lately...

lately things have been busy.  i've not given the time to my blog i should, and although part of me wants to because i do enjoy it, the other part of me knows that there are more pressing issues - like getting caught up on orders as well as making triple the amount of items i usually do in preparation for a new store i'll be selling at, and a holiday pop up shop.  when i haven't been working on making more pyrite heart bracelets or pulling more prints, i've been getting used to this new lens and taking pictures of other things i've been doing...

sometimes just taking pictures of simple things around the house can be fun... or maybe i think it's fun because it's my way of putting off work, who knows!  i've re-potted a few succulents, i've cleaned off my dining room table of thrifting finds (the owl lamp and the bride and groom cake topper) so that i have more room to make block prints and paint portraits, and i'd like to say i didn't stop one or ten too many times to eat the pretzels i baked, but i'd be lying.

also, completely random, but do you ever talk to friends, significant others, etc. while they're falling asleep in an effort to get them to talk in their sleep?  i love doing it to chris, because it's usually successful.  the last time he did it i actually wrote down what he said because it was too funny to forget.  here it is:

chris: "WHAT THE F*CK WAS THAT?!"
me: "what?"
chris: "a mouse spider ran from under the sofa and went across the den.  it was like a mouse, and a spider, too."
me: "where were you sitting when you saw it?"
chris: "they're like school chairs with desks."
me: "what?  where are you?"
chris: "at the drugstore.  i bought a cup and saucer for beca and doug."
me: "oh.  what does it look like?"
chris: "it was an eighth.  they measured it before they built it."

friday morning love note

i hope this friday finds you well!  it finds me sleepy, but looking forward to the day because i'll be playing with my little nephew later.  i have to tell you something - i hate romance.  i'd much rather chris and i play fight and chase one another around the house to scare each other than candlelight and lovey talk.  so this morning when i signed into facebook i saw that chris left me the best wall post ever while he was up at 3am with low blood sugar...

"It's 3am, you're sawing logs, and I just wanted to say that we are out of milk...and you're cute when you sleep, even though you make strange noises and your breath may be offensive.  I love you lots."

so there you have - my kind of romance!  what's the best love note you've ever been written?

i hope you laugh as much as i did.

first i wanted to thank you guys for your sweet comments and words of encouragement on my last whining post. sometimes life just gets so crazy that it's hard to even know what to do, and i'm glad to have great friends like you to help put things in perspective :) i'm still in the process of cropping and uploading a lot of pictures for posts, so for now i want to share this little gem with you, and i hope you're as entertained as i was when i first saw it...


so how was your weekend? did y ou do anything special or get to enjoy the sunshine? i was able to make 14 pairs of earrings which gets me closer to being caught up on orders, i did a little running, and chris and i went to our new favorite place for breakfast. see you tomorrow!

sometimes you must admit defeat: an outfit mistake

i pick my clothes out at night so that it's one less thing to worry about in the morning, but come a new day, my taste may have changed completely. i'm not above laughing at myself, and i've learned that if your outfit...

-makes your legs look jaundiced
-makes you look like you're concealing a secret pregnancy
-makes people think you're elton john
-makes you look like you're wearing a tent fit for a southwest circus

..it's a good time to admit defeat.

i like each part of this outfit individually, but together? it looks like colors and patterns threw up on me. next time i wear this dress i'll be sure to do it without tights and with a simple pair of tan leather wedge sandals (which means i won't wear it again until april). also, i don't actually wear those glasses in public! they were a funny gift from auntie amy brought back from her recent trip to hong kong.

do you ever wear an outfit that you think looks okay, only to look back at it later and realize it wasn't so okay?

addiction is no joke.

consider this a public service announcement if you will, but i feel it's my responsibility as an adult to alert you to the addict living in my house. i've noticed the addict consuming more and more of his drug of choice, i've picked up on the warning signs, but out of fear for our friendship, i didn't confront him. today i realized that he had just about hit rock bottom when he asked me to help him get his drug. this is what i witnessed...

