Happy 2 Years!

The best kind of resolution is the one that lasts for more than a week, a month or a year... It's the kind that • changes your life • by consistent application. Here's to our second year of living on a PLAN, working together in commitment toward our goals and never giving up on the resolution we made 2 years ago to get there.

Happy New Year! and to my husband, I love you very much!

Bad Trends

I'm always observing social trends and the affects they have around us. Some trends are incredibly useful, while others... are definitely pointless.

Sometimes people my age do things that I'm not sure I understand. Some of these people are referred to as "hipsters". If you're not quite sure how to identify the hipster style, this chart can help:




Others who may not be hipsters also sometimes enjoy these styles because of their over-infusion into our culture I guess. As all teens and twenty-somethings tend to do, everyone wants a style that makes them stand out. However, partaking in fads makes you blend in! Oh the irony. Anyway, I've picked up on some faddy trends of late. The more I see them the more I wonder how much longer these things will be trends, such as...

Mustaches. Mustaches on everything: jewelry, tshirts, fingers under your nose. Why? I'm really not sure. I don't know that I could wear a mustache necklace and be taken seriously anywhere. It kinda says 'I want to look like I'm in a 1920s barber shop quartet'... and while those are cool, subconsciously mocking it isn't really as cool.

Skinny Jeans. Oh Lord. While these may look alright on rail thin women, they are questionable on men and everyone else... and most of the folks I've seen wearing them in public look like the two above. They can't be comfy! They certainly aren't flattering.

Ugg Boots. Ugg stands for ugly, it's in their name! Everyone and their brudder has a pair of these, typically worn over the bottoms of jeans. I'm not sure why they're so popular, but they do live up to their name.

Ugly Purses. If you glance by the handbag sections of most department stores, you'll find seas of bulky, ugly shoulder bags that look like filled diapers! They seem to be getting bigger and bigger too, and they're always shoulder bags and not slings, which would be killer on one shoulder if you fill it up as it intends.

Duck Face. This moronic expression can be seen ALL OVER Facebook. I'm not sure why this has become trend but it's rather ridiculous. Many people (girls and guys) apparently find that making this face makes them look better or more attractive somehow by pulling the cheeks together and adding an attempted innocence to their glance. It's pretty annoying. "Punch me."



There isn't really a good way to conclude this. Of the people I know who read this blog, none of these things really apply. So I guess it's useful to be aware of these stupid trends for some reason.

Blessings In Code

My boss here at ARS has been asking about Jon working his website coding abilities here every time she brings up needing more developers. I told him she wanted him again last week. They had a phone interview about working freelance, on his own schedule whenever he wants and she hired him over the PHONE! She must really like him. He is quite likable :•)

So he accepted! He may be working in my office or remotely, depending on the project. He starts this Thursday with a half day on a test project so she can assess his mad skills. I'm pretty excited. I think this will be good.

Dreams, Business & Stupid

I've been meaning to write some lately between the business of things. Holidays, finding a new car, etc. So here's a few topics of late...

Dreams, Oh My
Jon and I have had dreams about having children this week. We don't take that as a sign telling us it should happen soon.. I think it's just the whirlwind of almost every other one of our friends have started families lately. Like there's maybe 4 remaining childless married couples left that we know. Anyway, Jon's dream was very realistic, while mine was utterly frightening. Remember the "Chucky" movies? Ok - I had a newborn boy who had a look about him reminiscent of Chucky. And he was talking back to me! as a newborn! making fun of me and teasing me about having to breastfeed him, oh my God! Ok it is kinda funny, but at the same time the utter notion of "I am NOT doing this!" was freaky to me. I can't imagine the weirdo dreams I'll have when we actually have one on the way. Yikes!

I have to say honestly that being around everyone else having kids actually makes me want to wait even longer. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I've always been pretty against the bandwagon.

One Little Business
I like having my personal blog to talk about my business with some confidentiality. I share all my public ideas and projects on the •m• blog, but here I can be a little more open. I'm really excited about its possibilities though. I'm learning a lot about what it takes to have and to run my own business, and I really, really enjoy it - even while being aware of how much upkeep and focus and organization it requires. As far as.. well everything - notes, material and price tracking, customer info, finances for sure, the physical arrangement of my workspace, being aware of marketing trends and ways to connect with people. It's a lot. I tend to wonder how other folks doing similar endeavors manage their business things.

