little stitches

in conjunction with my new camera lens, i also got two new craft books. i can spend hours perusing the craft section at the bookstore. which we ending up doing sunday. yep, i keep feeding my minds eye. sooner or later i'll actually put it to use.

the first book i got: amy butler's little stitches. it's got a bunch of cute patterns i can't wait to try out. i absolutely love her fabric and thought this would be a great way to put some of my fabric stash to use. although looking at most of the projects it looks like i'll be purchasing more of said fabric. (one of the main reasons i adore her fabric is that she puts together collections. so you have a wide variety of fabrics to choose from that coordinate and have the same color palette.)

the other book i got was free-style handmade bags and skirts. this book has got a lot of cute, simple bags and skirts and also comes with a few patterns. i know i got a book a few months ago that is somewhat similar. but you can never have too many books with great ideas. at least in my opinion. so the craft book library grows.

with all the meds and the constant driving back and forth to the doctor, i haven't had any desire to do anything let alone sew. i'm on day 12 of the stimulating drugs and i'm so ready to get the show started. by the looks of my appointment this morning, the retrieval is probably going to be saturday. i have another appointment tomorrow and will definitely find out the date then. (there is a slight possibility it could be friday.) i thought for sure this cycle would be faster than the last since my meds were doubled. for some reason i've been a little bit slower responding. who knows why. i'll update tomorrow when i know more.

telephoto

one of my birthday gifts was a new camera lens. it's a 75-300mm telephoto lens. below (left) is the maximum zoom on my 55mm lens and on the right is the extreme zoom on my new lens. awesome.

and, of course, no photo post is complete without a dog shot.

holy crap!

yeah, that's me. another year older.

poladroid

found a really fun website that converts your jpg photos and turns them into old-school polaroid-like photos. it's called poladroid and it's super fun. the software is free, but they do ask for a small donation, which i was happy to oblige. basically you drag and drop your photo onto the camera and it spits out, what at first looks like a black photo, but then the image slowly starts to appear. just like the real thing. even has the sound effects. you can also play around with the preferences and add dust and finger smudges.

i just messed with a few photos from my desktop. but i can see myself definitely spending a lot of time messing with this program. you can even take the photo into an editing program and add text, which i've done. what fun! i told myself that i'd be working with my sewing machine today. how quickly i got sidetracked when i found this site. a shop update is long overdue. hopefully in the upcoming weeks, between medical stuff, i can get a few new items added. i do have a small stack of new pouches and clay items that just need photos taken. that'll be my first goal. add what i have done.

birthday is right around the corner too. what's on the list? a new lens for the camera. pretty soon i'll be able to see the pores on your face from 10ft away!! lucky you!

green subway

i ordered a few samples of glass tiles off ebay yesterday. not sure if it's gonna be too much green for my taste, so i did a quick mock-up of what my backsplash looks without and what it would look like with the tiles. i'm sure it'll look better in person, but right now...not really loving it. i'll continue the search.

it's bottomless

my stomach has become a bottomless pit. ugh. i think the meds are messing with my system this time around. this phrase actually left my mouth the other day: "i should have ordered a 12" sub." me, the person who's always satisfied with a kids meal, ate a whole 10 nugget meal on our way back from san francisco. me, who's not a big fan of sweets, has eaten two boxes of oreo cakesters in the last week. omg! you'd think with all this eating i'd be pregnant already. tomorrow i start my stimulating meds. i'm guessing my ER to be next weekend or early the following week. i can't believe it's approaching so fast.

took the leap

yesterday i finished the dining room/kitchen accent wall paint job. i always seem to make things harder on myself than they have to be. case in point. after doing all the remodeling work on the basement, i thought for sure we'd have a 12" roller handy. we, in fact, had three. three caked with drylock gunk, that were pretty much useless for anything. instead of heading out to buy a new one, i decided to use the 6" roller i had instead. (sorta reminded me of the time i used a 12" level to make striped lines on the walls with vaulted ceilings) so what i probably could have done in half the time is finally done. i am proud that i stretched the paint and only used a gallon for everything!

i am extremely happy with the end result. i can't believe how much cleaner the walls look and how bland they looked beforehand. all the walls in our house are currently painted with flat paint. after a couple of years of living here, there seems to be more smudges, scratches, marks than there is clean wall. this is the first "big" room i've done in the house.

next on the list. tile backsplash in the kitchen and paint the kitchen/den. below are the before pics. what an improvement.

give me a minute

dining room possibilities

i'm about 90% positive this will be the future color of our dining room. both picture and color chips have been sitting on our wall the past few weeks. the dilemma: one wall continues into the kitchen and i'm not sure i want a green wall in there because we were thinking of a blue and stone backsplash. but the more i look at it the more i like it. hmmmmmm. i'll have to keep pondering or perhaps reconsider the color of the backsplash.

reality check

upon returning home from our san francisco trip life has really hurled one curve ball after another at us. one of the biggest was the loss of my future nephew on wednesday.

