Crafty!

As far back as I can remember I have loved making stuff. I was a footwear designer at an early age, manufacturing a ballet-style shoe from a single sheet of paper and about half a roll of Scotch tape.

Another step in my fashion design career was creating clothes for my Barbie dolls. The ribbed portion of a sport sock makes a lovely tube dress with holes cut in the sides for the arms. My mom was less than enchanted with the idea, primarily because they were her socks. Further exploits for the benefit of Barbie eventually became what my parents referred to as "the Pueblo Community", stacked cardboard boxes on their sides, each box a room that had been treated to my early stabs at interior design.

I stayed for days at a time with my maternal grandparents growing up, and my grandmother taught me to bake, sew, crochet and gave me many opportunities to make something out of something else. My cousin Josquin and I once created an entire "Macaroni Ranch" from uncooked noodles of all varieties. Last summer we brought the ranch down out of storage and after about 20 years, it still looked pretty good!

I always enjoyed clay, I remember sculpting a bust of my father that was about 3 inches tall and yellow. I painstakingly made his beard with the help of a thumb-tack.

During elementary school, the walls of my bedroom were papered with drawings of everything from the Portland, Oregon skyline done in Mr. Sketch to abstract portraits of imaginary characters - heads in triangle shape.

While in high school at a boarding school, my amateur sewing skills came in handy when girls wanted to make shorts from their jeans. Cut-offs were outlawed for their raggedy hems, but I was able to hem them easily.

A few years later I took up embroidery and my canvas of choice was denim. I covered the entire right leg of a pair of hand-me-downs with yarn and floss flowers and vines. A few friends would bring me a pair of jeans and some floss and I would return the jeans to them with the design of their choice (usually more flowers and vines).

I took up painting with acrylics about ten years ago and will complete a painting (usually an abstract of swirls and lines) every couple of years.

About two years ago I remembered that I had learned a method of finger-crochet sometime during my Pathfinder career, and started making scarves just in time for winter and Christmas that year. I then realized that several scarves side by side is a blanket and have since been crafting blankets with my hands.

I also dove headfirst into the scrapbooking rage and have been scrapbooking for about 5 years now.

When my ADD kicks in, I switch projects, which generally results in 4 or 5 ongoing projects around the house at once. At the moment I have 3 different scrapbooks started, a blanket in the works and a pair of shorts that I'm getting ready to embroider.

I'm a Lame-O

A friend of mine has started a blog. I commend him on his ambition to blog daily. I suspect that he is more focused with his "free" time than I am, seeing as my posting is becoming fewer and farther between.

If anyone is wondering (I know you aren't, just play along anyway) here is a rundown of how I spend my time...

5 Days a week I work 8 hours at The Pampered Pet, a local pet store here in Key West. Work at a pet store entails organization, cleaning, stocking, re-stocking, re-organizing, answering questions, catching fish, turtles, mice, birds and rats for sale, feeding and watering, cashiering, making signs, taking messages and special orders and a lot of running back and forth. My usual shift is from noon to close. I usually wake up around 10:30am and manage to get to sleep by about 1am. Between coming home from work and going to bed I often update the web page for the store, uploading pictures and information for new arrivals. (Pampered Pet Web Page)

The two days I don't work (usually Wednesday and Sunday) I usually sleep in until around noon, then try and spend time outside for awhile before catching up on laundry and miscellaneous house cleaning. More often than not I spend a few hours online every day, splitting my time between a forum that I administrate (BW Refugees), checking my email, checking my Myspace accounts (Personal, Music, Senior Class), catching up on the Young and the Restless since I never have time to watch it, reading various other blogs (Jim, Jake, Defective Yeti), updating my family website, updating our wedding website, and now Catster accounts for my three cats (Chou, Minx and Maui).

We are also home to a Boxer (Buster) that needs love, attention, food, water and walking, a Hamster (Tempura) that requires a cage cleaning once a week, a Betta (Won-Ton) that gets fed daily and a water change once a week, and several outdoor plants that need watering and dead-heading.

This week two baby raccoons took up residence on the porch, one of them is blind. Scott says I am running a furry soup kitchen.

