RubyBows

Get EXCITED! Fridays

2012-05-18T09:47:00.000-04:00

Be easily impressed, entertained, and interested.
Most people get more pleasure
from wowing you than from
being wowed by you.
~Gretchen Rubin, Seven tips for making someone like you.

Here's my idea for a new series of themed posts: Get Excited Fridays!

Fridays are always exciting, even if only because Friday is the last day of the work week. I love that vibe you get from people on Fridays; it's like this buzzing energy. People are more likely to be chatty, giggly, play the music loud, or even crack open a celebratory beer at the end of the day. PLUS Friday nights kick of the weekend, which means parties, get-togethers, date nights, or just staying and home and lounging with a movie.

SO I thought Fridays would be the perfect day to showcase something EXCITING and/or AWESOME that I found during the week. Something that makes me excited, gets my heart pumping, or just really wows me in some way.

Sometimes I feel like we live in an information-overload of a world, and it's becoming more and more difficult to really get excited about something. Fake it til you make it, right? :)

Here's to recognizing the Awesome and getting excited!

And to kick it off, this week I'm excited about moving!
Next week we are moving (exciting in itself) and we are planning on painting, which is super exciting to me! It's been years since I've been able to paint my walls. And I've picked out some colors that I am excited about: brown and blue!

Some inspiration:

New home, new neighborhood, new paint on the wall. Exciting!

Collectors

2012-05-13T13:30:00.000-04:00

"...human beings are collectors, and artists especially. Not hoarders, mind you, there's a difference. Hoarders collect indiscriminately, and the artist collects selectively - they only collect the things that they really love. An artist's job is to collect ideas."

~Austin Kleon, Steal Like An Artist

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Happiness Is...

2012-05-10T14:36:00.000-04:00

Happiness is the little things. Like Noses. When you're walking through a neighborhood and suddenly the smell of freshly baked cookies hits you in the face, makes your mouth water, and instantly brings you back to memories of your mom baking cookies.

When it's pouring rain out and you huddle by the cracked-open window to smell the fresh air.

When you're visiting your parents and you wake up in the morning and smell breakfast cooking. Who cooks breakfast for you anymore?!

The illustration above is by me, drawn for a new e-book that is being launched today, called Happiness Is: A Little Book of Little Things by Matt Madeiro.

Matt posted on his blog that he was looking for people to illustrate his upcoming e-book, and dozens of people volunteered. So this book includes a lot of nice illustrations, and they really add to the text. Positive messages of happiness + volunteered illustrations drawn from the heart = something really special. And it's free. Check it out!

Z is for: Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

2012-05-09T10:30:00.000-04:00

I will not let this very last post of the A to Z Blogging Challenge be my downfall! Today is May 9 and I was supposed to do Z on April 30, so I'm a little late. But all in all, this everyday blogging challenge was a good one. I fell behind a few times, but I'm actually finishing something I started, and that is a big deal for me.

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
My, oh my what a wonderful day!
Plenty of sunshine heading my way
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay

Mister Bluebird on my shoulder
It's the truth, it's actch'll
Ev'rything is satisfactch'll
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
Wonderful feeling, wonderful day!

~Song of the South, Disney 1946

While looking up this song, I discovered on Wikipedia that the lyrics reference a bluebird, and bluebirds are a symbol of happiness. Which reminds me of Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, a book and site that features this bluebird logo as a symbol of happiness (how fitting!).

I'm zip-a-dee-doo-dah'ing today because the future looks bright. We're moving to DC in 2 weeks and I'm excited to be closer to everything and be able to do more exploring. I recently read Steal Like An Artist and have been finding inspiration in a variety of places lately:

Creative Inspirations documentaries on Lynda.com
taking a class right now - "Portrait Drawing" from theartleague
Artists Helping Artists podcast about marketing yourself as an artist
Paperclipping Roundtable podcast about scrapbooking
currently reading: The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women
and even in shopping around for some new home stuff

What's inspiring you lately?

