Gift wrap

Every year I am reminded how incapable I am when wrapping gifts. My Mother produces the most perfect edges, tape applications and ribbon tying for her gifts, but I missed that skill somewhere along the way. Mine look like I gave packing tape to a 5 year old after feeding them nothing but pixie sticks for 2 days.

If I was as incredible as my Mother, I would wrap gifts like this:



or this...



or even this...



Alas.. I shall continue to wrap like this... but don't worry I use holiday paper.

Christmas Festivities

This weekend became a marathon of holiday celebrations. I woke up this morning with my sweet girls cuddled up to my side and thought to myself: "I will be going to bed at 9 PM tonight." 3 hours of sleep wasn't quite enough. Spiked cider, chili and bad movies made a 3:30 am bedtime seem like such a good idea. I blame the mustache glass. I wouldn't have been so enthusiastic about the evening if I wasn't pretending to have facial hair.

It's the little things

Last night was a date-in night and it resulted in chipotle shrimp tacos and home-made peanut butter bars and attempted homemade buckeyes. *buckeyes are peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate, for those of you who have never heard of them*

The dessert results weren't pretty but it was incredibly fun, and I found myself being thankful for the little things that make me smile, warm my heart and feed my joy. Here are some things to give you joy today. It's almost Christmas and who doesn't enjoy a good warm-hearted smile now and again?


Ninja Turtle...


The 80s live on...


Lap dog.


Boy Meets World.

Road Trip Essentials

It's December, and in one week I'll be exploring my family's new home in Champaign/Urbana, Illinois. The excitement is mounting and my packing list for the 13 hour road-trip is formulating in my head. 

Must Haves:

• Gala apples
• Sprouts Trail Mix (at least 3 dif. kinds)
• Pretzels
• Mad-Libs 
• Ten out of Tenn Christmas album (see below) + the Cafe Christmas album (no idea where you can find this one, I think we got it at a gas station over 10 years ago.)

*you can download Ten out of Tenn for free on noisetrade. Click here.*

Michigan Missing

This fall in Michigan was glorious. And I felt the need to diptic the experience. If you haven't explored the diptic app for your iPhone, I recommend it. Other new favorite app (apparently I'm behind, everyone I find hip already knew about it) is flipboard.

For anyone who's a design or publication nerd, it makes social media even more palatable.

Art feature

If you didn't notice, my dearest KK has shown me how to cut and paste html (that she wrote for me) to create buttons on the side of my page.

If you haven't seen her blog - do yourself a favor and click the adorable button for her blog, to the right.

I got this next fabulous idea from her actually.

How about an Etsy art feature? See below for the fantastic works of one Peggy Wolf. Check out her shop.


About her: born in Germany,  studied Fashion Design for five years. Soon found out that she was more interested in drawing women and their clothes, than designing Fashion. Worked for different companies such as an Art Gallery, a Trend-Consulting company and as a freelance illustrator for magazines.

Christmas Prep

Merry Christmas nice and early folks.

This weekend I wrapped gifts and shall arrive in Illinois bearing gifts as a curly haired, young, female Santa for my family. Also, the amazing women in my very merry house celebrated a not-so-secret Santa gift exchange post holiday potato-soup, spiked apple cider and gingerbread cookie feast.

I looked around at my life a few times this weekend and thought "what a wonderful time of year indeed."

I am immeasurably blessed and acutely aware of it.

I can't wait to break out the Christmas CDs for our long drive to Champaign/Urbana next week.

Sweet peter, next week. We leave for Christmas - next week. Well, hello Holidays, you snuck up on me there.

Poor Planning

Well, the planning wasn't particularly well-done, considering I am supposed to be taking a 3 week course, only offered in May, this May... but I booked my May vacation!

And despite the possible delay in my matriculation, I could not be more excited.

Previously, I posted about our plans to stay at the Popular House in Key West, and although it is lovely, we found an even better option.

We will be spending 6 days, 5 nights, in Key West at the small 16-room boutique motel, Casa Morada.

Casa Morada was recently reviewed in GQ, and my significant other's subscription to that particular man-magazine guarantees we see their travel reviews. In fact, that is how we found 29 Palms last year for our May vacation. It is becoming somewhat of a tradition.


How I'll get my work-out in while I'm there... coconut lifting.


I'm pretty sure that room is ours, it's called the Jungle Suite. On the second floor, with a balcony and open-air Jacuzzi. 


Where breakfast takes place each morning... 



The hammock I plan to spend afternoons in, reading.



Maybe this is our balcony view?



