Bohemian Swank bedroom redecorating project

I’ve decided to redecorate my bedroom – hot pink be gone. (Never thought I’d say that!) But, I want something a little more chic, swanky and adult, but still feminine. I also want to incorporate the Bohemian/Balinese culture because I love it so much, and it reminds me of the best trip I’ve ever taken (and a special time spent with my sister). I’m calling my vision, “Bohemian Swank.”

Most of the images above in my vision board of the space, I’ve actually already purchased. Minus the expensive four poster white bed frame and the wicker trunk I’m saving for.

I’m trying to mix and match jewel colors and patterns, in true Bohemian fashion. Deep purple sheets, sequined, velvet pillows, a turquoise blown-glass lamp, ombred purple curtains and the most beautiful Moroccan wallpaper in a teal and gold pattern. But, I’m keeping some details simple for balance – white bedding, a white chandelier and a brown wicker trunk at the end of my bed for storeables. I’m most excited about the chandelier! I just need to figure out how to install it…

For my walls, I’ve purchased a world map in gold that you scratch off the countries you’ve been to! I’m super excited for that to arrive. I also have a painting I bought in Bali of a woman playing an instrument in bright colors and gold paint, and I’m purchasing a wrapped canvas print of a photo of my sister and I on our trip. I also have two woven sarongs in traditional Balinese ikat design that I’ll incorporate into the room – one at the end of my bed. I think these Balinese touches will be the perfect thing to make my room a serene, lovely space that makes me smile and relax, just like how I felt when I was in Bali.

I’m really excited, and will post pictures or a video of it as soon as it’s finished!

*You can see my entire Pinterest board of my bedroom redecorating project, with links to items, here.  

Currently Feeling: Excited I finally made a small plan for my birthday – it’s Napa Valley Restaurant Month! I’ll be heading up for dinner, drinks and one night in a Napa B&B. Finally a good reason to have my birthday in January.
Currently Anticipating: A quiet weekend before a BIGGG week next week, for various reasons outside of just my birthday!
Currently Loving: A new salon I found walking distance from my house that straightens my hair for only $20!

Homemade Au Naturel Sugar Scrubs for DIY Gifts

I’ve started a Christmas tradition of my own – making crafty, homemade gifts for my friends each year! It’s quickly becoming my favorite part of the Christmas season. I love the process of trying something new, listening to music or watching Christmas movies while relaxing and creating, and the best of all – giving my homemade gifts to my friends! It’s my way little way of letting my BFFs know how much they mean to me and that they are a special part of my year.

Last year I made homemade soaps with funky images personalized for each friend (a great unisex gift), and this year I made sugar scrubs for my girls. With the soaps coming out less than $3 each and the sugar scrubs less than $5 each, these are inexpensive gifts that are way better than something picked up at the store for three times the price!

I found “A Year of Sugar Scrubs” recipes on a blog post from Pinterest, natch. Erin offers her e-book with 24 original sugar scrub recipes for only $3.99! I highly recommend buying it – the recipes were super easy, all-natural and smelled fabulous. I plan on trying them all out eventually.

This year, I made 12 sugar scrubs total and tried five of Erin’s 24 recipes – S’mores, Snickerdoodle, Pink Sugar Cookie, Mexican Hot Chocolate, Caramel Frappe – and made up two of my own recipes – Rainbow Chip Birthday Cake and Bali Vanilla Bean.

I was really proud of the two recipes I made up. I thought of Rainbow Chip Birthday Cake thanks to a canister of rainbow chocolate chips my mom had from William Sonoma. This ended up being the most popular flavor – who doesn’t love the rainbow chip birthday cake we all had as a little kid?!

I actually have to give credit to my sister for the Bali Vanilla Bean idea. We had a bag of fresh vanilla beans we brought back from Bali and gave to my mom. We scraped two vanilla beans from Bali into the “Vanilla Bean” scrub recipe from Erin’s e-book of sugar scrub recipes. I’ve never used real vanilla bean in a recipe before. It was crazy to peel open the bean and scrape out all the little tiny flea-looking dots inside the bean. This was probably the second most popular flavor to choose with my friends because it felt a little more “special” with the vanilla beans all the way from Bali!

