Nerd Nest

Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-14T08:41:00.001-06:00

Today is for (finally) making the sister piece to the above Typeography Art, making chocolate strawberries and taking them to Jake's office (Jonas and I are going to have lunch with him), and going on a dinner date to Noodles and Company (romantic, huh?) while the kids hang out with Poppy and his girlfriend Bev. Eliza's first Valentine's Day at school should be awesome. She went with Marvel Superheros valentines and hopefully she'll come home with oodles.

We hope your day is filled with love, kisses, snuggles, and joy.

Music Monday Vol. 74

2012-02-13T12:10:00.000-06:00

It's a snow day around here! I E's school called (with an automated message) in the wee hours this morning to let us know that school was out! The snow's not bad, but we haven't really had any all year. I think they were just giving the kids a chance to play in it (schools in Kansas City reserve a few days out of the year for the inevitable snow days and calculate that into the length of the school year, but we've had an unseasonably warm winter). The first snow day of the year beats out a V Day playlist, no question.

Jake and I had fun with this playlist - it's not just songs about snow and winter, but also has artists with Snow in their names (Snow Patrol, Miike Snow) and a couple of songs about cocaine (Because "snow" is slang for cocaine. Aren't we clever?). We didn't just throw songs in because they fit the theme, we promise. They're all good.

Snow Day by Megan Anderson on Grooveshark

I can't wait until Jonas wakes up from his nap - we're going to bundle up like crazy and slosh around a bit before the snow turns into slush.

Want more music? Find all Music Monday posts here.

Old playlists we've fixed this week (we're switching all our past playlists from playlist.com to Grooveshark): November Songs, Happy Songs, and Rainy Day.

What have you been listening to lately?

Savory Sunday Vol. 1

2012-02-12T22:09:00.001-06:00

Welcome to a brand new Nerd Nest Series! I've been trying to figure out how to blog about food for some time now. I'd previously been posting a What's for Dinner series that featured a dinner dish every blue moon. But I've found myself wanting to post about several meals a week, and I don't want to end up with three blog posts a day because I'm trying to fit food in. I'll still post individual recipes every so often, but I'm liking the concept of this series a lot more.

Here's the skinny: Each week, I'll post about a week's worth of our dinners at a time. You'll see what our meal plan was, what actually happened, and what the plan for next week is. I'll link to the site/ recipe book/ blog post where you'll find the recipe. And I'll tell you how the food was received. Sound good? Thought so.

Sunday | Bruschetta
Monday | Island Salad
Tuesday | Frozen Goodness
Wednesday | Mini Bean and Vegetable Enchiladas
Thursday | Cidar, Pork, Vegetable Stew
Friday | Chicken Stir Fry
Saturday | Pasta Cartwheels w/ Cheese and Broccoli

Lunch Goodies | Spinach Calzones, Zucchini and Tomato Frittata

I try to meal plan with the next week's schedule in mind. For instance, I knew that we'd have to eat as soon as Jake got off work on Tuesday in order to get to friend Paul's comedy show on time. So, frozen pre-prepared was the way to go. But things still didn't go as planned.

Sunday | Bruschetta, Fancy Cheese and Crackers
Monday | Sandwiches / Fast Food
Tuesday | Trader Joe's Frozen Orange Chicken, Jasmine Rice, Peas, and Veggie Eggrolls
Wednesday | Island Salad
Thursday | Mini Bean & Veggie Enchiladas
Friday | Korma Sutra / Frozen Pizza
Saturday | Pasta Bowties w/ Cheese and Broccoli

Lunch Goodies | Sandwiches and Leftovers

Here's how this week went down:

Sunday was the Superbowl. Instead of watching it, we ate Brie and Blueberry Goat Cheese with Crackers and cooked Bruschetta with our friend Matt. Because that's how we roll at the Nerd Nest.

How to make Bruschetta: Slice your favorite bread (we like ciabatta), sploosh with a bit of balsamic vinegar, and then top each piece of bread with a basil leaf, a bit of fresh mozzarella, and some diced tomatoes. Bake at 350 degrees until the cheese is melted, then broil on high until the cheese is brown and bubbly. Eat and make yummy noises.

Monday, Jake was running errands that we hadn't planned on (picking up our new TV), so I just fixed Eliza a sandwich with fruit and veggies and Jake brought fast food (which we generally try to steer clear of) home with him so we could eat together.

Tuesday went perfect, as planned. We really really love Trader Joe's orange chicken. It is sticky and delicious. Though, full disclaimer, our single friends tell us it's no good left over.

Wednesday was the super delicious mouth watering Island Chicken Salad with a homemade Caribbean Jerk Rub. MMMMmmmm. Everybody, even Eliza the salad hater, had clean plates.

Thursday was Mini Bean & Veggie Enchiladas, the recipe for which is from First Meals, the best book for cooking for kids I've found. I love that the book has sections broken down by age, from infant to 8. Each section talks about what kind of nutrition kids need at each stage and then has a ton of recipes for that age. I bought it because we made all of Jonas's baby food, but I make a lot of family meals from it too.

These enchiladas have onion and tomato in the beans. The picky eaters (Jake and Eliza) don't like these veggies, so it's impressive that this meal can get them to eat them without a word of complaint. I think it's the sweet corn that hides the other veggies so efficiently.

The only change I make to the recipe is to swap out the flour tortillas for corn tortillas, that way I can cut up and fry the rest of the tortillas for chips. We ate the chips with a combo of store bought salsa and leftover corn and black beans from Wednesday.

Friday was against the plans. I forgot to write my girl's night out on our calendar, so I had a meal planned even though I was going out to eat at Korma Sutra, a delicious Indian restaurant in our neighborhood. The lamb vindaloo has nothing on our friend Steve's homemade version, but it was still AH-mazing. And have I mentioned that naan is the best form of bread? I'm going to have to learn how to make it. Jake opted to buy a frozen pizza rather than actually cook.

On Saturday we had dinner at Jake's boss's house (they have a party every quarter when Jake's team meats their goals). Anywho, I forgot to plan for that too. So I just made the pasta dish I had planned (also from First Meals) for lunch instead. Trader Joe's didn't have pinwheel pasta, so the dish became Bowtie Pasta with Cheese and Broccoli. It's a baked pasta dish with homemade cheese sauce, broccoli, and sweet corn topped with more cheese and breadcrumbs. Everyone liked it, but there was a little leftover pile of broccoli at the bottom of Jake's bowl (he's not a fan of green things in general). I doubled the recipe so I can use the leftovers for Jonas lunches throughout the week. The sauce was a little bland, so I'll be figuring out how to jazz it up for next time (I'm thinking herbs).

It's pretty normal for things to not go as planned around here. Making sure to squeeze in at least one frozen thing seems to keep us from giving up and going out to eat unplanned on busy nights, but this week our mistake was needing the frozen dinner for a specific night without an easy back up for the night things got unexpectedly crazy. Getting two nights wrong throws everything off, as I'm careful to make sure that things with ingredients that don't last long get cooked first.

I also didn't have as much spare time as I thought I would this week to get fancy with lunches. No worries, the things I didn't get to this week went onto the plan for next week.

Sunday | Stir-fry (lunch), Pizza Bruschetta
Monday | Cider Pork Stew*
Tuesday | Noodles and Company
Wednesday | Spinach Calzones* and Scrambled Eggs
Thursday | Shepherd's Pie
Friday | Frozen something
Saturday | Spinach Stuffed Chicken* w/ Roasted Cauliflower

Lunch and Other Goodies | Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup, Strawberry Spinach Salad with Mission Valley Dressing, Smoothies, Chocolate Strawberries, Homemade Lemonade

*All of these recipes are from this cookbook.

See other food related posts here.

Do you meal plan? What have you been eating lately?

A Day in the Life Part 2

2012-02-11T11:05:00.000-06:00

This week Ali Edwards challenged her blog readers to record a Day in the Life. Here's the second part of yesterday, February 10, from mostly my perspective. (The photo above is part of E's schoolwork. I love it.)

2:30 Finish up the blog post for Day in the Life Part 1 and catch up on e-mail and social media. Read bits of Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut while waiting for the computer to think (blast you, dreaded spinning pinwheel). The cats snuggle adorably, as they do.

3:00 Read an article from Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut and take a short nap. I didn't sleep well last night and I know tonight's going to be a late night.

3:50 Wake up from nap. Check e-mail, blog stats, Facebook. Think about calling Jake to see what time to pick him up, but he's already texted me, "18 for the week so far [that's his SR closes - his quota is 15] You can come get me at 5 or a little before 5." He also grumbled (on Facebook) about me putting the morning picture of him up in Part 1. I warned him that it would go in if he didn't pose. I guess he didn't believe my threats.

4:05 Eliza gets off the bus! I clean while Eliza tells me about her day. She shows me her schoolwork, which she brings home every Friday in her "pochette". I love it when she explains the pictures she's drawn. I love it even more that now she's writing her own (wonderfully sounded out and misspelled) captions. Her papers will go in her school work scrapbook, but for now I just set them aside.

4:30 I go wake Jonas up from his nap, change him, and give him a snack. Eliza eats a snack too.

4:40 The kids and I leave to get Jake. Jonas is grouchy about it, but is fine as soon as we start moving. We stop to buy coffee beans at The Filling Station, our neighborhood coffeeshop of choice, on the way. The coffee beans are Meat & Potatoes, a delicious hearty blend roasted by Oddly Correct.

5:05 We get to Jake's office. Hello, Jake. We missed you. I drive home. (If all of this driving around confuses you, I should probably have already mentioned that we only have one car. We only need one, since I work from home and we live in the city. If I need to run errands during the week, I have to take Jake to work.)

5:35 Hello, home. We missed you too. Jake and the kids play while I clean out the kitty litter (I have sole kitty litter duties when I'm not pregnant--part of the deal I had to make with Jake in order to talk him into getting a second cat). The bag breaks open and there's cat poo everywhere. Ahhh!!! No bueno. I then sweep and mop the kitchen.

5:45 Our friend Tiffany comes over. Eliza does art projects. Jonas figures out how to open the piano and plays us a song. He makes his "uh-wah wah wah wah" noises, bouncing his hand over his mouth. Tiffany and I try to figure out what to call that noise, because saying that they are Indian noises is culturally insensitive and historically inaccurate. Hurm. Jake goes to the grocery store to buy a frozen pizza.

6:20 Tiffany and I drive together Korma Sutra (which is in walking distance, but it's super cold) to meet my Stitch and Bitch group (a knitting group that meets monthly). It's Tiffany's first time meeting the group and her first time trying Indian food. I get the Lamb Vindaloo and it is ridiculously delicious. Also, Naan may be the best form of bread in existence. True story. There are 8 people at the dinner, the night is filled with cross conversations and laughter.

Jake and the kids at pizza and watched Where the Wild Things Are at home. Jake had the kids in bed before we got back. Eliza didn't get a bedtime story (rare) because Jake thought she had to wake up early for Spanish class today (she didn't - they're on a break). He also cleaned up the toys/kitchen while I was gone.

8:30 The group gets back to my house (I hosted S&B for this month). Some of us knit, all of us talk. Some people leave early, more people come late. I make several pots of coffee. I run across the street to buy a cork screw so the ladies can drink wine (someone who didn't know Jake & I don't drink bought it for us as a gift). They also drink the few beers that were left in our fridge from when Jake's brother Nick still lived with us (he moved out in November). ParrrrTAY. Jake hangs in our office (adjacent to the living room) and plays songs for us in the beginning, but joins in fully halfway through. He's not scared off by a room full of knitting and bitching ladies! We talk about decorating, bathroom etiquette, dating, racism, autism, bad design (Yellow Comic Sans on a White Background, anyone?), people who suck, horrible memories from middle school, and food, among other things. One friend found out that she got a new job halfway through!

2:00 The last of the S&Bers leave. The photo above is of the last ladies standing.

2:15 Jake started watching the Big Lebowski and fell asleep on the couch. I tried to convince him that he was falling asleep, but he insisted he was still watching the movie. I went upstairs to read more Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut and fell asleep, Jake never made it up. I think that's the first time he's ever slept on the couch through the night.

And that's a day in the life. Today wasn't "typical" but it wasn't really an outlier on our life timeline either. Almost everything we did is routine, even it isn't every day. Eliza brings home schoolwork weekly, Jonas gets regular check-ups, S&B is monthly, this is how we do things when I need the car, etc. The day was a day off for me, so it didn't really illustrate the Nerd Nest work process. It also didn't show the really everyday stuff like cooking and family after dinner time because of S&B. But this day captures us pretty well. I can't wait to choose a few extra days this year to capture a day from the other Nerds POV (I want Jake to have the camera at work one day and I want Eliza do take pictures with her camera one day). I also really want to capture a typical weekend. Also thinking about doing A Week in the Life. I'm going memory keeping CRAZY and am stoked about it.

Still deciding how to use a Day in the Life. I think it might end up as a 12 x 12 layout in my Project Life, but I'm not positive. Digital or traditional? Donno. I'm hoping to have it worked out by tomorrow :)

Day in the Life Part 1

2012-02-10T14:39:00.002-06:00

Challenge accepted. This week Ali Edwards challenged her blog readers to record a Day in the Life. As I just said, your story telling perspective is greatly dependent on your time frame. I love the idea of diving into a day and really getting the routine down.

I meant to document yesterday, but I woke up with a dead camera battery. I decided transfer the project to today, even though it's not a completely typical day (it's an errand day vs. a stay at home and work day). I haven't decided how I'll use this documentation yet (Project Life page or mini book?), but I'm loving the process so far. Here's the first part of today, from mostly my perspective. I'd love to do this again this year and have Jake take the camera to the office instead. Or capture a weekend day. Or have Eliza capture a day with her camera.

Part 1 of Friday, February 10, 2012

6:10 Hello alarm clock. Snooze. Snooze. Snooze.

6:40 Me: "Jake, we'd better get up now." Jake: "Let's just snuggle for five more minutes." Me: "Seconded."

6:45 Jonas: Ahhhhh! (Which, roughly translated, means: "Dudes, come and get me and change this diaper stat!"

Jake goes and gets Jonas. I go to wake Eliza.

Eliza: "Why don't you ever let me sleep?" She rolls over and hides her head under her pillow.

Me: "Hey, today is casual day. Why don't you wake up and help me pick out your clothes or I'll pick out something REALLY boring." Eliza pops out of bed. She wants to wear her Easter dress from last year, but I talk her down to a (slightly) more casual Harajuku Mini dress.

Jake is playing with Jonas rather than changing him. Eliza does her bathroom routine and gets dressed while I change Jonas and Jake gets dressed. We're running behind schedule, so Eliza's going to eat breakfast and lunch at school today (she's primarily a cold lunch kid).

7:00 I brush Eliza's hair in the kitchen while Jake gets Jonas's breakfast ready (bananas!).

Eliza starts crying and accuses Jake of throwing away a bag that Uncle Nick gave her.

We have no idea what she's talking about. (We're not morning people.) The bag happens to be hanging in E's locker next to hear coat (hah!). Turns out it has change in it, which she wanted to take to school to donate to kids with leukemia. It's a pay to wear casual clothes day, and Eliza wanted to bring more than the required dollar. Now it all makes sense. We wait for the bus. We talk, Eliza cheers up, I check my e-mail. Jake fiddles with the new TV.

7:15 Jake and I wave to Eliza as she gets onto the bus. I get dressed and pack the diaper bag, Jake and Jonas finish getting ready.

7:30 Jake drives to work, Jonas and I come along. We drop Jake off and I drive.

8:30 Jonas and I go to City Market Coffeehouse in our old 'hood. Our friend Nikole is working. Breakfast for me is a carmel vanilla latte and an almond poppyseed muffin. Jonas loves the muffin. He makes friends at the shop and climbs and climbs and climbs. I change Jonas in the bathroom with no changing table thing, which makes me feel like a super mom (this is incredibly hard - Jonas is squirmy and doesn't like getting changed).

9:00 The coffeeshop slows down a bit and we have a second to hang out with Nikole. Jonas loves her. He reached up his arms, his way of asking someone to pick him up, and hugged her, wrapping his arms around her neck. He didn't want her to put him down. It's really weird for him to act that way around people he doesn't see all the time. Awwww. (The story behind the photo: Jonas was trying to lift himself up with Nikole's hands, trying to climb her, basically. So she lifted him up. He thought it was funny.)

9:20 Jonas and I go to Al Habashi Mart (which is right next to the coffeeshop in the River Market) to buy spices. We buy cumin, parsley, smoked paprika, bay leaves, and thyme. It's five dollars total. (I love buying spices there - they sell by the scoop and it's so much for so little! Way worth it to buy there and make your own jars. I'll be sharing how we store our spices next week).

9:40 I want to go to River Market Antiques, but it doesn't open until 10:00. Jonas and I drive to the South campus of Jake's company. Jake's company has their own health insurance and clinics, so all of our primary physicians are with the clinic. Jonas is getting his year check-up (late) and a follow up on his ear infection. I talk to Jake on the phone for a bit before the appointment.

10:30 Jonas's doctor appointment. He fell asleep in the car (it's nap time) but was awake as soon as the cold hit him getting out of the car. Little bird is weighed and measured. He's bitty--twentieth percentile-- but is healthy and hitting his milestones on schedule. Everyone's super nice. I decide with Jonas's doctor to wait until Monday to get Jonas's shots. It's safe to get shots right after being sick, but if symptoms pop up, it's hard to tell if it's because he's getting sick again or is having a reaction to the shots. We had to follow-up for the ear infection Monday anyway, so Jonas got lucky today. Call Jake to tell him how the appointment went.

11:15 We get home. Jonas plays with toys and loves on Charcoal, who is sunbathing. The kitties are glad to see us.

11:45 I write this blog post. Jonas plays by me, climbs on things, sits on my lap, gets back down again, plays, gets on my lap again, chases the kitties, and makes soft humming noises.

12:15 Jonas and I have lunch. He has a baked sweet potato, crackers, and dried fruit (a mix of raisins, golden raisins, dried cranberries, blueberries, and cherries). I have leftover bean and veggie enchiladas from last night (recipe from this cookbook) with homemade chips and store bought salsa (but I mixed in some leftover black beans and sweet corn from this salad). I multitask, emptying the dishwasher and sweeping as things warm up.

1:00 Finish putting the dishes away. Play with Jonas. Import the photos from this morning .

1:40 Change Jonas and put him down for a nap. Edit the photos from this morning. Make an image for this post when I realize that Jake will kill me if I make the morning hair picture of him the first photo.

