About Me Tutorials Contact Me Via Social Media! Visit Brittany's Joy Store

Friday, August 31, 2012

I Lover Her!!

Hey blogging community this is the hubby -Tim. So I want to write something for my amazing wife. Currently she is upstairs with a BAD migraine and is trying to sleep it off (sucks right!) . Anyways, I wanted to congratulate her on getting 22,000 unique views on this blog, she is so dedicated to writing and I don't tell her enough how proud I am of her. So here are some words to my Amazing WIFE.

Dear love (A.KA nugget, boo, sweet cheeks, and assorted other names) ,

Thank you for choosing me as your Hubby. Let's be honest you had many other suitors  and you chose me???!!! We have been together now for almost four years, how the time flies when you are in LOVE, and yes I'm deeply in love with you. Why do I love you, you might ask? Well...

1) your Heart - you care about everyone and everything (even the little ugly birds that beg for food)
2) your Smile - please don't ever lose your teeth :)
3) your dedication to our relationship. It is truly Reckless, forever, and intense -Thank you.
4) your crazy style and creative Passion. I am encouraged by your ideas daily and you keep our relationship spicy and FUN!

Again, thank you for being my wife. I truly LOVE YOU.

-p.s thanks to all the followers of the blog, evertime someone signs up she jumps up and down and gives me a huge smile, It makes my day, so if you do not follow please do. - for my sake!  

it's time for...

One of my favorite posts of the week, since it lets me celebrate the things that I absolutely love (also because it lets me play with MS paint, and that always reminds me of my childhood). 
Like I mentioned earlier today, Tim has been such a lifesaver this week. Thanks to him (and his patience; again, bless him), I've been able to marginally hold on to the shreds of sanity I possess throughout the week. He's definitely earning the awesome surprise outing I have planned for tomorrow afternoon....
...which are totally not going to be a surprise to you (since Tim doesn't really read this that often, and I'll be telling him our destination right after work, it's no biggie).

We're going whalewatching (again)! We are finally going to make use of the vouchers we got on our last trip, since we didn't see any whales that time. This will be event 1 of a three-part anniversary present, the other parts of which he will receive on our actual anniversary. I'm stoked.

Also, my parents may be visiting us this weekend, too! Since I don't get Monday off, they may not come down, but that's within the realm of possibilities. Which is fantastic.
Once upon a time, we wandered into an antique store and my dear husband Tim fell in love with a sad, neglected typewriter sitting on a bottom shelf. It was old, it was broken, and half of its keys didn't actually type anything. {I talked him out of buying it}. But still, he dreamed of how awesome it would be to send a type-written thank-you card to his business contacts. Months and months go by, and he's still thinking about that silly typewriter, and looking for anything similar at other stores we pop into. Finally, after dreaming about it for a good year, we found one. It sits on top of a wine-crate bookshelf next to some milk glass bottles, and is just so vintagey and kitschy and perfect.
And we really do use it all the time! Tim's sent out thank-yous to his big clients, we've used it for three wedding gifts, and it's made appearances in little surprises for each other, too (above).
Side note: who knew how expensive typewriters were?! We googled the one we had after we bought it, since it looked really cool and we were just so curious. One just like it (same year and everything) was listed online for nine hundred dollars. Say whaaaaa?

because these videos make me feel better, somehow

Has anyone had an incredibly and almost unbearably long week?
Yeah, me too.
TGIF, friends. Seriously
This week has been one of the roughest I've dealt with in a while. After all is said and done, everything worked out, but it was a lot to handle all at once. Bless Tim for his support (And the wine, and the ice cream, and the rides to work, and the back massages. Bless him).
However, at the end of a rough week, nothing makes me feel better than seeing other people get clocked in the head.
Carry on.
Come back at noon for some of my "favorites"; something a little happier to kick off your weekend!

