And here is the card we actually sent out to everyone, courtesy of Cocodot:

Happy Christmas/Hanukkah/holidays to all!

I am spending the week with my in-laws in Alabama for Christmas–what are you doing?

Oh, and also because my man got me a freakin’ UKULELE:

The shirt says "Uke can do it!"

To most people, this is pretty darn random but to me it was perfect. I’ve picked up and abandoned various musical instruments and endeavors throughout my life (piano, voice, guitar, drums) so it’s not totally out of left field for me to be into something like this. But it was definitely a surprise and a great one!

To explain, I guess I should first point out the shirt. (How adorable is it? So adorable.) The chick dressed up like Rosie the Riveter on there is Amanda Palmer : Piano-playing Dresden Doll, frequent nudist, wife of author Neil Gaiman, and ukulele enthusiast. I may or may not have the teensiest girl crush on Amanda there (and a teensy regular one on her hubby) and so made my fiancé go with me when the both of them came to San Francisco on a recent tour.

One of her newest songs is the “Ukulele Anthem”, my favorite lyrics of which are as follows:

It takes about an hour to learn how to play the ukulele,

about the same to teach someone to build a standard pipe bomb

YOU DO THE MATH

It’s fun and hilarious and clever and full of curses, just how I like it. It’s basically about how the world might be a better place if everyone played ukulele. Future Husband and I both really liked it, and had a great time at the show (minus our car getting towed afterward, but that’s another story). So when yesterday morning he excitedly presented me with the shirt, ukulele and a beginner ukulele book I cracked up and thought it was the most perfect gift. My parents cracked up, too when I told them but that just goes to show you that ukuleles really DO bring happiness! Either that, or they think my fiancé is really silly. (He is really silly. It’s great, and we’re all quite happy with that.)

I even brought my ukulele to work to show my coworker who plays. (He’s Hawaiian. Go figure.) It turned out our other coworker is the one who taught him how to play, so he was excited for me, too and even tuned it for me! I’ve already started learning some really easy songs and chords, and Amanda Palmer isn’t kidding in that song about how easy ukulele is. At least, very basic ukulele, as youTube can very quickly tell you there are some absolutely disgustingly talented ukulele players out there.

My ouchie fingers and I are calling it a night – I’m already making my man learn that Jason Mraz song – the one you know you love even though you’ve heard it a million times – with me since he has a mandolin and a tenor guitar. We’re working on being sickly cute together so that we’re pros at it by the time the wedding rolls around

In closing, UKULELE POWER! And if you want to check out all of the Ukulele Anthem lyrics (so great) or download it for free (or however much you feel like donating to Amanda) you can do that right HERE on her site.

(OK, fine, just a few more lyrics, because I love them)

so play your favorite cover song, especially if the words are wrong

‘cos even if your grades are bad, it doesn’t mean you’re failing

do your homework with a fork

and eat your fruit loops in the dark

and bring your etch-a-sketch to work

and play your ukulele

ukulele small and forceful

brave and peaceful

you can play the ukulele too it is painfully simple

play your ukulele badly, play your ukulele loudly

ukulele banish evil

ukulele save the people

ukulele gleaming golden on the top of every steeple

I thought when I got married that I would somehow magically transform into a domestic goddess, or that I would at least learn to manage my time better. I also thought I would have smashing holiday decorations.

Obviously, things did not go that way. But! It is only December 5, and I already have my tree up AND decorations on my balcony. Admittedly, I also have the decoration tubs still sitting next to my tree. The storage closet is so full and messy I am afraid to try to return them. This is possibly our last winter in Florida, as my husband will hopefully have successfully defended his thesis by this time next year, and I will thus be married to a doctor. With that in mind, I have goals for this holiday season!

1. Clean out the storage closet.

This closet is stuffed with junk. We used to use it as a time-out closet for Alfie, and then it sort evolved into a dog-sized chokey, but now there is so much crap in there even his little 25 lb. body won’t fit. Things in this closet include my wedding dress, all of Ira’s blazers (which he never ever wears), a Rubbermaid bin full of Ira’s undergraduate papers, a Rubbermaid bin full of clothes that I swear I am going to lose 25 pounds and then I can wear them again!, a ton of scrap fabric, wrapping paper, wedding gifts (including an hors d’oeuvres warming tray?), and our iron (hopefully. I haven’t seen it in a long time). I am totally going to clean it out and take all of it to Goodwill.

