Willo O'Brien

flight o fancy

See more in my Album: Shots of the City

Yay! Mike just sent over photos of the room all put together with the wall paintings hung! I think it looks great! All weekend they worked so hard, buying new shelves and painting them and putting them up, so this is the first I’ve seen it all put together with both paintings and everything. So cool! :)

I had sooo much fun painting over the weekend! Little 8 week old Connor is so cute and his parents, Jenn & Mike (and Mike’s parents were in town, too!) were so great to be around all weekend! I even got a yummy home cooked meal on Saturday night!

I had a great time mixing the paint, often mixing for awhile before getting the color where I wanted it and then once I did loving it even more once it hit the canvas. It was great! I had my little iPod and Altec Lansing Speakers keeping me company – which was SOO excellent. I was singing and having the best time in my own little painting jungle animals world.

I normally paint right on the walls, but they’re renting – so they asked if I could do it on canvas. So I bought this big roll of canvas that we cut into 2 separate canvas’ and then for mounting they bought rods to hang on the top & bottom, like a scroll. The monkey’s go over the crib, so the pink monkey is looking lovingly at the baby sleeping. :)

Another wall they have in room is a big long diagonal wall, that they can’t do much with really, so I painted a big giraffe on the 2nd canvas to take up the entire wall!

They are thrilled with the results, and so am I… painting is so different from the web where you can keep making changes (undo, undo!)… So it’s quite zen to make decisions painting and have it be relatively permanent. It’s exciting really! I had fun and I can’t wait to paint some more!

Here’s a whole album of where I painted, and some more shots of the blank canvas’ and finished work.

UPDATE: See next post with photos of the paintings hung in the nursery!

Lately I’ve been so hungry for cooooooookies!!! Or brownie mix (of which I’ve been deliciously satiating with B&J’s Brownie Batter ice cream – yumm!) or any nibbly sugary treat. I never used to crave sugar, because I simply wasn’t in the habit of eating it… and well, here lately I’ve eaten some sweets here & there and I’m back on the addiction. So every afternoon I’m wishing my pantry was stocked with a big bag of cookies or *some* chocolately tasty treat, and it’s a good thing it’s NOT! :)

Speaking of “designer chocolates”, check these out!

Lastnight Tania, Jem & I went for sushi in Japantown and then afterwards got ourselves a delicious treat. Instead of ice cream, since I’d been having sinful bites of the brownie batter at home, I went straight for the Chocolate Mousse cake. mmmmmmm! Jem shared it with me, and it was really good.

Then Jem & I went & saw Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events. I LOVED IT!!!!!! I have never read any of the books (I know, *gasp!* I will go pick some up now), so it was a whole new story and experience and I really loved it. The closing credits especially!! They were practically worth the whole movie themselves, as I was completely mesmerized, intrigued and inspired by every detail of them. I also wondered if the same composers who did some of the music for those closing credits also worked on the Six Feet Under theme? It’d be cool to find that out.

:::: in other news:

I’m ripping CD’s like a mad woman! I’m already through L, and moving forward with lightening speed. I’m motivated because I know I have so many great CD’s in S & T :)

Also – tomorrow I have a baby wall to paint! But this one I have to do on canvas (which we’ll wrap/hang around poles like a scroll to hang), so today I’ll be calling around to research canvas prices and then go pick up some paint and brushes. It’s a jungle theme, so all day tomorrow you can just imagine me painting vines, and monkeys and giraffes! :) What a great way to spend the day, huh?

I was so into this show as a (latchkey) kid. I want this T-shirt and this Doozer doll!

I signed up for this free iPods offer a bit ago and completed the free offer. I did the Blockbuster trial – pretty painless since all I had to do was sign up & get (free) movies sent to me that I’d been wanting to see and then cancel before they charged me at the end of the free trial. I saw some great DVD’s for free!

So anyway, I had signed up, passed the link on to a few people, watched my free DVD’s and then kinda forgot about it. But this morning, I was going through my inbox & saw my initial email from them & thought I’d check my account status. Turns out I have 4 people signed up under me! All I need is 5 total to sign up & complete the offers, and I already have 2 completed, so depending on what those other 2 who signed up do, I basically only need 3 more people to sign up & complete an offer and I get a free iPod!

Will you please sign up & complete the offer and help me get one? Then, if you pass it around to a few peeps, you too could get a free iPod! :) THANKS!

note: I will update this page as soon as I get enough and then direct you to a place where you can find other people who need to rack up more signups so we’re sure to be effectively helping everyone out.

update: If you’re serious about getting a free iPod, you may even want to stay on your trial offer through the time that it charges you for a month… because it seems as if only if they get some money out of you do they officially report back to free iPods and credit you as fullfiling the offer. I just realized my completed offer wasn’t reflecting and wrote into them to change that I had! And it says something like “we offer these to you for people who are seriously interested, not who just cancel right away, blah blah blah” – but that’s stupid because all it says is you have to “participate in one of the offers”, so you should always get the credit for doing so! So anyway – 1 month charge on most of these is only $9-$20 and for a free iPod, that’s nothin. The good news is, I do know people who have gotten their free iPod, so it works if you just jump through the small, little, round hoops. :) And I’m soo close!!! It’s worth a shot, and in all reality you do get to try something out – and maybe you’ll like it! Thanks for trying it for me, if you do!

