Yet Another Heather

And so it begins....

2011-08-08T11:42:00.002-05:00

Feathering My Nest

2011-05-05T17:34:00.005-05:00

Over the past couple of weeks I have been in a major home maintenance/upgrade/organizing mood. I cleaned out the cabinet under the sink. I cleaned out the storage closet behind my condo. My dad came up and we replaced the kitchen faucet, and an outdoor light. He brought his pressure washer with him, and I went nuts cleaning off the deck. That was one of the grosser jobs:

Ewwwwwww, all that green and black stuff actually COMES OFF!?!?!??!

I put up a bunch of cable racetrack to conceal cords from when I moved my living room furniture around. I replaced the toilet seat in the powder room with one of those fancy ones that closes softly (I have one in my upstairs bathroom and was constantly catching myself nearly slamming the lid down in the downstairs bathroom). The second day of pressure washing I bravely went under my deck and hooked up my new hose. Then a holder was installed for that in a much more convenient location. Last night I put together a shelf for DVDs that will get some of the clutter away from the TV.

Lately it's been all about de-cluttering and making things work better for me- right down to moving lights around and reconfiguring furniture. The other day I flipped my couch over to secure some of the lining underneath it from where Stella keeps catching it in her paws when she loses her toys under there.

I planted flowers.

Purdy!

I even got started on an emergency kit to keep in a closet somewhere. Just in case.

So what the hell has brought on this period of nest feathering? I figured it out on the phone with my mom last night.

I blame the news. There's been a lot of bad scary news lately. Tornadoes and flooding all over the place. Terrorists killed and sensationalized in a way that makes me worry about retaliation. Earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear meltdowns in Japan.The more bad news I hear the bigger the urge to have a place of safety and comfort. (I actually re-arranged all of that furniture on a night when we had really bad storms and the power went out for 5 hours.)

Next up: sealing my deck now that it's all clean and algae free. And then re-setting some pavers below my deck. And then re-painting the outside storage closet. And then, and then, and then....

I think I need to learn to chill. Tonight I won't do anything home-related (okay, I will vacuum out the bathroom fan because it's making a weird noise since my dad was looking at it and huge chucks of dust keep coming out of it). I will sit around in my pjs and play with Stella and watch Thursday night TV. I've been making my condo and home and now it is time to take a break and enjoy it.

Barbie Hair

2011-04-13T19:22:00.001-05:00

Last night I went to bed with wet hair that I didn't bother to brush out. This morning I woke up with Barbie hair. And we're not talking a pretty straight-out-of-the-box Barbie with shiny hair that falls in gorgeous smooth waves. Oh no. We're talking about the Barbie that has been smashed down to the bottom of the toybox in some layer of geologic stratum of childhood fun. The one who has been around the block a few times, given a "haircut", and maybe set on fire once "by accident" for good measure. Yeah. THAT Barbie. And you know how that Barbie hair turns out- once the shine is gone the nylon gets all matted into a blond rats nest and it's just never the same again.

It was not a good look.

Sometimes when I wake up in the morning I am stunned at how OLD I look. I looked in the mirror once a couple of months ago and I swear I saw 40 looking back at me. It was not what you want to see when your birthday is around the corner, and you are MILES from 40. Usually a splash of cold water and some puff-reducing rollerball action helps a lot. How is it that I am 32 years old, and waking up puffy faced, with patches of dry skin AND acne? UGH!!!! Is there some sort of magic serum to make that mess go away? Because I need about a gallon of it to dunk my head into.

DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE??????????

2011-02-23T18:26:00.003-06:00

The problem is that I do care. I care a great deal, about many things, one of which is my job, which is so out of control right now that I'm thinking maybe I'll dump my entire to-do stack into the trash and start over. When people start screaming I'll know I've missed a priority.

Various messages from the universe today.

6:30 am Wake up.

No 3G network on my phone. No texting, messaging, weather, or traffic report.

7:52 am Driving

On the way to work it's still cloudy, for the billionth day in a row. Will we ever see sunshine again??? (I don't know, I couldn't get the weather on my phone!)

8:15 am At work

"HEATHER! WE HATE YOUR PROCESS FORM AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO USE IT! FIX IT! Also, we're not going to help your department even though we know it is completely overwhelmed and overworked. Suck it."

9:00 am In my brain

"WHY DID YOU DO THAT HEATHER???? THAT IS STUPID."

9:15 am At work

"Heather, my grandmother died today and I'm going to have to fly across the country to attend her funeral. I might miss several days of work."

9:20 am At work

"WHERE IS THE STUFF THAT WE NEED TO DO THAT THING WE HAVE TO DO? WHY ISN'T IT DONE YET?????"

9:30 am At work

"Heather, I need information that only that one employee knows how to get and he's out on vacation for a week. AND I NEED IT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOW."

9:52 am At work
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

10:15 am At work

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG Did I mention there's construction happening 1 floor above my office? BANG!

10:30 am Still at work...

"I am retiring and my last day is Friday but I'm going to be out sick for the next 3 days and here's the info you need- it's in this little notebook and all handwritten with tabs. Part of it is in code- here's the key. Good luck!!!"

10:45 am HOME- YAY!

Home to see my puppy. She won't make my day suck more!

11:00 am Big Life Stuff

Realized that even after meeting my neighbors 2 day old baby last night and holding him for 45 minutes, I still feel zero desire to have children. This has messed up my paradigm big time.

12:00 pm At work

Putting together a list of numbers for someone who needs it NOW. This has pushed all of my other priorities back. Great. My crystal ball shows me working Saturday.

12:35 pm Scheduling....

I was supposed to take a storm spotter training class tomorrow night. It has been canceled due to you... you guessed it, predicted severe weather. Hello Southern Spring! It's so nice to see that your thunder and flooding and tornadoes are back in action.

1:00 pm At work

I never thought I was capable of having a full blown nervous breakdown before.... But it can't be too far off.

2:14 pm At work

The expense report I filed with accounts payable 2 weeks ago never got paid to the credit card company and somehow that's MY FAULT?

2:45 pm Big Life Stuff

My friend is being aggressively treated for cancer and her white blood cell count has plummeted. This makes me sad and scared. Cancer SUCKS.

3:30 pm Finances

Call on my cell phone from a collections agency. DO WHAT???? This is a first. I called them back and it was minor- I got a new debit card and the place that handles my gym membership needed the new expiration date. Crisis averted.

But I have to admit that after all that it is now an okay day. Stella had a vet appointment (and oh boo hoo I had to leave work early to get there), which went great. She looks good, her grownup teeth are coming in, and she's 21.2 lbs at 3 1/2 months. For some reason I thought she was closer to 4 months.... Who knows how big this dog is going to get? She's done with all of her puppy shots and I got a full supply of heart worm medicine for the next six months. I just love this puppy to pieces!

Puppies make everything better!!!!

Have We Hit Normal Yet? Nope!

2011-02-11T18:36:00.003-06:00

Hello World! Hello Blog! My poor ignored abandoned blog that got thrown to the wolves and replaced with a puppy. It's okay blog, don't cry. I am back! At least for a minute!

I do not in any way mean this as a slam to those with children, because I know that raising kids is hard work. But raising a puppy is a lot like raising a kid on a really sped-up time table. They need love and attention and play and training and grooming and feeding and entertaining the way a child would. So I've been a little distracted. If you have been over to her blog you know that we've been BUSY and I'm trying to post at least every other day so that when she's a 60 lb adolescent in May I can look back and remember how sweet and TINY she used to be. Because she is growing right before my eyes. Three weeks ago when I got her she was 10 lbs. Now she's 18. And so much fun! But this is my blog, not her blog, so I'm going to go easy on the puppy babble.

Eventually some things will be back to normal. One day I will read a book that isn't about dog training. One day I will watch a tv show without simultaneously throwing a toy 100 times. One day I won't have to get up at 4:30 to take my puppy out. (Or, like this morning, toss and turn from 4:30 until 6:30 because she didn't wake up to go out and I was worried that something was horribly wrong with her. But I wasn't going to go downstairs and wake her up if she's starting to sleep through the night. Paranoid much?)

Other things will have a new normal. Saturdays and Sundays will be training classes and serious (LONG) play time outside. I won't leave the house again without making sure that Stella has been out and fed. When I wake up in the mornings I will have cuddle time with my puppy, and when I come home in the evening she'll be there wagging her tail and thrilled to see me. We will work on training and socializing and all that other stuff that a big dog needs to have to get along in the world.

Having a dog ROCKS.

One thing I have managed to do is watch all 4 episodes of Downton Abbey on pbs.org. LOVE. The sets and the costumes are great, the story is sort of Jane Austen meets Mean Girls, and the acting is wonderful. I realized by the end of the first season that there really isn't a totally likable character, they're all very complex. I highly recommend it.

Stella!

2011-01-21T18:25:00.003-06:00

I got a puppy. Her name is Stella.

Hence the silence- puppies are a lot of work! But also a lot of FUN!

So in true blogger fashion I've created a blog just for her. She's growing right before my very eyes! Go check her out.

Germs and Staying Warm

2011-01-11T19:14:00.004-06:00

You might think, from the title of this post, that I have the flu and I'm running a 104 degree fever. This is not the case! These are actually two unrelated thoughts that I'm going to throw into one post because, well, I can. You can read the first part, walk away for a while, and read the second part and pretend it's a different post from a much more organized person.

GERMS
I blame it all on The Hot Zone. Ever since I read that book I have been obsessed with reading more about viruses. Right now I'm reading The Demon in the Freezer (also by Richard Preston), and so far it has covered Anthrax and Smallpox. It's written just like true-crime but I guess in this case it's true-virus. Or true-illness. Or true-death. I get really scared reading true crime books (I haven't finished one yet actually), but true-virus is different. I guess because a virus actually makes sense and works in predictable ways, therefore it's not nearly as scary to me as some deranged killer on the loose.

Then when I was at the used bookstore a couple of weeks ago I also picked up Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, which I'm sure is going to cover some of the same ground as The Demon in the Freezer. I've started the preface and I'm already excited to read it. Although this one might be tougher because it's not just about the biology of the viruses, it's about the crazy people who want to use them as weapons... we'll see if I make it through the book.

I also got The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic- and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World. (Okay, how obnoxiously long is that title???) This one, surprisingly, isn't about anthrax, smallpox, OR Ebola. Nope, it's about cholera in the 1800s! Woo hoo! Uplifting stuff!

That same trip to the bookstore also sent me home with 1776 by David McCullough and 1491 by Charles C. Mann because apparently I like to read books with years in the title. And I'm reading At Home by Bill Bryson, which is excellent and fascinating. Who knew the history of our houses could be so readable? I'm also trying to get through ANOTHER book about The Tudors, but sensibly that (along with my Freezer Demon book) is from the library.

So, history and germs. I'm all over it.

Also, I just realized that I'm trying to read 5 books at once. That's a little excessive, even for me. And I still have to get to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Next.

Good thing it's straight up winter here. Lots of reading time. Which brings me to...

STAYING WARM!
Over Christmas when I was staying at my mom's house I was really impressed with the wool blanket I was using. It was really thick and heavy but not sweaty. For the past few years I have had a down alternative comforter that is just way too hot. I end up kicking it onto the floor and using another blanket, but then I get too cold. Last year I got the Nap blanket from Brookstone, and that one feels AMAZINGLY SOFT but it also doesn't breathe so I wake up gross and sweaty in the middle of the night. And it winds up on the floor too.

I am the Goldilocks of bedding.

So I was all about wool. I started doing some research and holy shit wool blankets are freaking EXPENSIVE. Mom got hers on sale but it is the dead of winter and no store in their right mind is going to put wool on sale right now. So I will wait until August and get a wool blanket on sale.

Until then, I found a really good solution at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. They have a Berkshire Blanket that is made with Polartec, and it is GREAT. It is light, but it breathes. It doesn't get all staticky and I am sleeping better because I'm not waking up in the middle of the night to adjust whatever blanket situation I'm trying to work with. I got a brown one and a cream one, and they're the perfect weight for these freezing cold nights. In the summer I'll probably just use one. (I cannot sleep without a blanket on, it just feels weird.) And both of them together cost less than half of what a wool blanket would cost. I call this a major win.

Another great find was SmartWool socks, which I saw at the FleetFeet store when I was "helping" my sister buy running clothes. (I am so not helpful- I don't know a thing about running!) These socks are incredible. I have never put on a pair of socks that felt like they were made just for me. I got 2 pairs of PhD Outdoor Light Crew socks and I never want to take them off even to wash them (but I do!). Seriously, they are by far the most expensive socks I have ever had, but they are also the best socks I've ever had and you better believe I am saving up for more.

So now me and my socks are going to get in my toasty bed and read more scary books about violent viruses. And since my parking lot is a solid sheet of ice, it is the perfect way to spend the evening.

2011-01-05T17:23:00.001-06:00

Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work by Tim Gunn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had really high hopes for this book, but it's not wonderfully written, and for me the whole premise is flawed.

I found this to be an easy read, if a little vapid. Tim Gunn does have good points for keeping it classy, but there was one thing that really bugged me about this book. It's all about manners and how to live by his "golden rules" but I always thought that one big aspect of manners was, well, manners. As in don't gossip. Tim dishes about celebrities, usually using names, and I couldn't decide through the whole book if it was a case of name dropping (which never strikes me as well-bred) or pay back (also not well-bred) or if he was just using names because people are famous and stories will probably get spread about them anyway.

Maybe it's the fashion and tv industry, I don't know, but it bothered me. Heidi Klum may call him the "consummate gentleman" on the back of the book, but I have my doubts....

It was a fun book but it was sort of weird to keep getting all of these tips on how to behave from someone who was only too quick to talk about others bad behavior, which to me reflected poorly on him. Also, I felt like the book lacked his particular tone, which came through really well in his "Guide to Quality, Taste, and Style".

View all my reviews

My Allergist Thinks I'm a Moron (She may have a point....)

2011-01-03T16:51:00.004-06:00

I say some really air-headed things sometimes. I mean classically stupid dumb-ass things that I will probably never live down. For instance, someone recently asked me if my new-to-me car was still under the factory warranty, and I said, "Ummm I don't know!" which sounded really stupid. And what I was thinking was that I didn't know if it was under the factory warranty but it didn't matter because I bought an extended warranty through Carmax. However, I didn't share that part of the story, thus I sounded dumb.

It happens.

It happened a lot at the allergist's office today. Granted, I feel like absolute crap so I can't be expected to say brilliant things every second. I knew by the very vivid snot I'm producing (don't you love my colorful snot stories?) that this isn't a cold, it's a sinus infection. Instead of being back at work for the first time in 12 days I would much rather be lying on my couch watching Oprah and drinking hot tea. Or a hot toddy. Or tea with whiskey. You know, whatever will take the edge off. HOWEVER, we all know that when you've been away from the office for so long a certain sense of paranoia sets in and you have to get to work no matter what so you don't feel completely out of touch with everything when you get back.

Anyway, I called my allergist's office and was like "Ugh I have a sinus infection death cannot be far off now." And the receptionist was like "Awwww you poor thing! Come in at 9:30." (How awesome is it that I can get an appointment that fast? My regular doctor would say something like, "Hmmmm... is it really that bad? How about Wednesday at 3:30?" And I'd say, "But it's Monday." And they'd say "Right. How about Thursday morning?")

So anyway, the nurse and I did the rundown of medications I'm taking. And really, I'm not taking anything. I am doing allergy shots and so I needed some antihistamines for the crazy reactions I was having until I adjusted to them. And I was taking Nasonex for a while to help with some yucky sinus stuff a couple of months ago.

But the antihistamines made my blood pressure sky rocket and the sinus stuff went away for a while after the weather got cold. Then dumb-ass Heather spent a few Christmas hours at my dad's house around cats without Singulair (cough cough cough) and I didn't get my allergy shots last week because I was on vacation and BAM! Sinus infection. Who knew I was so delicate?

Anyway, the allergist was gently trying to tell me that I need to get my ass back on Nasonex and stay on it because I'm sensitive to tree pollen and that stuff will be starting at the end of next month. And I said, "Oh my gosh its January already isn't it?" Dumb. Of course it is. Just dumb.

Then she said I need to take an antihistamine again and I told her it was making my blood pressure go up. But by the way I was taking 4 Claritins a day. And she just laughed and said, "Hmmmm, do you think THAT might be why your blood pressure was elevated?" Ohhhh HEATHER, of course it is.

So I'm pretty sure that I walked out the door and they all were concerned as to whether or not that dumb blond could even drive herself home. I HATE days when I sound so stupid!

Holiday Rundown

2011-01-02T15:01:00.005-06:00

Happy New Year everybody!!!!

What a great Christmas vacation I had. I spent boatloads of time in Alabama with my mom and her partner and my sister. I got to spend a good chunk of time with my dad too before he had to head off to California for a week. In a Christmas miracle that usually only happens in movies all five of us had Christmas dinner together and it was lovely and not awkward or weird. Granted, my parents have been divorced for a really long time but honestly how many families can pull that off?

Also, we had a white Christmas, which was a pretty historic event. I woke up around 4:30 (a troubling trend for the past month or two- I wake up early and have to convince my body that it is NOT time to get out of bed yet so shut your damn eyes and go back to sleep already) and it was raining. When I woke up 3 hours or so later, everything was white. It was BEAUTIFUL. We had huge picturesque snowflakes for hours and staring out the window almost superseded present unwrapping- but not quite.

This Christmas I got amazing presents and I loved every single one of them. Honestly- how often does THAT happen? I got tons of wonderful books (I can't decide what to read first...), a light from Ikea that I was lusting after, 2 gorgeous perfumes, fabulous Tiffany playing cards (they really are the best), gift cards, some makeup... such fun goodies. I was also really excited to give everyone their presents because the older I get the better it is to find just the right gift.

I almost got myself a puppy too but that didn't work out this time around. Now I am itching for a dog.

Mom and Karen have a new puppy. His name is Jake and he is one of the sweetest and best-behaved puppies I have ever met. He's got his own blog! So I got to spend a lot of time playing and cuddling and generally spoiling that dog rotten and I loved it. It was rather mature of me to not steal him and bring him home.

My sister D and Jake. He found her very comfy.

I came home on Wednesday morning and on Thursday I was overtaken by a powerful urge to clean and de-clutter. I put away Christmas decorations, took down the tree, found homes for my Christmas presents, and sorted through boxes of stuff I haven't needed since I moved into my condo. I sold a bunch of books and gave a load of stuff to Goodwill (on New Year's Eve- the craziest day of Goodwill donations EVER I believe- hello tax write-off). I vacuumed and dusted and cleaned baseboards and even cleaned the top of my fridge. Then I got really crazy and covered a bunch of mismatched boxes I use at my desk for storage so they all match. Everything feels so much better in here because I know there aren't stashes of junk hiding out. My condo feels airy and bigger. And my bookshelves have room for even more books!

Then I sat down with a bottle of champagne and watched Easy A and toasted the New Year. Saturday was not quite so crazy because I was beat. I slept and read a lot. I made pot roast for dinner.

This morning I woke up with a sore throat and I'm getting a cold. And I have to be back at work tomorrow. So this is not as great a day as the rest of my vacation but I am really glad that I wasn't sick until now.

2011 is going to be a really interesting year.

Snowed In

2010-12-13T10:25:00.002-06:00

Well Chiclets, I am stuck at home today. Yesterday the snow was so pretty, but it was falling on a layer of ice and now... now it's chaos out there! I had every intention of going to work around 9:00, but when I looked out at the road in front of my condo there were two cars that had spun out- and one of them was a police car. Then the news said that there was a wreck on the ramp I take to the interstate. So I decided that going out in this just wouldn't be smart. I can work from home. Obviously schools are closed.

I can't even get good pictures- ice doesn't show up too well! We got around 3" of snow yesterday, but it was so windy last night that it only looks like an inch or so. The windchill will be in the single digits today... and it's not even winter yet! WE ARE NOT PREPARED!!! (I know, I know, that is not even enough snow to mention in places north of here, but in Nashville it's been on the news all morning- we just don't typically get winter weather like this- the county has only a handful of snowplows. We count on salt.) This stuff better start melting pretty quick- there's too much that needs to get done at work before I can leave for Christmas. I'm ready for a good break.

STATI

2010-12-08T23:09:00.009-06:00

My year in random status updates, which is just a cool little facebook application. If you feel like reading it, click on the picture....

Commercials

2010-12-05T12:39:00.003-06:00

I don't know if it's because commercials are getting worse or if I'm watching more TV lately and upping the odds of seeing the really terrible ones, but some of the commercials I've seen lately just crack me up.

"I'm right here. AND I ALWAYS WILL BE." MWAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!! CREEPY STALKER! Bet he stabs you in your sleep and takes his jewelry back. The first time I saw this I was rolling. How did it ever get to air? Don't even get me started on how childish this woman is- there's a storm so she turns and hides herself in his chest? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

There are more that annoy me, but I can't find video of them. Crest 3D white strips make me want to throttle somebody, "He's single and he's good looking and I'm going to introduce you in two weeks so whiten your teeth." Oh man, talk about preying on every single little insecurity. I wonder what else her friend/matchmaker helpfully suggested. Did the good looking guy have to whiten his teeth too? Did he buff, shave, wax, pluck, color, conceal, powder, perfume, and spanx his body too? Doubt it.

I just saw one by Gillette today that I guess was saying your dad is awesome and there's nobody on earth like him- so get him the Gillette razor he deserves. I tried to make sense of that one for about 5 seconds, but the disconnect between the story and the message was so glaring I couldn't understand what they were really trying to tell me. Uh, yeah, nothing says the holidays like buying your dad a 24 pack of razor blades. Thanks for the suggestion Gillette.

What commercials are making you climb the walls lately?

GENDER BENDER

2010-12-03T16:36:00.006-06:00

Okay you may not be aware that I am a little into perfume. HA! By now I guess you know that I am a total perfume whore. I'm also a makeup whore, but not an actual whore, so that's a good thing right?

I watched Katie Puckrik's fall fragrance recommendations video, and because I am easily influenced I ordered a few samples from The Perfumed Court. I ordered a little tiny sample vial of Amouage Memoir Woman, a small sample Juliet Has a Gun's Lady Vengeance, a small sample of Lolita Lempicka by Lolita Lempicka, a small sample of Egoiste by Chanel, and a 5 ml spray bottle of Chanel's Cuir de Russie which I have written about before and absolutely love.

Amouage Memoir Woman has way too much STUFF to make me happy. Here's the list: mandarin, cardamom, absinthe, pink pepper, pepper, clove, white flowers, rose, jasmine, wood, frankincense, styrax, oakmoss, castoreum, leather, labdanum, fenugreek, and musk. GOOD LORD. Comes across as sort of sharp and blaring and dry instead of close and warm and cozy which I prefer. I should probably try it again when it is warmer and see how I feel about it.

Lady Vengeance is too much rose and the dry-down is kinda boring. (And I love rose- I wear Stella at least 4 days a week- although it is more of a toned down rose than this and generally just really easy to wear). It's not bad at all, but there are better things out there. Actually, this is so simple that it might smell great layered with something else... hmmmm... possibilities!

Lolita Lempicka is great. It is a really odd fragrance that smells like violets and licorice, and while some people might think that sounds pretty gross, it is actually pretty awesome. The notes are ivy leaves, licorice flower, anise seed, amarena cherry, violets, iris, vanilla, praline, tonka bean, vetiver and musk. This stuff is SWEET. It is a very unique perfume and I love how it smells but I don't think I'd wear it out much because it is so obvious. I don't want somebody smelling me and instantly knowing what it is I'm wearing. I'd like my perfume to be a little more mysterious than that. (But ohhhh that bottle is amazing. I had to post a picture of it. Do you just want to stare into it like a crystal ball?)

Egoiste. Why do I bother buying anything other than Chanel? Katie Puckrik said that for girls who like Coco Mademoiselle, they would probably enjoy Egoiste too. WELL. She was sure right about that. I got it, tried it on, loved it, and then started reading about it and discovered it's one of those fragrances marketed to men. HA! it just goes to show that the whole gender thing does not apply to perfume at all.

Egoiste is warm and spicy on me- and even better than Cuir de Russie (it's got less of that leathery animalistic edge to it- which is also pretty damn good when you're in the mood for it). Egoiste has a lot in common with my other favorite Chanel- Bois de Iles. When I first spray it on it's a little sharp, and I guess that's the tangerine and lavender, but then it dries down and I smell coriander and rose and sandalwood. YUM. Notes include: tangerine, lavender, rose, coriander, Bourbon vanilla, sandalwood, rosewood and ambrette seed.

The best part about this order was that two of my bottles were mixed up- I got a smaller bottle of Cuir de Russie and 5 ml of Egoiste, which at first I was pissed about but turned out to be a really happy accident. I pretty much want to bath in Egoiste. Especially now that the weather is getting cold and it's time for warm cozy "come closer" scents.

Ebola-licious!

2010-12-02T11:45:00.006-06:00

Ohhhh, it's so pretty and totally deadly!

I'm reading a book called The Hot Zone. It is a "terrifying true story" written like true crime and it describes the origins and spread of filo-viruses ("thread viruses" because the virus itself is long and thready and makes crazy loops and designs before it develops crystallized bricks in your blood cells and causes them to explode) from Africa. Holy shit this is a scary book. These viruses spread like fire and Ebola has a 10% survival rate. All it takes is the teensiest bit of exposure and you can expect to crash and bleed out while your body basically liquefies within 3 weeks. Right now I'm at the part where a bunch of infected monkeys are dying off in droves in a quarantine house right outside of Washington DC.

GROSS. I haven't been getting enough sleep because I can't stop reading about this disgusting and weird (and totally fascinating) virus.

Last night my poor broken toe really freaked me out. WARNING: THIS IS GROSSER THAN EBOLA!!! The left half of my toenail on the broken toe was basically floating on top of a huge pocket of, uh, drainage, and when I cut my toenail back (to decrease the pressure of my toe against my shoe) it all came gushing out and it was SO NASTY I don't even want to think about it except that oh right it is attached to my body. So now I have an oozing toenail bed with half a nail attached to it. I drenched it in hydrogen peroxide, slathered the sucker in neosporin, covered it in a band-aid, taped that up, and then put one of those gauze tubes over it (left over from when I smashed a bookshelf into my other big toe and tore half that nail off), and a clean sock over that. I haven't even looked at it yet today because I need to go to the drugstore at lunch and get more first aid stuff so I can wrap it back up. Depending on how it looks (right now my main concern is infection- or a fungus- or EBOLA!- under the nail) I will call the podiatrist the ER referred me to. Either way, I'm going to lose a huge part of my toenail, if not the whole thing.