My favorite recipe from Erin’s e-book on sugar scrubs was the S’mores recipe. The chocolate layer is a rich chocolatey smell (thanks to cocoa powder) and the marshmallow layer is actually made with my favorite marshmallow fluff (an excuse to buy it and lick the spoon)!

Another one of my favorite recipes from Erin was “Pink Sugar Cookie,” which takes a heart-shaped cookie cutter to create a heart in the middle of the sugar cookie scrub! A little surprise for my friend who went home and first took the lid of this scrub.

The absolute best thing about these sugar scrubs is that they are 100% natural (and even edible) – gluten free! low fat! no preservatives! no trans fat! no high fructose corn syrup! They’re largely made with olive oil and cane sugar. Some other ingredients I used are cocoa powder, brown sugar, honey, cinnamon, marshmallow fluff, caramel sauce, Starbucks VIA, and vanilla extract – all ingredients found at your local grocery store. My sister and I even licked the spoons!

I put each of the sugar scrubs in a container I bought from Cost Plus World Market for only $2.99, tied them with ribbon, and created a cute little tag for each one. These sugar scrubs took about three hours total to make, were au naturel, inexpensive and a HUGE hit with my girl friends. It was so fun to see what each of my friends chose as their flavor (no girls were injured in the choosing of the scrub flavors).

My sister and I kept a recipe for a Snickerdoodle recipe that didn’t turn out and tried it in the shower – it’s an amazing exfoliate and the olive oil makes your skin so soft (and your skin even smells like the flavor afterward)! I think I’ll whip up a canister for myself to keep in in my shower and try different flavors throughout the year.

If you try these out yourself, let me know! I’d love to see what you create – this is my most favorite crafty project I’ve tried so far.

Currently Feeling: So glad to be “home” – it’s starting to feel more so every week, day and month!
Currently Anticipating: My first ever dim sum this week with some girl friends in SF (well, I take that back – been once, but it doesn’t count cause it was late at night and not really the full carted dim sum experience).
Currently Reading: Best Kept Secret by Amy Hatvany.

How to Throw a Favorite Things Party

Thanks to the all-knowing, addictive, most amazing website to come out of 2011 – Pinterest – I came across a few blogs that shared the idea of throwing a Favorite Things Party. So, I decided to host one for my San Francisco girls. Here’s the gist of throwing a Favorite Things Party: everyone brings five (or whichever number you choose) of their “favorite things” under a price limit. We did five things for $30. Favorite things can be your favorite condiment, nail polish color, book, amazing product you can’t live without, etc., but it should be five different things, not five of the same thing. Each person “presents” their favorite things one by one, and after each, pulls a name (from a box/hat) for the person who will receive the favorite thing. At the end, everyone goes home with five different “favorite things” from everyone at the party, learns a little bit about each attendee, and learns a lot about great products! It’s super fun, and a great change-up to the usual white elephant party.

Here are a few details I added to my party to give you some ideas if you want to throw your own Favorite Things Party! (P.S. I did it as a holiday party, but it can be thrown year-round without a Christmas theme!)

I bought brown bags, printed out labels that said, “A Few of Our Favorite Things” (you can download the labels here) and tied the bags with string. This was to play off “brown paper packages tied up with strings” from the song, and each person had a bag to put their “favorite things” they received at the party.

I made this fabulous Cranberry Mojito cocktail, also found on a blog courtesy of Pinterest. This might have been one of the biggest hits of the party. Because of it’s festive red and green appearance, everyone took pics and shared it on the social interwebs.

In keeping with the theme, I asked guests to bring their favorite appetizer. One of my girls brought pigs in blanket (or as she said, “Pigs in Down Comforters”) – everyone’s childhood fav!

I was really grateful to my friends who put a lot of thought and energy into their appetizers and presents – it was so fun to just chat, nibble on good homemade food and sip festive cocktails. The holidays are for celebrating with those you love most!

One of the best parts about the party is how fun it is to learn about each other through your favorite things. Like your friends love to travel… or love Owls… or appreciate fine wine… sometimes if they’re new friends, like most of girls in San Francisco, it’s a great way to get to know each other even more.

