Monthly Archives: November 2011

Blue Curly Sue

Posted on November 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

The weather has been holding up really well here in MN (the eight inches of snow I shoveled a week or two ago that looked like the picture below has melted away and left us with and even colder looking, barren, dull terrain). Which I guess I can’t complain about too much because hey, my car still starts and it’s still warm enough to not have to bust out my down parka. Win!


Anyway, weather aside, this outfit felt very “me” today. Just the right balance of thrift and new, and in some of my favorite staple colors: blue, gray, and brown. The brassy gold shell on my belt had me a little thrown off because it could read as really gawdy, but I love love LOVED the colors in the tapestry band. So pairing it with a more neutral, subdued palate made it work better in my book.

Something else a little new: I’ve been wearing my hair curly every few days. Just to shake things up I guess. I really like having something different to do with my hair, since I’m kind of limited due to its length. I’m always so in between with what I want, which definitely gets frustrating. Still haven’t decided if my next haircut will be a trim so I can grow it long enough to tie back, or whether I’ll go back to the short and funky asymmetrical style I used to have. Decisions, decisions!

Dress: Old Navy via my thrifty Auntie (I doubt she paid more than $5 for it – go Auntie!)
Sweater: Target clearance / Sea shell tapestry belt: Savers $2.99
Boots: definitely NOT clearance, but I love them!

Well, the night is still young, and I’ve got lots to accomplish in the next few hours. That, and I’m playing nurse to a sick boyfriend. Hope he recovers in time for his massive run of shows and gigs this December! 20+ shows in the next four weeks. Yikes! And I thought I was busy!

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List Makin’, Name Takin’

Posted on November 28, 2011 | 1 Comment

Someday I really will get over the ever-present urge to apologize for my blog absence. But that’s not today. So I’m sorry. Again. I’ve got all kinds of things pulling me in different directions right now. I’m looking forward to this next weekend to be over (it’s a biggie performing-arts event weekend at work that requires a lot of coordination and man-hours on my part) so I can concentrate on the holidays, resolutions, and updating my 25 Before 25 list into a 26 Before 26! My birthday is just a couple weeks away, which means it’s time to re-assess my goals and plan for a new year! Which means lists, lists, lists!


Anyway, in my frantic need to keep up with everything going on, I’ve been really into making lists. That, and I’m VERY Type-A and usually have a list or two around anyway. WunderList has been my BFF the last few weeks – it’s really convenient because it syncs between my work desktop, home laptop, and my iPhone. Pete and I both have the app and share lists so we can see things like the groceries we need. Super spiffy, eh? It has the ability to sync multiple lists, and gives you neat checkboxes to tick off one by one.

So. Here’s a list of what I’ve been up to lately:

  • Finally getting around to reading all three books of The Hunger Games in about three days and anxiously awaiting the full-length movie – May the odds be EVER in your favor!
  • Finding out I was actually allergic to the antibiotics from my surgery, and dealing with multiple doctor’s visits to cure me of my reactions.
  • Hitting the gym! I joined a gym a few months ago and we recently inherited Pete’s sisters’ treadmill + free weights for our basement. There’s seriously no excuse for me not to be in shape now that I’ve recovered from surgery! I’ve also been doing yoga at home, because my yoga instructor is taking a little break the next few weeks.
  • Working 20 hours over the holiday weekend at my second job. I answer the phones and sell tickets across town in the box office for a local theater, and we’re in the middle of a run of holiday shows. It was a bummer to not have my Thanksgiving weekend off, but hey, extra holiday paycheck!
  • Shopping for my sister’s care package so we can send it off to France with enough time for it to make it before Christmas (Miss you, sissy!)
  • Getting into Breaking Bad on Netflix – a somewhat depressing show, but seriously addicting! Bryan Cranston, the dad from “Malcolm in the Middle” just kills it.
  • Making recipes from BudgetBytes. This chick is amazing and I sing her praises all over the place. I’ll post my banana-bread twist on her baked pumpkin pie oatmeal soon. Seriously yummy!
  • Sitting on a marketing committee for our local co-op.
  • Updating my resume (not for a job search, but just because it needs to be done for a few projects I have coming up).
  • Doing the OCM thing and loving it! My skin has never been clearer! I’ll have to post on that soon, too.
  • And unfortunately, NOT hitting the thrift stores. Oh how I miss them. I think I’m going through withdrawals!

