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Do you want to know how much I love my new Rav4? I had a custom keychain made, because the red plastic thingy they gave me at the dealership was not worthy.
It’s true.
 Now this is worthy of my new car.
I found SewSweetStitches via Flickr, where she shares some beautiful pieces in one of the embroidery groups. It took me a while to figure out exactly what colors I wanted, but once I did, she made it up for me pronto. I was very impressed.
And then it arrived at my house, quite quickly as well.
 Isn't it lovely?
Anyway, you should go visit her shop. Keychains aren’t really her thing, but she is more than willing to do custom work (since barrettes and iPod cozies aren’t really my thing).
 Beautiful stitching!
Maybe you don’t. I didn’t. That is, until today, when I wore my pretty new grey sweater with my navy dress, and had to wear my black shoes. Not that big of a deal, but grey shoes sure would be nice. I have at least two grey sweaters, and two grey pairs of pants, and at least one skirt. That warrant’s grey shoes, right?
 So, um... would these look OK on my larger feet? I mean, sure they're cute in size 5, but I'm a 9 1/2 these days. Can my canoe feet pull off the ruffle? (Source: Cassie by Kensie Girl in Gunmetal via Zappos.com)
Grey shoes are not exactly easy to find. I don’t want silver, I want grey (I don’t need to bring sparkly attention to my feet). And I don’t like heels. And… well, I’m picky about shoes.
The only problem with the above, other than the ruffle dilemma, is that people say they run wide, and I have narrow-ish feet. Oh, and there’s the slight problem of them being out of stock in this size/color combo. No one seems to have them. But, put those things aside. Can I wear these, or are they too… [fill in the blank]?
The other day I was perusing the internet looking for inspiration, and I came across this dress at White House | Black Market:
 It's part of their wedding collection, though with only two dresses, it's hardly a collection.
Isn’t it gorgeous? Try to avoid looking at the model’s face – it totally looks like it was cut-and-pasted on there. Focus on the dress.
To be sure, I love my wedding dress, and it was perfect and exactly what I wanted. It was inspired by a designer gown I saw in a magazine (Reem Acra, 2007 Spring Collection, totally not anywhere on the internet anymore). Here are the sketches I sent  :
 Wasn't I nice to clearly label them?  In drawings, gravity has no meaning. I know, I know. You’re impressed by my mad drawing skills. That aside, it got me this wonderful dress:
 Those are Grant's chubby little legs there, when he was not yet one year old!
 Wow - I had not noticed my hair before. Huh. I'm sure it looked fine in person.
Pretty true to my sketches, don’t you think? had to make it up! I got tons of compliments on it too (though when you’re the bride, you generally receive compliments all day long). Definitely not a dress I’d sell or part with. (Also, because of the design, I could lose or gain 20 pounds and it would still fit. Most brides cannot say that.)
That said, had I seen the first dress, I might have had other ideas. I mean, I’m not a huge fan of the bust part, but the skirt is fabulous. Maybe I would have hated it three years ago. Who knows.
I realize this was a completely random rambling, but I saw the picture and wanted to share it with someone, and who better than with my captive blog audience!
I’ll leave you with the picture again, to spur your imagination.
Lovely.
To post anything, that is.
But I’ll give you some pictures anyways.
All from Ikea… some current favorites of mine:
 In the center is the new desk for the Expedit bookcase that I want to get (the bookcase, and then the desk just makes it all that much better) when we have a new house if I have a craft room. The rest of it is just fun.
 Some fabrics and textiles that I'm liking (but won't be purchasing).  And some fabrics that I might get up the gumption to purchase, if I find the time to go over to Ikea sometime when it's not super crazy. Like not right now, because the whole back to school, college, whatever thing is going on and Ikea can be crazy then. But, you know, later. Happy Friday!
 I've been avoiding (so far, successfully) purchasing this mug at Starbucks (images totally stolen from ebay and Pottery Barn, though I didn't hotlink them so I'm not totally evil).  It makes me want to decorate entirely in semi-sheer, flowy, white fabric and look for a house like this. They have some others that I’m briefly tempted to purchase:
 Blue swirl mug  Blue stripes mug  Blue floral mug 
Except that then I’d have to decorate entirely in blue and white and live in a beach house, which is not really my thing:
 ...  ... Do you ever see very small household items that make you want to entirely redecorate?
 Pottery Barn has these candles, which I think I could easily enough do on my own, given the time. All the craft stores sell the basics of candle-making (wax, wicks, etc), and I'm quite sure you can buy terra cotta pots in minature in bulk. Not that I need any more projects to attempt....
 PB also has these doors. Remind you of anything? If you've ever been to visit me (not at my current home), you've probably seen my shutters. I love them. They're currently in hiding in our spare bedroom, because there's no place for them in our house. I always planned on finding a third part or some shutters or something... but never got around to it, or never found anything right. These doors, of course, aren't right, because they're the wrong shade of wood (mine are nearly grey), and honestly probably in too good of condition, but they made me think of my shutters.
Williams-Sonoma has this 3-Tier Oven Rack. It scares me. I don’t think I could handle preparing that much food, all at once, without something going horribly wrong. Multi-tasking in the kitchen is not a skill of mine.
 Williams-Sonoma is also selling this strainer right now. It is the spitting image of the one my parents used for years. Design hasn't changed in at least 30 years. My parents always grew tomatoes in the garden, and then at the end of the season made their own tomato sauce. Some years it was better than others, and it was always a lot of work, but I remember it very specifically as part of my childhood. I'm not sure I could do it myself, my distaste for tomatoes and all, but its possible. Of course, we also had a large chest freezer that sat in our garage where they could keep all the tomato sauce.
OK, to be clear, I have no need for these in my life. But I ran across them in the “expiring soon” category on Etsy and thought they were so cute!
in case you need them and it hasn't expired yet.”] 
It is absolutely gorgeous outside today. On my way to get coffee, I noticed how the sun was shining, the sky so blue, just a few wispy airbrushes of clouds. And the breeze, which meant I wasn’t too warm in my long-sleeves despite the 75* weather, could only be described as soft and round (unlike the hard, biting wind of winter). But I forgot that it gets better on the way back, because when I step out of that door, I’m facing directly into the sun. If it’s a really bad day, and the slow walk doesn’t calm me down and the coffee doesn’t mellow me out, the sun shining can still turn my mood around. I almost turned in a leave slip to go home for the day, it’s that nice outside, until I remembered I don’t actually own a hammock, and so the hours would, in part, be wasted. Still, if no work shows up, I may go home this afternoon sometime.
Do yourself a favor and go experience the beauty that is today’s weather, if you’re at all in the Twin Cities area. I’d love to be responsible for everyone taking the afternoon off. 
This morning, at the Western Avenue stop, a boy (ahem! excuse me, man), who I can honestly describe as pretty, got on the bus. Pretty as in Ashton Kutcher on That 70′s Show. Seriously, “prettier” than most of the women I know. Now, don’t be offended if you’re one of my women friends. I still love you and think you’re beautiful. But I don’t think you’re understanding this man’s physical appearance.
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thankful
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