An Oldie But Goodie

This seems to be a standby in our house. I part her hair on a slant and then pull up two half ponytails. Add some delicious ribbons and curl the ends and VOILA'! Easy Peasy.

Excuse the pictures. That is what happens when she is trying to decide what would look cute for the pictures.

We are starting a revolution!!!!

This is eryn....


She is star wars fan from Anderson, IN who apparently LOVES broadway musicals. But that's not why her picture is posted on "the blog." Eryn, by way of random events, stumbled upon the 30 Things Thursday idea and is now embarking on a Fifteen Things Friday. Check out her blog in the inspiration section of the link to the left and hold her accountable.

I'm going to give Eryn one of the "coveted" upcycled t-shirt shopping bags as a "thank you card" for the compliment of immitation.

Don't worry!!! I will still be drawing TWO names for shoppers TOMMORROW!!! So check back to see if you've won. (Or enter by clicking
HERE!!!!!

gig harbor & caucusing

Eric and I took a drive out to Gig Harbor today (just west of Tacoma) to pick up a serger sewing machine I had found on craigslist. We made a morning of it, taking a walk along the waterfront and having lunch (possibly the best clam chowder I've ever had) at what was obviously a local favorite, Tides Tavern.

The Gig Harbor waterfront -- old boat dock

The water in Gig Harbor was so clean and clear, we got to see lots of thriving harbor wildlife.

We drove back to Seattle just in time to get to our caucasing site. We were a little hesitant about the time commitment (I think I thought it was going to be more like jury deliberation, with everyone in the precinct having to be in agreement on a single candidate), but felt that we ought to see what it was all about. Our caucasing site was at a local middle school, and was actually the site for several different precinct, and as we approached and saw the parked cars all down the street and the sharp increase of pedestrians hoofing it towards the school, we pulled over and joined them. The line of voters snaked out the front door of the school and around the corner, so we stood in it. Inside was a bit chaotic for people like us who arrived without our presinct number, but when we all got to the right place and our precinct leader showed up and got us all signed in and recorded our initial candidate preferences, it went pretty smoothly. We sat and stood in roughly a circle, sharing the school library with another precinct. Our leaders tallied up the initial preferences: the Obamas and the Clintons and the "others": two for Kusinich and three undecideds. Two of those three undecideds were Eric and myself. Then about eight folks volunteered their opinions -- who they were voting for and why -- then the leaders asked if anyone wanted to change their preferences. Still not totally convinced, but swaying enough to write down a name, Eric and I went and changed our paperwork, the leaders retallied and based upon the nearly three-to-one Obama to Clinton ratio, we broke into two groups and elected a total of seven delegates (and a few alternates) to represent our precinct at the County caucus in April. That done, we headed home.

The line to get into our caucus site, when we got there...

I'm glad we went. It was good to get out and feel like we were participating, especially in such a different sort of atmosphere than your basic rickity voting booth.

san diego

Papa's memorial service and funeral were pleasant… the hardest part was seeing Eric's grandmother, Nana in mourning. They'd been married for over 70 years—an amazing achievement by anyone's measure.

On Friday, we went to Balboa Park and I did a little research for my upcoming term paper (on climatically appropriate landscape designs in Southern California between 1900 and 1950, thanks for asking!). Working off a tip from Eric's cousin, we went to the Balboa Park Floral Association's office to check out their library. We happened to wander in during their monthly board meeting, but several of the silver-haired women tottered over fawned over Eric and I, graciously offering their help, from library help to anecdotal stories about not really related to my project.

