Nervous, Nail-biting Nelly

I have reached full nervous capacity. Acutually, I reached full-bore nervousness a few days ago, and it has since begun to receed...ever so slightly. The source of said nervousness? My impending Ukrainian adventure. OH MY! I'm going into all of this somewhat in the dark. I know nothing about the country, nor about what we're going to be doing. Really, though, that's not the source of the nervousness. I love to travel, even in crazy situations. It's all part of the experience for me.

My visa. That's the source of my nervousness. As I may have mentioned previously, you HAVE to have a visa to enter Ukraine. No ifs, ands, or buts...even for Americans. I sent my visa application in last week, thinking all of my ducks were in a row. And promptly had a hysterical fit thinking of all of the things I think I did wrong. It's something akin to deciding you left the oven on just as you airplane takes off for your week long trip. Most of my fears were quelled within the first two hours of panic (yes, that's a lot of panic).

Unfortunately, there's still one proverbial "oven" left on....I'm not sure I signed my passport, and your passport isn't technically valid until you've signed it. Oops. I'm really hoping I signed it. I can remember thinking about it and then thinking I'd do it later, but I can't remember if I actually did it. Guess we'll find out soon enough. I should have it back by the end of the week. Maybe they'll just overlook it? Never notice it?

Needless to say, I'm saying lots of prayers!! I'm feeling kinda silly praying about this, but what else am I going to do? It certainly has calmed me down! Maybe, if you do that sort of thing and you think of it, you'll say a little one for me too?

Perspective

One of the pages in the Designing With Calendar has a page that talks about getting a different perspective when taking your photos. I was messing around with the babies yesterday (shocker, I know) and had the camera near by. Scooby will let me take as many pictures of him as I want, so I kept the perspective idea in mind as I started shooting. Of course, Mimi's a little brat and either runs away from the camera and hides or gets as close to it as possible and then tries to cuddle with me. She used to love the camera, but not so much any more. I think it's the flash.

Absence makes the heart...

Yeah, right! You've been missing me, haven't you? Go on, admit it! Well, May was simply crazy for me. I started out the month by going to Pella, Iowa for Tulip Time with my mom. I got to see two of my very dearest friends, Andi and Kristina. Oh, how I love the time of the tulips! First of all, there are tulips EVERYWHERE. Need I say more? After living in Pella for 4 years of college and in the Netherlands, tulips are my all time favorite flower. You wanna get on my good side? Give me tulips!

And then there are the poffertjes. The what? The poffertjes. It's pronounced paf-ert-chas. Don't listen to those crazy Pella-ites; they pronounce it puffer-gees. I'm what you might call a connesieur of poffertjes. I love them! They are little Dutch pancakes. They're like silver dollar pancakes. Only they're the best. They're better than pancakes. And they put powdered sugar on them. Mmmmmm.......yum! They're just so darned good. In fact, I love them so much, I bought my own poffertje making pan and of course, the mix for the batter. The best part is, the batter box is in Dutch, so they translated it into English and printed it out on stick-on-labels and stuck it on the back of the box. Too funny! Let's also not forget the ever-present meat on a stick, which was accompanied this year by chicken on a stick. You MUST have an egg roll along with the meat on a stick! Then, there's the brats and grilled chicken sandwhiches. Oh, and the Bakery. Mmmmm.....Jaarsma's bakery. It's been on the square in Pella forever, and they make the best pastries. I mean, really yummy! I had a couple of raspberry almond tarts. Oh my yum! I was totally fascinated with the windmill cake they had in the window! I didn't weigh in for Weight Watchers the Monday after! By the way, yes, I do make a habit of taking pictures of my food!

Speaking of food, I love cheese. Really, I LOVE cheese. All different kinds. I think my love affair with cheese became full-fledged when I lived in the Netherlands. You just can't avoid it. And, there are so many different kinds. You have to try them all. And they're all so good (okay, except Limburger cheese - yuck). I actually bought the aforementioned poffertje pan in the Ulrich's meat market on the Pella Square where they also specialize in cheese. Lots of cheese. Cheese from the Netherlands, Windmill shaped cheese, and my favorite.....cheese curds. Oh my! I couldn't get enough! How I love the cheese curds. I don't understand why they don't sell them here, but I can't ever find them. I almost made myself sick on cheese curds and poffertjes!

