neck hair

[you may have caught me, but i didn't exactly meet the requirements of my goal to write three blogs a week every week. so this blog is mostly for the purpose of at least having 12 blogs for the month of february, even though they didn't come out in a neat 3-per-week order. whatevs. ]


so, i was at work on friday, and aside from it being an extremely busy morning, i was feeling pretty good about myself. and rightfully so, seeing as i had woke up at 4:00am to shower before i went into work. pretty impressive for this girl who hates both waking up at 4am and showering.

well, i have news for you, the shower betrayed me. it almost ruined my life. and i'll tell you how.

about an hour before i got off work, i scratched my neck. what did i find? two giant, albeit translucent, neck hairs. i'm certain no one noticed, but i could certainly feel their nastiness. all i could think was, "dang shower!"

maybe it had just been a while since i had actually scrubbed my neck clean, which i know is kind-of gross, but how many of you actually scrub your neck? you probably assume, like me, that it gets pretty clean while the shampoo is rinsing off your head or sometime during the shower experience. not so!

and when you do finally scrub your neck, which i'm sure you'll all be super certain to do next time you bathe, be sure to check for newly unearthed neck hairs.

you'll thank me later.


oh yeah, i finally got a picture up of the baby bear hat i made, check it out!

'member that time?

'member that time when my family and i were at a get-together with families from our old church and hadn't seen all the girls in a while? and 'member how i felt like they didn't want to play with me, but really they were just talking about stuff i didn't know about because i didn't go to their church anymore? and 'member how i went and hid in a room behind a projector screen and no one came looking for me and how that made me feel even worse about myself?

so 'member how i cried in the car ride home and told my mom how all the church girls were mean to me and they didn't want to play so i hid from them?

and she was all like, "lisagrace, sometimes you have to be a friend to have friends."

yeah, i'm totally gonna use that on my kids.


[it's 'member that time monday at the van voorst's blog!]

baby bear hat

photo taken by the amazing sarah nebel!

a friend from veritas asked me to create a baby bear hat for her mini-clients. she is a local family photographer and also just an adorable person. i was so honored by her request-it's my first crafting "job." thanks, sarah, for encouraging me to continue towards my dream of selling my wares! : )

you need to check out her photography, so cute!

this is another pattern i created myself, which is really good for me to keep practicing. it was difficult to get the sizing correct as i got a lot of different information on head sizing. in the end, this hat is about 15" around, which is a pretty good size for 6-9 months.

i'm in love with the cream color and the adorable little ears. i can't wait to see what sarah does with it!

what would ami do?

to any of my readers that haven't met my mother, you have no idea what you're missing. she is a treasure.

so i'm starting a series entitled:

what would ami do?

it's about things my mom does or did that inspire me and have made me into the *ahem* totally awesome person i am today.

are you excited? yeah, me too.

as an intro to this series, i'll tell you some fun facts about my super awesome mom.

she is not only my mom, but also the mother of 5 other children. for those of you that have trouble with simple math (like me), that's six kids in total. four of those children are boys.

she is amazing, and she knows it. she has more confidence than...something really confident. one of my favorite "ami quotes" is, "well, of course people like me, what's not to like?!"

she was born and raised in des plaines, il, which happens to be where the first ever mcdonald's opened.
she's just all around adorable, fun, and wise and she's cool enough for me to write a bunch of blogs about. stay tuned!

tree painting

if you've been reading my blog from the beginning you, may remember this blog and my beautiful handmade home decor for our tiny little one bedroom apartment.

for those of you that are too lazy to click on the link or you didn't even notice there was a link there, here is a picture of the craft i re-crafted this week:

and here's the craft of the week: stretched fabric, bleached and painted:

i love trees.

happy valentines day!

i thought i'd take some time on this coined day of romance to share with you one of my all-time favorite movies. i seriously could watch this once a week for the rest of my life without getting tired of it.

and i can, because Bryan got it for me for Valentine's day!

it makes me laugh really hard, and cry really hard, and feel immeasurably gooshie inside every single time i've watched it.

sure, maybe it has only furthered my slight obsession with david duchovny, but who cares? he's an amazing man.

i can almost guarantee you'll love it and for those of you that don't, you may not have a soul, just sayin.'

if you were looking for a movie to curl up and watch with your valentine date tonight, this one is on netflix instant watch and in movie stores near you.

