{Hey There Shorty}

Yeah, I'm talking to you. I called you short. Okay, let me be PC...vertically challenged. Are you walking around wearing jeans or pants that you hemmed yourself? And are you embarassed that you can tell they're hemmed? I know I am. I'm 5'3" and the "short" length jeans are about 2 inches too short and the "average" jeans are way too long. Not that anyone really looks down towards my shoes on a regular basis (guys usually stop at my boobs, haha), but it bothers me when I spend $60 bucks or so on a pair of jeans (gasp!) and I have to chop them up and they end up looking like a home-ec project. One time I even used gold thread that was made for jeans. It looked okay, but that nice worn look to the bottom edge of the jeans was missing. Enter Fig and Plum. They posted a tutorial about hemming jeans like a pro. It's so stinkin' easy that I'm ashamed I didn't think of it myself. Here is a link to the tutorial that you can download and save to your computer. Here is a modified version from Dacia Ray that tells you how to deal with flared jeans. Why not let these adorable vintage hem clips help you do the job? You can find them in my Etsy shop, called One Cozy Nest.

{A Little Halloween Tale}

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Meet Weena...Weena Spookington. She's a good little witch who loves baking gingersnap cookies on a crisp sunny October day. She's wearing her trusty apron because she doesn't want to get her pretty dress covered in flour. You see, tonight is the Harvest Moon Ball, and her longtime crush, Franky, is going to be there. They met at last year's Ball, but each was with another. Alas...timing is everything. Over the year, Franky and Weena bumped into each other on numerous occasions; the caldron shop on Elm, the dog park where she takes her dog Weenie to play. Franky was always such a gentleman to her. After each encounter with Franky she would go home and daydream about him. She would sometimes practice writing her future name in big swirly cursive..."Weena Stein.......Halloweena Stein.......Mrs. Frankfurter Stein".

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After realizing her crush on Franky went much deeper, Weena finally came to her senses about her current boyfriend. Afterall, who wants a boyfriend that has to carry his head around all the time? He could never hold her hand. So, she severed ties with him. Last Weena heard, he was dating a girl who had no arms (hence, no hands to hold), so it looks like it'll work out between them. Weena hoped Franky would notice that she was available and dump his girlfriend but weeks went by with no luck.

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With the coming of the full moon, Ms. Weena Spookington's luck is beginning to change! Recently, while at the local potions emporium, she overheard two witches gossiping about Franky's girlfriend having an unfortunate broom accident. And on the eve before the Harvest Moon Ball! Apparently the hem of her robes got caught on a weathervain. You can guess what happened. Weena tried hard not to feel delighted at the news but she just couldn't help herself. Now with Franky being date-less, and Weena being totally in-love-with-him-but-he-doesn't-know-it-yet, the planets were finally moving into alignment. Weena flew home on her striped broomstick as fast as she could, avoiding all weathervains of course, and got herself all dolled up for the dance. She's a joiner, you know, so she's a member of the decorating committee. She made this banner out of scraps of fabric and found objects she had lying around her house. As soon as her gingersnaps are done cooling, she'll throw off her apron, freshen up her lipgloss and head to the dance where she'll tell Franky exactly how she feels.

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You can own Weena Spookington! Come see her in my Etsy shop!

{Haunted House}

Could this happy little ghost really be haunting this adorable little cottage? Nah, he's too cute for all that scary stuff. He just likes to keep an eye on things, that's all. Check him and my sister's other Halloween and Christmas pieces at Spookytime Jingles. New art is posted on the 13th of every month. Lots of great artists and lots of great Christmas and Halloween stuff. Free shipping too!

{Books, books, and more books}

Hello friends! I love vintage books. I love the smell of the pages and I love their dusty covers. I'll buy a book just for it's pretty cover or subject matter. This is sort of a strange love because I'm not a big reader. I read, but it takes me forever to finish a book because I tend to easily fall asleep. A few pages a night is all I can do! My sister is an avid reader. I love listening to her tell me what the books she's reading are about. It's just like watching a movie preview! One of her all time favorites is The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. It's set in the 1960's in South Carolina. I haven't read it yet, but my sister lent me her copy. Wikipedia says that the story is about a girl named "Lily Owens, whose life is shaped by her blurred memory of the afternoon of her mother's accidental death. When Lily's black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three racists in town, they escape to Tiburon, South Carolina, a town that holds the secret to Lily's mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey." They made a movie based on the book so my sister and I have a date to go see it together. I better get to reading! I'm almost finished book 5 of the Harry Potter series so after that, I plan to read the bee book. Anyway, here are some of the vintage books I have up for sale in my Etsy shop, One Cozy Nest.

