new stuff

i've been busy. i've been adding new designs to the shop.

lanterns

bubbles

cabana stripes

coral wallpaper

elephant ikat

and agapanthus.

go check them out here.

i love hot air balloons

steve and i took a bike ride saturday evening. as we crossed the bridge at the end of our street, this is what we saw.... hot air balloons. we see them a lot in the area. but this is closest they've been.

steve pulled over and snapped a few photos.

it was a beautiful spring evening and the balloons were a spectacular sight.

my favorite part of pixel

is the back of her head. there's a little bump there. i'm sure it has a medical name, but that's ok, i don't need to know it. i love it.
she has a thin stripe of white fur there. that was our identifying marker between when we picked her out of her litter until we brought her home.

this is a photo from a few years ago (taken by our friend jared in seattle) of her riding in the back of the car. there's that bump again. she loves facing out the back window of the suv. and just staring and staring.runner up favorite parts of pixel....her cotton candy-like tufted hind legs. and her curly cue of fur on her tail. (steve gets in trouble if he takes her to the groomer and forgets to tell them not to cut her curly cue.)
her floppy ears. they are beyond cute. and that face.....

bits of our weekend

our weekend started with a trip to the local minor league baseball field friday evening to see these folks. as you can see below, we had very good seats.
seats so good this sign was no joke.
thankfully, no balls or bats came flying in our direction. that's good because i'm a slow reactor.

it was a beautiful evening and we had fun watching what folks will do to get their face on a jumbo tron.

saturday morning i headed to a local warehouse where a design store was having a sale. 15 minutes of shopping, 45 minutes in a checkout line, and here's what i walked away with...

landscape oil #1.
landsape oil #2.
and a blue/white ginger jar.
all 3 items added up to less than the original price of the ginger jar. score.

and on sunday i overdid my workout so that i'm now very concerned about bootcamp tonight. pixel and i jogged 1.5 miles (good for her as we're rehabilitating her leg from her partially torn acl and good for me as i have not run that far in one spell in awhile). and i followed that up with some weight training and a bikeride up and down, up and down, and up and down the hills in our neighborhood. i'm sore.

after much discussion,

analysis, research, thought, planning, and more discussion.... we have decided to move forward with building a swimming pool in the backyard! woohoo.

***

here's a mockup of the finished pool from our pool builder. the nearest side has steps going into the pool. and the far side has a modern waterfall with a bench underneath. very simple, which is what we wanted. we didn't want a lot of concrete that would only bake in the dallas heat and be uncomfortable to walk on barefoot.

it'll fit in a nook up by the house and will be surrounded by an "L" shape patio. and... it leaves plenty of area for pixel to run in the back of the yard. lord knows she needs to run. poor little thing is still on dogbed rest from her recent injury.

i envision her doing a lot of this when the pool's installed.

***

and, speaking of backyards... i just listed these in the shop.

super cute invites for a pretty backyard party.

have a great weekend!

a new read

i spotted this today on a blog i read pretty regularly. it had me at avocado.

i headed to the source. and read and read and read. well, as much as i could, between shipping out orders for the shop.

today's recipe was creamed spinach souffle. yum.
health-bent is a blog by brandon and megan keatley. you can read about them here. they follow a paleo lifestyle and crossfit train. there's a fantastic article here about "what is crossfit". there's also a ton of healthy recipes, and a great post about sugar. i started eating an almost-paleo diet in february. it's made a huge difference in my energy levels and health, so i'm always in search of a blog with great healthy recipes. thanks brandon and megan for sharing.

and the one thing i spotted on their blog that i absolutely love and will make me keep reading (well, besides the fantastic recipes), is that they reply to comments.

photos from health-bent blog

new items in the shop

last week i added some new designs to the shop. here is a pretty two tone damask wallpaper design on calling cards.

choose ink and purple, aqua and green, pink and orange, or yellow and grey.
this is my new chainlink design. it comes in shades of pinks,
greys,
and turquoise and mint.i get a lot of requests for children's calling cards or gift tags. i finally added some to the shop. these would be great to adorn gifts for all those birthday parties your child attends!

and i added some super cute chevron party or shower invites to the lineup. i actually created these exact ones yesterday for a client.
you can find everything here

what i know for sure

the last page of oprah's monthly magazine is always an article penned by oprah. it's titled "what i know for sure". it's the first thing i read in every issue i get.

well, here is what i know for sure today. i do not like tornadoes. before 2 pm yesterday, my only worry was surviving day 2 of bootcamp later in the evening. yes, a very minor worry, but the biggest one at the time.

i flipped tv stations around 2 yesterday, while i was working, and saw on the local station that a large tornado had touched down just south of dallas. we live about 35 miles north of dallas. several other tornadoes were reported and we were in the path of one. a little panic set in. ok, a lot of panic. i called steve. he was south of me (but north of dallas) at work. they were gathering in an internal hallway for safety. i heard the sirens. i corralled the cats into a closet upstairs (it was the best i could do). pixel and i huddled in an internal closet downstairs. as you can see, she stole my pillow for herself.

thankfully the storm moved east of us. we were just out of range. here's a photo that someone took while the storm was passing thru a small town south of dallas. yes, those are trailers (from tractor-trailers) flying through the air.

***

my friend denise linked to this yesterday on facebook. 25 photos of the destruction. today, i'm just very thankful the storm moved past us. and very sorry for those who were not as lucky.


*** via

bootcamp

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started yesterday (thank you, sil pat, for calling in and letting me know that i spelled yesterday incorrectly) evening. i'm working out with this group. here's their website. it's been about 5 years since i've done an actual bootcamp. i really enjoyed my last one (in atlanta). and this looks promising also. instructors make all the difference! our instructor, meridith, is great. challenging and inspiring. my workout buddy is my neighbor, who goes to the class regularly. my session is only for 5 weeks.

bootcamp coupled with the diet i started in february (and have already lost 10 pounds) and bicycling with steve will hopefully get me in shape for this
which hopefully i can wear in our backyard in this.they say if you put it out there in the universe, it will happen. this is me putting it out there.

*** image via texas fit chicks facebook page