Card Catalog.

Ever since I showed the lovely world my awesome card catalog, people are asking - where did you get it? How? That's so cool! (that last one isn't a question...)

Well, here's the four-one-one.

I got it from Millikin University's library. Sad - they're getting rid of their catalogs because really, they aren't being used anymore. However, not sad for me (and potentially any of YOU) because they are selling them for ONLY $100 !!!!!

They are amazing, wonderful things. I saw all ten of them when I picked mine up (apparently I was the first one that expressed interest). They're really sturdy and everything is in working order.

And there are FOUR LEFT. You should totally nab one of these. They are in Decatur, Illinois, which is about an hour and 45 minutes from St. Louis. Not a bad drive for an amazing piece of furniture.

If you're interested, send an email to Denise: ddgreen@mail.millikin.edu

Tell her you want one. Tell her you'll give her a nice, crisp $100 bill. And then revel in all that is your VERY own card catalog.

Well, it's official.

I started a blog. And wrote an introduction post.

I'm so, so, SO excited to get this project rolling. I'm planning on writing my first letter tomorrow sometime.

Wish me luck!

Three Columns - YES!

As you may be able to tell, I've done a little work around good ol' happy notions.

I've created three columns (I feel bad saying that I'VE created them. Really, I just followed a tutorial and it was magnificent). I updated the link list. I'm currently working on a new header, but it's nowhere near ready.

But keep an eye out.

Because it will be soon.

Craft Swap

Maggie of Magchunk is hosting an AWESOME craft swap. You should sign up - I just did!

If you've never done a swap before, it's super fun! You send in your address to the creator of said swap, and then a couple days (or weeks, whatever) they send you an address. Then you send a package of goodies off to the person whose address you've received!

For this particular swap, you have until MONDAY, AUGUST 24th, to sign up. Get emailing!

254.

The above number is the amount of contacts I have in my cell phone, currently.

I'm starting a new project. Over the course of my life (oh, it's so long, I'm so old...) I've found that it's really, really important to write. To journal, to write thank you notes, so on and so forth. And lately, I've really been wanting to acknowledge the people in my life that have influenced it to sway different ways, or have been helpful/knowledgeable in our pasts together.

So, hence the new project. I'm going to write a letter (write, yes, so handwritten) to every one of my phone contacts. I realize this is a big undertaking. I just counted and there are 254 contacts. Now, some of those contacts are double - like I have my dad's cell phone, plus my mom's cell phone, plus my sister's cell phone, plus our house number - so not all of them will be accounted for. But give or take, I would say that about 240ish letters will be written.

The goal is to write one a week. At first I thought about writing one a day, but come on, really? That won't happen.

There's also a twist: I'm going to post them all, on a separate blog. Example: Pete is obviously in my cell phone. So, when I get down to the "P" section, I will title the blog post something like, "Dear Pepe", when really, it's a letter to Pete.

Rosemary will become "Rhonda", etc.

The other blog is not set up yet. But it will be. I would like to start this week with my project.

So, here's what's going to happen: I will write the letter by hand, then type it into the blog. Then post it. Then postmark it, and then they will have a happy little something something to read.

I'm not going to lie, this is going to be a bit weird. I have all types of people/places in my phone, everyone from parents of the kids I babysit for, friends I have had falling-outs with, my alma mater, ex-boyfriends/flings, etc. But in general, I'm pretty excited to start this project.

[image via h.wren]

Ten Open Memos to People/Entities Who Do Stuff Right

1. Luvy Duvy's - today, with your spice cake, you made my life complete. Thank you. It was also nice that you (Rick?) gave Pete and I lots of extra chips and stuff. Totally made my day.

2. ReadyMade Magazine- at first I was disappointed when your last magazine (June/July) arrived in my mailbox and was so skinny. THEN, however, as I opened it, I realized that there were virtually no ads, meaning no wasted paper. And it made me SO happy. Can I say that I've been reading you since 2000 (yes, grade school - I was awesome), and you have always, ALWAYS put your best forward and made me feel complete? One of the consistently best magazines I have ever read. Props!

3. Wonder Hanger - thanks to you, I am able to hang things in my closet that is only 13 inches deep. These things do work, people. Buy some up!

4. Summer - you were busy. And hectic. And lots of stuff happened when you were around. But in all, you did good this year. I mean, I got engaged. THAT was pretty sweet.

