Life One Line At A Time

It's the end of the year which makes me all reflective and then my brain explodes going how is it the end of December already?? This year has really flown by. There are big moments that happen every year that you know (hope) you won't forget, and then there are bazillions of little moments that you won't really remember but you wish you could. (You know I'm a memory hoarder)

This little post here, is about holding on to the little and big memories of your life and getting to look back at them again the next year. I got the idea towards the end of 2012 I came across this image on Pinterest: 

Boom. Instant obsession. I knew I wanted to do something like it too. The basic idea of this little index card calendar is that you have a card for every day of the year. On each card, every year gets one line. So you write down a little something that happened to you that day  on one line and then flip the card to the back. 

I set out to make my own. Since I adored the Pinterest picture I knew I wanted to house my little calendar in a berry box as well. I got a ceramic one from Anthropologie and a few packs of index cards. I also used a date stamper, like what libraries used to use, because they're so old school and charming. I had to trim the index cards to fit in the berry basket, and stamped each card with the date in the corner and "2013" on the first line. I waited for January 1 of this year to start and now here it is 357 days letter and I'm still filling in my little calendar. 

Before I started I honestly wasn't sure if I would be able to keep this calendar going but once the year started I loved it and it was super easy. Every night before I go to sleep I think back on the day and write down the highlight of it. I have written down funny things the kids have said, Lily's first word, steps, and other milestones, or just a little thing that happened that day that wasn't super significant but brought a smile to my face. I think the reason this calendar is so easy is because it's not a huge commitment. It not a long journal entry, just a quick few words, and then putting the card in the back of the pile.

I've really enjoyed this calendar this year, but I think it will be even better next year because I will get to read last years highlights as well. 

If you don't want to use index cards you can do something similar with a notebook and give each page it's own date. The last time I was in Anthropologie I found some journals that follow the write one line a day philosophy as well that are probably also really fun and easy to fill out, especially because they provide a question for you to answer each day. 

I also found an index card calendar online. (buy here) 

But you seriously don't need to spend $60 on it, this is such an easy DIY! 

Anybody write down memories like this or keep some sort of special calendar? Let me know below!

A First That Didn't Change Much

Lily had her first haircut today! I am of course that mama that gets very emotional and excited by every single "first" my kids do. They are all a big deal to me but that's my personality, things tend to turn into productions around here.

I was looking at old pictures by my parents and couldn't believe I had my first haircut at around a year old. I had so much hair. While Lils looks exactly like me, we clearly don't have the same hair because hers is taking its time coming in. My mom pointed out that trimming her hair could help it grow in nicer so I decided to do just that. And while her first haircut is really just a little trim I had to take the camera with me and go crazy snapping pictures. There is hardly a difference between her before and after but hey it's a first! 

She was so serious during the whole cut. I think she was thrilled it was finally her turn to sit in the car chair after watching Moshe doing it so many times. 

The best after shot I could manage because the Barbies in the store were a huge hit with my Lily Boo.  Like I said, she looks the same but it was a big day anyway.

Who else out there gets all dramatic with their baby's firsts? 

Guest Post: The Simple Joy of Crayons

It's been another sick week around here where blogging got put on the back burner. But then today my cousin, Charnie, asked if I accepted guest posts on this little blog of mine and I obviously said yes because you're about to read one.

So here we go.

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I just had a morning altering experience. I opened a fresh box of Crayola crayons today.

Let me back up. I’ve been laid up in bed with strep for 3 days, along with my 2 year old that also has strep, and I am also nursing my 2 month old around the clock. I am therefore exhausted, depleted and was not looking forward to spending an entire day home today, since we’re all contagious.

My son got a lot of presents for Hanukkah, including one of them a really nice coloring book from my sister (Thanks Ruchie!). She also thoughtfully included a box of crayons to go with it, a box we sorely needed since all of our cheap dollar store crayons are in several pieces scattered throughout the house. The box she bought had 24 crayons and proudly proclaimed ‘preferred by teachers’ (which she is). A nice size box I thought. Not too small, (8 crayons is really not enough), but not too overwhelming like 64 or more.

I opened the box carefully and peeked inside. I gasped. It was beautiful. All the little guys tucked neatly and perfectly into their places. All perfectly pointy and straight, smelling fresh and waxy and new.  My son leaned over to check out what was fascinating his usually distracted mother. He peered into the box, turned back to me, and with the sweetest two year old voice asked a very simple question. “Which one, Mommy”? Which one indeed.