2:00 Upload the photos to Flickr and read blogs through Bloglovin' while I wait.

2:30 Finish the post and publish!

The second part of today's documentation will be up tomorrow :)

Island Chicken Salad + Homemade Caribbean Jerk Rub

2012-02-09T11:39:00.000-06:00

It's finally feeling a little bit like winter around here, but I'm in denial. I'm ready for sunshine! If my skin can't have it, at least my stomach can. I'm craving summer food.

We eat a lot of salads in the summer (who wants to be slaving over a hot stove when it's super hot outside?), but that doesn't mean that things get dull around our dinner table. Nope, salads around here are packed full of flavor. Our favorite salad is, without a doubt, Island Chicken Salad.

Is your mouth watering? It should be.

First step towards getting this photo in your belly is to DIY your own Caribbean Jerk rub. Making your own spice blends is awesome: it saves money and lets you skip the preservatives and high sodium found in the package varieties. I came up with this special Nerd Nest blend after reading about 20 recipes for Caribbean Jerk rubs online and picking and choosing and adding my own spices until it tasted juuuuust right. Lucky for you, you can skip the whole trial and error part, because HERE. IT. IS.

Caribbean Jerk Rub Recipe:

Dry Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons onion powder
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1 Tablespoon sea salt
1 Tablespoon ground dried thyme
1 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Mix dry ingredients and store in an airtight container. (This makes WAY more than you need for one serving, so you'll have the dry rub in your pantry ready for next time!)

Wet Ingredients:
2 teaspoons soy sauce
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke

To make the wet rub, combine 2 teaspoons of the dry ingredient mixture with the wet ingredients.

*Tip: I didn't have ground allspice, so I ground up whole allspice in my spare coffee grinder.

Now that you've got your rub, you can proceed to the making of the amazing salad.

Island Chicken Salad Recipe:

Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

3 chicken breasts
3 strips of applewood smoked bacon, diced
5 1/2 tsp wet Caribbean Jerk Rub Recipe (make as directed above)
1 (16 oz) can of black beans, rinsed
8 oz colby jack cheese, shredded
3 cups romaine lettuce, torn
1 tomato, diced
1 cup sweet corn, cut from cob
2 Tablespoons of cilantro, chopped
1 avocado, sliced thinly
Spicy Ranch dressing, to taste
Barbecue sauce, to taste

Directions:

Prepare the wet rub in a bowl as directed. Coat chicken in wet rub.

Grill chicken until chicken is cooked through and juices run clear, about 4-5 minutes on each side. (Alternatively, cook chicken over medium-high heat with 1 Tbsp olive oil.)

Meanwhile, cook diced bacon over medium high heat until crispy.

When chicken is cooked through, allow it to rest for five minutes. Then slice it thinly.

Assemble salads, topping with dressing and just a hint of BBQ sauce. (Sounds weird, but is delicious. Trust me.).

*Tip: If corn on the cob isn't in season, frozen will do the trick. Just cook as directed and let cool to room temperature. Canned corn not recommended.

This is super simple and easy to make, but it's a flavor explosion!

If you make this, be sure to let us know what you think in the comments section!

Project Life 2012 | Week 5 + January + A Word on Perspective

2012-02-09T00:03:00.000-06:00

This week I solved a giant dilemma that I perceived with Project Life: what to do with non PL layouts. I don't know about the rest of the people choosing to do Project Life, but I'm going to want to make normal scrapbook pages once and awhile. And I've organized our scrapbooks chronologically(ish) by year. I don't want a 2012 scrapbook AND a (few) 2012 Project Life scrapbooks. That's excessive, no? So here's what I'm doing: Every month is going to have a "cover page" that breaks up the week where the month splits. For January/ February, this is Week 5. So there's a full 12x12 February page right in the middle of Week 5 with the January part of the week to the left and the February part of the week to the right. And if there were to be any extra layouts from January, for instance, they'd slip in between the January part of Week 5 and the February cover page.

I'm doing each monthly cover page at the end of the month, using my favorite photos of the four of us for the month. Here's January's:

(On the back of January's cover page, Week 1 starts.)

Flip from this cover page through weeks 1, 2, 3, and 4, and Week 5 begins:

You'll notice that there's a bunch of white undesigned page protector spots behind the 8.5 x 11 insert on the right. That's because that will be February's cover, which I won't do until the end of the month. Any extra January pages will slip in between that 8.5 x 11 insert and the February cover page.

Some of you are probably thinking I'm crazy right now. You're thinking, "Megan, you're documenting every friggin' week of your life. Do you really need a monthly page too? And room for MORE?"

The answer is yes. The reason is perspective.

As a scrapbooker, the things that I choose to document depend very greatly on the perspective I have on a story. Many things effect perspective: who's telling the story (usually me, but sometimes I do things from Jake or Eliza's POV), starting with photos vs. stories vs. words vs. products, relationship changes, or current emotional state, to name a few. However, I find that the thing that affects my perspective the most is time. A photo I took today might evoke me to tell an entirely different story if I scrap it tomorrow vs. a year from now. Time is important.

Imagine your home. Your home looks completely different depending on the point of perspective. If you're in your home, it looks one way. If you're standing outside of it, it looks quite different. The view from a helicopter would be yet again different. Now think about the view from an airplane, or even from space! The story you can tell changes based on your perspective. When there's a spacial perspective shift as in the example above, what you can see literally changes. One family, a street, a neighborhood, a city, a state, a country, a planet, a universe. The same principle can be applied to time perspective: How you see your life can depend very greatly on how "close" you are in time to the events taking place.

I love looking at life from a weekly point of view. It's a manageable chunk. But I've noticed I focus on what we're doing when I use this perspective. I'd like to use monthly perspective to think about how we've grown or changed, longer term projects we've been working on, and life trends. I'd like to use "extra" layouts slipped in at the end of some months to focus on relationships. And I'd like to do some layouts that look at things from even longer terms. I often forget to document the things that go on long term. I don't really have any layouts about college, what classes we took, or jobs that we've had. Those things seem mundane, and they go on for a really long time. It's harder to see a "story" there. But I find myself forgetting what classes I took or answering Eliza's questions about jobs we've had. Hopefully having multiple time perspectives available in Project Life will help me do a better job of telling these stories.

Monologe over. Back to the pages.

Week 5 starts with some great everyday stuff: Jonas and Eliza playing after Eliza gets home from school (Lalaloopsies are a big deal around here right now), Jonas's prescription from a doctor's visit, and photos of my sister Taylor's friend Walter, who we fell in love with while he was in town for a few weeks.

The insert for week 5 includes the program for the funeral of a dear family friend, Nannette. Nannette was my great-grandmother's best friend and is in some of my earliest memories from childhood. This is something I would have avoided scrapbooking, so I'm thankful that Project Life made it seem like there was less weight on this page for me. I printed some journaling on the patterned paper about my memories of Nannette and what an amazing woman she was. I also included a story I loved that her son told at the funeral:

When her family moved to the neighborhood, racism in America was at a height. Nannette noticed a Presbyterian church in the neighborhood and began going because she liked the services. It was a white church. One day a lady said to her, "Why don't you go be with your own people?"

Nannette said, "Are you a Presbyterian?"

"Yes," the lady said.

"Then you are my people."

Nannette believed the church was a driving force for racial integration.

"And now look around you today," Nannette's son said as he motioned around the room at the very mixed audience of people Nannette's life touched.

I love that story and I'm so glad that I have a platform in which I feel comfortable recording it.

I also included the funeral program into the page protector because it tells the story of Nannette's life and includes a poem that her daughter wrote.

The second half of Week 5 (which begins on the back of the February cover page) is action packed. I kept it super simple with the patterned papers and embellishments and filled 'er up with photos and words.

The left documents our new office, Groundhog Day art Eliza made in English class at school, a meeting at Tea Drops with our new friend John (he started a non-profit urban tutoring company and we're re-designing the website pro bon--more on that later), Jake helping my sister Taylor with her homework/ giving her a college lecture, and a long long list of all the things we did over our crazy weekend.

The right page covers my great-grandpa's estate sale and ice skating. I pulled the journaling from the blog posts, edited it a bit to shorten it/ make it more personal, and printed it directly on the photos.

For the estate sale journaling, I faded a close-up photo of my grandmother's lace get-away coat and pasted the journaling textbox on. I played with the font size until it looked right.

For the ice skating journaling, I tabbed and entered around Eliza and Taylor so the journaling only takes up the negative space. I know there's a way to get journaling to follow a path, but I'm frankly too lazy to do that unless I want actual shaped journaling. I threw a drop shadow on the words to make them stand out, which (for the record) Jake thinks is tacky. He puts it up there with using Comic Sans (nerd joke). Dually noted, Jacob.

So ends the longest Project Life post ever! Are you on the bandwagon? How are things going?

For all posts tagged Project Life, click here.

Project Life 2012 | Week 5 Supplies

Click on the images to link to the products used this week. Some products are not included, as they are discontinued.

Project Life is a memory keeping concept created by Becky Higgins.

Date Night at the Improv

2012-02-08T18:16:00.001-06:00

Last night we dropped Eliza and Jonas off with Granny-ma (Jake's mom) and Savanna (Jake's sister) in their pajamas and set off to go on a hot date.

Our friend Paul Nyakatura (website* | twitter | Facebook) performed at the Improv for the Clash of the Comics competition.

Trust me, this is one funny man. He had me laughing so hard! (Which is hard to do, people. I'm not laughing if I can see the punchline coming.)

Paul lives in Manhattan, KS (a few hours away from our location in Kansas City, MO), so we don't get to see him perform very often. I wish he lived next door, seriously.

We got snaps for some of the other comics too:

Paul's friend Luke Fabrizius won this round of the competition.

Luis Powell-Moreno, who was one of our favorites of the night.

And more Paul.

Paul's got some awesome free content coming up on-line, so we'll be sure to share when it's available.

I'll be back after the kiddos are in bed to share Project Life Week 5!

*Paul's website is a work in progress (Jake's working on it).

Schooled

2012-02-07T17:29:00.000-06:00

Project Life is coming tomorrow - it was too dark today to take good photos.

I love school stuff. Jake likes to describe my decorating style as "8th grade classroom". Which is probably spot on. We've got a school chair or a microscope in pretty much every room in the house (that's not even counting the school chairs in the shop). So it's no surprise that I beelined straight for the vintage school desk and chair set at my Great-Grandpa Ray's Estate Sale last week.

Poppy (my grandpa) brought the set over on Sunday and I've just found the perfect spot for it - situated in our entryway between the lockers we use as a coat closet and the built in bench adjacent to the front staircase. As luck would have it, the desk is a perfect fit.

The kids are already in love with it. Jonas is a fan of anything new to climb and Eliza loves that it looks like our studio drafting table. It's her mini work desk. She now goes straight for it after school and starts drawing and coloring away. I like that the desk feels like it's in the same room as the office (we have an open floor plan, so there isn't a wall in between the "office" and the entryway) and that it's not in sight of the the TV.

Jonas was very helpful as I took photos of typewriters on the desk for our next update (hah!).

And, of course, it will never look this clean again. Here's to adding more awesome school stuff to our collection!

January Reads

2012-02-07T00:56:00.001-06:00

Welcome to my January reads!

For those of you new to the nest, I have a neurotic reading process. Each month I read at least part of a non-fiction book, a book about reading/writing/editing/language, and as many books from my color stacks as I can (my books are organized by spine color and I'm going through each color stack, reading every book I haven't yet read).

I read a biography of John Nash for my non-fiction this month, read a book about slang for my language book requirement, back tracked with a newly purchased yellow spine book, knocked out one book from the green stack (which is the color stack I'm working on now) and stole a book from our children's literature bookshelf.

Here's January's reads:

A Beautiful Mind (1998) by Sylvia Nasar
What you need to know: One of the most interesting biographies ever.

Yes, this biography shares a common problem with its peers: it could be halved and thus would improve twofold. I can forgive the entire chapters spent introducing minor characters; what's NOT interesting about the life of an eccentric mathematical genius who became a Nobel laureate after being diagnosed with schizophrenia? Even better: not only does the professional life of John Nash make for an interesting read, but his personal life was rather dramatic as well. Parts of this biography are certainly dry, but other parts read more like a novel.

All that said, the book is quite an undertaking. I read about 1/3 of it in December and spent more than half of January reading it as well. If you've been tuning in for awhile, you know that I almost never spend that much time reading a single book unless it is a) a textbook or b) Dickens. I haven't seen the movie, but it's possible that you could go straight to film with this one.

And now for a quote: " 'How could you, a mathematician, believe that extraterrestrials were sending you messages?' the visitor from Harvard asked the West Virginian with the movie-star looks and Olympian manner.

'Because the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way my mathematical ideas did,' came the answer. 'So I took them seriously.' "

Talk the Talk (2006) by Luc Reid

What you need to know: Meant to be a reference book, this book detailing the slang of 65 American subcultures is actually an interesting, albeit not academically accurate, cover to cover read.

Or maybe I'm in the minority; do people actually read glossaries for fun? I liked this much more than the glossary-type books I read in 2011 (I read one about misunderstood words in June and one about dirty words in July), mostly because each of the 65 sub-culture sections in the book began with a few paragraphs about the sub-culture before diving into the section's glossary. This broke up the monotony of reading in the glossary format and also made the slang terms more interesting.

I found this fun and will keep it around as reference for my creative writing, but it wasn't very well researched, so I'll make sure to double-check the actual usage of any terms that I decide to use. I know to be skeptical because the few sub-cultures that the book covered that I am/was a part of (punk rockers/ straight edgers, tattoo enthusiasts, and thespians) or that Jake is/was a part of (programmers/hackers and online gamers) weren't entirely accurate. I was especially irritated that the book's brief history of Straight Edge was entirely wrong. So I'm not going to put too much stock into the sections I don't know much about - I'm a fact checker, people. You'd think a person publishing a book would be too, but there you go. That's what you get when you write a book based pretty much solely on interviews with a non-representative sample of a population. That's my sociology degree coming out; sorry about that.

And now for a quote: Zombie Gimmick (Magicians): "A hidden rod that makes an object look as though it's floating in mid-air."

About a Boy (1998) by Nick Hornby

What you need to know: Read everything Nick Hornby's ever written. You're welcome.

This is a re-read, but I just recently added it to my personal library, so I decided to read it again. I'm so glad I did; the first time I read this I didn't know very much about writing and thus didn't realize how impressive Hornby's technique is. About a Boy switches perspective each chapter, going from the point of view of Will, a cool but immature man-child floating aimlessly through his worry free life, to the point of view of Marcus, a boy with a complicated and trouble filled life finding himself outcast and unable to connect with others his age. This book, like everything I've read of Horby's, is literally laugh out loud funny. But it has soul, meaning, and contemporary relevance as well. What more can a reader ask for, really?

And now for a quote: "Will found himself working Marcus's visits into the fabric of his day. This wasn't difficult to do, since the fabric of his day was tatty, and filled with any number of large and accommodating holes, but eve so, he could have filled them with other, easier things, like more shopping, or more afternoon cinema visits; nobody could argue that Marcus was the equivalent of a crap Steve martin film and a sackful of licorice all-sorts. "

The Romance of Tristan and Iseult (1904) by Joseph Bédier

What you need to know: A classic myth, but maybe not the best version.

Tristan and Iseult is a big deal: it's said to be a major influence for the romance between Lancelot and Guinevere, Romeo and Juliet, and pretty much the majority romantic love stories after the 12th century. This myth was passed down verbally and has been committed to text by several different authors. Bédier argues that his version is adapted from the original poem, which may or may not be historically accurate. The style is conversational as if a bard is telling it aloud, which is probably an attempt to retell the story as closely as possible to the Cornish poem Bédier argued was the original. No matter the accuracy, the story as he writes it is interesting and tragic. It would have been more interesting and tragic if it didn't start by telling you what is going to happen, but for some reason classics don't believe in the importance of the element of surprise.

One thing that this book got me thinking about was persuasion of the reader through perspective. As long as a book clearly "sides" with a character as a good guy, the reader generally accepts that the character is someone they should root for. But these people were awful. If we set aside the "forbidden love" /affair moral conundrum, there's still the fact that Tristan and Iseult go around killing or almost killing several people just to keep their boot knocking secret. Nobel and fair hearted? Not so much. But I bet most people don't even notice T&I are a-holes, because the narrator keeps talking about how awesome and doomed they are.

I'm now going to have to watch the movie. I'm sure it will have little to do with the book, but a few hours watching James Franco in anything is time well spent. (I've been a little obsessed with him since he played James Dean.)

And now for a quote: "Under the trees, without a word, he pressed her to his breast; their arms closed firmly about each other's bodies, and till dawn, as though tied with cords, they did not break from the embrace. Despite Mark and the watch, the lovers took their bliss."

A Series of Unfortunate Events #1: The Bad Beginning (1999) by Lemony Snicket

What you need to know: Adorable. So good, I read it in one sitting.

After A Beautiful Mind, I needed a short mental break. I always have to be reading something (as soon as I finish a book I pick out the next one; I'm never not working on reading a book or two), and children's literature is my favorite fluff when I need something enjoyable that doesn't take a lot of brain power. I read a lot of children's lit in college for this reason.

We've been building our children's library ever since we found out I was pregnant with Eliza (the first thing we bought for her was Dr. Suess books; even before clothes), so our kid's book collection is pretty impressive by now. I've been collecting the A Series of Unfortunate Events books from thrift stores and used book stores for a while now. My rule with collecting book series: Pick up whatever numbers you can find when getting them used, because you'll never be able to find them in order. And wouldn't you know I ended up finding the whole series in under a year, but I found Book 1 last. Hah!

This book was, as sad and unfortunate as the plot is, extremely funny. The story follows three orphans put in a horrible guardianship situation, but man do those orphans have brains, imagination, and spunk! I love them. I especially love that the baby is never forgotten in the narrative- she's always biting something or interjecting her nonsense syllables into conversations. I can't wait to read this series to Eliza (but I'll probably finish them myself over the next few months first).

And now for a quote: "This is because not very many happy things happened in the lives of the three Baudelaire youngsters. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire were intelligent children and they were charming, and resourceful, and had pleasant facial features, but they were extremely unlucky, and most everything that happened to the was rife with misfortune, misery, and dispair. I'm sorry to tell you this, but that is how the story goes."

Have you read any of these? What did you think of them? What have you been reading lately?

