You Want To See... What's Waiting For Me

Continuing with the series You Wanna See WHAT?! Murdock's mama asked to see my home when I walk in the door after work... I also had a request from Gringa to see my home, specific rooms and whatnot.  So this is what I've decided to do with this... since Murdock Mama asked to see my home after work, I am going to show you what I see as soon as I walk in the door... which turns into what I have waiting for me... then I will do a separate post for Gringa with pictures of my home (that one is going to take a bit more time to put together).

Without further ado - THIS is what I have waiting for me everyday when I get home from work.
Meet Boomer:

Some of you may have seen Boomer before (especially if you've been to my house.. he is hard to miss)

This is Boomer wanting to be stretched... not sure how this gets started ever, but Boomer is the second cat I've had that I've done this with... he stretches out his front legs and I push them back to help him stretch fully... it's odd

He's kind of... plump

I really do love him though

..and he loves me too

As it turns out, a cat waiting at the door for me simply wants attention (and food, obviously) and getting him to pose for a photo shoot is kind of hard.

So... that is what I have waiting for me everyday when I get home from work!

Random v.10.8

**OK... first, a few highlights of my weekend.

1. The boyfriend and I made Duck Carnitas (basically tender juicy duck meat in a tortilla with cheese and verde salsa) - they were good!  We think we overcooked the duck, just a bit though.  I'm pretty sure we'll be trying this one again.  I will take pictures of that one, maybe.
2. I got tickets to see Wicked (for the 3rd time).  Pre-sale tickets went on sale Friday and Steve said he wouldn't mind seeing it... YAY!... so we went and bought tickets :)
3. I signed up a few months back to do the Minnesota AIDS Walk.  The walk was on Sunday morning and I did it!  6.2 miles in about 2 hours :)  Great success (thanks to all who donated!)
4. The Twins {finally} beats the f'n Yankees AT Yankee Stadium on Sunday afternoon... it was pure bliss and my voice hurt so good after Jason Kubel hit his grand slam!  In your face A-Rod, {fag}!  I don't care if it's only one win against them, it's breaking a losing streak and proof that it's possible.  The fuck sticks (Yankees) come to Minnesota next week... not only will they be jealous of our AWESOME new stadium, but they'll be swept (hopefully!)  GO TWINS!  that is all.

**This Census job I'm doing... it sucks.  People suck.  I don't get paid enough to do what I'm doing.  I think it's almost done.  (I've discovered these feelings after seeing how little the paycheck comes out to be... after what I've had to do to receive it)

**Do you type using the home row?  I don't.  I'm not sure how I ended up getting away from it or if I ever had it to begin with... but I type in my own way and when I try to use the home row... I get all messed up.  That's messed up.

**I'm a jealous person.  Are you?  I hate it... I wish I could change it.  I can't.  I generally find myself having feelings of anger mixed in with my jealousy.  That makes it worse.  I don't know how to break myself of these feelings.... I wonder if there is a class I could take....

**Last, but not least... if you haven't already, CLICK HERE, and tell me what you want to see.  I'm slowly (and I do mean slowly) working my way through the requests (and Magpie, you'll have your answer to why I sleep on the couch within one of those posts)...

photos via we♥it

5.14 Blanks

If you want to plan along, find Lauren's blog here

1.  The very best thing about the summer is      camping and campfires.  I love being up in Northern Minnesota under the stars with friends, we are limited to the months of nice weather, so enjoying it while we can is a MUST   .

2.  My first crush ever was      a super hot guy named Austin.  He was literally the hottest guy in the 4th grade... EVERY girl wanted to be his girl friend.... oh the memories .

3.  This may sound really silly but       I sleep on my couch.  I have a bed, I just don't use it.  I'll post more about it in the coming picture posts   .

4.  I squeeze my toothpaste from       the bottom, if I'm using a tube.  I've been using that new toothpaste, it's in a... canister type thing, no squeezing necessary with that one... and the toothpaste is amazing!   .

5.  My absolute favorite "comfort food" is     probably chips... or chex mix... well, anything salty really.  What can I say...   .

6.  A random fact about me is that      I never want to have kids.  I feel like it's a completely selfish decision and I feel horrible, but I just don't want them   .

