Tonight while I was working on a painting for my friend Emily, Oscar stole a tube of paint, chewed it up, tracked it around and then took a shit on my floor.

Oh, the joys of having a puppy.

So what did I do? Like any seasoned “parent,” I reach for my camera of course.

It only occurred to me upon upload that there must be something really wrong with me if  cleaning up poop becomes fourth priority in such debacles. I laughed, grabbed the camera, had a photoshoot, trapped the dog in the tub, wiped up the paint, THEN clean up the poop. (a smell is temporary but a stain is forever?)

I’m still trying to decide if he did it out of love or hate for yellow, or if he simply saw opportunity in a misplaced and unused tube.

Everyone in this family thinks they’re an artist.

Sometimes it’s hard being Imelda Marcos on a Payless budget.

Sometimes it’s not – and those times must be celebrated and shared.I have for months been lusting over this amazing-smelling candle by Florapathics (hello, middle-age, did I just admit to that? The words of Miranda Hobbs haunt me – “Scented candles have replaced cats as the new sad thing”)

Whatever. Point is that it costs $45 for “Mint Mantra” and I am not completely insane, so browser-window shopping continued painfully for months until I snagged THIS candle at Kroger that smells amazingly close to the real thing for only $8. EIGHT.

My entire apartment smells like a fancy spa and my bank account is zen.

Amen.

In other news, my cynical self has decided to admit defeat at the hands of Eat, Love, Pray. I blame Julia Roberts. And Florence + The Machine, who are my new personal heroes because their song rocks and because I think they might also be not-so closeted Beetlejuice fans:

Exhibit A: Beetlejuice Beautyqueen/Afterlife Receptionist vs. Florence + The Machine music-video dancer:

The rest of the music video:

I believe this cartoon (courtesy of my lovely husband) sums up the entirety of my high school experience:

Six years later, I’ve turned trolling the internet into an Olympic sport. In this time I’ve developed a somewhat coveted and often-asked-for Google Reader blog list.

PR shack family – consider this your Christmas present:

Design Orgies
Design Sponge
Pink Wallpaper
Green Wedding Shoes
Make Room for Living
Velvet & Linen

Arts & Crafting
Dixie DIY
Color Me Katie
Carol Marine’s Painting-a-Day
Urban Painter William Wray
Knack Studios
Dollar Store Hack

Fashion
The Sartorialist
The Uniform Project
Clothed Much

Brilliant Funnies
The Bloggess

Food
Tastepotting
The Cereal Bowl

Geekery
Information is Beautiful
xkcd
Seth Godin

Real Estate
The Real Estalker
Swamplot

Life is Beautiful
Cup of Jo
In(side) the Loop
The Sweet T Family
The Queso
Paw Prints & Pastry Bags
Chookooloonks

Even online, you can’t hide your age.

Every once in a while I will receive a single email from two people. Inbox – “Donald and Barbara West.” And I know already you’re my grandparents’ age. It’s carried over to the digital – this 1950s notion of title, connection. Blur the lines and throw on an apron, because with a better half you’ll never be solely whole again.

No modern woman would be caught dead losing ground like this. The mentality of combining identities along with bank accounts has long since become stigmatized – today we are women on a mission, with our own things and our own names on our own two feet, ready to separate into two what we’ve be socialized to know has a 50% chance of not lasting.

But in the purest form of “what’s mine is yours,” even for all its masogonistic undertones, there’s something about it I find endearing.

An email from one, on behalf of two says we are together in this, for everything.

There’s something about fifties soda-shop pastels that has always appealed to me. Hello Kitty pinks and seafoam greens mixed with rich metalics and creamy whites – love. Lately I’ve turned away for the choleric world of biting yellows. Given the large amount of display space devoted to electrolitic sunflower and pee-yellow at Macy’s these days, I think the fad just might be on the way out.

A few overpriced items I am just itching to have:

Resources: Stephanie Kao mugs on Etsy, RET painting on Etsy, Le Bicloo bicycle, Coach purse, Crosley retro phone, iPhone case through Threadless

Photo by Tracie Clark, one of the amazing, inspiring people I was fortunate to meet at Mom 2.0 Summit.

I’ve met quite a few people this year who are just a little ways down the path I always imagined and hoped to go, and finding out the path is not imaginary afterall has been a bit of a trip. Sometimes quiet, reflective awe often feels like my only means of honoring those moments. Those realizations and revelations that what is I’ve been doing all my life – I’ve never been alone in it, just lagging behind the rest of the group. To those that have a firm footing on the rocky grounds unsuitable for paper plates and checkered fabrics – thanks for giving me something to snack on.

As someone with an education in advertising and a bloated credit card bill/addiction to shiny things, I have acertain amount of brand loyalty when I find things I love. I love the idea of brand advocates/ambassadors and I like to put in a good word when something is great. One of my top loves? Benefit Cosmetics.

