Fabric Decals

I was reading one of my many blogs, and saw the fabric decals of Love Mae featured. I must have these!


I love the way they make ordinary things like cider vinegar look kitchen-y and chic. Of course, I will need to put all of my every day items into lovely glass jars that cost $20-40 each and carefully transfer everything into them to look pretty, but hey, I have nothing else to do with my money time on my hands starting in November!

They are also running a contest to guess four recipes based only on the ingredients. The first three people to get all four right, win the labels. A $59.95 value. I'm all about value now that I'm almost unemployed a small business owner. I entered the contest, and I think I definitely have two right, one I'm 95% sure, and the other, I am 80% sure. Fingers crossed. Feel free to enter here by 9/28.

I decided to show Lyla their fabulous fabric decal dress-up dolls of which they have several variations.




She thought they were the cat's pajamas, and so did I, so we promptly put them on her xmas list. I do love gifts that I get for Lyla that I secretly want to play with. To name a few, play-doh (even though we rarely play with it any more), any puzzle, anything dress-up. How amazing are these?

We started Christmas list this year because Lyla never asks for anything. If we're out and about, she acts like she wants something, but it's usually an ugly bear or other stuffed animal. To date, she has only ever asked for two things for any holiday. The first is a Leapster Explorer, which is a game console thing. She actually played it religiously for months. Now, we don't even know where it is. She got a little monster-y when playing it any way, so I'm glad it's gone. It definitely competed with tv as a monitored item, and something that typically made Lyla irritated and angry.
The other item was a bike for her 4th birthday.
My parents got her both those gifts. We like it when grandparents are heros for many reasons. For one, it allows us to get crap gifts because she doesn't care about anything after the "wished for" gift. So, essentially we're off the hook. I also don't believe in buying hundreds of gifts for kids for Christmas or birthdays (believe it or not). Maybe it's because Lyla isn't into anything but the opening part. Even after her birthday party, it took three days to open the gifts, because she loses interest. Lyla's entire 4th bday gift from us contained items exclusively purchased at the Candy Kitchen in Ocean City the morning of her birthday. What a delight.

Here and there, Lyla has mentioned a few things she likes, and so we have been encouraging her to add those to the list this year. Last year, I literally went onto Toys R Us' site and guessed by age what she might like. Let's just say she has played with her Easy Bake Oven, Light Brite, and life-sized Big Foot once each. Again, these may have been gifts I wanted to play with on Christmas morning. Big Foot actually flipped over, talked, and walked. Who wouldn't want that?

Right now, we have four things on the list. This is progress. True progress.

Today is the First Day of the Rest of My Life

Hello small group of followers. Today is a big day for me. It marks the day I take my life in a new direction.

After a month of pure hell with selling and buying our house, changes for Lyla, and the cheapest attempts we could make to get the house in order to live in, we finally breathed easy for a moment.

Now, things will stir up again. After 12 years at my company, it is time to move on. Things have changed, issues have come up that I won't publicly blog about, but the future is now.

Trent and I have discussed this over the last few weeks, and for right now, we have decided that I will most likely put Fold Invites back on the map. I will remain at Cie Studios through October 31st, and consult for them through the end of the year, but am able to pursue other interests during that time. I have discussed the whole thing with the CEO, and good friend, and he has been very supportive of my decision to give this a go. It will take a lot of work to get things back on track, but since this will be my new full-time job, I hope I can turn this into something special--finally.

I did my first invitations eight years ago, and discussed how much I would love to make it happen. It's the only thing I have remained passionate about over the past few years. It took a lot out of me to give it up last November. I remember talking through it with Trent at a restaurant called Home in Los Feliz, CA over breakfast one day about seven years ago with such excitement. Well, it may have taken a while, but I am ready to try.

Wish me luck, and stay tuned for lots of changes including a new web site, products, and services.

Here. we. go.

Pat Summit Heroin

This is slightly off my normal topics of weight, fashion, kids, or home decor, but it definitely worth it. For those of you who don't know Pat Summit, she is the legendary women's basketball head coach at the University of Tennessee. She has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and while she continues to coach, she will no longer be calling the plays on-court. This is something that has entered our own lives recently, and it just goes to show how the testing of it really doesn't help in the diagnosis of this disease. Crazy stuff. Here is the video for anyone interested.