Some Random pics

This is a portrait that Adam drew on my arm one evening at kickball. It's a portrait of our friend Tom (a surprisingly accurate depiction). Priceless.

One of my temporary tattoo drawings. I miss having the time to do this.

Hot Tony. Are all Irish men this good looking?

Lily, when she was still a pup and not yet able to lay me down flat on the ground with a single bound. Her cute little tail is like a whip now! Where does the time go?

Home………………on a clear day, you can see forever.

Ummmm………

I am procrastinating tonight. Why??? I have no idea. I seem to have really bad ADD right now. I need to pack and prepare for flying home. Tomorrow night is the last party for 2009 and the last time I will see most of my Kansas City friends until the next year. Weird. And so crazy to think about. I hope it doesn't snow again until after I leave. I wonder who my Secret Santa is? 

CHRISTMAS!!!!!! & CALI!!!!!!!!

Well, well, well, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! I have just finished all of my Christmas shopping and I feel so relieved! I am really, really looking forward to packing all of these wonderful gifts, every year it's kind of a test. A test to see how clever I can be with getting everything that I need into the least amount of luggage. It has been so dry and windy here, I am looking forward the fog and the smog! I can't wait to be home for such a long time, to be able to spend some real quality time with my family, and to celebrate the season with all of my California loved ones. I am excited to see my bro, who I call Skittles, who will be making the trip down from San Fran. I look forward to wearing sandals and eating In'N'Out and seeing all of my niece's, including the littlest, Ruby. I can't wait to give everyone hugs and kisses and to be able to say to them, "i'll see you tomorrow", "or in a few days". This time of year is what I look forward to the most. I am so very blessed to be able to go home and for such a long time. Currently I am as Happy as a little clam, the anticipation is so enjoyable. I wish everyone who is traveling a safe and stress free voyage and for everyone to have a wonderfully happy and blessed time with their loved ones!

Disneyland Pics

My Mom & Kylie -- so precious!

This ornament was the size of my face!

The Grois family (Brianna, Marty, Kylie, & Kelli)

This was breakfast at Disneyland, what does it look like to you?

Big Sissy/Little Sissy

Somewhere a turkey is missing a leg…

"I'm just not that into it."

(sigh)

Let's just throw ourselves from one holiday to the next shall we…

I kinda feel like that. After Halloween it's like, Let the Games Begin! Crazy. Whew, well I just want to say that my time at home was really nice, and warm, but nice, and did I mention warm? Yeah, I'm staring it off like that. I love being around my family. I Love being around my friends. I miss all of my niece's (Brianna, Marti-Rae, Kylie, & Ruby Louise Lemon Green). Here are the highlights: Disneyland -- awesome, little rainy, bought a jacket, ate the best pinnapple frozen yogurt ever. Thanksgiving Day -- Grandma makes the most delicious food, white elephant BINGO, I won a tiny mirror from China. Next day -- Roger's Gardens, Ruby's Diner, Ruby was delightful as long as she was fed, Gingerbread houses with the niece's, UCLA football with Dad, SuperMex (Mmmmm). Next Day -- Pasadena, Onion Rings, Best Cherry Coke of the year, Dinner with the G-'rents & the 'Rents & Jen, Jen falls asleep in my car and gives me bad directions. Next Day -- Church with my 'Rents, Lunch at a salad buffet, paper shopping with my cousin, reminiscing with my cousin, Dinner with a friend, mystical walk in the fog. Last Day Home -- chatted with my Mom until we had to leave for the airport, In'N'Out, almost missed my flight, thank goodness it was delayed because of intense fog. Those were the highlights. I hope that after the holidays some of my Cali peeps will come to visit, but for now I am counting down the days until I am back there again. 10 more days…dear Lord it's coming too fast.

