Valentines Card

As I was blurfing through some of my favorite crafty blogs I stumbled across this great card.

Hee hee hee. Isn't if funny? Click here to go the Paper Cuts blog. She has some other great cards. I think SHQ might need this card for Splenda Daddy.

Project 365 - January 2nd

My good friend from high school, Kathy, made me a pillow for Christmas. Well, she actually started to make me a pillow but she had an unfortunate sewing machine incident. It died. So, when we exchanged gifts on the 26th, I got a very cute pillow front, some strips of fabric for borders and a nice square for the back.

Now, just so you know, Kathy did not expect me to finish it myself, but she did want to use my machine to do it. She and the kids came into the big city (no, I don't actually live in a big city but it's way bigger than their little rural town) to hang with Sprout and I for the day. Kathy and I promptly took off to do a little post-Christmas find deals at Wally World shopping. We did score some cool Martha Stewart gift packaging that, if I remember, I will use next Christmas. After a nice lunch out, we returned to my home where Kathy completed the pillow.

Isn't it cute?

Project 365 - January 1st

How did you spend New Years Day? Well, I went to bed about 12:45am (yes I'm a wimp) but then my phone rang at 3:15am. Yes, 3:15am. Uggg. There was a system problem that ended up requiring 12 hours of my time. Blech. Luckily it wasn't 12 straight hours of work. I was able to nap here and there through the day but I had to connect into the office avery 50 minutes or so to check things and do stuff. I actually put my kitchen timer on the table next to my bed to wake me or remind me to check on things.

This is my sprout. She is sporting some new jammies that she got for Christmas from Grandma & Grandpa H. This is pretty much how she and I spend time together. Jammies, laptops, DVR, my bed. We love it!

Project 365

I've decided to participate in Project 365. The idea behind this project is that you take a photo every day and journal about why you took the photo. I hope to gain two things from this project, 1) My photo skills should improve; 2) I'll have a record of my year. Now, the photo doesn't need to be anything specific, it could be a photo of your toothbrush if you want. Trust me, I may run out of clever ideas and start getting wierd along the way.

This project was orginally created to sell a special scrapbooking kit. Since I have boatloads of photos and memorabelia that have yet to make it into a scrapbook of some sort I decided to do mine on my blog. I started taking photos over a week ago, I just haven't taken them off the camera, resized them for the internet and written posts. Um, did I mention that Procrastination is my middle name? What's my first you ask? Disorganization. {Hangs head in shame}

So, Here's December 31st.

This is a picture of our Wii (and a little bit of the PS2 as well). My sister and I spent 3 hours playing the Wii on New Years Eve. By the time Sprout and the gang showed up to Par-tae, we were pooped and willingly relinquished the Wii to them. Just for the record, we both need to work on our Wii skillz. But in my defense, it's difficult to be a good "gamer" when you're laughing. Those Raving Rabbids games are da bomb! Now I just need to get off my butt (literally) and spend some time bonding with Wii Fit so that I can have a smaller butt (well, I don't have a butt, really so that's a figure of speach. More accurately it would be a smaller gut.)

Wedding Photos

Yesterday, when I was working on my post about Historical Wedding Traditions I was searching for photos to hlep illustrate the topic. Amazingly, I had no success finging a photo of 2 guys hauling off an unwilling woman in 200AD. Go figure.

However, I did encounter some photos I'd like to share with you.

I really hope that this dude is the father of the bride and not the groom.

I thought this was pretty funny, and quite artistic. (Again reminding me of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and the seven dads with their shotguns at the ceremony.)

Apparently she forgot to triple check her todo list before putting on her dress.

If I ever marry again, and said spouse is a bulldozer driver ('cause a dude that's all dirty and sweaty all the time is my dream spouse) this is how we'll arrive at the chapel for the nuptials. I think the bows really add to the specialness of the occassion.

When my Sprout says her vows I'm gonna spring for a trip to Lagoon so that the wedding party can ride the old wooden roller coaster together. So what if she doesn't like roller coasters, it's a great photo opportunity don't ya think?

Actually, now that I look at the picture a little more closely I think I know that dude. Oh my heck, that must have been from his first marriage. He is a wooden roller coaster enthusiast. He spends all his vacation time traveling around the country visiting theme parks with wooden roller coasters. I didn't realize that he's really out shopping for a new bride that likes the coasters too.

