Last night my mom and I were lucky enough to be offered a seat filling opportunity at the La Jolla Playhouse for Aurélia’s Oratorio.  It was gorgeous.  The show was written and directed by Charlie Chaplin’s daughter and performed by his granddaughter.  I thought it was like Cirque du Soeil meets Film Noir.  It was very French and very fun.  Everyone should see it!

I came into work today and received my rainbow pack of labeling tape!  Our poor, poor supply budget hasn’t allowed me to keep my usual rainbow of labeling tape stocked and I only had blue and green left.  The rainbow pack of 24 rolls is over $100!  But, the Biology supply $$ gods have smiled on me and I was able to get more tape.  Colors organized in ROYGBV order make me so happy!

Now I can color coordinate the Enzymes lab and the stupid Cellular Respiration lab.  Whew!

There is also a very small chance that this little pink lovely will be mine.  It’s a stupid thing to do, but the heart wants what the heart wants…

I don’t even know what she is, but I already love her!

My mom gave us this beautiful little fishtank when we moved into the condo.  It’s the Mini Bow 2.5 in Totally Teal.  Now, I’ve set-up my fair share of aquariums and I know that the rule is one inch of fish for each gallon of water.  But, the thing is, sometimes when you know the rules, you know just how to break them. 

We went to Pet Smart and started choosing fish.  It totally freaked out the fish girl that we wanted to buy 7 whole fish all at once!  Even after I told her that they would be going in a “10 gallon” tank.  (wink, wink)

But we got our 5 neons and 2 ghost cats home and they are very happy and have plenty of room.

We’re totally going back for more neons.  They look amazing when they school!

Michael picked out the fake rock cave and plastic plant arrangement with his keen artistic eye.  The tank is a gorgeous addition to our swanky little condo.  It really ties the room together.

Michael and I had so much fun at the dump yesterday.  We went to Escondido Disposal.  It’s an indoor dump!  I’ve never seen anything like it.  We rented a 10-foot U-Haul truck and loaded it up with our old couch and a whole bunch of junk from the old house.  Then you back into a giant wharehouse and dump your trash.

We had a blast!  Michael threw a desk and our couch out of the truck and I got the throw the filing cabinet.  We were laughing and taking pictures the whole time!  I’ve never had so much fun at the dump!  Throwing old trash on top of other old trash is a great Saturday afternoon outing!

As we were leaving we drove past the recycling yard and saw huge cubes of Tide containers.

I cleaned up the blog a little and changed the look of things around here.  The old theme was so dark and dreary, I was kinda losing interest in blogging.  This one is fresh and clean and once I get all the kinks worked out, I think it’ll be the change I needed.

We have most of the move done.  I lost my sewing room when we moved to the condo.  It’s only two bedrooms and we sleep in one and Michael makes his magic in the other.

So I have to actually sew like most people a the kitchen table.  I’ll be fine, I’ve done it for many, many years.  Having a sewing/craft room is a luxury I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy the past few years and I’m sure I’ll have one again in the future.  So, in the meantime, all my patterns and fabric are stored at my mom’s and just a few necessary notions and sewing machines are with me at the condo.

I’m really anxious to finish getting us moved in and organized so I can try out my new sewing situation.  I kinda relish the challenge of being able to create fabulousness in less space than I’m used to.  I’m looking forward to stretching my resourcefulness muscles and actually improving my sewing abilities.

It’ll all be reported here on the blog…

Is it really 2010 already?

I feel like Michael and I just got back from our honeymoon!  The past 6 months have flown by! (there have definitely been more good days than bad)

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Mamma Sheila.  She came up and we cooked and ate and had a fun, fun time.  She even made it through Bruno, Borat, and Stepbrothers all in one sitting.  She laughed her head off and loved all three movies!  Then she spent the night and we didn’t get up early and participate in Black Friday this year!  It was great to hang around the house in our PJ’s and have a yummy breakfast.

We decided to move into the condo so that we’ll be able to get the $$ together to build a house and I knew the big move was coming up quick.  Mumsy Trish and Gary were coming for Christmas and I wanted to make sure everything was festive for them, so I decorated the house for Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving for the first time ever.  It’s a little early for me, I’d rather wait until December, but I’m really glad that it was done and ready for them.

We had a great Christmas with them and plan to make it an annual tradition.  This Christmas was very “warm & fuzzy”.

