Snapshots from the past few days

As a fun treat to remind us of summer, we bought some Carambola, or Star fruit to try this weekend.  We had never had it before.  It was good--kind of tasted like an apple but looked a lot cooler.  Unfortunately, we bit into it before we read that you're supposed to cut it long ways.  Hence the star is missing one of its points:)

I got another order from Made (a boutique in Lawrence, KS that specializes in all handmade items), so I was working hard this past week creating some new necklaces to bring up. 

To date, one of my proudest moments has been getting to sell my "wares" in an actual store.  And in a store that is so beautiful and has a bunch of cool stuff.  This could be another post in itself...

I made this friendship bracelet with some sparkle last week.  I love the mix of laid back and glitzy.  Surprisingly, it took forever to finish the friendship bracelet portion.  I guess I picked too intricate of a design, but it looks pretty neat.  I have a few more versions that I am itching to start.

All in all, a great past few days.  And then we woke up to this....

If you can't see by the picture, that's a tree limb that broke due to the weight of the snow and fell across our driveway.  I am so thankful it didn't hit our house.  I know there are others out there who weren't as fortunate.  Lucky for me, the huberino is out there right now chopping it up.  Anyone need firewood?

Style Update: Snow Wear

Look at all that snow!  On the way to our weekly dinner date to Chipotle (yes--we love it that much!), I made the hubs pull over by a park and take a picture of me in the snow.  I had lofty visions of me in the middle of a winter wonderland, but these were soon dashed when I realized how deep and wet the snow was.  I settled for standing by a snow drift.  Some of my expressions look kind of weird, so please ignore those.  If I had all the riches in the world, I would buy everything in my wardrobe from JCrew or Anthropologie.  Alas, I don't, but I still want my clothes to have that same vibe.  I think you can find similar stuff from places like Target and Old Navy.  I know that the quality might not be quite the same, but I have cardigans from Target that I have worn for years.  The reason I'm always so drawn to JCrew and Anthropologie is because I like how they put things together in the store.  I have to force myself to use it as inspiration and "shop my closet" to mix and match things in different ways to make them feel fresh again.  This is a new combo for me, and I like how adding the brooch and earrings added a little something.  This was fun to wear, because now until the end of this snow I'm going to be in my full parka and snow pants.  Maybe I need to invest in some moon boots, as popularized by one Napoleon Dynamite.  Those and boondoggles.

jeans: Gap; shirt and tank top: Old Navy; sweater and scarf: Target; boots: Baretraps; Earrings: Charming Charlie; brooch: Me:) 

Snow Day

We almost made it through the winter without a huge snow storm, but then yesterday happened.  It was like winter was playing a prank on us, letting us know that he wasn't quite done with us yet.  We got something like 12 inches in 6 hours!  We both got to work from home yesterday, which was nice.  Here was the view from our backyard.  Snow galore! 

Luckily I have a super nice husband who shoveled the driveway.  Some neighbors had fancy snow blowers, but my hubs likes to keep it old school.  Got to respect that.  That's him way in the distance.  I wasn't about to leave the warmth of the garage to venture out any closer:)  



Do you think anyone will notice?

This is embarrasing, but I just have to laugh at myself.  I have to preface this story by first saying that it is really cold here.  In fact, we're under a winter storm warning for tomorrow.  So I wanted something extra cozy to wear to work today.  I found a heavy sweater in the back of my closet this morning that I hadn't worn all season and thought it would do the trick.  It's a light blue color, and I noticed a tiny stain on the sleeve.  I knew that I had washed it, and it really wasn't that big so I pulled on the sweater and ran out the door.  But as I was sitting in a meeting today, I looked down at my sweater and noticed that there were more stains on the front!  Oops!  None of the stains are a big deal on their own, but together...  I got through the day cringing, but telling myself that most people are concerned with what is going on with them and won't look at me closely enough to see the stains.  But maybe that is just what I'm telling myself to feel better about wearing a stained shirt to work.  Oh well.  You can't win them all, right?  I am making a promise to myself that tomorrow morning I will inspect my shirt in bright lights before putting it on.  In an effort to distract from my humiliation today, here's a picture of the hubs in a Scooby Doo outfit, and me in a sweet handlebar mustache at my best friend's wedding last summer.  Focus on that instead:)

