Monthly Archives: August 2011

How to Make Homemade Biscuits

OMG. Crazy Delicious.

I was shocked to discover recently just how easy it is to make biscuits from scratch. It’s ridiculous, really. All you need is flour, butter, milk, baking powder, and salt. And about ten minutes of your time.

Ingredients:

  • two cups of flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • 6 tbsp butter (But really the more the merrier. You can’t go wrong with extra butter)
  • 1 cup milk

First, mix together two cups of flour, a half teaspoon of salt, and a tablespoon of baking powder.

Now it’s time to add your butter. You don’t want the butter to get soft while you’re working so it’s helpful to have it really cold from the get-go. Because I live in south Louisiana I like to throw a stick of butter in the freezer a few minutes before I plan to make my biscuits. Like maybe just while I gather the rest of my supplies and mix the dry ingredients.

Confident that my butter is sufficiently cold, I cut six tablespoons of it up into smallish pieces and toss them in the flour mixture. Then I use a fork and knife to toss the whole mixture a little bit more until the pieces of butter are about pea-sized. If your butter starts to melt into the flour stop in the name of biscuits and stick it in the freezer for a few minutes.

Wash your hands, then add a cup of milk to the flour butter mixture and knead it by hand right there in the bowl. Once it’s all sticking together pretty good I grab the big ol’ ball of dough in my left hand and use my right hand to pull biscuit-sized balls off of it and plop them onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 450 for 10-15 minutes. Nicholas and I like them a little doughy on the inside so we pull them out at exactly ten minutes, but if you’re more of a fully-baked sort of person go for the full 15.

Keeping It Real: Gardening Does Not Come Easy

One of my very favorite ways to spend an afternoon is strolling the aisles of my local nursery, carefully choosing only the most delightful of plants, then coming home and planting them thoughtfully in garden beds and pretty containers. My heart swells in anticipation of the lovely life we’ll lead together, them living outside and me living inside, happily ever after.

And then reality hits. You give those plants and inch and they take a mile. Apparently they have a lot of needs, like water and sun. Needs that I am just not able slash willing to meet on an ongoing basis. I try to foster independence, but it often backfires.

I thought things were going bad back in May, when I snapped this picture.

Ha! Check out how that same galvanized tub looks now, along with two of its forsaken friends.

It’s terrible. And I had the most lovely assortment of plants surrounding my favorite chunky porch column, but that’s a forgotten dream. Even the hydrangea I rescued is dead!

My sister gave me two gardenias for my birthday in April, but I think one is dead. I’ve been watering it every day to make up for weeks of neglect but I think it’s too late.

Its partner isn’t looking so hot either…

The only thing I’ve been able to keep alive in a container so far is ferns, and even with those my success rate is only 50% or so. I feel like maybe I should just dump my money directly into the compost bin, rather than even bother with plants that clearly hate me.

I’ve been comforting myself with the thought that it was a hot summer, with moisture levels oscillating wildly from near-drought to humidity so high I had to kick my wood front door just to get it open. Fall is almost here and the nurseries will start tempting me with fall annuals. Maybe I’ll try my hand at some purple and gold pansies, happy mums, and pretty petunias. I think it’s important that I stick to annuals for while, since they can’t be expected to live past one season anyway. I need to build my confidence back up before killing any more perennials.

Yella Pella

By that I mean yellow pillow. As in this little bit of awesomeness…

I dreamed up this idea for a pillow yesterday morning and was totally inspired to create it as soon as possible. This yellow fabric has been sitting in my stash for over a year. Clearly it was just waiting for the opportunity to become a pretty little pillow for my bed.

It was really easy and fun to make. I thought about making it in a circle shape, but I didn’t have a round pillow form or any loose batting. I decided to make it 14″ square to work with a pillow form I already had. I cut two 13.5″ square pieces of fabric (I like to make my pillow covers a little tight so they look nice and full), then just cut looooong strips from the same fabric. This was the most time consuming part. I just cut and cut and cut. I could make one really long strip out of a relatively short piece of fabric by cutting almost all the way to the end, then turning around and starting a new cut going the other direction, like you see here:

Make sense? I eyeballed my strips to be about 1″ wide, but they certainly weren’t uniform or anywhere near perfect. The beauty of this pillow is that sloppiness just adds interest to the final product. Every now and then I would stop and kind of lay out the strips on the square of fabric to measure my progress. By the time I was sure I had enough, I had three long strips.

