Goodbyes

A dear friend passed away on Monday. I worked with Julian for several years at the law office. I'll be able to go to the funeral along with several co-workers tomorrow morning to bid our farewells. My heart has been heavy this week and I was so sad to hear of Julian's death. That's him in the disco suit from Halloween a couple years ago. Julian was such a character - a sweet kid with a huge heart and a kind word for everyone.

CONCHAS LAKE STATE PARK— Authorities have recovered the body of a 25-year-old Albuquerque man who died at Conchas Lake. State Police Sgt. Andrew Tingwall said Julian Sanchez and friends were diving from cliffs at Conchas Lake State Park when Sanchez did not resurface Sunday, May 25, 2008. Emergency crews were contacted around 4:30 p.m., and Sanchez's body was found about midnight, Tingwall said. He said no cause of death has been determined. Conchas Lake is about 35 miles northwest of Tucumcari.

SANCHEZ -- Julian Vincent Sanchez age 25, preceded in death by his grandfather, Severo Barela. He is survived by his father Frank Sanchez, his mother Victoria Barela and Stepfather Steve Brcic, his sister Rachel Sanchez and her fiance Aaron Park. His niece and nephew Camille and Cameron Medina. Maternal grandmother Eloisa Barela and paternal grandparents Francisco and Viola Sanchez. Aunts and uncles Don Sanchez, Patricia Poston, Carmen and Ray Coughenour. Cousins John and Jimmy Poston Elin Ferch and Mary Poston, Jason , Joel and Jeff Beiswanger. Honorary pallbearers, Jason Joel and Jeff Beiswanger, Chris Red, Rico Marcelli Dominic Talley, Oscar Paredes, Brian Casaus, Mike Mahoric, Justin Kimbro, Leon Howard. He loved life and was blessed with many many friends too many to name. A visitation will be held on Thursday night May 29 at 7:00p.m. Palm Chapel 1100 Coal Ave,. SE. A Funeral Mass will follow at Holy Ghost Catholic Church, on Friday morning at 11:00 a.m.

Goodbye Julian....you will be sorely missed and never forgotten.

Mini Wardrobe Challenge

Stephanie suggested a wonderful Mini-Wardrobe Challenge for the summer that was based on Pattern Review's mini-wardrobe challenge.

From Stephanie's Blog: The idea is to build a collection where each piece matches each other or else ties into the general theme. Unlike larger wardrobe challenges, however, the mini-challenge only requires four pieces: two bottoms and two tops or two bottoms, a top and a dress.

Hop on over to her blog if you want to participate. Her rules are SUPER simple: four pieces, each piece must match each other, you set your own finish date.

I'm really excited about this - I haven't sewn for myself in a while. My plan is to make two tops, one skirt and one pair of capris. I'm not sure how well everything will coordinate though - I don't want to buy any fabric so that I can work strictly from my stash.

Here are the patterns I am considering:

A nice A-line skirt from this book. Probably in my fabulous Amy Butler fabric that I bought in Vegas at Thanksgiving.


Ye olde standby - this time in a silky rayon type fabric - Dark brown with teal polka dots.


A shirt like the teal one. Not sure what fabric yet for this one.

And capris from this pattern. Not sure of the fabric for this one either.


My goal is to finish the challenge by the end of June.

Memorial Day

Pug Lovin

I just finished uploading 90 pictures to my flickr account....all the pics from our trip to California in March and all the Easter pics from this year. I still have a ton more to load. I'm trying to move all the photos I have saved on my computer to my flickr account. My poor little computer is struggling and running out of space for all the pictures....but it's my little workhorse and I refuse to get a new computer.

Miss S and I spent the afternoon at my friend Julie's house. We celebrated her daughter's safe return from Iraq. What a fitting celebration for Memorial Day Weekend. Julie is a pug lover too and has 4 darling pugs. Maya, Nina, Sophia and DJ.

Here's Sophia and Miss S.


And chubby DJ with Miss S. DJ is seriously the chubbiest pug I have ever seen. I loved his little sausage body.


My two college buddies - John and Julie. We were inseparable during college. We've seen each other through good times and bad, the ups and downs, illnesses, births, deployments and everything in between. I adore them both. And yes, John is Dwight to a T (from The Office). I love these two. In our 12 years of friendship this is the FIRST and only picture of all three of us together. Humm...I think I need to order some 8 x 10s for each of us.

Vintage Love

I am so in love with this vintage sheet....the pattern just screams "RAESHA" everytime I look at it. I would wallpaper my whole entire house with this if I could. Instead I think I'm going to make some pajama pants with it, maybe line a few bags, and in general use every single little piece of it that I can. That is if I can even get up the nerve to cut into it.

