February Photo A Day Challenge

On February 1st I hopped on a friend’s bandwagon (Thanks for sharing Megan P.!) for the February Photo A Day Challenge from Fat Mum Slim. 

Surprisingly, I did not miss a single day or have to post twice in a day. Can’t believe I committed to and completed something! Ha ha

Anywho, in case you don’t have Facebook, here’s my February Photos all using Instagram on my iPhone.

And in case you’re interested, here is the list for March. I’ll be dong that one fo sho!

Wanna play? Check out the instructions here.

Proud

Two things I'm proud of right now:

1) I've stopped biting my nails

2) The French manicure I gave myself last night. Whoop!

Please excuse my dry cuticles. It's Winter okay?

Fish Fry

Went to a fish fry in my parents neighborhood tonight.

Good food and great people :-)

Does Anyone Remember?

I am getting desperate and I need your help. Did I ever post a tutorial on the Drop Cloth Wall Art that I made? I cannot for the life of me find it (if I even did the post) but I thought I remember doing it!

I am trying to get all of my projects together for the DIY Projects tab at the top of my page. But before I go writing another how-to post on it, I want to make sure no one remembers me posting one already. I have looked through all previous months and didn't see it but just wanted to see if anyone else remembers me posting about it.

Thank you!

Rain

It's a rainboots and ponytail kinda day.

300

Nope, not the movie.

But the number of blog posts I’ve written! (Technically this is 301 since I blew it with my water bottle post. I knew I was approaching the big 3-0-0 but forgot to check up on it!)

I started blogging in March 2008 as something to do. I was a student at FSU anxiously anticipating graduating and getting married (since I’d already been engaged for two years at that point).

Most of my early day posts were silly and included lots of Google images and pointless ramblings.

The pointless ramblings haven’t stopped but the picture content has gotten a little bit juicy-er. Granted, most of them come from my phone these days, but that’s real life folks!

As time marched on I went from blogging a lot, to only a little, to being pretty consistent again. It’s those times that I didn’t keep up with it that I am kicking myself for.

One of my main intents of keeping this blog is to get it printed into a book of sorts. Like a scrapbook of sorts. Hopefully I can make that happen soon!

It is so fun to look back and read my “public diary” and see what I was thinking or how I was feeling. There’s been happy posts, sad posts, exciting posts, heartbreaking posts, and I’m so glad that I’ve taken the time to write it all out. The good and the bad, because life isn’t always unicorns and rainbows.

Thank you to all of you that have made me want to bare my soul! And craft projects gone wrong

I’d like to say I wouldn’t write this blog if I had no readers, but I don’t think that’s true. I do write for others, but at the same time I’m writing for myself. I will love looking back at this years from now. Pictures and thoughts of my life.

Although having readers is a lot more fun

So in honor of my 301^st 300^th post, I’d like to share some fun stats!

Not sure why it didn’t start the stats until May of 09…perhaps that’s when the Stats were first installed?

Top 3 Posts

DIY Starburst Mirror 37,964 Pageviews

DIY/Crafting Funds 962 Pageviews

Mirror Face Lift 717 Pageviews

Pageviews

Today 409

Yesterday 348

Last Month 12,180

All Time History 78,748

Other Countries Coming to Visit

Canada

Germany

United Kingdom

Russia

Australia

Portugal

Spain

Slovenia

Mexico

So there’s some probably not very exciting to you stats.

Thanks for being a reader

XOXO

Water Bottle Roundup

First of all, Happy Friday! It has been the longest week and I have a busy weekend ahead!

Now onto something more exciting, or not.

Since I am now 7 WEEKS soda free I have become best friends with water. More so water bottles. It's just so much easier to grab a plastic bottled water on my way out the door than to put it in a cup, ice, etc.

I was bringing the plastic bottles to work and encountered problems. The main one (and only one really) is that it got hot too quick. I like my water COLD. It tastes so much better that way. There is no ice at work and the water fountain tastes funny so I needed my water to stay cold through the morning. It gives me something to do instead of snacking. (and I am proud to also report that I am down 12 lbs since I started watching what I eat and switched to water!)

Well I decided I needed to stop going through so many throw away bottles so I pulled out my camelbak water bottle and brought it to work. I put ice in it and it melted almost instantly and caused a condensation runoff the size of Niagara Falls on my desk. No bueno.

So on a recent Target trip I happened to be in the kitchen department (always gotta check on the servingware and kitchen towel sales!) I saw this hot pink baby.

I did a little happy dance and knew my problem had been solved! Not only is it a tumbler that'll keep my ice from melting too quickly and my drink cold, but it has this extra buffer zone inside to prevent sweating.

Score!

Oh and the cap screws off, or the top comes off if u want to be able to add ice. I am loving it. My drink stays icey cold and my desk stays free of drink rings!

Check it out here if you want to read about my awesome double walled water vessel! The brand is Aladdin.

Another Pinterest Post

Are you sick of these yet? It seems that’s all I talk about.

Pinterest this, Pinterest that.

Well, I love it so if you’re tired of it I’m sorry.

But anywho, onto another post about Pinterest!

Wanna know something cool? Well that is if you don’t already?

You can put the following in your URL and see what has been pinned from your blog! Talk about making your head big!

http://pinterest.com/source/your-blog-name.com/

So for example, to see what’s been pinned from my blog, I put in the following:

http://pinterest.com/source/thejollyjames.blogspot.com/

Then I get to see stuff like this!

