goodbye, 2010.

for the first time since we've been married, hubby and i have new year's eve plans that involve leaving the house. thus, the hot pink polish was busted out.

  

feeling pretty fancy pants. excited to ring in the new year with our good friends. resolutions start tomorrow!

new year.

for the first time in a long time, i'm looking forward to the new year. i've set some great resolutions for myself and hubby and i have a joint resolution to buy a new car by the end of the year.

i'll share my resolutions on new years day ( i feel like it's a little jinxy to tell people early. i have no idea where i got that notion) but suffice to say i will be letting the real me shine through even more, and with some positive outcomes, i predict.

have you started thinking about your resolutions?

i'm a linus now.

christmas this year was great! hubby got me the cutest sunglasses and a bunch of little things i wanted (including a stocking full of coffee). my best gift, hands down, was the new pentax digital camera he got me. it's designed to look like a vintage camera, and has all kinds of filters and effects that let me make the pictures look like they are from a toy camera, but no more pesky film. and yes, i do love my holga. but she let me down at my birthday when she decided not to take a single picture. now i can be positive every special moment will be documented.

 here's me pretending to take a picture, and here are some pictures i actually took messing with the new settings:

i love charlie brown christmas. a lot. my mom got me this clock as an early gift. every hour, it chimes by playing a song from the special :)

this year, however, i felt christmas was a tad anticlimactic, which made me a little sad. all my life, christmas has been the greatest day of the year. usually this meant i got a little sad at the end of christmas night, but i had never felt indifferent before.

so hubby and i got to talking, and i realized this was a good thing. christmas didn't seem as magical because i no longer need one holiday season to be the highlight of my year. for the first time in my life i am completely and utterly happy. and what's one day of cheer compared to a whole life? i mean, i'm married to an amazing man, we have the world's cutest kittens and now a great apartment. i'm on my last leg of school before i start my real career and we have real income which leads to owning a home and having a baby. i'm going through the hiring process of a new job i'm really excited for. and in the last six months, i feel like i've really grown comfortable with who i am as a person and i've been letting that show through. and surprisingly, people still seem to like me. hubby is in love with his career, and we're finally working on the fun financial goals like buying a car and saving for a house.christmas is now just the cherry on top of the sundae, not the whole enchilada. or as hubby put it, i'm no longer a charlie brown. i'm a linus now.

merry christmas.

...and a happy new year!

bible stories as told to very little children.

this weekend, i went home to san diego for a couple days. while i was there, i spent time with my beautifully glowing cousin who is in the family way and we decided to hit up a few thrift stores. which is where i found this:

 it's from 1937 so the fact that we're still years away from children didn't matter a bit. had to have it.

the pictures are sweet and the stories really are written in a good way for children, but are almost laughable to adults...

"Now, I'm going to tell you another funny name, which belonged to a king who lived in Bible days. This is a great long name, but I think you are big enough to say it, just as your big brothers and sisters say it. This is the king's name, Nebuchadnezzar. Did you ever hear such a funny name?"

and "When the Little Baby Moses grew up to be a big man, like our daddies, he saw that wrong thoughts were coming to King Pharaoh again, and telling him to make the Children of Israel work hard all the time and not to let them play at all. Never, never could they play."

probably the best dollar i've ever spent.

also, found this guy on the "vintage ornaments" table for a buck fifty and instantly fell in love. pretty sure he's my new favorite on the tree and possibly our first family heirloom ornament.

merry christmas!

study buddy.

studying for finals can be really lame. but at least i have the world's cutest study buddy.

lerning to sew.

i desperately want to learn how to sew. i was on the costume team for a few places in high school, but i pretty much just chose the outfits and learned to hem and sew on buttons by hand. my mom has a sewing machine she's not using so when we head home for the holidays, i can have it.

anybody know any good books or websites to start? basically, i eventually want to be able to make this in a million different colors.

this dress is from my favorite online store, ModCloth, but it's $112 bucks, which is about a hundred more than i can afford.

wish me luck.

ornaments.

when i was a wee lass, my family always made a big deal of decorating our christmas tree. we would put on holiday tunes, drink hot chocolate, and put all the ornaments on the tree, one by one. my mom always had a story for every ornament. and yes, while i heard the same story every year, i wouldn't put an ornament on the tree until i had heard about where it came from or where it represented. what fun is it to just hang sparkly balls on a tree in your living room? that sounds nuts. the fun is in reminiscing and celebrating the life you've lived so far and where you will go. or so says i.

