Outfit of the Day!

Guess what? ....

I finally bought a "selfie" stick! Lol I have been wanting one for a while and saw them while I was standing in line to pay at Walmart. It was only $3.50 (without tax)!!! Why not, right?!

I quickly wanted to put my selfie stick to use so I decided to do an outfit of the day post. It isn't so cold today so I pulled out some of my cute clothes for work today. This is what I wore...

My top is a burgandy long sleeve top from Forever XXI. 

It is one of my favorite tops because it reminds me of the 20-30's time period. I loved how they dressed back then.

My black cardigan is also from Forever XXI. My pants are black skinnies from Old navy.

Lastly, my boots I got last week at DSW. I absolutely love them!!!! I made sure they had good traction on the bottom so I don't fall with the snow and ice.

Sorry they are a bit dirty on the bottom. The snow and ice finally melted in my driveway and The floor was a bit muddy as I came in. 

Not the best post but I wanted to use my selfie stick hahaha. Hope you liked my outfit! :)

XOXO,

Lina

I love Harry Potter

Oh my goodness!!! That is all I can say about the new versions of Harry Potter. I remember seeing the book at BnB in November and having my breath taken away by its beauty.

I quickly ordered my own copy but it was just my luck that it went out of stock. Well the wait is over...it is here!

It is an illustrated version of the book. Not really sure how many illustrations but they are enough to keep my little heart super content for a while. :)

:D look how beautiful...

I don't want to spoil anymore of it so I will stop. Seriously though, how gorgeous is that book?

The moment I saw it I immediately knew that I had to have it. Not only for myself but for my future kids :) i couldn't think of a better version to read to them. I can see it now, right before bed time, rushing into bed so we can pull out one of my favorite stories (hopefully their's also). Enter the magical world that Rowling created with my kids!

They are supposed to come out with the rest of the books every year for the next 6 years. Can't wait to see what else they come up with!

XOXO,

Lina

D&D: Mini Figurine Painting

I did it! I finally painted my first ever mini figurine. 

It is a Goblin Hunter. I got him from the Dungeons & Dragon board game (will talk about that more in another post). 

Here is is on my fingers for size:

I don't think I love the colors very much but they were what I had and I wanted to practice. 

I started off by priming it

Then came the base color of the skin

I had to put about 3 layers of base coat. I think here I made a mistake with adding too much water to the paint. It seemed too runny and not covering too much. Fixed it as I kept going.

Next I did a shadowing effect. With this I add a very watered down darker green.

What a mess right? Hehehe. Thank goodness I learned you paint from the inside out.

After, I tried adding a deybrush effect to highlight the raised areas.

I really loved how the skin turned out!

Next came the clothes. My dumb butt forgot to paint from the inside in and started with the vest. -_- I was excited about the color I forgot.

Then came the clothes underneath 

Here is where I became unhappy with my color options. :/ But I continued since I didnt have many options.

Lastly, worked on the rest of the details.

The face is still not done but I wanted to show it off. I think it can definitely be improved but I can't complain. It looks okay. 

Now I just have to keep practicing:)

XOXO,

Lina

Additive Manufacturing

The topic of additive manufacturing came up today and I really enjoy learning about how it is evolving. For those that don't know, additive manufacturing is the next up and coming thing in technology and it is going to be very revolutionary. Well...it kind of already is. The way additive works is that instead of taking a piece of raw material and removing the material you don't want until you have your desired shape, you simply create your part by adding layers upon layers of the material. The most common 3D printing that is done is with plastics but technology has advanced so much that we are now 3D printing with metals.

Pretty neat right? Saw the intricate shapes? Watch below to get a glimpse of how they are printed. This particular video shows a machine where the platform spins to make circular parts.

This type on the bottom is the one that I know more about because I took classes on it.

Why is additive manufacturing such a big deal? All designs that exist today, whether it be a jet engine or a car, look and are created and assembled the way they are today because of manufacturing processes. There are things that conventional manufacturing simply can't do. So you might have a really cool design that is lightweight and super efficient but if manufacturing can't make it, I'm sorry to say, it is a no go. Introducing the beauty of additive. You no longer have constraints on what you can build. You can now let your mind run as wild as you want and the printer will make sure to do it since it creates each layer at a time. Don't get me wrong, there are some limitations for additive but there are work arounds.

