KirstenL4W

I’m not going to do a New Year’s post.  I pretty much posted all that stuff with my Great Christmas Post of 2008, so no need for a duplicate post. Instead, I’m going to post a few pictures from around the house, since the last time anyone saw any pics of my house, we hadn’t moved in yet.

This is the space between our windows in the living room. That’s right, Mommy, we do indeed have 2 windows in the living room, hence the need for 2 SETS of panels. I had the prints that I picked up years ago with some old-fashioned postcard images, and they go pretty good here, don’t you think?

We had this mirror, which was hung vertically in the hallway at the old apartment. We haven’t been able to find a suitable place for it in our new home, until Mister and I both had a brainstorm at practically the same time. We hung it horizontally over the front door to create a transom window effect. Bonus: it reflects the light from that fixture back into the room.

This corner area by the stairs looked empty until we found the perfect piece to put here. A dried floral arrangement and hanging candle holder make an elegant vignette. For Christmas decorating, I removed the candle from the holder and filled the glass about halfway with small red and gold baubles.

I’ve always wanted to make my own Christmas cards, and this year I had a much larger card list than in years past. So, I decided to go for it. With the quantity that I had to send out, I picked out 4 stamps and set about making my cards, assembly-line style. Thanks to my huge lack of knowledge regarding stamping ink, I picked something that just never really seemed to dry, and some of the cards got smudged and left impressions from the wet ink. Still, I forged on and ended up with these cards that people seemed to love. I had fun making the cards, but I don’t think I’ll be doing it again because I don’t have copious amounts of time on my hands to try and figure this stuff out.

Remember the holiday meme I did last year? If you go down to Item #23, I mention my favorite ornament. This is the ornament. And guess what? My mommy sent it to me! It’s mine now, all mine! Thank you Mommy!

When Mister and I were in New England last fall, we spent a bit of time in downtown Newburyport, MA. Fall was in full swing, and as we were walking along doing some window shopping after dinner one night, we happened upon this scarecrow. How fitting for a town with such a deep maritime history!

Mister and had a late lunch today, and as we were eating a number of LVMPD’s traffic officers came in to eat. We saw their bikes lined up in the parking lot as we were leaving and thought it would make a good picture. It would have been a better picture with a real camera, not a cell phone. Anyway, these guys will have a very busy night ahead of them keeping the streets safe for everyone tonite!

So there you have it, some pictures that have been sitting on my camera for awhile. Enjoy, and have a very Happy New Year!

Here’s one that’s going around the interwebs lately.

Meme:
Things you’ve already done: bold
Things you want to do: italicize
Things you haven’t done and don’t want to - leave in plain font

1. started your own blog
2. slept under the stars
3. played in a band
4. visited Hawaii
5. watched a meteor shower
6. given more than you can afford to charity
7. been to disneyland/world
8. climbed a mountain (but only in my car on the highway)
9. held a praying mantis
10. sang a solo
11. bungee jumped
12. visited Paris
13. watched a lightning storm at sea
14. taught yourself an art from scratch
15. adopted a child
16. had food poisoning
17. walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty (I was there, but had a head cold so all the way to the top was out of the question)
18. grown your own vegetables (does helping out when I was a kid count?)
19. seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. slept on an overnight train
21. had a pillow fight
22. hitch hiked
23. taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. built a snow fort
25. held a lamb
26. gone skinny dipping
27. run a marathon
28. ridden a gondola in Venice
29. seen a total eclipse
30. watched a sunrise or sunset
31. hit a home run (only on the Wii)
32. been on a cruise
33. seen Niagara Falls in person
34. visited the birthplace of your ancestors (I’ve been to the country, but not the towns)
35. seen an Amish community
36. taught yourself a new language (in school counts, right? I mean, I studied hard)
37. had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. gone rock climbing
40. seen Michelangelo’s David in person
41. sung karaoke
42. seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant
44. visited Africa
45. walked on a beach by moonlight
46. been transported in an ambulance
47. had your portrait painted
48. gone deep sea fishing
49. seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris (3rd level wasn’t open when I was there, so I went as high as I could)
51. gone scuba diving or snorkelling
52. kissed in the rain
53. played in the mud
54. gone to a drive-in theatre
55. been in a movie
56. visited the Great Wall of China
57. started a business
58. taken a martial arts class
59. visited Russia
60. served at a soup kitchen
61. sold girl scout cookies
62. gone whale watching (was supposed to in 8th grade, but it was too rough out that day so we only cruised around Cape Ann)
63. gotten flowers for no reason
64. donated blood (no spleen here)
65. gone sky diving
66. visited a Nazi concentration camp
67. bounced a check (not my fault, and I proved it to the bank)
68. flown in a helicopter
69. saved a favorite childhood toy
70. visited the Lincoln memorial
71. eaten caviar
72. pieced a quilt
73. stood in Times Square
74. toured the Everglades
75. been fired from a job
76. seen the changing of the guard in London (don’t know why I never watched this - I was there 3 times!)
77. broken a bone
78. been on a speeding motorcycle
79. seen the Grand Canyon in person (and I live so close)
80. published a book
81. visited the Vatican
82. bought a brand new car
83. walked in Jerusalem
84. had your picture in the newspaper
85. read the entire bible (but it was a children’s storybook bible)
86. visited the White House
87. killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. had chickenpox (at age 22!)
89. saved someone’s life
90. sat on a jury
91. met someone famous
92. joined a book club
93. lost a loved one
94. had a baby
95. seen The Alamo in person
96. swum in the Great Salt Lake
97. been involved in a law suit
98. owned a mobile phone
99. been stung by a bee

