Cell Phone Love

I always love when bloggers post random photos they take on their cell phones. so I though I'd share some from the past month or so; a little winter love going on around here :)

Oh my sweet Sadie, that face is to die for!

I baked these little heart shaped pocket pies...they are SO adorable! And they were yummy too!

A Christmas wreath I made the other day...which I need to fix because some of the balls fell off and broke :(

New Starbucks cups! Even better? A discounted cup!

Oh I also baked the most awesome applie pie ever. I used this recipe: Vanilla Bean Roasted Apple Pie. I've never made a pie so pretty! Actually I have only made a couple pies..soooo uh, not hard to top that :) (PS, I love my new pie dish from Williams Sonoma..its adorable & will hopefully last forever!)

I reused these letters from our wedding decor for some home decor. The red deer is from a very sweet friend, and just happens to match just perfect with all the Christmas decor!

Uh yeah..so I bake a lot...and I eat a lot, and like to take pictures of food :) These were my attempt at making The Best Lemon Cupcakes of All Time. And, they were.

Chris and I have been really into beer the past few months, a lot of craft beer and seasonal beer. Yummy.

We got a record player for a wedding gift (yay!) and I purchased a new Christmas album from my fav, Dustin Kensrue :) So good!

His & hers mugs we purchased on our honeymoon (from Anthro!). Love.

Status

Via Flickr.

Everyone once in a while (probably more often than that), I'll have a blogging "dry spell." Pretty much every blogger than I have followed has had this before as well. I usually like to blame it on something - other than myself, of course!!!

Colleen wrote a post the other day that pretty much hit me right on. The number of outlets most of us use for social networking is kind of redonkulous! (Yep, that's a word!). And I think that leads to a lack of actual substantial writing on here.

Do I really need to tell you about my awesome trip, when I've already posted all my pictures of Facebook (given that a lot of my close friends/bloggers are on there)? Or tell you a little blurb of nothingness when I can just do that on Twitter?

I even took a stab at Tumblr and even updating Flickr on a regular basis. But then it's like you feel like you need to post the same thing EVERYWHERE. So annoying.

What do you guys think about this? How many different sites are you on and how do you juggle between them?




SO in actual news, my Etsy shop is featured on Oh How Lovely Shops, so if you want some free hair pins you should definitely go over there, read my very exciting interview, and leave a comment to win!!!

You know you want to win this!!! :)

Moral of the story...

Don't go changin' your email address.

Not only will you have to go to every website imaginable and update to your new address;

You will find the gmail does not want you to sign onto AIM via gchat (which I finally figured out how to fix while searching forums for 80 hours);

You will not be able to figure out how to update your blogger account to your new email address, which is just lovely. (Has anyone done that before btw? I'm about to save, then delete my blog, then open it up again under my new email address...but I'm scared!!!!);

You will lose your Gchat (gchat, seems like a bad word) contacts;

And people you follow on Google Reader;

And then you will cry.

Nay-bors

When we moved out of apartment living, one of the things I was most excited about is that our neighbors would be further away than sharing a wall with someone. Back then we didn't have horrible neighbors, we just had the old lady underneath us that I avoided at all costs (lonnnnggg story).

I've always heard people with these horrible neighbor stories, and I'd always think wow, well sucks for them because I've never experienced that! People can't be THAT bad!

WRONG.

We are surrounded by douchy neighbors. Not one, not two, but three (maybe more?)! I don't even think I'm being overly dramatic here, they each make me want to come over and punch them in the eye for very different reasons.

Neighbors #1: the gigantic family next door. These people are actually very nice, but they piss us off for other reasons. They have a 3-car garage and a driveway that could probably fit 4 cars across. Do they park cars in their garage? Nope. They do, however, park about 6 cars in their driveway and sometimes on their grass. Yes, apparently I live in Oildale. (No offense to those who live in Oildale who do not park in their lawn). They also park 3-4 cars on the street at all times, which almost always take up ALL THE PARKING SPACE in front of our house. I'd guess that at least 3 of these cars do not even run. I even saw a ticket on one of them once for that reason. Thankfully they got rid of their mini-doberman that used to run around the neighborhood and chase me up to my front door with it's scabies.

Neighbors #2: Douch-y family across the street. These people have never said a word to us, yet they are always outside. They always have BBQ's in their front yard. HELLO - we do have backyards, people! They also enjoy parking in front of our house, even when they have room for parking in front of theirs. Maybe if they'd move the half-pipe and trailer (with a scrunched up race car on it) out of their driveway they would not be so douch-y. Also, their little kids run around outside while they are being ridiculously profane. It's pretty sad to hear them drunkenly yelling EFF THIS AND THAT right in front of little kids.