this past weekend, we decorated our christmas tree, so i'll share with you some of my favorite ornaments:

this bow is one of a set of ten that go around the christmas tree. they remind me of 'whoville' from the original 'grinch' cartoon, which is like my favorite (one of the many) christmas tradition.

between high school and college, i took a year off to save money and worked close to full time at starbucks. i blame my current coffee addiction on all those free lattes. this was one of the last things i bought with my employee discount before i left. it reminds me of where i started and how far i've come since then.

duh. 'our first christmas' was from our first christmas as a married couple. when we were decorating the tree, hubby was super cute. he kept moving all the ornaments i put in the front of the tree to clear space to 'properly display this in all of its glory.' because, according to him, without this ornament, there would be no family here, and thus no family christmas tree to decorate.

this ornament means a lot. my last year of undergrad, i volunteered with a stroke rehab group. this was my gift at the christmas party the last month i was there before graduate school started. school got so crazy, i wasn't sure i wanted to stick with my major. volunteering there helped me fall in love with the field i'm going into and made me so sure of the choices i've made. i'm glad to have a reminder of that on my tree each year.

this is our seahorse from hawaii. i love it because a.) it's a seahorse, my second most favorite animal. and 2.) it's from hawaii which was the first vacation (besides the honeymoon) we went on together. also, hawaii is fab.

vintage rudolph is awesome. love him. also, my mom has the same ornament on her tree so even though we live two hours away, we can look at the same ornament. awwww.

in college, i worked as an aide for a little girl with a development disability. she was the cutest little thing. her family was amazing and her mom is such an inspiration to how i want to be as a wife, mother, and Christian woman in this world. before i left for grad school, her family gave me this. i love seeing it and being reminded there are decent people in this world worth looking up to. i hope that i was an inspiration for their little girl as much as they were for me.

what stories does your tree tell?

christmas carol.

this is my most favorite rendition of my favorite christmas song ever, particularly a minute and four seconds in when the kids start to sing.

enjoy.

happy christmas.

we've started decorating our house for christmas, which is a nice distraction from the mountain of schoolwork i have to complete in the next two weeks. plenty of pictures to come after we finish, but for here's a taste for now. (also, the first christmas photo was the last photo on a roll of film i developed yesterday).

happy christmas!

a love song.

hubby and i were married almost three years ago. i loved our wedding. it was almost perfect. if we were to do it all over again, the only thing i would change would be the song we danced to. we never really had 'a song' so we danced to a van morrison song that we both like.

but for our next wedding, this will be the song we dance to. i love it, and what it says:
(here's where i was going to post a video, but youtube hates me so instead, i will post the lyrics and a picture of us dancing to, what i will now pretend, is this song)

the way i am- ingrid michaelson

if you were falling, then i would catch you
you need a light, i'd find a match

cuz i love the way you say good morning
and you take me the way i am

if you are chilly, here take my sweater
your head is aching; i'll make it better

cuz i love the way you call me baby
and you take me the way i am

i'd buy you rogaine when you start losing all your hair
sew on patches to all you tear

cuz i love you more than i could ever promise
and you take me the way i am
you take me the way i am
you take me the way i am

annoyed.

today, i am annoyed. here's why:

one: my graduate program does not let people freely enroll in courses, but instead assigns courses to you and this process takes months. my current job interviews are just laughable.s

employer: "tell me about your availability."
me: "well, i think i will have class on mondays and wednesdays, but if i don't get an add code for class a, then i will have to take course b and then i'll have class tuesdays instead of mondays. but if i get into class b and not class c, i will have to take class d and that will give me a tuesday, thursday, friday courseload."

two: i purposefully wait until 10 am to leave for school to avoid the rush hour mayhem. and yet, because of the holiday's coming up, i hit a plethora of traffic at every freeway exit that leads to a shopping mall or outlet center.

three: someone today actually said she had always wanted to attend a "mardi grass" party. yes, she said "grass." and i told her that "marti grass" did not exist and she shouldn't hold her breathe for an invitation. she thought i was being funny.

four: my term paper is due THIS monday, not next monday.

five: i had to lock my kittens in our bedroom for "random apartment inspections" that i'm still aren't sure are totally legal but i can't argue it to the leasing office because they open after i leave and close before i get home.

six: i have a cold.

seven: parking at school was bad.

eight: i've lost my favorite (and expensive) sunglasses.

and now the fact that i can't get to an even list of ten is annoying me.

tomorrow, i promise to do a happier list. but for the remainder of today, this is me:

grrrrrrrr.

times, they are a'changin.

at year's end, i guess it's normal for people to start feeling a bit nostalgic about where the time has gone. it is so hard for me to believe that it's almost christmas already. this past weekend at home, i started thinking about all the things that have changed in the past year.

