'Tis the season to be decietful fa la la la la la la la la!

The Plot... I got Jay some AWESOME wheels and tires for his truck, and I'm not going to lie they were a sweet deal. But the problem was, I cannot keep secrets so there was a few times that I came dangerously close to giving it away. So I had to come up with a decoy. I bought Jay a fake gift, it is a Jeep RC car, and on the bottom of the box I wrote a note that said, "You didn't think this was it did you? Go to the garage!" There in the garage, (with the help of my little elves) were the tires! The Video... So here are the videos of Jay opening the gag present and then the video of him getting the tires. I am pretty happy with his reaction!


The reaction



As a side note, Jay and I have pet names for each other, he is Bear and I am Puma, I just wanted to clarify that about the videos!

What a wonderful Christmas, I couldn't be happier!

Merry Christmas!!!

It is finished

Alright, I finished my painting of the fruit, and not a moment too soon. I got it to my friend Saturday, and it was for a Christmas present, so to say the least it was down to the wire. I think it turned out well, I don't usually like still life's but it has this dramatic feel to it, so I think it came together.

I just want to take a break and enjoy Christmas for a few days. Though I am sure there will be a bunch of stuff that I will have to do before I can take it easy.

Day 3

Alright so in an earlier post I talked about a painting I am doing for a friend of mine for Christmas. She is paying me (yay, this is the first time ever!) and I need to get on the ball with this one. So last night I got the picture all scetched out on my canvas, which I made the other day, and today I started the painting process.

I thought it might be cool to chronicle the process. I have to say I am really nervous about this one. I hope she likes it. I get so paranoid that I will put all kinds of time and energy into something and that whoever I give it to won't like it.



So this picture is what I did last night. I sketch what I am going to paint onto the canvas, this ensures that everything is mapped out the way I want it to be and that all my portions are correct.



Today I started putting down some paint. I began by blocking out some larger areas. I am using Acrylic paint, so when I am ready to do detail stuff I have to work quickly because it dries so fast. I worked on the bowl for a little while, but it just wasn't working the way I wanted it to so I moved onto the first lime. I am usually hesitant to show people my work while I am working on it because just that, I am still working on it and I don't want people to dislike something that hasn't been finished yet. I got a majority of the lime done today but there are still some details I need to work out. As I continue the painting, it is not unusual to revisit parts that I have already completed because a lot of the time I have figured out a way I want to work it. Sometimes you just need to move on and come back to it. Every time you force something, it never comes out the way you want it. Kind of like life I guess.


Alright, so day 3 is complete and I will try to keep everyone posted on my progress.

Axis of Evil

I am sure that anyone who reads my blog already knows the story I am going to tell. Essentially, our little house was invaded by tiny, evil creatures. Let me paint this horrific picture in your mind. It’s about one o-clock in the afternoon last Thursday when I am sitting at my kitchen table working feverishly on my business ethics paper. Out of the corner of my eye, my senses note something that is out of place. To my astonishment and horror, a GIGANTIC mouse is casually strolling across my living room, apparently it had gained an interest in my fantastic leather chair. To be sure that people don’t misunderstand the severity of the situation, the was more like a mouse- rat, rather a rouse or mat… the body must have been about 4 inches long, not including the devilish tail.

I grabbed my phone and ran up stairs, meanwhile I am dry heaving and getting exponentially dizzy. I call Jay at work and he informs me that I should get a broom and try to sweep it out of the house. This is not what I wanted to hear. So I hang up and dial my mom. She tells me the same thing. So by now I gather that I need some help, and seeing that we have a mortgage now, I can’t force Jay to come home and take care of it, so needless to say, I call Jen. She comes over, and when she sees the rouse, she flips out too. After some screaming and flash dancing, we realize that mat the rouse is not going anywhere. I leave her there for the time being so she can keep an eye on the fort while I get some WMD’s. I arrive at the local Home Depot, and the sales guy asks me if I want this to be done humanely… I looked at him like “REALLY?” I told him that I don’t care if they spontaneously combust, I want them dead in a hurry.