Music Monday Vol. 73

2012-02-06T11:55:00.001-06:00

Welcome to the 73rd Music Monday! We're still pretty much stuck on this playlist and have been listening to it at least once a day, but we've still had enough new songs on our heads to make a nice big playlist for this week!

This photo of Eliza is from almost a year ago. Man, she turned into a big kid fast.

This week's playlist ended up pretty mellow, perhaps because it's been rainy and gross around here the past few days (it cleared up today, though). Don't worry, it's not all gloomy. There are some upbeat surprises in there as well. Listen up!

Music Monday Vol. 73 by Megan Anderson on Grooveshark

Archive Music Monday posts we've fixed (by updating the playlists) this week: Labor Day, Sing Along, and Missing Megan.

It's funny to look at the difference between the playlists when we first started posting Music Mondays and now. The lists used to be 5 songs long, now it's almost always over 20. We're also much wordier. That's good, right?

What have you been listening to lately?

Ice Skating is Awesome

2012-02-05T22:52:00.000-06:00

Yesterday Eliza, my sister Taylor, and I had a girl's day out. We went to the Crown Center Ice Terrace to go ice skating. It was Eliza's first time out, so that made things super interesting (and exhausting). I forgot that ice skating is so much exercise. Multiply that times a thousand when you're trying to make sure a 6 year old doesn't fall.

Jake was worried I'd fall on our camera, so I had to make due with phone photos. It was a little rainy and chilly out, but didn't feel like winter at all. That made it so much more enjoyable - we weren't freezing our bums off the whole time. The skating rink is outside in the middle of the city, in the shadow of tall buildings housing fancy restaurants and hotels. How fun is that?

Eliza clung to the walls of the rink at first. She gradually felt comfortable away from the wall, as long as she was between Taylor and I. But when she fell for the first time, she thought she was done. She benched herself. She was scared to go back out. Eliza sat out a minute with Taylor while I did a couple of laps, then Tay and I traded positions. Eliza still didn't want to go back out. My solution? I started dancing like an idiot to the music they were playing. Very obviously, sort of obnoxiously.

"Would you rather skate or have me continue to dance in this embarrassing manner?" I asked, arms flailing and booty shaking.

A smile broke out over Eliza's previously grumpy face.

I kept dancing. "What if some of your friends from school come ice skating? And see THIS! Wouldn't that be mortifying?"

"Okay, okay!" Eliza conceded.

I kept dancing until she had both skates on the ice.

#winning

We had a blast the rest of the time and kept on skating until our fingers got a little numb.

Hooray for girl's days! What fun things have you been doing lately?

Family Vintage

2012-02-04T20:22:00.000-06:00

Before Christmas my Great-Grandpa Ray moved to a new home in an assisted living facility, and recently he made the decision with my family to sell his home and its contents. This is really sad for me; my childhood home was moved to make way for the Kansas Speedway, so my Great-Grandpa's was the only place left from my childhood.

Friday my family was able to have a preview of the estate sale so we could purchase things before the actual estate sale starts on Monday. I love a good estate sale, but it's weird to be on this side of it (it's even weirder that I'm on the e-mail list for the company who does the estate sale - I got the e-mail advertising it today). These are things that I grew up with, and they have real memories attached to them.

I thought I would take pictures of the house as I walked through, but nothing felt the same with everything laid out and priced. I decided to keep the memories in my mind and in the backgrounds of old photos instead. I couldn't help but think of all the things that happened in the house as I walked through. This is the place my family held holiday dinners. The place I went when I had days off school as a kid (Grandma Margie let me glue faux french manicures on my finger nails even though my Mom wouldn't let me). This is the place my Great-Granpa taught me how to garden (not very successfully - I have a super black thumb), and the place my Great-Grandmother taught me how to watch for birds. I listened to my first records in this house. I played the piano and organ here. My Aunt Beth and I made up games on the pool table when we didn't yet understand the rules. I smelled my grandmother's perfume. I listened to the grandfather clock chime the hour. I swept the sawdust in my grandfather's woodshop. I played the badly tuned guitar for hours. My bridal shower was here. This is the place my family gathered. It's amazing how many memories are tied to a place. I know it is just a place, but I had to fight back tears when I realized that it would be my last time there.

I tried my hardest to focus on the estate sale portion of it. I chose both things that held a lot of memories for me and things that I normally look for when I'm collecting goodies.

The coolest thing I purchased was probably the get away dress and coat that belonged to my Grandma Margie. According to my Great Aunts, couples used to change into "get away clothes" in the bathroom at the church before leaving the wedding. They think this outfit served that purpose for my Great Grandma (but maybe not - they married in the summer). It is so amazing to think that I have a wearable piece of my family's history.

I'll have to look a little closer, but it looks like the dress was handmade. The beautiful coat has a tag; I'm exited to research the company.

I'm mostly a jeans and t-shirt girl (or, to be more honest, a pajama bottoms and t-shirt girl), so I'm not sure what fancy occasion will call for this outfit. Maybe a very special date? We'll see.

As for everything else, I mostly gravitated towards the vintage toys. I loved playing with them when I was little and I love the idea that my kids will have memories with the toys now too.

I'm really excited about the Marx lithographed tin dollhouse. We've sold a few of these for the shop (we even have one in the shop now), but have been waiting for the perfect one for Eliza's room. I was probably unconsciously looking for this one because it's the image in my head of what these dollhouses should look like. It will be a happy new home for her Littlest Pet Shop figures, I'm sure.

This Space Probe game will go perfect in Jonas's space themed room and is super fun. It's too hard to explain how to play, I'll have to post a video of Jake doing it. He whomps my scores big time.

Every kid needs a vintage Fisher Price phone. Jonas is already obsessed with it.

We'll be playing croquet in the backyard as soon as it gets a wee bit warmer.

So we can increase our nerd cred: "The Book of Knowledge" flashcards. Can't wait to read through all of these.

Other toys: wooden blocks, Legos, and tons of little cars.

This little bird nest candy dish will be perfect for the mantle in our office.

Jake is super excited that I found him a work lamp. He's been jealous of my yellow one.

I'm obsessed with the Atomic Starburst pitcher. I'm going to make Arnold Palmers in it (ice tea + lemonade). It's my Great-Grandpa's favorite drink.

The "Velkommen" cross-stitched welcome hanging was in the entryway. I've always loved the tiny tinkle of the little bell and thought it was super cool to see a word in another language when I was little. I'm not sure why it's in Norwegian. Ancestry, perhaps? Not that I know of. I'll have to ask.

I was so excited to find out that my Grandpa had set aside this lamp for me before the sale. It used to hang above the couch in their sitting room and I loved it when I was little. I thought it was pretty much the most beautiful thing on the planet. I would also pretend to be a robber and would put the crystals in a pillowcase. Hah! Eliza seems to have the same view of it that I did at her age, so it may be going in her room. She's so lucky :)

We also bought a few bigger things that will be here at the beginning of the week. We'll share those and photos of how these wonderful things get integrated into our home as well.

I am so sad to see this important place from my childhood go, but am very thankful to have so many wonderful memories. I hope that those memories will surface every time I see these things in our home.

Step 2. Our New Office

2012-02-03T11:38:00.001-06:00

As I detailed in this post, my new mantra for 2012 is One Step at a Time. When I think about all of the things that I'd like to do and change, it can be a little overwhelming. So instead of making big goals, we're taking it one step at a time. Focus on one little doable thing at a time, and eventually the big stuff gets tackled. I started mostly solo (Step 1. was laundry oriented), but the whole nest has been officially dragged in.

Step 2. was coming up with a better office solution. I'm pretty proud of this, because this one little step steered us in a better direction for several BIG goals: better productivity, less mess, and more quality family time.

Here was the problem. Our office and studio stuff was all spread out. We've tried several things. We had Jake's office in the third floor attic and the studio work table in the living room (because the old work table is too big/heavy to get upstairs) and our supplies in our pantry. But we I made a huge mess in our living room and Jake didn't ever actually go to the third floor to work, so we tried moving the office into our bedroom (which is kind of separated into two areas) and the studio stuff into our breakfast room, so at least the mess wouldn't be the first thing people saw. That didn't work either (mostly because I still made a giant mess). So we turned the studio work table into a kitchen island and moved the studio to the third floor (which meant that the pantry was free again, thank goodness). Still didn't work. The mess just ended up gravitating back to the first floor, especially during peak business times (it doesn't make sense to make and pack 40 boxes a day on the third floor and carry everything downstairs for shipping). Another annoying thing: the printer was in our bedroom and the supplies and products were on the third floor. So every time we wanted to print shipping labels or packing slips, we'd have to switch floors. And reality really had things spread over three floors. This clearly wasn't working. After trying to move things around a few more times, we came upon a solution.

(All this room switching is normal for us. Anyone who knows us in real life knows that a room will probably be switched around every time they visit. For example, we've lived here for less than a year and a half and both Eliza and Jonas have lived in three different rooms.)

To reach a solution, we really thought about our workflow. We defiantly need separate desks, because I make a mess and Jake likes things OCD organized and clear. We also often work on our computers at the same time. We need to be able to work in the same room so we can talk to each other about ideas or work on the same project at once (we're needy: we want to spend those few golden hours after the kids go to bed together even if we're working). And we needed a big craft table so we could keep ongoing projects laid out until they are completed. And we needed things to be mostly pretty, because all of this has to be on the first floor. A lot of my work gets done five minutes at a time while Jonas is eating or distracted, so being holed up on the third floor away from all the action just didn't make sense. Truth: we just didn't have the furniture (or the funds) to come up with a solution.

Then Poppy (my grandpa) came to the rescue. He spent a lot of time helping with Jonas/ helping pack shipments over the holiday season, so he knew how crazy our office/studio situation was. He's awesome and stumbled on a free giant drafting table and brought it to us. GAME CHANGER!

He also made me a new desk for Christmas that matched the desk he made for Jake a while back.

(my desk)

(Jake's desk)

The desk design is inspired by sawhorses. The top of the desks can be removed from the "saw horse" legs so that they are easy to move and can fit on the third floor (which has a really narrow staircase) in case we ever need to move them up there. Also really cool: they're made out of recycled wood. Thanks to Poppy we had the necessary furniture, then we just had to decide where to put our office.

After much debate, we decided that the front room on the first floor was really the only option. We were a little worried about this, as it's pretty much the first thing you see when you walk in the door, but hopefully that will just keep me motivated to keep it clean(ish). Using this room also made sense because it was pretty much empty except for our 4,000 records. The room is supposed to be the living room, but our couch doesn't fit. So our "dining room" is our living room and our "breakfast room" is our dining room. Because, really, how many rooms does a person need to be able to eat in? Here's a before for you.

The Christmas stuff was down, but there was still about 40 boxes of records in our front room. We carried the boxes to our basement (thanks for your help, Matt!) and set up our dream office. Here's what it looks like.

We've got a pretty sweet set up with the drafting table in front our our (sealed up) fireplace and our desks facing each other on either side of the drafting table.

I love the height of the table. It is really comfortable to work while standing. I put a tiny rug in front of it to stand on.

The drafting table has a few of our most used tools in its drawers. When I'm scrapbooking, I've been keeping the drawer just slightly open so I can get to things like adhesive and scissors quickly and then immediately put them back where they go. We're also using a crate box for supplies we're currently using under the drafting table (right now it has two giant pizza boxes full of Project Life supplies), but for the most part we're keeping all of our supplies stored on the third floor in my old studio. This way we only have the supplies for one project at a time on the first floor, which will keep us focused and reduce the mess. We'll probably put a few bigger things, like shipping supplies, our Silhouette and my sewing machine, in the pantry.

Jake's desk is set up for programming and coding. He puts his laptop on a stand and then uses a second monitor and keyboard, so his laptop can double as a desktop. This is more comfortable when he's at the computer for long periods of time and gives him more virtual workspace. He'll be blogging about his set up soon, hopefully.

In my corner, the iMac and our favorite typewriter. It is never, ever this clean. I made it pretty just for the photo. Hah! The numbers in the window sill are our house number, but I took one number out for the photo. Sorry, stalkers!

We are ridiculously excited to have the printer in the same room as our studio. (The typewriter desk is also a find from Poppy. Come to think of it, every single piece of non-chair furniture in our office is from him. He's seriously the best.)

The last thing going on in here is a bookshelf (made by Poppy when I was a kid) that houses the brown/off-white books in our collection, Jonas's car ramp, our records (the ones that we actually play), printing paper, postal scale, a few pretties, and Jonas's puppets. I'm not sure if the bookshelf will stay this way or if it will be more supplies oriented in the future.

I am so happy that we took this step. Jake and I love working together at the same time, talking and giggling while we work and playing each other songs. I love that this room is open to the living room, so we can keep an eye on the kids and interact with them if we're working while they do their own thing. I love that it has been really easy to keep the space looking mostly nice and picked up. I love how productive this set up has made us. And I'm really, really thankful that Poppy made/found the furniture so we could make it happen.

This room is still a work in progress. I could be prettier and probably could do with a wall color other than beige. But it's fully functional right now and that's making me so happy.

How have you set up your workspace? Do you use any rooms in your home for things other than what they were intended for? What would your next step be if you were taking it one step at a time?

See all One Step at a Time posts here.

Happy Hedgehog Day

2012-02-02T22:01:00.000-06:00

So, apparently, the Romans used a hedgehog instead of a groundhog to predict the coming of Spring. But, as hedgehogs aren't native to North America, the groundhog took over the holiday. We told Hedgie of her special responsibility today, and she told us to piss off and let her go back to sleep. I imagine her personality as something like Lisbeth from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, if that tells you anything. I don't know what that means for the weird weather we've been having (it feels more like May than February), but at least she's cute.

Cheeseburger Soup + Dinners Lately

2012-02-02T09:18:00.000-06:00

I've been making fancy (Jake would say weird) dinners lately, so Jake used his veto power and requested only very normal dinners this week. I can't blame him. January looked a lot like this: chicken parm-atouille (reverse chicken parmesan + veggie ratatouille), pea risotto with squashy souffle (airy winter squash souffle + green pea risotto), big easy red beans and rice (all from Rachael Ray Everday), pasta fagioli soup (which was too tomatoey for us, so we added milk), and zucchini and tomato frittata (from this cookbook for babies and kids).

That's a sample. I got so excited that I had time to cook again (there was a lot of pizza in December) that I went for new and complicated at least three or four times a week. What I figured out: Jonas and I are foodies. Jake and Eliza, not so much. As we get settled back into our normal eating schedule, I'm thinking about posting our menu for the week with recipe links as I have them. You might just get to read a Savory Sunday post every week. Lucky you.

Anywho, since I have to make ultra normal food this week ~~as punishment~~ to make up for all the fancy, I thought I'd share one of our favorite uber "normal" recipes. The recipe was stolen from my Aunt Beth, and man is it delicious. I think the vegetables cancel out the Velveeta, don't you?

Cheeseburger Soup

Ingredients:

1/2 lb ground beef (use bison for a healthier alternative)
3/4 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup shredded carrot
3/4 cup diced celery
1 tsp basit
1 tsp parsley
4 Tbsp butter
3 cups chicken broth
4 cups peeled and diced potatoes
1/4 cup flour
8 oz velveeta cheese, cubed
1 1/2 cup milk
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 - 1/2 tsp pepper
sour cream (for topping)

Directions:

Brown beef, drain, and set aside.

In same saucepan, saute onion, carrot, basil, and parsley in 1 Tbsp butter until veggies are tender, about 10 minutes.

Add broth, potatoes, and beef. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10-12 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

In a small skillet melt the remaining butter over medium low heat. Add flour. Cook and stir for 3-5 minutes or until bubbly. Add to soup and bring the soup to a boil. Cook and stir for two minutes.

Reduce heat to low. Add cheese, milk, pepper, and salt. Cook and stire until cheese is melted.

Remove from heat and serve, garnishing with sour cream (optional).

That's it! Now you have delicious hearty soup to fill your belly. This soup is a great way to sneak a ton of veggies into your picky eaters; we usually up the veggie amount and add a little extra liquid :)

See our other food and recipe posts here.

What have you been eating?

February Challenge

2012-02-01T23:21:00.000-06:00

We're challenging you to a duel. On guard! Okay, so I'm cheesy. I'm practicing my embarrassing parenting skills for when Eliza's friends come over. We're going to be those parents, we've decided. The dorky joke kind.

Anywho, what we're really challenging you to do is participate in a monthly project challenge with us. On the first of every month, we'll post a challenge. At the end of the month, in theory, we'll post our completed projects (Jake and I are both doing one) and will have a link-up for you to share yours!

The projects can be interpreted in any way you want. Interpret our challenge to do a project in crafts, photography, creative writing, home decor, technical gadgetry, cooking, or whatever you can come up with.

February's Challenge is to finish a project you've abandoned. Think of something you've left unfinished. Maybe you tried a new recipe and epically failed to make it correctly. Maybe you started writing a story but hit a wall. Started coding an application but ran into a difficult technical issue (Jake). Realized you couldn't actualize your initial plan for the project. Missed a step. Broke a "rule" you set up for yourself. Just plain ran out of time.

Whatever the hurdle that stands in your way, we're challenging you (and ourselves) to jump right over it. Do what you've gotta do. Make it happen. Get that project off the back burner and get it done this month!

We've already picked our projects. I'm going to finish my December Daily 2009 album. Here's the run-down on the project: December Daily is a scrapbooking project developed by Ali Edwards. The point of the album is to create a page for each day of December leading up to Christmas to document the season. I finished my December Dailies in 2010 and 2011, but in 2009 (my first year doing the project), I failed to finish pretty miserably. Here's what I did get done:

What stopped me from finishing? The silly "rules" and expectations about December Daily that I set out for myself. I didn't take a photo every day, so I abandoned the project because it wasn't working for me. I felt that I failed. And that just doesn't make sense. I still have photos. I still have notes from the season. Heck, I still have all the supplies related to the project in a giant zip lock bag. There's nothing stopping me but me. So, I'm going to finish the December Daily. I'm going to skip the days I don't have photos or journaling for. I'm going to make some pages without photos. I am going to get it done! It will be fun to look back into our lives in a very different time: in December 2009 we were still living in our old loft, there was no Jonas, Eliza wasn't in school, we were struggling to study for finals, and we were on a crazy weird schedule.

