Book Ends

This morning I posted about these sugar bowls that I got for $2 each at Michael's. Well I decided they looked like little houses & bought 2 more.

I paint markered them up and called it a day. At first I was worried about drawing straight lines but then I got with the program- Erin, these are $2 sugar bowls. Seriously.

I couldn't decide what style house I wanted them to be so I just went with 2 that were opposite. 1 Modern & 1 Foursquare.

A word on the books- While I love "Sh*t My Dad Says" on tv, this book sucks. I think I got to page 20. I don't have patience for poor writing...and like the guy really remembers what his dad said when he was 3?" My mom has this thing that she HAS to finish any book she starts reading. Totally not my style.

Anyway. this is probably about 1/6th of my book collection. Weak, isn't it? I know. Don't worry, 2011 is the year of traveling and book buying.

Speaking of :year of", I never did do the list I wanted to do on my birthday. I think about this whenever I start to get bummed about not being able to travel or have many fun toys. But when I look at my list, I realize that will all balance out in the end and that I'm doing just fine. :)

Here it is:

Age:
18: Met Joe
19: Moved to my first apartment, with Joe. Yes!
20: Got engaged! For the record, I hate that word.
21: Got married!
22: Moved to Madison!
23: Found a fun job that I enjoy!
24: Bought a house!
25: Bought a second car- we each have reliable cars for the first time ever!

When I look at it that way, I see that I'm moving right along. Lots of things to buy & places to travel over the next 5, 10 and 20 years. We're hoping for an East Coast road trip and a Portland, OR trip this year. Next year we'd love to go to Europe.


PS: taking any and all suggestions for great places on the East Coast. Especially flea markets or antique malls! That part of my list is rather sparse.


Okay, off to make soup!

Cream & Sugar

Hey Friends!

I hope you all had a great weekend! We really didn't do a whole heck of a lot so I don't have any photos to share today. I have one, but really, it's not much.

It's just to say that I found a new sugar bowl to replace this one. I loved that vintage sugar bowl dearly for quite some time. I remember gasping at Joe at 4:40 a.m. on many, many mornings "aaah! please done pick her up! please!" (thankfully we don't have to get up that early anymore). It was my very first thrifted item for the apartment. I bought it when I was 20. Oh, how thoughts have have changed since that post! Green is not my favorite color any longer. Least favorite? Maybe. Okay okay, not least favorite. We'll leave that slot for any color ever referred to as "skin". Ew. But I set green on the back burner and don't see it re-entering the house any time soon. Although it is one of "my colors" as far as clothing goes, so I guess I can let that slide if I find something good. I think my cringing comes from where we live now- in the summer, EVERYTHING is green during my drives to and from work. Oh, the drives. Scheduled to restart tomorrow. Oy. I just grow tired of colors I see everywhere. It's a good thing I don't live in Ireland.

But anyway- yes. A new sugar dish. $2 at Michael's. The cream thingy is for when we have extra people over in the mornings, but as I sort of guessed, it doesn't have the strongest pour. The spout isn't pointy enough. Oh well.

But that's all for now. I have 6 books that I have started since Christmas and I have 6 books that I haven't made to page 30 yet. I'm a terrible reader. I'm really trying hard to get better at it, but it's tough the internet has all these pretty photos and then there are all the other things I could do instead of reading. Like...the dishes. Or...finding my way to the internet again. I know that when we have a spot dedicated for it I will be better. But for now I will just keep trying to stick with one of these books and hope that I find a chair for the soon to be library.

Plants

Jada got a new pot the other day. She is getting smaller by the month and her old pot was starting to look too big for her. I know- plants are supposed to get BIGGER, but I keep having to clip branches off because of an over-watering problem last spring. Although I think she's finally good to go.

I also got a new pot for my Rubber Tree because the other one I had was only temporary. I picked up this clay one from IKEA while I was in MN the other day &I'm very proud to say that only $20 was spent during that trip. $10 for the pot and $10 for a super cute stuffed alligator guy who is going to go in the library...when we have a library. UGH all this bookshelf porn that's been floating around the internet lately has me wanting more books. But the real focus should be on finding a chair. I think I need to just stop looking for a gently used one & just buy new.

Ah well. Oh PS: I gave the IKEA pot a little scarf which I cut from a blanket from IKEA. The blanket had a hole eaten through it by a mouse & I was getting a negative tinge whenever  I saw the blanket so I cut it and now it's better. HATE me the negative tinge.