October 2009

September 2010

last year, hubby was working at the bottom of his company's ladder answering customer service calls with a horrible work schedule. this year, he's moved up three or four pretty significant rungs and is actually involved in the testing and development of the games during normal 9-5 business hours.

last year, i was cramming for my last b.a. finals at csu fullerton and preparing my graduate school applications. i had no idea if i would get into graduate school, or where i would end up going. this year, i'm finishing up my first year of graduate school at the top ranked program in the state.

last year, we had one fun-loving kitten. this year, we have two.

last year, we had a 'functional' apartment with no personality. this year, our apartment is our favorite place in the world.

it's crazy to think about how much has changed this last year. but it's even crazier to think about all the things that will probably change in the next year.

next year, i will finish my academic classes in school and will be looking for a job. my cousin will have a six month old baby.hubby could be designing video games. our best friend could be married. my baby sister could have a degree.

while it's sad to see another year end, it's nice to be able to look back and see the great things that have happened to us and the progress we're making in life. the coming year is going to be so exciting, scary, amazing, nerve-wracking, sad, happy, and full of change. and i really can't wait to see where it takes us.

thanksgiving.

thanksgiving was great! went to san diego to see my mom and my sister and had dinner with my aunt, uncle, and cousin that i'm very close to.

and the best part was that this was the first thanksgiving that hubby has been off from work in three years. he was so excited to just have time off, he even took me black friday shopping (which was great-got some great shoes and clothes, some christmas presents already picked out, and hubby got me an early christmas gift that i picked out for myself yet can't have for another month).

back to school tomorrow so tonight will be all studying and left overs, but pics to come later.

hope everyone in cyber space had a great thanksgiving, too! anybody score any great deals?

dear goodwill.

dear goodwill,

you and i have been friends for quite some time now and i've really appreciated all the great things you've done for me over the years.

thanks again for today's special present you picked out just for me (seriously, who decided they could get through life without this umbrella?)

i'm hoping that because of our close relationship,you will know what i'm about to say is from the heart, and only for your own good.

goodwill, half (three-fourths) of the fun of the excursion to your store is the thrill of finding something amazing hidden in a stack of stuff that's, well, less than amazing. when you go through and pull all the 'label' merchandise out of the pile and put them on their own 'designer' rack and charge twice as much for them, shopping is no longer fun.

but because the store is all about 'good will' and what not, i was willing to accept that by charging more for the lucky brand dungarees you can help more people get off of the streets, and that's a fair compromise. especially since at nineteen ninety-nine they are still a steal.

but goodwill, target brand jeans are not, i repeat-not, a designer label. you cannot charge nineteen ninety-nine for a pair of used pants that probably only cost twelve ninety-nine to begin with. lets keep the designer rack open for, i dunno-brands that are at least found in a mall? sounds fair to me.

furthermore, i went to ross today looking for shoes and found black boots i wanted for a cheaper price than the used black boots at your store. need i remind you that your merchandise is used. if one could spend twenty bucks on a pair of shoes, one would be at wal-mart or target (with the exception of people like me who really like the chance of finding something vintage-although, i did go to ross, so maybe vintage love isn't even enough anymore).

also, it's currently 2010. the yellow sony walkman/cassette player probably doesn't need to be locked in the jewelry case.

kk thx bye,
mel.

p.s. stop putting ridiculously cute shoes in the window that i'm willing to spend one million dollars on when they are only a size four and the only person in the world they would fit is the person who donated them. thanks.

bling.

i love my wedding ring. a lot. like, to the point where hubby teases me about be materialistic. which i'm not. i just really, really love this ring(s) -technically it's a set.

but i'll let you in on a little secret. this ring that i wear everyday and stare at during boring lectures and purposely position to sparkle in the sun while i'm driving to see if it will blind passing motorists, is not in fact the same ring that was slipped on my finger in march of 2007 when hubby proposed. nor is it the same ring that was placed on my hand when he said 'i do.'

hubby proposed when i was a freshman in college majoring in journalism and he was working part time at a movie theater and taking community college classes with no major in sight. i believe in total my wedding ring set cost under two hundred dollars. but i loved it. it was my most prized possession because it meant i was going to marry my dream guy.

a few months before the wedding, hubby got hired at the company where he still works and is building his lifetime career and i switched my major to communication disorders in preparation for becoming a speech therapist. our life was slowly starting to fall into place.