Oddly enough, after all that happened my toe looked a lot better. But it still hurts like hell. So in addition to the reading that is keeping me awake, any pressure against my toe is waking me up too. Maybe I should have accepted the ER doc's offer of vicodin. This will be hard to get to when I seal my house in plastic and have food delivered through a level 3 decontamination chamber. I'm never going out again- you just don't know when Ebola is lurking outside your front door.

Hump Day (A Cranky Rant)

2010-12-01T16:40:00.003-06:00

Doesn't that just make you grimace? Hump day? Are we still allowed to use that phrase without being arrested or cited by the FTC? Is the FTC the one that fines people for vulgarity on TV? Or is that the FCC? Who fined Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction???

All of these questions could be answered by Google.

Today has been kind of BLURGH. First of all, at work there is a limited amount of covered parking so it is rotated to all seven or eight hundred employees on a monthly basis. So I basically get a month of covered parking about twice a year.

Yesterday was my last day of covered parking until May or so. :( I miss it. I had to walk into work from the back parking lot with all the other commoners. And it was 32 degrees out and windy. Tragic.

Then shortly after that I had to sit in an HR training/lecturing class for four hours. There were very long discussions about metrics and measuring success in your employees and giving feedback... oh, I'm sorry. I think my brain fell out of my skull and ran away. At least they fed us lunch.

After that I was supposed to go to a State of the Business meeting (SNOOOOOOOOZE) but instead I went to see my Little Sister (of the Big Brothers/ Big Sisters variety) at school. It was a way better use of my time! We played a new game on my phone- a BIG hit with a 6th grader.

For some unknown reason my face has gotten pretty oily in the past year or so, which is freaking me out. I am used to dry skin, and I know how to care for it. Oily skin is confusing! And my bangs get all greasy and gross! I've been using those Clean & Clear oil absorbing sheets and I'm almost to the end of a pack and when you get that far the little tape thingy on the flap that is supposed to pull out one at a time fails. Let's face it- the tape is tired. So I try to pull them out with my fingers and actually drag out about 5 at a time. Those little boogers are hard to separate!

I went to Bath & Body Works over the weekend (they always have amazing Christmas sales) and they have this scent called Twisted Peppermint that I am having a love/hate relationship with. I think I'd like for my house to smell like it, but I'm not sure about my body smelling like "Peppermint, White Sugar, and a touch of Vanilla." Do I really want to smell like a candy cane? YES. OCCASIONALLY. (The most important part of this to ponder: does white sugar have a smell?) These smell exactly like those soft peppermint candies that look like the hard ones but aren't. Got it?

Oh oh OH! And I broke my toe last weekend because I am super coordinated and tripped up my own stairs. BRILLIANT. Because I am generally a nice person I am not going to post pictures of my purple and blue toenail and bruises. That's just gross.

So now I'm just limping everywhere with my foot stuffed into a boot (because it's the only shoe that doesn't make me want to cry) (however, my sock keeps sneaking down past my heel and that's making me kind of crazy), with oily bangs, smelling like a candy cane cupcake.

Happy December! It only gets better from here! Someone pointed out there are really only 2 weeks of actual WORK this month, so maybe I'll be less cantankerous soon.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-26T11:28:00.007-06:00

OOooohhhh sparkly!

Hey y'all! I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving. My dad and I hung out and ate food and watched movies- a pretty good way to celebrate I think. Now I'm going to take the rest of the long weekend to get some stuff organized, put up a Christmas tree (I got a very nice artificial tree, or as I like to call them, "Environmentally Friendlier Tree" at Lowes this morning- along with that crazy sparkly wreath on my front door up there!), and do some Christmas shopping online. I kept hearing that stores were chaotic but nothing looked too bad when I was out and about. Probably because I was out and about at 10 am instead of 4 am- everyone was already in bed recovering!

If you're interested, I wrote a guest post for my sister's blog. Go check it out!

Nature Channel + Malt Liquor

2010-11-21T19:18:00.005-06:00

Okay, this site makes me giggle because it reminds me of pretty much every frat loser I knew in college. Actually, now that I think about it I didn't know too many frat losers in college because, well, they were LOSERS. Anyway, pictures of seriously crazy looking owls paired with captions from your favorite hungover frat boy, and there you have it: Hungover Owls. They are HILARIOUS.

Strong language though, so, you know, shield the eyes of the innocent children.

From Your Slacker Blogger

2010-11-20T19:32:00.003-06:00

Heather Heather Heather, how is it that you used to write semi-regularly, and now you're the slackest blogger on the planet? What in the world has happened?

Well, to start with, I bought a better car. It's a used Toyota Yaris sedan and I love it for the following reasons:
1. It's an automatic. (Stop and go Nashville traffic is murder on your ankles, not to mention the clutch.)
2. It has cruise control. (YAY!)
3. It gets outrageously good gas mileage compared to my last car.
4. My last car kept falling apart and this one is going to run for a very very very long time.
5. Insurance is cheaper.
6. Tires will be cheaper.
7. It is soooooooo much fun to drive.

So I had to do a lot of research on this particular car before I bought it, and that took a lot of time. Consumer Reports, cartalk.com, carmax, carfax, you name it. I did tons of reading. The only other car I would consider was the Honda Fit but I can't afford that one yet. When this car dies in about 10 years I'll think about it....

After I got the car, I got really really sick. Some sort of stomach bug or food poisoning, I'm still not sure which. It started Friday night and I didn't really feel good enough to do anything other than lay on the couch and watch terrible television between trips to the bathroom until Tuesday. My appetite is just finally starting to get back to normal. The worst part was that I was sick over a weekend! And it was a really beautiful weekend too!

At work we've started some really interesting projects around the corporate world's latest buzzword: Innovation. And it is taking a lot of my time. It's nice to see that the head honchos at work are actually putting some real money and commitments into this, and it will be VERY interesting to see where it leads. I work for a huge company so we're a little behind the times in terms of open-mindedness and new ideas. But if this takes off it's going to be very interesting to see where my career is in 10 years (heck, even 5 years).

During one of these conversations at work, an older associate brought up the idea that she thinks there will be a huge backlash against all of this social media stuff. She doesn't think it will be as important in the future and that maybe it isn't REALLY worth investing so much time and energy into it. Which left me dumbfounded. I use so much social media on a daily basis that I can't imagine life without it. I regularly catch up with elementary, high school, and college friends on Facebook. I get information about traffic conditions for my commute and weather warnings on Twitter. I text. I blog. I research products on all kinds of websites before I buy them. My sister does a ton of social media outreach for her job. And there are all sorts of lectures about open-source products and how they're being used right now on TED.com. Social media and other technologies are merging in new ways we would not have imagined even 5 years ago.

All of this is just me trying to say: There's a lot going on and a lot to think about. And I need to figure out where I'm going to fit in so that I can stay relevant because my job is going to depend on it. And it will probably make everyday life more fun too.

So that's where I've been! Hopefully as things wind down some towards the end of the year I will have more time to blog. Even so, I will make an effort to be more consistent. (Do I say that in every single post now??)

Ooops

2010-11-11T19:15:00.006-06:00

So it only took me three days to knit, but 1 week to post! Oops. I forgot. There's been some serious STUFF happening around here.

It's a neckwarmer!

I really liked how it turned out but it hasn't been cold enough to wear yet. I'm not really complaining, we have been having a lot of beautiful fall weather and usually we don't have much of a fall down here in Nashville. I am thoroughly enjoying it!

In case you're wondering, here's a picture of how to wear my neckwarmer. Geez, I guess I could have put on some lipstick or arranged my head to minimize the chins but whatever. This sucker is very warm and crazy soft since it's baby alpaca. It will be great to wear to work because it stays pretty darn chilly in there, but it's not a big overpowering scarf. I used this pattern, which I found on Ravelry, my new favorite site.

Happy Fall!

What Will It BE????

2010-11-03T19:46:00.004-05:00

Can you guess? It's going to be great. Do you like my jacked-up rubber-banded needles? Rubber bands are to knitting what duct tape is to... everything else. I guess I could just get regular needles that are long enough for this ______ project, but I am cheap and lazy. When I get excited about knitting something I'm not going to wait around and get equipment that might work better, I'm going to make it work with what I've got. (Also, I started this around 9:00 at night and the closest craft store closes at 8:00.)

Those bright yellow mums are growing outside my front door. They've been cut for a week and a half now and still look just like they did when I cut them!

I'm Still Here!

2010-10-29T17:25:00.002-05:00

Today I was perusing the Land's End Canvas brand webpage, and these caught my eye:

Cableknit arm warmers! Ohhhh they look so pretty and soft! They are $35. I could knit a pair of them, if I can remember how to do cables... I hadn't ever seen the Canvas brand before, which is pitiful because I think I am a target customer for this brand and I work in the apparel industry. This should not be news! But I really like their accessories. I also like their Montage Blog- such great pictures for inspiration.

Then I went to Target to get a pair of my favorite winter boots in black, and I saw these:
For $10.99. Um yeah, so they are made of a slightly less luxurious blend of fibers but they are so warm I had to take them off before I overheated. They will be perfect in January when the heat seems to be working in every office by mine.

Target has a huge variety of arm warmers and fingerless gloves with fold-back mitten tops. They had really soft cashmere ones but there was no way my manly sized hands were going to fit into those.

I'm still going to knit a pair of these.

Oh, and one of these....

And now it is time for me to catch up and watch the Project Runway finale! I've been looking forward to it all day....

Have a lovely weekend!

Lonny Magazine

2010-10-10T14:00:00.002-05:00

One of my favorite things to do on a Sunday afternoon is to read Lonny Magazine. I miss magazines like domino and Blueprint SO MUCH, and the fact that there is an online interior decorating replacement helps a lot. Because it is an online publication a lot of things are linked directly to where they came from, so you can immediately find out how far out of your budget some little piece of fabulousness is.

This is the current issue (October/November 2010). I keep seeing things in it that I adore, so I'm going to put them in here so I can find them again and come back for inspiration. I hope you find this as fascinating as I did!

Page 37- PURPLE. Adore.

Page 96- Check out the white on white art over the bed (you can zoom). I love this. This concept shows up again as white on blue here. This would be so easy to make and it is really bold without being overwhelming.

Page 142- An article about the JK Hotel starts here and there is so much I am drooling over. The ceilings in the Florence location are amazing. The aqua and black color scheme in the lounge is classy as hell. The bathroom in the penthouse suite is on the second floor- awesome. The hotel's Capri location has a room with dark blue walls and white trim and white furniture and lots of mirrors so it doesn't feel dark at all, but sort of graphic instead.

Page 195- Look at all those fragrances on the bathroom shelves. Clearly we are kindred spirits.

Page 200- I LOVE THIS HOUSE. The photograph over the couch is incredible. Those dramatic curtains on page 203. The walls are green velvet. The bathroom walls are black faux croc vinyl. And the basement media room on page 211? That started this post. WOW. The walls are lined with flannel plaid! I want to live on that couch.

Page 243- Check out that crazy door handle. And on page 24 7, um, this is a bathroom/ dressing room? REALLY? I'm so jealous. Keep clicking- her bathtub is on the next page. Swoon.

Page 256- If I had unlimited resources, I would have peonies all over my house. All the time.

Work In Progress

2010-09-30T22:34:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posting lately my fluffy ducks. Usually when this happens it's because I'm just not in a blogging mood, but that's not the case this time. I have been writing a LOT, but when I go back and read it I can't bring myself to post it.

There are a lot of good changes happening in my life, internal changes that are really just a big shift in consciousness. And that's awesome but there's no good way to write about them without coming across as a self-centered ASS. I wouldn't want to read about this stuff on any blogs I read, so I'm not going to subject you to it. Yoga is dull to read about. So is the process of becoming more connected to the world around me. Wait... COME BACK! You don't have to fall asleep reading this because that's the last I'll say on the subject until I can write about it in a way that is entertaining instead of boring.

Also, trying to write about what's been going on is hard because not only do I sound narcissistic, it also reads like I am sad and loaded with regrets. And I can assure you that things are good and I am very happy and contented lately. So I'm going to be here working on my body-mind connection and making sure I am living my best possible story, and I will post better content soon.

But now you know where I've been. Until next time, I hope you see something beautiful today.

Excellent Products

2010-09-29T22:54:00.000-05:00

I want to make it a regular feature on my blog to occasionally write about products or items that I have come across and cannot live without. Okay, I could live without them if I had to, but my life would be a cold barren wasteland of sadness.

I guess we've all noticed by now I can't live without a touch of exaggeration. Or spell check to tell me how to spell words like "exaggeration".

So, in no particular order, here are the products I have been really excited about lately:

Big old drying rack from Target! (Of course I can't find it on their website but it looks a lot like this one and it's from Room Essentials in the aisle where the ironing boards are....) After I read this article in the New York Times that said even college campuses are getting more energy efficient by installing clotheslines in dorms, I knew that I had to get better about my drying habits. I usually won't put jeans or delicate shirts or bras in the dryer, but now I've decided that anything heavy (jeans, towels, jackets) or cotton (shirts, socks, etc) isn't going to go in the dryer. Actually, there shouldn't be much going in the dryer now because I have something like 50 yards of drying rack space in my spare room (I have two other wooden accordion style racks) and I can leave clothes in there for a day to dry. It's not like I run into laundry emergencies where I need something washed and dried in a couple of hours. God knows I have plenty of clothes. And keeping them out of the dryer makes them last a lot longer because they aren't getting beat up for an hour every week.

Thermos Brand Stainless King 16 oz Travel Tumbler. I have been using a freebie travel mug from some event at work for YEARS. It is old and kinda gross and the inside is plastic and won't get clean anymore. YUCK. So I ordered this guy off of amazon the other day and it is such an upgrade in travel drinkware that I hardly know what hot beverage to make first. Tea? Coffee? More tea? It is heavy duty, vacuum insulated, claims to be leak-proof, has a handy one-finger open/close lever and you can drink from anywhere around the edge of the top. And there's no pesky handle to get stuck on my cup holder in my car. It won't need one anyway- the outside stays cool to the touch. It will keep hot drinks hot for at least 5 hours and cold drinks cold for at least 9. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Revlon Colorstay Makeup for Dry/Normal Skin in Buff. I cannot sing the praises of this foundation enough. I have realized over the past year or so that as I grow older there are some things that are getting to be essential makeup products. It used to be that when I was asked what one makeup product I would take on a desert island, my answer would be MASCARA. (Okay, I have never been asked that question. But I have thought about it. Sometimes you have to mentally prepare yourself for spur of the moment appearances on Oprah or Ellen or Tyra. "So, Heather, you really are quite the makeup addict. Tell us what one beauty product you could not do without if you got stranded on a desert island. Which one would you kill for?" And I would pretend to think it over for a second, but I would say very quickly, "Black mascara, a whole bunch of it." Oprah would lean over during the commercial break and tell me that two sets of false eyelashes are even better. That woman is all about some falsies.) Over the summer I have realized that foundation is pretty handy stuff for evening out my complexion (and blush is a definite MUST if I do that- this desert island list could get sort of lengthy). This is the only foundation I have ever used that doesn't settle into any fine lines on my face and make me look 70 years old. It also makes my skin better- breakouts don't happen until I skip a few days. Weird. (I have tried the one for oily/combo skin and I just don't like the coverage as well. It doesn't ring my bell like the normal/dry one.) Two teensy quibbles- this dries so fast I can only apply it to one section of my face at a time, and it really needs a pump bottle.

Boos Block Board Cream. I got this stuff at Williams Sonoma last weekend. It's a whipped oil that is used for cutting boards and wooden kitchen utensils so they don't dry out and crack. It is awesome. I slathered some on all of my cutting boards and wooden spoons and knife handles and let it sink in overnight. Then in the morning I wiped them down with a clean cloth. The only two ingredients in Board Cream are mineral oil and beeswax so it smells just like honey. I am wondering if I can't just use this as a moisturizer because it smells great and feels good on my hands (you rub it in by hand, I wasn't just randomly using it on my skin for kicks). Anyway, my boards are looking nice and dark again. I am very happy with that purchase.

Fresh Wave Odor Neutralizers. I'm not sure where I first heard about these, but this is a line of very highly regarded air clear-ers. I found a display at Bed, Bath, & Beyond, and then the woman at the check out counter RAVED about how awesome they are. I got a container of the odor absorbing gel crystals and a kitchen candle. I keep getting lingering smoke odors from the previous owner of my condo, and I notice it especially when I haven't been running the A/C and things get a little stale. I opened the gel crystals in my bedroom closet, and shut the bedroom door. Not even an hour later I went back in there and my whole room smelled really fresh and clean. There is no floral scent or anything weird with these. They're made with natural ingredients and oils like lime and pine. So at first up close they smell slightly bathroom cleaner-ish (ew) but that's not what they do to a room. I will be getting more of these. They're not cheap but they work so to me they are completely worth it. They even come in little packs that you can use in shoes or bagless vacuum cleaner canisters or your car. And it comes in a room spray too. I love it when my house smells like NOTHING. (Unless I'm burning my mistletoe candle, then I just don't want anything to compete with that!)

I Don't Know Why I Did It.

2010-09-24T22:30:00.004-05:00

Months and months ago I was at the computer and the TV was on. I heard an ad for a dating website called "ZOOSK" so I decided oh what the hell I'll check it out.

I was about halfway into the sign up process when I came to my senses and realized that this was a really bad idea (as far as I'm concerned all free dating sites are a bad idea). I hightailed it off of that site pronto- but they had my email address!

I have searched and searched and I cannot find a way to get my email out of their automatic matching system. Oh sure, I can click on unsubscribe but I still get their emails!

And what, you might ask, do these emails include? The include a name and a photo and an invitation to "FLIRT NOW!" And I have to tell you that these photos are making me question my sexual preference and wonder if men really are worth it.

Case in point: B-RAD who looks like a large man in a shapeless shirt sitting in a recliner with a beer. Is this really the impression that B-RAD wants to give to every woman who sees his picture? A beer-swilling couch potato who can't even put on a clean shirt much less stand up for his picture?

Or how about ALLORNUTHIN who is posing on his little red motorcycle? I think we know where I'd be on that list of priorities: "DON'T TOUCH THE BIKE!"

Or perhaps I should FLIRT NOW! with the really creepy looking guy in a very dark picture standing next to what might be a bar, or alter to Satan, holding a drink or maybe a chalice of blood. You never know.

Is this REALLY what the dating pool is looking like now? Are these the options once a woman is past 30?

Yes indeed. I'm going to be single forever.

Ewwwwww!

2010-09-22T12:23:00.002-05:00

Hey guys have you ever looked at the side of the scroll-thingy on your mouse? I bet, if it's anything like mine at work, you have about 3 years worth of crusted up linty dirt stuck to the sides of the wheel down by the clicky parts of the mouse.

SO GROSS.

So, maybe give yours a swipe with a Lysol wipe (and tweezers and a finger nail and a pencil) like I did. I clean the thing whenever I wipe down my desk but there is a little nook there that I never paid attention to.

I think this qualifies as a public service announcement. And I think I need a Silkwood shower. Maybe some antibiotics. Ick.

The Great Debate

2010-09-18T09:29:00.003-05:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I know that this is a long clip, but it is so important. The part that really caught my attention starts at 4:30. This world needs more Melissa Harris-Lacewells out there talking about womens rights and the right to choose. This country could backslide in a big way if abortion is made illegal. For a while I thought it couldn't happen but the rash of current Tea Party nominees for positions of power in the government is making me nervous. This clip really addresses abortion positions pertaining to rape and incest, which gets a big fat DUH from me- of COURSE a woman shouldn't have to have a rapist's baby. That's just ridiculous. But abortion in general needs to be talked about, so I'm talking.

When the abortion debate is brought up I am always amazed at a few things. First of all, people who take the pro-life stance act like abortion is just something women decide to do as flippantly as they decide to get a pedicure. "Hmmmm... what am I doing today? I guess I'll just go have an abortion because this baby sure could be a pain in the ass. Gosh, I won't be able to go out and party and have sex with strangers like I have been!"

Oh please.

The perception that women who get abortions are uneducated teenage party people has got to stop. There are also perfectly responsible, married, working, tax-paying women who get abortions too. Maybe they have enough kids already. Maybe their bodies wouldn't stand up to pregnancy. Maybe they just don't want kids. And it's absolutely no one's business but hers.

We live in such a puritanical, deeply sexist society. Men are allowed to put another notch in their bedposts and no one sees them as any different, if anything their status is raised and they get a good-natured punch in the arm and some ribbing from their friends. On the other hand, a woman who does the same thing is viewed so negatively that it is usually kept a secret. The power in a woman's sexuality is so strong it has to be contained, controlled, and regulated. And she needs to be punished for her actions by being forced to have a child that was the result of her sexuality.*

Abortion keeps women free. A woman who is forced to have children is also forced to put her dreams away. She won't have the time to devote to other causes in her life. She might have to work harder and longer to keep her family fed and clothed. And that is a very important role, but what else could she have done in her life if things had gone according to her plans? What other differences in society and the world would she be able to make if her time wasn't taken up with carting kids to school and activities for the next 18 years? Where else could she have put her energy?

There is always the idea that a women who doesn't want a baby can put it up for adoption. For me that would be a harder choice than abortion. It would be so hard to know that a piece of me was out there and I didn't know how they were doing. What if their parents weren't as good at parenting as I would be? The questions and guilt would be so hard.

The argument against abortion that baffles me is how god fits into it. Most people who are pro-life also use god as the reason that abortions should not be legal. But who are they to play god and make that decision for anyone else? If they personally do not agree with abortion that is fine by me, but to think that you can know what god wants and thinks? To me that should be the highest form of blasphemy. By the same line of reasoning if god didn't want people performing abortions, people would never have discovered how to do it.

Okay I don't know how this post got so long- I was just going to share the clip! When I feel really strongly about something I have a very hard time shutting up.

*I don't not mean to imply in any way that children are a horrible burden to society and that women who have them are putting their dreams on hold and not contributing to society in the ways that they should. We all know that the world needs parents who are committed to raising wonderful people, and I could never ever say that is a bad thing. I'm just saying that parenthood is not for everyone, and shouldn't be a punishment for those who don't want to do it. What kinds of people does the world wind up with when kids are raised in an environment of resentment and resignation instead of love and joy?

Top Ten List!

2010-09-13T21:08:00.005-05:00

Lady Smaggle posted her top 10 favorite things of all time- and it is a REMARKABLY difficult list to come up with. "The only hard and fast rule was that each item had to make you euphorically and ultimately happy." That is a tall order! I have a feeling that this list could change from day to day and even hour to hour, but I'm going to give it a go. Maybe I'll update it in a few months. (I'm leaving out the obvious things like sex and sleep and my family and Christmas and childhood memories... you get the idea.)

1. New notebooks, particularly pretty ones. Or grownup ones. Or hardcover ones. Okay, pretty much all of them.

2. Change of seasons- especially from summer to fall when you walk outside in the evening and the air has that cool crispy feel to it.

3. Cupcakes from The Cupcake Collection here in Nashville. I have a sneaking suspicion that from now on if I show up at my mom's house unarmed with cupcakes I will not be allowed in. They are THAT GOOD.

4. Getting really lost in a good book or movie.

5. Creating- and I have to stop there because everything about the process makes me really happy, from planning to obtaining materials to putting them together in a way that becomes art. Collages, quilts, clothes, socks, you name it.

6. Zhena's Gypsy Tea in Coconut Chai. This is the stuff I have hidden in my desk and if my day is getting really unbearable at work, I make a mug of it with milk and sugar. It smells wonderful.

7. Meeting a new goal at the gym. I don't mean how many inches or lbs I've lost (although that's nice too), but rather how much weight I can lift or how many lunges I can do or how far I can run.

8. Trying a new perfume. Yes, this gets me in trouble.

9. Breaking waves on the beach. I have gotten nasty sunburns watching waves.

10. Driving through winding hilly country roads with the windows down and the radio up. If I were a dog I'd have my head out the window with my ears flapping. Instead I drive, but I'm just as happy!

I keep thinking of more stuff, but I don't want to turn this into 14,000 Things To Be Happy About, so I'm stopping.

On a Positive Note!

2010-09-10T17:12:00.003-05:00

In an effort to end the week on a more positive note than "OMG EVERYTHING SUUUUUUUUCKS" here are a couple of things that made me giggle today.

The Pioneer Woman (whom I love) made a list of her important blogging tips.

Hipster Puppies! I love them. I don't get lolcats at all, not even a little, but hipster puppies? Perfection.

I watch this perfume review very so often. It's so funny and so true- try to get at that tester bottle without being knocked over by a tween.

Catalog Living is always funny and snarky.

A "helpful" list of crap to stop spending money on once you're 30. Aside from Rent, which is just ridiculous given that housing varies so much from area to area, this just made me laugh because I never did any of them- even in my wild college days. Okay, my college days weren't that wild. My one year at the hippy-dippy tree hugging school I was the only one who wasn't smoking weed on a regular (or irregular) basis or getting so drunk I'd just sleep on the steps outside the dorm because I couldn't figure out how to work my keycard. Also, it's insulting to anyone under 30. HOWEVER, it still made me chuckle, so it's included.

And of course, there is the drama and craziness of Project Runway, season 8 is MILES better than the last one. I watch it every week and then gleefully wait for Tim Gunn's gossipy video recaps on his Facebook Page!

Happy Weekend! Let's recharge!

I'm Trying

2010-09-09T17:57:00.004-05:00

Labor Day weekend in DC was great, as always. My sister and I always have a good time when we're hanging out. We really needed to decompress because we've both been really stressed and it was nice to just relax and not have to be anywhere or do anything we didn't feel like doing. We went bowling, hit a couple of museums (One of them just for the gift shop- forget art! We want to see pretty jewelry!), walked to Whole Foods and Starbucks for breakfast, ordered Chinese takeout, and bummed around. Perfect. I threatened to really embarrass the heck out of her and wear these:

Along with these:

But I never came through with my threats. I think she was relieved.

Aaaaand I should have stayed up there.

