I'm featured!!

How exciting! I just got an email that Inventing Weddings has featured my bud vases on their blog! They put together their favorite Etsy finds revolving around different themes or color schemes and I have been featured in their "It's a Nice Day" collection.


It's crazy to me that a year ago I made these for my wedding and (especially the past few months) they are my top product! They get by far more views, hearts, inquiries and sales than any other product in my shop. So check it out and pass on the word! It's a pretty good feeling to know that your work is being seen by others and is considered to be a hot item!



Until the next time ...
The girl behind the lama
~LMM

Just a laugh

I just found this great website of some very clevery t-shirts: Snorg Tees. Just a few to make you laugh:

Which ones do you like??

Until the next time ...

The girl behind the lama

~LMM

It's all about logic ...

I'm officially almost 100 pages into the book Pope Joan and find it to be a fascinating tale. The story revolves around a legendary, and most often thought mythological, woman in the 850's who defied all cultural and religious boundaries to become a scholar. It is said that she disguised herself as a man and rose through the church to be Pope.

The story talks a lot about the ancient philosophies of Aristotle and St. Augustine and studies the work of Ovid and Homer. When Joan is chosen to study with great scholars of her time, it is often questioned as to why on Earth they should allow a woman to learn anything. Now I grew up in a house where my mother constantly told me that I could do anything. Could go anywhere, learn anything and be everything that I dreamed of being - the sky was the limit.

What I find interesting in the book is all of the logic that is used. Being married to a soon to be attorney (yay for the bar exam??), I tend to have to outwit him to make my point ... or confuse him enough so that he forgets what the point was anyway. Regardless, I came upon this argument in the book that was just something I had never really thought of in the way it was presented.

One of the scholars is questioning Joan and telling her that of course women are not worthy of the knowledge and logic that men have, the Bible says so!

He says that men are superior, "In conception, because Adam was created first, and Eve afterward; in place, because Eve was created to serve Adam as a companion and mate; and in will because Eve could not resist the Devil's temptation and ate of the apple"

She thinks about this and replies, "For though she was created second, she was made from Adam's side, while Adam was made from common clay; In place, woman should be preferred to man, because Eve was created inside Paradise, but Adam was created outside; as for will, woman should be considered superior to man for Eve ate of the apple for love of knowledge and learning, but Adam ate of it merely because she asked him."

Interesting, eh? The same words, the same story but from a very different point of view. Gives you something to think about.

Until the next time ...

The girl behind the Lama

~LMM

Get in the boat!

I must admit that even though I grew up Catholic, went to a Jesuit college, and usually go to church every week and play with the choir, getting to church the past few months have been rather challenging with the numerous weekends away for weddings and my husband's new work schedule that usually has him working both Saturday and Sunday.

Yesterday was our first free Saturday in quite some time and we decided that no matter what, we were going to make time to go to church together and I am so very glad that we did. Yesterday's sermon was exactly what we needed. With the bar exam looming ahead, and the house on the market with no real clue as to what we are doing next, life is definitely a challenge. Everything is a big if ... if we sell the house then .... assuming he passes the bar then ... but nothing is certain, which is definitely hard for me. I live today planning for the next few months. I like to have control of my life and make my own decisions and rarely leave it up to fate to decide.

Fr. Britto yesterday hit right to this very same point. He is spending his last weekend with us at our church and is moving on to a new parish next week. He is scared, the parishioners at both his old and new parish are scared. What happens next? Will we be OK? What if this new guy changes everything?

The take home lesson of the day was that no matter what boat you are in, God is with you. It may not seem like he's there and he's letting your boat stray off course, but he is always with you and guiding you toward your destination. It might be scary, and your course may be unknown, but if you just let go and let God navigate you'll get to your destination safely.

So that's my goal for this week. Just to let go. Stop worrying about the bar exam (that I'm not even taking), stop worrying about selling the house, or moving or any of the other things that I can't control until God is ready to give it to me. However this turns out, it will be fine. My boat is just taking a small detour so I can see the sights.

What are you going to let go of this week?
Until the next time ...
The girl behind the lama
~LMM

Library Adventures

I must admit that once I hit high school and college, going to the library just didn't have the same excitement and mystery that it did in my childhood. Going to the library meant studying which meant that I was either writing a paper or studying for a test or trying to write the book that would become my thesis.

As a kid, my nose was always stuck in a book. Baby Sitter's Club, Saddle Club, Nancy Drew, horse books, card game books, choose your own adventure. Yet at some point the magic of living in an imaginary world was gone. Growing up kind of ruined it!

