it's been awhile blogger but i haven't been resting

i am still alive.
if anyone ever asks you to put your home on a Christmas tour, just turn around and run away laughing maniacally.
or you could appreciate a challenge and say yes. you will still be laughing maniacally, only it will be 4:00 am and you will be covered in pine sap and glitter, driven purely by caffeine and determination. you may or may not hem all of the curtains on your ground floor the night before the house shows and you certainly will not be able to afford groceries for two weeks. white lights and pine cones are expensive!
i went with option two.

let me point out quickly that i have a very normal house.
very.

she (my house is a girl) is not huge or new.
in fact, she is almost 100 years old.
she is storied and lived in. and she needs work like most old things.
we in contrast are quite young. and we have kids. that means that at least some of our furniture is broken, some of our carpet is stained and all of our bank accounts are an eensy bit strapped.
when they asked me to be on the tour, i asked if they knew where we lived.

they did. our house is old and storied, remember? historical, if you will.

anyway- that was a big digression. the point is that me and my house have a complex. we feel a little self-conscious around all these huge, new and beautiful homes and we didn't want to be the "crap" house on the tour so i got all stressed.
i think we did pretty good though. here are just a few pictures of a few rooms. we currently have five trees up though one is teetering on the brink of toddler destruction.

the pictures don't do her justice. they really don't, but i think you'll agree that the old girl cleaned up pretty nicely ;)
for an old broken down home with a young and broke family...

It was an exhausting weekend.

But it was good.



Hanging out in the bathroom around hour 4...



a big day for a little lady

we have pigtails, folks. pigtails.

i am fairly sure that she thinks they are pretty rad. since she usually pulls every ribbon, clip and bauble out, the fact that these stayed in all day are a testament to their uber-coolness.

pigtails.

she has arrived :)

Linking up today with A Dance For Five's Cherishing My Memories just for kicks and stuff :)



Ten On Ten [11.10.11]

Yesterday was my one year Blogoversary. Is that lame?? Regardless, thank goodness for this blog- sanity saving. I have learned many many things, one of which is that I am not really a generic blog hop kind of girl. I'm just not into the "i'll follow you if you follow me" thing.
But what do I love? Good link-ups like this one! So much creativity- it makes me happy.

One photo per hour for ten hours on the tenth of the month- hope you enjoy my day ;)

Off to the babysitter- Hiding from the paparazzi

STOP. On the way to work.

Two trees. What. A. Contrast.

Marking tape for the Anatomy Lab

Skeleton and Chalkboard. In other words- my afternoon.

Nothing saves a commute like a pumpkin spice anything

Darkness comes early now

Welcome Home Momma!

Dinnah

A little light reading with friends :)

I must admit that I skipped a few hours in there while at work cause I was just too busy to take photos, but this is a pretty good representation of my day. Happy November!
PS- I will also never be a review blog. I like the personal.

did we ever leave??

This last weekend, my husband was the chosen director/conductor for a state honor choir and he was amazing as always. The concert was actually held where we went to grad school together so I spent the day driving around and visiting all the old haunts and thrifting while he rehearsed.

It's strange how much a place can just transport you back- pull out memories- and make you smile or cry. I have not been there in almost 7 years and it is the SAME.

Although it was my very very easiest two years of school, it was also my hardest. I missed my girlfriends. I missed the theatre. I missed my old routine, my old city, my family.
I missed my boyfriend.

He was there with me, except he wasn't. While I had two years of academic coasting with self study, thesis writing and sleeping in, he had his most ridiculous, hardest and humbling two years ever. He was a very different A than I had known before and the whole experience was very hard on our relationship.
We questioned our plans, our paths and ourselves.

So really, it's strange, because I sure felt a lot of nostalgia for a place I liked so little. While driving and walking around with the old college breeze on my face I even saw our old landlady... seriously. She was in her truck smoking her same cigarette and wearing the same sour expression over her make-up.
My my my how the world keeps turning when you move on!

And that is why I think I smile on this place now, because even though it was a dim(mer) spot in my history, it marks an integral part of A and my relationship, crucial even...
This was the place where we realized our "perfect" romance has some faults. Where we thought about losing each other.
Where we didn't.
This place was where we stopped being kids and started life. Where we realized that a storybook is only interesting if the plot thickens and that true love stories can't end, but will certainly move forward.
This place was where we cast off our independence on each other but still clung to our future together- and that is a great place- comfortable in our our skins, strong enough to face a future alone, but better, much much better together!

obligatory halloween post: fun! candy! stress!

and so it goes......
today i cleaned up my Halloween decor and put out some harvest stuff. I love this time of year, but am going to get a little neglectful on the house decorating to save it all up for the Christmas extravaganza that has to roll out a little earlier than usual this year (more on that later).

We had a super great Halloween- all October actually. I think there is no better place to be in October than here. Weather is perfect- cool nights, warmish days and leaves that change ALL month. It is spectacular in these hills! I always get into the Halloween "spirit"

Exhibit A: My mantle (ignore the hideous fan.... a switch out is on the to do list)

Halloween itself was a fun day. N dressed up as a crab, and seriously a truer costume has never existed :) Of course, crustaceans are hard to come by so I made his costume myself. It looks much more impressive than it really is- it was barely a challenge and I am sure it would have only held up for a few more hours, but it did the job and he loved it. The hardest part was figuring out the shell- I serioulsy lost sleep over what I was going to use. I went to the store the day before and bought 3 colored serving bowls to nest together like a spirally hermit crab shell. I glued them all together and was ready to fashion then to his shirt when I spied the random cardboard pizza pan from a pizza mom had brought with her.... and it won. I sprayed it with a little paint, left it stained with sauce and rubbed rotting brown walnut skins over it (from the backyard)... so his shell is totally earthy and refined. Wish I would've noticed it before I ruined the 3 bowls but what can you do?? Also, I realize I am two legs short.... sue me, I got sick of sewing!

What can I say, the kid rocks!

A was Minnie Mouse, a costume that occured by default when she freakishly left on a Walmart bought Minnie balaklava for two hours one night. Since she won't leave in bows or hats, I thought I'd run with it and made her a cute little polka dot dress and skirt out of a pair cheap fleece pj pants- it was perfection and enough for me to call my mom and exclaim "did you know i can sew?!?"

Great view of the back alley, I know. It is hard to get her to deliberately pose anywhere. This little rodent is the only kind allowed in my house!

Why I do this to myself is not a question that today's personality can answer. It was fun but time consuming. I guess I take issue in dropping wads of cash on a one night only outfit.... granted I may have spent more on the homemade duds but at least they can be taken apart and the pieces reused. We'll see if that happens though because N has decided that it is AWESOME to hit people with his crab legs and say "tickle tickle".

Trick or treating was fun! So was handing out candy and going to the Safe Halloween event at the school. All the resident here really get into it- get dressed up and sit on their decorated porches. It's wonderful, but then the holiday is dripping with Reeses Peanut Butter cups so you really can't lose! A's bucket got a little heavy for her but she pushed through and N is still on a sugar high.... I'd call it all a rollicking success!