Category Archives: life

Happy New Year!

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2012 was a pretty sweet year.

I finally learned to make non-historical/fantasy dresses that I can wear in public. I moved into a sweet new apartment that I got to paint and decorate. I was a featured member at Burdastyle. I made my first bag and then forgot to blog about it. I switched to an iPhone and fell ridiculously in love with it. I started working out regularly and completely changed my eating habits and am feeling really great about the progress I’ve made. I learned how to make a bun on top of my head before I go to bed that makes my hair wavy when I wake up in the morning. I also stopped wearing pants.

And now for the New Years’ resolutions:

1) I have four more weeks until school starts and tons of crafting projects I want to finish in that time, particularly room-decor related ones. My window box, bedskirt, and cork board especially. And I want to put up my wall art that’s been sitting in boxes since September.

2) I want to make more time for crafting and experimenting with crafts. I have a list of projects I want to do and crafts I want to try about a mile long and there is no reason I shouldn’t be able to squeeze them in.

3) BLOG MORE. No, srsly. I keep meaning to and the reason I don’t is always related to a lack of photos. So really, this one should be “Take moar photos.”

4) Continue this whole no pants thing. Not counting yoga pants and the three times I had to wear slacks to internship interviews, I haven’t worn pants in about two months. Skirts and dresses with tights and leggings are the way forward.

5) Continue to eat clean and work out at least 4-5 times a week. Before I came home for the holidays I was running 13 miles a week and lifting 5 days a week and felt awesome. I want to keep that up.

6) I want to revamp my blog. I’m kind of tired of the color scheme and the general layout of it. So look for changes in the near future.

7) Paint nails more. I have a terrible habit of either painting only one hand and then forgetting to do the other or going months and months without painting them at all.

8) Start The Halloween Costumes early enough that they actually get done this year. Boyfriend and I picked out a set of couples costumes that we wanted to do for Halloween two years ago and I’ve completely failed two years in a row. This is the year it’s going to happen. I’m starting no later than April. I’m not joking.

9) Read more books, especially ones I haven’t read yet. I’ve been listening to the Eye of the World on audiobook so there’s a good start!

10) Go on more dates, explore more of the east coast, have fun in the snow! Boyfriend and I went to Montreal in March and France in July but haven’t really done any traveling since. We’ve talked about going to Toronto and New York and Hawaii and I want to make at least some of that happen.

My weekend

It’s been a teensy bit busy around here but I’ve managed to squeeze in some fun stuff.

My roommates and I did Secret Santa a few nights ago and it was a great success! We had some infused vodka drinks and chocolate kisses and squeed over our new toys.

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My one roomie and I got each other as Secret Santas, and then the other two got each other as well, which worked out strangely nicely. I bought an octopus ring a while in an attempt to fulfill my dream of always wearing tons of rings (I have no idea why) and she remembered and bought my octopus an owl friend.


(Excuse the wrinkles, I clearly need to learn to moisturize..)

She also got me this adorable little guy to put my rings on. 🙂 There was also a flower ring that hadn’t come in the mail yet and I forgot to snap a photo of it. Whoops!

I couldn’t resist squeezing in at least one Christmas knit so I made her a pair of fancy mittens. Knitting beads in was surprisingly simple! (I used the dental floss method, which cracked my dental school boyfriend up.)

Andd then we went to see the Hobbitses, which pretty much means I sobbed into my sleeve for three hours. (I may have mentioned that I was the weird girl in high school who wore elf ears to school and Lord of the Rings is the reason I learned to sew.)

Tonight I will *hopefully* finish up my last paper and then in the wee hours of tomorrow morning (read: 4am) I will be traipsing bleary-eyed off to the airport to go home for a few weeks! Hopefully once I’m settled I’ll be able to start posting more regularly.

In other news, I’m usually great at packing light but right now I love all my clothes and I’m having such a hard time not packing everything! Someone please explain to me why eight dresses and six pairs of shoes is overkill for a two week trip.

The countdown is on

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In two weeks this hellish semester, also known as the black hole of endless papers, will be over and I’ll have six glorious weeks off! I’ve been making a mental list of all of the things I want to do when I recover my sanity.

1) Make a latch hook rug. I’ve been dying to do one of these for ages and seeing the one on A Beautiful Mess recently rekindled that desire.

2) Experiment with attempting to make a blazer. I’ve never made one before and for some reason it just sounds daunting. We’ll see how this goes. And yes, this is directly related to the New Girl marathon I had the other day.

3) Make a schmancy tote bag. Also something I’ve never sewn before. Less daunting though. Andd now I’ve jinxed it. Poo.

4) Finish Seester’s Christmas present. From last year. -whoops-

5) Spin ALL the yarn so I can work on my almost-entirely-from-scratch sweater.

6) FINALLY take photos of the two dresses I made recently so I can post them.

December 17th. Freedom! Thirteen days to go.

In the meantime, the roomies and I have started putting up Christmas decorations!

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Insta-update

     

1. I took a day off life last week and made a new dress! It’s not quite finished but I’m absolutely smitten it.

2. Boyfriend are both from the west coast so my roomie’s family took us in for Thanksgiving. They have an amazing gorgeous house right on an amazing gorgeous lake and it’s pretty much impossible to do anything there but stare.

3. New glasses! I’m so in love. I’ve worn glasses in public maybe five times since I got glasses when I was nine, and I’ve been wearing these everywhere for a straight week. 

4. Had to stop on the way home for a quick jumping photo, of course. Wish my necklace hadn’t hit me in the face though.

5. Roomie and I took a study break this evening to pot some basil she sprouted last week. Lookit the baby basils!

6. Andd this is what my life is going to look like for the next three weeks. 

 

Welp, the next several weeks are going to be brutal. School finishes on the 11th (technically we have class on the 17th too), and between and then I have eleven papers to write. ELEVEN. I did the math, it’s 51 pages minimum.

Excuse me as a crawl into a fetal position and cry.

On the bright side, it’s supposed to snow on Tuesday!

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving!

Insta-update

   

1. This is my favorite breakfast in the world. I’m by no means a morning person but ever since I discovered this stuff I’m up at 9am every morning out of sheer excitement. I’m not exaggerating. I use Country Choice Organic Steel Cut Oats, half a cup of the huge Costco bag of frozen mixed berries, half a cup of unsweetened almond milk, and half a cup of water. Sheer heaven, I tell you.

2. Remember like ten years ago when I announced I was making bunny slippers? Well, felting one slipper was apparently too traumatizing and the project has been sitting in a box gathering dust until last week when I went to the store (which is exactly 0.75 blocks away from my house, I might add) and picked up a pair of gloves. And now I have a complete set! How adorbs are they??

3. Remember like fifteen years ago when I decided to make a sweater (nearly) from scratch with my own handspun yarn? Well I randomly got on a spinning kick two weeks ago and made a ton of yarn..

4. ..anddd started knitting a sweater from it! The pattern is this one by Pickles and hilariously calls for a yarn called Thick and Thin, which I find funny because I’m so bad at spinning that my yarn comes out that way by default.

It’s been a good day. I had two papers/projects that I needed to get done by today and while I was skeptical that they would get done, I was somehow sucked into a magical tunnel of productivity and finished both before 4pm.

Crossing my fingers I’ll have time for a sewing sesh this weekend, I’m getting antsy!

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