And I joined this swap....I can't wait! It is going to be so much fun:) I will not be using this sheet for that swap...I just can't bear to give any of it away. But I have a major shopping trip planned to Savers on Memorial Day - all clothes are 50% off - and I'll be hunting for the perfect sheet for the swap.

King Pin

I took Friday off to go bowling with Miss S's first grade class - we had so much fun! I bowled a 136 in my first game. I guess I'm really in my element bowling with first graders:)

Miss S and her teacher - Ms. Lokken. She's awesome.


Super bowler!!


Getting down at the "YMCA"...The kids cheered when that song came on! It was cute.

Self Portrait on a Humid Day

We've enjoyed a fabulous day of rain....love it!!! However, it wreaks havoc on my curly tresses and by the end of the day it's just crazy out of control hair.

I have tomorrow off of work to go bowling with Miss S's first grade class. After that it's cleaning time!!! And I have received about 10 fabulous packages in the last two weeks that I can't wait to show off:):) I'm off to watch the season finale of ER.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to you all!!! Hope you all had a nice relaxing day. Hubby made me breakfast....he came and whispered to me to come to the kitchen after I slept in. He had cut up cantaloupe, strawberries and bananas in three precious little bowls and a cup of tea brewing for me. Why can't every Sunday morning be like this:)

I made a little collage in honor of Mother's Day - I've titled it Love is the Heart of the Home and it was greatly inspired by the houses this lovely lady has been making.

Birthday Wishes

See that handsome fellow on the right?? He's celebrating his 36th birthday today!!! He's a little thinner, and has a little less hair, but is just as handsome as ever!! (I think this picture is from 2003 or 2004) We're celebrating by going out to breakfast. Miss S will spend the evening with friends while we go the wedding of one of Hubby's best friends and an adults only reception:) I can't wait....it will be a wonderful evening.

Friday

I am SO glad it's Friday. I worked 12 hours yesterday and didn't get home until 9:45 p.m. I am so tired I can hardly stand it. I've been trying to stay off the Dr. Pepper but I fear I need a gallon of DP to get through the day today.

Want It Wednesday

To all my sweet thrift loving bloggy buddies - I want this book SO BAD!! If you come across it at the thrift store please let me know!

PS I wrote this post on Wednesday - hence the title and just realized that it never published. So that's why I'm posting my Want it Wednesday on Friday:)

Crafting

Yes, I have been crafting....a little tiny bit...I know I sound like a broken record but I just can't get a handle on all the things I want to do and all the things I have to do. Do you think Hubby and Miss S would mind if I didn't make dinner for a whole week while I got caught up on everything else? I'm barely sending out Mother's Day cards today and I haven't even started on a swap that is due on Saturday, nor have I started my ATCs for my trade on Saturday. GGRRR!!! I slept in a little bit late this morning and will be going in to work a little late. That helped.

So here's what I have accomplished recently - these are both for flickr swaps.

The first is for my tea swap group - Our theme was "Ecological tea swap" and we had to make an item from recyled materials and send something recycled for our partner to craft with. I of course chose to make another pillowcase bag (Thanks Regina!!) from a vintage pillowcase. And I sent my partner another vintage pillowcase to craft with. Some tea, postcards, and ecological friendly tips were also part of the package.

This is for my Bag Ladies group - our theme was hobo bag and my partner loved pink and lime green. (the lining is green with pink polka dots). I think it turned out great and my partner likes it:):)

Spreading the Love

Last weekend was the Rio Rancho Artists Studio Tour - about 35 artists had their studios open to the public. Miss S and I went to visit three of my good friends that had their studios open.

From Paula I bought these AWESOME prints.....I love them so much! Paula just radiates beauty and love and I just adore her. And she's a ballerina...and she's reinspired my love of ballet and I hope to maybe take a class this summer - it will be my first time dancing in almost 18 years. Paula's studio is literally the size of my house. I wanted to move in.

From the lovely Donna I bought this little altered cloth quilt. It's hanging above my sewing machine with a couple other mini quilts. Donna dyes and alters her own fabric - there is even some gold stamping on this little gem which is really hard to see in the photo. Donna makes the most amazing fabric items, quilts and also charms - I have several of her soldered charms as well. She always inspires me to try something new and she always has a big smile:)

I bought this handcarved gourd from my friend Lisa. It's the most beautiful shade of olive green and looks beautiful in our living room. Not TOO southwestern, but just a touch:) Lisa's hubby and my hubby play hockey together and after several seasons we made a connection and realized we are both artists. It just clicked after that:) Lisa also has three gorgeous wolf/dogs that I think have more wolf blood than dog blood. They are humongous and the most sweet, gentle giants.

