Chilly Summer Day

Brrrrr!! I'm so cold. My fingers are so cold, typing is not quite as easy as usual. The weather is so strange this year :(

Even though its about 65 degrees out, I'm pretending its summer. I tried to lay out in the sun (what little there was) but gave up after about five minutes. I went shopping and got sunflowers for my kitchen, limes for margaritas, and peppers and pineapple for the barbecue chicken skewers that I'm going to make for dinner tonight in the back yard.

I really really hope it warms up soon! I have goosebumps all over my legs!

Sudden Creativity Bred from Boredom

I woke up. I ate. Watched Star Trek with CJ. Posted blog. Was bored as hell.

Its gonna take a while for me to figure out what to do with my life now that I have no homework!! After about an hour of feeling sorry for myself that I had nothing to do (crazy, right?) I realized I have so many art projects waiting to be started!

I took a picture of my bedroom, and used Gimp to come up with a concept of what kind of artwork I want to make for over my bed.

Its really rough since its just a sketch in Gimp, but the goal is to begin with lots of layers of ink wash in different shades with movement.

Then gently etch in over the top lights and darks in wispy and jagged strokes to create the abstract image of branches, leaves, and grass.

The problem is that I have no idea what to use as a canvas. I am playing with the idea of getting some high quality paper and glueing the pieces to some rustic boards or frames. I don't know what else ink wash goes well on. Ideas?

My New House, Part II

I finally finished cleaning to the point that I was ok with taking pictures, although some of the pictures were fuzzy for some reason. I didn't notice till I made a mess of the house again:-P oh well. At least I can post them. And I finished my job application too! :)

For those of you who have never been over, I'll try to give you a sense of walking through my house. So far you've already seen the spare bedroom (future nursery), my bathroom, and the master bed and bath. Here's the hall just outside these rooms:

And as I was taking this picture, just to my right is another room. CJ's den (which he will have to share with me once our family grows):

So thats pretty much the whole upstairs. I don't much care to show you the laundry closet! I do want to think of some way to put some art on this wall though:

Here is my kitchen:

And the living/dining room:
I love old black metal things! Like phones, radios, cameras, and movie projectors!

On this shelf are some more neat old things, like those LIFE magazines and other old books, another camera, a view master, and that little mailbox safe. Fun! hehe

Now here's the rest of my living room:
Well that was it! Tomorrow I teach Math 261 at PSU at 9:15 am. I need to put the finishing touches on the syllabus still.

Dinner instead of Cleaning

It seems like no matter what I do, I feel like I should have done something else. Today I spent most of the day working on an application for a full-time temporary position at PCC Rock Creek. Yesterday I cleaned and felt guilty for not working on it... today I worked on it and felt guilty for not cleaning.

CJ came home today after a 9 hour shift, but we both felt like he was home early! I ran to the store to get fixings for dinner, and decided to scrap the day and spend the evening drinking wine and cooking.

I made chili without beans (my tummy says thank you!) and cornbread. The cornbread was admittedly from a Jiffy box, but I followed direction

s and even let it sit an extra 15 minutes to ensu

re that they would turn out super fluffy. And they did!

The chili was from scratch. I've actually been making chili from scratch since we got married. I found out from my professor Paul Latiolas (he's from Louisiana!) that my recipe for chili is very similar to the one his mom used! It is mainly ground beef, onions, tomatoes, spices, and cocoa for that special flavor. CJ loves it! It goes well with beer, and wine if you happen to be a wino.

Yum!! Maybe tomorrow I'll get around to making My New House Part II. :-D

My New House, Part I

I know a lot of you either live far away, or just haven't been able to see the house CJ and I bought in August last year. Since school is over I have more time to be a housewife, so I spent the whole day cleaning, reorganizing, and rearranging the whole upstairs (except CJ's den). Some things had just never been properly unpacked! My photos aren't pieces of art, but I am excited to show you my house!

This is my new "teacher's desk". This is in one of the spare rooms upstairs. This is going to be turned into the nursery someday. Before I arranged it like this, I actually had two desks shoved together with books all over the place! It was really a mess. This is much nicer.

This is the other side of the spare room. Not in the picture, is also a treadmill. The room is nice and empty, so the transition to a nursery won't be so bad.

I can finally personalize a bathroom! This is

MY bathroom. I let CJ have the entire master bathroom. I really had fun making the artwork for the walls.

I know the picture is dark, but it was a very sunny day and I'm not used to my camera yet.

I am waiting for inspiration to make some artwork for above the bed. Feel free to send ideas my way!

The master bathroom was hard to photograph without getting myself in the picture. So here it is, along with the newly organized closet!

CJ's office will have to wait for "My New House, Part II".

The First Adventure

So this is it... My first post. I don't know that I will keep the name that I picked for it, since it was a rushed decision! But who knows?

Today I walked in the commencement ceremony at PSU for my Masters of Science in Mathematics. I am done with school forever!! (or so I think). Today is the first day that it is really sinking in that I have begun a new chapter in my life. I thought I would start a blog to document my life as a non-student--- A life I had never known until now!

I have a feeling so much will change, and quickly. I am so thankful that we live in an age where I am able to keep such a living journal that I can share with those that want to know.

I have one week to prepare. One week from tomorrow, I teach Calculus I at Portland Community College, and Linear Algebra (Mth 261) at Portland State. I have sooo much to do!! Besides preparing to teach, I have to prepare an application for a full-time temporary position at PCC for next year. So much to do!

Besides all that, CJ started a new job at Meticulous Plumbing. Although a blessing in itself, the new job is undoubtedly a source of stress, so the both of us have a lot of settling to do over the next month. We'll see if I am capable of keeping this updated :)