To The Maxxxxx

Tonight I've been reading my old old blog. The one that started when I was just a girl in love with her best male friend. The one where I publicly declared a vow of singleness for a year, then a few months later posted a gush-y declaration that I was finally with the man who would, 2.5 years later, be my husband. Also, entertainingly, the one where I tried out vast numbers of fantastic phrases myself and my friends were using... "Oh yeahhhhh...", "Or bagels", "To the maxxx!", "Of love." "Your Mum [insert something that doesn't make sense here]", "So's your face!" Not to mention... something about a personal trainer, copious tie-jokes, referring to Kat as "Cupcake" or "twin" in pretty much every post, and constantly referring to myself as Uncle Klara. Yep, good times. It all ended on a lovely high.

Then I got this blog and it has been great. High lights (from memory) would include my life of being a Church employee, the beginnings of my craft passions, the day I got engaged, the day I bought a house, the week-ish after I got married... fun times.

But, new chapter. I've not been Klara Jury for a long time now and I've really been meaning to start from scratch for some time. Without going into detail for the second time tonight (the new blog does that for you, I promise) allow me to direct you... HERE.

It's pretty plain and boring, with no great links or anything. Give it 2 weeks and I promise it will be beautiful.

2009...

2009 has been the year for learning:
- How to be married (and thoroughly enjoying the process)
- How to cook amazing food
- How to drive an automatic car (shut up, it took some getting used to compared to manual!)
- How to create something other than stuffed animals ;)

2009 has been the year for things breaking:
- Plates, glasses & mugs that we received as wedding/engagement gifts
- The solar hot water system
- The oven
- Chris's Rav 4
- My Hyundai Excel

2009 has been the year for things being great:
- Dinner parties & entertaining at our house
- Adding 2 puppies to our family
- Loving my besties EVEN MORE than I did a year ago
- Our trip to California
- Finding total joy in silly little things!!

2009 has been the year for things sucking:
- Being pitifully broke for almost the entire 2nd half of the year
- Our (in)ability to keep up with the housework (especially the dishes!)
- Losing my Grandad
- Leaving the best work environment ever (the Mounties Church office) after 3.5 years

2009 has been the year for dreaming:
- 1,000 ideas to improve our house
- How to spend all that money we'll be earning some day ;)
- Wanting more than anything to be a house wife while Chris earns the bucks
- Running a successful Etsy store

So far, this is what I know 2010 will bring:
- The Kitchen Renovation (starting this Saturday! Eeeek!)
- Big life decisions to be made
- Some kind of struggle
- Some really great things
- More broken stuff (possibly more expensive broken stuff, realistically)
- More lessons to be learnt
- More dreams to be had

Going into a new year does make me nervous, because you really don't know what's coming, what you'll be reflecting on at the end of it. Hopefully mostly good stuff. Hopefully minimal heartbreak. Either way, it's going to happen. So 2010, here we come. Treat us well, OK?

And So She Blogs Again...

Wow, how time flies. I've been piling up the reasons to not blog, and they all begin with our wonderful trip to America :) Basically, I didn't wat to blog until I had time and energy to post all the stories and fun times we had! And when time lapsed a little too far... the excuses began snow-balling.
So, here I am, with a list of what Mrs. D has been doing lately..!
1) Falling in love with like 100 new blogs... it's an obsession, really!
2) Washing dishes. The eternal chore.
3) Looking for a new job
4) Experiencing the very worst money-woes ever experienced by me, to date!
5) Cooking
6) Looking forward to the wedding of the year... 9 days until my sweet bestie walks down the aisle!!
7) Developing opinions I would be happier without
8) Being amazed at the fact that our little boys (AKA Dog & Cupcake) will be turning ONE YEAR OLD soon!
9) Desperately looking forward to our anniversary, and trip to Margaret River
10) Holding out excitedly for Christmas
11) Not cleaning the bird cage (sorry Rocky and Orlando! This weekend I swear!)
12) Eating cheese and crackers (currently!)
13) Wishing I could study some more in music :(
14) Growing some serious roots where my blonde high-lights are/were
15) Thinking "I really must get back on my blog"
So wow. What an informatively boring post! But hey, at least you know I haven't given up all blogging habits. And I'll really try to come back, very very soon.
My tip of the day? Go check out Summer Teeth. So so beautiful...

Gahhhhh..pppp...

So, just now I've learnt that Skunkboy Creatures is about to release a pegasus. I haven't seen a glimpse yet, but I'm 98.7% certain I'm going to want it, really really badly.
I'm basing this certainty on my previously posted about love of these two guys:


Oh gosh. What am I to do????????

A Sale!!!

I've been working on some new designs, updating some old ones (pics will come soon!) Although it's over a month away, my big shop update is planned for late July after our trip to America.

So, in the mean-time, I'm declaring a big fat SALE on all old toy styles as they've now been updated!

Cuties like Magda:

Kiera:

Betsy:

and Norah:

have been reduced by a fair chunk, along with others just like them!

So hurry on over to Buttonfactory :) and grab yourself a BFF (that stands for Button Factory Friend!) Aaaaaand look forward to the update, of course. I know I will ;)

Just A Boring List

- I have a lot of blogs down my left sidebar. It may look pretentious, but seriously, I read every single one of those with incredibly keen interest!
- Freshly baked cakes that turn out dry are annoying. Especially a) when they're your self-assigned 'signature cake' or b) when they're really really tricky and take hours to make
- Cloud pins can go with virtually anything
- Chilli con carne is love love love. Us crazy Donovans almost made it twice in one week, it's so good!
- My Little Pony is back in my heart
- I think we need a real-deal coffee machine. Mmmm...
- Lots of people are having babies. I'm sort of jealous and sort of not.
- I made my first ever mashed potatoes tonight, and they were onion-y and great
- Cold cold cold cold cold cold cold!!!!!
- I wonder what I will be when I grow up?
- I love Picnik. I now want to go out on a photoshoot so that I can impress people with my mad editing skills.
- Puppy growling sounds so silly!
- Pretty fabrics...!
- I need to add some new recipes to my repertoire.
- Long days are so long
- I don't feel like icecream right now
- We say grace at dinner now :)
- I wonder if we're all going to get swine flu eventually?
- Flowerrrrrrrssssss

Mmm...

The last few days have been sort of... horridly insane. The puppies got neutered and need to be monitored, Chris is (as of this morning) away at Circus Maximus camp, and most prominent of all these distractions is the fact that our hot water system has gone belly-up. What I thought was raining pouring off our roof on Thursday night was, in actuality, the contents of our solar tank.
Chris spent a good chunk of Friday on the phone to various solar HWS companies, receiving quotes and such. The verdict? We need to replace the whole darn system. The cost? $2,000 (better than the $3,060 we were originally quoted by a different company, but still... ouch.)

So today, with husband off at camp, and a little time to myself, I've decided to take it easy. The most strenuous thing I plan to do is bake a cake. I'm taking a day of Sega-playing, DVD-watching and Twilight-reading, and the only real interruption will be when I head to my parents' for a much-needed shower. What a joyful break :)
So, I'm banishing myself from the computer, the craft table, and taking an entirely selfish day to relax in whichever way I please.
Yay me!!