The Blog Life

Yesterday as I was getting ready for bed I decided I felt like I had a blogger kind of day. 

I worked my normal 8-5 job and emailed a bloggy friend, read some blogs, and perused Pinterest during downtime. 

After work, I stopped at a hardware store and picked up some paint, a gunny sack and a few pieces of bamboo. Might sound random, but it's not. 

Stopped in at Hobby Lobby to discover that even though it's 97° outside and June, that won't stop them from putting out the fall decorations. Instagramed that obviously. 

seriously??

Texted my cousin about the cute 4th of July outfit she should totally get her daughter. 

Couldn't decide what shoes...

Stumbled upon several aisles of 80% off home decor and went a little crazy. Okay, not too crazy but crazy enough that when the husband called I said, "Sure honey, you should totally buy that new golf bag!" I also managed to find the two items that I went in for in the first place. Winning. 

Swung by the Dollar Tree to pick up a couple crafting items that were needed and found a couple additional bargains. No big deal.

Made it home in time to do a little spray painting, burlapping and other crafting (that will be seen here tomorrow) before it got dark. 

Played with the puppy and watered my rapidly growing garden.

Came inside and made up a quick Pinterest chicken recipe that was super yummy. 

Watched some reality tv, Pretty Wicked Moms. Followed it up with an episode of Call the Midwife and fell asleep. 

If that's not the blog life, I don't know what is.

Insta-Drop

I decided to do a new series I'm calling "Insta-Drop." Haven't googled the name so it's probably not original but oh well. I like it and that's what I'm calling it. Anyways...I'm just going to drop some/all of my Instagram photos from the past week or so on here. 

Feel free to follow me on Instagram and leave your "Insta-Name" below in the comments so I can follow you too:)

This was from #throwbackthursday. That's me on the left, my brother Joe in the middle and my youngest brother Mike on the right. As you can see my mom was fond of overalls. Lucky for me, I love them too. Probably a good thing because 9 out of 10 photos of myself as a child involve a pair of overalls. And don't be too jealous of Mike's hair, it didn't stay like that when he grew up, unfortunately. 

The sky near my house last week as the sun was setting. There were too many trees blocking my view so I jumped in my car and drove half a mile down the road so I could snap this. Country livin' at it's best folks. 

Dinner several days. Brown rice, garlic baked chicken and
steamed broccoli that I threw in a pan to sauté with diced red peppers. Yum. 

My nephew Ryder. The ladies better watch out for his big brown eyes.  Love this kid!

My cute husband catching while his little brother practices his pitching skills. Seth was a pitcher back in his college days and still loves the game. Never-mind his work clothes, no time to change before the game.

The necklace I used to wear in high school. Seth and I started dating in high school and he was #5 on the baseball team. Apparently I used to be a jersey chaser. And cool.

Leave your "Insta-Names" below so I can check out your photos!

7 Quick Takes (3)

1. SOOO ready for this 3 day weekend. My work week has been crazy busy with people waiting to dump work on us before the holiday and then expect it that day or Tuesday. Hello people, it's a 3 day weekend which means I want to slack off all day Friday, NOT try to cram a weeks worth of work in just so you can have your taco banners yesterday. 

2. I'm seriously in love with this photo of my yard. iPhones are amazing as is Instagram. Oh, and Kansas is obviously beautiful in case you had doubts before. 

3. The mirrors in the Target dressing room are the most unflattering mirrors in the entire world. I'm pretty sure they would sell 10x the amount of clothes if they invested in better dressing rooms with a focus on the mirrors. I'm 5'9 and I look like a 4 ft oompa loompa in those things. It's time for an upgrade!

My hips pretty much look like this in the Target mirrors (source).

4. I'm attempting beef jerky in my dehydrator for the first time. I will have to have my husband test it and I will let you know how it is and if it's worth trying again. Gunnar already approves but that's not saying much since he eats everything including the non-edible. 

I can just picture him saying "did I do that?" in Steve Erkel voice.

Neighbors delivery:(

5. I need to do some major house cleaning. Two rooms in my house look like the closets exploded and it's all junk I need to get rid of. Our town is having their annual city wide garage sale next weekend and I'm hoping to get rid of some of my stuff. Or, maybe I will check out other people's junk instead....it's still a toss up. (I'll spare you the explosion photos)

6. If I stopped drinking pop (soda, pepsi, coke, whatever you call it) I'm pretty sure I could drop 10 pounds. Unfortunately, I think I'm addicted. I guess it's better than drugs...maybe. Who really knows. 

7. My day job is Prepress Designer. I wanted to share the following for anyone that has ever considered "designing" something that will need to be printed, please take my advice. 

• If you don't know what a bleed is, hire someone that does. 
• If you are considering "designing" artwork in word, excel, publisher or anything not in the Adobe Creative Suite, hire someone. 
• If you don't know what Adobe Creative Suite is without googling it, hire someone that does.
• If your mom is the only person that has ever told you "you're a good designer", hire someone that does it for a living.
• If you don't know the difference between RGB or CMYK, or what they are, hire someone that does. 
• NEVER use comic sans in any type of design. 

source

source

So true. source

• If you don't know why these images are funny, or you don't think they are funny, hire a graphic designer. 
• If I have offended you, it's more than likely you should hire a designer:)

I could continue but I think those basics should help weed out a lot of people. One more thing...If you are a real designer (ie: get a paycheck for it) use a freakin bleed when designing! Thanks:)

Okay, I feel better. Have a great weekend folks!

(UPDATE: Linking up with Jen at Conversion Diary)

More than a phone.

Well, I'm loving it, so far anyway. 

Even though I've only had my iPhone for less than 24 hours I've been hit with the realization that there are a heck of a lot of apps used to tell the world what you're doing. Facebook, twitter and instagram to name just a couple. I'm gonna have to be careful or I will end up spending more time telling the world what I'm doing than I will spend actually doing something in the world. Scary how easy it can be to get sucked in to social media. 

I've noticed recently that I have been using Facebook as a type of online journal if that makes sense. For example, I can go back and read about things that happened in college or the day to day stresses of planning our wedding. It's pretty neat that you can easily track all these little moments in life. I have always been somewhat of a historian in the way that I want to remember the past through words, stories and photos so this is really neat to me (thus this blog). Especially since I have always been jealous of those people that do journal religiously. My mom being one of them. It's amazing to go back through her journals and see all those little details that spark memories that would have otherwise been forgotten. 

As I install some of these new apps I'm hoping to be able to use this piece of technology to continue on the path of documenting life and memories. Time will tell if I'm able to easily live my life for me or for my technology. 

Oh, and click here for our Instagram debut:)