Keeping up with the Kidless

Posted in Babies, On the Cheap, Parties, Relationships, Sanity-Saving Ideas by

My husband and I are social folk, and we agreed before our daughter was born that we’d do our best to keep our friends! Parenthood has a reputation for decimating a social life, and that wasn’t an option for us!

Sleeping at last

I get it–new parents don’t go out because they are so. damn. tired.

While we have playdates, take Stroller Strides classes, and we have a wonderful PEPS group, I have an amazing group of friends who do not have children.

Luckily, they have created a few recurring gatherings over the years that successfully get the 2 (or 3!) of us out of the house. Here are a few of the outings. Most are free or cheap, and a great excuse to get together! Continue reading →

Happy Caturday 4

Posted in Pets by
Caturday punching me in the neck

Hey, if it’s comfy for me, it must be comfy for you.

BooBoo likes to park himself wherever is least convenient for the rest of us. This week, it was my neck. Smelly and inconvenient, but I let him stay long enough to get some photographic evidence.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Portland: You’re Just My Type

Posted in Travel, Typography by

We are spending the holiday weekend bumming around Portland and the Oregon coast. Portlandia jokes aside, there are some pretty awesome things about this town, not the least of which are the vintage signs of current and defunct businesses. So I snagged a few shots to share. Oh, and I had to put one bird on it.
Enjoy.

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Inspiration Thursday I: Beijing, China

Posted in Uncategorized by

In 2008, just following the Olympics, I spent 11 days in Beijing.

While I won’t say it was my favorite trip (I will list why below), I did come across some surprises that I still find visually inspiring. Continue reading →

Stomp the Yard

Posted in Family, Home by

I go crazy for projects. I love them so much, that I tend to do them over and over, or just never finish.

This is a project I can finally say is FINISHED. (For now…ha ha ha.)

We bought our tiny townhouse in 2007, and the yard was pretty useless. It’s 11.5 feet wide by 13 feet deep. (I did say it was tiny.) Did I mention that there’s a sewer grate in the middle? And that the street level is about 6″ above the house level? And that there’s no gate? And the original patio couldn’t fit a table with chairs? All of these things challenged my engineering and design brain, and it’s taken 5 years of trial and error to get it right. Continue reading →

Goldilocks and the Three Bowls

Posted in Eats, Family, Love & Marriage by

One of the constant battles in our marriage is how to fit dishes into the dishwasher.

Seriously, this is a topic of discussion nearly every other day. Do we need to get a life? Maybe.

This bowl is too deep! This bowl is too small! This bowl is too big!
This bowl is juuuust right. Except it was “borrowed” from my college cafeteria and is ugly as sin.

Continue reading →

Buy Buy Baby

Posted in On the Cheap by

I was warned when I was pregnant to keep the toys to a minimum or the house would quickly become a flowing river of crap. With a dearth of space and a single income for a few months, we kept the toy collection at bay.
Continue reading →

Happy Caturday

Posted in Pets by

I’m hoping to make my cat BooBoo a regular feature.

So here goes.

Meet BooBoo the Cat. He’s approximately 8 years old and he’s pretty awesome.

He also has a bit of a drinking problem.

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Happy Caturday, y’all!