A couple of my work BFF's (The Queen of Sexual Harassment and The Giggler) and I were discussing throwing a bridal shower for our coworker who will be marrying in a few months. We were trying to come up with ideas for unique gifts and their possible packaging. It's over, I have F O U N D it. The perfect gift and, no special packaging required - it would only take away from it's perfectness.



I have a feeling it will be difficult to purchase one, even if we do go to the Blue Boutique. But, I think if we start now we can actually make one ourselves. I'm pretty sure The Product Pimp will help us with this project as well. What do you think? We could even mix it up a little with striped, glow-in-the-dark, ribbed and even ones that have their names printed on them.

Historical Wedding Traditions

On Monday, one of my coworkers announced her engagement and plans to marry in May of this year. So, when I was watching Good Things Utah and they were sharing some historical information on wedding traditions I perked right up. (Thank goodness for a DVR so I could rewind several times as I was laughing a bit.)

"The role of the Best Man derived from the help needed in abducting a future bride back in 200AD. If the potential brides were scarce in his own village a man would look for one in a nearby village, preferably one who was momentarily beyond the protection of the village. To execute the abduction he looked for a "wing man" or the best man for the job. Hence the title, best man."

So basically, the guy wants a wife, the local girls "just aren't that into him". So, he and his best man head to a nearby community looking for a gal that's out picking berries on her own and grab her. I'm sure it took two of them to fight with the struggling girl and get her back to their village. How romantic!

This guy needed several "wing men" and some anonymity as well.

"The best man had other associated duties such as staying by the bride grooms side in case the brides family came looking for her."

If the in-laws come calling the bridegroom and the best man are ready for a fight. Nice! I would have to say this would be the definition of "in-law problems".

"The abduction itself is the source of the custom of carrying the bride over the threshold."

Well, if you've abducted a girl and possibly even bound and gagged her, I would sure hope the least you could do was carry her over the threshold. It would be barbaric to expect her to hop into her new home with her feet tied together and all.

Also, the reason brides carry flowers is because of the mostly non-existant personal hygene habits. The flowers were to cover the stench, so to speak. Um, don't you think he's gonna notice the aroma once you throw the bouquet? Well, I guess by then it's too late, beause you're aleady married. Or, maybe back then they didn't throw the bouguet, but stuffed it into the armpits of their wedding attire to help keep the dream alive.

All this discussion about men abducting unwilling brides has made me want to pull out our well-worn copy of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Really. Should I be worried that this has been one of my daughters favorite movies since she was quite small? I'm definately not going to tell her boyfriend that it's one of her favorites or encourage him to watch it. The last thing I need is for him to learn how romantic it is for men to kidnap women in the night and haul them up to their large family cabin in the mountains. I must leave this boy in the dark about such romance for a few more years. There may come a time in the future when I WANT her to leave, but that time is not yet here.

Do you have any Historical Wedding Traditions that are still present today that you'd like to share?

Land Boat

Okay, I'm driving home from work tonight and this guy in a "Land Boat" swerves over in front of me. In case you don't know, a "Land Boat" is a very large car. This particular car looked a bit like a 1972 Impala.

You see, I was leaving extra space in front of me, just like they taught me in drivers ed almost 30 years ago, and apparently he just couldn't resist. I was a little upset with his agressive behavior, but I let it go because I became amused by him.

He was sitting in the drivers seat, sort of. He was leaning reallllly far to the right, his head was centered under the rear view mirror. Seriously, I could see the entire steering wheel. Every so often he would straighten up a tich, but then he'd go right back to his own personal interpretation of the leaning tower of Pisa.

I'm thinking that there are a few valid reasons why he was sitting in this unusual manner.

1. He was suffering from a painful back problem and this is the only way he can comfortably sit in a car.

2. He isn't tall enough to see over the steering wheel and must lean to the right just to see the road clearly.

3. The car is so stinkin' old that there is a very large and painful spring poking out right where his left cheek should be located and the extreme lean is the only way to avoid aforementioned spring.

4. He's a guy from the hood and this is the normal driving position to avoid gun shots.

Can you come up with any valid reasons why he drove in such an unusual position?