I let him pick. He reached his little hand in and handed me a yellow one. I mean, a yewwow one. Yellow was simple, I could handle yellow. I colored the stem of a dreidel. I asked my son for another crayon. He handed me ‘a difint yewwow one’. Hmm okay yellow is yellow right? Nope. It was a completely different color. Dandelion. A beautiful name for an unassuming color.  I then discovered something amazing. There are blue and red and orange and black and white crayons. All predictable, all expected and all beautiful. But there is also red-orange and orange-yellow and green-yellow and blue-green and blue-violet and red-violet…I could go on and on. Every single color is beautiful and more remarkably, every color is true to its name. The blue-green is actually blue-green, like a foamy ocean. The blue-violet hints of a setting sun at twilight, just before the sky goes black. Carnation pink had me imagining a beautiful meadow of flowers, just waiting to be picked. I could taste the sweetness of the fruit in the light pale orange of apricot. As we picked through the crayons one by one, I found myself fascinated with every new color combination

As a graphic designer, I am well aware that the only difference between all these colors is a series of RGB and color codes carefully calibrated to produce pigment mixtures. That’s what my logical, literal thinking adult brain knows. My kindergarten brain sees an entirely different picture. My kindergarten brain sees dandelions and apricots and blue-green oceans and skies. Because how else can the ocean be described except for blue-green?

I returned to the box later in the afternoon and found I had a little half smile on my face as we colored again. Somehow it never gets old. Now at the end of the day, even though all the crayons are on the floor, the box is bent and one perfect crayon got its head cracked off, I still marvel at the little crayons, and how after so many years, they still bring out the child in me.

So now sitting here with the computer on split screen, with my son looking over my shoulder watching a video so I can type this, I took a minute to type out my thoughts. I wonder if they would have looked better in apricot.

Hey it's me again. Thanks Charnie! There's really nothing like a new box of crayons. Anyone out there feel the same way or is it just our family? 

I'll be back next week with a super easy DIY that is perfect for the new year. Have a great weekend! 

I'm A Celeb Now

I could play this cool and be all oh yeah, NBD... But people! I was on ACTUAL television last night. Therefore I am super  cool today and can revel in my newfound fame.

Actual text from last night: 

(I am incapable of sending a text without a typo in it) 

Getting on tv is really a story about celebrity stalking. And that celeb would be Buddy Valastro from TLC's Cake Boss. Buddy also has two other shows, The Next Great Baker and Bakery Boss. Buddy was in my old hood over the summer taping for Bakery Boss. This show is about failing bakeries where Buddy comes to help them out, renovate the bakery, and gives them new recipes so they can start being successful. Word got out that he was going to be at one of the supermarkets and I decided to stop by to see my favorite Italian baker. 

Apparently no one was supposed to know he would be there and there was a lot of people getting kind of crazy waiting for him. The sign above is the closest thing I got to him that day.

The next day was the grand opening of the newly renovated Violet's Bake Shop. It's pretty near where I work so I stopped by on my lunch break to attempt a Buddy sighting. No such luck. I saw some of the tv crew hanging around and they said I should come back at 5:00 for the grand opening. 

I lost my mind and dragged my kids out that night to once again try and see Buddy. I learned that tv people are really annoying, and they lie to you about what is happening so they can get the shots they need. A line had formed because everyone had expected to see the star of the show, but after waiting for hours to finally get inside the bakery he wasn't there. Huge dissapointment. Violet, I have nothing against you but I hadn't waited around for so long to buy one of your new cupcakes. I was on a celebrity stalking mission. 

Since I had invested so much time in this crazy idea already I figured I had nothing to lose by going to where Buddy's trailer was parked, around the corner near the back of the bakery. And people it finally got exciting! First we saw the winner of last season's Next Great Baker, Ashley. 

She told us Buddy was in the back of the bakery. And then he walked out! A producer was with him yelling that he had no time for me but he was the nicest guy and stopped to talk for a minute. Lily saw him and shrieked Buddy, he picked her up and this picture happened: 

My celebrity stalking mission was successful. 

And last night when the episode premiered, I will not lie, there was some major jumping around and excitement when we spotted ourselves on tv. And yes, of course I took pictures of my tv paused. 

Moshe made it in a blink it and miss moment. But hi I'm his mom, I totally noticed.

Note to self: next time you're on tv, smile a little.

Lily taking center stage. She was huge hit with the people waiting on line. She would say Buddy and laugh and clap, and producer noticed her and actually took us aside for an interview, but that part didnt make it into the show.

