Getting Around

Although my running routine has seriously suffered lately, (I promise I have a good reason) I've just been featured on a running blog! Mindy over at Road Runner Girl has just featured me as one of her spotlighted runners on the blog. Since I can be as shamelessly self-promoting as I want on my own blog, why not head on over and take a gander at my interview for Mindy? Hopefully, you'll have as much fun reading it as I did writing it!

Same Old Stunning

In what has now become weeks of internet apathy I've come to realise something as I occasionally turn back to Feedly to browse through all of the blogs I read: I've gotten so tired of all the beautifully staged and decorated homes I tend to see in the various articles on the various blogs that I follow. It's not that they aren't lovely or well put-together or enviably executed...they've just all started to look the same. Know what I mean? If not, I'll endeavour to be a bit more specific.

All white walls.
Shoot me. Shoot me now if I have to look at another house with its boring attempt to get that neat, clean, bright, minimalist Scandinavian look by refusing to add colour to the walls. Sure, it looks nice on a beautiful sunny day, or in those overblown white-balanced photos, but white also shows a lot of dirt. Every fingerprint, every smudge, every spot where you didn't realise that the black cardstock bats you hung for your son's first birthday party would leave nasty marks on your walls. Okay, so maybe I'm just fed up with my own white walls to some extent, but I'm really tired of nearly every house I look at looking like these:

via, French by Design

via, Design Mom

via, Design*Sponge

Dip-dyed and partially-painted furniture.
I get it: this was a thing...and apparently still is in a small, waning sort of way. But it's officially (in my not so very humble opinion) stopped looking cutting edge or chic or new to paint most of a chair but leave the legs unfinished. Or to have a stool that's bright yellow...until you get to the last 6" of the legs. I get that a bit of contrast is a fun thing; that sometimes you want a little of the natural grain and colour of a wood piece of furniture to show through...but let's find a new way to do that. Find fun stains, stencil the stains or paint in fun, simple patterns uniformly over the whole object, paint the whole piece and use an unfinished wood accent piece somewhere else, but for the love of DIY get over the dip-dye trend. Now. Thank you.

via, a Life's Design

via, Stripes and Walls

via, Dosfamily

via, Luvocracy

Black and white.
Yes: it's bold, it's graphic, it's striking...it's bloody well gotten boring now. Black and white striped rugs. All black-and-white rooms. Black and white geometric patterned pillows. Black and white art work in black frames on white walls. I'm tired of it. It's stopped looking clean and now just looks soulless. (She says, sitting beneath a giant b&w print her husband made, hanging in a black frame on a white wall. But you've seen my house: I love me some colour.) Don't get me wrong: I could love some black-and-white square floor tiles in a kitchen as much as the next girl, but some of this has just gotten ridiculous. Like MJ said, you can still have a stylish room, it don't matter if it's black and white...or, well, something like that.

via, Sköna hem

via, Glitter Guide

via, Lady Blueprint

via, Sköna hem

So what do I want to see more of?

via, Lisa Roy

via, Birch & Bird

via, Design*Sponge

via, Design*Sponge

via, Pink Wallpaper

via, Pinterest

Doing a bit of grazing

So I wrangled a voucher for the very nifty graze.com the other day. All I had to do was sign up on their website, rate the snacks they had on offer, and they'd send me a free box of tasty treats to try. I highly recommend this sort of thing. Sometimes it's just fun to get a little something special in the post!

The bounty hunter and honeycomb flapjack were each just as awesome as I expected. The basil-infused crunchini were a nice surprise. I knew I wanted some savory options, but I wasn't sure how I'd feel about this one. Turns out it was a great alternative to the two sweet samplings I had in my box. As you can see in the picture, I wasn't too keen on the seeds in the end. Not that they were bad, but they sort of needed something to go with them...like a salad.

Part of me thinks I ought to let this free box be it...but then part of me really wants to let the boxes keep coming for a few weeks just so I have a tasty treat to look forward to every fortnight.

If anyone in the UK wants to give this a try, (though maybe you can do it abroad, I don't know!) they do encourage people to share the love. I was emailed a code for other people to take the chance to try out a free nibble box if they wanted. I say, go for it! You can try it out, see what you think, and cancel after just the free box if it's not your jam.

Just type that in one the graze website and then take your sweet time browsing through all the awesome options of little snacks that they have to offer.

Between this and the first nice weather all week, Friday is turning out to be quite nice. If only I could set up a little paddling pool for E...

