Weekend!!

This weekend we went up north. It was a fun trip!! I got to see Sandy and Laura, who came over to scrapbook on Sunday. That was a blast!! Although, I think I am in trouble, because I showed them new tools and such. On Saturday the girlies and I took some pictures. I only got two of them resized, etc, but here they are.

Julie on the tractor:

Susan:

For the photo scavenger hunt that I am doing on XLC (the video gaming board) that I go on, there are 25 categories that I need to take pictures of by the end of September. Sue's picture I entered into the "Pop Culture" category. I thought that fit there well. As I get pictures for the categories, I will be posting them here.

So far today, no word on the job. I'm praying I hear soon. I'm having a hard time being patient. I want to know either way. Now I will go back to waiting, lol. :)

Friday

Wow, with all of the flood and the busy week this week, I haven't really updated.

I got baptized on Saturday, August 18. It was an amazing experience. I have pictures, but haven't uploaded them yet. Everyone was so happy for me, and it was so nice to see some members of the church come out and attend the baptism. There is so much that I want to tell, the music, the prayers, the speakers, everything. Right now though, my mind is too fuzzy and I'm too tired.

On Wednesday the missionaries called me and asked if they could come out on Friday. It was a whirlwind pick up of the house and get ready. Usually it's the missionaries and one other person, but tonight it was just the missionaries. They asked how things were going, how my reading was going, and how life was going. Surprisingly, I opened up and shared a few things that I had been praying about and that have been going on. I don't know why I opened up, but they shared some scriptures that meant a lot to me. I can't tell you how much it meant to me, having an outside view on things. I have tears in my eyes, just thinking about it now.

On Monday I had my design team interview at TJ's. I am now officially on the design team, just doing altered stuff. YAY! I'm so excited. :) I can't wait to see what they give me to play with and use. It might not be every month, and I might end up teaching a class, which is fine. I have finally accepted that my knack for altered stuff is a gift as people have referred to it. One lady at work said that it is wonderful that I am going to be able to share my gift with others. You know what, that is an amazing thing to me. I have a gift, it is something I enjoy doing, and even though I don't think it's much, others do. I am so happy to have something creative that I can call my gift.

On Wednesday I had my interview for the Teaching Assistant position open at work. Before going in to the interview, I prayed that I would be able to clear and concise in my speaking, that my thoughts would come out clearly, and that I would be relaxed and be myself, and that the Heavenly Father would be there with me, helping along. I walked in, and I felt so confident and knew that it was Him guiding me. I really think the interview went ok, but I'm not 100% positive. I mean even if I did great at the interview, someone else might have more experience, etc. It's in God's hands. Whatever is His will, will happen. I trust in the Lord. I am much more relaxed after the interview now. I can only wait and see. I should know something in the next couple weeks.

I have pictures of some thank you cards that I made for the people that spoke and helped with my baptism. They are on my computer, but I'm just too lazy to crop, edit, and fix the colors right now. They will be posted soon.

Jason and I are going to head up north this weekend. We are leaving when he is done with work. On Sunday Sandy and Laura are coming over to Ma's to scrapbook. I am so looking forward to that. I've packed what seems to be half of my scrapbook room, lol. Waaaay too much stuff, but I don't know what exactly I'm going to work on.

On XLC, the xbox message board I go to, we are going to do a photography scavenger hunt. Basically there will be a list of things that we have to take pictures of and then we will post them on our Flickr! group. I am so looking forward to this. I love taking pictures and need to get better and more comfortable with my camera. I will be sure to post the pics here, or at least link ya to mine. :)

Anyway, I should probably go, finish packing, and head to bed and get a bit of sleep before we leave. :)

Flood Scare

I have so much to blog about. My baptism, all the rain we've been getting, and so much more. Since I just uploaded pictures, I will do the flood first.

