Serenity Now & Haven Blog Conference

I have much love and respect for Amanda, the blogger who writes Serenity Now blog.  She was one of the first bloggers I developed a friendship with, and even though it was via the internet through her thoughtful comments and emails encouraging this new mom, I have since considered her a friend.  Amanda was the first blogger to ask me to guest post on her blog! and while she is out of town, I'm happy to guest post on her blog again!  I'm sure she'd appreciate you stopping by for a visit.  :)  I posted an easy and healthy summer recipe from Honey We're Healthy, Quinoa Caprese Salad.

Speaking of blogging and relationships, I am very disappointed that I will not be attending the Haven Blog Conference as planned.  I need to be home with my family and I feel good about this decision, even though it means missing out on getting to connect face-to-face with people I was REALLY looking forward to spending time with.  Online relationships are still relationships, but nothing beats getting together with friends in person and connecting on a more personal level.  I have to thank Cassie, Courtney, and Carmel for being so gracious and taking on my speaking role on our social media panel. They completely support me and it makes my heart melt.  The Haven organizers (Beth, Chris, Rhoda, Sarah, and Traci) have also been so kind to send personal notes of prayers and support.  It makes me want to hug their necks even more.  But, there's always next year. :)

I continue to appreciate your prayers for my family as we deal with my dad's illness.  I know God hears those prayers even if you haven't been able to comment to tell me you are praying.   I feel the peace and comfort through that.  We are enjoying time together right now and that is what matters most.  All things considered, he is doing pretty well.  I love these people.

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James' Room // West Elm Shower Curtain into Drapes

For James' room, I wanted wide horizontal blue and white striped drapes, and made them from a West Elm Shower Curtain.  The color is called dusty navy and the material is 100% cotton.  Three problems: 1) I prefer a rod pocket as opposed to the way it's meant to hang on hooks, 2) it's too short for the room at 74x72 inches, and 3) it's not lined.

I'm no seamstress, but I figured I could try what Amanda Carol did and buy three curtains, and use the third one for added length.  She chose the gorgeous grey and white for her office. 

Here are how my blue and white drapes turned out in James' room after I lined and hemmed them.

For the lining, I figured I'd use a lightweight fabric shower curtain liner so the width would match and it would be less expensive than fabric.  They do not cover the length of the drapes, just about below the window sill.  

I simply stitched them along the top of the drapes, just below the rod pocket I made by folding over about 4 inches of fabric on top. 

I used white rope and an inexpensive wall hook as a tie back so the room can still receive lots of sunlight.  On the picture below, you can also see where I added the extra fabric to the drapes.  I tried to line up the stripes so the width of the stripes would be about the same, but it's not perfect.  Also, I should have used blue thread so you couldn't see the seam as well.

I ordered these curtains from the store and they were on backorder forever.  While on backorder, we received the canopy, which was way too much horizontal stripe action for the room.  So, the canopy is going to live in the playroom-that-was-intended-to-be-a-media-room (it will fit better in there too) and James will have more room to move around in his bedroom now.  

This shower curtain also comes in yellow and white stripe which would make a pretty happy bathroom!

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Revival Market // Steel Cut Oatmeal

I don't normally post my instagram pics (@honeywerehome) on the blog, I prefer to keep them more intimate snapshots of day-to-day life, but Sunday morning's breakfast I can't stop thinking about.  If you are in Houston, Revival Market is a local spot in an area of town known as the Heights.  The Market is popular for it's fresh selection of meats and food goods, but is also a deli and breakfast cafe.  I tried it for breakfast for the first time this weekend, and was hooked after the first sip of coffee.  I love a good cup of coffee in the morning (so much so that I added a "Coffee and Tea" board on Pinterest:).

I ordered the steel cut oatmeal and it came with fresh apricots, warm milk, and brown sugar.  Pure deliciousness.

My son ordered "toast" and it was the best, flakiest biscuit I've ever tasted.  

I asked him if I could take another picture, and he said, "I gotta put butter on it first."  I will never tire of seeing his pudgy baby hands in action. 

If you're ever in Houston, this is one place I'd recommend.

Where do I need to eat in your town?  Please share! 