i have no idea why it's all woodsy.



fast forward to our second wedding anniversary. i had a diploma on the wall and was preparing to start graduate school, hubby got a promotion at work, we now had our first kitten-baby. and for a christmas/anniversary/graduation/valentine's combo gift, i got a new ring set. i'll start with the obvious- it's a much larger diamond than my original ring. and since my favorite color is polka dots, i adore the smaller, round diamonds that make up the bands. and i love that when i put them on, they do not fit perfectly flush against one another but instead make a cute, quirky zig-zaggy gap.

but most importantly, i love that two years after we were married, after two new jobs, a big major change and decision to go to grad school, after living with me, helping me through the bad and helping create the good, and despite the fact that neither one of us were still exactly who we were when we got engaged, hubby still felt sure enough about us to make the committment all over again. so when people ask if i get sad or dissappointed that it's not the 'ring with all the meaning,' i politely let them know that there is more meaning in this ring than there is in the whole dictionary.

and that is why this wedding ring set is now my most prized posession, and my original is in second place.



gogurt.

how did i go so long without knowing about gogurt- yogurt.....on the go. my whole life is on the go, thus i assumed yogurt was no longer a food choice for me. since it's discovery approximately seventy-two hours ago, i have eaten yogurt whilst:
-driving
-reading
-walking between classes
-putting make up on
-straightening my hair
-hanging laundry
-washing the dishes
and
-paying for my latte this morning at the drive thru starbucks window.

this is possible the single greatest invention of our generation.

home sick.

today, i stayed home sick.

but i have a bit of a confession. today is the first day in a couple of months now that i don't have a single quiz, test, paper, report, client, or meeting to worry about. if there was any day to miss, it would be today. so maybe the tickle in my throat and the quease in my tummy are more welcomed guests than hated enemies this time. and maybe i'll be watching 'home alone' while eating pumpkin pie today.

and if 'elf' happens to be on tomorrow, maybe i'll still be under the weather.

mac & cheese &....?

there is probably no greater food than mac&cheese. it's tasty, budget friendly, easy to make, and-oh yeah, tasty. and as bad as it is for you, i firmly believe nothing tops the kraft original. the og of mac. hubby and i eat mac& cheese a lot, and sometimes to make it a more substantial meal, we'll add stuff to it.

MY favorite is adding seasoned, lean ground beef to it like a better 'hamburger helper.' hubby doesn't really care for it. the only thing he really likes in his mac is a can of tuna. which i don't totally love. it's good every now and then, but there has to be better out there.

if anyone has any suggestions of what to add/alter with my next batch of cheesy deliciousness, i would be much obliged. and please, nobody say hotdogs. that is a nightmare from daycare's past that is another topic for another day.

motivation.

some days, i just do not want to do homework. with the holiday on thursday, i told myself i could relax for the day, but by friday i had to start working on one of my five term papers or study for a midterm.

yesterday, i did nothing. and now today, i want to do nothing. but i really have to get on it. so before i lock myself in my bedroom and start trying to negotiate with myself, i thought i'd take a few minutes to think about why this insanely hard work will be worth it.

first, this is san juan capistrano, ca. i want to live here. it's a nice neighborhood with good schools, it's very historic and it's just beauftiful. plus, it has a lot of small town charm that a lot of places in southern california are just lacking. in order to live here, i will need a well paying job. to have a well paying job, i will need to finish my master's.

in san juan capistrano, i want a house. period. not a condo or town-home. maybe not THIS one house, but something cute and roomy. and that will cost money.

and i want to go to here. neither hubby nor myself has ever been to europe. as soon as this pesky school thing is out of the way and i collect my first paycheck, we'll be packing out bags and heading out!

honestly, i just want a car that doesn't squeal at under twenty miles an hour. but this would have to be my first choice.

i keep on this school path so i can have a good career and provide for little Sophie or Stephen (yes, we already have names picked out. no we will not be procreating for at least three more years). i want to be able to give him/her everything

most importantly though, i keep with it for this guy. because despite his decision not to go to college, citing it as both a waste of time and money, he works all the overtime he can get to help me get through school. and despite upwards of 70 hour work weeks, there are still things he wants that we can't afford because of my being in school.so come may 2012, i fully intend to return the favor.

and so i guess that's why i'm really going to actually go write my papers....."the impact of stuttering on job outlooks"- your time has come.

meet my holga, nena.

nena.

