Teeny Tiny Awesome

So this chick Beth lives in 365 square feet of awesome.  I am impressed and in awe and don't think I could do it, which makes me feel like a greedy American.  Enter feelings of guilt (must have more space! more stuff! more!).  I often think about what it would be like to get rid of everything and live a truly minimalist life.  It is such a tempting idea to clear out and start fresh.  But then I think about my grandmother's dining room table and my general enjoyment of space, and think that 365 square feet could get a little claustrophobic at times. 

But her small place is beautiful, and it's looking at pictures like hers that make me want to get rid of it all and start all over in a tiny, perfect place.  Anyone else?

I can't resist a list...

One thing I love about blogging is the way it connects me to lots of wonderful folks I would not otherwise know.  I think we've all been writing about this sort of thing lately, thanking the Great Internet for introducing us to our newfound friends (many of whom we have never met in person).  Maybe it's the lovely weather, maybe it's just that time of year, maybe sentimentality is contagious...I don't know.  But I do know that I am grateful to my little blog community.  Even when they make me do things like what I'm about to do.

Yes, friends.  It's a chain-blog.  Somehow, being called out and linked to (Thanks, Josey!) makes me feel like I can't just ignore it.  Ah, the guilt.  ;-)

Anyway, these are the rules (or the letters?) as copied from Josey's blog:
A - List 7 habits/quirks/facts
B - Tag 7 people to do the same
C - Don’t tag the person who tagged you or tag “Whoever wants to do it”

And here goes...

1. I eat dessert almost every night, usually ice cream.  I try to limit my dessert intake to the post-dinner bowl of deliciousness, but sometimes I sneak a cookie or chocolate covered espresso bean (or 10) in during the day. 
2. I really, really like creating training guides.  Really.  I have made one for every job I have ever held, whether it was presiding over a high school club or assisting executive directors of engineering.  I even made one when I left Pixar after only six weeks on the job.  Yeah.  I have also made a "guide to la la land" for friends who move to Los Angeles.  
3. I often make "what's in my kitchen" dinners, where I throw together some sort of meal based on what I find in the fridge/cupboard. Usually it is some sort of pasta with a creative sauce.  Always it is delicious.
4. I grind my teeth.  I think I do it more than I realize.  It annoys me whenever I catch myself doing it, and I give myself a little scolding.
5. I cannot stand ink on my skin.  I was never one to write notes on my hands, and I cringe when I have to get a hand stamp upon entering a club or bar.  And I always scrub it off as soon as I get home (sometimes I do it at the bar; I know this defeats the purpose of the stamp, but nobody ever checks once you're inside).  One place I went to used a sharpie to mark a giant on my hand and I almost cried.
6. I also do not like stickers on clothing/skin - I have always been this way.  When I was a kid, I remember asking my teacher to put my sticker on a piece of paper instead of on my shirt.  I think I did the same thing for stamps (on a paper instead of on my hand), but my mom will have to verify that.  I bet they all thought I'd grow out of that. HA! I sure showed them!
7. I like making lists, and I am insanely organized...except when I am a total slob. I love for things to be perfectly organized and beautiful and Real Simple and all that, but sometimes I just let piles build up on the couch.  I'm trying to work on the whole consistent maintenance thing so the piles don't stress me out, but mostly I am too tired and just let them build up until I can't stand it and do a mad dash of cleaning and organizing.

So there you go.  A lovely little list of 7 things about me.  Fun on a Tuesday evening :)

Here are my 7 Lovely Ladies of Choice...do it if you want, don't do it if you don't want. 

1. A Serious Girl
2. Food Loves Writing
3. Between the Words
4. Shonelley Belly Laughs
5. The Painted Peach
6. Happy Jack Eats
7. Rag and Bone

Oh Geoff, I love you for this

Watch all the way to the end. Love this boy.

Junket Is A Winner!

Thanks to Ye Olde Random Number Generator, I have selected a winner for the Fancypants Threadless Contest!  And that winner is....Junket!  Junket, I will email you to tell you how to redeem your fancypants prize of a $25 gift certificate!  Be sure to let us know what you get :)

What did I learn from trying to be all fancypants?  More people will enter your contest if all they have to do is leave a comment.  Apparently, if you ask them to do a little publicity for you (by Tweeting, Facebooking, blogging, etc. about your contest), it's a little too much effort.  Which I totally get.  I am lazy too.  But ha ha to all those people who didn't enter, because they didn't win!

I have another exciting giveaway to announce...but not yet.  It deserves a blog post all its own, and it will get one later this week.  So stay tuned!  I haven't decided how I want to do the contest entries yet...do I make y'all work for it or do I just let you comment?  I do love me some fancypants Google Forms, but I also love feeling popular due to the sheer volume of commenters coming out of the woodworks.  Decisions, decisions, I tell ya.