Clearly, I am ready for a vacation, which I will be getting in just a few days, as I get to travel to Las Vegas with Scott for a family vacation.

Did I mention I'm planning a wedding that's taking place in 294 days?

ACK.

Not All Appetizers Are For Eating

I never had a Hamster when I was growing up. I had cats, and in 8th grade I got a dog that ended up being my mom's when I went to boarding school, but I never had a Hamster.

Working at a pet store has brought me new respect for many types of animals. I never thought that birds were anything special until I met a baby Macaw about two months old. I've also learned a lot about many types of fish, reptiles and rodents.

Something I learned about hamsters is that there are many varieties, and they don't all get along. One of the hamsters that arrived in our store is a solitary type and couldn't be kept in the habitat with the other hamsters. I watched this hamster climb the sides of the small bird cage she was in and admired her acrobatic abilities. Every night when I was doing my closing duties I would take her from her cage and carry her around with me.

Finally I decided that this hamster needed to join our menagerie and I brought her home. Scott's statement (after commenting on my insanity) was "We already have a Betta named Won-Ton, is this ANOTHER appetizer for the cats?"

It therefore pleases me to introduce the newest member of our family: Tempura the Hamster.

7 Months.

I arrived in Key West on September 18, 2006. In these last seven months I have become accustomed to living on a tropical island.

In some ways, Key West reminds me of the island of Maui. Similar weather and wildlife, but not as many volcanoes. The local wildlife is primarily chickens, which are protected.

We have settled into somewhat of a routine, spending the majority of our time together on weekends. The marina in downtown Key West is our favorite place to walk, and we often start the journey with a meal or drinks at Dante's or Pepe's, make a stop at Kermit's Key Lime Pie Shoppe, and end up by A&B Lobster House or even Island Dogs on Front street.

We make it to church up the Keys about 3 times a month and like to hit the beach at Bahia Honda in the afternoon.

The best Thai restaurant is on Key Largo and the best Grilled Cheese sandwich is at Bobalu's Southern Cafe.

We have been honored to have guests in the last few months, the first being my cousin Giselle, followed by Kirk and Denny the following week and Scott's parents a few weeks ago. We really enjoy showing off our favorite spots in the Lower Keys and finally purchased dining room chairs so we were able to make dinner a few times with Gary and Carla.

I have made the trip to the west coast twice; once with Scott in December for Christmas and then again alone in early March to sing back-up for Megan's CD release concert and finish recording my first song.

We made some friendships initially that have kind of fizzled out over the last few months, but friendships we felt were pretty shallow to begin with have proven themselves much stronger.

I have changed jobs and am now really enjoying my time at work daily and having a wonderful time working with the wide variety of creatures at the store. I am excited to be learning about many different animals and their environments, and testing myself on my knowledge of freshwater and saltwater fish.

Scott and I's relationship has only become stronger in the last seven months. When we moved here to Florida, we had only ever spent about 14 days together and that was spread out over 5 months. Our drive from Washington to Florida was the longest consecutive time we had spent together up until that point and was a real test of our friendship as well as our relationship (and our tolerance of felines). Since our engagement in December we have been steadily growing together and enjoying our family of animals.

And most importantly, the cats don't hide on top of the refrigerator from the dog anymore.

Fun With Birds

Working at the pet store has given me the opportunity to learn about a lot of animals I knew nothing about.

This is Bam-Bam... a Blue and Gold Macaw, of the parrot family. To his left is an African Grey Timneh, also a parrot. They are both about 14 weeks old and came to the store at a few weeks old when they still looked like a cross between a porcupine and a plucked chicken.

Another of the baby birds was a Green-Cheeked Conure. I called him Squik and tried not to get too attached, but he was a character and easy to love. He went to a wonderful home last week and I miss him dancing around in front of the door of his cage lecturing me to let him out to play. I don't miss him climbing up onto my head and pooping on my back.

The next day my other favorite animal - a white chinchilla - went to a great home. I am very happy for him, especially considering that he used to escape out of his cage every night at the store and would run rampant until we could extricate him from under the shelves of pine bedding.

This week we welcomed more baby birds, a few Conures, two more African Greys and an Umbrella Cockatoo.

