June 30, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Keepin’ It Real: June 2014

June is done. Over. Never to be seen again. Well, hopefully we will see it again. Just not in this exact form. Except for some trials at the end of the month in which my Mommy Powers were tested (and now I have a super clean closet), it was the most wonderful month over here. It kicked May’s puny little monthly corner and I am ever so grateful. I could not have handled another month like May.

It’s time for “Keepin’ It Real” where I usually show outfit outtakes, but this time I will be highlighting filter comparisons between the real photo and the filtered photo, plus a real moment in my kitchen. If you missed last month’s “Keepin It Real,” you can find it here.

First, there is just something about this story that tugs at my heart strings as a parent. It has continued to be on my mind all month. Especially as I traveled from California to Hawaii in the luxury of the inside of the plane. I think of the terror that young man must have experienced on that airplane. The extreme cold with nowhere to go. And I hope he gets a happy ending.

I added a filter to my new feature, “Interpreting A Dream.” It is a feature where I share a funny dream story. I hope it ends up being disturbing and fun. I recently started using filters on some of my pictures. If I do add a filter in a fashion post, I note it at the bottom.

I honestly did not think the filter had changed it that much until I did this side-by-side comparison today. Wow! And, ugh!

I must still be in Dreamland.

I wanted to show the difference between the original picture and the enhanced picture. Filters are amazing. I had hoped to create a dreamy unreal photo. I wanted to make sure it was noted that the dream Jenni is actually a dream. She will be continued to be featured in that post, but she is not the real me!

Here is another one. We took the originals for this outfit in the shade. My face was shadowed. It was nice to find a filter that could lighten the photo.

Since I use my iPad to do all of my blogging, I am limited to enhancements and edits. I do not even know how to edit a photo, but I do love experimenting with filters. The App I use is called Afterlife. I highly recommend it. I am very challenged when it comes to anything technical and this is very easy.

I love making rice krispie treats. Especially with this recipe. It doesn’t get any easier. They were piled high on my cake stand, but now one day later they are almost all gone. Somebody ate one for lunch, one for dessert AND one for breakfast the next day.

“Eer duern’t know nom nom who is eaemting them nom.”

Cooking tacos in the kitchen. I originally bought that top as a shirt when I was heavier, but now it has become my favorite nightgown. I probably slept in that shirt and put shorts on to make dinner.

This shirt is pretty much my uniform. I am wearing it as I write this. For the second day in a row.

It doesn’t get more real than that.

My mom made me an early birthday present of my very favorite thing: her lasagna! It was the best gift ever. She gifted me the pan, too. Isn’t it great?

Thank you Mom!

So, I made the rice krispie treats above. I gave each of the dogs a tiny piece. Well, Ollie swallowed his without even tasting it. And Murphy waited for Ollie to eat his and then set about guarding his own. This went on for two hours. This is what a punk Murphy is… Ollie was laying there minding his own business and Murphy carried his treat and sprawled out next to him to guard that piece of treat in front of the hungry monster.

Ollie finally left the room.

Murphy finally ate the treat.

It is high drama over here.

Coming Up In July:

Interpreting A Dream: David Beckham Meets My Jelly Roll
My next outfit post going up on Wednesday features this dress. I haven’t named (or written! Doh!) the post yet.
Hulk Hands Part II
Breaking Bread
Living Room Changes

How was your June? Did you make anything? Go anywhere? Do something fun?

May 31, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Keepin’ It Real: May 2014

Every month, I try to do a summary of that month with outfit outtakes and a quick wrap up of things I might have missed blogging about in that month. May had some doozies in terms of outtakes. And it was a doozy of a month for a lot of people I know, my family included. When I told my friend we had to endure one more day of May, she exclaimed, “NO-O-O!”

I hear ya, sister.

If you missed last month’s “Keepin’ It Real”, you can find it here.

On to this recap. May, I will not miss you:

Recipe fail. My mom asked me the other day, “Do you post everything you make?” Oh my gosh, no! When you are experimenting with a new recipe there are going to be some misses. I have even made some recipes from very acclaimed chefs and have had to throw the whole dish away. So, no, I do not post about every recipe. Only the ones I would absolutely make again. And again.

The other day, I made this dessert. So bad. Tip: Do not add raspberries to Strawberry Shortcake. It sounds good. It is not good.

Outfit Outtakes:

As promised. A glimpse of Holy Holey Girdle. It is such a small glimpse. We saved over the other original pictures with the revised ones, so this is what we have left. Here is the actual outfit post.