'member that time?

'member that time i found a bunch of pictures of myself in my "file?" they were the sheets of pictures you get from the picture place, with like a million pictures on one page.

'member how i looked at those pictures and realized that best thing to do with them was to give them to my friends. because, really, wouldn't YOU want a series of 10 or so pictures of lisagrace through the ages? especially when you were 9?

so i cut the pictures out, put them in chronological order, made little envelopes for them and gave them out like candy. 'member how everyone was so excited to see mex10?

yeah. i was the most thoughtful kid ever.

[it's 'member that time monday at the van voorst's blog!]

you're such a skinny pants

well, not to pat myself on the back or anything, but this girl lost 15 lbs. last year. what, what?!?!

heck yeah. 10 more pounds and i'd be back to my high school weight. so how did i celebrate? i bought myself some skinny pants, of course! these were on sale for $15 at gap the other day and i had a $10 off gift certificate. so i paid $4.65 for a new pair of pants. nbd.

that's pretty much all i wanted to tell you guys, you can proceed with your comments such as: "girl, you lookin' gooood today!" "girl, you rock those pants!" and "girl, you so skinny i could break you in half like a toothpick."

oh yeah, that is not me in the picture. i would never be so immodest as to show my belly button. in fact, i'm sorry you had to see this girl's belly button. what a travesty. although, i do have pretty much the best belly button ever. it's the perfect combination of an "innie" and an "outie." so maybe i will show you my belly button. but not on this blog. that would be sinful or something.

sorry, rabbit trail. this blog is over.

'member that time?

'member that time when i was a senior in high school and it was homecoming week? and remember how a bunch of people were all like, "hey, i voted for you to be on homecoming court." and remember how my friend sara took me home from work late at night and we saw that my house was toilet-papered and it was totally like a sure sign that i was on homecoming court? and she was all like, "omg, you're totally on homecoming court!" and i was like, "i don't know...but ok."

and then remember the next at school i realized that the night that they tp-ed peoples houses and told them they were on the court was that night, not last night and that i was for sure not going to be the next miss united states of america homecoming queen?

and plus, it was actually my sophomore brother who got tp-ed, not even me.

having siblings is confusing.

[it's 'member that time monday at the van voorst's blog!]

last day at hyvee!

today was my very last day working at hyvee. it's the shortest period of time i've ever worked at one job-only six months. it was a little weird leaving after such a short time, but i'm moving on. : )

in some ways i'm sad. i'll miss all the fun people i got to work with. i'll miss seeing my friends come through my check out line. all those produce look-up numbers i have in my brain are useless to me. i won't be as "up on the deals" at hyvee because i'll probably never really go there except for late night junk food runs. and i won't get the gas discount without having to purchase something.

whoa. i probably look a little too happy in this picture. but, yes, in more ways than i am sad, i am happy to not be working at hyvee anymore. my favorite realization was when i was menu planning for next week and i realized: i can actually make dinner every night! no more working nights! no more working until 11pm on a friday night, and working at 7am the next morning to be specific...because that been the norm for me the last couple months!

gosh, i'm really excited to have a new schedule. i start at capanna at 7am on monday, wish me luck.

slouch hat

i have been looking for a cute slouchy hat pattern all winter long and i finally found it! just in time for the apparent snowpocalypse we just had, i might add. i found the pattern here. i love that you can see the cables so well on her green hat. i don't think black would be my first choice for a color in the future. but at least my hat goes with everything!

i would also like to point out that this is the first thing i've knitted for myself. it's only a little fun to show it off and feel cute at the same time.

i have cute craft ideas other than knitting, but i need to get the crafternoon girls together to accomplish some of them! maybe there will be some variety next week. : )

in other crafting news...my mind has been going crazy with business ideas. i'm so interested and quickly becoming passionate about starting a craft business. i have so many ideas, so many projects...i just don't know where to start! if you have any ideas about what you'd love to see in the craft business, please, let me know!

ps: i need a new head model.