Serendipity

You know when you blog and you think that no one important ever reads what you are writing?

Well, when I told ya'll about Paint the Moon Photography, I had no idea that the Lady herself would comment on my post!

She gave me the code to give her actions a proper tribute since I couldn't find it the first time... tres embarrassing! However, I appreciate her taking the time to comment on my post.  In fact, it made my week.

As a beginner, I found the actions super easy to use.  I haven't had the nerve to try textures yet, but her blog has a number of tutorials to guide me through it when I do.   It's really nice when people share what they know with novices.  Go check her out if you didn't get a chance to the first go round. It looks like she is working on some new goodies: Blueberry Cobbler looks mighty delicious!

Sassy Design Sale

Sassy Designs (amazing place for photo-scrapbooking materials) has everything marked down to $0.99.

Yes, I said $0.99.

Go check it out because it ends today!

I've already spent a whopping $4 today on some things that I've had my eye on.

Look for more updates to the Ms. Domestique multi-process, face-lift soon.  It's going extremely slowly since I'm trying to fit a lot of it in between working 63 hours this week.

New Look

Not only has my lovely friend Caitlin given me my first blog award (future post pending), but she wanted to know what I've been doing to my blog. She loves the new and unfinished look, I personally think it still looks very similar to poo-on-a-stick, but what can you do?

My secrets?

1. Cut the crap. I love widgets--like, mega love them. It's a comfort to me to be able to look at, say, a countdown for how long I've been with the Big S.  It's constant, and flashy, and I love it. But, they look so messy and jumbled. Really, they're kind of like wearing too much jewelry. In one word: distracting.

2. I really wanted a single column template since I like to use a lot of pictures. In comes this blog template. My advice: don't use this template to start from scratch.  It has a lot of broken code and the divs are all over the place.  I had to have the honey use his computer science degree to whip it into shape just to get the header and pages to center and we had to widen the content area. What a mess.

3.  Don't have a computer hacker running around your house?  No problem. Get Firebug. This is a genius little bit of software that allows you to look at any webpage, hover over a page element, and look at the code behind it.  So, essentially, you could use it to copy and paste all my html and stylesheeting. Not that I would take kindly to that...mind you.  It's a great little tool to tweak your blog, get the code how you want it, and then copy it into the html editor of your blog.  Firebug won't actually change the real code for you, so it's OK if you make a mistake.  If you see something on a website you like and want to know how they did it, you can look at their code and then make it yours.  Really, it's fabulous.

4. The folks over at Maternal Lens got me on to digital scrapbooking. Until this week I never knew that existed  I got my background paper from Sassy Designs. Epic website full of things I must have!  They have sales a lot (not that they are expensive to begin with) and Maternal Lens gives away stuff from them pretty frequently. 

Lots of stuff going into this change.  I've got plans to work on my header this weekend (weather permitting).  I'm sure with our schedules it will take at least a week to get it edited and up and running.

Have mercy,

I know that the blog is currently looking like something Bramston P. Puppy crapped out, but I promise I will soon have it patched up with fabulously chic band-aids.  I really wanted a single column blog template...found one...but it won't do headers and horizontal pages very well...to put that delicately and the only way it will let me customize is in the code.

I've done all I can to try to fix it and even figured out how to change the layout configurations of blogger on my own.  My html and CSS skills are ok for what they are, but when you live with a professional coder and web developer...why not just ask him to fix it? Yeah, that's what I think too.


Also, come hell or high water, I will be taking some new photos for this thing.  I need to find my camera...shoot, I want to buy a new camera (suggestions welcome).  That's what I asked Steven to get me for my birthday...I'm super crossing my fingers for a DSLR camera...or something very expensive and shiny that sits, ever so perfectly, on my left hand.  Like that's happening...psh!


Anywho, I digress.  I really wanted to pass along this website: http://www.mylivesignature.com/  I've tried before in photoshop to make my own blog signature.  Little did I know that there are generators for this.  Le sigh!  I could of had one all along.  I do love it so!  Check it out:

Special Find

I was stalking my friend Caitlin's blog and happened upon a little gem of a blog that I'm completely nuts about: Married to the Military. Her layout is flawless, her writing style is charming, and her three kids are so freakin' adorable!
It's great to see how much care she puts into motherhood and refreshing to read her posts about trying to balance it all. We're both balancing different things, but I still want my house to look nice at the end of the day and to be with the ones I love just as much as she does.

