I ripped up a book and I liked it.

I more in likely committed a bookwormer's sin a while back, but it was all in the name of art so that's forgiven, right?

I saw the idea of putting this all together on a blog that I now cannot find the link to! If you happen to have seen something similar please leave it in the comment section so I can give some credit. When I saw the idea, I knew I wanted to create one. It wasn't hard for me to figure out what book needed to be sacrificed. If you know me well enough you know it had to be This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen. It's my all-time favorite book, and during high school and still today, Sarah Dessen is an author I admire because she can write such great contemporary novels.

Some of the pages include:

page 344 where the lyrics to the song are,

page 182 Remy showing Dexter the science of laundry

page 307 just one of the many spots where Hate Spinnerbait comes about

page 173 Dexter informs Remy she loves him because she bought him plastic ware

page 148 Dexter and Remy grocery shopping together - "What if I embarrass you? What if I break some heirloom family china? Or talk about you in your underwear?" 

page 336 - "Did you really believe, that first day, that we were meant to be together?" I asked him. Enough said. 

Then I brewed a cup of coffee, took out the filter and started dabbing the pages. While they dried, I laid out how I wanted my scrapbook pages to go, grabbed some Mod Podge, and got to placing.  After the pages were dry, I started layering them around.  IN some ways I wish I would have done more layering with the scrapbook pages, but all in all I still love the end result. The lettering was some K & Company ones I had lying around. Kinda of crazy how perfectly they matched with it!

five questions

I saw this over at pocketful of pretty and I'm bored on this blazing 105 and up summer day so I'm rolling with it.

 5 places you need to visit: 

Ireland

 New York

 Canada

London

Australia 

5 places you would love to call home: 

Hhmm this one had me thinking because I've only moved outside my hometown once. 

Charleston

San Diego

Portland

St. Augustine 

Chicago 

Top 5 favorite things in your life: 

This very moment:

Writing

Being a crafting ninja 

My record player

The smell of summer

Growing closer and closer in my faith 

 5 things you want to cross off your bucket list or goal list this year:

Start an Etsy shop

Finish a novel

Get a new tattoo

Loose 30 pounds (13 down - holla!)

Take a mini road trip

 5 random facts about yourself: 

 My entire name is in the dictionary. 

By the time I die I will have spent 8 to 10 years of my life riding in a car listening to music for fun. 

I freaking hate snakes. Like screaming - cursing type of reaction when I see one. 

I randomly break out into song and dance. You've been warned if we ever meet. 

I have a smell phobia which means I carry deodorant in my purse at all times and have a much too large collection of perfumes and body sprays. 

DIY: Fabric Covered Bookcase

After doing the kitchen I was on a kick to do more. I have a lot of dark wood furniture in my living room. I'm still in the process of fixing things up in there as well. Like the trim you'll see in the pictures, it has got to go! The green is now clashing with a lot of things, and I don't like it at all.

I had seen on Pinterest  about how you can stencil your bookcase, paint a bookcase, but I liked the idea of putting fabric on the removable boards a lot better. My bookcases are the cheap ones from Wal-Mart, and to be honest it's a miracle this thing hasn't collapsed yet so taking off the backing was a no-no. Plus it didn't hurt that the fabric I liked was on a super cheap clearance.

. : Before : . 

When I said I had been ignoring my house, I wasn't exactly lying. Just look how bare that is!

. : Middle : . 

. : After : .

I didn't bother doing the bottom shelf due to my records being there, but I'm kinda giddy that it's building up nicely :)

Things I learned during this project:

a. I still cannot cut a straight line

b. I need to hit up some flea markets to find neat stuff to add onto my bookcase

c. Always put newspaper down when working on the coffee table. 

DIY: Sprucing up the kitchen

I've been on this crazy crafting spree for a while now. I think it's the lack of not constantly having to be somewhere and do something. Lemme just say, it's freaking awesome having to spare time to do whatever I please. I've ignored my kitchen like crazy and have been taking it one section at a time.