5. Starbucks Employee at the Drive-Thru - I don't like coffee, but I liked that you talked to us when we were waiting for our drinks at the window. I was kind of blown away, actually. Usually drive-thru people are awkward and quiet, but you made me feel pretty comfortable. Thanks!

6. Any and All Farmers Markets - you rule. I love your produce and the majority of the people that you attract. I like seeing the kids and the dogs and the happiness of the vendors. In all, you're pretty fly.

7. Jason & Laura - you are amazing, wonderful people and you gotta get yourselves moved in up here. Seriously. Okay? We had too much fun last night.

8. Twitter - I heart you. We've been together for awhile now and I'm still fascinated by you and your tweets.

9. My Future Honeymoon - I am so excited for you. I told my mom today and SHE got so excited for you. Why are you 11 months away?!

10. My Future Husband - The other night there was a huge beetle crawling on the ceiling and I made him kill it. He didn't like it at first but he did it anyway. That's love!

Ten Open Memos to People or Entities Unlikely to Respond

Ridiculously stolen from Bridgett.

1. Bridal Stores - try to get receptionists that are not snooty. I'm nervous and excited and ready to try stuff on but right away you've got the receptionist, my FIRST impression of the place, being kind of annoying, looking at my shoes, and staring at me like I have three heads. Really? Could we maybe be a little bit more...oh, I don't know, NOT OBVIOUS? [This is really just one store in general, so far.]

2. Certain Moms with Kids - Ladies, I understand that it's hard to have children, keep track of them in big, loud public places, and teach them all the good stuff that they have to learn to be decent human beings - but really. 10 year-olds should not be pushing in front of little girls at a line in the Magic House. ESPECIALLY if you, their MOTHER, is standing right there, cheering him on to pull the big magic bubble ring over his head. I was disgusted. And unfortunately, there's more than one of you out there...

3. St. Louis Humidity - I'm sick of you already. Scram.

4. Kate, of Jon & Kate + 8 - I'm sick of you, too. I read a magazine article about how you hit your children. WITH PICTURES. Are you that silly? Really? You know that there are paparazzi around your house, like, ALL the time, and yet you smack your kids around. That made me angry. Also, it made me SO angry that I wasted $2.99 on a crappy star-stalker magazine (People or US Weekly or Star or whatever it was). And you have weird hair. And you should spend some time with your kids and stop lugging your cell phone around with you all the time.

5. Highway 40 - I loved you at one point. Please come back? All in one piece? I miss your speediness.

6. Masking Tape - you aren't holding my Polaroid pictures up very well. Every morning, I stumble out of bed, make my way into the living room, and always, ALWAYS, there is at least one picture that has fallen onto the ground. WHY? You're usually so good! You held heavy pieces of construction paper up on the walls of Gries, which are those weird spackle walls. You can't stay up on a smooth, painted surface?

7. Martha Stewart Magazine Subscription Services - figure it out: I've moved. I want to change my address. I've paid. I've sent my check in - then cancelled it and paid it online. PEOPLE MOVE. THESE THINGS HAPPEN. IT SHOULDN'T BE SO HARD.

8. People Who Hate Their Jobs - just because you're cranky does not mean you have to be cranky towards me. You chose your path. Deal with it. I bet it does suck working at a bank where thousands and thousands of dollars go through your hands everyday, but really? You don't have to be rude to me. Put on your big girl pants, smile, and do what you have to do to get through the day without angering someone.

9. To That Guy at the Fountain - you weirded me out. And I couldn't get a good read on you. I pride myself on getting good reads on people that I don't know. But you confused me and I didn't like it.

10. The Guy from Charter - I was so angry when you came to the apartment and "set up" our Internet - even though the Internet had already been up and running for two days. It also sucked when you came because you turned off the free cable we had been...borrowing. I was REALLY looking forward to living off the grid (kind of) and having free cable! Ugh. You ruined my week after that happened, seriously.

Hungry? You Should Probably Skip This Post.

No, it's not something I made this time.

I was reading Bakerella, (another site you should NEVER go to if you are):
a) extremely hungry
b) craving sweets
c) lucky enough to have a fully stocked pantry, consisting of unlimited sugar, vanilla extract, etc

and Bakerella linked to Cakespy, and Cakespy linked back to Cannelle et Vanille, which is a foodie site I followed in my bookmarks BEFORE the great-laptop-crash-during-finals-week-2009. ANYWAYS. Long story short, the writer/creator/genius behind Cannelle et Vanille has finished assembling her food styling portfolio - and may I say, everything looks delicious.



