Today Joe and I celebrate four years together. Four. long. years….hah! I kid! Really I feel cheated that I only get to tell everyone that we’ve been together for four years. It feels like we’ve been hanging out together for much longer. Despite my general whinyness, he’s put up with me like a champ. He’s always trying to make life easier for me when I really don’t deserve it. For example, I called him today in the middle of a nervous breakdown because I couldn’t for the life of me understand how to work my new film camera and couldn’t complete my photography class assignment. Today was my last day to complete the roll of film and what little light left was quickly fading away. It had been raining all week, making completing my assignment extra annoying. I don’t know why, but the combination of not being able to see if my pictures turned out and knowing that those snotty photography majors in my class will get to witness whether they turned out at the same time as me is just highly frustrating. If you knew me, you’d know when I get frustrated, I like to give up and avoid the trouble altogether. Well, Joe took off of work early and rushed home to explain to this frantic loon what the relationship of the F-stop and shutter speed were (can you believe that I really wasn’t that sure?) and supervised me while I took dorky pictures of whatever I could find that was nearest a window, like that lamp in the picture above. How can he put up with me? And how lucky am I to have him? Super duper lucky.    I love you, Monkey.

Just wanted to pop in and say that all is well in our camp. We had a good New Year’s Eve with Erin. We played Rock Band on Joe’s new PS3 and had a great round of Trivial Pursuit (I came in last place as usual, but I did my best yet!). I’m sure the neighbors were glad to hear clanking drums and singing that was closer to a cat in heat than any song the game was having us sing. I really should not have been singing in the first place, but I also have a cold, so not only was I off key, I was nasally!

We are still battling ants, but they haven’t been near as bad as the Christmas tree episode. Despite the ant problem this winter, living in this home the past year has been great. We hope 2008 will be even better. I believe this is the first place that really feels like home since I’ve moved away from my family. I have a nice kitchen with enough cups, mugs and plates to go around. I have extra blankets to curl up on the couch with and enough yarn to last me until well into 2009. Oh yeah, and I still get to live with my favorite person- Joe!

I hope you all have a fantastic year (maybe even complete a few of those New Year’s Resolutions, but you know, no pressure!).

It has been almost one year since I unwrapped my Gocco machine for Christmas and last night was my first time putting it to use. I’d constantly think of possible designs to print, but nothing ever seemed good enough and really, I never had a good enough reason to use it. Not until now.

Joe has completed his Masters project on cryptographic hash functions and we are due for a graduation party on the 21st of this month. Usually we wouldn’t bother with invitations, most of our get-togethers are just close friends and relatives. We just call them up and say ‘hey, come over! we have food!’ and that usually does the trick. Now though, a bit classier type of people (by classier I mean, Joe knows them on a professional basis only.) will be on the invite list, so we needed something more official.

I began my search for invitations on Etsy and found some cool silkscreened IBM punch cards. They weren’t really meant to be invitations, but I showed Joe and he suggested we just make our own. I thought ‘ooh! a chance to use my Gocco!’. So 15 minutes later, we had ordered a stack of old IBM punch cards from eBay. Last night Joe finally made me pull out the Gocco and get to work, but I had no idea what I was doing. The Gocco instruction manual wasn’t the greatest help. Thanks to Joe for figuring absolutely everything out, we managed to come up with some pretty cool invitations.

We used a pretty tree design from the classic computer science manual- Donald Knuth’s The Art of Computer Programming and an old school typewriter font for the design. We only had three colors to choose from for the Gocco machine, so we stuck with black, which ended up being fine. I like it’s simplicity.

The party is drawing nearer and I’m hoping to get the living room painted, tree up and decorated (along with the rest of the house) before then. On top of that, my grandmother calls today telling me the family is driving up to visit this weekend. Not that I’m not psyched about that, but there goes some precious painting time! Maybe I can enlist my family to be my paint crew?

Halloween is already here and I’ve not prepared at all. I still have no candy to pass out, not even a carved pumpkin in sight! What’s new?

Oh yes, did I tell you that I am back from Montreal? No, I didn’t? Well, I am.

Well, did I tell you about the most wonderful fado concert that I attended and sat third row center? Nuh uh, you say?

Or that I’m so very very close to completing that hooded baby blanket? No?! I’m really behind.

I’m sorry. I really did have two whole posts written out and lost them both. Really, I swear. No, really!