On Sunday morning (August 19), I got up at 6:45ish to get ready for church, and noticed the answering machine blinking. I knew that it couldn't be a good thing that the machine was blinking. Who calls in the middle of the night unless it's bad? It was an automated message saying that Cascade Creek and Silver Lake Creek are expected to go over their banks and to be prepared to evacuate. I went and looked out the window and YIKES, I could see water from the house. We can *never* see water from the house, so I knew it wasn't a good sign. I knew that right away I wasn't going to go to church, and that we needed to get prepared. I called Ma, to let her know what was going on (sorry Ma for waking you up so early!) and left a message with the missionaries, since I was supposed to meet with the pastor after church and their number was the one that I had handy. I explained very briefly what was going on. Jason and I hopped in the shower really quick, and the missionaries called back. They offered assistance, and church members assistance to get stuff moved, but I declined. Jason and I have such a small house, and limited room to move stuff to, that we just did it. It meant so much to me that they offered their help. Jason and I started moving all of the electronics and everything we could upstairs or to higher ground. I started to pack a weeks worth of clothes, including work clothes for the two of us, and we just kept going. All of my scrapbooks got moved upstairs, I insisted that the pictures go in the car with us. I didn't trust to leave them in the house. I have waaaay too much scrapping stuff, so I only emptied the bottom foot of everything and moved it up higher. We packed a little bit of food, and went to the gas station and filled up with gas. We went to stop back at the house and the missionaries were there. They wanted to know if there was anything they could do, they said that they could have people over here sandbagging, and everything if we wanted to. I said that we moved all we could, and that everything else was replaceable. They insisted that we call them if we needed anything. Jason and I then headed out to his parents house half an hour away.

{Note: click on any pic to make them bigger}

To give you a perspective. I'm standing on the very edge of the bridge looking towards the house. Our house is the one with the reddish/orange shutters peeking out from behind the tree. The creek is directly across the street from our house.

This series of pics are taken at about 8:11 a.m. (or so my camera says). I will tell you again when the time changes.

With your back to the house this is looking left down the bike path.

With your back to the house this is looking right towards the bike path. (Ma, to the right is where the park is.

After lunch at his parents house, we really wanted to get back and see how things were. It had been misting off and on at their house, so we were hopeful that things would be fine at home.

TIME CHANGE: 2:02 p.m.

With your back to the house, looking right (both pictures). (I forgot to take some looking left! There was no water left on the bike path though, just sludge stuff.)

At this point we hadn't been in the house. Jason unplugged all of the fuses and everything in case water got in, it would just short everything out. Our hot water heater and furnace are located downstairs in the basement. When Jason opened the walk way to get down there, this is what we saw. YIKES! Thankfully that was as bad as it was. Near as we could tell, we didn't even get water in the basement, with the dirt floor and everything. It looks like some water just pooled in the stairway and then went down. We are so thankful!! Needless to say everything worked just fine, perfect!!

TIME CHANGE: 7:36 p.m.

We also walked to the right, as far as we could go (not far) just to the bridge. It was still under water. The second picture is a close up of the weeds caught in the railing.

TIME CHANGE: 7 a.m. on August 20.

Things are getting back to normal!!! YAY!!! Notice you can see the storm grate thingys. :) :) :)

I can't tell you how thankful Jason and I are. I was so worried that the house would flood, as it had back in 1978. I can't tell you how much I prayed and prayed, not just for us, but for everyone effected by this in the area. Other areas had it SO VERY much worse. I am so blessed and thankful that we didn't have to replace anything, and that we had no water at all in the house. I was surprised at how calm I was too. I knew what had to get done and Jason and I worked together great to get it done. It was a real eye opening experience for us. With the missionaries coming over and calling me back, I knew they cared. It felt wonderful that if needed, I would have church members over helping us out if we did flood. That put such a relief on me. I'm getting all teary eyed thinking about it again. Being so far away from my family, sometimes it's hard, I know Jason's parents would come over if we needed anything as well, but just knowing that the missionaries and thus the church were there if I needed anything, anything at all was an amazing feeling.

