So sad...

My really good friends lost their dog Naloo yesterday. He was just 10 months old and got hit by a car.. he was an amazing dog and anyone who met him loved him. Just a big white fluff ball of love:) He will definitely be missed...

But on to other, somewhat less depressing news. The boys big move to Washington is quickly approaching... I'm going to miss him soo much! In the 2 years we have been together we haven't been apart for longer then 4 days, so I KNOW this will be such a good thing for us, but it will be SO hard. I hope it all goes as smoothly as we planned though. That's one of my least favorite things in the world... when things don't go the way they are supposed to. Well I'll be back:)

Happy Father's Daaaay!

To my daddy:) Who is just about the funniest, smiley-est, CRAZIEST person I know, in the most fantastic ways. He was the dad that let us jump into rivers from the highest rock, scared my mother half to death by letting me jump out of a canoe in the middle of a lake, taught me how to fish, tried his hardest to teach me baseball (to no avail:), helped me built things for my barbies, learned to braid my hair, let me wear his shirt to bed every night of my childhood, took us to baseball games, and camping, and taught us poker, and came up with crazy recipes, tried to build all of our fruniture and failed miserably, sends my pictures of every pretty thing he sees, and loves his kids to no end. And no matter how big I get I'm still his pretty-girl:) I love you dad! Have fun at NASCAR:)

Test Run:)

I figured out how to put a background up:) No thats a lie... I found a website that made it super easy. But either way I'm skeptical of my little makeover. We'll see... it may just take some getting used to. What does the blog world think?

UPDATE: The first one didn't last an hour. I'm much more comfortable with this one:)

Alright, alright...

So I've been slacking. We all know it. But in my defense, it was finals week. 4 finals in 4 days is no easy task! But the last one is finally behind me and I'm feeling pretty confident about them all:) My last term starts on Monday... my last 6 weeks in the classroom. Half relieved, have scared out of my mind! We'll see how I feel when this 6 weeks is up:)

So this is kind of a lame post but I had to say SOMETHING just to stay in the groove of things. I'm not going to let blogging be forgotten:) Before I sign off for the day lets add some things to my never ending wish list... Ah etsy you torture me with your beauties!

Click on the pictures for their links and marvel at the amazing-ness of these vintage/homemade beauties:):) My goodness.. SWOON!

P.S. -- Have a fantastic Father's Day! I can't wait to give my dad the perfect gift I found... It will be fantastic! I'll try and take pictures:) Man I need a new camera... Any recommendations??

under pressure, one last hoorah, and some completely unrelated

So my mom calls me today from one of the pit stops [shes been driving home from New York for the passed 4 days with my cranky pah pah in tow] and describes an idea for a tattoo she wants. It consists of a rose with a 'mama' ladybug and then 9 baby lady bugs around it for all her kids. Well, all children she considers her own. She's always been kind of every ones mom so she wants to incorporate ALL her 'kids'. She starts going into all kinds of detail, how she wants some babies flying and the mama to be on the stem of on the rose. Then she pops the big one- will you draw it for me? Now I may be the "creative/artistic" one in our family but my drawing skills are very limited, and to draw up something she is going to have on her body for the rest of her life whether she likes it or not is a lot to take on, in my opinion. I don't even know how to draw a rose. So, as most people do in these types of situations, I turned to the trusty google:) There were 2 instructions I found that seemed to work out best, so I have 2 versions of something she might be interested in. Here's what came from the tip of my pencil:

Please ignore the cruddy picture quality.. I can only do so much with my cell phone at work:)

Which do you like better? I don't know if I have a favorite just yet. I think they still need some perfecting. I'll let you know what she thinks of them too:)

In other news, I went to a Theatre reunion party on Friday and it was fantastic! I don't know if I mentioned i was a BIG theatre kid. Acting is one of my all time favorite memories, and I miss it SO much. But my schedule now is plotting against me. I can't wait to be done with school and have a life again:) But back to the party.. As most things at my old high school theatre were, it was quite childish and that made it so much fun! There was a bounce house and tons of food [it was pot-luck style so there were all kinds of different goodies:)] and of course music and karaoke and Beatles rock band on x-box 360. Man do I miss those guys.. I didn't take many pictures because I desperately need a new camera and my phone just isn't as good as I'd like it to be. Speaking of cameras, if anyone knows of some good quality, decently priced cameras I would love suggestions! I've had a plain old digital camera in the past that I loved the life out of.. It was very well used and didn't last me long only because i didn't take very much care of it. And i fell down a flight of stairs with it in my pocket and, understandably, it didn't like that very much. But I'm hoping to upgrade in the somewhat near future. Were trying our hardest to save money for the move, but its so tempting to have money in the bank that's so accessible:) I comes down to us just leaving our cards at home some days.