Pet Food Update

Please go to Menu Foods website for their press release info: http://www.menufoods.com/recall/index.html

Also, please go to Science Diet's website to see info on the type of dry cat food that has been recalled. http://www.hillspet.com/menu_foods/md_Recall_03302007_en_US.htm

CNN Is Retarded.

The recent crisis over contaminated pet food has been a big pain to our store, and all stores across the country.

It was confirmed by ALL of our suppliers immediately following the initial debacle that the DRY FOOD IS FINE. It is made by a different manufacturer than the canned/pouched food (Menu Foods, Inc.).

This week CNN and several other news programs aired footage of a camera sweeping the shelves of a pet store and included dry food in that footage. DUMB-ASSES. The dry food is NOT contaminated.

After several concerned calls and visits from our patrons, I myself have spoken with our suppliers AGAIN and confirmed this.

I don't watch CNN anyway, but I'm certainly not going to start. Another good reason for that is that since I live in Florida, I get all the Anna Nicole news I need on local television. Gag.

Chinchilla Loving Rock Star

My new job is going very well. I am working full time at a local pet store in Key West and really enjoying the animals and my coworkers. I'm learning a lot about all our animals every day and tempted constantly to take home a Chinchilla or the female yellow lab currently in the store.

We dealt quickly with the national recall of some canned/pouched foods and all our animals are safe.

This past week I spent 8 days in Portland, Oregon. I was flown out courtesy of Kevin Brusett to sing backup for Megan's CD release concert.

I arrived on Tuesday afternoon in Portland and was fortunate to spend the afternoon being pampered at The Colour Authority before celebrating Lou's birthday with dinner and a cake from Jaciva's. Two of Lou's sisters and some other of his extended family joined us and we had a very enjoyable dinner.

Wednesday I finished the first song for my album. Jared and I spent time at The Pulpit with Jim Walker getting the electric guitar tracks done. The finished product turned out GREAT.

Rehearsals for the concert were Wednesday night and Friday night, so I interspersed them with visiting with lots of friends and my mom. We got some wedding stuff accomplished, I tried on the dress I love on Monday and Mom bought it for me! She also took Monica, Connor and I to lunch afterward at Claim Jumper, which is a fantastic restaurant, and we then proceeded to Piece Of Cake in Milwaukie to taste wedding cake flavors.

Megan's concert went very well, she was backed by Tim Ellis on 2nd guitar, TJ Arko on drums, Mike Lee on bass, and myself as backup vocalist. The audience packed the venue and screamed enthusiasm between each song. Megan's writing style is very honest and has an easy flow to it, without being at all trite or predictable. I really enjoyed learning and performing her music.

The current extra-curricular activity is preparing the household for Scott's parents visit on Saturday. Buster enjoyed a trip to Bernadette the Groomer today and smells very good. He wasn't too sure about the cleaning out of the ears, but didn't mind having his toenails trimmed at all. The cats won't be subjected to the same treatment, but we ARE trying to keep them from anointing the couch with more fur than necessary.

B.Y.O.T.

One of the first things we did after arriving in Key West was buy plants. We started with a beautiful Yellow Hibiscus tree, two pink Mandevilla and two "house" plants. One house plant has been outside for the last 3 months, and the other is dead - both due to Minx thinking they were her own private salad.

A few weeks later I decided to try my hand at container gardening for actual edibles. I had purchased a tomato growing kit for $1 at Target several months before I moved, and decided it was time to try it out. The kit included a 2-inch clay pot, some soil and some seeds. My first attempt is now 4 feet high, has several flowers and even 1 baby tomato growing.

At that same time I started seeds for lettuce. They have since grown up and been eaten.

We also purchased baby plants for oregano, basil, jalapenos, early girl tomatoes, rosemary, cilantro, italian parsley and catnip. We can't use the basil and oregano fast enough, but are enjoying cooking with fresh herbs. Scott made homemade cornbread last week with one of the first jalapenos.

The picture above is the first early girl tomato and we are anxiously awaiting it's maturation!

Life Is Rough

The weather in Key West since we returned from our Christmas vacation has been the coldest I've felt yet. The skies are often grey and it drizzles now and then.