Her name is Aran Goyoaga, and you should look at her portfolio right now! (And maybe it would even be a good idea if you are hungry.)

All of the pictures have been taken from Cannelle et Vanille, because I have a Dell and have no clue how to take pictures from a flash website! But really, you should look at her portfolio...

A happy umbrella.

This umbrella has all my criteria:

1. It has stripes.
2. It has yellow - a heart, no less!
3. It has a hook handle.

However, it also has something that is not my criteria:

1. It is WAY expensive.

Some pictures of the apartment.

Not many. But here are a few.

A kitchen vignette (in the process of making zucchini bread a few weeks back)


A weird nook. I hung posters and a lantern.


And last, but not least: my beloved card catalog.

Umbrella Caddy Part 2

Whee! I finished it! I still need one thing - a pot bottom that you put inside of it to catch any run-off moisture - but it hasn't rained in St. Louis in awhile and really, I doubt I'll be using my umbrellie anytime soon.

I cut the big concrete pour-er thing in half. This part took awhile. I did what the directions on design*sponge said - make slits in the cardboard with the box-cutter. I also had an old, kind of icky little saw that I tried to use. It didn't work very well. However, in the comments section, someone said that a jigsaw works nicely.


Then, I cut out lots of raindrops.


Then, I used mod podge on the back of the raindrops and slapped 'em onto the cork!


And done. I like it! Every time I walk by it in the hallway, I think, "wow, that is WAY too cool to have in my apartment."

Some details:
1. I used a roll of cork from Home Depot. It was actually cork found in the contact paper section, and it had adhesive on the back of it! So much easier than gluing it all down.
2. I used a 10" concrete pillar, not a 12".
3. I had no contact paper, so the inside of the caddy isn't blue, like it is in the original project. Also, since I had no contact paper, I cut raindrops out of two blue pieces of construction paper.
And finally...
4. If YOU want to make a caddy, I have half of a concrete thing left! If you live in St. Louis it's YOURS. Right now it's sitting in my closet, missing its other half...

Umbrella Caddy

When Grace first featured this on Design*Sponge back in June, I saw and instantly fell in love.

I'm FINALLY making it today! Right as you read this, maybe!

I'll update later and tell you how it went. I hope it goes good.

Old Man Crush #2: Robin Williams

I met Robin Williams back in 2002. My family was taking a vacation through the Eastern part of the US - we started in St. Louis, then drove up to Cleveland, spent some time in Boston, went to New York City, and to Niagara Falls (both Canada and NY sides).

Anyway. We were in NYC for about 14 hours. We stayed somewhere out in Connecticut and then took the train in for the day and took it back out late at night. It was a pretty depressing day, at first. We started at Ellis Island and found our ancestors' names on the wall. Sad, depressing. Then we got stuck on the subway, underground, for a half hour. Boring and scary. Then we visited Ground Zero. Obviously that was sad.

We began walking towards Carnegie Hall. There was this great, famous sandwich place somewhere near there (I don't remember, but any readers who may know what I'm talking about, let me know).

We were waiting to cross the street when I heard a familiar voice. "DAD," I shrieked, whispering, "THAT'S MRS. DOUBTFIRE!" So we all started freaking out. My dad, the tourist, pulled out his old, chunky camcorder and started taping him from across the street. Finally, dad said, "you know what, we have to go say hi, or else we're going to regret it." So we awkwardly crossed the street and dad introduced us all to him.

He was SO nice. He shook all of our hands, asked us all for our names, and smiled and was just generally very sweet. It was awesome! And he looked so normal, just wearing a crappy baseball cap and carrying a beat-up suitcase.

But even before I met Robin Williams, I really, really loved him. My first memory of him was when he was Mork on Happy Days. Hysterical! Funnily enough, I never really watched Mork & Mindy when it was on Nick at Nite, but Happy Days was awesome. My next memory was Mrs. Doubtfire, which is really (in my opinion) one of the greatest movies EVER. He made me laugh and cry during that movie. Then, there was Dead Poets Society, and Jumanji, and the Aladdin movies, and The Birdcage, and Flubber, and Good Will Hunting, and Father's Day. They're all great, all funny, all smiley.

Unfortunately, I haven't really been a fan of any of his new movies. I saw License to Wed and really, really didn't like it. RV and Man of the Year both looked pretty...well, not great.