I joined the strips together using my sewing machine.The edges didn’t match together perfectly, so I just sort of folded the bigger one a bit.

My original plan had been to sew the strips to the pillow, but as I sat there staring back and forth from the fabric to my sewing machine, I started thinking about how much of a pain that might end up being. Plus the sewing machine is so loud that I can’t talk to anybody or even listen to music or the TV while I sew. I decided to glue the strips to the fabric while I watched TV with Nicholas and his brother. A much more pleasant way to spend my Sunday afternoon than slaving over a sewing machine.

It’s worth explaining that I’d decided at this point that I won’t ever be washing this pillow. If I wanted it to be washable I would need to A) do something to prevent the strips from fraying (either by hemming or by treating them with liquid fray-check), and B) use fabric glue. I much prefer to use regular ol’ craft glue over fabric glue (which I find tiresome to squeeze). Craft glue doesn’t fare well in the washing machine but is mega-sturdy for all other purposes, so craft glue it was for this little pillow. I ran a line of glue down the edge of my strip, then pressed it onto one of my 13.5″ squares in a circular fashion.

I just kept wrapping and wrapping around, gluing and pressing as I went. Whenever I got to a weird part (like where I’d reached the edge of the fabric in my strip-cutting) I just folded it about the right width and kept going.

At some point I decided the strips were lying too flat and started ruffling them a bit as I glued.

Glue and press, glue and press…

Then I got the genius idea to run a line of glue where I wanted my strip to go, instead of on the strip itself. This was much more efficient.

Almost done…

When I got to the end I just squeezed a bunch of glue in the middle and twisted what was left of my strip up into itself.

Voila!

I gave the glue a while to dry (maybe an hour or so), then followed the same steps as I did for my blue chevron pillow to get it ready for action. I laid the other square of fabric face down on top of it, sewed around three and a half sides, trimmed my corners, turned it inside out, stuffed my insert in, and stitched up the opening by hand.

Bam.

I love love love the way it looks on my bed. I’m also loving how much more of my bedroom I’m able to photograph with my new camera! I’m working on taking updated pictures of the whole house so I can update my house tour page.

Speaking of updates, check out the new header that I made! (if you read my posts via email or a reader, click on over to the homepage to see it) I am far from being a graphic designer, but I wanted something new to let folks know what this little corner of the internet is all about. I write mostly about my home, but every now and then my crafty escapades take me outside the realm of home decor (as in my ruffled fabric necklace), and I like to throw in some posts now and then about general “life” stuff, as well, like the one about staying calm even when things aren’t going your way. Because a pretty house and a talent for crafts does not a great life make. You gotta have the emotional slash relationships slash health slash balance stuff there too. So the new header gives me license to write about that sort of stuff without feeling like I’m straying too far from my core mission. Holla.

Who’s Got a New Camera? This Girl!

I told y’all yesterday about how my camera fell to a tragic death, but if you’re friends with me on facebook you probably already knew thanks to the extremely whiny status I posted within minutes of the event. When life hands you a crisis, post about it on facebook, I always say. Not really.

Well, my whining via social media wasn’t completely useless, since it’s how my mom knew I was in need of a camera, which prompted her to call and offer one she was no longer using! Thanks, mom! It’s got a wide angle lens so it’s much better suited to house blogging than my old one was, anyway. And as soon as I realized I wouldn’t have to drop a couple hundred bucks on a new camera after all, I hopped over to Amazon to drop a mere ten bucks on something that could’ve prevented this whole thing from happening in the first place:

Amazon

No more perilously propped valuable electronics for me. From now on all my self-portraits will be of the fancy tripod variety. And it’s a total bonus that using a ten dollar tripod will help pictures of all my decorating adventures come out clearer and sharper (thanks to removing my less-than-steady hands from the equation). Winner winner chicken dinner.

Take a look at these pictures I took with the old camera.

Wow, that last pic (of the living room) is old! Somebody needs to update the house tour page! At least the room was clean then, which is more than I can say for it right now!

Now feast your eyes on these pictures taken with the new camera + tripod.

And here’s an angle that wouldn’t have worked at all with the old camera, but with the new camera shows almost the whole dining room.

