This and that

We got up at O Dark Early today to get Adam to the airport. Left the house at 5:30, and got to KCI at 6:40. Normally, it doesn't take that long from here, but there was just enough snow over night to gum up the traffic works. Thank God most people don't work on Christmas Eve, so the roads were at least being lightly traveled.

Looks like it could be a white Christmas, but it's more like a whiskery white Christmas - it snowed, but not enough to cover up the grass.

Last night we did the friend-ily gift exchange with Betsy and Mitzi, and watched "Can't Buy Me Love." Mitz cooked up some awesome homemade pizza. I think she's inspired Adam to invent his own recipe for homemade pizza, too. Betsy gave Adam the Nestle Tollhouse (Tooul-hoouse, for you "Friends" fans) cookbook. We decided that we should make a recipe from there every week when we have our little get-togethers, but we'll also have to schedule an extra get-together for working out to burn off the sugar!

Picture me like the little old ladies in "The Three Amigos" today - SEW LIKE THE WIND! I've got to finish the blanket, and make a scrapbook page frame as well. Guess it's a good thing Adam took off for Salt Lake.

Off to get some work done.

Voila!

We had the extended family over for birthday cake and dinner Sunday night for Dad's belated birthday. It was the motivation I needed to finally get the Kraft Korner (or Crap Room, as Adam is fond of calling it) finally cleaned up and somewhat organized.

Basically, all that junk you're looking at has been there since we moved in right before school started. It's the remnants of what was in our spare bedroom/office at the apartment, and it was all thrown in boxes during the move.

Read: I didn't want to deal with it then, and I really still don't want to deal with it now, but it must be done.

Saturday morning, it looked like the above photos.

Sunday night, before dinner, it looked like this:

Ahhhh. Finally, some organized living. (Yes, I know our chairs and table don't match. Get over it.) Maybe we'll just call it shabby chic.

There's the built-ins, finally cleaned up.

My big project was getting my junk organized, Adam's was coordinating the hanging of the mirrors. As you can see, he was spent. But, those mirrors look pretty damn good. We weren't even thinking about them when we picked paint colors, but I think they look really good with our paint and furniture.

And, every time I look at them, I'll think of Dave and the Lovings, since they were wedding presents from them!

El Dia de Los Kickballs (Or Muertos)

This is an historic post, O readers of the Chittum Files: You are about to see the first post with photos taken entirely from my iPhone, not a digital camera of some sort. I'm not posting from the phone - I don't have the patience or attention span to try to type all of this on the miniature keyboard.

El Guapo played the first round of the end-of-season playoffs tonight. True to our Mexican roots, we celebrated El Dia de los Muertos while on the playing field. I knew that was the plan, and I needed to get there earlier if I wanted to get my face painted.

Of course, newspaper is on deadline, and their worknight was tonight. They packed it in at 6:30, I scooted home, quickly changed clothes and headed off to Penn Valley Park.

Let me tell you - most of you probably don't know how far it is from 159th street to downtown. Downtown (at least where we play) is around 25th street. I didn't think I would get there in time for the game, let alone for the pre-game revelry.

But, I made it home, changed, hopped back in the car and got to the game in time for Andrea to get my pre-game ritual taken care of.

My face felt so itchy after she painted. I don't think I really was itchy, but since I knew I couldn't scratch it, or touch it, for fear of smearing, all I could think about was how my skin felt funny and needed to be scratched!

CY and Rita definitely win the prize for complete costumes - check out their bones! Cap'n Dave, one of the instigators of this blessed event, is conspicuously makeup-free over there on the right...He SAYS it's because he had to ref the game right before and it went over. Maybe he just wussed out on the makeup?

Nah, I doubt it.

That's me, getting made up by Andrea. I shot that Hail Mary style with the phone while she did the work.

Checking out everyone's handiwork. That's Kristin back there on the left, working on Andrea's face. Wait til you see how it turned out. It's freaking great.

Bag of bones.

There's Kristin's handiwork. Check out all of the shading in those flowers. Not bad for a job completed in the dark, in the dugout.

What do you think about the iPhone photos? I might be able to eke 4x6 prints out of them for my scrapbook. Those'll be a little pixelated, but I think they look pretty damn good on here, considering they were shot after sundown, only lit by baseball field lights. I'll be interested to see what else I can do with the phone, photo wise.

Oh yeah, we crushed the other team, good ol' Swunts and Swalls. So, I think we play twice next week. I went 1 for 2, with a single and a run scored.

I hope we're the wieners!

Well, despite the fact that the Star has just announced more than 100 layoffs, they're still staffed enough to do some cheesy summer contests. Next month is National Hot Dog month, so the FYI section is running a "Dress A Dog" contest.

Betsy and Mitzi came over last night. We planned to craft while Adam watched the blowout NBA game. We figured our crafting would be knitting or something like that.

Nope. We decided to dress a dog.

Meet Carmen Mirandog. Complete with her own beach blanket, chaise lounge and tray o' drinks.

