when it rains
- 05
- 15
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When it rains, it pours. And then beautiful flowers appear and everything comes to life in this amazing thing called spring.
And then time picks up speed and starts moving like a freight train and I just do my best to keep up. I feel like I’ve quit my blog. Not on purpose, and not permanently, but I feel like I’ve ignored this thing that gives me so much enjoyment for way too long. So I’ve been thinking of it a lot lately, and always wishing I was taking more photos, posting more posts, writing about what’s happening in my life, showing you all what color we painted the basement, and lots of other things I don’t even know if you care to know. And as I’ve been thinking about this blog, I’ve been extra-encouraged by the little comments that occasionally get left here. This is not a comment-heavy blog. I didn’t start it with the intention of getting the most readers and the most comments and all that, and those still are not my real goals. But I just wanted to say thanks, to those of you who read what I write and show up here to see whatever I’ve been up to. This is a sweet part of my life, that I am not about to quit, and I don’t acknowledge you people on the other end who encourage me to keep blogging nearly enough. So thank you. I’m planning something as a bigger, more tactile way of saying “thanks” that I’ll hopefully be able to share sometime in June.
When it stops raining. :)
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the smith family
- 04
- 25
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What a sweet family. I met Andrew and Justine through our good friends that some of you might recognize (the family resemblance isn’t hard to see), and I got to meet little Trey a few weeks ago for this shoot of their new family of three. I love how they look at their son. It’s so clear they adore him.
Yep. Matching father/son camo hats.
I love this. I don’t think they will be fighting the thumb-sucking war. Just the index finger.
Thank you guys for spending an afternoon with me and my camera!
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backyard garden party
- 04
- 13
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Happy Friday, people! One week ago, I was watching the weather forecast like a hawk and pulling together last minute details for a bridal shower that would take place in my backyard the next day. I have seen so many beautiful photos of events like this that take place outside in some beautiful, peaceful setting, but I don’t ever get to go to those parties. Because they happen in Mississippi or California or someplace with predictable weather. Not in Nebraska, folks. We have our bridal showers in living rooms and church fellowship halls because hey, there could be a tornado or rain or cold or wind or heat or whatever on any given day of the week. And those showers are great, too, but I’ve always wanted to venture outdoors and take a gamble on the weather in the hopes that everything turns out perfectly. And it actually did, for this bridal shower for my dear friend Emily.
Actually, we woke up to damp grass, clouds and chilly lower-50s weather. But the Weather Channel promised me the sun would come out 1 hour before guests would start arriving, giving me hope that things would dry out and warm up. And it faithfully turned into a spectacularly sunny, pleasant afternoon.
(Plates and most of the vintage chairs are from Nostalgia Rentals and they were awesome! Thanks Jessica!)
My mom and sister helped make these wine glass planters the night before. Did you see this idea on Design Sponge last week? Fortunately, the people we bought our house from loved landscaping and left us a fantastic yard. All the other greenery was trimmed from the yard on Saturday morning.
The guest of honor…
We wanted to do a photo booth of sorts around the swing, but with it being windy, my original idea for this fell through. We still had fun taking some photos afterward. The real fun began when I started flipping through the images after the shower and realized it was much funnier to see the progression of images as a group would get ready to take their photo. Nothing like being forced in front of the camera and letting things get a little awkward.
I think the three of us could sing backup. Also, is it just me or did we catch the baby bump kicking? :)
This is the bride with her mom and three sisters. They are way too cute.
It was so fun. I’m not even kidding – a fun bridal shower! Thanks, Allison, Bethany, Kinsey, Beth, Katy, Mom, Molly and everyone who came for everything you did to make the afternoon special for Emily!
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i want to do it myself
- 03
- 30
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I am the pickiest person I know. Not about food (Good lord, no!), but about “look”. It’s the curse of the creative: I’m always designing things in my head that don’t exist, and that I have neither the resources nor the time to make. But sometimes…sometimes I actually make it. Me and the term “Do It Yourself” have a love/hate relationship. In the last few weeks I’ve focused on the “love” part of that, and built myself a desk. Ok. I helped David and my dad build my dream desk.
We have this long skinny “half room” in the basement with built-in bookshelves on one wall and a whole lot of empty space on the rest.
