Ugh...

So, I totally did my "Thrifty Thursday" post yesterday (on Friday).  Please forgive my airhead moment.  At least I got my act together well enough yesterday to start drumming up some wholesale business to get me through the Winter (more to come on that at a later date).

And since it's Saturday, and it's my blog, and I can do what I want, lets just continue the trend, pretend it's still Friday, and here's some Friday free-for-all for you on Saturday morning (Etsy edition)...

~Wicked jealous that I didn't think of making these first, but, seriously, everything in their shop is so much fun, and I want one of everything.
~The scarf I wish I had already, so it could keep me warm and cozy at The Kid's soccer game on this dreary, rainy, cold morning.
~Speaking of keeping warm, I might need a pair of these for my last 3 markets.
~This bag (pictured above) is totally going on my beg-to-Santa list this year.


Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey

Thrifty Thursday: Folding chairs...

So a long, long time ago, I used to do "Thrifty Thursday" posts.  I've slacked off to epic proportions on them (the last one was back in May), but I'd like to start bringing them back.

Here's a nifty little project I found on Apartment Therapy to class up your not-so-classy set of folding chairs.  Would this not be the coolest thing to be able to bring out when everyone comes over for dinner instead of your gross black vinyl covered ones?  You aren't lucky enough to have a set of those?  We are.  And, seriously, don't knock 'em, either.  We use them way more than we ever thought possible.  Oh, and even the poster child for Class, Tim Gunn himself, showed off his folding chair (below) for his Emmy watching seat, with the caption, "Behold the folding chair from which I will watch the Emmys. When I sit on upholstery, I fall asleep."

Most excellent.  Thank you Tim.  Now, might I suggest that you go raid the Project Runway workroom for scraps of awesome fabric, acquire a can of spray paint, and make yourself a stellar perch for next season's Emmys?


Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey

Twitter...finally...

So I feel like I was the last of my kind...the non-twitterers.  I was actually a tiny bit proud of myself for being one of the last hold-outs, defying the mainstream.  Then I realized that the mainstream is where the people are, and therefore where the customers are, and also therefore where it was silly for me not to be as a business owner.  Now, as many of you who have stuck through my ridiculously long-winded posts know, stating my point in 140 characters or less is not exactly my strong point.  But, like applying for craft shows that are way above my skill level, it's just another thing to add to my list of out-of-my-comfort-zone accomplishments for this week.  That's it though.  Done for the week.  No more.  Tonight I plan to sit on the couch with my husband, wearing the same old far-cry-from-sexy pj pants, watching the same shows we watch every week, and going to bed before 9pm.  Zero more excitement in store for me today, please... Unless you'd like to start following me on my new Twitter page.  That would be a wee bit exciting, and something I could probably handle.


Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey

Growing out my hair...again...

So after looking back at my post about cutting my own hair, I got to thinking that my hair wasn't really so awful looking in my Before picture.  Ugh.  Note to self:  In the future, take a Before photo, and look at it BEFORE doing the cutting...  Now I know.

Anyway, The following Pintrest images have given me some inspiration on a few styles I might try as mine starts to grow back out.  Or if it's anything like the cycle of the last few years, it'll get to about photo #3, and go right back to #1, which, shockingly is even slightly longer than it is right now after a month of growing out from my clipper-happy moment of weakness...
#1  #2
#3  #4
#5  #6
I was at #5 about 6 years ago.  Behold, the evidence below in terrible self-shot photo taken on my solo trip to Bermuda (yes, really, I took myself on vacation to a tropical island.  It was before I met my husband, and I was bored).  Let it serve as my inspiration to have some discipline this time around and get past phase 3-4 (and maybe to get on my treadmill a bit more often...I was SKIN-NEE!).
 


Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey

Stepping out of my comfort zone...

I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much about this, because I know how hard it is to get into these things.  But I can't help but wicked want to...

Now that farmers market season is winding to an end, it's becoming abundantly clear that my weekly income is about to come to an abrupt halt as well.  So I went a tiny bit out of my comfort zone and applied for a couple holiday craft shows.  I applied for the Queen City Craft Bazaar, which I've been admiring from afar, as a customer, for quite some time now, and would be completely thrilled to get in to.  Pretty much the only reason that it's outside my comfort zone is that it means making a wicked lot more product for a much higher volume of customers. Totally doable though with some proper advance planning/production on my part.

Then just for fun, as though that first one wasn't enough to think about already, I went ahead and applied for the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn.  It's apparently the first year that they're doing a Holiday one.  I've always thought the Renegade shows looked so insanely cool, however very intimidating to apply for.  According to their website they'll have about 200 vendors out of about 3000 applicants.  Yikes!  But the odds go way down if I don't apply at all, so I figured now is as good a time as any to try to get in.

