Finally, It Looks Like Real People Live Here

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The blinds are here the blinds are here!

While we received our wood blinds a couple of weeks ago, we just received our cellular shades for our bedrooms, and I could not be more pleased.

First, as you can see, I was getting a little tired of pinning up our curtains with?binder clips. Now I love a good binder clip as it works in so many marvelous ways, but, quite frankly, I would rather not have it as part of my décor ;-)

So, we hung the black out cellular shades in all three bedrooms and WHAT A DIFFERENCE! No more binder clip ghetto curtains! Real blinds! Like real people! And look ? they can go top down or bottom up! Stupendous!

One had to be careful around here before blinds because neighbors could see us at every angle. Not so anymore! Getting dressed? Pull down the blinds! Dark outside and all the lights are on inside therefore you are staring in your own home theatre performance? No worries – pull down the blinds!

At some point I will add curtains. Since we have our bed against the window, I took out our headboard, so I would like to come up with something to frame out the bed a bit more.

They are lovely and super darkening. I mean dark DARK. Even in the day! Dark! Like it is supposed to be when you sleep!

If you are in the market for shades such as these (or any shades, really), check out http://www.justblinds.com/. They sent me tons of samples, they were super sweet when I called them up for questions, they have a video and lots of instructions online (we measured and installed ourselves and by we I mean Dan), and I am super happy with the quality.

Ah, I wish I could curl up in my bed in my dark room right now.

A Mini Book of Words

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I really like the way magazines use text. They just seem to play with words in such beautiful ways, so I found myself collecting bits of pieces of text that I liked.

And I ended up with a file folder full of these words and phrases, so I decided to make a mini book.

The book is 5″ x 7″, and I made some of the pages from magazine pictures I liked cut down to that size. I used plain manila file folders cut down to 5″ x 7″ to mount the magazine pictures (because they are flimsy on their own). I supplemented the magazine pages with coordinating cardstock pieces, some patterned, some white. I painted the white pages with watercolors. I liked the page that I splatter painted the best. To make this effect, I dipped my paint brush in the water, saturated it with the watercolor, positioned the brush vertical with one hand, and then I flicked the brush with my other hand. Now, this is quite messy – be careful because the watercolor will splatter – everywhere. But, I use the washable Crayola kind, so it washes right off. But, be sure to wear something that can get watercolored ;-)

I like making these mini books because they feel less intimating to me. When I work with a big piece of 12″ x 12″, I am always worried I cannot fill up the entire page. So I like making these little books right now, so I only concern myself with filling up 5″ x 7″.

In my opinion, minis are fun to practice techniques. And they are sort of like untraditional journals. A snap shot of something interesting or thought-provoking or inspiring. Mini books with big ideas.

Scrapbooking Existential Crisis

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I am in a creative rut.

Like I said on Tuesday, my number-crunching, money-moving, financial-tracking job leaves much to be desired in the Creativity Department. So, I like to be creative on my own time, trying to keep the right-brain activity going.

And in our new house, I have a space to craft. Lots of space. And lots of crafting stuff.

So what’s the issue? I do not know!

When I want to create a book for my wedding or honeymoon or beach trip, that is easy. I can sort of plan out the plot of that experience, toss in some collected scraps here and there that tie into the theme, and presto ? a mini book or large scrapbook is made.

But, when I just have a bunch of mixed paper, stamps, shipping tags, and more markers than a Michael’s store, I just do not know what to do. How do I make a theme out of this stuff? What is cohesive about it? How can I put these things together to show that it conveys something?

The other part of my issue is I do not like a lot of “stuff.” So, I am somewhat perplexed about what one does with these books after one finishes? Make friends and family admire them when they come over? Do they even want to see them? When I was a little girl, my mom never had to worry about breaking my heart when she tossed out my “artwork” because even as a kid I did not like “stuff” hanging around, especially stuff without a purpose. Coloring book picture of a horse? Toss it! Apple-print art? Go ahead, Mom, throw it out, I think it looks silly anyway. Please, please, do not keep that ugly coil pot.

See my problem?! Scrapbookers and creative types, help! How do you get out of a creative rut? Why do you make these books and WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THEM? Do you ever make albums based on nothing but just a collection of stuff you like, not just about your summer vacation or Christmas get together?

As I spend my day with spreadsheets and calculators, I am counting (ha ha) on some help. Any advice?

She’s One Powerful Chewer

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Do not let that sweet face deceive you. This dog ate an entire large rawhide bone in under three hours. THREE HOURS! THE entire BONE!

Yesterday I went to Petsmart to pick up some stuff for our girl. That place always smells weird – a gross combination of fish food and dog treats and cat litter – so I hoped to make this trip pretty quick. Before I went I made a list, so I would not get side tracked: dog treats, rawhide, shampoo.