It’s a perfect little office nook, and I am so ready to trade in my laptop and all the time I’ve spent working from the couch in for a desktop and a Get Stuff Done station where I can go and…ya know…get stuff done. I want David and I to both be able to work in this space, and to occasionally be able to spread out bigger sewing and craft projects someplace besides the kitchen table. So I dreamed up this big, solid table with a reclaimed-looking top and sleek modern legs, grabbing inspiration from here (top), here (legs & length) and here (stain).
I’d like to say “here’s the step by step tutorial on this sucker” but we kind of hacked it together, and there’s just not all that much to it. We bought 3 “2×10″s (construction grade) and had them cut to my ridiculously long length of 9′ by a nice guy at Home Depot. Then we got 5 shorter, “1×4″s to screw into the bottom crosswise to hold it all together. We David, Dad and my brother sanded. And sanded. And sanded a little more. Then some more. And they all complained that the electric sander had put their hand to sleep. (“Hey guys, at least it’s electric and you’re not doing this with a tiny sheet of paper,” I said from my chair where I was watching and sipping lemonade or something.)
After all the sanding, we screwed the supports to the bottom of the boards, pre-stained, stained, and covered with a few coats of polyurethane. Finally, we screwed in the legs, which some friends picked up from IKEA during their spring break trip, and Bam! Desk = done. Just the way I like it.
At the beginning of all this, my poor dad was all “Maybe we should just go to a cabinet shop and have them make this for you” and I was all “…sounds expensive…” and I had to explain to him that I really wanted to make it myself, and I wanted it to look original and not look like any old desk you can buy at a furniture store. So he gave in and helped me make a game plan and I’m so thankful that he was willing to help. I do not have the mind that can figure out if my plan will physically work and what it will take. But I’m also really glad I stuck to my idea and tried to make it work, because I love the result and I’m proud of what we made. More pics will come as soon as I get around to sprucing this office up and making it say “I’m fun! Work is fun! It’s fun to work here!”
Oh yeah! We also painted the basement…but the blog’s not quite ready for that jelly.
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why i love my job
- 03
- 27
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Some of you who know me know that my job is a little non-traditional. Sometimes when talking to people about things that happen at the office, that I have come to think of as normal, I get these strange looks that remind me that I do not work in a normal office, as many people would think. No, no. I work with “creatives”. And it has some incredible perks: beer and pizza Fridays once a month, parking lot picnics in the summer, an annual golf tournament with unlimited access to the beer cart, and “retreats” that actually include fun events like touring local breweries and watching movies during office hours. Nope – not kidding. One such retreat took place last Friday.
Let me explain something else that’s important about my office. We’re in advertising, ok, so we like to do things with a lot of flair. One reason for this is just because we can. There are a lot of talented, creative, off-the-wall people at my office. People who write funny and clever taglines for a living. People who crank out animated videos like it’s no big deal. So when we put together an event, it’s not just a separate meeting that’s different from the day to day stuff we work on. It’s an extension of those things – so we have themes and we go all out and people make videos for it “just for fun”. So yeah, it’s a little a lot over the top. But that’s kinda just the way it is.
17 of the 24 people in my department have read The Hunger Games. So we planned our department retreat around the release of the movie. We got a little excited about it. I was on the party planning committee (or Interactive Retreat Task Force…whatever you want to call it) so I combined the Hunger Games mockingjay graphic with one of our client’s logos and made emblems for each District from the book, that also corresponded with our clients’ industries.
And we totally dressed up. We staged a “reaping” a week before the event, during which each person was placed in a district as a tribute, and then we made everyone wear a costume that signified the industry of the district you were from. Confused yet? If you haven’t read the book, then yeah, we sound like a bunch of crazies. Which is only partly true.
Here you can see the transportation, fishing, livestock and power districts.
District 7: Lumber
District 9: Grain
And this is Landy. He’s a coal miner from District 12, dancing to his walkout song “Hi Ho” from Snow White.
I was District 3: Technology, along with my boss who someone pointed out looks like he’s ready to lead Jazzercise. Not sure what kind of Jazzercise class involves a keyboard and a headlamp, but I don’t think I want to go.
We held the event at a community rec center and had a mock Hunger Games, which consisted of grabbing 3 beanbags from the “cornucopia”, then tossing them into your district’s box to earn the right to throw them at cutout targets of your coworkers/fellow tributes. Once your target was hit three times, you were eliminated from the game. It was sweaty and awesome.
And to finish things off we celebrated Tyler’s birthday with a Hunger Games themed cake from Butterfly Bakery that his girlfriend had sent over.