Unfortunately both shows are on the same weekend.  But lets just keep our fingers crossed that I end up with the dilemma of choosing which one to attend, shall we?


Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey

Image source            

Making cider...

Fall in Vermont pretty much rocks.  It smells good, it looks good, and it definitely tastes good.  Thanks, Dad, for letting us use your cider press for the weekend.  There's a wicked yummy jar of cider coming to you as payment for the rental...   

Hubby's being a Ham...

...But he looks good doin' it.

Our big Maple is completely on fire already.

Hopefully the tourists all get the memo, and show up in force at this week's farmers market.  I have new goodies to sell!  Get a preview here.  

Thanks for stopping by,

-Lindsey
 

Friday free-for-all...

So, remember back when I went on my rant about The Baby not wanting to use the planet-friendly (and wildly expensive) gdiapers I bought him?  Well, unfortunately for him, it turns out that the 4-pack of disposable liners that I bought on Amazon a while back aren't returnable (even though the current listing says they are.  Wicked irritated about that one).  And since I hesitated in returning the covers, I still have them to use with the liners.  So he has 160 diaper changes to get used to them (or not), but I can't bare to waste the money.  I have to use them.

And since it's Friday, here's some other totally random stuff from around the World Wide Web that I found interesting...

~A place to add to the itinerary for near-future trip to NYC
~This soup looks so yummy and cozy for a cool Fall day
~Kudos to these celebs for having creative brains in their heads, and thinking of this clever idea
~Will someone please bring this little pup to my house so I can smooch it a billion times?


Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey

Mommy Makeup... Lipstick

One thing that busy moms can do to at least appear to still give a crap about their appearance:

From Jason Wu's Spring 2012 show

~Lipstick.  I think it looks stunning, and it's about the fastest, and easiest way to give your face a polished look.  Don't get all trampy and do a really bold eye when you do this.  Just keep it simple with maybe a little mascara, and a tiny hint of blush to wake up your cheeks.

I don't even really know how to explain it, but, every woman I've ever seen wearing lipstick automatically appears to be uber confident and elegant (to me anyway).


Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey  

Fall wardrobe wishlist...

Vermont is in a constant state of wet nasty slop on the ground from about a week from now until around the first week in May.  I have a major issue with my pant legs getting wet at the bottom.  So I pretty much only wear skinny jeans in the Fall/Winter instead of my bootcut ones, because I can tuck them into my boots and save my OCD from the ewey sensation of wet denim on the backs of my heels.  I have a teeny-tiny dilemma this Season though...  A good dilemma to have, but a hum-dinger just the same.  You see, last Fall my jeans were a size 14.  The ones I'm in now are a size 8.  All of my skinny jeans from last season are in my portlier size.  So, numero uno on my fall wardrobe wishlist will be some new skinnies...

My wishlist is as follows:

#1.  Black skinnies
#2.  Medium wash skinnies
#3.  A skull shirt, long enough to cover my bum when worn with leggings
#4.  A plaid button-down in some modern colors
#5.  About a million grey, black, and white long sleeved t-shirts
#6.  Mid-calf brown boots
#7.  Taupe Chucks
#8.  A chunky-knit sweater
#9.  A plaid wool coat

#10.  A hip-length military-inspired jacket.

The items I chose for this sweet little collage are simply representations, and I'm not hell-bent on having the exact pieces pictured (the jeans alone cost more than I've made all season long at the farmers market).  But if you're curious, the goods are listed below.  So shop 'til you drop.  Also, all this stuff is totally Mommy-friendly, meaning you can do pretty much anything in them, everything's easy to clean, they're way more appropriate that your pj's (just DON'T), and they're just as comfy and easy to throw on...

H m sweater
$32 - hm.com

Rabens Saloner long sleeve tee
$97 - youheshe.com

Long sleeve plaid shirt
topshop.com

AX Paris printed shirt
$21 - nelly.com

Barbour quilted jacket
$290 - barbourbymail.co.uk

Fidelity short coat
$195 - flannelsfashion.com

True Religion low rise jeans
$550 - shopmrsh.com

Miss Selfridge black jeans
missselfridge.com

Ash studded leather boots
piperlime.gap.com

Converse chuck taylor
jcpenney.com




Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey

Blog makeover...

New look for the blog; love it?  Hate it?  Can you read the new font?  Do you want the old font back?  Here's your chance to be brutally honest.  Have at it...

Oh, and while you're pondering that, here are a few of my favorite things from around the web on this lazy Sunday...