2. Make some Christmas tree ornaments.

After pinning my brains out on Pinterest, I finally set a them for our Christmas tree: colors! No white or beige ornaments this year. Just my glittery ball ornaments and some vintage wooden ornaments went on the tree this year. It’s vintage if it is super old and falling apart and even your mom didn’t want it in her house anymore, right?

Anyway, this means the tree is looking a little sparse, so I am going to make some new ornaments. Like this. Or this. Or this.

3. Make paper snowflakes.

I recieved my undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh; we were a medium sized school, so the University could afford to give undergrads an allotted number of “free” printed pages each year. In the computer lab, you printed to a centralized, staff-accessible printer, and then the “staff” (work study students forced to wear university-branded polos) would put these pages plus a colorful coversheet out in order of your computer username (printed boldly on the coversheet) on a giant table, and then you and ten other people would swoop in to grab your printed pages. Coversheet colors corresponded to days of the week, so the computer lab would know if you left your printouts unclaimed for a week.

This long explanation is so that you know why I had a glut of one-side printed rainbow-colored paper as an undergrad. I used these stacks of dirty pages to craft paper chains and tens of paper snowflakes, and instead of studying I would decorate the common area of wherever I was living. Then I would be too lazy to clean them up until spring.

I would like to make paper decorations again.

4. Throw a milk and cookies party

And by milk I obviously mean White Russians.

PS Do you want to  ?

We did it all wrong. We did not really research the kind of dog we wanted, or search for a specific dog through local shelters, or any of that. Neither of us had ever had a dog before. We visited Pet Smart on the weekend, when there are always dogs from all the local shelters there, and we walked one dog. When we went back the next week, he was no longer there, but I refused to go home without a dog. We had been talking about getting a dog since we first got married, and this was over a year later.

I asked to walk a sweet-looking dog; he met our only criteria: he was an older dog, and already house trained. He was totally licking himself while he was in his crate, and he pulled something fierce while we were walking him. Then an ambulance arrived, and he cowered on the sidewalk with me the whole time the engine was on. I was smitten with this adorable fellow. Then the shelter staff told me he had a bite history. He seemed so sweet and meek, and I pride myself so much in being tolerant and open-minded, that I refused to believe this would be an issue. So we paid our fees, bought him dog bowls and a toy, got him the all-inclusive “spa” package, and took our clean new dog home. We only changed the spelling of his name, and gave him a middle name, but even now we only ever call him Alfie. Or Alfie-Walfie.

The day after we got him bathed, the little so-and-so dove into a pile of the wettest, stinkiest poop I have ever had to come in close contact with. I was still a little nervous about this biting issue, so I very carefully dabbed at him with pet wipes for about three hours. It was disgusting, and I gagged several times. But other than that bump in the road, we thought we were doing ok with this new member of the family. He seemed to be less nervous with us, he let us pet him, and we were getting his health issues under control (mostly itchy skin and some butt stuff) . He did nip at us a few times, but we were in a training class, and we felt we had things under control.

Then one night, about two days before we left to visit my parents for Christmas, while he was dead asleep next to be on the couch, I leaned over him, and he bit me on the nose, breaking the skin, and then bit me a few more times on the arm for good measure. I absolutely believe it was entirely my fault; we weren’t familiar enough with dogs in general, and we were trying too hard with Alfie too soon, and he was still way more nervous with us than we were able to see. And he is very good at defending himself. Because the cut on my nose was sort of deep we spent an hour or so in the emergency room getting it cleaned and getting an antibiotics prescription, and the incident had to be reported to animal control. Ira called the shelter, and I sobbed for an hour thinking he was going to make me give up this dog.

But we didn’t. We have worked at establishing a trusting relationship with Alfie, and he is much less nervous, and much less easily startled now. He is pretty awesome at WAITing and crawling in exchange for treats. He is also awesome at sleeping in awkward poses, and looking freaking adorable in a sweater.

