my best girl brooke is having a sale at her online shop! the pear project is a great place to find handmade crafts by talented artists--check it out by clicking below:

more folders
Originally uploaded by kristaleigh

...these seem quite fitting lately. I could file lots of things on my desk under "Documents: Useless".

Changing things around again a bit...

A Political Diversion

I don't get political here often, but I thought this was a pretty interesting article...

"Few Americans (less than 20 percent) want to return to an America in which abortion is almost always illegal, and if they knew McCain's true views on the subject, most would not vote for him. So the candidate is...sneaking a little of his bad-tasting reproductive rights stance into the meatloaf of his candidacy—not by hiding it, but by trading on his reputation as a maverick."

Read the rest of this article at Slate.com...

Okay, so I know I'm stupid late to the party on this, but has anyone heard Obadiah Parker (they're an Arizona band) cover Outkast's "Hey Ya"? It's been out for a few years now, but I just heard it recently.

You're probably best off starting the video and then just minimizing it and listening...someone tried to patch the real video in with the live cover, and the timing is nowhere near right. But anyhow, I just wanted to share this because I lurve me some acoustic guitar and a good cover. Hear more on their Myspace page, or download them off iTunes. Enjoy!

I am in love with pretty much everything that Amy Butler does. Now she's come out with a line of eco-friendly paper products...I am presently coveting this blue and green gift wrap and this fancy paper tableware. Her designs are so elegant, and I consistently love the colors she chooses.

If you've always been dying to know whether you're rock, paper, or scissors, today is your lucky day. I, by the way, am paper.

You Are Paper

Crafty and creative, you are able to adapt freely to almost any situation. People tend to underestimate you, unless they've truly seen what you are capable of. Deep down, you're always scheming and thinking up new plans. Your mind is constantly active. You are quite capable of anything you dream of. You can always figure out a way to get what you want. You can wrap a rock person up in your sheet of trickery. A scissor person can sneak up and cut you to pieces. When you fight: No one can anticipate your next move If someone makes you mad: You'll attack them mercilessly when they're unprepared

Are You Rock, Paper, or Scissors?

I blame Sonia, who instigated this with her "what karaoke song are you?" blog post. (For the record, I am "Living on a Prayer.")

Finally, a scientific(ish) explanation for something I have always known to be true...
how to properly position a roll of toilet paper.

*blows dust of blog*
Anybody in here?

Probably not, seeing as I've been the Queen of Inconsistent Posting. Yikes. Life has been eventful lately, too.

We're buzzing right along with the wedding planning; we'll be getting hitched on May 9th 2009, most likely at Elizabeth Park in West Hartford Connecticut. We've booked the Pond House Cafe for the reception, which is located within the park. Erika has mocked up some incredibly cool looking Save-the-Dates (which we'll be sending out soon-ish)and invitations for us. Lots of other kettles on the Wedding fire, as well.

Also, Dana and I are in the process of packing up and moving. We found a great house in Mesa (just east of Tempe, where we currently are) with more space, an enclosed garage, a pool, and room for the dogs to run around like idiots. We move in 2 weeks, so our current house pretty much looks like a bomb went off. Good times. You can see some pictures of the new pad here, but I'll be posting more once we're in and settled. I'm pretty jazzed about the thought of a fireplace. Indoor s'mores!

That's all for now...more in a couple of weeks, at the longest!

dana and i are engaged!

after weeks of high-quality secret-keeping on his part, dana proposed to me on christmas eve! no date has been set yet, but we're planning on getting married in connecticut next spring (2009). i have never been happier, and i am so jazzed about planning the wedding that i can hardly see straight :). we'd really like to be married outside, and for the reception to be able to have some sort of outdoor component, so i've been scoping out locations...and I already managed to stumble across the perfect bridesmaid's dress. other than that...well, what's to say other than that? christmas was fantastic; i was able to see a ton of friends (though not as many as i'd have liked), and got to spend some time with two of the CUTEST wee ones ever (that's you, babies renshaw...). now it's 2008 (2008?!?!), and it looks like this year will revolve largely around wedding planning. i'd love to throw some house buying in there as well, but we'll see...

i hope you all had a great holiday and new year's, and that 2008 is being good to you so far. cheers!

just so this is out of the way, i am fully aware that i am the worst blogger ever and should not be allowed to have a blog, because i have lapsed into quarterly updates at best, which is fairly pointless.