Y is for Year

2012-05-05T00:12:00.000-04:00

a year is a cycle; the seasons, the traditions. christmas in december, graduations in the spring.
hot summer nights out on the grass and dark, frigid nights under blankets: both will occur within a year's time.
constant changes make a year fly by: when it's time to watch fireworks, it feels as though it has only been weeks since these same loud lights went off. a distant memory, yet fresh.

it's easy to remember what we did last year. our surroundings offer clues, reminders. but if the people, places, activities, beliefs are new --are different-- the old feels older, more faded than it should.

a year is tricky and subjective. a measure of time, yet different for all.
what feels like a year is defined by memories: a cherished thought kept fresh will always feel like yesterday; a hated memory repressed is an eternity away. we'll call it a year, but only for its logic.
for the things that we miss, they are years, decades away. now detached from that cycle, with no guarantees.

X is for Xtra

2012-05-04T09:38:00.000-04:00

It's May 4th and the A to Z Blogging Challenge was supposed to end on April 30. So yes, I am behind. And the letter X is stumping me.

So here's what I got for X: X is for Xtra. The misspelled yet commonly used and accepted version of "extra" is "xtra". There are dozens of words like this, and I do not like them. You're not clever for chopping off 2 letters, and you're not saving time.

Please avoid:

nite
lite
enuf
thru
thx
plz
tho
b4
2fer
4 (meaning "for")
2-4-1

Public service announcement for the day. That is all.

W is for Wardrobe

2012-05-01T10:00:00.000-04:00

I want to share with you a company that is very near & dear to my heart, and that also makes up approximately 49% of my entire wardrobe: Soul Flower.

Soul Flower exists at Soul-Flower.com, in Minnesota where the warehouse is, in Iowa where the owners live, and in Virginia where I live. I would even be so bold (& cheesy) and say that Soul Flower exists in the hearts and minds of everyone who knows and loves it. I am one of those people.

My journey with Soul Flower started with me looking for a job. I found a listing online for a warehouse assistant - someone to help pick and pack orders in the fulfillment department of Soul-Flower.com. I had never heard of the site, and never stumbled across the website before. But it looked pretty sweet, I like clothes! So I applied for the job and got it.

Working in the warehouse was unlike any job I'd ever had. The people who worked there were cool and laid-back. They played music all day, and nobody was required to wear shoes :) The next several months flew by, since I was busy with classes and another part-time job. I offered to do some graphic design work for SF since I had some experience. Before I knew it, everyone loved what I was doing and I was offered a job as a part of the Soul Flower family.

...

So that's the explanation as to why the brand that makes up half my wardrobe is dear to me - I work there! But I don't wear Soul Flower just to be loyal. I choose Soul Flower and I wear Soul Flower because I support what the company is and what it does. It's all about eco-friendly, organic cotton, sustainable and recycled materials, and Fair Trade. Before working there I didn't know what "fair trade" meant, and I had no idea that you could get cotton in organic - I'd only heard of organic food!

To me, it's sort of like eating vegetarian: Once you know better, you want to do better. Other clothing sites and stores have lower prices than SF, sure, but where do their clothes come from? Do they even know? Are the people manufacturing your trendy shirt being paid a sustainable and fair wage? Is the cotton required to produce hundreds of thousands of that cotton jersey tee being grown sustainably?

I feel like I've found the perfect source for all my funky yet thoughtful clothing needs. I'd rather have a smaller collection of clothes I love, care about, and feel good about than an overflowing abundance of cheap, mass-produced, and carelessly made stuff.

Part of what's awesome about working for Soul Flower is that I get to help create original SF designs. In a way, I get to design my own wardrobe - and share those designs with thousands of customers! It's something I love doing, and that I can feel good about. What could be better?

V is for Vegan Curry Recipe

2012-04-29T23:30:00.000-04:00

Oh, boy. I've been waiting to share this recipe for awhile now! It's Vegan Vegetable Thai Curry with Tofu, and it is so good.

Ever since trying Thai food for the first time at Pad Thai in St. Paul, Minnesota, I've been a fan. My taste buds have been slowly growing to love it even spicier and spicier. My favorite dish at Pad Thai was a red curry with noodles. I tried to mimic the recipe at home once, and it ended in utter disaster.

