Gardening in High Heels

January 15, 2017

Sunday Lately, 107

January 15, 2017

Sunday Lately is a weekly linkup hosted by the Blogger Tribe, which is fearlessly led by Katy (Wild and Wanderful) and myself. We e-hangout every Sunday, sharing a small glimpse into the past week of life in our own worlds. We’d love if you could join us!

This week’s themes: Thinking, Finding, Allowing, Insisting, Repeating.

Look, it’s Sunday and I’m actually writing and posting a Sunday Lately! (Joke’s on you, I’m scheduling this in advance. But hey, it’s Sunday and there’s something here. I count that as a victory.)

Thinking

My goodness, I am STILL thinking about my planner. Like what? I don’t need to be using all this time for it! But planners and notebooks make me happy. Why are you denying me my happy, single-focused-planner thoughts??

Finding

To that point, I’m still finding planners that I like. I know, I know! Katy, this one’s for you, because I found another something SHINY. I want to keep everything together in one notebook and the Arc book I made for blogging is nice but BIG and I want something purse-sized. And then it hit me. A travelers notebook. I can keep everything together, but I can have separate books for each client, blog, home to-dos, and so on, AND not worry about sectioning off a regular notebook.

Allowing

I am allowing myself to feel the things, acknowledge them, and then not let it be the main focus for the rest of my day. A few Thursdays ago, I got totally derailed by imposter feelings in the morning and it drove the car for the rest of the day. Like Elizabeth Gilbert says, “Your fear should always be allowed to have a voice, and a seat in the vehicle of your life. But whatever you do — don’t let your fear DRIVE.”

That is a surefire way to crash through a guardrail and sail into the ocean in flames.

Insisting

I absolutely HATE asking for help. I will not do it. I think it makes me look like I can’t do something for myself and I was not raised to sit around and let people do for me. I insist that I can do things and I don’t need anyone’s help. Well I cracked and asked my step-dad to help me move a couch while he and my mom were here this past week. It kinda isn’t perfect in the room and I need to rearrange (I know I’ve made that comment before) things a bit more, but for now, it’s much better than the 30+ year old loveseat I was using.

Repeating

Plan, plan, plan. Basically I’m just repeating all the planning prompts, aren’t I? I’ve been repeating a morning habit and I love it. I get up, I make coffee, I sit and journal. I’ve been on a hot streak of writing since January 2 and it’s a great way to ramp up for the day.

How do you get yourself started each day? And what have you been doing lately?

An InLinkz Link-up

January 12, 2017

Sunday Lately, 106

January 12, 2017

This week’s themes: Redoing, Making, Choosing, Concentrating, Appreciating.

One of these days, I’ll get the hang of the whole “Sunday” aspect to this thing….

Redoing

Thankfully, there isn’t much that I feel like I’m redoing lately. I am remaking my business cards with my new Twitter handle, though. Oh shoot, that should go into the next topic.

Making

So I’m not sure if you heard, but I’m making business cards with my new Twitter handle. It took me forever, but I finally narrowed down the handle I wanted to use to a few options and I just say down and chose the one I wanted, no thinking, just typed something that came to mind. Wait a minute..I could have used that for “Choosing.”

Choosing

It took so much back and forth to pick a new Twitter handle. I didn’t want to replace the blog-specific one I had (@GardeningInHH) but I wanted to have one for AngelicaRoss.co without having yet another Twitter account to keep track of. So I decided to have one handle for all things writing. I picked @AngelicaRossPGH, not the most original, but it’s easy-ish to remember.

I’ll still concentrate on tweeting about cultivating a beautiful life, but with more focus on helping small business babes and bloggers get found and grow. It’ll combine what I’d write about for a lifestyle blog and a content marketing business. I think it’ll work. Hang on…concentrating…I’ve seen that somewhere…

Concentrating

Crap. I did it again.

Appreciating

I don’t know about you, but I appreciate my sense of humor. And I appreciate my Blogger Tribe girls for bearing with me while I think Thursday is now Sunday!

What have you been up to lately?

An InLinkz Link-up

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January 2, 2017

Sunday Lately, 105

January 2, 2017

This week’s themes: Picking, Telling, Debating, Mixing, Humming.

Okay, so I somehow am already behind on this year and it’s just barely started! I hope you enjoyed your holidays. I was driving around like the kid in the Family Circus cartoon (you know, with the dotted lines going all over?) and definitely didn’t get to power down like I wanted to last week. So I’m doing it this week. My life, my business, my rules, right?

