Publish Me

Thanks to selective advertising on Facebook, I've been getting a lot of sidebar ads on my page for Blog2Print, which is exactly what it sounds like - a site where they will take your blog, and print it into a book! The cool thing about this site is how absolutely simple it is... you type in your blog address, let it do it's thing, and just a couple minutes later you can click through and see the pages of your book complete with a title page and table of contents.

Here's a couple screen grabs of what 9-oh-6 would look like in book format (click to enlarge)-


Pretty cool, huh? However, thanks to the length of 9-oh-6 thus far, I am nowhere near falling into the $14.95 category (20-pages or less) advertised on their homepage. Already, my book would be just over 100 pages... and therefore already costing more than $50.

Although a little pricey, I'm certain this would be a really great keepsake to invest in later this year to celebrate our one year anniversary in the house. We moved in on Halloween, so our moving day is an easy one to remember. I'm thinking I'll have to post something that day about our first year, and then I would love to turn the entire blog to date into a book!

While Blog2Print is easy and simple, I think if I'm going to make the investment in having a blog book, it may as well be amazing right? That's where Blurb comes in. Not much pricier than the other site, Blurb lets you format your entire book page by page (if you wish), and has options for several different book sizes such as a compact 7"x7" square or a coffee-table-worthy 13"x11" large landscape. My favorite feature has to be that for just a few dollars more you can choose to have an image wraparound hardcover rather than a dust jacket for your book - something I feel would give the finished product a really classic, professional feel.

This is just screaming Christmas present to myself, don't you think?

America's Next Top Cupcake Models

I wish I were clever enough to have come up with this posting title, but alas, I am not. Ok, I have my moments, but really - this was was all Tom, who just happens to be Lauren's fiancee and another work buddy of mine. Tom and Lauren have a new blog together, and seeing as he is a genius copywriter and she is witty as they come, their postings so far have managed to crack me up more than a few times.

Now, (if you haven't clicked over to their blog yet) you may be wondering how this all has anything to do with cupcakes... and modeling. WELL, the other day on Twitter I see that Foiled Cupcakes is looking for cupcake models to pose with their little mini cakes made of bites of heaven... and you'd better believe I immediately saw the need to be a part of that. I passed it on to Lauren and a couple of survey questions later we were both chosen to be a part of the fun this coming Monday! While this is all exciting, my favorite part of the entire process so far has been reading Tom's thoughts about our "audition", which he posted on said blog and I am pasting for you right here with hopes that you laugh just as hard as I did at it:

"Today, Patty tried out for America's Next Top Cupcake Model. Kelly tried out, too. I imagine the next few days at work may be interesting—like watching an episode of the Real World all hopped up on sugar-filled dreams of stardom with estrogen sprinkles on top. Sub-plot: the current state of the economy and the rising cost of cupcakes at designer boutiques."

HA! Seeing as Lauren and I did literally squeal at my desk when we checked my email this morning and realized we'd both been picked, I would have to say Tom's predictions were dead on.

Keep an eye on Foiled Cupcakes over the next few weeks to spot Lauren and I on the flavors page, along with 18 other cupcake models whom I'm excited to make friends with!

Happy weekend!

I'm sorry shack, we had some good times

In an effort to beautify the outside of our property, catch up to the rest of the neighborhood aesthetically, and mostly - have somewhere that both of our cars can go... we're getting a new garage! This is the most expensive project we've done at the house so far, so I'm more anxious than usual to see it all finished and start getting our money's worth out of it.

All of the permits got approved last week, so the long process began today with my favorite part of every project - demo! Unfortunately I missed seeing it live, but Dan took some great pictures for the blog.

Now if you haven't seen our garage, be forewarned... Although structurally sound, I liked to refer to it more often as "a scary shack just large enough for my little car". It had no electricity, which means no automatic door and no light. The roof was flat, making it look even more like just a box with siding. I could go on and on... but instead I'll just show you the before pictures!


(It did have a door on the front, it was just opened already in these pictures from this morning)

In between the garage and our neighbor's house were what we refer to as "weed-trees" - weeds so large they are essentially small trees. Here's a couple pictures of Dan up on the garage roof cutting some of them down a couple weeks ago to prepare for the demo -




And finally, pictures from this morning's demo! Look - the whole front half of the garage is gone in this picture -


And there goes the roof...


And a whole wall!...


Time to get rid of the concrete...


GONE...


They yanked this out of the ground... this was a WEED!


So, tomorrow there is a tree removal company coming to get rid of the last couple tree stumps that the bobcat couldn't get out, and next up is the new concrete. Once it's all down, it takes 7-10 days to set, which is sure to be quite a test of my patience... but then the new garage will go up and my dad says I'll be shocked at how fast that happens. I'll continue posting pictures as everything moves forward!

Oh, happy day

So if you read this blog at all regularly, you know that I previously had a slight obsession with this rug from Pottery Barn...


...but by the time I talked myself into spending the money on it, it had sold out. I went to several stores, called corporate, scoured craigslist... no luck. Eventually, I moved on and decided to focus on curtains instead, so I bought these...


