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– Try not to get killed in any sort of Apocalypse — Mayan or otherwise.
– Drink more tea. Try new varieties of tea.
– Scratch that old menu planning idea. Instead, intend to make meal plans for each season based on recipes my family loves, affordability, ease of preparation, and general healthfulness.
– See Rifftrax Live.
– Visit all the thrift stores in my area at least once.
– Try 50 new foods.
– Send 100 photo post cards to internet friends.
– Read all the books in my library.
– Win an award.
– Sing a song with Stefalynda.
– Try 10 new restaurants.
– Pimp my binder.
– Pimp my fridge.
– Tour the town my mother grew up in.
– Host a fondue night.
– Sell 100 items on Etsy.
– Record my family’s story.
– Have a Miracle fruit taste test.
– Host 5 themed dinner parties.
– Eat baguettes in France.
– Try more varieties of cheese.
– Grill something.
– Make pasta.
– Eat a whole plate of sashimi.
– Try 50 kinds of cheese.
I update my life list each year in January. Do you have one? I’d love to steal items off it, I mean, read it.
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As you may remember, some friends and I decided to make this year a Handmade Christmas. What gifts I gave were either thrifted or handmade. While browsing my local craft store for Halloween decorations in September I found a bin filled with these empty plastic ornaments and immediately I knew I’d be turning them into terrariums come December.
If you’ve never made a terrarium before I have a beginner’s tutorial as well as an assortment of terrarium inspiration and information. Terrarium ornaments are simple to make and it was fun to give my friends the gift of something green and growing during the cold winter months. The medium-sized ornaments were a $1.50 at my local craft store, which meant that even I could afford a bunch to give as presents.
Materials:
If making tags like mine you’ll also need:
Instructions:
1. Take your soil and mix in drops of water (or use a spray bottle) until you have damp–but not soggy–soil. Soil with good drainage works well, so look for the kind that has bits of Styrofoam mixed in or that is specially made for succulents and cactus. Valley soil is perfect because it’s so sandy, but you probably don’t live near me, so look into your local soil first to see if you can use it straight from the ground like I did.
2. Remove the wire topping of your ornament and fill the it a third of the way full of soil using your trowel and funnel. Make sure any rocks or gravel pieces aren’t going in. While they are useful for drainage they also add weight, which we don’t want.
3. Gently pluck some weeds from the ground (or from the fancy container you purchased your plants in) leaving the roots intact. Gently use your tweezers and the stick end of your paintbrush or chopstick to poke your plant through the hole and arrange so the root side is in the dirt. This is the trickiest part, but also why weeds are a good choice: they are used to growing in challenging circumstances and bouncing back even after they’ve been shoved in a jar.
4. Add a few (very few) more drops of water, replace the top, and there you have it–and awesome handmade terrarium ornament that took you all of fifteen minutes to make.
Let’s say you are giving these as a present and want to make a gift tag like I did. No problem, it’s easy! I used the tags that were already attached to the ornaments because they were simple and sturdy.
1. Leaving the tag on the ornament, trace its shape onto a decorative piece of paper using a very sharp pencil. Include a mark for the center hole.
2. Cut out and use that tracing to make two tags for each ornament you are making. Cut them out.
3. In each tag, cut a slit and a hole for the plastic ring to go through. This is difficult for me to explain, so if you need a visual, click here.
4. Glue the decorative paper to each side of the tag. I used rubber cement and then set a book on top of each tag to prevent warping.
5. Finally, add the person’s name or a holiday message with a pen. A really good idea would be to include simple care instructions on one side of the tag as terrarium maintenance isn’t exactly a common skill. I did not do this because I only just thought of it, but I wish I would have.
I tried making these with both the larger ornaments and the medium-sized ones and it turns out that the medium-sized ones are far better. I wanted the large ones to work because they could hold more plants and maybe even some plastic toys, but the thin wire ornament tops wouldn’t support all that weight and the whole thing kept falling apart. Not a good sign. The medium size worked perfectly.
You can decorate these with plastic toys as long as they are small, lightweight, and will fit through the opening. You can adjust them with your tweezers and paintbrush once they are in. Ribbon would be a lovely way to accentuate and hang these ornaments, too, if you don’t like the look of the plastic ring or the tag. The fact that these ornaments are so simple is what lends them great potential and versatility.
This project was extra thrifty since I had all the materials on hand except the ornaments. If you try this, please let me know! I’d love to hear how it worked for you.
My husband Anthony and I have theory that most people tweet while using the bathroom.
“You tweet pretty regularly,” you might say to a friend. “Good for you!”
