About Us

If you looked at the "about us" tab at the top of the blog at any time in the past 4.5 years, you would have seen that it is a general synopsis of who we are...and that it was last updated before Layla had ever breathed oxygen or escaped my uterus. 

Total obsolescence.

Once in 2013 I rewrote that page, but somehow deleted it before publishing, and was too enraged to cope.  So I just left the old one where it was, and slapped in a little PSA at the beginning: "this is so out of date it's hilarious. Layla, our almost 3 year old, is a fetus in this 'about me' page, so take that into consideration." And even that disclaimer is now woefully out of date.

This is poor form by me because when I visit a new blog I often go to the "about me/us page" to get a feel for the writer and how he or she describes him/herself in a nutshell. Anyone who may have done the same upon visiting here would have likely met a very outdated version of our family. Alas.

Thus I shall now write a new about me page. The old one is archived in August of 2010 where it belongs. 

About Us (as of February 2015)

I am Keight and I do all but 2.4% of the writing here (I calculated it).  

Here is what I looked like one day recently:

I look like this far less than 2.4% of the time.

Some census-y things about me: 

-Birthday: October 2, 1982

-Married to one Jesse Dukes since October 1, 2006

-Mother of a son and two daughters: Judah (2009), Layla (2010), and Noa (2014)

-Born and raised and stayed in Atlanta, GA.

-I have two parents who last May retired after 70+ combined years working at the private school I attended PK-12th grade and moved to St. George, Utah. No, they are not Mormon. Yes, they like to hike and hate humidity. They fly a LOT to come see us.

-I have one sibling, my brother, Tripp, who is 3 years younger than me and lives in Seattle. He looks almost exactly like me and acts almost nothing like me. If that sounds like a winning combo to you, he IS single!

Some more interesting things about me:

-I love spreadsheets. My full-time "real" job revolves around this passion. It is just the right mixture of easy and challenging and fun and zero-stressful. Be envious now.

-I played volleyball in college for Georgia Tech, where I pretty much majored in volleyball (not a real thing) because obviously that was more important than my actual Business major. Whoops. But don't worry, we were freaking ballers. 

-I started loving Jesus when I was 21, and went lots of wild and crazy and broken before then.

-My favorite ministry is marriage. I love talking about how mother-flipping hard it is and how mind-bogglingly fantastic it can be. I also love talking about being messed up.

-Passionately love: cheese, meat and sushi. Goodwill, IKEA and Target shopping. "30 Rock," and "The Office." Harry Potter, ASOIAF, Star Wars and other quality fiction. Thanksgiving, and being made fun of. Straight up authenticity/honesty.
-Violently hate: raw tomatoes, silverware scraping on plates, people touching my face, shoes touching any furniture ever, Bro Country, small talk, refilling my bobbin, the slang word for breasts that starts with a T, wet paper, capitalization (but I'm trying), one-upsmanship and douchebaggery.

-I am an outgoing introvert. I will tell you all about my perineal tear in the first 5 seconds of meeting you, but would probably always prefer being at home reading in sweatpants over being around lots of people.

-Accomplishments: I have an MVP trophy from my 6th grade jump rope team and I was voted Wittiest in my senior class superlatives (as well as "life of the party" and "biggest kid" in the jokey ones). I lay these crowns at the feet of Jesus...but I am still pretty happy I got wittiest.

-Was all about natural childbirth with my first two kids, but maybe not so much anymore.

-Sold out to Jesus; get really fussy when people use Him to push agendas other than Love.
-Lice survivor...just barely.

This is what I look like most of the time. Not the breastfeeding under a conference room table part; just the outfit/face situation.

Here is my husband:

That jacket is red and awesome. It is not Michael Jackson's from Thriller nor Marty McFly's vest. Haters to the side.

Photo by Holli Hamby

He is Jesse. 

You may know him from such things as: being wonderful and hot. See also: the biggest grace-slap in the face I ever received from Jesus. 

Things about Jesse:

-He is a professional Christian. Aka a pastor. His official title is Worship and Discipleship Minister. He also preaches about 12 Sundays a year. He's really good at his job.

-Jesse also attended Georgia Tech (we met there), but he went on a 100% academic scholarship. He double majored in International Affairs and Spanish. He only speaks English and handles local affairs these days. Oops.

-He just randomly decided to learn guitar out of the blue when he was a freshman in college, and he now is a professional musician. Um, that's cool. He's a total panty-dropper playing his guitar and singing about Jesus. 

-Curly brown hair, ice-dragon blue eyes, fabulous butt. People think lots of hot celebs look like him. They should be so lucky.

-Hates cantaloupe, feet-tickles, and boogers, and also the version of me that he first met (can't blame him...she was embarrassing).

-Morning person, people-pleaser, great athlete (like 80% as good as me), gifted listener, unapologetic pun-lover. recovered chronic shoulder-dislocator.

-Is the middle of 5 children born to two full time disciplers.

