Moving

I've been silent. And I am not positive that anyone noticed. But as a place marker, I just wanted to say that we are moving and I have not had time to update or craft. As I was packing up the things in our living room this week, I put my needlework supplies in a box. I would MUCH rather be embroidering than packing, but such is life.

So soon I will be using my crafty abilities (or lack thereof) to decorate and organize our new home. We are moving from a two bedroom loft apartment to a five bedroom home with a yard. Believe it or not, the new house does not have as much storage as our current apartment. I'm going to be buying armoires, pantries and shelves for months. And I will see you all after the great move of '09 is over!

Friday Favorites!

This week has gone by pretty quickly. I'm very excited about this weekend, even though we're going to get more rain! But for the time being, the sun is shining and I'm feeling good. On to my favorites.

1. My favorite surprise: Pedicure! Corey picked me up from work yesterday afternoon and drove me to the mall. We looked around at video games and watched everyone in line for the Tennessee Titans meet-n-greet. Then he said that I should go pamper myself. Of course I'm not going to disagree! I sat down and got pampered for an hour or so while Corey shopped for sports stuff. My toes are a great shade of red and my feet are silky smooth. Corey said, "Now your toe nails won't scratch me when we cuddle." His true intentions revealed!

2. My favorite song to get stuck in my head: Pinball Wizard by The Who. My boss uses it on our radio show for intros, and I get it in my head all the time. It's a great song and it energizes me first thing in the morning!

3. My favorite purchase: We did a lot of shopping this week. I am going to go ahead and say I'm most excited about my recent purchase from Victoria's Secret. I got some dresses and a tank top for the summer season. My goal is to wear a dress or skirt every day this summer!

4. My favorite bonding time: Last weekend my mom rented a cabin for us to spend the weekend in. The weather leading up to the weekend was terrible and some vacation homes near the park where we stayed were destroyed by a tornado. We were spared, however. I spent Easter with my family and had a great time catching up with my cousins. Sunday morning, instead of going to church, Mom and I sat outside and enjoyed the gorgeous weather and scenery. It was a great getaway and I want to do it again this summer.

5. My favorite "get out of a funk" movie: Again, I have several. This week it was Clerks 2. I had a long, bad day earlier in the week and Corey and I just sat on the couch and laughed. My favorite one of all time is probably Empire Records. It always reminds me of my friends and I watching it in high school and memorizing the best Lucas quotes.

Mother's Day Contest

I entered my mom to win the Best Mom contest from Victoria's Secret. Will you please click the "vote" link below so I can take my mom to NYC? We've been talking about going for a while so we can see Spring Awakening (squeeeeee) on Broadway. This would just get us there faster and cheaper! Thanks in advance, guys!

"Love You Mom!" Sponsored by Victoria's Secret

Non-traditional Easter Basket

Instead of an Easter basket, I received a pink toile bag with a needlework reference book. This gift reminded me of how much I love toile. When I worked at a fancy pants cafe in high school, the tablecloths and chair fabric were covered in blue toile. That is when I fell in love with the pattern. It represents sophistication to me. I can understand why a lot of people would hate it, but I love it so intensely. If I have a little girl, I'm going to decorate her room in pink toile.

The needlework book is very old and grandmother probably got it from an antique store. It's a great gift and I was surprised to find some great notes in the margins and some bookmarks in pages that I found very useful. I'll be trying out some new stitches soon. I have a lot of projects on my plate, but I've gotten lazy. I'm fired up about stitching again after reading the book, so I think I'll get to crafting again soon.

Alice Giveaway: Win a Roomba!

Alice is at it again. They're giving readers a chance to win a Roomba. I've been lusting over these little robots for a few years now but haven't talked Corey into spending a large amount of money on such a small appliance. I'm not extremely lucky most of the time, but I thought I'd try it out anyway. Try your hand at it, too! Just tell them your best vacuuming story. Here's mine.

This isn't really a hilarious vacuum story, but it's my most memorable. We had a fire in our laundry room this year and it freaked me out more than anything could have. Since I was little, I've had nightmares about my house catching on fire. Luckily we were all safe, but everything in our laundry room was ruined. After it was all cleaned up a few days later, my roommate and I set out to replace our vacuum among other appliances. We picked out something that had attachments to clean the fans and blinds since soot landed on every surface in our apartment. When we got home, we cleaned the whole apartment with the neat attachments and sang while we worked. After everything was sparkling, we sighed with relief and smiled to ourselves. Such an insignificant purchase had lifted my spirits so much, it was unbelievable.

Monster by Mail

I love birthdays! Even if they aren't mine. Will, my roommate had a birthday Saturday and we celebrated with cake and a party. I wanted to share this present Corey and I got Will because it is way cool and crafty, too!

Will shared a link to MonsterbyMail.com a few weeks back and I decided that I would name a monster in his honor and give him the art work for his birthday. This website is very addicting. I watched almost every video on his Youtube channel. I highly recommend getting this as a gift for anyone you know who loves zombies, ogres, or any other monsters.

Without further ado, I present Billy the Broken!


You can also get a video link to your drawing in progress. Here's Billy's.

Friday Favorites!

I haven't done one of these in nearly a month! I've been so busy with various projects. Not to mention that Fridays are my busiest work days, so even on my lunch break I'm not doing any personal Internet stuff. But I just figured out that you can write a post and then choose when you want it published. Yeah, who's the smart one, now? Ok, on to my favorite things.

1. My favorite time consumer this week: March Madness! I have never followed basketball and I especially never filled out a bracket for the NCAA Men's basketball tournament. That all changed this year. I look forward to going out to watch some games and eat some chicken wings. Mmm... wings.

2. My favorite ring tone: I know this is a little sad, but I just realized my blackberry plays mp3's so there's no need for me to buy ringtones anymore. I downloaded several, but my current favorite is "It's Business Time" from The Flight of the Conchords.

3. My favorite stuffed animal. Again, I have lots of good ones. I love my Chubbles that Lonnie bought me for my birthday and a few older ones I've had since I was a kid. But the most fun was making a build a bear in Chicago last year. We were waiting on our friend to meet us at Navy Pier and we decided a good time (and money) waster would be making a stuffed animal. I made a bunny dressed as a fairy (naturally) and Lonnie made a turtle dressed as a pirate. We took a picture to commemorate the event.

4. My favorite job I've had besides my current job: When I was a reporter at APR. I loved meeting people and conducting interviews. Being on the radio is fun because it feels like you're only talking to yourself but in reality you're talking to a pretty large audience. I've always liked radio more than TV anyway, so it was a lot of fun doing the news for the station.

5. My favorite April Fool's joke: It's a little early for April Fool's, but it's on my mind, so why not? One year I tied a white rubber band around the sprayer on our sink. It blended in with the white plastic, so it wasn't noticeable. When someone turned on the sink, they would get sprayed because the handle was already pressed on the sprayer. Very simple, yet effective.