Take the glue gun away from me

It's not surprising - because I've said it 1,000 times - that I'm a Pinterest fiend. If I'm at home on a Saturday morning while Dan's in bed, I'm pinning away, adding recipes, photos, and decorating ideas to my boards. What IS surprising to everyone including me (or should be) is that I apparently have an obsession with wreaths. Yes, wreaths. The things old people (sorry, wreath lovers) hang on their doors. Not even two years ago, when I told her that Dan and I don't celebrate or decorate for Valentine's Day, my grandmother asked me incredulously, "you don't have a Valentine's Day wreath for your door!?" Psshhh, no. No way in hell. Except that was then, and this is now, and the Brooke of Now has a wreath pinned for just about every season of the year. Trust me, I hang my head in shame almost on the daily.

I present to you, dear readers, my Fall Wreath (picture taken in the dark on my porch):


I found the tutorial here, but I already had a Halloween (she made it for a shower, but it's totally Halloweeny, right?) wreath that I bought with a coupon at Joann Fabrics when I made my candy corn cones. Anyway, I bought a 12" round wreath (you're thinking "duh, wreaths are round," but the one in the tutorial is squared, smarty) and 8 rolls of ribbon, which is only half as many as the tutorial suggested. Because I didn't think to look at the tutorial while I was at the store. Anyway, I picked a variety of solids, patterns, gross grain and satin ribbons in chocolate and ivory. Actually, at first, I was going to go with really traditional fall - almost turkey-ish - and use brown, red, gold and orange. Only I realized I really didn't like the color combo much at all. I was in the ribbon aisle for about 45 minutes trying to decide and Dan even texted to see if I was alive.

So, chocolate and ivory in a variety of sizes, textures, and patterns. I followed the tutorial pretty exactly, except I would do one thing differently. The instructions said to do 5-6" lengths to use for the loops, but I got kind of distracted with wine TV and some of mine are a little long. Of course, the longer loops are the ones I'm not as happy with. So definitely stick to consistency in the loop cutting. I don't know how the Blue Eyed Bride went about placing hers on her wreath, but I started with the thickest grossgrain ribbon that I had the most of, sort of evenly spacing them on my wreath so I wouldn't bunch them all in one area and totally neglect another. Then I moved on to the second kind of ribbon, then the third, and so on and on and on. I did make sure to glue them down in different directions, so that was good. The only other thing I need to figure out the next time I do one is how to keep the the top layers from flattening out loops on bottom layers. I think the wreath looks fine in the picture, but in person, some areas are floofier (technical term). I also think my wreath came out pretty full, so I'm not sure where I would have put another 6-7 rolls of ribbon. Maybe start with 8 but have a couple extra in case you want to add more, but I really don't think you need 14 (at least for a 12" wreath).

So there ya have it, my latest Pinterest project.

The Lunch Bag

Last week, on Tuesday, I went to go grab my lunch bag out of the break room refrigerator and found that it was missing. I was piiiiiissed. I usually have ice packs, but I'd forgotten to freeze them so I had to refrigerate it. Then I forgot it because it wasn't at my desk. So I was beyond peeved that someone had decided to steal it just because I'd forgotten it. Being the passive aggressive girl that I am, I left a note asking that it be returned and even left a little line about how the thief could check Target for one of their very own.

On Wednesday, just before I went home, I checked the refrigerator to see if I'd been taken seriously and lo and behold, my lunch bag was there! I couldn't believe it. Only, it had lunch meat and cheese in it. The audacity! I couldn't believe that someone would steeeeal my stuff and then bring it back to the scene of the crime and just go on like they owned it or something. So I took the bag, left the contents behind, and left another note saying that I appreciate the return of my lunch bag but that I was leaving behind the meat and cheese because "I don't take things that aren't mine." Nothing more was said about it, no one protested. The meat and cheese were taken home, and all was good.

And then...