The place is small, I don't call it Little House for nothing, and the kitchen? Very tiny. Thankfully my landlord had a baker's rack for me to use so I could add stuff on it. Only problem was the wire type racks. Nothing would fit on there right so after getting so annoyed one day, I just cut up some foam boards and threw them on there. I couldn't leave it like that for long because it was just dull. That's where a little bit of fabric and my trusty friend Mod Podge came in hand.

Before 

After

Looks so much better!

There this thing in my genes (comes from my Padre's side of the family) where we hate seeing any wall bare so I wanted to add a little something-something above it. 

And now my little corner of the kitchen is complete! 

Things I learned by doing this:

a. I suck at cutting a straight line. 

b. An exacto type knife will hurt you.

c. Spray painting plastic frames is a pain in the rear. 

I've also decided to set up an etsy shop in the future and thought about doing a few different type wall art projects like I did with the cherries and fork. What's your opinion on them?

My writing and creating space

When I moved into the Little House, I was so excited to have a separate room for me to write my little heart out, and be able to created whatever I wanted with many crafty projects. But life is life, and I FINALLY got the place all together.  For some reason the lighting and my camera weren't really working with me, but none the less here is a looksie!

This is what the place looks like from the door. I keep my Cricut set up on the smaller desk. Underneath is a few boxes full of craft stuff. 

 

Storyboard for GUS NOVEL. It's now up to just one bulletin board and making the second one into FAIRY TALE since both stories won't leave me alone and demand to be written at the same time.

Left bookcase is more of women's fiction and right bookcase has a little bit of adult fiction and TONS of young adult contemporary. And yes, I'm aware none of my bookcases match. See the bottom part of the left one? That's what happens when you have a roommate who owns a dog. Never again.

Here is my 'imagination station'! 

My desk is really never this clean.

Best. Poster. Ever.

This bookcase is a mixture of classics, odds and ends, paranormal, and bottom shelf is all things novel writing related.  I usually have a binder for every story I work on. I told you if a novel ever needed a beginning I'd be a best-seller by now :) Everything on the other shelf is for craft stuff.

A trip to Laura Ingalls Wilder's House!

I had been promising my niece since last summer that we would go to Laura Ingalls Wilder's home and museum so last Thursday that's exactly where we went!

The scribbles and words you see are written in the dust on the sign. 

We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the museum or the houses which was a bummer. I always find people's lives who have accomplished something so huge fascinating.  In the museum they had everything from clothes Laura wore to the things that were in the buggy when they came to Mansfield. There were photographs of the real Ma, Pa, Laura, Mary, Carrie, and Grace. As people trickled into the museum while we waited (for-freaking-forever) for the next tour to start, several questions were being asked about how different the TV show was from their real lives. One big thing was that in real life Mary never regained her sight nor was she ever married with children.

Front view of house

When the tour started we went into a small room that played a mini documentary with Laura speaking on some parts of it. As a writer I find it amazing that Laura didn't start writing her books until she was 65 years old! Because of her sister's blindness she had adapted a key sense of description so she could always explain things to her which is why her memory for the books held out so well. After the documentary we started on the tour.

Back porch which was actually the first part of the house that had been built.

In some ways it was like a time wrap and in other ways it seemed like I was walking into someone's grandparents house. The fact that the house hasn't had much done to it and is still in great condition is amazing. Laura's husband, Almanzo loved to woodwork and put a lot of different things into the house like all the cabinets, sitting areas by the big windows, and I loved-loved the mini library that was set off to the side of the living room. The only downfall of the tour were these four bratty boys that were all under the age of seven or eight. I know they were kids, and I know they were on a family vacation, but c'mon now, what two-year-old is going to be interested in an old house?  Plus a very snooty woman was driving me a bit bonkers with questions like, "Did he really do that? That seems like too much work for someone of the time period." It's called people actually busted their butts back in the day, lady.

Walkway up to the Rock House

After the tour we went into the gift shop, got a few things then headed down to what they call the Rock House. The Rock House was the retirement house that their daughter had built for them. They never got to see what it looked like until Christmas day when it was all finished. Talk about one awesome Christmas gift! And guys, I fell in love with this place. So gorgeous and so many little details on the inside. I want to live there!

