More Bouncing Fun

Remember that adult sized jumping ball I told you about? Here's another adult sized idea for kid type fun: http://kevinjameshunt.com/ball-pit-balcony/how-to-build-a-ball-pit-on-your-balcony/ This guy built a giant ball pit (complete with inflatable shark)for his balcony.

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How cool is that?! Don't even lie, you're secretly jealous. Kevin James Hunt is clearly a GENIUS!I'm totally filing this away in the "design ideas for when I get a house pile."

"Tap His Smiling Toes"

I have a pair of shoes I'm pretty sure I've owned longer than I've known my husband. I suppose this isn't terribly unique, there are a lot of items I brought into our marriage that have preceded him significantly. These shoes have made it through massive Good Will cullings. It's possible that I've even moved to two different apartments with these shoes.

What's strange about the length of time I've hung onto them is that these shoes have always been so uncomfortable that I've never been able to wear them outside of the house (and usually only make it a few hobbling steps in the house before I take them off). They're not particularly flashy shoes, and I'm sure my sister wouldn't approve of them (it's actually possible she would, but that would make them the first pair of shoes I've bought that she'd approve of). They're just plain black loafers with a little bit of a heel.

The problem is I've always thought if I could simply stretch them out where they pinch over the wide part of my foot, I'd get a lot of use out of them. They'd work with the basic black pants I wear to work, they'd mildly dress up a pair of jeans. They'd probably even look okay with a black skirt. They'd be the "little black dress" of my shoe collection if only I could wear them more than two steps.

I put a shoe stretching thingy on my amazon wishlist ages ago, but no one has ever bought it for me. Probably for the same reason I've never bought it for me. It isn't a terribly sexy gift and if I have a little extra to spend on myself I'd much rather get a fun book or a cute house-ware.

Recently I was reading one of the 14 design blogs I mentioned yesterday and the blogger took a break from her design ideas to ask for advice about comfortable shoes one could wear when doing home design projects. She got a slew of advice. The next time she blogged on the topic she mentioned that the shoes she'd purchased were a little too tight and to make them easier to wear she used a frozen bags of water to stretch the shoes (warning that's a link to a video).

I tried it with my shoes and while it wasn't a complete success, I did manage to wear them around the house for about 20 minutes before deciding they were too uncomfortable to leave on. They were really comfortable everywhere except where I have bunions (yes, disgusting I know). I'm thinking I might try the ice technique again, or possibly splurge on the shoe stretcher spray now that I can at least walk around in them a little. Think this is just false hope, or might it work? Any other suggestions?

One of these things just doesn't belong

I read a LOT of blogs. Currently I'm subscribed to 14 design blogs. I don't really do a lot of interior design in our own house since we rent and usually my idea of "design" is to strategically throw my clothes all over the floor. . . So mostly my reading of design blogs is like window shopping.

I've seen things I hate, things that just aren't my style, and things that while I might love them, there's no way I'd be brave enough or savvy enough to try them. Massive use of patterns falls into the latter category. I'm not sure I'd love it if I were actually living in it, but I totally love it in pictures.

I fell in love with Jason Oliver Nixon's Apartment last year when I saw the pictures featured in New York magazine this spring. I was reminded of that apartment because Apartment therapy has been doing a feature on collections and recently they listed patterns as one of the collections (though I was unimpressed with most of the examples they posted). When searching for the room I remembered being so striking I mistakenly attributed it to Jonathan Adler.

While I LOVE so many of Jonathan Adler's pieces, his home is nowhere near as patterned as Mr. Nixon's. There's no reason why it couldn't be, he certainly has a number of very loud (and I mean that in the most flattering way) wallpapers. Jonathan Adler's blog mentioned a room designed by Diana Vreeland that also fits the bill as far as patterns. She said she wanted her living room to look like a "garden in hell." How can you not be fascinated by a description like that?

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You may not agree with my love of overwhelming amounts of patterns, and my examples may not be great, but I think it takes a great amount of skill to create rooms with multiple patterns without them all clashing and screaming out against each other. I would never be able to manage it. So, in the meantime, I just look at rooms other brave souls have designed.

What questionable interior design ideas are you mildly obsessed with?