Or, “I’ve noticed you haven’t tweeted in awhile. I’m concerned. Are you getting enough fiber?”
Today is the birthday of my husband and best friend. This one’s for you, love.
What is Follow Friday? It’s a Twitter meme that I have taken a couple steps further. Learn more about it in my FAQ. See my nomination for a Shorty Award for Follow Friday here. You can read more Follow Friday goodness here.
lunchyprices I don’t understand why Beyonce and Jay-Z didn’t name their baby ‘BeJay’.
mocoddle Watching Futurama means that the main character of any book I read after will be voiced, in my head, by Bender.
UnicornFlavored Me trying to encourage a girl @ gym: “You got this, girl! You’re a unicorn!” Another girl: “I don’t..what..I don’t get how she’s a unicorn”
NicLewis BLAST RADIUS #NewSweatpantsLogos
ElKaboing Pimples and Dimples #NewSweatpantsLogos
mitdasein COLOSTOMY #NewSweatpantsLogos
NicLewis DINGLE BERRIES #NewSweatpantsLogos
owlparliament LOOSE STOOLS #NewSweatpantsLogos
owlparliament I AM CORNHOLIO #NewSweatpantsLogos
NikkiGlaser Shouldn’t PINK be on the front of Victoria Secret sweatpants?
RideOrDiePudge Every licensed beautician should know what you’re talking about when you say “Give me the Greatest American Hero.”
johnmoe When you watch football with a 3yo, you learn that all the mans are hugging each other.
missokistic Rick Perry says South Carolina is at war with the federal government. He does know how that ended last time, right?
MassageByTed If I say “I don’t watch football” & you hear “Let’s discuss yesterday’s games at length,” then CONGRATULATIONS you’re management material.
ScrewyDecimal While reading a book about bears during storytime, I accidentally asked the kids “What sound does a BEER make?” Worst. Librarian. Ever.
Toaster_Pastry I used to get a free pen. Now I don’t get a free pen. I can put up with a lot of bullshit with a free pen.
coldcarryouts The language is love. The grammar is tacos.
shariv67 Babies are like those popular kids in high school who you want desperately to like you even though they treat you like shit.
ElwoodJBlues It seems wrong to be eating toaster waffles and tater tots while watching #TopChef, but here I am.
Smethanie Just think how many MORE pics of cats there’d be on the Internet if felines had opposable thumbs to take and upload bathroom mirror shots.
BridgetCallahan If Edith Wharton were alive today, she would totally be writing for Gossip Girl.
pattonoswalt Here, this should cover Wikipedia for 24 hours: The Beatles, Shakespeare, Anwar Sadat, Rhode Island, & anal fistula
jwordfish the internet just occupied itself
theleanover I wasn’t concerned about SOPA/PIPA until I realized it could shut down Garfield Minus Garfield.
gabek I’ve never blacked out from drinking before, but I’m willing to find out what it takes to support our stand against #SOPA.
JoeVelouria Jokes on you guys. I boycott SOAP twenty-two days a month.
oodja Pluto is a planet. #FactsWithoutWikipedia (Too soon?)
robdelaney #SOPA me, motherfuckers & I’ll use your other enemy, the glorious US Postal Service to MAIL my tweets to your kids.
TwoAdults Yesterday Ezra asked me where the Elf (Elphabet…) was. “I haven’t seen him around, Mama. Where is he? IS HE EATING TREATS?!!!”
robdelaney Simultaneous orgasms are cool, but when you’ve been with someone for a while, simultaneous farts are fun too.
SpaghettiJesus “I CAN’T BELIEVE PAULA DEEN IS A DIABETIC!” – said no one bc Paula Deen is the historic source of all diabetes.
johnmoe Fun day of RTs. Thanks to Marvin Luther King, Martin Lutheran King, Martian Luther King, and the Luther Kings from all the other planets.
duckyouforever I’m live chatting Oprah’s interview with Gov. Chris Christie and there’s a joke in here somewhere but I think it’s on me.
MrBigFists Elevator? Nonsense. This is a traveling hugging booth and I see you’ve selected the button for 16 hugs. So let’s get to it. Come here, you!
shelikespurple I may not be planning to have any more babies, but I do plan to wear my maternity yoga pants for the rest of my life.
morninggloria Was disappointed to discover that mammograms aren’t short boob-related messages. Even sadder that there is no “singing mammogram” option.
owlparliament @exlibris Have I ever told you about the time I got confused with Swiper and said “Snatcher no snatching!” real loud?
tommycm my early misspelling of ‘existential’ has made the crisis all the more telling.
robdelaney I fucking jizz every morning when I tear yesterday’s page off my cat calendar & see a NEW cat in a fun situation!
thebryanchamp I’d like to have sex with a rich person because they’re really good at fucking the poor.