But as I made my way to the dog aisle, I realized we probably needed a pooper scooper, too. So I popped into that aisle only to find I had to select from about 8 different pooper scooper options. Did I want this claw-like spring-actioned scooper? How about these special poop bags? What about the traditional rake and metal pan type? Ack! The choices. Well, this was too much, to I just choose the one I knew my parents used way back when ? the traditional looking one ? and made my way to the shampoo aisle.

Well, things just got worse there. I knew I wanted something gentle but would also get rid of dirt, oil, whatever she rubbed on herself in the backyard. You would think that selecting a shampoo (FOR A DOG!) would be an easy task, but oh no, of course not. Did I want shampoo and conditioner? How about a no tears formula? What about gentle oatmeal and lavender? Ugh! Too much! Of course I wanted her to have a no-tears, gentle, soothing, oatmeal, scrubbing, nice smelling formula, but I was not planning on spending a fortune on dog hair products. This stuff was more expensive than the stuff I use.

I just had to pick one that had as many of those lovely gentle yet cleaning combinations I could find and make my way to the treats. All I needed was a bag of small dog treats I could use as rewards and also use to get her to do stuff like come in when I call her. When I turned onto the treat aisle IT WAS EVEN WORSE THAN THE SHAMPOO AISLE! How could this be? How could there be THIS MANY TREATS? For goodness sake! It was like the chip aisle at the grocery but for dogs. Nacho cheese flavor, bacon flavor, some oatmeal cookie like things (those actually looked pretty good), and on and on and on. Even organic! ORGANIC? She already tries to sneakily eat grass, I mean, how much more organic stuff could she need? Whatever. I selected some small peanut butter treats in the shape of small bones called something like Old Mother Hubbard brand. That sounded good. Wholesome.

Finally, I could pick out a rawhide and get the heck out of there. And, of course, I knew by now that I would have to wade through a massive selection of those bones just to find a “regular” rawhide. After hemming and hawing about if I thought she wanted the bone-looking rawhide or the stick-looking rawhide, I just selected one of the bone ones with a picture of a super happy looking Saint Bernard and ran to the exit.

When I got home, Miss Belle could smell me and my bag of tricks before I even got the door fully opened. I thought she would like the rawhide, so I opened it up, made her sit, and gave it to her. And that was a really bad idea. She acted like she had NEVER had one of these sacred bones before and she MUST EAT IT ALL RIGHT NOW! She even tried to hide from me, even though I gave it to her, and I had no intention of taking it away.

I thought as soon as I jingled her leash when I was ready for a walk, she would drop her bone and come flying towards me, like usual. And I was wrong. Poor Belle was super conflicted – she wanted to walk but she also wanted to destroy that bone. I tried to put her chain lead on with the bone in her mouth, but that just did not work. So I had to get one of those new peanut butter treats to use as bait to encourage her to drop the bone. After running around like an idiot after this dog, I finally convinced her that these peanut butter treats could not be passed up, and she dropped the bone and went for it.

Once I caught her I put on her collar and outside we went for a nice walk. Upon our return, I contemplated trying to do some maneuver with her, so I could get her inside but nab the bone first. But, I was too slow, and she pounced on that bone and proceeded to devour that sucker like Petsmart would never sell any more bones.

When she was done, she came to find me, and her face was like, “well, I ate that one, so what else do you have for me?? Well! That is just too bad! No more rawhide. Not until I find a special brand for my powerful chewer ;-)

Really, Someone Should Have Warned Me About This

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During our dinner time conversations, the topic of Why are the 20′s So Hard often pops up. And over plates of spaghetti Dan and I mull over why this supposedly fanciful time is filled with a lot of angst. And why nobody talks about it.

Sometimes being a 20-something is like waking up and having life punch you in the face before 9 a.m. My high school life and college life were not that long ago, so when I am going through the motions of remembering it is trash day and ironing my work pants and transferring money to the bill pay system, I suppose it is easy to look back on those not-so-long-ago days. Days where I lived at home or in a dorm that did not require much maintenance. Days where I did not have to think about paying taxes on my car. Days where I could take naps. What happened to all the naps?!

So, I think being a 20-something is kind of hard. One reason being I do a lot of things for the first time. First time buying a home. First time working full time. First time picking out a new car. First time learning how to live with your significant other and how you both will do things – pay bills, cook dinner, laundry.

It is also a bit uncertain. Should I stay in my current job position? Leave? Go back to school? Is this person “the one” or do I just want him/her to be? Is it okay to switch gears or would it be too scary and potentially damaging? Maybe pack up it all up and move to Bali?

And for those of you 20-somethings who find this all easy and whoo hoo how fun being an adult either you are a) lying or b) super awesome, and I want what you are on.

Most of the time I find I sort of flail around thinking HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THIS AND WHY IS THERE NO MANUAL ON THIS?! And DO THEY REALLY EXPECT ME TO SIT IN THIS CUBE ALL DAY?