Dan found mine. And I became a supreme a-hole. Ooooooopsies. So today, I returned the "stolen" lunch bag to the break room, along with an apology note and a Starbucks card as a peace offering. I've learned my lesson about jumping to conclusions.... and I'm done with notes. At least we got a good laugh out of it.

Talk it out

I did something good for myself yesterday. Almost 4 months to the day after finding out about the major cause of our infertility, I went and talked to a counselor. The last four months have been up and down. The initial news was really hard, and the first couple weeks were very painful. Now, like with any other grief, the pain is beginning to subside and the sharp pains come with longer and longer intervals in between, and we're sorting out what we're going to do. There have been even more developments that I'm going to keep private, but I can tell you that they make our chances even more slim.

And so, considering the fact that we are truly grieving a loss, I decided to talk to someone. I found a great counselor and sat down with her yesterday and blabbed on and on about our fears, my confessions, the stumbling blocks, the day-to-day stuff and how our lives are affected by infertility. I cried my eyes out, I laughed, I listened. I learned that it's okay to feel how I feel, because there is no wrong way to feel. The counselor was amazing. She's dealt with other couples struggling with IF, so she's familiar with the things we go through. She listened sympathetically as I got angry about people expressing to me frequently how I just need to do this or try that. She complimented me on how I care for my husband, shielding him and emphasizing how we are a unit in this. It felt really good to have someone sense the strength of our relationship through just an hour of conversation.

I'm glad I did something good for myself. It's not easy to say, "I may not be able to deal with this alone." I often have thoughts that things aren't that bad, relatively speaking, and I have nothing to be upset about compared to ladies who've been through 5 rounds of IVF and still don't have a baby. It was good to hear that I don't have to suffer a certain amount to be worthy of that care. It's also not easy to have to tell a stranger - though a very kind and comforting one - very intimate details in order to convey the gravity of our situation. But I feel so much better having gotten it off my chest and starting the process of working through the losses we've experienced and those we'll continue to endure as we figure out which way is up.

Catching Up

I've been gone. Not even anywhere incredibly interesting. It's just been super busy. Last I posted, I was getting ready to head to Tucson for my friend Rachel's wedding. This is the story of what's happened in our life since. Get some coffee, it might be long. And grab me a cookie, please and thank you.

Our anniversary weekend was really fun. It started off with a pizza party for all the out-of-towners to meet. I quickly figured out where Rachel gets her "must take a picture of everything" obsession from. I kid you not, somewhere, there's a picture of me and my plate of pizza and salad. I'm posing awkwardly in it because I'm totally caught off guard by the fact that someone wants a picture of me with my dinner. The groom's family is from Spain, but now lives all over the world, and it was really fun to meet them. The super-cute flower girls (the groom's nieces) live in Miami and were super excited to meet Rachel's friends, including me, La Amiga Mas Importante (Spanish for "maid of honor").

On Thursday, I got to spend the day with Rachel - dropping some stuff off at the reception venue, having lunch, getting nails done, talking about friends we were both excited to see. Perfectly relaxing day. We went to the rehearsal (which was interesting and long, so very long) and then just Rachel and I and the bridesmaids went to a gourmet burger restaurant for dinner. Absolutely delicious. If you live in Arizona, you need at least one Zin Burger experience in your lifetime.

The wedding was gorgeous. I teared up about a thousand times during the day - my best friend was beautiful, she was marrying a great guy. It was all very emotional. Side note: I was never a very emotional person. Ever. I'm not sentimental, I don't find myself to be very compassionate. And then, I got engaged. Since I got engaged, I turned into what Dan calls a "mush pot." In fact, he calls me Henry the Mush Pot. Long story.