MagpieLibrarian SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET IS WRONG!
willgoldstein I already regret staying up this late for tomorrow. I pregret it. #newword #feelfreetouseit
thecajunboy Mitt Romney just asked the boys to toss some more cash logs into the fire.
SpeakerBoehner Man, I am DESTROYING this chair with farts. Is this thing over yet? #SOTU
markleggett Male cyclists shouldn’t be allowed to have ponytails, so I don’t have to question my sexuality on the drive to work every morning.
alwysabridesmd I hope no one else is at the gym tonight so I can pass gas with impunity during my run. Sorry I ate all those lentils you guys.
markleggett Last night’s dream starred Tim Curry. My imagination spares no expense.
theleanover Obvious joke? OK, Obvious joke: Hyperbole is the worst thing that ever happened to language.
Guydelines Anti-drug campaigns should simply be pictures of Steven Tyler with the phrase “He does drugs!”
MassageByTed I hope some casting agents saw my heroic sprint for the bus this morning.
finslippy I’m sure I can have one more cup of coffee and I’ll be just whoops I’m having a heart attack.
JRehling I just sneezed as I was about to click on something and now everything on my computer is in Malaysian.
pnkrcklibrarian Fell asleep last night watching Antiques Roadshow. Party hard, bitches! Party. Hard.
gonnakillhim “Teach me how to” may be the scariest words to type into Google.
johnhenrymuller Our 7-year-old started using air quotes. It’s about to get “real.”
mstcambot just watched a squirrel successfully pick up an empty iced coffee cup, turn it over, and drink out of the straw. DAY = MADE.
alwysabridesmd On the one hand, I just dropped a tampon on the counter while paying for overpriced water. On the other, I got the elevator to myself. Hm.
nickkroll I would totally elect Mitt Romney to be an actor in Viagra commercial.
shinyinfo I outreach like a son of a bitch. I am out reaching like no other person has reached out before in their ridiculous reaching lives!
thejohnblog Before Bruce Willis figured out he was a ghost in ‘The Sixth Sense,’ his character was probably worried it had been so long since he pooped.
robdelaney Women are like canoes. Actually they’re really more like kayaks. Which one has the pointy things? OK; I don’t understand canoes/women.
MassageByTed I think I’ll go home and record some club music by combining a super loud click track and the autotuned bleating of one wounded sheep.
luckyshirt I just wish facebook would try to fit more information into my eyeballs all at once.
duckyouforever Please be advised that there will no longer be a day known as Monday. In the Hobbit tradition, we now have Second Sunday.
rolldiggity “Yeah, I guess I’m a pretty good water receptacle.” -Glass that is half full of itself
justaboutagirl 10 am and we already need another pot of coffee. I’m so proud of us!
danforthfrance I may have had too much coffee, he said performing Chopin’s Military Polonaise as a hambone.
UnicornFlavored It trips me out that a lady wearing “mom jeans”, clogs, and a Navajo print mini backpack would be considered more fashionable than me.
gracehelbig Happy Butter, Paula Dean! Oh god, I mean birthday. How insensibutter of me. Ah! I’m butter! Sorry! Ah! Your heart works so hard!
thegrumbles dear @keli_h, i will share the same sage advice that was told to me as a boy-mom, “now you’ve had TWO penises in you at the same time.”
jenstatsky Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses — I’m making a weird ass collage.
OhNoSheTwitnt Apparently shouting “where’s your G now?!” on Monday mornings at all my coworkers who say “TGIF!!” on Fridays isn’t very “professional.”
chickenscottpie Accidentally said “automatic death” instead of “sudden death,” and now I think “automatic death” would make football way more interesting.
mikeleffingwell My favorite sequels are Wrath of Khan, The Dark Knight, and World War II.
UnicornFlavored I was going to ask Kyle if he’d get me a glass of water since he was near the kitchen, til I noticed he was elbow deep in a ball scratch.
pattonoswalt That long-handled shoehorn was the iPhone 4S of 1916. #DowntonPBS
pattonoswalt Is there a form of sexuality called “homo-Bates-ual”? #DowntonPBS
lauracope remind me to take all these browser tabs to the Goodwill when i get home.
nancyupton The ultimate first world problem? Getting truffle salt in your eye after making scrambled egg whites. Let’s all hate me together.
GoonSquadSarah Ian just told his playdate “It is your time to shine!”
alyankovic Paul’s First Blog Post to the Corinthians #UpdatedNewTestament
jenstatsky Just spent 15 minutes trying to zipper my coat, then sent my parents an apology for sending me to college.
