Home Group Girls Sleepover

Last night my Home Group (youth group) girls came to my place for a sleepover. We had a ton of fun with the Photo Scavenger Hunt and the String Game! Check out my pictures of the night at my Picasa photo page. Click on "Home Group Girls Sleepover". If you've never experienced the String Game then you need to look at these pics! Seriously fun.

Christmas Cards Coming Soon

Know how Jess and I always do a "Family Christmas Letter"? Last year we thought we were clever by making you hold it up to a mirror to read it. While a pinnacle of brilliance, that letter was only a small peak next to the Matterhorn that is this year's idea. Jess and I have a history of making ridiculous decisions after 9pm (remember the hideous collage bulletin board?) so when we erupted in gales of laughter and cracked pun upon pun after I voiced my brilliant idea well past our cut off time, we decided to hold off until the next day to see if it still sounded as genius. I have to tell you, it certainly did. It has been ordered and we await it's arrival in a week or two. Let's just say that this year's letter is more interactive than normal and should be more fun than any others you may get. Stay tuned for more updates...

Shopping!

I hate shopping, but I love these sites. I'll take one of those, and those, and those...

One Good Bumblebee. Vintage shopping experiences that are amazingly cute. Check out my wishlist for my favorites.

The Modish Holiday Gift Guide. An online directory of such cool stores. I want to just spend hours looking at these places.

Homemade Julz. Gorgeous graphic design rings and necklaces.

BAGS, BAGS, BAGS

If I were to have a single typical female vice, it would be bags. Not purses mind you, but bags. Criteria: large, colorful, and able to hold at least one book. These sites were nothing but pure sugar for me.

Mod Cloth. Who wouldn't love the Paper Airplane Bag, the Lovebirds Tote, or the Owl Messenger Bag.

Gerbera Designs. Sweet messenger bags.

Anne Taintor. AWESOME ironic vintage bags... "Honey, you couldn't handle half of me"

More More More

Here's some more fun links from the past few weeks:

SF has Public Open Spaces that companies create for public use by their office space. There is a group dedicated to reclaiming these spaces. Go to this site and click Paraformance 4 on the right hand column to see strangers playing a game in one of the spaces.

Want to play 20 Questions but don't have anyone to guess your answer? Go to this website and try to stump the computer!

People's Faces and their Shoes. Enough said.

Crafty people posting their projects online. Such great stuff! If you like great ideas, this is definitely the place to look.

How to turn a picture into a screened T-shirt. The things I want to do with this...

A cool design alternative to online invitations. Small selection, but no cheesy graphics.

Hipster E-cards. Completely awesome and funny ways to say pretty much anything.

Designers were asked to share their favorite music. This is hours and hours of listening candy with unusual flavors.

Type in a band or musician and Music Plasma will come up with a web of related musicians.

Pictures Tell The Story

I often find things online that I enjoy and pass on to a few select people. Instead of being stingy with the wealth, I decided to post it for all to see. Below are some of the pages I found today.

The Border Film Project gave cameras to both the undocumented Mexican migrants at the Mexico/USA border and the American minutemen who are trying to stop them. Great photos are turning up. I will admit to a bit of nerdiness by saying that I listen to NPR on occasion and remember a couple of segments on the conflict. I looked them up for you to hear the migrant protest songs and a first-hand look at the border. Incidentally, there is a funny story of students and a principal right before it talks about the border conflict and I find it worth listening to.

Check out the interactive public art that allows people to scratch off parts of the wall. It is called the Hidden Love Song (scroll side to side to see the entire project) and this is a wonderful blurb from their website:
"If we could scan our surroundings with a special love detector, perhaps we would find a lot of hidden love songs, under park benches, in people's pockets, lying in the stomach, and behind their ears where their hair rests..."

Brilliantly done are the human versions of classic computer games like Pole Position (race car driving). It took 6 hours of shooting, 49 extras, and 400 photos.

Because I love photography, I am absolutely enthralled with the galleries at The Morning News. One of my favorites is the cheeky Drop Dead Gorgeous collection. Here and here are the best from the deaths. I also love the humanity in A Day In The Life, especially this and this.

That's all for now, but you can expect more posts in the future as I find them.

Free Sale Party

Premise: Invite a bunch of people over, have them clean out their closets, and bring their junk with them.


Twist: Everyone gets to paw through the combined loot & take home as much as they want.

Conclusion: If there has ever been a party filled with fun & prizes, this was it!

We ended up giving prizes in 4 categories. Judge's Pick went to Bekah for her leg warmers. Most Useful was awarded to Shannon for her towel rack. Jami took home the prize for the Oldest Item, with a book from the 60's. And the most disgusting prize went to Julia for her dog's well loved chewed up stuffed animals-- The Item No One Would Touch.

The food was delectable as well- from a Tomato Leek Tart to Lemon Cake to a Baked Artichoke Spinach dip, there was plenty to munch on. Jess made fun of me for how much I made, but by the end of the party there wasn't much left.

We were pooped when it was all said and done, so we plopped on the beanbag chairs Jess tried to unsuccessfully get rid of. It was a smashing success!

Babes Bedecked in Blazers

Me, Jess, & Lucy making love to the camera

Ever have those vacations where the nothing went right, you had to be with people who were slightly annoying, and it lasted 2 days too long? Well, this was not one of them! My fellow travelers were sublime, our activities were perfect, and our lodgings were more than we could have asked for. From hours spent reading to a trip to the spa to boating on the Sound to playing with dogs to sleeping outside, nothing could have made our time together any better. Below you will find some highlights from our perfect trip to Orcas Island.

We stayed at Jess' aunt & uncle's "carriage house", which essentially is a large guest studio apartment above their detached garage. It was filled with everything we could possibly want or need and provided a peaceful respite for us. The view was stunning and one of our favorite things was to sit out on the deck, basking in the sun by day and marveling at the stars by night.

With a nod to our previous Orcas vacation pictures involving a rope, we chanced upon some brilliantly red blazers at a thrift store. By a sensational miracle, we only had to pay $2 total for all three of them! We wore them hither and yon, even venturing into public upon occasion. Man, we looked hot.