We somehow managed to tear ourselves away from the Tulip time food and went to Des Moines for dinner. I convinced Andi and my mom that we HAD to eat at the Cheesecake Factory. Mom was wary. But, I convinced her, and then managed to convince her that we needed the Tamale Cakes appetizer and to share the Chicken Mediera. She was still skeptical, but after all was said and done, she'd been brought over to the dark side! I can't get over how wonderful their food is. I remember the first time I went to one, fab cheesecake, regular food not so hot. It's not the same now! I can't wait to go back. In fact, I'm a little insenced that there a Cheesecake Factory in Des Moines (a significantly smaller city than Tulsa) and not one in Tulsa. What the heck? It's driving me to distratction. I've been trying to figure out where they could put one here, and just heard there's a new shopping mall coming in. Maybe there's hope?

The rest of May just flew by. Mom did her first expo ever! She'd been to tons of HR/Training related ones, but this time she was an exhibitor. I can't even begin to express my pride in her! There were doubts and dilemmas, and she pushed through and did it, and is already seeing good results. What a rockin' gal she is! She even had personalized bottled water for the shindig. She had to borrow Chris' SUV to drive to Norman and pick it up. Five hundred bottles of water in the back of a car make some very odd sounds!

Spring has definitely sprung here, and really, we're already in the Fires of Hell Heat (quoting Glenn Beck)  that is summer in Oklahoma. It seemed like we didn't really have much spring here - went straight to HOT. It was definitely making me wonder about moving to the Pacific Northwest. I actually have plants this year! I planted some bulbs in early April, and several of my Cannas are already peaking their pretty heads. Unfortunately, the sweet little "babies" have already torn up on. Brats. Mom and I even planted flowers in front of our fence. I'm really impressed with us! We also have pots hanging over fence. Alas, they're still empty! Our neighbor keeps threatening to fill them up for us. He says I'll come home one day and they'll have stuff in them.

A new strip mall opened up this month. It's along the Arkansas River and is actually in Jenks, not Tulsa (across the river from Tulsa). It's very cool. Lots of yummy restaurants and fabulous stores. There's an ampitheater (kinda small if you ask me) where they'll have concerts every Friday night. I've already been taking everyone I know over there. Love it, love it, love it! We've become addicted to the pizza at Gina & Guiseppe's Italian diner. We even took our friends Rachel and Josh there for dinner. We're talking good stuff! Last Friday was the Grand Opening and there were over 3000 people there! Let's not get me started on the fact that this is located in Jenks (along with the Okahoma Aquarium) and there is NO river development in Tulsa. No, we won't go there.

Mimi and Scooby got their hair cut. This seems to be happening less and less frequently. Mimi looked like a veritable Ewok by the time they went. She was kinda cute, though...all scruffy looking. After I pick them up, I usually go by my mom's. The groomer is in Jenks, and she's on the way. A couple of years ago I got this amazing picture of Scooby laying on the floor at mom's right after he got groomed. I liked it so much that I blew it up and put it in a cool frame and gave it to Chris for a birthday present. I've been dying to get a similar picture of Mimi so that we can hang them side by side. Here's a surpise.....Mimi won't cooperate. I love her to pieces, but man is she like me! When she's had enough, she's had enough, and I end up with all of the pictures of her giving me coy dirty looks. Little brat! But, on the bright side, I did get yet another stellar picture of Scooby! He's so darn photogenic (yes, I'm talking about a dog here.....yes, I'm sick...it's okay, I know it).

But, Mimi does have her moments! I won't kid ya about it! She can be so stinking cute! She has officially become a little fashionista. Yep, it's true. Isaac Mizrahi has started selling doggie goodies at Target including clothes. I've always pointed out the dog clothes and talked about them, but mainly just because I know how it irks Chris. He really sees no point in clothes for dogs. (really, do little black dogs in 90 degree heat need more layers?) But, they had this darling little pink polo shirt and oh, how I wanted it for Mimi. Chris refused. He rarely refuses anything, so I said OK. Target sold out of the cutie shirts, and I thought that was the end of it. But no! They got them back in. And, they had one that was pink and orange striped. Okay, it was totally meant to be. I promptly paraded Chris through the Target and showed him. He wasn't so overjoyed. But, I can be quite convincing when I want to. I think Scooby's jealous. Maybe he needs the solid pink one?

I am currently in a Circle Journal group, and I am loving it! A group of people get together and each one buys a journal, comes up with a theme, scrapbooks the first few pages of the journal (usually with a page telling what the journal is about and laying down the grounds rules, a sign in page, and her entry into the journal) and sends it off. It's akin to a chain letter or a  round robin. Each person scrapbooks her entry when she receives the book and then sends it off to the next person and so on until each person gets her journal back. I did two entries in May. I'm really loving this. I'm usually really really bad about actually doing things like this and getting them out in the mail. While I've been a couple of days late a couple of times, I've actually done it, and am actually pretty darn proud of myself. I've been loving the work I'm doing in these journals, which also just isn't like me! Maybe I'm turning over a new leaf here? Maybe I really am "Going with the flow" as Ali Edwards suggested at CKU-A!!

