My New Furry Sister!

I think my mom's longing for a small dog started when I got Zoey. Three years later, she finally has her lap dog. Meet Maisy!



Maisy is a four-year-old Yorkie-Shih Tzu mix mom adopted through a rescue group. I'm already in love and can't wait to meet her. Hopefully Zoey likes her too. *fingers crossed*

Things I've Made Lately

I baked a yummy apple pie. (Yes, that is caramel drizzled on top.)



The apple slicing did not take as long as I thought.



I finished my pj pants. Now Lee and I have a matching set!

Although mine have fancy seams and were not bled on. Yay for improvement! This week I start learning to knit.



A pillow for my chair at work.

Excessively Ambitious Weekend Plans

This is just an awesome picture I took at the zoo. It has nothing to do with what is about to follow. 

I've filled this weekend with more goals than is probably humanly possible, because I'm good at that and have a bunch of stuff to do. Perhaps I am most likely to be successful if I break it down into timed segments.

Friday
6 pm   Eat dinner with family
9 pm   Watch my Netflix movie (Crash) because I have been a ridiculous Netflix loser this month and watched nothing and I try to watch at least 4-6 because I'm all about calculating my price per film.
11 pm    Catch up on as many DVRed TV shows as possible: Glee, The Office, Project Runway, Models of the Runway (although I'm thinking that last one is kind of lame).

Saturday 
11 pm   Up and running. Not metaphorically, actually on the street running, during which time I will calculate a plan to start working out more regularly because I haven't been working out much at all lately.
noon   Hopefully it will be a long run, and now I shall do crunches. Then shower and look cute.
1 pm   Lunch
1:30 pm   Drive around town trying to find OPI's Moon over Mumbai. (Long story. For next week perhaps.)
3 pm   Return home successful and paint my nails. Perhaps finish catching up on TV.
3:30 pm   Finish writing My First Pride and Prejudice. Yes, I am turning Pride and Prejudice into a children's novel book/craft project for the cutest toddler in America. Of course, I've also thought about avoiding the whole mess and just buying her the comic book to get her started.
5 pm   Megan and Richie are coming over to visit and watch the UK game! I'm going to have UK fans to watch a UK game with! I'm so happy I could cry! To order pizza or cook? That is the question.
6 pm   Go Cats!

Sunday
9 am   Mass
10 pm   Coffee and donuts
11 pm   Church Round 2 with Lee's family
noon   Lunch
1 pm   Upload pics from Cedar Point. Write some blog posts for upcoming week.
2 pm   Work on children's novel book.
3:30 pm   Work on some craftiness surrounding someone's birthday present.
4:30 pm   Read some Lord of the Rings because I would like to finish it sooner than later so I can officially declare Harry Potter the winner.
6 pm   Dinner
Maybe this exercise wasn't necessary. Maybe I can get everything done this weekend. I probably should go to the grocery at some point...I should have put that in earlier...we'll allow this gap in the schedule because I'll be lucky if I stick to this through Friday evening. 
9 pm   Desperate Housewives premiere! Will Mike marry Susan or Katherine?! I DON'T KNOW!
10 pm   Get ready for bed and snuggle up with some Frodo until I fall asleep.

This seems to be totally achievable! Not nearly as bad as I originally thought. Perhaps I should always specify my schedule like this. We'll see how things are on Sunday night. *fingers crossed!*

Please Come to America!!

Dear Fabric Market,

The fabulous Holly at decor8 brought you to my attention recently. However, you seem to be located in Germany, which is a bit of a trip for me. Please call if you're in the Louisville area, because when I first saw you...my heart skipped a beat.

Thanks in advance.

All my love,
Katie

images: Holly Becker for decor8

Carousel

I love carousels. We spent Saturday at Cedar Point and as we were exiting the park, exhausted at 10 p.m., I made one last request, "Please can we ride the carousel?" I have not outgrown my 8-year-old fascination with them. I didn't take any pictures on the Cedar Point carousel (I was tired.) -- although their horses had real tail hair! -- but here are some from our recent trip to the Louisville Zoo.