Living on the Down Low

As I slowly recover from weeks of debilitating laziness, I've decided to start embracing the wider world again. I'm clearing through the back-catalogue of un-read articles in my Feedly, I'm doing little projects, prepping for bigger ones, and dreaming of all sorts of things I can do with my time, and I'm enforcing much stricter and shorter TV hours for myself and E during the day. We need to do less watching and more doing.

So what have I been getting up to as I maintained lethargic radio silence here on the blog?

via, Books Direct tumblr

-Reading in the bathtub. This is an activity I highly recommend. (So do many others, incidentally) One night earlier in the week, E had a particularly trying day. So, the Husband came home early, took E out for a romp around the playground, and I soaked in a bubble bath, lit by candles, reading Hitch 22, and having an overly-filling dinner of curry and naan. Luxury at its finest.

-Watching this video. Having looked at some of Epipheo's other offerings, they're occasionally a bit dubious, but this one on the need to take time out to relax, concentrate, and get away from the internet was a good one.

via, Epicurious.com

-Dreaming about Mexican food. I love tacos, burritos, chili, nachos, fajitas, empenadas, salsa, guacamole, and pretty much anything else you can think of that would be served at a good Mexican restaurant (or a Taco Bell). These recipes on Epicurious have made me want to feast on giant burritos all week. Especially since our nearest Mission Burrito is in Reading...

-Going out to lunch. E and I had a fun trip to Nando's the other day. I was just in the mood for a meal out - no lunch in front of the TV. Plus, that chicken and grilled corn-on-the-cob are to die for.

-Making play-dough. I just finished this and I have two tubs of homemade play-dough sitting on our desk waiting for E to wake up. I checked out this recipe online, but you can make this stuff without cooking it. The key is just that you need a bit more salt and flour to keep it from sticking to everything it touches.

via, Domestic Adventure

-Mustering the energy to get to this project. I ordered my fabric of choice from Spoonflower ages ago. Now it's just been sitting on my dining table waiting for me to go get some batting and a staple gun and just make the stupid cornice box for the kitchen window already!

via, Etsy

-Making shadow puppets. Well, I didn't make the puppets themselves, but after playing with this lovely set that we were given by a friend (cheers, Natalie!), my mind has been going warp speed considering how best to make E a shadow puppet theatre to stage some fun bedtime stories.

So what about you? What has everyone else been up to while I've been away?

7 Minutes

Wow, guess who's been super lazy lately? This chick right here. No blog posts, minimal reading of my feeds, and no interesting day trips or laborious DIY projects to blame it on, either! It all just comes down to pure unadulterated, I-couldn't-be-bothered. I know that sounds horrible, but don't we all have those moments?

Anyway, I finally got off my bum today - both actually and metaphorically - and started being a productive human being again. How did I start that off? By trying out the 7-minute workout that's been making its rounds on the internet.

via, NYT

The Husband has been doing this for a few days now and recommended that I give it a go. Much like my usual initiative to run 1 mile no matter what, this sort of commitment is just short enough not to put you off, but just long enough (and hard enough) to feel like it's worth your while not to just skip it altogether.

You do each exercise going pretty much flat-out as hard as you can for 30 seconds. Then, you get a 10-second break and start the next exercise. Aside from the push-ups, which I simply cannot do, the hardest thing was trying to maintain a wall-sit for 30 seconds. Though attempting to keep good form doing the high-knees running towards the end also had its challenges.

There are plenty of apps around to help you time this exercise, if you're into it. Personally, I've been using this site here (http://7-min.com/) because I just workout in the living room anyway, so I don't need anything I can take on my phone. Well, at least not until we head to Vienna next month (squee!). Plus, the ticking of the seconds and the bell to signal the start of each exercise and rest period are nice and simple - not obnoxious at all - and keep you on track for those exercises where you can't easily keep your computer monitor in view.

I'm not sure what I think of it in the long term yet, but I was definitely wobbly when I finished; something my muscles haven't been subjected to at the end of a workout in far too long. I think I'll at least be keeping this up for the month to see just how I adapt to it. Hey; there are worse fads to try!

Anyone else trying to get their ass back in gear after some time out of your normal exercise routine? (Seriously; I know I can't be the only one...)

