Jewelry update.....

As most of you know, I'm a total lover of all things jewelry. The funkier, the better. I definitely gravitate towards silver pieces, but I have been known to embrace gold every now and again. I had a birthday a few months ago and received some great stuff from my sister. I had been eyeing this ring by Amy Moore Designs for several months! Chris nailed it with this birch bark texture ring, totally in love with it. According to the artist, in both Celtic and Native American traditions, the birch tree symbolizes new beginnings and cleansing of the past. And after the year I've had (read: Gall McBladderson), I'm going to give that symbolism a big fat "right on!"
Chris also sprung for these super cool earrings by one of my favorite jewelry creators....MarKhed Design. They are anatomical hearts, and they are my newest go-to earrings. I go through phases with earrings, and these are in full swing at the moment. This rib cage with heart necklace is also the shizz. Thanks for the birthday goodies, Tinner!! Love my big sis!!

The summer edition of Urban Craft Uprising was earlier this month. Both Chris and I agreed that it seemed a lot edgier than the fair last December. You're looking at the proud owner of a fancy mustache necklace by Idle Hands Designs. I saw it at the December Urban Craft and didn't buy it, but have thought about it ever since. What am I going to do with a mustache necklace, you might ask? The question should be what am I not going to do with a mustache necklace? Because I'm going to rock this freakin' 'stache all over town! Also like these Starry Night vintage noir glass button earrings by the same artist.

I also picked up this little cutie. Loving anything orange right now. This will be a great necklace for work. Just a peak of sparkly color to jazz up my monkey suit.

What have you indulged in lately?

Home Sweet Home

Well, I have big news since my last blog post a few weeks ago..... I'm buying my first house!! Pretty darn excited about it! If all goes well, I'll be closing the last week of August. Here are some pictures of the house that I swiped from the online real estate profile. The house is located in the same neighborhood that I've lived in since 2006. The area is super walkable, which I'm really excited about. Here's the front of the house...........
Living room.......

Kitchen view......

Another kitchen view.......

Dining room.......

Bedroom #1........

Bedroom #2, which I will use as my office / craft space.....

Hallway by bathroom, check out the fun little telephone nook! ........

Downstairs bedroom, aka...my parent's bedroom :)

Unfinished part of the downstairs, utility / washer / dryer area......

Backyard, already fenced for Milo! The current owner's are total green thumbs, and the backyard is in full bloom. Lots of flowers and produce are growing back there at the moment. I'm going to meet with the current owner's at some point before closing so they can tell me about the house and about all the plants growing in the backyard.

Big surprise huh?!?!? Yes, I'm very excited about this new chapter in my life. I'm sure there will be many a blog post about the new place! Everything went well with the inspection last week, so now I'm just trying to organize myself for all the other things I need to do before the end of August. Let's just say I'm not super stoked to pack all my stuff up again....but at least this time I know it will be the last time, for a very long time....and that makes me one happy girl.

Two not-so-little monsters.....

I'd like to introduce you to two feline friends that are living at my place for the summer....... We've got this lovable ball of fur, weighing in at about 16+ pounds.....his name is Grandpa and he's a sweetheart. He loves getting pets, and is pretty vocal when I enter their room. Grandpa enjoys a good belly rub, and loves treats. I can tell he's interested to see what the rest of the house looks like, but for now, he's kickin' it in the upstairs bedroom. Frank parks himself on the other side of the door for 10 to 15 minutes every couple hours, for sniffing purposes. I haven't seen any paw fights from under the door, so that is a good sign.
This scaredy cat is The Easter Bunny. His fur is super soft, like bunny fur, hence The Easter Bunny moniker. This chap isn't as excited to see me enter the room as his feline counterpart. For the first few weeks they lived here, I swear he didn't come out of the attic space for days on end. Now when I see them, 80% of the time he isn't hiding. With all the rolling around on the floor he does, it would appear that he wants his belly rubbed, but when I go in for the lovin' he denies me every time, retreating to his attic safe place. This general disregard for me just makes me want his approval more, unfortunately :) He does love treats (who doesn't really?), and tents to hide less if I offer up some tidbits o' food.