But this recipe! I've been perfecting it for a couple of months now. It's perfectly suited to my & Rob's taste, so definitely change it up for yourself and what you like!

Vegan Vegetable Thai Curry with Tofu

Ingredients:

1 chopped red onion
1 chopped jalapeno pepper
1 can of coconut milk. I do NOT use "Lite" in this recipe, as I find it makes a more watery curry.
2 cups of vegetable stock. I usually use 2 big bouillon cubes per 2 cups water for extra flavor.
1/2 jar of Thai brand red curry paste (you can make 2 whole batches with one jar! which is a good thing since those little buggers are expensive.) It looks like this:
1 block of super extra firm tofu (or as firm as you can get it). Freeze it until you need it (at least overnight). Let it thaw in the fridge. (Freezing the tofu makes it even chewier and sturdier to cook with. This keeps it from falling apart in the curry!)
about 5 big carrots, chopped
about 1 heaping cup of broccoli, chopped. Can be fresh or frozen.
other vegetables as desired: potatoes, mushrooms, snow peas
rice noodles, bean noodles, or even super thin vermicelli noodles. They look like this:
cayenne pepper to kick up the heat
salt & pepper

Here's how I do it:
Beforehand:

Take thawed tofu out of fridge so it's not freezing cold when I have to touch it.
Take out all vegetables so they can come to room temperature, too. (I hate freezing my fingers off while chopping!)

Then:

Chop the onion. Throw into a big stock pot.
Heat 2 cups of water + 2 bouillon cubes in the microwave to help cubes dissolve.
Chop the jalapeno. Throw into pot.
Dump can of coconut milk into pot. Swish a little water around in the can to get those last chunks of coconut off the sides and add to pot.
Dump hot vegetable broth into pot.
Add 1/2 the jar of Thai red curry paste. Stir til curry paste is distributed in liquid.
Squeeze out your tofu, but be careful not to break it! Chop into bite-size squares. Add to pot.
Put pot on medium-low heat. This lets your tofu marinate in all the delicious juices while you prep your veggies.
Quickly peel your carrots (or not). Chop them into smallish pieces and add to pot.
If using potatoes, quickly peel your potatoes (or not, I never do). Chop into bite-size pieces and add to pot. Note about potatoes: I made many versions of this curry using potatoes, but eventually decided that they just don't soak up the juices as well as other veggies. BUT, if you want a thicker and more hearty curry, add potatoes in small pieces and let it cook longer so they're almost disintegrating.
Chop up your fresh broccoli into bite-size florets, or get your frozen broccoli ready (aka - take it out of the freezer). DON'T add it yet.
Let your curry cook for about 30 minutes or until carrots are super tender. Add more liquid if it starts to get too chunky for your liking.
Taste the broth. If you want it to be spicier, add cayenne pepper in small doses - 1/8 tsp at a time! Stir in between doses and taste. You'll be sad if you over-spice it!
When your carrots/potatoes are soft, add in the fresh/frozen broccoli and put a lid on the pan. I wait to add broccoli til it's almost done cooking because otherwise the broccoli overcooks and just falls apart in the stew.
If you're adding the rice/bean noodles, plop in a bunch, stir, and put the lid on. They will cook very quickly in the hot broth.
When your broccoli is super tender and your noodles feel stringy and soft, the curry is done! Taste broth again and add salt & pepper to your liking.

A variation on this that is quite tasty but less healthy is to make the curry as-is, but fry up your tofu in another pan and serve it on top. Fried tofu is delicious but sometimes can taste super oily-soaked. Here's the fried tofu on top:

So there you go! A vegetarian/vegan Thai-inspired curry with veggies, noodles, and lots of spice. The coconut milk makes it creamy, and those chunks of tofu just soak up all the flavor. It's my favorite way to eat tofu that I've discovered so far. Enjoy!

U is for Unrealized

2012-04-27T17:29:00.000-04:00

This morning, I listened to an episode of the podcast Strong, Sexy & Stylish: "What IS Flattering?" Toward the end, Sally suggests that everyone should have a full-length mirror. I've heard this advice before, but it wasn't until NOT having a full-length mirror that I realized how important they are.