Some of the “favorites” that made their way to my party were: popcorn box for watching movies filled with candy, chalkboard wine glasses, Mac lipstick in Ruby Woo (I scored this one!), funny suitcase tag, non-slip headbands, Trident layers, Great Lash mascara, e.l.f. lipgloss, Almond Champagne (!!!), Bath & Bodyworks True Plue Paraffin lotion (supposed to be the best for dry hands), Gap thong (supposed to be super comfy), plastic flask for outdoor concerts, massage oil, eos lip balm and a Christmas amerilious plant.

My five favorites were: Forever 31 earrings, The Carrie Diaries(to represent my love for SATC, Carrie and blogging), Space Noodles (to represent my love for Seattle), a lululemon headband (to represent my love for yoga) and Tapatio! I put that stuff on everything.

What “favorite things” would you bring?!

One of my girl friends went home with Mac lip liner in “Cherry” and a lesson from a make-up artist friend on how to apply it – doesn’t she look fab?!

Again keeping with the theme (*cough* theme party whore *cough*), I made “warm apple strudel” (part of the Favorite Things song lyrics) for my dish and topped it with homemade eggnog ice cream! It was my first time making either, and they were quite the hit. Apple strudel is a crowd pleaser with all that butter and brown sugar, and eggnog is pretty much ready made ice cream mix in a carton! And of course, I had my “whiskers on kittens“ tied up in a pretty red party bow.

It was truly a night filled with our favorite things – each other, great food, drinks, conversation and the little things in life that make us smile. All recipes for an awesome holiday party with close girl friends!

Happy holidays, blog lovelies!

Currently Feeling: Like the holidays are even MORE crazy when you have to squeeze in meeting up with everyone you don’t see all the time. Whew – I’m tired! But it’s so much fun too.
Currently Anticipating: A girls night tomorrow night – dinner at Pearl and a tour of Snowflake Lane.
Currently Loving: Spending so much one-on-one time with my high school girl friends – it’s been awhile since so many of them have lived back at home, and it feels so special to catch up and stay good friends after all these years.

One of the best trips of my life

Last week, I wrote about how my trip to Austin started out as The Worst Trip of My life. I promised I fill you guys in on why it turned into one of the best trips of my life…

Over the past year, I’ve had the extreme luck of traveling to a number of cities for work or pleasure – Miami last April for a mini vacation with friends, New York City in August for BlogHer ’10, San Francisco twice in October for BlogHer Food and the Redwood City Oktoberfest, Maui for vacation in February and now Austin for SXSW. Each city was a new adventure to me since I haven’t had the opportunity to explore any of these while being “of bar age.”

Perhaps it was the culmination of celebrating with my team at work after two of the more stressful months of our lives, or the balmy 80-degree weather (30 degrees warmer than Seattle) or just the ENERGY reverberating through the city, but I absolutely fell in love with Austin, y’all.

So much so, that I might have been okay with using y’all by the end of the week without cringing. I was ready to rat out my bleached blond hair, kiss my grits and declare myself a Texan.

There was no one moment that made my trip spectacular – I didn’t meet the man of my dreams, I didn’t win the lottery, in fact my luck was all backwards and upside down, but I just felt happy. I loved Austin – every part of it. I loved the energy that SXSW brings to the capital of Texas – Mardi Gras-esque crowds down the famous blocks of bars on 6th Street, the parties from some of my favorite brands (including Whrrl!) with open bars, food galore and tons of geeks, the pedi cab drivers who whisk you away to the next event, with an evening breeze rustling your hair. I loved the hipsters, the natives, the friendly banter and smile from everyone you meet; Texans are nothing but nice.

I loved all the outdoor bars with huge patios, many with fire pits and kitschy bar themes – Mohawk with its PBRs, mustached bartenders, and taxidermied animals on the wall, Lanai with its swank outdoor lounge with couches, hanging lamps and ceiling to floor drapes, overlooking all of Austin. And I loved the food – oh the food! The pork belly sliders from The Peached Tortilla food trunk, the catfish at Moonshine, fried okra at Stubb’s Barbecue (the origin of the barbecue sauce I’ve had in my fridge at home), the Jackalope hot dog at Frank’s Hot Dogs and Cold Beer – an antelope, rabbit and pork sausage with huckleberry compote, sriracha aioli and cheddar, served with a side of original Big Red soda that reminds me of my childhood.

