Q: Can You Train a Cat?

A:  Yes

Marzipan Monday

 Corgi says: "Whaaat?"

Cute pom + snow = high energy fun!

Its starts slow, but be patient it gets super cute!

DIY/Crafts:
♦How to create a photobooth.
♦For all of the retro lovers: How to make a sweater clip.
♦Tips for sewing leather.

Fashion/ Pop Culture:
♦What do you think about kids wearing pajamas to school? Or adults wearing them in public for that matter!

Mental Health/Self-Care:
♦Medicinal Marzipan talks about grieving the loss of your body fantasy.
♦Once again Ragen fights for body acceptance! (I LOVE Dances With Fat!!!!) This post is great too!

“This isn’t the Oppression Olympics – it’s not about who gets oppressed worse, it’s about nobody getting oppressed at all."

♦Problematic relationships? How to "fire" a bad friend. This could also work for toxic family members as well. (Don’t worry my friends! I am not speaking about any of you!)
♦Have you ever heard of Compulsive Skin Picking? A good friend of mine has this condition, and it drives her crazy. Here is an interview with a woman with the condition.

Health:
♦If you are like me and suffer from insomnia, Rookie offers some great tips for better sleep. (They are at the bottom)

I have a dental appointment (EEEk!) today, so wish me luck! 

Have a great week, and don't slip on the ice!!!

Color of the day:
6th   ~ Ivory
7th   ~ Maroon
8th   ~ Brown
9th   ~ Purple
10th ~ Rose
11th ~ Blue
12th ~ Gold

Yoda Meets Poe.

Source

Have a great Tuesday!

Enjoy the comic.

Monday...make it happen!

"Hi there!" Puppy noses are awesome!  Source

A commercial parodying the "unrealness" of photoshopped images.

"My skin feels like plastic!"

A friend of mine shared this video of their local weather man. Crazy cold!

Thanks Het Stadium!

I warn you: this will make you hungry!

Mental Health/Self-Care:
♦A blog about "Perfect Weight" what does that mean?

"Sometimes I feel like there's an invisible scale that follows me around. It sits next to me when I eat, staring pointedly at the pat of butter on my bread roll. It lurks in the corner while I'm running on my treadmill. I open the door to my pantry and the invisible scale glares at me from a shelf, dictating what I should and should not eat. And worst of all, it regularly reminds me of my lowest weight, the number I was when I was sick and starving.

That damm scale.
My damm weight."

♦Is putting an activity monitor on children ethical? I smell Big Brother coming….
♦You can make it possible! *** [Note: this article contains some cursing and course language
♦Why do TV couples all fight bicker and compete
♦A look at how fashion, culture, color, and psychology collide.
Last week I shared this link on my Facebook page…but wanted to share on my blog, for those who may have missed it. The cost of hiding mental illness.

Fashion:
♦Vintage Cosmopolitan covers.
♦Do you (like me)have a scarf addiction? I found a tutorial for different ways to tie scarves. (Bonus: Dr. Who mention!)

Diy:
♦Make your own no-knit hats and mittens.
♦Do you like googly eyes? Do you like whimsical objects? Here is a perfect fusion of the two.
♦Make your own high-end decorator candles. (Battery operated candles only!!!!!)

Funny stuff:
♦Curiosity gets the cat in trouble. (And is expensive)
♦An aunt trying to be cool + slang terms = comic gold.


***Please note: I am not affiliated with any political party, or endorsing Socialism or any other political movement. I Simply liked this post and wanted to share the positive message it had.


Color of the day:
30th ~ White
31st ~ White
1st   ~ White (wow, three in a row!)
2nd  ~ Tourqoise
3rd  ~ Pink
4th  ~ Black
5th  ~ Orange

Heirlooms

A few weeks before my birthday I received a phone call from my aunt Sammy*. She had a ring that belonged to her mother (Grandma T). She didn’t wear it and thought that I would like it.

She mailed it to me along with some family records she had. (She is part of a historical society, and has done extensive research on our family tree. )

I was so excited when the package arrived! I opened the box, pouring over the news clippings, photos and etc. She even found time capsule info for my day of birth for 1888, 1903, and my birth year!

How cool is that!?!

Then I tried the ring on. Huh, too big. Tried my thumb= still TOO big.