Disneyland

Soooo………i'm going to the Happiest Place on Earth on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. Everyone should be happy for me, even if you don't want to be. Don't hate. I'm super excited and know that by then I will have minimal mucus. My favorite rides are…Indiana Jones, Space Mountain, the Haunted Mansion, the Jungle Cruise, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain (so many mountains, California's full of them), and the Matterhorn (another mountain, in fact it's the only ride that has a visible faux mountain, it just not in the name of the ride). My Mom kinda hates the Matterhorn but only because sometimes…when you're on the ride you feel as if whiplash is going to separate your head from the rest of your body, and if you get off the ride and realize that your neck suddenly doesn't feel right just walk it off. Go get yourself a churro or some fresh popcorn. Maybe take it easy on the next ride. Go for Mister Toad's Wild Ride (it's safer) where you get a glimpse of Hell. Or maybe the Alice in Wonderland ride where you feel like your tripping on acid, but you're not. It's just the Magic that you're tripping on, the Magic of the Happiest Place on Earth! 

I'm tired of being sick…

I'm on day 7 of being sick and…I'm…SICK OF IT! First it was the stomach flu and then it became a huge head cold that I'm still recovering from. I've been imprisioned in my apartment for the whole weekend. The only positives that come out of this are that i've been watching Christmas movies like you wouldn't believe ( I can't wait to watch the movie with Dolly Parton wearing a tight gold lamme dress) and I'm getting the rest that I need. In 2 days i'll be going home and going to Disneyland, which means I'll need to be in top physical condition to keep up with 2 niece's my Mom and my Sister & Brother-in-law. You can't take a trip to Disneyland lightly, it's the Happiest Place on Earth for cryin' out loud! Well I'm hoping to get over this misery soon 'cause the mucus needs to stop. Argh.

Painting Pumpkins

My friend Lory wanted me to carve a pumpkin for her 

this year for Halloween, but instead, I painted a pumpkin 

for her. Here's how it turned out.

Pictures From Cali

me & Kylie A.K.A. Princess Belle

me & my Sis Kelli -- some people can't tell us apart!

one of my favorite pics of my niece Kylie. i kinda told her 

to do this. does this make me a bad Auntie?

this is the sign from the coffeeshop in Lomita, CA that 

my Grandfather and I ate at. it's one of his favorite 

places and, when my Great-Grandfather was alive 

one of his too.

It's been awhile

I have a feeling that with the holiday's coming up i'm going to be using that title a lot. Unfortunately I have been really bad at blogging. Anyway, here is a quick recap of what's been going on. 

At the end of October I flew home and was a bridesmaid in a wedding. The bride, a close friend of mine and the groom, another close friend of mine got married in a beautiful place called the Summit House. She was beautiful, he was handsome, they're going to have adorable kids. I had a great time, though it was exhausting. Also got to hang out with my family and friends. My best friend picked me up from the airport and we had dinner together, BBQ, by the beach. My sister, niece Brianna and I stayed up late watching Cheaters and eating popcorn. The ladies in our family are all night owls. Went to my other niece's Halloween Carnival, she was Belle, and then spent some quality time with her the rest of the day trying to convince her to wear more than just underpants. I also stayed with my Grandparents. My Grandmother made a fried chicken dinner for me, my friend and my Aunt and Uncle. We had a family dinner together. It was so nice. The last day I was home I went to Orange County to vote and then my Grandfather picked me up and we went out to breakfast. A place called the Hot'N'Tot (i have pics). It was so nice to spend time with my family. I miss them. 

I came back to Kansas City and was a little depressed because of the temperature change. While California stays moderate and beautiful all of the time, Kansas City fluctuates between feeling like your trapped in the armpit of a sweaty beast and feeling like there is no warmth or life left in this barren part of the world. Extreme! I know! 

