Week in Review: 12/11

Christmas lights + reading = How I would love to spend every day

Lots of craftiness this week. Both in how I've spent my evenings and my favorite links of the week.

I love Colin Firth. A lot. And English Muse got to interview him. I'm just a little jealous. ;) (Actually there would be no sense in my interviewing him. I would only bumble away idiotic mutterings regarding Mr. Darcy and Mark Darcy and those leather pants in What a Girl Wants.)

Such an adorable and simple necklace to make.

Brilliant shirt upgrade.

Love the crochet garland.

In other important news, last night I decided that my love for my camera and my sewing machine is too strong for them to continue unnamed a moment longer and a decision must be made. So my camera is now Charles and my sewing machine is Laura. I know, won't that be confusing, a sister and a sewing machine with the same name?! But I'm not usually talking to my sister and sewing machine at the same time. Or ever. And I was trying to think which Project Runway contestant was most like my sewing machine and I selected Laura Bennett, because they're both older, talented, grumpy at times, and I would wear the things they make.

My Return to Paper

I like technology mostly. So over the past year or so I've tried to lean more on technology for certain tasks, specifically my calendar and to-do list.

That ends now.

I had been thinking about going back to a paper planner. I love Google Calendar and I will continue to use it since Lee is a computer calendar person and he can check it as necessary. But for me, it's back to paper.

So this weekend I bought a paper planner, with space for a to-do list, and since then my productivity has been rediculous! Maybe it's just the fact that I've reached the point where I HAVE to get things done (15 days til Christmas!), but things have been going so smoothly now that I have my planner and paper to-do list. I have accomplished all my tasks for the past three nights and now all of my long-distance gifting is crafted and shipped!


Oh paper, I will never leave you again! (Okay, that's probably unlikely, but I'll stick around for awhile!)

Zoey's Holiday Photo Shoot

Yes, I like to dress my dog and no, I'm not ashamed nor do I feel bad about it. Zoey does get cold sometimes outside in the winter and it entertains me. I mean, I have to smell her breath and pick up her poop everyday! Don't get me started on the time she ripped up my carpet. So the least she can do is entertain me by sitting still for some photographs of her wearing holiday accessories. And it's just so cute!

I don't know if you can tell but those antlers have flashing lights!

This is actually Reagan's but we can't get her to wear it. (She might have poked her head out of the bedroom during the photo shoot, gave a bewildered look, and ran back under the bed.)

Jingle bells rock!

Trying Harder

When I started blogging, my goals were just to actually blog about something -- anything -- on a semi-regular basis, like at least weekly. Then as I got more into it, I decided to blog regularly five days a week. And I did that for awhile, but I wasn't always satisfied with the product. Some days I would be busy and just slap up a YouTube video, which is fine, but it wasn't consistent with my blog goals (Be a better writer, tell stories...). So I decided to not force things anymore and I would write when I had something to say, hoping I would have things to say at least three times a week. (This last transition occurred within 24 hours of signing up for NaBloPoMo. Oh well, maybe next year.)

This morning I was reading this post from Writing Roads and now I'm rethinking the quantity/quality thing again. Julie's feelings on the matter are right:

I mean, I hear what they’re saying – which is basically, ‘Don’t post crap.’ But my response to that is this: Figure out a way to post something good. Work harder.

So I resolve to work harder, and find something worthwhile, everyday. Well, maybe just Monday through Friday. 


image: r3v || cls

Welcome Christmas

We finally got our Christmas decorations up! Joy!


Welcome to our home.

The tree is complete!

Umm...since we have these random nails along the top of our porch I tried to string lights across them but it turned out pretty ghetto.

Lee decided the situation needed some TLH (Tender Loving Hammer) to even out my uneven light swag.

I did a much better job with the mantel.

Week in Review: 12/4 and Blogiversary!

Wow. It's been one year of blogging thing. I'm pretty proud of myself for sticking with this. But mostly a HUGE thanks to my readers. I have a lot of fun doing this, but it would get boring after awhile without anyone to comment so thank you thank you. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! I am sending you many virtual hugs right now.

Feel free to leave any thoughts or suggestions for the upcoming year in the comments or there's a link to e-mail me to the right. I spend a lot of time thinking about goals and plans for this thing but I can never make up my mind so now I will just let you tell me what I should do. Topics to discuss? more or less of anything?

My post from a year ago today/Evidence of improvement (at least I give you pictures now!).

I really love Lexington Children's Theatre and if you do some clicking on Facebook you can help them get $25,000 or something awesome like that. Trust me, they deserve it and are just amazing. Amazing productions, amazing outreach, wonderful people. So if you can, give them some clicks.


There has been a lot of doubt about the cause of Jane Austen's death because it's a tricky business retro-diagnosing people, but it's been in the news this week that once again, it was more likely TB than Addison's disease.

I've noticed recently that when discussing colors of things with Lee (like shirts) he likes to correct my "purple" with "eggplant". I think eggplant is the only fancy color name he knows so he likes to trot it out as much as possible. This would explain why, when I found the perfect color for our future kitchen, he called it "baby excrement" instead of "mustard". He even compared it to this one house we saw that truly had poop-colored counter tops but this kitchen and those counter tops are nothing alike! The offending counter tops had a lot more brown and orange in them. I am determined to see my mustard kitchen some day. Don't fear!

I also found some prints and cutting boards I want to hang up in this future kitchen as well.

Have I mentioned that I'm mildly crazed by the amount of Christmas crafting I have left to do? Probably twenty times. I decided this week that we're not sending out Christmas cards this year because A. I normally see, e-mail or call the people I really care about and B. Removing them from my to-do list brings great peace of mind. I think printing and filling out this gift organizer from The Project Girl will also help.

Happy weekend-ing!

image: Orin Zebest

Riding the Wave

I love Google and am excited to announce that I am now Google Wave-ing. 

What is Google Wave you ask? I HAVE NO CLUE. But it's exciting! This video is my favorite for trying to explain it.



Caitlin has it too and we are trying to figure it out together and utilizing this tool for an upcoming project. I will try to keep you posted on my learnings. Today's important discovery: Shift + Enter will send messages so you don't have to click "Done" everytime! Apparently CTRL + Enter will reply but that didn't work for me so it might just be a rumor.

I have a few extra invites if you want one. You can e-mail me here and there's also an e-mail link on the left if you're at my actual blog. Feel free to offer bribes, but the only real requirement is that you wave with me, and we can learn together.