special delivery

This weekend, the new camera lens I ordered online arrived. I missed the delivery, so they left it in our apartment office. After walking the dogs this morning, I picked it up, got back to our apartment, and within 60 seconds proceeded to open it up in an excited frenzy. Then I ran around taking head shots of my husband and dogs.

I think as an artist, it is completely possible to fall in love with something like blurriness in a photo. I am completely smitten.

week 4

coffee + class notes = another saturday spent writing a paper. kind of feel like if i were to run away and join the circus, nobody would really notice.

progress

When you're going back to school one class at a time, you tend to forget where you're at in the process. "Oh, I think I have a little over a year left," I always respond whenever someone asks how much school I have left. I'm starting to feel like I'm finally making progress, so this quarter, I got a little more serious. I called and talked with my advisor, updated my degree plan, and the light at the end of the tunnel seems is right around the corner.

So far, I've taken 1 class at a time, but this quarter I'm taking two classes. The discipline it's requiring has been a challenge for me. Obviously- hello, blog post when I'm supposed to be writing a paper! I'm trying a different approach this quarter, making a more conscious effort to to find an appreciation for things that suck. For example, rather than thinking, "I have no life! I sleep, work, go to class, sleep, work, go to class, submit a project, read, and sleep," I am trying to appreciate the lessons I'm learning on being disciplined. I like to be busy, but being spending lots of time creating jewelry is different than being busy reading about the latest geeky too-in-depth-for-me trends in the computer industry.

I just checked my degree plan again, and one of the general classes I'm taking right now is my last core class, and every class that I take after this quarter are specialty courses directly related to what I love- web design and development. So. Excited.

Eight weeks from now, I'll officially be 50% done with my degree. If I push myself, I could be done within a year. Feels like I've been going back to school for ages. I started in January 2008.

I knew this semester would be a challenge, so before this quarter began I posted colorful construction paper quotes all around the apartment. Genius move, self from December 2009 who knew I'd need this in January 2010. This one keeps catching my attention:

“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out”

Robert Collier

a fresh start

I feel like I'm going through a sort of nesting in preparation for the new quarter. I forget that when you're taking 10-week classes, you're always required to do a bunch of prep work before class even begins. So this weekend, I'll be reading 8 articles, four chapters, and writing an introductory bio which I will no doubt have to share with all of class on Monday night. But I'm also doing crazy cleaning. I think it's partly a last-minute panic as I realize I won't have as much free time in the near future, and partly because it's the new year- good for fresh starts.

This morning I've gone through about 4 months of backlogged paperwork which has grown into a monstrous 1-foot tall pile in our mail bin. I discovered an overdue dental bill, and lots of messages from old credit cards informing us that the government is telling them they can no longer be a-holes to customers.

While I'm on a roll, I will likely try to tackle the Christmas decorations. Putting them up was so exciting this year, and I'm really a little sad to think of all the colorful, shiny, and sparkly decorations going into hiding for another year.

Wishing you all a merry 2010! I'm excited about what this year has in store. I think it's going to be a good one.

i love sugar

The elves have been visiting all week. So exciting! Santa's elves have been a missing piece of my life for at least the last 17 years. I really missed them. Today, I got a funny t-shirt. The elves really know my style. I love it.

With spending Christmas in Colorado this year, it was important to me to decorate and bake and put up stockings- all those things that make Christmas fun. This year, I made sugar cookies using the world's greatest sugar cookie and frosting recipes. Seriously. These cookies are so good that my body has insisted on having at least one for breakfast each morning over the last 3 days. Brandon brought a tray to work, and they were gone by 10:05 a.m. I also made peanut butter balls, which are like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, but more unhealthy and slightly more delicious. Finally, I made chocolate covered pretzels drizzled with white chocolate.

It's been snowing all day, and the big, fluffy snowflakes are making a pretty blanket of white on the ground.

My Christmas wish is to receive an obnoxious Christmas sweater that I can not only wear to ugly sweater parties, but that I can wear every Christmas Eve because it makes me feel extra festive. I get you, holiday sweater owners- I get you.

home sweet home

Although we LOVE living downtown, Brandon and I have been thinking lately about buying a house. It is much easier thinking about desired neighborhoods when you're in a smaller city, like Sioux Falls or Fort Collins, and a little overwhelming in a place the size of Denver. I was browsing some real estate sites today, and can't believe that I don't have a better sense of the type of place I'd like to call home. I'm 33! Shouldn't this be a no-brainer at this point in my life?