laugh if you will, but please remember that addiction isn't a joke. a nutella addiction, just like my need for the crack pipe chick-fil-a french fries is serious and should be handled delicately. it started with mr. stink bugg sneaking a little nutella that was left on my napkin after i finished my bagel. i turned a blind eye, but his addiction only got worse. when i noticed he'd made his way to my knife with leftover nutella smears after i'd finished preparing my bagel, i decided he needed help, but it wasn't until today when he asked for help removing the lid that i realized his addiction has affected my life negatively in the following ways:

1. i'm forced to share my nutella, and it's something i don't like to do.
2. i live in constant fear of mr. bugg slipping inside the jar - smooth like a panther - when i have the lid off.
3. what if he gets so desperate he clings to the bottom and i accidentally smush him?

so now you understand the trouble at home. i don't know how he'll react to the intervention, but i know it needs to happen. in other news, i hope you don't actually think i use or have a crack pipe.

and one last thing - the winner of the bracelet giveaway is angie from lariats & lavender! thank you to everyone for entering!

hey kona, what are you doing today?

i took these pictures of kona over the course of a few hours one day, and to be honest, i could have taken them over the course of 72 hours and they wouldn't look any different! my poor boy, he must get so worn out from all that dreaming, sleeping, and yawning...

snore. snooooore. snore. dream whimper. snore. snore.

"what are you doing? i'm too tired to open both eyes and figure it out for myself. i was in the middle of a really good dream, too."

hey, are you awake? kona? hey, did you fall asleep again already? hey. alright fine, i guess you're sleeping again.

kona, wake up! i just want to play with you. who wants a goodie?! "a goodie?! i'm awake! both my eyes are open now!" yeah, i thought that might get your attention.

"okay, i'm getting kind of tired. would you mind going and doing something quietly so i can relax for a little while? i'm drained"

the trouble with watering plants.

i've always liked to think of myself as having a green thumb, and that may have come from my parents' love of landscaping and manicuring their lawns, or maybe it started a little later when i worked part time at a greenhouse during high school. either way, i love plants, and i love the added color they can bring to a room. i have plants in most every room of my house, and one day each week they can expect a good, healthy drink of water... unless flojo helps. the trouble with watering plants is that, to a parrot, all time is play time.

when she first sees that i have the pitcher of water she'll squeak and talk and walk down my arm to check it out. then she'll stand on the rim of the pitcher, stick her head inside, and squeak and talk some more, looking out occasionally at me (whether it's to tell me about the water, or to see if it's okay to go in, i don't know). after she's thoroughly discussed the water and pitcher with me, she'll go ahead and start flapping her wings in the water, fanning her tail feathers, and making a wet mess. once she's played in the water that i've been trying to pour on the plants and the pitcher is empty, she'll hang down in the pitcher and talk a little to be sure there isn't any water left. and then instead of watering plants, i start working on cleaning up her bath puddle.

watering plants probably isn't quite as much work to someone who doesn't live with a bird, but to a curious parrot, everything is an adventure!

behind that pretty face is a serious attitude...

i've been sort of lacking in the blog post ideas area lately, but last night when flojo was crazy and showing me just how tough she can be, i knew i wanted to pass on the humor! unfortunately she wasn't as dangerous and crazy today, but it's still pretty cute. apparently she decided that she doesn't like newspapers anymore, so when i picked up a page from the newspaper (and dared to let it touch her blanket and bluejeans, both of which she likes to have all to herself) she struck like a cobra and ripped it to shreds. like i said, this is the toned down version, but man if you could have seen her last night!


how has your thursday been? mine has been pretty nice, but here's my only question: where in the world has it gone so quickly? i had so many things i wanted to do once i got home, but now it's almost time for me to start cooking dinner and i've only crossed one of those things off my list. i blame my friend cal, she always forces me to talk about yo mama jokes, falling in toilets, and all those really important things in the afternoon.

the card and the leprechauns.

i wanted to get this post done before i left to go to the soul food restaurant with pop and tricia because it's about two things that didn't just make me giggle, they made me laugh my butt off. several times. first, the card. one of my besties, maria, sent me the funniest card for my birthday, but the best part was inside. she's black from laying in the death tanning bed, cal (our other bestie) is surfing with her nose ring, and i'm jumping on my trampoline with flojo! i laughed and laughed and laughed about this, because it's us. SO very us!