anyhow, it's monday night and today was my last day of work for the next two weeks, which is frickin' fabulous. tomorrow is our arizona christmas (which means sipping hot chocolate while walking around zoo lights, takeout from p.f. chang's, and opening most of our presents from one another (oh, and i got some good ones for dana...:D). wednesday i fly out to connecticut, and don't come back until new year's eve. so on the off chance that anyone actually still reads this blog (which, you know, thanks), i'll be in the middlebury area and the uconn/storrs area intermittently over the next two weeks. let's go to the bidwell!

i am so excited for christmas...there's actually going to be snow in connecticut this year, i'm hoping to see lots and lots of my friends (i miss you guys so much!), and also some babies that i have not yet had the pleasure of squeezing and smooching on (hailey! mila! a bigger tristan who will not remember me!). i was lucky to see a lot of my family this year, considering they're 2600 miles away, and christmas with them is always the best (ain't no christmas like an osterberg christmas!). it's sort of been christmas for a couple of weeks now (basically, i'm sold once the tree goes up), but this past week has really gotten me in the spirit. i baked lots of cookies on saturday and made glug, and then we had a little christmas get-together saturday evening in which all (ALL) of the glug (THREE BATCHES) was consumed, causing many hangovers on sunday. but you loved it, all of you. you know you did. and now tomorrow, i will pack my suitcase, and celebrate my little arizona christmas with the love of my life, and then i will get on a plane and see family and friends and SNOW and not work for two weeks, and really, what's better than that? nothing.

happy holidays everyone, and a wonderful new year! and merry christmas to you, jeff--you will be missed.

first and foremost:
happy birthday erika!!

and then:
it is GORGEOUS outside!

today is my day off, and i am enjoying my morning for several reasons:

~the sun is shining, but there is a wonderful breeze (which we don't get often here) keeping me cool and making my wind chime make lovely bright happy jingly noises.
~i am sitting on my new patio furniture, which happily redd did not consume while i was at work yesterday (he did nibble on one corner, but you can barely see it and he appears to be sorry).
~the internet! she is working! this is sort of like an endangered animal sighting.
~did i mention my happy wind chime?
~i'm going to ph!lly for EPA training at the end of the month, and while i am sad that i will not be able to spend halloween with dana, i am psyched that i may be able to spend it with the lovely nieci!
~we had our first group training run last night, and it was super-motivating to run in that large of a group of people. we have another one on saturday morning, and i'm excited to push myself to run the whole thing.
~i've already got $325 $350 (just saw a new one! thanks jared!) in donations to the leukemia and lymphoma society for my 1/2 marathon run. it's a far cry from the $2200 that i need, but i only started fundraising a few days ago!

so, lots of things to be happy about. including my awesome boyfriend, totally not at all cute pets (ha!), and great friends and family. life is good.

on january 13th, dana and i will be participating in the p.f. chang's rock 'n' roll arizona half marathon here in tempe. we're doing it as part of team in training with the leukemia and lymphoma society. those of you who know me know that i normally participate in the american cancer society's relay for life; this year i'm mixing it up a bit. don't worry--i'll still be hitting you all up for donations for this incredibly worthwhile cause...details to follow!

last week i went rafting down the grand canyon with some co-workers (we did the "diamond down" trip, where you go in at diamond creek, and raft all the way out to south cove at lake mead). it's about 60 river miles, of which becky and i jumped off the boat and swam about a half-mile (swimming! in the colorado river! in the grand canyon!). what a blast...since redd ate my camera a while back, i don't have any pictures of my own from the trip, but i'll post links to some photos once i get 'em.

the big news this week is that brooke is getting married on saturday!!!!. brooke and i have known each other since daisy scouts, and i am so, so, SO excited to be a part of this. yay brooke and dave! whooooo!

anywho...that's all for now, more to come. look for marathon and donation updates in the next week or so...

i! love! my! new! bike! thank you, dana! you're the best!!!

You Are 44% Girly

You're a little girly, a little boyish, and probably a whole lot indie. You have your own unique style, and it pretty much defies gender lines.

How Girly Are You?

This is actually a bit girlier than I was expecting...

oh...uh, hi there.

so. you may have noticed that it's been three months since i've posted. and that my other website is gone. or, you may not have...but there it is. i let my old domain expire because 1) i hadn't updated anything on the page in a year, 2) between blogger and flickr, i just didn't really need it anymore, and c) if i do decide to start up a web page again, it will probably be because i want to sell crafty things from it, which you're not supposed to do from a .org anyway. as for not posting here in three months, i have no excuse. i suck.

in the three months since we last saw our fearless heroine, she has changed jobs (still working for the grant program, but now instead of being a project manager, i'm the program coordinator! and my cube is bigger!), cut her hair (not too short, but much shorter than it's been), decided to do a half-marathon in january, partied in vegas, and hung out by the pool. the dogs have gotten bigger (well, at least redd has), dana and i have started to look into home-buying, i got a kick-ass new phone...and life is good.