Thursday, August 30, 2012

awkward and awesome

And who said work couldn't be beautiful? This is my view at lunch.
This week was chock-FULL of awkward. In fact, I could have titled this post "Awkward and Awful". But I didn't. Because it didn't all suck. Some of it was quite lovely.
awkward
:: Weeks after I've started a new job, my salary and job title are still under discussion. No matter that these things were "finalized" long before I left for the summer. Because of this "holdup", I get the pleasure of waiting two blessed pay periods before I will be receiving any form of a paycheck. Thank you, dear little college on the hill. 
:: Discovering that the sprinklers on the lawn were set to "Firehose" while I walked across the lawn.
::  (Facebook friends know this already) There has been fiasco beyond fiasco regarding cars and transportation this week. Tim's car went into the shop late sunday night for a checkup, and of course Monday morning, mine wouldn't start either. He was long gone to work by then, so I had to call a taxi (and didn't have enough money in my little disney princess sandwich baggie, so the driver let me pay later since he was my next door neighbor. So kind). The next few days, sweet Tim dropped me off before he left for work... at 6 am. One of those days, I was on campus for 12 hours, since my latest class doesn't get out until 6. Yikes! We picked his car up from the shop yesterday (THANK THE LORD) and will be sending mine in shortly.
Add to that the rest of the drama that is working at our College, and it made for quite the interesting first week of the semester. I need a nap.
What campus looks like at 6am on a Wednesday.
awesome
:: Finally placing the order for our honeymoon Blurb book (It'll be just like our wedding one!)... I finished the dang thing months ago, but since there was no rush to get it finished, I decided to wait to order it until Blurb offered a good coupon code.  I've got my priorities straight, clearly.
I'm hoping to crank out the rest of the album from my semester in Thailand (in 2009, yikes) by the coupon's deadline, so I can get a discount on that too. We'll see.
:: My students! Sometimes I forget, with all the drama around campus itself, how much I really do enjoy the students (and how much they love me!). They're so encouraging, and on my first day of teaching this week, they kept saying "you did such a good job!", which obviously took away quite a bit of my nerves. Yay for niceness!

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

franken-pants

Today,  I will chronicle the tale of how my DIY projects usually are born. This particular tale might get a little bit awkward... for both of us.

A while ago, I bought a pair of wide-leg white pants {on a complete whim and without trying them on} because they were 99 cents. Although they were denim-ish, they were the same size as my dress pants so I figured they'd fit fine. They were also wide leg and I was really hoping for white skinnies, but I could easily fix that with a quick straight seam and be done with it. I plunked down my buck, thrilled for finding such a steal.

...

Apparently, dress pants and jeans don't go by the same sizing rules, and these were WAY too tight in the waist/hip region. I'm talking the kind of tight that would button if you were laying down, but would strain and pop if you stood up or sat down or tried to move at all. Which kind of defeats the purpose of pants, ya know?

So, I needed to make them skinny, AND let them out to accommodate my bee-hind {ironic  much?}. It would involve some serious patchwork and the skills of McGyver or Dr. Frankenstein to pull this off. So, these "great deal pants" found a new home in the bottom of my sewing pile.

I'm trying to cope with the fact that I just told you that I have gigantor hips. Eek.
I finally got up the nerve for surgery recently. Since it had been a few months since they had been purchased, I obviously wasn't going to miss them if I destroyed them. On the flip side, if I succeeded I would have a funny story to tell.

I turned the pants inside-out and laid a pair that fit me well on top of them, marking where I'd have to sew with a piece of chalk. After checking and re-checking with a ruler to ensure the legs were even, I sewed a quick straight seam down both sides of each leg, trying them on after each leg was done.
I trimmed them 1/4" from my stitches, then sewed a zigzag stitch along the bare edges for added security.
You could either say that I was being helpful for using thread that doesn't match the fabric, or that I was being lazy for not changing it after my last project. It's up to you, but I like to think it was a conscious choice... ;)

You can't even see where the original seams end and mine begin--so it didn't really matter that I used gray thread rather than white it would be even harder to see if I had used white thread rather than gray {Or is it grey? I never know; someone help me out here!}.
To make them fit in the waist area, I made panels using the cut-off hem pieces, similar to how people used to make bell-bottoms out of skinny-jeans. I had to unpick my hip seams all the way to the bottom of the pockets and pin the salvaged cloth in place. Then, it was just a matter of sewing the pieces together {which honestly was a kind of comedy of errors involving sewing machine melt-downs, pins jabbing into hip bones, and pants falling down}
They may be patched together, but they cost me 99 cents and a half hour of sewing time, so I am okay with that. And I am kind of in love with my franken-pants.
I'm totally wearing white after Labor Day. Don't care what "they" say. 

Monday, August 27, 2012

case of the mondays

Have a great weekend? We did.
Not only did we have a completely 100% relaxing weekend at the lake, Tim surprised me with a little detour on the way home as part of an early anniversary present.
He took me to Hearst Castle, because he wanted to stay true to the "paper" theme for our first anniversary, and William Hearst owned a bunch of publishing companies.
He's a dork. And I love him.
 