French BookArt Book Collection

The Alternative

{New Jersey's Not So Bad}

Hi everyone! I was born in NJ. I was also raised in NJ. I went to college in NJ. I reside in NJ and work for the NJ Government as an ecologist. Aside from a cross country trip after college and vacations, of course, I have spent 99% of my life right here in good ol' New Jersey...not "New Joisey", thank you very much. I don't know one person who says it like that, so I have no idea where that stereotype came from. You can probably tell I'm a little overprotective about my home state. I've heard a lot of out-of-staters put it down and say how bad and polluted it is. I've also heard a lot of negative references to New Jersey on TV shows that take place in New York. Well, I travel all over the state for my job and I am very fortunate to be able to see just how beautiful it is. I was at a project up near the Meadowlands Sports Complex and afterwards, for lunch, I drove up the Palisades Parkway and went for a hike along the cliffs. See the picture below? Yes, that's New Jersey...not Maine, not Vermont...good ol' Jersey.

{It's My Birthday, It's My Birthday!}

Hi everyone! Friday was my 32nd birthday and what a wonderful day it was! First, the weather was so beautiful. Partly sunny and in the mid-60's. Perfect! My birthday festivities began at happy hour(s) on Thursday night, the eve of my birthday. Everyone was so generous with the birthday drinks that I ended up staying until about 12:30am! Thanks everyone, I had a really great time. And the life-size Jenga game was the best. Here I am with a Jenga block. Why am I so happy?When I got home later that night, my Cooper was up crying with a cold, so I was lucky enough to spend some time comforting him until 2am. I say lucky because the next day and a half I wasn't going to see him at all. Since it was my birthday, when Cooper got up again at 4am, Jeff tended to the poor little thing. The baby ended up sleeping until about 10 so both Jeff and I got some extra zzzzzzz's too. Jeff brought my card to me in bed and inside it was tickets to see Cirque De Soliel up at Madison Square Garden in NYC. We'll walk around in the city after the show and probably have some dinner too. I'm excited!

I took off from work for a day all to myself. My husband took the baby down to his parents house for a sleepover. Jeff was in a golf tournament with his father and Jeff's mom had Cooper all to herself. After Jeff and Cooper left, I enjoyed some coffee and quite time with the dogs out on the front porch, cuddled under a blanket, breathing in the fresh Autumn air. I love the month of October. Then I got dressed and started trimming some trees. I've been working on a landscaping project for several weeks now and thought that my day off was the perfect time to get it finished. I installed a rain barrel a couple weeks ago and I need to put in a gravel garden path next to it and through the garden. In order to do this I had to bury a drain pipe that I attached to my rain downspout. Well, I was busy chopping away at some stubborn roots when I realized I had chopped right through our cable wire. Oops! Now, if you read my previous post about the rain barrel, you'd know that I also cut a critical wire for our sprinkler system. So my heart sank and I panicked for about a minute. Then I took a deep breath, laughed at myself, then went inside to call the cable guy. A few hours later, it was fixed. The guy said the line was bad anyway and he was surprised we hadn't had a lot of problems with it before. So now we have a new line and hopefully better service. Here you can see the new white cable wire. After the cable problem put a stop to my gardening project, I moved inside where I pulled out my Autumn decorations and put them up here and there while, at the same time, straightening up the house. See my mums and pumpkins? My sister came over later that night and she gave me the best present ever! It's a painting that she did just for me. It is a portrait of me holding Cooper and it is so darling, I can't stand it. I've been walking around the house looking for the perfect spot for it. Look how wonderful it is! You can read more about it on her blog. She also brought cards that my nephews made for me. Each of them feature pictures of me, with my glasses of course, and funny drawings of Cooper. The two of them are so creative. Jake drew a diaper on Cooper and Alex drew this adorable little tree with an acorn. Those little details are so funny to me. I love how stylin' I look with my red heart shirt and my kick ass boots. Tracy and I went to the movies that night to see Nights In Rodanthe....UGH!!! What a terrible movie. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie that I hated as much as this one. It was utterly predictable, and amazing that two actors could act so poorly. It was so bad that we were laughing at the parts that were supposed to be all dramatic and mushy. At the end a few people actually clapped, so I made sure I boo'ed. We spent the ride home laughing about certain parts of the movie. I won't ruin it for anyone but I'll just say that I liked the preview so much better than the actual movie. We came back to my house, had a margarita, and watched Ugly Betty and Supernanny together. Then I read my Harry Potter book until I fell asleep. Ahhhhhhh, what a perfect day. Happy Birthday to me....it's a shame that they only come once a year. But then again, it's a good thing they only come once a year because I'd be 64 years old!