So. Freaking. Cute.

I want this door!

Speaking of....what is really neat is that the Rock House sold back in the 1940's and a family friend of ours actually grew up in that house during the 70's! Me and Bree ended up being the only two people down there at the time to go to the tour (the bratty kid pack showed up but luckily we were already inside so they had to wait -- hoorah!!) so I was telling the tour guide about how I knew someone who lived there. She got all excited because the historical society didn't get it back until 1990 and spent 7 years restoring it back to how it used to be thanks to a lot of photographs that were taken when Laura and her husband lived there.  They only lived there for a few years before they decided to go back to their bigger house on the other side of the property because that was what was really home to them.

We headed back into town where we stopped at Laura's Sweet Memories. It was mainly a candy type store, but the cutest little old lady who I assume owned the shop along with her husband, told us that she was the fourth cousin of Almanzo and talked to us a bit about the books and her husband told us about Pa's fiddle which is taken out each year at an annual festival and played. I plan on attending next year!

Fun Facts We Learned That Day:

Laura said she wanted to live to be 90 years old. She died three days after her 90th birthday.

Laura hated baking bread so she had her husband put in two big windows on both sides of the bread making table so she could look outside at the animals or see when company was coming.

They were the first people in Mansfield to get running water.

All their friends convinced them to purchase an electric stove when it first came out. They used it a few times, but Laura said the food tasted awful and went back to cooking on their wood stove up until they day she passed away. Both stoves were still in the kitchen.

Their daughter, Rose, lived in their bigger house after she built them the Rock House. She wrote a few of her own novels while staying there.

A guest bedroom was put on upstairs and the only person to have ever stayed in it was her sister, Grace, who visited her 3 times. 

They loved their dishes and had many collections on so many shelves including a lot of Depression Glass.

Laura was only 4'11 so when her husband started to build the house he built it for her size. Low ceilings and cabinets where she could reach. In the Rock House her daughter made sure the shower head was also her size. 

Most of the Little House on the Prairie books were written in Laura's kitchen until her husband started adding onto the house and built her a small office where she had a writing desk, a lounge chair, and a big window to look out from.

After that we came back home, freshened up a bit then hit up the carnival that was in town! (And dumb me forgot to bring my camera with me!)  I was all excited, but it ended up being such a small one and not many adult rides. There was maybe 4, I think. We ended up just going on two ride, Bree played a few games and she won two stuffed animals out of three, ate cotton candy and snow cones then ended the night eating Chinese food for dinner. I was out of it by the time I dropped her off, but it was such a fun day! I can't wait to have more of them with her this summer!

Writing, writing, writing, and then....nothing.

I know I am. so. not. alone. in this horrible moment where you're all excited for your story, and your fingers cannot pound out the ideas fast enough.  You have no problem spending all your free time sitting at your computer, cluttering it up with dishes, music blaring, and ignoring phone calls unless it happens to be your writing buddy (ies).  You think to yourself: This is it! *insert crazy mad laugh* This is going to be THE story!

And then....

It just kinda dies.

I'm not experiencing writer's block. Trust me, I know when I have that. I'm experiencing....well, I'm not for sure. I don't want to call it boredom because writing is anything BUT boring. Laziness, maybe? No drive at all?

Due to me reading more fantasy novels and watching Game of Thrones (ohmoigah - loovveee), I started in on Fairy Tale Novel again.  Now I told myself I wasn't supposed to touch any other ideas until Gus Novel was done, but two wise writing buddies told me to just go where my muse was, and it was there. So there. I'm talking like the above paragraph kind of there, and then I just lost my desire to keep writing it. Or ANYTHING for that matter. I have all these ideas. Tons of notes and storyboards crammed full of inspiration, but still I don't want to write them.

I don't know what's wrong with me.

But I don't like it.

I no like it at all.

