I got a job and that's it

It's almost been two months since I posted last... and my day to day routine has changed significantly. Essentially I decided that I should go back to work and it would help me take my mind off somethings that have been going on in my life. Hasn't been working to well, instead of thinking about it at home, I think about it while I fill out paperwork. It has consumed me and not necessarily in a good way, as if I were passionate about it, just that I feel like my whole life is sitting in front of a screen in a cubicle. What's new right? Who cares, everyone does it... I think what is really bugging me is that I feel like I am trying to fill up time while I wait, but how long will I have to wait and I don't want to look back at my life and see that I was just filling it with something that I'm not passionate about. It makes my life seem empty. I hate what I do, and it I feel like I am on a road that isn't going to lead anywhere. I am not writing this to incite a pity party, I don't want that, I am just talking out loud. So in explanation of my blogging absence I am on hiatus, in life and blogging. Maybe I will start updating it while I am here at work. That's it for now.

The weather is warming up, and my workouts have to too!

Okay so same old story, but I really, REALLY want to get into better shape. I have been exercising fairly regularly but I need to step it up and I need to improve my eating habits. So because I am clueless when it comes to this stuff so I went to the local library and checked out a cookbook called Cook Yourself Thin. There was some really interesting things in there besides recipes and I think I am going to try some of it out. For starters I am going to write down everything I eat for a week, (which is going to be depressing I am sure), as well as cook a myriad of healthy meals. Additionally it stated that generally you should figure what weight you want to be and multiply that by 10 to figure how many calories you should eat everyday. So there you go, we will see how well that goes!

Chin Faces

Alright I have some explaining to do about this post. I know that Jen wonders why it takes so long for me to make my lists, then these two videos explains why. In high school my friends and I would make videos where we would film a person's mouth upside down and when you watch it, it seems like the chin and mouth are part of a whole thing like a strange creature, as if the bottom of the chin was the top of the head... anyway, I don't think I am making any sense. Well to bring it all back around this is what Jay and I were doing instead of working on my list. Here is the first one...

http://www.youtube.com/user/blackeslash26?feature=mhw5#p/u/1/E0UpOxGvPc4


And the second one...

http://www.youtube.com/user/blackeslash26?feature=mhw5#p/u/0/KfIMLXI2ed4

I know this is so stupid, but this really is a glimpse into what it is like when Jay and I are by ourselves!

Next posting I will talk all about our April Fools joke!!!

The loot

I have been meaning to do this for a while so I figured that since this weeks haul was respectable it would be a good time.

I will start with Albertsons…

There were some really good stock up prices, which I won’t get into, a smarter more capable woman will go over this at castlerockcouponqueen.blogspot.com.

I got 5, 5 lb bags of flour for 1.00 each, regularly 2.99 each

3 boxes of Jolly Time Popcorn for 1.00 each, regularly 3.69

5 cans of Dole Pineapple for 1.00 each with 2.00 in coupons, regularly 2.29 each

1 sour cream for .79

2 Tony’s Pizzas for 1.00 each, regularly 1.49

5.8 lb’s of 93% lean ground beef for 11.56 or 1.99 per lb, regularly 3.49

6 racks of pork baby back ribs for 2.49 per lb, regularly 6.99

1 Hunts Ketchup

bananas at .39 per lb

3 bags baby carrots for 1.00 each, regularly 1.50 each

totaling 61.22

with a savings of 97.14!

King Soopers

I had to do 2 transactions the first was 20 yoplait yogurts for 10/6 with coupons totaling at 9.55, and 2.40 in savings. This gave me 2.00 for my next transaction.

I got 2 boxes of Post Raisin Bran

1 Kitchen Basics beef stock

1 carton large eggs

1 Ken's dressing

1 Oreida fries

1 Tresseme conditioner

1 box cherry poptarts (oh so healthy)

1 pack of Ramen

2 bags of Nestle Chocolate Morsels

1 box Ronzoni Penne pasta

2 packs of Ronzoni Spaghetti

4 braeburn apples

2 12 packs of pop

for a grand total of 23.93 after coupons

with 30.36 in savings!