But those aren't the things that make me happy. I love how he makes different faces and voices. I could listen to him change characters over and over again, for hours at a time. He seems like he is a great dad and husband. Also, while reading his trivia page over at imdb.com, I saw that his classmates voted him "least likely to succeed". I LOVE LOVE LOVE when people are successful after all their stupid high school classmates voted them in the wrong direction.

Some other good things I read, and that made my heart smile:

Williams and Christopher Reeve were good friends until his death in 2004. After Reeve's accident, Williams went to this hospital where Reeve was, dressed in scrubs, wearing a surgical mask, and speaking in a Russian accent. He made Reeve laugh for the first time since the accident.

He ad-libs EVERYTHING. Apparently, when he first appeared in Happy Days, the writers left huge gaps of show-time, saying, "Mork can go off here...". While making The Birdcage, Mike Nichols, the director, required that Williams and Nathan Lane HAD to do each scene scripted, but then they could do several other takes ad-libbed. And apparently most of his dialogue in Aladdin is ad-libbed. SO COOL!

He was offered the role of Frank in Little Miss Sunshine (I think he would have been great!) but he turned it down. (Frank was played by Steve Carrell).

When James Lipton asked Williams what he would like God to say when he arrives in heaven, he responded with, "There is a seat for you in front", for the concert of Mozart and Elvis.

When he accepted the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Good Will Hunting, he said, "Most of all, I want to thank my father, up there, the man who when I said I wanted to be an actor, he said, 'Wonderful. Just have a back-up profession like welding.'"

August 10, 2009...

So weird. In exactly 11 months, I'll be getting married. Probably to the MOMENT.

It's weird. Could I say weird more? Probably not.

In the first two months that we've been engaged, we've gotten some things figured out. We each asked all of our attendants if they would do us the honor (the answers were all yes). We are only moments away from signing a contract with Windows on Washington, where our reception will be held. We've made a guest list. I have ideas for how I want the save-the-dates to look. We've asked the four flower-girls. We have a couple of churches in mind.

I've started running. My mom made a bratty comment about how "most women try to lose weight before their wedding" (seriously). I do want to lose a little bit of weight, so...hence the running. Now, when I say I've started running, I've only gone running three times. But I pushed myself and I've been trying.

I found a dress I really, really like - it's by designers Birnbaum & Bullock. Unfortunately, a) the closest place to even try it on is up in Chicago, and b) it's probably thousands and thousands of dollars (which is not what I want to spend on a dress I will wear once). It's short, and very classy, and really, it's just me. Sometimes I think I want a long, puffy dress, but I like being able to move around and kick my legs up and DANCE, so...this is a good option, for sure.



What do my readers think?

Bridgett gave me the name of a seamstress/dressmaker so has made her daughter's first communion dress. I mean, this dress is pretty simple. I'm going to email her the picture and ask her if she thinks she can do it, and for how much.

Image via martha stewart

Brad Pitt: My New Fave

Thanks to Megan over at Lovely Happenings, I had the privilege of reading this mini-article of an interview with Brad Pitt. Megan mentioned that she was sick of hearing all about Angelina and Brad and how they're always in the limelight, etc...but hearing what Mr. Pitt had to say makes me feel pretty good.

On when he’ll marry Angelina Jolie: “I have love in my life, a soul mate–absolutely. When someone asked me why Angie and I don’t get married, I replied, ‘Maybe we’ll get married when it’s legal for everyone else.’ I stand by that, although I took a lot of flak for saying it–hate mail from religious groups. I believe everyone should have the same rights. They say gay marriage ruins families and hurts kids. Well, I’ve had the privilege of seeing my gay friends being parents and watching their kids grow up in a loving environment.”

On the right to love: “It’s ridiculous that Prop 8 took away gay people’s right to marry! I have no understanding of that kind of hatred. Maybe it’s fear of difference or of the unknown. If you feel belittled, maybe you need someone else to belittle to feel powerful. It’s the only way I know how to explain it. You’ve got religion telling you what to think about homosexuality, about marriage. They say homosexuality is a choice, a lifestyle, something you can be cured of, and that isn’t true. But if you’re tucked away and have no friends who are gay, you’ll believe what the preachers say. Just think of it in terms of being in love–how would you feel if someone told you that you couldn’t be with the person you loved?”

On wanting the best for his children: “Would it bother me if a child of mine turns out to be gay? No, not one bit. Listen, I want my kids to live the lives they want to live. I want them to be fulfilled. I hope I teach my kids to be who they really are.”

From Parade Magazine

Also, he's aged well. I mean, still a cutie-pie. Gotta like that.