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Showing posts with label photos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photos. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Random Humping and a Plea for Guest Bloggers

So, I just have loads of randomness for you today. Photos included, kiddies!

But first, might I do a little begging? I’ll be in Sunny California April 2-9 and I would so very much love to have a few guest bloggers fill this space. Interested? E-mail me please at stephanieinsuburbia at yahoo.

Okay, so first of all, yesterday marked about 2 weeks since the poor dog has been outside. So I took her to the dog park so she could get her run on. I stepped over the many, many mud puddles. She did not.

Which resulted in a messy car. Thank goodness I had one of Wee 'Burb's baby blankets there, since I didn't think to bring a towel.



An even messier puppy. Which resulted in this.





Cous Cous always looks so traumatized when I bathe her. She’s good and sits in the sink, but she just looks so abused.

That same night Wee ‘Burb came home with THE WORST diaper rash ever. She’s had some unpleasant ones, and she never cries. But this time, the second I touched her she screamed to the point I started crying.

So I did the old-school thing and let her “air it out.”

I texted my roommate “beware nekkid baby and ninja dog.”

We call Cous Cous “ninja dog” when we take her collar off because we purposely left her tags noisy. You know how you can buy those plastic collar silencers so they don’t jingle? Well a week after we got her, we realized that jingle was all that was standing between us and dog pee somewhere in the house. So for a few hours after her bath she gets freedom from the collar.

So you’re sitting on the couch and enjoying an adult beverage when all of a sudden something hops up next to you. You spill said adult beverage, scream at the ninja dog, and then don’t know where she goes to pout. It’s all dangerous, people.

So yeah, my roommate and husband come home to a bare naked baby and a wayward silent dog. Y’all, could we BE more backwoods?

The naked baby? Resulted in this.





This morning I had an appointment with a dietician. It was actually really interesting. But I was so flustered when I got there.

First, I was harangued by the front desk lady about my ID badge. I haven’t worked in an office in years. I only showed her the badge because I couldn’t remember my license plate number to register as a guest. Since my information hadn’t been updated since 2005, she shoved me over to the security department and I got to see my fat face updated with my new name. Or, well not really new since I got married two-and-a-half years ago.

Then I spent like 5 minutes using my badge to try to enter the clinic. It’s set inside the office, so I assumed I had to use it. A woman finally comes to rescue me. “You just have to push, not pull.”

Awwwkward.

Anyway, while I waited for the dietician they gave me an iPad to play with. If you’re new here, I am not a fan of the Apple.


A sample of my hatred from that post:

I make it there at 12:00 and am greeted by another iPad, who tells me “One of the Genuises will be with you shortly…or is it Genui?” Hardee har…shut it, Face Pubes.

I’m told to wait on a bench. I should say here, in these stores the Genius Bars are elevated about 20 feet. The benches are practically on the floor. Remember when you grew up and your parents would be like “oh they’ll all be working for you someday?” These are those kids. We’re not working for them, necessarily, but we are going to bow before their ability to get us mobile entertainment at our fingertips.

This was a bunch of diet apps, I guess. I twisted it and turned it and then kind of wondered what the point was. If I found a recipe I liked, what was I going to do with it? Anyway, I am comfortable with my decision to not do anything with Apple. Other than my previously purchased iPod.

Stay tuned for a post on the stuff I learned at the dietician, a very impressive visit.

So I was at Target, and Chaz was ringing me up. He totally looked like his name. He kept smirking, and at first I thought it was because of the feminine products I was purchasing.

I remember when I used to be all embarrassed about buying that stuff. BICOAK (Before I Crapped Out a Kid). Then he kind of giggled. He goes “you wanted me to super pack this, right?” I had given him a cloth bag and told him to fill it to the top. I nodded, and he kept smirking.

I think somehow he was overly pleased with himself for packing 10 pounds of groceries in my little bag. I was slightly annoyed, and then he packed this together, and it amused me.



Bananas Packed in Wee 'Burb's Monkey Easter Basket.


So that’s it here. How has your week been? And please remember to let me know if you want to guest blog!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Things I Love Thursday: Shutterfly's Idiot-Proof Photo Book Process

Two days after I got back from my solo vacation to Cape Cod with Wee ‘Burb, I got a notice from my favorite photo site, Shutterfly. It was a coupon for a free photo book! I was elated because my mother had taken over 100 pictures a day and I had planned a great book with all the beach and food pictures. What can I say, my mother loves to take pictures of people with food in their mouths. This time, Wee 'Burb was the victim instead of me. Win for all.

The catch? I had 24 hours to complete it. Allow me to elaborate: it took me two months to put together our wedding album, and I still have our honeymoon album half done. I got married two years ago. 24 hours is just…well it’s mission: impossible.

But I’m cheap. So I set forth and decided if it took me all night, I would get this free album!! So I set to work creating backgrounds (Shutterfly has an awesomely overwhelming set of backgrounds) and my book size and all that, and then I noticed something different. They had a storyboard option for the photo book.

You guys, this is genius! It’s like they heard my cries of “how the heck am I going to do this in 24 hours” and they answered with “why, just go ahead and drag your pictures to this here storyboard and we’ll take care of the formatting.”

I like this option so much better than letting them put together the album. I really wanted to pick my pictures, and put them in a certain order. But for me what has always taken time is choosing a layout and trying to fit the pictures into the layout. The storyboard option picks the best layout based on the pictures you put in there. MAGICAL!

You can go back and change things, of course. I like to keep my backgrounds fairly consistent, so I did go back and fix those so they were all the same. But all in all it took me three hours to make a 20-page photo book!

So later when Shutterfly contacted people and asked them to blog about their experience, I jumped at the chance! I know there are a lot of photo sites out there, but of the ones I have tried and experienced, I truly think Shutterfly is the most user-friendly, and tends to offer the most deals.

A week doesn’t go by where I don’t get some sort of code from them, whether it’s free shipping or free photos. I’ve taken advantage of so many, and so far we’ve made baptism and Christmas Photo Cards for Wee ‘Burb (or, of Wee 'Burb, actually). And we’re looking into thank you cards for after Wee ‘Burb’s first birthday, which is COMING UP, I can’t believe it!

I am very excited also to share that Shutterfly has offered some free codes to my readers! To qualify please comment here by October 2nd about a favorite photo you have or what you would most like to order on Shutterfly. I’ll announce the winners October 4th!