-Voted "Mr. Senior Class" by, um, his senior class. Which I am told was like Best All Around at their school. I confirm this nomination. (Fun fact: the girl who won the Miss Senior Fancypants is my friend Bethany who is my conversational soulmate, and sang  in our wedding with her talented hubby).

Here is my son:

He is Judah David. (his name means some cool things)

-Most luscious head of thick blonde (but getting darker!) hair to ever grace a preschool.

-Loves his Razor scooter, cereal with milk, being tickled, mayo, fruit, collections, reading (learning), popcorn, swimming, baby Noa, a clean room, "The Little Rascals."

-Hates: potato anything (french fries included), wearing underwear (my little covert commando), mint toothpaste, dressing "snappy" (this means jeans), being cold, seeing mommy and daddy smooch, being alone in his room with the door closed.

-Total firstborn with the drive to win/achieve/be the best/dominate all lifeforms.

-Incredibly tender heart and deep thinker both of which can be easily overlooked due to his brash, wild, stinky, upside downness.

-Was in a published book and had a song written about him before he was born.

-Used to really dislike Mommy and prefer Daddy to a heartbreaking degree until about 3 years old when that relationship blossomed into something completely magical.

Here is my oldest daughter:

She is Layla Embry. (her name means some cool things).

-Born 17 months after Judah. We almost peed our pants when we discovered (on video) she was a girl.

-Boy, howdy, is she ever a girl. Can't get enough pink and dresses and princesses and twirling and sparkles. I wasn't prepared for that.

-Freaking hilarious sense of humor and totally knows it. Will play imagination games all day long.

-Loves so fiercely (her kisses often hurt) and loudly. Is a fabulous sharer.

-Recovering paci addict.

-Chatty, chatty, chatty.

-Loves: ketchup, talking to all humans, music, being in charge, popcorn, baby Noa, getting up from the table, a different doll/stuffed animal every week, quality time/attention, hotdogs

-Hates: being tired (it hates her too...yikes), cleaning up anything, eating during mealtimes (is constantly hungry all other times), cereal with milk, being controlled when she's having emotions, buckling her seatbelt by herself.

-Had a song written about her before she was born.

-Most likely to make us die laughing and die from exasperation in a 5 minute span. Completely charming and wonderful.

Here is my baby daughter:

She is Noa Lou. (her first name means something, and her middle name came after she was born and is also very special).

-Born last October and has already broken my heart by  growing from a tiny newborn to a  4 month old!

-Is the first newborn I have been really fully able and ready to embrace the utter MAGIC of.  I lose my mind on a daily basis from being in flat out captivated by her...not even the stresses of having three are standing in the way.

-Was my hardest, blah-est pregnancy (because I already had two to chase after? because I was over 30?)

-Biggest baby: Noa was born 6 days early at 8 lbs 1 oz. Layla was this exact weight too but she was a day late...so tie goes to Noa.

-Loves: baths (has never cried in one ever ever), making and listening to mouth noises, her bamboo blankets, her hands, MILK, pulling hair, the car and car seat, sweating, assisted standing, blowing out her diaper, her siblings

-Hates: gas, tummy time, being swaddled, back sleeping, staying latched on and not getting distracted, when Layla controls her limbs like a puppetmmaster, the nosefrida (too bad because it works!)

-Has never disobeyed and is currently my favorite child.
-She has a song written about her, but it isn't recorded yet.

Here is my blog. (Its name means something special and kinda weird)

It started the way many do: as a digital baby book when we were first pregnant with our first child. It stayed that way for about a year until Jesse and I made a conscious decision to do more than survive this "simple" life of marriage and kids.

I decided to start documenting our attempts at doing more than just sitting around watching TV.  I took up sewing out of the clear blue, started trying to figure out my style (fashion and home), learned to love hating running (did a half marathon!), fell in love with DIY everything and started putting real thought into my writing (sometimes). 

I don't know how much of any of this I would have stuck with if it wasn't for the blog and the community and accountability that it has provided. Blogging (and my Etsy shop that spun off from my sewing efforts through it) has become a legit second (and third) job for me and has provided a perfect creative outlet from the spreadsheets and mommying. 

There's no real bloggy category that this one fits in because I write about a little of everything, but I hope the common threads--no matter what the topic--are humor and authenticity. The best compliment I can get when I meet someone in real life who has read my writing is to hear, "you are exactly the way you come across online." GOOD. 

As always, if there's something you were wondering that isn't covered here or in the FAQ, feel free to ask. I'm an open e-book (except for some sex and family stuff).

Great t'meetcha!

-Keight

Therapeutic Dreams

Not long ago I had no style. That's not me being self-deprecating, I just literally had no style of my own. I had never given any thought to what elements or themes or looks from fashion/design I felt best expressed who I am. I would shop for a room or an outfit and just kind of wildly go, "I like that thing, and that other thing, and that one too," never considering if the things went well together or if they were a fitting reflection of what i found beautiful or functional.