Let’s jump back a step or two first, before I went to the store I find another 3 in the basement… this is a big difference, its like realizing your kid has experimented with drugs versus finding out he deals them. BIG DIFFERENCE. This pumped it up to code red. I return from the store and put two traditional traps in the kitchen as well as a big thing of radon, and then another three things of radon in the basement and two more traditional traps. I grabbed a change of clothes and my laptop and went to my Mom’s. I made Jay and Scott do major clean up duty in the house.

Ever since it seems as though we wiped them out. The real point of my story is how one minute things can be hunky dory and in the next moment it is total chaos. I felt like my space was invaded and exploited by those furry demons. Saturday I went Desperate Housewife on my house and did a super thorough cleaning job and put together our Christmas decorations. So for now the problem seems to be under control. I hope my next post will be less gross.

New Project

I am still working on my coffee table, which I am beginning to think might be slightly evil, but I have accomplished several things for which I am proud. One, all of the painting in the house is complete, (I know I already said this, but it was a big job and I am happy that it is over), Jay/Bob Villa built some shelves for our entertainment center, and I pretty much have all of my pictures hung.

So besides the continual work that I have to do on the coffee table, it is time to get painting. On an earlier post I put up a picture of a painting I want to work on, which I still do, but I have another that is going to supersede it for now, (because I am getting paid to do it!) The painting is going to be a still life consisting of a bowl of fruit. At first this did not sound overly interesting, but I took some pictures yesterday and they came out pretty good. The picture I am posting here is nice because it is a fairly dynamic picture of the fruit, and compositionally (I know this is not a really word p.s.)it is well put together. I love the light and how it brings this drama to the picture, yet it maintains a certain level of serenity. I was showing my Mom these pictures and she informed me that she now wants one and that I should do a series, which I might to depending how this translates into a painting. I think this would be a great candidate for oil pastels as well. I am really excited to get working on it, and I think it would make for a good photographic print as well!!!

I also wanted to post one other picture. I went shopping last week with darling Jennifer and I was pretty proud of my purchases so I took a picture of the loot, (I acknowledge here that I totally ripped this idea off of her, and you should check out her blog which is castlerockcouponqueen.blogspot.com, which is also listed in my blog roll.
Not pictured are 4 whole chickens that I bought at 68 cents a pound as well as about 10 pounds of ground beef!

One may notice a correlation in these pictures, and that would because I took them all in my kitchen on my island. I have to say that is one of my favorite spots in the house! Sneak peak... I am planning to put a very rustic chandelier in there!

Insane in the membrane

How to begin this one... if Hell was a weekend activity that would never end, that is what we did last weekend. After my last post about being more productive, I seemed to have taken that a little too literally and went to the max! We painted our entire house... literally every available wall that was not the ceiling. So I am going to post pictures of our ridiculous adventure. We finished this up on Tuesday with our now lovely downstairs bathroom. Our house still smells painty, but I take strong chemical smell over nasty guy left-overs. Serious rant for a second here... what is with guys and their dirtiness? How do walls turn black and smell like sewage when they are around them? Why do they think it is ok to shoot bee bee's into the ceiling and wipe boogers on the wall? And what is that thing on the bathroom floor? Painting was a necessity to say the least! Alright, it's picture time.




It's ladder time! Yeah Jay spent most of Saturday on this scary, scary ladder; honestly my hands got sweaty just watching him up there!





This is the same, but you get a better feel for the scale, he was doing the tallest part of the vaulted wall! YIKES! He did write J Heart (the symbol) R, which was adorable since he was risking his life so I could decorate! Priorities!





This is about 1 AM in the stairwell... I like how he looks like he is glowing... I didn't realize he could do that!





This was also late, it is my Buddah picture. I was painting with our roller extender thing which we nicknamed "Extenze" ;). Anyway, this glob of paint soared down toward my face and landed right between my eyes! Awesome eh?





This was about the time was working on the stairs. This room was about half done! p.s I know these pictures aren't great, I couldn't find our good camera so I used good old celly.





I would like to introduce you to Papa Christmas! Enough said.