He still has some skin issues, which we treat with weekly soothing baths, fish oil, allergy pills, and, for when his butt is bothering him, some Caladryl on the bum. Sometimes he has to wear a cone. He is good at looking sulky about it.

Alfie was the impetus for making a family holiday card last year.

SUPER professional looking, I know. I am trying to think of a good look for this year’s card. Any ideas?

Effects on that first photo done using Instagram, and collaged using GIMP.

Oh, well. I’m still going to talk about my Halloween costume because I actually did something sort of crafty!

I found I already had in my/my fiancé’s closet just about everything I needed for my costume: brown pants, brown belt, sweet leather hat, jacket. The only thing I purchased was a toy whip for around $6. (Don’t get creeped out yet, you’ll see this was work-appropriate):

Yep, I was Indiana Jones.

Except the shirt I had was an old button-down of my brother’s that my fiancé inherited and found was much too big for him. So, obviously it was WAAY too big on me.

Basically I just chopped off the sleeves, sliced each side up to the armpit and then sewed it back together, minus about 8 inches. Sadly, I don’t have any pictures of this glorious hack job, as I did it at about 10 pm the night before Halloween. Also, I don’t want you to see how bad I still am at sewing

Thank goodness that jacket was part of the outfit, though because there was no way I was going to try to sew those sleeves back on. (Yes, it was a button-down tank top. I am nothing if not classy.)

Bonus Sewing!

I recently found out that my friend who recently made the move from PA to CA, Julia, has been sewing for a long time, so we decided we needed a sewing date.

We got to hang out for just a couple hours the other night, and got in a couple little projects.

Julia made this adorable (and comfy!) skirt out of a sweatshirt from Salvation Army:

Before and After

She chopped off both sleeves and cut them open to make 2 panels, and then cut 2 more panels copying the opened sleeve-shapes from both the front and back of the sweatshirt. The original sleeve cuffs and sweatshirt bottom hem became the waistband when she sewed them all together. That’s it! Super easy!

Sweatshirt = cute skirt! A sweatskirt!

I didn’t even know where to start with my pile of “learn-how-to-fix-this/make-something-out-of-this” things. Eventually I figured the least-scary thing to tackle was a funky tunic thing-y I have with the most atrocious sleeves that cinch with elastic at the end.

After struggling for a while with measuring and cutting, and wrestling with the weird stretchy knit fabric to get it to fold so I could pin it, I had:

Sleeves of Death!

Aaah!

Ok, no obviously they were just pinned all over the place because I’m still not confident enough to use any less than all of the pins I own. But, they turned out pretty good and I might be a little more inclined to wear it now, although it is still an outrageously 70′s little dress. We’ll see!

New Balance 10

Six months ago my friend Lauren told me she had taken up running using an app called Couch 2 5k. I immediately purchased it for my shiny new iPhone, and then ignored it.

So about two weeks ago I finally decided to start using this app. Just for the record, I don’t believe in exercising for the sake of looking good in a bikini. I might have in the past, but I don’t now. I believe that sit-ups are really bad for your back, and I believe that it’s more important to eat all your fruits and veggies than it is to count your calories. One of my primary reasons for exercising is that I want to survive at least a week after an apocalyptic event, which I joke about, but also sort of believe will happen in my lifetime.

I ran cross country in high school. I was never particularly good at it, but it kept me in decent shape for three years, and I could regularly run 3-6 miles. This history of being able to run distance got into my head, and it made it difficult for me to get back into running. Every time I got winded running half a mile, I felt pathetic. I would keep at it for a few days, but I was comparing myself to a person ten years younger (writing that makes me feel really old), and this unfair comparison was holding me back, and it served as a good enough excuse to give up. Before I could really start training, I needed to to accept that I was no longer than person who could run 3 miles like it was nothing, and that I  needed to be easier on myself. I basically decided that I needed to re-learn how to run. So I can out-run the zombies one day.

C25k slowly builds you from doing no exercise to running 5k. Every day you start with a five minute walking warm-up, and then a  pleasant voice tells you to run. Each day you run in spurts, with walking breaks in between. You end with a five minute cool-down. The app also allows you to play your own music from within the app (no switching to the iTunes app necessary), or you can use it with Pandora. Sometimes I like to switch over to my Indie Dance station in Pandora; the beat really helps you find a good stride. At the end of each workout you can fill out a little journal to describe what the weather was like and how you felt on your run. I usually choose the not smiling face, because I am winded and my face is all pink and my calves are tight. You can publish your run to Facebook and Twitter, and the app tracks your training progress on an impressive looking chart.