Jake is going to finish an Etsy app he has abandoned. He's been working on getting an easy accounting system for our shop that is quick and painless. Because accounting (and shipping) are our least favorite parts about our business. Jake is thinking about making an Etsy App available for others, but for now the goal is just to get it up and running for our personal use. Jake's part of the Etsy developer community (we love the mantra code = craft). You can apply to get an API key which enables you to query Etsy servers for information. So, in layman's terms, you can connect your app to Etsy so that you don't have to copy useful information like sales data; it's already integrated. Jake has his API key, but got stuck getting the authentication process (OAUTH) to work. Jake's plan of action is to forget about the whole app part (there's no way this whole project is going to get done by the end of the month), but just get a move on the core of the project - the accounting system. So, hopefully, by the end of the month he'll have set up a system that works for us that can be used for the app when it is ready.

What have you abandoned? We'd love to hear how you are planning on tackling this challenge!

Project Life 2012 | Week 4

2012-01-31T22:58:00.000-06:00

Week 4 and I've just realized that I've already created more "layouts" this year than in all of 2011. And I've scrapped more photos than in 2011 and 2010, probably. If that isn't a Project Life endorsement, I don't know what is.

This week I challenged myself to keep it really simple. If every week ends up like last week's, I'll end up needing three binders to finish out the year. I may find myself in need of an insert diet. I wasn't intending to use an insert at all, but Eliza brought home the cutest drawing ever from school, so it needed a spot :)

I didn't have any scrapbooking 8.5 x 11 page protectors, so I just used the cheap office one's I use for Eliza's schoolwork scrapbook.

The first page doesn't actually have any pocket protectors because I used a 12 x 12 layout in Week 3. I chose to mirror the look of the pocketed page protector used on the right. This page just has lots of everyday stuff that I love - photos of our extended family from a big family dinner we had on Tuesday, Eliza with a project she made on a field trip, Jonas climbing and getting into stuff, and notes about the unseasonably warm weather we've been having in Kansas City.

The photo Eliza drew was of everyone at our family dinner: Ashes (cat), Mimi (my mom), Eliza, Jake, me, Poppy (my grandpa), Brad and Beth (my aunt and uncle, technically, but Beth's five years older so she feels more like a sister), and Charcoal (cat). The babies aren't in the photo because they were napping (says Eliza) and Taylor (my sister) isn't in there because she was late to dinner. I love that Eliza draws events like this and thinks to include everyone.

She wrote a caption, "Ma famli et mou". Eliza goes to a French emersion school and right now they're being encouraged to sound words out to make their own sentences. There's something adorable and fascinating about the misspelled words.

The back of the insert has a list of the songs from this Music Monday playlist, which we've been listening to several times a day.

The last page has more great everyday stuff - a random portrait of me, Jonas with Eliza's fairy wand (he's been carrying that and a brush around mostly), Jonas in the pack n' play full of toys (He never goes in there, it's been a tacky toy box until we get everything sorted. Jake thought it would be funny to see how Jonas reacted to being in a sea of toys.), notes on how we spent our Saturday, a picture of Hedgie, a photo of the scary opossum that is stalking Jake, and Eliza with a giant sucker.

I usually break the week up into a couple of scrapping sessions. I'll edit and print out the photos one day and then lay everything out another day (I sketch first so I know what size to print the photos/ how many to choose). This week, however, I did the whole process in under two hours. Is the process getting streamlined? Maybe so. This might mean I'll have time to start on Project Life 2011 in reverse soon.

For all posts tagged Project Life, click here.

Project Life 2012 | Week 4 Supplies

Click on the images to link to the products used this week. Some products are not included, as they are discontinued.

Project Life is a memory keeping concept created by Becky Higgins.

Shop Talk January

2012-01-31T12:03:00.000-06:00

Full disclosure: we feel awkward blogging about our shop. There are times when it makes sense to blog about the shop; when something exciting happens our first tendency is to blog about it, so there are plenty of posts about hitting milestones. But we seriously hate blogging about shop updates (there's something fake about just popping in to say, "Hey, go buy this."). And there's also a (totally non-rational) feeling that we only seem professional if we keep our work process shrouded in mystery.

So here's our solution: at the end of each month we'll tell you what new stuff went into the shop, how things are going for us Etsy-wise generally, and talk a bit about what we did over the past month and where we're headed. That seems more comfortable and real to us, and we figure it will be interesting for you (we know we'd love to hear some of that info on our favorite shops).

So January. Firstly, January is a super slow on-line sale month. Which is actually nice, because we needed a serious break after all of the crazyness of November and December. However, not selling much doesn't mean not doing much. This month we focused on planning new products for the year, product development, and stock building. We also did an art show, which takes a ton of preparation.

We want to do more art shows & craft fairs (we're hoping to do Renegade Chicago in September), which means that we need to focus on hoarding a bunch of sock when it's nice and slow. We're used to making small batches for Etsy, but it's not like we can make 500 items the week before a show. So now's the time. It's a little scary, because large batches mean we'll have to eat it if we fail to sell out (what does one do with 200 pairs of record bookends?), but we're investing in ourselves here. We have to plan on being awesome, or we won't get a chance to be.

We honestly didn't get to execute a fraction of the new products we thought we'd have developed by the end of January, but here's the stuff we did get up in the shop:

1. handpainted altered vintage mugs. Right now there's a nerd one and a coffee berry one. We sold out of a few styles at the art show, so there will be more where those came from. (Also,those mugs have been waiting to be painted for, like, two years. Just in case you're under the misapprehension that we're on top of things.)

2. wood notebooks. The covers are made of real wood and they're stamped with a handcarved faux bois stamp. We seriously love them. More styles soon.

3.pretty green typewriter. Actually, we succeeded in listing two typewriters in January, but the other one sold fast (Yay!).

4. record notebooks. We've been sold out of these since mid-December! There's finally a fresh, new batch.

5. the last of the chalkboard bookends. We're discontinuing the them, so what you see is what we have.

6. miscellaneous vintage. We listed some new vintage kitchen stuff and home decor.

Looking forward, February is for getting a business license (so we can sell and buy wholesale), getting our new accounting system finished up, (hopefully) getting our new blog launched, getting the 20 typewriters in our entryway maintenanced and listed, thrifting and antiquing, and finishing the new products we've planned.

Hooray!

Come back later today for Project Life Week 4.

Project Life 2012 | Week 3

2012-01-30T15:24:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Week 3 of Project Life! It's funny that I was worried about having hardly any photos for Week 3 after our lens broke, but I ended up needing two inserts this week. That's what happens when you get a new lens.

Click on the photos for an enlarged view.

I had so much fun playing with layers this week. For the first insert, I took a cue from Ali Edward's Week 2 and cut off the outer pockets of a page protector. I used the left 12x12 page and the insert to give a look into what we did daily; I used internet photos (the MLK photo and SOPA photo) and photos from our phones to fill in the blanks while we didn't have a lens. Notice that the yellow/orange paper is repeated three times (twice on the left and once on the right). This creates a visual triangle and ties the insert page to the left page.

I did this also with the color red - Eliza's clothes in the photos inside the insert create a visual triangle with the red photobooth photo showing through from the right 12x12 page. Because Project Life doesn't always have a theme tying the whole spread together, using color can make pages feel cohesive.

Flip the first insert and you'll find a second insert. This time I added an 8 x 8. (The holes in the page protector didn't add up, so I punched a new hole). I used the 8 x 8 to add the flier for the MOC Arts and Crafts Bazaar we were part of this week, as well as some business cards from the other participants.

Again, I used color to make sure that this layer felt balanced. The back of the first insert uses red to tie into the right 12 x 12 page, and the 8 x 8 insert repeats patterned paper that can bee seen from the left 12 x 12 page.

Flip again for the back of the 8 x 8 insert and the right 12 x 12 layout. I chose to do a full layout for this page. I knew I wanted to use tons of little photos on the page, so I wanted more freedom for placement. Remember, Project Life can be anything you want it to be - you don't have to use pocketed page protectors all the time.

There's another visual triangle here, this time using shapes. The fancy frame journaling spot is repeated on the back of insert one, to the top left of the right 12 x 12 layout, and to the right of the photobooth picture of Jake and me.

Also, I tied one of our product tags right onto the binder clip for a little extra somethin' somethin'.

Now for a closer look on what's going on on each page.

The first page covers Sunday to Wednesday. I split the top left pocket into two 4 x 6 sections, using the little flag banner (discontinued Sassafras) as a visual separation; so the "Sun" section and "Mon" section are really in the same pocket. I feel like this is something I'll be doing a lot, as I pick the week's page protectors based on the content I have but am stuck with the week before's on the left side. Make it work!

The first side of insert numero one is all photos and tiny journaling bits. The photo in the middle is my favorite, so instead of sizing it down to fit in the 4x4 spaces, I cut in the center and had it cover two pockets.

The back of insert one was mostly miscellaneous photos, but also included some journaling for the MOC layout (because you can still see that spot when the other insert is turned) and the dates for the week.

The front of insert two is the MOC flier and business cards.

The back of insert two is business cards and a photo our booth at the show. (Thanks, Amy, for taking the photo! Can't believe we forgot. Lesson: other people's Facebooks are good PL photo sources.)

Last is the MOC layout, which I LOVE. This is probably the most expensive page that doesn't have a ton of embellishments that I've ever made (the background is patterned paper + Basic Grey lace paper + a Hambly overlay). Jake wrote inside the little frame. I like that his handwriting is in here.

I'm loving this project so much. It's been so inspiring for me. Now that I'm all caught up, PL posts will be on Tuesdays. That means come back tomorrow for Week 4!

For all posts tagged Project Life, click here.

Project Life 2012 | Week 2 Supplies

Click on the images to link to the products used this week. Some products are not included, as they are discontinued.

Project Life is a memory keeping concept created by Becky Higgins.

Music Monday

2012-01-30T09:38:00.000-06:00

Jake, expert Stumbler that he is, discovered several awesome music videos this week that we have to share.

Firstly, this Hold Your Horses! music video has the most original concept ever. How many famous paintings do you recognize? Jake and I felt smart: that Freshman Art History class sank in after all.

This next one is hands down Eliza's favorite. What's not to love about a dog chorus + Star Wars? Now she wants an Ewok dog.

Can you believe that's a Volkswagen commercial? Apparently it will make sense after the Superbowl. There's another commercial that goes with it? Weird.

Other amazing and/or entertaining music videos: deaf rapper, playing the rings of a tree trunk like a record, It's the Dad Life, and this really funny music video that is a) sexist and b)NSFW.

And, lastly, if you want a good playlist for the week, we've switched the playlist from the Nick's Bonnaroo Playlist Music Monday to Grooveshark (we're working on getting our old playlists switched over so the songs don't randomly disappear). It'll be sure to get you movin'.

Nick's Bonnaroo Playlist by Megan Anderson on Grooveshark

What have you been listening to lately?

2012 is for taking it one step at a time

2012-01-29T11:23:00.002-06:00

I'm not really one for New Year's Resolutions, but all the blog buzz about new beginnings and One Little Word choices got me thinking about the things I'd like to change. Most of my thoughts centered around things like wanting to get things tidier, make more stuff, go more places, do more interesting things together as a family, save (and make) more money and get more active. It really all boiled down to wanting to get more done.

Which means that if I had a word for 2012, it would probably be MORE. But I don't like the way that sounds. Greedy sounding, right? But it's not like I want more diamond shoes or ponies--not that I have any. I'm not Belle singing, "I want much more than this provincial life." Life is good. I'd like to have the same wonderful life I already have, but with the volume turned up.

That is overwhelming. Those are overwhelming thoughts. It's so MORE oriented that it's too much. But, one step at a time, it's totally doable.

The area I'm focusing in on first is cleaning. If you every wonder, "How do they do it all?" the answer is a super messy house. We've always been messy. Like, super messy. You have to step over things to get from one end of the room to another messy. It takes an entire 24 hours of cleaning to make the house presentable for visitors messy. That messy. And it's not like our family is going to magically change that over night. But the messy is stressful, and I want cleaning to be a) routine, b) efficient, and c) a team effort.

So, with the mantra One step at a Time in my brain, I started my project for the year by rethinking laundry. This was kind of a test run for One Step at a Time, because laundry is mostly my department (so I didn't have to focus on getting the whole house on board right off the bat). My problem is that I like doing laundry, but I hate sorting it, folding it, and putting it away. So mostly I only like the putting it in the machine and the switching it over part. Which is like, 5% of laundry doing. So common was a big pile of dirty laundry in our closet (which, again, is also the laundry room) and baskets full of clean laundry that you have to dig though to find a pair of clean socks (good luck).

Before we moved to the house, it sort of made sense to get backed up on laundry. Laundry required quarters at the loft, which we were always running out of, and we had to wait to use the machine we were sharing with the whole floor. But now that we're in Holly House with our very own quarter free washer and drier right in our closet on the second floor, there's really no excuse. Obviously some changes were needed.

I only have a before picture of our closet. The back wall there houses the washer and drier.

The resolution was super simple. First, the sorting. I hate sorting laundry, so instead of everyone having their own dirty laundry baskets, I put three laundry baskets in Jake's and my closet: one for delicates, one for whites, and one for everything else (Jonas's laundry is still separate, I do all of his together with baby detergent). Everyone is responsible for putting their laundry in the right basket as soon as it is dirty. This made things so much easier: I don't have to sort or dig though to find enough clothes to do a load. I can just see when a basket is full enough to make up a load and then I do it. Awesome.

The second issue was the baskets of clean clothes that had trouble getting to their proper destinations. To fix this, I put a small table in our laundry room and made a rule for myself that laundry in the drier must be immediately folded and not put into a basket. I hang up Eliza's clothes on hangers and hang them over the drier, I hang Jake's and my shirts up as I go (our clothes are hanging on the bar in the photo, so I can literally hang them up without moving), and fold what needs to be folded and put away. The baskets are officially only for dirty clothes or transferring folded stuff from one room to anther (as it should be). The folded stuff doesn't always get put away immediatly, but it is nice and neat and ready to go.

We've been keeping this up for four weeks now, and it is great. No one ever has to look for clean socks. I spend a lot less time on laundry. And there's never any piles. That, friends, is awesome.

We've been working on a few other steps as a family, but we're taking it slow. I'll be sharing each step after we call it a success.

What would your first step be? How do you keep laundry under control?

2011 Reads in Review

2012-01-27T14:26:00.000-06:00

I like keeping track of things, and the books I read are at the top of my memory keeping list. If I want to re-read or recommend something I read 5 years ago, I can find the book pretty darn easily. But part of keeping track of what I read isn't just record keeping: it's competition. With myself. Sort of like that Friends episode where Monica tries to compete with herself: this year's Thanksgiving dinner vs. last year's Thanksgiving dinner.

In 2011 I chose a different method of choosing the books I read: I read some non-fiction every month, something about language most months, and then read as many books as I can by color stack (I've been going through each color, reading all the books I haven't read yet). This means that I read way fewer books in 2011 than in 2010, but among the 2011 books were Dickens and textbooks, so who's counting? I might not have beat myself in quantity of books, but 2011 me definitely won on word count. 2012 me, you've got your work cut out for you.

Here are the reads posts for 2011 by month: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

Below are the finished stacks. There are a few books that I'll be reading in 2012 that haven't made it into the stacks from the red-yellow spectrum that are either newly purchased or sequels to books I haven't read yet. So there will still be some additions:

In case you might be interested in hearing what I had to say about a specific book, here's all of the 2012 books, linked to their corresponding monthly post. (Books that took more than one month to read link to the month I finished the book).

Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe
Journey Into Fear (1940) by Eric Ambler
Sense and Sensibility (1811) by Jane Austen
The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) by John Buchan
The Big Sleep (1939) by Raymond Chandler
And Then There Were None (1939) by Agatha Christie
An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England (2007) by Brock Clarke
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865) by Charles Dickens
The Three Musketeers (1844) by Alexandre Dumas trans. Richard Pevear
The Secrets of a Fire King: Stories (1997) by Kim Edwards
Bridget Jones's Diary (1996) by Helen Fielding
Eat, Pray, Love (2006) by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Confidential Agent: An Entertainment (1939) by Graham Greene
Water for Elephants (2006) by Sara Gruen
How to Be Good (2001) by Nick Hornby
The Conspiracy Club (2003) by Jonathan Kellerman
Dharma Bums (1958) by Jack Kerouac
The Secret Life of Bees (2002) by Sue Monk Kidd
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2005) by Stieg Larsson
Shutter Island (2003) by Dennis Lehane
Let the Right One In (2004) by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Darkly Dreaming Dexter (2004) by Jeff Lindsay
Dearly Devoted Dexter (2005) by Jeff Lindsay
Dexter in the Dark (2007) by Jeff Lindsay
Dexter by Design (2009) by Jeff Lindsay
Dexter Is Delicious (2010) by Jeff Lindsay
Angel: After The Fall Volume 1 (2008) by Brian Lynch and Joss Whedon
The Nine Tailors (1934) by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Doorbell Rang (1965) by Rex Stout
Saving Fish from Drowning (2005) Amy Tan
The Daughter of Time (1951) by Josephine Tey
Vanity Fair (1847-8) by William Thackeray
Half Broke Horses (2009) by Jeannette Walls
Dr. Horrible and Other Horrible Stories (2010) by Zack Whedon
Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale (2010) by Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, and Chris Samnee
Around the World in 80 Days (1873) by Jules Verne

Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory (2007) Scott Applerouth and Laura Desfor Edles (Chapters 1 and 2)
The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (2006) by Karen Armstrong
For Our Time: 24 Essays by 8 Contemporary Americans (1970) by Barry Gross (Ed.)
The Koran: Selected Suras (2000) ed. Arthur Jeffery
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005) by Tony Junt
First Meals: The Complete Cookbook and Nutrition Guide (2004) by Annabel Karmel
Essential Works of John Stuart Mill (1959-1873) by John Stuart Mill
The Brain-dead Megaphone (2008) by George Saunders
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004) by David Sedaris
Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier by Jakob Walter
The Hedgehog: An Owner's Guide to a Happy Healthy Pet (1997) by Dawn Wrobel

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print (2nd ed. 2004) by Renni Browne and Dave King
Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare (2008) by Jeremy Butterfield
Aspects of the Novel (1927) E. M. Forster
Butt Rot & Bottom Gas (2007) by Eric Groves, Sr.
The Polysyllabic Spree (2004) by Nick Hornby
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994) by Anne Lamott
A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation (2006) by Noah Lukeman
The Little Red Book of Very Dirty Words (2009) by Alexis Munier

The Handmade Marketplace: How to Sell Your Crafts Locally, Globally, and On-Line (2010) by Kari Chapin
We Dare You: Scrapbook Challenges About Real Life (2007) by Kristina Contes, Meghan Heath Dymock, Genevieve Simmonds, and Nisa Finn
Printing by Hand (2008) by Lena Corwin
Life Artist (2007) by Ali Edwards
Sharing Your Story: Recording Life's Details with Mini Books (2008) by Ali Edwards
52 Scrapbooking Challenges (2006) by Elsie Flannigan
52 More Scrapbooking Challenges (2009) by Elizabeth Kartchner
Get Creative with Type: Fun Typography Ideas and Tips for Scrapbooking (2009) by Brian Tippetts

Maybe in 2012 I'll even get to the black and white bookshelf!

