bethi is beefy

2010 Olympics!

2010-02-11T07:57:00.000-08:00

Super excited about the 2010 Olympics! Here is a little taste of what I am excited about.
http://oran.gs/t8

I missed the opening ceremonies for China, and I dont plan on doing that this year. I will be glued to my TV this weekend, Valentines be damned.

Avatar at IMAX

2010-01-05T08:08:00.000-08:00

So far I have seen Avatar twice. The first time I went with Amy while Jeremy was out of town. We saw it in 3-D at the regular theater. When I traveled to Sacramento to be with Jeremy we talked about seeing it. We decided to see it at the IMAX in Salt Lake, at Jordan Crossing. This IMAX is assigned seating, and we purchased our tickets online.

One the day of our movie, we went and were going to our seats. There was a man and his son in our seats and he stated that he purchased the tickets online also, but there was a glitch in the system and it left the seats open, and then we purchased them. He sent us to the manager at the doors. She came up and verified the mistake. She asked if we would be willing to sit in the aisle- on hard backed chairs, and she would give us free passes to come again. We didnt have a choice really, so we took the chairs. Right after we got our chairs the movie started, and the manager didnt come back.

The IMAX has 2 levels, and we purchased tickets on the first row of the second level. We ended up sitting on the bottom level pushed back by the doors. There was about 5 feet in front of us, and then the top row of seats. This meant that we couldnt see the bottom third of the screen.

After the movie we took our glasses outside and inquired about the manager who told us she would give us free tickets. Apparently she had gone home already. So we asked the older gentleman taking the glasses. We told him the situation, and he seemed doubtful. We explained that our seats were double booked, and his response was 'we dont do that'. He was extremely rude and short with us. Of course this made Jeremy angry. He then requested that the manager come out.

It was a different woman then the first woman that we had spoken to. We started to tell her about our situation- about the seats being double booked, and her response was 'I have already been apprised of the situation'. She told us that the tickets were reported lost. I had the tickets and asked how they were reported lost if I had them. She gave me this look. I stared in disbelief, and asked if she was accusing us of lying. That the guy who had the seats reported them stolen and then gave them to us. Jeremy also showed her the automated email that is sent after we purchased the tickets. This showed that we actually purchased tickets for the show. She still held fast to the fact that the seat numbers were not on the email. Even though we had the tickets. After about 5 minutes of us saying, NO that was NOT true, she stated that with our credit card she could check. We followed her to the front kiosk, where she pulled up our order.

10 minutes later she was apologizing. We were right, and were not lying. She gave us vouchers to come back to the theater.

I was really upset by this, b/c we had just come out of a great movie, and all I wanted to do was discuss it with Jeremy. Instead we were accused of lying by the manager. This really overshadowed my feelings on the whole experience. I have also contacted Jordan Commons to discuss this matter, and they have not responded.

I will NEVER go back to Jordan Commons, even with my free vouchers.

Zombie Kitteh?

2009-11-13T08:55:00.001-08:00

Here is a coupon that I made at work. Thought it would be fun to share!

You must have a browser that supports iframes.

Adding Julian

2009-09-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

So a few short months after getting Mason, Jeremy told me he was interested in getting another dog. We looked at all types of non shedding dogs. Jeremy really liked the poodle mixes- either with a labrador or golden retriever.

First we went to the pound. It was so sad, all of these beautiful, sad animals, who just wanted to be loved. We couldnt take any of them, they all shed. Anything mixed with a poodle was already taken. So we decided to look online in the local classifieds. We found a couple different places, and called on a golden retriever-poodle puppy. I was out with my boss the night that Jeremy went to go check the puppy out. He brought the little boy home, I was so excited. He did tell me that when he got there, the little puppy was living outside, by himself. Inside the house was totally dirty, and smelled like animal urine.

The breeders house was about a 45 minute drive from our house. Jeremy brought the puppy home, and during the drive this little dog threw up at least twice in our car. Jeremy took our friend Dave with him, and Dave got the brunt of the throw up. Once they got home, Jeremy gave this puppy a bath in our sink. He had diarrhea for at least a week. I took him to the vet, who told me he didnt have worms, but was underweight. I assume that this little boy, Julian, was probably the runt. He stayed at the house after his siblings left, and didnt get the training they did, on not peeing where they slept.

