Year End Break

It’s that time of year, when I leave the blogosphere for a few weeks.  I love taking this time to decompress, organize, reflect, and plan ahead.  I will also be updating my columns to reflect upcoming events and 2013 reading challenges.  If you happen to log on during this process, it might look a bit messy, but rest assured it will be fixed by the first week in January.  Plus I’m in freezing Indiana with the family.  I want to spend time curling up with a mug of tea, a few cookies, and the boys while watching a movie.  I’ll be back after the first of the year (tenatively Jan. 6th…)  To everyone out there reading my blog, if I don’t see you in person…

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 

Packing for Vacation

Today I’ll be traveling back to Indiana.  The hardest part is always the packing of clothes.  How do I condense my crazy closet into a few easy, but fabulous outfits?  Plus, how do you deal with the changing weather?  I thought long and hard, and here’s what I figured out to pack.  (Minus the socks, underwear, and bras… nobody really needs to see those)

First up, the lounging and pajamas.  I went with one pair of flannel pj pants, one pair of heavier sweat pants, one lightweight short sleeve tee, and one lightweight long sleeve tee.  This way I can lounge without being cold but with light enough layers to sleep in.

I decided to change up my packing by adding two dresses this time, both brown based outfits.  I can layer the khaki  jersey dress with either a long sleeve purple turtleneck or a short sleeve magenta turtleneck.  Add in brown tights, cute two-tone brown mary janes, and 3/4 sleeve ruffled cardigan and I have a cute outfit.  Or I can wear the magenta high low dress with cardigan, tights, and heels.  Two cute different, yet warm outfits for dinners or family get togethers.

For the fancier events (I.e. New Year’s) or for bar visits, I went with two comfy but flashier outfits.  One pair of black stripe trouser jeans, pair of plain black pumps, one 3/4 sleeve black cardigan, and two sleeveless fancy tops (black, white, and gray snakeskin and pink ruffles).  Both adorable yet super comfy outfits.

For the extra cold days, I packed my denim trouser jeans, Converse, and a black v-neck sweater or 3/4 sleeve white henley with purple cardigan and scarf.  That purple cardigan is super comfy and warm.  Plus I can wear it with the shirts below.

More comfortable options for lounging days or shopping trips.  I packed my dark bootcut jeans, 3/4 turquoise tee, long sleeve purple “Believe” tee, and long sleeve foil reindeer and snowflake tee.  Obviously I can wear these with my Chucks, purple cardigan, and purple scarf.

 

Finally my plane outfit.  I plan on wearing my dark bootcut jeans, tshirt, Urban Outfitters old man sweater, black checked scarf, and fake combat boots.  This way I can layer for warmth or take off if I get hot.  And all those pieces are very comfortable.

Combined with a few key jewelry accessories and I have some super cute and interchangeable outfits.  Plus it all fits in my suitcase with room for Christmas presents to spare.  I imagine I will coming home with a few things.  I really want some dark skinny jeans to wear with my tall boots.  Not so bad for my first time really documenting my packing list.

After my vacation, I plan on posting some picture highlights.  Hopefully You’ll be able to see what I look like in these outfits…

 

 

Book of Lists (I’m Late per Usual)

I ran across this idea on At Random, I followed her links to Kapachino’s original post:

Because I’m suuuper original I’m calling it the Book of Lists because that is essentially what it will be. Just get yourself a book – make a minibook out of chipboard and binder rings like I did or grab a blank journal, a spiral notebook, scrapbook, anything of the sort – make sure it has some empty pages, and you’re ready to go.

Every month there will be a topic for a list, and the object is to craft it on a blank page, take a photo of your list, then blog it. You can get elaborate scrapbook-style, or even jot it down with your favorite pen. If you want, you don’t even have to make a book and you can just blog about the list topic (even though then it’s not really a book of lists, but that’s cool). My style is somewhere in the middle.

I just absolutely love this idea.  I’m a crafter.  I love lists.  Why not combine the two into a new project?  Sounds like the perfect plan for me.  Unfortunately I didn’t get to the posts until today…  The holidays have been rough on my blog reading.  At any rate, I’m jumping in.  I have a ton of journals and notebooks lying around the office.  I grabbed one, personalized it and started on my journey.  Here’s the notebook:

I chose a simple composition notebook with some pretty stripes.  Then I dove into my crafting supplies for some great stickers to add a title.  Simple but with a bit of flare, very me…

And now on to December’s list: wish list…  

I didn’t go overboard with stuff, but I just made a simple list of 17 things I am wishing for right now.  Some are creature comforts and some are more life related.  I think this sums me up nicely.