This won "Best Kiss" at the Academy Awards. This is touchup Sunday! I don't know why we look so dumb... but I am wearing a trucker hat so there you go!

ref="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdMFVPPBBiPOD1xIdpLKcRG7lnFchSwiLG4DKJd9Ql8bLRLi1EBM3drP_GTlonyvXjnG6IEWE-_53-fQQzjmH3nV4s25KwAL0aTdqQ1rqIERnFrfwMS3U6H98aiurzTxmP-19sOgHrXQaX/s1600-h/painting9.jpg">


Tuesday... last room here, this is the downstairs bathroom. The back wall is brown ( I thought that would be appropriate for a bathroom) and the side walls are blue like my kitchen!





Another view.


So I am now decorating the place, and once I am done I am going to try to take some decent pictures and post them on here, so patience por favor! I just can't tell you how happy I am this is over!

Schedules, and the sequel

I think if I were an Olympic track athlete, I would be a sprinter, here is why… I seem to be able to get a ton of stuff done in a really short period of time and am able to find ways to maximize my efficiency. However, endurance is not my game. As soon as I have pushed through the hard part, I can’t seem to find motivation to keep it up. I bring this up because at the beginning of this week I had a laundry list of things that I was determined to get done before Friday, and let me share that I have completed almost none of them.

What is my deal? If I could maintain a certain level of efficiency I could get so many things accomplished that I would like to, but I don’t, and in this way I am my own worst enemy. So I need to slap my self around a little and get it together. I am thinking that I am going to try out creating a fairly detailed schedule so I maximize my day. We will see how it goes, I think I will try it out next week. A quick p.s. on this one, I would love any tips (advice or money is acceptable. If you are interested in the latter, I would love to work out payment options.)

I am going to quickly note that I switched out my background today, and it was a serious pain! I really wish I knew how to design a blog from scratch. I don’t know why it has to be so difficult.

Another note. Jay has kindly set up a work space/ studio for me in our new basement. I have been missing my daily painting adventures. I have one painting that I am going to start for a friend of mine, and then after that I have found the next picture that I want to do. As many of you know, this past summer I spent a lot of time working on a painting called “Where the Skirts Fly”, and I have found another picture that I took that would make for a great painting.

I am hoping that it can have the same dynamic qualities as my first one. So here is the picture. I am going to get rid of the signs in the back, but other than that, I think it will look really good, especially if they were shown together. YAY I am so excited!

More like Ray

So let's just get this straight now... Ray Jay is a little misleading as far as a blog name goes. It is really just me doing this. If Jay was blogging I would have to question a few things. This is more like a random colection of stupid crap I say. Of course, I think I am always saying stupid crap, so what's new?

Okay, time for a random book review! Yes, I just finished reading this novel which I would highly recommend to those who enjoy litterature. Now I have to have a quick snob momment when I say that litterature is very different from just a fun book. To illustrate, "War and Peace" = Litterature... "Twilight" = fun to read but not great writing. "Empire Falls" (another great recommend by Richard Russo)= Litterature... "Harry Potter" = don't get me wrong, I LOVE HARRY POTTER and I am proud, but it is not Litterature though I do believe that it is great writing. Back to the point at hand. I just finished a book called "Await Your Reply" by Dan Chaon and I thought it was amazing! It is this darker book where three different stories are told simultaneously but all share a common thread. It explores the nature of identity and leaves you thinking about your own. Chaon is one of my new favs and I am planning to Barnes and Noble it up and check out his other works. And shut your mouth, I just found on youtube a trailer for the book??? Yeah I didn'tknow they did that but it is pretty cool... quick warning, it does show images of a severed hand, gross I know, but you should still check this out. Here is the link to the youtube video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtH3PRoQzWw .

So for all of the hoards of people who read this (ha ha) here is an update on our new casa de Blackford!!! I cooked my first meal in our new little kitchen last night. It went really well, but I am still trying to remember where I stashed all of our stuff. If I get around to it today, I am also considering baking a cake. Why you may ask? The answer is simply because I want cake, and since this is my house who is going to stop me... I will resume my work out regime soon anyway.