It took me longer to potty train him than it did Mason, but it was worth every extra mess. He is a darling dog, and I would never give him up.

I came home, and the puppy was wrapped in a towel, still wet from him bath. Jeremy and I talked in depth about the name we would give this puppy. I wanted to name him Boone, after my favorite Lost character. Jeremy finally convinced me to name him Julian, after the character in Love Me if You Dare, which is one of our favorite French films.

Mason was immediately taken with this little animal. He would play with him, usually start by sitting on him, and then chasing him around the room. At this time Mason was about 35 pounds, and Julian only weighed 8 pounds.

Julian didn eat well, and he was malnourished. It took a while, but I was able to get him to eat enough to finally outwiegh his brother. When he was little he would cuddle all the time. If you couldnt find him, all you needed to do was look under the blankets around anyone sleeping. He is also very shy. Jeremy would sit and watch basketball, and yell at the screen. Julian would run out of the room, thinking Jeremy was yelling at him. We have worked with him lots to try to build his self esteem.

He is still pretty shy, but takes most of his queues from Mason. So when someone new comes over, he usually will hide with Mason, but really wants to come out and meet them.

How interesting IS my life?

2009-08-05T12:21:00.000-07:00

The reason I created this blog was because of request from my office. I have though about and never created a blog before this for one main reason:

Is my life really interesting enough that people actually want to read about it?

I mean, I live a relatively normal life. I am married, have dogs instead of kids, and I work.

I know that funny things happen in my life, and I have funny stories to tell. But do I want to tell these to potential strangers? Do they want to even know about my inane stories?

While I contemplate this, I will continue to post a commentary on my life...

New and Improved En-Caustic Art

2009-07-17T11:05:00.001-07:00

This week at my art class we started to use different tools to create our pictures. We used the hot plate last week.

When I use the hot plate I put the color that I want down. Typically I would do the main color that I want. With one picture, I put down mostly red, a little orange and some yellow- for the sky. When I wipe it on my paper, I can never seem to get the back and foreground right, so it looks like a sunset. I would try to wipe it again and end up with a mixture of color that isnt close to what I wanted.

This week we started to play around with and iron, yes the type you iron your clothes with. My teacher had a super old school one that didnt have any of the steam holes in it. Another student brought in an iron that had the holes, and we wrapped tin foil over it. In using these irons, I was able to manipulate the wax to do more of what I wanted.

Here are some of the pictures that I have made so far.

First is a landscape scene:

Next is my fortress of solitude:

When I use the iron, I color on the hot iron, and the wax melts. Then I lower my iron like I am going to iron my shirt. In doing this, I am able to see what direction I am moving, and how it looks. I am also able to go over the wax again with the iron and move the wax from one spot to another if I dont like what I have. It mostly gives me the ability to do fore and backgrounds.

Office Prank

2009-07-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

For anyone who knows me, knows I love my place of employment. The company I work for is an internet marketing company. We basically do the marketing online for small to medium size businesses. I was recently promoted to the Team Lead position in the Account Management department. The attitude of my company is extremely fun. For example, we recently put up a billboard that states "Your mom uses Billboards". It is pretty awesome.

So last week there was a guy in our office to was moving his desk. As he was walking by Keely saw that he had a huge box full of bubble wrap. She grabbed it and made a beeline for my desk. She came over and asked whose desk we were going to wrap. Karleigh, who sits next to me, Keely and I got to work.

We decided to bubble wrap the desk and effects of Caleb. Caleb is right around 6'6, and we decided that he was a danger to himself being so tall. He needed to have his desk Caleb proofed. We wrapped his chair, the waste basket, and the drawers. Then we got to work on his computer tower, computer screen, mouse, and keyboard. Next was his phone, which he needed to use, so we wrapped the handset separately from the rest of the phone, so he could make calls. We also wrapped all of his awards that he won for his blog, his random bottle of Orange Soda, and Gatorade needed to be wrapped as well. Then was his post it note pad, and his regular notepad, we would have wrapped his pen, but couldnt find any bubble wrap small enough.

Here is the finished product:

Caleb came in to find his desk all wrapped, and he sat that way for at least half the day. Once he unwrapped his desk we had to find someone else to save from themselves...