Stop by and say hello if you're in the neighborhood!

Ten Things.....Vacation Edition......

So, I'm on vacation right now, and I'm super relaxed. I have that lazy-person glow about me, and I'm embracing it, in a big way. Here are some of the things I've been up to as of late......

1. Playing Greenwood Car Show Bingo. What is that you ask? Well, its a bingo game that we played (sorta) during the Greenwood Car Show a few weekends ago. It was hilarious. A co-worker came up with the idea, and created a bingo card.... basically it is people watching bingo. We had to find the following:
-absurdly large and vicious looking dog
-exhausted wife & kids trailing along with super gung-ho dad
-blonde with: sunglasses, backless high heels, large purse, teeny dog, and cell phone
-fierce looking dude with neck tattoo pushing baby in stroller
-mullet (4+ inches
-middle aged guy with "jaunty" hat
-tube top (male or female)
-old couple with matching shirts
-two sisters with 5+ mismatched children
-muscle shirt (aka spouse beater)
-pasty white shirtless guy with beer gut
-toothless stoned guy who thinks he's somewhere else
-daisy dukes with middrift shirt (male or female)
-muffin top (2+ inches)
Obviously, I couldn't find a replica of our exact bingo game online, but this hipster bingo card is similar. I'm sure you get the idea. I may be printing this hipster bingo card out for my various nights out in Ballard, I'm sure you'd be hearing me yell BINGO! all night long. Ballard is hipster heaven these days.
2. Lord, there are so many movies I want to see at the moment. At home I have Inglourious Basterds and Zombieland from Netflix. I think I might hit up some Zombieland tonight. Everyone I know that has seen it thinks it is super awesome. Also on my list of movies I want to see: Alice in Wonderland, Remember Me (yes, I'm sure it's terrible, but I still want to see R. Pattz hotness), Hot Tub Time Machine (also heard from a few sources this ended up sucking, but still want to check it out, The Blind Side, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Up in the Air, Precious, so many more....some of which I don't want to admit to wanting to see on this public blog :)

3. Another movie I want to see? Eclipse! Still haven't seen it, and I've heard from Kim that it is the best Twilight movie thus far. Must see soon. I don't want to wait around to see Remember Me to get my R.Pattz eye candy fix. P.S. Bella is boring. Really Edward?!? You really waited your whole life for her? I'm not sure I buy it.
4. Ray LaMontagne. Marymoor Park. September 12th. Just got my tickets in the mail, and I'm so incredibly excited. I love this man. See below. This man's facial hair makes my heart go pitter pat. Gossip in the Grain is an amazing album, you should check it out. Favorite tracks? Of course I love the popular "You Are The Best Thing", also love "I Still Care For You", "Winter Birds", and "Meg White"..... really, I love the whole album. He's playing with David Gray at the show, unfortunately I know nothing about David Gray. I'm hoping Ray plays first so if David Gray sucks I can skate out early without feeling too bad.

5. In an effort to not die of skin cancer, I decided to get a mystic tan the other day. It didn't last very long and it seemed super blotchy. Plus, it seemed more orange than brown. I'll try it again, but I'm not convinced I like it. Anyone have any self tanning lotions or gels they love? I want to know about them. Its freaking mid-July people, I should be bronze by now.

6. Newest celebrity crush? Daniel Tosh, comedian and host of Comedy Central's Tosh.0. This show is ridiculously funny. I had first seen Daniel Tosh in his hour long comedy special "Completely Serious" a few years back, and I thought he was uber funny. Then I saw he was hosting this show, basically kinda like E!'s The Soup, except instead of making fun of TV, he's making fun of internet videos. Totally cracks me up. Line that made me almost pee myself...."I'm gonna tongue punch your mom's fart box, then go read a book."