So a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that my friend's daughter died. And this week that same friend's husband had a heart attack (he's in the hospital now). And someone else's brother-in-law died. And someone's friend's son died. And another friend had to have her cat put to sleep. And how the heck does a person stay positive when all of this shit is happening all around us? I know this is natural- the fact that it is all happening now is a coincidence. But still I keep asking myself WHY? Actually, it's more like "WHAT THE FUCK???" but just going with why seems more polite. I am angry, and it is scary and depressing, and all of these bad things shouldn't be happening all at once. But the universe has a way of righting itself: 2 co-workers just had babies, a friend of mine is looking like she'd like her baby OUT ASAP please, and weirdly two of my favorite youtube people are preggers too. I need to remember that- there's always balance.

I'm trying so hard to stay positive and not dwell, but it's really difficult. Today my body is at work but I don't feel like my brain is. I didn't sleep well last night, and today I feel puffy and sad.

Is it any wonder I've been buying shoes and escaping in good fiction and good TV? It's like my brain has decided to take a break whether I realize it or not, but I sure do need it. (I have to admit there could be some not-so-good TV in there too. I may or may not have purchased seasons 1 and 2 of The Girls Next Door.... There are things I should not admit. Thank God this blogging thing is mostly anonymous. Kinda.)

My Bed. And Shoes. And Other Important Stuff.

2010-09-08T21:43:00.006-05:00

So it's been almost a year since I got my mattress set and I have to tell you, I am still completely in love with it. Not a night goes by that I don't snuggle up under my soft blanket and crisp cotton sheets and mutter to myself "Oh my God I love my bed."

My mattress still feels brand new, and I rotate it regularly (it's a pillow top so it doesn't get flipped). The guy at the mattress store warned me that my body would make impressions in the padding over time, and that it was totally normal, but that hasn't happened (yet). I don't have a foam topper on it anymore, but I did put on a fabric allergy cover since I am the queen of allergies these days. (I just found out I probably have a mild latex allergy or sensitivity or whatever in addition to everything else... go figure.)

While I was on vacation Zappos kindly sent me an email reminding me that I bought a pair of sneakers one year ago. And they still have it in stock in my size if mine are totally worn out and in a state of sneaker sadness. Is that some brilliant marketing or what??? I don't wear those sneakers that often, so they are in great shape and I'm not going to be reordering. But it did make me pause- maybe they were getting a little worn and I should just click that convenient link and get another pair. Sheer genius.

Speaking of shoes, I have recently acquired 4 NEW PAIRS. Seeing as I have been wearing cute and comfy strappy Teva flip-flops basically all summer (which is fine because I have 4 pairs of them that I just rotate), my standards for shoes have gone way up. I had to wear my basic black dress pumps last week, and they are brutally uncomfortable and my heel comes out of the back of one of them and it just made me feel totally unorganized and unpolished, which is exactly the opposite of what I was going for. I wanted to be classy and effortless, and instead I was walking like an 8th grader at her first formal. The problem with my feet is that I have really high arches and I need shoes that have excellent arch support or all of my weight is on the ball of my foot and then my toes get smashed and then I am miserable. Another issue is that I wear a size 10-1/2 shoe, but not many brands make that size. So usually I buy 11s and fix them up with Foot Petals, which make them really comfortable too.

So when I was in DC I got a pair of Aerosoles pumps with a 2" heel that feel like slippers. When I tried them on I was so amazed at how comfortable they were that I grabbed a pair in my sister's size and threw them to her and demanded she try them on. She bought them too. While we were there I also found a pair of sporty Aerosoles flats on super clearance that I can still wear to the office (it's a casual workplace). I think between the two of us D and I tried on every shoe in DSW. On another shopping excursion we went to Nordstrom Rack where I tried on some Sofft pumps and they were awesome, except they were wide and my feet definitely aren't. So I found some on 6pm.com and had them delivered to my house. HEAVEN in the form of shoes! Last, but definitely not least, I got a pair of Born strappy gladiator-ish style sandals that I can't wait to wear with a long flowy skirt for maximum hippy styling.

I'm still reading Gone With The Wind (I'm a fast reader but it comes in at over 1000 pages- it is a REALLY LONG BOOK) and it is definitely on my top 10 list of awesome literature. It is so good that I dragged the thing up to DC with me to read on the plane- all 10 lbs of it or whatever. If you're looking for good long engrossing Michener-style historical fiction to get completely immersed in, I highly recommend it. I have a feeling that it gives a good description of what the south actually felt like for former plantation owners during Reconstruction. There is no comparison to the movie- there is a lot that gets glossed over in the movie because censorship was such a big deal in Hollywood back in the 1930s, and some that is just left out entirely. HOWEVER, if you plan to read it, you have to remember that this takes place in the old south and they're going to use racial slurs left right and center (literally, every single page) so consider yourself warned.

In other very exciting news in the life of this particular Heather, it's September which means that some places (I'm looking at you Starbucks) are starting to serve up pumpkin flavored treats which is just my favorite thing ever. I love fall. The air gets crisp and I can wear sweaters and open the windows to air out the house (it is pretty stuffy in here) and the leaves get pretty and I can sit on the deck again and there's pumpkin coffee and bread and muffins and cheesecake and beer and it's just so exciting! Unfortunately, fall is a big fat joke around here right now because it was in the 90s yesterday- but MAYBE that was the last of the 90s for a while. MAYBE it will cool off enough that I can open a bedroom window at night. This has been one insanely hot summer, so everyone is looking forward to some cooler weather.

And now I'm off to read some more and maybe watch "Mad Men". I decided to start watching the whole series again from the beginning. I finally saw "A Single Man" last week and that movie was absolutely positively GORGEOUS. (That's not too much of a brain trail- a lot of Mad Men people were involved in the production of A Single Man.) I loved how the light changed a little when George's mood lifted- everything got a little brighter when he was either dragged out of his depression for a minute or when things reminded him of the past. And count on Tom Ford to produce the most beautiful shots of beautiful men I have ever seen. It is rare these days that my attention is held through an entire movie and I don't do anything else (knit, paint my toenails, etc) while I'm watching it. But this one had me spellbound the whole way through. Sidenote- I just IMDB'd this movie and I cannot believe that the absolutely drop dead gorgeous Nicholas Hunt who played Kenny is the same awkward kid in About A Boy. You really just never know what kids will grow up to look like.

VACATION

2010-09-02T11:26:00.005-05:00

I'm leaving tonight for Sister Summit 2010 (WOOOO HOOOOO!!!!), held on the mean gritty streets of my sister's town.

Ohhhh how I wish I could get that video to embed, but it is just not happening for some reason. (Okay obviously that problem got solved!)

Brown flipflops and starbucks and hand, we're gonna tear it up!

Back soon....

Heather

Hell

2010-08-23T17:05:00.003-05:00

This has been a very bad day. I hope that I've filled the bad day quota for the rest of the year with just this one. I can't get into details, but I got up in a radiant sunshiny mood, got ready for work, walked towards the door, and for just an instant the thought crossed my mind that perhaps this was a day to call in sick and go hide under the covers. An ominous feeling, and when I got to work I found out why. Nothing much is wrong for me personally, but a lot of shit has hit a lot of people in my life and it makes me sad.

So tonight I'm going to drink a little wine, watch the Miss Universe Pageant, and then read some more Gone With the Wind. Y'all- that book is GOOD. I mean, really really GOOD. I love Scarlett O'Hara because she's so unapologetically conniving. Somehow I find her likable- and I remember not liking her much at all the first time around.

Anyway, those plans should help some with the badness. Until then, well, read this. Charlie Brooker is awesome and has made all of my arguments about the coverage of the "Ground Zero Mosque" for me- how nice of him!

Cheap-Ass Art

2010-08-19T19:37:00.018-05:00

For a long time I have struggled with how to fill the blank walls in my place. I am not one to frame a collection of randomness (spoons, shot glasses, snail shells*) and call it art, but I was looking for things to put on my wall that were #1: cheap, and #2: attractive. I have discovered a few ways of doing this that work really well in my space, and maybe they would in yours too.

Cheap-Ass Solution #1
Fabric Panels

I have been doing this for a long time. I find some fabric I like (preferably home decorating remnants at the fabric store) and staple it to a canvas stretchers from the art supply store. End of story. When I get bored, I just staple some new fabric over the old stuff. They are very versatile because you can spread them out to fill up space or scootch them closer together in a smaller wall.

Fabric Panels in the living room....

Fabric Panels in the dining room... do they look familiar? The used to be over my bed in my old place!

Cheap-Ass Solution #2
Pictures from magazines
These photos were in a gorgeous spread of Kate Moss in W Magazine several years ago. There is something a little sexy, very mysterious, and oddly creepy about the pictures, so naturally I framed them in $3 frames from Big Lots and put them on the wall in my bedroom. (Sorry about the glare, but that just gives you a glimpse of the next idea!)

Cheap-Ass Solution #3
Steal an idea from someone else and make it for cheap!

Do you know the Subway Sign art that Restoration Hardware sells? No? I will show you!
I just love how these are graphic and bold and feel kind of antique. HOWEVER, I would never pay $800 for one of these (honestly that's not a completely unreasonable price because these are taller than I am). And I didn't want subway signs. So with the help of Illustrator fonts and some pretty printer paper, I made this (much smaller version at 3' tall) for my bedroom:
One day I will figure out how to do this on card stock, but for now I am actually really happy with how it turned out. I tried it with lots of different fonts but that just looked confused, so I just stuck to two of them, changing the size and proportions a little to fit the space. I typed out all of the calming and sleep related words I could come up with and then played to make them fit.

Cheap-Ass Solution #4
Use the rasterbator.

I know it sounds vaguely dirty, but this free internet tool lets you upload any picture you want and then makes it into a rastorized image (think little tiny dots like old-fashioned newspaper print) and you can make your picture HUGE. It will turn out fuzzy close up and easier to see from far away. Like modern art!
This is the dead-laziest piece of "Art" in my house. I found a picture of a dandelion gone to seed on google images, copied it into the rasterbator, then printed it onto 6 sheets of paper. I trimmed the edges, taped them together, and taped it to the wall. I had an empty frame lying around and I literally just put it over the image- no backing or glass or anything. It might sound a little tacky (and look a little wonky in pictures) but in real life it looks really cool! Especially when I am coming up the stairs and I can see this hanging in my workroom. And it was FREE.

#5
(Not really a cheap-ass solution but a freebie)
Make your collections pop.
I made this display cabinet when I was 12 or 13 years old, and it's been on various walls in various houses for years now. It is a good place to put little things but it was sooooo dim that anything you put inside of it would get lost against the dark stained oak back. Last weekend as I was contemplating where to (finally) hang the sucker, I remembered that the shelves aren't glued in there- they're just held in with a little tension. I took them all out, taped in some starched home-dec fabric, and popped the shelves back in. Presto! A workable display cabinet for odds and ends. I keep things in there that came from somewhere else- either things family brought back for me or things I picked up in different places.
So that's pretty much it. In the past I have also hung old quilts and tapestries from the walls, and in the near future I would like to use this idea for cards and postcards too. But for now I think my walls are looking good and not feeling naked anymore.

Do you have any good ideas for cheap-ass art solutions? Share them!

*As I was trying to come up with a list of truly random things I was thinking crayons, keys, and seed pods and decided that no, those would all make really cool shadow-box art so I guess I'll have to take that back.

Library List

2010-08-17T18:20:00.005-05:00

I thought it might be an interesting experiment to keep track of my library books here. I am in my branch at least once or twice a week, and I get books sent from other libraries or put on hold so often that I have my library card number memorized. I cannot sing the praises of the Nashville Public Library system enough- they will send any book to whatever branch is convenient for you. You can check books out for 3 weeks at a time and renew them twice. (9 weeks total with one book- read it already!) The main library downtown is beautiful and they will validate parking. What's not to love?

I think it is really funny to see what kind of reading kicks people get on, so here is mine.

Today I returned:

The Comfortable Home: How to Invest In Your Nest and Live Well For Less by Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams
I love the Mitchell Gold store in Nashville, and think their whole decorating and business philosophy rocks. I also love their furniture although I don't think I'll be affording any of it any time soon. This book had a lot of contemporary styling with a twist.

Bunny Williams' Point of View: Three Decades of Decorating Elegant and Comfortable Houses
"Bunny"? Really? Her style is way too cluttered and ornate for me. But interesting.

To Your Taste: Creating Modern Rooms With a Traditional Twist by Celerie Kemble
Again with the crazy names. This book was boring, in fact, I am 99% sure I've checked it out before and just forgot.

Downsizing Your Home With Style: Living Well In a Smaller Space by Lauri Ward
This book is AWESOME. It has lots of really good ideas for how to live with limited square footage and get creative with storage options. If you live in a small space or if you will be soon, I highly recommend it.

Home Therapy: Fast, Easy, Affordable Makeovers by Lauri Ward
Another good one- she's got some great ideas.

Home Rules: Transform the Place You Live Into a Place You Love by Nate Berkus
Another book I really enjoyed with lots of easy decorating ideas that don't feel too stuffy. Not as functional a designer as Lauri Ward, but still good.

Okay is it weird that every single home decorating book I got has a colon in the title? I think so! I found all of these by going through some home decorating reading lists people had put together on Amazon and seeing what was in my local library. I find this is a good method for getting really good books. I hate when books waste my time.

So here's a brain trail. Today I read The Pioneer Woman's 20 interesting things about Vivien Leigh. Which of course got me thinking about Gone With the Wind. Which made me think it's been years since I read the book so I should re-read it. Especially since it's been hot around here this summer and I just read some Civil War stuff that was really honest and graphic- why not read the one that completely romanticizes it? So I searched the library's website to see which branch had the book, and that led to all kinds of craziness.

So today I checked out:
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

On the Road to Tara by Aljean Harmetz

Moulin Rouge by 20th Century Fox

The Official Companion to The West Wing

I love Moulin Rouge and The West Wing, and they were both right next to The Road to Tara so I figured I might as well read all about those too.

I am on a crazy reading kick, and I'm not even finished with Wicked yet! Just a few more pages to go though... still a very worthwhile read.

Freeing Up Space (In 1500 Words- Oxymoron?)

2010-08-10T17:12:00.005-05:00

As you may have noticed, I have been on one heck of a purging kick lately. (But not in the eating disorder sense, that would just be gross.) There was the clothing purge where I relegated the clothing orphans to the guest room closet (and so far I've only pulled one thing out that I decided to keep- there will definitely be one other sweater I need to hang on to but the rest will probably go to Goodwill). I've slowly been getting rid of books that I never will read/re-read/need- in the past few years I've gone from filling 3 large bookcases to about 1 1/2 if they were all in one place. I've also been getting rid of kitchen items that I never use, and yarn and fabric that isn't appealing. This is slow going, but mostly I've realized that having stuff for the sake of stuff doesn't make me better or happier- it just makes me a person with crappy stuff. If I had antiques or family heirlooms it would be different, but ratty old blankets that I've had for 10 years are not exactly keepsakes! (I am hanging on to a good sturdy one for quilt batting. That quilt will be finished one day!)

So I thought it was really interesting when I ran across this article about the ways in which people spend money because it sums up what I have been learning all along: happiness does not come with stuff, it comes with experiences. If you spend your money on stuff you won't be as happy as you would be if you spent it on planned vacations. Planned vacations because when you have time to build anticipation, that adds to the experience. And make your trip sort of short because if you get used to a new place then the novelty wears off and you lose your excitement, so the experience isn't as meaningful and you don't have as much fun. Absolutely fascinating. Bottom Line: Don't take a last minute 2 week trip to ANYWHERE.

Did you know there are people out there who take the whole "6 Items or Less" clothing challenge to a whole new level? They live with 100 items. That's it. (Okay it depends on your own personal definition of this- are you going to count things that are shared between people? Cleaning supplies? Books? Dishes? Collections? Furniture? You get the idea here.)

Like a lot of people, I think that as humans we were not meant to live in huge houses- I for one am always more comfortable when I am aware of my perimeters. I know some of this has to do with my place in college getting broken into. The apartment was small but it was a straight shot from the front of the house to the back so I couldn't hear the back window being opened as it was 3 rooms away. Since then I have always subconsciously favored living quarters that were easy to keep an eye on. If our ancestors were used to living in small spaces with lots of family members, I don't think modern man could feel safe in a space that is too big. So, even aside from the fact that McMansions are huge and expensive and bad for the environment (think of the wasted building materials on wasted space, the expense of heating and cooling and lighting and cleaning and decorating places that are never used) I bet that people in them don't feel very secure. I also think that we feel isolated when we live in huge spaces because everyone is far away from others in the household and the neighbors. Humans are social creatures- this can't be good for us.

For the same reason I think that we have to be careful of how much stuff we have. Again, our prehistoric families probably only owned possessions that were convenient to pack up and move to wherever the food was. So if you could only keep whatever you could carry on your back, how different would your life be? VERY! You would know what was absolutely essential and what you could do without.

But I think that you can take simplicity into so many other aspects of your life besides clothing and belongings. Recently I unsubscribed from a ton of retail emails that were either convincing me that I needed new shoes or that my skin could be so much better with a $300 brush from Sephora. I didn't get too many apps on my new phone because I didn't want to clutter up my space and use up the battery, but I also just don't care to learn a whole new app for something when I don't really need it.

I have cut back on how often I look at CNN's homepage because the news is overwhelmingly frustrating and/or bad. We are trained to want to know things immediately and we expect reaction immediately. In some cases instant reaction is good- bomb threats, oil spills, major disasters. In some cases we are reacting to things that should just be noise. There's another filibuster on another bill in the senate. North Korea is threatening to do something stupid. Go figure. This isn't news, this is sensationalizing discord. It's the same with kids who go missing- for the most part these are local news stories and they should stay local. Otherwise the media is just distracting valuable search and rescue resources and the nation is needlessly alarmed. But back to the point- when you are expected to react instantly to something there isn't time to think over the situation and really consider all of the angles. Remember the Beer Summit? All of that was the result of improper analysis of the situation by everyone from the police officers to Dr. Gates right on up to the president. If there had been more time to gather facts before a position had to be taken how differently would that have turned out? And don't even get me started about Fox News reporting first and getting the story straight later. We all just react. Right this second.

I know I mentioned this when I talked about the total number of books people read a few generations ago, but we're not really prepared in an evolutionary sense to process all of the information constantly being thrown at us on a daily basis. I've come this close to closing out my Twitter and Facebook accounts for this reason- too much input about things that aren't all that useful or important.

Food is another insidious area of clutter. Besides fast food which everyone knows is absolute garbage, there's also the low-carb, low-fat, high protein, high fiber fake processed food that lulls you into a false sense of health. This isn't Food, it's "food", surgically enhanced to look better, chemically altered to trick your brain into thinking it is okay. But processed foods high in fat, salt, sugar, high fructose corn syrup- eat too much and they will throw a body out of balance because they are cheaply reproduced "food" versions of real Food.

So I am finally understanding that simplicity isn't just about using and having less. (I grew up Quaker and simplicity is one of those major Quaker values- but I haven't really understood it until now.) It's also about being able to let go. If you aren't weighed down by your belongings and your clutter and your toxic friends, you can open up your life to what is really important. Simplifying the physical aspects of life is great- it's easier on you and your environment. But you have to simplify mentally as well. (And I'm not talking simple as in Forrest Gump, I'm talking simple as in meditation.)

The most surprising thing is that simplicity SHOULD be easy. It should be the easiest thing to downsize and free up physical and emotional space for whatever is next. But it is anything but easy. As the Buddhist Nun says, "It takes tremendous effort to become effortless." We all have holes in our lives that we are trying to fill with other things. We all want to keep up with the Joneses. Maybe we all want new cars and lots of money and fancy houses because ultimately we want love and safety and comfort. But as a society we don't know how to get them, so we give up and try the easy route- more stuff. And when you look at that accumulation of stuff, some part of you knows that it's a substitute for what you don't have- and that is terrifying. A physical manifestation of what is lacking in your life. I say get rid of it. Quit wallowing in the sadness or loneliness or anger that all of that extra stuff represents. When you get to the point that you are controlling your stuff instead of your stuff controlling you (and the size of your car and the size of your home and the cost of your electric bill and the cost of your therapist bills and the wear and tear on the planet and on and on and on), I think you are winning. And when you and I win in this war against all kinds of clutter, we will be able to see the good things coming to us.

"Curtain" Project

2010-08-05T20:57:00.019-05:00

There's this one guy at work who paces the halls in the afternoons clicking his pen constantly clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick and by about 3:00 on Fridays I fantasize about grabbing that pen and stabbing him in the throat with it.

Then the moment passes.

(Speaking of annoying sounds I work with someone who washes her hands vigorously squelching the lather through her fingers very aggressively and it makes these really nasty squishy sounds and it upsets me.)

So I take myself to my happy space where I think about the lovely new blog posts I'm going to write and the projects I'm going to work on and everything is good again.

When I first moved into my condo it was November and it was going to get cold. I needed some curtains for my drafty windows, and fast! Now, I am all about slapping some fabric on some curtain clips and calling it a day. And when it's cold I have been known to put blankets on the clips instead because they really help insulate things. So I had blankets for the living room and my craft/library/second bedroom windows (actually, I liked the one in the 2nd bedroom so much that it's still up). And for my bedroom I made these:
I got this fabric at Sirs Fabrics in Fayetteville, Tennessee, for practically nothing. I liked the colors and the pattern and the little bit of gold in it. I still love that fabric.

I made them that length on purpose so that I could anchor the bottom to the window frame because the heat/AC vent is directly under one of the windows and I didn't want my heat just flying up the curtains. I also lined them so they'd hold the heat in just a little bit better.

Well, I love the fabric but I just hated those curtains after a while. Yes, they were functional and did exactly what I wanted them to do, but they just didn't go with anything in my bedroom. I was dreaming of something that would go with the color scheme, maybe a light robin's egg blue with a brown pattern, something pretty and light and long....

So I started pricing curtains and OMG y'all*. Curtains are outrageously expensive. And being a textiles person I cannot understand why. They have 2 layers of fabric (at most) and 4 seams. Some of them have tabs or a pocket for the curtain rod and maybe a fancy mitred corner but really the labor involved in sewing curtains is nothing and most of that is probably automated. The fabric in some cases is really really nice but for the most part it is just fabric! Something you could get at Walmart for $5! (Does Walmart even sell fabric anymore?) The company I work for sells pants that last for years with tons of labor involved and they are cheaper than 1 individual curtain PANEL at most major retailers.

Then I decided I could just make curtains instead so I started looking at fabric and that was a bust. I couldn't find anything I wanted that would really work. The colors I liked tended to be in quilting fabrics and those patterns were pretty small and the curtains would definitely need to be lined because the fabric was so light weight and it was a conundrum.

I went to Lowe's this evening to get some black spray paint (there isn't much that can't be improved with some black spray paint) and as I was walking down the curtain aisle I had an epiphany.

They are heavy enough that they don't really need to be lined.
They are plain old unbleached cotton canvas.
They come in HUGE sizes.
They are cheap cheap cheap.

So I got two packs of 4' by 15' drop cloths. When I got home I threw them in the washer and then in the dryer (they did shed a LOT), and ironed them while they were still damp. Then I sliced each one in half so I had 4 panels that were 4' wide by 7 1/2' tall. I hemmed the ends I cut (I was so slack on this project that I didn't even change the thread on my machine) so they wouldn't unravel everywhere.

Then the serious part- I moved the existing curtain rods. Now, I might be slack because I didn't change thread colors but the previous owners of this place were so slack they just stuck screws in the drywall for the curtain-rod-holder-thingies. So I got out the drill (which I finally used for the first time- the battery powered drill!) and put in drywall anchors like a responsible adult. And I put them way up by the ceiling so now I have huge light airy curtains that go from maybe 6" below the ceiling all the way to the top of the baseboards. I think it makes the room look better and the windows bigger.

Curtains in the night time.

The only drawbacks to this project were:
- I wish the color of the canvas had been slightly lighter but honestly who cares? (There is more contrast between the curtains and the walls than is showing up in the pictures.)
- One of the drop clothes was pieced together and has a big old ugly seam in it but really... I don't care too much about that either. I just put that panel on the side that no one is really going to see.

The major advantage? I have 2 pairs of curtains for the grand price of $28. That is what one decent panel costs at Walmart or Target. SCORE!

Curtains in the day time (sorry about that blinding sunshine there)

Now that I've been doing some looking around on the good old internets, it seems that I am (again) way behind on the trend. A lot of people are making curtains out of drop clothes for all the reasons I did. I am intrigued by the idea of getting a really huge drop cloth to slipcover a chair... that might be my next sewing project. And yeah, with the brown walls and unbleached curtains the room does look a little blah, but I am making a huge bright quilt that might be done in a couple of years! It will really pop against the neutral colors.

*I was explaining some project details at work and I said, "Your guys's spreadsheet... okay that can't be grammatically correct." And someone said, "You could just say y'all." I discovered the time when "y'all" is an acceptable form of speech.

Life Roundup

2010-08-04T17:23:00.004-05:00

Sunday, just before breakfast at my mom's house:

Karen: Hey, where will I find the griddle now that you've rearranged everything?

Mom (just as casual as can be): Oh, it's in the 2nd drawer of the guest bathroom closet next to your ammo.

Because that makes perfect sense, right? Cookware in the bathroom? Next to the ammo?
A little later...

Karen: Oh yeah, what's that belt with all of the bullets in it doing in the guest bathroom? Is that yours?

Mom: Hunh?

My sister and I about fell over laughing at the thought of my mother owning anything related to a firearm. Long story short it belonged to the previous owners of the house but there sure was some confusion that morning.

I've been reading Wicked, which is turning out to be really good! (I tried to read Mirror Mirror by the same author but I just couldn't get into it.) I liked the show okay- the sets and costumes really sealed the deal for me but the music, while sung by incredibly talented people, lacked that memorable quality. (Aside from Gravity. Everybody knows that one because of Glee. And Popular.) The story seemed really trite and preachy. On the other hand the book has depth and interesting characters and I've been doing nothing but lounging around in my underwear eating popsicles and reading.

Which is okay because it's been very very hot. In case you live on the bottom half of the world, we're having a heat wave here in the southern USofA. It's going to be the hottest summer ever, and TGFAC (Thank God For Air Conditioning). Stepping outside for more than 2 minutes is asking to be drenched in sweat and needing to drink a gallon of water. This afternoon it was 102 and the heat index was 112. That's hot- even for Tennessee.