last tuesday irina, my sister-in-law, went into the hospital with some heavy spotting, she was about 2.5/3 cm dialated. basically she was in premature labor. luckily they were able to stop the progression and ordered her on strict bed rest for 10 weeks. she was supposed to return home from costa rica on wednesday but that trip was quickly revised with her returning in may.

this tuesday, brian headed down to costa rica to give her a little moral support. he called me on wednesday afternoon and told me that irina's water broke and she lost the baby. she was about 19 weeks which is way too early for the baby to survive. brian said that irina had prayed he would be there if this should happen and he was.

they believe that irina has a weak cervix and the weight of the baby may have caused it to open prematurely. hopefully a cervical cerclage will prevent this from happening in the future. although this has been quite a devastating blow for them, both brian and irina are anxious to get started again. they are very strong-willed people and this doesn't surprise me. sending much love and prayers their way.

while i was in san francisco i did have a scare myself. i felt a huge lump in one of my breasts. aaron was pretty sure it was a cyst but wanted me to get it checked out when we returned. so yesterday i went in for an ultrasound and it indeed was a cyst. it looked like two separate cysts, both measuring about 2 cm each. the doctor suggested we drain it right then and there. turns out it was one huge cyst. so technically i had a 4 cm cyst that practically popped up overnight. they are pretty sure it might be from all the hormones i've been taking for my IVF cycles. some people are prone to getting cysts and i just happen to be one of those people. so i have to keep monitoring myself, hopefully this was a one time occurrence.

luckily this has not interfered with our current IVF cycle. i received all my meds on wednesday and started lupron injections that night. i thought i'd be a pro since we've done this all before. but i did get a little adrenaline rush when i gave myself that first shot. it'll take some getting used to again. so we are officially underway.

the rest of the story

i was able to get the rest of my san fran photos uploaded this morning. between two cameras and two computers i think i was able to get them all loaded. i did have to do some editing. i let adrian play with my slr and he thought it was neat that he could take sequence shots. so any shot of me you see, just know there's about 10 more of that same shot! he's too funny. it was so great seeing everyone and this year was perhaps one of my favorite academy meetings to attend. now we're back home and back to reality.

sight-seeing in san fran

today was a loooooooong day of sight-seeing in san fran. after we were able to figure out the public transportation system, we headed to golden gate park. i had downloaded about 12 caches in the park and we were able to find 6 before our feet told us it was time for to head home. here are some photos from our first day here. tomorrow we hit up fisherman's wharf, golden gate and the presidio. i'll try and update photos daily. i'm a little giddy that i can actually walk about and take pics with my new camera. now to figure out how to look a little less touristy. doesn't help that we're hitting all the popular spots. right now, i'm ready to hit the hay.

come on ride the train

it's the choo-choo! IVF #2 is officially underway. the rough schedule i just got: start birth control today, start lupron on the 11th, blood work and ultrasound on the 20th, start stims the 21st, retrieval the 1st of april, transfer 3-5 days later.

rockin' the suburbs

so i actually have to write a ben folds blog rather than post pics. i hate going to concerts where all photography is prohibited. and yes, i tried to sneak a few camera phone pics and was reprimanded almost immediately. if they saw the quality of my photos they probably wouldn't have cared. a few weeks ago i was bored and changed the settings on my camera to solarize. i didn't realize it was still on that setting when i was taking pics monday night. no wonder they looked so crappy.

i'm gonna do a quick summary of the evening. got to asheville about 6:30 and headed downtown to grab a bite to eat at salsa's before the show. i'd eaten there last time i was in town and thought aaron would enjoy the food too which he did. afterwards we walked around the corner and stopped in the chocolate lounge (which seems to being doing great despite the economy) for some dessert. had a few truffles and a glass of wine before we headed over to the orange peel.

this was the first time either one of us had been to this particular venue. nothing too spectacular about it, reminded me of the galaxy in st. louis. got there about half hour before the opening band miniature tigers began. i could definitely see them playing on a wes anderson soundtrack or any movie with jason schwartzman in it. which is basically any wes anderson movie. ;) the second group hails from greensboro, nc the spartones. they only sang three songs but absolutely rocked it out. even did a cover of "not the same." they were great.

and then came ben. i always worry a singer/band is gonna sound worse live. but ben delivered. he delivered for 2 hours straight. (minds out of gutters please!) rocked out to some old tunes as well as some new ones. it was an awesome show and well worth the trip!

