Cute, and patriotic!

So, I totally have a Martha streak. There are probably lots of women out there like me. 95% of the time, totally normal. But something can flip a switch in your brain (holidays, major events, weddings, etc.) that make you "Go Martha". Usually, I end up running around, covered in sweat and pissed off because I didn't leave enough time to be Martha, but this time I think I've uncovered something truly simple and nice.

On Sunday, I'm heading to my Mom's house for a Memorial Day BBQ. My mom loves the two patriotic holidays we have, and tends to go all out. So I thought I'd make her these cute pinwheely things. If you go to her website, it's as easy as printing out the templates and folding them into the shape.


We'll see if it ends up being as easy as it looks, or another Martha project that leaves me exhausted aftewards... LOL

Saying goodbye...

As I mentioned, I've just started a new job. My old team put together a great send off for me, and it was even more awesome than I could have imagined. A lot of the larger team showed up, and so it was great to be able to see everyone and chat with them about my new role.

Also, my team put together some great gifts to send me off. One of them is this amazing collage of photos of me and other people at work going back at least two years. It was a total blast from the past to see all of these pictures and a lot of people that have come and gone over time.


I never expected such a great send off... I'm really touched that my team spent so much time putting together something so amazing. I'm just feeling loved right now, and that's nice :)

Going to see my BFF + learn some stuff!

Can I just say, I love my new job? I've only just started this week and I've already got plans to go to the ASTD conference in San Diego in a couple of weeks. This is a really great step for me as I'm sure I'll learn a lot of great things from experts in the field of training and development. I'll get to go with a group of my colleagues so that we can really leverage what we learn there.

And, the icing on the cake is that my best friend of all time lives just outside of San Diego!! So I'm going to get to see her, which is a very unexpected treat! I can't wait to see her!

I'm Retiring

That's what I said after spending two days working on building a shed at our property in Burson. It was actually an okay weekend, at least at first. I spent Saturday priming the shed, and ended up with primer all over myself (see below).


However, Sunday went quickly downhill for me, as I managed to spill almost an entire gallon of paint and get a gash on my hand trying to hammer some plywood to the roof.



By the end of the day, I was really ready to go home and take a long shower and a nap, but we managed to get the shed done enough to leave stuff in. I said I was retiring from shed building, but we'll have to see how I feel the next time we go up there. All in all though, I just don't think I'm cut out for this kind of stuff...

Home Improvement project: DIY Headboard

So, I'm super excited because I've decided to make a headboard for our new king size bed. I'm working off of instructions from bejane.com, which is a great site about DIY projects for women. The first step was choosing a fabric. I went to Calico Corners in Mountain View/Palo Alto, and found an awesome fabric that I think will work nicely.


This is really more of a green. It looks kind of brown in the picture I took with my phone. Next, I needed to figure out how to get my hands on foam. What I learned is that in the world of foam, there's lots of long scientific words that distiguish one type from the other. After being thoroughly confused, I found a place in Palo Alto called House of Foam. I went there today and the guy helped me (it's actually a totally simple decision, thankfully).

So, the last thing I need to do is get the plywood, which I plan to do this weekend. I'll definitely post some pictures of the process. It will hopefully be pretty painless :)

Go DIY Gina!!

First post

So.... I'm starting a blog. It's one of those things that occurs to you when you can't sleep (which happens to me frequently, especially lately). I have a latent desire to write, and since I can't really get that out at work I think being able to write about things in my life, etc. will be good for me. I also think it will be a cool way to share information with friends and family. So, stay tuned for more posts about the ordinary things that make up my life and things that just stick on my mind!

Cheers,
Gina