ben's ninja turtle birthday party

So tonight we threw Benjamin a birthday party... a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Birthday party to be exact. It had cookie pizza dessert, eye bands, lots of green, and fellowship with friends and family. Ben was so excited for his party that I couldn't help but smile! His actual birthday is tomorrow and he will be turning the big 24, but tonight we celebrated like his was 10. It was fantastic!

He was spoiled rotten of course. He finally got an XBOX 360 that he has wanted so badly. Friends and family all pitched in with me to purchase him one. I really did think that he was going to wet himself when he opened it. Here are a few pictures from his birthday party.

Stranger than Fiction

I just watched Stranger than Fiction last night. It was excellent and that came as a bit of a surprise to me. I had seen previews for it before it came out and the concept of the movie didn’t interest me in the slightest. After it was recommended to me a few times and just recently by a co-worker, I thought I would give it a try.

It was very well done and I loved Will Ferrell and Maggie Gyllenhaal in it. Maggie is becoming one of my new favorite actresses. She doesn’t always play roles where I love her character, but she’s a fantastic actress!

There was so much witty dialogue and narration in this film that it made me wish I was a better writer. The soundtrack was also amazing. I downloaded Whole Wide World by Wreckless Eric and have already listened to it like 8 times today. It’s a very catchy song!

If you haven’t seen the movie, I strongly suggest you give it try. It’s not for everybody though. My mom said, “Yah I saw it, it was weird!” She’s more of a Wild Hogs/It’s a Wonderful Life movie watcher.

If you’ve seen any great movies lately…I am open to some suggestions to add to my See-List.

A few on that list include:

- Casablanca (nope never seen it)
- Requiem for a Dream
- Gone Baby Gone
- American Gangster
- Secretary
- Hotel Rwanda
- Sweeney Todd

Shake It Like a Salt Shaker

I finally have a chance to write about the earthquake from last Friday. Unfortunately we slept right through it. I don’t’ know if it’s because we already toss and turn all night anyway or if it’s because of our abnormally loud fan that we didn’t notice. I did feel the aftershock that happened later that day…so I was happy that I at least got to feel something. My co-worker crawled under her desk after it happened! It was very entertaining!

I did happen to come across some great stories that others shared regarding the Earthquake at 4:30 am. Here are a few of my favorites including comments from the local online paper…

1. That's the first time MY headboard has banged in years :) (Thanks for sharing lady!)

2. Thats God warning the pedophiles they better repent because He is serious about his Children and their will be a judgement day (WHAT?)

3. Make me glad I drive a big Ford F-250 and vote Republican!

4. I don't so much mind the shaking, it's the strong winds after the quake that bother me. I opened the windows to reduce the air pressure, but the dang wind blew down my beer can collection.

5. The quake actually woke my man whom I claim could sleep through a hurricane...guess not :-) Now I'm wondering why he doesn't ever get up for the baby?

6. Here I am.....ROCK you like a hurricane! I think the Scorps made a comeback at 4:37am.

7. But, I just thought it was some restaurant's breakfast buffet opening!

8. Called my neighbor, I thought she fell down her stairs. Just wanted to know if she was ok!

Cluttered Desktop Art

Oh and Ben found this. I thought it was awesome!! Somebody must have been very bored at work...maybe I will try it when I don't want to wash the piles of laundry laying around. Here's the site if you want to check out some cluttered desktop art.

Bowling Insurance

My husband likes to look for ways to spice up an event. At our latest bowling trip he decided to give the bowling ramp aid thingy a try...but not before he crouched down in front of it and turned around backwards. I don't know if it is because he doesn't want kids, but here's a picture of his attempt. He luckily walked away without an injury and I think he might have even knocked down 7 pins. I'm so proud Honey!


We also had a lane next to these H.S./Early college aged boys. They liked to do the ghetto dances from music videos every time a rap song came on. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty entertaining. I don't have a picture of them, but here are a few other pictures from our evening. Oh and Christen's Sister in-law (who is prego) beat us all! We decided it wasn't fair though, since she was bowling for two. I didn't get a picture of her though. woops.

7 Different Words for Vomit

If you are one of those people who get queasy when you hear about vomit, don’t read the rest of this. I figured I would go ahead and tell of my adventures from this past weekend.

I woke up Friday feeling fine. I even got up early enough that morning to grab a mocha cappuccino on my way to work, which never happens. It wasn’t until 10ish that I started to get the feeling that my stomach wanted out of my body and it was going to figure out how to do it. I hate being sick in public places, especially bathroom sick. So after about 3 trips to the bathroom at work and not feeling like there was any end in sight, I decided to go home. I had felt fine earlier that day, so I had a feeling that my boss might think I was faking... but I didn’t really have an option. He was pretty good about it and I headed straight home. I visited the bathroom a few more times and then went to try to sleep it off.