7.  The one piece of technology that truly makes my life better and I couldn't live without is      Tivo.  I value my TV time.  I keep drama out of my personal life as much as I possibly can, so I NEED the TV to get the drama elsewhere      .

You Want To See.. My Clock

So, I'm not going to do these in order of request, but as I take the pictures...
One request stood out like Sunday Morning (easy).... The Caplyst requested to see my alarm clock when I wake up... then took it a step further and included a clock when I go to bed... so I took care of that last night and this morning.
Cake.

The background here is that I work 4 days a week, 10 hour shifts.  I work 45 minutes from where I live... point being, I wake up early.  Second point... I {try} to go to bed early.  The boyfriend sometimes throws a kink in my getting to bed early plan...

Ideally, I would like to get to bed around this time:

9:21pm

which is what I actually did last night (usually it's been around 10:00-10:30).

Pretty lame, huh??

Wait until you see what time I wake up:

5:11am

Haha, that's after snoozing!

It's not my alarm clock, but I use my Blackberry as my alarm clock and, not only do I HATE my blackberry these days, it's just extremely hard to get a picture of a 'smart' phone.  This is the clock in my bathroom, which is one of the first and last things I see in any given day.

Thus completes my first You Want To See WHAT?! post.  Hopefully you enjoyed it enough to come back for more!

What Have I Started?

LOL... yo peeps... I'm getting a crap ton of hits from those of you who have linked to me via this post.  I just wanted to drop a line to those of you visiting from other blogs...

Welcome!

I hope everyone joins in this game - it looks like there could be some real fun in it.  Post your links for me to see as well (as a comment or whatever)... just so everyone knows, I found the idea here.  I am nowhere near creative enough to think of this on my own!

Feel free to look around while you're here though.. I must warn you: I'm not really that interesting.  I'm a 20-something (28, but don't tell anyone) Midwest girl (Minnesota).  I like to drink martinis, margaritas, and many bottles of wine (I was going for alliteration on that one).  I love to eat too.  I can't spell, so I rely heavily on my spell-check.  What else could you possibly need to know?!  Nothing.. so tell me what you wanna see!

Don't Forget

I've decided I'm going to do separate posts for each of the photo requests.  I figure each is worthy of a bit of back-story (specifically the time I wake up and go to bed!)... I will photograph everything you've already asked for - so far they are easy enough requests, I think.

Feel free to ask for more, or if you haven't already done so, check out this post and tell me what you want to see!  Again, be creative!  Have fun with it, and tell me what you want to see!!!

That is all.

First photo post coming soon....

You wanna see WHAT?!

One of the things I love about blogging is when people link to other people's posts and give the rest of us an opportunity to read a blog we may have never found otherwise.  The downfall of this is that I usually have no idea how I end up at any of these blogs!
I was going to write an I'm feeling down and this is why post today, but I've decided that those are never any fun and I don't necessarily want sympathy from people.

I somehow ended up at this blog today and thought this was a great idea.  Since I only have a small following, I thought this might be fun... too big a following and it'd be overwhelming.

My camera will shoot anything you ask for ... certain limitations do apply ... so ask away, why part of my life do you want to see in photo form?  Parts of where I live?  Bits of where I work?  My favorite place to spend a rainy day?  My toothbrush?  The shoes I wore today?  My underwear drawer?  ... you name it, and I'll do my best to oblige.  Be creative!

Feel free to steal the idea for your own blog, and, while I'm okay with you linking back to my blog, I just ask you give credit to the original post, not mine.

My goal will be to post my pictures in a timely fashion... maybe one at a time, maybe all in one post... we'll see what happens.

So please... play along and ask away!

Banner 5.10.10

So, I've finally posted my newest banner... it isn't even close to what I had envisioned when I first started working on it, but I've simply run out of patience with this one.  The boyfriend was going to help me do some cool stuff to it, but again... zero patience left on it, so here it is!

The old one HAD to go - so this is what you get.  I changed the background color a bit, but I don't care for what that has done to my signature... so whatever.  I'll keep it up for a bit.  Pretty lame that it's May and this is only my second banner of the year.

Not my best, but what do YOU think of it?