Afterwards we went to the movie in costume, and it was glorious. The middle school class that was there on some spring break field trip thought we were awesome. And that, friends, is why I love my job, or at least a big part of the reason.
***Clarification: Today I do NOT love my work because someone (whose name starts with two “A”s and ends with -ron Harms) taped the evergreen air freshener you see pictured above to the bottom of my desk while I was at lunch and my throat is burning from the lemon lysol smell. Not cool. I will be sure to return the favor soon.***
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finally framed
- 03
- 22
- 12
First thing’s first. Who’s excited for tomorrow? We are:
We (obviously – from the picture) read these books before Christmas and cannot wait to see the movie this weekend! My department at work is having an especially nerdy celebration of this event, which I’ll have to share next week. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, Hello again! I have been awfully neglecting of my blog lately. Springtime is my favorite, and I inevitably get excited about a lot of things when it rolls around each year, which makes me busy as I agree to do and plan to do much more than I probably should.
We have been crazy busy around our house this month, and I haven’t gotten around to photographing a lot of it so I can share it here, so this is a little overdue. We hung a frame collage on our living room wall, and after just receiving the last print in the mail last week, I can finally share the finished product. Let me introduce you…
I really wanted a collection of unrelated things. I wanted mismatching frames, a mixture of prints, photos, crafts and typography.
1. I bought this photo from a local artist at a street fair in Victoria, British Columbia in…like…2002. Unfortunately, I can give no more proper credit to the artist. But that photo always makes me think of this verse: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” – Isaiah 52:7
2. This is the back of a business card from illustrator Leah Duncan. I believe she designed the pattern on the back, and I thought it was pretty, so I framed it. The card came with #9.
3. One of our wedding photos. I don’t get too excited about having my own face on the wall in my house, but I’m fine with the back of my head. And David’s face. I allow us one obligatory wedding picture in the public area of our house. We can put the rest in our bedroom. I have a weird thing about seeing an overload of wedding pictures in a person’s house.
4. This print was a gift I received from my sister for Christmas, with the intention of it going up on this wall. It is from ArtQuirk. I considered doing the whole frame wall of her prints, just framed building/cityscapes. I still think that would be cool. You should do it.
5. A photo I took of a tree at the duplex we used to live in.
6. One of my favorites. Have you heard of the Phraseology Project? You can submit a phrase and they’ll illustrate it. They also have a store with some of these illustrations you can purchase. They’re apparently awesome to work with, too. My mom ordered this for me (also as a Christmas gift) and they didn’t have the other one I wanted, so they sent her three others instead. So I have three more, still waiting to find a wall to live on.
7. A photo I took last two years ago when we vacationed to northern Minnesota with David’s parents.
8. I bought the Botanical Calendar by Rifle Paper Co. and I’m a little obsessed with it. I hate the idea of turning each page after only 30 days or so, and never seeing those works of art again. So I am going to repurpose them. This is January.
9. Another Christmas gift from my sister – by Leah Duncan.
10. A lazy craft project. I took that ugly piece of cardboard that came in the frame, and wrote out the lyrics to a song I love with white watercolor.
11. My favorite picture of all time. I don’t know why, but I love it. It’s David, dressed up as a cowboy for Halloween. He’s sitting on a wood pile with the sun in his eyes and a fake mustache and it cracks. me. up.
12. Lazy craft #2. I wanted one of these (specifically the R) but I’m cheap, so I made a two-dimensional one out of a map of Kauai, where we went on our honeymoon. I thought the colors on the map were a little dull, so I watercolored over them to make them a little deeper. Then I cut out an R from the map, and there you have it.
It took an afternoon to measure, mark and hammer out the layout we wanted. It makes me happy. What about any of you – do you have spring house projects you’re working on?
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february 29
- 02
- 29
- 12
Once every four years. What an odd phenomenon! Do you think people are really inspired with “Carpe Diem” thoughts on this day because it’s more of a rarity? Do you do things you wouldn’t normally do, because today is special? Well, David and I do something we only get to do once every four years. We have a little extra excitement on February 29th because it’s David’s Grandpa Bob’s birthday. His actual birthday.
Happy 22nd Birthday, Bob!
And cheers to 88 years of meaningful, well-lived life. We love you!
Last time, in 2008, we celebrated his 21st birthday, and he got lots of funny cards from friends about being a party animal on that milestone of a day. It was awesome. And I had my first slice of gooseberry pie that day. First and last. :) Enjoy what’s left of your extra day this year, friends. And do some celebrating in honor of Grandpa Bob.