Me and Some Sewing Machines

I completely forgot about this picture my husband took of me while we were in Las Vegas this past December. Judy’s post about her old sewing machines reminded me of it, so I thought I would share. We went to the Cosmopolitan hotel and walked around the shops there, when I saw one of the shops (it might have been Stitched) had a HUGE window display of all these old sewing machines, it was so cool! I absolutely loved it!

And yes, that is an alcoholic beverage in my hand, which may account for my goofy face and pose… :blush: But anyway, they had a TON of sewing machines lined up, from floor to ceiling. It was so cool, a little bit of my quilting hobby found in Sin City. I’d love to get my hands on an old sewing machine like these someday, when I actually have some place to store and display it! Someday!

Happy Thursday everyone 🙂

My trip to Fort Collins, Colorado

Sorry for the light posting! I spent a week visiting friends and family in Fort Collins, CO and have spent the last week catching up on work. I’m finally caught up though and am ready to share some pictures with you!

We spent some time in the beautiful Rocky Mountain National Park and hiked to Emerald Lake

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We attended Tour de Fat hosted by New Belgium Brewery

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Ate some yummy food at Lucile’s Creole Cafe

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And spent some much needed time with family!

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Hope you had a fun and relaxing labor day, too!

MIA

Me at the wedding

Look at at that, as soon as NaBloPoMo ends, I go M.I.A. for over a week!

Well, I was in a wedding last weekend as the matron of honor. I was so nervous about it, but everything went off beautifully and the couple was very happy in the end. Here is the speech I nearly had an aneurysm writing. I also started crying mid way through it!

Good Evening everyone, my name is Erin and I am proud to be the matron of honor. Bride and Groom*, congratulations on your marriage. I know you two will be really happy together.
Groom and I have known each other since high school, and I first met Bride when she started dating him in college. I liked her right away because I saw how happy my friend was when he was with her, and then I could see why he was so happy. Groom, I don’t have to tell you what a sweet, caring, thoughtful person Bride is and I can’t begin to thank you enough for bringing someone like her into my life. Bride is the kind of person whose “effect […] on those around her [is] incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life” like Bride (Middlemarch).
And actually, our meeting was pre-destined. Bride and I lived a block away from each other when we were in elementary school and we went to the same middle school, but never knew each other. In fact, when we were in middle school we both took a quiz sponsored by our student council that was supposed to tell us who our friend matches were. For some reason I kept mine and came across it a couple years ago, and guess who my number one friend match was? Some girl named Bride. So, see? I did learn something in middle school.
At this point it’s usually customary to offer up some quote or a tidbit of advice about love and married life. Unfortunately, having been married for two years now I know that there’s nothing new I can tell you that you haven’t heard already. Being married is hard work. And there will probably be days when you are so annoyed by your spouse, you may wonder what in the hell you were thinking getting yourself into this whole marriage gig to begin with. Ephesians says to “Patiently put up with each other and love each other.” (Eph 4:2) Because then you’ll remember the time he tried to make you soup when you were sick, or how you told jokes in the dark before sleeping and laughed until your sides hurt, and it’s all worth it.
“Rejoice in the wife of your youth […] may you always be captivated by her love.” Prov 5:18-19
As your relationship began among books, it is fitting that it continues in “Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, [and] is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve,” (Middlemarch).
Here is to the beginning of the next chapter of your narrative. Cheers, to Bride and Groom.

*Named changed to protect the innocent!

Next week I am flying to Knoxville, TN to attend another wedding. Fortunately, this time I am not in it, just a guest!

Our Trip to Colorado

We took over 100 pics while we were in Colorado. I’ll try not to post that many 😛

I had some apprehension over this trip. Prior to this I had never really been in snow before at all. True California girl I guess, haha. I’d never been snowboarding, I’d never seen it snow, never driven in snow, you get the picture. I was envisioning a horrible blizzard that would bury the state of Colorado and we would never be heard from again, haha. But of course that didn’t happen. There was snow but not an excess of it, and I packed plenty of warm clothes for the duration of our trip.


our boots matched, and they worked really well in the snow.

