penny for your project

Penny projects have been all the rage for a while and I have even done my own. You can find tons of projects to do with pennies all over the internet. I have collected a few of my favorites with the help of Hometalk.

If you click the photo you can check out some of the clever penny projects I have on my hometalk board. 

I love pinterest but for new projects in the house and garden hometalk is really my go to spot. Hometalk is the best of facebook and pinterest put together for DIY home projects. On hometalk you can post projects you have done with pictures, descriptions and people can contact you directly with questions. You don't have to have a blog to participate just a project and a camera. Hometalk also allows you to create boards so you have have all of your ideas in one place by clipping projects that are already on hometalk or you can clip projects from the internet. 

questions, always with the questions

When I graduated high school the question was, "what are you going to study in college?" The answer was public relations because I wanted to be an event planner. I saw the movie Chances Are with Cybil Shepherd, Robert Downey Jr. and Mary Stuart Masterson and I knew that is what I wanted to do. Cybil's job in the movie was as the event planner at the Smithsonian and it just looked so glamorous. That is so far from what I am doing now.

I finished college with a degree in public relations interned as an event planner and the question quickly changed. Now it had become, "What are you going to do with your degree?" I had no idea. I knew what I wanted to study from my junior year in high school I hadn't really got past that thought. I tired quickly of the question. I told my mom I was going to start answer with a creative story just to watch the reactions. I wanted to tell people I had been contacted by the aliens that originally landed in Roswell to throw a reunion party for the 50th anniversary at Area 51.

Then I got engaged and there was another question, "When is the wedding?" Less than 24 hours after the proposal people wanted to know when the big day was. I just wanted to enjoy the fact that I had met the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with but it was all questions and small talk about planning the wedding.

The question after marriage quickly becomes, "When are you going to have kids?" I think this is the one that gets under my skin the most because it feels so much more personal and in some cases completely out of our control. Aside from taking the right steps to start a family none of us ultimately has any control over when we start a family.

The other day when I was asked by a well-meaning co-worker when I was going to have kids it irked me but got me thinking. I started wondering if there was a different way to show our interest in a person that would be even more genuine and really create a relationship instead of the noise of small talk. What if we asked different questions and really celebrate peoples present joys. These are major life events that need to be celebrated and lingered over like a great meal or a fine wine. What's the rush to start moving on to the next thing? Why don't we reminisce about what just happened instead?

For instance, what if you talk to the college graduate and the first thing you said to them was, you must be so proud to have received your degree. In a sea of, "What are you going to do with your degree?" that would be a very welcome reminder that an impressive goal had just been reached. Maybe asking the bride and groom to talk about what they liked the most about their special day or what their favorite part of being married is. It really changes the tone of a conversation to focus on the blessings, the positive and the present instead of rushing on to the future that isn't going any where and will likely unfold in the most surprising way not matter the plans. When it comes to the baby question a simple "do you two want a family some day" might be the way to focus on hopes and dreams and not the timing of things out of our control.

my new old curtains

Almost a year ago I lived in San Francisco in a cute little apartment with an amazing set of windows in my living room. I think it will probably always be my favorite apartment because it was the first one I had that was only mine. Well it was only mine in the beginning. Eventually, Tom moved in and it was the first apartment we shared making for just another reason it will always be my favorite apartment. Before he moved in I took some time to make it a little home. My mom even came out for a weekend to help decorate. She helped me come up with an idea for curtains. Then the great mom she is she took all the fabric with her back to Indiana sewed the curtains and mailed them back to me. I didn't blog as much then and for some reason only thought about blogging about food when I did so I never got to share my curtains. 

Here is a shot of the windows I had to work with. The picture only shows four but there were five total. That weird light outside that is the fog that lived outside my apartment most days. You could actually sit by the window and watch the fog roll down the street like smoke from a fire. Since the building was so old it felt like it was rolling through the apartment too. 

