Simply XSBaggage

A Mini Anthropologie Tour

My hubby and I recently took a week off from work, but instead of going some place warm and sunny, we stayed home and got ready to have a garage sale. (Yeah, we're fun like that).

After moving me here last year, our garage was bursting with boxes of household 'stuff'. Since we both had fully furnished homes, there were duplicates of everything! We spent 3 days going through boxes, sorting and pricing. My mother-in-law came at the end of the week and stayed through the weekend to help out. She's awesome at getting in and pricing things and we really appreciated her help.

We held our garage sale on Saturday and Sunday and it was a big success! If you're tired of having too much stuff around your house or garage, I highly recommend making the effort to just get through it and sell it or give it away. We had been putting it off for several months, but now that we've had our garage sale, it feels great to be rid of the extra clutter. And the bonus - we made about $1100.00! We sold some furniture, which helped with our total. We even sold our living room furniture and have already picked out and ordered a new sofa and two chairs for the living room. We'll be using the proceeds from our garage sale to help pay for it!

Since we hadn't done anything fun on our 'vacation' we decided to take a day to go to the 'big city' for some fun. I've always wanted to go to Anthropologie and luckily, my hubby is always up for going somewhere new so we headed to Bellevue (near Seattle). Unfortunately, it was pouring down rain. all. day.

That didn't stop us though! We were ready for a little road trip - and shopping!! Here's a little tour of the Anthropologie store in Bellevue.

Bright little timers:

My hubby and I both loved this pink dress, but at $158.00 I decided I could live without it.

One of the reasons I wanted to go to this store, was because I had always heard about the creative displays in the store. I was not disappointed.

So interesting. A grouping of paintings and some of the canvases are hung backwards.

We saw a lot of paper mache' cactuses used in displays. Also, the display below is made with ladders and scaffolding.

Another really cute summer dress. I loved the pretty yellow and the white embroidery. Again, $158.00.

Another grouping of paintings, but if you look closely, the canvases are, again, hung backwards with little prints in the center of the backs!

I LOVED these lampshades with the scrappy fabrics and they've given me an idea of a project I'd like to try.

This was another really unique display piece. It's hard to tell in the photo, but it's supposed to look like a sail on a sailboat. They've taken what looks like diamond shaped fabrics, folded them in half, and attached them to rope, signifying sails. Does that make sense? It's hard to explain, and the photos don't really do it justice. dang it.

A great selection of knobs! Every style and color you could need.

That's it for my Anthro tour! We bought a hand towel for our guest bathroom because it was the perfect color and the quality seemed really great. We also bought a fabric 'H'. We've been collecting the letter 'H' since we got married last year. I have them on our mantle, and will try to post a photo of them soon.

I hope you enjoyed the tour. Have you been to an Anthropologie store? How did you like it?

Tree Tent

We were on one of our many walks with the dogs and found this cool tree tent (tree tee pee? what would you call it?).

We've been blessed to have some sunny and warm weather the last couple of days, but the weather man says we're getting rain - very soon.

It feels so great to get out into the fresh air and the smells of the forest.

Somebody spent some time building this tree tent. Spencer was as curious about it as we were.

Self Portrait Day

Have you heard of PInterest? My guess is, you probably have. But, if you haven't, and you like looking at cool and pretty things, or you love finding new recipes, or if you're the kind of person that buys magazines to look at the beautiful photos, well then, you should run - don't walk- to Pinterest.com. You will love it. I promise!

 

I first discovered it last year, and in just the short time that I've been using it, it has grown immensely! I LOVE looking at pretty things, but I also started to see how it could be a great asset to someone like me that has an online business. Some of the things 'Pinned' on Pinterest have gone viral, meaning if someone pins one of my blog posts, or something they see and like in my online shop, it has the potential of being seen by hundreds or even thousands of people. (To get an idea of the sorts of things I like to pin you can follow me here.)

 

So, naturally, I would love it if people started pinning my products. That would mean my items could be seen, potentially, by a whole new audience.

 

One way to make photos more 'pinnable' is to have really great shots. Something I constantly try to improve on. My photography skills can always use improvement. That's why I decided to join the 'Pin-tastic Pinterest Photography Challenge' on the SITS Girls site.  Courtney, from 'Click It Up A Notch' is teaching it. I had recently discovered Courtney's blog and was thrilled with the way she explains how to use the manual settings on your camera, and thought it would be a great idea for me to join in.

 

I've been following along with the challenge all week and doing the Daily Tasks that she assigns us and I'm really learning a lot. Our Task for this weekend has been the hardest. We are to take a self portrait and post it to the Forum. I'm sure I'm not the only one that has an issue with photos of themself, but man, it's really hard for me to be happy with any photos of myself. This Task really got me out of my comfort zone! I took about 40 shots of myself, and thought I'd be really brave and post the three shots that I don't 'hate'. Okay, here goes.... deep breath...

