this little life of mine

It's time to renew my driver's license. le sigh. I guess I shouldn't complain, though. It's been a really long time since I got my California driver's license; long enough that instead of just mailing in my renewal fees, or renewing online, I had to go in to the DMV for an eye exam, fingerprinting and - *shudders* - a new photo. I tried unsuccessfully to have this all done Tuesday when I already had to drive over to SLO for a doctor appointment (optometrist; exam went quite well, actually!!). Unfortunately, the DMV camera was down and they wouldn't renew my license without a new picture, so I ended up having to drive again Wednesday (sucks!! i hate driving!!). I stopped by the DMV after my other doctor appointment (rheumatologist; this appointment also went quite well), and luckily their camera was fixed so I was able to get it all done. And my wait was actually only about 15 - 20 minutes!

(Festive winter border by picnik.com. Note the TV monitor showing the numbers of the customers being served at that time. It's actually a really efficient system they have at the SLO DMV! I was very impressed!)

(Nail polish is "Wicked" by essie.)  

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read

2. Open to a random page

3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week is from page 106 of The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman. I actually finished this book last night, but it's so good, I had to share a little bit of it. As usual, I'm cheating and including more thant two sentences. Many more. I have no excuse, except that it's hard to find only two:

Tears started again in Honor's eyes. "Why can't you just follow the rules?" she demanded.

Her father whispered, "The question is - whose rules?"

"What do you mean, whose rules? Her rules."

"Is she your parents?" Will asked Honor. "Does she tuck you in at night? You have a mother. You have a father. We're the ones who raise you; we're the ones who love you. Don't forget."

 

Here's another of the hand-stamped Christmas cards I made this year, and probably one of the simplist. All the stamps are by Stampa Barbara and were simply stamped on a plain white card and coloured in with pencil. I used two different sizes of hole punches and some scrap paper to make the circle "border". Enjoy! 

Friday afternoon we had our annual Toys for Tots party at work. It wasn't as big as years past, but everyone who participated had a great time and there are some awesome gifts for some lucky little kids in our community.

We like to make a game out of it: we get a name of one of our co-workers and a random age (example: Lisa, age 13), and we're supposed to find a toy/game/gift, etc. we think they would've played with at that age. It makes shopping for the gift a lot of fun, and seeing what everyone gets is fun, too!

 We all pretty much fell in love with this adorable stuffed horse.  I know of at least four girls who wanted to take it home, myself included!

The person who got my name (not sure of the age; it didn't say on the tag) did a great job picking out a gift for me: paperback copies of Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse and a couple little books on the hunky stars of the Twilight and New Moon films!!

Cheers!

(Totally awesome special effects and holiday borders by picnik.com.) 

Here's another of the Christmas Card designs I made this year. I used scraps of decorative paper to cover the front of a plain, white card, Open Alphabet stamps from Stampa Barbara to make the word "JOY", and an angel from Acey Ducey. I don't have a snowflake punch, so I just used a flower one I have to punch a design through the solid colour paper so the pattern from the layered paper below it would show through. It's sort-of snowflake-looking, I think.

I haven't been doing my monthly resolutions (originally started by Kim) lately - quite frankly, I've been forgetting to do them.

1.  Work out four days per week - no skipping! This should be relatively easy, really since I picked up a third day with my trainer already, so I'll just be responsible for getting myself to Kennedy one (possibly two) day(s)! (The fifth day is reserved for manicures/pedicures/haircuts/shopping/etc., and weekends are already booked with family stuff, home-ownership responsibilities, football watching and naps!)

2.  Read eight books. I'll post a list soon.

3.  Take 10 new photographs. I think out of the five, this will be the one I fail miserably at.

4.  Try three new recipes. I got the new issue of Clean Eating magazine last week and have only tried one recipe from Make it Fast, Cook it Slow, so I just need to sit down and write down what ingredients I need to buy and get started!

5.  Resist the temptation to gorge on delicious holiday treats. "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels!" I need to repeat that mantra in my head when I see all the wonderful, yummy cookies, fudge, candie, cakes, etc., that will be appearing in the office every day from now until the first of the year. 

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read

2. Open to a random page

3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week is from The Maze Runner by James Dashner. So far it's a very exciting, adrenaline-rush of a book! Enjoy!

Thomas thought about the Runners and the maps. Could the Maze really be so massively huge that even after two years they still hadn't found a way out?

It's been a long time since I updated my photo Art Wall. I didn't think I had any photos worth printing up and displaying. In fact I hadn't even taken any good pictures for some time. I've actually been feeling kind of discouraged at my lack of creativity.  But as I reveiwed my pictures from this past year for my upcoming Best of 2009 phot entry, I discovered some pictures from a couple recent vacations to Cambria and Avila Beach that proved worthy.  I realizaed that great photos aren't going to come to me, I have to go to them. I'm making "hunting for photos" a goal for December, and beyond.