I think Mitzi is working on the dog's sunglasses in this shot. Don't let Adam fool you - he was just as in to all these shenanigans as the rest of us were. The contest is on until June 25. Maybe we'll win one of the Picnic Prize Packs! Fingers crossed!

My last few pages - made it home okay!

40 pages - sometime Saturday night.

Here's Kat celebrating her 50th page of the weekend. The sad thing is, it's nowhere near the actual total number she completed. You'll have to see her blog for that. I know she got at least to 60, but how far beyond that, I don't know.

Here's the last few things I worked on:

Some of you will recognize this as our house in Valley Center. As you can see, I don't necessarily crop in chronological order.


Photos from the Wii Like To Party Party - our first experience with Guitar Hero...



One of our favorite 2-year-olds:

And here we are just before I hit the road. These are the faces of two crapped out croppers.

Thanks to the gals of Scrap*FunAttic in Andover - without all of their hard work, this weekend would not have been possible. Now, if I could just figure out a way to teleport myself there, and a way to make money no object I would be a happy camper...

They keep alive my dream that I will someday be able to make a living in the craft world.

It's all over now

You need to check out Kat's blog for all the news from her side of the table at Cropaganza.

I'm getting ready to get in the car for a three hour drive - let's all say a prayer that I don't fall asleep after this mad weekend of scrapbooking.

Cropaganza Crazies

Unfortunately I missed what would probably have made the best video footage - one girl actually did the worm during the dance off portion of the night's festivities. In my adhesive and Cricut induced daze, it took me a few minutes to realize "Hey, I should make a little movie of this weekend. "

I'm so torn, and maybe this is what photographers who are also reporters and videographers feel - when you concentrate on one job (for me this weekend, scrapbooking) it's hard to remember to do the other jobs (shoot photos and keep up with the blog) at the same time.

Anywho, here's a tiny sneak peek inside the sordid world of weekend crops. Don't get the wrong idea, though, there's not music playing and dancing all night long. We all needed a recharge so Steffanie and the gals got the music playing. Selections included "Baby Got Back," "Strokin'," "The Cha Cha Slide" and other dance numbers.

The recharge session was good. Kat and I were playing on calling it quits at 2 a.m., but she's now SAYING she could go til 3. We'll see about that.

Enjoy!

When you get drunk I'll be the wine

Obviously that title has nothing to do with Cropaganza, except that "I'll Be There for You" by Bon Jovi was just playing on the P.A. system.

Here's what I've done so far today, along with some gift tags that I didn't photograph.

Day 2 - Crop til you drop

Well, here we are on Day 2. We went to bed about 1:30, and I was up by 7:45. I got cleaned up, and we went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. So far this morning, I've completed two pages.

I'm finally done with Summer Solstice Party pics, so I'm going to start on something else as soon as I'm done posting to el bloggo.


Here's what it looks like from the second floor balcony.



I discovered at breakfast this morning that there are two kinds of Cropaganza scrappers - those like Kat and I who went to bed fairly early, and were showered and dressed and somewhat bright eyed for breakfast. Then, there are those who stayed up all night long, and went to breakfast wearing the same clothes they were wearing last night. They're hard core.

Bedtime for Crafto

Kat 10, Jill 5

Live from Cropaganza '08 - Kat is officially kicking my ass on the scrapbook page-o-meter. As you can see, she's completed twice as many as I have so far.

Here's a preview of a couple of the pages I have done so far. Sorry about the giant glare on the top photo. It's not censored, I promise, I'm just too lazy to try to fix it.

That one is definitely my favorite of the ones I've done so far. I'm getting ready to work on photo pages from Carrie's benefit garden party last summer. Sometime during the weekend, I'm going to go around and shoot some photos of the whole she-bang. It's craziness, especially for the uninitiated.

The theme for this year's event is 80s, so lucky for me, they're playing all my favorite 80s tunes.

More later - I've got to get to work...

I would post a photo, but...

the camera's packed, the card reader is packed, and the laptop is fixin' to be packed, to head off to Cropaganza tomorrow morning.

I'm so proud of myself - it's all organized and ready to go, I've just got to pack my clothes tomorrow morning, and make a quick stop by the instant oil change joint, and I'll be hitting the road.

Tons of pages to work on: zoo, Derby pics, White Party Pics, Christmas, family, and many more I can't remember off the top of my head right now. I also plan to work on some more gift tags, and framed pages. Kat and I will be blogging on location (that is, if the Park City Best Western has wifi capability....hhhhmmmmmmmmmm).

I am taking my charity scarf project with me, hoping that Amy and I might get a little time to knit on Sunday before I head home, but we'll have to see. My total donations stands at $85 right now, just $15 short of my goal of $100. If you're so inclined, you can join Julie, Mom and Chris as donors here.

I'm looking forward to spending some time with Kat this weekend, just to catch up, hang out, and because she is the scrapping queen, so she'll have lots of good ideas to help me make cool pages. We had a good worknight tonight for newspaper, so I won't have to think about them over the weekend, because I think they'll be fine while I'm gone. Yearbook has a big deadline tomorrow, I'm a little nervous about that, but I guess sometimes I have to let go, trust they'll do a good job, and we can always fix any major problems on the proofs...

