It's that time again...time to do another blog and let you know how my week has been. I have to say that it has been rather quiet over here and not too much has been going on. I was at the bridal expo at Georgio's banquets on Wednesday because my work had a booth there promoting arrangements for centerpieces/sweet tables. I handed out fruit salad samples in plastic champagne glasses! Our table was right in front of the runway, so we got to see an awesome show. I went to high school with one of the tuxedo models! The bridesmaid dresses this season are rather interesting shades of "espresso and redwood" as they said.....but I just called them brown, rust, and the 1970's all over again! Hehehehe...Anyway....I am looking forward to this upcoming week since my birthday and John's are this coming week, as well as Halloween and hopefully the birth of John's new baby cousin. Karen's due date was originally the 28th, and now it's the 25th, so I'm sure any day now we will be able to welcome him/her to the family. As my gift to the parents-to-be, I am going to do a mural of clouds on the ceiling of the baby's nursery. I always thought there was something a little more special to hand-crafted rather than store bought gifts, so that's why I like to use my talent as a gift to other people. I've done other nurseries for the other babies in John's family. There have been 8 babies born since we started dating, and 2 on the way!

So...I've been thinking about how we are going to celebrate our upcoming birthdays. I absolutely love this time of year, however, the weather has been disappointing me. There's nothing better than a crisp fall day where all you need is a sweater, no coat necessary. Or umbrella. I feel that I've had to use mine way too much this month. Although I do like the fact that I have an awesome Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night umbrella, I would still prefer not to have to use it! I wanted to go get some pumpkins today so we can carve them toward the end of the week, but I just felt like chillaxing today. John and I did get a chance to go to Best Buy to price out some new digital cameras, and of course the one I want is about $400, (plus I would need a new memory card). But, I think every graphic design student should have a fabulous digital camera, and frankly, the one I have now just isn't cutting it. I've honestly felt like throwing it out the window numerous times during photo ops. I worked a lot of extra hours this week because of the unfortunate Hallmark holiday of Sweetest Day, so maybe next week's paycheck will put that Canon camera in my hands.

Getting back to my plans for the week...I was thinking about going bowling with some friends on Thursday or Friday. Bowling is one of my favorite things to do, and I wish I went more often. It seems to have become a tradition to go bowling on my birthday...I guess it was something I decided I wanted to do one year to celebrate, and the same goes for the next year, and the following year, etc. My actual birthday is Friday the 27th, so maybe we will all go then if we can get a lane (darn those bowling leagues who take over the whole alley!) So maybe we will do our punkin' carving on Thursday. Saturday I have to work like usual, and then I am going to babysit in the evening. Sunday my family and John's family are going to come over to my house and we'll have dinner and cake. I'm hoping the newspaper will list all the houses that have cool Halloween decorations up, and we can go look at them on Sunday evening. John, my sister and I did that last year but didn't see that many houses because it was waaaay toooooo cold.

I posted some pictures of the beautiful flowers (orange asiatic lilies and tulips) that John gave me on Saturday. (Tulips in the fall? I would have never thought...it's a spring flower). When he walked in with them I was really surprised because we don't celebrate Sweetest Day (because it's so close to our birthdays and just another cheesy holiday). But these flowers were not for sweetest day, but to celebrate "Sweetest Day being over." I can't leave out the fact that he handed them to me as I was nearly passed out on the bed because of pure exhaustion from working 18+ hours Friday and Saturday. I couldn't help but laugh...but that could have been me just being loopy at that point! I tried taking a nap but I think being in constant "go" mode the past two days made me almost wired and restless, and I just couldn't relax. Basically my work is like a flower shop but we make the arrangements out of fresh cut fruit shaped to look like flowers and arrangements...and we dip fruit in chocolate. We had to dip hundreds and hundreds of strawberries this weekend. I don't want to see another one ever again!!! Just kidding. It just gets hard trying to help with production, and answer all the phone calls. And to any guy reading this....don't wait until the last minute to try and get an arrangement an hour before we close on a busy holiday!! That just makes our job harder! :) Since we really hustled and had extra help, I was able to get home by 3 on Saturday which was nice. After I TRIED to take my nap and did not succeed, my parents and John and I watched The Break Up (with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn). I finally ended up crashing, and slept about 12 hours...I was exhausted by the end of the night, and I slept like a baby. Our next big holiday at work will be Thanksgiving - and I'm already tired just thinking about it!