Since moving into our new apartment, I've been without a full-length mirror. I have a waist-up mirror in the bathroom, and that's it. Usually I just try to look at myself and determine if my outfit is matching and successful. But I have also tried jumping to see my butt in the mirror (doesn't work), standing on the countertop (dangerous), and pulling a chair into the bathroom to stand on. So janky.

Nearly every time I get dressed the thought crosses my mind, "I gotta get a full-length mirror." But then I forget.

So today, U is for Unrealized: the importance of being able to see my full body, head to toe, in a mirror when I get dressed in the morning was an unrealized necessity until I went without. Next time I hit up IKEA or Target, I'm getting that mirror.

T is for Troubling

2012-04-24T18:20:00.001-04:00

I know this post is late! Oops.

T is for troubling. And what is troubling? Maybe not so much troubling but concerning was the size of the strawberries we bought the other day. They were the size of my palm.

They're from a company called California Giant Berry Farms.

When I saw these babies in the store I said, "woah, these are mutant strawberries! they must be genetically modified." But nope, I'm wrong:

"California Giant does not use GMO”s. California Giant relies of traditional breeding methods used by University breeders in developing the most flavorful and highest quality fruit available in each of our growing districts. For our customers, this means continued enhancement of our berries’ flavor, size, condition and color."

Nevermind the typos in that quote (pasted directly from their website). "Enhancement of size" ...to enhance something means to make it better than it was before. But who says a larger strawberry is better? Why would I want a giant strawberry? I cut them into bite-size pieces anyway. Why don't you make bite-size strawberries instead? Grow them without the green part so I can just pour them into my mouth like blueberries or raspberries. Or, if you're going to develop and grow GIANT strawberries, make them even bigger and sell them separately like apples! A strawberry apple!

Anyway, my point is: Bigger isn't always better. And the fact that our society (including berry farms) seems obsessed with bigger, newer, faster... is troubling.

S is for Synesthesia

2012-04-22T20:30:00.000-04:00

Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme → color synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored...

In spatial-sequence, numbers, months of the year, and/or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (for example, 1980 may be "farther away" than 1990), or may have a (three-dimensional) view of a year as a map (clockwise or counterclockwise).

It is estimated that synesthesia could possibly be as prevalent as 1 in 23 persons...

~Wikipedia: synesthesia

I am a self-diagnosed synesthete. Letters and numbers have colors; and days, months, years, and centuries have a distinct location in space. There are other forms of synesthesia - where people can hear colors, or see colors and shapes when they listen to music.

The image above (where the letters are rainbow) bothers me. The letters are the wrong colors. My alphabet looks like this:

I never knew synesthesia was a thing and had a name until I saw an article about it (it might have been this one from Smithsonian magazine).

There are a series of tests online you can do to see if your synesthesia is real: The Synesthesia Battery. Below are charts of my results, which show that in multiple cases where I'm asked to choose the color for a letter, I consistently choose the same color. This shows that the associations are real (to me) and not just memorized.

Results from February 2009

Results from March 2011

My synesthesia doesn't affect my day-to-day functioning. Mostly it's just in the background. When I think of someone's name, the letters in the name make the name a certain color. For example, a name like Jennifer is overall green to me since most are green (J, N, N, F).

I've only ever heard of one other person I know having synesthesia-like perceptions. But if you're out there and in the dark about this condition - it's nice to know that those weird associations you have in your head are a real thing! You're not crazy. :)

R is for Remembering

2012-04-21T16:20:00.000-04:00

Right now I'm working on scanning a bunch of old childhood photos that my mom sent me from her albums she's been collecting since we were born. The pictures bring back memories, and make me realize how much I remember AND how little I remember -- all at the same time.

Maybe it's a quarter-life crisis or maybe it's just nostalgia kicking in. But I find a lot of joy in remembering things from when I was a kid. It's probably one of the reasons why I love Lisa Frank so much - it reminds me of those good days. The days when organizing all your school supplies before the first day of school was a big deal and took hours. I have an entire board on pinterest called Flashback where I collect images that really bring me back.

