back when boyz 2 men were cool
April 1st, 2010 @ 3:55 pm | miscellany | Comments (14)I love this post about middle school and shoes over at angry chicken. For me, middle school was full of angst, probably because there was this whole awakening about what was cool, and the intense need to be cool that definitely didn’t exist when I was a kid. Trying to be cool can make you do some really dumb things.
That blog post chronicles shoes that were cool from 1983 to 1986. I was in middle school a decade later, from 1992 to 1995. And yet, so many of the fashionable shoes were the same.
The first shoes I HAD to have (after a childhood dressed in hand-me-downs and items from Target) were a pair of Vans. Keds were not okay, and the Payless version of Keds were definitely not okay. They had to be Vans. I had a maroon pair, and I wore them until my big toe poked through, and even then probably for a few more months.
The next pair of shoes I remember loving, absolutely adoring, were a pair of Converse One Star sandals. In fact, I loved them so much, I completely wore through two entire pairs and I’m pretty sure my mother hated them with a fiery passion. I’m sure there are more weird memories about these shoes that will get left in the comments. But oh, I loved them so!
I also remember having some Dr. Scholl’s wooden sandals, thinking they were somehow good for your feet. But that can’t possibly be true, right? There is no padding! Ah, I’m such an old lady these days.
Surely I’m missing some quality early 90′s shoe fashions. What did you wear on your feet in middle school or high school in the 90s? Doc Martens? KSwiss? Adidas? I eagerly await your answers to help me get through to the weekend!
befores and afters
March 28th, 2010 @ 7:41 pm | family, home | Comments (8)Although I’ve reached my limit (amazingly) of thinking or talking about my house, or more specifically, painting another square inch of it, I want to show you some of the photos of last week’s renovation extravaganza. I would make a terrible PR agent, as I’ve already stepped on my own “news” by posting these on flickr and twitter days ago. Good thing I never plan to work in PR…
My parents were freaking ROCK STARS while they were here. In a span of about five days, they probably worked 65+ hours each. They got up early every morning, I fed them tea and coffee, and they worked until 10pm, 11pm, or midnight every night. We didn’t go out to one single dinner, or see one single sight. Unless Fragers or Home Depot or the tulips in my front yard count as “sights.”
They completed (with minimal help from Andrew and me): crown molding, a custom mantle and built-in bookshelf, a new front door, a totally spruced up entryway and 2nd bookshelf, and a new faucet. And my mom weeded the crap out of my front yard.
Here’s a view of the living room with the mantle and bookshelf and crown molding.
Here is the bookshelf in the back of the house. Crazy story – apparently behind this shelf is an entire little room/closet! First we found a hole in the wood, which was weird enough, but then we realize the whole shelf is removable, so we took it out and found another 2 feet of house! It even had a light back there. So weird.
The new mantle and bookshelf are gorgeous, but I think the most dramatic change is the entryway. We used to have an ugly wood door, and a REALLY ugly wooden structure thing that separated the entryway from the kitchen and did a very good job of hurting your eyes and not much else. Now it’s gone! And we also put in a full glass panel front door. Let there be light! (Don’t mind that damned blue tape, I’m still not done painting everything.)
We hardly did anything upstairs, but I did finally paint and hang my little birdies. Now I get to wake up and look at them first thing every morning, and my husband is reminded what a dork he married. Win-win, really.
There are lots more pics over on flickr, including the supersecret hidden room, the new faucet, and the be-curtained guest bedroom.
Thanks again to my awesome parents for all their free labor, and happy birthday to my dad! Love you guys.
500 posts of blog
March 15th, 2010 @ 6:05 pm | blonde moments, life | Comments (10)Over the past few weeks I’ve either been 1.) On vacation (yay!!!) or 2.) Stuck at my desk 12+ hours per day (boo!!). Unfortunately more of the latter than the former.
This is my 500th blog post, and in honor of such an awesome occasion, I bequeath to you…..bullet points!
(But just you wait, because I was inspired by Lesli to do a big giveaway for my 500th blog post. And I have acquired items to give away, just not time to pull it all together. So I will do something fun to celebrate maybe my 503rd post or something.)
- Where was I? Oh right, BULLET POINTS.
- Getting back to my Colorado roots, I spent one day last week skiing and one day snowboarding. I was merely adequate at both. It became pretty obvious that I left my home state over a decade ago when the blue runs were too steep.
- My skis looked like they belonged on a seven-year-old. It was like riding the short bus of the slopes.
- The snowboard is mine, circa 1993, with a vintage early ’90s “girls kick ass!” sticker. I had one of those stickers on my lacrosse stick, too. I was terribly badass back then.
- You know you’re in Colorado when Elk Enchiladas are on the menu. I dare the Pioneer Woman to cook those!
- As a kid, my dad would hunt elk, and then we’d eat it for the rest of the year. Elk steaks, elk burgers, elk spaghetti sauce. I thought this was perfectly normal until I moved to Louisiana, where they eat even weirder food but then look at you funny for calling soda “pop.”
- This has nothing to do with anything, but will you please look at my sister’s cat? I want nothing more in life than to sedate this cat and then use it as a pillow.
