Category: blog

A Bunch Of Only Slightly Related Things

My morning has already been quite busy, and before I get on with the rest of the day (which will mostly involve cleaning) I simply must share with you these trivial thoughts.

First of all, go on over and visit Lauren From Texas for her 6-month blogiversary! She’s having an adorable giveaway. Go ahead, go. I’ll wait. Now onto the randomness.

Our dog Eddie hurt her leg last night trying to jump up onto our insanely high bed. She’s not putting any weight on it at all. We’ve been giving her children’s aspirin and trying to get her to rest. This has happened before, and after a couple weeks the leg got back to almost-normal. Here’s hoping it will heal up again without veterinary intervention (which is not exactly in the budget right now).

Speaking of budget, David and I finally made one for ourselves and we’re starting in November. We’re getting serious about saving, people. I want to go to Scotland to visit my friend Megan, I want a new car, I want to have an emergency fund, I want to be debt free, and I want to be able to comfortably retire eventually. That means more cooking, eating leftovers, less eating out, no Starbucks, no random trips to Target, and no new furniture for awhile. I’m even getting crazy and attempting to make my own cleaning supplies, and other such things. It’ll be hard, but so worth it! Share your frugal tips or frugal living blogs, please and thank you.

I rarely buy myself anything, but with the impending doom of tight budget looming I made one little splurge. I’ve been searching for a dainty little choker for awhile now that I can wear with pretty much anything, and that I can also layer it with other necklaces. I found it at Jeneri Jewelry. It’s perfect and I love it.

This morning I forced myself to go run before it started raining. I was very impressed with myself not only that I actually went, but also because I ran the farthest that I have run in…well I can’t even remember. I have a 5k in a little over a week and I don’t want to pass out mid-stride. Also, I don’t want Maggie to leave me in the dust. When I set out this morning I told myself that the only reason I’d stop to walk is if I felt like I was going to throw up. That didn’t happen, and although I had to battle myself mentally not to take some shortcuts home, I’m calling it a success.

After running I hurriedly showered and dressed and set out to meet my sister-in-law Vanessa and my nephew Lucas for their Kindermusik class. I’m not used to any kind of mommy or baby activities so it was a little strange for me, but Lucas (and the other kids, but mainly Lucas) was sooooo adorable and he obviously enjoys it. I love that little boy so much.

Finally, I’ve decided to take on NaBloPoMo this November. The only requirements are to sign up, and then post every single day for a month. This is one of my 101 goals, so might as well get it over with. It seems I usually post 2-3 times a week, so this will definitely be a challenge. Let me know if you’re doing it too, because I could use the encouragement and solidarity. I’m going to try not to fill it up with cop-out posts, but I guarantee there will be some of those mixed in. I’m making a little theme for myself though, which will hopefully yield some direction for me and some semi-quality writing for you. I’ll tell you all about it on Sunday, when the challenge starts.

So that’s what’s on my mind, how about you?

October 29, 2009
SchipulCon and New Friends

For the past two days I’ve been attending SchipulCon, which was put on by the company my brother works for. And I’ve gotta give my friend Maggie a ton of credit because she basically put the whole thing together, and it was amazing. I learned so much about social media, personal branding, and blogging that my mind is buzzing with ideas. I’m so looking forward to when I’ll have time to put them into effect.

Another fun thing about the conference was that Lauren From Texas came! And no surprise, she’s every bit as fabulous in real life. We also got to meet up with Chelsea from Roots and Rings for dinner last night, which was a total bonus. These are two ladies who are after my own heart, which is actually not easy to find. So I’m really looking forward to getting to know them better, and if you like me, you’ll probably like them too so click over!

The conference was held at the Houston Zoo (check out THAT website to see the wonders that Schipul can do. How I wish I could afford such a thing!) so we also got to see the adorable animals. I always feel compelled to take pictures of them when I’m there, but then I never look at them again. So anyway, a couple pictures for posterity.

And that’s all I’ve got to wrap up the week folks! I used up my days off for the conference so now I have to work back to back 12-hour shifts this weekend! Hope to be back next week in one piece.

October 16, 2009
Random Lazy Day

Yesterday was awesome. I got eleven hours of sleep and didn’t change out of my PJ’s until around 5:30 p.m. when I decided to get off my bum and go for a run.It was a perfect way to spend the first day of fall, especially considering the weather was cool and rainy.