Pinterest had a big hand in changing this. So did my snap decision to blog more of my life and MAKE more of my life. I had always liked my house. It was functional and nice and I had picked paint colors for every room based on which swatch was prettiest. What more could I want? But i started thinking in terms of, "does this space give me joy right now?" and quickly found out that, no, our house as it was didnt really make me joyful or inspired on any given day. 

At first I figured we'd just have to move. Start fresh. Then we spent .005 seconds looking into that and realized, LOL, we're not going anywhere because all of a sudden the house we bought in 2006 is worth nothing in 2009. Thanks a million, market. 

I'm so glad we didnt move and start from scratch though. A: because i would have been completely overwhelmed trying to build a style and house from scratch and B: I found out that it wasnt the house's job to be beautiful and reflect joy, but MY job to make it so. And that's what we started to do. Room by room and no interest-financing project by project, we've turned our blah little wood-veneered and khaki colored home into a bright, modern, quirky, fun space that LOOKS like us and that genuinely gives us joy to be in and to work on. Proof? the kitchen, my bathroom, the living room, the studio/office, the pantry, the dining nook, the hall, along with two areas i havent shown you yet because they arent finished.

I said Pinterest was a big part of this change. At first its biggest contribution was "UNNNNGH look at all these pretty rooms and houses, I love them all so much and they are better than mine and I NOW HATE OURS" and a whole lot of COVET.   A common pitfall of ye olde pins. But slowly and surely I was able to say things like, "okay i love that bohemian budoir as a photo, but honestly, that is not me and would be a tad ridiculous in my home." I started figuring out how to gather ideas that would both work in our style of home/stage of life/area of the country and which looked beautiful, joyful, and stylish to mine own eyes.

just a butt load of beauty.

One of the first rooms we got to sort of reinvent from scratch was Layla's nursery. I made no secret of the fact that I got 100% of the inspiration from a nursery tour I saw on Apartment Therapy. I found Apartment Therapy through pinterest and had been scouring their stunning kids room tours for ideas for Layla's. I was completely intimidated by everything I saw on this website. Most of these room-designers weren't actual professional designers...but, dayum, they were light years beyond anything I could slap together or think up. Every room they featured was a work of art to my design-deprived eyes, but Maeve's nursery tour put that inspirational fire in my gut to START PAINTING AND SEWING AND DOING AND MAKING NOWNOWNOW. And that is when you know you've hit inspirational paydirt.

Obviously many of the most beautiful elements of Layla's nursery were straight up copied from this gorgeous space. Since I could never make up a room design of my own that would be this fantastic, I figured copying the look and ideas would have to be my crutch. (And that's a lot of what style is anyway I think: copying from here and there--probably not as much as I did here-- and curating your own look, with a few lightning bolts of original inspiration along the way).

I am dying laughing as I type this because I just went and looked on the original Apartment Therapy Tour and remembered that I had written a comment on it; telling the room's owner how much I loved it and wanted to replicate it for my little girl. Here is what i said 3+ years ago:

hahaha, at least my honesty has not changed.  i'm insane and unoriginal, but at least i'll tell you loudly.

Fast forward 3 years. Lots of trial and error along the way as I learned my own style and started to implement it all around our home, one little makeover at a time. I noticed that, over time, I stopped relying as much on other room tours and Pinterest...I actually started to be able to piece things together on my own. I'm still NO DESIGNER: those evil geniuses who spew face-smackingly gorgeous ideas that you've never seen before from their every pore, but I have found my own groove. Enough of a groove that I even felt confident enough to reach out to IKEA and pitch a partnership with them...which, as you know, they were game for (but I sure wasn't confident to tell hardly anyone about that pitch until it was accepted!).

From the moment IKEA said yes, and the project of making over Judah and Layla's shared space became a reality, I about lost m'damn mind. Saying, "I've found my style! I am a confident interior design gazelle. Watch me prance!!!" is one thing, but having your #1 favorite company back you and say, "Hey , go do this with our name behind you and we're going to put it on the internet forever," is quite another. Crushing anxiety and pressure headaches anyone?

But what else could I do but go for it? I had a van full of furniture waiting for me to make it look good and nothing but a bunch of allen wrenches and my brains to make it happen. And, as you know, it very did happen. A pregnancy complete with horrifying morning sickness happened too--right in the middle of the project--but that's all in the past, and we can all laugh about it now without hardly gagging. 

When the project was over, the photographs taken and my presentation at an IKEA event complete, WHOOOOOSH, what a relief. IKEA was happy with the room, I was proud of what we had created, and the kids were living happily ever after inside of the room. 

On a wild whim I decided that maybe I had graduated from style-idiot bumbling around and copying the best of what I saw, to sort-of-not-clueless-possible-innovator. I decided to submit the room to Apartment Therapy. How cool would it be to go full circle from 100% consumer of their tours to an actual tour contributor!?!

