So. Funny. (Warning: This Post is About Cats)

I'm going to go ahead and apologize in advance for this post. You see, it's about cats. You may not think it's as funny as I do. I, however, think it's absolutely hilarious and LITERALLY laughed until I cried and my abs were burning from giggling. No really. That actually happened.


So, tonight I was browsing the Internet (someday I WILL get to the end! I swears!) and I came across a very entertaining graphic titled 20 of the Weirdest Posts on Craigslist. The one that caught my attention was the one titled "Ferocious Kitten for Free." I showed Jason and he told me that he had read the actual listing a while ago. Why he didn't share this with me, I do not know. But now, I share it with you. Below is an abbreviated version of the actual listing which can be found here.

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Ferocious Attack Kitten

This destructive kitty has been trained as a proud warrior and will fiercely defend your house, even against you.

He will protect your family from evil things, including the following:
* insects
* toilet paper
* anything under a blanket
* paper bags
* floor rugs
* Chuck Norris
* Feet

He will find you wherever you hide.
Has not been declawed, but you'll figure that out really fast.
Has a very soft and furry belly, like a teddy bear - however he will bite your face if you try to touch it.

For the love of God, someone please take this thing out of my house.

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For those of you who have ever met or (sorry friends) been attacked by my kitty, you may understand why I find this so funny. My cat can be quite evil at times, which is one of the reasons why I love her. Exhibit A:


Hehe! Crazy. Oh, if you are wondering about the rest of my kitty's time, it's about 30% evil, 40% ridiculously friendly, 28% sleeping, and the remaining 2% is spent being incredibly entertaining tracking bugs through our house.

Wishlist Wednesday - Cooking Edition!

I bet you know this by now, but my best friend Kristen has a food blog. It's called No Sincerer Love and it's delicious. It makes me want to get on a plane to Boston and go hug her and make her cook for me (which I know she would, happily.) ;-)

In honor of Kristen I have put together 10 cooking related items for Wishlist Wednesday that I thought she would like. Because, you see, this Wednesday isn't just any Wednesday.. it's Kristen's Birthday! And that, my friends, is a pretty big deal. :)

Left to right, top to bottom:
Greeting Card by Dapper Paper
Potholders by Originals by Lauren
Trivet by Into the Woods
Potholders by LMKQuilts
Apron by Dianne Designer Aprons
Coffee Print by I Shoot Nouns
Mixer Print by Lucky Bluebird Art
Sushi Button by Shop Olio
Whisk T-Shirt by Pun Controllable

And item #10 is the best one and made me think of Kristen immediately:

Yes, that's Darth Vader grilling with a light saber, in an apron. You're welcome. (Buy the print here.)

Happy Birthday to my kindred spirit and bestest friend! Have a cold one and know I'm wishing I was there to celebrate with you! :-D


Wishlist Wednesday posts are meant to introduce my readers to cool products and support Etsy Shops or Authors I believe in. All opinions are mine. I am never asked to write about any of these products and I am not compensated for my post. It's all just good stuff I want to share with you. :-)

Our Trip to Vermont - Part 2

One of the parts of Vermont I took for granted when I was growing up there was the beauty of it all. I now appreciate the landscape and pace a lot more and tried to capture some of it when we were home.

Ok, are you ready for this? This is my parent's front yard. This is the view from their front porch. Beautiful. (Also, to the left there, if you can imagine a big white tent in that space, that's where our wedding reception was. Le sigh.)

Hummingbirds at my Mom's feeder. This is the second best thing to do on my parent's porch... watch the hummingbirds. (The first is to watch thunderstorms.)

Blackberries in a random patch my Mom found. There we SO MANY and they were delicious!

Opposite the blackberry patch was this old barn. I thought it just screamed "Vermont" and had to snap a pic of it. It was such a beautiful day, as you can tell.

Credits: Hummingbird photo by Kristen... she spent a lot of time laying on the hammock to get a good shot of the hummingbirds. :-) Boost Action by Pioneer Woman -- find more info about her actions here and here. Grunge overlays by Maitri's Digital Scraps.

Our Trip to Vermont - Part 1

Jason and I both grew up in Northern Vermont (also known as the Northeast Kingdom) and most of our family still lives there. It's a beautiful area that we always enjoy visiting, especially since we don't get to as often now that we live in Minnesota.

Our trip home last week consisted of three main themes: meet, relax, and celebrate. All of which were just amazing.