In fact I would love to have kids and just take beautiful pictures of them all day. Oh mercy, that's a dream in and of itself. Very cute and I'll definitely be following...and possibly re-doing things around here.

Feels good to be blogging again, ya'll. Feels dang good. 

Pandora is Freaky

I listen to pandora.com all the time. I just had it on my Jack Johnson station and a song came on that threw me back to childhood. The song was "Send Me on My Way" by Rusted Root. Here is a link to youtube so you can hear it: Click here for tuneage Ever heard it? I couldn't place it, but I knew that I had listened to this in one of my favorite kid's movies. I just couldn't place it and it was bugging me, as I'm usually very good at music trivia.

For a second, I thought it was "Parent Trap" but when I googled it the answer came up as "Matilda." Gosh I loved that movie growing up! I pretty much love anything where people suddenly get powers...thus my obsession with Marvel comics (e.g. the X-Men) and Heroes...sigh. I'm waiting for my power to manifest. Any day now. Laughs. I loved Matilda especially because she was such a bookworm! I wish I lived close enough to take a red wagon to the library. I might have to break out Matilda the first night we're in the new house.

I know my blog has been so blah lately. I apologize. It's because my camera battery has died and I've packed the charger. So...I cannot post pictures of the packing process. Packing isn't that interesting, really, it's mostly messy and I'm forever amazed at how much stuff I've accumulated at the age of 22. In a few more years I think it will be near impossible for me to move anywhere peacefully. Maybe I should start saving now for the moving company I'm going to have to hire. Ha!

I hope that the start to everyone's summer is going well! I promise to get some interesting blogging going once I have infinite craft and house projects to work on. Speaking of craft projects, my sister has added some clever little tree plushies to her Etsy that I'm really jamming on. The flower one named Woodzen is a personal favorite. I almost think an Elwood might be in order? ;) (inside story) Go check um out! I was fortunate enough to get an Owl as a graduation present. I've been drooling over them forever and now I have one of my own. I'm going to put it in my sewing room for inspiration when I move.

I want to be a Coffee Bean

A friend got a new blog and when I was typing in the url I misspelled it. In doing so, I chanced upon a little cheesy story that resonated with me, especially today. I couldn't copy and paste it so I have to link to the blog. I really enjoyed it. I had a very horrible day yesterday triggered by seeing a "haunt" at the library. Just a glance of this person brought back the nightmares I had for a good year after a bad living experience. Full force nightmares all night last night, but that's better than every night. Truth be told I'm still not right from it and I don't trust people very well anymore. I have only now just begun to go out in public and try to make new friends. Anyways, I'm not going into all that, but I'm refusing to be an egg...and I'm trying really hard to be coffee beans. Basically.

Oh Mr. Weathers!

Steven passed along a comic to me that I thought was hilarious. He thought it described me...when, in fact, it has Ed Weathers written all over it. Mr. Weathers was my Technical Editing and Style teacher and he is beyond amazing. I've wanted to slip this comic under his door...but I'm not sure if he would get a kick out of it or think it was vulgar...I'll leave that up to you, especially if you know and love him like I do. Click onward to see the comic!
(I should also mention that's pretty much how he dresses...and well...it's love.)

More Good Human...I want to hang out with him.

Before I start my full day of paper writing, cleaning, possible grocery shopping, and just general excitement that Steven will arrive tonight I wanted to pass along an article from The Good Human about Low/No VOC paint.To see the article, click here! I really want to try to do this when I paint our new dwelling! I just hope that I can get the colors I want. I just hate the horrible smell of paint. It's normally so bad that I can't sleep or be in a room for quite some time. Plus, these new paints don't add to greenhouse gases and that's love.

Late Night LOL's

It's time for bed, but I just had to share this lolcat with you all. Ha!

Become an Enviro, we have Vegan Chocolate cake

I wish that my blog had more of a specific "genre" so that I could do a blog roll with all my favorite posts from other bloggers. However, my interests are way too varied, but I do like to pass along articles on other blogs that I dig. The Good Human has a great article today about why it isn't such a horrible thing to be an environmentalist. Check it out here.