RideOrDiePudge Apparently my efforts to lead an impromptu slave revolt went unappreciated by the management of Colonial Williamsburg.
JVdesigns And for those who think there is no good in the world, a dude just paused a drug transaction to tell me I dropped my glove
robdelaney DOCTORS ONLY: Did Paula Deen catch diabetes when that guy threw a ham at her face?
VegasWalkinDude “We built this titty. We built this titty from silicone. Built this titty. We built this titty from silicone.” – Plastic surgeon rock anthem
badbananaThrowing a pie in Newt Gingrich’s face is at least a two-pie job.
What is Follow Friday? It’s a Twitter meme that I have taken a couple steps further. Learn more about it in my FAQ. See my nomination for a Shorty Award for Follow Friday here. You can read more Follow Friday goodness here.
I’m still catching up on photos and posts that should have run much earlier in year. At the time I was recovering from debilitating panic attacks so this post and a few others kind of got pushed aside. But I am really proud of my pumpkins and I want to show them to you! (That last sentence was not a euphemism. I swear.)
Aside from the herb garden, which I didn’t take a lot of photos of, we grew pumpkins, butternut squash, a sunflower, and marigolds. I count marigolds because they are a pest-repellant plant and I was specifically growing them for Day of the Dead decorations. Anthony accidentally cleared them out when he was weeding the garden at the end of the season (oops!) so I didn’t get to use them.
I’m really proud of our pumpkins. We were so infested with aphids that I was really worried we wouldn’t get any fruit but we managed to grow three fat orange globes. You can see the other two, plus a helpful PSA, here. Isobel was especially impressed with our pumpkins.
And the sunflower. Which was pretty magical for both of us. When I was thirteen I grew a patch of Russian Giant sunflowers that were easily 15 feet tall. My mom proudly took a picture of me standing next to them. I’ll have to show you someday. We only grew the one, and about half of the seeds are empty, but it was a really fun experience.
We didn’t even have to go to the pumpkin patch this year!
But of course we did, anyway.
The good thing about marigolds, besides the fact they are so cheerful and lovely, is that their petals each turn into a seed, so that by the time the plant has wilted you have enough seeds for a thousand plants. My friend Jake gave me plenty more seeds for next year.
Growing all of these plants was way easier than I thought it would be. Preparing the soil was most of the work done, and daily watering was a chore I had to do anyway. Plus Isobel loves to go outside. I can’t wait to start another garden this summer, but I’m not sure what we’ll grow.
What I’m up to:
– I am finally getting over a cold that’s left me barely functioning for the entire month of January. I know some of you were a little disappointed about the lack of a Follow Friday post last week, but I had been running on empty for days and halfway through editing I knew it was a lost cause. It will be back with a vengeance next week, though, so don’t worry. It’s not going anywhere! In the meantime, check out my new 50 Thrifty Fun Things To Do series. I’m drawing on all my experience of taking care of Isobel while working with a budget that dips into the negative numbers on a regular basis.
– Speaking of vengeance, last week I asked you to send in your questions about me so I could complete the versatile blogger award. I received a bunch of emails, DMs and tweets after I threatened people to post Beck lyrics if no one responded. Well call me a dead hobo on the patio! After that threat I was inundated with responses so I will answer a couple per week until I make it through all of them. If you still have a question for me it’s not too late–email, tweet, comment, or DM me and I’ll answer it in a following Snapshot post.
– Isobel occasionally refers to Anthony as “Swiper.”
– Next month I’m going away with some friends to visit my dear friend Stephanie in Reno. I’m excited to cross this item off my life list, even though I’ll be going without Anthony and Isobel. Since we started a family Anthony’s gone away for work and fun a couple times, so now it’s my turn. I’m going to be going four hours away over Donner Pass with my besties. What could go wrong? P.S. Can you be kicked out of a state for being inappropriate? Asking for my friends. Specifically.
-Also, this is the first time I can remember going overnight somewhere without Anthony since 1998. Holy shit.
– Since I’ve been sick I’ve watched a lot of Star Trek, and, consequently, Isobel has watched a lot of Star Trek. Fortunately, she loves it and dances and shrieks with joy when she hears the theme song. I shit you not. It’s hilarious to hear her take on what she sees, too. To her, Klingons are lions, the Borg are robots, and Worf’s son Alexander is a girl.