Sprouts

1, 2 % milk = 1.89

.5 lb Deli Roast beef = 3.71

.5 lb deli turkey = 3.36

Deli sliced swiss cheese = 3.12

5 lb box of cuties = 3.99 – 1.00 cp

4 Pears = 1.40

3 Hass Avocados = 1.00

2 jalepeno peppers = .30

1 lime = .29

3 lb Gigantic navel oranges = 1.06

2 red bell peppers = 1.54

Roma tomatoes = 1.19

1 reusable shopping bag = .99

total = 25.16

savings = 1.10 ( I know that is pretty impressive!)

And finally Safeway… I have to admit that I cannot find the receipt anywhere so I am going to have to wing it!

3 boxes of Kellogs frosted flakes

2 bags of baby carrots (yes I realize I bought these at several stores)

1 can of cream cheese cake frosting! Yay!

4 boxes of Betty Crocker cake mix

and my total was around 11.84 but with my coupons and some spoils from a previous trip I was able to net .64!!! Yes that is right, they paid me to buy it!

So my grand total was $119.22!!!

That is a total savings of around $142!!!

Which puts my savings around 54% savings!

I don’t know how Jen does this every week, it is a lot of work to figure all this out!


Here are some more pictures, luckily my new kitchen set up lets me display even more...

Okay I have been working on this from start to finish for more hours than I would like to admit so it is time that I hit the hay, Jason is currently passed out on the couch so I am going to see if I can carry him up the stairs... 

Road lessons

Okay so I went for my regular run today, after all it did stop snowing finally! However, a lot of people in the neighborhood neglected to shovel their sidewalks so there was some dry running spots and others still resembled the peaks of the Himalayas. Due to these conditions I was forced to run on the road where it was  fairly dry. After ascending the back hill from hell, (that is it's new name) I was descending happily in the sun at a rather good pace, I was listening to some Stevie Nicks and contemplating life when suddenly any evil patch of ice skating rink took me down and showed me whose boss. Luckily for me I get hurt all the time so I am getting better at falling and have learned how to fall and protect the vitals, (face, hair, boobs... etc.) I sacrificed my entire left side, oh yes I am serious, and managed to hobble away okay. The extent of the damage was limited to my elbow, hip/right under the butt area, ankle,foot, knee, and shin. I took a picture of my injuries, but for your sake and my own, I will only post my knee and shin. I have to say the picture makes me look like a weenie, and I am not claiming that this is my worst injury... that happened when I took out that fat girl in rugby (she had it coming she played for Thunderidge, HRHS FOR LIFE :) ).

Note: although the picture looks like my leg is 10 feet thick at the top and 2 inches at the bottom by my ankle, I assure you that it is not. Let us also note my winter tan... you can almost see through my leg! I am disgusted by how my leg looks but I am going to let it go... but I mean really!!! 

p.s. the shower right after was like hot burning torture... and the peroxide... never mind.

Progress

Alright, I have gotten some more work done on my painting and I thought I would post some new photos of my progress. 

Here it is with the painting I completed last summer, I think it will look neat hung with the other. 

Here is a more detailed shot.

As many of you know, I LOVE ME SOME POPCORN! Now I have a theory that it tastes better when Jason makes it for me, so while I was taking pictures of my painting I got a few of the master at work!

Look at those strong arms grabbing the bowl...

He loves the camera!

Here the popcorn artist works carefully at his craft.

A professional's hands!

That's all for now, I will try to continue to update my progress... until next time!

