Small Worlds

Well the week has gone by and I have successfully made our apartment visitable. I worked my behind off yesterday and today getting ready for Jeremy's brother and girlfriend. Then at about 3pm I hopped in the car and drove to the Seattle airport and found my way no problem. I walked to baggage claim to wait for them to arrive and as I watched people get off the escalator I did a double take...I saw four people from Winona State that I went to college with walking towards the very baggage claim I was standing next to. My mouth dropped open and I walked towards them and said hello. They were just as surprised as I was. I haven't seen them in three years. It turns out they are here for a conference for the boys to attend and their now wives got to come along. I told them about moving out here and Jeremy's new job and then I had to run to find Jer's brother. I did leave them my number in case they wanted to have dinner or something. It also turns out they are staying in Redmond tonight (the town next to Bellevue, and basically a stone's throw away from my apartment).

So on a last note, we took Jake and Elisa to Ooba's Mexican restaurant/grill. We also took neighbors Sue and her son Ricky. We all had a blast. I had a Fresh Mahi Mahi burito, Jer had a Baja style Burrito with Cod.

It was a great night, and I am looking forward to the rest of the week. Now off to bed in my clean apartment. Don't worry I am going to take pictures so you all can see our place now that it's clean and 95% unpacked.

Week ahead

Well this week is going to be filled with lots of cleaning out and organizing and preparing for house guests. Jeremy's brother and his girlfriend arrive on Friday to spend 10 days here. I am excited to see family and friends and explore the area with them when I am off work. I have many things to do to make this apartment guest ready, anybody want to spend some time helping? My work hours are quite a bit less this week and I have all day on Thursday to finish last minute things. I am hoping to get the rest of the junk sorted in the spare room so they have places to hang clothes and sleep and relax if they want to have some quiet time. I am also needing to get our room cleaned up to hold any overflow of stuff that needs to be hidden away or out of the way. I also need to organize the kitchen better, deep clean it, and make the dining room table cleared so we can enjoy dinner on it.

I think I might make some special chocolates to wrap and put on the beds for them too. hmmm I am getting excited! I will update more as I go.

On other news I have been to the Bellevue Public Library this last week and picked up a book on Wildlife Drawings. I have now drawn a Lynx, Mountain Lion, and tonight I drew a Desert Bighorn Sheep.

The Lynx

Mountain Lion

Desert Bighorn Sheep

Book Review

I finished Persuasion by Jane Austen last night. I found that the words are definitely hard to follow and that I am glad I watched the PBS version on tv before reading the book. I might have been discouraged from reading it if I had not. I like the heroine, Anne. I love her steadfast character and she just stands out compared to all of her eccentric family members. Captain Wentworth is a dashing man just like Mr. Darcy. I do believe it is a wonderful book to read and if you stuck with the older language you will see the wonderful story Miss Austen created.

4 stars out of 5 (darn language).

Next up is Northanger Abbey, my favorite next to Pride and Prejudice.

Friday Night Fun

Last night we had our Minnesota Gang outing again. We all decided to meet at Applebee's and have dinner. Later plans included three of us going to downtown Seattle for a CD Release concert for a band that's drummer works with Jeremy. The band was The Preons and they were playing at the Jules Mae Saloon and Eatery. This Bar was founded in 1888. It's a very old bar that as I researched it was a local spot for factory workers and laborers. So the bar-goers were of ages ranging from 21 to 80.

Ambiance was wonderful and the concert itself was very good. The band played in the main stage in the back room. J played the drums, her brother sand lead vocals and played the guitar, there was a bass player and a keyboardist. The Keyboardist was a general term for this guy. He played the keyboard, the trumpet, sang, did some percussion, a harmonica, and a instrument that looked like a cross between a kazoo, a flute, and a small keyboard. Almost a one-man band on his own.

Jeremy and I enjoyed the evening and bought their cd. If you want to check them out look up The Preons on I-Tunes.

The craziest part of the night was looking up at the outside of the bar, and then turning my head and looking directly across the street and seeing a building just mauled and in ruins. I wished I would have brought my camera...as I always say...I am going to have to make a habit of bring it with me everywhere.

More art

So I have two more weeks of work from training to share. First is my favorite and the most recent. It is a photograph reproduction of a mama and a baby giraffe:

This is the piece I decide to display at the studio with the other instructors' work. I love the eyes of the baby giraffe.


This was a "no - step" picture which is the second type of drawings we get the kids to do when coming out our studio. What we do is have them take and find the shapes of the animals to help break a picture down to be able to draw it. I have a special fondness for penguins.

Also that day I did my first photograph reproduction of this elephant. I am not completely finished with it, but I don't mind it so it's going to probably be left this way (until I decide I need to make it more detailed).

So there is my last two weeks of training. I have been enjoying my progress and wonder at moving into still life and tones next week. after that it's on to watercolor then oil painting.

Last Friday

So the Minnesota Gang got together again Friday for food and a movie. I had a say in the restaurant tonight. I asked the guys if they want to try out the Taiwanese Restaurant next to my work and try some of the yummy food. We kept in the theme for the night and went to see Rambo the new movie out.

The food was good, this time I tried some of the Soy Flavored chicken. It was amazing. The movie was a typical shoot-em up and blow-em up movie with a couple really cool booms. Definitely not something I would have gone to see without three males making the decision.