What did I do, you ask? Well, for starters I caught up on lots of blog reading. I coveted a professional design for my own, thought about and rejected paying for one, and instead placed this book on reserve at the library:

I ventured further out into the blogging community by browsing the links of people I follow, and added lots of new subscriptions to my Google Reader. I also joined BlogHer, although I’m really not sure what to do with that now. I’m still finding my way around in 20sb, and I’ve sent out all these friend requests that haven’t been accepted yet and it’s making me all insecure. I feel like junior high all over again!

Anyway, apart from blogging stuff I also did a tiny bit of online shopping. I took advantage of a coupon from Old Navy and ordered a few sweaters for fall. I may not be happy about the passing of summer, but I do love autumn clothing. I usually don’t go for Old Navy clothes because they don’t last, but I have a couple sweaters from there and they have held up rather well. This is what I picked up:

And this because I had to get my order over $100 for the coupon to take effect, and hopefully it will inspire me to take up yoga again:

Another big part of my day was Dancing With The Stars. I watched the men dance DVR’ed in the morning, and the women dance live. I’m not going to be blogging about it regularly or anything, but here are my first impressions.

Men

My personal favorites: Mark Dacascos because of his personality and potential, and Louie Vito. Are not Louie and Chelsie adorable?

I think that Aaron Carter is probably the best dancer, but I don’t really like him that much. Michael Irvin’s rivalry with Jerry Rice was pretty funny, but my husband tells me that the rivalry is quite one-sided; Michael Irvin is probably just jealous of Jerry Rice.

Women

My personal favorites: Natalie Coughlin and Melissa Joan Hart, probably because they both seem like sweet girl-next-door types that I can relate to. Natalie is gorgeous (I would LOVE to have legs like that) and has more potential than Melissa, though.

The judges sure seemed to like Joanna Krupa, which is fine because I like Derek Hough as a pro. Kelly Osbourne was also a nice surprise.

Other than the above Very Important Things, I also scheduled an appointment to have my hair cut and colored, researched flights to Scotland to visit my good friend Megan, and did some chores.

Thus ended my lazy day, and now I head off to work for a 12-hour shift. I’m rested and mentally prepared, knowing that I have tomorrow off again!

September 23, 2009
I’m Attending SchipulCon09

My brother is a web designer and head of a creative team at a Houston web marketing/design company called Schipul. One of their clients is the Houston Zoo (check out the awesome website!), and this year Schipul is putting on a two day conference there. I follow Schipul’s updates on Twitter, so I knew this was going on but I didn’t think it applied to me.

Then I saw my brother at church and he handed me a bunch of fliers for the conference. He said, “You should come!” I said, “But I’m not a web marketer.” He said, “It doesn’t matter, come hang out and learn about the Internet!” And after I noticed that I could actually get the two days off without taking PTO, and thinking about how I’d like to hang out with him and my good friend Margaret who also works at Schipul, and I saw the topics to be presented and that I was actually interested in some of them, I decided why not?

So I’m going to a web marketing conference, and if you are interested in this kind of thing and live in or near Houston, you should come too!

August 20, 2009
Online Friendships

Gah. I have, like, 30 minutes to myself in which to produce some words for you to read here. It’s tough when my weeknights are all committed to something because then I don’t get things done at home and I don’t have the time to do the things I enjoy like blog and read and just hang out with my husband, me and him. So this isn’t very well thought out, but what’s been on my mind lately are these relationships that we forge online with each other.

I’ve been blogging for years, and even a few months ago there were very few other blogs I read that I connected to. I read blogs of personal friends (and still do) who rarely update and when they do just give a hurried summary of what’s happened in their lives since they last wrote. I read some of the popular bloggers who are great writers. But what I was looking for were more people like me: girls in their 20’s or 30’s (I’m not that far away from the next decade, after all) who love to blog regularly who I can relate to. I don’t know why, but I had a really hard time finding people like this.

I worked really hard at it, and I’m finally beginning to see a network of online friendships building. It’s a great feeling. Now I can usually find new people just by clicking through on a comment that I read somewhere. If that person looks interesting, I’ll subscribe to their blog. I’ll read it for awhile, and if I like it I’ll start commenting regularly. Usually this leads to reciprocation, which is the goal.

Most of my online friendships are still in the fledgling phase. That’s okay though, because they are growing. I can’t explain why blogging is so important to me, but it is. A lot of people go through phases where they just want to stop blogging forever. They take breaks. They go anonymous. They start new sites. I’ve had my own issues, and sometimes I feel too busy to write often, but I never want to quit. I know I’d miss it.

August 19, 2009