I have created a more complete resource for you show-goers in the bay area, and music lovers alike! Now, when you click on my music/event calendar, you will get a top frame where you can click to all the SF venues and lists that I use to create *my* calendar!

Plus there’s quick links to some of the better mp3 blogs and music review sites, too!

ENJOY!

and I didn’t even have to write the book!

You’re Not That into Him Either: Raise Your Standards and Reach for the Love You Deserve

awesome! my sentiments exactly. Too many women stick with something that’s not right. Men, too! Learn how to be honest with yourself and don’t settle for less.

Oh and for the men out there… hech hemm: She Comes First: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Pleasuring a Woman. Then again, if you were really a “thinking man” you’d have already studied up on this ten-fold.

I *love* Netflix! But funnily enough – I’ve never had my own account! Matt had one, and then Rick had one… so up until now, I just rented DVD’s vicariously through their Queue’s.

But, recently I saw Netflix’s free trial offer and thought, well at least I could get some movies for a few weeks for free! But of course as soon as I started clicking around, and adding more and more to my queue, I soon realized I absolutely MUST have my own membership. :)

Netflix makes it really easy to accomplish the mission to (read in booming announcer voice) “See All The Movies You Have Ever Wanted To See!”, and even has messages at the top of every page rooting you on with “Keep Going!” “Add More, you’re doing great!”, etc. (I’m paraphrasing, but if you have a membership, you know what I’m talking about. :) Their site really is quite brilliant… kinda like Amazon with it’s smarty “if you like this, you’ll love this” engine.

So after signing up earlier in the week, and making sure I had everything on there I’d had in my immediate want list, I emailed Rick to have him send me a snapshot of his Q, since a lot of my wants were on there. And now, I’ve got more movies than I think I’ll be able to get through in like 2 years!! Which honestly, excites me greatly. hahaha

Here I thought I was going to do the 2 movies at a time/4 a month plan – since I hardly watch TV/movies as it is… but now I’m feeling like I might try to tackle getting through a lot of these and just got for it w/ the unlimited plan. There’s so many great movies out there! Well, and let me add there’s so many bad movies that you just can’t help but watch. :) Which might be a nice disclaimer for this link: A peek into my Netflix Queue.

I’ve even added a few more after I exported that tonite! hahaa Also, I have yet to rearrange them now that I’ve added so many new ones tonite – but I’m really excited to catch up on a lot of these movies I missed in the theaters, some I loved and want to see again, thought-provoking documentaries and spooky thrillers!

I’m even going to start inviting over friends for movie nights w/ popcorn! yay!! Especially for the scary ones because I’m a total baby about scary movies. As you can see I hardly have very many on there as it is, because with my active imagination it doesn’t take much for me to be lying awake in bed freaking out all night! Yup, I will definitely need someone else here for those! :)

p.s. If you have a Netflix account, and you’re logged in – you can go to any of the movie’s linked on my Q page & add it to your Q, too!

p.s.s. If you’re a mac user – get Netflix Freak!

Ok, so this might be TMI.. but I often take showers at night. Either to warm up, or because I’ve been working at home all day in my jammies (shh!) and want to feel nice & clean before crawling into bed. But, because I have such long hair and don’t want to get it all wet before bed, I don a lovely shower cap!

So, I’ve just been using whatever free ones I get at hotels (clear, light, plastic) but recently I’ve been thinking, “There has GOT to be some designer shower caps out there.. since no doubt I’m not the only girl that takes a shower and doesn’t want her hair to get wet”… and low & behold ladies, there IS!

Of course the goal is to somehow make it more fun, stylish and maybe even sexy? Then again, it is the *only* item of clothing on, so I suppose eyes won’t be on the cap. ;)

Here’s some good ones I found:

• Little Luliu Shower Caps – and few more of their designs are available on this site
• Retro shower caps at RetroLounge (there is a ton of great stuff on this site!)
• Benefit’s Bathina Shower Cap
• Sephora’s Sephora Girl Shower Cap (cute & inexpensive!)
• Stylish Shower Caps by Jamie Ann Goldberg (apparently these are for sale at Nordstroms)
• So Pretty Shower Caps – She’s all the way in Australia, but their dollar is cheaper than ours, and she’ll ship over here if you want one!

Hilariously after searching Google, Froogle, Amazon.. the biggest jackpot is searching for “shower caps” on eBay!! You can find everything from Mickey Mouse to Hello Kitty to Thomas the Tank Engine! Weird huh? :p I even found a funky “Bang on the Door” brand Cat shower cap that looks like a cat on your head while you shower – haha (no, I will not be getting this one), a “shower bunny” cap – and even a Les Savy Fav rare LP with showercap, and more!

So which one did I get? Well, I liked a few out of the first ones I linked (above) and I was really close to getting a vintage polka dot shower cap… and if I lived in NY, I’d hit this store & see what retro ones they’ve got in stock (I couldn’t find em anywhere online).. but I settled on a Paul Frank shower cap. :)

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I don’t have shower caps, but I do have a ton of geekyfantastic tees for guys & girls, super cute onesies & bibs for babies, fun jewelry and more!