Oh Captain.

I love that little dog.

cute first day quote

I asked my new class what rules we should have in our room. There were many good suggestions, but my favorite came from a very serious boy:

No flying kites in the classroom.


P.S. A Letter For You is by rheea.

It's a girl!

Corey's friend from work rescued this little girl after her neighbors moved out of their house and left her behind like a faulty bbq in the backyard with no food or water. Since we've been trying to find a girl friend for Captain Skippyjon Jones we couldn't say no. Especially not after meeting this sun-burned looking, itchy-haired, smooth moving girl.

Captain was happier than a wide receiver in the end zone when we brought her home! (You can tell he likes her because he's watching her on his good side;-)

But we're still thinking of a real name. For now she's Lady Daga. She has a faux-hawk going down the back of her neck.

(Can you tell it's hot?)

Dear Cricket in the Kitchen,

If you are a snowy tree cricket and are just trying to tell me the temperature, I don't care. I already know it's hot. I hope a scorpion eats you.

Love,
Me

P.S. J. Jr. is by kellypacker.

Last night I had a Big Brother dream.

I dreamed that my friends and I were hanging out in our backyard with Enzo, aka Meow Meow. I think it's lame when people give themselves nicknames. Every time he calls himself Meow Meow I think in my head, You're an idiot. Anyway in my dream he was not being cool, just like in real life.

Why did I dream about someone who's not even cute? Why couldn't it have been about Leonardo Dicaprio or John Cusack?


Or if it has to be someone from Big Brother, Brendon?

Who do you want to dream about?

Best Hikes with Dogs: Arizona

Today we went on Hike 51 of Best Hikes with Dogs: Arizona by Renee Guillory. This is a great book for people looking to hike with their dog or just in general. Using a grid in the front of the book, you can select a hike based on several factors, including difficulty, if there's running water, scenery, solitude, and if it's ok to hike with your dog unleashed. Each hike has a topo map and an elevation map so you can see if it's level or hilly. There are detailed directions about how to get there and how well the road is maintained for car drivers like us. It even tells you the best months of the year to go there. Really there isn't a detail left out.

We picked a hike that wasn't too far away and that would have a river. It was about 108 degrees (it's an October through April hike) but there was a lot to see, and for Captain Skippyjon Jones, a lot to smell and pee on.

Here he is smelling:

It made our city dog sneeze!

After about a mile we got to the river.

It doesn't seem so hot if you can dip your feet in the water! I got an illegal fish pedicure.

There were tons of little frogs hopping around. We think they're Canyon Tree Frogs. In a moment of abandon Corey caught one. We didn't keep it.

Time to go. Big Brother's on tonight!

On the way back Captain decided we should just live here. This summer he became a true desert dog when he figured out that water cools you down. In June he started sitting in our bird bath. Friday he started jumping in the swimming pool on his own. Today he sat in the stream that feeds into the river whenever he had a chance and was stubborn about getting back up again.

Too cute.

Great book and great hike!

3 Favorite Genres

This week Lost in Books wants to know my favorite genres to read (and also promised not to tell the other genres). Although it seems like I've been reading a lot of historical fiction lately my choices are:

1. Fantasy - I read to escape and you can't get much farther away than in a fantasy story. Some of my favorites in this genre are The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly, The Harry Potters, The Chronicles of Narnias, and the Lord of the Ringses.

2. Magical Realism - I think a world with magic is much more interesting than a regular-style one. When others might attribute something amazing happening to god, I like to attribute it to magic! Some of my favorites in this genre are Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen, Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, The Probable Future by Alice Hoffman, and Chocolat by Joanne Harris.

3. Animal Stories - I love animals so obviously I like to read fiction and non-fiction stories about them. I especially love horse stories. Since I don't have horses any more I have to live vicariously through books. Some of my favorites in this genre are National Velvet by Enid Bagnold, Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand, Chosen by a Horse by Susan Richards, and Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

If you asked me this question 10 or 15 years ago, I probably would have said Horror, True Crime, and Chick Lit (all of which I still read). I wonder what I'll say in another 10 years.

What are your favorite genres?

P.S. love is magical is by vol25 and is the perfect blend of fantasy, magical realism, and animal.

hold me closer

I still have Tiny Dancer stuck in my head from this week's Scrapping the Music challenge. I was thinking of that song while looking through photos, and I found these of my niece and I from about 20 years ago! To say the least I felt pretty sentimental, and sad that I don't get to be with them very much.

The l and the e are different in "closer" because those are my niece's initials.

A Beautiful Distraction

I found a new scrapbooking challenge blog called These Are a Few of My Favorite Things and this week's challenge is to scrap your favorite store.

Obviously I love reading so I have to go with Bookmans! (I bet you thought I was going to pick Target!) Luckily I took the photo I used of the store about a year and a half ago so I could post it on LibraryThing. At the time there wasn't a photo of Bookmans to go with the listing. Since then a girl on there keeps taking mine down and putting hers up, but I think mine is way better, don't you?