So I went and signed up for a Twitter account.  I’m not so sure what the big deal is, and as a blogger it just seems redundant.  I have a blog to tell you all what I’m up to, so I don’t know what’s so exciting about me sending updates every half hour telling you what I’m doing.  Seriously?  Do you all need to know that?

Anyway, I signed up for an account to see a bit more about it, and to get my usual user name before anyone else does.  And I did add the widget to my sidebar, so if any of you want to follow me, you can.  But please, please tell me why in the world I need to tweet if I have a blog?

I’ve been wondering what I should write for the “G” edition of the Encyclopedia of Me, when suddenly the holidays rolled around, I gave and received gifts, and this post was born.

I love giving gifts, so when it came time to shop for Mister, I was delighted.  Here’s what he got from me:

• Netflix gift subscription because we never get to the movies to see what we want and are bored with our current DVD collection
• The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (which he loves!)
• Nikon D80 Digital Field Guide - I liked this book because it seems easy to understand and shows the results of certain techniques.
• a UV filter for the camera - we sure need that here in the desert!
• Death at a Funeral
• a bunch of other stuff including new socks and chocolate

I got a bunch of stuff from my Amazon wishlist, which now needs to be replenished

• The Tales of Beedle the Bard - I put the paperback version on my list, so as not to be ostentatious, but Mister knew better and got me this instead. It will look awesome on the bookshelf!
• Understand Your Dreams 3 Ed - I have the 1st edition of this book, which I got to write a paper in college. It is the absolute best dream analysis book I have ever seen, and this updated version contains 1000 more images than the original book.
• The Emigrants - This is the 1st in a series of 4 books telling the story of a family from Sweden who emigrate to America. I do have the first book, which was a gift from a friend in Sweden. She thought it would be similar to my great-grandparent’s stories, since they also came from Sweden. When I finished reading it, I wanted the other 3, but the covers didn’t match the one I had, since it was purchased in Sweden and the others from Amazon. Now I have a nice matching set for my bookshelf, and of course the one from my friend still holds a special place on my bookshelf.
• Silent Nightclub
• Mr. Bean - The Whole Bean (Complete Set)
• Pleasures Perfume by Estee Lauder. I’ve been in need of new perfume for quite some time, so I have been strictly rationing what little I have left. Mister got this because he likes when I “smell like a girl.”
• Methuen (MA) (Images of America). This is the town I grew up in, and it has a really cool history. Now with this book I can have a little piece of home with me.
• An overflowing stocking filled with my favorite chocolates and a bunch of Burt’s Bees goodies.

I do have to say, though, that with all those goodies, the best gift of all was being able to spend Christmas with my super amazing husband.  Christmas (and every day) is a thousand times better now that he’s in my life.

