Hair Today, Gone Today

File this one under, "Just Go For It" or "Take a Risk, It'll be Worth It."

My hair had gotten to be about as long as it has ever been - I had started growing out my chin length bob in August 2011 after getting engaged (a typical female tale, I'm sure). After our 2012 nuptials, I decided to keep it going for awhile, only scheduling a couple trims over the last ten months. Sure, I was saving money by not going to the salon, but the heaviness was starting to get to me - especially with the heat index creeping up now that we're into June.

I just came off of two weeks of work travel and decided to pull the trigger upon my return and chop all my hair off. This isn't new to me - over the years I've gone extreme several times. As I like to say, I have no loyalty to my hair and don't shed a tear when it all gets cut off. It grows pretty quickly so I always know it won't be long if I really can't stand the cut anymore.

For reference, here is one of the most recent photos of me - in case you are wondering, one of the events I was at had a Carnival theme so I am posing with giant popcorn, candy and animal crackers. You know, a typical Wednesday night.

My inspiration binder (pre-dating Pinterest) has pages of hair styles cut out of magazines over the years. One page features pixie cuts that I've never had the guts to take on fully. 

The short hair girl du jour is definitely Ginnifer Goodwin! A google image search gave me plenty of options to see how short I was willing to go. 

I have a round little head like hers, so figured it wouldn't look too terrible on me. I was more concerned with how thin my hair was, but some volumizing spray and a bit of texture-providing pomade should be enough to keep my blow dried 'do in place.

I booked the appointment and put my trust in J. Gordon Designs - I've been going here most of my time in Chicago. I came for the location (I used to live down the block), I stay for the shoulder massage after getting shampoo'd!

Less than an hour later:

Pardon my wandering eyes in the photo above - I attempted to take a selfie with my camera in the mirror and couldn't get the eyeline just right. Pretend I'm listening to someone say something extremely interesting off camera.

My challenge now is maintenance. Day to day will be easy enough, it dried in about three seconds this morning after a shower and I even treated myself to a new hair dryer and a Target shopping spree in the beauty aisle to help keep me going with styling it each day. But a salon visit every five to six weeks to keep my fast-growing hair trimmed? Hopefully I can stick with it so my hair isn't down to the middle of my back again this time next year!

So with summer upon us, what new risks are you taking? What are you "just going for?" 

A Guestbook with a Higher Purpose

And the wedding posts just keep on coming....

If you have a year after the wedding to send thank you cards, I suppose it would also be fair to say you have at least a year to create your photo album. I finally took some time this weekend to arrange the photos that I had printed within a day of receiving the files from our photographer back in October. Half the work was done for me before the wedding even began, so it actually came together quickly once I got started.

I had been struggling coming up with an idea for a guestbook - we knew we didn't want the traditional "sign your name" book, I wasn't sure that the create-your-own photo frame was for us and, while a cute idea, the idea of leaving my guests with inky fingers after putting their thumbprints on a canvas wasn't one I wanted to pursue.
photo source

I have kept scrapbooks since kindergarten in one form or another. Since freshman year of college, my books have been born out of spiral bound, black-paged albums. Heavy on photos and captions, as opposed to a lot of typical scrapbook fare (read: overly designed), these have helped me toe the line between photo album and memory book. Read more about my scrapbooks in this post.

The thought to combine the photo album and guest book came easily enough, but the idea of how to execute took a bit longer. I figured I could fill up the pages with blank spaces for guests to write their thoughts and well wishes, but without pictures in their places, would folks understand the intention?

The next idea was to include placeholder images of the events that would eventually fill the book - getting ready, walking down the aisle, bridal party shots, dancing it up, etc. Google searching for appropriate clip art images proved fruitless: I would find one image I liked, but knew there wouldn't be one design that captured every wedding event I wanted on paper.
clip art source

One day I made an off-hand remark to my bridesmaid, Kara, via email when she inquired if there was anything she could do to help the planning: "can you draw stick figures?" I was more than excited when she responded, "YES! I'm actually great at stick figures!"