After coming back I needed to finish a large task, throwing my friend a surprise birthday party. This is no easy task. She hates surprises, but i disregarded that and planned one anyway. It was worth it. She had no idea and we all had the best time in my friend's basement in Fairway Kansas eating tacos and enchiladas, an enormous cake, consuming lots of alcohol, and wearing stickers that said, "i heart Rachel." Softee played and special show for us, we played ping pong, sang karaoke and busted open a piñata, that our friend Adam became very …ah…uncomfortably…close to. It was touching. Everyone was amazing and we pulled it off. It was a great night. A couple of days later me and four other friend's from the party got the flu. Awesome. 

I spent 2 days of PTO writhing around in my bed and in my bathroom. It was awful. I would wish this on no one. Thankfully I feel almost myself again. It was hard to get past the feelings of, I just want to die, to I just want to keep something down, but I did. Yeah, enough said. 

Now I look forward to going home again for Thanksgiving. I'm going to Disneyland in less than a week with my Sissy and her family and hopefully my Mom. I'll update more soon, promise BC Style!

Tennis, Tacos, Target, Tim TIm, and Tony (Love You!)

Sunday was a full day. It started out with Mandy and I going to church. The message was about being a servant and having a servant's heart. I will work on this, it's not easy. After that we had breakfast at a less than great place. The food was nothing special and the service was "special" in that "short bus" kind of way. Yeah…could have been a lot better and probably could have been worse, but not by a lot. After that we went to the Plaza for some quick shopping. After that she went to a Baby Shower and I went home and decompressed for a bit. Then I went and picked up my friend Tim Tim so that we could play some tennis. That was fun yet incredibly windy. Which makes it hard to play tennis but we ended up playing for two hours. After that Tim Tim and I went to Chipotle for some tacos. Delicious. We sat out on the patio and enjoyed the beauty of the day. After that he showed me his apartment. It was a loft with concrete floors and exposed pipes and ductwork. It was a good space that needs a little more decorating love than it's been given. After that was card night with my femfriends. There were only three on Sunday night, but it was still a good time. I unwittingly cheated at Hearts. My apologies again, I am not good at keeping points. 

Monday. Work was kinda brutal this morning, I was not ready for it. Dragging my carcass out of bed was brutal. I got through work and went home and vegged until I went over to Tony's house and ate pizza. Then we went to Target, something we love to do together. I bought things like soap and boxed mac'n'cheese, and maybe a couple of things that I didn't need like a DVD and a reusable Domo bag. I went home and literally passed out on my bed wearing most of the clothes I had been wearing all day with all of the lights on and crap on my bed. I woke up at 4am uncomfortably warm and with a pinched neck. Not fun. I got myself ready for bed and went to sleep for a couple more hours. Again, waking up the next morning was not a joy. I kinda wish that I was a morning person, but I am really, really not.

Tuesday. Work was fine. After work a group of my friends and I went to one of my favorite restaurants in KC, El Patron, for their dollar tacos. Taco Tuesday! It was a good time with good cheap food. Now I need to go to sleep at a semi-reasonable time. Tomrrow night I am going to the Ben Folds concert. Inside I am really happy. I love to go to concerts. The last time i saw Ben Folds it was raining and it was outside and there were wayyyyyy too many people there. I am looking forward to going to one of my fav venues with a couple of friends, my concert buddies. 

The weekend, so far………

Let's start with thursday. After work there was kickball, we didn't win but our team always has a really good time. After the game a group of us went to a free screening of the new Mark Wahlberg movie Max Payne. This movie was based off of a popular video game. It was fairly entertaining. I wouldn't ever see it again and I shouldn't have had high hopes, even though they weren't really that high to begin with, but the friends that i went with made it all worth wile. 

Friday was nice. I hung out with my Cali soul mate after work. We went shopping, ate a really good dinner, and then relaxed at his house until we went to the Softee show at the Brick. That was a really REALLY good time. There were so many happy friendly faces and Mrs. Greenleaf and I danced in front of the stage to the last two songs. After the late show was an afterparty downtown. Again, a really fabulous time. It was at Mimi's friend's apartment which has a breathtaking view of the city. We all danced on the rooftop until the wee hours of the morning and I didn't actually crawl into bed until 4am. Whew!