Artist diaries

Okay I am starting a new painting project and I wanted to follow my progress on the blog here. There is a big art show in Castle Rock every year called the Castle Rock Artfest, and this year I am going to try to get in. This is a juried show which means every artist has to submit slides of their work to a jury and be selected. This show draws about 25,000 to 30,000 people. I am desperately trying to create more work because I don't have enough to bring to a show. So over the next 8 weeks or so I am really going to start focusing on my paintings. The first one I am starting is a collection of two paintings that will hang side by side. They are long and thin, 51 inches by 14 inches. I am using pictures from the same series that I painted "Where the skirts Fly", but in these paintings I am intending to abstract the image even further than before. I have been thinking a lot about my art, who I am as an artist and what sort of relationship I have with my art. I can't say that I have any answers but I have started this dialogue. I have also been considering the work of one of my favorite artists who is Georgia O'Keeffe, and last night I was reading in one of my old art history books and they briefly discussed her work. I will quote from the book titled Art Since 1900 by Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh. They state in the section of Early American Modernism that, " It was left to Georgia O'Keeffe to salvage the lyrical subjectivity that some artists hoped to wrest from the machine age, but in order to do so she abandoned images of production and consumption altogether. After a decade of intermittent paintings of New York, she turned away from the city, and eventually rediscovered, in the desert landscape of the American Southwest, a relation to objects and images that reasserted rather than overwhelmed the body... with her abstracted flowers and landscapes... [she] recaptures self-creation for her own art of nature... In doing so, she charts an alternative identity for American artists, especially for women, one that departs from the machine age and its myths of modernity," (2004, p. 225). I love the idea of turning away from the hustle and bustle of society and rediscovering the beauty of creation. I feel that through my art I am creating a place that I believe exists but that I can never quite find. I love the beauty and yet the solidarity found in the American Southwest. There is this duality and tension between lively, colorful culture and the quiet reverence of the desert. Anyway these are some of the initial thoughts that I am having.

I wanted to post some pictures of my temporary work space and the canvases that I've made. I will try to keep updating as I make some progress.

Pictured here is the first canvas and you can see that I have begun to draw out my painting. Essentially the blue edge of the skirt will weave in and out of the painting. The size is turning out nicely because if it is hung low and you stand next to it you almost get the feeling that it is your skirt flying through the air. And yes that is a bag of sunflower seeds, which is a necessity for me and making art, I'd like to thank my brother for that.

Late afternoon sun.

Here is a slightly clearer shot of the sketch so far. 

Until next time...

A heritage of awesomeness...

I wanted to dedicate a post to some good times that Jay and I have had, specifically in the biking realm. Since I am always the one behind the lens there are not a lot of pictures of me, and the ones that I am in I look TERRIBLE, I am not kidding I was still working at Pioneer and was at my heaviest... moving along.

I'll start with a picture where I look like a cupcake (in a bad way) and Jay looks like a mountain man with strangely white teeth. Let me also note that I am wearing some very extensive body armor underneath my jersey do to the fact that we had been down-hilling all day, if you don't know what that is I would love to educate you.

Here we are with our full face helmets. For those of you who had my last e-mail address, (blackeslash26) the name stemmed from this bike here, a black eastern slash size 26... a little trivia for you.

Yeah not my cutest moment here, my face looks as round as a bowling ball but I will drop it. This is us at Keystone about 2 years ago.

Here is my friend Janet and myself flexing our guns, note my sweet pink body armor, I can't tell you how much that stuff saved my you know what!

I like this picture because it is a rare picture of me actually on my bike. This was my Kona Coiler which was a pretty sweet ride but just a little large for me. I had just finished chasing this guy down the mountain because he almost hit me and my friend Janet and I was going to make him pay. I think I may have set a land speed record that time. 

Ode to the best bike ever... This is a Transition Syren which is a women's specific freeride bike. I LOVE THIS BIKE. I sold it for a few reasons which I won't get into now but I would give my left arm (not my right) for this bike again. I have made Jay promise me that I could get it again one day. Look at how BEAUTIFUL she is... tear... okay I have to talk about something else or I will be sad about this for a while...

Now let's check out Jay's sweet skills!

This will look familiar since I used that as Jay's profile pic on the blog. This was taken at some local jumps by Keystone. The area is called Wildernest. This was a pretty sweet jump and Jay was able to throw down some pretty clean moves.

Another view, he was getting some pretty good air. 