So that’s that. I’ve got it on my list to get more and more into scheduled post-planning in the new year. I think it’ll help me stay on track, get some running themes going, and help me to not feel so apologetic for not writing when I’m not able. And for as much as I like lists, it shouldn’t be too hard!

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Hot Water

Posted on November 23, 2011 | Leave a comment


I ran across this quote today, and instantly loved it.

I’m going home for Thanksgiving and absolutely cannot wait. I’m excited to catch up with my family and eat my grandma’s amazing pies! I also work a lot this weekend at my second job (probably something like 16-20 hours), so I’m going to cherish tonight and tomorrow, eat ’til I can’t eat anymore, sip my hot tea (pun intended) and then suck it up later this weekend and work my buns off. Just gotta keep telling myself that the extra paycheck will be oh-so-sweet come Christmastime.

What are your Thanksgiving plans? Does your family have any fun traditions? Ours are usually eating-eating-eating, drinking (hey, just being honest), sometimes seeing a movie, and hopefully will include a post-supper walk around the block and Skyping with my sister in France. Have a lovely weekend!

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The Colonel is a friend of mine

Posted on November 23, 2011 | 1 Comment

I know, I know. I’m sure you’re all wondering…

Not for the full 13 day blog hiatus though. Just a few days. And now that you know, you’re probably wondering what the heck I was doing in Kentucky, right? If you follow me on Twitter, you knew something was up because I was probably bugging the heck out of you with the weird #NAMPC hashtag. Why was I tweeting weird letters? Well NAMPC stands for “National Arts Marketing Project Conference,” which is what brought me to lovely Louisville (Lou-uh-vull), Kentucky for four days. That, and a generous scholarship from a Midwest-serving arts organization called Arts Midwest through their Arts Learning Xchange program. All in all, I was a very lucky girl who got an amazing scholarship to attend an amazing conference.

I learned so much in the four days I was there that I’m still having a hard time distilling all of the information I took in and scribbled down in my nine pages of notes. I had a great time in Louisville, because the hotel/town/conference were all amazing, the Louisville-ians (?) were so darn friendly, the sessions were so informative and powerful, but mostly because the people I met were so cool.

Colonel Sanders was EVERYWHERE! Also, yes, I rocked the curly hair the entire conference. It became this weird thing… a woman asked to take a PICTURE of my hair. Cool? Weird? Sure, whatever!

There were about 30 arts marketers who attended on scholarship from Minnesota, so we made up an usually large group comprised of all kinds of people from all kinds of arts organizations: theaters, galleries, arts service orgs, etc. It was great to get to know the arts marketers from all over the country who attended the conference, but it felt so nice to be able to connect with people from MN if only for the fact that I have a really good chance of meeting up, networking, and collaborating with them sometime in the future. That, and they were an insanely fun group. We went out on quite a few dine-arounds in the city at night, and chatted over coffee between conference speakers and sessions. On Sunday night a whole group of Minnesotans and our fellow NAMP-ers cabbed it out to a teeny-tiny bar in “The Highlands” to sing karaoke. It was a riotous good time. I was a little hoarse the next day – can you believe it was my first time EVER singing karaoke?! I did “Love Shack” by the B52s. (I know every single word, if you were interested)…

I hung out with three gals from MN quite a bit (that’s us in the conference reception photobooth). They each came from completely different backgrounds and arts organizations, so it was interesting to hear about what they do for a living and what they were taking away from the conference. It was refreshing to talk with other young people about why they WANT to work in the arts. I feel very fortunate to have a job in the field that I have always aspired to be in, but it’s sometimes hard to connect with others who choose to devote themselves to arts administration, because it can be challenging, low paying, yadda-yadda-yadda. But all of the people at NAMPC? They were lovin’ it. And that makes my heart happy. I’ll have to do a separate post about some of the weird adventures the four of us had in Louisville. We had a hilarious time!