We chose my boss- he had gone camping for the weekend, and we were worried about his return.

En-Caustic Art

2009-07-15T12:03:00.000-07:00

During my last water color class I was informed of another type of art called En-caustic art. Apparently you paint with wax. This interested me intensely, and I signed up.

I went to the class last week for the first time. The women teaching the class is a wife and secretary of an artist, but never considered herself an artist. She was attending an art conference with her husband, and the teach invited her up to try this different medium. She tried it, and has been doing it ever since. This has been about two years, and she has some amazing pieces. She has actually gotten into art contests that her husband hasnt even been able to get into.

She gave us a background, and then thought us how to actually melt the wax and use it to create the art.

First you need some type of hot plate. She had the two different ones, the type that you cook your bacon on. From there you need to prepare the hotplate for actually melting wax. There are different types of waxes you can use to paint with, and we used crayons. The type of paper you want is photo paper, and you want to use the glossy side.

So we started to melt the different colors that we wanted to use in our pictures. From here, you basically wipe the wax onto the paper, and see what you came up with. If you dont like it, you can basically melt it all off again.

Our teacher does mostly landscapes. So she would pick a color mixture for the land- wipe her paper until she was satisfied with the texture and colors. Then she would do the same for the sky. It is amazing how great hers turned out. Mine were not so amazing.

For this one, I melted the different colors that I wanted and wiped it on my sheet. Then I laid my picture right side up, and started to us my crayons to draw. The hotplate was melting my crayons while I drew. This idea, while good in my head, did not work the way I expected it too. It looks more like a kindergartner finger painted it.

I tried again. This time with more success, I hoped...

I am not sure if it is really better, but I do feel like I have the idea down more. I learned more how to hold the paper while dragging it through the melted wax. I also learned that even though I think that pinks and yellows would make a cool orange. I shouldnt mix too many colors together or else I get an ugly brown color.

I am excited to continue trying this medium out. I hope that even though I feel art doesnt come to me as easily as some, I can still create beautiful pieces.

Final Water Color Class

2009-06-30T11:38:00.001-07:00

Oh, sad days when water color class is over.

Ok, I am not that terribly sad about it. We finished our final painting. I chose this beautiful flower. I dont think I have ever seen one in person before, and so I dont know the name. There were multiple flowers in the picture I chose from, but the thought of doing that many was pretty daunting. I instead cut out one of the flowers, and drew it Georgia O'Keeffe style.

We split doing this project over 2 classes. The first class I drew my flower and painted the background. The second class I spent painting the pedals. I outlined them, and then as my brush started to dry I would start to pull some light color into the middle. Then I had to mix some brown into that pink color and that made the shadow.

All in all, I beleive it was a sucess.

June 2006

2009-06-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

This is going to be another rewind- back to when Jeremy and I lived in a little house in Provo. We were renting this old tiny house. It was close to 50 years old, with all of the amenities you can expect in a house of that age. Meaning, 1 bathroom, and not attached to the master bedroom. Now that I think about it, I cant remember how we knew which bedroom was the master. The kitchen was the smallest room in the house, we had zero counter room. Ok, that was a lie, we had about 3 square feet of counter room. The walls were apparently wallpapered at one time. Although, it looked like someone textured over the paper, and then painted the walls. You could also see cracks in the walls from where the foundation settled.
It was the last week in June, and we were getting ready to move out the first of August. We had another place lined up, living with friends in Salt Lake, while we did some house shopping. On that Saturday we went to the movies, and then to the mall. One the way home from the mall, we saw a women with a puppy outside of the Costco. We stopped to pet this absolutely beautiful dog. He was called snoopy, and looked just like him. Black eyes, with a white face. Most of his body was white, and the base of his tail was black. You could see that his skin had black spots under the pure white fur. We found out the interesting lineage of this pup, he was half Beagle and half Border Collie. Interestingly enough, the Beagle was the mom. He had the smooth fur of a Beagle, and we were informed that he shouldnt get bigger than 35 lbs.

We knew we shouldnt get an animal, since we were currently renting- and planning on renting for at least 2 more months. There was something about that little puppy that was irresistible. Jeremy ran to our house, to withdraw the money needed to purchase this puppy.