hubby and i are a bit of anomalies.  he's a hard core video game nerd who also loves punk music and playing guitar. i consider myself to be hippie/vintage chic but that doesn't stop me from listening to the classic rock station or decorating my bedroom in a shabby chic country way. it took me a long time to just be comfortable with me and the things i like and do/have what makes me happy.

case in point: my holga. i am not artsy (not that i wouldn't love to be but i just don't have the talent for it). but i had to have this perfectly-imperfect vintage film camera from the moment i first read about it on someone else's blog.

my birthday is in october so hubby tends to buy me everything i hint at wanting for the whole month (i'm so spoiled) and that included a Holga 135BC camera which we named nena (after the lady who sang 99 luftbalons) since hubby that holga was a sucky name.

i love this camera, and i love these shots from it:

downtown

our apartment complex and some trees

some of these pics are what's called 'cross processed' - i have a friend who is a photography major who does cool developing stuff for me. and in the interest of full disclosure, a couple have been run through picnik.com for added color boosts.

but i love walking around with my cool vintage camera. and i love not knowing exactly what the shot is until i pick up the film, sit down with a hot chocolate and peruse. and the fact that i love it is all that matters to me :)

so i'm off to put on a vintage dress, play the led zeppelin playlist on my ipod and walk down to the store for a country scarecrow for the patio. what will you be doing today?

commuting top ten.

i live about fifty miles away from school. i got accepted to a school north of where hubby and i live right around the same time he got a promotion at his job south of where we live. and, since school is two years and jobs are forever, and because he works many twelve hour days, we decided to live closer to his work.

the commute is rough. i have to leave two hours before class to leave ample time in case of traffic, road closures, parades, space ship landings, etc. usually this sucks. but today on the drive, i decided to create my first ever 'TOP TEN' list-

*drum roll please*

TOP TEN REASONS WHY COMMUTING ISN'T AWFUL!

10. excuse to shop/get a nice lunch-whenever hubby is like 'oh my goodness! you went to panera again?' i can be like 'well, i had to eat before the long drive home and he's like 'cool.'

9.excuse not to study-typically, other drivers on the road frown upon seeing someone read while driving. thus, for the hour plus it takes me to drive to school, i have no excuse not to blast the radio, sing and dance all the way to school. or better yet, have an in depth conversation with my mom or bff.

8.no chance of running into people i don't want to see outside of school- my first day of grad school, hubby and i went out to dinner and i told him every annoying thing about everyone i interacted with that day. and i didn't once have to look over my shoulder. no more worries of running into a professor on a tampon run or seeing my clinic clients while i'm acquiring taco bell in my pj's. sweet.

7.listening to the radio-when you only have a twenty minute drive or so, you can keep one cd in your cd player forever almost. i get tired of a cd after about two days worth of driving so i spend a lot more time listening to the radio. the other day, i heard old school brittney spears and nsync. plus, it's a good chance to hear new music that you would be completely unaware of otherwise.

6.people feel sorry for you- whenever i'm too tired/lazy to make dinner, do laundry, clean house, i tell hubby i'm just too tired from the commute. 'traffic was horrible and it took me an extra hour to get home' and he says he's sorry i have to go through that and leaves me be. it also works on professors who want you to do extra stuff and clients who want make-up time.

5. scenery- i live in southern california and it is beautiful. my commute allows me to see and appreciate so much more of it. from the distant, snowy mountains, to the beautiful buildings of downtown la, the last thing i can complain about is the view from my rear window.

4. double store inventory- sometimes, i go to target or walmart and fall in love with an article of clothing or a piece of  home decor that i must have. but the last one isn't my size or i want two or the lady walking in front of my won't give me the last one from her cart. no worries 'cause i'll hit up the store by school and have a new inventory to pilfer from. and it they don't have it  it just wasn't meant to be.

3. instant days off- if i sleep in on accident, i can't really throw on jeans and run out the door and expect to be on time. instead, i have to succumb to the fact that if i don't leave on time, i will be late and spend the day at home.  guilt free.

2.less embarrassing for the multiple starbucks trips- i am a grad student, and it can be tiring. some days are just a two latte day. and instead of facing the shame and embarrassment of the possibility of seeing the same barista behind the counter with a witty remark about how he recognizes me, i hit a different, equally convenient starbucks near school and nobody (except me) is any the wiser.

1.i could not possibly appreciate my home more- after an hour in the car, possible traffic situations and usually at least one idiot who attempts to change into my lane while i'm still in it, seeing my kittens, putting on my pj's and watching tv is the greatest part of my whole day. and i couldn't be happier.