Next month: We’ll be posting on January 7 and the topic is “looking forward.” That could mean what you’re looking forward to, your goals for the year, or however else you interpret it.

 

Black Friday Shopping

Remember the time years ago when you would faithfully make a Christmas list.  For me, I loved going through the Sears catalog circling the items I wanted.  My boys love doing that to the Toys R Us catalog.  At some point, all of us stop making Christmas lists.  At least we stop writing them down.  Well I am reviving the tradition.  I’m making a Christmas wish list and it can be found on Amazon.  Just search for my name. *Hint hint*

 

It’s Turkey Day!

For all you Thanksgiving families out there, Enjoy your day!  Eat some great food!  Give thanks for all you have.  I know I will…

 

Book Bloggers Holiday Card Exchange

Care to join me?  Click the picture above!

This year, the Book Bloggers Holiday Card Exchange is organised by me at Leeswammes’ Blog and by Courtney of Stiletto Storytime. Anastasia of Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog has passed the baton on to us. Anastasia is the originator and ran this very popular event for two years. Courtney and I were sorry to hear Anastasia wasn’t running it this year, so we’re very pleased she allowed us to take over. As we’re a little late announcing this event we’re more or less taking Anastasia’s text from last year, with her permission (thank you so much, Anastasia!).

The Book Bloggers Holiday Card Exchange is an event in which book bloggers send each other a holiday card around the Christmas period (the end of December). This isn’t just for people that celebrate Christmas, though! Everyone is can join in the fun.

Info

1. Sign up for the exchange by November 30, 2012.

2. Emails with partner info go out December 3, 2012 (please check your spam folder if you didn’t get the email, then contact us).

3. You have until December 13, 2012 to send your card(s).

4. Since it’s a book-lovers card exchange you have to include something book-related in your card. Some ideas:

• Write about a book you’ve read recently.
• Give a few book recommendations to your partner.
• Tell a book-related story.
• Something else book-related that you think up yourself.

5. Since this is a book blogger holiday card exchange, you need to be a blogger who blogs at least sometimes about books to participate.

6. The swap is open internationally. It’s too cumbersome trying to pair up people who do/do not want to send internationally, so everyone must be willing to send internationally.

7. You can exchange up to five cards. You won’t always get a card from the same people you send your cards to. It will nevertheless be an awesome thing.

Some Things to Remember

1. You HAVE to send a card. A card is something like this. You can make it yourself or buy it at the store. Everything you write must be contained in the card itself. Letters are not cards. The card doesn’t have to be book-themed OR holiday themed (but it might be nice if it was). We suggest you refrain from sending specifically religious-themed cards, because that sort of thing tends to offend people, even if you didn’t mean to offend them.

2. You HAVE to write something book-related in your card (see above). You can’t just say “happy holidays.” You COULD just write a list of books and that’s all, but I don’t think that’d be a lot of fun, do you?

3. You DON’T have to send anything else but the card, but if you want to stick in something else that’d be fine. A bookmark, for instance, would be really nice. Whatever you send: it has to be flat enough to fit in the envelope– no upgrading into package territory, here.

4. The most you should spend is $5. The point of the exchange is that it’s cheap enough for us money-less people to participate in, so everything should cost $5 and under. I don’t know if you can even buy a card that costs more than $5. Can you?

Oh, and the Twitter hashtag is #bkcardex.

 

I’m heading east to the cold…

I’m off to Indiana to see the family for the holiday season.  I’m sure there will be lots of food, lots of laughs, and lots of flowers (in the shop).  I’m excited to see everyone, especially the boys, but hesitant about the cold.  I think I’m acclimating to North California weather and this will be a shock to the system.  I’m packing tons of layers, basically whatever’s left of my winter wardrobe and hoping for moderate temps.  If you are traveling, be safe!

 

Ready to Throw It All Out (Part 2)

Check out Part 1 here.

Part 2: The Office aka the most dreaded room in the house.