Last Thursday was an exception. Sunny and around 80. Donna, Ray and I stopped on the way back to the office to have lunch at a pub on the Boca Chica Naval Base.

The view is beautiful and I enjoyed my grilled cheese sandwich in serenity.

I feel like I work with a Bunch of Animals.

I started a 2nd job this last week at a local pet store helping out in the office. I'm having a lot of fun and getting a few extra hours in which helps since my main job was cut to 30 hours right after Christmas. On Friday when I went into the office at the pet store, I got to hang out with a beautiful red and blue parrot named Abigail.

We spent the last two days madly cleaning our condo as the realtor had an open house today for a couple of hours. Our condo is for sale and if it sells and the new owner does not want to rent it out, we will have 30 days to move. Fortunately for us, there were no offers today.

Adventures in Doggiesitting

This is Niko. He is a baby boxer, about 4 months old. He and Buster have been buddies for a couple of months and we had the privilege of keeping him overnight while his "parents" went to Miami.

Niko has learned to sit and shake, and is working on mastering stay and lie down. He is also learning to master his bladder, which we discovered when he anointed Buster's bed as we were getting ready to go to sleep.

Our three cats didn't mind him much until he decided to chase them up the stairs, but we had foreseen this problem and put up a baby-gate so the cats could get a reprieve from his desperate requests to play with him.

Buster was very patient, even let Niko bite his ears and steal his chew toys, but was more than a little bit relieved when it was time for Niko to go home.

Website for Details

http://www.ewedding.com/v20/main.php?a=scottylovesreese

Important Stuff

A year from now we will either be married or living in the Northwest.

Let the saving begin!

Since You Asked...

What we DO know:
We are planning to get married in the Portland metro area, either this fall or the following spring. It will likely be an indoor wedding as Portland weather is not reliable enough to schedule outdoors.

Kevin Brusett will do the officiating, Monica Elie is the Matron of Honor. Scott is working on getting his attendant list finalized.

I'm compiling a guest list and it's looking bigger every moment! We're hoping to get a rough number of guests so we know how big of a venue we will need, so we can figure out a rough budget and then how long it will take to save up for it.

I've picked out a frontronner in the dress department and we've narrowed down styles for Scott. I'd like the colors to be white, deep dark red, and a deep dark orange.

What we DON'T know:
Date & Venue

I'll update as we know more...

Return to Paradise

I have come back to Key West an engaged woman.

Our trip to the west coast was very eventful, exciting, and busy! We packed a lot of visits with friends and family into 9 days.

We began our adventure on Friday, December 22 after work. We managed to finish packing and prepare the animals for our absence and get to the airport on time thanks to a ride from Brandon. We checked in and found our flight was overbooked and they were in need of people to fly the next day. Fortunately enough people jumped at the chance to stay in paradise for another day that we were able to leave on our scheduled Delta flight to Atlanta.

The planes that come in and out of Key West are of the smaller variety, and altitude and turbulence are felt stronger than on a bigger jet. By the time our two-hour flight landed at Hartsfield-Jackson International airport I was feeling a little more than quesy. We had about a two hour layover before our flight out, so we rested and I took a dramamine to face the next leg.
We arrived into San Fransisco around 12:30am and Gary and Carla picked us up at baggage claim. Once at the Cumpston house, I stayed up for about 20 minutes, long enough to discover that the box of presents I had shipped by UPS 3 day a week previous had not arrived yet. I went to bed and we agreed to try and track down the package in Menlo Park the next morning.

I woke up on Saturday when Kevin and Katie arrived from their flight in. Carla and Scott were out "shopping for dad" and trying to track down the UPS package. I heard a doorbell and found the missing package on the doorstep. Scott and Carla arrived back at the house about an hour later and we all drove together to Fogarty Winery up in the hills.

We did some wine tasting and took a couple of fun pictures on the hillside overlooking the valley.

We made our way back down to Woodside and stopped at the Woodside Bakery for lunch, enjoying fresh baked bread and wood-fired pizza with leftovers to take home.