30 Things Thursday x 2 +12

Okay- so I have accomplished three more "Th/Th/Th"'s these past three weeks the goal has been to go through EVERY item of clothing I own and separate them into three piles- keep, sell, give. JT (my AWESOME boyfriend-best ever) sat on my bed as I held up item after item and he served as the studio audience yelling "KEEP IT!" "SELL IT!" and "TOSS IT!" This an an experience that we affectionately refer to as "the game." We hardly disagreed on what to toss, except on occassion- which only hurt me a little bit. :)


So here are the goals & results of three weeks of Thirty things Thursday:
Goal 1: Go through all my clothes
*I got rid of 95 items of clothing in the giveaway pile
*Clothing in this pile range from jeans to flip flops tp sweaters to clothes I've had since sixth grade
*I have a laundry basket of t-shirts (not counted in the above count) that I will be crating into shopping bags You can enter in my drawing to win one here-winners to be announced on Monday.)
*I have a box of about twenty things to take to the consignment shop (not counted until actually sold)

NOTE: All the clothes I kept are in a pile, so as I hang them up, I hope to edit out more articles of clothing.

Goal 2: Go through the boxes that are still in my bathroom floor from the flood last summer
*I came up with an entire laundry basket of ridiculous things and threw a lot of medicine away
*I can't even remember what was in this basket, but it was fairly full- I hope you won't like me less after seeing the pictures below.

Goal 3: Have KB (my AWESOME friend) come over and talk me out of keeping EVERY SINGLE BOOK I OWN
*This actually worked- we went through one of my book shelves (the small one) and I got rid of almost 10 books.
*I also identified 5 books to giveaway to some of my friends (watch out, it may be you)
*K handed me a trash bag (which I later realized was scented [Kristen, that's what we were smeeling]) and made me spend 2 minutes throwing trash away. You would be utterly surprised to see old bills, church bullitins, receipts, excess crafts scraps, etc. that just float around my room.

PLUS- I created a new rule:
NEW Rule: If I purchase items and bring them INTO my life, I must take that same number of items OUT of my life (on top of the usual 30)

So, I bought 12 exciting things for crafting at the antique store, so I dismissed 12 things out of my room. Included in these picture frames, old patterns (unopened), scarves, etc.

Heres the documentation to prove it:

KB with my stuff (I could BURY her under all this crap!)


More pictures of the "things:"





COMING SOON: Pictures of me ACTUALLY dumping this stuff at the goodwill & guest blogger KB writes about how hard it realy is to convince me to get rid of my crap.

Ladies & Gentlemen, Let's Give it up for... LENT!

After reading my most recent post, you may be asking yourself, "Self, why hasn't Mel disclosed her own decision to give something up for lent."

And then you may have told yourself, "Self, you know how Mel is. She is so last minute- she probably hasn't even picked something."

And you know what- Yourself was right! HOWEVER- I just decided what I will be giving up for Lent: disposable coffee cups.

Now, the way I view Lent usually is I give up something that I want and then I set of some sort of spirtual response system that I experience when the desire for that "thing" hits. For example: If (I was crazy and) I gave up coffee, everytime the desire hit, I would meditate on scripture or prayer instead. Then, on Sunday's I would partake in the coffee as a reminder of God's glory and freedom.

However, disposable coffee cups are not something that I want to go out of my way to partake in, so I shall avoid them entirely over the Lenten season.

Here's what I will probably do: I will bring my own mug or ask for a "for here" mug (if available). If neither of these things are available, I will abstain from the coffee and reflect on our disposable society and thank God that she shows US more mercy than we show the rest of the world. (Hopefully the reuseable mugs will remind me to reflect on the above things OVER coffee as well.)

This is me RIGHT now at Common Grounds, a coffee spot right off campus:


Feel free to use the feedback link to post what you are planning to do during the Lenten season to become more disciplined and like Christ.

Ballet Buns

I love the shape of the princesses head. It is so perfect for buns. She has the head of a ballerina.

Pull this hair into a tight high ponytail. Soak the ponytail with water and separate it into three segments. Braid each segment as far down as you can and secure it with a clear elastic. Then take the braid on the right...or left...I just did the right one first. Wrap it around the main ponytail and secure it with a bobby pin, do the same with the left braid. Then take the middle braid and wrap it around the side you started with. The ends aren't so pretty because her hair isn't long enough to tuck it under and have it look pretty, so I wrapped the ribbon around the base. I love the upside down ribbon in this hairstyle.