Summer Lovin', Had Me a Blast

As of last Friday, it is officially Fall.

I have mixed feelings about this.

Because as much as I love the changing of the seasons, my summer was so amazingly fantastic that I don't want it to end.

This is documented by my two Facebook photo albums containing over 300+ pictures of my adventures. You can thank me now for refraining from posting them all here.

It was also evidenced by 'da twinneh's' "I hate you and all of your summer fun." comment.

I can't help it that I was unemployment and carefree or that she slaved away day-after-day for the majority of the time...

But do you know what's not fun?
Writing, yet another, entire blog post (complete with a list of 35 fun things I did this summer) and then realizing none of it saved due to some strange act of the Blogger Gods.

So, suffice it to say, between touring Europe for a month, spending a week in a $10,000,000+ beach house in San Diego, horse riding, rodeing, camping, eating, cliff jumping, star gazing, going to Disneyland, carrying out an ongoing prank war, living with some of my most favorite people in the world, country dancing, karaoke-ing and living it up college-style, I am plum-stuffed full of of summery fun.

I did everything I wanted to do and then some.

I even accomplished a goal I highly doubted the likelihood of.

Let's just say it's been a productive summer.

And Corinner-Elly may have finally gotten her fairytale.

Hey... Take it Easy.

So yesterday, I completed my Scrabble fridge magnets.
Once I figured out where I had put my dang magnet strip, it was easy-peasy from there on out. It is an understatement to say 'I love them'.

As you can see, they've already been put to good use.

I decided to one-up Lacy-Hacy on the swearing issue.
And it was a good choice too because, no joke, after being home less than two minutes, she had already adorned the front door with a resounding 'OSHIT'.

Lovely.

She then continued by chewing me out over not being able to find a particular letter.

"What the F!!? What did you do with all the 'Y's??!", she bellered.
It was then that she noticed the "<3 YOU LACY" in front of her nose.

Bet she felt sheepish.

But it's ok. I forgive her.
She's the only person I know who can be yelling at me one minute and laughing at me the next. And I the same with her.

I just can't stay mad at the girl.
Plus, we have some pretty fantastical arguments.

Yesterday, she accused me of never listening to her. I, of course, accused her of the same. Keep in mind we were both accusing loudly at the same time so in essence, we proved each other right. Haha.

But by the time I left to go stargazing, when I yelled 'love you' on the door step, it was immediately countered with a 'love you long time' response.

It's nice having a home away from home.
A family too.

Dysfunctional as it may be.

That's... 'Pin'teresting...

I have something to admit.
I am a shameless addict.

A week or so back, I noticed certain posts on Facebook beginning to appear. They notified me that certain people were 'pinning' things.

Confused, I decided to look in to it.
And that is when it happened. I took my first dose of Pinterest.

And now, pretty sure I'm never going to be able to stop.
I won't go to rehab. You can't make me!

It doesn't help that my job is an enabler. I can only stare at the closet door in front of me or click my pen so many times before I develop a twitch.

So, instead (to keep me alert and active) I scroll through pages and pages of Pinterest pins. If you are unfamiliar with how Pinterest works, let me educate you.

Copied directly from their website:
"Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and share their favorite recipes."

So it's like a giant collaboration of photos that provide inspiration for whatever you're in to.

What they neglect to mention is that people use Pinterest to waste gigantic amounts of time. But if you enjoy wasting the time, is it really time wasted?...

Regardless, it has really gotten me into a crafty mood.For some time now, I've wanted to refashion a sewing chest I was given as a 7-year-old for Christmas. I hate to bash Mom *cough* I mean Santa, but even then it looked dated.

Seriously, there are no words to describe my distaste for the combination of forest green and what appears to be a piece of medieval tapestry.

So instead of taking my daily afternoon nap (it was a tough decision), I decided to whip out my scrap fabric, spray paint, glue gun and get crackin'.

Okay, okay. So I still fit in a short nap. The paint needed time to dry...
But I also finished my now ridiculously fabulous sewing basket.

It was no where near as intensive as I imagined it'd be. All I had to do was pop out the lid and dismember the pieces. (I watch a lot of SVU. Can you tell?...)

Then I taped the sections I didn't want to be painted and started spraying. While that was setting, I re-covered the padded lid with a zebra print that has hot pink accents.

It's freakin' hot. Not gonna lie.

Then all I had to do was put it back together, hot glue gun at the ready.

I did make a small whoopsie when painting the wooden insert tray.
Word to the wise, do not cut corners when taping off sections. Because when I removed the newspaper, there were some ugly black stains on the fabric lining.
 

Never fear, I don't sweat the small stuff.
I quickly found a piece of hot pink leopard material which I lined the offending compartment with.

And I actually like it better than I did before. Yay for happy accidents!

But can you believe it, I didn't stop there.
I've seen many of variation of this, and I've always wanted to try it.

So I did.

I absolutely love how it turned out!
I found the three plates and two candlesticks at the D.I. The top smallest one is completely white with a cool shape/design, the middle one is black with white polka-dots (obviously) and the third is a simple black IKEA plate.

I couldn't get a picture that makes it look proportional (as it is in real life) so you're just gonna have to believe me when I say that it looks perfect.

I have it sitting as a centerpiece on my kitchen table, just waiting to be filled with some sort of tasty goodness.

So that was my productiveness as of yesterday. Hopefully the girls who gave me strange looks as they passed by while I crouched in my grungies spray painting in the stairwell won't judge me to harshly.

Heck, like I care.

I'm way excited for my next project.
If you know me, you know of my affinity for everything Scrabble.

A while back, I found a ghetto Scrabble board at the D.I. that still had all of the pieces. I bought it so that I wouldn't have to steal my parents' set, but within months it was Christmas and Santa brought me the brand-spankin'-new Diamond edition complete with swivel game board, raised edge tile slots and shiny black letter pieces.

I couldn't decide what to do with the thrifted game, so it's just been sitting in my game closet. That is, I couldn't decide until I was browsing through Pinterest (again) and kept coming across engagement photos and crafts containing those little Scrabble letter tiles.

And that is when I had an epiphany.

I am going to glue all of the old tiles to pieces of magnet and...

wait for it...

stick them on my fridge!!!
Then Lacy-Hacy with be able to spell obscenities with ease and leisure!
It's brilliant I say!

I'll let you know how they turn out.

There's No 'There', There.

Is it possible to have a semi-photographic memory?...
Because if it is, then I think I have one.

Or maybe I just have a normal memory like everyone else.
When people remember things, don't they see them in their mind almost exactly as they saw them in real life? Like the arrangement of words on a paper or the placement of things in a drawer?

And if that's true, don't we all have (at least to some degree) a photographic memory?

Most of the time, I can picture exactly what I'm trying to remember. I mean, I can't recite back word-for-word everything I've ever read but, take for instance, yesterday I wrote an entire blog post which, to my horror, didn't save properly.

I went through the stages of grief rather quickly. Shock, pain, anger, depression and finally acceptance.

At first, my 'acceptance' equated to giving up and cursing life.
But then I decided to cry me a river, build a boat, get over it and just write the dang thing again.

Thank you Natalie Dee.

To my amazement, I quickly re-wrote the whole post almost word for word.
In fact, I think my second draft was even a bit better.

I was rather shocked at my ability to remember the order of topics I had discussed and even the same phraseology that I had used.

But I suppose not everyone can do that.
Because, apparently, even using a turn signal throws some people for a loop.

And I find myself quoting Scar from The Lion King in his declaration, "I'm surrounded by idiots..." far too often these days.

It's settled. I've come to the conclusion that everyone has a photographic memory. Some people just don't have any film.