You can understand from this why this would be an exciting topic in the engineering world. It is going to change the playing field big time!

One thing that was brought up in the leadership meeting was a new form of 3D printing. Like i mentioned 3D printing works by adding layers of materials over other layers and work their way up. Like the third video you usually at the layers upward. You create a layer, lower the platform, add powder over it, sinter the powder , and repeat the process until the part is complete. Like in the video you then go back and dig out your part that is laying within the powder.

The new technique now works from top to bottom while a machine pulls the part out of the raw material. The way they like to describe it is think of the Terminator movie when the bad guy comes out of the puddle beneath him.

The company Carbon3D is the one behind this new technique. I have to say it is pretty neat. This new technique helps improve the surface roughness that the final part has since it reduces the distance between layers quite a lot.

 Watch below as they print an Eiffel Tower out of plastic.



Isn't that cool. I am really excited about this technology. I know my company is investing a lot of time in it because it truly believes in it and I do too. I can't wait to see how this technology develops over the years.

XOXO,
Lina

The Unexpected Message I Had Been Waiting For

Hmm I truly believe that things happen for a reason. I am currently home laying in bed watching a video that is part of my lesson for my RCIA classes. I need to do a makeup class every Thursday so I have assigned videos I need to watch so that we can discuss in class.

Well as I am watching the video I get this good feeling inside listening to the messages that they are giving. They talk about God always being there with us and wanting to be our friend. About how we want to make ourselves better but knowing that along the way we will face many challenges. When we go through situations we have to be "fit" enough to go through them. I am not extremely religious but I feel that most of these messages can be applicable to everyday life and can indeed help improve me as a person.

I end with the video and decide to go into facebook to see what all my friends are up to thinking my lesson is over for the day. As I go through the news feed I see a video that was shared from Steve Harvey. Now I really like this guy. He is a great entertainer and he usually has very good advice.

I clicked on the video not know exactly what he was going to talk about since it is just titled, "after each episode he talks to the audience". I begin to watch the video and what Steve has said has truly touched my heart. I will honestly say that towards the end it had me in tears because it was a message I needed to hear.

Steve Harvey was talking about how everyone in this life, no matter who you are, has a gift. Not necessarily signing, dancing, sports. It can be a simple gift but the point is every single person has one. In this life you need to use that gift so you can experience life. And in order to experience life you need to jump!

Sometimes we live our lives in the safe zone, on the edge of a cliff and look down but will not jump because of fear of what might happen. If you jump though your parachute will open and will safely guide you through. This parachute being your gift. BUT there is a catch....when you first jump your parachute will not open immediately. You will get hurt and you will go through tough moments but eventually it will open. He goes on to say that God has NEVER put anyone through anything and never gotten them out. So you need to trust that when you jump your parachute WILL open.

It is scary to think that when you jump your parachute will not open at first. That is a big chance you are taking but if you stay on the cliff and never jump your parachute will never open. That portion right there is what had me crying.

Lately, I have been trying to figure out what my purpose in life is. I have this feeling inside that I am supposed to do something great but I haven't figure out what that is yet. I often find myself daydreaming of things I want to accomplish but constantly hold myself back because of all the risks. If I don't ever jump I will never live life to its full potential and my parachute will never open.

I need to stop holding myself back from accomplishing great things. I just need to trust life and that it will lead me to where I need to be. Kind of like the video I was watching before for my class (see how things work out unexpectedly?). You always have Him next to you guiding you. You just have to trust!

I wish I could post the video on here but Steve Harvey put it on his facebook page. I will leave the link here:

Steve Harvey's Beautiful Message

If you have a chance check it out. It might answer something you have been contemplating inside for a while now just like it did for me.

Thank you Mr. Harvey for the message. I needed to hear that.

XOXO,
Lina



NOTE: Like I mentioned before I am not a religious person or fanatic. I have a very scientific mind and my father raised me to question everything. But I cannot ignore what nature tells me nor what I feel inside sometimes. My mind cannot accept that the human body for example was created out of nothing. It is perfectly engineered as well as everything that surrounds us. What exactly engineered it? I have no idea. But I believe that something did it. That is where I stand.