(man, i started this post two days ago and it's still lame two days later. oh well. i do realize i have A.D.D. when it comes to writing longer posts. i'll try to keep them few and far between for everyones benefit.)

all choked up

saturday we decided to do dinner and a movie once again. the weekend prior we saw revolutionary road and this past weekend we saw doubt at the dragonfly theater. both were great movies and i love that you can enjoy a beer or in my case a glass of wine while watching.

anyways, for dinner we headed over to outback steakhouse in blowing rock. there was a 20 minute wait so we decided to sit and eat at the bar. the carolina/maryland game had just gone into overtime, so it was a perfect choice for us. eat, drink and watch. after we had gotten our food there was a little bit of commotion on the other side of aaron. one of the teenage boys also eating at the bar had apparently inhaled a piece of steak. he wasn't choking, but could feel it lodged in his throat. him and his dad went to the bathroom to see if they could dislodge it. 10 minutes went by and aaron decided to check in on them. he came back and said the boy was trying to make himself throw up, thinking that would move the meat. he's talking and breathing fine, just uncomfortable. another 10 minutes go by and our waitress sends a co-worker in to check on them. aaron goes back with him. a few minutes later aaron reports back to us saying he's still trying to vomit, breathing and talking fine but his dad just asked the employee how long it would take an ambulance to get there. which aaron doesn't think is necessary. if the dad is overly-concerned he can easily drive the kid to the emergency room which is pretty much around the corner. a few minutes later a fire truck, ambulance and another medical vehicle pull up in the parking lot, lights blazing and sirens roaring. four technicians head for the bathroom.

"this is a gross misuse of emergency personal and totally unnecessary." aaron tells me. with the situation now under control we decide to pay and head out. when we get our bill our waitress says for being a good samaritan our entire meal was comped. it totally caught us off-guard. we thanked her and told her she didn't need to do that. she insisted. we thanked her and she thanked aaron again for his help.

so there's a fire truck, ambulance and another emergency vehicle sitting in the parking lot and there are about five cars trolling the lot for a parking space. which i thought was odd. if i saw a fire truck with the lights on sitting in front of a restaurant, i'd probably find another place to eat. i just thought that was weird. well when we pulled out of the parking lot, i saw all the technicians leaving the restaurant sans kid. he must have dislodged the food on his own, which aaron predicted would happen.

found foto

"hold on a sec. i saw something i need to get." we wait for the girls that pulled in ahead of us to get out of their car. "is it money?" he asks. "no, even better!" i hop out of the car and grab the polaroid next to the girl's car door. i had spotted it on our way back to the car after eating dinner monday night. it was upside-down, but the instant i saw it, i knew what it was.

"why do you want this?" looking at the photo.

"haven't you ever seen those websites dedicated to found photos?"

"no."

i knew once i saw what was actually in the photograph, it wasn't worthy of submitting. blogworthy, maybe. but it was funny how excited i got when i spotted it. check out these sites and you'll see why. i found your camera, found photos on flickr, and found magazine.

living with dictators

yesterday, we headed down to the hickory furniture mart for their "presidents day sale." yeah, right. the only things "on sale" were home accessories. you'd think with 4 levels of furniture stores, we'd have a lot to choose from. it sure wasn't the case here. half the stores we didn't even bother to walk in. when you have a lion standing guard at your store front, i'm pretty sure you're not going to carry anything i like. we did manage to find a few items amongst the overstuffed and gawdy. behold. our new couch. we got to pick out the accent pillows and imagine my surprise when i found my roman shade fabric amongst the choices. we opted for a more subdued fabric. since we went with the chair fabric below.

yes, we got some bold print chairs. if you didn't notice from my previous post, i'm a bold print kinda girl. i made a beeline towards them the instant i saw them. aaron laughed, "i knew that's why you wanted to come in here." he knows me too well. i knew i wanted that particular print, but they had it in two different colors. one with blue and green leaves and a lighter background and the one you see here. with the dogs we opted for this one. (funny how your animals and children start to dictate your furniture purchases.) so in 4-6 weeks we'll have a new living room which has been empty since we moved the sectional to the basement. yay for progress.

sofa king cool

the past few months we've been on a quest to furnish our house. it's actually been an ongoing process since we've moved in, but a serious consideration the past few weeks. we made a special trip to charlotte to look for a bed frame and some new living room furniture. we pretty much came back empty-handed. our main problem: delivery. most places do not deliver to the high country or if they do, it almost costs more than the actual furniture. we considered renting a uhaul and picking things up ourselves, but we have to have everything ordered or in stock for it to be worthwhile.

the other problem: i can't find anything i like. i'm extremely picky. don't want anything overstuffed, leather or wood-colored. and that seems to be what's popular and in abundance. i really don't want to settle. so it's been a very slow process. aaron's pretty much given up and has left all the decision-making to me. although i'm happy about this, i know it's going to be extremely tedious task. there's a reason why the only rooms painted in our house are bathrooms!

so i've been scouring the internet, trying to find home decor. hopefully there's gonna be some changes in the westphal house soon. how soon is the real question.

baby blues

yesterday i finished my first quilt. it's small and uncomplicated. measures about 30" square. about the size of a stroller blanket. i guess it's considered a quilt when there's batting between two layers of fabric. so ta-da here it is! the only thing i went out and bought was the batting. the rest was from my fabric and felt stash. not too shabby for my first try.

anti-

in honor of the upcoming holiday, i thought i'd share some great gifts i found on etsy.

pair of lovebird bowls

open wounds from the cutting edge

heart attack screenprinted necktie

poisoned heart collaged necklace

yes, there's a anti-progression. ;)