Organized Chaos

Not dead yet.

So what is up with me?  Usually I disappear for months at a time so when I finally post again I have a whole bunch of crazy updates on moi.  This time is no different.  Instead of doing an uber-long, drawn-out post about my life as of late, allow me to simply enumerate, with the oldest news first.

1. One of the major reasons I've been on hiatus- my grandpa passed away at the end of last year.  A lot of people don't get to know their grandparents well or even if they're lucky enough to meet them in their lifetime, never really form a strong bond.  It was completely the opposite for me growing up, which is why this has been an ongoing struggle.  My papa was basically my dad.  I'll talk about him more at another time.. I have a series of pages and photos to post that I think would be cathartic for me.  But alas, I digress.

2. This is sort of an aside to numero uno, but I went home to Hawaii and got to spend some much needed, albeit short, time with my family.  I also caught swine flu.  Gotta love nephews and their germs.  Honestly though?  And I can joke about this now though it wasn't funny at the time.. my ENTIRE FAMILY got sick.  Even my pregnant sister (she and the baby are fine).  We actually had to postpone the funeral for a few days because we were all contagious.  Good times.

3. Our current household zoo total is:  2 dogs (Plato & Sophie) and 2 cats (Juno & Mushu). 

4. I'm pregnant!  Like how I just stuck that in there?  (Details to follow)

5. We are moving to NEW YORK CITY! No joke.  Jerry's job is transferring him to New York, where he will be working in the Empire State Building.  VERY excited for him because he wanted this position so much, but also a little worried until we get settled and into a routine.

And that's about the jist of it, folks.  Hope you've all been well.

xoxo

After these messages, we'll be right back (remember that 80's cartoon jingle between commercials? anyone?)

i'm not sure whether i mentioned this somewhere in my last few posts, but i hurt my wrist about a month ago.  the doctor said that it's tendonitis and put me on anti-inflamatories for a few weeks.  it was starting to feel better but this week it suddenly took a turn for the worse.  i can barely move my left wrist without screaming out in pain.  it's fun, because i've sort of turned it into a game where i like to see just how much i can push myself before i break out into a sweat.  turns out it doesnt take much.  don't feel sorry for me- this is what i get for not taking it easy, lifting things i shouldn't and not wearing my brace for the prescribed length of time. basically this all translates to i need to take a break from internet activity for a while.  well, i fib.  i still haven't taken a break from shopping for stuff i don't need on ebay because hey, that only requires the use of a mouse for me to click "buy it now!"  other than that, however, i can barely respond to email, post on my blog or chat on AIM without being subjected to an immense amount of pain (this should also explain the lack of capital letters in this post- those require two hands).  so... i apologize for my absence for a bit.  know that i'm thinking of you. hope everyone is well.

xo

casey

Hit the Books

School started this week and despite the fact that I felt jipped for being busy over the summer break, I'm really looking forward to the semester ahead. I'm even thinking of writing for the school newspaper. It'll throw a bit more chaos into the mix but I'm excited for the challenge. I have a great group of professors- my favorite being English, though I MAY actually enjoy math this semester. Anyhow, while things have suddenly been kicked up a notch, I'm making progress in the email department.  If I owe you an email, look for a response over the next few days. =) 

p.s. What do you think of my new glasses? Last semester I had a hard time seeing the board and decided to get it checked out- turns out I need glasses for school. ♥   

A Few of My Favorite Things

Here's what I'm crushing on lately:

• Facebook.  Thank you, Emily, for introducing me to what can only be deemed as a horribly intense addiction.  I no longer call my friends.. I simply prefer to leave them messages online. With that said, if you have a profile, hit me up!
• Cameos. I remember often admiring my grandmother's peach-colored cameo as a child, running my fingers over the ornate carvings, despite the fact that I've never really had a fascination with frilly, eccentric things.  That seems to have changed as of late, seeing as how I've recently added 70+ cameos to my scrapbooking supplies. Obsessed much?
• As if cameos weren't enough, I've discovered an affinity for anything vintage, especially Victorian.  I'm going to blame part of this on my San Francisco roots as well as the history class I took over the summer.  A friend of mine (thanks, Janelle!) showed me this book by artist Anna Corba and I fell instantly in love.