The invent of Facebook is incredible when it comes to small businesses. Some folks bash it's usefulness or ignore it altogether.. while others abuse it for their desire for attention - but my God, it's an incredibly useful tool for new & individually owned businesses! The same for Etsy I suppose (a community of people selling handmade & vintage items), but I find myself supporting Facebook marketing more than Etsy (plus I'd rather people visit my website and not my etsy page).

Currently Etsy has no way to push your message as much as Facebook does, although they are constantly improving their site. It's just such a big community. It's hard to stand out there in my opinion, especially if you make jewelry or hair clips. However, get yourself a unique idea and/or a unique style and you've got it made. If you're still wondering what you can do with your life that you actually really enjoy or if you're thinking of a way to generate steady side income, today's technology makes it incredibly easy to establish yourself and your ideas. Look into it, for serious. PS, and it's not just for twenty-somethings ;•)

Eventually I'd love to take one•little•m part time instead of managing it between my full time job as it is right now. 2011 will be an interesting new year for us. We're planning on doing some actual advertising (via facebook at first) so I'm curious to see what that does and if I'm able to keep up.

Stupid & Funny
So in our search for a new car to replace my totaled Civic thanks to Ms Not Paying Attention in Atlanta... we've been keeping an eye out on the roads for things we do and don't want. This lead to discussion about the body style changes among newer Civics and how I think the rear tail lights looks like a sad panda haha. So we came up with this Sad Panda character, who we quote every time we see one on the road, making a "mmuuuhh!" depressed sounding voice. (We will never deny our weirdness.) The best part is the realization of this character when we discovered that you can create unique characters on the Wii, for use as contestants on our new Wheel of Fortune game. Check this out!! hahahaha.. Search through all of them, it's so entertaining, if you're a Wii person that is. They each have instructions on how to build your own new characters too. Too fun.

Focus & Sacrifice Pay Off!

As of today I am officially student loan debt free!! The sweet taste of impending total debt freedom comes nearer and nearer.. We've been extremely focused on this task and it has paid off, literally! Over $16,000 in just 9 months! And now we move on to Jon's student loan.. with the optimistic goal of being completely debt free by July 2011.

Our progress chart that we keep on the fridge.. success!!

Recording Us

I suddenly feel like I don't have much to say on here as I probably post too many short and random thoughts to my facebook status. Facebook is a curse sometimes. It makes us too aware of who we are in front of other people. I'd like to teach myself to get back into reflecting personally on here and not so publicly there.

I had an interesting conversation with Jon the other night over dinner, about how home videos of "growing up" have such a different feel to them in these days of social media applications and the publicity of self awareness. I recall the old videos I've seen of my mom's side of the family. My grandmother riding a bike in the parking lot next to their home in the late 60s with the kids being silly or running away from the camera.. hula hooping, laughing, playing ball.. with no audio. I love those films.

We have a nice video camera. I think we've (Jon) has so far used it on a Kennedy launch in the past year. Otherwise we've done no video (and little still photo) record-keeping of our lives as a married couple before having children. We still have plenty of time. I'd like to remedy that soon.. but not in a way that makes us feel like we're exposing our lives to social medias as it's being recorded. (Because people ACT differently when they know what they're doing will be viewed by the masses.. and I don't like that.)

I'm not really sure how best to do it, actually. It might be easier once we have our own new place to talk about and to own. But here are my ideas of how I plan to create and how I imagine our home movies to best represent the nostalgia of past times when we go back to watch them in the future:

• Audio is sometimes weird to me. Moving images with an appropriate musical score is increasingly more nostalgic than voices for some reason. Or maybe I'm just not fond of my voice.

• I'd like to learn a simple video production program very well so I can edit and put color and soft lighting effects to the films to create a unique visual. I really like the lighting and softness of this photo:

• And I'd really like to storyboard a creative film piece once we get pregnant. Stop action :•) but done impressively and not cheesily somehow.

Essentially too, I'd like to be more creative together Jon and I. We both have our creative areas that would come together nicely in a worthy effort such as this. I'm looking forward to trying to plan and produce it together.

Room Semi-Rehabs

I'm not sure how well you can tell the differences between the two rooms we worked for about 5 hours organizing last weekend, but standing in them they feel a LOT better.. check it out:

Bedroom, Before. | Lots of bookshelves, and about 5 ft. of wall space for sewing.

Bedroom, After. | Much more open walls and about 13 ft. of wall space for sewing! We moved the bed toward the closet (behind where you would be standing for this point of view) about 6" which, magically, made a ton of difference. We also moved all the music media to the other room.