Saturday I woke up late. You can imagine why. My friend Mandy drove in from Branson and we went to Bret's house for a Thanksgiving dinner. (It was originally supposed to be at Rachel's but the water main to her house broke, what an awful way to start the weekend, hopefully they've fixed it by now.) Since almost all of my Kansas City friends will be going home for the holiday's Rachel thought it would be a good/fun idea to have Thanksgiving early. It was amazing. There were 14 people there and everyone brought a dish. We had turkey (of course), cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, creamed corn, stuffing, mac'n'cheese, cheesy potatoes, rolls, two kinds of pies, and strawberry shortcake. Plus a variety of hors d'oeuvres. It was a really nice day. We all went around the room and said what we were thankful for. There were moments where you could tell it meant a lot to all of us to have such warm wonderful friends. I couldn't have asked for better friends. 

Presentation

So tonight I went to my friend Bob's Typography class to present my portfolio and my work from Hallmark, and one of my research books. It was really fun. His class was really interested in what I had to show and what I had to say. They asked questions and even applauded me at the end. It made me think that someday I would really like to teach and hopefully impart whatever knowledge I have to some young malleable minds. We'll see. Above is a shot of my portfolio with one of my logos. My dream is to actually put together my portfolio website, for no other reason but to do it and to say that it's out there. 

Sunday Night is Ladies Night!

Tonight was our weekly Ladies Card Night. Kristy brought a delicious taco salad for us to feast on as we play Phase 10, our game of choice. I can't remember who was the victor but as usual everyone got stuck on phase 7, which is the bane of our Sunday Nights. Later we played Hearts which is a very strategic game, took me a couple of rounds to get it, plus there's basic math involved with a point's system, I'm not the best at math, even basic math, I'm a designer I use a calculator. The last game that we played tonight was peanut. It's kinda like solitare, except you can play off of other people's cards and it goes really fast. Bootsie was the winner after we all nearly had heart attacks from the stress. This game also involves math, I'm glad that I wasn't in charge of that part. 

As far as the rest of my weekend, Friday night I had some friend's over, we made dinner and played cards and then watched one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I ruined it for my friend Katie (sorry), but it made me laugh the whole time, even though it wasn't supposed to be a comedy at all. The movie was called the Happening starring Mark Wahlberg. 

Saturday I spent the first part of it with my friend Danielle shopping and driving around Kansas City, it was a nice way to spend a lazy day. After that I went to Westport to meet up with a group of my friends, they were participating in a pub crawl for Cancer. I didn't stay long, being around that many inebriated people makes me feel kinda weird. Instead, I went home and watched a really great movie called Rebecca. I highly recommend it! It was made in 1940 and it stars Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine and George Saunders. I also did some much needed housework. 

Sunday I went to church in the morning, it was a good message, {two good little nuggets -- 1st. It is God who works in you. 2nd. Crisis reveals our deepest commitments.} After church I went to see the Duchess with my friend Stephen. It was very well done, very pretty, but very depressing. It was based on a true story. It shows how even in that time an affluent and wealthy woman can be imprisoned by society and a man's pride. I couldn't ever imagine accepting a marriage with someone who didn't love or care about me. It's amazing how much unhappiness and torment a woman will endure for her children. Anyway, after that we went shopping for some bedding. It was a really good time. Stephen is as decisive as I am. I love having a shopping buddy like that. That was my weekend. Hope everyone had a weekend that was as good or better than mine.

Here is some hand lettering that i did for a friend who makes aprons, headbands, and belts. Mrs. Duval you have some cute stuff to sell soon!

Everybody's doing it!

If all of my friend's were to …say…start using crack. I would too! Now I can update all of my friend's and family on my crazy life! Enjoy the madness.