Embroidered Cards - pics

I haven't "cuted" this one up yet, but it only took a few minutes. These are so fun!



I did small flowers that look super cute, and then did a big one for the demonstration piece for ladies' night, but I think the smaller ones look a bit cuter.

I can't stop! These are so fun!

Embroidered Cards

Last night, I tried something I have wanted to try for quite some time - embroidering cards. I love the hodge-podge scrapbooking style cards, but... well, I'm just not good at them! But I saw this idea on this website and have been wanting to try it for weeks! Last night I finally got out mom's embroidery thread and the only blank cards that she had and went to town. I knocked out a pretty cute one for my first! I have to become some sort of expert this week, though, because Mom and I were brainstorming about what to do for our monthly ladies' night on Friday and we both thought this would be a cute idea!

I'm excited to teach the ladies something they probably have never done, and we'll have cards to send by the end of the night! I'll try to post pictures soon! :)

just some news...

I heard back from the job in Houston... apparently my tears were more destructive than I imagined! Okay, maybe that wasn't the reasoning, but I didn't get the job. I am very disappointed! I had really become excited about the idea of moving down there, so I am still applying for jobs in that area. I'm praying something comes up soon!

In better news, I heard back from my unemployment hearing and they reversed the decision to deny my benefits. Yay! I haven't gotten the money yet, but I'm hoping it comes soon. I can't tell you what it does to your spirit to have to depend on other people for sustenance after caring for yourself for so long. Even though I will still have to live with my parents, I will be able to pay some bills and buy food for myself occasionally. That is a relief!

I have been showing my house to prospective renters for a couple weeks now. One family came to view it yesterday twice, so I'm hoping I hear back from them today (or very soon). They wanted to think it over, which I completely understand. I am cautious about renting it to just anyone because I really don't want to end up with a trashed house when the lease is up. But at the same time, I really hate having to make judgments about people based on "gut feelings" but what else can you do?

Lots going on, obviously, but I'm hoping to add some interviews to the mix very soon!

Have a great weekend!

When it rains...

This afternoon I went to my house to take pictures so that I can finally post my house for rent on Craigslist (apparently it's a great place for that!). On my way back to my parents' house, I heard a notification on my phone telling me that I had a text message. I couldn't find the phone in my seat or purse, so I figured it had fallen under the seat. The next time I pulled up to a red light, I reached over to the passenger seat and pulled it as close to the front of the car as it would go. The light turned green before I could look thoroughly, but I didn't think it was there. So I arrived at my parents' house and heard the "power up" music on my phone. Uh-oh... I know what that means. That means my phone is broken and the screen is busted. And it also means I know exactly where it is and exactly what happened. I looked behind the passenger seat and sure enough, it was wedged between the chair and the track, so when I scooted the seat up, I busted it.

I cried. (Big surprise)

I went inside, defeated, and explained what happened to my mom. She so generously offered to take me immediately to the Sprint store to get it replaced. This happened once last year and the replacement was only $50. Well, apparently times have changed because they charged double that to replace the phone. I told them I didn't care if they didn't have the green one in stock, I would take whatever color they had (only because I need to have access to my phone a.s.a.p.) so they gave me a white one.



I'm so thankful for it, but I really miss my pretty green phone. :-/

Somewhere I belong

Many times in my life, I've felt like an outsider. I'm sure we all go through periods of time like that, and I find that often I feel like that at church events. Most of the people at church would hate to hear that I feel that way, but that is the place where everyone is expected to be part of one big group with no sub-groups and no cliques, but let's face it - when there are more than about 30 or so people, groups start forming... sometimes they're grouped by age or marital status. When there is a group with a couple hundred, several groups are formed and I find a little niche that I fit into. Even though I love the people around me, when I'm with that niche I feel free to just relax and be myself.

Tonight, Drew and Kyndall B. had a Memorial Day cookout at their house. They invited several people from church and everyone was having a great time. As those things usually go, immediately after dinner a few people left and people continuously left. About an hour after dinner, there were only about 10 people left hanging around. That was my favorite time of the night. I was in my niche. We talked about everything from dogs to weddings to houses to jobs to memories and even a few more serious things... it was a wonderful way to spend the evening and I can't wait to do it again!

There's no crying in baseball!

As you (all four of my readers) already know, I have been looking for a job for a couple months now. Yesterday I had an interview with the only company who has been interested thus far. I did a lot of praying beforehand, but I purposefully didn't practice or recite answers to common questions because I wanted to just be real, raw and... well... me! It sounded like a good idea at the time, and looking back, I'm undecided on the verdict.