Happy Father's Day!

thank you 

for always letting me tag along.

for taking care of us even when you were having your own bad days.

for making sure things were kept sane (or as sane as our family can be - ha!) while mom went back to school.

for a ridiculous nickname like sam hambone lollipop hobo melon belly jones.

or just sammy jones for short.

for cool family outings like going to the imax to see the rolling stones.

for allowing us to play our music as loud as we wanted, as long as it wasn't rap or country cause you didn't like it.

for 'daily doses of the dead' car drives and stories from back in your day.

for making sure we know how much you and mom love both of us.

for never telling me that being a writer was a burnt out dream.

Easter Sunday 2012 - the day Padre got baptized!

for giving us faith.

for reminding all of us that God has our backs.

for never giving up even though I know some days you want to.

for always being open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

high-sign.

love you, padre.

Music Monday: The Vinyl Haul

I went on an album search the other day in my parents' attic. My Padre has probably over 700 records or at least that was his last count years ago. I go over and borrow them because as he's told me many of times the only way they'll actually be mine is when he's 'kicked the bucket' and since I'm kinda partial to my Padre, I'm quite fine with just borrowing them. As my mom likes to throw in some of those were hers too and he's not the keeper of the records :)

This haul includes: 

The B-52's: Cosmic Thing

Blondie: Parallel Lines

Black Sabbath: Technical Ecstasy, Volume 4, and Master of Reality

Madonna: Like a Virgin

Prince: 1999

Cheech and Chong's Greatest Hits

The Eagles: Hotel California

Aerosmith

There has been a lot of dancing in the mornings, busting out the air guitar, and rocking out like a complete fool. I heart me some vinyl!

Why Snow White and the Huntsman ticked me off.

Before I go into my spill here, just know that if you read this post I will ruin this movie for you. If you don't want me to ruin the movie for you then you should probably stop reading this right now.

I love fairy tales. I've been on a massive fantasy type kick too. Every time I saw the trailer for the movie, I knew it was going to be awesome.

And then it turned out it kinda wasn't.

You have to know this about me and movies. I just want to be entertained. You can have missing plot holes, cheesy moments, and most of the time I don't care. This is a girl who loves her Lifetime and cheesy B movies for crying out loud. But this one just ticked me off. Is it because I was going in thinking it was goign to be all sorts of epic? Probably so. So this is my ranty post where I will probably not make much sense. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Right at the beginning with the narrator the fairy tale lover inside of me was giddy. The sets were spot on, I felt like I was in the era and as the story started I was in awe of how they portrayed the evil Queen. Charlize Theron freaking rocked that part, y'all! From the facial expressions to the wardrobe to her overall performance I was like CHYEA!! You are wicked as hell.

The effects for this movie were no doubt stunning. They totally nailed it with that. I have been on this massive kick of fantasy type things lately and one is Game of Thrones. I just finished season one before I watched this so in the back of my head I kept thinking when it came to the Queen: Please oh please no incest with your creepy looking brother. I cannot handle that with my 12-year-old niece sitting beside me. Thankfully that line was never crossed. (I don't care how things rolled back in those days, the whole 'pure bloodline' concept is skeezy.)

One of these days a fly is gonna zip into that hanging mouth of hers.

And then Snow White. I'm not a big Kristen Stewart fan. She's kind of like a Jodi Foster to me - not my cup of tea. I guess her acting as improved some, but sweet bejeez she needs to stop pulling a Corey Haim and learn to close her mouth in scenes. It doesn't ALWAYS need to be hanging open. BUT I told myself to be open minded because I really, really wanted to love this movie.

Just like every other girl on the block, I adore Chris Hemsworth so him being the Huntsman was perfection. Seriously how fantastic is he?! If you disagree with me, we probably shouldn't be friends. He just has that charisma about him, and I have a serious thing for rugged looking guys. His entrance of getting his drunken butt kicked around had me cracking up.

So let's fast forward to Snow's escape from the castle, running through the dark woods - which was creepy and again awesome effects - and pairing up with the Huntsman, I was really enjoying the movie. As I sat there watching this adventure they were put through from constantly having to escape the Creepy Brother to all the scenes with the Queen and how she was aging to meeting the dwarfs who were probably a top favorite part of mine, something started to nag at me and I couldn't quite place it until I realized Snow White kinda sucked. Not just because it was Kristen playing her. What kind of personality is this girl supposed to have when most of her scenes involve her grunting and breathing?? I know she was on the run a lot, but it seems that's all she did! A friend of mine said she sounded worse than Darth Vader, and I'm going to have to agree with this one. It was so annoying!