– I have been getting more photography work, which is good because I feel really guilty about quitting my job to stay home with Isobel in such rough economic times. I’m not going to lie, we’re personally dealing with some rough finances and so are most of my friends. A friend recently sent me a link about the Ten Worst Cities for Finding a Job. If you look on that list, the first five cities are within about an hour from where I live. The other day a girl came to our door and asked if I had any scrap metal for her family to sell. It’s so bad nearly grabbed my bindle, flung Isobel into a sack of potatoes, and rode the rails to Canada.
– Yesterday we were in line for checkout at the grocery store when I noticed Isobel was chewing on a head of broccoli. I let her. Because it was broccoli.
– One of my recent shoots has been for my bestie’s Etsy shop. She is selling some awesome Valentine’s cards, including robots, Alice in Wonderland, and my favorite, the Anti-Valentine. I really love the Eat Me/Drink Me tags. How perfect would those be attached to a plate of homemade cookies for a housewarming gift? Too perfect.
– If you’re into vintage clothes, check out my friend Valerie’s shop. She has been uploading like mad and I’m personally drooling over several dresses, particularly this 1960s rainbow dress. I probably shouldn’t show you this adorable children’s owl sweater or orange townhouse dress.
Little Big Links:
– Thank the Sweet Baby Picard Jesus those Princess Bride movie remake rumors are false. Via Amanda Stretch
– Goats in a tree. This is called “making my day.” Via Ian Boudreau
– Reading Rainbow meets Star Trek. This derailed my whole afternoon. Via Veronique Rickets
– Good as backup NFMBFTKS, but not as primairy NFMBFTKS . Read the first review. For Samurai Ninja Rockstars, only. Via Chris.
– Downton Abbey Drinking Game. To my utter delight, Anthony enjoys watching this with me–without drinking, even!
– Feminism does not predict poor romantic relationships, in fact quite the opposite. A fascinating study. Via Justin
Weekly Photos:
Reader Question:
This post is running waaaay long, so I’ll answer just a few.
1. Why the Viking liking?
My family is Swedish-American on both sides, and we still have a pretty strong Swedish culture three generations out. I grew up with lots of stories about Sweden, about my pioneer relatives (it was all very Kirsten), and Scandinavian culture in general. I live in an area settled by many Scandinavian families and my parents used to be very involved in the local Scandinavian heritage festival. So it’s just something I grew up around. That and vikings are badass.
2. Do you still go in your child’s room at night to see if she’s breathing?
Oh hell yes. Though my main paranoia is in regards to her choking. I still want to slice grapes into miniscule pieces for her. I got too far. It’s totally irrational. She has learned she can fake cough to get my attention because she knows I’ll come running.
3. Are you a loser, baby?
In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey. Butane in my brain and I became the junky with the plastic eyeball. Spray paint the vegetables dog food skull with the beefcake pantyhose. Kill the headlights and put it in neutral. Stock car flaming with a loser in the cruise control. Baby’s in Reno with the vitamin D, got a couple of couches, sleep on the love seat. Someone keeps saying I’m insane to complain about a shotgun wedding and a stain on my shirt. Don’t believe everything that you breath you got a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve. So shave your face with some mace in the dark. Saving all your food stamps we’re burning down the trailer park.
Yo.
Cut it.
Ah, summer. That magical time when I visited the Farmer’s Market each week and planned our meals accordingly. Now that the market has closed and the local fruit stands have boarded up their windows, I have only my memories and occasional trips to the local remate to tide me over. It’s tough to get there with the kid, and cold and muddy, too, and I have a hard time struggling to carry all those purchases the distance I have to walk back to the car. I can’t wait until May.
These photos are from the last market of the season back in October. This trip was extra special because I was able to fit some thrifting in that day, too.
The plates, bowls and hangers are all thrifted. Purchases that day included green beans, pea shoots, pomegranates, raw almonds, peaches, grape tomatoes, hummus, red pepper tapenade, and a butternut squash.
The sunflower seeds pictured here were actually grown in my garden. Earlier in the season Isobel and I checked out a local nursery’s booth at the Farmer’s Market and they had a display with soil, a little peat pot and seeds. We happened to run into my cousin’s family there, so Isobel and her cousin Victoria got to plant their own sunflower seeds. We watered it and placed it above the sink and two days later it sprouted. It was so magical for Isobel and I to watch. We watched it bloom and eventually cut it down. Isobel helped me pluck the seeds from the flower head. It was incredibly easy and required little more than water on my part.
The amber jar and wooden salt and pepper shakers in the background were also purchased secondhand that day, along with the Pyrex, mushroom cruets, and very awesome (but naturally, inaccurate) vintage dinosaur place mat. I picked up the letter sorter for Isobel and milk glass dish below for a song.
I miss you, summer.
Little Big 