Birthday Cake

Yesterday was my mothers birthday. She didn't want to make anything of it - she is getting ready to head out on a five day hiking trip with a few friends and has put all her focus on that and getting my two youngest siblings ready for school.

I however don't think you should let someones birthday go by without a little cake and a lot of good cheer. I admit that I was planning on buying a store made cake and calling it a night when I remembered that I had a Trader Joe's box cake. I think TJ's has just about the best box mixes and with a little help from some frozen berries it turned tasting great (even if it was kinda ugly)!

Everything new can be old

Last weekend I was working on putting together a little grouping of family pictures for my office (or maybe I'll keep them at home I don't know yet). One of the chosen ones was of my fathers mother (who passed away long before my birth) and his fathers sister from there days as college roommates. It has this wonderful old photo look, I would guess it was taken some time in the late 30s. It has this great feeling of otherness to it. Then I found this wonderful little site and have found I can create my own snippets of otherness to leave behind. I stumbled across it a few days ago (I wish I could remember where as to give them credit) and I have been having great fun with it.

It take photos from this (pardon my puffy eyes this was taken late at night):

To This:

I think it looks so much more dreamy. I've been messing around with tons of photos and this program. Not every picture transfers well. I found that some come out far to dark to be usable.

Here is the link:

http://labs.wanokoto.jp/olds

You may need to set it to English in the upper right hand. Enjoy playing around with your own pics!

2nd Guessing

I got a counter offer back on the house last night, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do next. Well I am going to counter, but I'm not sure how much. But that isn't really what has me questioning this move. I'm starting to wonder how I'm going to fill up a house that big. While I feel like I am bursting out of my current place I don't think I'm ready to go into something three times the size. Ahhh, lets be honest here, I wouldn't be myself if I wasn't second guessing.

Offerings

It seems I'm not as good at this blogging thing as I once was. Oh well, we all have to relearn things from time to time. So I thought maybe to get myself going I could talk a little bit about this house hunting thing I've been doing. Over the weekend I looked at houses number 6 7 and 8 in my little quest to find the perfect place to feather my nest. I ended up putting in an offer on one last night. It is the most unexpected for me. It is about 15 years younger than the other houses I looked at (it is still a 50 year old house, but in my city that is a spring chicken) and not really my style. It is a 1950's tri-level with four bedrooms and has its own charm, I just have to adjust how I've been thinking about my soon to be home. I guess in someways I feel like, if I get the house great, and if I don't I'm not in love with it so fine.

The "Yellow" Board

I have been wanting a chalk or white board for my kitchen for a while now so when I saw this DYI over on design*sponge I knew it would be the perfect thing. I had this old print kicking around my apartment so all I had to do was pick up some fabric, paint the frame and volia a great message center.

The fabric fits in with my dishes perfectly and adds a nice pop of color on my white kitchen walls.