I gave her a few scenarios to try out with a sharpie and cardstock and was so impressed when she texted over some starter images. Amazing detail, stick people that actually resembled us and cartoon versions of our wedding decor! Can you spot our lantern centerpieces and vintage suitcase card box? 

Kara shipped me about 20 pieces, with several "photo to come" placeholders to help fill the book. I then got to work on printing different shapes and sizes on label paper to invite guest comments. 

After much layout trial and error, and what seemed like hundreds of photo corners and glue dots, the book had come together with the help of scrapbook paper and a few stickers. The drawings were affixed only with photo corners to allow for easy removal.

The first few pages include photos from the proposal, our Save the Date, engagement session photos and our invitation to help set the stage. We also dedicated two pages to the program, back and front. 

The guestbook served its purpose the day of, with a stack of different colored pens available for easy writing and to add some splash to the book. Instead of adding any text to the front cover (somehow the ransom note magazine letters I use for my other books didn't seem appropriate), the first page of the book featured a 3D sticker of a wedding cake on scrapbook paper with the phrase "To Have and To Hold" above it.

Fast forward to this past weekend, the stick figures all got taken out of their photo corners and added to a memory box, along with cards received, DVDs of the wedding day and more memorabilia. Sifting through about 250 photos, I picked out the top ones from every aspect of the wedding day. I plan on buying a more traditional photo album to house all of the rest.

Again, layout proved challenging as my original assumptions on how many vertical photos I would get were quite wrong. Almost all of the photos I loved were horizontal, which changed how I used the placeholder spots since I wanted things to stay in chronological order.

I removed all of the photo corners with the intention of re-using them with the help of some glue dots to re-ignite the stickiness. I covered any rips in the scrapbook paper from the stuck on corners. I also made sure to cover up any unused text boxes so it didn't look unfinished. 

Our wedding details got a couple pages of their own. The hotel suite we had booked for the night wasn't ready in time for the photographers to use for their detail shots, so instead they grabbed our rings, my dress and the flowers and sped off in search of creative areas in the hotel to feature the items. They laid flowers in hallways and up against windows, my shoes were hung up on a hallway light fixture, our rings were captured on a tabletop surface - I loved everything they came up with!

Sticker sets from Michaels came in handy to help narrate the events, which got me off the hook in writing out the text myself and messing things up with my third grade handwriting.

After a few hours the job was done and our wedding album can be considered complete, in time for that one year anniversary!

Goals: Year Three Quarterly Check In

So how are we doing so far with this year's list of goals? Let's do a "little more than" 3 month check in:






Culture Vulture
1. Read 15 books - Book club always helps out with this goal. Although without the 1-2-3 punch of The Hunger Games books this year, how quickly will I be able to add these up?
The Forgotten 500 - a WWII book club pick that most said was too textbooky, but I liked. I considered it a cross between Unbroken, Argo and In the Garden of Beasts.
The Accidental Tourist - enjoyed this one. Looks like its time I put the movie on my Netflix list. 
Lottery - a bit schmaltzy for my taste, but a quick read.
Lean In - great book club discussion and a business book I actually enjoyed reading! 
**almost done with Michael Chabon's latest, Telegraph Avenue, and about to start The Last Lecture for book club! 2 upcoming flights will be sure to cross these off the list.

2. Watch 120 movies - The Netflix queue never has had less than 100 movies on it (yes, we still rock the hard discs in the mail). 
31 since February 1. Looks like I'm just about on target.

3. Two trips to the theater - We just got back from The Book of Mormon after originally purchasing the tickets last summer. I can't stop singing the soundtrack. Of course, not out loud - I might get fired!

4. Visit two museums - last year we checked out the Lichtenstein exhibit at the Art Institute - what's coming up there this year?
Certainly got my fill in DC. Highlights included the Newseum and American History Museum.

5. Travel to three new cities - Work always helps me out here, with a planned trip this summer to Park City for an event. Add to this a potential DC/Baltimore visit in April and our big New England Road Trip for the fall and this one is in the bag.
DC - check! Baltimore - check! About to add Park City, Utah to the list!