Anyway. I pretty much wasted my entire day doing nothing. It's 2:17 and I managed to eat 4 cupcakes, some lunch and I also did the dishes. And I repotted my rubber tree. Oh and I did do some other stuff that I just ended up undo-ing because I didn't like it. I might go snowshoeing, I might not. We'll see. For now I am going to do something other than type and swoon.

Cupcake Flags!

I turned 26 today.

Joe went to the grocery store this morning & bought stuff to make cupcakes. RAINBOW cupcakes! Those are my favorite. While he was making them, I decided I wanted some flags to put on top.

So I gathered paper scraps & toothpicks:

X-acto'd them to size:

Folded & Flagged them:

Stuck them in the cupcakes:

Decided that the elephants wanted to come, too:

And next? Cupcake eating followed by snowshoeing.

Thrifting. YES!

So today was my day of awesomeness. Awesomeness being nothing on the agenda but thrifting and a phone call. I didn't even have to feed the cats or clean their box or listen to Clementine bitch, which was so so great. And to think that one of the reasons I was on the fence about this trip was because I didn't want to leave my cats...ha, that was a stupid.

The reason I'm here (Minneapolis) is because Joe is on a business trip and I have one week left till I return to work, so I figured I should take a vacation from my vacation. A guy that Joe is working with said something like "wait- your wife is with? what is she going to do the whole time???" Um, was he kidding?! Hello, I'm in the thrift store and shopping meca of the Midwest, duh. Some people don't get it.

So yes. I woke up at about 5:00 this morning (and quickly realized that I would never be a good candidate for studio apartment living...I don't envy that lifestyle one bit, I've decided) and waited and waited for Joe to wake up. Being that we're in a hotel with no restaurant attached, there's really not a lot that I can do other than just lay there and wait since I didn't want to wake him up.

Anyway, so he finally woke up and I started planning my trip. My thrift store extravaganza trip. The Thrift Shopper is the best site ever when it comes to this, by the way. So I got all that scribbled down & then it was time to take Joe to work (at the doll store in the Mall of America, haha) and I went in to get some coffee for my big day, went back out to the car and plugged in like 10 thrift store addresses into the GPS & started driving.

I finally made it to my first stop & I was very let down by it (and 16-mile-one-way drive) and then even more let down when the other thrift shop out there didn't seem to exist. All that driving for nothing! So back I came and hit up 4 or 5 that were closer to my hotel.

And then it happened- my first find of the day. I was excited to come across this huge spool of thread, especially because I'm currently on a mission to gather more materials for wrapping packages. And because it was the prettiest shade of blue & I thought it would look nice if I kept it out on a shelf in our soon-to-be-library.

$1:
Pretty, right? 

Speaking of our soon-to-be-library, books have been one of my most sought after items at thrift shops lately. Building a library from pretty much nothing takes a long time, unless you have a huge budget. And since I can't convince my mind that I have time to build a library, I've been getting all my books from thift shops. I highly recommend it. I really like hardcover books and I really REALLY like old hardcover books. It's an aesthetic thing. I wish you could see how gorgeous the book cloth on this book is. Well, okay- I know you can see it. But I wish you could feel it. Oh god, it's so good. One of my favorite finds to date.

$2

AND the illustration & print is in metallic green ink. I picked this up & knew that I had to have it before I even opened it. And then I opened it: "And so we bought Stillmeadow. Although Jill always said Stillmeadow bought us. We lived in New York Ciry, I was raising my daugheter in a sixth-floor apartment about the size of a station wagon. It had what I called a sometime elevator for it did run sometimes." Okay, this is where I admit to you that I have not read a book since grade school (not a lie) because I haven't found one that will hold my attention AND because I hated reading in school but since I could write well I just took notes and aced the papers. Suckers. Anyway, this one will hold my attention. I know.


It was at that time that I thought "I need a basket" and as I was walking back to the book section, I spied my next find on a wall full of scarves. The minute I saw her I pretty much lost my breath and said "Oh, Vera". How did I know it was Vera from so far away, you ask? Because Vera is that good. So good that I have never even seen a Vera scarf in person but knew what I saw within half a beat of a heart.


$4

After I found it I started to think about the Vera book I've been wanting & how I never did buy it for myself from Amazon like I had told myself I would. I decided that I would buy it when I returned to my hotel if I had any money left in my thrift-fund by the end of the day.

I was near Edina so I drove over to West Elm. I mainly went in to look at their styling rather than their items, since I haven't been too excited about their stuff for quite awhile now. On my way out I started looking at their book section and I remember thinking that I don't like the fact that these design stores are selling random books just because they'd look nice on your coffee table. And then I shut up. Because...could it be?