Neighbors #3, the noisy teenagers(?) behind us. If you enjoy waking up at 2am on a Thursday to loud pool parties then you should definitely live in our house. This is not just your every-so-often house party, it's like multiple times a week. I feel like a grumpy old lady complaining about people having fun, but it's just a little ridiculous. I can hear their conversations about getting high from inside our house. SO ANNOYING.


Do you guys think I'm being overly annoyed with all of them? Do you have any past or present bad neighbors?



Apologies for using the word "douche" 80 times in this post!!!

I knew this was coming..

that's what she said.

I noticed yesterday that my Reader was filling up with people that were being tagged to take a candid picture of themselves, that very moment. As I saw each of my closer buddies' post, I cringed to see if they'd tag me. And this morning, it happend.

Wow, that was all dramatic like. I checked my Reader this morning and my most awesome friend Steph tagged me. Ohhh, thank you thank you! OK, and Colleen tagged me as well. Dang. I'm getting ambushed over here!

The Rules:
Take a picture of yourself right now.
No primping or preparing.
Just snap a picture.
Load the picture onto your blog.
Tag some people to play along.

Okkk, so here is my candid shot. I had remember to turn my head oherwise I'd look like a bald girl with gigantic bangs. Dang I need to trim those babies!



Uhh yeah, I'm supposed to find people to tag but I think everyone and their mothers have been tagged. So I am taking the lazy route: if you have not been tagged, I hereby tag you. BOOYA!

Somebody stop me!!!!!!

I have a serious issue, and I know at least one other person can feel me on this one. I order WAY too much stuff online. Let me take you through what I have bought JUST this week.

Steph reminded me that I needed to order this fire pit before it get's too hot. Darn!

I was looking for a new collar for Sadie (the one she already had when we got here is all worn out), and I found this one. With hedgehogs. So I just HAD to it it, duh!

Found these on Etsy, of course. Hole-less buttons, genius. I can't reveal yet what I'm doing with these, but if it turns out well I'll show you soon :)

I've been looking for some spiffy looking art for the kitchen, and decided to order these. I really wanted 1 or 2 more from this store, but I stuck to my 2-item budget. That's a good thing though, right???

This is a dog tag for Sadie. I actually didn't order this one this week, but it came in the mail this week (counts, right?). Isn't it cute? I've ordered 3 other tags from this sweet lady. Loooove.

I'm actually surprised I didn't order more stuff this week. I'm sure I was thinking about getting about 10 more items...but noticed that I had to pay bills. Ooopsies! Don't you hate that!!! In all fairness to myself, I make sure I find the best deals on most everything I get...buying things online usually turns out much cheaper than going to a store in town (at least that's what i tell myself). I also LOVE getting stuff in the mail, who doesnt??

Inspiration? Halp!

Oh..right..I have a blog...

I guess everyone goes through phases where they feel completely...I don't know, bored? Uninspired? Just...blah? Don't get me wrong...I have plenty(!!!) of things to do, in fact, I keep myself pretty busy most of the time. I just have lots of unfinished or unstarted projects, that would really make myself happier if I would just do them! It may be more fun with a craft partner, maybe that's my problem. I don't know.

Actually...I don't really even have much to say; I just wanted to write here in case someone was missing me (hah, right...) That's pretty pathetic, and probably not going to help my want from helpful/encouraging comments :-/

I hope between now and the end of the weekend I can really finish my bathroom project, and also finish my THREE craft projects I have sitting on the kitchen table.



Umm, to add some happiness to this post...I will leave you with this video, since I have the song stuck in my head...and it's cute!

Dearest Thursday

Dear Thursday,



Will you please be nice to me today? So far you have; thank you for having my Dad bring me a coffee first thing this morning.

Nothing against you personally, but I'd like to get this day over fast; we have The Office to watch tonight at 9pm (and let's be real here, that's the only thing exciting about today).

I know you can't do much about this today, and even though I know it's nice to have a little bit of sunshine in my life, do you understand that it's January and it really should't be 65 degrees and sunny? I know some people might kill me for saying that, but, there's only so much rain and cloudy-ness throughout the year here and I just think it's fair if you can provide us will a little bit more during our oh-so-short winters.

Lastly, can you bring some happiness to anyone that is having a bad day? That would be great.


Thanks,

Alyssa

Confessions

I. Am. Lazy.

It may not seem like it to someone else, but I feel overly-lazy, pretty much all the time. Sometimes I think my Laziness is bipolar (yes, the Lazy me, not the me me!). For example, most days I try to walk the dog during lunch (if I go home), right after work, and once again later in the evening. Yet, at the same time, there's 3 piles of clean laundry sitting on the bed, dirty dishes all over the kitchen, a horrifically messy craft room, and a seemingly unkept front and back yard. Dirty floors, bathrooms, etc, etc, etc.