6. Book an international trip - OK, this might be one that gets put on the back burner, but hopefully not. With our New England Road Trip being our big to-do this year, here's hoping we'll have at least started talking about what 2014 has in store for us. Fingers crossed I finally get to cross South America off of my list!

7. Have a day of fun and culture with my niece - She's nearing four years old - the perfect age to check out the Shedd Aquarium if I do say so myself.

How Entertaining
8. Take a knife skills class - Okay, I'm cheating just a little here because we just accomplished this long-standing goal this past week at The Chopping Block. Never fear me with a chef's knife again!
Done!

9. Make bread and cheese - We received a breadmaker as a wedding gift, and although it has gotten quite a bit of use already it has been driven by Mr. Kamicar. I'd like to find a couple recipes to try out. The idea of making my own mozzarella keeps popping up on Pinterest and I figure its time to give it a shot.

10. Invest in freezer meals - My recipes posts as of late have certainly had a theme - and our freezer is reaping the rewards. Keep 'em coming with at least 4 more meals like these breakfast burritos or this delish pasta.

11. Host 3 parties - With the wedding yesterday's news, I am ready to plan a few smaller scale bashes. Not to mention we still have a ton of liquor left over from the reception.
I hosted a Bunco party in February for a group of gals, and a big party is on tap for June 22!

12. Clean up as we go - I'm sure I am not the only one with this bad habit. I make a great meal and the dishes sit in the sink. Sometimes rinsed off, sometimes not. Why don't I just put them in the dishwasher you ask? Well, it is probably filled up with clean dishes we haven't put away yet! It is time to clean as we cook. I think we'll all be a lot happier in the end.
We have been doing a great job with this one! It is finally relaxing to look into the kitchen.

Health and Wellness
13. Cut down on soda - I don't think I overdue it to begin with - I'm not guzzling three before noon or anything, but some days I realized all I have had to drink that day is a soda for lunch and a soda with dinner and I get a little sad for myself.

14. Run another 5K - I failed miserably at hitting this goal last time. Literally got out to run three times since my big 5K of 2010. But I'm not giving up on me yet.

15. Safeguard - I'm talking wills, emergency plans and kits, checking out life insurance and all that good stuff you really don't ever want to tackle.
I started an emergency kit over Memorial Weekend, including buying a fire extinguisher for the house (there is one in the hallway of our condo building, so I wouldn't have had to go far, but still... 

My inspiration came from this blog post from A Bowl Full of Lemons, but I don't know that I have the space nor the energy to make one this ambitious. 

16. Make appointments - It is a strange thing. I'm not scared of the dentist, I don't shudder at needles, and I can't say I am that bothered by wasting time in a stale waiting room reading an old Ladies Home Journal. What I am is a procrastinator. The type who doesn't make a dentist appointment until half her tooth breaks off because the temporary filling on the root canal she had seven months ago finally gives out. True Story. So, let 2013 be the year I make regular check up appointments for no other reason than keeping up with  keeping my health.

17. Eat more Fruits and Vegetables - Wait, how many servings a day are you supposed to have? Does pizza count? What about cold pizza? I'm thinking an easy way to start is to never leave home in the morning without a small container of grapes, carrot sticks, apple pieces, etc for snacks during the workday.
Check out my DIY Bistro Boxes.

18. Wake up earlier - I sleep until the last possible second and then rush to get ready for work without time to even sit down. The sad part is I am not even sleeping that last hour. Just shutting my eyes and curling up tight to avoid getting up. If I can find a way to give myself an extra half hour at least a couple times a week I think I'll be a happier camper.

Adventures in DIY and Home Ownership

19. The Second Bathroom - This could be a big one for the year - but luckily it is a small bathroom. A little bit of new floor tile, a pedestal sink, add some storage and we will be good to go.
We have begun looking at tile options and Bob is working up a model of the bathroom via SketchUp.

