in love

married

an artist

a friend

a sister

a daughter

a daughter-in-law

shy

an introvert

dorky

silly

cool

may 05

june 05

july 05

august 05

september 05

october 05

i took a break in november 05

december 05

january 06

february 06

march 06

april 06

may 06

nothing in june 06

july 06

august 06

too busy in september 06

october 06

november 06

december was busy, too

january 07

february? forget about it

march 07

april 07

got lazy in may

june 07

july 07

august 07

september 07

october 07

november 07

current

ran across this on leanne's site, who modified it from a site called sundry mourning (which i had never seen before). i hadn't really thought about doing any sort of 2007 wrap up since i'm already looking forward to 2008...but considering i have the day off, and i'm debating between whether i want to go shopping or start a new sewing project, and am just sitting on my rear while jeff tries to make space in the garage for my crafting...i'll go ahead and reflect.

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?
i guess the most drastic thing was get my tattoo. which i still love.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
i don't usually do new year's resolutions, and i know i didn't have any for 2007. so i won't have any for 2008, either.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
yes! my friend jaime from old school coldwell banker days had a baby girl at the beginning of this month. it was exciting to get to see her progress through thinking she was never going to get pregnant, to finding out she was, through planning what she and her husband were going to do, and finally having her. it was really neat.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
a coworker that i started working with very closely with in the last months of his life passed away after years of battling cancer.

5. What countries did you visit?
i was in england for new year's eve, and was flying home from england on january 1, 2007, so that counts, i suppose. we also stopped in victoria, bc, during our alaskan cruise in september.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
more self control when it comes to socking money away into our savings account. we've been really good, but we've gotten to a point where we make enough money that we can be lazy about eating out and just buying ourselves whatever we want. that won't last forever, though, it's probably better we start paying better attention to all the junk we are wasting our money on.

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
5-12-07. that's the night that jeff and i got lost wandering around the lava fields in hawaii, and we thought we might have to spend the night on the rocks. that was the worst thing we had ever experienced together.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
probably just continuing to do well at my job. i've gotten some nice recognition from inside and outside the company.

9. What was your biggest failure?
not being good about keeping in touch with all the friends and family that i don't see on a regular basis. it might seem really mean, but i'm kind of an out of sight, out of mind kind of person. it's not an excuse, but i have so much going on in my life these days, it's just my way of coping.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
just stupid colds. and annoying bug bites. nothing serious.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
a new jeep! but that is what jeff and i bought together. it was the first brand new vehicle that either of us had ever bought in our lives! very exciting.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
trista is officially a cpa! and like leanne mentioned, ben is now an licensed engineer.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
the news media. i really hate how most things are covered in the news.

14. Where did most of your money go?
eating out and vacations to exciting and tropical places.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
i don't think i get THAT excited about anything.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
1234 by feist.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? happier
b) thinner or fatter? the same
c) richer or poorer? richer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
cooking and baking at home.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
worrying.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
we drove to my parents on christmas eve to have dinner with all our relatives (including my in-laws). christmas morning we opened presents with my family, and then drove to my in-laws for brunch and presents. that evening, we drove home, found some take-out chinese food, and snuggled in our own bed. THAT was a first.

21. Did you fall in love in 2007?
every day!

22. What was your favorite TV program?
i can't just pick one. the office. mythbusters. others, i'm sure.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
hate is such a strong word. i probably like more people now than i did last year.

24. What was the best book you read?
snow flower and the secret fan

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
the arcade fire. and the shins.

26. What did you want and get?
a new digital camera. i got a canon 870is, perfect to stick in my purse!

27. What did you want and not get?
a cat. poor hubby and his allergies.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
i really liked stardust.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
we went camping with all my friends! i was 29.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
the housing market turning around would have been helpful. being upside down in a place you don't really like all that much is pretty lame.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
no concept at all. old school style dresses, bizarre t-shirts, jeans, and long shorts. i really pay more attention to the color of my hair and shoes.

32. What kept you sane?
jeff 24/7. my friends at work for the 48+ hours a week i spend there.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
i have a crush on leland chapman. but that's pretty superficial.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
i really hate politics. but the deal with illegal immigration really bothers me the most.

35. Who did you miss?
my grandma. and of people who are still living, scott and summer (who are in vegas), and helen (who is in san francisco).