That photo to me says it's 115 degrees outside.

Anyway, I heard that since the roof collapsed on the Bookmans in Flagstaff and it won't be fixed until fall, they are still paying their employees until it gets fixed. How awesome is Bookmans?!

Also they are the only bookstore in town that gives teachers a discount even if the books are not for your class. Every time I get my discount I feel like they are saying, We understand and we love you. It's like a little hug in the form of money.

Back to my scrapbook page, my favorite part of my favorite store page is where I changed the banners the sparrows are holding to say Favorite Store instead of Forever & Always. I busted out the light box and traced over it onto another piece of paper and then tried to copy the cursive style. Good times.

What's your favorite store?

Tiny Dancer

This month the challenge at From Screen 2 Scrap is to use this movie poster as inspiration:

The challenge at Scrapping the Music is to use Tiny Dancer by Elton John as inspiration. I love that song! One of my favorite jokes from Friends is when Phoebe was like, I love that really sad song about the guy from Who's the Boss! You know? Hold me closer Tony Danza!
Anyway...as soon as I heard Tiny Dancer I thought of the zillions of pictures I have of my nieces in dance recitals and in dance costumes. I had to use these precious pictures of my niece, Kayla, who is now 16. I liked the blockiness of the movie poster so I arranged my pictures in an orderly manner.

Isn't she cute?

Also I thought it was funny that the poster for the month was for Sherlock Holmes because I just did a Sherlock Holmes scrapbook page a few months ago. I still haven't seen the movie but I want to.

An Inconvenient Elephant by Judy Reene Singer

I received An Inconvenient Elephant as an Early Reviewer. Upon receipt I discovered that this is actually the sequel to another book called Still Life with Elephant. I decided to go ahead and read it without the prequel and had no problem understanding the story.

Neelie is a woman who has been caring for baby elephants in Kenya for the last year. On her way home to the United States she meets Tusker, a bull elephant with a death sentence because he likes to share campers' food, just like the raccoons in Grand Canyon but bigger. She feels compelled to save the magnificent creature but there are a few minor details she needs to take care of. First, raising $35,000 as a pay-off, second, getting him and his best friend Shamwari (which means My Friend in Zulu) to the U.S., and third, convincing her ex-boyfriend to allow them into his elephant preserve.

There was some corny dialogue in the first chapter which made me feel like I was going to be in for a long ride, but it picked up from there and only got better. I loved the numerous African proverbs sprinkled throughout the story such as, "As they say in Swahili, It can rain on your head all day but it won't grow a banana tree."

This is a great book for animal lovers and environmentalists alike. And now I want to read the prequel...

P.S. Blue Safari is by Art&Ghosts.

Junior Prom

I dug out my old prom pictures in April when all the real proms were going on in the world and started scrapbooking them. I finally finished today! The hold up was the nice note my friend Kristin wrote on the back of her prom picture she gave to me. I copied the back so I could include it (which took about a month of procrastination), and finally adhered the last wallet pictures and note today (another 2 months of procrastination).
This one's been done:

Today:

The clear thing with all the receipts and tags I saved (I think I always knew somehow I would be a scrapper) is a page torn out from an old mini slide-in photo book. I think I'll also photocopy my diary entry from the night and slide it in there too.

Who has a good prom story to share?

Who's watching Work of Art?

I love reality t.v. and this is one of my new favorites! On the 3rd episode the artists had to design a new book cover for a classic in celebration of Penguin's 75th anniversary. The winner got to have their art published on the cover of the book.
Here is the winner, John Parot, as he is showing off his cover for The Time Machine by H. G. Wells in the gallery:

He said he made a time machine that he would want to travel in. Here's the book:

Yes, I already ordered it.
If you want to watch the show too it's on Bravo.

Since I'm talking about t.v...I can't wait for Big Brother to start tonight! It is probably my 2nd favorite reality show after Survivor!

P.S. I miss Mary Murphy on So You Think You Can Dance. She was almost my favorite part.

3 Books You Wish Had a Sequel

Lost in Books wants to know which books I couldn't get enough of.

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - I could read about Scout and Jem forever. What are they like as grown-ups?

2. Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier - At the end of the story you think you know if they get together, but do they really get together? And what would that be like?

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling - More Harry Potter! More Harry Potter! More Harry Potter!

Also I just found out that one of my favorite books, Plainsong by Kent Haruf has a sequel!!! It's called Eventide.

P.S. i am a bookworm is by vol25.

Las Vegas Wedding

This month at ARTastic the challenge is to use 'The Card Sharpes' by Carravaggio as inspiration.

When I saw feathers and cards I thought of Vegas! When I thought of Vegas I thought of the pictures from my cousin's wedding from 6 years ago that I still haven't scrapped! Here's what I came up with:

The feathers came in handy to cover up people's heads.

Also I made a companion page to my Obama layout:

The Obama card came with a bunch of sticker quotes so I included some favorites along the bottom.