20. Pinterest Projects - use the knowledge base and take on at least one new project a month based on the wonderful pins that make the world go round. Last year I made a rug and a project table. What will I find this year?
Check out: Christmas Tags (a little ahead of the season), Tomato Soup Mac & Cheese, an Easter Centerpiece, Cork Trivets

21. The Entryway - A small area, but with three potential additions: 1) hooks along the wall for coats and scarves. 2) a bench for putting on our dancin' shoes before heading out the door. 3) a small table with an option to collect our junk mail, keys and such.
The church pew is here!

22. Learn how to sew - the sewing machine Bob's mom got us for Christmas a couple years ago sits forlornly in my Project Table shelves. But, come March, my Aunt Christine will be heading down for ScrapFest 2013 (check out the 2012 festivities when my crafty aunt, sister and I all get together) and she's going to impart some knowledge.

23. Do something with all those Yarn Balls - I have 150 from our wedding centerpieces. So far I have used 1 to create a cute felt owl. Now I have 149. All ideas are welcome. 

24. Pillows, pillows everywhere - It is a sad home indeed when you don't love any of your pillows. The couch pillows are flat and boring (and once so new and bright in this post!). Our bed pillows misshapen and unsupportive. It's time to upgrade.

25. The Laundry Room - like the Second Bathroom, this one takes a bit of doing. Our laundry room is less a room, and more a "large closet" but the walls go vertical forever so visions of a stacked washer and dryer and shelving as high as the eye can see for additional storage has had our wheels turning for quite some time. And, of course, we'll keep it classy with the cat litter box.

26. Build a hamper - this sort of goes along with the Laundry Room re-do, but our current method for collecting dirty clothes is by shoving a laundry basket in the corner of our bathroom. The cats have adopted this as their new bed. The idea is to use all of the wasted space against our bathroom wall and create an enclosed hamper with additional storage.

Professional and Personal Development
27. Start driving in the city - Okay, so you can drive to your sister's house in the suburbs. That don't impress me much! Yeah, yeah Shania - I hear what you're saying. It's time to get over the fear and start tackling city driving (=one way streets, parallel parking and crazy Chicago cab drivers!)

28. Volunteer once a month - Between dinners at Ronald McDonald House and a couple different Chicago Cares activities, it's just a matter of remembering to sign up months in advance!

29. Donate to 3 charities/fundraising activities - Lets help some people out in the things they are fighting for, or fighting against.
Supported Global Explorers Kids by going to a benefit fundraiser on a recent Friday night with friends.

30. Get better about birthdays - I'm not sure what happened. I used to be the one who always remembered a card, sent a gift at least a couple days in advance or generally kept your big day on my mind. 

31. Finish scrapbooks - I have kept scrapbook photo albums since freshman year of college (and scrapbooks in general since kindergarten) so it is a bit shameful that I haven't made my wedding scrapbook yet, let alone added any photos to the books since Christmas 2011. Yikes.
Almost done with the wedding book - but Michaels was out of the photo corners I like. Wah wah!

32. 80 blog posts - I have had a lackluster year in the post department - hopefully I can commit myself to at least a post a week and sometimes more to help keep the momentum up!

Money Matters
33. Have at least 2 "no-spend" weekends - I wrote about one of these a long time ago in this post. I came close last weekend, but we had a quick run to Whole Foods which bumped us up to $30. It is amazing the dent it helps take out of our credit card bill when we decide against a drive to the suburbs for the day which results in going out for lunch, hitting up the stores, etc.
Almost made one of these work...and then I went to Benetton Friday after work and spent $100. Still on the list...

34. Achieve money goals - Bob and I set up a somewhat lofty savings goal for our first two years of marriage (you know, to prepare for....well, whatever might come next after love and marriage!) Let's stick with it Kamicars!

35. Sell those blocks - I recently set up my Etsy shop for my Every Holiday Blocks. I am not sure how much like hotcakes they'll sell, but let's at least try to get them to sell like the tiny pancakes you make with that little bit of extra batter.
3/17 - 2 sold!

36. Donate at least 1 bag of clothes - I think I do a good job regularly purging my closet, so keep it up. Bonus: this means more room for new clothes that you like to wear!
Done!