My trusty steed


Lee's ride

I Feel So Cool!

If you head over to Clever Nesting today, (which you should do every day), you'll see the earrings I made for my mom recently. :)

UK Fan FAIL

When I got married, the main date I took into consideration for when NOT to get married was the date of the UK vs. UofL football game. Yet one year later, I'm casually making plans with no consideration to football. (Foolish.) So tomorrow while I should be laughing out loud at how crappy UofL's team is and making apologies to Mike Hartline for everything I yelled at him the TV last season, I will be riding rollercoasters with UofL fans (and one Purdue fan).

I also missed the first game of football season for the zoo. I was so excited about football season (a lovely appetizer to basketball season) but have had no football-viewing fun yet this year! Although it was nice to hear of our shutout against some Ohio team.

(FYI, I just do UK football, beyond that it doesn't matter. Although it's always nice to hear of UofL, Tennessee, Florida and UGA losses. Does Duke play football? I hope they lose too.)


Lee and I sporting our colors at the zoo.

Know, that as I scream tomorrow, I will be screaming, "CCCCCCCCAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and I will be sporting my Kentucky blue. And expecting my dad to text me every time someone scores or UofL does something laughable. Can someone also keep a tally of how many times Cragthorpe has to consult his Waffle House menu for play ideas? Thanks.

But it will really be an awesome weekend, even if I don't get to watch my favorite team destroy my least favorite team. First, off to Columbus to visit Lee's brother and wife, then Cedar Point (see below), and then I'm taking Monday and Tuesday off to go visit my family and pick up Zoey from her visit with "Nana".



Have a fabulous weekend!

Three Reasons to Watch Glee

I am so loving Glee. It is awesome and within the first two episodes they have covered three of the greatest songs of all time. Tonight has Josh Groban so I don't know if we'll hit it out of the park again, but if you're not watching this show you really should. (I wish I was getting paid to say this, but I'm not. I'm just very strongly pro-Glee.)

First, there was Rehab. (This is by the opposing school, but it's AWESOME!)



Then there was THE greatest song of all time, Don't Stop Believing.



And then last week, my personal anthem. (Kanye might be a jackass, but he makes some great music.)



I have my fingers crossed for Free Bird this week.

Announcement

On September 1, I casually commented regarding the size of our apartment and my cramped craft space:

The living area is probably large enough to make a craft nook, but since I hope to be moving into a house sooner than later (Does six months to a year classify as "sooner"?), I'm afraid this is it: a corner shelf in the dining room.

But on September 2 I found a house on the Internet that I really liked! Lee liked it too and so did mom and there was a semi-legit chance we could afford it! So I called the realtor who told us to call her mortgage guy who said that we could afford it so I called the realtor back and we were going to go look at the day after Labor Day but then there were six offers on the house so nevermind.

I wish...

However, now that we know we could have afforded that house, we are officially looking. Which is probably a good idea since our lease is up at the end of April. This gives us plenty of time to look around and get a firmer idea of what we want and need. If we find perfection we'll go ahead and make an offer, but we're casually taking our time, not stressing out...okay, I'm stressing out but that's just how I roll. I've been stressing out about this for months, even when we were no where near buying a home.

Thursday night is our official first night of looking, but I went to a couple open houses with my family over the weekend while Lee was at drill (for Army Reserve). Of the two we saw there is one I'm excited to show Lee. It's at the top of our price range and I don't know if we really want to pay that at this point in our search, or maybe ever for our first one. What's the point of giving up cable to own a house if you can't invite people over to watch ESPN? We can't give up cable going into football and basketball season. That's just ridiculous!

So yeah, we're officially house hunters. God have mercy on our poor realtor who has to deal with us me! During our first meeting she commented, "For someone who's so excited, you sure do worry about things a lot."

Yes, yes I do.

image:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rene-germany/ / CC BY 2.0

Just a Reminder

Out of Sorts

I'm feeling a little scattered to be honest. Disorganized in my head, perhaps.

Last week I had a horrible bout with the lazies which has caused things to compound and now I feel like I have a monster to-do list tonight, plus a lot of things/projects/thoughts circling in space.