Then again its the online shopping that gets me every time... I'm addicted. And I think I discovered the reason. Not only is it the feeling of making a great purchase, but the sheer joy I know every person getting when a big package comes with your name on it:) Man do I get off subject. But you get the basic idea:) Back to the party, here are the only pictures I did get with me and some of my closest friends:

Me and the beautiful Samantha:)

and then me and the fantastic Heather:)

and then in some absolutly unrelated news... I love kid art:) I love the way their imaginations are just so.. open. I think children are in another world all their own when they create.. a world where girls have purple hair and the sun smiles. It's kind of magical isnt it? I love the way I look in the eyes of a 6 year old:)

Just what I needed.

For anyone out there feeling down on themselves, for anyone feeling like they don't matter, for anyone feeling like they aren't good enough, I want you to read this. from one of my all-time favorite blogs Sometimes Sweet, the amazing Danielle always makes me feel a little better when I'm having a down-in-the-dumps kind of day. Hope it helps you too:)

Hmmm...

I'd love to customize my blog a little. Too bad i have no idea how to go about doing so... anyone out there want to help?? I want to add some buttons from other blogs on the sides and all that fun stuff:) If anyone in cyber-world reads this pleease help! It's so bland at the moment... so to spruce it up here's some beautiful inspiration that's caught my eye:)

Beautiful right?? If only I was an artist... I dabble in painting but nothing close to this magic! Im so inspired by whimsy and color that just jumps at you... click on the pictures to see the source. All three were found on etsy so take a gander and stock up:) Prints are one of my favorite things to buy! A mini version on the original, still holding the same charm but only a percentage of the price! Sounds pretty perfect to me. Have a good Memorial day! I'll be sun-ing it up at Tyler's mom's house. His grandma is in town and she just cracks me up. Can't wait to break in the new swim suit.. I'll post pictures in a few days!

My Goodness.

Let's do some school work, then maybe some more school work, then how about trying to squeeze in some more school work? A lot due in the next couple weeks. Trying my best to keep up this term, then reminding myself to try harder! She did warn us it was going to be a tough one... at least I know Mrs. S is true to her word, right? I do however have the sudden urge to make a quilt:) I've never made one but one of my faaavorite blogs, Smile and Wave, makes it look so easy! She is quite the inspiration for me. She always has beautiful projects in the works, it makes me wish I had soo much more time on my hands. I finally have my little sewing area all set up, and yet I have laundry sitting in front of my neglected machine. Let's work on that, shall we? I have however made time to cook up all sorts of ideas. I need to get these somewhere they cant get lost, so here's my list so far:

1. Make a colorful quilt for our bed.
2. finish the stencils to decorate my cork board squares. (I'll explain later:)
3. find a lamp shade for my newly re-vamped teapot lamp.
4. Start a jewelry endeavor? I'd love to make my own!
5. FINALLY make some pillows out of my fabric collection..
6. Finish little brothers birthday present (which was in January. He's one... he'll never know the difference:)
7. Make some kind of craft apron with POCKETS! I always, always set things down and lose them. I need a way to keep them on my person, but not in my hand!

That's it for now:) but I know I will add on before you know it:) I'm excited to get started!

And away we go...

I think the first time I started to blog it was for all the wrong reasons. There was no real rhyme behind it besides the "I love reading them so why not give someone else something to read" idea. This time around its going to be a tad different. I've decided the reason it was a bust and I stopped posting was because I was writing for someone else to read. I was trying to entertain rather then say what I wanted. No more:) So let me start over... Hello my name is Tiana, and this blog is going to be my thoughts and day to day happenings that either A) I feel are important memories I want to immortalize for myself or B) I just can't hold in. I think everyone needs some kind of outlet.. whether it be creative or pure, pointless venting. Now that that's out of the way, let me get on to more pressing issues. Like, oh lets say, who am I?? Just to give the Internet world an idea of who the person behind computer screen really is. As I said, my names Tiana. I am 18, yes yes just a baby:) and I am going to school for medical assisting. If you don't know what that is, I'm going to be the person that calls you back to your room at the doctors office, the one who takes temperatures and weight and what-nots. It may not be my "dream" in life but I have no idea what I want to do with my life, so I chose to go to school for something I know I can get a job doing. It seemed logical. I have a wonderful boyfriend of almost 2 years named Tyler, and I'm guessing he will be mentioned here a lot. Were moving to Washington in either August or September. Why you ask? Well Ty hasn't gone to school after high school yet and he is 20, so it was a do it now or do it never situation for him. So off we go to live with his dad who has very generously offered to pay for his schooling. It'll be 2 years of windy, rainy, sad weather. It'll be... an adjustment, to go from central valley California weather to Washington weather but I'll adjust. On the bright side, I own hardly any cold-weather clothes so a shopping trip is in my future. Oh who am I kidding... many shopping trips:) I'm a look at the bright side, glass half full, be optimistic person. And i must say it makes life so much more enjoyable. I don't think people remember how much fun life can be as they get older... like one of my favorite quotes of all time from the movie Yes Man when Allison says 'The world's a playground! You know that when you are a kid, but somewhere along the way everyone forgets it.' I dont ever want to be one of those people. I plan to be a kid for as long as I can:) Alright that seems like enough rambling for now... But I will be back this time! And you can hold me to that.