~New facebook page for House 54.

~There's always something great to say about this lady...

Thank you, Jen, for wearing these jeans out in public.  Seriously, a HUGE thank you.  Lately my own shredded pair have been my absolute favorite thing in my wardrobe.  Yet I fear that every morning when I get dressed, I come out of my room looking a bit too "Kurt Cobain."  Although, you'll notice that Jen has the restraint not to wear her Goonies skull t-shirt and plaid flannel with her ensemble...   

~Speaking of skulls, other than the disgusting price tag on this bad boy, I think it would be about the most awesome thing ever to sit on my desk.  I'm thinking that a purchase of a Halloween prop and a can of gold spray paint are in my very near future.   

~And "Someday" (like in 4 years from now when The Baby is in preschool and I get to do grown-up things again), the construction of a totally awesome backyard studio space should happen for my perfume making, and general need to lay in hammocks and escape reality...  It should look from the outside something like this one...

Thanks for stopping by,

-Lindsey

Now taking charitable donations for the purchase of these boots...

Dear Santa, recent lottery winners, and little old ladies that are considering leaving their life's fortune to their dogs,

I want these...


Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey

Recent business ups and downs...

As a few of you know, I've been making some wickedly awesome lotions (if I do say so myself), and dabbling in perfume making for the better part of a year now.  As though it weren't crazy enough to be right in the swing of busy farmers market season attempting to get the word out about my business, and bring home a baby at the same time, I just hit another wickedly time-consuming (and customer confusing) snag.  I found out a couple weeks ago that there's another company out there with the same (made up) name of Ecolosophy, selling the same kind of products I'm selling.  In the words of the great Bart Simpson, "Bummer man."

It turns out though, that this may have been a blessing in disguise, and here's why:
~Customer's were having a hard time pronouncing "Ecolosophy."  One lady even told me that it sounded like Colonoscopy.  Lovely...
~It forced me to edit my products.  Since I was going to have to change the name of my company, I was going to have to redo all my labels and packaging also.  It made me take a good hard look at what I was making, what was selling, what I had to buy special ingredients for that weren't used for any of my other products, and what I could realistically handle making lots more of now that I have a baby as well as a business.

~Through that editing process, it also gave me a chance to edit the overall "look" of my products. I really honestly don't have a clue if customers will like the new look or not.  But I like it.  And I think it's insanely cool that my mom's handwriting is my new logo.  No one else will have labels like mine, because no one else had my mom write their company name in her awesome handwriting... I hope.  If my mom's out peddling her great handwriting to other business owners around the state, then she and I are due for a little chat... 

So, the other thing I wanted to give you guys a heads-up on is that I'll also be changing the blog around to streamline the business/personal stuff together a bit more, and make it a little easier for me to deal with.  Right now I currently have a website and Etsy page for the business, this blog, a facebook page for the blog, but not one for the business, and did I mention a new baby also?  It's a bit much for e to keep track of right now.  So in the near future the following changes will be made:
~no more facebook page for the blog.
~facebook page for the business
~blog name will change to the business name (because the new business name is named after the house where all of my blog content happens in as well as where my business is run out of).

I'll post notifications when it's all changing, so you can still follow along if you choose to.


Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey

Sleep-training...To let Baby "Cry It Out" or not?

So, it's apparently called "sleep training;" the things parents do to get their babies/themselves to start having better/longer nights of sleep.  Frankly I think that's a stupid name for it.  I think it should be called "your-first-lesson-in-being-a-hard-ass-parent-for-the-greater-good-of-your-child-and-everyone-who-shares-the-house-with-him."  Yes, you're training them, but not to sleep.  They do that for a billion hours a day already.  Trust me, they know how.  You're training them to start being able to do some of the hard work for you at 2am.
We started 3 nights ago.  I felt like a complete jerk.  There's not much in the world that can make you feel like a smaller human being than taking someone smaller, and more helpless than you, and letting them cry when you have the power to easily make them happy again.  BUT, then the next night (feeling like a I'd already had my fill of being a giant meany-head), I broke down and did some rocking at 3am after he'd finished his bottle.  He was drifting soundly off to sleep in my arms (completely defeating the purpose of torturing myself by listening to him cry alone in his room the night before), and then our smoke alarm went off.  F*#k!