After a nap, Gary, Carla, Katie, Kevin, Scott and myself got in the car and drove to Gary's cousin Doug's house. Doug's wife Liz and kids Ray, Cate and Jane also joined us and after homemade hors d'oeuvres we all went into downtown Palo Alto and sat down to dinner at Spago.

After ordering, Scott wanted to take a walk outside for some fresh air, so we crossed the street to a small park. It was quite cold out and Scott had not brought his jacket out of the restaurant, so we walked at a decent pace to stay warm. After making a few laps around the park we stopped next to a park bench, and after he got out of my grip, went down on one knee on the sidewalk and proposed. I must not have answered and he said "Please say yes!"

I said yes (of course!) and we went back to dinner and celebrated with the family.

We were treated to a chocolate lava cake with ice cream and whipped cream and champagne.

Sunday morning we went back to the jeweler to pick the final setting for the diamond Scott had picked out (astounding in it's own right) and did a little last minute shopping while waiting for it to be ready to pick up.

Pizza for lunch again but this time at "Pizza My Heart" in downtown Palo Alto, where we bought t-shirts for $5 each and got a free piece of pizza.

Christmas Eve dinner was Potato Cheese soup, salad and paninis. We watched The Devil Wears Prada and then went to bed around 1am.

Christmas morning Scott's sister Katie and her husband Kevin ran yelling "Santa was here! Santa was here!" through the house at about 7am. There was a beautiful sunrise through the trees as we opened our stockings and gifts.

There was a little time for naps before Doug and his family came over for hors d'oeuvres, and then a quick dinner before Gary delivered Katie and Kevin to the airport for a flight back to Portland.

Scott and I stayed up for a little while and then went to bed, only to be woken up at about 12:30 to pile into the car and leave for our drive north. We hit rain going through San Fransisco and it didn't let up until it turned to snow just south of Weed. The snowflakes were about 3 inches in diameter and blowing sideways. We braved the blizzard and it got better by the time we reached Yreka, coinciding with daylight.

We finally pulled up to my mom's house in Clackamas right after noon on the 26th. The first visit was to Monica and John Paul's house, where we watched the kids open their presents. Mom had asked that we be back to her house by 5pm to begin preparations for our pseudo Christmas Eve traditional evening. Our evening began with dinner and the traditional lighting of the advent wreath candles, and ended with opening yet more presents and crashing into bed around 10:30pm.

Morning of the 27th we drove across town to the home of Keith and Julie Thomson, parents of Scott's brother-in-law. After opening gifts and enjoying homemade shortbread, we proceeded to Scott's Grandma Virginia's house minutes away and opened MORE gifts.

Once we said goodbye to Virginia, we drove back across town and stopped at the Ouchida house for about a half hour, where we discovered that Britt and Dan got engaged about two hours after we did.

We dashed out to the Oregon City McMenamins to have lunch with Tiffany at about 3pm, and then made our way back to Mom's house to nap.

Applebees off 112th in Vancouver was our destination for dinner with Andy, Adam, Kelli and Sarah Rodriguez. They enjoyed their "Chou-lendars" and we shared engagement stories.

Thursday morning we met Britt and Dan for breakfast at Jam On Hawthorne and then enjoyed a couple of hours with TJ, Michelle and Taylor at their home in Milwaukie. We had just enough time to drive to Mom's to change and then head to The Ram in Lake Oswego for lunch with Carla, Grandma Eloise and Scott's other cousin Jane.

In the short amount of time between lunch and dinner, I had the opportunity to spend my Target gift card and a little time at Bridal Exclusives in Clackamas Promenade and may have found THE dress.

7pm found Lou, Mom, Scott and myself parking in the lot at Riverplace, and braving the very cold wind to walk down the plank to the Marina Fish House (previously Newport Bay). Gary and Carla joined us shortly after and we enjoyed a fantastic meal capped off with Gary and Lou sharing a berry cobbler.

Friday morning we woke early and drove to Monica and John Paul's house, visited for a few minutes and then delivered Sammey to Brusett's house for a birthday party. Kevin agreed to perform our ceremony, whenever it ends up being.

It was great to see the girls at my old office for a few minutes before heading south into Portland.

Scott dropped me off at my hair appointment and then we grabbed lunch on the way to visit Julie and Ella. Ella is 4 1/2 and very smart. It was great to catch up with them and we were sorry Keith wasn't able to be there.