Just like I did in 2006 and 2007, it’s time for the annual holiday post.   So much has happened this year, so sit down and try to keep up!Big changes here at the blog started off the new year - I moved my blog to self-hosted WordPress!   Thanks to the lovely Snoskred, I was able to take advantage of great features, including having separate pages like this one and this one.  I also had a go at a regular feature called Music on Mondays.  That lasted a little over 10 weeks, but it was fun and I might resurrect it on a not-so-regular basis.  I also completed NaBloPoMo in November, and outside life has kept me away from the blog for most of December, but I’m still here.

Outside the blog, my life has seen a lot of new and exciting changes this year.  It all started happening when Mister (who was then known as Boyfriend) proposed to me.  We bought a house and moved into it, and continued planning our wedding.  On June 21 of this year, we got married.  After that, we settled into married life.

The second half of the year was, thankfully, not quite as eventful.  We went to visit the in-laws a couple times, and I flew back east in September when my Grandma passed away.  A month later I was back in New England when Mister and I finally took our honeymoon.  What could be better than New England in the fall?  Then it was back home to the temps cooling off, finally, and I hosted my first Thanksgiving dinner.  December has been busy, and we saw a rare snowfall here in Las Vegas!  I’ll leave you all with a picture of that.  Merry Christmas!

I know I said that I would be Blogging Without Obligation, but I didn’t say that I would neglect my blog. There’s been a lot going on, and a lot on my mind, which I won’t be discussing here. But once I get all the Christmas presents packaged up and mailed to my family back east, I’ll be back.

A long time ago, I wrote a post about creativity as it applies to me.  Some days I feel really creative, but just don’t know how to express it.  Other times I try being creative and fall so short of the expectations I have of myself and my abilities that I fall into a funk.  Like last night - I had the hairbrained idea to make holiday cards this year instead of buying them.  I plan on posting about them later, but let’s just say that they definitely look homemade.

Today as I was reading all the blogs I love to read, I came across a new post by my good friend Pollyhyper.  For those who are new or who just forgot, Pollyhyper is the one who made my amazing wedding cake topper.  She subscribes to Lee Silber’s newsletter (never heard of him, but I plan on subscribing), which recently included a link to The 10 Dimensions of Creative Complexity (or, “10 Reasons That Creative People Drive Us Crazy”).  As I was reading this list over, it made an awful lot of sense to me.  Check this out:

1. Creative individuals have great physical energy, but they become extremely quiet when they are at rest.  This restful period can lead others to think that they are not feeling well or that they are unhappy, when the truth is they are fine.
2. Creative folks tend to be both highly intelligent and naive at the same time.
3. Creative people are disciplined and playful simultaneously.  In some creative people, this can mean that they are responsible and irresponsible at the same time as well.
4. Creative minds move between a spectrum of fantasy and imagination and a firm grounding in reality.  They understand the present and need to keep in touch with the past.
5. Creative individuals seem to be both introverted and extroverted, expressing both traits at once.  An image to explain this might be that they are shy showoffs, if you can picture that.
6. Creative people are sincerely humble and extremely proud in a childlike way.  It requires ego to have a risky, fresh idea.  It takes self-doubt to hammer it out to a workable form.
7. Creative folks don’t feel as tied to gender roles.  They feel distinctly individual.  They don’t feel the barriers of authority or the rules of what they are “supposed to do.”
8. Creative individuals are thought to be rebellious.  Yet, in order to be creative one has to understand and have internalized the traditional culture.  Therefore creativity comes from deep roots in tradition.  Creative people are traditional and cutting edge.
9. Creative people are deeply passionate about their work, yet can be extremely detached and objective when discussing it.
10. Creative people are highly open and sensitive, which exposes them to pain and suffering, but also allows them to feel higher values of joy and happiness.

If you look at each of those points, you’ll see that they all show two sides of a coin.  I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but I’m a Gemini, the sign of the twins, and Mister will tell anyone that my twins are polar opposites.  He’s gotten used to the way I will contradict myself in a sentence yet manage to make perfect sense, if only to myself.

My point with this whole post?  How in the heck do I tap my creativity to get it out, and harness it so that I can produce something worth showing off, perhaps even selling?  This is a question I ask myself all the time - every time I cruise Etsy to look at pretty stuff, or drive by the craft store, or even read my friend Robin’s blog.  How do I have that a-ha! moment that will unleash all this pent-up creativity inside me?