sarahmade headbands, coming soon to an etsy store near you.

On Wednesday I saw my college roommate Sarah, also known as Becker Bear.

We met in Oshkosh, the middle point between where we both live now.

We shopped and ate and talked about blogs.

It was so good for me.

Sarah's cool. She gets me. Here's why:

She likes Mary Tyler Moore and enjoyed my Gene Kelly Pandora station as much as I did.

But she'll also indulge in a Cher dance party, because sometimes that's just what you have to do.

She understands that the best part of shopping is the part when you get home and spread out all of your new goodies on the floor and admire them.

She wants to move to England and is going to let me visit her when that happens.

She made me TWO flapper-gypsy-turban headbands. TWO.

Thanks for the fun day, and for the headbands, little Sarah.

Let's meet in the middle again soon.

saturday walk

the beautiful weather on saturday made for a perfect opportunity to take a walk around the neighborhood and test out the new lens ryan got for christmas.

while ryan pretended he was a bird photographer, i instagrammed things that looked pretty.

you know. as usual.

sorry guys can't talk right now

because my living room looks like this:

and this:

i'm busy cleaning up after the "who cares" kind of messes i've made the past few months.

boy did i let myself (and my art supply drawers) go.

i plan on finishing up tomorrow

and blogging a little more, too.

but until then, please enjoy this photo of what i ate for supper tonight:

i'm sure you understand.

ooooone more christmas post

Way back in the beginning of December, a little sign appeared on the corner of an empty parking lot a few blocks down from our apartment. It said that fresh trees would be sold there until Christmas. I WAS SO EXCITED. A few days later, some lights were hung and trees showed up lookin' all magical and I WAS SO EXCITED AGAIN. It was such a cute little lot of trees, and it made me smile every time I passed it.

On Christmas Eve we walked down to the lot to smellllll those trees. It was as dreamy as I had hoped. But then the two tree-salesmen-guys came out of their trailer and tried to get us to buy one. I looked at Ryan with hopeful eyes, but he said no back to me with his, so we scooted out of there real quick.

Then, for tradition's sake, we walked through Cathedral Square to see the lights and give Rudolph a Christmas smooch.

When we got home we listened to my mom's old choir records and we each opened a gift.

And then we watched It's A Wonderful Life until it was time to go back to church. At 10:30pm. Which was both wonderful (the music) and uncomfortable (the heels.)

the end.

another year over, a new one just begun

Happy 2012!!

It shall be declared The Year of the iPhone

because Ryan and his parents gave one to me for Christmas

and I am about to Instagram your FACE off.

We spent New Year's Eve in Fond du Lac with my family, and it was wonderful.

There were lots of good meals.

And lots of snacking in between good meals.

And I don't think I'll eat another bite of chex mix until 2013.

(that's probably not true at all.)

We were all getting a little sleepy around 10pm that night, so to wake ourselves up, my sisters and I ran around the house outside while blowing noisemakers, and I laughed harder than I did all year I think.

We spent the first couple hours of 2012 listening to my parents tell funny stories, 

and then I kissed Ryan and fell asleep.

The next day we played with these cuties:

I made some resolutions, too.

Some will be easy, some will be really really hard, and some are wishful thinking.

I wrote them down, and I'm anxious to see how much I check off.

And then I made list after list of 2012-y things:

Did I take that picture of my lists because I thought anyone needed to see it?

No.

I did it because I CAN.

I'm so glad about this new year.

The Humboldt Chalet

looky looky.

here's a little keepsake from my friend Andy's christmas party a few weeks ago.

there was a real christmas tree at that party

and it smelled real good.

there were also real deer antlers just sittin' on a table

and i alllllmost stole them

since real deer antlers to set on my coffee table/bookshelf/desk

 are the only thing my heart really truly desires.*

but i didn't.

*i would also take this pretty blouse if anyone is interested in making my dreams come true.

christmas eve eve

We're back from our little vacation with Ryan's family, but I'm still feeling vacation-y. The house is a mess, and the fridge is empty, and I don't want to unpack! So, instead of catching up around the house, I'm catching up on internet stuff. 

We spent Christmas Eve Eve making preparations for Christmas day. Ryan wrapped my presents while I baked cookies. He got all fancy and wrapped one gift in actual Christmas lights, which was mostly adorable and only slightly irritating, since it literally outshone all the gifts I worked hard on wrapping. He was way proud of it.

I've got lots more pictures to go through, so I'll be back later with little blurbs about more Christmas stuff and our vacation in Mishicot.