Boho in the 'Burbs

Pantone Colors 2012

2012-02-09T19:41:00.003-07:00

Tonight I explained to Keene the idea of the Pantone seasonal colors and why they're important. At the end of my lecture, I had the feeling he thought it was some kind of ultra-powerful, super secret society.

Boys.

It occurred to me, though, that Etsy sellers may not think to research such things as which colors have been designated as "upcoming trends." I won't explain the logic behind staying up to date on these shades, but it may be worth your time to either add some new products in the Pantone colors...or see if any of your existing products already match them.

Upgrades, Repairs, and Other Joys of Home-Owning

2012-02-07T12:18:00.018-07:00

Back in July, when we were so young and fresh-faced, Keene and I walked through what would become our home. We oohed and ahhed and peeked in rooms. We mentally redecorated the living room and pictured the children playing in the backyard. We immediately began the process of buying the house.

But you know what we should have done? We should have been pulling the previous owners' clothes out of the closet. We should have knocked all of their dishes out of the cupboards. We should have pushed their toolboxes off of the workbenches in the garage. Because you know what we found once the house was empty and ready for us to move in? A whole lot of particle board.

Bowed particle board in the closets. Sticky particle board in the pantry. Waterlogged particle board in the garage. There was more particle board in the house than in all of Home Depot.

So, I've had some people ask for pictures of our various upgrades and repairs. (Yes, really! This isn't a situation where I just want to talk about something, so I say, "People have been asking me ________." No, people really have been asking me. Seriously, I can prove it.) So here are our latest projects.

Pantry

This was the very first thing we ~~blew money on~~ fixed up. Now, this is actually a picture of our closet, but the shelves are similar to those in the pantry. Meaning, exposed particle board, haphazardly installed, and awfully inefficient where space is concerned.

Keene started by ripping out all of the shelves. Turns out, the walls behind the shelves were just as gross:

We repainted the walls and Keene installed wire racks instead:

And then he installed a broom/mop/child-holder on the back of the door:

Now, ten points if you can spot our next repair in this picture.

Think you've got it?

Yup, the door itself. Notice how it awesomely opens so that it effectively blocks you from the rest of the kitchen? We have found that that area is like a little Bermuda Triangle: In the span of four feet, you have a bathroom door, pantry door, two spice cabinets, the fridge, and the dishwasher all vying for the same opening space. At least once a week, somebody finds him or herself trapped in this mess of doors. While it may not solve the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, replacing the pantry door (so it swings in the other direction) will be a quick and easy fix.

Before:

After:

Here is a dramatic reenactment:

Garbage Disposal

Moving along, we also installed a garbage disposal. I wish I had pictures of the before/after and installation process. But that would have been very boring, so I didn't do it. Instead, here's the after:

Spider Tree

There is a large fir tree in our front yard. It was so close to the house, it literally pressed on it. An inspector told us that it would eventually have to be chopped down, as it would wreck havoc on the house. We decided to just trim the branches which were touching the house--rather than chopping the whole thing right away.

So we started with this:

And we started chopping branches.

And then we discovered something horrific: old pine needles literally two feet deep below the branches. Which emitted strange, green fumes and set forth hundreds of wolf spiders when we tried raking them.

Blehuhuhchu. That's the sound I made. Over the course of a weekend, we alternated chopping branches with exorcising the pine needles using a snow shovel and garbage bags.

Once the trunk was naked from seven feet down, we called it quits.

Landfill cleanup

One thing we did notice during the initial walkthrough was this:

A large pile of junk, garbage, and rotting wood. "No worries," we thought. "That'll be gone before we move in! Yay!"

But guess what was waiting for us once we moved in.

Another weekend of hauling garbage to the curb and further testing our garbageman's boundaries.

Kayden's New Room

Finally, a fun project! Kayden got his loft bed about four years ago:

For those not in the know, a loft bed is basically a bunk bed, except instead of a bed on the bottom, it's just open space. Or you could think of it as a bed on stilts.

Anyhow, the loft bed was fun and novel when Kayden was a little boy of eight. But now he's a strapping young man of eleven and the loft bed has lost its appeal. Every night, climbing up and down a ladder has started to wear on him. Moreover, his new room has a lot less space than his room at the old apartment, so we were facing a serious organizational dilemma.

So I came up with a brilliant idea.

We took out the mattress from the loft and measured the area:

Then we had a piece of heavy plywood fitted (albeit very tightly fitted) to the area:

Keene bolted the plywood to the metal bars, using carriage screws, nuts, and these weird metal things:

Then we lay down a rug which appeared to be made from the fur of a Muppet.

Maia did the honors of smell-testing the new carpet:

Keene built a wall-hung bookshelf, which was promptly filled to bursting:

When times got hard and our motivation wanned, Kayden pushed us to keep going:

And gave his approval of his new reading- and play-nook:

Lastly, we moved Kayden's mattress (temporarily on the floor) to underneath the loft and his desk against the wall. I wish I had taken a before picture to show what a huge change this was and how much space it created for him. Next time, next time.

Bitter o'Clearance.

2012-01-09T12:21:00.002-07:00

If you haven't been by my Etsy shop lately, you are about to miss out on an awesome deal. For a long time, I've wondered how to make my shop look more cohesive. I liked the variety, but at the same time, it was a little too chaotic with too many product lines.

My first step was to ditch the book thongs. Or rather, to move them to their own Etsy shop. I'm not really feeling them right now, but I don't want to quit them entirely. So there they sit until I decide whether to start promoting them...or to just kill them already.

My next step is actually happening right now. I thought about which items were making my shop look cluttered. Which items didn't have that "Bitter o'Clock" look about them. Which hats had been hanging around since before I developed my own style.

It was actually easy for me to spot them. They weren't quirky, strange, or random. They were just hats. Nice hats, sure. Well-made, okay. But just hats. So, I decided these were the ones that had to go.

To ring in 2012, I am discontinuing some of my older products. From now until Wednesday, January 11th, all items in the Clearance section have been marked at 50% off the normal price. Yes, this includes the custom orders. But this is first-come, first-served. I will not be re-listing anything.

On Thursday, January 12th, they will be marked down an additional 25%...by only for a few hours. By Friday, January 13th (wooooooooo), they'll be gone. Vanished into the ethers of Etsy. For-ev-er.

There you have it. Pop over to my Etsy shop to see if any of those hats tickle your fancy or anything else.

Merry Catsmas and a Viking New Year!

2011-12-23T08:16:00.002-07:00

What's better than a surly cat with eye-herpes?

A surly cat with eye-herpes...and a Christmas sweater!

If cats could talk, I would love to hear what they would be saying to each other right now:

Oh no! The Christmas sweater is contagious!

And now, lest I make people think this is a cat-blog, here's a video by Viking (Keene's band) to get you in the goddamn Christmas spirit:

(Bonus points if you spotted a Halo grunt in the train shots.)

If that doesn't get you ready for some holiday cheer, I'm afraid nothing will.

Maia Does DIA.

2011-12-14T21:54:00.004-07:00

No commentary necessary...just watch the hilarious video Keene made:

Okay, a little commentary: this is how one can expect a Keene to act at the airport.

Not shown: Elder Keene high-fiving strangers and being asked to "please stop filming in the airport for security reasons."

And so this is Christmas...

2011-12-04T19:39:00.009-07:00

We finally bit the bullet and decorated for Christmas. We actually negotiated our way out of celebrating Halloween at the same time. See, we've had pumpkins on our kitchen counter, waiting to carved, ever since October. The kids--poor, deprived children they are--kept asking when we could carve pumpkins. We kept putting it off and putting it off, until it was no longer Halloween. And after that, it was just hard to get the motivation to carve Thanksgiving pumpkins. Then that passed. And now we were being pressured to carve Christmas pumpkins.

Finally, we made a deal with the kids: if you just forget about pumpkins for the rest of the year, we'll put up the tree right away. They agreed, but only on the condition that we chopped up the pumpkins to make pumpkin pie. That I can get on board with.

So, now that Halloween was officially out of the picture, we put up the tree and Christmas village.

Our village even includes a ferocious, black Yeti-kitty:

And a train. That nearly ran over yeti-kitty's tail with each loop:

In keeping with our family tradition, we also went to the Parade of Lights. We didn't take pictures of any floats. Because, well, the floats are usually the same each year. So I'll just link to a Parade of Lights of yore.*

Squish together for warmth!

(*Okay, it looks like I've never actually posted the pictures of the parade. I'll make a separate post for that. Sometime. Meanwhile, I found this post from 2007. Interestingly enough, that coat Kayden is wearing in that post is the same one he was still wearing up until about three days ago. He had been complaining about that coat getting too tight. I thought, "That's weird...I only got it like last year." Never mind. It was more like four years ago. Boy, how time flies when you're a coat. Anyhow, he got a new coat, so all is good.)

Bad news and birthdays come in threes...

2011-11-30T14:31:00.009-07:00

Fortunately, this post is about birthdays and not bad news.

As I've said before, we have three birthdays in the span of three weeks at our house. In the middle of that birthday marathon is both Halloween and Election Day (guess which holiday tends to get lost in all the chaos).

So because I can't combine birthdays into one large fiesta, I'm combining them into one large blog post.

Kicking off the birthday brigade was Kayden, who was turning 11. Leading up to his party, the kids had saved and saved their money in order to buy an Xbox 360, with me matching their savings.

The next day, I drove four rowdy preteen boys to the go-karting place and let them run amok:

As the hours passed, I realized something: this place hates parents. There was nowhere to sit down, nowhere quiet to relax, no coffee and no alcohol. Fun center, my ass. I finally hid inside an out-of-order arcade game shaped like a truck and growled as anyone tried to poke their head inside.

Nevertheless, the boys had fun.

Then it was time for my 29th birthday. It was definitely low-key and un-birthday-esque, which is just how I like 'em. After work, we went out for a nom dinner, then came home. Keene hid away in the kitchen for a while, then emerged with this:

Can't tell what it is? Look at it from the side:

A. Starbucks. Birthday. Cake.

It was amazing. It was the best, most Kelli cake I had ever seen.

He even drew the weird mermaid on top:

By the by, I don't think many people realize what the Starbucks logo actually is. It's a mermaid with a weirdly split tail.

Here is the logo you know and (should) love:

Here is an early logo showing the "mermaid siren" in its entirety:

Mythically, the siren seduced sailors before offing them. Supposedly, she enticed them with her song and not with her insane flexibility. Right.

Since we're being random now, here's a random picture of Keene, taken sometime around my birthday. I think.

Just a week after my birthday, it was time for the fifth anniversary of Keene's 29th birthday.

(Thank you, Alison, for the clever play on words!)

Normally, Keene's birthdays are just as low-key as mine (if not more so...I mean, he doesn't even age, so it's just another day, really). However, we discovered Fishbone (one of Keene's favorite bands) would be in town, playing an intimate, multimedia show that week. We took the kids to his sister's house, then went to what turned out to be the longest show in my life.

To start, we watched a documentary about the band called Everyday Sunshine. Despite not being a big fan, I really enjoyed the documentary. If you come across it, it's definitely worth your while to watch. Afterward, there was a Q&A session with Angelo and Norwood, which was pretty cool.

Angelo wandered around prior to the show, so Keene was able to meet and talk with him briefly, acting like a giggling groupie the whole time, I'm sure.

(If you look to the left of the glaring light, you'll see Keene talking to Angelo, who is on the right side.)

Opening for Fishbone was a band called The Dendrites, a local 9-piece ska band. They were simply amazing and not just because the trombonist and trumpeter lost their shirts.

Finally, around midnight, Fishbone took the stage:

By this point, I was so exhausted from standing all night and my head hurt like a mofo. The show was going on five hours and the main act had just begun.

Also, I won't say I'm too old for concerts on weeknights. However, I am too old to participate in crowd-surfing and moshing at 1 a.m. on a weeknight, especially when I've only had two beers. As a new member to the 29-year-old club, I did not approve.

But we stayed until the end--with Keene looking like he was torn between skanking and preserving his old man body--and finally got to bed at 3:30 a.m.

And the next morning, I looked like this:

All day. I couldn't close my eyes for fear that they wouldn't reopen.

Nevertheless, 2011 was a trifecta of birthday goodness.

Wait a minute...

2011-11-16T21:31:00.006-07:00

This is on the Starbucks' holiday cup:

The wink says it all. I know your little secret, Nutcracker Soldier Man.

Halloscenes from Halloween

2011-11-01T09:34:00.011-06:00

I'm just going to say it: thank god Halloween is over. I mean, it's a fun holiday for sure...but it's a lot of work to have that much fun.

We eased into the three-week-long celebration with homemade candy apples:

Then the weather was like, "Oh crap! Totally forgot that it's supposed to be uncomfortably cold by Halloween night." The weather went from a summery high of mid-'80s to a snowstorm overnight:

Meanwhile, I worked on a costume hat for a friend. Her daughter, Alice, was going to dress up as Alice in Wonderland...so my friend would accompany her as the Cheshire Cat.

Next, it was time to start putting together my own costume. After joking about it for months, I finally created the Pickles the Drummer skullet.

"Who is Pickles the Drummer?" every reader except Keene will ask.

This is Pickles from Metalocalypse:

The hat started with a basic comb-over design, then I added looooong braids, sewing a few of them over the top of the head. Then the tricky part: the goatee.

Now, I was going to do something risky like gluing it to my face. Fortunately, Keene offered the idea of using thin wires. We threaded wires all throughout the sideburns and goatee, leaving two poking out the top corners. At the ends of these wires, I attached small buttons. This way, we could unbutton the goatee to eat or drink.

While working on the goatee, I did a drunk-Pickles impression:

Throw in a black tee and crocheted wrist guards and my costume was finished:

Oh, and I found a witch costume for Maia for a dollar at a garage sale. Exciting, huh? Well, don't let the sour look on her face fool you...she actually liked it. And I liked not having to spend a lot of time working on another homemade costume.

All costumed up, Maia and I went to a Denver Craft Ninjas event where we decorated sugar skulls:

My friend, Elizabeth, discovered her true calling of making sugar skulls look like Mexican wrestler masks:

Here were mine and Maia's final products:

Finally, it was the big night. We went to a friend's house for dinner and to meet up in a big trick-or-treat group:

Now what you won't notice, but would have if he weren't wearing a mask, is that Kayden finally decided to give this old taking-candy-from-strangers thing a try. He's at the end, dressed as the Scream guy.

Surely, you can pick out the other 11-year-old boys in the group?

Finally, I waited and waited to hear back from Keene about whether he thought it was okay to post a picture of his coworkers all dressed up (and him sporting the Pickles hat at work). But I never heard back. So instead, here is a picture of him all by himself at work:

Annnnnnnnnd now it's time to hang up our Halloween hats, metaphorically speaking.

But not really:

Things I Forgot to Post About: Quicksand and Cold War Kids

2011-10-11T09:24:00.003-06:00

For whatever reason, Keene is still used to me posting here every day. I try to remind him that I have a job where I actually work now, so maintaining that schedule is impossible. It's been nearly a year since I changed jobs, yet he still grumbles, "Someone hasn't updated her blog today."

Anyhow, that has nothing to do with anything except that I think if he were to ever leave me, it's only because I don't keep him entertained online anymore.

Moving on, here is the next set of stuff I should have posted about as it was happening, rather than months later. I'll get to what is going on right now...oh, maybe around March.

Camping with the Family

My grandmother and my cousin have a tradition of going camping each summer. This year, they invited us along. Hooray!

But first I had to pass my grandma's "it will be dark and there will be no street signs" test:

After much cursing and many u-turns were had, we made it to the campsite just before midnight.

It was so wonderful to see my cousins--Talisha and Emily, neither of whom I had seen in years--and to meet Talisha's husband, Cam. And, of course, I always love seeing my grandparents.

But you didn't come here to listen to me wax poetic about family, did you? You want to see pictures, I know.

"It's a double-rainbow!!"

(Note: this was also the weekend Kayden decided my army sweatshirt are belong to him.)

Fun fact: up until this weekend, my grandpa had never eaten a s'more. What kind of craziness is that? Don't worry, Talisha and I were on the job. She made him a delicious classic s'more, whereas I went for the instant-sugar-high of a s'more made with a peanut butter cup.

And now for some other Firsts.

Kayden's first motorcycle ride:

Keene's first motorcycle drive:

The first time Emily dissected a fly with tweezers. I think. But maybe not...she seemed awfully skilled at that, actually:

The first of three blind mice?

So, we heard a little squeak and discovered a baby mouse, so young its eyes weren't even open yet. We moved him to a grassy, shady spot and fed him a consistent diet of seeds and corn kernels.

And, of course, we petted him because we love potentially-disease-ridden little beasts:

Kayden was so devoted to it that he followed it around (it's not hard to follow a blind mouse) and made sure food was always nearby.

And finally, my first bout of quicksand:

While I determined it to be legitimate quicksand, it was not, however, deep enough to get anything more than my shoe stuck in it. So I made the determination that my goal of getting stuck in quicksand has yet not been fulfilled.

What can I say? I'm a tough judge.

Cold War Kids and A Lull Concert

Cold War Kids was the first show to kick off my summer, and well...huh. They are one of my favorite bands (yes, another of my favorite bands), yet the show was kind of lackluster and, dare I say, boring? What makes one band have more stage presence than another? Their energy level? Their level of interaction with the audience? That they look like they're having fun? A lot goes into it and it can really make or break a show. (The Walkmen at Monolith 2009 was another stinker of a band. Love their music, didn't love their performance.)

On the bright side, though, the opening band for CWK was A Lull. This band was fan-tas-tic. They had two full drum sets and two full drummers. But every member of the band also had some kind of percussion instrument on the side to play.

Wonderful band. Check them out:

Things I Forgot to Post About: Part Two

2011-09-20T14:43:00.011-06:00

Here is the second post in an ongoing series of crap I forgot to mention months ago.

Def Leppard and Heart Concert

Okay, this was actually just a couple weeks ago. But summer was about two weeks (and a month) ago, so it totally counts.

I had received an emailed concert newsletter a long time ago in which I learned that Def Leppard and Heart were touring together and would be coming to Denver. Back then, I thought, "I'm definitely going to this." See, as a wee child in Utah, I was in love with both of these bands. In fact, my favorite song for a long time was "All I Want to do is Make Love to You," despite not knowing what it was about. So to see both of these bands in one night? Holy mother of crap.

However, as August drew closer, I realized I wouldn't be able to make it after all. What with packing for our move, getting the kids ready for the new school year, and trying to conserve money...it just wasn't going to happen.

That is, until an angel named Alison emailed me to ask if I wanted to accompany her. Despite all the aforementioned reasons why I shouldn't go, the universe wanted me to go and that always trumps logic and responsibility.

Well, the concert was fantastic. Really amazing. Both bands sounded as if they were still young lads (and lasses) of the '80s. Unfortunately, I discovered my smartphone's camera takes pictures like it was made in the '80s, so this doesn't convey the full awesomeness of the show.

Heart:

(If you click on this picture for the full view, you can kind of see Ann Wilson in the middle of the stage and Nancy Wilson off to the left.)

Def Leppard:

And then it was at this point that the concert blew my camera's mind:

(If you look closely, though, you will see Elliott on the huge screen at the left.)

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Kelli the Trapped-Animal Whisperer

So, I work out of my boss' house, right? I have an office in his basement with a large window well. When the weather began warming up, I discovered a job perk very quickly: wild animals that fall from the sky and need rescuing.

The first was a baby mouse. Well, I didn't so much rescue it as I nearly stepped on it. With my bare feet. Fortunately, I didn't. I noticed movement in the dark copy room and halted mid-step. I flipped on light and there was a tiny, twitchy mouse. It just sat there, jerking like I do when I've opted for a large latte instead of the usual medium. I got down on my hands and knees for a closer look. And there it stayed. Just as I was preparing to scoop it up with a piece of cardboard, a coworker picked it up with her bare hands (meep! Rabies!) and took it outside.

That same week, a bunny fell from the sky. Right into my window well. I heard a big thump, which I ignored. Then a second thump. I looked over to see a little pair of eyes looking right back at me.

After discussing a plan of action with my boss, I climbed into the window well where the bunny hoppedhoppedhopped all around the metal walls. I finally caught it and handed it through the window to my boss, who set it free.

The following week, another little bunny appeared in my window.

This time, before I could get into the window well, the bunny (which was even smaller and faster than the last one) found a hiding spot:

While the bunny was close enough to the surface that I could actually pet him, I couldn't get him out of there. So instead, I left grass and water in the well, hoping to get him next time he came out of hiding. For two days, we played games with me trying to snag him and him being too fast for me. On the third day, I mentioned him to my boss' personal assistant. She threw open the window, reached into his hidey-hole, roughly yanked him out by his tiny foot, carried him upstairs, and set him free.

I never knew bunnies could scream.

I learned my lesson that day: don't tell anyone about the falling animals in need, or they'll do the rescuing themselves. Dammit, they're MY falling animals in need...I should get to do the rescuing. I put in the time and effort to keep the little guy safe and my moment of rescue was ripped away from me...almost literally.

Shortly after, I got my chance with another bunny. This time, a very curious bunny:

Luckily, this one was kind of a fatty, so he couldn't hide in the same corner. I was able to climb out and rescue him, without anyone bogarting my moment. Hooray!

"But was it just bunnies and retarded mice?" you may be asking. No, there was also the bird who was apparently stunned and just chilling on the driveway, waiting for the end:

There was also a tightrope-walking spider, who pointedly did not need rescuing of any kind:

I tell you, folks, I racked up some serious karma points this summer.

Disclaimer: before anyone says, "Egads! Now that you've touched the bunny/bird, his mother will reject him! Killer!", know that that is not true. In fact, if you see a baby bird on the ground, chances are its mom was actually the pusher. If a baby bird is sick or just ugly (oh, I'm kidding...relax), the mother will choose to off it herself. If you put the bird back in the nest, the mother will again push it out. Not because it has human stink all over it, but because it's still sickly (or made even uglier by the inital fall).

In other cases, the bird may actually be of age to leave the nest and is practicing its flying (albeit quite badly). Either way, touching it won't ruin its life, though it could ruin yours if it has some kind of wild animal disease.

However, experts suggest leaving them alone anyways (unless they fall into your window well, I say). You could unintentionally tame them, hurt them, displace them from their homes, or any of the many things we humans do while trying to make the world a better place for cute little critters. So yeah, leave the handling to the experts.

Or me.

These things shouldn't happen when you're an adult.

2011-09-15T22:19:00.006-06:00

On the way home from work tonight, Keene called to ask if I wanted to go out for dinner. He said that a new Pho restaurant had opened in our new neighborhood and we should check it out. I arrived at home, gathered up the fam, then we drove to the restaurant. Despite it being busy, we were seated immediately. We got our drinks and spring rolls. We showed the kids how to use chopsticks. We talked about work. We talked about school. We talked about the house and future projects.

Notice what we didn't do? We didn't eat. Because neither our food nor our waitress was anywhere to be found. After an hour, we dropped money to cover the drinks and rolls onto the table and left.

By this time, it was late and we were hungry. We didn't want to wait any longer, so our only option was fast food. But wait, I thought, isn't there a little Chinese buffet down the street? "Have you ever been there?" asked Keene. No, but I always drive by it.

"We even rode our bikes here once...there's a bar next door that we were going to check out one night," I said.

"You mean the bar that had the big seized sign on the front, due to tax evasion?"

"Yeah, that one."

So we walked in to the restaurant. And that's when life stopped making sense. To start, it wasn't a Chinese buffet at all. It was more like a Russian cafeteria. It was like the Twin Peaks of divey restaurants. It felt dark, though it was well-lit.

We walked across a long stretch of, well, emptiness to get to the counter. You know how in movies, the camera will move forward, while the scene moves backward, giving it a disorienting vibe? (Keene says that's called "zolley".) That's what this was like. The restaurant was huge, despite only having two counters and maybe ten tables. We looked through the glass case to find pans and dishes stacked next to and on top of each other, with food that was, well, of an indeterminable nature. One dish was filled with purple sludge. Some kind of casserole in another. Bread stuffed with...something in a third.

A woman appeared with tongs in hand and asked for our order. I pointed to a dish and said, "Uh, that?" "How much?" "I, uh, three?"

The kids looked pleadingly at us. Keene said, "Should we...try somewhere else?" But by then, we had already wasted so much time on not eating, I was determined to get the meal over with. "It'll be fine. It's a new experience."

Absolutely bewildered, we ordered: exactly three barbecued ribs, 1 breaded chicken thing, 2 pork chops with melted cheese on top, and a small bowl of potato and beef soup. Because there were no tables large enough for four people, we spread along one wall.

Years later, Kayden will describe this night to his therapist as the night he had to eat melted-cheese-chicken in a weird Twilighty-Zone restaurant.

But, um, hooray for exploring our neighborhood, right?

Scenes from Moving Weekend

2011-09-15T08:49:00.000-06:00

We did a very grown-up thing and bought a house. A house with a basement, a garage, and neighbors who don't share our walls.

Meet Castle Greenskull:

So, the night we "took possession" of the house, we brought a couple carloads of boxes over.

We worked on putting together our new Ikea table:

We hid from Keene in the backyard, because we could:

Then we dragged our blankets, sleeping bags, and a Harry Potter movie into one room and had a slumber party.

The next morning, everyone woke up, excited to carry heavy boxes for hours on end:

And because pictures of us sweating and cursing and getting our shins all banged up isn't that entertaining, here are some more pics of the house:

Sunday afternoon, with our former apartment sparkling clean and totally empty, we dropped off the keys at the management office:

Then it was time to...holy crap...start cleaning and unpacking:

But luckily, Pooper joined in the effort, so it didn't take that long:

As of now, we're probably about 50-60% unpacked, so I'll post more pictures later.

And in closing, if you ever wondered what it looks like when I'm in the crocheting zone, here it is:

And if you never wondered, well, go back and stare at that pretty, new table.

Craftin' Carnival and Other Crafty News

2011-09-12T10:07:00.007-06:00

So, with return of cooler weather, the crochet business has returned to being slightly insane.

On Wednesday night, I met with Samuel of the I Heart Denver store, which will be carrying Bitter o'Clock hats for the season. Let me tell you: if you live in Colorado or any of the surrounding states, you must check out this store. It's beautiful. The kind of beautiful that makes you not want to buy anything, because you'll mess it up. Except that you want to buy everything, so then you struggle internally until you leave, and then you regret not buying anything, so then you make plans to go back as soon as possible.

Oh wait, what? Yeah, so now my hats are right in the mix of things:

(Photo is courtesy of I Heart Denver)

I'm really excited to be included in such a cool shop.

However, after leaving, I realized that, "Ruh roh! I just dropped off my entire stock of animal hats and flapper hats...and I have a craft show in a few days." So over the next three days, I crocheted and crocheted to build the stock back up.

On Saturday, I did a test run of the booth in our still-covered-in-boxes living room. If you squint, you can spot several brand new hats, as well as the Bitter o'Catalog and signs I created over the last week.

So, Sunday was the day of Craftin' Carnival. The event was tons of fun. It had a cotton candy machine, a cupcake truck outside, and some of the most amazing artisans selling their goods.

For example, Mama Zshanna and her prints:

Batty Amanda and her purses:

I'm so in love with this bag. You can't tell from the picture, but it has a super long burlap-type strap, so it can be worn as a messenger bag. I don't even use a purse, but apparently, that's because I've never found one I loved so much. Guess who carries a purse now?

I was also really lucky to have Megan from Wild Paper Flowers right across the walkway from my booth. She sells gorgeous paper flower bouquets:

On a side note, she is also extrememly sweet and was so much fun to talk to all day.

As for me, I've realized this weekend that--as I suspected--high school craft fairs really do not attract my target customers. Hip craft fairs where the girls have asymmetrical hair and tattooed sleeves and the guys have tight jeans and mustaches...those are where my hats fit in.

(This pic was taken at the end of the day, after I realized I never got a picture, so excuse the basically wrecked booth.)

For the last bit of excitingly crafty news, I'll be participating in Denver Handmade Alliance's Art by Craft Market show on October 9th. Details to follow, purchase not necessary, void where prohibited.

Things I Forgot to Post About: A Summer Wrap-Up Series

2011-08-31T04:55:00.001-06:00

It may seem like I live a very boring life by the way this blog is so lacking in adventures. But as it turns out, I just run a very boring blog. See, I'm really bad at posting about something within a reasonable timeframe. I actually have pictures from the Christmas parade last year which I still have not posted.

So, as a way to bid adieu to summer, I'll do a series of posts: Things I Forgot to Post About. Or rather, Things About Which I Forgot to Post.

This will be Part One.

Golfing

On Father's Day, Kayden and I took Keene to play his first round of golf. We played a scramble so as not to slow down the teams behind us, but we still managed to pick up a mildly annoying fourth player, who turned out to be a golf instructor. Why? Why do they always turn out to be golf instructors?

And, of course, we let the kid drive:

Exploring

One random Sunday, we decided to explore a state park near our apartment. We walked along a river for a while, then found a bridge made from a large tree. We veered off of the trail, crossed the bridge, and started walking back the way we had come, this time on the other side of the river.

Unfortunately, it seems that veering off of a trail was what you should not do in that state park. In our effort to get back home, we came across some deserted campsites, nearly stepped on a bull snake, had to crawl through thick reeds. Yet we still had to cross the river to get back home. This time without the large tree to serve as a bridge. After doubling back for a minute or two, we found the next best thing: two smallish trees to serve as a bridge.

This worked fairly well until it was Maia's turn to cross. Two seconds after this picture was taken, I knew I was about to fall. So I grabbed Maia and threw her from that spot to the ground. She did not like being tossed over part of a river, but with only one wet shoe, I consider that a successful crossing.

Purging the Junk

I've been reading a lot of blogs about minimalism lately. Because I'm impressionable, I decided to drastically reduce the amount of junk in the apartment. And hey, bonus! Less to move!

There was the Rock and Roll Garage Sale at 3 Kings:

And again:

Keene got his first massage, performed by the sexy Luise:

Kort and I braved the heat at the flea market:

As well as the insane roadways, as we maneuvered into our allotted space:

We even did an actual garage sale, though I didn't get photos of that.

Even better than getting rid of all that junk: we barely brought any more junk back into the house. However, we did get a bike for Kayden:

And yet another bike for Keene. We went to the thrift store where we found my vintage Hawthorne cruiser. And guess what we found! No, really, guess!

Another vintage freakin' Hawthorne, this time a road bike:

We have amazing thrift-store luck.

And thus concludes Part One of all the stuff I have not been posting about this summer. Stay tuned for museums, camping trips, and ZOMG! Quicksand!

Friday Jumble of Mish-Mashed Stuff

2011-08-26T11:34:00.008-06:00

You know how most people say summer is craft fair season? No, you didn't know that? Oh well, they do. However, for me (and most other knitters and crocheters), craft fair season starts in the fall. The weather cools enough so that wearing yarn doesn't seem insane. To prepare for this, I bought--wait for it--a smartphone. I'm finally ready to embrace 2007. Well, not quite. But I wanted the ability to accept credit cards at craft fairs and smartphones are the way to do it. I have to say, this new world is very daunting. "My phone can actually get a virus?!" "Why won't my phone stay charged?!" "You can watch Netflix on your phone?!"

In any event, I'm enjoying some parts of it (namely, the games and the swiping-text feature)...and hating other parts (see above).

So, what other huge life-changes have been going on? Oh, we're buying a house. On Tuesday. Then moving on Friday. And we're totally not ready.

I don't know if you know this, but liquor stores are the best places to get boxes. The boxes are sturdy and a good size. And the store employees are almost always grateful to get rid of the boxes.

Many times, the employees are so nice and helpful that we feel obligated to buy something from them. As a result, our beer-drinking (and tequila-drinking) has increased like three- or four-fold since we started packing.

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Last week was the Cub Scout Raingutter Regatta. This is the boat race which Kayden has done for five years now. He's won some races and lost some races over the years. He even got third place last year.

But this year? First place.

(Note all of the frowny faces around him.)

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In uber-exciting craft news, I listed this piece of nursery decor on Etsy, a first for me.

Right now, it's for sale as just the frame and felt design. However, in the future, I hope to incorporate one of those weird little, animal dolls I sewed a while back, creating a kind of neato 3-D wall hanging.

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Want some music to listen to? In honor of Women's Equality Day, here's Salt 'N Pepa. Tough chicks who objectified men and who paved the way for more female rappers in the mainstream. Love it.

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Finally, here are some random life-pictures:

How to Make a Hat-Stand for Less Than Ten Bucks

2011-08-24T10:14:00.008-06:00

I hear tutorials are popular on blogs. But I also hear that I don't really know how to make a tutorial. So instead, I will give this a tutorial title, but just show you this cool thing I made. My readers are smart: I'm certain they can figure the specific steps for themselves without proper instructions.

As a hat-maker, I've always struggled to find a good way to display hats for craft fairs. I started out by laying the hats flat on the table. That's a great way for people to not even see what you are selling.

Then I added some of those creepy, white Styrofoam heads into the mix:

Another time, my friend and I tried a stand-up lattice idea. It was a way to show off the hats vertically, but it seemed awfully busy:

Last year, I got the idea of going the shabby-chic route and displaying them on vintage candleholders:

Again, not a bad idea, but the table seemed just a little too shabby, with not enough chic.

A couple weeks, I began thinking again of ways to display those damn hats. I wanted something simple, something bright. Like me, you might say.

I went to Michaels for the materials, though Keene suggested Home Depot would probably be cheaper. Here's what I got:

Wooden "plaques" in various shapes - $2.00-$3.00 each
Acrylic paint in various colors - $.59 each
Wooden dowels - $.99 each
Wooden discs in large and small - $2.00-$3.00 each
Wood glue (already had, but is probably around $2.50)

First things first, I drilled a hole partway through the bottom of the discs, so it didn't actually penetrate the other side. I did this while holding the power drill in one hand and the disc in the other hand. This part scared Keene. But you know, some people just don't take enough risks when it comes to power drills and hands.

When all of the half-holes were drilled, I used what Keene insists is not a hacksaw to cut the dowels into varying heights between 9" to 24" tall. Then I wood-glued the drilled holes, and hammered the dowels in with a rubber mallet:

I also used a level to make sure the discs were level, because that would have been an embarrasing tutorial if they weren't.

Then it was time to paint:

By the by, if you're going to also buy paintbrushes from Michaels, don't go for the cheap ones unless you want little hairs stuck in your paint. I ended up using a clean kitchen sponge after realizing this.

After several coats of paint, the hat-stands were finished! Hooray!

One Last Summer Hurrah

2011-08-22T14:02:00.005-06:00

If I could improve my business practices in one way, it would be to work on seasonal products in anticipation of the correct season. All winter, I should have been preparing spring products. All spring, I should have been preparing summer products.

Instead, fall is nearing quickly and what am I working on? Summery freakin' headbands.

In any event, though, they're fun and quick to make which fits in with my hectic, non-crafty life right now.

Here's how they look on a head:

I also had some fun working on these ones, though they took quite a bit longer:

I'm really feeling comic books lately. Maybe it's because I finally got rid of the huge box of comics I had been dragging around for three years. I'll be working on more of these captions soon.

Anyhow, they're now for sale on Etsy. Go check them out. Celebrate summer into the fall.

Friday Friday Friday - Fun Fun Fun

2011-08-22T02:52:00.001-06:00

Notes from today: this post was intended for last Friday, but Blogger is/was/will always be stupid. So here it is, instead, to kick off your week.

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So, my website was hacked yesterday. Sixty dollars and several hours later, it was fixed. However, the beautiful font that was used in all of the headings and titles is gone. Several more hours and multiple re-uploads and backups later...and, well, it's still gone. If anyone knows about Wordpress themes (and ElegantThemes, in particular) and could possibly help me figure out this pesky problem, I'd love you forever. Seriously. I'll even name a pet after you.

Update: I fixed the fonts issue! Hooray! And now I don't have to promise my love and pet's name to a possible stranger!

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Here is something deep to consider. Last week, I burnt my arm on the rim of a pot while cooking. It created a thin little rainbow burn.

Now, having just been burnt and still feeling the lingering ouchiness, I saw the burn like this:

Keene, on the other hand, feeling no pain, saw it like this:

A matter of perspective, really.

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So, because I'm mostly busy editing a video and repairing my pretty font, I'm going to leave you with some interesting articles I've read lately, all from the website Bored Panda:

Top 33 World's Strangest Buildings

Make Something Cool Every Day

Cinemagraphs

Cool Inventions from the Past

And lastly, here is my newest favorite song:

Portland Zoo: A Wordless Photo-Post Because it's Monday and I'm Tired

2011-08-15T07:29:00.000-06:00

Low Tide, Rogue Brewery, and More Beach Adventures

2011-08-08T13:13:00.009-06:00

Remember how in my last post I said that I would post more pictures the following day?

And do you remember how prior to that, I mentioned that I had lost all concept of time and space on vacation?

Yeah. So are we good now?

One morning, we woke up at six in the friggin' morning. Set our alarms and everything. We got dressed in our warmest clothes and went down to the beach to explore the low tide.

See, normally the beach looked like this:

But at six in the morning on this particular day, the beach looked more like this:

That grass is not actually grass but algae. Those rocks aren't all rocks, but the occasional huge mass of barnacles and mussels:

In the shallows tide pools, we found anenomes:

Including this large anenome that caught itself a feather. Or maybe a whole freakin' bird and the feather is all that's left of the poor critter:

We saw a lone starfish sunning itself, which was really neat...

Until we did more exploring and found tons more of different colors and sizes:

Anenomes are pretty cool. When you touch it, it tries to suck in your finger. Of course, I didn't dare to touch the big, bird-eating kinds. Also, when they are out of water, they look kind of wrinkly and smushy and, well, gross:

Bonus picture of some kind of armored slug creature above.

Thus concludes our low-tide explorations. Here are some random and fun beachy pictures:

Want to know how to zoom on a camera phone picture?

Seriously. This worked. I didn't think it would, but when held up to a pair of binoculars, the phone actually captured the children playing about 100 feet below us.

One of the days, we joined Keene's stepbrother, his wife, and their baby in Newport to check out the harbor (is that what it's called) and to eat lunch.

Look at these disgusting fish that are just, like, swimming around out there:

Can you imagine having one of those suckers brush up against your leg while you're playing in the waves? Anyhow, I later ate one of those guys on the trip.

On another day-trip, we visited Depoe Bay:

We ate delicious peanut butter and chocolate cream pie (yes, read that again and think of how much you hate me now), drank coffee, visited the little boutiques lining the main street, and tried to see any of the whales that frequent the bay.

Depoe Bay is also home of...

Hooray! Rogue Brewery!

Gather 'round for a family picture, children!

Then we went back to the beach house to taste-test our haul:

And that is all for now. Pictures from our final day will be coming tomorrow. Or will they...?

Anyhow, thanks again to Keene's parents for letting me borrow some pictures for this post. Pretty much any of the clear, non-fuzzy, non-yellow pictures are theirs. Thanks!

Back to the Beach: a Trip to Oregon

2011-08-02T13:20:00.014-06:00

We just got back from a week in Oregon. My brain has not yet accepted that we're home, so this will mostly be a picture post.

So, we arrived in Oregon on Saturday afternoon where I met Keene's dad and stepmom for the first time. This would probably be a nerve-wracking situation for anyone else, but I wasn't worried. I think, given Keene's past dating history, they were more afraid of me than I was of them.

Nevertheless, they are wonderful people, though probably insane for hosting us for a whole week. All of us. For a whole week.

We stayed at their house the night or two (it was around this time that all concept of space and time left me), then headed to a beach house in Lincoln City.

Isn't this a strange picture? That's Keene and his dad. Keene is standing a little closer to the camera, but it looks like they're about to brawl. Anyhow, their similarities crack me up.

The beach house was actually on the beach, which shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. Well, on the beach and up 100 steps. Fortunately, the people who built the staircase took out-of-shape out-of-towners into consideration and included benches on every landing.

The mornings on the beach were beautifully spooky:

Then the sun would come out with a vengeance:

As you might have deduced from the picture quality, I was using my cell phone camera the whole time. Fortunately, Keene's parents took some amazing photos with their camera:

More pictures coming tomorrow!

If you give a cat a bath.

2011-07-12T07:45:00.001-06:00

We had been kicking around the idea of bathing the cats for a while. I had heard from a friend that regularly bathing her cat resulted in less shedding and fewer hairballs. While these perks did appeal to me on one level, the idea of dunking the cats in water appealed to me on a much more hilarious level.

Of course, being a non-evil pet-owner, I couldn't quite justify the potentially awesome experience.

Until one night, Pooper stunk. Maybe he had just finished living up to his name or maybe his tongue was out of order and he hadn't licked himself clean lately. Either way, the tub experiment became giddily justified.

Dodo has always been drawn to water. If I'm taking a bath, she'll sit on the side and let her tail swing under the water. And despite Pooper pushing her into a running shower several times, she'll still sit on the side to watch the falling water. (Okay, so she either likes water or she is just a pervert.) I figured she would love taking a real bath.

Not so much. However, she didn't struggle as much as she would have if she were in a bath of, say, toenail clippers rather than water.

Pooper pretty much gritted his teeth and turned into a statue. Well, a statue that will patiently wait until you're asleep before exacting his revenge...

While the cats weren't too happy with the ordeal, the kids had a squealingly grand time.

Pooper learned to never slack on his tongue-bathing duties again.

And Dodo learned absolutely nothing at all.

Frogurt

2011-07-06T09:04:00.001-06:00

We went to a frozen yogurt place last night.

Big mistake.

It's a self-serve place where you put whatever you want in the cup, then pay for it based on its weight at the end. They give you BIG cups (like 16 oz), so you can add toppings and whatnot. We each grabbed a cup. Kayden immediately started filling his. I said, "Whoa! No, you don't get to fill the whole thing..." but then he was off to the toppings. Again, "Whoooooooa! Not so much! Geez, kid!"

Then I turned around and saw Keene. He had filled up his ENTIRE cup with the ice cream and was jamming tons of toppings into it. I really think my jaw dropped. I had to stop him from putting even more on, because the cup couldn't hold anymore. As you can imagine, both of them were really wired for the next two hours.

I told them I'm never taking them there again. Ever.

Things I Don't Understand

2011-06-29T08:34:00.003-06:00

It has recently come to my attention that I don't understand. That's it. I just don't understand. I've realized this is a phrase I overuse: "I just don't understand _____________," which is pretty funny because I generally act like a know-it-all. Which is it, Kelli? You don't understand or you know everything? Can't have it both ways...

In any event, I don't understand...

...why a girl will wear stillettos to a dance club (ouch!) or a miniskirt in the cold winter air (brr!). No man's attention is worth that effort.

...why a girl feels the need to wear revealing clothes to catch a man's attention at all. Sure, you'll get plenty of attention. But is that the kind of attention you want? If you wear trampy, take-me-home clothes to meet men, then wonder why you never meet any quality men, you may be missing a valuable lesson here.

...why the royal wedding caused such a stir. But we all know I don't like weddings, so...

...what makes certain tattoos trashier than others? What exactly makes a 'tramp stamp' trampy? Because in 1997, suburban moms and frat boys across America met and decided they needed a new way to degrade young women? To come up with yet another way to keep her pressed firmly into a respectable, lady-like mold?

...why an American Girl doll is worth $100. What's so special about it? Does it pee out real urine or something? Is the hair made from the hair of a real princess? Does the doll protect your child like a Buckingham Palace guard while she sleeps? Tell me!

...why the government considered releasing photos of the body of Bin Laden.

...why my car has a built-in screen on the passenger-side visor. We can't figure out how to turn it on, much less what will happen once we do turn it on. I'm certain it must be technology leftover from an ancient alien race.

...why it is trendy to get breast implants that look like flesh-colored baseballs. Or bowling balls, if that's more your speed. Aren't they painful to lay on or run with? Or to bump into somebody with? Or just to look at? And all these sentences ending with prepositions lead me to...

...why split infinitives are so bad. While writing the last paragraph, I had to correct myself about four times. But I don't know why they are bad. It's like why you don't talk about money or politics or sex in a mixed crowd: I get that it's wrong, but I don't know why.

...why people blow so much money on a baby's first birthday party. Tell me, what do you remember about your first birthday? Or your second...or third, for that matter?

...pre-shredded cheese. Or rather, why someone will pay over four times the price, just for the sake of not shredding it.

...how any parent could kill his or her own child.

...how someone can think he or she will always be alone. With over six billion people on the planet, surely anyone can find a man or woman who will love you and treat you the way you deserve. Why settle for a lousy relationship just because you're scared of being alone forever?

...the war. I can understand why war has been necessary in the past. When reading history books about the Civil War or American Revolution, I'm given a clear sense of WHY we went to war. But for the life of me, I still can't figure out why we're at war with Iraq, Afghanistan, or any of these other places we're invading. When I ask intelligent people why, the answers vary...but at the base of each answer is a small (or large) nugget of confusion. This war has made me into an anti-war hippie.

...waiting to find out the sex of your unborn baby, in order to make the day more special. Now, if you have another reason for not wanting to know the gender, cool. I certainly don't think everyone is as impatient or as anti-surprises as me. But it is this particular reason that I don't understand: to make the day more special. Isn't giving birth to your kid already going to make the day pretty damn special? I wonder if these are the same parents who will, in a year, throw a thousand-dollar extravaganza to make the birthday party more special.

I'm sure I've offended at least one person with each statement. If you are one of those who are offended--or better yet, you aren't offended, but you know the answer to something--and can explain it to me, please do. I will personally thank you in my follow-up post, "Things I Now Understand Thanks to the Internet".

Update: I feel like the post can benefit from this video:

I want that little kid to come here and kick an American Doll over.

The Green Monster Smoothie

2011-06-27T14:25:00.006-06:00

Recently, I've started venturing to a wonderous yet perilous new land: the Land of Adventurous Cuisine and Healthy Eating. Okay, both of those are a bit overblown. I'm not about to eat the head of a lamb, so "adventurous" isn't quite right. And there ain't no way I'm swearing off frozen Totinos Pizzas for good, so "healthy" isn't totally correct either. So, maybe I should say, "The Land of Expanding My Heretofore-Sheltered Culinary Horizons and Working on a Tad More Nutritional Meals, Even When the Children Aren't Around."

So, moving along, I found this blog with a recipe for a Green Monster smoothie. Claiming that this concoction will provide a boost of energy, loads of nutrients, and a magical pair of wings (I'm assuming here), I decided to try it out. I won't repost the exact recipe here, but you can find that at the link above.

Basically, it is a banana, spinach, nut butter (or peanut butter if you're not totally sure about all these newfangled ingredients), almond milk, ice, and flax seed:

Then blend it all up:

And drink it all down:

I was surprised by how good it tasted. Kind of nutty, very banana-y, not at all spinach-y.

Experienced immediate stomach pains and cramping, which lasted about five minutes before settling into a steady churning and growling, which I suspect are the flax seeds burrowing into my intestines like ticks, preparing to exorcise the lingering Ghosts of Unhealthy Meals Past:

But then the storm passed and I felt all super healthy like whoa. Thanks, flax seeds!

UPDATE:

Bless Keene and his willingness to try anything I hand him

Colorado Women's Beer Club Does Aurora

2011-06-27T10:01:00.014-06:00

On Saturday, the Colorado Women's Beer Club ventured away from Downtown and met at Dads and Dudes in Aurora. This place is amazing: great pizza (with spent grains from their beer being used in the crusts) and great beers (brewed by the restaurant itself). And a patio. What more could you ask for?

Well, a more central location...but hey, sometimes it's nice to get out of the city. Especially those of us who have to drive twenty minutes to get into the city. There were a couple "suburbs high-fives!" going on among the Aurora-suburbanites of the group. The night was fantasmically fun and makes me so eager for the next get-together that I may actually pee my pants.

When you hear a no-nonsensical name like "Colorado Women's Beer Club," you may picture a group of women with pinched mouths and notepads at the ready for jotting down comments about mouthfeels. Don't be fooled. Here is what you really need to know if you are thinking of coming along to the next meeting:

1. You must be open-minded. This is not like a mom club or a single-girl club or anything designated. We have straight women, gay women, single women, married women, twenty-something women, thirty-something women (and yes, even forty-something women), women with kids, women who don't like kids. It's all there. The one thing we don't have is close-minded women.

2. You must bring your sense of humor. I don't care how humorless you may think you are, you will laugh, by god...

...you may even laugh so hard, that you risk choking on or spraying out half-eaten food:

3. You don't have to be a beer-drinker. And you certainly don't have to be a craft beer snob. So, what if you only like Bud Light or even just rum? Are you willing to occasionally listen to beer-related topics and reviews, or try a sip or two (or even brave a pint) of a tasty brew? Yes? Hurrah! You're CWBC material!

It's true the club is comprised mostly of women who really like their beer. But there are also members who are just venturing into beer territory and those who aren't sure if they want to start that journey at all. No one will tease you or force you to drink (although that would make for a great adult version of an after-school special). But we will offer recommendations, answer questions, or let you try some of our own drink, if that is what you want.

4. This is not for the faint of heart. Topics tend to stray wildly from strictly beer lectures. This one is like the love-child of "be open-minded" and "have a sense of humor," because when a group of women get together for several rounds of beer, the conversation can get awfully rowdy.

5. You will make friends, dammit. And you will want to keep coming back for more.

If you're worried about being the newbie or about coming alone, feel free to email me (kjaidea [at] yahoo.com). Or you can start interacting with members on the CWBC Facebook page. This is definitely not an exclusive club and we love meeting new people. We will make you feel welcome or die trying.

2011-06-14T12:32:00.002-06:00

This one goes out to my dad:

Bucket List Hats

2011-06-09T08:13:00.006-06:00

I have a new line of hats. I know, I know. I have more lines than a Cubist painting (woka woka woka). But here is another line.

You know that bucket list I keep over there on the right? No, your other right:
----->

I've decided to make a hat for each of those items, to represent it. My goals, others' goals, the cat's goals. Whatever. The point is put your goal on your head. What better way of holding yourself accountable? Every time someone says, "Why is there a guy stuck in quicksand on your hat?", you would have to reply, "Oh, because it is a goal of mine to play in quicksand. "What are you doing to achieve this goal," they will likely ask next.** "Umm, umm..." you will stammer if you haven't made any progress toward achieving your goal.

**Based on all of my research, the next question is actually, "Um, why do you want to play in quicksand?"

The other reason for this line is, well, the constant flow of inspiration and challenges to be had. Think of all the things just waiting to be fashioned out of felt!

So, here is the inaugural Bucket List Hat.

#2 - Speak Spanish fluently:

And because I'm not as fast at crocheting as I am at cutting felt, here are previews of the upcoming hats.

#23 - Moonwalk:

#1 - Memorize five songs on the guitar:

Mines, Museums, and Mountains: a Trip to Leadville

2011-06-02T16:29:00.001-06:00

Over Memorial weekend, we took a daytrip to Leadville, Colorado. Partly to see a new city and partly so we didn't have to play Monopoly with the kids again. We drove through the mountains for about 2.5 hours to get there. Despite the weather being downcast yet warm in Denver, in the mountains it was sunny and cold enough to keep the snow from melting apparently.

Upon reaching Leadville--a small town from back in the glory days of mining--we stopped at Golden Burro Cafe to grab lunch, then went to the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum. Pretty sweet pic of the streetlight, huh?

The museum was interesting, housing lots of different types of ores...

(That's Wulfenite up there.)

...old mining equipment...

...photos, which I took expressly for my grandma, whose dad had been a miner in Montana, as well...

...a model railway which sucked the kids in more than anything else...

...and full-size dioramas of the mines of yore...

Outside, on the terrace, we got a great view of the whole town...

...and of the back of Kayden's throat:

Then we headed up to Baby Doe Tabor's old cabin.

Click here to read more and to see where a Colorado royal had lived...and died. OooooOOOOoooooh!

The tour of Baby Doe Tabor's cabin was my favorite part of the day. Our tour guide, Debbie Jo was funny and knowledgeable and clearly very passionate about Colorado history. First, we walked around to the back of the cabin (which started out as the administrative office) to the mine entrance:

Then we walked through the small building where the aboveground operations took place:

Lastly, we went into the cabin. If you look about four inches above Kayden's head, there is a notch in the door frame. This was done to show how tall Baby Doe stood (approximately five feet tall).

The cabin was unintentionally creepy. The walls are covered in newspapers from the 1930s (the papers were donated by a museum admirer and were hung to show how the cabin looked while Tabor lived there) to keep out drafts. The one-room cabin was fairly small and mostly windowless. To imagine living there for many years made me a little anxious and claustrophobic.

The tour guide told the story of Baby Doe Tabor while referencing the photos on the wall:

(Rather than me telling it and probably botching it, you can read about it here.)

Finally we grabbed some ice cream cones, saw some drive-by sites, then split back to Denver. And then played Monopoly with the kids, anyways.

50- and 100-Mile Radius Goal

2011-05-27T20:41:00.002-06:00

I read recently that you should work toward advancing a goal every day. It doesn't have to be much...just something to keep moving toward the goal. One of my goals is to travel (in increments) a fifty- and one-hundred-mile radius around Denver. This may seem a silly, pointless, and possibly expensive goal to others. But the way I see it, there is so much going on right in our own figurative backyards that many people will never experience. Why spend hundreds or thousands of dollars traveling to the backyards of others? Don't get me wrong, I intend to do that along the way...but while squeezing day-trips in here and there.

So, basically, this is me advancing my goal. Impressive to behold, isn't it? Here are the cities I plan to visit (or have visited already, if they are crossed off and linked). In some cases, the city will be within a couple miles of the radius edge.

50-Mile Radius

- Loveland or Windsor
- Empire Reservoir, Tampa, or Keenesburg (holla!)
- Shamrock...and county roads? This one will be challenging.
- Deer Trail, Byers, or Agate
- ~~Elbert~~
- Black Forest, Gleneagle, Air Force Academy
- Pike National Forest, Lake George
- ~~Grant~~
- Winter Park, Fraser, Tabernash
- Estes Park, Grand Lake, or Rocky Mountain National Park

100-Mile Radius

- ~~Cheyenne~~
- Pawnee National Grassland, Keota, or Grover
- Brush, Akron, Hillrose
- Limon, Genoa, Flagler
- Punkin Center, Rocky Ford, Karval
- Pueblo, Coal Creek
- San Isabel National Forest, Salida, Poncha Springs, Buena Vista
- ~~Leadville~~
- Routt National Forest, Kremmling, Steamboat Springs
- Walden, State Forest State Park, Old Roach, Kinikinik

How to Fail on Etsy: Clutter in the Background

2011-05-26T11:24:00.000-06:00

I've become an Etsy photo snob over the last year, because one can't browse through Etsy without finding some cringingly, eyebrow-raisingly bad photos. The item itself could be beautiful and of high quality, but a bad photo makes it hard to know this.

You may wonder, what makes me think I'm an expert on product photos?

Well, I have eyes. It's true. And they are even good, strong eyes. (And stunning, I might add.) So when I see these photos, I rely on my good eyes to say, "Wowie, that is a really bad photo."

I am not a photographer. I like taking photos, but they are never going to be of hanging-on-living-room-walls quality. I'm okay with this. We can't all be professional photographers, but we can take decent product photos for Etsy.

Remember that bit about being a photo snob for the last year? Well, before that, I was the seller who gave more thought to the dirt under my fingernails than to the photos I listed online. Then I wondered why my awesome stuff never showed up on the coveted front page of Etsy.

What makes a bad product photo? Last month, it was bad lighting and shadows. Today, it's clutter.

Now, this doesn't necessarily mean actual clutter, like dishes on a kitchen counter or your kids' backpacks and jackets laying on the couch. More commonly, it's simply the visual clutter which is taking up space in your photo.

As a potential buyer, you try to focus on the hat. But then your gaze keeps drifting to the glowing light and dark vortex of a hallway in the background. You stop wondering how you'll look in the hat and start wondering if the person is in a cellar. Maybe she is trapped and being held for ransom?

I remember coming across a baby blanket for sale on Etsy. The workmanship appeared to be top-notch. However, I couldn't tell you anything else about the blanket, such as the color of the yarn or the design. But I could tell you about the bedroom in which it was displayed: from the hollow brass headboard and the box of Kleenex on the nightstand (hey! I have that same box design at home!) to the traditional country-style quilt on the bed.

You may be asking, "But if the room is clean, what does it matter?" There are two reasons why you should keep the background uncluttered: 1) it keeps the focus on the product, 2) simply put, it's more professional. Could you imagine browsing a catalog online and seeing the model standing in a bedroom with the blinds half-drawn, a cat walking behind her foot, and a cobweb hanging from the ceiling fan? Of course not. Professional product photos are created in controlled spaces, with the photographer considering any possible background clutter.

While we all know Etsy is a place to buy goods directly from the maker, buyers still want to know that they are dealing with professionals. There is nothing professional about, "Hey, this is the Kleenex I use to wipe snot from my nose while working on the hat which you'll later wear on your head." Or, "Hey, I don't make my bed and I just throw dirty clothes on the floor...but don't worry, I take great care of my products!"

(Don't worry...this photo didn't actually make it onto Etsy.)

So enough with the criticism, what can you do to declutter a shot? It can be as simple as posing your item in front of a blank, empty wall. The plain white background is really popular on Etsy because it won't detract from the product and because it produces a super clean shot. Nevertheless, I like bright, bold colors, so I use a ghettography prop: posterboard. I bought posterboard in several vibrant colors from an office supply store. Then I either prop the boards against something or pin them to the wall, depending on where I need them.

This is what a typical setup looks like:

My "photo studio" is on a desk in my bedroom, near a window where I can take advantage of the natural light. From afar, there is definitely clutter. But that is not what will be in the shot. Instead, the customer will only see something like this:

Nevertheless, the background doesn't have to be empty or a solid color to be uncluttered. Incorporating a pattern into the background can enhance a photo. For example, Etsy seller Bridal Brick Row uses a brick wall background in each photo:

Pixel Cloud uses a soft, sedate wallpaper to accent the shop's vibrant prints:

In closing, be mindful of the background, know and control what your customers will see, and make sure your product always remains the focus of the photo.

Scenes from the Apocalypse

2011-05-21T20:58:00.004-06:00

We thought Rapture 2011 was just another internet meme...

We were wrong...

Adventures in Comb-Overs and Absinthe Cocktails

2011-05-19T15:15:00.001-06:00

The comb-over is a wonderful thing. It's mysterious and full of secrets, yet approachable. It's sure of itself and yet it's sensitive. While you might think it's stubbornly gelled down, the slightest wind could blow it over.

And so it came to pass that I crocheted an ode to the comb-over. It is a classic beanie in a pale cream shade (because as the test-monkey, well, I am only available in a pale cream shade) with dark brown around the sides and back. But why stop at bald? I sewed loose, single strands of brown across the top of the pate and secured them on the other side. No blow-aways here!

Upon finishing, it was time for a night out on the town with Kortney. Like many nights-out-on-the-town, our first stop was Falling Rock for dinner. The hard part about beginning with this wonderful beer bar is having to tear yourself away in order to try something new. Nevertheless, tear ourselves away we did, and for a very special reason: absinthe.

But first, a history lesson! Absinthe has been historically known for two things: its famous admirers (Oscar Wilde, Vincent Van Gogh, Aleister Crowley)...and its supposed penchant for making its admirers into violent and/or suicidal lunatics. Despite the inaccuracy of the latter claim, many countries banned the liquor by 1915, including the United States.

So if it was banned, why was I drinking it? Was this 2008 all over again? No, don't worry. In 2007, the Swiss and the French stepped in and saved the day (bet you never would have seen that coming). After some championing (and promising of first-borns, I'm sure) by Kübler and Lucid distillers, the ban was lifted but with stipulations: lowered levels of thujone (the rumored crazy-causing chemical agent found in wormwood, which is the crucial ingredient in absinthe), packaging could not allude to hallucinations (or fun) in any way, and brand names could not contain the word "absinthe". Hey, whatever makes it happen, right?

Since then, American companies have begun producing their own versions of it--including Colorado's own distillery, Leopold Bros. And it is here that I end the history lesson.

We made our way to Star Bar, eager to try the mythical liquor. The bartender mixed delicious yet strange cocktails using Avery White Rascal beer, Three Pines Alpine Herbal Liqueur, and Rocky Mountain Blackberry liqueur for me, Michigan Tart Cherry Liqueur for Kortney. He capped off the cocktails with exactly three drops each of absinthe. Yes, drops:

While we sucked down the light cocktails, the bartender prepared our second drink: absinthe and water. No sugar cube, no slotted spoon, no lit match, just absinthe poured into icy cold water.

I learned two things about absinthe:

1) The smell is as intoxicating as the actual drink. When tilting the glass to take a sip, your nose is hit with an overpoweringly exotic odor, making you feel head-drunk long before your body feels the effects of the alcohol.

2) It doesn't taste as bad as I have always heard. Maybe it is because the American version has been so dulled down so as to make it legal that it has lost all of it bitterness in the process. Or maybe my mouth is the oral equivalent to Superman. Either way, the Leopold Bros. absinthe is fairly pleasant.

Oh, and 3) you really should not drink a lot of beer before or after the stuff. Trust me on this. Wowza.

Less than hour and two drinks later, we headed toward Great Divide Brewery on surprisingly wobbly legs. Pow! Pow! Score one for the unassuming absinthe.

The brewery was where I really tested the Comb-Over Hat's legs. In the crowded bar area, several people stopped me to compliment my hat, shouting about how great it was. And when I mentioned the comb-over aspect of it, the uproar really began. People laughed and laughed, gasped for breath, pulled at me, asked if I would show their friend, asked where I got it...

But here is what I wonder: I received lots of compliments long before explaining about the comb-over part. What did these people think it was? Just a bald cap? Well, that's pretty clever in itself. One person commented, "Princess Leia! Star Wars!" In Carrie Fisher's later years, perhaps?

So you tell me, what would you think this hat was supposed to be if you didn't see the top of it?

Before long, it was time to leave. I had to drag Kortney, kicking and screaming, away from the bar:

Just kidding. I totally set that up to make her look like a lush. She was actually returning my empty glass to the bar, along with her own. Although the kicking and screaming comment wasn't all that far-fetched...

So, in conclusion, I determined the Comb-Over Hat to be a crowd success.

But that could just be the thujone hallucinations talking.

There's No Place Like Kansas. Except More Kansas.

2011-05-10T10:08:00.001-06:00

Weeks ago, Kortney and I made our trek to Kansas to visit her daughter, Zoe. The trip had been planned for months...my miserable head-cold, however, was a new development. The drive itself was uneventful, aside from sudden moments of what felt like my eardrums exploding due to the elevation changes.

By the time we arrived around 1:00 a.m., I was certain I was about to die. Now, keep in mind, I'm the strong, stoic type when it comes to being sick. Now, I know I'm only two paragraphs in and I've complained about being sick four times. But that is only so I can present a case for how truly sick I was...and therefore, why I look like hell in:

Every:

Single:

Picture:

Zoe, on the other hand, was looking more beautiful than ever.

We arrived in Kansas and promptly went to bed. And woke up at 6:00 a.m. Now, this trip occurred right after the daylight savings time change. And Kansas is in a different time zone from Denver. So when I say 6:00 a.m., I mean it was actually 5:00 in Denver time. And 4:00, if the time change hadn't just happened. Insane. I hate time zones and time changes. I feel like they are all ganging up on me.

However, don't go anywhere. I promise that's the last rant about the otherwise-fun trip. No, seriously, come back. I'm sorry.

After a breakfast at the diner where Zoe works, we picked up her friend Heather, and drove to Hays. Hays is considered the "city", where everyone goes when they need to actually buy clothes or shoes or anything they can't get at a grocery store. Like last time, our first stop was The Mall. Where people, lots of people, watch television. At the mall.

Next stop was the magical thrift store, at which Kortney and I have found amazing things over the years. Like matching, embroidered jackets. We put the jackets on and morphed into Sig and Rosa: feisty older women who have probably killed a man, but will never tell a soul how or why:

Then it was time for lunch. We went to Gella's Diner, home of Lb Brewery.

If you want to read more about the specific beers we tasted, go and read Kort's review at Colorado Women's Beer Club.

I know I'm breezing through this post, making it seem like the trip to Hays was about twenty minutes long. But believe me, it was more like when the Jews wandered through the desert for forty years. Except with beer and a camera.

After lunch, we found a neat antique store with a full room of old military gear. Hooray!

What you can't see in this picture is that I was actually walking from room to room, wearing this expensive helmet and pretending to talk into a headset. And what you also don't see (and what I didn't see) were the video cameras following this whole scene.

We left the antique store (no, not in handcuffs) and...

Had an impromptu photo shoot! Yay!

Raise your hand if you saw that coming. It's okay, I'm raising my hand too.

The girls were extremely fun models, proving that--despite what you may have heard--teenage girls are not made up entirely of drama, tears, and hormones. Here are some of the outtakes which didn't make it to Etsy, but are too fabulous to just ignore.

If you want to see the awesome photos that did make it to Etsy, look here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

A big thanks, by the way, to Zoe and Heather for being so awesome and willing to humor a dying old woman's last wishes for product photography.

So, after the photos were finished and after we searched high and low for the one coffee shop in all of Hays, we trooped back to the small town where the girls live. We dropped them off and said goodbyes:

Finally, Kortney and I dragged ourselves back to the motel and crashed for the night, over a dinner of chips, beer, and grapes.

Bright and early on the third day of our adventure, we got up, ate a breakfast served by Zoe the Waitress, then drove back home.

Mother's Day, Elephant Mud, and Other Grand Adventures

2011-05-09T12:45:00.000-06:00

So, yesterday was Mother's Day, in case you hadn't noticed. Which means you must have not been anywhere near a store, a billboard, the internet...or your children. Shame on you. Anyhow, despite my feelings of grumpiness surrounding the holiday, Keene and the children really turned it out this year.

One night while I was out drinking margaritas, Keene had gotten the idea to make earrings for me, which is always a great idea. He let the kids design their own pairs, choosing from my collection of thousands of buttons and beads. Here is what they came up with:

Here is Kayden's design:

Here is Maia's design:

And lastly, here is Keene's design:

Hooray for new and funky jewelry!

Doesn't that make you want to go out and snag a handy, jewelry-making boyfriend of your own?

Seriously, do it. Your wife won't mind.

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Here is some funniness to make this god-forsakingly slow day go by a little quicker.

This is part of a hilarious article written by Jessica Wakeman at TheFrisky.com. Click here to read the full article.

What do your musical tastes say about you?

Beyoncé / Britney Spears: Urban, professional 20-something women who belong to expensive gyms and have a “workout playlist” on their iPhones.

Lady Gaga: College girls who wear sloppily applied eye makeup on purpose, unrealistically hopeful NYU theater majors.

Katy Perry: Conservatively raised teenage girls who want one of their parents to get annoyed at the lyrics to “I Kissed A Girl.”

Fergie: Women who watch “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” because they can, like, relate, not because it’s a trainwreck.

Tori Amos: Women who feel too much, play piano, hate their stepfathers.

Adele: Women with messy personal lives.

Amy Winehouse: Women with even messier personal lives.

Rilo Kiley: Women who need a prescription for Lexapro ASAP.

Alanis Morrisette: Women who are cool beans so long as they remember to take their Lexapro regularly.

Pink: Women who’ve discovered the effects of their Lexapro are rendered obsolete by the amount of alcohol they consume.

Regina Spektor: Boring women who fancy themselves “quirky.”

Ben Folds: Boring men who fancy themselves “quirky.”

Feist: Pale, urban women with bangs who wear owl-shaped jewelry they bought on Etsy.

Sheryl Crow: Suburban moms who work at the front desk in doctors’ offices. Also, dental assistants.

Duffy: People who purchase their music exclusively at Starbucks.

Enya: Women who have “spells.”

Nina Simone: White people who fancy themselves connoisseurs of jazz music because they own one of her albums. (This description does not apply if you own more than one album.)

U2: Free-spirited souls who strangely have no qualms spending $300 on concert tickets through Ticketmaster.

Girl Talk: Any hipsters you want to smack upside the head for being posers.

Sufijan Stevens: Any hipster you want to smack upside the head for being a poser but who actually has good musical taste.

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In addition to celebrating Mother's Day this past weekend, we also finally celebrated Maia's 7th birthday (which was actually on Easter). We took her and a few little girls to the zoo to par-tay. Unfortunately, this is the only picture I took the whole day, because I was too busy rallying the girls to just keep walking. Really, little girls? You're going to let an out-of-shape, nearly-30-year-old woman show you up in the energy department? Well, they did.

Maia is in the stripey dress:

The most memorable part of the day was the elephants, which were unusually active. One elephant sucked up water in its trunk, then sprayed it into the dirt at its feet. It swirled the water around and made mud. Then it sucked up some mud in its trunk and lifted the trunk to spray the mud onto its back.

I flinched because I thought we were going to get sprayed when it lifted its trunk, but then relaxed when the mud didn't come. However, just as I let down my guard, hundreds of drops of mud came racing across the 20+ foot gap, toward us.

Elephant-trunk mud in my hair, all over my arms, all over Keene, all over the little girls in party dresses.

Yup, we know how to party.

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Now, I've tried and I've tried to come up with non-crochet-related topics, despite that taking up a significant amount of my time lately. But I am vowing to save all hat-talk for the next post. Instead, here is my single crochet boast for this post:

That's Kayden, learning to crochet.

(Did anyone else read "boast for this post" and think, "You're a poet and you didn't know it"? If so, shame on you again.)

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And now I'm leaving you with a picture of my commute, because I enjoy the juxtaposition every day: beautiful lake on one side, congested freeway on the other.

Such is life.

Where in the World is Bitter o'Clock?

2011-05-04T10:53:00.001-06:00

Jeez, Kelli, you slacker! Why aren't you blogging as much anymore?

Well, inner voice, I've been busy becoming internet-famous! It's true.

Here are some recent places you might spot some of my hats in action:

CraftGawker.com:

CraftGawker is a beautiful website with beautiful photos of beautiful crafts. And my hat.

HandmadeTop10.com:

HandmadeTop10 is a site where you can submit a handmade item and hope it doesn't get too badly torn apart by the competitive masses. I submitted a hat to the Crochet division and huzzah:

My "Cartoon Cat Hat" (or Garfield for you non-lawyers out there) won 3rd place!

But wait, there's more:

I also submitted a hat to the Children's Items division...and, while not quite as impressive as the cat hat:

...the Frogger hat won 7th place, which is pretty cool.

And finally, at Handmade Gift Gallery:

No hats of mine in here...but I did make the treasury, while under my secret identity as Bitter o'Clock, so that totally counts.

School Performance: Singing, Dancing...Rapping?

2011-04-30T15:03:00.007-06:00

On Thursday, the fourth grade performed musical numbers for their teary-eyed parents. It was a tribute to Colorado, to showcase their newfound knowledge of the state.

Before the show started, Maia was, well, weird. Here's the secret, though: she was weird afterward too.

The show began with Kayden front and center-right (in the orange shirt)...

...holding a "D":

For the next 45 minutes, they sang (look for Kayden off to the far-right)...

They danced...

They did not, however, hail Hitler...despite what this looks like:

...and they rapped. This was a hilarious addition to the show's mix of old-timey ditties and bombastic showtunes-style songs:

"Pikes Peak or Bust!"

Times like this, I realize how truly quickly and overwhelmingly the world can change. That being said, though, the kids killed it. As if remembering all those words and singing them along with 100 other kids weren't hard enough, they threw in some rockin' moves to boot.

(By the by, if you liked the performance, feel free to leave a comment for Kayden just below this post.)

On a side note, I always say Kayden is my mini-me. However, this is one area in which we are so different. I was terrified of public speaking, performing, and even just being on stage as a kid. I would purposely miss school on the days I knew I would be receiving an award or performing with the choir at an assembly. Kayden, on the other hand, was really excited to get up there and perform. Given his general shyness, I was very impressed by this.

Kudos, dude!

A Birthday Photojournal by Maia

2011-04-29T10:05:00.010-06:00

Maia's 7th birthday fell on Easter this year. Among her presents was a camera from her Grandpa Lewis. She immediately set out on a mission to seemingly kill the battery before the day was out. And so I'll hand the post over to Maia, to show you what the world looks like from her eyes.

One of her birthday presents was a Barbie bathroom furniture set. The family immediately was drawn to the toilet, with which we had a rowdy good time playing:

Then it was time to head out to Maia's great-aunt's and -uncle's house for Easter dinner (and more importantly, dessert):

Toward the end of the night, Maia gathered all the grown-ups (and Kayden) for a group shot:

If you'll notice, I'm taking a photo at the moment. Here is that photo of our photographer in action:

Then she rallyed her aunts, Becca and Rachel, for close-ups:

There was an egg hunt for the kids:

And finally, it was time to head back home:

Wasteful Becomes Useful...and Other Ways Starbucks Completes Me

2011-04-26T08:04:00.003-06:00

Let's just get it out there: I'm insane about Starbucks. I know this may come as a bit of a shock to, well, anyone who has never met me or read my blog before. (At this point, I was going to subtly slip in a link which shows if you Google this site and the word "Starbucks," you get six pages of results--to reiterate my point. But instead, I did it in a very non-subtle way: subtle link.)

**See footnote for a slightly funny, but mostly rambling, story about the beginning of my love for Starbucks.**

One thing I do not love about Starbucks is their wasteful nature. Sure, paper cups are necessary for a coffee shop. But the java jackets? The java jackets! They pass those out like STDs at a high school party. You know, Starbucks, my hands are tough. In fact, they are long-standing champions of the Holding Hot Stuff For a Really Long Time competition. I don't need java jackets and, my friend, neither do you.

When I think about it, I take the time to remove the jacket before leaving the store or quickly say, "Oh, no, I don't need one" before the barista slips one on. Most of the time, however, I simply don't notice until I'm throwing it away and thinking, "Sigh! I wish I could figure out something to do with all of these."

Well, the time has come. I figured out a way to reuse these stupid java jackets. I borrowed a tag puncher from Kortney, pulled out a single-hole puncher and an ink pad:

Then I ordered my very own Bitter o'Clock stamp:

Then I punchpunchpunched:

And stampstampstamped...and voila! Hat tags:

This serves several purposes. Not only did it alleviate my consumeristic guilt about needless waste, but I also needed some kind of tag since *cough* my hats will be carried at several local boutiques this year.

But does this mean I'm going to slip into a Starbucks and steal their collection of java jackets to keep this marketing ploy going? Of course not. If I were going to break into a Starbucks, I'd steal their supplies for making tasty beverages. And maybe a barista.

Since I made the decision to keep the jackets instead of tossing them, my collection has grown extremely fast. This collection--which has taken over my desk at work, my purse, and my workspace at home--serves as a reminder to decline, for the love of god, just decline the java jacket.

Footnote, or How I Learned to Stop Sleeping and Love the Starbucks

So, upon moving to Colorado, I had never had coffee or tea before. (Remember the whole Mormon thing?) At 18, I started working at a Borders with an in-store coffee shop. This was before Seattle's Best took over and brought in their own employees. Back then, Borders employees were cross-trained all over the store, so a typical day would have me working in the coffee shop for a few hours. It was around this time that I finally tasted tea. It tasted like crap.

Well, I eased into with all the milk and syrups at my disposal. I grew to love it and eventually found I liked it without all the frou-frou-ness added in. From there, I tried coffee. It tasted like crap.

Nevertheless, I saw the possibilities. Being a barista, I got to experiment to my heart's content. My crowning achievement (no, not like while giving birth...gross) was the Vachocochalatte: a mixture of chai, espresso, milk, vanilla syrup, and pumps of Ghiradelli's chocolate. It was amazing. From there, it was on. Like a child who never gets candy will overindulge at Halloween, I was overly caffeinated from that moment forward.

Now, working at a coffee shop had its woes (and its whoas). Namely: Starbucks customers. These people were always very snooty, very uninformed, and very demanding. These were the people who got mad when a drink did not taste like it did at Starbucks. These were the people who ordered four large drinks, filled with nothing but a shot of espresso and foam. I grew to hate them.

You could pick them out by the way they ordered a "venti macchiato," then yelled when you informed them that a macchiato was just a shot of espresso with a dollop of milk. They insisted I was an idiot. Because of these people, I was determined to never go to Starbucks. Well, and because there were six (yes, six!) Starbucks within a square mile of my cafe. This fact irritated me, since I was sure at least four of those must have put an independent coffee shop out of business at some point, right?

But then one day, I had to meet up with some classmates to go over a school project. Where did they choose to meet up? Starbucks. I grumbled but relented...however, I would not order anything. Of course, once I got there, droopy-eyed and unmotivated, I realized I needed a fix. Blame me if you want, but could you work on a Statistics project uncaffeinated? I don't freakin' think so. I ordered a mocha-something-or-other. And god dammit, it was delicious.

I still resisted Starbucks for a long time after that, but my resolve wavered month by month. Within a couple years, I moved into an office job. The cafe was no longer there for me to swipe free drinks or to create bold new masterpieces. I was forced to go to coffee shops like everybody else. And what was the most convenient? Well, if I sneezed and accidentally passed one Starbucks, I could just stop at the next one. Then when I discovered their five-pump chai, I became the fiend I am today. Despite my love of Starbucks, though, I refuse to use their stupid lingo. I can't help it. Years of dealing with those jerky Starbucks customers forced me into a permanent rebellion. I am now the jerky customer you will find asking for a medium chai with--oh wait, can you make that nonfat?--yes, medium, um, with whip cream. Ha, take that, Starbucks.

Just Another Catatonic Monday.

2011-04-18T14:04:00.010-06:00

I keep nodding off. Pandora seems to be trying to lull me to sleep with its insistence on playing Sting. On my Janelle Monae station. Really, Pandora?

So, in an effort to stay awake, I'm going to do a mish-mash post. It's been a while. Plenty to be mashed about.

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I recently got a package in the mail. It was a box full of free samples: Starbucks Via, CoffeeMate creamer, deodorant, and more. It was like Christmas. Well, like the Christmas when my mom, tired of wrapping individual presents, got each kid a big box and tossed all their presents into it. And wrapped one single box. She was a smart lady.

Anyhow, the box. I don't know who sent it, because I was immediately blindsided by the excitement of being surprised. Deodorant! Biscotti! Wowie!

Well, one of the items in the box was something called Dream Water. Underneath warnings about not consuming it with energy drinks or while driving was a cute little tagline, "Dream Responsibly." Sold!

Now, when I am either stressed or in an especially creative phase, my mind refuses to go to sleep. As a result, I hadn't been sleeping well lately. I took a sip of the Dream Water and finding it pleasantly overly-sweetened like Kool-aid made by children, I downed the whole bottle.

Fast-forward 20 minutes. I didn't exactly pass out. But my movements slowed until I stopped crocheting altogether. I sat and watched a show with Keene, uncharacteristically not fidgeting, not talking, not doing anything else. I didn't go to sleep any earlier than usual, nor did I stay asleep any more consistently than usual. But it did manage to turn me into an unproductive sloth for the night, so kudos to you, Dream Water. You have bested me this time, with your mysterious arrival and alluring tagline.

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We recently went furniture shopping (well, furniture-looking-at-and-talking-about-and-ultimately-deciding-against-everything). While there, we spotted something familiar. For a low, low price of $29.99, you too can own the Johnny 5 television stand:

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If you are my friend on Facebook (and I don't know why you wouldn't be, we're pals, right?), then you know by now that I have gotten rid of Old Man Car. Yup, I traded him in for a sexier, younger, and taller vehicle. I'm not really good at that whole loyalty and commitment thing.

Behold my Jeep:

And, of course, Keene wasted no time in disassembling it to see how it works:

Yes, while I was driving.

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And if you don't "like" my Facebook page, Bitter o'Clock (and I don't know why you wouldn't, I'm pretty cool, you know), you haven't yet seen my newest geniusness.

The Combover Hat:

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Hmm...I usually throw some recommendations into mish-mash posts, don't I?

Let's see...

Okay, check this out from the Etsy shop, lilimandrill:

You could put your face on a stamp. If you're hip, you could put a mustache on a stamp, then stamp it on whenever you're in an ironic mood. I could have one made with the word "Fantastic!" on it, then stamp anything I deem worthy. ANYTHING could be made into a stamp.

Wouldn't that just be the coolest thing? No, but really, it is. Quit arguing. Or you won't get the Fantastic stamp on your forehead. You'll get the "I argue a lot" stamp instead.

As for a song, this is kind of an oldie, but it's on my mind today. "Soundtrack to the End" by Communist's Daughter:

Finally, this girl makes awesome animal noises. I'm guessing she is even better after a couple of drinks:

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...until next time:

Forget owls and octopuses. Etsy is good for hair-shopping.

2011-04-14T07:45:00.000-06:00

I'm preparing to cut my hair again. Yup, bored with it already. And what better place to get hair-inspiration than Etsy?

I'm sorry, Cute Dark-Haired Bride. I didn't get your name before copying and pasting. If you see this, let me know who you are and I will be happy to give you the credit you so richly deserve.

However, this seller is my true girl-crush, MBGDesigns. Remember my post last year about girl crushes? Well, they have nothing on her hair:

Nevertheless, my true inspiration for cutting my hair short again?

Me. 'Cause I make a pretty cute boy.

(I'm the one on the left.)

8Balloons

2011-04-13T09:03:00.003-06:00

My hats have been featured on a blog called 8Balloons, along with a bunch of other neat finds! Ch-ch-ch-check it out.

8Balloons: Happiness Visualized

On a side note--because there always has to be a side note--the blogger found me on Twitter. Twitter is the site I have to actively work at getting better. Facebook is easy because it's visual and conversations are easy to follow. But Twitter is all of the place. It's like jazz. And you know how I feel about jazz:

beeeboobeeZIPpowpowpowbeebooboooretcharetchabeeeebeeeewickawicka

It makes me insane. Nevertheless, I recognize that it's a good tool for meeting and connecting with people.

But here's my question: what do you talk about on Twitter? Just what you're doing at the moment? What you'd like to be doing? What you shouldn't be doing? Help a Twitard out...

(Bad blogger ETA: I totally meant to add that if you want to hang out on Twitter, my handle is @bitteroclock.)

Mind. Blown.

2011-04-10T19:48:00.000-06:00

Dear Abby and Ask Ann Landers were twins?!?!?

How to Fail on Etsy: Embrace Shadows

2011-04-10T05:14:00.001-06:00

This is probably the single biggest problem with Etsy photos: the photos are just too damn dark. For example:

Is that a scarf or...a ghostly mist of pure evil? It's so hard to tell with this lighting. This was a scarf I had made for a custom order long ago, so while this photo wasn't planned as an Etsy listing, this was the actual "after" shot I sent to the customer. Bad Kelli of yore.

"See the good quality? Nice even rows, pretty pattern, a decent length...and it blends in with the shadows! Perfect for any ninja in your life."

Nevertheless, dark photos happen to the best of sellers. So how do you fix it?

There are a couple methods I use for fixing up pictures. If you have Microsoft Office installed on your computer, chances are you also have the MS Office Picture Tool (try looking under the Office Tools folder, if you can't find it). This is a standard photo viewing and editing program which is actually pretty solid. Open up a picture with this program, then click the Edit Pictures button. A list of options will pop up on the right of which you'll choose "Brightness and Contrast." The new menu will display (depending on your version) Brightness, Contrast, and Midtones. In general, you should avoid the Brightness option, choosing to use Midtones instead. This will bring out a photo's highlights without fading the overall image.

If you would like to try a program with more flexibility and features, upload your picture to Picnik.com. Click on the Exposure button at the top. There you'll find a handy slide tool, which you can use to make the picture brighter. While this quick repair won't wow anybody, it certainly improves the quality and gives the customer a better idea of what they're buying:

Like magic. However, keep in mind: this software is not God. It will not make your picture fabulous, nor will it get you laid. Your best bet is to put the initial work into making the picture a good one and just use this software as a supplemental tool.

One of the best tricks I have found is to create a light reflector, by using the dull side of aluminum foil and a piece of cardboard. Cheap, quick, and very handy.

Here is a good tutorial to show you how to make and use it:

Studio Quality Product Photography with a $12 Setup - by Handmadeology

By re-directing light without washing out the object, a potential customer can get a better look at the item:

Here are some other articles which may be helpful:

Cost-Less Macro Photography Light Box by PetervG on Instructables.com

Small Object Photography by Marlo Miyashiro on Meylah.com

Make Your Pictures Pop by Bomobob on Etsy.com

But if you'd rather just have a quick summary, here it is:

Never use your flash

Along those lines, remember it is much easier to correct dark photos than those with glares

When possible, use natural light

Try to avoid direct sunlight, as it can give you a harsh glare or wash out the object altogether

Rather, reflect the sunlight off of something else, even if it is white posterboard

Brighten photos afterward, using the exposure settings on a photo editing software.

Remember: dark and brooding only works if you're a poet, a teenager, a vampire, or some combination of the three. Otherwise, opt for clear, bright, and shadowless:

Green Shoulder Bag by Marbled

The Most Valuable Lenox China Collections

2011-04-01T22:38:00.000-06:00

http://www.lenox-china.net/archives/the-most-valuable-lenox-china-collections

When trying to decide the most valuable Lenox china collections, there are a few factors which should be taken into consideration: is this collection still available to purchase through Lenox? If so, is value based on current price? Or if the piece discontinued, is the value based solely on its obscurity? Putting all of these questions into context, we will discuss several aspects: the most costly of Lenox’s current services, obscure historical collections, and the types of china which fetch the highest prices.

While perusing Lenox’s website, one will find almost immediately that there is a wide spectrum where price is concerned. From the high-end items all the way to clearance-marked specials, a person working with any budget could reasonably find a quality piece of china. But let’s focus on those high-end items. Which services are at the peak? Funny enough, it is not the contemporary pieces that fetch those top spots. It is the vintage throwbacks, the pieces based on some of the first Lenox patterns to ever be released. For example, both the Westchester and the Lowell patterns (released in 1915 and 1917, respectively) feature opulent bands of etched gold, surrounding the ivory center—a style reminiscent of the era in which they were originally created.

One pricey pattern features a more contemporary design; however, it is a spinoff of an original, as well. The Tuxedo pattern was created in 1912, again with the gold accents. Lenox followed up with Tuxedo Platinum in 1997, a similar pattern but with the more modern platinum accents.

While these pieces are valuable as new additions, there are certain pieces which carry even more value for their historical relevance. Across the span of Lenox China’s existence, it has occasionally employed well-known artists to design patterns. One of the early artists was William Morley, who hand-painted patterns for Lenox around the turn of the twentieth century. Today, these pieces are coveted for their rare nature. Also, collectibles with early marks—such as steins, vases, lamp bases, pitchers, and jugs—are notably hard to obtain.

Pieces with markings such as “Ceramic Art Company” and “Lenox Belleek” will bring a high resale value. Additionally, pieces produced during the years of 1942 to 1946 are extremely rare, as Lenox drastically reduced its output during this time to help with the war effort. In order to figure out the year, look at the bottom of the piece, at the date code. There will be a letter, followed by a number between 300 and 500. If that letter is “T,” you will know it was produced during these years.

Last but not least, the type of china which will be undoubtedly pricey (regardless of whether the pieces are current or discontinued) is bone china. Due to its costly production and imported materials, it has always maintained a high price, but more than makes up for it in quality. The porcelain (made with real bone) is extremely strong, despite being so thin it borders on translucent.

Boho on Another Blog

2011-03-23T16:34:00.004-06:00

If you like shopping, cooking, fashion, or if you just like me, go check out Without A Thing To Wear. It's a lifestyle blog I visit from time to time to ogle awesome stuff.

And well, what's awesomer than me? Nothing, right? Well, I'm on the home page of that blog right now, so check it out.

On a side note about that picture...I love that picture. And you know why I love that picture? I love that I'm starting to get wrinkles. No, really. Go look again. Right around the mouth. As long as I've been a teen mom, I've been looking forward to being 30 years old. And now, the moment is swiftly approaching and I couldn't be happier about it.

And why you ask? (My, you sure are interactive today, readers!) Well, that was supposed to be the age at which people start taking you seriously--not only as a parent, but as an adult. As someone who has spent much of the past 28 years NOT being taken seriously, this was always a goal.

But strangely, I have had a realization recently. My best friend, a teen mother herself, recently turned 30. I asked her, "So do people take you seriously now?" She replied, "Nope, not at all." I asked her where we went wrong. Why are my peers working up the career ladder instead of pushing it over? Wearing conservative and expensive clothes instead of thrift store finds? Investing their money in the stock market instead of Starbucks?

Well, my conclusion is that I'll never truly be grown-up. As long as I have water fights in the house, conversations with vacuums, and intense goals like being homeless, I'll never be taken seriously.

And you know what? I'm cool with that. It's taken me nearly 30 years to realize who I am and who I don't want to be. So, cheers 30! I look forward to seeing you next year.

Oh yeah, but seriously...go check out that blog.

"Less Hats, More Blogs."

2011-03-14T13:36:00.005-06:00

This is what Keene's mom told me when I asked for her opinion about the newest hat I created. I agree, Susie, enough with the stupid hats already! In fact, I may not even blog about hats right now. But I probably will.

On Saturday night, I decided to crochet a new animal hat. Since I don't use patterns, I can never guarantee how a hat will turn out. In the past, I've generally had good luck with just free-handing it. I whipped up a basic beanie to work with, then began adding the details: a snout, some viciously yellow eyes, a felt nose...

And here is how it turned out:

By the way, did I mention I had been drinking? And apparently channeling a demon who, using my crochet hook and hands, had manifested itself in acrylic form.

Upon finishing, I showed the hat to Keene, asking, "Well, what do you think?!" Now, Keene is a considerate guy. No, that's not it. He's a smart guy. He knows there is no good way to point out flaws to a woman, unless you are another woman (preferrably one with a few years of pull-your-big-girl-panties-on cred under your belt). So when I asked his opinion, he carefully asked, "Is it a bear?"

"No, it's not a bear!" I told him what kind of animal it was supposed to be.

"Oh, uh, maybe you could make its ears pointier?" He pulled a picture up on Google.

"No! The ears aren't supposed to be pointy!"

"Maybe, uh, pin them back?"

"No! I'm just going to sleep on this. I'll wake up in the morning and decide I was being too picky and it actually looks awesome."

Turns out, nope. I woke up the next morning, walked out to the dining room, to find this hat hanging on the chair, its eyes watching me, following me across the room. It still didn't look like what I had intended. I decided to pose the question to the internet: what kind of animal is this? Here are some of the responses I received:

Sarah: "It's a bat...or a weasel. A bat-weasel!"

Alison: "Darth Vader"

Rachel: "That's definitely a rhino. He is upset about misplacing his horn."

Fellow Etsian, Wednesday's Designs: "A chupacabra!" (Given my experiences with El Chupacabra, I'm loving this idea.)

Several people on Twitter suggested it was a Doberman. Hmm...I could see that.

So, after giving it some serious thought, I've decided this hat will be the elusive and deadly El Chupadogra. It was once a normal guard-dog, until it sold its soul to the devil in exchange for a good ol' leg-humping and a rock to chew on. Now it is a creature of the night. And a hat.

On sale today! Get it before it gets you!

Oh, and a thank you to all of you who not only made this drunken mistake into a legitimate product...but also gave me substance with which to create a blog post finally, thereby satisfying Susie. ;)

Oh, what's that you ask? What kind of animal was it supposed to be?

Surely you can see the resemblance now? Right?

Is Lenox China Really Worth the Expense?

2011-03-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

For most of us, the days of formal dinners at home are long-gone. Elaborate affairs in which one “breaks out the good china” are becoming scarce, leading many people to wonder if china is still worth the hefty price. Despite many china companies producing more cost-efficient versions of their valuable dishes, the common idea is that it is a frivolous and unnecessary expense. So why might someone still consider buying it?

To Give as an Heirloom
For many decades, it has been tradition for a parent or, more commonly, a grandparent to hand down their china set to a newlywed. This set was often highly valued by the grandchild, especially after the giver had passed away. However, as this tradition declines, it will be the younger generation affected, as these special heirlooms become scarcer. One woman said, “I would really like to have my grandma’s china when she dies…it’s sort of a sentimental thing combined with just loving the pattern. It’s the only thing I hope she leaves me.”

It Maintains its Value
Due to its superb quality, Lenox china is one of the few items which holds (if not increases!) its value from generation to generation. Early services from as long ago as the nineteenth century are still being passed down, surpassing the lives of one owner after another. However, one cause of this is oftentimes due to the obsessive care shown by some owners: “I hate when my mom gets her china out and looks at us sideways when we cut too loudly on the dishes.”

It is Easy to Replace
Due to its value and brand recognition over the years, collectors ensured it wasn’t carelessly discarded over the years. Therefore, finding and replacing pieces of a set is as simple as looking on eBay or the official Lenox website.

It is Made in America
In these times of economic uncertainty, “Buy American” bumper stickers can often be seen adorning the back end of many cars. It is reasonable to want to buckle down, to keep the money close to home, when you are unsure of your country’s financial future. Since it was founded in New Jersey in 1889, Lenox has remained a domestic producer, creating most of its products here in the United States.

But Then Again…Many people just can’t justify the price or don’t see themselves as “fancy” enough for upscale dinnerware: “We’re very informal. Can you imagine me and china? ‘Ok, here’s your Miller Lite, beer koozy, ashtray…oh, you need a saucer!’” Many people also stated lacking the space to store it or not having an occasion to use it. However, for those who enjoy the formality of dinner parties or just like the tradition of using china, it is absolutely worth the cost: “I think if you plan to entertain a lot and you like having fancy things, then it’s a good idea. I bring out the china whenever I have people over. I also break out my Christmas dishes from mid-November until mid-January.”

"What would you like her to know about this day...?"

2011-02-18T08:09:00.003-07:00

I recently received a DVD in the mail. It was from a grandpa I had not seen in about 5 years. He had taken the time to convert old home videos to DVDs, then sent them around to the applicable grandchildren. I had never seen this footage until that day.

Don't worry, Mom and Dad. I'm not one for big speeches, anyways.

(Despite my comments, you should know I absolutely love this. Also, I am so thankful for my grandpa for all of this.)

Letting Things Go and Learning to CTFO

2011-02-07T14:51:00.000-07:00

I've known for some time that I get uptight with Keene a lot. But yesterday, it occurred to me just how often and over (sometimes) silly stuff. I don't stay irritated, but I do snap at him. For example, yesterday:

- He didn't want to eat the cereal we have for breakfast. I didn't want to eat it either, but we were about to leave for a day trip and I didn't want to spend money on a fast-food breakfast. I was eating the cereal even though I didn't like it. I felt he should have to, as well.

- He kept farting in the car ALL DAY.

- He kept playing in the snow, which made the kids play in the snow, when I told them not to (since it was damn near freezing and I didn't want them complaining about being wet while standing outside for an hour).

- He kept breaking off icicles for the kids to lick or play with. I don't know why this bothered me.

- When I went to sit by him on the couch later that night, he told me to move so he could see the TV.

So, even though none of these are really a big deal and I didn't stay upset for more than five minutes at a time, I realized I need to CTFO. I don't know why these little things bother me.

Stories of Lenox China Owners

2011-02-01T13:57:00.001-07:00

Click here to read the original article: Lenox-China.net

Like the china sets themselves, Lenox owners come in many colors, styles, classes, and backgrounds. Whether the set was an heirloom, a new wedding or housewarming gift, or just a random purchase, each owner has a story to tell about his or her china.

Something Old

“My grandma spent years saving little bits of money in order to be able to own the full set. She loved that china. One plate has a chip on the…bottom of the plate that my aunt gave it [while] washing it one day. My mother always points it out and sighs! I adore having it as it belonged to [her]. I have her wedding ring and her wedding china…that is all we have left from her.”

“I have [a set of] my grandma's dishes. She asked [which of her belongings] I wanted when she went into assisted living. I told her the dishes: they remind me of her the most.”

“It was my grandmother’s. She gave it to us for our wedding. I think it's very pretty and dainty…I love it.”

“I'd really love to get something more my taste, but I would feel guilty because I have Grandma’s [set].”

Something New

“[We] got it all as wedding gifts. [The set] is classic. I've been married almost five years and have never used it. Despite this, I'm really glad I have it.”

“We didn't get china when we were getting married. We picked out everyday stuff. We finally got china last year. It is brand new and it's kind of “us,” in the sense that it's not obtrusive. On an additional note, I also have part of my grandma's china. It's definitely not me. It has tiny pink roses on it.”

“[At eighteen,] I started receiving a place setting for Christmas each year from my parents. When I graduated from college, my grandmother sent my mom a bunch of money to finish my china set. I'm very glad to have it, even if it only gets used a couple times a year. I like having it and I like looking at it in the china cabinet.”

Something Reserved

“I'm going to get a hand-me-down set from my mother-in-law in the future, and that will be fine. I feel that it has more meaning that way. I asked [her] for the set specifically ‘when she dies.’ It's a family joke that everyone asks for stuff ‘after she dies.’”

Something Blue

“I have four place-settings from my grandmother (she got it as a gift from the bank when she opened up a checking account back in the day). It has a silver-ish edge like my new set and a wide band of robin's egg blue. I like to mix and match the two sets in the springtime. It matches our style: understated and classic.”

…And Something Downright Odd

“When we found out our new set was bone china, [my husband] freaked out and didn’t want to eat off of it.”

High-quality yarn

2011-01-24T19:24:00.002-07:00

I'm curious. Do you think high-quality or organic yarn is worth the price? Or is it just a hand-washable pain in your ass?

The Quarters Experiment: a fun (and lucrative) way to discipline your children

2011-01-19T16:45:00.004-07:00

(Reposted from Examiner)

Like all parents, my boyfriend and I think our kids are practically perfect. But there is a whole lot of meaning stuffed into that word "practically". While they will (eventually) clean their rooms when asked, they do it with an "uhhhhhhhhh!" and a series of stomps or door-slams. And while they will (occasionally) get along, there is still plenty of bickering going on. While Kayden, the 10-year-old, has mostly mellowed out with age (perhaps reserving his power of rebellion for the looming teenage years?), Maia (at six years old) is quick to assume that life is unfair, that anyone who corrects her is mean, and that we all must hate her. Additionally, she has a habit of refusing to apologize and of glaring at you until your hair catches on fire.

It was with her in mind that the idea of an experiment popped into my head.

The Experiment

We handed over twenty quarters to each child, who put the money into their own pouches. We explained the experiment: any time a child broke a rule, we would ask for a quarter back. Simple as that. Whatever was left in their pouches at the end of the week was theirs to keep. And what were the rules?

No saying, "Uhhhhhhh!"

No saying, "It's not fair!"

No saying, "But Kayden/Maia got to __________!"

No bickering.

No slamming doors.

No glaring.

No tattling.

However, this wasn't going to be just a doom-and-gloom experiment. There would be a way to earn their lost money back. If we spotted them doing a good deed (especially for the other child), we would give them a quarter back.

We made the kids recite the rules back to us. They both acknowledged their understanding of the rules. We explained the goal of this experiment: to get them in the habit of not whining or complaining, to make them think about consequences before arguing, to help them cope with what they perceive as unfair, and to simply make them stop with the bickering already. And so the experiment began.

Day #1

Within an hour of explaining the rules, Maia lost a quarter for saying, "It's not fair!" She replied tearfully, "But I didn't know it had already started!" She glared (lost a quarter), then repeated "It's not fair!" (lost a quarter), before calming herself. By the end of the night, she was down by $1.00.

Day #2

I arrived home from work the evening of the second day. Upon entering, both kids rushed to greet me, yelling, "We haven't fought all day!" I was pleased, but not surprised. With the experiment being so new, the kids were sure to be on their best behavior. During dinner, neither child whined about having to eat all of their food in order to get dessert. After dinner, I asked Kayden to sweep the kitchen for me. He responded with a pleasant "Okay!" But then, a most unexpected question came from Maia: "can I help him?"

Okay, now that surprised me. I planned to give her a quarter after she finished, but she curtailed that idea by saying, "Can I get my quarter now?" I explained, "Maia, it's not a good deed if you ask for something in return. Keep this in mind: you'll never get a quarter if you ask for a quarter. Help him because you want to help him, not because you want the quarter." She promptly stopped helping.

Day #4

So far, so good. At one point, I had to raise my eyebrows at them when they started to bicker at bedtime. I said, "What could you do right now to avoid losing a quarter?" Kayden quickly apologized to Maia. I looked at Maia, the girl who would rather forego dessert, would rather chew off her own hand (don't worry, this hasn't actually happened yet) than apologize. She said, "Um, apologize?" I nodded. She hesitated then said, "But I don't know what you want me to say." I said, "Maia, you know how to apologize." She looked at me and said, "I'm sorry?" I replied, "You're not apologizing to me." Then, I watched with shock as she turned to Kayden and mumbled, "I'm sorry." And it didn't even seem to hurt her or make her weaker.

Day #5

After several close-calls over the past few days, my boyfriend and I decided it was time to cut out the warnings: the raised eyebrows, the "uh-oh"s, the chance for the children to redeem themselves. From now on, they would lose a quarter immediately upon breaking the rules.

Maia was down by $2.50, which was still impressive given her temper and her stubbornness. However, she actually earned back $0.75 by helping Kayden clean his room and by consciously stopping an argument that, at any time, she would have fought to the death to win. This was monumental.

Day #6

No quarters lost.

So far, I considered this to have been very successful. With Maia, she was apologizing more quickly than ever, she hadn't thrown a tantrum, slammed a door, or screamed all week. That being said, there were a couple of glares and the usual "You just hate me!" outbursts. However, considering it had only been a week, I was impressed with the abrupt change in behavior.

Day #7

Kayden lost a quarter finally. This morning, he and Maia started bickering. Even though we had agreed that there would be no more warnings, I still said, "Are you guys...bickering?" They immediately stopped and said no. But before I even turned away, they began arguing again. I took a quarter from each of them. I could tell it really bummed him out.

This marked the final day of the first week. After dinner, we asked the kids to bring us their pouches. In all, Maia had lost about $2.50; Kayden had lost that single quarter. We all discussed the experiment, as well as our observations of the children's behavior over the week. Despite Maia losing half her money, her behavior had taken a major turn for the better, and we told her as much. While Kayden--being older and more focused on keeping his money--had not lost much, but we had noticed he too stopped arguing, stopped complaining about chores.

Overall, we, the parents, were impressed and very excited to begin the second week. As for the kids? Maia mumbled, "I don't like it," but later decided she wanted to try again. Kayden said, "I liked it a lot...but it got a little scary at times."

As of today, we are now three days into the second week...and only one quarter has been returned to us.

Arts and Crafts and Inappropriate Paper Dolls

2011-01-03T07:52:00.001-07:00

I am determined to ruin the lives of my children. I do this in subtle ways: by not letting them watch television, by not letting them eat entire candy bars in one sitting, and by making them do creative activities rather than playing video games.

And so it came to pass one Saturday morning. Keene was at the store, probably spending an hour deliberating between which kind of bacon to buy. You see, I will adamantly not eat regular bacon. But the kids don't like my turkey bacon. And Keene, well, being from California, likes that weird non-bacon, non-meat Play-Doh-looking stuff.

He calls it "faken," rhyming with "bacon."

But that's not the point. The point is that while he was gone, I decided to ruin Maia's life by not helping her look for her lost Nintendo DS. Instead, I introduced her to the concept of paper dolls. And not just paper dolls, but...wait for it...homemade paper dolls.

With cardstock and coloring pencils, we got to work on a Maia paper doll. Complete with colored feathers in her hair. After I sketched each piece of clothing, she colored it to her liking. Once Paper-Maia had a sizeable wardrobe, we made hangers and a bar for her dollhouse closet.

Oh, and hey, Paper-Maia even has a Frogger hat:

After eating breakfast, I went out for some lunchtime drinks because hey, it was a Saturday. I came home, drank some more with Keene, because hey, it was still Saturday. Then got back to work on the paper dolls.

This is Paper-Maia, from the Heist series:

"This is a stick-up!" yells Paper-Maia, before pistol-whipping the bank-teller, as she sports trendy cutoff jean capris and an '80s-style striped tee.

At this time, I decided Keene also needed a paper doll. I sketched and erased and sketched and erased...

By the time he returned home from wherever he had been trying to run, I was finished:

I proudly showed Paper-Keene to Real-Keene. Who said, "Am I really that chunky?" I looked at Paper-Keene and back at Real-Keene. "It's not chunky!" I said, taking offense. "I think it looks just like you!" He replied, "Okay, but could you at least get rid of my gunt?"

**Note to readers: if you do not know what a gunt is, please do not ask anybody. Especially not your boss or teenage daughter. And especially do not Google this. It is nothing you really need to know and you most certainly do not need to see.**

I erased the offending lines and Keene warmed up to his paper-self.

He even mimicked Paper-Keene's happy frollicking:

After all the merriment at having a paper-twin had died down, I determined that Paper-Keene needed some clothes. But not just any clothes...he needed some groovy, rico suave clothes:

And detachable mustache, of course.

But as night descended upon us, Groovy Paper-Keene morphed into...

Monster-Paper-Keene! RAAAAARRRRR!!!

And that, my friends, is what a typical Saturday with me is like. You just never know when or where or how the fun will strike. Will you even consider it fun when it does strike? Or will it just be semi-awkward laughing and cringing and wishing I would fall asleep already?

You. Just. Never. Know.

A Matter of Personality: Selecting Your Lenox China Set

2011-01-01T13:35:00.001-07:00

http://www.lenox-china.net/archives/a-matter-of-personality-selecting-your-lenox-china-set

Whether you are planning your wedding registry, replacing your aging dishes, or simply wanting a change, picking out a new china set can be a fun (and occasionally stressful) event. To ensure you choose the best set for your home and for yourself, there are a few things to consider first.

What is your personal style? Now, how about your partner?
While your heart may palpitate at the sight of the ultra-feminine, pinkish-hued set, you must also consider your partner’s taste (if it will belong to both of you). If you have varying preferences (such as you like flowers, while he likes, well, power tools), try to think of a common hobby, color, or motif upon which you can agree. One Lenox customer said about her china set, “We registered for it when we were getting married. [We] picked it out together. The colors remind us of the ocean, which we both love. ”

Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks.
One of the main problems you may encounter while shopping for china is that everyone else seems to have an opinion about it. A standard “rule” is to pick out something classic, something that will not go out of style. However, what if your personal style is trendy or loud? Think about what you like, not what you should like. If bright colors are more your speed, look into such vibrant Lenox china sets as the Chirp pattern or any of the Kate Spade designs.

How do you plan to use it?
Will it be your daily dinnerware? Will you only break it out for fancy dinner parties? Or will you only use it during the holidays? Lenox has varying china sets to serve any purpose. For example, if you plan to use it every day, think about choosing a pattern from the Simply Fine line. These dishes are safe for use in the microwave, freezer, dishwasher, and even the oven. Additionally, they include a chip-free guarantee. One china owner stated, “We just bought some plain white plates to build up our supply for holidays…my family is bigger than an army,” while another one said, “I actually prefer Christmas china to regular china, but regular china is so much more practical.”

Decide on a budget.
Figuring out what you plan to use the china for can also help you set a budget. If the set will be used sparingly, the pieces are less likely to receive damage. Therefore, you may decide to spend more on those pieces, whereas your daily set may not warrant as high a price tag. There is a wide range, price-wise, of china at Lenox. “I chose a moderately priced style: Lenox Eternal,” said an owner. “I specifically chose this because it's very simple and classic, so it'll never be dated and [it] will go with any table setting.” On the other end of the spectrum, a woman told me, “The only set I have ever liked was $200 per plate—not for the whole place setting.”

Crocheting Hippo-Hatamus

2010-12-17T08:13:00.002-07:00

You want to know how I get my creative juices a-flowing? No, don't worry, it's nothing that will make you feel weird later for knowing. My thought process goes something like this: "I have a craft fair tomorrow. I've been selling a lot of frog hats lately. I should make another animal hat for tomorrow. What is another kind of ugly animal that you don't often see as a hat? Ooh, a hippo, and I even have a bunch of purple yarn!"

That's all.

I started by making just a basic beanie, then added the details. For the snout, I crocheted a large, triangular piece, then stuffed and whip-stitched it on. To give the appearance of separate "cheeks," I simply cinched the middle of the bottom row. Then some triangular ears, a couple nostril flaps. When I got to the eyes, I looked at many photos of real hippos, to get an idea of how I would design them. What I noticed is that hippos have fairly ugly eyes, simultaneously saggy and bulgy.

True to life, I made the eyes dark, bulging in their saggy sockets. Keene said, "I think it would be more relatable if you added some white to the eyes." I said, "But you don't really see the whites on real hippos." He said, "But it would be more relatable." I said, "Who relates to a hippo anyways?" I kept it ugly, its eyes dead and full of despair.

(Ignore the line running down the side of the snout. It was a failed experiment which was later axed.)

Unfortunately, in addition to being an ugly, unrelatable animal, the hat is also hugely un-photogenic. No matter how many times I tried, no matter the angle, lighting, or model, the hat just looked weird and shapeless.

But on the bright side, this hat could totally chomp you in half.

December, 2010: Oh, What a (Beer) Night!

2010-12-15T09:43:00.003-07:00

There is something magical a-brewing in liquor stores dotting the city, something promotionally wonderful and marketably fantastic. You can now "design" your own six-pack of beer. Okay, okay, I get it. This is probably not news to most the beer-drinkers out there. However, for this beer-drinker and her boyfriend, it made us feel like maybe there was more to this bleak, gray world in which all adults inevitably walk.

So it came to pass one Saturday evening that we passed a liquor store and decided to try some new brew. Lo and behold, I discovered two full cases of assorted bottles, each one sweating with anticipation, hoping I would choose it. I stood in front of the cold freezer for a long time, contemplating all the choices. Then I grabbed six different bottles:

Great Divide - Hades, Belgium-style ale

As the night began, we put a lot of thought into each beer, discussing the scent, the taste, the mouthfeel. (As in, "The mouthfeel gooooooood.") My boyfriend said, "It's challenging right off the bat, but finishes with almost a cider taste." He also remarked that it was a lot like champagne, with its style of dry carbonation. Its fruity, light taste made it something you could drink like water, easily and quickly before the guilt really sets in. Almost like Coors, but without feeling like you are being punched in the crotch for making all the wrong choices in life.

Widmer Brothers Brewing Company - Brrrr

If Hades hinted at fruitiness, Brrrr damn near pelts you with rotting grapefruits, like a food-fight gone awry. It's overwhelming scent and flavor is of grapefruit and orange peels. While it is initially tasty at the front of the tongue, it soon hits the back of the tongue, making you feel like you have somehow wronged God and are now being punished. While I picked up this bottle because of the name, thinking, "Ooh, 'Brrrr,' this sounds like a good holiday brew!" However, as it turns out, the "Brrrr" isn't referencing snowy evenings or crisp December mornings; it's giving props to the chills you get while viciously puking up last night's festivities.

Tommyknockers - Maple Nut Brown Ale

Count on Colorado to get it exactly right. The locally-brewed ale is as close to perfection as a beer can get without also being a drinkable hair-growing or boob-enhancing concoction. The smooth, thick taste is remniscent of Guiness, but with no hint of a bitter aftertaste. My boyfriend excitedly said, "I could drink nine of these!" but unfortunately, for us, there was only the one bottle.

New Belgium - Frambrozen Raspberry Brown Ale

Say you had an occasionally girly boyfriend who likes his beer on the, uh, fruity side. What might you do? You might take the aforementioned Maple Nut beer and add Framboise to it. And if you did that, you'd get pretty close to the taste of Frambrozen. It is a dark, heavy brew with a very strong taste of raspberry. Yet unlike Framboise, which tends toward being too sweet, Frambrozen finds a decent balance. And how did that occasionally girly boyfriend like it? "Taste-T!"

Widmer Brothers - Drop Top Amber Ale

You know, by the time you get through analytically tasting and tastefully analyzing five beers, you might find yourself losing momentum (or gravity, one or the other). My first and lingering impression of light, hoppy, Drop Top went something like this: "Huh. It smells like marijuana. Or B.O. It tastes like it too. No, the marijuana, not the B.O. Don't you think?"

Grown-up Children: Interviews with Teenage Mothers

2010-12-13T20:18:00.001-07:00

(Reposted from Examiner.com)

Kortney Owen is an Englewood-based office manager who, at 29 years old, has a nice home, a youthful face, and a love of dachshunds. People know her as a fun, aspiring comedienne who leads an easy-going life. However, many do not know about her early years as a struggling teen mother.

At the age of 14, she was fairly active and hard-working. She participated in class, earned straight As in school, and wanted to become a teacher. Then she met the boy who would become her boyfriend: “He was weird, I was weird. He was into drugs and hanging around the bad kids…it was exciting.”

Were you on birth control when you got pregnant?
KO: No…we sometimes used condoms. [I thought,] “It wouldn’t happen to me.”

How did you discover you were pregnant?
KO: I started having morning sickness almost immediately. I just kind of knew. I missed a period, then took a test to confirm [it].

What did you think or feel upon finding out?
KO: Apprehension, sadness. I also felt like I was in control of my life for the first time. I made a big decision without anyone telling me no. I felt that I had made a very serious decision [to have sex] and had to deal with the consequences, meaning I should have the baby.

How did you tell your family?
KO: My mom could tell by how sick I was. She seemed sad, but told me she would supportme in any decision I made.

How was your life immediately affected by the pregnancy?
KO: I couldn’t go to school because of the morning sickness. My friends were all really shocked and upset. Some of them started avoiding me. The school was also surprised and, I think, really disappointed. It made me feel terrible to have a lot of people around me “turn their backs.”