I know this movie was never supposed to be a love story. It's a dark tale and that's cool. I will roll with that. But c'mon - where was the connection between them? You have these two out on a quest to get back to that duke or whatever he was's castle and you can't even throw a few small get-to-know-one-another-semi-deep-type of conversations in? And a lot of this didn't really hit me-hit me until after William joined them and the scene with the poison apple happened. (I did like that scene, Sam Claflin fooled me for about five seconds thinking he was on the Queen's side until she showed her face.) Afterwards where Snow's dead and William goes into kiss her, I'm thinking he needs to be the one that brings her back to life. I know she's been with the Huntsman, but their relationship was flat. At least William and her had this childhood connection and the constant longing to see one another again.

Obviously she didn't wake up when he kissed her. Fine, whatever. It wouldn't be called Snow White and the Huntsman if it wasn't going to be centered around them. So I was cool with that with it until my half drunken man goes to visit Snow's corpse. Him telling her about his wife, how her death ruined him showed a lot for his character so I was a bit aww over him, but then he throws in how Snow reminded him of his dead wife, Sarah. *insert my shaking head here* Whoever put this script together showed us absloutely nothing between these two that would make this statement believable.

Okay, fine, whatever. His kiss wakes her up, she shows up in the middle of the place while everyone isn't freaking out as much as I assumed they would have been and declares they take back the kingdom! Hoorah! Time for the epic battle scene BUT wait a second....you want me to believable that Snow White, who has been locked away in a freaking tower most of her life, can suddenly throw on some armor, grab a sword, and lead people into battle? I did have to get up and pee at one point, did I miss something here? If it's that easy to just charge a bunch of trained knights then maybe I should take up slicin' and dicin'.

But you know what? I could have overlooked all of this. No seriously, I really could have. Like I said, I'm a Lifetime movie watcher, I'm used to the main points being skimmed over. But it was the last let's say five minutes of the movie that just ticked me off to no end.  The fact that there was absolutely no mention at all how that man's lips of magic woke her up from the freaking dead. No "Hey, by the way, Huntsman, thanks for smoochin' me and bringing me back to life so I could use the blessing from the crazy looking dear who turned into butterflies to restore my father's kingdom. Pretty sure I'll be keeping your pretty face around just in case someone tries to poison me." He didn't even get a thank you or a pat on the back! Instead at the very end where I think something great is going to happen like the acknowledgement of it or maybe even a together type of scene, he walks into the room where Snow has been looking for him the entire scene and she just stands there staring at him with her big ole' teeth and the doors shut!!

Lame. As. Hell. Seriously. I didn't expect a wedding or anything, but who thought those final minutes was a great idea for an ending? I've heard the original ending involved the Huntsman dying. I think I may have preferred that now. I also heard there is a talk of a sequel, but it seems pointless to me.

And that is my peace about this movie. What did you think of it?

Perks of Being a Wallflower Trailer!!

Guuyysss.

I am so ridiculously excited about this!

Back in my sophomore year of high school, ya know about oh many years ago, I was in the stage of wanting to rebel against nothing, wanting to find something, and live in every moment. 

And I did.

In between those moments this book came along and it pretty much made more sense to me than any subject I could have learned. I can still remember reciting the poem on page 70 in front of my class where as luck would have it the assistant principal just so happened to be sitting in on. His face was stunned, a bit speechless. But my teacher, Mr. Lawson, he grinned because he knew what it was all about. 

Yea, he was one of those teachers. 

I knew the movie was being made and I jumped for joy. Seeing the trailer, I have this overwhelming squeeze going through me. The cast looks perfect. I can't even tell you the last time I read this, but I'm definitely going to be doing another one, quite possibly my 30th time reading it, before I go see the movie.  

What book hit you in high school? 

currently.