"A Swinging, Latin Sort of Snack"

I LOVE Doritos! I know it's not an incredibly classy food to admit a passion for, but there you have it. We can't keep any in the house because I would eat the entire bag over the course of a day or so (I have self-control issues).

That's why I wanted to be sure and let you know the sad news that the creator of Doritos passed away recently. That, and also, he's being buried with Doritos. . . I'm not sure I'm that committed to the product, but his family is convinced he was. You can read the whole article here.

Turns out he committed his whole life to snacks, he started out as a cheese salesman and then was an ad-man for jello. Also, he hated the late night cheeseburger flavor (me too!!). I wish I could have met the guy!

The Good Old Days

You may (or may not) know that my dad is a letter carrier, as you can imagine the September 30th deadline that paper after paper is reporting about makes me nervous (last time I talked to my dad he seemed pretty chill about it).

Anyway, in light of that I thought I'd post a link to this Slate article: http://www.slate.com/id/2304468/?from=rss

Also, have you sent your fun mail yet? I haven't, I ended up hand delivering mine. I also wrote 16 thank you notes this weekend and managed to mail 5 of them this am. I think that leaves us with only 2 more to do completely and 11 left to address and stamp.

How long does it take you to write thank you notes? It apparently takes me on average 11 minutes and fifteen seconds per note, is that really long? Is that why I hate writing thank you notes so much?!

UPDATE: 3 More Mailed as of Noon! Now just waiting for addresses on 8 (if you're keeping score that means I'm half way done!!).

We Interrupt the Regularly Scheduled Programming

My mother once said to someone, "Sarah really likes commercials." I have no recollection of the context in which this was said, and I think it's sort of a weird comment, but I really do like commercials. I like that commercial breaks let you have a chance to run to the bathroom or let you stop and do something else briefly. I like that they're a finite time, so I can run go do something and know that I'm done with that task by the time the commercial is over (hello laundry switch overs). I also just enjoy watching some commercials. Some of them are so well done it's like you've got bonus "shorts" in between your actual show. Below are some ads that I'm currently enjoying.

When I saw this ad, I immediately thought of my friend Meg:

Not only would she totally train a bird and a dog to do that (if she weren't afraid of birds and allergic to dogs) but she re-enacted the music video for ah-ha's Take on Me with our friend Chris at her 30th birthday. The best part of that was when they finished their reenactment and she said to me, "My dad's gonna come over here and ask me if I'm drunk!" Sure enough her father came over and said, "Meg, are you okay?!" Her response, "Yeah, we were reenacting the music video for Take on Me" she then walked away leaving her father standing there with a stupefied expression on his face.

This ad is pure brilliance:

This ad makes me smile EVERY time it comes on:

I love the brilliance of whoever came up with all the random things going down the street, but also the recurring "I could have had a falcon," makes me laugh!

Insurance ads usually suck me in. I like the Mayhem ad campaign, I love Flo and a number of the Geico ads. Here's one of the ones I think is great:

Subaru has had a few ads lately that I have found terribly cute. This one with the little girl sucks me in every time:

I love when she puts the seat belt on her knees and says "Daddy, Ok" In the comments on YouTube, it says that both of the girls in the ad are actually the guys daughters. I hope that's true, it makes the commercial that much better!!

I also like a new ad where a girl who has moved across the country worries about her parents. I can't find the ad right now (I was pretty sure it was a Subaru ad too) but the best line in the whole thing is when she's talking about how broken up they must be because "I'm their only child. . . .except for my sister." It totally sounds like something I might say :).

What ads are you currently enjoying?

Oh Modern Family, You are a Tease!

So did ya watch the hour special for Modern Family Last night?! I did. Were you disappointed that though they advertised an hour special, it was just two separate episodes? I was. I mean come on, they built up that dude ranch episode and then it was only half an hour?! Also, the "I will only be checking somewhat satisfied on my comment card." was far funnier out of context.

On the other hand, I had crazy flash backs in the scene where Claire is correcting Lily about how old she is since I spent a good portion of Tuesday night doing the same with one of my friend's kids :).

Yeah, this is one of the lamer of my blog posts, I'm sick, you're lucky you got anything ;).

Things I'm Currently Digging

We went to the fair on Saturday. It merits it's own post (I LOVE the Fair!!!) At the fair we saw judging for Belted Galloways. I don't think I'd ever seen one before. They were sooo cute and cuddly I think they might have usurped the place in my heart Jerseys once inhabited (sorry mom). I was sad because it didn't look like you could pet any of them and their fur looked soo soft! They even have fuzzy ears.