Just a week until our anniversary! I can't believe how fast this year has gone by.

Friday, August 24, 2012

making waves and catching rays

This is my jam today: 

Sorry, Mommy; I know how you loooooove country.
As soon as I'm off the clock, we're off to the lake. 
We'll be drinking in rays and sipping margaritas for the next two days.
Trying to celebrate the last free weekend before school starts back up the best way we know how.
Have a great weekend. We sure as heck will.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

wonderful wednesday

It's time.

Campus is starting to   s  l  o  w  l  y   wake up from its summer slumber. First-year students move in tomorrow, and the upper classmen will be trickling in all weekend. Offices are neat and tidy (for the last time this semester).

Fall 2012: get ready. We're coming.

Monday, August 20, 2012

five weekend things


1:: We spent all of Sunday afternoon on the beach with friends, and it was glorious.

2:: We discovered the worst restaurant in Santa Barbara this weekend. Did you know that a steak can taste watery? Seriously.

3:: Giant bug bites (that swell to five times their size and then turn into a blister) are not fun. Especially if they make jumping in the ocean unbearable. Summer, you're killing me.

4:: My half-marathon-training husband ran a total of twenty miles this week. (if this were twitter, this is where I'd put the hashtag #proudwife)

5:: Weekend brunch (an already wonderful and fantastic thing in and of itself) is made all the more delicious with the addition of Tater Tots, I don't care what anyone else may say to the contrary. Copious amounts of Ketchup are also required.

How was your weekend?

Friday, August 17, 2012

favorites

Happy Friday, loves! I'll admit; even though this was my first week back, and I had monday off, this has been the l o n g e s t week ever. I legitimately thought it was friday until halfway through the day yesterday; yeesh. 
But now, the wait is over, it's time for Friday Favorites!
Screenshot via netflix

LOST. We're curently slamming through the series at a rate of *coughthreeepisodespernightcough* (don't judge us). I never had the patience to finish the series when it was airing, so the fact that we can watch one episode after another rather than wait a WEEK to find out what happens next makes it a lot more manageable. 


Graphic via Trader Joes
I mean, really. If their food is so delicious and good for you (some of it not so much, but you know what I mean), then their beauty products HAVE to be good. And it's true. I'm in love with their shampoo/conditioners (Tea Tree Oil for the WIN). So fresh, so clean. And their stuff isn't overly feminine-smelling, so Tim doesn't cut my head off if I buy it for the community shampoo. I also love their SPF moisturizer and the facial cleansing pads (seriously, anything with Tea Tree Oil in it I will try). They're all worth a try!
THIS ONE!
Not like I have a lot of Korea-bound cousins, but still, she's my favorite. My cousin is AS WE SPEAK headed on a plane to Suji, a district a little bit south of Seoul, South Korea, to teach English. For a year. 
(She's a rockstar). 

Love ya, Syd! Have a safe trip! 

What are you loving today?

Thursday, August 16, 2012

awkward and awesome thursday

Sunset picnics while the weather's still nice. Do it.
Awkward.
:: Remind me never to get a berry smoothie right before a meeting, okay? Or at least, remind me to check my teeth in a mirror before I meet the new department members. Hi, nice to meet you, why are you staring at my face, let me go crawl under my desk now.

:: You know that scene from Indiana Jones that made us all die a little on the inside? Where he has to walk through a wall of cobwebs to get into the cave he was looking for?
Well, my office had been abandoned for two months. So yeah, I played Indiana Jones on my first day back.

:: And the week's winner of the most awkward moment ever? You know how all excited you get when the cops bang on a neighbor's door and you rush over to the back fence or the window and strain to hear what's happening (I know it can't be just me)? Something about feeling like you're part of a reality-cop show or something.
Well, it's not cool when it's happening to you
A process server came to our apartment the other night looking for the previous tenant. She did not believe us when we said that he didn't live here anymore, and kept banging on our door shouting that we had to open up or suffer legal consequences. Like we were obstructing justice or something!!! Even though it was a total mistake, I'm still mortified. 

Awesome
:: First-day-back-to-work dinners. It is a heinous crime to have to cook on your first day of work and therefore it is a requirement that you have a picnic to celebrate. Using take-out from your favorite sit-down restaurant, which happens to be sushi. (Tim did good, y'all)

:: There's a benefit to going to work every day (besides the obvious). It forces you to put pants on. So that's good.

