I like it better than guacamole. And that's saying something!

Neil and I were practicing salsa in their living room while his brother, Ravi, secretly filmed. Rosalia jumps around in the background. I love salsa. Can't wait for Thursday!

I'm on Flickr!

Just a preview. Click on the sidebar link or go to www.flickr.com/photos/photosbyjaime

I like it.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” -C.S. Lewis.

In Vino Veritas

I'm becoming a YouTube Whore.

When mom and I saw this preview before the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix it didn't have the little scene in the begining that compares The Golden Compass to The Lord of the Rings. But the second we saw the alethiometer we gasped and grabbed each others arm.

I didn't even know they were making this into a movie!

And Nicole Kidman will be an awesome Ms. Coulter.

I loved this routine!

The judges said that they didn't understand it, but they didn't feel like they had to. I loved it. I thought they were piano keys, and the dance was about pauses.

I am so my mother's daughter.

Things that are making me well up right now...

It's so romantic...

Just the thought of it. It's the last one, and in a little while all the fun speculation will be over. I don't want Harry to die. Or Ron. Or Hermione. Or Neville. Or Ginny. Or anyone, except Voldemort.

I can't really explain why. This song brings up layers and layers of emotions in me.

Because the 5th one always does.

Mrs. Marlaire and her Gaggle

My friend Heather got married in San Diego last weekend. She is the first out of all my close friends to get married, and I am very happy for her. She's wanted this since I first met her my sophmore year of college, but she wouldn't settle for anything less than true love that would last a lifetime, and I think she's found it. I only just met Colin this weekend, and only for a few minutes, but I liked him immediately. He laughed at all us gaggle being crackheads when we introduced ourselves, and he seemed happy to meet us.

Speaking of being crackheads, we should call ourselves the gaggle of crackheads. We were one of the loudest groups at the reception, and everyone was perfectly aware ofhow much fun we were having. We were the only people who threw someone in the pool. We made fishy faces in our pictures for no reason at all, and I took pictures of Christine "with the flowers." Most pictures are too rediculous to post for outside viewing, but here are some of my favorites.

Honorary Welsh Girl Hears the Mothership

I found this pen in my notebook yesterday, and I have no idea how it got there. I have never seen it before in my life.

The other side of the pen reads: www.studyintheuk.org. I have already done that. And it may be pure coincidince, but my time in Wales was such an important time in my life, that I feel like the sudden and inexplicalbe presence of this pen in my life means something.

Maybe it's trying to give me direction. When I was in Wales I was completely confused about myself and my place in the world. I was lost and lonely, but I was accomplishing a goal that I had my entire life. I was living abroad. I was studying abroad. I was traveling to Italy. I was falling in love in a foregin country. So while I was a little lost hobbit on a crazy adventure most of the time, there was such importance and purpose behind my life that in a strange way I felt romantically fulfilled. I could have given Wordsworth a run for his money.

Maybe I'm just supposed to focus on saving for and planning my next trip abroad. Maybe I am supposed to focus on my writing. Maybe I am supposed to work harder at making a career out of my writing.

I have no idea where I am going with this post other than this: a symbol of a very important part of my life has surfaced lately, and I think it is trying to tell me something.

*** "Not all who wander are lost." J.R.R. Tolkein ***

It's going to be a hat.

Hopefully I'll finish it on the journey down I-5 for Heather's San Diego wedding this weekend. If I do, I will have sucessfully fullfilled my one and only New Years Resolution: to learn how to knit a hat.

I love this yarn. Pink, purple, and sparkle, why wouldn't I? It's right up my alley. The colors remind me of the color of Aurora's dresses in Sleeping Beauty as the fairies take turns changing the color of her dress. "Make it pink! Make it blue!" When my aunt and I watched that movie when I was a kid, I would make it pink and she would make it blue. The word Aurora runs through my mind as these beautiful bright jewel tones slide over my needles and loop into this hat. I am also making a flower to attach to the side. This is definitely going to be a bold hat, but I think at least I will like it.

I have a similar yarn in green tones and I plan to make another hat with that yarn. The colors remind me of a mermaid tale. Maybe like Ariel's.

I think I have a weird Disney theme haunting my knitting right now.

Oh, and the words scrawled across my hat represent my forage into the world of Adobe Photoshop. I think I need to take a class to learn to use it properly.

Daphne, I adore you!

As promised, here are pics of Niles and Daphne, Marissa's cats. They are named after characters on Fraiser, so I like to play around with quotes from the show while I am playing with/ talking to them.

I proclaim "Daphne, I adore you!" as Niles did to Daphne in the infamous red dress episode.

It's also fun to shout "Niiiiles!" in a booming, urgent voice the way Fraiser does during an episode around the time Niles and Daphne start dating.

I think it's so appropriate that Daphne is hiding in the back of this photo. She's very skittish and quite shy, but she's slowly warming up to me.

New Camera

While everyone else is busy buying fancy new models of expensive cameras, I seem to have regressed. I have a big old, clunky, stupidly heavy Nikon D1X that takes great pictures, but I decided that I wanted a little "throw in my purse" type camera that I can take on nights out on the town, to work, and anywhere else that I don't want to take "the monster." ANd since Heather's wedding is next weekend and the battery for my Nikon still isn't working, I figured now would be a good time to get one. So here it is. My silly little Kodak EasyShare that I am already having loads of fun with.

Fourth of July Ghost

Lots of people think that low light pictures with blurry light lines are dumb, but I love them. This one looks almost like a ghost playing with fireworks on the Fourth of July.