Yesterday I was like okay, even though it is 12 million degrees outside that is no excuse to skip exercise. I've been doing a lot of yoga lately but slacking on the "real" working out. So I busted out some ab work (crunches, jack-knives, leg lifts with the swiss ball) and rotated those with a bunch of push-ups and then felt like that was probably plenty and called it good. It took about 30 minutes and my abs are staging a rebellion today. My arms and shoulders are catching on to the strike and everything feels sore but I like that- it tells me that I worked hard. Really I need to get back on board with the cardio. I build muscle pretty fast but I have to work on endurance again. It's just that the thought of going to the gym and doing a bunch of cardio and getting all sweaty and then going outside into the heat is completely unappetizing. YUCK.

I've finally started watching Pushing Daisies on Netflix. I watched the pilot last night and it is exactly the kind of quirky lovely little show I enjoy. In a way it reminds me of Dead Like Me- very weird and watchable and lots of death talk but it's funny. Good stuff. And, like most of my favorite shows, canceled after two seasons.

What with Wicked and Pushing Daisies, I need to mention that I blew through Kristin Chenoweth's Memoir "Just A Little Bit Wicked" in about 2 days and if I didn't love her to pieces before (and let's be honest- I did), I love her even more now. It is funny, smart, self-deprecating, and real. I hope she is as cool in real life as she comes across in her book. There were parts that made me laugh out loud.

In other news, I have about 6 more weeks of twice-weekly allergy shots left. I am still in the build-up phase, and then I only have to go get stuck once a week. I'm really glad that needles don't bother me because otherwise I couldn't do this. I feel really bad for the little kids who have to get shots- the nurses try to make it as fun as possible with bright band-aids and stickers and stuff. But you can tell they are just screwing up their courage every time they have to go. Brave little guys. Anyway, the injection sites keep blowing up into these huge hot itchy welts so I've been on lots of Claritin and going through a ton of cortisone cream but that doesn't seem to be helping much. SIX MORE WEEKS!!!

Okay I guess it is obvious that there isn't too much happening around here. I'm on a reading kick, life is good. So, stay cool if you're in the heatwave. And just stay out of trouble if you're not.

Six Items or Less

2010-07-27T22:52:00.005-05:00

Wow am I ever out of touch!

(Just typed "never out of touch" which I think was a Freudian slip because I prefer to believe that I am always right and always in touch. Sometimes I am so convinced that I AM right about something that it truly is a shock when I'm not- one would think that I might have a problem fitting my huge ego into this desk chair here with me.) (Also, I spelled "Freudian Slip" as "Freudian Ship" and I'm not sure if that is actually a Freudian slip or merely a typo. Thoughts?)

Aaaaanyway, yesterday I came across the "Six Items Or Less" project, which went on for a month and actually ended last week (this is the out of touch part). It's a group of people linked by this site who vowed to wear only six items of clothing for a month (excluding shoes, underwear, workout clothes, jackets, accessories, etc). Some did it out of a sense of simplicity, feeling that consumerism is taking over the world, and some did it as a way to kick off a shopping ban. The really funny thing is that for the most part no one really noticed they were doing it. How much do you want to bet that typically the only person who really pays attention to what you're wearing on a daily basis is you?

That got me thinking about the way top people dress. Anna Wintour? Black Dress. Steve Jobs? Black turtleneck, jeans. Michael Kors? White t-shirt, navy blazer, jeans. The president of my company? White dress shirt, jeans. (I'm seeing a trend here....) These people wear pretty much the same thing day in and day out- classic, stylish, flattering items that don't overpower them.

At first I thought the challenge sounded really hard. Six items of clothing? That's IT? But then I realized that I probably regularly wear only about 12 or 15 pieces of clothing anyway, and it would be pretty easy to cut that number in half. So maybe not such a challenge. I tend to wear the same sorts of items anyway, so why not embrace it? I got all inspired last night and took things out of my closet and dresser that I just don't wear for whatever reason- the weird colors, the weird fits, the orphan pieces that don't really go with anything else. I hid them in the guest bedroom closet.

This morning the whole getting dressed process was much easier than it typically is. First of all, when I opened my closet door everything in there fits me well and makes me feel good. I also didn't have that moment of guilt when I looked at the pieces that didn't work- why did I buy that? I really SHOULD wear it... I guess. (As my hand reaches for my trusty black sweater.) When you don't see those items you won't feel that way.

Also, when I got rid of the random rejects, all of my clothes complement each other. I have a lot of black, gray, white, fuschia and green in my wardrobe. They all work together and I don't have to wonder whether my things will match or look right because they will without any thought.

I'm not necessarily dressing in a uniform every day, but I am simplifying the work a little bit. And I think I'm going to like it. However, I'm not going to get really crazy and knock it down to 6 items. But it's fun to think about which pieces of clothing I would choose as my six. I think I would go with:

Black knit dress- really easy to dress up or down, super comfortable.
Blue Jeans- I can't live without them. I wear them ALL THE TIME. (Not quite as much as I used to- I'm branching out into skirts and dresses more and I actually think I look better in them than pants but jeans are just so easy.)
Black Cardigan- another wardrobe staple
Black Tank top- yes, I am seeing the trend
White Tank top- ohhh, that's almost a color
Black and lime green patterned skirt.

This all sounds great until I realize that my black dress really needs a little something to go over it (sleeveless), so I really want to include my green short sleeved sweater too! But that's 7 items! I would so fail this challenge.

While we're on the topic of clothes, Sal's latest post over at Already Pretty had a great list of questions to ask before you purchase clothing. I wrote them down and put them in my purse so I won't be swayed by impulse buys. But I think my last couple of shopping trips have actually been really good. At Talbots a couple of weeks ago I got a navy blue skirt, a couple of t-shirts (black and navy), and a couple of fly away cardigans (navy and gray) that are great for layering- especially in my cold office. They were all basic purchases that I do not regret at all because they will work with several outfits in several seasons, they're classic, I didn't have any items like them, and they suit me.

Could you do the Six Items Or Less challenge? What would you pick?

The Books... Part 3

2010-07-26T20:37:00.005-05:00

So you might guess from the tone of yesterday's post that the romance novels have gone straight to my head and now I can't write anything without some sort of throbbing innuendo. OMG it was just a vacuum cleaner!

Internets, I have a confession to make. I can't take the romance novels. I know I started off with really great intentions but now... after reading one and a half of these I cannot make myself read anymore. The writing is appalling and the story lines are all the same. I will give you the formula:

Foreign hot dude who is basically sex on legs. But has a temper. He has to be tamed. He is also gorgeous and tends to be described in terms of animals (stallion, tiger, whatever).

Relatable American woman who yearns and longs for things even she doesn't understand- but in a very relatable, if prim, way. Sort of dull girl-next-door quality, probably smoking hot but doesn't realize it. Snooze.

Exotic location (Greece, Italy, Paris- nothing TOO exotic. Wouldn't want any danger of crossing racial lines!)

All Common Sense (if only for a moment of deep un-understandable passion)

Weird romantic past (dated in high school, college, were married, their exes are married, whatever)

The most important part- the CONSEQUENCES of sex with hot dude. Usually pregnancy. Because really a raging case of chlamydia just isn't that sexy and would not draw this couple together by the end of the book.
=
Predictable harlequin romance that you couldn't pay me to read at this point.

I can't take any more. I am sorry. I failed in my promise to review each book for you because I could feel my brain cells crying.

The New Toy

2010-07-25T12:10:00.005-05:00

Readers, I have found a new piece of equipment that has satisfied me in ways I never thought possible. A powerful device that works so well I can't stop using it again and again. An appliance that makes me feel so dirty I don't know if I'll be able to look people in the eye anymore. Each attachment does something new and exciting. I might not leave the house all day because I know there is more that it can do and I want to see if I can find the limit of it's talents.

Friends, I bought a new vacuum cleaner.

Yesterday I was trying to clean the baseboards in my condo and there was almost zero suction happening. I checked the hose- it wasn't clogged. The filters were clean. And then it occurred to me that I've had this particular vacuum cleaner for 10 years and it probably had lasted a really REALLY long time in vacuum cleaner years- I have friends who buy new ones every 3 years or so.

I jumped onto Consumer Reports, and Target, and Amazon, and found a vacuum that was recommended and well-reviewed. Meet the Bissell Cleanview Helix Bagless Upright Vacuum Cleaner. I am AMAZED at how much crap this guy sucked up, given that I just vacuumed with my old cleaner the day before. It is really easy to empty the canister, and all of the fuzz and hair and gritty fine dirt in there blew me away. It's lighter than my old one and much more powerful. And my favorite part might be the little Turbo Brush attachment that is another spinning brush for stairs and upholstery (the fact that the suction tube has a handle on it is a nice touch too). It pulled a ton of junk out of the stairs. I can't believe how much dirt I was living in!

So yes, now I am REALLY done spending money for a while. I just saw this as an emergency purchase, and at $80 I think it was a real bargain.

The Dining Room

2010-07-24T10:43:00.010-05:00

It's coming together! And I have some big plans for this room. It used to be my least favorite room in the house, but it is quickly becoming my very favorite. To refresh your memory, here are the boxes that took over my living room:

Dining room furniture was a very difficult decision for me. A lot of it seemed either outrageously huge or outrageously expensive (and there was a lot of both). I didn't want anything too traditional with crazy carved legs in some sort of ugly oak finish. Craigslist is crawling with those. I also didn't want anything glass topped because I just don't like the feel of chilly glass under my arms and it's so noisy. Then I was thinking maybe I'd want something round with a pedestal base because I could squeeze more people around it and it wouldn't seem to take up too much space. So, I wanted a contemporary round table in black or white.

The only thing I was finding was this, and it looks cheap.
But after lots and lots (and LOTS) of scouring websites and spending a little time in overpriced furniture stores, I came across this:

Simple lines.

Very dark finish.

Not too big or small.

The price was more than right.

The reviews were fantastic.

It arrived yesterday and when I opened the box with the table in it I'm not sure if I gasped or squealed or a little of both (there were no witnesses) but I was really excited. Check this thing out! It is beautiful! It is HEAVY and really solid (it has a maximum load capacity of 400 pounds, aka the Chicken Heart That Ate New York City). There is not one scratch on it (which was impressive considering how the UPS lady was trying to get it out of the truck but makes sense since it was wrapped in 3 cardboard boxes and some styrofoam padding). LOVE.
The chairs are also fantastic. They were really easy to put together, and they have simple lines with a little curve to the back which I think makes them look pretty classy. They are also quite comfortable. Again, solid construction, and they're completely level.

This is my third "grown up" furniture purchase and I couldn't be more pleased with the quality of the pieces.

One little snafu though (you probably noticed the absence of one of the chairs)- one of the chair legs was broken. It looks like it was sawed diagonally so I can't just glue it back together because I don't think it would hold up. I called Target and they can't send individual parts so they're going to send an ENTIRE new set. I can pull out the part I need, box it back up, and get UPS to pick it up and return it for free. YEESH. What a waste of resources! Not to mention time and money for Target. Although I guess this will work out okay because I also need to pull out another seat- one of mine had some tiny little cracks that I don't think will look too good in a few years.

Anyway, that's the saga of Christmas at Heather's House this week. It was so exciting! And now I'm not allowed to buy anything for a couple of months!

Next project? Either vinyl tile in the kitchen or painting the upstairs bathroom. I did the downstairs bathroom a couple of weeks ago and it turned out great. (The color is Valspar Classical Violet, in case you're interested- it looks sort of brown in the pictures but it's more of a smokey eggplant.)

The MASSIVE Upgrade

2010-07-22T21:25:00.009-05:00

This morning I woke up feeling sick and nauseated and generally really unwell. So I stayed home from work and rested a lot and skulked around the house.

Then this afternoon the UPS truck came. Everything I have been waiting for in the mail arrived! I swear it was like Christmas!

Okay I will get to what was in those big boxes in another post, but I will tell you that suddenly I was thinking, "Oh to hell with feeling like I'm going to vomit, it's time to assemble some stuff!"

Nope, today I'm going to write about technology. Bear with me. I know that this is out of the norm for me but I am so bowled over that I had to share. And if you have a super snazzy smart phone you're just going to shake your head and wonder how I've been stuck in the dark ages for so long.

2 years ago this was my phone. I used it for phonecalls.

Then I got this phone about 22 months ago:
It's the enV2 and it felt like a MASSIVE upgrade because it had a qwerty keyboard. Suddenly all of my friends were texting like crazy, so I used it for phonecalls and texting.

THEN I moved into my lovely little condo and the one real downside is that I get a terrible signal here from Verizon. I called and opened a trouble ticket and the result? "Well, it seems like you don't live in an optimal service area."

No shit. Really?

He helpfully told me that I could buy some sort of signal booster for my place for $250.

So ever since November I have been making calls from either right in front of my living room window, bedroom window, or just sitting on the front steps to talk. Even then my signal would cut out all the time. So a couple of weeks ago I called about getting a (GASP) landline phone, which was going to cost $130 to install. At the suggestion of a very smart friend of mine I called to see what the contract termination fee would be on my Verizon plan, and it was only going to be $90.

My friends, the time had come.

I switched to AT&T today.

I didn't get an iphone- it's sold out everywhere and the disconnected call issue bugged me. Besides I really wanted an Android phone because I am a Google girl and I'm already on gmail and I like that it's giving Apple some competition. Competition is always good!

Behold, the Samsung Captivate from AT&T. This is such a huge upgrade I don't even know where to start. The buttons vibrate slightly when you hit them so you know you did something without a lot of beeping. Phone calls sound good from every room in the house. People can HEAR ME. And then there's the text messaging- wow. It keeps them all together so I can see the conversation. And I can use google talk for my gmail contacts (which it magically imported when I signed in to Google). And I have all kinds of apps and widgets I can install- I get New York Times headlines and the weather channel will send instant alerts. TO MY PHONE. Now my old phones seem really clunky and my computer is soooo sloooowwww compared to this.

It's a whole new technology world out there. I can text, tweet, facebook, navigate, email.... All from one device that is smaller than an index card.

It's been 7 hours and I'm wondering how I lived without it. I feel like I'm living in a Sci-Fi movie.

PS wireless.amazon.com is running a really amazing deal on this phone right now. Beats the price at AT&T hands-down, and you can even keep your old phone number.

The Long Weekend!

2010-07-02T19:15:00.006-05:00

Is anybody else unreasonably excited that there's a long weekend stretching out ahead of us? I AM!!! I'm going to try to see Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work and Eclipse this weekend. Eclipse is one of those movies I need to see with lots of people in the theater because part of the experience is that 14 year old girls lose their minds when werewolves take their shirts off, and that is just about as entertaining as the film itself. This movie sounds like it will be a whole lot better than the first one, and probably better than New Moon too. Yay! But really I'm just waiting to see how the heck they're going to handle the 4th book. Boy does the plot thicken in that one, and it should make for a really good movie. (Or movies, rather.)

I added some new stuff to the old reading list over to your right. One blog is about the frustrations of living with diabetes, with a little condo renovation and life on the side. Another is by a guy who just finished his dissertation in philosophy and I think he really misses all that writing and needed an outlet. Then there is the Nashville guy who talks about sports. And he has a real problem with people going to a sporting event wearing a jersey that has nothing to do with said sporting event which I am finding pretty funny. One of my employees has to make sure that the stitching on her shoes matches the stitching on her jeans. They might get along really well.

And then there is my current favorite blog called Copy Cat Chic where they take a really expensive awesome piece of furniture and find something similar (sometimes exactly the same) for way cheaper. Yes, I am a home design whore.

Tonight I made a salad from Ellie Kreiger's book The Food You Crave that basically has oranges, radishes, red onion, and mint. And yes, I know that sounds really odd but the mint and the oranges really balanced the radishes and the onions. I would never have thought of that combination in a trillion years.

The other night I made pickled red onions because they were so good in Northampton on top of nachos. And they were actually surprisingly easy to make. I dumped about 4 cups of white vinegar in a pan with 1/4c. of sugar, a few bay leaves, a crushed cinnamon stick, some whole cloves, and some salt and pepper. And then I threw some grill seasoning in there too because oh why not? I brought that to just simmering and let all of the flavors work while I chopped up 4 red onions (OMG that was a never-ending task). Then I realized that my brilliant plan of putting them in a Tupperware container was never going to work (#1 the plastic might melt and #2 it wouldn't get the onions really submerged in the vinegar briny stuff) so I had to get creative really fast. I dumped a HUGE new jar of applesauce into the Tupperware instead and washed the jar out. I let it sit full of scalding hot water from the tap for a while so that when I put the boiling vinegar mix in there it wouldn't crack or something... okay I don't know if that really could have happened but I wasn't about to take any chances. I packed the jar full of onions, as many as I could smash in there. Then, using a funnel, I carefully poured my simmering vinegar spice mix into the jar and slapped the lid on it. It looked like this:

Look! You can see cloves and a little bay leaf in there!

Then I left the jar on the counter for hours to cool off and when I checked it the pop top on the lid was down- it had actually sealed itself. I did some Little House on the Prairie style canning!

But it wasn't like I was going to store them in a root cellar for winter. I dug into those things a day later and they are soooooo good! They've turned uniformly pink now. They're sweet and tart and don't have that strong raw onion kick anymore. I made a grilled cheese sandwich with pickled red onions in the middle, and it might be the only way to make grilled cheese.

I will absolutely be making them again. The hardest part was the tedious onion cutting. And trying to not inhale vinegar fumes.

Something's Coming

2010-06-25T20:05:00.005-05:00

I don't know
What it is
But it is
Gonna be great....

(That's from West Side Story for all you non-musical buffs out there.)

There has been a lot of thinking buzzing through me this week. A lot of reading, a lot of researching, and a lot of taking time to feel things as they are.

I think it all started with the TV show Life. Life is a show about a police officer, Charlie Crews, who was in prison for 12 years for a crime he didn't commit. Once it was proven that he indeed did not commit this crime, he got a huge cash settlement but went back to his old detective job. It is one of the best shows on TV in the past 5 years and it was canceled after two seasons.

Sooo not the point. The point is that while he was in prison Charlie got into zen. He listens to zen tapes all the time. He eats tons of fruit (partly because he didn't have any fruit in prison and partly because fruit is a big zen thing- a direct connection to the earth).

And yeah, it's a TV show but that zen stuff really does make sense. The interconnectedness of the world, how what you do to someone else ultimately you do to yourself. It's deep. It makes sense. And I want to learn more.

I found this video on youtube that is an interview with a Buddhist nun. She's amazing. She talks about spiritual journeys and how difficult it is to change, how suffering might be good for people because you when you are waiting for something you are happier than when you get that thing and realize that it doesn't make you happy like you thought it would. My favorite quote: "It takes tremendous, tremendous, amounts of effort to become effortless."

I've been reading a memoir called "Confederates In the Attic" where the author travels all around the South to learn more about the Civil War. He talks to war buffs and historians and tour guides and people in the Daughters/Sons of the Confederacy and black people and white people and so many others to get their take on the war and what it meant. Mostly he wants to know WHY it is still so important to people. I have been surprised at the variety of interpretation there is in what exactly was being fought for. It's a complicated time in history. But is it good for people to live so much in the past? I'm not saying that the reasons for a war should ever be forgotten, but is it really important to hold on to a belief that because your great-great grandfather fought for an ideal that you should still uphold that ideal?

There's an excellent website you have to check out called ted.com. Technology, Entertainment, and Design. It is a conference held once a year (you have to apply to get in and it costs assloads of money to attend- thousands and thousands of dollars, or you can watch the simulcast from another location for the low low price of $3700) which is by and for big thinkers. But the talks are online for free. (Yippee!!!) I bet you can't watch just one. I posted a video a few weeks ago from TED about the fashion industry and copyrights, and I knew I had to check it out more. Well today was the day for that. I have watched Tony Robbins talk about how to, well, live, and Mike Rowe talk about work and why we need to change our attitudes about it (I blogged about that a couple of years ago- I didn't know this was the catalyst), and Temple Grandin talk about different kinds of brains and how they work and how important it is not to marginalize those who think differently because we NEED them. And Adam Savage gave a fascinating talk about his obsession with recreating objects, because he loves objects.

These people are amazing. They are interesting and excellent speakers and I feel inspired watching these talks. I also feel a little boring and I could do so much more with my life if only I knew what it was.

My favorite talk is this one by Elizabeth Gilbert talking about the creative process and how to keep it from destroying you. It is awesome. Watch it.

And I don't know what is going to come of all this thinking and wondering and reading and exploring, but I feel like there is a process happening here. Sort of like a butterfly chrysalis, or a hibernating bear, something is changing. Stay tuned....

When in doubt, don't.

2010-06-19T21:00:00.004-05:00

It occurred to me today just how annoying Benjamin Franklin must have been. I was reading an article that started with one of his quotes. "He that can take rest is greater than he that can take cities." One of my favorite episodes of Bones featured a character who spoke exclusively in Benjamin Franklin quotes, and it was framed as her not having an original thought or thing to say for herself. But reading this quote just made it clear that Ben and I would not get along.

I'm pretty sure that had I been a founding father I would have been in the back of the room with the other upstart founding fathers, snickering at Ben's pompous overblown "deep" statements. And just guffawing at the guy writing them down. And he'd give us a withering look and say something like, "Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain and most fools do." And we'd be like OH BEN, come off it. And he'd say "Haven't you been in my city for MONTHS? Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days."

And we'd just roll our eyes and watch him strut around and Thomas Jefferson would look extremely uncomfortable and George Washington would give us a warning glare. It would be like a staff meeting at work. One of us would giggle and say "Well done is better than well said!" and he'd get really mad because that's HIS QUOTE being used against him!

PS Yes I know this is a really random post but go google his quotes and you'll see what I mean. How did they stay around for so long?

Yowzas

2010-06-17T16:43:00.001-05:00

I have no idea what's gotten into me in the past day or two. I guess I've been out of town and stuff so much (and there was a weekend where I watched countless episodes of "Life" on Hulu- I loooooved that show) that my condo hit the limit of acceptable living conditions (messy, not dirty) in the mind of this particular Heather. Yesterday I sat at my desk and started a list of crap that I needed to do. Like laundry. And dusting. Pesky household and life maintenance stuff.

Then a friend invited me to dinner and I ate a ton of food (seriously I don't know what's gotten into me lately- maybe it's all the fruit I've been eating, but when I get hungry I am HUNGRY), and had a drink, and thought maybe I'd just hold off on the list until the next day, but then when I got home I was like a human tornado.

I did two loads of laundry. I cleaned my bedroom and put things away. I scrubbed both bathrooms, restocked the towels and toilet paper and cotton balls and q-tips. (And in the process I discovered Sno-Bol toilet cleaner and that stuff is the BOMB. I have had rust stains on one of my toilet bowls since I moved in and no amount of scrubbing or soaking with Lysol toilet cleaner would get it off- and Sno-Bol took it off within 5 minutes. It's probably pure hydrochloric acid and terrible for the environment but wow does that shit work.) I scrubbed the kitchen. I threw out a lot of stuff. I got the recycling organized, gathered up library books, portioned out snacks to take to work.... Seriously when I get an energy rush like that I just do everything I can before I give out.

Today I got the emissions test done on my car, renewed my tags, took those books to the library (and got more- I've been on a reading kick lately), made an appointment to get my brakes replaced, put gas in the car, and paid bills- most of that on my lunch break. Tonight I will vacuum and scrub the kitchen floor and dust and clean my makeup brushes and then- THEN- I will feel like all is right with my world again.

Despite all of this running around this has been a freaking great day. I just feel so much better about things when my house and life are in order. Like I can focus on the big stuff because the little things aren't on my mind. There is a certain amount of freedom in organization.

Travel Bug

2010-06-16T20:07:00.002-05:00

I took a really quick trip up to Northampton Massachusetts over the weekend with a mission: help my mom with her yard sale. Part 2 of the mission: drink margaritas at Mama Iguanas.

Missions completed & successful!

My mom and I did a huge yard sale last year, so this one wasn't nearly as big. Once you get into the swing of pricing things (CHEAP) it's easy to just slap stickers on all of it. We got up early on a gray Saturday and dragged everything to the driveway so we could start around 8:00. The rain held off until 11:00 and we were pretty much done anyway- all of the really big stuff was gone and she'd made a decent amount of cash. SUCCESS! The goal was to amass enough money to get 2 margaritas a piece- we definitely hit that.

While I am really happy that my mom is moving on to an entirely new phase of her life very soon- moving south, living with her partner, starting a great new job, and generally being really happy and content, I am going to miss visiting her in Northampton. A LOT. I know she will miss living there. It's such a cool little town- there's lots of funky artsy shops and coffee houses and interesting restaurants. It's also got Smith College so there's definitely an intellectual feel to the place. Mostly though there's such a casual, relaxed, environmentally conscious, open minded vibe that it is just a pleasure to wander around and people watch.

I visited all of my favorite Northampton stores- I got to Cedar Chest and Faces and Pinch and what I always think of as "The Scarf Store" in Thorne's Marketplace but I have no idea what it's actually called! I bought a few things that were really perfect. At Faces I bought a mug that says "This is your world. Shape it or someone else will." At Pinch I found a small wall hanging with a picture of foggy trees that says "On dark dreary afternoons, practice being Jane Austen." Which I just ADORED, so I snatched that up in about 15 seconds. And at the scarf store I found the coolest bag. It's by a line called Travelon, and they do lots of really well designed travel bags. This is just a regular nylon hobo purse that doesn't look too utilitarian. What makes it awesome is that it's thief-resistant. The zippers have clips so they can't be opened easily. There is steel mesh between the shell and lining so the purse can't be slashed (and the strap can't be cut). And the strap has a carribeener at one end so that you can loop it through a chair handle, or as I learned last night at the grocery store, through a cart handle. It's really light and has good proportions and tons of pockets inside for the most OCD organizer. The lining is light blue so I can find stuff easily. And when I got it home I realized it also has a little LED light attached to the inside with a snap. SCORE!

I could not be more pleased with a handbag. I love it when things are engineered SMART. It raises my standards for everything else.

We ate some really fantastic food too. Mom has already sold her kitchen table and chairs and most of her stuff was packed in boxes so she just decided we were going to eat out a lot. On Friday night we had an excellent Italian dinner at Roberto's (it happened to be restaurant week so we tried the set menu). There was a polenta cake with asparagus and pesto as an appetizer, and then an amazing vegetable lasagna, followed by lemon cake for me and chocolate cake for her. And a good amount of red wine.