Also, my new favorite word is ecogeek.

Oh! I read an interesting blog about toilet cloths and wanted to know the general reaction to that. Basically, it's like a reusable diaper only for toilet paper. I have my doubts. I can't even watch the girl in my seminar class blow her nose with a handkerchief without cringing a little...however, that might just be the way she goes about it and not actually the handkerchief. Either way, the handkerchief is something that I want to start trying. One more thing in my life that I can embroider with my initials.

And about the cake, my best friend does make some AMAZING vegan chocolate cake. Being vegan is not necessary to eat a piece of it...or you know...all of it. :D

The Tough Get Going

I'm the only person I know who can pull off getting sick on her Spring Break. Things are finally looking up. Right now I feel the best I've felt since Wednesday (breathing is such a nice thing).

However, my nose has decided to drain one nostril at a time. So, just so you know, this photo was not staged. It hurts too much to blow my nose, so I'm just using the tissue to catch the flow. Yeah.

Thank goodness for my Trader Joe's recycled paper tissues I got in DC!

But, I think I might have also needed a tissue monster this week.

Twitter

(http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/files/2009/01/twitter.jpg)

I'm embarrassed to say that I got a twitter account. Those of you who are friends with me on facebook know that I'm a ridiculous status updater. Twitter is like that...only on speed. My friend Jake doesn't exactly help my addiction since he is close to 2,000 TWEETS! I need to catch up. Laughs.

So if you're on Twitter...follow me.

What if you think both?

..like myself.

Diva Cup

Posts this week might be TMI since I'm going to be doing a product review. About a month ago, I tracked down the co-op in Roanoke (awesome place, FYI) so that I could get the Diva Cup.

The Diva Cup is a menstrual cup made out of silicone. Intrigued? Well you should be. Because it is made of silicone, it is reusable. You just have to wash/boil it. The girl who checked me out said that she has been using hers for 5 years! Can you imagine the amount of feminine products not going into the landfill?

It cost me about $30, but with the price of girl-time products it pays for itself in the first year of use. Awesome. Since I got it from a co-op I was also supporting a local business. Double awesome.

You only have to empty it 2 times a day. Added bonus for the girl on the go. You can run in it, swim in it, dance in it, whateves (except the horizontal mambo, ya dig).

You can see why I was intrigued, right?

The great thing for me, and TMI, is that I get rashes from pads in the winter. Dry skin + pad= diaper rashes...owies.

So throughout this week I'll keep you all updated on the process. Apparently, it can take some time to get used to it/getting it situated correctly.

Have any of you ever used one?

Thoughts?

I thought it was weird at first too. I've been scoping it online for about a year.

Mail Stalker

I'm such a mail stalker. Thanks to the internet,I can find out instantly where a package is... like my urban outfitters goodies... they have a great tracking feature for users...or stalkers in this case.

For instance:


South Carolina!

I think it's so cool that our things can "travel." Gosh I'm a dork.

I'm not bad; I'm just drawn that way

(Darling necklace perfect for any future Jane Austen conventions...)

(Darling shoes perfect for walking around in the summer in cute skirts...)

Sorry...random Jessica Rabbit quote...but I was bad and went on Urban Outfitter's website...bad, oh, bad! However, I found a precious necklace and darling summer shoes on sale.

Best of all! I got a little tip from Style A Work in Progress that suggested searching the web for coupon codes for the specific website you're on. I did just that and found one for 10% off my order. Score.

Skype Mishap

When Steven and I do the long-distance relationship thing we use Skype to keep in touch.

Occasionally, Skype freezes on us.

Tonight, it froze while I was making a very interesting face.

Steven was fortunate enough to capture it.

Androgyny is A-OK by me.

A blog I follow (Style...A Work In Progress) played around with this interesting website called genderanalyzer.com.

This website apparently uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze whether a man or woman is the writer of a particular website. Total pouf of course, but I decided to have a go at it.

What was my result?

86% MALE! HAHA!

Ms. Domestique, confounding AI stereotypes daily and loving it.

Etsy Find!

I found this on Etsy today. I'm kind of in love with it.