Anyway, wedding: gorgeous. It was so much fun dancing all night, seeing old friends. I was super nervous about having to give a speech, and I can't even begin to tell you how funny that turned out to be. I'll try though. So I'd had a couple drinks by the time I had to give it, but I'd also had a lot of water. Don't worry, I don't pee on myself. I'm just trying to emphasize that I was balancing out the wine with water. So I was at a fun point where I giggle at everything but I'm no where near sloppy or anything. So, the best man - the groom's brother - was up first. And he went on and on and on. For a while. And then said "and that's point one." And then he had two other points. And then, finally, he said "and lastly, on my wedding day, our uncle (insert uncle's name) sang to me and my wife, and so now I present to you, (insert uncle's name)." Um, yeah, the groom's brother is an opera singer and proceeded to belt out this beautiful song. I was listening, of course, but I was mostly also looking around at my parents and friends with wide eyes and giggling (quietly), thinking, "how the eff do I follow this?!" So the singer/uncle finished, the crowd went wild, and I got up to take the mic, and people start chanting, "Encore! Encore!" Say what?! So the mic is ripped from my hand and the guy sings again. At this point, I'm just dumbfounded, I lost my train of thought, had no idea where to even start. I have little recollection of what I said, aside from a very hilarious, "well, that's what you get when you have 10 years to plan a speech" (because the bride and groom were engaged for 10 years - helpful info) and I talked about how they take thousands of pictures of food (no joke). So yeah, that was my encore matron-of-honoring experience in a nutshell. I'm retiring from bridesmaiding and refuse to make any single friends.

After all that, I had to get up early on Saturday and drive back home to get ready for the BBQ I planned to celebrate Dan's birthday. We had a really fun night with friends, eating, drinking, playing Guitar Hero, and watching our friends' two-year-old trying to play Bocce ("dees baws weawy hebby"). On Sunday, we had to celebrate our friends' son's birthday at Peter Piper (really not fun hungover, BTW) and then I took Dan shopping for shoes and did some other window shopping. We had our anniversary/Dan's birthday dinner at our new favorite sushi place. All in all, a fabulous weekend of celebrating.

Since then, life has been more mellow, but still busy. We had a friend and her two kids over for dinner one night, I met up with Temerity Jane and Brie for dinner, and we had a garage sale this past weekend. Side note: garage sales are interesting, by the way. First, I'm amazed that people would want to buy my junk that I don't want. And secondly, at some point, it gets hot and the crowds die down and you're just sitting on your driveway with all your junk. Anyway, with our garage sale earnings and our cut from the sale of a golf cart on my mom's behalf, we installed a new security door and got our turtles a new tank... and the dogs got costumes. Money very well spent.

Up on deck the next few days: we need to prep our wall to be cut for the RV gate we're installing, our friend is moving in for a while, and we're going trick-or-treating with our friends' kids, which I'm super excited about.

Also, I just have to brag a minute, because this is adorable and funny. I'm a prize. Yes, that's right. Mrs. ESPN's daughter, Chatty, was in a soccer tourney this past weekend and came in 2nd place. Since she had to play against girls who are older than her, she decided she was entitled to a prize. And that prize is me. And Dan. See, we're watching Mrs. ESPN's younger daughter, Bia, the weekend before Thanksgiving, and Chatty decided that wasn't fair and decided that to make things even, she needed a babysitting sesh with the Awesome Kingstons, too. So we are apparently her reward for a game well-played. I feel so honored :)

Alright, that's enough for now!

The Second Year

It’s going to be a very busy few days, so I decided to write this now before I leave for Tucson for Rachel’s wedding, which will be followed by Dan’s birthday BBQ and then our friend’s son’s birthday party. Like I said – busy weekend.

It’s been almost two years since we said our vows and became husband and wife. It’s hard to believe another year has gone by. It’s been so full in so many ways, and so empty in others. I always remember hearing that the first year is the hardest. I guess people assumed that maybe for couples who didn’t live together before marriage, all the adjustments all at once would make for a difficult time, and I could see how that would be. Our first year, though, was a thing of beauty. It was a fantastic year, full of happiness and fun.