Jay and I have been back and forth to Home Depot a ridiculous amount of times and here is part of the reason why. Why is it that everytime you are looking for something at HD, the workers point in a direction and give you cryptic clues to where this one item is in this huge store??? Everytime there is always one thing on my list that I totally abandon because I loose patience after 10 minutes walking up and down the isles of that collosal warehouse and end up with nothing. You can practically get shin splints after walking around in there. It is like the worlds greatest game of "Where's Waldo?"... you can spend a stupid amount of time looking for the smallest thing until you feel like an idiot and you leave trying to disguise the fact that you have been defeated by the almighty Home Depot.

Alright, back to sorting through random boxes for me. Till next time...

Yeah its been a while

I really don't feel like playing a full game of catch up with my life, because honestly, there is a ton going on, and I don't think I can do it. I will have to settle with the readers digest version. So this summer Jay got a new job at UMB, which was both a promotion and a salary upgrade. We decided to look for a place to buy so we could set down some roots and take advantage of the $8,000 free money deal if you close on a house before November 30th or whatever. 

This is totally off topic and random, but as I was writing this I realized that the only person who is going to read this is Jen, and she already knows these things so why am I even bothering to do this? Oh well, I have come this far...

So Jay and I put an offer on this 2 bed 2 bath condo in late June. The catch was that it is a short sale so we had to wait months and months to get an acceptance on our offer. We looked at other places in the mean time, even put down another offer on a place and finally we hear back from the original place and learn that our offer has been accepted, (this took place mid September). So we set a closing date, the 23rd of October, and yes it is the 22nd of October! Well earlier this evening we did our walk through and the place was a disaster! They were supposed to leave the washer and dryer, which they neglected to do, the furnace had a leak during inspection which was fixed but they did not clean and service it as specified in the inspection and was signed by the owner, and the place looked like 10 dogs peed in it for 10 straight days!!! 

So we leave, obviously frustrated, but I am thinking, okay, we can figure this out and hopefully still move this Saturday as planned. 

Meanwhile, I neglected to mention this, Jason may have a certain work opportunity that would have a substantial impact on our financial situation and we should hear back on that as soon as Friday.

Anyway, so we leave and Jay starts talking about how frustrated he is and that maybe he doesn't really like the place all that much. This totally throws off my equilibrium, and I am now second guessing this whole thing. I know that it is common to have some cold feet, but honestly I am totally confused and oddly feeling a little depressed.

Right before I decided to reinstate my blog, I typed the words "manic depressive" into the search box in the upper right hand corner of my Internet window. I had really begun to wonder if there was more to my downer mood. Luckily, I didn't fit any of the descriptions for one who is afflicted by this brain dysfunction, but it made me realize how much this is effecting me. I am really frustrated, angry and bummed out about this whole thing. 

What is crazy is that we may still be buying this place. But it is the feeling of uncertainty that is throwing me for a loop. I was so excited to get settled and unpack our things; and really start the next chapter in our lives and now I am not so sure that is going to happen. Here we are, the night before we are supposed to close and I feel like I have been hung out to dry. Four months of anticipation for what? Disappointment? ARGGG!!!!

I thought about jumping off the roof, but then I realized there is about 6 inches of snow that would pad my landing and totally defeat the purpose. I really shouldn't joke about those things I guess. 

To quickly veer off into a tangent... If anyone besides Jen reads this blog, I think they are going to be surprised that my thoughts aren't as overly perky or flowery as many other women of my... well... belief system would be. Maybe I should dye my hair black and go REALLY heavy on the eye liner for a while. I am already pretty pasty so I could pull it off. Though, this may be misinterpreted  as an overly obsessive Twilight fan, which again, would defeat the purpose. 

I guess that is enough for now. I might keep you posted, or I might not. But if I am right that Jen is the only one who might read this, then she will know what is up! 

Freakin' Rat

Okay, so time for really quick miniature update, public service announcement, and creepy story that makes me feel gross just thinking about it.