Downside: it’s much harder to creatively avoid eyesores when taking photos, like that empty spot in the staircase frame gallery. One of the frames fell and broke months ago and I didn’t have a frame to replace it until I went to Ikea a few weeks ago. Now I can’t remember where I put the photo that was there! I’m waiting for it to find me. I also tried to keep the air-conditioning ducts/vents out of photos before, but that’s a lost cause now. Our house was built well before central air conditioning was standard fare in private homes, but (thankfully) someone added it down the line and the dining room is one of the areas where it’s particularly obvious. I’ll trade the weird drywalled ducts for cold air any day.

Details aside, I’m totally stoked that I can include more of each room in a single photo now. I remember feeling frustrated that it was so hard with my old camera to show you how close the mustard coffee table was to the blue dresser, and I can’t wait to see if the new camera will do a better job of capturing our master bedroom. I feel like it’s impossible to get more than one piece of furniture in a single photo up there. I’ve been traveling so much lately that the bedroom isn’t really fit to be photographed right now (strewn with half-empty suitcases and all), but I’ve been contemplating a nightstand-switch so maybe I’ll be snapping some pictures sooner rather than later. We shall see!

Inspiration: Granny Chic

I went out of town last week to visit my PawPaw and his wife, Edith, in Amarillo, Texas. They knew that my parents were coming, but my sister and I surprised them by showing up as well. None of us had seen them since my wedding two years ago. It was so fun to surprise them like that and we had a really great time spending four whole days together!

PawPaw is the original DIY’er on this side of the family. Here he is with his woodworking tools he brought all the way from south Louisiana to squeeze onto their apartment balcony. He used to have a whole shop full of big ol’ tools and I remember hanging out in there while he puttered around.

PawPaw and Edith live in a really nice apartment building full of retired folks. Whenever we spent time there I kept finding myself distracted by some of the most awesome midcentury furniture and decor. I snapped photos whenever I could to remember the things that stood out to me the most. Some of these pics are from my iphone, since I didn’t always have my camera handy slash didn’t want to explain to people why I was taking pictures of their furniture.

Is this chair not awesome? It was soooo comfy too. And in near perfect condition.

I really liked this rocking chair too. I think it would be really nice in a bedroom or nursery. I’m even a fan of the color! That pinkish peachish coral-like shade is totally my cup of tea.

Apparently my great-great-Aunt-Jo created this oil painting. Wish I could inherit it because it’s 100% delightful.

This was in the apartment of this really hilarious lady Edith and PawPaw are friends with. It’s her spoon collection! But isn’t it awesome? I love how they’re all laid out in that starburst-like pattern on a black background and put behind glass. Takes it from cheesy collection to point of interest. I’m seriously considering recreating it on a smaller scale.

Here’s some more granny chic goodness I found via Pinterest…

Pinterest | Source

OMG. What a crazy genius way to use scraps of patterned fabric.

Pinterest | Source

I would never have the guts to actually get a pink sofa in real life, much less pair it with a green wall, but I love it. Plus I’m obsessed with all those pillows.

And can I just tell you that I am thisclose to teaching myself embroidery? I feel like it’s the next frontier of handicrafts for me.

I feel like if I had discovered my love for all things vintage and granny I would’ve totally been a hipster in college. It’s kind of hard to become a hipster after 25, since I’m kind of set in my ways and all. And I’m not really cool enough. Plus now that I drive an SUV it’s probably completely ruled out.

DIY Ruffled Fabric Necklace and A Tragic Tale

We had tons of yellow fabric left over after crafting those delightful flowers for my friend Sarah’s apartment, so I decided to try recreating a necklace I’ve been coveting from Etsy shop Pretty Things by Meg.

We’d stopped at Michael’s earlier to pick up some tacky glue for the flowers, and since this idea had been brewing in my head I went ahead and picked up some jewelry chain and a necklace clasp, as well. Fortunately, my friend Cassie is a jewelry-making expert (she’s even dabbled in doing it professionally) and helped me pick out what I needed.

I started out by cutting a long strip of yellow fabric (I just cut it the whole width of the fabric). I think I made it about 4-5″ wide, but I really just sort of eyeballed it. I think I may have actually made mine a little too wide, so if you’re following along at home you may want to go a bit narrower.

I folded my fabric in half lengthwise, then got down to figuring out what to do next.

It took me a while to figure out how to attach the chain. I thought about just attaching it to each end of the fabric, but worried that would put too much strain on the ruffles. I tried sewing a pocket in the top of the ruffles, but that meant my chain would get ruffled as well (necessitating a LOT more chain). Finally, I settled on using a needle and thread to literally sew the chain onto my fabric as I ruffled it. Difficult to explain, but maybe the pictures will help.

