Company Picnic

At the office: Today was the annual company summer picnic, and I thought the event was a success. The theme was a Hawaiian luau this year, and we had the leis and food to go along with the theme. Many of my co-workers brought their kids to the event, and many of them around the age of 1 and below (we had a recent baby boom, obviously). The menu was meatballs, chicken, Hawaiian pork, potato salad, and 2 kinds of cake (pineapple upside down and coconut chocolate cake? I'm not sure since I passed on dessert). The picnic was over around 2 PM, and we were dismissed after that. I volunteered to take the recycling home with me, and now my

blue recycling bin is totally full of water bottles, soda cans, and bear bottles. The neighbors will think I had quite the party. After the picnic, I took a celebratory end-of-the-week nap in my nicely ACed house. ::sigh of relief::

Article: For the past month, I've been working on an article to submit for publication in a journal. I submitted it after my nap, and now I'm crossing my fingers that it'll be accepted. I'm the only author, so it'll be a nice thing to put on my resume.

RJ: I didn't have anything defrosted for dinner, so I went to Crisp and Juicy for a chicken dinner. RJ happily hopped onto the dining room table to volunteer to help me eat some.

Movie: I had a 50 cent off coupon for Redbox so I rented This Means War. Meh, it was a cute movie, but nothing spectacular that I'd want to see again. I've definitely seen better romantic comedies.

AC Woes, Finale?

New AC Unit: Ok, knock on wood, this is the end of my AC woes. I've had the inside unit replaced in June, and then today, I had the outside fan unit replaced. So, this is what it feels to have AC in my house? It's such a foreign feeling, I've almost forgotten what it feels like, ha ha. The time frame that I was given was between 11 and 4 today, and the service men showed up around 2:45 PM (not 4:20 PM like last time). Within an hour, they had the unit installed and I took a celebratory nap with AC flowing through the house. It gave me a great sense of satisfaction to see the thermostat go from 84 degrees to 78.

Sears woes, continued: The people from Sears have been taking their sweet time getting back to me regarding my horrible experience with them doing my air vent cleaning. I called them yesterday to follow-up since they hadn't called me back in the 24-48 hours they promised me, which was about 2 weeks ago. Nope, not acceptable. The lady on the phone had the audacity to a) act like she didn't know what I was talking about (hello, did you people take notes the last time I called?) and b) tell me that someone would call me ASAP. I took the complaint to Twitter to see how Sears would respond and it turns out that the corporate office and local office both called me to apologize and try to resolve the problem. I'm not going to pay for an expensive UV light mold prevention system if y'all's technicians aren't certified to identify mold. I'm leaning towards asking them to uninstall it and refund me the cost. I'm also not going to take any crap about "You'll have to pay for a restocking fee." You already installed this gadget in someone's house. Are you really going to reinstall it in someone else's house? I'm confused. The excitement never ends...

Fall-To Layout #205

RJ: Waking up to a hairball was not the best way to start my day. >:(

AC: The AC people are coming on Thursday to replace the unit outside. YAY! I'm not sure how much longer I can stand the heat in my bedroom at night. The opened windows and ceiling fan don't seem to help at all.

At the office: I got an email from the Executive Director today saying that casual Friday wear has been extended through September. The peasants rejoiced. I guess it would be too much to ask that the policy was instilled indefinitely, but I'll take what I can get.

Card: Here's my take on Fall-To Layout #205. I had some extra squares leftover from when I was making this card, and I didn't want them to go to waste.
Card Specs:
Embossing powder: Stampendous! in white
Embossing ink: VersaMark
Stamp: Hero Arts- Everyday Sayings
Paper: My Mind's Eye- Darling Dear
Other: Liquid Pearl in Buttercup, Brown Sharpie Ultra Fine Point marker

Happy Anniversary, RJ!

OMG, I almost forgot! Saturday (August 25) was RJ's 1-year anniversary of being my kitty. Wow, time flies!

Here's my first post about him. =^..^=

Crafty Sunday

This afternoon, I got an Etsy convo from a previous buyer asking for some extra embellishments and a thank you card using the same embellishments. I was worried that I wouldn't have the right dimensions because I didn't record them, but thankfully, I took picture of them on top of my craft mat, which has a ruler. Here's the card that I made. I like how the gingham matches the color of the dress.

Crafty Yard Sale

Yard sale finds: I saw a listing on Craigslist this morning for a huge craft yard sale. She advertised lots of crafty goodies like stickers, paints, rubber stamps, wooden letters, etc. I zoomed over there promptly at 9 AM and it looked like other people had seen the listing as well because I was not the first person there. One lady had already snatched up a bunch of the stamps. :P Oh well. The owner had a huge box of stickers and embellishments so I dug through that for a while. I felt it was important to be selective because I only had so much cash on me anyway. Everything (new in package) in the picture was $17 total, but the owner's husband let me get away with it for $15. She had a ton of glitter...too bad I'm not a glitter person. I made this card for a friend and used it as an opportunity to use one of the big Heidi Swapp flowers.
Card Specs:
Cardbase: Recollections
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Dark Peony, Versamark

Paper: Die Cuts with a View- Mango Frost
Stamp: Hero Arts- Sending Smiles
Flower: Heidi Swap
Brad: American Crafts
Punch: Fiskars Scalloped Sentiment border punch, We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper
Other: Liquid Pearl in White Opal

Off to hang out with Meg and Robyn tonight...agenda: Hunger Games from Redbox and pizza.

Target Success

Spin class: On my day off today, I went to spin class in the morning (I haven't been since Tuesday night last week, eek). I was looking forward to Anna's class, but unfortunately she was not there. There was a substitute instructor instead, but I liked her music so it's all good. Also, Janice (Tuesday's instructor) wasn't there to give me a hard time for disappearing for a while.

Shopping: I went to Target to see if I could get any clothing deals (and also get some bread and jelly). I scored 2 dresses at $12.48 each, hooray!

Family: I went to my parents' house earlier to talk to Dad about a refinancing deal that my mortgage guy proposed. I also taught Dad how to Skype by downloading it to his iPad. How do you explain something that just comes naturally to you? I've only recently started Skyping with my sister (the webcam on my new computer broke, so I returned the computer, ugh) and I thought it was an intuitive app to use, but I had to explain how you call and hang up on someone and how to increase/decrease the volume. I hope he starts using it more to talk to Julie "on the phone."