Ready to Take Off

DSC_8574, originally uploaded by sassyladie4567.

My Baby!

DSC_8778, originally uploaded by sassyladie4567.

Isn't he a cutie?

Babies Just in Time for Mother's Day!

Boyfriend went up to the cabin last weekend and had a special delivery for me when he came back - 3 tadpoles! They came from the same tire rut that Lewis and Clark came from, so my hope is that they are gray tree frogs, but we'll find out in a couple of months. The frog guru (actual title) on the frog forum I frequent thinks they may be toad tadpoles, so that made me a little nervous. They are really small, so I'm thinking they just hatched from eggs, but they are quite active and fun to watch. I can't wait for little baby froglets - they are so adorable. :)

Finding My Way Around Storage

Two for one Tuesday! Oh wait, it's Wednesday. Oh well, here is another random project that I had finished a while ago. I've posted before about my design dilemmas when it comes to my bathroom, and unfortunately I'm no further along now. But back when I was thinking about making it transportation-themed, to fit with the Metro map shower curtain, I saw on the internet some baskets made out of newspaper. This got my little brain a chugging, and I finally came up with a purpose for all the maps that I've been hoarding. Everyone has their thing they can't get rid of, and for me, it's maps. I either think that I will at some point use it again, or I just like to have it as a souvenir. But the fact of the matter is, they usually end up taking up space in a drawer somewhere. So about 10 maps later, I now have a map basket!

And yes, the edge is a little crooked, but for a first try, not so bad, I think. I modpodged the crap out of it, so it's holding up pretty well in the bathroom.

The Bathroom Chair Reveal

So I have a backlog of random projects that I have done in the past, oh, six months, so here goes. You may be familiar with the chair that I found free on boyfriend's street, and intended to redo to match the bathroom in my old apartment. Well, needless to say, I'm really slow when it comes to projects, so it didn't get finished until after I moved and no longer had room for it and it doesn't match my new apartment. So I am currently in the process of trying to sell it on Craigslist and getting very frustrated with the approximately 17 people who have left me dangling multiple times. Anyways, here is the original, in its intended setting:

and here is the finished product:

The idea was to get a faux-lacquer effect, so boyfriend had read up on the process, which involved a coat of primer, a couple of coats of flat paint, and the floor wax. It ended up being more of a semi-gloss finish, but I was too lazy to try harder for something that didn't work in my apartment any more. Back in high school I had drawn a super sweet monogram with a celtic knot border and fancyiness in art class, and I intended the monogram to be the same, as I had spent quite a bit of time on it. Unfortunately, it seems to have disappeared from my stash of random artwork, which makes me really sad. So I had to improvise and I think it came out pretty nice. Now hopefully someone with the initials LBM wants a new chair.

First Fridays - Leaping Forward with Twins of a Gazelle

So I've been super busy lately, but I'm coming out of my internet hiding with a splash to fill you in on what you should be doing tomorrow night. Last month I got the chance to go the the first First Fridays show of Twins of a Gazelle, with the vocals and guitar provided by my friend David-Craig, along with Noah on the cello, Emily Chimiak on the violin, Arthur Harrison playing the theremin (really amazing instrument, I was fascinated), and Christina on the viola.

It was a great intimate acoustic show, mixing mellow, soothing sounds with some great foot-tapping melodies that I, at least, couldn't sit still to. The link above is to one of their songs, so definitely take a listen and see for yourself.

And I say all this to announce what everyone in DC should be doing tomorrow night, namely, attending the second First Fridays show! This month The Echo Wall will be joining Twins of a Gazelle, along with a painting raffle from Emily, who has incredible work. I've got my fingers crossed to win this time! All of the details are on the poster below as well as on Facebook:

May's Event
June's Event

So despite the fact I brought my camera and took lots of pictures, they are currently on my computer at home and I haven't even looked through them yet. So here are some fantastic photos taken by M.V. Jantzen:







So come on down to Mid City Caffe (1626 14th Street Northwest) at 7 p.m. tomorrow night! I hope to see you there!

May I walk all over you?

Pretty rugs of the day.

Angela Adams Rug in Nectar/Dandelion, via Black.White.Yellow


Unidentified beautiful rug via Apartment Therapy

The Great Divide

So boyfriend is starting a new job in a week and a half, which is awesome, except for one little thing. It's in Virginia. And not just like, across the river Virginia like where he currently works. It's out there. I'll fully admit it - I'm a city snob. I refuse to ever live in Virginia and pretend that I'm from "DC". But I'm trying really hard to be supportive and encouraging, because that's what girlfriends do. He currently has no plans to move, but that could change once he tests out the commute, but hopefully he wouldn't move all the way out there, just into the across the river territory. But I was doing a little google-mapping for work, and I came across a road that I fully support him living on, because it's awesome. Who can resist living on Frying Pan Road? And no, I won't even make him buy an alpaca, which is the current requirement for him moving to Fairfax County.

View Larger Map

Memorializing a Town of Memorials?