On Saturday night we ate Mexican food at Mama Iguanas- veggie nachos (with pickled onions- WOW) and I had shrimp tacos which I think were delicious but we were so buzzed on margaritas that they could have been terrible and I would have raved. We shared juicy stories and dark secrets and laughed and laughed and then had to wander around town for a while because we were both too drunk to drive. Those drinks are STRONG. (And so so SO good if you like margaritas- some people don't. Those people are not my friends.)

On Sunday morning we ate brunch at Wiggins Tavern in the Hotel Northampton and it was another amazing meal. There was some kind of quiche thing that I'm still thinking about, their hash browns were perfect, and the desert bar had these little chocolate raspberry cream cheese cake tart deals that I can practically taste.

I know that I will be back in Northampton some day. It won't be quite the same because mom won't be living there anymore, but I bet staying in that hotel would be a great vacation. New England is beautiful and I always forget how different it feels when I'm so wrapped up in stuff down here in Tennessee. The landscape, houses, buildings, and people just look different. And it's also so much cooler. I came home to temperatures in the 90s. Ugh. Southern summers are such a bitch. (As I type this it is 94 degrees outside, and the heat index is around 100. In Northampton it is 78 degrees with zero heat index. New England is looking good.)

The Mancini Marriage Bargain- A Review

2010-06-14T20:59:00.004-05:00

If you don't know what the heck I'm doing, you can read all about it here.....

Oh man. This book sucked so bad it probably would have broken all of the windows out of my house from the pressure if I had left it open for another second. This book is AWFUL. But just for you I am going to give you a run down of the plot, which doesn't deserve any in-depth analysis, and then share a few choice sentences that are just so painfully quintessentially romance-novelish that I couldn't pass them up.

Okay, so this British woman living in Paris named Helene is the most immature 29 year old in the world. Back when she was 17 and impetuous (as opposed to 29 and stupid), her father was going to marry her off to some dude as part of an oil deal. Seriously? Is this 1534? Are daughters still commodities in England? At first I thought maybe this book was supposed to be a historical fiction trashy romance novel, but then our heroine jumped a plane for New York City, so I guess not.

To get out of the unthinkable marital trap she was facing, she instead married her "friend" in college, an Italian exchange student or something. So she was promptly disowned by her parents, and lived for 12 long years waiting for the oil guy to get married so she'd be safe from him and not be forced to marry him because women cannot make their own choices in life ever. Still with me?

Oh, and did I mention that Italian dude and British chic both had the hots for each other but their own obnoxiously strong senses of propriety got in the way of doing the deed? This book would have been so much better (nonexistent) if they'd just gotten it on already 12 years before.

But noooooooooo, he comes to her apartment in the middle of the night so that she can sign divorce papers because low and behold the oil guy is married. And of course after lots of significant looks and rising temperatures they FINALLY have sex thank god is the book over yet?

Nope. Instead she gets pregnant. (With a lot of tedious reasoning about her going off the pill the month before but surely people don't get pregnant as soon as they get off of birth control, right?) (And I don't believe that there is sex so passionate that you forget about birth control, but maybe that's just me.)

And when Mr. Perfect Italian finds out he turns into a controlling asshole who pretty much runs her life because he wants that baby and he takes her to Italy to live with his mother and SHE GOES ALONG WITH IT. Because she thinks that she TIED HIM DOWN FOR 12 YEARS with a stupid marriage. So in her weak mind she OWES HIM A CHILD.

WTF??????????????????????

And after some really bad back and forth totally contrived plot points they fall in love and live happily ever after. The end. My disgust is unwriteable.

Oh man did I hate this book. It's the modern version of fairy tales- really bad fairy tales telling women to be passive and take crap from men because deep down under the hate and scorn they really do "love" them and so it's all wildly romantic. No wonder society is so fucked up about marriage. Not even marriage, just relationships.

The most depressing part is that it's got 5 stars on Amazon. Granted, only 4 people reviewed it, but that still doesn't give me much hope in humanity.

But as promised here are the sentences that made me cackle in cliched delight and horror all at the same time.

"She turned back to Paulo and their eyes collided. His dark scrutiny held such raw pain she could feel its jagged edges reaching out to scrape uncomfortably against her own feelings."
No- that's not sexy. Just vaguely gynecological. And eyes colliding sounds painful.

"Emotion hitched in his words, forcing her to really look at him, and guilt speared her deep inside."
Well they are talking about feelings and a conversation but I think that's a preview of what's about to happen.

"Softly, tenderly, his lips brushed against hers, the supple warmth of his mouth like a salve to her hurt, the rasp of his chin like a gentle file scraping away her pain."
Ewwww. Scraping is not hot. Why does she keep using this word? IS THIS A MANICURE?

And score 6 points for the word SUPPLE.

Okay I can't bring myself to type the sentences that talk about tissues tingling (EW), and "an apparent knowingness that felt so right" (EWWWW), but here's the best one:
"The magic of his predator-like stride, the beauty of his perfect form, the sheer size of that which made him man- there was no dragging her eyes away, just as she know there was no denying the fundamental truth of what he'd said."
Really, the dude could be totally hot or right out of an alien movie... there's no way to be sure.

I can't believe this stuff gets published. On paper. IN BOOKS. THINK OF THE 1000s OF TREES THAT DIED FOR THIS MESS!

And in book number two the main guy's name is... Rafe. Where do they come up with this stuff?

The Books

2010-06-08T18:15:00.001-05:00

I work in a big office building. There are many floors, but my company takes up most of them. We have a cafeteria just for our employees, which should give you an idea of how many people work here.

I spent the morning making loads of copies for a lot of different reasons- meetings, things to pass along to my team, all that officey type stuff. Most of what I had to copy was 30+ pages long, so I spent a lot of time sort of vaguely gazing into space and pretty bored. We have a lot of HR notices on a bulletin board- things like the Employee Assistance Program phone numbers and how to lift heavy boxes and ergonomics at your desk. Snooze.

We also have a box of free books. It's one of those situations where you put in a book or take a book or whatever. I'm not sure that many people pay a lot of attention to it as there is a Dean Koontz book that has been in there for YEARS. I glanced down in there today and saw a series of books. But they were all by different authors so that was weird.

Title #1- The Virgin's Seduction

Do WHAT?

Oh YEAH these are straight up Harlequin romance novels, and I knew I had to get my hands on them. But there was NO WAY I was going to walk down the hall with a stack of books called things like "Bought By Her Husband" so I needed a plan.

My Mission, and yes I totally chose to accept it, was the sneak those trashy books out of the copier room and down to my office. Without anyone knowing, because how embarrassing would that be? "These? Oh. Ahahahha, these are for my, um, my friend. She likes dirty books. Okay gotta go."

Right.

I decided it was time to take my old documents to the shredding bins. I brought a file folder with me and casually dropped it on top of the book box. Then I quickly (while the room was empty) crammed my papers into the bins. I snatched my handful of books out of the box, put them in my recycling bin, dropped the folder on top, and hoofed it to my office.

SUCCESS!

And so, dear reader, I am going to start a new series for my blog. I am afraid that you will feel left out if I keep these 6 books to myself so I am going to review every single one of them. I am hoping, and expecting, that they will have words like "throbbing", "supple", "turgid", "globes","manhood", and "engorged". And they should be used in combination and yes, I will share those phrases with you.

I am just a good friend like that.

Is there a Harlequin Romance Drinking Game? Because if there isn't... there should be!

PS Bought By Her Husband has 2 stars on amazon! This is going to be good stuff! DO NOT MISS IT!

Do As I Say....

2010-06-04T20:50:00.003-05:00

So today I was perusing the blogs I read regularly- and they're over there to the right in a great big list if you're interested in perusing them too- and I was like WOW some people really don't update much.

Ha ha.

Ahem.

I really enjoy writing. My problem is a lack of focus on subject matter. And then I get all like "Ohhhh, should I blog about that? Then my blog will be even MORE random and themeless (as if that were even possible)." So I usually write about it anyway. Not everything I write gets posted- and you would thank me for that if you knew what sort of drivel flows out of these fingers and into a keyboard and onto the screen. Nope, you, dear reader, get the best of the best of what I write. Unless I'm getting worked up over politics. Then I will rant away and post it because dammit everyone NEEDS TO LISTEN.

The other day I was at lunch with some co-workers and the oil spill came up in conversation and somebody kept saying "Well I don't see Obama doing anything about it."

Do what?

Is the president supposed to be some super geological engineer on top of everything else he's suppose to do? That still doesn't make sense to me. I like that President Obama knows how to delegate- he leaves it to the experts. Doesn't mean he's not angry over what has happened, but he's got a lot on his plate, and he doesn't need to get in the way.

Okay, that wasn't even a political RANT, but I'm done.

I think it's funny that I don't have many political blogs in my blogroll, but I do read a lot of political commentary. No, my blogroll is for fun, so I have a lot of fashion blogs, home decorating, food and cooking, crafting, and a couple that are mostly about life. But it is REALLY heavy on the fashion. I love to see what other people are wearing and how, because it makes me adventurous in my own style.

One other thing to share. My friend Dan (an internet friend who I've never actually met but have been talking to online for YEARS) sent me an excellent video about copyright protection and fashion (or, as he calls it just to get under my skin, "clothes-making"). This was really good stuff about my industry, and I learned a lot! I hope you like it!

Today's post is brought to you by the letters "M" and "H"

2010-06-02T17:34:00.004-05:00

I feel like I talk about this a lot, but I think it is important to acknowledge that people are human and sometimes need help. I know a lot of people who are uncomfortable with that statement- I know I have been in the past. Sometimes it is really hard to admit your perceived "shortcomings" and do what you need to do to become a better, healthier person. More specifically, a mentally healthy person.

I'm not sure why there is such a stigma surrounding mental health issues. If a person got cancer it's not like you would expect them to suck it up and get over it. They need help- physical and mental and maybe even spiritual- to make it through the difficult process of treatment and recovery. If you get a sinus infection no one bats an eye when you take antibiotics. When you get the flu you are expected to stay in bed for a few days and feel like total crap and take your medicine. But when you are depressed... then what?

I am amazed that in this day and age when so many people are on mood stabilizers and a host of antidepressants that mental health is still handled with secrecy and shame. Yes, Shame. The general opinion for so long was that people who are depressed are weak. That they are reacting to environmental pressures that a "normal" person would just deal with. Or maybe that depressed (or bipolar, or whatever) people are a time-bomb. They might go crazy and start a shooting rampage in the office because they "snapped".

While there are some people who absolutely need to be hospitalized and medicated, and receive whatever help can be had until they are better, there are probably many many more of us out there who are walking a fine line. Who are clearly not "crazy", but maybe deep down know something is not right. We're normal, fairly well adjusted, balanced people who know that the level of anxiety we live with is NOT normal. We know that living from day to day in a dulled cloud of blah is not really the way to live a happy life. We're certainly not going to hurt someone or ourselves, but there is a problem with coping skills that hasn't been resolved.

And it turns out that it isn't coping skills, and it isn't that we need an attitude adjustment- it's chemistry.

I have been in therapy on and off since I was in college. I first went 11 years ago when I was having problems dealing with day to day school stress and pressure (and generally not caring about anything). And then there was the fact that my boyfriend was 8 hours away and my parents were getting divorced and I hadn't been in a school setting much before that and my roommate was a partier and I was a book worm and the list went on and on. I felt like a complete failure because I couldn't handle everything! And there in a nutshell is my main problem with myself- why can't I handle it? Why can't I handle normal conflicts with my parents? Why can't I handle an interstate move and a job change? Why can't I handle buying a condo and grappling with whether or not I'm doing the right thing? I feel like I should be able to handle everything- I am a smart, independent, successful person who can do anything when I set my mind to it. A little stress shouldn't throw me they way it does.

The big secret: not being able to handle all of that alone is completely normal.

Another secret: my body doesn't handle stress quite normally.

Insomnia and panic attacks have been a part of my life since I was 13 or 14 years old, maybe younger. Anxiety has always been there, along with some really negative internal dialogue. Occasionally I get the blahs where I can't get the motivation to do anything, even the things that usually make me happy, although I'm not really sad. I have bouts with IBS and headaches. I clench my jaw when I sleep. And I internalize everything- so if you know me you might never know that all of that goes on.

And for the past 18 years I have firmly believed that I SHOULD BE ABLE TO HANDLE IT. I should get over it, grow up, get a grip, snap out of it, get my shit together, and be this amazingly controlled person who doesn't feel like the world is about to crash down around her.

I have tried deep breathing and meditation, supplements, diet changes, yoga, music, all kinds of things to stop my mind from racing and get the panicky feelings to stop. I have tried so hard relax and let go (the control freak trying to control how much she can chill out... oh boy). But it just doesn't happen for me, and ultimately that lack of success makes me feel like a failure. The only thing that doesn't make me feel like I'm failing is daily exercise, but the lack of motivation part can make that really difficult.

I found myself sliding into some pretty serious apathy (again) 3 weeks ago. I talked to my therapist and told her that I was feeling fat and unhappy and dissatisfied. I was having trouble focusing at work and I just didn't care about anything. I didn't want to go out with friends, I wasn't eating, I was sleeping even less that usual... something just wasn't right. I was tired of living my life this way, always having to work so hard to feel normal. What was normal anyway?

The crazy part? I didn't even think that I sounded that depressed. Honestly.

So my therapist starting working around the edges of what was going on. There wasn't much happening to me that would be making me feel this low. I was still upset over the loss of my cat, but that wasn't enough to start this spiral of self-loathing. I was getting plenty of sunshine- so it wasn't seasonal. So if what I was feeling wasn't environmental... perhaps it was chemical. Maybe, just maybe, it was time for me to at least consider an antidepressant and see what happened. And I was so tired of feeling bad that I finally decided she was right. Enough was enough. I started Zoloft that night.

(I have to add that I tried Zoloft for about 3 days back in December, but the combination of things I was on made me so tired that I was afraid to drive my car and I quit all of them. However, I figured it was worth another try.)

I started with a half dose (25mg) for a week on a Tuesday. That Friday I was laser-beam focused at work. I knocked all sorts of things off of my to-do list, followed up on projects that had been languishing, and felt like I could actually do my job, and do it well. Just over a week after I started taking it (upped to 50 mg), I started sleeping in a way I haven't since I was a little kid. I would lay down in bed, tell myself it was time to sleep, and fall asleep. That has NEVER happened to me that I can remember. I went to see my friend (another Heather) last week and not only was I not nervous about flying, I wasn't obsessing about what I had packed, or what would happen if I didn't get my suitcase back or what it would be like staying in a different house or sleeping in a different bed. I was oddly calm. Calm in a way that I love- it's like someone turned down the dial on all of the worrying, the anxiety, and the self-talk. Why did I wait so long?

I have to add that this is NOT what I was expecting. (Actually I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting in the first place.) You hear about people being on happy pills and acting like zombies and not being able to cry or feel anything at all- this is not the experience I am having. It is much more subtle than that.

And I haven't had an IBS attack since I started taking Zoloft. Zoloft is an SSRI- Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitor- meaning basically that your 5HTT receptor sites have a little more time to soak in serotonin (Zoloft does the same thing with dopamine too- but that's not related to the IBS). Your intestines have tons of serotonin receptors, and some people think that a cause of IBS is a serotonin imbalance. I am starting to think that they might be right. Or it could just be that I am less anxious in general and therefore not experiencing stress through my gut.

So why am I writing this? There are a couple of reasons. First of all, depression and anxiety shouldn't be shameful topics. They shouldn't be dark secrets because they are normal and people need to share their stories so others don't feel that they are alone out there. Second, blogs like Heather Armstrong's and websites like crazymeds have helped me so much, and I want to make sure that my initial experiences with an SSRI are here for anyone who might be looking for help or reassurance about antidepressants or mental health. Google me. I'm here.

Today's Ethical/Moral Dilemma/Struggle

2010-05-17T22:24:00.003-05:00

Today I am having a problem with monetary donations and how they are allocated. (God I'm already falling asleep just writing that! I'm going to try not to make this too boring. Promise.) By now most people around the country know that Nashville had some major flooding a couple of weeks ago (and if you don't, well, turn on the news once in a while). The images are still shocking, and I live here- so I should be used to it. Just driving to the grocery store today I saw a whole row of houses with piles of ruined housing components by the curb, and huge storage pods in the front yards. Everyone needs help with basics like food, clothing, water, and shelter. But they also need other important support like good old fashioned physical labor, and tools.

There is so much disagreement over the best way to donate money to flood victims. Nashville is generally not a flood prone area so pretty much no one has flood insurance that will cover the damage. And we're talking big damage- floors, drywall, insulation, duct work, heat and A/C units, kitchen cabinets, plumbing, furniture... there's a lot of stuff that has to be ripped out and replaced or at the very least inspected for damage.

Some people say that giving directly to big organizations like the Red Cross isn't the best thing because the money won't go to Tennessee flood victims- instead it will go to the next major disaster. Well I can't agree with that because I asked specifically when I called them whether or not the money would stay/come back to the area, and I was assured that it would. Then there are smaller operations for collecting money, and what's going on in my office is a great example of that. Several of my coworkers were impacted by flooding in a big way, and so my HR department is taking donations (cash and gift cards) for them. Well that's awesome but how in the world will they decide who gets what? I mean if there's a single person renting an apartment vs. a single mother with 5 kids who lost her whole house... who deserves what? How do you break that down?

And then there's part of me (and I know I could get some serious hate for this) that knows that Nashvillians are generally pretty lucky. We live in The United States of America- when you compare the US to many other parts of the world, undeveloped nations in particular, well, we're already very well taken care of whether we think we are or not. We're a rich nation. We live in a city that is very proud of its heritage and there have already been 2 televised fundraisers to raise money for flood victims. Huge corporations just kept handing over huge checks last night at the Music City Keep On Playin' telethon. Now I am not saying that there weren't some very poor people who were impacted by the flooding here, but I keep comparing the damage to, say, Haiti. Now that is some destruction that won't be fixed for a very very long time. There are people in Haiti who are still in tents. There's a huge oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico- that could turn into a massive natural disaster beyond anything anyone can anticipate. What is the priority? Is it the local problem because my friends and neighbors have been impacted, or is it where the most suffering and damage is?

So is my money really better off going to flood victims? Or to international organizations that will do more for the very poorest people in the world who are REALLY in trouble? Or to cleanup and environmental issues in the Gulf? Do I give to the local food bank or do I give to the Red Cross? (I've done both, I couldn't make up my mind.) Do I give to the fund at work or do I give to established organizations that know how to allocate funds in the most effective way possible? (That answer should be obvious.) Do I volunteer at the community center or do I grab some gloves and wheelbarrow and actually HELP? There are so many options, but I am only one person with limited resources. It is easy to feel like anything I do isn't enough. Then I struggle with the fact that we've already got so much here in Middle Tennessee- I'm not sure if my money is doing the most it can if it stays here. I want to help in my own community (the basic human instinct to take care of your own has been strongly demonstrated in our neck of the woods lately), but I also feel like I am a member of the global community too.

How do you choose? How do you know what's best? And who needs the most help? And who decides that? There are a lot of questions going through my head tonight, and there aren't any easy answers.

It's Raining Cats and Dogs

2010-05-09T20:01:00.006-05:00

I have to start this post by saying that I am really REALLY lucky, and I know it. My house didn't wash away, my car is fine, I'm ALIVE, and the damage to my place was so minimal that I felt absolutely ridiculous emailing my homeowners association to check the roof after I noticed a couple of water spots on my ceiling. I have a ceiling to have water spots on- hundreds of people have absolutely nothing after all of the flooding in the area.

I have a healthy respect for the weather. I used to be really scared of storms and just freaked out every time it got cloudy (seriously, ask my parents). I'm nothing like that anymore- but I have my favorite severe weather coverage people (Hello WSMV Channel 4!) and I have a weather radio and I keep an eye on what's in the forecast. Last weekend was supposed to be sort of medium bad weather- we didn't have any of the dire warnings we got the weekend BEFORE that. Some storms, some rain, nothing too terribly serious but keep an eye on things and everybody should be fine.

So it was pouring rain but I still went to my book club meeting, and drank a margarita and had a quesadilla. And it kept raining really hard and didn't let up, but nobody was really concerned or anything. I went over to a bar with friends and that's when we got a clue that maybe things were not right. First of all, we were running into a bar to the sound of tornado sirens- that's never a fun feeling, but for a while it felt like a hurricane party. Then when we were sitting in front of the TV they cut the derby coverage and flashed up the TDOT cameras on Interstate 24 which was a LAKE. A lake with cars floating in it. (And for just a second- can you imagine driving down the road in a thunderstorm and suddenly you're up to your windshield in water???) Then the real drama started. Green Hills was flooded. I-24 was closed. We watched roads on TV that looked like rivers- and we couldn't figure out exactly where we were looking at. Some tree-lined street in Nashville somewhere? Wait, is that the Kroger on Harding Pike? WHAT IS GOING ON?

I made it home fine and basically watched TV all that day and the next. First I was watching the countless tornado warnings and dangerous storms coming on the radar (I became quite religious a few times on Sunday), and then pictures of the flooding. The creek behind my apartment turned into a river- pictures don't do it justice, but here's a picture anyway. There was major flooding up the road from my condo and probably some flooding in my condo complex itself, but my tiny patch of the world was ok. Looking at the images on TV still feels so surreal. I donated money to the local Red Cross and the local food bank, and I volunteered at a Disaster Relief Center this weekend. I wish that I could do more. I want to help but I work full time and we're still going about business as usual. So there's not much else I can do at the moment. If I knew anyone who lost their house and needed a place to stay I would absolutely let them live with me until things got figured out, but I don't.

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself. I've only been downtown once since last weekend- and Bicentennial Park was a LAKE. I love that park- I've walked through it countless times, reading the history timeline and the counties and the map of the state and playing with the huge globe fountain. And ALL of it was under water. It's hard to comprehend. The Opryland Hotel and Opry Mills are just a few minutes from where I work and they got so flooded that no one knows when they'll be open again. The water stinks because of all the diesel and sewage, and the mold and mildew are crazy.

And so while there was all of this crazy drama going on in Nashville, there was a lot of personal stuff happening too. See, last Friday I adopted a cat from the local shelter. First of all, I have to say that I am not really a cat person, but I know that there are cats out there that I have liked in the past. And I met this little cat, and she's a sweetheart. She's curious and adorable and likes to follow you around and play, but she didn't have any of that attitude that cats typically have. She's a dog-cat.

But 6 hours I after I brought her home I was wheezing and coughing. My family had cats the whole time I was growing up and I never had a problem with allergies- it never even crossed my mind until I woke up unable to breathe. (I also never had a problem with seasonal allergies until 4 or 5 years ago, so why not add cat allergies to the mix as well?) If it was a situation where I just could take some Zyrtec and be ok, I would have just dealt with it. But Zyrtec wasn't touching this- this was like asthma. I started to get a clue on Saturday that this was not going to work out. On Sunday I was wheezing even more. And on Tuesday I had to give my cat to a friend.

(I am really lucky that I have a friend who wanted a cat, because I would rather have had asthma attacks than take her back to the shelter. Her former owner was allergic to her too- I don't think the shelter would have kept her alive for long with that track record. Anyway this friend is a cat person, and the cat loves her, and they are getting along great. She texted me this morning that the cat woke her up today by licking her forehead- how cute is that???)

I have to say that I never expected to have such major emotions come up when I realized she couldn't stay. I was a MESS. A crying heartbroken mess. I would be ok for a while and then get sad again and start crying again and it just kept happening over and over. I got so attached to that little cat in four days (and honestly I am getting teary just writing about it). The night she left I drank a lot and watched ENDLESS episodes of Sex & the City and cried and cried and took the next day off because I clearly needed a mental health day. But after talking to several people (including my therapist in what turned out to be a very well-timed appointment) I have realized that this has almost nothing to do with the cat herself. No, this has to do with loneliness and wanting to care for something that depends on me and filling a void in my life that is not ready to be filled with a husband or a family (it's not even the same thing). I want a companion that needs me, and we'll be a team. Something that will greet me when I come home and miss me while I'm gone. So, while I got a cat knowing that a cat is lower maintenance than a dog, a cat is just not going to work out with this particular owner.

I've been researching dogs this weekend. Dog breeds, dog training, dogs up for adoption on petfinder.com. I've gotten books from the library and read lots of websites and have spent a ton of time immersing myself in the subject. But part of me is so scared that I'll be allergic to the dog I choose. I know that whatever hole was opened when I had to let the cat go could not handle having the same thing happen with a dog. If that happens I'll need to be medicated.

So my allergist appointment is in a week and a half. I have to get to the bottom of the physical issues before I can move on to the emotional ones. Right now this is a really sad story but soon there will be a happy outcome when I bring a wonderful little dog into my life. And you know the blog will hear all about it.

Exploring Foods....

2010-04-27T18:00:00.002-05:00

I became a vegetarian last week. This has been coming for a while now, but not for the reasons I ever would have thought. I don't mean to sound completely callous, but the idea of eating meat because of animals hasn't ever bothered me as much as it should (oh look, I'm probably a psychopath- and I just had to look up the difference between psychopath and sociopath and it turns out there isn't one! now you've learned something today!). The thing that was really bugging me about poultry and red meat was the texture. And the flavor. It just doesn't appeal to me anymore so I haven't been eating it. Meanwhile I've had to find other protein sources to substitute, and that part has been sort of fun.

There's a woman at work who keeps chickens and sells eggs for an amazing price (not even $1.50 for a dozen), so I've been eating more eggs. I've also been eating more beans and veggies in general. I've had fun experimenting with flavors and so far I haven't missed meat at all. Now I might have to cave when it comes to bacon, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. My friend (another Heather) and I were giggling at the snootiness of "Ovo-lacto-pescatarian" because that is one OBNOXIOUS title. So I guess I'll just say I'm not eating meat or poultry. Not that anyone has noticed- it's not something I feel should be a big deal because I'm not doing it to make a point or support big lofty planet-saving ideas. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, but I'd feel like I'd have to take a political stance about my eating habits. And I just like to eat.

In honor of my week of going veggie, here's a really terrific fish recipe I've made twice now. I think it probably started with a recipe in my boyfriend Mark Bittman's book "Kitchen Express", but I've tweaked it a bit.

