Category Archives: Funny

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Minimalist Travel Hack: Unders

When I was in high school, I went on a school trip to Europe. One of the teacher/chaperons shared some packing advice with us. He would bring his old unders that he was going to throw out anyway along with him on the trip and then throw them away when he was done wearing them. Since he was going to get rid of them anyway, he would do it while on vacation, and it would free up space in his luggage for the return trip.

That idea always made me smile, and I’ve implemented it a few times. Just thought I would pass along that sage piece of advice to all you other minimalist travelers out there!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! BTW, I stole the term “unders” from Anthea. I think it perfectly describes them. :)

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Funny Bunny Is Funny

I’ve been noticing a trend lately of bloggers being completely honest about some aspect in their lives, as a way to show how everything isn’t perfect online. “Keeping it real“, if you will.

Here’s my confession for the day: sometimes I make things that I think look bad.

Exhibit A: Funny Bunny

This is one mangled softie. You can’t really tell in the picture, but her legs are all wonky. All four are the same size, which makes the bottom ones seem out of proportion.  They aren’t really in the same plane either; it looks like she’s constantly doing some weird yoga move. Also, her “face” isn’t centered on her head.

Same thing with her ears.

But you know what? She was made with a whole lot of love.

So I’m going to send her to my niece anyway for Easter, and I hope that someday she can see appreciate the intention behind this accidentally-creepy rabbit.

Funny Bunny reminds me of a quotation from Ira Glass on NPR about ambition, intention, and skill:

“All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work … It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions … It’s gonna take a while … You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

Back to Funny Bunny: she comes bearing chocolate, so I hope that helps.

Have you ever made something that didn’t come out the way you planned? What did you do with it? Did you try to improve it by adding chocolate??

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2012 calendar!

OK, so it’s that time of year when all the new awesome calendars come out. I need to get a new one for work. (This is the one I have for at home, and it is AWESOME. The height of functionality.)

Both of these calendars are NSFW. But they make me happy, so I decided to share them with you all. You’re welcome.

First up for consideration is the calendar of literary pin-up girls. It is beautiful AND clever! It was printed via the genius of Patrick Rothfuss, who you may know as a brilliant writer from Steven’s Point, Wisconsin.

Second up for consideration is the calendar from The Bloggess. This calendar is so funny that I just woke up the Man, who was sleeping all the way across the house, from laughing so loudly. I mean, come on! Wil Wheaton collating paper! Beyonce, knocking on the door! Hilarity ensues.

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Maybe you’ve met someone like this, too

John Scalzi posted this about a new term he is coining: McKean’s Inversion. Go ahead and read his post. I will wait for you here.

Finished? Funny, isn’t it?

So here’s my take on McKean’s Inversion:

I knew someone like this in college. He was friends with some of my friends, so I spent quite a bit of time with him even though I didn’t particularly care for him. Self-important, judgemental, mean…

And he would always say, “But I’m a nice guy!” (Usually when some new girl had declined his advances.)

If you have to say it, it’s not true.

Thank you, John Scalzi. Now I have a name for this fascinating human behavior.

Be back later with Show & Tell!

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Show & Tell 7/22/2011

I finished a quilt! Huzzah! This is the first one that I have finished since February.

Our neighbors gave us a beautiful canvas picture of a peachy-colored rose. It is a beautiful picture that my neighbor had photographed himself, and then he had it mounted on canvas. It’s lovely. However, it didn’t match anything else in the living room. I sewed this quilt so that they would match each other.

I found the pattern for the quilt blocks here. The piecing took the longest amount of time. I also put piping around the edge, before the binding. I love how it looks, but that also took a lot of time. The quilting was actually the easiest part; I “stitched in the ditch” between the cream and orange sections, and it was easy peasy.

 

P.S. Here’s an outtake from my photo shoot. I took these pictures in our small conference room at work. I didn’t realize how close the chairs were (aka I can’t crop them out). Although it’s kind of a blooper, this photo delights me.

Happy Friday! Please share what you’ve been creating in the comments. I love to see what everyone else is making!

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Links I Love 7/11/2011

1) Every once in a while, I consider getting a tattoo. This one - the spools of thread on her shoulder – is a contender. P.S. Gorgeous blog too.

2) I <3 a good infographic. This interactive map by National Geographic is filled with them. It contains several graphs showing the distribution of wealth within the world and how that affects health, education, life expectancy, number of cell phones per 100 people, etc. Fascinating!

3) Conan O’Brien gave the commencement speech at Dartmouth this year. I have watched this whole thing through over five times. It is a great, inspiring speech – funny and thoughtful. Check it out.

Happy Monday, kids!

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Get ‘em while they’re hot

Hey! Just a quick note that my friend Anthea is offering her (excellent) short story collection for FREE through July 31. Check out this link to find out all the details.

This is a collection of five short stories – all containing the common theme of “wishes”. As you can imagine, events never quite turn out as the wish-makers intend. I love all the stories, and I think you will too.

Hop on over to her blog and check it out.

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Links I Love 6/27/2011

1) I love easy beauty tricks. Here’s an amazing homemade body scrub I can’t wait to try.

2) Wil Wheaton: If you build it, they will come. (And by “they”, I mean “me”. I would totally come to your 80s arcade. Do it!)

3) I love this question from Project 333: “How has this project impacted your personal style?” My response is that since I can only have a few things in my wardrobe, I only wear clothes that I love. I am very willing to get rid of clothes that I don’t like. Before I would have hung onto them for “someday”. Now, if I’m not wearing it, it’s going to Goodwill. That means that I wear a lot of dresses, skirts, and fun colors. My personal style is stronger and more obvious because of Project 333.