Design Blog Recommendations March 2011

These are well-known, but I love them so much and must share.1.) The Brick House
Morgan's taste may not always fit my sensibilities, but man, does she make weird thrift store art look good. Not to mention her writing is too funny.

2.) So The Brick House led me to the Emily Henderson's blog. She has a show on HGTV that - be still my heart - reminds me of how much fun "Trading Spaces" could be in its prime. I watched her show and then I read the blog and it was even better. She is adorable and her taste is exactly my taste. She loves disco balls, for goodness' sake!

Car-Free Living

For a good long time, I've been into design blogs. Now that I've run out of rooms in my apartment to "design" - i.e. slap up brightly colored tacky things - I am adding cooking blogs to the mix. I love the photos and the possibility of eating more elaborate dinners than a bag of popcorn, which is occasionally my go-to.

The only problem? I hate grocery shopping. Hate it. My main issue is that I live about a mile from the grocery store and I don't have a car. I was talking to a neighbor who goes to my church and she said, "I can't believe you live in this neighborhood without a car!""Oh, it's fine," I said. "Not a problem."Cut to literally 24 hours later, and after the non-arrival of the D2 bus, I'm trudging up a hill, wearing a gym bag, three grocery bags draped on each arm, a grocery bag hanging from my neck, carrying a pair of rain boots that I no longer need because it's not rainy. I might have also been weeping. Just a tad. All of the bags were arranged on my person in a Tetris-like puzzle, so that moving one bag would disturb the equilibrium of the whole thing.

Then I hear someone call "Hey, need a ride?" I look over and it's my neighbor Holley from yesterday. Yes, living in Glover Park without a car is no problem at all.She was nice enough to take pity on me and give me a lift home. I could barely climb into the car, with my Sherpa-esque arrangement of grocery bags. Thanks so much, Holley! Much appreciated!

Frenemy

Have you ever invited two people to an event because you figured one would say no - and then they both say yes? What an etiquette dilemma. After this happened a few weeks ago, my coworker and apparent frenemy Luther wrote a blog post about my lack of manners. I tried to make it up to him, but then things got significantly worse. You'll just have to read about it here. The photo-shopped images are classic.

Hey Ms. DJ

This weekend, I had my first "DJ" gig - my good friend Serena asked me if I would like to DJ her wedding, and I agreed. What are my credentials? I have none. I just like music.

But not the kind of music people like. My picks aren't generally crowd-pleasers. If I had my way, I would play Of Montreal, the deep cuts.

Serena is smart, however and picked out her own playlist, with music that was recognizable. My job was to press "Play" on iTunes. Sounds simple enough. But still I worried. "You're going to screw up and ruin the wedding," Serena joked. Yes, that was my worry.

It turned out fine. I had to race back and forth past the wedding party to get to the laptop, which might have been obtrusive. My skills were rudimentary, yes. But when guests at a wedding breakdance to Beastie Boys' "Intergalactic," I deem it a success. In short, invite fun people to your wedding and you'll have a good time, regardless.

10 Miler

For reasons that I now can't remember, I signed up to run the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler. Keep in mind that I am not a runner. And now it's less than a month away!When I first found out I won the lottery to get my spot, I had a nightmare about running.Me: I dreamed that I was back in high school, running the ticket run and I came in last.Joe: Was this a dream, or a memory?Ha, I was never last! Just second to last. Running two miles back then seemed like a daunting task. And now I've signed up for 10.Oh well, I've been training and everyone says it is doable. Joe's going to run with me, which will help since he's run the race before. But even though it's less than a month away, the whole idea seems very abstract. We'll see how it goes when I'm slogging through it.