I fell in love with Austin so much, that I’m making it my personal life goal to never miss a SXSW there again – business OR pleasure. This trip was one of the first times I’ve spent an entire week, sleepless, living out of a suitcase, where I did not want to go home at the end. I would have lived out of that hotel on the side of the freeway for as long as I could. (If I could have beamed my cat through the Intertubes to join me).

And THAT, my friends, is why it was one of the best trips of my entire life. I highly recommend putting Austin on the top of your visit list this year.

Currently Feeling: In limbo… can’t wait for final news and details hopefully to share with my blog friends soon! Lots of changes coming my way.
Currently Anticipating: The Seattle Sounders bartending at a local waterhole in my neighborhood tomorrow for charity – hello soccer hotties!
Currently Needing: To get back into cooking and trying a new recipe each week. Going to try a jalapeno strawberry halibut recipe this week!

From the worst trip of my life to one of the best

Last week I flew to Austin for the SXSW Interactive Festival. There’s a reason everything in my life goes completely on halt around this time of year – SXSW is by far the biggest conference for tech companies and startups to launch (ala Twitter five years ago) or apps to showcase new features and try to “get noticed” by the bazillion geeks who fly into Texas’ state capital for the event. In case you didn’t know, I work for a mobile app company. Therefore, everyone at my company (and myself!) works around the clock to make sure everything is perfect and we’re making as big of a splash as we possibly can each year at SXSW…

This year was the first year I got to join my team for the trip to Austin, and I literally thought I was going to pee myself with excitement (if I didn’t pass out first from exhaustion). I’ve always felt like the “who’s who” of tech go to SXSW, and really just wanted a chance to be included in the fun and meet so many amazing tech nerds. (Tech nerds = be still my beating heart).

Except my trip got off to a bit of a rocky start, ie: IT BLEW MONKEY BALLS.

Thursday, March 10th:

2:30 p.m. I leave Sea-Tac International Airport on a one-stop flight to Austin via Denver.

6 p.m. Pilot gets on PA system on plane and says “It’s windy in Denver, foks! We’re rerouting to Colorado Springs cause we don’t have enough fuel to circle and wait it out.”

6:40 p.m. Land in Colorado Springs to “refuel.” They won’t let us off plane, so we sit around for an hour, which is PERFECT for my flight anxiety and general feeling of being trapped in a tiny room, breathing stranger’s recycled breath. Talk self off ledge.

8:30 p.m. Finally land in Denver – cause woo hoo, it’s not windy anymore! Flight attendants are all, “Oh yeah – sorry. NBD you missed your flight. It was only THE ONLY ONE going to Austin and everything else is booked cause the ENTIRE country is trying to get to SXSW. Don’t worry – just go wait in line at customer service, and they’ll help you out!”

8:45 p.m. Get off plane – want to punch a baby when seeing the size of the line at customer service (probably more than 200 people, all needing flights out. Probably all needing flights out to Austin.)

9:30 p.m. Have waited in line for an hour, phone is dying, don’t have a flight partner so I can leave the line and go to the bathroom, I haven’t eaten since 2 p.m. at Sea-Tac Airport.

9:45 p.m. Discover the only thing open in the entire Denver airport is MCDONALDS. Oh yeah – refer to my 2011 New Years post to the part where I’ve given up fast food. But I’m so hungry I could eat a Unicorn and poop rainbows. (Wait, does that accurately describe a starving person). Maybe I should just click a few times like Starvin’ Marvin from South Park.

9:55 p.m. I eat McDonalds. Add insult to injury. I killed my two month streak of not eating fast food, not because I was hungover and couldn’t think of any other way I’d want to spend my life because I’ve survived those moments. I literally ate it cause I had no other option. Insult.to.injury.

11 p.m. Make it to the front of customer service. By the GRACE OF GOD, I have a last name that starts with B. Therefore I’m one of only like three people who got auto-booked on the only flight out of Denver to Austin that wasn’t $1,000 with four layovers. Otherwise I would have been stuck in Denver till Sunday. SUNDAY! Thurs-Sunday. That’s how many available flights to Austin there were.

11:30 p.m. Check into the hotel next to the airport that I had to pay for cause the wind “wasn’t Frontier’s problem.” Miss the $100 reservation I paid out of pocket for a hotel in Austin. Miss the 8 a.m. plan I have to meet a coworker to help him set up for our first day at SXSW.