Finally

36.5 The Standard Goal: Be a terrific Auntie to the best girls around! And a good wife, a good daughter, a good sister, a good co-worker, a good friend. . . .

Filed Away

This Memorial Day weekend, I knew I wanted to tackle at least one organization project. So in between grilling out and Arrested Development Season 4 episodes, I tore apart the second bedroom and Bob's file cabinet to lend a little filing his way.

Years ago I created a filing system for myself with colored hanging folders and a double stack of plastic file cabinets from Office Max. (here's a post about getting that back in shape after a few years of neglect.) I never really needed the second one though, so after moving in with the boy it became home to his documents. To his credit, there were manila folders within his hanging folders for many of his areas (ie. taxes, family stuff, utilities), but the cabinet ended up getting so stuffed that we had nowhere to put any new papers that came his way. So, with his permission, I dove into the cabinet and a few additional stacks that had built up over the months and spent the last two days organizing Bob, 2003-2013.

I forgot to take a before picture of the super full file cabinet, but here's a shot after I unloaded everything initially.

Just a couple hours later, individual piles for each subject area had begun to spring up all around the room. 

After making an assessment of all categories and what we could combine, a quick trip to Target loaded us up on new file folders to help finish the job and make it match it's top twin. I wished the new folders had colored name tags like my first set had, but alas, it was clear all the way. In the end, we shredded a lot, combined some areas (my electric bills + his electric bills = our electric bills), and took a few trips down memory lane.

With the organizing bug in full force, I finally took a good look at the accordion filer that I keep scrap paper, stickers and crafty goodness in. 

Unfortunately, the thing has become a catch all over the last couple years and was extremely disorganized. Even I was surprised at how much came out once I emptied it:

I decided to go in a different direction and use up a few of the blue boxes leftover from my wedding centerpieces. Christmas stuff went in one box, odds and ends like felt flowers, bits of paper and googly eyes ended up in another, and "kidstuff" was a catch all for stickers and pieces that were great for niece projects and cards for kids. 

A much thinner plastic folder is now being used to hold things that were more in the 8 1/2 x 11 category and wouldn't fit in a blue box. These fit nicely on the closet shelf alongside the plastic carriers of 12 x 12 scrapbook paper. Without a label maker to my name, glittery stickers left over from my Every Holiday Blocks proved useful to label the boxes. 

Cleaning out the second bedroom also meant organizing underneath the computer desk - we had no less than three old laptops stacked up with various cords strewn about. Time to set those aside for a trip to the Best Buy in the sky....It's finally a clear space for our feet!

Chef's Choice

Last week on the train ride home from work, I was thisclose to convincing myself to stop off for take out before it suddenly dawned on me I had all the makings of a Chef's Salad.

This is one of those meals that always reminds me of my childhood. We'd grab oversized bowls usually meant for mixing or serving and fill them to the brim with iceberg lettuce, hard boiled egg, cheese, tomato and slices of whatever lunchmeat we happened to have handy at the time.

A quick text to my partner in crime, and this dinner was going to be created in short order. Bob was kind enough to start the chopping, dicing and frying of bacon before I walked in the door. I stopped at the little market to grab an avocado, because everything tastes better with an avocado and the creaminess it added meant I didn't even need to add a dressing. 

Incidentally, the reason I had so many of the right ingredients was because of another old favorite we had made the prior weekend. In my family, Sundays meant watching the Green Bay Packers and making sub sandwiches for lunch. We'd pick up a big french loaf and "build our own." Sandwiches really are some of the best things on earth. With my sister's family over for a visit, I figured this would be an easy to please meal. But even I was surprised when my ultra-picky four year old niece declared it, "the best lunch."

We kept it pretty traditional with deli ham and turkey, muenster and provolone cheeses, thinly sliced tomato, avocado (there it is again!), and lettuce. I I don't always like the taste of mayo, so I decided to change up the spread option by mixing cream cheese with a sprinkling of dry ranch dressing.