I got dressed and ready that morning for my 10:30 interview. It was the perfect interview time because I could relax as I got ready and not feel rushed and overwhelmed. So, I took it easy. I got to the building just a few minutes before my interview time and made my way upstairs. Did all the normal stuff, talked to the receptionist, signed in, etc. The recruiting coordinator came out to meet me since we had talked on the phone several times. She took me to a conference room and we chatted for several minutes... I met a few more of the HR team and everyone was just so excited to meet me! It really made me feel good. Three women on the HR team were the ones to interview me, including the HR Director. Everything was really going great... I was just being myself and honest and everything. One of the ladies asked me what I would do in a particular situation where someone might get mad at me and approach me about it in a really mean way. I said, "Well, I think it depends on the situation... do I need to find out what they're talking about? do I already know the problem?" She said, "Let's assume that you made a mistake and it was your fault. They are mad at you about it." So, I thought for a few seconds and said, "Well, first, I would probably cry." They all laughed for a minute, and then I continued, "I'm serious, I'm a crier. I wouldn't do it in front of that person, but I would go collect myself in the restroom. But to answer your question, I'm a talk-it-out person. I'm not one to get hot-headed, if that's what you were asking." She seemed pleased with that answer, but it led into a humorous conversation about who in the room are criers and who aren't.

Almost immediately after that question, the HR Director asked me why I left my job at the law firm. Without giving you the War and Peace length version of that story, let's just say that between going through a divorce and dealing with a stalker, I was a very distracted employee at the law firm, and that caused a rift between me and one of my bosses. She was not the type to want to know why I wasn't meeting her expectations, just that I wasn't meeting them, so we had a meeting where "we" decided that I would look for another job. So, that is why I left the law firm... but since I hadn't practiced any answers, I had about 3 seconds to think of how to answer that question. As I'm sure you know, there are certain things that you simply do not talk about at an interview, one being marital status. But I felt like I needed to be COMPLETELY open and honest with them, so I said, "To answer that question, I need to get a little personal." I had no sooner said the word personal, when my eyes started welling up with tears... and there was nothing. I. could. do. My voice was shaking all over the place and I gave the explanation a bit more thoroughly than I did in this post. One tear fell. I was mortified, and tried to help the moment by saying, "See? I told you I was a crier!"... they smiled and kept reassuring me that it was fine, but at that point, I was tearing up because I was so embarrassed that I was crying in an interview, not because of anything I said.

One of the girls (not a crier, by the way), got up to look for a tissue for me. I laughed and asked her please not to, because I think that would make the situation even more embarrassing. I did not want them to acknowledge that I had produced tears in an interview! Everyone was so great, though. The director asked me a for more questions about my job at the law firm and what I had learned from that experience, and then they changed the subject. Everything went smoothly before and after that... and honestly, even during the moment it was okay. I was mortified, but I said what I needed to say and they all said that they really appreciated me being honest with them about it.

The non-crier gave me a tour of the office after my interview and as I was leaving, I told her again that I was very embarrassed about my waterworks. She told me that me being honest really meant a lot because she knows that people lie in interviews all the time so they really appreciated me telling them what happened.

So, now we wait. The director told me that they would make a decision by the first few days of June. I hope my waterworks, or the story that prompted them, didn't ruin the interview!

My best work

About this time last year (or was it two years ago? They all seem to run together these days!) I did a wedding cake for a dear friend. I had never made a cake for anyone before so I think it was sheer confidence that prompted me to offer to make her cake. I watched Ace of Cakes enough and I knew I could figure it out. She sent me pictures of a couple ideas she had for cakes and they all looked so easy, so I told her I could do it!

For anyone who hasn't tried to do a professional-looking cake, I recommend you try it. It really is NOT as hard as it looks!

I baked the cakes a couple days before the wedding and froze them. I heard that you can freeze them and then brush the crumbs off while it is still very cold and that is supposed to help the frosting to remain crumb-free. Well, that didn't work well for me. But that is why you see a brush in the picture below. You'll also notice that one of the cakes had a big piece that broke off, but that's nothing that frosting can't hold together! Frosting makes a great glue! :)



The bride didn't want to use fondant since no one really likes the taste, so I told her we could do buttercream. I searched the internet and found the "paper-towel method" for smoothing buttercream to look like fondant, so that's what I did. I definitely recommend this method! It seems like everyone prefers buttercream and you really can get it to look smooth. The cake below was a bit frozen, so the buttercream was too hard to smooth properly. But I knew it would be mostly covered up, so it worked.



This layer wasn't frozen, so the buttercream smoothed a little better.



One key ingredient that really helps is a mom that is willing to help you when it's past midnight and you're about to break down in tears from sheer exhaustion. Moms are good for stuff like that. :)



Here it is in the assembling stages. I started to worry that it wouldn't look nice at this point. But... as you'll see, frosting covers a multitude of sins.



Here are the layers after all the dots and embellishment was added. Looks like it might actually be presentable!



Here I am at 3 a.m. with the almost-finished product. Time for sleep! The flowers would be added the next day right before the ceremony.



It was really hot that day, and I was obviously inexperienced about what to do when it's really hot, so I spent the whole morning freaking out about the buttercream melting and sliding into a large heap of frosting on the cake table. Thankfully that didn't happen, but I did have to do some re-smoothing at the church!