All in all, I left the conference feeling so empowered. I sat down and talked with Pete the other night about how this conference gave me the takeaway that I really am so lucky to be working the field I love at such a young age. That I have so many wonderful learning opportunities (like this conference) and that I work hard to get them. I want to continue to meet people, network, and extend my skill set. I want my organization to succeed because I work hard. I want to design beautiful marketing content and spread the message about HOW WE MAKE ART HAPPEN. I could gush on and on, but I’ll save it for another day. I have too much to write!

Well, that’s enough ramblin’. I sure missed y’all! I’ll blog again soon – I promise!

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can’t catch a break

Posted on November 9, 2011 | 3 Comments

So I had that weird bout with the surgery, right?

Well now it appears I’ve broken out in hives. I don’t think it’s related to my surgery, but it’s definitely annoying. I can’t put my finger on what caused this allergic reaction (I know it’s not food), but I’m guessing it has something to do with me getting my hair colored at the salon and my stylist giving me a cinnamon oil-infused hand massage while my hair set. It was a lovely experience, but it hasn’t been so lovely to my skin these past two days. My face, neck and chest make me feel/look like I’m a pimply, blotchy middle schooler all over again. Harrumph!

Anyway, I decided to pop some Benedryl and call it a sick day at home. That stuff really knocks me out (I zonked out for TWO HOURS this afternoon), so I hope it’s working away at clearing my hives. In my few hours of awake time at home today I…


Curled my hair for the first time in over two years!
(Thanks Instagram filter for making me look non-hivey. Love that app!)


Made pumpkin bread bites and started reading The Hunger Games. So good.
(Also: substitute 1/2 the oil w/applesauce and 1/2 the white sugar with brown! Yum!)

And I slept. And itched. And worked on freelance design/work stuff. And slept. And wondered when this would all go away. And it hasn’t. At least not yet. Can’t a girl catch a break? I know I said before that our bodies are wonderful and interesting and mysterious, but sometimes they’re just plain annoying. :)

UPDATE 11-23: Those hives were actually an allergic reaction/rash from my IV of antibiotics during surgery. Turns out I’m allergic to three different kinds of antibiotics. Cool!

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i’ve got pin-spiration!

Posted on November 4, 2011 | 7 Comments

As you may or may not know, I’m a pinner. Meaning whenever I see something cool online, I like to pin it on the website Pinterest. It’s a neat community of people who just tag things they like and share them with others on “boards” that they build. Your boards can have whatever theme you like. I have ones that are “dreamy” (meaning things that I think are just pretty or quite lovely). Others are “get in my closet!” or “DIY.”

With all of this inspiration, I decided to act on it! I also was motivated by this post on YoungHouseLove.com –> Those people are so darn proactive and adorable. So this weekend, I turned a couple of pins into actual pieces of art!

Here’s my “pin”-spiration:

(L) from THIS pin board and THIS real-life Etsy shop
(R) from THIS pin board and THIS real-life Etsy shop

I had some painted plaques that I picked up from a garage sale last summer for something like 10 cents each. I didn’t know what to do with them, so they just sat in my closet waiting for the right project. So last weekend I hunkered down with this pin-spiration and figured, “Hey, it looks like a cheap, easy project. Why not?” I purchased some nails and thread and was on my way. I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I just started out with a state (my state, duh) like the pictures above. I cut a template from a free-hand drawing, taped it to my red plaque, and started nailing.

It was rather mindless work, and kind of tedious. But believe it or not, those are the projects I LOVE! I just zoned out watching a movie and before I knew it, two hours had passed and the project was complete! I was so happy with the results that I started in on two more designs – I even went out and bought more colorful thread.