A lot of it is about the innocence of being a kid. You don't know any better; you don't know all the scary stuff that's really out there. So you're able to just play carelessly and enjoy yourself to the fullest. I'd love to capture that fun every day!

If you're a 90s kid and feel like you're in the mood for some nostalgia, check out this podcast called Mash the 90s, where two 20-something guys unearth those forgotten childhood toys, shows, music, and other pop culture obsessions.

Remembering the past isn't something I want to get consumed over... but I think it's worth it to relive some of those memories just to remember that YES - I am capable of spending an entire day in Barbie land. YES - there was a time when I was content eating Doritos and Mountain Dew every day after school. YES - Beauty and the Beast was an amazing movie and the Wizard of Oz could inspire me every time I watched it.

And these are all good things to remember...

Q is for Quilts

2012-04-18T23:53:00.001-04:00

A few years back, I went on a quilt kick.

It started with this big quilt my mom made for me for my high school graduation. It was made up of all my old t-shirts, and it was awesome.

Then during holiday break of my freshman year in college, I decided to make a mini quilt. No idea why. I don't even know how to properly put a quilt together; I just guessed. I used scraps of fabric and made a section for each of my new friends from the dorm. They all had little inside jokes. It turned out pretty awesome!

During my sophomore year of college I suddenly got the urge to make yet another quilt. So I made another mini quilt, but this time just sewed on my name on top of vintage handkerchiefs.

After all that, I had too many quilts in my life. I kept the one my mom made me, but the other two?

I chopped them up and stuffed a pillow with the pieces! :D

P is for Portrait

2012-04-18T23:14:00.000-04:00

This self-portrait is from June 2008. It was taken right after we moved to Minneapolis. I had never lived in such a big city in my life. We posted up this big map in our apartment to help us learn the area, so here's me blending into my new surroundings.

I never thought I would ever live in the biggest city in Minnesota, and I surely never thought I would ever move out to the east coast and live in Washington, DC. But here I am! All grown up. And I think I'm due for another self-portrait...

O is for Overthinking

2012-04-18T10:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday (Tuesday April 17) was supposed to be the letter O. But I didn't publish on time. Why? I was overthinking it.

I've been good at staying on track with this A to Z Blogging Challenge, but for some reason I hit a snag with O. So many options! I want to do something good! It feels like this is the last time I'll ever be able to write about something that starts with the letter O, so I better make it perfect.

There I go with perfection again. It's frustrating because on my mind all last night was "O, o, o, o..." and then this morning it was, "ugh, I never published O, and today is P! I'm going to get so far behind and fail yet another project!"

So here's my O: overthinking. Don't do it.

Later today will be the letter P, and you can bet it won't be perfect, but at least it'll be done. :)

N is for Natural

2012-04-16T14:11:00.000-04:00

A selection of photos from my Natural/Yoga/Ommm pinboard.

M is for Mom

2012-04-15T18:10:00.000-04:00

I'm a bit late on this post because I couldn't decide which M word to write about! Runners-up were: memory, monkeys, Minnesota, minimalism, and music (among others).

As part of my minimalism process, I've been scanning and photographing old papers, photographs, artworks, and other stuff. That way I can keep it in my memory but not have to worry about keeping all that stuff.

Part of my archive of stuff are some articles I wrote in high school for my high school newspaper. It was called the Tiger Tracker and if you took the Journalism class, you got to write for the paper. We'd be assigned different topics to write about, but everyone always wanted to write an "opinion" piece because they were the easiest. Somehow I got to write a fully gushing article about my mother.

What's cool is that all these things I claimed to love about my mom are all still true. "I always know that no matter how much trouble I am in, she will not get extremely mad, and she will always listen to my side of the story." I love you, mom!

L is for Lisa Frank

2012-04-13T10:00:00.000-04:00

L is, of course, for Lisa Frank.

My love for Lisa Frank started when I was young. Here is proof:

Me rockin' my Club Lisa Frank t-shirt and Hummingbird towel. My sister is sportin' the Mickey Mouse.

