and the Pinterest addiction has begun

On day 9 of her 25 Days of Ornaments, I stumbled upon Belle on Heels' post for a fun ornament using curled lines from a wedding invitation to fill a clear ornament.  She found the idea on Pinterest.  Of course, I had to explore!  Here is the original:

Source: christyrobbins.blogspot.com via Dawn on Pinterest

Well, of course my little toe-dip into the world of Pinterest sparked a renewed addiction to things crafty, fashionable and innovative and gave me a great Christmas gift idea for the $5.00 and under gift exchange!!  Woohoo!!  Two birds, one stone. Need I say more?

Luckily, the AB lucky enough to have me as her Secret Santa shares a love for holidays and crafty-ness; unfortunately she isn't getting married again or having more babies anytime soon, so the whole invite or announcement idea wasn't going to work for her.  After a tremendous amount of thinking and back-and-forthing with the almost-semi-significant Anonymous Beloved, I decided to use Christmas songs printed on appropriately colored paper to fill the little gems.  I have to say, they turned out super cute and my AB LOVED them!  Even my a-s-s AB, who originally thought the idea would be lost with a less personal filling - the subject of all of the back-and-forthing - thought that they turned out well.  

"I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" in red, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" in blue, and "O, Christmas Tree" in green

I'll call this a win!

warmest wishes

Only one more sleep until it's Christmas morning and I've managed to get myself and the man-eaters safely to my home town in a land far, far away.

So far so good.  We're all settled in, gifts are wrapped and under the tree, and I've finally figured out how to use my mother's "new" coffee maker.  All is well and my short Christmas vacation has officially commenced.  

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and general warm wishes to all of my beloveds out there! 

where have all the flowers gone?

The hardest part about being a 30-something single woman is that most pretty much all of my Anonymous Beloveds have significant others, signifiant children, significant obligations ... ugh, you get the point.  

Don't get me wrong, I'm kind of loving this part of my life where I get to explore the world without feeling awkward and insecure.  I can list so many things that are cool about where my life is at right now: 

I can try on different identities because most people think I'm crazy anyway;

I can pick up and move to another state, city, house without having to worry about uprooting anyone and ruining their lives;

despite my age, people still occasionally card me when I buy vodka at the grocery store;

I am not ashamed to say that vodka occasionally makes it on to my grocery list (or that I regularly make a grocery list with, gasp, coupons);

I can go to bed at 8:30 and no one calls me old, and if they do, I'm too old to care :)

But, not every road is paved with butterflies and roses ALL of the time.  Today I just seemed to have stubbed my big toe on a big fat tree stump in the middle of my rosy nature walk.  I hate that.  So, my stupid proverbial toe hurts, my ego is a little bruised, and I kind of want to cry -- all because I wanted a little piece of undivided attention.  I am not too old to stomp my feet and throw a little fit; but old enough to absolutely know how to do it right!  Ugh!  

Ok.  Well, now that I've gotten that out my system, its time to quit whining and pull up my big girl panties and keep moving until I find those butterflies and roses again.  

Happy moving forward, ya'll!