So what do you think? I like that they’re a bit three-dimensional and kind of kitschy. Right now, the Minnesota one is on my bookshelf and the “hi” is on my mantle (with my spooky spoka from Ikea, my internal organs art, and my $1 bin dinosaur). I’m not quite sure where to put kitty-cat… his green is kind of throwing me off. Regardless, it was a fun weekend of lots of bent nails and thread bits!

Do you pin? Follow me on Pinterest HERE!

*Also, by no means am I promoting the stealing of ideas from Etsy shops and vendors or other people online. (I believe) The whole idea behind Pinterest is to get that jolt of inspiration to start projects and define what you like while still being able to track back and give people credit for their great ideas. So those are just my two cents! :)

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hockey puck

Posted on November 3, 2011 | 8 Comments

Well here it is. It’s almost 11:00am and I’m still at home. I’m recovering from surgery.

Yep. About a month ago, I had some pain in my hips and back, so I went to the chiropractor to get adjusted. In the few days following my appointment a huge lump appeared on my upper left shoulder. Like, REALLY big. It kind of freaked me out so I went back to my chiropractor to ask what was going on. Was it a muscle pushed off kilter? Was it just fluid? What the heck was wrong with me?! She didn’t know what to think of it either, so I went off to my primary doctor for a check up.

Fast forward to this Monday, and I’m meeting with a surgeon. After a scare from two weeks ago over the telephone in which the nurse told me that this lump was an abnormal 5 centimeter mass of cells (insert 15 minutes of post-talking-to-nurse-and-my-momma-panic-crying) my surgeon told me it’s actually nothing to be panicked about. Phew! The mass was something called a lipoma (Do NOT Google image search it if you know what’s good for you!), which is just a fatty mass of cells. Anyway, given that the bump appeared so quickly and was so large, AND that my insurance was so good (phew!) I opted for surgery.

(Just waiting, oh, you know – almost 3 hours. Don’t rush the surgeon!)

So yesterday afternoon I went with my mom to the surgical center. We waited for a good 2.75 hours for an OR to open before being escorted into surgery. In those few hours, my mom and I goofed around, my boyfriend showed up, my mom had to leave, I had an interesting IV situation and a whole lot of drugs and fluids pumped through my body. It was all kind of… surreal. I’ve never had surgery before. Well, I take that back. A few years ago I had my wisdom teeth out, which was a cinch. Not sure if that counts? Oh well.

Anyway, they walked me back to the OR and got me “shnockered” up on drugs. It was kind of awesome. 45 minutes later, I emerged from the OR feeling AMAZING and super-duper hungry since it was 6pm and I hadn’t eaten since 7am. The doc told Pete that they removed a HOCKEY PUCK sized lump from my shoulder. I hope that’s not like weird or too much information for anyone, but I think that’s just kind of amazing. Like, how does that happen? Our bodies are so confusing and interesting!

Afterwards, Pete was awesome and took me to fill my prescriptions, and then out to Panera. I wolfed down the most delicious salad ever, and went home to take some meds, snuggle with my cat, eat Halloween candy, and watch episodes of 30 Rock. And I’ve been doing great ever since. I have some really good pain meds, and Leo has been very sweet and cuddly this morning. I’m resting up before a long weekend of work, which I think I’ll be able to handle just as long as I can get some help moving heavy items or reaching for things.

So that’s that. Just thought I’d keep my family and friends informed. And sorry Grandma and Grandpa (who I know read this)- I don’t think Mom told you much about my surgery, just because she didn’t want to scare anyone. But I’m doing great and feeling really good! Doctor said everything is normal, and that lots of people get this. I learned that, too, after doing some research online. So I’m not too worried about my health at this point, even though early on I was a little freaked out. So all’s good in our neck of the woods now. :)

Thanks so much to friends and family for being so supportive of me! Love you all!

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