I moved into my new house about a month ago. It may not have been the best decision of my life, since most of everything I own is currently on a boat from South Korea. I did leave a few things in America when I left 3 years ago though, so at least I have a folding table and some camp chairs. I also have a Ninja Turtles bath towel and some sidewalk chalk. You know.... just the basics. Unfortunately,"the basics" does not include internet access or a bed. I've been mooching internet access off my local library and any relative that will let me ignore them for an hour while my children shoot foam darts at the ceiling and wait for them to drop. The downside to this arrangement is that everyone I know now believes that I cannot function as a separate entity from my computer (This is not true. I *can* live without you. I just don't want to.) and that I panic every time I have internet access and forget all sorts of things to tell you. Like... how I made those flower b

I was nervous for my 6 year old to change schools so close to the end of the year. I was worried that he wouldn't fit in.... that he would be the weird kid from South Korea and everyone would talk about him, but no one would sit by him. And that he would get lonely and then maybe a little angry and we all know where that leads....   listening to noise that he calls "music" and spray painting naughty words on local stop signs. I already had a plan to inspect under his bed at least occasionally for contraband items and enroll him in a Mozart appreciation class. As it turns out, I didn't need to. I was supposed to take him to school   on a Tuesday. You may remember that my entire family got some horrendous flu bug within hours of arriving in this country. So I   waited an extra day to enroll him in school.   A few children were already waiting at the kindergarten door upon our arrival. Immediately, they started asking my son if he was the new student they

If I could give you just one piece of color advice it would be to mix your colors. What? You already   put your icing in a bowl and add food coloring and mix away? Great! Not what I'm talking about though.   And since I have a special talent for complicating the most simple of all things....   I took a bunch of pictures and even made some graphics to explain this incredibly easy and quick thing. Ready? Make your icing colors like you normally do.   You can make purple using left over blue and red icing. Or purple coloring straight out of the bottle. Using all natural beet dye to make that purple? Sounds weird... but I'm cool with that too.   Once you have your icing all mixed up and ready to go, you're going to mix your colors with each other .    You can drop little bits of each color into the other ones, or just mix your spoons around. You don't need a lot. In fact, if it is a light color, add very little of the dark colors. They go a long way. If it

I'm so excited! There were over a hundred entries in last month's challenge! You guys are amazing and I absolutely loved seeing all the fun ways you took your photos. And... have a ton of fun new ideas I want to try now! Do you want to see some of my favorites? (Please say "yes" because I'm just going to show them to you anyway. And if we get in a fight, things are just going to get awkward.) Not only are these cookies by Liz at Arty McGoo unbelievable as always, but the angle of the photo and the perfect blur on the edges is the perfect complement to the sweet dusty designs themselves.  I don't think it's a secret that I love cookies and cakes that don't look like cookies and cakes. I love that these fun pancake cookies made by Salsa Sweets got paired with a fork and maple syrup on rustic background!! I never said the challenge was only for cookies! I love, love, love the way Shelan from Sweet Boake changed things up with her overhead sh

When I first moved to Korea, I had to learn how to drive all over again. I also had to learn to read enough Korean to not drive in the BUS ONLY lane and not to go through the exact change toll booth unless I had exact change. Traffic in Korea is like a river. It flows. It moves easily around obstacles and often overflows its banks. If a car decides to pull over and park in the far right lane (which happens frequently) ...all three lanes of traffic to the left squish together and move over just enough to get past it. It is crazy, but it makes sense in its own unique way. You pay attention to the space in front of you and everything else will take care of itself. That means that if a car in front of you needs to get over, they are just going to do it. But that also means... if YOU need to get over... you can just do it. I love driving there.  Driving in America is intimidating. The cars are much bigger here. And there are HUGE trucks everywhere. And everyone drives so fast. And I&

You know, I used to be able to post these challenges on the second day of the month and pretend that I meant to do that because it was technically still the first day of the month somewhere in the world. Now it's not even close to that. In fact, it's already the THIRD day of the month in some parts of the world. And the third day of the month is practically the 4th and by that point it's very nearly the end of the month and I've missed it all entirely. Except I haven't and that means it's time for another CHALLENGE! Yeay! This is the best day ever! We're all excited out of our minds. (Well, either that or we've all just eaten a smidgeon too much of that leftover Easter candy. And I'm not naming names or anything, but those empty candy wrappers scattered all around my computer didn't just walk themselves there and plop down for the scenery. My computer isn't even attractive. It's the regular old black and gray thing. Also, I don't thin