And yet, after I get home from working...after cooking dinner (okay, I actually cook most of the time..I guess I should give myself a little credit. But I am too lazy to clean up the mess!), I somehow use my spare time to watch my favorite tv shows, play games, and b.s. on the computer.

Can you imagine if I were to have kids right now??? Gees. Maybe I need some type of motivation. I was thinking a few days ago, that if I just invited people over every day - my house and life would be a lot more cleaner/organized. OR, would I just throw everything in the mess of a craft room? I don't even have room to my crafts in my craft room. A few weeks ago Steph came over and we make a baby quilt, the sewing machine & supplies are still. sitting. on. the. dining. table!!!!! Because I was totally going to start a few other sewing projects. I swear.

Whew. Glad I got that all out. I hope I made you all feel better about yourselves. Motivation secrets, anyone?

(I've Got Nothing)

Not gonna lie, I don't have anything important or too exciting to blog about. Boo.



We had a party at our house on New Years. It went pretty well and was fun; however, I re-realized that as much as I'd want to have tons of my friends over at once and entertain them all...I do not like the pressure! The whole first hour or so (when about 10 people were there) i was in the kitchen cooking and making drinks because I totally was not prepared! Bad hostess. I'm sure nobody felt awkward or anything, but still. Actually only 2 of our friends stayed the entire time, everyone else had other places to go as well. My only gripe was that I made all this food and apparently nobody came hungry. (And, blogger ladies that came over last month, remember the mulled wine? Umm, i think I'm the only one that had a glass!) I think I'm much better with smaller groups of people.



Our heater at home, apparently, decided to crap out on us. Ever since we've been turning it on, it never really seemed to heat up that much, but I thought maybe it just needed extra time to heat up. Well, Sunday we turned it on and for an hour it was just blowing cold air. Set on 78 degrees. So, being DIY'ers...Chris got out our "how-to" book, tried to figure it out..but nothing worked. So we have to have someone come check it out now. On a positive note, I love that we have a wood-burning fireplace because it feels awesome and smells so good! We're just going to ignore the fact that there are "no-wood burning" days in the Central Valley....I mean really, do you want me to freeze to death???


I've also been spending some free time playing Animal Crossing on the Wii...it's fun, I promise.

2008, You Were Good

I didn't realize how much my life has changed this year until I started looking at all of my pictures from the past 12 months and seeing how much my hairstyle has evolved! For reals.

Okay joking aside, so much has happened this year! We went from one car to two, I went from long hair to short, dropped a few pounds, moved from apartment living to home ownership, found out I'm going to be an aunt this next year (!), added a dog to our family, finally met Chris' family, among many other things!!!! It all went by so fast too; it seems to do that when you get older

So here's some pictures to take you through my years past. (I kind of stole this idea from a bunch of people, so thank you, internet dwellers, for your brilliant ideas!)

January

February

Steph and me.

Chris' got a new car!

March

Miss Kitty got fixed :(

Made this Pepto-colored table cute again!


April

Oh look...it's those Corwins again! Trip to SF!

First time hiking up in the Kern Canyon. (Um what have I been doing the past 10 years not going there?)

May

First quad trip up at Shaver Lake.

First beach trip of the year. Pismo Beach.

June
Garbage got chopped :(

*Apparently I hated my crappy camera this month-only 6 pictures that month!!!

July

We spent the 4th of July at Shaver Lake.

And on said trip, had an incident with the dog falling in the lake and not wanting to do much but act like dead weight.

Then I turned 23.

Then we visited my little cousins in Manhattan Beach.


August
We'd be on the home search for over a couple of months, this was the one that accepted our offer.

So, we started packing!

September
At the Lake again; Chris decided it was smart to grab a snake out of a stream!

Unstuffing our LoveSac :-/ Who does that? Um, apparently people with cats who peed on it.

On our moving day, we first painted the entire living area & office.

Then we moved our furniture in :)

October
(aka crafty month)
I painted some dressers black.

I made a fall wreath.

We got a new front door! Yeeeee!

I made some pumpkin & apples votive holders.

...and made some pillows.

Oh, and I did some baking!

November
We adopted our dog, and named her Tundra.

Then we took her up to Shaver.

Then we celebrated Thanksgiving

December
We went to Michigan to meet the fam.
I hosted my first party, full of wonderful lady bloggers :)

And we had a white Christmas.

Here's to many new memories in 2009!