Cards Galore...

So, in anticipation of Christmas in a little over a month I've keep myself pretty busy making Holiday cards and I thought I would share some of my creations with everyone. I've decided to sell a few of my Christmas cards in a box set of 9, that includes 3 each of the 3 following cards.

- 3 Christmas Snowman Cards -

- 3 Snowflake Cards - and

- 3 Christmas Truck Cards -, nine cards altogether for $1o.

I love creating cards using StampinUp! and these are high quality inks and stamps used here, and they are absolutely adorable.

Also, as an added bonus I'm going to do a little giveaway that will end in about a week, Monday the 30th of November. For each box set of cards purchased I am going to give away an additional 4 Birthday cards. So, all you have to do is buy a box set and you can possibly receive 4 free birthday cards with your order. ALSO, just for blogging about my cards on your blog I will do another random giveaway for two free Birthday cards (just be sure to leave me a comment in this post with a link to your blog so I can check it out.) So, buy a box set and you can possibly receive 4 free cards, and simply blog about my Cards and you can possibly receive 2 free cards. Wow!! That's a lot of cards!!

So, remember, the giveaway's end next Monday night, the 30th at midnight, but card purchases can be made right up until Christmas, and there is no limit to the amount of cards that you buy. I hope you enjoy!!

I can take payment through Paypal or you can simply email me about payment at jayna119@gmail.com. Thanks!

*Cards do not include envelopes. :)

Cupcake? What's that?

Okay, I am a little obsessed with cupcakes right now. I love the fact that they are adorable, yummy, little treats in a petite size. Today after work I celebrated the landing of another morning part-time job with a cupcake from Buttercake Bakery here in LA. Delicious! I had the sprinkled chocolate cupcake with buttercream frosting and of course I had to get a coconut cupcake for Michael to enjoy later. My favorite cupcakes are from Magnolia Bakery in New York City, but Buttercake is a very close second and only .4 miles away, not 3,000.

Assorted Cupcakes from Buttercake Bakery

Happy Halloween!!

I love Halloween, mostly because I love the fall and I love candy. I also love watching Spriket24 videos on Youtube.com. Karen Alloy is pretty funny and I've decided to give you a taste of what her humor is all about. Also she's had a couple of Emmy Nominations and even won one for her video 2012. Happy Halloween and stay clear of those zombies!!

Rude Neighbor...

Hello inconsiderate neighbor,

I come to you from the (un)comforts of my desk chair with a message. For the sake of those who share walls with you, please refrain from blaring your dance party music throughout the night. I know that your neighbors sleeping on a weeknight is obviously the least of your concerns right now, what, with the singing to Beyonce at the top of your lungs thinking your all booty-licious too, but some of us enjoy the wee small hour of 3:00am and all that R.E.M. sleep has to offer.

Signing off in the hopes that I can still salvage some of the remaining nighttime with my head sandwiched between two pillows for the small amount of muffling it affords me from the words of "Umbrella."

Sincerely,

Your kind neighbor who does nothing but smile and open the door to your constant drunken knocking at midnight just to pet my cats, while I roll my eyes behind your back.

Halloween isn't Halloween without Candy Corn!

Since Michael and I have moved into an apartment with a security door we don't plan on having any trick-or-treaters this year, but what is Halloween (BOO!) without sneaking some of the candy meant for those doorbell ringers. Well, to satiate my sweet tooth this year I decided to limit myself to cheap candy that is still festive and I decided on these yummies, Brach's Milk Maid Caramel Candy Corn. I enjoy candy corn anyway but I've discovered that these are delicious, even more so than normal candy corn. Their only 88cents at Rite Aid so you should try them. The only problem is that since they aren't individually wrapped I just keep eating away at them. I think I need to go and buy another bag... and I've just discovered that they also make Chocolate Caramel Candy Corn and Caramel Apple Candy Corn. YUM YUM!

Glamerican Idol

Was it Adam's idea to channel 1972 broadway vibes of Xanadu for his cover? I think so.

Oh, Adam Lambert. You're so pretty... (Note the sarcasm).

I actually detested every performance by Adam Lambert on American Idol. Don't even get me started...

Cross Country Move/Road Trip: Part 4

Okay boys and girls, I think it's about time we wrapped this up, because honestly, I'm getting tired of posting about our move! :)

Michael and I stayed in Ogden with my sister Dee Ann and her family for a couple nights and we had a great time since some of my other family members came to visit including my sister Kristi, my two nieces Aubree and Jessica, and Jessica's husband Leard, as well as my brother Steve and his girlfriend Stacy. We had a fun night eating cupcakes and playing games. Dee Ann insisted on my putting on my glasses because I couldn't see the cards very well while we were playing. JK!