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How I wish I could get an unbundled subscription to the Wall Street Journal

I cannot do my job without reading it, and its reporters are still excellent, even in the Murdoch era.  And in general, I have learned to ignore the rantings of the editorial page, which basically say that if a policy is first-order good for poor people, it is bad for poor people, and if a policy is first-order bad for poor people, it is good for poor people.

But there is one worthy in particular, sitting high in his aerie at the tip of Manhattan, whose misogynistic braying should be issued (if at all) from his parents' basement: James Taranto, the eager defender of sexual assaulters.  That I am sending any money at all his way is a constant annoyance.

Hannah Green writes on the problem of how victims of rape who are college students are treated

In Open Magazine (an Indian newsweekly), she writes:

Angie Epifano always wears the same necklace. It is simple—a round blue stone set in silver on a silver chain. When something reminds her of her rape, she holds the pendant in her palm and concentrates on how it feels. This brings her a sense of calm.

“It’s called ‘grounding,’” she says, touching the pendant during a Skype interview. It’s a technique psychological counsellors teach those who have experienced rape or other types of trauma: when something occurs in their daily life that reminds them of what happened—whether it’s seeing their rapist, or a certain smell or sound—they must concentrate on something else that will bring them back to the present.

“Some people have a memory that they think of, or a place that they felt safe in, like a wooded space. Or they’ll think of their favourite food or just anything that will bring them back to reality. If you were to run into or see your rapist—that’s the kind of tool that will help you get through the encounter.”

Read the rest here.

$100 Pillow GIVEAWAY // Festive Home Decor

Happy Friday friends! On Monday, I shared a new source I found on Etsy for pillow covers, Festive Home Decor.  Undecided between a punchy yellow and a sophisticated brown for my dining room, I ordered both and asked for your help in deciding which looked best.

Y'all are so awesome and gave me lots to think about.  Brown was the winner by 9 votes, but several people suggested changing them out seasonally- keep the yellow for summer and use the brown in the fall.

I do think I might prefer the brown overall, but since it's sunshiny summer over here, I'm going to incorporate the yellow into the room and do a table setting next week to show you how it looks.  For now, the brown are lookin good in the living room.

I'm really happy with the quality of these pillows and will definitely order from Festive Home Decor again in the future.  After my post went live, I received a sweet email from the shop owner, Michelle, thanking me for my post and offering a giveaway for my readers.  Um, yes!

* G I V E A W A Y *

To enter, leave a comment for each item below for multiple entries to win.  One winner will be chosen at random and announced on Monday, August 5.

*Visit Festive Home Decor and tell me your favorite pillow

*Like Festive Home Decor on Facebook

*Follow Festive Home Decor on Twitter (@pillowcovershop)

*Be a Follower or Subscriber to Honey We're Home

*Tweet, Facebook, Blog about this giveaway

You can also SHOP Festive Home Decor with coupon code HONEY for 15% OFF your order until July 31, 2013.

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I've been browsing online a lot lately for pillows and I found that Festive Home Decor had one of the largest selection of cool fabrics at the best prices.  I've seen what look like the same pillows on other sites for much more, which is what made me order from Michelle in the first place.  She's got TONS of designs to choose from- nearly 1500 items!  But, she makes it easy to shop because you can shop by color or ensembles.

Here are a few more of my favorites, dang it's hard to narrow down, and seriously!, I just saw these combo brown/yellow pillows- I could have tried them in the dining room! :) 

What I've got my eye on next are these black and white beauties:

Have a great weekend!

Ten Favorite Metro Systems--A Personal View (reposted from Forbes blog).

10) New York.  Butt ugly, smells bad, too many rats, but gets you a whole lot of places at reasonable speeds.

9) Washington, DC.  Very pleasant, beautiful stations, and when working properly, fast.  But its major design flaw (lack of double tracking) means that if one train goes down, the whole system gets gummed up.  And it is not maintained well enough.

8) London.  See New York, except I haven’t used it enough to see a rat.

7) Delhi.  Modern and fast, but you sure better like your fellow human if you are going to use it.

6) Tokyo. Miraculously efficient, but see Delhi.  As such, it reflects its city.

5) Kiev.  Metros may have been the only economic thing the Soviets did well.

4) Seoul.  Longest system in the world.  Clean and reliable.

3) Taipei.  Almost luxurious.

