Silly piggers

After all these years as a Pig Mom, I'm still surprised (and always entertained) by just how much personality piggies have. Sure, they're small and classified as rodents, but they really do have some spunk and smarts. I just wish they'd use their powers for good...

Pig wigs up to their old tricks:

1. Got a closet eater. 2. I left a bag of spring mix unattended. Had a visitor. My bad. 3. Rusty's only interested if it's off limits. 4. No tricks here. Just enjoying lunch in the sun.

Jewelry biz makeover

The Open Studios 2010 show is this weekend (May 1 & 2) and I've been better this year about getting myself organized ahead of time. No repeats of last year's procrastination, pls. One major change this year is the rebranding of my jewelry endeavors. I decided to do away with the SugarCube Jewelry name. I was never too fond of it and I didn't feel like it really represented me. Along with the name went the website, which I never updated. I was paying monthly service fees for essentially an outdated photo gallery. I needed an easier, simpler way to catalog my latest work. Hello, Flickr. Pleased to meet you!

My new venture is called Designed by Jess. Check it out, yo.

I plan to open a new Etsy shop soon, probably later this month. Stay tuned...

Beauty of public transit

Now, the SF Muni system has its share of woes. But let's take a moment to look past the budget shortfalls, schedule delays, rising prices, stinky riders, and the overall petri-dish-of-bacteria feeling you get when you step onboard. I take public transit everywhere, commute on it every day to work, and rarely ever drive my car. It's pretty convenient actually. And the monthly passes are so pretty--too pretty to toss out--so I used them to decoupage a cheap table off of craigslist. Then I went to a glass place and had them cut and finish off a 16"-square piece of glass to go on top. I had enough passes to do the top tier of the table with a few left over. Who knows, maybe in another two years I'll have enough to do the bottom tier.


1. craigslist table, painted light gray; 2. Laying out four years of passes; 3. Good ol' Mod Podge! 4. Pretty colors.

Bedroom makeover

The BF and I decided we needed to spice things up in the bedroom. Ok before you go there, I'm talking about our bedroom wall decor obviously! I found these fun vinyl wall decals that are removable, but not reuseable. So once they're up, they're up. The application process is a little tricky, but once you have a system down, it gets easier. Luckily with the vinyl, you've got a little bit of wiggle room to get your placement just right, so mistakes are easily corrected. Which was good for us because these suckers were 8 feet tall!

It took us about two evenings after work to finish this project. I'll admit that most of our time was spent because I was getting OCD about the placement of the branches, getting the overlapping just so, etc. Yep, the BF is a patient man.




1. Meh. The "before" shot; 2. Getting the placement of the trees perfect; 3. We made one branch turn the corner; 4. Placement is good. Jess is finally satisfied; 5. Time to transfer the decal and strip off the blue backing; 6. All done and ready to sleep under a canopy of trees. That's my kind of camping!

Two months off!? and a birthday!!

OK, I've been lazy and set this blog on the back burner. But I've also been having memory/hard drive/space issues, so haven't been able to get the pictures off my camera and onto this blog. I know, enough excuses already. On to pigs!!

We celebrated Oliver's 4th birthday a little belatedly this year. Right around his bday, he wasn't doing too well with his teeth. He was off-food a bit...but luckily with another toothtrim and lots of TLC, he perked back up and is doing fine now. And he looked fine, too! Seems he couldn't decide between his party hat and his tiara.

1. A tasty bell pepper tower treat; 2. Brothers share; 3. He's the prettiest birthday boy! 4. Still calm and enjoying food; 5. And then a feeding frenzy tug-of-war! 6. Don't worry, they made up and had a nice cuddle.

Man oh mantel

It took a lot of hard work and elbow grease, but we finally got the mantel restored. We managed to clean out all the nasty crusties (as best we could, considering all the fancy woodwork) with some skinny chisels and screwdrivers. The mantel has actually been completed for a while now. I'm just behind on this blog, go figure. Here are the After pictures. We did several coats using Formby's Tung Oil, which makes for a nice finish, as it turns out! Super easy to use, too. Just put some on a rag, rub it into the wood, and let dry.

1. Ahh, so much nicer! 2. Crusties be gone. 3. No more wine glass stain, yay. 4. Even Horse seems happy about his new home.

Say it ain't so

Meet Gray Hair #3. I woke up one morning in late June 2009 and found this little guy. It's my third gray (and the second one I've found since becoming a homeowner), but it is the first one documented and snapped in the wild. My very first gray came shortly after I turned 30. During that time, I guess the stress of being unemployed, living rent-free at my brother and sister-in-law's house, eating all their food, and making a me-sized dent in their couch while I caught up on 6 years of CSI: reruns in 3 months finally took its toll on me.

They say if you pluck a gray hair, three friends will come to its funeral. Oh well.

PS. It is not easy taking a picture of a gray hair up against a gray wall.