You will need:
A couple of pieces of white fish- I used cod
Oranges
Lemons
Ginger
Garlic
Soy Sauce

Start your fish cooking in a hot pan with olive oil- until it's brown on both sides. While it's cooking, zest your orange and lemon (not a ton of zest- maybe 1/2 teaspoon or so?) and then juice them (you'll need about 1/2 to 2/3 of a cup of juice). Add to the juice a good grating of fresh ginger (I keep mine frozen so it keeps forever and that makes the grating easier), and a clove or so of roughly chopped garlic. Shake in a good amount of soy sauce- maybe 2 tablespoons? (You can tell this is soooooo exact, right?) Then dump that over the fish, put a lid on your pan, and cook it for 5 or 6 minutes until the fish is done. When I make it this way in a small frying pan the juice reduces to a sauce and it is AMAZING.

It's going to be interesting to see how long I hold out on the vegetarian thing. So far it's been a breeze- it's probably much easier to do when you don't like meat in the first place. Like those people who loftily say, "Oh, I don't like sweets." And I look at them like they have 3 heads because WHO REALLY FEELS THAT WAY? I'm becoming the enemy.

The Day After Yesterday

2010-04-25T12:04:00.014-05:00

This day is so beautiful. I got up early and the sun was shining, the birds singing, and the sky blue. It's breezy and not too hot.

I had a lot to do. I got it all done before 11:00 because my middle name is determination. Well, no, it's not, but there was a lot to get done and I wanted to knock it out before the rain comes back.

I know I haven't blogged in a while, but really I've been such a domestic homebody lately that there's not a lot to say. For example, this morning I cleaned out my big outdoor trashcan! GROSS! And then, I mulched the little flower bed next to my deck:
If you want to make a flowerbed look really good, mulch it. I am amazed at the difference. Right now this little bed has hostas and some little purple plants I got at Lowe's last week that are just starting to grow a little more. They'll catch up!

Then I potted some herbs I got at the store yesterday. They will probably die, but it's a bad habit I can't break. Maybe they'll get a better amount of sunlight in this place than other plants did in my last two apartments....

Mint, basil, and oregano.

Here's the fuschia plant I've managed to keep alive for a WHOLE WEEK!
It's sooooo pretty! It's covered with buds- the thing is just going to explode in flowers really soon.
I pulled my deck furniture out of storage where it's been sitting since Friday night, and got it all back to where it needs to be. Really the deck is starting to feel like another living room. It gets morning sun but it's shady in the afternoon.
It is so pretty out there and I always see ducks and little birds (cardinals, blue jays, robins, and that's the extent of my bird knowledge!) and squirrels and butterflies. It's so peaceful.
Oh, just spotted this little guy today:

I love how this picture makes him look GODZILLA big. He's tiny.

There's a little stream behind these trees. It's so little you can't see it much- the duck picture shows it better.

HOWEVER, yesterday, here's what the stream looked like:

The weather people had been talking up this storm system for DAYS, with comforting wording like this:
...MODERATE RISK OF SEVERE WEATHER FOR ALL OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE ON SATURDAY...
A MODERATE RISK MEANS THAT THERE IS A 45 PERCENT CHANCE OF A SEVERE
WEATHER EVENT (DAMAGING WINDS...LARGE HAIL OR TORNADOES) OCCURRING WITHIN 25 MILES OF ANY GIVEN LOCATION IN MIDDLE TENNESSEE.

Which they didn't think sounded scary enough so on Saturday morning they changed it to this:
...HIGH RISK OF SEVERE WEATHER FOR ALL OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE ON SATURDAY...
A HIGH RISK MEANS THAT THERE IS A 30 PERCENT CHANCE OF A TORNADO OCCURRING WITHIN 25 MILES OF ANY GIVEN LOCATION IN MIDDLE TENNESSEE.

And did it ever storm! Lucky for Nashville nothing really bad happened around here, but it was still a day of ominous looking skies and canceled plans. I kept running errands and going home to check the weather. Grocery store- home- Target- home- Lowes- home. Once I got home the last time I didn't go out again as it was getting too dangerous. Then I got really nervous about what was going on, so I organized my pantry, vacuumed, spot cleaned some spots on the carpet, cleaned a bathroom, and did some filing. And watched a good chunk of weather coverage because those were some incredible storms.

And now, like most days after a tornado day, it is beautiful. So I'm going out to enjoy it. Happy weekend!!!

Paaaaaaaaaaaint Takes Daaaaaays

2010-04-10T08:39:00.015-05:00

I started painting my dining room/ kitchen combo last Friday and finished yesterday (Friday). It was a LOT of work, but the results were completely worth it. First let's check out the "befores", shall we?
All of these were taken early in the morning when the light is the brightest. The color was blood red and glossy, which typically I would really like in a formal living room or library or other area that wants to feel cozy and warm. But this room faces NNE and doesn't get a whole lot of light, so it just feels small and dark all the time. Also, the walls aren't in the best shape so the reflection off of each shiny little imperfection was making me CRAZY. (If you click on the picture with the stove you can sort of see what I'm talking about from where somebody ripped off the back splash but just painted over the glue or whatever was holding it on. I sanded but there was no way that stuff was coming off without a lot of work. I see a back splash project in my future!)
So I gathered up my various painting tools. I learned through the process to just trust what the people at Lowe's tell me. For instance, this primer:
ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. I only needed 2 coats of this to cover that red. I know that to the uninitiated that might sound like a lot of work, but I have heard horror stories about people having to paint over red 5 or 6 times, and the color still bled through some. This was like painting the walls with white Elmer's glue.
Here's the first coat going on.... In the middle of the night. (Have I ever mentioned that I tend to get a little obsessed with projects like this and I forget to eat or sleep or do anything normal until I'm done?)
And here's the first coat of primer, which you can tell is pretty uneven and needs some more work. But after the second coat it just looked like I had white walls and that makes for a pretty boring picture. Use your imagination. (Also, note the ugly almond colored fridge that has been slowly getting just a little too warm and then a little too cold.)

After another trip to Lowe's I got their Valspar Signature Colors Matte Finish paint in the Benjamin Moore Classic Color Tea Light. The paint was highly recommended by Consumer Reports. I only needed one coat, and the consistency was something like pudding. It covered well but didn't drip at all. I think it is so cool that I could just bring in my paint chip and they pulled up the Benjamin Moore colors on their computer system and mixed it right up. While I was there I picked up some Shur-Line Roller Covers which are AMAZING. I used a couple of crappy rollers for the primer but these babies made painting really really easy. They cover so evenly.

Soooo, the finished result looks like this!
And like this!
Yeah, everything is still out of place from painting, but you're supposed to just focus on the walls.... This picture is truest to color.

And like this! Is that a new refrigerator I see? Why yes, yes it is. I really needed a new one and therefore some tax return money went to the fridge cause. It is so clean and pretty, and the inside is HUGE compared to the old one which was at least 25 years old. It should also be a lot more energy efficient.

So what do you think? This Tea Light shade really changes with the light from a sort of mint green to grey to aqua to light blue depending on the time of day. It was totally worth all of the hard work because this room is so much lighter and brighter now. Once I get the dining room set up as an actual dining room (instead of an office/box repository) I will put up more pictures. Oddly enough the fabric panels I had hanging in the bedroom in my old apartment (they're sitting on the table in the very first picture up there) perfectly match this paint color. So I already have stuff to put on my pretty walls!

Who Do You Think You Are?

2010-04-03T09:45:00.005-05:00

I started watching this show on Hulu (one of my favorite websites) a couple of weeks ago, and at first I thought it was fascinating. My favorite episode so far has been where Lisa Kudrow finds out that the relatives she thought were dead survived the Holocaust and are living in Poland and she got to meet them. (Best scene ever is when she realizes this guy is still living and she's babbling about how to find him- census records or tax records there has to be some way to find him! And the researcher hands her the phone book. So funny.) It made it clear that World War II was not that long ago. Even though most of us have grandparents who lived through it, I tend to forget that it was the same generation that was being exterminated by the Nazis. It feels like ancient history instead of something very recent.

The show really likes to hammer home how cruel humans can be to each other. Besides the Nazis, there's also the Salem witch trials and slave ownership in not-so-early American history. It makes for very dramatic stories.

A few things really get on my nerves about the show. #1 is the really random and in fact unrelated associations the actors make between their ancestors and their own lives. When he found out that his great great great however many times grandfather Robert fought in the Civil War, Matthew Broderick felt compelled to share that the character he played in "Glory" was also named Robert. When Brooke Shields found out that she is descended from French nobility, she said that maybe she knew she had a connection to France because she studied French literature. Okay, these are not good things to put on the air because they sound dumb.

The second thing that really bothered me was in the show about Emmitt Smith. Like most African-Americans he's got some European blood in him, and I for one wasn't that surprised that it went back to a white slave owner in Virginia. The fact that they could even trace it is absolutely stunning. (It looks like humans in general really like to keep documentation about the atrocities they commit- again I'm thinking of the Nazis but also the incredible amount of paperwork kept about who owned what slaves for tax and census purposes.) Anyway, yes we can all agree that the slave owner who impregnates his slave women is probably not the nicest guy, although I guess in this case the fact that he sent the family away but kept them together was pretty humane when you consider the time. But that doesn't mean your family tree comes to a screeching halt. A wealthy slave and land holder in Virginia has to have some more roots to trace back further. But they stopped there, and I'm not sure what the reason was. Maybe the show would have run too long. Maybe nobody wants to know where this bad (?) person came from anyway. But it looked like, "Okay Emmitt, we have traced all of your black roots back as far as we can, this white guy really doesn't have anything to do with you." But actually, he does- like it or not they are still related.

I guess another thing that irritates me about the show is that if you trace anyone's family tree back far enough you're probably going to run into someone or some period in time that is famous. Nobility, witches, holocaust victims, war heroes, I'm sure 90% of the American population has stories like this because we're a melting pot. Your grandmother on one side may be a poor immigrant from Romania (and she probably has her own fascinating history), but on the other side your family might have come over on the Mayflower. It's all so mixed up it's hard to know.

The last thing I'm going to bitch about (because really there is a lot that lets me down about this show) is the research involved. It gives you the impression that you can just go to ancestry.com (which might as well be the name of the show because it gets a spot in every episode and is a major sponsor) and type in a name an POOF your family tree appears. This is not true in the least. And the show needs good stories to be entertaining enough for people to watch it. So, is there a team of genealogists and historians whose sole job is to trace the family trees of famous people until they run into a good story? Then are said famous people contacted to see if they'll do a show? I'd love to know what the process is.

All of these things drive me nuts, but I do have to point out that I'm still watching. We'll see how long I hold out.

Derring-do at the Dermatologist

2010-03-30T17:53:00.004-05:00

Such Excitement! I went to the dermatologist today because I hadn't been in... 4 years? And I am white. Really really white. I tried out some Makeup Forever HD Foundation at Sephora the other day and my color is 110. As in the 2nd lightest shade they carry. (Also, as in $40 for FOUNDATION? Are you kidding me? What's in that stuff? Unicorn horns?) My legs go blue-ish when I'm cold and self tanner turns orangey/yellow on me no matter what brand. Since I am so staggeringly white (I could say something a little more flattering, like fair. I am fair.) I get odd little freckles and moles and things that need to get checked for cancer by a professional skin-checker. I was pretty worked up over some stuff last night as I was making my mental checklist of things to point out. Like the little freckle that has magically appeared in the center of my palm, not even as big as the head of a very tiny metal pin. "Eh, keep an eye on it. If it gets to be the size of a pencil eraser, let me know." Oooookay if that happens I will ABSOLUTELY let you know. Who has eraser-sized freckles on their palms and doesn't notice? How about this one on my foot? Same thing. And these 3 moles that you took off years ago that have come back? Not a problem? Awesome.

Getting moles checked is not a fun experience. I mean, it's completely painless physically but really your doctor is going to see pretty much every inch of your skin at some point. Every dermatologist starts off discretely- hands, arms, face, neck, under your hair, your back, and then gets to more sensitive areas. The best analogy I can come up with is that it's probably what it's like to sleep with George Clooney, with none of the sexiness. I imagine he'd be like "Hey, wouldn't you be more comfortable if you took your jacket off?" And 10 minutes later your bra and undies are off and you have no idea how it happened because you really don't know when it happened- he's just that good. What I'm trying to say is that it's about comfort levels. You go from sitting with your ankles crossed in a paper gown to pretty much stark naked in 5 minutes but by the time you're done you don't care because this is just a day in the life of your doctor. (Or George Clooney. This might be the worst analogy I've ever come up with, but it made sense when I started I SWEAR.)

So anyway, all of those little skin things I was worried about were NOTHING to be alarmed at, but she did slice off some sort of multi-colored suspicious looking bugger in the middle of my back. She is a great doctor- she told me what she was doing as she did it but babbled on and on about her life and everything trying to make me as distracted as possible and not think about the razor blade in my back. Which totally worked because yeah it stung a bit but wasn't unbearable. She also doesn't do things like scrutinize my face with a worried (yet unwrinkled) brow and suggest that perhaps it's time to consider derma-fillers or accutane or fancy medical grade sunscreen. She just takes care of what I'm there for and sends me on my way. This is why we go to professionals! They calm my fears about what I can see and take care of what I can't. If I don't notice any changes to my fair self, I don't have to go back for 2 years. Lovely.

CHANEL

2010-03-26T23:20:00.017-05:00

I think I have established elsewhere in this blog that perfume and fragrance in general tend to get me in trouble. I LOVE perfume. I would venture to say that I love perfume more than I love makeup. There's no way to convince a total stranger who hasn't witnessed the train case of makeup currently sitting outside my bathroom door, but that is really saying something.

Recently I've been watching Katie Puckrik's perfume collection videos on YouTube (her blog is in my blogroll-check it out). She has so much perfume that the collection video is split up into 6 parts. It is soooo interesting to see what she has and what she loves and why.

So I got to messing around on ThePurfumedCourt.com, which does decants of about a zillion different fragrances. That means that they have big huge bottles of perfume and decant those huge bottles into smaller bottles so that you can try things out or just buy a smaller amount of perfume than a full bottle would hold. This is excellent for a person like me because I am basically a perfume whore. I have learned that I should only get roller-ball perfumes AT THE MOST and I'm not allowed to buy a full sized bottle of something until I use up that little bottle completely. I flit around from scent to scent and the only perfume I've ever actually used up is from Victoria's Secret. Dream Angels- Heavenly. It used to smell really amazing on me but lately it's been sorta... bland.

Lately I have really been curious about Chanel fragrances because they are timeless and people who wear them RAVE about them. So far the only ones I've really worn are Coco Mademoiselle and Chance, both of which are poo-pooed as being too modern and too young and too gourmand and just for the uninformed masses. (And both of which I like anyway, although I've said before the Mademoiselle has a tendency to wear me instead of the other way around). So I decided to branch out.

Using makeupalley.com and basenotes.net, I found 6 Chanel fragrances that are classic and timeless. The Perfumed Court does samples sets where you pick a number of fragrances and the size you want them to come in, and then they ship them to you. I had mine in about 4 days. Here's what I got.

They all came in a fancy little mesh bag!

Chanel No. 5 EDP
This stuff is the classic Chanel perfume, and every time I've smelled the bottle in the store I have immediately recoiled in horror. It seems way too loud and there's something rather "grandma" about it. But when I put it on, it's nice and complex and a little spicy. And then it dries down to jasmine soap and smells sort of generic. And then it disappears completely- No. 5 does not have great staying power on me. This was created by Ernest Beaux in 1921. The '20s seem to be the time period for classic Chanel that has been around forever.

Chanel No. 22
Soooooo similar to No 5 it's a little scary. This was made in 1922, also by Ernest Beaux, who definitely has a signature fragrance. No. 5 and No. 22 both have Jasmine and Aldehydes and Ylang-Ylang, but 22 has more Rose to it where 5 has a little more Sandalwood. On me they dry down to VERY similar scents, but No. 22 seems to last a bit longer on my skin.

Cuir de Russie
Another Ernest Beaux creation, this one from 1924. I ADORE this stuff, which just figures because it's only sold at Chanel boutiques (the lady has expensive taste)- good thing for me that I can get this online! The literal translation of this is "Russian Leather" and it's supposed to smell leathery and a little animalistic but on me it's delicious spices and I pretty much want to eat my own wrist. This is sexy, but not overwhelming at all. I can tell it is in the same family as No 5 and No 22 but this is more complex and not as floral- it's got mandarin, bergamot, balsams, incense, cade wood, and the jasmine and rose and ylang-ylang are in the lower range of things. I think that men could probably wear this too. It's not that girly.

Coromandel
This is another of those stupid exclusive perfumes you can only get in boutiques. I thought I'd really like this because it's got all of the stuff I love- amber, patchouli, woods, vanilla and some chocolate. And it does smell really good, but it doesn't seem nearly as complex to me as Cuir de Russie or No. 5. This one was created in 2007 but I'm sure it was inspired by the older Beaux perfumes.

Bois des Iles
This one I also thought I'd really love but instead it's left me a little cold. The notes sound like a modern perfume- jasmine (of course, this is a Beaux perfume so where there's jasmine there's gotta be ylang-ylang), damask rose, bitter almond, gingerbread, vanilla, tonka bean, sandalwood, and vetiver. Considering how most of these notes sound like they'd be in the latest celebrity fragrance, I was surprised to find out this was created in 1926 by good old Beaux. This will probably be better in summer weather when it is warmer so I think I'll try it again then.

No. 19
Okay, this was my least favorite of the bunch but that doesn't mean I didn't like it. I just wasn't wowed by it. The first time I tried it, it disappeared. The second time I was overwhelmed by the jasmine and hyacinth- this is a really floral perfume. I think it's another one to try when the weather warms up. It wasn't disagreeable, just not quite right for me. This was created in 1971 and seems to have every single note but the kitchen sink in it. And still fades fast.

Overall I was really impressed by how balanced all of these perfumes were. None of them has a note that really stands out more than another, and none of them gave me a headache or anything like that. And I'm also impressed by how close they stay to the body. These are not fragrances that a person can smell before they see you. (I'm only using one little spray, I'm not taking a bath in the stuff.) These are all fragrances that say, "Heelloooo handsome, you should lean in a little closer because I smell enchanting. Let's snuggle. Go make me a drink." When I smell other perfumes now they seem to bash me over the head with their single notes or the lack of balance. (I'm looking at you Flower Bomb and Stella.) I feel like Chanel has given me an entire perfume education in six little sample bottles and now I can't go back.

The Major Project

2010-03-24T22:51:00.017-05:00

Actually this project wasn't THAT major, I was just on a major time crunch to get it finished. I made a destroyed cowl, which I found via Already Pretty, pattern HERE. It's just a continuous circular scarf with no beginning or end. I love how this turned out. This one is a birthday present for a friend (ANOTHER Heather- if you can believe it) but I am making one in blue for myself.

For her cowl I used Plymouth 100% Baby Alpaca Grande yarn (I think it is shade 679- dark green with lots of other colors subtly mixed in) which is amazing to work with. It is soooo soft and feels wonderful on the skin (I'm fairly wool sensitive, but alpaca doesn't bother me a bit). The pattern knits up super fast (I used size 10.5 needles). It's just stockinette stitch, exactly like a scarf. Until you get the end. Then you drop a couple of stitches on each side and MAGIC HAPPENS. This is a good project for me, the incureable perfectionist, to have to make something perfect and then intentionally wreck it. Stockinette stitch sometimes gets on my nerves because of the curling in at the edges, but I blocked it wet with straight pins and it doesn't curl at all now.

Anyway, this can be worn long like a regular scarf that just loops at the bottom.

Or looped around the neck a couple of times.

Or looped around the neck once and then over the head for a very dramatic glamorous look that you have to wear as you lay dying on the tundra in Siberia- Hollywood Style, or perhaps whilst hiking over the moors- Hollywood Style, or maybe getting proposed to as a Parisian peasant- Hollywood Style..

Whoa, check the nose. Dude. THAT is a Situation.

Anyway, it is going to be too warm soon to really be useful until fall, but I know she wanted a scarf like this. Maybe her office building will be the A/C'ed meat locker mine always is in the summer and she can wear it to keep warm at work. (Hollywood Style!)

I can't believe how easy it is to learn new knitting techniques using YouTube videos. I was having trouble remembering how to join ends with the kitchener stitch, but this video made it really easy to follow along as I was finishing the scarf. (And I kept repeating to myself, "Front as if to purl, back as if to purl, let it go, back as if to knit, front as if to knit, let it go, front as if to purl, back as if to purl, let it go...." over and over and over and over so that helped too.)

Social Media @ Work!

2010-03-23T17:15:00.003-05:00

I would love to just lift photo #22 from this series and put it on my blog, but I have a feeling that borrowing an official White House photo is a little different from finding and posting random pictures of Jonathan Rhys Meyers....

Anyway, please have a look. This is the true definition of a working document. This is how it all happens.

I love the different series of photos they post in slide shows on whitehouse.gov because they are so well lit- I want to know what photoshop techniques they use to get everything look so... warm. Beautiful. One day I will get a really good camera and try out some amazing photography of my own.... I follow @PressSec and @WhiteHouse on Twitter because you just never know what interesting stuff is going to get posted.

This whole administration feels so accessible compared to those in the past. I think it is cool that whitehouse.gov is updated daily, that the Press Secretary and the White House are on Twitter all the time, and that the president has a Blackberry. But I also struggle with the fact that everything is so transparent. I've always felt like the president needs to be a little removed from things so that he garners the respect he deserves and so that he has the time (or the perception of having time) to get his work done. The presidency doesn't feel like a priority if everybody's tweeting and facebooking and blogging their lives away.

But this is also how things work here in the 21st century, and to not keep up would just be archaic. Social media is how we get our information. Last week I tweeted this article about social media and retail apparel, which was kind of long but really fascinating.

To sum it all up- The Wet Seal (teenybopper clothing store for those of you who don't have teenage daughters or haven't been to a mall in the past 20 years) has figured out how to use social media to help shoppers (thereby creating more sales). And I'm not just talking fanpages and sales updates on Facebook- that part is easy. Starting in 2008 they went bigger. Consumers can post reviews of outfits and put together virtual outfits via the store's website. The company itself has also put together outfits online. When a shopper enters a store and selects a garment, she can scan the tag's barcode into a kiosk. That kiosk will kick back consumer- and retailer- generated outfits that use that particular garment, using inventory control systems to only show what is actually in stock in that particular location. Teenagers don't do as much online shopping as adults because they (hopefully) don't have credit cards yet, and the kiosk is in place because while teenagers have cellphone plans, internet plans are not as common (YET). But I can see higher end stores geared toward adult consumers doing this using SmartPhone applications instead and skipping the kiosk altogether.

Why am I talking about this? Because I work in the business world, and here's the sentence that caught my eye:

The ROI from the kiosks has been huge, says Jon Kubo [Wet Seal's CIO]. "I was in a store just last week and a woman was buying a top for $20. I brought her over to the kiosk, we scanned the price ticket and brought up five outfits that contained that top. She went from a $20 purchase to a $105 purchase in just a few minutes," he says.

Mark my words, this is the future of shopping. I see this starting in the middle teirs of fashion brands and then working itself up to higher-end retail such as Nordstrom, and down to lower end big-box retailers- Walmart and Target will be all over this technology. Walmart already has some of the best inventory tracking and logistics in the world- tapping into their systems to see what is in a store should be a piece of cake for them. the technology exists, it just has to be put to good use.

Rainy Sunday- Workouts, The Tudors, catching up

2010-03-21T15:30:00.004-05:00

Hey World!!!!

How are all my little ducklings today? It's a rainy day here in the Greater Nashville Metro Area, and spring is coming.
That insane green grass is not the work of photoshop- it's just spring green. I was trying to get a picture of the stream that turns into a roaring river behind my house when it rains a lot, but the effect is not so dramatic on film. I think you'd need to hear the rushing water. Also, the grass was wet and it is raining and I'm barefoot and let's face it, really too lazy to put on shoes and walk over there and start snapping pictures and getting my camera wet. So you get to look at neon green grass instead. Lucky you!

This morning I got up and starting knocking the annoying chores off of my list that have been bugging me for weeks. I went to Costco and got my tires balanced and rotated (rainy Sunday mornings are a perfect time to do that- everyone else is in church or sleeping in). They had my favorite chips back in stock- HURRAY! Then I went over to Walmart to return a bunch of crap that did not do anything close to what it should have done. After that I went to Goodwill and finally dropped off some clothes I've been meaning to donate since the great closet clear-out of... December? Yikes. But I've pulled some stuff out of the donation bags since then and now I'm confident that I don't want what was left in there. I have to be careful of those over-zealous clothing purges I go through, so I usually keep whatever I'm giving away in my car for a month or two just to be sure I won't need it. It's a good system.

I came home and started laundry. And I will spend the rest of the day knitting. To reward myself for all of this hard work I got a giant Caramel Macchiato at Starbucks (and because that will sound ridiculous given what I'm about to write about, I'd like to point out that it was sugar free and skim milk instead of whole).

I did my 3rd workout from The New Rules of Lifting for Women, which has been a really interesting common sense take on fitness and weightlifting. I have learned so much from this book- it really packs a lot of information into a very readable format- I will probably buy it (I have a library copy right now). I don't know why women are so afraid to lift weights. The premise of this book is that women should basically lift like men- increase weights often and work yourself really hard. I can't tell you how much I hear people say crazy-stupid stuff like, "I just use 5 lb weights because I don't want to bulk up." Or, "She's going to have to be careful weight lifting because all of her fat is going to turn into muscle." Or, "I'm trying to lose the fat on my abs." It's like women in particular have a complete mental block about how exercise works. This book also harps on people who are not professional body builders who work out really specific muscles of the body when it has no bearing in reality. When in the world are you ever going to lean over and lock your arm against your side and then swing your forearm from the elbow as you would for a triceps kickback? Never.... But will you need to reach up high and pull stuff down from a shelf using your triceps, lats, pectoral muscles, and even your abs? Of course you will. So basically this book wants you lifting more and doing workouts that use huge groups of muscles (push-ups, squats, lunges, step-ups, pull-ups) because #1 it is how people really move and #2 it takes a heck of a lot less time. I still hate lunges though. I probably always will.