Quick back-story here:  About 3 years ago this happened in the middle of the night in similarly humid Summer weather.  We have those super sensitive detectors that if you look at the sensor sideways they'll read it as smoke and sound every alarm in the house.  Just for fun, they're all hardwired together.  And since we didn't hear the little automated man's voice over the screaming alarm telling us that it was "smoke" (that obviously wasn't there), we assumed the worst, figured it was the carbon monoxide portion of the detector, and called the fire department.  They were just thrilled to come over and hang out with us at 2am (wearing full on fire gear in million degree weather, and no exciting fire anywhere to be seen or played with).  Anyway, one of the nice firemen explained to me that the system we have is a pain in the butt, but it can be easily maintained by vacuuming the sensors off and clearing any cobwebs or debris from around them.

Well, shockingly enough, it doesn't matter what degree of OCD one possesses, if you're still getting into the swing of having a new baby in your house, your house chores may slip a bit.  And they did.  And just like 3 years ago, the frigging thing saw my dust-meets-humidity as a sign of terrible danger and set about notifying me (and waking my baby back up).

So, anyway, at this point I'm ready to scream, so before I do, I calmly go set the now awake Baby down in his crib, walk away, and set about getting his next bottle ready for the morning.  Guess what happened while I was doing that?  He fell asleep...on his own... *cue choir singing now*

Wondering if it was a total fluke or not, I tried it again last night.  He woke up, I fed him, then put him back in his crib without rocking him to sleep first, popped the pacifier in, stood like a creepy stalker in the hallway outside his room, and waited for the screaming to commence.  It didn't.  *more choir tunes please*  I waited until he was really conked out, took the pacifier away and tiptoed back to bed.  When he woke up again a couple hours later (not time to be hungry again yet), I marched into his room with my Mr. Pacifier Magic Man, popped it in his mouth, and walked away.  He spit it out about a minute later and started to cry.  Thanks a frigging lot Mr. Pacifier Not-So-Magic Man.  So I went back in, told Mr. Pacifier that we're on the same side here, put him back, and walked away again.  It worked!!!  He went back to sleep and slept until 6am!

I know I'm probably opening a HUGE can of worms here, because this is a subject that people feel about as strongly about (if not stronger) than most of their views on politics, religion, wars, and what your real hair color is.  But I'm curious about your thoughts on this.  Do you think letting your baby "Cry It Out" is an asshole thing to do, or are you on board with it?  Or are you like me, and totally think it's an asshole thing to do, but are doing/have done it anyway?


Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey  

photo source    

Cutting my own hair... Not recommended...

I just did this to my hair...in a sleep-deprived state...with my husband's clippers...

Thanks Mom, for fixing the front so, at least from one angle, I look like I'm pulling off this cute pixie look, and am not planning on joining the military any time soon.

Jean Seberg (probably had enough class, and good sense to not do this to her own hair...)

Before...

During...

After my mom did some damage control, and made it look pretty OK...

Dear readers, DON'T try to cut your own hair.  Just DON'T...but if you just can't help yourself, make sure that you call my mom up afterwards to fix the fact that everything is backwards in the mirror and it's damned near impossible to give yourself a good haircut.  Also, please take note of my husband's head in the photo here... He knows how to use clippers...I do not.

Three truths about cutting my own hair: 1) It felt way more terrifying, and way less bad-ass than I though it would to "G.I. Jane" my head, 2) I'm not nearly as sorry as you'd think I'd be that I did this, and quite like it now actually (now that it's had a couple weeks to grow into a pixie instead of a buzz-cut), 3) I will (in this particular case) stop being so cheap by trying to DIY stuff, and go see a professional next time I want a super short hair cut.



Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey

Sigourney Weaver, the rooster...

Turns out one of these things is not like the others...

The one in the middle is named Sigourney Weaver.  I named "her" way back before we knew just how different she/he was from the others because she/he reminded me of the bitch boss she played in the movie Paul.  Dear, the real Mrs. Weaver, I mean no disrespect, and have mad respect for you, so please don't take offense to this.  It was simply due to your excellent portrayal of meanness in that movie (and a few others.  I believe you may want to talk with your agent about being type-cast).  Anyway, on day 2 of life as a wee chick, this one bit my dog on the nose.  That was the beginning of the end for this girl/guy.  He has since bit all the hens, drew blood from my husband (literally the hand that was feeding him), and attacked my leg as I was walking out of the pen the other day.  And since there's little to no use for a Jerk Rooster in a hen house of layers that we want frying eggs, not hatching eggs from...well...*CHOP!*

Yes, Folks, sorry, but we said a not-so-sad farewell to Sigourney Weaver today.  Let us remember him for his beauty and brawn, and try to put behind us his psycho attacks on those who are bigger, stronger, and smarter than him...maybe I should have named him Christian Bale?    

See what I mean... He was a very handsome man.  However, any man that treats the ladies like he did, has no place at our house...well, he does, but it's in the freezer...

Thanks for stopping by,

-Lindsey