Simple Yet Productive Day

Had a pretty good day today. Went to class and focused for most of it. The chairs we have are extremely uncomfortable making me focus more on the pain rather than paying attention in class. Sometimes I just want to stand up right in my spot while they give class. Everyone will just awkwardly stare at me though if I do it since I sit close to the front.

What else did I do today? hmmm I started a list of things to do for the wedding. That is important. A lot needs to be done!

After work I came home and picked up and reorganized the living room. 

Looks a bit dark below but you can see it is all nice and tidy. Don't mind the messed up blinds..we still have not replaced them from when we bought the house. I also found the final spot for our trunk. You can see it at the bottom left of picture. 

The next thing that needs to be reorganized are the bookshelves. I need to fit in some new books and I am running out of space on the Harry Potter and the Star Trek shelves. I got these two new books from the Antique Mall:

And have a few Harry Potter items a friend of mine gave me that need to be properly displayed. I will figure out how to reorganize things at another time though.

I had this Star Wars puzzle I had bought at the dollar store laying on the book shelf and decided now was a good time to start working on it hehehe.

Spent like an hour on it and got a good chunk assembled but will finish another day. It is bed time now and my kids want to cuddle!

Look at him!!!!! Hehehe...my silly boy!

That was all for my day. Felt a bit productive around the house so I thought I would share. Also, I just wanted to write. Now time for my favorite activity...sleep! Good night everyone!

XOXO,

Lina

A Trunk Full of Memories

For a couple of months now we have been on the hunt for a trunk/chest. Random, I know but I will explain later what it is for. We searched in many places and couldn't find the right one. It was either the wrong size, too expensive, or we simply didn't find any.

Glad to say the search ended on Sunday. When we went into the Antique Mall we kept running into chests/trunks everywhere. But again, they would be the wrong size, too expensive, or an ugly color. We eventually ended up finding a medium sized one that was black, beautiful, and $40. We immediately picked it up and were on our way to pay for. 

And then we saw it....the ONE. This trunk/chest was massive, beat up, the right colors, and a decent price. We rushed that one over to the counter, the husband managed to lower the price on it, and we took it home.

Here is the trunk! Yes, it is super beat up in your eyes but it was exactly what I envisioned. I will only be restoring the inside because the outside is perfect for what I want it for. Not to mention it matches our LoTR/Hobbit style house just  the way it is.

What did I want the trunk/chest for? A couple of months ago I found a couple of things that reminded me of good times I shared with my husband. Items that when I looked at them brought joy and good memories to me. I knew I wanted to store them somewhere but wasn't exactly sure what to do with them. Fast forward a few days after I find the items. We are watching The Hobbit (surprise surprise lol) and I see Bilbo's trunk which houses all the treasures he brought back from his adventure. That was when it hit me....I want a trunk to house all our special  things. Not to mention my parents also have a trunk at home where they keep all the family pictures. Totally had forgotten about that. The idea was perfect.

So that is what this chest will be for. The trunk that will keep all our memories safe. Everytime we go on an adventure we will make sure to leave something in the chest. It will proudly be displayed like Bilbo's trunk in our house so we can always look inside and reminisce.

I can't wait to start filling it up and in the future open it up to look at things. What excites me is that there will be things there that we can later on share with our kids! 

It is our treasure chest. Guarding the most precious treasure we have...our love and our memories!

 Now, let's go on many new adventures! :)

XOXO,

Lina

First Snow of the Year!!!

It finally snowed a bit where I live! This is the first time we see snow in the new house and we were lucky enough to be together! 

This was the front of our house this morning. See? Not too mich snow but still enough to look beautiful!

The trees are what I loved looking at the most. They had snow surrounding the branches.

This was on the way home. It is a small bridge and I thought it looked so enchanted!

Amyhoo. Today was the first day that we went to mass together. I really enjoyed today's message. It was about expectations. One thing that really stuck with me is that if you don't set expectations for things then you won't really get anything. Ofcourse, they were applying this to expectations about Jesus which made sense but not a bad thing to apply to everyday life.

