The Sensational San Smith

One of my all-time favorite blog ladies is San Smith. I started following her adventures so many years ago, I actually can't remember how I came across San in the first place, but I do remember being hooked right away. Of course I'm a sucker for a pink-haired gal, which she has been on many occasions. Not only is she stylish and cute as a ridiculously adorable button, she is an amazingly talented artist as well. Anyway, San's birthday was way back in June, and I wanted to send her a gift, so I painted a little watercolor portrait based on her fabulous birthday photos.


San does a lot of self portraits, so it was a fun challenge to try and capture her likeness in my own style. I absolutely love her fashion sense. She looks great in everything she wears, especially her Betsey Johnson party dress.


San put the portrait up on her inspiration board, which is a huge honor! You can even spy it on her Facebook business cards. Yay!


If you haven't had a chance already, make sure to visit San's blog, for all things cute and sparkly. Go go go!

Much Love for Children's Books

Today was the first day of my new job, and I have to say that I am so much happier with life than I have been in a loooong time! I'm working in an elementary school library, which is pretty close to "dream job" territory for me; I've been hoping for such a position to open up since I first started working at my school district years ago. I've always loved books, and I have an especially big place in my heart for children's books, so what better thing to share for Much Love Monday than a little glimpse of my collection?


I still have all of my Little Golden Books from when I was a kid, and I always look for more when I visit thrift stores or used book stores. In elementary school, I was part of the Weekly Reader Children's Book Club, a club where members received books in the mail, and a lot of those books are still my favorites.


My collection is still going strong. I am always a big fan of circus books, and I've found quite a few in the past year. I also snagged A Book of Mermaids from Jose's new classroom during winter break when we went through all of the left-behind books from the previous teacher in his room.

Now that I'll be the Library Lady, I want to start reading lots of great children's and young adult books, so that I can be as knowledgeable as possible (can you believe I've yet to read any of the Harry Potter series?), so I'm always open to suggestions. I'd also love to feature my favorites here on the blog every now and then, if anyone would be interested. Wandering around Barnes & Noble looking at all of the gorgeous cover art and illustrations is one of my favorite things to do, and now I have a good excuse to do it even more! I'll definitely be sharing lots of pretty things!

Fancy New Lens Equals Cat Pictures

Have you ever noticed that once you stop blogging for a little while, it gets so much more difficult to get back into it as the days go by? It didn't help that I had a terrible stomach illness for about a week, but sheesh, that seemed like a long silence, even for me. However, I definitely have more of a reason than ever to blog up a storm from now on; a spiffy new 50mm lens! We've only been using our camera's kit lens since we got it years ago, and it became jammed about two years ago so that it would be a huge pain to focus on anything or to even take pictures at all. Instead of buying Christmas gifts for each other, Jose and I decided to purchase a nice lens so that we could once again use the camera without cursing or giving up in frustration. I absolutely love the look of the resulting photos! Of course you know I had to spend a ridiculous amount of time testing the new lens on Lily (and once of Sweeney).


Speaking of being a crazy cat lady, I received the book, Cat Versus Human as a Christmas present from "my aunt's cats" (how are cats always such perceptive gift buyers?), after reading Diana's mention of it and quickly adding it to my wishlist. If you are a cat lover (which you must be if you've suffered through yet another cat-heavy post), you absolutely have to check out the book, and the author's blog. It is eerily like my life; some of the drawings even look a little bit like me and Jose. The comics are hilarious and extremely cute in a sometimes morbid way, just my style.


Also, Jose's grandma gave me this very nifty Edward Gorey paper doll book. I think that perhaps people are on to my feline obsession.

New Year's Eve with Cupcakes and Sparkles

You know we had to celebrate New Year's Eve with cupcakes! And a bit of Sofia. We stayed in with my family and ate dinner, then my cousin and I watched the Twilight movies with commentary by the actors, which was really entertaining since they make fun of themselves and the movies the entire time. We then ran out to the living room just in time to watch the ball drop and clink our glasses. Please excuse the return of the gratuitous cupcake photos, those things are just so darn photogenic!


Vanilla Bean Crème Brulee, Bubbly Strawberry Champagne, and Lemon Honey.


I also wanted to show off my glittery new nail polish. I usually only wear red or black.


Not a bad way to start off this exciting new year! Did anyone do anything particularly fancy or fun to celebrate?