ormolu

Review

Have you heard of CSN stores? I had never heard of them until they contacted me the other day asking me to do a review of their store/ products on my blog. So, of course I checked them out first and was surprised at how much products they sold online. Seriously, they have so much stuff! Which is pretty cool because I do shop online occasionally and it's nice to have another 'go to' place to check out stuff. In fact, I did purchase quite a few items online when we were expecting Jude because it was more efficient and less expensive to have it delivered. Even now it is a lot easier for me to shop online than it is to take Jude out- especially in this hot weather.CSN offers millions of products and great deals on shipping...sometimes even free shipping depending on the item and where you are located.  

So, I spent much of the weekend trying to figure out what I wanted to review. I thought about all of the projects we are working on right now and how we could quite easily purchase many items through CSN. I browsed through lighting options (as we are gradually replacing lights in our home from the boring base ones they come with), sinks for the bathrooms, storage and organization items, furniture...you name it- I looked at it. Of course I didn't even make a dent in what they carry because they carry so much. But luckily they have a pretty good system for narrowing down what you are looking for based on price, type of item, brands and more so it is quite easy to search their site. I will definitely keep them in mind when working on these projects. 

CSN has over 200 stores online. They pretty much have everything covered. Jess, the person I talked to, also mentioned they have a store just for bedroom vanitys which is pretty cool because I have this weird little space between our bedroom and bathroom just across my closet which I am brainstorming ideas for. Of course, when Reiley saw me going through the vanity section she fell in love with this. A girl can dream right? I like how while just checking out the vanity section alone there are many price levels, styles and types to choose from. 

 

I'm off to try to narrow down what I would like to review. So far I am thinking about either working it into our home improvement plan or kitchen related. Kitchen stuff is always a plus- especially in your first few years in a house when you are constantly buying things. 

Here's some questions for you guys if you'd like to help me out- If you happen to check out their site and have any ideas on what you would want to review you can leave a comment. Or if you have shopped from them before let me know how your experience was- it's always good to get some feedback. Also, what are the type of things you look for when shopping online (as far as rating a store)? I am thinking definitely ease of use & appearance of the site are big for me (of course it being a legit site first off). I also check out shipping costs- if it is crazy expensive for shipping (hello IKEA) then I move on.

After I pick out my item and try it out I will post to let everyone know how it goes- kinda fun, huh? 

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AND...

I've set a date to open my shop back up. Although I am not going to say just yet- but soon. Real soon. Just finishing up some things and getting orders placed then I will start posting some peeks at what I have been working on. Exciting stuff! It's been so long and I am definitely a little nervous having less time for shop work with Jude around now but I am so anxious to get rolling and I think it's about time!
 

little thesaurus

Reiley: "Aw, look it's a little Thesaurus" 

Me: "A what?"

Reiley: "A Thesaurus...it's a type of dinosaur" said matter of factly

Me: gives her a puzzled look

Reiley: "I think it is..." trailing off looking not so sure

Me: "A thesaurus? It's a kind of book"

Reiley: Gives a shy smile and declares, "I'll go get my dinosaur book and come up with another name"

So now we call him a little Thesaurus every time he wears these pajamas. 

 

a few new favorites...

Coffee tastes so good to me each morning...even more so when the little guy is up every few hours.  

I don't get much time to surf online anymore- besides sometimes when I am feeding Jude I take my iPhone along for my entertainment (but he is kinda a fast eater). 

I thought I would share a few favorite places I have happened upon or rediscovered lately: 

1canoe2: Such a lovely shop full of letterpressed goods. I would love to live in or near one of these little letterpress houses and I would love this print in my kitchen. 

forty-sixth at grace: Absolutely gorgeous blog and the food is lovely (I am sure it tastes amazing also!). Her pictures are breathtaking and this cake...well, have a look! So inspiring. She has a shop too. 

sophistimom: I must be a sucker for gorgeous photos of delicious food. I am so happy she is blogging again so I can try out some more of her recipes. I made this recipe for Reiley's birthday party last year (except I made cupcakes with it) and everyone LOVED them. AND check out these cupcakes. Totally awesome. They would be perfect for the fourth of July right?

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Also, there is a new challenge up on the Good Grief blog. I participated...but please don't make fun of my lack of journaling. My weekend was totally uncooperative. Amanda's layouts are totally awesome as usual- she just does a great job with the journaling, right? I love Lisa's journaling- it's so sweet and heartfelt. And Marti's is totally hitting home. 

3 months

 

Jude turned three months last week and I took this photo of him for my weekend creative prompt that Ali had up last Friday. Love using negative space in photos...I just have to remind myself when I am taking the photo :) 

organization: iPhoto

Recently, I have been working on organizing. I think it is the result of me spending so much time at home and realizing what works and what doesn't in my day to day routine- then trying to make everything more efficient. Because right now I work in blocks of time decided on by a three month old- and efficiency is key. I am pretty organized to begin with but every once in a while I like to fine tune things.  

Sometimes this organization comes in the form of design and rearranging things. Sometimes it is me throwing things out or putting in a donation box realizing I don't need it. This time it was me trying to find photos that I want to scrapbook and realize I have to look through over 12,000 photos that are not organized. That is 12,000 photos I have taken in the last 5 years really because I don't have all of my photos in iPhoto on this computer. But that is a whole other topic... 

