• Holidays,  Home Dec Love

    My Home Office Christmas Decorations

    When we bought our house, we quickly decided that the extra two bedrooms would be an office for each of us. Both Jim and I have work-from-home components to our jobs – his when the weather is bad, and mine during breaks from teaching as I plan and lecture write – and it’s immensely helpful to have our own spaces in which to do all that. Particularly since the kind of bad weather that forces him to work from home usually happens when I’m on winter break, and so we’re often working from home at the same time. Looking down the road, if we decide to have kids before we…

  • Embroidery

    My Christmas Gift Tags

    Considering that Tuesday was Valentines Day, I’m uhhhhh a little late on this, but I did want to share with you my Gift Tags for this past Christmas, as I was really happy with how they came out. I kind of stole part of the idea from my Aunt, who has always taken her gift wrapping super-seriously. Her christmas gifts are basically works of art. Perfectly matching ribbon, fancy tags, and always, ALWAYS, a themed ornament as a wrapping decoration/part of the gift. Her appreciation for the presentation of the gift is something that’s rubbed off on me, and the last few years I have also picked up this meticulous…

  • Holidays,  Life

    My First Grown-up Christmas Tree

    This year is the first year since moving out that I have my own, full size christmas tree. We’ve never been real tree people – my mom is the daughter of a fire chief and her whole side of the family is staunchly pro-fake tree. Too many holidays in their childhoods were interrupted by fire calls where families lost everything after their too-dry tree went up in flames. And while I don’t really have the same memories, I’ve grown up with fake trees and I love them to pieces. Last year was my first year in my “own” place (I shared with four other people), and it was pretty much…