From there we went to my parent's house to stay with my best friend Martha (who happens to be house-sitting for my parent's while they are on their mission.) While in Bountiful I got to have a great girls dinner with some old high school girlfriends, Martha, Brooke, Heather, and Melinda, as well as get together at my fav sister-in-law Tish's house where Michael's mom was able to come as well.

After leaving Bountiful we stopped in Provo to have dinner with Steve and Stacy at Guru's (love that place!) and then we made the 4 hour drive down to Hurricane, Utah to stay and visit Zion National Park. It was absolutely beautiful. I had never been so Michael and I decided to hike the Narrows. It was AMAZING!! The Narrows are a skinny river-like part of Zion that cuts through these amazing cliffs.

You pretty much walk through the river the entire time and at one point you have to walk in water up to your waist.

It was so much fun and Michael and I had such an awesome time there, even though it wore us out pretty quickly, Michael even fell asleep on the tram back to the parking lot... :)

From Zion we drove the final few hours to Los Angeles our new home! This picture is of Michael's car somewhere in California! I still can't believe his car made it the entire way! Notice that it has no front bumper. That is the least of it's problems...

So, in all we drove a total of 2,917 miles through 14 states. It was an amazing trip and we had so much fun! Let's just hope that in 3 years when Michael is done with his Master's at UCLA we don't decide to move to Boston Massachusetts or something like that!!

Cross Country Move/Road Trip: Part 3

Ready for the next installment? Because I am!

After leaving the Muldowney's home in Sheridan, Wyoming we drove through Yellowstone National Park. It was beautiful and we wished we had more time to spend since there was so much to see and because it is such a large Park. In the few hours we managed to get up close and personal with a couple of different Bison, one was simply walking down the street next to us. Unfortunately, even though I got it on video, the computer isn't allowing me to upload it.

We also made it in time to see Old Faithful erupt, walk around some bubbling and boiling hot springs and wind our way around the Yellowstone lake on our drive. It was such a beautiful park and it was worth driving through on our way to Idaho Falls to stay with one of my sisters and her family.

Some of my favorite pictures are the ones I've posted. It was really pretty to see how Old Faithful would create its own rainbow from its spray and how high it could reach. Although Michael fell asleep on the bench waiting for it to erupt he still enjoyed it once it did.

Some of these last pictures were from the hot springs and how much steam the produced. We saw them pretty late in the day so we weren't able to see all of the beautiful colors that they produce in the water, but they were still beautiful and interesting all the same.

I though this poster was funny. They had it up all over the hot springs area. Notice the sister freaked out and the father walking away oblivious to the son/boy scout walking in the hot springs! It was pretty funny to me.

After leaving the park we drove a few hours to Idaho Falls to stay with my sister Sheri and her family. They took us out to dinner that night which was great because we were famished from all of our driving and sight-seeing that day. The following day we were supposed to drive down to Ogden, Utah to stay with my other sister Dee Ann and her family but we had little bit of a "cat disappearing act" that caused us a delay. Apparently, after I loaded up the car and put the two cats in, Sadie, the fluffy one, decided to hide under the driver's seat for about 3 hours. We thought she had jumped out of the car while I had the door open so after searching for her all over Sheri's yard I sat down in the driveway with the car in view and I see her pop up in the window. We only got to Dee Ann's house about 4 hours after we originally planned to! Sorry Dee Ann!

Well, I'm tired out from blogging. More in Part 4!

Cross Country Move/Road Trip: Part 2

More from our Move! After leaving Devil's Tower, we had the opportunity to stay with some of our great friends the Muldowney's in Sheridan, Wyoming. We had such a wonderful time relaxing for a couple of nights with them playing games, eating their yummy cooking and hanging out with their two sons. They have an adorable family and one of their sons, Isaac, heard Michael call me honey when we first got to their home so for the remainder of our stay he called me "honey." That and uncle Jayna. He was so cute! Anne made some of the most amazing desserts, and while we were there we had a nice day of walking to the post office and spending time in the backyard while Michael took a painting lesson from Ryan at the college where he teaches. Here a couple of pictures from our stay. We didn't take many but thanks Ann for the ones you sent.

Movies and MORE Movies!

One great thing about living in the land of movie-making is that you definitely get your eye full of movie and television posters. A couple of new movies coming out that I am excited to see are ones that I have seen multiple posters for already, some even 15 stories high. Check out these previews for Disney's A Christmas Carol and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I love movies!

