Relate with others, but relate with yourself also.
Love others, but love yourself also.
Go out! - the world is beautiful, adventurous;
it is a challenge, it enriches.
Go out fearlessly - there is nothing to lose,
there is everything to gain.
-Osho

And I had but one penny in the world.

Thou should’st have it to buy gingerbread.

– William Shakespeare, Love’s Labours Lost

I thought that coming home from school for Christmas meant a whole lot of R&R...

spending the next three days elbow-deep in cookies, candies and every comfort-food you can imagine has meant there is to be little time for me-time!

Sad day... but coming home has been a blast. Last year, we failed to make a gingerbread house, and I promised myself that I would never EVER let that happen again.

Here you see the result.

(It started out with just my younger brother Brian and I, but ended up involving all of us kids.) We also cleaned out the candy drawer... which is probably a good thing, considering the age of most of the candy found in the drawer is unknown. I am pretty sure that some of it has been accumulating there for many Halloweens. But better on the gingerbread house than in my tummy! (And making me feel super guilty looking at a scale!)

Pretty cool huh? You can see the fruit roll-up lake with our green laffy-taffy ducks and skittle ducklings, the igloo that we attempted to make out of some really old marshmallows and the garden? (in the middle of winter?) Answer: my brother was in charge of the schematics for the house, and he thought that a garden would be a nice addition... :)

The icing on this is seriously like glue. I don't think that we have ever actually eaten the gingerbread house... I was actually thinking that it would be fun to blow it up when Christmas was over. Whaddya think?

I decided to start this blog at a very bad time... this time is usually referred to with great chagrin among those who would much rather be spending their time hanging out with friends, going on adventures, making out, sleeeeeeping (for real... who actually does that?) but instead find themselves studying for hours upon hours in preparation for finals. For once in my "college life," my finals schedule isn't that bad! Hallelujah! And an angel chorus sings. But I will have to make time to sit down and write. Let's hope I can learn to be more diligent than my studying. :)

My first project was a hat I finished about a week ago. It was my first crocheted hat, and I am pretty excited

with how it turned out. I usually think of crochet, and I think of my

grandma and what s

he used to wear. Not really my style. I have been converted.

Pardon the subject... she was a little on the tired side while taking this picture, and had f

orgone regular clothes in favor of her jammies. This project was really fun because I got to learn how to do a half double-crochet and popcorn stitch! If you want to find the pattern, there is an awesome tutorial on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-R7athkDDs

and on her website here: http://crochet-

mania.blogspot.com/2008/03/blog-post_31.html. Both of these were very beginner-friendly. I make no claims to being any good at crocheting, but this one actually

fits! (This is actually saying something... the last one I tried barely fit my barbie... let's just say I didn't know what a double-crochet was yet... and I was only 12!) Give me a little credit for trying.

My next project happened Saturday night with my soon-to-be roommate and current next-door neighbor. She is amazingly artistic and loves to spray-paint designs on t-shirts and sweatshirts. No joke... these are awesome! I gave it my best shot. I'll let you decide how this one turned out.

Pretty sweet huh? Mine was a little crispy from the massive amount of paint, but after I threw it in the wash it turned out pretty sick!

Finally - the last project! This one is not quite as cool as the other two, but I think they turned out pretty cool. I decided for Christmas I was going to make most of my presents to give away... unfortunately at school I do not have hot glue and a lot of crafty things that are in ample supply in the cupboards at home... so I had to make do with these.

They are supposed to be flowers. If you couldn't tell.

No, not everything is going to be arts and crafts from here... that just happened to be a random theme for this post. I go through spurts where I will be very interested in something for a while, and then you won't here about it for a long time. I always love looking back on my obsessions and remembering how much I loved them. But this is to help me remember what I've done and to keep track of them, or else I will forget!

Hope you will enjoy the ride along with me!