Wonkybusker

Onwards and Upwards

A year ago today we were on a plane, on our way to Lauzerte, France to spend the summer.  With a new job and a new puppy, it seems that it will be hard to do again soon, so I'm glad we did it when we could.  It's a little disappointing that we have no big trips on the horizon at the moment, but we have lots to keep us busy here.

And yet, I’ve been bitten by the travel bug.  This morning, I spent a lovely commute daydreaming about what our next trips should be.  There’s no harm in starting to plan early. ;)  Here’s my list:

Argentina, Chile and perhaps Antarctica
Peru, Equator and the Galapagos Islands
Egypt
Turkey
Morocco
New Zealand

Where do you want to go?

Pleasant Sunday

A fun weekend was had by all.  Yesterday was a baby shower and a frisbee game.  Today, we headed down to Post Hunt, a riddle-based scavenger hunt.  I'm so impressed by our team for getting all 5 puzzles and getting darn close to cracking the final clue.  It was tons of fun and I'll definitely do it again next year.  Loki was the hit of the event.  I've never seen a dog attract so much attention!  She's one tired puppy tonight.  She's chewing on a toy while I download my new CAD software.  I'm going to play around and plan what our backyard might look like once we put in a patio.  Anyway, I hope all is well and have a wonderful week!

Quiet Evening

I'm sitting around tonight watching PBS and knitting.  I've suddenly become a little old lady.

Safari

Lately, life has been crazy and a bit in transition.  Chris left for South Africa and I will be joining him soon to go on safari.  When I get back, I start a new job.  Then it will only be a few weeks until Christmas.  Time flies.  I will, of course, be posting lots of fun animal photos here.  So check back in a couple weeks.  In the meantime, I doubt I'll be posting much as I get ready for vacation.

Go Vote...

...so I can ice these.

Peruvian Gourmet Club Dinner

Our dinner group had a Peruvian themed night last weekend.  I had never had much food from Peru before, but it's really good.  I am constantly amazed at how delicious these dinners turn out being.  And, of course, the company is enjoyable too.  Anyway, I wanted to post the link to the recipes Chris and I made for last weekend's dinner.  I made locro de zapallo and Chris made ceviche.  I highly recommend both of them.  Unfortunately, I don't think I took a picture of our feast.  Next time I'll bring the camera along.  It looks like we're going to have a pre-Thanksgiving dinner in a couple weeks.

Election Party

Like so many people this Tuesday, we'll be staying up to watch the election results.  We've even planned a bit of a party.  Today I baked state cookies and will be making red and blue icing to decorate them once results are announced.  I'll have to post a picture of my sugar cookies, they came out pretty well.  Chris was able to recognize most of the states, despite my poor attempt to cut them out without any cookie cutters.   It might be a long night, but it should be interesting.

Changing Domain Registrar

I apologize for being away for so long.  I do have some new blog posts in my head and will get them up soon.  Life is busy these days but I don't want this blog to fall by the wayside.

I've just finished the process of switching my domain registration, so you may have gotten an error message when coming to this site over the last week or so.  That is all fixed now.  It turns out that Yahoo! tripled the cost of registering a domain with them.  They did not offer any additional services to justify any increase, so I went to GoDaddy to get the same thing for a fraction of the cost.  And I must admit, I'm impressed.  GoDaddy is cheap and their customer service is impressively helpful.  No long waits on the phone and the person on the other end does more than read the manual at you.  I was dreading the process of changing over my CNAME settings, but it was actually surprisingly easy.  Anyway, when a company does right by me, I give them a shout-out on my blog.  It's the least I can do to reward businesses that do things right.

Happy Halloween!

Projects

It's good to be back home.  I am so glad we had the opportunity to spend time in France and now I will be happy to just enjoy being back.  Although, I'm going to be busy.  See, I'm a girl who likes projects.  I love being able to focus my attention and accomplish something.  However, coming home, I'm realizing that Ive lined up a lot of projects.  It's exciting and fun, but this fall is going to be hectic.  I'm looking forward to hitting the ground running. :)

More Fun with Photoshop

I'm still working on my photoshop skills and the latest experiment is another back-lit sunset picture.  We took this one with the timer while Anya was visiting.  In the original picture the thee of us are difficult to see.  My goal was to lighten us up just a little to take us out of shadow without detracting from the sunset behind us by lightening the whole picture.

Before:

After:

I'm not sure I succeeded, but it's close to what I was looking for.