Saturday, November 29, 2008

Holly the Happy Home FIXER

While I have long considered myself a Happy Homemaker, I am only today beginning to consider myself a fix-it person.

Behold-- the hole in my apartment wall: (please note how big and deep the hole is)

I mixed the compound and the plaster dust MYSELF:

The finished project:

I am SOO proud of myself!!! I'd like to especially thank Gustavo for showing me how to do it when he was here last week fixing various things and for leaving the compound and plaster with me, even though I told him I didn't need it. Also, a shout-out to whoever refinished my apartment before I moved in for leaving his tools.

And the whole thing took less than two minutes INCLUDING photo taking. This is the greatest thing ever!!! I want to learn how to fix everything!!!! And decorate everything!!! Once again I have to ask myself--who is this person I've become? But I love it!!

Now I've got to do my yoga and get ready for my date tonight. (new apartment, new life)

PS This is 30 minutes later. I had published the post and was going on with my life when I was lucky enough to notice another hole in the wall--this one was even more tricky--it was on a corner!! But, trusting in my new-found skills, I fixed it right up!!! (Luckily I also saw Gustavo turn seemingly dried plaster into a useable form again, so i was able to do the same!) yay for me!!! yay for empowerment!!

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Bluemlein Family Thanksmas Report

Subtitle: it's a Thanksgiving miracle.

About three weeks ago we Bluemleins had our annual Thankmas gathering. This is a holiday we invented three years ago so we can all get together to celebrate Thaksgiving and Christmas in one fell swoop during a nonholiday weekend so we don't have to compete with in-laws and don't have to travel when the rest of the country is traveling. And why am I just reporting on this now, you may ask? Because i super want to share a video clip my technologically-savvy brother John made and although I have a copy of said video, for some drunken reason my blog would not import it. But last night, upon returning from my Thanksgiving merry-making on Long Island it occurred to me: my blog is so messed up right now, maybe it will import the video now. And lo and behold! it did!! Said video clip is directly below. I super love it because I think it captures the energy of my family well. This is a song Heather arranged years ago to help rally the troops and get everyone out the door.


Here is a picture of my super good-looking family taken during Thanksmas


Most of the vacation was spent on video games and playing with the nieces



A highlight for me was discovering that both my nieces loves dancing. An impromptu dance party was held. Unshown here in Ellie running around and dancing circles around me and Emma


The other highlight the super awesome balloon hat my super awesome brother David got for me. We were at a pizza parlor and a guy was going around making balloon animal I saw a five-year old wearing this hat and I really wanted one. I figured I would just go without, but David got me one! Specially made!!
My only regret is that I couldn't take it home with me on the plane =(.

Favorite quote for the reunion: "Heather, are you wearing my contacts? I ask because i went to put mine in and the case was empty." (she was)






















(and once again, for some reason the photos are messed up. This time is probably my fault, but I'm not going to bother importing all of them again. Hopefully those

of you interested in doing so will be able to figure out the captions easily enough)

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

One day, two new celebrity look-a-likes

Last Saturday, I had two people introduce two more celebrities that I look like.

An old lady I didn't know stopped me on the street to tell me I look like Blythe Danner's daughter. Turns out she means Gwyneth Paltrow. Her old lady friend agreed.

Then that evening someone from my ward said I always reminded them of Amy Pohler of Saturday Night Live fame. She's the lady who plays Hillary Clinton. She was also the pregnant lady in "Baby Mama".

PS I have no idea what is wrong with my blog. Why are all the pictures so huge? What happened to my friends' links on the side? I will hopefully get this figured out eventually. For now, please bear with me.

Monday, November 24, 2008

I am a woman obsessed.

Let me tell you a true story from my own life. You have doubtlessly already heard this story if you have been within a 15 foot radius of me in the last two weeks because, as suggested by the title of this post, I have become a WOMAN OBSESSED.

So the story: about two weeks ago I was on the subway on the way to work. I was thinking about my life, my aspirations, my dreams, my energy, etc when all the sudden I had an epiphany. Lightening struck my brain. All of the sudden it all became so so clear: my living room was ruining my life. It's obvious really, in hindsight. My living room was a cluttered, uninviting, energy-sucking hole. (I've posted this picture of a black hole to demonstrate what was happening to all the life energy (hereafter "chi") that passed through my living room.)