I've even gotten my Monday lesson plans done, so when I get back on Sunday, I can just relax and mentally recharge for the week ahead.

Have a great Friday, everyone!

Other crafty endeavors

Days like today make me glad that Adam and I did decide to move to Kansas City. I have A LOT of family here. My mom comes from a five-sibling family, and her parents also came from large families, so I have tons of cousins, second cousins, other-types-of-cousins, etc.

Today, one of my cousins (daughter of my mom's cousin, so you figure out the technical term) had a bridal shower. It's a lot of fun to get together with everyone. There's always lots of laughter.

Here's the gift I took to the shower:

It's a 12x12 scrapbook framed page with Shannon and Joey's wedding invitation on it. I had made one for Shannon's sister-in-law at her shower a few months ago, so Shannon's mom slipped me the invitation for this one a little early so I could make another. It's nice to take a break from the knitting and make my brain and hands do something else.

I also made this one this afternoon, since I still had all my scrapbook stuff out. I hate dragging it all out of the closet just to make one piece. Hmmm, wish I knew that Amy was going to have a girl, then I could say that this piece is spoken for! I guess I'll have to wait a few more weeks for that news.

Again, I thought maybe I'd try to peddle this at the school crafty fair. I think it would make a great gift for a new family.

•••

"August Rush" was quite the tearjerker, but the simple fact that it starts Jonathan Rhys Meyers makes it worth the price of admission in my book. I loved him in "Bend it like Beckham" but in this movie, he plays a musician, so his sexy quotient gets upped quite a bit. Plus, I'm not gonna lie - the Irish brogue gets me every time!

In the beginning, the plot was a little slow, but as it picked up, I really got in to the movie. Plus, the music is amazing.

You probably won't convince the males in your life to see it, but if you're looking to see a movie with a friend of the female persuasion, you should check it out.

I suffer for my art

Gotta give credit to Mr. Chittum for that phrase. He happened to call this morning while I was sitting in a 105-degree laundromat wishin' and hopin' and prayin' that the $1.25 "whites" cycle would complete the felting job on the moebius baskets.

Not so much. They still need a little bit more.

I've finished all five of the scrapbook pages. I'll take pictures in the morning when the light is nice in the living room, and post them then.

I'm finally going to be headed back to Wichita tomorrow afternoon. I have to drive a minivan! I will be breaking one of the Jill Jarsulic Ten Commandments: Thou shalt never drive a minivan. However, I'm doing it to help out my mom, and she owns it, not I, so I guess I'm in the clear.

Anywho. Time for bed. It's been a long day.

Oh yeah, I also finally added a free hit counter to the site. It'll be interesting to see what that tells me.

Back by popular demand...

or at least by demand of Candice!

So, part of the reason the Chittum Files has been on hiatus is because (YIKES - look at all that passive voice. Guess I should practice what I preach) I spent 30 hours scrapbooking this weekend, with one six-hour break for sleeping.

Crop-a-ganza! Sorry, as my husband says, it's hard to say that word without laughing. It was like Est-Fest '07, although I did see one man who was actually scrapbooking...

Lately, as those of you who read this blog know, I have become a knittin' fool, so my scrapbooking has traveled to the back burner of the Chittum stovetop. BUT, I do still have tons of photos and way too much scrapbooking stuff (or so I thought - more on that later) so I decided to tag along with my friends Kat and Linda to the weekend Crop-a-ganza! hosted by ScrapFunAttic of Andover. I mean, who can pass up a night at the Park City Best Western?

Okay, yes, usually I can pass up a night at the PCBW, but I digress. You would not believe the amount of money some of these people have invested in scrapping - keep in mind, I do not judge, because I wish I had that much money invested in yarn and needles. You know those rolling luggage carts? I saw two or three women who had them FULL to the brim with all of their scrapping implements. It was all brand-name stuff, too, no plastic tubs for toting stuff, the stuff was all toted in various apparatus made with names like "Tote-ally Cool." Me, I spring for the $4 plastic boxes from Tar-gey. So, I guess maybe I'm the white trash scrapper. And proud!

Photos of babies, kids, dogs, horses, sweethearts, you name it, were being cut, glued, embellished and glued again all weekend long all over the ballroom. I've never seen so much ribbon, paper, stamps, ink, books, blah ba de blah. However, I did have a really good time and I got much accomplished. I completed an entire 12-month calendar except for one month, and I got my marathon scrapbook a little closer to being finished.

We started at 5 Friday night, and I got home at 8 Saturday night. Pretty much fell asleep on the couch the minute my head hit the throw pillow. Though, I can't say visions of scrapbook pages were dancing in my head.

Adam and I are going out to dinner tonight for Valentine's Day - don't know where yet - it's a surprise. At least I'll have fun tonight since PT conferences are Tues/Thurs of this week. Gee, can't wait for that.

I'll post later tonight or tomorrow the story of our dinner. Any guesses on where we're going? We have reservations...we never go anywhere that takes reservations...I think that's against the hippie code.