I woke up about 2 hours later and I felt a lot better. I met my friend Jennifer for pizza and was feeling great. I was going to take it easy with the pizza, but only got about 3 bites finished before I started getting really hot and slightly dizzy. I apologized to her and headed back home. This is when it really started to go downhill. I then visited the bathroom every 10 minutes and didn’t think there could possibly be anymore in me. This is also the time that I started getting really queasy and I threw up a few times. I insisted that Ben still go out to eat with our friends and that I would be fine.

A few hours later I decided that I might need some Gatorade or something to drink so he brought me some home and decided to stay and take care of me. He was only in our place for about 5 minutes before I had to run back to the bathroom. I started getting really dizzy and when I came out of the bathroom my hearing got really faint and the tunnel vision crept in on me. I called out to Ben, “I’m going to pass out!” I started to lay down on the floor and the next thing I knew Ben was frantically saying “Heather…Heather can you hear me?” while I laid passed out on the floor. When I came to all I was able to say was yes before the rest of the contents of my stomach decided they needed out now! I got up on my hands and knees and proceeded to vomit, up-chuck, hurl, Ralph (feel free to put in your favorite word here) all over our hardwood floor in the hallway. This is graphic, but needs to be said so you know how awful it was. It was so watery that it just kept expanding on the floor. I had to crawl backwards while spewing so I didn’t get my knees it in. I couldn’t catch my breath and then remembered how much I hated to spew. The vomit started to go under the linen closet door and got all over some bags in there. I was finally able to crawl to the bathroom where I laid on the floor and tried to catch my breath.

Poor Ben. Poor poor Ben. I know it should be poor me, but he just had to stand there and watch all of this. I can’t even begin to imagine what it looked like or how helpless he must have felt to see his wife passed out on the floor and then see her start regurgitating everywhere. He was wonderful though. He made sure I was okay, got me a change of clothes, and cleaned it up.

I would like to say that because I felt a little better after that… the night got better. BUT it didn’t. The queasy feeling returned while I was trying to sleep it off. Oh and I forgot to mention that I was getting these awful cramps in my legs and feet during all of this. I couldn’t sleep because the tops of my feet were cramping so bad that my toes were spreading. It was more than annoying! Finally, at 3:30a.m., I asked Ben to take me to the Emergency Room. I couldn’t take anymore of this nausea.

There they gave me an IV and pumped me full of 2 bags of fluid. They said I was severely dehydrated and when they made me stand up I almost passed out again. I had to be wheeled in a wheel chair. I looked pathetic. After some blood work and peeing in a cup…they said I should feel a lot better after I rehydrated and took some nausea medicine. They just thought it was a flu bug or something. Oh and while peeing in the cup I accidentally got my gown in the toilet. It was pretty much all of the back of it…soaking wet! So I had to ask for a new one…so that made me feel oh so cool! Our nurse was very nice though and the ER even called yesterday to check up on me to make sure I was feeling better. How nice was that?

I felt a lot better when we left and gradually I was able to eat some of the BRAT diet. (Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, & Toast). I slept a lot and took it easy. Tuesday I returned to work where I was able to tell my boss, “See I wasn’t faking!” ha.

Ben didn’t end up getting sick so that’s a huge blessing! It might be because he soaked the house in Lysol about 3 times.

I heard that this Saturday is supposed to be 61 and sunny. We plan to make the most out of this weekend to make up for the crappy crappy crappy weekend we had last week.

I did get to watch a lot of movies though. That part was awesome.
I watched the following...

No Country for Old Men
3:10 to Yuma
Dead Poets Society
Blood Diamond
Being John Malcovich

Oh and I feel 100% better now, but I might be giving up Cappuccino for awhile.

Photoshopping

I've been playing around more with Photoshop lately and here's some stuff that I've come up with. Oh and just for the record, the following photos are not mine.

First, I figured out how to make my own lightning by rendering clouds and then placing difference clouds on top of those. Here is an example of my experimenting with tutorials. I altered some other aspects of the photos as well to match the mood that the lightning created.

(Before)

(After)

I have also been very intrigued by HDR photographs lately. If you haven't heard of or seen example of a HDR photos, I strongly suggest that you Google it or click here.

Here was my attempt to make a replica of an HDR photograph. I tried to keep the shadows, but increased the highlights through out the picture.

(Before)

(After)

This final one was of me trying to do the overlapping photo effect. It was really easy to do and didn't take long to figure out. It could come it handy for something someday.



As you can tell I am ready for warmer weather or a trip to the beach. I know some of this might be a little too beginner for some people, but it was fun to learn some new tricks for myself.