My old room, my starburst mirrors, my iPhone charger made from books…

My mirror makeover, my table re-do…

Now mostly what you’ll see is images from my DIY Starburst Mirror Post and especially the Isabella and Max Rooms mirror I linked up to. According to my stats that blog post alone has had 37,632 page views!! Holy Moly!

But what is even cooler is to see my blog header and misc. things pinned to boards like “Blogs I Love” and it says stuff like “Good Ideas!” and “Great Stuff!”.

That kind of stuff goes straight to my head. Just sayin’.

And thanks to all of you fabulous people who are pinning my goodies

One of these days when I have a few hundred hours to spare I’ll add all my projects to the DIY Projects Tab I created. It’s the last one that needs content added!

XOXO

Free Art

If I were to shorthand that, it’d be FART.

Tee hee hee.

A while ago on Pinterest I pinned this sweet little doo-dad for free art.

Well it didn’t say Free Art, but it also let me right click and save so I figured it wasn’t hurting anything. I thought about making it myself then the light bulb went off and I said to myself:

“Self, why would you take the time to make that when someone has already pinned it and created it and it’s readily available for you to print right now”?

So that’s what I did.

The link from Pinterest led to a tumblr page and I couldn’t find the print, so I just saved it after clicking it once on the main page.

It was square shaped but I needed it to fit into an 8x11 space in a frame.

So I placed it in a word file and stretched it to rectangular size. It became slightly pixelated but wasn’t bad at all and isn’t something you’d see unless you looked really closely.

I printed it on white cardstock and put her on display in a frame I already had there with previous free art.

It’s so happy and Spring-ish. I heart it!

Oh and I can’t remember if I shared yet, but I bought that pretty Orchid and I’m in love. My Mom gave me an orchard several months ago, and to my surprise (I’m sure hers too!) it’s thriving in my care! I kind of have a black thumb. But I think orchids might be one of the easiest plants I’ve ever had! The other one is about to explode in blooms so when it does I’ll be sure to share!

A Night On the Town

Last weekend Kim, Josh, David an I went to dinner and a movie. Dinner was at Cody's Roadhouse. It was good but didn't blow me away. We did however have several riveting rounds of Pictionary on the table. It was lots of fun! Oh and the movie, The Vow, was really good. At least I loved it!

PS- the buffalo chicken sandwich and sweet potato fries are NOT mine, I would never order something so unhealthy. I'm mean, I'm supposed to be making healthy lifestyle changes, right? ;-)

My portrait of Kimbo.

Oh and this cup of frozen yogurt with hershey's syrup is not mine either. I was just holding it for the picture...Oops!

Exercising

It’s not easy to do with the pooch.

Especially since our walk this evening consisted of more of this:

Than this:

 

Home boy puts on the brakes every time we get our momentum going.

And by momentum, I mean a steady walk pace. I’m not even making him run.

He’s fine the first lap but after that as soon as we pass our house, he’s over it.

Doesn’t he know his Mommy only has 3 months before bikini season?

Obviously not.

As we speak he is passed out on the couch. I’d hate to see how he’d be if he exercised with his Auntie Kimbo…who runs six miles a day.

Although she did make us walk 2 miles with her on Sunday…she’s brutal I tell ya!

Blog Goodies

I’ve been working on the blog for the past 5.5 hours. That’s no lie. It’s now 11:17 but I am going to bed a happy camper!

I simplified my blog, updated the template, re-arranged a few things, and put tabs at the top for easy access!

I still have to put information on some of them, but I’m super stoked about everything looking cleaner and more user friendly.

In case you’re reading this in Reader, like I read all my blogs, here is a screenshot of the new page goodness.

And isn’t the little Pinterest link I created so cute?

Go on, click it. You know you want to! Or maybe that’s just me. I like to click stuff. Hah!

I’m proud of my HTML and Photoshop skills for the evening.

Perhaps Mrs. Walper’s 9th (or was it 10th or 11th…) grade Web Design class wasn’t a complete waste of time.

And now I’m hitting the sack with an empty tummy and a brain free from all the Reality TV I usually fill my evenings with.

And dream about my head full of hair. Long hair. See previous post.

Another Hair Post

I’m sorry I keep talking about my hair. But I think it’s my best asset and I might as well harp on it while it’s still pretty and luscious. Unlike the rest of my body.

HA HA.

I’ve known all along, but today it just kind of hit me.

I have a lot of hair.

Everytime I grow it out and chop it off, it goes to Locks of Love.

October 2009 I got sixteen inches cutoff.

They told me I had thick enough hair to make two or three wigs  

February 2012

I was definitely blessed in the hair department. As my Mom says, “The girl has some hair”!

I’m also thinking of dying it.

Because I am getting gray hair out the yin yang!

Eek!

I have virgin hair as stylists like to call it.

It has never been dyed or permed or had anything chemically done to it.

The only excitement it gets is a hair cut when it becomes too long to manage.

Case in point.

October 2007 – short

November 2008 – long

September 2009 – super long

November 2009 - super short

November 2010 – whatdya know, long again

July 2011 – you guessed it, super long

September 2011- short. Who’d a thought?

Anywho, here’s some ideas I’m toying around with.

I’m nervous to even think about it, but I’m tired of the “Is that gray hair I see?!” comments so some hurr dye might be in my near future.

I’m thinking only slightly darker than my natural color, perhaps with a few highlights.

I’m digging -

If I could choose to be a look alike of any celebrity, I would pick Kate Beckinsale. She is just absolutely gorgeous to me!

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Or I could go a little lighter…which is gorgeous too.

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Decisions decisions…what’s a girl to do?

PS- Don’t ever let me cut my hair again!!