So I've been a bit flummoxed about what to do with my bathroom. I moved in with all white bathroom towels, shower curtain and rug (remember the pink bathroom?), and was planning on doing a sort of chic french sort of look, bringing in some black accessories, including a black wire mannequin earring holder thing I got for Christmas. That all changed when I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and was forced to buy the DC Metro system map shower curtain. I know the typical way to decorate around that would be to pull out the primary colors and go crazy. The bathroom is the one space you can really do that, but for some reason, I just can't get a good picture in my head of what it should look like. It also doesn't help matters that the tiles on the floor and in the shower are white with the occasional brown tile. If it weren't for that stupid brown tile, it would be a different story. But anyways, I digress. My idea was to try and make it transportation themed of some sort, and so I made a basket out of extra maps I've had lying around, with the intention of making more, but that has yet to be seen. And I still couldn't picture how to pull it all together.

Enter this month's edition of Real Simple/a random blog where I saw the same thing. I love graphic posters, and the travel posters for state capitals by The Heads of State are fantastic. I like them all, but I thought, why not go all out and DCify my bathroom? I'm thinking this:

and this:

I've been wanting to get the Ork poster for a while now, and this just gives me an excuse. :) So my question is, does this constitute an overly kitschy-themey bathroom?

(photo 1: The Heads of State, photo 2: Ork)

Lewis' New Home

So I realized that I had forgotten to post a very momentous occasion that occurred a week ago - Lewis moved into his completed terrarium! He's very happy having extra room to leap around in and explore. He was a little confused by the waterfall at first though, as he had never seen running water before. He stared intently at it for several minutes and then tried to eat it - apparently everything that moves is food, in his head.

Now that this is done, boyfriend has massive plans to make a Cambodian temple terrarium for Troy and Hines, his two original dart frogs.

Dress for the Part

I'm a transportation geek, I fully admit it. My shower curtain is the DC metro system:


So I was really excited when I came across this dress via Humble Ablog, but unfortunately it's no longer available. :( Hmm...having interesting thoughts now about converting my shower curtain into a dress....


(photo 1: Izola Shower, photo 2: Nordstrom)

Life To Do List

So awhile ago I decided to start a "Things to accomplish before I die" sort of list. This kind of petered out as I haven't added to it since. But I was reading Martha's blog today (gotta love Martha), and she will be making pierogi with her nieces on her show next week.

Being "of polish heritage" myself (Martha's politically correct way of saying that), I have also grown up with this polish staple at holiday dinners, although mine are usually of the Mrs. T variety.

So anyways, I've been wanting to learn how to make them from scratch for a while now, so that is a good addition to my Life To Do list.

To Do:

1. Travel around southern Europe for one month (accomplish by mid-forties).
2. Make pierogis from scratch.

(photos courtesy of: 1: the Martha blog, 2: Mrs. T's)

Getting Things Done

So, in an effort to finally pull my apartment together, I'm doing the Apartment Therapy Spring Cure. This week was focused on the kitchen, and so it got a deep clean and organizational frenzy, as the cupboards weren't quite arranged the way I wanted. Side note - who knew an oven could get dusty? I mean, I know I don't use it that much, but still, there was an actual layer of dust on the bottom inside my oven.

I can't get too creative with the design, as the wall below is literally the only available wall space in the whole kitchen. I tried to tie in the yellow of the living room with my tea kettle and paper towel holder, and then I pulled these three platters out of a box where they've lived for several years and hung them on the wall.

One of the things to do weekly in the Cure is to buy fresh flowers - this week was daffodils!

And onto one of my projects that's been hanging over my head - the gallery wall. After much debate, my orderly engineer side won out and I went with a geometric layout. I was planning on getting some of my photos printed for this, but I had some of my mural photos printed that I had never framed, so I went with those instead. These have a bit of a long history for me, and it's only taken about 3 years for me to decide I wanted them on my wall to get them up there. :)

The feature piece, my Christmas present from boyfriend, is a photo collage that has yet to be framed (it's the large square one on the floor), but the rest of them are hung up and look good (if I do say so myself). I'm anticipating it will grow, but these are just all the random frames/photos/artwork I had laying around.

Update on other random apartment projects - we actually managed to get a little bit of work done on the loft bed last weekend, that is, until the circular saw battery ran out and we realized the extra battery and charger were at boyfriend's house. I have high hopes of getting stuff done this weekend, but we'll see. :) The gorgeous weather we've been having means we can actually work outside, so that is a definite plus. Stay tuned for more updates!

Feeling a Little Square

Seeing as how I have as yet to finish up my gallery wall, I figured I might as well add to my inspiration file. This one doesn't fit with the artwork I currently have, but is a possibility for another location, perhaps. I really like the skinny white frames against the white wall.

Photo courtesy of Apartment Therapy)

Fly Through the Air...

So I've committed the cardinal sin of blogging - I've been terrible about posting lately. Hopefully this will get better soon, but rest assured, I'm still alive, just my life is very boring lately and full of work. But there have been a few bright spots, mainly, my mini-vacation last weekend with some co-workers to the Bahamas. It mostly involved eating, sleeping, and eating and sleeping on the beach. When we finally got tired of relaxing, we had fun learning the trapeze, which was so amazing! I think I've found my new calling...