What a day!!!

Here's a post that I wrote Friday at work:

Today has been one of those days. My nose won’t quit running and it’s absolutely raw from blowing it so much. I took a cold pill before bed last night, and some allergy medicine this morning and nothing seems to help. I’ve felt like I’ve been in a fog all day. YUCK! And work has dragged on and on. I have no incentive to start any projects so that is making the day go by really slowly. I’m teaching at a CLE (certified legal education) seminar next month so I’ve been working on my outline a little bit today. My two topics are Discovery and Trial Preparation. I’m so glad it is Friday though. Miss S has girl scouts tonight so I’ll have an hour to myself:) Then tomorrow I’m going for a massage. I have a gift certificate that expires next week so I finally made myself an appointment:) Then probably a quick trip to Build a Bear and lunch with a friend and her kiddos. I hope to start on my dress for the wedding tomorrow too. Oh and clean the house, and do laundry, and finally unpack all my thrifted goodies from the car.

So I'll pick up where that left off:

Saturday I spent all morning in bed until about 11am trying to rest so I could get rid of this darn cold, then went to Build a Bear and lunch with my friend, Carla and her kiddos. I had found a chocolate teddy bear from Build a Bear at the thrift store so Miss S picked out an outfit for her. Then I had a nice half-hour massage. That was SO nice. I felt a little bit better, but still kind of crappy.

Church was awesome today....some awesome testimonies were shared. We have a new elder in the ward from Western Samoa and he bore his testimony - that was really cool to hear.
I helped Carla fix her serger and no sooner had I gotten home that I got a call from my brother Shay that he was in the hospital!! He was bit by one of their cats pretty badly on Friday and it was infected. He went to the ER last night and they admitted him and he is most likely there until Monday!!!! My dear neighbor, Jon, came to the hospital with a friend to give Shay a blessing and then I hung out with him for a little while to keep him company. Then I went and got him Panda Express for dinner - the ER he is at does not have a cafeteria so they only have frozen meals - not too fun:) Panda was much better.

So after all that I only got to unpack one bag from the car and did not even start on my dress. I hope I can find time this week to get it made before the wedding:) I do have a backup dress just in case that doesn't happen though.

So after you made it through all that - here's some pictures for you:)

A whole batch of new Creative Memories goodies - the circle, oval and shapes cutting templates and cutting board - .99 each! I found a few other cool CM goodies that are still in the car.

Sorry - I'm too tired to load this to flickr to turn it upright. I had a bunch of these when I was a kid that my dad brought home from work. They are stamped on the bottom "Federal supply service" - it's probably illegal for me to have this! But at $1.99 I couldn't resist having another one and remembering all the cool things I used to write in them as a kid. In one I had a list of every Star Trek episode (the original series) and I checked off the episodes as I watched them. I also had a list of every Oscar winning movie and a list of every movie Bud Cort had been in. I also checked those off as I saw them. I bet I have that book somewhere still - I should try to find it.

Yum

For a long time this has been my absolute favorite cereal:

But I just discovered this:
And it is SO delicious!!! I bought four boxes when it was on sale last week at the grocery store.

PS This is the weirdest post, but I am in a weird mood today.
PPS What's your favorite cereal?

Random

Here's a completely random photo of Miss S and some of her cousins at Disneyland in March. Aren't they cute!!!

I had the chance to go to Santa Fe on Tuesday for work and the attorney that I went with also loves to thrift shop....we hit three different thrift stores between getting our actual "work" done in Santa Fe. Then on the way home I stopped at one of the Goodwill's in town. The back of my car is literally overflowing with goodies:):)

Anyone have any great, quick and easy, gifts for teacher's appreciation week next week? I want to send a few little things for Miss S's teacher.

Signups for the ribbon swap will close tonight at midnight - we have a great group of particpants! If you've sent me an email to signup, I plan on sending a group email out this weekend reminding everyone of the details and sending you my address.

I lost 4 pounds this week. I've been walking almost everynight on the treadmill and watching Nip/Tuck. I'm making a nice little pile of clothes to give away and clothes to alter so they fit better. Hubby and I are going to a wedding next week and I hope to make a new dress this weekend. I'll be making View B (shown in the floral) - I bought a really nice black fabric with multi colored polka dot swirls.


I'm off to walk and lust over (lust after?) Dr. Troy - he is triple yum!!!.....see you soon!!!