December Reads

2012-01-26T21:44:00.000-06:00

Welcome to my reading list for December! I completed three books last month and started a fourth. I'm pretty sure this is the shortest stack there's been since I started the monthly reads posts. But reflecting on how crazy December was and how tired I was the whole month, I'm surprised I finished anything at all.

For those of you new to the nest, I have a neurotic reading process. Each month I read at least part of a non-fiction book, a book about reading/writing/editing/language, and as many books from my color stacks as I can (my books are organized by spine color and I'm going through each color stack, reading every book I haven't yet read).

Here's December's Reads:

The Polysyllabic Spree (2004) by Nick Hornby

What you need to know: I bet you never thought that book reviews could be interesting. Boy, sir, are you ever wrong.

Spree is my word book for the month. Again, every month I read a book about words/writing/editing, etc. (which, in theory, improves my writing skills), but this may be the first book I've ever read about READING. It is comprised of a year's worth of articles Horby, who is one of my favorite contemporary authors and is the creator of great works such as High Fidelity and About a Boy, wrote for the literary magazine Believer. The full title of the book sums up what the book is about: The Polysyllabic Spree: A Hilarious and True Account of One Man's Struggle with the Monthly Tide of the Books He's Bought and the Books He's Been Meaning to Read. That sums it up well.

Just like reading Kurt Vonnegut kills my urge to work on my novel for weeks (I think things like: What's the point? Everything I do is crap. Nothing will ever compare to this. I should just burn all my work and get a boring day job in a cubicle.), this book made me feel like I should just go through and delete all of the monthly reads posts. What I write about books isn't worth binding into a mass market paperback for sure - but this! Everything Hornby writes is witty, hilarious, and has a deep underlying truth about it. This is no exception.

This book is also going to be very bad for my book budget. (In fact, I need to stop buying books all together. I've already proved that I own more unread books than I could possibly read in a year.) Hornby convinced me to buy a boatload of books (I'm most excited about George & Sam: Two Boys, One Family, and Autism. There's an excerpt in this book. I loved it so much that I read it aloud to Jake. We were both in a fit of giggles.) Also, there are apparently two more follow up books to this one with the other articles he's written for Believer Magazine. Which I of course will end up buying sometime this year.

And now for a quote: "And don't waste your breath trying to tell me that I'm showing off This month, maybe, I'm showing off a little. (Or am I? Shouldn't I have read some of these books decades ago? Franny and Zooey? Jesus. Maybe I'm doing the opposite: maybe I'm humiliating myself. And maybe you have read all of these and loads of others, in the last fortnight. I don't know you. What's--ahem--a normal amount, for someone with a job and kids, who watches TV?)"

P.S. I love the cover so much. I'm going to use it as inspiration for something cool, I'm just not sure what yet.

Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale (2010) by Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, and Chris Samnee

What you need to know: If you're a Firefly fan (and you should be - the entire series is on Netflix AND Hulu, so US residents have no excuse) then this is a must read.

This graphic novel gives the backstory for one of the most interesting characters in the Firefly crew line-up: Shepherd Book. The Shepherd was seeped in mystery throughout the series; he obviously lived a past very different than the life he lived in the show. The storyline of the graphic novel answers all the questions about Book that the show leaves unanswered; it jumps backwards in a very interesting experimental manner to reveal surprise after surprise and the many twists and turns of the Shepherd's life.

I bought this for Jake for Christmas because he was always very curious about Shepherd whenever the show alluded to his past. The book didn't make it under the tree: we both read it as soon as it arrived in the mail.

As with the other graphic novel adaptations of Joss Whedon's shows (Buffy, Angel), I'm not loving the artwork on the material. The cover is awesome though.

And now for a quote: Kaylee: "How com water always looks s'much better when you're drinking it?" Shepherd Book: "I appreciate it is all. This is life's foundation and its fuel. The most important substance in the 'verse and it flows from every mountaintop. It is truly divine."

The Big Sleep (1939) by Raymond Chandler

What you need to know: A classic detective novel with a complex plot and interesting twists. A little risqué for 1939.

The Big Sleep is the final book I read in the mystery collection of 10 novels I picked up last summer. It also wraps up the red book stack. Triumph!

This book had more interesting characters and plot twists than the other mystery novels I've read this year, but after reading this many I'm sick of the detectives. They're all pretty much interchangeable, no matter the author. I probably would have been more excited about this one if it had been one of the first classic mysteries I read. At least the slang was more interesting.

I liked it, but not enough to track down the other books in the series starring private eye Philip Marlowe. I do, however, really want to see the 1949 version of the film. Just one look at the Google images for the movie gets me all excited and inspired. Fact: I need to watch more movies from the '40s.

And now for a quote: "The blond flicked a short-barreled gun out and stood pointing it at me. The pug sidled over flatfooted and felt my pockets with care. I turned around for him like a bored beauty modeling an evening gown."

In December I also started A Beautiful Mind, my monthly non-fiction. I only got about 1/3 of the way through though, so this one's going in the January 2012 reads post.

Come back tomorrow for a post reviewing my reads for the whole year of 2011!

Have you read any of these? What did you think of them? What have you been reading lately?

Project Life 2012 | Week 2

2012-01-25T18:23:00.001-06:00

Let me just say that I'm obsessively in love with this project. Every time I put the album away I have to fight the urge to get it out and look at it. Also, I'm pretty sure everyone that visits our house this year is going to be ~~forced~~ nicely asked to look at it.

Click on the photos to get a bigger picture ;)

Right now I'm tackling this by taking notes and photos throughout the week in a little notebook and waiting until the week is over (my weeks are running Sunday to Saturday) to actually do the printing and scrapping. This might change: we moved our house around a bit, so my Project Life stuff is within reach on the first floor instead of in the refinished attic. It will be much easier to work on it for a few minutes at a time. When I finish organizing my set up, I'll be sure to share it.

Just like week one's spread, I did two 12x12 pages with a 6x12 insert. Also like last week, both of my 12x12 pages are different brands (this time it's We R Memory Keepers and American Crafts; links at the bottom of the post) and have different sizes and photo slot orientations. I like the look of this: it allows me to include bigger vertical orientation photos and also makes it feel less like I'm doing the exact same thing week after week.

You'll also notice that I didn't use any products from the Project Life Brand this week. I'm loving this project for the philosophy, the ease, the celebration of the everyday, and the challenge of creating weekly spreads. But I don't want to get caught up in buying the products (which I think are awesome, let's be clear, I'm not bashing them) when I have a ridiculously large stash of scrapping supplies at my disposal.

Because our camera lens broke in the middle of the week, the photos are all from the beginning of the week or our phones. We got all of the important stuff; that's what matters.

The first spread (left to right and up to down) has a journaling card describing a dinner we had with friends, Eliza opening up her biggest birthday present, a Star Wars logo with journaling (we've been watching the movies), Jonas at the setting of E's birthday dinner (T-Rex and journaling about the dinner, Jonas climbing on his pirate ship car w/ journaling, and little notes about the week (E went back to school after Winter Break, our camera lens broke, I went to Stitch and B***h with friends).

The front side of the insert is all about Eliza's birthday. The first photo was actually taken on New Year's Eve, but it captures her personality and style (she dressed herself) that I included it anyway.

The backside of the insert was all about the Lego Competition we went to. The journaling was pulled directly from the blog post (edited a bit for length).

The last page shows one of the major themes of the week. Several nights we spent the time between dinner and bed together in the living room while I read Harry Potter 4 out loud, Jake and Eliza worked on building her new LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle . Jonas toddled around and climbed on things (his new favorite pass time).

For all posts tagged Project Life, click here.

Project Life 2012 | Week 2 Supplies

Click on the images to link to the products used this week.

Project Life is a memory keeping concept created by Becky Higgins.

Hedgie Gets Fancy

2012-01-24T09:23:00.000-06:00

We're swapping around rooms over here. Eliza's room was in our refinished attic while Jake's brother Nick lived here, but we've been slowly moving her stuff to the second floor since Nick moved out in November. Eliza's hedgehog, Hedgie, was living temporarily in Jake's and my bathroom because the third floor's temperature isn't very consistent and Hedgie can't get too cold or hot. Now that Eliza's back on the second floor, Hedgie can go back with E. That means she needs to get a little fancier.

First, we bought Hedgie some Pink CareFresh Bedding instead of the wood fluff stuff we were getting before. It's pretty, soft, more absorbent, and makes less of a mess.

Then I decided to spray paint the wood part of Hedgie's cage to match Eliza's dollhouse shelf. I bought some professional Montana Gold Spray Paint from our neighborhood art supply store, Creative Coldsnow. I'd never used professional spray paint before, but man does it make a difference. There aren't any runs, it coats more evenly, dries quicker, requires fewer coats, and (the coolest part) comes in better colors. It's a bit more pricy, but I think I'm going this way from now on. We'll see how it holds up - that will be the real test to see if it's worth it.

I couldn't find a good before picture. I used 12 x 12 cardstock and Frog Tape (which works way better than regular painter's tape) to mask off the non-wood parts.

Hedgie's now living in her much more colorful world on the top of E's dresser (which I'm also planning on painting). I'm going to fancy it up further with a banner using hedgehog fabric I bought from The Destash Squid.

Hopefully our little grumpy lady will be happy in her newly fancified habitat.

Project Life 2012 | Week 1

2012-01-23T13:08:00.099-06:00

Welcome to Project Life 2012 Week 1!

Now that we have our new lens, I can share my Project Life! I'm very excited to be tackling this project. The first three weeks have gone swimmingly; I hope to be posting weekly after I finish up this bit of catch up.

I chose to do Project Life after struggling with what to do with our 2011 365 Project. I tried to scrap the photos and stories in seasonal minis like seasonal minis like this one, but it didn't really work out. I loved the format at first, but I was really limited on the stories I could fit into the book. I also didn't like that the format forced me to choose one photo a day even if there was a lot going on.

Additionally, I didn't like that focusing so much on the seasonal minis meant that I was hardly doing anything in the 12x12 format. I didn't like the gap that this left in my scrapbooks, which I switched to chronological after Jonas was born. I think that Project Life is a perfect fit. I'm going to do it not only this year, but retroactively for last year. I'm going to wait until I get settled into the process with 2012 before attempting 2011, however.

Also, I'm not buying a ton of Project Life brand stuff. I'm using an American Crafts album, stuff that's already in my stash, and collected page protectors from three companies: American Crafts, We Are Memory Keepers, and Becky Higgins Project Life (links at the bottom of the post). I'm switching up the page protectors to fit the orientation of the week's photos and my particular whims. I'll be throwing in a few regular layouts too.

Click on the photos to get a bigger picture ;)

Week 1 focused on little bits of life, New Year's, and the kid's birthday party. I included a 6x12 insert (which I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot).

The first page focuses on our New Year's (including apple and blueberry sparkling juice), my mom coming to teach me put binding on the quilt I've been working on since 2009, and an epic five day long Monopoly game. Here are some close ups:

The first side of the insert is just everyday photos. I love the one of Eliza - she fell asleep with a book open in Jake's and my bed.

The back of the insert has my favorite birthday party picture of Jonas (he's got cake in one hand and ice cream in the other).

The second page is all about the birthday party - Eliza's birthday photo, the Brobee cake my Mom made for Jonas, the Spiderman cupcake for Eliza, the kids blowing out the candles and opening presents, and the Brobbe picture E drew for J.

Close ups of that:

That's Week 1! I'm so excited about this project. I'll be sharing Week 2 and Week 3 over the next few days.

Project Life 2012 | Week 1 Supplies

Click on the images to link to the products used this week.

Find out more about Project Life here.

P.S. I said I'd share photos of the kids' birthday party. I'm totally counting this.

Music Monday

2012-01-23T10:43:00.000-06:00

This week's playlist is a combination of songs we've had stuck in our heads, stuff we've been listening to lately, and stuff we think will get us pumped and motivated in the week ahead.

Music we can listen to while we clean up after this little tornado.

I've been stuck on "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" because of it's recurrence in How I Met Your Mother, which I marathoned through on Netflix last week. It's been stuck in my head hardcore. I've been belting it out at everyone, we've been dancing around to it in the mornings, and Eliza's been trained to "ba dah dah dah!" back at me in the chorus.

If we were being realistic, the whole playlist would be "500 Miles" and "Somebody That I Used to Know". Jake Stumbled on the cover video for "Somebody That I Used to Know" (the cover is at the bottom of the post) and has been constantly playing both the cover and the original.

MM Jan 23 2012 by Megan Anderson on Grooveshark

Find past Music Mondays here.

We hope you enjoy the playlist! What have you been listening to lately?

MOC

2012-01-21T13:44:00.000-06:00

Last night was the January MOC DIY Arts and Crafts Bazaar. It was a breath of fresh air compared to our first disaster craft show. The night was mostly like a big party with our artsy friends (and a few new friends too), where we happened to sell a few things. Awesome atmosphere. We can't wait to do more stuff with MOC; we're thinking workshops next. Yes!

There was a photobooth set up (curtesy of John Deprisco of Deprisco Photo, who hosted the show in his studio), which gave us a chance to get goofy early on. It set the mood for the night.

That's our friend Jack (check out his art at his 505 page). He's pretty much amazing. MOC is partially his brain child.

Somehow we didn't end up with any shots of our table as a whole, but Jake loves his close ups. So here's some Nerd Nest goodies:

Seeing what the other artists came up with was awesome.

Nico brought it with his handmade puppets and jewelry:

I don't know how we didn't end up with any photos of Amy Bug's work, so we stole a few photos from her facebook. Jonas needs some of her baby shirts.

And Matthew Naquin's poster designs were breath taking. Jake and I were debating over which one to get (someone bought the one he liked best, so I won).

The highlight of our night was pretty much getting to trade for this poster.

Thank you so much to everyone who came out to support us! It was awesome getting to hang out with friends and family all night. (Also thanks to my sister Taylor, who watched the kids last night with her friend Walter.)

(That's our besties Harvey and Lisa).

We also wanted to share some photos of us getting ready for the show. We intended to post them yesterday, but ran out of time.

We're taking a break today (sort of - Jake's working some from home, E had Spanish class this morning, and we have a birthday party to go to for one of E's classmates), but we'll be photographing and listing some of the new handmade products in the shop tomorrow.

Hello, New Lens

2012-01-19T09:28:00.001-06:00

Let me tell you, it is amazing to have a camera again. As we said before, our lens broke last week and we've been waiting for the new one with great anticipation.

Last year's 365 Project got us in such a habit of taking photos that I didn't realize how big a part of our lives our camera really is. Eliza would do something cool or see something cool and would say, "Hey guys - take a picture!" Even the little bit is trained. We took a lot of photos with our phones over the past week, but we're happy to have some quality photo ops again.

The new lens is so much better too. One of the best things about the lens is its ability to take photos in low light. All of these were taken indoors at night or early morning with no natural lighting.

Jake will be more technical about why the lens is awesome later. But for now, see for yourself!

Jake's Self Portrait in our bathroom mirror.

Our awesome big snuggle kitty, Charcoal.

Hand carved stamp I designed for a top secret new Nerd Nest product. We've been busy getting ready for the MOC DIY Arts and Crafts Bazaar this Friday.

Test print.

Jake took a ton of photos this morning before he went to work to get it out of his system. He wanted to take the camera to work with him, but I won it for the day - hah! (These are after Eliza got on the bus, that's why she's not in the photos.)

Don't judge my just-woke-up hair.

My photo isn't as good. I haven't got to get to play with the lens very much; Jake's been a camera hog. I'll get in a ton of shots while he's gone :)

We spent the morning dancing to this. Let me tell you, goofy dancing with Jake and Jonas is a great was to start a day.

Plus, the video is super inspiring. Related note: bet you didn't know that I painted Jake for a project in high school. I'll have to dig up those pictures. I'll share them so long as I can convince him to let me put photos than include his nipple on the Interwebs.

Blackout SOPA Day

2012-01-18T10:22:00.002-06:00

Today is Blackout SOPA Day. In case you're wondering why major websites like Google, Wikipedia, Wired, Mozilla, Reddit, and many others are blacked out or are redirecting you to action pages, a mass protest is going on to oppose the US Congress bills Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA).

SOPA and PIPA are pieces of legislation that aim to end piracy, but would do so in a way that would not end piracy and would instead give the government and entertainment industries unprecedented power that limit free speech and information access on the internet.

To learn more about SOPA and PIPA, watch this:

This act is especially close to home for Jake, who is an IT Professional. He and his peers all over the world are infuriated.

Jake and I believe that the possibility for censorship, corruption, and misuse that could occur as a result of these laws are far to great.

Putting the responsibility for user's actions on hosting websites will make it impossible for smaller websites to have user forums. This bill would allow the taking down entire websites that have millions of users a day because one user is posting copyrighted material. Even big name websites that we love, like Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest, and Stumbleupon, could not survive this bill as we know them now. These websites make connections between people but are also ecommerce sites. To support the entertainment industry economy, the bill will be hurting the internet economy and will cost millions in tax dollars each year to enforce.

We want to be clear that we don't support piracy. We believe in giving credit where credit is due, creating original content, and support Link With Love. But even this blog would be guilty under SOPA and PIPA. We don't post photos that we didn't take often, unless we're giving a shout out to artists or products we love, but we still have a lot of material that would be considered against SOPA and PIPA rules on here. It would affect us even here. Gone would be our Music Monday playlists, gone would be photos of public figures (like the one used in our Martin Luther King post), gone would be the scanned images of book covers that we use for our monthly reads posts. We don't point these things out to complain about the selfish reasons we oppose this bill - our opposition is much bigger than our personal interests. We pointing these things out as examples so you can see how far the reach of these bills extend.

Just in case you're still not clear of the negative implications of SOPA: Can you imagine searching Google for images of the Beatles and coming up with this?