Spare Room, Before. | Our little "thrift store." Lots of piles and little floor space... Yes that is the ceiling of Jon's Saturn, haha (he's re-fabricking it ...re-fabricking? ).

Spare Room, After. | Still a little pile-ish, but it's now limited to the perimeter so there's room to get to things and space for my photography and other things, yay!

"When you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything." - George McFly

The Pursuit Of Silence In A World Of Noise

Interesting article about the noise in our world, on NPR:
Click here to listen (13 minutes).

No House Go

Well the house we were stalking is on the NO list now. Our friends can't rent it. They want to sell, and we can't afford to buy. POOPy! However, it was mentioned to Jon yesterday that the very first one of their properties we looked at about a year and a half ago (or more) may become available for rent with the option to buy. (This is the one that had some need for repairs, but had a very favorable visual, layout and space.) It's probably $1k/mo too.. but no numbers have been shared with us.

We drove around last night looking for desirables in the area we like. We found 2.. one being way out of our price range, I found after calling for info today. The other I suspect to be the same, but am waiting to find out about it on Monday.

It's looking more and more like in order to find something with the space we need, we can only afford dumps.. or nice places in dumpy neighborhoods. *Steam!*

If only I could put up with our current situation for another year or 2, so we can pay off our student loans, then save up for a friggin' down payment for a good house in a good 'hood with the right amount of space for our needs... BUT I CAN'T! It's so frustrating! We could probably cut the wait considerably if we could save more on all the gas I use up for my stupid drive every day. Boy what we could save if I worked from home all the time.. minus what we'd need to spend on internet that works good. At least we're getting a break on rent this month from having a hole in our shower... encouraging?

Do Things With Friends - Even If You're Busy or Tired

Depending on your personality, you may or may not feel the need for an often-there, same-sex friend. I used to have a number of these, and it was nice. I don't anymore, and it's not as nice. When I'm busy I don't think about it, but when I'm not and just feeling like it'd be nice to hang with someone I don't see every day, I wish for one. There's a number of people I know that I'd love to hang out with on a regular (weekly, every other week) basis, but people are busy, and other things are priority over their friendships I guess.

Why don't we make more time for our friends? Why do we seclude off when we get married, get older, when we multiply, etc? Not all of us do this, because (from the aid of Facebook allowing us to monitor others' lives without really making an effort to) it's obvious that groups of friends do still get together regularly. But not all of us do. Some of us may desperately want to. Others of us couldn't care less. And others of us do care but are unaware of those looking for them to be around more.

I wish we lived down the street from some of our friends here. It seems like that physical proximity would make a lot of things much easier. Suddenly people become more available when your place is easier to get to. It's true, it seems.

Just some thoughts: Tell people you want to hang with them. Be more open to people telling you they want to hang with you. Realize it'll do you good, even if it's not in your routine. I think as we get older, busier, more tired, what have you.. we come up with reasons not to keep certain human connections with those we're not related to. If you submit yourself to the idea of stepping out, you'll find you were glad you did.. AND it'll give you energy, to cure your "busy" or to cure your "tired".

I'm starting to take action. A girl's night had been started among gals at church, which I took lead of when it started to fizzle about a year or so ago. I'd like to do something every other week with it, but sometimes I just don't have the money to go out that often. I'd love to host my home, but I feel like I can't effectively do that where we are. People who live downtown are less interested in a trip to the boonies I think. So I feel like to really get this going may partially pivot upon our move. I'm looking forward to getting it going more regularly though.

I'm doing something!

My Husband & The Earth's Gravitational Pull

We were driving to McKay last night (so Jon could find a financial read and I could get Invasion of the Body Snatchers, ha).. but the best part of the trip was the conversation he started on the drive there...

"So, supposing you could dig your way from one end of the earth to the other, and supposing you could dig through the center of the earth without being burned alive.. and supposing that, while most likely you'd come out in the ocean on the other side, it wouldn't phase the other hypotheticals of this idea... you would fly out the other side, and fall directly back into your hole. Since gravity is at the center of this scenario, you'd continue to keep falling back through the center of the earth and coming out both sides for a time, with the energy of your fall decreasing slowly as you go. Eventually you'd end up stuck at the center of the earth since that is where gravity is pulling you toward.."