It really is more like an extra pair of skin colored shorts than anything else. And to be even more forthright, the only reason I wore them on this day was to hide my colored underwear. The dress is so flowy, it hides a lot of flaws. The girdle is not the typical spanx. It does not offer much support, but it makes me feel more confident.

And I could not resist adding this picture because of the unfortunate placement of my hand.

So, I fell in a cactus (picture of my cactus hand is in “Keepin’ It Real: April 2014. Link above). And my twirling has never been the same. The outfit post for this photo shoot is here.

This picture makes me laugh.

“True Detective”, anyone? Just a bit of an odd thing to find around town.

Peonies! Everywhere?! Yes, please! Tip: Trader Joe’s will let you take the plastic bucket if you ask nicely. : )

Does this alert ever make anyone’s day better?

At San Diego Children’s Hospital, the ceiling tiles are randomly painted overhead. Isn’t that just a nice unexpected thing? That way, when a child is being wheeled through the halls and into various rooms, they have something to look at and look forward to.

I could hug whoever thought of this.

My mom gifted me a gift card to Anthropologie and these for Mother’s Day. Isn’t that the sweetest?!

Father’s Day idea. My kids each made my dad and my husband some of these hammers a few years ago. We just painted a wooden hammer and then shellacked it. I found the idea on Pinterest. Easy peasy.

And my most exciting purchase of the month. Seriously. These barf bags. I have a post about them ready. If you ever get car sick or have children that get sick, these are priceless.

With that in mind, May, you can be on your way.

Oh my gosh! Last night my husband and I were dancing with the dogs in the kitchen to “I like to move it.” When we sing it to the dogs they dance with us. It is actually quite cute and comical.

The dogs are funny, too.

Well, Ollie got too rambunctious and did a back flip! He hit his head so hard. We immediately stopped dancing, but I felt so bad for him. You can see the beginning of it in this picture. Who knew he had it in him?

Coming up in June:

Maui posts! We are heading back to Maui next week and I cannot wait to blog about it!
My Husband’s Secret Part II… She had to find out sometime. ; )
Honey Ice Cream! My favorite treat in the summer.
Whirlin’ Twirlin’ (Free People Mixed Print Tunic).

What did you think of May? Will you be happy or sad to see it end?

April 30, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Keepin’ It Real April 2014

We are one third of the way through this year? How is this possible? April flew by. Flew by! Here are the random things that happened in our lives this month. If you missed last month’s “Keepin’ It Real” post, you can find it here.

One of my most exciting random things that happened this month and nobody knew about except me was, Patrick Rothfuss and I posted about coins on the same day! What are the odds?

And, okay, his post is eloquent and sweet and meaningful. And, gosh, informative. And also slightly scary (because I have a copper sink! Argh!).

And my post is disturbing. Crude. Gross…

But hey, I’ll take it!

Speaking of my post, I do not know what I ended up doing with that dime. I put it somewhere safe.

This could be anywhere.

And everywhere.

And quite possible how it ended up where it did in the first place.

Before I worry about that, I am hoping I simply slipped it into the good old American hiding place: my underwear drawer.

This could also be how it ended up where it did that day, as well.

We will probably never know.

But now that I have given you these two scenarios, I fear a repeat.

Only dime will tell.

I found a stack of Tory Burch shoes at Nordstrom Rack. None of them called my name, but I thought some of you ladies (or adventurous men) would like to see a giant pile of these discounted shoes!

This is what the aisle of Target looked like the night before Easter. Not a plastic egg to be found! But there were many frantic mommies and all you could hear was, “They have no eggs?! Where are the eggs?!”

I might have been part of the mass hysteria!

It ~~never~~ pays off to be a procrastinator.

This is what our Easter baskets looked like.

My husband LOVES dying Easter Eggs. He tried two different methods with the kids this year, including shaving cream. He preferred the traditional method.

Outfit outtakes.

While we are on the subject of outfit outtakes, let’s delve into the nitty gritty. This outfit post for this picture won’t be up for awhile, but look at what happens when I try to leave the house?! In trying to take better outfit pictures, I spun myself right into a cactus on Monday! I think it would have been worse if dorky me hadn’t been trying to protect this bracelet. Who cares about a hand? The bracelet was not harmed. Whew!

And I didn’t even scream…or cry.

The photographer on the other hand?!

He might have flinched a little. ; )

Believe me, the outtakes for next month all ready have a funny picture!

Also, it makes the question, “You know you’re ~~crazy~~ a blogger when?…” easier to answer. You know you’re a blogger when your first thought is not to pull out the needles sticking out of your skin but rather to take a picture of them!