Since finishing school, although it's taken some time, I think I'm back to being a kid again. I enjoy reading for the pleasure of being taken into another world, one filled with mystery, enchantment, and history. I love to read a good love story, a historical fiction novel where I can actually learn a bit about the things I should have learned in high school. I feel like a tween all over again when I can get pulled into Harry Potter or Twilight.

I'm happy to realize that now at 28, I'm back to the girl I was 15 years ago. I love going into the library and looking around at all the books. Sure, I've never heard of most of them, but who am I to say that they aren't any good? I love to pick a book at random that has a title that catches me and just sit and read. I love getting up on Saturday morning at 7 am before the whirl of activity starts, grab a cup of coffee and sit out on my deck with a new book. Sure, by 9 or 10 the neighbors dogs start barking, the other neighbor is mowing his lawn and without fail all the kids in the neighborhood are outside screaming, but for those 2 precious hours .... the world is mine.

This morning I did just that. I left my husband passed out in bed and I curled up on our deck with our dog (whom I must include a picture of) and my cup of coffee and started reading Pope Joan. It is a story about a girl growing up in the 850's who is trying to break all the rules. She is smart and determined to be anything but a typical girl. She is a legend of history and her actual existence is unlikely, but I think it really speaks to the culture of the time and is a great example of faith.

So go out today and enjoy a quiet moment for yourself in whatever it is that you like to do.

Until the next time ...

The girl behind the lama

~LMM

Cake Decorating 101

It seems like I have been talking about wanting to learn how to decorate cakes for years now. Growing up my mom always made us these fabulous birthday cakes that were always way better than the store bought variety and were always unique to whatever we liked at that moment in time. I've been eyeing up the Wilton cake decorating classes offered at my local Michael's and JoAnns for awhile now and there has always been some reason why I couldn't take the class. Not anymore! I've had it with excuses so I finally signed up!

I started my first class this past week and can't wait to get going! In the first class we learned how to make proper buttercream frosting (sans butter) and how to get the right consistency for different types of flowers. We learned how to layer the cake with an awesome Wilton cake leveler device and how to fill it without your filling ooze out the edges. She also showed us how to get a base layer of frosting on and a little bit on the different types of bag and tip options we have.

Unfortunately our teacher is having foot surgery and has canceled class for 2 weeks, so I decided to try a cake on my own. Keep in mind that this is without any actual instruction and with me making it up as I go along which is always fun :) Who needs directions right??

Happy cake eating!

Until the next time ...

The girl behind the lama

~LMM

What a difference!

While we were on vacation a few weeks ago, somehow my husband and I both managed to break our cameras. Both were about 5 years old and pretty out of date so we weren't too crushed and the opportunity to buy a camera in WI and save ourselves the dreaded 10.5% sales tax of Chicago was a nice side deal.

We ended up with a Canon PowerShot SD780 and absolutely love it! I was really excited to try out all of the different features. It has so much more clarity than our last cameras did! I mastered foliage mode, and my personal favorite - the color accent which pulls out one color and leaves the rest black and white. Here are a few of my test shots.

The real test was using it to shoot some items for the store. Let me show how big the difference really is. My old camera wasn't great at taking extreme close ups of things, especially details of my stationary. Here's a picture of the same card with the old and new camera:

What do you think???

Until the next time ...

The girl behind the lama

~LMM

Carry On Update!

I fear I have been horrible at updating my total donation count and as I just had a sale (YAY!) I thought now would be a great chance.

As of today after 3 months my total donation for the to the ACS is: $40.44

Not too bad! I'm also slowly inching closer to my goal of 52 sales by September, only 18 more to go!

Have a great weekend and congratulations to our Carry On Campaign founders - Matt and Katie - on their wedding this coming Saturday!

Until the next time ...
The girl behind the lama
~LMM

Carry On Campaign

Everyday is a good day to raise money for the American Cancer Society. That doesn't mean you have to focus on the campaign every single day of the year, but it does mean that by doing something for the ACS outside of the CFL, you've made an additional effort to make the fight against cancer part of your everyday life. Thanks to the hard work of our volunteers, lives will change!
"And still the people say, "How did you come to play?", and I tell them it's easy when you're inspired by a man's desire to survive and carry on." (All The People Say)

For more information on the Carry On Campaign and to listen to All the People Say, go to http://www.mattwesselmusic.com/