pixiegenné

there are lots of punny titles i could come up with around the word "monkey", but i am sparing you

sorry the picture is not great. i think my camera battery was low. or something. anyway, i had an unexpected day off today (due to sick kid. not even really sick. but hell-bent on not going to school). so i made a few monkeys. i like 'em. these are for gifts and/or swaps but i may make some more soon for my shop.   

in unrelated news, have you i-tuners out there tried this software? john sent it my way and i thought it was pretty cool. it goes through your music library and cleans up all your headings (what we in the library biz call authority control). so all your 'g. love & special sauce' is listed as such and not 'g love and special sauce' or some other NOT RIGHT combination. the librarian in me geeks out to that kind of stuff. it's not perfect (it tagged 3 or 4 songs wrong), but for the most part it worked well and made my music library look nice and tidy.

(and that is my heloise tip of the day)

happy wednesday!

yeah...i got nothing

this blog is getting stale.
working more = crafting less = not much to report
so if i'm here less, that's why.

but since you're here...

• i went w/john to see iron man on friday. i was feeling lukewarm about it (i'm not a huge action hero fan), but must report that it was awesome, due in no small part to robert downey jr.'s excellent hotness
• it rained all weekend, so we hung out, watched movies, played on our computers, puttered around the house, made forts (see picture)
• people sent some good you-tube my way today

i'll be back again soon when i've got something more exciting to report. hope you have a great week!

more ikea!

the other thing i was psyched to get at ikea was this hanging planter. i've been on the lookout for a while, but all the planters i like seem to be out of my price range. my love for ikea runs deep.

other stuff going on...
got attacked by a turkey yesterday
welcomed my neighbors home from paris

it's raining and i'm feeling sluggish. but the basement's dry and all the trees are budding, so i should shut my whiny pie hole.

ikea!

the ikea trip was a success. bed for jane. bed for us. plus a bunch of random goodies i couldn't resist (like the two pillows on jane's bed). she downsized from a full to a twin so we needed new bedding. luckily i've got some twin sheets in my vintage stash. and i made the duvet cover you see here from an old quilt top and a vintage sheet sewn together. i took a cue from an ikea duvet cover i have and just left an opening to stuff the duvet in (no need for buttons). very quick and satisfying.

happy monday!

done painting

here's some evidence that i got something done this week. i finished painting jane's room today. tomorrow we are making the pilgrimage to ikea to get her a new bed (and maybe us, too). john and i got a new cotton mattress last year that didn't work w/our metal bed frame so we've been sleeping w/the mattress and box-spring on the floor for over a year now. i think having a real bed will help me feel like a grown-up (although i'm not sure that ikea counts as adult furniture). but you know what i mean.

blather!
have a great weekend!

nothin but blue skies.

i know i said i'd have some crafting to share this week but oh my god it's been nice out. the kids are on vacation and we've been making the most of the uncommonly good weather. and i've been working on painting jane's room (a project i started way back here w/the thought that i'd have it finished in a week. who did i think i was kidding?)

anyway, i'll get to the crafty stuff when it's raining out. in the meantime, here are some mostly un-kid-friendly links john has sent my way recently...
meatloaf pie chart
i'm a shark!
celebrities swearing

(my favorite swear, incidentally, is *whore* which isn't really a swear but i feel like it packs a nice punch w/out the overdone shock value of the "c" word...)

(i also like hyphenated "fuck" words...fuck-face, dumb-fuck, fuckety-fuck)

(it's funny that i seem totally comfortable peppering this post w/swears but feel shy about whipping out the "c" word. i'm sure there's some feminist commentary on this)

uh-oh

a good thrift store opened up nearby.

my friend had told me it was worth a visit and we were driving by just as they were opening this morning so we popped in. it was junkalicious, and really good prices. big boxes full of vintage kids books for 50 cents a piece. my kind of place. if you can get past the nice but slightly skeezy old guys who hang out there and nod toward your daughter and say "her daddy's gonna need to get himself a shotgun when she gets a bit older!"

(for you local folk, the place is called 'timeless treasures' - it's on forest ave next to the odd fellows hall)

like a hole in my head

i know, i just got rid of a butt-load of books. but i hit my first tag sale of the season today and there was a decent selection of vintage books and they were 10 cents each so i got a couple. i gave each one a lot of consideration and only chose those i knew i would use for something. plus, the little red riding hood book is adorable...

i usually see some familiar faces while yard-saling (i'm often w/one of these girls). today i think i saw this local blogger, though i was already late for work and she was on the other side of the room so i didn't have time to go introduce myself (it was you, wasn't it tonya?). anyway, all that to say that you can't throw a stick at a portland tag sale w/out hitting a crafty and/or bloggy type.

and i know i said i would have some crafts to show off here this week, but it has been freaking glorious outside and we've been trying to make the most of it. the kids have next week off, and we have zero plans, so hopefully i'll get some stuff done then.

until then, happy weekending!

well, she asked for it

my sister crissy (who has a blog i didn't know about but whatever*) tagged me for a meme today. it's the reveal 7 things about yourself meme which i have been tagged for several times before. but since she's my sister and since it's almost her birthday and since you already know way more about me than you ever wanted to, here are 7 random things about my sister, crissy...

• one of the meanest things my siblings and i did when we were little was hang crissy's favorite doll, helena, from the basement ceiling (i mention the doll's name only because we now refer to that incident as "the time we hung helena")
• plus we told her that eskimo pies were made from chopped up eskimos and we thought that was hysterical
• crissy went through a bit of a goth period in high school, during which time our toddler nephew pronounced her name "creepy", which has stuck.
• after crissy graduated college, she and a couple friends followed the dead around for awhile. they came to stay w/john and i for a bit and they were filthy. i gave them sos pads to get their feet clean.
• crissy is really good at cross-stitch. or needlepoint. i always get those two mixed up (and have never tried either...)
• she loves elephants
• and she's not someone you want to cross. we like to say "is she a good bitch, or a bad bitch?". crissy's a good bitch. it probably has something to do w/all that teasing she endured. she has us to thank for her tough skin.

you're welcome, crissy! and happy birthday a few days early!
xoxo

*if you think i'm snarky and sarcastic, read crissy's blog. you'll see where i get it...

we're home

but here's a few more pics of our trip.

we had a fantastic time at the museum of natural history, chinatown, times square, central park zoo. we hit the apple store and the american girl store and the crazy toysrus with the ferris wheel in the middle. i'd like to say we ate fantastic food but with jane the vegetarian and charlie the picky mcnugget, we usually find common ground in the cheese/bread/pasta places. good pizza, though.

once again i'm feeling a bit brain dead. i've got some crafty goals for the week so i'll be back soon.
happy monday!