Image by Travis Wright

Not only would all of those images be blocked, but the sites that hosted the images could be taken down for not censoring content and the person that posted it would face jail time. Think about that will do to websites like Flickr and the man hours and cost associated with social networking sites trying to make sure that content is correctly censored.

We don't feel that this law is really being created to protect creative content and ideas. We feel that it is instead designed to protect the financial interests of big business in the entertainment industry. (Our next Get Serious post will cover why the fall of the entertainment industry as we know it isn't such a bad thing.)

Want to take a stand against SOPA? Go here.

P.S. The best and funniest anti-SOPA/PIPA page today is by far at The Oatmeal. It's a little NSFW, fair warning.

Let's Get Serious is a blog series where we share our opinions and put ourselves out there. We get that not everyone thinks the same way; the same things don't work for everyone. These are our opinions. They don't have to be your opinions. We'd like to hear about what you think, but please don't be mean to us. Let's respect each other and talk about it!

Find more LGS posts here.

Lego Competition

2012-01-17T10:13:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday, we went to cheer my best friend Harvey on in the coolest event ever: The Legoland Brick Factor Competition for the new Legoland Discovery Center being built in Kansas City in Spring 2012. Harvey just competed for fun, but the serious competitors had their eyes on the prize: the Master Builder job at the new Discover Center. Which means that the competition was basically a really fun job interview for the ultimate dream job - getting paid to play with toys all day.

Eliza thought the whole thing was awesome. Jonas was really excited about the whole thing too - though he was mostly interested in the crowd of people. We loved cheering on Uncle Harvey and seeing all of the cool entries. In the first round (which is the round we watched) the contestants had a half an hour to create an animal.

Harvey made a sea turtle. (It goes with his new beard. I think he looks like a ship captain. Like he's trying to sell fish sticks. Sorry Harv, it's true.)

There were some really cool entries; like the seahorse above. I can't believe that it stands up! How amazing is that?

We can't wait for the new Discovery Center to open. Legos have been a big part of our days around here since E received a few sets for Christmas and her birthday. She and Jake have been building away every day. And if the new center has anything anywhere near as cool as that guy Eliza's standing next to in the photo above (made entirely of Legos!), then it will be epically awesome.

***All photos were taken with my phone, as our camera lens is broken.

Raising Anti-Racist Kids

2012-01-16T13:19:00.001-06:00

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I'm writing a post that Jake and I have been working on for awhile now. The subject: activist parenting. Specifically, raising non-racist kids.

Anti-racism activism has been a big part of our lives, and has thus been a big part of the lives of our children. When Eliza (now 6) was a toddler, I worked with various activism and cultural promotion groups while in college. When Jake and I went to community college, I worked in the Intercultural Center, so Eliza went to several large events each month that celebrated different cultures and analyzed inequalities. She hung our with professors from all over the globe. She saw me lead discussions on racial and economic inequalities and the lack of multiculturalism in our school system when I was president of Teachers of Tomorrow.

This kept up, on a smaller scale, when Jake and I transferred to a four year college. My minor at that time was Peace Studies and I interned with Peace Works and The American Friends Service Committee, so most of the events Eliza attended were of that nature. But still, she was immersed in anti-racism.

We sort of assumed she'd pick anti-racist values up through osmosis. Let me tell you, it's not that easy.

She didn't mention race much up until age four. The biggest conversation we probably had was naming people's skin after crayon colors. (As in, "Hey Mommy! That guy has brown skin. I have peach skin.") I attributed her not noticing very much to her being raised in a multicultural environment. Mom and Dad's friends come in different colors, and that's that.

The lightbulb "Hey, anti-racism can't be taught through osmosis alone" moment for me came through a conversation Eliza and I had in the car Fall 2010. I was pregnant with Jonas, Jake and I had graduated college, we had just moved to our new house, and we had been hibernating a bit. We hadn't been spending very much time with our friends, so Eliza (who did not go to daycare) had been only around our family members (who are mostly white) for a few months. My sister Taylor had brought over her then boyfriend a few nights before this conversation. He was shy around Eliza and he was black.

Eliza and I were talking about adoption, a common conversation topic for us. We've been planning on adopting from foster care since before Eliza was born, so we want to make sure that the conversation comes up often so she'll fully understand once the foster care and adoption finally happen.

After we'd been talking about adoption for five minutes or so, Eliza, then four, asked, "So, because the brothers and sisters came from a different family, they might not look like us?"

"That's right," I answered.

"So they might have brown skin?"

"Yes, maybe."

"But I don't like brown people."

My heart stopped. I didn't know how to react. My first instinct was to get angry. How could my four year old daughter say something so incredibly racist? I teared up. I took a deep breath.

"Why would you say that?"

"Well, Taylor's friend didn't really talk to me or anything. I think he didn't like me."

I went on to explain that Taylor's friend was shy and didn't talk to her because he was just a quiet guy. I told her that even if one person didn't like her, that didn't mean that everyone who looked similar would also not like her. Those who look alike don't think or act alike. I used an example of a white ex-friend Jake and I had that was disrespectful to Eliza (which is why he's an ex-friend). I told her that person was mean, but that didn't mean that everyone with peach skin was mean. We had a long talk about what causes differences skin color, cultural differences, and the wrongness of assuming things about people because of the way that they looked.

This conversation was a wake up call for me. After just a few short months of not being in a multicultural environment, the idea of people being individuals instead of being grouped by their skin color disappeared for Eliza. This shouldn't be that shocking to me; I remember in 3rd grade having a difficult time understanding that the identical twins in my class weren't the same on the inside. I thought it was confusing that they didn't like the exact same things. So it makes some sense that kids who aren't told different would assume that people who look similar are similar.

Even so, Eliza's negative generalization was totally our fault for not making sure that she was in a non-homogenious environment.

Anti-racist values returned to Eliza through conversations and immersion in a multicultural environment. She described her summer school teacher as the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen, with "chocolaty skin" and decided she wanted to be a teacher so she could be just like her teacher. Her teachers at school come from different cultures and backgrounds (many of her teachers are international) as do her school friends. She's never made another negative comment about race.

Now conversations on skin color focus on the civil rights movement. (Which is very hard to explain, by the way. Most children's books make it sound as if white people and black people were two "teams" with a winner and looser. And they rarely mention other people of color. She had a lot of trouble understanding why people we know of Middle Eastern decent and Hispanic decent would have been considered non-white if their skin looks so much like hers.) We talk about what other cultures are like, the effects that racism, xenophobia and discrimination still have, and why people choose different belief systems. Because now we know that it has to be a conversation. Soon she's going to be bogged down with ugly influences outside our home, and leading by example is not enough.

The comment made in the car that day was quickly forgotten by Eliza, but it taught Jake and I an important lesson. To raise anti-rascist kids in our society is going to be a constant battle, even without outside negative influences. We're going to have to make sure that our values are both highly visible to our kids and explained.

How do you make sure that your kids share your values?

Let's Get Serious is a blog series where we share our opinions and put ourselves out there. We get that not everyone thinks the same way; the same things don't work for everyone. These are our opinions. They don't have to be your opinions. We'd like to hear about what you think, but please don't be mean to us. Let's respect each other and talk about it!

Find more LGS posts here.

MLK Day Music Monday Part 2

2012-01-16T08:36:00.000-06:00

This year, we're bringing back Music Monday. We're changing it up a bit though. We're not going to have a full playlist every week. Sometimes we'll rave about a particular record, a Pandora station, or a music video.

We've officially switched from playlist.com to Grooveshark as our playlist provider. Playlist.com was dropping our songs over time, so a playlist from two years ago that started out with 20 songs might have only 3 now. That sucks so much (we put a lot into playlists). Grooveshark has a wider selection, and word of mouth has it that the songs aren't going anywhere. We'll see how that goes.

In addition to starting MM up again, we're going to switch the old playlists to Grooveshark too. We'll let you know which old ones are newly working again each Monday as well. (If you're a really dedicated reader, you'll know that we've said that before. But we mean it this time.)

This week's Music Monday playlist is a repeat of an old Martin Luther King Music Monday post we did (read that to learn a little more about what MLK Day means to us). We doubled the number of songs on the original playlist.

The playlist starts with MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech, which we always listen to on MLK Day. It's tradition. The songs were all chosen for messages of anti-war, anti-economic inequalities, or anti-racism (MLK's main causes). They come from many different genres and are all songs that we love. Caution: some songs (especially the hip hop and punk ones) contain explicit material. A lot of the songs are angry, which is inconsistent to Dr. King's message of fighting with love, but a good portion of the songs we listen to are angry. So there you go. Oh, and Jack Johnson's "Dreams be Dreams" is my favorite song to listen to when I feel burnt out on activism, so that's why that's on there.

MLK Day by Megan Anderson on Grooveshark

What songs would you add to the list?

Goosebumps #1: Welcome to the Dead House

2012-01-15T14:06:00.004-06:00

I finished reading Goosebumps #1: Welcome to Dead House to Eliza last week, and she wanted to do a vlog post to share what she thought with you!

We read a combination of picture books and chapter books together, and she reads beginner books to me as well. It takes us a long time to get through a chapter book and we're very proud at the end.

I love that she loves Goosebumps. The series was one of the things that started my reading obsession when I was a kid. We've got a few more for our queue that's we'll read when we are done reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire .

Read other Eliza's Reads posts here.

The Week With No New Pictures

2012-01-14T08:34:00.000-06:00

This week, our camera lens broke. For us, this is a big deal. It's treated with about the same importance as if our hot water heater had broken.

Our camera is a big part of our lives. We use it to take photos for our Etsy shop. we use it for to document the daily lives of our family, I use it to blog about craft projects, Jake uses it to experiment with cool photography techniques. We probably average at least 20-30 photos a day.

Good thing we'd already been saving up for a new lens. When our current lens (a Canon EF-S 17-85mm we bought used) on our Canon Digital Rebel XTi started to display an error message, Jake researched the hell out of the issue. And after trying a few tricks, he declared it dead. We can get it fixed for under $150.00, but as we were only $50.00 in our new lens fund, we decided to go ahead and buy the lens we've been saving for: the Canon EF 50mm.

I'm super excited about the new lens, but a week without our good camera seems daunting.

But I'm going to look at it as a blessing. Instead of photographing every new item we make for the shop, we're going to focus our energy on getting ready for the MOC Arts and Crafts Bazaar that we're participating in this weekend. Instead of photographing and blogging about craft projects, I'm going to get a ton of them done. I'm going to challenge myself to be word focused for this week of Project Life (though I'll throw in some camera phone photos too). Instead of blogging Eliza's reads with photos and a typed interview, I'll have her do a vlog post for you. We're going to make it work. But it's going to be a long week.

December Daily | The End

2012-01-12T15:06:00.000-06:00

This concludes the crazy 24 hours of a ridiculous number of December Daily posts.

Firstly, here's the end of the book:

The last page has all of Eliza's ornaments from her Ornament a Day.

I ended up loving this book, but obviously the project needs to go on a diet next year so that the 2012 version doesn't end up 3 and a half inches tall. This year my approach was pretty comprehensive: I wanted a really good picture of what we did each day. This was in response to my December Daily 2010, which I love, but didn't go very in-depth. In 2010 I pre-made all of the pages in various sizes, and I didn't like being confined to tiny pages on days that ended up having big stories. For 2011, I made the book as I went. I picked out some pages and supplies and kept them all together and chose the base pages after I knew how many photos I had. Next year I need some sort of balance between the two so the album can be done faster and be flexible at the same time.

Good thing I have all year to brainstorm.

And in case you missed them or want to read them start to finish, here are all of the posts in order:

-The Cover
-Day 1
-Day 2
-Day 3
-Day 4
-Day 5
-Day 6
-Day 7
-Day 8
-Day 9
-Day 10
-Day 11
-Days 12 & 13
-Day 14
-Days 15 & 16
-Day 17
-Day 18
-Day 19
-Day 20
-Day 21
-Day 22
-Day 23
-Day 24
-Day 25

I hoped you loved reading my December Daily album! Next up: Project Life.

December Daily | Day 25

2012-01-12T13:08:00.000-06:00

Today is officially December Daily recap day. And each day in the album that hasn't been posted yet gets its own blog post. It's going to be ridiculous. Ready, set, go.

The journaling for Day 25 reads:

"Hello Christmas! Today we opened up presents from Santa (Poppy came to see us in the morning). We had breakfast (muffins), made food for the Aust party (chicken), and played lots of Monopoly. Then we went to the Aust Christmas party. We played the White Elephant game (my favorite!). It was movie/music themed this year. Then we went to Karen's where E spend the night."

I love the photo collage of our Christmas morning.

That's Day 25.

See other December Daily posts here.

December Daily | Day 24

2012-01-12T12:50:00.000-06:00

Today is officially December Daily recap day. And each day in the album that hasn't been posted yet gets its own blog post. It's going to be ridiculous. Ready, set, go.

The journaling for Day 24 reads:

"Today was crazy! We woke up & made cookies & packed gifts for the day (we were late with wrapping this year). We made stuffed mushrooms too. We went to Grandpa Ray's new home and had a great party with my family. We had appetizers & the kids exchanged gifts. Then we went to my Dad's to hang out. We gave him snicker doodles (his favorite) & played video games & watched Dr. Horrible. Then Brad came over! Last we went to Jake's Dad & Rita's. We hung out w/ the Ayala side, then opened gifts w/ the Andersons super late We didn't leave until midnight."

That's Day 24.

See other December Daily posts here.

December Daily | Day 23

2012-01-12T12:39:00.000-06:00

Today is officially December Daily recap day. And each day in the album that hasn't been posted yet gets its own blog post. It's going to be ridiculous. Ready, set, go.

The day 23 journaling reads:

"Today we hosted our first Christmas party. We spent the morning cleaning, then Poppy, Bev, Beth, Brad, Nathan, Mom, & Taylor came for our Christmas party. We mad chicken & eggplant parm w/ spaghetti. We had tons of fun eating & talking & gift opening. Jake & E did an experiment with Jonas's cool new car ramp toy. Yay!

That's Day 23.

See other December Daily posts here.

December Daily | Day 22

2012-01-12T12:22:00.000-06:00

Today is officially December Daily recap day. And each day in the album that hasn't been posted yet gets its own blog post. It's going to be ridiculous. Ready, set, go.

The Day 22 journaling reads:

"Today was E's Christmas party at school. She liked a game they played where they played music & passed a pinecone (sounds kind of like musical chairs to me). We went to the Kiekel Christmas party at Kim's house. Eliza played with Aunt Sandra the whole time; we had great food and great conversations! Jonas was very well behaved :)"

That's Day 22.

See other December Daily posts here.

December Daily | Day 21

2012-01-12T12:10:00.000-06:00

Today is officially December Daily recap day. And each day in the album that hasn't been posted yet gets its own blog post. It's going to be ridiculous. Ready, set, go.

The journaling for Day 21 reads:

"Today was the last day to get out orders before Christmas, so we got out tons of bookend orders We worked on handmade Christmas gifts. I did the last of the Christmas/grocery shopping."

I also included a Christmas card Eliza made at school.

That's Day 21.

See other December Daily posts here.

December Daily | Day 17

2012-01-12T11:54:00.000-06:00

Today is officially December Daily recap day. And each day in the album that hasn't been posted yet gets its own blog post. It's going to be ridiculous. Ready, set, go.

Day 17 focused on the Anderson Christmas party, Jonas's new shoes, and Jake and Eliza making paper snowflakes.

That plaid card? A Gymboree gift card came in that. Awesome.

The journaling for Day 17 reads:

"Today I took E & J to Spanish class and then came home to finish as many possible. Then Jake & E made snowflakes. Jonas tried on shoes for the first time, & we went to the Anderson X-mas party."

We didn't take many of photos at the party, so most of these were taken by Jake's Aunt Rita, who kindly sent them to me.

That's Day 17.

See other December Daily posts here.

December Daily | Days 15 & 16

2012-01-12T11:02:00.000-06:00

December Daily | Day 14

2012-01-12T09:50:00.000-06:00

December Daily | Days 12 & 13

2012-01-12T09:24:00.000-06:00

Today is officially December Daily recap day. And each day in the album that hasn't been posted yet gets its own blog post. It's going to be ridiculous. Ready, set, go.

This spread has Day 12 and Day 13, so I'm posting them together.

The journaling for Day 12 reads:

"Today Poppy came over to help with Jonas so I could work. I made vintage scrapbooks (custom) and we listened to Kris Kristofferson on Pandora. I had to go to work at UMKC for my last night (though I didn't know that at the time)."

The journaling for Day 13 reads:

"Jonas & I restocked (walked - in the rain!) and had lunch at First Watch. Mmmmm. Jake learned that he's going to have to work some 12 days, so I cut my 2 weeks at UMKC short We had pizza for dinner, then I went to Trader Joe's (finally - groceries!) and Target for some more Christmas shopping."

Both of these pages have hidden journaling to keep the designs simple.

The photos for Day 12 are everyday photos; I love that this project reminds me to take photos even when there's not an "event" going on. Latte + Eliza getting ready to go to bed.

The journaling card is hidden inside the envelope, which is layered behind the other elements.

The star strip is from a Trader Joe's paper bag. Keep an eye out for cool patterns - you can find them anywhere!

The photo of Jonas is glued on a card holder, and the journaling is on a tag slipped into the holder. I might add to this page a little more later - there was a piece of paper taped around the silverware when Jonas and I went to lunch that said "I love you more than bacon". I really want to add it, but I have no idea where I put it. I need to get organized. Seriously.

That's Days 12 & 13.

See other December Daily posts here.

December Daily | Day 11

2012-01-11T23:05:00.000-06:00

Today is officially December Daily recap day. And each day in the album that hasn't been posted yet gets its own blog post. It's going to be ridiculous. Ready, set, go.

*Note: some of the faces for Day 11 were blurred in Photoshop (we try not to post photos of non-family members without permission).

The journaling for Day 11 reads:

"I love that Jonas & Nathan are starting to play together."

"We had a crazy day! Taylor & Matt stayed the night on the 10th and E's best friend N. & her mom came over, so we had a full house! I restocked with Eliza, we all went to dinner at Beth's (well, Jake stayed home to work). Taylor made everyone breakfast :)"

"Eliza loved getting to play with N. - they played very well, but their bossy personalities clash a little."

The left page for Day 11 shows Jonas playing with his cousin Nathan, who is 4 months younger. I love that they are inching up to the point where the age difference doesn't matter at all and are starting to play (even if Jonas spent most of the time taking Nathan's toys).