• Still running with the vintage theme; I heart wooden spools. At the scrapbook Expo in Atlanta, there was a tiny booth that sold vintage things, as well as wooden spools in a variety of sizes.  I actually didn't buy any that weekend- something I've kicked myself over ever since. I've rectified that by acquiring a bazillion of them since then.  Basically, look for an upcoming class involving these.
• I want this lamp.  Bad.

• Anything woodgrain. Hambly and Love, Elsie have both done papers in this pattern and I find that I simply can't get enough.  It screams 70's to me, in an oh-so-cool way.
• Yoohoo! Yes, the drink and yes, this one definitely came out of nowhere.  I don't particularly like sweets, especially chocolate. And yet..  I can't get enough.
• I need this phone.  It's imperative to my survival. I'm CONVINCED it will change my life.

That's all for now. Carry on.  ♥

I've been tagged..

by the beautiful Welcome (Yes, that's her name- check out her blog!).

1. I am completely set on moving to Boston within the next year.  Sound odd?  What if I said i'd never been there before?

2. I can't sing. It goes beyond that, though.  I honestly have no musical gift WHAT-SO-EVER.  I can't hum a tune to save my life.

3. I have a weird obsession with Pi. As in Math. I actually own this shirt. It started as a joke between a nerdy math friend and I and somehow I never managed to drop it.  Now, whenever the time or date hits 3:14, I shout it out. Geeky?  Perhaps.  ;)

4. I'm still going through the childish stage of wanting to be every profession under the sun "when I grow up".

5. I freakin' adore Jon Stewart.

6. I LOVE games.  Nerdy games especially.  Like Cranium, Tetris and THIS ONE.

7. Right now my favorite colors are orange and teal.

I tag.. KimmyS, Christine, Monica, Jill, Brenda, Danni, Cami

THE RULES:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

411

I woke up to 72 emails in  my inbox.  Talk about MADNESS.  hehe.  A big THANK YOU to every sweet person who had kind words of support.  You guys rock.  :)  I promise I will catch up with all of the comments and emails soon (still haven't finished unpacking from SF!  ahh!)  Anyway, i don't have time for a big post of photos about SF so i'm just going to paste to you a little questionaire I did that Rusty Pickle handed out.  Feel free to do a similar one and post the link in the comments.  I'd love to get to know you all better, too!  :)  Have an awesome Tuesday!

Name: Casey Leilani Rivas  (Leilani is my Hawaiian name.. pretty common, means heavenly flowers.  I do not promise this 100% of the time)

Where do you live? Oceanside, California

Name the cities you have lived in during your lifetime–
Hawai’i (good luck pronouncing the names!): Pa’auilo (for most of my life), Honolulu, Hilo

Eugene, Oregon (for just over a week. and yes, it really does count because I honestly shipped all my stuff there and after a few days decided I didn’t like it and had to ship everything back.   I was 18.)

California:  San Jose, San Francisco and now Oceanside

Share your age if you want– 27

Tell us about your family (hubby, kids, and pets)  I’ve been married for 2 years in August to a pretty cool dude who usually goes by the name of Jerry (or J).  He’s in the Marine Corps and is stationed here in So. Cal.  We have a Siamese kitty name Goku.  Like I told the girls over at Legacy, I kill any plant I come into contact with (I killed my husband’s cactus plant, Julio, while he was in Iraq; which he’ll never let me live down)  so we’re starting off small with a cat.  :)

How do you spend your days (Work, SAHM, WAHM, etc)  I just recently re-joined the ranks of college student so that fills up my days.

Do you have a blog?  http://caseyrivas.typepad.com

Is this your first manufacture design team? Yep!  I did do some freelance stuff for Hambly until they formed a team last year.  My stuff is still on their site and in their catalog though.   :)

Are you on any other Design Teams?   Nope  :)

What’s your favorite Manufacture in the Scrapbook Industry?  Do you even have to ask?  :)  My favorites include Rusty Pickle, Daisy D, Fancy Pants, Anna Griffin, Heidi Swapp & Hambly.  The latter two simply because they compliment any of the former as an accent.