Joe has been away this week in Anaheim for a work conference and I have the whole house to myself! You better believe the wild parties I’ve been throwin’. Well, there will be cookie baking with Erin tomorrow and the passing out of candy…oh and old scary movie watching! That counts as a wild party right? Oh yeah, get the word out: “Taryn will be passing out full size candy bars tomorrow night”. Last year we got a grand total of two trick-or-treaters, so this year we are trying to bribe more ghoulies into coming to say hello. Parents will hate us, I’m sure, but anything to win the kid’s hearts and minds right?

I’ll be back with more on Montreal and the fado concert soon…I think.

My computer is mysteriously shutting itself down at random. I had written an account of our recent trip to England last night, it was just about finished. I am slightly annoyed at losing the post, because it took me a while to write, but to tell you the truth, it wasn’t very good. So in that sense, I’m not sorry to see it go.

The trip itself was both good and bad. I was expecting the weather to be less than wonderful, but it didn’t really hit me until we had to wander around trying to find our hotel in the rain. I breathed a sigh of relief as we stood in front of the hotel clerk, ready to check in. Only then did the rain begin to really beat down in a manner that is just mind boggling to a California native. It’s July people, the middle of summer and it’s cold, grey and pouring. I couldn’t wrap my brain around it.

We also couldn’t manage to get used to the streets running in the opposite direction. I was completely thankful for the big white painted letters on the crosswalks telling the pedestrian to look right or look left, because I swear I looked the wrong way every time.

Our first night we thought the British were completely mad. Our toilet in the first hotel we stayed in would not flush! It would gurgle for a bit and then give up. We tried holding the lever for a while. We tried pushing the lever down quickly…nothing. Joe reasoned that “well, we are in Europe and they tend to conserve more than we do. Maybe it’s just a hyper low-flow toilet”. But we both couldn’t manage to believe that.

Our shower also had about 30 seconds worth of heated water and had only one glass door when it should of had two. Again, we reasoned that we Americans are just used to wasting hot water and proceeded to make record time with the hair washing.

Luckily, it turned out that we weren’t crazy and the Brits weren’t mad (well, not that much…but who isn’t a little bonkers?). We finally figured out that the toilet lever took a very precise amount of pressure to flush correctly. It took skill.

And the shower problem came down to the fact that we failed to read their information on water temp. and didn’t turn up the water heater.

The half glass door in the shower, on the other hand, was meant to be that way. I guess it was just an attempt to be modern and cool, but really it just left me cold and the bathroom floor wet.

One thing that was very strange was that I had a very hard time talking like an American there. I’d keep popping out words with a slight British accent. I had to really pay attention to the way I spoke, so I wouldn’t embarrass myself with a half American/ half battered British accent. It wouldn’t take living there long at all for me to develop an accent. Funny how that works, and even funnier that Joe has no idea why I had such a hard time with that. I don’t really know either.

We didn’t really get to do much of anything. Most of our time was swallowed up at the airport, train station, finding a hotel, finding food or sleeping (never did get over that time difference). The LUGRadio conference was a blast though. It was a mass of geeks and nerds from all over the world. We even made friends with a few wonderful people.

All in all, the trip had many crappy aspects, no denying that, but of course it had some good moments and those will be the ones that I’ll remember most.

Last night we had Joe’s oldest niece spend the night so she could go to “Take Your Kids to Work Day” with him today. Joe, as you may know, works as a computer programmer at Intel. I have no idea what activities they are doing right now, but I assume it’s similar to when I went to “TYKWD” at her age. I was about 11 when I got to go to my stepmom’s work at Raytheon. It was a blast. I got to see lasers in action, get dressed up in a clean suit and use microscopes. And the best part of all was that I got to go do all that while most of my classmates were in school. I guess they finally changed the date to June so that missing school wouldn’t be a problem. Boo!

I got up early this morning and made bacon and pancakes for them. Not something I regularly do for others, but it’s so much more rewarding having someone else eat and enjoy the breakfast I’ve made for a change. I think I’ll have to invite her over more often!

So since Joe wasn’t going to come home for lunch like he normally does, I ate a quick and light lunch (since we barely have a thing to eat here, it’s basically a foraged lunch. I really need to go to the grocery store today). It was varied and simple, but filled me up just fine. Crackers and pepper jack cheese, strawberries, herb salad, home brewed iced tea and a homemade chocolate chip/walnut/oatmeal cookie. Perfect! Who says you have to always whip up something fancy? I think I’m with Poco-Cocoa on this one!

Look what my sweet boyfriend surprised me with! A new mug from Luckymonkey’s Etsy shop!

