Weekend dress-up

The hubs and I went to a benefit dinner this past weekend for Here's Life Inner City, a ministry that partners with urban churches in the twin cities to provide services and outreach in their neighborhoods.

True to my word, I took some pictures to document this part of the weekend! You can be proud of me. I am. Above is the hubs and I looking fancy, and a pal and I getting excited about the growing prego belly.

Not only is it a great cause, but it's also a great time to get dressed up and eat some good food with good people!

And head out to Brit's Pub afterward. Just dessert for me!

Playing some catchup. With my mouth open.

Well suddenly it seems that I have not blogged for over a week.

Not to say that it hasn't been a week worth writing about! Lots of note worthy things have happened which include the Mall of America with some awesome gal pals, the start of a very epic bathroom closet re-organization, new baseboard and door trim in our upper level (everything is finally starting to match!!!), a visit from my father-in-law, an enormous (500+ families!) baby and kid garage sale with my mom and bestie where I scored SO many good deals for the growing behbeh, and getting some more new items listed in the shop!

Ok. So OBVIOUSLY my goal needs to be to take more pictures. Because I have no evidence to support the awesome productiveness that was my week.

Pretty much the only bad part of the week is that the psychotic pregnancy hormones, or symptoms, or whatever you might call them have given me a perpetually stuffy nose, it seems. Which has caused me to have to breath mostly out of my mouth at all times which happens to NOT be my favorite type of breathing. It reminds me of being sick and causes my lips to dry out much quicker than closed mouth breathing does. Therefore I have to apply chap stick MUCH more frequently, causing me to have to buy chap stick MUCH more often.

What a waste of money open mouthed breathing is.

Well anyway. There are sure to be more posts and PICTURES this week. Because it's now my goal.

Shouting songs.

Something that you may not know about me is that I really enjoy bands in which people are shouting in the background. They can be shouting anything, really.  I just like it. 

Not to be confused with screaming (although I won't deny that I went through a scream-o phase in my youth). But just good natured shouting. Some favorite bands meeting this criteria are Cake, Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros, and Of Monsters and Men (the latter being a more recent discovery).

Which leads me to my latest find in my search for awesome shouting songs. This is The Lumineers singing "Ho Hey." It's a sweet little tune and the music video is delightful. (And I don't usually use that word.) AND the shouting is just spot on. I highly recommend you give it a listen.

New note cards...um finally!

I'm proud to say that I completed yesterday's goal and listed some of my Daily Animal Doodle note cards in the shop today!

They can be bought individually, or in sets of 6 or 12. Check out all of them here! I will be selling these as fine art prints as well, hoping to get those listed by Friday.

There are still a couple of the animal doodles aside from those I finished today that I want to dust off and get in the shop too within the week. Including a frog, a horse, a robin, a squirrel, a hummingbird, a mouse, and a bunny! And perhaps a skunk. Eh, still thinking about that one.

In other news, have you ever had that thing happen where your eyelid twitches?

Well, mine was twitching to the beat of the radio today. I think it means that I'm an innately musical person.

Getting things done.

Finally working on this note card project again. Yesterday was a day filled with lots of editing and printing. And slamming my palm to my forehead. Because somehow, even though I print my work often, it's always a trying (or maybe infuriating is the better word) experience.

Me and printers do not and never will get along. No matter how nice I try to be. They always betray me.

BUT.  Amidst the hair pulling and fighting back the desire to scream, I got a lot of stuff done and ended up with this nice little pile of note cards ready to be folded and then photographed so they can be listed in the shop.

I'm hoping to have them up by tomorrow! Yes to progress.

On catching up with the rest of society.

I've had an excellent week and weekend, which included being very productive (yes!), getting to see our little growing sprout via ultrasound (incredible!), blowing through the entire season 6 of Weeds  (because it FINALLY! came on Netflix!), and hanging out with awesome friends and family (who are awesome!)

Yes, the baby bump is definitely coming along. Exciting times, I say!

In other news, I finally jumped on the Pinterest train. I had successfully avoided it for so long...because really. Did I need ANOTHER thing to take up my time? I think not, I told myself. Besides, it can't be THAT great, I told myself. But I have finally succumbed and joined the pinning madness. Of course, I'm a convert. As everyone told me I would be.

But. I did think that it was super weird that I had to request an invite and then wait forever for it to come instead of just being able to sign up. AND it took a super long time to come. More than a day!! What's that??! I guess that Pinterest and I have a lot of things to learn about each other.

And yes it definitely took up way too much of my Sunday afternoon today. Help!

Or. Want to be pinning buddies? Find me here!

Lots of exclamation points today. I must be in an excitable! mood!

My very favorite tulips.

First tulips of the season are sprouting up! This brings joy to my life and I stop to admire and give encouraging words to the growing buds each day when passing them on our sidewalk.

Then I shake my fist and shout curses at the dandelions that are already beginning to overtake our lawn.

Cat family.

My first sketchbook post in awhile. Hooray! It feels good to draw again.

This is my cat family. I bought them as a college student from a little shop called Ten Thousand Villages in St. Paul. I was with my friend Mel at the time, who was also my roommate at the time, and who soon became my cat family watcher-over-er when I was gone.

Nowadays they proudly find their rank among such names as Dostoyevsky and Dickens.

In other news, tonight I decided to make a special dessert that consisted of melted marshmallows, Nutella, and Cheerios.

Because Cheerios are really healthy. You should read the label!

Stop looking at me like that.

You make me crazy Liz.

My 5 year old violin student the other day told me (after I told her to try playing a few lines again), "You make me crazy Liz." I promptly laughed super hard which caused her to think of herself as a brilliant comedian, and she said it over and over again for the next five minutes.

I like the funny parts of life.

I'm getting caught up on some projects around here, and hope to be back to my more creative endeavors soon. But I feel like I'm having trouble regaining my old work ethic and momentum.

Example.

Today I came home from teaching violin and ate some dinner. Then I ate a second dinner. Then I ventured down to the basement where the hubs is working on some electrical work. After unsuccessfully trying to lure him upstairs to hang out with me by using my swingin' prego moves and flirting, I wandered aimlessly back upstairs and wondered what to do with myself.

I was already caught up on any Hulu watching I might want to do.

I had finished my book and didn't have another one to start.

And I had already eaten two dinners plus some snacks and dessert.

"Dude, what am I going to do now?" I asked my faithful kitty companion.

Then I remembered how if this had been a time before we got preggers, I would have been excited about the opportunity to squeeze a few extra hours of work in. Editing new projects for the shop, making a sketch, or writing a post.

So then I wrote a post. This post.

And now I'm going to share a picture of cats. What else?

Look at them, plotting. They totally April fooled our sleepy hineys on Sunday morning. They woke me up at 6am to feed them. I went back to bed....and they woke up the hubs at 7am. And he fed them! Two breakfasts!

Dang, fooled yo.