Oh, and we are calling for flood insurance today. We kept meaning to and never did, put it off, and just never did it. Jason called this afternoon and they said that they can't issue any new flood insurance policies for about a month, but they will call us when they can.

Layout!

I actually scrapbooked last night. Actually it was digi scrappin, but it still counts. I've had this layout floating around in my head for a while, and wanted to get it down. I had fun playing with everything. It's simple, which is my style. :)


















The journaling reads:

Growing up I remember saying this prayer with Grandma Nelson before going to bed. One of my most cherished memories. I forgot all about this simple child’s prayer until one day at church, we were talking about the importance of praying with children and it came flooding back to me. Thank you Grandma for praying with me. I now realize how important it was. This will be one of the first prayers I teach my children.

I <3 Photoshop!

I've been playing around in PSE a bit more, and I'm finally getting somewhere with it. Even though I'm pretty much using the default options, I'm feeling more comfortable in there. Now I know that these pics could be better, since I'm no expert, but I think I did a good job.

Before:














After:














Ma, what year was this picture taken? I know we were up north camping, Hungry Jack Lodge maybe?? Was this the same year I got bit by the duck?

Picture share!

*Note, keep scrolling down, the spacing got all funky and I can't fix it.*

Here are some pictures that I have taken recently. Nothing extraordinaire. All of these are taken right from the camera with no adjustments at all. Except re-sizing.

This is a flower that bloomed in the yard! We have never seen one like this before! And no, we didn't plant it. It's not the best picture since I took it one morning after it rained, and I had my heels on for work and was sinking into the ground. Don't mind the blurriness. :)













The last time we went up north, the end of July, Sandy and Laura came over to Ma's house! We had a blast catching up. Here is Sandy and her son Matthew!












Then this is Laura and Matthew!























These next pictures might not appeal to everyone, but I thought they were cool. Jason and left to go up north about 2:30 a.m. and got up there just about dawn. I grabbed my camera, forgetting that Jeff at the scrapbook store set up my camera with to ISO 100, and played with some of my other settings. Most of my pictures turn out GREAT now that he set it. He is amazing with cameras/photographs. Anyway, these are the results, I did play with the ISO a bit in the car, and was having a blast. None of the pictures are clear as we were flying down the freeway at 70 miles an hour, and I was just snapping away. I do like how they turned out. Don't know if I'm going to print any of them or not. I think I will, just because I'm curious in how they will print.

Random Updates & The Tote Bag

It feels like forever since I gave a real update. Not that there's much to update on, but it's been a while since I've blogged. I have a ton of pictures to post and share and everything. I even got them uploaded to photobucket. Just haven't posted them. I even have ideas on what to blog about, just haven't done it. I will try to keep this short and not a massive book, but who knows what will happen. I'm in the mood to write.


I will start with updates first. I had my phone interview on Monday, August 6. I'm not sure how it went. I think it went ok, but I think I may have talked too much. They basically gave me an overview of the position, asked me why I was interested in the job, why I'm well suited for the position, and asked about my software skills. They only questioned if I had experience using Visio and Adobe. Both of which I do. I should hear sometime next week if I'm getting a formal interview or not. If so, those are taking place the week of August 20.


Design Team update. Thinking back, I don't even know if I have even blogged about that. Anyway, I applied for the design team at my LSS (local scrapbooking store) after they asked if I was going to apply. They are thinking that they are going to start calling people next week to interview for that. I'm getting really good vibes there, so I think I got that, but who knows for sure. :)


I made a decision that I am going to for sure do the craft fair here at work. It's a HUGE craft fair and I'm nervous about it, but I figure what do I have to lose? I have to pay $30 for each table. (I'm getting 2-8 foot long tables.) I figure I will make up a bunch of stuff and if it doesn't sell, then I'm going to put it on Etsy or give it away as gifts. I have some stuff right now that I should put up on Etsy. Church. I'm getting baptized on August 18. I'm excited and nervous about it, but I'm looking forward to it. It's kinda weird, I never thought I would be excited about going to church on Sunday or meeting with the missionaries, but I enjoy it. I can't believe how much I have changed for the better since I've started going and meeting with them. I'm really truly happy. It's amazing. I've met some great people too. Looking forward to get to know them better.


