Author: Tanie

I really really think I should be a fashion blogger, based on today’s outfit alone.
1. bedhead hair, no makeup & a t-shirt from Urban Outfitters that I stole from Taylor.

2. PLEAT FRONT TROUSER SWEATPANTS EFF YEAH (also from Urban Outfitters).

3. These socks are THIGH HIGH but I have them scrunched down 1989-style, which is appropriate because they are from American Apparel.

4. DOGS AND CRAZY CAT LADY CAT TOWER ARE THE MODEL’S OWN.

EDIT: In case you were wondering my hair is THIS BLONDE now.

… from THIS (I love this picture btw):

This cat tower I bought for Claire is pretty much the best thing ever, and not just for cats.

Tonight Symphony went with her dad and stepmom to the Festival of Lights at Van Dusen Gardens, and since Taylor is in bed I took the opportunity of ~alone time~ to get some Christmas shopping done.

I picked up stuff for Taylor…

And for Sym…

Sym put this mini-gift under the mini-tree for me!

Also, something REALLY weird happened- I came home from shopping and there was already a present wrapped up under the tree!

How mysterious! I should leave my webcam on so I can catch these sneaky pets in their holiday sneakiness.

Anyway I really love wrapping presents. I like picking out all the paper and tags, and even the act of wrapping (in which I’m actually professionally trained) is fun for me. I always like to ~coordinate~ the wrapping, so this year I’m using plain red paper and white satin ribbon, both from Paper Source, and tags from this ADORABLE gift tag set from Galison, all purchased from Room in Order.

They are so cute I wish I had more gifts to wrap! I guess I’ll just have to do more shopping 🙂

Our new tree, all decorated up! Since it’s bigger than the old tree I was worried we wouldn’t have enough ornaments, but we definitely do! Every year I like to buy a couple new ones anyway, and this year I was all about white birds.

I’m not sure why these two little white birds are right next to each other. I haven’t done any ornament rearranging yet (AMAZING I KNOW) but if I do this is what I’ll change.

Symphony had to climb on Taylor’s shoulders to put up the star- she was VERY ANXIOUS about being up that high and clutched on to his hair until I pried her fingers free. She managed to get the star up without further incident.

I haven’t done much other decorating around the house. I need to find a good spot for my nativity scene, and last year i also decorated some of the light fixtures. Symphony put out something though.

Our collection of Perler bead snowflakes in the window.

She made the penguins at school last year and the Christmas tree at her grandmas house.

We had lots of snacks and ordered pizza, but here is what I made: cherry chip mini-doughnuts from that weird cake mix, glazed & with red sprinkles; and golden cupcakes, white cake with vanilla frosting and gold sprinkles.

Symphony wore this very festive shirt from Zara. She actually asked me to take this picture for lookbook, haha!

I wore a grey tank top (SHOCKING!) and actually did my hair (ACTUALLY SHOCKING!).

Taylor wore a dog.

KIDDING. This picture is from last week. My husband has a penchant for putting dogs in his sweaters.

Georgie practiced looking innocent and then later she found a bird ornament I missed when I was going through the decorations box and chewed its head off most gruesomely. It’s been predicted that it will not be her last Christmas transgression.

Rich and Jenn were also here but I didn’t get any pictures of them, except one weird one of Jenn when she’s bent over decorating and just looks like a black blob, and Rich staring creepily from behind the tree when Sym was putting the star up, so I’m not posting those. I need to get better at capturing these precious memories, for real. Anyway, we drank tons of wine, ate an entire bowl of salso con queso and watched Scrooged, a movie I haven’t seen since I was a kid and which was a lot weirder than I remembered! Symphony didn’t want to watch it so she just watch Powerpuff Girls videos on youtube and then went to bed, but since we aren’t spending Christmas together we’re having a mini-Christmas next week, and I think that’ll call for a viewing of Elf in our traditional Christmas pajamas (note to self: buy Christmas pajamas).

I just gave this blog a quick makeover for the holidays, I hope everyone likes it.

This screenshot really doesn’t do the awesome terribleness of the animated header justice though, you should really go check it out in all it’s tweening glory. While you’re at it you could also update your links/subscriptions to http://unicornpara.de if you haven’t yet. I mean, if you want.