So much so that my friend Chelsea “emergency” texted me last week to let me know they discontinued one of our favorite products, FY…Eye, marking the most recent of a long string of jabs to the heart by my favorite line.

And because I am that shallow (or still in mourning) I’ve decided to use my blog not to save lives or feed the children, but to demand the return of the following items:

1. “Best in Show” Eyeshadow, deceased circa 2008 Have replaced with Lancome “Snap,” but it remains the pinnacle  of purple.

2. “Kiss You” Lip Gloss, deceased circa 2009. The color looks nearly purple in the bottle, is clearly magic on lips, and isn’t available anywhere else. They’ve since re-released it, but  completely corrupted and destroyed it by adding glitter, and the texture is all wrong.

3. FY…Eye, deceased circa 2010 The little tub of miracles lasted forever, which was perhaps its downfall. I’ve used it every day for over a year and still have some left. Not sure how to stop the bleeding on this one,  product suggestions? I’m wide open.

What’s next? Bad Gal Lash? After that, they’ll be nothing left… I’ll have to start my own beautifully art directed, branded, copywrited line of face-finishers.

And because Aaron sings it all the time:

Even with Comcast caring on Twitter, Perez Hilton and TMZ scooping CNN and Threadless tirelessly pumping out our every popcultured whim, the time delay on the spark of a truly good idea remains at the very least a hiccup in the system. A limbotic pause where the thing which you crave is either cheap or widely unavailable.

Incident Report #9584: The Cheese Grater Lamp.

July 16, 2008: Dollar Store Hack, Cheese Grater Lamp, approx $4?

March 16, 2010: Design Sponge, Cheese Grater Light, $75

For what it’s worth, I like the first one better. Lord only knows how many dollar stores I’ve visited since first happening upon that blog. Turns out 4 one-sided neon pink cheese graters are a lot harder to come by than you’d think.

I suppose it’s only a matter of time before Urban Outfitters starts carrying something similar.

Bleh.

Just watched Julie & Julia.

Kinda leaves you with that gross feeling you get when you see yourself in pictures and realize you really didn’t look as good as you thought you did in that dress. Or something.

I don’t want to be a hangers-on to a good idea, I don’t want to be just like everyone else with a blog and a narcissistic addiction to their words in print.

It’s sometimes why this whole writing thing seems so hard, because everything seems to need a gimic, a hook, a 10-seconds or less, elevator talk explanation of why we’re here and what it is we’re doing wasting our time listening to you.

If I’m ever able to answer what it is I’m doing here, I think I might actually get somewhere. But what if what I like to write about most is the pursuit?

Getting down to locking it down has resulted in at least a couple of concrete ideas I’m not disgusted by-

1. People. I love to write about people. Observe people. I think it comes from my mom always pushing me to look for the good in everyone – I like to stay quiet and see what eccentricities emerge, always hoping for a glimmer of something deeper worth celebrating. Sometimes I think I’d like to sit down and write something about each person I know, something intimate and small that makes them interesting and wonderful to me – like my dad and his Papermate pens or my mom’s spirit of mischief (see Encyclopedia, under “P” for “Papermate” and “S” for “Secrets”). It’s always risky to write about people you know, but I think if I could do it a way that shows why they are quietly fascinating and wonderful, it would work.

2. Daily Goodies. I’m a hoarder of things that make me think “yum” – whether it be trinkets, swatches of colors and fabrics, design, food, technology, ideas, products. Oprah has her favorite things, why can’t I?

3. OCD lists. I love lists. I’d like to see more lists – of everything remotely useful to someone living in Houston – parks, venues, fun restaurants. I think working in PR has spurred a new hoarding outlet in which I just plain collect info on news, people, everything online. When I come across a blog with a list of local food bloggers for example, I feast. Everything in one place makes me supremely happy.

4. For a while I was hell-bent on the idea Nicole and I start a blog about food – she would be the high art foodie, discussing the latest culinary masterpieces and hot spots, I would be the dumpster diver scrappy crappy food addict, discussing the high points of Raising Canes v. Chick-fil-a, and the best place to get your overpriced cupcake fix. It would be glorious. Also because her first name actually IS technically Lauren, we could be “Lauren & Lauren” and be the proverbial good and bad consciouses on each shoulder. The graphics would be great – blonde v. brunette, angel v. devil. Ruggles Green v. Whataburger.

“Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.”-Margaret Atwood

Today I spoke about social media at a career day for people wanting to go in to fashion.

Thursday, Aaron will be speaking about being a lawyer (or law student rather) at a career day at a local elementary school where a friend teaches.

I find the fact that anyone should consider either of us an expert on anything worth dressing up and talking about thrilling, yet slighlty unsettling.

Are we really that old?