December 7: Blog find of the year. That gem of a blog you can’t believe you didn’t know about until this year.

I follow a lot of blogs that cover everything from web design and development to arts and crafts, psychology and human development to interior design and green living but here are a few of my favorites.

1. re-nest: Abundant Design for Green Homes (http://www.re-nest.com/)
   This blog belongs to the Apartment Therapy network and is filled with wonderful style and beauty. I could move into this blog and live there if that were possible. It is a nice place to visit, sip my coffee and dream a little.
2. noupe: curiosity for finding what’s new & better (http://www.noupe.com/)
   This blog focuses on design, from product packages to photography and more. I have found several great articles that inspire me in my own work. I often return to these articles for techniques and suggestions as well. If you are a designer or just enjoy looking at great design, then check out this blog!
3. grinding (http://grinding.be/)
   This blog makes me think about all the things that are possible in our world today and the amazing experiments that are happening out there. It is part sci-fi mixed with real world projects that are changing lives or have the ability to do that one day in the future. Technology fascinates me and there is plenty here for me to be fascinated about!

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dance like no one’s watching, originally uploaded by i.Anton.

I stumbled upon this photographer on flickr and I’m in love with their entire photostream.

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Here are some of my favorites taken by others. I’m so inspired by these!

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I wanna have pride like my mother has,
And not like the kind in the bible that turns you bad.

~ from The Perfect Space by The Avett Brothers

The lyrics above really touched me at the concert the other night. I have always respected my mother and thought she could do no wrong but as I have gotten older I have started to understand her on a level more fitting a friend, someone I enjoy to talk to and share interests with. One such interest is gardening.

My momma is an amazing gardener. Her flower beds are huge and beautiful and a lot of our conversations turn to topics about the latest gardening magazine that we have picked up, the best way to get rids of pests organically, the best time to plant or dig our bulbs, etc. A large number of my flowers started in her garden which makes them even more special to me.

Today I was cleaning up flower beds and getting my garden ready for winter. This included picking hyacinth bean seeds for next year that were gifted to me last spring from her and  planting all the new plants she just sent me. Of course I had to call her once to get her suggestion on a good place to put them all.

I love her pride, the good kind that is wrapped up in her home and family. Ever since I have been out on my own, I have used her example as a benchmark to strive towards when it comes to having a home that feels good. I still haven’t mastered her grace and easy skill at it but I keep trying.

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, originally uploaded by attercat.

I’m finally getting the hang of using my “new to me” Polaroid camera. Today was the perfect day for a good Halloween shot. I hope everyone has a spooky, treat-filled Halloween!

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“New” Camera, originally uploaded by attercat.

Just last week I picked up this beauty knowing that film would be expensive to buy and not exactly easy to find and then today I read that The Impossible Project will start producing film in 2010, http://www.good.is/post/polaroid-lives!

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The drive from Fort Nelson to Whitehorse was long and I made it even longer because I wanted to drive an extra 2.5 hours round trip to the Northern Territory just to say I had been there. We only went a few miles over the border and then turned around and drove straight back to were we started but at least I can now say I have been there.

All day Friday we traveled the Alaskan Highway. We saw some beautiful scenes along the way including lots of caribou and buffalo. They would just be walking in the road and you would have to slow down and ease around them when they felt like moving. One of my favorite sitings was a caribou that was swimming across a lake and then he bounded out on the other side, shook himself off, did a little dance and ran across the road in front of us and up into the hill on the other side.

We ended up stopping in a little town between Fort Nelson and Whitehorse called Watson Lake. It is often called the Yukon’s gateway because it is the first town you run into in the Yukon if you are coming from Canada to Alaska. They have a great little visitor and info center there and they talked us into watching a short movie on the history of the Alaskan Highway. I found it to be very interesting and it was a nice break from driving. One of the things that Watson Lake is best known for is their Sign Post Forest. “The forest was started in 1942 by a homesick U.S. Army G.I., Carl K. Lindley of Danville, Il., Company D, 341st Engineers. While working on the Alaska Highway, he erected a sign here pointing the way and stating the mileage to his hometown. Others followed his lead and are still doing so to this day. On July 20, 1990, Olen and Anita Walker of Bryan, Ohio placed the 10,000th sign.”

We made it to Whitehorse really late on Friday night and found a room, fell asleep and headed out again about 6 a.m. so we saw very little of it. It is the capital city of the Yukon and was the largest town we saw while traveling through the Yukon. There are very few places to stop along the Alaskan highway and there were a few times when we got a little nervous on the gas situation because the places that sell it start shutting down in September for the season. We will have to plan well on our trip back through in a week or so from now! We are hoping to get to see more of Whitehorse when we pass through again on the way home.

One of the great bits of advice that we got from the lady at the Watson Lake info center was the suggestion that we take one route out of the Yukon into Alaska and another back in so that we didn’t have to drive a lot of the same road both ways. We decided to detour and take the Klondike Highway to Dawson City on the way to Alaska.

The drive itself was pretty and we stopped along the way to see things like Gravel Lake:

We also saw the entrance to the Dempster Highway which we would like to make into a future adventure. It is a road that will take you all the way up and into the Arctic Circle. It has been known to bust a few tires and beat up vehicles pretty bad but the scenery is well worth it they say.