A long week

Where did the week go?  I started last Monday with high hopes of getting a lot accomplished.  Starting new projects and finishing old ones.  My plans were soon derailed, though, when I woke up at 5 in the morning on Tuesday with the stomach flu:(  Not fun, not fun at all.  I was so out of it, but I did manage to make a call to the hubster who was out of town on business and ask how he was feeling.  He said he felt fine.  But then I got a call that afternoon that he was sick, too.  The only thing that sucks worse than the stomach flu is being away from home when you have it.  So the week consisted of me just trying to find something to eat that tasted kind of good and willing myself to get better.  The hubster was still out of town for Valentine's Day, which wasn't the worst since we both still didn't feel 100%.  He did manage to send me a Valentine's Day surprise via a special package that was delivered to my door on Thursday.  Man, this guy knows that the true key to my heart is through not just a present, but surprise ones I get through the mail.  He buys and sells things online, so I'm always jealous when the packages are for him.  I carefully opened (of course I didn't utilize a pair of scissors unsafely by stabbing them into the package, ahem) the package and smiled a big one to myself when I thought about how well this guy knows me.  It was a record from the band "Of Monsters and Men"! 

I headed to my record player and delicately took out the first of two records.  I saw a hint of pink through the wrapper, but nothing prepared me for how cool this record is.  It's pink!!!  What a perfect present for Valentine's Day--a pink record from an awesome band.  10 bajilion gold stars in my book. 

When the hubs got home Friday, we had some delicious cake (Hy-Vee white wedding cake), talked about how sick we were of being sick, and listened to some tunes.  Tulips and a balloon topped this Valentine's Day as being pretty darn good, considering I was puking my guts out a few days before.

So I started the week not doing so hot, but I ended the week like this.....

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What we did last weekend

The weekend started off great.  We went out to dinner with some close friends Friday night to celebrate one of said friend's birthday.  The food was outstanding, and it was just fun to hang out with them.  

 

But on Saturday, I was in a winter funk.  I was restless, but didn't want to actually do anything.  I blame it on the cold weather.  I've lasted pretty long, but I can't stand it anymore.  I want it to be spring!  I want to be able to go outside, and it be warm enough not to wear a jacket.  I think what has made this winter extra hard on me is not being able to run.  Usually, I would look forwrad to a slightly warm winter day and hit the road all bundled up.  I'm just ready for the winter to be over and for my stupid injury to be better.  Bring on the feel good attitude of the summer sun! (I promise I'll never complain that it's too hot, not even when we reach temperatures over 100 degrees.) 

Listening to records helped a bit.  But you know what really made me feel better?  A good old game of foos ball!!!  The hubs got me a table top version a few years ago for Christmas.  We got it from the basement, dusted it off and proceeded to play a few games.  The hubs usually dominates me, but I guess my glasses are coming in handy for something, because I've gotten a lot better.  At least now I'm a solid contender against him.  So if anyone else has the winter blues, a little competition never hurt anyone.

Weekly Wears: Early Valentine's Day Dinner

We went to an early Valentine’s Day dinner this week with my parents.  It was actually warm for Kansas—65 degrees in February!  I’ve been wearing jeans quite a bit, so I thought it was time to break out a skirt.  I’m trying to have more fun with putting bold colors together.  I love it when other people do it, but have felt self-conscious about it before.  But I went for it this time.  I loved how the different shades of purple mixed together and were offset by the avocado green skirt.  Normally, I would have put navy or brown tights on, but I decided to play up the purple with a a deep plum/magenta.  Might not seem that out of the box, but it was pretty progressive for me.  I haven’t gotten completely used to wearing my glasses all the time.  I like how I can actually see, but I tend to take them off sometimes in pictures.  Probably from when my brother would tease me when I wore sunglasses when I was little:) 

Early Valentine's Day Dinner

The hubs and I enjoyed an early Valentine’s Day dinner with my parents this week.  We usually make dinner at home for the actual holiday, but my parents had a gift card to Texas Roadhouse that they were kind enough to share with us from a spirited game of gift card bingo over Christmas.  So we were happy to spread the festivities over a week.  That place is always busy.  Always.  I understand it, though, with their giant margaritas and delicious rolls with honey butter (definitely my dad’s favorite part of that place).  I remember one time we went there he filled up on so many rolls that he had to get his dinner boxed up to go, because he was too full!  Granted, there was a snafu with the kitchen so it did take a long time for our meals to come out.  I just think it’s an amusing antidote.  Anyways, we had an awesome time.  I’m so lucky to have these guys as parents—I really do love hanging out with them. 