Any guesses? Any at all? Come on you have to guess because I let the guy wrap the thing just so I could play this game with you. Okay, I'll give you a hint. It rhymes with Sara. And I was just talking about it a minute ago. And it was only $9.95. 

Yeah. I know. And at $9.95, it was a steal. Even better than the price I was going to pay for a used one on Amazon. Friggan awesome, right? Right. This just goes to show that January is indeed the best month ever. Other than July, September and November. I like those ones, too. And I didn't even realize that those 4 months are every other month, minus March & May. They're alright too I guess.


Okay, back to reality here. My last stop was at the Goodwill across the street from my hotel. I walked in & spotted these cuties right away. They are so French to me. Don't ask me why, because I don't know. Trust me though, I know French when I see it. It comes with the gig that one takes on when they are part French (moi). Haha, like how I worked that one in? I do.



$1 each:

Aren't they great? Oh man. So good. I love their fashion sense, don't you? There were 4 total & I walked around with all 4 and made the spontaneous decision to put 2 back right before I got in line. I wanted somebody else to find them, too. And I kept thinking about my Portland trip (which is happening in 2011) and how I need to save for it so I had to stop spending $ even IF it was my birthday soon and even IF they were only a dollar each and even IF one broke how I'd only have one left.


And then I got back to my hotel and made my phone call and started to take photos of my new stuff and I got to these glasses and started to get sad about leaving the other 2 behind and my mind was having fist fights with me and I couldn't make them stop so UGH I got in my car and drove across the street and walked back into Goodwill, being sure that I wore a different scarf & a hat this time so they didn't think "isn't that the lady that was just here" and then I walked over to the shelf they lived on and got them. Along with 3 other things that I didn't see earlier.


And now I'm happy.


Yeah. I know. 


So NOW it's 6:12 and I have like 4 or 5 hours till Joe gets off work. The Wild play the Blackhawks tonight and this is the first and only game I will get to watch this season. Against the Hawks. Which is awesome. So part of the determining factor of me coming to MN was the fact that I would be in Wild territory & that I would get to watch a game since we don't have cable at home. I walked into our hotel room & quickly noticed the 15" tube tv that is bolted to the dresser so I can't even put it on the bed to watch it. 


So I'm going to shower & go find somewhere to watch it. Like, at a bar or something.

Before & After: Entry Doors

Hey friends! I hope your January is going well & that you are crossing lots of stuff off your to-do lists! I have a 4-month list spanning Jan-Feb-Mar-Apr & I am just about a quarter of the way done! Of course, we'll see how things continue to go once I start working again. I'm hoping to still have a decent amount of momentum, but we'll see. My parents are visiting soon and they always kick ass at this sort of thing so they'll get me back in gear if I happen to slip!

Anyway, here's the latest before & after!

Before, like waaaay before, when we first moved in. August 2009. ICKY!

And with the help of some paint & removal of ugly things:

I'd still like to get new doorknobs and the runner is just temporary till I find what I like. Oh, and of course something to replace the hanging tri-star. New switch plates are to be found as well, but I need to even the switch box dealies out first. 

Look closely & you'll see what I did while everybody (or seemingly everybody) was watching the football game (PS: Joe is a Bears fan and like the only Bears fan around here)...

 

I removed the trim that hung across the glass on the the door, scraped the gunk & paint markered it! I decided to just do freehand lines for now. If I get bored, which I will, I can just scrape it off and start over! For now I like it quite a bit though. I got the paint marker for $2.80 at Michael's. Inspired by this post, but I didn't use any contact paper. 

Okay well that's all for now. I'm in Minnesota right now (!) and I gotta run- Joe is getting off work & we're going out for a bit. Oh and PS- Goodwill is across the street from our hotel so you know where I'll be tomorrow. I also plan on hitting up West Elm & a few other goodies (IKEA!) that we don't have in Madison. 

Birthday Present = Ordered

So of aallllll the things I want (neeeeeed!) I chose to get this for my birthday:

 

The Roksana Sweater by Prana.

Don't ask me why I didn't get a decent pair of pants for snowshoeing.

I don't want to think about the compact drill promo offer that I forgot about.

I thought that a Kettlebell & workout DVD would be a lame gift.

I can't find a winter coat that I like so scratch that till next year, again.

Somehow I don't want anything for the house, which is so weird.

 And everything else costs like $200 or more.

So this should be getting here soon...just in time for me to wear it to work.

While I do love cardigans & cute blouses, this is really more me.

I like the back because it's striped like the arms are...super cute!

Painting

I just slapped a second coat of paint on the long wall in our basement.

I kind of wonder how long it will take to cure because I estimate the temperature to be about 52 degrees down there. 