I dropped Scott off with Andy and spent the afternoon at the downtown Clark County Title branch saying "hi."

I met Roxy and her family and Tony at the Spaghetti Factory in Vancouver for dinner, and then sped to Tualatin to meet the gang at Hayden's Lakefront Grill.

JVA rocked the place out and I even got to play a little cowbell before TJ took over. It turned out to be a bit of an un-official engagement party, attended by Monica & John Paul, TJ, Andy, Travis, Pete, Jen, Chad, Bill, Bob & Chelsea, and Matt and Tiffany. We stayed until the very end and finally got to sleep around 1am.

Saturday morning I got up at 7am and went to Bridge City for rehearsal before singing and playing keyboard for worship during church. Mom and Lou brought Scott for the service and I got to hold Connor for about 1/2 of the message.

Scott and Sindos' wedding started just after 2pm a few miles away and then we had a small window of time to pre-pack for our flight out. The wedding reception was at the Oswego Lake Country Club and we bailed after dinner was served.

Packing up and loading out managed to only take us about a half hour, helped by the fact that we decided to ship a lot of stuff from Portland to Key West so we didn't have to cram it into our luggage.

We arrived at Bob's house around 9pm and had an hour to hang out with Rachel & Gary, Mike & Erin, Monica & John Paul, Brooke & Nate, Andy, Bob & Chelsea, Chris and show pics of Chou to Jeff.

After a round of goodbyes, Bob dropped us at the airport and we checked in for our flight back to Atlanta.

Scott gave up some toothpaste and lotion at security, and we were able to board our plane without having to wait too long.

The three hour layover in Atlanta was taken up by napping, especially after I took a dramamine, which knocked me out hard.

The flight to Key West went quickly and smooth, considering I was sleeping.

Shaunta picked us up and we were happy to get home and greet the kitties right around 1pm.

Countdown to Christmas - 6 days

We are leaving Key West for California in just 3 days. All that remains to be done at home is pack and clean, as we are having guests over New Year's Weekend.

We'll put our Christmas tree out on the back porch before we leave so it can have some sun.

I found this festive fellow enjoying his holidays on our front porch last night. I googled him and he's quite common to the area - a Spiny Orb Weaver. Not harmful, good with bug catching.

Anyone want one for Christmas? He's about the size of a dime.

Countdown to Christmas - 10 days

One week until we depart for California. We've been notified of a little added time to our layover in Atlanta, but the rest of the plans are still looking good.

We finally got a new key to our mailbox and were able to receive the mass buildup of Christmas cards (and bills) that were waiting.

The last two UPS shipments of presents are going out today, and my company Christmas Party is tonight.

We are enjoying near 80 degree weather every day, and only a little rain. I recieved a text message from one of the tenants in my Vancouver house "you have a tree in your driveway" but I verified with my co-owner that everything is ok, and they only lost power for about 5 minutes.

The picture is from Scott's Christmas Party last weekend.

Countdown to Christmas - 12 Days

I have 2 Christmas presents left to buy or make, 3 boxes of presents to ship out to their destinations.

We attended Scott's company Christmas party on Saturday night, and my company Christmas party will be this Friday evening.

I've been decorating at work since the first week of December, and it's looking very festive, if just a little hodge-podge.

The stockings are laying under the counter with care... or in the case of the dog - hung on the cupboard handle, and in the case of the cats, hung on the wine rack above their dishes.

Chou still sits under the table, even though the fort of presents has been dismantled.

Scott and I are each working just 7 more days and then we depart for San Fransisco.

Countdown to Christmas - 21 Days

The tree is up and decorated, 90% of the presents are made or purchased.

I watched one of my two yearly Christmas required movies on Saturday night: Mixed Nuts. It's a Nora Ephron film with a ridiculous plot and great cast. Steve Martin, Rita Wilson, Madeline Kahn, Adam Sandler, Juliette Lewis, Anthony LaPaglia and Liev Schreiber. I believe the movie was in theatres the Christmas season of 1994.

My other favorite is White Christmas (not Holiday Inn) with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney.