Buy This Now

Our good friends in San Francisco turned us on to this little nugget (thanks Mark and Kerry!).  It's a magnetic door stop.  We bought one immediately for our front door and have never been happier! Get one, it's unbelievably easy to install and your days of propping the door open with miscellaneous crap are over. Attach one piece to the door and the other piece to the wall and you will have instant DIY pride and the door wont hit you in the ass on the way out anymore!

I think several companies make them, but we got this one from Stanley at Home Depot and it's perfect. 

Boobs = Anxiety

Hey,  I just joined a “super secret” not awesome club. Right now my membership has lasted about 10 days. Here’s how I got my invitation. Two weeks ago, I had my regular doctor’s appointment with routine mammogram. La la, just your normal same routine every year event.  A couple days later I get the regular routine mammogram follow up letter in the mail. I rip it open and say “hey, I passed my mammogr……..SCREEEEEEEEEECH – WTF – “your recent mammogram showed a finding that needs more study.” That’s not the sort of invitation I like. Come in for more testing – you shut up!

My ears immediately got RED HOT. My heart started beating, my hands started shaking and my mouth got dry. And this was just the letter that said they want me to go back for more imaging, that’s all. Jesus! So of course I called and got the soonest appointment, which was 10 days away (now, finally, it’s tomorrow), so I will find out more then, but a whole 10 days of worrying?  I’m freaking exhausted from it and there is a very real possibility that there isn’t a thing wrong AT ALL.  Ahhhhhhhh, anxiety! You bastard!

So, here’s the “super secret” club part. Turns out that almost everyone I’ve mentioned this to has gotten this letter sometime in their mammogram lifetime – and pretty much everyone has reacted the exact same way I have been acting.  Slightly freaking out. Except they deal with it more gracefully and don't freak out to everyone who will listen - unlike me. But, here’s the good news. I live in Seattle, Washington – the land of good medicine, so even if in the end the news isn’t good, I’ll just deal with whatever happens and maintain my “club membership”  for however long I need to. But I’ll be pissed, count on that. Oh, and if anything after tomorrow wrecks my summer – there will be hell to pay. Seriously.  You boobs are trouble, should have known from the start. Troublemakers!

Cleaning House

No, really! We cleaned the actual house. We started to notice in the last few months that the north side of the house was turning green or greenish/brown or something very very pooplike and unattractive. Tons of green goo (I think algae) was starting to collect on the siding and then pollen was sticking to it, and it needed help BAD. The thought of scrubbing the whole thing seemed kind of overwhelming so we were not exactly rushing to do the work.

Then……my lovely mother mentioned that she just finished cleaning her composite deck with this miracle solution called 30 SECONDS OUTDOOR CLEANER and I should maybe try that on my siding. So a quick stop at Ace Hardware – and a little read about what sort of environmental danger we were in for, and off we went.

Here’s how time consuming and horrendous the process was: 

1. Spray it onto dry surface. 

2. Wait about 5 minutes. 

3. Rinse off with garden hose.

That’s it! We used the gallon jug in concentrate, mixed with water (as per directions) and went for it. It was fantastic. I’m now ready to clean everything with it.

Oh, regarding the enviro-impact. The packaging says it’s fine to use as directed and is ok around plants and animals. I have to say, it just smells like bleach, but it says it doesn’t have bleach in it. In any case -  I think I would be careful to use directly around any edible plants or veggies or too much or often that it might affect groundwater, but it says it’s safe. 

I’m pretty excited to have discovered this little nugget of efficiency. Apparently, other people have known about it for years. Duh! I think back to the year we got married at the farm and remember myself spending an entire summer day scrubbing the algae off the house and side of the garage so it would be pretty for pictures. Why oh why was I not smart enough to investigate an easier method. Grrrr. 

Before

Before

Before

During

During

After

After

This is what you need to clean your house! Go!

Happy Fathers Day

Wishing all of you and your Dads a great weekend! This is my Dad, as a young man. Such a good looking fellow! 

These F*ing Shoes

Super excited this morning to see the arrival of a package from Gilt Group! I ordered these super cute sandals for summer. Yay! They go with my outfit today - so I'll wear them. 

Now I want to kill them. They wont stay on. When I walk I have to shuffle or they will just slide right off. Look man, I don't have weird feet - I wear sandals, flip flops, whatever, name it.... no problems. These f*ckers will not stay on. I've only had to walk from the condo to the car, from the parking lot to my office, my office to the coffee machine and back and I am about to throw them out the window.

Thinking about hacking them somehow. Should I add something sticky under the top part? Should I get some ribbon to tie around the back. Should I NOT buy items on sale without wondering why they are on sale. I'm imagining a giant warehouse somewhere in New Jersey (sorry New Jersey) floor to ceiling with these shoes in every color - NOT SELLING! Has anyone else had this problem?

Here they are. Sorry Kelsi Dagger, no offense, I still like your other shoes!
(PS. this is not my home carpet, it's the office carpet - don't judge)

Anyway, see ya later super cute sandals. Wish we could have hung out longer, but 2 hours is as far as this relationship is going. Time for you to "step-off"!

Nike - Me Likey!

You know what Nike is doing that is totally awesome? Letting you be a shoe designer!!!

You can jump on Nike’s website and look for sneakers (I was looking at Nike Free 3.0) and there on the left side of the page I found the “Customize it with Nike ID” link –you can totally turn your sneaks into whatever color combination you like. Of course I picked the most neon-y bright color combo’s I could find (because I’m from the 80’s) and I have to say I LOVE THEM!  Super comfy and all that, but I’m mostly excited to wear them for the bright and shiny factor. I kind of like them best without socks though – so I might regret that when they start to stink, but right now I LOVE THEM. Did I mention that I LOVE THEM. I LOVE THEM!

And one more thing. You can customize the front of the tongue with your name or whatever you want, so I chose GO on one foot and FAST on the other – for a little extra motivation to get after it.

And one more other thing. I’m not a huge Nike person, I have a few things here and there but not more than other sportswear company items – so I’m not trying to force you into a Northwest brand.  This is just such a great marketing and sales tool – you need to know about it. And sorry, it’s not cheap, but for a custom item, I didn’t feel like it broke the bank either.

And lastly – I’ll be so upset if I get them dirty. Wah. Mine are below - the swoosh is actually the neon orange color too - but the flash is making it looks white - but it's not. That would be way too normal.

Chandelier-ious!

I am on the lookout for some hanging chandeliers for the condo. I have a couple of places for hanging lighting down the center of the kitchen/living area – and another one above the liquor cabinet in the living room. I don’t have photos yet of the condo and its “look” so far, but stand by, I’ll document the progress soon. We moved in last August, and it really does take a while to adjust to a new place and sort out what our traffic patterns are and how we like the furniture arranged, lighting hung, etc.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to find lights with some wood features–I want a modern style but still a somewhat “pacific northwest” feel.

What do you think of these? Most of the ones I like are enormously expensive – story of my life![Groan!] But, so far I’m really having a good time looking!

This one is super 60's mod - kind of like it - but it's $2,267 - that's a lot, especially if I wanted two of them.

This one is from West Elm - I like the "city" quality of it - and it's affordable at $399.00

I love this one too - but at $1,072.00 - yoikes!

This one could be great at $398.00 - modern, industrial, yet still Northwest-y

And this one is kind of interesting too at $279.99