Dawson City was once a booming gold mining town and it has kept its charm with dirt streets and wooden sidewalks. You can even see some of the original buildings from the early 1900s mixed in with the newer, more colorful buildings. We had lunch there and then took the George Black Ferry across the Yukon River to the road that would take us to Alaska on the other side. The ferry and road is only open in the summer so we just made it. After September 15th we would not have been able to do this. The road I’m talking about is called the Top of the World Highway and it was BEAUTIFUL! Fall has arrived in the Yukon and we saw it better here than any where else.

I could have taken photos all day on this road and we stopped a lot which made us a little late in getting to Fairbanks…. but it was totally worth it! Most of the road on the Top of the World Highway was unpaved and rough but we didn’t mind.

We crossed into Alaska on top of the mountain at the most Northern US customs gate. The Taylor Highway, on the other side of the gate, took us off the mountain, past the little town of Chicken, AK and then back to the Alaskan Highway on the Alaska side. We made it to Tok, AK (the first Alaskan town on the Alaska Highway) just in time for dinner and had some awesome pizza and the famous Fast Eddy’s restaurant.

We are in Fairbanks and the surrounding area for a few days and then on Wednesday will head out again to Anchorage in the South. The weather has been great and we are having a blast! Hopefully we will get to see the Northern Lights while we are here…

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I LOVE this cake. It made me laugh and laugh. This makes me want to decorate a cake of my own and put something as awesome on it.

The chest hair is the best!!

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“List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.”

Since I just tagged several of you for another meme I will not tag you again, but feel free to do your own if you like.

Limiting myself to seven songs is going to be hard but here are a few that make it in my playlists almost without fail.

1. When U Love Somebody – Fruit Bats
   I sing this song loudly. The lyrics can be rather depressing I guess but boy the music is oh so awesome and happy.
2. Sing, Theresa Says – Greg Laswell
   Love this mans voice. This song makes me dance in my chair and think about noisy June bugs.
3. Fly Me Away – Goldfrapp
   “Miles and miles of sun
   Endless roads
   twist on
   Don’t wanna live a life
   In a world that’s all the same
   The crazy little things
   That you do are magical”
4. Heartbeats – José González
   After seeing him live and seeing his amazing abilities on the guitar, I can’t stop listening to him. I totally have a star crush on him
5. Ramblin’ Man – Lemon Jelly
   The summer makes me want to Ramble:
   “John you’ve been on the go ever since you were born and I
   imagine few people in the world today have travelled as much
   as you have. Now why? Well I dunno. I suppose some of us are cave dwellers, some of us live in houses, some of us like to be loose footed. I’m a ramblin’ man.”
6. Resurrection Fern – Iron & Wine
   His lyrics are so poetic. I love listening to the stories he tells in them.
7. Doors of Perception – Thievery Corporation
   This is the background music for many of my days. I love the entire “The Cosmic Game” album. Great for working, yoga, driving, chilling out. It’s good stuff.

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What i was doing ten years ago

I was working at The Council of State Governments as a graphic/web designer. I had also just bought my first house, a tiny little townhouse, and started putting down roots in Lexington, KY.

Five snacks i enjoy:

1. hummus and pita
2. tortillas and salsa (apparently I enjoy dipping foods)
3. cheese-its
4. crackers and cheese (It is different than cheese-its!)
5. frozen grapes

Five things on my to-do list today:

1. work on eXtension training Moodle courses
2. make corrections to the Imported Fire Ants decision tool
3. send out a quote for a freelance web design job
4. get together images and artist statement for a photography show that some friends and I are in at a local coffee shop.
5. take my niece and good friend to yoga class with me

Five favorite recipes:

1. Broccoli-cauliflower salad ( I can send it if anyone wants it…. It is always a hit at dinner parties)
2. Spiced Black Bean Burgers
3. My mom’s broccoli casserole
4. My mom’s sweet potato casserole
5. No Bake cookies

Five jobs i have had:

1. swimming pool concession stand
2. tutored children with dyslexia
3. fast food (Wendy’s) and cashier at Ponderosa Steak House
4. McAlpin’s (Now Dillard’s) cashier
5. web/graphic designer

Five of my bad habits:

1. procrastination
2. not exercising regularly
3. eating too many carbs and cheese (see the favorite snacks list above)
4. spending too much money on magazines and books (I’m trying to get back into the library swing)
5. Caffeine… I quit drinking soda but now I’m a coffee fiend.

All the places i have lived:

1. Ary, KY
2. Leburn, KY
3. Morehead, KY
4. Lexington, KY

Five random things:

1. I spent the first 7 years of my life growing up in a holler. It was awesome.
2. I have a HUGE family. My dad had 8 brothers and sisters and my mom had 5. I have a great aunt that had 16 children. Family gatherings were always chaotic.
3. I wore acid washed jeans and heavy metal concert tshirts in high school. My favorites bands were The Cult, Guns and Roses, Metallica, Anthrax…others until I discovered Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and, oddly enough, Jackson Brown. I discovered those in my older sister’s vinyl collection. Music has always been important in my life. I got a portable record player that I carried around with me when I was 3 or 4 and played everything from “Rubber Ducky You’re the One” to Sheena Easton’s “Morning Train” on 45s.
4. I graduated number 3 in my high school class and had to give a speech. I wasn’t thrilled about that. I never participated in group sports but was a member of the Honor and Art Honor Societies.
5. My husband and I dated for 11 years before we married. We have been married for almost four years now.

Five Folks i Would Like to Know Better:

1. Alexa
2. Terri
3. Jason
4. Patrick
5. Lori-Lyn

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