Hurry

If you "like" LOFT on facebook you can get $50 off your $100 or more purchase but it's today only! So really if you do it right, you can get half off.

I may have bought these....they are essentially my blog header in clothing form and perfectly me.

Typical

Oh ya know just your typical street parking signs here in the city...

Not confusing at all, right?

Fantasyland Friday: The "Me Time" Room

I think we all have that one dream room that we'd LOVE to have someday. The craft / laundry / mom office room where you can start a project and leave it unfinished without having to clean up. Where you can keep all your wrapping paper, ribbons, art supplies, cards, party decorations, DIY projects, scrap-booking stuff, and everything in between. With a huge island where you can fold clothes while watching tv or lsiten to music, with slots for individual laundry baskets underneath, or work on that quilt you've always meant to make. With a computer, desk, and storage in the corner where you can blog, or write, or pin, in peace. With endless shelves for storage and fabrics, and inspiration boards to keep you dreaming.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

"The phrase 'No good deed goes unpunished' is a sardonic commentary on the frequency with which acts of kindness backfire on those who offer it. In other words, because life is inherently unfair, those who help others are doomed to suffer as a result of their being helpful." - Wikipedia

Perhaps I spoke too soon about 2012.

Every week Brody and I are in charge of the tutoring program for our ward. There are a lot of at-risk youth that can't always get homework help at home so every week we do dinner and tutoring where they get one-on-one help from a volunteer tutor--most of which come from the single's ward out here. It's been such a great and rewarding experience...

And if you don't want to hear the "downer" part stop reading here.

Last night we had another tutoring session. One of the boys' birthday is today so we had a cake and party for him. Towards the end of the night I went to grab some keys out of my purse and noticed that my phone wasn't in its usual pocket. Frantically I search my whole Poppins purse and didn't see it anywhere. Panicking, I ran and asked Brody if he'd taken it. Nope. So we roused everyone and started questioning them if they'd seen it (the whole time I knew someone had taken it out of my purse because I hadn't gotten it out all night). Miraculously one of the girls "found" it on the floor in one of the rooms. Yeah I was relieved but it was short-lived.

The wallpaper had already been changed and that chizzler had put a freaking passcode on my phone! So I had to restore it to the factory settings last night and lost a bunch of numbers, photos, etc. THEN, the poor kid whose birthday is today found out that someone had taken $4 cash from his wallet and someone had taken his sweater. SO ridiculous.

I was so discouraged last night. Who steals in general, let alone at church, let alone from their friends and people that are volunteering their time and energy for their benefit?!?!

But wait, it gets better.

Today I kept getting calls from an (888) and an (800) number. I ignored the first ones as per my usual, but after they kept calling and I did a Google search to find that they were fraud prevention numbers I finally called back and yep, the little rat-bastage stole two of my credit cards too.

Apparently they went on quite the shopping spree today, but luckily I won't be liable for any of the charges. And I've spoken to most of the stores they went to and almost all of them have video footage and hopefully we'll be able to recognize the thief. We've already pretty much narrowed it down to two people anyway so we'll see what the security footage has to show us.

Season 2

Just watched the 2-hour season 2 premiere, amazing. If I didn't love Maggie Smith before (and I DID), I certainly do after this series

Watch Downton Abbey 2: The Critics Can't Stop Talking on PBS. See more from Masterpiece.

That's More Like It

First of all let me just say...Downton Abbey is pretty fantastic. I may have watched the entire first season last week on Netflix (don't judge too harshly it's only 7 episodes). Who would have thought a BBC/PBS show would be so good?! Watch it. Thank me later.

It was a gorgeous weekend. Weirdly nice for the first week of January anywhere. I took the snapshot below of the temperature on Saturday afternoon while I was taking a break from Downton and perusing some after-Christmas sales.

And just like that, it snowed today for the first time since we've been in DC and I have to say I was rather happy to see it. It wasn't much, and wasn't sticking at all but that didn't stop a few co-workers from wondering weather we were going to have work tomorrow...so funny. I can count the number of snow days I had as a kid on one hand. Two. We had two.

Things are looking good

Each time I've had to date something this week, I struggled to remember the "12" at the end of 2012. Every year it takes a little getting used to but I can't help but feel like this is going to be a good year, and here are some reasons why:
-It's leap year. It doesn't really have any direct impact on anything...but it's just a quirky little tidbit, like a full moon or Friday the 13th, that makes it seem just a pinch less mundane than the norm.
-It's an election year, and all signs are pointing to a Romney/Obama showdown and it's going to be a close one. Regardless of the outcome, I'm so excited to be in D.C. for a presidential inaugeration (another one to check off the list!). Plus, the potential to visit-teach the first lady is just fun to think about.
-Unemployment is down! All the way to 8.5%, which is still high, sure, but it's the fourth month in a row that unemployement has fallen and this is a very positive and welcome piece of news for all of us. Particularly when Brody will entering the job market in a few years :)
-The London Games. I LOVE the Olympics and London has always been near the top of my "To Do" list. It's a match made in heaven if you ask me. Go USA!
-I got business cards today! I've never had my own, and although I don't anticipate handing them out very much, it's still a fun little milestone and a good omen for 2012.
-I'm getting at least 3 more nieces/nephews this year! Thanks to Lacey being pregnant with twins (we found out yesterday they are a boy and a girl), and Lisa being pregnant as well. Can't wait to meet them all!
-Movies. I've found the older I get, the more picky I am about which movies I watch, (it's a rarity for Brody and I to shell out the money to see one in the theaters when we can just wait and buy the blu ray for the same price) so I'm thrilled that so many movies are coming out this year that actually look really good. First and foremost, the Dark Knight Rises of course. Brody is borderline obsessed with the Christopher Nolan Batman franchise and I can guarantee this will one of the few films we will actually go see in the theaters. Some others that I'm really excited for: The Hunger Games (the first book is by far my favorite of the three), The Hobbit (again, my favorite Tolkien book---a much better read than Lord of the Rings), The Woman in Black, saw the trailer on Katherine's blog the other day and it looks super creepy and good, and it's PG-13!, Snow White and the Huntsman - love the new take on a classic fairytale...although I wish they would have picked a better actress for Snow White. Sorry, but not even in a fairytale is Kristin Stewart prettier than Charlize Theron). I'm hoping the new Spiderman movie will be more in the vein of the Batman movies, let's keep our fingers crossed. The Great Gatsby, I can't wait to see Baz Luhrman's take on this classic tragedy and how can it not be good with Leo playing Gatsby? Speaking of Leo, Titanic is being re-released in 3-D!!! haha okay there's no way I will pay money to see that, I almost died when I saw a preview for it over the Christmas break. Quite frankly I think James Cameron is way over-estimating how good the movie was. It did well because of freak-show 13-year-olds like myself that saw it 7 times in the theater. And lastly, I'm excited to see Lincoln by Steven Spielberg. He's my second-favorite president after all and I'm hoping the movie lives up to all the hype it's already gettting. I think it's a pretty safe bet though with Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee-Jones, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt among other great cast members.
-Oh yeah and the whole 2012-world-ending-Myan-Calendar mayhem. That's sure to be entertaining.
Happy New Year everyone, let's make it a good one :)