Photo credit: http://dearjanesample.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/cube-decorating-101/

BORING! Although I love decorating magazines and websites - why, hello Jessica Jones - I am not very good at decorating!! I think it comes from years of student homes where how many empty beer cases you had in your front doorway was more important than how cute your room was.

So I need you!!! How can I make my cubicle sparkle with fun, and not be so stark and boring??? I want it to say zen, happiness, and be a welcoming place for me to arrive at every morning and to bring my clients to.

Help me! What does your desk look like? What have you decorated it with to make it exude your personality and be an enjoyable place to be?

WOULD you guys like to set up a collaborative blog? I not just a blog for blogging’s sake, but something we can monetize and make money off of. Ad revenue could be worth our time.

Quite honestly I think we have pretty exciting lives that others might find interesting. Mom’s a terrific writer and could have a section. If we can each commit to writing at least an article a week, we could have some fun.

I can register the domain name 5sisters.ca right now for $20 for a full year. Doesn’t include hosting but I can look into that. We likely will need to invest a little bit into having some graphic design work done, unless we can manage it.

Interested? Have a different suggestion for domain? Let me know…

And so Five Blondes began. As you can see, my initial idea had a different title. After a quick day of tossing around names, Micaela came up with the name “FiveBlondes.com”. Katelyn worried that if she were to dye her hair brown again she would “wreck EVERYTHING”, but we all decided that it was a risk we were willing to take.

On July 17th, I blogged (warning: really boring). Then I introduced myself, followed by Micaela, Katelyn, Leah, and Lauren. Sorry for the lack of link for Leah, I can’t find her intro.

It wasn’t until the beginning of 2008 that we really began to ‘bloom’ as a blog. We moved off of Wordpress.com and went self-hosted, joined some blogging networks, and gained what I would say is a good readership. I guess what we’re trying to say is…

Thank you to our readers, to Wordpress, to Entrecard, to BlogHer, to Project Wonderful, and to each other!

A few weekends ago we decided to do an impromptu photoshoot in the wheat.. so please pardon my baseball attire (Re: Short shorts) as I had just finished practice! Lauren, our married friends Laura & Matt, Scott and myself all took part (we may have had to force the guys). Here are some of my favourite pictures (not all jumping ones), stolen from Lauren’s facebook page.

MORE BEHIND THE CUT

Matt jumped right out of his shoes!

Jumping with our local ski hill in the background, see that bump? Yea that.

Our fave yoga move, as promised months back. The Crow.

Random kicking shot.

And now for some more artsy shots. Have any of you played with Picnik on facebook? Or off of facebook, as Erica likes to remind me (it’s not just a facebook application?! what?! haha). Anyways ask anyone who has access to my facebook page and they will most likely know that I love editing pictures on Picnik. Here are a few of my wheat favourites.

OUR SECRET:

We used a bucket to get our sweet jumping shots, sorry if you thought we were just amazing jumpers. The wheat comes up to our waists! No way would we be able to jump that high without a secret!

Show us your jumping pictures!

Did I mention he bought a bike?

So now our apartment is rearranged, providing Max with lots of stimulation for his little kitty-brain. Seriously, if you ever think your cat is getting bored with his life of being trapped in your home (especially when said home consists of 6 small rooms), just move things around. It’s like Disneyworld for cats.

Speaking of animals, Mr X finally ventured into our barn for the first time! Although we’ve been together over 5 years, up until now the barn has been one place he has adamantly refused to go. We were at the farm trading vehicles and talking to Dad when Dad suggested that we see where they will soon be building the new office and washroom (the barn has been recently majorly renovated. You might say, torn down and re-built). I immediately said YES! and we didn’t give Mr X a choice. Off we went! He wouldn’t touch any of the pigs (not even the day-old piglets), but I feel it was a major step in our relationship. I can scratch that marriage ultimatum off the list (I told him that the wedding would not go down unless he had gone into the barn. I don’t think he realized how serious I was).

On Sunday, Mr X, myself, Katelyn, Scott, Micaela and Kent went golfing. It was a beautiful day - except for the wind. Our course is often very windy and Sunday was no different. I was stupid and forgot to put on sunscreen. My legs, arms, and face are bright red. BRIGHT red…except where I was wearing my sunglasses, prompting this comment from Mr X later in the evening:

X: “You look cute.”

E: “Do I look like a cute tomato?”

X: “No…a cute raccoon.”

So there you have it. I look like a cute raccoon, slathered in aloe vera gel.

This was todays picture. We had baseball practice, and it looked like a storm was slowly arriving! You can see Kate pitching, and Micaela is in the outfield!