A taste of 2010...

I can't believe today is the last day of 2010! It's been another eventful year for the hubs and I, and we look forward to an excellent, but slightly more calm, 2011. We are ready to focus on our careers, home, and enjoying life (starting a new hobby, trying new things?? we shall see...).

Here's a look at some of the memorable things we experienced this year:

We bought our first house in April.

We painted A LOT in 2010.

We celebrated our one-year anniversary in Montana and Glacier National Park. This is us *almost* done hiking a 13-mile trail. Followed by napping, eating a too-fancy dinner, and sharing a giant brownie!

We spent another Black Friday weekend in Portland. Tried out a new pizza place, went to the market, a fun time!

John put up Christmas lights! What a man!

We camped for John's 27th birthday, and went to the Olympic Game Farm Park!

I switched jobs and am SO happy to be at Drum. That's my fantastic teaching partner and I on school spirit day. Who wouldn't want us as teachers, I mean really?

We did a few hours of Relay for Life to celebrate me momma! Hope to lead a team or participate the whole time this year... we'll see!

New Year's Resolutions:

• Cook at home more - with us both working, me being so picky, and me not particularly enjoying cooking we seem to easily get off track with planning meals and eating something healthy for dinner. I made a meal planner and shopping list sheet on photoshop and hope to stick to it as much as possible.
• Start my master's program- I am nearly done with my application and hope to start in May. There are basically 6 "quarters" (very contradictory) each year and I have 11 classes to take, so I hope to finish in a year. 
• Find a gym/workout schedule that works for me- this is a standard for most, I think. Perhaps I'll just keep playing Just Dance on Wii? That should do it...
• Find a cleaning schedule that works for me - I have been coming home and vegging out most weeknights, so I hope to be more productive
• Finish my craft room and our dining room - I have plans for these, it's just a matter of budgeting them out. :)
• Keep on saving... - as hard as it can be sometimes, we're still leaving below our means and putting the majority of my salary in savings - it's been very satisfying seeing what we've been able to accomplish financially.

Hope everyone else is satisfied with their 2010 and here's to a great 2011!

Holiday Cards

I thought I'd share the cards we sent out this year - I ended up making them on Picasa. Now that I have Photoshop, just WAIT until next year!

Here is a sample of the food tags I'm making in Photoshop for our New Year's get together tomorrow night. More just for fun, since it should be obvious what the food is. : )

Happy New Year all!

Some Pictures I've forgotten

Here are 3 of the 4 wreaths I made as Christmas presents.

Here are some before/after pictures of the organizing number I did on our closets.

Master bathroom - under John's sink.

Master Bathroom - under my sink.

one of the drawers ( I won't bore you with all of them)

Linen closet in laundry room

Under the kitchen sink. Much better!

Before: the closet under the stairs (ie the worst closet in the house)

After: added some unused kitchen appliances, our china. Then John moved some of his antique books from the garage into here to make more room in the garage. They're around the corner, though, so it still looks like this! Woo hoo!

And... here are a few pictures of the Master Bathroom. It ended up looking like a lighter version of the living room, which is perfectly fine. It took more paint than I thought, but man does it help the room. The tile looks much less yellow and it's so much more soothing.

Don't have a good before, but the bathroom is the same color as the rest of the house was - an outdated stock yellowy color. Bleh.

New color. Hard to see, but it's a minty pale green

Without the tape. So fresh!

Today I will be prepping my craft table (finally) for spray painting. I want to make sure I prep it right, so I'll be sanding down the metal with 400 grit sandpaper, washing and drying it to get off any other dust/dirt, then priming it with Rust-Oleum Primer for metal, which surprisingly comes in white. That'll give me a good idea of whether or not I want to paint it white. I'd like to do a design on the drawers but that'll be later... Right now I just need to focus on not rushing it and dripping.

Hello, Love.

My first digital scrapbook page

Hi all!

I have photos to share, but haven't uploaded them yet. Today I painted the master bathroom, which made a huge difference. Pictures to come. I also haven't shared pictures from Christmas or from organizing the closets. We don't have too many pictures from Christmas since we're the type of family that totally forgets about a camera when we're having so much fun! I'll see what I have, though.