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I'm also pleased that Modern Family won 5 Emmys since it's one of the few current television shows I watch (though I occasionally catch Big Bang Theory and I do love that show too. . .). I'm even more pleased that day after tomorrow there's an hour Modern Family Special to kick off the new season!! "I will only be checking somewhat satisfied on my comment card." Brilliant!!

On a completely unrelated note, I'm currently obsessed with pickled peperoncini, I don't know why but when I came home for dinner last night we stopped at the grocery store and I bought a jar. I had eaten three before dinner was even in the oven. . .

What are you digging currently?

Imagine a Menagerie

I want a LOT of pets. I am quite content to be able to leave the room without fearing a little critter will come up and sample my meal while I'm gone. I'm happy I don't have to use a lint brush constantly to rid myself of pet hair. Yet, I still have a burning desire for A LOT of different pets. Below are some of my top choices.

I am pretty serious about my current desire for a King Charles Cavalier (I don't want my husband to mistake that animal's presence on a mostly pipe dream list to indicate that I have stopped believing he will get me a non-bug-eyed specimen for Christmas -- though I am mildly worried that it might be lonely while we're at work).

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I would also like a pygmy hedgehog (how can you not be totally charmed by their cuteness?!?). It would be especially good if we could get a circus cage for him! I found out this weekend my husband's second cousin once removed (or something like that) has a pygmy hedgehog, she wasn't really interested in talking to me about it though. At the time, she was busy begging her mother to keep the big toad they'd found.

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Next on the list would be a Neapolitan Mastiff. It's been on my list since my friends and I went on spring break to Seattle and saw one in a boutique on Whitby Island. Despite it's immense size it was very graceful (not breaking anything in the shop) and so gentle and sweet tempered. I think it might be the same breed they used in the Harry Potter movies to portray Fang.

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As my mother always said, Jerseys are the prettiest cows. Maybe it's the dairy farmer in my blood, but every time we go to the fair there's a yearning for a Jersey of my own (they're pretty brown eyes rimmed with long lashes, who can resist?). While a full sized cow is definitely not practical for the city, I totally think we should get a Miniature Jersey Cow! Of course they produce 6 gallons of milk a day and have to be milked twice a day, but that just means we'd have to be sure to keep our house fully stocked on cookies so my husband could keep up :).

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I've been watching a lot of the Golden Girls lately (sadly it's moved to midnight so it's harder to watch -- COME TO NETFLIX ON DEMAND GOLDEN GIRLS!!) and Dreyfuss from Empty Nest sometimes guest stars on the show. Wikipedia said he was a mutt, but when we were apple picking the other day we saw a dog that looked an awful lot like him. So Leonberger has now been added to the list of must have pets.

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So those are my top five, what is on your list (I might have added a rat with a racing stripe down it's back but in searching there were terrifying images of snakes everywhere!!)?

Randomness

Don't you love it when I post random items I find in emails and chats from years ago? I hope you said yes, because here's another one from December 2008:

This morning we got on the train where a woman got on who was reading, The Newly Updated Handbook on Herpes. I mean really if something merits one of those handmade lace trimmed book covers, I think that is it!

As we were getting off the train and the herpes woman was still sitting on their reading her handbook on herpes, a guy got on the train with a large box of toilet seat covers; leaving me to wonder if he knew about the herpes woman on there and was being extra vigilant.

I'm Back Didja Miss Me?

Sorry, I was doing so well there for awhile with a slew of posted ahead posts (brilliant). Work got really crazy last week though so I was thinking about that most of the week and packing for the trip, but I think I might be back on track for posts again.

Anyway, turns out I needn't have worried about our gift. The wedding has been postponed and it was handled so badly (and I mean really quite badly), we're not going now. . . I spent the first evening of our vacation almost in tears, but that may have been a result of the extreme fatigue brought on by the work I mentioned above.

Late Saturday morning I wanted to cry again, this time a result of getting stung by a yellow jacket. It was not an auspicious start to the family weekend, but things ended much better. One highlight of the weekend was going to a couple of antique shops and finding a slew of golden books. I didn't buy all the ones I wanted (seriously $7.50 for a golden book, what are you smoking?!) but amazon has a fair selection for under $4 and I'll search them more thoroughly at some point.