This is another jump at that same place, as you can see there are jumps everywhere. He got pretty high off of that one, and yes that is another table top. 

And what have I been doing this entire time some might ask... well I have been sneaking around taking pictures, I think it was put best by Lady Gaga in her song Paparazzi...

Here is a little jump at a trail that we are usually playing around on called Palmer Park which is located in Colorado Springs. He hits this one every time we ride the trail so I had to get a picture of it. 

This picture is from a 4 cross race that Jay competed in at Angelfire NM. We thought this would be a much more fun experience than it was but oh well. Jay is the second from the right, the one who is wearing jeans and staring down the camera.

This is a cool picture that I took at the Castle Rock skate park one fine evening. 

This is Jay at Redstone skate park in Highlands Ranch. He is doing a mighty fine table over the spine. 

Same spine, different angle, different day... still cool. 

I also want to post two videos, one is Jay doing a 360 over a gap at the Sunset trails, and another is a compilation of all the biking footage I had that I put together for a project for my digital art class. I will warn you that my movie editing software would not allow me to change the length of the song so the song goes way longer than the video so it is okay to stop it when the video is over. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ybH4odTnqQ 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P9IachdN_4 

That is all for now. I really miss biking especially when it is snowing outside, and I cannot wait for the weather to get warmer!

New addition, flowers and some ribs!

So this has been quite a weekend thus far and I want to start by introducing our newest addition. We call her 47 inch LG... If there is every anything good about a car accident it is this. Our insurance check that I got from our car accident afforded us this new toy, (besides who cares about a dented bumper on a truck anyway)! So Friday night we went and picked it up and then the real work began. Because of our crazy entertainment area setup we (we meaning Jay) had to do some minor construction in our house. He drilled a hole and lined it with PBC pipe so that our cords could travel from the lower levels of our shelves up to the tv. I took some pictures of the mess we had going on. I also want to note the ridiculous size of the box! But once we were all done it came out very nicely and it works like a charm. So needless to say we have been watching a lot of tv this weekend.



Moving right along... so I have to brag on my husband for a quick minute. He bought me the beautiful bouquet of flowers Valentine's day and I had to take some pictures. First let me remark how well the flowers and the vase go with my painting in the background. I took some close up shots just because they are so pretty, I just wish this blog had a scratch and sniff feature so you could smell how divine they are!



Ribs. I made some tonight and they were not only tasty but quite attractive. Now the pictures don't do them justice, (it kind of looks like something scary from a horror movie) but I was very proud of the end result. They weren't too shabby since this is the first time I have made ribs... and shout out to Jen here, they were such a good buy too!!!

That's all the randomness I have for now!

One Thousand White Women

Alrighty everyone, I just finished another book by Jim Fergus titled, One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd and I must say that it was fantastic! Let me give you the quick run down, and I promise I will try not to give too much away in case someone decides to read it! This fictional novel recounts the story of a woman named May Dodd through her journals. The Chief of the Cheyenne's named Little Wolf meets with President Grant and asks the US government to gift them 1000 white women in order to better mix the indian people with the whites. Although the novel is fictional, this event did in fact take place but President Grant refused, but the novel however, tells the story as if the President had agreed. May Dodd is one such woman who joins the program in order to gain her freedom, and the story recounts her experience. One of the most interesting things about this novel, as well as its author, is that although it was written by a man, but he chooses to tell the story from the point of view of a woman. I love stories involving the great American west and if I were to give this a rating I would say it was 5 out of 5 stars for me. If anyone decides to read this let me know, I would love to hear your thoughts...

Next on my reading agenda is The Miracles of Santo Fico by DL Smith. If anyone would like to read along, let me know I would love to chat about it as we go along!