This whole working-long-holiday-hours-thing is not all that new to me. Before this job I painted murals for about 2 years, and before that I worked at a florist. I loved the smell, I loved designing, and I loved the creativity, but I hated the holiday demand. However, I miss the clean, fragrant smell of the evergreen and boxwood stems that would go into the arrangements around Christmas time. Also, just the aroma of stargazer lilies and roses that permeated the air on a daily basis was heavenly. After I had been there all day, the smell to me wore off, but whenever I saw John after work, he said I smelled like flowers. Now I guess that has changed to fruit! :) I do miss making arrangements...John knows that if he wants to get me flowers that I like them un-arranged and uncut so I can put them together myself. I have some tips to make your blooms last longer...never cut the stems with scissors (only if they are hard wood stems like the greens and fillers) it crushes the capillaries and makes it harder for the stems to absorb water. Using a knife, hold the stem in one hand and use the other to slice it at an angle. Don't put the whole packet of flower food into the water...just a little bit will do. Re-cut the stems and change the water and add new food every 2 days. One more tip: roses are one of the most popular flowers but also have the shortest life span. In order to find ones that will last the longest, squeeze the heads and make sure they aren't soft. They should be tight and bullet shaped. If they are softer in the center, they will blow out (open too fast) once they get into warm air.

Hope everyone has a good week. Buy yourself some flowers now :)

*I posted a pic of the health fair last week, and of the pretty colored trees in my backyard!       

I blinked my eyes and this weekend was already gone. Back to getting up at 6 am tomorrow morning. I felt pretty "blah" the past few days and I don't know why. I think it's just the stress from school, work, and the cold weather...Although I did hear it's going to be in the 60's on Wednesday. Saturday afternoon was pretty nasty. I ran out to get lunch for everyone at work and froze my butt off. The car was cold and the clouds were spewing out some misty rain that felt like a thousand knives piercing my face. Brrrr!! It's not always the best job being the lunch runner!

I've been extremely tired lately, and it was even worse this week. Like I said before, I think it's just stress getting to me. I have so many projects due soon, papers to write, art projects to finish and I always have some kind of errand to run. I don't get much time to sit down, and when I do, I don't know what to do with myself. I seriously think I have lost the ability to relax! HaHa. I actually feel guilty for watching TV once in awhile. I am so used to being on the go that when I have a second to myself I always feel like there is something I could be doing, like cleaning my room or bathroom. Or one of my biggest procrastinations, finishing the paintings on the bean bag boards that my dad made in the spring. I started some murals on them and never finished...but now that bean bag season is over I guess I have all winter to finish that. Maybe on our week break from school in December I can catch up with it.

On Monday John and I went to the hospital to see his cousin's new baby boy, Zack. He is SO beautiful! And the best newborn I have ever seen. He sleeps peacefully, hardly cries, never fusses and is just an all around good baby. John and I went over to see him on Saturday as well. That's when the pictures were taken...it was also the new dad's birthday. I'd say having a new baby boy is one of the best birthday presents he could have ever asked for! :) We didn't stay really late on Saturday since I had been up since 5:30 a.m. for work...so, I was ready to crash.

The only day I got a little extra sleep was Thursday morning. I had to work at 1, so that means I couldn't sit around in my PJ's all day. Sometimes, I would rather work early and get home early than relax in the morning and have to stop doing whatever I am doing so I can get ready to go to work. It's right smack in the middle of the day when I work 1-5 so I can't really make any plans that take up a lot of my time. I'm kinda tired of the crappy afternoon hours and trying to balance my work and school schedule, but it's things like this that help me stay focused. I know it's hard now, but if I keep trudging through I know that one day I will get my diploma and hopefully have a great job that I love.

I was a little aggravated on Friday though with something school related...I have a group project for my computer class that is due in 2 weeks. Before Friday we didn't have any work done yet, but I wasn't worried....I knew we would get it done if we worked hard. The bad thing is we don't have time in class to work on it, so we had to all meet at 9 am on Friday, our day off. Not exactly what I had in mind but with everyone's crazy work/school schedule it was the only time we could all get together.....WELL 3 out of 5 of us showed up and did more than 50% of the work. I'm thinking I would like to permanently make our group only 3 people! We'll see what happens tomorrow in class...

I posted some pics of my Mom, John, and my Dad painting the living room today. I love the way the color turned out. I however did not help at all! :( I feel bad but Sundays are my only days off to relax a little...or try to at least! I just worked 6 days in a row AND went to school, so I really really did not want to do ANY physical labor today! My neck and right shoulder have been bothering me a lot lately too...any kind of stress to those muscles seems to aggravate it, and it leads to a tension headache. I think I did some damage from painting murals for two years. Holding my right arm up for long periods of time without stretching first might be the culprit. I'm ready to get the heating pad and some tylenol and call it a night!