Instagram

Finally! The Instagram app is available for Android! After what seems like eons of waiting, while all my iPhone toting friends tweeted arty, perfectly altered photos of everything from their pets to what they ate for lunch last Saturday, I am able to join the fray. Yes, I have posted a picture of a pet. No, I haven’t posted pictures of food… but it’s early days yet for me in Instagram land.

Here is a sampling of what I’ve got up so far (minus my hideous early attempts) and in the spirit of full disclosure: a few of these photos were sent through Vignette (the full version) and Pixlr-O-Matic and then refiltered through Instagram, then I hitched them up together using Photoshake! Pro. I’ll let you decide which ones!

Clockwise from top left: boxes at my old job, my new thrift store camera, my niece and nephew, the view through the trees walking from IKEA Seattle.

Clockwise from top left: my nephew at the beach, historic building at the same beach, the Duwamish River through Fort Dent Park, my nephews throwing rocks at ducks!

Clockwise from top left: the Zoo Lights at Point Defiance Xmas 2010, Charlotte NC clouds, SW 43rd St passing under the train tracks, and my new stash of thrift store books… I got Murakami (x2) AND The Somnambulist for $2 each!

Are you on Instagram too? You can find me under the handle asishome (so original, I know!) trying sharpen my photo taking and editing skills. Follow me and I’ll follow you back. Happy picture taking!

HomeGoods… At Last!

Well, if you’ve read any design blogs in that last decade you’ve heard of HomeGoods. OK, maybe I’m exaggerating slightly… but only slightly. Homegoods is the magical place where you can find great home decor items for awesome prices. It’s operated by the company that owns TJ Maxx and Marshall’s; if you’ve ever shopped the small selection of home decor you have an idea of what’s on offer at HomeGoods. Yesterday I had a chance to run in to the newly opened location in Federal Way (south of the metro Seattle area) for a few moments and check out the offerings. Here’s what I saw:

And that was just what I saw on a quick ten minute walk through! I’m so excited that I finally go to a HomeGoods store whenever the mood strikes. I’m looking forward to going in and taking longer look and maybe coming home with some treasures of my own. 🙂

Totally Inspiring Room

Better late than never, today’s edition of totally inspiring room is brought to you by the happy, colorful genius of Palmer Weiss. The mix of new, old, color, playfulness, and unstudied elegance is just right. This is another room I could walk into without changing a thing.

Happy belated Tuesday, all. See you tomorrow… hopefully much earlier!

White Collar

I’ve been out of the loop as far as TV watching is concerned. The last year saw me with nothing but a Netflix disc only subscription and no cable. Not that I’m complaining, I’m not much of a TV watcher anyway. Since I’ve been staying at my sister’s this past week, I’ve been able to check out some movies and TV shows I’ve been interested in seeing. One of those shows is White Collar, a USA Network show.

The show stars the swoon worthy Matt Bomer as convicted con artist, Neal Caffrey. In the opening episode Neal breaks out of prison to find the love of his life but gives himself up when he discovers she left him for good. The FBI agent that originally caught him, Peter Burke, catches him again but eventually agrees to Neal’s idea to let him help with white collar cases in exchange for being released into the agent’s custody.

I watched the first two seasons this week and enjoyed every episode. The supporting cast is as much fun to watch as the leads and the overall mystery for each season is compelling. I’m looking forward to getting ahold of season three and finding out where Peter, Neal, and the “Burke Crew” will end up next.

Check out the first two seasons on Netflix streaming and the new season 4 episodes on USA Network.

Guilty Pleasures and Unlikely Inspirations

Today, I was sort of racking my brain for what to post about. Attacking it head on was doing little to get me inspired so I took a mental detour or two… had a cuppa, made myself a bite, watched two movies – Fright Night & Crazy, Stupid Love, cleaned the kitchen top to bottom, started sanding the second lamp… and still nothing.

Halfway through my initial bout of sanding I decided to put on some music that never fails to make me happy, that I can sing along to, and that has one of my favorite “pick me up” tracks on it: N*Sync’s Celebrity.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Before you go making cracks about boys bands and how all the talent in that group just starred in a romcom with Mila Kunis, hear me out. I’m not a 80’s baby, so this wasn’t the group I liked when I was a teen (that would’ve been Duran Duran). This was the group that I mocked and made fun of as a late twentysomething for being too cheesy and commercial for words… Until that ill fated moment when I’d heard The Game Is Over for the umpteenth time on the overhead at Borders Books (hard to escape when you work in the music department) and found myself dancing and singing along to it because it was so catchy. I mean, what is not to love about a break up song with video game noises in it? Wait! Don’t answer that.

Anyway, I loved that song so much that I bought the CD. And I loved the whole thing (except for the too cheesy and commercial for words ballad, Someone Like You, that even I think is gag inducing). But the icing is this little track at the end called Do Your Thing. In it Justin and JC and the boys tell me how “there ain’t no excuse for losing your feet, drowning in your defeat on this road of life”… and they’re right. There is no excuse. Get up, dust yourself off, and get back in the fight. Like I told a friend who was down recently: sometimes we have to get bloodied to gain our victories.

I feel better now. I sang my little heart out. I’m about to spray paint (my new FAVORITE thing to do) and put on some Justin. Timberlake. Not Bieber. Hey, a girl’s got to have her standards, right?

One Tough Little Squirt!

I want these. Bad. Why? Because a company is brazen enough to tell mr that I can trust them with my delicates really and truly deserves my business. When you add on the fact that they’re a super green minded and are based out of the country that gave us Nicole Kidman, Lucy Lawless and the backdrop for LoTR… well, they still deserve my business.

I implore one of my stalwart young entrepreneurial blogger friends to import this stuff. Built in audience of one right here!

Check out the whole product line at B.E.E. (Beauty Engineered for Ever). A special shout out to Moo (@overheardatmoo) for the intro!

Happy hump (Wednesday) day, y’all!

Autumn Lights

The inspiration piece: a print from Volume 25.

I apologize for the late post everyone but I worked today and, honestly, I had not prepared a post beforehand! So here is something that I’m quite proud of, that I’d like to share with you (in case you haven’t seen it): my second Etsy Treasury!

Photograph of Versailles by Amanda Kay Photography.

OK, OK. Maybe I shouldn’t be so excited… but I just discovered the amazing amount of fun that can be had putting a Treasury together. And this one is getting such an awesome response…

Gorgeous macro of (one of my favorites) a hydrangea by Chez Jolly.

Check out An Autumn Full of Light for yourself and let me know what you think!

Two more days til the weekend and some quality chair makeover time!

Office Quickie… (For Your Desk)

Here are some cute office accessories from See Jane Work. I’ll be posting more deliciousness for the office tomorrow.

Sunset on a beautiful day…

I spent the entire day with my family today. We barbecued, talked, laughed, and had a great time with each other.

The miracle of it is that it’s the first time in well over a decade since all of my cousins have been together in one place. How wonderful for us all to finally come together!

We’ve packed up everything and everyone has gone home but we all promised not to go so long without seeing each other.

I call that a blessed day.