I submitted my link and the pics and waited...and nothing ever happened. I really wasnt too bummed about it since I truly loved the room, and since Apartment Therapy was on such a pedestal in my mind that even my best work was probably not good enough.

So you can imagine the pants-pee that occurred when, completely unrelated to my submission (she said she never even saw it since they get TONS of submissions) I received this email from an AT editor:

I screamed. A lot. And loudly, and basically acted like a complete idiot psycho. 

And this past Friday, the tour went live: a Tour of the Room of My Design (capitalized for fancy), live on Apartment Therapy. Is this real life? And the orange squiggle is looking extra sexy to me all of a sudden.

and then i died of smiling.

I can now retire happily from designing, and blogging, and maybe breathing...just for a moment.

I was pumped at how many people said they were surprised by how much IKEA stuff made up the room. That had been a big goal of mine; to show how you can use IKEA products without it looking like an obviously-IKEA furnished room. I was NOT surprised by all the dumbwaiter love because it's such a  Swiss Family Robinson / Webster dream come true to many a grown up child. 

I expected Apartment Therapy commenters to all be pretty seasoned tour-viewers (with rare exceptions of insane noob comments like mine above) and that they would be a tough crowd to please, let alone impress. I was ready for feedback and critique on my choices and had thickened my skin and opened my brain-heart to use criticism for future good.

Even still, there was a small period of despair when some of the comments on the tour turned decidedly negative and kind of mean/judgmental to my eyes--and not even about the design so much as about our parenting choices. Some folks were loudly anti-TV in the room (understandable, but maybe not relevant in this post) and others were concerned about the safety of the kids in the bunks (not so much the loft though, weirdly). 

It was late Friday night when I saw these and it was hard not to feel pretty hurt. I am a salty gal, but in a horrible twist of fate, I am also really sensitive.  And I am not of the personality that could just remain silent. I replied to a few of the comments, trying really hard to remember that I represent not just my blog and IKEA in this forum, but also Jesus (in every forum, because duh). 

I didnt think I could feel sunnier about the tour than when it first posted, but I was surprised to find that the most meaningful compliments I received about the room didnt end up being about how pretty or cool it was (though truth: those made me soar), but rather how I responded with grace (and funny) to the negative commenters. THAT meant a lot, because it was 100% not me--I had to pray and revise, and pray some more, and then make Jesse talk me down, and then pray some more and then revise again and THEN post my replies.  I never expected an Apartment Therapy tour feature to provide a benchmark Jesus moment for me, but it so did. It was also a great reminder that as awesome as recognition feels, or a pretty room looks, people are more important, even the grumpy ones. 

I am at peace the no one cares more about the safety of my kids than Jesse and I do. Just because someone else might not choose to do a loft or a TV in their room doesnt mean it isn't a valid or right choice for us. How we parent our kids is between us and Jesus, and I feel more secure in that after going through that little spell.

Deep, spiritual detour aside, I am just so proud and happy with how everything turned out. If it wasn't glaringly obvious: An Apartment Therapy Tour was a dream--one I almost didn't even dare to dream--come true!  I absolutely have to thank yall for supporting me by reading, teaching me with your insightful comments and emails, and encouraging me through numerous dark times. I would have never pitched to IKEA if I didnt have a blog that I felt confident about, and that confidence comes from from yall.

I cannot think of a way to end this post that doesnt sound like an Oscars acceptance speech. So let's roll with it, Judah, and Layla, if you're reading this, I love you, and when did you learn to read? Thank you to the Academy, to my husband who is my best friend and #1 supporter, and most of all to my savior, Jesus Christ! Good night!

------------------------

there is a $100 Visa gift card up for grabs just for one of yall from the good folks at GE on the previous post...enter today!

the winner of the Big Mommy Bag giveaway was Laura W. who has been informed and is fist pumping and dancing around. thanks to everyone who entered!

SOS

i had a massive breakdown today. if i actually wrote out what all it was about you would probably think i was being dramatic or overreacting. you'd probably be right because it really wasnt anything that should have caused a DEFCON IV level freakout. i know that in my rational brainparts. 

and yet it just took over me. like full force, relentless, all-consuming took over me. it felt like i was drowning in pure, undiluted toxic stress acid. 

i ended up having to take the morning off of work, made jesse take the kids to school, and then about 4 hours later, i was ready to talk about to jesse about it. i made a list of things that were causing this tsunami of overwhelmedness and we started sorting them into categories: 1. things i could take action steps to relieve, 2. things that jesse could actively help with and 3. things we didnt have any control over anyway and just need to pray about.. 