My parents—cutest couple ever.  Look at that margarita!

The hubs and me….and another giant margarita!

PEICD: Easy Embroidery

In honor of Valentine's Day, I wanted to embroider a cute saying.  I didn't want it to be too Valentiney (is that a word?), because I want to keep it up all year round.  I started out by painting my wooden embroidery hoop white.

Then I figured out what I wanted the saying to be.  I thought that a treasure map theme would be cute--like we searched all around until we found us.  X marks the spot.  I just used embroidery floss and hand stitched the words.  For the white blocks, I cut out white material and stitched them onto the base fabric with embroidery floss.  I think it turned out pretty cute. It only took about an hour to complete, so I'd say that falls into the PEICD category!

Dear Future Self….Do you still run?

Dear future self,

Do you still love to run?  Or what I really want to know is, can you still run?  You may remember that your 29 year old self loved to run.  You ran to clear your mind, to relieve stress, and to compete against yourself.  Nothing made you madder than when you didn’t finish the same route as fast as you did the time before.  You looked forward to your runs.  They were your time to be outside, needing nothing but a pair of shoes and the open road.  Your favorite time to run was at dusk in the early summertime.  The air was warm, but you could feel the coolness of the night air coming on.  You always liked to run in t-shirts, because they were baggy and comfortable enough to move your arms.  You didn’t dress to impress, because there was no one to impress but yourself.  It was then you felt most free, pushing yourself as fast your body could go.  You left the burdens of everyday life at your door and forgot about everything else as you listened to the same Killers album. over and over  Sometimes the wind was behind you, and you felt like there was a hand helping push you along.  Other times, the strong Kansas wind was against you, and you felt like you could barely make any progress forward. 

Like the wind, it was a toss up if you would truly enjoy your run on a given day.  You didn’t always bound around and relish each step.  Oftentimes, it was grueling and all you wanted to do was stop and walk.  And sometimes you did just that.  But you would always start running again, because you knew that there was no greater feeling than hitting the “finish” line.  Every time you completed a run you felt a sense of accomplishment, that you had done at least one thing worthwhile for the day.

So I’m sure you remember all that, future self, but do you also remember that day in November 2012 when you finally had to stop mid-run?  The pain in your left knee had gotten too bad.  You kept running through it for months until it stopped you mid stride and forced you to sit down.  At the time you thought it was a really bad case of runner’s knee.  So what I really want to know, dear future self, is do I ever run again?  Do I ever feel that sense of freedom and accomplishment again?  Does my body heal and allow me to do the things I want to do?  Two years ago I felt strong, at my athletic peak, indestructible.  Now I feel weak, like my body has let me down.  I know that your body changes as you get older and that I should feel fortunate that I can walk, but truthfully I didn’t think it would happen to me.  Naive, I know.  I hate it.  I want it back.  I hope to hear that you found a way to get back out there, future self, or have at least invested in some bionic knees.

Always yours,
30 year old Kari

Birthday time!

We celebrated my big bro's birthday a few days ago at my parent's house.  I love our family birthday parties.  My mom always makes something delicious, and my dad makes a huge birthday sign with the special person's face front and center.  It was a blast hanging out together and getting to play with his adorable kids.  Seeing my niece belly laugh when her big brother dances for her reminds me of just how special the sibling bond is.  I'm lucky to have the best big brother (and also best big sister) in the world.  They are my built in forever best friends.  I wish I would have gotten a picture of the yo-yo I gave him as a tribute to the Yomegas we used to have as kids.  One of my fondest memories is of us practicing and then going to a yo-yo class to show our skills.  The prize?  A leather yo-yo holster that fits on your belt.  We had mad skills back then (and weren't dorks at all).  Love you, big brother!  Hope you know how much we all love you and how proud we are of you!

delicious cake made by my mom

getting excited to blow out the candles

aforementioned huge sign

adorable family

minus one little sweetie that wasn't happy with her uncle

best big brother