I would sew a few long stitches in the fabric, then take the thread through a link of chain and tug. Since I would sew a few inches of fabric for every few links of chain, there was more fabric than chain per inch after I pulled the thread tight, making a delightful little ruffle.

It’s worth nothing that I had 36″ of chain and left about 12″ hanging off before the fabric started, giving me plenty of freedom to adjust the length later on. I kept sewing and ruffling until I had what seemed like a good length to drape across my neckline (about 5 inches worth of ruffled fabric). I just kept holding it up and looking in the mirror until it seemed right, so definitely just experiment and see what works for you. I tied off the thread and snipped the excess fabric.

Cassie, jewelry extraordinaire, helped me snip the excess chain and add a clasp and jump ring (that larger hoop that the clasp hooks onto). She even added a little extra bit of chain so that I could adjust the length if I wanted to. I totally wish that I could tell you all how to do this but I have no idea. It looked like she was mostly just using needlenose pliers and a pair of wire snips, though, so I think it’s totally doable if you’re interested in figuring it out.

And voila!

And now for the tragic tale. It was about 11pm and I was not looking my best by the time the necklace was done, so a picture of me modeling it right away just was not doable. A few days later I put on a little makeup and my new favorite necklace to get a picture of it in action. After a few pictures I decided that the self-portrait angle just was not doing my chin any favors. Nick wasn’t home to help, so I placed my camera atop a tower of books and photo frames propped in a windowsill (for optimum light). Everything was coming along swimmingly and I was about to get the nicest picture of me and my new necklace when Pistachio came charging out of nowhere and leapt to the windowsill, which is totally normal catlike behavior and no cause for alarm except that SHE KNOCKED DOWN MY CAMERA!

To be fair, I have dropped my camera several times in the past three years, and it needed to be replaced soon anyway, but I was hoping to save up and replace it on my own terms. Unfortunately, this fateful fall seems to have done it in. I haven’t been able to turn it on since.

On the bright side, I was able to get my pictures off of it. This is the last picture I took before it fell to its death.

I think I need to trim the fabric to be a little narrower, but other than that I’m so so so so pleased. This necklace will be absolutely perfect for LSU football season.

And you know what else? I had a complete meltdown about my camera, with crying and everything, but my mom called me right in the middle of it and offered me a camera she’s not using anymore. She bought it when she was still working in real estate and it has-get this-a wide angle lens! How perfect is that for taking pictures of my house? I’ll be able to fit so much more of the room into each shot. I’m really excited. Here’s hoping it still does the trick for photographing step-by-step craft projects like this one! I’m still playing around with it, but hopefully y’all will get to see some pretty wide-angle shots of my little house soon!

Guest Post: DIY Baby Mobile

I’m so excited to be featuring my first ever guest post! I’m trying to catch up on some stuff here at home after traveling out of town for three weekends in a row and my friend Caroline offered to write a post about an adorable mobile she just made for her baby boy. Read below to see how she crafted this awesome mobile using patterned paper and photographs!

But first, isn’t her little boy adorable?

Hello readers of Living Well on the Cheap! Since Charlotte has decided to play hooky, I’ve decided to take over for the day! I’m here to share a recent project that I took on for my new little addition, Stephen. He has an adorable crib but we haven’t been able to find a mobile to really fit the bill. And then low and behold, on my google reader, I came across this post from Photojojo and I instantly thought “YAY!”.

Note to dear readers: Please forgive the TERRIBLE photographs. Due to using an iPhone for pictures, lack of space, and a one month old who constantly interrupted my progress, the pictures are less than…picturesque.

Materials that I used (it’s a little different from the original directions):

  • Mobile pattern (you can get it off the website…it’s a PDF you can print out)
  • Craft paper
  • photographs
  • Scissors
  • Tape
  • Glue (the original directions say to use a glue gun…I don’t have one so I used a glue stick that seems to have worked well)

1. Cut out the mobile pattern that you want to use. You’ll notice on the PDF that there are two different sizes. I used the larger of the two.

2. Cut out the circles on the craft paper. You’ll need 20 of them. I used 20 different types of craft paper because I’m indecisive like that (trust me…minimizing it down to just 20 was an issue).

3. You can do this part one of two ways: the way the instructions tell you to or the way I did it. I folded the mobile pattern into a triangle (using the dashes on the pattern). Then, I placed the triangle in the center of each craft paper circle and just folded the circle around the triangle. Do this to all of the circles.