In other news, I'm continuing to play with and learn more about my new program, Photoshop Elements 9. I like being able to edit photos, and hope to learn how to create other things on it, like prints. I also wanted to explore the world of Digital Scrapbooking. At first I turned my nose up at it, since it's not the real thing. Then when I realized how much cheaper it could be (assuming I only use free embellishments and paper) and how much less time consuming and MESSY it would actually be, I became interested. Not that I don't want to stop regular-scrapbooking (after all I just bought a craft table for just that).

Anyway, in true Lindsay fashion I got my mind on it and went a bit crazy with downloading free supplies. I also procrastinated doing the trim work in the bathroom today by organizing all the supplies into different folders in Picasa for easy previewing and organizing (ribbons, tags, alphabets, paper, buttons, etc.). Picasa, as I've been reading, is a great way to organize digital scrapbooking supplies because you can search by file name, color, type, etc. So it's like digging through drawers without all the hassle!

Without further ado, here is my first scrapbook page. It's a bit silly and cheesy (I was just playing around - ignore the quick text I put in.. not that it's not true) but I think it turned out alright. I'm excited to make more!

Photoshop Elements, how I love thee...

Since I'm new to blogging/photo-editing, etc. I had only been playing around with free programs like Picasa (which I still like). John got me Photoshop Elements 9, however, from Costco for a good price. I don't have a great camera and don't make money from blogging or anything, so I just wanted something fun to play with. I had seen so many tutorials of things you can do to enhance your looks pictures that I wanted to try. I've only been on this for an hour or so, but here are some fun things I've found already:

Original Photo - not too bad

New photo - more stylized, clearer

And just for kicks, I played around with the "liquify" tool. What a dangerous thing. And yes, I know this looks super fake, but I'm new and I couldn't resist!

Real me - slightly pasty, average-sized

Photoshop Me - tanner, thinner (check out those hips!)

I know that Photoshop is nothing new to the technology world, but I just hadn't taken the plunge because of the price. Anyway, super fun and just another thing to add to my crafting.

More on Christmas another day. Hope everyone had a great day and took time to really think about the great things happening in their lives.

Get me off of this thing!

I'm not much of a fashionista, but boy is it fun to make little "sets" on Polyvore! And there's all these fun little accessories to add - you could almost just make cool artwork (I'm sure that's what people do I'm just not hip to it yet). It reminds me of this tracing thing my sister and I had where you could mix and match outfits and sets and stuff.. but better!

Winter Blush by Lindsay featuring vintage belts

Living room by Lindsay on Polyvore.com <-- from Nuestra Vida Dulce - Ceiling Medallion!

Bones and Furniture

Today I visited my sister at her place of work - Northwest Tissue Center. I had never been there for the tour and they just moved buildings from downtown Seattle to Renton - conveniently near Ikea. Her job is much more complicated then how I explain it, but basically a hospital calls, asks her for a specific bone or tissue, and she ships it to them. I am fascinated by this because most of the parts are in clear bags that we could look at. Lauren was very cooperative and showed us some cool stuff - which I will then show my students (we just finished studied the musculoskeletal system). Here are some unclear pictures (the bags were frosted up):

These are called Croutons. They are not for salad - they are pieces of spongy bone.

This is a piece of something, but now I can't remember what

This is a tendon that's all scrunched up.

This is the ball part of the femur that attached to the socket in the pelvis

This is a full FEMUR!

These are the freezers with all the body parts.

I felt like I was Dexter. Especially when she showed us the half of a pelvis that was wrapped in a thick blue paper towel. Crazy! It was fun.



So then we went to Ikea where I dreamed of making my craft room. Especially since last night I was using a sewing machine on the floor with my knee on the foot pedal. I really like the option of the 4x4 bookcase because when I eventually have to move my craft room to the bonus room it can serve as a room divider (and I can work in the back cubby of the bonus room). We'll see. I tried to call John and get the okay but he played the whole I'll-call-you-back-in-a-second-then-never-calls-back game. Tricky move, John, tricky.

