Halloween Stuff

Tonight I will be heading to a cabin the woods to celebrate Halloween with a group of friends. Since I probably won't have internet, I'm posting random Halloween stuff today.

* Practical Magic. Love this show and even more, I love house. This is the house I would own if it truly exsited. And I had money. Check out a tour of the house at Hooked on Houses.


* My Halloween cards. Nothing too fancy, but I loved having a craft room to create these things in.

* I ordered this delicious box of treats for my mom and dad (today is their 39th wedding anniversary) and kind of wish I'd ordered one for me, too! I *heart* Moose Munch.

* I'm sad that the Halloween season is coming to a close. It's been a BUSY one...trips to Utah and the cabin, my parents in town, settling into the new place. Every year I have a list of crafts and things to do but only one or two get crossed off. But there is always next year.


Happy Halloween!!

the next big project

The next project in LindsyLand will be re-creating a message board similar to those pictured below. I refuse to pay the $300-$400 PB Teen is currently charging (on sale!) for these things. Just can't do it. So I've been scouring the web for instructions and have come upon a couple of sites. With my father's handy-man assistance, I believe I can make one for under $100. Yay!

extra house pictures

Here's the chair my parents brought down. We were going to recover it but couldn't find a fabric I liked in the stores, so we ended up making a pillow and recovering the stool. I'll continue looking online for a fabric I like and recover it in the future.



This is my travel collage in the hallway. I adore how this turned out. My father hated hanging it, but I think it looks great.

The Word Room

The Word Room. A dream within a dream. A work-in-progress. At some point I am going to paint two of the walls and add another bookcase and a funky light fixture. Until then, I can live with this.

Probably my most favorite thing, besides the project table, are the curtains and chair cushion. Last summer, I spotted the Adorations current at Anthropologie and fell in love. But there was no way I was going to shell out $158 for one panel. I spread the word that I was looking for "word" fabric and one of our family friends found this beautiful fabric at $6.00 a yard. Mom sewed the curtain and cushion and both came to a whopping $30.00. Take that Anthro!

Catching Up

(Luke, Alex and I at Bridal Veil Falls)

It's been an entire week since I blogged? What the heck??? Here's the 411 on the happenings in LindsyLand:

• 
  Had a follow-up appointment at my PCP and was put on blood pressure medicine and forced into a sling. I've ditched the sling five out of the seven days I've supposed to have been wearing it. And stopped the meds after taking my blood pressure several times and ending up with a reading of 101/77. Not normal. I have another follow-up tomorrow and an EKG and MRI scheduled for Friday. Think I might insist on a referral to a specialist for my shoulder and get a second opinion on the blood pressure.

• Spent an AMAZING four days in Utah with the Turner family. It was wonderful catching up with Nikki and getting to really know her little family. Her children are absolutely adorable and so well-behaved...and humorous. I laughed so much! We went shopping in Park City, to see the witches at Gardner Village, dinner with an old friend from high school and Frightmares at Lagoon. The weather was fantastic and I loved seeing everything decked out for Halloween. Love ya, Nikki!!!


• I cancelled my trip to San Diego since my mom and dad are coming into town this weekend. It will be their first time seeing the new place and I'm very excited. Even more so since we no longer have to share a bathroom. :) This weekend is also my mom's birthday so I'm baking her a cake and taking her to get a pedicure with cool Halloween nail art.


• I continue to be amazed at the resiliency of the human spirit and the profound comfort and healing true friends can bring. I'm lucky to have several wonderful friends, both near and far, who comfort me without even knowing it.


• Plans have been confirmed and I will be spending Halloween with a group of friends at a cabin in the woods. Pumpkin bread, ghost stories, camp fires. It's going to be divine.


• My rental car on vacation this past weekend was a Chevy HHR and I loved that little car. I'm seriously considering trading in the Beetle for one.


• My mother gave me (and is bringing down) my grandmother's antique wing back chair, which I am going to recover similar to the this chair that I lust after.

Other than (all) that, things are just moving merrily along. I'm so in love with this time of year. The turning of the seasons, the need for warmer clothes, pumpkin everything, Thanksgiving and Christmas just around the corner. It's magical.

weekend treasures

Such a random weekend. Friday night at the Ranch with Michelle, shopping on Saturday, high school football game and Texas Roadhouse Saturday night, sleeping in until 10:30 on Sunday. All the good stuff. Plus a few new treasures:

Kat Von D Saint and Sinner fragrances. I had to have them both...they smell so good!