Friday, March 11th:

10:30 a.m. Fly out of Denver on a flight to Austin.

2 p.m. Land in Austin. Catch a cab to the “Marriott Residence Inn” my boss made reservations for me at.

2:30 p.m. Drive up to downtown Austin Marriott Residence Inn in a cab. Pay cab driver in cash (even though I argue for five minutes against it cause I need the credit card receipt for my expense report). He throws fit. I relent, get out, walk in hotel.

2:35 p.m. Try to check in, they don’t have my name or my boss’ name under a reservation. Go to call her on my iPhone, WHICH I LEFT IN THE CAB. And now I can’t track which cab it was cause I didn’t PAY WITH CREDIT CARD. Lose my mind for five minutes. Don’t have my email to check hotel reservation (it’s on my phone), don’t have phone numbers to call any of my team members in Austin. At the biggest tech conference of the year and DON’T HAVE MY PHONE or access to ANY TECHNOLOGY.

2:40 p.m. Hotel front desk person calls all “Marriott Residence Inn”s in Austin, and all claim they don’t have a reservation under my name.

2:50 p.m. By the grace of God, get a hold of my boss via the hotel telephone, who tells me our reservations are at Marriott Residence Inn SOUTH.

3:30 p.m. Arrive at hotel…

Where I spent the next five days having ONE OF THE BEST TRIPS OF MY LIFE.

(To be continued… )

Currently Feeling: Sneezy, sniffley and under the weather – boo airplane germs!

Currently Anticipating: Some exciting news coming my way… *fingers crossed*

Currently Reading: Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum.

Here is where I serenade you and offer up a BIG giveaway

Last week, I was given the opportunity to host a Wrapped in Goodness party courtesy of Lean Pockets, which means I was sent a HUGE ass box stocked with Snuggies for my guests, a questions party game, coupons for free boxes of Lean Pockets’ new Culinary Creations, and $100 for additional food and wine. (That was my disclosure part). What ensued was 12 goodnesses wrapped in a party… And yes, I did really make all my guests pose with their chosen number of snacks while I sang probably the crappiest version ever of The 12 Days of Christmas, using a YouTube karaoke video. Oh the laughter! Sometimes I wonder if my life is real.

What I’m giving YOU, lovely friends and readers for suffering through my high pitched craziness is a chance to win an entire YEAR’S supply (183 coupons) of Lean Pockets. Heyo! All you have to do is leave a comment here telling me your favorite Christmas song (Here’s hoping it’s my awesome rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas). For an extra entry, you can head over to the LP Facebook page and like it, and let me know here. AND, if you Tweet about it, tag me @jeannabarrett and use the hashtag #goodnessparty & #giveaway, and I’ll throw an extra entry in there. I’ll choose the winners at random by Friday at 5 p.m. and announce by Monday! Good luck!

Currently Feeling: Tired from staying up till 2:30am to knock out that video. Once I get my mind on something, I can’t stop.
Currently Anticipating: Girl Power Hour’s Cocktail Holiday party on Thursday!
Currently Loving: That I can wear yoga clothes to work every day. Love my job.

Pocketbooth

I’m obsessed with iPhone photography apps (iPhoneography) – so much so that I rarely use an actual digital camera these days since I have my phone with me everywhere.

I discovered the Pocketbooth app, which takes photobooth photos on your phone! I have strips of photobooth photos with friends in my room and at work – they’re such a silly, fun way to capture memories. Now, I can take photobooth photos anytime, anywhere, and even edit or change the colors, trash or redo. No more too close, too dark photos, and only 99 cents for unlimited fun. I loves.

Currently Feeling: Lazy, lazy. I’ve definitely had my share of rest this week – ready to hit December full speed ahead!
Currently Anticipating: Decorating my tree and making cookies tonight with my sister and Meg.
Currently Loving: White Christmas lights – they make everything so pretty!

