Now, onto some cuteness.

My niece, Addison, trick-or-treated like a champ this weekend. Dressed as the Itsy Bitsy Spider, she approached each door like a professional door-to-door salestoddler.

She was SO EXCITED. Addison is not shy, but her squeals to me back to my early Halloweens. Running from house to house and dragging the bag filled with 45 lbs. of tooth rot home. Ah, the good ‘ol days…

It hasn’t hit me yet, but I’m trying to not get emotional here at work. The good part- she will be one of my mom’s dogs at the Humane Society (she works there), which means she will personally be taking care of her every day and helping her find a new family. She needs a big yard and a playmate, and she’ll be the perfect dog for a new family.

We aren’t deterred from adopting a pet in the future, but instead of adopting a puppy, we will adopt an older dog (not anytime soon). I know a large part of the adoption in the first place was to fill the hole that Roxy left. Tom is taking her in now and he’s really upset. We both feel like we are losing yet another dog in less than a year and feel like we’ve failed her.

I gave her a few awesome pieces I bought from Senora Muertos a while back. Kate loves the handmade goodness just as much as I do. She makes awesome totes/purses out of cat and dog food bags. It’s insane, but who wouldn’t want a tote bag with “smelly cat” on the side? Yeah, I thought so.

Next, my lil’ bro turned deuce-five on October 25th- it was his Golden Birthday. The little dude (who is far from little, towering over my vertically challenged self) is very tattooed and Captain Black T-Shirt, so my mom and sister had a great idea. They snagged black stocking caps and fake full-sleeve tattoo arms for the party, and everyone (even lil’ Addison) wore them to surprise my brother, R.W.

Tom and I found the PERFECT gift for Captain Black T-Shirt (aka R.W.), a lovely vintage light blue tee featuring a gorgeous garden and the most adorable puppy dog you can imagine! I tell ya, it was worth both dollars I spent on it. We couldn’t help but giggle at the sight of him.

Life lately has been a whirlwind of lists, appointments, taskmastering, and a need for napping. It seems like life brings the crazy on pretty hard each day, filling up my schedule before I can even dream of a night of solitude. Although I love my friends, my craftyladies, my family, and of course my husband- I dig having a night to myself once in a while.

It’s been a LONG while.

But, due to the insane schedule, I have also missed out on time with Tom. He’s been working wacky hours (it’s retail, of course) and with the almost 15 hour days I’ve been pulling between work, the shop, events, and social engagements- he gets lost on the timeline.

We desperately need to get back to Date Night. One night a week just for Mr. and Mrs. Pants. Taking one day out of the week to invest in our relationship is the absolute minimum of what we should be doing, and we need to make US a priority. I’m also going to take back my Sunday afternoons and hold them hostage for my ME time.

How do you take time for yourself? Do you set aside a night of the week or take a bit of time each day just for you?

The handmade telephone pole displays were a hit! I had a feeling I’d get a few “Are these Jesus crosses?” comments over the weekend, but we didn’t. I spent this weekend camped out in the Lumiere’ Place atrium for Indie Underground. Lucky for me, I sat right behind my pal, Kat. She’s a friggin’ hoot. We felt completely out of place at the Fashion Week extravaganza, and spent most of Friday and Saturday people-watching.

Turns out, we’re not very fashion-y.

Yet, I did score a delicious burger from the Burger Bar, walked away with three darling headbands from JustLiv and the octopus pillow from Kat at Katatomiclabs. These things combined made for a fanatastic event.

It was hard to resist doing a roll of cartwheels down the red carpet. It was like they put it there just BEGGING me to show off my nine year old gymnastics skills. Thank goodness I held back- I would have pulled every muscle in my body.

Really, the best part of every show is spending time with the crafty folks I love. We all seemed to be a bit delirious by the middle of Saturday afternoon which provided the perfect environment for giggle fits. Without much sleep, we can get pretty loopy.

There was talk of capes and making t-shirts that say “My Crafts Will Kill Your Face.” Loopy, I tell ya.

Indie Underground reminded me how much I love that I found “my people“- these kooky crafty folks who are all completely different from anyone I’ve ever met. An abundance of unique personalities and an overload of creativity is enough to inspire anyone to create.