Now we’re in the belly of the beast.  The tenants are out of the condo and we’re planning on moving in this Saturday.  They left the place immaculate, but we decided to paint Michael’s studio and our bedroom before we move in.   So I go over there from work everyday and paint.  I should be done tomorrow.  Things are looking really nice, I think we’ll have a pretty swanky pad once we get ourselves situated.

It’s just such a big move, I’m having a hard time seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.  But once we get our stuff into the condo, we’ll have until the end of the month to get the rest of all our possessions into storage.

It might be a little overwhelming right now, but it’s a huge help to have Michael by my side; we’re a good team.  He has a way of making everything work out and I love him all to pieces for it!

Every year on of my co-workers, Cam, puts on a Thanksgiving party for the Biology department.  This year I was asked to bring the turkey, so I decided to try the Vons 2-Hour Turkey.

It was really, really quick and easy.  You just pre-heat the oven to 475, rub down the defrosted turkey with olive oil and sprinkle it with salt and pepper.  Then in 2 hours or less you’ll have a done bird.

It smoked up the house pretty good, but it smelled wonderful while it was cooking.  I pulled it out after 2 hours and made some gravy, then I wrapped it up in foil and took it in to work.

I only had a couple bites of it, but I thought it was disgusting.  It had a weird, bitter, burnt olive oil taste.  So I decided that I’ll be making a turkey the old-fashioned way for the actual Thanksgiving day.

But here’s a picture of Matt carving it.  Everyone else loved it.

Cam’s work-study students and other members of the department, brought all kinds of wonderful food from all over the world.

They also made a screen for a slideshow of pictures of previous Thanksgiving parties and someone wrote Happy Thanksgiving beautifully on the board.

 And just because my building is going to be torn down soon (after the new one is built) I thought I’d put up a picture of my cold, cement, prison-looking Biology building.  It’s ugly but it’s been my workplace for the last 10 years.

I finally finished the Current Treetopper Angel tonight while we watched the disturbing Dexter Thanksgiving episode.  I wasn’t too sure about the colors I chose at first, but Michael says they’re pretty. 

She’ll take her place on top of our little tree in a couple weeks.

This was my dream wedding dress.  Even with help from Erin at Dress A Day

and the lovely ladies at Pattern Rescue, I didn’t locate it in time to make my wedding gown.

I LOVED my wedding dress!  I was able to come up with something just as wonderful.  But Vogue 4743 was never forgotten.

And a couple weeks ago it turned up on eBay!

Now it’s mine and I can’t wait to make a party dress out of it.

I just need a fabulous party to go to…

I spent the entire weekend working on one of these angels for our Christmas Tree.  This is my 3rd round of making one and it’s a LOT of work!

My mom bought two of these kits back in the 80’s when they were originally released.  Then a few years back I found one on eBay and purchases a 3rd kit.

(Here’s another eBay auction)

 Her first kit, I put together for her when I was in High School, and she still puts it on the tree every year.  A few years later I thought it might be cool to make her second kit for myself and I just glued rainbow-colored feathers all over her.  It was a very cheesy 90’s rave looking angel.  The rainbow feather angel probably spent the remainder of her days in a landfill…

 So, this weekend I decided that I should put the 3rd kit together.  The kit really just includes the printed fabric and instructions.  You have to embroider, stitch, and/or decorate her however you want.  I like the embroidered/ribbon look which is what I did for my mom’s angel.

This weekend I got as far as finishing most of embroidery on her dress and halo.  This week I’ll work on her wings and her face and hair.  I’m hoping to have her completed by Thanksgiving.

Then we’ll have our own hand-crafted Bacon family Tree Topper Angel.

What a great weekend!  The party never looked better thanks to my wonderful husband and his kick-ass decorating skills in the living room.  Plus, we had Lindsey and Cornbread stay with us all weekend.  They worked their booties off setting up and I can’t thank them enough!  

Check out Michael’s photos on his blog.  I’m such a lucky girl!

 My mom brought a super cute arrangement in a pumpkin.  It had funny plastic faces all around!  How cute!  She’s the best mom ever!

This was the first year I made creature egg shots.  They were really good and I had way too many of them.  I felt great after a few of them, but I paid for it in the morning.  I guess I just can’t party like I used to. 

The white is cool whip and the yolk is an apricot half that was marinated in triple sec.  Yum!