As soon as was humanly possible, without even wasting the time to take a "before" picture, I removed the daybed from the living room. We had been using it in place of a sofa since moving in back in July 2007. And although it often caused guests to ask the question "Who lives in this room?" somehow it had never occurred to me that it was the cause of every imperfection in my life.
I'm going to post some old pictures of the living room here, just to keep your attention. They're off facebook and are pictures of a party, so it's hard to see the room, but maybe you'll sort of get the idea:
(don't get confused like I always do when looking at these pictures--the girl wearing my apron is NOT me)

My roomie Valerie and I dismantled the wretched daybed and put it out on the street where, in less than 30 minutes, it was removed up by someone who was probably very thankful for it.

For the sake of brevity, I will skip the step-by-step guide to all the changes I've been making to my abode. Except, I want to give a shout-out to the brilliant and inspired book Apartment Therapy and my friend Jenn A. who was genius enough to realize I would love the book and lean me a copy. Also, a special thanks to Jenn's super terrific husband Gustavo who came over and helped me fix up some things at the apartment, including (but not limited to) hanging my bike on the ceiling. Yipee!!

I think this post is dragging, so I"m going to conclude now quickly by employing the good old bullet point:

* I never ever cared a tiny bit about home decorating and now it is literally the only think I can think of.

*I'm on an eight-week home therapy plan and it's taking all my free time. And i love it. Who is this person I've become?

*I would say I'm re-decorating my apartment, but that term implies that it was decorated before, which is wasn't. So I just saying I'm decorating my apartment.

*The chi is flowing in my bedroom like I would not have though possible. I've always talking about it and believed in it, but I've never experienced it like I am now. I can practically feel it pulsating around all over the place bringing joy and happiness and most excitingly the energy of all sorts of new and exciting possibilities!

*I'm suppose to figure out what my decorating style is. This is hard for me because it turns out I have a very limited visual vocabulary. I've been taking on-line quizzes all morning and have yet to get the same result. In the next few days I'll probably make a post with pictures of rooms I like and ask for your help naming my style.

As always, thank you for your support in this matter.

Holly the Happy Homemaker

Thursday, November 20, 2008

An unassumingly emotional post



I think Ben Franklin said it best: "If we don't all hang together, we will mostly certainly all hang separately." (or something like that).

This is what is on my mind and heart right now.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

An important message to the movie "Australia"



Please, please, PLEASE don't stink!

I so rarely get excited about a movie. But just the idea of a combination of Hugh Jackman and Baz Luhrman sends me in a tizzy. Two of my very favorite things combined! Be still my heart.

And yet.... I find myself being skeptical. A cheesy historical romance? True, it fits in fairly well with some of the entirely-beneath-him roles that Mr. Jackman has performed in order to support his picture-perfect family, but Baz, this seems out of character for you. Where's the showy singing, dancing, or the Shakespearean language? Baz, I'm trusting you to pull this off. Hugh--although I know you did your best to save the movie Scoop, I think we both know how that turned out-- even your superior skill, charm and looks couldn't save something that bad to begin with. I understand that. Hopefully the two of you together can bring us something the likes of which we have not seen since "Strictly Ballroom."

Make me proud!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Halloween

I was super excited to report about how awesome my Halloween celebration was, but it was so long ago now that I can't remember what made it so great. But here's me in my costume.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Blue v. Red

Today I wanted to wear red to work to show my support for the red states.

Turns out I have one (1) red shirt and it was in the wash.

I found a rose colored shirt shirt that I decided would work.

It turns out I only have blue pants. Yes, 100% blue. No pants whatsoever of any other color. (I know-- I was shocked too.) I didn't want to wear a skirt, so I made due with the blue.

I got all cute and even fixed my hair. Put on foundation and everything. I wanted to represent McCain well at the poll.

As I was leaving I realized that all of my jackets are blue.

So I pretty much ended up dressed as a democrat.

I felt slightly better when I saw that both Pallin and Cindy McCain were dressed in non-red for the concession speech.