A standard curtain rod wasn't going to work int this situation and I really didn't think it would look great to have five tiny curtain rods so I worked hard on a new idea. It was so long ago I don't know what the inspiration was but I came up with an idea to use hooks. It is tough to explain so I will just let the pictures do the talking for a minute. I apologize that these are crummy iPhone photos with bad lighting but you will get the gist. 

Each window had four hooks and I was able to open and close each curtain as much or as little as I wanted. It was the perfect solution for that room and it made for a really fun place to hangout in.

I love those curtains so much and really wanted to find a spot for them in the new house. For some reason that wasn't the living room so I decided I could use a few panels in my craft room. A room that since we moved in has been more of a dumping ground than a creative space. This past week I finally made some steps to change that. I got some pictures on the wall and the curtains hung. 

I thought that I would just go buy a curtain rod and spray paint it all pinterest style but I am trying not to buy things I don't need or start new projects before I finish the pile of other projects. Luckily I remembered the hooks and my old curtains became my new curtains. 

I used 7 hooks so when I close the curtains the last ring of each panel goes on the middle hook creating an overlap and full coverage. 

They still haven't been hemmed and until we move into our own house some day I will continue to safety pin them to the correct length. I just love them so much I don't want to commit so I know I will be able to make them the perfect length in their final home. 

How about a little before and after to show some of the progress so far.  Still has a long way to but I am getting there. It looks so much more inviting when I walk by now. 

where are the real housewives

"These fights with other women are just so meaningless." How many times have you heard that one while you watched the real housewives of ..... well of anywhere? Most recently it has come out of the mouths of multiple Real Housewives of Orange County.

They sure seem to forget that rather quickly after they all get together and start bickering again. We have watched the Housewives for years but I have had to start weaning myself because it always seems to make me so upset. At first it was fun to be the voyeur and watch and see that just because they are rich their lives aren't great. It was fun to sit on the couch and judge them. I am such a better person than them. If I had their money I would be better than that. Sitting in judgement of a television show that is edited together for amusement doesn't really add much value to my day. I still watched most of them for a while but then they started getting down right ugly with each other and I started quitting them.

I had to quit Atlanta because I couldn't find much to like about any of those ladies. There yelling just seemed ridiculous. Nothing about that seemed like reality or at least not anything I could relate too.

Then I quit New Jersey. If they didn't have nicer clothes and like to pretend to have manners it would look like an episode of Jersey Shore. You watch just waiting for someone to get into a cat fight. It started making me so tense I would have to leave the room when the fights started.

I was committed to Beverly Hills and New York. I liked some of those women or at least enjoyed seeing what their lives were like. I got sucked into Orange County again and watched in moments that I had nothing else I needed to do.

Last season I finally had to quit New York. I thought the new ladies were going to provide hope and show some sanity. That went down in flames rather quickly. Beverly Hills doesn't offend me as much but it is getting there quickly. It looks like I will be quitting Orange County this season. I keep finding myself sitting there making disapproving noises like my father does when he thinks something on TV is stupid.

I am sure a large part of why I keep quitting these shows is because the editors keep making it more sensational. Bravo TV is like the new Sally Jessie and Jerry Springer. It isn't really real, there are people behind the scenes crafting a story they think will be more riveting. However, for them to be able to edit that story together for more drama they have to be provided with large chunks of "quality" to string together.

I wish someone would make shows with good female role models for us. Something like the Dove image campaign. Just quality normal people doing amazing things that we can all aspire to. I don't want a show of Pollyanna's, no one wants to watch that. I want a group of women that are dedicate to their families and do something inspiring like run a company or a non-profit or maybe they just donate a lot of time to things they believe in and have a bad day every now and then. It might not be on a major network but someone find them and put it up somewhere. Maybe there aren't fights and screaming but I bet you could find enough clips to edit together to make interesting "characters" that people would tune in to watch. Those should be the real housewives.