It Yourself commerce it seems wise to add a new feature to my blog. To the right you will find a section called "Let's Go Shopping." It is pretty self-explanatory. Who knows where this could lead? Perhaps in the New Year there might even be a link for a store by a certain sparkle-pony prone crafter. Anything is possible in the Nikiverse.

Attention Birding Fanatics

All of the people I know have interesting talents and funny, hidden (or not-so-hidden) quirks. Take Jonah, for example; if you met him you might never guess that he is an expert bridge player or an avid birder. In fact, you might believe that he he would avoid nature at all costs, but no, he loves him some birds. In fact, he has recently (2 weeks ago; i've been sick) joined the growing trend of "make your own presents" thanks to Cafe Press. In a blog post cleverly titled Cheap Chachkis to Stuff the Stockings of Nature Nerds he introduced "Barely-marked up holiday gifts for bird nerds." Always one to support my friends, here is where you can find bird-themed gifts for the avian-freak in your life. Enjoy.