when i'm in a coping crisis like this, the littlest thing can threaten to sink me. the straw feels made of lead and i am a camel with a very brittle backbone. anything can further the downward spiral in my head to the point that it finally just obliterates my attitude, self-worth and peace of mind. so putting it all on paper was surprisingly helpful. whereas minutes earlier, it had had me in tears, seeing on paper, "my blush broke apart in my makeup bag and now there is pink dust everywhere" is slightly less intimidating (and almost funny...except that effing dust is EVERYWHERE). thats just one line of writing and 10 minutes of cleanup. writing it down is like turning on the lights when my imagination is running wild at night. oh, there is no monster in the closet, after all, that's just a sweater. i can deal with a big pile of sweaters a lot easier than i can deal with a horde of unknown monsters.

i also learned (for the 1,427th time) that my husband is AMAZING. i was feeling so guilty as he went down the list and said, "okay i can take care of this one. i will handle that one. i can do this while you take a nap." i was like, "that's not fair! i cant keep asking you to do things like this. then it's all on you and when are you going to finally break like i have?" and he just said, "i dont break." 

he wasnt being braggy or claiming to not have stress or get overwhelmed at times. he was just stating the fact that he doesnt struggle with this kind of issue like i do. instead of adding, "i feel guilty about putting my junk on jesse's plate" to my stress list, i decided to just shut up, believe him, and accept the blessing from jesus himself of having a husband who is able and willing to help me and who doesnt have the same personality type as me.

as i was finally headed into work i started thinking about this aspect of my personality. how insanely unhelpful it would have been to hear someone tell me, "well, you shouldnt be freaking out about such little things. you just need to calm down." solid advice, and true--for sure it's TRUE-- but completely useless in penetrating the fog or actually doing anything but making me feel worse. immediately my brain associated this idea with telling an addict that they "shouldn't" want drugs. and then i thought, "could i be addicted to stress?" 

i have heard alcoholics say that they hate drinking. hate how it makes them feel, hate how much it hurts the people in their lives; and yet they say they are powerless to stop going back to it. i usually judge these forms of addiction and pat myself on the back for being "strong enough" to not be a slave to anything so destructive. but today it hit me that i might actually be full of self-righteous crap when i think this way.  because maybe i do have an addiction that is just as destructive in its own way.

i am not trying to play the addiction card to one-up anyone or even to equate my struggles with something as serious as a substance abuse addiction, but after how fast and hard things went down today, i am also not willing to just write it off as harmless Type-A, frazzled mommy behavior. all i know is that it felt sinister, it felt hopeless, and it felt totally out of control. sadly, this was definitely not the first time i have felt this way (even in the past month) so i am going to be asking jesus about this pattern in my life and how he wants to heal it. 

another one of the items on my list of stressballs was "i havent been blogging enough." jesse talked me away from that bullet point (ha! literally) by reminding me that i dont get angry at my favorite bloggers when they dont write for awhile (it's almost laughable when i think of it like that). he assured me that the majority of people who read these posts dont do it because it's great content (though he thinks it is because he's #1), but because for whatever reason, they care about me/my story.  he said that the only reason people can relate to anything i write is because it  is authentic and real and that i cant force that just because my post frequency has dwindled lately. "when you feel strongly about something, youll feel like writing about it. just take a break until then."  um, ok? i'll try that. 

but he also encouraged me to see this as a community that could help in this very situation if i did write about it (and, two birds, one stone i'd actually be writing a post in the process!). that yall could help by praying for me. it feels a little weird to ask for prayer on my blog when it's not for something grabby, headline-making or heart-rending. but whatever, i'm not trying to win a sob-story contest. i AM trying to not destroy my fragile brain and my family in the process of making it look like i have my shit together when i ohsodont.

so i'm asking for some prayer. i'm deliberately choosing to set down the lies that produce guilt and insecurity about being an internet hot mess (even though they are so tempting to believe), and to just trust my weird, vulnerable heart to yall and be real with where i am and what i could really use help with right now.  

ok,and  this is me doing that. the end.

following up: ukreightons, lalabu and waffle

it's a charming habit of mine to write posts that require me to keep you updated or to come back and finish the story later...and then to forget to do that. (are you so charmed?) so today, i try to to tie up the loose ends using all of my rope skills (they are legion). these are actually all things that i asked for (and sooooo got) y'alls help on, so i crazy owe you anyway.

1. the UKREIGHTONS! yall, god went buck wild (as he is wont to do) and raised the money needed for travel and all three adoptions with a quickness! the benefit concert was HUGE and we sold out of t-shirts lickety split.

 the stateside portion of the family rocking their adoption shirts before the concert

greg and ann just got back from their first trip to ukraine. they have a court date and will return there on august 5th and then a week or two later they will go back again (3rd time in a month...you see why this was expensive) to GET THEIR KIDS AND BRING THEM HOME!!!

greg, sofia, natasha, ura and ann

2. LALABU they did it too! our friend (the inventor/designers) raised over $18,000 on indiegogo to fund the first wave of production on their urm-azing new baby carriers. i know lots of yall contributed and got in on some perks (i'm in for 2 carriers...because i expect twins?!?!) and i'm so excited that the first carriers are shipping next month. find out more and order yours today.

how she managed to reproduce the exact same pose again and again is beyond me.