Picking

I have yet to settle on my official planning system for 2017, but I do have a planner picked out. It’s a simple paper planner that will house my appointments and dates to remember. I think I’m going to use an Arc system notebook to plan all bloggy things for here and AngelicaRoss.co and a Happy Planner to scrapbook daily memories so it looks pretty (I know they’re doing this big #functionalhappyplanning push on Instagram, but seriously, if I’m spending all that money and they’ve designed it so pretty, I don’t want it to be a mess of cross-outs and Sharpie markers). I have a mini and a classic size thanks to insane deals at Michael’s, so I haven’t decided which will be used. So we’ll see.

Telling

I am telling myself this week is a week “off” or as close to “off” as I can get, once I catch up on tasks from last week. My mom will be in town this weekend and all of next week; I’m trying very hard to wind down this week so I can clean up and relax a little before she gets here. I’m always a crazy woman when she’s in town, seriously cleaning every inch of my house that I can reach, and I want to have a quiet moment first.

Debating

A massage. I mean, a massage is always a good idea. But I’m debating if it’s a good idea right now. I guess I can schedule it now for mid/late-week and use that as motivation and a reward to get things done sooner rather than later.

Mixing

I’m mixing up the furniture in my house. One of my favorite things is to move furniture. It makes everything feel fresh and new, even if it’s still the old hand-me-down stuff you’ve had for ever and ever. The other day instead of writing, I re-arranged my office and it’s so much more productive for me. I used to face the wall, but I turned my desk so I can see my room and my calendar. Keeps me on track. I can’t wait for the day I accidentally knock my Post-It pile/pen box off the back of the desk and all over the room, though….

Humming

I watched the Lego movie the other night and I just got that everything is awesome song out of my head. And now it’s back in because I wrote this.

Here’s to a fantastic and fresh new year! I know Katy and I have a LOT of fun stuff planned for the Blogger Tribe and I have a lot I want to do with this space and AngelicaRoss.co. Keep an eye out for that!

What have you been up to lately? Link up and share!

An InLinkz Link-up

December 17, 2016

What not to give for Christmas: an anti-gift guide

December 17, 2016

You’re probably burned out on gift guides, so this is an anti-gift guide. Why? Because people are sick of your lackluster, no-thought-behind-it half-assed gifts.

Was that mean? I just spent 60+ minutes on hold with the Healthcare Marketplace people only to get kicked off. Twice. So I’m feeling a little Grinchy. What was I saying? Right, anti-gift guide.

I try to shop local when I can, but I’m coming down to the wire with gifts this year, so it has to be online shopping. But I still want to make sure that I’m supporting artists and being as responsible as I can. And I don’t want to give someone yet another corkscrew-and-bottle-of-wine set. Enter: UncommonGoods.

I’m sure you’ve seen them in just about every gift guide ever because even if you’re finding a gift for someone whose interests include “Hiding under a rock,” there’s something you can purchase.

What makes them awesome? Well, they have really unique items (wine-infused coffee, anyone?), but they also make sustainability their number one mission. And not just in a “green” way; they make sure their people are able to sustain themselves, too, so their employees are treated fairly and given living wages. They also feature products that are made with recyclable components, help their artists make their items in responsible ways, and they say no to feathers, leather, and furs – being kind to animals is way more important to me than being kind to people.

The coolest thing to me is when you’re shopping, you can narrow your search based on handmade, recycled, made in the USA, or exclusive to UncommonGoods. It’s like you’re kind of shopping local, but from artists that are in a different zip code.

Onto the anti-gift guide!

Men are possibly the hardest people to shop for. I’m lucky in that my dad is happy with a cookbook and a gift card to the Italian market down the street, but yours may not be so easy to please. Thankfully, there is an entire collection just for dads that you can browse through. I wish there were more jokes in this collection.

Throwback to your days when you’d give dad a poorly made, misshapen mug kinda thing with a (properly-shaped) mug that warms your donuts (#phrasing). And we all know your go-to every few years is a new belt. Get this one made from recycled tires instead. You’ll still have your fall-back, but it’s a responsible fall back.

What about other men? I have one friend who just gets alcohol from me (and I’m sure that isn’t a complaint, but I’ve known him for years and I still have no clue what to buy him aside from shirts and vodka). Stop buying boring alcohol, buy beer soap instead. Or what about magnetic strips you can add to your fridge to stick bottles to (more space for cheese in the fridge now!)

I can’t not include gifts for women, because it’s really fun to shop for your girls. Like for the drunk friend, a tote that dispenses wine. I mean, it’s basically every woman’s dream come true. Or for the chick who won’t get off her freakin’ phone when you’re at dinner, she probably is running low on batteries, so she can put her phone in her new charging bag and let it charge while she talks to you.

What are you giving everyone for Christmas? I’m nebby and I wanna know!