4. If you have paper punches, this would be the time to use them. Or, if you are like me and don’t, then cut out various shapes in the middle of the triangle you’ve folded into the circles (that makes no sense at all!). I have a handy dandy exacto knife so that’s what I used. Glue or tape the photographs on the back of the circles so that the picture peeks through the shape cut into the triangle.

5. Separate the circles into three groups: one of 10, two groups of 5. Taking the group of ten, line them up side by side, alternating point up and then point down. Glue these together in the line. Once they are all attached, glue the two ends together to create a ring.


6. Take the first group of 5. Glue all of these so that the points are up. Do the same with the second group. These will form the top and bottom of your mobile.


6. Glue the top and bottom to your middle ring. TA DAH!

Now, go wash the glue off your hands.

Is that not adorable? And since Caroline and her family live about 1200 miles away from Stephen’s grandparents, aunts, and uncles, it’s a great way to make the faces of loved ones familiar. To read more about Caroline, her little bundle of joy, and her general life adventures, check out her blog here.

Framed Fabric Flowers

I had so much trouble getting this post up for you all to see. I originally planned to publish it last Wednesday, the morning that I left on a plane to visit my PawPaw in Amarillo, Texas. Fate just wasn’t keen on the idea and for three days straight I kept making mistake after mistake in editing and scheduling it. Finally, I’m back home and able to publish this lovely post about crafting fabric flowers with two lovely ladies over a bottle of wine.

For two years in a row Nick has gone to visit friends in Houston in late summer for some fantasy football nonsense, and for two years in a row I have taken advantage of the free ride to visit my friend Sarah, who moved from Baton Rouge to Houston in Spring 2010. I love getting to catch up with her, visit Ikea, and pretend like I live in a chic, modern apartment in the city. This year my friend Cassie came too! Cassie and I are both married ladies so it was fun to gallivant around town with single girl Sarah and pretend we were cool and chic and routinely stay up past ten o’clock.

During our trip to Ikea last year, Sarah was intrigued by the small Ribba shadow box frame. She wasn’t sure what she would do with it so she just got one and figured she could go back to get more if she came up with a project.

When I returned a year later the frame was still sitting empty and shrink-wrapped all alone, but Sarah had a plan! She’d been intrigued by my fabric flower pillow and had the idea to fill three frames with DIY fabric flowers. Isn’t she so creative? The next day at Ikea we picked up a yard each of a cheerful yellow cotton and some translucent silver fabric for a grand total of only $6. When we got to the frames department, though, the frames like the one she had at home were nowhere to be found. Fortunately, Sarah and Cassie spotted some on a wall display and asked an employee, who said that the small frames had been discontinued. Total bummer until we heard him say that she could buy the display frames “as is.” And guess what the as-is price was? Two dolla each. Holla. We got two frames to add to the one Sarah already had at home and decided to craft flowers in three different styles to fill the frames.

It was dark outside by the time we got tired of lounging by Sarah’s awesome complex pool and eating delicious Tex-Mex, so please forgive the nighttime pics.

Flower #1: Ruffled and Rolled

Sarah cut 3″ strips of the yellow and silver fabric and folded each in half, then layered them together (using pins to secure). She used a needle and thread to make a long running stitch along the rough (not folded) edge, pulling the thread taut periodically to ruffle. When she got to the end of the strip she tied her thread off and rolled the ruffled strip up into a flower shape, using a few stitches and some tacky glue to secure.

Flower #2: Layered Petal Goodness

Cassie cut lots of random petal shapes from both types of fabric, varying the size and shape slightly for interest. She cut out about 15 of each color, then started layering them randomly on top of each other, using first yellow petals and then silver. She hand sewed a few stitches every couple petals or so to secure. After getting all the petals on there, she pinched the center of the flower in half from below and sewed a few stitches, then folded it the other way and sewed a few more, giving the once-flat flower some dimension. It’s too bad I didn’t get more pictures of the process because it really was such a creative concept, and so simple at the same time!

Flower #3: Gathered Flower

I shamelessly copied this technique from Emily at Jones Design Company. She’s a fabric flower genius. I cut 4 5″x3″ and 4 3″x3″ squares from the yellow fabric, then folded each in half and trimmed the sides to create a shape resembling the number 8. Once I had four large and four small petals, I sewed a few stitches across the middle using needle and thread, tugging it tight and tying it off to cinch the center of the petal. With all my petals cinched, I layered them on top of each other (first large, then small), securing each layer with glue. I finished it off with a small bead glued in the center.

