It may be manipulation...

But I love this commercial. I want to make something awesome, learn origami and buy Asics shoes. There is something about Kihachiro Onisuka (yes, I had to look that up) that makes me wish he was my grandpa, or granspa's best friend (you know the one who comes over on Sunday afternoons for canasta).

Credits to Mabona Origami for making origami cool. 

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'Tis the season to blog about Christmas

This year, Christmas Rocks! I've spent the last month preparing the decorations. It is our first year (or holiday) that we've actually put anything up. First things first, I bought stockings. I've wanted to make some forever, but decided against it when I saw these at Pottery Barn (for the cost of material I would have had to bought). Right now, a lot of their stockings are on sale and they all ship free.

Alright, enough free advertising for Pottery Barn. It's Martha Stewart's turn. I started decorating ornaments and it wasn't working out. The tree was so overwhelming. But I wanted a lot of color. At the craft store, I saw a Martha glitter set of 18 great colors and ta-da:

(Side note: if you are a widow because it is finals week, don't get too carried away with the camera...)

And now advertising for me. Not really, but I did make sweet Christmas things this year. The back side of a gift certificate I made for a client:

I used it to make tags for our neighbor/friend gifts. I'm finishing them up but will show them to you later.

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Pictures of the New Apartment

The new pepper plant (ah, orange).

Our wall of Kathy art. The center piece fits PERFECTLY over our thermostat.

A section of our new tablecloth.

My favorite plant piece (and the only fake one!).

Our new bookshelf wall. We arraigned it by color.

A french not tutorial I'm putting together (mostly for myself).

We are loving it here. It is bigger, cleaner and brighter. We are currently taking reservations for visitors (because we miss you all).

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Grandma Vivi

Laurie decided to scan some photos of Vivian so we could display them at her funeral. While we were scanning/editing the photos, I thought I'd upload them on to flickr. Get your fill here. I'm still uploading, so there will be many more photos in the near future.

A before and after shot.

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Boy Bands and Cannibals

Every night for the past three nights, I've had a dream about dating some random person. The thing is, I never think about Anthony Hopkins, Justin Timberlake or the Jonas Brothers on a regular basis (or ever).

The first dream: Anthony Hopkins saw me at a show his daughter and granddaughter were performing in. I asked him if he wanted to sit next to me. It took him the whole rest of the show to get there. He asked me to eat with him, so I ran ahead to make reservations while he walked (slowly) to the restaurant after me. I went back to get him and he was dead. His daughter and granddaughter wouldn't let me go to the funeral because they thought I was trying to get his money. I didn't even like him, I just felt bad for him, so it wasn't such a big loss.

The second dream: I kiss Justin Timberlake and then he tells me who I should vote for because, "[He] used to be a member of the boy-band *NSYNC and [he] knows these things." He said it in a manner that implied, "Duh, you should have already known that."

The third dream: I'm dating one of the Jonas Brothers, but I've never seen them before and have a hard time remembering which one I'm supposed to be dating. I figure it must be the oldest one (at which point I try to figure out if it's against the law to date someone so young, but figure I'll just pretend to be 18), but I keep forgetting what he looks like, so I have to listen for clues. I don't like him but I think it's fun when we go places and everyone screams. Plus, we got to live in an awesome house in Disneyland.

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A Soviet housing revival right here in Logan (aka student housing))

I'm very excited to move, and yet I realized today that I will miss the quaintness of this apartment (mice, spiders, mold, dust and orange drinking water excluded). Today I was picking the last of the apples from the tree on an old, rickety (easy-to-fall-off-and-get-hurt) ladder, and I felt as if I was in a spread for an autumnal issue of Martha Stewart Living (in a good way, not the stuffy, too cute or too perfect way).

After it was dark, I went out to pick a great bouquet of saturated pinks, oranges and yellows. It is such a great thing to have a huge flower garden in your backyard. (I know you all want to see pictures, but I camera is in storage.) I was walking back inside with the flowers and I kept hear a faint buzzing, and whenever I moved what was in my right hand closer (either scissors or flashlight), it would get louder. I kept brushing myself off and then figured I had gone crazy and went inside. Then I felt something on my neck, something BIG. I made Dave check me for any bugs, but none were to be found. It turned out to be this huge bumblebee. Dave swatted it and it deflated it (it was substantially smaller).


Our apartment search could be going better (some places we looked include: apartments owned by the parents of the high school jock that wanted to date me but we didn't speak the same language-literally, a Soviet housing revival right here in Logan, and staying in Alta's basement). I'd much rather purchase the above house (Sq Ft: 2615, Bedrooms: 4, Baths: 2, Family Rooms: 2, Acres: .37, Outdoor Lighting, Wrap-around Porch, Dishwasher, Jetted Tub, etc.). All for (John and Brooke, skip this next part) $117,900. And that's the asking price, so I bet you could get it for cheaper (but they'd have to throw in the toy car and the bicycle). Someone we know lives by it and says the current owners have fixed it up a lot. Anyway, we are still looking for a place to live, so if anybody hears anything, let us know.

A quick update on the rest of our lives: busy and good. We are so happy right now, though Dave is always at work or school. We'll try to write more often. 

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How Could Tina Fey NOT be Sarah Palin?

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