Thank you Smitty Baby!  And this is the person who will be getting the goods:

(This is momma when she was a baby. Her own little bun-in-the-oven is almost due!)  Woo hoo!

A somewhat off-beat Mother’s Day “card” for my mom:

The left is the lid to the box and the right is the inside when opened.

(Why, yes, I was inspired by Joseph Cornell’s work when I saw it at the impressionable age of 18.)

A simple 4 year anniversary “card” for Mr. Man:

This is a shot of my fabric scrap bowl with all the bits that I hate to throw away because I want to sew them into a scrappy….thing.  I’m not sure what.  (If you heard a large popping noise, that was Mr. Man’s head exploding because I am saving yet another thing for yet another indefinite project.)  The bowl itself is pretty awesome, with a 70s, green flower painted on the bottom.

Now I’m supposed to tag three people, but I can never pick!!!  Instead, here are three links:

Hark, A Vagrant! (quite amusing, often literary comic strips)

The Bright Side Project (lovely giveaways every day and the ladies in charge put a LOT of work into it)

popbar on Simple Song (another reason to go to New York)

It took me a while to find out about Sosser’s tag because I have been away for a few days.  Mr. Man worked with my dearest, bestest friend to get her to come down for a visit as my graduation gift!  We spent two days just talking and trying to get baby to kick me.  (Baby is still a bun in the oven.)  What a nice way to start summer!!!

Perfect!

Found via Mod Cloth’s blog.

Scientist Valentines by Ironic Sans (via Craft).

I had a lovely Christmas and I hope everyone else did too!  The highlight was having my brother visit from Washington, and my Aunt and her boyfriend visit from Oregon.  I restarted a family tradition of setting out a puzzle for everyone to put together.  (It was a hit.)  Mr. Man did lots of good cooking (we finally finished leftovers) and I wanted to share a cool gift he gave me in case it inspires any other gift giving:

Feed the children of the world bag provides a year of school lunches to a hungry child in a developing nation.  There are a number of other items you can purchase as part of a donation including a cute teddy bear.

There are plenty of other stories (including honest to goodness SNOW in California!) but a girl has to ease gently back into the blogging world.  See you soon!

So, I am half-way through a paper that is due tomorrow and I think to myself, huh, I should go check my blog.  (This is perfectly rational and reasonable.  Especially at 11: 58 pm.)  And I see that this blog had 17 views on the 5th–when I haven’t written or commented anywhere in foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  I know nothing about these so-called “views” so they are probably spambots (?), but in the interest of running a highly scientific survey I thought I would ask…”Who’s there?”  Leave me a comment so I have a tiny, sunshiny ray of a reminder that in a few short weeks I will be able to return to art and crafting and blogging (between semesters at least).

You can tell me what kind of person puts red crepe paper in a pickle jar and takes (multiple) pictures of it.

It makes me think of brains.  Now canned for the discerning zombie owner.

I know this isn’t supposed to be a cat blog (do those exist?), but I couldn’t help but share this sweet little hug between our kitties.  Awwww…  (They were sleeping in one small little cat bed.)  And it seemed to perfectly illustrate two feel good things I discovered today:

Gives Me Hope (sweet, funny, and touching moments of kindness in the world)

God Grew Tired of Us (documentary about the Lost Boys of Sudan coming to America)

Even my camera download cord is smiling at me!  (Do you see it?)

My one-and-only 28th birthday was yesterday and today my family came over to celebrate my brother’s birthday and mine with a BBQ.  Chris surprised me with FRONT ROW tickets to Wicked, the musical in SF for next Friday!!!  Eeeeeeee!  Are you jumping up and down in excitement for me?!   And to top that off, my parents gave me a gorgeous brown pearl necklace.  I feel so grown-up and classy.

Feeling completely spoiled right now.

Quick catch-up in bulleted format because I like bulleted lists:

• First semester of second degree done.  Whee!  (Only two more!)
• Birth of my beautiful, happy niece.
• Moved to another (nearby) city, into a house with a raised deck overlooking an oak tree-filled ravine.

And here is a Suspicious Kitty Picture for your enjoyment.