Speaking of children's books, awhile ago (by which I mean over two years ago -- happy birthday little G) we threw a shower for my friend using children's books for the menu. It looks like I'll get to re-use the idea for someone else and I'm pretty excited about it (just like I was before). You know I love a theme and I love children's books so what more could I ask for? Also, a children's book themed menu is pretty simple since you can usually find a children's book to match. I happen to know this woman loves chocolate covered strawberries, thus we'll have The Little Mouse, the Chocolate Covered Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear

Some ideas we had the first time around were:

Make Way for Ducklings Salad
Deviled Green Eggs and Ham
Three Billy Goat Cheeses Gruff served with The Stinky Cheese Cracker Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
Dill Pickles to Pittsburgh
Blueberries for Sal tartlets
Madeline(s)
Goodnight Moon Pies
Ice Cream Cake Larry
Chicken Soup with Rice
Bread Pudding and Jam for Francis
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs-liders
Potato Pancakes for Breakfast with Rain Makes Applesauce topping
The Smoked Salmon Pinwheels Princess
If You Give a Moose a Muffin
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie etc.
Popcorn or The Popcorn Book
Three little pigs in blankets
The Peanut butter, Marshmallow Chocolates Incident
The Giant Jam Sandwich Cookies

What book (or food) would you like to see if it were your shower?

A Few of My Favorite Things

We have a wedding this weekend (9/10/11 -- isn't that a brilliant date? I mean it's not my favorite date, but a close third). Lately Amazon's 4 for 3 has served me well by letting it appear we paid mildly more for the gifts we've given than we did (or the nice way to spin it is we've been able to stretch our wedding gift budget a little farther so that the bride and groom get a little extra-- total aside within an aside but do you think it was Freudian that I had trouble spelling groom and it came out as goon?). It's not terribly difficult to purchase the items off the registry that qualify for 4 for 3 and then call the place where the couple actually registered to have the items removed. So the bride and groom don't get multiples and we get the satisfaction of free two day shipping and the price of one item less.

I've been sort of putting off purchasing a gift for the wedding this weekend though. I put a lot of items from their registry in my cart for my husband to look at before purchasing (it's for his niece I figure he should get some veto power). It's sat in my cart about a month. This past weekend I decided that since she was family maybe to make her feel more loved we should buy her some of our favorite kitchen items, items she didn't necessarily register for but which might prove useful in her kitchen. She and her husband are just starting out, she's lived at home for the last 20+ years without a kitchen of her own and, as far as I know, has not done much of the cooking there.

I'm torn, in my head I hear my friend from Other Pieces of Me telling me to "Just go with the registry, that's why people make registries it's WHAT THEY WANT!!!" on the other hand I like to think I give good gifts, couldn't we come up with a gift she didn't know she wanted?! I hope I come to a decision before this posts. . . .

Below are some kitchen items I love, some I've blogged about before, some I have not. They are all items I would totally replace if we had some kind of horrific kitchen fire destroying our beloved kitchen items. It turns out picking my top 10 kitchen items is almost impossible, these items have taken a LONG time to narrow down. Far longer than a blog post should really take :). If you gave us a wedding gift and it's not featured here, just refer back to the last two sentences and assume that it's number 11 on our list!!

When you look below you'll see why I don't post pictures. I tried to put them in a different file all nicely together and then when I uploaded it, it was all too small. I am no good at embedding them polyvore-style straight into the blog though. I read enough blogs to know I did a really shoddy job but I don't have the knowledge or the time to change it.

Cow Image from Here, Microplane Image from Here, LeCreuset Whisk Image from Here, L'econome knives, Chicken Image My Own, OXO angled measuring cup Image from Here, Dexter knife Image from here, Browne-Halco 11 inch Pan Image From Here, flexible cutting boards Image from Here, Silpat Baking Liner Image from Here

The Big Lobster. . .

So I know this story is old, but I am so tickled by the whole thing that I thought I would post a link to the original story about Zabar's "lobster salad" and the almost as brilliant follow up! If you haven't already read it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Who eats White Peaches?!