**This post, pretty obviously, is sponsored by UncommonGoods. I love their mission and I’m picking up a few gifts from them this year, so I wouldn’t recommend them if I didn’t believe that they’re doing something good!

November 17, 2016

On A Shoestring: Party Down with an Up-cycle

November 17, 2016

In case you haven’t heard, the holidays are nearing, so Amy and I have dedicated this On A Shoestring to party fashion. Except we’re throwing in the always ~~headache producing~~ fun task of altering clothing that doesn’t quite work. I mean, a lot of times, you’ll find something that’s cute but not quite your style or fit, but you buy it anyway because it’s cheap. Come on, it can’t be just me.

Y’all, this up-cycle was a challenge. I deviated from the “doesn’t quite fit” route to the “doesn’t quite look fresh anymore” route. I wanted to re-purpose a shirt that I have with a stain on it into something I could wear again. Kinda like this.

I was hoping I somehow, possibly through osmosis or genetics, would be able to nail it on the first try. I mean, I only had one shirt and one piece of fabric, so it was more than the first try, it was the only try.

Sadly, if my mom passed along any sewing genes, today wasn’t the day they decided to grace me with their presence. I’mma brag for a sec: my mom is a mad-genius crafter. She sews, quilts (by hand and machine), knits (garments! Stuff you can wear!!), cross-stitches, makes freakin’ lace by hand, and just knows all the craft things. Me? Well, I can spray paint….

My original plan was to remove where the yoke would be on this shirt where the stain appears and replace it with a fun fabric panel. I’m downplaying my skills a little. I can sew and I do own a sewing machine. But when I got to the “sew it on and hack the shirt up” stage, I froze. I didn’t think ahead to just how to do this. I sewed the hem to the patterned fabric. I stabbed myself one too many times with straight pins. And I didn’t thread my sewing machine properly so the top thread had too much tension on it and snapped.

At this point, I took it as a sign that it wasn’t meant to be. Too much work for a shirt that has been laying in the laundry room for over a year.

On to Plan B.

I had this dress in the donate pile because I’m not a ruffle person. It’s a cute dress, but I feel like I’m wearing a crumb catcher when ruffles get involved so close to my face. So I thought, “If I were going to a party and I had nothing to wear, but I had scissors and could accessorize, this is what I’d do.”

I cut the ruffles off. Both rows of ruffles.

Of course, I also added accessories because those are any cheap girl’s best friend, and tada, made this polka dot dress more modern and more me. Like last month’s On A Shoestring, tights make this outfit more than it really is. I’m intentionally mixing patterns – polka dots and plaid – but it works because the colors are in the same family and the prints are varied sizes. Then, I added a belt to coordinate with the tights and bring it all home.

I also LOVE this necklace, so on it goes to add more sparkle, which is a must for a fancy occasion.

Details on this outfit:

Dress: Hue
Belt: Purchased at Ragged Row years ago, label has since rubbed off
Tights: Xhileration at Target
Booties: dv dolce vita at Target
Necklace: Chloe & Isabel
Lack of me in pictures: weird sinus-y headache/cold thing

You’ve gotta see what Amy over at Amy and Angie did. Again, being so clever with this dress-to-skirt thing!

What would you up-cycle from your closet for a party?

I’m collaborating with Amy over at Amy and Angie on a series of posts to re-imagine how we dress, decorate, dine, and more all on a shoestring budget. We’re on a mission to show you that it doesn’t take a Rockefeller-sized closet (or house) and budget to have a good life!

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Sunday Lately, 107

Thinking

Finding

Allowing

Insisting

Repeating

How do you get yourself started each day? And what have you been doing lately?

Sunday Lately, 106

Redoing

Making

Choosing

Concentrating

Appreciating

What have you been up to lately?

Sunday Lately, 105

Picking

Telling

Debating

Mixing

Humming

What have you been up to lately? Link up and share!

What not to give for Christmas: an anti-gift guide

On A Shoestring: Party Down with an Up-cycle

What would you up-cycle from your closet for a party?

Dig Up Something Good

Let’s Play

People Really Dug These

We Belong in the Garden Together

Thinking

Finding

Allowing

Insisting

Repeating

How do you get yourself started each day? And what have you been doing lately?

Spread the love:

Redoing

Making

Choosing

Concentrating

Appreciating

What have you been up to lately?

Spread the love:

Picking

Telling

Debating

Mixing

Humming

What have you been up to lately? Link up and share!

Spread the love:

Spread the love:

What would you up-cycle from your closet for a party?

Spread the love:

Dig Up Something Good

Let’s Play

People Really Dug These

We Belong in the Garden Together