a collection of Etsy favorites.

myself crazy.

Seems like too much all at once lately. Back off, bear!!!

a trip to the one soda machine in town that still sells cans of Coke for 50 cents.

my husband post my blog.

My husband must love me a lot to post this so I wouldn't miss a day. He is the coolest.

do with a poptart for lunch.

A lot of times my lunch is a poptart. Today it was cherry, but I prefer the chocolate ones.

updates to Mom's etsy shop.

a retro block paint pattern on the wall of Mog's new room.

This is the wall his crib will go up against, so it won't look quite so wild once the furniture is moved in. I could not have done this without Mom and Elecia--they actually did all of the taping off and most of the painting. I basically said, "Here's what I want." And they did it. They're awesome.

an effort to rinse almost a gallon of latex paint out of the trunk of my car.

Yeah, thanks, Eli.

Next time you decide to transport paint in my car, make sure the lid is shut tight, okay?

chili and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Comfort food for a cold, rainy day.

And by the time I thought to take a picture, these were the only cookies left:

And...I just polished them off with a glass of milk. Yum.

it out alive.

As my dad is fond of saying, "Some days you get the bear, and some days the bear gets you."
That feels about right.

a block tower.

Actually, most days we build block towers.

And this picture doesn't really have anything to do with block towers, other than the errant block visible by Mog's foot.

But isn't that the cutest pajamaed tush?!

an Etsy treasury!

These things are semi-difficult to get into, so I'm thrilled to finally have made it! It's just a matter of timing, but still.
Click the link to check out my treasury.
If you aren't already hooked on Etsy, you will be, I promise! :-)

Edited: Sadly, my treasury has already expired. So that link won't get you anywhere. But do check out Etsy anyway, if you're so inclined.

a foray into the world of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series.

Yeah, that's right. I'm reading a book about a teenaged girl who falls in love with a vampire. Why? Well...um...because...why not?
The series is threatening Harry Potteresque fame at this point, and I don't want to be the only one who doesn't know what it's all about, right?! Or something like that.
Kate made me do it, I swear. ;-)

Eli happy.

We've had an ongoing debate recently over flooring for the living room. I want carpet; he wants a wood laminate. Guess who just won that argument? I'll give you a hint: we aren't getting carpet. *sigh*

money from my hobby.

Yippee! Got the official check today from my scrapbook layout that's being published in the Feb/March issue of Scrapbooks, Etc. Don't forget to pick up a copy when it comes out (sometime in January) and look for Mog peering out from the page. :-)

a fool of myself.

And had fun doing it!
Every year when we go to the Covered Bridge Festival, Elecia and I buy ridiculous hats and wear them around the rest of the day. It's become as much a part of our tradition as wearing matching t-shirts. This year I was a bat and she was the big bad wolf. Not too difficult for us to spot each other in the crowd. ;-)

a jack-o-lantern.

I drew the face and Eli carved it.

We both scooped out the guts. We thought Eliot would get a kick out of helping with this part, but he didn't want anything to do with it. He thought it was funny when Eli and I would dig into the pumpkin and pull out dangling globs of seedy goo, but he didn't want to touch it at all.

Content to let Momma and Daddy do the dirty work. :-)

a decision to remodel our bathroom.

Well, okay, a decision to have ELI remodel our bathroom. We hadn't been planning on touching the bathroom before moving in, but once we repainted and started fixing up the rest of the house, I guess I just caught the redecorating fever.

It's going to be fabulous--can't wait to post pictures of the finished room.

a trip to the Great Pumpkin Patch.

a list of objects found while cleaning out my purse.

*Sudafed tabs (the good kind, with the pseudoephedrine)
*voter registration card (Obama 2008!)
*a dried up noodle (?)
*gum wrappers
*a (clean) diaper
*Mary Kay night cream
*3 tampons
*a joke bellybutton lint cleaner
*expired coupons for gas and Archiver's
*1 elastic ponytail holder
*a safety deposit box key
*loose change
*Benadryl
*Allegra-D
*current coupons for Dairy Queen, Old Navy, a free bottle of Bissell cleaning fluid, Pizza Hut
*pictures of Eliot at 1 month and at 8 weeks
*address book
*wet wipes

What's in your wallet? :-)

myself drunk from a single margarita.

Sad, but true. Jesus makes the best margaritas. Yum.

a bold move.

letting my three-year-old niece help paint the walls of our new bedroom. But really, not as scary as it sounds. It was inside the closet, after all. ;-)

a photo collage.

These are some of my pictures from Monday of last week, documenting my day. I'm putting pictures from last week together into 4x6 collages (with each picture approx. 2x2) and uploading them to Walmart.com to print. Much cheaper and easier than either printing wallet sizes or 4x6 and then trying to crop.

Maybe this is a project I'll actually complete...

a group of freshmen English students engage in a great conversation about Raymond Carver's "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love."

No small feat. It always feels good when a class goes well.
I had gotten an email right before class from an old friend who had kind words of sympathy for me on the loss of Molly.
So she was all I could think about during class.
Nevertheless, it went well. I didn't cry in front of my students, and I sucessfully got every one of them to contribute something to discussion.
Well done.
I think she would have been proud.

dirty laundry clean again.

my first real attempt at painting walls.

And found out I suck at it! I tried cutting in the edges first, thinking I would be best at the detail work. And I wasn't. So then I tried using the roller for the middle of the walls. Turns out I'm not so good at that either. Oh well.

Practice makes progress. And I've got plenty more walls to go...

a shadow on the lawn.

And I look like a big, bulky, hulking monster. But really I'm just wearing Eli's jacket. It was cool out this morning. :-)

some extremely ugly wallpaper disappear.

With the help of my mom, sister, and son. What a team!

(Libby's not in the picture because she's behind the

viewfinder of the camera, but she did her fair share of scraping.)

a self-portrait.

a new start.

another series of photographs documenting our day.

I'm continuing the "week in the life" scrapbook project, even though this week has taken such an unexpected sad turn.

This is my life.

Good and bad. Love and heartbreak. Joy and sorrow.

Just taking it all in as it comes.