So this is one of crazy ideas that turned into a really funny story that has now made me famous! Ok so not actually famous, but you guys can all say you knew me back when I was a nobody. 

Any other celeb stalkers out there? Let me hear your stories below!

Thanksgiving Traditions

This title should really be "Thanksgiving Traditions, But Really This Year Things Are Weird Because It's Thanksgivikkuh Which Won't Happen Again For Another Billion Years And So We Have To Combine As Much Turkey And Jewishness Into This One Night As We Can."

Anyone still here or it took too long to read the title and you got ADD and went away? I totally understand. 

So it's the day before Thanksgiving and I am so excited to start some new traditions with the kiddies tomorrow. We have a few family traditions that we do throughout the year, but last week I decided it was sad that we don't have one for Thanksgiving. Even though we always have a big (both food wise, and the number of extended family wise) Thanksgiving dinner every year, I wanted to institute a little something we can look forward to doing every year with just our little family.  

Tomorrow morning I will be making pumpkin french toast (recipe here) and we will drink hot chocolate while watching the parade. There you go. Nice and easy little tradition. Minimal effort and some cute little memories for us. 

{This is where I was going to insert a hot chocolate related ecard, but they are all too risqué for this little sparkly blog of mine... who knew hot chocolate was so naughty?)

Anyway, I will be spending the afternoon cooking my contribution to my family's Thanksgiving dinner. This whole Thanksgivikkuh phenomenon has me combining a Chanukah favorite, latkes, with my favorite part of Thanksgiving (and fall in general), pumpkin. So I'll be making pumpkin potato latkes (recipe here). It sounds kind of weird at first but I decided how could it be bad? I'm sure my little sous chef will want to help out in the kitchen tomorrow. 

After dinner is over and we all have too much of that sleepy turkey chemical in us, Thanksgiving will be over for me. I don't participate in any Black Friday craziness because I don't have the patience for it. And since Chanukah starts tonight I already shopped for everyone. It's so strange to have our whole holiday season on the same day. 

Happy Chanukah and Happy Thanksgiving to my lovely readers!

The Yellow Brick Road of Leaves

Look what we found:

After last week's super cold weather, (did it snow or did I imagine that?) we all thought fall had left us for good. And it was a tough breakup. But then we woke up to this and some little people I know were really happy about it.

Thanksgiving is coming!! Who's excited? What are your plans? 

Target Taxidermy

This post sounds pretty weird but I promise it's not a hunting lesson. I'm scared of all animals and am the opposite of outdoorsy. And I'm from Long Island... We don't hunt. We shop.

Taxidermy, or rather fake taxidermy has been something I've really gotten into recently. A deer head on the wall sounds the opposite of chic, but when it's white with gold antlers? Please, I am sold.

Look how gorg this room is! That cute little deer is totally calling my name and we could be friends. 

My decorating bestie made one for herself and he's hanging in her dining room: 

Jealous of the deer and the fireplace. 

Off topic for a second here, but I've already discussed my Instagram addiction. The problem is that addiction feeds into another, because I follow @targetdoesitagain. This account is done by two girls who post pictures of the amazing new things target has on their shelves. I see it, I want to buy it all, and basically Instagram is dangerous. Yesterday they posted this picture:

Target you kill me!!! The second I saw that little deer above I wanted him. I know my husband is reading this right now and thinking I am craycray, but look at him is he not the chicest deer you have ever seen? And I was at target yesterday. But I promise I was inside for five minutes only, because I was there to return something and not shop, but I wanted to go find that little guy and bring him home with me.

After I got home I went to look it up on the website and realized the deer head is not for hanging on the wall, it's tabletop decor. Ok fine, I'm moving my crush on to the horns hanging right next to him. 

So pretty I want to pet them. 

Here are some other deer heads I love:

The colors are all spectacular.

This cutie is knitted! I am so sold.

So what is your take on this wall decor? Do you find it totally crazy or on my tres chic deer team? Do you have real taxidermy on your walls? Please say no, I'd be really scared otherwise.

DIY Instagram Magnets

Hi my name is Goldie, and I am an Instagram addict.

Instagram really feeds into my taking too many pictures problem. But I have it, I'm hooked, and I'm probably not stopping anytime soon. 

You know me, I like actually printing pictures. The square shape on an Instagram wouldn't fit into a standard album but then I found out about stickygram and I really wanted to order some. Stickygram is a company that takes your Instagram pictures and turns them into magnets. I love the idea of wallpapering my fridge with my instagrams (have you seen Taza's? It's ahhmazing) but I realized it was going to get really expensive really quickly. They charge $15 for 9 pictures, so if you print a bunch it gets out of hand. And I of course, wanted to use a lot of pictures.