2) Paris.  If i weren’t for the strikes, it would be as close to perfect as a metro system gets.  The Louvre-Rivoli station is so beautiful, you wouldn’t mind waiting for a long time there.  On the other hand, you rarely have to.

1) Barcelona.  Goes everywhere, swiftly, cheaply, comfortably.

[Update: Hong Kong needs to be on the list too.  Maybe 2.5?]

Who Moves? Not Old People? (reposted from my Forbes blog)

A meme is out there that baby boomers, having raised their children, are ready to downsize.  (See here).  Some scholars, such as Arthur Nelson at Utah, say that as the population ages, there could be a mass sell-off of houses which will lead to a collapse in house prices.

One of our Ph.D. students here at USC, Hyojung Lee, and I are redoing a paper I did with Patric Hendershott about 17 years ago on the impact of age on the demand for housing.  Back then, Pat and I found that the effect of age was pretty minimal.  But times have changed, and so Hyojung and I decided it would be worth redoing the exercise using current data–the 2006-2010 American Community Survey.  We decided to look at moving behavior over the entire five years, and in 2006 and 2010 individually, since 2006 was a boom year for housing and 2010 was a bust year.

After controlling for marital status, income, educational levels, race and ethnicity, and geography, we estimated the impact of age on the propensity to have moved in the previous year.  The results are summarized in the graph below (for those who want to know, these are the coefficients from a linear probability model):

As you can see, basically the propensity to move peaks in the early 20s, and then declines to about age 50-55, and then stays pretty flat for the remainder of life (although in 2010 the very oldest seem to have a slightly greater propensity to move).

Some other findings: those never married are most likely to move, while those widowed are least likely to move (after controlling for age).  This implies that the typical elderly person is even less like to move than is implied by the graph above.  Asians are the racial/ethnic group most likely to move–non-hispanic whites, hispanics and African-Americans have similar propensities.  Mobility increases with educational attainment.  Higher income people move less than low income people.

We are doing a lot more work with this data as we prepare it for a paper, but in the meantime, our findings suggest that a mass sell-off (which means mass moving) arising from aging is unlikely.

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Washi Tape Kitchen Spatulas

Neon colors are HOT right now, so I wasn't surprised to find these elecrifyinly bright tapes at Target recently.  Seems Scotch brand has jumped on the washi bandwagon:) They are in the paper/school supply section of the store.  The smaller washi tapes on the left were purchased online at Cutetape.com or Wishywashi.com.

I'm thinking, I've already taped a shoebox lid, plumbing, and my office bookshelves, "What else can I tape around my house?" Kitchen rubber spatulas??  The colors are perfect!  Why not?!

Aren't these fun!  Kinda neon tribal.

It can't get easier than wrapping the tape around the wooden handles.  I wrapped the washi tape twice since it's more sheer and I wanted the colors to pop.  

Coming up with different color combinations and patterns is creative and good, clean fun.

I'm keeping them in a mason jar for now.  They're more for looks since tape and dishwashing don't go very well together!

Just a bit of neon to brighten your day!

I'll be featuring your washi projects next week.  Tag me on Instagram at #honeywerehomewashi or email me at: honeywerehomeblog@gmail.com

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See you tomorrow with a $100 GIVEAWAY in pillows from Festive Home Decor!

Mini Lace Potted Plants

Why are miniature anything so cute?!  From little baby clothes to mini clothespins, I swoon.  I have a terrible time resisting these little plants when they call to me from the grocery store sidewalk.  So much cuteness for just $1.49.  

At home, I put put the plant into an equally adorable mini terra cotta planter that I found at Michael's.

And then embellished the pot with decorative white lace trim. 

The lace affixes easily to the planter with a simple knot tied in the front. 

But I also like the look from behind. 

I'm keeping mine at the kitchen sink for now. 

As I was taking these photographs, the outlet was driving me crazy in the background.  I guess professional photographers could just photoshop it out of the picture (and putting the paper towel holder there wasn't the angle I was going for).

Me, being tape obsessed lately, covered the outlet with white duct (duck?) tape. 

Voila!

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Also, check back with me on Friday- I'll be announcing a $100 GIVEAWAY in pillow covers from Festive Home Decor!  Thank you Michelle for offering the giveaway!  

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