I like that the four of us are exploring the area together. I'm not sure what we are going to see this next week...but we shall see.

Busting the Stash

Okay, so we definitely have little space in this apartment and to help with that I have decided I need to weed through and get some crochet and quilting projects done so I have more room in the closets. I have four boxes of yarn, one large tub of jeans for a jean quilt I want to make, and a tub of other fabric for projects I am working on.

My goal is to bust the yarn down to one tub and get the quilting down to less than a full tub.

So here I am...working on a baby sweater...It's almost done...I will have left over yarn and am thinking of making the hat to match. I will post pictures when I am done.

Cheer me on as I make this journey for this next year.

New adventures in dining

Today after my training session at work us two new girls and one of the program directors went next door to have lunch at Facing East Taiwanese Restaurant. Those of you who knew me growing up are probably wondering what I found to eat in a place like this. Those of you who didn't know me then should know I was really picky growing up and am growing out of it as I age and try new things.

So I'm still a little hesitant when trying new things but I jumped on the band wagon today for this place. The one girl order for all three of us as us new girls hadn't eaten there yet. She picked four different plates to try and order us all Hot Citrus Fruit Tea as well. Well the tea came out and it was amazing.

What we had to eat was the following:

1. Taiwanese Style Chow Mein with pork and shrimp in the shell
2. Spiced Pork Stew over Rice
3. Taiwanese Pork Burger
4. Lamb with BBQ sauce and greens

Plus two pots of the Hot Citrus Fruit Tea. If you want to see pictures of some of the food, I found a blog that did a report on the bloggers experience there:

Cosmopolitan Pearls Blog

Anyway I didn't actually have the Chow Mein, I did try everything else and fell in love with the spiced Pork Stew over Rice. The large of this plate is only 3.99 so I will probably be getting that alot with the tea as the months progress. It was really great food. I can't even describe the pork burger. It was so unique. It had a soft pita-like bun that kind of looked a bit like marshmallow, and the flavor of the pork and the sugar and peanuts in the burger were so delightful.

So that was exciting. I will be bringing Jeremy to there soon. Training was good, I will post about it tomorrow when I take pictures and post them.

New blog found

I was skimming through my facebook account and found out that a girl I went to Art School with has a wonderful blog that I am now unashamed to be addicted to reading. She and I took creative writing together and theater while at MCAE, She now lives in New York City and writes about food, researching the history behind dishes, experimenting with making said dishes, and little witty funnies that are so Nora!

I am looking forward to reading more and trying some of the recipes she tries.


Her blog is The Great American Cooking Project and I warn you, if you like learning about foods, you will be addicted...

Yay to finding new blogs!

Dreams

P.s. I had a dream about Quilt Retreat last night... I have been wanting to come for it so bad.

I am now taking donations towards a flight home for March's quilt retreat...


Any takers?

The skinny on my job!

Well I have one more day left of my first week of work. Tuesday I arrived to find out I would be "training" for the day. My boss walked the other new girl and I through a lesson as if we were the students. The boss chose pastels for me to do and oil painting for my new co-worker. Eventually we will learn pastel, watercolor, and oil painting teaching techniques. I ended up doing 9 pastel drawings. Here are three of the drawings:

This is my first drawing. I love the simple step-by-step drawings that each student can created the background for.



This was trying to work with grass and stone. I like how the stones look real.



This was my absolute favorite drawing I did. I was to work with the dirt and the cactus to see how to make realistic dirt. I just love this picture!

What I really enjoy about the teaching method is the ease of going from drawing/sketching to using pastels (chalk). The beginning step is to sketch the shapes from the step-by-step drawing we chose. Then we do an overall color with the chalks from largest area to smallest area. Then we blend and add lights and shadows over all the areas, then we go into adding details to make the picture amazing. Then we sign it and move on to the next drawing.

Wednesday and today I actually was teaching students already. Wednesday was rough because I had two students that were strong-willed and really wanted to see how far they could push me. I was really frustrated and left wondering if I was cut out to do this job. I'm glad I had a day off because I was trying to think of a new plan of attack. The boss and some of the veteran instructors just kept saying, "you need to put your foot down, be firm" so I know that's what I am trying to do but it seems like I get the kids who like to bulk the norm.

So that is my challenge right now is learning how to get the kids to do what I want them to do...and have fun at the same time.

Today I had a brother and sister I was working with ages 7 and 5. The 7 year old girl was easy to work with and when I gave her an example she understood the difference between what was on her paper and my example and made the changes. The 5 year old had his own ideas of what he wanted to do. I am trying to find some balance between stimulating creativity and using our teaching method.

I have tomorrow for about 4 hours then off on Sunday and found out my schedule for the next week is working monday, tuesday, wednesday, off on thursday, working friday and saturday...

HOLY COW that's work! it ends up being 24 hours, but still I am wiped after 2.5 hours...I need some more energy...from somewhere.

So I will probably update a bit more tonight. Jeremy and I are headed out on the town for dinner and a movie with two guys that Jeremy knew from IBM in Rochester. We all live in the Bellevue/Redmond area now and are excited to hang out. We're going to Ruby's Diner and going to see Cloverfield the scary movie (I'm the only girl going so I get to see a scary movie with the boys). So more later!