After mass I met my classmates amd I began my first lesson. Everyone was very nice and super inviting. I was really happy to be there. They are doing everything they can to help us be prepared for the wedding in November! :) I am extremely grateful for their willingness to help. 

I jnow this new journey is going to better me as a person and help me learn a lot of valuable lessons. Can't wait! 

The rest of the day was pretty productive. We ate at this restaurant that I thought had closed down for food. Turns out it had burnt down and they moved. Sooo glad we found them. Food reminded us of food back in PR. This restaurant was peruvian but it was great! 

Look at all that yummy food!!!!!

We then went to an antique mall. I had always seen the place but never gone in. O...M...G is all O can say about the place. They have amazing things there. Jorge was like this was a bad idea! We are going to spend so much money hehehehe. We found some neat things which I will post about separately. The place is massive and we could not see it all. We definitely plan on going back. It had many things that match the LoTR/ Hobbit style we are going for.

We then came home and took a much needed nap lol. We had been up since 7:30am. Felt sooo good to sleep. And now, we are prepping things for work tomorrow :/. Jorge goes back to Boston for the week. It sucks but we have to do what we have to do. I am proud of him and he works very hard for us. I can't possible ask anything more of him. 

Til next time! Hope everyone had a good weekend!

XOXO,

Lina

The BIG Wedding

On Dec 6, 2015, Jorge and I got married finally after many years of engagement. We wanted to do it already so we could finally be husband and wife. It was a civil marriage, however. We had close friends with us that were in the area but not our family or other important friends. So a second wedding must be done to include everyone.

Over winter break, right before going on our cruise (oh yeah..didn't mention this we went on a cruise for a whole week :) ) we stopped by the church in my husband's home town to talk about our marriage in 2016. We walked out of there with a date set! BUT it is with the condition that I can complete my first communion and confirmation before then 0.0 *gulp*.

I was able to get a hold of a near by church and it seems this is going to be possible so that I can get married in November. My first class is going to be on Sunday and it will run until April (but I do have a lot of catching up to do because classes started a while ago). I am looking forward to Sunday because this means I am going to meet new people. We can always use more friends.

After Sunday I will have a better confirmation if I will meet all the requirements for the wedding. So you know what that means? Let the stress of planning a wedding begin hehehehe.

This wedding has been in the making for over 5 years and we pretty much know what we want. I am a pretty creative person and a bit OCD so I intend to be extremely hands on for everything. I can't wait to finally do this. I was super happy when I left PR and saw how involved both our families wanted to be with the planning of the wedding :). I am not going for the glitz and glamour that the typical bride goes for. That is not me at all. I mean don't get me wrong, I do want my wedding to look beautiful...but it will be my definition of beautiful. My main focus and priority for the wedding is for my guests to have the best time ever. After all, this is a celebration of two families coming together!!!

Can't wait for the big day! I will keep you posted on what happens on Sunday with the classes.

XOXO,
Lina

2015 What a Year!!!

2015 has come and gone but til this moment it has been one of the best years I have ever had. Many milestones were reached during this year. First off, I finished with A-course. Thank goodness for that. It really put me to the test and made me a way better engineer. I learned so much in this course and am very thankful to have made it in. With that ending I later strarted B-course in August. I am about half way through and doing okay so far. I will be honest that at this point I am just wanting to be done with this program. See we got a bit spoiled in the summer with a break and now that we are back to working and studying it truly sucks to give up our free time again hehehe. But aside from that this course is so much funner, for me at least, since it is all dealing with mechanical subjects. Most of the things we go over I see on a daily basis at work so it is nice to see things making sense and finally coming together.

