• Life,  Making Do,  Uncategorized

    Oh, Hello.

    Hi. Hello. Yes. How are you? Been a while. A long, long while. Lots of things have happened.Some good, some bad. Some very very good.Some very very bad. Lots of life changes. Lots of life challenges.But I’m still here. Yup, I’m still here.And maybe… just maybe… that’s good enough for now. – Maggie

  • History Love,  Life,  Travel

    The One Where Magpie’s Getting Married

    Yup, you heard that correctly: Jim and I are finally going to tie the knot. The big news broke on my insta-story the day it happened, but Jim has officially popped the question, and after almost 8 years together, we can now officially say we’re engaged. And yes, you read that right: 8 years. We’ve been getting a lot of “OMG FINALLY” reactions from those around us – to be expected after such a long time and since we own both a house and a dog together – but we did what was right for us, in our particular situation, on our own time, and we couldn’t be happier. So…

  • Blogging,  Life,  Magpie Writes

    The One Where Magpie Is Angry

    So January and Feburary haven’t quite gone as planned. You can probably figure that out based on the quietness here. Nothing about the last two months has been the way I expected. January this year was… weird. I generally spend a good deal of the month working from home. Because of that, January is usually one of my most productive months of the year in terms of blogging and prep work thanks to the lack of crazy commutes to eight different places. It’s always easier to get stuff done when you’re not spending half of your day living out of your car, after all. But this year I just really…

  • Blogging,  Home Dec Love,  Life

    August/September Wrap-Up, or, “Why Magpie’s Been Away for Three Weeks”

    So, big news here in Magpie land. I’ve been pretty absent from the interwebs for the last few weeks, and I’ve teased on twitter a number of times that it’s because of some serious life changes happening in the background, but never really specified exactly what was going on. Well, it’s finally time to specify: we bought a house. So yea, kind of a big deal. It’s an older house, and some of the floors are a little tilty, but other than that it’s in great shape (the previous owners took such amazing care of it) and we love it already. To be honest, the journey to this point has…

  • Book Love,  Life,  Lists,  Travel

    June Wrap-Up and July Goals

    Ah, another month gone, another goals wrap-up post – and June did NOT go as smoothly in terms of goals as I hoped it would. That said, it wasn’t quite the total failure that it could have been. So how’d I do? Well, June was a strange one this year. I spent the first two and a half weeks rush rush rushing to clean, and prep classes, and run errands, and catch up on everything I always let go during the semester when I’m working 14-18 hour days all week. And then the last week and a half I did, well, nothing. Positively nothing but read, and eat, and travel.…

  • Life,  Magpie Writes

    The One Where Magpie Turns 30.

    So it’s May. Can we all agree to not know how this happened? Because I really seriously feel like the last two months somehow flew by in the span of a week. I’m not sure how. But I swear it did. Because it’s May. More than halfway through May, actually. And I’m super-duper not ready for it. Because in just a few days, I turn the big 3-0. Thirty. Yeaaaaa I don’t know how this happened so fast… Thirty years have seemingly passed in a fraction of the time… but I guess here we go? I mean, realistically I know that the day of my birthday isn’t going to feel…

  • Life,  Links,  Lists,  Movies and TV,  Nerdery,  Pet Related Posts

    What’s Up, Wednesday?

    During the lull of the last few months I’ve been… … listening to: America’s Next Top Model. I can’t really say that I’ve been watching it, as it’s mostly just been on in the background as I work. I like seeing the results of the photo shoots, and there’s something about Tyra Banks that I just really like for whatever reason. I don’t really have words for why I like her so much, but I do. I know she’s got a reputation for being a little bit cuckoobird, but I love it. She just seems like she’s so unabashedly her, and I admire that. I imagine it’s far easier to…

  • Life,  Pet Related Posts

    Meet Hilde

    Blog? Meet Brunhilde. She’s my parent’s new puppy. And she’s awesome. She’s a little bit bold, a little bit clumsy, and all daredevil. Hilde had a rather rough introduction into our lives. Within three hours of bringing her home, she was already adapting well – running around with that excited bliss that only puppies really have. But then she tried to superman dive towards a toy, landed wrong, and immediately started screeeeaaammmmmiiinnnggggg. Turns out clumsy-girly-dog had landed on her elbow and broke the little nub on it. So Brunhilde, in the span of three hours, had her first car ride, met her new family and sister dog, explored her new…

  • Life

    (Sort of) Triumphant Return

    So with my last post, I made the reason for my absence clear – the fact that for a few months there I really felt like my life was out of control, in ways both small and large. A lot of stuff was going on all at once, and in the midst of it all, my anxiety issues simply got the better of me. But now, I feel like I’m getting things better handled, and I’m ready for my return to the blogosphere. Some of those big happenings you’ll hear about in the next couple weeks, some not so much, but for now let’s get the ball rolling with a…