i'm hoping to get back in the swing of posting here and updating more...there are some exciting things coming up in the next few months (rafting down the grand canyon! brooke's wedding! philadelphia! erika and rich visiting for thanksgiving! and more!), so i'll have lots of stories to tell. and hopefully there's still someone skulking around here to tell them to...

so i've actually been crafting quite a bit lately...i've got this idea in my head that if i can come up with a good range of different things to make, and sit down and make at least one of each thing and take pictures, that maybe i could get some kind of on-the-side "hey, buy my stuff!" thing going. this isn't a new idea, but one integral part of it is dropping a decent chunk of change on materials so that i've got something to work with. i've been so budget crazed lately, what with my student loan payments starting up and trying to develop some savings and still going on fun weekend trips...and i'm thrilled that in the next month or so, we're going to be hitting a nice financial groove (which will allow me to finally drop aforementioned decent chunk of change).

anywho, probably later this summer i might start up a new blog (or revamp the old website, which i'm feeling has been rendered fairly obsolete between this blog and flickr) soley for displaying crafty goodness. in the meantime, save your shiny pennies so you can buy yourself something pretty ;).

i've been tagged by sonia! here are the rules:

"Each person tagged gives 7 random facts about themselves. Those tagged need to write in their blogs the 7 facts, as well as the rules of the game. You need to tag 7 others and list their names on your blog. You have to leave those you plan on tagging a note in their comments so they know that they have been tagged and to read your blog."

i feel like the only people that read this blog are already going to know all of the random things that i can think up, so excuse me if you've heard this one before...

1. i love corny jokes. like, really bad, probably-people-are-just-laughing-when-i-tell-them-to-humor-me corny jokes.

2. i cannot watch movies and tv shows that put people in uncomfortable situations and are supposed to be "funny". i get all anxious and squirmy on behalf of the character, and end up vaguely irritated. examples: seinfeld, meet the parents, and i'm sure borat, which is why i haven't seen it yet.

3. an oldie but goodie: i can sing the quadratic equation to the tune of 'pop goes the weasel.' i think that this should be taught in all algebra classes.

4. i am ridiculously hard on myself. this makes me, i think, a not very fun person to teach things to, because i get frustrated with myself when i don't pick things up right away. one might think that recognizing that fact would be a good first step to rectifying the problem, but one would be wrong.

5. i was a full-on tomboy until roughly the age of 21, when i got a wild hair across my ass and decided to start baking and cooking. after that came random craftiness, which then led to sewing, crocheting, beading, and knitting--listed in order of mastery level ;).

6. despite my love of crafting, i have an aversion to patterns and instructions. that is not to say that i refuse to use them, but if i think that i can figure it out on my own, i'm going that route first.

7. i can drive long distances without getting lost (like, all the way across the country, for example), but i will probably get you lost if i try to give you directions across town.

i don't think i know 7 people with blogs who haven't done this yet, but i tag
april
laura
and
jenn

happy birthday rob! and happy birthday to dana, who's birthday was exactly one week ago! :)

we spent the weekend in mexico at rocky point, and brought rob as his birthday present. aside from one member of our party running off with the mexican guy that sold us fireworks on the beach (uh, no, i'm not kidding), it was a great trip...really, even that had its drama value. jet skiing on the sea of cortez, playing in the tide pools, walking on the beach, setting off a huge fireworks display...good times :).

not much else goin' on here. i'll post a link to mexico pictures as soon as i get them uploaded...

an update, for the brave few that have the perserverance to check this blog (because i do always update eventually...sometimes it just takes a while...):

-redd is getting huge. he's learning how to sit and stay and all kinds of good things. i think we might be taking him on his first camping trip this weekend!
-gearing up to go rafting down the colorado river again in a few weeks. site visits must be done, and who am i to shirk my duties?
-also gearing up to go on my first trip to mexico, which will also be rob's first trip to mexico, because we're flying him out here for his birthday! i fully intend to make him ride the mechanical bull, because that's what a good big sister does. for sure.
-while going over my site statistics, i saw that not one but two people stumbled upon this web site by searching for images of stone cold steve austin. which now makes my second reference ever to stone cold steve austin on this blog (the first of which being a mention of the not-quite-life-size cardboard cut out of said wrestler that resided in my grad school office, which was in a post roughly two years ago).
-i also noticed that people from work have stumbled across my blog. hello, mystery co-worker(s)!
-uh...yeah. not much else. see, you should thank me for not posting when i don't have anything to say! then you don't have to read really boring pointless posts like this one.

adios, muchachos!