Meet: We got to meet our friend's baby girl. We fell in love with her immediately and are thrilled for our friends and their new role as parents. They are all doing so well and seem very happy, which is all we can ask for for people we love. :-)

Relax: We got to bring our friends from Boston home with us! Kristen and Dane had visited Vermont with us during Christmastime but hadn't seen it in the summer (the second best time to visit, fall being the first because the leaves change and it's SO pretty!) We got to go canoeing and lounge around and basically just relax with our friends and soak up the very SLOW pace that is home.

Celebrate: We got to celebrate my Sister-in-Law, Amanda's pregnancy and soon-to-be-born baby girl! I am ridiculously excited to become an Aunt and it was great to get to see a bunch of my family at the Baby Shower as well as Amanda. The next time we see her she will be a Mom! So great!

Left to right: Before heading to Vermont we spent some time in Boston and visited the Sam Adams Brewery -- Cheers!, we didn't waste any time heading over to visit Jess and Ms. Mackenkie, she's just SO cute, we spent some time on Saturday on the lake canoeing and relaxing -- Kristen definitely had the relaxing thing mastered, Sunday morning we headed to a blackberry patch to do some picking so that Kristen could take some home and make some pies, I then headed to Amanda's baby shower to celebrate the Mom-to-be and eat way too many cupcakes, and finally, the last photo is of my cousin Tori and our friend Sarah's baby Emma. Love. :-)

I thought I would share with you...

$100 Give Certificate to Lisa Leonard Designs (plus $100 to Target too!) - Ends soon!
2 $50 Give Certificates to The Vintage Pearl (via 30 Handmade Days) - Ends tomorrow!
A Hand Stamped Ring by Tiny Token Designs (via lil bit of us) - Ends Tuesday!

I just love everything about hand-stamped jewelry! I have been lucky enough to win a few beautiful pieces in the past so I always like to pass on the chance. I cherish all my hand-stamped jewelry (whether I made them or bought them) and I know you will too! Go enter for your chance to win!

Wishlist Wednesday - Scissor Savvy

When I found out my co-worker Gabby had an Etsy shop I knew instantly that we would become friends. She's like you guys; she knows what 'handmade' means, she gets how important it is and how rewarding it is to make things.

Scissor Savvy is Gabby's little corner of Etsy. If I had to pick one item I would definitely love to have this handmade journal to give to my Sister-in-Law. She picked a Noah's Ark theme for the blog I designed for her so this is perfect! Gabby uses Little Golden Books and turns them into these journals. Yup, that's pretty awesome.

Just a few more fun things available at Scissor Savvy: Vintage Bingo Card Journal, HAND STITCHED Quilt (yes, I said hand stitched!), and last but not least, the cutest magnets ever.


Wishlist Wednesday posts are meant to introduce my readers to cool products and support Etsy Shops or Authors I believe in. All opinions are mine. I am never asked to write about any of these products and I am not compensated for my post. It's all just good stuff I want to share with you. :-)

Home Again!

It's nice to be home.

It's also nice to go home.

It's hard to have two homes sometimes. We have a home here in Minnesota, but our family members all live in Vermont. It's where we grew up, where we met, where we went to school together, and where we lived for the first 18 years of our life.

Living so far away from our families is fine most of the time, but it's very difficult to say goodbye. I always miss everyone so much more when we have just left.

We had a blast though. A BLAST! There is never enough time to see everyone we want to see, or do everything we want to do, but we always have a good time.

I'll be doing a lengthy recap of the weekend soon (we fit a lot into 4 days!), but I'll leave you with one of my favorite photos from the weekend. My bestest friend Kristen and her husband Dane joined us for the weekend in Vermont and this is one of the photos that was captured just before we had to say goodbye.

Jason & Kristen waving enthusiastically at me. :-)

Celebrate Monday, Celebrate the Everyday

This is the sunset from our second story window. I just love our view so much, especially when it's breathtaking like this.


This post is part of a challenge hosted by Simple Scrapper. Find my other Celebrate Monday posts here.

Later Gators!

And I'm off! My sister-in-law's baby shower is this weekend so Jason and I are making it a long one and visiting friends in Boston and family in Vermont. I get to hang out with my bestest all weekend, meet Ms. Mackenzie, and generally have a great time!

I'm bringing my new DSLR to experiment with some shots of the Green Mountain State too! :-D

I'm hoping to do a little blogging when I'm gone but I apologize if I can't. It will be a whirlwind for sure! I'll be back next week!

Wishlist Wednesday - Gussy!

Gussy! Oh how I have longed for one of Maggie's blissfully ruffled creations! A local (MN) girl who has turned her creative hobby into a business and has my respect (and admiration) for doing so. She creates the CUTEST ruffled bags, wristlets, and headbands you will ever see.