Somewhere to wind down at night, after swimming, kayaking and snorkeling all day.


Is it May yet?

Warm fuzzies

The bestie posted her wedding photos today. They make me unreasonably happy. Reliving the day, even the cold parts, brings me warm fuzzies this chilly morning in Texas.

I am missing her and KK already. I see a girl camping trip in our future.


The big moment.


The whole wedding party. There were some wonderfully ridiculous people in this group.


Walkin' and talkin'. I was being a ham at this point. Trying to make our photo-opp more genuine with laughter.


Bridal Party 


Jay Bo, the bride, with me and KK. Longest friendships of my life.

Out sick

I was out sick yesterday but I had good company.

Friendly neighborhood watch...

My concerned nurses...

Hi, my name is joe...

Button shop or button factory?

My sister and I got in an argument about the rhythm of the "Hi, my name is Joe, and I work, in a button factory..." song. This disagreement occurred over Thanksgiving break and as a result I find myself humming different variations of the song almost every day. Where do you put the pauses? I grew up with :

Hi (pause) my name is Joe (pause) and I work (pause) in the button factory (pause)...

My sister is convinced it is something like :

Hi, my name is Joe (pause) and I work in the button factory (pause)... 

There is a great deal less "pausage." This perturbs me.

Anyone want to weight in on this?

Things To Make

I am hoping that over Christmas Break I'll have time to cook and craft with my Mom and my Sister. I have a long list developing on pinterest and I think I'm ready to check some of them off this holiday season.

Towards the top of said list:


Blueberry cream cheese bread...



Pretzel hugs...



Overnight peaches and cream french toast...



Handmade fabric flowers...



Braided fabric scarf...



Branch candle holders...

That should make for a fun, snowy week this fine December in Illinois. Get ready lady-family.

Hump Day

Wednesday should hurry up and get it over with. I'm done.

I am trying not to fall asleep so...

I pinterest searched hump day. Here are some of my favorite results.


self explanatory


happy hump day indeed...


bahahahaha

There were also a lot of booties. Some of which I have a hard time believing are real.

But John Elhage, on pinterest, loves him some hump day booty, apparently.

A quality Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving road trip and family-feud style gaming went as well as one could hope.

My significant other knocked his role out of the park and won over the whole family. My family behaved, mostly, and wooed him with their adorable antics.

The food was spectacular, especially the surprise guest roasted brussels sprouts with apples and bacon... I don't eat the bacon but the rest.... sweet peter. Who knew? Brussels Sprouts?

Black Friday Shopping even turned out to be incredible. We started at Anthropology for the 50% off sale items 7-10 am secret sale, and moved on to Ann Taylor loft and Pottery Barn (can you tell I was with 40 year old women? Here's the thing - those are two of my favorite stores too. What does that say about me?)

Later that day we hit up the local stores of Omaha to support small businesses. My favorite stop was a thrift/junk store in the Old Market. Here are two of my favorite finds.

I didn't know Harry Potter was so sexy...

Adam and Eve mugs anyone? The tatas and the leaf both move when you move the mugs. Amazing.

How was your Thanksgiving? Do tell.

Off to Omaha

Today I leave for the great Thanksgiving adventure in Omaha.

Most people wouldn't be excited to go to the land of corn...

But I can't wait. This is where my family is.

They aren't actually surround by corn though. They are in a great neighborhood near all the Omaha cultural fun. Our family days will consist of scrabble-offs, good microbrewery beer, great food and outtings to movies, the studios my aunt and nana paint in, and probably some sort of mass scavenger hunt.

It is going to be a riot as usual.

14 people in a 3 bedroom house? Bring it on Turkey Day.

More to share later. I'm sure.

I want to make these at Thanksgiving...

NOLA Calls

After a fantastic conference in New Orleans, I feel the need to share photos and brief captions of my adventures. Not only was CIEE's conference professionally stimulating, it was personally inspiring.

A little in love with the city.

Indiana and Esmeralda at Mardi Gras world. 

The full marching band CIEE employed for our mini-parade during the reception at Mardi Gras World. AMAZING.

One of the creepier features at the warehouse...

Another full band, this one was playing around 10 pm on a Thursday down an alley off Canal Street.

Mardi Gras Mask shopping around midnight on Friday with a new, incredible friend who works part time in NYC and part time in Santiago, DR.

A holy scene off a not-so-holy street Saturday night, I think this was taken close to 2 am.

A piece of art shared by my dearest KK, to make my trip home from NOLA a little easier to bear. If you didn't know, Sloth's are my all-time favorite animal. 

Happy Monday!