new season. new scene.

I am a slacker on blogging these days. I have two good reasons for it:
1. I've been taking care of a sick kid, a busy husband, a house, and everything inbetween.
and
2. Although I make myself sound busy, there's not much happening that's worth reporting to the blog.

And I've been in a rut lately. (guess that makes 3 reasons)

I'm trying to figure out why I am always trying to fit in where I don't.

Time to get over it. Onward and upward.

here's someone I can relate to. literally.

hand me downs

I've blogged about my increasing love for thrift stores before, but a night of thrifting success like I had last weekend can only be explained in pictures.

These are just a sampling of items I dug out of the recesses of metal-hanger-smelling racks of questionable clothes. It isn't always pretty, but it's worth it. My only hangup is that it is getting harder and harder to find any fun vintage stuff worth buying. I always prefer nice, vintage stuff but I won't turn down a nice Gap dress for $9 or anything.

note: I was not about to iron all of these clothes just for a blog post. embrace the wrinkles.
springtime dress, CHECK.
creme brulee, my new favorite color palette
jcrew on a budget, my transition from winter to spring outfit. borders on old lady, i know, i love it.
i didn't show you but the black sleeve cuffs on this dress have the most adorable gold buttons on the backside of them. makes for a mean sunday dress.
summah, summah, summah time

Not pictured are the perfect dark denim bermuda shorts, a grey ruffle top, another summer dress and 2 more cardigans I bought during my secondhand splurge.

4 dresses
3 cardigans
3 tops
1 pair of shorts
=
Fifty bones!

(Ok, so it should have cost me $66, but I encountered a dishonest DI employee who cut me some weird deal. See previous post.)

twilight+thrift stores

THE FOLLOWING IS AN ENTIRELY TRUE TALE OF HOW TWILIGHT LED TO (inadvertent) THRIFT STORE THEFT

After a long week of work (as President and CEO of Mama Inc.), I declared I needed a night out. By myself.

So after meeting for dinner at Zabas, I swapped cars and child with Spencer and set out for a night of whatever I wanted. He took Sawyer to a middle school basketball tournament. REAL sorry I missed that night of excitement.

I decided to head to my local DI to get my thrift on, and who knew where the night would take me from there. After a little searching, I found some things worth buying. I mean, $3 for an Odille top from Anthropologie? DONE.

I counted up my finds, all 6 of the little gems totaling $16 (remember this number for later). I was very satisfied with myself, and with DI as I headed to make my purchases at the checkout.

"Hi. We, um...we have to ask you these questions when you checkout..." the young(slightly effeminate)man at the register said as he rang up said Anthropologie shirt (which did not fit me and I actually bought for one of my buxom best friends).

"Ok..." I waited for his questions to start.

"Have you seen Twilight?" he asked, giggling a little.

"Um, yeah. I've seen it" I answered honestly, but holding back my repressed teenage Twilight-love, since I was amongst strangers.

"Who's your favorite character?" was his next question.

Unsure of what this was leading to, I hesitated, but answered, "Uh..I guess..Edward?". Which is not a guess, its a FACT.

He was disappointed and let out a kind of grumble/sigh.

"Well who's your favorite character?" I was asking the questions now, pal.

"Mine?? Oh it's Jacob! C'mon.." he insisted, as if I should have known.

So in an effort to mend things, I said "Well, after the second movie, I was about 50/50 with Jacob and Edward. I like them both I guess." Which is not a guess, its a half-truth.

But he was satisfied with this. "Yeah, the second movie is good. He says my favorite line in that movie..." and in the most well mastered Taylor Lautner impersonation, he recited some lines from the movies, including "He left you Bella! He doesn't even want you anymore!"

You can't make this stuff up. I was dying inside. Dying.

After he was done telling me how he liked Jacob's long hair better, I complimented his impersonation.
"Thank you, I've been practicing that", he said. "Your total is six dollars."

SIX DOLLARS??, I thought to myself, looking at the cash register screen. Sure enough, it read 6.00.

