*YAWN*

Holy moly I'm tired. I had to get up early, with an alarm clock, like a normal person today. And also last Friday. You see, I have a job again. Nothing much mind you, easy stuff that pays what feels like minimum wage for Santa Barbara. But minimum wage is at least a paycheck, which is much better than the nothing I've been getting. The first two weeks is just training, so only 4 hours a day. This is both good and bad; good because it lets me transition back into a working person again (outside the home at least), and bad because we could really use a full-time paycheck. I think in this case the good outweighs the bad though, so I'm cool with it.

You may be aware that today is DS's birthday, and that he is officially 30. Last week was also my friend Sam's birthday. To celebrate, we're having a joint party here at our apartment tomorrow. Thus, I spent the weekend cleaning (with DS's help), seriously cleaning the craft room/office (SERIOUSLY; as in filed 6 months worth of floating papers and found all the carpet and desk space!), and then doing other things. For example, I made a super sweet birthday banner out of felt and fabric (photos and a tutorial to follow when I'm not exhausted), and because I love him, a LOT of peanut butter balls for DS. Also lots of earrings for Sam for her birthday (with major design help from Juliana!). Those last three things didn't get finished over the weekend though, so I finished them tonight. Oh crap, scratch that. I have more PB balls to dip in chocolate. *sigh* Hey, I get off at 12:30 tomorrow!

Well, as long as I get to sleep soon (it's 10:09 right now), I should be well rested for the festivities tomorrow. In the mean time, here are some photos I've been meaning to share for a long time.

Felix and Winston, crow hunting. Not that they'd know what to do with one. I'm positive Winston would run away in terror if one actually came to the window instead of taunting him from the power lines.

A rare moment of shared love. They did this a lot as kittens, but not so much anymore.

Also, it's pretty rare that I can get decent photos of Felix. She's not very photogenic.

I love how he has his leg sprawled over her. He takes up so much space!

Look at them holding hands!

She really is a pretty cat. I'm happy to finally have some pictures to show that.

Did I ever show you these? They're my Settlers of Catan cookies, made the first night that the group of six of us that regularly play games together got to play this particular game. We had needed the 6 player expansion, and the game stores were sold out for a long time.

This is homemade royal icing, dyed with food coloring, and piped with different tips onto that break and bake sugar cookie dough (I could only make so much from scratch in one night).

Here they are laid out like the game board. Blue is the ocean (ports), yellow is wheat, black is ore, green is forest, white is wool, and red is brick. That one lonely cookie with only yellow sprinkles is the desert.

The cookies were a lot of fun to make, though my icing designs got sloppier as they went, because I ended up being late. Not really a quick project. But tasty!