Because I am brave and intrigued, I have also requested Jillian Micheal's 30 Day Shred from Netflix. If I like it (okay, I won't like it, but if I feel it is a good workout), I saw that they have her workout videos at Costco for $7.99 each. I just want to try it first and see if it's something that isn't ridiculously hard on the knees. I hear section 3 has a lot of jumping and I'm soooo not doing that. I have learned that I need a lot of variety in my workouts or I get bored really quickly and won't do the work. I also really like strength training a lot more than cardio, so if I can trick myself into cardio that's a good thing.

I just finished season 3 of The Tudors, and I still love that show. Yes, Henry the VIII is gross (but in real life he was soooooo much grosser than Jonathan Rhys Meyers is even capable of). Yes, he's going to wind up marrying Katherine Howard who, in reality, was at least 10 years younger than his own daughter Princess Mary. Can't wait to see her get beheaded- she's annoying. For a while I thought that the series would end once Henry got settled down with the last boring wife of his (let's face it, Anne Boleyn was the really interesting one), but they've brought Princess Mary into the last few episodes of season 3 so much that I wonder if they plan to continue it right through her and Elizabeth (hence the title "The Tudors" instead of "Henry VIII", gosh I am so smart). Hurray for many more seasons of gorgeous sets and costumes and music! Hurray for horny dukes and lusty ladies-in-waiting! I've started re-reading "The Six Wives of Henry the VIII" because I get so fascinated with that particular time period.

Anyway, time for me to go knit. And put clothes away. And watch the rain. I think we're all caught up.

Pitiful

2010-03-10T20:00:00.005-06:00

'Tis the beginning of March. And do you know what the means for me (and what I forget every dang year) since I moved to Nashville?

Allergies!

Exciting!

When I was a kid I NEVER had allergies. The one thing I heard all the time growing up in North Alabama was "Oh, people move to the Tennessee Valley and they're fine. But they DEVELOP allergies later." Oh whatever, thought my 10 year old self, I don't have allergies. I didn't even know what allergies were. And I was totally fine until I left the Tennessee Valley for college and then moved to Nashville when I was 26 and it all started. And it seems to get worse every year, just like those gleeful harbingers of gloom and doom and allergy hell predicted.

I always think at the beginning of March that I can't possibly have allergies because it's too early and there's not even anything blooming or whatever. Heck, it was snowing just two weeks ago, how can any plants want to wake up so soon?

Zyrtec.com tells me that Alder, Cedars, Juniper and Maples are cranking pollen into the air, so it must not be too early. I also checked my handy dandy blog and yessirree I do this every year. Last year it was a few days earlier, but the exact same symptoms: sore throat, nasty sick feelings in the morning thanks to drainage, and really festive stuff coming out of my sinuses. This year I also have sinus pressure, which I originally thought was a headache due to stress at work but no. No no no. Heather don't be so silly. It's sinus pressure from my nose behind my eyes and into my temples. Allergies make me really spacey and dumb like my head has been stuffed full of cotton candy, and very tired. I've already started Zyrtec and I'll start the Mucinex tonight because EVERY YEAR this turns into a sinus infection and I really would like to prevent that mess.

And, of course, I will be neti potting my life away. So maybe this isn't a really exciting post to read, but March 2011 you can bet that I'm going to be really excited I wrote it because I can have yet another moment of going "OOooooohhhh, I did this LAST YEAR TOO!"

Smart Ideas

2010-03-10T18:01:00.005-06:00

I was bumming around the grocery store today... no wait. I never ever bum around the grocery store ever. I hate grocery shopping. I try to go in with an attitude of "Okay Heather! Let's play that game where you see how many new, interesting, exciting products you can find that are both cheap and healthy!" Which of course fails miserably and all I wind up getting is what's on my list and maybe Oprah magazine as a big treat if the cover doesn't feel too self righteously happy.

Aaahahahannyyyway, I was in the store looking for a few non-specific items. And I was in the tea/coffee aisle and saw the most ingenious contraption ever:
It's a coffee filter holder y'all. And it has solved a problem that is really tiny on the grand scheme of things (compared to, say, Haiti) but has really been grating on my nerves (appliance storage). I rarely drink coffee, and it is even more rare (rarer?) that I make a cup at home. Every time I make it I have to look up how much coffee per cup and each time I am AMAZED at how much coffee I'm using- that's how much I don't brew coffee. But sometimes I want a cup anyway. And sometimes I have overnight guests who are crazed zombies if they don't get some caffeine first thing in the AM. I have this little tiny 4 cup coffee maker, and it's just a pain the ass. Where does the cord go? Cleaning the pot and the filter holder part really irritates me because they're both weird shapes and don't fit into a dish drainer with any sort of ease. That bugs me. I would prefer if all of my appliances were cubes, then I could stack them up in my cupboard and not have to store them on top of my dryer in the laundry closet the way I do now.

Sooooo, ANYWAY, I was at the store and glanced to my right and saw these little guys. And I was like that is such a great idea. Instead of making one pot of coffee just for myself I can make a cup at a time. It was $3 at Kroger. I bought one.

And even though it's 6:00 at night and it was probably a really dumb idea, I just made myself a little test cup of coffee. I heated up some water in the microwave for two and half minutes. While that was going I threw 2.5 tablespoons of coffee into one of the included filters, set the filter into the plastic filter holder thingy, and put that on top of a mug. In 2.5 minutes I poured the steaming hot water over the ground coffee very very slowly, in batches. Then I added cream and sugar.

Y'all. This cup of coffee is excellent. Granted, I used Green Mountain coffee which is great to begin with, and we all know that coffee is a very personal thing. I like my coffee really strong but I don't like it to be too burnt or acidic tasting. For winging it on measurements and stuff, I am really impressed. Now I just have to stop drinking it so that I sleep tonight!

SPEAKING of smart ideas, I'm sure you've seen the new design for the NYC condom wrappers. This was such a great idea I was totally blown away. I can think of at least 4 different ways the international power switch button is the perfect symbol to put on a condom. BRILLIANT!

Kick It Up A Notch (Clothing, part 2!)

2010-03-02T19:04:00.004-06:00

So you didn't really think I was going to go to JC Penney, did you? Ugh. Every time I think about that store I have day terrors of cheaply sewn stuff that never fits quite right. I have had luck at that store exactly twice in the past 10 years. They have a 3/4 sleeve button down shirt that I love, as long as it's made in the right fabric (I have one solid colored one and a few stripes- the solid one shrank like crazy). And they sell good tights. But really, lots of places sell good tights, so I don't take special trips to Penney's for them.

Instead of Penney's I went to Dillards in Nashville. Dillards is hit or miss by location- I have been to some that are dismal. But the one I went to on Wednesday has a great plus size department. I tried on literally every single pair of pants I could find and finally had some luck! Now so far I have tried on pants in: Lane Bryant (weird fits, weird hemlines, occasionally the chemical smell from hell that I know from past experience does not come out so I don't even try on clothes that smell like that) (incidentally, holding pants up to your nose and sniffing them in a store gets you some really weird looks- go figure), Avenue (CHEEAAAAP pants with way too much stretch in them, and the chemical smell), Talbots (just doesn't fit correctly), Macy's (really not too many brands at Macy's here), CJ Banks (ok, but also pretty cheap). I have spent hours in fitting rooms, so you can probably understand why I was getting so upset about this.

Dillards. Wow. They have some really good clothes in there. The funny thing about being plus sized is that you are used to a very limited selection of clothing. Sometimes I look at the misses section of a department store and wonder how people shop with so many options sitting right in front of them, and as far as the eye can see. But the plus size department at Green Hills is relatively large and there is a good range of brands from relatively inexpensive stuff to higher end lines. I tried on everything.

Here's what I wound up with.

Jones New York Signature trouser jeans

They FIT RIGHT. And they are LONG ENOUGH. (I know I keep harping on this but I am 5'8" which is not gigantically tall. And let's talk about this picture for a second- the jeans on this model are TOO SHORT. Seriously. Hire me Jones New York, I will help you with your photo shoots. On top of that, these jeans are not that high-waisted on me. As a matter of fact, this picture is terrible!) Lately most trouser jeans I've tried on (they usually have a wider leg) have way too much extra material in the back of the thigh that gets on my nerves. On sale for $47

Lauren by Ralph Lauren black pants

These are going to be work horse pants. They were expensive but the fit is great and the fabric is really soft but not too thin and also has some stretch in it. They are straight leg and make my legs look really long. I could probably wear these every single day and no one would ever notice that I am wearing the same pants, they are that basic. $98, but the cost per wear will be very good. You can see them here. (Yes, I look just as pretty as that model in these pants. But only when I wear them.)

Elisabeth by Liz Claiborne slim fit jeans

These are as close to skinny jeans as I will EVER get. I thought they were normal jeans (I had a pair that I loved back when I was about 18 years old) until I tried them on and then read the tag (SLIM FIT SLIM THIGH LOW RISE really didn't call out to me until I was like "Why are my jeans hugging my calves?") but somehow they are really flattering. They look best with heels or a ballet flat and longer tops (another danger zone- a lot of tunics make me look 8 months pregnant, it will be worth a search to find the right ones). These will be fun to experiment with and wear on weekends. (There is no way I'd wear them to work.) On sale for $37. I find it interesting that if jeans only come to the ankle it's okay as long as they are cut really narrow. Instead of cutting the body off horizontally they keep a long line down the leg. I have a feeling that the Elisabeth brand is on the way out, there was only one sale rack of stuff and most of it was ugly. And if I do a google search I get all kinds of secondary distributors instead of brick and mortar stores. Shame.

I really thought that skinny jeans were just a horrible trend that would go away relatively quickly. But I should have known better- instead of going away the overall silhouette has changed completely. Back in the late 1990s/early 2000s, the silhouette was loooooow rise jeans, which went away some and gave way to wide leg pants and slim shirts. Now we've moved on to skinny jeans with more voluminous tops. Like all trends, this can be modified for any body as long as you pay attention to proportion and fit. There's no way my big ol' legs are going in a pair of true skin-tight skinny jeans, but a slim cut to the ankle with heels is something I can pull off with the right tops.

So it boils down to brands now. Jones New York and Lauren Ralph Lauren are not cheap. But they fit right. I spent the same amount of money on three pairs of jeans that shrunk up to my ankles as I did on some denim trousers. But in the long run I think the cost per wear will be similar, if not better, because of the quality factor. I give myself this speech all the time- particularly when it comes to shoes. Some shoes you need to buy good brands, especially heels. Especially HIGH heels. Some shoes I buy cheap because I beat them up fast- especially ballet flats. Especially METALLIC ballet flats. I spent $50 on some silver ballet flats and the paint was coming off of the toe in 3 wears. I could have gone to target for an almost identical pair for $20 and wouldn't have been upset when the paint came off because that's the quality I expect.

So this post has clearly gone on long enough, but next clothing adventure topic will be skirts and yes, I'm going to include pictures. Of myself. In skirts. If I'm feeling brave....

He's Just Not That Into Me

2010-02-28T09:20:00.013-06:00

My best relationship lessons have come from these girls....

I know, I know, I KNOW how dumb this post is going to sound, even as I sit here typing the first paragraph. I think I like to work myself up into an emotional turmoil occasionally just to keep the brain limber or something. Make sure I'm human. Make sure I'm good at self-involvement.

You know that book "He's Just Not That Into You"? I haven't read it. I haven't made it through the terrible movie of the same title yet either. I did watch the episode of Sex & The City where it originated, and it made perfect sense to me. I don't know that it deserved an entire self-help book because the idea is fairly straight forward, but somebody sure did make a lot of money on it. I enjoyed "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man" which I gather has a lot of the exact same stuff in it. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

(Just a sidebar here, I was reading reviews of He's Just Not That Into You on amazon.com, and ran across this gem of a statement: "...so to me this book's most valuable contribution to my dating life has been to teach me that I've been assigning meaning to the wrong actions. Flirting with you at parties and sex do not mean he's into you...." In other words, NOT just kickin' it. Or hanging out. Or whatever your favorite phrase is.)

Soooooo, a while back I was sitting in my living room trying to sew and watch the Olympics at the same time, looking through library books for design ideas, and drinking tea- a typical night in Heatherland a couple of weeks ago as I was pulling myself out of that perpetual bad mood from the beginning of the month. Anyway, I was in the middle of this texting conversation with the mystery man who has now been mentioned in my blog TWICE due to his rampant inattention and... well that's enough of that because that's the whole point. It came to me in a flash, there may have been a clap of thunder:

He's just not that into me.

Boy was that freeing. I snapped that phone closed and haven't had a thing to do with him since. I mean, like I said in this post I no longer feel that I've done something wrong or that this is my fault. He's just not feeling me. And that is not my problem.

WOW! The ability to let go of a situation like that is powerful. It might even have a little something to do with my crankiness going away.

There are much more important things to think about right now. Like quilt binding. Painting my walls. Johnny Weir and his tassel. How I could possibly have 1039 spam messages in my Junk Mailbox. Gilles Marini is on Brothers & Sisters tonight. Why I waited so long to get my hair cut.

You know, the big stuff.

Follow-up: I actually wrote this post a while ago, and of course ended up getting a text from the guy over a week after I'd last heard from him. I couldn't resist, "Why are you texting me out of the blue?" "Out of the blue? I thought we were cool?"

Oh dude, you are seriously just not that into me.

Rambling About Clothes

2010-02-23T17:17:00.005-06:00

It is so weird- I wrote a post about the concept of "He's just not that into you" (I'll probably get it up here at some point) and how it was so freeing for me last week. Then I wrote a post about how beautiful the weather was over the weekend and how happy it made me. Then I kept thinking about a couple of friends who have had some major stuff going on in their lives and suddenly talking about the weather and my love life just did not seem that important or even relevant. So I decided to stop for a few days until I could come up with something less trite.

And what am I in the mood to write about? Clothing.

Way to go Heather, you are really bringing the deep thoughtful stuff to the blog.

So let's talk about fashion for a few minutes.

I have a hard time using the label "fashion designer" in terms of my own career path, but that is what I majored in back when I was in college. There were endless projects and classes on patterns and draping and late nights of hard work on some over-ambitious designs that I was determined to get an A on. School was a very stressful time for me. I watch Project Runway and I get what those contestants are going through. Fashion is way harder than anyone ever gives it credit for in the real world- the world outside of Bryant Park and Vogue. But I really do love it. I love the colors and proportion and the way fabric acts and how you put together the puzzle of seams and stitches to get what you want. I would never survive Project Runway because I tend to get so hung up on details and I'm not good at snap decisions. (Also, I am not that creative, but we'll get to that.)

Last night I was reading Vogue (the one with Tina Fey on the cover- you go girl!), and the interview with Tina was interesting because she is very aware of what clothing she can get away with. You wouldn't think it to look at her necessarily because she has cultivated a persona of the nerdy writer/ SNL goofball news reporter, but she knows exactly what looks good on her and she seems really comfortable with her body. She's got the basics down- deep V necks are a particular favorite, but then she's also half Greek and she really identifies with that culture. ( All I can think of is the cousin in My Big Fat Greek Wedding busting out with that hideous bridesmaid's dress-I gasp in mock-horror every time I see that part.) Tina knows she looks better in slightly more revealing clothing. And she can always be the sexy librarian/ nerd girl if she wants to be.

Well I don't have any bloodlines half as exciting as Tina's- there is no flashy ethnic background to fall back on. I did a little fashion quiz on covet.com and I fall pretty much smack dab in the middle of "classic" with a mere hint of "contemporary". BOOOOORING. I do tend to wear jeans and sweaters and cardigans and simple shoes and tasteful outfits and blah it is so dull. On top of that I am a substantial woman (Does that make me sound plus size? That is the goal. I don't want to sound a like a linebacker.) and it is really hard to find anything interesting once you get up to a size 20. On the other hand, I look absolutely terrible in anything frilly or lacy or ruffly or little floral prints or really anything that screams GIRL! I would love to dress like a (streamlined) pin up girl or incorporate darker elements into my daily style, but it is hard to do.

Also, I'm not sure I would be totally comfortable doing it. It takes guts to dress a little different every day, although eventually no one notices because it becomes your style. When I first got my glasses I felt slightly self-conscious when I wore them because they ARE deep pink, but now I don't even remember what they look like when I'm wearing them. Maybe breaking out of a fashion rut is the same way- I'll feel weird at first but then it will all seem normal.

I have been having the worst time finding pants that fit me these days. I lost some weight and now the brands that used to work are no longer acceptable. I don't have a particularly difficult body to fit, but I am really picky about how my clothes look. Right now any jeans I have found that look good everywhere are too short. Jeans are a wardrobe staple for me so this is aggravating and the situation is getting a little desperate. My favorite jeans are just some cheap ones I picked up at walmart- but they're about an inch too short. I can wear them with ballet flats or my very flat snow boots and that's about it.

So I think in a few weeks when the weather really warms up I'm going to have to transition into skirts. I hesitate to wear them for several reasons.

#1 I have big legs.

#2 I have very white legs, and every single self tanner on this planet turns them yellow.

#3 Knee length skirts look best on me, and I'd feel bad blinding everyone who sees me with that expanse of white lower leg. It's like the Arctic tundra.

#4 Skirts and flat shoes do not work on me at all- the proportion is all wrong. I have to wear heels or wedges and let the whining begin with getting used to heels again.

#5 My shirts are all cut to wear with pants. Skirts require a slightly shorter shirt length or, once again, the proportion is screwy.

So I think I'm going to hit JC Penney in one last desperate attempt to find pants that fit. After I have a good cry I will emerge in a week or two in some fabulous skirt ensembles. Let's face it, the skirts and dresses (my other option that I am too self-conscious to wear) will definitely look better on me than my typical pants and t-shirts. I just have to be willing to let my fashion sense go there.

Also, for lots of fashion inspiration and DIY goodness, you should definitely go to outsapop.com and browse through the pictures. That blogger has a very well developed sense of style and I love almost everything she puts up there or links to. Yes, I tend to be drawn to goth fashion with lots of detail and hardware. The more the merrier. I ripped pictures of the new Gucci dress with built in metal harness details out of Vogue TWICE last night- I just love detail.

Motivation

2010-02-16T12:37:00.006-06:00

I've been working on this quilt very sporadically for two years. It started when I went to see my mom in February of 2008 in Northampton, and I pull it out and make blocks when I don't feel like reading or writing or watching TV or whatever else I do that fills my time. Although this week I've been trying to sew these little squares and watch the Olympics at the same time, which is not recommended. I will surely lose a finger if I try to keep that up.Here are some of the blocks laid out on my living room floor. This is my favorite way to arrange log cabin quilts, but I want to make this about 10 x 11 blocks (I have 75 completed, and I'm working on 15 more right now) for a queen size bed and that would mean I'd need another row of squares to make the center, uh, centered. So I'm thinking maybe I'll do diagonal lines instead. The tedious part is almost over but now the hard decisions begin.... Borders? Binding? Backing fabric? Hand tie? What color thread? Machine quilt? On a queen sized log cabin quilt? SERIOUSLY?

I have a lot of sewing ahead of me but I'd really like to finish this up this year!

SIGNS

2010-02-15T18:34:00.003-06:00

My sister just sent this to me, and for a second I hesitated to watch it because I thought maybe it was something about the M. Night Shyamalan movie and I really REALLY get freaked out by anything to do with aliens. Ugh. Shudder. Horror. But instead, well, you'll just have to watch it. It's probably really viral and you've already seen it, but if you haven't WATCH.

LOVE.

I AM NOT ALONE!

2010-02-12T18:10:00.003-06:00

I heard this on NPR tonight on the way home from the gym, and now I know someone understands what I'm going through lately. Thank God I don't live with other people!

This is is great, give it a listen.

Recent Keyword Analysis

2010-02-11T19:58:00.003-06:00

I keep track of traffic on my blog, at least officially. Honestly I almost never look at it, but I do get a kick out of the "Recent Keyword Analysis" that statcounter.com does for me. It basically breaks down what searches bring people to Yet Another Heather.

Here, for your (and my) entertainment, are a few choice searches that have landed people here.

can you break a mattress set at dillards- well I'm sure you can, but I bet they get pretty upset. And I don't want to know what you were getting up to testing that sucker out.

Jesus del pozo in black tacky bottle- this actually came up a few times. I thought this was a really sexy perfume, but apparently someone was unimpressed. The bottle is not everything in perfumery people!

when took a peppermint oil capsule it made me feel i was going to pop why!- I don't know...? Ew!

Goddess Heather and yvette finger locking- WHAT?! I. Do not. Want. To know.

why does baking powder quit working before expiration date- because you have a really stinky fridge? Because it got wet? HOW DID THIS PERSON GET HERE?

do you feel this crazy awkward in the air? its so scary and yet soothing at the same note- Yes, yes I do. Very scared.

Blush & Bashful

2010-02-10T18:24:00.012-06:00

I know, in my heart of hearts, that spring is just around the corner. My sister is suffering from cabin fever in DC because the snow there is up to her hips. I get giddy with excitement when Nashville has a snow flurry. But regardless of where you are in the US, with the exception of Hawaii or southern California (you know who you are and I don't want to hear that 70 degrees and sunny crap), it's too cold to do anything that involves open windows.

Which means it is too cold to paint right now. But I can't wait! My hideous dining room and kitchen are really grating on my nerves and I can't wait to get rid of the 1990s dark red. I truly hate it.

So I'm going to post some paint swatches on here and you can shake your head at my taste level (okay, that's totally a Project Runway reference, and I swear the last time she said it on episode 4 of season 6 Heidi Klum was cracking herself up, it's such a cliche now), or you can comment on what you think is the best color.

Computer monitor settings very a lot, and these looked truer to color at work than they do at home, so I'll try to explain the colors a bit. (These are all Benjamin Moore colors....)

My Dining Room now:UGH! Do you see that little corner of red up there? Can you tell even from this little picture how terrible a paint job this was? I'm going to have to repaint my trim too, I can just feel it.But here's the full-on RED. This is from before I moved in when I was in cleaning mode, so just ignore the stuff on the counter. The dining room and kitchen are on the north side of the condo, which means they don't get a lot of light. It is really dark in here folks, and red does not do the light any favors. It just sucks it all up.

Sooooo... here's what I'm thinking. My mom and her partner's new house has a room painted in this:

Aganthus Green

I got a paint chip of that, but liked what was right above it better:

Tea Light

But now I've been going on some decorating blogs and I really like this too:

Gray Mist

If you look at those right next to each other they're all a green/gray with a tiny bit of blue to them. Gray Mist is a little grayer than Tea Light (that swatch is not true to color AT ALL). I think it might make stuff too dark. My sister took one look at these and said they should both be called "SNOWED IN" but she's just snow blind right now so we really can't trust anything she says.

I think whatever I go with in the kitchen and dining room will go in the upstairs bathroom as well. The flat beige/tan/blah paint in there is soaking up all of the steam from the shower and it looks really ghetto.

On to the tiny downstairs bathroom! I have this London Underground poster in there:

And so I want to paint it PURPLE. I'm thinking one of these:

Mulberry Wine

Amethyst Sky

Sleepy Hollow

All of these are a red-purple with some gray mixed it, and every time I look at them I think I need eyeshadow in these colors.

(okay, I have this one called Warm Black from Avon that's pretty much
these paint colors- at least I know it'll be flattering, right...?)

I have always liked little bathrooms painted in bold colors, and one of these will definitely make a statement.

Any opinions? Does anyone want to come to Nashville and help me prime and paint away the red? It's going to be a project.

Normally....

2010-02-07T09:18:00.004-06:00

Normally, Grey's Anatomy SUCKS. Normally it is a soap opera set in a hospital with enough manipulative emotional/crazy cases every week to keep me watching. And I have seen every single episode of the damn show, although I'm not going to add up how many minutes and hours of my life that turns out to be.

But Thursday's episode had a fantastic scene where Christina tries to explain to her new boyfriend what happened in her relationship with Burke. And I felt like the universe was telling me something, because somebody laid out exactly how I have felt in serious relationships. It goes beyond compromising, which is normal, to something darker and scarier. I wonder if the stronger the woman the bigger the desire jump into something, to not look before you leap, and to change. Change because you know that being independent is looked at as a "problem" for women, and because you know that you're going to have to work a little harder to be a little nicer than you are in situations that don't involve the heart. (I can't decide if it would be better or worse if this had nothing to do with strength and independence and is just how relationships work. If that's the case, I'm in trouble.)

Here it is.

The Mean Purples

2010-02-04T16:37:00.003-06:00

I'm sitting here at work eating Reese's Pieces and I'm not even hungry and I don't really even feel like eating them but hello it's February. And February makes me stabby. I've already explained this term to friends on Facebook (although now that I think about it, I never did explain it because February also makes me forgetful), but I'll go ahead and cover it here too. Stabby is that feeling when you are irritated with the world but mostly you're irritated with yourself and you might want to stab out your own eyeballs. I've been sitting here all week (which is technically all month too- ha ha awesome) trying to figure out why I've been making some not-so-fantastic decisions and experiencing major inertia and getting really annoyed with myself. It's not like I'm wallowing exactly, I'm just pissy.

That's right everybody, it's my annual (oh I wish it were that rare) whiny mid-winter blog post. So let's run through it, shall we?

Work is seriously sucking this week (month) with too much going on because heaven forbid stuff comes to me all in one neat line but instead piles up until suddenly I'm buried. That makes me stabby. I feel like I could have handled things differently in the past month to prevent that, but if I tell my control-freak side to shut up I have to admit I couldn't have done too much.

I got to go to the dentist AND the lady-doctor on Monday. Good times! (I don't know why I said lady-doctor instead of gynecologist. He's not a lady! He just looks at lady-parts!) (Vaginas, Heather, let's be grownups here.)

A certain jackass who shall remain nameless stood me up this week (in an incident unrelated to my previous post by the way- HELLO anyone should have seen that coming!) and I haven't heard from him again even though by all rules of etiquette and the basics of relating to other human beings I should have. Things were just starting to get interesting. OH HELL YES that makes me stabby too.

It's raining. In the south. In February. And I'm PMSing and I finished my Reece's Pieces and they were oddly unsatisfying. I think I want an entire loaf of bread. I will eat it with butter and it will be delicious.

Probably if I went to the gym I would feel a lot better and I wouldn't be so hungry (working out kills my appetite). Then me and my noodle arms could get back to the important stuff: parking it on the couch and watching lots of Ally McBeal and Lost. Because when I am frustrated and irritated I watch a lot of TV.

Ohhhh yes, I am charming! Who wouldn't want to hang out with me these days? Suck it up girl, you have 24 days to go. If I'm gonna be cranky, I might as well keep my sense of humor so I don't have a freak accident involving my right eye and a ball point pen.