I need re-do my craft space.
I need to read more.
I need to start Christmas crafting.
I need to make a birthday gift for the cutest toddler in America and I've been planning on making this for her for years and I'm so excited about it and I can't wait to share it with the world but I've been putting it off for two years. Maybe this weekend I'll start on it.
I need to get into an exercising habit that works with how it keeps getting darker earlier and my love affair with the snooze button but how once it's all over I love my morning "jogs." (I say I run but I'm pretty sure most would call it a jog.)
I need to make those pillows for the couch. 

Note: These are also things I want to do.

There's also a new project about to take over my life but that won't be revealed until next week (or maybe tomorrow), just to keep you in suspense. (And it's not a baby. I always suspect a baby first. Do others do that too or is it just me?)

But I'm determined to be productive tonight and hopefully get the ducks in a row (and watch Project Runway). I was catching up on my overgrown Google Reader and found some organization inspiration over at The Project Girl. I'm thinking I might have to print out several project planners over the weekend and ideally attach them to chicken wire but they might just wind up covering the fridge.

Labor Day Sale Fiesta

One of the highlights of the long weekend was the huge sale at Joann Fabrics, which included a 10% off total purchase coupon. Clearly, this was a sign from God that it's time for me to begin my holiday crafting.

After reflecting on the things I bought I realized how much (I think; I hope.) I'm going to be saving by making Christmas gifts this year. I spent $36 at Joann and got some earring hooks, fun card stock, and the fabric and magnetic closures for the purses I want to make from this adorable free pattern. But let's just focus on the purses. I spent about $6 on the fabric (BOGO fat quarters) and $4 for BOGO magnetic closures. I still need two more of those but hopefully they'll be BOGO again soon. I also didn't get the small bit of heavyweight interfacing they need (The line was quite long!) but that should be $1. So essentially, these four purses -- four gifts -- will cost $15. I might need to pick up some thread but that's still a huge savings when normally I spend $15-$20 each.

Check out the lovely fabrics I've paired together. The top fabrics will be the outside of the purses.



Do we like?

As for things I did not save money on, I could not find fabric I loved as much as I loved these place mats at World Market, and after a month of waiting for them to go on sale I just bought them. However, they are perfect and awesome.

The Paper Anniversary

The traditional gift for your first anniversary is paper. Lee and I had previously decided to not really get each other gifts but to spend the money going to the zoo (pictures later this week, perhaps?) and to a nice dinner. However, when I saw this craft project, I knew it was the perfect present for my lolcat-loving husband.

Here is my piano-playing paper cat. He's not great at playing the piano, but is generally fun to look at.



The instructional video for this project is both informative and entertaining, if you want to watch it.

Oh, and Lee gave me some beautiful peachy roses.

 

And I forgot to share this earlier, but obviously I survived the dentist last week.Go me! I didn't even cry! Although there was a bit of flinching. 

One Year

appropriate background music

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

Coming Soon: Super Awesome Weekend!

Not only is it a three day weekend, but Sunday is my and Lee's one year anniversary and I am dorkily excited. Not just because we're going to the zoo, fancy restaurant and got a bottle of the sparkling wine we toasted with at the reception, but also just happy to be married to the coolest guy ever. Like seriously. Plus, we now have married couple street cred. It's almost as if we know what we're doing.

Meerkats, I will see you soon. Please forgive me if I squeal too loud, try to pet you, or attempt to keep you. My dog can make a meerkat pose you know and sometimes I watch your TV show. 




image: ConspiracyofHappiness

Christmas!

 Some homemade by moi Toaster Strudel art from last Christmas.


I've been thinking about Christmas for quite some time because A. I love Christmas and reflect on it year-round (What gifts do I want? What gifts should I give? Is it acceptable to watch a Charlie Brown Christmas in April? I miss it.) and B. I'm trying to do a lot of homemade gifts this year so the time to start planning is yesterday!

I have been planning for some time now and things are finally starting to come together so I can start crafting.

Is it wrong that I love making these homemade gifts (or I think I will when I start very soon) because it's like buying gifts for me?! Beads and fat quarters and stamps and card stock! I don't get to keep the fruits of my labor, but I get to keep the tools and have fun crafting!