The middle page has the number for the day and the journaling.

The right page shows Eliza playing with her best friend N., Jake hanging out with our friend Matt, and N.'s mom.

To achieve the effect on this page, I printed out an 8x8 collage of photos but left some spaces white for patterned paper. I traced the chipboard scallop shape onto the photo paper, cut out the photo into the scallop shape. I measured the white spaces, cut patterned paper to size, and glued the patterned paper onto the photo paper. I then flipped the photo paper over and trimmed off the excess patterned paper. I then glued the whole thing onto the chipboard shape.

That's Day 11.

See other December Daily posts here.

December Daily | Day 10

2012-01-11T22:50:00.000-06:00

Today is officially December Daily recap day. And each day in the album that hasn't been posted yet gets its own blog post. It's going to be ridiculous. Ready, set, go.

*Note: some of the faces for Day 11, which you can see peaking through, were blurred in Photoshop (we try not to post photos of non-family members without permission).

The journaling for Day 10 reads:

"Today I slept in while Jonas, E, & Jake went to Spanish Class. We had the mailman pick up 15 boxes, & when I wok up Taylor, Jake, & I piacked & shipped (& made) 27 more! Jake & I went to the post office, then came back to play with the littles. I re-stocked, too, a nap, and we had the Bronx with Taylor & Matt, who came to hang out for the night. We finally put lights on the Christmas tree! I <3 Twinkles!"

Our friend Matt was awesome enough to take photos of us putting the lights on our tree (which stood bare for a week) so that all of us could be in the photos. I love that the large photo is an action shot with all four of us; we don't get many of those.

The word "bright" was carefully cut from some Target junk mail. You can find some great design in things you'd normally throw away. (I forgot to mention that I used junk mail in Day 5 too, the circle snowflakes are from the envelope our Internet service bill arrived in.)

Having a slim transparent middle page is a theme for this album - I liked that it let me get the journaling in on the spreads that had a ton of photos. The only things on this page is the journaling and the circle with a "10" in it, but I made sure that the elements lined up with the patterned paper strip showing through on the next page.

On the back of the transparent page, I lined up the journaling strips for the back with the ones from the front. I took a cue from the star under the word "bright" and added two shiny vintage snowflakes to the page. The photo collage on the right is a peek into our night hanging out with Matt and Taylor.

That's Day 10.

See other December Daily posts here.

December Daily | Day 9

2012-01-11T15:45:00.002-06:00

Today is officially December Daily recap day. And each day in the album that hasn't been posted yet gets its own blog post. It's going to be ridiculous. Ready, set, go.

The journaling for Day 9 reads:

"Today Poppy came over again. Jake solved a box crisis (our box company was out of 12x12x6, so Jake called their supplier to find another company). Poppy and I picked up 200 boxes and then I got to meet a local customer who picked up some bookends at the Filling Station. I fell & broke my favorite coffee cup (tripped, actually). Jake came home and played with the kids - he and Eliza jumped out at Jonas from behind corners & Jonas laughed so hard he literally fell down. I felt like a total zombie at work."

The first page has a photo of my reading to Jonas (I love you, camera self-timer) and "I am Loved" buttons Poppy brought Eliza. She loved that they were in her three languages (she goes to a French full immersion school and takes Spanish classes).

The other page contains photos of Jake and the kids playing. I love the action photos.

That's Day 9.

See other December Daily posts here.

December Daily | Day 8

2012-01-11T15:31:00.000-06:00

Today is officially December Daily recap day. And each day in the album that hasn't been posted yet gets its own blog post. It's going to be ridiculous. Ready, set, go.

The journaling for Day 8 reads:

"Today Eliza had her first book fair at school She bought two cool Christmas books. Jonas discovered toilet paper (I let him unroll and entire roll - we were entertained for two hours). Harvey & Lisa came over to hang out for awhile in the evening. Jones helped me by playing with toys while I worked :)

The left page is mainly a photo of Eliza with her two book fair books. She picked them out herself :)

I made a little photo collage of Jonas with his toilet paper and Harvey & Lisa's visit.

The photo collage page lifts up to reveal journaling and a little Santa's sleigh drawing by Eliza. I like the little interactive touches.

That's Day 8.

See other December Daily posts here.

December Daily | Day 7

2012-01-11T15:04:00.000-06:00

Today is officially December Daily recap day. And each day in the album that hasn't been posted yet gets its own blog post. It's going to be ridiculous. Ready, set, go.

The journaling for Day 7 reads:

"Today Poppy came over to help with Jonas. He watched J while I got coffee & re-stocked on records. He also weatherized our front door & built 55 boxes. (Thanks Pop!) He's a life saver. Jonas wasn't sleeping good, so by the end of the day I felt like a zombie. Eliza crafted and played with her stuffed dog. We made chili - the first real meal we've had in a few days. Jake and I got 30 orders packed & made cookies before I went to work. Oh, and Lindsay came over in the evening so Jake could fix her computer.

I loved the envelope that Jake's parents' Christmas card came in, so I made it the base for the right page.

That's Day 7.

See other December Daily posts here.

December Daily | Day 6

2012-01-11T14:02:00.000-06:00

Today is officially December Daily recap day. And each day in the album that hasn't been posted yet gets its own blog post. It's going to be ridiculous. Ready, set, go.

The journaling for Day 6 reads:

"Today we got our first bit of snow! It was just a smidge, but we were all excited anyway."

and

"Today I put in my two weeks at my part time night jobs. Can't take the go go go! I Etsy-ed and played with Jonas all day. He was extra snuggly and E & I watched musicals."

The left page has a photo of Eliza watching the snow outside waiting for the bus. I put "hello snow" in glittery letter stickers over a picture of the snow outside.

Glue + glitter outline. (Glitter is now everywhere.)

That's Day 6.

See other December Daily posts here.

December Daily | Day 5

2012-01-11T13:30:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I know most of you are totally over December and ready to move on with 2012. I recommend those of you ignore the blog for the next 24 hours, because today is officially December Daily recap day. And each day in the album that hasn't been posted yet gets its own blog post. It's going to be ridiculous. Ready, set, go.

Day 5 documented what was probably the most stressful day in December for me. The journaling, which I wrote each night on address labels even though I didn't scrap daily, reads:

"Today started off crazy! Jake and e slept through the alarm & E missed the bus. I had to take Jake to work os I could have the car (after going to bed at 3:00 A.M. b/c of my night job); we had to take E to school then Jake to work (he ws an hour late, so he worked an extra hour). Jonas & I came back home, took a nap, went to Jake's work to have lunch with him, and then spend 1 hour & 15 minutes in post office hell (Jonas was sleepy and I had 6 international orders). Nick, Krista, & Granny-ma came over for the last of Nick's stuff (well, almost the last). Poppy & Bev took Eliza to the plaza to see the lights and have dinner while Jonas & I went to pick up Jake. Then dinner & work. Exhausting day. "

The left page has a cute photo of Jonas in our favorite coffeeshop (that half hour got me through the rest of the day for sure). Super simple. Patterned paper + address label journaling + one photo.

The middle page is a clear acrylic scalloped page I cut in half. Each element is carfully lined up with an element on the opposite side of the page.

I used a sticker and part of a customs form from the post office on the back of the middle page.

For the right page, I printed off a photo collage including a large "5" that fit on the page I was using, rounded to corners, and jazzed it up with a few stickers.

And that's Day 5.

See other December Daily posts here.

MOC DIY Arts & Crafts Bazaar

2012-01-10T22:42:00.000-06:00

If you live in the Kansas City area and want to hang with the Nerds of the Nest in person, now's your chance. We'll be joining other talented local artisans (tattoo artist and tattooed onsies maker Amy Bug, puppeteer and puppet maker Nico, poster designer and photographer Matthew Naquin) at this month's MOC, January 20th in the River Market.

Get details and check out the facebook page here.

P.S. We're making everything for this show from scratch, as we pretty much sold out of our handmade stock over Christmas. That means there will be tons of stuff at the show that's not in our Etsy shop currently. We're also developing new products that haven't yet been seen online. We'll be sharing details as January 20th gets closer!

Let Him Eat Cake

2012-01-10T15:47:00.000-06:00

As I was editing the photos from the kids' birthday party, I made an executive decision: I will not cut any of the 41 adorable photos of Jonas's first cake experience. So I made a .gif animation:

I love the expression on Jonas's face after he realizes the ice cream is cold. I also love that he got one fist of ice cream and another of cake and alternated. We gave him a huge piece of cake because we thought he'd get most of it on himself, but he ate the whole thing.

Here's the cake my uber talented mother made. Jonas LOVES Yo Gabba Gabba, so she was kind enough to make a Brobee cake. He was so excited when he saw it. Eliza wanted Spiderman for her half of the party, so I made her cupcakes. But that will be in the overall birthday party post.

Yay cake!

December Daily Cover

2012-01-09T23:48:00.000-06:00

I put the finishing touches on the December Daily album today! It feels good to hold the completed project in my hands. I'll be photographing the pages I haven't shared yet (get ready to be slammed with a ton of posts - each day is getting its own), but for now I want to talk a bit about the cover, which I did last.

I'm glad the cover was the final bit, because there's no way I would have predicted the thickness of this album. It's three inches tall!

I made the cover from a pizza box. That's right: pizza box. I love the star pattern on the boxes from one of our favorite neighborhood pizzerias, D'Bronx, so I asked if I could buy a couple. More on how I'm using the other boxes later.

To make the cover, I cut out two 8x8 pieces and one 3x8 piece. I lined up the three pieces and connected them using clear packing tape.

I then punched holes in the covers (using the holes already punched in my DD pages as a guide. I don't have jump rings big enough to fit all of the pages, so I threaded baker's twine through the holes and pages, tying bows to secure the twine.

Problem: I had to tie the twine loose so that the album will lay flat when it is opened, but the extra give in the string allows the pages to slide out a little from behind the covers when the book is closed. I'll see how this holds up; I might try a different binding method later. And if that fails, I'll just buy an American Crafts 8-Inch by 8-Inch D-Ring Album.

Happy Birthday Eliza!

2012-01-08T22:51:00.000-06:00

Eliza turned 6 today! She's officially in big kid territory.

Above are photos of Eliza on her birthday every year up until today! I love seeing how she's grown (and I love seeing how much she and Jonas look alike - we can hardly tell the difference between their baby photos!).

We just got done with an epic weekend of birthday madness and are officially exhausted. We can't wait to share the photos with you!

We'll get those up asap as well as a possible surprise vlog post from a fancy birthday girl...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELIZA!!!!

Party On

2012-01-07T21:53:00.000-06:00

We're recouping from the kid's joint birthday party. Today was just family; we're having a kid centric one for Eliza later in the month. We'll give a full recap soon, but for now we HAD to share the photo of Jonas with cake in one fist and ice cream in the other. Cutest first cake smash session ever.

Eliza's Ornament a Day 2011

2012-01-05T12:08:00.000-06:00

We didn't quite have time to post about all of the ornaments Eliza made in December, but we wanted to photo all of them before all the Christmas stuff around here gets boxed. (Eliza's ornaments have their own boxes, by year).

This year we didn't make an ornament every day up until Christmas. Some days we made two (or three) ornaments to fill in the gaps and we made the last two after Christmas. That's totally cool; the result is the same. We have 25 awesome ornaments made by little E.B., and we got to spend awesome quality family time making them. The latter is my favorite part of this project. It makes us take time out of each day during the super hectic season and just focus on Eliza.

This year's ornaments were a combination of ideas from this Pinterest board, kits from Target (which were big in 2010 too), stuff brought home from school/Spanish class (which was cheating, a little), and ideas Jake and I came up with using stuff we had around the house.

Eliza says that you should try this project with your kids next year! She also wants you to know which ornament is her favorite: the reindeer made from her traced hand (bottom right).

Jonas @ 12 Months

2012-01-04T11:12:00.000-06:00

Jonas is one year old! Here's how Jonas has changed since the 11 month mark.

The major theme of Jonas's personality so far is that he's a mover. As soon as he figures out a new way to move, he's gone in a flash.

Last month we told you that Jonas is a runner, now (unfortunately) he's a climber. He climbs on little chairs, step stools (which have now all found new homes), toys, and (uh-oh) the drawer underneath the stove.

We'll really be in trouble when he figures out how to stack things and climb up them. Every month leads to a new level of baby proofing around here.

Needless to say, this is a pretty exhausting age (all of the Christmas parties at non-baby proofed houses were especially trying), but man is he cute.

He's getting a little better at short term snuggling, but mostly he likes to walk around and just check in for hugs and kisses (which he gives when you ask for them by name - super cute).

He's still a giant garbage disposal. He's been weird about textures and temperatures of food, but he's eating a wide variety of food groups, so no complaints.

I nursed him up until his first birthday. Weaning was super easy - we were down to one session a day for the last month. I nursed him in my bedroom and then brought him down to the kitchen to feed him a banana and cereal afterwards. After his birthday, I just brought him straight downstairs and gave him Vitamin D milk, bananas, and cereal. He didn't even complain. I think that not changing the routine much and keeping him out of the environment he usually nursed in helped.

He's babbling away a storm. He still only says "mama" and "dada", but also communicates pretty obviously with sounds. He has "mmmm"s for "hey, I'm hungry" and "mmmmm"s for hugs and kisses. He walks around saying a cross between "zuuu zuuu zuuu and juh juh juh". He also makes a sound that sort of sounds like "that!" when he points to something or wants something.

Jonas got his first pair of big boy shoes (they're Yo Gabba Gabba Brobee Vans). He loves them, but not on his feet. Mostly for the Brobee factor. The first time he tried to walk in them was really funny; he couldn't quite figure it out.

He's all about snapping. He often "snaps" both hands instead of waving, or when he wants you to look at him.

He loves music (Dead Mouse especially) and dancing. Sometimes he even hums his own "do do do"s and dances. So cute.

I am really in denial that Jonas is a year old. I feel like he was barely even a baby because he's such a mover. Babies aren't supposed to want independence (didn't you get the memo, J-bird)? I can't wait to see more of his adorable little personality emerge as he advances into toddlerhood!

See how Jonas has changed and grown here: 11 months, 10 months, 9 months, 8 months, 7 months, 6 months, 5 months, 4 months, 3 months, 2 months, Birth Story Part 1, and Birth Story Part 2.

Here's Jonas's birthday post and his birthday recap.

I'm off to try to clean the house for the kids' birthday party this weekend!

365 2011: Week 52 + 365 Reflections

2012-01-03T10:47:00.000-06:00

It is so amazing that this is the final 365 week for 2011. When we started this project, I honestly didn't think that we could do it. But after the dismal amount of photos we took in 2010 (they were almost all product shots for the shop), we knew we needed a jump start. This was it.

Did we actually do a 365? No. There are a good 10-15 days in there that are actually from another day, but that's just fine. I remember freaking out the first day I realized we hadn't taken a photo the day previously (it was in June, which I feel is impressive). But then I said to myself: "Self, stop freaking out. What are you going to do, abandon a product 6 months in the making because of one day? Take an extra picture today and move forward." (If Jake had been the one to have realized it, there would have been no freaking out. He would have moved straight from "ooops, forgot to take a photo" to "oh well, take and extra one today" without an ounce of anxiety or neurotic behavior. I should be so lucky.)

And here we are, with 365 organized, edited, wonderful, beautiful photos documenting the rhythm of our lives for a whole year. More precious than the photos are the collection of these posts, which capture both the stories behind the photos and the things left off film (Metaphorically speaking, of course. It's more like "left off SD card").

I've been struggling all year with what I want to do with these photos. When I started, I thought I'd do something with the collages I made for the blog posts. But it turns out that, because I've sized them to fit on the blog, they're to tiny and low quality to print.

Then I thought I'd put them all into seasonal minis (I even started one: see it here), but that wasn't really working for me either. I really don't like that everything before 2010 is in 12x12 layout form and I suddenly switched to mostly minis. I'd like to imagine that if someone wanted to watch our family grow from 2006 to 2012, say, it would be easy to just pull off binders and flip through chronologically without any confusion because I can't stick to a format. I know that no one will ever do this, but I'm a little crazy and I need to know that it's possible. So, I'm going back to minis just for random themed bits and vacations and I'm going back to 12 x 12 for everyday life.

My plan for doing this? Project Life. Sort of. My version of it. And I'm not only doing PL for 2012, I'm going to be doing it for 2011, backwards. Watch me go.

Here's our final 365 for 2011!!!

*We'll post links to the December Daily pages here for the December days as they are up to prevent redundancy.

Day 358. December 24.

Day 359. December 25.

Day 360. Jake was off work, so we had a fat kid lunch at Chubby's, went to pick up our camera at Aunt Rita and Uncle Bit's house (can you believe we left it behind?), stocked up for a year's worth of good smelling stuff at Bath and Body Works (we love anything Eucalyptus Spearmint), and got Eliza's hair cut at Shear Madness (she picked the cut). I read the Steve Jobs Biography aloud in the car while we did our errands (I project we'll be done with it sometime in May 2013 at this rate).

Day 361. Jonas bonus has the best smile ever, hands down. Eliza went to her grandparents and had a huge slumber party with a bunch of her cousins (how cool is that?).

Day 362. Jake had the day off, Eliza continued her slumber partying, our friend Steve came over and we got to have hours and hours of great conversation, Jonas got into everything and worked on scaling the furniture (uh-oh), and Jake and I worked on the blog re-design (coming hopefully soon).

Day 363. Jonas's first birthday! My Dad came over to spend the day with Jonas and I, Eliza finally came back home from her slumber party, and we had an epic celebration dinner.

Day 364. We played a few more hours of the Monopoly (Electronic Banking Edition) game that has been ongoing since Christmas. In this picture, I help Eliza gloat about her hotels. She slaughtered me and it looked like Jake was done for, but when my property got back into them mix the tables turned. E and Jake didn't finish the game until New Year's Eve, and that was only because we declared a stopping time. We added up their worth to determine the winner, and Jake had about double what Eliza had. Good thing he didn't call it quits early.

Day 365. New Year's Eve. Eliza chose that as her fancy thing to wear for the day. We stayed home and watched the ball drop (Eliza now has Bieber fever - uh-oh). Jonas was sick and happened to wake up in the middle of the night right before midnight, so all four of us shared kisses and toasted with sparkling apple or blueberry juice.

That's what we've been up to lately. What have you been doing?

November Reads

2012-01-02T09:00:00.000-06:00

I never got around to posting my November Reads in December (most hectic month ever), so just pretend that I posted this a few weeks ago. Great.