UPDATE

I am home from my many recent travels, including a 9 day adventure in Dallas, (a story from this trip will be coming up here shortly) and I am home now trying to get myself back in order here. I have been working at LBJ (Lucky Brand Jeans) for a little while now and it seems to be taking up a majority of my time. There is some drama about to hit the fan in a couple of days on top of an incident that took place last week where it was discovered that one of the associates was caught in a sticky situation. Jay and I are still residing in la casa de mi parents. Jay has been trying to get his schedule for next fall all put together, looks like there will be no summer classes that he will be able to take, but at least that means that he will be getting something of a break... poor guy works himself to death. I just really hope that all of his hard work pays off and that he will be recognized for everything that he does and that others in his life will do the same some day... I do want to make a quick note that I am creating this post on my laptop in bed and Jay is next to me passed out snoring with his mouth hanging open, I am just glad he isn't drooling on me, and trust me it has happened. 

CREEPY GROSS STORY

As I mentioned earlier, I have a story from my most recent visit to Dallas that, even when I think of it no, I get the shivers and I want to take a HOT shower...

So my brother lives in Dallas in a town called Frisco which is a very up-scale manicured place, a place where seeing a Bentley doesn't surprise you at all. Behind his house is the elementary school where his two oldest daughters go *and a quick shout out to them, they are beautiful and wonderful in every way*. On the last day of our vacation, my mom, my sister-in-law Alma, Sammy (my brother's youngest daughter), and myself decide to walk down the street to pick up the two girls from school, just as we had done every other day... As any picture perfect elementary school would be, the grounds are trimmed and plucked to perfection, and the sound of children's laughter emanates about the building. We stood beside a staircase just outside the front doors of the school waiting for all of the children to be released from their classes. Each class would march in order behind their teacher and would wait to either be picked up, or they would step onto their assigned bus. As we stood there waiting for the girls a teacher stopped right in front of me to scold one of her students for pushing another when she looks at me with a strange expression. Suddenly, and very calmly she points to the ground behind me and says "there's a rat..." It takes me a moment to comprehend what she is talking about, and as I look over my shoulder in disbelief there, only six inches from my innocent sandaled foot is a GIANT, plague infested rat. Patches of fur where missing from its hide, a huge thick tail curled behind its sickly body and I am pretty darn sure I saw a snaggle tooth. After I realized the encroaching atrocity I screamed and leaped about three feet in the air. This began the panic.  I see my mom dive to one side and Alma shriek in horror. Other innocent bystanders pointed and yelled at the creepy, pointed- faced thing that tried to sneak up on me, (who knows what it had planned once it got to me). I could not believe I saw a huge freakin' rat behind me in one of the nicest places I have ever visited. We heard later that a bus driver saw the rat leap from one kids backpack, but if you ask me, there is no way that thing came from a pet shop, it looked like those giant rat creatures from Princess Bride. And that is my rat story and I am proud to say that I have a new found fear of rats and plague.

FINALLY THE PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

I have just figured out how to create my own background for this blog. Please be patient while I fine tune the system as well as the design, you may see several different backgrounds while I go through this process. Thank you very much for your understanding. The Management.

Okay so that is it, I really need to get to bed, so until next time...

Man Pants

Today I am totally rockin' some man pants, not really but they are some old jeans of mine that are seriously like 3 sizes to big FOR SURE!!! Totally... anyway, they may not be the cutest thing since Devil Wears Prada but they are comfortable. Which leads me to my next point, why do guys get the comfy clothes and we are stuck with the skin tight, coin slot showing (go to hulu.com, search snl commercials and look for coin slot and you will be educated on the terminology) uncomfortable jeans??? Last time I checked women's bodies are WAY more temperamental than men's so why shouldn't we be able to wear some clothes that are a little more accommodating? It's a bunch of crap if you ask me. 

moving on

So in continuation of the saga which I will title "new job adventures", today I show up for work at 9, right on time (and I am NOT a punctual person so I have been impressed that I haven't been late yet) and there is no one there. No biggie right? Wrong. It was freezing outside this morning thank you very much crapo spring, so I waited in front of the store for a short bit for my manager to show up to open things up. Well that didn't last long b/c like I said it was freezing outside, so I go back to my truck and sit and wait, I'm thinking maybe he is just running a little late. Well 9 turns into 9:30, and then before I know it it's 10! So I have been texting some of my closest buddies about the sitch and I am really getting antsy. Had I known it would have been this long I could have made Micky D's Bfast but I missed it. So 10:30 and I am getting a little worried.