And finally, I have to throw in this quick bit of randomness, but since last night Jay and I noticed this strange high pitched noise that sounds very mechanical that is coming from his night stand and I swear we cannot figure out what it is. I thought that maybe it was just some random anomaly until a few minutes ago when it started up again. It is driving me crazy. I fell asleep last night trying to think of what it could be, even wondering if it could be something sinister, like a haunting of some sort except the purpose isn't meant to scare but rather make me nuts. Mission complete if that is what it is trying to do. I also have to note that I have begun to wonder about the goings-on at my house before we moved. I have recently noticed that on every door in my house where the metal rectangle thing goes into the hole in the door jam... everyone following me here... the thing that either retracts or comes out when you turn the handle... anyway, all of those things have a Jesus fish drawn onto them, everyone! So I started to wonder why... where they trying to keep them selves safe, and if so from what? Just saying WTF... (F in this case standing for "Freak", not something worse). I better wrap this up before people think I am crazy, or perhaps it is too late for that.

Yummy Bread!!!

Ok so today I had a lovely helper teach me how to make homemade bread! I have to say that my mini loaves were delicious! And since I am a nerd I had to take pictures of the whole extravaganza. I also made some meatballs from Pioneer Woman Cooks, and they were great. So I put two and two together and made some yummy meatball subs. So besides this and yoga, that was my day!

Good Deal

Ok so tonight I went to Aeropostale and I participated in the "Teens for Jeans". I figured that even though I am not a teen, they would probably still accept my lightly worn jeans. The deal is that if you bring in a pair of lightly used jeans they will give you %25 off a new pair of jeans, and your old jeans will be shipped off to Haiti. So I did and I got a new pair of jeans for 15 dollars! I have to say that this wasn't such a bad deal, the jeans were cheap to start off with, but they are pretty cute and my butt can just barely fit into them, so all in all today was a success!

That was annoying

Ok so I finally finished updating my blog and let me say what a pain in the you know what that was!!! I am glad it is finished, and I am am okay with it but it wasn't exactly what I wanted. At least it is done and I can move to other things, I was a little obsessed with it for a while.

In other news, Jay is in the middle of his last week at UMB and Monday he will be starting at USbank. He is pretty excited to move along and get started in his new career. That is about all that is new with us. Let me know what you think of my new blog design.

Have a good day!

YUMMY!

Ok so tonight I made these delicious shrimp tacos tonight, (I mentioned that I wanted to try them out in my last post) and let me just say that they may have become a new favorite in my house! I also served them with this fresh pico de gallo, some white rice with lime and cilantro and a little bit of refried beans. It was light and super flavorful! I would recommend this recipe! If anyone wants to give it a try, I am posting a link to the recipe online. Last week I also tried the turkey burgers with sauteed onions, and those were flavorful and really juicy.


The pico de gallo recipe I used was from my new favorite cookbook called Pioneer Woman Cooks. It was so easy and fresh! This is the first thing I cooked from the book I am really pleased. If you haven't heard of her, I would recommend checking her out. She has a website too and she is always updating it with new recipes and she is a wonderful photographer and takes beautiful pictures of her food.


Happy cooking!

Book Review

It’s that time again, I just finished another book by Tatiana De Rosnay called Sarah’s Key. De Rosnay recounts the story of a young girl and her family who was torn from her Parisian home in the early morning hours of July 16, 1942 by the French police who were acting under the orders of the German Gestapo. Over thirteen thousand Parisian Jews were either sent to the camp at Drancy or to a huge indoor stadium in Paris known as the Vélodrome d’Hiver. These people were held for days before they were shipped off to camps and later to Auschwitz. The novel explores the problems that arise when bringing up secrets from the past, as well as the importance of remembering what happened so many years ago. This is a pretty quick read and I would highly recommend it! If anyone reads this, let me know what you think, I would love to talk about it!

Moving along. So me and a good buddy of mine went shopping yesterday and found some sweet after Christmas sales! Between Target and Hobby Lobby I got some SWEET stuff for 90% off. I got some fake snow for 20 cents and this really cute word thing (I don’t know what else to call it) for 2 dollars. The rest I got from my Nana, so I spent a whopping $2.30 for this cute winter decoration that I put above my fireplace. (Sorry the picture is such poor quality, I just wanted to get a quick shot on my phone!)