Follow this link to my history of banners for Football, Sushi, and The Pursuit of Happiness

1st Annual Scavenger Hunt - 2010

With all the photo scavenger hunts I've been doing over the past year I had an idea to try and put on a real life scavenger hunt.  A hunt where people have to collect items, rather than photograph them.  This thinking all started over the winter... and took place on Sunday, May 2nd, 2010.  So, how can you make a scavenger hunt interesting and get people to play along?  You create cash prizes!  I charged $5 per person, you must pay up front to receive your list of items.  You can play in teams of 2-4 people.  So you end up with $10-$20 per team just to play.  Then depending on how much cash you end up with... you split the money amongst the winning teams; at least a 1st and 2nd place prize (more if there is enough money).

I started out by giving each team 10 bonus points if they brought a re-usable "earth friendly" bag to collect items in (and EVERY team did!!) I also gave 5 bonus points if people took a plastic bag and collected a bag of litter while they were out; a way to help clean up the planet and get some extra points!

So all the teams came and met at a central location; we met at a park in the city, so people had lots of resources to find their items.  We met at 1pm, I collected money, handed out the lists, and said "GO" at about 1:15pm.  Everyone had to be back by 4pm or they were disqualified and their money remained as part of the prize money.  We ended up with $150, which tells me there were 30 people who were playing!  Great turn out for my first attempt planning something like this.  We decided that we'd do a 1st place prize of $100 and a 2nd place prize of $50.
There were rules of course, but not too many.  Here is the sheet I handed out for people to read while I continued to collect money:

(I think if you click on that you should be able to read it better (???))

So... round about 4pm we all met back at the park.  The day was a windy one... so it was near impossible to go through peoples stuff while at the park.  Since the plan was to head up the road afterwards for a 'social hour', we decided to head up there and add up points.  People had bags upon bags of stuff!  I was absolutely overwhelmed...
With so much stuff I didn't know the best way to figure stuff out.  So I had people add up their points and asked if anyone had over 1000 points and there were 2 teams!  I think there were about 171 items on the list and the total possible points were 1584.  So it worked perfectly that there were 2 teams with over 1000... we went through and added up the points again, to verify and to make sure they really did collect all the items they claimed to.  Both teams were spot on with only one point being taken away for something that didn't quite fit the bill (the item on the list was 'a tape or CD that teaches another language' and they brought in a CD of a German band claiming that if you listen to it enough you'll learn the language).
While we counted and double checked we opened the floor up to anyone who wanted to share a story about their day or show off anything they found... it was a confusing and chaotic chunk of time, but for a first time hunt, I'd say it went pretty well!

Notes to self on things I'd do different next year:

1. Don't allow people to go to their homes, everything has to be found outside of a home.  I think almost every team went to a house, which they had plenty of time to do and it wasn't against the rules, but I think it took a lot of the fun away from trying to hunt for the items.
2. Don't assign a point value, have it be based on number of items found.  We spent probably a good hour adding up points and having other people add them up to confirm the totals.  Way too time consuming!
3. Call the bar/restaurant before hand and let them know to expect a large group.  I had no idea how many people were coming, so I didn't know what I should do, but I'm sure any advance notice would have been nice for them.

That's really all I can think of off the bat.

It ended up being a fun event... there was a great turnout and everyone {told me they} had fun!  A few minor tweaks to next years hunt and it should be a good time for everyone and much easier to determine a winner.

Now... who wants to see the list of items?!  I scanned this into a .jpg, so hopefully you'll be able to read it clear enough... remember you can click on it to make it bigger.

Census

I'm slowing getting you updated on my life... I won't be joining in the Fill in The Blank Friday today, because the theme is books and I've read maybe a dozen in my entire lifetime.  I just don't think it would be fun for anyone to read on my little ol' blog.

So... In my last post I introduced you to my new niece, Cayden Taylor.  She was born one week ago today, so I posted about her before I told you about my week of training... because, well... I like to do things out of order as they are important to me.

I'm an official Census worker; government employee.  Last week I had to attend training Tuesday through Friday.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be... it was just a lot of anal paperwork rules and things of the sort.  It is the government, after all.  So my job is like this: I am free to work up to 40 hours a week if I so choose, but expected to work at least 20 hours.  I am assigned x number of 'cases', which are housing units that did not send in their Census questionnaire.  I have to go to the assigned address and fill out a questionnaire with them.  If no one is home, I leave a note telling them to call me, if they don't call, I go back.  It's a very easy seeming job until you come across the house where people are uncooperative.  People say they sent their in, and maybe they did.. but I've been assigned to the address for a reason... so, maybe they didn't.  Maybe it got lost in the mail, maybe your husband didn't mail it like he meant to, maybe you sent it after the deadline.  Who knows, all I know is that I'm at your house for a reason, so don't give me a hard time.