In many ways, today is very much like this day a year ago, with much to be thankful for. We still love each other deeply, and we have had many blessings. We’re healthy (mostly), happy, and are now homeowners. We have amazing family and friends surrounding us. Our dogs are awesome. We each have new opportunities on the horizon to keep us looking forward. In the last year, we saw both our siblings get married, spent time with old friends and made new ones, celebrated my 30th birthday, bought a house and did some major over-hauls, and I baked a lot. It's been great year in many ways.

Yet, there’s something missing. Back at this time last year, I think we both thought there would be a new member of our family in our lives. Instead, the last 6 months have been marked by diagnoses, infertility, and uncertainty about our future as parents. This second year, which should have been a walk in the park compared to that “hardest” first year, has been one of trial and heartache at times.

Still, it’s nearly our second anniversary, and I wouldn’t want to have spent the last two years with anyone else. Memories of our wedding are still among my fondest, and our love continues to grow. I still can’t believe I am the lucky girl that got to marry Dan.

Happy Anniversary, Buddy. I love you!

Oh, and happy birthday, too :)

Is there rehab for this?

Pinterest struck again, people. I didn't take pictures of the whole project, but it was super easy. I had found a cute photo similar to this a couple weeks ago:


So I headed to Joann armed with a 20% your entire purchase (including sale items!) coupon. I picked up an 18" cone and a 12" cone from the floral department. You know, where they keep the foam wreaths and stuff. Then I went to the yarn section and picked up thick bulky yarn in orange, white, and yellow. I also got a glue gun (for $2.50!) and glue, since I didn't have one.

Before I started, I marked off my color-change points, splitting the cone up into approximate thirds (or so I thought - turns out the white was a little more than a third, but I was consistent with both cones). I started at the top with the white, and glued the whole first wrap-around with it. I wound it consistently around the cone, gluing about 1/2" every couple of rows to keep things anchored. I made sure to switch to orange along the seam in the back so that I would have an obvious front and back. When I switched, I made sure to glue the whole first row of the new color. I also glued the whole last row of yellow at the bottom, and had to overlap a little, since I hadn't wound perfectly straight all the way down. For the top, I made a small coil the size of the top and then hot-glued it right on. Super easy! The yarn in the inspiration photo was apllied a little more haphazardly, with strands overlapping and more like a ball of yarn would look. I prefered a cleaner look, so I wrapped my yarn neatly with one row right under the other.

I think they came out really cute, and put them on the mantle with some pumpkins for a festive touch.


BTW, all the Fall and Halloween decorations are 60% off at Joann right now, and with the 20% off coupon, I saved far more than I spent on some cute decorations for the house.

My Pinteresting weekend

Hey there! It's been a while, huh? Sorry. Not much has been going on, so there hasn't been much to write about, but I finally have a few things. Friday was the Poz and Infekt concert. It was the finals to play Fall Frenzy. We had a nice group going, including our friends' kids who were so excited to be there. We had so much fun with them. The concert was a blast - they pulled out all the stops in terms of making it a fun and interactive show. Unfortunately, they didn't win the finals and won't be playing this Friday. We were so bummed, but I highly doubt this will be the end of these guys.

We were lazy Saturday. Or at least I was. And so were these two:


I was lazy for a reason though - I was glued to Facebook waiting for updates on the birth of my dear friend Kari's daughter. She arrived in the evening after about 12 hours of labor. Her name is Brynn Marie and she is absolutely adorable. You know how some newborns are all "rrrreeeeeeaaaaaaaa" like baby velociraptor with their gangly fingers? (Come on, you know it's true - they can't all be cute.) Not this baby. She's 100% cute. But then, I may be biased since I'm her auntie.

