Establishing Routine

Anyone who knows me in "real life" knows that I am a slob. There is no arguing it. I'm am such a stereotypical hipster artist type - I can't even keep my hair neat. My mascara doesn't even stay on neatly hence the big glasses that I'm constantly wearing.

However, I am desperately trying to change this, as my sweet love of my life is a neat freak. Like - near germ-a-phobe neat freak. This is one of the few areas of compatibility where we are a match made in hell!!!

Since arguing for him to become sloppier doesn't seem a winnable fight to begin I'm trying to adopt better habits. Something that really inspired me to do this, (aside from caring about my hubby's sanity), was reading Apartment Therapy. I loved this book! I picked it up on a whim last summer and it is not just a design book. It teaches you how to care for your home, WHY you should care for your home and so on and thus forth.

I'm on week two of a self imposed do a different chore everyday run. I think it's really working for me. My house isn't spic and span yet, but that's not what I'm going for. I'm going for building habit upon habit that will hopefully have a nice clean apartment at the end of the habit rainbow. I just used the phrase "habit rainbow"??? Okay I'm tired. I know that none of this is crafty and may be completely uninteresting to those out there in the blogosphere, but I just wanted to pop in and say "YES, I am doing something. I am feeling a little domestic and it makes me proud and happy." So there.

Cinnamon Bun Day

There is a restaurant nearby us that has borderline legendary cinnamon buns. They're huge and fluffy and have amazing frosting. We cannot afford to go to said restaurant every weekend, so we've been making Pilsbury cinnamon buns every Saturday morning, or, Cinnamon Bun Day.

Well, not anymore.

My mom came over today and helped me make my first every homemade cinnamon buns. It just reaffirmed for me that I LOVE BAKING and it wasn't as hard as I thought. I now have 16 beautiful little buns, 12 in the freezer for the next three weekends and four waiting to be frosted. I used Ultimate Cinnamon Roll Recipe, and I've only torn a little corner off of the rolls, but so far I'm very pleased! I'll have to give you a full report on my next post.

P.S. I've been really really really sick lately hence the lack of posting. I still have this stupid lingering cough, bleh! I've been doing a little knitting though. Maybe with a little diligence, I'll be able to finish off a long overdue WIP.

Christmas Ornaments in March?

A few years ago I started participating in the Christmas Unswap thread on Craftster. The challenge was to make at least one Christmas gift a month to the theme of that month, knitting sewing, etc. This year I kind of took over the thread, because the original poster has disappeared off of the site.

So of course I'm finishing my first Christmas project in March and not January!

January's theme is ornaments, and when I started participating in the thread, I began a tradition of giving every household in my immediate family an ornament. Since I'm married now, this ornament making process has expanded.



This is a Wee Wonderfuls pattern that I found in Cutting Edge Winter 2006. There are twelve little ornaments here! I've been working on them slowly over the past couple of weeks. Embroidering the faces, sewing the bodies, stuffing, more sewing and finally the jingle bells at the top. Aren't they cute?



The pattern had three different shapes. I like the skinny, curvy tear droppy one the best. I'm so happy with the fabrics too! I had everything already on hand except for the jingle bells which cost me fifty cents. And that PAISLEY fabric! That was a present from Rosa which sat skeptically peaking at me from my fabric shelf for a while. "Hi, I'm kinda cool, but kinda ugly at the same time. Use me...no not for that...no not for that...for the ORNAMENTS silly!" (Wow - fabric speaking in a blog post, I've reached a new low of crafting insanity)

In other news the plague is upon this house! Matt and I are both really sick. I knew it was coming. I've pretty much escaped a good cold all winter and this one is making up for it. BLEH! I was cheered today, however, by the arrival of these:



NEW SHOES! The Eleanor Grosch Keds I've been coveting for a long time, but the Earth Mirage boots were a bit of a splurge. I decided that I was going to use part of the money that I made during the vacation program towards decent winter boots. Originally I was going to get fake Uggs, but I decided to look around a little more and I fell in love with these. I got both pairs of shoes via Zappos and they were doing a free overnight shipping promo. Niiiiiice. These boots are soooooo soft and fuzzy on the inside. I'm in love!

CRASH

I've been busy non-stop for the last ten days or so, so I apologize for the absence! Today I've hit a brick wall waking up with a LOV-ER-LY sore throat. Bleh. I'm on the icky computer right now, so no pictures, but I'll make a little list to sum up what I've been up to...

1. I've been working on my "studio" and it should be ready for the big reveal in a few weeks


2. Worked for Arts in Reach for a week for their LEAP program. Amazing experience, but exhausting!


3. Went to see Iron Kisses at the Portland Stage Company


4. Went to my husband's CD release party - hurray for the Growlers!. It was so nuts that three seconds into the first song I was catapaulted onto the stage and into our whistle player, picked up, thrown 3/4 of the way to the back of the room and returned to my original place. Needless to say - covered in bruises, but boy was it fun!


5. Went to see Boston Ballet's New Visions program. Excellent.


6. Finished summer brochure for Ballet New England, huzzah!


7. Went to see the Martha Graham Dance Company. Even more excellent.


8. Currently drinking coffee and eating pie for breakfast for lack of breakfast-like food in the vicinity.

Coffee calls...