first aid kit

I'm fairly certain I first heard of these girls years ago, and thought they were just fine but nothing really struck me. Then I saw them mentioned on another blog today and gave them another listen. And another and another. The first song I chose to listen to, Emmylou is just beautiful. Their voices are sublime.

And then I listened to a few more which again were just fine but didn't strike me. And then this. With the perfect grungy dusty '60s sound. It made more sense when I found out it was produced by Jack White.

And an extra. A cover of Johnny Cash's I Walk The Line. 

smitten

I know I don't post much these days, things just kind of fell apart blog-wise. I never even finished up with January Photo-A-Day posts. Whatever. I might do that soon.

But I just had to stop in real quick-like before I get ready for work today and share with you the most lovely, inspiring Tumblr I ever have seen. Truth be told I never got into the whole Tumblr thing, but this is a game changer. Lucky for me the author also has a Pinterest page so I can keep up with all the pretty without having to venture into the Tumblr world.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you wit & delight. 

Ok, I'm done. Enjoy your distractions.

Photo A Day

day #15 happiness

day #16 morning

day #17 water

day #18 something I bought

day #19 sweet

day #20 someone I love

 day #21 reflection

I have been having a little bit of a hard time keeping up with the photo a day, and not always getting them in quite on time, but I'm not giving up! I am determined to see this thing through! I am currently caught up, so let's see if I can keep it going for the remainder of the month.

Photo a Day

day #8 sky

day #9 daily routine

day #10 childhood

day #11 where I sleep

day #12 close-up

day #13 in my bag

 

day #14 something I'm reading

Read a little more about what the heck this Photo a Day thing is anyway, right over here.

And by the way, I have finished reading The Lives and Loves of Daisy and Violet Hilton. It only took a couple of weeks, which may not be fast by anyone's standards but my own. But in my defense it was a pretty big book and I don't have a whole lot of free time. But boy when I did I devoured that thing. There is some disturbing content and it's not an altogether happy story, but quite amazing, fascinating, and true. So do what you will with that information.

#photoaday

So I have decided to participate in a little thing called the January Photo a Day Challenge. There is a list of topics and you take a photo every day to go with each topic. The list is as follows.

I picked up on this challenge a little late, so I started on Day 4.

letterbox

something I wore

makes me smile (full disclosure I took this photo the day before, but I didn't think I needed to take another one)

favorite

 

I will be back again next week with a roundup of this week's photos. Have instagram and want to join in the fun? Just start uploading your photos on the given day and tag it with #photoaday and #day(number). Not following me on instagram yet? My name is dropandanchor, so look me up and drop me a line!

here's where I say happy new year

I thought I could get away without writing this post, but somehow I can't escape the guilt. As a blogger it is my duty to round up the old year and welcome in the new. It's just something we do.

                                                                                Source: brentfosterphotography.com via Jeanne on Pinterest

So here's 2011 in a nutshell:

Moved into our first house

Got married

Got a puppy

Kept one of last year's resolutions and finally listed some knits on Etsy (and had 5 sales in the first month!)

That's really all that sticks out at the moment, but really that is quite a lot. Big, momentous, life changing, time consuming things. 2011 was a year to remember.

So what of 2012? 

I've got some things up my sleeve. 

 I'm so happy I finally kept my promise to launch my Etsy shop and it is my biggest goal this year to really take it seriously. I have been working on branding (business cards, packaging, banners for blog and Etsy shop) and researching everything from business licenses and trademarks to accounting programs and taxes. I'm setting goals and planning rewards for myself. It's kind of all I can think about these days. It's too easy for me to get discouraged and demotivated so I'm proud of myself just for getting this far and it's enough to propel me forward for now.

The second big goal for the year is travel. We promised ourselves we would take a vacation to Europe for our anniversary. A delayed honeymoon. My first time out of the country (except when I was something like 10 years old and my family went into Canada for a day on a big camping trip up the East Coast). The mister bought me a passport case for Christmas so it's almost official. I should probably get that passport. Maybe.

And there are always less exciting goals, like figuring out how on earth to keep the house clean on a regular basis and planning monthly date nights. Working on that whole work/life balance thing people always talk about.

docked

Loving all of the retro-inspired accessories for new technology these days. Because everything doesn't really have to be shiny and silver (or gleaming white) and BORING. Good design is good design and these things work.

The clock dock for iPhone

 

 

The V-Luxe iPad dock for ease of video watching.

Christmas traditions

Being our first Christmas as married folk, the mister and I have been busy discussing holiday traditions we grew up with, talking about what we want to carry on for our little family and coming up with new traditions that are our very own.

First, let's just get this out of the way, but presents are to be opened up on Christmas Morning. Not Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day. Christmas Morning. I have fond memories of waking up at approximately 4am (sometimes probably even earlier), sneaking down the hallway into the living room to see all the presents under the tree. My siblings and I would try to locate all of our gifts under the tree (this became such a problem that my parents actually stopped putting names on the gifts, making for some awkward moments when they realized they had given you someone else's present to open), we would peek in our stockings and usually fall asleep on the living room floor before we would dare try to wake up the parents so we could open presents. Those are my memories of Christmas. Those are the memories I want my children to have. So. Christmas Morning.

The next one we decided on is Christmas breakfast. Today it was more of a noontime Christmas brunch, and that is fine by me. It was delicious.

But the most exciting Christmas tradition is the Christmas lights tour. The mister found a website that tracks crazy lights and displays, and put together a map for us to go out and track them down. And let me tell you, there were some beauties.

These people kind of blow my mind. The time, money, and imagination that go into these displays is like nothing I will ever have so visiting these houses is like going to another world. I love it. And it was the perfect way to end our Christmas day.

it's beginning to look a lot like...

 

New garland I made from pages of an old encyclopedia (they do have a use after all!). Gingerbread shakes, gingerbread lattes, cranberry bliss bars, oh my. Decorating the tree, undecorating the tree, bowl full of balls. The nutcracker gang. Foggy winter mornings. Sugar cookies in my beloved KitchenAid.

It's beginning to look a little bit like Christmas around here. Now if only I could put presents under the tree without the puppy eating them all.

greetings

I can't believe it's just a few weeks until Christmas and I haven't posted a single Christmas card! I'm still not really in the holiday mood, but I saw this card today and just loved it so I had to share. The owl and fox are pretty cute, but the mouse just slays me. Precious.

Letterpress from the always adorable hello!Lucky