So I decided to make my own!

This past Saturday was absolutely gorgeous and then with the combination of changing the clock and a cold front, my fabulous fall came to an abrupt halt, and it was officially winter. Lily didn't get the memo about sleeping late after the clock was changed and was ready to party at 6 am. Looking on the bright side, I had an extra hour that morning  to work on my super simple DIY Instagram magnets.

The first thing you need to do is print your pictures. There are a lot of ways to do this, and there are websites dedicated to printing your Instagram pictures. I wanted to do mine as cheap as possible. Using picmonkey.com, which is a free photo editing site, I made a collage with 6 instagrams each on a 4x6 picture. When you're on Instagram, the size of the picture is 2 inches by 2 inches. By having 6 instagrams on a 4x6 picture, you end up with printed Instagram pictures with the same dimensions as on your phone. Snapfish was having a penny prints promotion and I ordered 13 pictures. Because each picture had 6 instagrams on it, I ended up getting 78 instagrams for 13 cents. Not bad right?

Here are some of the 4x6s. You can see on the bottom right that I repeated two pictures. I did this so I can give some of these magnets to other people too. 

The above is a cut out Instagram placed on my phone and it really is the same size! I loved how these came out printed. After you have your printed pictures, glue the entire 4x6 onto a sheet of magnet paper. I used mod podge as the glue and it stayed really well. I got a pack of magnet paper in Staples. The package had 4 sheets in it and it was about $10.

After everything is dry, cut out each Instagram picture. The best way to do this is probably with a cutting board as an x acto knife but life is not perfect, and neither am I, so I just cut with regular scissors. 

Here's my stack of cut magnet pictures. At this point you can call it a day, and hang your magnets up if you want. You can also go one step further to give the magnets a little more ooh lala. I'll let you decide what you want to do, I kept going. See that bottle in the picture? It's mod podge dimensional magic and let me tell you it is magic. Like Disney princess magical. It basically adds an extra layer of dimension that makes the magnets look a little more professional. It's really simple to use. Draw a thin line around your magnet with it, and then fill in the middle. It's like decorating cookies with royal icing, just way easier. If bubbles form, pop them with a pin, or even just your finger (like I said, I'm not perfect). You need to let it dry for 24 hours and then you're done! 

I haven't finished all of the pictures I have yet, but my fridge is slowly getting filled up and I love it! I used three bottles of the mod podge dimensional magic which was about $5 each. The magnets were $10 and the pictures were 13 cents. So I spent about $25.13 on 78 Instagram magnets. If I would have ordered that many magnets from stickygram it would have cost $130... DIY for the win!

Any other Instagram addicts here? Do we need a support group? 12 steps or something? Do you display your Instagram pictures at home in a creative way? Let me know below!

Exploring 5 Pointz

So today we hung out here:

New York City has been in an uproar over the British graffiti artist, Banksy, being here. Building owners have hired security guards to make sure his art is not vandalized. He sold original art on the street yesterday for $60 apiece and it's worth is now being estimated at over $30,000. Graffiti has been on the mind lately. Instead of stalking out Banksy, Daniel, Lily, and I took a little trip out to Long Island City to see some other famous graffiti art.

5 Pointz is a factory building where some of the world's best graffiti artists came and left their mark. Seeing their intricate work, especially after my own spray painting disaster of last week, was insanely inspiring. The graffiti is art that is larger than life. These people are crazy talented and 5 Pointz is a place where you view it as art, and not just a blemish on a building.

The sidewalks were also sprayed.

I know this is not the kind of thing everyone finds interesting, but we had a great time walking around. 5 Pointz is scheduled to be torn down soon and condos will be put in its place, so I'm glad we made the trip.

Lily was fascinated by the art, and I may have given her a little lecture about not using her crayons on the walls when we get home. I'm all for art, but I'll let her hone her skills on paper instead.

There was a small photo shoot happening while we were there. Lily apparently took some posing tips from the models:

Has anyone else been here? 

I'll be back tomorrow with a super easy project (no spray paint involved!) It's the perfect project for any Instagram addicts like myself. 

Memory Hoarding

Hey Internet! I didn't forget about you, I promise. After a not so fun stint with jury duty at the beginning of last week, I caught a cold which turned into a week long drama, a trip to the doctor, and a round of antibiotics. So it's a week later, and I'm not totally back to normal (apparently when I get sick, I do it good) but I'm here.