I've already written many posts squeeing over the bright rainbow explosion that is Lisa Frank, so today is a round-up of those posts. Enjoy!

Posts on this blog

Inspiring Art: Lisa Frank Part 1
Inspiring Art: Lisa Frank Part 2
Lisa Frank Character Bios
Lisa Frank-esque Merchandise : stuff that's NOT LF, but could be.
Stuff Girls Love : LF t-shirt
Club Lisa Frank Swag
Childhood Lisa Frank Stuff
More Lisa Frank Goodies from my Childhood
Printable Lisa Frank Diary Pages
Lisa Frank : a musing from 8/19/2008

K is for Kari

2012-04-12T22:08:00.000-04:00

K is for Kari, and to me it always will be. Kari is my younger sister. She is 2.5 years younger than me, so we're actually pretty close in age. It always feels like as soon as I finish some big life event (starting high school, graduating, starting college, etc) she's right on my tail - catching up quick!

This is us wearing matching Little Mermaid outfits.

Even though I went through a phase where Kari just seemed like my "annoying little sister," we were always good friends. She was my side kick. She looked up to me, so I tried to set a good example and teach her things.

Kari is the youngest in the family, and she will always be the drama queen and the center of attention. I'm in the middle, so it's fine by me :)

We live far apart now, but she'll always be my good friend that as soon as we come back together, we're instantly chatting like no time has passed.

She'll always remember our inside jokes, and remember toys and games and tv shows we grew up with. She'll always make me laugh. She'll always be my crazy, drama-filled little sister, my favorite, and my K for always.

J is for Journaling and Jewel

2012-04-11T21:38:00.000-04:00

Two of my favorite things when I was younger: journaling and Jewel. I was inspired to write in journals by friends, beautiful blank notebooks (and the section of blank journals at all book stores), movies like Harriet the Spy, and books like Amelia's Notebook and California Diaries:

My first Jewel CD was Spirit, followed by Joy: A Holiday Collection and then Pieces of You. It wasn't until a few years later and in the midst of Jewel's strange career transformation that I got This Way. But Spirit was still the most influential.

Journaling and Jewel aren't really connected except for the fact that I really loved Jewel, and her poetic lyrics often made it into the pages of my journals.

These pages are from a small mini book journal that I made on Sunday, April 30th, 2006. It was part of a daily journal project that I did at school and the idea was to fill an entire book (although small) with journaling. They were messy, mixed material paper books. I made 10 of them altogether, between April and June of 2006. My art professor liked them, so she bought them from me.

Excerpts from this particular journal embody today's letter J: journaling Jewel lyrics:

Absence of Fear and I'm Sensitive

Jupiter

Barcelona

A Life Uncommon

I is for Improvement

2012-04-10T09:32:00.000-04:00

Today I've chosen the letter I for Improvement. I'm all about DIY / handmade / use what you have / reuse / recycle / etc. So here's a quick story of how I took something I owned and improved it so I would like it more!

I bought these Minnetonka Moccasins about 3 years ago. I like them, but they're all black and a little bit boring. But whatevs, I wore 'em anyway.

Then sometime last year the leather shoelace that makes up the little bow somehow broke, leaving me with a lopsided bow that never stays tied. Lame.

Then, being the etsy lover that I am, I found some handmade moccasins from Darlingtonia Moccasin Co. So cute!

And expensive! I already have moccasins, so I might as well improve what I have and make something better, right? More etsy searching led me to these freakin' cute handmade flowers from AMarketCollection:

I sewed them to my shoes!

Now my falling-apart moccasins are updated and look pretty darn cute.

Quite the improvement :)

H is for Harriet the Spy

2012-04-09T09:33:00.000-04:00

Harriet the Spy, 1996. I haven't seen this movie in years, but I loved it as a kid. Harriet just went her own way, and wrote whatever she wanted in her super cool composition notebooks labeled "PRIVATE".

I made my own PRIVATE notebooks.

Harriet would roam the neighborhood, spying on people, and keeping notes in her notebooks.

