i win!

Shortly before a plague struck my family, the sweet and awesome Emily from Could Be Interesting nominated me for an award!

I have to say - versatility is pretty important to me so I fully appreciate the fun of this particular award.  And part of the fun required revealing 7 random facts about yourself on your blog...which I promptly did not do.  So now Emily probably thinks I am the rudest of the rudes (I hope not) but I swear my tardiness was only because of the aforementioned plague.

And also because I am simultaneously weird and boring and it was kind of hard for me to figure out which 7 tidbits folks might wanna read about.

Here goes:

1. I have the most unsophisticated culinary preferences of any blogger in blogland, I think.  I am all about macaroni from a box, coca cola, non-homemade tortilla chips.  You keep your kale and truffles.  I'm good with iceburg and bacos.  I aspire to eat better and try more recipes and such but I've been waiting for a fresh dose of foodie willpower for about...oh...ten years or so.  It's not looking good.

2. Given the choice between a night on the town and a night in with books, I would take the books.  Every time. Extra points if they're nerdy and I've already read them a million times (*cough*harrypotter*cough*).

3. One of my biggest regrets is not doing my homework in high school.  Seriously.  I could have had a 4.5 gpa if only I hadn't lost so many points for incomplete assignments.  I figured then that if I knew the material enough to pass a test on it, I shouldn't be subjected to busy work on my own time.  Honestly, I still think that argument is valid but being right isn't going to fix my old report cards.

4. Whenever I see those "Celebrities Without Makeup!" magazine articles I get embarrassed because they remind me that I am always without makeup.  Really.  Always.  When I get super dressed up, I'll swipe on some blush and mascara.  Lip gloss if I remember.  But that's it.  That's another thing I constantly resolve to fix and, so far, haven't managed to.

5. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer.  Then I didn't.  Then I did again.  I have probably changed my mind back and forth about writing a million and one times.  It still happens from time to time.  Hooray for blogs!

6. I sleep with my contacts in most of the time because my vision is terrible (20/800).  And if a burglar gets into my house I need to be able to see his face, right?  So that I can pepper spray him in the eyeballs and whack him over the head with the sawed-off hockey stick handle we keep by our bed.  Consider that your warning, burglars.  I will come at you like a spider monkey.

7. I can't keep secrets.  If you ever want to tell me something and you start off by saying, "Hey, can you keep a secret?" I will say "NO!" and stick my fingers in my ears.  And if you tell me anyway it will be less than 12 hours before I tell someone else.  It's the best I can do.  Sorry.  (Not really.)

So there you have it.  I might have come across like a huge weirdo but if we're going to be friends I think it's best you know what you are in for.  :)

dreaming

We began house-hunting this week.

It's all I've been hearing for months, "Now is the time to buy!  Prices are rock bottom!  Interest rates are rock bottom!"  But we heard that three years ago, too, when we bought our teensy townhouse.  We didn't get a terrible deal back then, we just didn't expect that we would have to hold onto this place for longer than a few years.  And now that it has lost about 20k in value, it has officially become an "investment" home.  Which means renting it out and dealing with tenants.

Not my favorite idea ever.

So I was determined to be patient and picky this time around.  No one finds their dream house overnight and I refused to be rushed into anything, as I told anyone who would listen.

Cut to: the day after we start looking.  Well, whattaya know?  We found our dream house.  A huge, wonderful, totally-out-of-character-for-Florida mid-century modern gem.  The kind of gem that most people in our area would look at and go, "This place is weird.  Who would want such an old house?"  Which explains why it was on the market for 540 days.

And yet some other weirdo beat us to it by ONE MONTH.

So.  We will not be moving forward on Dream House.  And it has required an incredible strength of will for us to get back out and look at other (more boring, generic) homes in our desired school zone.  We put an offer in on one this morning and we are reminding ourselves over and over how perfectly-fine it is.

After all, huge cielings and walls of vintage 1963 windows can't be very energy efficient.

Yeah.  Who wants to deal with all of that?  Not me.  Nope.  No...sir...eee.

*sniff*

And I think it's safe to say that, no matter what house we buy, our epic summer vacation plans are postponed.  Which is also sad, since I have been mentally packing my bags for months.  But, have no fear, there are a million ways to seek summer and I foresee lots of sunshiny decorating in my future.

p.s.  I'm planning a very mild facelift for this ol' blog.  Nothing drastic.  Just a newer, not-slapped-together header.  Know any awesome designers and/or illustrators?  Please feel free to send their names my way!

the sicks

Well...that was a lovely little blogging break.  And by "lovely" I mean "terrible."

My entire family was sick.  For more than a month.  We each had a turn and I was, by far, the luckiest to scrape by with only three or four days of misery.  The sweet-and-cuddliness of a sick child wears off after a few weeks.

(If you're wondering, there is a pond behind our house that is maintained by the neighborhood association.  That fence you see in the background is there to keep children, like mine, from falling in and drowning.  It looks dumb but I appreciate its purpose.  It is not, however, particularly effective against cats.  Nuff said.)

The only really good thing about the forced down time that came along with this plague in our house was that it gave me a lot of good hours to think.  About where I wanted to be personally and professionally and bloggeringly.  I think I've made some pretty serious decisions...but I'm not 100% committed yet.  I'm not sure I want to share everything that is bouncing around my head and muddling up my desk space.

I mean, I'm currently using a magazine as a mouse pad, if that gives you any indication of the mental tidying up I still have to do.  But I'll get there.  It will be all good.

For now, I'll say just this...

Wait.  No.  I won't say anything.  Sorry.  Chickened out.

One day during the plague we had cupcakes.  Here.  Feast your eyes.

Thanks for bearing with me and my very random post.  There might be even more posts of this nature coming soon.  I kind of like it.

don't let the smile fool you

I know she looks sweet and rosy-cheeked and content here, but that's only because I had been distracting her with crazy photoshoot direction for 10 straight minutes.  This poor girl spent all of last week laying on the couch, watching PBS Kids and feeling crummy and flu-ish.

Thankfully, she seems to be on the mend.  As every parent says, I hate when my girls are sick.  But they are so so so cuddly and warm and needy when they don't feel good.  There's a little part of me that can't help but want to remember that.

See more from our impromptu cheer-up session over on my photography blog.

sleep day

I want to leap and prance and play today.  When I reflect on how much has happened and changed, so much for the better, since the last time February had 29 days I seriously want to dance and celebrate.  However, as I have been stricken with some kind of chest-cold-feverish-plague, there will be none of that today.  I am planning on naps and rest and glasses of ice-cold cola (my personal comfort food).  In the meantime, here is an irresistibly pretty bit of art that I came across during my morning blog-a-thon.  Wouldn't you just LOVE to have something like this on your wall?

Happy, happy thread typography by Dominique Falla via You Are My Fave.