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Back from CO

Well, we did have a weather problem when our flight was departing from Orange County, that delayed us about an hour and a half, but otherwise the trip to Colorado went very smoothly. It was really fun and relaxing, I’m so glad I went! I really want to see more of the country, since I’ve lived in southern California all of my life and haven’t travelled too far out of it. I know that reality is I won’t be able to afford to live in California for most of my life, so I’m trying to visit other places to see what they’re like and if I could live there. So far I haven’t found a place I like as much. I do like the wide open spaces in Colorado, and the close proximity of forests and natural parks. And the people are very nice and there are a lot less of them than in California, hehe. 😉 I did miss seeing the ocean though. And it was so cold!! And driving over snow is scary. 🙂 Guess I’ll keep looking. Maybe I’ll take a trip to Oregon this summer?

Weather Jitters

In about 10 days Mike and I will be flying to visit my best friend in Colorado. I have very limited experience with snow, so we’ll see how I handle it! 😀 Right now I’m mostly concerned about just getting there. The weather around the USA has been so crazy the past couple of weeks and there have been so many airport delays, I’m afraid that the delays are going to be really outrageous. Luckily we have a direct flight, so we don’t have to worry about missing any connecting flights or anything. I’m just worried about getting there I guess :cloud:

Road Trip… again!

This past weekend I went on a road trip to Queen Creek, Arizona, to visit a friend that moved out there a couple years ago after he got married. Unfortunately, his wife was going to be visiting out here in California for a baby shower while we were there. Rotten timing! I went with my friend Maz and his girlfriend, Amber.

The first leg of our trip actually took us not to Queen Creek but to Williams, AZ, which is 439 mi — about 6 hours 13 mins away from home and about 3 hours away from Queen Creek. The reason? Pie.

Maz drove through this tiny town on his way out East a couple of years ago on a road trip with another of our good friends. On their way through, they stopped in at Williams and the Pine Country Restaurant and have been raving about the pie ever since. So we decided to stop here since we were going to be in Arizona anyway.

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Road Trip, Part Three!

(Originally, I was going to make a single post about my roadtrip, but it’s so long! I’ll split it up so it’s not so daunting. So this section is Part Three: Pictures.)

So I’m a bit of a dork. I forgot to post the pictures I took of us on that beach in Santa Barbara and also pictures on the way to Davis going over the Golden Gate bridge, but rather than adding it to the post afterwards, I decided to just make another post. So here’s pictures of us on that beach (behind the cut).

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Road Trip, Part Two!

(Originally, I was going to make a single post about my roadtrip, but it’s so long! I’ll split it up so it’s not so daunting. So this section is Part Two: San Francisco.)

UCSC was lovely, but we had to push through and continue on our journey! This time we needed to make the drive from Santa Cruz to San Francisco to say with Mirthala, my sister Teresa’s former roommate and bridesmaid. The drive was about 75.5 mi – about 1 hour 32 mins, and we got a later start than we anticipated. By the time we got there, around 5:30 PM, Mirthala was on her way to class from work, and wouldn’t be out until around 10PM. Teresa was on her flight to Oakland from Orange County, so Brittani and I decided to walk around the neighborhood. And what a neighborhood it is! Mirthala’s apartment is a block away from the panhandle of Golden Gate Park, and about two blocks from Haight&Ashbury! It was also close to several colleges, namely University of San Francisco. We walked there, but they wouldn’t let us use their bathroom, lol. So we found a Starbucks again and chilled there for a little bit. Eventually as the afternoon wore on, I got a little chilly in my shorts and t-shirt, so we made our way back to the car so I could get a sweatshirt and then we decided to wait for Teresa in the panhandle of Golden Gate Park and read our books.

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