Cross Country Move/Road Trip: Part 1

Well, here it is, the start of our epic road trip/move from Cincinnati, Ohio to Los Angeles. I finally was able to figure a way to load pictures onto Michael's computer because his IPhoto is not cooperating but here they are. I'll break this trip up into parts as to make it easier to view. Long blog posts make me antsy.

Michael and I left on a Tuesday morning at 1 am, after cleaning our house for the very last time. (It is still on the market so send good moocha our way). We packed my car full of everything we could fit and after getting rid of so much stuff we had a little room to spare, hence the spices and the bottle of Midol, thanks Dee Ann and Sheri

for pointing that out. Our two cats had plenty of room behind the front seats but their favorite place to sleep was on top of all of the boxes.

After driving about 18 hours through the night and the following day as well as through Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, we made our stop in Wall, South Dakota. There wasn't much to see there but we were able to get a good night's sleep and wake up early to see The Badlands National Park. It was absolutely amazing! I think it was one of Michael's favorite stops. The Badlands are located in the middle of nowhere and when you come upon them all you see are canyons and caverns and what look to be mountains. It was very cool to see. I was still pretty tired from our drive the day before so while Michael took a little hike up one of the "mountains" I decided to take a little nap.

Next, we drove to Mount Rushmore which was about 2 hours away from where the Badlands were. It was amazing how much the scenery changed from rolling prairies to green mountains in just a matter of hours. We decided to only stop and see Mount Rushmore rather than park the car and hike close to it, mainly because we didn't want to spend the $15 charge. It was really cool to see. Michael kept saying that it looked a lot smaller than he expected it to, which I agreed with, but I was happy to see it because it really is amazing.

The final place we visited in South Dakota was Devil's Tower, about an hour and half from Mount Rushmore. It is known as America's first National Monument and it was huge!! Apparently it is this gigantic mountainous rock in the middle of nowhere. We stopped and looked around and I had some ice cream while Michael sketched. It was pretty crazy to see, and Michael kept telling me about how it was in the movie "Close Encounter's of the Third Kind," which I've never seen.

Anyway, more of our journey next time in part 2!

Great Read

I decided once we moved to LA that I was going to join a bookclub through meetup.com, so that I had a good reason to read some really great novels as well as meet new people. The first meeting is on the 19th of this month and the novel we selected to read is called The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I borrowed it from a neighbor and hoped that I would have it finished by the bookclub meeting date, but it was such a great read that I finished it in about 3 days. It is such a compelling story and I couldn't put it down. Michael is actually reading it right now. He picked it up last night as soon as I finished it and he actually only has about 30 pages left to read. For anyone looking for a great novel to read that you will fly right through, you should definitely pick this one up.

I was also excited to see that they have made a movie of it and it will be out next weekend, the 16th. For anyone interested here's the trailer. If you read it

or end up seeing the movie, let me know. I would love to hear what you t

hink of it.

28 on the 29th!

Since Michael has already had school take over his life, I decided to go to Disneyland this past Tuesday to take advantage of their Celebration special, Free Admission on your Birthday! I had an awesome time there which started with a pleasant ride down to Anaheim from LA with NO TRAFFIC at 9:30 am. I was given a button that said "Happy Birthday! Jayne" which was kinda cute and I didn't care that they had spelled my name wrong on it until the 2oth time that a worker shouted out "Happy Birthday, Jayne!" The only reason I didn't take off my button was because they were kind enough to give me the best seats on the rides when I wore it!

Because I was only able to go to one park I decided to go to the California Adventure Park since it has more of the thrill rides that I like such as the Tower of Terror, which I rode three times, the California Screamer roller coaster, which I also rode three times, and the Maliboomer, which I rode a couple of times. Overall my birthday was pretty great.

Michael and I were supposed to go to dinner that night, but I ended up getting a really awful migraine from all the rides and came home sick. Not the greatest drive home of my life which consisted of a target shopping bag which I kept handy right nest to me just in case, but the fact that I didn't have to wait in line longer than 15 minutes for a single ride while at the park was awesome!

Michael and I will be having a "do-over" birthday for me tomorrow since I only got to enjoy about half of my original birthday, but I'm looking forward to going to Santa Monica and enjoying some time at the ocean.

Los Angeles, We are HOME!

Well, it has been a crazy, fun, exciting, (add more adjectives here) past two weeks! This post is pretty much to let those who've been wondering or worrying (sorry mom and dad) about our getting to California, but we now call Los Angeles home. We have spent the last few days since we got here looking for an apartment, enjoying a free comedy show, getting lost a few times, finding an apartment we loved, signing a lease and moving in! We now have an honest-t0-goodness address here in West LA only four miles from UCLA so that Michael's commute to and from school isn't a total headache every single day.