Here's a shot of one of my PRIVATE notebooks from 5th grade. Mean stuff! (ok, there's SOME nice stuff in there, too. I'm not all bad.) I knew Harriet ran into trouble when her friends found the mean stuff she wrote in her notebooks, but that didn't stop me.

And of course some cartoon drawings of my friends and I dressed up like slutty Spice Girls :p Not very spy-like, but still a good reminder of my Hanson/BSB/Nsync/Spice Girls-loving times.

These days I'm not as good at writing and keeping a daily record as I used to be. My notebooks aren't filled with gossip about people. Nor should they be. But taking a lesson from Harriet and documenting our lives is something we could all benefit from. Write often, write daily, keep notes, take photos. Spy on your own life and collect the evidence. You don't have to use a Private composition notebook, but you can if you want :)

G is for Gifs

2012-04-07T18:12:00.000-04:00

GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format and can be pronounce either with a soft g as in gin, or with a hard g as in graphics. [wikipedia teaches me things] Basically it's a type of image file format that digital graphics are saved in. The best part about gifs is they can be animated.

So today, for your viewing pleasure, a round-up of some gifs I've recently snagged off the internet. Mostly from tumblr. Enjoy the giffy goodness.

F is for fuzzymoon6

2012-04-05T19:36:00.000-04:00

fuzzymoon6 was my very first username on the world wide web. It was 1998-ish. I asked my mom if I could sign up for an email address. Hotmail, baby!

This is me circa 1999 on our old computer with a big-ass CRT monitor

I'm kind of a nerd when it comes to the internet and computers. It makes me LOL to think back at how crazy I was about computers from the very first time I sat down in front of one.

We played Number Munchers on black-and-green-screened computers using floppy disks when I was in 2nd grade. I learned to type in 3rd grade. In 5th we played Oregon Trail and learned to use the Internet. I started learning HTML in 6th grade and made my first website on Angelfire.

I was so cool.

The following image should stir a chuckle. I made a scrapbook/journal page about this really sweet HTML/webpage class I took one summer. The teacher's name was Brian.

I was head-over-heels for that scanner, let me tell you. You mean I can put my photographs on the computer and then have them on my webpage? FREAKIN SWEET!

It's harder for me to get excited these days over computer stuff, but once in awhile something new and awesome is invented or I figure out a better way of doing something on this machine that is like an extension of my body. Once a nerd, always a nerd.

E is for Earth Day

2012-04-05T18:55:00.000-04:00

My first memory of Earth Day is from like 2nd grade. In school they gave us these little plastic earth-shaped terrariums and I think we planted seeds in them. Another year, we got little tiny evergreen trees we were supposed to plant. I planted mine (shoved it in the dirt) in the middle of our backyard. My dad accidentally ran it over with the lawn mower. Sad.

Earth Day seemed more special back then - it was a new concept, I guess. Now being "green" and "eco-friendly" is all the rage. I could roll my eyes and say, "ugh, EVERYONE thinks they're green and selling eco-friendly stuff isn't even special anymore." But these are GOOD practices, regardless. Sure, sometimes companies tout more earth-friendliness than they actually practice, but really-- doing anything is better than doing nothing.

Because of my job working for an eco-friendly clothing company that sells a lot of goods made from organic cotton and recycled materials, I hear these catchphrases a lot. So maybe I'm just more exposed to that market. But no matter how cheesy it sounds, making every day Earth Day should really be the goal.

I wouldn't call myself a treehugger per se, but I try to make smart decisions when choosing what I buy and what I do. (See my 7 Green Practices I Actually Do post.)

As far as products go, the best advice I can give is to BUY LESS. The less you consume, the less stress on the earth - simple as that! After that, I would recommend spending your dollars on things you feel good about: a t-shirt that was produced without harmful chemicals (buy organic cotton), cleaning products that won't harm your kids (pick natural ingredients), or foods that don't pollute the environment with their excess waste (choose veggies over animals).

So there ya go. Earth Day musings from the girl who let her dad run over her Earth Day tree with the lawn mower. :D