I like to walk around the house sans-socks & wear t-shirts when I can because it makes me more immune to the brisk temps that Wisconsin outdoors has to offer around this time of year. I do cheat and wear a hat when I'm inside, though.

I have to warn you- when you come over to my blog party make sure you bring a hat, mittens and probably a scarf, too. Everybody tells us that our house is cold. And I know that it's cold. But to me cold is comfy and hot is not. Hot is Rosacea and I hate her and avoid her at all costs. Our house is not drafty so I like to keep it at 65 degrees. Sometimes I'm nice and bump it to 66 when we have guests.

Anyway, back to my point here. Paint. $5 mis-tint paint from Home Depot, mind you. The color doesn't pick up very well on the camera & it's not as periwinkle as it looks in the photo, thank God, because I don't ever want to see periwinkle in or near my house again. It gives me bad visions of Joe's old Periwinkle Prowler (Which was actually a dusty-blue 1999 POS ford escort).

Oh and I should mention that those are my favorite work jeans and they've been through quite a lot of projects with me. Unfortunately I can't wear them in public or when people drop by when I'm project-ing because I got a nice tear in the thigh to lower ass cheek region. I might patch it. Technically I can wear them to the hardware store in town and feel okay about it because a) our town has a nude beach and b) there aren't many lookers 'round these parts so it's not like I have to step it up in the first place.

PS in case you are wondering, the jeans are "favorite boyfriends" by American Eagle. Some of the only jeans I can find that actually fit right. I just thrifted another pair in the same size and they are way too tight because of all that fudge I ate last month, but I'll stretch 'em & soon they'll fit like a glove. Hopefully that happens like mega-soon because I can't wear those ones out in public either without looking like a teenage girl who thinks she's a size __ when she's really a size __. I see a lot of that happening at the mall.

This Is How My Brain Thinks

So this piece only took like 10 times longer than I had ever anticipated.

And it's not even finished yet...

 I want to add something to the middle area, maybe. I'm thinking either a few words or something else. I'm open to any and all suggestions, by the way.

My level says it's straight but the photo says it's a little crooked. Dang!

The dining room is slowly coming along! I painted the table the other day and I'm still on a mission to find some chairs. A never ending mission. Why is this so hard?! Part of me wants to do a long bench across the wall so I can sit and read and look out the window all loungey-style. But the problem is that the table would end up being too close to the wall in order to eat from the bench & that side of the room wouldn't be weighted right. It's a funky area to work with, really. My other thought was to do a floating shelf all the way across & use it as a bar area. 

Thoughts?

I think that I'm going to do something like this to the window on the door. It leads to the garage but I don't want a shade on it so I thought this would be a good alternative.

One day I hope to do wood floors, but that's probably far off & who knows if we'll still live here by then.

Onto other things...

I can't help but to love blue & yellow when it's paired together. I keep thinking that maybe I want to paint our bedroom this color and get a yellow quilt, but I don't know. I'm having a really hard time committing to a color for our bedroom! But I do love this blue. A lot. And it seems to be a favorite of everybody who sees it.

This room is the soon to be library & the bed is only temporary. I'm hoping to find a chair with a bold yellow pattern that's also comfy for reading on, but no luck yet. I wish furniture shopping was as easy as magazine shopping! Magazine shopping is too easy. But not as easy as it was when Domino & Cottage Living were still around. Ugh, I'm still not over it.

 Anyway, I went to move the bed a little bit to get it straighter for the photo, and it wouldn't budge- it felt like it was glued to the floor! So I laid on the floor & I realized that the leg was IN the floor. I'm not too terribly thrilled about this, and noticed that there are also dents from the bed on the other side as well. WTF?!

Do you see that gouge?! Oh, it hurts so bad! Oh well. I suppose it will help with my quest to let things go. Ha. Yeah. Huge help...

I have 12 more days off before I return to work & I hope to make a pretty big dent (hmm...i seem to have dents on the brain. note to self: don't bring car anywhere today) in my to do list during that time, so I suppose I should get going. That wall isn't going to paint itself! Which is really too bad, by the way...every time I paint I think "huh. is this what carpal tunnel feels like?" and then I end up painting with my left hand. I love a good challenge. Even if it's as weak as this.

Purple

I was reading a post that I wrote 4 years ago and it said something like "my favorite color is green and my least favorite color is purple."

A few years later we moved into our house and I began to loathe green. I will still wear it, but I don't like it in my house. Now I like purples and blues and greys.

 

 Even the cat's toys are purple. I love this little glitter ball & Clem does, too. It's his favorite and he carries it around all over the place. He cries if he can't find it. It's kind of annoying.

