in my (sometimes) humble opinion

So I make these "road mix" cd's to listen to in the car and I'm really enjoying the most recent one (forgive me if these are trendy. I'm so amazingly out of the loop, the only radio I ever listen to is NPR):

Phantom Limb (the Shins), War on Sound (Moonbabies), Dreams (Fleetwood Mac), Tour de Carte (Science of Sleep sdtk), Heartbeats (Jose Gonzalez), Yellowcake (Kaki King), Send Someone Away (Embee featuring Jose Gonzalez), Don't F**k With Love (the Sad Little Stars), Blackbird (Beatles), We Will Become Silhouettes (the Postal Service), Put Your Records On (Corinne Bailey Rae), Don't Shoot the Ranger (Moonbabies), They'll Soon Discover (Shins), AC/DC (Stuart Davis), Fly Me Away (Goldfrapp), The Book I Write (Spoon)

(I was going to link to each of the songs, but just go to iTunes and listen to them. And don't get me started if you don't have itunes, it's free people!!!)

ps - the photo is for Friday's Flickr Fix: 1. pink poppy pins 2. et tirer les rideau

I really want to start making more artsy stuff and less assembly line stuff, so here's a piece I just made (the photo is my great grandma Sosie). Kris and I are going to be the featured artists in May at the Octagon Shop, so my goal is to have a bunch of stuff done by then.

Got an armful of ridiculously inexpensive goodies at my favorite thrift shop yesterday (including this tin for $.50): Sister Act in Ellsworth (1/2 hour north of Ames). They do this thing where anything that's been there for more than 2 months is half price, so there's always fun new stuff. Love it.

So I was going to attempt to have more than one photo in this post, but it's not happening and my resident geek isn't here, so I might just have to do a few posts today(!).

I created this dyptich yesterday (out of my Flickr favorites) for Ez's new Friday's Flickr Fix group. 1. 4 green bottles 2. meu coracao

My friend Kris finally put a few of her gorgeous vintage reconstructed goods up on Etsy (hopefully lots more to come!). Matt's plane did actually make it in last night (5 hours late but what can you do). He's home for 5 whole days, woohoo! I'm off to enjoy this sunny Saturday, have a beautiful weekend!

I just did a post at Tag Sale Tales about going through my Grandma's things, I'm pretty happy with it. :)

Back from L.A! It was a good trip, I saw cousins I hadn't seen in 20 years (damn I'm old) and my Grandma's funeral was beautiful, probably boring for those that weren't family but I appreciated all the wonderful shared memories.

I got to miss the ice storm and 10" of snow that attacked Iowa (and knocked down our trees), but apparently round 2 starts today (they've already closed I-35 and I-80). Matt flew to Chicago 16 hours after I got home, he's supposed to come home tomorrow night but since the storm is heading East we'll see…

A few things that are cheering me up today: Young Folks by Peter Bjorn and John, chocolate cake, the photos on this blog, this Sabrina Ward Harrison book (that I got here), Daiso (basically a huge Japanese dollar store in Seattle. I had to go twice because it was so overwhelming!), Nika's huge smile in this photo (meeting her first celebrity!).

Matt and I ended up coming home early from our Seattle/Vancouver trip (which was ok with me, I've had a horrible cold for the last week) mainly because my Grandma passed away Friday night. Thankfully my Mom was able to go be with her on Tuesday (she lives in L.A.). I'm so grateful we were able to visit her last summer on our Girl's Trip (and that Nika got to spend time with her Great Grandmas). So we'll be heading out there on Wednesday.

This photo was one of the few I took on our trip, taken at the lovely Pensione Nichols B&B in Seattle, half a block from Pike Place Market. Our other b&b wasn't such a great experience, although the room was huge and gorgeous. Let's just say the people make a big difference. But it's for sale, maybe it'll have new owners soon!

I have to shout out to the best house/ferret sitter ever Kris, who not only didn't mess up our place while we were gone, she cleaned it for us! Yesss…

Also my talented friend Jade has a new etsy shop where she sells her amazing jewelry. That's it for now, gotta go work on travel plans. Hope you all had a lovely (or uneventful, whichever you prefer) Valentine's Day. We went to the delightful Music & Lyrics, and yes I am listening to the soundtrack right now. I love the cheesy 80's…