On Sunday, we worked on a couple projects, one of which was my chalkboard menu for the kitchen. I had purchased the frame with a coupon at Joann Fabrics and was just waiting to find the right piece of wood to paint with my chalkboard paint. It had to be thick enough to fit in the frame and sturdy enough to withstand pressure when being written on. At the same time, it couldn't be too heavy and obviously couldn't be warped. I know what you're thinking: why not just buy a chalkboard? Well, what's the fun in that? So Dan finally found the perfect piece of wood and cut it down to the right size. He was anxious and painted while I napped, along with the inside of one side of our pantry. Kinda cool - now we have a chalkboard right there for jotting down staples we need to add to my shopping list. Not a bad idea, Dan. Finally, it dried enough and we hung it:


It looks a little boring right there all by itself, but I assure you there's other stuff right under it and my baking supply dresser and the turtle tank are right next to it. I couldn't write on it yet when I took this - the paint has to set for 24 hours - but I was just to excited not to take a pic. Isn't it cute? Yay, Pinterest! Stay tuned for my next Pinterest-inspired project.

What did you do this weekend?

I'm kind of a big deal

Seriously. Our friends' band, Poz and Infekt recently posted their newest music video for their song, (Party) After Party, and yours truly is in it. That's right. Me. In a music video. Well, in the last like 5 seconds of a music video (I'm the chick in light grey bouncing around when Poz does the row of low fives at the In N Out Parking Lot Concert), but still.

Check it:



Also, we went to their concert again on Friday. They're in a contest to open for Blink182 at Fall Frenzy here in Phoenix. They won the round Friday and play again in the finals on the 23rd. If they win that, they'll open on the 30th and we'll be there to dance our asses off.

I know I talked about them in a previous post, but srsly, you guys, this band is FUN! They've had a number of bands over the years, the most recently a heavy metal band called Revenant. And then they got the crazy idea to make a rap video, and their album, "No Coattails to Ride" was born. The songs are fun, hilarious, and the beats are awesome. I seriously just love them. Truly, check them out if you have a minute. And look for me in the video :)

If YHL can do it, so can I

This was a weekend of renovation (on the small scale) and organization. We got a lot done. The laundry "room" got a makeover, my baking stuff got moved into the dresser in the kitchen, the green couch is gone (sorry, Paisley) and the sectional has been separated and rearranged to make it feel like less of a monster in our small living room. I also got a start on a couple DIY projects that will be coming soon.

First, the laundry room. Dan had talked about painting it when we first moved in, but hadn't so much as mentioned it since. Well, apparently, Saturday was the day he decided to not only talk about it, but do it. He went to the gym on Saturday morning and came home with some paint swatches.... paint swatches that made me cringe. Most of the colors chosen could best be described as "breastmilk poop yellow." Kinda icky. But he loved them. As we were arguing about discussing the color options, he mentioned that he wanted to put the red chandelier in there. This red chandelier was actually a gold chandelier that hung over the entryway when we bought the house and was replaced and then repainted the day after we moved in. It's not that I don't like it (it IS pretty cool) but not for that space. I had a better idea. So I decided to go for a give-and-take approach. I agreed to let Dan choose the color if I could pick the light fixture.

My grand inspiration?

The clothespin chandelier from Young House Love. Totally brilliant right? And perfectly suited for a laundry room. Upon seeing the tutorial, Dan agreed that it was a pretty cool idea and the red chandelier was nixed. So off we went to Lowe's where we picked up 300 clothespins, wire gardening mesh, and a gallon of Dan's color choice, Valspar Golden Avocado.

It took me roughly an hour to assemble the chandelier, between cutting the gardening mesh (wire cutters are a bitch) and clipping the clothespins. I was a little short on the number - I need to get another bag of 50 to finish off that little bald section as well as another full row to hide the bottom of the wire frame. I'm pretty psyched about the result though. In total, it took us about 3 hours to take our boring laundry closet from white-with-floral-wall-paper blahness to this (it's a closet, so hard to photograph, sorry):




I didn't even realize it at the time, but even the yellowness matches somewhat with YHL's color scheme. I want to get some baskets or something to put the shelf contents in and maybe an art print so the walls aren't so plain, but I think it's already a vast improvement. The chandelier was actually pretty heavy, and I thought hanging it might be a challenge. There was a glass dome light fixture - the kind where screws hold the glass on, ya know? (This is my clueless girl-meets-house lingo, BTW) Dan just made loops out of a heavy wire that he attached to the top of the mesh frame and hung them on the screws. So it hangs a little lower relative to the the bulb in comparison to the YHL version, but because it's a small space and the viewing angle is essentially straight up, you can't really tell.