 

We flipped over the paper inserts inside the frames (revealing a perfectly-sized blank page) and glued a flower to the center of each, then left to dry overnight. Here we are the next morning with our creations! This was right before we dashed out for breakfast a la Taco Cabana. One of the many joys of visiting Houston. (from left to right that’s Cassie, me, and Sarah)

Sarah chose to group the frames on a blank wall between her kitchen and entry. Aren’t they adorbs (the flowers AND the girls)?

Here they are close up.

I had soooo much fun on this trip. This is the first time since probably adolescence that I’ve done crafts as a social activity and I realized I’d forgotten how fun it can be! Makes me wanna have a monthly craft night with friends!

Thank y’all so much for your patience with my blog issues last week. It had nothing to do with WordPress or anything else outside of my control-just over-scheduling and poor planning on my part! I feel committed to putting up a quality post every weekday and I promise that I am back on track now. Thank you for coming here to visit my little corner of the interweb. You all have no idea how much you inspire and motivate me every day. You’re the best!

Bathroom Art Wall

Sorry for all the drama! If you’re looking for the fabric flowers post it’ll be up for reals on Monday. It wasn’t quite ready to see the world yet! Hope you enjoy today’s post instead!

You may remember that between my Life is Art project and my thrifted big brass key, the wall above the toilet in my downstairs bath was starting to look a little more interesting.

But there was still a big ol’ blank area waiting to be filled, and things were looking a little unbalanced. I decided to take matters into my own hands and poach some wall art from elsewhere in the house.

At the very top of this picture you can see the lower half of a Degas print in a mustard yellow frame. I ordered it from Etsy a while ago because I was buying something else from the same shop and I wanted to combine shipping. I didn’t really have a place for it in mind and, when it arrived, the area above the dining room bookshelf seemed like a good idea. I did like it there and, at the same time, I think the height probably kept it from getting noticed as much as it deserved. I decided to take it down and move it to the bathroom, where the mustard + blue tones will complement my Life is Art thingamajig nicely.

I also hung up this cute frame I got for $5 at Ikea during our trip to Houston last weekend.

Not sure what I’ll put in it yet, but I really like it here.

I love how the vintage print and scrolly frame play off the super-modern sink basin.

I also like how, even though this arrangement is filled-in enough to stand on its own, there’s room to add more small things down the line if I stumble upon some little whatnot so delightful that it absolutely must hang on my bathroom wall. Now I just gotta figure out what to put in that empty frame. Something from Etsy? Something DIY’d? A photo?

3 Steps to Staying Calm

I had a post planned for this morning, but it’s looking like things might not work out to get it up today. I’m traveling with my parents and sister to visit my grandparents in Texas. After two weekends in a row of traveling out of town I was feeling a bit stressed getting ready for this morning’s early flight and figured I could save myself some time by finishing up this morning’s post at the gate. Well, lucky me, the airport’s wifi works at a snail’s pace and I could barely get my photos uploaded before it was time to board. I thought my flight might have wifi but, alas, no luck. So, since I can’t entertain you this morning with a tale of fabric flowers crafted over a glass of wine, I’ll share with you instead my strategies for keeping my cool when things just aren’t going my way.

1. Focus on what you can change, accept what you can’t. Once I realized I was on a plane with no wifi I knew I wouldn’t have another chance to finish up my post until this evening. The thought of just not posting at all this morning made me really uncomfortable-how can I hope that people will come visit my blog every day if I don’t post consistently? I do have my iPhone, though, and even though I can’t edit and publish the post that I had planned for today, I can type up a quick replacement post using the WordPress app. And that’s what I’m doing right now while my plane is stopped in Houston.

2. Don’t take it out on others. It’ll only make it worse. It’s my fault for not getting my post 100% ready ahead of time, not the airport’s for having such slow wifi. Snapping at a flight attendant (or worse, a family member) won’t make me feel any better and would probably come back to haunt me.

3. Take care of yourself. Take deep breaths, think good thoughts, and try to relax. If I let myself stay aggravated over this then it’ll be easier for any little thing to push me over the edge later on. And the last thing I need is to let a fun family trip be ruined by a bad mood.

Part of living a great life is managing your emotional well-being. All the home accessories and craft projects in the world can’t make up for good coping skulls. I’ll be back tomorrow (hopefully) with my regularly scheduled post, but if it doesn’t work out that’s okay too.