3. WAFFLE! i still kind of cant believe we crowd-funded a freaking kitten. internet, you has weird. now i did post some updates on the waffly-boy that same night, but wanted to give an update on his medical condition here almost two weeks later. thanks to all of yall who chipped in we were able to take him to a real, normal vet and get him worked on. his side wound is healing so well and we go back for a follow-up on it friday. if all looks good and his fever is gone (from the infection) then we can get him snipped and vaccinated. this is so exciting because then he can come inside and live and play. did you know that boy cats whose change purses have NOT been emptied have a charming propensity to SPRAY urine all over everything to mark their territory (i am NOT charmed, nature). so yeah. he's been doing his thing out of doors and treasuring his last days with his jelly beans. 

 snoozing on a broom handle (his bed is nearby...he's just adorably weird.)  i love this tiny guy.

 he is so loving and clingy and affectionate. he follows all member of the family around whenever we got outside. here's a nice shot of the neuter-fodder.

in fact, he's so friendly that he decided to go INTO our dogs fence and introduce himself. we were gardening this weekend and jesse turned around to see waffle in the jaws of our first-born adopted pet, chopper, the huge shephard/chow/lab mutt. it was horrifying. jesse sprinted into the pen while i ever-so-helpfully stood by and screamed. my first thought: "NOOOOO I LOVE THAT CAT!" my second thought, "OMG holy crap, all my friends paid to keep this cat alive and we've almost immediately fed him to our dogs. how embarrassing!"

so waffle is either friendly, stupid or suicidal. lesson learned by us all. thankfully he wasnt hurt at all, chopper had just pinned him down on the ground and most of the scary noises were from him and clifford fighting each other, not eating our newest pet. waffle was completely over it and unphased by the whole ordeal, calmly purring away seconds later while jesse and i came down for our adrenaline hurricanes. 

hell of a thing, that food chain.

layla, disturbingly, kissing waffle's butt.

so there you have it. 3 causes yall championed and rocked. THANK YOU! 

is there any other post that i was supposed to give you a follow up on that i have already forgotten? (besides my failed countdown that never got past #10 and #9 and will likely never be completed).

well, hello there!

evidently i have a blog. could have fooled me...WOCKA WOCKA.

and with that little nugget of comedic gold (GOLD I SAY!), i'm back. 

youre welcome/i'm sorry!

well that was the longest blog break i think i have ever taken when not pregnant/morning sick or encumbered with a newborn. 

so what gives? well i dunno, life. we went on vacation for a week, got a new mattress, tackled a few biggish projects at home, have spent a lot of time on family adventures, have been gardening, and i am working on drafting a digital sewing pattern and that has been taking up a lot of my internet time.  also i just wasnt feeling the bloggy mojo. it happens. 

but i think i'm back and just jam-packed with things to slap yo' eyeballs with.

so with a whispered promise of more focused posts to come, here's a moderate sprinkling of things that dont fit elsewhere.

local berry pickin'. pinkies up, you classless swine!

this turned into 7 lbs of blackberries which turned into cobbler and a TON of amazing fresh blackberry lemonade:

urhmygah

back in another life when we were just fresh-faced soon-to-be-newlyweds, we went to IKEA and bought everything to fill up our new house. we even got our mattress there. at $199 for a king, it was still mega expensive to our little college-budgeting brains. and it felt great to our lithe, spry, fatless bodies.

7 years later, to this shapeless, dimpled dumpling of pain and suffering: no more, i say!

 our old mattress. it brought us low. in all the ways. (the left side is mine. draw what conclusions you will).

cant remember if i blogged this, but jesse broke 2 vertebrae on memorial day. he was at one of those funsie play centers with the mats and the jumping and the angst (church youth event he was chaperoning) and decided to do a double front flip off of a diving board into a foam pit. well i guess one of the following happened: A) the foam needed to be re-fluffed after getting compressed by so many people jumping in. B) there needed to be more foam pieces added to the pit. or C) jesse is 30 years old and over 200 lbs and maybe the pits arent designed for such fragile behemoths. he hit the concrete bottom of the pit and thought he was paralyzed. thankfully just two cracked verts. he is on the mend already. but color me HARROWED!

but in addition to this awesome injury making us think about our sleeping environs, we had both not been sleeping well at all and waking up cranky and achy. i assumed it was just part of the wheels falling off because we're 30 and the grave creeps ever closer, but someone suggested a mattress change. i asked facebook if a quality mattress mattered and HOO BOY did they have something to say about that!

we scooted over to our local mattress firm and snagged a new fella for a deal (which was still like 8x the cost of the IKEA monster) with some sweet no interest financing for half of a forever. it's all been worth it so far. i call our new gemstone a "cloud bombastic" because its amazing.

chica posting up on our new BFF.

judah has been interesting lately. here's where i found him last week:

 sitting. reading. on the trashcan. in the pantraundry room with the door closed. with a donatello mask on as a headband.