This weekend, my wee baby sister turns the big 2-1 (danger zone!). For an early present, I took her to her very first fashion show at St. Louis Fashion Week to watch the Project:Design! runway. In perfect Watson style, I managed to explode a soda in my car while pulling up to the valet just before the show. Poor guy. Of course I tipped him for dealing with the caffeinated VW bug.

After mingling at the reception in the giant atrium of Lumiere’, we took our seats for the main event. Of course the STL Fashion Week had a surprise in-store for us as the show began.

After the first three models took to the runway under the beat of the bass, to what should my wonderous eyes to appear but Clinton and Stacy from What Not to Wear! Turns out, the woman in the gorilla boots seated in the front row was the lucky (or possibly unlucky) fashion victim to be granted a complete re-do by the style mavens. Personally, these two drive me completely batty. They filmed a few pieces for a future episode and then the show finally took off.

It was the battle royale for 6 designers. Fighting for the big prize up for grabs via the Project:Design! competition, they gave us their best. For Dragana Jovic, her best snagged her the big $30,000 Bakers prize package.

My personal favorite in the show was Katie Kantley’s line. Specifically, the tube maxi dress with plum piping. I, of course, did not manage to shoot a photo of this due to the fact that I was busy picking my jaw back up off the floor. Gorgeous!

I’m looking forward to Friday and Saturday’s shows. Tomorrow night I will forgo the fashionistas to instead set up for Indie Underground this weekend.

This necklace is one of my favorites of the new pieces.

I’m planning on showing it off tonight at the Project:Design! runway show tonight at STL Fashion Week. I’m taking my little sister as an early birthday present. Now to figure out what else to wear…

I’ve been M.I.A. for a bit due to to-do list overload, but now I’m back! Yesterday I stumbled, a bit hungover from the wedding Saturday evening, to my parents’ house for a nice DIY session with Dad in the workshop.

I had drawn up plans for two mini telephone poles (and by mini I mean 5.5′ and 6.5′) to use as displays at my craft shows for TwIsTeD. As the joke goes in our family, all that you need for any project is a piece of wood.

We headed to the lumberyard to inhale my favorite fragrance -fresh cut lumber. Three hours later, we had two telephone/power poles ready for painting. I sprayed those babies with twenty coats of what I would like to call Blinding Sunlight Yellow.

All that is left for these is to attach the wooden spools I scored at the Upcycle Exchange. Those will be my “insulators” for the poles. Swing by my booth at Indie Underground this weekend to take a peek at the crafty goodness and see my poles!

The Homegrown Urban Country Fair last Saturday was an amazing event. Not only did I get to score fresh goodies from my favorite bakery, Companion- I spent the day creating upcycled goods with pals Autumn and Alecia. We froze our butts of for a bit, but the craftin’ kept us warm.

Autumn, creator of the Upcycle Exchange, made these killer hula hoops out of irrigation tubing and tape. Yeah, you know you want one.

The paramedics said she was confused, parked on the side of the Circle K (who called them in) not far from her house. Mom met them there and discovered Jojo had no idea how she had gotten there. She got lost on her way to the appointment, she said, and could not figure out where she was going. Her hearing is terrible (she’s getting a hearing aid very soon) so she couldn’t figure out what the paramedics were saying.

This happened a few years back, when Jojo was still living out in Independence, MO. After this incident, which her doctor said was a mini stroke, we moved her down here about five minutes from my parents’ house. These strokes happened very randomly with long periods of time between over the years.

This is her second mini stroke in a week and a half.

Mom had to explain to her yesterday why she can’t drive anymore. Jojo was scared, herself, and said she’d rather not take the chance of hurting anyone else while being behind the wheel. My parents are in the process of figuring out a plan. Mom took Jojo to the doctor yesterday and explained that she has Vascular Dementia caused by the mini strokes. They are obviously happening more frequently and he is checking on additional medication at the moment.

Mom is doing great with everything and we are all here to help. Being such a tight knit family, we kick it into high-gear whenever one of us is in trouble.

Jojo is a very independent woman who has been on her own since my grandfather passed in 1983. She traveled the world, still volunteers and visits with friends all over the country. Now she is slowly losing that independence she holds so dear. The road our family is heading down is a familiar one for many of you, and one that all of us will have to take with our own parents in the future.

I just wanted to say thank you to all of you for your emails & tweets yesterday as we heard the news. It does really help to know others have been through it.