Does anyone else have this problem?  The Office becomes the catch all room.  Things go in and never again see the light of day.  Things start out as very organized and then just magically become a crazy mess. We have this problem.  At one point after moving in, this room was beautifully organized.  And then it seems that life created chaos.  Here are my beginning pics:

My main goals:

• Restack/organize boxes in the closet
• Reorganize the crafting supplies
• Reduce the crafting supplies (make stuff/give away stuff)
• Reduce my curriculum boxes/crap
• Pick up/put away the random crap lying around
• Encourage J to take care of his random crap (left side of the room)

I tackled the curriculum boxes first.  In reality, I was trying to find my flash drive that held all my school files.  I thought it was in the curriculum/teaching supply boxes.  But after digging through all five boxes, it didn’t appear.  I’m a little concerned that it has completely disappeared.  But I am happy that I made a mess.  It gave me an opportunity to reduce the crap and reorganize the leftover.  I managed to get rid of an entire box!  I also repacked the leftover curriculum so that it makes sense (US History together, government together, etc).  In the process I pulled resources for my tutoring student.  Overall I feel a lot better about the leftovers.  I tried to condense things into the must haves.

I restacked the boxes (books and curriculum) in the closet.  They need to be reduced, but that requires reading and then getting rid of the books.  I am determined to reduce the boxes by half by June 2013 (without adding to the boxes, of course).  I need to focus on reading from my own books instead of going to the library or book store.  I have a plan.  Now I need to follow through.  Until then, the boxes were restacked, but as you can see they are leaning a bit.  I also would love to get J to go through his four book boxes and reduce.  That is a task for when he’s not busy, which will probably be 50 years from now…

On to the crafting supplies.  I had a couple of interesting projects this week.  After finishing those, I took the opportunity to reorganize my supplies into an easier to grab order. I got everyone separated into easier to grab sections.  I also organized my 8.5 x 11″ paper into color spectrum.  Hopefully this makes it easier to find.  Finally I crafted a ton this week so I was able to reduce my overall supply piles.

J is so busy that he doesn’t have time to do any housekeeping.  Since he won’t really be dealing with the crap any time soon, I think I will just shove his crap to the area around the desk.

Final pictures of the redone office.  It’s better organized than it looks.

 

Total reduction:  One box.  Two trash bags.  Stack of completed craft projects for Christmas/birthday/holiday gifts.  Easily found supplies/books/curriculum.

Coming soon: Part 3 (kitchen/living room/closets)

 

Thankful Thursday

I found this wonderful meme idea on Ruby Bastille.  I thought it would be a great way to share my life with my readers.  So here we go with my first Thankful Thursday.

1) Chili — I was missing the Midwest fall.  I was missing the apple cider, bonfires, and chili.  I wanted to feel a bit of home (California doesn’t quite feel like home yet).  So I made chili and it was glorious.  Sunnyvale even graced me with cooler temps (low 60s) to enjoy my spicy chili and cornbread.

2) My grandma — Every time I send her a card, she sends a thank you note back.  Even with her bad arthritis, she takes the time to write me a note back.  Don’t tell her, but for Christmas I made her a huge stack of homemade cards to use.

3) J for accepting my crazy random thoughts — Lately every time we watch a show, I must nitpick about something.  Usually that something has something to do with the law.  Last week we were watching the episode of The West Wing (S3) where Donna finds out she isn’t American anymore.  This led to me asking a ton of questions about citizenship jus soli (by soil).  I had to go on to Wikipedia to find some detailed answers.  The entire time J encouraged my crazy behavior until I had answers.  The result: we both think the writers failed to fully explain the circumstances and that even if her town isn’t in America anymore, those residents before the transfer would retain citizenship.  Yeah I know, crazy.

4) Thanksgiving — I’m almost a week away from flying back to Indiana and spending time with family and friends.  Thanksgiving gives me the opportunity to spend some time there, but more importantly to be with my boys.  I miss them terribly.

5) The recent elections — Whether or not I voted for the current people in office, I am thankful to be able to vote and voice my opinion.

 

Video Sharing

Here’s a few great videos that I’ve been enjoying in the past week:

Ellen and the Bic for Her nonsense

I really want my Community back on…  When will it be October 19th?  Let Troy and Abed explain.

A serious plea from The Nerdist.

God I really love Amy Acker.

Quick go buy some bacon!