Part of me would love to live a little way up into the mountains. I'd love to have a home with an inspiring view, a place where our dogs could roam off-leash. However, even living downtown, I sometimes resent the fact that the nearest Hobby Lobby is 15 miles away. We have to drive quite a distance to find big box stores. I like to support small, locally-owned businesses whenever possible, but sometimes SuperTarget just fulfills certain needs. There's also appeal in buying a newer house in a newly-developed suburb, where you likely don't have a lot of fixer-upper type projects on the horizon, and you have ready access to conveniently-located stores and restaurants nearby. I also like the idea of living in a charming old home with lots of character in an up-and-coming neighborhood where we could walk to the nearby main street full of quaint shops and non-chain restaurants.

I guess part of what makes life worth living is the excitement of not knowing where we'll eventually end up.

oh, christmas tree

It's been a busy week for me, so going to Michael's and shopping for Christmas decorations after work tonight was wonderfully therapeutic! Nearly all the Christmas stuff is 50% off- even better than shopping for Christmas decorations for me is finding a deal.

I have very few Christmas decorations, in part because I've always traveled home to South Dakota for the holidays. So I'm kind of starting from scratch this year. Brandon and I bought our first real tree this year. Going to pick out our tree was so much fun, and brought back lots of memories of doing this with my family as a kid.

listen closely

Today's message to me, from the Universe:

You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.
- Joan Baez

viva las vegas

Gratitude | Day 2

1. Friday!
2. The anticipation of Saturday morning coffee.
3. Our Wii Fit, which makes me look forward to working out.

Gratitude

Inspired by the Create Beauty Daily blog, I wanted to share some things I am grateful for today. It's been kind of a rough week, so this is really great timing for me!

1. Learning, in spite of the fact that I am sometimes pushed to learn things outside my comfort zone. Some part of me, deep down, knows that I will see the value in this material when I look back at my current life years down the road.
2. Happiness on my dog's faces after they've just returned from a long walk.
3. The fact that my dogs are always cheerful, willing running partners.
4. Having fun with Wii Fit skateboard competitions against my husband.
5. Starting out the day with hazelnut creamer in my coffee, which my non coffee drinking co-worker always says smells like cookies.
6. The view of the downtown Denver skyline at night. I love where we live.
7. Making some new charms after several months of not creating, and realizing that I am still very much in love with jewelry making.
8. My favorite clever TV shows that make me laugh on days that I don't feel like laughing.
9. My sweet husband who hugs me on days I don't feel very hug-worthy.
10. Vanilla beer

This summer is the first time in my life I'd ever kept a gratitude journal, and it was just for a few weeks, but if you've never done this I highly recommend it! The best thing for me was realizing what makes me most happy, and being conscious of trying to include more of those things in my daily life. It's also a really nice way to end each day. It would probably be a great way to start off a day, too.

homemade halloween mask

yes.

“How one lives as a private person is intimately bound into the work. And at some point I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth. If we are to understand the human condition, and if we are to accept ourselves in all the complexity, self-doubt, extravagance of feeling, guilty, joy, the slow freeing of the self to its full capacity for action and creation, both as human being and as artist, we have to know all we can about each other, and we have to be willing to go naked.” ~ May Sarton

lovely little cake

We had a charity raffle at work yesterday which resulted in me winning this white cake, complete with white frosting and a sparky gold swirl on top. It is quite possibly the sweetest little cake I've ever seen.

beautiful pictures

photos by lightfantasik photography
new york city, new york

My good friend Sarah has a whole series of new pictures up on her website www.lightfantastik.com. If you haven't visited her site lately, go check it out! While I was of course excited to see pictures of our wedding on her site, I mostly enjoyed seeing all the other creative portraits she's been taking recently. Pictures like the ones of the adorable kiddos above make me smile.

Looking at the pictures on her site will increase your happiness by at least 20% today. I guarantee it.

♥ mountains

A Perfect Day for a Walk Through Downtown

Source:+

tricycle race

Some of my favorite things about this photo:

- The look of determination on my face.
- The fact that I'm wearing the tutu I wore for my bachelorette party just three weeks prior.
- The way my orange wig matches the orange cone.

I found this great tutorial on how to make a DIY cardigan using long-sleeved t-shirts. It turned out that I had several ill-fitting shirts in my closet that I don't wear, and in just a few minutes, I'd repurposed them into cardigans! They're perfect for cool nights out on our porch.