(click image to view larger)

My question was this:
"What would happen to you if you were in the exact center of the force of gravity? Gravity isn't just a downward force there.. it's a coming-from-all-directions force, as shown by the green arrows. How would this not-downward but all-surrounding force affect the human body? I bet you would physically age better if you lived in the center of the earth."

Noted: Conversations of this nature are one of the things I absolutely love about who we are when we're together :•)

Holy Moly Ads!

I think I can fit a FEW MORE messages in this crampy email layout, don't you?
(Don't worry, they will find a way to do it.)

This file is one of 157 or more that I have to change the messaging on, between February and April. Oh man. For each week during that span, there are 10-15 different versions for different states.. AND some states have Kmart versions too! All I can say is, at least they're not doing all the states every week, sheesh. I'm looking forward to May 1, and the end of this campaign.

Stalking Mr. House

Is it weird that I like to stalk this little house we're interested in? Our friends from church own this quaint 3 bedroom, 1970s era house in a nice quiet neighborhood in East Brainerd with great highway access. They have been renovating it to sell (or hopefully to rent with the option to sell in our case) for the past number of months. I talked to Maureen on Sunday and learned the updated list:

new carpets
new door from the kitchen to the den, with a window-opening between those rooms
repainted cabinetry with an addition
new vinyl flooring
new hard wood flooring
1.5 bath made into 2 full baths
updated tiling in bathrooms
new toilets
new bathroom sinks
new heating/air system
new windows
repainted exterior
repainted gutters

She said it'd be ready to see in about 2 weeks (which means next weekend if possible). I drove by the house yesterday to take a peek. New windows! It's amazing how much nicer an entire place looks just by window updates.

Stalking 101: Find an image to stare at longingly:

I probably could bring my camera and take a better snap, but I feel like that commits my emotions to an uncertainty, so this will do. And now for more emotionally-committing statements:

It's cute! I'm not sure what color they're going to change the outside to, right now it's like a worn-looking peach color. On the right side where it looks like there's a window is actually a windowed door. It used to be a garage but has been turned into a den, which Jon could use as a music studio quite effectively. The front porch is small, but the backyard area looks nice and green with area for a potential small deck or porch.

The front door has been updated to a really nice oval-shaped glass-windowed door. The glass looks like it might have some etching design in it.

One of the unused 3 bedrooms would be my amazing art and sewing studio! Amazing. I long for the day to have room for such a thing.. and to have a master bedroom where I can get into the doorway while holding a laundry basket without running into a guitar stand and a thick pile of art papers and portfolios behind the door. Seriously.

I think if I owned this house I'd have fun doing some landscaping, and eventually to fence in the lot with a nice little wooden fence or something.

Enough emotions. I really hope this place is a definite possibility. It'll come down to how the numbers can work with our current goals to take out student loan debt completely in the next year and a half. I've been praying. Feel free to join me.

Flying Dreams

I've had a lot of dreams lately about big life change things: finding a house, having children, the fate of starting my own line of work.. And I think it's interesting to note that when my anxieties rest about those things, my dreams revisit the same silly, weird and inspiring nature that they had long ago before all this adult stuff happened. I like that I can still go back there without even trying.

The Innocence Mission

I can really appreciate the way a great musician can catch my undivided attention within mere seconds of listening to their work. But my goodness, how lovely! The Innocence Mission is my new appreciation. I've been listening to track samples in iTunes all afternoon and really enjoying it. This sound takes me away to a relaxing leisurely drive, or to working in a sunny room on sewing projects and being filled with creativity.

And look at the design :•)

The song that caught me was a cover of What A Wonderful World on the "Now The Day Is Over" album, which includes additional covers of Moon River, Edelweiss and Over The Rainbow. Such a soft sound. Love it.

Birth Of The Human Spark

There's a really interesting program on PBS tonight about the brain.. Specifically the segment discussing the question: At what age do we develop the "human spark"? It isn't at birth, they observe, but at around 9 or 10 months of age. Basically from birth to this age, a human is much like an animal. Their reactions to communication are similar but they do not understand language per say at such a young age... learning language is when the human spark begins.

Babies will coo and make noises and will seem to understand differences in the sound of their mother's voice, but this behavior is much like a dog's reaction to the same type of communication. Interesting! (So a baby is much like a pet in the beginning, haha.. until it learns... because it's capacity is so much greater than an animal).

Another study showed that at 6-9months, a baby can tell which character traits in others are preferable to them. They were shown puppets interacting with each other. Almost 100% of the time the child preferred the nicer character, based solely on motion behavior, no voice, and were able to identify good versus bad intentions in inanimate objects. Kinda makes you feel the need to be more intentional about the way you act around kids.