Latte bowls from Anthropologie

Twilight Venom by DuWop

a part of ourselves

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy
For what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves
We must die to one life before we can enter another."
~Anatole France~

When I read this quote, I was instantly struck with it's poignancy and truthfulness. Change is difficult, even when it is for the better. It carries an inherent melancholy because we truly are leaving a part of ourselves behind. Whether we are leaving a home, a school, a job, a family, a lover, or a city, what we leave will always hold a place in our hearts. Accordingly, we leave a piece of ourselves with that which we have left left behind. Halls will resonate with our laughter; memories will permeate the walls that once embraced our lives; hearts will be left with whispers of our love.

In quiet moments, we ourselves return to things left behind. To places and loved ones and memories. Moving as ghosts through a landscape at once familiar and unknown. All that is left behind is memories. People and places move on. Progress. But our memories are frozen in time, awaiting our visits as one might await the return of a loved one. If we allow ourselves to return too often, we have no choice but to relive the past. And that's not living. It's a sort of half-life, perhaps. But the true joy in life comes from letting go of the past, embracing change, and moving on.

live the questions

This quote resonates so deeply with who I am that I'm tempted to have it tattooed on my body somewhere:

"I beg you to have patience with

everything unresolved in your heart
and to try to love the questions themselves

as if they were locked rooms
or books written in a very foreign language.
Don't search for the answers,

which could not be given you now,
because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually,
without ever noticing it,

live your way into the answer."

~Rainer Maria Rilke~

Sleepy Hollow

Ever since I read Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow when I was a girl, I've been enchanted by this little village in the Hudson Valley. Over the years, I've lusted after all things "Hollow", even though the artistic quality of some items (movies, books) might be questionable. Sleepy Hollow is just one of those quirky things I love.

Since it is now October (officially my favorite, and busiest, month of the year), it's only appropriate that I share my Hollow finds with the blogosphere.

First, you have to go back to where it all starts. With the actual Legend by Mr. Irving himself.

Then, you will have a frame of reference with which to explore the village of Sleepy Hollow and Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. And while you are there, don't forget to visit Mr. Irving and the Old Dutch Church.

And what trip to the Hollow would be complete without participating in Legend Nights?

If you still want more Hollow, check these out:

Sleepy Hollow- one of my favorite all-time movies. The ambiance Tim Burton creates in this film is absolutely stunning.

The Hollow by Jessica Verday- a first novel by a YA author. A little slow to begin with but a fun, light read.

The Hollow- When I first saw this on ABCFamily Channel, it was definitely a B movie but fairly decent. When I ran across the DVD for $3, I bought it. And realized that ABCFamily had edited it for content (translation: there are some questionable scenes and content). Wish I could find the TV version.

So there you have them...all my SH references. Is it weird that I want to get married in the Old Dutch Church (being Dutch and all)...which just happens to be located in a cemetery? You make the call.

just what I needed

The cookie diet is HARD. It's hard to not eat like a normal person. It's hard to eat gross cookies. It's damn hard to resist In N Out. But, last week I did so-so (I cheated quite a bit) and lost 3.5 lbs. Nice. And wouldn't you know that it was just the motivation I needed to really shift into high gear and stick to this diet. Seeing that little bit of weight come off makes me want to eat super healthy and work out like a fiend.

And that, my friends, is just what I need to do.

Because I realize that, no matter how good other parts of my life are, I will always be somewhat unhappy until I get to a reasonable body weight. I'll never be a waif. I'll never be a size 4. I'll never be "skinny." But I will be healthy and fit and toned. And I will not be able to use my weight as an excuse for anything. I will no longer be able to hide behind the fat. Does that scare me? Hell yes! But I also know that my weight is a barrier to becoming the person I truly want to be. I can (and need) to work on all the other little issues that plaque me, but the weight is my number one issue.

For now, what I wish for more than anything is the self-discipline and determination to stick to this program and see it through. All the way to a size 8.

Save Second Base

The ASU Softball team is selling Save Second Base t-shirts to race funds for the Komen Race for the Cure. I absolutely love these things. Can't wait to wear mine for the for first time this weekend...and for all the comments I get.