:: Since I've been working every day (and therefore haven't been there during the day to entertain our bird, which is my job on my days off don't you see?), he's been a lot less irritable when we come home. He just can't get enough of us after the day is done.
Photo by cousin Sydney, during an epic whistling competition

Happy Thursday!

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

mourning the end

Today is a sad day*, folks.
It's my first day back at work after my summer break.
*sniff*
Tim and I spent the weekend in the Bay Area, visiting family. My cousin will be moving to Korea this week for a year, and we went up to say goodbye. And to hang out with my fam. And ride bikes around Angel Island in San Francisco, which I haven't done since I could fit in a baby bike seat .
We also ate a lot of Armenian food, nursed our sore muscles, and hosted a bird meet-and-greet.
Tim might have been a little nervous about this.
Also, we have a stinkin' menagerie. Carry on.
I think that's it.
But now, the spontaneous mid-week trips have to come to an end. Because I've gotta go back to the 8-to-5.
I think I'm in mourning. {Although the paycheck will be nice!}

*ps: I'm not really that sad. My job is pretty cool.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

vegas

Even though we were only gone for four days, this is a STINKING long post, so be forewarned. It was a busy vacation. We flew into Las Vegas late Friday night/early Saturady morning, and after a horrible taxi ride involving a wet back seat (after which I vowed to NEVER take another taxi again), we had a surprise waiting at the hotel .

Tim had made reservations at the Hilton Elara, which isn't a hotel/casino as much as it is a vacation rental high-rise. It was lovely, strip-accessible-but-also-escapeable, and the room was pretty darn cheap. 

However, Tim started chumming it up with the hotel desk guy (as he always tends to do), and before we knew it, we got a free room upgrade to a two bedroom suite with a panoramic view of the North end of the strip. That's my husband for ya. Pretty cool! 
That, friends, was the view from our master bathroom. Insane.
However, I discovered that a nice room doesn't prevent my "roommate" from pulling pranks on me. My brat of a husband rudely interrupted my wonderfully luxurious steam shower by tossing in a cup of ice water over the door.... Thanks a lot DAD for teaching him that one.
The first day there, we just explored our end of the strip. Partway through the day, we popped into the Coca-Cola museum (because it was hot and we were thirsty) and decided to do a tasting of all kinds of Coke-owned drinks from around the world. Most were really yummy. Some were not.
We also stopped in to M&M world and tried a couple of their new flavors. Yum!
That first night, we went to go see Cirque du Soleil's show Ka at the MGM Grand, which was absolutely incredible. It was one of the only Cirque shows that actually has a discernable plot (albiet a little trippy and confusing, but a plot nonetheless), and the set cost two hundred million dollars to construct. Talk about impressive.
I got us some pretty inexpensive tickets for the show, so the "splurge" didn't set us back too much. We didn't stay in those seats for long, though. Tim made friends with one of the ushers while we were waiting to get in, as he tends to do, and a few minutes into the show, the usher escorted us from our second-to-last-row seats to some cushy center orchestra seats he'd snagged for us. WHAT.
The show would have been fantastic no matter where you sat, but from up there, it was dazzling. Our jaws hit the floor every couple minutes. 

Day 2 involved some pool time (we didn't last very long; it was a thousand degrees with the giant mirror of a hotel shining down on top of us) and more exploring of the city.
 
We visited some of the more impressive hotels, like Cosmo and the Bellagio.
We also visited the gardens at Bellagio, which were stunning.
Aside from the beautiful gardens, Bellagio also has the world's largest chocolate fountain! It was like Charlie and the Chocolate factory, kind of. But with more people.
That night, we had dinner at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant at Paris, overlooking the Bellagio fountains.
It was delish.


On the third day, we decided to go to Downtown Las Vegas for "ambiance" and cheap blackjack tables. Because of our earlier Taxi boycott, though, we ended up walking there. From the strip, when it was 108 outside. Yeesh. Talk about a sweaty mess.
On our way there, we found the Pawn Stars pawn shop and stopped in. Nerd alert, but I really love that show.

Another thing we re-learned on this trip? Nobody knows how to work our camera. This is usually what we get when someone offers to take our picture:
Also, I'm pretty sure that our blackjack dealer was hammered or something, although she kept dealing us fabulous hands.

In all, it was an incredible trip, one that has taken my walking legs a couple days to recover.
However, I'm glad to be back in the blessed 70 degree Santa Barbara air. I was NOT built for the desert.

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...