And even though it won't be finding its home in the laundry room, the red chandelier is still haunting me. Dan is threatening to use the same fire engine red shade to paint our washer and dryer. Why he wants the room to look like ketchup and mustard, I'm not sure. But I have a feeling I may come home one day to find it done, and I'll probably hear "I told you it would look good."

Why I hate Facebook lately

For anyone who's been on Facebook the last couple weeks, you've probably seen the latest wave of posts that look like this: "I'm 4 weeks and I'm craving peanut butter." You might see it and stop and go "oh my, my friend is clearly pregnant! I shall congratulate her." Only, the post has nothing to do with a pregnancy, but is part of some clever little game spread via mass forwarding to - supposedly - increase breast cancer awareness.

Because I need to get it all out of my system once and for all, here are my issues with this nonsense.

1. The email explaining this little game (and others like it) tells recipients to post their status as "I'm ____ weeks and I'm craving _____." The first blank spot correlates to the month in which you were born, and the second blank is filled using a list of foods corresponding to the day of the month of your birth. It claims that the purpose of this is to be raise awareness about breast cancer, but it provides no actual resources, sites, or facts about the disease.

2. The "game" is specifically limited to women, based on the email. Men make up 50% of our population. They are the husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons of women with breast cancer. They can be an invaluable tool in raising awareness, and information should not be limited to women. Not to mention, over 2,000 men are diagnosed and 450 men die a year from breast cancer. Keeping this information from them can literally be detrimental to their health and well-being.

3. The deceitful pregnancy status does nothing to raise awareness if the only people who know the code are the ones who get the accompanying email forward. Which means that - assuming no one in my 200+ friends got the email as well - if I post the status, not one of them knows what the hell I'm talking about. Awareness? No, pretty much just confusion when I have to explain to them that I am not in fact pregnant. I'm pretty sure that even by the time I've explained that it's supposed to be about breast cancer awareness, no one will even care because they'll be annoyed with me for toying with their emotions.

4. Raising awareness - to me - means giving people information. Crazy concept, right? There is nothing informative about the color of my underwear (last year's game) in regard to breast cancer. Raising awareness means teaching people about detection through self exams and mammograms. It means providing resources to learn facts. It means spreading the word about the Race for the Cure and other benefits that raise money for research. Someone please tell me how "I'm 3 weeks and craving effing pretzels" does this. Please.

I realize that this may seem to be an odd thing to get so worked up about, but it really just pisses me off. Treating an illness as a joke is not cool. I suppose I should post about my favorite medieval weapon and say it's for testicular cancer awareness, because it's pretty much just as useful. I'm also passionate about this because breast cancer is sort of my chosen recipient of charitable donations. I've donated cookies for bake sale fundraisers for 3-day walkers as well as money. I donated my wedding dress to give terminal breast cancer patients a last wish. I didn't give my most favorite and exquisite possession to something I don't believe in, and I don't appreciate it being made into a joke.

Not to mention, I'm sure you can imagine that seeing faux pregnancy announcements isn't super fun for me. I don't find that much of a joke either. But this isn't just about me. Cancer treatments often make survivors infertile because of the poisons introduced to the body to fight the disease. So to "raise awareness" of breast cancer by pretending to be pregnant in a forum where survivors - who may now be unable to conceive in exchange for having their lives saved - may see it is truly a slap in the face. Everytime I see one of these status messages I will post a link to the National Breast Cancer Foundation and I will explain my above reasons until I'm blue in the face, if I have to.

Seriously people, think before you status.


And because I'm not a hypocrite, here is a link to the National Breast Cancer Foundation

It is also Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month in September, and I'm fortunate enough to have two survivors in your life. Check Your Neck, people