I must mention at this point that I have ridiculously small fingers. I mean small. My pinkie is s 3 or 4, ring finger is 5 ½ and my thumb is only an 8!

The ring unfortunately is a 9 ½.

So I went to a awesome jeweler that I trust. (They did some work on my wedding ring.) They took a look at the ring and told me the following:

The band is made of mixed metals, so I were to have it resized, some of the base metals may show, discolor, or melt. (They couldn’t guarantee the exact metal composition)



Complication; I have a nasty metal allergy. Even if they could successfully size the ring down, I still couldn’t wear it.

DANG IT!



After some brainstorming with the jeweler…we decided to drill a small hole in the top and add a bail. (loop to make it into a pendant.)

Because of the info my aunt sent…I realized that Tailfer IS the correct spelling. My bio-mom wrote it wrong on the family tree I have.

So at least that is settled!

Thanks to aunt Sammy for the awesome “pendant” and all of the information about our ancestors.

She rocks!



*I don't know how my aunt feels about having her name published on my blog, so I changed her name.

SOPA Is Censorship!

If you are wondering why my blog looks strange...


I am blacking out my blog in protest to SOPA.


If you haven't heard about SOPA here is some info.


Online protests


Wiki page


Here is the link to my original post.

The Joy of books!

This is for all of my book-loving friends!

Enjoy!

Otters And Butterflies Are Awesome!

Pizza Boomerang *Warning Adult Content*

*WARNING*

Adult content

Not safe for work

A super weird commercial, about a pizza boomerang.

Possibly the most bizarre commercial I have ever seem!

If you want to know what they are saying…here is the version with subtitles. (It doesn’t make it any less weird either.)

Monday Magic

Source

World News:
♦10 very inspiring art projects of 2011. [The Up house is my favorite!]
♦As part of a three day elephant themed festival in Nepal, they give elephants pedicures!
♦A French business man has created a fund to pay fines for women who do not wear burqas.

Life Advice:
♦How to stay creative, advice from artists.
♦Don't wait around for a Valentine...make your own!

Mental Health/Self-Care/Recovery:
♦Rookie offers some gentle advice for survivors of sexual assault.
♦TOP 10 psych books of 2011. I haven't read any of these, but I really want to check them out.
♦Jenny Lawson is an amazing woman! Check out her Traveling Red Dress Project.
♦Ragen (of Dances With Fat) talks about her terrible experience at Universal Studios. Grrrr!


Health/Feminism:
♦Unfortunately doctors often underestimate the pain that women are in. (Sexism in the doctors office.)

Color of the day:
23rd ~ Gray
24th ~ Red
25th ~ Topaz
26th ~ Green
27th ~ Coral
28th ~ Brown
29th ~ Yellow

Corgi Toon

Found some cute corgi pictures, had to share.

bookMark Monday

Cutest bookmark ever! Where can I get one?

Source

Cute critters:
♦Cute Overload offers the top 10 cutest videos of 2011. Squeeeeeeee!
♦Further proof that corgis are amazing dogs, a tuff corgi survives an avalanche!

Life advice:
♦Gala Darling offers some great advice about how to start out the new year on the right foot.
♦Are you burned out? Stressed…? Gala (again) has suggestions to get your spark back.
♦Encouraging words to give you a boost.

World news:
♦A look at the TSA's’s security efforts. [This confirms what I had suspected]
♦This is incredible! A man from India almost lost his family in an attempt to create affordable sanitary products for rural women in India. He is an incredibly resourceful man!

Crafts:
♦Here is a tutorial for a very cool scrap felt bracelet. Colorful and fun!
♦Also from the same blog, a tutorial for decorating switch plates. They made winter themed ones, but it would be easy to make any theme.
♦Make your own buttons from shrink plastic. Very cool idea.
♦Ring holder/display from old egg cartons. Very thrifty idea.

Art and entertainment:
♦Amanda Palmer wrote a long and very touching blog about her marriage to Neil Gaiman. [I got misty eyed reading this!]
♦Have you ever wanted to go crazy with stickers? An artist gave thousands of stickers to kids and let them go wild!

Last and certainly not least: I would like to wish Allison of Deviant Dispatches and her fantastic Spousal Unit a wonderful anniversary! 

You guys rock!