We brought this little guy back to our house, much to the suprise of the friends we were moving in with in less than a month. Oops...

We then had to pick out a name. We went through a few different ones, including keeping Snoopy. Jeremy said NO to that one... We went through all the favorite names from TV shows and movies we watch. For anyone who has ever seen Dead Like Me- we named our dog after Mason.

We moved in with our friends on the first of August, and moved into our own house by the third week of August. We were happy that by that time Mason was potty trained, although our friends werent quite so happy we potty trained him at their house.

Mason has since grown to be 65 lbs. People think he could be a Dalmatian, mostly b/c the spots on his skin have started to grow out in the fur. He also gets confused with a Pointer, with the way he is built. Apparently he got the fur and howling from the Beagle, but the size of a big Collie.

That was 3 years ago this week. I do not regret getting Mason- regardless of all of the shenanigens he seems to put us through.

Water Color and Real Life Killers?

2009-06-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

For the last two weeks in water color we have been learning to draw and paint a face. Faces are hard to do, but apparently there is a geometry involved. Since I never excelled at math- got a 44% for most of my geometry semester in high school- man was my mom angry... I didnt know if this would work well with me.

So, apparently, if you suck in your cheeks and look in the mirror you will see that their is an almost perfect circle from your hair line to your ear, between your lips, back to the other ear and up to the hair line again. This is the first thing you draw. Then you draw a cross in this circle. The horizontal line goes right through your eyebrows. The arch will be above, while the inside and outside points will be below. You then draw another horizontal line right below it. Depending on the size of the face will determine how far from your first line you go. This line will go straight through the eyes.

Apparently, your eyes should be 1/5 of your face, meaning you have 2 eyes, and the space between is the same amount of space from each eye. Then the amount of space on each side of your eyes is the same size of that eye. Also half of your eye should be the space between the nose and the lip. This is how you start to draw a face. From this point, you glaze and highlight the prominent features.

While we were painting our faces...Keelys look like a guy we work with, not Val Kilmer she was going for. Amy was going for Green Day, and ended up with Edward from Twilight. Mine started out as an Asian women, and ended up as Pocohontas.

During her teaching of how to shade the face, and create realism in the ears and the cheeks, we talked about the TV show Breaking Point (?). I have never seen this show, but apparently is about women who get sick of their significant others beating the crap out of them, and taking justice in their own hands. She was totally for these women not getting prison time, b/c they saved the world from men who beat their wives and kids. Totally not something I was expecting from Betty Joe, but apparently she has a great sense of justice....

Weekend Bliss

2009-06-16T15:55:00.000-07:00

You know (or remember) those weekends you have with your spouse where no one really came around. If they did, they couldn't pierce the mood.

This weekend was one of those weekends. Jeremy and I got to be together for 3 full days, and not get sick of each other. We laid in bed all day and watched movies, napped, and generally enjoyed each others company. It reminds me of all the reasons I adore that man.

Stained Glass

2009-06-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

When I was 17 my dad and I discussed learning how to create stained glass windows. We sat and schemed for a couple months, and then didnt think about it again.

I went to college, and then met and married Jeremy. Right around our first anniversary I decided that I wanted to pursue the idea of learning how to create stained glass windows. I searched online and found a studio in our area that taught stained glass. I started going, and just fell in love.

The studio that I attended can be found at www.gommstudios.co m. David taught me everything I know about how to do stained glass. The first window that I made was from a quilt that David and his wife, Jeanne, created. This is the end product.

Jeremy's sister is a teacher in Salt Lake, and asked if I had anything I could donate to the school for a fund raiser. I was able to build a geometry based sun catcher.

After this point, I decided that I wanted to create my own windows. Like previously stated I am not the best drawer, although to draw a stained glass window you have to follow specific rules. I can follow those rules- and create some beautiful (hopefully) pieces of art.

The first was inspired by by different pictures you see of the sun and moon sharing space. Against the light the colors really popped, I wish I had a picture that did it justice.

The second was a clock. I tried so hard to find hands to fit this, as it is 2 feet in diameter. As usual, I found a set, and promptly lost the website address. So here is a picture- with no hands.

You may notice that the numeral for 4 is IIII, not IV. I have been told this is incorrect, but the jury is still out on that one...