7. My sis and I went to Urban Craft Uprising this past weekend. It was awesome. I bought two necklaces, which I'll show you in a different blog post. I'll do a recent jewelry acquisitions post because I got a couple sweet Etsy items from my sister for my birthday. This Urban Craft seemed a lot better than the last one in December. A little less crowded, and a lot edgier stuff. This was definitely not your grandmother's church bizarre. I managed to pick up a lot of business cards from various artists, I'm hoping to check out there Etsy pages, maybe add them to my favorites. I'm in the market for a cool locket, gold or silver, so if you know of any cool locket creators, please let me know.

8. True Blood Season 3 has started. The first episode had me wondering if this season was going to be a bust, but the last few episodes have been awesome. Can't wait to see more of Eric (of course!) and Alcide (super hot werewolf!!). Sookie still has a broke-ass face, so nothing has changed in that department. I'm reading the 7th book in the Sookie Stackhouse series, and I much prefer the Sookie in the books to the Sookie on television.

9. An old friend was in town for a few days this week, visiting from Hong Kong. He gave me a *great* idea for a Halloween costume for Milo...... A vacuum. I love it. I need to start making the costume now so he can win a prize at the Howl-O-Ween party this year. I really want to take him to the party because that is where we first met and fell in love. Or at least I fell in love with him at that moment, it took him a few months to fall in love with me. Anyway, I think he'll make a great Dirt Devil.

10. Cyn's birthday was this past weekend, we celebrated part of her special day at The Baranof in Greenwood. We've been there before for their karaoke and awesome people watching. If you are looking to make yourself feel better about your less than stellar existance, a karaoke night at The 'Nof will do just that. Usually there are one or two people that actually do an awesome job up at the mic, but mostly it is people that are looking to just have fun, while keeping their day jobs. There was one guy on Saturday night that was quite exceptional. He had the looks of Adam Levine (think longer hair though) from Maroon 5, but, oddly, the song choices of Michael McDonald. He was like the king of smooth jazz, seriously..... and the ladies were loving him. I was kinda on the fence until he busted out "Addicted to Love" by Robert Palmer. Oooh baby, every girl in that place only had eyes for him at that moment. Including myself. It was a fun night. Kyle and I were going to sing Neil Diamond's "Forever in Blue Jeans" if we ever got buzzed enough, but that didn't happen. Side bar: new favorite mixed drink? Malibu Rum and ginger ale. Thanks Foil.

Green Thumbin' It

Or at least trying to..... Admittedly, I know next to nothing about keeping living things alive other than cats and dogs. I've managed to kill many a houseplant over the years. I aspire to be like my friend Kim who has a nack for maintaining a house full of greenery. So far, I've been able to keep two houseplants from dying.
Last week my parents were in town for a few days. In an effort to show them that Seattle isn't full of dirtbags and criminals, we went to Swanson's Nursery one afternoon. I thought my mom was going to bust an O-ring, she was so super excited about Swanson's. We both ended up buying a few plants each. Since she is the almighty green thumb, and knows pretty much everything about plants, she helped me plant my new lavender. I bought three new lavender plants to add to the two that were already established in the yard, thanks to Kim. Let's hope I can keep them alive through the summer!

Check out my Topsy Turvy tomato plant!!! I have seen these everywhere the past few years, and decided this was going to be the contraption that was going to help me dive into the world of growing my own food. So far it is looking pretty good, except for a few leaves that have wilted. I'm not sure when I'm supposed to actually start seeing tomatoes.....anyone? August? September?

Another plant courtesy of me madre. Also still alive. Although I thought I had killed it because one of the flowers wilted, but my mom told me to cut it off and new flowers would bloom. Smarty pants.

Here are a few living things I have managed to keep alive and well. Basset hound named Milo. Currently weighing in at somewhere around 65 pounds. Possibly killing him with the amount of treats I give him.

And one mostly black floofy cat named Frank. He's shrinking year after year as he ages, but I think that is an old cat thing. I'd say he's weighing in at about 7 pounds these days. He's wee.

And a couple other guys I've kept alive the past few weeks? Grandpa and the Easter Bunny. I'll make introductions and show photos later. I'm cat sitting two monsters for the summer. They each weigh about double what Frank weighs, so they are staying in the upstairs bedroom with the door shut. Frank knows they are there but doesn't seem too concerned about it thus far.