So far, I'm thinking about some purses, cards and earrings. Oh the fun I will have with my 10% off entire purchase at Joann Labor Day coupon fiesta!

The End of a Perfection Streak

Have I mentioned I'm a perfectionist? Since there are actually people who read this blog that haven't known me for years and I can't even tell you what I posted last week, I can't always remember what you, audience, know about me. In case I hadn't mentioned it before, I'm a bit of a perfectionist.

The strongest example of my perfectionism at its best/worst is my grades. I was devastated by my first B in first grade, since at that point I thought there were only too grades: A for good, B for bad. While my teacher and mom calmly explained to me that the B was an excellent grade, above average even, I never really believed them. And in second grade, when I realized that one my best friends, who while a delightful person was not necessarily a future rocket scientist (Actually, she's an accountant now.), was getting straight A's I knew I could achieve that perfection as well. So by some magic, because I was too young to grasp averages and I had always put my all into my school work, from third grade on my report cards were an A-only zone.

The disease got worse in seventh grade when they introduced progress reports. At this point I realized that I could keep track of my grades daily and know exactly what was needed to produce that final A. Through high school there were many near-ulcer moments, but I graduated valedictorian with the perfect 4.0 (and some AP classes).

(I lightened up a little in college, because I realized that B's were not worth crying yourself to sleep over. Of course neither were boys and that was the lesson of the college years. Anyways...)

Another perfection streak that I've always taken pride in is my teeth. I wore my retainer for approximately eight years after braces and I have never had a cavity. Well, until a couple months ago.


Scared.

The news of my cavity (Well, cavities. There are three. THREE!) and gingivitis might have come as such a shock (I brush, floss and rinse as recommended! And choose substance over taste in selecting toothpaste!) that I switched dentists. (I mean, she said I needed a $165 special cleaning! My teeth can't be that bad!)

Of course new dentist also said I need fillings which will take place in a couple hours. (But should be fine with an extra regular cleaning. Apparently some people's mouths are just dirtier no matter what precautions we take. Who knew.)

You know they give you shots IN YOUR GUMS?!?! I don't like needles. Like I don't like needles so much that the only thing scarier to me than giving birth is giving birth with needles in my arm/back/anywhere. (Although that will be investigated more thoroughly when we're actually trying to have babies.)

I'm sure the whole dentist office thinks I'm an idiot because as we're scheduling this I'm asking questions like, "Can I drive myself home? Do I need a prescription for something? Can I eat before hand?" I guess those are basic questions but this whole filling concept is so foreign to my once perfect little mouth.

And one of the saddest parts of all this, is that apparently these cavities are from where my sealants broke and bacteria got under them. My barrier to cavities was compromised, resulting in...cavities.

Fingers crossed I get through this alive...

(Have I mentioned that I over analyze and melodramatize and generally freak out unnecessarily?)

Pillow Fabric...Check!

I found the fabric I want to use for my new couch pillows at Hobby Lobby this weekend. Joy!

Of course this leads to a new problem. I had planned on doing your basic square, sew the right sides together and turn it inside out, pillow. But perhaps I should consider some more possibilites? I could add a couple pleats? Or what do you call that trim around the edge that's like a tube? Do you just call it tubing? I don't know, but you can see a sample of it above along the seam of the couch.

I think the more pressing concern of the moment is my overgrown craft corner.

Ooh...someone played with Photoshop Elements!

We just have a one-bedroom apartment and Lee's monster of a computer desk is in our bedroom. The living area is probably large enough to make a craft nook, but since I hope to be moving into a house sooner than later (Does six months to a year classify as "sooner"?), I'm afraid this is it: a corner shelf in the dining room.

I'm wondering if I could find the books on the bottom shelf a new home. (In case you're curious, I organize my books alphabetically by author by genre. The bottom shelf here is religion and travel.) The Christmas Craft-Extravaganza (Coming Soon) will need more space. I might just have to put them on top of one of the other two taller bookshelves, as I've already had to do with Lee's textbooks.