My Life, Myyyyy Little Life

2010-01-23T11:56:00.003-06:00

I find it fascinating that if I go back through my journals 10 or even 15 years, NOTHING has really changed. You'd think there would be some personal growth and life lessons learned and all that BS, but there hasn't been a jot of that since 1994.

Real live actual quote from my diary circa 1995. I was 16 years old.

"Yesterday so-and-so talked to me. But today he didn't even look at me! I thought he liked me. What is wrong with me??? I suck and my life sucks. Waaaahhhhh!"

Real live quote (if I still kept a diary) from yesterday:

"If this person doesn't text me back really soon I'm going to be so totally pissed. Jackass."

The tone now is a bit bitter and jaded (vs whiny and depressed), but I am happy that I'm not blaming myself for someone's lack of attention anymore. Ugh. This stuff never makes any sense, and hormones never grow up.

That, my friends, sums up the past week.

Merry Festive Holiday Season!

2009-12-29T20:13:00.010-06:00

So, I know it is only Tuesday but my workweek is officially over... YAY! It's a good thing too because work has been a deadzone. A tomb. There is NOTHING happening there, so I left at noon. I figured that my employees sure weren't going to leave as long as I was there and I didn't want them feeling like they had to stick around during the slowest week of the year. It was all for them. Really.

I headed over to Opry Mills, which was P-A-C-K-E-D PACKED. I think that maybe people have had a little too much family vacation time and they needed to get out of the house. Wow. I just went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to use part of a gift certificate and bought 2 Yankee Candles in Mistletoe at 50% off. I LOVE this candle. It got a lot of burn time at my mom's house last weekend and smells like fir trees and campfires. MMmmmmmmm.

Then I went home, ate too much for lunch, went grocery shopping, and took a nap. My sleep schedule got all screwed up over the holidays. On top of that my doctor tried to put me on some medication a week ago and all it did was make me want to sleep like the dead for 2 days straight. I was so tired I wasn't even comfortable driving. So I got off of that pronto, and back into the swing of things. I think I'm still a little messed up on sleep though.

Christmas was wonderful. I got to see my family, and it was really nice to spend time with everyone. I got kitchen appliances that I am all sorts of excited about- a slow cooker that could feed 50 (I can see some big cook & freeze events in my future) and a George Foreman grill that is one of those things I always wanted to try but would never buy for myself. I got nifty knitting needles that I'd been lusting after (they are SQUARE, and if you knit that probably sounds weird but they're genius). (And in case you didn't figure it out, you can find them at yarnmarket.com.) And I got the complete series of Ally McBeal, something I'd wished would come out on DVD FOREVER, and it is finally here. YAY! I also received some super handy house stuff like picture hangers and fasteners, which I was starting to run out of, and a little organizer box to put different fasteners and whatnot in because that is exactly the sort of thing that feeds my OCD nature. (Last week I dumped all of my screws and stuff in a jar and that jar has been mocking me from the closet. I can't imagine why the doctor was maybe thinking I should be on meds....)

My friend Heather (YET ANOTHER ONE) gave me a great biography about Louisa May Alcott and I have not been able to put it down. Never mind that I was in the middle of Edgar Sawtelle, I'm all about those wackaloon Alcotts right now. They were some SERIOUS nutjobs.

On saturday my dad and sister and I went to DSW and I purchased these Acorn slippers on super sale. I have never been wild about slippers, but I have to tell you that I LOVE these and I keep catching myself forgetting to change shoes just as I am about to leave the house. I know that at some point I will wear them to work by accident and be forced to attempt to pass them off as clogs. (And if that works... oh wow, a whole new world of wearing-slippers-to-work will open up for me and that my friends is a slippery slope. Next I'll try to wear my bathrobe to the office and pretend it's a sweater coat.)
Aaaaanyway, these are super snazzy fleece fabric with microfleece on the inside that does fancy things like wick away moisture, and there's some memory foam in there and the bottom is non-slip so I can wear them when I get the mail or take the trash out or walk to the breakroom....

Back to the week! On Sunday my mom and her partner came to see my new place! I am so glad she finally got to see what I've been ~~whining~~ talking about for the past month. We hung out here for a while, and then we all went to Maggiano's for a dinner that could have fed 8, but that's sort of the point isn't it? The leftovers might explain my post-lunch food coma today. It was really good for me to be away for a few days because coming back here it really felt more like "home" instead of "the new condo" and I had a feeling of relaxation instead of "oh my god there can't still be things that I need to clean/do/fix/break". And have I mentioned that the night before my sister flew in I replaced the toilet flushing lever thingy all by myself? The chain kept coming undone and I took a good look at it and realized that it was about to disintegrate into a thousand rusty pieces. So I zipped over to Lowe's, bought a new one for something like $8, and it took all of 2 minutes to replace.

Yeah, that's right, I'm putting pictures of toilet parts on my blog now....

The rest of my week involves seeing old friends, going to parties, ringing in the new year with half of Nashville, going to concerts, and basically having a really good time. I hope everyone else had a lovely Christmas too. Have a Happy (and safe) New Year!!!

How to Clean Your Floors (and a mascara review)

2009-12-20T10:37:00.014-06:00

Hey Y'all!

Merry Christmas! I'm pretty sure this will be my last blog post for a while, so I'm going to make it a double-feature extravaganza.

As I may have mentioned (HA!) in a past post or two, this house was pretty dirty when I moved in. Almost everything has been cleaned thoroughly, but the dining room floor has been an especially tedious process. It's all little parquet wood tiles and the room is about 10x11 and I have touched almost every single tile (I'm not quite done yet) so to say that I've been at this for weeks is not an exaggeration. For some reason the floor has a grayish dirt layer on top of it that will NOT come off with just a mop because life is not that simple. So here's what I've been doing to my floor.

First, I made a Christmas Music station on Pandora based on "Santa Baby". I love this song. I also love "Baby It's Cold Outside", but I decided this year that I abhor "Silver Bells". No matter who you are you sound drunk when you sing it, and it's annoying. Anyway, I've cranked up the tunes.

Murphy Oil Soap was definitely useful, at least for the low traffic parts of the floor. I got a bucket of hot water, put in about 3 times as much soap as called for, and scrubbed the floor with a Scotch Brite pad until the crap came up. This was great, until it stopped working.

The next best thing to do was take a small towel, get it wet with very hot water, and lay it on the floor to loosen up the dirt.Then I took my very sturdy angled putty knife and started scraping the stuff off the floor. Here's an action shot!
Look at those big honkin' veins in my hand. Gross! Now you take all of that crap you scraped up and sweep it into a dustpan.
This is the best picture I've got of how this works. Do you seen the floor up by the broom? The sort of green part? That's the dirt I'm talking about. When you scrape it off you can see how pretty the floor is! Totally worth it!
A little mascara never hurts anybody when you're doing backbreaking boring work like this. I got this L'oreal Double Extend Beauty Tubes mascara at CVS the other day - buy one get one 1/2 off, so I picked up the color juice lipgloss too. Both are fantastic. The mascara is cool because you can take it off with just warm water and it comes off in freaky little tubes that look like little pieces of used pencil eraser. It also looks like I have really long fake eyelashes and doesn't smudge or flake. I love this stuff. I also appreciate anything that comes off easily these days....

Back to work!
Here's how it's going. Towards the right side of the picture you can see the darker wood- that's what hasn't been cleaned yet. But the left side of the picture is clean. I'm almost done!

Once I'm finished I'll vacuum the floor to make sure I've got all of the dust up, and then mop it to make sure I've REALLY got all of the dust up, and after that I will use:
3 or 4 coats of this floor finish. I used this in my kitchen after I easy-offed that gross floor and the finish is still going strong almost a month later. You can use it on finished wood floors too and I think it will do a good job protecting my floor.
Another shot of clean vs. dirty. It is really hard to get the difference to come out in pictures. But it is very clear in real life what needs work and what is ready for some Quick Shine.

So there you have it, my life for the past few weeks. I hadn't done any strength training at the gym in weeks (until yesterday) because this is a really good total body workout. I'm pretty sure I'll get the floor done today and then I can focus on something else. Like painting. Because that red color is driving me NUTS!

Merry Christmas everybody!

PS. This is George. George is the world's tiniest spider who has been living in my bathroom since I moved in. I have no idea how he survived because there aren't any bugs or anything in there. He just sort of hangs out.

George 11/2009-12/2009

Well he did until yesterday when he just disappeared completely. Where'd you go George?

OMG Another Post!

2009-12-06T19:02:00.004-06:00

I know, can you believe it? Things are coming back to normal in the life of this particular Heather. My bedroom is completely unpacked as of today, and I actually got some pictures and stuff hung up. Amazing!

I think this is funny and ironic so I'm going to tell you all about it and just get it out there and admit my imperfections. Lately my vacuum cleaner has just not been doing as well as it should. Now that I think about it, it is probably 8 years old, maybe older, and I just feel like the suction has been suffering (Suffering Suction! That might be my new swear word). I've cleaned the HEPA filter, I've cleaned the filter that comes before the HEPA filter, and still not much improvement.

So I checked the manual.

APPARENTLY there's a "motor filter" and I had no idea that this existed. For 8 YEARS I have been ignoring this filter that's supposed to be shaken out once a month. In that time I have replaced the belt and still had no clue this little filter was even there.

Ewwwwwwwww! I'm just as bad as the woman who lived in my house before me! That is so embarrassing!

I ordered a new set of brand new filters from Amazon, and they should be here by Wednesday. Hopefully that will clear up the problem. When I tried to take the motor filter out to see if maybe that was the issue (once I knew it existed), it was just a huge caked up dust chunk. Gross. Changing it will definitely be an outdoor job.

The New Digs

2009-12-04T21:34:00.012-06:00

(this is not a super attractive picture-
I promise this place is much more inviting in real life!)

Hello Blog! I know I haven't visited in ages and ages. I haven't fed you the good nourishing words that I have so frequently, dare I say regularly, provided in the past. But blog, I've been a very busy bee for the past six weeks. I put an offer on a house, I got slammed at work, I did very important things like watch countless episodes of "Arrested Development" on Hulu, and I had guests. And I started packing. And I closed on my new house.

Holy shit world, let me tell you something. When I looked at this house a few times before I made the offer, I really liked it. Yes, it had a sort of weird smell to it and needed updating and some cleaning, but the price was more than right, and the location is fantastic. I've randomly run into people who know where I've moved to and they're like "Ohmigosh, that place? I luuuuuuuuuuv that place! What a great place! Can we come visit you? Do you have a spare bedroom? Can I move in?"

When I went to see the house the day after closing, I got a bit of a shock. Every single surface was covered in a serious layer of nicotine. And ground into that was a layer of greasy dust. So while the house was dirty it was uniformly dirty and not apparent to the naked eye without the help of a magic eraser and/or bleach. I had no clue how much work was ahead of me until after the papers were signed....

The first night I had the house- my house- and got inside (just for an initial look, not moving in yet), the first thing I attacked was the outside of the refrigerator. This is the oldest fridge in the world but works well and the seals are good, so I was pretty sure I was going to keep it. I sort of swiped at it with a microfiber cloth- not bad! There was a little dust on there but not bad! So I pulled the fridge out from the wall and there it was: the line of built up tar. And I had to haul out the soft scrub to cut through it.

The outside of the fridge probably took an hour to clean, using Softscrub first and a magic eraser after that, then rinsing everything off. The fridge was not dark almond. it is actually off-white. See?

(yes, that white spot in the middle there is clean....)

This is how it has been for every single surface, except for the walls which were painted relatively recently. Things change colors when you scrub them. The counters, the floors, the stove, the washer and dryer, the sinks and toilets, the closet shelving, bathtub, light fixtures, the window frames, tile work, and mirrors were all covered in sticky tar. I'd start one little project and it turned into a major ordeal because there wasn't a good way to clean anything with just one product. I had someone come in and clean the carpets and the air ducts. I only saw one of the ducts get cleaned (which happened to be the closest to the heater unit), and it produced huge billowing clouds of dust and crud that went all over the place. My vents are still blowing out some pretty impressive dust actually. I don't think they had ever been cleaned. I don't understand how the former owner is not very very sick. (She did have 2 air purifiers in her house before she moved- I bet she would never have needed them if she'd had the ducts cleaned.) The carpet, of course, changed color with steaming.

When just the outside of the fridge was cleaned, I tried to attack the kitchen floor. I tried everything,including straight ammonia and bleach (at different times of course), and nothing cut through the dirt at all.

(the 9 squares on the left took an hour of scrubbing, thank God I figured out a different method)

All of the sudden I was very overwhelmed and panicked and sure I'd made a terrible decision and bought some hulking money pit that was going to take over my life and eat up all of my money. I needed help. Lots of it. I was freaking out.

I asked a few friends to come over to help with the initial cleaning- windows, bathrooms, floors, and other things I could attack with minimal tools. I have to say that I have some wonderful friends who were sooooo excellent about being there for me. Even if they hadn't cleaned their fingers off and just talked to me while I worked that alone would have helped so much in calming me down. I can't thank them enough.

My dad drove up from Alabama on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, AKA Moving Day 2009. He stayed until Saturday and we spent pretty much all of that time repairing, fixing, cleaning, and going to Lowes for supplies. Thanksgiving dinner was courtesy of Cracker Barrel this year. He brought his shop vac, various tools like drain snakes and putty knives, and lots and lots of household maintenance basics. Here is a list of what we accomplished, I had to get this down because I know I'll forget all of the hard work we did last week if I don't:

General:

Replaced locks
Added working lock to storage unit (used the old front door lock- nice idea!)
Put up smoke detectors (there was only one- the original one- in the upstairs hall and I'm not sure if it even works)
Put up switch/outlet covers on naked electrical fixtures all over the place (the covers were brand new, still in plastic, and sitting in a bag in the laundry room- hunh?)
Scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed- I still have callouses on my fingertips from all of the hardcore scrubbing we did. I even used toothbrushes....
Scraped drops of paint off of most surfaces- floors, counters, stove, bathtub, shelves, you name it
Sprayed multiple bottles of pet deodorizer (PureAyre) and vinegar- both of which really work for getting the weird smoke/dog/air freshener smells out of the house
Cleaned all light fixtures/fan blades
Threw out existing window treatments (except for in the bedroom where the blinds were in decent shape and just needed a soak and scrub)

Kitchen:

Cleaned fridge inside and out, vacuumed coils with the shop vac, it was nasty.
Scrubbed every surface with soft scrub and magic erasers
Reset drawer runners
Put up roller blind (actually the old room darkening shade from my apartment bedroom which fits perfectly after a little rigging)
Glued down edge of flooring under fridge
Reset sink with plumber's putty- ohhhh so glad my Dad was there for that.
Vacuumed, scrubbed, and lined all cupboards and drawers
Scrubbed the vinyl floor with Easy Off, resealed with Quick Finish (this really was an amazing trick and I can't believe it worked- these are both miracle products)
Replaced stove vent filter
Ripped out old (NASTY) shelving in pantry, replaced it using some of the existing brackets after they were magic erasered and bleached (those brackets and things are insanely expensive!)
Reset the outlets that were set too far back in the wall to even get a cover on them
Scrubbed caustic mystery substance off of the back of the dryer (it had actually eaten through the metal in places) using vinegar
Vacuumed out dryer and dryer hose
Attached new longer dryer hose
Cleaned floor under washer and dryer, scrubbed surfaces with magic eraser.

Downstairs Bathroom

Vacuumed out gross bathroom fan
Replaced fan filter with genius invention (there aren't replacements made for that circa 1982 fan model anymore, so I snapped the filter case open, replaced what was in there with the leftover bits from the carbon filter I bought for my heating system, and closed it back up)
Caulked toilet and counters
Vacuumed cupboard out, scrubbed off contact paper liner

Living room

Replaced blinds
Painted and reattached mantel so it was level
Put up door bell (the ringer was already there on the door and works with what I got!)
Fixed hall light so the bottom finial of it didn't hit the top of the coat closet door
Replaced light switches next to front door
Scrubbed the fireplace surround tiles- so dramatic!

(clean-dirty-clean-
my friend Kelley decided to slap her initials in all that nicotine build up)

Upstairs Bathroom

Cleaned for HOURS- scraped paint and caulk off of everything
Caulked around tub, toilet, and counter tops
Vacuumed out fan
Tightened toilet tank
Tightened toilet bowl
Replaced toilet seat with one of those fancy ones that closes silently and can be lifted off for cleaning- WOW.
Took out and cleaned drain assembly
Reset metal plate around shower handle with plumber's putty
Replaced faucet spring and seat for cold water in sink
Vacuumed, scrubbed, & lined cabinets & drawers with shelf liners
Put up hand towel loop on wall
Put up towel hooks on back of doors
New light bulbs
New hotel style shower curtain rod- I LOVE that thing
Space saver storage unit

Master Bedroom

Cleaned shades and re-hung them
scrubbed closet shelves
caulked windows

So I am still doing a fair amount of Febrezing and PureAyre-ing and opening windows (when it's warm enough- it's supposed to snow this weekend so airing out is a pain in the ass). I still need a few random things like a dining room table set and maybe a rug in there. The wood floors in the dining room need some serious cleaning and I am considering using the Easy-Off and Quick Finish method in there as well. Otherwise the scrubbing required is nearly impossible to do by hand. If you scrub once and then wait a minute or two and scrub again with a Scotch-Brite pad and lots of energy, all of this black crud comes up off the floor. Ewwwwwww. Here's one more picture of grossness for you. These are the pulls on one of the ceiling fans. The big fat one is clean. The skinny one has been left to the smokey elements for who knows how long:

(ewwwwwwwwwwww. if you are a smoker quit right now!)

I also have started thinking about curtains.... And putting some art on the walls....

It doesn't feel like I live here yet- it feels like I am on vacation in some fancy hotel (well, once the cleaning was done anyway). I know I will get used to it soon. The fact that I am five minutes away from the grocery store and live in a community where people know their neighbors... well, it's refreshing and exciting.

I love my new little house, and I will be doing a lot more blogging about it in the future. I know that this post is a lot of whining about the condition of it at the beginning, but part of me is glad it needed so much work at first because I feel like I've really connected with the place and I've made it mine. I also know that everything is in good working order because my Dad and I saw or touched everything in here. Be prepared for future posts about projects here on the home front!

Smells I Love

2009-11-04T18:24:00.004-06:00

There are certain scents I adore that always bring me back to childhood. Here, in no particular order, is a list:

Plain Chapstick

The Blend of Lawnmower Fumes and Cut Grass (yeah, I'd like to see Demeter make THAT one)

Sawdust (I've already talked about this)

Sawdust and Chainsaw fumes (again, Demeter get on this)

Sawdust from wood being dragged through the saw too long and burning (Subtle differences here)

Noxzema cold cream

Speedstick Deodorant (I didn't really understand what the heck it was when I was three but it's fun to take the cap off and maybe smoosh your fingers around in the transparent green stuff.)

The coffee/bacon/ damp unfinished basement smell of my Grandmother's old house

My other Grandmother's perfume (I'm not sure what it was but I know it when I smell it)

Just turned over dirt from the garden- when you see worms and grubs wriggling around

Campfires

White Rain Shampoo in Apple Pectin

Fall leaves- when you get to jump into piles of leaves and then all you can see is the sky

That weird sweet plastic smell that squishy plastic baby toys have

Robitussin cough syrup

Thanksgiving Dinner (this was mostly due to the turkey roasting and stuffing ingredients, and pumpkin pie)

Steaming hot bread

Play-Doh (A lot of amber/sandalwood/vanilla fragrances remind me of play-doh and I can't wear them for just that reason)

Garden fresh tomatoes

Ironing

Christmas Trees

No More Tears baby shampoo

Sea Breeze astringent facial toner

Homemade doughnuts

Snow-Ozone

Daisies (They were my favorite when I was little. On my 3rd or 4th birthday my dad brought me a bouquet of daisies and I pretended not to see them until he gave them to me and then I skipped around the dining room table with them singing a song that went a little something like this: "Daisies! Daisies! Daisies!")

Books (maybe it's the ink or something)

Silly Putty

WD-40

So how about you? What smells do you love? What smells instantly remind you of being 4 years old?

The Case for Marriage

2009-11-02T18:15:00.003-06:00

Marriage has been on my mind lately. No, I'm not going to get married any time soon. I don't have any particular lucky groom in mind (unless it's this guy- I could get on board with that). I'm not really seeing anyone right now. But lately a number of things have happened that are making me realize that marriage is a really smart idea.

I'm totally not viewing this in a romantic way at all, which means that I shouldn't even think about getting married any time soon. I should not be thinking in terms the 13th (or even 19th) century marriage-as-a-business-partnership!

But....

I'm in the middle of buying a house. It would be so nice to have a partner who knows me, understands how my brain works, and is willing to hear me whine and freak out and plan and share the excitement of this time in my life. It would be nice to have a person (and I'm trying to not be gender specific here because women can do this stuff too and I'm not that attached to gender roles, although in my case yes this person would be a guy) who can fix the plumbing if it goes haywire or, I don't know, light the pilot light on the furnace or check out the creepy attic because I'm sure not going up there. It would just be nice to have somebody to share all of this with, so that when I am anxious I can get some reassurance and then when he gets anxious I can be the one to do the calming down. Right now I just seem to talk myself down from emotional cliffs all the time and it is tiring.

Another example: last week the clutch died on my car. Just DIED, as in I couldn't shift gears at all in the middle of the road. I didn't flip out, I just called AAA and had them to tow my car to the repair shop and took it from there. But it sure would have been nice to have someone to call at home who could have come and picked me up, who could have given me a ride to work instead of begging friends to do it, who would have been backup. Also, my car engine has been making a really quiet little noise that it didn't used to make. I took it to the garage and they could hear it but couldn't figure out what the heck it is. They said to come back if it gets louder. Or maybe it's a sound the engine has always made and I'm just now hearing it (because I am not too proud to admit that I am paranoid when it comes to cars). Who knows? But it would be lovely to have someone around who could just listen to my engine and be like, "Heather, you're working yourself up over nothing." Or, "Hey, let me drive your car for a while a see if I can figure out what's going on."

Basically I want a handyman and a mechanic and a psychiatrist. Who does it all for free. Because that's what love is, right? I'm a strong, independent, capable woman who can do this on my own, but I am getting tired of being alone. There, I said it. Somebody give me a prize, I just had a breakthrough.

These Days (otherwise known as "October")

2009-10-17T19:18:00.014-05:00

Tonight at the grocery store to get ingredients for beef stew this guy came around the corner with his cart and nearly smashed into me. Instead of being apologetic or anything he was all "Hi! How are you tonight?!" And I immediately thought he was either Mormon (as in not from here, from waaaaay out of town, and besides he had that Mormon look to him, all clean cut and whatnot, not to knock any Mormons but y'all do have a certain look to you, although he could have been a Disney employee...) or mentally challenged. Which had me snickering at my own callous nature through the entire produce section. Mormon or mentally challenged??? Heather that is terrible! Pave the way to hell with memories you can cherish while you're there.

I'm still sort of a real estate stress-case but at least things are getting down to deadlines. If I want to buy a house I have to close on it in 6 weeks or no house for me (I'm greedy/ TOTALLY SENSIBLE and I want the tax credit). Well that's sort of stressful now but at least I know that once I get to November 30th I'll either have a house or I won't. End of story. If I really want to get stuck in an 8th circle of hell my closing date will be moved past the 30th and then I'll be in all kinds of trouble. Maybe one day I'll talk about firing my realtor here, but probably not. I'm not that mean and I like to keep some imaginary level of anonymity here. (Hahahaha!) However, between that and travel and other things I have lost about 2 weeks on my home search.

This morning I woke up at 6:15 (I don't even wake up that early on a weekday, let alone the weekend) to go to the Home Buyer's Education Class I am required to take for the kind of loan I am going to get. I have to say that considering the thing started at 7:30 and went until 2:30, the facilitator really held my attention for 7 hours straight. Everyone who attended got a book full of information about the home buying process. Granted, the other night I read the entire "Home Buying for Dummies" cover to cover in 3 or 4 hours, so I knew a lot of what we were talking about, but I figure at this point it can't hurt to get as much information as possible. Oh, and I didn't really have a choice.

So, keep your fingers crossed that I will find something good really soon. I'm back to the Zillow/Google Maps/realtracs/Google searches on property that I was doing back in June. It is amazing what you can pull up when you Google a community.

Last weekend I was in DC marching for equal rights for GLBT people in this country who deserve the same benefits that I would have in a "traditional" (heterosexual) marriage. Here are some pictures!
It was definitely one of the most interesting events I've ever been to. There were tons of people, the weather was beautiful, and while there were some really decked out queens there, I also noticed a lot of kids marching with their parents (straight or gay) so there was a really nice calm family feel to the march. On the other hand, and I'm going to get some hate for this, I'm not sure that I can personally think that the number of college kids really "count" in a march like this. I sound so old and self-righteous, but I remember being in school and how cool it was to be part of a cause. And how cool it was to be in a relationship with someone of the same sex. You put those two together, along with the funds that kids from Princeton and other Ivy League colleges have and you have an instant recipe for a terrific turnout. But I think it sort of weakened the cause a little. That's just my opinion, I know that there are loads of people in college who know who they are and have their political views hammered out, but I know there are a lot who will jump at a cause, especially if it irritates their parents. I would have liked to see more people there over the age of 25. (But then part of me is like who cares if they meant it? They were there and increased the numbers! How is that bad? When did I become such a purist?) When you just get the word out through Facebook and other forms of social media, it doesn't get out to a broader audience. Hopefully that is something organizers will think about as they plan more events....

So things here are fine. I realized the other day that I need to just take charge of some things at work that no one really wants to take responsibility for, but are driving everyone nuts. I've been watching episodes of Project Runway online and got tickled when one of the (male) designers was really excited about "a corset and sparkle panties!" I'm reading The Lost Symbol but it hasn't grabbed me yet. The low tonight is 34 degrees and I am seeing if I can get through the weekend without turning on the heat. I just seems wrong to turn the heat on this early in Nashville. I try to hold out until November. I also tend to do a lot of baking to warm up the apartment. (Sneaky!) Muffins anyone?

Hopefully I'll get back into this blogging thing, but for right now I can't make any promises. There's a lot of evaluation going on in my life and it tends to be time consuming. Be good my little cupcakes!