Tuesday Trigger: A Citrus Celebration

The staff at work was invited to eat lunch (pizza) with the Board of Directors today. In observance of Employee Appreciation week, the BOD expressed how they appreciated what the staff does. It felt kinda nice to feel appreciated and to know that what I do matters to someone out there. The rest of the week will be very quiet for me...my boss and officemate will both be out of the office. I guess I could always go back to the main office if I was looking for signs of active human life.

Here's my take on this week's Tuesday Trigger. While I'm a big fan of bright colors, I have a hard time incorporating lime into my cards, but I did it today since that was the main focus on the trigger photo. I also incorporated a cupcake to tie in with the cupcake liners.
Card Specs:
Paper: American Crafts- City Park (orange), Die Cuts with a View- Sweet Stack (lime)
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Lime Pastel, Blackbird
Stamps: Fiskars- Just Between Friends (sentiment), Studio G (cupcake)
Embossing Folder: Cuttlebug (Swiss Dots)
Die: Spellbinders Nestabilities Standard Circles Large
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, Fiskars Scalloped Sentiment border punch
White Gel Pen: Inkssentials

Song of the day: "Ooh La La"- Goldfrapp. (popular spin class song)

Fall-To Layout #132

This week is Employee Appreciation Week at work. We could sign up for 10 minute chair massages, and I totally took them up on the offer. While I was grateful for the free service, I thought it was peculiar that the masseuse kept commenting on the tension in my neck and lower back. "Do you have a headache? I feel some tension in your neck area." "Um, no." "You might have one coming on." o_0 Uh oh. I dunno, uh, I feel fine. Actually, after the massage, I was feeling pretty great!

At spin class tonight, the guy that I saw at the St. Patrick's Day 8K came up to me before class and asked me if I was going to do the Pike's Peek 10K. Uhhhh, I dunno just yet. Maybe this is a sign that I should?

I read this funny story in The Washington Post today (scroll down to the story written by "Cincinnati Mom"). It reminds me of when I saw on a story on a friend's facebook a while back: a little kid had asked her if she was a ninja (she's Asian and was wearing all black (workout?) clothes that day...). She replied "why, yes, I am" and totally played along.

Here's my take on Fall-To Layout #132. I had the button that I was going to use in yesterday's card still on my desk, so I wanted to incorporate it into today's card instead of putting it away. I also had scraps of the American Crafts City Park paper still out, so I used them since they were in reach. I love the hot air balloon paper because how colorful it is and how there's a touch of glitter for some visual interest. I guess it doesn't really go with the flower theme, but I think overall the card goes with the cheerful "smile" sentiment.Card Specs:
Paper: American Crafts- City Park
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Ice Jade
Stamps: Fiskars- Sentiments (sentiment), Autumn Leaves- Build-a-Flower (dotted line), Fiskars- Friendship Garden (leaf)
Buttons: Bucket White from Michaels, Favorite Findings in Ocean and Pink
Die: Cuttlebug- Flowers (flowers)
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, Fiskars Threading Waters border punch
Foam adhesive: Thermoweb

Cupcakes and Cards

During my visit to Cake Love last night, I picked up 2 red velvet and 2 Cynthia's Sin cupcakes (think of it as a Snickers bar in cupcake form...they were doing a deal on them. $2/cupcake instead of the usual $3.25). I ate one of the red velvet ones before going to be last night. OMG, yummmm.Because Tuesday's spin instructor Janice is also teaching on Sundays now, I went to her 9:45 AM class and sweated buckets. It was a great way to start the morning! And since there's a tentative plan to have a girls beach trip over Memorial Day, I feel inclined to kick my workouts up a notch so I went for a 4.85 mile run around the neighborhood while jamming to Britney Spears and Lady Gaga. Currently debating doing the Pike's Peek 10K in April to prep for the Capitol Hill Classic 10K in May...

I made this chicken dish for lunches this week. The Board of Directors is supposed to be meeting at the office this week, and the staff was invited to eat with them on Tuesday. Seeing people I haven't seen in a while AND a free meal...yep, count me in!

My Wee Memories challenge #47 entry was selected as a Honorable Hoot this week, yay!

Today's card was inspired by the card that Kristina Werner created for Finally Friday March 18, 2011. I liked how she was able to incorporate several different pieces of patterned paper into one card. Instead of making it all yellow, I used several papers from the American Crafts City Park collection because I knew that they would already jive together. I originally had a white/green button next to the sentiment, but I didn't like how that panel would be mostly white, so I replaced the button with a flower sticker. Ah, much better.

Card Specs:
Paper: American Crafts- City Park
Other: Brown Sharpie Ultra Fine Point marker
Stickers: American Crafts Chipboard Thickers in Darling (white), Sandylion- Flower Power
Foam adhesive: Thermoweb

Song of the day: "Born This Way"- Lady Gaga.