i wanted to get back into running more so i challenged myself and anyone on FB/instagram to do a 30 miles in 30 days goal for the month of june. that might not seem like a lot--and it's not if youre a runner (i did 92 miles in july two summers ago and i am the world's worst and slowest at running)--but it was SO cool to have the accountability of the people doing the challenge with me. i hit my goal and loved the feel of sweaty torture again.

sometimes i wouldnt be able to get out to run until after dark due to kids or rain or whatever, but i was so motivated by the little challenge that i made sure it happened. even if that meant looking like this:

i'm for real about SAFETY!

and i just couldnt help myself and bought a few new fabrics for my beach bags. i have made FIFTY of these suckers this year. i usually stick to minimal stripes, zags or geometric prints in fun colors, but i LOVE the idea of this vintage nautical-sketched fabric made into a beach bag. 

AHOY, playas (see what i did there with the spanish?)

ok that's it. i did it. i blogged. ramping it up in the coming days. brace thyselves.

summer duds & header cemetery

today was not a non-bloggy day for me. i actually spent more time working on the blog than i do normally. there's just no original post to show for all of my work (well expect for this one now).  but there is lots of other stuff to show for it...please tell me you can see it all?

whenever i redesign my header and blog layout, i am MADLY in love with the new setup...for about 3 or 4, maybe 5, months. then it looks crazy stale and i hate it. 

so today i changed it again.

what's the big deal about this change? wuhllp, i didnt use microsoft word once! 

yes, graphic designers, hold on to your lunches, ALL of my previous design undertakings have been done in microsoft word with a hearty dose of screenshots.  i know. SHUN THE NONBELIEVER

but today i did the redesign using a real, live, design program (a free one called GIMP). this program is SO counter-intuitive (to a microsoft-office based designer, at least) and sometimes it takes me ten times as long to do something than it would in my ghetto programs, but i think i am appreciating the fact that doing it right is worth the effort and delay. i think. maybe.

i still have a horrible eye for this sort of thing and it takes my miles of brain-hamster-wheel-spinning to churn out something that passes even my low standards, but i am still loving where i ended up for the summer blog redesign.

and now a trip down memory lane to view some of my greatest design hits misses and to see my love of white space and nice typography slowly devolve back to nothing:

what's up there currently (for when i take it down eventually...it needs an ebenezer)

thought this one was my one true love when i made is back in january. then EVERYONE started using the PUYD font everywhere it seemed. sketch rockwell, you are a whore.

 oh man. good times. fall 2012. i dont really even want to claim this one.

 summer 2011. this one lasted a whole year. it's my favorite of all the Word-designed headers. and the first time i used the boxing gloves. good old geo sans light.

april 2011. we had had layla for 5 months and i felt horrible to not include her on the header. a lazy swap got us here. (the original PUYD font that i used isnt this one, it's missing in action...downside of WORD)

 may 2010. barely pregnant with layla.  loving those rounded corners.

not my work. i actually won a little giveaway and told the designer what sort of style i was into. she did an accurate job based on what i said, it just turns out i had no style. this one was up a few days during judah's infancy


my earliest use of word! april 2010

i think i used our christmas card as the header for a while there in the winter of 2009

no graphics, just a pic was the header when i started out blogging for real in the fall of 2009

and before THIS the blog wasnt even "put up your dukes" yet. ten points to anyone who knows what it was (and yes, i am so embarrassed that it was named that). no peeking back in the archives...where i'm sure it is somewhere. 

and let's not forget i design for this site AND my etsy shop. oh yes.  everybody wants a piece

here's where i've been for about 2 years.  dont love it, dont hate it. until i run out of the hundreds of business cards that look like this...it stays.

oh man. this is just...just. 

hahaha and my christmas ad to remind readers to visit my etsy shop for gifts. clipart? dont mind if i do!

wow, when i look at these in this order it REALLY makes my current setup shine and sparkle. thank you, incompetent past keight, for making my hard work today pay off even more.

unwritten

OMG i have crushing blogger guilt, you guys. 

it hit me full on when one of my stupidly pretty friends told me last week, "i noticed that you dont share as much lately  on your blog as you used to." and i was all, "bitch please!"

it's true though. 

while i do have a few pretty sah-weeeet things coming up to post about, i just dont vent here on the deep stuff like i used to. and if you really love me then you know thats a good thing. 

it's good because it means i am living in community and working a lot of my junk out with human faces (i almost typed "feces" there...ha! havent tried that form of therapy yet) and so i dont have as much of a need to unleash all of it here in this particular season.

but the thing that i love about this "space" (i've been watching a lot of "biggest loser" lately and jillian's vernacular, if not her calorie-burning,  is creeping in) is that it's kind of whacked out and all over the place and subject to fits and starts and periods of massive productivity and crippling lethargy and EPIPHANY OMG YOU GUYS I AM MY BLOG!