The Fennel Countdown

Our credit card statement is in amazing shape this month, partially because of us not making a big grocery trip since early April. On the downside, we haven't made a big grocery trip since early April. This means dinners have been a bit random as of late, including more take out than we're used to having or rifling through the cupboards trying to come up with something of interest.

I forced myself to make a grocery list last weekend and to find a few new meals to focus on over these next couple weeks. Flipping through an insert that has been arriving with my Martha Stewart Living subscription the last two months, a recipe for prosciutto-wrapped chicken caught my eye. We have a good amount of chicken in the freezer, thanks to recent "buy one get one" offer so this seemed like a good one to take advantage of. Although, let's be honest, the recipe had me at "prosciutto-wrapped!" 

The recipe itself called for a whole chicken, but our chicken breasts would work just as well. 

Prosciutto-Wrapped Chicken with Fennel
1 whole chicken (or equivalent chicken breasts)
4 oz prosciutto
1 large Fuji apple, cored and cut into 8 slices
1 fennel bulb, cut into 1/2 inch wedges
1 bunch leeks (about 3), cut into 1/2 inch slices
salt and pepper
2 Tbs olive oil plus 1 tsp olive oil
10 Sage leaves

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Salt and pepper the chicken, then cover with overlapping prosciutto slices, tucking underneath. Toss apple slices, leeks and fennel with 2 Tbs olive oil and salt and pepper, line the pan alongside the chicken. Toss sage leaves with remaining 1 teaspoon oil and place atop the chicken. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until chicken is done.

We got everything set on the pan, and looked at each other like, "so that's it?" It was such an easy meal to pull together we had to re-check the recipe to make sure we weren't skipping a step!

I will admit to making a common Lydia Mistake: when I wrote out my grocery list, I wasn't as specific with some of the areas as I should have been, so ended up coming home with one leek instead of a bunch of three. Oops! I tend to do the same thing with dairy products - I'll write down heavy cream but then not know which size container to buy once I am staring at the options in the grocery store aisle. 

I love these "one pan" meals - the vegetables and apples made a great side for the chicken, and I think Bob and I have a newfound love of fennel. Who knew? Plus, did I mention "prosciutto-wrapped?"

*This blog post's title is a subtle ode to Arrested Development coming back to us! I hope the Netflix servers are prepared for the streaming overload sure to take place after May 26th!

My Closet is Experiencing Layoffs

One of my goals for the year was to donate at least 1 bag of clothes. I'll see your one bag and raise you another. 

A few weekends ago I stared into the abyss that is my clothes closet and decided to do a purge. The deciding factors in getting rid of an item:
1. Haven't worn it in a year (dresses can be the exception)
2. I wear it, but don't like how it fits/how I look in it.

I would say I do this type of purge about once a year, but typically only focus on deciding factor #1. By being honest with myself about what I don't feel good in, it certainly limits the items of clothing I'll have to work with, but also forces to me to lose all that dead weight. A couple pieces that survived the last two purges finally saw themselves shoved in a bag.

I waited until the start of the spring/summer season to take on this activity so that I was able to take a good look at the sweaters I was about to pack away. Some I hadn't touched all winter, some I avoid wearing because they are stretched out or too pilly. As the survivors got packed away and the shorts and polos came out, I gave the summer clothes a yay or nay before it got hung up/put in the drawer.

Most of these items of clothing can be donated, but a few are too ragged to justify giving to Goodwill. We found a site to mail in old jeans to be recycled that we need to take advantage of.

In the end, I "laid off":
3 skirts
2 hoodies
11 tops
5 cardigans
9 sweaters
1 blazer
4 jackets (I let the coat closet get in on the action)

This freed up about 25 hangers. I'm sure they'll make their way back to the rack eventually, and so until another purge....

Of course, the news isn't all grim. New closet entries include colorful ankle pants from The Limited, a threesome of Benetton sweaters, light enough for spring but heavy enough for our air conditioned office, and a couple more work tops that force me to step out of my Cotton Comfort Zone.

What's new in your closet? Are you good about replacing or are are you continually "adding to?"