If it seems as though each and every stained glass piece I made ended up being bigger and better than the rest, it is!

The next piece that I attempted was a wall sconce. I took half of a Tiffany Lamp design and turned it into a wall sconce. The last time I checked the sconce was in Davids studio. Here is a pitcture of me holding it up.

The last piece is my favorite that I have ever made. It is losely based off the cover art for the Pink Floyd Album Division Bell. It looks like 2 faces are looking at each other, or you can adjust your eyes, and it looks like 1 face looking out. I made this piece and sold it to my boss.

Best Husband Ever

2009-06-12T07:42:00.001-07:00

Anyone who knows my husband and my situation will know that this last year has been one of the most stressful years in our marriage, to say the least.

Recently we moved into this house in Orem, it is a good sized house, and has an amazing back yard. This backyard has at least 4 mature trees; including a Bing cherry tree, and an apricot tree.

Well, last week I decided that the house needed a good cleaning, and to finish unpacking my bedroom. So I went home from work and got to work. I cleaned pretty much consistently for about 5ish hours. Jeremy was out for most of the night, which made it easier for me to focus on cleaning.

I woke up the next morning and went out into the living room, where there was an outdoor chaise lounge chair set up in the living room. It had a sprig of yellow roses, which were cut from the backyard, and a card from Jeremy. In it he told me about how much he appreciates and loves me. It was the best present for no reason, I could have ever asked for.

I love my Jeremy

(not my backyard...)

Water Color

2009-06-08T08:56:00.000-07:00

The last time I even tried to paint anything was in elementary school, and it was forced. Since then I have learned that I have the ability to be an artist, although not in the normal medium. If you give me clay, I can throw you a pot. If you give me glass, I can make a beautiful stained glass window. If you give me a pencil and paper, you probably will have no idea what I tried to draw.

Knowing this about myself, I was surprised that Amy asked if I wanted to come to a water color class. Nothing big, just a class at the local community center. I agreed, slightly reluctantly.

My first class was on Thursday, Amy of course was there, as well as another girl friend Keely. One more of our coworkers will be coming to the class, but wasnt able to make it. Other than the three of us, there was one other woman, and the teacher.

Our teacher was darling, her name is Betty Lou, and she fits the picture you probably have in your head to a T. She is small, with short blond hair that looks like it is a helmet around her head. During this class she had us paint two different pictures.

For the first picture we picked out a fruit, both Amy and I did a pear, and Keely got an apple. She taught us how to draw, and then we did this neat process called Friskett. Friskett is alot like rubber cement, and protected the picture from the water color we were going to use in the background. We also Frisketted checkers on the table cloth our fruit was on. We did the darker back colors. Then we had to get the Friskett off the paper. It would peel off, sometimes with the paper... Then we painted the lighter colors of the fruit and decorated the checkers.

Here is my beautiful pear. Which at least it looks like a pear. Apparently Keely's apple looks more like a pomegranite...

While we were waiting for certain parts of our fruits to dry we also were painting a sunset scene. We did a sun setting over water. We drew out our horizon, and then our sun. Then we painted everything over the horizon yellow, and then put the Friskett over the sun. The teacher explained to us that we should have some reflection of the sun in the water. So we painted little bit of yellow in the water, and Frisketted that too. We painted the sky with reds and yellows and the ocean with blues and greens.

We decided that we needed to take our pictures and frame them for one of our bosses, Jed. So we purchased a black frame and put it in his office. He is pretty proud of it.

Amy's is the best, of course. She has been doing painting for a long time. Although, Keelys and mine are pretty aweseome. It seems weird that Keely has bananas in her water. I have gold fish, and they seem to be pushing my horizon up. Regardless I am proud of my skills.

2009-06-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

So the funniest thing happened on the way to the office today. I was driving Jeremy and I to work, and was in the HOV lane. I totally drove right past my exit. This wasn't like I didn't have enough time to merge, no I had fully passed the whole exit and didn't realize until I was coming up on the next exit.

I had to flip around at that next exit and ended up being about 10 minutes late to work. Nicely done Beefia.

2009-06-05T07:34:00.001-07:00

Hey, I have never done this before. I hope it goes well for me...