The Tote Bag.





















It's a beautiful bag, is it not? I bought the pattern, fabric, and everything I needed at Hobby Lobby. After the cost of everything, it would have been cheaper to just put a bag, but I wanted to say that I made it. Plus I need to get better at sewing, I do enjoy it, but don't always do it.


Anyway, I starting cutting the pieces out, and I got confused. I completely read the pattern through and looked at pictures to see if I could figure it out and I couldn't. Now, I like to think that I'm a pretty good reader and a good follower of directions. (Just don't ask Ma her opinion on that.) I mean, heck, I sewed an apron complete with ties and pink trim and everything. I was proud of myself for doing that. (I'm just not going to tell you that that pattern was a sewing for dummies pattern.) The tote bag pattern was a Simplicity pattern. Should be easy right?
Now back to the story. (By the way, yes, you are getting the Nelson version of the story, so enjoy all the twists and turns along the way. Here, have some chocolate in case this gets too long.)



Of course when you having trouble cooking, a cleaning question, a plumbing question, a sewing question, who do you call? No not Ghostbusters silly, you call Ma of course! I explained my dilemma and said that I was so lost and totally confused if the next time we come up north if I could bring my "stuff" if she could help me out. I didn't even want to attempt it over the phone. Of course being the cool Ma she is, she says yes.


I load up all my pins, thread, fabric, notions, sewing machine, everything that I might need to sew this bag and bring it on up. Ma looks at the tote bag and says that it shouldn't take too long. I explain where I'm confused at, and it was really stupid too, I was thinking too hard on that one and finish cutting everything out.


Every single step, I have to ask Ma what something means. How in the world did she figure out that when it says this to do that? Well by looking at the picture. I'm feeling like the world's biggest dork. Can't even read a pattern.


Then the pattern starts to get even more confusing. Ma has to re-read a TON of stuff. I decide to simplify the pattern by not doing the inside pocket with a zipper, the pencil holders, etc. Nothing fancy, just a cute bag to carry my books in to and from church, since I seem to be getting more and more that I have to bring with me. :)


We realize that the pattern makes no sense to either of us!! It never tells us to put the lining in the purse, to do the handles, and various other things. Ma ended up sewing 90% of the purse, since she put the pattern away and went to town.


In the end I got a beautiful tote bag that I can say my mommy made it for me. :) Instead of a couple hours to do it, it took half the day on Saturday and part of the day on Sunday. Once again, Ma to the rescue. Even though I'm 24, married, my mommy still made a bag for me. She must love me. :) She asked if I wanted that pattern back and I said no way. She was going to write the company since the pattern left out parts of the process.


I brought up other patterns that weekend to, incase I wanted to start something else. I didn't, but I read the directions to the patterns and looked at the pictures and they seemed to make sense to me. They were Simplicity patterns too. Not even Sewing Patterns for Dummies. I'm moving up in the world. :)



Biblicalwomanhood.com is having a sale this week. I bought this book there. I figure that should help me out with sewing and figuring out terms.

Hopefully I will post pictures and more soon. I will try to do better updating. :)

Happy Anniversary!!

Wow, 4 years ago today Jason and I got married. I can't believe it has been that long. It seems like it was just yesterday that we got married.




























I feel that Jason and I are so much stronger and closer as a couple than we were before. We have grown so much together. Although, we have been told that we still act like newlyweds!! Hopefully that never goes away. :)

Jason, I love you so much and am looking forward to spending many, many, many more years with you. Happy anniversary baby!!