Last week I spent sometime cleaning through my photos on iPhoto and I discarded over 3,000. That is quite a bit of photos. I thought about the best method of organization for myself and put photos into different categories on iPhoto. Previously they were just organized by the date (which is how iPhoto uploads them and organizes by default). The date method is helpful for me- but I wanted to find photos faster. Up until this time I simply had not spent any time organizing my photos so this was a huge change for me. 

Here is how I ended up breaking down my photos: 

MONTH_YR

EVERYDAY_MonthYR

NAME_MonthYR

LOCATION_YR

EVENT_(Name)YR

TOPIC_YR

That may not make sense to everyone...or even at first. I think it is important for me to figure out how I search for photos AND working with a method to figure out if I need to tweak it. 

If I have photos that are pretty general I am organizing them by the month: APRIL_10 for April 2010. Photos that are 'Everyday' get put into a folder with EVERYDAY_April10. These include photos of objects or just photos that really capture the everyday- something you might include in a documenting the everyday sort of scrapbook. 

If the photo really highlights a particular person I put it in a folder with their name, month and year: REILEY_April10. 

For vacations or trips that I want to be able to find I label them with the name of the location: MASSACHUSETTS_June05. 

Then there were particular events that I wanted to find separately such as my sister's wedding. I labeled those WEDDING_Ashlyn10. 

Lastly there were some photos that were grouped according to topic- such as our house and any remodeling we are doing. I labeled these: HOUSE_Basement10 or HOUSE_Backyard10. 

I am considering adding a category for photos that include Reiley and Jude- but I am still trying to figure out if that is necessary. It might be something I tackle later on in folders I am working with on the side (I will discuss that later). 

Here is a screenshot of my iPhoto library

 

Sometimes the using the date is a bit unnecessary- like HONEYMOON_08. It's not like there is a honeymoon each year but I find it's nice to have the year beside it and look consistent. Other times I don't think a date is necessary like in FENWAY (my parents dog) because I am never going to take so many photos of Fenway that I will need to organize them by year. 

 Overall I think this method serves me well. I have only been using it for a week so I will see if I need to make any adjustments but over this last week I have been able to find photos relatively fast. I like being able to find photos according to what they are and having the date there. Also, I have my 'view photos as' according to the event titles- so right away they fall right into place where they need to be. If I import a new batch of photos I can automatically split the photos and label them and if their are any duplicate folder names they are placed right beside each other so I can group them. 

My next goal is to start utilizing category folders something like what Stacy Julian teaches in her Library of Memories class. This is where I might just end up putting photos that include Reiley and Jude together. I am still trying to figure out if I need to make any changes to suit me better- but what I do like about this method is that it helps create connections which are an important part of documenting stories that are not so apparent when I scrapbook. For those I will set up albums in iPhoto and drag them in as I browse through photos on occasion. I don't think this will be something I feel I HAVE to do...but more like something I do when I feel a strong connection with a photo or know it is a photo that has a story. Currently I have my folders set up with labels that she uses: All about us, Things we do, Places we go, People we love- each with their subcategory folders. I will make adjustments to that as I find necessary. 

It's interesting finding out what works and doesn't work after all this time. I think it is definitely something that I need to test out to see if it works- it's more of a DO then something I just research and read about. 

Intermission

 

I've been making it a habit to pick up movies for Reiley that I enjoyed as a kid. One of these was Grease 2. I know the original Grease is by far better...but the cheesiness of Grease 2 is probably why I loved it so much as a kid. This last Christmas I picked up the Sound of Music for her. She has watched it a few times since Christmas and she loves it-although I did not realize until just the other day I had not sat through it once with her. 

The other day, while watching it, she got distracted and started working on some project with me. When we got back into the room she was staring at the television kinda like- what is this? Then she said, "When did they get married?" (the Captain and Maria). I was confused and thought she really has not paid any attention to this movie. She went up to the DVD and rewound it a bit until it got to the intermission. Then she said, "Oh! I thought that when it came to this part it was the end!" 

She had only been watching half of the movie this entire time. 

Next on our list is My Fair Lady...that one has an intermission too.

hardware failure

I could've lost this picture (Jude in his dad's old sleeper outfit). 

I've been working on new items for my shop relaunch the last few months and just when I was getting ready to set a date my hard drive failed. Luckily I had everything backed up. A trip to the Apple store and a few days later my computer was up and running just like before (I just love Time Machine). I did have a slight bump when my Adobe products were questioning licensing...but within a day I had that figured out. So, now I am back at working on finishing details so I can open up shop again. My maternity leave has been longer than I first had thought- but I made so many updates to my shop during this time, designed many new items and got extra time to play with my little man. I just wanted to be sure that I was ready (for the most part) to take on orders. 

So, opening back up is in the near future- yay! I just had a minor glitch (luckily) that set me back a week or so. 

Coincidentally, my parents hard drive went out this week. They did not have a back up and although they do not use their computer so much they did end up losing photos from vacations and family gatherings. Yesterday my dad said he bought an external hard drive so now they are good to go. 

Moral of the story: go get an external hard drive if you don't have one. Right now. 

My dad said his cost a hundred dollars. Single best purchase I could have made last year. 

Another good thing is to upload your photos to a place like Shutterfly- it's free and it's just one more place your photos are stored in case your hard drive fails. 

Alright- now back to work for me. Hopefully I will be updating soon with sneak peeks and other fun stuff!