Colors:
16th ~ Silver
17th ~ Black
18th ~ Brown
19th ~ White
20th ~ Pink
21st ~ Blue
22nd ~ Orange

I Really Hate My Insurance Company

So after the horrible birthday card they send me…I didn’t think it could get any worse.

Well, I was wrong.


The outside of the "charming" card:

So, am I going thought menopause?




And now...for the inside:

ARG!

ASDFGHJKL;!!!!!!

So because I am a married woman….am I supposed to start pumping out babies?

Grrrr.

I am afraid to see what they send next.

Do you feel that bald is beautiful?

I do.

I just wanted to share a story with all of you. I read a guest post over at Eat The Damn Cake that really moved me. A young woman writes about her life being bald.

At 14 she began to lose her hair. I can’t begin to imagine the taunting and pain of being bald in junior high. She is a strong woman.

Memento Monday

Source   I feel like the 2012 end of the world drama is just a rehashing of Y2K. 

♦♦♦♦♦

I am still recovering from the sleep depravation that is New Years. Blarg. So I handpicked some fun and uplifting articles.

I found some great articles to help with self love and positive body image:

Thanks to Mama Marchand for the image.

♦I hate being photographed. I am going to take some tips from this article to get over it!

♦On the same topic Kate, of Eat The Damn Cake talks about her relationship with the camera.

♦♦♦♦♦

♦My sister Allison offers a practical guide to new years revolutions. (Bonus: the photos are awesome.)

♦Free printable 2012 calendars courtesy of Dollar Store Crafts.

♦Rookie offers a fun blog, Winter Sweaters: a Taxonomy.

♦A bunch of adorable corgis wish you a happy new year!!!!

                                                                            ♦♦♦♦♦

We Will Become Silhouettes ~ The Postal Service

Have a great week, and a fantastic 2012.

Color of the day:
9th   ~ Lavender
10th ~ Red
11th ~ Yellow
12th ~ Green
13th ~ Rose
14th ~ Black
15th ~ Yellow

Megaphone Monday

Not my dog, but so cute!!!! Source

♦Craft Fail has a count-down of their 10 worst craft fails of 2011.

♦The 20 Unhappiest people you meet in the comments sections of year-end lists. This really cracked me up.

♦Have you ever wanted to see the inside of Courtney Love’s house? Well here you go!

♦How movies hype up New Years as a super magical time. (Their examples are pretty funny.)

♦Rock N' Roll bride shares inspiration ideas for blogging.

♦♦♦♦♦

"I felt like everyone had let me in on a dark secret, that I’d somehow been witness to a wide-scale acceptance of the worst of our culture and our social values, the very worst misogyny that so many buy into without even acknowledging. In suddenly remembering this basic fact -- something I know too well and is certainly not much of a secret -- I felt ashamed of everyone, of being complicit in a collective value system that prioritizes a very select group of people and their rights.

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way. I suppose it isn’t much different that witnessing other types of blatant cruelty and stopping to witness, to empathize, or even to intervene.

Sometimes I just forget for a while. Sometimes I allow myself to shut out realities that are just too tough to carry around every single day.

When I’m reminded, it’s that much harder to accept because I’m not actually naïve. I know many people aren’t perturbed by sexual violence. They never think about it. When they do, it’s on a screen, one they apparently don’t mind watching because it’s somehow removed from their reality."

A sexual abuse survivor’s view of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. (I agree with a lot of what she said.)

♦♦♦♦♦

"But sometimes I think the holidays are hard because we as a culture don’t want to build any narratives that involve learning how to have a good holiday on your own terms, alone or with chosen companions."
♦The holidays can be terrible if you don’t have a family to share it with.

♦♦♦♦♦

♦Ok...this last article is intense. It is a woman’s real life account of her recovery from anorexia. It is sad, disturbing, yet hopeful. Article here.

*Trigger warning: there are photos that may disturb some. *

♦♦♦♦♦

Now for something cheerful:

♦Ha ha ! My unicorn name is Pansy Charming Mane. Want to know yours? Clicky-clicky!


I hope you all had a great New Years.

Have a great week!
Color of the day:
13th ~ Silver
14th ~ Gray
15th ~ Brown
16th ~ Green
17th ~ White
18th ~ Gray
19th ~ Orange