What was your pregnancy and delivery like?
KO: I had trouble gaining weight in the beginning [due to nausea]. Although the morning sickness subsided later, my pregnancy was plagued with health issues. I had extreme sleep troubles: sometimes not sleeping for a day or two; other times staying up really late, then sleeping the entire next day. Near the end of my pregnancy I was diagnosed with Preeclampsia [a serious condition which causes blood pressure to rise and protein to develop in the urine] and was on bed-rest for the last month of pregnancy. About five days into my bed-rest, I became extremely ill: fatigued, nauseous, and listless. Unbeknownst to me, I had been slowly leaking amniotic fluid for some time and my blood pressure was through the roof. I began having contractions and went to the hospital.

I was kept in the emergency area of the hospital for monitoring. A few hours later, the doctors began preparing for delivery. A special labor nurse explained the details of how the Pre-E and lack of fluid could make for an extremely difficult labor. Adding in the fact that I was so young, she told me that the baby or I could die. I was given an IV of magnesium to assist with the blood pressure. After eleven hours in the hospital, I delivered my baby.

What was your life like after your daughter, Zoe, was born?
KO: Hectic. Tiring. At first, I tried to continue with school, but it was too much work. My daughter was not sleeping well, was very fussy, and demanded a lot of attention. I couldn’t keep up with homework or even being gone that much during the day. After about seven months, I got a job [and quit school]. My mom watched the baby while I worked.

How did your relationship with your mom change?
KO: [We] became more equal in some ways: we both made important decisions about our children. (She also had two very young children of her own, so she had her hands full with little ones.) It was strained because she needed to help me and my baby. She taught me a lot about how to care for a baby.

How did your relationship with Zoe's father change?
KO: He ran away from home when he found out [about the pregnancy]. I think he was surprised and scared. Then he came back, tried working, saw the baby a few times [before moving to Kansas]. He was unable to help me much until just recently.

Did you date anyone else?
KO: Yes. It was much harder to date, because boys weren’t interested in having little kids around. They were afraid I’d somehow make them help with parenting. I started dating a guy that didn’t mind; he was much older than me and in a different place in his life. It made our relationship especially hard.

How were you treated by those around you (strangers, friends, etc.)?
KO: Strangers [made] comments about my “sister.” [They would] act upset or surprised when they found out she was actually my daughter. Sometimes they would say things like, “You’re not old enough to have a child!” My friends were afraid of the baby; some [of their] parents didn’t want them to hang around me anymore.

At seventeen years old, Kortney moved out of her mother’s home and into an apartment of her own. She earned her GED and focused on supporting her daughter and herself. While at times she earned enough to keep them afloat financially, there were times when they subsisted on ramen noodles or peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. Occasionally, she would bring home whatever food was left over from her job at a fast-food restaurant.

Amid her struggles, Zoe was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of five, then with a mood disorder (including depression and bouts of rage) at the age of nine. Suddenly, Kortney was tackling issues which would have stumped many parents more than twice her age.

KO: [Zoe] was always very high-energy and had mood struggles. It was especially difficult [for me] to be taken seriously by doctors and school [officials] at such a young age. There were times when it was insinuated that my parenting—based on my age—was more to blame than any mood disorders [with] which she had been diagnosed.

Around twelve years old, these mental illnesses became exacerbated by the emergence of pubescent hormones. She began lashing out violently, ditching school, and spending time with drug-users. Kortney, feeling helpless against this turn of events, looked into such options as placing her daughter in a group home. When Zoe was 13 years old, her father suddenly made contact with the teenager. After enduring his own struggles over the years, he was finally in a position to make a positive influence in his daughter’s life. After many weeks of phone conversations and occasional visits, Kortney made the decision to let Zoe move to the small rural town in Kansasto live with her newly-reunited father and his close-knit family.

What was like to make such a hard decision in letting your child live elsewhere?
KO: Because of my age, [we] grew up together; we lived more like siblings than a mother and daughter. Our relationship had always been quite outrageous and often strained. Since moving to Kansas, Zoe's emotional problems have stabilized a great deal. She is passing all of her classes and is very active in extracurricular activities. She participates in church and community events. She and her dad still have struggles that all parents and teens have, but she has a supportsystem that allows her to find a balance in her life. The first few months she had moved away, I barely heard from her, mostly getting updates from her dad. We both needed that break. [I] miss her a great deal, but knowing she is growing and becoming the great young adult I had always hoped for her to be helps. I look forward to her calls and messages. I feel that we are more able to care for each other and be a positive part of each others' lives than when she lived with me.

In what ways does your past as a teen mother still affect your life?
KO: People are still shocked to hear that I have a fourteen-year-old daughter. I don’t usually bring [it up], because she doesn’t live at home. People are also surprised to hear I have a child at all. When I see a young mother, it takes me back to a lot of the feelings I had at that time. Sometimes it’s a struggle to feel those things again.

What was the hardest part about being a teen mom?
KO: Being completely uncertain of the future.

What do you think was the most common misconception people had about you?
KO: That I didn’t always try my hardest.

What would you have done differently?
KO: I would have been more assertive about my parenting decisions and what my daughter needed from her caregivers (school, stepdad, grandma).

What advice do you have for other teen mothers?
KO: Don’t doubt yourself. Always ask for help, if you think you need it.

What about for parents of teen mothers?
KO: They may be young, but they will figure it out. Give them the help they need, but don’t be afraid to stand back sometimes.

Finally, what advice do you have for all teenagers, in general?
KO: Don’t get pregnant. You don’t have to grow up now and you don’t have to be right all the time. It’s okay to ask for help and keep asking until you find it.

Fighting Injustice, Wheelchair Sports Camp-Style

2010-12-06T21:15:00.003-07:00

(Reposted from Colorado Music Buzz, December edition)

Photo by Adrian Diubaldo of PhotoRoadies.com

One of the loudest voices in the Denver hip-hop scene is coming from a very unlikely source: Kalyn Heffernan—the small, intelligent, and outspoken frontwoman from Wheelchair Sports Camp. She raps a steady, impressive stream against a funky backdrop of saxophone, drums, and plenty of mixing. The resulting songs vary from mellow and poignant to quirky and biting, such as “Party and Bullshit.” Yet it’s not all about the music for this band: they are taking a stand against violence, fighting for civil rights, and forcing listeners to pay attention from coast to coast.

CMB: Are You From Denver?
Heffernan: Originally born in Denver in ‘87, then moved to Burbank, California when I was six months [old]…and moved back to Denver in ‘97. I consider Denver home.

CMB: How did you get into rapping? How old were you?
Heffernan: I started listening to hip-hop when I was living in California at about 5 or 6 years old. I was going through radio stations on my walkman, and made my dad turn to the station I [had] found. He immediately told me, “Turn that shit off.” Ever since then, I couldn’t help but love it. TLC was the first hip-hop group I remember being obsessed with. I didn’t start rapping myself ‘til I was 12 years old…I remember beat-boxing over a tape and rapping to it for a talent show.

CMB: How has your rapping style or content changed since you first began?
Heffernan: My lyrics are much better, thank God! As far as content, I feel like I’m much more aware and focused. When I first started, I rapped about what everyone else rapped about. Now, I try to rap about real things, having a good time, and social inequalities without being a Debbie Downer. I find humor to be my most favorite expression and, without it, life would not be worth living.

CMB: Tell me about your band. How and when did you meet?
Heffernan: The band started in 2007 with just me and a middle-school friend, Patrick. I started making my own beats in high school and they were finally good enough to rap over. We [collaborated] more with outside musicians, but had a nasty breakup shortly after. At the time, I was going to school at University of Colorado at Denver for Music Production, when I met Abi (saxophones; also of Abi and the Blue Language) in a record label class. We [started] collaborating and have been close friends since. She’s such an amazing musician and adds ten stars to every show we play with her.

Through her, I met her brother, Isaac (drums), who is just as great of a person as her. We had a few classes together and shared a lot of the same music interests. He’s been another great friend of mine. Just recently, I was looking for a DJ to play at an Abby’s Voice benefit walk and met DJ B*money. Coincidentally, he was already familiar with Wheelchair Sports Camp and I knew of him as one of the five Colorado DMC (national DJ competition) finalists. We share a lot of the same interests in music, graffiti, and recreational activities. He DJs full-time so we play with him as much as we can.

CMB: What national and local rappers (or bands) do you like?
Heffernan: I really dig on Shad K and Busdriver right now. I also listen to a lot of Radiohead, Erykah Badu, and Portugal. The Man. As far as local, I get down with my good friend 3Two a lot, along with Mute Man’s Microphone, Mane Rok, and S.T.O.I.C. I really enjoy the Hi-Tops, both Babah Fly and Panama Soweto, along with Acezi and Xperiment, of course.

CMB: How do you feel about the Denver rap/hip-hop scene?
Heffernan: I’ve always had a sore spot in my heart for Denver’s local hip-hop scene, because it’s so easy to be a hater. But the more involved I become, the more I realize how many great hip-hoppers Denver has. I feel like hip-hop all over could be a little more positive and use more work, but I thnk Denver is a unique place with a lot of great people.

CMB: What is Krip-Hop?
Heffernan: Krip-Hop (KripHop.com) is a global movement started by Leroy Moore, a disabled artist/activist. It is a collection of disabled hip-hop artists from all across the world. I was lucky enough to be a part of a Krip-Hop event last month at NYU in Manhattan. I was part of a discussion panel with Rob Da Noize Temple (DJ of Sugarhill Gang), who is also disabled. I [also] played a small performance. It was such an honor for me to be a part of it, and [I] had no idea how many other handicapped hip-hoppers there were in the game. [Moore] found me on Myspace when I first started doing the rap thing semi-seriously.

CMB: As a rapper with a disability, how do you feel you are treated within the hip-hop community?
Heffernan: Luckily, I don’t get treated differently because of my disability very often. I do my best to go out of my way to make myself known as a fully independent person with or without your acceptance. I don’t waste time [worrying] about what people think of me. Love it or leave it. I’ve also been lucky to have a great group of friends who always have my back and always support my ambitions. The hardest time I’ve had with my disability as an artist has been the lack of accessibility at venues. I usually gather about five of my cousins, friends, or strangers before every show to help lift my wheelchair on stage.

CMB: As a female rapper, how have you been received in the hip-hop community?
Heffernan: Again, I don’t notice being treated any differently, but I have to go out of my way to make sure that won’t happen. I also feel that, because I’m a disabled woman, I have to go the extra mile to make sure that I’m holding my own with my beats and rhymes. I feel like I have to be twice as fresh or people will just dismiss me as another local.

CMB: Do you have any advice for other women who want to rap?
Heffernan: Please do and more often! There [are] really not enough female emcees…and it’s a shame.

CMB: You play a lot of benefit shows and fight for a variety of causes. Do you have a cause or charity that is particularly meaningful to you?
Heffernan: The Abby’s Voice Foundation is, by far, the closest to my heart. My best friend from college (Abigail Robertson) was brutally murdered [by her ex-boyfriend] the day after her 21st birthday. It has been the most life-changing experience I’ve ever had to deal with. I was at her birthday party the night before, celebrating with her, and [I] had no idea it would be the last time I saw her. I just finished attending the two-and-a-half week trial, which ended on [November 17th].

Since this has happened, I hear of domestic and dating violence all too often. I help Abby’s mother (who founded the non-profit) by playing or booking shows, making flyers, and [helping] with any of the events, however I can.

CMB: What do you enjoy the most and least about performing for others?
Heffernan: I always enjoy playing with major headliners, because the crowd is always bigger... Plus it’s great to say I’ve shared the stage with so many of my favorites. It is hard, though, to compete with all the other local hip-hoppers for a spot on the bill; that’s what I like the least. It’s all politics to get on a big show, and I hate politics.

CMB: Any plans for upcoming tours?
Heffernan: Our biggest plan now is to play in Austin for South By Southwest (SXSW) in March, but yes, we are looking for the right headliner to follow on tour. Hopefully by next year…

Look for the upcoming, follow-up album to 2008’s “The Best of the All-Time Unreleased Greatest Hits Vol. 303 ½”. Meanwhile, check out Wheelchair Sports Camp, playing on December 23rd at The Old Curtis. And of course, stay tuned for the SXSW roster in March.

Myspace.com/WheelchairSportsCamp

Something Old or Something New: Which is Better When It Comes to Lenox China?

2010-12-01T16:27:00.000-07:00

Weddings and china go together like divorce and martinis. It seems like there are only two options when discussing whether to get china or not: will you register for it or will you receive an heirloom set from somebody? Never mind that the couple may not even want china. Rubbish! Let’s push that nonsense aside and decide which is better: to buy or to inherit.

Favor must automatically be given to buying a set brand-new, if only because you can’t rely on a generous relative passing his or her set onto you on your wedding day. But for the purpose of this article, let’s assume you can. The first problem you may face is what if you hate the pattern? What Aunt Brunhilde once considered to be exceedingly vogue may now seem a little outdated to you. Some people struggle with finding occasion to break out the china; however, everybody struggles with finding occasion to break out the ugly china.

Nevertheless, what you may find instead is that the Lenox china your relative is passing down is a beautiful, valuable, and long-discontinued pattern, something you wouldn’t have come by otherwise. Yet this idea can sour very quickly, the moment a plate breaks and you are unable to obtain (or afford) a replacement.

What perks might a new set offer? To start, it would be uniquely for you, unlike a set that reflected the personality of its previous owner. Assuming the price tag doesn’t scare you away, you can pick out whatever set tickles your fancy. Also, replacement pieces can be easily had, because even if that pattern is discontinued, many times you will still be able to find what you need online, sometimes on Lenox’s website itself.

There are downsides to nearly everything in life, however, and china is no exception. When you receive a set from a beloved family member, there is a certain sentimentality attached with it—maybe you remember your grandmother serving meals upon these dishes once or she let you use them for a tea party as a child—which cannot be purchased for the new set like an extended warranty. The responsibility will fall onto the shoulders of you and your new wife or husband to create those sentiments.

Also, while you may receive many pieces of this set as wedding gifts, it is more likely you will not receive the whole set. Unfortunately, this expense will become yours, should you decide to complete your set. If you aren’t able to afford these pieces after paying for a posh honeymoon, your set may have to remain incomplete for a while. Lastly, while shopping for your china set, you may find a pattern that is amazingly trendy. Nevertheless, remember Aunt Brunhilde. Those Bedazzled plates may not be quite so awe-inspiring to your children and great-grandchildren.

That kid is snarky

2010-11-25T22:41:00.000-07:00

Aye aye aye. Kayden. It's really hard to get after him about being snarky when I'm too busy laughing behind my hand.

So, we were all in the car last night, on our way to take Kayden to his dad's house. Maia was eating (fast food, since we were en route).

Several times, I heard Kayden telling her to close her mouth while she eats (she is quite a loud eater). She continued to eat with her mouth open.

Finally, Keene said something like, "Well, Kayden, you have to give her a break if she occasionally opens her mouth to breathe or something..."

Without missing a beat, he said, "Isn't that what a nose is for?"

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

2010-11-24T22:37:00.001-07:00

Last night, I was watching a movie on my computer while crocheting. In the living room, Keene was typing away on his computer.

Suddenly, I get a call. I look at the ID and it's Keene. I look up and he's still typing. I hold up my phone and say, "Are you calling me?"

He pulls his phone from his pocket, looks at it, and says, "Oh, I guess I was."

I reply, "Apparently, something in your pocket really wants to talk to me."

In my mind, I imagine this to be the conversation:

Kelli: Hello?
Keene's pocket: ::heavy breathing::

Have you ever tipped someone in a non-tipping environment?

2010-11-23T22:45:00.000-07:00

I went to Little Caesars once (they have pre-made cooked pizzas ready to be purchased, for those that don't know). The teen girl behind the counter was so cheery and nice that I tipped her a dollar. She was really surprised and grateful. It made me feel good...much better than when I have to tip a surly delivery driver.

On the bright side...

2010-11-23T22:43:00.000-07:00

I've been kicking ass financially. I paid off a medical bill in full this week, and cut another one in half, ON TOP of all my monthly bills. I'm hoping to pay off two more debts in the next few weeks.

And I have some money to go to the spa on Saturday with Kortney, Keene, and Sean. FUN!

Speaking of kids knowing too much

2010-11-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

Last week, on the drive to school, I busted Maia showing a note she had written to Kayden.

It said, "Kayden is fucking shit."

She later claimed to have learned them from being around a douchey guy at a BBQ a few months ago. The one who wouldn't stop swearing.

However, I'm betting all kids are born knowing bad words.