READING: Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. It's all Netflix's fault. Last week I had to have a procedure done and the whole weekend I was in bed so I put in the first disc of season one. Oh man, did I become hooked! Only problem was it was the mail-in type. Wal-Mart didn't have it so I downloaded it to my Kindle. It's long, but I am loving it! I ended up finishing watching the first season and now I cannot wait to read more of the series because it'll be for-freaking-ever before season 2 comes out on DVD.

WATCHING: Since Game of Thrones is all watched up I have went back to my regular scheduled programmed trashed reality TV which includes Jerseylicious, Real Housewives of New Jersey, and Don't Be Tardy for the Wedding. Don't judge me. All my fall shows are over with and this week all my good summer shows start.


ANTICIPATING: News of my new job! I am really hoping by next week when I call the position has opened up.

LAUGHING ABOUT:  When I was at my parents' house earlier. My mother has this ability to pretend listen. She asked me how some health stuff was going and then averted her eyes back to The Real McCoy or whatever the heck was on and in mid-sentence I say something like, ".....so then I gave birth to a bunch of dragons and became the Queen." She goes, "Oh that's not...YOU DID WHAT?!"

LISTENING TO:  I hit repeat on this song a couple times while at the walking park earlier (clocked in 2.5 miles!) It pretty much describes how my mind has been feeling lately.

EATING: Gluten-free yogurt pretzels as I type. Let's say my diet is getting healthier and I'm slowly feeling better because of it. I just wished I would have done this a few weeks ago since I have plans this weekend that may not happen :(

 
WORKING ON: Since I'm on this big fantasy kick I have been working on Fairy Tale Novel again. I busted out a little over 23K last week on it. I have a better understanding of my characters and am loving them. It's a great feeling to have. Just ask any writer.

WISHING: By the end of the month to feel completely and utterly fine again where I don't have to worry about going places. I'm tired of being a hermit!! Been there, done that and I don't want a repeat.

Currently is over at Sometimes Sweet. I have seen it here, there, and everywhere on blogs and finally decided to join in! 

Going Gluten-Free - HELP!

Over the past week I've had a few tests and one procedure done to start ruling out what all could be causing me to have such bad stomach problems for the past year. I was diagnosed with IBS or what I like to call DIMB (Demon In Mah Belly). That wasn't new news. I got that when I was a teen, but it had always just went in small phases. The constant feeling like crap is having me at my wit's end not to mention embarrassing at times. I have to cancel going out with friends or even going to the movies is sometimes a challenge.

I've been ruled out of colon polyps, cancerous colon options (THANK GOD!), Chrone's Disease, and Celiac's Disease. I still haven't gotten all my biopsy results back, but the more I researched, the more I convinced myself that going gluten free might be a good idea. I'm on Day 8 of being pretty much G-Free and I've noticed a BIG difference with how I've felt. I'm also taking a fiber supplement and having to buy that at the store made me feel like I'm 70 instead of 27.

The fallback to going G-Free is that it's kind of a pain in the butt especially for someone who lives in a very small town where one little section of the grocery store has about 20 items. I'm heading to Springfield in a few days with a cooler in my backseat just so I can go to Hy-Vee and stock up on grocery items. That's a 60 mile drive mind you, but if it makes me feel better than I am all for it. I also ordered a couple cookbooks from Amazon to help me adapt to this new lifestyle. It's crazy to think for the past 2 months my symptoms were a constant me wanting to curl in a ball and die and out of the 8 days, the past 3 of them I have felt normal again.

Here's where I'm reaching out to the interwebs and anyone who happens to read this half-arse blog of mine. Any recommendations on some good brand products to check out? I know some of that stuff taste like cardboard crap, and I do have a budget to maintain and this stuff ain't cheap. Or do you have some awesome websites that show some good recipes? I know quick and easy isn't going to be the best option. Since sometimes I always feel like I'm in a hurry having to spend more than 10 minutes in the kitchen is going to take some time getting used to. Not to mention the fact that I LOVE BREAD AND I CAN LONGER EAT IT!! So far most gluten-free bread taste like well...crap.

Any suggestions, advice, or whatever you can throw my way into getting into the new lifestyle would be GREATLY appreciated!