whenever i have to fill something out for an advertiser and they ask what category my blog is i usually spend like 10 minutes fiddling with the drop down menu because, ugh, "define me!!!" (name that sitcom!). 

because depending on the day, i am a food blog, a craft blog, a home decorating blog, a spirituality blog, a humor blog, a family blog, a political blog, a bitch, a lover, a child a mother, a sinner a saint...no wait. i've veered. 

and so in a just perfectly tailor-made pun: LIKE my blog recently, i am unwritten. sometimes my tries are outside the lines, oh oh. i am just staring at the blank page before me...

i might need to step away from the light pop channel on my radio, yall. (but for real, i might dream of breaking it down with a black gospel choir in an elevator like this.) p.s. this song is so saccharine but so kick ass. i dont even care.

i guess what i'm saying is, i do this as an expression of me, and while i'd like to say it's JUST for me, it's not. i want to make yall laugh, i want you to like my kids (for the love, please tell me that pic of layla on the previous post was as cute as i thought it was!), to think jesse's hot, to puzzle through tricky jesus things WITH me. i care about yall and i hate the thought of making you bored or letting you down. 

if you like this blog, you'd probably like me in person. but just like my IRL friends know, i'm not good at keeping a steady pace. i'm a fluctuator. i am the fluctukeightor (that looks like such a mean german cuss word!) and sometimes you hear from me 5 times a week and then sometimes i disappear.

i havent gone anywhere or decided to slow down the bloggy crazy train. it's just a slow season. i'm probably just busy wearing my gaucho pants frolicking in puddles with an assortment of kids from all different ethnicities right now.

i'm sure i'll brb.

thanks for being here. for reals x 1000. 

the queens of scarves

eleven months ago, i posted a tutorial here that utterly changed my blogging life. thanks to this scarf capturing the uber-chic style of the inspiration piece, that post caught fire (like a mockingjay, mo-mo fo-fos!) on pinterest and brought lots of DIY'ers here.

i am so thankful because many of those pinny visitors have stuck around and really fanned the flames of my blogging passion with their encouragement and presence.

back at the end of that tutorial, i begged anyone who tried the project to please email me a picture of their finished product. i filed the first few of these away and forgot that i had intended to publish them all at one time. 

well i guess i went on an ADD bender and completely forgot (though they kept coming in) for almost a year. 

today i rectify that by giddily showing off the work of some amazing sewists, crafters, pinners and DIY'ers. 

a few things i noticed:

1. there are 52 pictures here in 4 columns or 13. just like a pack of cards (hence the post title)

2. there are some PRETTY ladies who tried this tutorial.

3. the average DIY'er who tried this is far more creative than me and these ladies showed off so many cool color, fabric (silk! sweaters!), pattern (look for the cool knot changes) and size variations (find the adorable toddler in a baby version!)

aces, every one.

and of course, there are 2  jokers in every pack:

happy anniversary to lena today! (sorry i almost forgot to add you to the pack and that you and dan and [unpictured] elizabeth used the tutorial for your first ever sewing project!)

seeing this makes my heart buzz. if i ever spot one of these scarves on a passerby in the street, i may attack with love and snuggles because that would be simply otherworldly.  (who's got my bail money for the day that that happens and i get thrown in the pokey for flagrant groping?).

it's beyond belief that i even get to see these on the internet and to know that the ones i make in my etsy shop (127 so far, i think!) are out there too, being worn by beautiful people all over the country and the world. 

the internet can be a discouraging place (my first ever hate-comment was actually last week, on this tutorial), but my experience has been overwhelmingly wonderful and affirming. seeing all of these scarves all together made by so many far-flung hands is one of the coolest bloggy moments i have ever had.

thanks to everyone who has ever tried, looked at, pinned, read, or even just rolled their eyes toward my scarf tutorial post!

and thanks for letting me be sentimental and pollyanna sweet for a moment here...over a scarf. 

did any of yall end up here through some internet rabbitty hole with this scarf at the beginning?

*if i somehow left out your picture, send it to me again. and if you never sent one in at first, go ahead and keep them coming! i save ALL of these in a special folder in my email (putapuredukes (at) gmail (dot) com) and will publish every single one that comes in!

put up your facebook

i made a facebook page for this here blog.

there will be a badge on the sidebar forever (somewhere over there) -----> to go visit through, but i wanted to just come out loud and proud with a post too.

i am nervous about this (social anxiety, fear of shunning, etc.) but feel like it's a good in between place for those who want to be more than lurkers, but maybe arent ready to outright follow or comment to keep up with the blog and the goings on.

it's also a way that i can keep my in-real-life friends separate from my bloggy friends on the 'book, (as no one calls it, i hope).

one day, there will be teleportation and our internet friends can be IRL friends at a click...but until then: this.

if this is confusing self-referential internets within internets within smaller internets, and you fear you might tumble down a wormhole if you think about it too much...and it's all JUST TOO MUCH, ignore it.

i will still love you madly even without your thumb.

smooch.