Last week I was doing my usual Etsy browsing when I spotted that mug. I wanted it so badly, but I have so many mugs already, I couldn’t justify buying it for myself. I jokingly made a plea to Joe that he should buy me the mug for the upcoming public holiday, “Taryn Appreciation Day”. He just rolled his eyes and continued working at his desk.

Well, yesterday he got a package in the mail which isn’t that unusual, we both get some sort of package every week. I didn’t think too much about it, but then I was surprised to see him pull out the mug and hand it over to me. “Happy Taryn Appreciation Day”, he says.

Awww….I love him!

Monday was an event filled day. Although, I didn’t get much cleaning done. Are all the dishes cleaned from Saturday’s get together? Nope, not yet. I’ll get around to finishing up when I’m not doing something more fun. I picked up Erin from her work and took her to Midtown for lunch (it was her birthday! Happy Birthday Erin!) at Thai Basil (mmm…thai iced tea and veggie filled spring rolls!) and then after dropping her back off at work (boo work) I mosied around midtown for another hour or so. Bike shops, art supply shops, used books shops, antique shops, I browsed ‘em all. Then I made my way to Hina’s new tea shop. It’s really swanky and lounge-like. Much bigger than the old Folsom location (which closed down), but bummer it’s no longer five minutes away from me, it’s a good 30 minutes! So now we have to savor our bags of loose leaf tea.

When Joe got home from work I managed to talk him in to taking me to Lowe’s for some hardware supplies to hang up our floating Ikea shelves. Yes folks, I’m slowly but surely turning this house into a home (or I’m surpervising Joe who’s actually the one who’s turning this house into a home). So I got to watch Joe hang the shelves while I handed the screws and level, just like handing forceps to a surgeon. The shelves look so good! I’m still not sure about what exactly will go up there, but the shelves alone help the walls feel less bare. Next up, the picture frames.

***What’s been killing me is the complete lack of stylish (my kind of stylish at least) rugs for a reasonable price….anywhere. I can never commit to a big rug purchase, because my style changes so often. I can just picture it: a few months down the road I’ll hate whichever $400 (cheapest price for the size I’d like) rug I decided to buy. I’ll be better off choosing a solid color, but which color? I haven’t the foggiest.***

Oh! Right, I was telling you all about my day. I’ll just throw in that Joe and I joined Erin and Justin for a mean round of tennis tonight when the sun went down and the weather finally cooled off to the mid 80’s. There was plenty of ‘practice serve’ swinging, ankle popping, and face thwacking fun. I’m going to be feeling it in the morning.

I would have posted last night but I was wiped out. To celebrate International Knitting Day yesterday, I invited a few knitting buddies over for, of course, knitting, and some snacks. I went overboard as usual with the food and made too much. I really need to work on cutting back. I decided to try out some new recipes (although, isn’t there a rule about not doing that?) from a couple of cookbooks recently purchased. I made focaccia bread from The Bread Bible, shortbread cookies from Super Natural Cooking, and a chocolate & zucchini cake from Clotilde’s new C&Z cookbook. I had Joe cook the “nuggets of happiness” (so deemed by his coworkers) which consist of a small chunk of chicken and a slice of jalapeno wrapped in bacon, skewered and cooked on the bbq. Of course there was a much needed assortment of fruits and veggies because uh, meat and sweets can get a bit heavy on the stomach.

I was surprised that everything turned out pretty successfully. I think my favorite was the Ginger- Amaranth Shortbread from Heidi’s new cookbook, Super Natural Cooking. They were deemed after a taste test, a hybrid of shortbread and gingerbread cookies. We didn’t even get to the C&Z cake because it was just too much food. So I’m sending off a slice to Joe’s parents today (along with a few pieces of shortbread!) so it won’t all go to waste.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend!

I don’t get to spend it with my mom or grandma this year. I hope they still have a good day today. I wanted to post pictures from our family photo shoot a few weeks back, but unfortunately I haven’t gotten the pictures in the mail yet. So I’ll supplement with last year’s Mother’s Day photos and one of Joe’s mom that I love.

Just wanted to say thanks to all my moms, grand and the regular sorts and even the aunts who acted just as motherly, who took care of me while growing up (you too Brenda, thanks for all that food!)

Isn’t this black and white wonderful? I love it. It is a photo of Joe’s mom (Brenda) as a child with her brother and her mom. I love how her mom is a bit out of focus in the back, looking lovingly down at her kids (or maybe she is waiting for them to get in to trouble?). So sweet!

Thanks Mom, Grandma, Barb, Brenda and Aunt Ally! I love you all!