Sooo, has anyone been up to any amazing projects or fabulous family activities over the past week? Please tell me!! I sadly had to cancel an apple picking trip with my bestie this Sunday, and my creative juices are definitely on low at the moment.
 

I had been working on a very small project for the past week. Emphasis on the "very" the "small" and the "week." Like this is the kind of thing you can knock out in one afternoon, but with no energy to speak of, it took an entire week. How embarrassing. Even better though, I finally finished it this afternoon, and promptly learned that when the directions on a can of spray paint says to use in warm weather, the directions don't lie. I ended up with a crackled mess of paint and had to trash it. So at the end of the week, I'm left with no project, and a cough that just won't go away. Woe is me people!!

So instead lets discuss the one thing I've managed to accomplish over the past few weeks... Putting my printed pictures into albums! I think we're living in a world where pictures stay on whatever device they were taken on, or get uploaded to a computer and then stay there. I also think a lot of people are making photo books instead of printing pictures and putting them into albums. I love photo books and have made them for special occasions, but otherwise I am old school and love to print pictures, and stick them into actual albums.
 

But lets get real, doing so is incredibly annoying and time consuming. It's even more annoying and time consuming when you order over 600 pictures at a time and Snapfish send them to you out of order!! Seriously Snapfish, what are you playing at?!

 

After I used my entire dining room table to sort and organize my pictures, I couldn't have been prouder of myself and promptly text this next picture to my sister.
 

 

I may have also mentioned in the text, that the envelopes contained pictures from only June, July, and August. And then my lovely sister starts to tell me how crazy I am.
 

Yes world, I know I'm crazy. Or as I like to call it, I am a memory hoarder. I take too many pictures, I print too many pictures, and I have way too many albums in various bookcases throughout my apartment. But can I defend myself for a minute? Is it really so bad that I do this? Lily already loves looking through the albums, and I feel like its so special for kids to be able to look back at pictures of their childhood.
 

So where do you stand on printing pictures? Do you never print anything but wish that you do? Do you print a reasonable amount of pictures and therefore people can't ever question your sanity? 

Snapfish may have had penny prints recently and I may or may not have another 150 pictures from September waiting to be sorted and put into albums. Yeah, maybe when my cough is gone.

Pumpkins Are Everything

I believe I've mentioned that I am a summer girl who is crushing on fall this year. Even though the love of this season is new to me, I have always been a huge pumpkin lover. 

Forrest Gump. If that movie is on I will be watching it.

Anyway, I'm the one in Dunkin Donuts asking for a pumpkin latte well into the winter, until the barista sadly tells me they don't make them anymore. I stock up on pumpkin scented candles for the year, and bake as many pumpkin goodies as I can. The three main ingredients in any dessert on my Pinterest board is always either peanut butter, blueberries, or pumpkin. So it's a good time of year for me to try out some new recipes.

A few years ago we painted pumpkins at a farm and Moshe had so much fun doing it that it's become a fall tradition for us. 

I took the kids to a local county fair yesterday. It was another perfect fall day, and face painting, pony rides, and a pumpkin patch, rounded out the perfectness. Lily took picking out a pumpkin very seriously. 

The pumpkin patch had tables with paint set out, but Moshe wanted to paint ours at home. 

I put out a lot of newspaper on my living room floor and let my little artists get to work. I made a big initial out of painters tape on each of the pumpkins so they would have a fun monogrammed pumpkin when they were done painting. 

^^^no clothes for those under two is always a good idea

I learned a few things having two kids painting this year. It's going to be insanely messy, the less water you have in the bowl to rinse out the brushes, the better, and there's not really going to be any time for mama to paint her pumpkin if she's trying to make sure the kids don't go all Jackson Pollock on the living room.

After the pumpkins dried and I pulled off the painters tape, this is what we ended up with. 

 

Lily got bored well before she had painted enough to cover the area around the painters tape but if you squint you can make out the L on her pumpkin.

After I cleaned up the mess my kids made, I colored on my funny shaped pumpkin (thank you Moshe for finding it for me) with a sharpie. I tried for a preppy pumpkin in navy and green with a modern monogram, and chevron design. I still love chevron, but it's going to be deader than dead in 2014, so I had one last chevron hurrah with my little pumpkin.

Our three little pumpkins all in a row by our front door definitely make me happy and more in love with fall.

What was everyone up to over this gorgeous weekend? Anyone paint some pumpkins? Even better, anyone bake some pumpkiny goodness? Send some my way if you did!