My grandma used to make us buttered spinach noodles all of the time. And we loved them. I found fresh spinach noodles at the store and could not wait to feed this to my family. They did not like it… Yet! I am not giving up. I will keep making them. They are good for them. I think spinach noodles are delicious! How cool would this meal be on Saint Patrick’s Day?

Oh my gosh! Saint Patrick’s Day! I forgot to show you what I served that day in last month’s “Keepin’ It Real.” Green rice! This was much to my husband’s chagrin. I have a ~~bad~~ ~~awesome~~ habit of dying random food fun colors. I like to make his life interesting. I may or may not have been wearing my denim maxi skirt at the time. ; )

Did you do anything fun in the month of April? Have you tried spinach noodles? Ever fallen in a cactus? Please share!

February 28, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Keepin’ It Real February 2014

Good bye February! You were a blah sort of month. Being neither long enough to make any decent memories or short enough to skip through. March is a busy month for me. I cannot decide if I am excited about that or if I will indeed miss the carefree easiness of February. February is in no rush. It is the baby sibling of all of the other months. No responsibilities go to it. It is just a wee little thing.

Edited to add: . My husband (the sweet eternal optimist) was horrified at my less than stellar review of his birthday month.

Sorry Sweetie! I will add some happy memories to February.

The highlights:

My husband’s birthday

Discovering three wonderful new restaurants

Happy Belated Birthday Auntie M!

My sweet mom surprising me with chicken pot pie

My amazing friend Jessica painted my bathroom (sharing soon!)

A night out with girlfriends around a firepit

True Detective

My husband surprising me by coming home again after all ready having left for work to give me one last good bye kiss for the day

The Lego Movie

Many snuggling mornings

My nephew had his birthday and sweet birthday party

A three hour phone call with a good friend

I got to hold a beautiful baby girl

And she liked me more than my sister*

Wow! I guess February was a pretty good month, afterall!

Okay, enough of that. Let’s get real!:

Look! The carpet at the Pantages Theater is Humboldt’s twin! Poor Humboldt. I can’t. I just can’t stop embarrasing it.

Outfit outtakes.

Tonight for dinner I made homemade biscuits with homemade macaroni and cheese with fruit salad.

But last night, the kids and I had Trader Joes frozen breaded chicken tenders, oven fries with the most amazing new sauce that I have recently whipped up after seeing it numerous times online. Oh, the guilt! But it was so good! If you cannot wait for me to ever get to that post (cause, I mean, my picture of it is so good. How could you wait for such a delicacy? I should totally be getting a call from Bon Appetite any day). And really, who knows when that will be? Here is the easiest dipping recipe.

My daughter and son have both been working on giant paintings of our dogs in their art class. I will update when they are both finished, because I simply cannot wait. Of course, I probably will not get them framed until next November when the framing deals happen again.

I’ve started a post that is going to take me a long time to complete. I will be reviewing and rating around twelve different mascaras. It might have to be broken down into two posts. We will see. Here is the first mascara I have started.

Why am I doing this? Well, I purchased a huge mascara sampler from Sephora and just now opened it. And I have always wanted to be a scientist. So. Mascara. Check. Experiment. Check. Scientist Jenni. ????

Remember when I bought my husband that ice cream maker that I he ~~always~~ never wanted for Christmas? Well, I finally got around to ordering containers to start making my ice cream this week. For friends and family this is great news, because I cannot possibly eat all of the ice cream I will be experimenting with. I hope to perfect them now so I can share the recipes in the summer!

And on Wednesday night I made two small batches of homemade ice cream. One vanilla and one cinnamon. Each one has a certain twist. Brynne, you can guess what that is! The only way I will make homemade ice cream…

Unfortunately (or fortunately for my diet), ice cream and my tummy do not mix. So I just get a small taste of the stuff before passing it along. Sigh.

I also remember promising certain posts in January’s Keepin’ It Real that never made it up in February! I wrote my children a different letter instead and Stick In The Mud will go up in March. Also, My Husband’s Secret is being posted on Monday!

I really did this update so I could do a screen shot of a screen shot of my blog. I find this hilarious. I might have a problem.

I liked doing two outfit posts a week this month instead of one. What did you think? Less or more outfit posts?

You know that feeling you get the night before Christmas? That is the feeling I am having about my year blog giveaway! It starts March 10th and I am so excited!

Did you have a good February? Are you excited about March? Any fun memories to share?

*This is unfortunately not true and was added just to razz my little sis. Which is the perfect way to end the little sibling month of February! ; ). I do love you, Mandi!

Gnome Lover

Stumbling through life while still having fun

keeping

Keepin’ It Real: June 2014

Keepin’ It Real: May 2014

Keepin’ It Real April 2014

Keepin’ It Real February 2014