Anyway. Now that I’ve wasted time with this silliness I am going to go clean clean clean the house (which Taylor already started doing, hooray), bake up a storm and stock up on sparkling wine because tonight is CHRISTMAS TREE DECORATING NIGHT 😀 !!

It’s almost 1 am but Georgie is ready to party. The raccoons are outside and she’s worked up into a big frenzy about it, so I don’t think I’ll be getting to bed any time soon.

Tonight was Taylor’s office Christmas party, but as we are both sick we ended up not going. Instead we curled up together on the couch and watched tv, and I sewed. He decided to work from home tonight as well, so it’s like I get bonus husband time! Even though I should really go to sleep, it’s nice just knowing he’s here 🙂

I was looking through Taylor’s flickr for raccoon pictures yesterday and rediscovered these shots from summer 2009. There was a heat wave and this mama raccoon came out with her three babies- I guess it was too hot in their den? idk, but the babies were scampering around on my neighbor’s garage roof and the mama was just flaked out on the fence.

Poor mama! Now, look at the little guy on the roof:

Remind you of anyone? Like perhaps… FAT STUPID MARVIN???

I am not a person who is overly concerned with her appearance. I mean, sure, I like to look nice, but I don’t ever look perfect. I’m a real person, not an airbrushed picture. I have pores and flyaway hairs (and grey ones) and even the start of some wrinkles. It’s fine, I accept this. I have no problem with going out in public with no makeup, and even posting pictures of my makeup-less self ON THE INTERNET. Pictures where I look weird, or ugly! Where everyone can see! And judge! The thing is, I LIKE being a real person who doesn’t care about this stuff, it makes life so much easier. There is ONE THING, though, that I can’t deal with.

PIMPLES. GAT-DANG PIMPLES.

I’m THIRTY-THREE, why am I getting pimples??? When I was in my late teens/early twenties I had problems with cystic acne, and went through several rounds of tetracycline to clear it up (which also helped to yellow my teeth nicely). In my mid-twenties I had a flare-up and not wanting more antibiotics, I was prescribed some harsh retinol cream that fried my face and didn’t do much for the blemishes (although I think it helped with the aforementioned tiny wrinkles), but eventually my face cleared up on its own, and since then it’s been mostly smooth sailing.

Until this week. This week my face (and body!) have FREAKED OUT. I have two huge blemishes on my upper chest, right by my collarbones on either side. They are so symmetrical Taylor wondered if they were some sort of supernumerary nipples (HAHA) but thankfully they are going away now. My main concern is this chin blemish. It’s invisible irl but shows up slightly in photobooth pictures.

I know it looks like nothing but please rest assured it is HUGE and PAINFUL. It’s like a pain marble inserted into my skin. It just hurts and hurts all the time and there’s NOTHING I can do except wait it out. God, face. GET IT TOGETHER >:|

I slept in this morning so I didn’t have a chance to clean up the new office before starting work, but I managed to get it done throughout the day. I’d originally planned to put my desk on the opposite wall, but I kind of like it under that fake window, for now at least.

These things don’t have a permanent home yet: Claire’s tower, one of the bookcases I took down off the wall, assorted large vinyl toys and our robot lamp. I kind of like them here though, the toys match the ~colour scheme~ and I was finally able to get the magazine files full of Taylor’s comics out of the bedroom!

Claire has been enjoying all my furniture rearranging since I’ve been leaving out lots of temporary cat beds.

The base of the new Christmas tree is too big to fit inside the cube I used last year and I don’t have a tree skirt :/ My Birds of a Feather rug makes an adequate substitute for now; Claire is certainly on board!

Last night when I was painting Marvin stuck his face right in the open window, I was up on a little step-ladder at the time and I just about fell off in surprise! He also tried to steal some suction cups (from Christmas lights last year) of the windowsill. Sneaky Marvin!

Also, PUPPY.

WINK!

I painted the new office/old living room tonight! I didn’t think I’d have enough time since Sym has piano on Tuesdays, but her teacher (like me and everyone I know) is sick so he cancelled. I think I’m done, but I won’t be able to tell for sure until the morning, so now it’s time to go wash all the paint splatters off and go to bed!