Lazy Day

For a plethora of reasons, today is a lazy day for me. It's one of those days where I really had to cast about for some motivation to get dressed. Luckily, E has been happy to roll with my lazy attitude today. We watched some Sarah & Duck in bed, let him run around the house and play with his toys, made some more granola bars, and read books in bed until nap time. Now I'm back in bed and catching up on my blogs in Feedly. If I didn't feel guilty depriving him of the company of other children, I'd stay home from playgroup today and continue to veg out with some pizza and a movie.

So, in lieu of anything interesting going on with me, I thought I'd share some interesting things I've found from other people. Enjoy!

Swoop bags. If you had any idea how much Lego there is in our house, you would understand why this appealed to me straight away. I knew what I was getting into, though. This is what comes of marrying a man whose Wikipedia mention centres around his Lego gun building skills. (Also, how proud am I that my husband is on Wikipedia!?)


A cheesy joke is always fun. A drunken cheesy joke can be even better. And finally, a drunken cheesy joke, animated lovingly by your spouse has got to be the ultimate winner of the cheesy joke competition. This made me giggle.

Kim over at Day with KT is brilliant...I know I've said this before. How much do I appreciate her corn salad recipe? Tonnes. Let's just say that there will need to be stake burritos going on in this house very soon to give me an excuse to make some of this stuff.

Teal's post on getting your act together and making what you pin on Pinterest has me inspired. Those taquitos look awesome, plus, I always love being able to do the projects that inspire me. (Hopefully, once I'm over my bout of laziness, I'll have a Pinterest project to share with you soon!)

Thank you, Design*Sponge, for mentioning the company Chasing Paper. This is a wallpaper-loving renter's dream. Of course, so are the removable wallpaper tiles from Hygge & West, but with our tight budget, I'm not holding my breath.


People: I. Love. Steven. Pinker. I highly recommend listening to his TED talk above, though you should know that it does the topic no justice. To really get the feel of it, I strongly suggest getting the book that this TED talk was based off of: The Better Angels of Our Nature. The Husband and I are each working our slow way through it now, but it makes an amazing case for the fact that far from needing to be nostalgic for the 'good old days' when the world was so much better, we're actually living in the most peaceful period of human existence that time has yet seen. Even just the first chapter of his book will blow your tiny mind...it certainly did mine.

Have fun!

A Place to Begin

Happy birthday to me! In the spirit of celebrating the anniversary of my birth, the Husband has taken the day off, and once E wakes up from his nap we're heading out to let me do a bit of shopping and then tonight it's dinner out and Star Trek: Into Darkness, with the oh-so-adorable Benedict Cumberbatch. Ginger or no ginger: he's my type. Tall, thin, pale, blue eyes, deep voice, English. Seriously people, I know I have a type...every last one of those descriptors fits my husband, too! Are you ready for 139 minutes of ogling Mr. Cumberbatch, Chris Pine, and Zachary Quinto? Because I am.

Happy. Effing. Birthday. To. Me.

So what goodies will I leave you with to peruse while I go enjoy my birthday spoils? These ones:


Goodmornings.org, via SwissMiss.
 I like the idea behind this. It's such an easy thing to do to say 'good morning!' as a way to brighten your day and someone else's.

My feet have traveled plenty of places. Edinburgh, London, Salt Lake City, Rome, Venice, Copenhagen...they'll even be going to Vienna next month! I'd like to come up with a fun photo template like this to save all of the fun places we get to visit.

I do love so much of the stuff that Diana at exPress-O links to and this cute story of a trans-Atlantic relationship is really fun. I like the idea of the split screen narrative, because when such an important part of your life is so far away for so long, it really does feel like you're living in two different places at once!

Here is today is a good way to get some perspective; and I love the minimalist style of the animations and the graphs. I feel like the only thing it could possibly be missing is a .gif of Neil deGrasse Tyson giving you a thumbs-up. Let's get on that, people.

Poketo and Lisa Congdon have made tea towels! These look absolutely adorable to me and I have Poppytalk to thank for showing them to me this week. Also: no idea who Lisa Congdon is? Have a gander at some of her work...

So yes, a lot of the cute clothes I've seen lately are either specifically maternity, or are pregnant friendly. This isn't on purpose. But with a shirt as cute as this one from ASOS, surely you can justify buying it with or without a bun in the oven!?

I don't speak French, but I still loved how cute this Olive Us episode was from Design Mom. Little Red Riding Hood? Too awesome.

via BOBgear

So eventually I'd need a double buggy, but if I had my way and money was no object, this BOB jogger would be mine all mine! But then, Runner's World did give a good review of quite a few good joggers that are less likely to break the bank.