Finished product! It was a success! Everyone loved it and I can't tell you how many people asked me for my cake recipe. Can you say Betty Crocker? ;)

Dear Mr. Bad Economy

I thought I had been spared, but, no. I was laid off this morning along with several others at my job. The bad thing is that I know what goes on on the back end of these things, so I know that it didn't have to be me. That part stinks. The idea of losing my house and, well, just the general "I don't know what tomorrow holds" idea is a bit scary. But my God has brought me through much worse, so I have to keep that in mind.

There is a silver lining to today, though. My quartet was accepted to be a part of the Acappella Praise and Harmony album, recording in June in Tennessee! WHOOP WHOOP! I am one excited girl!

Talk about an emotional roller-coaster of a day! I have a headache. :-/

Difference of opinion

It's so funny to me how you can see something so clearly in your head and someone else see it completely differently. For this past Christmas, I wanted to give a good friend of mine a photo of my hands doing the sign for "friend". My brother is a good photographer, but he doesn't do much to photos other than lightly touching them up, so after he took the picture, I asked my boyfriend-at-the-time to photoshop it to make it pretty. He is pretty great at touching up pictures. I have seen several that he has done. They're always subtle fixes, which I prefer.

Here is one of the original photos that Matthew took

Okay, not much to look at. Definitely not gift-worthy.


So I asked Ben to shop it, as I said, and this is what I received from him

Yeah. Totally not what I was thinking. I then told him more what I was looking for - I basically just said "can it not be so... um... colorful?"

This is his second attempt

It wasn't what I originally had in mind, but I thought it would work. That is the photo that my friend received.


Today, I decided to play around with an online photo editing tool. It didn't have all the effects that I would probably need to make this gift-worthy, but this is more what I had in mind


Isn't it just funny that we can see things so differently?

My voice (along with the rest of my body and mind) is tired!

Several weeks ago, a member at church approached me about an opportunity to audition for a new Acappella Praise & Harmony album. He is intimately involved with this project and I couldn't help but be excited at the thought of getting to record under the direction of Keith Lancaster! That name probably doesn't mean much to a lot of people, but I grew up listening to Acappella and AVB. I remember the group way back when it was just Keith and Rodney Britt (pretty much the best bass that has ever walked the earth... I'm just sayin'). The first concert I ever attended was an Acappella concert. In my eyes, this man is a LEGEND!

My Papa and I ended up asking Matthew, my brother, and Audrey M. (another girl from church) to fill out our quartet. We recorded and I am pretty proud of our finished product! If I knew how to post audio here, I would do it. In the meantime, you can check out www.xanga.com/sbbh and click on the audio tab. It is the most recent entry.

We sent in our audition earlier this week and we should get a "yes" or "no" within a couple weeks. It was hard to schedule my recording time around all my midterms, though! I think I did okay on my tests, but what a stressful week. On top of the aforementioned obligations, I sang in a wedding on Saturday, which of course included a rehearsal on Friday evening. To say I had a busy week is quite an understatement!

My cousin, Andy, and I were asked to sing "When God Made You" and "Lucky" in the wedding. I've known both of those songs for a while now and learned my part weeks ago. You can imagine my chagrin when we started the rehearsal and Andy didn't know the songs very well yet.

Yikes!

We played it off for the rehearsal. After we practiced the ceremony, we watched a video that someone had made for the bride and groom. I have known the groom as long as I can remember and have gotten acquainted with the bride over the past couple years. They are such sweet people and seeing the love they had for each other and the love that all those in attendance had for them - well, it just gave me the warmest feeling. The video showed pictures of each of them growing up, and at one point the groom's very pregnant sister came on the screen and her voice came over the loudspeaker. She told them that she wanted to be there so badly, but that the doctors wouldn't let her come and that she loved them so much. I am not doing it justice, but there was not a dry eye in the church. It was so bittersweet. Her words were precious, but we all wished she could have been there.

Andy went home and practiced, so during the ceremony it went off without a hitch - except for the recessional where I got so caught up in watching the beautiful bride and groom that I missed my entrance! Thankfully no one was paying attention to the singers at that point. :)

The reception was beautiful, but cold. Cold is preferable to raining for an outdoor event, though, so we were all thankful!

Hopefully I'll have pictures to post soon. I borrowed Matthew's awesome camera during the reception and for the first time, took some great pictures. Pioneer Woman has introduced me to the world of photography from behind the lens. I had a great time playing with the aperture and manual focus! I thought I did a pretty good job for my first time! I'll let you be the judge of that when I finally get them on here, though.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I will start my "expert" blog next week. Maybe.

Perhaps I should blog about procrastination. Or over-extending yourself.

Something to think about...

Regardless, it will be something about which I have a plethora of knowledge. Or, at least, I will pretend like I do.

But yes, next week. Maybe.