My Vintage Kitschen

We’ve made it! Our house is… officially old!

I grew up in Birmingham and was obsessed with history. I always wanted to know how old all the homes were and quizzed my grandma about the houses around us. I served on the Historic District Commission as a high school student, so I learned quickly that if you wanted folks to know the age of your house, you always wanted a committee to vote on any project you took on at your house.

Color me VERY surprised when I found out that Royal Oak offers historic markers through the Royal Oak Historical Commission. Any building that’s 50 years or older qualifies. Our house was built in 1926, so we made the cut!

We just picked up the plaque and we can’t wait to put it up on the front of the house.

WOW! I was so speechless today when I got the mail – I received a wonderful surprise from my dear friend Rachel Hobson after her trip to the Kennedy Space Center for the final STS launch, STS-135.

If you’re not already a fan of Average Jane Crafter, you need to be! Rachel is the biggest of biggest space dorks I know, and that’s a huge honor. She’s a passionate advocate for our country’s space program, so this final launch meant quite a deal to her. She also had the high honor of being a winner of the Etsy/NASA Space Craft Contest this year. Her amazing high-texture embroidery of the moon won her top honors and I had the privilege of seeing her work on it firsthand. A photo of her piece was sent in to space ON STS-135 – dang, right? As part of the contest Rachel got to go to the final launch and immerse herself in everything space-y. A perfect, perfect fit for her!

I’m very honored to receive this envelope. We’ll be framing it here at our house and adding a Lego space minifig to it, another favorite of Rachel’s. It’s only fitting!

Thank you, Rachel!

I hate the “Hey, blog! It’s been forever since I updated!” posts I see across the blogosphere. I don’t know why, but I do. When I thought about this blog, I worried that I’d have to do a post like that. But, let’s be honest – I abandoned this blog. On purpose. I found it too hard to keep this up with everything else I do. When Tumblr became the next must-have for self-proclaimed social media elites, I went there and switched to photo posting only. If you haven’t checked out Tubmlr in a while, you’ll be surprised (maybe?) to know that it’s a porn/spam heaven. Which is sad. But all this is besides the point.

Today I’m coming back to this blog. I’ll be shutting down my Tumblr this summer and streamlining my online activity all right here, folks, thanks to my great pal, Dan Nixon. I found what I’ve been missing in my blogging is a spot for my thoughts on whatever. Sometimes I have extra photos from a Craft post I do – those will be here. Sometimes I might talk about a Handmade Detroit funny instance – those thoughts will be here. Sometimes I’ll take a picture of something funny or something that inspires me – those will be here. Dan and I will be working on a new look for this ol’ WordPress blog in the coming months, which I’m so excited about. It’s exciting, in that Internet-nonsense kind of away.

So… yeah!

Well, it’s been a nutty few weeks since I last updated. I’m starting a new job tomorrow, DUCF was a huge success, Tofurkey was consumed and I even went to a high school reunion. What did you do in November?!

Adios Party at Work

DUCF Magic

Thanksgiving

High School Reunion

I’m looking forward to the holiday season, aren’t you?

Viva Las Vegas!

I went to Las Vegas this week and didn’t know what to expect. I’ve heard it’s amazing and I’ve heard it’s the tackiest place on Earth… well, besides Wal-Mart on a Friday night. After a quick trip to Vegas for work, I’m pleased to report that Sin City is just like most vacation destinations – nice, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Overall? Vegas is fascinating from the wannabe sociology major in me. People watching is an Olympic sport in this town. There are chic-looking ladies and men who should lay off the complimentary margaritas.

I stayed at the Wynn right on the strip. This is definitely one of those hotels you get to stay at thanks to a group rate. The room was fabulous, complete with hip art and curtains that were operated by a switch on the wall.

Besides working, I spent some time in Vegas simply walking around, wondering how much the electric bill is for some of these well-known casinos. You know the ones – the Bellagio, the Mirage, Treasure Island, etc. It was great to be outside at night and not fear frost and ice on the ground.

One thing that stood out to me right away is that Vegas smells funny. It smells like Febreeze, peppermint and stale cigarettes. It’s odd to be surrounded by so much smoking INDOORS. I guess that smell cocktail is what they use to try and deodorize?

I’m not much of a gambler, but I did play some of the funnier-themed slot machines like Kitty Glitter, Wolf Run and Top Gun. I made just enough cash to take advantage of a sale at the Swatch store inside Caesar’s Palace.

I definitely ate well in Vegas. It’s oddly veggie-friendly, so that was exciting. I tried restaurants inside my hotel, cocktails at Spago and even a traditional casino buffet. Ahh, buffet. The buffet inside the Wynn should get a post of its own! (EDIT: Thinking about it now, I think I will post a photo post together of Vegas food and dedicate to my buddy of buddies, and UK foodie, Miss Melanie Seasons.)

Would I go back to Vegas? Probably, but just for a quick trip. After all, I can really only take riding escalators over freeways for so long…

Today’s LA2M lunch is featuring Dave Linabury from Campbell-Ewald. Dave oversees Navy For Moms, a Ning-based community for mothers with children in the Navy or thinking about the Navy. It’s a great idea. I’m pretty jazzed about today’s session since this is what I do at work. More or less.

The biggest barrier for the Navy’s recruitment was, duh, moms. C-E was challenged with overcoming that barrier, especially in the Boston area. After some research, a private launch and activity from influential moms, the site took off immediately.

Some interesting points about the site from today’s presentation:

• Young adults are now coming to Navy For Moms instead of Navy.com to get info and ask questions about joining the Navy

• C-E reviews every piece of content that goes live to ensure security for the sailors (can’t give away their locations, obviously)
• There are more than 27,000 members, thousands upon thousands of pieces of content, from videos to photos and more
• Groups and events are huge with the moms; tons popping up all the time. From a sociology perspective, subgroups are key

Dave says he asks his team to think like sociologists instead of marketers, and I couldn’t agree more. These women and family members are looking for community and advice. The people running the back-end of their site need to think like that, too.

Another amazing point: Are we measuring ROI or IOR? Something to think about.

“Social networking is about connections, and that’s more important than anything else.” Couldn’t agree more.