New Background!

Isn't this the cutest background ever?! Just click the little ad in the top left corner to see where I got it. My sister found the site and I must say I am charmed. I wish I knew enough about html/java to make my own... hm, my sister might...

Secretly, I like the green background with the girl just sitting the best, but I wanted something a little more Christmas-y. Next month, however... *evil grin.

P.S. The dishwasher really stopped working. I have a new one now. Yay!

P.P.S. The little girl character to the left looks akin to the Suzie Q. a friend of mine drew in high school. My friend was annoyed that four of us kept drawing little doodles on everything and that she a) didn't like to draw and b) didn't think she could. So she invented Suzie Q., a simple yet cute doodle that became her drawn signature. I have the only colored drawings of Suzie Q. They are signed and stored away for when my friend becomes famous and they are worth millions.

New Toy

I recently purchased a Wacom Bamboo Tablet. I love this thing. Below is the first presentable image I have created. She is called Rosaline and is a character in the comic I may or may not create in the more or less near future. The story is really choppy but has a complete story arch in bullet point draft (which is farther than most of my stories have ever gotten... okay, that's farther than any of my stories have gotten). I'm excited to see how the quality of my work improves.

New Blog of Note

While searching for a new bread recipe, I stumbled across The Simple Dollar.

I found it simply delightful. Written by Trent Hamm, the blog gives straightforward investment advice in layman's terms. Trent also gives tips on how to save and spend wisely and ways to DYI (such as the bread recipe). So far I am very impressed with how he explains the uses of money and treats the questions of his readers. The articles often strays from the bottom line and into the moral use of money. A perspective this Bachelor of Business Administration appreciates.

All grown up

'Real life' is interesting. It's strangely... routine. And they said it would be scary and different :P It's interesting because it's both, except the scary part. We've simply been put in the roles our parents were in. You know, they paid the bills, fixed the car, went to work, cooked, cleaned, were in charge of our family's social life. Now we're doing them. This is nothing I haven't seen before. It's rather nice. It's like finally being big enough to wear your mother's evening gown, instead of having it falling off your shoulders and into a puddle on the floor. I've been watching this rhythm my whole life. Suddenly, all the tasks I was too small or inexperienced to do just happen. I was worried that it would be hard or take a lot of effort but I've been trained for this. I'm here.

Not to say it doesn't have it's own set of challenges, some I wasn't expecting. But it's like taking a practical exam. You haven't seen the composite problems before, but you do know all the tools for the small ones. It just takes some patience to work it all out.

I don't know if Dustin feels the same, he hasn't had the same experience as I, but he seems to like it fine. I am happy to have him, he most certainly makes life better.

Camping!

The boy and I just rolled in from our first ever camping trip together :D It was a lot of fun. We randomly bought a tent last Saturday (well, not randomly, we're camping this summer and they happened to be a pretty decent price) and were just dying to try it out (okay, okay, I was dying to try it out Dustin just humored me).

We set out about six with a tent, six blankets, two pillows, enough chocolate, marshmallows, and graham crackers to make four S'mores, our P.J.s, a jug of water and his survival kit. Oh, and a roll of toilet paper, you never know. And other than wishing we had brought a couple more snacks, we did alright. Who says you need all that fancy stuff?

We most of our time starting a fire... and warding off the caterpillars who seemed to think the fire was a good place to crawl to. Everything was still wet but we had better luck than last week. I believe our fire died out twice before we got it going and even then 'going' was a very watched and tended 'going'. Dustin has mastered strike anywhere matches :D so I can rest easy about his upcoming trip. It amuses me that my absolutely briliant and creative husband, who has no trouble diagnosing and fixing computer, learning how to fix our car and just about any other mechanical thing, could struggle so much with a teeny-tiny strike anywhere match. But in the end, we had our S'mores, could warm ourselves by the fire, and laugh at how even after all those years of schooling, we still have trouble lighting a fire.

We're really happy we had those six blankets, two on the bottom and four on the top and we were toasty but one less either way and we would have gotten pretty chilly. I'm so glad we keep emergency blankets in the car. But it was really nice to be snuggled in a mountain of wool, down, and sleeping bag. I think I'm going to start leaving the curtains open at night, it was wonderful to wake up with the sun, it didn't feel too early at all. We ended up heading back about 7:40, when we had originally planned on waking up, just because we were up and ready to go.

I like camping, I hope we go again soon.