We've also gone furniture shopping at IKEA, restocked kitchen supplies and organizational supplies from Target for our tiny closet and at the moment I am doing our laundry at Sparkling Laundry down the street from our new digs. We're doing great, loving the sunshine in September and finding our way around this huge city. More to come about our cross-country trip as soon as we get internet access in the apartment tomorrow. :)

Kids are GREAT!

Rest In Peace Patrick Swayze

Dirty Dancing will be watched by me again very soon...

Update!

So, as of now we are at my best friend's house in Bountiful, Utah (which also happens to by my parent's house because Martha and her husband Taylor have been house-sitting while my parent's have been on their mission in Germany.) We have had such a great time on our road-trip so far and have gotten to see SO many sights on our way here. We still have The Narrows the hike in Zion National Park here in Utah on Thursday and we still have to make it down to LA but we have really enjoyed our move. I'll have pictures and a post up once we officially moved to Los Angeles this weekend. :)

Thank Goodness for Technology

Michael and I have finally broken down and bought a GPS for the big move to the west coast as well as for finding our way around Los Angeles once we arrive in our new city of living.  I used to be so proud of my use of Google Maps until it got me lost last week and I can just imagine Michael and I coming across such intersections as this with Google Maps as our companion on the 36 hour drive.

 Sorry Google Maps, you've done your part but now it's time to move over for the new Magellan Maestro 3100 which will now be taking your place, (and of which I got a killer deal on Amazon for, too!)

FOR SALE!!

Okay, this is my third post of the day, but it is the one I am most excited about! Our house is finally on the market! It is well overdue since we move in less than a month, but because Michael and I are the worst procrastinators in the world better now than later I guess. Anyone interested? :)

By the way, I ran a poll on the blog about 2 years ago about what color to paint the front door and might I say that the red turned out GREAT!! Thanks everyone for your votes and help. Love it!

I have a dream...

My parents have had a few homes built over the years (around four that I can remember) and would often buy catalogs filled with house plans from many different styles: victorian, florida-spanish style, one-story rambler, craftsman, etc. For as long as I can remember, I would grab one of these catalogs and lie on my stomach and imagine myself walking through the houses, locating great little corners to read books,deciding whether a bathroom was too small to be shared between two bedrooms, and imagining if a back porch was large enough to enjoy in the middle of summer. I love houses. I love the way they make a family complete, they give a sense of safety, peace, and serenity as well as ownership.

Now that we are selling our house I have been thinking about my dream of one day taking a sad dilapadated house and restoring it to something beautiful, charming and warm again. I want to take something that is full of history and make it into something that everyone can enjoy and I would love to take that house, preferably Victorian, and run a bed and breakfast in it. I would love to share it with others and show the pride I have in accomplishing something that was hard, time consuming and inevitiably worth it just to take one house off of my "Oh it would look so beautiful fixed-up" list that I have in my head.

Since we have done so much in the 98-year-old house that we have been living in here in Cincinnati for the past five years, I thought I had had my fill of fixing up a house, but now I know that was only a small taste of what I have been dreaming of.

We have done so much, or atleast I have with the help of a lovely, if not sometimes cranky and unproductive husband. I've not only painted EVERY room in my home (sometimes twice) but I have also installed tile in the kitchen with my mom's help on the floors, countertops and backsplash, (THANKS MOM!!!!) put crown molding up in the living room and dining room, put chair rail in the dining room, painted the floors upstairs, retiled and regrouted the bathroom tile, painted my front door "Posh Red" and a million other little projects that have taken me to Lowe's sometimes three and four times in a day.

My dream is still there in the back of my head and I know there is that pretty victorian house out there just like this one that is waiting for me to show it some TLC. Now the only thing left to do is find it and convince Michael that it is worth the time and money.

Cross Country

Well, Michael leaves today for Utah. He will be taking his car the 24 hour drive to make it in time for his 10-year High School reunion and wow, did I have a fun time packing it up for him. It only took me four hours, a major headach and a messy house to pack his car full of everything we won't be needing until we move to California.

He's going to leave his car at his mom's in Utah and then fly back to Cincinnati so that he can turn around and make the 36 hour drive with me to California in a about three weeks.

So, he'll be gone for a few days enjoying himself and performing his stand-up routine at his reunion (yes, Michael if you didn't know performs stand-comedy a little on the side) and I'll have the lovely task of cleaning out the garage and getting our home ready for an open house on Sunday. I guess him driving roughly 6o hours back and forth across the country makes me feel less abandoned. :)