"What? No..it's gotta be more than that..?" I asked, wondering if DI was having a sale or something. Does DI even have sales?

"Nope. Six dollars." He repeated.

"See, you answered the questions" he leaned towards me, "You passed the test."

"Uh..okaaay" I said as I grabbed my bag and paid.

Once in the car and driving to my next thrifty stop of the night, I laughed to myself about that twilight obsessed DI employee. This will make a good story, I thought. Then I reached in my bag and looked over the receipt.

He only rang up 3 items, each for $2.

This will make a GREAT story.

SIDENOTE: At first, I thought this was the most hilarious/profitable thing that had happened to me in a very long time. Then I was consumed by the guilt of stealing by way of twilight-test-at-cash-register. Then I resigned myself to drive my piles of donations to DI and call it even. Please don't judge me.

More on my amazing night of thrift store finds to come...including items I PAID for.

all is right

Our holidays were wonderful. Lots of time with family/friends, lots of food, lots of fun gifts.
Oh, and one sick kid. We survived.
But he still isn't 100% well. Some strong antibiotics will hopefully help him out.

I didn't take nearly enough pictures of our holidays. After years of shoving the lens in everyone's face, I have eased off a lot, at a time when I should be documenting more than ever. Sometimes I feel guilty like I'm not capturing all of Sawyers life in pictures and in journals and in scrapbooks, but I am trying. Thats a little goal for the year. Scrapbook this kids first year of life before the 2nd year starts!

The weather has been b-e-a-u-tiful lately. So we took to the park. Sawyer really just wanted to talk to other kids there who were all bigger and faster and didn't want to be bothered by a baby. So we slid the slides.


This picture happened totally by accident. I looked up just in time to focus, and click. It is my new favorite thing. Enlargement has been ordered, it will grace my walls soon.

So, this is the new year.

You're a good man, Charlie Brown

It's 9 pm.

The baby has gone to bed after a fun day.

The dishes and laundry are done and put away.

Cookies are ready and waiting to be eaten.

Jeans and tennis shoes have been replaced by stretchy pants and slippers.

The DVD rented earlier is starting up. Lights are turned down.

But wait...we are out of vanilla bean ice cream.

And I NEED vanilla ice cream. I'll probably need some tomorrow night too. And tomorrows Sunday, so I really, truly need to get some vanilla ice cream.

the DVD is stopped. Lights on.

Cozy clothes exchanged for cold coats and pants.

"Oh, can you get milk? And a cucumber! For salad tomorrow", I call from beneath the warmth of a blanket, lounging on the couch.

He sure is a keeper.

7 days and a wake up

[our card for this Christmas. Mailed out today. That's right, 8 days before Christmas.]

Ah, Christmastime. Do you love it as much as I do?

Done with all my shopping. Even purchased all the food for the feast I'll be serving on Christmas day.
Almost all the gifts are wrapped.
Decorations are up.

Nothing left to do but wait. And I am terrible at waiting.

Having a child around for the holidays is proving to be pretty fun. Granted, at 14 months old, he doesn't understand any of what's going on, but it's still great to watch him point his finger and say "ooh" at our christmas tree and the lights.

I look forward to him getting older and writing letters to Santa and decorating cookies with me. All in due time. One day I'll wish for him to be this age again. Speaking of Santa, we are going to pay him a visit next week @ Town Square. That guy is the most legit Santa I've ever seen. And if you have to have a knock off, it better be a dang good one.

Today Sawyer and I drove out to Lake Las Vegas because it was a nice day and it's something I've been meaning to do. We walked around a bit and took some pictures. Sawyer loved the water fountains and the flowers. We might have to go back in the evening so he can "ooh" at the holiday decorations all lit up. He missed Spencer, and kept pointing to any man that walked by asking, "Dada?".

Dada is now a Dean and is working long and hard at getting in the groove of his new gig. We are very proud of him, but sure do miss his usual 3:30 arrival home during the week.

Here's my favorite shot of our adventure. Cause this is truly how he rolls...

mon favorites

Per Meleah's request, these are three of my favorite pictures.