And finally, some gratuitous Tulip Time pictures!

Said the Vegetable Man...

I am seriously addicted to Beck right now.

We now have two Beck CDs in our car stereo. I just can't get enough. We got his new CD, Guero, last weekend, and Chris and I both are totally diggin' it! My favorite song on Guero is "Que Onda Guero". How can you not love a song that starts out with the lyrics, "Said the Vegetable Man in the Vegetable Van with a horn honking like a mariachi band." Classic. I decided a few weeks ago that I completely missed out on Beck. I remember the first song of his I heard...."Loser" (better known as "I'm A Loser Baby"). I can picture it like it was yesterday. I was in high school and was the Party Pic girl at a middle school dance held in the rec area of a church. There were chairs lining the walls and these brace-faced little kids acting like they were too cool to dance. And, the DJ played Loser. I'm sure it was just for us "older" folks, but it definitely made the whole night (well, really it was late afternoon). Isn't it amzaing how we relate our memories to music?

Heretofore, My favorite Beck song of all time is "Where It's At" (you probably know it as "Two Turntables and a Microphone"). I love that song. It totally rocks. I've always been a fan, but I've never been very good at buying CDs and really enjoying the music. A few weeks ago, I decided that even though I missed out when the CD (Odelay) came out 8 years ago, what's stopping me from enjoying it now? We were at Target one day, and they had it for $9.99. It's been playing in the car ever since!

We got a couple of other CDs this week. Jack Johnson and a new Dave Matthews Band (at Starbucks, no less!). Wow! I just looked at the DMB CD on Amazon, and it just came out on the 10th. Look at me, I'm on top of things. You could almost call me cool! Oh, and something from Granian. I don't know which CD Chris bought (Amazon), but I love their sound. I'm surprised Chris does, all of these are a little mellow for him. It's okay, I'll take it! Now all I need is an Ipod!

Paper Addict

It's true, I love paper. Love it, love it, love it! I just can't get enough paper. I really must own it all. You never know what I might need, right? Yesterday, Simply Scrapbooks in Claremore had their annual "Paper By The Pound" sale. I missed the first one (didn't even know they'd had a first one), and knew I HAD to go to this year's iteration.

Problem......I thought it was Saturday. So, after the super successful Scrapbook Garage Sale at Scrapbooks Galore, I headed out to Claremore with one of my friends. It was a glorious day, so we took the back roads through the country to Route 66 with the top down and relished the wind in our hair. Fort-five minutes later, we were there. Only they were just setting up. Oops! Guess I read that email wrong!!! We bought nothing with the promise of our return!!

Jump ahead to Sunday. We were the first in line. Somewhat sick, huh? We left my house at 11:30 to be sure we were the first in line at 1:00 when they opened (with the requisite Taco Bueno pit stop). When they opened the doors, we made a bee line for the earth tone cardstock and KI papers. I thought maybe I'd buy a pound or two of paper. HA! I ended up with 16 pounds. That's a lot of paper. Then, I had to come home and tell Chris that I had to write a check because I didn't have enough cash! Thank goodness for the Garage Sale the day before! Now I just have to figure out how to pay for the Iowa trip this week!

Tenika's Challenge

So, I came to this one a little late, but check out my masterpiece!!!

Dear Adidas....

*warning - more graphic pics*

Dear Adidas,

If it ain't broke, don't screw it up. I'm an Adidas loyalist. I wear their Supernova Cushion (size 11) running shoes almost exclusively (let's not discuss that little Nike Shox foray). For some reason, running shoe manufacturers find it necessary to update their shoes year after year. The Supernova Cushion was awesome last year. Just perfect. So, of course, they had to tweak them and "make improvements" on this year's model. Still and awesome shoe, except.......they included a this waffle weave construction on the top of the insole.

Thursday, we were in the OK panhandle and I forgot my socks. So, I went running sockless. I figured it wouldn't feel fabulous, but no big deal. Right? Yeah, right! It completely tore my feet up. It's Sunday now, and I still can barely walk. We're talking serious pain here. I have huge blisters on the bottom of my arches. Not a fab place for blisters.

I've never heard of shoes you can't run sockless in.......ever. It's super common for people to run without socks (we won't even begin to discuss the stink eminating from those shoes). Needless to say, Adidas is going to be getting letters/emails from me! What were they thinking? Maybe this is just another case of people who don't actually use the product designing it?