Ten Reasons Why the Amazon Kindle is My New Boyfriend

Kindle me this, Kindle me that… after three years of drooling over the Amazon Kindle, I finally treated myself to one after a great review (and raise) in October. If you can’t treat yourself, who can you treat?! That’s the saying, right…

For all you “I love the smell and feel of a real book” skeptics, I am THE number one book lover, or at least close. I own well over 200 books, and I even infamously color coordinate them on a book shelf that takes up an entire wall in my apartment. For me, the Kindle combines my two ultimate loves – gadgets + reading, and I’m absolutely in love. I’ll tell you why I’ve converted from a paper book reader to an electronic book reader…here are 10 reasons why the Amazon Kindle is my new boyfriend:

1. The Kindle is incredibly thin, small and light, and even with the leather cover, smaller than 90% of the books I’ve carried around in my bag. It makes travel and bus reading super easy – I always have a book with me.
2. Speaking of travel, I’m the girl who lugs around four paperbacks in my suitcase on vacation, there and back. Now, it’s all on the Kindle – when I finish one book on the plane, I can click and have another book at my fingertips.
3. Since the Kindle runs on Amazon’s store, it has all my purchase history and recommendations because I’ve been an Amazon.com user for years. The store is easily browse-able on the Kindle – I’m addicted to reading through reviews and watching bestseller lists, top sales, etc. to find the best books at the moment to read.
4. You can download a “sample” of every book – a first few chapters to read before you actually buy the whole book. How many times have you bought a book for $15 or so, read a couple chapters, and it just wasn’t doing it for you, so you wasted the money, and another book slot on your shelf for something you didn’t even like?
5. Most of the Kindle book prices are at least $5 cheaper than regular book prices. Because of this, combined with the download sample feature, I’m expecting to save some pennies on book purchases.
6. The screen is awesome! I don’t know how they do it, but it looks exactly like a book page. There’s no backlighting, so it’s better for your eyes and doesn’t strain them. (Don’t let someone convince you to get an iPad over a Kindle – the iPad’s screen is bad for your eyes to read on. Not that I’m anti iPad, it’s just not a great eReader).
7. I read more! Because it’s easy to have everywhere, and the ease of the buttons and screen, I’ve been blowing through books.
8. When I fall asleep reading, I don’t have to flip through the book and try to remember where I was the next morning – the Kindle screen stays where it was at!
9. It downloads book in 30 seconds or less, and syncs across all locations (with your PC, iPhone, etc). If I do forget my Kindle, I have a Kindle Reader app on my iPhone, which remembers my location and syncs to where I was at on my Kindle.
10. It has nifty extra features like the ability to read popular book highlights (which I actually really like), highlight and bookmark on your own, email PDFs and documents to read on the Kindle (I’m finally catching up on all those studies and documents I download off the Internet for work, but never get around to printing and reading – stuff like “The State of the Internet Report 2011,” and other geeky stuff.

If you’ve been contemplating the purchase, do it! You won’t regret it, I promise. Let me know what you think about your Kindle, if you have one, or if you have any other questions about owning one!

Currently Feeling: Really pumped about our 90-day road map at work after a two-day planning workshop. We have some exciting features planned!
Currently Anticipating: Friday night happy hour with some of my favorite girls – at a new HH spot with $1 sushi!
Currently Loving: This champagne turkey recipe I’m going to try this weekend for a girls Thanksgiving party I’m hosting. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Ten on Tuesday

Found this fun weekly blog meme on Doniree.com, who found it on Roots & Rings (a new blog for me – yay!), so thought I’d jump into the fun. You can join in and add your answers in the comments, copy and paste on your own blog, or just read along.

And here we go…

1. What is your favorite breakfast pastry?

Bacon. Oh wait – bacon isn’t a pastry. If I can’t answer bacon, can I answer something equally as fatty? Cream CHEESSEEE Anything with cream cheese – love those half raspberry, or half lemon, cream cheese danishes.

2. Were you ever in a Thanksgiving or Christmas play?

I once was cast as Jesus. But then they realized I’m a much better devil, so I was transferred over to the star of the Halloween play. What- you’ve never heard of a Halloween play?! Pshhhh.

3. What is your favorite clothing accessory?

Big, over-the-top earrings. I have big curly hair, so if I don’t wear big earrings, you can’t see my earrings at all. I have such an obsession with earrings that I’ve had to upgrade to TWO earring holders, both which hang on my wall. It’s like I’m decorating with my earrings up in heya.

