Merry Monday

{Catching snow / Creating / Oddly sitting}

Weekends come and weekends go, and they're always filled to the brim with good stuff. This weekend started off hanging out in the hospital with the new baby nephew, some birthday shenanigans, breakfast at Grandview, crafting, another birthday outing, photos, and hanging out with the fam (of course with new baby). I realized how close Christmas really was, and maybe started to panic a little. It's not that I have gifts to still procure or make, but there are Christmas cards that haven't been sent out, baking and packing to do before the weekend, all on top of some other obligations.

{Unintentional Christmas colors / Holiday brews}

So let's keep sane in this home stretch until Christmas! Oh pretty please!

{Two hats / Sheet music / Playing}

Today I am le thankful for:

1. Family. New babies have a way of bringing people together. Yeay!

2. Friends and their friends and their families. It's pretty cool when you have fun hanging out with your friend's boyfriend's sister and her friend. 

3. A short week. I can't wait for Christmas!!

Unfortunately, when my holiday cards were all ready to go, I forgot my stamps at home and am now at work. Rats and a half! I'm also planning on taking a page or two out of the blog Life's Simple Measures for holiday baking recipes. Can't wait to test my terrible hand at these.

Are you scrambling this week? Whatever you're doing, I hope it's a good one.

Baby Archer

No, this is not a post about a small person with a bow and arrow, but rather, my new baby nephew, hot off the press! I can't say much about the character of a baby who doesn't open his eyes or do anything but sleep, but he's a peanut and I love him! That's all.

I also love his big brother Theodore who says in the most adorable voice ever, "baby cry" which sounds like "baby kai."

Merry Monday

Hello frannns! This morning was a little rough, even though I forced myself to bed last night at 10pm due to a severe migraine. Let me tell you, 10pm bedtime never happens with me, so I was hurtin' something fierce. This morning I was all achey too, but then my coworker gave me some medicine and it's getting better.

So here I am. The weekend was pretty low-key. I went to a Friday night yoga class, woke up early Saturday for a half day of work, then headed over to my sister's house to craft until I couldn't craft anymore. This crafting sesh was also filled with attempts of dougie-ing, too many desserts, YouTube videos and scary stories I couldn't handle. I finally finished  making my Christmas and Hannukah cards though, so that felt awesome. I finished working on some Christmas gifts as well. But now, I must write out all of these cards and while I definitely enjoy writing to people, it's going to take a block of time to get these out. 

Sunday the fam celebrated my parents' birthdays with Banh Xeo Brunch and playing on the lake behind our house. Then I headed over to boyfran's brothers to do some man-crafting. You know, ditching the pretty paper, brads and tape runners for drills, scrap wood and tape measurers. We made one of our two giant hockey nets for future broomball on the lake. I had never really played with a drill before or built anything that didn't come in a set in a box, so this was pretty fun.

Now, onto Monday and what is getting me through the day:

1. Hydration. Must. Fix. Headache.

2. Crafting. I'm on a craft-kick, if you couldn't tell.

3. Book Club. We're having a little gift exchange tomorrow with our discussion of a holiday-themed book. Yippee!

That's all. 13 days until Christmas, ahh!

Epiphanies of sorts.

Sometimes I think the week crawls by ever-so-slowly, and before I know it, it is le Friday! So, happy le Friday!


If you are super-privileged, you know I have really great "a-ha!" moments. Also really great "weird" moments. I consider myself a smart person, but when it comes to really simple stuff, I get these epiphanies (one of my favorite words) and everyone around me says, "Wow. Really Jen?" Or they say, "Ohhhhhhhhhh" in unison with me.


Some of the A-has have included:
Dissecting the word "percent." Like per-cent. Like per 100. Like out of 100, OMG. Stop. OMG.


How about remote control? Yeah, you can control the TV. REMOTELY. (Also, when I was little I had this problem and called it a remote con-con-trol. My nephew just calls it "mooooote.")


Some of the "weirds" have included:
Fruit. Fruit is so dang weird. Here, let's plant this weird little seed. Then all of this gushy deliciousness will stem from it and grow around it and while we're at it, more seeds will happen to happen, and then you can eat it, and it's mostly good for you. WHAT? (That is NOT what she said). 


Clothes. Alright, so we can't be naked. I'll run and get some fibers and make some string and make some clothes to put on your body. Eventually it will just be for the look of it and rarely for the function.


Animals. There are so many species and they eat each other. And some of them lounge around in our homes, acting like they own the world.


Interwebs. How in the world are you reading this across the way?! Why don't you have to be next to me to know what I'm thinking? Even landlines puzzle me because voices can project across miles! I know there are scientific explanations for these things, but still. It's le nuts.


So yeah. Life is full of very weird things that make me wonder how the H we all got here. This brings me to the thing that inspired the weird post: snowflakes.


SNOWFLAKES! They are unique! They fall from the sky! They are SO beautiful! They were on my car like this!

I hope you have a good weekend. Take time to appreciate the little things, the weird things, and those things that make you say "Ohhhh I get it."

Merry Monday

Oopsies, I'm a little behind on this one. Today was overcast with blah, so maybe that will be my excuse! 


I feel like I'm repeating myself over and over, but...the weekend FLEW by and was FULL of FUN stuff. Sound familiar? Thought so.

Dinner at The Depot, an absolutely spectacular Beirut show at First Ave. (plus I saw a long-lost friend there), No Coast Craft-o-Rama, Mapps chai latte, two days of crafting at my sister's house (I made 38 cards and prepared parts of my Christmas cards, whew!) and a hot yoga class were the highlights of my weekend.

And then…today happened. Nothing catastrophic, obviously. Just a sort of overall blahishness resulting from a domino-effect of small annoyances.

I just watched the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy (yes, I do still watch it), and the episode was about thinking you have it bad but not realizing that you should be thankful that worse things aren’t happening. It’s not meant to discredit small problems, because when you feel like crap, you feel like crap, but know that it could be much, much worse. The narration in the show talks about thinking your day is bad, but when the really, really bad stuff happens, you only WISH your problems were an IRS audit or fender bender. So there’s that.

Also,

That’s all for today. I made a dent in my winter to-do list this weekend. Yeeay!