the next funny thing is the leprechaun story. i know i've told you before, but my pop is seriously the funniest person i know. we'd been planning since last week to go to the soul food restaurant, but last night he called and said he had to tell me something. i immediately jumped to the conclusion that we couldn't go eat and i was devastated. he said, "i hate to be the barer of bad news, buuuuut, we're still going!" trickster. so then this morning he called me, and this is a piece of our conversation:

pop: "danielle, i've got some bad news."
me: "what? we can't go tonight?"
pop: "no, something came up at work and i can't leave in time."
me: "WHAT?!? are you serious? what in the world is going on?"
pop: (still very serious) "well, there's a leprechaun uprising at our company in ireland, and i have to fly out this afternoon to go get them under control."
me: "POP, YOU MORON! i thought you were serious! EEEEEEE, i can't believe you got me again!"
pop: "no, i don't have to go to ireland this time, we're still going to eat. yeah, those little lephrechauns, they get really out of hand sometimes, so we have to step in and take care of 'em."

my pop is insane. and the funniest part is, you never can tell he's joking. like, when i was a kid, we'd be watching a tv show, and he'd say about one of the stars, "i went to school with him back when i was young." the sad part is, i almost always believed him! so the lesson here is this: if you ever meet my pop, don't trust what he tells you because he's probably joking!

"i don't know how to walk in heels."

after our giant baked potato lunch, chris was asked to take part in a womanless beauty pageant with our friend josh and stuart. josh's wife, cossandra, told me about josh's goodwill hunt for the perfect dress, the anatomical problems of men wearing dresses, and the difficulty of shopping for a man in women's sizes. i couldn't wait. when chris was given his royal blue dress and lime green heels, he looked at me with nothing but fear on his face and said, panicked, "i don't know how to walk in heels." of course i replied with, "it would surprise me if you did."

stuart (in the yellow and pink) won the contest, but if i'm being honest, i was hoping josh won. he's mexican, so he really played up the accent and even did the finger snap in the air. it was perfect! also, sarah, i know we just finished talking about cell phone pictures, but don't be mad. i had to, otherwise i couldn't document this beauty!

the jewel thief.

i had originally planned to scan in pictures from the first roll of film i used in my olympus pen ee half frame camera, but i ended up not really thinking about it until just a little while ago, and if i'm being honest, i didn't feel like it! i had a long ichat today with my good friend brittan, i jumped on the trampoline, and much to the surprise of my floors, i vacuumed them. i like a clean house as much as any marine (no, i am not a marine, but my dad was, so i think i get my cleaning tendencies from him), but sometimes life happens and it's just more important and enjoyable than cleaning! anyway, flojo is crazy and things with her are black and white; either she loves something or she hates it. we didn't realize until the other night that she got so crazy over watches and wanted to kill them! if i were you, i wouldn't trust her with my jewels - you may not get them back...

i love the way she pushes it around and tries to pick it up and throw it even though it weighs as much as she does! also, you'll notice a pair of mangled blue jeans. those are flojo's. she knows that she dominates blue jeans, and if i even say blue jeans to her, the reaction ranges from an afro and wide eyes to an afro, squawking and maybe even a warning bite! i told you flojo is crazy!

hey, hey mama said the way you move, gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove

good day. in case you've noticed it too, i feel like i need to admit that i've gotten kind of boring lately. i want to blog, i really do, but sometimes i feel like it sort of takes a back seat to other things. there's been a lot going on lately, some good things, some bad things, and i really have come back to my computer with the intention of sitting down and posting something awesome, but my brain just doesn't work so i end up posting nothing. i promise i do have a few fun things lined up for you, but i just have to get around to actually posting them! in the meantime, i hope you find this as hilarious as i do.

last week during one of our weekly conversations, carla and i started talking about our shared love of leslie hall and her creative genius. i'd seen her videos craft talk and blame it on the booty, but somehow i'd completely missed this video! being the good friend carla is, she sent me the link and i've been watching it ever since. even flojo dances to it! don't those dance moves make you want to have a dance off? i know i do!