Day 29 - My hopes, dreams, and plans for the next 365 days

This is a fitting post since 2010 is wrapping up (har har, a little present humor). Every year I write in my journal a year-in-review so I can quickly look at the accomplishments and experiences I've had. I will be doing that again this year, but I should add a new section of my plans for 2011.

Here are a few:

1. To stay employed at Drum - I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love my job. I don't think I could find a better position or school. I get a knot in my tummy just thinking about getting riffed or having to move. It's motivation to work hard. 
2. To start my Master's Program - I had intended to begin my master's in January, but my application didn't quite get finished, so I'm aiming for May now. It's a 33-credit online Master's in Math Education (middle-school) and I'm super excited to get started. I'll probably start out small then load myself up more in the summer. If I'm not feeling too overwhelmed I hope to finish in a year to a year and a half. The sooner I finish the more money we can make (and therefore save) before we decide to add another being to our family.
3. To get more organized- now that our rooms are more assembled I'd like to start making sure that everything has a place and we are developing good routines for staying organized and uncluttered. It would help if the previous owner hadn't taken all the shelving in our house, but we're slowly figuring out what we need and making it happen. We definitely don't have a lack of storage here, we just need to organize it.
4. To build our savings - this is a continuing goal of course. It feels like we're not saving as fast as we have been because of the holidays, so we're really focusing on that come 2011.
5. To be a more patient wife - John and I are still learning how to deal with each other (as I'm sure all couples are - P.S. did anyone see that sneak peek of Perfect Couples on NBC? so cute). This is an ongoing goal for two stubborn people like us. :) 

All in all the main focus this year is our careers, but also to focus on enjoying life. Like I have mentioned before, I'm trying to focus on Being more with less, although it doesn't feel like it this time of year and when you're trying to get your home feeling like home. 


In other news, I wish I could share my most recent craft - which turned out quite charming in my opinion - but they are gifts.... so I will wait. Happy Holidays!!

Day 28 - What's in my purse

Too much stuff, that's what. I've started carrying around a little wallet or just put the essentials in my pocket because my purse gets filled up. I just can't seem to find a small purse I like.

I am like Mary Poppins. In my purse you will find:

Receipts that I shove in my purse

 Chapstick

Driver's License, Debit Card, Library Card, Costco card

Car Keys

Moleskine planner

My phone. No I do not have a smartphone.

Queen Bee Creations wallet with cupcake (that I never use)

There's much more, but I'll stop there.


Today I am crafting. I have a few things I'm doing that may turn into Christmas presents and a few presents I have been planning but just aren't done. We'll see how much I get done!

Day 26 - My week in "great detail" and Day 27 - Worst Habit

Day 26 - Week in Great Detail

I won't bore you with great detail. Let's just do Monday through Sat of last week.

Monday: School.
Tuesday: School.
Wednesday: School.
Thursday: School.
Friday: School (see previous post)
Saturday: Cleaned house with John, looked at Lights with Family

Close enough, right?

Day 27 - Worst Habit
Not hanging clothes up.


In other news, I started designing our dining room. We won't be doing this for a while, but I figured I'd start planning. I think getting it done will really help the downstairs feel more done (not that it doesn't right now - I just think it will help). I started using Polyvore, which I didn't understand at first and I now I think it's awesome. Whatever website you're on, if you see a piece (you could do this with clothes or decor), you can "clip it" to your polyvore clipboard. Then when you go to the site, you can arrange all these pieces you've got. I had been doing this with Picasa and Powerpoint, since I don't have a photo editor. What's great about Polyvore, though, is that it automatically crops out the white space around the photo, so you can arrange them much clearer.

Let me show you an example: Picasa (which I still like) VS. Polyvore

Done through Picasa. This isn't a bad way to go.

On Polyvore - much cleaner.

Dining Room by Lindsay Hahn Ashley on Polyvore.com

Andalusia Rug, 5'x8', Horizon/Ivory | west elm
$39 - westelm.com

STEFAN
$20 - ikea.com

Tufted Bench - Benches - Entryway Furniture - Furniture |...
$199 - homedecorators.com

Some of the images get distorted, though (like the chairs in the back) - so be careful. You can also put prices on each item to keep track of the cost of the room.

Expect more of these from me. What do you think so far?