Do you teach?  Yup! I have been teaching for about 4-5 years.  I started by accident as a substitute one night at the first LSS I worked at- the teacher scheduled was sick. I was asked to fill in for her despite the fear in my eyes and ghost-white look on my face.  It went pretty well so I was then asked to create a class of my own after that and things just snowballed from there. Since then, I’ve taught at three different stores in a variety of ways (Layouts, Mini-books, Mommy & Me, hosted crops, Make & Takes at shows, kit creation; I even created classes/kits for a scrapbook cruise my LSS coordinated).

List four words that describe you:   dorky, genuine, introspective, sweet

What is your very favorite drink while scrapbooking? Rockstar Guava!!

What’s your favorite snack?  Hmm.. I honestly am not a snacker.  I am not that into sweets either so when I do grab something, chances are it’s going to be salty.  Plus I have weird cravings that last for 2 weeks at a time.  lol  This week it’s green apples w/ chunky peanut butter.  :)
 
Favorite motivational quote:   This is the hardest question for me!  I LOVE quotes.   I’m going to have to go with the one on my blog at the moment:

We are born into the world like a blank canvas. And every person that crosses our path takes up the brush and makes their mark upon our surface. So it is that we develop. But we must realize there comes a day that we must take up the brush and finish the work, for only we can determine if we are to be just another painting, or a masterpiece. -Javan
                         
Three things that are unique about you:   I used to speak Japanese (haven’t used it in 7 years- since I moved from Hawaii but I’m working on getting it back again!), I don’t usually like chocolate (I can hear everyone gasp as I type this), I don’t know how to whistle and it bugs me to this day.    
             
What did you want to be when you grew up: a lawyer.  But only because the really cool girl who sat next to me in the second grade said that.  She looked like Punky Brewster and I wanted to be like her so bad.  Later I realized that it made no sense to chase someone else’s dream so I changed my mind (a million times after that but usually rotated with the following three) Psychologist, Business-woman, Computer Nerd.  Yes, that’s with a capital N.
 
Where do you get your inspiration?  Life. Nature.  Being outside on a hot summer day, my favorite song on the radio, seeing the waves roll onto a sandy beach;  things that make me smile and fill my heart up give me the urge to release it in some creative way.  That’s why scrapbooking is such a great outlet.  So much color and texture to play with.  New photos and product tend to do that to me too though.  :)

What’s your Scrapbooking style?  It’s always developing.  Which is something that I love.  I’ve noticed something- the way I scrapbook is very similar to the way in which I approach life.  Ever notice that?  I don’t follow astrology much but I do find it interesting.  I’ve always pointed out to people that I’m a Gemini and that’s probably why I have a hard time making up my mind.  A range of personality.  Just like my style.  Some days I scrap really clean and simple and others, I load on the colors, product, texture.  I used to also be a very cautious scrapper.  Clean & simple, straight lines, everything in its place.  I only scrapped that way. It’s funny to me that my personality mimicked this at that time in my life.  Now that I’ve gotten older, a bit more comfortable at who I am, I am carefree with my pages.  I try to throw my heart into everything I do.. life & scrapbooking. 
 
What’s your favorite technique?   This changes all the time.  Right now I’m back into mounting photos onto chipboard and sanding the edges.  It just makes the photo stand out!
 
What is your best scrapbook tip?   Don’t stress!  Just do it. (This is a great tip for life, too.  Something that has taken me a looong time to learn and still struggle with it on occasion).  Sometimes when I’m teaching someone will want the EXACT measurement of a length of ribbon or need to know at what exact degree I glued down a paper.  LIFE IS NOT PERFECT.  There really is beauty in imperfection.  Don’t believe me?  Ask Cindy Crawford’s mole.  ♥

Can I get what's behind door number 2?

Today has not been the best of days.

Over the past week the days have just gotten progressively worse in the crazy/busy department.  Which I usually love, to be quite honest.  Sometimes I feel like i get my best work done when there's pressure.  Yesterday, with about 11 hours of sleep in me over the last 3 days, i was exhausted even before I got to CKU.  While I was there, i honestly was fine.  With the energy levels and my Rockstar, I was good to go.. plus i don't think I even had time to think about how tired I was.  I just had a blast- everyone was awesome, our group was awesome, the event was awesome.  By the time the event was over though, my body was aching and I could feel a bad headache coming on (lprobably also due to the tight ponytail on my head all day).  lol Don't think I've been on my feet for that long in quite some time.  When I got home i headed straight to bed.. funny thing is, with all the caffeine I'd had, i couldn't get my brain to shut down.  Don'tcha hate that?