But then I do things once or twice, call my consultants (i.e. my mom, my mother-in-law), talk to Dan about it over our dinner time conversations, and we always, always find a solution. And occasionally there are tears, but only occasionally ;-)

So all of these firsts are hard and being young is hard and the lack of honest talk about what it is really like to struggle in your 20s is hard. Instead I would rather talk about it because someone has always already been there, already cried about that, so they can offer good solutions to a lot of life challenges.

Sharing is fun and humorous, perhaps heavy on the humor. I make a lot of rooky 20-something mistakes, but I think it is much more fun to laugh about them. And, of course, being a 20-something is not all work and no play. While the freedom can come at the heavy cost of life, there is much to be said about being my own personal boss. Ice cream for dinner? Sure! Stay out with friends late and no one nags you what you were up to? Definitely! Decide to paint your room purple, because, well you can and you do what you want? Of course!

So maybe the next time you find yourself in an unfortunate 20-something life situation, know that it is pretty common, you will get over it, and if all else fails, I recommend chocolate chip cookie dough for dinner.

Beach Week Mini Book

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I do not really do any creative work at my job. We do numbers and approved canned verbiage, spreadsheets. Not much in the way of artistic expression, unless you count all the colors I add to my Excel spreadsheets to up the ?prettiness? factor.

So, in my other, non-work related life, I like to scrapbook. I am not the best scrapbooker nor really do I have a solid idea of what I am doing when I set out on making these pages. But I am learning, and I like the idea of making things from scratch from materials I collect.

After beach week this summer, I made this mini album. I used various cardstock and construction paper all cut to 5″ x 7″. I also tossed in paint chip samples, postcards, and shipping tags. I printed my pictures into 4″ x 6″ prints. I used my Crop-o-Dile Big Bite to punch holes in the paper and bound the whole thing together with book rings.

Now, if you truly want to learn about mini books and all things crafty, you must read Elise Blaha’s blog because she really knows her stuff. A true mini-book Queen. I am just at the learning level, and I took one of her online workshops in June, and I am taking another in September to learn more (which I highly recommend). So check her out if you really want to see lots of creative stuff.

And now back to my regularly scheduled Excel filled program ;-)

Four-Legged Family Member

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It was just getting too quiet in the new house. So, we added a family member. A four-legged family member :-)

My parents adopted Miss Belle when I was an undergrad, and she and I became good pals whenever I came home. Since my parents also have another crazy dog, we took Belle off their hands and over to our place.

She is good company, and a good watch dog. And she likes being the spoiled, “only dog.” Spoil her we do. I am pretty sure she thinks our bed is the best dog bed there ever was.

We took her on a walk through a park by our house last night, and although she prefers to spend the entire walk scouting for squirrels, she indulged us with a few pictures. We even got her to climb around on a playground and sit with me on the slide. As you can see, she finds her new parents pretty silly, but she will put up with them because they give her string cheese as a reward ;-)

No More Peep Show At Our House

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Our wood blinds came, and I am super glad because I was worried that soon the neighbors would bring over lawn chairs and park it in our front yard to watch The Sarah and Dan Show.

I love them. They are one inch wood blinds from www.justblinds.com. I chose a natural finish so it would provide good contrast to the wood floors and bay window. The finish is also a perfect complement to our kitchen cabinets.

Now I can lounge on my couch and watch all my favorite TLC shows without any peeping at me. Ah, privacy.

Our House: My Dressing/Craft Room

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When we started looking at houses, I knew we needed at least three bedrooms because I desperately wanted to turn one of those rooms into a dressing room/craft room.

At the condo, Dan and I shared the office, and like other aspects of the condo, it was quite cramped. I wanted to work on scrapbooking/art projects, but my computer took up all of the room on my desk, and I absolutely could not fathom getting glue or paint or glitter on my lovely rubber wood dining table, so I sort of had to make due with using large cardboard boxes as work space.

Also, since Dan works from home for a West Coast company, his day starts much later than my 8:30 a.m. start time. So, in the mornings I would fumble in the dark trying to find something to wear while he tried to sleep through me selecting and vetoing outfits.

Not so anymore. This new house gave me space for my own dressing room/crafting room, and I am so in love with having my own space.

To accommodate She Who’s Clothes Cannot Be Contained, Dan and I bought a free-standing closet at Target to supplement the closet in the room. This thing received many mixed reviews, so I was hesitant to buy it, but it seemed that it only collapsed for those people attempting to hang their entire family?s collection of parkas. I try to keep only my t-shirts and light-weight cardigans in there, and it remains standing to this day. It is not the prettiest, but it works.

I got a desk strictly for my computer and used my old desk as the crafting desk, a desk that I do not care too much if it gets covered in glue stick or paint. And I love it very much. It is the perfect size for crafting. I can spread out all of my materials, and I use that pink cabinet on wheels to store my craft stuff and wheel it over to the desk when I need something.

So, I think it is the perfect arrangement for me to get dressed and come up with crafty things. I think every girl needs their own space. The Audrey Hepburn in my poster agrees, I am sure :-)