36. Who was the best new person you met?
i met them both in 2005, but in 2007 i actually grew to be friends with shane and dan at work.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.
always carry a gps with you when you go hiking...as i learned when getting lost in the lava fields in hawaii back in may.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
remember when i was so strange and likeable? - tegan and sara

ok. i think i'm going to go waste some gift card money and contemplate my sewing projects some more. peace out, and have a safe new year's eve!

camilles (12:33pm, 12.31.07)

h a p p y h o l i d a y s

jeff and i had a very nice christmas. how about you?

we had originally planned on going off-roading in the desert for several days right after christmas, but a cold i picked up the week we broke for the holidays has kept me in pretty lousy shape for the last 10 days. how lame is that? i started feeling it coming on the night we celebrated jeff's bday...and it's gone on and on ever since. what better way to spend all my free time off from work than hacking all hours of the night and blowing green stuff out of my nose?

anyway, the holidays have actually been great so far. we visited our families, have spent time with our friends, got lots of cool presents, and took an unplanned trip out to tucson, arizona.

why tucson? why not?

our buddy travis had JUST spent a few days out there with some buddies checking out the town as a potential relocation site for one of them...and when our off-roading plans fell through, we were left trying to figure out how we were going to spend some of the endless amounts of free time we had left before having to go back to work.

so jeff booked a couple of rewards nights at a holiday inn, we packed up the car with snacks, and headed out east for 6 hours.

it ended up being a really fun trip. we finally got to see the kon tiki restaurant. we visited the titan missile museum (that's us in the control room in that picture). we checked out the arizona-sonora desert musuem (where i had a not-so-great shrimp salad...but jeff had a good tri-tip salad). we ate at a couple of yummy places we found off chowhound. we even had a chance to stop at the tanque verde swap meet, which was really weird, and not quite as exciting as we had hoped it would be...but still interesting. have you ever heard of a swap meet that stays open until 11pm on a friday night?

the only bummer about the trip was my first night's sleep...which there wasn't much of. first, i was coughing non stop for about 3 hours, before we finally found a unisom floating around in jeff's backpack. second, the wall unit a/c kept turning on and blowing cold air randomly throughout the whole evening even though we had turned it off, which dried out the air even more and made my coughing worse. the second night was better because i loaded up on the necessary drugs ahead of time, and the maintenance man showed us how to unplug the a/c (even though it seemed he was slightly skeptical about it magicially turning on by itself...which it did again as soon as he left, at which point we unplugged it).

anyway, you can see all our tucson pictures!

so now we are home, and still have 2 full days to fill before we head back to work.

i'm contemplating some sewing projects. jeff got me an awesome new digital camera, so i might work on some photo projects. we think we'll see sweeny todd. we've got a new year's eve party at ben and scott's tomorrow night.

a busy week of freedom from work. as soon as we get back to work, it's going to be crazy. i've got a media conference to go to for a week in la towards the end of january. i've got a 22 person trip to mexico to coordinate. and then i'm going on that trip.

looking forward to a great 2008!

camilles (9:14pm, 12.30.07)

f r a n t i c e v e n t t i m e

i made it home safe. we managed to throw a thanksmas party. i'm back at work. we've got presents and events to plan for coming out of our ears. it's frantic christmas time.

do you ever think much about what other people must think about you? not the people that you know well. well...maybe even them. i'm talking more just what random people must think of you when they see you. and what their general impressions about your life must be.

take this photo for instance (click on it for a larger view):

granted, we didn't leave the leis and shell necklaces on the christmas tree in the shape of a smiley face. but we did put them on there and liked it. and my husband actually does have an old swiss army helmet that he spray painted green flames onto, and added a spike to the top of. and the lamp hanging over the christmas tree was a $20 find at an antique store in bisbee, az. and you can see the lime trivet just at the edge of the coffee table, that we found at the swap meet and i insisted i had to have (there is a matching lemon one, too.) and all the tiki mugs. and you can see a framed illustration hanging on the wall just above jeff's head, which is of the devil, wearing a lampshade, trying to pick up a zombie girl at a bar.

to us, this all seems relatively normal. actually, completely normal.

jeff sometimes tells me that he is convinced that all of his coworkers think he leads the weirdest life.

weird? or interesting?

i definitely think we lead a very interesting life. just looking around the room i'm sitting in, we've got some framed photographs i took in college, transformers, a giant 3-foot tall gameboy, a trophy for winning third place in the costume contest at lebowski fest 05. there is a passport holder that is just pictures of various cuts of raw meat from a butcher shop. a coin purse from japan that is a bear in a sleeping bag. the vampyros lesbos sexadelic dance party cd.

maybe weird AND interesting?

how did my husband and i find each other? we are two strange little peas in a pod, he and i.

i'm so grateful for that.

btw, photos of my excursion to florida with my mom are up.

camilles (6:05pm, 12.12.07)

i haven't seen my husband in 9 days, and i still won't see him for another 2. boo.

my trip is going well. i've been munched by some sort of floridian biting insect, and i'm itchy.

i spent several fun days with my mom. i can't even remember the last time she and i had been on a trip by ourselves, and it was fun getting to explore nature and cheesy touristy stuff around here. there are some neat pictures saved on my camera, so those will come later.

so stoked. just saw that my first class upgrade is confirmed for my flight from orlando to san francisco on friday. and i'm excited that i should be getting into san diego around 2pm. mainly because i'll get to see my sweetie.

just one day of the show, and then i get to pack up. i'm so, so excited. and then it's holiday time.

i really miss home. i miss my friends and my husband.

camilles (9:45pm, 12.05.07)