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The serious one:

 The residual Bells Palsy look:

The 'trying to force a smile' look:

 

This was a good challenge for me, and maybe if I do this more often I won't be so uncomfortable with seeing photos of myself. 

Snowpocalypse

The Pacific Northwest just experienced one of the heaviest snow storms in years. We live in a valley north of Seattle and didn't get hit quite as hard as some of the surrounding areas. We got enough snow last night to make everything outside beautiful, but not so much that we couldn't get out of our driveway.

One of my favorite things to do since moving to Orting last year, is to take our dogs on a walk along the river. It's one of their favorite things too. Right behind getting dog bones.

This is Spencer. He especially loves dog bones.

And this is Tanner. He mostly likes sleeping and the occasional dog walk. Oh, and he'll never pass up a good dog bone.

This trail is along the Carbon River and we walk the dogs here all year long.

Today we saw an eagle in the top of a tree across the river from us.

I took these photos with my phone so it's a little hard to see him, but he's that dark speck in the top of the tree. As we went back down the trail he flew over us.

The weatherman says it's supposed to start raining tomorrow so our snow will soon be gone. And that's okay with me. I'm thankful that we were able to get out and enjoy it today.

"Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase." Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Photo Credit: by Smithsonian Institution

For your funny bone

My girlfriend, Julie, sent me some new 'Maxine' cartoons today and I just had to share, because who can't use a good laugh now and then? It's good for you. So go ahead, laugh out loud!

Also, I've spent way too much a little time over on this site lately and I do laugh out loud every time. Keep checking back because they usually update it throughout the day. (Because we all need a time-waster - right?)

Hot Fall

Happy first day of Fall! It's hard to believe it's fall, though, as the day is heating up. The weatherman says it will get up to 77 degrees today. 

We've had such a fantastic summer here in the Pacific Northwest, that I'm sad to see it go, so I'll take these unusually warm fall days! They're perfect for hanging laundry on the clothesline, and taking fall hikes.

I did some {very} minimal fall decorating.

These little guys are on my kitchen table.

When my kids were young (and still at home) I would decorate the whole house with fall/halloween/Thanksgiving-themed decorations. Now I'm okay with just doing a very scaled down version. 

These sconces hang from the side of my cabinets, on either side of my kitchen sink. I bought them both at a yard sale for $1.00 for the pair. I picked up the little fruit, leaves, and flower picks at the Goodwill about $.75, and I change them out with the seasons:

And yes, I leave my white Christmas lights up all year. I just like the cozy light they create when all of the other kitchen lights are off.

Here's the view from the back of my little arched dining area, looking back out at the kitchen and living room:

I think I'm ready to sit down and have a Pumpkin Spice Latte now. (Maybe I should have it iced though.)

Happy First Day of Fall!

Olympic Discovery Trail

We're so blessed to live in an area where we have so many great hiking trails. One of the more popular trails is the Olympic Discovery Trail, which follows an old railroad bed.

 

We recently hiked a small portion of it on the east end of Port Angeles.

The sky was overcast, but it sure made the 'greens' pop!

This is a wonderful, wide trail. We headed east from the scenic overlook parking lot at the top of Morse Creek. The trail follows Hwy. 101 for a short while, and winds around the Gun Club. But you're soon into the woods and heading down into the ravine.

The covered bridge across Bagley Creek is an upcycled pedestrian walkway from the Kingston ferry terminal.

We continued walking up the other side of the ravine for a little way, but since this was an unplanned hike and we didn't bring water bottles or snacks, we turned around and headed back to the truck. I'm anxious to get back out there, though, and explore more of this trail. 

Dogs and Dreadlocks

At the Sequim Open Aire Market, we see a lot of doggies. This one is a regular visitor:

She gets lots of attention, and clearly likes it!

A dog with dreadlocks. I love the little pink barrette in her 'hair'. 

I can't remember what kind of dog she is, do you know? The Market is very dog-friendly and we see all kinds, colors, and sizes.

18,250 Days Ago

600 months ago, 438,000 hours ago, 5 decades ago, 50! years ago! Phew! No wonder I'm so tired. Yep, yesterday was my Birthday, and I'm half a century old now. And guess what? I didn't wake up feeling any different today. 

Well, maybe a little 'heavier', from all of the dining out I've been doing the last two days. But I went for my walk and did my crunches and stretching today so I'm not feeling too guilty about the four-layer carrot cake I ate yesterday. Or the rhubarb crisp with the homemade vanilla ice cream that I had the day before.

Or the yummy bread, and steak dinner last night. 

Umm, maybe I'd better go for another walk today. And sticking to salads and carrot and celery sticks for the next week might not be a bad idea either. Well, it was good while it lasted.

I have to show you one of the Birthday cards I received:

Have a great day! I need to go register for AARP now...