Several people have expressed their concern for me, a lady in her late 20's (OMG, that is not an easy thing to say late 20's, ugh)... going to door to door.  The Census Bureau has been very supportive to all of us stating that if, for any reason at all, we do not feel comfortable (dog, scary man, screams coming from inside the house, etc.) that I am to leave and make a note of why I left so they can determine if they should send someone back.  So I feel okay about it.

I've gone out a few times now and, in all honesty, it's the getting out of my house that is the hardest.  I get nervous.  People are NOT patient, or at least that is why I've come to believe about people.  The form I have to fill out with them is long and extremely cumbersome.  It takes 10 minutes, on average, to fill it out.  It's a tri-fold 8.5x11 sheet of paper, front and back.  So I feel like I'm a pain in their ass, and I am.  I just need to remember that I am there to do a job, and it's not my fault their form wasn't sent in or counted.  Once I knock on the first door it is a huge weight lifted and all the rest is cake.

So now, the only downfall of this is that, if I'm expected to work 20 or so hours, I need to get out some during the week and some on the weekend.  How do I incorporate my gym schedule into my newly busy work schedule?  I didn't make it to the gym at all this week, and that upsets me.  I really need to make it there at least 3 times a week.  I don't know how to do that yet.

That is all for now.

Introducing...

Cayden Taylor

my new niece!

Born: Friday April 30, 2010

7 lbs. 14 ozs.

Rainbow

I go back and forth with myself every morning on should I bring my camera to work with me or not... this week I've left it at home as I knew I'd have a lot to do at work and shouldn't be tempted to play.  Today was no different... I left it at home.
That was a huge mistake!

The weather this morning was just okay... gray cloudy skies, looked like it could rain at any moment, not too hot, not too cold.  As I am sitting at a stoplight in Elk River I look over to my left (which would be <-- that way) I see the bottom part of a rainbow.  I follow it up with my eyes and am able to follow it all the way over to the other side!  So that is kind of silly... but listen, I've never seen a full rainbow before!  It's always been cut off at the top, so it's just two colorful bands arching into the sky towards each other but never touching.  Today my life changed.

via we♥it

I wish I had my camera, granted I probably wouldn't have been able to get it out and get a shot off before the light turned green... but I could have pulled over.

The colors were so vibrant!  It was absolutely the PERFECT rainbow... and now all I have is a memory of it.

Have you ever seen a full and vibrant rainbow?

Hey, Hey, Hey!

Hey everyone... I'm done with training and I'm now a official government worker... please don't kill me.  I promise not to knock on your door.

I'm trying to get caught up at my real job, but I wanted to stop by and let you know that I survived.  I have some things to tell you about, including a scavenger hunt that I panned and held this past Sunday.  In due time my sweets.

For now... I've semi-finished my scavenger hunt.  It's done, because April is over... but I did miss a few of the items :(  No excuse.  I had plenty of time and I had many ideas, I just slacked.  Plain and Simple.  Check that out here.  Then.. if you feel so inclined, check out the other April entries here.  There were a few people who entered that were new to the hunt and several very impressive collections!

Until you see me again... have a great Tuesday!

PS. My reader is all caught up, so anything posted today and after will be commented on... sorry for the lack of comments, but thanks for understanding!

Photo Scavenger Hunt - April 2010

YAY for April... I need something to do!

Well, I kind of slacked towards the end.. and I don't want to use archived shots... but I got most of them!
Click here to see all the April Entries!!

Here is the list for April:

A Different Point of View

A Perspective Shot

Touch

Taste- Punch Pizza :)

Sight

Sound

Smell

Sign of Spring- Tulips

Flowers

A letter formed/found in nature- it's an M

Trio

Fish - ever seen a fish with arms?

Water

Skyward

Mother Earth- grass

Something Rare - It's rare in Minnesota

Something Healthy

Something Colorful- Margarita in a colorful glass

Something Spicy

Something Triangular - wind chimes