 After I painted these birdhouses, I started to wonder if maybe I should keep those hues for indoors and have orange and reds and yellows for outdoors? Mix it up a little, ya know?

 Joe bought me this necklace from Stone & Honey last year. It's a bitch to keep clean (for me) and it's a little tarnished. But I still love it. Note to self: I really need to get some jewelry cleaner.

 I didn't have anything new to post about today. There haven't been any projects worth sharing, but I hope to finish the piece I'm working on for the dining room today.

I was supposed to leave for Madison like an hour ago but I haven't left yet. I haven't even showered yet and I never did eat breakfast.

I'm dreading the drive.

Any time I go to Madison I feel like there is so much that I have to do. Right now there are 6 places on my list. One includes the grocery store, which is always a huge production. I haven't even made my list yet...

It's days like this that I jump on realtor.com and look at houses closer to Madison and then I remember why we moved out here in the first place...

Because unless we wanted a teeny tiny house with a teeny tiny yard or one that needed a lot of work or one that I could reach into my neighbor's house from my bathroom window, it wasn't going to happen. 

Damn it.

Projects

Somehow my almost-3 weeks off of work has quickly dwindled down to 2. We had house guests over the weekend so we were busy getting ready and entertaining for a few days. Yesterday I was finally able to get back to my to-do list & I hope to have 3 more things crossed off by the end of the day!

The funny thing about to-do lists, for me, is that I always manage to find something that I want to do that's not on the list. It's never a conscious decision, either. And then I feel bad that I spent hours doing something that wasn't on the list, so of course I have to add it to the list just so I can cross it off. Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this...

The photo above is an example of what I'm talking about.

Today I was supposed to finish painting the table, finish painting the basement wall and also do something else that I can't recall right now. But instead, I ended up spending like 2 hours working on this piece for the dining area.

Oh well- it's only 12:15 so I still have lots of time to do those other things.

So anyway. I think I might return my new camera that I went on and on about needing for months and months (years?). I hate to return it because I got a good deal on it and I had a $50 gift card to use towards the purchase...but it's just not really living up to my expectations. It's not very user-friendly, I'm not impressed with the macro setting, the editing software isn't fun...on and on.

And also because I haven't owned a sufficient winter coat in 5 years and seriously need one. So I figure if I return my camera, I can buy a coat. Sure I have a wool pea coat or 2, but I'm not about to go snowshoeing in it. And the damn things don't even keep me warm.

AH I hate money.

Thankfully there's $5 mistint paint at Home Depot so I can press on with my house projects during my time off. People tell me that if I stop spending money on house stuff then I could buy these other things I talk about. There are 2 things that bother me about this: 1- I hardly spend any $ on the house and the small amounts I do spend go much further in creating happiness than the large amounts I would have to save for these other things I want and 2- I need my house to look nice otherwise I. will. go. crazy.

True story.

Operation Paper Cut

Hey- you want to know what's really super awesome? I only have to work for 10 hours between now and February 1!

I cannot even begin to tell you how happy I am about this. Not too many people get an opportunity for an extended break from work, and I'm all about it. Or at least I am right now. We'll see how I feel during week 3. Luckily that's my birthday week and I have some fun things in mind.

Sure, I'm going to hate myself in a few weeks when I don't have a paycheck to deposit. But I am going to be working on a couple of large scale art pieces between now and then, so there is always a small chance for a few bucks to be made.

Right now I'm finishing up a commissioned piece that I've been working on for months...uuuugh. I hate when things take so much longer than you'd ever imagine.

It's made of paper cuts and I'm having lots of fun revisiting the xacto knife life.

Now I want to do a super huge piece for Joe and I out of paper cuts! I should turn that into a mid-winter project. Cutting paper is actually very relaxing. Unless you cut yourself, of course. But really- you become pretty immune to that after a few times.

+++

5 things because I feel like it:

1. I'm listening to a Sonic Youth LP right now & it's making me want more records.

2. The photo above was taken with my new camera. I don't know if I like the new camera or not yet- it's kind of finicky, to be honest. And not in a good way.

3. Clementine officially knows how to turn the ceiling fan on. He thinks he's cool when he does it. And I think he is, too, except for the fact that I then have to turn it off and I can never figure out how many times to pull the chain to get it there.

4. I tried getting by with just 2 cups of coffee today but by 2:15 I pressed another pot's worth and now I'm on cup number 4. BUT at least I'm not at 6 like I was 2 years ago. YIKES.

5. Have you read this entry on Kasey's blog? You have to watch the video she links to & also visit his blog when you get a minute. If, of course, you tend to lead a visual life.