- My parents are arriving this weekend for the Great House Fixer Upper Extravaganza of 2010. Somehow in between working 12 hours a day I am supposed to be buying a whole bunch of crap from Home Depot. Speaking of which, does anyone have a pickup truck I can borrow?
- We are going to attempt to install crown molding. I’m currently taking bets on the outcome of that project: 1. Parents disown daughter; 2. Daughter disowns parents; 3. Husband and I kill each other; 4. Value of home increases so rapidly we are forced to sell and retire at age 30 in a Costa Rican villa.
I think it’s time to wrap up the bullets. What is new with you, lovely readers? Please come back for more fun for my 501st post and beyond. I have big plans for us! Giveaways, house renovations, ruffled curtains (don’t ask), things I want to buy if mint.com wasn’t so damn honest with me about my spending, and more!
snow daze
February 10th, 2010 @ 5:02 pm | home | Comments (11)So, you may have heard it snowed here in DC. Just a few inches feet yards stories of snow. Just a few six days stuck at home with nothing but bread, milk, and booze purchased in verrrrrrrry long lines at verrrrrrry crowded grocery stores. All of this time has provided me lots of opportunities to A. decorate my house; B. think about decorating of my house, and C. mess around with Picasa to compile photos related to decorating my house.
My photo collages, let me show you them:
This is our second bedroom, formerly seen in a terribly sad state here. As you can see, the lovely Lubi Daybed from CB2 is here, the walls are greige, the heinous vertical blinds are gone, and….that’s about it. But it already looks massively better than before, if still a bit boring.
I still need:
- Curtain panels – I can’t decide between a funky print or or plain white/billowy. I just want them to be cheap and chic.
- A rug or Flor tiles – If I go with plain curtains I might get a funky rug (maybe zigzag?), or funky curtains with a plain rug? Again, cheap and chic is the goal here, which is why I’m scouring craigslist daily.
- Lovely things for the walls – but this can wait until I have some kind of color scheme.
- Refinished furniture - I want to do something to make a few side tables a little prettier. And a dresser might be nice for storing extra clothes. Again, I’m waiting to come across a good bargain on something secondhand.
And then there’s the living room. We found a gently used Crate and Barrel sofa on craigslist for less than half the price of a new one just like it. As soon as this snow melts we can get it delivered, which will hopefully be before April. Honestly, I’m not super jazzed about chocolate brown (I’m more of a gray/pewter gal) but I think the price, shape, and quality are worth it in this case.
Clockwise from top left:
- Flor Botanicals carpet tiles – I really love these but would like to wait for Flor to have a sale before I purchase them.
- Spring Mint (the top, lightest shade) is the current paint color. Photo courtesy of this site.
- Inspiration on a built-in bookshelf. My parents are building me one next month!
- The plates on my wall. Chronicled at length in my archives.
- The C&B sofa we’re picking up this weekend.
It’s possible I am the slowest, most contemplative home decorator ever. When I watch reality shows where entire homes are redone in a matter of 48 hours, it’s almost hard to believe that is even possible. I have lived here for 2.5 years and still can’t decide on whether or not to get an area rug, let alone what color or size, and even once that’s decided it usually takes me 6+ months to commit to spending the money on whatever purchase I have finally come to grips with wanting. So I hope my snail’s-pace progress is entertaining at least, and maybe in another 2.5 years those damn curtains will be picked out, purchased, hung, photographed, and displayed for all eternity on the blog.
love & hate friday, it’s back baby!
January 28th, 2010 @ 7:15 pm | love & hate | Comments (20)Gosh, it’s been awhile since we did one of these! About time…
love: I woke up to a text this morning from my husband telling me he won $900 overnight in Vegas while I was sleeping. (!!!)
hate: New sofas cost more than $900. (But the love majorly overrides the hate in this case.)
love: My parents booked a trip out to DC in March so they can spend five days fixing up my house. They’re going to build a mantle, build bookshelves, put in a new front door, take out some ugly wood siding stuff, and more. My own free handymen!
hate: I haven’t exactly asked for the time off from my boss yet. Why do I dread this so much? Probably because he NEVER takes a day off, not even on the weekends. No joke.
love: I bought some ugly ceramic birds on eBay today. I have big plans for de-uglifying them, though!
hate: When I told my husband I bought ceramic birds on eBay he laughed at me for about 5 minutes with a perplexed look on his face.
love: Thanks to Janssen‘s endorsement, I have started using mint.com. I love it, and no, I am not losing sleep that my identity will be hacked.
hate: It’s a bit of a shock when you think of yourself as a frugal person, and then you are faced with an analysis of every last penny you spend. Wow.
love: The lovely Katharine bequeathed upon me a Beautiful Blogger Award. Awwww, thanks K!
hate: I am such a terrible blogger 99% of the time and am the most terrible at award-y type things. I think ALL of my readers are beautiful!
love: Speaking of beautiful bloggers, Jen is going to help me make a new header. What should replace the beloved cherries?
hate: I feel like I work too much and at the end of the day it’s hard to be on the computer for fun. I often neglect this little blog.
love: My daffodils are starting to peek through the soil.
hate: Surely it’s too early for flowers and they’ll just get frozen to death?
love: When you leave your loves and hates in the comments! Helps keep me going at the end of a long week. Happy Friday everyone!