So far I feel pretty good about it, and I would definitely recommend this app to anyone who wants to start running. I am only in Week 2, but already in 30 minutes I can travel over two miles. That is pretty amazing, considering that walking up to the third floor of the library gets me winded. I like the British lady talking in my ear, and I like bragging on Facebook about how far I have run each day. Plus, my husband has bought me an armband to hold my iPhone while I run, as a reward for my dedication, so now I look like a Serious Runner like all the shirtless undergraduates I pass on the bike path.

My goal is to be able to run in a 5k event by Christmas. Interestingly, I just read a great article in the New York Times about how everybody runs wrong, “The Once and Future Way to Run“, so I am considering incorporating 100-ups into my work-outs. I’ll be honest: my goal is to be able to improve my running posture primarily so I can get away with buying Chuck Taylors for running instead of super-cushioned, and super expensive, New Balance shoes, which have been my shoe of choice since high school (although the 10 pictured is GORGEOUS) . That is a bad goal, right?

What are your exercise routines like?

My co-workers and I are fortunately all pretty into holidays, in that we all like to gather around to eat sugary foods, and we like to have a good reason to do it. And when we agreed to dress up for Halloween in addition to having a breakfast party, I was pretty psyched.

For years I have wanted to dress up as “the bee girl” from that Blind Melon video, so that was my inspiration this year. I actually looked nothing like the bee girl, and I feel like at 25, I should have the dignity not to fake tap-dance for my co-workers, but it was a good starting point.

Starting with a base of clothing I already owned, by spending just 12 bucks I was able to put together a bumblebee costume.

Supplies:

3/8 in. ribbon–$1.99

1 1/2 in. ribbon–$3.49

5 yd. black tulle–$5.00 (normally $1.99 a yard, but I had a 50% off fabric coupon)

2 yellow pipe cleaners–$0.99 for a rainbow multi-pack

Headband, already owned

Little black dress, already owned (Isaac Mizrahi, got it for like 10 bucks from Target.com four years ago)

Black tights, already owned (bought at a drugstore in an emergency for a cold outdoor wedding)

Black shoes, already owned (10 bucks at Target)

Black cardigan, already owned (40 bucks at the Gap, but also, from high school; it barely fits, and one of the buttons is missing, but still)

I spent about two hours and the entirety of A Room with a View sewing the 3/8 in ribbon to the edge of about 3 of the 5 yards of my black tulle. I gave up after that, and then spent an hour pinning, re-pinning, and sewing the tulle onto the 1 1/2 in ribbon which I had measured to go around my waist.

The extra ribbon I sewed onto the bodice of my little black dress. My black dress is already kind of tight, so I tried not to sew the ribbon too tightly. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to zip it up if I lost even an inch of room, but it worked out ok.  Then I just made some heart-shaped antennae and put everything on.

TA-DA.

Yes, I went there.

I bought a Wine Cube from Target today; specifically, a four-pack of of single serving white sangria flavored wines.  I was feeling a little low, and it was $8.00.  I make no apologies.  It was a decent cheap wine; the first icy sips were delicious, and once the heady part of drinking wine hit, the rest of this little juice box went down pretty smoothly.

The box recommends serving it in a glass with fruit bits, like a true sangria, but then why did they bother to make these nifty little servings?  I haven’t tried it yet.  By the time I read the back, I had finished half of it, and I was not in a good state to be chopping up apple bits and orange supremes.  Next time.

What the fuck should I make for dinner? If only they included recipes with their fucking suggestions.

Fuck yeah cupcakes Because who doesn’t fucking love cupcakes?

Fuck yeah chandeliers My parents live in an ancient house, and there are chandeliers in all the rooms.  I used to wave my ribbon dancer all around and I always smashed it into the chandelier with the glass prisms.  My bad Mom.

Fuck yeah! Ryan Gosling Girl, let’s go home and update your blog together.

Fuck yeah! Anne Hathaway Fucking girl crush.