Needless to say, I woke up tired.  with heartburn (wtheck?).  I decided i needed to do something to get my mind off of things, we needed groceries, so that seemed like a great plan.  Went to the store, loaded up on lots of fruits (been on this green apples and peanut butter kick lately) and proceeded to the checkout counter. 

My debit card is missing.  No prob, i'll use my card from our other bank account.  Yeah, um, that one would be gone too.  argh! 

J has a bad habit of taking my debit card because he can't remember his PIN.  As for the second card, the last place I remember seeing it was at the restaurant (an hour away) yesterday after CKU.. when I was basically a ZOMBIE.  I just KNOW that i dropped it somewhere in the booth, but they haven't been able to find it.  I came home, double-checked the condo just in case, called Kim for a pep-talk and decided on driving the 30 minutes to J's work to pick up my other card.  Because the car is still new, we haven't gotten a sticker to go on Base yet so i had to turn around at the gate and back-track to take the long way through another gate to get on Base.  argh squared! 

Right now i'm listening to my happy song (see previous post) in an effort to decompress.  I'm in serious need of a nap.  I'll be back when my mojo returns.  ♥

age is just.. an attitude

 

Yesterday happened to be my 27th birthday.  I'm going to be honest in saying that i really REALLY did NOT want to get out of bed. Not cool, i know.  Once I finally stopped throwing myself a pity party, the day was pretty sweet.  J and I drove all the way to Torrance (about an hour and a half away) to check out a Hawaiian bakery/restaurant.  Told you there'd be some guava cake this weekend.  :)  Later, a few friends came over and when the gathering dwindled down to just a few of us, we headed off to Chili's.  I had a really nice day, lots of super-cute presents and even cooler memories. :) 

Can I just say that i LOVE J's phone?  That thing is awesome.. it'll give you directions to just about anywhere.  We'll never get lost again (knock on wood).  What's even awesomer about it?  Hearing it pronounce certain street names.  It had us cracking up in the car for miles.  Can't wait to take it to Hawai'i.  :)

Yummy macadamia nut onion rings and guava cake (there's still one slice left with my name on it!).

Here's to awesome friends! Thanks for everything, Kim!!  ♥

Sick as a dog

Ever wonder why that phrase was coined?  Do dogs really get sick that often?  Even more so than cats? Just curious.  So i've been whining about not feeling very well for the last few weeks and add to that a migraine that wouldn't quit for the last 2 days and you've got the reason I made a trip to the doctor again yesterday.  Turns out the medicine i've been taking isn't helping as well as it should so now i've added another medicine (actually, make that three) to my arsenal of sinus-fighting weaponry.  Btw, if this entry sounds wacked, i blame the meds.  ♥

Bad Blogger

Bad, bad, bad blogger!  Ugh.  I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted.  Lately, life has just overwhelmed me to the point where i feel like i don't have even a second to spare.  I realize this can be a good or a bad thing depending upon your outlook; if you're ADD like me, it for sure helps keep you busy. 

This week I have the flu and last week I had a sinus infection.  To make life even more interesting, unbeknownst to me, my doc informed me yesterday that my thyroid levels have dropped to about seven times lower than where they were at 2 months ago.  Her response to the results?  "You must be feeling absolutely miserable."  Ya think? For about a month i've been feeling like i'm "running on empty."  I HATE being tired.  I hate being a flake.  I hate having to push back deadlines.  Especially at a time when I have a million and one things on my plate.  And then i'm blessed with an AHA! moment and realize that perhaps this is nature's way of telling me to SLOW DOWN.  Don't get too stressed about the little things.  Do what makes you happy and everything will work itself out in the end. 

Now if i could just remember that while i'm in the midst of it all...  ;)

So in the new and exciting news department, I signed up for summer classes at a local college!  I never finished my degree and that's something that has nagged at me ever since.  I always knew i'd go back, it has just been a matter of when.  I really feel like i'm at such a great point in my life and now is the time.. for just about anything.  I'm nervous and even a bit scared at failing, but more than anything i'm excited for the next chapter.  ♥