Now, if you know me, you know I am not much of a 'ruffles' kind of girl. HOWEVER, I LOVE these! The fabric patterns she chooses turns something that is girly into a hip, modern accessory. No wonder everyone wants one! :-) I can't choose just one item, so here are my top three. The zippered pouch, the zippered pouch, and the laptop/tote bag.


Wishlist Wednesday posts are meant to introduce my readers to cool products and support Etsy Shops or Authors I believe in. All opinions are mine. I am never asked to write about any of these products and I am not compensated for my post. It's all just good stuff I want to share with you. :-)

Celebrate Monday - A New Challenge

My friend (and all around awesome person) Jennifer Wilson has introduced a new challenge on her blog (you may have heard of it!) Simple Scrapper. She has encouraged us to share a photo or story from our everyday to help celebrate Mondays. Well, I think that's a great idea, so here goes!

I feel like I am surrounded by boxes! We are slowly becoming more and more settled in the new house, but my craft room is still completely packed up (we are painting that room now). I should be used to this feeling by now since we have moved every year for the last 7 years, but it's still just as overwhelming as ever. I can't wait to unpack these boxes and get my craft room set up so I can start creating things again!

Painting Day!

Jason and I are going to have a lot of fun today! We are painting an interior room in our house! (My craft room actually! I am so very excited by this!)

I am hoping we don't end up like these first-time home buyers from the Lowe's commercial:

{via}

Wish us luck! :-D

Free Journaling Class!

Elle's Studio (the company that makes so many cute tags that I LOVE and can't get enough of!) is hosting a free journaling class!
Starting tomorrow readers will begin the 3-week long class featuring an amazing line-up of designers:

• Ali Edwards
• Becky Novacek
• Christine Middlecamp
• Debee Ruiz
• Dina Wakley
• Jennifer Johner
• Lisa Dickinson
• Marcy Penner
• May Flaum
• Melissa Mann
• Stephanie Howell
• Tara Anderson

Just check out the Elle's Studio Blog (of the badge on the right side of this page!) for more information! I will definitely be following along and can't wait to see what these great designers have to share with us!

It's A Little Great

Things that are A Little Great:
- Evening Walks
- Sugar Cookies
- Afternoon Naps
- A Good Book
- Purple

Do you want to know what else is A Little Great? That I am a contributing writer for a cute little website called "A Little Great!" I am part of a team of amazing women who write for a blog full of all kinds of different useful and insightful information.

So far, I have written about typography, a simple necklace tutorial, and Photoshop Actions.

I hope you visit A Little Great and love what you see. I am in the company of some very creative and fun people and I'm honored to be writing for the site. :-)

Picking Paint Colors: Inspired by Paper

This is the first installment of a series of posts I will be writing about by (brand new!) craft room! (I already talked about it here... remember that it has a door and a closet and everything!)

Anywho, because I get to paint and decorate however I would like (woo!) I knew I needed to pick a color scheme that I will love but that will also inspire me.I first took a trip to Home Depot with my sister and picked up a bunch of little booklets. I looked through them and focused only on the ones that really spoke to me.


I narrowed it down to these two:


I quickly realized what they both had in common:
(And even though I am an engineer, this is the kind of math that makes me giddy.) :-)

Knowing what I like I went to work the next day and started looking around the store. First I found these flowers by Imaginisce and was immediately drawn to the soft color:

I found this line called Graceful by My Mind's Eye:

Beautiful, isn't it? I love the look and feel of this line so much. I decided that the walls will be painted a light sage green. I will use the dark purple to decorate elements in the room (shelves and other wall decor). And I think I will use the bird theme in these papers as well... somehow, though I'm not sure how just yet.

So, I know what colors I WANT... but what colors are they really?

I took my flowers and paper to Home Depot and visited the paint section to pick my colors. The Behr paint section has the uber cool color picker gadget that I obviously had to try! The software scanned the item (I did the flower first) 3 different times to match the color.

I think it did a pretty good job! I also matched the "Memories" tag as well as the dark purple.


My plans now are to take these green color options I got from the flower and the other themes I liked and purchase paint samples to try out in the room itself before making a decision (this will be my primary wall color).


Then, once we have painted and I start decorating, I will buy some of the purple paint and add some accent items to the room. I will also keep the paint samples in my wallet so if I find something I would like to use to decorate with (like fabric for curtains!) I will know whether or not it matches my color scheme. This is going to be FUN!

Note: I wish I had more natural light in which to take these photos, but I didn't have a deck to use (I do now since we moved this past weekend!) I typically auto-correct the images I use here on the blog, but if I did that with these photos, it would change the colors and not reflect the colors I really love. So, they stay slightly shaded and you get a good idea of the real colors I will be painting with! :-D