4. What is your favorite item of clothing?

Right now…(cause this will change monthly), it’s a tie between my lululemon Stride jacket, which is made of the most awesome material you’ve ever felt and has thumb holes. Thumb holes I say! Or this oversized, long-sleeved thin grey pullover sweater hoodie thing I bought at Target and its made out of material that seriously feels like it’s been washed, worn and loved for 10 years. Do you remember, as a kid, taking a piece of paper and crumpling it up, and uncrumpling it, over and over until it felt like a soft piece of tissue? It’s like someone did that to this sweater.

5. What is your favorite color and why?

Pink, PINK, pinkity pink pink. I don’t know why. I’m obsessed – with bright pink, not light pink. But if bright’s not an option, then I’ll take light. My bed is pink, my sports bras, my running shoes (and my heels!), my netbook, camera, phone cover, candles, iPod dock. If I had the option, I would have bought a pink cat and a pink car. I am a silly girl who’s is in love with pink. Crazy, aisle four!

6. What is your favorite type of Christmas cookie?

Every year, for as long as I can remember, my mom, sister and I decorate Christmas sugar cookies together. My mom makes the best frosting I’ve ever had using Almond extract. They’re always bright green, blue, yellow or pink (PINKKK) and then we finish them off with rainbow sprinkles. I love the tradition just as much as I love the cookies.

7. What is your favorite scent (food, perfume/lotion)

Currently, it’s a four-way tie between my two favorite perfumes that I rotate (Be Delicious by DKNY and L.A.M.B. Fragrance from Gwen Stefani), the Voluspa candle I mentioned in yesterday’s post, or the PINK body spray I carry around in my purse. Oh, and fried food. If I get one whiff of french fries or a cheeseburger – I’m heading straight to McDonald’s. Fatty, aisle four! (Crazy and fatty, sitting in a tree…).

8. What is your favorite household cleaner?

I know it’s supposed to be super bad for drains or something (IF you own a house and actually care about that stuff), but I’m a renter, so I’m just going to go out loud and proud with my obsession with Draino. There’s no way I’m every pulling gobs of black gooey, rotten hair out of a drain. I’ll wait till I have a husband for that. In the meantime, I’m Draino-ing the shiz out of my sink and shower!

9. When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up? And what did you actually grow up to be?

I wanted to be an author (how NERDY). I’m not actually a book author yet… but dag nabbit, I will be! It’s my dream to write a memoir…I’m just letting myself live a little bit more of life before I do so.

10. What is the last song or album you bought?

Rotten Love, by Levy. Go ahead – give it a listen. It’s AMAZING! Thanks to Pandora for the stumble.

Currently Feeling: The need for sleep. I’ve been up till 1-4am the last four nights, just dinkin around (I love the term “dinkin around”), and desperately need a good night’s sleep!
Currently Anticipating: A fun lunch with some Seattle Twitterati tomorrow at Lecosho.
Currently Watching: True Blood – I’m obsessed!

Pretty new blog design

I’m counting this as my NaBloPoMo post today – mostly because I’ve spent probably 24 hours total or more on this new blog design this weekend. I know I change blog designs more than Kate Hudson changes boyfriends, but I felt the extreme need for something a bit more… light. Less emphasis on the black and hot pink – so click through from your readers to check out all my hard work with your own beautiful two eyes!

If you’re curious, here’s how I did it:

Free Cupcake WordPress template from SimplyWP.net

Peacock feather and colorful ornate decoration images from iStock.com

Crown blog bling from Google Images

Angel Tears and Cursive Handwriting Tryout fonts from FontFreak.com (the only font Web site I use)

Cute (and free!) blog images from ShabbyBlogs.com

Scribble social media icon set – with instructions to make your own

Lots and lots of Googling for WordPress help since I’m self taught and don’t know what I’m doing half the time

And – voila! A totally free new site design. All it took was two full days, holed up in my room, geeking out.

Currently Feeling: Proud I’ve officially made it two whole weeks through NaBloPoMo. I’ve had a few rough patches (blogging when getting home after four glasses of wine), but all in all, it’s been awesome to get back into writing!
Currently Anticipating: A full week – and getting over the speaking on a panel hump that’s looming over my head until Thursday’s over.
Currently Loving: Fires and home-cooked meals at my parents’ house.