i hope you're having a good week! keep those legs moving and hips thrusting, my friends, and i hope you look better when dancing than i do.

the kind of dream that makes you wake up laughing.

do you have dreams that make feel so strongly that you wake yourself up laughing, crying or screaming? i often have dreams about snakes that wake chris and i both up because of my screaming. but early friday morning i had a dream that made me laugh all day long. i woke myself up giggling, and i still laugh when i think about it.

in my dream, i lived in san francisco, and my dad and step sister lauren came out to visit me. while we were walking down the sidewalk toward the bay i noticed an incredibly ugly dog and a mexican couple holding a sign that read something, "take your picture with the dog $3." i stopped lauren and said that we had to, it was too funny not to do it. so lauren, the mexican lady, the crazy dog and i all walked in a tent with an olan mills style backdrop and lighting. lauren sat on the stool, i stood behind her and made the classic arm shelf on her shoulders, and a golden colored dog thing that looked like this sat beside lauren...

i whispered to lauren to make a funny, but still somewhat serious face for the picture, so she gave her best smile and crossed both eyes, while i gave an awkward, crooked, glamour shots like smile and just crossed one eye. the flash went off and we died laughing. the mexican lady joined in the laughter and told us to do another, so we did, then we did one more, and after that one, i woke myself up laughing. i don't how to interpret that dream or what it could possibly mean, but it entertained me, and that's enough.

it's kind of weird that i had a dream about a dog on friday morning because...

my girl

I have to tell you about the highlight of my weekend. On Saturday, we went to Charles & Amanda's wedding, but the fun really started at the reception. After some beer, Smirnoff, Malibu, and whatever else they could find, the groom and groomsmen loosened up and decided they wanted to do a special performance.

That beautiful, monotone voice of an albatross singing the chorus is Charles, the groom. Good times. There was some debate over whether to call the quartet, "Charles and the Sunshine Kids" or "The Minix Four," but but either way they crack me up! They also tried "Stand by Me," but I'll spare you; it's even worse than this!

Coming later today... a GIVEAWAY!

going old school

I've seen a lot of pictures on Facebook that friends have uploaded after they'd been "yearbooked" and I finally figured out what/where it was! I went a little crazy with pictures of Chris and I, but they are too funny, so I just had to share!

I suggest trying it out, but it's sort of addictive! The next time I don't have anything to do with my spare time, I'm moving on to pictures of my family! yearbookyourself.com

the psycho-neurotic institute for the very, very nervous

I just love this movie! The first time I started watching High Anxiety, I was at someone else's house and had to rush home (which was about 2 minutes away) during a commercial break so I wouldn't miss anything! Sadly, I fell asleep, and I've never actually watched it in it's entirety in one sitting, but whenever it's on TV, you can bet I'm watching it! Old comedies are nothing like today's comedies, and I love it!

awkward is right

Want a good laugh? If you haven't spent far too many hours laughing at this site, then you absolutely MUST! From mullets to inappropriate nude pregnant portraits to wedding days with guns, this site has all those family photos that are too funny and unbelievable to believe they're real. For example, can we say, "boring family?"

Photo from awkwardfamilyphotos.com

no, it's not a spoof

So I just discovered this "amazing" gadget via Twitter. I hesitate to ask what they'll think of next as I know it'll be even more ridiculous or repulsive than the current novelties. Have a look for yourself...

fictional characters...

When I don't have too much to do, it's always nice to sit down at my computer and enjoy a little Bo Burnham. Whether it's an offensive tune about Helen Keller or pre-marital sex, it always makes me laugh. I think this one about the rehab center for fictional characters just might be my favorite. (If you don't have a sense of humor or are easily offended, Bo may not be for you).

bird brain

I love birds. Period. I watched these two videos on YouTube today and thought I'd share. The first is of a sun conure and budgie. I wish my sun conure and budgie got along this well! Instead, Frankenstein the budgie will start fights with Flojo the sun conure. A lover and not a fighter, Flojo just fusses and walks away.



This video is hilarious! I love caiques, it looks like they're wearing little bloomers!