With that, came the second big thing to happen this year. I rotated into my second job. It has to do with lifing of parts and I am learning a lot about fracture mechanics. This new job is extremely technical which is what I was looking for. Very challenging at times but that is a good thing since it keeps me on my feet at all times. I was in the role with my new team for about 8 months and then I was unexpectedly changed to support one of our other teams that really needed the help. They did similar work as my team but for different technology. I will be honest, I went in to the new group terrified that I would fail or be too dumb to meet their expectations. Luckily, I have actually been doing a good job with them! The team is fantastic and they have helped me grown as an engineer way more that I could ever imagine in just 3 months. I ended up liking the team so much that I asked if I could rotate into their group for my final one. I was given the thumbs us. If all goes well now in 2016 this will be my final team :). *fingers crossed all continues to go well*. This all happened at a good time because I was feeling a bit useless at times in my new rotation (people just know so much more than me) and was getting concerned about where I would end up after the program in 2017. With this new team I am not so far behind on the analyses because the technology is so new that we are all working on it from the ground up together. This makes it so much easier to learn and not to mention is a huge motivation to understand everything as best as possible because what you learn you then share with your team. Ahhh I just get so excited thinking about what I work on at the moment. Have so much more to learn and I can't wait.

That is all that was great in 2015 work wise. Personal wise many great things happened also. For starters, Jorge and I started looking for our first home and we successfully found one and got it. :D


It is the greatest feeling in the world to stand in your own home and look around and just think, "damn, we made it!". We worked our butts off to be where we are today. Not many people know but during our last semester in college we literally had enough money to pay for our bills until Dec 2013. After that we had no money. My parents were able to give me $300 and thanks to them, my fiance, my manager, and company I was able to move to Ohio and start working. Going through that has made me extremely thankful for everything I have.  Having this house to share with Jorge has been a blessing. We spend all our weekends working on it and putting it to our liking. We are converting it to a LoTR/Hobbit style house so we are always looking for creative things to do around here. It has brought us so much closer together and made us so much happier. Which brings me to another thing. Jorge was in DC at the beginning of the year and we barely saw each other. Now he was able to get a project in Boston and can fly home every weekend. I am so appreciative that he does that just to be with me and the doggies every weekend.  Not sure how long that will last but for now I am just enjoying the moment.

I also got a new car. After 10 years with my little Toyota who traveled from Miami to PR to Ohio with me said enough was enough. I was so sad about it and not thrilled of having to go car shopping but I found a nice SUV and I am very happy with it.



Again, I am very humbled and thankful that I was able to get a new car when my other one gave out. I am not a materialistic person and don't like to show off. I just worked hard for my things and am proud of that.


On the last note, the best thing besides getting our house that happened in 2015 was that we finally tied the knot !!!!!!!!!!!

After 6 years together and 5 years of engagement we decided we wanted to finally do this. We had a simple civil marriage ceremony with 9 of our friends. I loved that we were able to get married in a small park in the town that we live in. Might have been a simply ceremony but it means a lot that we did it in a place that means a lot to us since this is where we are establishing our roots.


Getting married to us never seemed like a big deal since we always told each other we were already married, paper or no paper. Being married is about the commitment you make to each other. To be there for each other in the good and in the bad times. It is about helping your partner grow and to always be the best that they can be while they do the same for you. We have been experiencing this for the past 6 years and I did not think that making it "official" would change that. Boy was I wrong. Immediately after saying our I do's I find that my love for this man grew exponentially in a matter of seconds. I didn't even think a love like that was possible. I never felt stressed in our relationship about being married but for some reason I felt a huge weight off my shoulders was lifted. It was like my mind was relaxing knowing that this man is going to be my partner for life. It is kind of hard to explain because my mind already knew this before getting married. Just trust me...it is something you have to go through to understand. Overall, my point is that I love this man more than anything and I am extremely proud to be his wife! :)

2015 was great to us and I am super thankful for it. I know 2016 is going to be testing us a bit on certain matters but I hope that we can both make it out of this stronger than ever before.

My resolution for this new year is to continue to try new things every chance I get. So far I have learned to make juicy chicken breasts (they always turned out wrong when I cooked them lol) and my mom's recipe for pollo guisado (not sure how to translate that but it is finger liking good) as well as arroz con gandules (rice with pigeon peas, traditional puertorican dish). I also used a hand saw and a sander for the first time because Jorge and I are trying out building stuff our selves. All that in the first 3 days of the year. I hope to continue with this trend and try to make the most of my time.

Hope you also have a fantastic 2016 and even if you are faced with hardship that you keep your head held high and stay strong.

XOXO,
Lina