Congratulations again to Miss Junket!  I'm sure you will look fabulous!

A Roundup of Sorts

Life has been busy lately.  I have been meaning to blog about so many things, but between work and apartment-hunting, and life in general, I just haven't gotten around to it.  C'est la vie.  I've been writing a bit over at Berkeleyside, specifically about the apartment-hunting, so if you'd like to check that out, there that is (Part 1, Part 2).

I went home for my lovely friend Colette's bridal shower, and somehow ended up coming back to Berkeley with an iPhone.  Let me explain.  I had planned on purchasing a hard drive and visiting the Apple store that weekend - I needed to back my photos up to an external hard drive, and wasn't quite sure what to do about making sure it all worked without deleting anything accidentally.  Turns out, my mom had the exact hard drive I was about to spend $100 on, and didn't need it.  Boom! I don't have to spend $100.  But then...oh but then...we realized that there was an open spot on their family plan with AT&T, and that I was eligible for an upgrade on my current (and dying) cell phone, and that purchasing an iPhone for $100 and switching to the family plan would not only mean I would have a fancy phone with a data plan, but that it would actually save me $10 a month on my cell phone bill...well, it seemed silly not to take the leap.  So I leapt.

awkward face due to a combination of nerves and excitement

I was nervous, yes I was.  I loved my little flip phone.  Loved that all it did was make phone calls and send text messages.  Loved it for its simplicity, and really did not want an iPhone all that badly (mostly due to the costly monthly plan).  However, I am enjoying it.  Indeed.

Oh so fancy, gettin' all set up...

Well let's see.  What else has happened?  We took the ferry to Angel Island with some friends for Memorial Day...

Everyone smile; we're on a boat!

We had $12 bottomless mimosas at Cafe Biere, with good friends.  I may have had twelve of them, which may have been far too many.  I do not drink often, so I do not have a high tolerance, even for delicious fruity beverages.  We also had brunch there, which I highly recommend.  Delicious.

There were nine flavors: orange, honeydew, grapefruit, watermelon, mango, cantaloupe (we thought it was peach), strawberry, pineapple and carrot

Last night, we went to an Oakland A's game, due to really wonderful (free!) tickets from a friend.  The tickets included dinner and fireworks afterwards, which were done with a really fun selection of music from 1980's hair bands.

a fun time was had by all

In sadder news, UCLA basketball coach John Wooden passed away recently.  I was never into UCLA athletics (or sports, in general) during my college years, but he said some really wonderful things that I thought I would share here in his memory. 

• "Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out."  
• "Be more concerned with your character than you reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."
• "Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend so far.  Don't forget to enter my Fancypants Threadless Gift Certificate drawing!  Do it!

Givin' It All Away

Ok, not all.  But I am giving away one $25 Threadless gift certificate to a lucky reader!  If you don't know about Threadless, you should check them out.  They make nifty T-shirts and hoodies and art prints and other such things.  Goodies for men, women, and everything in between...and really cute baby/kid gear too. You know, if you are into stuff like that.

I received the gift certificate in exchange for adding the little Retailmenot coupon widget to the sidebar over there, and I thought I'd pass back the love to the people who read the blog.  Because I am incredibly generous. Also, I could not decide what to order for myself.  But mostly because I want to give back.  I'm having a serious case of the Mondays today (but thank goodness it's actually Tuesday!), and I have a feeling that a blog contest is just the thing to improve my mood.  I feel better already!

The Rules/How to Enter (because I am gonna get all fancypants up in here and try something different from the "leave a comment and get an entry" thing, so boring):

• One entry will be given if you retweet this blog post on Twitter
• One entry will be given if you post this on Facebook
• One entry will be given if you post this on Buzz/Digg/Whatever other social media situation you use
• TWO ENTRIES will be given if you link to it on your blog and say something nice (or jerky, or funny, whatever).
• Feel free to leave a comment just to say hi or whatever, but you won't get an entry just for leaving a comment (ha ha, sorry folks. not this time.)

That's a total of  FIVE (count them, five!) possible entries per person! That's right, you can enter this contest FIVE times. I'm going on the honor system here, so once you have done any (or all) of the things listed above, head on back to this page and fill out this fancypants form to let me know. Yay!  I will pick a winner on Tuesday, June 8, so get your entries in before...oh, 8pm Pacific time.  Why June 8?  It's a week from today, and the calendar at work (made by HP) says that is "Upsy Daisy Day" and that seems like a good day for picking a contest winner!