For those of you that haven't been following along, I'm working my way through those color stacks in the pictures behind me, trying to read every book I own that I haven't read (see other monthly reads posts here. Trouble is, I keep buying new books. Or receiving them (thanks, Bev!). So It's kind of hard to call a color stack done. Thus the mix of colors going on here.

In addition to books from my color stacks, I also usually have some additional non-fiction going on. I decided to forgo reading a book about writing/editing/language this month because they inspire me to work (on the novel that will never be finished) and I didn't have the time. It would be like reading a book about chocolate when you're on a diet. No thanks. I did start in on another textbook, though. Which I kind of think is embarrassing, but this blog is called the Nerd Nest after all. I'm embracing it.

Here's what I read this month.

How to Be Good 2001 by Nick Hornby

What you need to know: Easily on my top five book form this year. Probably on my top 20 books ever.

I love Nick Hornby. I may have gone on a Hornby buying spree at Prospero's (goodbye, store credit) because Hornby very well be my favorite living author now that Vonnegut kicked the bucket, but I'm uncomfortable saying that for sure until I've read the his oeuvre. Just like I'd never say that a band was my favorite unless I'd heard all of their albums - one of them could be god awful, and what kind of fan would I be if I didn't know? Anywho, High Fedility and About a Boy are up there on the books I love list (the movies are great too) and an Education (Horby's first screenplay) was an awesome movie. This book is right up there: it did not disappoint.

Horby is known as the contemporary master of the male confessional, but this book proves that he understands women just as well. From the cover and such, I thought that this novel would be about a woman trying to hold a disappointing marriage together. While that was partially the case, and Hornby accomplished the impossible by making this topic both realistic and hilarious, the book was so much more than that. It challenges the liberal belief system of the upper middle class. Some of the characters realize that the humanitarian values of the left don't match with the lifestyle they live and try to convince everyone to walk the talk. But it's funny, really. Brilliant. Thought provoking. Highly recommended.

And now for a quote: "The moral education of my children has always been important to me. I have talked to them about the Health Service, and about the importance of Nelson Mendela; we've discussed the homeless, of course, and racism, and sexism, and poverty, and money, and fairness... Now I see that [my daughter] is a stinking patrician Lady Bountiful who in twenty years' time will be sitting on the committee of some revolting charity ball in Warwickshire, moaning about refugees and giving her unwanted pashminas to her cleaning lady."

The Conspiracy Club (2003) by Jonathan Kellerman

What you need to know: May very well be the worst book I've read this year. I'm trading it in at the first opportunity.

This was the wrong book to read right after reading A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation in October. Kellerman's style is elementary - he uses short sentences and chapters to fool the reader into thinking the plot is fast paced when there's really nothing going on. Kellerman spends a disproportionate time on things that don't matter to the plot or characterization (the longest and most detailed scene in the book was not anything to do with the killer, but a fancy dinner with a bunch of elderly conspiracy buffs). For a murder mystery, it's pretty lame.

Also, the narrator is pretty much emotionally void.

If it didn't bother me so much to stop in the middle of the book, I wouldn't have finished it. I have no idea how this guy's novels are consistently on the best seller list. (I chose the quote below because the use of the word banal really bothered me. Not the right word there. You know what actually is banal? This guy's writing, that's what.)

And now for a quote: "Dergraav's second reign of murder lasted another decade. In the end, he was snared by the most banal of circumstances. The screams of a prostitute he was attempting to asphyxiate attracted a gang of hoodlums from the neighboring slum, and Dergraav fled into the night... she reported the doctor to the police."

The Nine Tailors (1934) by Dorothy L. Sayers

What you need to know: Interesting setting and characters at times, but undeniably over-detailed and dull.

This one of last of the 10 mystery classics I thrifted last April. I love that I found these, even though some of them seem really predictable because they set industry standards and have been copied so much. The authors and characters have popped up as allusions in other books I've read this year.

The Nine Tailors (which refers to church bells, not a bunch of sewing guys) drags in places and seems to spend a disproportionate amount of time on weird things (it's sort of interesting, but do I really need to know a history of change-ringing?). At least everything ends up being important, even if it doesn't seem so at the time (which is more than I can say for some contemporary murder mysteries *cough* The Conspiracy Club *cough*).

Lord Peter Wimsey, the hobbyist sleuth in the book and the central character in Sayer's mystery series (of which this book is a part), was dull in comparison to the protagonists in the other mystery classics. The ending is surprising, which was nice, but unbelievable at parts (as in not realistic; not as in "unbelievably awesome"). It's kind of cool that there are two intersecting mysteries going on at once (an emerald necklace theft and a murder), but it almost seems as if the mysteries aren't the main focus of the plot. I didn't hate every second of reading this, but the likelyhood that I'll re-read it in the future is low (i.e. don't rush out to the stores to buy it).

And now for a quote: "By contrast with the brilliance below, the bell-chamber was sombre and almost menacing. The main lights of its eight great windows were darkened throughout their height only through the slender paneled tracery about the slanting louvres the sunlight dripped rare and chill, striping the heavy beams of the bellcage with bars and splashes of pallid gold, and making a curious fantastic patterning on the spokes and rims of the wheels. The bells, with mute black mouths gaping downwards, brooded in their ancient places."

Half Broke Horses (2009) by Jeannette Walls

What you need to know: Best sort of biography ever.

I loved this book so much! Wells calls it a "true-life novel" because it is both a novel and a biography on her no-nonsense, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do what needs to be done grandmother. Wells wanted to write the novel in the first person in order to capture her grandmother's distinct voice, which made the work so much more captivating. And don't let the biography part fool you- this thing is action packed from the very first page during which a flash flood almost kills Lily and her siblings.

I also loved the honesty about the time period: the book shows what it's really like to live in a dug out (way harder than Little House on the Prairie lets on), how life in the big city for a single gal all alone sucks and is demeaning, how hard it is to keep one's own values as a teacher, what cowboys were really like, what living on a ranch was like, how to keep up with changing times and technologies, and the difficulties of raising children. And boy, does she do all that with spunk.

And now for a quote: "A distinctly malodorous aroma arose from the hole, and for a moment I missed my snazzy mail order toilet with the shiny white porcelain bowl, the mahogany lid, and the nifty pull-chian flush. As I sat down, though, I realized that you can get so used to certain luxuries that you start to think they're necessities, but when you have to forgo them, you come to see that you don't need them after all. There was a big difference between needing things and wanting things- - though a lot of people had trouble telling the two apart -- and at the ranch, I could see, we'd have pretty much everything we'd need but precious little else.

Next to the seat was a stack of Sears, Roebuck catalogs, and I picked one up and leafed through it. I came to a page advertising silk bodices and lacy chemises. I won't be ordering from this page, I thought, and when I was done with my business, that was the one I tore out and used."

Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory (2007) Scott Applerouth and Laura Desfor Edles

What you need to know: One of my favorite textbooks from college. Don't judge.

Reading two chapters out of a textbook might not sound all that impressive, but those two chapters were 84 pages. Teeny tiny font, multiple column textbook pages. I was really busy during the semester I took Sociological Theory in college, so I got to read the assigned pages in this book but precious little else. Most people forget or sell back their textbooks as soon as a class is over, but I'm going to get my several hundred dollars worth, thank you very much.

I started again on this one because

a) Sociological Theory takes up about 1/4 of the Masters program I'm considering and I feel that reading this will help me reach a decision.

b) This textbook has tons of awesome primary sources at the end of each chapter. Essays that I would buy and read anyway.

c) I miss school and reading is my favorite part of school anyway. Unless I decide I'm going to use said Master's degree, I can learn everything on my own for free.

Chapter 1 was the introduction chapter, which made me feel as if I'd learned almost nothing in school, and Chapter 2 focused on Karl Marx, one of the two most important figures in Classic Sociology. Reading about Marx was a breeze, but reading original Marx (10 essays and excerpts) when your brain is mostly taken up with keeping Etsy orders straight and talking to children all day is a giant feat. I read those in the few solitary moments this month when my brain was fully functioning. Yay for brain push ups.

And now for a quote: "Though Marx's prediction that capitalism would be replaced by communism has not come true (some would say, "not yet"), his critique of capitalism continues to resonate with contemporary society. His discussions regarding the concentration of wealth, the growth of monopoly capitalism, business's greedy pursuit of profit (demonstrated, for instance, by the recent scandals surrounding corporate accounting practices and the manipulation of energy markets by Enron), the relationship between government economic policy and the interests of the capitalist class, and the alienation experienced in the workplace all speak to concerns that affect most everyone even today."

Have you read any of these? What did you think of them? What have you read lately?

P.S. Jake took these pictures while also talking with one of the puppets we got for Jonas for his birthday, so most of the pictures looked a lot more like the one above. What a goof.

2012 Calendar Tutorial

2012-01-01T17:30:00.000-06:00

This handmade 2012 calendar was supposed to be part of our 12 Days series, but obviously we only got halfway there before Christmas. We're cool with it. 12 was a goal. Better luck this year.

Anywho, we're still going to post all of the tutorials over the next few weeks. This one is one of our favorites; we made family photo calendars for some of our parents and grandparents for Christmas. These ended up being post-Chirstmas presents because our printer (a central element to most of our 12 Days projects) broke just before Christmas. We've got a new printer now, so we're moving onward! Here's the calendar we're showing you how to make:

(Click on the photo to see a larger version)

You'll need:

-12 8.5 x 11 photo collages

-12 pieces of 8.5 x 11 white cardstock

-downloadable calendar pdf pages (Jake designed them)

-13 12 x 12 white cardstock pages

-2 12 x 12 chipboard sheets (we used Grafix Medium Weight Chipboard Sheets)

-24 2.5 x 11 strips decorative scrapbooking paper (optional)

-wet adhesive

-corner rounder

-hole punch (the Crop-A-Dile II Big Bite Punch speeds things up considerably)

-binding system (we used the Zutter Bind-It-All
with Zutter Space Bar UPGRADE for Version 2.0 BIA)

-wire (we used Zutter Silver Owire 1/2-Inch )

-Sticker for the front decoration (We made our own with our Silhouette , teal adhesive vinyl, and transfer paper . Download the .studio file for the Silhouette here. Don't worry, it's supposed to look like gibberish. Just make sure to save the file as a .studio)

Start by downloading the calendar pages here and print them on white cardstock.

Begin adhering the photo collages and the calendar pages to the 12 x 12 white cardstock. Adhere photos about a half and inch from the top and one half inch from each side. Adhere the calendar pages a half an inch from the bottom and a half an inch from each side. Make sure to do this in order from January to December to insure that the right photos are facing the right calendar pages.

Round the corners of two sides of each of the scrapbooking paper strips as shown.

Adhere the scrapbooking paper strips on each page, adhering the strips a half an inch from each side and making sure that the the non-rounded sides are aligned with the edge of the 12 x 12 cardstock.

Punch your holes in the paper and covers, making sure to do a test page first to ensure that the holes are aligned correctly. If you are using a Zutter, like we did, make sure to read the manual first.

Thread the wire through and squeeze it closed.

Decorate the cover. If you would like a cover to match ours, ownload the .studio file for the Silhouette here. Cut out the image on vinyl and adhere to the cover using transfer paper.

Punch a hole through the entire calendar so it can be hung.

We love this calendar! We're off to make two more of these for the remainder of our late Christmas gifts. Then we might make one for ourselves too!

Let us know if you have any questions in the comments section.

Hello 2012!

2012-01-01T00:00:00.000-06:00

Jonas's Birthday Recap

2011-12-31T22:34:00.000-06:00

Jonas's first birthday was on the 29th (the post is here) and the photos were too cute not to share.

We're having a combined birthday party for both Eliza and Jonas next weekend, but we made sure Jonas's actual birthday was special. Our favorite part was the birthday dinner.

Course 1? Star Wars sugar cookie. (That's the Millenium Falcon, of course.)

Course 2 was mac & cheese.

Then blueberry pancakes.

And brownies.

Let us tell you, he was super happy with the weird meal. He was shoveling in yummy goodness for forty five minutes straight.

Next there were presents.

His big presents were puppets. We bought them because he thought they were ridiculously funny while we were Christmas shopping at a local toy store. He laughs so hard he falls over, especially when Jake is behind the puppet wheel.

We got him a chef and a mouse because we thought that the combination would lend to the funniest situations.

Mr. Jonas had a great birthday! We can't believe he's one. We'll be posting his "Jonas @ 1 Year" post next week so you can see what he's been up to :)

Chicken and Noodles Recipe

2011-12-30T17:17:00.000-06:00

Flu season is here, and there's nothing better to stop a runny nose and a sore throat than a soothing bowl of chicken noodle soup. I love my grandma's recipe, complete with homemade noodles. If you try this creamy version with thick, bouncy noodles and tender chicken breast, you'll never go back to the slimy mushy canned stuff. The bonus? It freezes well. Make a double batch so you won't have to actually cook it when you're sick!

Noodles

Ingredients:

1 cup flour (I use half wheat and half white)
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp milk

Directions:

Add all ingredients to an electronic stand mixer (this dough is too thick to mix with a hand mixer).

Using the dough hook, mix the ingredients, starting on a slow speed and then advancing to a medium speed after the ingredients are combined.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4 thick.

Cut with a pizza cutter.

Soup

Ingredients:

3-4 chicken breasts
4 cups water
2 cups chicken broth
2 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour
1 cup milk
a few pinches of dried parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Put 3-4 chicken breasts in a pan with the water and broth. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer from about 30 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.

Remove the chicken to a cutting board and let it rest until it is cool enough to handle.

In a separate pan, melt butter over low heat. Add flour and stir constantly for 1 minute. Slowly add milk, mixing until smooth.

Slowly add the mix to the simmering chicken broth, mixing constantly.

Add the parsley, salt, and pepper.

Dice the chicken and add it to the pot.

Add the noodles, cover, and cook for about 15 minutes, or until cooked through.

Serve and enjoy!

What's your favorite winter recipe?

Happy Birthday Jonas!

2011-12-29T17:21:00.001-06:00

Jonas turned one today! Can you believe it? We can't.

We're having both of the kid's birthday parties for family and friends together on the 7th (Eliza's birthday is the 8th), so today is laid back and just about Jonas. We're having his two favorite foods (mac and cheese and blueberry pancakes) for dinner -together! Hah! He also got to eat two bananas this morning. He'd eat nothing but bananas if we'd let him.

We'll post about how he's changed since the 11 month mark later, but for now a look at how he's grown over the whole year.

See how Jonas has changed and grown here: 11 months, 10 months, 9 months, 8 months, 7 months, 6 months, 5 months, 4 months, 3 months, 2 months, Birth Story Part 1, and Birth Story Part 2.

And the winner is...

2011-12-28T23:05:00.000-06:00

The winner of the 800 Sales Giveaway is...

Karissa!

Congratulations! Send us your contact information through the "contact us" button above and we'll get your vintage encyclopedia journal right to you!

365 2011: Weeks 47-51

2011-12-28T13:20:00.000-06:00

The holiday madness made it a little difficult to get all of our regular posts made, but we still have been working diligently behind the scenes. I can't believe that we're all the way through Week 51 of the 365! We've been taking a photo a day (ish) for a whole year. That's epic. We're working on a reflection post about our 365 experience that we'll post after the new year, but for now here's our big, fat catch-up:

Day 323. My name is Jonas and I love typewriters.

Today we went to go see Jake's grandma, who was on hospice, at her home. The entire family was there supporting her, which was so amazing. She passed away during the night.

Day 324. Eliza got her very own personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut for meeting her book goal! We log the books she/we read each night and send the log to school as part of Pizza Hut's Book It program. E was so proud!

Today Nick also started moving out. He left the nest to move into an awesome downtown loft a few minutes away with his girlfriend, Krista.

Day 325. Eliza watching Finding Nemo in French. We have a new rule that if she watches TV during the week (which is rare), it has to be in French. Her teacher recommended watching more French movies: it will help E with vocabulary and pronunciation at school. (Eliza goes to a full French immersion school.)

This was E's last day of school before the Thanksgiving holiday. We went to the wake for Jake's grandma.

Day 326. Today we went to the funeral for Jake's grandma. It was a beautiful service. She was an amazing woman and we will miss her so very much. Eliza stayed the night with Jake's parents to help make them feel better.

The photo is of Jonas after a nice walk around the corner to buy more records, grab a latte, and get some things at the hardware store. He hates hats. I have to put that one on him so he can't pull it off (it ties under his chin).

Day 327. Target! Jonas helps. Eliza stays the night at Jake's parent's again.

Day 328. Thanksgiving. We were going to have breakfast with my dad, but Jake and I were both sick. I powered through and made from scratch cranberry sauce (I used this recipe), we stopped by my dad's for a bit (Jake's parents dropped Eliza off there), we went to a big party for my side of the family and then headed over to Jake's parent's. We didn't get to see Jake's Mom, which was super disappointing. We'll have to make sure she gets the lion's share of the Thanksgiving time next year.

Day 329. I usually read to the kids in Jonas's room after school or before bed. They both sit in my lap in the big rocking chair at first, but then Jonas gets up and walks around after a few pages. He has sleepy sleepy eyes in this photo.

Day 330. Taylor and I go buy almost 200 records. (See the post here. We thought that was a lot, until this.)

Day 331. Jonas always sticks his tongue out when he walks now. Weirdo.

Day 332. Again with the tongue.

Day 333. Chicken carbonara = a very messy baby.

Day 334. Reading to Eliza in Jonas's room. I love you, self-timer.

Day 335. December 1.

*For all of the December 364 days, we're going to link to the corresponding December Daily page to prevent redundancy. For the pages not done yet, we'll post links as Megan makes the pages.

Day 336. December 2.

Day 337. December 3.

Day 338. December 4.

Day 339. December 5.

Day 340. December 6.

Day 341. December 7.

Day 342. December 8.

Day 343. December 9.

Day 344. December 10.

Day 345. December 11.

Day 346. December 12.

Day 347. December 13.

Day 348. December 14.

Day 349. December 15.

Day 350. December 16.

Day 351. December 17.

Day 352. December 18.

Day 353. December 19.

Day 354. December 20.

Day 355. December 21.

Day 356. December 22.

Day 357. December 23.

This post is inspiring me to get crackin' on the December Daily album ! Our printer broke last week and the new one promptly ran out of ink. We're printing capable again, so a scrapbooking I will go!

That's what we have been up to. What have you been doing?