...and while they are a near perfect match to the colors of the living room, dining room, and our furniture, they are much heavier than I was expecting and don't bunch up to the sides anything like shown in the picture, which leaves me unable to really open them to let the daylight in.

Cue the three and a half minutes I had to breathe all day at work yesterday and I decided to jump online to check out the new Crate & Barrel stuff I got a glimpse of in the Fall Preview catalog. This type of browsing almost always leads me from one website to another, and I found myself checking out the sale section at Pottery Barn. And then all of a sudden there it was - my rug, back in stock, on sale, and absolutely begging me to just buy it already and not putz around and let it go out of stock again. Poor Dan has had to endure me looking for another rug and never liking anything as much, so when I called him thrilled about this being available again and saying that I just had to buy it... he said "ok". He's so wonderful.

So that's that! The rug is ordered and it should be delivered next week sometime, and I will be sure to post a picture right away.

AAAAAAND... the garage is being demolished TOMORROW! The timing is working out perfectly - they're coming early and I am working out of the office tomorrow and starting a bit later than usual so I'll be home in the morning to watch and take pictures!

I. Can't. Wait.

Making Friends in the Blogosphere

Earlier this summer, I stumbled across a (new to me) photographer's website and instantly went into that mode I get in when I'm looking at something that honestly takes my breath away and makes me wonder how I ever lived without the eye candy that is whatever I happen to be gaping at. Unfortunately for me, I found this one while I was at work (it was a slow day, give me a break), so I'm sure at least two people walked past me wondering why the heck I was staring at my screen eyes wide and jaw dropped wide open.

So being the little blog fanatic that I have turned into, I decide to post a comment on this random website I happened to come across just to tell them how freaking amazing I think they are. And faster than I can even bookmark the page guess what happens? I get an EMAIL back from the guy telling me that HE checked out MY blog and aren't I just so flattering for taking the time to tell them how incredible they are... and so it began. I write back, he writes back, we chit chat about how we should totally meet the next time they're in Chicago, his wife (and other half of the undeniable talent) gets home and SHE takes the time to write me as well (!!!), and next thing you know I have plans to meet them just a couple weeks later for afternoon coffee in the city.

(Take a minute to picture me literally shrieking at my computer about all of this, because that is EXACTLY what I did)

Thankfully, I have Lauren at work, who is recently engaged and happens to love beautiful images and funky blogs just as much as I do... so I called her over (like 4 times) and she shrieked a little right along with me. This is why I have friends like Lauren, you know, to make me feel better about my ability to spaz out (in a good way) over something like finding a new blog to follow.

So back to the story, which I will shorten up for your reading pleasure. I invite Lauren along for my little shindig with the amazing photogs, fiancee Tom plans to join us, date creeps up quickly, 95% of my department goes on vacation at the same time leaving me insanely busy... and I get stuck at work 3 hours late on our half-day before the long 4th of July weekend which just HAPPENS to be photographer meeting day. Stick a needle in my eye or something, because I was *this* close to crying at work about it.

Now here's where this gets good. I'm sitting at my desk feeling sorry for myself and trying to finish up my work so I can enjoy one of the 4 nice days we've actually had in Chicago so far this summer... and all of a sudden here comes Lauren and Tom walking through our deserted office WITH THE PHOTOGRAPHERS who have walked all the way back to Upshot just to meet little old me. Seriously?

I'm pretty sure I blushed. Actually, I know for a fact I did because not only were they as incredible as I expected, but they brought me a cupcake with a smiley face on it because they felt bad I was stuck at work. And they made sure to get vanilla because they heard I was allergic to chocolate. Really. People this nice really DO exist!!!

So, my friends, without any further rambling about it... please go and check out my very first blogosphere friends... Ben and Mindy Peterson - the absolutely incredible eyes behind Studio 6.23.

(Now that I have linked you to their site I am going to go ahead and assume you are as utterly consumed by their work as I was and will just end this by saying "HI!" to Ben and Mindy, who really and truly are two of the nicest people I have ever met.)

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House related posts coming soon... if this darned garage ever gets knocked down...

Details

I've been writing lately about my hopes for painting and decorating the office with a gray and marigold yellow palette, and realized tonight while thinking about the dining room hutch that I've gravitated towards that same color scheme on more than one occasion in previous inspiration-filled posts. Remember this patterned paper I planned to line the back of the hutch with?

While I still loooove this, I'm thinking I'd rather keep the gray and yellow to the office and instead tweak the hutch with some fun hardware like these knobs from Anthropologie's home collection that I am currently drooling over...

The only problem with these is that there are no drawer pulls to match. While I'd be happy to use all knobs, I think the existing holes from the old hardware may be tough to fill in without them being too noticeable. The hardware that was on the hutch when we got here is silvery and vintage, but some of it was damaged under the layers and layers of paint we removed. Anyone know of other places to get fun matching hardware like the ones above?

Whimsical

This is the kind of stuff I want to hang in my office. You know, once it's painted.


Found here, original sold here