I just ate the juiciest loveliest peach from our farm share box this week. I mean dripping down your chin juicy. I did not want the peach to end. When we go to PA later this week we'll be going to a farmers market in Gratz --I love Gratz, PA, my husband makes fun of me saying that even the people who live there don't love it as much as I do! It was at that farmers market that I finally learned what free stone peaches are (yeah, yeah, it wasn't rocket science to figure out, it means that the pit easily removes from the fruit).

The difference between white peaches and "regular" peaches is that the white peaches tend to be sweeter and have less acidity. The thing is, I've yet to have a white peach that had good flavor. They seem like watered down peaches, sort of simpering half siblings of the "regular" peaches.

Any white peach lovers out there? If so, tell me what all the hype's about!

Prayer

I came across a draft of an email I apparently never sent. It was from years ago (the friend who it was addressed to has changed his email address more than once since then) but I thought that maybe it would be something worth sharing on the blog (and yes, I'm getting kind of desperate for material already -- you might want to help me out a little lest I start to slow down and thus stop for another 6 months).

Anyway, I was emailing about something that Lauren Winner wrote about in her book Mudhouse Sabbath (and if you haven't read the book, you really should, I'm a big fan). Ms. Winner was an Orthodox Jew turned Christian. In the book Mudhouse Sabbath she explores some of the Jewish traditions in light of her new faith. The section I was talking about in my email is where she discusses the liturgical prayers that Orthodox Jews use. They have prescribed prayers for many daily activities. When she became a Christian she fell away from that and used more free form prayers. A point in her chapter is that while liturgical prayers can sometimes become rote, they also can sometimes make us less selfish than free form prayers, molding our thoughts to the creator rather than trying to mold the creator to our thoughts.

I have discussed this chapter with a number of people since I read the book and I think it's a very interesting argument but it wasn't the point of my email.

In my email I was discussing how even those of us who were brought up without much influence of traditional prayers (I had never even seen The Book of Common Prayer until after I read Mudhouse Sabbath) tend to start to create our own traditions in prayer. In the same way that a number of Jewish prayers begin Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu (I think it's loosely translated as Blessed art though Lord God. . .) I find that often I open my prayers Dear Lord God. . . and end them with in Jesus Name, Amen (decidedly less Jewish :)). Another woman who I used to pray with used to chant throughout her prayer Abba, father. I don't know that this is earth shattering, but I do think it's interesting. How about you? If you grew up a "free form" Christian, do you find yourself praying in patterns?

Hop to it!

Um, you guys, I know it's kind of ridiculous, but I've fallen in love with these bouncing balls. It's a good thing I don't have a kid, because I am totally torn, do I love the bright red bull, the dino rider, or the hot dog best?! Maybe the elephant. You know I love elephants. . . They even have a sumo wrestler!! I mean come on, how do you choose?

Sadly, they only have two options for adults and neither is quite as exciting as any of the kids options -- go figure. I can tell you though, I am getting one for Christmas (as in don't worry about buying me one, someone already has :)).

They also made me smile because I remembered the scene in FRIENDS where Phoebe's list of things to do before she turns thirty includes a bouncing on a bouncy ball.

Have you come across anything as crazy that you're attracted to?

Some Fun and Crafty Ideas

Yesterday I challenged you to send people some fun mail. Below are some links of fun crafts you could make and then send on!

Surprise Balls --I've had these bookmarked for so long (I considered making them for kids at our wedding)

Tiny Pinatas -- you can use any leftover water balloons you have from the summer!

Elephant Delivery -- okay, so this one is the easiest, print it on card stock and let your recipient put it together. Yes, it's very valentine themed, but still, how fun to get an elephant in the mail!?

Turn a beloved paperback into a custom hard back (um, and you can send it book rate!!)

Photo Shrinky Dink Jewelry --I thought about doing this with some of my boy's art to sell at open studios. . . I don't think it would work though).

Felt Finger Puppets -- fairly flat and they could be as fancy or fanciful as your creativity/skills allowed.

Photo Napkin Rings -- send flat and let your recipient make into the actual ring, great if you or your family would be missing a holiday or other family event!

Temporary Tattoos --it's unclear to me, but I think you can just cut the tattoo paper yourself (one reviewer said you needed to own the sillouette cutter).

You can find lots more ideas for crafts all over the web, but one of the blogs I read offers you a bunch every day. Go visit Oneprettything for more ideas!