Full Moon

I love my gym. They do such a great job with combining health promotion and community building. When the earthquake happened in Japan last week, I wondered if the gym was going to hold a charity spin class to raise money for the relief effort similar to what they did for the Haitian earthquake last year, and sure enough, when I went to spin class this morning, there was an orange sign on the door announcing the 2-hour charity spin class next Saturday. Yep, I'll be there! As a side note, I'm happy that Janice will be teaching on Sundays now. I'm thinking that enough people gave bad reviews to the original instructor, so they kicked her out.

Tonight, I went out for Mexican food with Meg and Robyn to celebrate Meg's birthday. I got a strawberry daiquiri and a chicken taco salad. Funny things that happened...

• I complimented Robyn on her nail polish. "Tina, you gave it to me for Christmas..." Oh. Heh.
• Robyn got Meg a medium size bag of pretzel M&Ms. She must have been thinking on the same wavelength because I got Meg a bag of those too! This was not coordinated beforehand.
• After a visit to Cake Love to get some cupcakes as dessert, we sat outside on a bench. We chatted and people watched. Some funny dogs walked by. One in particular, a pekingese, made a point to check me out.
  

Did anyone catch the full moon tonight? It was super bright. I took a picture of it through the sun room. The picture turned out kinda Halloween-y with the tree branches in the frame.

Song of the day: "Till The World Ends"- Britney Spears. This would be a good running song...I need to get it on my mp3 player.

Blogger's Day of Silence

I have some family in Japan. Thankfully, they are safe. However, as you've seen in the recent news, others have not been so fortunate.

Someone out there could use your help...every little bit can make a difference. Please keep those suffering in your thoughts and prayers.

www.forjapanwithlove.com

Wee Memories Challenge #47

This Facebook wall post from last night just goes to show that you never know who's watching. One of my childhood friends was driving around the neighborhood (she's relocated to the West Coast, but I guess she's in town visiting family or something...) and saw me running yesterday. Out of all the people that I thought would see me, she's not the first one that comes to mind. So funny.I finally got around to working on my take on this week's Wee Memories Challenge (#47). It focuses on green and spring. I went with a stamp set that I hadn't used before even though it came with this eBay win a while back. I decided to go with a flower and watering can garden theme. I thought the sentiment totally matched with the heart-centered flowers.Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Prussian Blue, Warm Green, Warm Red, Maroon, Yellow Ochre, Blackbird, Ice Blue
Stamps: Fiskars- Friendship Garden (flowers, stems, large flower pot, sentiment), American Crafts- Dear Lizzy- Warbler (cloud), K.I. Memories- Garden (small flower pot, grass, sun, water drops, watering can)
Foam adhesive: Thermoweb
Stickers: EK Success- Hearts
Pearl: Queen & Co.- Pearl
Embossing Folder: Cuttlebug (Victoria)

One-Layer Wednesday #45

At my new office digs today, some state convention people brought food for us! Free food? Yes, please. I think their idea was that they'd shower the meetings coordinator (he's on my side of the street) with free food, hoping that it'd convince him to hold meetings where they are, particularly our Annual Meeting. Do they realize that he just sets up the meetings, but he doesn't really make the big decision on where it's held? Shh, don't tell them. We like the free food. Today's menu was 2 platters of sandwiches, a platter of desserts and a platter of fruit. Feed me and I'll be one happy camper.

I could not pass up a nice sunny day, so I went for a run after work today. I started out thinking I'd do 3 miles, but as the run went on, I was actually feeling pretty good (instead of sluggish) so I went for my usual 4.85 miles around the neighborhood with my newish shoes. I need to work up to 6ish miles so that I'll be prepared for the 10K in May (eek...). Hello, daylight, thanks for hanging out longer.

Do you know what hex signs are? I didn't, but I educated myself after seeing that this week's One-Layer Wednesday (#45) is inspired by them. My new circle die came in really handy because I don't think I could stamp everything evenly without some sort of template. I die cut a circle out of some scrap paper. This served 2 purposes: I traced the circle on the card front and then did a test layout on the scrap piece of paper. That way, I would know how things would fit on the card front when I was satisfied with how the elements were going to fit together. I decided to go with hearts, leaves, and bird images because those seemed to be common in hex signs I found online during my "research." I love how these hex layouts are so versatile. Just by changing the elements in the collage, you can change the feel/season/purpose of the card. For example, you could do something with snowflakes for holiday cards.

Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Prussian Blue, Warm Green, Warm Red, Rose Coral, Yellow Ochre, Charcoal
Die: Spellbinders Nestabilities Standard Circles Large
Stamps: Fiskars- Friendship Garden (heart), Autumn Leaves- Build-a-Flower (leaf, hex center), American Crafts- Dear Lizzy- Warbler (bird), K.I. Memories- It's a Girl (dots), The Paper Company Studio- Greetings (sentiment)
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper
Other: Black Sharpie Ultra Fine Point marker

How freakin' stinkin' cute are these plushie bunny Peeps (via Kristina Werner)?! Hee-larious.