Babies can also spot others who are like them and make preferences. In this test there were 2 foods given to the child, who then made his food preference. A puppet was used to prefer one food and another was used to prefer the other. When given the choice the baby chose the puppet who liked the same food he liked.. same results almost 100% of the time as well.

A child by the age of 5 is capable of what they called "theory of mind," where they are able to consider their own intentions, as well as others' intentions.. like considering what other people might be thinking about.

So interesting! I always wondered what babies actually think about. Turns out, before 6-9 months or so, like an animal, they're only able to consider their own intentions for basic necessities.. as they slowly become aware that this thing called communication actually exists and that it can do things for them.

Basically the message behind this show is that language and communication is the "spark" that sets us apart from every other species on this planet. It's what essentially gives us the ability to wonder, to hope, to plan for the future, to make our lives what they are.

Orange Cornmeal Cake

I saw this recipe on the Saturday morning cooking show we watch regularly, thought I'd share it!

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup olive oil, plus more for greasing the pan
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar, plus 1/3 cup for the topping
• 1/2 cup orange juice (or dry white wine)
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup finely ground yellow cornmeal
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Zest of 1 large orange

Method

1 Preheat oven to 375°F. Brush the bottom and sides of an 8-inch round cake pan with oil (can use butter for this too); line the bottom of the pan with wax paper or parchment paper, and brush the top of the paper with oil.

2 In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, oil, 1 cup of the sugar, and orange juice until smooth. Add flour, cornmeal, salt, baking powder, and orange zest; whisk lightly to combine.

3 Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan; sprinkle the top evenly with the remaining 1/3 cup sugar. Bake until cake begins to pull away from sides of pan and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 25-35 minutes.

4 Cool the cake in the pan 20 minutes. Run a knife around edge of cake to separate it from the edge of the pan. Invert the cake gently onto a plate, and remove the parchment paper. Re-invert the cake onto a rack to cool completely before serving.

Serves 8.

A Personal Update

Well.. I haven't updated on here for a while. I've been so engulfed with my shop progress! .. it's really fun. I have a feeling that the clothing is going to be a more successful effort than trying to sell invitations and art prints though. It's more practical for the price... and people just want clothes more than art or printed materials I guess.

I've been spreading knowledge of my shop through chat rooms on etsy.com.. which is innnnteresting, to say the least. I've learned that there are a lot of stay at home moms and retired folks selling on there. I've also learned that there is a TON of crafty (in my opinion junk) type stuff that people are trying to sell. Like, buy a bag o' beads from Michaels, string 'em and sell them for $15. Meh. I'm sure some people go for that. I've personally felt impressed by very few other shops on that site (and shop banners made with Microsoft Word). However, it's encouraging that the inspiring shops are few.. because it's easier to stand out :0) I've already had people comment on how nice my blog looks or how cool my website is (gee, helps to be an actual web/designer when it comes to marketing your own stuff!). Right now my main marketing angle is social marketing only (Facebook fan page, Twitter, blogging, etsy chat rooms) .. but being as connected as I naturally am, that's a plus and I think (I hope) eventually it'll work out well for me.

Anyway here's an update on other things.. we are still waiting on renovation progress about a little house we're interested in that some friends from church are renting/selling as soon as it's done. It'd be a great location, in East Brainerd with easy highway access but in a nice, older little subdivision. I haven't seen the inside yet, and the renovated inside will be new to both of us. We're hoping to see it later this month or next month. We both have a good feeling about it though, so maybe some goodness will happen with it soon.

Our second 13-week session of Financial Peace University is about to start up again, with a preview this Sunday, for which I'm making dollar sign shaped sugar cookies! I'm looking forward to it... and to seeing peoples' eyes opened to how they can change their lives forever because of learning how to focus on finances. It's powerful. I love it.

For The Birds

My sister decided to buy a pet bird, a smaller parrot breed of sorts.. so I decided to provide some name options I came up with, haha:

Scuttle Butt
Qwerty
McPecksalot
Tweets McFlappingly
Fowlly Golightly (for a girl)
Harvey Birdman
Thrush
Twitternaut
Birdiesdirtifeet
Swoopsenpecks
Featherface
Heath Fledger
Beaker
Andrew

I think it's funny that a number of these sound like those spam email sender names I used to get.. hilarious.