 I was watching this show on the Oxygen network yesterday, (which is like an updated version of Lifetime, it's totally cool to watch because they play plenty of ANTM ((if you don't know what that is I am so sorry for you:) )) anyway this show is called Snapped and it recounts true stories about women who have totally lost their marbles and brutally murder someone, usually a husband or lover or something... I promise I will tie this back into my work adventure... well in the show people don't usually realize there has been a murder until people realize that person is missing particularly from work. So I am contemplating the probability that maybe my boss could be a future episode of Snapped, and maybe no one else would realize he was gone except me. Freak out begins. 

So I call the Lucky store in PM and ask if they have the numbers for the managers @ the outlets. So I get his number and a few other peeps with keys and I give him a call. The phone rings a few times (I'm getting a little nervous) and finally he picks up his phone. Turns out that his engine seized (not sure what that is but it is bad) and so he had to try to find a ride to the store. By 11:30 he shows up, and I work until 1 so it was a short crazy day.

That is all for now... until next time.  

Rock Band Moments

Can you say family home evening?

Day two

So yesterday was my second day of work and I have to say that it was much better. I really just need to work on my anxiety issues that I have some times. I think that once I get the hang of what I am doing that it will be way better!

I am bored of that topic so lets move on...

But I can't think of anything so bye for now!

First Day of Work

Okay so first days always suck! Actually it really wasn't that bad but I hate the way you feel, even if it is an easy job you always feel like an idiot, like a lost dog just following your trainer around. I think I will get the hang of it but the first few days are always so awkward.

Now, time for gripping about the snow... seriously what is the deal? How can it be AMAZING weather all March and then right before April it desides to go to crap??? Boo!

That's all I have for today, I am going to lie down b/c I have a headache and it is making me sleepy!

I LOVE THIS PICTURE for a few reasons which are thus:

1. My hair looks good... errr ummm I mean how sweet that we as a couple can enjoy this moment to remember family together...

2. Okay no, it is nice that we could visit some family... I don't mean to be a TOTAL B.

3. I really like those glasses too, and my neck/face looks skinny YAY!

Oops haven't done this in a while

Yeah my bad, I haven't really kept up on this blogging thing, most likely bc no one besides Jenny from the Block knows about it so why would I write to myself? Of course what is the point of blogging anyway? I feel like in order to blog you have to be really carefull about not bragging, which I think in 99 % of cases that is what they are for... such as

OMG we are so lucky Jay just got a promo and we are loaded now!!! Yay for Us!

For the record Jay did not recieve a promotion and we are far from loaded.

Speaking of loaded, Jim (my Madre's hubby) took me shooting last week and I got to shoot a 9mm Beretta (sp) and a really nice shot gun! I only got a few bruises but I really enjoyed it. Is that a little scary that I want some guns of my own so I can Annie Oakley it?

That's about it for now.

An Introduction

Hello all, this is Rachel and Jason Blackford and we/ Rachel (b/c J seriously would not care one way or another about "blogging") decided we would join the newly long lived tradition of family blogging. Mostly I will try to keep any one who might be remotely interested, updated on our non-eventful lives.

Let's get a few things straight from the beginning... I'm not a great speller, so if ABC check doesn't work, lay off me! Also, don't expect anything too cutesy, unless of course I just got home from Enrichment or RS, or I'm feeling a little competitive. Another thing, I am competitive, I'll pretend that I'm not, but I am, so just FYI, but I am nice. Also, I love to use ellipses when writing, so get used to that... as well as commas.

Now let us get to the meat of the post. Jay and I were thinking and we realized that combining our names (how they sound, specifically Ray Jay) can make some sweet words such as... RAGE and JAIL and that's all I've got right now.