Handmade Valentine {Heart Magnets}

Hi all!  I'm sending you a big 'ole fat Happy Valentine's wish to you today!  

I typically like to keep our refrigerator bare, but lately, I've found myself wanting to use the fridge to post notes, invites and reminders (truth is, if I don't write it down, I absolutely will not remember it).  But, when I went to pin something to the fridge, I couldn't find a magnet in our house.  So while I was at Michael's picking up some V-Day supplies, I added a pack of magnets to my basket and then glued them to the glitter hearts above and the clothespins below.  The adorable embellished clothespins were found in the dollar bin at Michaels.

Hope you have a great day filled with love.

Why do people confuse "transit" with rail?

Perhaps the most important transportation economist since World War II was John Kain.  Professor Kain liked transit very much, but be showed, over and over again, that urban buses were more efficient in virtually every context than urban rail: for the same amount of money, buses can take more passengers more places more conveniently than trains. 

When transit agencies build expensive rail systems, they inevitably cannibalize bus systems.  This has happened in Salt Lake City, in Portland, in Atlanta and in Dallas.  The goal of transit should be to move people as efficiently as possible.  The evidence is overwhelming that rubber tire transit beats fixed rail pretty much everywhere.  So why the nostalga for an obsolete technology?  I just don't understand.




 

Laundry Room Update & Repotted Faux Orchid

Wowza, talk about a busy weekend!  I've started planning James' 2nd birthday party, and if you follow me on Pinterest or Twitter, you've probably gathered by now it's going to be an Elmo party:)  I also worked on several projects around the house, cleaned, did laundry, and finished up gifts for teachers/secretary/hubby/baby Valentine's Day gifts.   I didn't make it to Urban Market or the gym, two places I had really high hopes for.  But on to some of the progress around the house . . .



I realized I've never shared our laundry room with you, mainly because there's not much to it- it's a small space with just enough room for the washer, dryer, overhead cabinets, and a nice granite sink.  I hadn't done anything to make it pretty since moving in and decided this weekend to fix it up.  I shopped the house to find a Home Goods mirror ($20), an old potted orchid (Pier One), and some scripture wall plaques that my best friend gave me years ago.

And after adding the decorative touches:

I repotted the faux orchid that I purchased ages ago at Pier One.  It originally came in a taupe/brown colored clay pot that I spray painted white during a white-obsessed phase a few years back.  During the holidays, I bought a shiny silver pot at Crate & Barrel, but never got around to doing anything with it.  I like the bigger size and color of the CB pot and ended up repotting my orchid.  

Adding a mirror, some art, and a faux plant really makes the room much more welcoming.  And don't we need some welcoming when doing laundry??  

Hope y'all have a great week!

My lexicographic voting preferences

I could no more vote for someone that opposed marriage equality than I could for someone who supported anti-miscegenation laws. And yes, for me that pretty much trumps everything else.

Houston Urban Market

The Urban Market is in Houston this weekend.  It's an outdoor antiques show with lots of home decor and unique pieces for sale.  I've never been, but have always wanted to go and plan to this year.  Any of you in my area going?

via La Dolce Vita

Saturday, February 11 - 3pm-6pm

Sunday, February 12 - 9am-4pm

NEW Location:

The Bayou City Event Center

9401 Knight Road

Houston, Texas  77045

*just South of 610/Reliant Stadium

Lisa Schweitzer on Shouting People Down

It starts:

One problem with planning, particularly for planning in the academy, concerns its normative basis: the good city, the just city, etc. Recently, a commenter here said:
That describes what a university SHOULD be, but not what I have found most universities to actually be. Anyone that disagrees with the mainstream academic viewpoint is not engaged in discussion, but shouted down. Students aren’t encouraged to explore and come up with new ideas, but to validate the ideas of their professors. Seems like the “debate” (or lack thereof) is not longer intellectual, but political and ideological.

That comment meshes with my experience in the planning academy, but not my experience with social scientists. Social scientists have their own sets of problems and limitations, but planning’s normative basis means that once consensus forms on what is good, deviations from that will be condemned not as misguided or inaccurate, but as evil. I’m not naive enough to believe the social sciences aren’t subjective and subject to ideological influences. But a common theoretical basis, such as that held in economics (however flawed), allows even for deep divisions to run alongside a rigorous body of empirical work. That is, unless you’re in macro, where ideologies rule and big names bellow at each other like mammoths across the primordial swamp about how to interpret theoretical models that have a weak empirical basis.

Read the whole thing.

V-Day Hints

Hey hubby, hint, hint :) 

via

Of course, you can never go wrong with 

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Or my all.time.favorite





via



What's on your V-Day list??